Surely Jerry's joking, Mr. Feynman!
Joe wrote:
http://philosophy.nekhbet.com/images/joke.pdf
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
- Richard Feynman
- "Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists."
Dick Feynman was a pretty good egg. I was informed that I shook his hand (at 3) - when he attended my Grandfather's funeral. In 1965, Feynman won a Nobel prize for his contributions to Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). He worked on building the first fission bomb, doing most of the calculations for the uranium yields in his head. He was a prankster, disliked the hierarchy in science and slapped-off any bull-crap slung his way. As below, Feynman would have been revolted by what has been said of science by the cultists. He would have interpreted their cracks - as unmistakable evidence for the disintegration of Western Civilization.
- Einfühlung wrote:
- we can change the rate of decay of things. all we have to do is change the decaying "thing's" environment. things seem to decay faster in warmer climates than they do in colder climates. if a thing is frozen, it decays real slow. predictions are that the closer we get to absolute 0, the less a thing may decay. although, last i read, cryogenics will not work even at absolute 0 we are seeing evidence of decay at the micro-level. seemed they weren't sure how a thing would come out of the hibernation with this small amount of decay (because they weren't sure exactly where ALL the decay was, seemed to be "throughout"). that said, i read that study a few years ago. things may have changed since then, of course.
- Einfühlung wrote:
- the rate of decay is not mind-independent. a thing decaying is. e=mc^2 is not mind-independent.
We cannot change the rate of decay of anything - without a mind-independent decay rate set in motion by the electro-weak force, linked to physical constants and laws. When we drop an object's temperature, we are acting in concert with the electro-weak force. We are not "defying" it by cooling stuff down, and we are not doing it with our minds - alone. Scientists engage in actions under objective conditions (beyond their finite minds) - which exist in the world. Contra Jerry's jihad against science, nothing about its laws, constants, equations, forces, decay rates, etc. is a mind-dependent chimera.
For once, Jerry (Einfühlung) got one right - sorta: "cryogenics will not work even at absolute 0".
Cryogenics will not work at absolute zero - 'cuz nuthin' works at absolute zero. Either an object radiates a temperature above absolute zero, including the mysterious coolants and magnetic coils employed in cryogenics, or it does not exist. The lowest temperature reached by human beings is one-half billionth degree above absolute zero - a great scientific and technological achievement. To reduce anything to absolute zero, the technology used to drop its temperature (according to the laws of thermodynamics) would have to register a temperature below absolute zero - not existing in reality!
- Richard Feynman
- "Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds."
Like Mr. Feynman, I share his disdain with philosophers. Philosophy - for the most part - has been a dreadful pox (much like religion and politics) on humankind. In ancient Greece, Anaxagoras was burned alive at the stake for practicing philosophy. Perhaps, the (pre-Enlightenment) Greeks realized that philosophy would give rise to a strain of destructive imbeciles. However, what's spewed in this cult are not discussions of philosophy. They're but tactics, techniques and methods of pursuing nescience (ignorance), designed to neutralize both rationality and ourselves as thinking-beings. As above, there's no facet of science (cryogenics, thermodynamics, the electro-weak force, decay rates, the velocity of light, etc.) that a cultist will not automatically de-rationalize - by wizard-like word-spells and staggering ignorance.