Merged A Thread for AlexPontik to Explain his Ideas

It sounded to me as if his opening post was trying to say that before human people existed on the Earth, the world was completely different to the way we now think it was at that earlier time (eg anything from about 100,000 years ago) ... as if he believes that the picture we have from modern science is completely wrong ...?? … that would sound like another version of the recent threads we've had from Larry and others who have tried to argue that because everything that humans do is always filtered through our sensory system and the brain, that means it's all been corrupted or all a false illusion or something.

That said, leaving the topic of Alex himself to the side for a moment, there are ways to wax philosophical about what you wrote, but as I was saying before, it seems to me like the OP is a non-starter. Because once the claim is that humans can't even imagine whatever thing or phenomenon was happening, then neither can the author, unless they want to claim they're not human.

Thing is, whatever propositions we've had so far, were all very imaginable. Be it Big Bang, or the God of Genesis, or Ptah crafting the world, or whatever, obviously people can imagine all of those. In fact, especially God proponents tend to be VERY good at imagining what their god is, what their god does, what their god wants, and so on. Even if it starts at some vague "well, SOMETHING must have created the universe" (e.g., the Kalam argument) or "well, SOMEONE must have designed the eye", it almost immediately turns out they can fill in quite a few more details. Like "therefore don't be gay".

Basically it turns out that what they have in mind is quite a collection of attributes that identify that being. And when I say "have in mind", well, yep, it means they can imagine it.

When the claim is that humans can't even imagine something, well, that can't go anywhere, can it? They can't even go "therefore God made it in 7 days" because that's actually something quite imaginable.
 
Inside a company there is trouble among teams, and a project is behind schedule.
Trading option one with money: using money hire extra hands to help bring the project back to track
Trading option two without money: without using money, teams start getting their stuff together and communicate, to help bring the project back to track.

If option one takes less time and effort, it is the preferable choice, if it doesn't it is not, however this needs to be weighted per case to decide.

I'm guessing that you've never managed a large project, let alone been a part of one. When you get behind schedule, more hands aren't going to get you back, it's going to slow you down. It's also an incorrect schedule. Best bet, readjust your expectations. Just because something is behind schedule doesn't mean the teams working on it are having issues.

What's the largest project you've been a meaningful part of? Me? I'm part of the group of people translating the tax processing software into a modern language at the IRS. Billions of dollars, nationwide impact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Account_Data_Engine
 
These anti-money posts are always focused on vague philosophy.

But lets make it real again.
Like I mentioned. I am a teacher.
What I really valued (among many other things) this saturday was a set of 12 toilet rolls.

Explain how, without a medium of trade, I'd get that given that none of my students work in the TP making industry.

Give them homework over the weekend. The TP might get delivered to you, unrolled, and unbidden.
 
Well, some people find the whole, "money only has value because we agree it has value, but really it's turtles all the way down" thing kind of creepy.

And a lot of those people seem to think crypto solves that problem. I have not yet heard a good reason why.
 
Look this is easy.

First, decide what you want.
Second, identify a supplier.
Third, kill them and take it.
Fourth, encourage like minded individuals to join you.
Fifth, spend the rest of your days in luxury whilst looking over your shoulder and sleeping with one eye open.
 
Give them homework over the weekend. The TP might get delivered to you, unrolled, and unbidden.

Totally off topic, but I really had to use cultural osmosis to get this comment.

Throwing TP at the house of someone you don't like is totally unheard of here, so at first I thought you ment I'd get badly written papers I'd have to use as a substitute. Then I remembered seeing that in a few movies and figured it out.
 
Totally off topic, but I really had to use cultural osmosis to get this comment.

Throwing TP at the house of someone you don't like is totally unheard of here, so at first I thought you ment I'd get badly written papers I'd have to use as a substitute. Then I remembered seeing that in a few movies and figured it out.
I wonder if that's a custom that will die out, now that TP is so valuable. It's always been a sort of tradition on the night before Halloween ( in Vermont and only Vermont this is called "cabbage night" for no apparent reason - a useful shibboleth to remember), but this past Halloween, either nobody was willing to waste it or desperate hoarders were coming out in the wee hours and rolling it back up.
 
And a lot of those people seem to think crypto solves that problem. I have not yet heard a good reason why.

I'm not sure it counts as a "good" reason, but I think it's a kind of new gold standard. A "commodity"-backed currency. The problem with traditional CBCs is maybe you don't own a gold mine, or maybe you're doing too much commerce and your gold reserves just can't keep up. With crypto-currency, once one mine is played out, you just open a new one.

Of course, CBCs are no better than fiat money, since it's still the same arbitrary "it has value because we all agree it has value" premise.

I wonder how many of the people who decry the false value of the diamond market celebrate the exactly identical false value of the cryptocurrency or gold standard markets.
 
We will find out how a no-money society works when the zombie apocalypse comes. Or we can watch Walking Dead.
 
imagination, theories, and ...reality

In order for humans to come up with a theory that approximates reality, they imagine something, and then if after they spend time and effort thinking about it, still they imagine the same something, then they have to test it in reality with experiments…but…

1) When one imagines something, something else is happening around one in reality, or if you really think otherwise…

When one imagines something something else isn’t happening around one in reality, but if you think this is really ok…

If in the end, when one imagines something, something else isn’t happening around one in reality, then it doesn’t seem to me where inside one really imagines something…does it seem to you?

2)Here’s another way to understand it: Something else than anything humans can imagine seems to be happening in reality, since the beginning of humans in reality,

Or before humans existed, what do you think was really happening?

Something that was really happening before humans existed, but that humans had to really imagine after they existed, in order for that to be possible to really happen?

3)And another way: One step before you really make everything, you haven’t really made everything yet and still something else than anything you can imagine seems to be happening…

…one step after you really make everything, the experience of one step before has to be included in whatever you made as it was before, or …you didn’t make everything.

4) and final way… Argument Physics as a science, progresses as follows:

1.There is a current theory, at any given time.

2.A candidate theory, which is more exact regarding what really is happening appears from research as a proposed new theory.

3.Experiments have to be conducted to verify the new theory.

4.When experiments are conducted, they can have the following results.

5.Nothing happens, the experiments fail to show any results, which has happened in the past, and this is what we said about it.

6.Something happens, the experiments had the expected results, which has happened in the past, this is what we said about it, and science keeps following its path

7.Something else happens…which was the case with some previous experiments…or else we wouldn’t be looking for a new theory, as then all experiments would point only to something, and nothing else…but up to now, this isn’t the case, and the future still hap pens next, and not before next happens.

8.What seems to be happening, is that before people actually make things in their lives that do something…they make things that don’t do something exactly…and they find that early at best, or late at worst…but the complete story they all know from the beginning, pretty consistently, it seems to me…as it could be the case with the argument I am making here and below.

And all the above in summary is

AXIOM: In any experiment conducted in reality, nothing can happen as a result, some thing can happen as a result, or…something else can happen as a result. This is an axiom that seems consistent and complete to me, and I dare say…logical. Isn’t it?

Someone asked me the following in the past. “can I learn about my imagination from the world out there?” The world outside your imagination is something else than anything you can imagine,

Your senses point you to that at any moment in your life, so that your body can be calm and be able to have fun in reality,

And you can imagine whatever you like, even though reality is still something else than anything you can imagine.

In order to experience that in the moment, meaning having fun in reality, you have to be able to focus on whatever it is that you are doing in the moment,

As at any moment in reality from the beginning of human history carrying on until now, the same laws of nature apply,

and the story of human history plays as it make sense, people in the medieval ages used candles as this is what made sense to them, now we use electricity, not the other way around, that wouldn’t make sense to them in their moment in time.

After you focus on whatever it is that you are doing in the moment, then you balance your imagination on what is good for you, what seems fun to you to imagine,

And allow your senses to do their work,

So that what you imagine can have some hope at least to balance on reality, as reality is something else than anything you can imagine.

Fear is natural, meaning as reality is something else than anything you can imagine, it is necessary for your senses to be able to generate fear to the conscious part of you, in varying degrees if that is really needed for your survival in the moment in reality , but…

…it is also quite possible that you may be generating fear on your own in the moment in reality that is not really necessary, so…

…fear is natural, means you have to be able to accept the unknown in reality and let fear come to you when it is really needed, from the unknown as needed, and not as you only want.

And then you have to listen to the song. What song?

In your life you slept yesterday you woke up today, and during your life you tell yourself fun stories, or you choose the other option consciously, to tell yourself not fun stories.

Every story has an end and from the end of every story one learns something. The unpredictability of life one learns best at the end of funny stories, or else it wouldn’t really be that funny for life to be that unpredictable, is what the story seems to me to be.

https://youtu.be/hNFYMORvM_o
 
About the only part of this that I can make any sense of is the section on experimental results, in which you repeat the misconception that you've articulated before: that there are three possible outcomes to an experiment - no results, expected results, unexpected results. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. An experiment can either yield results that agree with theoretical predictions, or results that do not. What you term "nothing [...] happen[ing] as a result" is itself a result. If a specific result is expected by a theory from an experiment, and no such result is obtained, then the experiment yields a result that disagrees with theory.

Since what you claim as your central axiom is clearly a worthless one, I see no benefit in attempting to decipher the remainder of your largely incomprehensible post.

Dave
 
Dude dude dude...I'm having a Christmas party and need a stoner guru type to round out the guest list. How's your schedule looking? We have beer and paintball guns.
 
About the only part of this that I can make any sense of is the section on experimental results, in which you repeat the misconception that you've articulated before: that there are three possible outcomes to an experiment - no results, expected results, unexpected results. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. An experiment can either yield results that agree with theoretical predictions, or results that do not.

100% correct. Unexpected results is a nothing. The term is meaningless, since they can either

a. Unexpectedly agree with theoretical predictions, or

b. Unexpectedly disagree with theoretical predictions

Results can only be unexpected if you specify expectations before proceeding with the experiment, but in any case, as you say, they will be "results that agree with theoretical predictions, or results that do not"
 
To be fair, I could see a case where the experiment itself had issues as a “nothing happens”: a piece of equipment failed, or a setting was incorrect, or a variable wasn’t controlled. Some sort of situation that invalidates the experiment.


Sent from my volcanic island lair using carrier pigeon.
 
To be fair, I could see a case where the experiment itself had issues as a “nothing happens”: a piece of equipment failed, or a setting was incorrect, or a variable wasn’t controlled. Some sort of situation that invalidates the experiment.


In which case you haven’t actually carried out the experiment.
 
About the only part of this that I can make any sense of is the section on experimental results, in which you repeat the misconception that you've articulated before: that there are three possible outcomes to an experiment - no results, expected results, unexpected results. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. An experiment can either yield results that agree with theoretical predictions, or results that do not. What you term "nothing [...] happen[ing] as a result" is itself a result. If a specific result is expected by a theory from an experiment, and no such result is obtained, then the experiment yields a result that disagrees with theory.

Since what you claim as your central axiom is clearly a worthless one, I see no benefit in attempting to decipher the remainder of your largely incomprehensible post.

Dave

An experiment can either yield results that agree with theoretical predictions, or results that do not.

...or something else can happen, that simply your theory forgot to "predict"
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removed incivility that led to off-topic discussion and further incivility


no?
 
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100% correct. Unexpected results is a nothing. The term is meaningless, since they can either

a. Unexpectedly agree with theoretical predictions, or

b. Unexpectedly disagree with theoretical predictions

Results can only be unexpected if you specify expectations before proceeding with the experiment, but in any case, as you say, they will be "results that agree with theoretical predictions, or results that do not"

c. be REALLY unexpected, as your theory, wasn't really fun
Edited by Agatha: 
Removed reference to previously moderated material

...no?
 
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