Do you Believe in Supernatural Phenomena?

[Slaver123]

This is really bugging me- "Church" does NOT equal "faith"! For centuries the organized churches have been the enemy of true faith just as they've been the enemy of Science.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Churches are responsible for people having faith in abrahamic religions. Were it not for the churches keeping religion alive, how would anybody have faith in a god nobody told them existed? I was fortunate enough to grow up without faith, and so it seems illogical and unnecessary to have. I think many people would share this same conclusion were not for other people drilling their beliefs into each other's heads.

 

[Fallon]

"In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught." -Baba Dioum

This would certainly start to explain the unbridled ignorance I've seen displayed in the forums by certain members.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Below are two pictures - one is a true-color image of Titan's (moon of Saturn, which is 1.2-1.6 billion km away from Earth, depending on orbit) atmosphere, and the other is a false-color radar mosaic showing it's hydrocarbon lakes. If science can't prove anything accurately in the universe, where on Earth did those pictures come from? I'll give you a hint - not from Earth. 🙂

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

You don't seem to get it. If you need to prove something inside the "physical " universe, you need to get outside of it first.

Why do you say that?
If I want to prove sharks exist.Then,all I have to do is go get one and put it on display.There,I proved the existence of sharks.

 

[PurpleStyle]

I don't think you get it. Objective perception and confirmation of physical phenomena is objective. It is inherently objective, otherwise communication would serve no purpose, and science would not even exist.

If I ask QBBM to make a reply in all purple letters, she'll know exactly what color I'm referring to without having to show her myself. It's not because she and I are psychically linked, it's because the idea of the color purple (or púrpura in spanish) has propagated across the world and throughout time.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Oh, that's so adorable.

"That doesn't prove anything because you're not me."

Can you prove that Coulomb's Law doesn't always work? If you observe electrons, they always have an attraction to protons. This is something we can observe at all times, independently - and it is the reason we call it a law.

Science is a construct of (several) individual minds with individual perceptions indeed, but it is objective, and it's objectiveness is proven by it's utility worth. If one could not objectively "prove" something, how then do electronics, astronomy, medicine, etc - work? If you can't "prove" anything in the first place, then there isn't even a baseline to form the idea that you can't "prove" anything. It's one big logical black hole from which nothing coherent can escape.

So, ultimately, all I have to say to you is.. nice try. 😉

 

[PurpleStyle]

Schrodinger was very smart. But wrong on that subject.

I quote the very famous and inspirational American Astrophysicist/Astronomer Carl Sagan;

"We are made of star stuff."

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

So what stock can we put in an observable, testable, measurable universe? As much as we can possibly fit. We aren't just living in the universe - we are the universe. What do you think stars do besides fuse hydrogen into helium all day long? Stars fuse heavier elements as well, like carbon, all the way up to iron - and pump out massive amounts of organic compounds. So what we are, is something we already know. We are quite literally the children of the Sun and the Earth. Slam dunk for stellar nucleosynthesis.

As for science "knowing" where we originate, science has not filled in all the blanks yet. Science may not have all the answers, but this doesn't suddenly mean science cannot be trusted. It just means that we are a very young race of sentient beings.

Our recorded history only goes back a few thousand years; while our existence as homo sapiens goes back possibly hundreds of thousands of years. Modern science itself really started only a few hundred years ago thanks to free-thinkers like Galileo. That said, we may be young.. but we're not stupid. Give us time to learn how to "swim" in the shallow end before you judge the "ocean" to be too deep. Besides, a bit of mystery in people's lives never hurts. Not knowing our limit as a species gives us the opportunity to explore our potential in the universe. This is how we discover that our self-perceived limits of the past can be broken by human ingenuity. 🙂

 

[PurpleStyle]

Aren't you the guy who said you can't inherently prove anything, now you're saying that Shrodinger was right about something? That is paradoxical.

Saying that our "awareness" originates outside of the body and space-time is just a little out there. Being a scientist doesn't exclude a person from having bad ideas. An argument from authority is not a good thing. This is the reason the peer-review process exists.

It's true, we don't know how sentience originated, but that has nothing to do with what we're physically made of. We know what we're physically made of. We can remove parts of the brain and analyze them. Not having the "origin" story doesn't change the overwhelming evidence to support the theory. We can't go back see the big bang, but so far it's the best explanation. We can't go back and see humans evolve, but we have mountains of evidence the size of Olympus Mons to support it.

 

[Garr1]

Sentience such as human thought and emotion is the by-product of electrical signals, chemical reactions, and neuronal re-wiring taking place in the brain at a very high clock speeds.

 

[PurpleStyle]

I never said there wasn't a material universe, only that science could never prove what is actually real at all. Matter is essentially only a wave until it collapses after being observed. So what is the material world ? Only endless possibilities in the human conscious awareness. Meaning you are not in the world, the world is in you.

Heh, that's completely wrong. Unless of course, that was a garbled reference to quantum physics. The problem with that idea is that we observe conflicting reactions with different forms of measurement (in other words, wave-particle duality. Matter can both act like waves and particles at the same time, depending on how you observe them.) It's a little complicated to explain and I really don't want to get into it, unless we absolutely have to in order to wrap this up.. I'm sure nobody is interested in us bumping this thread anymore just to argue.

Essentially there are many laws in the universe that govern observable phenomena. Many agree with each other, and a few are mutually exclusive. If you want to assert/prove that matter is absolutely/absolutely not a wave, you will have to write up a mathematical proof tying up quantum physics with relativity, and explain wave-particle duality. Good luck, and show your work. :lol

 

[Garr1]

Heh, that's completely wrong. Unless of course, that was a garbled reference to quantum physics. The problem with that idea is that we observe conflicting reactions with different forms of measurement (in other words, wave-particle duality. Matter can both act like waves and particles at the same time, depending on how you observe them.) It's a little complicated to explain and I really don't want to get into it, unless we absolutely have to in order to wrap this up.. I'm sure nobody is interested in us bumping this thread anymore just to argue.

Essentially there are many laws in the universe that govern observable phenomena. Many agree with each other, and a few are mutually exclusive. If you want to assert/prove that matter is absolutely/absolutely not a wave, you will have to write up a mathematical proof tying up quantum physics with relativity, and explain wave-particle duality. Good luck, and show your work. :lol

Actually the wave property only defines the behavior of the particle and not its intrinsic characteristics. The wave behavior is caused by the vibrations of the particle when it is in motion which is due to the imperfect transfer of energy used to move the particle. The energy transferred to the particle to set it in motion is not delivered in a perfectly uniform direction which is the reason why it is impossible to build energy conversion devices that can achieve 100% efficiency. This is also observable in a mass scale because even when projectiles like missiles and bullets travel through a vaccum, they will vibrate because the force of the explosions used to move them do not travel in a perfectly uniform direction because the combusting gas molecules moving farther away from each other are in a turbulent random motion. As for the geometry of the elementary particles themselves, the particles will assume a spherical shape because the energy of the fundamental force fields of the particles are distributed equally in all directions which give the fields a spherical symmetry. This was confirmed in penning trap experiments used to measure the charge radius of the elementary particles. The electron for example has a charge radius of 10^-22m.

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

Jesus Christ just reading some of the later posts in this thread makes me feel like I'm Homer Simpson attending a Algebra course at a community college.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Actually the wave property only defines the behavior of the particle and not its intrinsic characteristics. The wave behavior is caused by the vibrations of the particle when it is in motion which is due to the imperfect transfer of energy used to move the particle. The energy transferred to the particle to set it in motion is not delivered in a perfectly uniform direction which is the reason why it is impossible to build energy conversion devices that can achieve 100% efficiency. This is also observable in a mass scale because even when projectiles like missiles and bullets travel through a vaccum, they will vibrate because the force of the explosions used to move them do not travel in a perfectly uniform direction because the combusting gas molecules moving farther away from each other are in a turbulent random motion. As for the geometry of the elementary particles themselves, the particles will assume a spherical shape because the energy of the fundamental force fields of the particles are distributed equally in all directions which give the fields a spherical symmetry. This was confirmed in penning trap experiments used to measure the charge radius of the elementary particles. The electron for example has a charge radius of 10^-22m.

I realize that, but I was trying to explain it in a way that people can follow along without getting lost. Heh. Though the vibration of particles in a vacuum has more to do with the kinetic energy of the projectile itself than the explosion. Even if you achieve 0 kelvin temperature with no apparent motion in the vacuum, there is still a present minimum "zero-point" energy; phonon vibration.

 

[Garr1]

I realize that, but I was trying to explain it in a way that people can follow along without getting lost. Heh. Though the vibration of particles in a vacuum has more to do with the kinetic energy of the projectile itself than the explosion. Even if you achieve 0 kelvin temperature with no apparent motion in the vacuum, there is still a present minimum "zero-point" energy; phonon vibration.

Yes there is still a minimum vibration and this could be due to the initial energy coming from the big bang that set the particles moving away from the point of origin. After all, none of the matter in the universe is ever truly at rest.

 

[PurpleStyle]

I agree. I'm into this stuff and even I feel like my brain is about ready to vommit. One day we will all wake up and discover the universe, science and everything around us has been nothing more than a sick dream.

The human lifespan has tripled, people across the world who do not know each other can communicate, and share knowledge freely - thanks to this "sick dream". Can you explain why you use such negative wording for something that is wonderful?

Yes there is still a minimum vibration and this could be due to the initial energy coming from the big bang that set the particles moving away from the point of origin. After all, none of the matter in the universe is ever truly at rest.

Interesting idea. Though, I must point out the evidence says that the big bang wasn't a "bang" at all - just the expansion of space-time. There appears to have been a rapid (rapid is too small a word) exponential expansion of the early universe, which is causing most galaxies (ones clustered together are not; in fact the Andromeda Galaxy is moving toward us at a tremendous speed, but won't hit us for a few billion years) to move away from each other. In fact, it would appear that the further galaxies move away from us, the more speed they pick up. We don't currently have an explanation for it, but we call it dark energy. Of course, we know it exists by measuring the redshift of galaxies; and we can actually measure the rate of expansion (70~ kilometers per second per megaparsec with an error margin of 10%; I think). Score one for science.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Well then, if there is something so wonderful beyond the physical realm, why don't you elaborate for us?

If you do indeed possess some hidden knowledge of another realm beyond the physical, I think those of us that are "unenlightened" would appreciate a response that isn't nebulous. 😉

 

[Tom Tickle]

I'm an atheist so I do agree with most of the original post. I do have one question about 'elementary' particles being indivisible. How elementary are we talking, because aren't all quanta just different vibrations of strings in hyperspace?

 

[PurpleStyle]

What you're talking about is string theory. The problem with string theory is that there's absolutely no evidence to back it up. "Vibrations" and "hyperspace" especially. What "is" hyperspace supposed to be, besides a poorly thought-out plot device in science fiction?

 

[Tom Tickle]

Unfortuneatly, if you are a captive of the physical realm you would agree these are great accomplishments, but really, it can't even make the grade of what wonders we are really capable of if we would just wake up to our true nature.

Could you be a little more vague about that, please.

 

[Tom Tickle]

What you're talking about is string theory. The problem with string theory is that there's absolutely no evidence to back it up. "Vibrations" and "hyperspace" especially. What "is" hyperspace supposed to be, besides a poorly thought-out plot device in science fiction?

As you're a scientist and i'm a keen idiot I can only explain via what I have read in books by Prof. Michio Kaku and others.

Hyperspace is the mathematically possible yet physically unproven set of dimensions that go beyond the 3 spatial plus 1 temporal that humans can percieve, and as such is not the hyperspace as used in science fiction. Strings, which resonate in different quantum frequencies to become photons, gluons and other particles, exist across higher dimensions, as many as ten, or as M-theory would have it, eleven. One idea that gives string theory some practical application is the strength of gravity, or the lack of it. Gravity is much weaker than the other forces of nature, simply because it may operate across all ten dimensions. This is why string theory may give rise to an explanation of the universe that includes quantum theory as well as General relativity; things become more easily unified in higher dimensions.

Testing for these higher dimensions is currently impossible, because a particle accelerator would need to reach the planck energy. Supersymmetrical particles might point to higher symmetries in nature if they're discovered at the Large Hadron Collider, but realistic probing of higher dimensions is a long way off. Even Stephen Hawking, who was skeptical of String Theory at first, concedes that it is the leading contender for a unified theory of the four forces. Michael Green, who has since replaced Hawking as Lucasian professor at Cambridge, is a string theorist, so it's not exactly fringe science.

There is obviously a lot more to it but this is worded so that everyone can understand.

 

[PurpleStyle]

I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I am slightly biased against it. When I first heard of it, it sounded like some new-agey thing that all the stoner hippies were pushing. Despite my bias, I am willing to keep an open mind, and more than willing to look at the evidence. That said, it works on assumptions that have absolutely no data to back them up like we've already established.

Mathematically, you can add as many dimensions as you need as long as you keep tweaking the equations to fit. That's my issue - it's just continually tweaked to fit some pre-established idea; when the pre-established idea itself is completely ignored and assumed to be correct.

Yes, of course...I'm sorry. Blah Blah Blah and Blah, something Blah Blah and Blah. I can't get much more vague than that, but I gave it my best shot.

If you've got some compelling data to share with us, no need to be vague. Please, we all have open minds. 😉

 

[Tom Tickle]

I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I am slightly biased against it. When I first heard of it, it sounded like some new-agey thing that all the stoner hippies were pushing. Despite my bias, I am willing to keep an open mind, and more than willing to look at the evidence. That said, it works on assumptions that have absolutely no data to back them up like we've already established.

Mathematically, you can add as many dimensions as you need as long as you keep tweaking the equations to fit. That's my issue - it's just continually tweaked to fit some pre-established idea; when the pre-established idea itself is completely ignored and assumed to be correct.



If you've got some compelling data to share with us, no need to be vague. Please, we all have open minds. 😉

I have a few reservations myself, because I know a number of notable physicists don't like the lack of testability, which is understandable. Some popular science programs do make it look as if it is a done deal. String theory/ies don't have an arbitary number of dimensions though; they will only work in 10 or 26 dimensions (the reasons for which are beyond my understanding but it is related to geometry and symmetry). M theory looks to unite the five main string theories that use 10 dimensions into one theory using 11 dimensions. Perhaps you could ask a theoretical physicist about the number of dimensions being arbitary and why those numbers are the way they are. I'd be surprised if they were just made up.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Well, I never said that the number of dimensions were arbitrary in the context of string theory specifically. My point is, you can add any number of dimensions you need for the framework of your original idea. The problem is that string theory is stubborn and doesn't take into account the already perfectly-balanced universe we live in. If we add extra dimensions, space-time is no longer flat. If space-time is no longer flat, than the "rest" energy of the universe (which is 0; one of the reasons we know the big bang happened from "nothing", but that's another story.) increases to be 10^41x stronger than energy exerted by matter; and you can't really live in a universe that hot.

 

[lurker9009]

For a very informative overview of string theory, Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe is a good place to start. Know beforehand that Dr Greene is a rather well-known string theorist and thus presents the subject in a very positive light, but rest assured that he also spends plenty of space conveying the limits of string theories and M theory at present.

Assuming dedicated (yet duly careful) reading, one could probably bang the book out in a week or two.