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You can't use a hypothetical to disprove a theory. Your entire comment is completely baseless: "These people don't follow my school of thought, so they must be

by cm127 10y ago

You can't use a hypothetical to disprove a theory. Your entire comment is completely baseless: "These people don't follow my school of thought, so they must be wrong!" No offense, but using your ego to make an argument is pathetic. I'm aware the theory sounds crazy; I'm not an idiot. But I'm also not going to let my hubris dictate what I can or can't research. That's just stupid.

ajkjk 10y ago
No, you don't understand. I'm not trying to disprove a theory. I'm saying that the person who's writing what we're reading hasn't said anything even meaningful enough to dispute. The words they write don't have logical content as a theory. You can sort of squeeze them into statements that sound possible at a hand-waving level, but there's no scientific content. They're "not even wrong" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong). I'm not rejecting the guy cause of hubris or because I'm obsessed with the orthodoxy or something. I'm rejecting him cause his words are meaningless garbage, according to my ability to critically analyze what he's writing. Of course it's possible that I'm too dumb to understand them, but, statistically speaking, when I can understand most of the good physics out there, I come to trust my intuition on this stuff and write off people who can't communicate an idea at even a basic level without become super vague and defending themselves by saying "no one's taking them seriously" and "everyone else missed this" instead of an actual argument. I guess it boils down to this: If you can't tell this guy is crazy, how would you tell that anyone is crazy? Is there anything that can be written down that you wouldn't take seriously? Maybe something like "what if the world is made of tiny lemons, in various configurations?" Well, I draw the line way higher than that, and considerably higher than where this guy is, and I can see that he's below the line with five seconds of reading, and it's no surprise at all when 5 more minutes of reading, or 30, or whatever, completely corroborates my initial instinct. Edit: actually, it boils down to this: Your ability, cm127, to critically analyze theories and determine if they're scientifically meaningful is deficient. You don't have to believe me, of course, cause this is the internet, but I implore you to consider the possibility. Edit 2: also, you're wrong that "you can't use a hypothetical to disprove a theory" - well, almost wrong. You can use a hypothetical to argue against a theory. It's not that it's disproving. It's that the hypothetical shows you "here are some things that would probably be true if this theory was legitimate", and because those things are not true, it raises the probability (via Bayes rule) that the theory is incorrect. You are supposed to consider this, think "ah, well, that makes the theory more likely to be incorrect". That's the point of the argument. Also, it's really disingenuous to write off a whole post as baseless without responding to the points, each of which (I would argue) is a valid criticism.
- cm127 10y ago
  Here's another form of crazy: trying to force Relativity into a unified field for over a hundred years and getting nowhere. Yeah, you'll "probably" get it one day... What did Einstein use to say? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." BTW, if you can't argue logically, -- which is essentially all I'm getting from your comments: you can't talk about "science" outside of your echo chamber; it's "beneath" you, -- who cares what you think? Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time. Edit: the joke is all your arguments are just as rhetorical. Edit2: you're also making an ironic comment that the theory needs more research while arguing that it shouldn't.
  - danbruc 10y ago
    Here's another form of crazy: trying to force Relativity into a unified field for over a hundred years and getting nowhere. Yeah, you'll "probably" get it one day... I mean that statement is pure rhetorics, but anyway, you are surly aware that it took 358 years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, a mathematical theorem where everyone was aware of the axioms and no experiments had to be done? Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time. You are really not understanding what ajkjk is trying to say. I absolutely agree with him and don't think it can be stated much clearer than he did. But maybe you can realize it yourself. I found »Subquantum Kinetics: A Systems Approach to Physics and Cosmology« at Google Books [1], skimmed it a bit and now have a simple question. Which model describes our universe, Model G or Model G-2? And which experiment produced which outcome to make that decision for one and against the other model? Maybe trying to answer this very simple question, which of the proposed equations describe our universe, will make you realize that this theory has no answers at all. [1] https://books.google.de/books?id=8HQJAvA1EqkC https://books.google.de/books?id=8HQJAvA1EqkC
    - cm127 10y ago
      Jesus Christ, I'm not your professor. Do your own research. You have the skills to read about this stuff. Why do you need me? I'm not trying to convince you to believe in anything. I just wanted to have a conversation about how anti-gravity can or can't be possible, but you're just refusing the conversation altogether. That's just so lazy...

by cm127 10y ago

ajkjk 10y ago

No, you don't understand. I'm not trying to disprove a theory. I'm saying that the person who's writing what we're reading hasn't said anything even meaningful enough to dispute. The words they write don't have logical content as a theory. You can sort of squeeze them into statements that sound possible at a hand-waving level, but there's no scientific content. They're "not even wrong" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong). I'm not rejecting the guy cause of hubris or because I'm obsessed with the orthodoxy or something. I'm rejecting him cause his words are meaningless garbage, according to my ability to critically analyze what he's writing. Of course it's possible that I'm too dumb to understand them, but, statistically speaking, when I can understand most of the good physics out there, I come to trust my intuition on this stuff and write off people who can't communicate an idea at even a basic level without become super vague and defending themselves by saying "no one's taking them seriously" and "everyone else missed this" instead of an actual argument. I guess it boils down to this: If you can't tell this guy is crazy, how would you tell that anyone is crazy? Is there anything that can be written down that you wouldn't take seriously? Maybe something like "what if the world is made of tiny lemons, in various configurations?" Well, I draw the line way higher than that, and considerably higher than where this guy is, and I can see that he's below the line with five seconds of reading, and it's no surprise at all when 5 more minutes of reading, or 30, or whatever, completely corroborates my initial instinct. Edit: actually, it boils down to this: Your ability, cm127, to critically analyze theories and determine if they're scientifically meaningful is deficient. You don't have to believe me, of course, cause this is the internet, but I implore you to consider the possibility. Edit 2: also, you're wrong that "you can't use a hypothetical to disprove a theory" - well, almost wrong. You can use a hypothetical to argue against a theory. It's not that it's disproving. It's that the hypothetical shows you "here are some things that would probably be true if this theory was legitimate", and because those things are not true, it raises the probability (via Bayes rule) that the theory is incorrect. You are supposed to consider this, think "ah, well, that makes the theory more likely to be incorrect". That's the point of the argument. Also, it's really disingenuous to write off a whole post as baseless without responding to the points, each of which (I would argue) is a valid criticism.

cm127 10y ago
Here's another form of crazy: trying to force Relativity into a unified field for over a hundred years and getting nowhere. Yeah, you'll "probably" get it one day... What did Einstein use to say? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." BTW, if you can't argue logically, -- which is essentially all I'm getting from your comments: you can't talk about "science" outside of your echo chamber; it's "beneath" you, -- who cares what you think? Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time. Edit: the joke is all your arguments are just as rhetorical. Edit2: you're also making an ironic comment that the theory needs more research while arguing that it shouldn't.
- danbruc 10y ago
  Here's another form of crazy: trying to force Relativity into a unified field for over a hundred years and getting nowhere. Yeah, you'll "probably" get it one day... I mean that statement is pure rhetorics, but anyway, you are surly aware that it took 358 years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, a mathematical theorem where everyone was aware of the axioms and no experiments had to be done? Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time. You are really not understanding what ajkjk is trying to say. I absolutely agree with him and don't think it can be stated much clearer than he did. But maybe you can realize it yourself. I found »Subquantum Kinetics: A Systems Approach to Physics and Cosmology« at Google Books [1], skimmed it a bit and now have a simple question. Which model describes our universe, Model G or Model G-2? And which experiment produced which outcome to make that decision for one and against the other model? Maybe trying to answer this very simple question, which of the proposed equations describe our universe, will make you realize that this theory has no answers at all. [1] https://books.google.de/books?id=8HQJAvA1EqkC https://books.google.de/books?id=8HQJAvA1EqkC
  - cm127 10y ago
    Jesus Christ, I'm not your professor. Do your own research. You have the skills to read about this stuff. Why do you need me? I'm not trying to convince you to believe in anything. I just wanted to have a conversation about how anti-gravity can or can't be possible, but you're just refusing the conversation altogether. That's just so lazy...