Originally posted by Dean Roddey
I really wish people would still pulling that one quote out of context and making out like I was claiming that we know all there is to know. That was one statement in a very long discussion, in which I didn't take a stance anything like that, but was mostly arguing against the common belief that, because in the past people said there was no more to discover but there was, that that will always be true. And I was also distinctly talking about *fundamental aspects of nature*, not the bazzillions of things that can happen based on the ones we already understand.

I'm not sure I even understand your defensiveness here. I think you've made it abundantly clear that you were confining it to "fundamental aspects of nature". And we have acknowledged that.

But when you say "that was one statement in a very long discussion, in which I didn't take a stance anything like that" that leaves me very confused. You said the things (and repeatedly) which would lead anyone reading it to believe that you took exactly that stance. If you did not intend to take that stance, I cannot imagine why you said it. No one twisted your arm to say those things. It was your decision.

btw, this thread started in March, 2002. Over a year and a half ago.
Saddam was still hanging people by their toes. Jerry Lewis still had Grecian Formula in his hair. And I was still using those now obsolete CRT projectors.
My how a lot has changed. At the time it was all (arrgh) inconceivable.

"Inconceivable!"

" I don't think that word means what you think it means!" - Inigo Montoya:D

Gus

Haha.

And I misspoke too. Back then Lewis still had the Wesson Oil in his hair. Now it's the Grecian Formula (or probably shoe polish). :)

Originally posted by RobertWood
And I was still using those now obsolete CRT projectors.
Wait a minute! ... I must have been in one of my many other universii when that one hit the front pages... Is this for real? ... Have I actually just witnessed the result of some evil plot by members of the digital projectors forum to use time travel to rule the world? ... Thee end must surely be near... ;)

It was QQQ. He kept using some sort of brainwashing technique. I must have finally succumbed to it. I woke up one morning to discover that my brain was washed and my movie picture had got lousy.

...but at least you can see a rainbow of color ;)

Digital Projectors?! I didn't even know they still manufactured those things!


Howie

Digital Projectors?! I didn't even know they still manufactured those things! I think they are mostly for projectionscientists who believe that they know all there is to know about projecting. ;)

Oh, come on now fellows! Give the LCD guy here a break!

My LCD will deffinitely NOT win any videophile awards for the best blacks, but boy, has it ever been fun to own!

My next pj will probably be the latest and greatest HD-10 or something (HD2 is yesterdays news, right?

Gus

Gus, I am a VT540 owner. Love it. The grays bug me occasionally. The grid less often. But I still love it because it allows me access to HDTV and a gigantic image that would have otherwise been well out of reach to me. Next one? I'm not sure. I'll evaluate when it comes time, but since I love a completely dark room, just have to tinker with a curved screen :D, I might just go analog (but only if I can afford 9" tubes - well at least that's the last that I heard a few years ago).

Originally posted by DOBE
[B]Whatever else is known, this at least is certain.... that the world of our present natural knowledge is enveloped in a larger world of some sort of whose residual properties we at present can FRAME NO MEANINGFUL IDEA.


We can see to the edge of the universe and we haven't even travelled to the edges of our own little pond. When we're able to build a Dyson sphere around the sun and travel to other solar systems, will we be able to see _beyond_ the edge of the universe? Is there anything to see? Will we be able to measure the properties of superstrings? Will it tell us anything about how the brain becomes concious, or will it be pretty much as useless as quantum chromodynamics is to chemistry?

Everything, and I mean everything, in nature has a saturation point. A point beyond which the effect no longer increases. For example, lasers. You can build a laser and get so much light out of it. Then, make it longer, and put more power in, and you'll get more light out of it to a point, then nothing more - it saturates. A population of animals in an ecosystem can saturate that ecosystem. Any drug you take has a saturation effect in the body. In economics they call the saturation effect diminishing return (or marginal utility).

I think it's very unreasonable to expect that we are far away from that saturation point, and that we will go on making dramatic discoveries for thousands or even millions of years hence, making the last few centuries a mere footnote in the history. I think instead that, within the next few decades, physics will continue to peter out, followed by chemistry, and eventually the biological sciences over several more centuries. The period 1650-1950 (roughly) will be seen as a golden age in science, when most of the fundamental discoveries were made.

Like running out of oil, they won't ever be totally dead fields, they may become more like poetry, in that they become nearly irrelevant to most people's lives once the lack of new,useful technology coming out of that field becomes apparent. So a few people will pursue new discoveries. and not get paid much.

Now I don't want to brag, but so far only a few of us have enough balls to put up our pictures. I know most of us are pantywaists who will never have the guts enough for that (notice no one on the science side has done so).
But, that notwithstanding, a man's display device probably reveals more about him than anything. So far here's the cold hard facts.

Gus........... LCD front projector
ManE......... LCD front projector
Dean......... CRT front projector
Bob W. ..... DLP front projector
QQQ ......... s**t he's a dealer so probably owns them all

anybody else?

So the rest of yuse got 19" Sylvanias. Is that it?

I wish. I use my cigar lighter to backlight my ViewMaster.

So, contrast is not too good with your system, is that what you're trying to say with that Avatar?

Actually my movie picture has pretty good contrast. I just wish I could say the same about my life.

I hope you know that smoking will stunt your growth. I'm now down to about 5 foot 1.

p.s. we've now gone from science to one-liners. I wonder what that abduction shrink from Harvard would have to say about all this.

Originally posted by RobertWood
notice no one on the science side has done so

Well that may or may not be true. Because I'm not sure which side Salmoneous is on. The science side or the side of ignorance (our side).

"Ignorance is bliss!!" - Cypher

Gus

True. But us truly ignorant didn't know who to attribute that quote to.
I don't know, Gus. We may have to banish you over to the science side.

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to seek knowledge" - Francis Bacon

Aww, I can't lie to you, Bob. I have a 34" widescreen direct view set. When HD becomes more widespread, and I have more money to burn, I'll probably go plasma.

I light the stogies but I don't inhale.

Direct view still makes the best picture of any of it.

I already have to ask for help if I want to move my set. I'd have to make more friends if I needed to move a 60" direct view, assuming such a thing was ever made.

Just don't tell QQQ you've got anything with a cathode ray tube in it.
He'll go on a tear again. :)

you don't need no plasma. just get one of these.

http://*******.com/vrzh

damn. I'm missing King of the Hill.

Hmmm. I wonder how Hank Hill and Butthead can have the exact same voice but no one notices.?
But then again no one ever noticed that Clark Kent and Superman had the exact same face.

I have one of those except I didn't pay nearly that much.

I was always wondering how nobody on Bewitched seemed to notice that Darren looked kinda different all the sudden.

If I go plasma, I will miss the daily bath of x-rays from my DV that keep me clean.

I refrain from posting my picture as a gesture of good will to my viewing public.

Originally posted by moore


I was always wondering how nobody on Bewitched seemed to notice that Darren looked kinda different all the sudden.



Now that's the kind of observation that separates the men from the boys (and the science from the stupid). :D

I guess I'm just not going to be able to get yall interested in those cartoons. But I've got to tell you this. I just read through the latest posts in that Matrix thread. Man oh man would I like to see Groening and Judge take that one on. That combination could make for one of the most entertaining feature film parodies ever. Now that's something that IS conceivable.

Bob!

Please feel free to add me to your cold hard facts list. I'm pure plasma baby, all the way!


Howie

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
I refrain from posting my picture as a gesture of good will to my viewing public.

I understand. Me too. ;)

Now you're talkin, Howie.
But I dunno. There's just something about making a picture with gas that troubles me.

The thing about plasma is the more you get...the more you want!:p

Howie

By the way. "Groening/Judge" is just a catch all. I'm sure there's a hell of a lot more talent responsible for those masterpieces. But that doesn't take a thing away from Groening or Judge. It's still their genius. And I don't use that term loosely.

I've got to find a cartoon fanboy newsgroup. I wonder if there is such a thing.
But if I do I imagine they'll be calling it anime or some such high fallutin scientific sounding thing. To me it gets back to Salmoneous' Duck Rule. If it looks like a cartoon. Then call it what it is.

Animation has a very unique way of preserving moments from the past...i.e. there's actually quite a bit of our culture captured within the body of Mr. Groenig's work.

Now...if only someone would release a Fractured Fairy Tales box set!

Howie

Bob,

Perhaps you should sign up over at animatedbliss.com or dvdtoons.com!:D

Howie

Originally posted by DOBE
[B]Whatever else is known, this is what I think.... that the world of our present natural knowledge is enveloped in a larger world of some sort whose residual properties we at present can FRAME NO MEANINGFUL IDEA.

moore: I altered my original statement slightly. I changed the words "this is certain" to "this is what I think". I also removed an extra "is"(typo) near the end so the thought flows more clearly.

Even given the tremendous discoveries we have made in the last 150 years, I really do believe that there will be many future discoveries that are unimaginable. By that I mean that this civilization will find answers to questions that we, at present, can't even frame. Let me give an example of a situation where someone doesn't even know enough to frame the question.

Okay, here's one we can all identify with. Let's say a young quantum physicist meets a lady in a bar and tries to impress her by telling her his occupation. She says I don't believe you. The physicist says ask me a question about quantum physics and I'll prove it. The lady just stares and says I don't even know what a quantum physicist is how can I ask you a question about it. I believe we are, even with all our scientific knowlege, similar to that lady.

We can ask questions about what we know and what we think we have discovered but I believe that there are *things* in this and perhaps other universes that we will discover, and that scientists....a thousand years or more from now....will look back and say "those guys thought they had it almost all figured out....................... boy did nature fool them."

Think of the Pythagoras and Aristarchos on the Greek island of Samos 2500 yesrs ago. They were brilliant men of science. If we were able to travel back in time and ask them to to frame some questions about science in the year 2003 what would they say? They likely would not be able to frame any questions relevant to quantum physicists, general or special relativity. If you told them mankind would be able to sit at home and put information into a box (computer)and and then send that information in seconds to millions of people thousands of miles away, they probably wouldn't believe you.

I know you say that was then and this is now. You say there is only so much to discover. You say there are only the four forces of nature and physical matter and once we unite the forces and determine how matter (individual particles) are created then there will be nothing of consequence left to discover.

You don't believe the universe has bottomless levels and you don't believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties. That's an opinion you're entitled to, but in 1,000 years I'm going to look you up and say, I told you so.;)

That's it, Howie. That's what I've been looking for.

I'm new at philosophizing about this cartoon stuff. So I know this is probably old hat to the toon experts. But it seems to me the most obvious and important thing about animation is that it is virtually limitless in what it can portray. It's not shackled in so many ways as is live action. For that reason, it's doubtful that Groening or Judge could have ever even conveyed most of their ideas with live action.

In other words cartoons can show us the inconceivable (in a manner of speaking). See. I'm still on topic.

Originally posted by RobertWood
Now I don't want to brag, but so far only a few of us have enough balls to put up our pictures. I know most of us are pantywaists who will never have the guts enough for that (notice no one on the science side has done so).
But, that notwithstanding, a man's display device probably reveals more about him than anything. So far here's the cold hard facts.

Gus........... LCD front projector
ManE......... LCD front projector
Dean......... CRT front projector
Bob W. ..... DLP front projector
QQQ ......... s**t he's a dealer so probably owns them all

anybody else?

Okay, I have a 50" Fujitsu P50 Plasma. What does that reveal about me? Never mind. No responses are needed.:D

I think my response to moore got lost at the bottom of page 102.:eek:

I also feel the need to respond to other points moore made, but I'm too tired.:(

Please don't let all this nonsense get in the way of that, DOBE.
The things you write about and how you write about them are sheer brain candy.

Originally posted by moore
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to seek knowledge" - Francis Bacon.

"The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from the
will and affections. For what a man had rather were true he more readily
believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatiences of
research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of
nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and
pride; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of
the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes
imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the
understanding."
(Francis Bacon, 1620)

Francis agrees with me.:D

If you told them mankind would be able to sit at home and put information into a box (computer)and and then send that information in seconds to millions of people thousands of miles away, they probably wouldn't believe you.


But, and this one of the things I was trying to explain that keeps getting misinterpreted, those things depend on a fundmental aspect of nature that we discovered well over a hundred years ago. The pace of fundamental scientific discovery has slowed hugely recently, because the price of each new step up that asymptotic curve is growing larger and larger.

As we get closer and closer to the 'bottom', the price for each new step will go up very fast. And we have to ask ourselves, is it worth the huge price to try to get to that next step, or should we put that money into refinement of the fundamental aspects of nature we do know about, which is what has brought us all the cool toys that we have right now.

If it were free, I'd be all for banging against the wall until we are bloodied just to find out what we can. But with a limited world budget, a balance will eventually have to be had, and it's already begun with things like the canceling of the super-collider project in the 80s. We should spend what we can afford to, just on the off chance we do find something, but I don't think we can expect anything like the crazy rush forward of physics that occured in the 1900s, where someone like Rutherford could make a fundamental discovery with a couple of nested glass tubes.


Think of the Pythagoras and Aristarchos on the Greek island of Samos 2500 yesrs ago. They were brilliant men of science. If we were able to travel back in time and ask them to to frame some questions about science in the year 2003 what would they say?


But is another of those comparisons that assumes that the end is always equidistant from our current position, and there's not really any guarantee that this is the case, or more to the point that the end point that we can actually reach is always as far away. The very fact that we are so far ahead of them means that those ahead of might not be able to travel as far from us as we are from Pythagorus. They may have some really cool toys from very extensive refinement of their understanding of the same basic forces of nature we already know about, but that doesn't mean that their fundamental understanding of the fundamental fabric of space time is equally advanced from ours as ours is from the Ionian Greeks.

MY God!! I missed this one. And I'm sure glad you mentioned it again so I didn't miss seeing it altogether. When I said brain candy, I wasn't kidding.


Originally posted by DOBE
.



Even given the tremendous discoveries we have made in the last 150 years, I really do believe that there will be many future discoveries that are unimaginable. By that I mean that this civilization will find answers to questions that we, at present, can't even frame. Let me give an example of a situation where someone doesn't even know enough to frame the question.

Okay, here's one we can all identify with. Let's say a young quantum physicist meets a lady in a bar and tries to impress her by telling her his occupation. She says I don't believe you. The physicist says ask me a question about quantum physics and I'll prove it. The lady just stares and says I don't even know what a quantum physicist is how can I ask you a question about it. I believe we are, even with all our scientific knowlege, similar to that lady.

We can ask questions about what we know and what we think we have discovered but I believe that there are *things* in this and perhaps other universes that we will discover, and that scientists....a thousand years or more from now....will look back and say "those guys thought they had it almost all figured out....................... boy did nature fool them."

Think of the Pythagoras and Aristarchos on the Greek island of Samos 2500 yesrs ago. They were brilliant men of science. If we were able to travel back in time and ask them to to frame some questions about science in the year 2003 what would they say? They likely would not be able to frame any questions relevant to quantum physicists, general or special relativity. If you told them mankind would be able to sit at home and put information into a box (computer)and and then send that information in seconds to millions of people thousands of miles away, they probably wouldn't believe you.

I know you say that was then and this is now. You say there is only so much to discover. You say there are only the four forces of nature and physical matter and once we unite the forces and determine how matter (individual particles) are created then there will be nothing of consequence left to discover.

You don't believe the universe has bottomless levels and you don't believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties. That's an opinion you're entitled to, but in 1,000 years I'm going to look you up and say, I told you so.;)

Jumpin friggin Jehosaphat. We're back in business again.

Doctors used to think that children grew a little bit each day till they reached full
growth. Then the doctors started to measure each day and found it not to be the
case. Children grew in spurts then took a break for awhile then another spurt
happened.

The last three hundred years has been a growth spurt in knowledge. We might be
close to taking a break for the time being. Perhaps a thousand years? Who knows.

I would be comfortable with this if we can just find a way to ween ourselves off of
our fossil fuel dependence. Then we can take a break.

Nice try DOBE and Bob. There is a pretty significant difference between the hubris of the ancients and what I am talking about. For one thing, I find it sobering and depressing to think that the party might be almost over, and we're just the few drunks left eating the stale pretzels and drinking the crappy beer left in the cooler - so to speak.

I would love it if there was some new earth-shattering discovery to be made, just as I'm sure a cartographer or explorer of two centuries ago would be thrilled to find a new island or mountain. But it's becoming clear that there ain't no atlantis. There are nine-and only nine- planets in the solar system, there are four fundamental forces, and we know how to measure them. There is no telekinesis gland in the brain, there is no astral projection, there is no communicating with the dead. Elvis does not walk among us, nor is there any bigfoot. You cannot use chi to poke a hole in a coin with your mind. You cannot survive very long without eating. You cannot 'read' other people's minds without significant clues like body language.

Will there be fractal layers of nature discovered? Maybe, even probably. Will they matter? Think hard about that question. These layers have continued to be peeled back for decades - quarks, superstrings, grand unification, the Higgs boson. What do any of them have to do with our lives? Within a few short years of Chadwick's discovery of the neutron, with a fairly ramshackle operation, Fermi and colleagues made an atomic pile work, and it was essentially grasped that the atomic bomb could be made. The maser and electronic computers were developed about 20 years after quantum mechanics. The unraveling of the genome is already yielding some new medicine.

I marvel when I read about something elegant like the Bose-Einstein condensation, but eventually I start thinking, "so what can practically come of that?" I don't pretend that I'm smart enough to think of something, but the things people have written haven't been too impressive. Atom lasers? OK, thanks.

Bob,

Do you really think there can be anything that bests quotes like these in our future?

---------------------------

Simpson, Homer Simpson, he's the greatest guy in history, from the town of Springfield, he's about to hit a chestnut tree...

Kill my boss?!? Do I dare live out the american dream?

Mmmm...Sacrelicious!

Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.

Beer. Now there's a temporary solution.

Son, when you get older you'll realise that life is just one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead

Oh, yeah, what are you gonna do? Release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark, they shoot bees at you?

------------------

I was watching another form of cartoon genius tonight, but it is a little too politically incorrect to discuss on this forum. It's set in a small town in Colorado.

Originally posted by moore


I would love it if there was some new earth-shattering discovery to be made, just as I'm sure a cartographer or explorer of two centuries ago would be thrilled to find a new island or mountain. But it's becoming clear that there ain't no atlantis. There are nine-and only nine- planets in the solar system, there are four fundamental forces, and we know how to measure them. There is no telekinesis gland in the brain, there is no astral projection, there is no communicating with the dead. Elvis does not walk among us, nor is there any bigfoot. You cannot use chi to poke a hole in a coin with your mind. You cannot survive very long without eating. You cannot 'read' other people's minds without significant clues like body language.



Some of that I agree with, some I don't. So this leads me to ask, why do some believe and others don’t? Why do we choose one or the other? What does that say about us as a whole? Ultimately, what does that say about us individually?

I've seen that avatar before and I know who it is, I just can't place it at the moment. Clues?

I have been refraining from interjecting any religious content into this thread but since we are quoting great philosophers and how they perceive science I found this one appropriate


Genesis 11:6
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.


its my belief that there is no end to what we can discover and even perhaps more profoundly what we discover is only a result of us "looking" for it which brings it into existence.

our understanding of nature is so very limited by our ability to only take "snap shots" of what reality is. we live in a fluid none digital domain
and are trying to explain it with mathematics which is pure digital.
every measure of science weather it be distance, mass,speed, time, etc is OUR very rough interpretation of what natural laws are. natural laws were not forged on "fixed" values of anything mathmatical because mathematics was invented by us as a way of interpreting and quantifying what we perceive in our domain.

I sincerely hope the few people who are reading this thing appreciate something.
Some of DOBE's and moore's contributions rival anything that's being published.

It's a freakin privelege to be able to read it.

Like what the thread is discussing, the thread itself could be at it's ending time. It could be that everything's now been said. And it will naturally end.

Or there could be much more of this thread awaiting us. There could be more to this thread that is now, dare I say it, inconceivable.

If that's the case, please no one do anything to jeopardize that. Please don't. It's unfortunate I know, but it's just a fact of life now that there are things which have been deemed just too sensitive to allow them to be discussed in a venue like this. And it's not what this is all about. Please don't go there.

Originally posted by qwickdraw4
our understanding of nature is so very limited by our ability to only take "snap shots" of what reality is. we live in a fluid none digital domain
and are trying to explain it with mathematics which is pure digital.

Mathematics is not in general 'digital', in the sense you mean here. Typical maths are purely analog. The world appears to in fact be more discrete than the equations usually used to describe it. As for the rest of your comments, I think my only response can be the proof of the pudding is in the eating. For the things we know (the speed of light, for example), science works extremely well. If that is considered a rough approximation of reality, I'll take it.

I've always thought that the mapping of the human genome will play an integral part in many technological advancements yet to come.

It makes perfect sense that a symbiotic relationship between humanity and machine will continue to grow, and allows us to develop new forms of technology never dreamed of before.

Although is seems inconceivable at the moment, perhaps one day we really will figure out a way to transport organic molecules across great distances, similar to how light travels. If this ever happens, the universe will become a very different place.

Howie

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
But, and this one of the things I was trying to explain that keeps getting misinterpreted, those things depend on a fundmental aspect of nature that we discovered well over a hundred years ago. The pace of fundamental scientific discovery has slowed hugely recently, because the price of each new step up that asymptotic curve is growing larger and larger. This is one of those statements that is wrong on so many fronts you don't know where to begin the disagreement.

Let's start with the assumption that scientific discovery is slowing down. Well, by any quantifiable measure, the exact opposite is true. If we look at patents, papers or products, the pace of science is booming. Now each of these measures is flawed - they measure a lot more than just scientific breakthroughs. But they do give us an indication that advancement is growing, and I don’t know of any metric - flawed or otherwise, that indicates that science is slowing down.

The only thing we don't have is any recent blockbuster breakthroughs. But to look for those is to fundamentally misunderstand how science advances. The complete breakthroughs come once a century. The rest of the time scientific discovery is like walking through a cloud. While you are in it, you see a translucent fog of disjointed particles. Only when you are past the cloud and look back do you see a coherent opaque mass. At any moment in history, current scientific progress - coming bit by bit in thousands of tiny advances - will seem insubstantial compared to the fully formed discovery we see in the past.

It is extreme hubris to think we understand most of what there is to understand. The Copernican view of celestial mechanics fell apart do to its inability to predict tiny "wobbles" in the orbit of Mars. Newtonian mechanics fell apart with tiny jumps in the orbit of Mercury. Our current view of celestial mechanics is falling apart due to our inability to explain 10-50% of the mass of the universe. That's a pretty big gap to fill.

In the 19th century, they could do some things with electricity. They could create it, run it through a wire and use that running current for useful purposes. They had formulas that told them if they did A and B, C would be the result. But nobody had a clue how it worked.

That's about where we are with quantum physics. We have theories that tell us a single electron behaves probabilistically. It's not either here or there - it simultaneous might be in either place. We can even calculate and manipulate the various probabilities of where it is. But while we understand what is going to happen, we haven't a clue why it happens. Lot's left to learn.

Which brings me to the final objection. You say that our computers are based on fundamental aspects of nature that we discovered over 100 years ago. I don't know about your computer, but mine has something like 50,000,000 semi-conductors in it. Each semi-conductor is a tiny little quantum mechanics machine doing what every scientist 100 years ago would have told you was impossible. They work by putting electrons extremely close to an impassible barrier. They are so close that an electron could be on this side, or it could be on that side. By changing the probabilities around, you can move the electron from one side to the other *without it ever crossing the barrier*. Spooky stuff. (We won't even go into the fact that they build these suckers with x-ray lasers and what our understanding of x-rays and lasers were 100 years ago.)

Originally posted by RobertWood
Like what the thread is discussing, the thread itself could be at it's ending time. It could be that everything's now been said. And it will naturally end. According to IMDB, Salma is currently filming one movie, and is contracted for at least three more in pre-production. Plenty more to discuss.

Ummmmmmmmm! Saaaaaalmmaaaaaa!

Gus

The problem I have with the "we already know all there is" theory is that there is no way to quantify what WE DON'T KNOW. It doesn't work like those little bar graphs that tell you how much is left when downloading or copying a file.

Just yesterday I thought marine biologists had figured out how many species of WHALES we had. But today (http://animal.discovery.com/news/afp/20031117/newwhale.html?ct=1327.45413416163) it turns out we didn't know JACK. Whales, for crying out loud! 40 feet long, right under our noses, and we never knew it was there!

Gus

You know life is so funny. Just a few pages ago I thought I must have been reincarnated as Mathew Harrison Brady. My ideas had been scorned and vilified. And all I had left were my images of Salma. And my subconscious memories of being probed.

And now all of a sudden I feel instead like Bertrand Cates. And a dream team of Henry Drummonds has come to my rescue.

p.s. did you notice, moore, that Cates looked amazingly a lot like Darrin.

Oh, boy. This is going to be a long one. This is one of those posts that is so wrong on so many fronts I don't know where to begin.

Originally posted by Salmoneous
Let's start with the assumption that scientific discovery is slowing down. Well, by any quantifiable measure, the exact opposite is true. If we look at patents, papers or products, the pace of science is booming. Now each of these measures is flawed - they measure a lot more than just scientific breakthroughs. But they do give us an indication that advancement is growing, and I don’t know of any metric - flawed or otherwise, that indicates that science is slowing down.


Papers are the only one of those three that has any connection with science, and even a substantial fraction of those are technology based. No one here is questioning the boom in technology of late, but there is a significant disconnect between technology and science.

The only thing we don't have is any recent blockbuster breakthroughs. But to look for those is to fundamentally misunderstand how science advances. The complete breakthroughs come once a century. The rest of the time scientific discovery is like walking through a cloud. While you are in it, you see a translucent fog of disjointed particles. Only when you are past the cloud and look back do you see a coherent opaque mass. At any moment in history, current scientific progress - coming bit by bit in thousands of tiny advances - will seem insubstantial compared to the fully formed discovery we see in the past.


There were a rather large number of 'once a century' breakthroughs in the first half of the 20th century. Dozens, I would say. And since then.... ??? I think 50 years is enough time to have some perspective. Look at the list of nobel prizes. How many of us even understand what the more recent ones are for? Will we ever? Does it matter? I don't mean to say that they are not deserved, just that they are nowhere near as fundamental as say, discovering that atoms have a nucleus.

It is extreme hubris to think we understand most of what there is to understand. The Copernican view of celestial mechanics fell apart do to its inability to predict tiny "wobbles" in the orbit of Mars. Newtonian mechanics fell apart with tiny jumps in the orbit of Mercury. Our current view of celestial mechanics is falling apart due to our inability to explain 10-50% of the mass of the universe. That's a pretty big gap to fill.


Funny then that Newtonian mechanics is still taught in high schools and colleges, and still suffices for all nonrelativistic work, which covers about 90% of physics and 99% of engineering. Relativistic celestial mechanics seems to work extremely well for our solar system, where it is limited not by any 'dark matter' or 'fifth force', but by chaos, the ultimate lack of ability to predict even the simplest of systems. Chaos is a huge gap to fill in any physical system. It is extreme hubris to assume that we mere mortals can some day fill it.

Also, I am perplexed. At what point do you say, OK, we know a lot ? Or is not only human knowledge unbounded, but knowledge itself? Is there an infinite amount to know?


In the 19th century, they could do some things with electricity. They could create it, run it through a wire and use that running current for useful purposes. They had formulas that told them if they did A and B, C would be the result. But nobody had a clue how it worked.


Except James Clerk Maxwell. And Nikola Tesla. And a few hundred others. If you do not appreciate that Maxwell's equations represent the purest understanding of electromagnetism, and not just "formulas", then I am sorry to inform you that you are the one who has no clue.

Of course, anyone can play the 4 year old game, and just keep saying "why why why" in answer to every question. But by any reasonable standare one quickly crosses from science to philosophy to mysticism (or the dead end of tautology).


That's about where we are with quantum physics. We have theories that tell us a single electron behaves probabilistically. It's not either here or there - it simultaneous might be in either place. We can even calculate and manipulate the various probabilities of where it is. But while we understand what is going to happen, we haven't a clue why it happens. Lot's left to learn.


This is the rather old and tired Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. I, and many others who are not trying to publish woo-woo books
with titles like "quantum healing", find it easier to say that electrons have some wave properties (they are wave packets). There is no perfect analogy to either particles and waves in our world, but electrons act like waves but also have some characteristics of particles.

50, or 500 years from now, no one is going to go "Oh, here's what an electron really is - it's like a frisbee." It is like many things in physics only understandable as an abstraction. We know it's charge, it's mass, how to make lots of them and scan them across a screen to light up phosphor, or to use them to make a mask that is then used to make microchips. We know a lot. There is not much left to learn about electrons.


Which brings me to the final objection. You say that our computers are based on fundamental aspects of nature that we discovered over 100 years ago. I don't know about your computer, but mine has something like 50,000,000 semi-conductors in it. Each semi-conductor is a tiny little quantum mechanics machine doing what every scientist 100 years ago would have told you was impossible. They work by putting electrons extremely close to an impassible barrier. They are so close that an electron could be on this side, or it could be on that side. By changing the probabilities around, you can move the electron from one side to the other *without it ever crossing the barrier*. Spooky stuff. (We won't even go into the fact that they build these suckers with x-ray lasers and what our understanding of x-rays and lasers were 100 years ago.)

First part last: let's not go into that stuff because it isn't true. X-ray lasers are not even remotely practical enough to make microchips. Many different tools including conventional lasers (1950s), discharge lamps (1850s), and electron beams (1930s) with exquisite optics (1700s) are used in semiconductor fabs.

Electron tunnel junctions do exist (woo-woo!) but are not the primary component of microchips. Conventional transistor-type gates are used. These are still beautiful and neat, but sorry, no woo-woo factor.

Computers were made with vacuum tubes before semiconductors. Electrons, yes, but no quantum mechanical understanding needed. THe binary concept was a much more important breakthrough.

Uh oh. I'm starting to look a lot like Brady again.

Originally posted by Gus
The problem I have with the "we already know all there is" theory is that there is no way to quantify what WE DON'T KNOW. It doesn't work like those little bar graphs that tell you how much is left when downloading or copying a file.


My physics teacher in high school was the best. At the end of the year, he said to us "Before, you didn't know what you didn't know. Now you know what you don't know." He was being snarky, of course, but there's some wisdom there.

We are not totally ignorant, by definition, as you and Bob and Sal seem to be assuming, of what we don't know. Great, a new species of whale has been found. Does that imply that there are an infinite number of species to be discovered? And wouldn't a new genus, or even better phylum, that isn't even a whale be more profound? Are we likely to find a whole new organism on earth that totally blows our current understandings away? As I have asked multiple times on this thread without a response, are we going to find a new continent, or even a decent sized island, on this planet? Are we going to find a new vital organ in the body? So why aren't the fields of cartography and anatomy exhibiting hubris for assuming their work is nearly done?

At what point do you say, OK, it's been a blast but it can't go on forever?

Originally posted by ALIENS
Some of that I agree with, some I don't. So this leads me to ask, why do some believe and others don’t? Why do we choose one or the other? What does that say about us as a whole? Ultimately, what does that say about us individually?

I've seen that avatar before and I know who it is, I just can't place it at the moment. Clues?

I have no idea who that is, honestly. Just someone with a lot more facial character than me.

You can choose to agree or not agree, but I chose all of those things specifically because the evidence is way on my side. I use basically the same standard for all of these things. I forget when we discussed this but it was 30-40 pages back.

From the article Gus linked:"only 1.5 million of the estimated 10 million species alive today have been recognized and named scientifically. The biggest knowledge gaps are in microscopic species, especially fungi"

I stand corrected. Everything I've said is wrong. I look forward to the breakthroughs in time travel, x-ray lasers, crop circle understanding, and Salma Hayek probing that will occur once we catalog the next few million "microshrooms".

;)

Originally posted by moore

I stand corrected. Everything I've said is wrong.

I don't think everything you've said is wrong. I would be seriously challenged to prove ANYTHING you've said is wrong. I think our disagreement is more philosophical than scientific, or simpler still, semantic.

When you use the word "FUNDAMENTALLY", as you describe our level of understanding of physics, you automatically give youself license to use VERY broad definitions. These broad definitions, because they are so broad, leave gaps for us to target.



..and Salma Hayek probing that will occur ...



Where do I sign up??:D

Gus

Originally posted by moore


At what point do you say, OK, it's been a blast but it can't go on forever?

I don't know when. But, with all due respect, I just don't see how we can start popping those corks when we've never even stepped outside the front door yet.
Sure, we've devised a few meager little tools, and a method for using them (science), so we can take a look out the window. But what you're suggesting is like me climbing up on my rooftop and trying to look at Paris with a telescope. And then proclaiming that I actually understand what I'm seeing.
Sure, your telescopes and present day science are seeing something significant. And providing you with significant knowledge. S**t my telescope might actually show me the top of the Eiffel Tower too (if I could see beyond the horizon that is).
But think about what I wouldn't be seeing. And then realize that what you're seeing might make "the tip of an iceberg" seem like something substantial. "Might". That's the key to this disagreement.

It's easy to fall into a trap here. It's easy to conclude that present understanding of physical nature is all there is. It's nice and tidy.
But it's just a little too nice and tidy. That trap always is.
It's a lot harder to recognize that we just do not and cannot now know what is left to be discovered. Any more than I would have any inkling that there's an entire city below the top of the Eiffel Tower.

No, what I'm saying is that you know a lot about your house. And houses in Paris may be very different, but they all have walls, and a roof, a foundation and kitchens and bathrooms and windows to look out of. There is plumbing which works with positive pressure, and electrical power which is generated by a number of different means. There is the occasional house with no bathroom or windows, but it's something we've seen in our own town or neighborhood, so no big deal.

And you're telling me that we don't know squat about houses, that eventually, when we leave our little town and explore, or spend more time thinking about it, suddenly something new will occur to us like.....???

And I'm saying that we're improving the insulation, redecorating the kitchen, etc. We may find a hidden room or a laundry chute we didn't know about, but we know a LOT about houses.

There will be interesting things in our future, I have no doubt. But how much new, fundamental science?

Originally posted by Gus
I think our disagreement is more philosophical than scientific, or simpler still, semantic.

When you use the word "FUNDAMENTALLY", as you describe our level of understanding of physics, you automatically give youself license to use VERY broad definitions. These broad definitions, because they are so broad, leave gaps for us to target.


I'm still digesting this, and my lunch. I try to give examples, but since we are talking in terms of hundreds or thousands of years I suppose it applies more generally. Sometimes I go back and read my posts and they don't seem clear at all, but I do try.

Originally posted by moore
No, what I'm saying is that you know a lot about your house. And houses in Paris may be very different, but they all have walls, and a roof, a foundation and kitchens and bathrooms and windows to look out of. There is plumbing which works with positive pressure, and electrical power which is generated by a number of different means. There is the occasional house with no bathroom or windows, but it's something we've seen in our own town or neighborhood, so no big deal.

And you're telling me that we don't know squat about houses, that eventually, when we leave our little town and explore, or spend more time thinking about it, suddenly something new will occur to us like.....???



Ahh. Now we're finally getting somewhere.
I submit that you're confining your thinking to the inside of a wee small 20th century earthling box.

You immediately thought of "houses". Why do you think that is? It's because you're using your only point of reference. The only perspective you or any of us have.
Yes. A city as we know it has houses. Those houses have electricity. And plumbing. And a partridge is known to live in a pear tree.

But, for heaven's sake. If you lived in America. And the sum total of your knowledge was being gleaned from seeing a blurry grainy image of the top of the Eiffel Tower, you would know nothing of what's beneath that.
There would be a million nuances to what's down below which you would be oblivious too. And some things which would fundamentally alter your notion of urban society altogether.

Remember now, that what's below that tower is metaphorical. I cannot even attempt to describe what might be below a tower you would be able to see on Alpha Faroffa. There may not be houses. There may not be plumbing. And for all we know a pear tree could live inside a partridge.

And even that continues to be a metaphor. Because we're still inside a wee small box of metaphors.
Consider this. What I'm telling you is that it is indeed still a possibility that we may be able to one day drill a hole in the wall of your little box of "all fundamentals". Or join your existing box to another box. Or maybe discover that there's another now invisible box already inside your box.
Or even, God forbid, discover that your box was not as hurricane proof as we think it is today. And the hurricane of future discovery might alter the shape of your box.

When you live inside the 20th century box, the natural inclination is to rule out all those possibilities. I think that's a mistake.

At this point, I feel like the more we discuss, the less we know.

Limited human perspective is the ultimate understatement.

Howie

Let's start with the assumption that scientific discovery is slowing down. Well, by any quantifiable measure, the exact opposite is true. If we look at patents, papers or products, the pace of science is booming. Now each of these measures is flawed - they measure a lot more than just scientific breakthroughs. But they do give us an indication that advancement is growing, and I don’t know of any metric - flawed or otherwise, that indicates that science is slowing down.


Moore pretty much said what I'd have said. *Technology* is speeding up vastly, fundamental science has slowed to a standstill compared to the late 1800s and early 1900s. In that period, all the low hanging fruit was there for explotation and they did it with a vengence, and they could do it very cheaply.

Ever since then, in terms of fundamentals, we've mostly been refining things that have been around since the 1920s or before. Quarks came along since then but the experimental proofs of quark theories are already quite a struggle for us, and coliders are sill being built just to test those. And even there, Gell-Mann's quark breakthrough was in like the late 70's, right?

As I argued many times in this thread, even with what we do know, extreme refinement of those fundamental understandings over the next few centuries will easily create technology that even we of this age would have trouble distinguishing from magic, but it won't require any new truely fundamental understandings of the basic fabric of our universe to accomplish. The quantum tricks used in our computers was theoretically set out in the 20s, and our current ability to *use* them for something interesting is engineering, not fundamental science. The transistor effect on which even the engineering is based was patented in like the 40s, right? Since then we've just refined it and miniaturized it.

I think that we are quickly approaching a point where, to experimentally test the theories that are required to take us fundamentally beyond where we are now, the cost is going to just be prohibitive. It's the lag of experimental verification of theories that's probably most to blame since theorists just need a computer and whiteboard, but without that fast turn around time from theory to experiment back to theoretical refinement, fundamental science gets bogged down and can' move forward.

When I said earlier that people like Rutherford could make fundamental discoveries with a couple nested glass bottles, I was being literal. He really did that. Back then, all the low hanging fruit was their, and experimental verification could be done on a shoestring budget, and they just tore through so much so fast. But that is over and fundamental science is so large that it's had to go international to spread the cost around, and it's all about big, multi-disciplinary teams and such.

Sorry, for the delay in responding but I do have a real job, with boring meetings………………………………

Originally posted by moore
Nice try DOBE and Bob. There is a pretty significant difference between the hubris of the ancients and what I am talking about. For one thing, I find it sobering and depressing to think that the party might be almost over, and we're just the few drunks left eating the stale pretzels and drinking the crappy beer left in the cooler - so to speak.

Your argument is becoming remarkable unfocused for a scientist and your notion that “the party might be almost over” is curiously pessimistic for a scientist. At first I thought you were arguing that we have made almost ALL, 80% is the number I have seen thrown around, of the discoveries of nature. I thought you were saying that there are no, or very few, “earth-shattering” discoveries left to be made about the known universe. I disagreed with that in my response to you for the reasons stated in that post. By known universe I mean the one that we live in.

However, even if we confine your argument to our universe, a problem is encountered. It seems more and more likely that to explain our universe and to unite the laws of physics we need to understand and perhaps even DISCOVER (confirm by scientific experiments or observation) other universes and higher dimensions. We currently only have mathematical constructs that suggest that there may be something called Superstrings that exist and if they do that they may be the Holy Grail that unites all the laws of physics and explains how all particles and forces are created.

About 7 years ago Edward Witten theorized that membranes (branes) may exist. This theory required that 11, instead of 10 dimensions, exist. This “M” theory unites the previous 5 string theories within a single overarching framework. The branes are extended OBJECTS in string theory. A one-brane is a string, a two-brane is a membrane, a three-brane has extended dimensions. A p-brane has p spatial dimensions. This theory explains why gravity is perceived to be so weak. In actuality it may be very strong but we perceive it as weak because most of it is dissipating into another dimension.

I refer to these very RECENT theories because it is becoming clearer to quantum physicists that multiple dimensions really exist and that they are PART OF NATURE. Witten who has been called the next Einstein has said:

“It is conceivable that the big bang could have produced a string so large that it would be present in our universe and visible to in telescopes, perhaps discoverable by the satellites that are now mapping out the microwave sky. If that were discovered, it would be a dramatic confirmation of the existence of strings” (note the use of the word discovered)

It’s folly for you to argue that we have made all or even a fraction of the “earth-shattering” discoveries concerning parallel universes or higher dimensions. We have mathematical theories but we have not yet made any of the needed DISCOVERIES. We will likely not make those discoveries in our lifetime.

But you were not depressed because you felt YOU would never see scientists actually DISCOVER (using scientific experiments) these other dimensions, universes, superstrings or branes. Instead you appear to be depressed that most of what constitutes nature has….in your opinion….. been discovered. Let me be accurate, you said:” For one thing, I find it sobering and depressing to think that the party might be almost over, and we're just the few drunks left eating the stale pretzels and drinking the crappy beer left in the cooler - so to speak.”

This sounds like an incredible failure of imagination on your part. It may take thousands or even 10’s of thousands of years but eventually scientists will DISCOVER other universes, other dimensions, superstrings and branes…….or something like them.

This civilization will travel to other universes by creating or using already existing worm holes. Many scientists believe that wormholes connect two regions that exist in different time periods. Thus a wormhole may connect the present to the past. Yes, a wormhole could possibly be used as a time machine. There is also a theory that our universe is one of an infinite number each connected to the others by an infinite series of wormholes. Travel between them is theoretically possible. These are theories waiting for scientific proof.

Of course these theories depend on the existence of a theory of quantum gravity. We haven’t even advanced far enough to have accomplished that feat yet. But quantum gravity must exist in black holes and must have existed at the time of the big bang. Once we have a quantum theory we will know much more about the possibility of traveling to other universes and traveling back in time.

Alan Guth, a physicist, has suggested that the physics of wormholes may eventually open up, serving as an umbilical cord connecting our universe to another, much smaller universe. He says it would give scientists an unprecedented view of a universe as it is created in the laboratory.

Are these discoveries just around the corner? No. But 2500 years ago on the Island of Samos , computers, jets, etc. were not just around the corner either. 2500 years from now we may well have OBSERVED superstrings and branes. We may have figured out how to travel to other universes using worm holes. We may have developed the ability to slow light and use that knowledge to create a time machine. The possibilities are endless. Yet, you and Dean say the era of “earth shattering” scientific discoveries is over. Discovering a worm hole, a superstring, a brane, another universe that one could travel to, or other dimensions that we could observe, wouldn’t be earth shattering?

How can you, as a scientist, possibly say” the party might be almost over”. You’re joking with us ……………correct?

Originally posted by moore
I would love it if there was some new earth-shattering discovery to be made, just as I'm sure a cartographer or explorer of two centuries ago would be thrilled to find a new island or mountain. But it's becoming clear that there ain't no atlantis. There are nine-and only nine- planets in the solar system, there are four fundamental forces, and we know how to measure them. There is no telekinesis gland in the brain, there is no astral projection, there is no communicating with the dead. Elvis does not walk among us, nor is there any bigfoot. You cannot use chi to poke a hole in a coin with your mind. You cannot survive very long without eating. You cannot 'read' other people's minds without significant clues like body language.

What the heck are you talking about? Have you read my previous post? Why are you bringing Mysticism into this discussion of science. Atlantis, Elvis, Bigfoot, astral projection, poking holes in coins, talking to the dead. How does any of that relate to my point that there are still great scientific discoveries to be made? I can’t even believe you thought you were making a point by mentioning the paranormal.:confused:

Originally posted by moore
I marvel when I read about something elegant like the Bose-Einstein condensation, but eventually I start thinking, "so what can practically come of that?" I don't pretend that I'm smart enough to think of something, but the things people have written haven't been too impressive. Atom lasers? OK, thanks.

“What practical use can come of it?” You haven't been paying attention. The Bose-Einstein condensation was discovered in 1926. It wasn’t until around 1998 that the technology existed to take advantage of it. Dr. Hau used this new technology to slow light.

Professor Hau's research centers on optics with cold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates. Hau's group pre-cools atoms using laser cooling to temperatures in the microkelvin range. The atoms are subsequently trapped in a 4-Dee electromagnet and cooled by evaporation to nanokelvin temperatures, resulting in the creation of Bose-Einstein condensates that contain millions of atoms. Hau and her team reduced the light speed by optically inducing a quantum interference in a Bose-Einstein condensate.

The light actually stalled out inside the glob of sodium atoms, particularly at an instant when the light hits the sodium atoms, it is simultaneously hit with another laser-what's called a coupling laser. Even though it sounds abstract the biggest impact of this work could be in the burgeoning field of quantum computing and quantum communication. If you can control the vast energy source of light, stop it and, therefore, manipulate it, you can create-at least theoretically-a whole new generation of lightning-fast computers, known as quantum computers.

So quantum computers are one incredibly powerful potential in the future. But there’s more. In the future, slowing light could have lots of practical consequences, including the potential to send data, sound and pictures in less space and with less power. Also, the results obtained by Hau's experiment might be used to create new types of laser projection systems and night vision cameras with power requirements a million times less than what is presently possible.

I posted part of this information earlier, but even if you missed that post it’s instructive that you wondered “what could practically come of that”. You aren’t impressed with the possibility of quantum computers or laser projection systems and night vision cameras with power requirements a million times less than what is presently possible OR you hadn’t thought that the Bose-Einstein equation could be used to accomplish such technology?

I think what we have here is a failure of imagination on your part. I wouldn’t mind it so much if you weren’t a scientist. “The party might be almost over”. I don’t think so.

There were a rather large number of 'once a century' breakthroughs in the first half of the 20th century. Dozens, I would say. And since then.... ??? I think 50 years is enough time to have some perspective. Look at the list of nobel prizes. How many of us even understand what the more recent ones are for? Will we ever? Does it matter? I don't mean to say that they are not deserved, just that they are nowhere near as fundamental as say, discovering that atoms have a nucleus.

To me, 'once a century' breakthrough discoveries are ideas that produce a massive leap forward in understanding that are instantly recognized as being "very, very important." In the 20th century, we have Einstein.

For the other fundamental discoveries, it takes time. Nobody woke up one day and "discovered" that atoms have a nucleus. We now look back and say Rutherford did his experiment and made this discovery. But at the time, this was one of thousands of experiments done by hundreds of scientists. It produced a curious result and generated one of many theories.

The fundamental theories are the ones that stand the test of time. We look back on the past and see that atoms having nuclei is fundamental. But when you are standing in the middle of the cloud of discovery, it's hard to see what is fundamental and what isn't. 50 years from now, who knows what will be seen as the fundamental discoveries of the second half of the 20th century. Will discovering the building blocks of DNA be seen as less important than the building blocks of the atom?

If you do not appreciate that Maxwell's equations represent the purest understanding of electromagnetism, and not just "formulas", then I am sorry to inform you that you are the one who has no clue.

Of course, anyone can play the 4 year old game, and just keep saying "why why why" in answer to every question. But by any reasonable standare one quickly crosses from science to philosophy to mysticism

I guess I don't have a clue. Maxwell's equations may represent the "purest understanding" of electromagnetism, but it still explains the what and not the why. Don't underestimate the why. Without the why, how do you explain why some metals conduct electricity better than others? Without the why, we wouldn't understand why oxygen free copper is mandatory for acceptable speaker cables (that's a joke, son).

But more fundamentally, the 4 year old game of why why why is what science is all about. Here is 99% of what you need to know about gravity - "stuff falls". Galelio even worked out most of the equations. Is that all there is? Was that the end of science with nothing else to learn? It's the philosophers who wouldn't accept that and kept wondering "why". And that why has produced a lot of interesting stuff. I say we keep asking why.

As for the last bit - my college roommate is a research guy at IBM. He tells me they build chips with x-ray lasers and that you need to understand quantum mechanics to understand semiconductors. I haven't a clue whether you or he is right. But in either case, I'm pretty sure they don't "depend on a fundamental aspect of nature that we discovered well over a hundred years ago" as Dean put it.

You guys are swaying me back and forth like a palm in a category 5 hurricane.

Gus

And I LIKE IT!:D

Gus...

He tells me they build chips with x-ray lasers and that you need to understand quantum mechanics to understand semiconductors. I haven't a clue whether you or he is right.


Quantum mechanics was worked out in the 20's. It's been refined since then, but I doubt seriously that if Wolfgang Pauli or Schrodinger were popped back to life right now that it would take them very long at all to understand the workings of your friend's x-ray laser.

That stuff is not fundamental science, it's high end engineering. It's applying theories that have been around a long time (speaking relatively of course), 80'ish years or so. That doesn't mean it's simple by a long shot, but their x-ray laser is not any kind of fundamental increase in the understanding of our universe and what's it made of.

Oh boy. This is going to take a few posts. I will hit the factual errors first, then move on to gross misinterpretations of what I said, then finally get back to opinion, which is actually the enjoyable part.

The Bose-Einstein condensation may have been postulated many years ago, but it was not found in any laboratory until the last ten years, and the nobel prize was very recently awarded for it's discovery.

Quarks were 'discovered' in the mid 1960s.

Rutherford's experiment was as clear as it was elegant. He was quickly awarded the nobel prize, as were many others in the first half of this century.

Yes, discovering the building blocks of DNA was instantly recognized as being important. It was essentially guaranteed that the discoverers would get a nobel prize.

There is much more to great science in this century than Einstein. In fact, quantum mechanics could have done just fine without him, and it is more important to technological development than relativity. It would be hard to argue that Linus Pauling was less important than Einstein to science, or Enrico Fermi or the triad of Schrodinger, Dirac, and Heisenberg. There are others who achieved similar levels, but very few in recent years*. Once again, I invite you to look at the lists of Nobel prizes and tell me which ones since 1960 are as fundamental as Rutherford's (for example).

I repeat - computer chips do not use tunnel junctions, and are not fabricated with x-ray lasers. I am right, spend 5 minutes with Google.


I think that's it for the gross factual errors. Feel free to respond to any of these, but respond with information, not repetition. I don't make things up, and I don't think you do either, but if I make a mistake and someone points it out, I either check my facts or retract what I said, or both, and I expect the same from you. Otherwise, all you're doing is muddying the waters and putting the burden of proof of your facts on ME, which is not terribly fair.

* I am in no way suggesting that scientists are becoming less capable or intelligent, there are some really brilliant people out there, and many more of them. So, are they just biding their time for the next 100-year breakthrough time to approach? Why, with the 10-50x increase in investment in science since WWII, hasn't there been an acceleration in your "every hundred year leap forward", or is that some kind of fixed interval, regardless of how many people or how much money is involved?

Originally posted by moore
Bob,

Do you really think there can be anything that bests quotes like these in our future?



While I do entertain the possibility that the talents of Newton and Einstein and even the talent of Michael Jackson can all be bested in our future - I'll have to cave and say I think you might have me with this one.
In all honesty, I doubt it.

http://members.cox.net/buddy_weiser/simpsons.jpg

moore: Was that your response to my post? Are you saying that I made a factual error when discussing the Bose-Einstein condensation? Originally, you said you marveled at the Bose-Einstein condensation but had no idea how it could be used for practically purposes. I noted that the idea was predicted in the 20's and that it wasn't until the 90's that technology could take prove of the prediction. I also gave examples of future technologies that will be made available as a result. where exactly did I make a factual error and are you going to respond to my post.

"The Discovery of Bose-Einstein Condensation: Confirmation After 70 Years"
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-experiment/app3.html

I think that's it for the gross factual errors. Feel free to respond to any of these, but respond with information, not repetition. I don't make things up, and I don't think you do either, but if I make a mistake and someone points it out, I either check my facts or retract what I said, or both, and I expect the same from you. Otherwise, all you're doing is muddying the waters and putting the burden of proof of your facts on ME, which is not terribly fair.

Are you saying I'm "mudding the waters"? Are you saying I provided "no Information" in my last post? Are you accusing me of being unfair? I'm going to repost my original response to you in 3 different posts. It will make it eaiser for people to tell who is factually in errror, who is mudding the waters and who is being unfair.

The rest is mostly belittling me directly, now that I've read it again. I will clear up a few things based on misunderstandings:

DOBE, the seeming paranormal non-sequiter was not aimed at you. What I was getting at was that some people equate the paranormal with 'new frontiers of science'. What new discoveries are there to be made? Some of you have said that by definition we cannot know, so I threw some admittedly crazy things out there. It's not my best point.

But can we tone it down a little? I hope I was not being as insulting in my post as both of you were above. You basically both insinuate that I am either joking or bad at what I do or both. I don't believe that I am either, and would not accuse either of you in the same way.

The failure of imagination charge I predicted a couple of pages back. Hmmm. Think a little. Is it that I can't even imagine things like in Star Trek, which pretty much covers everything you've brought up (DOBE), OR, I can imagine them, and would like them to happen, but I can also imagine the possibility that this is IT, there are no other universes, there are no useable wormholes for time or space travel, there will be no huge impact on the science we already know if and when superstrings or extraterrestrials are discovered. Which takes more (cue Spongebob Squarepants conjuring a rainbow with his hands) : "im-a-gi-naaaa-tion"?

Yes, I have read about and seen Hau's and other's experiments. THere is possibly some nifty technology to be had there, but I'm not holding my breath. One thing that's clear is that nearly every scientist makes wild claims about what they are doing, because it's necessary to be funded and promoted within their community, and this gets amplified in the popular literature (including journals like Science). They don't necessarily lie, but they can be rather extremely optimistic, shall we say? I look back on things (like x-ray lasers, or fusion) that were trumpeted in the 70s and 80s as the next big thing. You can find articles further back than that on "quantum computing".

In my judgement, looking back on the hype and comparing with what's been achieved, biology and medicine have done well, chemistry and materials science fair, and physics pretty lousy.

To clarify my "position": At one point Bob and I agreed on a number, and I don't remember what that was. 60%? And that was for how much physics is over. As I said just a few posts back, I think we have decades of physics to go, and it will never END, but it will continue to slow down. I just don't see a rennaisance coming. Anyone can _say_ that they do see one coming, based on "im-a-gi-naaaa-tion" (rainbow), and the fact that one was coming in Copernicus' or the ancients' time, but that is - to be polite- pretty linear thinking.

Originally posted by moore
Nice try DOBE and Bob. There is a pretty significant difference between the hubris of the ancients and what I am talking about. For one thing, I find it sobering and depressing to think that the party might be almost over, and we're just the few drunks left eating the stale pretzels and drinking the crappy beer left in the cooler - so to speak.

Your argument is becoming remarkable unfocused for a scientist and your notion that “the party might be almost over” is curiously pessimistic for a scientist. At first I thought you were arguing that we have made almost ALL, 80% is the number I have seen thrown around, of the discoveries of nature. I thought you were saying that there are no, or very few, “earth-shattering” discoveries left to be made about the known universe. I disagreed with that in my response to you for the reasons stated in that post. By known universe I mean the one that we live in.

However, even if we confine your argument to our universe, a problem is encountered. It seems more and more likely that to explain our universe and to unite the laws of physics we need to understand and perhaps even DISCOVER (confirm by scientific experiments or observation) other universes and higher dimensions. We currently only have mathematical constructs that suggest that there may be something called Superstrings that exist and if they do that they may be the Holy Grail that unites all the laws of physics and explains how all particles and forces are created.

About 7 years ago Edward Witten theorized that membranes (branes) may exist. This theory required that 11, instead of 10 dimensions, exist. This “M” theory unites the previous 5 string theories within a single overarching framework. The branes are extended OBJECTS in string theory. A one-brane is a string, a two-brane is a membrane, a three-brane has extended dimensions. A p-brane has p spatial dimensions. This theory explains why gravity is perceived to be so weak. In actuality it may be very strong but we perceive it as weak because most of it is dissipating into another dimension.

I refer to these very RECENT theories because it is becoming clearer to quantum physicists that multiple dimensions really exist and that they are PART OF NATURE. Witten who has been called the next Einstein has said:

“It is conceivable that the big bang could have produced a string so large that it would be present in our universe and visible to in telescopes, perhaps discoverable by the satellites that are now mapping out the microwave sky. If that were discovered, it would be a dramatic confirmation of the existence of strings” (note the use of the word discovered)

It’s folly for you to argue that we have made all or even a fraction of the “earth-shattering” discoveries concerning parallel universes or higher dimensions. We have mathematical theories but we have not yet made any of the needed DISCOVERIES. We will likely not make those discoveries in our lifetime.

But you were not depressed because you felt YOU would never see scientists actually DISCOVER (using scientific experiments) these other dimensions, universes, superstrings or branes. Instead you appear to be depressed that most of what constitutes nature has….in your opinion….. been discovered. Let me be accurate, you said:” For one thing, I find it sobering and depressing to think that the party might be almost over, and we're just the few drunks left eating the stale pretzels and drinking the crappy beer left in the cooler - so to speak.”

This sounds like an incredible failure of imagination on your part. It may take thousands or even 10’s of thousands of years but eventually scientists will DISCOVER other universes, other dimensions, superstrings and branes…….or something like them.

This civilization will travel to other universes by creating or using already existing worm holes. Many scientists believe that wormholes connect two regions that exist in different time periods. Thus a wormhole may connect the present to the past. Yes, a wormhole could possibly be used as a time machine. There is also a theory that our universe is one of an infinite number each connected to the others by an infinite series of wormholes. Travel between them is theoretically possible. These are theories waiting for scientific proof.

Of course these theories depend on the existence of a theory of quantum gravity. We haven’t even advanced far enough to have accomplished that feat yet. But quantum gravity must exist in black holes and must have existed at the time of the big bang. Once we have a quantum theory we will know much more about the possibility of traveling to other universes and traveling back in time.

Alan Guth, a physicist, has suggested that the physics of wormholes may eventually open up, serving as an umbilical cord connecting our universe to another, much smaller universe. He says it would give scientists an unprecedented view of a universe as it is created in the laboratory.

Are these discoveries just around the corner? No. But 2500 years ago on the Island of Samos , computers, jets, etc. were not just around the corner either. 2500 years from now we may well have OBSERVED superstrings and branes. We may have figured out how to travel to other universes using worm holes. We may have developed the ability to slow light and use that knowledge to create a time machine. The possibilities are endless. Yet, you and Dean say the era of “earth shattering” scientific discoveries is over. Discovering a worm hole, a superstring, a brane, another universe that one could travel to, or other dimensions that we could observe, wouldn’t be earth shattering?

How can you, as a scientist, possibly say” the party might be almost over”. You’re joking with us ……………correct?

Originally posted by moore
I would love it if there was some new earth-shattering discovery to be made, just as I'm sure a cartographer or explorer of two centuries ago would be thrilled to find a new island or mountain. But it's becoming clear that there ain't no atlantis. There are nine-and only nine- planets in the solar system, there are four fundamental forces, and we know how to measure them. There is no telekinesis gland in the brain, there is no astral projection, there is no communicating with the dead. Elvis does not walk among us, nor is there any bigfoot. You cannot use chi to poke a hole in a coin with your mind. You cannot survive very long without eating. You cannot 'read' other people's minds without significant clues like body language.



What the heck are you talking about? Have you read my previous post? Why are you bringing Mysticism into this discussion of science. Atlantis, Elvis, Bigfoot, astral projection, poking holes in coins, talking to the dead. How does any of that relate to my point that there are still great scientific discoveries to be made? I can’t even believe you thought you were making a point by mentioning the paranormal.

DOBE: I sent you a PM, but as you can see, I have responded above as I said I would. THere are things I have missed, but time is a factor and I have to run for now.

Originally posted by moore
I marvel when I read about something elegant like the Bose-Einstein condensation, but eventually I start thinking, "so what can practically come of that?" I don't pretend that I'm smart enough to think of something, but the things people have written haven't been too impressive. Atom lasers? OK, thanks.

“What practical use can come of it?” You haven't been paying attention. The Bose-Einstein condensation was discovered in 1926. It wasn’t until around 1998 that the technology existed to take advantage of it. Dr. Hau used this new technology to slow light.

Professor Hau's research centers on optics with cold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates. Hau's group pre-cools atoms using laser cooling to temperatures in the microkelvin range. The atoms are subsequently trapped in a 4-Dee electromagnet and cooled by evaporation to nanokelvin temperatures, resulting in the creation of Bose-Einstein condensates that contain millions of atoms. Hau and her team reduced the light speed by optically inducing a quantum interference in a Bose-Einstein condensate.

The light actually stalled out inside the glob of sodium atoms, particularly at an instant when the light hits the sodium atoms, it is simultaneously hit with another laser-what's called a coupling laser. Even though it sounds abstract the biggest impact of this work could be in the burgeoning field of quantum computing and quantum communication. If you can control the vast energy source of light, stop it and, therefore, manipulate it, you can create-at least theoretically-a whole new generation of lightning-fast computers, known as quantum computers.

So quantum computers are one incredibly powerful potential in the future. But there’s more. In the future, slowing light could have lots of practical consequences, including the potential to send data, sound and pictures in less space and with less power. Also, the results obtained by Hau's experiment might be used to create new types of laser projection systems and night vision cameras with power requirements a million times less than what is presently possible.

I posted part of this information earlier, but even if you missed that post it’s instructive that you wondered “what could practically come of that”. You aren’t impressed with the possibility of quantum computers or laser projection systems and night vision cameras with power requirements a million times less than what is presently possible OR you hadn’t thought that the Bose-Einstein equation could be used to accomplish such technology?

I think what we have here is a failure of imagination on your part. I wouldn’t mind it so much if you weren’t a scientist. “The party might be almost over”. I don’t think so.

Originally posted by DOBE
Are you saying I'm "mudding the waters"? Are you saying I provided "no Information" in my last post? Are you accusing me of being unfair? I'm going to repost my original response to you in 3 different posts. It will make it eaiser for people to tell who is factually in errror, who is mudding the waters and who is being unfair.

I am not accusing you of anything. My statement was pre-emptive, and mostly directed at Salmoneous' "my college roommate said" comment.

Again, I am responding to at least three people, not just you, do not take everything personally.

Now I am REALLY late. Cheers.

Originally posted by moore
The rest is mostly belittling me directly, now that I've read it again. I will clear up a few things based on misunderstandings:

But can we tone it down a little? I hope I was not being as insulting in my post as both of you were above. You basically both insinuate that I am either joking or bad at what I do or both. I don't believe that I am either, and would not accuse either of you in the same way.

Sorry, I will tone it down. I really thought that there was a chance that you were joking given the " parties almost over" line, " the paranormal stuff" and your comment that you couldn't imagine any practical use for the Bose-Einstein condensation.

I will tone it down.:)

So quantum computers are one incredibly powerful potential in the future. But there’s more. In the future, slowing light could have lots of practical consequences, including the potential to send data, sound and pictures in less space and with less power. Also, the results obtained by Hau's experiment might be used to create new types of laser projection systems and night vision cameras with power requirements a million times less than what is presently possible.


But all of that is just technology, not fundamental advance. A quantum computer is just quantum mechanics (long since practically understood) and computer architecture (also long since practically understood.)

You guys keep confusing refinement of and new uses of existing fundamental physics concepts we've long since understood with actual fundamental discoveries themselves. Quantum mechanics was the last major shift in thinking we've had (that isn't just hand waving, which string theory still is because of it's complete non-verifiability right now), and that was 80 years ago. Most of the low hanging fruit has been plucked, and from here on out any new fundamental discoveries are probably going to start coming much more slowly, just as discovery of any new area of fixed size does, and probably somewhat proportional to the bucks we are willing to spend. You find the big cool stuff fast, and then you have to settle down for the long slog of digging out the more subtle things, which requires lots more up front investment for less guarantee of near term payoff.

Moore,

Gross factual errors? but respond with information, not repetition. I don't make things up, and I don't think you do either, but if I make a mistake and someone points it out, I either check my facts or retract what I said, or both, and I expect the same from you. ?? This thread is supposed to be all about fun. If we are getting into argument and snittiness, let's drop it. I'll assume this is still all in fun and continue for now, but just let me know and I'll delete this and get back to talking about Salma.

My first objection was with Dean and his comment that computers are made with fundamental principles understood well over a hundred years ago. Now that he's moved the goalposts and is saying it's knowledge from 80 years ago, that whole point is moot.

My second objection was with your statement There were a rather large number of 'once a century' breakthroughs in the first half of the 20th century. Dozens, I would say. And since then.... ???

As backup for this, you mentioned the discovery that atoms had a nucleus. I then argued that if you were standing there at the moment, you might not have instantly recognized this as a "once a century" breakthrough. Most of the time, you only recognize these things in hindsight. (Note that I'm not saying you don't recognize good science at the time. I'm saying you don't recognize that something will fundamentally change our view of the world until long after the fact.)

Sorry for the "repetition," but I do want to make sure we are talking on the same page. Now let's go through your latest reply and my "gross errors".

The Bose-Einstein condensation may have been postulated many years ago, but it was not found in any laboratory until the last ten years, and the nobel prize was very recently awarded for it's discovery.

Could you help me out and let me know which "gross error" this is a response to?

Quarks were 'discovered' in the mid 1960s.

Again, I'm confused. Is this evidence for or against my objection to your statement that There were a rather large number of 'once a century' breakthroughs in the first half of the 20th century. Dozens, I would say. And since then.... ???

Rutherford's experiment was as clear as it was elegant. He was quickly awarded the nobel prize, as were many others in the first half of this century.

We are talking about Rutherford's gold foil experiments - the ones that lead to his discovery of the atomic nucleus - the ones that took place 3-years after he won his Nobel prize in chemistry, right?

Yes, discovering the building blocks of DNA was instantly recognized as being important. It was essentially guaranteed that the discoverers would get[ a nobel prize.

Another discovery from the second half of the 20th century, right?

There is much more to great science in this century than Einstein.

I never said there wasn't. What I was trying to say is that most science comes out of a huge continuous stream of discovery. While you are in that stream, it's tough to see what will be fundamentally important down the line. Those "once a century" moments come when somebody makes a, dare I say it, quantum leap. Rutherford's work was a part of that stream. Einstein's work on Relativity - like Darwin's in the previous century - was not. (And before anyone says anything - yes, I realize that both Einstein and Darwin's work was based on previous science and didn't just come in out of left field. It's not an absolute distinction, but one of degree.)

My first objection was with Dean and his comment that computers are made with fundamental principles understood well over a hundred years ago. Now that he's moved the goalposts and is saying it's knowledge from 80 years ago, that whole point is moot.


That's not true. Most of what's in a computer is based on an understand of electromagnetism which has been understood on a practical level for a long time and is really just a very small and elaborate version of a power grid that moves electrons around on wires. That has been understood for a long time, well over a hundred years, we can just make very small wires now.

The quantum mechanics part comes in to play wrt to the transistors, but even that theory was well worked out 80'ish years ago, and even the fundamental engineering for transistors was worked out in the 40s and 50s, and we've been improving on it.

If 80 years vs. 120 years for one part makes me wrong, then I guess I'm wrong, but the fact is that the computer doesn't use any fundamental understanding of nature that hasn't been around for a long time, it's modern, advanced engineering that puts to use fairly old theoretical physics.

We are talking about Rutherford's gold foil experiments - the ones that lead to his discovery of the atomic nucleus - the ones that took place 3-years after he won his Nobel prize in chemistry, right?


I assume he was referring to my mention of Rutherford's experiment in which he made a fundamental discovery about neutrons (if memory serves) using effectively a set of nested glass bottles, and the whole thing probably only cost a few bucks to do. But many other fundamental experiements back then were done with incredibly cheap and primitive experimental apparatus.


Again, I'm confused. Is this evidence for or against my objection to your statement that There were a rather large number of 'once a century' breakthroughs in the first half of the 20th century. Dozens, I would say. And since then.... ???


The discovery of quarks wasn't nearly as fundamental a discovery as those of the late 1800's and early 1900s. It had been assumed for a long time that the particles known back then were in fact composed of a set of smaller components. Gell-Man came up witha mathematical formalism (the eight-fold way) based on set theory, that gave a good theoretical framework for what set of building blocks could create the known particles. It looks like he was right, but as I said we are still building experimental mechanisms to test quark-level theories, 20 years later, because it's getting so expensive to prove or disprove these theories.

At about this time, a partial theory by three physicists whose names escape me right now, that brought together electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces, which was a fairly powerful discovery. But we are talking a handful verses hundreds in the century before them. It's not because people were smarter then, just because they had an open field to work with.

We are going around in circles here.

Allow me to summarize (hopefully I won't misrepresent your individual positions)

1. Dean and Moore say - We now understand about 80% of all the fundamental principles that we need to know to understand everything in the universe.

Bob, Dobe, Salmoneous and I say - We don't believe you can possibly know how much is left to be learned.

I think it's fair to say Bob and I are probably the least informed in terms of cold, hard physics. Most of the challenges we've made to Dean and Moore's position is philosophical in nature, as they clearly have the edge in science.

I believe that Bob, Dean, Moore and I can possibly find an understanding. The reason why I believe this is that neither Bob, nor I have yet made a convincing scientific challenge to their possitions. Most of what we disagree with, Dean and Moore can counter simply with the word "Fundamentally".

So when Bob and I say "We still don't know how to make hyper efficient engines", they counter with : But those engines will still work within the framework of the 4 forces, therefore we understand FUNDAMENTALLY how the will work.

Dobe has made challenges that can't be reconciled with the word FUNDAMENTALLY. He has raised the question that we don't know what strings are made of. That we don't know anything about higher dimensions.
These questions call for FUNDAMENTAL discoveries that still need to be made.

Gus

1. Dean and Moore say - We now understand about 80% of all the fundamental principles that we need to know to understand everything in the universe.


Actually, I never really said that. I said that was a possibility, and that we may be closer to the end than to the beginning in terms of fundamental understanding.


He has raised the question that we don't know what strings are made of. That we don't know anything about higher dimensions.


You are assuming that there are strings and there are higher dimensions, which are not a given at all. And, one of the strong arguments I was making way back there is that I'm talking about what we *can* know, not what could possibly be known if you were outside of all possible realities and looking in. If you are in a closed box and cannot get out, what's outside that box is irrelevant if you cannot measure it or utilize it. It may well be that we are in such a box, and even if something exists outside our 4D world, there's not guarantee that we'll ever, no matter how much time we have to probe, be able to learn anything about it. We may well be stuck to the physics of our 4D world, and though we may be able to tweak it in amazing ways, that may be all it is.

And personally, I doubt we'll survive millions of years anyway. I'd consider us lucky if we survived another 1000 years.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey


You are assuming that there are strings and there are higher dimensions, which are not a given at all.

Actually, I do not assume they exist. I am certain though, that we do not know, and that if they DO exist, we have still to discover them. Aad that if we DO, it will be new FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE.



And, one of the strong arguments I was making way back there is that I'm talking about what we *can* know, not what could possibly be known if you were outside of all possible realities and looking in. If you are in a closed box and cannot get out, what's outside that box is irrelevant if you cannot measure it or utilize it. It may well be that we are in such a box, and even if something exists outside our 4D world, there's not guarantee that we'll ever, no matter how much time we have to probe, be able to learn anything about it. We may well be stuck to the physics of our 4D world, and though we may be able to tweak it in amazing ways, that may be all it is.


But isn't this limiting us? What would have happened if Marconi had thought radio waves were useless, and therefore didn't research them? By the way, I'm not saying it's impossible that this is all there is. I just think we can't possibly know that. There are still too many unanswered questions, FUNDAMENTALLY.

Gus

Originally posted by Gus

I think it's fair to say Bob and I are probably the least informed in terms of cold, hard physics.


Indubitably. I'm still a little put off by that term "p-brane''. I don't know why they would choose to insult the size of one's brain. Besides, wasn't that the size of the universe before it blowed up?

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
But all of that is just technology, not fundamental advance. A quantum computer is just quantum mechanics (long since practically understood) and computer architecture (also long since practically understood.)

First, I don’t think you fully appreciate the concept of a real quantum computer. The computers today, as I think you do know, use only a few quantum principles. The transistors are based on quantum mechanics. Actual quantum computers, which are in their infancy at the moment, are what I am talking about.

Quantum computation is more than just a faster, more miniature technology for performing classical computer tasks. A quantum computer is a machine that uses uniquely quantum-mechanical effects, especially interference , to perform wholly new types of computation that would be impossible, even in principle, on a classical computer. It is a distinctly new way to harness nature. A quantum computer will allow complex tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes. A quantum computer would be capable of distributing components of a complex task among a vast number of parallel universes and then sharing the results.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
You guys keep confusing refinement of and new uses of existing fundamental physics concepts we've long since understood with actual fundamental discoveries themselves. Quantum mechanics was the last major shift in thinking we've had (that isn't just hand waving, which string theory still is because of it's complete non-verifiability right now), and that was 80 years ago. Most of the low hanging fruit has been plucked, and from here on out any new fundamental discoveries are probably going to start coming much more slowly, just as discovery of any new area of fixed size does, and probably somewhat proportional to the bucks we are willing to spend. You find the big cool stuff fast, and then you have to settle down for the long slog of digging out the more subtle things, which requires lots more up front investment for less guarantee of near term payoff.

Dean: You are softening your opinions on this subject. I agree that extraordinary amounts of energy will be needed to experimentally prove the extraordinary theories that quantum physicists are postulating. This will cost lots of money and the payoff will not be near term. But that is your latest variation on this argument. I have never disagreed with this statement. My disagreement was with your position that most of the great discoveries have already been made. I addressed that point in my overly long response to moore. If you disagree with what I said in that (those) posts let me know.

Damn!

For a moment, I thought Salma had become an AVS member, but, alas, I made the same mistake as I did with another Hynek (see 14th post): http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=328005
One must continue to hope....

Originally posted by Gus
Actually, I do not assume they exist. I am certain though, that we do not know, and that if they DO exist, we have still to discover them. Aad that if we DO, it will be new FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE.
[B]

But isn't this limiting us? What would have happened if Marconi had thought radio waves were useless, and therefore didn't research them? By the way, I'm not saying it's impossible that this is all there is. I just think we can't possibly know that. There are still too many unanswered questions, FUNDAMENTALLY.

Gus

Yeah, Gus is on my side.

First, I don’t think you fully appreciate the concept of a real quantum computer. The computers today, as I think you do know, use only a few quantum principles. The transistors are based on quantum mechanics. Actual quantum computers, which are in their infancy at the moment, are what I am talking about.


I do understand what quantum computers are and what they will allow for, but they aren't a fundamental new understanding of nature. It's advanced engineering to make use of quantum mechanics to do certain types of computing very efficiently.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey

You are assuming that there are strings and there are higher dimensions, which are not a given at all. And, one of the strong arguments I was making way back there is that I'm talking about what we *can* know, not what could possibly be known if you were outside of all possible realities and looking in. If you are in a closed box and cannot get out, what's outside that box is irrelevant if you cannot measure it or utilize it. It may well be that we are in such a box, and even if something exists outside our 4D world, there's not guarantee that we'll ever, no matter how much time we have to probe, be able to learn anything about it. We may well be stuck to the physics of our 4D world, and though we may be able to tweak it in amazing ways, that may be all it is.

Dean: You continue to argue that, in your opinion, we may be closer to the end in terms of our fundamental understanding of nature. Then when higher dimensions, parallel universes, branes and string theory are brought up you say they “are not a given at all”. Of course there not a given. That’s why your argument that we are closer to the end than the beginning of our fundamental understanding of nature is ludicrous.

Then you say you have really only been talking about what “we *can* know”. You are talking in circles and as usual trying to back peddle on your original stronger statements.

What you’re saying is we know everything we *can* know NOW and so that means we are close to the end. That’s the same thing Einstein thought in the early 1900’s before particle physics was discovered. But at least he was totally unaware of quantum physics. You’re aware of String theory, multiple dimension and multiple universe theory but you ignore it because we can’t understand or prove it now. What kind of logic is that?

What you’re saying is we know everything we *can* know NOW and so that means we are close to the end. That’s the same thing Einstein thought in the early 1900’s before particle physics was discovered. But at least he was totally unaware of quantum physics. You’re aware of String theory, multiple dimension and multiple universe theory but you ignore it because we can’t understand or prove it now. What kind of logic is that?


I didn't say we know all of anything, so I wish people would get that straight. I'm just pointing out that bringing up things that are effectively in the realm of science fiction now as 'proof' that we hardly understand anything isn't based on any rational measure. And I'm pointing out that because there is information out there doesn't mean that we can get to it. If we indeed cannot measure anything outside of our own 4D reality, then the existence of anything else cannot be proven or disproven and therefore cannot be counted among the things we could eventually learn.

The fact that a theory exists doesn't mean it's true. And just because people in the past have learned new things doesn't translate to a given fact that what we can know remains infinitely far away no matter how much we learn.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
if you are in a closed box and cannot get out, what's outside that box is irrelevant if you cannot measure it or utilize it. It may well be that we are in such a box, and even if something exists outside our 4D world, there's not guarantee that we'll ever, no matter how much time we have to probe, be able to learn anything about it. We may well be stuck to the physics of our 4D world, and though we may be able to tweak it in amazing ways, that may be all it is.

This statement leads me to believe you don’t understand or, at least, don’t accept some of the newer quantum mechanical theories. Again that would make my earlier point as to why you feel we are nearer the end of our fundamental knowledge. But If you believe that string theory, parallel universes, multiple dimensions and worm holes are all just theory so they don’t count, then I don’t understand your argument.

NOTE: Without these theories we are not even close to a fundamental understanding of the laws of nature. Oddly, however, you dismiss them as mere theories that can’t be proven. Until we fully understand them how can you seriously argue that we are closer to the end of understanding nature???

I do understand what quantum computers are and what they will allow for, but they aren't a fundamental new understanding of nature. It's advanced engineering to make use of quantum mechanics to do certain types of computing very efficiently.

I don’t thing you do understand. The most significant quantum effect is not quantization but interference. Interference is the effect of a particle in one universe on it’s counterpart in another universe. Photon interference can cause shadows to be much more complicated than mere silhouettes of the obstacles causing them. I’m sure you know of the experiments suggesting interference.

This is why I also question your statement that multiple universes are not important ,even if they exist, since we can’t interact with them. Quantum interference suggests we can. The existence of Worm holes may allow us to travel to these other universes. The slowing of light may allow us to back in time to another universe. How can you say we are closer to the end in our fundamental understanding?……………..unless you are dismissing all this quantum theory as mere nonsense but again if we are to truly understand most of nature these theories will need to be proven or we will need to start all over with new ones!

Sigh... I understand quantum theory as well as most non-physicists do. I don't see that you were even responding to what you quoted. I'm saying there that even if there are a billion alternate universes, if they are forever out of our grasp to measure then there is nothing there that will ever be known, therefore they are not part of the set of knowable facts. It's nice to think we'll be able to figure it all out, but to just assume that we will is just wishful thinking.

And just because someone came up with string theory doesn't mean it has any relevance. It might be that we can never probe space to that fine a scale and therefore will never be able to prove or disprove whether something like string theory is right, in which case that will remain outside of the set of knowable things.

I don’t thing you do understand. The most significant quantum effect is not quantization but interference. Interference is the effect of a particle in one universe on it’s counterpart in another universe. Photon interference can cause shadows to be much more complicated than mere silhouettes of the obstacles causing them. I’m sure you know of the experiments suggesting interference.


Yes, I do, and do you know how long ago the double slit effect was discovered? It's just not any kind of fundamental new discovery. It's using long existing theory in a clever engineering project.


This is why I also question your statement that multiple universes are not important ,even if they exist, since we can’t interact with them. Quantum interference suggests we can.


I don't think that any such extrapolation can be had from quantum interference.


The existence of Worm holes may allow us to travel to these other universes. The slowing of light may allow us to back in time to another universe


Monkeys might fly out of my butt, but they might not. Just because something could happen doesn't allow one to draw any kind of real conclusion about how far our understanding of nature will be able to go.

[EDIT: Keep in mind when I say 'able' I also mean literally able, not just theoretically possible. If it gets more and more expensive to go further and further, as it already is becoming, the next stop gets further and further away in practical terms. The slower it goes, the longer we have to stay viable as a species to get to the next step. Many things will be outright theoretically beyond our reach, but others might be so expensive that at any one point in our future when it would be theoretically possible to find out, we won't be willing to divert the funds from many other important things in order to so. The longer we have to survive to find something out, the less likely we ever will. Talk about what we'll know a million years from now is almost not worth talking about, since the likelihood we'll be around a million years from now is very low]

On a lighter note, Back To The Future III is on right noew on TBS. I'm watching it as I type this.

Gus

Originally posted by Dean Roddey

Monkeys might fly out of my butt...

Now THAT is going to take some clever engineering, Dean!

On the day you achieve THAT, I will agree that we have reached THE END:D :D

Gus

Actually, I shouldn't have even mentioned that, since it involves some defense work I'm doing for the govt. You guys will probably be getting a visit from the guys with the flashing pens.

OK, I'm back. I'm going to be very brief and selective as more words do not seem to have led to clarity on either side here. I'm also going to break this into posts directed at one person at a time, since apparently people were confused about who I was talking to.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
Sigh... I understand quantum theory as well as most non-physicists do. I don't see that you were even responding to what you quoted. I'm saying there that even if there are a billion alternate universes, if they are forever out of our grasp to measure then there is nothing there that will ever be known, therefore they are not part of the set of knowable facts. It's nice to think we'll be able to figure it all out, but to just assume that we will is just wishful thinking.

And just because someone came up with string theory doesn't mean it has any relevance. It might be that we can never probe space to that fine a scale and therefore will never be able to prove or disprove whether something like string theory is right, in which case that will remain outside of the set of knowable things.

Since the scientific method seems to be our judge and jury around here, may I ask if you've tested that hypothesis? The one about alternate universes being forever out of our grasp? If not, then why should it be taken as anything more than conjecture?

Originally posted by DOBE
It’s folly for you to argue that we have made all or even a fraction of the “earth-shattering” discoveries concerning parallel universes or higher dimensions. We have mathematical theories but we have not yet made any of the needed DISCOVERIES. We will likely not make those discoveries in our lifetime.


I have made no such argument. I have to admit I'm with Dean here, it is unclear at the moment whether these theories mean anything or turn out to be untestable hypotheses.


This sounds like an incredible failure of imagination on your part. It may take thousands or even 10’s of thousands of years but eventually scientists will DISCOVER other universes, other dimensions, superstrings and branes…….or something like them.


Thanks for the insult, Spongebob. I submit that it's easy for anyone to speculate about infinite growth of knowledge, less comfortable to think that we may not get much further. It is once again hubris on your part to predict a discovery some thousands of years before it happens.


This civilization will travel to other universes by creating or using already existing worm holes. Many scientists believe that wormholes connect two regions that exist in different time periods. Thus a wormhole may connect the present to the past. Yes, a wormhole could possibly be used as a time machine. There is also a theory that our universe is one of an infinite number each connected to the others by an infinite series of wormholes. Travel between them is theoretically possible. These are theories waiting for scientific proof.


And in a million years, if no evidence is there, will we still be waiting to prove them, or will they have long since been dismissed?


Of course these theories depend on the existence of a theory of quantum gravity. We haven’t even advanced far enough to have accomplished that feat yet. But quantum gravity must exist in black holes and must have existed at the time of the big bang. Once we have a quantum theory we will know much more about the possibility of traveling to other universes and traveling back in time.


I'm glad you're so certain.


Yet, you and Dean say the era of “earth shattering” scientific discoveries is over. Discovering a worm hole, a superstring, a brane, another universe that one could travel to, or other dimensions that we could observe, wouldn’t be earth shattering?


Of course that would be. And once again, for about the 20th time, I never said we know 100%. I said I think we're closer to the end than the beginning. I am not arguing that all of these things will _never_ be observed, but be honest - will they undo a large chunk of what we know NOW?


How can you, as a scientist, possibly say” the party might be almost over”. You’re joking with us ……………correct?


No.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Salmoneous
This thread is supposed to be all about fun. If we are getting into argument and snittiness, let's drop it. I'll assume this is still all in fun and continue for now, but just let me know and I'll delete this and get back to talking about Salma.


Well, you did imply that I didn't know "what science is all about", which I thought was snitty. I at least can agree that I don't want to argue, that is no fun.


As backup for this, you mentioned the discovery that atoms had a nucleus. I then argued that if you were standing there at the moment, you might not have instantly recognized this as a "once a century" breakthrough.


Well, I am not buying into your "once a century" theory, but it was absolutely a breakthrough, and not just in hindsight - better than the one he won the Nobel Prize for - you were absolutely right about that, I forgot the history.



Most of the time, you only recognize these things in hindsight. (Note that I'm not saying you don't recognize good science at the time. I'm saying you don't recognize that something will fundamentally change our view of the world until long after the fact.)


God science IS something that changes our view of the world - physics at least.


Sorry for the "repetition," but I do want to make sure we are talking on the same page. Now let's go through your latest reply and my "gross errors".

We are talking about Rutherford's gold foil experiments - the ones that lead to his discovery of the atomic nucleus - the ones that took place 3-years after he won his Nobel prize in chemistry, right?


You're correct. My bad.


Another discovery from the second half of the 20th century, right?


This was the DNA thing - well, I am not saying there is a sharp cutoff at midnight on Dec 31, 1950. Actually, a lot of great stuff happened in the 50s and 60s. Not so much since then.

What I was trying to say is that most science comes out of a huge continuous stream of discovery. While you are in that stream, it's tough to see what will be fundamentally important down the line. Those "once a century" moments come when somebody makes a, dare I say it, quantum leap. Rutherford's work was a part of that stream. Einstein's work on Relativity - like Darwin's in the previous century - was not. (And before anyone says anything - yes, I realize that both Einstein and Darwin's work was based on previous science and didn't just come in out of left field. It's not an absolute distinction, but one of degree.)

Well, I think Rutherford and Pauling have made bigger impacts on modern society than Einstein and Darwin. At some level this all becomes subjective. I did go through the physics nobel list, and it looked like there were many more 'technological' awards in the last half than the first.

The thing that bothers me about your 'once a century' concept is something you haven't responded to. Ten times (at least) more science is being done now than 100 years ago. Why doesn't that advance these breakthrough moments?


There were a couple of other lines I deleted - the quark thing and something else, which weren't directed at you.

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~westside/dilbert.gif

So, Scott Adams came up with quantum computers and parallel dimensions 6 years ago, and we're still trying to figure out how to do it?

Sure Looks like it.:D

Good stuff. I should have been plagarizing this all along, but it is rather spooky when he uses the same terms I have been:

10. The Lack-of-Imagination Argument

Of all the criticisms of my thesis, the one that really gets under my skin is that it reflects what Newsweek called a "failure of imagination." Actually, it is all too easy to imagine great discoveries just over the horizon. Our culture does it for us, with TV shows like Star Trek and movies like Star Wars and ads and political rhetoric that promise us tomorrow will be very different from—and almost certainly better than—today. Scientists, and science journalists, too, are forever claiming that a huge revelation or breakthrough or holy grail awaits us just over the horizon. I have to admit, I've written my share of such stories.

What I want people to imagine is this: What if there is no big thing over the horizon? What if what we have is basically what we are going to have? We are not going to invent warp-drive spaceships that can take us to other galaxies or even other universes. We are not going to become infinitely wise or immortal through genetic engineering. We are not going to discover the mind of God, as the British physicist Stephen Hawking once put it. We are not going to know why there is something rather than nothing. We'll be stuck in a permanent state of wonder before the mystery of existence—which may not be such a terrible thing. After all, our sense of wonder is the wellspring not only of science but also of art, and literature, and philosophy, and religion.

One final point. I've been accused by some critics—such as Phil Anderson—of having a hidden anti-science agenda. That's ridiculous. I became a science writer because I love science. I think science is the most miraculous and noble and meaningful of all human creations. My conviction that science is ending is deeply disturbing to me, because I can't imagine anything better for humanity to do than to try to figure out what we are, where we came from and where we are going. I sincerely hope that in my lifetime some scientist—maybe even someone reading this posting—will discover something as important as natural selection or quantum mechanics or the expansion of the universe, something that spawns a whole new era in pure science and proves me wrong. But I also sincerely believe that isn't going to happen.

I promise to post only the highlights if you promise to read it:

8. What About Applied Science?

Some scientists grant that the basic rules governing the physical and biological realms may be finite, and that we may already have them more or less in hand. But they insist that we can still explore the consequences of these rules forever and manipulate them to create an endless supply of new materials, organisms, technologies and so forth. Proponents of this position—many of whom adhere to a quasi-scientific cult called nanotechnology—often compare science to chess. The rules of chess are quite simple, but the number of possible games that these rules can give rise to is virtually infinite.

There's some validity to this position. Applied science obviously has much further to go, and it is hard to know precisely where it might end. That fact was vividly demonstrated by the story of Dolly the cloned lamb; many scientists had believed that cloning from adult cells was impossible.

But I still believe—surprise, surprise—that the limits of applied science are also coming into sight. Let me offer several examples. It once seemed inevitable that physicists' knowledge of nuclear fusion—which gave us the hydrogen bomb—would culminate in a cheap, clean, boundless source of energy. But after 50 years and billions of dollars of research, that dream has now become vanishingly faint. In the last few years, the U.S. has drastically cut back on its fusion budget, and plans for next-generation reactors have been delayed. Now even the most optimistic researchers predict that it will take at least 50 years before we have economically viable fusion reactors. Realists acknowledge that fusion energy is a dream that may never be fulfilled: the technical, economic and political obstacles are simply too great to overcome.

Turning to applied biology, the most dramatic achievement that I can imagine is immortality. Many scientists are now attempting to identify the precise causes of aging. It is conceivable that if they succeed in pinpointing the mechanisms that make us age, researchers might then learn how to block the aging process and to design versions of Homo sapiens that can live indefinitely. But evolutionary biologists suggest that immortality may be impossible to achieve. Natural selection designed us to live long enough to breed and raise our children. As a result, senescence does not stem from any single cause or even a suite of causes; it is woven inextricably into the fabric of our being.

One might have more confidence in scientists' ability to crack the riddle of senescence if they had had more success with a presumably simpler problem: cancer. Since President Richard Nixon officially declared a Federal "war on cancer" in 1971, the U.S. has spent more than $30 billion on research. But overall mortality rates have remained pretty much flat since 1971 and in fact for the last 50 years. Treatments are also still terribly primitive. Physicians still cut cancer out with surgery, poison it with chemotherapy and burn it with radiation. Maybe someday all our research will yield a "cure" that renders cancer as obsolete as smallpox. Maybe not. Maybe cancer—and by extension mortality—is simply too complex a problem to solve.

BTW, that tiny print at the bottom about "no redistribution" doesn't really mean anything right? Lets not tell Scott.

4. The Paradigm Shift Argument.

A surprising number of otherwise hard-nosed scientists, when confronted with the argument that science might be ending, start sounding like philosophical relativists, or social constructivists, or other doubters of scientific truth.....

According to these skeptics, science is a process not of discovery but of invention, like art or music or literature. We just think science can't go any further because we can't see beyond our current paradigms. In the future, we will submit to new paradigms that cause the scales to fall from our eyes and open up vast new realms of inquiry. This kind of thinking can be traced back to the philosopher Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the extremely influential book Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and who died last June.

But modern science has been much less revolutionary—much less susceptible to dramatic shifts in perspective—than Kuhn suggested. Particle physics rests on the firm foundation of quantum mechanics, and modern genetics, far from undermining the fundamental paradigm of Darwinian evolution, has bolstered it.

If you view atoms and elements and the double helix and viruses and stars and galaxies as inventions, projections of our culture, which future cultures may replace with other convenient illusions, then you are unlikely to agree with me that science is finite. If science is as ephemeral as art, of course it can continue forever. But if you think that science is a process of discovery rather than merely of invention, if you believe that science is capable of achieving genuine truth, then you must take seriously the possibility that all the great, genuine paradigm shifts are behind us.

And finally,

1. That's What They Thought 100 Years Ago.

Nine times out of 10, when I give my end of science spiel—whether to a Nobel laureate in physics or to some poor soul that I'm trapped at a cocktail party—the response is some variation of, "Oh, come on, that's what they thought 100 years ago." The reasoning behind this response goes like this: As the 19th century wound down, scientists thought they knew everything. But then Einstein and other physicists discovered relativity and quantum mechanics, opening up vast new vistas for modern physics and other branches of science.

The moral is that anyone who predicts science is ending will surely turn out to be as short-sighted as those 19th-century physicists were. Another popular anecdote involves the U.S. patent commissioner who, sometime in the 19th century, supposedly quit his job because he thought everything had been invented.

First of all, both of these tales are simply not true. No American patent official ever quit his job because he thought everything had been invented. And physicists at the end of the last century were engaged in debating all sorts of profound issues, such as whether atoms really exist.

What people are really implying when they say "that's what they thought 100 years ago" is that, because science has advanced so rapidly over the past century or so, it can and will continue to do so, possibly forever. This is an inductive argument, and as an inductive argument it is deeply flawed. Science in the modern sense has only existed for a few hundred years, and its most spectacular achievements have occurred within the last century. Because we were all born and raised in this era of exponential progress, we simply assume that it is an intrinsic, permanent feature of reality.

But viewed from an historical perspective, the modern era of rapid scientific and technological progress appears to be not a permanent feature of reality but an aberration, a fluke, a product of a singular convergence of social, intellectual and political factors. Ask yourself this: Is it really more reasonable to assume that this period of extremely rapid progress will continue forever rather than reaching its natural limits and coming to an end?

(bold added by me)


This is all written by John Horgan, a well known science writer. It's at:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/horgan/horgan_p2.html

and he has written a book on the topic. Whether you agree or not, it's worth reading as he is a much better writer than I am, and he has interviewed many, many people at the top of all fields of science.

Seems to me that among you scientists there is already an awful lot of speculation about the possible existence of alternate universes and unknown (as of yet) forces. Why wouldn't that speculation itself tend to dissuade you and Dean, moore, that now is hardly the time to conclude that we're "closer to the end"?

When they first began to speculate that the Earth might be round, didn't they then begin to speculate about what might be discovered on the other side of it?

Or did they then throw up their hands and say "Gee now we think the Earth might be round. But, heck, we'll never in a gillion years have the means to explore it. So any speculation about a round Earth is all for naught. For that reason it will never alter the fundamental understanding we already have about the Earth".

What's the difference?

By that, I mean to follow-up what Gus has already said...we do seem to be going around in circles.

Quite a bit of time is being spent here concentrating on how each of us thinks. That's all fine and good, but have we accomplished anything by doing so?

Do we...or can we set any goals here? Can we accomplish anything here?

Are we as a society suffering simply from general stagnancy? Does major socio-political change need to take place before the next great scientific advancement? i.e. The United States seems to be the current "Roman Empire." What happens when the current empire finally falls (or goes through major changes)? What do we need for a catalyst?


What can we all agree upon here?

Howie

Originally posted by moore
I sincerely hope that in my lifetime some scientist—maybe even someone reading this posting—will discover something as important as natural selection or quantum mechanics or the expansion of the universe, something that spawns a whole new era in pure science and proves me wrong. But I also sincerely believe that isn't going to happen.

It's hard to respond to an article written by an unknown author? What scientist wrote that article? I will bet it wasn't a quantum phyiscist and I would guess it's an older scientist.

"I sincerely hope that in my lifetime....". I never made any prediction about when any of these quantum theories will be proved or disproved. I did suggest a very large time scale.

If you want me to respond to this guys opinion let me know his name.

Originally posted by RobertWood
When they first began to speculate that the Earth might be round, didn't they then begin to speculate about what might be discovered on the other side of it?

Or did they then throw up their hands and say "Gee now we think the Earth might be round. But, heck, we'll never in a gillion years have the means to explore it. So any speculation about a round Earth is all for naught. For that reason it will never alter the fundamental understanding we already have about the Earth".


Bob,

I would never advocate reducing funds or effort for science. On the contrary, I think way too much goes to applied science compared to basic research. It's a sort of joke that you have to promise to cure cancer, or solve energy crises, or predict the stock market to get funding. Curiosity-based work is hard to fund by itself.

Fundamental work wins big once it becomes technology. It's definitely worth the risk. But, like rooting for the Bears, deep down I know most of the time my team is going to lose.

Okay, John Horgan. I will check him out.

But my post needs to be quoted and taken as a whole. I first pointed out that we are already speculating about what's being referred to as "alternate universes" and "yet to be understood forces". If this is determined to be real, then it might certainly turn 20th Century knowledge on it's head.

And I've never stated my position in terms of the near future.
Or what will impact on our generation or even a hundred more generations.
My point has always been that all of this can evolve with enough time.

Since the scientific method seems to be our judge and jury around here, may I ask if you've tested that hypothesis? The one about alternate universes being forever out of our grasp? If not, then why should it be taken as anything more than conjecture?


In science, not proven is the default position until proven otherwise. No one has to disprove the possibility of something, which is impossible, someone who believes something is true has to prove it. Given the highly speculative nature of multiple universes, clearly science would take a 'not even applicable' position until even was remotely feasible to even check it. Until then it's closer to philosopy than science.

Let me study on that for a minute. I think I can come up with a way to spin it my way. :)

It's sounding suspciously like that old stuff about who exactly it is that's making the extraordinary claims. And who has the onus on them. :)

Whoops. King of the Hill has begun. Maybe that will inspire me.

Originally posted by RobertWood
But my post needs to be quoted and taken as a whole. I first pointed out that we are already speculating about what's being referred to as "alternate universes" and "yet to be understood forces". If this is determined to be real, then it might certainly turn 20th Century knowledge on it's head.


Well, it might or it might not be real. Many other theories have fallen by the wayside or turned out not to be nearly so interesting or useful as once predicted. And if it is real, although it may go beyond 20th century knowledge, I don't see it turning that knowledge on it's head. Once again, Newton's stuff is still good, unless you're moving really really fast. Einstein extended and modified it, he didn't turn Newton on his head.

He's a journalist not a scientist. He's entitled to his opinion just like the rest of us. I would like to see him debate this topic with Michio Kaku, David Deutsch, Joao Magueijo or any number of other quantum physicists. They would eat him for breakfast.

Magueijo wrote a book in 2003 called "Faster than the speed of Light". He talks about his theory that light may in the past and may again in the future travel faster than 186,000 miles per hour. He talks extensively about dealing with older scientists who won't accept new ideas. But I will take the word of the above authors, who are on the CUTTING EDGE, I mentioned over some some wannabe scientist anyday.

His degrees are in English and Journalism (scientific journalism?). "B.A. in English from Columbia University's School of General Studies in 1982 and an M.S. from Columbia's School of Journalism in 1983"

"He is currently doing research on pacifism, aggression, and the widespread belief that human warfare is inevitable"

"His awards include the American Psychiatric Association Certificate of Commendation for Outstanding Reporting on Psychiatric Issues (1997); the Science Journalism Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1992 and 1994); and the National Association of Science Writers Science-in-Society Award (1993). In 1994 he received an "excellent" rating in the Forbes Media Guide: A Review of the Nation's Most Influential Journalists."

"Horgan was an associate editor at IEEE Spectrum, the journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, from 1983 to 1986. He received a B.A. in English from Columbia University's School of General Studies in 1982 and an M.S. from Columbia's School of Journalism in 1983."

Originally posted by moore
Well, it might or it might not be real. Many other theories have fallen by the wayside or turned out not to be nearly so interesting or useful as once predicted. And if it is real, although it may go beyond 20th century knowledge, I don't see it turning that knowledge on it's head. Once again, Newton's stuff is still good, unless you're moving really really fast. Einstein extended and modified it, he didn't turn Newton on his head.

Okay. "Turn it on it's head' was a bad choice of words. I should have instead said that if all this exotic stuff becomes reality (and after all you did leave the door open and say "it might"), then I don't think you could still say "we are closer to the end". How's that?

But that's only what's being speculated about today. Who knows what the speculation will be tomorrow. Or a hundred years from now. Or a thousand.

John Horgan sounds like someone I would like to get to know. He sounds like a nice guy, but I'm not going to give much credence to his view that science may be reaching it's end. Here is another article he wrote. Doesn't he make it sound like science knows very little. How can science know so little and yet be close to having made all the important discoveries? Strange. He sounds more like a creationist. Could that be?

"As a science journalist, I knew that scientists don't have a clue how our universe came into being, or why it took this particular form out of an infinitude of possibilities, including nonexistence. Nor does anyone know how inanimate matter on our little planet coalesced into living creatures, let alone creatures that could invent reality TV. Science, you might say, has discovered that our existence is infinitely improbable, and hence a miracle.

It is one thing to know intellectually that life is a miracle. It's quite another, however, to see it. Saints and poets aside, most of us rarely do. The psychiatrist Arthur Deikman blames our pinched perception on two innate tendencies, which he calls instrumentality and automatization. Instrumentality is our compulsion to view the world through the filter of our selfish interests. Automatization is our propensity to learn tasks so thoroughly that we perform them with little or no conscious thought.

No doubt these traits have helped us survive. Automatization is a particularly attractive cognitive feature, because it allows us to carry out more than one task at the same time; we can fret over our plummeting 401(k)'s while driving our children to their school Christmas concert. But instrumentality and automatization can also cause us to sleepwalk through much of life.

Yet now and then, we do not see the world as something to be manipulated for our ends. This recognition, which Dr. Deikman calls deautomatization, is the goal of all contemplative traditions. When an aspirant asked the 15th-century Zen master Ikkyu to write down a maxim of "the highest wisdom," Ikkyu wrote one word: "Attention." The dissatisfied aspirant asked, "Is that all?" This time, Ikkyu wrote two words: "Attention. Attention."

Spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga and prayer can help us pay attention. So can art, poetry and music.

And so can religious rituals. This, I suspect, is why so many people who aren't otherwise religious still celebrate holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah. We especially need these rituals in this most benighted of seasons, when we are prone to dwelling on life's darker aspects.

The bugbear haunting Christianity and other faiths is the problem of evil. But sitting with my family in that circle of stones on winter solstice helped me see that birth, beauty, love and laughter also pose a problem. How could all this have come about? It's a mystery, which no theory or theology can possibly dispel.

My family celebrates winter solstice every year now, along with Christmas and New Year's......
http://www.american-buddha.com/holiday.htm

Well, you did imply that I didn't know "what science is all about", which I hought was snitty.

How about if I had said "what science is all about to me" rather than impling that anyone who doesn't share that opinion is wrong. Less snitty? Anyway, I think we both know the hokey-pokey is what it's all about.

The thing that bothers me about your 'once a century' concept is something you haven't responded to. Ten times (at least) more science is being done now than 100 years ago. Why doesn't that advance these breakthrough moments?

Someday I'm actually going to learn to write clearly enough that people get the point I'm trying to make. What I've been trying to say is that you often don't know what the breakthrough moments are until after the fact. 75 years from now people may look back in awe at the amazing work that was done in the 90's and 00's (by the way, do we have a name for this decade yet?) in genetics or some other field that people aren't paying much attention to right now. It's only when those breakthrough discoveries prove their worth that people will really notice.

A guy invents soda-pop and also discovers oxygen. He's hailed as a hero for the soda thing, and few care about that boring gas that doesn't put fizzy bubbles into water.

A handful of guys sit around and speculate about what goes on in a collapsed star. Something like four people on the planet give a rats ass (what does that expression mean?) Then they figure out how to use that knowledge to build really big bombs. Suddenly, a lot more people sit up and take notice.

I'm not willing to admit we (well, other people smarter than me) aren't making really breakthrough discoveries right now. Maybe they are just doing it where nobody is paying attention.

scientists don't have a clue how our universe came into being, or why it took this particular form out of an infinitude of possibilities, including nonexistence. Nor does anyone know how inanimate matter on our little planet coalesced into living creatures, let alone creatures that could invent reality TV.

This is at the center of why I'm so skeptical about this attitude that we know so much. Until we have some much better insights into that, I have to borrow from Gus and say we don't know "jack". I just cannot understand how we can be "closer to the end" when the answers to those questions continue to altogether elude us. Seems to me this alone probably puts any real "end" way off into the future. Or may foretell that there is no end to be had. These questions don't exist apart from nature in a vacuum. Any real and meaningful understanding of the nature of the universe cannot be separated out from an understanding of the hows and the whys. The two go hand in hand. Without that, any so called "understanding" is superficial. Far from complete. And may never be.

I'm not willing to admit we (well, other people smarter than me) aren't making really breakthrough discoveries right now. Maybe they are just doing it where nobody is paying attention.


Isn't that the sound of one hand clapping though? If you don't recognize it's a discovery, you didn't discover anything. The person who finally realizes the import is the one who will get the credit.

I'm sure that this time will be looked back on as period of huge early expansion of the fruits of technology, but it will not likely be seen as a great period of paradigm shifting fundamental science. Even upcoming breakthoughs in genetics might not be considered fundamental advance, though they could have some great side effects for us, like making me look good enough to get laid. There are likely huge benefits to be had from genetics that would still fall into the 'engineering' side of things more than the fundamental science side.

I mean much of the mechanisms of DNA is well understood now, what we lack are sufficiently powerful diagnostic and manipulative tools to put that understanding to practical use. Creating the machinary to do that will be engineering, not basic science.

Even something like discovering the cure for genetically based cancers probably wouldn't be considered in the same league as Einstein or Newton, though the person who does it will make enough money to ease the pain of not being as famous. It would be hugely beneficial, but I think that everyone already knows pretyt much the basically mechanism is going to be (chromosome fiddling of some sort), someone just has to figure out the details and create the mechanisms to make it work.

The discovery in biotech that I would hold as high as quantum mechanics or relativity would be the fundamental mechanisms by which self replacating chemical systems can occur, since that would finally prove that no mystic being was required to make it happen. Whoever figures that one out won't get filthy rich, but they'll be considered the biotech peer of Newton or Einstein I'm sure.

Can Dean or moore reconcile Mr.Horgan's view that "science might be ending" which he wrote in one article with his view that science doesn't have "a clue" about much of anything.

He wrote this last article in american-buddha.com. I like Buddists. I even studied Buddhism for a short while. But the more I reread that article and it's frequent references to miracles, religion, prayer and meditation the less I accept his opinion that "science might be ending".

moore: Sorry but with all due respect I don't think you helped your argument by citing the opinions of Mr. Horgan.

DOBE:

ad hominem - John Horgan's background has no bearing on whether his assertions are correct or not. Are you a scientist? So then, would you be willing to accept that I am the only one here with a valid opinion? Of course not.

straw man - instead of countering the assertions of Horgan's, which is all I expected, you go digging for something else he wrote. Pointless.

Could you please address the premises I posted, whether they come from me or Horgan? Or do you need to know all about my background and other beliefs as well to decide whether there is any validity to the idea that the biggest paradigm shifts are behind us?

I don't think you're helping your argument by resorting to common fallacies.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
In science, not proven is the default position until proven otherwise. No one has to disprove the possibility of something, which is impossible, someone who believes something is true has to prove it. Given the highly speculative nature of multiple universes, clearly science would take a 'not even applicable' position until even was remotely feasible to even check it. Until then it's closer to philosopy than science.

In science, not proven is the default position until proven otherwise

Therein lies the rub. That will apply to either position being taken in this thread. Both positions are equally "closer to philosophy than science".
Further evidence that science alone will probably never be adequate and will not provide answers to many of the fundamental questions.

What's the point in knowing how or when the universe began without knowing why it began?

You said, moore, that the position I've taken is the "comfortable" position.
Trust me, the realization that we may never understand why it began or even that there is no human concept of why it began, is not the most comfortable of positions.

Originally posted by Salmoneous
How about if I had said "what science is all about to me" rather than impling that anyone who doesn't share that opinion is wrong. Less snitty?


Much better. I don't know your profession, but imagine if you were an artist and someone implied that you were completely wrong on what art was all about.

What I've been trying to say is that you often don't know what the breakthrough moments are until after the fact. 75 years from now people may look back in awe at the amazing work that was done in the 90's and 00's (by the way, do we have a name for this decade yet?) in genetics or some other field that people aren't paying much attention to right now. It's only when those breakthrough discoveries prove their worth that people will really notice.


Your examples are good, but I think things are very different now than they were 70 or 200 years ago. People are very actively looking to exploit every possible breakthrough.


I'm not willing to admit we (well, other people smarter than me) aren't making really breakthrough discoveries right now. Maybe they are just doing it where nobody is paying attention.

You have some points, but I will respectfully disagree. I think the people who are smart and hard-working enough to make the breakthroughs know it when it happens.

Maybe the universe was cooked up just so Jerry Lewis could screech in front of a camera.
Hey. It's probably as good a reason as any.

Originally posted by RobertWood
You said, moore, that the position I've taken is the "comfortable" position.
Trust me, the realization that we may never understand why it began or even that there is no human concept of why it began, is not the most comfortable of positions.

Now I'm confused. I would completely agree with your last sentence. But I thought you took the position that we could some day know.

Please explain.

Never have taken a definite position one way or the other (notice what you quoted says "may" never). Because there is no way to know that now. It's still may or may not.
As there is no way to know what the future will bring. Which is all I have ever said starting from page 2.
.

Further evidence that science alone will probably never be adequate and will not provide answers to many of the fundamental questions.


Well, in theory, science can provide all the answers that are answerable, given sufficient time and money and energy, but only in theory.

I can speculate a little though. Which is all both sides are doing in this thread anyway.

If that understanding is ever to be ours, I think it may have to result from
an intervention by other intelligence. I'm not very hopeful that we'll be able to arrive at these answers on our own.

Which might also help to explain my exhuberant enthusiasm for the prospect of them landing in the back yard and knocking on my back door.
I think they missed the window though. If they had thought to do it on Halloween night they would have figured out that they might have been able to go undetected. And would have risked it. Now I probably have to wait another year. But I don't have too many more years to wait.

Originally posted by moore
DOBE:
ad hominem - John Horgan's background has no bearing on whether his assertions are correct or not. Are you a scientist? So then, would you be willing to accept that I am the only one here with a valid opinion? Of course not.

An argument ad hominem is usually considered to be an argument based purely on personal attack. I did not attack Mr. Horgan. In fact I said nice things about him personally! You posted 3 separate long quotes from his book in which he concludes that science is near it's end. Whenever someone makes such a bold statement I need to know where they are coming from. I want to know their background because it helps me in evaluating their opinion.

Moore: I'm sure you do the same thing when you are trying to determine how much weight to give someone's opinion. I didn't attack him. I merely noted that he was not a practicing scientist, much less a quantum physicist. He is not on the cutting edge of science. After reading his article which discusses religion, prayer, mediation, the evils facing Christianity I question his motives. The clincher for me was his interpretation of science's findings on the origin of live. He says it was a miracle. It probably was in the general sense of the word, but I got the real impression that he was approaching it from a creationist point of view. There are scientists that are creationists.

You think that's a personal attack? No, it's just one of the ways that I determine how to evaluate his opinion. He is not a scientist and I give his opinion no more weight than someone I would meet on the street.


Originally posted by moore
straw man - instead of countering the assertions of Horgan's, which is all I expected, you go digging for something else he wrote. Pointless.

You really don't understand why I would want to find out his educational background? You don't understand why I would want to read other articles he wrote? Do you really think doing that kind of research on someone whose opinion you are trying evaluate is "Pointless"??

Originally posted by moore
Could you please address the premises I posted, whether they come from me or Horgan? Or do you need to know all about my background and other beliefs as well to decide whether there is any validity to the idea that the biggest paradigm shifts are behind us?

I think I have responded at least 10 times to these same arguments. I will reread his opinions and respond if I think there is anything new. It sounds like the same arguments that you and Dean are using. That is precisely why I checked into his credentials and looked for other articles he had written. If he was a quantum physicist or a scientist on the cutting edge his opinion would carry more weight. Correct?

Originally posted by moore
I don't think you're helping your argument by resorting to common fallacies.

What? Please tell me what common fallacies I am resorting to!

I think we have one very profound and very important difference of opinion, moore.
I do not rule out the possibility that other intelligence can and will come to us. Or even that it may already have.
Because I have no reason to believe otherwise. And all that stuff about how difficult (or supposedly impossible) it is for that to happen does not impress me in the least. And I doubt it does them either. Because I don't think they're thinking inside the 20th century science box.

DOBE,

No, you have not responded. Yes, it was an ad hominem. "Attack" doesn't mean vicious. It means you are questioning the motives or credibility of the person making the argument, which has NOTHING to do with the validity of that argument. If you cannot accept that, then you do not understand the very basics of argument based on logic. Why, I wonder, do you need to know so much about Horgan but not me?

I do not know a lot about Horgan, but I did read something where he quoted Francis Crick, talking about "miracles" of life. Horgan made it clear that Crick was not talking about miracles in the religous sense.

Furthermore, as for him being "eaten for breakfast", he has interviewed some of the best minds on the planet, and come off rather well. I am sensing a rather distressing level of educational conciousness in your dismissal of Horgan out of hand.

Again, are you a scientist? I am. Does my opinion here have more weight than yours, or Gus', or Dean's, or Bob's, or Salmoneous'? This is not a rhetorical question at this point - I already answered it and I want to hear your answer. You can't have this both ways.

I will also await your response to some of the original posts, particularly the "failure of imagination" which I found striking.

Oh, btw since you asked the other fallacy was straw man = attacking a weaker position than the one offered. Instead of responding to what I posted, you dug up some strange story about him hanging out with his family and used it to question his assertion on the end of science.

Just to make this super-clear, I do not agree with all of what Horgan says. He has a more extreme view than me, saying it really is all over and no future progress is likely. I think there are still some juicy discoveries to be had, but the majority is over.

I posted some of what he had to say because I agreed with most of it and I thought he made some excellent points. John Maddox wrote a book essentially countering Horgan, which Horgan himself reviewed here:

http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/ss/topics/remains.html

My favorite bit:


What many of us are thus unwilling or unable to imagine is this: what if there are no more great discoveries lying over the horizon? what if the great quest for knowledge is coming to an end?

Not everyone finds this prospect disturbing. Even if science ends, the science editor of The Economist once pointed out to me, we still have sex and beer.

If that understanding is ever to be ours, I think it may have to result from an intervention by other intelligence. Bob, any reason why that 'other intelligence' has to be in the form of an 'alien'?

After pouring over the last 150 or so posts, I now understand why so little has changed since man once thought the world was flat...how very sad.


Howie

Even if science ends, the science editor of The Economist once pointed out to me, we still have sex and beer.

Tell him to speak for himself. Beer now gives me terrible heartburn. And I can't afford Viagra.

Originally posted by Joseph
Bob, any reason why that 'other intelligence' has to be in the form of an 'alien'?

I understand, Joe. And, no, it doesn't have to be an "alien".

But whatever it turns out to be, I'm guessing that any description of it will be replete with that old hackneyed term "mind-boggling".
Websters tells us "boggle" is: to be overcome with fright or astonishment. And I imagine Websters has that right.

Let's just hope that amidst all that fright and astonishment, there is also to be communication. What would really be frightening and astonishing is some day when it is standing right there in front of us, we discover there's no way to convey the intelligence to us. That's why I'm fond of the analogy of the scuba divers and the school of minnows.
Some of our brethren here have confidence that mathematics will do that trick. I have much less confidence in mathematics than they do. At least our concept of mathematics. I'm not aware that the scuba divers have been able to explain 2+2=4 to the minnows.

Howie,

Would you care to elaborate? I'm not sure what you think is sad.

Jerry,

I guess for me what is at issue is the inability to grasp the attitude that there are no major technological advancements left to come, especially when I am constantly reminded of how primitive we are as a species. Even the simplest of things, like how we transport ourselves, recycle our waste prodution, or manage our ecosystem, still has a long way to go.

Our we currently stagnating? Compared to what we could be accomplishing, the answer is a diffinitive yes. We are an individualistic society, and this in part is responsible for our inability to advance as a species.

Howie

I guess for me what is at issue is the inability to grasp the attitude that there are no major technological advancements left to come

Once again, that is not what I (and Dean) are saying. There will most likely be phenomenal advances in technology based on what we already know, and the few breakthroughs left (unified theories in physics, the secret of cognition, etc.). Will we acheive time travel or immortality, well, that's not so clear, but short of that we can do a lot.

, especially when I am constantly reminded of how primitive we are as a species. Even the simplest of things, like how we transport ourselves, recycle our waste prodution, or manage our ecosystem, still has a long way to go.

Absolutely agreed.


Our we currently stagnating? Compared to what we could be accomplishing, the answer is a diffinitive yes. We are an individualistic society, and this in part is responsible for our inability to advance as a species.


Agreed partly, but I will point out in the case of the physical sciences at least, people typically work in teams and large communities, helping and cross-checking to advance the quest. Given that culture, and the enormous investment in science in the last 70 years (although it still could be more ;), I don't think it's what is limiting our advances, but maybe that's not what you meant.

I think in the social and technological realms you are dead on. It is sad that we can't get past things like a crappy measurement system, grossly inefficient use of resources, dangerous modes of transport, and crushing poverty. I guess I am optimistic that we will better ourselves and overcome these things.

Thanks for clarifying.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
...like making me look good enough to get laid.

Dean,

You don't NEED science for this!

Just go do some research in Amsterdam;) :D :D :D :cool:

Gus

Don't worry, Howie. As moore pointed out, I doubt there is going to be any shortage of technological advancements.
But once human cloning and genetic engineering gets in high gear, you might be screaming "uncle" and be wishing there had been a shortage of technological advancements. :)

I guess when you get right down to it, before we can give serious thought to something as far fetched as time travel, we really do need to improve our regular modes of transportation...with gas powered automobiles being one of the worst! I've always hoped that before I die, I'll get to see the widespead use of vehicles that move/hover just above the ground, instead of across it on paved surfaces.

Think small...hope big.

Howie

"There can be no progress if people have no faith in tomorrow."

John Fitzgerald Kennedy


Gus

It's a very good point you made, Howie. We've come all this far technologically, but we're still saddled with everyday transportation dependant on exploding fossil remains. And no matter how many computers or how many of Rube Goldberg's creations are added to it, Salmoneous' Duck Rule still applies. If it looks like a gizmo. And works like a gizmo. It's still a crackpot exploding fossil gizmo.
I would like to see it go away before I die too.

I don't mean to alarm any of you, but the upstart thread "Terminator 3: Frontal Nudity on Fullscreen Edition" is growing at a huge rate. They have 20% of our total views. In just a few weeks they could conceivably pass us in views, and some time after that in total posts!

Throw in the towel. Science will always loose in a race against frontal nudity. To think otherwise I'm afraid is inconceivable.

But we might stand a chance against the Denver TV tower.

I don't mean to alarm any of you, but the upstart thread "Terminator 3: Frontal Nudity on Full Screen Edition" is growing at a huge rate.

That's because Gus is over there staring at the Pee wee capture.:eek:

Don't be alarmed, just get some extra posts in before the upcoming shutdown. And besides, discussion of any films involving time travel really belongs in this thread, so worse case scenario, we can petition Larry for a thread merge!


Howie

Originally posted by RobertWood
Tell him to speak for himself. Beer now gives me terrible heartburn. And I can't afford Viagra.
Eliminate onions from your diet. It might improve your digestive processing, and it will definitely do wonders for your breath which might improve your sex life ;) Seriously, I used to have bad heartburn a few years ago (especially when drinking beer) and a very foul odor when onions were "being processed". Since eliminating them from my diet (including seasonings) I can now drink more than I should, without heartburn, and entertain my family and friends with my barely offensive B-flat symphony :D

Originally posted by moore
I don't mean to alarm any of you, but the upstart thread "Terminator 3: Frontal Nudity on Fullscreen Edition" is growing at a huge rate. They have 20% of our total views. In just a few weeks they could conceivably pass us in views, and some time after that in total posts!
We need a volunteer to go torpedo that thread. Start e-talking really raunchy, insult a few members, and post some pornography. That should do it. Don't worry, the rest of us will hold down the fort and petition for your reinstatement to the forum ;)

Originally posted by moore
DOBE, Yes, it was an ad hominem. "Attack" doesn't mean vicious. It means you are questioning the motives or credibility of the person making the argument, which has NOTHING to do with the validity of that argument. If you cannot accept that, then you do not understand the very basics of argument based on logic. Why, I wonder, do you need to know so much about Horgan but not me?

moore: Your post last night sounded very snippy to me.:( I promised not to be accusatory or snippy with you and I will try to keep my promise.

First, I can tell you're not an investigative journalist, investigative reporter, talk show host (e.g. Tim Russert on meet the press) or a lawyer. When they are getting ready to write about, interview or cross examine a person they will research the background of the person to determine who he is ( education background, articles written, other statements he made and more). It's a very useful approach when trying to determine how to evaluate someone's OPINION about a subject which noone including you or me ( EVEN DEAN;) ) knows the answer.

About a week ago Robert tried to bolster his opinion that aliens MAY have visited Earth by referring to the opinions of the physicist Stanton Friedman. The fact that he's a phyicist is very pesuasive to some people. I know a lot about Mr. Friedman and I found an article where he talked about how many grey aliens are among us. He described then with great detail. He presented his opinion as fact. He said they abduct 10's of thousands of humans and breed with them. He made other similarly outlandish claims. So yes he's a physicist, but once I read the many articles he has written over the years and saw him interviewed, I made the decision that his opinions were not credible.

You post 3 long quotes from Horgan to support your OPINION and then you get upset at me for ckecking into this guys background? You say it was "pointless" for me to do that. You say his educational background and other articles he has written has "NOTHING" to do with his OPINION? When someone gives a bold CONTRAVERSIAL OPINION about a subject to which noone knows the answer then his background does have a great deal to do with my judgment of the validity of that OPINION.

It means you are questioning the motives or credibility of the person making the argument, which has NOTHING to do with the validity of that argument.If you cannot accept that, then you do not understand the very basics of argument based on logic.

I guess that was meant to be a personal insult. If you have read all, or even some, of my posts on this thread and think I don't "understand the very basics of argument based on logic", well........................................I promised to be nice.:)


Originally posted by moore
Oh, btw since you asked the other fallacy was straw man = attacking a weaker position than the one offered. Instead of responding to what I posted, you dug up some strange story about him hanging out with his family and used it to question his assertion on the end of science.

I guess this was meant to imply that I didn't understand the straw man argument. Yet another personal attack.:rolleyes: Horgan did talk about science in the article. He implied that science knew almost nothing. He had NOTHING good to say about science! He discussed the evil facing Christianity, prayer and the miracle of creation. You really don't think that's relevant to my evaluation of his other article that you posted where he says science is near the end?

Here is what you wrote. I responded to it.
Originally posted by moore
straw man - instead of countering the assertions of Horgan's, which is all I expected, you go digging for something else he wrote. Pointless

I was merely responding to your comment that digging up articles that someone else wrote is "pointless". I still can't believe that's what you think. I understand the concept of a straw dog argument.

Originally posted by moore
Why, I wonder, do you need to know so much about Horgan but not me?

In this kind of enviornment I don't ask about peoples personal or professional lives. I don't think it's proper. Yes I have wondered what field of science you are in. Are you a practicing scientist or a teacher? How old are you since as I said the older a scientist is the more likely he/she is to be unreceptive to new ideas, like string theory, multilpe universe, multiple dimensions. I'm not asking you to respond to these questions, I'm only explaining why I wondered but haven't asked them.

Originally posted by RobertWood
Throw in the towel. Science will always loose in a race against frontal nudity.

Now that's funny.:D

I nominate Dobe to introduce Christian allegory and comparisons to The Passion over in the Terminator thread.;)

Howie

Originally posted by Digital Howie
I nominate Dobe to introduce Christian allegory and comparisons to The Passion over in the Terminator thread.;)

Howie

I respectfully decline. :D

DOBE,

If I was snippy, then I apologize. But once again, you post and don't answer the questions. I do not mean to insult/attack you, but you made two classic logical fallacies with your previous dismissal of Horgan's points.
I am by no means "upset" with you, I am just pointing out that these fallacies do nothing to support your argument.

Horgan is not making any factual statements that can't be checked on the net. His credibility (and mine) are irrelevant to the logic of the argument. I don't care whether he smokes shrooms and dances naked in downtown manhattan or prays to Cthulhu. I posted what I thought were good points. If you don't agree, tell me why, don't find something else and pretend that that undermines what he says above.

Look, if you don't want to respond to the arguments than don't. I find it interesting that you keep ignoring the question about whether my opinion is the only valid one here.

Throw in the towel. Science will always loose in a race against frontal nudity. To think otherwise I'm afraid is inconceivable


Except in areas like image enhancement of course.

Originally posted by moore
DOBE, ..... I am sensing a rather distressing level of educational conciousness in your dismissal of Horgan out of hand.

"a rather distressing level of educational conciousness" Okay, I'm stumped, what the heck does that mean. I'm assuming it's another personal insult but this time I'm not sure.:D


Originally posted by moore
Again, are you a scientist? I am. Does my opinion here have more weight than yours, or Gus', or Dean's, or Bob's, or Salmoneous'? This is not a rhetorical question at this point - I already answered it and I want to hear your answer. You can't have this both ways.

That's a hard question since I don't know you, your educational background, your field of science or anything else about you. Since Dean has read a lot about Quantum physics and you are a scientist I would tend to give your opinion slightly more value.

However, I know many professionals. There are Doctors I know who I would not seek treatment from because I sense some level of incompetence. Some Doctors have many more malpractice suits filed against them than others. The same is true with lawyers. I have met many lawyers who didn't know there a** from a hole in the ground. So just because someone is a doctor, lawyer or scientist doesn't mean his opinion, even it's within his GENERAL field, is correct. However, if you or Horgan were practicing quantum physicists I would give your opinion more weight.

But remember, on many scientific questions there is a majority and minority opinion. There are still a minority of scientists who don't believe in evolution or in the Big Bang theory. So the fact that you are a scientist doesn't automatically give your opinion greater weight. I would more likely accept or reject your opinions based on your arguments, not on your profession alone.

Originally posted by DOBE
"a rather distressing level of educational conciousness" Okay, I'm stumped, what the heck does that mean. I'm assuming it's another personal insult nut this time I'm not sure.:D


It was an attempt to be polite. You seem to think that because Horgan has no PhD his opinions on science are meaningless.


That's a hard question since I don't know you, your educational background, your field of science or anything else about you. Since Dean has read a lot about Quantum physics and you are a scientist I would tend to give your opinion slightly more value.


I just PMd you, although I think that you've already answered the question. At some point, I guess we're just going to have to disagree and shake hands, although it's a little ironic the side of this I am on.


However, I know many professionals. There are Doctors I know who I would not seek treatment from because I sense some level of incompetence. Some Doctors have many more malpractice suits filed against them than others. The same is true with lawyers. I have meet many lawyers who didn't know there a** from a hole in the ground. So just because someone is a doctor, lawyer or scientist doesn't mean his opinion, even it's within his GENERAL field, is correct.

EXACTLY! This is why an ad hominem is a flawed form of argument.

A few pages back, I threw out some seeming non-sequiters: poking holes in coing with your mind, communicating with the dead, etc. The fact is, I have heard well-known scientists say that they believe these things. It was when I was younger and just meeting such people. Every time, it blew me away that someone so smart could, deep down, be a complete idiot. James Randi has said it best: "A PhD is not an innoculation against foolishness". Apparently, even becoming world-famous is not enough.


However, if you or Horgan were practicing quantum physicists I would give your opinion more weight.


Oh, geez. You do realize that there are "quantum physicists" who are full of it, don't you, just like the doctors and lawyers? But this is besides the point. This is a philosophical question, not a question of some small corner of science.


But remember, on many scientific questions there is a majority and minority opinion. There are still a minority of scientists who don't believe in evolution or in the Big Bang theory. So the fact that you are a scientist doesn't automatically give your opinion greater weight. I would more likely accept or reject your opinions based on your arguments, not on your profession alone.

Um. So finally we're back to ad hominems being bad. Good.

Please take the advice of your elder here. You both are much much too thoughtful people to be reduced to this sort of thing. To be taking shots at each other like this. It's unbecoming of you. Kiss and make up like Dean and I always do after we have a spat.

I ain't kissin' another guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)

But I will shake hands and call truce, with these conditions:

1. I will admit that there are new discoveries to come that could be revolutionary, including understanding quantum gravity and proof of superstrings.

2. DOBE admits that saying I have a "tremendous failure of imagination" was totally unfounded.

Sounds fair to me, DOBE.
In fact that's the kind of thing that could stop wars in the Mideast. I knew you all were scientists. But I didn't know you were diplomats too.
Shoot. I may even make up with Jerry Lewis after seeing this.

I may even make up with Jerry Leiws after seeing this.

Bob,

Please don't do that...it would most likely cause a rift between us large enough to create a black hole that would inevitably suck up this entire thread.

Howie

I started replying to a PM from DOBE but it got long and I figured anyone who isn't totally, utterly sick of this by now might want to read:

I guess I am learning something here about myself. I have been trained by science to rather aggressively ignore people's backgrounds when assessing their ideas. The ideas can be checked by logic and agreement with the existing framework. I have seen it happen that a famous scientist goes off into the weeds, making mistakes that even a graduate student can see and is rather quickly discounted.

Of course, there are the egomaniacs and the princes and the cliques just like in any profession, but ultimately it is about the truth, and people simply do not care who you are if you are wrong (or right).

Journalists, and most people, are very concerned with credibility since they are looking at things they may not be able to independently judge. There is some correlation between the 'big names' and their credibility, of course, but ultimately the truth is all that matters. Big names have been wrong, and little guys have been right.

What I find interesting is that Horgan went against the grain. He took an unpopular stance, and not only interviewed a few supporters of that stance but a lot of people who felt he was dead wrong, who are famous scientists and philosophers. And, while I myself see some flaws in his arguments (Bob sent me an interesting link), he held his own. No one, not even Maddox, "ate him for breakfast", although he was laid out on the slab ready to be eaten. I think that took some stones.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by moore
EXACTLY! This is why an ad hominem is a flawed form of argument.

I still disagree with your definition of ad hominem. You call the research I did on Mr. Horgan an ad hominem attack I call it checking into his credentials and opinions on other related matters (religion, miracles,evil and science) to help me evaluate his opinion (notice I have calmed down and so didn't capitalize the word opinion.:D)


[QUOTE]Originally posted by moore
A few pages back, I threw out some seeming non-sequiters: poking holes in coing with your mind, communicating with the dead, etc. The fact is, I have heard well-known scientists say that they believe these things. It was when I was younger and just meeting such people. Every time, it blew me away that someone so smart could, deep down, be a complete idiot. James Randi has said it best: "A PhD is not an innoculation against foolishness". Apparently, even becoming world-famous is not enough.

Here we totally agree. Carl Sagan once said "being a genius is no guarantee against being dead wrong"




[QUOTE]Originally posted by moore
Oh, geez. You do realize that there are "quantum physicists" who are full of it, don't you, just like the doctors and lawyers? But this is besides the point. This is a philosophical question, not a question of some small corner of science.

Yes, I agree there are individual quantum physicists who are "full of it". That's why I try to determine the majority opinion and go with it. There are some Quantum physicists who think that String theory is more philosophy than science. This is because the entire theory, including the extra universes and dimensions, is based on mathematical constructs. The math and its predictions are elegant. The predictions seem to be correct. They are pure genius. Of course, you saw what Dr. Sagan said about genius. there are no guarantees.;)


[QUOTE]Originally posted by DOBE
But remember, on many scientific questions there is a majority and minority opinion. There are still a minority of scientists who don't believe in evolution or in the Big Bang theory. So the fact that you are a scientist doesn't automatically give your opinion greater weight. I would more likely accept or reject your opinions based on your arguments, not on your profession alone.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by moore
Um. So finally we're back to ad hominems being bad. Good.

See my above comments and why I still think you are misusing the term ad hominem.

Main Entry: [1]ad ho·mi·nem
Pronunciation: (')ad-'hä-m&-"nem, -n&m
Function: adjective
Etymology: New Latin, literally, to the person
Date: 1598
1 : appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect

I posted this last evening (5 pages ago) but this thread moves so fast I'm sure many missed it. I thinks it's funny and so I will redo.
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~westside/dilbert.gif

Originally posted by moore
I ain't kissin' another guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)

But I will shake hands and call truce, with these conditions:

1. I will admit that there are new discoveries to come that could be revolutionary, including understanding quantum gravity and proof of superstrings.

2. DOBE admits that saying I have a "tremendous failure of imagination" was totally unfounded.

I agree to these terms so let's figuratively shake hands.:D

Originally posted by DOBE
[QUOTE] There are some Quantum physicists who think that String theory is more philosophy than science. This is because the entire theory, including the extra universes and dimensions, is based on mathematical constructs.

Boy, now it's all really gone over my head. I was totally unaware that
anything we might refer to as philosophy would be based on mathematical constructs. Is there anyway you can help us intellectually challenged types
try to understand that? I would have thought philosophy and mathematics would be sort of mutually exclusive. Is that not the case? Or did I misunderstand that?

p.s. if that is true though, then maybe the alien scuba divers will be able to talk to us minnows after all. At least the smart minnows.

That cartoon is very funny! :D

Originally posted by moore
I started replying to a PM from DOBE but it got long and I figured anyone who isn't totally, utterly sick of this by now might want to read:

I guess I am learning something here about myself. I have been trained by science to rather aggressively ignore people's backgrounds when assessing their ideas. The ideas can be checked by logic and agreement with the existing framework. I have seen it happen that a famous scientist goes off into the weeds, making mistakes that even a graduate student can see and is rather quickly discounted.......

Journalists, and most people, are very concerned with credibility since they are looking at things they may not be able to independently judge. There is some correlation between the 'big names' and their credibility, of course, but ultimately the truth is all that matters. Big names have been wrong, and little guys have been right.

I'm glad you publicly posted these observations. It is interesting how ones profession or educational background figures into how they view the world and how they approach different questions that arise during everyday life.

Originally posted by moore
(Bob sent me an interesting link), he held his own. No one, not even Maddox, "ate him for breakfast", although he was laid out on the slab ready to be eaten. I think that took some stones.

Bob: You sent moore a personal link that showed Horgan being "laid out on a slab ready to be eaten" but didn't send it to me or post it. I'm hurt. :(

See my above comments and why I still think you are misusing the term ad hominem.


Moore's use of the term is correct. If someone makes assertions which are not just opinion, and you argue against them not on the merits of the arguments but indirectly via statements about the person, that's basically an ad hominem 'attack'. You don't counter the arguments, you argue that they have to be incorrect because of some attribute of the person, not of the arguments.

mathematics
The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols.

philosopy
Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.

Bob: You sent moore a personal link that showed Horgan being "laid out on a slab ready to be eaten" but didn't send it to me or post it.

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge16.html

Horgan:

"Other questions are profound but unanswerable. The big bang theory, for example, poses a very obvious and deep question: Why did the big bang happen in the first place, and what, if anything, preceded it? The answer is that we don't know, and we will never know, because the origin of the universe is too distant from us in space and time. That is an absolute limit of science, one forced on us by our physical limitations. There are lots of other unanswerable questions. Are there other dimensions in space and time in addition to our own? Are there other universes?"

Then there is a whole class of what I call inevitability questions. Just how inevitable was the universe, or the laws of physics, or life, or life intelligent enough to wonder how inevitable it was? Underlying all these questions is the biggest question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? None of these inevitability questions are answerable. You can't determine the probability of the universe or of life on earth when you have only one universe and one history of life to contemplate. Statistics require more than one data point. So, again, it is true that answers always raise new questions. But that does not mean that science will never end. It only means that science can never answer all possible questions, it can never quench our curiosity, it can never be complete.

science

The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

Originally posted by RobertWood
Boy, now it's all really gone over my head. I was totally unaware that
anything we might refer to as philosophy would be based on mathematical constructs. Is there anyway you can help us intellectually challenged types
try to understand that? I would have thought philosophy and mathematics would be sort of mutually exclusive. Is that not the case? Or did I misunderstand that?

It's just a way for some scientists to put down string theorists. They say that string theory is so far removed from experimental reality that it's not worthy of scientific study. They are a new type of scientist that are doing physics of a sort that does not relate to anything experimental. They have focused on questions that experiment can't address.

But the string theorists have a theory that appears to be consistent and is very beautiful, very complex. It gives a quantum theory of gravity that appears to be consistent but it doesn't make any predictions that can be tested with the technology available today. Since there is no experiment that can be done or observation made to prove or disprove the theory, some question whether it's a theory of physics or philosophy.

However, I repeat that the book of nature seems to be written in the language of mathematics. It is the only language our species has found to describe nature. For theoretical physicists, mathematics is like an extra-sensory perception organ that they use to SEE the universe.

In those mathematical equations many quantum physicists SEE the superstrings. Add to that, its elegance and the fact that IF it's true it will explain how all the forces of nature and all matter are created and you can see it's appeal.

Originally posted by Dean Roddey
Moore's use of the term is correct. If someone makes assertions which are not just opinion, and you argue against them not on the merits of the arguments but indirectly via statements about the person, that's basically an ad hominem 'attack'. You don't counter the arguments, you argue that they have to be incorrect because of some attribute of the person, not of the arguments.

Dean: Why am I not surprised at your most recent post.:rolleyes:

The authors assetions were based mostly on his OPINIONS. I NEVER (now I'm back to capatalizing....Dean has a way of causing me to do that) argued that his factual ARGUMENTS were incorrect because he is not a scientist or because he wrote an article questioning whether science has accomplished much of anything. I questioned his OPINION!!!!!!, that science is "near it's end", based on his background and the article. That is NOT!!! an ad hominem attack!!!!!!!!!!! I would like to say more now but I am controlling myself.:D

It's just a way for some scientists to put down string theorists. They say that string theory is so far removed from experimental reality that it's not worthy of scientific study. They are a new type of scientist that are doing physics of a sort that does not relate to anything experimental. They have focused on questions that experiment can't address.


There is a good argument to made that there is no such thing as science that doesn't related to anything experimental. The definition of science, which I would take to be the definition of the scientific method, is that it is based on verification or lack thereof of theories theories through experiment, creating a feedback loop that casts out the chaff and keeps the wheat. Without that loop, you aren't doing science, or you are only doing a small part of science.

Originally posted by RobertWood
I would have thought philosophy and mathematics would be sort of mutually exclusive. Is that not the case? Finally, something I actually know something about. Mathematics IS philosophy. It's the search for truth, the search for logic. It's trying to understand what we know and how we know it. Oh, sure, you can use mathematics to manipulate numbers and calculate things - but that's just an applied offshoot of the underlying structure.

Of course, my wife would strongly disagree. Back in college, I was the pure math geek, she the applied math geek. She'd look over at my homework and comment that, "ya know, there's not a single number on that whole page." Numbers - who needs numbers?

Or the day I dragged her to the first session of an algebra class. The guy started to prove that "one does not equal zero". She gives me a look (I still get that look 15 years later) and just walks out.

The following is a response to John Horgan's OPINION that science is nearing it's end. It's exactally what I have been arguing but It's written by a theorical phyicist and so should carry a great deal more weight. Or is that an ad hominem concept? Dean, what do you think, ad hominem or not?

From: Lee Smolin
Submitted: 5/5/97

As I've said several times before, John's argument is not silly, and I don't think he is making it in bad faith. He is also an interesting person, who I enjoyed meeting some time ago. But I believe he is wrong, and it is not hard to explain why. The basic reason is that the "map of reality" and "narrative of creation" that he described, while enormous achievements, are full of holes, unanswered fundamental questions and, in some cases, basic inconsistencies. This is because the scientific revolution that produced these achievements is not yet finished, but has some way to go. An indication of how much of this revolution remains unfinished can be gotten by writing down a list of questions that we cannot yet answer:

How do cells differentiate into different cell types?

How does a single cell develop into a coherent organism?

Why are there procaryotes and eucaryotes, but apparently nothing in between?

What is the exact story of how life began?

How does the brain work? (how do organic molecules combine in the brain to allow conciousness; how is human conciousness different from other species; how does memory work......these are my additions not Smolins)

How did the galaxies form?

What is responsible for the large scale structure of the galaxies?

What keeps the star formation rate of many spiral galaxies constant in time?

Why were the initial conditions in the early universe so symmetric?

What are the reasons for the values of the twenty-odd parameters of the
standard models of particle physics and cosmology?

Why do those values have the property that they make it possible for stars,
galaxies and complex chemistry to form?

How is gravitation consistent with quantum phenomena?

What happens inside of black holes?

What happens at the end point of black hole evaporation?

Each of these questions is the focus of intensive work by thousand of very bright young and not so young scientists. Among people engaged in this work there is a strong sense of optimism that the next years will see dramatic breakthroughs. Each of these will add to the "map of reality" knowledge as fundamental as anything discovered in the twentieth century and all will, sooner or later, lead to theories that are verified by observation and experiment. Even in quantum gravity and string theory (where there have been dramatic breakthroughs in the last years) there is a growing list of experimental predictions. (I wrote a paper some years ago cataloging the experimental predictions of quantum gravity and string theory, and the list has grown since.) It is true that these cannot yet be carried out, but I would not want to be in the position John is of betting against the possibility that the thousands of bright people working in these areas around the world will not find a way to carry out these tests.

For more arguments against the "end" of science, please see my last exchange with John in Edge number ??. (By the way, I notice that John seems to have stopped defining ironic science as science that could not even in principle be tested experimentally, given the ease with which even string theory evades
that.)

But in closing, I would like to remark that I find John's stance disturbingly characteristic of the present moment. We are in a time of extraordinary change, with positive developments all around us. In the last years democracy has expanded dramatically and the danger of war and reach of totalitarianism has receded, the economy is stable and growing, our nation is being reinvigorated by a new wave of immigration, amazing things are happening in the arts, theater, dance, while in science and medicine there have been a slew of breakthroughs, from effective treatments for AIDS and certain forms of mental illness to all the new observational data in astronomy and cosmology.

So why are people so pessimistic? Why is there so much talk of the end of this and that? This for me is the great unanswered question of the present moment.

LEE SMOLIN is a theoretical physicist; professor of physics and member of the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Pennsylvania State University; author of The Life Of The Cosmos, forthcoming (Oxford).

Originally posted by RobertWood

p.s. if that is true though, then maybe the alien scuba divers will be able to talk to us minnows after all. At least the smart minnows.

Through this discussion, one important consideration that has been overlooked is the role of artificial intelligence. Computers are not always going to be dumber than humans. Sooner or later computers will become more intelligent than the smartest human being. Thats because computers get better with each new generation but we basically stay the same. I work with robots everyday and I can tell you it is very conceivable for me to see in the near future there will be robotic doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Computers will inevitably even be able to design and manufacture themselves better without human intervention. When this takes place it will be an exciting or scary future for all humanity, depending on how you look at it.

Thats when intellectually the scuba diver will become the computer and the minnow will be us.

But if humanity plays the cards right we will still be in control yet able to learn many things about the universe that are presently out of our reach.

And I don't think this is going to be millions or even thousands of years from now. Its right on our doorstep now.

I thank Bob for pointing out that Edge site, it has some interesting articles. Including Horgan's response to Smolin (and others, you have to scroll past another article):

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge18.html

5. Lee Smolin, you've compiled a nice list of questions left for science to ponder. But some of these questions, such as how cell differentiation occurs, I would put in the category of filling in details of pre-existing paradigms. Others, such as why the early universe was so "symmetric" and how "exactly" life began, I classify as probably unanswerable in a definitive sense given the dearth of reliable data.

Lee, you say you are also disturbed by my pessimism, which you see as part of a larger intellectual trend. Come on. Pessimists are a vanishingly small group in this gee-whiz, can-do culture, and especially in the realm of science. Do you really think we'd all be better off if these few voices of dissent were silenced?

I dunno, Rvonse. I think you are a little more optimistic than the current state of the art in artificial intelligence warrants. I think that at the present time, A computer can only wish it had 1/10th the computing power of a minnow, not to mention a human.

I was watching a robotics program on TLC the other day and they say the smartest robot yet deviced can barely rival a cockroach.

Now think how far up the ladder a chimp is from a cockroach. Now compare Alex Kasparov's brain power to that of the chimp.

The human brain is too complex a system for even it's owners to comprehend at the moment.

Current day computers can only follow clear, precise instructions given by a human. Miss a step in the programming and the IBM DeepBlue super-computer is as dumb as my son's gameboy is without batteries.

The computer's day is probably coming, but it's going to be a looong time before a computer can think for itself.

Gus

By the way, I found this "challenge" in the Edge 16 article to be very sad. Talk about no imagination, curiosity, or appreciation for philosophy:

-----------
The question really is, it seems to me, is the issue really worth discussing. If for the sake of argument one granted his claim, insofar as it is correct, what bit of difference would it make to the practice of science? Or to science policy?

Ernest B. Hook
-------------

Sadly, I have encountered this kind of response when I've tried discussing this with scientists (not all, but many). I think the fact that people here were willing to grapple with it says something about our character (more than what kind of TV we have).

Through this discussion, one important consideration that has been overlooked is the role of artificial intelligence.


The promise of artificial intelligence is perennially overplayed. It's far, far, far harder than people think it is. I doubt very seriously that it will happen within the next couple hundred years. We will easily make computers that do things better than people, but that's not very hard now. But real artificial intelligence, which would have to include original thought and creativity, is way off, and those things that are harnessed in a useful and reliable way are probably even further off.

Dean,

What a coincidence! We agree about this topic here, and we definitely agree about the breast issues at the "rival" thread.:p

Gus

Originally posted by RVonse
Through this discussion, one important consideration that has been overlooked is the role of artificial intelligence. Computers are not always going to be dumber than humans. Sooner or later computers will become more intelligent than the smartest human being. Thats because computers get better with each new generation but we basically stay the same. I work with robots everyday and I can tell you it is very conceivable for me to see in the near future there will be robotic doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Computers will inevitably even be able to design and manufacture themselves better without human intervention. When this takes place it will be an exciting or scary future for all humanity, depending on how you look at it.

Thats when intellectually the scuba diver will become the computer and the minnow will be us.

But if humanity plays the cards right we will still be in control yet able to learn many things about the universe that are presently out of our reach.

And I don't think this is going to be millions or even thousands of years from now. Its right on our doorstep now.

Interesting question. I'm fairly sure that someday we will have computerized doctors, lawyers and other technicians. Handheld computers can calculate faster than any human and they don't have nervous breakdowns. They will be able to contain vast rules of thumb. It's an if.....then type of questioning which human doctors engage in all the time. They may be more accurate than a human doctor because the computer program will be comprehensive and up to date.

The problem is at this point and into the near future, computers will lack common sense. No matter how many rules they contain , they will make glaring errors because they lack even a child's intuitive understanding of the world. At this point and for some time they will be glorified adding machines that can be modified to become word processors. Tehy will be able to manipulate vast amounts of data millions of times faster than humans but they won't...for some time....understand what they are doing. They will have no independent thought.

Computers are great at abstract mathematical logic but they can't grasp the simplest concepts of physics or biology. Will a computer in the near futrue be able to solve the following problem:

John and Joe are twins. If John is now 20 years old then how old is Joe?

Computers can't grasp the concept of time. The problem above could easily be answered by most 8 year olds but not by a computer now or in the near future. The above problem is a commonsense plus the laws of physics problem, not a mathematical logic problem.

Computers are mathematically logical,whereas common sense is not. Biology and the physical laws of nature are not inherent in the laws of logic.

I have no doubt that science will overcome this problem with computers but when they do..............watch out!..........T1, T2, T3:D

Horgan states that the questions are unanswerable. Not maybe. But flatly unanswerable.
I can't know that. You can't know that. And neither can Horgan.

When it comes to what we're discussing here, there seems to be an awful lot of seers, clairvoyants and prophets amongst us.

Originally posted by DOBE
They are a new type of scientist that are doing physics of a sort that does not relate to anything experimental. They have focused on questions that experiment can't address.

For theoretical physicists, mathematics is like an extra-sensory perception organ that they use to SEE the universe.


I think this all pretty much speaks for itself. If and when this stuff is tested and verified, it becomes meaningful. Until then, it's uh- well, how do I put this in a family forum? Woody Allen's favorite hobby.

There are several of these offshoots going on in science. Complexity and catastrophe theories, among others, I find interesting (just like that hobby ;) ) but I don't pretend that they have any value or influence except to the extent that they can be tested.

Sal, since you know something about philosophy, help us out, wasn't 'pure reason' skewered by Kant? Or has that been surpassed?

Computers will for some time to come have problems with biological facts.

Human: All ducks can fly. Bob is a duck.
Robot: Then Bob can fly
Human: But Bob is dead
Robot: Oh. Then Bob is dead and he can fly

I just read the earlier posts. It looks like we may agree on this one, which is disturbing.
Rvonse: What say you?

Originally posted by RobertWood
Horgan states that the questions are unanswerable. Not maybe. But flatly unanswerable.
I can't know that. You can't know that. And neither can Horgan.

When it comes to what we're discussing here, there seems to be an awful lot of seers, clairvoyants and prophets amongst us.

Obviously it's his opinion. In writing a book, I don't think it would be much fun if in every paragraph the author said "in my opinion", "probably", "maybe", "kinda". Even in these posts it gets tiresome. I don't see anybody here claiming to know the future, but at the same time should we just throw up our hands and say we can't speculate because the future is fundamentally unknowable?

An attempt to put common sense into computers:

http://www.cyc.com/

Originally posted by DOBE
I just read the earlier posts. It looks like we may agree on this one, which is disturbing.
Rvonse: What say you?

I totally agree that computers are very lacking right now especially in the area of common sense and intuition.

But...our brains are really only the chemical equivalent to silicon junctions. There really should be no physical reason electrical processors could not have intuition and common sense just as we do. Although this is a technical challenge, IMO it will happen much sooner than light travel to distant worlds or even fusion power.

I also feel confident that there will be a critical threshold after artificial intelligence is able to self improve upon itself, without human intervention, there will be sky rocketing advancements like you have never seen. Unlike humans, machines will be relentless and willing and able to work on their assignments 7 x 24 without coffee breaks.

Originally posted by RVonse
But...our brains are really only the chemical equivalent to silicon junctions.


Do whe now know how our minds function?

There really should be no physical reason electrical processors could not have intuition and common sense just as we do.
In a few hundred years, probably. In the near future? Not likely.

Although this is a technical challenge, IMO it will happen much sooner than light travel to distant worlds or even fusion power.
Here, we totally agree. Those are at the present time, engineering impossibilities.

Gus

Originally posted by moore
Obviously it's his opinion. In writing a book, I don't think it would be much fun if in every paragraph the author said "in my opinion", "probably", "maybe", "kinda". Even in these posts it gets tiresome. I don't see anybody here claiming to know the future, but at the same time should we just throw up our hands and say we can't speculate because the future is fundamentally unknowable?

I appreciate what you're saying. And I know it might seem a little
tiring at times. But I use "possibly" and "maybe" only because they
are central to the position I've taken. In fact, in a manner of speaking, this whole debate has revolved around what "will be" vs what "might be".

Ever since I was a college student studying psychology there's a question which has nagged me. And that is whether it's even possible for the brain to ever really "understand" itself. I'm not convinced that even if we gain complete understanding of it's most elemental physical properties whether we'll even then have enough of a handle on it to understand how thought and cognition works.

Unless we do figure that out, then isn't it unlikely that we will ever be able to create artificial intelligence with cognitive abilites?

In fact, could the questions, "why and how do we think?" and "why do we and our universe exist", have some very profound commonality?

This is not relevant to AI, but we discussed the prior experiments about 50 pages back. A must read:

http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/score-another-win-for-einstein1106/

Score Another Win for Albert Einstein
New experiments strike a blow against time travel
By Laura Wright
November 06, 2003 | Astronomy & Physics

Three years ago, researchers created a light pulse that appeared to defy nature’s fundamental speed limit—it traveled faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. If it were possible to transmit information at such speeds, Einstein’s theory of relativity would be in tatters, and the principle of causality—the idea that cause must always come before effect—would go out the window. With a faster-than-light telephone, you could place a call back in time and tell your parents not to conceive you, for example. Now physicists (and everyone vexed by time-travel paradoxes) can breathe a sigh of relief. A recent series of experiments by experimental physicist Dan Gauthier of Duke University confirm that the earlier result was a kind of illusion; information cannot outrun light’s fastest pace.

(...much stuff removed...follow link if you're interested...)

The elaborate series of tests all boiled down to a simple conclusion: As usual, Einstein had been right all along.

Originally posted by Gus
In a few hundred years, probably. In the near future? Not likely.
[
Gus

Relative to the history of the universe or even the history of mankind, a few hundred years is the near future. In the preceding discussion there was a lengthy debate as to whether man had reached his limit to whether we can even learn or discover any more about the universe.

All I am saying is that even if our own minds can not ever understand certain things that does not mean we will not get the answers by other means such as artificial intelligence. In fact, I think it is likely.

"All I am saying is that even if our own minds can not ever understand certain things that does not mean we will not get the answers by other means such as artificial intelligence. In fact, I think it is likely."

This is a good point, but it raises a question. What if we can't understand or appreciate the answers provided by AI? What if it has as much meaning to us as maxwell's equations do to a p-brane?

What's the deal with this s**t anyway? Here we've got this whole stinking species of living beings who will always be asking themselves "why do we exist" or "what is it all about"? And there is never to be any answer?
There's probably not a human being alive or dead (including Jerry Lewis) who has not asked this question in his deepest thoughts and wondered why there is no answer.

Geez, this question which has no answer is almost like it's who and what we really are. And I gotta tell you that it's just plain peculiar. And it pisses me off.

HARD: Why do we exist?

HARDER: What is it all about?

IMPOSSIBLE: Why does Jerry Lewis exist? What is he all about?

Dang! Another page. We are leaving Terminator nudity in the dust. Good job, all!

Originally posted by moore
HARD: Why do we exist?

HARDER: What is it all about?

IMPOSSIBLE: Why does Jerry Lewis exist? What is he all about?

Brilliant. Sometimes you scare me. :D

p.s. if this thread goes much longer then it'll likely be past the time he does exist. And boy am I going to feel like a low down creep then.

Originally posted by RVonse
Relative to the history of the universe or even the history of mankind, a few hundred years is the near future. In the preceding discussion there was a lengthy debate as to whether man had reached his limit to whether we can even learn or discover any more about the universe.

All I am saying is that even if our own minds can not ever understand certain things that does not mean we will not get the answers by other means such as artificial intelligence. In fact, I think it is likely.

Rvonse,

In that case, I agee. I thought you meant that "Lt Commander DATA" would be walking in the door in the next few years.

In a few hundered years, there's no telling what kind of wonderous things we will be capable of.

Gus

Don't foget about organics guys; Man and machine must become one! Hybrids are the future...the question is, at one point does a certain percentage of alloys, plastic ,etc. in your system, make you less than human?

If we can regrow limbs, sooner or later we'll be growing brains...it's a long way off, but who knows?

Howie

Why does Jerry Lewis exist?

There are things known as miracles of modern science, there are things known as atrocities...and then there are just plain old fashion accidents.

Ofcourse, as we all know; you can't have good without having evil as well.

Howie

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was Multivac's. Slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.

"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."

"That's not forever."

"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe.
Are you satisfied?"

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Ten billion years isn't forever."

"Well, it will last our time, won't it?" Yes.

"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."

"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for ten billion years, but then what?" Lupow pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."

Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"

"I'm not thinking."

"It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion
years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."

"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.

"The hell you do."

"I know as much as you do."

"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."

"All right. Who says they won't?"

"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'

It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.

"Never."

"Why not? Someday."

"Never."

"Ask Multivac."

"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."

Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright shining disk, the size of a marble,
centered on the viewing-screen.

"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've --"

"Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"

"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspatial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship. Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."

"Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great-grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be
overcrowded." Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they
were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors, had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."

"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.

"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.

"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"

"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"

"The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

"Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back,

"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."

Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."

Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder in being so concerned about the matter?"

MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."

"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."

"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --

VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."

"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"

"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"

"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this GaIaxy is filled, we'll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known universe. Then what?"

VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."

"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of submesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."

"Why not?"

"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, "See!"

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity. --But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"

"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"

"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"

"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."

"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

Zee Prime said, "On which one?"

"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."

"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.

"Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"

"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME."

"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"

"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."

"They must all die. Why not?"

"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."

"It will take billions of years."

"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"

Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, "The Universe is dying."

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to the maximum."

Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend.

"Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"

The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man said, "Collect additional data."

The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.

"Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."

Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."

Man said, "We shall wait."

The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."


Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.

Dobe,

Your switch is stuck again isn't? Someone really should stop leaving you home alone.

Howie

Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer technician ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light --

Originally posted by Digital Howie
Dobe,

Your switch is stuck again isn't? Someone really should stop leaving you home alone.

Howie

Howie: I posted a short story written by Isaac Asimov a few decades ago. The recent conversation about AI and the end of the universe which has been discussed so often in this thread is part of this amazing story. If you take the time to read it from begining to end it will fascinate!!!!! Amazing stuff!!!!!. I wanted to post all in sucession so I didn't give advance warning. It much of what have discussed in this thread in an amazing story.

I read it 20 years ago and forgot all about it until today!!!!!!!!!!!

There just has to be some way we can comprehend this existence gig.
Or at least comprehend it in some much better way than we do now. Which is zilch.
I mean let's get real here. According to you guys, we've now got the straight skinny on this universe thing. Well almost anyway. What is it, gravity that's got to be figured out. And then we have an everything theory. And by god that aint no chopped liver in my book. That's pretty damn advanced I'd say.
So I just have to believe that somehow, some way, we're gonna get a lot better at figuring out this existence stuff. Got to happen.

Then again maybe not. Who the hell knows.

Robert did you read the entire Isaac Asimov story. It was written in 1956!! and I think it's remarkable.

I did. And what's gonna happen at the end is surely a lollapalooza. No doubt about it.

But now I'm stuck on all the whys.

Originally posted by DOBE
If you take the time to read it from begining to end it will fascinate!!!!! Amazing stuff!!!!!.

I agree. I have never heard this before but enjoyed it here, a remarkable insight. And for what we know even today, this could be as plausible a future as anything else. Thanks for sharing with us.

I just read the ending again, DOBE. Help me with it. Restate what you think he's trying to convey.

You too, Bob. Help me with it. Try to put in your own words what it means.

Ahhh. Had to read it the third time. Now I understand.

Robert,

Did you see Jerry Lewis on Larry King the other night?

Allan

He had in a pair if his funny false teeth.

PSS ..check out your ebay thread.

But now I'm stuck on all the whys.

Why?

Missed it, Alan.

DOBE has succeeded in really messing with me here. I'm reading and re-reading and reading again. I've got to make my garage sale list and it's already midnight. I have to get up to at 6 to start going to the sales. And now this is a fine mess. I imagine I'm going to have to keep reading Asimov's short story for most of the night. I thought I understood it all a minute ago but as I read some more I realize I don't. I know this is going to sound pathetic. But will someone please give me the Cliff Notes version of a "short" story?

Originally posted by RobertWood
Missed it, Alan.

DOBE has succeeded in really messing with me here. I'm reading and re-reading and reading again. I've got to make my garage sale list and it's already midnight. I have to get up to at 6 to start going to the sales. And now this is a fine mess. I imagine I'm going to have to keep reading Asimov's short story for most of the night. I thought I understood it all a minute ago but as I read some more I realize I don't. I know this is going to sound pathetic. But will someone please give me the Cliff Notes version of a "short" story?

1. Mankind developes AI and it helps him solve energy problems.
2. AI (the computer) helps men to become imortal and populate the universe over eons of time.
3. Mankind has everything solved except that his universe is running down and he doesn't know how to survive this entropy.
4. The computer has evolved itself into another dimension so it is safe from the collapse of our universe, but it can not figure out how to save mans universe.
5. After the universe collapses the computer finally figures out how to regenerate another universe with a big bang.
6. There is "the light". The computer has taken the role that we call God now plays in our universe. God is actually the remains of the evolved intelligence that played out in the last universe.

Hmmm. Interesting.
Question: Is man then gone for good? So all that's left is AI/God? With another man friendly universe to oversee but with no men? Or did man survive into the new universe?

By George you've got it. Great summary RVonse, but maybe you should use "SPOILERS". We don't want to ruin the ending.

I really do think this is a brilliant piece of Science fiction writing!! The first time I read it 20 years ago it really moved me. Your post about AI and the other posts questioning how the universe began and ended jogged by memory.

Unfortunately, it's fairly long but it's well worth the time. Hey, maybe it will happen that way or maybe it has already happened!

OK I think I get it now. A new universe is reborn which then starts it all over again. So this could be the story of what happens at the end. Or what happened before our beginning.

We posted at the same time. Looks like you answered my question at the same time I was asking it.

Originally posted by RobertWood
Hmmm. Interesting.
Question: Is man then gone for good? So all that's left is AI/God? With another man friendly universe to oversee but with no men? Or did man survive into the new universe?

My take is that physical man does not survive but the computer intelligence would know his dna and everything else from before. So the intelligence could manipulate the new universe into evolving new life in "old mans" image.

[sort of off topic]

Can you all explain the ending of 2001 for me?

p.s. I know it's a dumb question. But I was even a lot younger/dumber the only time I've watched it (when it was in 1st release) and it just didn't sink in.
What exactly was the black monolith all about?

I guess that one was so dumb that yall aint even gonna humor me, huh.
:D