Philosophy Now Forum

I wonder if you are ignoring the role philosophy has played and continues to play in supporting the status quo. A vast majority of philosophers up until at least Schopenhauer's time spent a great deal of time in justifying not only the status quo but also the existence of some sort of divine spirit...

Do you believe that these statements are true? If yes, why? If no, why not? Well, let's see. I do not endorse treating the presentation of 'truth or 'knowledge' as mockery, I would rather say a healthy sense of skepticism. Thus only when strong evidence presents itself within the agreement of the k...

Kuznetzova wrote:Actually all particles are waves. That was the first discovery in Quantum Mechanics (Louis de Broglie)

Actually all particles can be described as waves, according to the brilliant, most successful theory ever. It doesn't follow that they are.

Truth is an opinion. Years ago, as an undergraduate, I was discussing the definition of knowledge as justified, true belief. It seemed plausible enough, but justification and truth are slippery buggers. Belief on the other hand is in some people absolute, often without any foundation, occasionally ...

To use a 2D analogy, I suspect that the 'quantum foam' is a bit like a duckpond in the rain, with literally incalculable waves and deformations(photons and neutrinos mostly). Some of these cancel out, some will add up to give properties that mark them out as 'particles'. Actually, the question highl...

When people first encounter Quantum Field Theory, they realize that particles are not little solid bullets, but only ever waves wriggling in a field. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but the Big Bang theory was enough to convince me that matter was probably not atomos , uncuttable, as Democritu...

Our situation in this universe is more mysterious than your story of these "knots". It's not really my story, I pinched it from Lord Kelvin, but you are right, it is just a story. It is based on the philosophical belief (more a suspicion if I am honest), that the most likely source of the phenomena...

It would seem that the only thing you understood was that "3) Electromagnetic energy..." was true, but failed to see it's implications. Well,it's the only thing I didn't challenge, but you're right, I don't see the implications. It would seem that you've only parroted something you've read, without...

bobevenson wrote:Again, economics is the allocation of property and labor, no more, no less.

I've always assumed that economists worked out what to do and politicians did it.

bobevenson wrote:No, economics is the allocation of property and labor.

Surely economics is the theory, politics is the doing.

Mathematicians brought physics where there is: singularity, infinity, determinism, empty space or fractal quantum foam, desperate quantization of gravity, constantly increasing number of dimensions, dark matter, breaking of symmetry ... All these things are mathematical entities, it doesn't follow ...

So I think it is the choice of a starting point and the presuppositions that go with that starting point. I haven't really kept up to speed with mind/body. (I'm still not entirely happy with my ontology). As I understand it Chalmer's hard problem is one of analogy. There is a mechanical analogy pho...

1) So called, red shift, can't be seen as such, unless you experience cpa, so: blue -> actual variably indeterminate value -> red. I don't know what cpa is. As I understand it, red shift is measured by comparing the absorption lines in the spectra of stars and galaxies. The patterns of absorption l...

Condensation means change of physical state - such as crystallization. Imagine how in the cooling water a balls of ice increases. All points on its surface move away from each other. You can imagine the universe as such ice and the “future” as surrounding water. So if I try to put this into words I...

- Semiconductor devices, that can be reproducibly produce, operate on the principle of motion of point defects and phase characteristics of P / N interface The problem I have with this is that my background is philosophy rather than physics. I don't know whether what you are saying can be translate...