• essays

  • Unicorns in the night sky

    Of politics and pit-men

    Happy Trails!

    Watering the neurons

    Zombie memory

    Denting Dennett

    World don't matter!

    Cretin Hop!

    Copernican erotics

    Wittgenstein experiments

    Wallbanging in thought

    LPoE

    Quasars demand Rogaine

    Monkeys on meth

    Happy Valentines day!

    Steamrollin' the Ice Age

    When logic dies

    Berkeley's got E.D.

    The zombie satires

    A Louisville Slugger

    Wittgenstein devolves

    An inedible vegetable

    Less than savages

    Radioactive weddings

    Dueling zombies

    Into the lens

    Darwinian insecticide

    The Worst Arguments

    Jerry's joking Mr. Feynman

    Wishing in the cornfield

    Nuptializing quarks

    Less than Z zero

    Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

    Like a taboo

    Pentodes of the mind

    Out rogering Rogers

    Turing's got a Honey

    Malice in Blunderland

    Experimental tails

    Reefer gravity

    The book of moron

    Moorean rain

home

Unicorns in the night sky

Joe wrote:

Anyone who will not knuckle-under to Einfühlung's (Jerry's) diktat - below - that a unicorn and Einstein's equation, e=mc² do not differ in meaningfulness deserves to be convicted for violating this cult's taboo against minimal human rationality. Science, mathematics and reason have been thrown to the dogs in this counter-real kennel-show.

Einfühlung wrote:

what do you think the difference between a unicorn and e=mc^2? do you think one is more meaningful? do you think one is more phenomenal? don't show me an E or a M or a C. show me "e=mc^2" that we didn't make. if you think numbers are real, then show me a 3 we did not make. don't show me 3 trees because that is not a 3. that is a group of trees.

Jerry's pot of hokum above commits multiple category errors. A unicorn is an imaginary beast. "e" and "m" are variables in physics equations. "c" is a fundamental, physical constant. 3 is a number. For about 100 years, "e" and "m" have been shown via e=mc² in experiments to represent measurable, phenomenal quantities of energy and mass. By measuring the velocity of electromagnetic (light) waves, "c" has been shown constant for 100s of years.

The crack: "show me "e=mc^2" that we didn't make." is dill-hole prattle, worthy of a Beavis or a Butthead. It's Jerry's sub-moronic nisus to make physics and applied mathematics imaginary. Applied mathematics is not a mind-dependent illusion. The equations of physics rigorously depict the mind-independent conditions, pervading the universe, or they would be useless (and the theories from which they are drawn overthrown long ago). The variables and constants in e=mc² go proxy for real, phenomenal conditions in the universe - unlike a person's belief in an unicorn.

Einfühlung wrote:

e=mc^2 is not mind-independent.

The equation e=mc² does not have to be emblazoned in the sky for it to be meaningful and mind-independent - anymore than one has to (just as absurdly) smell the quarter notes in Bach's printed musical scores for his music to be a feature of reality, packed with meaning.

"show me "e=mc^2" that we didn't make." On a clear night, look up into the sky. The stars are visible - because they generate radiant energy through fusion reactions. Human beings did not make the stars, and the matter converted into energy by the stars is precisely captured by the equation, e=mc². If e=mc² is not meaningful and mind-independent, then no star ever burned! There is an ontological difference between e=mc² and a god-damned unicorn.