OT: Jibjab, Politics, the Big Bang and more!

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Arryn:
No, it is a position derived from cold hard logic. The sort of thing you'd get if you fed the facts into an appropriate (and hopefully bug-free) computer program (or a Vulcan from Star Trek) and asked the program for an evaluation and conclusion. There is no credible evidence that thoughts (and thus existence) are independent of the physical human body. Mildly put, it's wishful thinking to believe otherwise. Bluntly put, it's delusional to believe otherwise.

The same program, fed the facts about conservation of energy and entropy, would also conclude that the existance of the universe as observed is either a fundamental impossiblity or of probability 0 in light of those facts. And yet, there is no credible evidence of any of: "conservation of energy is avoidable", "entropy can decrease in a closed system", or "the universe doesn't exist". Pardon me if I don't trust your logic.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Arryn:
If they were suffering from mass delusion, then logically so are all believers today. And if today's believers aren't delusional, then by corollary, neither were the ancient Greeks, and thus modern Judeo-Christian-Islam is wrong and there are many gods.

Could you expound on the specifics of the "logically" you are using? To the best of my knoweledge, two Groups believing opposing things about a single thing necessitates neither both being equally right nor both being equally wrong.

[Soapyfrog]

I snuck into the backwoods of Montana and onto the Norfleet estate, decoying the free roaming attack dogs with pork chops swathed in peanut butter, and, after a long arduous stealthy approach, managed to snap a picture of Norfleet's T34:



Nice ride!!

[ July 29, 2004, 14:12: Message edited by: Soapyfrog ]

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
The same program, fed the facts about conservation of energy and entropy, would also conclude that the existance of the universe as observed is either a fundamental impossiblity or of probability 0 in light of those facts.

You have an unastounding degree of ignorance about physics and cosmology. Get some education before you attempt to argue the topic.

-- Arryn, who majored in astrophysics

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Arryn:
You have an unastounding degree of ignorance about physics and cosmology. Get some education before you attempt to argue the topic.

-- Arryn, who majored in astrophysics

Rather than just giving an insult, could you instead answer a simple question: which resaonably proven theory is it that either permits energy to come from nowhere or permits order in energy to be reclaimed without dumping disorder into other energy?

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
which resaonably proven theory is it that either permits energy to come from nowhere or permits order in energy to be reclaimed without dumping disorder into other energy?

Perhaps if you explain what you mean by "energy coming from nowhere", I might understand whether you understand the topic.

[Jack Simth]

When I say "energy coming from nowhere" I mean energy that has no source, no past; the true creation of energy. Energy that comes from an unobservable location still comes from somewhere - the unobserveable location. The extra dimensions of string theory allow for the "creation" of energy - but only in that no source was observeable due to 3- (or 4-, depending on how you look at it)-d observations in a supposed 11-d universe; however, that energy still came from somewhere even though that somewhere was neither observed nor observeable.

Sufficent?