Note: These posts were initially saved for reading offline. The manner in which they were saved was not entirely consistent. An attempt has been made to put them back in reasonably good order and restore some of their original formatting that was lost during the saving process, but it should be understood that this was not done totally consistently and accurately.

tom,tom,tom.........

Yes, I thought about this last night. It does depend on definitions. So,

quantum mechanics: an extension of statistical mechanics based on quantum theory (especially the Pauli exclusion principle); applies to the behavior of atoms and particles

nature: The existing system of things; the world of matter, or of matter and mind; the creation; the universe

Nature is the complete set of physical laws. Quantum mechanics only holds those theories that seem to fit those laws; it may not be complete. Another way to look at it is: nature is complete in that it contains laws that cannot be proven, quantum mechanics, as a science, cannot.

Before making the assertion that there is no hidden code in the Bible, we need to look into the codes found and test it scientifically and mathematically. If it fails, we know its not real. If it passes, then the claim that it doesn't exist needs to be trashed. Then again the code has passed the testing it had to undergo to get published so I don't understand the commotion. I think we are all being cynical about Drosnan's (supposed)claim that the code can be used to predict the future. If you think about it, even the source (the Bible) says that no "one will know the day or the hour" so just relax people. The more we think of ourselves as extremely intelligent, the more we find out how much we dont know.

Wasn't the Hebrew text of the Bible written without vowels? If so, that certainly leaves much more room for subjective interpretation of any series of letters than can be backed up by statistical analysis. The author of The Bible Code tells us that he used Tolstoy's novel War and Peace as a control text, but he makes no mention of the presence of vowels in either text. A vowel-less War and Peace might provide more meat for seemingly-encoded messages than the original text of the novel. Conversely, a Hebrew Torah with no vowels allows one a great deal of flexibility in interpretation of letters spaced at given intervals.

Tom Anderson - 12:02pm Aug 1, 1997 ET (#424 of 425)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

The Bible Code directly conflicts with the actual text of the Bible. People are defending this thing by saying, "God put it there so that we would know once we learned enough." But, the Bible clearly says that knowledge is bad and that people should just put faith in God. Such was the case with the Tree of Knowledge and the Tower of Babel. To be consistant with Biblical stories, God should now punish us for trying to be like Him. But, then God should never have put a "code" there for us to find (just as he should never have put the "tree" there for us to eat from). But, like I've said numerous times, the primitive people who wrote the book were not very good at a logical analysis of their work, so inconsistancies are common.

Tom

The astonishing fact is that a code exists that contained details of events future to 1000 years ago, or even 200 years ago. That is impossible, yet it now appears to be true! It is the one undisputed fact of the book and until it can be soundly shot down, it is the discovery of the ages. It would prove, via a hard science, the existance of higher technology with it's associated intelligence. Nothing compares to this if it continues to hold true.

There is no need to get sidetracked by the book's fascination with predicting our future. The fact of the code alone is enough to warrant attention, study and research.

Tom, I have to say that I agree with Marcello. But seriously, it does appear that you are hiding behind an abstraction.

Nature is physical reality, the totality of the universe and all that is within it (and perhaps, without). Quantum mechanics is a description of nature. In this sense, it is permissible to say: "quantum mechanics is nature, and vice versa." But this does not mean that they can be equated. We can say: "The sun is hot," and it is also permissible to say: "Hot is the sun." But that does not mean that "hot" and "sun" are the same. Obviously, when we speak of the sun, we are talking about the totality of the sun. Hot is a description of the sun, but an imperfect one since the sun is also luminous. Hot does not say anything about luminosity.

Likewise, quantum mechanics is an imperfect description of nature. Although, quantum mechanics is, without doubt, the crowning achievement of 20th century physics, it can not account for gravity. Obviously, any complete description of nature would have to account for all the forces in nature. And even a compete description of nature, were it to exist, could not be equated with nature, itself.

Bob, I agree with you that we should not get sidetracked with the fortune telling, fairy tale Drosnin book. It is laughable that Drosnin actually cited codes in Issiah that he thought predicted the future, even though Issiah was used as a control text in the experiment, and was found to show no statistical significance whatsoever.

I agree, also, that the "fact of the code alone is enough to warrant attention, study and research." However, I do not agree that it is, or will ever be considered, the "discovery of the ages." At best, it's discovery is an interesting side note. However, I think that it may be possible that general acceptance of the existence of the code within the scientific community might force significant discoveries about the curvature of space, or, perhaps, the nature of time in the fourth dimension.

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 03:08am Aug 2, 1997 ET (#427 of 435)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

You don't understand. "Nature" is a word; it is a description of what we percieve. "Quantum mechanics" is a word(s); it is a description of what we percieve in relation to other things we percieve. You may include in your description of VW Bugs that they are all yellow... until you see a red one, and then change your definition. You may have an explanation of why they are all yellow... until you start to test an explanation of why there are red ones. You use what works, and what best fits what is percieved. But, if your theory leads you to believe that yellow bugs are red, then you have a flawed theory. Or, even worse, if your idea excludes the possibility of blue bugs, despite evidence of them, then you are just in denial. And such is the case with God and the Bible.

Tom

Tom, if you are saying that blue is VW Bug, I don't think so.

However, if we assume that blue bugs is Bible code, than I must agree that "if your idea excludes the possiblility of blue bugs, despite evidence of then, then you are just in denial."

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 04:10pm Aug 2, 1997 ET (#429 of 435)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

Did you even read my last post, or did you just pick out words and phrases? You missed the point entirely. I'm not talking about adjectives and nouns. And "blue bugs" pertains to the plethora of scientific fact that directly contradicts biblical myth.

Tom

Tom, regarding your question about my reading you post, I read it very carefully several times. Mainly, it mystified me. However, a couple of things were apparent: First, it was clear that you were not addressing either quantum mechanics or the Bible code (the subjects of my post to which, ostensibly, you were responding). And, second, it appeared that you were arguing for something, but the only hints as to what it might be were that you accused me of being "in denial" and your specific mention of the Bible and God.

None of this made any sense to me in the context of the prior posts. Therefore, when I saw the opportunity, I attempted a joke which I thought was rather clever. I thought you would see the humor. A few days ago, you used my words against me, and I took it in good humor. I expected you would do the same.

Now that you have clarified that you were talking about biblical myth, I still fail to see why you would accuse me of being "in denial." I have never denied that the Bible contains myth, but freely admit it. If your argument is that the Bible code can not exist since the Bible contains myth, I think that I have already indicated that I think the existence of myth in the Bible is beside the point. But what does that have to do with being "in denial"?

I also note that in your prior post, you mentioned both the Bible and God. I, therefore, assume that you must have meant, and intended to say, that I am also "in denial" about the existence (or, rather, the non-existence) of God. Is this true?

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 03:52pm Aug 3, 1997 ET (#431 of 435)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

Now you are taking my words far too personally; I meant that the religious, in general, deny the facts of reality because they don't fit in with the myth, not that *you* are in denial (not necessarily, but possibly).

But it cannot be. The Bible is supposed to be the word of God, exclusively; and in order for a code to exist, it must be in the exact words of God. However, if it is based on myth, as you agreed, then a code cannot exist.

Tom

Tom, thanks for the clarification. For a while there, this was no fun at all, and I was about ready to chunk it. Now it is fun again.

Okay, lets get right to the point. You said, "The Bible is supposed to be the word of God, exclusively; and in order for a code to exist, it must be in the exact words of God. However, if it is based on myth, as you agreed, then a code cannot exist."

My disagreement is with your premise. Your premise is that in order for the code to exist, God, himself, intentionally, and necessarily, encoded Genesis with his exact words. You then conclude that since Genesis contains myth, it can not be the exact word of God, and the code, also, can not exist. (No argument with your conclusion, provided your premise is correct.)

However, there is no reason for me, or anyone, to believe that your premise is anything other than mere assumption based on a preconceived notion. You have certainly provided no hard evidence in support of it, nor can you.

Normally, assumptions, are tested against hard evidence, when hard evidence exists. We normally don't (and shouldn't) decide whether to accept hard evidence based on whether it conforms to our preconceived notions. (Religion is an exception. For example, some religious sects insist on a word-for-word interpretation of Genesis (as well as the rest of the Bible), but anyone who knows anything at all about OT Bible scholarship knows that Genesis is composed of multiple traditions, consisting mainly of the J (southern kingdom), E (northern kingdom) and P (priestly) traditions, based on extensive internal and external evidence.

It is, therefore, my opinion that your premise should be tested in terms OT scholarship, which is supported by much evidence, and the results of the word pair experiment, not the reverse. Since the premise is in conflict with OT scholarship, on the one hand, and the results of the word pair experiment, on the other hand, I conclude that it must be wrong. Your response please.

(Note: the above discussion is, and should be, limited to Genesis, since only Genesis and Isaiah were tested in the word pair experiment. In Genesis, the proximity of the word pairs tested were reported to have been found to contain statistical significance much greater than that expected from random occurrence; in Isaiah, the proximity of the word pairs were reportedly found not to have statistical significance greater than random occurrence-a very good reason to exclude Isaiah. Also, since the rest of the Bible was not tested in the experiment, it also was excluded.)

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 03:18am Aug 4, 1997 ET (#433 of 435)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

Well, I think that is a given... it is a conclusion from the basic premises: if a code exists, it must have been coded by someone; the only one who can code the future is God. Therefore, God must have coded the Bible Code. It could not have been done but by his own hand. However, we know that it was man who wrote the bible; your whole explanation of it shows just that. So, if God did not personally write Genesis, then no code exists, since man cannot write it.

Tom

The chances of any of today's Bible translations being anywhere near the original words or concepts are so small that they are practally non-existant.

Back when these events took place, virtually nobody could read or write. Because of this, the text of what we call the Bible was passed down by word of mouth over several generations. It took centuries before any of it was ever written down. Anybody who has ever played the telephone game knows that when you pass information by word of mouth it gets screwed up. Things get misunderstood very easily.

Just something for you all to think about.

Shakespeare's work cannot be understood without knowing the style of writing back then. It's the same with the Bible and other old texts. The "Tree of Knowledge" referred to sexual knowledge and, if I remember, the Tower of Babel was a story about arrogance.

Good point.

Shadows in the cave. "nature" and "quantum mechanics" are both abstractions (all words are). "nature", though is less of an abstraction 'cos it's more abstract (ie it's more encompassing).

Tom, just an observation, but your words are (along with JM's) the only ones on these message boards that are taken "too personally".

Not true.

Why is this?

Huh??? The general teaching is, "God wrote the Bible through man".

Tom Anderson - 09:58pm Aug 4, 1997 ET (#436 of 438)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Noel,

No, both are about getting too close to God. Basically, they say that God is really scared of man, and he doesn't want to lose his unique powers. So, they warn to not question anything that they say; just have faith.

That's what I just said; but thanx for repeating.

Cliff simply misunderstood what I meant; which is not the case with JM, who is just plain rude (but that's ok, I know that it is just a security blanket).

Not true.

Yes, it is. Are you saying that people can see the future? First, I would say that it is against the Bible. Second, I will present you with the free-will paradox again.

Why is this?

Because if there is a Bible Code, then God must have written it; and if not in his own words, then the code is destroyed.

The point is: the Bible is not in God's own words, hence there cannot be a code in it unless man put it there. You do agree that the Bible is based on an oral tradition, don't you?

Tom

Tom, I disagree that your premise is a "given." I think it is an unsupported opinion. When given a choice between an unsupported opinion and hard evidence, I tend to believe the hard evidence.

Regarding your answer to Noel, you are right, I did misunderstand. You are not rude, and it was not your fault.

Noel, other than what you said about Tom, I find no specific disagreement with anything you said. Of course, I seldom if ever do. However, I am intrigued by your response to Tom's comment: "the only one who can code the future is God." You said, "Not true." Do you know something I don't know?

The reason I ask is this. I know that people are clever. And incorporation of the code in Genesis would not be significantly more difficult than the crossword puzzles that appear in the Sunday newspaper every week, given that the puzzle maker knew the future. Also, I understand that General Relativity allows the possibility of time travel. However, time travel would require a technology considerably more advanced than we currently possess, or that we have reason to suspect existed in 410 BCE. Accordingly, I would like to know what caused you to say, "Not true" with such confidence?

Cliff

Have you spoken to a priest or theologian about this?

This is my belief. But even if people can't, there might be something/someone else out there that understands space-time better than we do.

I don't assume that current interpretations of the Bible are correct.

I've presented an explanation to balance free will and predestination. As I recall, you took an anthropocentric point of view and brushed aside any idea that an individual is part of an organism, much as a cell is part of an organism.

Definition: organism: An organized being; a living body, either vegetable or animal, compozed of different organs or parts with functions which are separate, but mutually dependent, and essential to the life of the individual.

Seems to me, society fits this definition very well. In fact, on a slightly larger scale, ecosystems fit this definition extremely well.

I wasn't around when the Bible got started. All I know is that some people believe that God gave it to them. This may be true, it may not. Whatever the case may be, the Bible is with us today and there seems to be some statistical significance that facts about rabis appears encoded in it. It's up to us to interpret the significance.

Yes, Tom and I usually do agree. The differences are that I question myself as well as others and I respect others' beliefs more.

What I should have said was, "Invalid premise." The statement "the only one who can code the future is God" makes many assumptions. IOW, why couldn't we or someone else, with further understanding of space-time or a further developed ESP or whatever else, encode the future into some text. If there's a possibility for us doing this, then why not someone in the past? Or perhaps our conceptions of future and past are immature? There's a lot we don't know and, every time we think we're getting close to knowing everything, the universe changes (ie a whole new branch of science is born).

With some complications, yes.

At this point, though, our concept of time is wrong. In fact, there's evidence that some civilisations back then had chemical batteries. Yes, simple technology, but not something we expected them to have. Furthermore, what did they use them for?

Laziness and the false assumption that others would see the premise had many assumptions.

Why not, he plays games with us ;)

Tom, you said to Noel, "Are you saying that people can see the future? First, I would say that it is against the Bible. Second, I will present you with the free-will paradox again."

This is an interesting quote for two reasons. First, it seems to say that you believe seeing the future is against the Bible. The second reason it is interesting is the very serious threat you made to Noel of again presenting him with your dreaded free-will paradox. (Oh! no! not the free-will paradox! Not again!)

Regarding the first, I have no idea what would give you that impression that seeing the future is against the Bible. From Joseph's interpretation of the Pharaoh's dream, of the seven years of plenty and the seven lean years, to the Revelations of John, the Bible is rife with predictions of the future.

Indeed, it might be noted that originally, the term, prophet, was a designation of one who spoke for another, and the term should be understood in that context with regard to OT prophecy. OT prophets, of course, spoke for God. However, from the time of Samuel (who was called both a prophet and a seer), the term, prophet, as it was applied to the OT prophets, came also to mean seer. Probably the most celebrated prophecy of all was that of Jeremiah predicting the return of the nation of Judah from Exile after 70 years (ref Jeremiah 25:11,12 and Jeremiah 29:10).

Regarding the second reason the quote is interesting, I hope you understand that it was intended as humor, and I hope you got a laugh. Also, if you don't like my kind of humor, don't mention it.

Noel, I can't believe you said that you and Tom usually agree. I enjoy reading both yours and Tom's comments, but I don't see much agreement in them. I do agree with you that you question yourself more than Tom questions himself, and I think that is a plus in your favor.

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 10:38pm Aug 5, 1997 ET (#440 of 444)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

How can you say otherwise; please, refute my two premises.

Noel,

Can't you see that it is contradictory? It is impossible to simultaneously know the future and retain the ability to change it.

I didn't "brush it aside", I refuted it. You decided to continue believing it nonetheless.

Because it is a paradox. (So is ESP)

No, it is an infinite potential.

Says you.

What?

The Bible says he never lies...

Tom

Tom Anderson - 11:36pm Aug 5, 1997 ET (#441 of 444)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

Genesis 3:22, "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:"

Psalms 90:11, "Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath."

Proverbs 27:1, "Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."

Ecclesiastes 6:12, "For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?"

James 4:14, "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow."

Besides, God wouldn't be omnipotent if men could know what He is going to do.

I believe others have supported my statement of only God knowing the future on this message board in the past.

Tom

Tom, Cliff, Noel, you guys,--I know it's off the subject other than the possible connection to the space-time continuim (which someone mentioned). But after seeing some of your analogies, I hoped that you would discuss (speculativly of course),...well...gravity with me. Someday, some future generation will understand it, but the beginning of that understanding will probably be a tiny electrical event in someone's brain. Chew on this: If you put a ball on the end of a string and swing it around, the CENTRIPETAL outward force acts on each individual proton, electron and neutron in the ball, but, the CENTRIFIGUL force inward, is vastly different in that the point where the string is attached to the ball has the total force on it and in turn the structure of the ball is stressed just as a pilot's body is stressed as the g-forces in a sharp turn causes the seat (and seat belts) to apply pressure to the external of his body and then in turn, from molecule to molecule, throughout his body

Tom Anderson - 11:16am Aug 6, 1997 ET (#443 of 444)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Royce,

What you describe is caused by the conservation of angular momentum, not gravity. There is a difference; for instance, the centrifugal and centripetal "forces" act only on the point from which they are restrained (and act on the whole object due to chemical bonds) whereas gravity is a general attraction acting on all atoms simultaneously. But, this has little (or rather nothing) to do with the Bible Code.

Tom

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about this. Many religions have stories of predicting the future.

Wow, these long work hours are really getting to me. Tom and I think alike (or rather, our processes of thinking are alike), I try to be devil's advocate 'cos I believe several (sometimes conflicting) perspectives are necessary to gain the truth.

Seeing the future is necessary to changing it. How do you know you've changed anything if you don't know what it was supposed to be. For example, we can now predict, to some degree, the weather for the next few days. At some point, we'll be able to change it (ie make it snow in the summer). We, however, will not know the long term effects of this change 'cos we have no way of doing long term weather prediction. The same holds for climate prediction.

You refuted it by not changing your perspective. This is analogous to refuting round squares 'cos you refuse to leave Euclidean space.

Only those who have never experienced it will refute ESP on scientific grounds. There are things out there that are just out of science's realm (at least for now). This doesn't make them unreal."

The complications I talk about are practical. General relativity allows time travel for particles travelling faster than the speed of light or for particles close to near-infinite gravitational fields. This doesn't rule out time travel through worm holes, but general relativity doesn't cover worm holes. Einstein-Rosen bridges are covered in other physics theories.

If we can time travel, our concept of time and it's role in cause-and-effect is wrong. We have no proven way to explain what will happen if I go back in time and kill myself.

Personally, I believe man will never time travel. If man eventually time travels, there should be all these time travellers around us at all times (unless there's some extremely strong force that prevents this).

Many years ago, I saw a documentary on some ancient artifacts. By placing some simple liquids into these artifacts, electric current is created. The effect is exactly the same as creating electric currents with potatoes.

General relativity speaks of curved space-time. Gravity and the curvature are correlated (ie the real relationship is not explained). The theory allows us to picture what gravity is, but it doesn't explain what causes it. Once we do, we might be able to create artificial gravity. The understanding will occur when we've got a Grand Unified Theory (GUT).

Tom, You said, "How can you say otherwise; please, refute my two premises."

Okay, you have two premises. The premise I was attacking was the first one, "in order for a code to exist, it must be in the exact words of God." As to how I refute it, I first note that your second premise is consistent with OT Bible scholarship which has much evidence in its support. Therefore, I assume it to be correct. Second, I note that the evidence for the existence of the Genesis code is based on accepted, standard statistical methods. Since your first premise is in direct conflict with what appears to be solid evidence, I conclude that your first premise is, undoubtedly, false.

Even without the evidence for the Genesis code, your first premise remains suspect since, in that case, it is an untested hypothesis.

When I first saw your list of Bible quotes, I said to myself. "Wow." But then I read them. One, Genesis 3:22, contains a hint that it might be against God's will for us to live forever, but no prohibition against seeing the future. Three, Proverbs 27:1 Ecclesiastics 6:12 and James 4:14, make specific mention of the future as something we do not know. However, none of these contain a specific prohibition against seeing the future. I am not sure how you think the Psalms 90:11 applies to the question.

Royce, I hope you found Tom's answer to your question satisfying. I can assure you he knows a great deal more about physics than I do since the sum total of my background in physics is one college level course in mechanics I took at night some twenty five years ago, and a bunch of science books written for the layman, none of which covered that particular problem, as I recall.

Also, Royce, I also know it is off the subject, but, now that you brought it up, I also have a question to ask Tom and Noel. My question is this: In four dimensional geometry, is time a vector. From my "books for the layman," I know that time is considered a coordinate in the distance equation in four dimensions, and it seems to me that if time is a coordinate in the distance equation in four dimensions, it must be a vector in four dimensions. I have wondered about this for a long time (probably since about the time the two of you were born), and I really would like an answer. (I won't mind one bit your telling me it is off the subject if you give me an answer.)

Cliff

Since I am off the subject of bible codes, I will just briefly say that I didn't suppose that the acceleration away from the center in my whirling ball scenario, was creating artificial gravity, I only meant to propose that this acceleration would be (if you were a bacteria in the ball), just like gravity, acting on each particle in accordance with the law, momentum = mass X velocity. It just seems like a temptation to try to use that suttle simplicity to lead one's thought toward the profound knowledge of how gravity works, which won't be profound at all after its known. It will be simple nature. Royce

How do you keep your messages from getting cut short? Is it my MSIE software? Tom, Without any pretense of ESP, but from pure logic I predict that a flaw in Einstein's math will one day be found, which will allow for mass to travel at the speed of light. Intuitive notion tells me that future travelers in a spaceship approaching, and then passing the speed of light will shrug their shoulders and look at each other and say, "nothing to it." But, I feel certain that an observer looking on would certainly see something interesting. I can't imagine what.---(continue next message)

The logic that I use for this hypothesis is: We believe the universe is expanding. If it is expanding, it's not static, and therefore no relative positioning of masses in the universe. A spaceship, or any other mass moving in space, if it has a "speedlimit" would have to have that speedlimit relative to something. If all the other masses are moving, some of them very fast, (doppler red shift), then they couldn't serve as the "mileposts". If the other masses, planets etc., aren't the mileposts, and there is a speed which can't be exceeded, then this might suggest boundries to the universe which could serve as these mileposts. By what manner would this "thing" which would act upon spaceship to stop it from exceeding the speed of light manifest itself. I am aware of the infinite mass at the speed of light problem, but suggest that the increase in mass would not be experienced from the perspectuve of the passengers and ship, but would be observed by the onlooker. Royce

Brad Cannon

The Bible Code was an interesting book yet there is still no valid proof yet for me to believe its validity. I will have to see if the truth will be revealed in the future. The references in the text to the bible code itself seemed to perplex me the most. My belief is, if this is the sealed book of the end time, there must be 7 levels, indicated in reference to the book of the 7 seals. Could this be so? If you would like to respond, please Email [email protected] or [email protected]

The key piece of information for myself after reading the "Bible Code" was the possible assassination of Netanyahu. If this takes place I have a strong personal belief that the world will take a turn for the worse.

Royce, I don't think it hurts to get off the subject a bit from time to time, and I enjoyed reading your post. My own personal opinion (actually, it is more a hope than an opinion) is that the universe is positively curved and our 3 dimensional space is expanding in 4 dimensions. This is analogous to an expanding 2 dimensional surface of an expanding 3 dimensional sphere.

If we look at the surface of an expanding 3 dimensional sphere, we see that "spots" on the surface of the sphere are moving further and further apart although there is no relative movement of the stationary spots with respect to the sphere, and no specific location on the sphere from which all the spots are moving. I would assume that the overall expansion of the universe in 4 dimensions is analogous to the overall expansion of a sphere in 3 dimensions. This means that with the exception of local relative movement of the galaxies, each galaxy would be a "milepost."

Brad, I really can't comment on your seven seals argument. The reason is that I do not accept either the Genesis code or the Revelation of John as a "sealed book of the end time." I think the end time is some 15 to 20 billion years away when all the mass of the universe comes crashing back together. Then some 15 to 20 billion years later, in a future expansion, some fellow, bearing a remarkable similarity to me will be typing a comment in response to a comment by a fellow bearing a remarkable similarity to you.

Larry, have you heard of self-fulfilling prophecy. The book, "Bible Code," make an irresponsible prediction such as this, and probably increases the chances that it will happen. It wouldn't prove a thing in my opinion, except perhaps provide a confirmation of the power of suggestion.

Cliff

Cliff-- a suggestion or self-fulfilling prophecy as you describe it would have to be generated by the person stating that position from an internal thought process or motivation. The motivation for this probability was not formulated from the author due to the fact that it is encoded in the bible at odds of a 1,000 to 1 by another entity. Do you think Newton would have spent half of his life trying to figure out the bible even after he discovered gravity? Why would a brilliant man waste his time? Why would the code reveal Rabins' death and the gulf war before they occured. That is a pretty powerful power of suggestion or prophecy stated by the author.

Tom Anderson - 12:09am Aug 8, 1997 ET (#455 of 457)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

http://plus-cgi.cnn.com/cgi-bin/[email protected]^[email protected]/480,

No, no, those aren't the ones I was talking about; I was talking about the two premises I gave to support my conclusion which you call my first premise. I will expand it:

In order for a code to exist, it must have been coded by someone The only one who can write the future into a code is one who can see the future Man cannot see the future, but the definition of God necessitates that He can God is the only one who can see the future, and thus, the only one who can code the Bible The Bible was written from oral myth by man There is no Bible code.

Additionally, Future sight and omnipotence are mutually exclusive, so there is no God There is no Bible Code.

Cliff Beall

Man cannot know the mind of God, so he cannot know God's future actions. Also, if man could know the future, then God could not change it without invalidating what was already written. Consequencly, God would not be able to answer prayers if man knew the future.

It can be. Time could be a vector in a one dimensional space or a million dimensional space, or not at all. It's all up to how you want to model it. Commonly it is the "fourth" vector in a four dimensional vector space; or you could say that it is the "first", or "second", or "third".

Royce Cayson 8/7/97 1:03am,

Almost certainly.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 12:09am Aug 8, 1997 ET (#456 of 457)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

Royce Cayson 8/7/97 3:36am,

No, actually IE makes it easier. Since people have asked me this several times already, I might as well post it to the whole board or I'll be writing emails my whole life. (or maybe I should write a book :) Ok, here it is:

First, I right-click on the page and select "view source" as a quick way to open Notepad. Then I create a new document and start writing my response. This way I can write my response to each post I choose to answer in the order I read them; I just switch back and forth between browser and Notepad. When I've finished, I select a portion of it that I think will fit in the allotted space, hit Ctrl-C, go to the browser and hit Ctrl-V. I submit that and go back and select another portion. Repeat. If my judgement is ever bad and I selected a portion that is too large to fit, it is very simple to hit "delete message" and then try again with a smaller chunk. Then, once I have managed to submit the entire message, I save the Notepad txt to my HD and archive it. This makes it very easy to re-post should the server accidentally (or purposely) delete a well thought-out message. Tricks of the trade when you have far too much to say ;o)

That is not consistant with observation; relativity is well supported by experiment.

Nothing personal, but I don't think you have adequate information. It is a nice thought, but it is certainly incomplete. However, I don't know that it is necessarily incorrect, so I suggest you try to disprove yourself... if you do, you'll know for sure; if you don't, you can keep looking and hoping.

Right. But if it doesn't happen, then it proves the falsity. And if one thing did happen, just by suggestion, then no further predictions would happen because those effected would be sure to prevent it. If the Bible says "John Doe is gonna kill Frank Smith with a knife in the Dining Room on Thursday the 12th", then Frank Smith is going to go camping that day. And that is the paradox.

Tom

Hi. I don't mean to appear stupid, but why would omnipotence and future sight be mutually exclusive? I mean if there is a God and he is omnipotent and has future sight, couldn't it be that he would know every detail of our universe's future and plan ahead for prayers? And incorporate the answering of them into our present? Maybe a sign of a miracle if you look hard enough? I dunno, just askin...btw, i haven't read the book as I just decided to research it a bit today and found this place.

Tom,

In 1967, in the BIRMINGHAM POST HERALD newspaper there was a news article about a family near Notre Dame University that reported several occurances at the residence. Those people called the police and the police came and saw such things as: Rocks floated up and threw themselves into the house and left dents: A coffee table floated up and turned itself upside down and fell to the floor: A china cabinet turned itself over while the police and others watched:--You get the idea. Some of the professors from Notre Dame were called out to study the phenomenon and I never heard about it again. OK, I'm not trying to say that was the "boogy man", and consequently if there is a boogy man (devil), there must be a God. I just simply wonder what could have caused it. I doubt if that many people would have got together and conspired to pull a hoax. Do you have a possible explanation?

Royce

The only real success of this book is in persuading serious people to treat such a subject as "religious fortune telling" in a favourable light. For me all these subjects should be moved away from the sci-tec boards to the fringe-interest discussion groups, where they belong. There is no science in trying to "decipher" a "hidden" code that is conveying a "future history" through a book that any serious philologist knows it has been proven again and again not to have remained constant in the 1500-year time period we have actual copies of it. And I don't mean in essence or on it's position on moral issues. I mean the exact wording which is necessary for a code to be preserved. I believe that accepting such a subject as serious is demeaning to the religious message of Bible and to the faith and devotion of the people that follow it's moral teachings. God doesn't speak in code. People do.

Re Tom Anderson's two premises. I agree that God is the only one who can see the future and the only one who could have coded the Bible as it was impossible for a man to have done it 3,000 years ago & got it right!

However, if there is an all powerful, omnipotent God who created this universe, don't you think He could have ensured that man's oral myth were exactly the words He wanted them to be?? Check out 2 Timothy 3:16....All scripture is given by inspiration of God..... Therefore according to your first premise, I would have to amend it to there is a Bible code!

As for your second premise, why would future sight and omnipotence have to be mutually exclusive? I would expect if you had infinite power and you knew everything and you were everywhere, knowing the future would be no big deal! (Anyway you could just make it happen like you predicted!!)

I am half way through the book and it appears so far that what the book is saying is that the Bible encodes probabilities, nothing is predetermined, & what we do determines the outcomes (maybe it changes later in the book?). Therefore, it follows that if what we do is pray, things can be changed!

The paradox just merely means that our understanding is incorrect. Other paradoxes have shown just this -- Zeno's paradox and the I-forget-who-it's-named-after why-is-the-night-sky-black paradox are just a couple.

We now know that chaotic systems are bounded.

Scale is what matters. If you can fortell that WWII will occur, this doesn't mean that you can fortell that you'll be murdered the next day. The difference is that one is on a global scale, the other on an individual scale. Going back to chaos -- there is order within disorder. This means that you can predict with very high probability the behaviour of a complex, well-understood system, and yet still not be able to predict the behaviour of a specific element in that system (ie Jupiter's giant spot). Now, the human brain is extremely good at picking out the order out of chaos -- science wouldn't exist otherwise. This could also explain certain phenomenon like ESP.

Yes, and you will always be sure what range the system stays in 'cos it's bounded. Also, chaotic systems are not uniformly random -- ever do chi-square analysis on "Feigenbaum equation" numbers? This means there are correlations within the systems. It's just a matter of finding them.

Not everything in evolution has a reason. In fact, if it did, then evolution would have some sort of will. No, evolution does not have will, phenomes can exist without any benefit. In fact, phenomes exist that are detrimental.

Another false assumption. Science is not ready to study everything that's out there.

Thank you for saying it. If it doesn't have formal logical structure, how can science study it? Science uses the precondition that what it's studying is logical, therefore it can't.

Semantics, whatever you call it, it's there.

I've seen nothing in the equations that eliminates the possibility of tachyons -- particles with imaginary (as multiple of square root of -1) mass.

Again, change your perspective. What you've said above is true for positive real-mass particles, however, particles with imaginary mass are already travelling beyond the speed of light.

How does time travel violate the laws of conservation? And, I've asked you this before, "What makes the laws of conservation true?"

For instance, say that it were possible for particles to "tunnel" through the infinite potential at c;"

We've already demonstrated that this does happen. A photon can quantum tunnel through a thin piece of gold. Since quantum tunnelling is instantaneous, the photon reaches its destination faster than if the foil weren't in the way, IOW, the photon moves faster than the speed of light.

When I wave a magnet around, I create EM fields.

According to this usage, time one of the elements in the 4-tuple coordinate system of space-time. When taking difference between two of these coordinates, (x0, y0, z0, t0) and (x1, y1, z1, t1), you wind up with a four dimensional vector. Therefore, time by itself is not a vector; a vector has direction (ie forward, upward, ...).

I don't think so, his equations have been proven to such precision that this is highly unlikely. So, Einstein's relativity is correct, although it might still be incomplete. Which means some clever person might find another way to achieve this (ie maybe find a way to convert positive mass to imaginary mass and vice versa).

Even if it's not expanding, it's still not static 'cos of all the forces within it. Anyway, your statement just reiterates Einstein's relativity theory.

Yes it would, the speed of light.

The closer to the speed of light the particle goes, the closer to infinity it's mass gets. The force required to accelerate a mass is proportional to that mass. Therefore, the force required to accelerate a mass towards the speed of light is infinite.

How would they accelerate themselves if they don't apply any force outside?

Even if the future is predicted correctly in the Bible Code, it's validity will still have to taken on faith.

Interesting interpretation. We'll have to see.

I agree. Although I personally don't like Netanyahu, his assassination would bring even more instability to the region (and the world). Keep in mind though, that Drosnin's fortune telling has not been backed up by mathematicians.

A flatly curved universe is more poetic and unbiased.

Yes, I've thought of this before. This could possibly mean, though, that eventually, the universe would expand so much (a

Yes, I've thought of this before. This could possibly mean, though, that eventually, the universe would expand so much (assuming the Big Bang Theory is correct) that it would crash into itself.

Your line of thinking actually spawned another idea in me. 2d objects moving relatively to each other on a 3d sphere have the center of the sphere as reference. If we were actually 3d objects moving along the surface of a 4d object, the same would be true.

This assumes a negatively curved universe (or am I getting it backwards?) Anyway, the end of my time will occur when I die ;)

This internal thought process can be stimulated by any outside influence.

"Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." Brilliant men often go down blind alleys. Newton was human, too.

Statistical tricks.

But the Bible Code doesn't speak of events that one man can control. It speaks of global events. IOW, if someone had assassinated Netenyahu, and the Bible Code predicts that this event and the retaliation start WWIII, do you think Israel won't retaliate?

I believe they are not mutually exclusive. Tom believes otherwise.

It's an interesting read. I don't think it's worth the bucks, though. If your library has it, I would suggest reading their copy.

I had originally misread your posting. Tom thinks future sight and free will, not omnipotence, are mutually exclusive. I believe otherwise.

John, I would agree with some of what you said if all we had was Drosnin's book. However, Drosnin's book does has one great virtue: it contains the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper, which established, scientifically, that a code does exist in Genesis. We don't have to swallow Drosnin's interpretation of the codes or his pronouncements of the future in order to accept (or, as least, examine) the validity of the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper.

Larry, I disagree that the Bible code predicts Rabins' death or the gulf war. I do not think it can be said that the code in any way "predicts" either of these events. A code does exist, as demonstrated by the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper, but the manner in which Drosnin attempted to use it is not scientific. What Drosnin did was take the tool (computer program) used by the scientists and use it in a manner to advance his own particular point of view. Using the tool, he looked for names of individuals and events of which he took an interest. Once found, he looked for a phrase in the plain text that corresponded with his own point of view. There were literally dozens of phrases to choose from, so he had no difficulty in finding what he was after. And then he published it as a prediction of the "Bible code."

Tom, this is the second time I have misunderstood your intent. Could you do me a favor. Please point out to me the post in which you stated the two premises to which you referred. I still can't find them.

Noel, I agree that the center of the sphere would be a reference point, but it appears to me that any "spot" on the surface of the sphere would serve just as well and be more accessible to 2 dimensional creatures residing on the surface of the sphere. Similarly, any galaxey would serve us just as well. By the way, you did have it backwards. Negative curvature is analogous to the three dimensional shape of a western saddle. I agree that the end of your time will occur when you die, but hopefully, it will not mark the "end time."

Tom, Noel, thanks for your responses to my question on the distance equation. Noel's answer was closer to what I had in mind. I might mention, however, that in order for time to work in the distance formula and give a correct space-time distance, time t must be multiplied by the speed of light c. When time is multiplied by the speed of light to yield ct, the unit of measure is distance / time * time = distance.

According to Einstein, the time component should take a negative sign. However, Minkovskij pointed out that the time componet can accept a positive sign like the other componets if the time component is considered to be imaginary, i.e. if it is multiplied by the square root of a negative one. The result is the same. One interesting result of this application of the distance equation is that by arranging the distances and times appropriately, the four dimensional space-time distance is equal to zero, even though the components may themselves be quite large. Don't know what it means, but it is interesting.

Cliff

In fact, if he could see all eternity before even creating the universe, he would surely have created a better one than this.

This point to me absolutely separates religion and logic. (I am aware that religion is not logical in the first place, by scientific standards), but, The God of the bible, being all merciful and all loving, (bible's words),allows the deepest horrors of your imagination to occur, century in and century out. If he would loan me a just a tiny portion of his power on occasion, I would, for one example, save some parent the unimaginable horror of missing their child, waiting a few days, weeks, or years, then finding out their child was tortured, raped, and murdered. Even Jesus said; "If you're not for me, you're against me." In spite of all this, I still hang on to some faith. I'm not sure how, but I probably know why. Facing life and it's ultimate outcome not like a trip to Disneyland.

Tom Anderson - 03:15am Aug 9, 1997 ET (#473 of 481)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

It's not your fault, nor mine; the message has dissappeared! Oh well, the last message handles it well enough. Do you have a problem with the line of thought this time?

Tom

Tom Anderson - 03:21am Aug 9, 1997 ET (#474 of 481)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Royce,

In spite of all this, I still hang on to some faith. I'm not sure how, but I probably know why. Facing life and it's ultimate outcome not like a trip to Disneyland.

Certainty is more assuring than faith; you should seek truth, since ignorance breeds fear. Try reading about Humanism; there are plenty of resources on the web. Trint's page is a good start.

Tom

Tom, Regarding your new list of statements, I accept the first, second and fifth since the first and second are obvious, and the fifth is supported by OT Bible scholarship. The first part of your third statement is not demonstrated and the second part of it is circular. (By definition, God has a specific characteristic, i.e. he can see the future. How do we know he can see the future? By definition.) Your fourth statement: "God is the only one who can see the future, and thus, the only one who can code the Bible," is a restatement and expansion of the first part of your third statement since if you say that only God can see the future, it must follow that man can not see it. However, it suffers the same problem as the previous premise: "in order for a code to exist, it must be in the exact words of God," that I examined in detail. It is in direct conflict with what appears to be solid evidence to the contrary. Therefore, I conclude that it is, undoubtedly, false.

Your statement to Royce, "Certainty is more assuring than faith," is interesting. Since I do not suffer from either (By the way, what is the difference?), they both look the same to me. I, therefore, think that Royce's "faith" is probably as valid as your "certainty."

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 01:07pm Aug 9, 1997 ET (#476 of 481)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

(1) In order for a code to exist, it must have been coded by someone (2) The only one who can write the future into a code is one who can see the future (5) The Bible was written from oral myth by man

(3.1) Man cannot see the future

C'mon, I've already given you the logic that comes to this conclusion. Basically, if man could see the future, God would not be omnipotent since he wouldn't be able to change what man already knows, since if he did, man would have known incorrectly and would not have seen the future. Is this clear enough?

(3.2) The definition of God necessitates that He can

It's not circular, just obvious. But in order for it to be logical, it must be stated.

Right; and by definition, he is also omnipotent, but I've already shown that these cannot coexist in the same being. But that is beside the point, and not a part of this argument.

(4) God is the only one who can see the future, and thus, the only one who can code the Bible

You may have been able to conclude that from the first and third, but it must be stated in order for the logic to be sound.

It is in direct conflict with what appears to be solid evidence to the contrary. Therefore, I conclude that it is, undoubtedly, false.

What evidence? If you mean the Bible Code, that is the thing for which we are testing the validity, and cannot be used in the argument to test itself. In any case, you cannot possibly say it is "solid", especially since we are bothering to test it. If you are going to assume from the beginning that the Bible Code does exist, then there is no possible way to conclude that it doesn't. Logically, you must assume that it does not exist, or it is simply in question to existance. So my premise is sound.

And the conclusion follows:

(6) There is no Bible code.

Tom

Tom Anderson - 01:14pm Aug 9, 1997 ET (#477 of 481)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

The difference is that scientific knowledge is the only reliable knowledge in that it can be tested and retested and follows logically from one concept to the next. The certainty I speak of is scientific knowledge. It is a way to solve all problems and face all unknowns.

Faith, on the other hand, is not reliable knowledge in that it comes only on authority of primitive texts and passed from parent to child. What it does not cover remains unknown, and that ignorance leads inevitably to fear. There is no way to face problems of this sort but to have faith and continue the ignorance and fear; in other words, there is no method of solving problems.

Tom

Tom said:

And:

Sure, it all makes sense-as soon as you have demonstrated the existence of an omnipotent God, which I do not believe you have yet done.

If you are talking about the "Bible Code" as presented by Drosnin, I agree, and I believe I have presented strong arguments against its validity. If you are referring to the Bible code that is demonstrated to exist in Genesis in the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper, you might as well try to use the same arguments against Special Relativity: since it also "can't test itself." (You could easily note that it doesn't make sense that mass should increases as the speed increases, and likewise the equivalence of mass and energy.) I am joking here, of course, but c'mon Tom, read the paper. With your mathematical background, you could easily understand the math. And surely, if there is an error, you would find it. If you did, you would be world famous, immediately. You could write your dissertation on it and get your Ph.D. right away.

Cliff

Cliff I am familiar with vectors and since you first posted your message about time possibly being a vector, I have been trying to think of how time could have magnitude and direction. I had already come up with the idea that the fact that time is passing could be analogous the magnitude in the velocity vector. But I had not thought of a possibility for the direction. Forward,...yeah, maybe so.

Where my thinking had been was: distance has only one element, 1st. dirivative of distance is velocity, 2nd. dirivative--acceleration, etc. What would be the first dirivative of time?

Royce

Tom Anderson - 07:31pm Aug 9, 1997 ET (#480 of 481)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

Well if that is all that is holding you back, then here it is: how do we know God is omnipotent? By definition.

Now, do you finally agree with the paradox, and with the impossibility of the Bible Code existance? If not, you are clinging to faith alone. I've explained every last part of my logic, and you have come to agree with each one... now you must accept the conclusion.

Special Relativity is supported by empirical evidence, the Bible is not. No, the code does not exist, just as I have demonstrated... it is impossible. I'm not going to try to "disprove" the math, since it is not in error; the interpretation is. Statistically, it should be nearly impossible for random configurations of water particles to form the image of anything, and yet people look at the sky and see things in the clouds all the time. It is a consequence of our neural network... we easily pick out patterns, even when they are not necessarily there.

Tom

Tom Anderson - 07:37pm Aug 9, 1997 ET (#481 of 481)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Royce,

Time is a vector; take freshman mechanics, or matrix algebra; this is a rather simple concept.

To achieve the velocity and acceleration as the results of differentiating the distance vector, it must be taken in respect to time.

The rate of time.

Tom

Tom said:

Your response was very witty, very smooth and audacious as hell, and I laughed until I almost cried. But it is not to the point and does not answer the objection. I did not ask you how we are to know that God is omnipotent. Instead, I had made the point that your preceding points made sense only after you had demonstrated the *existence* of an omnipotent God.

This is another example of your ability to change the sense to your advantage. I admire your smoothness, but I was not talking about the Bible. I was talking about the *Bible code* and the paper by Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg. Your comments would apply to an interpretation of the Bible. But they do not apply to the scientific paper which presents empirical evidence for the existence of the code in Genesis.

However, your statement to Royce that time is a vector is just plain wrong. I had physics in college, and I still have the book. Of course, it was over twenty-five years ago, but these kinds of things don't change. And my physics book, says that time is a scalar. In my physics book, vectors are quantities that have both direction and magnitude, such as displacements, force, velocity and magnetic induction. Scalars are quantities that can be completely specified by a number and unit, such as mass, length, time, density, energy and temperature.

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 01:32am Aug 10, 1997 ET (#483 of 483)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

Well, you already know that I do not accept that there is a God, so I am not prepared to logically make a case for Him knowing full well that it is impossible. However, I was displaying my open-mindedness by assuming there were a God in this particular case. And this does not hurt my argument either way... if there is a God, then my logic is sound and there is no Bible Code; if there isn't a God, then the Bible is worthless anyway and there certainly isn't a code.

Clearly you must see that they are one in the same... the Bible Code as a meaningful foresight is totally dependent on the Bible having inherent truth. The empirical evidence you speak of is nothing more than a simple pattern that is bound to arise in a limited character set, particularly one without vowels. If you squint at my post, you will see patterns made of the spaces between words; you may see a car, or a dog, or George Bush, but I assure you that I did not purposely put them there. Again, I stress the incredible ability of the human mind in particular and neural networks in general to pick out patterns among nonsense, and the even greater ability to pick out patterns within established patterns (just like spaces between words and codes in Bibles).

You are mistaken. These kinds of things do change; relativity specifically made time a vector. Vectors aren't just about direction and magnitude, they can have neither. The particular type of vector you are referring to is a spacial vector, usually using an i,j,k basis. However, I could make a vector called dorm-room which is composed of my bed, my lamp, and my computer or a vector called Tom composed of my various features. A vector is simply some quantity that is composed of other vectors (for instance, I could make the vector "Tom" a component of "dorm-room") or indivisible quantities called scalars. Spacial vectors are composed of ratios that are representative of distance in each independent direction of the rank dimension. Time can, and must when speaking in terms of relativity, be broken into individual components; otherwise rates of time (dt/dT) would not be possible.

Tom

Tom, the question is: if your arguments are valid, why continually divert attention to non-issues, even if, as you claim, your intention is to be "open minded"? Also, if the Bible and the Bible code are "one in the same," why intentionally change the sense? Why not address the issue raised, instead of an alternate issue even it you can later claim it is "one in the same"? In other words, why allow youself to appear shifty when you can be forthright?

Regarding your report on the way physics is currently taught and how it has changed since the dark ages of the seventies, I guess I will have to check that out. At this point, it sounds to me like you are confusing "vectors" with "sets," but I'll have to check it out before I can say for certain.

Cliff

Tom

In most cases, anything as commonly used and known as vectors, usually follow the same rules throughout an academic discipline. We use vectors extensively in electronics calculations and of course there is no direction, as far as spacial direction is concerned. But, their equivalents are there.

Tom

Are you saying that time, and change in rate of time qualify as vectoral components? This is like saying magnitude of velocity, and change in magnitude of velocity are two vectoral components. Of course vectors haven't changed since 300 B.C. (Euclid), just new ways to use them.

I

Tom Anderson - 05:32pm Aug 10, 1997 ET (#486 of 489)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

I did not realize I was diverting to non-issues; I have tried to stick completely to my logic, deviating only when you question its validity, so as to explain it.

In this case, I was hoping to avoid needless explaination. Earlier you said that one of my arguments was obvious and that I should not have had to say it, so I figured you would be able to equate the Bible and the Bible Code in their relevance. I used the Bible because it is easier to see that there is no empirical evidence to support the Bible's claims, as you suggest there is for the Bible Code. This way, you can see indirectly that there is not empirical evidence supporting the Bible Code. I'm sorry if I appeared shifty.

Berkeley makes a good series of texts; I suggest their mechanics book. Or perhaps you can find a matrix algebra book; they should be helpful.

Tom

Tom Anderson - 05:41pm Aug 10, 1997 ET (#487 of 489)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Royce,

Yes, I know that vectors can be useful in solving, for example, systems of equations to find voltage, current, etc. This is a perfect example of non-spacial vectors.

No, I never said that rate of time is a vector component, but rather that, in order to have a rate of time, time must be a vector. You cannot have rates of a scalar. If you take a derivative in respect to time, then you are assuming that the quantity has a "direction" that can change in time.

Tom

Tom, thank you.

Royce

Tom, I regret that I used that shifty word in my last post. It was rude and inconsiderate of me. I have only the highest regard for you, and I don't know what I was thinking. Please accept my apology.

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 09:24pm Aug 10, 1997 ET (#490 of 493)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Royce, you're welcome. Cliff, ok, apology accepted.

But somehow, I don't think that either of you are quite satisfied with the conclusion that the Bible Code does not exist. If this is true, maybe it would be prudent to evaluate the source of dissatifaction and determine whether it is logical or emotional. I know that it is difficult to relinquish deeply ingrained beliefs (for me, accepting that relativity supersedes Newtonian physics was very difficult). But it is always safe to accept knowledge obtained through empirical evidence and logical thinking over authoritative knowledge, for the latter must always be questioned in light of the former. For me at least, the case of the Bible Code, and religion as a whole, is closed. But I would still reconsider should new empirical evidence surface, just as I would consider the existance of pink unicorns should the evidence be found; however, both these things seem very unlikely, so I will label them both as fictitious for the time being.

Tom

Gentlemen,

I am totally baffled by the fact that this Bible Code has been verified by such credible organizations as it has. It will almost certainly go by the way of the "shrouds of Turin and the "Lourdes" and dozens of other "startling discoveries" that have faded into obscurity through the centuries. There will be those who belive and those who don't. IF there is a code and it turns out to be real, and mankind should gain vast knowledge from it, roughtly the same number of people still will believe it, and roughly the same number of people still won't believe it. It (the code), is one of four things: continued..

Pictures in the clouds: (re: Tom)

The discoverer came up with an elaborte scheme, found apparent basis for foundation, then presented it to the scrutiny of the "believability boosters", (Benz, code breakers, etc.), with some stipulations as to how to bear it out, and sold a lot of books.

God did it, or had it done.

Other world civilizations have advanced so far ahead of us that they can travel across the vast distances and have been with us for millenia. They would have appeared to be God until recent century or so.

Royce

Tom said:

I admit that earlier I did say that a couple of your premises in another context were obvious.

However, I will again mention that the next statement in that chain had two parts, neither of which were obvious. The first part: "Man cannot see the future," is certainly not obvious to me, and since you offered no support for it, I noted that it was not demonstrated.

Understand that I do not embrace clairvoyance. I am aware that most people appear to believe in it, but since I view the scientific evidence in its support to be relatively meager, I do not embrace it. At the same time, there does seem to be enough scientific evidence, meager though it is, in its support to prevent me from disallowing the possibility. In other words, I view the evidence as insufficient for me to know if it is true or not. And you can say, "C'mon, I've already given you the logic," a hundred time, and I still won't know if this premise is correct or not, and if I don't know if the premise is correct, I certainly can not, and will not, accept the conclusion, regardless how clear it seems to you.

The present instance is different. It references and earlier post in which you responded to an argument of mine for the existence (not the relevance or claims) of the Bible code. Your reference to the Bible (instead of the Bible code) in your response seemed to me very much beside the point since the existence of the Bible is not in question. And after you clarify that you mean the relevance and claims of the Bible, it still seems beside the point, since, despite your recent statement to the contrary, I made no argument whatsoever for the relevance or claims of the Bible code, only their existence.

In summary, I believe the empirical evidence supports the existence (not the validity or relevance or claims) of the Bible code. I will say nothing about their validity or relevance or their claims since I do not know about that. Nor do I think anybody else knows.

Cliff

According to Godel's Theorem, it is not only possible, but necessary. Once the supernatural is explained, other supernatural things will take their place. Still there will be things that will never be explained.

I'm glad you qualified this. Here's one thing I haven't been able to answer, "What is the physics of information?"

How do you explain the fact that no steganographic codes were found in the control texts?

According to your interpretation of paradoxes, we shouldn't be able to move from point A to point B and the night sky should be bright. Since these are not the case, I would question the assumptions the paradoxes are based upon.

All chaotic systems are bounded. It's just a matter of finding the bounds.

Right, now your beginning to understand. None of the prediction I've ever seen lists down every single detail. Some details are given, but some are not. It's like an application of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to fortune telling.

It seems you still don't understand what is meant by behaviour of a chaotic system.

Chaotic systems, by definition, are not uniformly random. But, I think you're leading towards my conclusion. Chaotic systems do a good job in balancing free will and predictability.

No, it's not. Time, as one of the tuples in 4d, is a scalar. A vector has direction, a scalar does not. The position (1m, 2m, 3m, 4s) is not a vector, however, "(1m, 2m, 3m, 4s) from me" is.

Your arguments presumed completeness of our knowledge and a one-sided perspective. Since it's obvious that our knowledge is not complete (relativity itself is not complete -- there are still unanswered questions), I do not agree with your arguments.

In a sense I do, although the form of that life changes.

I agree. The Apocalypse prophecies talk about the "end of the universe as we know it", however, not just the "end of the universe."

This is what makes individuals so nearly helpless against global events.

In a rational world.

Please elaborate.

This is absolutely wrong. "Bad" genomes can hitch rides along "good" genomes. If you simulate evolution (genetic programming) you would see this. If every phenome has its reason, please tell me what the reason is for each of the various colours of eyes and the various genetic diseases we're combating now.

I don't know about you, but ESP would help me survive better in this world.

Assuming it did get passed through the genes. Science doesn't understand enough about human genetics to verify your statement. Genetic code is spaghetti code. It'll take a lot more than just knowing the language and syntax for us to understand our programming.

You seem to judge illogics, irrationality, and intuition as "bad". I take a more pragmatic stand. Irrationality is the rule, rationality is the exception. There is no way you can instill rationality upon the world without accepting its irrational ways. In essence, to live in harmony with the world, the two must be balanced.

What??? Please refer back to your texts. Tachyons, by definition, move faster than the speed of light and, hence, go back through time.

Check the equations again. Nothing prohibits FTL travel.

Amazing how you say this doesn't happen when experimental physicists are just now checking to see if this is true.

So your saying that the Laws of Conservation are true 'cos that's what we see? Sorry, I just don't buy this reason. The fact is, we take the Laws for granted. They have never been imperically proven and, current theories say there's a possibility that these Laws are wrong. For example, you had said (through previous email) that negative mass matter does not exist 'cos it would violate the Laws. This is backwards logic. Just 'cos negative mass matter hasn't been seen doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and, our current equations do not rule out that possibility.

Scientific American some years back. The speed of light is relative. If I play around with the index of refraction of a substance, I can make a photon slow down and stop in my frame of reference.

Please refer to Maxwell's Equations. Yes, there is already a field around the magnet, however, when I move it around, I create more fields. If this weren't so, you wouldn't have the electricity to power your computer.

I agree. The paper is scientific, it's up to the individual to interpret it.

Yes, I see. Your saying, "Since everything's relative, why not arbitralily choose a point and make that the landmark, much like GMT is to time zones." This would work for practical purposes, but we all know how theoretical physicists are (both meanings intended).

At a first glance, I would have said this is incorrect. But on further analysis, the distance formula would require adding units of area to units of time squared. I would have to take a look at it some more.

Something more for me to research. Thanks.

Faith is a type of certainty. Many of us who don't have it don't really understand it; maybe 'cos there's really nothing to understand, it's just a matter of being and doing.

Philosophy, mythology, and religion are fun reading, but when it comes down to it, they are all personal -- form your own beliefs, don't be a follower.

Logic itself assumes a binary universe. Whenever I've seen a logic proof, its domain was well defined. Our universe is neither binary (ie everything is provably true or provably false) nor well defined; therefore logic cannot be applied to it.

You're making a beginner's mistake in logic. The converse of a true statement is not necessarily true. Science does start from a minimal set of assumptions and builds on that. This does not mean it is the only reliable knowledge base. This is because science's strength -- it's bottom-up process -- is also it's weakness -- not everything is provably true or false. It's nothing new, just something you seem to ignore.

When it comes down to it, you need faith. Faith in the Laws of Conservation. Faith in Logic. If not, you'd be busy imperically proving these things -- just like in Godel, Escher, Bach.

Don't get stuck in 3d mappings of 4d graphs, these are mathematical abstractions. Just to stress this non-vision technique, add in a few more dimensions for momentum, electric charge, magnetic polarity, ...

I very much agree.

Tom, I agree that neural nets are great pattern recognizers. However, neural nets are terrible at arithmetic and the kind of math needed to create/spot steganographic codes.

I think I see what your definition is. You're saying a vector and an n-tuple are synonymous? For one definition of vector, this is true, however, when speaking of 4d space-time, time is a tuple or a dimension of this coordinate system. One can have a vector along the time axis, this vector would have direction (ie forward, backward, up, or down). In order for relativity to have made time a vector, it would have needed a zero-time. But I thought there is no zero-time in relativity; that everything is relative.

I would have to defend Tom's tactics here. When fighting a battle, know the terrain. What better way of knowing the terrain than keeping in home territory -- logic.

I wasn't studying relativity in the seventies, but I really don't think it changed much since the forties.

I guess it would really depend upon how you apply time.

I agree with this.

This doesn't explain why the control texts were found not to have steganographic codes.

According to your interpretation of paradoxes and the paradoxes I've posted before, we should not be able to go from any point A to any point B ('cos of Zeno's paradox) and the night sky should be bright ('cos of the dark night paradox). I had thought science was about answering the I-don't-know questions, not just merely brushing them aside.

Have you shown that the universe is not?

Since chaotic systems are bounded, how do you know that there is no other way to create Hitler? IOW, another historical path might have led to a Hitler and a WWII. Yes, if the system is perturbed a little, the outcome can be very different, however, the perturbation does not necessetate a very different outcome. The new outcome may occur similarly (in time and space); similarly enough that it (along with most other outcomes) can be described with "great detail", perhaps naming names and dates, but not listing all events leading to it. Remember, the Lorenz attractor plot crosses itself and is self-similar along many of its paths.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle -- some things can be predicted exactly or to a degree by sacrificing the precision of the measurement of "dual entities" (ie momentum and position are two duals entities). So, I would tend to agree with you, but, no predictions I've ever seen lists down everything -- something is always missing; this does not violate any of my previously posted postulations.

Unless the multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct. In this case every event is possible, and every event does happen.

ESP in general is not, but a particular branch of it is. Either you have faith that it exists, or you don't. It's much easier to believe for those of us who have experienced it. (Please don't challenge me to prove my experiences, you know as well as I that these things cannot be proven. I also know that things that cannot be proven do not exist in your world. Unfortunately, this is not the real world).

It sounds like you don't truly understand what it means when someone is describing the behaviour of chaotic systems. You're trying to analyse it from a bottom-up approach. This won't work. The brain's pattern recognition doesn't work in this way -- it jumps around until it comes up with something that "makes sense".

Chaotic systems balance free will and pre-destination. Systems that are uniformly random are not chaotic by definition.

Please elaborate.

Not true. "Bad" genomes might attach themselves to "good" genomes. Also, your statement says that every genetic disease we have has benefits. Please explain the evolutionary benefits of diseases that kill babies shortly after they're born, or make them so incapacitated that they need machines to live.

I don't know about you, but a sixth sense would surely allow me to survive better in this world.

We still don't know enough about genetics to say such statements. We certainly don't know enough to know the interactions of the phenomes. For example, if we "fix" the genes that cause baldness, we don't know whether it will affect the overall health or intelligence of the baby -- the genetic code is spaghetti code.

That's my point entirely. You seem to judge illogics and irrationality as "bad" and "wrong". I take a more pragmatic stand -- the rational and illogical rule the world. By better understanding (through a combination of holistic intuition and bottom-up knowledge) this, we can learn to live more in harmony with it.

I don't really care if science can explain ESP. The fact is that there are things out there that science cannot now explain. This things are part of my world and I cannot ignore them while I wait for science to rationalise them.

What??? Please read your texts again. Tachyons, by definition, go faster than light. Hence, they go back in time.

So, in essence, your saying that the Laws of Conservation are true 'cos that's what we see? I guess the Big Bang doesn't count?

Scientific American a couple of years back. The speed of light is relative. I could, by playing with the index of refraction of a substance, make light stand still in my frame of reference.

The field already existed, you just move [the magnet] around.

Please refer to Maxwell's Equations before you make such statements. The field is dependent upon the movement of the magnet.

No, it's not. Time is one of the tuples in a 4d coordinate system. Since it is a coordinate, it is a scalar, not a vector. To make it a vector, it must be regarded in relation to something else. So the coordinate (1m, 2m, 3m, 4s) is not a vector, but (1m, 2m, 3m, 4s) from me is.

Another way to look at it is, "if time is a vector, then so is space." Vectors have direction, scalars don't.

We are making the assumption that the 3d-ness of the objects are so insignificant so as to make them unmeasurable. In this case, they are indistinguishable from 2d while they may still move in a 3d space.

I agree. But I think the "end of the universe" that Apocolypse stories talk about is the "end of the world as we know it."

Maybe in a rational world.

Gentlemen: When I asked the question: is time a vector in 4 dimensional space, I never dreamed there would this much controversy.

Regarding its current status in three dimensions, Tom, I have checked it out, and, at least to my satisfaction, it appears to me that time is still a scalar. I found a college physics text owned by a friend, published 1984, and found the wording almost identical to my 1960 edition. Not satisfied with that, I went to the local college bookstore, and found a similar book with similar wording, published 1995. None of these books was published by Berkeley, but they are authoritative enough to satisfy me.

Incidentally, I now think I have the answer that I sought. I believe the answer is that in four dimensional space, the product of time and speed, ct, is a vector. Each of the coordinates of three dimensional space is a vector (x, y, z). Each is a displacement and each is a vector. To find the resultant vector of these three vectors, one must use vector addition. Similarly, in four dimensional space, each of the coordinates (x, y, z, ct) is a displacement and each is a vector.

With respect to the Bible code, I think I have run into a problem. It now appears that I have boxed myself into a position of having either to accept the existence of God or of clairvoyance. The logic is as follows:

I insist upon the existence of the Bible code based on the empirical evidence. Of course, if I accept the existence of God, there is no problem; I merely assume that God was responsible for inserting the code into Genesis at the time the text of Genesis was finalized around 410 BCE.

However, if God does not exist (and this has been my inclination, although I have never disallowed the possibility of the existence of God-no evidence either way, I say), I have a problem. Since the empirical evidence supports the existence of the code, and I must accept that, my question to myself is: how do I rationalize the existence of the code without embracing clairvoyance? This being the rather revolting thought it is to me, what do I do? I am going to have to think about it.

Cliff

If this is true, then this usage of time must be a vector. The reason is that speed is a scalar; c itself is not velocity -- it has no direction. The product of two scalars is also a scalar. So, if ct is a vector, then time is, too.

I see a third choice of being able to send information back through time.

And even a fourth -- knowing the general workings of the universe (ie bounds of its chaotic behaviour), one can make general predictions about upcoming events. Now, some of the details can be predicted specifically, so long as other details are somewhat vague. I guess this can be classified as clairvoyance, but it's at least a stab at how it works.

All of the choices above require belief in something that we cannot currently do or prove to be true -- they all require faith. So, whatever you choose (including disbelief in the Bible Code), it's a belief in something that may or may not be true.

In situations like these, I try to choose the belief that would have the most positive influence in my life. The choice is entirely subjective and will differ from person to person. Tom (please correct me if I'm wrong) has chosen not to believe in things that cannot be proven -- it makes life simple. Others may choose to believe in God -- it makes life simple. I might prefer the third or fourth choices -- it makes life complicated. Or, I may choose not to choose at this moment.

Noel, the complete statement was: "In four dimensional space, the product of time and speed, ct, is a vector." Of this, I am now quite certain since vector addition would otherwise not work when combining the ct coordinate with the other vector coordinates.

However, your, perhaps, tentative, conclusion, "then time is, too," referring also to three dimensional space, gives me pause. The reason is that the "similar wording" of the book published 1995, to which I referred in my last post, was "similar," but not exact. Actually, I had already started having second thoughts about it before your statement. The reason is that while the first two physics books, published in 1960 and 1984, said, specifically, that "time" is a scalar, the last one did not. Instead, it said the "passage of time" is a scalar.

At the time, I decided it was the same thing, and I said so. Since then, I have become less sure. Indeed, the more I think about it, the more I think saying "the passage of time is a scalar" is analogous to saying "the magnitude of velocity is a scalar." If that is the case, Tom is probably right. My understanding is that he ought to be in a position to know. Therefore, I have decided back off the conclusion I drew in my last post. Until I know for sure, one way or the other, it will have to remain one of many things that I do not know. One more uncertainty won't make much of a difference.

Well said.

Cliff

I've tried to explain the Bible Code this way. As I've gleaned it so far, the semi-six spiral seen from different perspectives makes up all the letters and thus the language derived can rightly be said to be fractal in nature. An explanation that makes the God option redundant is 'infinite fractal regression' vs. 'single source eternity'.

So many interpretations can be put on fractal quatrains and so many connections can be implied that it is natural to find a story in one fractal being repeated in another. Other languages that weren't based on a fractal code exist to prove that you could find numerous Bible-Codes as long as the language used was based on one.

Jim, could you elaborate on your last posting?

Tom Anderson - 12:06am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#507 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Noel,

How can you disagree with the logic but provide no refutation? Please, tell me where it is flawed. It is impossible to simultaneously know the future and have the ability to change it.

Actually, I think that our culture has created a false impression of existance of a completely artificial construct. We have clocks that appear to measure time, we speak of things that will happen or have happened, but what is occurring is not the passage of this thing we call time, but simply the progression of energy exchanges in the continual present. We say time has elapsed because something moved from there to here; it used to be there, but now it is here; past, present. But we are not measuring time, but rather displacement. It is often useful for us to model things this way, but it is certainly not necessary, nor is it necessarily the way of "reality". When we speak of prediction, we are talking of laws of conservation -- energy exchanges. We see the current configuration and so we can see what "will" happen. But we are predicting displacement, not time.

Don't you see they are one in the same? Sure, the Bible Code exists just as much as clouds do. But it doesn't mean there are dogs in the clouds nor divine information in the Bible or the Bible Code. Since the Bible Code is totally dependant on its relevance, it is just as accurate to say the Bible Code does not exist, in so much as it was not coded.

But I have already shown that it is impossible, by definition. Do you wish to refute?

You'll have to elaborate.

Because they were biased, they weren't looking for them; they are there. Someone posted a link a while back that pointed to an excellent example of this in Moby Dick.

I don't know what you are talking about. When a paradox exists in the definition of a being, that being does not exist as defined. Such is the case with the Judeo-Christian God. If I defined point A and point B to be on opposite sides of an infinite potential of which there is no circumvention, then yes, you wouldn't be able to move from point A to point B. However, if you did find a way, then the definition was wrong. Such is the case with the Judeo-Christian God. Such is the case with the Bible Code. The way the Bible Code has been defined (as a divine, predictive text), it is paradoxical and cannot exist. If you redifine it as "dogs in the clouds", then yes, it exists.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 12:07am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#508 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

Ok, ok, I'll give you that; but my point was that the bounds approach infinity. If you have to define the bounds of a chaotic system, such as the energy exchanges on the surface of the earth, such that they cannot predict any occurances except that, in this case, the earth does exist (which may even be within the bounds), then there are essentially no bounds to the system. There is no way to predict something like human history, especially if you factor in free-will.

Yes, they do. For instance, a person's name or a year. These things could have been changed since the time of writing the Bible Code by the "butterfly effect"; all it would have taken is a single insignificant event. But there is no way to stop the millions of insignificant and significant events that inevitably do occur to prevent from invalidating any prediction made.

Again, you are describing spacial vectors. Even so, time does fit this definition; that is, if time is anything but a figment of our imaginations.

I have never presumed completeness, just reliability.

That is contradictory.

And what is your basis for this beyond hopeful speculation?

You misunderstand; any of them could completely change it -- they all have the power to alter global events (as they are predicted thousands of years beforehand).

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 12:13am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#509 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

You claimed that if there is a reason for something (I believe we were speaking of evolution), then it was willed. But that reason is simply the cause of the effect, no will involved.

"Bad" genomes cannot possibly "hitch rides" on "good" genomes if the effect of the "bad" one is to prevent the animal from reproducing. In a population, "bad" ones would be filtered out if they only prevented a small percentage of the carriers to produce less offspring than the rest. Colors of eyes are an example of this; notice that different colors are particularly abundant in certain populations, nordic vs african for instance. If not the eye color specifically, then pigmentation in general. Genetic diseases result in the death of the animal, thus eliminating the disease. If the cause of the disease is something that is more beneficial to the majority of the population most of the time, then the disease will persist; otherwise, it will dissappear.

But it doesn't, so there is no selecting for it; thus, it does not exist.

I'm sorry, but that is the only way for a trait to be passed.

Yes, it is when you want to achieve reliable knowledge. If you don't care about reliable knowledge, it can still get you in trouble, but it is not as important then. However, for me and for nearly everyone in such a technologically advanced civilization, reliable knowledge is absolutely essential.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 12:13am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#510 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

I'm sorry, I was thinking of pions. No, tachyons don't exist.

Then you fail to understand relativity.

What do you mean, "just checking now"?? This has always been the observation. Why do you think the laws of conservation exist?

If by "see" you mean all empirical evidence and logical deduction, then yes.

Yes they have, and no they don't.

For example, you had said (through previous email) that negative mass matter does not exist 'cos it would violate the Laws. This is backwards logic. Just 'cos negative mass matter hasn't been seen doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and, our current equations do not rule out that possibility.

That is exactly what it means. Science is based on empirical evidence... you can speculate all you want, but you cannot advance a theory very far if it has no evidence to support it and it violates all previous experience. It must first be observed, if not, it must at least agree with other scientific fact and then seek out observation of it. Otherwise, you are looking for fairies... and that is not science.

Also, it would be extremely inconsistant for me to say otherwise. For instance, I will quote your sentence, but fill it with a more familiar context: "Just 'cos [God] hasn't been seen doesn't mean [He] doesn't exist". Or how about this one: "Just 'cos [aliens haven't] been seen doesn't mean [they don't] exist". Again, I tell you that empirical evidence is necessary... if none exists, then the hypothesis must at least be consistant in its own definition and that which it is being defined in. Tachyons (aka negative or imaginary mass matter), aliens, God, and the Bible Code do not satisfy this.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 12:20am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#511 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

No, it is not; no, you cannot. You apparently don't understand relativity. The speed of light is a constant. And a photon has no rest mass.

Yes, please do. You do not create electromagnetic fields, however you can manipulate them. The generation and conversion of energy to electricity is done with the manipulation of electromagnetic fields.

No it is not; and if it were, no it is not.

Not really. No matter how much faith you have, you still question it. And, of course, faith leaves infinite unknowns, and people fear the unknown; hence, there is lack of certainty. That is why the middle ages were so superstitious -- fear due to faith.

Or don't; learn your own reliable information, and teach others.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 12:27am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#512 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

That is a completely unfounded assumption that is often made by theists. All evidence shows that statement to be absolutely false.

Again, you are wrong; science is the only method of obtaining reliable information. Read An Introduction to Science by Dr. Steven Schafersman.

You do not require great skill to recognize such patterns. Take stereograms for example; this recent fad is dependant totally on man's ability to recognize a pattern within nonsense. People can cross thier eyes and out pops a three dimensional object from among random dots. Or, for another example, look at "Cydonia"; many people swear that there is a human face depicted in a mountian that otherwise looks just like all the others around it.

You type it, but it makes me wonder if you read it; choose a "zero-time" at random. As with anything in a vector-based coordinate system, the origin can be taken to be anywhere you want to define it. It is necessary that time be a vector for relativity to be relevant.

You are wrong; this field is ever-changing. Much progress has been made since Einstein.

Yes; if you are working with Newtonian physics, time can be a scalar; but if you are working with relativity, then time is a vector.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 12:28am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#513 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

Not possible.

Only general predictions, and only in the very near future... the bounds are far to wide otherwise.

No, they can't.

No, it's not. It should be entirely objective; otherwise it is unreliable knowledge, and nothing is learned at all.

The only path to certainty.

Cliff,

Hence, time is a vector.

That is a good analogy. The problem is that we have only one term for both a scalar and a vector; that is, "time". Whereas we have "speed" and "velocity" for the scalar and vector of spacial displacement, there is no equivalent division in temporal displacement.

Jim,

I don't see the connection. The Bible Code is taken from the text of the Bible, which was organized according to the syntax of the language; where does that leave room for fractal behavior?

Tom

'The bible code', could there also be a 'Koran code'? Maybe that code would 'predict' when good things could happen, instead of the doomsday 'predictions' of the bible code. Why is it that people are always interrested in the bad things, while there could be looking out for the nice things in life!

Great discussion about vectors, deminsions, relativity ect, but could it be that i am missing a point. There is talk about the chaos principle, and the time itself. About choas, just because whe cannot predict everthing because whe don't understand it, doesn't mean that they don't follow a certain law. If we could understand the most fundemental laws and we could translate them to macroscopic systems, then we would find that the future is only one road which we must follow.

About time could it be a circulair (or loop) function with the same start and end, where the total amout of time spend equals zero, hence the question do we excist?

Tom Anderson - 11:34am Aug 15, 1997 ET (#515 of 515)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

M,

Apparently you are; we are discussing (with a scarcely relavant side conversation) why time-travel and future sight can/cannot exist.

Actually it does. Prediction doesn't have to do with how much we know (well, to a degree), it depends more on the bounds of the system. For instance, if you were to take a particle travelling along a path, it would be very predictable if all forces were balanced, but would be absolutely unpredictable (chaotic) if it were trailing a satellite through the upper atmosphere. In the first case, it would end up in a straight line from its origin with only a few millimeters perhaps in either direction; but in the second case, it would be impossible to tell where the particle is in relation to the satellite, or even whether or when it leaves the vicinity of the satellite and regains some predictability. Predicting human future is impossible because the bounds of the system allow for nearly anything to occur.

Are you suggesting we are predestined? That we have no free-will?

Well, it is necessary that we do exist, for if we didn't, we could not question our existance. But, yes, a "loop" of time is entirely possible, but certainly not necessary. Like I said a few posts back, time may not even exist except in our minds.

Tom

People are not always logical. There is only one true philosophy: "No one philosophy is true all the time."

I disagree. Time exists. If this were not true (ie if time were an artificial construct), we would easily have memories of future events as well as of past events. Or maybe this is true and this is yet another "explanation" for clairvoyance -- future memory is as fuzzy and subjective as past memory.

Well, if science starts from some basic assertions and builds upon these to arrive at the truth, and information does exist, then physics must be able to explain this phenomenon. However, I've seen nothing linking physics with information. Information itself seems to come out of nowhere.

Yes, I remember this. However, Moby Dick did not contain the birth and death dates and cities of famous sages. This was the code that's passed intensive scrutiny. This was not biased -- the test was first done with only the birth years of a few sages, and the it was extended.

That is my point. Something in the assumptions of a paradox is untrue. So, question your assumptions, all of them.

The Judeo-Christian God can.

I disagree. I've said it before and I know it all boils down to belief: chaotic systems are bounded, know the behaviour and you can make predictions.

This would just make it highly improbable, not impossible, or, God may have accounted for this, or, as Drosnin said, this part of the Bible has never changed.

Right, but we are never 100% sure of it's reliability in domains beyond what it was meant for. For example, is Newton's Laws of Motion 100% reliable? Only to the extent that it remain in the domain of non-relativistic motion.

Belief.

I really don't think so, had Hitler been predicted, no one would have been able to prevent his rise. But we could argue this point forever, there really is no proof (practical, not theoretical) to support either side.

If only white moths existed, and the environment shifted to make it more conducive to black moths, and then black moths started appearing, then that change must have been willed. Otherwise, why not brown, or red, or chartreuse? The alternative is that black moths already existed but they were not in large population until the environment changed -- in fact, this is what I heard really happened.

You're assuming that these "bad" genomes were dominant.

Again, please explain the existence of Cystic Fibroses, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Juvenile Diabetes, and all the others.

You haven't explained the benefits of eye color.

Please simulate this for yourself and tell me what your experiments suggest.

Again, assuming our knowledge is complete.

Only 'cos we haven't seen them. Dirac predicted the existence of the electron 'cos the equations pointed to their existence. Current theoretical equations point to the existence of tachyons.

Tachyons travel faster than light, this is part of relativity. Any particle that quantum tunnels travels faster that light 'cos tunneling is instantaneous.

The laws of conservation are being tested to degrees that our technology enables us.

The only logical deduction I've seen for these is "Well, it's always been like that." The LOC are assertions, they are the basic facts that physics is based upon. As assertions, they have no proofs. They can still be incomplete.

I agree. So, either they find out why the equations predict negative mass matter and tachyons (and revise them), or they find these particles, or they revise LOC. All these options are still wide open and they cannot be decided upon.

I'll have to dig out my physics book, then.

Then you must question your belief that Science is "the way to the truth."

Addendum, logic cannot be applied to all of it.

Which assumption are you talking about?

I am not a theist. You may think I am 'cos you read into what I post. I am an agnostic. Logic is based on a binary universe whose domain must be well defined. The entirety of the computer industry is based on this.

So Godel's Theorem is wrong?

We are arguing different points. I'm not saying that scientific facts are completely unreliable, only that it may not be the only way to get reliable facts. If you disagree, please explain how the foundations of Information Theory (which I've not found to be linked to anything physical) is more real than the stuff you've been arguing against.

Stereograms are not complete nonsense; they are not random dots -- they are created using mathematical algorithms. If they were complete nonsense different people would see different things.

Moreover, people don't see the math that created the images, they just see the patterns. So, your point doesn't support your argument that steganographic codes are "clouds in the sky."

You confuse reality with what you think ought to be.

And hence all the confusion.

This is what I've been postulating. But I don't believe there is only one road. Depending upon scale, predictions of the future may not be engraved in stone.

Chaotic systems are not uniformly random. They have correlations. This allows for some predictability.

If time were circular, then we are pre-destined.

No I don't see. First you admit the code exists, and then you say it is accurate to say it doesn't exist. Earlier, you said the existence depended on interpretation. ("I'm not going to try to "disprove" the math, since it is not in error; the interpretation is.") With respect to that, it occurs to me that the paper did not attempt to interpret anything. It merely calculated the odds that the list of names and associated dates would be found to be within the proximity calculated and concluded that it "is not due to chance."

Not necessarily. A possible example comes from Issac Asimov's "psychohistory," in his "Foundation Series." According to the great Hari Seldon, as recorded in the Encyclopedia Galactica, the great statistical science, psychohistory, would have no relevance to individuals since the individual does not obey statistical law, but human conglomerates do if the conglomerate is sufficiently large for valid statistical treatment. Therefore, it may be that societies, as a whole, are essentially predestined whereas individuals within the society have free-will. And, in this sense, it may be valid to search for the "most fundamental laws." Perhaps this is what M. had in mind.

You have stated that you believe the Bible Code exists. To say it exists also means you agree it does not occur by random chance. The mathematics proves that. Therefore, it must have been engineered. Human beings do not have that kind of technological expertise, and never have had (unless we have taken a few steps back in evolutionary terms, which would be hard to prove). Therefore, some other being or beings must have created this code. This is the logical implication of your statement. So if you know and believe that some other, more technologically advanced being or beings developed this code, why are you still debating its/their existence? Everything else stated in your arguments is irrelevant. It seems to me that you are trying very hard to convince yourself that God can't exist. In one sentence you made a convincing argument that God does exist; it is taking a great deal more time and trouble to make not as convincing an argument that God doesn't exist. It looks like you are losing your philosophical battle with yourself. P.S. Choosing not to choose is a choice, but not a decision.

Helen, if I can be so presumptuous as to think you were talking to me, let me first say that I am just having fun. (By the way, don't you think your post looks a bit strange now that mine has disappeared. It looks as though you are talking to thin air. But then, some people might say that my post was not much more than that.)

As to the technological expertise necessary to insert a code into a particular document, I am not sure exactly what would be required since I have no idea how extensive the code is. The only code the paper examined was a correspondence between associated names and dates and a calculation of their proximity. If correctly done--and I have no reason to believe it was not correctly done--that is enough to establish that a code exists, but it says nothing else. If other correspondences, or whatever, are subsequently found, they can be dealt with and examined when they are found, if they are found, and if they can be shown to exist beyond random chance.

Regarding my philosophical arguments with myself, I have to say that I think people who argue the unknowable with certainty are missing half the fun. You are right that choosing to not choose is not a decision. (But I am still thinking about it.) Who knows, it may still be possible, although unlikely, that the code will be discredited. In that case, I won't have to decide.

Cliff

Since in Biblical Hebrew all of the letters do double duty as numerals, it seems to me that there must be all kinds of "dates" associated with the names, etc. of the rabbis. One would have to know what date one was looking for in advance to be able to find it among all the rest of them. This also explains the absence of dates in the "Moby Dick" experiment, which was carried out on the English version, vowels and all. There are no texts other than the Old Testament written in Biblical Hebrew, are there? So what can be used as a comparison text? Modern Hebrew only came into being within the last century, contains vowels and I think uses Arabic numerals. The fact that Biblical Hebrew uses nouns and verbs interchangeably, doesn't have verb tenses in the way we think of them today, makes the interpretation of these Bible codes entirely subjective. I don't read any form of Hebrew, so I can't judge. But I am certainly skeptical.

Dawn, it is nice to hear from you again. I get tired of reading only Noel and Tom, although I have the highest regard for both. But your post, along with Helen's recent post, were like breaths of fresh air.

I would have to agree with you that "one would have to know what date one was looking for in advance to be able to find it among all the rest of them." It is for this reason that I agree with Dr. Rips, the principal author of the paper, that the Bible code has no predictive value. According to Dr. Rips, "It is literally impossible to make future predictions based on codes."

Regarding the text, the Hebrew in which the Bible is written is known. At one time, back in the early sixties, I was intensely interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and over the course of a couple of years, bought several books. In one of them, the author made the point that it had been suggested that the discovery of the scrolls might result in a better, more reliable Bible. However, his studies indicated that there was virtually no difference between the content of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the tenth century Massoretic Text. And it should be remembered that the Dead Sea Scrolls go back to the beginning of the common era, scarcely 400 years after Genesis was put into it's "final form" (adding the P literature to the already combined J and E documents).

As for the control texts, according to the paper, they were four randomizations of the letters, words, verses in Genesis using the Random function in Turbo Pascal and different seed numbers, a Hebrew translation of Tolstoy's War and Peace (presumably, modern, but at the suggestion of a referee), and the Book of Isaiah (also, a suggestion of a referee).

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 03:58pm Aug 16, 1997 ET (#523 of 527)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Noel,

That is rediculous. I have provided a logical proof that you cannot refute, but claim it is false because you feel it is false. I don't know why you bother to stay in this discussion since discussion cannot mean anything to you except how it makes you feel. A combination of empirical evidence and logical thinking is the only way to know anything.

What? If time did not exist, there would be no future or past... you are still thinking in terms of time. The only reason I still think that time does exist is because relatavistic experiments have demonstrated time dilation.

Where are you making a link between physics and information? Information is not a physical phenomenon, it is an abstract idea. Information is order.

That is because of the nature of the ancient Hebrew language. Even so, the Moby Dick codes were quite convincing... that it is nothing but in people's imaginations.

What?!? That is not an assumption; it is an absolute necessity!

Therefore, the Judeo-Christian God cannot exist.

To make that statement, you must have little experience dealing with chaotic systems. The Henon-Heiles model of stellar orbits is a bounded chaotic system; I defy you to ever predict the location of orbit. So is life on earth; I defy you to ever predict the name and date of a person's birth a thousand years from now. It cannot be done, it is chaotic. The point is that the Bible Code cannot be a form of prediction, but could only be miraculous. Since that is physically impossible and empirically wanting, it plainly is not possible.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 03:59pm Aug 16, 1997 ET (#524 of 527) Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

Then you are saying that we do not have free-will.

Science is a function that asymptotically approaches certainty. The more we learn, the more certain we are. This cannot be said of any other method of learning. It is the only way to obtain reliable knowledge.

Well, that sums it up right there. I always knew that is what I was dealing with, it was just a matter of time til I got you to admit it. Your arguments are invalid when they hold belief higher than critical thought.

You are rejecting both chaos and free-will?

NO! Nothing was willed! It is called evolution. Natural selection.

No, I am only assuming they are "bad", since that is what we labelled them; if they have no "bad" effects, then they cannot be labelled as "bad"!

These all have various causes. I am not a medical database, but I will tell you this much: they mostly result from mutation or from genes whose "good" effects outweigh the "bad" ones.

It is the same as pigmentation in general. Not necessarily a benefit for the eyes to be colored, but they just go along with the rest of the skin pigmentation. There may be some benefit, look it up. It is totally beside the point. Eye color, which is just a form of pigmentation, is completely and absolutely different from the spontaneous generation of a completely new sense! Especially since we have no empirical evidence that it does exist; those who claim to have it cannot show it, and everyone else just doesn't have it. That is absolutely rediculous. What a con!

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 04:00pm Aug 16, 1997 ET (#525 of 527)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

No, I know for certain that our structure is dictated by the genes, and that a body part cannot just arise because it "feels" like it.

No. Current theoretical equations do no such thing. Someone imagined it, and now people take it as truth. It's not false just because we haven't seen them, it's false because the existance of pink unicorns is false. If they existed, then they would emit Cerenkov radiation, which has been searched for, but not found (which it certainly would have if tachyons were abundant as originally proposed to explain). Giving the tachyon a name is not the same as proving its existence. You expect me to prove that it does not exist, but you have the burden of proof, not me. Again, you show me your true nature of gullible belief.

No, it is not. Tachyons do not exist.

No, the laws of conservation exist because they are consistant with observation.

No, you are wrong; you apparently don't understand science either.

Nothing predicts negative mass except the existance of tachyons; but since they don't exist, then there is nothing that necessitates negative mass. In fact, it is quite impossible, as is ftl travel.

It is not a faith, it is empirical evidence and critical thinking. Try it sometime.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 04:01pm Aug 16, 1997 ET (#526 of 527)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

"Our universe is neither binary (ie everything is provably true or provably false) nor well defined"

No, you just don't understand it. Godel proved that within a formal system, questions exist that are neither provable nor disprovable on the basis of the axioms that define the system. What this means is that the system has not been defined completely. And the Bible Code or anything else you think this applies to, it does not.

But it is.

You are not even listening... the point was not that it is totally random, but that it appears random (because the dots actually are random), and thus, I demonstrate the incredible ability of our brain to distinguish the pattern in otherwise completely random dots. I was not attempting to equate this with the Bible Code, because this is a seperate, nonequal type of pattern recognition, but pattern recognition just the same. The Bible Code is more similar to "clouds in the sky" in which there is no predetermined pattern, but people find one nonetheless.

No, you confuse what ought to be with what has been. You say that what has been ought to be. The reality is that the best method is what ought to be, not what has been. In the past, it did not work, now it does because people are using what ought to be. That is, objectiveness.

Only in that you know the bounds, but you cannot know anything that occurs within. That is the main postulate of chaos; unpredictability.

What? That is rediculous. A very uninsightful statement. For instance, I will give you a possible case where that is not true. My friend and I were working on a theory by which we would eliminate the paradox of time travel, and this is what we came up with. Matter expands through time and space from what we call the "big bang". Gravity will eventually overcome the momentum of expansion and cause matter to coallesce (but not necessarily uniformly as in a "big contraction"). We already see this occuring in black holes. So (here is the unknown), if the energy of the gravity were such that it could accelerate matter toward the center of the black hole so that it exceeded the speed of light (seemingly against relativity), then the matter would reappear at the moment of the "big bang", thus removing the paradox involved with the laws of conservation. We call this the Conveyor Belt Theory, because it is circular. However, it does not predict predestination. And I doubt that it is viable since it would contradict relativity.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 04:04pm Aug 16, 1997 ET (#527 of 527)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

Helen,

Please address someone in particular next time.

The Bible Code may exist (that is, patterns have been found), but people seem to think that it means something. It does not. It is just a pattern in the letters, a pattern in the clouds.

Please distinguish between "choose" and "decide", between "choice" and "decision".

Cliff,

The problem is that you believe it is unknowable. Nothing is unknowable, but that which does not exist. And, yes, it is possible to know that it does not exist.

Tom

This is an interesting thought. I think I like it. But Tom, you currently seem to be having a problem with the concept of time, uncharacteristically, I might add. In the last few days, you have made the following statements:

"Time is a vector; take freshman mechanics, or matrix algebra; this is a rather simple concept." (481)

"relativity specifically made time a vector." (483)

If you take a derivative in respect to time, then you are assuming that the quantity has a "direction" that can change in time." (487)

"what is occurring is not the passage of this thing we call time, but simply the progression of energy exchanges in the continual present." (507)

"When we speak of prediction, we are talking of laws of conservation -- energy exchanges. We see the current configuration and so we can see what "will" happen. But we are predicting displacement, not time." (507)

"Yes; if you are working with Newtonian physics, time can be a scalar; but if you are working with relativity, then time is a vector." (512)

"time may not even exist except in our minds." (515)

"The only reason I still think that time does exist is because relatavistic experiments have demonstrated time dilation." (523)

Am I being critical of your inner dialogue? Heck no. I think that what you are experiencing is marvelous. And, for all I know, you may come up with something that may interest me.

Cliff

Tom, in re-reading my last post this morning, it occurs to me that I may have been overly vague at the end. I think you will get my intent, but I doubt if anybody else will, and since this is a public message board, perhaps I should clarify. What I am talking about is thought: pure, original thought. You do not go from, "this is a rather simple concept," to "The only reason I still think that time does exist..." without making connections that you never made before.

Also, I was, perhaps, somewhat disingenuous when I said you may come up with something that may interest me. I will, of course, be intensely interested in your results.

Cliff

Cliff, thanks for the information about the randomization of Genesis in Biblical Hebrew as the reference text for the Rips experiment. Even a molecular biologist like me can understand why that made a good control! I really get bogged down in all the discussions of theoretical physics that you three guys love so much.

Noel: cystic fibrosis is a recessive trait that appears to have no or possibly a beneficial effect in the carriers. Cerebral palsy is not genetic (usually brain damage during birth). MS and JD are probably examples of gene-environment interaction, whereby the disease is only expressed in a certain environment (viral infection, diet, etc.) Juvenile diabetics didn't use to live long enough to reproduce, now they do. Until we find the environmental trigger, there will likely be more people suffering from JD than in the past.

I've discovered that Drosnin is capitalizing on a subculture of numerology that's been around for a long time, usually to "predict" the end of the world. (Why don't they ever predict anything good, like a cure for cancer?) Supposedly the exact date of the founding of Israel is foretold in the Old Testament by adding up the years of Israel's punishments (in Hebrew years) from the time they were freed from the Babylonian captivity. This is in a book called "The Third Millennium." I'm sure these numbers can be explained away, but nobody seems to be trying. I guess it doesn't sell.

Dawn, it appears you have it nailed.

Cliff

Good for you. So am I. This board provides a good intellectual exercise.

Yeah, Tom started it :D

And cities.

It would lend more credence to the existence of the code. But since there can be no predictive value, there is no scientific value. For those of us whose entire world is not science, there might s till be some value in the Bible Code.

I must agree with this.

A healthy attitude.

I must also agree with this ;)

If I'm guessing correctly, the Turbo Pascal random number generator is linear congruential. These aren't really good generators. Do you know if they've tried it again with a better generator?

Exactly my point. If your goal is to convert people, you must change your attack -- logic by itself will not work.

It's fun.

Perhaps for you and other Scientists, but not for most of the world.

So is there a future and past?

Therefore, in your world -- where nothing immaterial exists -- information does not exist.

What is order?

To some.

Yes, if He so chooses.

False.

If you've been listening to my posts, you'd have seen that I said that chaotic systems are not uniformly random -- have you done that chi square analysis, yet? -- therefore, based on statistics, one can make predictions. These predictions can be very good if a range of times is used rather than an exact point in time.

George Jetson, 01 April 2997. Prove that I'm wrong.

This is what some believe.

We've already gone through this. My belief with free will and pre-destination is that scale matters. A prediction affecting the world cannot be changed much by individuals 'cos we are just tiny cells within the organism known as society and the ecosystem.

Where are we now compared to certainty? Just a few decades ago, we had just a few more loose ends to tie up. Well, as we pulled on those loose ends, our certainty unraveled. Again, we are at a point where we just have to tidy up some loose ends. Namely we have to have a theory of quantum gravity. How certain are we that this won't open more questions and another branch of science and mathematics? In fact, one thing I am certain about is that this will happen -- maybe not with quantum gravity, but with something else.

Really? Will science teach me how to get along with people and obtain good raises? No, people skills are not learned through the scientific method.

Both critical thought and belief have roles in my life.

What is your belief in free will? And why?

How does evolution choose to create black moths? Why not cyan? Or magenta? Or yellow? Or did the moths decide to become black?

Natural selection can only select if the black moths existed before the environmental change.

My statement was that "bad" and benign genomes can exist. Your original statement was that only "good" genomes exist. Do you now include benign genomes in your statement.

Yes, they are "bad" only 'cos we label them as such. The only consistent theory I've seen is the "Selfish Gene Theory" postulated by Richard Dawkins.

Until you can confirm what the "good" effects are, you take this "fact" on faith. Have you simulated evolution, yet? Please let me know your findings when you do. If you confirm Koza's findings, you'll find that most mutations are detrimental and that mutation is not the steps by which evolution progresses.

In other words, the genomes hitch a ride.

Why?

We have no empirical evidence that it does not exist, either. So what is the truth?

So how did the black moths come about?

You've gone beyond my knowledge, I'll have to do some research.

So, do you believe in the existence of magnetic monopoles?

Our technology is enabling us to observe better and better.

Tachyons don't have negative mass, they have imaginary mass. I must correct myself, the equations don't predict the existence of these, they merely allow the existence.

Actually, I've been thinking about this. If the Big Bang Theory were true, negative mass would be necessary to conserve mass-energy. If the Big Bang did not create the Universe, then the Universe is infinitely old and has always had positive mass.

Yes, you have faith that empirical evidence and critical thinking is "the way to the truth."

IOW, assuming science is a formal system, Science cannot prove everything.

Tom believes it is.

OK, so let's drop this line of thought. It does not prove your point.

People don't find mathematical patterns in clouds.

I never said anything about what I think ought to be.

"Best" is subjective -- it depends upon what you want to do. In your situation, the scientific methods fits. Your situation, however, is not everyone elses. We can't/shouldn't all be scientists.

Most people do not think as you do. Most people don't think as I do. That is reality.

You can make some predictions about what's within. The entire field of technical analysis wouldn't exist if this were not true. For example, I may notice that 87% of the time, when DEM closes higher than it opened the five days before, IBM stock goes up. There's no explanation, and I don't care for one. All I know is that I can make money from knowing this correleation.

No, it's not. The main postulate of chaos is "non-determinism."

Assuming it occured. Empirical evidence suggests that it did not create the Universe.

Interesting. But why even come up with such a theory if it contradicts relativity?

Nothing is impossible until it never happens.

Yes. Some things.

I get lost myself, sometimes. I have to fish out some of the stuff from ten years ago. I must thank Tom, though, for correcting some of my misconceptions about some physics theories.

It would be great, though, if you can confirm or deny what I "know" of evolution.

Dawn Willis: <Re: CF, CP, MS, JD>

Thanks for the info. Would you say, though, that genomes must have some benefit to the organism in order to be passed down from generation to generation? What I have learned is that most genes (ie introns) are inactive and benign and that mutations alone could not account for the variety of life.

I would say -- without any examination -- that these are patterns in the clouds. There is too much subjectivity in choosing which numbers to add up.

While traipsing through the caves of Qumran I unearthed a heretofore undiscovered Biblical scroll. This scroll is different from other scrolls in two important ways. First it covers passages from Genesis to Revelations. Second, it is written in English language palindromes. For more revelation visit the following address: www.rdppub.com/engcap02htm

Noel, The Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper did not examine cities. I assume you must be talking about an independent experiment by Harold Gans. I do not know anything about Gans' experiment except that he reported that he found a correspondence with respect to Sages and their associated cities. I do not know how he established statistical significance, or if he did. I do not know of any peer reviewed paper by Gans, or even if his results were published at all. This being the case, I, personally, would not attempt to make a case for Gans' results.

I don't know that there needs to be any scientific value. The existence of the Genesis code is interesting, of itself, and something for science to explain, if it can. If the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper does stand up, as I expect it will, I suspect that, in due course, science will be able to explain it.

If you are referring to the Drosnin Code, I don't know of any intrinsic value. It doesn't appear to have much going for it, except profit. I know that by referring to profit, I run the risk of sounding like Dawn, but she does have a point.

Noel, this exchange is based on a statement by me that Tom mistakenly attributed to you (Ref 493 and 507). The real answer, from my point of view, is that, contrary to Tom's later assertion, I never claimed that his premise was false. Indeed, I did not specifically disagree with the premise, but merely did not accept that it was necessarily true. I had no problem with the logic. The logic was fine, assuming the premise was true. But to accept a conclusion, one must be certain of the premise. I was not certain of that premise.

I didn't bother to respond, myself, because I saw no reason to continue with a "Yes it is--no it isn't," quarrel.

Cliff

Yes, this is what I had meant.

And that he extended the number of sages. But his expertise in steganographic codes does lend some weight to his paper.

Yes, what I had meant was that even if it doesn't have scientific value, there can still be value in it -- not everything is science.

No, I was referring to peoples' beliefs.

Yes, she does.

Yeah, I don't know why I picked it up again.

Anyway, I've picked up some physics books and papers. Here's what I found.

Cerenkov radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted by charged particles traveling through a nonconducting medium. This radiation has not been found in a vacuum pointing to the fact that charged tachyons do not exist. It says nothing about non-charged tachyons.

To avoid causality paradoxes, relativity must postulate that no signal can travel faster than c.

According to one paper, "Close examination of the correlations present in recent experimental tests of Bell's Inequality provide concrete examples of nonlocality." And the Encyclopedia of Physics writes, "Although the experiments so far are not sufficiently close to ideal to be conclusive, experimental evidence is accuumulating that the EPR premises and the hidden variables they imply are untenable." This means information can travel faster than light and that causality may be violated within relativity theory.

Other papers say that tests of Bell's Inequality are inconclusive. This means that the verdict is still out on whether locality is real or not. IOW, the existence of locality is a belief.

Noel, we are getting farther and farther afield when we start talking about non-charged tachyons, the EPR paradox and locality.

I guess the only relation this has to the Bible code is a postulated method of encoding information, such as the Genesis code. But, we haven't defined our terms here, and just as a point of information, I will mention that EPR stands for Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen and refers to a paper they wrote in 1936 in which they proposed a test involving the position and momentum of two associated particles that interact and fly apart.

According to the paper, by measuring the momentum of both, and their distance apart, when they are close, the total momentum of the two particles is established. Then later, the momentum of the first is measured, and from that, the momentum of the second is established since the total momentum has not changed. Having done that, the position of the first is measured, thereby giving both the precise position and the momentum of the second, against the Copenhagen Interpretation. Otherwise, the measurement of the first, here, affects the second, there (action at a distance).

My understanding is that the EPR experiments that have been performed mainly involve measurement of spin and polarization of photons, but the idea is the same. As you noted from your sources, the preponderance of the evidence appears to be with the Copenhagen Interpretation, against the "realistic" point of view, against locality, and in violation of causality. Further, my understanding is that the information exchange between the two photons, now far apart, is found not to be merely faster than the speed of light, but "instantaneous," (action at a distance).

What do I think? I don't know. It don't seem right to me, but, then, I don't know. Lets get back to the Bible code. It makes more sense.

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 11:00pm Aug 19, 1997 ET (#541 of 541)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Cliff,

I think you mean my little tangent about how time is not what we think it is. Well, that is a little different, but it still goes along with what I've been saying all along. We, as a society, have created something we call time but which does not exist at all. Don't get me wrong, time does exist; as a progression of events, and in terms of relativity. But, time is not what is measured on a clock, nor is it Monday to Friday, nor is it summer to winter. This is what people generally think of when they think of time. This is usually a scalar value. This is Newton. What physicists refer to is something far different; it can measure the aforesaid things, but is not limited to that. What physicists refer to as time is a dimension of our real time-space, or even an imagined time-space. As such, it has components of magnitude and direction, since it is a spacial quantity as much as i, j, or k. This is Einstein. The first instance, the scalar, is totally unnecessary; it does not exist except as a convenient artificial construct. The second instance, the vector, is a consequence of relativity.

The problem is that I was speaking of two rather distinct phenomena. The "rather simple concept" was of the vector, the dimension, the fun idea that Gene Roddenbury so enjoyed playing with. The "non-existant" time was the scalar; the completely artificial measurement of non-relativistic energy exchanges. The exercise is to fully differentiate between the two.

Dawn,

Yes, we do ;o)

Thanx, that is exactly as I expected, but you saved me the bother of having to research each of the diseases Noel specified.

Because all of the memorable moments in history (they are predicting history afterall) are the bad ones. They search through their semi-random patterns until something like "Hitler" jumps out at them... and then people believe that they "could have" predicted it if only they looked through their wonderful code before the fact.

BTW, I saw what was clearly a caricature of Richard Nixon in the oil floating on a puddle the other day; is it a sign from God? That nose couldn't have come about by random swirling, could it?

Tom

more to come... but this is finals week, so give me some "time"

That's nothing, Tom, a couple of weeks ago, I saw the face of God in a cloud amid thunder and lighting. I was totally stunned. It was after that that I noticed your progression from sick certainty to healthy uncertainty, and I immediately saw a correlation. A message from God. Thunderation, I thought to myself, he's thinking like a Newton or an Einstein. Maybe he is another Maxwell. What? You don't believe me? After you are finished with your finals, I think you need to get to work on your theory of time. No tangent. I think there is something in your brain that needs to be explored. It might even explain the Bible code.

Cliff

It looks like we have hit a dry spell around the Bible code messageboard. For two days in a row, now, I have come home from work with anticipation, or at least a hope, of something interesting on the board, only to be disappointed. No fun at all!

During this dry spell, however, I have been doing some thinking, and it seems to me that we must look to science to explain the Bible code and other such like. The problem, it seems to me, however, is that the prevailing physics in today's world, quantum mechanics, with it's "action at a distance" assumption, will never do it. In a sense, quantum mechanics is like Newton's theory of gravity in that both assume action at a distance. Einstein eliminated action at a distance for gravity in general relativity, but no sooner had he done this, at the quantum level, action at a distance, again, reared it's ugly head. It should be noted that quantum mechanics has been remarkably successful, as was classical mechanics, but what is needed now is a breakthrough.

Although I tend to be uncertain about most everything, one thing that I am relatively certain of is that such a breakthrough will not be forged by mainstream physicists who accept renormalization and believe that what is needed is a "quantum theory of gravity." Rather it will be a maverick and a free thinker. The problem is to explain the results of the double slit and the EPR experiments in a mathematical treatment that eliminates action at a distance at the quantum level, similar to the way general relativity eliminated action at a distance for gravity. Tom, some your statements with respect to time seemed to have an original flavor as well as a ring of truth and insight. It seems plausible that a deeper understanding of time may be a key to the solution of the above stated problem. Therefore, I would like to suggest that you give it some more thought and see if you agree.

Cliff

Tom Anderson - 01:43am Aug 23, 1997 ET (#544 of 545)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Noel,

They are not one in the same; anything that reveals an unknown has scientific value.

For those of us whose entire world is not science, there might s till be some value in the Bible Code. False value. If it's not true, what good is it? Do people like to lie to themselves? It often seems that way, but I just don't see why.

I don't know about "linear congruential" (whatever that means), but I know for certain that it is not entirely random. Seems to pick "random" characters from recent memory, so that the same character repeatedly appears, even whole phrases.

My goal is to arrive at the truth. That cannot be done if you base all your conclusions on feelings. You must use rationalism and empiricism. Hasn't history sufficiently demonstrated that for you? If you cannot be swayed by logic, then you are only fooling yourself -- denying reality because you don't want it to be true.

You don't seem to understand: that is the only way to know anything. If the rest of the world chooses not to learn truth, then they believe fantasy. Perhaps that is acceptable for you and other metaphyicists, but not for critical thinkers.

I don't know, you tell me; you are the one who was assuming that there was. But my point was that there cannot be a future and a past without time as it is commonly used. Experimental evidence shows time dilation, but I could think of many other explanations than the common use of time; and they wouldn't require a timeline model.

Information is an abstract concept, not something supernatural. Love is also an abstract concept, and I still believe in love. Ghosts are not an abstract concept, they are supernatural; no, I don't believe in ghosts. Nor God. Nor tachyons.

<continued...>

Tom Anderson - 01:44am Aug 23, 1997 ET (#545 of 545)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

What is "is"? What is "what"? What is language? What is existance? C'mon, if you're going to ask fundamental questions, go all the way!

Right... just like ghosts, goblins, and the genie of the lamp.

based on statistics, one can make predictions. These predictions can be very good if a range of times is used rather than an exact point in time.

How can you not see the error in your statement? You want to predict an exact event, like someone's birth, by using a range! That's absurd, not to mention impossible.

No, but you have the burden of proof. Fortunately, this is quite easy to prove for either party; just wait and see. The thing is... it would be rather easy for me (or my descendants) to make sure this doesn't occur, even if it might have without the prediction. That is why prediction is impossible when free-will is involved.

And I have shown that it is wrong.

But you are wrong. Anyone can change anything. Just go back and kill your father... Or, like in "Back to the Future", seduce your mother. Marty's "fading from existance" is a perfect example of the paradox. Where does the matter go? So much for conservation, eh? Nothing would happen to the matter, because time has nothing to do with it; if matter exists in some form, it would take energy to change that, not some abstract principal of time.

Here is one that jumped out at me: I was watching "Terminator 2". John programmed a terminator to go back in time to protect himself as a child. If he was alive to program the terminator, it must have all gone well, so he shouldn't have needed to do it. Conversely, if it didn't succeed, he would never have been able to send it back. Also in that movie, they are in this loop in which the events that unfold are caused by the future (Skynet processors based on those from the smashed terminator in the first movie, which then causes the terminator to be built, which then causes Skynet to be built, etc). How can an event cause itself? These are just some of the reasons why timetravel and absolute prediction are impossible.

BTW, the date of nuclear holocaust predicted by T2 is August 29, 1997 ;o)

Tom

more to come... later.

Tom

Yes, this is true if you assume a linear progression of time in one reality. But if you assume Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (which I am told is as valid, mathematically), you (or your descendants) are simply in another reality in which something else was predicted, or perhaps, nothing at all was predicted.

Cliff

Also, Tom, it has occurred to me that the concept of predestination seems to have its basis in classical physic and free-will seems more closely aligned with quantum mechanics. Let me explain:

Classical physics (including the classical theory of general relativity) has a deterministic flavor since it teaches that the future behavior of all particles in the universe can be exactly predicted by their position, momentum and interaction with other particles. Therefore, the idea of all of nature wound and set in motion by a creator, after which everything can be exactly predicted, seems plausible.

However, quantum mechanics introduces uncertainty and the calculation of probabilities with respect to the position of particles. In essence, in quantum mechanics, nothing is real until we look, and even when we look, we can not make a complete determination of both the position and momentum of even a single particle. Since the exact position of each particle can neither be known, nor its future exactly predicted, free-will appears to have a real chance.

Why do I mention this? Well, in view of your insistence on free-will, I am suddenly surprised that you appear to have higher regard for deterministic general relativity than for probabilistic quantum mechanics.

Cliff

Tom, thanks for the reference to the Introduction to Science at Miami University that you gave some time ago. I had downloaded it and never read it until last week. I am going to use it in talks to lay audiences about why one person's claim that shark cartilage cures cancer isn't as good as a clinical trial (although I doubt I will convince the audience!)

Noel et al.--there certainly is a lot of DNA that has no apparent benefit.--the so-called "junk or selfish DNA." It might serve some as yet unknown structural function for the chromosome. What is very interesting are the numbers of pseudogenes that are very much like the true genes, but aren't expressed and may be derived from the time when we were a more primitive species.

The rate of mutation over the years that life is thought to have existed on earth isn't high enough to have produced all of the biological diversity we have on earth today. But rates may have been higher early on, and single point mutations aren't the only way to create genetic diversity. Transposable elements, related to retroviruses, pick up genes and carry them from one location on the chromosome to another, and between species as well. Humans do contain genetic remnants of retroviruses.

Stephen Jay Gould is an excellent popular writer in this area.

Dawn, I suppose you know better than me what lay audiences will or will not accept. But I am a layman, and I understand very well why double blind clinical tests are more reliable than personal testimonials, with regards to the effectiveness of a treatment. And it seems to me that any open minded, and halfway intelligent, person would also understand, once it is explained.

I do not know what the "reference to the Introduction to Science at Miami University" contains, but if you want my advice--or even if you don't--here it is:

I would avoid any attack on the sincerity of the individual or individuals giving such testimonial, if possible. It is my opinion that in most cases, the individuals giving such testimonials actually are sincere. Instead, describe, at some length, the placebo effect, and explain how a double blind clinical trial avoids misleading results due to the placebo effect and other such like: the power of suggestion, prayer etc. (In a double blind clinical test, you take precautions to make sure it is the treatment, itself, that is tested, not the intangibles. Personal testimonials include intangibles that may exist in one case, but not in the next.)

Cliff

Leaving aside the questions about whether the book is to be taken for real, etc, etc, (seemed like many of the early respondents made up their minds without bothering to read the book -- not unusual for religious bigots and knee-jerk sceptics), My question is:

Anyone know how to obtain (or write) the software needed to do the kind of searches outlined in the book? I would rather do my own research than rely on Drosnin's. I have some questions (or qualms) about his interpretations--the dates, for instance--and would prefer to do my own work than rely on his. I'd also like to apply it to other "holy" or "inspired" texts such as the Q'uran, The Book of the Law, etc.

[email protected]

Christeos, in an earlier post (#18), a Tom Hall published an address on the internet from which it could be obtained: http://www.torahscholar.com. I tried the address and it appears to be valid. The program obviously would not do me much good, since I can not read Hebrew. I suppose I could learn Hebrew if I chose to spend the energy. I haven't, which means, I suppose, that either I am not that interested, or that I am that lazy.

However, lazy or not, I think I can truthfully say that I am neither a religious bigot nor a knee-jerk skeptic, and I did read the book. I, personally, was more impressed with the book at the beginning than toward the end. But I think the book does has one great virtue in that it contains the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper, which I think has established, scientifically, that a code does exist in Genesis.

One thing that most certainly did not impress me, with respect to the Drosnin book, was that Drosnin found codes in Isaiah even though Isaiah was used as one of the control texts for the experiment, on which the paper is based, and was found to show no statistical significance with respect to the sages and their associated dates. I suspect that Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers may contain the code since they, along with Genesis, appear to have been published at about the same time from, possibly, the same sources. However, I would seriously doubt that any other part of the Bible, or the texts you mention would contain the code, having come from separate sources.

With respect to predictive value, I am in agreement with Dr. Rips, the principal author of the paper, that the Genesis code has no predictive value whatever. Essentially, you would have to know what you are looking for before you could find something, and then, once you have found it, you would then be faced with the task of establishing whether what you found is statistically significant (existing at the particular location beyond random chance.)

Cliff

Yes, this whole thread got started 'cos we postulated that if someone were able to send signals FTL, it would present an alternative to God as the coder of the Bible code.

I've just gotten back from vaca. I'll see what I can stir up.

Yes. Although I might add that the "action at a distance" that we've seen so far does not allow for communication back through time. And, does relativity rule out wormholes? More precisely, a wormhole made from a cylinder composed of black holes.

I completely agree, but I'm not sure about the quantum gravity statement.

Or, perhaps, it's just the old physicists' faith in the Copenhagen Interpretation. You might like to research the Transactional Interpretation (email me if you want a web address). Though the author states that it cannot be tested, I'm hoping otherwise.

Which brings us back to achieving goals. People do like to lie to themselves. In order to get anything worthwhile done, you must be able to work with irrationalities.

Are you saying it's not OK for critical thinkers to act on feeling? Or critical thinkers won't accept the rest of the world acting on feeling?

What's the difference between abstract concepts and supernatural concepts? Why abide by different rules for them? Why does one need proof and the other not?

We all think differently, what is fundamental to you, may not be for me. You haven't answered the question.

Yes, 'cos the probability of any event occuring at an exact moment in time is zero -- basic probability.

This is where you and I really disagree. It would be impossible for anyone or any group of people to force every parent whose child is born on that date not to name their child George Jetson.

You have not. You seemed to be stuck in an anthropocentric mindset. My statements presuppose a larger view. You have not shown my statements incorrect according to this view.

Which goes back to my statement that perhaps we just don't really understand what time is.

Unless you subscribe to the many-worlds interpretation.

No, these are more examples of us not understanding time and its relation to cause and effect.

Cool.

Perhaps, a lot of this discussion would be clearer if we didn't confuse the concepts of determinism and prediction. Determinism is sufficient for prediction, but it is not necessary. Our world is not deterministic, but we can still predict certain things to a certain degree (ie I predict there will be a hurricane hitting the East coast around 10 September 1997).

This is only one of many interpretations of QM. I believe it is as incorrect as the Norse myths.

Although a simulation serves as no proof, it can give us direction. John Koza has simulated evolution. The "junk DNA" is just leftover from the process. Nature does not strive for "quality-without-a-name" as an engineer or an architect would.

As Koza has demonstrated, mutation is not even necessary to achieve genetic diversity.

I would agree to an extent. The placebo effect (along with prayer, laughter, ...) does help. We really should start looking into why it works for some people and not others.

Noel, I am not sure about that. I know what they tell us laymen, but I am still not sure. First, since it appears that all of nature is connected, it should not be necessary to examine only photons having a known, recent interaction. One should be able to use any two photons in any two regions of the universe since all of nature is associated.

Second, again, I know what they say: that if one were to manipulate one of the two associated photons in a specific way, an observer of the second photon would merely see a different random pattern than he would have seen had the first photon not been manipulated. Since it is still a random pattern, however, no information is, nor can be, obtained. (But if that is the case, if all they see is a random pattern anyway, how do they "know" that they are seeing a "different" random pattern than they would have seen if the first was not manipulated in the experiment?)

Okay, presumably, if I understood the math, I might see why. But I do tend to be skeptical when someone says something can't be done.

I guess that means you think they will find a graviton? How long have they been looking? I think that if they haven't found it my now, they probably won't.

I found a paper on the web to which I think you refer: "The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" by John G. Cramer, Department of Physics, University of Washington. The paper, originally published in 1986, is way over my head, of course, but the best I could gather in a brief scan, the author indicates that the predictions of his theory are exactly the same as the Copenhagen interpretation. (Since there is no difference in the predictions, there can be no test to determine if his theory is any more or less correct than the "standard" Copenhagen interpretation.)

Cliff

Well, this is the physics we have now -- FTL signals are possible but FTL communication is not (BTW, these signals can be used to create real-time one-time-pads for encryption). However, I still believe that our physics is not complete enough to rule out absolutely FTL communication.

This is my belief, too. There is some Force (a la Star Wars) connecting everything.

I'm not sure about this. If you manipulate the first photon, the second should not be affected. I mean, I know they're related, but only through their properties. Once you change those properties, they may not be related any more. Tom, can you clarify this?

Sometimes, the math is "wrong" 'cos it remains locked in a particular domain (ie Newton's mechanics remained in Euclidean space).

Me, too.

I'm not sure. It would be neat and poetic, but, as Tom has said, we can't base beliefs purely on neatness and poeticness.

If they haven't found it by now and we have the means to look for it (ie we were able to reproduce near Big Bang conditions) then it probably doesn't exist. Specially if the equations don't hint at its existence.

Yes, that's the one.

Yes, however, this interpretation places the conscious observer back into the system (ie a conscious observer is not necessary to collapse a wave function). It also uses domains of QM equations that were originally ignored 'cos they allowed for FTL signals. If I remember correctly, Cramer lists down the similarities and the differences between CI and TI.

This is true. At this point, I would lean back on Occam's Razor (I hope I don't get hurt :).

I can't believe you guys are still at it. Tom: I couln't find the Martin Luther quote about the Church wanting to kill all of the Jews. Could you give me a source?

I am curious, what motivates you to continue to write so much on the message board? If it is for the sake of learning, why not read more books. It is better to get the information on specific subjects from the primary sources then from second hand sources i.e. "the CNN message board."

Or maybe take classes. Tom seems to be the most educated one here, is it any coincidence that he is a student? Oh well, good luck to all of you trying to prove each other wrong.

Although I doubt that I will come up with a breakthrough, I remembered that my college Physics teacher said essentially the same thing many years ago, and I therefore adapted this style of thinking with the idea that the math could very possibly lag behind the theory. It's possible that there will have to be some major advances in math too.

Leave out the word "perhaps" and you got it. In my opinion this is certainly true.

Agree emphatically Noel. It is just plain wrong.

As much as I respect academia, I doubt that anyone would ever

jump up from their seat yelling, "Look here. I just came across a formula the reveals that if photons collide with a particular arrangement of clorifill, cellulose, water, and a few assorted proteins, the thing goes into cell multiplication."

Noel, I find the following surprising: "I'm not sure about this. If you manipulate the first photon, the second should not be affected. I mean, I know they're related, but only through their properties. Once you change those properties, they may not be related any more. Tom, can you clarify this?"

The reason I am surprised is that I thought the establishment of nonlocality was the result of the EPR experiments, or at least, the perponderance of the evidence from the EPR experiments is against locality. What you appear to be doing in your statement is restating the Einstein position in his paper (which is supposed to be in conflict with the experimental evidence). Also, it would be my understanding that since everything is connected, it is also related.

Also, I might add that if all of nature is connected in space, as it appears to be, it is, also, undoubtedly, connected in time. (By the way, Noel, that Cramer guy is an interesting character.)

Dan, it is fun. C'mon, don't you want to have some more fun?

Royce, regarding the "nothing is real" thing, you have to accept some equally weird things in order to avoid it. Of course, as Niels Bohr said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

Cliff

Cliff, Yeah I agree. But, some of the cloud chamber stuff itches me a little bit too. (Re: Bohr)

TLC ran an hours documentary on the two particles together spin; separate them; change the one particles characterics; other particle affected at a distance instantaneously--zero time influence across some distance. (FTL) And, the cat in box; observer; cat dead or not routine. I don't remember the "what's his name" who published all these theorems, or exactly when--early 20th. century I think; but if the observer couldn't observe the cat inside the box, then nothing was true either way, (according to "what's his name".) I got problems with the cat, and the particles.

The depth to which a person can think is not determined by how much that person has memorized from the books he has read and studied. One purpose for books is to diminish the need for memorization. To "know" the concepts from the books, and to add these concepts to our mental "tool box" is the escense of the progress