Electric Universe, Wal Thornhill lecture Quotes David Harriman.

[ASUK]

Australian physicist Wallace Thornhill delivers the John Chappell Memorial Lecture at the 2011 Natural Philosophy Alliance on the University of Maryland Campus, July 8, 2011.

Some of you may be interested in this.

Edited July 20, 2011 by ASUK

[Grames]

The lecture is of interest because the lecturer quotes out of David Harriman's book The Logical Leap.

The video is part 1 of 6.

[Ninth Doctor]

Velikovsky was a crackpot. This bodes ill.

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

[Plasmatic]

Velikovsky was a crackpot. This bodes ill.

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

Make sure you don't impute aspects of V's ideas to the Thunderbolts team they don't embrace. I have been discussing Oist epistemology with them for quite some time. For the most part a Popperian skepticism has been the tone. I sat down to listen to the lecture the other day after putting my copy of the Logical Leap onthe keyboard to discover Wal quote Dave Harriman. I liked to fell on the floor. Understand that there are twelve people on the team and there are quite a bit of philosophical differences among them. By the way Harriman quotes an acquaintance and fellow plasma physicist of theirs ,Eric Lerner, in TLL.

I have some experiments I've done in relation to their theories of crater formation and comets etc.

The rest are under the same username.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Plasmatic

[Prometheus98876]

No doubt Mr V. was a crackpot, with a lot of theories which can be discredited by a six year old with half a brain. However, as pointed out, not everyone on the team buys into those (largely) insane ideas. Nor is PC and its EU derivative worthy of dismissing just because some adherents do not always recognize crazy theories when they see them. I do not yet know a great deal about PC, however I do think it is interesting and promising enough to at least merit some investigation. Is there much that is very conclusive? Not as far as I am aware of, but I have to respect people like Thornhill for at least knowing that *something* is wrong with modern cosmology and for trying to "fix" it, even if I am so far unsure if they are necceasirly going in the right direction.

[Plasmatic]

Edit:Not vouching for everything in the vid.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Plasmatic

[Prometheus98876]

Im sure that if "suppression" did occur ( I dont really want to debate the issue of whether or not this occured , though I dont recall the evidence for the assertion that this is what actually happened, if there is any ), then obviously that was unfortunate.

However, a lot of the stuff there involves the more arbitrary claims from PC ( the stuff about how a lot of myths can be explained by plasma discharges , and that Venus is [relatively] new, for the sake of two examples ). In fact, I would be careful about vouching for much of ANY specific arguments Mr V made, at least based on the ones I know of. Certainly all the stuff about how mythlogical commonalities shared by various cultures proves *anything*.

Really, I would warn against vouching for ANYTHING in the video ( pretty much). Sadly, speculations from the realm of social anthropology are not the same thing as actual science or good arguments for PC. Not without ..oh I dont know...something like actual evidence ( vague and unconvincing similarities between stuff from myth and astronomical observations dont really count).

[Ninth Doctor]

I have been discussing Oist epistemology with them for quite some time.

Great. You’re busy raising the profile of Objectivism among crackpots. To the extent anyone pays attention to them, the electric universe and plasma cosmology crowd are a laughingstock. You must know that.

I do not yet know a great deal about PC, however I do think it is interesting and promising enough to at least merit some investigation.

No one’s stopping them. Or do you feel they deserve a place at the public funding trough?

[Prometheus98876]

Great. You’re busy raising the profile of Objectivism among crackpots. To the extent anyone pays attention to them, the electric universe and plasma cosmology crowd are a laughingstock. You must know that.

No one’s stopping them. Or do you feel they deserve a place at the public funding trough?

Actually, not all PC people are crackpots, as not all beleive in the wild claims of Velikovsky and some openly reject his claims as completely arbitrary nonsense. I know one such person in fact, an Objectivist that things that Velikovskys stuff aside, PC may have some merit. Do I think that he is a crackpot? Not at all, though I disagree that there is a such a strong case for PC as he seems to think. Many other people in this crowd fit into this category : ie, of being quite possibly mistaken, but not crackpots. Velikovskys nonsense is not the basis of ALL PC beleif ( even if two of its loudest adherents think it is and even if the EU was originally designed with Velikovskys theories in mind), to say that it is is just unfair.

Also : Assuming they ARE crackpots, how else do you suggest that they *stop* becoming crackpots? By Objectivists not trying to reason with them and to instruct them on proper epistemology? Or is it somehow a bad idea to try to introduce them to better ways of thinking / a *better* (edit) epistemology so that they might correct the errors which lead them to accept crackpot ideas? Do you think that they insane or somehow beyond the reach of such ideas? I see no reason to beleive this in the case of t he vast majority of such people that I am aware of ( Talbott may be beyond help though).

Who said anything about stopping them? I didnt. It is not a matter of stopping them, it is just that PC is not seen to merit as much funding as the PC people would like, for various reasons. Obviously the PC people consider that their research is worth funding, even if the majority of those that fund such things seem to disagree. But none of this justifies comparing them to the Ministry of Silly Walks. Not everyone that wishes to do research in PC is a lunatic, even *if* they are perhaps quite badly mistaken.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Prometheus98876

[Grames]

I conclude that moving from the reports of myth and legend about lights in the sky to a novel physics to explain them is an illogical leap.

From the Wikipedia article on Velikovsky:

More recently, the absence of supporting material in ice-core studies (such as the Greenland Dye-3 and Vostok cores) have removed any basis for the proposition of a global catastrophe of the proposed dimension within the later Holocene period. However, tree-ring expert Mike Baillie would give credit to Velikovsky after disallowing the impossible aspects of Worlds in Collision: "However, I would not disagree with all aspects of Velikovsky's work. Velikovsky was almost certainly correct in his assertion that ancient texts hold clues to catastrophic events in the relatively recent past, within the span of human civilization, which involve the effects of comets, meteorites and cometary dust. . . . But fundamentally, Velikovsky did not understand anything about comets; . . . . He did not know about the hazard posed by relatively small objects . . . . This failure to recognize the power of comets and asteroids means that it is reasonable to go back to Velikovsky and delete all the physically impossible text about Venus and Mars passing close to the earth. . . . In other words, we can get down to his main thesis, which is that the Earth experienced dramatic events from heavenly bodies particularly in the second millennium BC."

[Dante]

Also : Assuming they ARE crackpots, how else do you suggest that they *stop* becoming crackpots? By Objectivists not trying to reason with them and to instruct them on proper epistemology? Or is it somehow a bad idea to try to introduce them to better ways of thinking / a *better* (edit) epistemology so that they might correct the errors which lead them to accept crackpot ideas?

Are you serious? It is most definitely not our job to rid the world of crackpots; that is a fool's errand. The way to deal with crackpots, once you have identified them as such, is to ignore them. People who are so strongly supportive of ideas with very little evidential support are obviously operating on (what else?) faith, and the vast majority of people like that cannot be argued out of it, and we should not spend out precious time trying.

If, during a 'scientific' presentation, the speaker spends more time talking about how 'oppressive' and 'dogmatic' mainstream scientists are than they do talking about the evidence for their own ideas, that does not bode well for them in my judgment of whether or not they are crackpots.

[Ninth Doctor]

Assuming they ARE crackpots, how else do you suggest that they *stop* becoming crackpots? By Objectivists not trying to reason with them and to instruct them on proper epistemology?

I wouldn’t say that. The trouble starts when one of these types starts quoting Ayn Rand alongside the likes of Velikovsky. I didn’t hear him do that, though, he only quoted Harriman and an absurd misrepresentation of Kant that no doubt came from the same source.

But none of this justifies comparing them to the Ministry of Silly Walks. Not everyone that wishes to do research in PC is a lunatic, even *if* they are perhaps quite badly mistaken.

Obviously the Silly Walks bit is exaggerated, it serves to mock anyone going to Government to fund their research. Now, if Cleese and Palin were wearing tin foil hats in the bit, then it would have gone too far and I wouldn’t have posted it.

[Prometheus98876]

I conclude that moving from the reports of myth and legend about lights in the sky to a novel physics to explain them is an illogical leap.

Definitely a highly illogical leap, this sort of stuff really does prevent a lot of people taking PC very seriously at all. Hell, this was how I discovered it, and for a while I was not sure that it was worth looking into. I did eventually discover that there was more to it than just this sort of "argument". Still, I could not fault someone too much for not taking the field too seriously given that this sort of stuff dominates so much of the public written literature / multimedia on the subject.

Are you serious? It is most definitely not our job to rid the world of crackpots; that is a fool's errand

Quite serious, though I suspect we might not be talking about quite the same sort of people here.

I did not say it is our "job". In fact, I said nothing of the sort. But if one is to deal with crackpots ( for some reason, I dont know why one might wish to do so ), it may or may not help to try correct their errors. I dont know what definition YOU are using, but where I come from a crackpot is a person with eccentric or foolish ideas, and they are not necceasirly beyond the reach of reason or logic. They may be people with crazy ideas that simply do not know how to think as well as they should be able to [ at least when it comes to the issue at hand]. Not necceasirly people that openly reject doing so, even when given some pointers on how to do so.

I have had to deal with people with crackpot ideas on things before, and I have been able to convince them that their ideas are highly foolish and to think more critically, at least on that particular issue. Objectivist epistemology was certainly a help in some of those instances. Granted if I t hought that they were completely unreasonable on the issue, I wouldnt have bothered.

Though, I would tend to agree that people that accuse mainstream science of oppressing them are not very likely to be wiling to listen to reasonable suggestions.

I wouldn’t say that. The trouble starts when one of these types starts quoting Ayn Rand alongside the likes of Velikovsky. I didn’t hear him do that, though, he only quoted Harriman and an absurd misrepresentation of Kant that no doubt came from the same source.

Obviously the Silly Walks bit is exaggerated, it serves to mock anyone going to Government to fund their research. Now, if Cleese and Palin were wearing tin foil hats in the bit, then it would have gone too far and I wouldn’t have posted it.

Oh I have little doubt t hat Wal has many misconceptions about the message of TLL and what Objectivism might have to say that supports his theories (assumiong he has given the latter any thought at all, I dont really know that he has). As much as TLL may not be written for experts in Objectivism, I think that it is more likely one will avoid making silly errors after reading it if they have more of an Objectivist epistemology (or at least one that is essentially closer).

I dont recall him talking about Kant too much, and I dont really wish to watch that thing again right now : But which misrepresentation of Kant do you mean? I do not really recall this bit offhand.

Yes, I know what the point of the video was. However, I still think it is unfair, unless of course you meant that it should only be applied to the less rational of those that wish funding. Then I suppose I would concede that is is rather fitting and amusing.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Dante

[Dante]

Dwayne, do you know if PC rejects general relativity? Wallace Thornhill certainly seems to, and the Wiki article on PC indicates that it might. If so, they've lost me already.

[Prometheus98876]

Well, actually as I think I have indicated , I do not really know a great deal about PC. However, I know that Wallace certainly does yeah, almost entirely as far as I can tell. Which is much further than even I would go in fact. I only reject *irrational physical interpretations* of Relativity ( such as space *actually* being curved and time *actually* being a "dimension"). It would seem that the logical course of action is to for instance accept that the *math* of Relativity is correct, even if physicists often derive some irrational conclusions from it.

However, as far as I understand it ( and I could be off here I grant), Wallace is far from the only person to reject relativity to some degree or another.

They openly reject an understanding of physics in terms of mathematical structures, and fine this is rational. By which I mean that they reject the claim that mathematics is really a sufficent explanation for things ( eg in physics "fields" reduce to mathematical equations , with little or understanding of the physical events that take place within these so-called fields). They also seem to reject the notion that one should take the implications of math seriously, in the absence of definitive observations, which is fine. For instance, although the math of relativity closely matches countless observations, it is illogical to assume that it proves that space is curved or that time is actually anything but a relational concept or that it actually dilates and so forth. Fine, that is great as well and one of the reasons I say that *some* in the field (perhaps many ) at least a better grasp of *some* philosophical ideas, as oppossed to the mainstream.

They also try to point out the experiments which are taken to "prove" time dilation were invalid and that the clocks (even the atomic ones) didnt really do what you might have been t old that they did. I dont recall the details, but it seems rather silly. Whether or not time is a dimension or whatever, it seems that clocks *are* affected for *some* reason which we may not really understand as of yet.

It would seem that they are trying to throw it all ( or at least far too much ) out of the window because of philosophical objections, some of which may or may not be valid. However, I do not see that their objections justify the sort of rejection they may be guilty of. Maybe it is not as widely rejected as I beleive ( someone that follows the field more closely than myself may feel free to reject me if they wish), but that is my current understanding anyway.

[Ninth Doctor]

But which misrepresentation of Kant do you mean? I do not really recall this bit offhand.

4 minutes in. That might be a defensible interpretation of Descartes, but not Kant. Not even close.

BTW, I only watched the part posted above, I gather the whole thing is on YouTube. I love how they make it seem like this is something sponsored by the University of Maryland, like it’s a serious academic conference. With a little money one can easily rent space at a prestigious University to discuss Vril, the hollow earth theory, or the latest proofs of Lysenkoism.

[Prometheus98876]

You mean the claim that since Kant said that "the world we observe is all in the mind" ( or whatever exactly Wal claimed that Kant said) that physics has suffered a [massive] decline? Cause I am not sure that *is* incorrect actually. :

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_physics

[Plasmatic]

Prometheus said:

speculations from the realm of social anthropology are not the same thing as actual science or good arguments for PC

I agree and the thunderbolts team make a distinction between the two.

Grames said

I conclude that moving from the reports of myth and legend about lights in the sky to a novel physics to explain them is an illogical leap

I agree but this is NOT what the case is for PC at all. Hannes Alfven had nothing to do with V. and Wal developed his ideas based on observations apart from the mythical reconstruction. All of the physical theory in PC and EU stand apart without any need for the

mythical reconstruction to be true.

As for a laughing stock, I didn't hear any snickering in the presentation Don Scott gave for NASA recently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOI-X215A8Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Edited July 21, 2011 by Plasmatic

[Prometheus98876]

Correct me if I am wrong, but Wallace is part of the Thunderbolt team isnt he and I beleive I have seen videos where he seems to try to use social anthropological arguments to support PC. I could try to find one or more such videos, but I seem to recall it being *Thornhill* that has done so. Maybe it was not intended as an argument per se, more of an interesting "Oh look, I wonder if this supports it? Maybe..". Which is I guess not quite as silly.

[Plasmatic]

Correct me if I am wrong, but Wallace is part of the Thunderbolt team isnt he and I beleive I have seen videos where he seems to try to use social anthropological arguments to support PC. I could try to find one or more such videos, but I seem to recall it being *Thornhill* that has done so. Maybe it was not intended as an argument per se, more of an interesting "Oh look, I wonder if this supports it? Maybe..". Which is I guess not quite as silly.

Yes he is a member. And all of them have a high degree of confidence in the reconstruction. ( Talbots and Cardonas not V's.)But all of them also separate the physical theory from needing to depend on the comparative reconstruction. The predictions that the EU model has had confirmed are not confirmations of the mythical model ,just as the mythical model is not considered a foundation for the physics.

They ALL agree that on mythical reconstruction proof as such is not to be had. Some of this is actually to do with their skepticism though.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Plasmatic

[Prometheus98876]

Oh alright, then I may have misunderstood how they were intending to use the mythological stuff that some of them like to mention fairly regularly. In all fairness though, Talbott (and of course, he isnt a physicist , at least as far as I recall) is about the only one that that I think often seems to *clearly* think that the mythology is an argument for the physics. But I think one can probably dismiss him is a bit of a crackpot ( the less redeemable sort possibly) , or at least safely ignore the more wild speculations he is guilty of.

[Dante]

Apparently this subject has come up on the forums before.

[Ninth Doctor]

You mean the claim that since Kant said that "the world we observe is all in the mind" ( or whatever exactly Wal claimed that Kant said) that physics has suffered a [massive] decline? Cause I am not sure that *is* incorrect actually. :

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_physics

Indeed, you link the Harriman talk that I was referring to here:

he only quoted Harriman and an absurd misrepresentation of Kant that no doubt came from the same source.

Do you take your understanding of Kant from Harriman (and/or Peikoff), or have you arrived at the same view firsthand?

[Prometheus98876]

Oh yeah turns out it has come up before. I dont recall taking part in it back then, guess I must have missed it or else I probably would have posted there ( seems I didnt though).

Note that I dont necceasirly agree with everything Thornhill says about Kant in the original interview, I just wondered if the thing I highlighted is what you meant.

I have read enough Kant to be able to come to my own conclusion that Harriman (Peikoff/whoever) is *essentially* right.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Prometheus98876

[Plasmatic]

Wal has published a paper of great interest here.

http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toaaj/articles/V004/SI0162TOAAJ/191TOAAJ.pdf