maybe im a little slow but i don't see how that tortoise thing proves anything
EDIT : oh wait i think get the point, but it sounds like one of those sneaky math tricks to avoid the notion of infinite
maybe im a little slow but i don't see how that tortoise thing proves anything
EDIT : oh wait i think get the point, but it sounds like one of those sneaky math tricks to avoid the notion of infinite
I don't accept this premise. Why is it true? "If time and space are both a continua, then the man WILL overtake the tortoise" is just as easy to say.Originally Posted by Non Serviam
The time it takes is finite while the smallest known unit of measure can be infinitely divided into smaller units. Try a scenario where the man attempts to over take the hare and see where that ends up.
Zeno is a quack!
Last edited by Blood; 01-29-2010 at 09:45 AM.
"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
Thomas Paine
^ that's what i was thinking but you said it much better
Speaking of time, how long does it usually take for a new thread to post over here?
"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
Thomas Paine
if by "over here" you mean the debate section, new threads are few and far between.
start one if you have something in particular you want to debate/discuss
Oh I did, yesterday, but it still hasn't appeared. I seem to recall it only took a couple of hours not days.
"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
Thomas Paine
oh, if that's the case then PM a moderator to approve it. sometimes things slip between the cracks. Non Serviam, Hawke and Tiamat are the more active mods
Everything in science is tentative. From a scientific point of view, I am a tentative advocate of ID/creationism (not because of what I don't know but because of what I do know), but that is not the same thing as a belief in God, which is the foundation of a worldview and for most people won't stand on one pillar of supporting evidence alone. Evolution is one of the weakest you could have picked on, Non, because many people dispute that (rightly or wrongly), but a good illustration of your point is general relativity or Newtonian mechanics. Theories that are observable, testable, repeatable (and pass those tests) are taken to be accurate up to a significant percentage. Other theories, no matter how good they seem, such as historical sciences, cannot ever be taken as even approaching fact, which brings up some interesting questions from a philosophy of science point of view.Scientific theories are never proven. They can only be disproven. This is Popper at his finest.
Even evolution is not proven. The creationists could be right.
Quantum electrodynamics is unique among scientific theories, though, owing to its awesome predictive power. ("Awesome" is an overused word that has lost some of its earlier force. Here, I say "awesome" with all due forethought and I mean it in its old-fashioned sense.)
In other words, quantum electrodynamics diverges from observed reality to a much lesser degree than any other scientific theory ever devised.
Where I am sure you'd agree with me is that we must not be dogmatic about anything, because as is often the case, our presuppositions influence the way we interpret evidence most heavily when we're most dogmatic about the accuracy of our claims. (Ahem, Richard Dawkins, ahem). Not that I am exempt from such offences.
The wealth of knowledge that we do have of quantum mechanics, seems to serve an important lesson here in enlightening us as to how little we really do know about the things we know about.
Last edited by Mermaid on the breakwater; 01-31-2010 at 08:52 AM.
Yeah. Science should just give up.Everything in science is tentative. From a scientific point of view, I am a tentative advocate of ID/creationism (not because of what I don't know but because of what I do know), but that is not the same thing as a belief in God, which is the foundation of a worldview and for most people won't stand on one pillar of supporting evidence alone. Evolution is one of the weakest you could have picked on, Non, because many people dispute that (rightly or wrongly), but a good illustration of your point is general relativity or Newtonian mechanics. Theories that are observable, testable, repeatable (and pass those tests) are taken to be accurate up to a significant percentage. Other theories, no matter how good they seem, such as historical sciences, cannot ever be taken as even approaching fact, which brings up some interesting questions from a philosophy of science point of view.
Where I am sure you'd agree with me is that we must not be dogmatic about anything, because as is often the case, our presuppositions influence the way we interpret evidence most heavily when we're most dogmatic about the accuracy of our claims. (Ahem, Richard Dawkins, ahem). Not that I am exempt from such offences.
The wealth of knowledge that we do have of quantum mechanics, seems to serve an important lesson here in enlightening us as to how little we really do know about the things we know about.
Clasping music where you can,
dance to the movements of your habitat
behind silence and slight of hand.
Just for the record (non & mermaid), evolution has been and remains proven; it is the popular theory of which - missing 756,864 trillion links - that's still somewhat of a mystery. Also for the record, there's no way in hell creationist could be right as they are all too stoopid looking!
"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
Thomas Paine
It's not a premise, it's a conclusion. The premises are "men exist", "tortoises exist", and "men move faster than tortoises". The subject being tested is the granularity or otherwise of the universe.
Easiest to explain if I post it as an example.
Example question: A tortoise is 5 metres ahead of a man. The tortoise is moving at 1 metre per hour, and the man is moving at twice that speed. When does the man overtake the tortoise?
After 1 hour, the tortoise has moved 1 metre forward and the man has moved two metres forward. So the man is 4 metres behind the tortoise.
After 2 hours, the man is 3 metres behind, and after 3 hours, the man is 2 metres behind. After 4 hours, the man is one metre behind.
If the universe is granular, then the man overtakes the tortoise in hour 5, at which point both are 10 metres ahead of the place where the man started.
If the universe is not granular, then there is no time at which the man overtakes the tortoise. In order to understand this, you have to zoom in and examine what happens at the 4 hour, 59 minute, 59 second mark.
The man moves forward 2 arbitrary distance units, and the tortoise moves forward 1. The tortoise is still ahead of the man.
Then in the next half-second, the man moves forward 1 arbitrary distance unit, and the tortoise moves forward half of one. The tortoise is still ahead of the man.
In the next quarter-second, the man moves forward a half and the tortoise moves forward a quarter. Tortoise still ahead here, folks.
In the next eighth-of-a-second, the tortoise is still ahead. Notice that the distance between the man and the tortoise is halving with each iteration?
At what point does halving the tortoise's lead mean that it becomes nil? That's the point when the man overtakes the tortoise.
But if the universe is a continuum, then that point is never reached, because no matter how many times you halve the tortoise's lead, it never actually becomes zero. It can only reach zero if there's a minimum unit of distance.
QED.
Zeno's paradox is actually very beautiful, mathematically speaking, and hopefully a real mathematician will come along to explain it more clearly than I have.
I can love my fellow man, but I'm damned if I'll love yours.
Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Who proved it and when?
I can love my fellow man, but I'm damned if I'll love yours.
Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Nature and all the time. It's how all living things adapt. Are you playing the Devil's advocate?
Last edited by Blood; 02-01-2010 at 08:30 AM.
"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
Thomas Paine
Conclusions do not begin with an "if" or a "then"; that is indicative of a conditional argument from which two conclusions can be drawn:Your premise is: [If] time and space are a continua, [then] the man will never overtake the tortoise.
Your conclusions are: Time and space ARE a continua, [therefore] the man WILL NEVER overtake the tortoise.Or
Time and space ARE NOT a continua, [therefore] the man WILL overtake the tortoise.Now you could just as easily state; “[If] time and space are butter, [then]…” and it wouldn't make any more or less sense then your premise.
If the argument isn't both sound and valid, then the math behind it is just for fun and games...like a card trick.
Edit: If time and space are finite, then what's beyond that? Jelly?
Last edited by Blood; 02-01-2010 at 10:49 AM.
"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
Thomas Paine
He's just being realistic. Certain aspects of evolution are fact, others aren't. It's a long debate.
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