Royce, regarding the TLC documentary to which you refer, my understanding is that the separation of the particles need not be "immediately" before the observation. Every atom in the universe was at one time (in the Big Bang) in close proximity to every other atom in the universe. Therefore, every atom in the universe is associated with every other atom in the universe. Pick out a particle in China and another one in Brazil, change the particle characteristics of one, and the other one is affected, instantaneously. Note that this is not quantum theory: this is the results from the EPR experiments.

Now it would seem to me that if this is true that all of nature is connected in space, then it would appear that all of nature must be connected in time as well, due to the equivalence of space and time (at least in four dimensions). At this point, it seems to me that the problem has a "look" of geometry. I would, therefore, think that someone who knows the mathematics of general relativity should be able to construct a geometrical model of this. And once that is done, this geometrical model, just constructed, might, with reasonable ease, combine with the geometrical model of general relativity into a comprehensive unified geometrical theory of the universe.

Cliff

Noel Yap: 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.

Cliff Beall: 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).

From what I understand of the EPR experiments, one can measure properties of the two photons and get information FTL, however, manipulating one photon does not affect the other. IOW, you have read-only access to the coupled-photon system, not read-write access. Again, Tom, if you could verify this, it would be appreciated.

Cliff Beall: Also, it would be my understanding that since everything is connected, it is also related.

I would agree. One abstraction I've seen mentioned in a SF book is that of representing the universe as one BIG matrix -- one cell per particle-particle relation. For each time quanta, the matrix is updated (as in Conway's Game of Life).

Cliff Beall: 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.

Yes, this is my thinking.

Royce Cayson: 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)

I guess I've been misunderstanding the EPR experimental evidence. If this is so, forget encryption, we would have an eavesdrop-proof communication path.

Royce Cayson: <Re: Schroedinger's Cat>

This 50% alive/50% dead cat assumes the correctness of the Copenhagen Interpretation. I don't believe that consciousness has a special role in the universe; therefore, I don't believe in the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Royce Cayson: 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.

I agree, however, much of progress is gotten from building upon existing knowledge. So, although breakthroughs require a different sort of thinking, they cannot ignore existing facts.

Cliff Beall: Every atom in the universe was at one time (in the Big Bang) in close proximity to every other atom in the universe.

Assuming the Big Bang actually occurred. There is one big piece of evidence that it did not (although a big bang might have occurred.)

Noel,

NY: I guess I've been misunderstanding the EPR experimental evidence. If this is so, forget encryption, we would have an eavesdrop-proof communication path.

Noel, I am not sure I understand this. If a second particle is affected by the manipulation of a first particle, also a third particle is affected, and a fourth; indeed, every particle in the universe is affected. It would appear to me that anybody in the universe could listen in, assuming that such a sequence code could be constructed to yield intelligence in the second particle (and third or fourth etc.).

NY: Assuming the Big Bang actually occurred. There is one big piece of evidence that it did not (although a big bang might have occurred.)

You went right past me on this. What is the one big piece of evidence to which you refer?

Cliff

The Bible Code is "Junk Mail From The Old Testament" If the Author were being scientific in his approach he would simply apply his methodology against another document like the IRS Tax Code and see what other irrelevant informtion he could find.

CB: If a second particle is affected by the manipulation of a first particle, also a third particle is affected, and a fourth; indeed, every particle in the universe is affected.

The EPR experiment uses the conservation laws to couple the two particles, so if I measure spin +1/2 on particle A, then particle B must have spin -1/2. This tight coupling occurs 'cos the two particles can be traced back to originate from one single particle. The exact spins would be random (ie sometimes particle A would have +1/2, sometimes it would have -1/2), but knowing particle A's spin would allow me to know particle B's spin. Once I change particle A's spin, the two particles are no longer correlated ('cos the conservation of spin would involve another particle.)

I have never heard of this instantaneous affection of all particles. Do you have any references for it?

<Re: Big Bang> What is the one big piece of evidence to which you refer?

The oldest the universe is according to any Big Bang theory is ~20 billion years -- they are now converging towards 13-15 billion years. There are structure out there that are over 40 billion years old. Reference The Big Bang Never Happened.

Noel, I had misinterpreted the EPR experiment I guess. I was so sure that if after the close coupling, particle A's spin was changed by external influence; then particle B was instantaneously affected. I also thought that it was the proximity of the two particles that set up the beginning "control situation" and relative spins observed, then in turn relativistic influence observed.

This was of special interest to me because I thought it "smacked" of being cousins to gravity in some aspects. I am just bewilderd by the fact that gravity is more common than dirt or water and we can't even manipulate it, as we do electromagnetic and electrostatic forces, (invisible, acting at a distance, imperceptable to the senses between the interactive objects), but unlike gravity we can easily detect them with devices. (guassmeter, electroscope, etc.)

These discussions with you all have opened up some avenues for me to explore which may lead to other avenues and beyond. (continued)

Cliff, I was expecially interested in your comments on the every particle connected idea. This also smacks of gravity since every mass, (gravity) attracts every other mass, and since we don't know the opposite of gravity, I thought when you mentioned the "time as a vector" concept, I thought that may be an area in which to look for a missing element; Missing as far as sensory perception is concerned.

These discussions also serve as a reminder of how much we don't know. It's numbing, frightening, tantalizing, bewildering, humbling, and even inspiring toward the supernatural to attemt to think of these "how it works" ideas, but, it's the ultimate goal.

Royce

This was perhaps one of the most interesting books I have ever read in my life. Although some critics claim, it's just a coincidence, I know it is real. I would advise any and everyone to read the Bible Code so that we can work together to prevent this terrible disaster from occurring during our life times. I would also suggest reading "Earth's two minute warning" by Mr. Wheeler.

Tom Anderson - 03:59am Sep 5, 1997 ET (#564 of 591)
Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Ok, clear your schedule for a few hours...

Noel,

Where are we now compared to certainty? More certain than ever before. Our certainty has never "unravelled", we are quite sure of those things we have scientifically proven, just not "the whole jist of it"; that is, we have no "grand unified theory", but we are building toward it. More questions doesn't in any way invalidate the past answers.

Will science teach me how to get along with people and obtain good raises? Yes, it is the only way. If you know those things, science is how you did it. If you don't, you can use science to find out.

Both critical thought and belief have roles in my life. That is not possible; you do not have critical thought if you ever think uncritically.

What is your belief in free will? And why? I do not know that we have free will, but observation appears to support that we do. Do an experiment: take a deck of cards and seperate them by suit in ascending order; that is nearly impossible to occur by random chance, so if you succeed, it can be explained by little other than free will.

How does evolution choose to create black moths? Why not cyan? Or magenta? Or yellow? Or did the moths decide to become black? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to explain the entire concept of natural selection; try a biology book, they would do a better job of it than I would anyway.

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Your original statement was that only "good" genomes exist.

No, I only said that "bad" genes (not genomes, which are the entire genetic code) are selected against, which means that they are not passed on unless they have some "good" effect as well or unless they do not effect the organism until after reproduction has occurred.

Until you can confirm what the "good" effects are, you take this "fact" on faith.

What?? That makes no sense. "Good" effects are anything which increase the likelihood of reproduction, while "bad" effects are anything that decrease the likelihood of reproduction.

Have you simulated evolution, yet?

It has been done many times. In fact, "Sim Life", the computer game, does an adequate job of it. There was also an experiment done where computer "bugs" were given the same circumstances as natural creatures. The ones that got the most food reproduced more and passed on the traits which allowed them to get the most food. It started out with "bugs" of random traits beyond the basics in which nearly none could get the food, but after many generations, nearly all of them could get it. It is a rather iterative process and can be easily simulated within your own mind, but there exist complex programs that take into account thousands of variables and simulate it even more effectively for many seperate traits. Do a search on the web and you might find one.

Tom Anderson: "Eye color, which is just a form of pigmentation, is completely and absolutely different from the spontaneous generation of a completely new sense!" Why? Because eye color is not likely to have any great effect on selection whereas a new sense would be a huge selection factor. However, there is nothing selecting for ESP.

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

The negative is always assumed because the positive is so extremely simple to prove should it be true. Should it not be true, there is often no way to prove the negative, but it is correct by default.

So how did the black moths come about?

Evolution. The color of their environment changed which allowed preditors to selectively hunt a single group within the species, thus selecting for those genes which produced the color which camouflaged them. Those genes were originally selected for on a more basic level at an earlier point in their evolution, perhaps even before that specific species. For instance, you spoke before of eye color vs new sense; well, the sense of sight began simply as skin that was overly sensitive to light in creatures in the earliest stages of life. Those that had sensitive skin could react in ways that enabled them to reproduce more often. Variations over millions of years continually selected for those which allowed more reproduction and selected against those that reduced reproduction until you finally get what you see today, and see what you get today. You distinguish it as "vertical evolution" and "horizontal evolution", but it is always just slightly slanted. Your "vertical evolution" is just "horizontal evolution" over millions upon millions of years.

So, do you believe in the existence of magnetic monopoles? div B = 0, so there is no such thing as magnetic "charge". But, what does this have to do with the conversation at hand?

Our technology is enabling us to observe better and better. On scales that are irrelevant to our discussion. Violation of conservation would be plainly evident. We would never even have postulated conservation if it were ever untrue.

Tachyons don't have negative mass, they have imaginary mass.

Both terms describe the mass of tachyons. It is described as negative mass because positive mass objects travel subluminally, zero mass objects can travel luminally, and that leaves negative mass objects to travel superluminally. Imaginary mass originated because m^2 is negative, so m is imaginary. Also, from E = m*[1-(v/c)^2]^(-1/2), the energy of tachyons is imaginary, so to make it a negative real, the mass must be imaginary. In addition, the existance of tachyons is also imaginary ;)

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I must correct myself, the equations don't predict the existence of these, they merely allow the existence.

Relativity does not allow for tachyons.

If the Big Bang did not create the Universe, then the Universe is infinitely old and has always had positive mass.

Which is very possible, but not necessary.

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

You are changing the meaning of the term. In the way you use it, "faith" has no meaning at all.

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

No, scientific "truth" is simply incomplete. But if truth is a quantum measurement, then science can prove it entirely. If it is not a quantum measurement, then science can prove it entirely, but with a margin of error reduced considerably by statistics. But science can never not-prove something, if it exists.

Tom believes [science] is [the only way to get reliable facts].

No, I am certain of it. You can not know anything to be true unless you prove it so.

Tom Anderson: "I was not attempting to equate this with the Bible Code, because this is a seperate, nonequal type of pattern recognition,"

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

Yes it does; it proves that people interpret random patterns to have meaning when they don't.

People don't find mathematical patterns in clouds.

A pattern is a pattern, whether it be numbers or water molecules.

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

You implied it as much as I did.

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"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.

It is not subjective when our goal is the truth; which, in this case it is. And yes, we can and should all be scientists when we look for truth.

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

The reality is that science works, superstition does not.

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.

You cannot predict anything when percentages are multiplied even a couple of times. Let's say that a particle has 1/5 chance of hitting five other particles, and then each of those have 1/5 chance in hitting another five particles; to predict which particles are moving after just a few collisions results in 1/5 * 1/5 * 1/5 = 0.008 chance of any particle in a three-particle radius of being in motion as a result of the first particle. And that is a very simplistic model, just try applying this type of prediction to such complex events as human actions and it is impossible to know anything about what will occur next week let alone next millenium.

Tom Anderson: "That is the main postulate of chaos; unpredictability."

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

They are basically the same thing.

Empirical evidence suggests that it did not create the Universe.

Please qualify.

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

Because there may be further refinements to the theory which do not necessitate that it contradicts relativity. It is just creative thought run amuck. I don't subscribe to the theory, just postulate its existance so as to be disproven.

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Nothing is impossible until it never happens.

Wrong. Everything is possible when ignorance is infinite. Things that have happened -- and thus reduced ignorance -- can exclude previous possibilities.

Would you say, though, that genomes must have some benefit to the organism in order to be passed down from generation to generation?

First, I would like to correct you again; gene = specific base code, genome = entire set of all genes of an organism. Please don't use these terms interchangeably. And, no, it is not necessary that a gene have a benefit; but if it is destructive, then it will be selected out should it have no benefit or little benefit.

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.

Then you understand my position.

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. Cerenkov radiation is emitted by any particle which is moving faster than light in the medium through which it is travelling. It is essentially an electromagnetic shockwave similar to a sonic boom. It is readily detectible when particles are accelerated faster than light in water, for instance. Since tachyons would be moving faster than light in a vaccum (space), Cerenkov radiation would be abundant, but it is not.

In addition to never being found, tachyons are also impossible. The more energy they lose, the faster they go; so at zero energy (that is at rest), they have infinite velocity (impossible). Also, consider the effect of collision... there cannot be collision since to slow a tachyon to light speed would require infinite energy, yet an impenetrable barrier would do just that. Tachyons should be considered no more of a reality than round squares.

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

That is not entirely true. Tachyons are not possible; however, "signals" can go faster than light, just not the matter itself. For instance, consider a water-wave approaching a dock; at 90 degrees (that is, perpendicular to the dock) the wave intersects with the dock at the speed of the matter in the wave. However, as the wave angle becomes more parallel with the dock, the intersection moves much faster than the matter of the actual wave. When the wave approaches completely parallel, it simultaneously intersects with the entire dock at the same instant, hence faster than light. So, while matter cannot travel faster than light, there are non-material things which can, such as wavefront intersections. This is not the same thing as tachyons because tachyons would be matter, and it is not possible for matter to travel superluminally.

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.

Matter is a field; there is a probability of finding an object within a specified area. Locality exists depending on the scale. If you say an electron is right there, pointing at it with a pencil eraser, you can be certain it is; but if you say it is right there, pointing at it with the tip of an electron microscope, you cannot be entirely sure. It is partially due to the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principal.

This is not in dispute; what is your point?

Cliff,

My understanding is that the EPR experiments...

This is an area of intense dispute because not all of the variables are experimentally known. For instance, you appear not to consider that simultaneity is not necessarily true; the objects are considered in seperate reference frames. Also, there could very well be properties of particles that are as of yet unknown, and these properties could easily explain the correlations. Also, the EPR experiments assumed the very result they were attempting to prove, so they are absolutely inconclusive.

While matter is best described as a form-independent/intensity-dependent field, quantum action at a distance is excluded by Eberhard's theorem. Einstein observed, "What made [Maxwell's] theory appear revolutionary was the transition from [classical Newtonian] action at a distance to [local] fields as the fundamental variables." In General Relativity, he replaced gravitational action at a distance with local curved 4D space-time geometry; quantum action at a distance can be similarly explained by a geodesic-like phenomenon. The problem is that Bohr-Bohm ideas of nonlocality assume the psi-function constitutes a complete description of a real state, while Einstein (and I) maintains that it "is only an incomplete representation; it expresses only what we know about the system because of previous measurements." This is in accordance with the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principal. Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation has been thoroughly ripped apart by countless paradoxes... that line of thinking basically regresses to teleology, which creates a catch-22 and totally rejects absolute retarded causality. We would be closer to a unification of relativity and quantum mechanics if we would quit looking for supernatural explanations and get back to the essence of special relativity. Locality does exist in that nonlocality is quantized, and thus it can coexist with objectiveness as Einstein originally intended his theory to prove.

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It should be noted that quantum mechanics has been remarkably successful, as was classical mechanics, but what is needed now is a breakthrough.

The only problem with QM is that it has been excessively re-interpreted. It is necessary to make more observations before concluding anything in this area of study; rationalism is of little use without empirical evidence.

Me: BTW, the date of nuclear holocaust predicted by T2 is August 29, 1997 ;o) Oh well, we're still here. Good experiment thought; pick a prediction from the Bible Code and perform the same experiment... just wait.

Cliff,

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.

But that doesn't solve anything since it in no way effects us. It is as nonsensical as saying that "weebleduds lohf burblemeeps"; it doesn't effect us nor even mean anything to us.

I am suddenly surprised that you appear to have higher regard for deterministic general relativity than for probabilistic quantum mechanics.

Higher regard? Nah, both are equally valid. It is quantum mechanics that makes general relativity deterministic and general relativity that makes quantum mechanics probabilistic. Things are deterministic only when quantized and probabilistic as continuous fields.

Dawn,

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

Or that interpretations of QM that involve teleological sympathetic interactions aren't as good as empirical evidence. These statements are basically the same.

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Cliff,

And it seems to me that any open minded, and halfway intelligent, person would also understand, once it is explained.

Unless that person is already set against the explanation because of previous authoritative knowledge, as is so often the case.

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.)

I dare you to apply that approach in church. I have... it never works.

Christeos,

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)

Call me a "knee-jerk sceptic", but if someone told you that they just discovered round squares but provided no samples, wouldn't you be skeptical?

Cliff,

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

Exactly my position... in other words, there is no Bible Code. You would need to know what a dog is before you could recognize it in a cloud.

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Yes, 'cos the probability of any event occuring at an exact moment in time is zero -- basic probability. Then how do you propose predicting the exact moment of an event as is supposedly done in the Bible Code?

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.

Oh? And who do you suppose is going to be the first to adopt the fictitious surname of Jetson? How can you be sure people will even exist on the specified date? I could dedicate my life to building a literally earth-shattering superweapon and wipe out the entire planet... that would certainly prevent George Jetson's birth. Or, what if the calendar system were changed so that the specified date would be nonsensical? Our current calendar system is grossly inaccurate anyway, so what if it were improved?

My statements presuppose a larger view. Then you will have to elaborate so that I may refute this "larger view" as well.

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

That is irrelevant.

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Tom Anderson - 04:10am Sep 5, 1997 ET (#574 of 591)

Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

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Tom Anderson: If he was alive to program the terminator, it must have all gone well, so he shouldn't have needed to do it.

Unless you subscribe to the many-worlds interpretation.

No, that would not resolve the conflict at all.

No, these are more examples of us not understanding time and its relation to cause and effect. No it's not, our understanding of time has nothing to do with this. Don't make an argument from ignorance, it is a useless position and only perpetuates itself.

This is only one of many interpretations of QM. I believe it is as incorrect as the Norse myths. That seems inconsistant with your previous statements.

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. It depends on the illness and on the particular person's body and its resources. Personally, I never get sick because I force my body to quickly rid itself of infection by strongly believing that it will. This approach varies according to the specific infection and other corporeal factors such as stress, but I have witnessed a huge advantage over my friends and family who have had the same infection at the same time. I recall a time when my entire family was sick with flu-like symptoms for about a week; I woke up one morning with similar symptoms, but was over it within hours without any medication except a nearly meditative insistance that my body fight it off. This is far from a clinical trial, but I have yet to see it fail.

Cliff,

One should be able to use any two photons in any two regions of the universe since all of nature is associated.

That is the essence of metaphysics... and totally unfounded.

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?

Statistically.

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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.

What do you mean "find a graviton"? That is only a model of gravitation, in which case gravitons exist wherever gravity exists. It's not about "finding" it.

the author indicates that the predictions of his theory are exactly the same as the Copenhagen interpretation.

They *have* to be, since they are both interpretations that describe the same experimental phenomena. That is why interpretations are silly... rationalization must be based on empiricism, and many interpretations are possible when the empirical evidence does not exclude them.

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.

Since the interpretations are different, there must be some physical phemonena which could eliminate one and promote another, but so far the search for the phenomena which various interpretations predict have all come up inconclusive. However, the Copenhagen interpretation is very paradoxical, which gives it a huge disadvantage over some others.

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?

Well, that's the big problem. Experimentally (Bell), the second is affected! But it is not necessarily due to nonlocality. For instance, if you take one ball and place it at the top of a hill, and then take a second ball and do the same, both will tend to roll down the hill, but not necessarily because they communicate with each other, but because they share a property which causes them to act similarly. Also, photons are influenced by relativity, and it cannot be assumed that they are acting simultaneously since they are in different frames. In addition, the second cannot be known to act because of the first, since the act of measurement effects the measurement (Heisenburg).

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Tom Anderson - 04:11am Sep 5, 1997 ET (#576 of 591)

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Cliff Beall: I do tend to be skeptical when someone says something can\222t be done. Me, too. I am more skeptical when someone says something can be done! The negative can be assumed, but the positive must be proven.

This is true. At this point, I would lean back on Occam's Razor I don't know that it would be very useful here; each interpretation needlessly multiplies its own entities... I would take Occam's Razor to decide that none of the interpretations is adequate and that more empirical evidence is necessary.

Royce,

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." Actually, that is referred to as photoionization, which is a step of photosynthesis, which is necessary for cell survival, and hence multiplication. ;o)

Cliff,

Noel, I find the following surprising... Yes, that did seem a bit out of character.

Of course, as Niels Bohr said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." Unless it is taught from the beginning; it does not seem strange to me.

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Tom Anderson - 04:14am Sep 5, 1997 ET (#577 of 591)

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Royce,

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".) It was Schrodinger's cat, and it was meant to refute Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, which I believe that it and others successfully did.

Cliff,

Every atom in the universe was at one time (in the Big Bang) in close proximity to every other atom in the universe. Therefore, every atom in the universe is associated with every other atom in the universe. Pick out a particle in China and another one in Brazil, change the particle characteristics of one, and the other one is affected, instantaneously. And since this is not the case, it refutes nonlocality and the EPR conclusions. As I said before, the EPR experiments were flawed anyway.

Now it would seem to me that if this is true that all of nature is connected in space, then it would appear that all of nature must be connected in time as well, due to the equivalence of space and time (at least in four dimensions). At this point, it seems to me that the problem has a "look" of geometry. I would, therefore, think that someone who knows the mathematics of general relativity should be able to construct a geometrical model of this. And once that is done, this geometrical model, just constructed, might, with reasonable ease, combine with the geometrical model of general relativity into a comprehensive unified geometrical theory of the universe.

Well, it seems as though you understand time to be a vector ;o) However, things are not connected in this fashion, so your conclusion is not possible, nor would it produce a "comprehensive unified theory" anyway.

Noel,

IOW, you have read-only access to the coupled-photon system, not read-write access. Again, Tom, if you could verify this, it would be appreciated. This is true in part... the measurement of a photon does alter it so it is impossible to have read-only access since the act of reading automatically writes as well (Heisenburg).

This is also a reason why it is impossible to determine the position and momentum of two spatially seperated photons in the first place, since the measurement of each effects it differently. I don't know if that is the case however when measuring only whether or not they are absorbed in a polarized filter... it would seem not. But communication between the two? Unlikely.

<continued...>

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Anderson - 04:15am Sep 5, 1997 ET (#578 of 591)

Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

This 50% alive/50% dead cat assumes the correctness of the Copenhagen Interpretation. I don't believe that consciousness has a special role in the universe; therefore, I don't believe in the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Particularly if you take into account the cat's observations! Yet, this is contrary to your previous postings, did you have a change of heart during the discussion?

Cliff,

If a second particle is affected by the manipulation of a first particle, also a third particle is affected, and a fourth; indeed, every particle in the universe is affected. It would appear to me that anybody in the universe could listen in, assuming that such a sequence code could be constructed to yield intelligence in the second particle (and third or fourth etc.). And since not all particles are effected in this way, it is clear that it is not the case.

This "spooky telepathy" does not occur.

Noel,

The EPR experiment uses the conservation laws to couple the two particles This is Einstein's reason in saying the psi-function only expresses our previous measurements and cannot completely describe a real state.

Once I change particle A's spin, the two particles are no longer correlated ('cos the conservation of spin would involve another particle.) I'm not sure you're interpreting the word "spin" correctly. Nonetheless, this is essentially correct, and a primary reason why the Freedman-Clauser experiment is inconclusive.

There are structure out there that are over 40 billion years old. Really? How was this determined?

<continued...>

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Tom Anderson - 04:17am Sep 5, 1997 ET (#579 of 591)

Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

Royce,

Noel, I had misinterpreted the EPR experiment I guess. I was so sure that if after the close coupling, particle A's spin was changed by external influence; then particle B was instantaneously affected. I also thought that it was the proximity of the two particles that set up the beginning "control situation" and relative spins observed, then in turn relativistic influence observed. No, two photons are produced from the same source and then passed through polarized filters; then there is a correllation in whether they are both absorbed or both transmitted.

I am just bewilderd by the fact that gravity is more common than dirt or water and we can't even manipulate it, as we do electromagnetic and electrostatic forces, (invisible, acting at a distance, imperceptable to the senses between the interactive objects), but unlike gravity we can easily detect them with devices. (guassmeter, electroscope, etc.)

We can and do manipulate it and detect it just as easily as other forces. Obviously detection is simple (measuring attraction, or falling). And manipulation is easy as well... just move a mass and you change gravitational fields.

Scott,

I would advise any and everyone to read the Bible Code so that we can work together to prevent this terrible disaster from occurring during our life times.

That is absolutely contradictory and precisely why the Code does not exist. If it is written in the Bible Code, then it cannot be prevented; or, if it can be prevented, then the Bible Code is wrong (aka nonexistant).

Til next time... Tom

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Tom Anderson - 12:25pm Sep 5, 1997 ET (#580 of 591)

Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

<...continued>

Noel,

People do like to lie to themselves. In order to get anything worthwhile done, you must be able to work with irrationalities. Then it is not truth they are looking for. In order to find truth, you must be able to reject irrationalities (and refuse to lie to yourself). What value is the Bible Code if it is a lie? Isn't it supposed to represent truth?

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? No, critical thinkers cannot act on feeling (by definition). Inspired by emotion, yes; but conclusions must be drawn from rationalism and empiricism. Critical thinkers can accept that others are not critical thinkers, but cannot accept their conclusions.

What's the difference between abstract concepts and supernatural concepts? Abstract concepts are nonphysical, but natural and provable. Supernatural concepts are impossible in nature (by definition) and are therefore not provable by nature.

What is order? ... You haven't answered the question. Ok, order is non-randomness. You may find order in something produced randomly (such as pictures in the clouds). But order can only be defined in relation to randomness, as light can only be defined in relation to dark. Absolute uniformity cannot be considered order since there is no randomness to set it apart. Perhaps others will have a simpler definition?

<continued...>

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Royce Cayson: These discussions with you all have opened up some avenues for me to explore which may lead to other avenues and beyond.

Yes, remember, Einstein's relativity got it's start when he was researching conversations between Leibnitz and Newton.

Scott Holden: I know it is real.

You feel it's real.

Tom Anderson: Ok, clear your schedule for a few hours...

Ahhh, Tom, glad you're back. Although now my semester is starting :)

Noel Yap: Where are we now compared to certainty?

Tom Anderson: More certain than ever before. Our certainty has never "unravelled", we are quite sure of those things we have scientifically proven,

This asymptotic convergence towards certainty doesn't take into account catastrophes that wipe out civilisations.

Tom Anderson: More questions doesn't in any way invalidate the past answers.

They may not invalidate past answers, but they point towards where these answers are lacking.

Tom Anderson: That is not possible; you do not have critical thought if you ever think uncritically.

If you say so. I choose to try to break out of a consistent mode of thinking every now and then. It provides constructive competition among my memes.

Noel Yap: What is your belief in free will? And why?

Tom Anderson: Do an experiment: take a deck of cards and seperate them by suit in ascending order; that is nearly impossible to occur by random chance, so if you succeed, it can be explained by little other than free will.

This experiment won't say whether we have free will or everything is deterministic.

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Noel Yap - 05:00pm Sep 5, 1997 ET (#582 of 591)

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

Tom Anderson: I'm sorry, but I'm not going to explain the entire concept of natural selection;

I've said it before, natural selection selects out from something that's already there. Therefore, the black moths already existed; they were not created by natural selection.

Tom Anderson: [genes] are not passed on unless they have some "good" effect as well or unless they do not effect the organism until after reproduction has occurred.

I think Dawn has settled this issue -- evolution is not that straight forward.

Noel Yap: So how did the black moths come about?

Tom Anderson: Evolution. The color of their environment changed which allowed preditors to selectively hunt a single group within the species, thus selecting for those genes which produced the color which camouflaged them.

This doesn't answer my question. Let me restate it. How were black moths created to begin with so as to allow them to be selected?

Tom Anderson: Your "vertical evolution" is just "horizontal evolution" over millions upon millions of years.

No, vertical evolution is what occurs to differentiate organisms so much that they have different numbers of chromosomes.

Tom Anderson: div B = 0, so there is no such thing as magnetic "charge".

I had thought that the most accepted theories predict the existence of a magnetic monopole.

Tom Anderson: We would never even have postulated conservation if it were ever untrue.

We've postulated the existence of God and tachyons. Does this make them true?

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Noel Yap - 05:02pm Sep 5, 1997 ET (#583 of 591)

Noel Yap: Tachyons don't have negative mass, they have imaginary mass.

Tom Anderson: Both terms describe the mass of tachyons.

The behaviours of particles with imaginary mass and negative mass are different. Negative-mass particles can be subluminal and, when pushed, they will tend to move against the force. Imaginary-mass particles are always superluminal; they travel through time.

Noel Yap: I must correct myself, the equations don't predict the existence of these, they merely allow the existence.

Tom Anderson: Relativity does not allow for tachyons.

Relativity postulates that there are no FTL particles.

Noel Yap: If the Big Bang did not create the Universe, then the Universe is infinitely old and has always had positive mass.

Tom Anderson: Which is very possible, but not necessary.

Why not?

Tom Anderson: You are changing the meaning of the term. In the way you use it, "faith" has no meaning at all.

From WWWebster: faith -- That which is believed on any subject whether in sicence, politics, or religion

Tom Anderson: science can never not-prove something, if it exists.

What about things that have been proven to be unprovable.

Tom Anderson: You can not know anything to be true unless you prove it so.

So I take it everything you believe you have personally proven? Why believe others' proofs when you haven't verified them yourself?

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Tom Anderson: "I was not attempting to equate this with the Bible Code, because this is a seperate, nonequal type of pattern recognition,"

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

Tom Anderson: Yes it does; it proves that people interpret random patterns to have meaning when they don't.

OK, but you yourself said this example does not pertain to the Bible Code 'cos it's a "separate, nonequal type of pattern recognition."

Tom Anderson: A pattern is a pattern, whether it be numbers or water molecules.

So all of science can be said to be patterns in the clouds.

Noel Yap: I never said anything about what I think ought to be.

Tom Anderson: You implied it as much as I did.

No, you inferred it. If I ever post my beliefs, I say they are so (and not necessarily the truth.) You can easily verify this fact by going through all my posts.

Noel Yap: "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.

Tom Anderson: It is not subjective when our goal is the truth; which, in this case it is.

My point exactly, you assume everyone shares your goals.

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Noel Yap: 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.

Tom Anderson: You cannot predict anything when percentages are multiplied even a couple of times. Let's say that a particle has 1/5 chance of hitting five other particles, and then each of those have 1/5 chance in hitting another five particles; to predict which particles are moving after just a few collisions results in 1/5 * 1/5 * 1/5 = 0.008 chance of any particle in a three-particle radius of being in motion as a result of the first particle. And that is a very simplistic model, just try applying this type of prediction to such complex events as human actions and it is impossible to know anything about what will occur next week let alone next millenium.

You keep thinking in bottom-up terms. Change your perspective and you'll see that, though we may not be able to predict specific emergent behaviour, once we recognize the behaviour, we can use it to predict.

Noel Yap: The main postulate of chaos is "non-determinism." [not unpredictability]

Tom Anderson: They are basically the same thing.

No, they are not. I would say that I cannot determine where each of the particles in Jupiter will be, but I can say that the Great Spot will be there next year. In fact, for any system like Jupiter, I can say there will be a great spot.

Noel Yap: But why even come up with such a theory if it contradicts relativity?

Tom Anderson: It is just creative thought run amuck. I don't subscribe to the theory, just postulate its existance so as to be disproven.

Of course, so why assume that everything I post I believe? Tangents and non-truths provide good thought stimulation.

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Noel Yap - 05:14pm Sep 5, 1997 ET (#586 of 591)

Tom Anderson: it is not necessary that a gene have a benefit; but if it is destructive, then it will be selected out should it have no benefit or little benefit.

Evolution is not this straight-forward. Destructive genes do get passed along with beneficial genes as you should have undoubtedly seen when researching others' simulations.

Tom Anderson: Cerenkov radiation is emitted by any particle which is moving faster than light in the medium through which it is travelling."

This is not so according to my reference. Can you tell me what your reference is?

Tom Anderson: The more energy [tachyons] lose, the faster they go; so at zero energy (that is at rest), they have infinite velocity (impossible). Also, consider the effect of collision... there cannot be collision since to slow a tachyon to light speed would require infinite energy, yet an impenetrable barrier would do just that.

Much of QM and relativity don't "make sense". This does not make the false. Have we ever seen zero energy?

Tom Anderson: Tachyons should be considered no more of a reality than round squares.

Non-euclidean geometries (ie that of space-time) have round squares.

Tom Anderson: "signals" can go faster than light

Didn't you once say that you didn't buy the Transactional Interpretation 'cos it required FTL signals?

Tom Anderson: So, while matter cannot travel faster than light, there are non-material things which can, such as wavefront intersections.

But I thought your belief system didn't allow for immaterial things. How would you explain FTL signals if nothing material can travel at superluminal velocities?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Anderson: it is not possible for matter to travel superluminally.

Unless it had imaginary mass.

Tom Anderson: Also, there could very well be properties of particles that are as of yet unknown, and these properties could easily explain the correlations.

The Bell Inequalities experiments have blown away most (if not all) of the hidden variable theories.

Tom Anderson: Locality does exist in that nonlocality is quantized, and thus it can coexist with objectiveness as Einstein originally intended his theory to prove.

I see (I think ;)

Tom Anderson: The only problem with QM is that it has been excessively re-interpreted. It is necessary to make more observations before concluding anything in this area of study; rationalism is of little use without empirical evidence.

Yes, although I must say that the interpretations themselves guide us into where to look.

Tom Anderson: Things are deterministic only when quantized and probabilistic as continuous fields.

IOW, scale matters.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cliff Beall: Instead, describe, at some length, the placebo effect,

Tom Anderson: I dare you to apply that approach in church. I have... it never works.

Yeah, but why work so hard in trying to convert people? I feel it's not worth it. If they want to attribute certain phenomenon to God, let them. It's only when they start trampling my rights that I would care.

Tom Anderson: if someone told you that they just discovered round squares but provided no samples, wouldn't you be skeptical?

Just look on any globe.

Tom Anderson: Then how do you propose predicting the exact moment of an event as is supposedly done in the Bible Code?

The Bible Code does not predict exact moments. It's got years and relative dates.

Noel Yap: My statements presuppose a larger view.

Tom Anderson: Then you will have to elaborate so that I may refute this "larger view" as well.

I have elaborated. It dealt with scale, emergent behaviour, and ecologies and societies as organisms.

Noel Yap: these are more examples of us not understanding time and its relation to cause and effect.

Tom Anderson: No it's not, our understanding of time has nothing to do with this.

Why not? If I build a time machine, go back in time, and kill myself, what happens? Please don't dismiss this gedanken experiment by simply saying that time machines can't exist.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Tom Anderson: That seems inconsistant with your previous statements.

No, it's not -- read what I write, don't read into it. I stated what I believe, moreover, I compared it to something else. I could just as easily have said, "I believe it is as correct as the Norse myths." Later on, I do say exactly that I don't believe in the CI.

Tom Anderson: Personally, I never get sick because I force my body to quickly rid itself of infection by strongly believing that it will. ... This is far from a clinical trial, but I have yet to see it fail.

OK, now, would you say that this meditation is what keeps you well? Is it a belief? Is it a belief in a non-truth? Perhaps the belief itself keeps you well? Is it founded on the scientific method?

Tom Anderson: Experimentally (Bell), the second [particle] is affected!

Wow!!! Thanks for the fact.

Noel Yap: IOW, you have read-only access to the coupled-photon system, not read-write access. Again, Tom, if you could verify this, it would be appreciated.

Tom Anderson: This is true in part... the measurement of a photon does alter it so it is impossible to have read-only access since the act of reading automatically writes as well (Heisenburg). This is also a reason why it is impossible to determine the position and momentum of two spatially seperated photons in the first place, since the measurement of each effects it differently.

Are you saying that measuring the momentum of photon A will affect the position of photon B? If not, I must have misunderstood your post regarding the Bell experiments.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Anderson: Particularly if you take into account the cat's observations!

Yes, this is another problem I have with the CI -- it never defines what constitutes a conscious observer.

Tom Anderson: Yet, this is contrary to your previous postings, did you have a change of heart during the discussion?

My previous postings never said how I personally feel about the CI. Also, I don't propose my beliefs to be truths, just my beliefs, that's all. Beliefs are personal; everyone should have their own -- if everyone moved in the same direction, the world would collapse.

Noel Yap: There are structure out there that are over 40 billion years old.

Tom Anderson: Really? How was this determined?

The same way we determine how old distant stars are? I'm not sure, I'd have to look it up.

Tom Anderson: Abstract concepts are nonphysical, but natural and provable.

But you had said before that abstract concepts don't need proof (ie love).

Tom Anderson: <Re: what is order?>

OK, now, since it is not completely random, there must be correlations within it. If you know the correlations, you can make predictions without ever having to determine the paths of everything.

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Hello Tom,

Well, actually I meant manipulation of the forces electromagnetic, electrostatic, and gravity in the interims between the interactive objects. IOW, look at the space between two magnets, pass a conductor thru that space, and the induced voltage, or current, in the conducter is easily detectable. And, (no need for details), a similiar although somewhat different method for electrostatic fields.

Now, let me see you get between two boulders, one million tons each, and detect, or measure the gravitational pull between them. Or for that matter pick out the square inch of space right in front of your nose and consider the gravitational pull of the sun and earth thats passing thru that space, and try to detect, or measure it. (OK its gotta be daytime)

What could the nature of this strange but familiar force be? What causes it to be? Protons, electrons and neutrons, (and a few other assorted minority particles) don't do anything that we can observe that creates this. We know all masses attract, but why?

Royce

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Noel Yap: I have never heard of this instantaneous affection of all particles. Do you have any references for it?

Not directly. Just the extension of ideas contained in a book for the layman, "In Search Of Schrodinger’e Cat," by John Gribbin. In his discussion of the ramifications of the EPR experiment, after pointing out that the atoms in his body and the atoms in the reader’s body once "jostled in close prosimity, " he says, "We are as much parts of a single system as the photons flying out of the heart of the Aspect experiment." In addition, he points out that: "Theorist such as d’Espagnat and David Bohn argue that we must accept that, literally, everything is connected to everything else..." Maybe I have taken Dr. Gribbin too literally. But, if so, I was only doing what he said we must. He said we must accept it "literally."

Tom Anderson: Also, the EPR experiments assumed the very result they were attempting to prove, so they are absolutely inconclusive.

My understanding is that most physicists believe the experiments are valid.

Cliff Beall: One should be able to use any two photons in any two regions of the universe since all of nature is associated.

Tom Anderson: That is the essence of metaphysics... and totally unfounded.

Well, I am sure I don’t know, but who should I believe? d’Espagnat or you? And why?

Noel Yap: IOW, you have read-only access to the coupled-photon system, not read-write access. Again, Tom, if you could verify this, it would be appreciated.

Tom Anderson: This is true in part... the measurement of a photon does alter it so it is impossible to have read-only access since the act of reading automatically writes as well (Heisenburg). This is also a reason why it is impossible to determine the position and momentum of two spatially seperated photons in the first place, since the measurement of each effects it differently.

Noel Yap: Are you saying that measuring the momentum of photon A will affect the position of photon B? If not, I must have misunderstood your post regarding the Bell experiments.

I must be missing something here. Since a photon travels at the speed of light, how can it have position? And since it does not have mass, how can it have momentum. Could it be that you two meant to refer to the spin and polarity of a photon?

Tom, it appears to me that there is a difference between saying the code has no predictive value and saying the code does not exist. You seem to forget that the existence of the Genesis code is based on sound satistical analysis. My question is this: is the reason you deny the existence of the genesis code the same reason you deny the results of the EPR experiment: neither conforms to your belief system?

Cliff Beall

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cliff Beall: Since a photon travels at the speed of light, how can it have position? And since it does not have mass, how can it have momentum.

The position is equal to velocity times time (r = vt) just as it is for any non-accelerating particle. Momentum is equal to Plank's constant times the frequency divided by the speed (p = h(nu)/c) -- if I remember my equations ;)

Cliff Beall: Could it be that you two meant to refer to the spin and polarity of a photon?

Any set of dual properties would suffice.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Noel,

Sounds good to me.

Cliff

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting twist of discussion you have here.

What, exactly, are you arguing about?

Just to leap in blindly, without discounting the possibility of a 'Bible Code,' I would like to remind everybody of the statistical analysis that 'proved' that New York streets would be 20' deep in road apples by 1950.

Personaly I doubt that any such predictive code exists. Once again I will admit that I could be in error, but I do think that any meta-patterns unearthed are more likely do to the restrictions of language than an intentional coding.

How QM came into play I don't know (I have too much to do to trace the thread back.) I do have a couple of observations about that tangent though --

• Time Travel -- fine, as long as you don't expect to try it with anything larger than a quark or over a time span more than (trying to remember here) about 170% of the planc minimum.

• Unifying Force -- maybe, more likely a unifying field effect, kind of a meta time-space if you will. Nothing mystical though, just very difficult to conceptualize!

The Bible is a wonderfull book, whether you believe in a creator or not, there is plenty to be gained by reading it. I would much rather try to comprehend and apply the lessons of the Bible (old and new) to my life than try to discover and/or create meta-patterns of information to predict the future.

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Noel Yap - 03:14pm Sep 17, 1997 ET (#596 of 621)

Keith Fosberg: How QM came into play I don't know

QM came about 'cos of postulations about how a code could've gotten into the Bible to begin with (barring God). Assuming the code exists and that God wasn't responsible for it, somehow, information must've gone back in time.

Keith Fosberg: The Bible is a wonderfull book, whether you believe in a creator or not, there is plenty to be gained by reading it. I would much rather try to comprehend and apply the lessons of the Bible (old and new) to my life than try to discover and/or create meta-patterns of information to predict the future.

I agree. But, you've stumbled upon this message board a little too late. It's on its death bed.

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Noel Yap: I agree. But, you've stumbled upon this message board a little too late. It's on its death bed. Noel, I tend to agree with you, more or less, most of the time on most everything--but usually not completely. This time I think you hit the nail squarely on the head, with not even the slightest deviation from perfection.

Take it easy, friend.

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Why does Mr. Drosnin assume that there is ONE author of this code? Possibly the author is US. We, the collective unconscious, from the beginning of time onwards may have collectively written (and coded) this book. We are all part of one interactive Universe. Also, I have a problem with Drosnin's conclusion that since he checked four other books..."only the bible contains a code." Rather big conclusion from such a small sample..... Jeriann Sharf @prodigy.com

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Can the Bible Code be obtained on disc?.........

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeriann Sharf you are a Tosser!

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Noel,

This experiment won't say whether we have free will or everything is deterministic.

Well, if the latter were true, then why bother living? And, you wouldn't even be able to exercise the former in order to end your "life". The very fact that we are engaged in these discussions and arguments suggests our free-will, but you are right, there is really no way to say for positive if you take into account the remote possibility that we are simply "living" out a screen-play. But then you have "I think therefore I am", which really applies quite well since you would imagine yourself to have no consciousness if the universe were deterministic. Do you have control over your personality, or is it entirely external to your choices and experiences? While there can really never be any evidence one way or the other as far as I can imagine, the circumstantial evidence seems to suggest a non-deterministic universe as far as free-will in concerned. So we should apply Occam's Razor and not multiply entities unnecessarily; and since determinism would suggest an external entity, we should assume that we have free-will rather than a predetermined "life". The only way to possibly reconcile the two would be if free-will could be described as chaotic determinism in which the brain acts as an algorithm which processes input and directs output according only to the input, and programmed by past input. Then, as entirely random input enters, our decisions are simply the processing of the input through our algorithms; but then the question still arises -- do we really have a choice, or is our action completely determined by the input? And then, is the input completely deterministic? And, what of our discussions right now; is my typing on the keyboard entirely caused by the light entering my eyes from the monitor, or is there actual thought process in which I choose my words and choose to write them and choose to post to the message board, and then you choose to sit down and read it? I don't have much of an answer for these just yet.

I've said it before, natural selection selects out from something that's already there. Therefore, the black moths already existed; they were not created by natural selection.

Not really. You could have a population of red moths in which there are slight variations of tint, as there are slight variations of everything from generation to generation. Let's say that for the next thousand or so years, the lighter tints are successively selected out because they usually feed on dark flowers. After all of this time, you don't have a population of the darkest red you started with, you have a population of something much darker because there are variations in every generation and the darker variations are selected for. It is very possible that you could eventually end up with black moths even if there were absolutely no black moths in the beginning... that is what evolution is.

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

I think Dawn has settled this issue -- evolution is not that straight forward.

Not in absolute specifics of gene expression and reproduction, but in principle it is very simple. And, if you are familiar with the specifics, it is even more apparent then.

No, vertical evolution is what occurs to differentiate organisms so much that they have different numbers of chromosomes.

I doubt change of chromosome number has ever been witnessed, but it most likely varies back and forth between members of the same species at the critical few generations or so. But that is only a guess as I have never witnessed that. I'm sure there is a mechanism within the cell which regulates how it divides the mass of DNA into chromosomes before cell division. In any case, it isn't important to know how it occurs in order to realize that it has.

I had thought that the most accepted theories predict the existence of a magnetic monopole.

No. What gave you that idea?

We've postulated the existence of God and tachyons. Does this make them true?

Don't you see the difference here? Conservation is a direct result of relentless observation. God is the result of many different factors I don't care to get into right here (but you can read about it on my web page, The Vestibule of Truth... click on my name, it is in my favorites). And tachyons are the result of fantasy and speculation that did not depend on any observation by far... they were invented to satisfy the possibility of an impossible hypothesis.

Noel Yap: If the Big Bang did not create the Universe, then the Universe is infinitely old and has always had positive mass.

Tom Anderson: Which is very possible, but not necessary. Why not?

Are you saying that those are the only two possibilities? Or that it cannot be both?

From WWWebster: faith -- That which is believed on any subject whether in sicence, politics, or religion

Then faith=opinion, which is not how I would define it. I think Webster is wrong. Anyway, you know exactly the way I meant it, and then you twisted it to fit this definition; the least you could do is be consistant with the argument and not answer something never stated.

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

So I take it everything you believe you have personally proven? Why believe others' proofs when you haven't verified them yourself?

Of course not, well not experimentally anyway. I am critical of everything I hear, but unless it stirs up some question or I decide to investigate it more intensively, I will believe things that have been well proven by others. Note: well proven, not necessarily what is popular. If someone can show me their experimental process and then the results which occurred, I'm not going to doubt that those are the actual results unless given some reason to.

So all of science can be said to be patterns in the clouds.

No; how did you make that comparison?

No, you inferred it. If I ever post my beliefs, I say they are so (and not necessarily the truth.) You can easily verify this fact by going through all my posts.

You implied it as much as I did.

My point exactly, you assume everyone shares your goals. Is it wrong to assume that everyone here is trying to determine the truth of the Bible Code?

I thought that was the point of this message board.

You keep thinking in bottom-up terms. Change your perspective and you'll see that, though we may not be able to predict specific emergent behaviour, once we recognize the behaviour, we can use it to predict.

Yes, you can predict the result of the behaviour, but you cannot predict the behaviour to begin with (at least not to the degree necessary to determine events beyond the very near future). But, you are assuming that the Bible Code somehow predicts in this fashion, which it cannot possibly do. Let us assume that God exists and that he wrote a Bible Code... then he knows every event in all eternity and we do not have free will. Now, let us assume that God does or does not exist, and that he did not write the Bible Code, but it still exists... then, again, some entity must know all events in all eternity and we do not have free will. Now let us assume that there are no external entities, and the Bible was written by primitive people and that the Bible Code is just wishful theists playing a cross-word puzzle in hopes of increasing their faith... then we may or may not have free will, but the Bible Code certainly doesn't exist. In any case, the form of prediction you are speaking of necessitates that we have free will (because our behavior is the direct result of it), but the form of prediction of the Bible Code requires that we do not have free will. Do you see where they are different?

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

I would say that I cannot determine where each of the particles in Jupiter will be, but I can say that the Great Spot will be there next year.

What is your point? These are two seperate issues. You cannot predict where each of the particles are because they are indeterminate. You can predict that the great spot will be there next year because for it not to be is out of the range of the system. But that assumes that it is only the result of internal factors; your prediction could be very wrong if an external factor (such as a large comet impact) should disturb the internal factors and alter the range of the system.

Of course, so why assume that everything I post I believe? Tangents and non-truths provide good thought stimulation.

Because you post non-truths as truth. I can only assume that you believe what you write when you don't say otherwise.

Destructive genes do get passed along with beneficial genes

You still don't seem to understand; destructive genes CANNOT get passed along when they prevent the reproduction of the organism (except possibly the rare case of transduction by virus). And when the destructive genes have no beneficial effect whatsoever and is not dependent on a beneficial gene, then it WILL be selected out over the course of a few generations. It is absolutely necessary.

This is not so according to my reference. Can you tell me what your reference is?

Pavel Cerenkov. It is due to the polarization of light (and UV) such that it only interferes constructively when the velocity of the particle is faster than the light itself, similar to a sonic boom caused by a supersonic jet. I have observed this effect in water due to nuclear radiation (the beta particles travel faster than light in water). If you want more references, try the sci.astro newsgroup (I also think they have a FAQ in which this is probably answered).

Much of QM and relativity don't "make sense". This does not make the false. Have we ever seen zero energy?

Zero energy in matter, no. It's not that the observations don't "make sense", but that fantastic hypotheses don't, and it does usually make them false. The point I was trying to make was that tachyons would have to be completely noninteractive with tardyonic matter or with photons (since they have nonimaginary momentum). But there is no reason to believe that they would be.

<cont...>

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Tom Anderson - 11:29pm Sep 22, 1997 ET (#605 of 621)

Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Non-euclidean geometries (ie that of space-time) have round squares.

No, they don't; not when defined in noneuclidean space.

Didn't you once say that you didn't buy the Transactional Interpretation 'cos it required FTL signals?

Not quite. They are different type of "signals". The propagation of a wave-front intersection is only a signal in that we interpret it as such. An independent matter/energy signal as in TI is what I "didn't buy".

Tom Anderson: it is not possible for matter to travel superluminally. Unless it had imaginary mass. Imaginary mass is undefined. And still, there are irreconcilable problems as I have already discussed, such as noninteraction.

The Bell Inequalities experiments have blown away most (if not all) of the hidden variable theories. ...

Yes, although I must say that the interpretations themselves guide us into where to look. Perhaps, but it also causes ignorant people to defend metaphysics as though it were science.

Tom Anderson: Things are deterministic only when quantized and probabilistic as continuous fields. IOW, scale matters. That is not what I said. It has nothing to do with scale.

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Yeah, but why work so hard in trying to convert people? I feel it's not worth it. If they want to attribute certain phenomenon to God, let them. It's only when they start trampling my rights that I would care.

I don't try to "convert" people, I simply try to instill some logic. If you see a guy on the street trying to open his car door by sticking the key in the gas tank, wouldn't you try to help him? My rights are being trampled by the religious; for example, religious organizations don't have to pay taxes when every other organization does. Another example -- we should be able to teach our children the truth (evolution) and not fantasy (creation) in school; it is our job to make them see the difference, not to confuse them further. As long as we maintain a seperation between church and state, and make religious and nonreligious equal in all political and economic matters, then I will have no arguments against their right to believe what they want, but will still try to teach them truth so long as they will listen (more and more do all the time).

Just look on any globe.

Like I said.

The Bible Code does not predict exact moments. It's got years and relative dates.

A year is an exact moment as much as a second is... it's just a little less precise. And in the context of several millenia, one year is far beyond prediction. Besides, the form of prediction you are still implying is weather-man prediction. The Bible Code suggests an omniscient knowledge, and that should be precise to any arbitrary time.

I have elaborated. It dealt with scale, emergent behaviour, and ecologies and societies as organisms.

I have already refuted those ideas as totally misguided and incomplete... I'm waiting for some kind of response. Or are you going to simply believe dispite my refutations?

Why not? If I build a time machine, go back in time, and kill myself, what happens? Please don't dismiss this gedanken experiment by simply saying that time machines can't exist.

I've already extensively explained why time travel is impossible, but you just dismiss conservation as a silly idea. The numerous paradoxes as well.

OK, now, would you say that this meditation is what keeps you well? Is it a belief? Is it a belief in a non-truth? Perhaps the belief itself keeps you well? Is it founded on the scientific method?

I have made the first steps in the scientific method: I have made observations and a few experimentations (or rather a long running experimentation). My conclusion thus far (my hypothesis) is that the belief itself does act as a medication in that the brain administers its defenses according to the state of mind, and this idea has been shown in other experiments as well (for instance with pets speeding recovery). If I wished to gain more knowledge into this, I would perform clinical trials with other subjects, but that is not my current goal.

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Are you saying that measuring the momentum of photon A will affect the position of photon B?

Yes, that would be the case if Bell's conclusions are correct, but many scientists (myself included) suspect that there were errors in the Alan Aspect experiment which was supposed to prove Bell's hypotheses. And the hypotheses themselves are based on Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which even you agree with as much as "Norse myths". Even supposing the experiment were impeccable, I would have to conclude, as did Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, that, assuming special relativistic causality, "the description of reality as given by a wave function is not complete." Not assuming special relativistic causality you have the CI, which we all know has problems. Or you could renounce locality and completeness and go with Bohm's theory... but that violates relativity at the individual level, however not at the statistical level. But then, nobody has unified quantum mechanics and relativity anyway. So, for now, I would suggest that Einstein was right all along, and we should just keep looking for answers.

But you had said before that abstract concepts don't need proof (ie love).

I never said they don't need proof. However, with the case of love and many other abstract concepts, the only proof necessary is that they are experienced -- love effects nothing but your mind and can work on the external environment only through a person, it is not physical. In that sense, ghosts too are real, abstract concepts (but not actual supernatural, physical phenomena). We are talking psychology here. In all cases though, there is some direct physical cause of the conscious thought (neurotransmitters, etc.) and these can be physically proven. In the case that the abstract concept is external to us (ie. other than emotion or effects of emotion) then it is simply an association that we make (such as math) and can be proven in that it is repeatable.

If you know the correlations, you can make predictions without ever having to determine the paths of everything.

Say what?

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Since a photon travels at the speed of light, how can it have position? And since it does not have mass, how can it have momentum. Could it be that you two meant to refer to the spin and polarity of a photon?

Light does have position, but cannot be measured simultaneously with its momentum (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). Light does have mass, but no rest mass. It is this momentum of light in motion that is the reason solar sails are possible. You can do an easy experiment to measure the momentum of light -- get a very light, low resistance wheel or rotating joint such as on a windmill (but much smaller) and face the vanes horizontal so that they make a surface parallel with the ground; now paint the top white and the bottom black. As light is absorbed on the black surface, it's momentum is also absorbed and the wheel turns in that direction. The white surface on the other side reflects the light which keeps its momentum on the return trip. I did this once using an old PC processor fan (removing the square casing) since it spins very efficiently. The effect is slow but very noticable. It works even better in direct sun or using a strong incandescent light (since the infrared light is absorbed as well).

Tom, it appears to me that there is a difference between saying the code has no predictive value and saying the code does not exist.

No, there is not a difference. The very reason we call it a "code" is that it is assumed to have some form of predictive value or any intelligent value at all; that is, it must have been "coded". But recognizing that it was not coded, but is only randomness misinterpreted, we can essentially dismiss the entire idea of it as a code.

You seem to forget that the existence of the Genesis code is based on sound satistical analysis.

Incorrect conclusions based on arbitrary statistical values. The probability of finding recognizable patterns within a distribution of characters from a limited character set is very, very good. That in no way supports the claim that there is a "code".

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Noel,

Momentum is equal to Plank's constant times the frequency divided by the speed (p = h(nu)/c) -- if I remember my equations ;)

Momentum is the product of mass and velocity. Mass is energy over c squared. Energy is Plank's constant times the frequency. Thus, p(light) = m*c = (e/c^2)c = e/c = h(nu)/c. Good memory ;o)

Any set of dual properties would suffice.

No, position and momentum are quite distinct from spin and polarity.

Keith,

Time Travel -- fine, as long as you don't expect to try it with anything larger than a quark Size is irrelevant; as anything approaches the speed of light, its size becomes infinite.

The Bible is a wonderfull book, whether you believe in a creator or not, there is plenty to be gained by reading it. I would much rather try to comprehend and apply the lessons of the Bible (old and new) to my life than try to discover and/or create meta-patterns of information to predict the future.

I don't know what book you're reading, but to quote Thomas Paine, "When I see throughout this book, called the Bible, a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales and stories, I could not so dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name." You would be better off reading ancient Greek writings like the Iliad.

Jeriann,

We, the collective unconscious, from the beginning of time onwards may have collectively written (and coded) this book.

Not as a collective unconscious, but as many distinct consciousnesses, people have coded theses simple words until they finally achieved the position of being worshipped. Now worshipped, these words are finding yet more people to code them further by claiming to uncode them. Yes, people are coding this book, and Drosnin is the most recent at fault.

<cont...>

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

All,

Hector Avalos, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University and Director of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, recently wrote a great article in the Secular Humanist Bulletin effectively and accurately comparing the Bible Code to the game of Scrabble. He writes, "After careful review of Mr. Drosnin's claims, we conclude that The Bible Code is one of the most alarming examples of pseudoscience and pseudobiblical scholarship of 1997." He describes how Drosnin claims all current copies of the Hebrew Bible contain the same number of letters and words, but that the Dead Sea Scrolls show that there are thousands of variations, thus any "code" is entirely ficticious since the older variations would be closer to the originals anyway and would not have a "code" in the same positions. He says, "So-called messages are 'found,' if that is even a proper description, only by rearranging the biblical text and using inconsistant procedures to create words not otherwise present." He found that the computer program is instructed to rearrange the text in order to create the desired words. It is essentially a game of scrabble, but instead of ten or so letters to choose from, you've got over 300,000! Furthermore, "the particular rearrangements that Drosnin uses are actually misleading because a single consistent formula is not used throughout and passages from different books may effectively be spliced and placed adjacent to each other to create the desired words." Some words are even created in such a manner that they must be read backwards! Also, Drosnin claimed that these were only in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament, but Jerry Lucas published a book called Theomatics (1977) which claimed to have found such codes in the New Testament as well.

Tom

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• whew* long letter Tom!

Regarding your last: Yeah, that about sums up my position.

In re-response to other comments.... Regarding time-travel: I was reffering, rather off-handedly, to the minor fluctuation through time experianced at the quantum level. It was mostly meant as a jibe as large scale reality (larger than quantum) doesn't get to play quantum tricks!

Regarding Unifying Force: That comment wasn't aimed at you. it was a response based on someone elses comment (loosly quoted) "there is a force that binds everything"

Regarding the worthiness of the Bible: Hard to pin down! The new testament has a lot of important lessons, but I guess we are actually discussing the old testament, so *blush*. (It is a ripping good read in places though, and probably has a great deal of history embedded in it, though some bits do seen rather manufactured after the fact.)

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Keith,

whew* long letter Tom!

Yeah, well, I haven't had a chance to post in a while... you know how it gets.

Regarding your last: Yeah, that about sums up my position.

And mine.

Regarding time-travel: I was reffering, rather off-handedly, to the minor fluctuation through time experianced at the quantum level. It was mostly meant as a jibe as large scale reality (larger than quantum) doesn't get to play quantum tricks!

I would have to attribute what you speak of to inaccurate measurements, not to time travel. When you say "quantum level" I must assume you mean to suggest a spacial dimension size, so more appropriately "sub-atomic level" perhaps. "Quantum" is not a size measurement but a locality and/or quantity measurement.

Regarding Unifying Force: That comment wasn't aimed at you. it was a response based on someone elses comment (loosly quoted) "there is a force that binds everything"

Ohhh... now I remember that comment (made by Cliff or Noel, I think). Yeah, well, that was meant more as a metaphysical allusion rather than a "unifying theory".

Regarding the worthiness of the Bible: Hard to pin down! The new testament has a lot of important lessons, but I guess we are actually discussing the old testament, so *blush*. It is a ripping good read in places though, and probably has a great deal of history embedded in it, though some bits do seen rather manufactured after the fact.)

Most of the lessons in the Bible are crude and primitive and would not work in our society (sacrifice, for instance). A better source would be perhaps Aesop if you want ancient fables.

Tom

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Actually I was talking about vacume particle formation; little hapless loops of space-time ripping around in ten dimentions across a small, vague region of time. I know that this is an area of some dispute, but "time stabilized" quanta make more sense to me than "hidden vaiables."

I guess I should be more precise about that kind of thing.

Mostly I was trying to discount the notion that things as big as people can participate in time travel.

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Tom Anderson: we should apply Occam's Razor and not multiply entities unnecessarily; and since determinism would suggest an external entity, we should assume that we have free-will rather than a predetermined "life".

I would think applying Occam's Razor would imply there is no free will. Determinism doesn't suggest an external entity, only the laws of physics. Free will itself is the extra.

Tom Anderson: Let's say that for the next thousand or so years, the lighter tints are successively selected out because they usually feed on dark flowers.

The Industrial Revolution didn't span thousands of years.

Tom Anderson: it isn't important to know how [differentiation of chromosome count] occurs in order to realize that it has.

It does if you argue evolution over creationism. Eventually, because of lack of evidence (although evolution has a lot going for it), it boils down to belief in one or both.

Noel Yap: So all of science can be said to be patterns in the clouds.

Tom Anderson: No; how did you make that comparison?

We could be living in a totally random universe -- primitive civilisations saw it this way and attributed it to gods. Science replaces the religions of the past by trying to explain and understand the randomness. Have you ever noticed that none of our theories are always correct. This is because they are abstractions, just as the gods were way back when -- patterns in the clouds.

This naturally leads us back to Science is a religion. Another case in point is that calendars have always been created by religions. In the year 2068 or 2069, another leap day might be added. Why? Because Science dictates it.

Tom Anderson: Is it wrong to assume that everyone here is trying to determine the truth of the Bible Code?

Yes.

Tom Anderson: I thought that was the point of this message board.

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Tom Anderson: You cannot predict where each of the particles are because they are indeterminate. You can predict that the great spot will be there next year because for it not to be is out of the range of the system. But that assumes that it is only the result of internal factors; your prediction could be very wrong if an external factor (such as a large comet impact) should disturb the internal factors and alter the range of the system.

This is exactly my point. Predictions are not 100%. Do you think that astronomers can predict an eclipse 100 years from now with 100% accuracy? Even if you discount the fact that their predictions can be off by a few seconds, external factors might still screw things up.

Tom Anderson: Because you post non-truths as truth. I can only assume that you believe what you write when you don't say otherwise.

You then assume the positive, something your reliable knowledge system tells you not to do.

Noel Yap: Destructive genes do get passed along with beneficial genes

Tom Anderson: You still don't seem to understand; destructive genes CANNOT get passed along when they prevent the reproduction of the organism (except possibly the rare case of transduction by virus).

Case in point: JDF until recent years.

Tom Anderson: If you see a guy on the street trying to open his car door by sticking the key in the gas tank, wouldn't you try to help him?

No, I would assume he is trying to do something else of which I have no idea.

Tom Anderson: My rights are being trampled by the religious; for example, religious organizations don't have to pay taxes when every other organization does.

Then I could also claim that smokers and bad drivers trample my rights 'cos they cause my insurance rates to rise. And that the world's governments trample my rights 'cos they release Plutonium into the air. And, hey, what the heck, everyone tramples my rights 'cos they use up resources that I could be using.

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Tom Anderson: Another example -- we should be able to teach our children the truth (evolution) and not fantasy (creation) in school;

We should be able to teach them both and have them decide which to believe.

Tom Anderson: seperation between church and state,

Separation of church and state, just as everything else in the country, has gone too far. I am not a proponent for forcing religion in schools, but I am also not a propent for forcing atheism in schools.

Tom Anderson: and make religious and nonreligious equal in all political and economic matters,

Religion has always been part of any culture. They cannot be separated, and, therefore it will always have an impact on politics.

Tom Anderson: Or are you going to simply believe dispite my refutations?

Your refutations were biased and incomplete, so, yes, I will go on believing. But, this postulation may not be the only thing I believe.

Tom Anderson: the belief itself does act as a medication in that the brain administers its defenses according to the state of mind,

So then belief in God could help people also.

Tom Anderson: I never said they don't need proof. However, with the case of love and many other abstract concepts, the only proof necessary is that they are experienced -- love effects nothing but your mind and can work on the external environment only through a person, it is not physical.

Belief in God is the same.

Noel Yap: If you know the correlations, you can make predictions without ever having to determine the paths of everything.

Tom Anderson: Say what?

Examples: The Red Spot of Jupiter, Technical Analysis, economic conditions leading to war.

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Noel Yap: Any set of dual properties would suffice.

Tom Anderson: No, position and momentum are quite distinct from spin and polarity.

How so? I know they are different, but for the intents of proving/disproving the Bell Inequalities, why wouldn't they both be usable?

Tom Anderson: [The unifying force] was meant more as a metaphysical allusion rather than a "unifying theory".

Cliff was the one to post that. It is (to my understanding) metaphysical. It is something I believe.

Tom Anderson: Most of the lessons in the Bible are crude and primitive and would not work in our society (sacrifice, for instance).

Sacrifice -- not animals or virgins -- is still useful in our society. Without it, noone would save up money to send their as-of-yet-unborn children to school or any other countless things that need a little sacrifice. So, depending on what you had meant, I would either agree or disagree.

Tom Anderson: A better source would be perhaps Aesop if you want ancient fables.

Any source that expands the mind is worth looking into. Note that to "expand the mind" a text does not have to be full of truths, it merely needs to stimulate thought so that the reader can decide or search for himself what is true.

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Curiosity was framed, ignorance killed the cat

Royce,

Now, let me see you get between two boulders, one million tons each, and detect, or measure the gravitational pull between them.

Or for that matter pick out the square inch of space right in front of your nose and consider the gravitational pull of the sun and earth thats passing thru that space, and try to detect, or measure it. No difficulty there; what's the problem you are having?

What could the nature of this strange but familiar force be? What causes it to be?

Protons, electrons and neutrons, (and a few other assorted minority particles) don't do anything that we can observe that creates this. We know all masses attract, but why? Well, that's the zillion-dollar question now isn't it. Some reasonable, but unproven, theories include geodesics and space-time curvature. The latter is very simple, essentially solving the problem by showing that no problem actually exists. It says that gravity is not a seperate entity, but just a case of space-time potential.

Cliff,

What Bell thoerized and Aspect supposedly proved was that there was indeed nonlocality as EPR apparently suggested. Einstein would support absolute retarded causality in keeping with special relativity and explain that the psi function does not entirely describe reality. However Bohm could explain this by describing these nonlocal quantum potentials as basins of attraction in a six-dimensional configuration space.

Well, I am sure I don’t know, but who should I believe? d’Espagnat or you? And why?

Me (and Einstein), because d'Espagnat has no foundation to base this line of thought except Bohr's rediculously paradoxical Copenhagen Interpretation and because it violates special relativity. One of Bohr's positions, on which this idea of a teleological "force" rests, is that spacially seperated entities possess no real states, which is absolutely rediculous to both Einstein and myself (and the basis of Schrodinger's Cat and other paradoxes).

<cont...>

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What does quantum mechanical non-locality/locality have to do with the bible code? Apparently neither you or I or anything we see and experience is neither here nor there!!

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Tom Ashby: What does quantum mechanical non-locality/locality have to do with the bible code?

We were postulating non-super-natural ways in which the Bible Code could exist.

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Tom,

No difficulty there; what's the problem you are having?

You have a "gravity detecter?" Can I see it? You know what I mean don't you; a gravity detecter that can detect the gravitational force of two masses acting upon each other midway between the two masses a zillion miles apart?

Royce

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Keith, Tom and Noel,

On Sep 17, #595, Keith, made an observation on a "Unifying Force" saying: maybe, more likely a unifying field effect, kind of a meta time-space if you will. Nothing mystical though, just very difficult to conceptualize!

On Sep 22, #609, Tom answered: I don't remember anyone speaking of a "unifying force". Sounds very Newtonian. Any "Grand Unified Theory" would deal almost entirely in fields.

On Sep 23, #611, Keith clarified: Regarding Unifying Force: That comment wasn't aimed at you. it was a response based on someone elses comment (loosly quoted) "there is a force that binds everything"

On Sep 23, #612, Tom acknowledged: Ohhh... now I remember that comment (made by Cliff or Noel, I think). Yeah, well, that was meant more as a metaphysical allusion rather than a "unifying theory".

On Sep 23, #617, Noel elaborated: Cliff was the one to post that. It is (to my understanding) metaphysical. It is something I believe.

GENTLEMEN, I MADE NO SUCH STATEMENT. It didn’t sound to me like something I would say (although I don’t necessarily disagree with the concept...much). In any case, I decided to check it out. Here is what I found:

On August 30, #560, I said: 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.)

On Aug 29, #556, Noel quoted a portion of the above (all of nature is associated.) and stated: This is my belief, too. There is some Force (a la Star Wars) connecting everything.

On Sep 5, #575, Tom retorted: Metaphysics... very silly, please get a hold of yourself. This mystical force is called your imagination.

On Sep 5, #589, Noel sweetly responded: OK, Han :)

Maybe the above isn't earth shattering. But I didn’t want all the trouble I went to to go to waste.

Cliff Beall: My understanding is that most physicists believe the experiments are valid.

Tom Anderson: EPR only performed gedanken experiments, that is "thought" experiments, and never actually proved anything physically, only logically. And using logic, their conclusion is invalid in that they assumed their conclusion during the reasoning.

I was referring to the Aspect experiments. (although I may have referred to them as EPR experiments, following John Gribbin, in his book). I continue to understand that most physicists believe the (Aspect) experiments are valid.

Tom Anderson: Me (and Einstein), because d'Espagnat has no foundation to base this line of thought except Bohr's rediculously paradoxical Copenhagen Interpretation

I suppose d’Espagnat would respond that he has the results of the Aspect experiment in his favor.

Tom Anderson: I deny only what is illogical and proven otherwise. I have no "belief system", only a "reliable knowledge system".

Yeah, and I got this bridge... I think you deny a lot that isn’t necessarily "illogical and proven otherwise." For example, I continue to think that there is a difference between saying that the Bible code, as described in the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper, has no predictive value and saying the code does not exist. Furthermore, I think that comparing the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg finding with random cloud patterns is evasive, and not to the point. The purpose of the paper was to show, based on valid, standard statistical science, that the equidistant letter sequences in the book of Genesis are not random. You have previously admitted that the paper contains no mistake, and I say that if there is no mistake, non-random equidistant letter sequences in the Book of Genesis must exist. Until you can show that the equidistant letter sequences in the book of Genesis are random, I think you have no right to compare them to random patterns in clouds.

Tom Anderson: All...

So what else is new. We all know that Drosnin book is a crock.

Cliff

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Cliff Beall - 12:07pm Sep 27, 1997 ET (#623 of 625)

All,

I have thought it over and have decided my last statement regarding the Drosnin book was not in good taste and I think I should apologize. Sorry. What I should have said was that I think Tom and I agree that the Drosnin book is meaningless and has no specific value other than entertainment. Others may or may not agree.

Cliff

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Dawn Willis - 02:50pm Sep 28, 1997 ET (#624 of 626)

All: Brendon McKay has a draft of a paper on the "In Search of Mathematical Miracles" website (www.cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/index.html) I don't know how to do hypertext linkups, or I would. This draft was posted on 9/21, and using a Hebrew translation of War and Peace, he has found the same rabbis and dates as found in Genesis. Of course, the paper has to go through peer review, etc., but the statistical probabilities work out just the same as in the Witzmun paper. What does it all mean? Who was it that said, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics?"

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Cliff Beall - 07:55pm Sep 28, 1997 ET (#625 of 626)

Dawn, could you please check the address:

www.cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/index.html

I think it must be in error. When I tried to enter it, I got the message that (my brouser) can not find the address.

www.cs.anu.edu.au/%7Ebdm/dilugim/index.html

and suggested I check the address.

Incidentally, while I shaill be interested in what Mr. McKay has to say, I would have expected to hear that his paper was scheduled to be published in a reputable mathematical publication such as Statistical Science, or at least that it had been submitted to same, instead of it's first appearance being on the net. (The net has such a wonderful reputation for reliability, you know.)

Cliff

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Keith Fosberg - 03:43pm Sep 29, 1997 ET (#626 of 629)

Well, I will leave the statistics to those better equiped to deal with them :)

I really only had one point to make all along: The content of the bible is out in the open, maybe some hidden message exists and maybe it doesn't. My reason for denying the likelyhood of said message being anything other than an artifact is based on my own theology and not actual research. This being (in a nutshell) God put us hear to live, learn and grow, not a chess pieces in some cosmic game. Therefore, knowing that statistics can lie (garbage in garbage out) and believing in freewill, I remain unconvinced. prove me wrong and I will bow and buy my plane tickets accordingly, but until then "I will choose freewill." I suppose the best test would be to gather a large sampling of publications and see how many, if any, yield messages using the same techniques. If the bible is the only piece of liturature to yield meaningfull messages then I would look on this with more interest.

The other comment (qouted above) became the root of far more discussion than it deserved. I never saw the original post (came in too late) I just saw the "Star Wars" sounding post and responded to that in quip.

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Cliff Beall - 12:19am Sep 30, 1997 ET (#627 of 629)

Keith, likewise, prove me wrong and I will bow and buy my plane tickets. However, regarding statistics, it is my understanding that statistics don’t lie, but they can be stated in ways to mislead. For example, I heard a rather astounding statistic on the news some time back. It was reported that women over 35 have a 60% increased chance of having a child with birth defects than women under 35. Later, I heard the same report on another news broadcast, except this time, they gave the actual incidence in both cases. As I recall, the odds of a woman under 35 having a child with birth defects are 5 in 1000 and for women over 35, the odds are 8 in 1000.

The point is this, the relative significance may sound considerably different depending how the statistics are quoted. A 60% increased chance makes it sound like a women over 35 is taking a terrible risk having a baby, when in reality her increased risk is very small.

The statistics calculated in the Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg paper do not fall into that category, however. Therefore, failing to find an error in the calculations, it appears to me that the equidistant letter sequences in the Book of Genesis must be accepted as non-random. If one’s personal beliefs conflict with that conclusion, I would have to suspect the personal belief, not the conclusion from the paper.

Cliff

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Susan Ashley - 01:37am Sep 30, 1997 ET (#628 of 629)

Does anyone know of Mr Drosnin's email address? I would like to talk to him about the Bible Code.

Susan Ashley

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I can't argue that Cliff, but I think something a little more definite will be required for me to start believing in a pre-determined universe.

Is there somewhere I can see the precise method used to derive these messages?

630

Keith, I hate to tell you this, but the only place I know to access the "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis" paper, by Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg, is Drosnin’s book. Actually, the Drosnin book is a pretty good read if you don’t take it too seriously--you can do worse--and it does contain the full text of the Witztum paper.

Regarding your desire to avoid a belief in a pre-determined universe, I see no connection. What, necessarily, does the existence of non-random equidistant letter sequences in the Book of Genesis have to do with a pre-determined universe?

Cliff

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It follows the assumption that if God hid messages in the bible to tell us about the future then the future must already be set.

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Cliff: Sorry about the address for McKay's rabbis in War and Peace paper, it doesn't have a www prefix. It is:

http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/index.html

Keith: You can also access an abridged version of the Witzum et al paper there, or at the Official Torah Codes site,

http://www.cybermail.net/~codes/index.htm

Agreed, it would be better if the paper were published, but it takes almost a year to get things published these days (I think the Witzum paper took three years!) You can email McKay directly and ask him about the paper. It is a fun site for those who are skeptical about the codes, as I am. It is clear that there are a number of statisticians who believe that the way the data was set up and its interpretation may be flawed, so I would say the codes don't have the scientific authority of say, the law of gravity or the theory of evolution.

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cathy davis - 12:00pm Oct 2, 1997 ET (#633 of 641)

keith, it is not pre-destination that god knows the future - it is that he is there! freewill is still ours. but we are like the child watching the circus parade through the knothole in a fence, we only see whats passing before our eyes, and remember what went before. god is on top of the fence and he sees what went, whats here, and whats coming ! he doesn't tell every animal in the parade what to do , but he can see it.

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Noel Yap - 03:10pm Oct 2, 1997 ET (#634 of 641)

cathy davis: he doesn't tell every animal in the parade what to do , but he can see it.

This interpretation of future-telling is what makes it contradictory to free will. If God sees it coming, can we change what he sees?

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cathy davis - 06:21pm Oct 2, 1997 ET (#635 of 641)

Noel : I didn't mean to imply that we're a bunch of trained animals , nor do I believe God sees us that way . I think WE are more important to Him than anything else , so although He CAN interfere-- He won't ....... unless He's asked . He allows us to play out our hand , and sometimes warns us when we're fixing to bust . In the book of Jonah , God gives them a warning and when they heeded it , it says ' GOD CHANGED HIS MIND' . Nothing smacks of pre-destination in that !!

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Keith Fosberg - 08:19am Oct 3, 1997 ET (#636 of 641)

I don't really have a problem with "different shells of experiance"1 wherein God can see all without our future being predestined, but that changes if God tells us what our future is now doesn't it?

I do take umbrage at the fairly common interpretation that we (humans) are more important to God than anything else. I think that this position is hopelessly mired in a kind of racial egotism.

It does not reduce us in any way to be seen in the same light of concern as a tree of a lichen. My conception of God is that of such a being as is capable of having infinite love for everything.

1 What I mean by this is that God exists at a physical level that fully encompasses our universe, so our conventions of time, space and cuasuality are not binding upon God.

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cathy davis - 12:35pm Oct 3, 1997 ET (#637 of 641)

Now it just boils down to whether or not you believe the Bible and that God wrote it through the hands of men . I do , so I believe that God loves all creatures-- but He gave humans dominion over all other creations (GENISIS 1:27-28) . It may sound egotistical , but I see it as natural fact . All levels of life have a pecking order , some that are stronger , smarter , more violent , faster , etc. May not be fair , but its a fact. If you don't except that and refuse the role , sooner or later you'll have to give up eating and drinking on the basis that plants are a lifeform , and water contains billions of living micro-organisms that have a right to live as much as we do............as for God setting the future , have you ever watched someone place a glass of water on an edge , KNOW that its going to fall and warn them to ' Watch-out , it's going to fall !' You just predicted the future , but you didn't MAKE it happen.

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Noel Yap - 03:22pm Oct 3, 1997 ET (#638 of 641)

Keith Fosberg: I do take umbrage at the fairly common interpretation that we (humans) are more important to God than anything else. I think that this position is hopelessly mired in a kind of racial egotism.

My sentiments exactly. Or rather, if God does exist, either He would view it this way, or none of His puny creations would matter much to Him.

Keith Fosberg: What I mean by this is that God exists at a physical level that fully encompasses our universe, so our conventions of time, space and cuasuality are not binding upon God.

Would you go so far as to say that God is the universe?

cathy davis: All levels of life have a pecking order , some that are stronger , smarter , more violent , faster , etc.

But it's highly anthropocentric to say that humans are at the top of this pecking order. The fact is: nothing is at the top, nothing is at the bottom. We live in an ecosystem where everything counts. If some things count more than others, then humans count the least, algae and other small creatures count for most of everything.

We've seen time and again that humans and Earth are not special in any way. We don't exist outside the system, but rather, within it. Earth is the center of the universe judging from our eyes only.

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cathy davis - 04:14pm Oct 3, 1997 ET (#639 of 641)

Once again , the point of view is based on whether or not you believe in the Bible , as the word of God . I do , so I would not dream of editing Him . I think I would become suicidal if I didn't KNOW that our Creator was involved in all my concerns and thoughts . God takes care of all living things......but we're the only ones with free will and choice . I think that makes us slightly different from algae.

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Noel Yap - 05:04pm Oct 3, 1997 ET (#640 of 641)

cathy davis: I would not dream of editing Him .

Just as you should not read Shakespeare using modern English, you should not read the Bible using modern English.

cathy davis: we're the only ones with free will and choice .

How do you know?

cathy davis: I think that makes us slightly different from algae.

The idea that humans are separate from and above their environment is one of the things that have lead to the abuse and destruction of the environment. Eastern (feminine) religions teach more of harmony and balance with nature; Western (masculine) religions preach control of nature. Note that, though some may object, I classify Science as a masculine religion.

From the point of view of holism, god is the universe, and, since we are part of the universe, we are part of god. You can now easily say that god knows all while still allowing free will to humans, animals, and other living creatures.

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Philip Carey - 01:57am Oct 4, 1997 ET (#641 of 641)

I have read the past one hundred or so posts with great interest. Iam a reasonably well read and educated Mensan but must admit being humbled by the abstruse and esoteric nature of the discourse,one of the most civil exchanges I have witnessed considering the potential volatility of the topic.I found Tom to be the more persuasive by dint of his strict and consistent adherence to the scientific method, his command of facts, his clarity of thought, and his incisive polemical style.Noel is an example of substantial intellect whose reason is clouded by mysticism and a puzzling indifference to the dangers that institutionalized superstition and anti-intellectualism pose to civilization.Cliff,I think your heart is leading your head if you believe the Bible code is anything but a function of pure randomness. I'm convinced it will become the cryptological equivalent of the cold fusion debacle.Thanks to all of you for the intellectual stimulation and the entertainment.

Philip, I am sorry if you find my discourse less than convincing and not quite up to par with the likes of Tom and Noel. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you that they have the superior intellects. But you can not imagine the fun it has been for me to try to keep up with these giants. In addition, you have to understand that I was the latecomer. In order to participate in a substantial way, from the beginning, I decided that I had to stake out a position at least somewhat different than those of the two then existing major participants. I don’t know if the genesis code will hold up, nor do I really care, but it has been fun trying to make the case.

While I agree with most of what you said, I am sorry you said it, particularly with respect to Tom. Such compliments will only encourage him. With respect to Noel, I agree that he appears to have a substantial interest in mysticism, but I am not convinced that his reason is clouded by it substantially.

With respect to "dangers that institutionalized superstition and anti-intellectualism pose to civilization," and Noel’s supposed indifference to it, I would request clarification on your meaning. If you are referring to organized religion, I am not sure I agree that the church poses a significant danger to civilization. Please clarify.

Cliff