Dr. F.
Ice climber
SoCal
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2012 - 08:32pm PT
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What about the possible element 144.
112 and 114 are not stable, and will never be found in nature
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 11, 2012 - 08:41pm PT
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MikeL writes: Look closely: there is hardly a good scientist who is all that drop-dead sure about anything.
but I think that may be a bit misleading, first off, how do you determine who is "a good scientist"?
and what a scientist takes as certainty is something very different than the casual reference to being "drop-dead sure."
If you ask me "is relativity a correct description of the universe?" I'd answer yes, if you pushed me to state that there isn't something "more than" relativity I'd say there probably is.... how can those two things be reconciled? One could interpret the response as an admission that science doesn't know everything (which is true) but that is not a statement of lack of surety...
To all of Tom's questions, (those that make sense... Gravity A, B and C? what's that?) I could reply, with surety, that scientists are making progress on understanding those aspects of the universe. To some extent, what we know about those things are already very advanced... not sure why people pick on gravity all the time, we understand so much about it that it shows up in your cell phone ready to guide you to the nearest Starbucks (or whatever)...
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Dec 11, 2012 - 11:08pm PT
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Ed, i certainly defer to your knowledge of physics, and have hopefully learned at least a little bit from your discussions on this thread
let me attempt to refine my questions...
knowing that physicists have observed the behavior of many aspects of the physical universe and have successfully and coherently described them in mathematical terms;
i am trying to make a distinction between mathematical descriptions of these structural relationships vs the basic nature of the physical world
perhaps you will respond to me that this is a foolish question and they are one and the same
i can respect such a response from you, just has i respect you as a physical scientist
however please allow me to ask whether you consider that there might be something more to understand about the basic nature of these things besides their mathematical structural relationships...(and obviously referencing some of your discussions with Largo, Jan, and Jogill)
(i have heard gravity A, B, and C used to describe the strong force binding atoms, the week force binding molecules, and astronomical gravity binding star systems...not sure if this is kosher in polite society)
here's another perspective that is interesting to me on this issue:
The Tairona people that i referred to earlier have an interesting approach to training their wise leaders. A baby is chosen at birth and raised in a cave or dark place for nine years, sort of like another nine years in the womb. The child is visited regularly by its mother and is raised by the elders, who teach all about the world outside the cave using descriptions and stories. The child learns on faith all about mountains and streams and oceans and flowers and trees, but never sees any of these things until the moment of leaving the cave after nine years. When the educated and knowledgeable, yet inexperienced child emerges from the cave to see the natural world, they are struck with a life-long sense of awe and respect for mother nature.
illustrating the difference between knowing all about something vs being immersed in awareness of the real world
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 12, 2012 - 12:02am PT
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The Tibetans had similar training regimes for some forms of esoteric yoga. However, they were practiced by adults who chose to learn those methods.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 12, 2012 - 12:41am PT
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i am trying to make a distinction between mathematical descriptions of these structural relationships vs the basic nature of the physical world
how do you propose to make such a distinction?
why do you think it is meaningful to do so?
mathematics is a way to describe the "basic nature of the physical world" just as words do.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Dec 12, 2012 - 04:22am PT
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Dec 12, 2012 - 09:04am PT
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There's too much for me to respond to directly. (I need to be quick this morning.)
Ed said my claim about drop-dead certainty by scientists is misleading, and as he talks about it, he is right.
The conversation revolves around (i) the extent to which we can say we know anything (ii) and how we know.
My claim is that what we know with certainty is very, very little. Almost nothing. Everything else is belief or some concept that we take on faith. That which we think we know, we know through social consensus (as noted by Healyje) and authority. Even in the hard sciences. We point to predictive probability and the apparent efficacy of our undertakings (e.g., making a transistor, healing prostate cancer), but we continue to be surprised when we find that there are other influential variables, interactions, or outcomes that we missed in our studies.
Here's my question: what can you say that you've experienced or learned for yourself? Forget what you've read, what some expert has told you, or what the grand majority of people say and believe. What do you know by your own lights?
It's very very little, isn't it? The rest are beliefs and articles of faith, aren't they?
Everyone thinks they live in an absolute, concrete and real world. I'd say people live in their own worlds, in worlds of their own making. (Werner calls it projection.)
"Yeah, well, smart guy . . . it's working, isn't it?"
Hmmm, . . . you sure about that?
PS: Funny stuff, Cintune. :-)
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Dec 12, 2012 - 10:04am PT
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Just see the so called scientist trying to convince himself by talking to himself in circles over and over endlessly
I am losing respect for most people on all sides of these arguments. Even in this simple form, this is just name-calling. The act of it seems childish and meant to demean the other person without any other point being made.
There are probably no true scientists because to be such, you would have to have Spock-like logic and push away all emotion. That's hard to do and it's hard to remove all belief and disbelief and quantify everything as a probability or as theory.
But many of us strive for that and try to avoid our human nature. I find myself wanting to ask some god-like entity to help out when times are tough and I certainly want to blame the universe or some god-like entity when crap happens. Since I have an urge to do this, am I only a so-called scientist because I have no removed all emotion from my mind? Maybe.
Still, pointing it out for the purpose of making someone look bad or feel bad is just childish. That behavior seems to be too common these days. Rise above your opponents if you think that they are whiner babies. Don't sink to childish name calling if you want respect.
Dave
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Dec 12, 2012 - 10:10am PT
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My claim is that what we know with certainty is very, very little. Almost nothing. Everything else is belief or some concept that we take on faith.
My opinion is that there is no faith. There is probability. The more we know about something, the higher the probability is that we know the truth.
Do we know with certainty that water becomes solid at 32f (ignoringt inexact numbers for the moment)? No. Do we know that there is a high probability that that is the case? Yes. Do I have faith that it is true? Not at all, I just keep in mind the probability of it when I need to know the outcome of some even, like when I see the temps get colder outside and there is water ion the ground.
There is no faith in trying to make a decision based on probability. There is just cold calculations and a choice being made based on knowledge, limited or wrong as it may be.
Even the scientists have a hard time avoiding making everything into a faith based system even though it is completely possible. Faith is when you believe in something when the probability is low or the evidence too weak to actually pick a probability. Science has no room for faith because it is science. If there was faith in it then there would be religion in it.
Dave
Dave
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 12, 2012 - 10:42am PT
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Tom: i am reminded of the bumper sticker that says, "Quick! Hire a teenager, while they still know everything!"
A fairly kneejerk reaction if that was a response to my post. My whole point, and that of my little dissertation on 'fiction', is there is incredibly little we do know with any reasonable objective certainty. Incredibly little - i.e. I'm agreeing with you and Largo. But that is also precisely why science provides such value.
The difference between us, however, is a rather grand 'glass half empty' sort of deal where you and Largo appear to continually bemoan, wail, and point at all we don't know as if it's some kind of major failure to broaden our limited horizons. That's a stark contrast from seeing what we do know as a stunning and stellar achievement of just the opposite. You both further appear to use what we don't know as a license to [always coyly] posit grand, overarching universalities we can't possibly know about through science - as if (as Ed keeps pointing out) there is some other way of knowing which can meaningfully be distinguished from the otherwise general subjective fiction of our lives. Or, at the very least, you seem to thoroughly enjoy imbuing the unknown with otherworldly and mysteriously fantastical attributes versus acknowledging that, by definition, the unknown is simply that, unknown - no projections or embellishments required.
And where some of what is currently unknown is knowable in time, some surely is not. And of the latter, one has to question the meaningfulness and utility of attempting to do more than define the 'event horizon' of the unknowable. Personally, as a fellow compsci person, I'm almost beginning to think you may just be weary of the digital confines of your own [magnificent] productions and claustrophobically stifled by the discreteness of it all - maybe it's time hit up the analog/simulation side of quantum computing research, you certainly seem up to the challenge.
In the end, it's just more of a 'glass half full' deal for me. And out beyond the confines and results of my own 'interests' and forays into the unknown, I feel no pressing or urgent need to project onto that void either fear- or hope-driven fictions from mine or anyone else's imagination. Mainly because they are just that - another suppositional fiction indistinguishable from any other fiction no matter how wise, learned, or venerated the source.
P.S. What an infant learns completely autonomously prior to age three by simply being in its environment and around other humans is astonishing in its scope.
P.P.S. MikeL: I'd say people live in their own worlds, in worlds of their own making.
Exactly, and what makes it so hard to determine what is 'real'.
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MH2
climber
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Dec 12, 2012 - 10:43am PT
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what can you say that you've experienced or learned for yourself?
Can I start with learning to walk? I make a rough estimate that 99.99% of what I know did not come from books, the internet, or my social group. I learned it by trial and error in the physical world. I am talking about learning you may not be particularly conscious of because it is handled below the executive level of the mind.
edit:
And much beyond trial and error; in my first 3 years or so I saw the sky, felt rain, got stung by a bee, noticed hot and cold, learned the smell of pine needles, tasted a lot of stuff including food, marveled at the eyes of a dragonfly and the iridescence of oil on the water of a small creek near the house. I wasn't schooled in social constructs unless you count bedtime and nap time, or if I was schooled, it didn't take all that well.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 12, 2012 - 11:49am PT
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^^^
"I am talking about learning you may not be particularly conscious of because it is handled below the executive level of the mind."
So wouldn't this information "Become" part of our Brain(matter)? Thus conscience creating matter??
jusask'in
bb
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Dec 12, 2012 - 02:15pm PT
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Robert Wright, on self and meditation...
In 2009,
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/self-meditating/
Bonding with a lizard,
I looked at this lizard and watched it react to local stimuli and thought: I’m in the same boat as that lizard — born without asking to be born, trying to make sense of things, and far from getting the whole picture.
On Thursday night, the fifth night of the retreat, about 30 minutes into a meditation session, I had an experience... I’ll just say that it involved seeing the structure of my mind — experiencing the structure of my mind — in a new way, and in a way that had great meaning for me. And, happily, this experience was accompanied by a stunningly powerful blast of bliss. All told, I don’t think I’ve ever had a more dramatic moment.
And again, in 2012,
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/retreating-into-meditation/266027/
.....
re: neurologist vs neurosurgeon
Oliver Sacks,
To deny the possibility of any natural explanation for an NDE, as Dr. Alexander does, is more than unscientific -- it is antiscientific. It precludes the scientific investigation of such states.
Oliver Sacks (neurologist) weighs in on Eben Alexander's work:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/seeing-god-in-the-third-millenium/266134/
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 12, 2012 - 02:34pm PT
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Oliver Sacks (succinctly):
Hallucinations, whether revelatory or banal, are not of supernatural origin; they are part of the normal range of human consciousness and experience. This is not to say that they cannot play a part in the spiritual life, or have great meaning for an individual. Yet while it is understandable that one might attribute value, ground beliefs, or construct narratives from them, hallucinations cannot provide evidence for the existence of any metaphysical beings or places. They provide evidence only of the brain's power to create them.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Dec 12, 2012 - 04:48pm PT
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healyje, i mean you no disrespect and do appreciate your attempts to understand my thinking
however your analysis of my thinking process is way off base; and you might be rather shocked if you had free access to seeing what is going on in my mind...that being mostly absolutely nothing...except listening in awe and fascination to what is going on around me
and i am somewhat honored by your lumping me into some category with Largo, as his contributions are fascinating; however he is off in another world from my point of view and level of understanding
when i communicate, it is not to try to convince you of anything, but to share my observations and seek to better understand
it doesn't seem particularly useful to label all my observations as hallucinations
however it is clear to me that the older i get and the more i learn, the less i know relative to what i don't know
i don't propose any particular metaphysical, spiritual or religious solution to what i don't know, simply that there is much to learn beyond what i am able to understand so far
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 12, 2012 - 05:22pm PT
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Tom: however it is clear to me that the older i get and the more i learn, the less i know relative to what i don't know
Well, there we are in complete agreement and I couldn't even begin to contest that as it more or less is my whole point. Something to be said for knowing at least a measure of what you don't know, particularly in climbing and diving.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Dec 12, 2012 - 06:22pm PT
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so my earliest serious interests were astronomy, physics, psychology and computing
as my studies kept opening more mysteries than understandings, i moved into rock climbing and violin for exploring direct personal experiences; later adding SCUBA, flying, sky diving, ocean sailing, and other fields of adventure.
and i agree that the sciences have been making amazing progress in many fields of understanding
all of these seemed to provide views into worlds of experience that i could not adequately explore through any tools known to me
those experiences let me through a long chain of researching, including AI, environmental modeling, dynamic space systems modeling, and various mental practices and fields of understanding; the latest of which is listening to the amazing collection of knowledgeable and expert participants in SuperTopo forums
which leads me back to my original comment:
we have much to learn...
so instead of arguing about our opinions of what we think we know...it would indeed be worthwhile to work on mapping out the dimensions of what can surmise we don't know...i.e. such as things slipping through the blind spots in our methods
i really don't think it is so much a question of religion vs science...as looking at the limitations of our language and research methods and general perceptions of reality
i don't agree that religions provide the answers
i don't agree that spirit is necessarily a useful term for this discussion
i don't think that mathematical descriptions are adequate for full understanding
nor are our languages adequate to describe the full extent of our experience
i have long felt that numbers and words are not going to provide us with ultimate understanding
so why am i posting here?
because i am struggling to understand and i respect the intelligence of you participants
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MH2
climber
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Dec 12, 2012 - 07:09pm PT
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the older i get and the more i learn, the less i know relative to what i don't know
Perhaps consider the differences among the child, the young adult, and the geezer. The child has a great capacity to learn (picks up languages quickly for example), the young adult can find new connections that may greatly advance previous understanding (Galois), whereas the geezer is on the biological narrow track. This may be one way Mother Nature navigates between too much and too little behavioral plasticity. The young experiment and adapt, but at some point you become more likely to survive if you stick with what you already know.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 12, 2012 - 07:13pm PT
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TomC
your sentiment is like a breathe of fresh air. Sometimes it gets
a little polluted around here.
_
"i don't agree that spirit is necessarily a useful term for this discussion"
So what term would you put our ideas of "emotions" under?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 12, 2012 - 08:01pm PT
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Tom: ...are not going to provide us with ultimate understanding.
Curious if you think there is such an understanding to be had. I can certainly understand and empathize with a desire for such (and think that longing is what religion exploits). But I personally suspect what's under the hood past a certain point is an expansive event horizon of the unknowable. That's looking outward, but my experiences looking inward have left me surmising much the same in that direction.
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