Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote:

attofishpi wrote:i just would prefer to take a gander at stage 2.

We're there. We're discussing whether or not there are any reasonable models of an uncaused cause, now that we know we have reason to know there has to be one. That's stage 2. We need to settle what an uncaused cause would look like: then on to stage 3, if we're content with the answers we decide.

Ok. I'm ready to vague out.

thedoc wrote:IC I would suggest that you ignore this kind of argumentative posts, it would seem that the poster is just trying to start an argument.

No, I'm asking what this 'unconventional science' is when it's at home?

Immanuel Can wrote:I haven't responded to him in a long time now, thedoc; really, for his own good. ...

I'm a big boy now, I don't need daddy to care for me so you can respond to my questions with no fear or guilt. If you don't then I'll just assume it is fear for yourself and not any altruism upon your part.

And you needn't worry -- I won't be engaging him again.

Where have you?

Arising_uk wrote:

thedoc wrote:IC I would suggest that you ignore this kind of argumentative posts, it would seem that the poster is just trying to start an argument.

No, I'm asking what this 'unconventional science' is when it's at home?

When it's at home it's just an ordinary person, it's only at work that it becomes conventional or unconventional science.

thedoc wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:

thedoc wrote:IC I would suggest that you ignore this kind of argumentative posts, it would seem that the poster is just trying to start an argument.

No, I'm asking what this 'unconventional science' is when it's at home?

When it's at home it's just an ordinary person, it's only at work that it becomes conventional or unconventional science.

Arising is suggesting that some scientist that is unconventional is not doing science. Ludicrous.

thedoc wrote:When it's at home it's just an ordinary person, it's only at work that it becomes conventional or unconventional science.

So what is this 'unconventional science'? Give me an example?

attofishpi wrote:Arising is suggesting that some scientist that is unconventional is not doing science. Ludicrous.

No, I'm suggesting there is no such thing as 'unconventional science' and if there is then it is not science. I'm happy to be wrong tho' so explain or give me an example of what you and the other godbotherers mean when you use this phrase?

Arising_uk wrote:

attofishpi wrote:Arising is suggesting that some scientist that is unconventional is not doing science. Ludicrous.

No, I'm suggesting there is no such thing as 'unconventional science' and if there is then it is not science.

Wrong. Its just atypical of the current norm, current scientific methodologies can still have some amendment as time and knowledge progress, otherwise you are restricting yourself to less than perfection when it comes to rationale.

Arising_uk wrote: I'm happy to be wrong tho' so explain or give me an example of what you and the other godbotherers mean when you use this phrase?

I'd be surprised if all the recent great accomplishments in science did not involve stepping beyond the normalities of scientific approach.

James Maxwell Clerk and Einstein are my greatest heros in science, i would be surprised if their scientific methodology were not revolutionary at the time.

Arising_uk wrote:

thedoc wrote:When it's at home it's just an ordinary person, it's only at work that it becomes conventional or unconventional science.

So what is this 'unconventional science'? Give me an example?

Speculative science like vacuum genesis, virtual particles, string theory. Many Sci Fi stories use some kind of speculative science, sword and sorcery doesn't.

attofishpi wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:

attofishpi wrote:Arising is suggesting that some scientist that is unconventional is not doing science. Ludicrous.

No, I'm suggesting there is no such thing as 'unconventional science' and if there is then it is not science.

Wrong. Its just not atypical of the current norm, current scientific methodologies can still have some amendment as time and knowledge progress, otherwise you are restricting yourself to less than perfection when it comes to rationale.

Arising_uk wrote: I'm happy to be wrong tho' so explain or give me an example of what you and the other godbotherers mean when you use this phrase?

I'd be surprised if all the recent great accomplishments in science did not involve stepping beyond the normalities of scientific approach.

James Maxwell Clerk and Einstein are my greatest heros in science, i would not be surprised if their scientific methodology were not revolutionary at the time.

Einstein used "thought experiments" to develop his theories but then he and other scientists used conventional science to prove the theory.

attofishpi wrote:James Maxwell Clerk and Einstein are my greatest heros in science, i would not be surprised if their scientific methodology were not revolutionary at the time.

James Clerk Maxwell (as it happens) was a brilliant scientist, number 3 after Newton and Einstein, according to a poll taken at the millennium, I think. He is best known for his work on electromagnetism, which he based on the assumption that light was a wave in a medium he called the luminiferous aether. Attempts were made to find evidence for this aether, most famously by Michelson and Morley, but when none was found, Einstein dispensed with the idea and came up with special relativity. Ironically, he had to reintroduce the concept of aether to formulate general relativity. People who know a bit about physics, even some who know a lot, frequently howl in protest, so I appeal to the authority of Robert Laughlin, a physicist who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize, who explains that aether is not a word that is used favourably by a lot by physicists:
"It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise (i.e. Special Relativity) was that no such medium existed... The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity.” Laughlin says the resistance to aether, based on its opposition to relativity “is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum…The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo."
Anyway, like I keep saying, the important bit for physicists is the mathematical model and to that end, whether or not Maxwell or Einstein were right about aether, they are deservedly respected as brilliant mathematical physicists, whose work pretty much invented 20th Century physics.
In many ways, my blog is just an attempt to explain this 'modern concept of the vacuum of space' in cartoon form. You may have heard of it: http://willijbouwman.blogspot.co.uk

uwot wrote:

attofishpi wrote:James Maxwell Clerk and Einstein are my greatest heros in science, i would not be surprised if their scientific methodology were not revolutionary at the time.

James Clerk Maxwell (as it happens) was a brilliant scientist, number 3 after Newton and Einstein, according to a poll taken at the millennium, I think. He is best known for his work on electromagnetism, which he based on the assumption that light was a wave in a medium he called the luminiferous aether. Attempts were made to find evidence for this aether, most famously by Michelson and Morley, but when none was found, Einstein dispensed with the idea and came up with special relativity. Ironically, he had to reintroduce the concept of aether to formulate general relativity. People who know a bit about physics, even some who know a lot, frequently howl in protest, so I appeal to the authority of Robert Laughlin, a physicist who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize, who explains that aether is not a word that is used favourably by a lot by physicists:
"It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise (i.e. Special Relativity) was that no such medium existed... The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity.” Laughlin says the resistance to aether, based on its opposition to relativity “is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum…The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo."
Anyway, like I keep saying, the important bit for physicists is the mathematical model and to that end, whether or not Maxwell or Einstein were right about aether, they are deservedly respected as brilliant mathematical physicists, whose work pretty much invented 20th Century physics.
In many ways, my blog is just an attempt to explain this 'modern concept of the vacuum of space' in cartoon form. You may have heard of it: http://willijbouwman.blogspot.co.uk

Thanks uwot. And thanks for getting his names around the right way for me i always bugger it up. Some time ago, the yr 2000 my sage\'God' introduced me to Maxwell while i sat sipping on a few beers at a very rough old pub in a predominately fishing village, having got a book on IT from the local library that started rather strangely with Maxwell's comprehension of light and electromagnetism as a prologue. I won't go into detail here and now regarding more of the circumstance as i have already detailed this story some years ago on the forum...and to be honest, i want this thread to continue without further diversion from IC's argument.
My popcorn is ready.

attofishpi wrote:...and to be honest, i want this thread to continue without further diversion from IC's argument.
My popcorn is ready.

I think you'll be lucky. Anyway, no word from Mr Can yet. If you're running out of popcorn, you can always go to the source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cos ... l_argument I've made no secret of the fact that I don't think it's much of an argument, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. See what you think.

attofishpi wrote:Wrong. Its just atypical of the current norm, current scientific methodologies can still have some amendment as time and knowledge progress, otherwise you are restricting yourself to less than perfection when it comes to rationale. ...

What 'current methodologies'? What on earth do you mean by being "atypical of the current norm'? It doesn't matter if you're studying whether pink-spotted fairies exist you'll still have to follow the scientific methodology if you want it to be considered science, although in this case you'll have to find a PSF first I reckon.

I'd be surprised if all the recent great accomplishments in science did not involve stepping beyond the normalities of scientific approach. ...

Why? What is it about science that you find so offensive that you cannot accept that its practitioners can produce great accomplishments.

James Maxwell Clerk and Einstein are my greatest heros in science, i would be surprised if their scientific methodology were not revolutionary at the time.

Where do you get these ideas from? Their results produced revolutionary change but their methodology is pretty much if not the same as what is being used today and I think will always be used in the future, if you want to explain how things work in the world that is.

uwot wrote:

attofishpi wrote:...and to be honest, i want this thread to continue without further diversion from IC's argument.
My popcorn is ready.

I think you'll be lucky. Anyway, no word from Mr Can yet. If you're running out of popcorn, you can always go to the source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cos ... l_argument I've made no secret of the fact that I don't think it's much of an argument, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. See what you think.

If this is the cosmlogical argument,

Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
The universe has a cause.

Then what evidence is there that the Universe began to exist?