Health Set Back...

[foghornleghorn]

This has gone a bit mental considering everything scientific is a theory not a fact.

Eh? Do you want to rethink that? Every theory is a theory. Everything that has been proved by science is a fact, no longer a theory, but now a scientific fact.

"Do you want to rethink that?" Is exactly my point. Current facts are current facts. Future knowledge is unknown. Up until about 500 years ago the sun revolved around the earth.

[Burgerman]

Everything that has been proved by science is a fact, no longer a theory, but now a scientific fact.

Thats not true either. The theory that best fits the known facts that makes testable predictions is the best answer science has. Its still a tentative position. Even if its been tested to death, countless times. A theory never changes to a fact. If newer evidence comes along or if a single prediction turns out to be wrong then its thrown out. Newton was wrong, as shown by Einstein. Einstein may one day be shown to be wrong. But dont hold your breath. He was right enough to show that atom bombs could work, right enough to show time and distance dilation is correct, right enough to show space is warped by mass causing gravity, and that the universe changes time and distance to keep light speed identical for all observers despite speed or position etc etc. Its still a theory however. In spite off the mass of facts that support it.

[Lord Chatterley]

You are claiming that infinity is an actual existing quantity and I am saying that that is impossible.

Infinity Is not a concept that designates actual existents anymore than 'minus one apple' designates actual existing 'minus one apples.'

There are no 'minus apples' - there are only apples.

By the same token there are no infinite universes i.e. there is no alternative universe where there lives another Burgerman with three heads speaking different languages none of which can be understood by the other.

All we have one universe with one Burgerman who thinks he is no different to a brussel sprout.

LC

[Burgerman]

You are claiming that infinity is an actual existing quantity and I am saying that that is impossible.

No I am not. You cannot quantify something with no end.

Infinity Is not a concept that designates actual existents anymore than 'minus one apple' designates actual existing 'minus one apples.'

You've started with the meaningless gobbledygook word salad thing again so beloved of philosophers. The universe doesn't understand your "philosophy" word salad. It simply is what SCIENCE found it to be. That thing you plainly cant understand.

There are no 'minus apples' - there are only apples.

And again, and yes I agree with apples. But in physics there really ARE minus apples. And particles, minus energy, particles which are energy (mass and energy are the same thing) which appear and dissapear freely in the quantum vacuum. They appear from nothing. A free ride. Or they vanish. At will. Or go through solid objects (quantum tunneling) and are everywhere in the universe at once until measures. Instantaneously. And you also get minus energy particles, and anti matter particles. With reversed negative energy. a minus apple. They borrow energy and appear and dissapear from the background quantum foam. From nothing. Yes its not logical, its why we need science, to answer scientific questions. Not a philosopher that hasn't a clue. As I said the universe doesn't behave how you think it should and it doesn't care that it defies a philosophers logic. Because it totally defies ANY logic. If you want to know about the universe, or anything scientific ask a scientist. Preferably a physicist. If you want some word salad, ask a philosopher.

By the same token there are no infinite universes i.e. there is no alternative universe where there lives another Burgerman with three heads speaking different languages none of which can be understood by the other.

3 heads? Nobody said there was. Dont know if thats possible biologically. We have solid evidence pointing to the existence of the multiverse, just follow what the laws of physics tells us must be the case. Physics says there are new universes created at all points in time and space every time a quantum decoherence event is measured and becomes localized, (The point where the probability waveform collapsed when you looked or it became entangled etc) which happens countless times per second all across the universe. As Richard feynman once said to his students, if you think you understand quantum physics you dont yet understand quantum physics. Once you do you wont like it, because it IS illogical.
Just because your daft philosophers thinking cant accept it or understand it doesn't mean you are right! You have a choice. You can accept the physics, the simple truth of what countless experiments tells us, or you can deny it, as you are doing.

All we have one universe with one Burgerman who thinks he is no different to a brussel sprout.

No we have countless universes, and I dont understand the brussel sprout bit. If you mean I am simply matter that obeys the deterministic laws of physics, then yes. And so are you. Unless you want to deny what the actual physics says is happening. Its not what they THINK, its what the experiment and predictive power actually shows. Given a week or so I can show you step by step until you can understand it too. Then quantum physics will freak you out. And you are made of those quantum particles.

[Burgerman]

Quantum particles, that you are made of, that the universe is made of either dont conform to logic. If you believe theres one universe. Or if you truly ignore your biases and ONLY follow the logic, then what follows is the multiverse. So you can choose. Ignore what the evidence shows, or accept it. Most cant accept it. But I run on logic, and I understand the consequences of both determinism, and what that means to the observations in quantum physics, and what it means is a multiverse. There simply is no alternative unless you dont follow the observed facts and logic.

This is the reason we dont ask a bunch of old men locked in a room that think you can find out about the astonishing nature reality by using a lot of word soup. And why science stopped taking philosophers seriously centuries back.


youtu.be/EGF34iPfPDY

[Lord Chatterley]

Interesting but how?
Quantum = reasons = infinite universes has all the explanatory power of quantum = reasons = infinite God in his wisdom.

LC

[Burgerman]

Thats word salad again.
Quantum = reasons ?????????

Lets start there. What the hell does that mean?

Quantum = small. Correct answer.

Reasons = ?? No idea what that means you better define what you mean by reasons. Reasons for what?

I will simplicate for you.

Quantum particles have no place, speed, position. Each one is everywhere in the universe as a cloud of probability. Until you look at it. As crazy as his is, it means as Einstein said: Do you really believe the moon doesn't exist until you look at it? Because he though he knew that was crazy. Unfortunately experiment shows that this IS the case. It was proven even before he died. But he refused to accept the experimental evidence. It was even more conclusively proven after his death. There really is no doubt.

Thats why in the double slit experiment, firing ONE particle, atom, molecule in some cases, or photon, experiment shows that it goes through BOTH slits (or hundreds of em) all at the same time and creates an interference pattern with itself. Until you LOOK at it. At which point it goes through ONE slit, and makes one dot on the target. And it doesn't need to be YOU that looks at it. Anything that checks its position, or which slot it goes through stops it happening. It is not logical. What in fact happens, and has been TESTED TO DEATH is that the particle does not in fact go through one slit at all. It still went through both. The moment you measure or look at this, you simply see one or the other. To maintain deterministic laws. And thats the universe you went with. But the universe actually did both. And you saw both. And in two universes you got 2 correct answers. Both slits.

This is why the Schrodinger cat thought experiment was invented. By Schrodinger initially to show how stupid this was. He shot himself in the foot. The idea was to show that this crazyness didn't just occur with single particles or photons because those single particles caused real changes in the large world we live in. That being a random quantum event caused a cat to die, or not. Since that quantum uncertainty waveform doesen't collapse till measured, (when we open the lid) than that cat has to be equally uncertain. Dead and alive. Till we look. But thats not what happens. Since we already know that deterministic universe is true then the cat IS dead. And IS alive. And the point where it was measured splits the universe. Actually it doesn't split it simply shows you one or the other.

[Burgerman]

Summary:

You can sit in a room messing with words and logic and reason making up soup, till the cows come home and get absolutely nowhere.

Why? Because at the quantum level the world and by definition reality as you think you understand it, is totally wrong.
Worse, it does not behave in a rational, logical or understandable way. Things that make zero sense and go against all reason happen all the time.
Things that are totally opposite to logic as we understand it are its normal expected behavior. And you and the universe (multiverse) are completely made of these quantum particles.

[Lord Chatterley]

Summary:

You can sit in a room messing with words and logic and reason making up soup, till the cows come home and get absolutely nowhere.

Why? Because at the quantum level the world and by definition reality as you think you understand it, is totally wrong.
Worse, it does not behave in a rational, logical or understandable way. Things that make zero sense and go against all reason happen all the time.
Things that are totally opposite to logic as we understand it are its normal expected behavior. And you and the universe (multiverse) are completely made of these quantum particles.

LOL. I do love these little discussions we have from time to time.

So what manages the interface between the real world and the unreal world? If there is no interface why doesn't "the real" create only "real" effects?
Why does this super real reality of yours create unreal illusions?

What you're doing is exactly what the pre-Socratics did before the discovery of logic [by Aristotle]. Pythogoras said I've got these fancy new numbers [ incommensurable numbers ] and by using these numbers I can prove that the world isn't real and I can actually demonstrate the truth - and the productive utility of that proof - repeatedly without exception, and you can test this all independently for yourselves using the same objective methodology and see that I'm right and you're wrong. Therefore, all the world you see isn't real after all, because the real world is really just numbers.

Zeno did exactly the same thing but instead of using incommensurable numbers to prove his case he used infinity.

Then Aristotle came along and said: hold on a minute sunshine you're overlooking one or two things...

I do like the videos BTW but Bohr didn't really understand Einstein.

LC

[greybeard]

Everything that has been proved by science is a fact, no longer a theory, but now a scientific fact.

Thats not true either. The theory that best fits the known facts that makes testable predictions is the best answer science has. Its still a tentative position. Even if its been tested to death, countless times. A theory never changes to a fact. If newer evidence comes along or if a single prediction turns out to be wrong then its thrown out. Newton was wrong, as shown by Einstein. Einstein may one day be shown to be wrong. But dont hold your breath. He was right enough to show that atom bombs could work, right enough to show time and distance dilation is correct, right enough to show space is warped by mass causing gravity, and that the universe changes time and distance to keep light speed identical for all observers despite speed or position etc etc. Its still a theory however. In spite off the mass of facts that support it.

For centuries when men pondered the heavens they THEORISED and came to the logical conclusion, based on their long obsesrvations, that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Their THEORY was wrong - as was suspected when a new theory emerged that Earth revolved around the Sun. This second theory was proved (QED) when scientists confirmed incontrovertibly that it was a FACT .

Were they wrong? Am I?

[Burgerman]

Facts are used to confirm a theory. The more a theory is tested, the stronger it becomes. E.G. it may yet to be proved that there is no sun, and we are living in a simulation, or a version of a 3d hologram on the inside of a huge black hole. So its never FACT.

There are some scientists that are actually studying these things today. So no, theories NEVER become facts, although we may come to think of them that way. But those men that thought the earth was central and the sun revolved thought that too. So a theory, is always one, even when its seemingly correct beyond all possible errors..

For eg, the weight of evidence makes calling evolution a theory seem ridiculous. Its really the fact of evolution to us. But it COULD be overturned one day. Same with gravity. The fact of gravity seems obvious. The theory of gravity is E=mc2. So depends on E=MC2 being correct. But technically it could still be wrong or incomplete. And the laws of gravity simply mean you can calculate the result/forces/acceleration based on measurements and experiment. 1G is 9.8 m/s per sec in a vacuum is a fact that we can verify...

Heres an excellent example.

Einsteins theory of relativity, which has never failed any of its predictions, all the facts say it is correct. These include time dilation and space dilation, in order to make the observed and measured light speed identical to all observers regardless of their own speed. And the change in shape of space-time by mass causing gravity. And that mass increases with the square of the speed, till it would become an infinitely large figure at light speed. And that mass = energy. Tested by turning atoms into death and destruction. So its tentatively the best most accurate description of how the universe works. But its still a theory.

And even more tested to death, Quantum theory. Much of the modern worlds technology depends on it. In the same way E=c2 is.

And yet one or the other, may be incorrect. We know this because the two theories fall apart at large or small scales. In that they disagree with each other. So one must still be wrong, or missing something.

Quantum theory says the moon doesn't exist till you or someone looks at it? Do you believe that? Well according to the same tested and proven correct "laws" that is absolutely correct. Quantum theory is supremely accurate. But thats one of the other things it means. Trust me its not logical.

But if any theory makes any prediction, that is shown to fail, its then the theory is simply wrong. No matter how much it seemed like it was correct previously no matter how many correct predictions or facts.

Take evolution. ONE SINGLE fact that shows something like the microbes "flagellum", that was used by the creationist nuts in court to try to show something that cannot evolve naturally, and then the whole theory of evolution is therefore incorrect. They were shown to be wrong of course, theres many whole books devoted to how that evolved but the religous are ignorant. So it was thrown out of court with much humour!

If E=MC2 predicts a time difference, or a gravity/strength difference, or an light speed / time prediction error, that disagrees with the theory then its wrong.

[Mechniki]

God has a sense of humour

[LROBBINS]

As one who was in my previous life a working scientist I'll add my personal definitions of three terms. Two of these - "fact" and "theory" - have had prominent roles in this thread. The third - "hypothesis" - has not, I think, been mentioned at all.

FACT - an observation, direct or indirect, for which we want to discover an origin or mechanism. The fact may be "true" only in a particular, limited, context and may be subject to refinement as the context is broadened.

HYPOTHESIS - a TESTABLE guess about the mechanism(s) underlying a FACT or group of somehow-related FACTS. If it's not testable, in my prejudiced view, it has no place in the world of science, even if it can be otherwise interesting or intriguing.

THEORY - a human abstraction that puts together numerous tested hypotheses to explain a large collection of observations. Although always tentative and subject to revision, or to being totally discarded, it represents our best, most complete, current understanding of this observational space. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a similar, but to my mind somewhat more wishy-washy, definition:

A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.

Some of the argumentativeness of this thread seems to come from confusing "theory" with (the never mentioned) "hypothesis" -- they are not the same thing.

[Burgerman]

I never use that word. Because it is beyond my vocabulary!

But the explanations for theory and an observable fact are exactly what I mean, but much clearer put...