They're not actually moving that fast (there is no spoon). There are no laws of physics for them to violate.

>> ^BoneRemake:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
While that was an awesome scene and pretty revolutionary for it's time, I always thought that given you've just seen the agent has reflexes quick enough to dodge bullets, wouldn't saying "dodge this" give it more than enough time to take the gun off Trinity?
I know, rule of cool and all, but still..

Lets go even farther and take into account inertia and momentum etc. If the agent and neo can move that fast shouldn't they be subject to some form of physical law that says if you move fast enough to become a blur your energy should be dissipated in some form ?
The whole thing is full of odd holes, but all in all its a neat movie.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

While that was an awesome scene and pretty revolutionary for it's time, I always thought that given you've just seen the agent has reflexes quick enough to dodge bullets, wouldn't saying "dodge this" give it more than enough time to take the gun off Trinity?
I know, rule of cool and all, but still..


Lets go even farther and take into account inertia and momentum etc. If the agent and neo can move that fast shouldn't they be subject to some form of physical law that says if you move fast enough to become a blur your energy should be dissipated in some form ?

The whole thing is full of odd holes, but all in all its a neat movie.

>> ^Enzoblue:

This movie can't suck. Simple physics/laws of nature.


I'm actually having a tough time imagining it succeeding. Too many heroes spoils the pot.

This movie can't suck. Simple physics/laws of nature.

Based on what little we know scientifically, it's possible there's no objective physical reality at all, just patterns of matter and energy shifting in density. Now of course to us it's a silly statement, because we live in macro-reality with physical laws that safely never break.

At the quantum level there is simply too much going on (and nothing going on at all) to totally rule out the possibility of an existing higher intelligence unbound by linear time.

Religion often concerns the morality, needs and wants of such a Being, and that begins the debate.



>> ^FishBulb:

>> ^quantumushroom:

While quantum mechanics doesn't "prove" there is a God, there's enough going on with matter and energy at that level--where mere observation changes outcomes--to suggest it would be easy for a supreme intelligence to "hide".

Observation of a quantum system changes the outcome because at a quantum level the mere act of observing the system interferes with the very system you're trying to observe. While such results can be weird, it's not magic.

In reply to this comment by Payback:
>> ^PalmliX:

How do you know so much about the hazards of space exploration? I'm looking for an expert of sorts to consult for a short film about Voyager, drop me a line if your interested.


Mostly from reading "hard science" fiction. I kinda dislike the stuff that plays fast and lose with the various accepted physical laws. The cynical part of my brain is wondering if you're teasing, but I'll let the warm fuzzy part respectfully say I ain't anywhere near "expert".

Haha well you're right to listen to the cynical part of your brain. The internet is full of, um... interesting... personalities. Seriously though I am making a short film about the Voyager spacecraft and accuracy is very important to me. I also don't like stuff that plays fast and loose with science, especially when it comes to the lighting in most space scenes...

I'm hoping to make this one of the most visually accurate space films ever made but I'm having trouble finding out some critical information on what stuff would look like out in space, like for example, how dark is it where the Voyager's are now? What would the shadows look like, are the light rays from the sun completely parallel in space? etc...

>> ^PalmliX:

How do you know so much about the hazards of space exploration? I'm looking for an expert of sorts to consult for a short film about Voyager, drop me a line if your interested.


Mostly from reading "hard science" fiction. I kinda dislike the stuff that plays fast and lose with the various accepted physical laws. The cynical part of my brain is wondering if you're teasing, but I'll let the warm fuzzy part respectfully say I ain't anywhere near "expert".

Heres my live-comment on the video

"New knowledge has shaken the foundations of Darwins theory"

No. In fact, everything in biology, especially the discovery of DNA in 1953 have confirmed, and established once and for all that the foundation of Darwins theory based on the Natural selection of hereditery properties (Darwin called them traits, we now call them genes) is true.

"When Darwin was alive, they thought the cell was a simple blob"

Wow, that was only like 3 seconds between lie #1 and lie #2! Impressive, Behe. Lets drag up Darwins corpse, and see what he had to say, even if its largely irrelevant to the fact of evolution and the practice of modern biology:
http://scienceblogs.com/afarensis/2007/07/16/darwin_and_the_cell_not_just_p/

"Like a car factory where everything has to fit together"


Not really, cells are messy things, and the processes inside is based on chemical reactions and physical laws (such as entropy) They look nothing like these tidy animations meant for illustration purposes. The production of proteins, for instance,is a process where the amino acids float around and bind themselves chemically to rna, not in an orderly "wait my turn"-style, but they latch on naturally to the RNA because they are chemically attracted to the 5 different nucleic acids on the RNA chain. It would be more similar to a redox reaction you can do with electrodes in water where the iron rod attracts the oxygen molecules, forming rust.(in the sense that theres nothing intelligent going on, just chemistry.)

"Darwinism was a lot more plausible when we thought the cell was a blob"

No.

"Flagellum"

A , Behes flagship of his idiot argument, he always pulls it out, all debunking be damned, he cant even hear how people have destroyed this silliness over and over:

http://youtu.be/a_5FToP_mMY

Utter bullshit.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
In reply to this comment by IAmTheBlurr:
I'm so glad that I read the comments before actually watching the video, sounds like a total waste of time.

yeah.
you most assuredly would not have liked it.
and i dont recommend you try..
your head might explode lol.
i just liked the fact it was not dripping with dogma and the man spoke genuinely.
but you would find his arguments infuriating.

Thanks mang

It's just that I find these arguments sooooo tiring. They're old and it seems like they're being made just so people can feel like they're not loosing a part of their identity.

Yesterday, I got in to an argument with my boss about natural selection. Everything he said is tied to the fact that he identifies with his Jewish heritage and with his view that the bible is literally true. He wears the star of david around his neck and inscribes it into his tools so people know who they belong to. For his beliefs to be false, a huge portion of who he identifies himself to be would be lost.

Regardless of whether or not his beliefs are true, he wont question them because he's making a commitment error. He's already invested a lot of energy into his beliefs, and just like anyone else who makes a huge commitment, he's going to make all of the justifications in the world to continue the commitment rather than cutting his losses and correcting the error in rationality.

I did watch a few 1 minute clips randomly to get a feel for what he's saying and again, it's the same old tired argument for faith but I have a problem with faith. I requires that you believe something with zero evidence. Why is that EVER a good thing. Why should anyone be taught that anyone should believe something with zero evidence? Why (or how) does that idea persist? Shouldn't people be taught that it's always better to disbelieve until there is enough evidence and then set the standard for what constitutes as evidence?

I think this whole discussion stems from, again, the top-down outlook on how things work verses a bottom-up outlook. Humans are used to a top-down outlook. We have parents who are above us, set the rules, protect us, we have ideas first and then we construct physical items based on those ideas, we have government who sets societal rules that we generally obey. Our entire lives as humans is entirely approached in a top-down manor and since that's the only thing that we really know, we tend to project our outlook to the rest of the world. We assume that the universe would have been designed from the top-down, we assume that the universal physical laws must have been set from some other place greater than ourselves, we assume that there must be deities or a deity that is/are our cosmic parent.

In the end, after all of the little clips that I did watch, you're right, I found it totally infuriating but not primarily for the reasons mentioned above. I found infuriating because he's claiming to have a lot of answers but they're primarily based on misconceptions or incomplete information.

It's like the argument I had with my boss yesterday. I explained exactly what the textbook definition of biological evolution through natural selection. When I was done, his response was "That's not natural selection, that's something else". The speaker is doing just that, he's taking thoughts and ideas and redefining them to meet his own criteria for what he thinks they mean and saying "this is the correct way of thinking about it". It's not just moving the goalpost, it's changing the entire way that scores are made. It's beyond frustration.

But I digress, Either there is a god(s), or there aren't. The only way to say that there are with any degree of certainty, is through the accumulation of reproducible and tangible evidence, not through speculation, not through how it makes you or I feel, not through gut feelings, and not through anecdotal evidence. Until the standards are met, belief if irrational. Even if it's true that there is a god(s), belief in any of them is currently irrational.

You're welcome I enjoy discussing it, and I'm sorry if some of my comments sounded too harsh or negative, I was basically commenting while watching and pausing the video. I do see how he was trying to tip the scales from god being totally improbable to somewhat probable and to very probable and so on, and I suppose he deserves some credit for trying, and I think its easy to fall into his line of reasoning, because he presents it well. But as I tried pointing out, I found nearly all of his premises deeply flawed.

The main one is i think where we are coming from, namely that he lives in a universe where he basically assumes god exists, and that we atheists havent done a good enough job of disproving that. And worse, he seems unable to see the world from an atheists perspective. Thats the only way to explain why he thinks he's found a good solution to the problem of evil. Its a crappy solution. And its a solution that most atheists are familiar with. (ie: that god has a "larger plan" with all the evil stuff so its not really evil) As I said previously, assuming that there is no god at all, is a solution that's orders of magnitude more satisfying, because it erases the whole problem. Evil happens because the universe and the physical laws that govern it are completely indifferent to human or animal suffering, and humans, altho sometimes brilliant, are basically powerhungry tribal apes with guns and religion at their disposal, and some of them even have pretty much defective brains, lacking our usual specter of emotions, for example.

All that makes sense in a godless universe, where our hardearned human rights also makes sense, not just that we have them, but that it took thousands of years and thousands of wars before we figured we might need them. It also explains why some still dont believe in them.

>> ^enoch:

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
that being said,dont you find the absence of dogmatic speak refreshing?
Yes.
i would think an atheist at least could appreciate this type of conversation.
he is not preachy in this talk,nor is he attempting to convert or convince.
No but it does have a smell of dishonesty about it. He's constantly calling out the atheists for unreasonably demanding that he prove the existence of god, which he then freely admits he cant do, as a sign op a kind of opendmindeness, while subtly making that very same silly demand in return "You cant prove there is no god!"
which god are you speaking of.
a pantheon of deities?
judau-christian?
or any other of the 4500 religions?
Again, this isnt really my problem here: I'm not the one making shit up about elusive, invisible metaphysical overlords. I'm saying there is no evidence.

agreed.
thats why i do not attempt to "prove" the existence of a creator.
to do so would be futile.
but he is making the point..the crux in the argument in my opinion,of the dynamic of proof.
i have had many atheists demand this of me also.
as if it were my job to somehow convince them.
which is is not, but i also do not put myself in a position where i have to i.e: making claims of the certitude of a creator etc etc.
everybody has their own path and come to their own conclusions based on their own subjective realty.
faith is personal while religion is not (though they claim it is..and often).
anyways i thought this was pretty good concerning that very argument and truly felt it was worthy for even an theist to be able to at least understand a person of faiths viewpoint in a non-dogmatic way.
seems i was wrong.
meh.../shrugs.
thanks for replying BRM.
very awesome of you.

"Why is the gravitational constant at the value it is?"

I'll "try" to take this one.

It took a long time for me to make the connection as to why it is that number (I used to ask my physics teachers the same thing and got a blank look in response). If you believe in something outside the Universe I can't help you, sorry. This is a scientific response.

At the beginning of our Universe a certain amount of energy was in play and in turn eventually physical laws and so forth. But, the gravitational constant along with every constant we have is entirely based on the geometry of the Universe. It's shape and form; it's breadth and width of time. These numbers give a higher meaning to the simple form of energy that the Universe once was. It literally gives you all your abilities in life, as do all the other fundamental forces.

The reason they are "that number" is merely due to our defined state. Why they ended up as those numbers most likely go back to the very instant the Big Bang began; and if the Universe has been here before then perhaps it's been decided by other means (perhaps through quantum mechanical interactions with virtual particles or QED).

These numbers represent the energy structure of our Universe and show that at the Big Bang we "may" have interacted with something that gave rise to an unbalanced system, with dominant energies (what I mean by that is that we don't find huge clumps of anti-matter anywhere, even though it makes little sense math wise; but, recently we have shown that anti-matter innately shows up in smaller quantities than our normal baryonic matter--the question is why...). This energy differences and the fact the numbers are distinct and knowable mean that our Universe will have shape and reason based entirely off of these numbers.

If you believe that there might be alternate Universes then the thing that would most likely change first are these numbers or constants. That Universe will be fundamentally different and alien to us.

I like these last comments for the fact that they let you know that as much as we know as humans now (remember most of this has only happened in 100 years; a pittance of time, relatively speaking). We are slowly understanding that reality has never been exactly upfront with us. The more we explore new frontiers we find that we are beholden to devices and physical laws that are not dealt with by science or religion, yet.

It shows us that we must tread lightly for now. We are a young race and we barely grasp some fundamentals of reality with physics, chemistry, and other sciences. Philosophy has been thrown around since time immoral, atleast compared to our species age.

We have a lot to learn and in many places we have yet to learn anything. Dismissing anything like what genetics may tell us, or DNA, science, religion, or even a philosophy of religion only leads to closed-minds. That is our undoing.

But, if we can come together and realize that intrinsically we are complex socially due to mental and health issues and limitations imposed on us physically from birth we can atleast see eye to eye. It is the people that cannot deal with reality and what it tells us, that will destroy us. Especially, if we grant them power--they can only lead us to a delusion that isn't supported by reality in any fashion.

At the same time I believe that if you have faith in religion you must recognize that the Universe may be more important in many ways than a book. For if what you believe is true, what better place to find truth and answers than looking at "It's" creation. Why be scared of what reality says, when it causes the greatest of our humanity to come forth when we explore it--it makes us a better species.

To me it's nature speaks louder than any religious leader can ever speak, and writes unsaid poetry better than the best poet. This is as close as I can believe in God. The Universe is amazing and it makes our squabbles over race/resource/religion (who's right...)/and rights look maddeningly simplistic in comparison.

The event/object that brings me the most satisfaction in life is to go up in the mountains and watch the Milky Way rise. I now enough about it that it NEVER fails to inspire me and humble me.

We need to destroy our ability to have childish fears.
A little dramatic, but I wish to make an emotional plea...

>> ^gorillaman:

A constitutional democracy is a system in denial. If democracy's such a good idea what do you want a constitution for, and if the constitution's so wonderful why bother with democracy?
It's also unstable. Very nice for wise and benevolent founders to write down a list of rules for the mob to observe, until they decide not to observe them any more. Gradually or suddenly, every constitution is subverted. An effective model wouldn't be vulnerable to these periodic collapses.

Let me one up you in pessimism and cynicism. Humans are never going to create a society that everyone finds just. At least, not as long as humans remain human, and the physical laws continue to work as we presently understand them.

Also, physical laws and human behavior being what they are, no society is ever going to be static. Further, no society is going to dynamically adjust to change without someone somewhere feeling an injustice has been done to them. No paradigm of government is guaranteed to last forever.

So now that we agree everything is hopeless, and justice and freedom will never permanently eradicate tyranny and suffering, let's move on to actually talking about the best options for what we can do in this life with the tools we have at our disposal today.

>> ^gorillaman:
Would anyone here really dare to deny that smart people make better decisions than stupid people? Then we have an agreed foundation for building a superior government model and can put all this populism and consensus foolishness behind us.


I would agree that if I'm going to entrust someone with authority, I'd rather they be smart (and wise and kind) rather than stupid (or megalomaniacal or cruel).

But I think you have yet to state a coherent alternative you believe would be superior. If I thought it were possible to set up a reliable mechanism where only people of "golden souls" got to hold the reigns of power, I might actually prefer it to conventional forms of democracy. I just don't believe such a mechanism has been discovered, and I doubt that such a mechanism is possible.

Alright @enoch, I'll take up your challenge.

I have many questions that I would like answered, that nothing answers yet. I am not very interested in why I exist, because I don't think there is any particular meaning in that - I can read meaning in to my existence, sure, but there's no outside meaning to my existence or anything's existence. Some may view this as cynical, I see it as reasonable.

I am very interested in how. How does my brain work, how do I have a consciousness, how does my body influence my mind, and vice versa.

Why does regular physics break down at sub-atomic levels? Does this fact ripple up throughout the scales, so a quantum fluctuation affects my mood in the end?

Are dreams just random firings of neurons? Are they something else? We often see some sort of meaning in our dreams (and sometimes none at all), why is that? Do we make up the meaning as we go along, or do we project meaning into our dreams for ourselves to interpret? After all, if dreams are in fact created by ourselves, instead of just random, there must (or might) be some underlying meaning in it.

Our psyche is interesting, because our entire view of the world depends on it. A madman may see the world different than me, everyone may see the world different than me, why is that? Is it merely a physiological difference, is it something else? I don't know at this point.

Just because I am an atheist, a militant, rabid one at that, doesn't mean there is nothing that I believe. I believe a lot of things, that I have not had demonstrated. Many things just make sense to me, so I don't question them further. It's hard to list these things without being inane; stuff like gravity, physical laws, the properties of objects so on.

I have my own theories on more advanced stuff, which is completely open to ridicule, but they are things I believe based on my own observations and what I have seen from others more learned in the respected fields. Obviously, when I journey on to guesswork like this, I keep in mind that it might not be like this at all, but so far I think so.

An example: gwiz665's theory of consciousness.

The consciousness is an emergent property of our complex brain structure. It is a very mechanistic thing, which runs like software on our brain hardware. Obviously, I don't know much about our hardware, but this is a very interesting subject. I think that given enough computer power, we can simulate it in a turing machine, but I've grown uncertain as to how this can be accomplished. Hopefully neuroscience will get some insight into this, they're certainly working on it.

I think we can physically see our consciousness, but it's just really, really hard. We can theoretically see which programs run on a computer too, by looking at the electrical currents in the computer, but without knowing how exactly the computer interprets those data, we're pretty much in the dark. It's the same with the mind vs. brain.

I believe that our perception of our consciousness is different from what it actually is. We have very little privileged knowledge about our consciousness, because our brain, basically, makes it up as it goes along. I think there's significant ret-conning going on at all times as well, because our consciousness does not pick up all senses at all times, but our brain does - when something is important enough, it is written into our conscious narrative. How this weighing of importance happens is extremely important to me, how do we value things? We obviously have a way in our consciousness, where we associate meaning, value etc. to things, but what happens at a lower level? How is memory distributed in the brain, how is consciousness, how is deduction etc.

I basically make the assumption that the brain is a computer. A massively parallel computer, which processes a nearly infinite number of threads at once (~1 per neuron). How this is organized is beyond me, I black box it - it just makes sense at this point. It may be very wrong, but it seems to work and answer some questions.

I also assume that I'm right until something tells me otherwise - I think it's the only way to live. I can't doubt everything all the time.

>> ^budzos:
The answer to your question: I don't know. I can't know because I don't believe in God. Nobody can know anything about God (especially since he's a fiction).
However, the concept of God is that he created the universe. Implicit in that would be that he controls or created the physical laws.
If you accept that as part of the discussion then it makes no sense to try and use physical laws to argue for or against god. He's not a physical being.
EDIT: In other words, it's safe to assume that he did... and the point is not whether he CREATED them... but that he's above them.
FURTHER EDIT: I didn't ask you a question. Not really anyways. It was meant to be sarcasm.... like "are you kidding!?"


Yeah, I know you don't believe in a god. I thought you were answering as a theist might, since the question I originally posed was directed to a would-be theist that would have made that claim(God is God. He's not bound by any laws of nature/physics, because he created the laws.) So my reply was actually to the theist I thought you were speaking for.