xkcd

by **XTCamus** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:13 am UTC

[quote="Eternal Density"
It's like this: you have a son who lit a fire and burned down a store. He's sentenced to pay a fine or get jail time. He can't afford to pay the fine, and you don't want your son to go to jail, so you offer to pay the fine for him. He now has the choice of accepting this, or rejecting it and going to jail. If he rejects your payment of the fine, justice demands that he go to jail. You still love your son but breaking him out of jail would be an act of injustice.[/quote]

A good story which sounds way more reasonable than... you don't want your son to go to jail, so you offer to have your other son tortured and killed as payment in his stead, and then expect this to be universally accepted as a lesson in morality and justice. But I guess love can be funny sometimes.

by **jjcote** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:41 am UTC

Eternal Density wrote:3. Therefore, God made a way that we can be let off from the punishment, not by unjustly forgiving our crimes, but by Jesus' sacrificial death in our place. This requires trust in Jesus and repentance. (It's not conditional on doing good works, but we should do good in appreciation of what was done for us.)

Anybody who would set up a system that stupid shouldn't be in charge of the office football betting pool, never mind the universe. A far more plausible explanation is that this supposed system was dreamed up by [insert derogatory adjective here] people.

by **doogly** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:20 am UTC

JT, not only did you double post (a faux pas), but the two posts contradict each other.

The states (operators) evolve according to the Schrodinger (von N.) equation. The evolution is unitary, and goes through both slits. You can't say you actually believe in QM, but you do not believe in unitary evolution. That is QM.

by **Randomizer** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:31 am UTC

Oh, it's quite easy to believe in quantum mechanics without believing it works in a particular way. Quantum mechanics just means "how the smallest stuff works."

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/quantum

4. Physics
a. The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently, especially a discrete quantity of electromagnetic radiation.
b. This amount of energy regarded as a unit.

Are there things smaller than protons and neutrons? Sure. Do I think there are things that are so small, that there can't be anything smaller than them? Well... I think that whatever we decide is the smallest unit, we'll eventually find something smaller than that, but that doesn't really matter too much. One would never be able to prove that there is an infinitely small thing because if true, no matter how small of a thing you've found you'd never find the "smallest". So, let's just say there is a smallest thing and we'll just update what that is whenever we find anything smaller.

How do these small things work? Maybe the scientists are right, maybe they're wrong, maybe they're half-right, maybe they have bad analogies. I know that thinking of spacetime as a "set of equations, for which any analogy must be an approximation" makes a hell of a lot more sense than thinking of it as a magical rubber sheet.

Personally, I think the bukyballs go through one hole, stop, then come back around and go through the other hole. :wink:

by **markfiend** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:16 am UTC

I'm not going to rehash your whole post; I think we're more in agreement than I at first suspected. :mrgreen:

J Thomas wrote:I wind up with this kind of result almost every time I look at the details. It winds up being not "X is true" or "X is false". It turns into "X explains the limited available evidence better than anything else I've thought of yet" or "Y fits the limited available evidence better than X according to my esthetic judgement".

Well yes. If anyone is completely honest, this is all that they can do. Absolute truth (whatever that means) is inaccessible to us; we have to leave open the possibility that we are in the Matrix, or another solipsist nightmare.

J Thomas wrote:
Something else though; the "nukes are real" hypothesis is falsifiable, at least in principle. For instance, someone could discover the Mossad memo saying "hey let's invent this Vanunu character and convince the world we have nuclear weapons".

That would not be falsification. First, it would be easy for Mossad or someone else to falsify such a memo. Second, the existence of a fake nuclear program 50 years ago is no evidence that Israel has no nuclear program today, and only a somewhat-plausible indicator that Israel did not have a real nuclear program 50 years ago.

Good point. I think I've chosen a bad example.

J Thomas wrote:Interventionist deities have not in fact been falsified. We have merely observed that sometimes people have prayed to them and their prayers went unanswered. But since gods are inherently unpredictable, the fact that gods have sometimes been observed not to intervene in the past, does not prove they will never intervene.

If you're going to posit complete unpredictability, you're stepping very far from what believers claim about their gods. Believers tend to claim "omnimax" attributes: omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence. Leaving aside the question of whether these omnimax properties are even logically possible (can god create a rock too heavy for him to lift?) they contradict the properties of the universe (problem of evil etc.). This is what I mean when I claim that these kinds of gods are falsified.

J Thomas wrote:They could both be lying about being the only god. Or they could be the same god who tells different people different things. They could both be upset if you suspect them of lying. I'd be pretty disgusted if it turned out like that. Probably there wouldn't be much I could do about it.

But again, this contradicts the claims made by believers about their gods.

J Thomas wrote:
I see no better way to judge. Utilitarianism is my preferred ethical framework.

You are utterly unapologetic about your hubris. I like that in a human.

Thank you. (I think!) I always thought that Lucifer was the most sympathetic character in Paradise Lost. "Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven".

J Thomas wrote:I run into this a lot from libertarians. Some of them say that they themselves are the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong. If they get into a serious disagreement with another libertarian, they will attempt to arrange voluntary binding arbitration with an arbiter they both agree to. If that fails, they might try a duel to the death. They insist that this is all the social control they need. Nobody has to coerce anybody else, ever. Voluntary agreement and vendettas are enough.

I'm not a libertarian (at least, not in the sense that Americans use the word). I'm just honest. Unless one is to follow someone else's moral code through fear of punishment, one must construct one's own moral code. And as I do not believe that hells exist, there is no "divine judge", what else am I to do?

J Thomas wrote:I say, if you get to decide entirely for yourself what's right and wrong, and you can change it whenever you want to, we probably shouldn't call that "morality". Maybe call it "ethics", or "situational ethics". The whole point of morality is that lots of people agree and they try to force it on everybody they can intimidate.

Yes, I agree. My mistake. Except I'm not sure about that "force it on everybody they can intimidate" bit...

J Thomas wrote:
Unless you teach your children that he's real, I'm going to bring my invisible dragon round to your house and have him burn you up.

You are no longer being cordial. I will assume you are being facetious and that you do not actually intend harm to my family. I am also glad that we are on the internet with no direct way to find each other's home addresses.

My apologies. I was indeed being facetious, albeit with a point; the point being that you take threats from my invisible dragon about as seriously as I take threats from other people's gods.

Fire Brns wrote:Jesus is not god; he is the son of god.

Not the way I learned it.

I believe in [...] one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
Begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of very God,
Begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father,

The Nicene Creed makes it very clear that Christians believe that Jesus is god. As well as being god's son. (It doesn't have to make sense, it's theology.)

by **J Thomas** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:46 pm UTC

markfiend wrote:I'm not going to rehash your whole post; I think we're more in agreement than I at first suspected.

J Thomas wrote:Interventionist deities have not in fact been falsified. We have merely observed that sometimes people have prayed to them and their prayers went unanswered. But since gods are inherently unpredictable, the fact that gods have sometimes been observed not to intervene in the past, does not prove they will never intervene.

If you're going to posit complete unpredictability, you're stepping very far from what believers claim about their gods.

True. We can falsify some gods, we just can't falsify every god.

"My god is standing before you. He's 12 feet tall. His face is red and his beard is blue. He smells of roses with a tint of brimstone. He's extending his hand to you, do you dare shake it?"
"One of us is delusional."

Physical claims which can be falsified.

"My god's earring is entirely a perfect sphere and also a perfect cube. It is made of 20 pounds of U235 and it shines brightly, it has stayed completely unchanged for the last 5000 years. Its color is precisely a beautiful vermilion and also perfect emerald. My god forgives everything anybody does and if you break one of his commandments he will torture you for eternity."

Claims which appear to be contradictory.

Still, some gods are possible.

Believers tend to claim "omnimax" attributes: omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence. Leaving aside the question of whether these omnimax properties are even logically possible (can god create a rock too heavy for him to lift?) they contradict the properties of the universe (problem of evil etc.). This is what I mean when I claim that these kinds of gods are falsified.

OK, logical contradictions. I'm hesitant about this sort of thing because we're speaking english and not math, and so the language is slippery. If by "lift" we mean "push away from the surface of the earth" then the answer is yes. The giant crystal which we believe is at the center of the earth cannot be pulled out of the center of the earth and "lifted" without destroying the earth. If we can count the whole mudball Earth as a rock then there is no place to stand. God can move the earth, he does it every day, but not "lift" it by definition. This is a silly example, but for every example there's a chance the words are wrong.

To handle the christian thing without contradiction takes radical rethinking. People think of death as an evil thing, but should it be, to Christians? Death is your chance to end your dreary existence and start your glorious afterlife. People think of pain as evil. We don't like it. People think that a good God would give them a world where nothing ever happens that they don't like. But maybe "things I don't like" is not what we should mean by evil.

I suspect that you dislike bowing down to anybody. Here's a simple calculus problem -- which is worse, a short finite lifetime of pain, or an infinity of bowing down to God?

The trouble is, when I work out the Christian ideas without contradiction, I get a result that doesn't feel human. True christians needn't care when they get cheated, and they can rejoice when they are led to the arena to be slaughtered. It's all logically consistent but if I lived like that people would think I was a fool. I'd hate that. To be a good Christian I'd have to stop living my life to meet the expectations of a bunch of lying, cheating human beings who watch television.

Unless one is to follow someone else's moral code through fear of punishment, one must construct one's own moral code. And as I do not believe that hells exist, there is no "divine judge", what else am I to do?
J Thomas wrote:I say, if you get to decide entirely for yourself what's right and wrong, and you can change it whenever you want to, we probably shouldn't call that "morality". Maybe call it "ethics", or "situational ethics". The whole point of morality is that lots of people agree and they try to force it on everybody they can intimidate.

Yes, I agree. My mistake. Except I'm not sure about that "force it on everybody they can intimidate" bit...

From the Tao Te King, chapter 38
A taoist acts, but from no ulterior motive.
A good man acts, but from ulterior motive.
A moralist acts, and when others don't respond he rolls up his sleeves and forces them.

I probably overstated the case. The way I use the language, when you think it out for yourself and try for a good result, that's ethics. When you help others force people to do what you agree is good, that's morality. I've noticed other people using the language that way, and usually they use it in ways which are compatible with this.

by **Fire Brns** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 3:21 pm UTC

This whole thread is oftopic and are they still arguing schrodingers cat? What have I done!?

Eternal Density wrote:
Fire Brns wrote: And I sound crazy right now making points about Christianity but one final point: there is no hell, a loving god would not want you to suffer in fire and brimstone for an eternity.
1. A loving God would not want you to suffer in fire and brimstone for an eternity.
2. A just God is required by justice to condemn you to suffer in fire and brimstone for an eternity. (And can't be bribed by 'good works'.)
3. Therefore, God made a way that we can be let off from the punishment, not by unjustly forgiving our crimes, but by Jesus' sacrificial death in our place. This requires trust in Jesus and repentance. (It's not conditional on doing good works, but we should do good in appreciation of what was done for us.)
4. Thus there's a perfectly good and just way of escaping the eternal suffering provided by God. God takes no pleasure in justly punishing those who reject this ticket out of hell, because he still loves them.

Through this reasoning of justice we should torture inmates continuosly for the rest of their lives. All sin is equal in the eyes of God but would a person who shoplifted once and wasn't Christian burn in hell for eterinity for an indiscretion? Simply ceasing to exist is punishment enough and even then is still harsh to any one person. This is still an oversimplification.

markfiend wrote:
Fire Brns wrote:Jesus is not god; he is the son of god.
Not the way I learned it. I believe in [...] one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
Begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of very God,
Begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father,
The Nicene Creed makes it very clear that Christians believe that Jesus is god. As well as being god's son. (It doesn't have to make sense, it's theology.)

God created Jesus; Jesus's purpose is to rule the earth: Lord can mean king not just god. God also is used in many contexts in the bible; satan is described once as "god of this system of things". "One Substance" Jesus being created entirely by God and a reflection of him. Hypothetically everything else in the universe is created by both God and Jesus.
Furthermore this creed was created by men not taken from the bible, it's purpose was to validate the idea of the Holy Trinity; a fallible idea to begin with.

by **babble** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 3:26 pm UTC

Both? It's literally impossible that both are real. Either the triune god of the Christians (the Father, the Sun, and the Wholly Ghost) is real, or the Allah of the Musilims is real (both claim to be the only god)... or neither is real.

Many Muslims will tell you that God - Allah - is the same as the Christian God; that they are in agreement that there is only one God. They'll tell you that they differ on some matters of interpretation - Moses and Christ both being regarded by Islam as prophets to whom this God revealed himself. etc. It might well be inconsistent, and from outside you might want to argue that the differences in interpretation are what matters. But if you're looking at who believes what, you've got to accept that a lot of people are happy declaring there to be only one God and that they acknowledge other religions also worship the same entity.

by **markfiend** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:16 pm UTC

Fire Brns wrote:God created Jesus; Jesus's purpose is to rule the earth: Lord can mean king not just god. God also is used in many contexts in the bible; satan is described once as "god of this system of things". "One Substance" Jesus being created entirely by God and a reflection of him. Hypothetically everything else in the universe is created by both God and Jesus.
Furthermore this creed was created by men not taken from the bible, it's purpose was to validate the idea of the Holy Trinity; a fallible idea to begin with.

Most Christians accept the trinity. And very few Christians would deny the divinity of Jesus. You're arguing from a minority viewpoint.

babble wrote:Many Muslims will tell you that God - Allah - is the same as the Christian God; that they are in agreement that there is only one God.

But it's impossible that they are the same god. The god of the Christians incarnated as Jesus and was crucified. As I understand it, the Quran claims that Jesus was not divine, being merely a prophet, and did not die on the cross. These two claims are irreconcilable.

But of course, expecting god-belief to be internally consistent seems a bit of a non-starter.

by **Fire Brns** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:29 pm UTC

markfiend wrote:
Fire Brns wrote:God created Jesus; Jesus's purpose is to rule the earth: Lord can mean king not just god. God also is used in many contexts in the bible; satan is described once as "god of this system of things". "One Substance" Jesus being created entirely by God and a reflection of him. Hypothetically everything else in the universe is created by both God and Jesus.
Furthermore this creed was created by men not taken from the bible, it's purpose was to validate the idea of the Holy Trinity; a fallible idea to begin with.
Most Christians accept the trinity. And very few Christians would deny the divinity of Jesus. You're arguing from a minority viewpoint.
babble wrote:Many Muslims will tell you that God - Allah - is the same as the Christian God; that they are in agreement that there is only one God.
But it's impossible that they are the same god. The god of the Christians incarnated as Jesus and was crucified. As I understand it, the Quran claims that Jesus was not divine, being merely a prophet, and did not die on the cross. These two claims are irreconcilable.

But of course, expecting god-belief to be internally consistent seems a bit of a non-starter.

Jesus is a sepparate entity from god nonetheless. And the one god arguement only runs one way, Muslims believe Christians believe in the same god. While Christians simply believe Mulsims believe this.

by **markfiend** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:37 pm UTC

the White Queen wrote:Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

by **SHISHKABOB** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:03 pm UTC

God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Ghost.

AKA God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit/Ghost.

They're all the same thing. They're all God. And God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Ghost.

Imagine a picture you may or may have seen before: it's got Jesus, standing on a hill, and there's some light coming from the sky in a parting of the clouds. Out of the light a dove is flying. This is a representation of Father, the light; son, Jesus; and Holy Spirit, the dove.

They're all the same thing. They're all God. And God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Ghost.

Come on guys, I thought we had this settled like 1700 years ago.

by **Kit.** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:31 pm UTC

Monika wrote:Sidenote: Atheists could also be subcategorized in other ways besides positive/negative regarding the knowability. E.g. they could be categorized into those who see atheism as a belief and those who see at as a non-belief and those who think this makes no difference .

So, how are those "shut up and calculate" guys called then? Because it seems I'm one of them.

Pfhorrest wrote:...the Copenhagen interpretation has it that our act of observation essentially picks a value at random from the array of possibilities about the life of the cat and fixes the cat_life variable to that, which then requires that each other variable related to that one become fixed to values consistent with the cat being how we observed it. So all of these variables which had arrays of possibilities for their values now have fixed values. Information which did not exist before suddenly now exists: there is now a concrete fact about whether the cat is alive of dead, where there was none before, solely because we looked at it. Observing it made the cat alive (or dead), when it wasn't really either until then. Observing the cat didn't just discover a fact, it created the fact. According to Copenhagen, at least.

According to Everett, whose many-worlds interpretation is Copenhagen's main competitor, what happens instead of that when we interact with the cat in its undetermined state (by observing it), the fact about what we observed also takes on an array of possibilities rather than a concrete value, and all the other facts about what we think and act in response to that observation take on arrays of possibilities rather than concrete values, and every fact about anything affected by what we do in response to that also takes on an array of possibilities rather than concrete values, and that since everything exhibits this indeterministic behavior a the base level anyway, every fact really has an array of possibilities rather than any concrete value, including facts about the state of the entire universe. It's not just that the values of these facts are imprecisely known to us, they really don't have concrete values; the cat really is both alive and dead, and we really do observe it as alive and as dead, and we remember seeing it alive and we remember seeing it dead, and we write in our reports both "the cat was alive" and "the cat was dead", and so on and so on... and the whole universe is working like this, with every way the universe could go, actually going that way, all together at the same time.

To be honest, I fail to see the difference. Is there any?

J Thomas wrote:No, if you write the probability wavefunction on blackboards it does not go through both slits, it just sits there. Similarly if it sits in a computer program. The probability wavefunction describes -- correctly -- the distribution at the detectors. There is no particular reason to think it correctly describes the distribution at places where there are no detectors.

I'm not aware of the existence of any such thing as "probability wavefunction". There was an (initial) simplistic interpretation of a wavefunction as a measure of probability, but it proved to be wrong.

More than that, a wavefunction of a single particle (or even of a number of particles) coming through some separate suddenly classical slit and then ending up on some separate suddenly classical detector does not represent the model of the Universe the QM (or QFT, fwiw) tries to build. The "true" model is an all-particle wavefunction which is a solution of one single huge Hamilton's equation that represents the whole Universe (actually, there is more than one such wavefuncion, and still even more that one Hamiltonian that can be used to represent perfectly the same Universe, but let's not delve into a swarm of problems not related to the curent one). And at this point we are stuck on a deep, or even bottomless problem: we cannot "shut up and calculate" the Universe.

However, we can do some trickses. One of such trickses is to claim that for some Hamiltonians, a wavefunction of the Universe can be approximately replaced with a product of several other wavefunctions, whith one of such wavefunctions can isolate the states of some particles well enough to be useful for our calculations of the events observable by us (for example, for those calculations of С60 interference patterns through those slits on those detectors). Sometimes we can even provide a theoretical "proof" that it's indeed the case, however, any self-righteous mathematician has an urge to get a heavy club and to beat us out of science for our use of such kinds of "proofs". Which they would definitely do, unless there were no police on the streets.

And the reason why the police is on our side is because the stuff that we do actually works. We can calculate those patterns. What's better, we can calculate useful things. Like lasers. Or tunnel diodes. Or quantum confinement effect devices. And even if we spend billions of dollars on our toys like LHC, we can still justify that by the fact that what we measure there shows that our trickses work well... 5 sigmas well, if we didn't forget to take anything that matters into account. And that's what matters.

Now try to do this with "gods".

by **doogly** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:28 pm UTC

I'd be delighted to! I have this drafted paper that shows the trinity is not actually all fully divine to within five sigma. No journal is touching it though. Fucking scientists.

by **Monika** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:30 pm UTC

Kit. wrote:So, how are those "shut up and calculate" guys called then? Because it seems I'm one of them.

Not sure what you mean.

doogly wrote:I'd be delighted to! I have this drafted paper that shows the trinity is not actually all fully divine to within five sigma. No journal is touching it though. Fucking scientists.

Send it to a theology journal?
(Does it really exist?)

by **markfiend** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 10:03 pm UTC

doogly wrote:I'd be delighted to! I have this drafted paper that shows the trinity is not actually all fully divine to within five sigma. No journal is touching it though. Fucking scientists.

*doffs cap*

by **TheGrammarBolshevik** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 10:18 pm UTC

Fire Brns wrote:Furthermore this creed was created by men not taken from the bible, it's purpose was to validate the idea of the Holy Trinity; a fallible idea to begin with.

A moot point, given that the Nicene Creed predates the biblical canon.

by **Geronimo** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:03 pm UTC

markfiend wrote:
Given some of the things described in the old testament...
Psalm 137 verse 9 wrote:Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

... even if the gods were real, I wouldn't worship this immoral monster. (There are numerous other examples in the OT, but I can't be bothered tracking them all down right now.)

I never thought I would actually post on here, but I had to respond to this since I don't think anyone else has.

I wouldn't want to believe in that god either, which is why I went to look it up and then read it in context (very important for those quoting the Bible, either for or against Christianity). It is the Jewish people crying out for vengeance against the people (Babylon and the Edomites) that had just razed Jerusalem. What would you say if someone razed your home while destroying your country? And, if I am reading it right (two different translations), they aren't even saying they think that God will be happy, but the people that end up destroying the Edomites and Baylonians will be the happy ones.

And as long as I am posting, I might as well say my two cents about the comic.
I am a Christian, and I thought it was kind of funny (although not his best work). I laugh when he makes fun of others, so I can laugh when my belief is part of the joke. And all the forum posts definitely got me thinking of things a little bit differently. Well, except for the stuff about schrodinger's cat, that went clear over my head.

And also as long as I am posting, Thanks for a lot of laughs over the last couple of years since I found XKCD.

by **J L** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:04 pm UTC

J Thomas wrote:I don't think anybody actually lives up to your ideal here.

Well ... it's an ideal.

J Thomas wrote:For example, does Israel have nuclear weapons? [...]
What you don't know can hurt you. When there's a chance that you will be hurt by something you don't know, most likely you try to be careful.

This gets us into a general discussion of the possibility of knowledge, or what we consider to be knowledge, truth, belief, hard evidence etc. Let's just say that I see that little evidence for the existence of any god (much less than for the existence of Isreali nuclear weapons ... which is a very strange comparison, btw) that I don't see the slightest need to be careful.

I'm not sure if I understood your reply to Philip K. Dick. His point was, that given that cigarettes caused lung cancer (which is a bad example, because the correlation obviously isn't as simple as jumping off the Eiffel tower and falling), they do it no matter whether you believe it or not.

I'm also not sure what the anecdote with your daughter was meant to illustrate in this context ... but I liked it a lot. It does bother they float, somehow.

Monika wrote:
J L wrote:Santa's elves

I read that as Satan's elves.

lol!

by **J L** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:07 pm UTC

Pfhorrest wrote:Einstein held that it was not random but that there were hidden (unknown) yet deterministic variables at play, and I have a vague memory of some experiment proving that either that or an even more fundamental postulate must be false, so that was rejected.

Fair enough. It soothes me people like Einstein ("God doesn't play", right? Gott würfelt nicht) took up that stance -- but if it's wrong, heck, then it's wrong.

Pfhorrest wrote:it's supposed to be a problem because it makes time irreversible, as if you played time backward any energy emerging from the back hole (an object falling into it, in reverse) would be completely randomized and so you could not recover the original object by reversing time. I like to point out that the random Hawking radiation coming off black holes all the time is essentially new information being created constantly, and playing time in reverse would destroy that information just as it was creating new information at random instead of reconstructing the original object. And that this is just what indeterminism is: you can't consistently translate from one moment in time to another and back again. If information was never created or destroyed, then everything would be deterministic, as all information about how things will be in the future would have to be present (in obfuscated form) now. Accepting indeterminism means accepting that information can be created and destroyed. So why are black holes destroying information a problem, in a quantum-mechanical framework which is already indeterministic?

Accepting indeterminism: This is a very good point, thanks for that. Although it surprises me that scientists would like time to be reversible (well, I would like it to be reversible, but I always thought time reversal or even travel was nothing more than a thought experiment).

Pfhorrest wrote:In practice this equates to sticking with the current theory until enough counterpoints pile up that it's worth abandoning it for a new theory.

I can wholeheartedly agree to this; it's a much better-phrased way of saying what I meant with ignoring anything as long as it wasn't proven. It's a fuzzy realm; I guess you can always break a question down to the point where you have to admit that we have only very limited ways of perceiving reality, and maybe not even enough intellect to make sense of it. Still, you have to use these humble tools as good as you can.

Pfhorrest wrote:
As Philip K. Dick had it, reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

Yes, and our incomplete experience of reality is what comprises the observational data points in question above. Those data points don't stop asserting themselves just because we believe reality follows a curve that doesn't match them. But because our experience of reality is perpetually incomplete, we are never able to conclusively say what reality in its entirety really is; only that it certainly isn't this or that. Reality is something which matches these observations; but we can forever only guess at which of the infinitely many things which match those observations is truly reality.

Even knowing what reality is not (i.e. forgetful of its own laws just because we want it to be) is something to be appreciated. Of course we might never know if e.g. gravity is an expression of interacting particles or vibrating superstrings or whatnot (sorry if I'm mixing up incongruent phenomena here), but what I like about this quote is that it stresses reality's independence from our sphere of perception. Which, getting back to the cat in the box, might also be the reason I dislike any "conscious observer" approaches to that thought experiment (very much enjoyed the "If Many-Worlds Had Come First"-article you once quoted). Although, when skimming through the alternatives on Wikipedia, I think I like the "Objective collapse theory" best. Then again, according to my own argument, reality probably doesn't care much for what I like.

Thanks again for your time and your explanations.

by **J Thomas** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:24 pm UTC

SHISHKABOB wrote:God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Ghost.

....

They're all the same thing. They're all God. And God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Ghost.

Come on guys, I thought we had this settled like 1700 years ago.

It got unsettled again after Christians stopped making shishkabobs of anybody who disagreed.

For myself, I'd rather have it be unsettled than have a surplus of martyrs.

by **Oktalist** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:28 am UTC

Geronimo wrote:I wouldn't want to believe in that god either, which is why I went to look it up and then read it in context (very important for those quoting the Bible, either for or against Christianity). It is the Jewish people crying out for vengeance against the people (Babylon and the Edomites) that had just razed Jerusalem. What would you say if someone razed your home while destroying your country? And, if I am reading it right (two different translations), they aren't even saying they think that God will be happy, but the people that end up destroying the Edomites and Baylonians will be the happy ones.

If someone razed my home and destroyed my country, I like to think I'd stop short of murdering their innocent children.

by **Pfhorrest** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:25 am UTC

J L wrote:Fair enough. It soothes me people like Einstein ("God doesn't play", right? Gott würfelt nicht) took up that stance -- but if it's wrong, heck, then it's wrong.

Yeah, though I'm really uncomfortable thinking about it now, because I can't remember why exactly it's wrong, and I don't like appealing to "even Einstein couldn't carry determinism against its opposition".

Also, your question got me thinking that my own philosophical principles should require a perpetual assumption of determinism just as much as they require a perpetual assumption of realism (and a perpetual assumption of moral objectivism, etc): because we can never know for certain either that an event does not have a determinate cause, we can only know for certain that we have not yet discovered a determinate cause for it, so having not discovered any determinate cause, we can only assume whether or not there is one; and to assume there is not one is simply to give up trying to discover what it is, so we must continually assume there is one we simply haven't found yet, no matter how long we continue having not found one yet.

But I do remember reading something that thoroughly convinced me that we could know that some processes were indeterministic. I just wish I could remember it. I want to say Bell's Inequalities but that was about localism and realism, not determinism.

Doogly?

Although it surprises me that scientists would like time to be reversible (well, I would like it to be reversible, but I always thought time reversal or even travel was nothing more than a thought experiment).

It's not so much about there being a plausible way for us inside the universe to cause time to reverse, i.e. to travel back in time; it's about whether you can play a model of the universe forward and backward equally, the way you can undo multiplication by using division and get the exact same figures back, etc.

In a deterministic model, you can pause your simulation, reverse all the relevant properties (momenta, etc), and then hit play again, and everything will go back to exactly how it was earlier. You play five minutes, pause and flip everything, then play another five minutes, and you're back where you started. But if you throw a black hole into that deterministic model, then when you pause it and reverse everything and resume, you won't see objects which fell into the black hole come flying out, because black holes don't spit out whole objects for any reason, and even reversing their momenta etc won't make them do that. So if you play forward five minutes, pause and flip everything, then play another five minutes, you won't end up back where you started. But then, if the model wasn't deterministic to begin with, that would also be the case, because rand() does not have an inverse function: x, times a random number, then divided by a random number, may not equal x. So if you've already got that problem, as the Standard Model does, I don't see what black holes add to the mix that's extra problematic.

Pfhorrest wrote:In practice this equates to sticking with the current theory until enough counterpoints pile up that it's worth abandoning it for a new theory.

I can wholeheartedly agree to this; it's a much better-phrased way of saying what I meant with ignoring anything as long as it wasn't proven. It's a fuzzy realm; I guess you can always break a question down to the point where you have to admit that we have only very limited ways of perceiving reality, and maybe not even enough intellect to make sense of it. Still, you have to use these humble tools as good as you can.

The real point I was making to begin with, though, is that two parties of differing opinions can be equally justified in holding on to their current theory and refusing to switch to the other's, and neither of them be wrong, if the evidence to decide between them is not at hand. Like say the US and the USSR came up with different theories on some subject during the Cold War and neither side's science got leaked to the other; then the wall fell, and scientists on both sides started talking to each other, and discovered that they disagreed. But, in the ensuing argument, neither side could present evidence to disprove the other; their theories agreed on all points where evidence was available, and disagreed only on points that had not yet been tested. Until those points of disagreement were tested, both sides would be justified in saying "I'm going to keep believing my theory until you can prove me wrong"; neither would get to say "you can't prove yourself right, therefore you must agree with me". And that this same principle applies no matter how many people are on either side of any argument; it could be one man versus the world instead of two superpowers against each other, and the one man would be just as justified in saying "until you can show me wrong, I am under no obligation to change my mind" -- although, the rest of the world would be equally justified in saying that to him.

Thanks again for your time and your explanations.

Thank you. It's been my pleasure.

--------

And meanwhile (a break just so I don't double-post), a comment on the ongoing discussion about ethics and morality:

Morality is the subject matter which ethics studies; ethics is the study of morality. An ethical theory is a reasoned treatise on what the correct moral code is. So saying that someone has "ethics" vs "morals" may imply that there is more thought behind it and not a blind parroting of a list of thou-shalts, but "having ethics" implies "having morals" even if the converse is not true.

And any moral code, be it with or without any theory to support it, purports to compel action from people; even a wholly voluntaristic moral code still says that people should not force each other to do things against their wills, not merely that its adherents prefer not to use force themselves; that if others are forcing people to do things, they are wrong, and should stop.

And lastly, the exhaustive list of choices for who to listen to on which moral code to follow are: yourself, or someone else. And while there is certainly some merit in knowing when to listen to the opinions of others and where your own limits are, it is still ultimately every individual's responsibility to determine, if not what to do for themselves, then at least who to turn to for advice. So really, every moral code is personally determined, so any charge of "you can tweak that to justify anything!" can be levelled equally at anybody; but only those who chose their moral code through their own ethical reasoning have any grounds to defend against that charge, by way of the reasons supplied by their ethical theory to support their conclusions. "He told me to" is a much weaker defense, by comparison.

by **markfiend** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:48 am UTC

Geronimo wrote:
markfiend wrote:
Given some of the things described in the old testament...
Psalm 137 verse 9 wrote:Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

... even if the gods were real, I wouldn't worship this immoral monster. (There are numerous other examples in the OT, but I can't be bothered tracking them all down right now.)

I never thought I would actually post on here, but I had to respond to this since I don't think anyone else has.

I wouldn't want to believe in that god either, which is why I went to look it up and then read it in context (very important for those quoting the Bible, either for or against Christianity). It is the Jewish people crying out for vengeance against the people (Babylon and the Edomites) that had just razed Jerusalem. What would you say if someone razed your home while destroying your country? And, if I am reading it right (two different translations), they aren't even saying they think that God will be happy, but the people that end up destroying the Edomites and Baylonians will be the happy ones.

OK, another example.

2 Kings 2 23-24 wrote:And [Elisha] went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

by **J Thomas** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:13 am UTC

Pfhorrest wrote:Morality is the subject matter which ethics studies; ethics is the study of morality. An ethical theory is a reasoned treatise on what the correct moral code is. So saying that someone has "ethics" vs "morals" may imply that there is more thought behind it and not a blind parroting of a list of thou-shalts, but "having ethics" implies "having morals" even if the converse is not true.

This is a possible way to use the language, and there may be many people who use it that way. It isn't the way I define "ethics". I can't say that your meaning is wrong and mine is right, so I will try to keep track of your meaning when it's you writing.

And any moral code, be it with or without any theory to support it, purports to compel action from people; even a wholly voluntaristic moral code still says that people should not force each other to do things against their wills, not merely that its adherents prefer not to use force themselves; that if others are forcing people to do things, they are wrong, and should stop.

That's the way I say it too. If it's about morality then it's about forcing people to do what you think they ought to. Moral codes are not always symmetric; it's possible to decide that other people shouldn't use force but you should. Or perhaps the situation itself is not symmetric. Some people say that it's absolutely wrong to use force against somebody, but once they have used force against you or anybody else then they're fair game.

It's possible to create an ethical system for yourself, that you don't try to impose on other people. Even if you think your ethics are the best ethics for everybody, still it's possible that you might feel it's only good if they agree to follow it for themselves and not because they are coerced. To my way of thinking this type of ethical system provides counterexamples to your idea of what ethics has to be. I can understand that you'd overlook it since it's so rare.

And lastly, the exhaustive list of choices for who to listen to on which moral code to follow are: yourself, or someone else. And while there is certainly some merit in knowing when to listen to the opinions of others and where your own limits are, it is still ultimately every individual's responsibility to determine, if not what to do for themselves, then at least who to turn to for advice. So really, every moral code is personally determined, so any charge of "you can tweak that to justify anything!" can be levelled equally at anybody; but only those who chose their moral code through their own ethical reasoning have any grounds to defend against that charge, by way of the reasons supplied by their ethical theory to support their conclusions. "He told me to" is a much weaker defense, by comparison.

This is your opinion. I like and approve of that opinion. Still, as an ethical relativist I want to point out that many people disagree with you. For example, many people feel that the moral truth is simple and obvious and that everybody can see it except people who are trying hard to get their own way. Attempts at "ethical reasoning" are inevitably attempts to evade the truth. Everybody sees the truth except people who do pretzel-logic trying not to see it.

While I don't see that the ethical truth is always simple and obvious, I tend to agree with them about the rest. Here's a libertarian example -- I choose them because their ethical system is the only one I see people forcefully exhorting these days. I have met libertarians who say the only moral principle is that no one should use force on anybody who has not used force. But what if somebody steals their property? Taking something that belongs to them without their permission is first use of force, and so a thief is fair game for anything they want to do. What if somebody comes onto their land without their permission? That is first use of force and they can do whatever they want to the trespasser, though it's only polite to first tell him he's trespassing and give him a sporting chance to get away. What if somebody says something they don't want to hear? He's infringing on their ears. Well, whose land is he saying it on? The landowner gets to decide what to do about him.

Simple clear ethical concepts get a bit murky when they interfere with people's innate right to total control of their own property.

by **atrahasis** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:26 am UTC

Geronimo wrote: What would you say if someone razed your home while destroying your country?

"Take your bulldozer back to Israel."

by **doogly** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:21 pm UTC

Pfhorrest wrote:But I do remember reading something that thoroughly convinced me that we could know that some processes were indeterministic. I just wish I could remember it. I want to say Bell's Inequalities but that was about localism and realism, not determinism.

Doogly?

Definitely Bell. You lose determinism either way. It's pretty obviously down the drain if no realism, and if no localism, via special relativity you have no causality, so it's borked either way. Well, you might be able to get by with something deterministic without locality. It's just... that is so awful.

by **J L** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:29 pm UTC

Now I spent the better part of the day bypassing Wikipedia's blackout, reading about Schrödinger, Bell and the Einstein-Bohr debates

I must say it is awful, but enlightening. Didn't understand the math, but I think I now have a general idea of the problems. Thanks!

by **RobertHagedorn** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:20 pm UTC

Adam and Eve? Challenge yourself. Google First Scandal.

by **OP Tipping** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:25 am UTC

Sodom and GOOMHR

by **Kisama** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:47 am UTC

OP Tipping wrote:Sodom and GOOMHR

You definitely get a cookie.

However, I am somewhat disappointed with the way this thread is turning out. Where did that delightfully entertaining troll go? Where are the Flames Of Righteousness?

by **Pfhorrest** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:58 am UTC

doogly wrote:Definitely Bell. You lose determinism either way. It's pretty obviously down the drain if no realism, and if no localism, via special relativity you have no causality, so it's borked either way. Well, you might be able to get by with something deterministic without locality. It's just... that is so awful.

Yeah, nonlocality with relativity doesn't mean no causality, it just means bidirectional causality; from some frames of reference, future things would be seen as the the causes of past things. You could still have a mathematical model which takes the state of affairs at some moment (from a given reference frame) and calculates deterministically what future events will back-cause what event in earlier times, and continues to deterministically calculate the effects of those events, etc.

Of course, then you run into the grandfather paradox, and either have to disallow all nonlocal interactions which cause inconsistencies in the timeline, keeping only stable world loops, which then run into the ontological paradox; or spawn a new timeline for every nonlocal interaction, which basically ends up with a many-worlds situation, and then when you step forward from one instant in the model to the next, how do you decide which branch to take? So nonlocality plus relativity gives you time travel, which gives you multiple timelines, which gives you indeterminism. Indeterminism doesn't give you branching timelines; branching timelines give you indeterminism.

Interesting, though: this would imply that every random event is "caused" by a nonlocal interaction with something that may or may not happen in its relative future. Take a macroscopic example of an otherwise-deterministic universe, where I travel back in time from now into Dick Clark's lap as the ball drops on New Year's Eve 2011. To everyone watching Dick on TV that night, there is suddenly a random event (or not); I appear from nowhere (or not) with no cause. The timeline branches at that event. But subjectively, the branching was caused by a future which may or may not occur now. Say because the universe is (otherwise) deterministic, I am fated to do this again another eight times, and then get hit by a bus before I can do it again. In the final, objective calculation of events, there is then one timeline where I do not appear out of thin air and nine slight variants where I do appear out of thin air, and we can give a probability, but no determinate fact, about whether or not I will appear out of thin air into Dick Clark's lap on New Year's Eve 2011, yet nevertheless all those instances where I do have a cause from some alternate future.

The idea I'm driving at is, what if it's the same story for something like radioactive decay? If what "causes" a radioactive isotope to decay is a nonlocal (and therefore "acausal") interaction with something in one of many different possible futures, and likewise with every other "random" event. If, without nonlocal interactions reaching back in time (maybe just a little bit) to disturb them, all nuclei would be perfectly stable. If nonlocality (plus relativity) is not just a proof of indeterminism, but actually the cause of indeterminism.

This would also reconcile my earlier-voiced philosophical objections to indeterminism, as apparently-random events would still have a cause, but the ultimate chain of causality would be a big multilinear jumble of forward and backward causation, and just looking forward from one instant to the next, it would still be fundamentally impossible to predict with certainty which of several possible next moments you're about to end up in.

by **Kit.** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:30 am UTC

Pfhorrest wrote:
J L wrote:Fair enough. It soothes me people like Einstein ("God doesn't play", right? Gott würfelt nicht) took up that stance -- but if it's wrong, heck, then it's wrong.

Yeah, though I'm really uncomfortable thinking about it now, because I can't remember why exactly it's wrong, and I don't like appealing to "even Einstein couldn't carry determinism against its opposition".

Also, your question got me thinking that my own philosophical principles should require a perpetual assumption of determinism just as much as they require a perpetual assumption of realism (and a perpetual assumption of moral objectivism, etc): because we can never know for certain either that an event does not have a determinate cause, we can only know for certain that we have not yet discovered a determinate cause for it, so having not discovered any determinate cause, we can only assume whether or not there is one; and to assume there is not one is simply to give up trying to discover what it is, so we must continually assume there is one we simply haven't found yet, no matter how long we continue having not found one yet.

But I do remember reading something that thoroughly convinced me that we could know that some processes were indeterministic. I just wish I could remember it. I want to say Bell's Inequalities but that was about localism and realism, not determinism.

Actually, the Bell's Inequalities experiments proved that Einstein was kinda right, and that Bohr was kinda wrong. That there is no "quantum dices" behind the principles of QM. That the world as described by QM is perfectly deterministic; it's just not a determinism of the sort we were used to.

Pfhorrest wrote:In a deterministic model, you can pause your simulation, reverse all the relevant properties (momenta, etc), and then hit play again, and everything will go back to exactly how it was earlier. You play five minutes, pause and flip everything, then play another five minutes, and you're back where you started. But if you throw a black hole into that deterministic model, then when you pause it and reverse everything and resume, you won't see objects which fell into the black hole come flying out, because black holes don't spit out whole objects for any reason, and even reversing their momenta etc won't make them do that. So if you play forward five minutes, pause and flip everything, then play another five minutes, you won't end up back where you started.

If you time-reverse a black hole, you get a white hole. Which is suposed to throw stuff out.

What you can run into here is the "black hole information paradox". Which would not necessarily appear in any quantum gravitation theory itself, but will manifestate itself when we will try to consider "classical determinism" interpretations of such theories.

Pfhorrest wrote:The real point I was making to begin with, though, is that two parties of differing opinions can be equally justified in holding on to their current theory and refusing to switch to the other's, and neither of them be wrong, if the evidence to decide between them is not at hand. Like say the US and the USSR came up with different theories on some subject during the Cold War and neither side's science got leaked to the other; then the wall fell, and scientists on both sides started talking to each other, and discovered that they disagreed. But, in the ensuing argument, neither side could present evidence to disprove the other; their theories agreed on all points where evidence was available, and disagreed only on points that had not yet been tested. Until those points of disagreement were tested, both sides would be justified in saying "I'm going to keep believing my theory until you can prove me wrong"; neither would get to say "you can't prove yourself right, therefore you must agree with me". And that this same principle applies no matter how many people are on either side of any argument; it could be one man versus the world instead of two superpowers against each other, and the one man would be just as justified in saying "until you can show me wrong, I am under no obligation to change my mind" -- although, the rest of the world would be equally justified in saying that to him.

Well, as one of those "shut up and calculate" guys, I refuse to not switch to a competing(*) theory in the cases where it provides the same results as my theory, but easier.

For example, imagine there were no David Hilbert, and the connection between Heisenberg's matrix QM and Schrödinger's wave QM has never been established. Would you then stick to just one of them, knowing that the other one is as good for providing useful stuff, and much easier to work with in some particular cases?

*) Initially misprinted it as "completing". Which makes sense too.

by **Pfhorrest** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:48 am UTC

Kit. wrote:If you time-reverse a black hole, you get a white hole. Which is suposed to throw stuff out.

Can you elaborate on what properties of a black hole, when reversed, turn it into an object that spits out whole objects? I'm not talking about stepping backward through the pre-computed moments in the model, but about pausing it, negating some variables (e.g. momentum), and then letting it play "forward", with the result being the reversal of previous events. My understanding is that black holes as classically understood cannot work this way, because it's not like the objects that fell into the black hole are still in there somewhere, torn up and spiraling faster than light toward their doom, but able to be shot back out and reassembled if only every particle's momentum was exactly reversed, like a dropped egg. They're gone, forever, and nothing you can do to a black hole will turn it into something that assembles whole objects from nothing at its event horizon and hurls them away from it at high velocity.

What you can run into here is the "black hole information paradox".

Precisely. The information needed to calculate what objects to spit out of the black hole, when you reverse everything, isn't there anymore.

Well, as one of those "shut up and calculate" guys, I refuse to not switch to a competing(*) theory in the cases where it provides the same results as my theory, but easier.

That's fine. I never said anyone is obligated not to switch; I said they are not obligated to switch. They are still permitted to switch, if they like. (And actually, earlier, I effectively said that there is a different, lesser sort of obligation -- more like a practical reason -- to choose as you say between such theories experimentally-equal in just such circumstances).

by **addams** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:18 am UTC

Only xkcd would turn slander against the first soap opera/reality show family into really hard math.

That is some hard math.
Some one was making sense.
"I guess you can always break a question down to the point where you have to admit that we have only very limited ways of perceiving reality, and maybe not even enough intellect to make sense of it. Still, you have to use these humble tools as good as you can."
Then someone went here:
"It's not so much about there being a plausible way for us inside the universe to cause time to reverse, i.e. to travel back in time; it's about whether you can play a model of the universe forward and backward equally, the way you can undo multiplication by using division and get the exact same figures back, etc."

Then; I wanted to pipe up and type: Hey! What about quaternions?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions

Even if, you could, then, you can't. So, there.

Then; I remembered that I am not very good at Math.

So; What about the gossip?
Able and Eve? It explains a lot. Right?

by **doogly** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:20 am UTC

Kit. wrote:For example, imagine there were no David Hilbert, and the connection between Heisenberg's matrix QM and Schrödinger's wave QM has never been established.

Dirac did this. Motherfucker was a beast.

Also, other person -- all of that nonsense is wiggeddy wack. I am counting that as non-causal.

by **J Thomas** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:03 pm UTC

addams wrote:Then someone went here:
"It's not so much about there being a plausible way for us inside the universe to cause time to reverse, i.e. to travel back in time; it's about whether you can play a model of the universe forward and backward equally, the way you can undo multiplication by using division and get the exact same figures back, etc."

Then; I wanted to pipe up and type: Hey! What about quaternions?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions

Even if, you could, then, you can't. So, there.

Quaternions are reversible. You can undo multiplication by doing division etc.

But multiplication in minkowski space is not always reversible. In special cases you can multiply and get zero, and have no idea what to divide into it to get your original result back.

To make things reversible you'd have to give up relativity, or at least give up those special cases. And we know that relativity is approximately correct, or anyway more correct than newtonian physics.

by **addams** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:38 pm UTC

J Thomas wrote:
addams wrote:Then someone went here:
"It's not so much about there being a plausible way for us inside the universe to cause time to reverse, i.e. to travel back in time; it's about whether you can play a model of the universe forward and backward equally, the way you can undo multiplication by using division and get the exact same figures back, etc."

Then; I wanted to pipe up and type: Hey! What about quaternions?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions

Even if, you could, then, you can't. So, there.

Quaternions are reversible. You can undo multiplication by doing division etc.

But multiplication in minkowski space is not always reversible. In special cases you can multiply and get zero, and have no idea what to divide into it to get your original result back.

To make things reversible you'd have to give up relativity, or at least give up those special cases. And we know that relativity is approximately correct, or anyway more correct than newtonian physics.

Gossip is way more fun than math, unless, you are really going to do some Math.

Oh, Dear; That is real math. I am not very good at it.
My math book says that this is where we have to give up permanence.
We all know that permanence is easy to give up. In Theroy!

Gossip about people that never existed or have been dead so long that there is no harm to be done to them is really fun. Not permanent. Not a quaternions. Just fun.

Did you ever hear about Pythagoras?
I only heard about Able and Eve a few days ago.

It explains so much. Now; I 'get' it.
This was way after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
The Human family has been doing some form of Hamlet always? So, weird. So, funny.
Of course, the Victorians edited it out. They covered the legs of the pianos because they thought that the piano's legs were too sexy. So, funny.

Hey! Dick Cheny had the statues in the department of Justice dressed while he was in power. Right? It is, just, a sign of the times.

Those girlie boobs really bothered him. They are some cute tits.

I am so bored.

Yes. You are right. In the 2D world we can always get back to where we started. In the real world that is much more complex than the 2D world. We can't even get back to where we started even if we get back to where we started. Ahhhh!!

The Zen Master says, "One can not step into the same river twice."

The troll says, "Yes; I can." Then walks into the river that he has walked into thousands of times before. The troll does not know it is a new river. The water now and the water of ten years ago are the same water for the troll.

What is the difference?

The river is still where it is expected to be. The water is not the same water.

Then, all the conditions. Newtonian Physics is too hard for me. Some of this new stuff is, just, so hard.

New stuff? Quaternions have been around sense 1843. That is not new stuff. I can't keep up with the math. I am one hundred and fifty years behind the rest of you.

by **Kit.** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:18 pm UTC

Pfhorrest wrote:
Kit. wrote:If you time-reverse a black hole, you get a white hole. Which is suposed to throw stuff out.

Can you elaborate on what properties of a black hole, when reversed, turn it into an object that spits out whole objects? I'm not talking about stepping backward through the pre-computed moments in the model, but about pausing it, negating some variables (e.g. momentum), and then letting it play "forward", with the result being the reversal of previous events. My understanding is that black holes as classically understood cannot work this way,

Look, the Einstein Field Equation is actually not that hard in its idea. It has a tensor field on its left describing the spacetime behavior (the Einstein tensor) - and it has a tensor field on its right describing the matter behavior (the stress-energy tensor). The momentums are the T[1..3, 0] components of the stress-energy tensor, and at least some of them sometimes aren't zero. So, in order to not break the equation when you change their sign, you will also need to change the sign of the G[1..3, 0] components of the Einstein tensor.

Which, in particular, means that if in a black hole the space "flows in", in a "time-reversed black hole" the space "flows out". A "time-reversed black hole" is a white hole.

Pfhorrest wrote:spiraling faster than light

Be careful with such words :wink:

by **doogly** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:44 pm UTC

The Zen Master says, "One can not step into the same river twice."

Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher. Of the pre-Socratic club, he was extremely pre-Zen.

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