Do you object violently to the description of "straight" for some reason? — apokrisis

Yes, for "some reason" I hate untruth, it makes me get violent. If the thing is not straight, and it is described as straight, then I object violently to that description.

If something is not bent, what is it? If something is not twisted, what is it? If something is not curved, what is it? — apokrisis

Right now, what it is unknown. That's what's necessary, to figure out what it is. As an example, consider that the Copernican model of the solar system could not be proven to be correct, because it still employed the faulty Aristotelian description of perfect circles, putting the circles around the sun instead of the earth. With the use of circles, the numbers derived from observation could not be resolved. It wasn't until Kepler introduced ellipses, that the mathematics could be resolved.

If something is not bent, what is it? If something is not twisted, what is it? If something is not curved, what is it?

Just say the word. :)

How should I know? There's all sorts of forms it could have. Maybe it's liquid, or gas. these things have very odd changing shapes which cannot be described as bent, crooked, or twisted. Maybe it's like an electron, what shape is that?

I really don't see what point you're trying to make. You've totally lost me. Do you think that if I say something is not X, then I should know what it is? That's illogical. The premise that it is not x, produces no logical conclusion of what it is.

So when you plug "bent", "twisted", or "curved" into a thesaurus and click the antonym button, does it get all squirmy and evasive, protesting why are you asking, I don't understand? Or does it simply reply that the antonym is "straight"?

You never asked me for the antonym. You asked me if it's not X, what is it? How should I know? Obviously there's countless possibilities for what it could be.

So do you agree that "straight" is routinely understood as being the antonym of these various forms of crookedness - "bent", "twisted", or "curved"? They are all ways of asserting "not straight"?

The rest of my argument follows of course, so no need to repeat it.

So do you agree that "straight" is routinely understood as being the antonym of these various forms of crookedness - "bent", "twisted", or "curved"? They are all ways of asserting "not straight"? — apokrisis

No, I don't agree. All those words have a particular meaning, referring to a particular shape. Each is different from one another. Despite the fact that each of these shapes is other than straight, I do not believe that any of them is opposite of straight, and that is what is required in order for one of them to be the antonym of straight. In fact, I think it is a misunderstanding of geometrical principles, to believe that any shape has an opposite shape, they are simply different. Do you think square is the antonym of circle? A direction has an opposite direction, but a shape doesn't have an opposite shape.

The rest of my argument follows of course, so no need to repeat it. — apokrisis

I don't recall your argument, but it should be clear to you now, that your argument follows from a false premise, so it's a rather useless argument. That's probably why I didn't bother to remember it.

No, I don't agree. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course not. You would argue the toss even with a dictionary.

All those words have a particular meaning, referring to a particular shape. — Metaphysician Undercover

Great. And what particular shape does each of those particular words refer to then?

Curved = ?

Bent = ?

Twisted = ?

Great. And what particular shape does each of those particular words refer to then?

Curved = ?

Bent = ?

Twisted = ? — apokrisis

I can't understand why this is so difficult for you apokrisis. The word refers to the shape, just like "square", "rectangle", "circle". What do you mean by what shape does each refer to? The shape is signified by the word! I could look into a dictionary to get definitions, just like I could get definitions of square and circle. Is that what you want? .

Curve = "...having a regular deviation from being straight or flat, as exemplified by the surface of a sphere or lens.". Bent = "curved or having an angle" Twist = "change the form by rotating one end but not the other, or both ends in opposite directions"

Each has a different definition. None is the opposite of straight. Are you starting to understand yet?

None is the opposite of straight. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yet all of them are defined in reference to the straight. That being the point.

I don't see the relevance. I thought you were arguing that they were antonyms of straight. Anyway, we have other shapes which are defined relative to circles. And there are others such as squares and angles. So what's your point?

Curve = "...having a regular deviation from being straight or flat, — Metaphysician Undercover

That's the point. You finally got there.

In understanding any particular curve, what is important is understanding how it deviates from a straight line. That it deviates from a straight line is a given. This is quite consistent with what I said three days ago.

As I said, it's very useful for determining the different ways in which the thing being measured varies from the standard of measurement, but the straight ruler wont tell you why the thing you are trying to measure is crooked. Nor will you get an accurate measurement of the crooked thing using the straight ruler. That's why we must devise other means for measurement. But first we must figure out why the straight ruler is not giving an accurate measurement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was there from the beginning. You've been arguing that "not straight" suffices as an understanding of any possible not straight thing. Are you starting to get it yet? Or have you really been in agreement with me all along, and are just being contrary as a matter of principle?

Nor will you get an accurate measurement of the crooked thing using the straight ruler. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is what then doesn't make sense. If the crooked is the not straight (in some degree), then only something straight could be used to measure the degree of that non-straightness.

This is what then doesn't make sense. If the crooked is the not straight (in some degree), then only something straight could be used to measure the degree of that non-straightness. — apokrisis

I don't agree with this, because we are using straight, and not-straight, to refer to different categories, not opposing qualities within a category. We classify things by putting them into different categories according to qualities. The difference between crooked and straight is a qualitative difference, they are not opposites within one category, like hot and cold. We measure within the category such that we measure the degree of that quality defined by that category. There is a difference which separates one category from another, the qualitative difference, and we cannot use the measure from one of the categories, to measure that difference.

So for instance, weight and temperature are distinct categories. We cannot use the measurement we use for weight, to measure the difference between weight and temperature. Likewise, straight, round, and angled, are all different qualities, different categories. We cannot use the means by which we measure one of these, to measure the difference between one and the other.

The idea that all qualities are reducible to one measurement system is a detrimental form of reductionism. There is a demonstrable incompatibility between one dimension and another, which is evident from the irrational nature of pi, and the incommensurability of the sides of a square with the diagonal of the square. Because of this incommensurability, the means by which we measure one dimension (straight), cannot be used to give us the difference between one dimension and another.

And yet schoolboy maths contradicts you.

Intuitively, curvature is the amount by which a geometric object such as a surface deviates from being a flat plane, or a curve from being straight as in the case of a line.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curvature

And curves are measured using the reciprocal extremes of tangents and osculatory circles. Perfect lines or perfect circles.

Why use the reciprocal in defining curvature? It is natural for the curvature of a straight line to be zero. Imagine straightening out a curve making it into a straight line. In the limit the circle of best fit has infinite radius giving zero curvature.

https://nrich.maths.org/5654

Care to explain where you're seeing contradiction?

Your arguments are crooked because they are not straight. And to what degree are they not-straight? Completely crooked in being as closed to efforts to straighten them out as possible. We are not even orbiting in the ovaloid ergosphere of your informational back hole. We have reached the perfectly spherical bound of its event horizon. Catch my heels Jim, I feel I'm dissappe.... . .. ...

1. I think it is worth noting that blackholes involve the maximum compression of matter possible, compressed H1. Note that recent discovery has found compressed H1 to be a super conductor beyond the efficiency of silicon, etc.

2. My explorations have led me to believe it is possible. Think of different ways for universe organisms to see. On earth most of us use light differentiation, but not all. Bats and others see just fine with sonar and surely their brains translate this information into a mental "image" of their world. It turns out that blackholes have a gravitational force attraction that can stretch to the farthest reaches of the universe, edge to edge. Now consider that there are billions of black holes, probably more than one per galaxy. If this is a network, and you envision gravity as a "sense" instead of "attraction" or pull...but as a field in which all other objects and atoms and possibly subatomic particles have an attraction to and move within...how sensitive might their data acquisition be?

3. What makes "black hole omniscience network theory" more curious, is the fact that the matter of the black hole is inside the event horizon, and therefore is in a space of bent or distorted time. The only thing better than more processing "power", would be more processing "time."

In my opinion, the universe itself may possess sentience with an omniscient awareness of every particle within itself through a network a the most dense, most massive objects known which happen to be entirely made of superconductive material with a sense of gravitational field that interacts with every particle. We can only imagine the sensitivity of this "sight" and how much "time" is created to process.

Viewed this way each black hole is like a neuron in a giant mind we call the universe. An omniscient mind.