What is Proof?

@cameronleon,

I wrote:

It's called a geodesic.
Did you see the last eclipse? Or did you consider the news reports? A few of the documentaries reminded us that even light will not always travel in a straight line.

cameronleon wrote:

You said, "will not always travel in a straight line".

And who is talking about traveling as the only way to prove the axiom?

You can use a measurement tape or a ruler between two points and prove that the shortest way is always the straight line.

Hello?

Thank you for the entertaining interlude.

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@fresco,

Quote:

i know all about time as a psychological concept

. All matter is energy stored in a certain way,(information) and that order is understood by us because all the building blocks of matter, (quarks and electrons) are the same. All quarks are made up of the same amount of stuff as every other quark and all electrons are made of the same amount of stuff as every other electron. Since we as humans have sensors and information processors constructed using this same pattern, and the information in our DNA almost guarantees all our sensors and processors work the same amongst individual healthy people. (I think we can assume that to be something everyone agrees with.) This allows us to come to some (and sometimes total) agreement about what we are sensing.

The question is what are we sensing? How does time factor into our ability to differentiate between the light reflecting off of the atoms in the bug on my windshield, with the light reflecting off of the highway. My mind can differentiate between the amount of time it takes one wavelength of light to reflect off of each atom. If they are a different amounts of time they are a different color. The difference in time (and it's the same for all the senses) to produce the different colors, is the only variable, my eyes (and all my other senses) are sensing and my mind is processing. That interval of time is always the same for every corresponding color and is in agreement among all humans (that understand color and aren't colorblind).

Since we need matter to produce these differences in time that we are perceiving which, in turn, gives us the ability to compare and reason. And, matter is always doing this whether someone is observing it or not, would that make time something 'begotten' of matter rather than a psychological concept?

1 Reply

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:
Sure, faith and belief can be correlated in certain contexts. In regard to assumptions made about observations of natural phenomena, feelings about personal relationships, and assumptions made about the supernatural, faith and belief cannot be correlated.
Really?
Forgive me if this is too personal; but are you married? Did you and your wife get to know each other well enough before you were married, so that you each believed the other would be faithful?

You provide yet another instance of conflating and muddling the meanings of these words.

1 Reply

@brianjakub,

If you want to make 'matter' the 'fundamental stuff of existence' thats your choice. My problem with that goes right back to my degree course in physics in which a diagram in one of the set books showed a 'particle' as a three dimensional reinforcement node of interfering 'waves'. This coupled with the matter-energy equivalence principle sowed the seeds of my scepticism about 'matter' being anything more than a paradigmatically 'useful' concept as indeed is 'time' at some levels of analysis.
There is no point in resurrecting the 'your realism' versus 'my pragmatism' argument here.(That Rorty clip says everything I agree with about the inapplicabilty of 'proof' to theism). The poster above with the 'time hangup' seems to be another 'realist'. I think you two should fight it out !

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Exactly.
Football and Ping Pong are two different things

Keep this in mind when you conflate your terms.

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@fresco,

Quote:

a 'particle' as a three dimensional reinforcement node of interfering 'waves'

. So what's waving, and what is interfering? Why do we as individual humans perceive all matter waving in the same way? Do you believe we are all sensing and perceiving matter in the same way? Do you believe the patterns established as Quantum Mechanics are real?

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@InfraBlue,

I believe you believe you know what you are talking about.

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@brianjakub,

You keep using that word 'real', and I keep pointing out that its meaning is embedded in the context of its usage. At that level of analysis it can only imply 'useful in terms of prediction and control'. The only difference between 'particle' and 'rock' are the types of context in which those words are useful for human activities.
You want to keep one foot on 'the bottom of the pool' but I say there is no bottom. At the age of six I asked my big sister 'when you see 'green', do I see see 'green' ? We both see 'something' which we learn to call 'green' but is it 'the same'. I was not much older when I began to realize that it was a meaningless question. 'Sameness' can only mean 'equivalence for a particular purpose'.

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@fresco,

Do you think the patterns recorded in quantum mechanics are patterns that are classifying the things that constitute matter into categories that were established from data revealing that those things in each category are always the same?

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

I believe you believe you know what you are talking about.

From what you've provided about your ideas of "proof," you've demonstrated your muddled thoughts.

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@InfraBlue,

Quote:

From what you've provided about your ideas of "proof" you've demonstrated your muddled thoughts.

Can you give me an example?

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@fresco,

Quote:

I know all about 'time as a psychological concept',and have even used it myself in issues where the concept of 'beginning' is questionable ! But the issue here is that you appear to be completely ignorant about paradigmatic modelling and contextual semantics.(Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Derrida et al) nor do you seem to understand that our concept of 'physicality' is a function of our species specific percetuql system (Kant, Heisenberg). All of this renders your 'straight line' assertion completely facile and as philosophically vacuous as your 'lack of physical evidence for God' assertion.

Sorry, if you think this is a bit 'heavy' . I was going to 'keep my mouth shut' on your anti Einstein twaddle etc, but your follow up indicated that you needed to be 'sorted out'.

You seem to be going in for long assertive unreferenced speeches . But I have no intention of commenting further on the points I make above. If interesred you can find them well argued and illustrated by investigating my dozen years of posting history here.

Oh, I see.

What a great disappointment of yours.

Having you reading and learning from all those dudes, suddenly, in the middle of a discussion a dude comes and tells you that time doesn't exist, otherwise you must show the evidence of its existence.

A simple use of a measurement tape or ruler demonstrates you that the shortest way between 2 points is the straight line, and I see you looking for refuge inside Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Derrida and other dudes' thoughts.

Well, you now know that those dudes from the past were all suckers who didn't know what they were talking about, and they can't help you to demonstrate here with a simple tool as I did, that space is curve, that time exists, etc.

And this is the difference between "proof" and "belief".

Your teachers taught you beliefs, no one teacher demonstrated you that the distance between 2 points is a curve line, do you remember?

They only showed you drawings made by a lunatic, they only told you so, but no one of them demonstrated you what they were teaching.

They used "logic", they used "conventional ideas" but they didn't prove anything in front of you.

And this is your disappointment, all your life wasted learning sh*t.

Don't think that showing to be so "intellectual" in this discussion will give you points in your argument.

In science evidence is what it rules, science demand "proof".

You don't have it, then you are not talking about science, you are talking about something else.

1 Reply

@brianjakub,

Quote:

Do you think the patterns recorded in quantum mechanics are patterns that are classifying the things that constitute matter into categories that were established from data revealing that those things in each category are always the same?

Unfortunately the universe is more complicated the more we advance in technology and knowledge.

No theory predicted the observation of a dark body which approached to the Sun, gave the appearance of sucking energy from the star for hours, and later leave the place and no one knows where that "thing" went, because was dark as the space itself.

What is the composition of that gigantic spherical "thing"? Who knows.

Was it sucking energy from the Sun? You bet.

Then, is that "thing" alive?

Is that possible?

The current theories are limited to the doctrines which were given decades ago, doctrines that now are found with lots of gaps and mistakes.

What it has been catalogued until today as "matter" and with a correspondent classification, is open to new discoveries.

How many times and how many of those bodies have been sucking energy and exist in the universe is unknown.

We must admit that there are countless of things that we ignore about our universe, and lots of them are here in our planet, even inside our bodies.

Science is a branch of knowledge that deserves respect, but sadly, it has been invaded by lots of lunatics with absurd ideas and they have perverted it.

You can lean on the classification of elements, etc... but don't trust much the so called "theories" because many of them are just fables dressed with formulas and equations.

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@cameronleon,

....No you 'don't see' !
But continue your prattle by all means !
BTW You might enjoy talking to 'layman'. He's another loser who has it in for Einstein ! You a missing a potential opportunity there to battle with him over 'time'...one which could potentially dwarf Woody Allen's match between 'the bed-wetters and the thumb-suckers' !
I look forward to such developments. Cool

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@cameronleon,

The gaps don't make there observations wrong, just their interpretations of the data lacking.

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@brianjakub,

Assumptions made about observations of natural phenomena, e.g. the "belief" one has in the certainty that the sun will rise, feelings about personal relationships, the word for which neologist then uses, "faith"--that is more accurately definable as "trust," i.e. "firm belief in the integrity, ability, or character of a person"--and assumptions made about the supernatural, "faith," which is definable specifically as "belief in God" are not equatable as these words are being used. Their conflation muddles the discussion and leads to obfuscatory ideation, as what's happening with neologist.

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@InfraBlue,

could you give me an example?

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@fresco,

Quote:

BTW You might enjoy talking to 'layman'. He's another loser who has it in for Einstein ! You a missing a potential opportunity there to battle with him over 'time'...one which could potentially dwarf Woody Allen's match between 'the bed-wetters and the thumb-suckers' !
I look forward to such developments.

Just prove the existence of such a flowing time, that's all

Otherwise, you better keep your mouth shut... you are talking peanuts.

1 Reply

@cameronleon,

You still don't get it do you. You can't prove 'existence', you can only agree with others on what constitutes a useful or predictable 'thing' as perceived by the human perceptual/ cognitive system and communally named in order to focus joint attention. All 'things' require 'thingers' and words constitute the arena of their agreement and their 'currency' of exchange.. But arenas and participants change as does the nature of joint project, and the value of the currency . That is the point captured by Kuhn's concept of 'paradigms'. 'Time' exists meaning is a useful human concept' in everyday paradigms, but not in some cosmological ones like 'quantum gravity'.
If you cling to the simplistic idea that 'existence' is some absolute state of being independent of human cognition, then you are what philosophers call 'a naive realist'. In your case, your strident manner makes you a very naive realist !
And as regards this thread I suggest that all we can say about 'the existence of God' is that for some, (not me) it is a useful concept. The word 'proof' is inapplicable since there is no universal consensus as to 'utility' or 'value' of tge word 'God'.

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@fresco,

What you can't understand is that the concept known as "time" can't dilate because objects speed up.

When objects speed up there is a physical phenomenon, physical objects in physical movement. Such you can prove.

Physical objects moving in space is not a concept, is part of physical reality.

And about your human cognition, I exist, then I think.

Your thoughts weren't in space before you were born. Your thoughts came to be after you were born and learned thru your senses to perceive the physical universe. Maybe in your mothers womb, perceiving her heart bits, voice, etc.

Any philosophy saying different is pure crap.

Now, if you say that time "dilates" by cause of speed of objects, because you believe in what that mental retarded of Einstein said, prove here the existence of time.

1 Reply

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