MisterSwig

15 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I don't know what to make of some of his stuff, but, frankly, I find the idea of morphic resonance no more unlikely than the big bang.

I used to think the Big Bang was the most hilarious thing, then I found cat vibing videos.

16 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

btw - In what I have seen of your writing, I like your approach, at least my impression so far of your approach. You're not afraid to question and look, you're not afraid to be wrong, and you don't lord over others as one of the anointed when you are right.

Thanks. I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.*

*May not apply to some socialists.

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

For example, I like mulling over the questions Rupert Sheldrake raises.

First time I've heard of morphic resonance. It sounds unlikely, but I'm always curious about paranormal claims and ideas. I like listening to radio shows like Coast to Coast and Ground Zero. People with weird stories aren't always lying. Sometimes they're just confused about what they experienced, and sometimes they know something you don't.

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

What if scientific laws vary over time?

I hope they vary very slowly. I'm not sure I could handle another crisis this year.

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

From that frame, take a look at your guy with the neutrino.

Can anything be said with absolute certainty about that? Can any of this be validated through observation of some sort? Or is the process models on top of models on top of models?

You can find articles announcing that scientists have produced direct evidence for neutrinos. But there's usually some speculation involved, like they are reporting or showing the effect of a neutrino collision, not an image of the neutrino itself. Hilster pointed out that the image used for the Wikipedia article literally labels an area "invisible neutrino." See this Fermilab video for info on how they detect neutrinos.

On 12/12/2020 at 10:19 AM, Max said:

He doesn't seem to understand the difference between rest mass and relativistic mass.

I get the impression that he understands the difference, but he thinks the concept of relativistic mass is junk. Here are a couple short videos he did on that specific topic.

You say that relativistic mass is dependent on its velocity with respect to the observer. But I don't understand why that should make a difference. Isn't it dependent on the quantity of matter? How does relative velocity affect the quantity of matter? Or do you have a different concept of mass?

On 12/12/2020 at 10:19 AM, Max said:

He also seems to think that the neutrino doesn't exist, claims that it has no mass and no spin.

I've read that the neutrino was originally described as a massless particle and only recently thought to have near-zero mass because oscillations were finally detected. Hilster argues that the massless particle doesn't exist and whatever is being detected shouldn't be called a neutrino. So it seems his view is more nuanced than that initial video might have suggested. Here are a couple on neutrinos.

Has anyone here listened to the Dissident Science podcast hosted by David de Hilster? He popped up in my recent YouTube searching, and in an episode on Dark Matter a viewer named "sciencethinker" recommended a David Harriman video to him. Hilster didn't seem to know about Harriman, though both are very critical of modern theories in physics.

Here is the video on Dark Matter. (The exchange with "sciencethinker" begins at 35:20.)

Also, Hilster and his father are publishing a book about their Particle Model. The book's website has some info and additional links about it.

Based on a few videos I've watched so far, Hilster sounds pretty reasonable, so I'm curious how many other Objectivists listen to him and what they think.

Incidentally, the first video I watched from Hilster was this one about special relativity.

So if you have any criticism of his brief explanation for why Einstein was wrong, I'm interested in hearing it. His main point is that SR predicts mass increase approaching the speed of light, yet particle accelerators do not detect such a phenomenon. Thus, SR is wrong.

Barney says that Scientology benefited many people back in the 1960s and ’70s. Yet Carl Barney Versus Objectivity shows that he greatly suffered at the hands of Scientologists and their practices. The apparent contradiction might be explained by Craig Biddle’s claim that Scientology is “a package deal of sorts” with “relatively good elements and some seriously bad elements.” If so, then like Rand with Aristotle’s philosophy, also a mixture, Objectivists might consider adopting L. Ron Hubbard’s better ideas along with Rand’s – not as part of Objectivist philosophy but as part of daily living. But, I would ask Barney or anyone else, just which ideas are they?

Thanks, Mark. I created an account here to respond if anyone has comments.