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Psi Kick
New Member

3 Posts

Posted - 06/07/2003 :  07:15:34  Show Profile Send Psi Kick a Private Message
As a high school instructor I always survey students to see if they have ever experienced deja-vu. Then we discuss how such a thing might even be possible. Next I ask them if it is likely that we could perceive any law or relationship if those laws or relationships did not already exist (Pythagorean theorem, E = MCsquared). By constructing an argument that the rational human mind should logically reject God as a concept, we look at how the concept itself can exist by pure imagination. Why do humans tend toward belief in something it can never prove? When did the mind incorporate God and is it so rigid on insisting on continued discussion? The question next focuses on the fidelity of genetic inheritance as well as how errors are meticulously corrected, all without apparent influence of any "brain." I do these things to uncover thoughts that might otherwise not be provoked. If we see life as the signature of God then by that definition we can keep God in the model of existence. There are such things as other dimensions.

Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 06/07/2003 :  07:37:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Psi Kick wrote:
quote:
The question next focuses on the fidelity of genetic inheritance as well as how errors are meticulously corrected...
If you're teaching biology, I feel sorry for your students. Genetic errors, after all, are not "meticulously corrected." If they were, evolution would not occur.
quote:
If we see life as the signature of God then by that definition we can keep God in the model of existence.
Yes, if you force-fit God into your definition, then by your definition, God is a part of the definition. Who would have guessed? The question is: why put God in there in the first place?
quote:
There are such things as other dimensions.
Now I feel sorry for your students if you're a physics teacher. Please demonstrate that these other dimensions exist as physical entities.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Computer Org
Skeptic Friend

392 Posts

Posted - 08/05/2003 :  08:04:15   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Computer Org a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by dave W.
quote:
Originally posted by Psi Kick

There are such things as other dimensions.
Now I feel sorry for your students if you're a physics teacher. Please demonstrate that these other dimensions exist as physical entities.
Bazoo bazamble!

I begin to see the truly strage light!

Are you really saying, dave w., that you think that the 'math' in Mathematical Physics is just a bunch of non-real, imaginary hocus-pocus?!?! That those extra dimensions in, for example, superstringtheory or Inflation theory are just physicists' doodling?

Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff
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XienWolf
New Member

USA
6 Posts

Posted - 08/05/2003 :  13:11:11   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send XienWolf a Private Message
The original post stated simply
quote:
There are such things as other dimensions


This makes it sound like he means the Sci-Fi version of "other dimensions' as in alternative "places" you can exist in.


With Superstring theory, the other dimensions are just that Dimenions. Just like up/down, left/right, front/back and future/past. They aren't something else you can exist in simply because of their dimensional limits in the model (extremely small, comperable to plank length sizes).

If he teaches the Sci-FI style Dimensions as existing.. I too feel sorry for the gullible portion of his students. For the informed ones, I just hope they pretend he really said "pocket universes" or some other suck theoretical possibility. Really that would be what he MEANT to say, but hasn't read quite enough to realize it probably.

Edited for minor typo
Edited by - XienWolf on 08/05/2003 13:14:52
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Boron10
Religion Moderator

USA
1266 Posts

Posted - 08/05/2003 :  13:50:40   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Boron10 a Private Message
quote:
Computer Org:
Are you really saying, dave w., that you think that the 'math' in Mathematical Physics is just a bunch of non-real, imaginary hocus-pocus?!?! That those extra dimensions in, for example, superstringtheory or Inflation theory are just physicists' doodling?
I will say exactly that, though I am not sure of Dave W's point of view. Until I am shown real, documented evidence of "extra" dimensions, I will affirm that they only exist in the realm of hypothesis. I am not, however, condemning the search. We should condinue to probe deeper toward the Planck Length.
quote:
XienWolf:
...I just hope they pretend he really said "pocket universes" or some other suck theoretical possibility.
Not to be nitpicky (though I guess I am nitpicky), but I would call it a "suck hypothetical possibility."

And, finally, Xien! Good to see you here, my man!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 08/05/2003 :  16:55:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Computer Org wrote:
quote:
Are you really saying, dave w., that you think that the 'math' in Mathematical Physics is just a bunch of non-real, imaginary hocus-pocus?!?!
You've offered me a false dichotomy: either I believe that the extra dimensions are physical entities, or they're a bunch of "hocus-pocus." Neither is true:

The extra dimensions of string theory are a part of a model of reality. They do not necessarily correspond directly to spacial dimensions or to time (although as I understand it, the extra dimensions of string theory are more spacial in nature than they are temporal). They are used in the model to define certain properties of reality. Whether or not they are actual physical dimensions is something that only further experimentation can show, because nobody's shown it yet (that's Nobel-prize-winning, front-page newspaper work).

If you consider the string-theory model to be "hocus-pocus," or if you think the model precisely reflects Reality-with-a-capital-R, then I'm the one who should be underlining "really" in any further responses to you. Crackpots, after all, have a long history of confusing the map for the terrain, or for rejecting the map entirely. That's what you appear to be asking me to do: make such an unwise and unskeptical choice.

I am also a bit surprised you waited almost two months to say anything about this.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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XienWolf
New Member

USA
6 Posts

Posted - 08/05/2003 :  17:24:03   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send XienWolf a Private Message
Bah.. I missed a couple typos it seems, I didn't meant to say "suck," I meant "such" and my earlier edit was changing "teached" to "teaches".... I sounded a bit backwater in my first ever post here, so thought I should change that one :)
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Bill Burke
New Member

13 Posts

Posted - 09/02/2003 :  11:17:19   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Bill Burke a Private Message
I just want to say that I enjoy seeing terms like "pre-existence."

If the term is applied to a specific entity, then we're caught up in a semantic or conceptual quandary, aren't we? Because if an entity does not yet exist, what is there to pre-exist? Can we also post-exist? :-)

Perhaps unfairly, this term reminds me of assertions like, "Death is a part of life." Dying may be a part of it, but life and death themselves would appear to be mutually exclusive.

To digress even further, the fingernails-down-the-blackboard expression, "Nothing is impossible" also flits to mind right here. Especiallyexcruciating to hear when used as an exhortation to the handicapped. I fear I must stop at this point lest I be swept into the stream of Joycean madness.

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