On 07 Jul 2012, at 19:40, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyi <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hawking and Mlodinow start with the statement that free will is
illusion
If they said that, and I don't recall that they did, they were being
much too kind in equating the "free will" noise to something as
concrete as illusion.
It depends on the definition.
> An interesting question is however, where resulting visual mental
concepts are located.
I find it about as interesting as asking where "big" or the number
eleven is located and shows the same profound misunderstanding of
the situation on so many different levels that it's hard to know
where to begin.
OK.
“Today we know that helium and lithium, atoms whose nuclei contain
two and three protons, were also primordially synthesized, in much
smaller amounts, when the universe was about 200 seconds old.”
> However, is this knowledge or a belief? Assume that there was Big
Bang described by the M-theory as supposed by the book.
The Big Bang does not need anything as exotic as M-theory to make
that prediction, from just humdrum nuclear physics, the same ideas
that made the H-bomb, we can calculate that if the universe started
from 100% hydrogen, the simplest element, that was at several
hundred billion degrees Centigrade then in about 200 seconds as a
result of fusion reactions you'd have 74.9% Hydrogen 24.9% Helium
and .01% deuterium and 10^-10 % Lithium, and you can calculate that
in the in 13.7 bullion years since then these percentages should
have changed very little, and when know that these are exactly the
observed values we see today. This is far too good a agreement for
it to be coincidence.
Some people mean by "Big Bang": the origin of the universe. I have few
doubt that we share a reality with a big explosion sometimes ago, but
I am quite neutral on the idea that this is the beginning of the (even
just physical) story. And it is the not the beginning of the non
physical story (arithmetic).
> It well might be that philosophers are less informed about the M-
theory but
Forget M-theory, most professional philosophers are totally ignorant
about ANY of the huge philosophical developments that have happened
in the last 150 years; they know nothing about Quantum Mechanics or
Relativity or the profound works of Godel or Turing, they know that
DNA has something to do with heredity but could not tell you exactly
what or how it works, they don't even know it's digital; they've
heard of Darwin but have only the haziest understanding of what he
said and have even less interest in it; maybe they know the Universe
is expanding but the knowledge that it's accelerating hasn't
trickled down to them yet because that was only discovered 15 years
ago and they're slow learners; they don't even know that light is a
wave of electric and magnetic fields or understand simple classical
mechanics and prefer to talk about the worst physicist who ever
lived, Aristotle. In short most modern philosophers are
philosophical ignoramuses.
I can agree, and I think this comes from the abandon of the scientific
attitude in the human science, since theology get transfered from the
academy to the "political argument from authority".
It is the passage from "?" to "!".
> In the book, there are many statements against religion.
Thank God!
Indeed.
I mean if "religion" is identify with some of its terrestrial current
manifestation, those using argument from authority.
> comments in Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow,
“Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is
dead.
Philosophy isn't dead but professional philosophers are as good as,
they haven't made a contribution to our understanding of how the
world works in centuries, scientists and mathematicians have had to
pick up the slack.
By method they do rigorous philosophy implicitly, except some times in
the intro and conclusion of papers. They do bad philosophy when they
talk philosophy, as they imitate the philosophers who does bad
philosophy "professionally".
Philosophy should not be taught by words. It can be taught only
through the art, music, novel, movies, fictions, ... Nobody can think
at your place. Philosophy, and a part of theology, are private things.
Inspiration is possible, but communication miss the points.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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