[QUOTE=xilman;170106]If you would stop being quite so literal occasionally, you'd easily be able to work out my meaning. In particular, you'd know why I asked that question at that point in the discussion.

Don't they teach rhetoric in schools any more?

Paul

[size=1][color=white]Yes, that was a rhetorical question. Just making sure you realise it.[/color][/size][/QUOTE]Okay, thanks for explaining. But I trust you understood my double meaning response.

[spoiler]Am I now obliged to explain my double meaning response?

For those who may be confused (or just too bored to think about how my response had two meanings). 1) god plays with loaded dice, hence a loaded question. 2) The Q assumes god exists, hence a loaded question. And, no, I don't put god with a capital g, it is not a proper noun, it is a concept.[/spoiler]

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;170109]Either retina's answer was very obtuse, or one of the most brilliant puns (think "loaded dice") that I've seen in a while.[/QUOTE]Somebody give that person a cigar!

[QUOTE=retina;170110][spoiler]2) The Q assumes god exists, hence a loaded question. And, no, I don't put god with a capital g, it is not a proper noun, it is a concept.[/spoiler][/QUOTE]Well even [spoiler]concepts are given proper name type handles. There are Liberty, Freedom, Brotherhood, to name a few that often are made into proper nouns or personified. If you are refering to Allah, or Shiva, or Zeus, or Odin, or Thor, or Dagon, or Apollo; those are all [B]names[/B]. Generally God with a big G refers to the typical English [B]name[/B] of the one in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Terms like 'higher power' and 'supreme being' are more of a religion neutral term.[/spoiler]
Carry on.

So, back to the subject at hand. Does Mr. P-1 agree that there are competing scientific theories?

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;170138]So, back to the subject at hand. Does Mr. P-1 agree that there are competing scientific theories?[/QUOTE]Why just ask Mr. P-1?

Is that line if questioning going somewhere? Perhaps you are hoping for a 'yes' answer and then say "even science has problems."? Because I thought we already covered the fact that scientists are people also and can be self-deceived.

The topic at hand was how to [i]avoid[/i] self-deception. I have suggested to use the scientific method, but it is cumbersome and prone to error. Maybe there is a better, and easier method? Although finding the truth in something never seems easy, so perhaps there is no better method?

[QUOTE=retina;170146]Why just ask Mr. P-1?[/quote]Do you still not understand why xilman put the question about dice where he did?

[quote]Is that line if questioning going somewhere? Perhaps you are hoping for a 'yes' answer and then say "even science has problems."? Because I thought we already covered the fact that scientists are people also and can be self-deceived.[/quote]Perhaps I'm an invisible unicorn in your backyard. ;)

It is my hope that this line of questioning will get somewhere, but I would appreciate you not setting up straw-men which are easily knocked down. I imagine that Mr. P-1's answer will simply be "yes" (at least that is what his previous post implied) and we can go from there.

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;170157]Do you still not understand why xilman put the question about dice where he did?[/QUOTE]Sigh. I'd hoped that he (Retina) would have done some background reading if required. It was clearly needed, though ought not to have been, in my opinion.

Einstein famously claimed that he didn't believe that God played dice. That is, he couldn't accept the probabalistic interpretation of quantum mechanics. He didn't believe in "spooky" action at a distance which quantum entanglement seems to require.

Quantum mechanics (QM) appears to make predictions in distinct contradiction to the physics in which Einstein believed and in which he'd made great advances. So far, QM seems to be more in accordance with experiment.

However, general relativity (GR) is also a beautiful theory which shows excellent agreement with experimental and observational results.

Unfortunately, GW and QM are mutually incompatible. In their present form, at most one of them can be correct. There are those who believe in one, and those who believe in the other. In a very real sense, there are two sciences each with their own beliefs and physics is not a "single unified religion".

The profundity of the checkers remark I'll leave for later.


Paul

[quote=xilman;170172]The profundity of the checkers remark I'll leave for later.


Paul[/quote]


I'm guessing you take the view that it's not randomness, but complexity (chaos) that better describes reality at the QM level, and checkers comes closer to an analogy of this than dice. Is that right?

[QUOTE=xilman;170172]Quantum mechanics (QM) appears to make predictions in distinct contradiction to the physics in which Einstein believed and in which he'd made great advances. So far, QM seems to be more in accordance with experiment.

However, general relativity (GR) is also a beautiful theory which shows excellent agreement with experimental and observational results.

Unfortunately, GW and QM are mutually incompatible. In their present form, at most one of them can be correct. There are those who believe in one, and those who believe in the other. In a very real sense, there are two sciences each with their own beliefs and physics is not a "single unified religion".[/QUOTE]

At the risk of opining beyond my qualifications, aren't both theories falsified? GR by observations which reveal quantum effects, and QM by observations which reveal relativistic effects?

What I understand physists to be searching for is a theory of quantum gravity, which reduces to GR in the domain where relativistic effects dominate and QM where quantum effects dominate, and thus explains those observations consistent with either and both?

Can you imagine a similar search between Christians and Muslims?

[QUOTE=Mr. P-1;170181]Can you imagine a similar search between Christians and Muslims?[/QUOTE]I can. Can you not?

[QUOTE=xilman;170172]Sigh. I'd hoped that he (Retina) would have done some background reading if required. It was clearly needed, though ought not to have been, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]Thanks for the refresher, but I expect everybody here already knows about the QM/GR incompatibility. Einstein's famous quote is the dead give-away. Do you believe that the GR/QM problem is because of self-deception? I had always assumed it was because of a fundamental difficulty with the human mind in understanding the underlying mechanism. I kind of liken it to waiting for a dog to discover arithmetic. The dog is unable to understand the basic principles. Are we (as a species) able to sort out QM/GR? Or are we the dog, still not able to comprehend that 1+1=2?

Even the wave/particle duality thing is not something I am entirely happy about. This seems like some type of self-deception is happening. If we try to find a wave then we find a wave. If we try to find a particle then we find a particle. Are our experiments wrongly constructed? Is the theory just backward and we don't know how to fix it? Are we just not yet able to construct the concept to adequately explain it? Is the theory correct and I have merely deceived myself to think there is a problem with duality?

But regardless of the reasons why the QM/GR and the wave/particle things happen it is comforting to know that if/when someone spots the flaw and "solves it" that science can them move on to the next level. I think this is the real meaning of science, the ability to abandon old beliefs and ideas when new data comes along. Rather than concentrate on QM/GR and say there are two competing sciences, it is better to say that they are merely problems in the details which will eventually get sorted out. We can then look back and laugh at ourselves for being so blind not to have seen it earlier.