April 25, 2009
O Zeno, what a pretty kettle of fish your arrow has opened!
The thought experiment is deceptively simple. Shoot an arrow at a target. Now stop it, mentally, in mid-air. Don't interrupt its flight, just imagine that split second when the arrow is exactly here and nowhere else.
Now take another arrow, completely motionless. Set it into exactly the same surroundings and in the same attitude: but this arrow is going nowhere. It is just going to stay exactly where you placed it.
In that split instant between moments, is there any difference whatsoever between the two arrows? And if you said that one arrow is in flight while the other is static: in that split second of time, how does it 'know' that?
Does one arrow 'know' it is actually travelling, just not in each individual split second? Does the other 'know' it is standing still?
Einstein said no, it all depends on the frame of reference. (Which, if you think about it, is a very odd conclusion for someone so spiritual.) Quantum physics said yes, an object's behaviour depends on anticipating what it will find and how it has previously been linked to other objects -- and Einstein fought it, body and soul.
The Large Hadron Collider will be firing up again soon. Maybe 90% of physicists who have expressed an opinion are supporting it unequivocably, telling us that there is "no basis for any conceivable threat." Oh, it could definitely create a tiny black hole or two -- yes, the CERN scientists themselves acknowledge this -- but Hawking radiation means it would evaporate almost at once. Of course, new findings are challenging whether Hawking radiation actually exists, but again, that is what the LHC is there to find out. And the odds of anything really bad happening are so small, just a calculated 50 million to one.
Do you play the lottery? Those are not ^15+ quantum odds or the necessary statistical 'out', those are better than real life odds of 'winning' the jackpot.
But -- no danger. Nothing bad could ever happen from those odds. So sayeth the canon of physicists, most of whom also firmly hold to the theory of evolution ... which absolutely requires a long series of events at much smaller odds, individually and collectively, to result in -- us. Most of these same physicists would rather believe in these short odds of blind evolution than even consider intelligent design. This, they consider rational.
At the same time, for some reason the same blind chance somehow does not apply where the LHC is concerned. The CERN physicists are perfectly willing to bet, not only their own lives, but the whole earth on it.
And if that is not blind faith, I do not know what is.
The thought experiment is deceptively simple. Shoot an arrow at a target. Now stop it, mentally, in mid-air. Don't interrupt its flight, just imagine that split second when the arrow is exactly here and nowhere else.
Now take another arrow, completely motionless. Set it into exactly the same surroundings and in the same attitude: but this arrow is going nowhere. It is just going to stay exactly where you placed it.
In that split instant between moments, is there any difference whatsoever between the two arrows? And if you said that one arrow is in flight while the other is static: in that split second of time, how does it 'know' that?
Does one arrow 'know' it is actually travelling, just not in each individual split second? Does the other 'know' it is standing still?
Einstein said no, it all depends on the frame of reference. (Which, if you think about it, is a very odd conclusion for someone so spiritual.) Quantum physics said yes, an object's behaviour depends on anticipating what it will find and how it has previously been linked to other objects -- and Einstein fought it, body and soul.
The Large Hadron Collider will be firing up again soon. Maybe 90% of physicists who have expressed an opinion are supporting it unequivocably, telling us that there is "no basis for any conceivable threat." Oh, it could definitely create a tiny black hole or two -- yes, the CERN scientists themselves acknowledge this -- but Hawking radiation means it would evaporate almost at once. Of course, new findings are challenging whether Hawking radiation actually exists, but again, that is what the LHC is there to find out. And the odds of anything really bad happening are so small, just a calculated 50 million to one.
Do you play the lottery? Those are not ^15+ quantum odds or the necessary statistical 'out', those are better than real life odds of 'winning' the jackpot.
But -- no danger. Nothing bad could ever happen from those odds. So sayeth the canon of physicists, most of whom also firmly hold to the theory of evolution ... which absolutely requires a long series of events at much smaller odds, individually and collectively, to result in -- us. Most of these same physicists would rather believe in these short odds of blind evolution than even consider intelligent design. This, they consider rational.
At the same time, for some reason the same blind chance somehow does not apply where the LHC is concerned. The CERN physicists are perfectly willing to bet, not only their own lives, but the whole earth on it.
And if that is not blind faith, I do not know what is.
April 21, 2009
Our reason tells us that our fellow human beings make most of their decisions out of mental processes most would not consider either objective or critically thought out. They act out of emotion, or loyalty, or friendship, or heritage.
(But we ourselves are always rational. Of course!)
Reason ought to tell us democracy could never work. To come to the opposite conclusion would require an utterly unreasonable faith in humankind.
(But we ourselves are always rational. Of course!)
Reason ought to tell us democracy could never work. To come to the opposite conclusion would require an utterly unreasonable faith in humankind.
April 18, 2009
Is nostalgia really the wish for all that came with bygone days? Or is the world changing too quickly for many of us to cope: so that what we are really seeking is a time, a place, when the world moved to a slower pace, and change came at the speed of lifetimes?
What do we do when the world around us changes too quickly, and therefore necessarily in ways we cannot like? Freeze this single moment then, cry out: "Thou art beautiful!"
Embrace those who agree. They will join us in the kingdom of heaven. And damn the rest of the world, if it cannot accept this single, solitary, isolated vision of perfection. What matter the cost to others? to those who are perpetually trying to build back paradise?
What do we do when the world around us changes too quickly, and therefore necessarily in ways we cannot like? Freeze this single moment then, cry out: "Thou art beautiful!"
Embrace those who agree. They will join us in the kingdom of heaven. And damn the rest of the world, if it cannot accept this single, solitary, isolated vision of perfection. What matter the cost to others? to those who are perpetually trying to build back paradise?
