Knowledge vs. Dogma - "Infinitesimal"

[moralist]

Adam writes:

"The life we learn with...and the live we live after we learn."

That's beautiful, Adam. My wife and I love movie quotes. We've been collecting them in a journal for years. We also like this quote from the movie, "The Guru"

"In your lie I found my truth."

And one from the hilariously profane movie, "In the Loop":

"At the end of a war you need some soldiers left, or else it looks like you've lost."

--James Gandolfini

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

If we posit good as a positive and evil as a negative then evil cannot exist except as a parasite on the good for it needs good to do evil. Good has no need of evil to do good except as a self defense snap back. Thus, as in The Fountainhead, the impotence of evil save through sanction. This is Rand's basic theme in fiction and non-fiction. To illustrate it she created her ideal man who had to be perfect.

--Brant

thus art into philosophy

[moralist]

Brant writes:

If we posit good as a positive and evil as a negative then evil cannot exist except as a parasite on the good for it needs good to do evil. Good has no need of evil to do good except as a self defense snap back.

A very perceptive comment, Brant.

You caught the subtle asymmetry.

Good always displaces evil... but evil cannot displace good. This is because evil is only a lack of good, just like a shadow is only a lack of light. I call that lack "negative existence".

Thus, as in The Fountainhead, the impotence of evil save through sanction. This is Rand's basic theme in fiction and non-fiction. To illustrate it she created her ideal man who had to be perfect.

Yes. Ayn Rand also noted the asymmetry. It's one of the qualities I love about her. There are old sayings which illustrate that moral principle. For example,

"You can't cheat an honest man."

Why?

Because there is nothing dishonest in him for a cheat to appeal to. Good displaces evil. Someone who can be cheated is already corrupt inside, and that corruption is what grants sanction to the cheater to take advantage.

Kahlil Gibran was also aware of this latent potential that grants its sanction to evil when the opportunity presents itself.

"There are among the people murders who have never committed murder, thieves, who have never stolen and liars who have spoken nothing but the truth."

--Kahlil Gibran

Greg

[Ellen Stuttle]

Adam,

Does the image in post #96 come from a movie?

It's an image I think I've seen from a movie I think I've seen, but I don't remember what movie.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

If you shine a flashlight at a very distant wall, and then you walk in front of the flashlight, the edge of your shadow will appear to travel across the wall at a velocity that's higher than yours. If you run past the flashlight at a velocity close to the speed of light, the edge of your shadow will appear to move at many times the speed of light.

I have no idea what this analogy is supposed to illustrate, but it only holds for a "flashlight" being relatively very close to the moving subject. At optical infinity - say the Sun, as source - the shadow moves at precisely the same velocity on the "wall" as the subject.

I suspect it's supposed to illustrate something about supraluminal transmission, but I don't see the relevance.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

It looks like Dennis has disappeared in a puff of smoke... I doubt my questions will be answered any time soon...

That sort of taunt on a discussion list is silly. There are so many possible reasons why someone might not respond to a post, including not seeing it, being too busy to respond, not considering the post worth a response.

Ellen

[moralist]

Ellen writes:

It's an image I think I've seen from a movie I think I've seen, but I don't remember what movie.

It's young Orsen Wells in the classic, "Citizen Kane".

Greg

[SoAMadDeathWish]

It looks like Dennis has disappeared in a puff of smoke... I doubt my questions will be answered any time soon...

That sort of taunt on a discussion list is silly. There are so many possible reasons why someone might not respond to a post, including not seeing it, being too busy to respond, not considering the post worth a response.

Ellen

But you have to agree that going out of one's way to remove all personal information and avatar pic is kind of an extreme form of "being too busy".

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But you have to agree that going out of one's way to remove all personal information and avatar pic is kind of an extreme form of "being too busy".

That does look like a "puff of smoke."

I'm pleased to see that expression wasn't simple snark. It was a little too cryptic for full understanding for the normal habits of regular forum posters (who bothers to monitor that stuff?), but it has a certain charm now that I know what it means...

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Maybe he finds the conversation tiresome. My late friend Petr Beckmann wouldn't have given you even the time of day. Perhaps for the same reason and perhaps that reason reflects badly on them. Who knows? There's a lot of room in physics' theorizing for flights of fancy in its vast rooms of ignorance. The Einsteinians claim experimental verification and "settled" science. There are so many of them they dominate their profession leaving any layman free to join their party as long as they sound or seem intelligent enough, which you certainly do.

--Brant

I can't take a position on the veracity of facts and theories presented either by Dennis or you--or my dear departed anti-Einsteinian friend who, btw, was a friend of Edward Teller, an Einsteinian

if you have a PhD in physics would you react well to an undergrad giving you an examination in physics and in public?

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen writes:

It's an image I think I've seen from a movie I think I've seen, but I don't remember what movie.

It's young Orsen Wells in the classic, "Citizen Kane".

Greg

Thanks. What's the context, do you remember?

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

It looks like Dennis has disappeared in a puff of smoke... I doubt my questions will be answered any time soon...

That sort of taunt on a discussion list is silly. There are so many possible reasons why someone might not respond to a post, including not seeing it, being too busy to respond, not considering the post worth a response.

Ellen

But you have to agree that going out of one's way to remove all personal information and avatar pic is kind of an extreme form of "being too busy".

That's surprising. I've seen Dennis explain his views patiently and at length on many occasions, so whyever he did that, I don't for a minute think it's an issue of avoiding questions.

Maybe he's planning to upload a different photo.

If he hasn't reappeared in a couple days or so, I'll write to him and ask what's going on.

Ellen

[Selene]

Adam,

Does the image in post #96 come from a movie?

It's an image I think I've seen from a movie I think I've seen, but I don't remember what movie.

Ellen

I assume you meant Greg...correct?

[Ellen Stuttle]

Adam,

Does the image in post #96 come from a movie?

It's an image I think I've seen from a movie I think I've seen, but I don't remember what movie.

Ellen

I assume you meant Greg...correct?

Huh?

Greg identified the movie, but......?

Ellen

[SoAMadDeathWish]

It looks like Dennis has disappeared in a puff of smoke... I doubt my questions will be answered any time soon...

That sort of taunt on a discussion list is silly. There are so many possible reasons why someone might not respond to a post, including not seeing it, being too busy to respond, not considering the post worth a response.

Ellen

But you have to agree that going out of one's way to remove all personal information and avatar pic is kind of an extreme form of "being too busy".

That's surprising. I've seen Dennis explain his views patiently and at length on many occasions, so whyever he did that, I don't for a minute think it's an issue of avoiding questions.

Maybe he's planning to upload a different photo.

If he hasn't reappeared in a couple days or so, I'll write to him and ask what's going on.

Ellen

Maybe he's also planning to upload a different gender?

[Ellen Stuttle]

if you have a PhD in physics would you react well to an undergrad giving you an examination in physics and in public?

Man, does that sound rank-oriented - though I'm sure you aren't rank-oriented.

No reason at all for a PhD to react badly to being examined in public by an undergraduate. Being addressed with the sort of language Naomi used - the insults - is another thing. But even there, Dennis generally turns a deaf ear to that sort of stuff.

Btw, I don't think he finished a doctorate. I think he got too irritated to do the whole thesis bit.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Maybe he's also planning to upload a different gender?

Was his gender given before? Mine has never been given.

Maybe he's transgendering. (That's a joke.)

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Ellen: Well, I grew up surrounded by academics, albeit of the Liberal Arts persuasion. I found out thanks to Petr that physicists don't care much if you have a PhD. They care about the work. The Doctorate is kind of an after-thought; it just naturally tends to come with the brainiac territory. Petr thought mathematics was "easy." When I challenged him on that he thought a moment and then came with that there are esoteric forms (a form?) of algebra that is difficult for a lot of mathematicians. I have no math skills myself that aren't arithmetic. My genius IQ father who had 55-60 IQ points on me (my IQ may have been tested but the schools never told me the results so I guessed 125 to 135) had no such math skills either. The commonality I think is we simply weren't very interested. Unlike puny me, however, he was the Big Brain on Campus (Antioch). The Dean called him in and told him it was okay to type the papers of other students for pay but not to correct their mistakes. He could already do shorthand and type 85 wpm. That's why he could always find work during the Depression in NYC. An immature Ayn Rand could have gone gaga over him not really understanding what she was looking at before getting educated fast. Not-a-pleasant-person.

--Brant

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Maybe he finds the conversation tiresome. My late friend Petr Beckmann wouldn't have given you even the time of day. Perhaps for the same reason and perhaps that reason reflects badly on them. Who knows? There's a lot of room in physics' theorizing for flights of fancy in its vast rooms of ignorance. The Einsteinians claim experimental verification and "settled" science. There are so many of them they dominate their profession leaving any layman free to join their party as long as they sound or seem intelligent enough, which you certainly do.

--Brant

I can't take a position on the veracity of facts and theories presented either by Dennis or you--or my dear departed anti-Einsteinian friend who, btw, was a friend of Edward Teller, an Einsteinian

if you have a PhD in physics would you react well to an undergrad giving you an examination in physics and in public?

If I had a PhD in physics, I wouldn't be wasting my time pushing crank theories to laymen on the internet in the first place.

[Brant Gaede]

Dennis does have his special ideas it would seem. But I really can't evaluate any of them as such. However, If he thinks he's right he doesn't think he's a crank so he's not to be faulted for pushing anything on laypersons for whom it would all be water off ducks' back regardless. As much as I liked Petr, I neither agreed nor disagreed with his Einstein views and did not discuss them much with him (or anyone) except a little topically. I contributed a lot to his Fort Freedom on other matters and if you want to see what I was writing 25 years pre-Internet ago (not very good) on his pioneering dial up discussion site, Google my name and Fort Freedom. It's hard for me to realize I've been, as a practical matter, posting on the Internet for over 25 years now including the long forgotten "John Galt Line," which I think was based in Florida.

--Brant

When my Mother went to Brandeis for some English Lit. grad work she boarded in a house with several crank residents trying to do weird, semi-academic things to her great amusement--one was working on a dictionary I think

[Ellen Stuttle]

I found out thanks to Petr that physicists don't care much if you have a PhD. They care about the work. The Doctorate is kind of an after-thought; it just naturally tends to come with the brainiac territory.

That's less true today with the "peer-reviewed" clubs and the formation of dogmas and the locking out of contrary ideas, but there are still some very respected physicists of older generations who don't have doctorates, for instance, Freeman Dyson.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

If I had a PhD in physics, I wouldn't be wasting my time pushing crank theories to laymen on the internet in the first place.

Naomi, how you set yourself up. You're pushing quite a bit of poor stuff "to laymen on the internet" now.

And Dennis' theories aren't crank. You aren't even correct in your claims of errors.

I haven't time now to go into your criticisms, but if Dennis isn't posting any longer, I'll say something about your criticisms myself later on.

Ellen

[SoAMadDeathWish]

If I had a PhD in physics, I wouldn't be wasting my time pushing crank theories to laymen on the internet in the first place.

Naomi, how you set yourself up. You're pushing quite a bit of poor stuff "to laymen on the internet" now.

And Dennis' theories aren't crank. You aren't even correct in your claims of errors.

I haven't time now to go into your criticisms, but if Dennis isn't posting any longer, I'll say something about your criticisms myself later on.

Ellen

Set myself up for what, learning?

I'm not emotionally invested in my views the way most people are around here.

[Brant Gaede]

Naomi sounds best here when writing about physics. For what that's worth from me. She seems to know what she's talking about. So does Dennis. But what can you say about theorectical mathematical physics when many of its biggest brains square off against each other on the most exalted topics? Consider Einstein. What needs explaining that only his Relativity theories explain and what does he explain that doesn't need Relativity--that is, that simply comes along with the Relativity ride? To get at Einstein one needs to get at the former because if the previously unexplainable by Newtonian physics--previous to Einstein and still(?) unexplained--can be explained afterall then he goes the way of Sigmund Freud. The only other way failing that would be a new replacement theory, not just Newtonian physics. Petr, I think--if I recall correctly--stated for instance that e=mc squared doesn't need Relativity to be valid or to be derived from and wasn't. So x Relativity it's still there.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

If I had a PhD in physics, I wouldn't be wasting my time pushing crank theories to laymen on the internet in the first place.

Naomi, how you set yourself up. You're pushing quite a bit of poor stuff "to laymen on the internet" now.

And Dennis' theories aren't crank. You aren't even correct in your claims of errors.

I haven't time now to go into your criticisms, but if Dennis isn't posting any longer, I'll say something about your criticisms myself later on.

Ellen

Dennis' theories are unknown to us. He has not published them in a refereed scientific journal. Material that is not professionally vetted does not count.

Einstein became famouse because Max Planck, Germany's leading physicist and the inventor of quantum theories though Einstein's results were correct AND important. He saw to it that Einstein's papers were published in Germany's leading physics journal Anallen der Physik

Ba'al Chaztaf.