Gravitational waves observed for the first time, proving Albert Einstein right 100 years on.

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#1493166 16-Feb-2016 12:03

mclean:

I'm an average bloke and I can't understand all this.

On the other hand I find Isaac Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation to be simple - if I set my mind to it I could probably figure them out from first principles and a bit of experimentation in a week or so. Newton's "genius" was relative to the average dumb bloke of his time.

I'd be surprised if "an average bloke" could work it out that way. Newton didn't and he was brilliant. He neither worked from first principles or used deductive reasoning. Most of us could only work it out by knowing the answer or something close to it, which is the situation you describe.

frankv

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#1493169 16-Feb-2016 12:07

It's a sign of true genius that *afterwards* everyone says "Oh, *I* could have done that".

Google "Columbus egg".

Dreal

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#1493197 16-Feb-2016 12:44

BlinkyBill: 'Cow' is the singular of 'cows'. It's 'maths', not 'math'.

Incorrect. Both are considered acceptable.

http://grammarist.com/spelling/math-maths/

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mclean

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#1493249 16-Feb-2016 14:19

frankv:It's a sign of true genius that *afterwards* everyone says "Oh, *I* could have done that".

Sure Newton was a genius, but most of us can understand something like F=ma when it's explained. General relativity and quantum mechanics have around for nearly 100 years, but give me a Schrodinger equation and I struggle - I definitely could not have done those. In fairness to Newton he did a lot of stuff that was more complicated than the laws of motion.

Hammerer

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#1493264 16-Feb-2016 14:38

mclean:

frankv:It's a sign of true genius that *afterwards* everyone says "Oh, *I* could have done that".

Sure Newton was a genius, but most of us can understand something like F=ma when it's explained. General relativity and quantum mechanics have around for nearly 100 years, but give me a Schrodinger equation and I struggle - I definitely could not have done those. In fairness to Newton he did a lot of stuff that was more complicated than the laws of motion.

Again, you appear to ignore the gulf between understanding and discovering or proving. The vast majority of people have no chance of proving F=ma theoretically even if they adopt all Newton's assumptions and restrictions. They'd also struggle to prove it experimentally even though that is in the curriculum at secondary school.

mclean

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#1493281 16-Feb-2016 15:01

Hammerer:...They'd also struggle to prove it experimentally even though that is in the curriculum at secondary school.

Good grief, I hope you're wrong!

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#1493473 16-Feb-2016 22:03

Not bad for a wrong theory, >1 billion people make use of it everyday http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

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Dreal

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#1493498 16-Feb-2016 22:31

joker97:

Not bad for a wrong theory, >1 billion people make use of it everyday http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

I thought everyone who followed science knew relativities math was used for gps. And a lot more besides. I wonder could you sub lorentz's equations.....Perhaps GPS is proof of Aether :P ;)

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#1493502 16-Feb-2016 22:37

Dreal:

joker97:

Not bad for a wrong theory, >1 billion people make use of it everyday http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

I thought everyone who followed science knew relativities math was used for gps. And a lot more besides. I wonder could you sub lorentz's equations.....Perhaps GPS is proof of Aether :P ;)

According to you, we can't prove right sub lorentz and aether. So I'm not going to convince you of those. But did they prove GR wrong?

Dreal

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#1493521 16-Feb-2016 23:27

joker97:

According to you, we can't prove right sub lorentz and aether. So I'm not going to convince you of those. But did they prove GR wrong?

Relativity (the math) is based on Lorentz's transformations, which in turn was based on Maxwells equations. The main mathematical difference is the consistancy of the speed of light across reference frames. Conceptually, one has Aether, and one has the principle of relativity. But it is mathematically similar. Time dilation, is a property of Lorentz's transformations. You could easily rework Lorentz's math, to be compatible with GPS, and I believe somewhere out there, that has been done already.

Not that GPS, because it works generally, is beyond criticism for its accuracy or perfection.

The point I am returning to, is that math does not equal model. Or to put it another way, just because the math of something works out in observation, doesn't mean the _interpretation_ is correct. Because there could be a number of different versions of the math, with different models or interpretations, that are equivilant regarding observation.

To answer directly, I think what is a distracting question, no, GPS agrees with the math of GR. But everything on the nano-scale disagree's, and that was what has proven GR wrong, or more accurately, only partial correct - mathematically.

Part of the issue with starting with a math to describe everything, and then trying to figure out if its true. I mean how many datapoints would you actually need to be certain that it describes everything that exists?

Even when we have a grand unified theory, there is no guarantee that the model is correct. There could be equivilant math with a different model, or interpretation. The uncertainty and unknowns will go on for a long time, probably, forever.

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#1493524 16-Feb-2016 23:36

Agree.

Now my curiosity is getting the better of me - you said - can't prove consciousness [because no direct measurement and no falsifiability] AND that which cannot be proven [edit - I think you said incomplete] is WRONG.

Do you believe you are conscious, or do you reject that you are conscious?

Dreal

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#1493533 17-Feb-2016 00:14

joker97:

Agree.

Now my curiosity is getting the better of me - you said - can't prove consciousness [because no direct measurement and no falsifiability] AND that which cannot be proven [edit - I think you said incomplete] is WRONG.

Do you believe you are conscious, or do you reject that you are conscious?

There is one direct measurement of conciousness - me, experiencing it. That's the only one.

I can't prove you are concious, or anyone else, or whether the keyboard I am typing on has zero conciousness.

I can infer by behaviour that other creatures are concious, indirectly for personal purposes by behaviour, and with humans from the insistence that they are. But I cannot infer, from a lack of behaviour, that nothing else is, or no animal, or not plant. I only know, logically, that I am concious, that very likely, other humans are. I can assume, and believe, but I cannot know.

That makes creating theories of conciousness. Like say emergence. Or the claustrum. Or intergrated information theory. That makes them suspect as science. In fact, that makes them mostly fluff. Interesting and informative fluff, but not for the reasons people might assume.

The why is sort of obvious if you really ponder it deeply.

Let's say, we take the standard example of anaesthesia - people report, having no experience during anaesthesia. But how can we take that, on its word - they might have had one, and not remembered. And if we are using reports, how can we assume things or creatures that cannot give one, are not concious? That's the nature of reporting, if we relied on reporting for truth, we'd all beleive in Jesus, ghosts and UFOs. Reporting is flawed. Not only by perception, but by perceptual illusions, such as the disassociation of mind states, which could well happen in aneasthesia.

We are only using inference in the first place for humans, because we cannot directly perceived or measure conciousness, that's a flaw of the subject material - being able to talk and insist you have an experience is not an established criteria for actually having one.

Futher, take something like those wacky NDE's. Now, most scientists will just disregard them out of hand, even when there is EEG and brainstem measurements involved, and when they take the reporting of an experience in any situation that favours their pet theory, completely on faith, as if it couldn't be doubted (the bias is so lol, when you recognise the issue). I guess the fact that it takes place during an experiment, makes it valid :P I must tell the people who see Jesus during an experiment that XD

But you can doubt ANY report. If your going to give this any kind of credible logic to hold together, even if it's the softest, weakest science that could exist, you have to treat and test the datapoints by the same criteria - and that would mean having to account for experience at a level of very low brain activity (perhaps something slow and low in the midbrain), such as in the quite valid looking medical reports of people during 'technical brain death' (which is not nessasarily the same as actual zero brain activity)

But overall, this brain theorizing, about conciousness, has stepped off the edge of a weak science in the first place (psychology, and I say this as a fan), into a realm where things are so logically uncertain, you could never strongly draw any conclusion - and yet, these models are treated like medical cell studies by their adherants.

People take these things very seriously, as if it wasn't more full of holes a tea strainer.

It kind of folds back into the 'hard problem of conciousness' and related topics, not that any of the fans have expanded their brain enough to look at stuff like that. It also relates to things like the Turing test.

I consider it pseudoscience unless it accounts for all datapoints equally, either with equal faith, or equal skepticism, and at best, then I'd consider it very very soft science, like string theory, or 'spacetime'. But ironically, the later never happens. My feeling is that theories of conciousness are not actually science though.

I am concious. Some other things very much probably are (and I assume they are). Which things and why, we may never know, unless some miracle produces a direct measurement, or in the worst case scenario, is able to replicate it, turing style, such that no one can tell the difference (and even then, we'd be assuming, not knowing)

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#1493574 17-Feb-2016 08:01

Dreal:

joker97:

Agree.

Now my curiosity is getting the better of me - you said - can't prove consciousness [because no direct measurement and no falsifiability] AND that which cannot be proven [edit - I think you said incomplete] is WRONG.

Do you believe you are conscious, or do you reject that you are conscious?

There is one direct measurement of conciousness - me, experiencing it. That's the only one.

Hmm ... interesting science. Thanks that answers my question.

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#1493651 17-Feb-2016 09:10

Dreal:
BlinkyBill: 'Cow' is the singular of 'cows'. It's 'maths', not 'math'.

Incorrect. Both are considered acceptable.

http://grammarist.com/spelling/math-maths/

Not by me. And what an academically rigorous site to cite.

Dreal

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#1493932 17-Feb-2016 12:40

Not by me. And what an academically rigorous site to cite.

Well, by everyone else. It makes sense I mean what is one singular of 'math', when does it become plural etc? It's in common useage, it's in academic papers, if you google it, everything is in complete agreement. You are welcome to have your own special standard of grammar and spelling, but you can't really expect to impose it on everyone else.

BTW, that's not a citation. That's a link.

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