Anything Beyond The Universe? New Theory Changes Our Destiny

[Me.]

"We think our destiny is to journey to Mars and beyond. Yet as we build our spacecraft, we're about to be broadsided - from a different direction - by the most explosive event in history.

Sometime in the future science will be able to create realities that we can't even begin to imagine. As we evolve, we'll be able to construct other information systems that correspond to other realities, universes based on logic completely different from ours and not based on space and time.

Immanuel Kant declared in 1781 that space and time were real, but only indeed as properties of the mind. These algorithms are not only the key to consciousness, but why space and time − indeed the properties of matter itself - are relative to the observer. But a new theory called biocentrism suggests that space and time may not be the only tools that can be used to construct reality. At present, our destiny is to live and die in the everyday world of up and down. But what if, for example, we changed the algorithms so that instead of time being linear, it was 3-dimensional like space? Consciousness would move through the multiverse. We'd be able to walk through time just like we walk through space. And after creeping along for 4 billion years, life would finally figure out how to escape from its corporeal cage. Our destiny would lie in realities that exist outside of the known physical universe.

Even science fiction is struggling with the implications. In "Avatar," human consciousness is infused into blue aliens that inhabit a wondrous world. However, according to biocentrism, replicating human intelligence or consciousness will require the same kind of algorithms for employing time and space that we enjoy. Everything we experience is a whirl of information occurring in our heads. Time is simply the summation of spatial states - much like the frames in a film - occurring inside the mind. It's just our way of making sense of things. There's also a peculiar intangibility to space. We can't pick it up and bring it to the laboratory. Like time, space isn't an external object. It's part of the mental software that molds information into multidimensional objects."...cpnt...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/anything-beyond-the-unive_b_455260.html?view=screen

[wtmusic]

1. Step. Away. From the Bong. nt

[Toucano]

9. LOL! n-t

[Subdivisions]

60. My exact first thought! Dude is buzzed! n/t

[Syntheto]

104. Okkkayy smmarrt guuy...

...yyyyouu owe meee a neww kkeybbbboarrd andddd a cccccupp of cccoofffee...

[Bobbie Jo]

139. *snort*

:rofl:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

169. Never ascribe to weed that which can be better explained by acid. -nt

[Skip Intro]

182. Right. (or shrooms, or peyote, or Hawiian baby woodrose seeds...)

[timeforpeace]

195. Advanced Navel Gazing 501.

[DefenseLawyer]

2. Okay. That means that… our whole solar system…

could be, like… one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being... Could I buy some pot from you?

[nadinbrzezinski]

138. In a very simplistic way that is exactly what

QM and multiverse theories do postulate... you want really strange... STRING theory...

[DefenseLawyer]

156. I never miss an excuse to quote Animal House.

Beyond that I'll leave the discussion to people that are interested in such things.

[Me.]

311. Many Worlds

:evilgrin:

# 2 The Theory: The Many Worlds Theory

“The Crazy Part: The part where you realize that somewhere in some parallel universe you just died while reading this sentence.

What It Says: The Many Worlds Theory rejects The Copenhagen Interpretation’s crazy idea that particles can change their behavior seemingly at will, and replaces it with the much crazier idea that the only reason we think particles are changing their behavior is that we’re only seeing that particle’s action in one universe, rather than the infinite number of universes that actually exist. So an observed particle with two options—say, to pound beers at a Van Halen tribute show or drop E and storm a techno club—actually does both, even though we may only observe the techno club, in some other universe, parallel to our own, that particle is rocking out to “Eruption” instead of rubbing itself ferociously on anything with a body temperature.

So What Does This Do For Me? If you buy into the Many Worlds Theory, the implications are infinite. And let’s be clear about what “infinite” means here. For every action you’ve ever taken, every movement you’ve ever made, even down to the atomic level, there’s a parallel universe out there where you did something else instead. Anything else. Instead of learning guitar, you burst into flames. Instead of opening the fridge, you freebased black tar heroin. Instead of nude rock climbing, you went nude bungee jumping. Instead of reading this article, you worked productively and got a handsome raise. Think about it: in some parallel universe out there, you and your high school sweetheart are making hot, reconciliatory love atop Bob Feeney’s smoldering corpse after you killed a laser-breathing velociraptor with your bare hands. If that thought doesn’t make you feel better about how mundane your actual life is, we don’t know what will.

Wait, It Gets Worse: If you think The Many Worlds Theory is a tad too far fetched an explanation for some electrons behaving weirdly, you’re not alone. In an effort to simplify things, scientists have come up with The Many Minds Theory, which says your brain splits up at the instant you make an observation, and then your many brains observe every possible outcome. Yes, that’s right, an infinite number of parallel brains, existing without universes (let alone skulls) to house them in. Awesome. Much simpler.

Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: A TNT-tipped jackhammer to the eye socket.” Cont…

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/

[Codeine]

3. Drivel. nt

[Fumesucker]

17. Not necessarily

I read "Quantum Enigma, Physics encounters consciousness" by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner recently and it makes much the same point..Quantum events seem to demand an observer in order to collapse superpositions. Quantum entanglement (spooky action at a distance) has now been demonstrated in objects visible to the naked eye.

http://quantumenigma.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Enigma-Physics-Encounters-Consciousness/dp/019517559X

[Me.]

48. The Eye Of The Beholder

[annabanana]

107. +1 here,

As always, the math shall lead the way.

[The Doctor.]

168. Hehehe... what a thoughtful response!

No friend, linear time is based mostly on perception. It is indeed just 'another dimension' within which the cosmological constant operates.

Provided we shed the insecurity and fear that creates oppression, we will one day indeed become masters of time, space, and consciousness.

Then, maybe we'll decide to create the universe that gave us rise.

:evilgrin:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Is "algorithm" the new "paradigm?"

Christ sakes.

[wtmusic]

6. Hmm, there has been a quantum leap in "algorithm" appearances lately nt

[Confusious]

113. Great, I can't hate that word too

I'll never get through my computer science classes. Profs don't like books being throw at them. :)

[TahitiNut]

300. How can anyone think any algorithm even exists?

Did you ever see him dance??? Even Tipper knows it's a myth.

:dunce:

[RushIsRot]

5. Time exists to insure that everything doesn't happen at once.

Space exists so that we'll have someplace to put stuff.

Gimme another hit off that doobie!

ssssssssssssssss sss sss ss ahhhhhhhhhh...

[wtmusic]

7. I'm going to have to go back in time to get a hit off that joint

Pass it on :grr:

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Me.]

19. !

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[omega minimo]

90. See

This is why they do what they do.

[HeresyLives]

10. Considering that many of you claim

that drugs 'expanded your consciousness', I'm guessing that age snapped it shut again.

[Quantess]

26. Well said.

I think it's very interesting to ponder.

[Confusious]

161. Never did the drug thing

But there's also something to be said for not having a mind SO "open" your brains fall out :)

[BrklynLiberal]

11. hmmmmm. That reminds me of ....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085271/plotsummary

Brainstorm (1983)

Brilliant researchers Lillian Reynolds and Michael Brace have developed a system of recording and playing back actual experiences of people. Once the capability of tapping into "higher brain functions" is added in, and you can literally jump into someone else's head and play back recordings of what he or she was thinking, feeling, seeing, etc., at the time of the recording, the applications for the project quickly spiral out of control. While Michael Brace uses the system to become close again to Karen Brace, his estranged wife who also works on the project, others start abusing it for intense sexual experiences and other logical but morally questionable purposes. The government tries to kick Michael and Lillian off the project once the vast military potential of the technology is discovered. It soon becomes obvious that the government is interested in more than just missile guidance systems. The lab starts producing mind torture recordings and other psychosis inducing material. When one of the researchers dies and tapes the experience of death, Michael is convinced that he must playback this tape to honor the memory of the researcher and to become enlightened. When another researcher dies during playback the tape is locked away and Michael has to fight against his former colleagues and the government lackeys that now run his lab in order to play back and confront the "scariest thing any of us will ever face" - death itself.

[asdjrocky]

12. It really surprises me how so many people poo poo this.

I found it interesting. Thanks.

[Codeine]

14. Woo woo begets poo poo. nt

[Name removed]

18. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[omega minimo]

22. And dumbshit begets stinky stupid shit

[Codeine]

27. I blame the moon. nt

[Silent3]

245. Damn that moon!

Didn't the moon get the message when we BOMBED!!! IT?

[trotsky]

261. We didn't bomb it.

We RAPED it.

[asdjrocky]

Sounds like a 5 year old.

[Codeine]

32. I found a simple poetic beauty in it.

Almost Zenlike.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

88. So does the article in the OP.

It's an intellectual rehash of the game of Peekaboo.

If I can't see them then they're not there.

[Uncle Joe]

170. I wonder if the game of Peekaboo has a biological affect on the infant?

When the baby can't see it's parent, is their a stress increase; no matter how minute, and when the parent suddenly appears, the baby inevitably laughs; which in turn produces beneficial endorphins.

Here's an interesting story, the question I have is, could the man have survived for so long because he believed a fallacy to the point of delusional self-hypnosis?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7680294

Haiti man rescued after 27 days in quake rubble

<snip>

"He was malnourished, delirious and dehydrated but had no serious injuries, prompting astonishment at what could be the most remarkable survival story from the earthquake.

Muncie reportedly told doctors that someone "in a white coat" brought him water while he was pinned down, but even after being rescued he appeared to think he was still under rubble and left gaps in his account."

<snip>

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

177. The man's survival had nothing to do with what he was thinking at the time.

[Uncle Joe]

183. He visualized someone bringing him water, do you believe if he had visualizations of panic,

depression or thirst, this would've created an adverse or detrimental biological effect?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

185. Medicine doesn't work that way.

The people who did die weren't thinking about grim reapers, getting stuck in the desert, or getting run over by a steam roller.

[Uncle Joe]

190. How does the placebo work?

Those other people may not have thought about deserts or steam rollers, but they might have focused on death?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

196. It doesn't. That's the point. Placebos don't work.

People don't want to tell the nice man in the white coat that his pill didn't work, so they lie about it.

[Uncle Joe]

201. That seems to defy logic, if a person is in pain why would they lie to their doctor about

the medication he/she was giving them?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

203. Because they don't want to hurt his feelings.

Because of expectancy bias. Because of classical conditioning.

It makes a lot more sense than a sugar pill having an actual physical effect.

[Uncle Joe]

262. It's not the sugar pill having an actual physical effect, the point being it's the belief.

Whether the belief is based in the doctor or the pill.

The question is how strong can the belief be and how much of a physical difference can it make?

In the case of the man rescued in Haiti, I believe it was the only thing that sustained him.

[FourScore]

243. Yes, I do.

Good questions, Uncle Joe.

[Me.]

247. I Second That

[The Doctor.]

173. Well, if that 5 year-old is a brilliant physicist, then I agree.

The suggestions in the article have a basis in physics.

Or are you saying that Michio Kaku is basically a '5 year-old'?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

178. There's nothing brilliant about this article, or the idea. There isn't any physics either.

"The suggestions in the article have a basis in physics."

No they don't. The guy's just prattling off some terms from physics in the hopes that people who don't know any better will think it's smart.

"Or are you saying that Michio Kaku is basically a '5 year-old'?"

I'm saying Kaku's prone to some pretty stupid woo, but what that's got to do with the OP I haven't the foggiest.

[The Doctor.]

189. I agree, you haven't the foggiest.

This Lanza character may have put together some messy prose, but there's nothing terribly 'wrong' with his meanderings.

So a guy who's not a physicist wants to put some ideas out that happen to correspond with what some physicists are working on. Big deal. Take it at face value.

Ooooorrrrrr..... you could qualify your contention by pointing out what you believe is WRONG with what he said, then explaining WHY it is wrong.


But folks that rain derision seldom supply sunlight. You won't make good.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

194. lol wut?

" 1. What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. An "external" reality, if it existed, would by definition have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities but rather tools of the human and animal mind."

Time and space are absolute are not influenced by consciousness. A meter is a meter and a second is a second whether I'm sober, drunk, asleep, in a coma, or dead. If he's refering to relativity, that's also objective, and isn't influenced by consciousness whatsoever.

From David Lindley's debunking of biocentrism: ""First, he claims that Einstein made space and time observer-dependent and thus subjective, so that there's no such thing as space and time except insofar as we perceive them. I don't agree. It's true that Einstein got rid of the old Newtonian absolutes, and showed that measurements of space and time are not the same for all observers. But – and this is crucially important – he constructed a new system of spacetime that shows how such differing measurements can be reconciled. That is, relativity retains an objective physical framework called spacetime, with a specific geometrical structure, but it allows observers to map out spacetime in different ways.

"A simple analogy is to the designation of latitude and longitude on the Earth. It's obviously arbitrary that the zero line of longitude is at Greenwich, and if you were perverse you could put your "pole" of latitude — 90 degrees north — in the middle of Kansas. Your newly defined latitude and longitude would have a very messy relationship to the position of the sun in the sky, for example. But it would still be a usable system. The fact that you can draw up latitude and longitude in an infinite number of different ways doesn't lead you to say that the surface of the Earth is a figment of your imagination, which seems to be Lanza's take on space and time."

" 2. Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be divorced from one another."

Well now that really doesn't have anything to do with physics or anything else. It's like saying the knee bone's connected to the leg bone, the leg bone's connected to the hip bone...

" 3. The behavior of subatomic particles, indeed all particles and objects, is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves."

No it's not. Subatomic particles behave just fine whether there's an observer around or not.

" 4. Without consciousness, "matter" dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state."

This is in contradiction #3. Matter dwells in an undetermined state of probability whether people are conscious of it or not, as he was trying to poorly explain in argument 3.

" 5. The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The "universe" is simply the complete spatio-temporal logic of the self."

The structure of the universe was around and doing just fine a long time before life came along, it'll do just fine after it's gone. This is fucking Creationism, for crying out loud.

" 6. Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe."

Planets still revolve. Winds still blow. Pulsars still pulse. All require time, none require animal-sense. This is post hoc ergo propter hoc, is it not? Humans are animals. Animals sense time. Therefore, time requires animal sense.

" 7. Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus, there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life."

Again, #5. There are no shortages of absolute self-existing matrices in which physical events occur independent of life. This is "if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound" territory.

[The Doctor.]

204. Oi....

"
Time and space are absolute are not influenced by consciousness."

He didn't say that consciousness 'controls time and space'.


"Well now that really doesn't have anything to do with physics or anything else. It's like saying the knee bone's connected to the leg bone, the leg bone's connected to the hip bone"

So you agree with him. Fine. 'Without consciousness, there is no reality' may seem simple, but it's true nonetheless.

"No it's not. Subatomic particles behave just fine whether there's an observer around or not. "

Really?

In a study reported in the February 26 issue of Nature (Vol. 391, pp. 871-874), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now conducted a highly controlled experiment demonstrating how a beam of electrons is affected by the act of being observed. The experiment revealed that the greater the amount of "watching," the greater the observer's influence on what actually takes place.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm

Notsomuch.


"This is in contradiction #3. Matter dwells in an undetermined state of probability whether people are conscious of it or not, as he was trying to poorly explain in argument 3."

That one misses a really big point. You have to be conscious to interpret the collapse of a quantum state. You are conscious, I presume, while I am writing this. For you it is not written, for me it is. Your being unaware of my writing this as I do puts it in two states; written and unwritten... at the same time. Your consciousness will be required to realize it, only then will it attain the state of 'written'.


"The structure of the universe was around and doing just fine a long time before life came along, it'll do just fine after it's gone. This is fucking Creationism, for crying out loud."

Okay, now you're starting to lose your grip. I may not agree with his summary, or I may just see it as a bit fanciful, but however the hell you come up with 'man observing the universe gives it structure'='Creationism' (which is about 'gawd' creating it in 7 days) is a bit ludicrous.

"Planets still revolve. Winds still blow. Pulsars still pulse. All require time, none require animal-sense. This is post hoc ergo propter hoc, is it not? Humans are animals. Animals sense time. Therefore, time requires animal sense."

I'm glad your animal senses are working to tell you that 'Planets still revolve. Winds still blow. Pulsars still pulse.'.

Hope that's not over your head.

We chart time as a dimension. Are you saying that time is not a dimension?

"Again, #5. There are no shortages of absolute self-existing matrices in which physical events occur independent of life. This is "if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound" territory."

Sure, it's a bit existential, but again he is just clumsily visiting quantum theory.


I'm not saying he's a brilliant physicist, but he's not totally off-base either. You haven't proven otherwise.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

206. Pff.

"He didn't say that consciousness 'controls time and space'."

The guy's claiming that consciousness fucking begets time and space.

"'No it's not. Subatomic particles behave just fine whether there's an observer around or not.'

Really?"

There are subatomic articles behaving just fine on the sun, over in France, in your chair, and... don't look now... but you've got some stuck between your teeth.

"In a study reported in the February 26 issue of Nature (Vol. 391, pp. 871-874), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now conducted a highly controlled experiment demonstrating how a beam of electrons is affected by the act of being observed. The experiment revealed that the greater the amount of "watching," the greater the observer's influence on what actually takes place."

That's not actually saying what you think it's saying, and it's got nothing to do with biocentrism. In fact, it's got nothing to do with consciousness at all; you should be able to have picked that up if you'd finished reading the article. It's not some conscious observer that alters the beam of electrons, but an actual physical interference. It even says the "observer" isn't a conscious person. The Heisenberg principle doesn't say that consciousness causes uncertainty, but the actual physical act of measuring does. According to the Copenhagen interpretation. Again, nothing to do with biocentrism.

"That one misses a really big point. You have to be conscious to interpret the collapse of a quantum state. You are conscious, I presume, while I am writing this. For you it is not written, for me it is. Your being unaware of my writing this as I do puts it in two states; written and unwritten... at the same time. Your consciousness will be required to realize it, only then will it attain the state of 'written'."

Waves collapse or don't collapse wheter they're being observed or not. You and your writing, being large and macroscopic, are subject to classical physics, not quantum physics, so HUP doesn't apply whatsoever. You writing that is independent of me being conscious. I could have taken a nap for all you know. You either wrote that or you didn't.

And if you think that's an application of the HUP, as way of Schrodinger's metaphor, then you understand nothing about either.


"Okay, now you're starting to lose your grip. I may not agree with his summary, or I may just see it as a bit fanciful, but however the hell you come up with 'man observing the universe gives it structure'='Creationism' (which is about 'gawd' creating it in 7 days) is a bit ludicrous."

No, this is where Biocentrism loses it's grip. This is why biocentrism is woo woo, not physics.

The universe was around before man could observe it. Man observing it does not give the universe structure. The universe has always had structure, therefore, according to biocentrism, man has been around since the beginning. Creationism.

"I'm glad your animal senses are working to tell you that 'Planets still revolve. Winds still blow. Pulsars still pulse.'"

Do these things stop when you don't notice them? No. It's got nothing to do with animal senses. The wind still blows even if you go inside. The moon still exist even if you shut your eyes and don't look at it. The earth is still round even if you don't fall off. The Holocaust still happened even if David Irving wasn't around to witness it.

"Sure, it's a bit existential, but again he is just clumsily visiting quantum theory."

This isn't quantum theory at all.

[The Doctor.]

211. Look, I proved you dead wrong. "pff" all you want.

You said;

"No it's not. Subatomic particles behave just fine whether there's an observer around or not. "

In a study reported in the February 26 issue of Nature (Vol. 391, pp. 871-874), researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now conducted a highly controlled experiment demonstrating how a beam of electrons is affected by the act of being observed. The experiment revealed that the greater the amount of "watching," the greater the observer's influence on what actually takes place.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm

It's very difficult to take the opinions of someone not aware of decade-old findings seriously.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

220. The only think you've proved is that you don't know what you're talking about.

You've proved you can't even read that article to completion and understand it, let alone the original research article.

"To demonstrate this, Weizmann Institute researchers built a tiny device measuring less than one micron in size, which had a barrier with two openings. They then sent a current of electrons towards the barrier. The "observer" in this experiment wasn't human."

"It's very difficult to take the opinions of someone not aware of decade-old findings seriously

The only thing this paper is demonstrating is the correctness of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The act of measuring a particle's momentum will increase uncertainty in its position, and vice a versa. That's got nothing to do with Biocentrism, and if you claimed that, the authors of this paper would call you a liar.

[The Doctor.]

225. I've proved plenty of 'think'.

And I never claimed 'biocentrism' was any kind of science.

All I said was that the author had some basis in QM for his writing.


And you are proving a severe lack of reading comprehension on your part;

From the same article;

Strange as it may sound, interference can only occur when no one is watching. Once an observer begins to watch the particles going through the openings, the picture changes dramatically: if a particle can be seen going through one opening, then it's clear it didn't go through another. In other words, when under observation, electrons are being "forced" to behave like particles and not like waves. Thus the mere act of observation affects the experimental findings.
To demonstrate this, Weizmann Institute researchers built a tiny device measuring less than one micron in size, which had a barrier with two openings. They then sent a current of electrons towards the barrier. The "observer" in this experiment wasn't human. Institute scientists used for this purpose a tiny but sophisticated electronic detector that can spot passing electrons. The quantum "observer's" capacity to detect electrons could be altered by changing its electrical conductivity, or the strength of the current passing through it.

Apart from "observing," or detecting, the electrons, the detector had no effect on the current. Yet the scientists found that the very presence of the detector-"observer" near one of the openings caused changes in the interference pattern of the electron waves passing through the openings of the barrier. In fact, this effect was dependent on the "amount" of the observation: when the "observer's" capacity to detect electrons increased, in other words, when the level of the observation went up, the interference weakened; in contrast, when its capacity to detect electrons was reduced, in other words, when the observation slackened, the interference increased.

Thus, by controlling the properties of the quantum observer the scientists managed to control the extent of its influence on the electrons' behavior.

Ignoring what's right in front of them is something the Climate Change deniers do.
They also comment on articles without including the full context.

Kind of like what you did.

You're done here. Unless you want to keep making stuff up?

That's fine too.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

229. You argued that there was some sort of scientific validity to biocentrism.

There is none.

"All I said was that the author had some basis in QM for his writing. "

That's fine except for the fact that it's wrong. There's nothing in QM that supports his claims.

"Thus the mere act of observation affects the experimental findings."

This beam of electrons, The Doctor, was measured not by a conscious observer but by a double-path interferometer. The act of measuring this beam of electrons interfered with it, so by determining one of the operators to some degree of the system, the experiment creates uncertainty in the other operator.

"Ignoring what's right in front of them is something the Climate Change deniers do.
They also comment on articles without including the full context.

Kind of like what you did.

You're done here. Unless you want to keep making stuff up?

That's fine too."

I'm not ignoring it, The Doctor, I'm agree with it. This is exactly what you'd expect from the HUP. It's a fine experiment. The issue is, it's got nothing to do with supporting biocentrism.

I mean, let's that Michio Kaku proposed his Theory of Kaku's Special Circularity. This theory says that Michio Kaku's favorite geometric shape is the circle. And because Michio Kaku makes his own reality, that's why bubbles are round, and marbles are round, and the earth is round, and the sun is round, and eggs are mostly round, and crepes are round, rice krispie squares round but he doesn't like rice krispie squares anyway, and armadillos are round when they're rolled up.

I say: "That's a load of loony bullyshit. It's not a scientific theory. It's not even good philosophy."

You say: "Well, I don't know, I think it's interesting. It's got a foundation in real science."

I say: "The shit it does."

You say: "Oh yeah? Well in 1776 Magellan sailed around the world and proved once and for all that the world is round."

I say: "First of all, you're really fucking that up, but Magellan sailing around the world is not the issue, and that's got nothing to do with Michio Kaku's Theory of Kaku's Special Circularity."

You say: "Well nuh uh! You're ignant! You don't understand! Why do you think the world's flat?!"

[The Doctor.]

278. No, I didn't. That would be you simply making shit up.

I said that what he wrote has some basis in QM. I honestly don't know enough about 'biocentrism' to have much of an opinion on it... but it seems a bit fanciful.

That, and you're still trying to outsmart simple English. Hint; read what the words say, not what you want them to mean.

Please, go erect your strawmen elsewhere.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

279. Right. Same thing.

[wtmusic]

208. To consider biocentrism as anything besides a semantic clusterfuck

doesn't do it justice.

Biocentrism cannot predict one goddamn thing, therefore it's not science. It's not quantum theory, it's not physics. It's mindless rambling.

[The Doctor.]

210. I don't subscribe to biocentrism.

What I did is explain how what he is saying does indeed have a basis in quantum physics.

Scoff away if you must, but it's laid out.

[wtmusic]

218. Are you referring to quantum mechanics?

"Quantum physics" is a term that isn't used in the scientific community, so feel free to play J.R.R. Tolkien and make up a lexicon for your imaginary world. When used to descibe phenomena in this world, however, that term as well as the author's version of "algorithm" are useless. Again - a semantic clusterfuck.

"Quantum mechanics is essential to understand the behavior of systems at atomic length scales and smaller. For example, if classical mechanics governed the workings of an atom, electrons would rapidly travel towards and collide with the nucleus, making stable atoms impossible. However, in the natural world the electrons normally remain in an uncertain, non-deterministic "smeared" (wave-particle wave function) orbital path around or "through" the nucleus, defying classical electromagnetism."

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

"At atomic length scales and smaller." Finding an analog between human perception and the behavior of elementary particles is about as useful as comparing a planet's orbit to the shape of an onion ring. Utterly, completely, wholly, entirely devoid of value.

[Duppers]

233. are you a physicist?

nt

[The Doctor.]

270. As much as anyone else here... apparently.

I know I solved the anti-gravitational aspect of the cosmological constant in a platonic model I designed to explain how gravity works to some students.

Five years later, the scientific community realized the function of 'antigravity'.


I said, 'Hey, that was in that mental exercise I designed... cool.'.


That doesn't make me a physicist, but it was a pretty fun model. The people who run the model and then superimpose it upon themselves don't quite feel gravity the same way they used to.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

271. LOL. Have you got a cure for cancer and AIDS?

All three?

That reminds me of the time I tried to fixed my toaster and ended up solving Pascal's Theorem. Unfortunately Michael Flately had already solved it a few months earlier so I threw away the napkins that I had written it on.

[The Doctor.]

277. Wow. Must suck to be the #1 repository of ridicule.

Seriously. I made no such Earth-shattering claim.

You remind me of this guy;



But I hear tick-saliva holds promise.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

280. I solved the anti-gravity aspect of the cosmological constant!

And I was just demonstrating gravity to a student! I swear, occifer!

:rofl:

[The Doctor.]

282. Wow... that's all you've got, huh?

Derision, ridicule, ignorance.

It's in the model. It's a nifty linear function of the cosmological/Hubble constant. I wasn't trying to 'solve' anything, it was simply there. 'Solved' isn't the right word I guess. So what? I make no claim to genius, but it's becoming ever more apparent which one of us lacks understanding.

It's always the ones that resort to mindless derision. Meanwhile, that you find it necessary to stalk me all over the thread is, well... kind of sad. I might suggest a real hobby.


Besides... I only ever use the; "Time x Space = "Dark Matter... I swear occifer" excuse.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

283. Post it.

[The Doctor.]

284. Your derision is mindless. Your request is denied.

I've posted it on DU somewhere, I think.

If yours was an earnest request, rather than just another step in your obnoxious dance, then I would.

Maybe I will sometime, but not for a derisive fool who wouldn't engage in the exercise.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

285. Nevermind, I found it on another site.

www.timecube.com

[The Doctor.]

317. Ohhh....

Fail.

You don't know why, do you.

[Confusious]

288. self delete...eom

[The Doctor.]

318. Shame that.... it might have been otherwise enlightening... I'm sure.

eom.

[Me.]

263. Is Human Observation The Only Viable One In The Universe?

[The Doctor.]

269. Not in my opinion.

I believe 'observation' has as much a basis in 'effect' as it does in 'conscious interpretation'.

I believe that even rocks have a form of 'consciousness'... even if that consciousness is comprised simply and entirely of the mere alterations in its existence.

While a rock is not 'aware' of its slow corrosion over millenia, its corrosion is an 'observation' of the effects of the elements in and of itself.

I simply believe that consciousness goes both in a more sentient direction (than as exists in humans), and a less sentient direction. Both terminals being at the nth end of the spectrum.

[Me.]

281. Much Appreciated Response

[immoderate]

298. Rocks could be gods.

If they were, they would certainly have the discipline to not give themselves away. In fact, that they able to do this proves that it's true.

--imm

[The Doctor.]

319. If your hypothesis were earnest...

Then that 'they able' would never "prove" anything.

They'd have you figured right out... by not figuring out a damn thing.

- The Doctor.

[immoderate]

325. The typo was earnest...

The hypothesis was clever satire, except that rocks could be gods. I mean, you can't prove they're not.

--imm

[omega minimo]

305. The Universe is permeated with Consciousness

[Silent3]

308. The space between your ears shows precious little sign of consciousness...

...so let's not extrapolate too much about the rest of mostly empty space.

[The Doctor.]

320. How funny it is that so many like you can only resort to ignorance and derision.

You can't explain your position on her consciousness.

You can't even actually define it.

She is quite beyond you.

Thanks for playing.

Good night.

[Silent3]

330. I'll admit to the derision. Sure, it was a cheap shot.

Derision of ignorance is more like it, however.

She's "beyond" me? Beyond help, yes. Beyond being reasoned with, yes. This is a woman who characterized the tiny, tiny impact of a lunar probe, the merest hint of a flea bite compared to collisions the moon receives many times over all of the time, as OMG!!11!!! RAPING TEH MOON!!11!!!! (The typography there is emotively interpretive, not a literal quotation.) This is a woman whose sympathies lie with those who think they're in psychic contact with aliens living on the moon or worried that the minuscule impact of a lunar probe could shatter the moon and destroy the tides and then wreck the ecology of the earth -- yet while sympathetic to crap like that, she's quite corrosively derisive herself of anyone who would dare point out the absurdity of such ideas.

Every once in a while I'll bother trying to engage in a serious discussion of something like consciousness with someone like that, but hardly each and every time. Sometimes a random pot shot is all I feel like, and all it's worth.

[The Doctor.]

336. Well, in this case, we'll define 'beyond'

- as 'open to a greater range of possibilities'.

I'm not going to argue that there are quite a few people who will believe that which is 'beyond' reason or evidence. She and I have certainly not always agreed either.

My problem with some of the folks in this thread is not that they disagree, but that they dismiss what is in the OP utterly out of derision and totally out of hand.

When someone says that '10 gallons of nerve gas 12 miles off the coast of NY City could "kill millions" with the right breeze, I know exactly what I'm dealing with. When I take someone like that apart... which I did, I explain how the properties of nerve gas, the lethal dosage levels, and the dozen or so other factors make that impossible.

*Issue settled*

You see, it's entirely empirical to believe that if nothing can be pointed out what is wrong with an idea, it logically follows that it would be irrational to believe it is wrong. Conversely; if nothing can be proven 'right' about an idea, then it is equally illogical to believe it is 'right'.

In this case, I see a couple of things that are not clearly wrong about the OP, and a couple of things that do have some marginal basis in QM.

Does this mean I necessarily 'agree' with the OP?

No.

What it means is that there isn't a strong enough cause for derision.


Now, perhaps you'll notice that not one single post on this monstrous thread specifically identifies a flaw in the OP and provides some kind of evidence to the contrary. It's all vague contention over the nature of the OP, and not really the substance.

That should tell you something. Not even the supposed 'Physics Expert son of a DUer' managed to say anything more than 'it's just too wrong to point out anything wrong'. A true academic doesn't 'authoritatively' dismiss something as wrong without having an empirical basis for doing so.

Now, it's possible someone did finally get around to doing so, but I haven't seen it yet.


Even in your example, you at least were able to point out that the moon is hammered by crap all the time. You could lend some substantial perspective that made the concern seem well overblown.

In this case, I see a whole bunch of people that would rather smugly dismiss something without demonstrating either an understanding of the OP, or how it is wrong.

I find it goofy and fanciful, but I haven't the facts to prove it wrong.

In fact, I may be the only one who posted anything that is substantively related to the OP;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7682195&mesg_id=7689322


I don't entirely disagree with you, but I just don't have a great deal of patience for people who dismiss things out of hand or without understanding. That's how we have an entire Climate Change denialist movement.

It is as intellectually irresponsible to dismiss something out of hand as it is to believe something without reason.

That sound rational enough?

[Silent3]

337. Being "open to a greater range of possibilities" isn't such a great thing when...

...you've got no bullshit filter to sift through all of those possibilities.

A much abused Einstein quotation says that "imagination is more important than knowledge". The abuse comes from not looking at that quote in the context of Einstein's life: he had plenty of knowledge too, and he knew imagination was just the first step in good science, that a lot of hard work and a willingness to prove the ideas that start with imagination have to follow.

My snarky comment to which you responded was about the idea "consciousness is everywhere" (not directly about the OP). Well, what the hell does "consciousness is everywhere" even mean? Would you put the burden on me to first disprove that kind of utterance before I'm justified at laughing at it?

While consciousness itself might be difficult to define, one can at least come up with an rough operational definitional definition of how we recognize conscious activity. No good, working definition of consciousness fits anything that a boulder or a patch of near vaccuum half way between here and Neptune is known to be doing.

Perhaps you can imagine "different forms of consciousness", but you can also imagine invisible pink unicorns. It's ass backwards to give such imaginings any serious credence first until the boulder or that near-empty patch of space first does something interesting to warrant modifying one's definition of consciousness.

I have to get going soon and can't comment to much on the OP right now, but much the same approach I applied above applies to the OP. It starts with a questionable, not well-founded and sensationalist extrapolation of the role of the "observer" in quantum mechanics, and then, not led by data or evidence or anything other than wild speculation, proceeds to spin fantasies that provide only the grist for wishful thinking, no possible solutions to currently unanswered puzzles about either consciousness or quantum mechanics, and no possibility of falsification.

[The Doctor.]

341. It's hard to take someone seriously....

When they don't attempt to understand what they've been told.

Good Night.

[Silent3]

343. Oh? And what have I supposedly been told?

It's hard to take someone seriously when they say something like you just said, but can't be bothered with even the slightest detail, even a vague categorization, about what's supposedly being missed.

[The Doctor.]

344. Everything I posted, directly to you.

You ignored it. Entirely.

I don't tolerate ignorance.

Try again. Here's the post. It included actual questions for you to answer. Read it, and if you can, demonstrate an understanding. If you can't, then I'll know your worth to a certainty.

I'm not going to argue that there are quite a few people who will believe that which is 'beyond' reason or evidence. She and I have certainly not always agreed either.

My problem with some of the folks in this thread is not that they disagree, but that they dismiss what is in the OP utterly out of derision and totally out of hand.

When someone says that '10 gallons of nerve gas 12 miles off the coast of NY City could "kill millions" with the right breeze, I know exactly what I'm dealing with. When I take someone like that apart... which I did, I explain how the properties of nerve gas, the lethal dosage levels, and the dozen or so other factors make that impossible.

*Issue settled*

You see, it's entirely empirical to believe that if nothing can be pointed out what is wrong with an idea, it logically follows that it would be irrational to believe it is wrong. Conversely; if nothing can be proven 'right' about an idea, then it is equally illogical to believe it is 'right'.

In this case, I see a couple of things that are not clearly wrong about the OP, and a couple of things that do have some marginal basis in QM.

Does this mean I necessarily 'agree' with the OP?

No.

What it means is that there isn't a strong enough cause for derision.


Now, perhaps you'll notice that not one single post on this monstrous thread specifically identifies a flaw in the OP and provides some kind of evidence to the contrary. It's all vague contention over the nature of the OP, and not really the substance.

That should tell you something. Not even the supposed 'Physics Expert son of a DUer' managed to say anything more than 'it's just too wrong to point out anything wrong'. A true academic doesn't 'authoritatively' dismiss something as wrong without having an empirical basis for doing so.

Now, it's possible someone did finally get around to doing so, but I haven't seen it yet.


Even in your example, you at least were able to point out that the moon is hammered by crap all the time. You could lend some substantial perspective that made the concern seem well overblown.

In this case, I see a whole bunch of people that would rather smugly dismiss something without demonstrating either an understanding of the OP, or how it is wrong.

I find it goofy and fanciful, but I haven't the facts to prove it wrong.

In fact, I may be the only one who posted anything that is substantively related to the OP;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


I don't entirely disagree with you, but I just don't have a great deal of patience for people who dismiss things out of hand or without understanding. That's how we have an entire Climate Change denialist movement.

It is as intellectually irresponsible to dismiss something out of hand as it is to believe something without reason.

That sound rational enough?

Please... if you can't address this directly, just don't respond at all.

[Silent3]

346. I read every bit of that.

So what? I didn't dismiss the OP "out of hand... without reason". I gave you my reasons, albeit in short form (since I was concentrating more on the "consciousness is everywhere" things) why the biocentrism "theory" (it's not really worthy of being called a theory) is crap. Oh, I suppose it's possible, in the same way invisible pink unicorns are possible, but that's not saying much for it.

Just how much of the obfuscating pseudoscientific wankery and abused technical vocabulary of the OP am I supposed to analyze, deconstruct, and painstakingly refute point by point before I've demonstrated to your illustrious satisfaction (Oohhh! "I don't tolerate ignorance." Big tough man! Now if that doesn't sound full of yourself, I don't know what does!) that I'm not merely dismissing it "out of hand"?

1) While one may philosophically speculate on the role of the "observer" in QM as having something to do with consciousness, not one shred of scientific data validates that speculation. The equations of QM, weird though they seem, give incredibly accurate and consistent results, and that's all that's been scientifically proven about QM. You do the experiments, you take your measurements, the measurements match up with the mathematically predicted results.

2) "Immanuel Kant declared in 1781 that space and time were real, but only indeed as properties of the mind." Funny, I must have missed the chapters in my physics texts that covered the experimental verification of Kant.

3) "But what if, for example, we changed the algorithms so that instead of time being linear, it was 3-dimensional like space?" Yeah, and what if monkeys could fly out of my ass? The one dimension of time is pretty fundamental to relativity. The constancy of interval ("interval", in Special Relativity, is the one thing that's a constant between events even though time, temporal order, and distance can vary for different observers) is calculated as the square root of the sums of the squares of three spacial dimensions MINUS ONE, and JUST ONE, time dimension. The math wouldn't work out consistently with known observations otherwise.

4) Thermodynamics clearly demonstrates an "arrow of time" in the form of ever-increasing entropy. Everything scientifically known about human minds and brains is consistent with thermodynamic principles, providing no reasonable opening apart from fanciful imagination for conscious processes to suddenly be able to wander whimsically to and fro through spacetime in violation of thermodynamic principles.

5) How much more do you want before it's okay to openly laugh off this crap?

[The Doctor.]

349. You have absolutely failed...

to acknowledge what you've been given.

I was fair enough with you to do so even after I'd suggested you were being unfair. You did admit that you were being deliberately derisive.

I mistakenly took that as a sign of sophistication.

I'm not dismissing your immediate post, but I am refusing to approach it until you display the bare courtesy of addressing what I've said previously.

If you are an honest interlocutor, then you will deliberate upon my previous post and comment on it. Not to do so leaves everything you've since posted as meaningless and trite effluvium.

So... what are you?

[Silent3]

350. What I am is honestly not seeing what you think is so important...

...about what you wrote that's been missed by me. I'll go back to that big block-quoted post and try to take it a part a piece at a time, but what really frustrates me (talk about courtesy) is that I bet if I still somehow miss what you think I'm missing, you'll just haughtily puff in anger about me "refusing" to acknowledge or answer something, but still not point it out or try rephrasing it. (I'm sorry -- reposting a long post and leaving it as an "exercise to the reader" to figure out what you think is unanswered in all of that long post is not really pointing anything out at all.)

She and I have certainly not always agreed either.

OK, you and that particular poster don't always agree. Acknowledged. Check. Anything more I need to do here than acknowledge that?

My problem with some of the folks in this thread is not that they disagree, but that they dismiss what is in the OP utterly out of derision and totally out of hand.

I personally think the OP does deserve to be dismissed derisively out of hand, but I've also provided good reasons after having a good laugh at it. Is retroactive providing of reasons to dismiss it not good enough for you? Are the reasons I've provided myself not good enough for you?

When someone says that '10 gallons of nerve gas 12 miles off the coast of NY City...

Other than acknowledging that, yes, gosh golly, you're are sometimes capable of expressing skepticism too, and that you live up to your own lofty standards of doing what you think is a proper job in the proper way of dismissing nonsense, anything more here you're waiting for me to acknowledge?

You see, it's entirely empirical to believe that if nothing can be pointed out what is wrong with an idea, it logically follows that it would be irrational to believe it is wrong. Conversely; if nothing can be proven 'right' about an idea, then it is equally illogical to believe it is 'right'.

"You can't prove me wrong!" is pretty weak sauce. I hope you know that. There are countless ideas that can't be proven wrong, just like my favorite example of invisible pink unicorns, which you most definitely can't prove don't exist. One can point out that invisible pink unicorns can't be falsified, however, and that's certainly something which is wrong with the idea when it comes to having enough merit to be taken seriously.

I see the same problem with the OP. Do you disagree that lack of falsifiability is a problem with the OP? Do you disagree that lack of falsifiability is a serious problem in general?

I'm quite willing to take the "risk" of being wrong one out of 1000 times by laughing at something that seems laughable to me now, when perhaps someday someone somehow will surprise me by proving me wrong, rather than take a mountain of bullshit seriously the other 999 times just to show the world how "open minded" I am.

In this case, I see a couple of things that are not clearly wrong about the OP, and a couple of things that do have some marginal basis in QM.

In my opinion then you're being way too generous here. "George Washington, first President of the United States, was an alien lizard man." How much does being right about George Washington being the first President help the lizard man point? "Gone with the Wind" contains a lot of factually correct historical information about the Civil War, but that doesn't mean I have to seriously consider that it's a true story.

You seem to be settling for exactly the kind of criteria that hucksters and cranks thrive on: toss in a bit of the truth in your word salad and hope its veracity wears off on the rest of the crap you're trying to sell.

Does this mean I necessarily 'agree' with the OP? / No.

Acknowledged.

What it means is that there isn't a strong enough cause for derision.

I clearly disagree, and I think I've also provided more than enough reason for being derisive already. If it floats your boat to be more "open minded", however, more power to ya, I guess, but I'm not going to agree you with faulting me for not being so lax.

Now, perhaps you'll notice that not one single post on this monstrous thread specifically identifies a flaw in the OP and provides some kind of evidence to the contrary.

I think I've pointed out sufficient flaws in the OP, and expecting "evidence to the contrary" is putting the burden of proof on the wrong people, just like I have no right to demand that you take invisible pink unicorns seriously until you provide evidence that they don't exist.

That should tell you something. Not even the supposed 'Physics Expert son of a DUer' managed to say anything more than 'it's just too wrong to point out anything wrong'.

What that tells me is that he's clearly demonstrated himself to be much smarter than I am by not wasting as much of his time on this bullshit.

A true academic doesn't 'authoritatively' dismiss something as wrong without having an empirical basis for doing so.

A "true academic" knows who the burden of proof properly belongs to, and certainly will dismiss something as wrong, or at least as laughable unlikely of being right, when the burden of proof belongs to someone else, that someone else hasn't met that burden of proof, and the claims or conjectures being set forth sound like someone needs to say, to paraphrase a few other posters in this thread, "Hey, dude! Put down that bong!"

Now, it's possible someone did finally get around to doing so, but I haven't seen it yet.

It has been done, and this time I'll play the same game you've played with me a few times, leaving it as an "exercise to the reader" for you to find out where this has happened.

Looking over the rest of the post that I've been taking apart above, I don't see anything left to comment on that wouldn't simply be reashing more of what's already been said.

If by doing so I've missed the The Really Important Thing that demands being addressed, please, do me the courtesy of spelling it out for me this time, maybe even rephrasing it, since I'm obviously too dim-witted and slow to grasp it's earth-shaking pivotal significance.

[The Doctor.]

351. You talk about 'burden of proof' and then expect *Me* to find yours?

That's not how it works, and you should damn well know it.

That's a cheap tactic every Climate denier uses; "It's been proven in this thread/site... go look.".

Nuh-uh, not playing that game. It's highly disingenuous of you to even attempt such a ploy. If there's been a round debunking that you are aware of, then you know where it is and can produce it. I'm not going to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for something that may or may not be there.

Dismissing an idea as 'nonsense' without making any attempt to explore its validity or failings is ignorant. Period. I understand that you believe academics are principally judges of what concepts or ideas are worthy of consideration, rather than investigators of viability.

We disagree. Fine.

I imagine that when the first handful of scientists said, 'Hey guys... suppose the extra CO2 we're putting in the atmosphere is causing greater heat retention?', we would not have nearly the data we do now had they been roundly ridiculed.

But here, on a site where many have little or no understanding of physics, to see so many resort directly to derision without giving substantial cause is to see a grand display of ignorance.

Now, where has the OP been substantively dismantled?

[Silent3]

352. So, not one thing I said about relativity, thermodynamics...

...and the lack of any experimental proof of a connection between consciousness (when people aren't conveniently blurring the line between "observation" and "consciousness") and QM constitutes "substantively dismantled" to you?

Are you waiting for a citation from a peer-reviewed journal disproving biocentrism, and nothing else will do?

You keep making an analogy with climate science, but the climate scientists have their act together much, much, MUCH better than the OP, so your analogy sucks. The evidence of human-caused global warming is enormous. The evidence for "biocentrism" is zilch. Not only is the evidence zilch, but the pressing need caused by unexplained phenomena that need biocentrism as an explanation is zilch.

There is no evidence for the OP that I'm denying. You're trying to switch the burden of proof to me and make it my job to prove the OP false. I'm not at all denying a mountain of evidence the way a global warming denialist has to do to maintain that denial.

I imagine that when the first handful of scientists said, 'Hey guys... suppose the extra CO2 we're putting in the atmosphere is causing greater heat retention?', we would not have nearly the data we do now had they been roundly ridiculed.

Scientists had already seen records of global temperatures going up, and things like the greenhouse effect were already known from observations of the planet Venus, and, well, actual greenhouses. Scientists didn't just pull the idea of CO₂-based warming out of their asses. They already had data to back those suspicions, and they worked hard to get more.

The pseudoscientific wankery in the OP has nothing of the sort going for it, and the author sure as hell doesn't appear to be ready to launch his own biocentrism research program. If you're trying to imply that biocentrism is now where global warming once was, and that's why we've gotta give it a fair chance, you're way off base. Biocentrism now is just about where astrology is now, and I expect its rate of non-progress to be similar -- not because of undeserved prejudice against it, but due to its own complete lack of compelling merit.

I understand that you believe academics are principally judges of what concepts or ideas are worthy of consideration, rather than investigators of viability.

No, I expect academics to investigate, with their limited time and resources, the ideas with the greatest potential, ideas that meet some pretty minimal hurdles for being worthy of consideration.

[The Doctor.]

353. I'm simply trying to clear one hurdle at a time, thank you.

1) I'm not convinced of 'biocentrism's' viability because it does seem a bit sophomoric. You know, like the whole "perception is reality" meme so many spout.

2) The point I've made is that many legitimate venues of study were dismissed out of hand by academic authorities of their time. That's a simple fact. Global Warming, while perhaps not sufficiently analogous to this, also had high-ranking detractors.

3) The OP, like it or not, does touch on an inexorable destiny for the human race; mastery of time, space, and consciousness. The only thing that will waylay that destiny is our extinction.

You said this; "It has been done, and this time I'll play the same game you've played with me a few times, leaving it as an "exercise to the reader" for you to find out where this has happened."

I played no 'game', just insisted that you address what was said. If there's something that proves Lanzo's vision wrong, I'd like to see it.

What I think is really going on may be this; If someone says 'the sun is bright because it's a mass of burning gas', you'll have one side argue correctly that the sun is bright, and the other side argue correctly that the sun is not 'burning' at all.

Then the two will go at each-other about how right/wrong the person was all day.

That's where we are now.

The man was very clumsy with his understanding of QM/Physics, does that mean that we cannot master time? Holy shit, if you knew the kind of work that was going on right now, and I imagine you have at least a clue, then Lanzo may look very sophomoric, but he also looks basically correct in some of his assumptions.

Like someone who does not understand that the sun does not, in fact, 'burn', I think Lanzo is out of his depth... that doesn't make him anymore 'wrong' than when Arthur C Clark wrote "Fountains of Paradise", or Stephen Baxter wrote, well, anything.

That's how I saw what the man wrote; fanciful, but without a comprehensive understanding; To such a degree that he speaks out of his depth... and incites derision because of it. Those that dismiss his 'vision' entirely, because he isn't well-versed in QM, practice 'selective ignorance' in this regard. That's why I've asked, repeatedly, what precisely is wrong with it. I don't believe that one need be an aeronautical engineer to recognize that a plane flies, nor need one be a physicist to know that time and space are somehow mutable.

As for your 'invisible pink unicorns'... just what makes you think they don't exist? (aside from the fact that it's difficult to be 'pink' when 'invisible')

[Silent3]

354. Now that's moving the goalposts.

I don't think anyone said that any of the end results of some future, vaguely greater range of human capabilities, even time travel (though unlikely), we're impossible or laughable. It's the whole package deal of the starry-eyed and naive appeal to bastardized physics and "create your own reality" woo that sparks the derisive responses. If you think everyone's having a big laugh thinking, "Hah! This loon thinks people will travel through time!" you're reading the responses wrong (certainly my responses, and I feel fairly safe I can say that about most or all of the other responses similar to mine).

Time-travel into the future is quite possible. Humans even do it now, but only shaving off a few fractions of a millisecond here and there from how much time passes for one person relative to the bulk of humanity. Given enough energy and capacity to withstand the forces of acceleration, and you can send someone off into space at some significant portion of the speed of light and have ten, a hundred, or a thousand years pass on Earth, with the traveler returning to Earth having experienced the passage of only, say, one year. Such a trip into the future is a one-way trip, however -- there's no way via the simple mechanism of traveling at high sublight speed to come back to our time to report on what the future is going to be.

More ambitious time travel ideas involve things like cosmic strings and wormholes, which theoretically at least show a mathematical possibility of backward time travel. Even those who conjure up such things, however, will plainly state caveats like not being sure there's enough energy available in the universe to do such things, or not being sure if anything -- not just human life, but even any coherent information -- could survive such a journey.

There's not one bit of serious speculation grounded in real physics that time travel will be achieved simply by training or engineering human minds to perceive time differently.

As for your 'invisible pink unicorns'... just what makes you think they don't exist? (aside from the fact that it's difficult to be 'pink' when 'invisible')

They're just one among an endless number of fanciful ideas deliberately designed to be unfalsifiable. Google "Russell's teapot" for a classic example of the species. Russell's teapot and invisible pink unicorns are ridiculous not because it's utterly, absolutely impossible that they exist, they're ridiculous because there's no good reason at all to suppose they do. They are indistinguishable from a practically, and quite uselessly, infinite array of such imaginings.

As for it being difficult to be pink and invisible a the same time... perhaps invisible pink unicorns can become visible when they choose to do so, and they are pink at that time. Of course, they will never, ever choose to do so when there's any chance of them being experimentally verified.

Further, invisible pink unicorns might be visible to other invisible pink unicorns, and they perceive each other as pink. Such is the awesome power of unfalsifiability.

[The Doctor.]

356. And we're back to the whole 'not acknowledging' thing again.

Please learn to read and comprehend before responding. Half of your response is in ignorance of my post.

I'm done wasting my time here.

[The Doctor.]

205. So, I'm curious... which preeminent physicist are you that can 'poo-poo' Kaku's work?

I love talking to leaders in the field!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

207. I'm one who can look at pictures from the Cassini probe.

The one that Kaku so vehemently opposed.

I'm one that can recognize when a salesman is trying to sell something.

And that's what Kaku is- a salesman. And he's selling himself as an expert on physics. So he can sell books to woo woos. He can sell advertisements on his radio show with that goofy woo woo crank Deepak Chopra. No self-respecting physicist would be caught in the same room with that guy.

And then there's Biocentrism. Anybody who knows anything about physics knows that Biocentrism's a load of garbage. Yet there's Kaku, apparently trying to validate that on his goofy radio show.

So there's Kaku in a nutshell- woo woo sell out of the highest order.

[The Doctor.]

209. Then you don't know much.

You don't know why he opposed it, do you?

I do... and he made a very good argument. We can all breathe a sigh of relief that there wasn't an accident.

Other than that, he's a Progressive of a very high order.


You sound just like a climate change denier denigrating Hansen for 'being a salesman'. They say exactly the same things and with exactly the same amount of substantiation; zero.

Unless I'm wrong, of course, and you actually have specific examples of how terribly flawed his work is.

Do you?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

221. He opposed it because he's a sell out.

He'd rather make a name for himself with very stupid people, then be involved in actual real science.

What Kaku does is use his expertise in physics in order to trick suckers into thinking that he must be honest and correct when he discusses biocentrism with Deepak Chopra. And you bought it hook line and sinker. Kaku doesn't seriously believe any of this shit anymore than any other patent medicine salesmen.

"You sound just like a climate change denier denigrating Hansen for 'being a salesman'. They say exactly the same things and with exactly the same amount of substantiation; zero."

No. You sound just like a climate change denier. You've got this woo woo writing checks that the facts can't cash, and in the case of biocentrism, you buy it because they use big words that you don't understand like "quantum," and in the case of Kaku you buy it because in a previous career he used to be an honest to goodness physicist.

"Unless I'm wrong, of course, and you actually have specific examples of how terribly flawed his work is."

Kaku? I've got no problem with Kaku's scientific publications. It's this woo woo biocentrism shit that's the problem, and I've already shown how terribly flawed that bullshit is.

[The Doctor.]

228. *BUZZ* Wrong answer. You really can't be bothered to do even a modicum of research, can you?

Kaku has publicly stated his concerns over matters including the human cause of global warming, nuclear armament, nuclear power, and the general misuse of science.<3> He was critical of the Cassini-Huygens space probe because of the 72 pounds of plutonium contained in the craft for use by its radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Conscious of the possibility of casualties if the probe's fuel were dispersed into the environment during a malfunction and crash as the probe was making a 'sling-shot' maneuver around earth, Kaku publicly criticized NASA's risk assessment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku#Social_policy_advocacy

Making uninformed, blanket statements about people without knowing much about them is very lazy.

Add to that the fact that you are speaking utterly in generalizations rather than pointing out specific flaws in his work, and I'm confident you've fairly well been pegged.

You can't 'show something is flawed' until you actually understand WTF you're talking about.

Go learn theoretical physics, then I'll take you seriously.

G'Night.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

230. Yeah, I know what he says.

That's the sales pitch.

Thank god he didn't get his way. He'd have sent back science years.

"Go learn theoretical physics, then I'll take you seriously."

Either point out a flaw in my understanding of theoretical physics, or demostrate you have any understanding of it yourself.

[Chemisse]

99. Woo woo is about the stupidest term I have ever heard

From an adult. It sounds like baby talk.

[Codeine]

100. Underscoring its appropriateness for the subject.

Rarely has an epithet been as fitting, or a nomenclature as perfectly descriptive.

[Chemisse]

162. Really?

Is woo-woo somehow related to wee-wee?

Or are we talking about more of an anal fixation here?

Surely the dictionary contains a few grown up words you could use.

[omega minimo]

111. Speaking of poo poo and potty training

The most hateful septic attitudes toward what they call "woo" have some deep buried issues they can't face, perhaps from the time all children are indoctrinated to dis/believe various things, including their own experience of the Unknown. Something scared the shit out of them, so now they don't want anyone to discuss it at all.

[Confusious]

147. Maybe

woo peddlers = faith healers = hatred of con men. Could be childhood, got taken advantage of, so I'm a little sensitive to it when I see it.

[Chemisse]

163. Perhaps they are afraid of an inability to distinguish between

Legitimate ideas and illogical claims.

[Confusious]

165. I'm one of those people calling it woo

If I had no ability to distinguish between legitimate ideas and illogical claims, why should I have any reaction to it at all?

A color blind person doesn't have a reaction to not being able to identify a color.

A person who can't react to facial expressions doesn't get pissed off about it.

A person who has a hard time with non-verbal communication doesn't get pissed about.

You wonder why other people have a bad reaction to you.

It's a hypersensitivity to being taken advantage of. Woo peddlers, faith healers, nigerian princes, lonely Russian girls, forward this email and bill gates will give you a million dollars! ( That last one was thin, but you get the picture ) all of them raise the ( non-existant ) hair on my back.

I can spot a bullshit artist a mile away. They all have the same things in common. To wordy, false bravado and are too god damn friendly. There are other minor things, but they all share that in common.

Invariably, marketing people fit that classification to the T.

[Chemisse]

179. I definitely get disgusted by claims that are bogus

Particularly when my mother is trying to foist yet another amazing vitamin-related cure upon me. I gently try to explain to her that I need evidence - or at least a damned hypothesis about how it could POSSIBLY be effective.

Hurt, she explains to me that she read of several cases in which it completely cleared up whatever ailment she is proposing it for. Then she plays the can't-trust-the-government/industry/medical community card, in which she darkly insinuates that such natural cures are concealed by pill pushing doctors, the secretive and crooked FDA and the profit-hungry drug businesses.

So I know all about the effect of bullshit claims on naive people. It annoys me, but it doesn't make me really upset.

What I really enjoy is talking about some of the mysteries in science. I like wondering about possible explanations and exploring ideas. Sure, people will often wander a bit too far into la-la land, but I don't begrudge them that. Not everybody has good scientific thought processes.

I would rather see some loony theories being flung about than not be able to talk at all, because every thing that meanders off the straight and narrow meets harsh and rude recriminations.

[Confusious]

214. I don't mind people taking time for a story either

I like fanciful stories of "what if?", things I can lose myself in for a while. What if we could be come unrestrained from our bodies, travel to the next star ( Which may be possible via warp speed mr. scott! ), etc, etc



But that's what I see them as. Fanciful stories for a time, and now it's back to reality.

It annoys me to no end when people try to pass it off as the truth. As I said, I just had to much of it as a child, not just done to me, but religous people doing it to others, and now it drives me mad.

Could be my overdeveloped sense of right and wrong too. :)

[Chemisse]

255. You seem like a sensible person

There's nothing wrong with a little back and forth on topics like these, and I can certainly relate to your aversion to garbled science.

It is the hysteria, rigidity and viciousness of just a few people here on DU who so often spoil the fun of discussing science topics. And that is what got me started on my 'woo' tangent.

[omega minimo]

250. The call for information is not a problem. The irrational hostility and viciousness in the name of

the "rational" is fucking bizarre.

[Confusious]

326. If you just said it was woo, and that there is no basis in reality

And it's just a thought experiment, then I would have no problem with it.

But you seem to want to pass it off as better then scientific medicine, or try to wrap it in pseudo-scientific terms so it sounds like it's more legitimate, so gullible people will give more of their dollars.

[Chemisse]

160. I agree that there is a hugely out-of-proportion response

But haven't figured out if the "woo-woo" people are just argumentative for fun or ego or to blast off after a day of being passive, or they are just extremely obsessed about new things, new ideas, and nuance.

[omega minimo]

164. The "woo"haters

are afraid.

[Confusious]

167. Yea, living in a cave and eating grubs doesn't appeal to me....eom

[Codeine]

202. What are we afraid of?

Seriously, that's like saying atheists are afraid of the Bible. I don't fear woo, it's just fucking stupid.

[omega minimo]

235. That's already been addressed here

in a couple places.

[Confusious]

242. In other words:

No idea.

Just a couple of half-baked cookies.

[Codeine]

244. i.e. You got nothin' nt

[omega minimo]

249. it's quite easy to find, read the thread.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

251. Notice how they ironically fear to answer questions.

[Mojorabbit]

197. Could you be more specific?

I am interested in the theory but don't know enough about it to make an assessment either way.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. It surpises me anybody takes it seriously.

Well, not surprise. Particularly with that one person upthread.

Amuse. It amuses me.

[asdjrocky]

21. Is this personal?

Do you have some kind of a personal problem with me? Because I wasn't even talking to you in this thread.

Let's make a deal, I won't talk to you, and you don't talk to me, because frankly I don't like you.

Fair enough?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. No.

It applies to all woo woos.

[asdjrocky]

25. Then how 'bout we just stay out of each others way from now on.

Deal?

[omega minimo]

30. aw shit you're on their radar now. They'll be

talkin about you in their sikret klubhaus

[HeresyLives]

31. The corn syrup guy is just joking around.

He does it on every thread, any topic.

I call him Dr Woo-Woo because that's what he brings to everything.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. Hmm, nah.

Why so defensive?

[HeresyLives]

39. If you want to play the Village Idiot, it's fine with me.

Sane people avoid the type however.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

46. Is that why you keep replying?

In a back and forth you don't want to have?

[HeresyLives]

49. Ahhhh rightwing logic too.

How come no one has pointed you out before? You're very blatant.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

52. What rightwing logic?

This argument's got nothing to do with politics.

[HeresyLives]

53. It does in YOUR mind.

Sorry, not interested.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

57. Uh, no, in my mind it does not involve politics.

You're the one that brought up politics in another of your rather sad attempts at an attack.

[HeresyLives]

59. I'm being generous, you have no mind.

Now what part of 'not interested' don't you understand?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

63. If I have no mind...

why are you losing this argument so impressively?

[HeresyLives]

66. Like I said, if you want to play the Village Idiot

it's fine with me.

The only person you're having an 'argument' with is yourself.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

71. "The only person you're having an 'argument' with is yourself."

That's a fair point.

I mean, it's not like you're actually debating anything, just dodging and ducking.

[HeresyLives]

73. Ahhh more right-wing tactics.

:boring:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

78. Which RW tactic is that?

Believing in superstition over science?

Nope, that's not it.

Ad hominems?

Nope, that's not it.

Making claims that I can't and won't support, then dodging questions when called out?

Nope, that's not it either.

[HeresyLives]

80. Not speaking English when it's inconvenient for you.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

83. That's a RW tactic, is it?

How come you won't actually respond to any of my comments and questions? I mean, if "not speaking English when it's inconvenient for you" then who here is actually engaging in "RW tactics?"

[omega minimo]

91. No, they get a better deal.

[LanternWaste]

110. Always good to know we have an Arbiter of what is or it not "woo-woo."

Always good to know we have an Arbiter of what is or it not "woo-woo."

But then again, I imagine most people proudly wear that as both a badge of both a self-defined cleverness, and a wonderful way to minimize others (however I rest comfortably assure you assume neither of those descriptors...).

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

116. It's not hard to figure out.

http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html

Shouldn't take more than a high school education, really.

[LanternWaste]

150. Again, good to know

Again, good to know we have an Arbiter of Woo Woo here. It's not hard to figure out. Shouldn't take more than a high school education, really... :shrug:


ed: sp-- 'cause I'm not quite the clever Arbiter others are...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

153. That's a shame.

Maybe you should consider night classes at your local community college.

[Confusious]

219. It's not arbitrary, it's called science

If you go and take some classes, you can learn it too.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[asdjrocky]

34. That's cool.

I don't easily get my feelings hurt, I just have so little time for assholes the older I get.

There's lots and lots of space, no reason to bump into each other.

But I can bump, if I have to, I'd just rather let it go now and enjoy my life.

[omega minimo]

36. if you're interested in these topics

they'll find you.

[Me.]

70. What's Interesting

Is the strong reaction this thread has generated

[Me.]

42. And That's On DU

Can you imagine the reaction from the Cons/teabaggers

[omega minimo]

47. Yes.

The fundie attitudes and defense mechanisms are remarkably similar.

[Me.]

20. Welcome

[asdjrocky]

37. I found it a cool read.

[Me.]

61. Imagine

What can/could be

[Confusious]

159. Imagination is a very, very, very long way from reality

And is usually neither parallel nor orthogonal to it.

Mostly, the lines just skew.

[Whisp]

292. I don't get it either - the fear and therefore the belittling.

I find this kind of stuff as close to real magic as you can get. It blows me away, I love it. I can't grasp it well enough to truly understand most of it, but what a glorious thing to even try. There are so many secrets for us to discover and in the end I think that we will find that we ourselves are the creators, we make our own personal worlds as well as universes.

I suppose Galileo got these kinds of silly put downs too, and worse. hahah

[Me.]

323. Here, Have Some Fun

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/

Link fixed

[Whisp]

329. you are one of those flat earthers then?

do you truly believe all that is to be known is already known.
do you really want all exploration to stop?
do you accept that all there is to see comes from the failing human eye and nothing else is involved?

you sir, are the cracked one.

have unfun :)

[Odin2005]

13. No Comprehendo...

[Codeine]

15. You're like, not quantum enough, dude. nt

[MilesColtrane]

24. Reader's Digest Version: Are You Listening Oprah? I Need Book Sales!

[xchrom]

29. I never realized how many printed, known studied

Quantum physics professors we had on DU.

I think they out number our Constitutional professors.

[omega minimo]

33. That's okay

the paranoid delusional scienceyists pick up the slack...

[laughingliberal]

38. +1 nt

[wtmusic]

43. It doesn't take a PhD in physics

just knowing a little more than this clown. And that isn't much.

[omega minimo]

50. It's not real well written. The topic is worth discussing, though. Esp if there are

brainiacs here who know better what he is talking about and might have something substantive to say about it.

[wtmusic]

His misuse of a term like "algorithm" is a giveaway

that he's outside his area of expertise.

But I won't assign a value judgement to it, any more than I would do the same to someone's religion. Whatever floats your boat.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

62. I like how he confuses Kant and Schopenhauer with physicists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biocentrism_%28c%29

Shit is cash.

[wtmusic]

65. +1

Going to bed. Have fun.

:hi:

[Confusious]

120. Says in the article that he's a biologist (simplified)

And his theory places biology ahead of all the other sciences. Seems a little self-serving and makes my bullshit alarm go off.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

131. The entire philosophy is self-serving.

It's a ridiculous combination of Creationism and the Strong Anthropic Principle, mixed in with The Matrix.

[eridani]

86. What it takes to write the OP is apparently a medical degree

The dude doesn't know jack about quantum physics. I don't think they cover that in anatomy class, or even organic chemistry.

[eridani]

96. Not to worry. The OP isn't a quantum physics professor either

He is a medical doctor, and they don't cover quantum physics in anatomy, or even organic chemistry.

[Marr]

136. LOL

I'd say the OP was full of info that even a layman should spot as bs, but that *was* funny. :D

[FedUpWithIt All]

40. This also relates to the noise being discovered by the GEO600 experiment

According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html

It is certainly fascinating.

[TexasObserver]

97. Thanks. Now that was a quality read.

[FedUpWithIt All]

254. Thanks TexasObserver. I wish more had read it.

:hi:

The potential is really something.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

297. Amazing read and may prove to be hugely important

The work they are doing at Fermi Lab is always groundbreaking, I live about 5 minutes from there and it is great for tours.

[Poll_Blind]

248. Whoa. That was flippin' awesome. I wound up also reading their...

...article on the "Elephant" at horizon of the black hole (that your article also links to).

I need to go digging through that place more- thanks for posting again!

PB

[FedUpWithIt All]

253. It is a cool site.

I am afraid i am of the wrong brain type to make sense of a lot of scientific work but this subject, in particular, holds special interest for me. It is nice to see that inroads, albeit incredibly confusing still, are being made.

[omega minimo]

41. Thank you for posting an intriguing article

"Some of the thrill that came with the announcement that the human genome had been mapped or the idea that we're close to understanding the Big Bang rests in our innate human desire for completeness and totality. But most of these comprehensive theories fail to take into account one crucial factor: We're creating them. It's the biological creature that fashions the stories, that makes the observations, and that gives names to things. And therein lies the great expanse of our oversight, that until now, science hasn't confronted the one thing that's at once most familiar and most mysterious - consciousness."

[MilesColtrane]

51. science hasn't confronted consciousness?

I guess these people were just going for grant money.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Consciousness_Studies/Table_Of_Theories

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

54. Those people don't count.

They rely on facts and experimentation and peer review and... oh I don't know... references.

There's not enough day dreaming and wishful thinking and appealing to emotion.

[Mixopterus]

129. Lol

Saved.

Can I use that in the future?

[Blue_Tires]

145. lol at that!

[HeresyLives]

55. Only at the fringes.

Even tho the human mind is actually OUR final frontier.

[omega minimo]

58. like moths to a flame........

[vixengrl]

45. Relativity isn't subjectivity.

My honest measurements from the perspective of my position in the space-time continuum may be valuable to me, but they don't impose those criteria on the system as a whole, and they especially don't operate as a value system for anyone from another position to grasp onto.

Time may be an arbitrary system we linear-brained folks use to separate events, but that doesn't mean that we make up anything that happens in time (outside of our physical manipulations), or effect events by how we experience time. Some events seem to be dependent on the observer--as in Einstein's experiments, but the multiplicity of potential experiences is actually the point: The observer is the one subject to conditions. It's the event that is what it is. Time is relative because we experience it according to the values of our perspective and even define how to measure it by other events that we find to be stable. But I would have to say space is external--we can map it according to the relativistic mechanisms we possess as evolved beings that operate in four-dimensional space--but we as material objects, let alone subjects, seem to also exist in space.

i.e.--I don't think I'm just a brain in a jar. It's potentially true that I only know from space as an experience of witnessing new imputs over relativistic time over perceived motion in some material frame--this is how I see things right now as a smatter of fact. But the evidence of my sense organs impell me to suppose that the conditions of both time and space can't be arbitrary--one condition or the other has to be relativistic, and that one is time. My materialistic impressions of noumena in a continuum with some degree of cause and effect is homely, but it's also all I can stand. I accept that space is non-eucliean, but I don't think it's actually "spooky". It's bent, all right, but not to anything more than material masses.

But I will acknowledge that my perspective might be unduly influenced by being descended from branch-swinging primates who relied upon thinking in 4D to hunt or really do anything. Would it be evolutionarily possible to adapt to a paradigm wherein we actually create our reality?

Ballocks. We can mitigate certain circumstances, certainly. But there will always be some phenomena beyond our control. This article isn't so much about our "afterlife" under current conditions, but our forging an afterlife via---thinking about it? I'd say we limited subjective entities only could fathom an afterlife so long as we have any sense organs that would allow as much, like the good little materialist I am. As in, I don't think I'm heaven-ward bound, at any rate.

[omega minimo]

56. We already do

"Would it be evolutionarily possible to adapt to a paradigm wherein we actually create our reality?"

[vixengrl]

72. To what extent?

Are we adherent to the rule of gravity only because we consent to its existence, or is it a real thing only because we believe in it?

For the most part, I think the rules of the world that we adhere to are what they are because we scientifically discovered that they could not be otherwise, by showing a testable lack of affect for those other states of being. I don't fly--this is somehow bound up with laws of gravity and experiences of creatures with limited wingspan attempting to manipulate the airstream by flapping various wing-like mechanical extensions, which right up to the Wright bros., never worked.

I can't create a paradigm where I am aero-bouyant. I am 200 lbs of muscular and fatty woman-meat. I am by no means designed for flight--ergo, I can not create my reality in such a fashion that I fly. Some generations-back worth of ancestors built upon the idea of flight, enabling my fleshy, non-aerodynamic self to rest in an airborne vehicle that conveyed me to cross-Atlantic venues, and caused me a great deal of happiness to meet my husband's near-relations, for example, who are all extraordinarily neat people to know, even if I don't always understand their language. Mankind found a way for me to fly--but I am not creating my own reality by choosing the option to fly.

Can you find me an option where I do a thing that creates my own reality-other than my deciding I am an entity called sometimes Vixengrl and sometimes Vixen Strangely and other times Vixen69--because I already tend to acknowledge that the Internet is to a degree arbitrary? I am an especially literal-minded-type, and might be missing how I might create a reality?

Could I be....(insert any criteria that anyone might chose?)

[omega minimo]

75. Good question.

It's a question of consciousness, which would be another thread, based perhaps on a better article to start from, if that would ever be allowed to breathe here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

106. Thank you. Your 2 posts make much more sense than the article in the OP

and you avoid the buzzwords that author was desperate to get in. Of course, you don't have a book to sell. You're just talking sense. :D

[Kitty Herder]

64. Maybe if I read this again when I'm not so tired it'll make some sense. nt

[Me.]

67. LOL

:rofl:

[HeresyLives]

68. It's okay, no one is discussing the topic anyway.

Mostly they're in a pissing contest as to WHO can discuss it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

74. There's little to discuss.

The guy's basically just taken some thoughts from 18th and 19th German philosophers, taken some well-known topics from quantum mechanics, and made the claim that reality is created by consciousness and written a book for public consumption based on that.

I mean, the guy's done no physics. There's no math. There are know scientific articles. He doesn't actually explain anything about the natural world or provide any real evidence or propose any experiments.

It's just a load of woo woo mumbo jumbo that might sound scientific to scientifically illiterate types by include quantum mechanics terms like "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle" and "subatomic particles."

There are truckloads of this nonsense and they always love terms from quantum mechanics without having anything to do with real quantum mechanics.

[HeresyLives]

76. There is NOTHING to discuss, with you.

:boring:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

79. You could discuss anything that I just brought up.

But you won't. Why is that?

[HeresyLives]

81. 'Brought up' is the operative phrase.

:puke: Like that.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

84. Hey, I didn't bring up this topic.

This is what woo woos actually believe.

[Mixopterus]

127. He's not even a good philosopher

There is no process to his arguments, no deductive reasoning to get to his conclusions, and he's really butchering those philosophers anyway.

I give him a D-, at least he knew who Schopenhauer was.

Ah, a final note: I know a lot of crazies run around with this quantum bullshit and either give themselves or are given the title "philosophy/philosophers", but that doesn't make it so. Philosophy isn't just making shit up and running with it, you have to justify your arguments and there is a peer review process not unlike what exists in science.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

133. You never see woo woos talk about Hooke's law.

Or that humanistic underpinnings of Jefimenko's equations.

[Confusious]

143. Mabe some shrooms, a little weed, drop some acid

And a fifth of vodka might help to :)

I know I would probably need it to get through. The word "paradigm" drives me batshit insane. I see herds of sheep every time I hear it. They're all bleating and running after the next dipweed that thinks he has the meaning of life.

[opihimoimoi]

69. This is old shit...my Kahuna went over this years ago...the old clay tablets refer to clouds upon

clouds of Universe driven by a nursery of "Big Bangs"...

Also mentioned is a 5th Force as a source of hyper energy fueling Big Bangs like rain on a roof,,,,jillions of them...

Come, we go twist one...

[Swamp Rat]

85. Aloha!

Yes, I go with you.... big fish in blue sea... hula girls, luau... good smoke, cold beer... life is goooooood. :smoke:

[opihimoimoi]

95. Swampy.....you iz Da Man.....Come, we dream of Luau, sing, dance, eat, laugh, drink, smoke, enjoy...

:bounce:

[Octafish]

226. You'll have a blast.

I will personally vouch for Opihimoimoi's multiverse-class hospitality. His house isn't in this photo, but it's close.

[TahitiNut]

333. It looks like home, to me. (It's been a LONG time, though.)

:hug: :hug: :loveya: :pals:

[Swamp Rat]

77. An interesting topic

However, I am reminded of L. Ron Hubbard, who took the ideas of others, renamed them (Lanza could have done better than "biocentrism"), and then mixed them with unverifiable variables (or 'subjective reality').

He could also better define his word usage, such as "algorithm," which has numerous, specific meanings concomitant with different disciplines.

I bet he gets a lot of grants, though. :D

[HeresyLives]

82. It might have been.

But it was audition night at Yuck Yucks.

[Fumesucker]

87. Eh, every night is audition night at Yuck Yucks.. n/t

[Me.]

89. Nice To See You Swamp Rat

[Swamp Rat]

92. Way'at Me.!

:hi:

[Me.]

94. Wow

And congrats on the win

[asdjrocky]

93. Good to see you in the house Rat.

Too, too long and I miss one of my first DU idols.

Dude, I'm think Sarah Palin as Hitler, just a little tit for a little tat?

Good seeing you.

[Swamp Rat]

98. Way'at brah!

:hi:

I see Sarah Palin more as a hillbilly harpy. :D

[asdjrocky]

105. My Gawd she looks like Cheany there.

Nice!

[The Doctor.]

184. Great analogy!

I was made a Scientologist against my will once. Really, worked with a guy who just put me down as a member of his 'church'. I actually laughed my ass off. Hubbard was a 2-bit fiction writer who repackaged psychology with BAD fiction and turned it into 'religion'. I read some of his material... it's horrible from content to syntax to grammar.

The OP is not pretty, but it has a foundation on quantum theory. I highly doubt whatever this guy writes will be well-regarded by physicists, but the subject is nonetheless interesting.

Great to see you about man!

[grantcart]

355. LRH had a better accounts receiveable system too.

[winyanstaz]

101. According to Advanced Yoga Philosophy...

Time only exists on the Physical plane and our universe is composed of 7 planes or dimensions which are all found to be occupying different vibrational levels of the same space.
The only correct way to travel the inner planes consciously is through conscious astral projecting through meditation from a wide awake state or by accessing the inner planes by the means of Lucid Dreaming. However, drugs, trauma, fervors/illnesses and near starvation or death experiences can also open the door to the inner planes.
We also each have a body or vehicle/principle for our consciousness to "travel" in while "at/on" each plane or dimension.
For example, we have a physical body for our use on the physical plane and we have a "dreaming body/astral body" for our use on the dreaming/astral plane and an "energy body/vehicle for our consciousness on the energy plane.
If you have ever had a dream in which you were watching yourself in your dreaming body doing things...that would be a good example of conscious self projecting to the energy plane and into the energy body and looking "down" in vibrational rate at the lower dreaming plane and dreaming body.
Conscious self is the part of us that "travels" the inner planes while subconscious self stays with the physical body and does the repair work and keeps the body breathing etc.
There is a lot more to it of course but this is just a small example of another belief system then the one most of us grew up with that also deals with more than one dimension of being.

[Me.]

108. Hmmm

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

109. Show the math, please.

[Mixopterus]

128. Lol

About as valid as the Holy Trinity.

[ohiodemocratic]

102. I believe time is linear. How could I have replied to your OP before you posted it?

The time sequence goes like this:

1) You wrote an OP
2) I reacted to it.

#1 had to necessarily have come first.

[omega minimo]

112. Your perception of time is linear

[muriel_volestrangler]

103. Time is an illusion.

Lunchtime doubly so.

Who says "science fiction is struggling with the implications"? They've been writing this stuff for decades.

[LongTomH]

114. This line scares me!!!!

We take for granted how our mind puts everything together. When I woke up this morning, I was in the middle of a dream that seemed as real as everyday life.

Omigawd!!!!!! :wow:

Does that mean I'm really naked in front of my old college classroom? :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[Confusious]

152. Well, if you really "long" tom,

I don't thing the girls will mind, if you're of that mindset :)

[fishbulb703]

115. This was first postulated by a college student trying to solve the 'Arrow Paradox'.

This is old news, but interesting whenever it pops up.

[autorank]

118. Arrow paradox

Zeno's paradox of motion (one of them). You have a link or info to get to this. Sounds interesting.

[fishbulb703]

121. For sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes

If you are really interested, "Philosophy of Mind, Contemporary Readings" (A uni level anthology) is all about time and space and the human mind's ability to comprehend it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

130. I suppose if you don't know much about math and physics.

It's on wiki.

[autorank]

117. k*r My eyes are fully dialated

This guy is very interesting. The notion of new algorithms for the brain gives huge potential
to the mind (what the brain does). I'm ready to take the walk. See you at the pond;)

[Me.]

123. You Do Know There Are Fish In The Pond?

[Ellipsis]

119. Another Ron Paul Sign ?

Addressing the subject line of the OP

[jdp349]

122. WOO WOO! Here comes the pseudo science train

carrying 1000 tons of bullshit for delivery to DU.

[omega minimo]

134. The septics will be so pleased to have your faux support

[Confusious]

154. And plenty of people to eat it up like it was caviar!...........eom

[BlooInBloo]

124. They should make a movie about people who know nothing about math, science, philosophy...

and not much of anything else.

It could be called "Americatar".

[LongTomH]

125. Actually, they did make a movie about "people who know nothing about math, science, philosophy"

It was called: "What the Bleep? Down the Rabbit Hole"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499596/

[LongTomH]

140. OK, I may have been hasty in posting that!

I'm not a 'fundamentalist materialist,' by a long shot. I have read some of the authors that Octafish posted. What does concern me is the popularization of some of the spookier aspects of quantum mechanics. Terry Pratchett constantly parodies that in his Discworld novels.

Call me a 'sympathetic skeptic,' a term I cribbed from aerospace writer James Oberg, Col. USAF ret. Oberg is one of the leading debunkers of UFO stories; but, he has admitted to a 'weakness' for such things as Near Death Experiences and reincarnation stories.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

141. No, you weren't.

The people who made the film "What the Bleep do we know?" don't know shit about math, science, or philosophy.

[timeforpeace]

199. Two actually. The Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth.

[Octafish]

126. Fascinating post. Thank you, Me.!

Quantum Mechanics for one's favorite Know-It-All:

The Observer in Modern Physics - Some Personal Speculations


For your least favorite Know-Nothing:

Ideas from Fred Alan Wolf, PhD


For those who want to Learn Something New:

THOUGHTS ON QUANTUM ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS


PS: Does the woo-woo crowd ever contribute to a discussion?

[Me.]

132. You Can Always Be Counted On For Great Links

I've found the Q & A on Wolf's site very interesting

[omega minimo]

135. Thanks for those

Why are so many self styled progressive debunkers so anal about scienceyness, that they are obsessively hostile about others attempting these sorts of discussions?

The irony here is this one has not been completely hijacked and shut down, when the OP article WAS rather limp. Your links point to the wide range of information available to discuss -- rather than be stuck in black and white thinking and "woo"bashing.

Esp. since the most interesting science does support the possibilities that what once was termed "supernatural' IS natural, how do scienceyists get so stuck in their pinball universe and bags of skin that they can't sense anything beyond their personal ivory tower?

[Confusious]

146. Why are so many self styled progressive debunkers so anal about scienceyness

Science is observable, repeatable, testable. Anything other then that is woo, and taking us back to "here be monsters"

I prefer an educated, literate, realistic populace, not the 10th century of monsters, serfs and fear.

and science is not equal to scienceyness.

scienceyness: The understanding of whatever you want to believe in.

science: The systematic, observable, repeatable, testable understanding of the physical world.

Keep your scienceyness, don't pollute science.

[Octafish]

198. Worse than those who discuss things outside the mainstream are those who inhibit discussion.

Without wonder, curiousity and exploration we wouldn't know squat, let alone anything new.

Einstein's physics blew a lot of minds that grew up on Newton. Same thing in other disciplines, the older generation is slow to give up their worldviews.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

200. Who's inhibiting discussion?

Einstein may have blown a lot of minds, but he certainly wasn't woo woo.

[Octafish]

224. If ya gotta ask, ya'll never know.

Jazz.

[Confusious]

237. Is it the frog men?

Maybe bigfoot?

Aliens? Screw that tinfoil hat on tight!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

240. That was a rhetorical question.

It's a particularly amusing one if you'd been paying attention to this thread from the beginning and know who's name keeps getting removed.

Hint: It's not any of the skeptics.

But the answer to the rhetorical question is: Nobody.

There's nobody inhibiting discussion of anything. There have been a few abortive attempts to stymie conversation. There has been a lot of ducking and dodging and avoiding points of discussion.

But claiming that anybody's inhibited discussion is just really playing a victim when no other form of debate will work.

[Me.]

213. Precisely

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

[Confusious]

217. Yea, but Einstein

Didn't say "accept my ideas without proof, or I'll throw a shit-fit and bitch about a conspiracy to keep my ideas hidden and/or inhibit discussion!!"

He gave his proof, via mathematics, gave ways to prove him right/ wrong, which proved him right, and the scientific community accepted it.

Woo peddlers, by definition, offers no proof, and is missing one of the three: observable, repeatable or testable. They kick the door in and say "accept my ideas without proof, or I'll throw a shit-fit and bitch about a conspiracy to keep my ideas hidden and/or inhibit discussion!"

Case: homopathy
Case: anti-vaxxers
Case: alternative medicine

If you want to have a discussion about unicorns and what comes out of their ass, I will oblige you, but I'm not going to call it science because it's not. It's woo.

[Octafish]

223. Who said any of that? Not the OP.

Nice smear.

[Confusious]

231. I would get your memory tested

Just a word of advice. You posted a reply to my reply

Your words:

A."Worse than those who discuss things outside the mainstream are those who inhibit discussion."

B."Einstein's physics blew a lot of minds that grew up on Newton. Same thing in other disciplines, the older generation is slow to give up their worldviews."


So I responded:

"Einstein didn't say "accept my ideas without proof, or I'll throw a shit-fit and bitch about a conspiracy to keep my ideas hidden and/or inhibit discussion!!""

My response to A. Insinuating that the scientific community "inhibit discussion" of things "outside the mainstream". I gave the way you can fix that, and the reason they might not bother with "outside the mainstream". Typical reaction of woo enthusiasts.

"He gave his proof, via mathematics, gave ways to prove him right/ wrong, which proved him right, and the scientific community accepted it."

My response to A/B. Insinuated that the scientific community doesn't accept new ideas because they're a bunch of "old people" and cling to "old ideas" which is false.General relativity was developed between 1907 and 1915 and in a few years, others were using it to postulate about black holes. So much for them not taking to new ideas.

Newtons gravitation was good, but not real good, and everyone in the scientific community knew it. Einstein came along and corrected it. If you can come up with a better way, prove it and it'll be accepted. Otherwise, you're just another kook.


Hope that clears things up for you.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

232. You did.

You suggested that Einstein was some sort of woo woo, like Edgar Cayce or UFO hunters or some damn thing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

137. Thans and once again, nature is really strange

I am almost glad the woo woo brigade is mostly ignored though...

[Me.]

142. Maybe There Is A Fear Factor Involved

If the quantamists are correct, eventually we may have to become actors rather than reactors in our lives, which brings with it a lot of personal responsibility

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

144. If the "quantumists" are right...

then wouldn't that mean that, thanks to the HUP, everything is the result of random chance, including human (an all) life being just random chemicals, and there's no way to control anything?

[omega minimo]

149. Zackly

Afraid of personal power, their own and others', intimidated by responsibility, indoctrinated into the authoritarian mindset.

Interconnectedness is anathema, even as the search for the Theory of Everything :spray: goes on. Much more comfortable getting battered around in the Pinball Universe.

[anonymous171]

181. Quantamists can never be 100% sure of anything. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

191. There is fear of the unknown

absolutely.

But this reminds me of the science fiction theme about being actors inside somebody else's universe... avatars in a game.

Maybe since I do write sci fi and read QM on the side I am more than just fascinated by the ideas.

[omega minimo]

236. Ah see....

this would be so interesting if possible to discuss here..........

"Maybe since I do write sci fi and read QM on the side I am more than just fascinated by the ideas."

[omega minimo]

148. what's strange

is the vehement viciousness and self righteousness of the "woo"haters. True science does not have tunnel vision.

[Confusious]

151. Vs. the vehement viciousness and self righteousness of woo people?

Science is not what you want it to be.

As for tunnel vision, have the observable, repeatable, testable facts, and you'll get your day in court.

Just say "this is the way I see it", well, you're not going to get very far. Which is what most woo people do.

If you know what "true" science is, then you could give me a breakdown of the scientific method.

[nadinbrzezinski]

192. No but woo thinking has a strong element of junk

thought... see vaccines...

[omega minimo]

234. it's too bad that individuals

won't recognize each other as such and come here to share knowledge.

[nadinbrzezinski]

312. Actually what is scary is the level of scientific

lack of literacy in this country. I mean we are having problems understanding silly shit like percentiles. I cannot expect people to understand how silly they sound when they start singling out individual events, versus probabilities.

[omega minimo]

315. Actually what is scary is the level of scientific

bigotry, as shrill and sharp elbowed as the macho bigots, who shout down whatever they don't condone.

There are all levels of education and awareness on DU. Those two groups in particular seem to feel self righteous about abusing anyone without the same world view they have.

You may make fun of "silly shit like percentiles." And spelling? Awareness of the Arts? Literacy in history or languages? Where is the line drawn on who is and is not allowed to join in discussion here?

The bigoted attacks destroy a lot of potential interesting discussion.

[FourScore]

155. Wow. I love this!!!

Thanks for posting. This is remarkably synergistic with some reading I have been doing lately.

K&R

[dysfunctional press]

157. there seems to be no shortage of good weed going around these days.

:hippie:

[bridgit]

158. Escaping the "corporeal cage", hm...I think if it were so easy it would have been done by now

But I do enjoy watching folks try to hook it up as they endeavor to do so :kick:

[H2O Man]

166. Words are flowing out

like endless rain into a paper cup.

[retread]

175. They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe. n/t

[H2O Man]

180. Many thanks.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in my own universe. Glad to know there are others.

[Me.]

186. That's One Way Of Putting It

:evilgrin:

[David Zephyr]

216. I thought of that when I read this.

John.

[omega minimo]

238. are drifting thorough my open mind, possessing and caressing me

:hi:

[TahitiNut]

332. I can always count on my leatherstocking friend for an Abbey Road allusion.

:hug: :pals: :loveya:

[H2O Man]

339. My best friend!

Good to see you!

[TahitiNut]

345. Backatcha, mon ami!

:fistbump:

[Uncle Joe]

171. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Me.:thumbsup:

[Me.]

187. Merci

:hi:

[retread]

172. Like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDqYHNaesk&feature=related

[Joe Chi Minh]

174. "Time is simply the summation of spatial states - much like the frames in a film -

occurring inside the mind. It's just our way of making sense of things."

Or, as Einstein put it (no kidding): "The purpose of time is to stop everything happening at once."

[anonymous171]

176. I didn't know that doctors were trained in theoretical physics.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

188. Remember the Raelians?

They had some spokeswoman with two PhDs and with that same vacant thousand yard stare that this guy has and claimed to have cloned human beings.

Then it turned out to be some goofy UFO cult.

[omega minimo]

239. It's only recently that "education" became limited to one focus at the expense of all other topics.

[Confusious]

257. An what would you like seen taught in schools?

I'm asking, no hostility given.

[Confusious]

276. I think I'm on ignore

But not surprising.

If you ideas cannot stand challenge, are they really any good in the first place?

Scientists have to defend their theories all the time. Relativity, which is almost 100 years old, is still being tested and defended. If you woo can't stand up to that, why should I believe it?

[Canuckistanian]

193. Time in 3D? What madness is this?

Why, in my day time was only ONE dimension, and WE LIKED IT THAT WAY.

These new-fangled cosmetologist/biocentrists really gore my Ox.

[varelse]

215. DUzy

Your post; I nominate it. :rofl:

[The Gunslinger]

212. Anyone got a lighter?

[undeterred]

222. Just don't tell me there's no such thing as aliens.

They're coming to rescue me.

[Me.]

260. They're Not Coming For You

It's our senate they're after :evilgrin:

[misanthrope]

227. HA! We're primitive beings that can't manage what little we have on our plates as is...

...When you figure out a way for us to make it through the next two centuries with total certainty, then let us know. Until then, this matters not.

[omega minimo]

241. The expansion of consciousness

and awareness of the concepts presented in this OP are the only "way for us to make it through the next two centuries with total certainty"

[Me.]

246. The New Frontier

[Confusious]

256. Yep, my entire problem with woo right is one sentence

The expansion of consciousness and awareness of the concepts presented in this OP are the only "way for us to make it through the next two centuries with total certainty"

Sounds a lot like a fundie who claims Jebsus is the only way.

What the hell is "expansion of consciousness" anyways? The hippies kept trying to do it through drugs. Should we all take drugs? They don't agree with me.
I really doubt anyone who says those words has an idea or plan on how to get there.

my view is they all seem to think that one day, we're all going to wake up, and have bigger brains. Or have total understanding of everyone else. One little pill to make all the problems of the world go away. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

This world isn't going to change unless we make it change. Put down the pipe, roll up your sleeves and create some understanding.

[Blecht]

252. Garbage

Unless you believe a scientific theory = "let's make up some shit and sell a book."

Idiotic on so many levels.

[DeschutesRiver]

258. Thanks, Me, I appreciated the link. nt

[Me.]

259. You're Welcome

[conscious evolution]

264. Wow! Once again the Flat Earth Society

comes out in force to shit all over something they do not understand.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

265. How ironic.

[Confusious]

275. DAMN. I have to buy a new irony meter AGAIN!

I'm just a poor student, can't you people stop doing this to me?

[Duppers]

266. A Physicist's - a Particle Theorist - response to this thread

I sent a link to this thread to him; his response (leaving it to me to post) :

Just like every other pseudo-scientific stoner theory, this entire bit of blather is a grammatically correct piece of prose, but COMPLETELY vacuous. Nothing said here makes any sense. The only assertion that can be physically interpreted at all is the suggestion "time is three-dimensional," or, equivalently, "there is more than one time-like dimension." It's well known (at least among the physics community) that multiple time-like dimensions make geodesic paths non-degenerate (i.e. a big 'fuck-you' to everything relativity). Also: atoms can't be stable (even quantum mechanically) in any more than 3+1 dimensions, so by the fact that I'm sitting here typing and that the computer on which I'm typing hasn't collapsed, I think it's safe to say there aren't anymore large-scale time-like dimensions. So unless this whole "three dimensional time" thing is just another way of saying "time travel," stfu...and even if you are talking about time travel, stfu. With all due respect of course. =)

Now I kind of want to pick on one of you. Hello, The Doctor. I can only hope your name is a reference to that amusing, long-running British sci-fi. The Doctor, the things you've said, and the things those you're apparently a big fan of have said, are just like the OP's reference: vacuous. "Time is just 'another dimension' within which the cosmological constant operates." Really? You threw out buzz words - none of that means a damn thing. Then you say things like "point out what you have contention with and show how it's wrong." I'm sorry, but that can't be done. To quote Pauli, "That's so not right, it's not even wrong." Because there's NOTHING to argue with - nothing was actually said. It's just a bunch of wankery. Also, people who talk about QM and "consciousness" in the same breath are almost uniformly stupid. Penrose isn't stupid, he has become a bit of a nutter recently, but even his quantum+consciousness stuff is on the borderline of having the physics community collectively facepalm.

This isn't Duppers. I'm her son, a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins in particle theory. I was originally directed here to try to clear up some misconceptions and finally put an end to the postings of the OP and The Doctor, but honestly there's nothing that can be done. I've done my share of internet dwelling and arguing with pseudo-science types, and they're all exactly like this: they throw out buzz words and insist people point out what's wrong with THEIR brand of stupid when it CAN'T be done...there's nothing to argue. Their premise basically starts with "hey, let's forget about all progress in physics and go form there" and continues with content-less yelling. Rebutting it would be tantamount to re-justifying all of physics. I've been in school a LONG time just to do that and don't have the time nor patience to reproduce the results here... So instead of trying to interpret the blather somehow and write up a thought-out response, I'm not going to waste my time.

Here's a physics litmus test: if you can't point out every single problem in this video, you're no longer allowed to post about science on the internet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=WiQh4-vOB5Y&v=C0c5yClip4o

That said, please just stop posting. It's embarrassing. You may resume smoking your hash pipe.


His note to me:
I hate characters like this. You can't actually take them down. I used to care about correcting them, but have realized it's as pointless as arguing religion with a fundamentalist.



Btw, my his father, my hubby, is a Ph.D. physicist too. Not that any of this will mean a frikin' thing to the devotees of this woo-woo, whom I'm now putting on ignore. No sense in reading any more dribble.

[muriel_volestrangler]

267. Is that video a parody?

It's just so mindnumbingly stupid, I can't believe she say it with a straight face, unless she's practised intensely.

Good recent comment on YouTube:

"This video is like herpes for the brain. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

268. Nope, it's the real deal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5oVzbwYWpg

They say it with straight faces, because that's what they actually believe.

[Duppers]

273. ...

Whoops. HFPS, sorry, my post below copycatted yours.

Thanks for your input on this thread. :)

[Duppers]

272. Nope. It's real

Here's what my o.s. said:

"Here's a physics litmus test:

if you can't point out every single problem in this video, you're no longer allowed to post about science on the internet."

Meaning that the damn thing sucks but people BELIEVE this CRAP. Rather like many in this thread.


:evilgrin:

[Confusious]

274. WOW

That video was INCREDIBLY painful to listen to.

Amazing, unbelievable, not enough adjectives in the English language to describe ignorance.

[The Doctor.]

287. I just started it.

"The universe fits in a bowling ball"?

This person has no clue. This is going to be rough, but I promised.

Damn.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

289. Actually, that has some basis in quantum mechanics.

[The Doctor.]

290. No, it doesn't.

The OP may be fanciful and superficial, but it's got nothing on this video.

1) Universal mass to the ‘size of a bowling ball’.
2) “You can cross ‘M’ out of E=MC²
3) Energy = C
4) Stephen Hawking gave us String Theory? WTF?
5) ‘Body almost entirely “Made” of energy’.
6) “Disease is an ‘energy state’?
7) ‘Light, sound, homeopathy can treat disease because it’s energy’?
8) Dog poop?
9) Bombs?


Well, I guess I'm 'never allowed to post about science ever again on the internets' because I couldn't possibly keep up with the bullshit in that video... let alone 'point out every error'.

:eyes:

Either Dupper's kid is a sadist, or he doesn't really exist.

I'd hoped the video 'challenge' was an honest one.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

291. Oh, I'm not saying she isn't a little fanciful with her ideas.

All I'm saying is that her theory has some basis in quantum mechanics.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/02/photosynthesis-uses-quantum-interactions-to-process-light.ars

The goal of photon echo spectroscopy is to isolate the effects of an environment on its particles. During measurements, a set of particles are zapped with a laser to bring them into coherence, or a state where their properties are related—if we know the wave pattern of one, we know the wave pattern of the other. The particles are allowed to evolve for a period of time, during which their wave patterns change, like water with ripples on its surface.

[The Doctor.]

293. Well hey... if you believe it.

Meanwhile, a couple problems with your suggestion;

One; photon echo spectroscopy is not quantum mechanics... it's chemistry.

Two; It doesn't actually apply to the 'drivel' in the video... at all.


Now, I understand what you are trying to do, and it's about the same as trying to say that belief in Climate Science equates to belief in the Loch Ness Monster.

Obviously, Lanzo's 'work' has none of the merits of Climatology. But the fact that there is a basis in theory behind what he said, regardless of how lousy his interpretation of that theory, puts your comparison on the 'Loch Ness Monster' level to what is a much more tangible comparison.

The fact that you don't believe what you read, and I'd really love to hear what Dupper's "son" has to say in support of your belief that the conclusions they stated here;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm

Were not the conclusions they arrived at.

I would learn quite a bit from that.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

294. Have your PhD Physicist friends taught you...

taught you a distinction between photon echo spectroscopy and quantum mechanics?

Care to share it?

"The fact that you don't believe what you read, and I'd really love to hear what Dupper's "son" has to say in support of your belief that the conclusions they stated here;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/9802270550..."

Yes, let's hear from Duppers' son on the subject of my understanding of physics. I'm all ears.

[The Doctor.]

309. The crickets might get tired.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

313. I guess he doesn't have a problem.

Imagine that.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

314. If this thread had an internet meme as a "mascot."

It would be "Follow your dreams. That's what I do."

[Me.]

295. !

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

296. I love the sound a joke makes when it goes over somebody's head.

[The Doctor.]

286. LMAO. Wow... aren't I special!

I never claimed to be a physicist.

My point here is more that people who don't know anything about it have passed judgment on a wider range of theory than this 'biocentrism'.

I'm very impressed that your son may become a Ph.D. one day. I'm sure that he could teach me a great deal about physics. My current understanding comes mostly from discussions with a wide range of experts in physics, some Ph.D's, some not. That understanding is not complete, but it's enough to know that a number of people engaged in derision here specifically for derision's sake.

I agree (and if your son had read my responses he'd know) that Lanzo appears very much out of his depth. What I found was a number of people dismissing actual theory and findings merely because Lanzo's article seemed too 'fanciful'.

I never had to make a habit of responding too carefully or academically around here. My own failing, I suppose. Please forgive me if I don't start making an exception for anonymous 'experts' summoned up by posters here.

I've seen that ploy a bit too often... perhaps as often as your son has encountered 'pseudo-intellectuals'.

For now, I'll take it at face value that you are indeed surrounded by brilliance. My family is like that too. So I will thank you and your son for your input, and adjust my views as I see fit. I'll also take a look at the video and try to have a stab at it sometime. While I'm sure that missing one single problem in the video will negate whatever actual understanding I might have of physics (a strange assertion for a scholar like your son to make), I'll give it a whirl anyhow.

Thanks for going out of your way for the input.

Cheers.

:hi:

[Silent3]

304. Arrrrgggghhh!!! I got to about 2:14 in that video...

...and I just couldn't take it any more. I had to close the window and preserve what remains of my sanity.

[TahitiNut]

310. "2:14"?? Wow! My skull started frying before that and ...

... I had to stick my head under the faucet. :dunce:

[The Doctor.]

316. There is no amount of 'skull frying' that would make sense of that.

Or turpentine, or anti-freeze, or anything.

That was just... stupid.

[Me.]

321. And So...This Thread Lives On

:evilgrin:

[The Doctor.]

322. You've created a munster....

I hope you're proud.

[Me.]

324. Well...I've Always Liked Lily's Grasp On Reality

[omega minimo]

327. The limp OP

only gets a semi-Eddie out of the haters.

[omega minimo]

328. This post nails what's wrong with anal retentive scienceyists

".........you're no longer allowed to post about science on the internet.............."

Says who muthafucka? Woo that.

[Me.]

334. Who Woulda Thunk It?

[The Doctor.]

335. Well... since no human can possibly pinpoint *everything* that was wrong

with that video, I suppose science is no longer allowed on the internetz.

Actually, that 'challenge' was obviously not at all academic... it wasn't legitimate either.

It's also so wonderfully convenient that people can pull experts right out of their back pocket, by email and in timely fashion, who can also 'drop a few buzz words', claim academic superiority, cite 'boredom' or 'weariness' with the practice of trying to educate so many 'pseudo-intellectuals', and leave without laying down a single legitimate correction or challenge... ostensibly never to be heard from again.

Another thing... 'you're no longer allowed to post about science on the internet' isn't a statement many scholars would issue sincerely. I'll warrant a student might, however.

Considering how the poster claims to have many of us on 'ignore' now, none of us will be able to check up and see how her son is doing.

Shame that, he could have taught us so much.

[omega minimo]

338. Many lost opportunities

for intriguing meetings of minds, including of different disciplines, blocked out by the dominators.

There may be many different reasons for the behavior, including whether it's genuine or not, but as you have alluded, they all seem to have access to the same convenient source of talking points and belligerent tactics to kill discussion. Sometimes they list their web sites like the Ranti one, which provides endless oneliners, prepackaged attacks and pregurgitated arguments against any number of ideas/words/concepts someone else (in good faith) might use. The conceit is that those phrases are bogus and ripe for attack: "they deserved it." I used the word "Indigo" descriptively here once and got introduced to the full flying monkey fury of the toxic debunker club, which I had no idea existed.

It's very unhealthy culture which is why I use the word toxic and septic for the behavior.

It also has nothing to do with actual science, in letter, spirit or investigation. The motivations seem either ego/educationally stunted jealousy and oneupsmanship or phony -- methinks those who always talk bout being accused of being "Pharma Shills" doth protest too much -- or some other combination of ill behavior.

There are a few who can straddle the fence long enough to be civil or clown around. I'm sure there are many lurkers who might contribute greatly to the conversations that are verboten here.

[The Doctor.]

342. Pretty much.

It's just as irrational to dismiss something out of hand as it is to fully invest in that which has no substance.

Oh well.

'Indigo'? As in 'children'?

[Me.]

347. Ultimately It Doesn't Really Matter What They Think

Progress is happening right under their noses and they can't stop the universe from expanding. They can stomp on discussions but they can't stop thought and creation will have its way.

[omega minimo]

357. That's true. No matter how they stomp on DU from expanding..........

maybe that's why they're so venal and cranky....................................

[Me.]

358. The Laws Of The Universe Are Bigger Than Their Fears

Hugh!!!

[omega minimo]

359. From your tips to the Universe's ears.

[brettdale]

299. Uhm No

In 2010, we have only landed on own moon, this is quite a way off, I mean we dont even have freakin Hover Boards like in back to the future yet.

Maybe this thread can be bought up in the year 4000, but not now.

[brettdale]

301. sorry i dont do drugs

This was beyond what I can get my head around.

Could someone please explain in dumbass terms, what the writer was saying???

Was it about how we could time travel???

Something about space???

[TahitiNut]

302. The Stupid is thick in this thread, Luke.

:dunce:

[omega minimo]

306. The Scienceyness is willfully ignorant, as ever.

[Electric Monk]

307. yep, you're helping, keep it up. woo yeah

:/

[Electric Monk]

303. I remember this when it was called Time Cube

http://www.timecube.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Cube

[DRoseDARs]

331. Careful with that Internet meme, it's an antique.

:P

[paulk]

340. I got suckered into reading that article

By a third of the way through I realized it was utter nonsense, so I stopped.

[DeadEyeDyck]

348. butters my fucking biscuit