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The -1th Law


island

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To Tormod: you can access the page directly by the address http://www.geocities.com/naturescience.

 

To island: I've read the text but I must confess that I cannot make sense of most of it. There are a lot of technical expressions like "Principle of Least Action", "Virtual Particles" and "Entropy" used in ways that I'm not sure are the correct ones.

 

Sorry, but Anthropic Principle is just a proposition. It cannot be proved or disproved at the moment (at least as far as I know). The text try to convince you that there are no other way to explain the constants of nature without it. Well, I doubt that this assertion can be proved. I doubt that you can give sounding arguments with respect to it. We have not enough knowledge to know why the constants are the way they are, but nature can be much more creative than us and remember that our science is just in its childhood, there are a lot of things we still do not understand. Even simple things that you should not believe we still don't know.

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Originally posted by: Roberto

To Tormod: you can access the page directly by the address http://www.geocities.com/naturescience.

 

To island: I've read the text but I must confess that I cannot make sense of most of it. There are a lot of technical expressions like "Principle of Least Action", "Virtual Particles" and "Entropy" used in ways that I'm not sure are the correct ones.

 

Ah, well, you probably should have stopped right there then, since you obviously do not know enough about the subject to comment.

 

You do realize that they don't allow unsubstantiated speculation, nor "technical expressions that don't make sense"... in the cutting edge, physicist moderated forum where the original articles originally appeared, right?

 

Thanks anyway

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OK, the link island posted has an https:// prefix which won't work at least in my browser.

 

@island - you are way out of line with your reply to roberto. Why should we care what they allow in a different forum? You are violating our FAQ. In these forums everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and everything which is posted is up for discussion - regardless of the posters level of insight. We are here to discuss and learn, not to be told we are not good enough.

 

That said, I agree with roberto - your use of several of the terms are new to me. That does not imply that I (nor roberto) don't know what they mean.

 

Also, posting something in a news group hardly makes an article more "true" or "accurate" - it is still an article which proposes certain ideas, for which you have asked for comments. So here we go:

 

You write (in your article):

"The fact that human being attempts to mix all levels in nature indicates that intelligent life is at least one of nature's preferred methods for accomplishing its ultimate task per the second law of thermodynamics. This must be required by the Principle of Least Action on a universal scale. "

 

You then go on to write:

"From that perspective, arguing against intelligent design is like trying to argue against nature."

 

This would depend on what you call nature. For me, "nature" can mean many things. However, intelligent design can only mean one thing: That the Universe was created by some(one/thing) for some purpos.

 

The anthropic principle has many formulations, but basically the different formulations are based on an assumption that since the constants of nature are so finely tuned for intelligent life to evolve, it must simply be that way.

 

That is an issue which has been debated _many_ times in these forums. There are also several book reviews in our reviews section about cosmology and the anthropic principle.

 

To claim that human beings are proof of the purpose of the Universe is ignorant, at best. Our species has been around for some 140,000 years, and we count our civilisations in millennia. The western civilisation as we know it is barely a hundred years old - our observations of the Universe beyond the galaxy even younger.

 

If anything, the anthropic principle is a good way to explain why we live in the universe we find ourselves in. It opens up the possibility that there are many other universes, with different properties, or that we live in a bubble in a much larger universe, where things might be very different than they are were we happen to live.

 

Human beings will play out their role in this Universe long before the planets and the stars. We know nothing - not a *single bit* - about whether there is other life in the Universe or not. We can only assume that there is (or isn't).

 

A lot of interesting research has been done over the past decade about the constants of nature (and documented in books by many good writers, like John D Barrow and Paul Davies). We have learned that the speed of light might not be so constant after all, that the expansion rate of the Universe is speeding up, and that the alpha constant has changed over the billions of years.

 

I think the only thing we can be rally certain of is that the Universe had no idea that we would arrive. What we think, what we do - how we like to organise things and how we like to behave - is a social thing. It belongs in sociology and philosophy.

 

It is hardly cutting edge physics to explain the constants of nature by saying human nature is the pinnacle of cosmic evolution.

 

Tormod

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No, I'm not out of line, since nobody has bothered to take the time to fully investigate what is being said before casting all kinds of judgements about what they obviously don't entirely understand... :eyeroll:

 

You insult me and then claim that "I" am out of line... ... ... ??!

 

I did not come here to be nitpicked and kicked around by a bunch of genius knowitalls, I came here to share my excitement about somthing which should prove to have profound consequences on simplifying and uinfying physics.

 

Dispute THIS!

 

The whole argument centers on the fact that the anti-particle (the "hole") leaves a hole that affects vacuum expansion as the gravitational effect of real particle pair production offsets the increase in tension.

 

Particle theory says that for every fermion type there is another fermion type that has exactly the same mass, and therefore no priori distinction between matter and anti-matter.

 

Dirac's "Sea of Electrons" was dismissed as implausible for this reason, but the opposite value of all other charges (quantum numbers), indicates that the asymmetry between the two classes of particles is due to the fact that the anti-particle has -rho and negative mass, until it becomes a real particle.

 

This simple little observation changes EVERYTHING... got it?... or do you really believe that you can successfully dispute that

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I know that I will regret this, but... there I go...

 

Well, first, I didn´t see Tormod insulting you as you said. I´m seeing a very problematic case here. As you said, you´re here to share your excitement, not to receive criticisms against your theory.

 

If you really want to contribute to science, I´m sorry to say that you will need to get used to criticisms. This is the first test of a theory: consistency, both internal and with other well tested theories.

 

Another tip, personal attacks or authority arguments just means that you do not have sound arguments to defend an attacked point of view. This kind of strategy may work in a circle of friends, but will be totally useless in the scientific community. If you really want to have your theory taken seriously, instead of attacking people, attack the arguments.

 

The fact that you were allowed to post your theories in forums mediated by physicists means that they are real scientists that respect and debate seriously any point of view. Say one thing to me: have any physicist mediator of that forum argued against one of your ideas saying that they are wrong just because you´re not a physicist? Being or not a physicist does not mean that everything you say is correct or wrong. Arguments in science are essential, not who gives them.

 

I was preparing a document commenting your text, but I will not continue with it because I´m seeing that you´re not interested in knowing where are the errors, but just want total acceptance of your idea. I´ll will come back when you´re prepared to debate rationally and politely. Till them, I give up this theme.

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I think Roberto pretty well sums it up for both of us.

 

If you feel insulted, well too bad. Being the one of the moderators of this forum I have to act against phrases like this one:

(island) "Ah, well, you probably should have stopped right there then, since you obviously do not know enough about the subject to comment."

 

I then wrote a criticism of your paper, focusing on your use of the anthropic principle, which is a term first coined by Brandon Carter in 1974, but used (as a principle) many times before that.

 

For interested members, here is a good site to read up on the principle:

http://www.anthropic-principle.com/

 

Tormod

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