See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who is using your name. Or how.
Comments
Returning to the original comment at issue:
Me_Think: Science can determine what word to use in scientific context.
Science here presumably means the scientific community. So, {the scientific community} determines what word to use in a scientific context. Terminology is usually specific to the individual field of study.Zachriel
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
07:03 AM
7
07
03
AM
PDT
Silver Asiatic: Naming something is not empirical science.
Of course not. It's convention.
In scholarly fields, special words or meanings are often used to distinguish between ordinary language and the meaning intended within a field. Sometimes, new terms are coined, such as natural selection. Latin is often used to avoid to avoid overlap with more common words. Confusion might be avoided by using an adjective, such as quantum vacuum. Other times, ad hoc terms are adopted, which may or may not become the standard term due to historical happenstance.Zachriel
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
07:00 AM
7
07
00
AM
PDT
Silver Asiatic @ 514
Ok, but that’s not a scientific endeavor. There’s no observation, no hypothesis/theory, no testing, no validations.
Note that it is not the case with Chemistry and Biology, which has established system of classification and nomenclature.
Naming something is not empirical science. The name could be anything at all. There’s no way to prove, empirically that the name is correct.
If a terminology becomes prevalent in a particular field, that name sticks. No name can be 'proven' to be correct. How can you prove that your or your friends' names are 'correct' ?Me_Think
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
06:22 AM
6
06
22
AM
PDT
Me_Think
Ok, but that's not a scientific endeavor. There's no observation, no hypothesis/theory, no testing, no validations.
Naming something is not empirical science. The name could be anything at all. There's no way to prove, empirically that the name is correct.
If you think that we can use science to determine the correct name for something or the correct meaning of a term, then that's a radically different idea of what science is.Silver Asiatic
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
06:14 AM
6
06
14
AM
PDT
Box: At one time, people thought that the earth is flat. Science didn’t inform us that ‘flat is round’. Science informed us that we were wrong thinking that the earth was flat.
And yet we still call a vacuum a vacuum.
Box: Science shouldn’t inform us that ‘nothing is unstable and complicated’. Science should inform us that we were wrong thinking that the vacuum is nothing.
In fact, a perfect vacuum is unstable. That's why we might say there is no such thing as a vacuum in fact. However, we have redefined the vacuum to mean, well, a space without ordinary particles, or sometimes to mean the abstraction of a perfect vacuum.
The question is whether nothingness (defined as the absence of matter, energy, space and time) is unstable, hence a state that doesn't exist in fact.Zachriel
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
06:12 AM
6
06
12
AM
PDT
SA @ 511,
What scientific observations and tests are used to determine what the correct word is and what it means? Where is the empirical evidence to support it?
Some times it starts with an insult - like Big Bang, which was an insult. Hoyle insulted Lemaitre’s idea by calling it Big Bang. Higgs particle was never meant to be God Particle or even Higgs particle. In fact many physicists informally called it Goddamn particle, because it is hard to find. It is generally left to the scientists and media to play out and popularize a name. Scientists generally suck at Christening their inventions/ discoveries. If you feel it is not right, you can't do much about it.Me_Think
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
05:51 AM
5
05
51
AM
PDT
Me_Think
Science can determine what word to use in scientific context.
What scientific observations and tests are used to determine what the correct word is and what it means? Where is the empirical evidence to support it?Silver Asiatic
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
05:30 AM
5
05
30
AM
PDT
F/N: Ari, in Physics (~ nature), from the MIT Classics Library:
>> . . . Belief in the existence of the infinite comes mainly from five considerations:
(1) From the nature of time-for it is infinite.
(2) From the division of magnitudes-for the mathematicians also use the notion of the infinite.
(3) If coming to be and passing away do not give out, it is only because that from which things come to be is infinite.
(4) Because the limited always finds its limit in something, so that there must be no limit, if everything is always limited by something different from itself.
(5) Most of all, a reason which is peculiarly appropriate and presents the difficulty that is felt by everybody-not only number but also mathematical magnitudes and what is outside the heaven are supposed to be infinite because they never give out in our thought.
The last fact (that what is outside is infinite) leads people to suppose that body also is infinite, and that there is an infinite number of worlds. Why should there be body in one part of the void rather than in another? Grant only that mass is anywhere and it follows that it must be everywhere. Also, if void and place are infinite, there must be infinite body too, for in the case of eternal things what may be must be. But the problem of the infinite is difficult: many contradictions result whether we suppose it to exist or not to exist. If it exists, we have still to ask how it exists; as a substance or as the essential attribute of some entity? Or in neither way, yet none the less is there something which is infinite or some things which are infinitely many? . . . .
Further, the typical locomotions of the elementary natural bodies-namely, fire, earth, and the like-show not only that place is something, but also that it exerts a certain influence. Each is carried to its own place, if it is not hindered, the one up, the other down. Now these are regions or kinds of place-up and down and the rest of the six directions. Nor do such distinctions (up and down and right and left, &c.) hold only in relation to us. To us they are not always the same but change with the direction in which we are turned: that is why the same thing may be both right and left, up and down, before and behind. But in nature each is distinct, taken apart by itself. It is not every chance direction which is 'up', but where fire and what is light are carried; similarly, too, 'down' is not any chance direction but where what has weight and what is made of earth are carried-the implication being that these places do not differ merely in relative position, but also as possessing distinct potencies. This is made plain also by the objects studied by mathematics. Though they have no real place, they nevertheless, in respect of their position relatively to us, have a right and left as attributes ascribed to them only in consequence of their relative position, not having by nature these various characteristics. Again, the theory that the void exists involves the existence of place: for one would define void as place bereft of body . . . >>
In short, the view of the void as very extensive empty space is ancient.
Where, space (empty of bodies or not) is not nothing; non-being.
KFkairosfocus
January 12, 2015
January
01
Jan
12
12
2015
12:41 AM
12
12
41
AM
PDT
Box:
Science shouldn’t inform us that ‘nothing is unstable and complicated’. Science should inform us that we were wrong thinking that the vacuum is nothing.
And we all know why science is hesitant to accept that the vacuum is something and not nothing. First, they are already on record for saying during the last century that space is a void (they had to counter the religious leaning "aether people" by all means). Second, science has been invaded by imposters, gutless posers who are ready to sacrifice the sanctity and glory of science at the altar of their stupid political agenda and their deeply religious worldview. You know, it would not be so bad if those pretenders did not go around clumsily pretending to be secular. Too bad that their religions creed oozes from every pore of their beings wherever they go. But soon, the very thing that they have tried so hard to illegitimately claim as their own and no one else's, that very thing will be snatched from their desperate and power-hungry fingers. And the usurpers shall be thrown out to the curb.
I, for one, will watch the whole thing unfold with a smirk on my face, a beer in one hand and a bag of Cheetos in the other.
ahahaha...AHAHAHA...ahahaha...Mapou
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
08:22 PM
8
08
22
PM
PDT
Zachriel,
At one time, people thought that the earth is flat. Science didn’t inform us that 'flat is round'. Science informed us that we were wrong thinking that the earth was flat.
Zachriel: at one time, people thought the vacuum was the quintessential nothingness.
Science shouldn’t inform us that 'nothing is unstable and complicated'. Science should inform us that we were wrong thinking that the vacuum is nothing.Box
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
05:41 PM
5
05
41
PM
PDT
Mapou: This is the kind of superstitious stuff that ancient primitive societies used
You're confusing a mythological *claim* with scientific speculation.
Box: In order to have intrinsically instability, there has to be something that is intrinsically unstable –
Yes, that is your claim.
It is possible that a better understanding of the absence of matter, energy, space and time will mean that the apparent fine-tuning is due to some underlying symmetry, even if it is not *absolutely* nothing.
kairosfocus: the vacuum is not nothing in the realm of classical thought.
Correct again and again and again! Though at one time, people thought the vacuum was the quintessential nothingness. But what did they know?!Zachriel
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
04:49 PM
4
04
49
PM
PDT
you say.
but since it is no longer your position that a Spirit must Incarnate to create the material world ,
I say,
Not sure that was ever my position. I might have speculated that Incarnation is necessary for a aspatial–atemporal Being to act in time and space.
I still lean pretty heavily in that direction
peacefifthmonarchyman
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
04:34 PM
4
04
34
PM
PDT
way way way way off topic
velikovskys says
I would be curious what the other 3 mysteries are.
I say
big 4 not necessarily in order and not necessarily comprehensive
1) Trinity (Matthew 28:19)
2) Incarnation (John:1)
3) Hypostatic union (Hebrews 1:3)
4) Grace/Gospel (Ephesians:3)
I find these mysteries to be strangely related and strangely relevant to creation, empirical science and knowledge in general.
Being as communion an all that
But perhaps that is just me
peacefifthmonarchyman
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
03:34 PM
3
03
34
PM
PDT
Box:
I hold that one key to the solution is the concept that everything is ultimately spiritual. Quantum mechanics provides us with several clues supportive of this view.
It's amazing that we, as a species, are so divided in our understanding of the provenance of reality and especially of consciousness. Box seems to prefer an almost monadist ontology. Others, including me, confess to one of several dualist philosophies. Still others suspiciously gravitate toward an unknowable, self-creating singularity, the cold and uncaring mother of us all. It's depressing. As Kuhn would say, a paradigm shift is in order. The status quo is unbearable. Personally, I call for a new "grand order" or, as the French would say, "le grand ordre".Mapou
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
02:55 PM
2
02
55
PM
PDT
FFM:
That sounds a lot like speculations I’ve made in the past in other places. I would not say those speculations reach the level of belief though.
Then I am glad I asked,it all seemed a bit circular to me
Of course you know that Spirit is not nothing, It’s just not material.
Never claimed it was, but since it is no longer your position that a Spirit must Incarnate to create the material world , my question is moot.
The union of the spiritual with the material is profound mystery. In fact I would say it’s one of the top 3 or 4 mysteries that there are.
Without that knowledge, one can only assume that the immaterial can effect the material world while we have evidence every time we hit our thumb with a hammer that the physical world can effect the material world.
I would be curious what the other 3 mysteries are.velikovskys
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
02:53 PM
2
02
53
PM
PDT
Off-topic //
FMM: The union of the spiritual with the material is profound mystery. In fact I would say it’s one of the top 3 or 4 mysteries that there are.
I hold that one key to the solution is the concept that everything is ultimately spiritual. Quantum mechanics provides us with several clues supportive of this view.Box
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
02:34 PM
2
02
34
PM
PDT
Z:
The original conception of the vacuum was that it was nothingness.
If you had said, a region of space ideally with nothing material in it (atoms, molecules etc), but with properties such as a definite permeability and permitivity that would pass light and other EM waves at the implied speed of light "in vacuo," c, yes.
But by obvious definition space is not nothing and here, it has physical, measurable constraining properties.
Again, not non-being.
So no, the vacuum is not nothing in the realm of classical thought.
KFkairosfocus
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
02:06 PM
2
02
06
PM
PDT
zac says
The concept is that nothingness is intrinsically unstable.
I say.
If I was to claim that non-material reality was pregnant with potentiality my claim has exactly the same scientific merit as Krauss.
The difference is that his claim is logically nonsensical and mine is not
peacefifthmonarchyman
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
01:54 PM
1
01
54
PM
PDT
Zachriel: The concept is that nothingness is intrinsically unstable.
In order to have intrinsically instability, there has to be something that is intrinsically unstable - therefore nothing is not a candidate for whatever is intrinsically unstable. And what Mapou says in post #498.Box
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
01:00 PM
1
01
00
PM
PDT
Zachriel:
The concept is that nothingness is intrinsically unstable.
And a stupid concept it is, in the pseudoscientific, not-even-wrong category. Calling it "grasping at straws" would not do it justice. This is the kind of superstitious stuff that ancient primitive societies used to pull right out of their asteroid orifices, thus ensuring the continued stagnation of their inferior cultures.
PS. ahaha...AHAHA...ahahaha...Mapou
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
12:49 PM
12
12
49
PM
PDT
Box: The idea that whatever comes into existence must have a cause is foundational to science.
The concept is that nothingness is intrinsically unstable.Zachriel
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
12:26 PM
12
12
26
PM
PDT
Zachriel,
Box: I claim that ‘nothing’ cannot give rise to ‘something’.
Zachriel: That’s not necessarily the case. No one knows.
It is irrational to hold that nothing can give rise to something. The idea that whatever comes into existence must have a cause is foundational to science. The believe that things pop into existence without a cause is not scientific.
But if that is the road you must take, who am I to stop you?
Zachriel: Not if the lower level is simple.
Yes, especially if the lower level is simple.Box
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
12:10 PM
12
12
10
PM
PDT
Box: For any level there might always be a deeper one, are we supposed to treat such speculation as fact?
No. No one knows.
Box: I claim that ‘nothing’ cannot give rise to ‘something’.
That's not necessarily the case. No one knows.
Box: If that were the case then the lower level is responsible for the fine-tuning of the universe and therefore fine-tuned itself.
Not if the lower level is simple. The process of unification in physics has led to simplification, for instance, electricity and magnetism are manifestations of a single force.
fifthmonarchyman: Reducing phyiscal constants to underlying principles does not render fine-tuning “only apparent”
The underlying principle may be simpler, for instance, gravitational and inertial masses are the same. Before Einstein, this symmetry was unexplained, just a brute fact. Now, it is known to be a manifestation of a single underlying principle.Zachriel
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
11:48 AM
11
11
48
AM
PDT
zac says
If the physical constants are due to some underlying symmetry or principle, then the so-called fine-tuning may only be apparent.
I say
How does that follow? Reducing phyiscal constants to underlying principles does not render fine-tuning "only apparent"
It just moves the focus of the fine-tuning from constants to underlying principlesfifthmonarchyman
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
11:15 AM
11
11
15
AM
PDT
velikovskys says.
I Thought you believed it was necessary for the spirit to become part of that which it creates in order to create that which it creates,
I say
That sounds a lot like speculations I've made in the past in other places. I would not say those speculations reach the level of belief though.
you say,
that nothing has to be something before something can be created from nothing.
I say,
Of course you know that Spirit is not nothing, It's just not material.
The union of the spiritual with the material is profound mystery. In fact I would say it's one of the top 3 or 4 mysteries that there are.
peacefifthmonarchyman
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
11:07 AM
11
11
07
AM
PDT
Zachriel: However, it is an open topic in physics whether they are manifestations and logical consequence of some underlying symmetry or principle.
So what? For any level there might always be a deeper one, are we supposed to treat such speculation as fact?
Zachriel: That’s your claim, but at this point no one understands the singularity.
Yep, that's my claim. I claim that 'nothing' cannot give rise to 'something'. You don't agree, which is incoherent.
Zachriel: If the physical constants are due to some underlying symmetry or principle, then the so-called fine-tuning may only be apparent.
Nope, we went over that before. If that were the case then the lower level is responsible for the fine-tuning of the universe and therefore fine-tuned itself.Box
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
11:00 AM
11
11
00
AM
PDT
Box: the fact that physicists do not treat the laws of physics as if they were logically necessary is an observation.
Of course they do. However, it is an open topic in physics whether they are manifestations and logical consequence of some underlying symmetry or principle.
Box: it sure ain’t nothing.
That's your claim, but at this point no one understands the singularity.
Box: I did no such thing.
If the physical constants are due to some underlying symmetry or principle, then the so-called fine-tuning may only be apparent.Zachriel
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
10:47 AM
10
10
47
AM
PDT
Zachriel: That’s the question which physicists are trying to answer.
Nope, the fact that physicists do not treat the laws of physics as if they were logically necessary is an observation.
Zachriel: The Big Bang suggests a state beyond matter, energy, space and time.
Yep, and it sure ain't nothing.
Zachriel: In any case, you have apparently abandoned the fine-tuning argument, so that is something.
I did no such thing.Box
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
10:39 AM
10
10
39
AM
PDT
velikovskys says.
If “something” includes the immaterial then is “nothing” even possible?
I say,
That is a good philosophical question. It is those sorts of good philosophical questions that Krauss is trying to make invalid by his misleading redefinition.
peacefifthmonarchyman
January 11, 2015
January
01
Jan
11
11
2015
10:30 AM
10
10
30
AM
PDT
Ffm.
If "something" includes the immaterial then is "nothing" even possible?
Once one imagines the abstraction of nothing it becomes an immaterial enity, it no longer is nothing.velikovskys