(1) The # of possible neural connections is almost certainly not uncountably infinite. There are different sizes of infinity, and the # of neural connections would be at most countably infinite.

(2) @#43 Brett: You say “Umm. No. Gravity exists. It’s effect is absolute and measurable.”

Be careful here. There was a time, not too long ago, when folks would have said the same about epicycles or ether. (The whole problem with ether was that its effect was not absolute and measurable, you say? Sure, but people also thought its effect was measurable. Specifically, they saw the wave nature of light, and they “knew” that any wave must be waving in something. That something was ether. They weren’t raving lunatics; their belief was informed by measurement. They were simply mistaken, as later experiments showed.

I’m not sure I’d want to be the one stamping my foot for posterity, insisting that gravity is real. Clearly, there’s something that we mean by the word “gravity” that is consistent with many observations we have made. (Same was true of epicycles and ether.) But is that something ultimately “real”, at the end of the day? Is centrifugal force real? From one perspective, sure. From another perspective, it’s simply a fictitious force that is the sensible result of an observer who’s obeying Newton’s first law being forced to deviate from his/her uniform path. A very similar thing is true of gravity.

3. @107 Arnold — I almost entirely agree.

I think this is completely wrong.

I don’t believe a statement of only 140 characters (or 97 in this case) can be “completely” anything. Granted I’m only an engineer and not as educated in knee-jerk response theory as some of my scientific colleagues seem to be (at least on the intrawebic blogodyne,) but my natural response to seemingly bizarre, but out-of-context utterances by persons I have no reason to suspect of irrationality is never “Wow, what a moron,” (though I’m sure my life would be much easier if it were.)

When confonted with a statement that sounds bizarre, my first inclination is to try to ask what I’m missing (emphasis on the “I”) and the more bizarre the statement, the more certain this response. Is there missing context? Is the speaker using their words in the same way I’m using them? Do they mean to say what it sounds like they’re saying ? That’s not to say I won’t end up concluding they’re a nitwit/lunatic/charlatan/all of the above, but it’s seldom if ever my starting place. (and sometimes I end up learning something.)

It’s disappointing and frustrating to see this self-serving form of skepticism repeatedly practiced and promoted by supposedly scientifically educated bloggers and commenters. Skepticism of others is easy, but skepticism about one’s own dear theories and insights is likely to be far more useful.

Now perhaps there was more to this conversation or his relationship to this Tweeter than Phil lets on and he stands here falsely accused, but none of the bandwagon here know that.

So,
Gravity may well exist. But if we can’t describe it, it’s hardly objective. And we can’t possible know it’s [sic] meaning.?
Universal Ur-Truth or PoMo garbage? I have no idea, but I do know that the most effective form of skepticism begins at home.

@Renée:
Save your refutations and definitions. The best argument that the world in general and scientists in particular need philosophy is to be found right here on this page.

As I noted above, I can’t recall where I read it. A quick search led to the name Gerald Edelman, a Nobel winning physiologist. However I’m not sure if he originated the number or how it came to be calculated. I would take it with a grain or two of salt.

A few object lessons like that may eventually earn you a thump in the ear, but they sure have a heck of a time explaining away their sore behind, and even more so their response to it.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the total number of possible neural connections in the brain would be greater than the sum total of all elementary particles in the universe.

I’d be interested in a citation for that.

on realities; the base of the omnipotent: an argument for the differentiation and validity of universal (or objective) reality and personal (or subjective) reality.

Which approach is the most viable?

I don’t have an infinite amount of time or resources to prove something is true.

GAry 7

Human brains are finite in size and resources. There is no reason to believe a human brain can select from an uncountable number of choices.

It may be a product of my finite brainpower, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that the total number of possible neural connections in the brain would be greater than the sum total of all elementary particles in the universe.

So finite, but…whew!!!

You might want to use the same reductionist reasoning on humans too, and say we are nothing more than machines and have no free will, no choice but to obey whatever laws of physics command us.

What do you mean by “free will”?

There is a great deal of evidence that all human behavior is purely the result of neurochemistry. It is extremely unlikely that new physics will be required to explain human behavior.

The laws of physics are not binary; …

What do you mean by “not binary”? A trivial mathematical transformation will produce a binary representation of any number a human brain could conceive of exactly. Numbers that brains cannot conceive exactly – such as pi or e – can be enumerated by a binary code and referred to symbolically. There is every reason to believe the state of a neuron can be represented in bits. (However it seems likely an exact representation would require an awful lot of bits.)

… they don’t say to us “Behave this way or that.” There are huge, perhaps even uncountable numbers of choices that lie before us.

Human brains are finite in size and resources. There is no reason to believe a human brain can select from an uncountable number of choices.

http://www.mayanmajix.com/art1699.html

“Sir Francis Crick used LSD to see the structure of DNA”

What you did was to signify the acceptance of the scientists’ role as aside from the LSD consumption, presumably leaving that to artists and other bums, and that’s a bad thing. Do you expect us to believe that scientists did not invent LSD et al? And, why is it always an “accidental discovery”? Why’s it always a “laboratory curiosity”? Could it be that you would like to leave the notion with us that scientific minds are too sharp and unmuddled as to lace their eyeballs with their own creations?

It matters because the elite eventually must use violence to enforce the harebrained, cowardly and hypocritical implications of researches.

Notice purely aside from the uncontrovertible facts the leading argument that the structure of DNA is the sole comprehensible Nobel Prize. I am sorry, but even the dumb and stupid can see that one. When you are ready for me to name a year for you to explain the chemistry prize for that year, come on back.

When the science is that obvious, you can even do it on drugs.

Now, here’s what you say ( and your paragraphs are stone immaculate):

It is up to scientists to continue to subjectively expand the breadths of science and it is up to the humanists to expand our understanding of human products, which as I said before, includes the laws of science. Certainly there will be some overlap, some artists and writers of the latter part of the 20th century used psychoactive chemicals and scientists can tell us how they change the way an individual perceives the world – an explanation of their products if you will.

I agree, and let me add IF YOU WILL SWALLOW THIS LINE OF PROPAGANDA

Think there might be some slight overlap, do you?

Would you rather be laughed out of town by a simple scientific demonstration or you need me to paint a picture?

Sir Francis Crick was a user, and I am an addict and former user, and I sat at the same table with Crick, to do with Russell Doolittle’s class on the origin of life. I also met Leslie Orgel, and these people are not easy to confront or approach during life, brother. I just grab the easy ones you’ve all heard of, but I wish for you to know all of them who were users, especially the ones from today. Otherwise, I am saying why die at sixty or seventy and you didn’t use? That Carl Sagan was a user.

You can tell from the way they cut their hair and how long they live if they used substances. Their sexual orientation we must allow, but not scientific performance enhancement the end-product of drug use.

It certainly is not like you say it is, and it is certainly wrong down the line somehow.

Renee – Sorry, you left out :
Observation
Experiments
Proof
Repeatability
Objectivity

..And I am sure, quite a few others.

I mentioned Empiricism and within the context of natural science. Perhaps you should look up the definition of Scientific Empiricism or in another term methodological empiricism before telling me what I left out.

That’s all of your numerous posts that I find worth responding to, the rest just sounds as wrong as Phil’s tweet near the start on gravity.

Well coming from a person who listed things that are all part of empiricism, which I mentioned, makes me not inclined to believe anything you have to say.

@figleaf

THANK YOU!

For the record, and for the exact same reasons, religious people who dismiss philosophy are just as wrong and just as dangerous.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a philosopher and certainly not a theologian. But dismissing philosophy is as unprofessional as dismissing analytic geometry.

figleaf

Very number one, way, way above, in abstraction, is the title, to wit: “I Object!”

Since Phil and I were both hearing (and the Internet is what used to be called, “Real Time”) the same piece of argumentation, as follows:

The mainstream media is at least not always being negative. The Internet is full of people who do nothing but complain.

Phil and I hit on objection, the simple courtroom device, in order to substitute for the word, “complaint”. We are still complaining, see?

And we got way afield as far as I am concerned, from what I first said. Take note: The mainstream media will bury us in feel-good messaging while America burns. Phil is really a decent sort, I was pleased as punch to discover, by the simple act of allowing me to grace the comments section of this blog. You are the only one to introduce the suggestion that I be banned. But, you are of a type, or, what we call “typical”, to me and the rest of the pirates aboard ship.

What in the world? What is this ‘us’ that is being commanded by the laws of physics? A soul separate from the particles of my physical self that are (apparently only sometimes) acting according to the laws of physics?

you got this ahead of me:

#

ouldn’t see what to point at. And, you are infected with the ubiquitous bubonic plague. Bite, little flea.
# 110. TheBlackCat Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:13 am

@ steve billinghurst: Be careful, I think you are violating Phil’s “don’t be a jerk” rule, but your posts are so muddled and incomprehensible I am not entirely sure.

nevertheless, you used exactly the “Internet rag” method of dismemberment we are all so familiar with. don’t just claim something’s incomprehensible. Incomprehensible is found together with demoralizing in AA, where if you drink a little bit, you are bound to drink a lot (get stoned), and wake up depressed.

Oh, and I am so sure that “Don’t be a jerk” is not muddled. No, a) I’m going to be a jerk, b) I am sorry you feel I am being a jerk.

I’m giving the contrary argument, to a post on the paranormal. You are welcome to take over and do that now. I could argue either side of anything if that were the assignment, or do you all need reassurance and validification so badly? Little scientists security fragile now?

this is being a jerk.

take evolution and intelligent design to the same receptacle
2. put ‘kluge’ and a law stating anything complex which works came out of something simple which worked FOREMOST
acknowledge the brain is complex

relaize instead of

that apparently its evolutionary built-in to us that we talk

enough to prove it’s you

no, dude. it is alive and does have any opportunity to be built-in in the slightest. Its a work-around. The brain is basically no good since all the subsystems ahve things cabled through, cabling through other parts, and yes, groans and lashes out in paranoia at the slightest straining to comprehend

“apparantly” is one iof those Internet-specific rants of the incredibly hackneyed and useless form of time-killing, mind-bending and overwhelmingly offensive death-rattle of a threat from a safe distance

Steve Billinghurst is listening to “Thus Spake Zarathustra”,….

Perhaps a subscription to Discover magazine would put you on the same page, to the point of discussing the issues of the day.

ESP’s real. It’s always been real. The thing is, it doesn’t serve as capital. It’s a little watery. the CIA is working on death-powered mind rays. see the next issue of Discover.

I’m not going to fix that this time.

Re: “next debate with an astrologer”. I thought astrologers gave us the calendar, without which we would not be very agrarian-reformed.

I’m a reformed Catholic, in an orthodox church. yeah, sounds unbelievable, i know. It’s true.

but, in short, what you are doing (beating on astrologers), is like very pernicious if not actually obsequious youth (appealing to the great unseen moderator) and astrologers probably have umpteen paintings, statues and buildings as monuments (I like the conical hat with the stars), tell you what. I’ll PROVE that that “mortarboard” they wear to graduate is steeped in superstition. wait—

thank you for waiting. It blew up. We have both etiology and etymology, but while the mortarboard of graduation represents the board holding mortar to use to set bricks of a master workman, rather than investigate the tassle, let’s go to the ceremony, “baccalaureate”

In modern U.S. usage, the word usually is short for baccalaureate-sermon (1864), a religious farewell address to the graduating class. …

Okay, that is religious, so in order not to offend religion we call that supernatural, even spiritual, even serene, even reflective, even thoughtful, at which point that is certainly harmless, and to take a break from killing, I believe a general is allowed his reverie. we don’t want to call that superstitious.

I think it is entomology, but in all actuality the phenomenon you are displaying is that of, The Planet of the Apes, given, like I said, we wouldn’t be where we are without astrologers.

yeah, I think you are an insect on a rat, even though we needed the rat or we couldn’t see what to point at. And, you are infected with the ubiquitous bubonic plague. Bite, little flea.

Astrology ????? I bet my mass standing 2 feet from an astrologer has more influence than Jupiter.

Timmy, I assume by “bet”, that I would be accurate in responding, “At least that is something we can measure.”

But, I am not that stupid. Aren’t there vast numbers of arguments which circumvent simpleminded calculations?

“The force diminishes with the square of the distance.”?

Aw, B.S. There’s no theory used to distinguish what an object is, whether an orange or a galaxy ( much less to state how humans are always “putting” and yet “having” OBJECTS, IOW with the properties, possessions or attributes granted to materials, people and inanimate objects).

Love exists, and I’ll tear heaven and earth apart,…or is that hate? Anyway, if I want to do Astrology, I am fond of ominous future events casting their shadow here using the apparition of a comet to give us an omen we may use for planning auspicious occasions much better since I can throw in no less than five words in two lines not counting “future events”, words designed to clash with scientific words.

I speak of the fact you and the “Astrologer” are only standing side-by-side because the earth is pulling both of you, and while you may outpull Earth, you could not be outpulling AGAINST the earth, not to mention that astrology doesn’t use what pulls on astrologers. It uses what pulls on planets, speaking purely gravitationally.

Bent further by this rank dismissal (in the event that paranormal powers are able to effect justice against prejudicial attacks and you got a severe bruising coming on that account—I mean, not knowing is innocence. Conveniently “forgetting” is the order of the day; the fog of war, and I have a belly full of that. It is not innocent. You are both thinking & writing, and 2-3 clicks away from obtaining the information right here somewhere online, see?), we have yes, we don’t know what dark matter may hold galaxies together, …

I looked again at UCSD Physics and the man I want (I’m glad I remembered it’s a man) is ARTHUR M. WOLFE. Now, yes, you can study whole careers and never be required to hit dark matter and still claim “galaxy formation” on your resume (but notice how I feel that is unbelievable); I went there. They’re pedantic. They say, “Any questions?” and you want to say, “Yeah. Why does it take a college degree to do your job?” For next time, that’s ASTROPHYSICS. Oh, and CASS, the CENTER for ASTROPHYSICS. Fine, fine.

Don’t tel fibs, and please leave the future events to unfold rightly and not destroy civilization and say that no one can see the future coming. If it is a war, Jack, you can. Timmy, rather. An asteroid, no.

In summary, you and the astrologer together are not massive enough to affect the Earth, while it is you, it is Jupiter, and Jupiter can it, and mass is only our gravity and not sufficient to explain how galaxies hold together. Saying everything’s made of atoms is pretty irrelevant. Let’s not start saying everything’s made of people.

Thanks to Phil Plait for letting my comments see the light of day.

What we know changes how we know.

Newton’s theory of universal gravitation worked well enough to describe the phenomena he was dealing with, and works well enough today that we can still use his mathematics to navigate interplanetary space craft. Einstein, on the other hand, had to invent an entirely new theory of gravitation that included curved space-time in order to more accurately describe phenomenon he was dealing with. Thanks to Newton and many great scientists after him the universe in which Einstein was working was completely different than Newton’s and in doing his work Einstein created a new universe for us to work in.

Certainly I am not suggesting that the fundamental phenomena – i.e. mutual attraction between bodies in space – changed or are not “real,” but human perception certainly changed with each of their innovations and I surmise it will change again and again and each time it does we will be living in a new universe, almost completely irreconcilable with the old one because the explanations – i.e. Laws of Physics – of yesterday will no longer suffice to explain what today’s can explain.

The point to all of this is that our laws of physics are malleable because they must be to accommodate new information, new phenomena, and new paradigms. Therefore they are, in fact, subjective based on the theories of old, the observations of today, and our constant accumulation of new information. Before any dogma wielding scientists out there jump down my digital spout, know this: this is not anti-science, it is the fact of science. This is what makes science able to explain the universe around us. When we incorrectly argue that the laws of physics are objective we miss the point that they are entirely subjective and that is why they change and that is what makes them great.

Post-modernism and science should be only the best of friends. If we begin to treat the laws of science as “real” and absolutely “objective” we run the risk of becoming dogmatic and unable to change how we view the universe which will, in the long rung, stifle scientific inquiry. god is objective, god is singular and all knowing, god is wrong. This was Aguste Comte’s mistake in formulating his notion of Positivism, he wanted to discover the laws of sociology so we could live by them as we must live by the law of say gravity. His was an unbending and total, objective, view of how science works and, fortunately, has been widely discredited. Ironically, his laws of sociology were too, subjective because they were based in the turmoil of middle 19th century French society which he desperately wanted to apply order to once more.

I think what sets many post-modern thinkers into a tizzy is when the work of someone like E. O. Wilson which brilliantly explained the biologically based behavior of ants is adapted to to the complexity of human creativity and the Barash’s publish “Madame Bovary’s Ovaries,” which is some of the worst literary criticism and theory ever written. Art (with a big A because we’re talking literature, music, visual art, architecture and every other product of humanity that is not directly related to individual survival) has its own malleable, relative, and changing theories now thanks to post-modernism. In a way, post-modern theory has done for art and literature what science does for observable phenomenon in the universe and on earth, we’ve finally caught up. It has done away with dogmatic meta-narrative in favor of a more relative and changing approach to human creativity and society.

It is up to scientists to continue to subjectively expand the breadths of science and it is up to the humanists to expand our understanding of human products, which as I said before, includes the laws of science. Certainly there will be some overlap, some artists and writers of the latter part of the 20th century used psychoactive chemicals and scientists can tell us how they change the way an individual perceives the world – an explanation of their products if you will. But by-in-large I think science and post-modern theory can live happily together each explaining their respective phenomenon and neither more real, objective, or absolute than the other. With that said, my head hurts, and I’m going to my studio to make Art.