A true agnostic speaks

Posted by $ blarman 6 years, 1 month ago to Philosophy
166 comments | Share | Flag

I hadn't ever heard of the Socratic Paradox, but it is what I have long advocated.


All Comments


Previous comments...   You are currently on page 3.
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    You have previously said that your fight for consciousness is with those (zombies) who you insist are unconscious humans. Now you say they are smarter than you. This is not good. If said zombie mentors are the ones selling you flattery along with advice on how science is evolving, as presented here, then you need a new set of unconscious zombies who don't think and talk so much.

    You could try to take the whole team, especially the current unconscious ones, on SNL to make a killing, but would have better luck getting attention from another ebook vanity press that charges extra for flattery while training you to work your way up in a combination of Amway and Scientology. Publishing a "book" under a pseudotytle so even Amazon can't find it was a great strategy to keep it inside the invitation-only Secret League of The Nothink Society. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... http://neotrends.com/

    You might even get another paid "invitation" from Mark Hamilton after you're through trying to profit off the offers of the more sophisticated Nigerian spammers. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/...

    Doesn't seem there are any kickbacks to be had from this delusion so I think I'll pass. Hamilton and the Quantum Nephlimphlams Quartet are offering a better deal selling invitations to flattery. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/...
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by lrshultis 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    If not in the normal realm of theoretical physics, then what has to be revised? It is the evidence which shows that there is more gravitational field effect from very large objects such as galaxies which do not fit the amount of visible matter observed. In this case, Until some physical evidence is seen, the method is to theorize with what has been seen, trying other mathematical relations to describe what is known. There is only individual a and groups of physicists doing there best to understand what is going on, There is no conspiracy keeping then from passing over obviously wrong hypotheses and theories. One thing that might be wrong is to assume that mathematical continuity, applied to space-time relations, will work in describing nature which might be discrete in the very small, but there is no other way but to have infinitesimals in mathematical analysis. Of course other relationships as groups, rings, and fields along with, as Penrose tries, twisters and other somewhat strange mathematics. The methods of electric gravity, etc. from the electric universe people is far worse than trying to investigate some kinds of unseen matter or undiscovered energy relationships from what is already well known. One mystery about gravitation is the lack of aberration as though it has speed much greater than the speed of light. But there is evidence that it travels at the speed of light.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    I generally, have been humbled by the professional people that have actually read my book, shocked even, (poorly written as I observe now). It has spurred me to take writing more seriously, work on being a better writer. It wasn't something I ever thought I'd do.

    So...no, they are certainly not zombies, they, (as a rule) are a lot smarter than I and a few that are involved in the same area of work as I. They are teachers and professors that are involved in quantum physics, biology, archeology, history, etc.

    From them I get Constructive encouragement, mentorship and a view of how all the sciences are evolving from new information.

    But you...could easily get on SNL and make the show funny again without my help or royalty bribes...
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    The zombies are paying you off? Throw in a big enough kickback from that and maybe we can talk.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago
    Nope. It's deadly seeeeerious. Quantum Nephlimphlams did it all from a higher higher reality. You can't get any more serious than that. Unless it's higher higher higher. Someone on the internet said so.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by LibertyBelle 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Sometimes people assume a sort of supernatural realm, in which the known laws of nature do not apply; "to those who understand, no explanation is necessary; to those who do not, no explanation is possible." They seem to claim that what they are saying does not have to be comprehensible here,on earth, in the physical world. But they use the means of the physical world to convey their beliefs; they use their tongues, the eardrums of those who hear them, paper or parchment, writing implements, hand signals, etc. to say what they are going to say; yet they deny the validity of these physical mediums.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by LibertyBelle 6 years, 1 month ago
    Agnoticism does not make much sense. The tenet that something may exist, but no one can know. If you know enough about it to say it may possibly exist, don't say you don't know it.
    Saying you are wiser than another because you don't claim to know anything is contemptible. At least a person who doesn't know much still knows what he knows.
    I don't like to define myself as an atheist, because that doesn't say what I believe, only what I do not believe. I would rather be characterized by what I do believe (Objectivism) rather than by what I don't believe.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    The Nephilims did it. They are the Highest Reality taking part in our creation, using positive and negative neutrons creating electric gravity for the unconscious zombies to roam at quantum magic frequencies.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Electromagnetism is one aspect of physical reality. Anyone can learn that in elementary high school physics. It is not gravity and not electrically neutral neutrons. It does not "govern everything in what we know, see and experience in existence; that is the cause for anything to appear, to arise, to become or to be". That is quasi-poetic nonsense, not physics.

    So is your "I sick [sic] with 'Causation'. that represents the highest reality as opposed to an entity that may have taken part in our creation."

    So is your promoting it with "our understandings are changing and the old models are dying. I understand this perfectly, I have been studying this since 2010. Keep up with the times... End of discussion." Pretentious, presumptuous nonsense is not the last word in anything.

    You do not represent "understanding", either in this or the other nonsense with alien Nephilim legends, magic frequencies, and "unconscious" humans wandering the planet like zombies. It's an embarrassment on a forum for Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason. It does, however, fit right in with Blarman's promotions of his religious mentality posturing as reason and science.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    That is not what we are talking about. Nothing could come together, combine to make anything without positive and negative charges, without magnetics.
    Has nothing to do with frequencies or any other new age perversions.

    Always the mysticism with you...THINK!..electrons, protons, neutrons...nothing could exist without electrical forces, without magnetism...without gravity.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Reducing everything to electromagnetism was attempted in the 19th century and failed. It is contrary to known facts. Claiming that electromagnetism causes things to "appear" into existence makes no sense at all. You don't have "understanding", you follow New Ageism fads on the internet without understanding science, then call it "studying". It's no better than your alien Nephilim legends and magic frequencies. "Keeping up with the times" does not subordinate either rational philosophy or physics to mysticism.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Blarman says "I think you have a different kind of knowledge in mind there". No, not a "different kind" of knowledge, just knowledge as opposed to the fantasy of faith, which is not knowledge.

    It is true that religionists "tend to focus on morals and principles which have to do with human behavior in the physical world rather than the physical world itself". They reject principles for understanding and living successfully on earth, with the purpose of their morality -- especially in Christianity -- being to achieve salvation in another world, a fantasized world first conjured in the minds of mystics.

    It is true that "their realms of application aren't the same" between science and religion. One pursues life on earth and the other doesn't, sacrificing life on earth for the supernatural.

    Science and a rational ethics are not disjoint; science practices the virtues of rationality and productivity; ethics requires pursuit of science. To "spend more time worrying about their view of existence after death than the things of this life" is "necessarily combative" with science: The conflicting "realms of application" don't make them compatible; the conflict substitutes the supernatural for rational understanding in life on earth.

    Hence the bizarre antics of Creationists combating science as they try to rationalize a relation between their supernatural and a subordinate existence -- in the name of the science they oppose as they desperately plead and demand to be accepted by it.

    Also like Blarman, Creationists arbitrarily concoct "hypotheses" from religious faith, then rationalize "tests" in pretend science. That is the opposite of science. But there is nothing new in their making reason a handmaiden to faith, which certainly is necessarily "combative" against science and always has been throughout the history of religion.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by ewv 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Does Blarman know anything about the subject of dark matter? Does he know the difference between detection by gravitational effect versus light that does not reach us? Why does he think it's called "dark"?

    We don't need him to pronounce "I would also point out" the need for "testing and confirmation". But he doesn't understand inference either. Inference of theoretical entities not directly perceivable requires much more than arbitrary hypothesis about the "unknown" and here now "test".

    Advance of scientific knowledge starts what is, not subjective imagination. It requires discovery of phenomena not yet explained, indirect measurement detecting new effects and their relations, a hierarchy of rational concepts based on what is perceivable, integration of related phenomena, and identification of causal factors.

    There is no understanding in staring at a "test" with no rational concepts and relations explaining it, which requires explaining in terms of what is already known, not fantasies about higher powers from other worlds.

    Introducing "coercion" from unknown "self-willed beings" from "unseen worlds" for a "different kind of test" for his mysticism is all nonsense and has nothing to do with scientific thought.

    And then Captain Obvious instructs us that "we would never have developed the theories of modern life by constraining ourselves to that which was already known". Leaving aside that the Blarman religious mentality is not part of that "we", what does he think inference of new, previously unknown theoretical entities means if not something new?

    Growth in science is inductive, based on new ways of conceptualizing observed fact. It is not arbitrary "hypotheses" required out of fear of mortality, followed by desperately searching for "tests" of the inexplicable and demands to take all that seriously.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Not metaphysics...reality...see electric universe model and many recent NASA scientific papers in the last few years...our understandings are changing and the old models are dying.
    I understand this perfectly, I have been studying this since 2010.
    Keep up with the times...

    End of discussion.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    "As for the matter not being observed, it must be inferred from the expansion of the Universe from a big bang kind of expansion."

    If it is matter, it has a gravitational pull on other matter as described by Newton's law of gravity. It can't "hide" from other matter. I would also point out that if one wants to postulate (via inference), one must then take the step of testing and confirmation before any conclusion is justified.

    "Now religious persons get around that by their desire to have absolute knowledge apparently given though faith."

    I think you have a different kind of knowledge in mind there. Religions (excluding scientology) typically spend more time worrying about their view of existence after death than the things of this life. They tend to focus on morals and principles which have to do with human behavior in the physical world rather than the physical world itself. That's why I don't believe the two (science and religion) must necessarily be portrayed as combatants: their realms of application aren't the same.

    "...the undetectable part of the universe is only knowable through inference from known physical laws."

    Inference is useful as a tool, but we would never have developed the theories of modern life by constraining ourselves to that which was already known. The scientific method is not about what is known, but about what is unknown and how we may detect and interact with it. One of the key things in my mind which separates the search for the unknown in science vs the search for the unknown in religion is the subject matter itself: self-willed beings. If we adhere to the principle of non-coercion, we are entirely dependent on any kind of conversation with a being from the unseen world occurring according to that being's ability, will, and pleasure rather than our own. That's a very different kind of test to construct.
    Reply | Permalink  

  • Comment hidden. Undo