Monday, May 20, 2013

... on Young Earth Creationism Denying Gravity (with a certain levity towards the matter, thank God!)

The levity involved is really about angels, but I am thankful for the levity of the music in the videos as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bRvt0InhYk

Now you are presuming that taking a picture jan. 1 and another 6 months later is equivalent to shifting view point like opening and closing the eye.

It would of course be if heliocentrism were true.

Trigonometry works perfectly with two angles and one distance known. Not with one angle and no distance known which is the case for a Geocentric universe where it is the stars that shift place.

This means Magellanic cloud need not be very much further away than alpha Centauri. Which means that its lesser brightness may be due to be really less bright in its own place.

Which means that Main Sequence too has another meaning than supposed and that calibrating Cepheids by it is worthless as to determine a stars own luminosity.

Red Shift has possibly a meaning as Doppler effect which may be wrongly calibrated by errors in previous due to heliocentrism.

Or it is possibly so that we know there is a doppler effect by the car because we know it sounds differently, having heard same car siren before and after it passed, but with redder luminosity we cannot be sure it is because stars further away are distancing from us faster or because the stars thought to be further away are simply redder.

I suppose your part two will involve saying geocentrism entails a denial of gravity?

Let's take that under part two then.

You did not state exactly that under part II, so let's take it here:

You can of course SOH-CAH-TOA your way from largest distance on Earth viewing Moon to distance to Moon, then from there to distance to Sun which is reflected by Moon at an angle presumably measurable through telescopes from Earth. Then measure any other distance to any other body reflecting the sun.

But that works for geocentrism as well as for heliocentrism.

However, a purely gravitational model of what happens (each body moving according to both its own previous motion and the attraction it suffers at the mercy of the other body in each two body problem) will involve heliocentrism and will involve Sun being most massive and Jupiter next most massive and so on.

But with angels moving whatever moves, masses of the bodies are far less interesting. Since inferior to the power of an angel trusted with a heavenly body anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEW1oQBZu-I

Your minimum mass measure for a star supposes:

1) you know what started the star going

2) and that it would have started Jupiter going too as a star unless Jupiter had been too small.

There is a piece of Atheist Methodology involved too: you assume that if stars did start burning, they did so due to a sufficient mass for self ignition.

Not due to the God you don't believe in, not due to the angels you don't believe in either.

But such self ignition is not absolutely necessary for fusion to work, or people researching fusion in labs at CERN are wasting their times with masses of hydrogen vastly inferior to mass of Jupiter as it is presumed to be.*

You then conclude that a closer but not smaller Magellanic Cloud would hoover away the planets from the sun, if I get it right.

But that may be wrong if stars are much smaller as well as much closer.

Also, things falling to the ground need not absolutely depend on gravity, Aristotle had another option.

Aristotle's option depends on certain substances being in themselves heavy, others light.

Now, whether Aristotle or Newton is right on it, position of stars and planets need not depend on gravity, but may depend - indeed if St Thomas Aquinas is right in Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q 70, A 3 DOES depend - on angels holding them in right place for each moment and bringing them along their orbits.

Update, St Augustine of Hippo (May 27th, 2013):

part III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAUxQjylzc8


Was summarily refuted like this:

You forgot that Young Earth Creationism has at least yet another option, that one being a small universe, that one being feasible optically with "parallax" not being such (i e with Earth in centre, immovable, giving to each star one known angle, no known distance and hence no triangulation), and physically with stars smaller than Jupiter in mass that needed no self ignition because they were lit by God or by their angels.

part IV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSEBR_6lnT4


posed no extra problem about that, and I thankfully accept evidence against rival schools of Young Earth Creationism that deny Geocentrism.

part V
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j07Y4IirWZ4


merited two extra comments:

Re your reason 5 against white hole cosmology - which I do not agree with anyway - you say that earth is old according to every relevant dating method, but forget that these are calibrated among other things - nowadays at least when the debate has started - around a "distant starlight problem".

I became a geocentric after one evolutionist brought up distant starlight problem in support of those dating methods, which I had attacked same way as any other YEC would.

[re his final challenge:]

God cannot lie.

But God can make the universe so that people getting at it the wrong way can go on deceiving themselves for quite a while. Like heliocentrics claiming we have trigonometric evidence alpha Centauri is four light years away, because its annual wiggle of 0.76 arch seconds (that was proxima Centauri btw) is seen as still star observed from moving earth. Or dendrochronologists who are willing to accept fittings with too little fitting the sequences

Any one giving any other challenge hereon?/HGL

*footnote:
Following commentator missed part of above discussion, I had to spell it out for him:
lxmach1
so basically god placed a time bomb right next to us called Jupiter, just waiting to be lit up? nice god.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
I did not say Jupiter was going to self ignite.

I said Jupiter has enough mass to do fusion IF lit up by divine or angelic action, and IF it had been pure hydrogen, since otherwise researchers at CERN are wasting their time, but I do not concede that therefore God or its angel will light it up.

However one or other did light up Sirius, and it can therefore be smaller than Jupiter, and closer.* Universe can be pretty small and cosy, without absurdity.

[*Not closer than Jupiter, but closer than we have been taught, obviously.]
Antonpreis
Jupiter is sub-critical, so unless it acquires sufficient extra mass, it will remain so: it is mass causing compression - like a bicycle pump - which causes fusion, not angels, and Sirius is not smaller than Jupiter, it's spectrum denotes a star far more massive than our sun, will burn out much more quickly, and as with other massive stars, will seed the local area with elements more massive than our own sun is producing. Your comment below about geocentric universe below is a fairy story.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
I was very well aware that that is how your theory works.

Presuming there are no angels, presuming Sirius is so far away as to be much larger than Jupiter, presuming such sizes have been correctly realted to spectrums and a few other presuppositions presumed to be true.

Only question: how do you know all that?

Simple answer, so far: you do not.

I was not saying Jupiter would self ignite, but I am not saying Sirius or Sun did self ignite either, see. You do, but why?
Antonpreis
Gravity: the moon goes round the earth, because it has less mass than the earth, the planets goes round the sun, for the same reason- less gravity than the central body. The gravity of the sun attracted matter, mainly hydrogen, gravity increased to the point where pressure increased temperature - like the pump - and fusion commenced. Temperature and pressure on earth change the form of materials, same principle but hugely greater occurs in suns, so they "self ignite", but it is not a fire!
Hans-Georg Lundahl
I was totally aware of that explanation.

But explaining is not proving your explanation is the right one.

So, why do you exclude the older explanation? Because you find the new one tastier?

I stop holding a pen, and gravity takes care of it. I keep on holding it, my will takes care of it (excepting my sometimes clumsiness).

Which is the better parallel to the situation of heavenly bodies and WHY SO?
Antonpreis
I can similarly counter, that when predictability in physical events according to mathematical calculations occurs, it would either mean that the angels are boringly predictable - all 200 billion of them - or that the modern understanding of the universe is correct. If i can regularly use spectrum analysis to tell me what metals are present in a sample, and prove that analysis chemically, then it's probably going to work for stars - unless your angels are devious little beggars. Are they?
Hans-Georg Lundahl
I do not see where presence or absence of a metal according to spectral analysis for a star's light would mean anything for our dispute.

UNLESS you add, what I do not grant, that density of star and so on depend solely on initial mass affected by same centre of gravity. I do not grant, for we do not know that. Theism suggests something other.

Predictability of a mathematical sort can be seen in voluntary activites too, like dancing.

I believe angels are good dancers.
Antonpreis
You don't understand predictability based on scientific observation then. If you want to believe fables written by people who had no instruments for observation, but just came up with any unprovable, non-verifiable notion that's fine by me, but I advise you to use science if you get ill, not a witch doctor using chicken entrails to diagnose you. Or fairies, angels, gnomes, goblins, unicorns, trolls, talking goats or bears. Happy dreams.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Not so fast.

My point is that the instruments of observation we do have - and I have checked up what it is we directly observe with them - do not decide which explanation is the right one.

As for illness, a microscope can study bacteria from every side and angle. Electronic microscopy can study viruses that way - via "translation" to light and ultimately via human sight.

A telescope on or near earth cannot study any star from all angles nor from close up.

"Predictability" is a moot point.
Antonpreis (new start)
The more material available, the greater the mass/ gravity, more bright the star, the spectrum going towards blue, (spectra, not spectrums, it's latin) shorter life-cycle, immense temperatures and pressure producing heavier elements. Like a fire, if you pile all the fuel on at once, you get a short-lived, very hot fire, or you can feed it with small amounts of fuel, keep it going longer. No presuppositions, just observations, known physics, calculations by eg parallax, so no angels with a match.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Calculations by parallax precisely presuppose the observation known as parallax is caused by our movement around sun and that (often seen as) caused by gravitation.

If stars are moved by angels, where do the parallactic calculations lead us as far as distance and size are concerned?

As said, as long as I hold a pen, its movement is not decided (mainly) by gravitation.

Can you prove the stars are like pens dropping to ground rather than as pens held?
Antonpreis
Actually, the pen's position is decided within the limits of your arm reach, entirely by gravity, as that is determining your own position; in the same way, the solar system moves in concert within the galaxy. Extrapolation - provable by experiment - can indicate other gravitational effects, including the deviation of a pendulum near a cliff face. We can go on like this ad infinitum, but your angels are boring, your arguments just plain silly. goodbye.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
I was not talking about the pen's geographic location. I was talking about its exact position decided by the will of the one holding it - which, as you say, with humans, happens to be as far as the arm reaches. Whether it writes an A or a B on a paper is however not decided by gravity.

My point is, how do you know angels have no similar power on stars?

Because they bore you? Because it is silly?

Well, that is a taste in world views. Mine in blue and your in grey, perhaps?
Antonpreis
Wrong. The pen's spatial position is defined by yours as long as you are holding it, within boundaries of uncertainty: your arm length in any possible direction, but it is still defined by you, just as the earth's position is defined by the sun, wherever in the galaxy it might have moved to. Galaxies define the positions of the stars within them according to gravity, angular velocity, variations according to nearby stars etc. Still no angels - 3 year old girl next door believes in them though.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Congrats, your neighbour next door is at age three wiser than you as an adult.

That the pen is defined by me, we agree.

That "earth's position is defined by the sun" rather than by an angel holding it or God deciding for it, you prove if you can.

So far you have asserted only.
[Got an appendix to above essay commenting, a little "debate skirmish"]
robertwc82
so in other words you abandoned reality when ever you realise it contradicts your fantasies? lol and you admit it? hahahaahhahahaha
Hans-Georg Lundahl
So becoming a Geocentric is to you "abandoning reality"?
robertwc82
sorry the facts dont lie
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Facts do not lie. Some interpretations do.

Has it ever occurred to you that heliocentrism is not a directly observed fact?

That it is a conclusion, an interpretation of observations.

Real, real many observations, granted. But in each case an interpretation. And not the most obvious one either.
robertwc82
yes it has occured to me. has it occurred to you that geocentrism is no more directly observed. has it occurred to you that the evidence is overwhelmingly stacked in the favour of heliocentrism? if you look at the facts with an objective open mind, heliocentrism is the most obvious. instead of trying to interperate the facts in a way that confirms your pre-drawn conclusion. you realize the fact that there is no firmament up there also contradicts the bible?
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Has it occurred to you that this is part V, that video part I can have dealt with supposed proofs for heliocentrism and that I can have answered under that video, and possibly following ones?
robertwc82
im sure its the same fallacious garbage that has been said by other aplogists. heard it all before. but you admit that you didnt look at the evidence and come to the realization that it pointed to an earth centered univerese. you drew the conclusion that the earth was in the center and then view the evidence through this lense and attempting to mold it to your conclusion. why such blind faith in the anonymous authors of ancient books riddled with copying errors and demonstrably untrue claims?
Hans-Georg Lundahl
The most direct interpretation of the evidence remains geocentrism.

"heard it all before"

How many Geocentric apologists have you been debating? Young Earth Creationist no doubt a few, but how many Geocentric ones?
robertwc82
2 others (not debated, heard their claims.)
Hans-Georg Lundahl
ok, Geocentrism seems to be spreading ... thanks for the good news (I feel less lonely)!

Their claims were ... what? If you care for a little debate, that is.
robertwc82
so explain the physical forces behind retrograde motion. heliocentrism only has to assume gravity. you have to assume gravity, and a whole series of other forces to account for the observations. heard of occam's razor? amongst competing hypothesis, the one with the least amount of assumptions should be selected. and you think yours is the most obvious? lol.
Hans-Georg Lundahl (tried to give the following answer but was hindered by sabotage on youtube or more probably the library where I am sitting:)
The physical forces behind retrograde motions of planets would be angels.

The complexity of "explaining them" is no complexity in physical forces assumed by people believing Geocentrism and angels, but only a complexity of explaining how one is going about to draw a diagram of them (epicycles and so on).
(Problem fixed and it seems the old system of Paris Library computers was outdated since it is replaced today.)
(Same day I find out that with new system there is an automatic maximum of minutes on internet, irrespective of how many usagers there are in a library. Even if library is empty and I have used up my minutes, this precludes me from continuing on my account. Will it work? It may very well provoke an afflux on Georges Pompidou that will backfire on the decision. What provoked it? Probably some sham science from psychologists speaking about "internet addiction". As if human communication were some kind of drug.)
robertwc82
so now you must demonstrate that angels A: exist, and B: effect planets. for what purpose do angels cause retrograde motion. angels?! you really think thats the most obvious explanation? what are you five? do you think thunder is God bowling too?
Hans-Georg Lundahl
A: existence has been historically proven many times over. Look at the Angels at the Resurrection or at St Raphael in the book of Tobit.

B: if there were no angels affecting the planets, or other artistic wills, how come that planetary motions, when abstracted from daily motion of the heaven around earth, form such an intricate and flowery pattern?

One verse of the Bible would seem to indicate that lightnings also are angelic actors.

Anything against that world view, 4 u? Atheist prejudice?
robertwc82
A. what you call "proof" i call the unsubstantiated claims of human beings, who as we know are fallable and deceitful. just because a human says something is true does not make it true.

B. the fact that it is similar to the pattern of a flower and you happen to find it pretty, is merely co-incidental and arbitrary. it does not logically follow that angels must have done it because it looks like a flower. if we assume mars is the center of the solar system we would get a very similar pattern.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
A) I think human beings are far more likely to be fallible when concluding against the miraculous than when telling their or their ancestors' story.

B) The flowery pattern is ascertaind in so far as observations from earth are taken as being from the right angle.

If they are true, mere gravitational play is totally ruled out. Some artistic will is necssarily behind this.

You did not answer whether you harboured any prejudice ruling this explanation out. Do you?
robertwc82
ahhh hahahaha you seem to be getting stupider by the day. you see being an atheist means not believing in gods of any kind, not just yours. therefore i do not follow any scriptures. if there is no god the universe could be arranged in any way imaginable, it would not be in conflict with a belief. its a seriously retarded question. a god could arrange things in any way it wanted. heliocentrism does not rule out the possibility of god. it merely contradicts the word of MAN you blind gullable fool!
Hans-Georg Lundahl
" you see being an atheist means not believing in gods of any kind, not just yours."

Ah, there is after all some prejudice against a will with artistic intentions being behind the universe as it is? You are an atheist? Ah, I am so sorry for you!

"if there is no god the universe could be arranged in any way imaginable"

If there IS a God, it can be arranged in any way, if not only in ways that seem automatic enough. Which would rule out the florid patterns. Atheism only rules out geocentrism.
robertwc82 [to video]
the fact that we have landed on the moon is an even bigger problem who think genesis is an accurate description of the world. according to genesis the moon is alot closer and alot smaller and passes through windows in a solid dome. and the stars are supposedley nothing but little christmas tree lights fixed to the solid dome. above the dome is water
Hans-Georg Lundahl
what exact number of kilometres does your version of Genesis assign to the moon?

Douay Rheims does not tell (nor does Vulgate or, as far as I know, LXX)

Having stars inside a solid dome (with some room for wiggling shown as "double stars", "parallax" etc. in our science manuals) does not bother me. I find it credible.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

... on Chomsky's take on the Internet or Unstructured Research

What is Education For? (Chomsky)
Noam Chomsky The Purpose of Education
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdNAUJWJN08


1) Chomsky states that education is for open investigation along the student's own lines, not for indoctrination.

2) When it comes to internet, he reverses it totally.

If one hasn't got a "proper framework" (and young students are not suppoed to have it unless cleared as having such by their professors), though one should be willing to ask if it is the right one (but that is safest to leave to professors) the internet can harm more than help (so let's replace educational freedom with doctrine).

I do however owe Chomsky. For his good history of English from Chaucer to Standard US. Or if that was by a disciple of his, it is still good and in a way his merit.

I also owe him for the amusing, though in my view inaccurate, view about meaning being determined by temporal position in word order in an idealised way.

Acc. to Chomsky, if I get him right, the "underlying" structure of any cria on "er hatte ihn lieb" is:

A) [daß, wenn, etc.] er ihn lieb hatte.

This can change in relatives to:

B) den er [ihn=den] lieb hatte

C) der [er=der] ihn lieb hatte

D) hatte er ihn lieb [hatte=hatte]

E) er hatte [er=er] ihn lieb [hatte=hatte].

The last being of course the usual position in main clauses.

If this explains the meaning, rather than forms like nom sg = indic sg > acc or lieb being in "predicative case" how does Chomsky analyse an example like this:

Und der gute Dieb
Erfur daß ihn lieb
Hatte der Herr, des Davids Sohn.


It has a surface and deep structure like:

F) daß [er=er] ihn lieb hatte ["er"=] der Herr.

No, I find it more credible that meaning is determined by forms like er and ihn for difference between subject and object, that word order in usual sequence can help, especially in "cases" where both nom and acc nouns are nom/acc ambiguous, that adjective is used as pred. by non-suffix

And that lieb is an AdjP qualifying BOTH V and NP of VP.

So, if I think Chomsky's grammar is less informing (except perhaps for purposes of pragmatic use, since inversions of typical order do contribute to how a sentence strikes one) than traditional one, if furthermore I think he was wrong in discovering the most typical innate grammar in the pidgins, which got their grammar as McWhorter said, from slaves held in Africa teaching slaves meant for Transatlantic sale English vocabulary with their own grammar underlying, he has intrigued me. I owe him.

But owing someone does not mean one cannot disagree when he is very wrong.

I do agree:

- higher education should encourage one to look further than one's models if possible;

- higher education should not be about passing exams.

Nor should any education be that.

But they should be about the acquired knowledge or know-how which also helps you pass exams.

An exam can show if you have read a book, but it is reading it which is educational for you. As CSL once remarked (Lilies that Fester?)

I do not agree that education needs to be or even can achieve being non-indoctrinational, totally.

Nor do I believe vocational training has not been unduly neglected.

If a boy feels he is a man at fourteen and wants a wife and children, he should have had the opportunity to have learnt how to shepherd or mend fishing nets or weave or knit or make macramé or play songs that people pay to hear well before fourteen.

But that does not mean higher education should be rebooted into vocational one.

But there is a real disagreement on who is unduly stifling the creativity of learning and who is not.

He has come full circle from the Enlightenment.

They would call Jesuit schools places of indoctrination and claim they wanted full freedom of research, but when someone does these days get more freedom of research than Chomsky likes, he calls their opportunity a cult generator.

He mentions that going through a library of biology will not make one a good biologist if one does not know what to look for.

But it is not just meaning of language which we have an innate capacity for. It is also - and that is how language is learnt - constructing meaning as facts come along.

Chomsky feels we should know what we are looking for and have an open mind about the framework.

I feel his open mind about the framwork is really lip service, unless unstructured research is permitted and encouraged.

The best way to judge whether something is real or not is to have lots of real knowledge about reality.

The best way to get it is to welcome any piece of knowledge you can get. And the best way to do so, is not to concentrate on what one is looking for but to welcome anything that may come along. Unless you have a particular reason to reject it.

That is how I was self taught, and I think it worked.

He may feel it did not work: that I became a cultist. If he is right, it was at least not through internet, that only gave me an opportunity of expression, and of correcting some of my first hunches insofar as I saw them in need of correction, but by reading. [Books, printed such, on paper] His "ban" on unstructured research in the end means a ban on libraries.

His example of biology seems to me to hint at his view of creationism, as something proper to cultists.

I may not be an ace on biology, but I do know the laws of Mendel, I do know what chromosomes are, I do know what telomeres and centromeres are, and I do know they pose a problem to evolutionism. One that P. Z. Myers has "solved" only insofar as he is fine with "new chromosome pairs" being telocentric ones.

One where I debated under his blog post about his solution, and where I was told to ask expertise, did ask medical such and was told I should of course have asked an evolutionary biologist.

He has - at least from the computers I access - hid comments on that post if posterior to 2009. It was in 2011 that I started posting and debating in that comment section.

I feel it is all right that a Jesuit school should transmit the Catholic answer to the 124 questions in St Peter Canisius' Catechism. But in return Jews are free to open schools for Jews, where the wrong answer to a lot of them is transmitted.

In the modern system, all believers and non-believers are supposed to be welcome, supposed to be taught an open mind, but are really educated within a system as closed as, if not more than the system of the Jesuit school or the Yeshiva.

The Jesuit school may have taught some to label Jews Kikes - or the propensity of its pupils to strike a young boy named Noam because he was Jewish may have come from elsewhere than from the teachers. The Yeshiva may have taught some to label non-Jews Goyim va Minim.

The Modern System is teaching to label for instance a Creationist and Geocentric as a Cultist. And with Noam Chomsky we get as high as we can in tracking where that comes from.

Right in this video he is doing it.

Unless of course he meant something quite different from Creationism.

But is for instance 9-11-trutherdom really so stupid that one can honestly label it a cult?

It brought on a war some people wanted for other reasons even before the Taliban had been oppressing any Christians, since they were "backward".

It brought on New World Order - like Air Port Tyranny ([expression] courtesy of Mgr Williamson) or non-terrorist Muslims running ENFORCED security all over France (big cities, anyway).

This was posted here by, at, in:

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI Georges Pompidou, Paris
Pentecost Sunday
19-V-2013