JL admits he's no physicist, MC gets a reductio ad absurdum when asking "for info" (and I am asked to leave fifth grade behind)

1) Bible Prophecy, TV, Changing Subject onto Common Sense - Science, 2) Continued Debate with MC and JL on Common Sense and on Science of Subatomic Particles, 3) JL admits he's no physicist, MC gets a reductio ad absurdum when asking "for info" (and I am asked to leave fifth grade behind)

MC

I didn't mean to come off that way. I took an appeal to the senses and talk of common sense like,"I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these things are proven and correctly proven - or not."

That makes it seem like the sense of intuition.

A lot of what you are describing seems to be true about how people organize information into categories and form heuristics. Other parts sound like the idealized types the brain develops to help make quick sense of the world.

Other still describe gradience, basic- level categorization, and more.

It just doesn't take you as far as you want to go. The specialization required to make the kind of decisions you want common sense to handle cannot be achieved in common (unless you had a bunch of super-geniuses like I said).

When you make your argument you can be normative or positive in your approach. This is the key to understanding the scientific approach and how it is superior to common sense. The common sense approach is normative and doesn't make evidence primary in drawing a conclusion. It follows the argument and gathers evidence to support it.

JL and I are saying the scientific approach is positive, that is, it gathers evidence and then builds an argument. Proceeding in this order removes biases due to the type of reasoning we are talking about.

I thought you were just some Johnny Come Lately. You are the real deal HGL.

HGL

// I took an appeal to the senses and talk of common sense like,"I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these things are proven and correctly proven - or not." //

Very correctly so.

// That makes it seem like the sense of intuition. //

If you like to word it that way, I would rather say common sense makes use of intuitive insight.

I would also say a complex argument can prove sth - but only if each step of it is intuitively correct. An equation which is even more complex than an argument can be part of such a proof. BUT it must intuitively make sense to make that type of equation to that problem.

One can *approximate* the form of a lense as being flat/even in the middle and narrowing down towards the edges. So *approximately* it is a wide circle low helight cylinder surrounded by a prism which has a narrow triangular cut, whereof the narrow base is the height of the cylinder and the length is the circle which at base is mid cylinder's circumference and at edges of lense the circumference of all the lense.

But one knows very well that calculating the focal length of the lense by that approximation makes less sense than actually testing focal length after making the lense. So, it would not be common sense to consider that a lense approximated as described while really having a normal lense shape would be correctly calculated as to focal length by an equation starting from the said approximation.

And if one were to produce a lense exactly like the geometric description I gave, to match the equation, it makes sense to predict it could hardly function as a lense, since its focal point would be spread out and the colours not assemble on one point.

That is where my dictum common sense and intuitive insight about relevance of an equation primes the equations, as far as real scientific certainty is concerned.

// A lot of what you are describing seems to be true about how people organize information into categories and form heuristics. Other parts sound like the idealized types the brain develops to help make quick sense of the world. Other still describe gradience, basic- level categorization, and more.

It just doesn't take you as far as you want to go. The specialization required to make the kind of decisions you want common sense to handle cannot be achieved in common (unless you had a bunch of super-geniuses like I said). //

And as I said, however much you specialise, you need to have your heuristics firmly rooted in common sense.

A specialist who has become divorced from it is very likely to produce nonsense and not be checked by other specialists similarily divorced from it.

Your points, as I take it, adds up to specialists having their own rules of logic, not only their given assumptions, but their own way how to deal with assumptions interacting with observations.

And that is as stupid as the Hindoo theory each caste has its own morals. Or that Arjuna had a right and duty to go into battle to kill his own cousins, because he was kshatria. And alas, I think that is what Bhagavadgita means in context. Poor Krishna must be burning in Hell if he said those things.

MC

//Your points, as I take it, adds up to specialists having their own rules of logic, not only their given assumptions, but their own way how to deal with assumptions interacting with observations.//

I am not assuming this conclusion. It is based on research. This is what Cognitive Science is based on.

//And as I said, however much you specialise, you need to have your heuristics firmly rooted in common sense.//

A more accurate way to say this might be that specialization has its heuristics firmly based on basic-level categorizations.

This means that categories are not merely organized in a hierarchy from most general to most specific, but they are also organized so that the categories that are cognitively "basic" (common sense) are "in the middle" of a general-to-specific hierarchy.

Generalization proceeds "upward" from the basic level and specialization proceeds "downwards"

When we make make complex judgements like preferring relativity over a geocentric model, the categories we are using are below the level of common sense. The generalizations we draw from the same information operates above the level of common sense.

HGL

// When you make your argument you can be normative or positive in your approach. This is the key to understanding the scientific approach and how it is superior to common sense. The common sense approach is normative and doesn't make evidence primary in drawing a conclusion. It follows the argument and gathers evidence to support it. //

Evidence simply means what is evident.

Evidence can be:

• sensory data
• calculations
• introspection
• memory
• tradition (written or oral retellings of a "collective memory")

AND in order to make sense one needs to have a common sense approach to each case the certainty and relevance of each piece of evidence.

// JL and I are saying the scientific approach is positive, that is, it gathers evidence and then builds an argument. Proceeding in this order removes biases due to the type of reasoning we are talking about. //

No.

He just showed a very heavy bias in favour of his colleagues having with perfect correctness seen evidence and adapted the argument to it.

I exposed this. I challenged him, he had no idea how such and such a fact had been calculated and he was not answering how we knew the specific details on atomic theory I was asking him about.

// I am not assuming this conclusion. It is based on research. This is what Cognitive Science is based on.//

Well, Cognitive Science is very unlike even atomic theory not at all a science. Atomic theory may be a flawed one, your Cognitive Science is way out.

And of course heavily biassed against the concept of common sense and patronising against the people who are likely to have recourse to it.

MC

How can we talk to each other if you dismiss all of cognitive science without actually tackling the objections it throws in your way?

Does anyone else have insight into common sense?

HGL

Yes. Most people do.

Studen ts of cognitive science are not most people.

Neither am I. I try to use the common sense I can gather from them in a more consistent way, where they are negligently trusting expertise they should not trust. But I do not try to replace their common sense with the special expertise rules of non-logic that replace common sense among the expertise.

"How can we talk to each other if you dismiss all of cognitive science without actually tackling the objections it throws in your way?"

I have already said I am much more interested in talking to JL about proofs ("how they calculated" etc) than with you about cognitive pseudoscience.

Plus your objection presupposes that cognitive science is so absorbing your mind as a religion - the Catholic one - is absorbing mine. I e, it makes your so called non-confessional science a religion. Perhaps a branch of Buddhism?

MC

And somehow this means you can use common sense to dismiss, "equations accessible to and producible by very skilled physicists,"?

I brought up the research on how the brain organizes information because that is crucial to understanding what common sense is and how it cannot do the job of forming higher level concepts.

This is a major problem in science education. How do you teach science to people who largely don't understand it?

HGL

I was not dismissing equations, I said we must know by common sense if they are relevant before we trust the result.

"How do you teach science to people who largely don't understand it?"

As they taught it to you, by making it your religion.

The so called research on how "brain organises information" is a pseudo-science much worse than pseudo-scientific sides to physics.

MC

Would I be right in saying you think common sense is more important than the equations?

I am saying common sense can't do the work of knowing whether something would be relevant.

//The so called research on how "brain organises information" is a pseudo-science much worse than pseudo-scientific sides to physics.//

That's, like, your opinion.

Even if you side with the "others", we share the experiments.

HGL

I am saying common sense is exactly what does that.

You would not just be right in what you just said, but uncommonly late in understanding what I just said several times over the last few days.

"That's, like, your opinion."

It is my very definite one.

MC

You keep reasserting what you think after I explain what I think, and it seems like you keep correcting me.

That is leading me to constantly wonder if It seems like I don't understand you.

HGL

The guys who thought tey had found Higg's boson trusted their equations. Look at this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/10/higgs-boson-discovery-particle_n_6133502.html

MC

When he was presenting that work about the Higgs, he admits that he could be wrong.

HGL

"That is leading me to constantly wonder if It seems like I don't understand you."

Side effect of meditation and "empathy"? How about trying logic, once in a while instead. And grammar.

I usually take pains to state my meaning so it cannot be misunderstood by a good reader. You aren't.

"When he was presenting that work about the Higgs, he admits that he could be wrong."

He'd be a fool not to. Considering he's a carreer scientist and his work can ruin all of their carreers.

MC

//Side effect of meditation and "empathy"? How about trying logic, once in a while instead. And grammar.//

Can we put the 5th grade behind us? I thought we buried that hatched yesterday.

I think I have brought up, at least reasonable, objections to common sense being able to decide what you claim it can.

I need a little more than your word that it can. Can you help me out with any relevant information.

I am more than willing to answer any serious question if I actually slipped in my grammar and something wasn't clear.

Meditation isn't just a Buddhist thing, BTW.

Being a Catholic, I think you can understand that. I have St. Loyola's "Spiritual Exercises" on the shelf behind me.

HGL

"I think I have brought up, at least reasonable, objections to common sense being able to decide what you claim it can."

I have answered them.

Time after time.

You have ignored pertinence of answers through not quite seeing very many times what I was really saying. That is irritating. I do not enjoy debating with you very much and asking things like "can we put fifth grade behind us" is NOT mending things.

"I need a little more than your word that it can. Can you help me out with any relevant information."

I can give a reductio in absurdum of your position.

In your terms, common sense, logic, the kind of discourse people use mentally among each other was never given by any God nor developed by evolution with any view to make us understand the universe.

Therefore, in your terms, any higher concept, anything approaching truth beyond a merely pragmatic level needs to part ways with common sense as much as with basic misunderstandings.

So, what is it exactly which in each specialty is replacing common sense, replacing logic, and which is supposed to be a better guide to truth? How can we say evolution developed mathematicians ignoring the fact that zero is no number? How can we say God made it a commandment for Lawrence Krauss to consider zero a midpoint between a positive and a negative field AND at same time absolute nothing AND there being a fluctuation between p and n fields around that absolute nothing and other learned idiots to make other learned idiocies divorced from common sense for us to get information that is MORE reliable? Before you start picking o ut parts of my outburst, try considering it as a unity, even if I embroidered it rhetorially. "You weren't developed for understanding if information is really truly true, therefore I can tell you what is really truly true..."

To me this position is absurd. It would have been absurd while I was in fifth grade, it is absurd still and will be absurd till the end of my life.

But apart from this reductio in absurdum, I might soon have a near certainty of a practical example against you.

JL has been waiting long to answer my challenge.

Is he looking for an answer? Or is he waiting till you disarm my critical faculties first, so I shall not be able to pick his answer apart?

JL

I haven't been following this thread, I neither know nor care what your challenge is to be honest. I've made my point, that's all I wanted to do.

HGL

No, you have not made it.

You have not given an account on how Rutherford experiment or Cloud Chambers pro ve electrons exist as particles not only while emitted but also in each atom.

And that being so, you have not answered the challenge I gave.

Perhaps wisely so for a carreer scientist. Admitting too much uncertainty about the most widely accepted conclusions might in the end ruin lots of carreers, and people wanting to post pone that might ruin yours first.

JL

I'm not a physicist, I'm sure you can look it up for yourself, I don't feel inclined to prove such basic facts about reality to you at the moment, I've got better things to do.

HGL

Ah, you are NOT a physicist? And you still feel very confident that these things are "basic facts about reality"?

If you are NOT a physicist, I might have taken my confidence in common sense to the point of learning more than you about how physics is done and might be a better judge than you because of that very matter. Common sense, someone looks more into a matter, better he becomes a judge of it.

The very same common sense approach you use (in a less correct way, I feel, but I let our readers judge) to justify your great confidence in the same physicists.

And, if y ou are NOT a physicist, what are you, as per academic discipline?

JL

Yes, I'm perfectly confident that they are basic facts about reality, I know how rigorous the scientific method is - if physicists accept that electrons are in atoms, I know that they are justified in that conclusion.

I'm a Biologist (student), with an interest in physics.

HGL

Ah, ok.

In other words, your confidence in electrons being basic facts about reality is worth as much as your confidence that Earth is 4.5 billion years old as per a dating, done by one radioactive decay method

JL

I am far more confident about electrons than I am about 4.5 billion years being the precise age of the earth, but I am totally confident that the earth is of great age, in the billions of years range.

Continued Debate with MC and JL on Common Sense and on Science of Subatomic Particles

1) Bible Prophecy, TV, Changing Subject onto Common Sense - Science, 2) Continued Debate with MC and JL on Common Sense and on Science of Subatomic Particles, 3) JL admits he's no physicist, MC gets a reductio ad absurdum when asking "for info" (and I am asked to leave fifth grade behind)

MC

You might have been exact, but that doesn't change that 'senses' are equivocally not 'common sense'.

You were describing how to save the appearances to explain our challenges to common sense.

I maybe be scoring low, but I can use "common sense" and "save the appearances" correctly.

//And pretending to give me language lessons will not help you out with all readers.//

If you want one, remove the "is" of identity from your vocabulary.

HGL

No. I am no Buddhist.

And I was not claiming senses were common sense, I do still claim that common sense very regularly refers questions to them.

JL

" Whether you really mean proton or electron, this has - unlike a heavier feather falling slower than a lighter ball - not been observed. "

Not observed, but we know from calculations that it can happen (yes with protons).

" How exactly has it (quantum entanglement) been demonstrated? Has it been conclusively demonstrated?"

Yes quantum entanglement has been demonstrated. We have no idea how it occurs but we know it does. The famous example is from Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen - the EPR experiment. It's also one of the reasons we can't get past the uncertainty principle.

"Like the 10²² times crossing of a nucleus, this (wave-particle duality of light) has not been directly observed."

Well yes, it has, that is what the double-slit experiment is famous for.

[In one slit one directly observes light coming out as waves and in another as particles? OR - more probably on my view - one observes sth in the experiment from which the duality is then deduced? In that case he missed the part of DIRECTLY observed.]

"How do you observe even ONE electron when the smallest microscopy is electronic microscopy?"

We don't observe the electron itself, we observe a dot appearing on the surface behind the double slit, as it reacts with the electron. As we shoot many electrons through, one at a time, a pattern emerges.

HGL

And, no, as having a certain knowledge about history of ideas, you were NOT using "save the appearances" correctly, when you were both hinting it was a wrong method (it is a needed part of any complex method) and basically saying I was doing that while referring (as per a common sense preference) to the senses. This to MC, now to JL ...

"Not observed, but we know from calculations that it can happen (yes with protons)."

I believe that the calculations are as correct as their basic assumptions - i e, if you model atoms like that, this speed very probably will be correctly calculated.

This does not mean your model as such is right.

"The famous example is from Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen - the EPR experiment."

And the experiment can have no other interpretation?

Like for instance limits to our even enhanced possibilities of observation?

MC

//And I was not claiming senses were common sense, I do still claim that common sense very regularly refers questions to them.//

Really?

//Never said that they were. I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these things are proven and correctly proven - or not.//

//Even if eyes are in your terminology one of the "common" - usually referred to as one of the "five" - senses.//

//That scepticism in face of bold claims of "deducing the cigar brand from the ashes" is also common sense, just as the general trust in eyes is.//

Want some more quotes to demonstrate this confusing of the senses and common sense?*

HGL

"Well yes, it has, that is what the double-slit experiment is famous for."

Well, no. I said "not directly". No doubt you will say the double slit experiment somehow indirectly proves it, but it is still another thing than directly observing it.

"We don't observe the electron itself, we observe a dot appearing on the surface behind the double slit, as it reacts with the electron. As we shoot many electrons through, one at a time, a pattern emerges."

Well, I agree, this is how it is done.

However, that being so, how can you be sure it is an electron?

MC

This is near interesting philosophy, but not science.

Meditation wakes someone up, btw.

It is not just a Buddhist thing. Christians meditate, too.

HGL

Facthood is a question not just of science as a formal exercise.

And I was - philosophically - disputing the claim the formal exercise of science is universally a sure way to ascertain facthood.

"Meditation wakes someone up, btw."

Probably makes you feel that way.

MC

//HGL "Meditation wakes someone up, btw."Just now • Like HGL Probably makes you feel that way.//

Google it. Google scholar it.

[not giving the link he gave]

HGL

"Really?" - Yes, I really think common sense regularly but not exclusively refers to the senses.

"Want some more quotes to demonstrate this confusing of the senses and common sense?" - No, I was not confusing - unless you mean quotes from me you consider prove me wrong in this assessment.

[The three quotes he had provided were of course not proving that, because he was not correctly assessing what they meant objectively and grammatically. See the footnote* on it.]

MC

//However, that being so, how can you be sure it is an electron?//

Careful observation and definitely not the wisdom you mom taught you growing up (unless she was a physicist)

HGL

Careful observation again refers back to the senses.

A Physicist's logic has to be continuous with that mom taught or I gathered since. Not necessarily coextensive in already mastered methodology, but continuous.

MC

//"Really?" - Yes, I really think common sense regularly but not exclusively refers to the senses.//

This explains what I was reading. I am sorry if I am being too technical, but the senses and common sense are two different realms.

[He STILL thinks I am confused! Or thought while writing this.]

Another name for "common sense" is heuristics. When we call it that we won't confuse our sense of time for our problem solving abilities.

JL

"This does not mean your model as such is right. "

Then find flaws in it.

"And the experiment can have no other interpretation?"

Of course it can, but we're talking about science, we can't just make up wild explanations when we feel like it - it's such a simple observation, with a very simple explanation - that the particles are entangled.

[I missed this one. A philosopher can make up any explanations he likes - and then see where experience or principle of contradiction cancels out certain ones of them. Btw, the criterium he uses refers back to logic or common sense, as he presents it, and as I have not looked up the experiment, I do not know if it is reasonable. Particles not being particles but aether might also be an explanation.]

" but it is still another thing than directly observing it."

So we can't know anything unless we directly observe it? We are able to make inferences you know. If we see a man with a bullet in his head, there's a pretty good chance he was shot.

"how can you be sure it is an electron?"

Because that is what the particle gun is shooting,..

MC

Yes. The senses are the building blocks of experience.

[The most usual ones, there is introspection too.]

//"how can you be sure it is an electron?"
Because that is what the particle gun is shooting,..//

lol

[I agree on the lol]

HGL

"Then find flaws in it."

Would need details of your proof for that, you are making the claims.

MC

I want to shore up this wild use of language. There is a reason we call common sense heuristics while being technical, it is less confusing!

Senses, common sense, I sense something fishy since my senses....AH!

[I sense something Dalai-Lamaish in his harping on mere puns, without backing them up.]

Heuristics. Ah, much better.

[There is a reason why I prefer the phrase "common sense" to the word "heuristics" : GOOD heuristics are heuristics that are COMMON as far as principles applied are concerned. Applications may be uncommon and heuristics still very good, but only if its principles are the common ones. I am for instance not sponging out the "is" of identity.]

In social psychology we call common sense heuristics to better understand what is going on. We do it in philosophy, too.

With this new information, maybe we should reconsider:

Is it common sense to imagine that a proton can cross a nucleus 10²² times in a single second?

Is it common sense to imagine quantum entanglement? Or the wave-particle duality of light? Or the effect of observation on the interactions of electrons through a double-slit?

JL

Martin, quick off-topic question, as a Buddhist, do you consider yourself an atheist? Because to my knowledge Buddhism doesn't have any "gods" as such?

MC

I do consider myself an atheist. In some forms of Buddhism they do pay tribute to gods. I have learned other techniques, but I primarily practice Zen.

It gets confusing. We atheistic Buddhists will put up the appropriate gods in different parts of a monastery or your house, but no one takes them as being real. They represent states of mind and different concepts.

[A bit like Late Antiquity would take Mars and Venus for masculine and feminine states of mind, agressive and concuiscent behaviours, erected into personifications. No doubt.]

The popular Buddhism you find in Thailand or Burma sometimes gets into deity worship.

[Not to mention Buddhism on higher levels too in Tibet or China or some non-zen schools of Japan?]

JL

Thanks I thought I was along the right lines. I've always thought that if I was forced to choose a religion, it would be some form of Buddhism, if only because it's a "nice" religion in that it doesn't portray petty, violent gods and I've always found its followers to be really kind, honest etc people.

I can't buy into its "supernatural" claims but I respect Buddhism's teachings so much more than any other major religion!

MC

I became a Buddhist from practicing meditation and learning the Sutras. I didn't really want to become religious.

I liked that we were supposed to test everything and take nothing on someone's word. I don't write off the supernatural claims off hand (as evidence would convince me of their proof).

Powers like telepathy and mind reading are explained by completely naturalistic means.

Maybe you have seen a magic trick where a blindfolded person goes through a crowd to find a hidden object?

Meditating helps you to observe micro-behaviors and other things that are commonly overlooked.

I have never seen someone with a power that couldn't be explained by a natural explanation and learned by someone else.

I really do it because it helps in learning psychology and meditation is good for you.

JL

Yeah, I've meditated a bit a few times, it's good to clear the mind sometimes and completely relax

MC

Anyway, sorry to get too technical about common sense, but I have read the great common sensers. I love them. They are some of the best philosophers.

They take a long time to distinguish the senses from our common sense (my great annoyance). I think you can say more, Hans-Georg, on how much common sense plays into concept formation or how we interpret science, but you cannot take the senses for common sense. You seem like an intelligent, reasonable person. Sometimes we make small mistakes and that's ok.

I make mistakes all the time and appreciate when someone corrects me because I love to believe as many true things as possible.

A person's common sense changes when one becomes specialized. Then their common experience becomes more than that which we hold in common.

Are you trying to say that specialization is really a special construction of "common sense"? A special case of it?

Maybe that is it built of tiny blocks of common sense units to build a giant block we call specialization?

You can see how this may need some explaining because to have a specialization negates the knowledge we hold in common.

HGL

"This explains what I was reading. I am sorry if I am being too technical, but the senses and common sense are two different realms.

Another name for "common sense" is heuristics. When we call it that we won't confuse our sense of time for our problem solving abilities."

You were not being too technical. You were too obtuse.

Common sense = GOOD heuristics. Any GOOD heuristics will refer to sth to be interpreted. I e, it exists usually in relation to data coming through the senses.

"In social psychology we call common sense heuristics to better understand what is going on. We do it in philosophy, too."

Disagree. Heuristics would also cover BAD heuristics. For instance heuristics referring to nothing in particular to be interpreted. And overinterpreting it.

"Is it common sense to imagine that a proton can cross a nucleus 10²² times in a single second? ETC."

Whether it is good or bad heuristics depend on what sense data it refers to.

"I think you can say more, Hans-Georg, on how much common sense plays into concept formation or how we interpret science, but you cannot take the senses for common sense."

I wasn't.

Meaning that if you interpreted me as doing that, you have bad heuristics, at least when it comes to non-technical (or technical outside your technicalities) language.

Now, I was referring to the question what the proofs are that a proton (I think someone clarified it was really a proton) passes through the nucleus 10²² times per second.

If I were speaking to a ping pong ball passing 10 times per minute between the players back and forth (or twenty times either way), I would refer to ping pong ball passing visibly before my eyes and my counting and in some way either breaking off count after a minute or checking time when they take a pause and averaging.

This is NOT the kind of sense data which will immediately yield 10²² passages over a nucleus per second for a proton.

Proton is too small, nucleus is too small, passage is too fast.

ANY parallel will very certainly involve a parallel to the averaging ... OR being a prioristic about movement occurring and making a limit assumption on how fast it must be in order to make a larger area than proton seem solid to any observation through electronic microscopy OR sth else.

I do not know which it is. But I do know it is not common sense to consider the fact as having been observed as directly even as the passages of a ping pong ball.

JL

I didn't say it did cross the nucleus that many times, I said it CAN.

[Even that came as news to me. The atomic model I had been taught had at least left me with the impression that if electrons passed around nucleus in extreme high speeds, the protons and neutrons in it were as fixed in relation to each other as the legs of a chair or a table.]

HGL

Ah, sorry.

Let me guess - speed in cloud chamber as applied to distance in nucleus?

JL

I'm not sure how they calculated it.

HGL

And as we talk of distance in nucleus, when we observe an atom in electronic microscopy, we observe a globe, which in common model is supposed to be both nucleus AND surround electron shells. How do you prove such a portion is nucleus, and such a portion void between nucleus and electron shells?

Not sure how they calculate that either?

JL

Rephrase the question. Are you asking how we know the structure of an atom?

HGL

I was asking how we know those particular facts about the structure of an atom, like how much space is nucleus, how much void, how much electron shells.

I suppose size of nucleus IS relevant for how many times a proton can pass through it per second.

JL

I believe it was Rutherford who gave us the atomic model, and through refinements in his classic experiment, and other methods, we can determine a lot about the structure of the atom.

LL

JL who cares it doesn't matter all that matters is one day your house and your future will be blown up. Count on it Islam is knocking on your door

HGL

Rutherford experiment can determine how much of the gold foil is impermeable and deflecting (few scarce spots) and how much is permeable. Some way to go on from there before proving the atomic model.

JL

Wow that came out of nowhere LL.

HGL

He might be less interested than I in technicalities of science, like how we know certain things?

JL

Expect we can look at the gold foil under a microscope and see that there aren't any holes in it - do you really think the entire physics community would overlook something like that?

Not to mention that atomic theory is confirmed by chemistry.

HGL

I was very aware there were no holes. All I said was based on it.

Part of atomic theory is confirmed by valencies (known from chemistry and testable under electronic microscopy).

[Though even valencies are an intellectual construct with some dubiousness. Carbon having four means it connects with four other atoms, right? No, there is double bond, triple bond, quadruple bond even possibly - though I don't know any example - unsaturated, lattice structure of graphite not quite corresponding ...]

I said PART OF.

For instance, electronic shells will predict certain valencies, but valencies could have other explanations.

Parallel with positively charged visible objects repelling each other attacting negative ones, and of negatively charged ones repelling each other and attracting positive ones is another possible source for atomic theory as we know it.

Right?

Without that nuclei might be either protons or negative protons, shells either electrons or positrons, but this would contradict, in common sense, what we consider as known about charges from observing objects in visible sizes.

JL

"Parallel with positively charged visible objects repelling each other attacting negative ones, and of negatively charged ones repelling each other and attracting positive ones is another possible source for atomic theory as we know it."

What?

LL

And how would a dumb fisherman like Peter know anything about the elements burning the earth with the fervent Heat

HGL

Ah, that is a good one LL!

@ JL, I was reconstructing part of the intellectual process of constructing the atomic model science today is talking about.

And added "right?" to get corrected if my reconstruction was wrong.

But you seem to know very much about the model and very little on how it was proven or if it was at all proven.

@ JL, shall we get back to the topic while you take a rest from my charge on physics?

You said sth about prophecies not being noticed until after fulfilled.

Wrong, some of these were noticed by sceptics before modern technologies proved arguments of these were hasty.

JL

Just to be clear, is your position that atoms are not how science claims they are?

HGL

"Just to be clear, is your position that atoms are not how science claims they are?"

Have a suspicion some detail may be wrong. Mainly I might consider exchanging electron shells for aether with a charge as a quality.

LL

Atheism has an unbelievable ability to take you away from the subject off on some tangent rabbit trail. The bottom line is a fisherman would not know about the elements of atomic energy 2000 years ago without God warning you

[He is trying to bring us back on topic, see top of previous. We might be getting back there later?]

HGL

True, but I was not being taken on a rabbit trail, I was taking him on it.

It was I who wanted the other subject too.

JL

LL if you had read this thread you would know I didn't lead anyone anywhere.

So do electrons exist?

HGL

I do not know. Cloud chambers seem to indicate there are a thing giving thinner trail than α particles and negatively charged, not sure they belong in atoms

So, you have identified such and such particles in cloud chambers. You can tell how big or small they are in relation to each other. You can tell whether they are charged or not and if yes whether positively or negatively.

• 1) How do you know what you are studying is even just one particle, rather than say a minimal quantum of emittable aether as distinct from aether in [its non-emitted] place or rather than say again a quantum [or a quota] of particles emitted together?
  
  
• 2) Even more importantly, the particles are emitted separately when you study them in cloud chambers. How do you know which of them occur in all atoms and how do you know how they relate to each other in atoms?

[Added last bit after being surprised first paragraph of my answer had stood unanswered for hours. JL might be looking up or intellectually reconstructing the answer before giving it. Will try to update you when it happens.]

MC

//Whether it is good or bad heuristics depend on what sense data it refers to.//

//it exists usually in relation to data coming through the senses.//

//you cannot take the senses for common sense."

I wasn't.//

The first two look like they are appealing to the senses.

Let's leave that behind. If you keep telling me you want common sense to be different from the senses, even if you say it depends on what sense data we are referring to, I shouldn't insist too much that you are. I hope you see how I, and probably other people, would easily make that mistake.

I want to celebrate our agreement, Hans-Georg. Heuristic is too general to talk about common sense.

Common sense is a special case heuristic.

We disagree here, "it exists usually in relation to data coming through the senses."

We may have "idealized cognitive metaphors" that make up heuristic that makes it count as common sense, but someone who is specialized in a topic like particle physics knows more than the common person.

Humans organize information at a "basic-level categorization". That means it doesn't start from specialization or generalization. Knowledge starts from a "basic-level". This is close to your "common sense".

Eleanor Rosch's research has a wealth of information about how the brain categorizes information. To say we can get out of common sense what you are claiming is a giant task. it goes against this approach and the classical approach (which I have not represented).

If we want to take a more classical view on something like common sense, we would need something like Chomsky's universal grammar and even that is far beyond that which we hold in common.

HGL

"Heuristic is too general to talk about common sense.

Common sense is a special case heuristic."

Disagreed.

Common sense is GOOD heuristics. I e heuristics using common principles (hence name) in the common way (also related to name of common sense), but ideally more consistently so than is commonly done.

"he first two look like they are appealing to the senses."

Appealing to the senses does not equate identifying good heuristics with these. You would have noticed that if your grammatical heuristics had been good

"We may have "idealized cognitive metaphors" that make up heuristic that makes it count as common sense, but someone who is specialized in a topic like particle physics knows more than the common person."

In so far as his knowledge can stand up to scrutiny of the common person's logic when given all the facts. No further than that

And by "given all the facts" I mean not given the "net facts" as usually presented, but given the brute facts, like cloud chambers and how particle emittors emit invisible somethings which will give different traces in it.

The problem is the physicist here (I take Jake for such a one) does not know himself how to work from there on to the full and integral atomic theory he presents as a fact and as daunting and overdaunting common sense

I am actually more eager for his specific answers than for your diatribe, sorry.

[linking to both parts]

MC

//Common sense is GOOD heuristics. I e heuristics using common principles (hence name) in the common way (also related to name of common sense), but ideally more consistently so than is commonly done. //

I agree with this. That is one way I might explain how "common sense is a special case of a heuristic". When I am talking about common sense, I can list what heuristics we use that are in common and that fail to explain higher level concepts:

• authority
• liking
• scarcity
• social proof
• commitment and consistency
• reciprocation

HGL

" we would need something like Chomsky's universal grammar and even that is far beyond that which we hold in common."

I do hold sth similar but very far from identical to be a universal grammar of language Port Royal Grammar is less discredited to me than Chomsky's tree diagram grammar.

There is sth similar for common sense too. It is called logic

MC

Logic is not something that people hold in common.

This is the start of the dispute to refresh our minds and anyone jumping in:

//I have taught junior high school math. One pupil got a problem totally wrong. He made no calculation wrong, he had just put in the realistic variables in the wrong slots for the calculations. When I claim to correct Heliocentrism, it is by common sense argument, not by the equations accessible to and producible by very skilled physicists.//

HGL

"When I am talking about common sense, I can list what heuristics we use that are in common and that fail to explain higher level concepts"

Your list, if it fails to explain correct higher level concepts, is not exhaustive. Or part of it has not been put to proper use.

But in some cases the higher level concepts may be incorrect ones

"Logic is not something that people hold in common."

Yes it is.

Your reminder of the dispute was probably meant to show he had not logic in common with me. He had, he understood my correction perfectly when I explained, he had been inattentive.

MC

Am I adding snarky remarks like:

//You would have noticed that if your grammatical heuristics had been good. //

//I am actually more eager for his specific answers than for your diatribe, sorry.//

?

HGL

Your remarks were deprecating very much beyond snarky when you had gotten into your head I had confused "common sense" with "five senses" when in fact I hadn't. You deserved snarky

Amply.

* Footnote on MC charging me with confusion:

[Here are his quoting three of my words, one of them in truncated form, to prove I had confused what I had not confused:]

//And I was not claiming senses were common sense, I do still claim that common sense very regularly refers questions to them.//

Really? [Yes.]

//Never said that they were. I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these thingsare proven and correctly proven - or not.//

[What he took for a confusion between the five senses - they - and common sense - it - really contained a clue to my not confusing them. His meditation has not made him sensitive to micro-behaviours in language, which any Classicist would be laughed at for not noticing in reading Plato or Aristotle.]

//Even if eyes are in your terminology one of the "common" - usually referred to as one of the "five" - senses.//

[I was not myself confusing the five senses with common sense, I was accusing his terminology of doing so. If it was his habitual one or his ad hoc one in speaking to me, irrelevant, the confusion was his. As can perhaps be understood in an Atheistic Buddhist but which is very certainly to be expected in such a vile thing as a student of Social Psychology.]

//That scepticism in face of bold claims of "deducing the cigar brand from the ashes" is also common sense, just as the general trust in eyes is.//

[Scepticism in face of bold claims for very fine tuned senses and general trust in eyes (but not in extreme claims of their fine tuning) are not one of the five senses, but are a common piece and a good piece of heuristics. And similarily about bold claims for very fine tuned heuristics.]

Want some more quotes to demonstrate this confusing of the senses and common sense?*

[Confusion his on all three counts, not mine.]

Bible Prophecy, TV, Changing Subject onto Common Sense - Science

1) Bible Prophecy, TV, Changing Subject onto Common Sense - Science, 2) Continued Debate with MC and JL on Common Sense and on Science of Subatomic Particles, 3) JL admits he's no physicist, MC gets a reductio ad absurdum when asking "for info" (and I am asked to leave fifth grade behind)

LL

Again, more science and the Bible

[The one where JL objects is where TV is said to confirm possibility of two prophecies: Christ returning on the clouds, Two witnesses lying dead for 3 and a half days, both so everyone can see. Matthew 24:30, Apocalypse 11:9-11]

JL

They are all pretty tenuous but are you really serious with the TV one?

LL

Absolutely I'm serious and so was Jesus who repeated those very words. Let that be a warning to you when the people you love

I'm not a pastor because there's money in it you can be sure of that. I'm nothing like those TV crooks. There's another prophecy in the Bible you miss Jake

JL

I don't even know how to respond... You think something that says Jesus will appear in the clouds and the entire world will see him is referring to TV, that's bad even for you Luke...

HGL

JL - when Jesus appears on the clouds, it will not be TV as we know it. But TV as we know it has shown such a thing is possible even for man, so how much more so for God.

When the two witnesses lie dead for three and a half days and every nation sees it, that will probably be a TV and Video event. It's before the second coming and the servants of Antichrist will have as much an interest in showing the corpses through TV to everyone as they will have to expose them to non-burial in the first place.

Possibly they will have been labelled terrorists and one will show them so as not to permit the kind of speculation when Osama Bin Laden was killed and drowned in the sea ("or was he really?").

JL

So the bible refers to everyone seeing an event, and you think it's prophecy of the invention of television? Wow...

If God exists then he can do anything, why would he have to be consistent with our current understanding of physics in the first place unless he is bound by it?

HGL

He does not HAVE to be consistent with it, He is not BOUND by it. But he has created Physic realities. Including those exploited by TV.

Thing is, He is also omniscient, including of things that to us are future. He never learns any new information (as God - cfr human soul of Jesus, which did).

Therefore He very clearly knew of TV.

For second coming, Christ as being God has access to something superior. For public humiliation of the two witnesses, the servants of Antichrist need not at all have come up with sth better than TV or youtube.

By the way, speaking of weak, how about "papers against creationism" being a private group, where all discussions are invisible to non-members?

"This is a site to post Scientific papers and articles that help counter Creationist arguments as well as to support the Biological Theory of Evolution. You can add to the Files or add in a comment."

Papers against Creationism

Rejoindre ce groupe pour afficher la discussion, publier et commenter./Groupe privé

Here is a paper FOR creationism and geocentrism:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Kurukshetra War and Joshua's Long Day
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2014/11/kurukshetra-war-and-joshuas-long-day.html

There for everyone and for everyone's critique, including your arguments.

JL

I agree, if he exists as described then he would know of TV. My point is that if that was the case, it would have much more convincing to give a better description instead of "image on clouds, everyone will see".

Anyone can join papers against creationism if they want I suppose, but maybe it's more selective because it seems to be made up of actual knowledgable people, it's not a debate group, it's a place to exchange journal papers etc.

Paper? That's a blog lol...

HGL

• 1) Second coming will NOT be TV (as that could be staged). It will be better.
  
  
• 2) Giving too good a description of what will probably be TV, public humiliation of corpses of Henoch and Elijah, would have helped create TV (with all its bad influence) too soon.

"Anyone can join papers against creationism if they want I suppose,"

You were invited.

"but maybe it's more selective because it seems to be made up of actual knowledgable people"

I have this bad gut feeling about secret or private groups of people supposed to be actually knowledgeable.

"it's not a debate group"

Why am I not surprised?

"it's a place to exchange journal papers etc."

Which the rest of the world will see - or not - when you decide.

"Paper? That's a blog lol..."

If you print it out on paper it's a paper. Are you seriously sharing the papers in your group on threshed cellulose?

TF

I disagree with TV here

But in revelation and Daniel It says the son of perdition will sit in the holy of Holies... and the whole world will see it ( surely TV )

Also Jesus mentioned that increased earth quake activity around the world is a sign of his return.... Of course they had no clue how to keep track of earthquakes back then, only now are we able to validate that

JL

Isn't it funny how none of bible "prophecies" are only noticed in hindsight? I wonder why...

[I might come back to this later, but as you will see, I missed this main point for now.]

I asked to join, and was let in.

Why? I know there are at least a few career scientists in there.

Because it's not in the description maybe?

Well yes... That's how all contributions are made to a discussion, I might have knowledge on a subject and choose to disclose it when I like.

Generally papers (we both know I'm referring to) are peer-reviewed and/or come from a reputable source. Not blogs.

HGL

• 1) as to peer review, I believe in post publishing.
  
  [Post publishing peer review, as opposed to a secret pre-publishing peer review, where public is never shown what is rejected nor who has made the review of what passes.]
  
  
• 2) as to blogs not being a reputable source, every blog is as reputable as its author. A so called reputable source on your side, National Geographic, has a few blogs gathered as Phenomena blog.
  
  My blog is as reputable as I, and I am inviting criticism from anyone who dares, I just sent link to Phil Plait.

JL

All I know is that geocentrism is nonsense, regardless of your blog post. You can't argue with the science.

MC (Buddhist? Yes!)

You can argue with the science, Jake. You can argue with a flower or a brick wall, too.

HGL

"All I know is that geocentrism is nonsense, regardless of your blog post."

In other words, regardless of my arguments on it.

"You can't argue with the science." - "You can argue with the science, JL. You can argue with a flower or a brick wall, too."

In other words, science can't be corrected by arguments.

So Heliocentrism and science are not a rational pursuit, but a religion. Thanks for informing me!

MC

//

In other words, regardless of my arguments on it.

//

let's see the equations and get a short list of predictions with ways to observe it.

JL

Nothing in science is corrected by arguments - it is corrected by evidence. I only had a very brief scan of your blog post, but I didn't see any revolutionary physics equations in there...

MC

I would love to see some equations manipulated instead of sound and thunder.

HGL

"let's see the equations and get a short list of predictions with ways to observe it." - "I only had a very brief scan of your blog post, but I didn't see any revolutionary physics equations in there..."

I have taught junior high school math. One pupil got a problem totally wrong. He made no calculation wrong, he had just put in the realistic variables in the wrong slots for the calculations. When I claim to correct Heliocentrism, it is by common sense argument, not by the equations accessible to and producible by very skilled physicists.

"Nothing in science is corrected by arguments - it is corrected by evidence."

Evidence corrects nothing, except if giving rise to an argument.

Evidence is material objects or testimony (btw, provided in blog post), or for that matter a calculation or equation.

But before evidence can correct anything one must make an argument that it is inconsistent with the theory it is presented as correcting.

MC

I see a lot of "blah blah blah" and no equations.

JL

Arguments can be baseless - evidence is required.

You're claiming you know better than those very skilled physicists, that your "common sense" trumps their actual scientific data and equations.

MC

Common sense is not so common. - Guy on $100

Science trumps common sense, too.

HGL

The fault of my very short termed math student.

"Take a rectangular surface with a circular hole. All measures of lengths (the sides and the radius) are given, Calculate remaining surface."

The young man either made a subtraction before a multiplication by itself and π or (less likely) missed which length belonged to rectangle and which to circle. I think the former.

Prove to me, the extremely complicated equations involved have not a flaw as obvious once it is pointed out.

"I see a lot of "blah blah blah" and no equations."

Including, I presume, the quote from your scientific hero Galileo Galilei?

No, science does NOT trump common sense, unless it can prove to common sense it is science. Even revelation, before trumping common sense must prove to common sense it is revelation, that is what apologetics is about.

JL

Once again, are you claiming to see flaws with physicists' equations, which have been scrutinised by their peers for generations?

Yes, science does trump common sense.

Common sense tells us heavier objects fall faster, but as we know that's not true.

HGL

"Once again, are you claiming to see flaws with physicists' equations, which have been scrutinised by their peers for generations?"

Their scrutiny has been on the side "are calculations right" (as those of my math student were) not on the side "are we looking in the wrong place as to understanding reality" (as he was looking in the wrong calculations to understand the surface remaining after cutting out the circle).

Plus, actually modern cosmology has only held sway since 1930. Heliocentric Cosmologies have shifted : Newton, Kant, Herschel, up to Kapteyn.

No, there has not even been scientific unity about modern cosmology being right, except for some few generations, which were very cut off from the kind of explanation I consider right, at least as far as scientific community is concerned.

Common sense tells us feathers fall slower than lead balls. It is not wrong there - except in vacuum.

Try again with your attacks on common sense. You see, unlike the private group, I am not keeping my own discussions a secret. The more you attack common sense, the better my readers will see how much you lack it.

Here is the blog where it will go btw:

HGL's F.B. writings
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com

MC

//The more you attack common sense, the better my readers will see how much you lack it.//

Is that a passive aggressive insult or are you going to own it?

Explain, using common sense, QED. This might show you the superiority of the scientific method over common sense.

Then tell us about the common sense approach to telescopic lensing.

Or you can keep complaining that we aren't using our common sense and that we lack it because we disagree.

JL

But the feather isn't falling faster just because it's lighter, is it?

Depending on the size of the feather you could conceivably make it heavier than the bowling ball and it would still hit the ground last.

Is it common sense to imagine that a proton can cross a nucleus 10²² times in a single second?

Is it common sense to imagine quantum entanglement? Or the wave-particle duality of light? Or the effect of observation on the interactions of electrons through a double-slit?

MC

All those might be common sense to a super genius, Jake.

JL

Seeing as no one has ever understood them fully, I think this is another example of common sense being rather uncommon.

No reply HGL?

Also there are no secret discussions in the private group, it is literally just posts of papers with a brief headline of them, you'd be lucky to find 1 or 2 comments under it.

In fact, looking at the past month, there has been 12 OPs, with a grand total of 2 comments underneath.

HGL

MC it is information about what I am doing. The reply, Jake, had to wait till I had done it:

[Link to this message]

MC

I am a Buddhist if you want to update your blog.

We aren't attacking common sense. We are ordering it below scientific inquiry.

Is it common sense to imagine that a proton can cross a nucleus 10²² times in a single second?

Is the idea of an atom common sense? It took being able to indirectly observe it in an electron microscope to get people to rally behind that idea.

Common sense is fine for most of the problems we have in life. There are limits to it. Reason and science pick up where common sense leaves off.

Is that good enough for you Thomas Reid?

[I seem to have lost a reference here.]

JL

Exactly, common sense is used to deal with common situations, we have evolved to cope with them so of course our brains will be adapted in that way. However we did not evolve with any kind of selective pressure to understand sub-atomic particles or supernovae, zeptoseconds or billions of years, micrometers per hour or light speed - that is why these things are unintuitive; we have evolved to consider that middle ground which we inhabit, not the extremes that we now understand.

RH

How would Peter the fisherman know how to write?

HGL (to RH)

How would a Hebrew back then NOT have known how to write?

Assuming he didn't, how can he NOT have had a secretary after Pentecost Day (he might have had one anyway)?

HGL(to the other two)

"But the feather isn't falling faster just because it's lighter, is it?"

Did I say it was?

I said common sense says a feather falls slower than any ball of lead or for that matter even of leather.

"Is it common sense to imagine that a proton can cross a nucleus 10²² times in a single second?"

Whether you really mean proton or electron, this has - unlike a heavier feather falling slower than a lighter ball - not been observed.

"Is it common sense to imagine quantum entanglement?"

How exactly has it been demonstrated? Has it been conclusively demonstrated?

[Could have added: what is it anyway?]

"Or the wave-particle duality of light?"

Like the 10²² times crossing of a nucleus, this has not been directly observed.

Wave but not particle is as far as common sense is concerned preferrable once diffraction has been shown. Until you take Michelson Morley in a Heliocentric way, hat tip to Sungenis for that one.

"Or the effect of observation on the interactions of electrons through a double-slit?"

How do you observe even ONE electron when the smallest microscopy is electronic microscopy

"All those might be common sense to a super genius, Jake."

Never said that they were. I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these things are proven and correctly proven - or not.

"I am a Buddhist if you want to update your blog. "

Will.

"We aren't attacking common sense. We are ordering it below scientific inquiry."

And thereby ordering it wrong, too low, which is to attack it.

Common sense must say whether a certain enquiry is scientific about a certain question as either opposed to another enquiry being more scientific or the same enquiry actually answering another question

"Is the idea of an atom common sense? It took being able to indirectly observe it in an electron microscope to get people to rally behind that idea."

It is common sense that if electronic microscopy is reliable, then water consists (at least partly, not denying aether is part of it too) of molecules made up of one bigger globe and two smaller ones.

It is not common sense to say we know electrons are particles and come in shells around a nucleus. Unless you reason it through to arrive there

"Common sense is fine for most of the problems we have in life. There are limits to it. Reason and science pick up where common sense leaves off." - "Exactly, common sense is used to deal with common situations, we have evolved to cope with them so of course our brains will be adapted in that way."

You are in fact attacking reason itself.

Reasoning means to string intuitive common sense insights together so that what was not intuitive ultimately becomes so. Reasoning rightly means using correct logic while doing so.

Even if one were to make a mistake by supposing a false premiss while reasoning logically, and therefore arrived at a false conclusion, the exercise would not be futile, since a correction of facts and a correct memory of logical steps gone through can inspire a new correct reasoning and therefore a new correct conclusion.

"However we did not evolve with any kind of selective pressure to understand sub-atomic particles or supernovae, zeptoseconds or billions of years, micrometers per hour or light speed - that is why these things are unintuitive; we have evolved to consider that middle ground which we inhabit, not the extremes that we now understand."

If this were so, you would have no reason to say you understand any of it.

"Then tell us about the common sense approach to telescopic lensing."

To understand what needs to be done, and to calculate after that understanding. It is common sense that a complex task takes complex calculations (or a lot of simple ones, but complex if taken together - or even simplified by a mathematician who has made complex calculations simple for scientists).

What is NOT common sense is to start calculating before you know what there is to calculate.

You do no calculations about telescopic lensing in order to decide whether you trust your naked eye.

"Or you can keep complaining that we aren't using our common sense and that we lack it because we disagree."

I was indeed complaining and am still doing so, about your lack of common sense in trying to impose a method before it has common-sensically been decided if it is the right one.

What we see through telescopes, we see either from earth or from a point near earth.

I know very little about astronomy as seen from Mars, but I did learn the four lightyears to Proxima Centauri have not been confirmed by observing parallax from Mars.

I have no definite idea on whether even "annual aberrration" has been confirmed from Mars.

Now, if we had both from Earth and from Mars, we would know at least one is moving.

But insofar as we have only from Earth (which is the case for parallax), we cannot tell from there whether our standing point for observations is moving annually, or whether both Sun and Proxima Centauri are. In the latter case, we cannot tell whether they move just in time or even in tandem.

In other words, we have no definite reason that stands up to common sense, to good logic applied to undisputable observations, to assume either Proxima Centauri is 4 light years away OR that we are moving through space.

"Also there are no secret discussions in the private group, it is literally just posts of papers with a brief headline of them, you'd be lucky to find 1 or 2 comments under it."

OK, but as I am not part, I do not know which these papers are and cannot decide whether to answer them or not.

While you can spread a paper to 16 different people and I can come up against it time after time in discussions with different ones of them or with their contacts.

That is where I tried to be more fair to you than your side is to us.

MC

// Never said that they were. I said common sense primes this, in the sense it has a last say whether one believes these things are right, these things are proven and correctly proven - or not.//

Common "senses" or common sense? They aren't the same thing.

Appealing to the eyes is not the same as appealing to common sense. I know why one would palm this card in the argument.

// "Or the effect of observation on the interactions of electrons through a double-slit?"

How do you observe even ONE electron when the smallest microscopy is electronic microscopy? //

Here, again, the eye is not common sense. Saving the appearances is the phrase that describes what you're talking about. Common sense is more like folk wisdom.

Milton (Paradise Lost, Book 8) as an exemplary exposition of the conception of Saving the Appearances:

Or if they list to try
Conjecture, he his fabric of the heavens
Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide
Hereafter, when they come to model heaven,
And calculate the stars; how they will wield
The mighty frame; how build, unbuild, contrive,
To save the appearances; how gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.

(SA 48; my italics [where?])

HGL

I was very exactly referring to common sense (sg) when saying it would trust the eye, except what should be accepted. Even if eyes are in your terminology one of the "common" - usually referred to as one of the "five" - senses.

Saving the appearances is not what I am talking about, probably you are tired after too much meditation.

[I am tired after waking too early, wrote « mediation » instead of « meditation »]

I was saying one cannot observe even one electron.

I have no doubt you have somehow deduced it. But "somehow" may be proof to you, it is not to me, since I can suspect your deduction was faulty.

That scepticism in face of bold claims of "deducing the cigar brand from the ashes" is also common sense, just as the general trust in eyes is.

Sorry, you are not scoring high now …

And pretending to give me language lessons will not help you out with all readers

Saving appearances is one task on any theory which as far as it goes has a pretty stark contrast to them. Like Heliocentrism.

Not saving the appearances means a theory is damned (in its shape) if contradicting visible evidence.

For instance, appearance of flatness on land is saved by observation that very small angles look like parallel lines or that angles differring very little from 180° look like line just continuing straight on.

It remains a task of any scientific theory, but before we "save the appearances" instead of adherring to them at face value, I like some proof they are if ever so marginally misleading.

And before I accept a certainly not directly appearing fact, I like some proof it is validly deduced from facts that do appear.

Came to Defeat Modernism FB Page

Found a status linking to:

Papal Encyclicals : Pope St Pius X : PRAESTANTIA SCRIPTURAE
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10prasc.htm

Dialogue:

HGL

"Wherefore we find it necessary to declare and to expressly prescribe, and by this our act we do declare and decree that all are bound in conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Commission relating to doctrine, which have b een given in the past and which shall be given in the future, in the same way as to the decrees of the Roman congregations approved by the Pontiff; nor can all those escape the note of disobedience or temerity, and consequently of grave sin, who in speech or writing contradict such decisions, and this besides the s candal they give and the other reasons for which they may be responsible before God for other temerities and errors which generally go with such contradictions."

Obedience to this decree in the part saying "and which shall be given in the future" obviously has a "best before" date. Possibly as early as 1943.

DM

There is no expiration date to unchanging Truth.

HGL

"future decrees" does not equal unchanging truth, it equals disciplinary rule.

DM

What is heretical is always heretical, period. St Pius X clearly states that modernism is the synthesis of ALL heresies and therfore logically is not a disciplinary rule but an eternal condemnation that has NO expiration date.

HGL

I agree modernism is ALWAYS heretical. I do not agree Bible commission is ALWAYS orthodox as the holy Pope counted on. Or do you consider the Bible experts of Bergoglio as obliging the Catholics in conscience also?

The Biblical commission was not instituted by Christ or the Twelve Apostles, but by a Pope recently before Pope Saint Pius X [or by himself at the latest]. Therefore it cannot be "de fide", it must be disciplinary.

How I answered Mike P with Scripture on Catholicism

John Gideon Hartnett

• Who are geocentrists in this community?
  
  
• If you are what is your number 1 reason for being so?
  
  
• If a bible verse then give me your 1 only 1 best verse.

Wes

Hi John, I'm a geocentrist mainly because I believe the literal reading of scripture, as enforced by the Catholic Church's authoritative stance on the issue. Funny thing is, back when I was a Protestant investigating the Catholic Church, I ran across Bob's book, Galileo Was Wrong-The Church Was Right, and was immediately intrigued by it. I didn't buy the book until some time later, but now that I have it, I'm confident in saying that I believe in geocentrism not only because scripture teaches it but because the science backs it as well. If you haven't got the book, you're missing out. I think it's very well written in that it appeals to both the beginner and the scholar, and, as expected, it's loaded with footnotes. At any rate, you should check it out.

I missed a lot

of the ensuing debate (and Wes's answer, and will be missing some more which is more astronomy/Bible than Catholicism/Bible) up to:

Mike P [SDA, lawyer]

While you and we are at it, Christopher, though this isn't the intent of this group, since we're getting down into the basics of geo- vs. helio- and you've stated some Catholic Church positions as if they are authoritative of the matter, doesn't the Church also approve of praying to Mary the Holy Mother? If not, please clarify for me what her role is. Isn't the rosary a form of prayer?

For me, she's certainly not part of the Trinity and while she is to be deeply respected and honored for being the earthly motherhood vessel for Christ, nowhere does Scripture identify her as being holy, and she most certainly shouldn't be the subject of worship or even be considered an intercessor in any shape, manner or form. What do you say as to her role in the church?

Finally, how can one even call the Pope our Savior's representative on earth? Nowhere did Christ ever indicate or delegate ANY MORTAL to be His "representative," either pre- or post-crucifixion and -resurrection. Even if the Holy Spirit, the Helper, were to be deemed His representative, He is also part of the Trinity and is Himself holy. There is nothing "human" about the Holy Spirit; He is divine and infallible. Even the brightest and most moral of us humans (if we can truly label any of us as such) is neither divine nor infallible.

What's bothering me is the linkage being made here between the Catholic Church and geocentrism and their AUTHORITY to make that a spiritual doctrine, an exegesis if you will, when Scripture itself in my view doesn't demand that whatsoever, and is silent on the issue of geo- vs. helio-. For me, this linkage is being made eisegetically rather than exegetically.

Normally, discussion of this kind belongs in the Discussion Group, but not when we're dealing here with Astronomy and where geocentrism and the Catholic Church are being authoritatively coupled together to give geocentrism a spiritual overtone.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but this is what I see happening here.

Hans-Georg Lundahl (answering John Gideon)

• 1) I for one.
  
  
• 2) Does away with Distant Starlight Problem AND with "Heaven and Hell are in other dimensions" (than the three).
  
  
• 3) Joshua's words to Sun and Moon (and not to Earth).

Hans-Georg Lundahl (answering Mike P)

"Isn't the rosary a form of prayer?"

Yes, but not of adoration, as far as the Hail Mary's are concerned.

The Our Fathers before a string of Hail Mary's and the Glory Be:s after such one are acts of adoration, adressed to "Our Father" or explicitly to the Holy Trinity and not to Mary.

"nowhere does Scripture identify her as being holy"

Henceforward all generations shall call me blessed. Blessed art thou among women.

I shall put enmities between thee and the woman, between thy seed and the woman's seed.

Enmity between Satan and Mary means she never sinned.

"and she most certainly shouldn't be the subject of worship"

Not of adoration, no. But of dulia, even hyperdulia.

How is it that the mother of my Lord comes to me?

"even be considered an intercessor in any shape, manner or form."

Marriage of Cana - who interceded for the bridegroom?

"What do you say as to her role in the church?"

As much Queen of Heavenly Jerusalem while Christ rules there, as Bathseba was Queen of Earthly Jerusalem under the reign of Solomon.

Interceding for the people of God before her Son, precisely as Queen Esther interceded for the people of God before her husband (Persia unlike Judah counted wives rather than mothers as Queens).

"Finally, how can one even call the Pope our Savior's representative on earth? Nowhere did Christ ever indicate or delegate ANY MORTAL to be His "representative," either pre- or post-crucifixion and -resurrection."

He who hears ye, hears me, and hears him who sent me.

Spoken to the Twelve or the Seventy, of whom Peter was one.

[Actually, as I saw when looking it up: to the Seventy]

I am with ye all days until the consummation of all time.

Spoken to the Eleven (Twelve minus Judas the Traitor) of which Peter was one.

Feed my lambs.

Spoken to Peter at Genesareth.

"Even if the Holy Spirit, the Helper, were to be deemed His representative, He is also part of the Trinity and is Himself holy. There is nothing "human" about the Holy Spirit; He is divine and infallible."

Correct. But the Spirit came down to the Twelve (Eleven plus Matthias), of which Peter was one. He was also the one of them who spoke longest and the one of them whose sermon is recorded.

Since then the Holy Spirit is transmitted by their hands and the hands of their successors.

"Even the brightest and most moral of us humans (if we can truly label any of us as such) is neither divine nor infallible."

Except when the Holy Ghost is speaking through him or her. Prophetically in a charismatic way, as through Elisabeth and Mary.

Or prophetic in respect of someone's office, like through Caiaphas when for the last time a Cohen was certainly prophet when he said "it is better that one man die" (though he meant it in a more cynic way) or through Peter on Pentecost Day for the first time speaking through a Pope. Due to his office.

"What's bothering me is the linkage being made here between the Catholic Church and geocentrism and their AUTHORITY to make that a spiritual doctrine, an exegesis if you will, when Scripture itself in my view doesn't demand that whatsoever, and is silent on the issue of geo- vs. helio-. For me, this linkage is being made eisegetically rather than exegetically."

As a Catholic I of course DO believe the Catholic Church has authority to make exegesis.

But as a scholar (if you like, of sorts) I am more convinced by St Robert Bellarmine take on Joshua than by Galileo's.

Especially since I see another aspect to Joshua. What did the human miracle-maker adress his public and audible words to? Earth? Or Sun and Moon. As already stated.

"where geocentrism and the Catholic Church are being authoritatively coupled together to give geocentrism a spiritual overtone."

I am perfectly aware that I am adressing a mostly Protestant public here and have argued the case on exegetical and scientific merits that I deem accessible even to Protestants.

But these are of course free to interpret this as my being brainwashed by RC authority (even though Geocentrism puts me in conflict with recent apparent Popes and leaves me either the alternative to seek out a Pope who's Geocentric - Pope Michael, whose Vatican in Exile is in Kansas - or, before accepting him as Pope, to have a very strained relation to people I did accept as such or a strained relation to the question of Papal succession, while considering Papacy vacant) and they are also free to ignore my actual words by interpreting them in the light of my supposed motivation as a Catholic. CSL called that Bulverism.

Jere

Error 404. No Bible references to be found.

Example:

"Do not be quick in spirit to be angry. For anger is in the heart of fools."

- Ecclesiastes 7:9 (New Life Version)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If you knew your Bible as well as YOU pretend to, you would have identified my quotes from memory. And given the references like book, chapter and verse.

I am a Catholic, I am not totally in that culture.

So, does that mean I gave no Bible quotes? I did, I just did not give book chapter or verse for them. For one of them I was even unsure if it was spoken to the seventy or to the twelve. But it is there in the Gospel.

Btw, was the reference you gave as an example chosen so as to backhandedly rebuke a supposed anger in me? I said every thing I said with some irritation at the bad tone I thought I detected in ex-Catholic Hartnett's original question and very clearly detected in Pincher's tirade. But I also said every thing I said as things I would have said a clear sunny day to a friend whom I considered as honestly enquiring. That should answer any questions as to whether I was quick to be angry here.

Jere

It seems you were bothered by that request. You claimed that I am a pretender. Good. Go with that. Ride that train. Make baseless accusations.

Sigh.

I don't think you knew what the request intended. Anyone sharing verses need to put down the location so that all people reading here can refer back to what one are talking about. It's about being polite and pleasant.

Hans said: "Btw, was the reference you gave as an example chosen so as to backhandedly rebuke a supposed anger in me?"

That wasn't my intention. I have a little booklet called "The Bible Promise book" sitting next to me as part of my study, and I used a passage from there.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If you did not intend it to hit me, someone else was praying for me to get such rebukes. I am wondering how long God will allow this to continue.

Now, as to your "Anyone sharing verses need to put down the location" - I am not a part of the Protestant culture, I am 46 and not getting reeducated.

In Biblical times, for instance St Paul (or St Barnabas) writing to Hebrews, it was customary to cite from memory as to events, and on one occasion it was cited from Tradition not Scripture, like when the author gave the names of the two Pharaonic magicians.

(2 Timothy 3:8 - I just searched for it in OT, where Jannes and Mambres are not to be found).

So, I will do the searches for you.

Joshua's words:

Joshua 10:12.

Mary holy:

Luke 1:48, Luke 1:42/1:28, Genesis 3:15

Elisabeth's reverence for Mary,

Luke 1:43

Mary interceding at Cana,

John 2:3

Solomon hearing intercession of Bathseba:

3 Kings 2:18 - 20

Persian King hearing Esther

- see her book.

Christ's words to the Seventy:

Luke 10:16

To the Eleven

Matthew 28:18-20

To Peter,

John 21:17.

Now, you spoke of politeness, it was not polite to exact references if you knew where the passages were from, and it was not knowledgeable of you, if you didn't.

You see, Catholics and Protestants have different ideas about how one is polite and pleasant. A normal person, who does not specialise in memorising Bible verses, will more easily recall what is written than "where" in the reference way, more easily when in Jesus' life than in what Gospel and even more so chapter.

To me it is less than perfectly polite and pleasant to be exclusive against those who cannot CITE the Bible the way you do. Or who cannot do so everytime spontaneously. I was not preparing an essay, I was answering in some hurry some baseless accusations against Catholicism and its supposedly being unbiblical.

Matt

As far as the catholic thing. I was not attracted Geo-centricity because of Catholicism, By no means! I personally hold that Roman Catholicism is Heresy and Will gladly have a formal debate with anyone who teaches it. (preferably recorded on my radio show That being said, it is not fair to dismiss geo-centricity on the grounds of association with Catholicism. It is like dismissing YEC on the grounds of 7th day adventism. Or dismissing evangelism for being associated with the baptist church. This is the genetic fallacy. something is not true or false just because the opposition agrees to it.

Jere

I said: "Anyone sharing verses need to put down the location so that all people reading here can refer back to what one are talking about. "

=> I hope you can see I was making a general statement. Others who posted before you were not citing scriptures. It wasn't wholly intended for you.

I said: "It's about being polite and pleasant."

=> Err, I was choosing my words carefully. Well, more abstractly. Maybe the meaning was lost in translation. I was intending to say, to anyone, please make citations so no one can accuse you of making stuff up. Kindly, though. Even Atheists (and by extension F.S.M. worshipers) cite Bible verses.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl

Also, it may have been lost in a sea of posts, but I and Lea Greenall were asking for verses pertaining to the alleged verses that support Geocentrism. Kindly. Not the verses you made in retort to Mike P's statements, though I would imagine he would appreciate them just the same.

Matt (in answer to a Cameron I missed)

Isaiah 38:7-8Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

7 And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken; 8 behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Oh, as to verses supporting Geocentrism, I thought you knew very well what chapter of Joshua I meant!

As said, 100 esp v 12

Sorry, computer hitch, 10 (not 100 obviously) especially verse 12.

In verse 13, the result given can be explained as "from standpoint of the Earth and its observers", though this would not be strictly true as St Robert observed, if Earth only stopped rotating around its axis, Moon would have been moving on for a sensible angle during the 12 extra hours or especially 24 extra hours if such.

But in verse 12 Heliocentrics are basically asking us to believe Joshua wanted Earth to stop spinning and instead of adressing Earth in the name of God he adressed Sun and Moon. After talking to God, before all of the people who heard him adress Sun and Moon.

FSM worshippers?

Ah, Matt, thank you!

Now, Cameron, if Sun getting back ten degrees had been Earth returning on rotation, why no jerk felt? Of course, God could have made an extra miracle. BUT in this case also we have an indication in the words of a man making a miracle on behalf of God (i e making a miraculous offer to Hezekiah) that it was indeed the Sun that changed direction way far up above us (and astronomers can tell you how far) so we felt no jerk.

Ah, FSM as in Flying Spaghetti Monster! I get it!

They might be a bit more likely to dig out the verses themselves and try to make fun of us by presuming Heliocentrism to be *so obviously* true etc. But I always keep forgetting what chapter of Isaiah the second sun miracle is. Sorry for that.

Mike P

Hans-Georg Lundahl: "I said every thing I said with some irritation at the bad tone I thought I detected in ex-Catholic Hartnett's original question and very clearly detected in Pincher's tirade."

I assume English isn't your first language if you construe what I said as a tirade with an obvious "bad tone." It was a straight inquiry and nothing more or less than that. [sic scripsit!]

There was at least one poster here who clearly intimated that geocentrism has operative force simply because the "authoritative" Catholic Church says it does. I dispute that "authority" and still do.

There are a number of Catholics among our members. They don't resort to this "authority" line of argument for the church. Nobody else should either. Now if my point is a "tirade" to you Hans-Georg Lundahl you need to go back to the drawing board.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"It was a straight inquiry and nothing more or less than that."

It included a lot of allegations against the Catholic Faith and by way of ignorance of the Bible. [Vide ut supra!]

And it came in the form of a series of accusations, starting with an accusation of idolatry against the Rosary. If that is NOT an illmannered tirade, I don't know what is.

If anyone said that Geocentrism is authoritative because the Catholic Church says so, I agree, but that is not the kind of point I am making here. If I am however challenged on it, yes I am fully willing to admit with pride that I am also submitting to the judgement of Inquisitors that was in relation to Galileo confirmed by Pope Urban VIII, because I do very much submit to that authority.

If however someone admitted it before, as I do here, when directly asked about it, in that case Mike P, it was off topic on your part to not just draw attention to the fact, but even do it in an accusatory manner - off topic that is UNLESS you hold that any reason given by a Catholic from Bible or from undisputed scientific or commonplace facts must be a mere camouflage for a "Catholic agenda". Whether it was off topic or leading up to an accusation, it was a bad mannered tirade. If you find a better word in English for tirade, do let me know!

(Bad mannered, ill mannered, wonder what is the better word in English ... Swedish has "ohyfsad" ...)

Now, apart from your tirade having been ill mannered and your defense of it hypocritical, and apart from your having tried to paint it out my English is too bad to make my meaning clear (which is also very "ohyfsadt" - whether you translate it as bad mannered or ill mannered - of you), if you really do feel in your conscience a real justification for accusing any Catholic submitting to earlier Popes (and to Pope Michael but not to Bergoglio!) in being Geocentric to wilfully or by way of brainwashing distort Biblical implications and distort sensorial and logical evidence, there are two things I would like to say about that too:

• that is as an attitude extremely ill mannered towards anyone, I am not even taking it against Watchtower society or against eLLen goVLD VVhIte fans and don't relish taking it;
  
  
• PLUS that is how YEC position very probably was expelled from Protestant mainstream back when one yer after Darwin's Origin of the Species the Catholic priest George Leo Haydock published a perfectly YEC and optionally even Geocentric Bible commentary. Precisely as Geocentrism had been driven out of Protestant mainstream before it.

Anticatholicism and Protestantism is the lever in the fall that is called The Great Apostasy.

Just checked Mike P, the guy who invoked Catholic authority actually said: "because I believe the literal reading of scripture, as enforced by the Catholic Church's authoritative stance on the issue."

A question posed by John Gideon Hartnett.

So, he was not trying to impose on you non-Catholics any submission to Catholic authority, he was mentioning it enforced a literal reading of Scripture (as some of you do also) and answering a question.

After that the tirade of Mike P was extremely ill mannered (or bad mannered, if that is the better word in English, which as you say is not my first language, only my third).

Lea Greenall [a female SDA pastor]

How about you stick to the scriptures relating to geocentricism instead of a diatribe on your defense of a flawed roman catholic system. After all, the thread was asking fro scriptural references.

I completely understand that roman catholics say [sic!] that tradition and what the pope states can, and usually does out-trump what the bible says, but the OP did ask for scriptural reference.

[See how she is putting words in our mouths - saying we "say" - that are neither what Wes nor what I said, and completely ignoring what we actually did say!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

How about Mike P leaving a mention of the supposedly flawed Roman Catholic system by Wes as a mention, without doing a long diatribe against it THEN, Lea Greenall? Is that unreasonable?

As to verse, I give Joshua 10:12 - the actual words of Joshua being adressed to Sun and Moon when performing the miracle that happened next verse.

Already debated with Vy on other thread.