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#53212 10/15/14 09:06 PM
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Like St Augustine, we all know what time is, if no one asks. The problem is that people will ask. This leads to countless personal animadversions and interminable discussions which tend to progress in circles towards the inevitable non-conclusion.

Does time exist? Discounting diversionary responses like “define existence”, the answer must be “yes”. Time exists, but does it exist as something independent, or is it only something that exists in our minds? Compare questions such as: “Does truth exist?”. Again the answer must be yes. It exists as a concept that is relevant to human communication. Without rational beings it has no significance. We know what it means, but philosophers can argue interminably about it. Time is very similar. It is essential to our reasoning, our understanding of the Universe and every aspect of our lives. It is essential to every measurement we make, but without something to measure, it has no significance.

Why do we need to ask more of it?


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Time is one of those slippery things that defy definition. We all know it when we see it, but can't define it clearly. If you spend an hour waiting in the waiting room for your Dr's appointment, you know a lot of time has passed. Yet you would spend that much time watching TV and not notice its passing near as much. So the length of time is subjective. Perhaps the best definition of time is that it is "that which clocks measure". Maybe that is circular, but time is almost unknowable. We recognize time by its passage. For example, about 2000 years have passed since the birth of Jesus Christ. Perhaps time is the result of the Earth's passage in its orbit around the sun. Or perhaps the orbit of the Earth around the sun is a result of time. It's not easy to pin down.


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The original post comment meets what physicists like Hawkings and Lubos Motl would call "psychological arrow of time". Which they describe and I quote them as "meaningless, pompous, vacuous philosophical flapdoodle".

If you accept any standard cosmology, big bang theory or even most religions then you accept that a time existed before living organisms. The literal christian version of creation sets out a precise timeline before life enters the fray. So does standard cosmology and big bang which lays out events long before any life.

In science you can then throw is thermodynamics, General relativity and Quantum theory which also expressly say time is something between events and nothing to do with life or human cognition.

References for the curious:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html
http://motls.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/the-very-meaning-of-probability.html

Last edited by Orac; 10/16/14 10:50 AM.

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“Time………. is essential to our reasoning, our understanding of the Universe and every aspect of our lives. It is essential to every measurement we make, but without something to measure, it has no significance.”

Flapdoodle it might be, but are you saying that time would have any significance if there were nothing to measure?


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It is not me that says that it is science via QM, Thermodynamics and cosmology and it is the only interpretation other than the omnipotent GOD if you are into religion ... Why.

Well it's discussed in detail in the references but lets simplify it there are events and probabilities because of where and how they happen that may never be observed. See the problem the conjecture of the opposite view the one of the OP is that every event must eventually be observed or it doesn't exist.

Lets start with cosmology and show you the issue:

A star explodes no-one on earth happened to have any telescopes or instruments watching and the event goes completely unnoticed. Sometime later one of our space probes detects the explosion. So under the original OP the event didn't exist when it went passed earth and then it suddenly did the moment the space probe saw it. Now lets add a complication we actually had instruments running just no one was looking at them but they were recording. Got the scenario.

Now here comes the problem:

The person in charge of instrument data reviews the log data while the explosion is between earth and the space probe.

There are now only three possible options to resolve what the person will see

1.) The event exists with or without it being observed and the signal will be present.

2.) There is an omnipotent being (GOD) who knows the space probe is going to see the event and hence puts in the signal.

You will note you can not separate solutions 1 & 2

Then we have the idea in the OP which is choice 3 with measurement cognition

3.) The signal is initially not on the logs because it was unobserved. When the space probe detects the explosion you now have a problem either the log has to mysteriously retrospectively change itself and the person who did the checking scratches his head as to how did that appear. Or the log still shows no signal and the person scratches there head as to how the detector designed to see these events missed an event it should have seen.

See the problem the cognition option sets up all sorts of problems with any measurement and science would not be able to function.

The above situation is setup exactly in the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment which can be do in any modern optics lab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser)

The result is one of the corner stones of QM and shows that time is real and has to be. Some scientists initially tried to invoke retro causality but you can simply introduce a second delay on the choice and you will find you can build paradoxes with impossible solutions and they don't happen on the lab optical bench top and so retro causality is ruled out.

The technical problem with retro causality is becomes a boolean result and as such falls into the standard boolean logic paradoxes which is typified by the liar paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox).

Now I have seen people try and argue the instrument has implied cognition but that has a gotcha at end of it as well see if you can work out why.

Last edited by Orac; 10/17/14 01:29 AM.

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Thanks for that detailed explanation, Orac; but you scientists do have a habit of saying “This is the answer to your question; whatever your question may have been.”

In every example you give there is something to measure. Let me remind you of my question:

“….are you saying that time would have any significance if there were nothing to measure?”


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Some of your questions you ask have direct and obvious answers and some do not. I can not and do not answer all your questions because some I don't have answers for or the answer is conjecture.

This one is however in the category of easily answerable by science if you follow the logic and forget all the psycho babel junk that seem to be popular around the topic and as per the references the answer is NOT JUST MINE but the answer logic dictates.

I challenged you to follow the instruments have cognition path and there is an obvious problem. So lets resolve the last part for you and to do that you have to assume that any instrument that measure has cognition it now has the same features as human cognition or you becoming "psychologically aware".

What you now have to start doing is define what is the smallest measurement you can make. You should very quickly realize that it drops down to the smallest thing you know and can measure be it a particle a waveform or whatever you can define as existing. In particle physics in the other article you were reading they were b-tagging quarks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-tagging) but the same thing happens in every other field be it electromagnetics, gravity, QM etc. Maybe there is something smaller but if there is we have to be able to measure it to say it exists.

Starting to see the problem the moment you add in "one" of anything you can measure by definition you have cognition because at some time later you can now measure something because you were able to define it as "one". The start point for your cognition process in the OP process is therefore being able to count "one" of anything.

So there you have your answer if something exists and you have "one" of anything then time has to exist because no one has worked a way of counting without time. You now also know the link between mathematics, time and physics as a bonus smile

If you want it expressed formally mathematics requires being able to measure. It's interesting trying to do mathematics if you can't measure ... try it smile

The question as to whether time would exist without anything to measure becomes a state of irrational logic. The logic breaks to exactly the same situation as the religious version which goes like this "Does God have a God?" or "What GOD made GOD?". I guess we could also ask does mathematics exist without numbers or measurement?

The answer to all those question is the same no one knows and no one cares because it wouldn't matter because it has no meaning and no bearing.

Last edited by Orac; 10/17/14 07:18 AM.

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Quote:
The answer to all those question is the same no one knows and no one cares because it wouldn't matter because it has no meaning and no bearing.



At last! After much rambling – an answer!

“Does time have any significance if there is nothing to measure?”

“….no one knows….”

Thanks. The rest is very interesting, but irrelevant; however, to some extent it is the sort of thing I am looking for when I ask this kind of question. The more I can learn, the happier I am. smile

I still wonder if we are asking too much of time, even by asking if it exists as an entity separate from matter/energy.


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Originally Posted By: Bill S.
“Time ………. is essential to our reasoning, our understanding of the Universe and every aspect of our lives. It is essential to every measurement we make, but without something to measure, it has no significance.”

Flapdoodle it might be, but are you saying that time would (did you mean to add,'not'?) have any significance if there were nothing to measure?


Bill S, without being theocratic, and dogmatic about it, here is what I currently believe: Decades ago I came to the opinion--which, BTW, John Milton called "belief in the making"--that our ancient ancestors who believed in 'gods', with dimensions, were deluded.

HOWEVER, HAVING A STRONG DESIRE FOR CERTAINTY

Our ancestors went on believing in gods and goddesses--we all know the legends, myths and stories that are told about many of them--until in the age of the patriarchs, Abraham, and the like, came along and they decided that matriarchy had had its day.

All the gods, the ELOHIM (Genesis 1), were rolled into one and a male-like Lord God--YAHWEH (Jehovah--Genesis 2) was worshipped as the creator and the One God who sustained the earth, including the heavens above, which circled around it.

Meanwhile--just in case our first ancestors slipped and fell, which they eventually did--God provided a place, beneath and within the earth, called hell. There, sinners, rebels, who dared rival the will and power of God--that is, do exactly what he had told them to do with the Garden of Eden--were sent.
=================
HERE I WILL BE BRIEF:

Bill, it is my opinion that it is we who created The GOD Delusion, Richard Dawkins defines in his great book with that name. We also created the space/time illusion. We still are.

Now, with G O D, the Gift Of Discernment and the will and power to to Generate Organize & Deliver


we have the golden opportunity to bring philosophy, the sciences and the arts together to create a great GOD-like REALITY, what you call "something to measure"--in the infinity of space and eternity of time.

Last edited by Revlgking; 10/18/14 08:48 PM. Reason: Always helpful

G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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Originally Posted By: Bill S.

Thanks. The rest is very interesting, but irrelevant; however, to some extent it is the sort of thing I am looking for when I ask this kind of question. The more I can learn, the happier I am. smile


Seems like always I either don't answer questions, ask awkward questions people don't want to answer or answer too much on this forum smile

Originally Posted By: Bill S.

I still wonder if we are asking too much of time, even by asking if it exists as an entity separate from matter/energy.

So now since I do rambling answers, time for your question.

What makes you so sure time is ONLY RELATED to matter and energy please provide logic and reasoning?

Hint at part of the problem if you get stuck:
http://physicspages.com/2011/07/23/the-energy-time-uncertainty-relation/

Last edited by Orac; 10/19/14 03:06 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Orac
What makes you so sure time is ONLY RELATED to matter and energy please provide logic and reasoning?


To try to avoid answering the wrong question (:P) I need to establish a couple of things.

What do you mean by “time is ONLY RELATED to matter and energy”?

What have I said that makes you think I am “sure time is ONLY RELATED to matter and energy”?

Did you mean "related only to matter and energy"?


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You appear to be saying you are sure time doesn't exist as a separate quantity if you can't measure.

Again I don't want to ramble so lets give you some things to think about to answer the question.

1.) Read carefully about how the Higgs is detected. It is not detected by direct measurement but by measuring everything else and noticing that energy momentum missing. So question does the higgs experience time because it is somewhere you can't directly measure?

2.) Go back an read the article from Tommasso on DM search at the LHC (http://www.science20.com/a_quantum_diaries_survivor/no_light_dark_matter_in_atlas_search-147043).

Note this statement: "That is because the two DM bodies "take away" momentum unseen: like grandma on a bike being hit by an invisible truck, they betray the truck's presence by their unnatural recoil pattern."

So if DM exists does time exist there because it seems to be conserving energy and momentum yet you can't measure there?

3.) The hint I gave you above shows the same problem in that the uncertainty principle tells you that you can't measure somethings speed (which is time dependent) and it's position at the same exact moment in time. So how can something be absolutely directly related when position is one domain and speed (aka time) is another?

4.) QM will throw some more problematic ones like does time exist for virtual particles? Does time exist for entangled particles?

The psycho babel in the OP phrases time in a very classic layman way related to "us" but there are domains we now either know definitely exist or have hints exist that no measurement is possible in and think about time in those in forming a more scientific answer.

Part of the answer you need to consider is why we think our normal classic physics translates into those hidden domains and to help with that you need to read (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_theory)

Last edited by Orac; 10/20/14 12:14 AM.

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Thanks Orac. If it takes me a while to respond, that is not lack of interest. Not only is time short, as usual, but my son is having computer problems, so we are sharing my lap top.


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I got my hands on the computer sooner than expected, so let's have a go at this.

Quote:
So question does the higgs experience time because it is somewhere you can't directly measure?


Of course it does. This begins to feel like the interminable discussions about infinity and nothing.

Perhaps the confusion arises from the wording of my assertion: “It is essential to every measurement we make, but without something to measure, it has no significance.”

Let me reword the last part of that. “…without something that can, at least in principle, be measured, it has no significance.” The Higgs may be somewhere you can't directly measure it, but that doesn’t imply that it does not exist.

Similarly in the case of DM, if it exists it is measurable, in principle, even if we could never measure it, it would exist, so time would be relevant to it.

Point 3 contains a similar disparity. Something has to exist in order for there to be any uncertainty involved in its measurement. If it exists, how is it relevant to any question as to whether time would exist if nothing else existed?

Point 4 raises a completely different couple of questions. “…does time exist for virtual particles? Does time exist for entangled particles?” Why would it not? Virtual particles and entangled particles involve energy, space and change. Where there is change, there must be time.

We have still not come close to answering the question: “Would time exist if nothing else existed?”

My suspicion is that this question cannot be answered, but a lot can be learned in trying.


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Originally Posted By: Bill S.
We have still not come close to answering the question: “Would time exist if nothing else existed?”
Aha, good, a straight forward philosophical question (currently) to which any answer will do, so long as one believes in it.

Maybe the most primordial state of existence is the dimension of time alone - albeit that in our universe time is inseparable from the spatial dimensions - but if so, then it would seem that some spatially dimensionless existence - a prime mover/principle/potentiality/laws - would be (/have been) required to create the conditions for the birth and evolution of universes. That sound more than vaguely familiar? Happens to be my view too, more or less.



"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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Originally Posted By: Bill S.
Of course it does. This begins to feel like the interminable discussions about infinity and nothing.

Perhaps the confusion arises from the wording of my assertion: “It is essential to every measurement we make, but without something to measure, it has no significance.”

Here starts the problem you are happy to say the Higgs experiences time in a domain that as far as we know we can never measure in.

So I guess the question I would ask if our universe wasn't here and only the higgs domain existed would time suddenly stop in the higgs domain?

Originally Posted By: Bill S.
Let me reword the last part of that. “…without something that can, at least in principle, be measured, it has no significance.” The Higgs may be somewhere you can't directly measure it, but that doesn’t imply that it does not exist.

I think that is the attempt to address the above but even that doesn't solve the issue because how do you know that there are not other domains that we can't see or know about yet?

This is the problem with the way you have posed the question because you can not prove or test for the "nothing exists state" because to answer that you have to know everything ... that is you have to be a god.

That in a nutshell is why you statement is psycho babel because it sets up something that can not be tested and is not scientific.

Originally Posted By: Bill S.
My suspicion is that this question cannot be answered, but a lot can be learned in trying.

Your suspicion is right it can't be answered at least under science.

You can learn a hell of a lot more by first understanding what is really known about time and give up on the glossy philosophical media junk and try true science articles on the issue.

The first part of the answer is straight forward matter and you exist so time exists because we can measure which requires time even under classic physics. We can extend time into at least three domains we can't measure in and contains no matter as such so we know time has nothing to do with matter.

Does time have something to do with energy well there is a hint under QM that it is a separate and independent property and this fact was realized even as far back as 1926 when the formula for the time-independent Schrödinger equation was produced. It most famously is used to describe the orbitals in atoms and why aside from radioactive decay that atoms remain stable and long lived effectively not experiencing time. In short you would not be here is there wasn't a time-indpendent Schrödinger state because all atoms would have time evolved following the normal time dependant version of the Schrödinger equation.

Now there is mountains of work under QM that reinforce that understanding.

If you want to go right to the cutting edge it is looking very likely that time is emergent property of entanglement as shown by the work of Wheeler and DeWitt (https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blo...nt-d5d3dc850933). Until the work is replicated on macro scale and in the real world it's not a proof but it is currently the only concept of time that holds together across multiple science disciplines and importantly includes the concept of time in GR.

If you don't accept the emergent time theory then currently you have to accept the "two science standard times idea" one under GR and one under QM and hope we can resolve them together sometime in the future.

Last edited by Orac; 10/22/14 01:27 AM.

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Originally Posted By: Orac
So I guess the question I would ask if our universe wasn't here and only the higgs domain existed would time suddenly stop in the higgs domain?


If the Higgs domain exists, whether we can measure it or not, something exists. My original question was: would time exist if there was nothing else?

Quote:
This is the problem with the way you have posed the question because you can not prove or test for the "nothing exists state" because to answer that you have to know everything ... that is you have to be a god.


The question of whether or not one could prove that there was nothing is not really the point. The object of the question was to establish whether people regard time as something which has an existence of its own, if nothing else existed.

(https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blo...nt-d5d3dc850933).

Interesting article, if time is emergent, does that not imply that time is not fundamental? If it is not fundamental, surely it requires something to exist for it to be realised.

If I interpret that correctly, that seems to answer the question.


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Originally Posted By: Bill S.
If the Higgs domain exists, whether we can measure it or not, something exists. My original question was: would time exist if there was nothing else?


Then something always exists because you can't prove it doesn't smile

Surely you see the problem in the question it's like asking does GOD exist it becomes a matter of faith not science.

Originally Posted By: Bill S.
The object of the question was to establish whether people regard time as something which has an existence of its own, if nothing else existed.


You have been given the answer science couldn't care a less and there is nothing to learn from the question because it can't be tested ... make up whatever answer you want and works for you !!!!

Originally Posted By: Bill S.
if time is emergent, does that not imply that time is not fundamental? If it is not fundamental, surely it requires something to exist for it to be realised.


You have to be careful with words here "fundemental" to what?

If time is emergent to a QM universe it is by definition fundemental to that QM universe. Whether it is fundemental to something deeper behind that universe is another question entirely.

So perhaps define better what you mean by "fundemental" which is a very contextual word.

Last edited by Orac; 10/27/14 03:17 AM.

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Originally Posted By: Orac
If time is emergent to a QM universe it is by definition fundemental to that QM universe. Whether it is fundemental to something deeper behind that universe is another question entirely.


I think that the definition you need to think about there is probaby "emergent".
Originally Posted By: Wikipedia
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is conceived as a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties.


In this definition the 'smaller or simpler entities' have to exist before the emergent property can exist. I have to agree with Bill. If time is emergent then it can't exist without the existence of something else.

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Originally Posted By: Bill
I think that the definition you need to think about there is probaby "emergent".

You are familiar with the good old Russian dolls that stack one inside each other?


So Russian dolls are emergent from each other are they emergent from the universe?

These are all contextual words and why I hate English sometimes because some words should have been assassinated at birth and use far more clear and concise ones like used in many other languages smile

However what is clearly emergent in the universe is a never ending spewing of rubbish from the resident pollack crazy which never seems to get culled.

Last edited by Orac; 10/28/14 01:11 AM.

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Originally Posted By: Orc
So Russian dolls are emergent from each other are they emergent from the universe?


There is of course a problem with the English language, but you need to make sure that you select the correct context. The Russian dolls emerge from the cluster, but they are emergent from the universe only in the sense that the universe is emergent from the basic particles of which it consists. So far there is no real understanding of just how many things in the universe come to be. We may understand how the basic forces work, but not how they come together to create higher levels of organization. Thus the organization of the universe is emergent from the basic rules. That is the way I am using emergent. If, and I do mean if, time is emergent, then it is not a fundamental part of the universe.

And the English language has been cursed many times because of its complexity. But part of the reason it is so widespread is because of its flexibility. You can understand a lot of what is said with a very limited understanding of the language.

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Quote:
These are all contextual words and why I hate English sometimes because some words should have been assassinated at birth and use far more clear and concise ones like used in many other languages


The problem is not so much with the language as with the usage. English can be as precise as you need to make it, but if you say “nothing” when you mean “something” or “infinite” when you mean unbounded; or if you insist on making no distinction between “universe” and “cosmos”, then any surprise you may feel at misinterpretation is possibly unwarranted.

Of course there is no tablet of stone on which it is written “Thou shalt not use this word with this meaning”; but if there are two words with slightly different shades of meaning, it would seem wise for scientists, who are always striving for precision, to take advantage of the situation, and to try to standardise scientific usage.


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I haven't seen him posting on this thread. If he does, my delete power works. I try to check the forum twice a day at least. If he does try to infiltrate, at least give me a chance to delete before you get up in arms.


If you don't care for reality, just wait a while; another will be along shortly. --A Rose

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Try the physics section Rose he has reached 6 of his own stupid threads in which only he has commented and posted kiddie drawings.

As we commented surely he only needs 1 thread for that garbage it can't require what now amounts to hundreds of threads with the same trash that people have to wade thru when trying to look at topics. Is it hard to delete any new threads he starts on that junk?

He has almost made it to the usual 7 stupid thread rule, Oh but he did actually write a comment without posting kiddie drawings in one of Bill S posts now so maybe there is a glimmer of hope but I am sure it will be snuffed out in coming days.

Last edited by Orac; 10/29/14 05:30 AM.

I believe in "Evil, Bad, Ungodly fantasy science and maths", so I am undoubtedly wrong to you.
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I am aware of your concern, and will address it to the best of my ability. I'm focused on keeping him corralled. One thing I can do is merge some of his topics together. That would cut down some on the detritus. *sigh* Now I have to learn how to merge. And I thought freeway driving was difficult. :-)


If you don't care for reality, just wait a while; another will be along shortly. --A Rose

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Personally I think you are taking responsibility for what is HIS PROBLEM.

The solution is simple tell him to keep posts on the same topic in one thread and everytime he doesn't delete the threads until he gets the message which may take a while with Marosz. I know you can do that because you did it once before with PreEarth and he got the message.

Why you are making it your problem, it his responsibility to adhere to forum rules, you simply enforce the policy.

It's really not that hard if he doesn't want his posts deleted then keep them in the one thread.

I simply don't get your reluctance to delete the threads it's not like the same garbage is not repeated hundreds of time and lunatic would lose anything. Hence I pose the question why merge rather than simply delete them.

Here look at his website

http://tesla4.blogspot.com.au/

All he does is start a thread pick a few images from the pile of trash on his website and recycle it over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Right click on any of the images in his posts on the forum and you will see the image location is his own website.

That is what annoys almost everyone on the forum and we don't get why you won't act as it isn't like he is typing long detailed answers and responses. He is just cutting and pasting image links from his own website and adding a couple of lines of usually illiterate text between them.

Last edited by Orac; 10/29/14 12:38 PM.

I believe in "Evil, Bad, Ungodly fantasy science and maths", so I am undoubtedly wrong to you.
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Should we rename this thread: Do we ask too much of Mods? smile


There never was nothing.
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Weren't Mods also an English youth culture in the '60's?

You know, about the time of your youth?

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Originally Posted By: Bill S.
“Time………is essential to our reasoning, our understanding of the Universe and every aspect of our lives. It is essential to every measurement we make, but without something to measure, it has no significance.”

Flapdoodle it might be, but are you saying that time would have any significance if there were nothing to measure?
By The Way Saggo, et al, UNI-Theists are of the opinion that: G~0~D is not a person, or an object that can be measured. We think God--the one rejected by militant atheists, like Dawkins--as an idolatrous, physical, or mental image.


G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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Originally Posted By: Revlgking
Originally Posted By: Bill S.
“Time………is essential to our reasoning, our understanding of the Universe and every aspect of our lives. It is essential to every measurement we make, but without something to measure, it has no significance.”

Flapdoodle it might be, but are you saying that time would have any significance if there were nothing to measure?
By The Way Saggo, et al, UNI-Theists are of the opinion that: G~0~D is not a person, or an object that can be measured. We think of God--the one rejected by militant atheists, like Dawkins--as an idolatrous, physical, or mental images, which illogical theists tend to create with their minds (psyches) lacking theologal education.

BTW, after 2,375 responses, we now have--WOW!--a thread with 10,015,781 hits

Last edited by Revlgking; 07/24/15 11:51 PM. Reason: a

G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org
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