• Münchhausens infinity as evidence for immortality - help needed
    they want to submit each other to build a rankFalseIdentity

    ??
  • The Definition of Information
    As far as I can see, the systems view is relevant in all circumstances.Pop

    Could be. But the Butterfly Effect (In math: sensitive dependence on initial conditions) won't necessarily exist. Takes many tugs. :cool:
  • The Definition of Information
    Movement in one system spreads throughout the others, causing what is popularly known as the Butterfly effect.Pop

    This concept from dynamical systems is sometimes assumed to exist in many if not all circumstances. In fact, the opposite can occur: disturbances in one area fritter out and don't really affect other areas. Or, as Stanislaw Lem conjectured, certain movements have lives of their own and are relatively immune to minor disturbances. Rise of the Third Reich, etc.
  • Anti-Vaxxers, Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Climate Deniers, Flat-Earthers
    Of the categories listed the anti-vaxxers should be dealt with by a federal mandate requiring most receive the shots. Climate change mitigation can be government/citizen actions - the priority being to prepare for what seems inevitable. Creationists I have known have not been threatening, but rational disagreement leads nowhere, usually. 9/11 Truthers, well let them babble on.
  • Is Climatology Science?
    Don't bother with climate science: some internet guy says it's all "pseudo-science."Xtrix

    Atmospheric science includes the climate and is more respectable.
  • Does thinking take place in the human brain?
    The question is a problem for meValentinus

    OK. Sorry. Carry on.
  • Does thinking take place in the human brain?
    Does having an opinion about where it is happening change any of the burden of being a person who finds themselves having the problem?Valentinus

    What's the problem? Thinking? Is that a burden? The OP poses a question, not a problem. One answers a question and solves a problem. Is this really the Philosophy Forum? :roll:
  • Is Climatology Science?
    Around the middle of the 20th century, many assumptions in meteorology and climatology considered climate to be roughly constant. While scientists knew of past climate change such as the ice ages, the concept of climate as unchanging was useful in the development of a general theory of what determines climate.
    (Wikipedia)

    This is what it was when I took the course in the late 1950s. By the 1970s this attitude had begun to change. Now, atmospheric science encompasses the physics as well.

    Time to consider tidal energy to desalinate sea water along the west coast and pipe it to Las Vegas and Phoenix. The diminishing Colorado River is overburdened. Time to remove those ridiculous stilted houses on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. Time to sell your condominium on the seventeenth floor overlooking Biscayne Bay. Plan ahead, people, don't count on being able to significantly change the weather.
  • Does thinking take place in the human brain?
    Where else?tim wood

    The rock that Samuel Johnson kicked?
  • WTF is Max Tegmark talking about?
    [Tegmark's MUH] looks like hyper-Platonism to many but more like Spinozism to me. — 180 Proof

    I answer favorably to being called an "Epicurean-Spinozist".
    180 Proof

    It's entertaining to see efforts to shoe-horn Tegmark into the mix of classical philosophers and philosophical theory. But I think the gentleman is in a class by himself. My opinion? Sophisticated BS.
  • Is Climatology Science?
    Is Climatology Science?Neri

    I'm probably the only (ex) meteorologist on TPF and I wish I could provide an answer, not to the ongoing arguments about deleterious effects of humanity, but this specific question. I spent twelve months at the U of Chicago completing a postgraduate curriculum in meteorology for the USAF during 1958-59. The course work was rigorous, especially atmospheric physics, but there was one exception: The class in climatology was considered the basket weaving course, and the class relaxed and drifted through it with nary a care.

    So, at that time climatology was not held in high esteem. However, it is in all likelihood now quite sophisticated. Wish I were more up to speed on the subject.
  • Bannings
    Prishon banned for low quality posts.Hanover

    Well, maybe too many posts. He certainly liked to raise questions, some of which had merit. Too bad.
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    For the same reason that the count is impossible, so too is the movement. The impossibility has nothing to do with the length of time it would take and so isn't solved by referencing a convergent series of time intervals.Michael

    Here's something I've looked into on numerous occasions that bears some resemblance to this topic. Instead of dealing with 0 to 1 or 1 to 0, this is a sequence that goes from n to 1 where n is unbounded.

    ,

    The question is does as ?

    So it might seem that n being unbounded raises a similar issue of where to start since backward recursion is involved? But an example of where this appears in math literature is in the analytic theory of continued fractions, and it is quite solvable.
  • In the Beginning.....
    Im a particle physicistPrishon

    I've never heard of a particle physicist who eschews mathematics. :roll:
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    Consider the notion of counting every 1/2^n between 0 and 1 in ascending order.Michael

    Why? This leads nowhere, nor does it prove anything. It does, however, resemble something I looked into a few months ago concerning convergence of infinite compositions in the complex plane.
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    How are they treated in NSA?Prishon

    Here's a good intro to the subject: Nonstandard Analysis

    What is required is a proper analysis which separates space from timeMetaphysician Undercover

    I shudder when I say this, but there might be something to this idea. Just a feeling, since the two are so different.
  • Was Aristotle a deist?
    No. Aristotle was not a dentist.
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    Infinitesimals are the subject of modern non-standard analysis, and were one of Leibniz's playthings. Occasionally a calculus course is taught from that perspective, but most calculus is taught from the limit point of view developed by Cauchy and Weierstrass.

    About as much as anything on The Philosophy Forum — jgill

    And that is how much?
    Prishon

    :rofl:
  • Metaphysics Defined
    There is the view that the abandonment of metaphysics in the Western tradition is an intellectual calamity, although of course that is regarded as reactionary in today's culture, but I think it is likely true.Wayfarer

    I consider String Theory to be metaphysics. And Leibniz's infinitesimals. But I'm probably in error.

    The Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford delves into abstract objects arising from axiomatic fundamentals. An example:Computational Metaphysics
  • WTF is Max Tegmark talking about?
    Wasnt it terminator?Prishon

    :up:
  • String Theory
    A good starting point: Mathematics of String Theory

    Good luck. It's beyond my pale.
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    What have they to do with the discreteness of space?Prishon

    About as much as anything on The Philosophy Forum.

    I like math but in relation to physics Im a bit fed up with itPrishon

    I would think this would put you in an impossible position if you are serious about physics. :roll:
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    What are parabolic linear fractional transformation? Is it something I should fear lol, jkGregory

    Infinite Compositions of Möbius Transformations

    These are the same things as LFTs. LFTs have geometric, matrix, and analytic theories. Olde Goodies.
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    It are just transformations of the unit disc in the complx plane. A bit old already though. ☺Prishon

    Yes, they've been around the block a few times. Sounds like you know what you are talking about!
    :lol:
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    Who says Im unfamiliar with them?Prishon

    Prove you are not! :cool:
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    Which theorem? Whats NSA?Prishon

    If you are not familiar with a certain area of mathematics it would make little sense. Has to do with the convergence of infinite compositions of parabolic linear fractional transformations (having indifferent fixed points) that converge to the identity.

    Non-standard analysis.
  • WTF is Max Tegmark talking about?
    Ill be back.Prishon

    That has an ominous sound. Where have I heard that before? :gasp:
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    Not if the physical space has a Natural limit of continuity.Prishon

    infinitesimals to be preciseTheMadFool

    I suppose physical space might. I'm not saying it does.

    But infinitesimals are rarely used as such in math that is not non-standard analysis. However, just recently I employed a step to prove a theorem of sorts in which a second order term was ignored, similar to NSA.
  • WTF is Max Tegmark talking about?
    Its not that difficult to understand! Everyone says"oöhhh... Quantum field theory..." but actually its very easy.Prishon

    Highly debatable. Unless you understand the math you don't understand the theory. Do you? If so, you are ahead of me. I've puzzled over the legitimacy and evaluation of Feynman's functional integral. :chin:
  • Does Zeno's paradox proof the continuity of spacetime?
    Should have implications for Calculus, infinitesimals to be precise. What say you?TheMadFool

    Nope. Limits of measurements are physical problems.
  • WTF is Max Tegmark talking about?
    At a very grass roots level, his assertion that all mathematical structures exist in some physical way is a real stretch. I have no luck envisioning a physical structure coinciding with something I have developed as pure math. Perhaps I simply lack sufficient imagination. :chin:

    But its a great subject for philosophical speculations.
  • Can we say that the sciences are a form of art?
    Very often, when a physicist or a mathematician finds a solution to a problem, they describe it as "elegant". And what seems art to someone, may not look like art to someone else, which is common.Manuel

    Not every problem. The poetry of mathematics is in its elegance, a word easily spoken but not as easily defined.
  • Can we know in what realm Plato's mathematical objects exist?
    I know the discussion doesn't need an actual mathematician chirping in, but I will nevertheless.

    Personally, I think math is invented by people to merely describe physical states of affairs of which some show exact correspondence with physical reality. I think Max Tegmark was on dope.Prishon

    Inventiveness in the subject has gone far beyond this; abstractions and generalizations move way beyond physical applications. But there is some truth in your statement. Babylonians measuring fields and Egyptians designing pyramids, etc. The jury is out on Tegmark. Some take him seriously. I don't.

    As of today, I doubt that there is any maths left that has not been incorporated in some physics.magritte

    ArXiv.org receives hundreds of mathematics research papers each day. I would guess relatively few make it into physics.

    “I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.”Smithsonian Magazine, What is Math?

    Creating relevant questions is an art form. Like a lawyer never asking a question they do not know the answer to. My observations are that working math people pay little attention to these issues. As for discoveries, when a mathematician conjures up definitions and relationships from wherever, perhaps as mere speculation or like a game, if there is a consistency to what is done then a slew of logical results may suddenly pop into existence, to be discovered by investigators. But there is that touch of creativity at the beginning.
  • Who should be allowed to wear a gun?
    Anyone wearing lycra, unless they are really fit and well-endowed, should be subject to arrest.Bitter Crank

    This should be the law, regardless of gun carrying. But those wimps on the Supreme Court would probably shoot it down. :sad:
  • Metaphysics Defined
    ↪jgill
    I had the understanding that quantum physics had obliged science to allow for the role of the observer in the conducting of experiments - the 'observer problem'
    Wayfarer


    I think QM has pushed physics to circumnavigate speculating about a conscious observer and stick to the math, which seems highly predictive. Unfortunately, the math itself needs manipulating to make sense. Oh well, can't have it all.

    Despite the "observer effect" in the double-slit experiment being caused by the presence of an electronic detector, the experiment's results have unfortunately been misinterpreted by some to suggest that a conscious mind can directly affect reality.
    (Wikipedia)
  • Metaphysics Defined
    Because of the objective sciences exclusive concentration on the quantitative and the measurable as the sole criteria for what ought to be considered realWayfarer

    I think physics has been pushed into that position even more so by quantum discoveries. As Feynman suggested . . . . .
  • Who should be allowed to wear a gun?
    There are approximately 400,000,000 guns in the USA, more than one per human. And most of those guns were well-made and very durable - designed to last generations. So those advocating police be unarmed, as many may be in Great Britain, is pure fantasy. And no one seriously talks of confiscation except under special circumstances, like Red flag laws.

    Many citizens have concealed weapons permits, and the state of Texas allows anyone to sport a concealed gun. Laws vary from state to state. I had to take a course taught by a retired cop and undergo a standard FBI and state background check. I use my permit only on rare occasions.
  • Kalam Arguments and Causal Principles
    ↪jgill
    , in modal logic, a possible world is just a self-consistent whole.
    This expression thereof can make reasoning easier.
    jorndoe

    Good heavens, I should have kept my distance from this topic! :gasp:
  • Kalam Arguments and Causal Principles
    How can one describe a "possible world"? — jgill

    There is a realm of possibility. I didn’t invent the saying ‘true in all possible worlds.’
    Wayfarer

    I didn't know Possible Worlds was a philosophical concept going back to Leibniz ("Best of all possible worlds"). I see how alternative histories would be one kind. Thanks.

    I see you are an expert in complex dynamical systems.T Clark

    Not really. I've dabbled in a specific type of CDS for fifty years, but it's not a popular area of investigation.
  • Kalam Arguments and Causal Principles
    The law of identity, the furniture of basic arithmetic, and so on, are true in all possible worlds.Wayfarer

    I suspect you mean in all possible worlds we can imagine. Otherwise, how could one possibly know this? How can one describe a "possible world"?

    Response to Question 2 - In complex systems, assuming that all system behaviors require causes will probably not help understand future system behavior.T Clark

    Click on my icon. :cool: