Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	8-Jul-04/10:46 AM
I'm sure you don't think there's such a thing as absolute truth. What you were arguing is that science should be left alone, or whatever, because its aim was to find absolute truth, not simply to model the physical world. But the only person who thinks that science is the pursuit of some sort of absolute truth is the straw scientist you stuffed up your face. Forget pragmatics, and absolute truth; do you think the aim of science is to construct as accurate a model as possible of the physical world? Because if you do, why in Sodomy did you criticise science for having unstable theories? Instability is inevitable when scientists are in the business of constantly refining their models of the world.
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	8-Jul-04/5:56 AM
I'm sorry if that's the case. When I wrote "-like", I was honestly trying to convey what I later decribed to you in more detail. Besides, you're hardly one to talk; blabbering on about science being the quest for "absolute truth", (saying, if I recall correctly, that science couldn't be about producing pragmatic models of the world because there is nothing absolute in that) is hardly the best way to say: 'The purpose of science is to model the physical world, not to define it.'
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	8-Jul-04/5:20 AM
As I mentioned in my previous post, all I mean by "quantum-LIKE" is that certain aspects of the physical world exhibit quantum-like behaviour, which is unexplainable in Newtonian terms. I have never claimed that the world does not contain Newtonian-like observables, for the very obvious reason that Newtonian mechanics gives you accurate (as verified by experiment) results for everyday objects travelling at low speeds. Does the world behave in a Newtonian-like manner? Yes, but it isn't exactly Newtonian because, for example, you don't seem to be able to go faster than light. Just as it probably isn't exactly Quantonian. Have a look at Quarton's stance: he is saying that when we believed in Newtonian mechanics, reality was exactly Newtonian, and there were no observables that could only be explained with Quantum physics; then when we dismissed Newtonian mechanics in favour of Quantum mechanics, Quarton thinks reality was exactly Quantonian, etc. The point I was trying to make was that reality (as any sane person understands its definition) hasn't changed; only our means of modelling it have. As to your stance on science, if you have consistently been arguing what I said in my last few sentences, then great! Because we agree, and have probably been bizarrely misinterpreting each other. Either that, or you're lying and haven't been consistently arguing that. I definitely have been arguing that. And in a mature and kindly manner, as well. Since you deleted the whole discussion, I GUESS WE'll NEVER KNOW LOL
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	7-Jul-04/12:47 PM
P.S I said the world behaved in a "quantum-LIKE" manner. I know that Quantum Physics isn't a perfect model, I'm fairly sure it will be changed at some point in the future, but the fact remains that many observable properties are quantum-like in that quantum mechanics gives a reasonably accurate model of their behaviour, where newtonian mechanics fails utterly. That won't change, nor has it ever been the case in the past that the physical world didn't exhibit such quantum-like properties. There are also many properties that can be explained using Newtonian mechanics, and yes these have also always been there, even before scientists knew about Newtonian mechanics. It is no coincidence that for objects travelling at low speeds, the model based on relativity, and Newton's model, both give you very similar results. What Quarton seems to have been suggesting is that before Newtonian mechanics, reality wasn't Newtonian in nature; then when Newtonian physics came along, reality was Newtonian; and when Quantum Physics came along, reality wasn't Newtonian, it was Quantonian, etc. One of the first things my Quantum physics lecturer said to me (and I only studied it in my first year at University) was "Light isn't a wave. Light isn't a particle. Light is light." His point was that the job of physics is to model the physical world, not to define it. Thanks for listening.
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	7-Jul-04/11:40 AM
P.S. ?-Dave_Mysterious-? has a postgraduate degree in physics and has actually studied quantum mechanics in a technical and mathematical way. You, Quarton, you haven't. The only thing you have on your side is a vast arsenal of waffle which you can't possibly back up in any meaningful way because you don't really know what it means. Allow me to quote ?-Dave_Mysterious-? from another forum: "The most monumentally wrong thing Quarton wrote was this: 'And once more for your feeble mind, the central theme in quantum mechanics is the basic inter-relationship and inter-connectedness of ALL things. It is a complete change in how physicists view the world and the old, Cartesian reality has been replaced by a perceived oneness.' This was so wrong that the only appropriate response I can think of is 'No it isn't.' He/she might as well have said: 'The central theme in archaeology is that all toast-racks are green.' " Thanks, I've been ace.
Re: a comment on Why you don't fall through the floor by ?-Dave_Mysterious-?	7-Jul-04/8:38 AM
I prefer a fusion of flashdance with MC Hammer shit
Re: a comment on Why you don't fall through the floor by ?-Dave_Mysterious-?	7-Jul-04/7:37 AM
Maybe you should have. It has never been my custom to write something down without knowing what it meant. How dare you.
Re: Why you don't fall through the floor by ?-Dave_Mysterious-?	7-Jul-04/5:00 AM
The volume of the box is a³. So I understand why: (dV/da) = 3a² So dV = 3a²da. But how do you get dV = d³a ? d³a = d(d(da)), doesn't it?
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	7-Jul-04/1:11 AM
Please give references to the papers or journals from which you've picked up this stupefyingly wrong-headed idea about the "central theme" of quantum theory.
Re: a comment on Translation by Dovina	6-Jul-04/5:54 PM
Opps. My comment was supposed to be a reply to Dovina's.
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	6-Jul-04/5:43 PM
You're wasting your time. There is a class of people on poemeranker who have decided that the only things worth knowing about science can be gleaned from popular science magazines and dubious philosophical manuals. For them, true understanding of the universe comes in spending half an hour reading a jazzed-up, non-technical popular summary of a recent scientific experiment, leaping to whatever wrong-headed conclusion suits their fancy, and writing a poeme about it. The idea of actually really trying to understand the experiment in a technical, mathematical way, is completely preposterous to them. They consider anything beyond the contents of a typical New Scientist article to be minor details, unimportant in comparison to the grand, overarching poetic understanding they've gained from reading the summary. I conjecture this is because they weren't very good at maths or physics in school, and faced with the choice between admitting they're thick or telling themselves that science is BAD, and scientists JUST DON'T GET IT, they make the obvious choice. Thanks.
Re: a comment on Translation by Dovina	6-Jul-04/5:34 PM
Please tell, then, what's the difference in meaning between "Ian (non-platonically) loves Felicity" and "Ian is enamoured of his darling Felicity?" Do they have different falsification conditions?
Re: a comment on Translation by Dovina	6-Jul-04/5:30 PM
To me, Spanish makes everything sound greasy and ignorant. Lesson learned: Spanish doesn't make things sound beautiful, it makes things sound like what you think Spaniards are like.
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	6-Jul-04/3:00 PM
No. Now read the following very, very carefully before continuing to bang on like an escaped nitwit with a saucepan stuck over his head. "Reality", as zodiac said earlier, is simply a word referring to all things that exist. To say that something is real is simply to say it exists, nothing more. To say something is unreal is to say it doesn't exist. Reality is the collection of things that are real -- that is what it means. Do you accept this? I'm sure you're going to think you don't. But shut up for a minute, and read this. You're claiming that if "humanity ceases to exist", i.e. if all humans die, then "so too would reality." Now there are TWO SEPARATE reasons why this is absurd, which if you're going to argue about you're going to have to address separately. 1. If all humans died of poison, the universe would not stop existing. This has been a subject of philosophical argument for centuries, so I'm not going to insist one way or the other. If you want to think the universe would stop existing, great. 2. Reality is a set. It is the set of all things that exist. Now if you know your elementary set theory, you know that no set can contain itself. Therefore reality does not contain itself. Therefore reality is not a "real thing" -- It is not something that you can say "exists". The idea that reality could exist or cease to exist is just wrong-headed. But according to you, "reality would cease to exist". This is trivially a paradox. Actually, the stupidest thing of all is that none of this has anything to do with quantum physics or scientific revolutions. Thanks!
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	6-Jul-04/2:38 PM
P.S. You're an idiot.
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	6-Jul-04/2:21 PM
http://examinedlifejournal.com/thinkaboutit/template.php?number=13
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	6-Jul-04/2:19 PM
Are you some sort of lunatic? To my knowledge, not a single person on this page has disputed the fact that there are significant differences between Quantum mechanics and Newtonian mechanics. Nor have they disputed the fact that Quantum mechanics is a better model of the physical world than Newtonian mechanics. All anyone has said is that although our models of the physical world have changed, the physical world itself hasn't changed. When scientists believed in Newtonian physics, it was still the case that 'reality' behaved in a Quantum-like manner. That hasn't changed. We just didn't know about it. You and zodiac have already both agreed that by 'reality' you actually mean 'our perception of reality'. This entire argument has nothing to do with whether or not anyone has read some popular science books. Its just a stupid dispute over the definition of the word 'reality'.
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	6-Jul-04/1:25 PM
Ahh, but tell me this zodiac: do you make a distinction between an object and its sensible properties? You can see your coffee cup, you can touch it, and if you tap it with your spoon you can hear it ping. Are all these properties what you mean by the word "coffee cup", or do you think the coffee cup is the 'thing itself', something separate from what we might say about the coffee cup?
Re: a comment on Recycled Stardust by Quarton	6-Jul-04/11:25 AM
Are you going to answer the question or just keep repeating the same few catchphrases you've been doing for the whole thread?
Re: Homeless by gavinduff	6-Jul-04/9:47 AM
Great work! I like the way you've cleverly managed to turn an ordinary piece of prose into a poeme simply by adding linebreaks all over the place!