Models versus Reality...

[Obvious Leo]

the majority itself could not fathom that a nothingness had any meaning nor use.

The majority are right then because no significant philosopher in the history of philosophy has ever found any use for the concept either. Nothing is the absence of something which doesn't leave much to talk about. If you bring up the official apologist to the Prussian court as a "significant" philosopher you'll make me puke so spare me.

[Scott Mayers]

the majority itself could not fathom that a nothingness had any meaning nor use.

The majority are right then because no significant philosopher in the history of philosophy has ever found any use for the concept either. Nothing is the absence of something which doesn't leave much to talk about. If you bring up the official apologist to the Prussian court as a "significant" philosopher you'll make me puke so spare me.

Wow, so you don't use our present number system? Come on, I don't know where you interpret it as being unacceptable since it is precisely this willingful neglect of it to which each cyclic era keeps resorting to relative dark ages. I'm already seeing this with respect to the dismissal of the Steady State theory for the Big Bang for the same kind of thinking. The setting in the Greek times was merely an end phase to which the concept of nothing was likely what made the Christian Romans decide to destroy history of the Greeks. Even in Alexandria, the destruction of the library there was likely due to the same fears of reasoning which was unacceptable to allow theoretical ideas that threatened the majority's misunderstanding of it.

And ALL our real systems using numbers, like computers, is necessarily founded on the use of a nothing with the minimal inclusion of a one to all physics of it. (Binary is the least necessary set required for any logic that can be realized. A one AND a zero is at least needed in ALL number systems)

See well umm...literally, "Nothing"!

Note that though this article raises some of the history and ideas of this, its author clearly sees the intentional meaning of "nothing" as meaningless by the context of his description. I'm not surprised as the Wikipedia staff openly disallows (or removes) any content that remotely questions anything that might even hint at a disrespectful interpretation of the Big Bang. They are thus against interpretations that permit zero as being meaningful.

I notice this there, for instance:

This logical fallacy is neatly demonstrated by the joke syllogism that contains a fallacy of four terms:

The Devil is greater than nothing.
Nothing is greater than God.
Therefore, the Devil is greater than God.

The four terms in this example are God, the Devil, nothing-as-a-thing that the Devil is greater than, and nothing as no-thing or not-some-thing (there does not exist something that is greater than God). The error in the conclusion stems from equating nothing-as-a-thing with no-thing which are not the same thing.

I have no doubt that the promoters of Wikipedia favor at least a Diestic allowance as I believe it is about politics to promote science and thinking that doesn't allow us to dismiss a god completely. As to the above argument, it if false because the first "nothing" in "The Devil is greater than nothing." actually should be, "The Devil is greater than no thing (meaning "not even one thing"); the "Nothing" in the second sentence is literally a universal negative which means "Not even everything". Thus the conclusion cannot actually follow. It is only a trick in assuming the word we use with different meanings as the same.

In the section on computing, they also skim over its use in practice for the architecture, but only show its use on the software abstraction. And the physics section merely points to the concluding remarks on the Michelson-Morley experiment without justice. Relativity interpreted its meaning upon this experiment but just replaced the 'nothing' of time by giving it an essence as a noun instead.

[Obvious Leo]

The steady state theory is rejected by physics because there is no supportive evidence for it. The supportive evidence for the big bang is overwhelming, although there is none to suggest that this event was the beginning of a universe which miraculously sprang into existence from nothing.

[Scott Mayers]

The steady state theory is rejected by physics because there is no supportive evidence for it. The supportive evidence for the big bang is overwhelming, although there is none to suggest that this event was the beginning of a universe which miraculously sprang into existence from nothing.

False, they declared it 'disproved' by feigning that confirmation of the Cosmic background radiation that supports BB LACKING in the Steady State theory. In fact this kind of thinking is an "absence of evidence (of SS) = evidence of absence (to SS)" and though is a fallacy, it is purposely and politically meant to dismiss it for the favorable God-favoring BB.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Most of the confusion through this section of the thread seems to be due to a failure to understand the principle of emergence and the notion of emergent causal domains. These principles are completely ignored in Newtonian physics which is entirely reductionist in its methodology and thus all causation is assumed to be only from the bottom up. This is not the way the real world works because in the real world causation operates both top-down and bottom up, which is emphatically NOT the same thing as reverse causation. Water has properties which its constituent atoms don't have and it is the BEHAVIOUR of these atoms in a particular environment which confer these properties on the molecule. However it is these emergent properties which determine the behaviour of the water molecule at a higher level of informational complexity and not the behaviour of the constituent atoms themselves. However this emergent behaviour of the molecule is also a causal domain which can also operate top-down and affect the behaviour of the constituent atoms. We can thus see that water is in fact a dynamic process being maintained in a stable state by a causal feedback mechanism, but that effects are nevertheless continuing to be preceded by causes in an orderly and generative fashion. It is via such networked causal feedback mechanisms that all of physical reality operates and it is the central plank of a non-Newtonian model for reality called AUTOPOIESIS. (from the Greek "self-creating").

I have no problem with this, as I've always rejected linear single threaded causality. But I think "top-down" and "bottom up" are a bit limiting. Each event has a possible indeterminable number of causal factors, active and static; past and present. So switching on a light does not just include the action of the finger on the switch, but an infinite regress of micro-causes to do with the potentiality of the current, and the chain of events that have made the current available back to a nuclear reactor, or coal fired power station, the entire circuit to the bulb and the construction of the bulb back to the invention of electric light and the life story of the inventor and the science which made it possible. You might also include the intentionality of the person switching on the light, his life story, and the physics of the pressure of skin and muscle, the nervous connection. When does it stop? Should we also include the builders of the house in which the circuit was installed.
We stop when our all too human interest wanes. And this is why we have reductionism. to simplify, contain and own.

[Scott Mayers]

And yes, the singularity of the BB is intended to indicate a REAL beginning, not an infinite approach. It is also intended to dismiss the major fact of SS to include the meaning of expansion of space itself as a real concept that derives the formation of matter everywhere. By optimizing science to think in BB terms, it makes it politically acceptable to derive at least a Deistic interpretation so that it politically favors ALL religions in some fashion. A SS theory type completely dislodges even a need for a Deistic version of any God as it makes nature of reality dependent on literally NOTHING itself.

[Hobbes' Choice]

The steady state theory is rejected by physics because there is no supportive evidence for it. The supportive evidence for the big bang is overwhelming, although there is none to suggest that this event was the beginning of a universe which miraculously sprang into existence from nothing.

As Wittgenstein said when comparing geo-and helio-centric hypotheses, "What would that look like?"
A pre-existent universe prior to a big bang, and a non existence prior to a big bang would look both the same, So it's falls to reason to decide which is the most acceptable.

[Obvious Leo]

And yes, the singularity of the BB is intended to indicate a REAL beginning,

The singularity has been an unloved hypothesis for decades and all the geeks who used to support it are either dead or in their dotage. It has been known for a very long time that the GR equations lose their predictive authority in extreme gravitational environments and that the BB was an extreme gravitational environment would be something of an understatement.

[Scott Mayers]

And yes, the singularity of the BB is intended to indicate a REAL beginning,

The singularity has been an unloved hypothesis for decades and all the geeks who used to support it are either dead or in their dotage. It has been known for a very long time that the GR equations lose their predictive authority in extreme gravitational environments and that the BB was an extreme gravitational environment would be something of an understatement.

Although I don't think your view is absolute among all or even most, I agree that many have questioned it. But it is sufficiently designed to at least leave it only a question in its safety behind its ability as a theory to be unable to disprove. As such, is remains 'safe' to permit a god. It just now expands this god to allow new ones to be possible too without being able to disprove.

I say you are wrong because the underlying Cosmological Principle for the BB model is one that does not conserve time in it as the Perfect Cosmological Principle of the SS demands. It is the SS theory that promotes infinite regress towards the singularity, not the BB. In the BB theory, they propose that at earlier times, the universe literally was different if we were there to 'see' it. Thus, the singularity IS a necessary function of the theory. SS accompanies the virtue of both but abandons the singularity as merely an illusion of our perspective and that the expansion of space itself is the cause everywhere of what supplants the information needed to create matter and energy all the time everywhere at a conservative rate (or acceleration) indeterminately.

[SpheresOfBalance]

I understand you. I just believe that you are not realizing that you are also accepting of the paradigm to separate science and philosophy when you interpret that physics and metaphysics are both distinct and that neither should cross each other's territory.

You are absolutely not paying attention to what I'm saying, Scott, because I have never said or implied any such thing. I have consistently maintained that physics and metaphysics are inseparable but that it is physics that must conform to metaphysics and not the other way around. If our models of physics are defining a universe which makes no sense then we must conclude that these models of physics are bullshit rather than try and redefine what making sense means. If I have only two apples in my fruit bowl then I can't take five apples out of it and I don't care how many elegant equations you might choose to invent to suggest otherwise.

I agree completely that but it's not an absolute that physics must agree with metaphysics. What I mean is that there's nothing to prevent new knowledge from causing us to go back and change the metaphysical components and start all over. Of course we haven't done that but it's a possibility.

Yes. Physics must agree with metaphysics or it has no meaning and this is where so many are going astray.

In truth, math is key. Just look at chemistry. The difference between all elements on the periodic table, is simply the numbers of protons, neutrons, and electrons bound in their group dance; simply the 'number' of electrically charged particles, bound by electromagnetic forces.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Ideas do not pop into existence like virtual particles from the luminiferous aether and miraculously form themselves into coherent narratives for presentation to the mind of man in the form of truths. Ideas are a construct of language and thus beholden to the semantic, cultural and intellectual zeitgeist of the times which give birth to them. They are mortal and they deserve an honourable burial when their utility has ventured beyond their expiry date. It was Max Planck who famously said that ideas in physics never die a natural death. They linger on and on and on until such time as a better idea comes along to stab them in the heart in an intellectual coup d'etat. Such an event cannot possibly occur in physics any more but it was what drove it inexorably forward until the constraints of 20th century academia halted such a possibility in its tracks. The modern methodology of model-building is one which insists on salvaging the theory at all costs and it is one which will pluck mathematical constants out of thin air in order to do so, an act of brute mathematical force which would surely have Ptolemy beaming with pride. In its hubris physics has destroyed its own credibility by epicycling its way into a conceptual netherworld and only metaphysics can guide it back into the light.
Still, math is the only tool that can even remotely be considered a universal constant. And so it's much better to not denounce the mathematical method, instead saying that it's not the mathematical conclusions that are suspect, rather the mathematical premises that are suspect, and then keep a close eye on the premises, asking if they've been born of sound conclusions, based upon sound premises. And the chain continues, such is the, so called, knowledge of mankind! Question everything!

I could actually give a fuck about the physics.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent".....Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Fuck Wittgenstein too, the dead codger, he was an idiot as well. No one should ever be silent, as whether wittingly or not, thought provoking dialog may be uttered. One can equally learn from what is either correct or incorrect, as dichotomy reveals! Ever heard of the process of elimination? My professors at university said, "there is no such thing as a stupid question, so please ask as many as you need." Same Idea, done in reverse.

Again, the relative physical relationship of the two celestial bodies, was not as important as my point pertaining to evolution, in my mind at least. You just decided to derail the point with digression.

Fact: The singular point on the surface of any one sphere that is closest to a second sphere is found by a single line which intersects both spheres going precisely through their diameters. All other points on their surface's are further away. If one sphere 'effectively' wobbles relative to that line, it creates an arc of closeness. If one sphere also spins, it creates a band of closeness the width of that arc.

Which really has nothing to do with UV radiation striking the skin, causing the body to 'permanently,' with much time, create more melanin, making it darker, causing greater vitamin D synthesis, thus more calcium absorption, thus bigger bones, other than part of the puzzle in explaining ever varying relative quantities of UV radiation across the spherical planet. Do those biological facts sound familiar?

Keep in mind, when considering my comment on evolution, that single celled organisms reel when confronting something life threatening. So what of multicellular organisms? Yes it's even more complex, with a dedicated group of cells for thinking.

The organisms on earth change relative to their environment, it is not necessarily random in nature. The organism knows more than you think it knows, on a very fundamental level.

This last bit of yours is surly an example of your animal wants and desires, stroking itself, while you're oblivious. It cheapens the words of one delivering such trivial blathering. Me, me, me he cried. And of course I smiled understanding the true gravity of the universal questions, much bigger than any singular piss ant, bent over at the waist pleasuring itself in the shadow of infinity, oblivious of it's small petty desires, by contrast. What more could it do, how better could it think, if that 'bias' could be strangled, at least in terms of the learning arena. Surely not the survival arena as then learning would be halted. There is a distinct difference between the two arenas, though some never see it, so some things they'll never get, or so it surely seems. Because we are in fact one symbiosis, one biosphere, one organism, called life!

The truly wise understand this and 'try' and act accordingly, as it surely serves their purpose!

Philosophy: The love of knowledge, which surely includes that of self, as self can definitely get in the way of knowledge! The truth is everything that actually is the case, so question everything, especially self!

[SpheresOfBalance]

As Hobbes so succinctly pointed out, an effect should not be conflated with its cause. This is a lesson which physicists would also do well to learn when they so glibly speak of "forces", "fields", "waves" and "particles".

It's all just language, so as to speak, and we are "ALL" bound by it. In this case, in fact "effects" and "causes" are exactly the same as "forces", "fields", "waves" and "particles," as they are all human constructs, and as soon as we go down that path of argument, we defeat our own argument in it's formulation. Of course it's OK to 'try' and refine ones language such that is considers everything in the formulation, yet no one knows everything, so where does that leave "everyone?" Some of you have argued against semantics, yet that is what all this argument is, and all it can ever be, for now. We are still young, I just hope humankind shall live to graduate kindergarten.

What you meant to say, in my way of thinking, is that you and Hobbes 'seem' to agree, at least on this particular point. Which has no necessary bearing on the truth of the matter, as the topic at hand is surrounded by theories.

It's a no brainer even you can understand, and painfully obvious. It's truth screams at us with utter clarity everyday. You can't wake up unless you are asleep. You can't take a shit unless you have had some food at some point in the past.
This is not semantic. It's boringly obvious.
Events have sequence. Stuff changes. You can call that time if you want. And you can separate antecedent from present events and nominate them as causes and effects. But what you can't do is pretend that they are the same thing.

Your problem is that your premises are blinded by self, your main priority, at this particular time in your life, so your conclusions are ill conceived. Your premises do not follow as logical conclusions to previous logical premises. Somewhere along your chain of belief you have allowed self to blind you. Tell me about your wealth, as you speak of the brand of car you drive, as if it somehow qualifies your worth, as then surely the truth of your words naturally follows! Your words on apologies, and your students, also screams of that to which I now refer. Try and talk to someone with opposite thoughts than yours without stabbing them with your favorite spear. I don't think you can, at this stage in your life. So anything you say I automatically discount, as coming from that same place. You're not interested in the topics at hand as much as you're interested on promoting self. I'm trying to be honest and truthful right now on how you come off, at least to me, your opener in this message of yours the identifying lingo. You hide behind your keyboard and lob your nasty attitude at those ideas you oppose, for what reason, only a through examination of your childhood can reveal.

[Hobbes' Choice]

It's all just language, so as to speak, and we are "ALL" bound by it. In this case, in fact "effects" and "causes" are exactly the same as "forces", "fields", "waves" and "particles," as they are all human constructs, and as soon as we go down that path of argument, we defeat our own argument in it's formulation. Of course it's OK to 'try' and refine ones language such that is considers everything in the formulation, yet no one knows everything, so where does that leave "everyone?" Some of you have argued against semantics, yet that is what all this argument is, and all it can ever be, for now. We are still young, I just hope humankind shall live to graduate kindergarten.

What you meant to say, in my way of thinking, is that you and Hobbes 'seem' to agree, at least on this particular point. Which has no necessary bearing on the truth of the matter, as the topic at hand is surrounded by theories.

It's a no brainer even you can understand, and painfully obvious. It's truth screams at us with utter clarity everyday. You can't wake up unless you are asleep. You can't take a shit unless you have had some food at some point in the past.
This is not semantic. It's boringly obvious.
Events have sequence. Stuff changes. You can call that time if you want. And you can separate antecedent from present events and nominate them as causes and effects. But what you can't do is pretend that they are the same thing.

Your problem is that your premises are blinded by self, your main priority, at this particular time in your life, so your conclusions are ill conceived. Your premises do not follow as logical conclusions to previous logical premises. Somewhere along your chain of belief you have allowed self to blind you. Tell me about your wealth, as you speak of the brand of car you drive, as if it somehow qualifies your worth, as then surely the truth of your words naturally follows! Your words on apologies, and your students, also screams of that to which I now refer. Try and talk to someone with opposite thoughts than yours without stabbing them with your favorite spear. I don't think you can, at this stage in your life. So anything you say I automatically discount, as coming from that same place. You're not interested in the topics at hand as much as you're interested on promoting self. I'm trying to be honest and truthful right now on how you come off, at least to me, your opener in this message of yours the identifying lingo. You hide behind your keyboard and lob your nasty attitude at those ideas you oppose, for what reason, only a through examination of your childhood can reveal.

Amazing. I did not know so much hot air could spew from one person in a day. You are a fucking one man Global Warming Disaster.

[Obvious Leo]

Scott. I presume you realise that you can't have the singularity hypothesis without the god hypothesis. If you're so willing to define the universe as unknowable it makes me wonder why you bother to waste your time in a philosophy forum.

Anyway you're quite wrong about the consensus in physics. Although the position is not unanimous the overwhelming majority of the priesthood are now convinced that the metric tensor equations in the differential geometry of GR become exponentially less descriptive as gravitational field strength increases. Steven Hawking, who is by no means my favourite physicist but whom I acknowledge as the leading expert in this field, has almost completely abandoned all of his previous positions on black hole physics and he is by no means the only one. I suggest you do a bit of homework on the black hole information paradox as well as the firewall paradox. It is almost a certainty that a singularity cannot physically exist although from a metaphysical point of view the entire idea was absurd from the outset. How the fuck can an infinite set be contained within a finite one? ( and don't give me any abstract mathematical bollocks because I mean PHYSICALLY contained)

[SpheresOfBalance]

It's all just language, so as to speak, and we are "ALL" bound by it. In this case, in fact "effects" and "causes" are exactly the same as "forces", "fields", "waves" and "particles," as they are all human constructs, and as soon as we go down that path of argument, we defeat our own argument in it's formulation. Of course it's OK to 'try' and refine ones language such that is considers everything in the formulation, yet no one knows everything, so where does that leave "everyone?" Some of you have argued against semantics, yet that is what all this argument is, and all it can ever be, for now. We are still young, I just hope humankind shall live to graduate kindergarten.

What you meant to say, in my way of thinking, is that you and Hobbes 'seem' to agree, at least on this particular point. Which has no necessary bearing on the truth of the matter, as the topic at hand is surrounded by theories.

It's a no brainer even you can understand, and painfully obvious. It's truth screams at us with utter clarity everyday. You can't wake up unless you are asleep. You can't take a shit unless you have had some food at some point in the past.
This is not semantic. It's boringly obvious.
Events have sequence. Stuff changes. You can call that time if you want. And you can separate antecedent from present events and nominate them as causes and effects. But what you can't do is pretend that they are the same thing.

Your problem is that your premises are blinded by self, your main priority, at this particular time in your life, so your conclusions are ill conceived. Your premises do not follow as logical conclusions to previous logical premises. Somewhere along your chain of belief you have allowed self to blind you. Tell me about your wealth, as you speak of the brand of car you drive, as if it somehow qualifies your worth, as then surely the truth of your words naturally follows! Your words on apologies, and your students, also screams of that to which I now refer. Try and talk to someone with opposite thoughts than yours without stabbing them with your favorite spear. I don't think you can, at this stage in your life. So anything you say I automatically discount, as coming from that same place. You're not interested in the topics at hand as much as you're interested on promoting self. I'm trying to be honest and truthful right now on how you come off, at least to me, your opener in this message of yours the identifying lingo. You hide behind your keyboard and lob your nasty attitude at those ideas you oppose, for what reason, only a through examination of your childhood can reveal.

Amazing. I did not know so much hot air could spew from one person in a day. You are a fucking one man Global Warming Disaster.

And you are one very 'fucking' (to use your word) blind individual, as you look into that mirror! I just don't know if you're incapable, or you simply refuse to open your eyes and see. You can start by ensuring you leave room for everyones comments, without thoughtless expletives, as if they somehow magically assure your correctness. You try and use intimidation, such is the tactic of one with low self esteem, inconsiderate of another's. Grow up boy, park that BMW in the garage, show that you don't need it anymore. Plead your case, simply your case, and my respect along with others shall certainly grow, so as to finally take you more seriously. As the truest of intellectuals needs no such crutch.