johnclark

'Bold Standard' On 'Dec 12 2006 Wrote: > Random would be Uranium 238 turning into a pizza pie. Why Uranium turning into Thorium without a cause is less random that it turning into a pizza without a cause eludes me. > Maybe it would help if you define exactly > what you mean by "random" I would have thought that was obvious, a random event is an event without a cause. If it had a cause you could predict it and it wouldn’t be random. If this is not what you mean by “random” I would certainly like to hear what you mean by the word. > It would be a non-sequiter to say, if the cause > is not known, then there is no cause. I hope you don’t think this is a new argument. Quantum Mechanics started in 1900 and by 1920 it was largely mature. Ayn Rand was not, she was only 15. From day 1 the rear guard has been singing “but there must be a cause”. Some philosophers sing that song to this very day, but physicists treat them much as they would members of the Flat Earth Society. The same is true of Gödel. The great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein blasted Gödel, but today that paper, “Remarks On The Foundations Of Mathematics” is regarded as the biggest embarrassment in his entire professional life. Fans of Wittgenstein wish he’d never written it. > The most famous Objectivist I know of who's also > a physicist, David Harriman, agrees with you about > the Bell Inequalities demonstrating non-local interactions. I’ve never heard of the man but I’m glad he agrees with me. But proving the Bell Inequality is untrue does not prove causality is non local, it proves it is non existent or non local and there is very little difference between the two. This lightning bolt was caused by a butterfly in Nigeria that will flap its wings 5 billion years from now, and the butterfly did that because a Hydrogen atom in the Andromeda galaxy 3 billion years ago jiggled to the left instead of the right, and the atom did that because an electron in the Virgo cluster 6 billion light years away went up instead of down and the electron did that because 19 billion years from now….. You get the idea. Mr. Harriman says “non-locality poses no threat to causality” and he’s right provided you redefine the word to mean something very different and much stranger than what the man on the street means, or even what philosophers for thousands of years have meant. It sort of reminds me of atheists who are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word “God” so they redefine it in such a nebulous way that nobody could say its untrue. It just becomes another of those ideas (like free will) that is so bad it’s not even wrong. Harriman again: >causality states a universal truth graspable by any man in any era Causality works pretty well at the scale of human being, and that not surprising as that’s the scale our brains were evolved to understand and survive in. But it is not universal, at the scale of the very small or the very large things behave quite differently. > this is definitely a scientific rather than philosophical issue. And that is precisely the problem; the idea there is a strict dividing line, the idea that a philosopher can be ignorant of science because science can teach philosophy nothing. John K Clark

'Bold Standard' On Dec 10 2006 Wrote: > When you say that you don't find A=A to be > "interesting," does that mean that you don't > regard it as controversial? Meaning you can > see that it is obviously true? Or does it mean > you simply don't understand what consequences > its truth or falsehood would have? Yes. > "An atom of Uranium 238 just turned into an atom > of thorium-234." It seems plausible to me that there > is no way for a man to determine exactly at what > time a change such as this will occur in an atom. Yes. > It would seem that, assuming Uranium 238 has > been observed to turn into thorium-234, this > would mean that it is the nature of Uranium 238 > to turn into thorium-234 Yes. > And maybe to do so at unpredictable times. > This would be a causal change. No. And there is no “maybe” about it. If it is unpredictable then it is random and if it is random that means there is no cause. Why did this atom of U238 decay at this particular nanosecond rather than the next of in 500 million years? There is no answer because there is no cause. This really shouldn’t come as a total shock, we know empirically that some events have causes, but from pure logic there is no reason to think that every event does. > I can see how it would be legitimate to say, > if we cannot distinguish between two entities, > then they would be interchangeable as far as we know, In my thought experiment I had you (the copy) and the original standing an equal distance from the center of a symmetrical room. I now use a Star Trek brand transporter to instantly exchange your positions, or if you prefer I leave your bodies alone and just exchange the two brains. There is no way subjectively you or the original would notice that anything had happened, and objective outside observers would not notice anything had happened. There would not even be a way to tell if the machine was actually working. If objectively it makes no difference and subjectively if makes no difference then I conclude it just makes no difference. There are 2 bodies in that room nut only one you. > but isn't it a little presumptuous to assume that > they are completely identitical in reality, even > those attributes we have not observed? Whenever a scientist gets a result he doesn’t like he can always say “maybe my cockamamie theory is still true, maybe someday we will find Cosmic Force X that will still allow it to be true. But that is not science, that is public relations. Maybe someday Cosmic Force X will teach us that the world is only 5000 years old and evolution is untrue and the sun goes around the Earth, but I don’t think so. And by the way, we know with certainty the Bell Inequality is untrue, it’s been measured in the lab, that means the sort of causality people have thought about for thousands of years, local causality, cannot be true. The only chance for life causality still has is if it is non local: The reason we had this earthquake is because a butterfly in the Andromeda Galaxy flapped its wings twice rather than three time. Actually it’s worse than that, if its non local then the future can change the past so the earthquake may have been caused by a butterfly who will flap its wings 5 billion years from now. To my mind an event that has an infinite number of causes is equivalent to an event that has no cause. John K Clark

It’s just that I don’t find A=A to be terribly interesting; but the Identity of Indiscernibles, the fact that if you switch two objects and there is no change to the system then they are identical, well, that can lead to far more remarkable things. Thought Experiment: You step into my matter duplicating chamber. The chamber is symmetrical. You stand 5 feet from the center. I turn on the machine. A person who looks just like you seems to appear 10 feet away. He's staring at you. Questions: 1)Are you the original or the copy? 2)What experiment did you perform to make that determination? 3)Does that other fellow agree with you? 4) If it turns out you're the copy would there be any reason to be upset? The Identity of Indiscernibles tells us these are the answers: 1) It doesn’t matter. 2) There is none. 3) Probably not but I don’t care. 4)No. John K Clark [email protected]

On July 18, 2004 the French daily Le Monde ILIAS YOCARIS published an article called “Harry Potter, Market Wiz” and it caused a small sensation. Yocaris HATES Harry Potter, but all the reasons he givers for doing so are the exact same reasons I love him. This is a translation of the article from the French: NICE, France — With the Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling has enchanted the world: the reader is drawn into a magical universe of flying cars, spells that make its victims spew slugs, trees that give blows, books that bite, elf servants, portraits that argue and dragons with pointed tails. On the face of it, the world of Harry Potter has nothing in common with our own. Nothing at all, except one detail: like ours, the fantastic universe of Harry Potter is a capitalist universe. Hogwarts is a private sorcery school, and its director constantly has to battle against the state as represented, essentially, by the inept minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge; the ridiculous bureaucrat Percy Weasley; and the odious inspector Dolores Umbridge. The apprentice sorcerers are also consumers who dream of acquiring all sorts of high-tech magical objects, like high performance wands or the latest brand-name flying brooms, manufactured by multinational corporations. Hogwarts, then, is not only a school, but also a market: subject to an incessant advertising onslaught, the students are never as happy as when they can spend their money in the boutiques near the school. There is all sorts of bartering between students, and the author heavily emphasizes the possibility of social success for young people who enrich themselves thanks to trade in magical products. The tableau is completed by the ritual complaints about the rigidity and incompetence of bureaucrats. Their mediocrity is starkly contrasted with the inventiveness and audacity of some entrepreneurs, whom Ms. Rowling never ceases to praise. For example, Bill Weasley, who works for the goblin bank Gringotts, is presented as the opposite of his brother, Percy the bureaucrat. The first is young, dynamic and creative, and wears clothes that "would not have looked out of place at a rock concert"; the second is unintelligent, obtuse, limited and devoted to state regulation, his career's masterpiece being a report on the standards for the thicknesses of cauldrons. We have, then, an invasion of neoliberal stereotypes in a fairy tale. The fictional universe of Harry Potter offers a caricature of the excesses of the Anglo-Saxon social model: under a veneer of regimentation and traditional rituals, Hogwarts is a pitiless jungle where competition, violence and the cult of winning run riot. The psychological conditioning of the apprentice sorcerers is clearly based on a culture of confrontation: competition among students to be prefect; competition among Hogwarts "houses" to win points; competition among sorcery schools to win the Goblet of Fire; and, ultimately, the bloody competition between the forces of Good and Evil. This permanent state of war ends up redefining the role of institutions: faced with ever-more violent conflicts, they are no longer able to protect individuals against the menaces that they face everywhere. The minister of magic fails pitifully in his combat against Evil, and the regulatory constraints of school life hinder Harry and his friends in defending themselves against the attacks and provocations that they constantly encounter. The apprentice sorcerers are thus alone in their struggle to survive in a hostile milieu, and the weakest, like Harry's schoolmate Cedric Diggory, are inexorably eliminated. These circumstances influence the education given the young students of Hogwarts. The only disciplines that matter are those that can give students an immediately exploitable practical knowledge that can help them in their battle to survive. That's not astonishing, considering how this prestigious school aims to form, above all, graduates who can compete in the job market and fight against Evil. Artistic subjects are thus absent from Hogwarts's curriculum, and the teaching of social sciences is considered of little value: the students have only some tedious courses of history. It's very revealing that Harry finds them "as boring as Percy's reports cauldron-bottom report." In other words, in the cultural universe of Harry Potter, social sciences are as useless and obsolete as state regulation. Harry Potter, probably unintentionally, thus appears as a summary of the social and educational aims of neoliberal capitalism. Like Orwellian totalitarianism, this capitalism tries to fashion not only the real world, but also the imagination of consumer-citizens. The underlying message to young fans is this: You can imagine as many fictional worlds, parallel universes or educational systems as you want, they will still all be regulated by the laws of the market. Given the success of the Harry Potter series, several generations of young people will be indelibly marked by this lesson. Ilias Yocaris is a professor of literary theory and French literature at the University Institute of Teacher Training in Nice. This article was translated by The Times from the French.

'~Sophia~' on 'Dec 7 2006 > Godel's work has a limited applicability in certain mathematical contexts Godel's work has a huge applicability in many mathematical contexts, and in philosophy he can not be overstated. > it is a mistake to try to apply his theory outside of its range of applicability Like Logic? >Godel himself said that he "had not established any > boundaries for the powers of human reason, > but rather for the possibilities of pure formalism in mathematics". I don’t know if you made that quote up but it wouldn’t greatly surprise me if he had actually said it; as an old man he also said he had just written a mathematical proof of the existence of God. You see, 45 years after he did his great work his wife died and the poor man went completely insane. It’s ironic that the greatest logician since Aristotle starved himself to death. He refused to eat because he thought unnamed sinister forces in Princeton New Jersey were trying to poison him. Genius and madness, two sides of the same coin. John K Clark

'aleph_0' On 'Dec 7 2006 Wrote: > Are you trying to distinguish between consistency and omega-consistency? No. All true formal theories of arithmetic are omega-consistent and thus obey Gödel. Systems that are consistent but not omega consistent are too too simple and weak to do anything very interesting so are little studied even by experts. Boring. Me: “he [Gödel] says some things are true but CANNOT be SHOWN to be true”. You: “Quite untrue, he says that some things are true but cannot be derived from a purely syntactic system.” It absolutely mystifies me what was “quite untrue” about what I said. > If one claims that something is true in the first place, one damn well better be able to show that it's true. Exactly, that what so puzzles me about your response. You admit there are some true things you can not prove to be true, so how did you know it is true? How did you “show that it is true” to other people? If you say “I saw it in a dream” am I supposed to accept that? > [Goldbach's Conjecture] may be unprovable and it may be un-disprovable --but that is all together a distinct concept from Godel's Incompleteness, which is about formal theories. Godel is about what formal systems, like mathematics, can show to be true. Mathematics is the foundation of Physics and Physics is the foundation of Chemistry and Chemistry is the foundation of Biology and Biology is the foundation of Psychology. > What does this [Goldbach Conjecture] have to do with Godel's proof? As I said before if you had been paying attention, since 1930 even conjecture in mathematics is now living under a shadow, it may be true so you’ll never find a counterexample to prove it false but it may also be un provable so you’ll never know its true because you’ll never find a proof. To claim this doesn’t have enormous implications for philosophy is to stick ones head in the sand; and that is what disturbs me about Objectivists. It’s not like the discovery was made last week, it’s more than 75 years old and Quantum Physics is even older, yet the followers of Ayn Rand continue exactly as before as if nothing had happened. I mean, I like her novels a lot too but for goodness sake! John K Clark

'Cogito' on Dec 6 2006 Wrote: > A lot of people get this idea that the theorem > says that actual knowledge is impossible or > limited; he [Gödel] is in fact saying the exact opposite. Well you’re half right; Gödel doesn't say we can't know anything, he says you can't know everything. > He is saying that even though there are statements > which cannot be proven deductively, i.e. through the > repeated application of rules of inference to a finite > set of axioms, they can be shown to be true. Quite untrue, he says some things are true but CANNOT be SHOWN to be true. For example take the Goldbach Conjecture, it states that every even number greater that 4 is the sum of two primes greater than 2. Let's try it for some numbers: 6=3+3 8=5+5 10=3+7 12=5+7 14=3+11 16=3+13 18=7+11 20=3+17 22=5+17 24=7+17 26=7+19 28=11+17 30=11+19 This all looks very promising, but is it true for all even numbers? Checking all even numbers one by one would take an infinite number of steps, to test it in finite number of steps I need a proof, but I don't have one, nobody does. The Goldbach Conjecture was first proposed almost 300 years ago and since that time the top minds in mathematics have looked for a proof but have come up empty. Perhaps nobody has found a proof because it's not true. Could be, but modern computers have looked for a counterexample, they've gone up to a trillion or so and it works every time. Now a trillion is a big number but it's no closer to being infinite than the number 1 is, so perhaps The Goldbach Conjecture will fail at a trillion + 2 or a trillion to the trillionth power. It's also possible that some brilliant mathematician will come up with a proof tomorrow, as happened with Fermat's last theorem, but there is yet another possibility, it could be un-provable. The Goldbach Conjecture is either true or it's not, Godel never denied that, the question is, will we ever know if it's true or not? According to Gödel some statements are un-provable, if The Goldbach Conjecture is one of these it means that it's true so we'll never find a counterexample to prove it wrong, and it means we'll never find a proof to show it's correct. For a few years after Gödel made his discovery it was hoped that we could at least identify statements that were either false or true but had no proof. If we could do that then we would know we were wasting our time looking for a proof and we could move on to other things, but in 1935 Turing proved that sometimes even that was impossible. If Goldbach is un-provable we will never know it's un-provable, Gödel told us that such statements exist but he didn't tell us what they were. A billion years from now, whatever hyper intelligent entities we will have evolved into will still be deep in thought looking, unsuccessfully, for a proof and still grinding away at numbers looking, unsuccessfully, for a counterexample. John K Clark

Dismissing the work of Gödel, the greatest logician since Aristotle, with a vague wave of you hand is just the sort of thing that gives Objectivists a bad name. I start to associate them with hillbilly TV preachers and their opposition to Evolution. John K Clark

Bold Standard on Dec 6 2006 wrote: > Does that chip on your shoulder make it hard to type? No not at all, and considering the 19’th century mentality I see around here I think I’ve earned that chip. I’m right and you are not, it’s as simple as that. > And do you grant that there is, at least, a law of identity > and law of non-contradiction in logic? Well, I grant that there is The Identity Of Indiscernibles. The philosopher who discovered it was Leibniz about 1690. He said that things that you can measure are what's important, and if there is no way to find a difference between two things then they are identical and switching the position of the objects does not change the physical state of the system. Leibniz's idea turned out to be very practical, although until the 20th century nobody realized it, before that his idea had no observable consequences because nobody could find two things that were exactly alike. Things changed dramatically when it was discovered that atoms have no scratches on them to tell them apart. By using The Identity Of Indiscernibles you can deduce one of the foundations of modern physics the fact that there must be two classes of particles, bosons like photons and fermions like electrons, and from there you can deduce The Pauli Exclusion Principle, and that is the basis of the periodic table of elements, and that is the basis of chemistry, and that is the basis of life. If The Identity Of Indiscernibles is wrong then this entire chain breaks down and you can throw Science into the trash can. The Schrodinger Wave Equation proved to be enormously useful in accurately predicting the results of experiments, and as the name implies it's an equation describing the movement of a wave, but embarrassingly it was not at all clear what it was talking about. Exactly what was waving? Schrodinger thought it was a matter wave, but that didn't seem right to Max Born. Born reasoned that matter is not smeared around, only the probability of finding it is. Born was correct, whenever an electron is detected it always acts like a particle, it makes a dot when it hit's a phosphorus screen not a smudge, however the probability of finding that electron does act like a wave so you can't be certain exactly where that dot will be. Born showed that it's the square of the wave equation that describes the probability, the wave equation itself is sort of a useful mathematical fiction, like lines of longitude and latitude, because experimentally we can't measure the quantum wave function F(x) of a particle, we can only measure the intensity (square) of the wave function [F(x)]^2 because that's a probability and probability we can measure. Let's consider a very simple system with lots of space but only 2 particles in it. P(x) is the probability of finding two particles x distance apart, and we know that probability is the square of the wave function, so P(x) =[F(x)]^2. Now let's exchange the position of the particles in the system, the distance between them was x1 - x2 = x but is now x2 - x1 = -x. The Identity Of Indiscernibles tells us that because the two particles are the same, no measurable change has been made, no change in probability, so P(x) = P(-x). Probability is just the square of the wave function so [ F(x) ]^2 = [F(-x)]^2 . From this we can tell that the Quantum wave function can be either an even function, F(x) = +F(-x), or an odd function, F(x) = -F(-x). Either type of function would work in our probability equation because the square of minus 1 is equal to the square of plus 1. It turns out both solutions have physical significance, particles with integer spin, bosons, have even wave functions, particles with half integer spin, fermions, have odd wave functions. John K Clark

Bold Standard on Dec 6 2006 Wrote: > Um, how about the law of causality? If there really is a “law of causality” then we are undergoing a huge crime wave because violations are happening constantly. But hey, cheer up, I expect to be kicked of the list again very soon, then you can go back to your comfortable 19’th century world view. John K Clark

'punk' On Dec 5 2006 Wrote: > One might look at an action as worth doing > on a lark, but if one reconsiders along Nietzsche's > lines and say "is this action worth doing over > and over again forever through eternity" There is no way I can ever know if I’m repeating the same thing over and over again, not while I’m in the same brain state, thus there is no reason I should give a bucket of warm spit over the matter one way or the other. And that is why Nietzsche’s metaphor is so brain dead dumb. John K Clark

~Sophia~ on 'Dec 5 2006 wrote: > Can you give an example of a no-cause event? An atom of Uranium 238 just turned into an atom of thorium-234, why did it happen at that particular moment? There is no reason, there is no cause, all we can say is that in 4.51 billion years there is a 50% chance it will happen, and in 24.1 days there is a 50% probability the thorium will decay to form protactinium-234. Yes I know, the flat earthers will say there must be a cause we just haven’t found it yet, but those troglodytes have been singing that same sad old song for nearly a century now while every modern experiment points in the exact opposite direction. Today virtually no working physicist thinks every event must have a cause and when you think about it there is no reason he should, no law of logic demands it. I agree with a lot of Objectivists philosophy, politically and economically they are first rate, but philosophically they’re stuck in the 19’th century. The fact that you even had to ask for an example of a non caused event is proof of that. John K Clark

diverbetty on Sep 15 2006 Wrote: > It believe Harry is the character that she gave a reprieve to She recently said 2 characters she originally thought would live would instead die and one who had been destined for death will live, so she actually increased the body count by one. I certainly think and hope Harry will die at the end because it would make a better story. And his death will create a storm of controversy, there will be riots in the streets. How could any author resist creating something as magnificent as that? > As for Snape, one of the most fascinating characters in this series > There is a theory going around that mirrors 'Severus', a character > prominent in 'The Prince'. This diabolical, cunning, conniving > 'Severus', a fictional creation of none other than Niccolai Machiavelli, > schemes to kill both his rivals by tricking each into thinking he is on > one's side, fighting the other rival, and taking each one's life when > their guard is down. Thus, Machiavelli's 'Severus' comes out on top, > with no rivals to stop him anymore. I had thought the very same thing but then I heard something Salman Rushdie a man I very much respect said to Rowling that made me rethink my opinion. Rushdie told her that he thought Snape was good and Rowling responded: "Your opinion, I would say, is right” How on Earth can she make a good Snape who nevertheless killed Dumbledore? I'll tell you one thing, the reason for killing Dumbledore would have to be HUGE, tiny little reasons like helping him in his undercover work just won't do the trick. I'm just thinking out loud here but what if not Harry but Dumbledore had inadvertently become a Horcrux, perhaps when he got that withered arm? That would mean Voldemort could never die as long as Dumbledore lived. I'm guessing, and it's only a guess, that suicide (self murder) would only strengthen a Horcrux, he must be killed by someone in a completely selfless act. Snape had nothing to gain personally by killing Dumbledore, he did it because Dumbledore asked him to and because he knew it was the right thing to do. Snape knew that killing Dumbledore would eventually bring about his own death and he didn't even have posthumous glory to look forward to. Snape did a good and heroic thing, but NOBODY would ever know about it, not even Harry; a thousand years from now people would still use the word "snape" as a synonym for "traitor". Snape understood all this, he knew the price he must pay for doing the right thing but he did it anyway. Yes that is not what an Objectivists would do, but nevertheless it might make a pretty good story. John K Clark

The climax of book 7: And so Harry and Voldemort were in a Mexican standoff with their wands pointed at each other. Then Harry walked forward until he was just inches from Voldemort's face and with an air of quiet confidence said: "I know what you're thinking - did he drink Felix Felicis 25 hours ago or only 24? Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement I've kind of lost track myself, but as it's the Magnum curse I'm aiming to perform, the most powerful in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question - do I feel lucky ? Well, do you punk?" John K Clark

punk On Dec 4 2006 Wrote: > I believe Nietzsche's point with the "eternal return" > was to make one consider that every decision they > make (or fail to make) has eternal consequences. If so then Nietzsche was guilty in making a appallingly bad metaphor. Doing the exact same thing over and over again debases the idea of eternity. > That is to say that *every* decision is supremely important. But some decisions are more “supremely important” than others. You spent more time dedicating who to marry than you did deciding if you wanted extra cheese on you Big Mack, at least I hope you did. By the way, I am not new to this forum although I have not posted anything in nearly 3 years. The reason I have not posted anything is that in February of 2004 I was kicked off, with ceremony, my epaulets were formally torn off as the troops watched and I was told never to darken the halls of the objectivist’s halls again. You see I had done something that was dreadful, I said something that was unforgivable, I said something that was heretical. The only reason I am back is that to my great surprise I was invited to come back. I like to think the reason I was invited back was because the administrators have become more enlightened, but at the back of my mind I keep thinking my invitation was just a error, a computer glitch. To test I am going to repeat exactly what I said back in 2004 that got me dumped because I still believe every single word of it, and if it’s still forbidden to even hint of such forbidden things then it would save a hell of a lot of the time for everybody concerned, including me, if they’d just kick me off again right now. This is the terrible degenerate hideous immoral thing I said 3 years ago: “We’ve suspected for 80 years and known with certainty for nearly 40 that some events have no cause and are random. I mean, I liked Atlas Shrugged as much as anyone but if Ayn Rand tells me one thing and experiment tells me another it’s no contest; I’m a rational man so I have to go with experiment. Personally I think it would be pretty neat if the universe was totally deterministic, it would be pretty neat if the sun went around the earth too, but that’s just not the way things are.” John K Clark

MisterSwig on Sep 2 2006 Wrote: > A serious problem with the eternal return, > as described, is that it offers no objective > standard for determining right and wrong behavior. If fact A leads to undesirable consequences that in no way proves that fact A is untrue. And a besides, I’m much more interested in a subjective standard of morality as that is the one every human being on planet Earth. I don’t give a hoot in hell what a cloud of hydrogen gas in the Virgo cluster 3 billion light years away thinks about morality, in fact I have reason to believe it doesn’t think about anything at all. > How are you supposed to know whether > you'd want to repeat an act over and over? As there is no way of knowing if you’ve done the same act while you were in the same brain state once or a hundred thousand million billion trillion times there is no reason to want it and no reason not to want it. It’s a non issue. > The eternal return offers no moral guidance. Neither did Newton’s theory of gravity. John K Clark