...on Physics from Netscape Boards

H G Lundahl wrote:
Quote from Rita, Liberal education thread:

"It would upset me because they would be taking up valuable time in a science class to discuss something that isn't science related (you forget that I am a physicist and know what is science and what is pseudo-science).

Also, if your kid is coming home telling you that he evolved from a monkey, then there is a problem with the ability of the teacher or your kid misunderstood.

I will not get into that 'know the truth' bullshit."

So knowing the truth is bullshit, but knowing what is science and what is pseudoscience is somehow not bullshit? Tell me, Rita, tell this "pre-enlightenment" scholastic (in point of literal fact: post-enlightenment, but VoP was thinking about type rather than actual dates): granted that only truth can be known and that science means knowledge, how does one distinguish science from pseudoscience if knowing the truth is bullshit?

How can we know that astrology, augury, heliocentrism and darwinism are pseudosciences, unless we know that the stars or angels who guide their voyage are no rulers of our fate, nor are the demons, to whom the Roman and Etruscan priests sacrificed the animals cut open for augury, nor does a neat calculation or ingenious explanation dispense us from believing our senses, nor indeed can 28-chromosomed animals evolve into 56-chromosomed (though it could have occurred in plants)?

And, since energy is Greek and potency is Latin for what can be but is not yet, how can potential energy be a special form of energy, and how can what can be but is not yet have at all a determined quantity?

If you consider what IS in a stone lifted from ground, the further from ground, the less gravity, as that force decreases with square of distance acc to Newton, while wight remains same.

If you consider what can be but is not, the more you lift it, the greater potential energy do you say it has.

So, energy is not something that is, but only what can be.

valencequark wrote:

no, energy is. period. in fact, thanks to hamilton and others, energy is central in much of physics. you seem to forget that there are many kinds of energy, not jsut gravitational potential energy. there's kinetic energy (the stuff of motion), other types of potential enrgy (electrostatic, for instance) and even mass has energy (the famous e=mc^2 a la special relativity). but, what the hell is the point of this drivel besides illustrating your misunderstanding of what energy is?

-vq

H G Lundahl wrote:

God is. period.You attribute one of God's attributes to energy and forget, not just that its shiftyness excludes the truth of your statement, but that even one of its so-called shifts, potential energy, is potential, meaning possible rather than actual.Hans Georg Lundahl
My answers, so far interspersed with vq's answering post:

valencequark wrote:

how do you know that "god is"?

Apart from historical revelation, there are the five proofs of God's existence that are parodically repeated and answered by modern physics. How so? Well, you seem determined on two points:

a) that there is something that simply IS, neither created nor destroyed

b) that it is energy, kinetic, potential, chemic, electromagnetic and so on all through "its" shifting and manyfold shapes.Your first point simply agrees with the third proof of God's existence, your second point is as blasphemous as erroneous: blasphemous by giving the attributes of God to something else, erroneous by violating the ontological characteristics of absolute existence.

Hans Georg Lundahl

and you still misunderstand potential energy. i agree that the terminology can be confusing, but make no doubt--potential energy exists. it is not the potential to "have energy", it is the potential to have kinetic energy. kinetic energy is no more real than potential energy, it is just more intuitive.-vq

The potential to have kinetic energy is clearly a potential to have potential to physic work.The potential to have kinetic energy is clearly a potential, a can-be, not an act, not an is.

No, if you say that energy IS, it is you who are misunderstanding potential energy, not I. Are you a physicist? If so, you are welcome to the debate. If not - well, the first message was a challenge directly to Rita, who is one and claims to know science.

But rather than defend her claim against my challenge, she choses to call me a raving lunatic and have me on IA. [=Ignore Author, she told AbbyLeever so on other message on same thread]

Hans Georg Lundahl

My answers after each one of his paragraphs.
valencequark wrote:

there are NO proofs of god's existence. unless you know of some empirical test and are holding out on the rest of the world.

There are five ways of proving God's existence, of which the first three are:

1 things are moved, whatever is moved is moved (kept in movement or change) by something, which is actually (not just potentially) moving it (keeping it in movement or change), and if that something is moved (kept in movement or change) by something else and that in turn by something else, one must sooner or later come to something which moves everything else and is moved by nothing, which everyone (except modern physicists) calls God.

2 things are caused, kept in movement or rest, change or invariance, and whatever is thus kept in movement or rest or any kind of causation, must have some cause, ultimately one which isn't caused, which everyone (except modern physicists) calls God.

3 things exist contingently (without their existence being in and of itself necessary), but whatever exists contingently must be kept in existence by something else, which must have actual existence, ultimately by something, the actual existence of which is in and of itself necessary, which can therefore neither be created nor destroyed, which everyone (except modern physicists) calls God.

secondly: the existence of energy in no way has anything to say about the existence of a deity.

If you are thinking of deities like Thor and Odin or Lugh Lamh Fáda or Ra - you are perfectly right. But we are kind of talking about the God whose name is He Who Is, The Being. In other words: existence itself. And you are giving the attribute of neither being created nor destroyed to something else, absurdly enough to something which is admittedly POTENTIAL. But the fact that you give that attribute to anything at all means clearly that (unlike Kant)you admit that there must be something which can neither be created nor destroyed: and so far you are in agreement with the third proof of God's existence.

i would like to see which of your "proofs" agrees with modern physics, seeing as how physics has NOTHING at all to say about religion. please understand that i know a lot about modern physics, and i have not seen any reference to deities. perhaps you would let me in on your little secret.

-vq

See above.

Hans Georg Lundahl