stephen_speicher

Have you looked at the three volume set, The Feynman Lectures on Physics? If you can follow it along it might be what you want.

There are many elements involved, but in current terms the kinetic energy of expansion of the universe is balanced by a coupling of the driving force of dark energy and the amount of matter in existence. These relationships are parameterized and different conditions are said to reflect whether the spatial curvature of the universe is flat, positive, or negative, and whether the universe is open or closed (finite or infinite). Some of these parameters are determined from various astronomical observations, and then consequences, such as curvature, are deduced from these. Of course, all of this only makes sense to the degree that the basic premises on which it is built makes sense. It is utter nonsense. The big bang is a creation event; not an expansion in space, but rather an expansion of space. Cosmological matter is not hurtling outwards into some part of existence, but existence is being created between matter on a cosmological scale. Might as well cut out the middleman and stick with God!

I think that begs the question. Implicit knowledge subsumes more than just the axioms, and the issue remains whether or not a chain of reasoning is required to attribute what may be axiomatic to you -- your own state of consciousness -- to another. p.s.. I think you need to work some more on that quoting process.

Mystery solved! And yes, you are right, one would have to guess to know the connection intended. Hopefully he will reformat the posts in a more meaningful way, and then resubmit them. I would think that preferrable, as long as you included a brief description as to why, a description just like the one above.

That is really strange. I received notification of both posts late this afternoon, and the author of each was Rational_One. I simply cannot imagine how the email notification was sent out, yet the posts did not appear. I can forward you copies of what I recieved, if that will help. Oh, that makes perfect sense. I'm glad that you (or, whomever did) removed that nonsense. The post I alluded to was ludicrous beyond belief. Well, for what it is worth, my opinion. Though I have found some of Citizen Publius' posts to be, let's say, a little strange, he seems relatively innocent and the one in question in that thread was, if not overly literate, pretty much on the mark and focused on actions of the other poster that happened here. By contrast, the offending post by Thesweetscience was unbelievably offensive and intended as hurtful, and focused solely on personal issues completely and totally unrelated to this forum. In my view, these two should not be treated equally in what transpired.

I received two email updates to "The Unbounded, Finite Universe" thread in the "Metaphysics and Epistemology" forum, marked respectively as 4:19pm and 4:25pm today, yet when I go to the forum the latest post is from GreedyCapitalist at 10:44am, and these two post are not there. Likewise, a number of postings were made to the "Defending Ayn Rand against attacks" thread in the "Basic Questions" forum, and yet the latest post in the thread shows as yesterday at 12:11 pm by non-contradictor. Anyone know what is going on?

Now you are forcing me to actually do a bit of the research I did not want to spend the time doing. The full quote from Dulles which I had remembered, and which the internet version is just a portion of, was made in a television speech in early February 1953. This was not "during the 1952 Presidential campaign," but rather Dulles' first major act as the new Secretary of State in 1953. These were his words: "... to create in other peoples such a love and respect for freedom that they can never really be absorbed by the despotism, the totalitarian dictatorship of the Communist world ... Our nation must stand as a solid rock in a storm-tossed world. To all those suffering under Communist slavery, to the timid and intimidated peoples of the world, let us say this: you can count upon us." Dulles' words echoed throughout the world, and though this was before the Hungarian revolt, there is no doubt that the spirit of those words were reflected in the CIA-administrated Radio Free Europe broadcasts (which I mentioned twice before) directed specifically towards encouraging, supporting, and aiding the Hungarian revolt. When the Hungarian freedom fighters were last heard broadcasting, asking the Western world for help, they were begging for their lives and for the freedom of their country, and they had reason to believe that help would be forthcoming.

Yes, I would. In and by itself that would represent a sort of feedback to us on the actions of the moderators. Also, because of his reasonable perspective, I am glad that Burgess is an active moderator, and I would encourage activating his earlier suggestions to make communication between moderators, and between moderators and members, more easily facilitated. Although things do not always happen as swiftly as I would like, I have to say that overall this board is running much more smoothly than I had expected. Thanks to those who make it so.

That was a really nice answer. My compliments. I just want to add, or, more precisely, specify, that philosophy as such does not tell us about the detailed nature of what exists, nor does it tell us the specific means by which things act. What philosophy does tell us is that whatever exists has identity, and that it acts in accord with that identity.

Well, I studied this history many years ago, and I do not now want to do the research in historical books, so even though I do not consider the internet as a generally reliable source, I searched and these are the words of Dulles that I recall. "To all those suffering under communist slavery, let us say you can count on us." And, as I mentioned in my other post, Radio free Europe was involved. Here is a portion from this site, which contains "A History of Documents." " Yet Washington's role in the Hungarian revolution soon became mired in controversy. One of the most successful weapons in the East-West battle for the hearts and minds of Eastern Europe was the CIA-administered Radio Free Europe. But in the wake of the uprising, RFE's broadcasts into Hungary sometimes took on a much more aggressive tone, encouraging the rebels to believe that Western support was imminent, and even giving tactical advice on how to fight the Soviets. The hopes that were raised, then dashed, by these broadcasts cast an even darker shadow over the Hungarian tragedy that leaves many Hungarians embittered to this day."

I would ask the moderators to step in and curtail these antics of The Durande. He has consistently misrepresented the views of other posters here, ignored the actual facts and arguments that have been presented, and then offensively and unjustly mischaracterizes those with whom he argues (even though most here have justifiably given up on even trying to have a rational discussion with him). I think he should be free to continue to embarrass himself by presenting his "arguments," but The Durande should not be allowed to continue to misrepresent others views and insult them in the process of doing so.

You are exactly right in regard to the mathematical artifact, but I would not describe it as a "bad mathematical description." The mathematics is just fine; the inferences are flawed. As I have mentioned many times, not all mathematical solutions correspond to some aspect of physical reality. The fact that we can derive certain solutions to the Einstein field equations does not necessarily mean that such solutions represent the real world. What further complicates the problem is the way actual physical data is misinterpreted and used as justification for the poor interpretation of the mathematics. A case in point is the relatively recent findings from the magnificent Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). WMAP is a space probe with onboard microwave radiometers capable of measuring the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation with unprecedented precision. The data from WMAP has been used to favor an accelerated expansion of the universe, which is then interpreted as an element of the shape of the universe. The fault lies not with the data, but with the inferences that are drawn; typically theory-driven, based on a theory which itself suffers from the same philosophical flaws as the "mass" attribute of the universe that has been advocated by some on this thread. For those who have read my posts on physics might know, I am a big supporter of modern physics in general, and I defend it against the onslaught from some Objectivist sources. But modern cosmology is an area that is terribly corrupted with bad ideas, the consequence of a relatively small group of theorists. It is ironic that, just at a time when wonderful astronomical data is accumulating at a rate faster than it can even be processed, the necessary theory to guide the proper interpretation of, and inferences from that data, is deteriorating. That is a shame.

Show him by example. One bright light outshines an army of dimwits ... er, dim ones. (And giving the books of Ayn Rand to read wouldn't hurt either. )

Why? This thread is not about the question "Does mass exist?" That is a scientific question. This main topic of this thread has to do with the question: What attributes can we ascribe to the universe? Have you read Alex's essay on this subject, the essay that was mentioned in the first post in this thread? Here is a pointer to it. Energy is anything but axiomatic. It is the result of a very long chain of abstract reasoning and scientific investigation. You are re-hashing issues that were dealt with in Alex's essay and were the subject of many posts in this thread. You really should read the essay and/or at least read the prior posts in this thread. (Granted there is a lot of noise in this thread, what with the antics of The Durande, but if you focus mainly on the posts of Alex, then if you have something new to add, post again.) [snip a bunch of highly speculative stuff on dark energy and the like.] You have the issue reversed. Unless you have a good grounding in a proper metaphysics and epistemology, like that of Objectivism, then you do not have the best perspective to judge and evaluate the current scientific theories and data. Only if you know where and how to look. No. philosophy comes first. Science afterwards. Philosophy cannot specify the details that are in science, but it can veto ideas that conflict with fundamental philosophical principles. For instance, one may safely reject any claim in any scientific theory that violates identity and causality. Likewise, one may reject out of hand any arbitrary claims of a theory.

A more interesting question: Are there any ghosts who actually believe in Objectivists? (Sorry, I just couldn't resist. ) Boo!

Perhaps you might want to re-format your post so that we can tell which part of it is your words and which part has the words of others. You can check to see how your post looks before sending it out to the forum by clicking on the "Preview Post" button near the bottom of the window.

I really like your attitude!

I look forward to reading your questions to Alex. I for one found his comments fascinating -- an expansion on aspects of his original essay -- and I would enjoy having this subject pushed even further to the edge.

Citation for this empirical finding, please. Note that I have not read the rest of the thirty some odd lines of words. Rational_One, it is extremely difficult to read a run-on paragraph of that size. Please break your thoughts up into more manageable paragraphs. You seem to have some interesting things to say, and if you are going to spend the effort writing so many words, I am sure you would like to encourage others to read them.

You are paraphrasing John Archibald Wheeler, not Einstein.

And you know this how? What do you mean by "WERE great problems?"[Emphasis mine.] There does not exist a standard theory that unifies GR and QM. A standard union of gravity and quantum mechanics results in a nonrenormalizable quantum field theory. Besides, general relativity is based on a dynamical spacetime, whereas standard quantum theory uses a fixed background. That is not the reason. The reason is because general relativity works from cosmological scales to millimeter scales, and small scales are governed by the strong and electroweak interactions, and quantum mechanics and quantum field theory describe observations from small fractions of a millimeter down to 10^-19 m. These separate theories each have their own domain of applicability, and that is the standard problem. So, in other words, the existence of string theory is your justification for your claim that the ultimate constituents of reality have size. Sorry, but the assertions of an unsubstantiated theory do not represent a very convincing argument to me. Besides, the context here in this discussion is philosophy and what can it say about the ultimate constituents. Basically, all that philosophy can say is that they possess identity and act in accord with their nature. There is no philosophical requirement that the ultimate constituents must possess the attribute of size. And, if you want to try to extend this to science, then you have to appeal to something more substantial than string theory.

What I was referring to -- if I recall my history correctly -- is that the Hungarians were led to believe that we would provide support if they would revolt. I think Dulles, our Secretary of State, indicated this, and I believe this was the message of Radio Free Europe broadcasting at that time. They cried for help and we did nothing, and something like 30,000 Hungarians died in the revolt.

And, as if The Durande's past behavior was not bad enough, note how he adds abject dishonesty in his most recent post. He claims: So The Durande attempts to create the impression that his position is misunderstood because I quoted him out of context. Yet, in another post The Durande says: So The Durande's position has not been misunderstood, he just wanted to make it appear that way in an attempt to blame someone else.

Despite your pretense of knowing something the rest of us do not, despite the silliness of you attempting to lecture your intellectual betters, I am still not that disturbed that you continue to demonstrate a complete inability to grasp the subject matter of this thread. However, considering your refusal to own up to your aberrant actions, and your pathetic attempt to blame others for your own failures, you demonstrate a character flaw that far outstrips your evident ignorance. Because of your offensive behavior and demeaning of good people, I find your attitude and actions to be utterly disgraceful.

Over the years I have read several papers on the subject, and spoken with several people who claim lucid dreaming, and have tried a whole shopping list of suggestions, but I have never been able to have a lucid dream. There are people who claim they can control their dream as if they were turning a knob on a screen where the images were being viewed. I am somewhat skeptical of the process as being under as much control as some claim, but I do not rule it out.