I think therefore etc.

The love to play with words, don't they.
Maybe philosophy should be left to mathematicians.

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An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

Ok, not completely futile...I did like the "Yes, Virginia..." posts! But for the most part, much ado about nothing, IMO.

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

There are some posts by others that are darn close. For example remember certain posts in the Huygen[sic] thread and their various other incarnations? Darn good rabbit food if you ask me. And, just like rabbits, the post's contents were constantly recycled.

Amen, Brother!

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R.A.F. wrote:R.A.F., to claim that my arguments are based on my personal philosophy does not disprove those arguments or show that they are irrelevant. Furthermore, since you have no knowledge of my own personal philosophy, you are in no position to claim that my arguments are based on my own personal philosophy.

Scientific reasoning is based on mathematical reasoning, which is based on geometrical reasoning, which is based on arithmetical reasoning, which is based on logical reasoning. Any of those kinds of reasoning can be appropriately used as a base for an argument pertaining to a scientific subject. The last in that list is the base for my arguments in this thread.

Logical reasoning can be based on axioms (like in mathematics), observations (like in science), and ideas (like in philosophy). There are more possibilities and often those are mixed, but this is a start.
To me, it looks like your logical reasoning is based on your ideas, i.e. your personal philosophy. It is not based (or not for the most part) on observations or axioms. You started about 'the universe idea', which stresses this point.
Of course, it could be that it is not your personal philosophy, perhaps you are just playing the devil's advocate or so, but that seems to me largely irrelevant. In that case, you are defending a personal philosophy, just not your personal philosophy.
There is nothing wrong with either of those, but I don't see why you deny it.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

*ahem*
If Universe DNE, then U DNE, and you are a subset of U. Where are your m4d l0g1k 5k1llz on that one?

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

I suggested earlier There may have been a smiley at the end, but if "Richard J Hanak", whatever that is, can answer that, I'd be very interested.

Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part Four--Moon in June)

Initially I thought that my arguments had taken care of this thread. Indeed there was no response to my three "Virginia" posts for 16 days. But ultimately Virginia came back one day to tell me of Jimmy K.'s latest outrages and of Richard J. Hanak's lengthy reply.

"OK Virginia, let's start with his arguments about classes and sets. They're particularly stinky!"
"That's wrong right off the bat. Can you think of a property every set has?"

Virginia though about it a moment, and then asked, "The number of elements in it?"

"Yes, every set has a cardinality, the number of elements in it, either zero or some finite number or possibly even infinitely many. Colloquially we consider the properties of the members to be the properties of the set. We can consider, for example, the set of all stars within 1000 light-years of Earth. Once we have this list we can ask how many stars are in this set, what is the total luminosity of the stars in this set, what percentage of stars in this set have spectral type G and so on. We can always use the locution 'the attributes of this set's elements' or 'the history of this set's elements' but everybody understands that this is what is meant by 'attributes of this set' and 'history of this set'."

"And sets don't even have to be homogeneous for us to assign meaningful attributes to it. I can define a set that consists of a lion, a witch, and a wardrobe. I can determine how many doors it has by counting the doors of the wardrobe."

"How many teeth does your set have?" Virginia catches on quickly!

"I could determine the total number of teeth by counting if only the lion and the witch will let me! RJH continues:"

"I challenged him to define the Moon himself, and RJH continues with this:"
"Only problem is, he hasn't defined the Earth, he hasn't defined satellite, and he hasn't defined what 'natural' means in the context of his definition.

"Now I know that words have to be defined in terms of other words, and ultimately there are going to be words that cannot be defined but whose meanings must be taken to be understood, but RJH does not extend this courtesy to me in the definition that I give later of the Universe.

"And even if we do accept RJH's definition of the Moon, it is still ultimately a collection of atoms and it has the attributes that it does by virtue of this fact. Because the Moon is a collection of atoms, it has a total mass and an inertia tensor, it has a history (its position at each moment of time), it has velocity, linear momentum and angular momentum. All of these are things that matter very much to me as a celestial mechanic. It has all of these things by virtue of being a collection of atoms. Now we could please RJH by always saying things like 'the collection of atoms that constitutes Earth's natural satellite has a total mass of 7.3483E+22 kg', but that would be pedantic."

To be continued...

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Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part Five--I Belong to Me)
"The words may be precisely arranged according to the rules of grammar, but more to the point they are arranged and chosen in response to an earlier comment of RJH's not quoted here. The intent of asking the questions I did was to suggest how philosophy is one of the most wasteful of human activities, right up there with karaoke. Let's examine RJH's answer:"
"I shudder to even think of Richard J. Hanak initiating multiple instances of himself! There is a danger to defining oneself as a neurological function of the brain: that's not how the law sees it. RJH may not like it, but the law defines us as collections of atoms with certain inalienable rights. If something unfortunate happens to us that we no longer have re-entrant neurological functions capable of multiple initiations of ourselves then some other collection of atoms will have to exercise power of attorney over us. As the recent Terri Schiavo case proves, this is one of the places where politics and religion collide so we will not discuss it further.

"Besides, in the next paragraph I strike paydirt!"
"I'm not even going to touch that!" Virginia and I both had a good laugh over that one, and so should the reader.
To be continued...

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part Six--Justify Yourself)
"Maybe not offensive, but not justified, as the title of this thread indicates. Almost every one of the threads RJH started ultimately mentioned his book The Universe on Trial and/or had a link to a website he used to have."

"He didn't really answer any of your questions," Virginia noted.

"No, he didn't. He really does think that the concept of a universe is not justified. And if he is correct then it must be abandoned. Although he will not tell us in this thread or any other what he intends to replace that poor universe that he put on trial with. If one Googles on 'Richard J. Hanak' and looks at some of the pages, one will see as the subtitle to one of his books, 'The Return to Absolutivity'."

"Absolutivity? What is that?"

"Think about some of the other 'ivity' words that you know of."

"Creativity, activity, relativity?"

"Yes, Virginia, relativity. 'Absolutivity' seems to be a made-up word meant to stand in opposition to relativity. And if you look through this threads you will see many, many misconceptions about physics that our comments and links have not been able to dispel. But there is still hope!"
To be continued...

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part Seven--The Universe You Cannot Leave Behind)
"More dictionary games. The particular meaning of 'leave' that was meant was 'to exit'."
"Still more dictionary games. Virginia, have you read any of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"

"Yes, they're hilarious!"

"Do you remember Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, the being accidentally given immortality who sets out to insult every creature in the universe in alphabetical order?"

"Yes."

"Well, let's imagine that we could arrange for RJH to have an 'unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands' similar to Wowbagger's. After suffering his 'long dark teatime of the soul' he departs in a starship capable of lasting practically forever. So RJH the Infinitely Prolonged and the self that belongs to himself are able to leave the galaxy, the local cluster of galaxies, the supercluster of galaxies, the supercluster of superclusters, the supercluster of superclusters of superclusters, the n-th iteration of that and then what?"

Virginia was lost in thought.

"If RJH is right he exits from one level of structure only to find himself in a larger structure. If there is a largest structure he emerges into the space between these largest structures and has only the choice of entering one of these structures or staying outside of all of them."
"Can you answer it for me? Why can't Forrest Gump leave the universe?"

Virginia needed only a moment, "Because there's nowhere else to go?"

"That's it. Poor RJH the Infinitely Prolonged. Aboard a mighty starship and nowhere to go!"
To be continued...

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

=D>

I've proposed this idea twice now, without invoking a reply from our resident philosopher and logitician, so let me rephrase it:

The Univese is the set of all things that can physically interact through the exchange of force carrying particles, and the medium through which these particles propagate.

*taps his foot patiently*

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

Works for me. I say we all conclude that we are in the Universe and RJH can be *somewhere else* if that makes him happy!

__________________
An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

Not a bad idea. I don't need any bottled brains in my pantry.

__________________
"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part Eight--My Mother the Car)
"Endless dictionary games. We could just as easily talk of an automobile or talk about an automobile or talk to an automobile or if you are Jerry Van Dyke, talk with an automobile."

"Don't you mean Dick Van Dyke?" Virginia asked.

"Jerry Van Dyke is Dick's brother and in 1964 he starred in a television show called My Mother the Car. The situation was this: his late mother was reincarnated as an antique automobile that could speak to him and only to him (voice of Ann Southern). Consequently he spent a lot of time in the garage talking with her. Think Mr. Ed with a car instead of a horse."

"How horrible!"

"Yes Virginia, television wasn't any better back then either. Don't let anyone try to fool you. But let's get back to the topic."
"Nevertheless, the engine, frame, transmission, tires, etc., have the properties they do because they are made of certain materials and their interactions, these materials have certain properties because of the atoms that they are made of and their interactions, the atoms have certain properties because of the sub-atomic particles and their interactions. It is not 'turtles all the way down' even if it is superclusters all the way up. Study galaxies, stars, atoms, nuclei, and even automobiles at whatever level you like, but always remember that underneath it all is a huge quantity of a small number of particles and their interactions. It is at that level that the way to defining the universe lies. In the next two paragraphs he almost agrees with me."
"At the nuclear level the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions have to be taken into account in explaining the properties of nuclei. Electromagnetic and gravitational interactions must be taken into account for the remaining levels up to stars. But once we reach the level of galaxies only gravitational interactions remain. And gravity is mostly indifferent to the properties of the things it interacts with. It doesn't matter if an automobile has cheap plastic seat covers or Corinthian leather (wish I could do a good Ricardo Montalban impression!), it will drop the same way off a cliff (allowing for aerodynamics, of course). At the largest levels, however many there are, only gravity matters, contrary to the claims of the Plasma Cosmology/Electric Universe followers.

"I have no need of knowledge about the largest (if any) structures in the universe to reason about it as a whole. All I need is the densities of matter and radiation (which could be zero), the signature of the curvature (+1 for closed, 0 for flat, -1 for open), and possibly the cosmological constant."
To be continued...

Note: While this dialog is fictional, there really was a TV show entitled My Mother the Car. I am not making this up!

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.