Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:17 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 8:50 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2025 3:57 pm
Not ENTIRELY caused by nothing but preceding physical events.

The caveat is important, B. "Free" does not imply "without contributing factors" or "without any prior circumstances." Those are present, and they are somewhat involved in constraining the choices available. Nobody questions that.

All it implies is that the choice of action that proceeds is not forced to be only one thing, but is selected by the actor from at least two (and usually more) possibilities that can be actualized.

So, for example, you were constrained and limited by Henry's message as to what possible replies would be appropriate. But you selected among the various possibilities that you deemed potentially relevant, and then you created your message. Your message wasn't pre-determined to be only the one you typed: you chose it, from a wide range of possible options. You could have agreed with Henry, aimed to refute Henry, or tried to modify what he said -- which is what you selected.

In your multiple choice scenario , which occurs very frequently, I would be predisposed to choose the one I did choose.

You don't know that at all. What you do know now is that you DID choose to modify what he said; you don't know whether or not that was the only choice you had.

And even the word "choice" implies there were alternate possibilities -- which is a denial of Determinism in itself.

It's true that there may be a possible choice I did not know I had, and I am sure this does happen frequently I do not claim to be all- wise. This fact means that I am ignorant of all the possibilities. The main reason I am ignorant of all the possibilities is that I am only human.
Free will is not numbered among my possibilities because free will is supernatural, and eternal God is the only possible supernatural agent .

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 6:51 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 5:04 pm I am composed of matter and energy, governed by neuroscience, biochemistry, and physics.

So is your corpse. And yet... there seems to be a functional difference between you and your corpse.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 5:04 pm Show me a single, controlled experiment where a human being has made a decision that violates causality, conservation laws, or the fundamental interactions of physics.

Sure thing, drop a glass on the floor then put it back togerher. Under determinism the laws of physics are time-symmetric - they work the same whether time runs forward or backward.

And yet, entropy is not a conserved quantity.

Also...negentropic/living systems do locally violate/reverse the typical direction of the 2nd law by decreasing their internal entropy.

All religious codes of morality are negentropic. All religious foundation myths are negentropic. All religious rituals , injunctions, and sacred paraphernalia are negentropic. One may say that the prevailing aim of all human lives is to live, suicide notwithstanding.


It follows that those humans who do reject science while pursuing the impossible do so because ,for the medieval feudal and hierarchical mind set , science and scepticism were threats. Galileo's fight for the most honest truth continues to this day because those men who seek to control societies through power use entrenched ideas including superstitions.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 11:56 am

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:30 am Gary, that's because conservation laws are the backbone of physics—they’re not just "important," they define what is physically possible.

Which is not even in the same ballpark of determining what's impossible.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:30 am In fact, almost every law of physics is a conservation law, or a combination of two or more conservation laws. Conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum, and charge are fundamental to everything—from the motion of galaxies to the firing of neurons in your brain.

That's called a reification fallacy.

The very "laws" you are speaking about are formulations of human brains. Codified in the "laws" of Mathematics.

Skepdick, this is pure rhetorical smoke with no substance.

1. Claiming that "possible" and "impossible" are unknowable is just lazy skepticism. Conservation laws aren’t hypothetical guesses—they are empirically tested constraints on how the universe operates. If you think something can happen outside of them, show one example. Otherwise, this is just you hoping the impossible is possible because it sounds exciting.

2. Throwing out Clarke’s quotes doesn’t save you. His point about technology being "indistinguishable from magic" applies to human perception, not to the actual governing principles of reality. You can’t "venture past the impossible" unless you’re proposing a testable violation of physics. Which, of course, you aren’t.

3. Calling conservation laws a "reification fallacy" is nonsense. Yes, we describe them using mathematics, but their effects are not human inventions—they are observed facts of reality. The laws don’t exist because we wrote them down; we wrote them down because they describe consistent, inescapable truths about how the universe behaves.

So instead of throwing out philosophical platitudes, answer the real question: Do you have a single verifiable example of something happening outside conservation laws? If not, then all you’re doing is playing word games while the physical universe continues on, fully determined, as always.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 11:56 am

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:30 am Gary, that's because conservation laws are the backbone of physics—they’re not just "important," they define what is physically possible.

Which is not even in the same ballpark of determining what's impossible.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:30 am In fact, almost every law of physics is a conservation law, or a combination of two or more conservation laws. Conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum, and charge are fundamental to everything—from the motion of galaxies to the firing of neurons in your brain.

That's called a reification fallacy.

The very "laws" you are speaking about are formulations of human brains. Codified in the "laws" of Mathematics.

Skepdick, this is pure rhetorical smoke with no substance.

Right back at you.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm 1. Claiming that "possible" and "impossible" are unknowable is just lazy skepticism.

No, it's just science. Impossibility is a falsifiable hypothesis. Possibility is not. Anything impossible YET is not necessarily impossible in future.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm Conservation laws aren’t hypothetical guesses—they are empirically tested constraints on how the universe operates. If you think something can happen outside of them, show one example. Otherwise, this is just you hoping the impossible is possible because it sounds exciting.

Yeah sure... Explain the Big Bang INSIDE the laws of physics.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm 2. Throwing out Clarke’s quotes doesn’t save you. His point about technology being "indistinguishable from magic" applies to human perception, not to the actual governing principles of reality.

DIstinction without a difference. You don't know what the actual governing principles of reality are. You are limited by your own understanding and by the current limits of our best theories.

And our theories are incomplete - therefore our understanding is incomplete. We know this to be a fact.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm You can’t "venture past the impossible" unless you’re proposing a testable violation of physics. Which, of course, you aren’t.

We can. That's literally what falsification is in science. The overturning of our incomplete understanding.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm 3. Calling conservation laws a "reification fallacy" is nonsense. Yes, we describe them using mathematics, but their effects are not human inventions—they are observed facts of reality.

The laws don’t exist because we wrote them down; we wrote them down because they describe consistent, inescapable truths about how the universe behaves.

Contradiction.

Are you describing the laws; or are you describing the effects of the laws?

Map/teritory confusion.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm So instead of throwing out philosophical platitudes, answer the real question: Do you have a single verifiable example of something happening outside conservation laws? If not, then all you’re doing is playing word games while the physical universe continues on, fully determined, as always.

Yes. The Big Bang.

If you insist that it's bound by the laws of physics - explain how The Big Bang is a consequence of those laws.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 11:56 am

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:30 am Gary, that's because conservation laws are the backbone of physics—they’re not just "important," they define what is physically possible.

Which is not even in the same ballpark of determining what's impossible.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:30 am In fact, almost every law of physics is a conservation law, or a combination of two or more conservation laws. Conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum, and charge are fundamental to everything—from the motion of galaxies to the firing of neurons in your brain.

That's called a reification fallacy.

The very "laws" you are speaking about are formulations of human brains. Codified in the "laws" of Mathematics.

Skepdick, this is pure rhetorical smoke with no substance.

1. Claiming that "possible" and "impossible" are unknowable is just lazy skepticism. Conservation laws aren’t hypothetical guesses—they are empirically tested constraints on how the universe operates. If you think something can happen outside of them, show one example. Otherwise, this is just you hoping the impossible is possible because it sounds exciting.

2. Throwing out Clarke’s quotes doesn’t save you. His point about technology being "indistinguishable from magic" applies to human perception, not to the actual governing principles of reality. You can’t "venture past the impossible" unless you’re proposing a testable violation of physics. Which, of course, you aren’t.

3. Calling conservation laws a "reification fallacy" is nonsense. Yes, we describe them using mathematics, but their effects are not human inventions—they are observed facts of reality. The laws don’t exist because we wrote them down; we wrote them down because they describe consistent, inescapable truths about how the universe behaves.

So instead of throwing out philosophical platitudes, answer the real question: Do you have a single verifiable example of something happening outside conservation laws? If not, then all you’re doing is playing word games while the physical universe continues on, fully determined, as always.

Big Miike , if you had ever lived with an animal or human who is in palliative care you would have ample evidence of negentropy. Negentropy happens. Negentropy is a law of nature/science. Whether or not the biosphere will survive until ten years from now is another question.

Are you Manichean? I suppose not.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:53 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 11:56 am
Which is not even in the same ballpark of determining what's impossible.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.



That's called a reification fallacy.

The very "laws" you are speaking about are formulations of human brains. Codified in the "laws" of Mathematics.

Skepdick, this is pure rhetorical smoke with no substance.

1. Claiming that "possible" and "impossible" are unknowable is just lazy skepticism. Conservation laws aren’t hypothetical guesses—they are empirically tested constraints on how the universe operates. If you think something can happen outside of them, show one example. Otherwise, this is just you hoping the impossible is possible because it sounds exciting.

2. Throwing out Clarke’s quotes doesn’t save you. His point about technology being "indistinguishable from magic" applies to human perception, not to the actual governing principles of reality. You can’t "venture past the impossible" unless you’re proposing a testable violation of physics. Which, of course, you aren’t.

3. Calling conservation laws a "reification fallacy" is nonsense. Yes, we describe them using mathematics, but their effects are not human inventions—they are observed facts of reality. The laws don’t exist because we wrote them down; we wrote them down because they describe consistent, inescapable truths about how the universe behaves.

So instead of throwing out philosophical platitudes, answer the real question: Do you have a single verifiable example of something happening outside conservation laws? If not, then all you’re doing is playing word games while the physical universe continues on, fully determined, as always.

Big Miike , if you had ever lived with an animal or human who is in palliative care you would have ample evidence of negentropy. Negentropy happens. Negentropy is a law of nature/science. Whether or not the biosphere will survive until ten years from now is another question.

Are you Manichean? I suppose not.

Belinda, negentropy isn’t a violation of determinism or conservation laws—it’s just local order at the cost of greater disorder elsewhere. Living systems temporarily reduce their internal entropy by consuming energy, but the total entropy of the universe still increases. There’s no magic there, just thermodynamics in action.

As for Manicheanism—no, I don’t deal in dualistic mysticism. I deal in causality, physics, and empirical facts, none of which care about philosophical word games.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:48 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 11:56 am
Which is not even in the same ballpark of determining what's impossible.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.



That's called a reification fallacy.

The very "laws" you are speaking about are formulations of human brains. Codified in the "laws" of Mathematics.

Skepdick, this is pure rhetorical smoke with no substance.

Right back at you.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm 1. Claiming that "possible" and "impossible" are unknowable is just lazy skepticism.

No, it's just science. Impossibility is a falsifiable hypothesis. Possibility is not. Anything impossible YET is not necessarily impossible in future.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm Conservation laws aren’t hypothetical guesses—they are empirically tested constraints on how the universe operates. If you think something can happen outside of them, show one example. Otherwise, this is just you hoping the impossible is possible because it sounds exciting.

Yeah sure... Explain the Big Bang INSIDE the laws of physics.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm 2. Throwing out Clarke’s quotes doesn’t save you. His point about technology being "indistinguishable from magic" applies to human perception, not to the actual governing principles of reality.

DIstinction without a difference. You don't know what the actual governing principles of reality are. You are limited by your own understanding and by the current limits of our best theories.

And our theories are incomplete - therefore our understanding is incomplete. We know this to be a fact.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm You can’t "venture past the impossible" unless you’re proposing a testable violation of physics. Which, of course, you aren’t.

We can. That's literally what falsification is in science. The overturning of our incomplete understanding.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm 3. Calling conservation laws a "reification fallacy" is nonsense. Yes, we describe them using mathematics, but their effects are not human inventions—they are observed facts of reality.

The laws don’t exist because we wrote them down; we wrote them down because they describe consistent, inescapable truths about how the universe behaves.

Contradiction.

Are you describing the laws; or are you describing the effects of the laws?

Map/teritory confusion.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:34 pm So instead of throwing out philosophical platitudes, answer the real question: Do you have a single verifiable example of something happening outside conservation laws? If not, then all you’re doing is playing word games while the physical universe continues on, fully determined, as always.

Yes. The Big Bang.

If you insist that it's bound by the laws of physics - explain how The Big Bang is a consequence of those laws.

Skepdick, your argument is pure sophistry—you’re throwing around half-baked philosophy while dodging the actual point.

1. You claim impossibility is a falsifiable hypothesis. Fine—then falsify conservation laws. Show me a single empirical violation. You can’t, because no one ever has. This isn’t about future possibilities; it’s about what has been tested and confirmed every single time we’ve looked.

2. Your Big Bang argument is a cheap dodge. The laws of physics describe the behavior of the universe once it exists. The Big Bang is an initial condition problem, not an exception to conservation laws. If you want to claim otherwise, then show a violation happening now, within our observable universe.

3. "You don’t know what the actual governing principles of reality are." And yet, every single experiment, every observation, every technological application of physics has confirmed that causality and conservation hold—never once has anything violated them. Your skepticism is just a refusal to acknowledge evidence.

4. Falsification doesn’t mean you can just assume violations exist. Science doesn’t overturn principles unless empirical data demands it. There is zero data suggesting conservation laws don’t hold—only wishful thinking from people like you who don’t like the implications.

So, once again, do you have a single observed violation of conservation laws in our universe? Or are you just playing philosophical shell games to avoid admitting determinism stands unchallenged?

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm Skepdick, your argument is pure sophistry

Right back at you.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm —you’re throwing around half-baked philosophy while dodging the actual point.

You have no point. Because you are engaging in tautological/philosophical sophistry.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm 1. You claim impossibility is a falsifiable hypothesis. Fine—then falsify conservation laws. Show me a single empirical violation.

1. You are committing the same conceptual error as every sophist. Your theory is unfalsifiable, you have no idea what an "empirical violation" would even amount to in practice (which means your theory is tautological) and you think that this is my problem? It's not on me to falsify your theory - it's on you to make it explicit what empirical observation would amount to falsification.

If you are unable to make this explicit, then it's safe to assume your theory is not even wrong.


2. Yeah, sure.

2a. Violation of parity-conservation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_experiment

The experiment established that conservation of parity was violated (P-violation) by the weak interaction, providing a way to operationally define left and right without reference to the human body. This result was not expected by the physics community, which had previously regarded parity as a symmetry applying to all forces of nature.

2b. The CP symmetry violation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_violation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_CP_problem

CP-symmetry states that physics should be unchanged if particles were swapped with their antiparticles and then left-handed and right-handed particles were also interchanged. This corresponds to performing a charge conjugation transformation and then a parity transformation. The symmetry is known to be broken in the Standard Model through weak interactions,

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm You can’t, because no one ever has.

Your ego needs to deflate about now.


Every physicist knows that when we say "energy is conserved," we're really engaging in circular reasoning: we keep redefining what we mean by "energy" to make the equations balance. We are just jerrymandering the two sides of the Mathematical equality symbol.

When we write E = mc², we are not really making an empirical claim that can be falsified. We are defining a relationship between what we call "energy" and what we call "mass.". The equality sign here is doing something more subtle than describing a discovery about nature - it's establishing a definition.

You are trapped in a tautology. Fucking idiot.

Mike, how can you be helped? Philosophically, intellectually, and perhaps “spiritually”?

You declare your quest is “freedom” (or some sort of liberation). But if — if! — you are “trapped”, then the giant theory you are working with cannot turn out well.

Ideas Have Consequences!

In related news it is about time that I claim for myself the title “Mahatma”. It just feels right.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 3:21 pm Mike, how can you be helped? Philosophically, intellectually, and perhaps “spiritually”?

You declare your quest is “freedom” (or some sort of liberation). But if — if! — you are “trapped”, then the giant theory you are working with cannot turn out well.

Ideas Have Consequences!

In related news it is about time that I claim for myself the title “Mahatma”. It just feels right.

But I thought you were the "Hyperbolic Apollyon."

How many titles can one man have?
_______

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:36 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm Skepdick, your argument is pure sophistry

Right back at you.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm —you’re throwing around half-baked philosophy while dodging the actual point.

You have no point. Because you are engaging in tautological/philosophical sophistry.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm 1. You claim impossibility is a falsifiable hypothesis. Fine—then falsify conservation laws. Show me a single empirical violation.

1. You are committing the same conceptual error as every sophist. Your theory is unfalsifiable, you have no idea what an "empirical violation" would even amount to in practice (which means your theory is tautological) and you think that this is my problem? It's not on me to falsify your theory - it's on you to make it explicit what empirical observation would amount to falsification.

If you are unable to make this explicit, then it's safe to assume your theory is not even wrong.


2. Yeah, sure.

2a. Violation of parity-conservation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_experiment

The experiment established that conservation of parity was violated (P-violation) by the weak interaction, providing a way to operationally define left and right without reference to the human body. This result was not expected by the physics community, which had previously regarded parity as a symmetry applying to all forces of nature.

2b. The CP symmetry violation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_violation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_CP_problem

CP-symmetry states that physics should be unchanged if particles were swapped with their antiparticles and then left-handed and right-handed particles were also interchanged. This corresponds to performing a charge conjugation transformation and then a parity transformation. The symmetry is known to be broken in the Standard Model through weak interactions,

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:04 pm You can’t, because no one ever has.

Your ego needs to deflate about now.


Every physicist knows that when we say "energy is conserved," we're really engaging in circular reasoning: we keep redefining what we mean by "energy" to make the equations balance. We are just jerrymandering the two sides of the Mathematical equality symbol.

When we write E = mc², we are not really making an empirical claim that can be falsified. We are defining a relationship between what we call "energy" and what we call "mass.". The equality sign here is doing something more subtle than describing a discovery about nature - it's establishing a definition.

You are trapped in a tautology. Fucking idiot.

Skepdick, your entire response is just one long exercise in misdirection and bad faith argumentation.

First, you claim that conservation laws are unfalsifiable, which is absurd. A falsification would be simple: observe one instance where energy, charge, or momentum is not conserved. That’s all it would take. Yet, you can’t provide a single example of this happening—because none exist. Instead, you play rhetorical games about what “empirical violation” means, as if that somehow changes reality.

Then, you bring up parity and CP violation, which have absolutely nothing to do with conservation laws like energy, momentum, or charge. Those violations affect symmetry operations—not the fundamental accounting of physical quantities. Trying to pass that off as a violation of conservation laws is either deep ignorance or intellectual dishonesty.

And finally, your argument that we “redefine” energy just to balance equations is laughable. We don’t just define energy into existence—its conservation is an observed reality. The relationship between energy and mass isn’t some linguistic trick—it’s what powers nuclear reactions, particle physics, and every single application of modern physics. If your argument were true, the Large Hadron Collider would be a magic trick, not a functional scientific tool.

So, let’s cut through your nonsense. Either provide an example of energy, charge, or momentum being non-conserved in a controlled experiment, or admit you’re just here to argue for the sake of arguing.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 3:21 pm Mike, how can you be helped? Philosophically, intellectually, and perhaps “spiritually”?

You declare your quest is “freedom” (or some sort of liberation). But if — if! — you are “trapped”, then the giant theory you are working with cannot turn out well.

Ideas Have Consequences!

In related news it is about time that I claim for myself the title “Mahatma”. It just feels right.

Alexis, I don’t need “help” because I’m not the one making claims that evaporate under scrutiny. You, on the other hand, keep retreating into vague mysticism whenever the conversation demands precision.

You throw around freedom and liberation as if they’re anything more than deterministic processes unfolding exactly as they must—as if declaring yourself a “Mahatma” makes your words profound rather than hollow.

Ideas do have consequences. That’s precisely why I reject yours, because they lead nowhere except into self-indulgent hand-waving. If you think I’m “trapped,” then show me the escape hatch—one that doesn’t collapse the moment it’s tested. Otherwise, this is just you pretending to be wise while dodging the real questions.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 12:01 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:17 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 8:50 pm
In your multiple choice scenario , which occurs very frequently, I would be predisposed to choose the one I did choose.

You don't know that at all. What you do know now is that you DID choose to modify what he said; you don't know whether or not that was the only choice you had.

And even the word "choice" implies there were alternate possibilities -- which is a denial of Determinism in itself.

It's true that there may be a possible choice I did not know I had, and I am sure this does happen frequently I do not claim to be all- wise. This fact means that I am ignorant of all the possibilities.

What you're not realizing, B., is that Determinism denies the very existence of "possibilities" themselves. According to all Determinisms (of which there are actually several) nothing is ever "possible" but the one actuality that comes to be. There is one road. There are no bypaths. All is fated, and fate is one thing.

Free will is not numbered among my possibilities because free will is supernatural, and eternal God is the only possible supernatural agent .

That's not what we Christians believe. We think human beings are products of the supernatural God, created in His image, and composed of both physical body and supernatural soul. How have you disproved that?

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 5:05 pm Alexis, I don’t need “help” because I’m not the one making claims that evaporate under scrutiny.

All the claims you make have ‘evaporated under scrutiny’. And you definitely seem trapped in a perspective that keeps you from realizing this.

Philosophical neuroticism?

However, as Resident Sage I recommend that you ride that train till the end of the line.

[Sanskrit mahātmā : mahā-, great; see meg- in Indo-European roots + ātmā, life, spirit.]

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:36 pm Skepdick, your entire response is just one long exercise in misdirection and bad faith argumentation.

No, it's not. Your spam over 130+ pages on the other hand...

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:36 pm First, you claim that conservation laws are unfalsifiable, which is absurd. A falsification would be simple: observe one instance where energy, charge, or momentum is not conserved.

I can only explain it to you. I can't understand it for you. If you DEFINE momentum as a conserved quantity - there is no empirical observation which can falsify such a tautology.

That is what equation are. Unfalsifiable definitions.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:36 pm That’s all it would take. Yet, you can’t provide a single example of this happening—because none exist. Instead, you play rhetorical games about what “empirical violation” means, as if that somehow changes reality.

Because you can't provide a single example of where 1 != 1.

That's how equations work!

Idiot.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:36 pm Then, you bring up parity and CP violation, which have absolutely nothing to do with conservation laws like energy, momentum, or charge. Those violations affect symmetry operations—not the fundamental accounting of physical quantities. Trying to pass that off as a violation of conservation laws is either deep ignorance or intellectual dishonesty.

It's neither of those. It's a fact about physics.

The standard model is broken. Every physicist knows this.

The word "model" is a dead giveaway. It's the map, not the teritory.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:36 pm And finally, your argument that we “redefine” energy just to balance equations is laughable. We don’t just define energy into existence—its conservation is an observed reality.

Nonsense. What is energy? I bet you can't define it relating it to other things using the "=" sign.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:36 pm The relationship between energy and mass isn’t some linguistic trick—it’s what powers nuclear reactions, particle physics, and every single application of modern physics. If your argument were true, the Large Hadron Collider would be a magic trick, not a functional scientific tool.

Yeah, nonsense. The LHC doesn't work because our theories are true.

It works despite our theories being wrong. That's what good enough approximations do.

BigMike wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:36 pm So, let’s cut through your nonsense. Either provide an example of **energy, charge, or momentum being non-conserved in a controlled experiment**, or admit you’re just here to argue for the sake of arguing.

Soon as you provide an example where x != x.

Conservation laws in physics are unfalsifiable mathematical frameworks we impose on our observations - even though they are marketed as empirical descriptions of reality. The quantities aren't directly measurable - they're derived from other measurements and calculations. What makes them unfalsifiable is how equational failures have been handled throughout history: rather than accepting that conservation laws might be wrong, physicists maintain these laws by adding new terms to make the equations balance.

Imagine that if 2+2≠4. No problem! We add an 'x' so that 2+2+x=4. This pattern appears throughout physics history - when beta decay seemed to violate energy conservation, we proposed the neutrino; when cosmic expansion seemed to violate energy conservation we just introduced dark energy, when particle interactions seemed inconsistent, we added new force-carrying particles.

Everyone of those new "discoveries" are really just fudge factors to make the two sides ballance. Because that's how equality works.

The conservation laws themselves can never be empirically falsified because they're not claims about reality that could be proven wrong - they're definitional frameworks we use to organize our understanding of nature. When observations don't fit the framework, we expand it by postulating new particles, fields, or forms of energy rather than abandoning the fundamental principle of conservation.