“Revolution in Thought: A new look at determinism and free will"

[peacegirl]

Objects reflect light, but not in the way you think.

You don't seem to have a good grasp on what you purport to think, so understanding what I (or anyone else) thinks may be a touch overambitious for you.

I have a grasp on what I purport to think, so understanding what you or anyone thinks would not be a touch overambitious for me. Grrr

Light travels, there is no argument here,

Good.

but if the eyes are a sense organ,

They are. And I am glad to see that you are beginning to consider the possibility.

they don't see the past. They see the present.

Time is not absolute; There is no "The present", because there are no preferred reference frames.

An individual observer sees only what is in her past; This is an unavoidable consequence of the fact that information cannot travel faster than lightspeed.

If it did, we could use that fact to determine what was going to happen in our future. Which we observably can't.

An observer can detect only those events in her past lightcone, and influence only those events in her future lightcone.

View attachment 53643
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone

The entire hypersurface of any observer's present is inaccessable; We cannot see the present, only the past.

Distance and time are relative. All observers measure the speed of light in a vacuum to be a constant, regardless of how they move relative to each other.

This idea is as bizarre and as counterintuitive as your idea that vision is instant, but differs from your idea in that it can be demonstrated to be true.

Crazy ideas are not a problem for science and technology. We can and do profit from them. But only if they are true, which your crazy idea is not.

View attachment 53642
https://xkcd.com/808

Why did you use this chart by implying my father’s ideas fit into no proven crazy thinking that have no scientific backup?

That's not a coherent question in the English language. I didn't (and physically can't) use anything by implying something.

I read it again. It could have been written better, but it was not unintelligible. Crazy thinking that is backed up with proof can profit from that crazy thinking, which science does. Lessans' discovery fits into that category. Better?

It actually does.

But if it was, that wouldn't be a comprehensible response. A question that starts "Why did you...?" can't have "It actually does" as its answer.

I don't even know what question that was because you cut my responses in half. Could you tell me what context I used that sentence so I can respond half decently?

He, nor I, subscribed to alternative therapies that are not scientific and could actually cause harm,

Do you mean "Neither he, nor I..."?

I meant that. Thanks for the correction.

Anyway, your restriction of your denial to "therapies" speaks volumes about your inability to claim an absence of other unscientific and harmful beliefs. We already have a thread in which you pursue your unscientific and harmful belief that vaccines are potentially dangerous, and that epidemiology should be a matter of parental choice.

I did not say all vaccines are bad, but they do not fit into an all-encompassing classification.

so stop putting his ideas into a false classification!

His ideas are false. That's the correct classification for them.

Statements like this bore me. Please don't waste my time.

I don't watch online videos. If you believe that that one says anything relevant or important, you will need to summarise it for me, or accept that I will never know what it says.

Why don't you? I know that watching YouTube or Instagram or TikTok can be unproductive if used inappropriately, but some videos are actually educational. This video supported Lessans’ claim that words connect us to the external world. When we lose that area of the brain due to it being damaged, we cannot connect words with the object they represent and the object will be seen but not recognized. The stored memory cannot be retrieved. The man in the video was in an accident and could no longer identify that what he was seeing was a deer, a rhino, a leopard or a giraffe. He couldn’t identify certain fruits. Then they showed his daughter walk right past him and he didn’t recognize her until he heard her voice.

 

[pood]

It is not compatibilism

Yes, it is, though with nonstandard terminology.

 

[peacegirl]

It is not compatibilism

Yes, it is, though with nonstandard terminology.

It’s not compatibilism. The definition used in this debate has to do with whether we could or could not do otherwise. Being able to do otherwise (free will) and not being able to do otherwise (no free will), after a decision is made, ARE NOT COMPATIBLE, POOD! They are contradictions. Face the music!

 

[pood]

It is not compatibilism

Yes, it is, though with nonstandard terminology.

It’s not compatibilism. The definition used in this debate has to do with whether we could or could not do otherwise. Being able to do otherwise (free will) and not being able to do otherwise (no free will), after a decision is made, ARE NOT COMPATIBLE, POOD! They are contradictions. Face the music!

Saying we could not have other than what we did, after what we did, is a modal fallacy, as explained repeatly.

Contingent acts never become necessary acts, and vice versa.

Sorry.

Also, we don’t see in real time.

Sorry.

 

[peacegirl]

He did not say that light isn't necessary. It is a vital condition in order to see anything.

Is it? Why? What is the light doing that makes it vital, and how does it do it?

In particular, how does it do it before it arrives?

Bilby, that's what you're missing. If the brain looks through the eyes, as a window, to the outside world, then his explanation would make sense, but what you're doing is trying to apply your understanding regarding the speed of light traveling with the object's light or wavelength (call it either one, just as long as you understand the concept) to the eye. I have said over and over that light strikes the object and that light follows the angle of incidence, but it does not travel with the wavelength of the object. It reveals the object when we are looking at it, as long as it meets the requirements for sight, which are enough light and size. If it's too small, we won't see it. If it's too dim, we won't see it. Telescopes magnify, which doesn't turn real time into delayed time. No one seems interested in whether his version of sight is correct. They just don't like his claim because it would upset the applecart. People are trying to prove him wrong by using astronomy. That's not how it works. If he is correct, then anything that would be amiss in astronomy would need to be reevaluated.

 

[peacegirl]

@peacegirl, we do not see in real time. We cannot see in real time. It violates every principle of physics, starting with Einstein’s relativity, which could never have been formulated if we saw in real time.

In fact, nothing could have been formulated if real-time seeing were true, since nobody would be around to formulate anything. If instant seeing were correct, the entire night sky would be white, and the surface temperature of the earth would be the same as the sun. This has also been explained to you. We cannot see a vast, even infinite, number of stars because their light has not gotten to us yet, and most of the light will never get to us because of the expansion of the universe.

Actually, this isn’t quite true. A lot of starlight is red-shifted out of the visible spectrum because of universal expansion. But it’s close enough.

Stand outside just before dawn. Take a neighbor with you.

When the sun rises, what do you see?

If your writer were correct, we would see the sun rising for 8,5 minutes before the ground or the neighbor were lighted up. But that is not what we see. You can test this for yourself.

Universe is Not Expanding After All, Controversial Study Suggests | Sci.News

According to a team of astrophysicists led by Eric Lerner from Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, the Universe is not expanding at all.

www.sci.news

 

[peacegirl]

You would like this chapter because you will see it's not the end when we die,

It is the end of me. Nobody thinks it's the end of anything else.

Yes, but you will be here again: the 'I' that recognizes his or her very own consciousness.

and that is very comforting!

No, it's not. There's no more comfort in being alive, but with no recollection of my current life, than there is in being dead and gone.

You're still making a connection with the life you live now, but there isn't any. That is good news. We can start our lives all over again with a mother and father, sisters and brothers, and be a part of this new world, not our posterity.

If anyone finds the idea comforting, then they really haven't thought it through.

I think most people would love to know that it's not the end when they die.

 

[peacegirl]

Let me amend what I wrote above.

If peacegirl’s claim that we saw in real time were correct, because light does travel through spacetime to get to the eye, then red-shifting and universal expansion would be totally irrelevant.

We would see every star in the sky, which would likely be an infinite number of stars, since our best evidence suggests that the universe is spatially infinite and hence there are an infinite number of stars.

Is the Universe Infinite? New Evidence Challenges Our Cosmic Understanding

The universe's infinite nature remains cosmology's greatest puzzle—exploring expansion, boundaries, and whether space itself extends beyond observable limits. After a

nasaspacenews.com

Of course we would not actually see anything, since we would not exist because the surface temperature of the earth would be that of the sun.

None of what you're saying makes sense. Just because we see the real star, not the image, doesn't mean our universe would look any different. It would look exactly as it does now.

 

[bilby]

I want to add here that having the free will to change (given a different set of conditions) does not mean we have the freedom of the will to choose otherwise, once a choice has been made.

Yes, it absolutely does. The above is a blatant contradiction.



If one is sufficiently adept at doublethink, one can be persuaded to believe anything that is convenient, regardless of its truth or falsehood.

 

[peacegirl]

Why are we doing this?

I think it is because educated and informed people are often afflicted with the misconception that if we explain stuff in a rational, evidence-based, step-by-step manner to others, then the others, like peacegirl, will see the light (pun intended).

But it is a misconception. You cannot reason people out of positions that they did reason themselves into.

You're a perfect example.

 

[peacegirl]

I want to add here that having the free will to change (given a different set of conditions) does not mean we have the freedom of the will to choose otherwise, once a choice has been made.

Yes, it absolutely does. The above is a blatant contradiction.

No it is not Bilby. Given a different set of conditions, yes, it is true another choice can be made, but not the same set of conditions of time and place. It can't be done.

View attachment 53659

If one is sufficiently adept at doublethink, one can be persuaded to believe anything that is convenient, regardless of its truth or falsehood.

I guess anyone can hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accept both of them if they are irrational.

 

[peacegirl]

Harsh punishment works when the consequence could be death

No, it observably doesn't.

Harsh punishment works ONLY when criminals expect to be caught; Criminals generally do NOT expect to be caught.

That is very true...

Then why the everlasting fuck did you just confidently assert that "Harsh punishment works when the consequence could be death"?

That is true for most people. The very thought that one could be severely punished for breaking the law may be enough to stay far away from these behaviors. But some people don't care and will take the chance to get what they want. This happens more in countries where the penalties are not as severe as in countries like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, where the penalties are much more severe due to Sharia law.

Are you in the habit of confidently asserting things you know to be untrue?

Oh, wait, there's no need for you to answer that; I have access to over 4,000 posts (just in this thread alone) that can provide me with an objective answer to my question.

Nothing I have said in this thread is untrue regarding this author's work.

 

[peacegirl]

Uhhh...I debunked his example of seeing lips move on the moon frmo Earth versus voice by radio.

You would see his lips move before hearing his voice on a radio.

Nope. Wrong.

Do you not know that radio is light?

I know that radio waves are light. This wouldn't be a good experiment because no one can see astronauts that close where they could see their lips move. It was another hypothetical example.

If you are watching the Moon you see its position as it was about three seconds in the past.

Why are you repeating the very thing being disputed?

Cuz it is correct.

That's a non-answer.

Over three sends it takes reflected Sunlight to reach the Earth the Earth has rotated, the Moon has moved in its orbit, and the Earth has moved in its orbit.

Any objections?

If the image is not in the light, it doesn't matter if the Earth has rotated, or the Moon has moved in its orbit, because we are not seeing a delayed image in the light (if he is right).

Nobody ever said the “image is in the light.” This has been explained to you uncountable numbers of times.

I have explained countless times that the light is not bringing the image (the object's reflection) to the retina through space/time. There is no other way to explain the concept without using the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" which anyone would understand if they wanted to.

The word above was a perfect example of nonsense because it had no definition. It was pure gibberish, which was the point of the song.

FTFY.


People can't just understand nonsense, if only they want to hard enough. Language doesn't work like that.

First of all, it's not nonsense.

Yeah, it is.

You just can't wrap your head around what appears to be logically impossible.

Indeed.

But it isn't impossible.

Yeah, it is.

Secondly, the language he used was not some nonsensical word. It was a word to describe the direction we see. Efferent is a going out, and afferent is a going in. That's all he needed to get his point across, but of course, you're making too much out of it.

You need to pay attention. The words I am objecting to are not "efferent" or "afferent".

There is no other way to explain the concept without using the word "image," or "lightwave,"

Dictionaries change all the time due to words that come into existence when there is a new concept, and words go out of style when they don't work anymore.

Perhaps. But both "image" and "lightwave" are words that have meanings that render your use of them nonsensical, and no dictionary can fix that.

Not really. I'm using them in the same way. An image is a representation of something. A lightwave is an electromagnetic wave by which light travels through a medium or a vacuum.

Still, you aren't even paying attention to the posts to which you claim to be responding, and are instead just giessing what it was that you yourself said, that I then accused of being nonsense.

That's because you rearrange my posts to suit you. Half the time they are half-sentences, and you expect me to know what you're talking about?

When you don't feel any need to make sense, paying attention to your own claims is a bit pointless, I guess.

It isn't that I don't make sense. It's that you aren't even trying. You've already concluded that he's wrong, and there's no meeting of the minds if that's the case..

 

[peacegirl]

No, I'm not neurotic, but a psychiatrist may think I'm psychotic if I tell him I have a discovery that can change the world. He might think I have delusions of grandiosity and want to put me on meds!

That's a suspiciously detailed "might". Are you sure it's entirely hypothetical?

This is getting nasty. Please stop bilby if you want to continue this conversation.

 

[peacegirl]

@peacegirl, we do not see in real time. We cannot see in real time. It violates every principle of physics, starting with Einstein’s relativity, which could never have been formulated if we saw in real time.

In fact, nothing could have been formulated if real-time seeing were true, since nobody would be around to formulate anything. If instant seeing were correct, the entire night sky would be white, and the surface temperature of the earth would be the same as the sun. This has also been explained to you. We cannot see a vast, even infinite, number of stars because their light has not gotten to us yet, and most of the light will never get to us because of the expansion of the universe.

Actually, this isn’t quite true. A lot of starlight is red-shifted out of the visible spectrum because of universal expansion. But it’s close enough.

The universe's expansion is a theory, but redshift is not.

Redshift​

Redshift is a phenomenon where the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, such as light, is stretched, causing it to appear redder. This effect is related to the Doppler effect, which describes how the frequency of sound waves changes when the source and observer are in motion relative to each other. In radar, the Doppler effect is used to determine the relative velocity of a target by measuring the frequency of the radar signal as it interacts with the target. If the target is moving away from the radar, the frequency of the radar signal will decrease, resulting in a redshift. Conversely, if the target is moving toward the radar, the frequency will increase, also resulting in a redshift. This principle is crucial for radar systems that use Doppler radar to track moving objects by measuring the frequency changes in the radar signal as it encounters the target.

Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

 

[peacegirl]

Solar flares are hard to see, even with telescopes. This phenomenon does not prove that we see in delayed time.

Observing solar flares with a telescope is not hard

Are you really citing a source that directly contradicts you??

Of course you are. Contradictions mean nothing to you, you just ignore them, as you ignore everything that could in any way challenge your incoherent beliefs.

Where is the contradiction?

Seriously? You don't see a contradiction between your saying "Solar flares are hard to see, even with telescopes", and your cite that leads with "Observing solar flares with a telescope is not hard"??

That was my error. Telescopes allow us to see solar flares, but it takes the right equipment.

 

[peacegirl]

Peacegirl, try inverting a monocular so you can project an image of the sun onto a blank white surface, where the image is sharp enough to see sunspots. Where the eyes are detecting the light of the sun as its being projected onto the screen forming an image, light that was radiated by the sun, which took eight minutes and twenty seconds to arrive.

I'm not sure where this proves 8 minutes and 20-second delay. Can you show me a video of this?

 

[peacegirl]

Right now another winter blizzard is about to blow in and I am about to blow my brains out.

It was 36°C here yesterday, and humid. I mowed the lawn in the sunshine; When I finished, my clothes were soaked through as thoroughly as if it had been torrential rain.

Yes, but cold weather is shortly coming for you, so there is that.

I live in Brisbane. Really cold winter's nights here get down into the single digits °C (that's less than 50°F )

The cold is coming to me, but it's short-lived. People consider it cold where I live when it's 40 degrees F.

 

[peacegirl]

Yes, but when we see in reverse, the wavelength is already at the retina the moment our gaze is focused on the object,

No, it’s not. Duh.

I can see the Andromeda galaxy, the Milky Way’s nearest galactic neighbor, as a smudge in the sky.

I am seeing it as it was some 2.5 million years ago, because it is 2.5 million light years away.

Simple as that.

Okay Einstein! You cannot reason people out of positions that they did reason themselves into, remember?

 

[peacegirl]

Why are we doing this?

I think it is because educated and informed people are often afflicted with the misconception that if we explain stuff in a rational, evidence-based, step-by-step manner to others, then the others, like peacegirl, will see the light (pun intended).

But it is a misconception. You cannot reason people out of positions that they did reason themselves into.

If people were educable, Trump would not be president.

Why do people ride stationary bikes at a gym? They know that they won't go anywhere, no matter how hard they pedal.

I actually had to ponder this for a bit.

Riding stationary bikes presumably helps keep one physically fit. I don’t do that, but in warmer weather I walk several miles day, up to 10 miles. I know it keeps me physically fit.

You don’t *go* anywhere riding a stationary bike, but you do get more fit.

Similarly, if I walk up to 10 miles a day, I do go places, but always end up where I started.

So what are we doing here?

Keeping mentally fit, which I think is especially important as one ages.

Reading and responding to utter nonsense helps me organize my thoughts, consult sources, and write articulately.

So now I know why I’m here, because lately I have been wondering, “Why the fuck am I here?”

I have other ways to keep mentally fit but I realize that this place is one of them.

Meanwhile, I am preparing for a “life-threatening” winter storm, which means I ain’t gonna be walking 10 miles anytime soon.

Stay safe. My grandkids flew home early from New York today. They were at some event, and they didn't want to get stuck at the airport with no flights going out. Thank goodness, they made it home with no problems.