Oftencold

Ah, Inkslinger, as with so many of your posts, this one is pristine in its thorough freedom from contamination by thought, substance or charm.

Interesting vocabulary searches:

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OrdinaryGuy

Well, wikipedia and science has this to say when it comes to the properties of light:

Wave–particle duality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seems to me that scientists agree that light has a paradoxical nature.


I can agree that our understanding of the universe is incredibly primitive, however, it is quite obvious that a hypothesis is a belief. That's all it is. Scientists formulate a belief that they think might be true or has a good possiblity of being true and then they use analysis, emperical measurement, observation and scientific reductionism to verify whether this belief, or hypothsis is true. It is what it is. Belief is only as good as the ability and willingness to give it up, either by proving that it is true and thus it is no longer a belief but a fact or by proving it is not true, which then it is wise to discard that belief when the facts show that it is untrue and sometimes, belief is good when you can turn belief into reality which it is no longer belief but it reality.

I am not religious myself, nor do I practice a religion. Zen is a technique, not a belief. I don't know if the beliefs in science can be compared to the beliefs of religion.

nuit

I find that 'beliefs' are so pervasive in our thought systems that it is near impossible to separate them from those which are based on hard evidence, rational logic or otherwise deduced. It is extremely difficult to change someones beliefs and I find it is pretty much futile to bother by direct confrontation. The only effective way to change someone's belief system is indirectly - often by forcing them to confront the illogic of their belief - but often who can be bothered figuring out such a strategy.

He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason. - A. Crowley

Inkslinger

Keep trying rookie, maybe you'll achieve stardom and fame one day....

splansing

The fact that all matter and energy exhibit properties of both particle and wave is not a paradox. Go back in time and kill your mother before you were born. Now you've got a paradox.

We cannot thoroughly explain the nature of reality. We don't know if there is a difference between a particle and a wave. We don't even know if there is such a thing as either one, or whether they are just some still more basic essence resonating to forces we haven't even contemplated yet. Our inability to completely explain the nature of reality is not a paradox.

Calling the particle-wave issue a paradox is the result of putting the cart before the horse. Reality can't be judged to be paradoxical just because our particle-wave understanding doesn't work. String theory is one effort to break out of that paradigm. In a nutshell, what that wiki article says is that the particle-wave understanding of reality is bunk.


There is a difference between a religious belief and a working hypothesis, which you have dragged about halfway into the light. If you do not accept on faith that Jesus Christ is your savior, then Jesus Christ is not your savior. If you waver, then it loses its power. The purpose of the religious belief is not to postulate a working hypothesis about the nature of reality. The purpose is to make us feel better. It is the emotional commitment to the belief that gives the belief its power and its purpose, not the belief itself, or any underlying realities or events.

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Oftencold

Stardom? Young One, my sights are set much higher than that.

As for fame, well my kind are often famous, just rarely for the truth.

OrdinaryGuy

splansing,

Sorry for not directly quoting you, I am on a laptop without a mouse, difficult to scroll over your quotes. Anyway, here is my somewhat short reply:

It seems even in quantum mechanics, they have this seeming paradox:

EPR paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This EPR paradox. I am not an expert on science, but what you stated above about the nature of light not being paradoxical in reality could the same be said about this EPR paradox in quantum mechanics? Or am I misunderstanding this EPR paradox? It seems once we solve one paradox we run into another? You say their is alot we don't know about the nature of reality and that our understanding of light is bunk. So, are you saying that we have no true understanding of light or reality? That we really don't know at this point? Somebody once told me that not knowing is most intimate. Perhaps you are right, that reality is not paradoxical, but in Zen we say, that the two guardians of truth are: paradox and confusion.

As far as religious belief and a working belief that we call hypothesis (a belief which is being tested), well, of course all beliefs are different from each other! I am not going to argue with you on that point. Science is heavily dependent on belief as far as I can tell. Theories, hypothesis, these are all beliefs. I think we should sometimes be careful about assigning purposes to things. I am not much of a religious believer myself. I do enjoy science though.

splansing

The difference between science and religion is that the value of your science is directly related to your commitment to test your ideas, specifically to attempt to prove them wrong. Whereas the value of your religious beliefs is directly related to your emotional commitment to your ideas.

Yes, I would say that any paradox is an indicator that we don't have all of the information.

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lakeman

You may be right.

Here is a paradox:

"This statement is not true."

And a discussion of it:

"If we suppose that the statement is true, everything asserted in it must be true. However, because the statement asserts that it is itself false [(not true)], it must be false. So the hypothesis that it is true leads to the contradiction that it is false. Yet we cannot conclude that the sentence is false for that hypothesis also leads to contradiction. If the statement is false, then what it says about itself is not true. It says that it is false, so that must not be true. Hence, it is true. Under either hypothesis, we end up concluding that the statement is both true and false. But it has to be either true or false or so our common intuitions lead us to think, hence there seems to be a contradiction at the heart of our beliefs about truth and falsity."


And this is something that I have been saying in other words for a while. Just as physics become weird near black holes and we cannot rely on our understanding of the world to make sense when we get close to other very unusual events we cannot rely on our understanding of all sorts of things to make sense. When we talk about God or the beginning of the universe these are unusual events. Common beliefs like: miracles don't happen have to be questioned.

Logic itself which is the foundation of all thought needs to be questioned when it produces paradoxes that logically cannot be.

And just for fun here is another:

A murderer had been found guilty of a particularly heinous crime. The judge sentencing the murderer decides that death is too good for him; he wants to make him suffer. He passes his sentence, "You will be taken from this place, and hanged from the neck until you are dead. Before that, though, you will suffer anguish, waiting, never knowing whether this will be the day that you will die. One morning, sometime in the next week, it will happen, but until it does you will live in fear."
The murderer leaves the courtroom with a light heart, knowing that the sentence handed down to him cannot be carried out.
He reasons like this:
Suppose that on the seventh morning I am alive. I will know that that is the day that I am to die. But the judge said that I would not know the day that I am to die. Therefore I will not be hanged on the seventh day. The sixth day is the last day that it could be.
But in that case, if I am alive on the sixth morning then I will know that it is the sixth day on which I am to be hanged. But the judge said that I would not know the day that I am to die. Therefore I will not be hanged on the sixth day.
He continues, applying the same reasoning to the fifth day, and then to the fourth, and so on, concluding that he cannot be hanged on any day according to the judge’s instructions. The sentence handed down to him cannot be carried out.

Despite his perfect logic he is hanged on the third day - much to his surprise.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.
-James Madison-

splansing

Physics does not become weird near black holes. We just don't know what exactly happens near black holes. I'm not sure that "becomes weird" is a scientific term.

Miracles do not happen is not a belief. It's a rational hypothesis, easily proven false by the validation of a single miracle. Did you read that last sentence? It's important.

So far, that hypothesis is holding up very well. And what's more, a great deal of scientific development hinges upon this hypothesis. You don't discover how to treat an infection if you assume that a person getting well is a miracle. On the other hand, if you start with the hypothesis that there are no miracles, then you might be motivated to try to find out what mechanism is at work in helping people recover from infections, and one day discover antibiotics.

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