[quote=Fredrick;69578]Pat, are you still confused or did the examples of connecting the dots (theory) and drawing without dots (belief), and having both theory and belief when there are dots with some having lots of space between them, help you understand the difference? In light of your words of 'on and on,' do you mind if I ask you to be honest and direct.
Hi Fredrick;
Your posts are always helpful, though my confusion is constant.
We accountants use data points to help us make predictions. Using the least square method we come up with the straight line ( the intercept and the slope ) which considers all the points. We do not try to connect them. e.g.:
Now we know based upon a certain volume what the costs may be, but this is only an approximation. The actual costs are almost always different, though hopefully close.
Now lets take the data points of the big bang theory.
1) Expanding universe 2) CBR 3) Clumping
These points, point to a beginning of our universe and yet we have some physicist and a number of our members believing in a steady state.
This is why I'm confused between theory and belief.
To me a theory is a theory ( a logical guess ) based upon the evidence, that some people believe and others don't, while others have no opinion.
I completely agree with Fredrick. Science works on logic and proof and leaves out all the nonsense of religion...
Quote:
Originally Posted by insomniac
Howdy Fredrick,
I think you have hit on the very difference in our thinking. To me, the term, "Scientific ToE" is a bonefied oxymoron. Science is a "framework", for sure. It leaves things out. How can that be a theory of everything?
It exemplifies my beef with scientific method in general: there is no such thing as a closed system. Science tries to explain reality by isolating objects and events as if they were all closed systems. This assumption will always lead to incomplete results.
Raised within the scientific framework, it looks good. From the outside, the omissions are obvious. Since scientists rarely pay any attention to the views of those outside the framework, preferring the opinions of their peers, they seldom suspect just how low their credibility is out here in the real world.
Seems to me a theory of everything has to be more than scientific to be valid.
I completely agree with Fredrick. Science works on logic and proof and leaves out all the nonsense of religion...
Exactly my point! It also leaves out all the "nonsense" of anything else that doesn't come in measurable chunks.
The real problem is that the scientific community lacks overall consistency. When something comes along, a theory or fact, that doesn't fit in with the overall paradigm, like quantum mechanics or systems theory or homeopathic medicine or gaia theory or biocommunication, it is assigned a new discipline, given a new language(jargonized) and further developed in relative isolation. So, although the new discovery casts doubt on the old system, that "fact" is effectively concealed. A great debate ensues as the new discovery gets its appropriate spin, hoping that it will satisfy the critics. If that isn't working, they split the discipline again, cutting out the troublemakers.
Hey, i'm not trying to start trouble. I offer this as information that might help you understand what it looks like from the outside. "Science" is under attack on several fronts. Rather than get up tight about it, science should be asking why so many people just don't "get it". Blaming religion and calling 80% of the world stupid won't illuminate the problem. Science has got to look back on itself and clean up its act.
The internet has blown the cover off compartmentalized knowledge. The whole world can see the dirty laundry, while science stays in denial.
Do you know the history of revolution on this planet? Do you know that intellectuals are one of the first targets of mob violence during social upheaval? Why do you think that is? From here i would say that it is a lack of credibility.
...Of course not, but fundamental misconceptions can certainly distort the value of observed facts. Like the nature of those chunks and their relationship with other chunks. Are they really chunks, or energy bundles pretending to be chunks? Makes a big difference how one views related "facts" in the first place.
Is the Universe random or orderly, smart or stupid? Do we live in a "system", or not?
Jim, What fascinates me is that we appear to be saying the same thing, but it looks like you have taken in a position as if there is a position opposite you on the other side (and that I take in that position when I do not). I think that is possibly happening because you have not delved into the pentaist theory of everything in which what you mention is actually captured.
Let's try to leave the discussion on theory & belief and science & religion behind us, because I think that water is muddied enough. Let me then also get rid of the word chunks, because it is just a silly word. With the word, I intended to indicate the four forces without having to spell it all out. But I will here, briefly.
In the pentaist ToE there are 'five' forces, with Electric and Magnetic Forces separated as the transformational pair. This transformational pair of E/M is part of the bottom of the conceptual pyramid of forces, where we also find the grounded pair of Weak and Strong Nuclear Forces. These other two forces do not turn into each other, they are non-transformational. As such, they are therefore always at least to a degree in disagreement with one another. The fifth force, gravity, is and isn't a force. It exists due to the existence of the four forces at the bottom of the pyramid (or if you must insist, you can turn this around and say that the four forces exist due to gravity). Gravity is and isn't the force in top, it actually presides among the other forces; I prefer to call it a phenomenon rather than a force.
In an ordinary example, these positions are likewise placed in a pyramid of positions:
transformational pair: young & old.
grounded pair: male & female.
communal phenomenon: human being.
or
transformational pair: East & West
grounded pair: North & South.
communal phenomenon: direction (spin).
And here are the four forces again:
transformational pair: Electric Force & Magnetic Force
grounded pair: Weak Nuclear Force & Strong Nuclear Force.
communal phenomenon: Gravity.
There is plenty of space to disagree, Jim, because in the pentaist ToE our universe is firstly based on disconnection, and only secondly on the parts attempting to get together. The location I consider a place where we can fully agree is the abstract location (with all its shortcomings), and I use science as the appropriate tool. I can deliver it in a religious format as well, but I have less tools to appropriately convince others, because religion has a lot more freedom at its core than science. As you notice, I do use ordinary examples to communicate in easy ways about what the pentaist ToE is delivering.
Pat, I think we are very close to agreeing with one another. Ultimately, we are talking language, and language is a difficult tool, especially since there is a variety of frameworks that exist within language. To jump from one truth (yours) to another truth (mine), and back again, and noticing it is possible to do so without the destruction of either truth is hopefully the gratifying outcome.
The ABC and the decimal system are already two systems that exist in one language, and can go together well, but do not follow the same set up. Same even for the binary and decimal system; they are different, yet they can actually cover the same ground. Then there is the phenomenon that some words do not follow ordinary structure, such as the word fundamental that does not follow the good-better-best format; something is fundamental or not, and there isn't something that can be more fundamental or less fundamental.
Thanks for your communications; I learn much from you, Pat!
P.S. I provide two chapters plus the mathematical information for free. I also do not hold back, and communicate freely about my ideas and deliveries on ToeQuest. Unless I learn where in particular someone does not see the pentaist ToE, I cannot inform that person in the most appropriate and hopefully quickest way. I have learned much from many at ToeQuest, and I consider the pentaist ToE a confirmation of what many of us are on some level already thinking, and of what others a long time before us were thinking.
__________________ The difference between a structure based on unification and a structure without unification hinges on the question if nothing is just plain nothing or if nothing is mighty fundamental. Read In Search of a Cyclops with titillating mathematical evidence (see homepage) to find out if separation belongs to the fundamental basics of our universe - or not.
Jim, What fascinates me is that we appear to be saying the same thing...
Howdy Fredrick, Yes we agree on many points.
You have said that you have no problem with what science leaves out; i do. Just as you insist on a precise definition for words like faith and belief, i expect a ToE to be capable of explaining what happens outside the context of the reductionist materialist paradigm as well as what happens within it.
Your life experience has obviously reinforced the model of reality that you present. It looks good to you, or you wouldn't put it out there.
I think we are all like that... especially here, where we all think we have an accurate picture of how it all works, based on our individual expertise in some area. But we all speak, at least a slightly, different dialect. In my case, your model is in a foreign language. It doesn't resonate with any of my thought forms, but i respect that it does with yours.
1) How does the basic stuff of everything that appeared operate at its lowest levels, the forces of movement of various stuff. This tells about what is on this side of materialization.
2) Understanding and fiddling with the higher complexities of stuff. Science comes up with a pill that supplements the anti-depressant serotonin receptor, but it is not refined enough, so it hits 5 or 6 more of the serotonin receptors, like those for sleep and sex, and these become side effect to be traded off. Then, someday, maybe, the pill hits just the one receptor for anti-depression. So, things progress.
0) ('0' for uselessness) What happened before materialization, assuming even that there was any, for stuff may have come from somewhere else or who knows.
It is in the area that we can only make guesses, which, of course, are fun, but nothing to go on. No one knows anything about the origin of the universe, as it can't be seen and is totally gone.
Humans being humans, readily make up all kinds of things about the origin, even about the origin of the originating nature, even building a finely detailed structure of layers upon the first non fact of the less than the 'mere' not knowing anything of the origin of the universe.
Psychology can tell about this urge to make something out of nothing.
My latest maker-upper thing based on knowing nothing is that an All-Loving Person wanted us to share in the glory of living and that we should just live life, as is, with no conditions imposed.
Yes, I made it up and could have just as easily said that reincarnation is the maker-upper thing or any number of the already irrational conflicting belief systems in place now, like all is illusion or life is a test or humans are of a special nature and destiny or we are all born evil or [you name it].
All in all, science lets us probe what really is. What other choice is there?
Making things up leads to a flawed 'good' that then identifies the contrary to be labeled as 'evil' and then that has to be enforced and defended and what not, leading to problems.
" No physical theory to date is believed to be precisely accurate. Instead, physics has proceeded by a series of "successive approximations" allowing more and more accurate predictions over a wider and wider range of phenomena. Some physicists believe that it is therefore a mistake to confuse theoretical models with the true nature of reality, and hold that the series of approximations will never terminate in the "truth". Einstein himself expressed this view on occasions.[15] On this view, we may reasonably hope for a theory of everything which self-consistently incorporates all currently known forces, but should not expect it to be the final answer. "
I would thnk with probability theory, quamtum mechanics, and the uncertainty principle, we will never be able to make a 100% accurate prediction.
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