Obsidian debates -1

[Walsingham]

According to a Tibetan monk I was talking to, "Time and space are real, but must be looked on as illusions"

 

Discuss.

[Raithe]

If you're not careful you'll start up the whole Platonic Ideals vs Veil of Maya thing...

[Kaftan Barlast]

I dont believe in space-time. Space is alright, and rate-of-decay is fine but dont go all einsteinian on me and claim they're stuck together.

[Tale]

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed into a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves...Here's Tom with the weather.

[Pidesco]

I dont believe in space-time. Space is alright, and rate-of-decay is fine but dont go all einsteinian on me and claim they're stuck together.

 

 

Science isn't faith based.

[Raithe]

"Not only does God play dice with the universe, the dice are loaded."

[Tale]

"Not only does God play dice."

"but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen. "

[Pidesco]

"Not only does God play dice"

 

"but he also plays hopscotch."

[Kaftan Barlast]

I dont believe in space-time. Space is alright, and rate-of-decay is fine but dont go all einsteinian on me and claim they're stuck together.

 

Science isn't faith based.

 

Yeah, well we'll se about that when they find the higgs boson

[Oner]

I dont believe in space-time. Space is alright, and rate-of-decay is fine but dont go all einsteinian on me and claim they're stuck together.

Bad news Kaftan...

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/scien...011/04may_epic/

[Kaftan Barlast]

All that really proves is that gravity exists and works, not how it works or what it really is. Im still not buing that gravity is curved space and not a force mediated by a carrier particle. Everything else is, and it would be really weird if one of the four forces didnt play by the same rules.

 

 

Also, Einstein thought gravity was a constant, which is complete hogwash. Mass is just a variable as everything else.

Edited May 11, 2011 by Kaftan Barlast

[Tale]

it would be really weird if one of the four forces didnt play by the same rules.

You communist. What if it wants to play by its own rules. That's freedom!

[HoonDing]

Also, Einstein thought gravity was a constant, which is complete hogwash. Mass is just a variable as everything else.

[Oblarg]

It's alright, Kaftan, most other people don't understand physics, either.

 

Time and space are obviously real, and to "treat them as if they are illusions" is the most meaningless thing I have heard in a long time.

Edited May 11, 2011 by Oblarg

[Orogun01]

It's alright, Kaftan, most other people don't understand physics, either.

 

Time and space are obviously real, and to "treat them as if they are illusions" is the most meaningless thing I have heard in a long time.

It means that Time and Space are real but your senses deceive you. There you go, problem solved, that's what Maya is: the Illusion of the senses.

 

I will be giving out Enlightenment to everyone this afternoon, Buddhism 0 Obsidian 1

Next!

[Tale]

My senses would never deceive me. We've been friends for ages! Sure there was the time my senses slept with my wife, but he told me he really felt bad about it.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Also, Einstein thought gravity was a constant, which is complete hogwash. Mass is just a variable as everything else.

 

Hold the facepalm, bro. There are plenty of people way more educated than me who are thinking along the same lines, for instance

 

 

One of nature's venerable constants - gravity - may not be the same for every type of particle in the universe, suggest new calculations. The finding could explain a persistent mystery regarding how much helium was created in the first few minutes after the big bang, say physicists...

 

The gravitational constant (G) first estimated by Isaac Newton and also known as Newton's constant, describes the strength of the gravitational pull that bodies exert on each other.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6544...o-question.html

[Pidesco]

Also, Einstein thought gravity was a constant, which is complete hogwash. Mass is just a variable as everything else.

 

Hold the facepalm, bro. There are plenty of people way more educated than me who are thinking along the same lines, for instance

 

 

One of nature's venerable constants - gravity - may not be the same for every type of particle in the universe, suggest new calculations. The finding could explain a persistent mystery regarding how much helium was created in the first few minutes after the big bang, say physicists...

 

The gravitational constant (G) first estimated by Isaac Newton and also known as Newton's constant, describes the strength of the gravitational pull that bodies exert on each other.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6544...o-question.html

 

I'm sorry but your original statement is still very silly.

[Darth InSidious]

I dont believe in space-time. Space is alright, and rate-of-decay is fine but dont go all einsteinian on me and claim they're stuck together.

 

 

Science isn't faith based.

And for my next trick, ladies and gentlemen, I shall now disprove this claim:

 

I do not believe in evolution.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Newton, Einstein and a whole bunch of old geezers presumed that G was a constant that couldnt be ****ed with. Im saying that the universe ****s with G on a daily basis.

[Zoraptor]

I dont believe in space-time. Space is alright, and rate-of-decay is fine but dont go all einsteinian on me and claim they're stuck together.

 

 

Science isn't faith based.

It doesn't matter if you don't believe in gravity, because gravity believes in you.

 

On the other hand, there's this thing floating around in space, you can notice its effects but you cannot observe it directly. Two groups of people believe in its existence.

 

 

Scientists call it dark matter, christians call it god.

 

[Humodour]

Uh, it's entirely possible that time doesn't 'exist', not as a dimension at least. And that it can instead be thought of as the result of spatial causality. Personally I prefer this interpretation of time as it prevents silly things like time travel into the past, and works better with modern physical theories (of gravity for instance).

 

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-scient...-dimension.html

 

The upside of all this is that you begin to see the universe as one immensely gigantic state machine. Which, to me, begs the obvious question: is the universe Turing complete? I'm going to guess a big fat yes.

 

[Humodour]

Also, Einstein thought gravity was a constant, which is complete hogwash. Mass is just a variable as everything else.

facepalm

 

Hold the facepalm, bro. There are plenty of people way more educated than me who are thinking along the same lines, for instance

 

 

One of nature's venerable constants - gravity - may not be the same for every type of particle in the universe, suggest new calculations. The finding could explain a persistent mystery regarding how much helium was created in the first few minutes after the big bang, say physicists...

 

The gravitational constant (G) first estimated by Isaac Newton and also known as Newton's constant, describes the strength of the gravitational pull that bodies exert on each other.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6544...o-question.html

 

I'm sorry but your original statement is still very silly.

 

Um, in what way was his statement silly?

 

Gravity is a very fluid concept at this point in scientific history. We do not know much about it at all. One idea for example is that gravity is such a weak force because it is leaking into the other dimensions besides 3D space.

 

There is another theory that the number of dimensions has evolved (increased) as the universe has aged. Hard to see gravity remaining the same concept with the same strength in such a scenario.

 

My point is that somebody shouldn't be laughed at simply because they take issue with one of the unresolved aspects of modern physics. To me it seems entirely reasonable to suggest gravity may not be constant. Especially when you consider what gravity might actually be or be caused by. Consider for example the ways it interacts: every single particle in the universe exerts gravity on every single other particle in the universe. And one of the recent theories flying around about dark energy is that antimatter and matter are gravitationally repulsive to each-other while being gravitationally attractive to their own kind of matter. It would be nice if the strength of the gravitational force were constant in every scenario, but need that be the case? And given what we do know about this universe (And how asymmetrical and chaotic, in the mathematical sense, it is)... can we really expect that of gravity?)

 

EDIT: I suppose I can't call them theories since they haven't been proved or disproved yet (the LHC, LISA, and the SKA should resolve that in the next 10 or 20 years). My bad.

Edited May 12, 2011 by Krezack

[Oblarg]

The fact is, while there has been a lot of recent searching for variation in various physical constants (they're trying to do this with the Fine Structure Constant, as well), there have been no conclusive results. As far as we can currently tell, constants are indeed constant.

 

A lot of modern theoretical physics is a bit of a joke, anyway - it's not science if it doesn't make testable predictions.

[Pidesco]

I'm sorry but your original statement is still very silly.

 

Um, in what way was his statement silly?

 

His statement: "Also, Einstein thought gravity was a constant, which is complete hogwash. Mass is just a variable as everything else."

 

 

First, his statement implies that the modern possibility of gravity not being constant is due to the variability of mass. This is not true and does not make sense.

 

Secondly, even considering the hypothesis of the gravitational constant depending on the particles involved, it's still a theory that hasn't been experimentally verified and so, as such, does not turn the notion of the gravitational constant being, well, constant, into "complete hogwash."