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The Multiverse?
Topic Started: Sep 26 2013, 01:51 AM (666 Views)
New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
Nag. Good point. Too many people do set out to prove something they already believe is true, and THAT is not good. I can prove 1 = 2 with some algebraic tricks! Pure research should not be done with a bias. Currently, too many people are looking for things they THINK might exist in the LHC instead of just looking at the empirical results.

Oh, and Nag, I mistyped. I meant to say "YOU are the fudge packer."
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Comrade Queen
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Comrade Bitchqueen
Nag Ehgoeg
Oct 31 2013, 01:02 PM
Scythirus
Oct 24 2013, 12:51 PM
Dark energy? Can you share with me where anyone has actually seen dark energy?
There's one rock in my back garden. Not "rocks". Not "a few rocks". One rock. No other rocks like it. No other rocks near it.

It was pushed there. By dark energy.

****

Again, I'm not saying you're wrong. In fact, while I realise it's not exactly the same, I really like the idea of "big bang-big crunch". It has the right kind of "wheel of time" resonance.

But the deal with evidence is that it has to... well... be evidence. You can't point to nonsense and say it proves something that it doesn't. That's just... nuts.

Which is not to say that we should discount Penrose Circles as thoroughly as the idiots in main-stream astronomy have. I fully agree that sceptics who have built their careers on a foundation of sand unfairly dismiss evidence that contradicts their narrow world view. And I'll go further and say that this is the worst and most destructive kind of ignorance.

But the second most destructive is where you grasp at handfuls of sand to build your foundations.

I really want to stress here, I don't think you're wrong. It's right to hold out for proof and to ask questions. It's right to build your view of the world on the best evidence available to you rather than the most convenient theory. But, and maybe it's just because tone isn't conveyed very well in text over the internet, you sound kinda fanatical: desperate to grasp at anything that confirms your world view while stead-fastedly ignoring everything else. Which wouldn't be so bad if you weren't committed to attacking people making the same argument in reverse.

****

Oh and NH, I'm the fudge factor.

I agree that we are limited and that our understanding is limited. I don't accept that as an excuse to cling to lies and half truths. I think it's amazing that whenever someone sets out to prove something, they inevitably find evidence that supports the opinion they'd already decided on. I prefer my science to be unbiased by prior assumption and to test what is actually there rather than to find evidence for something I already believe.
Indeed you do appear to be misreading the context significantly. My views on the universe's cosmology have changed frequently throughout my life. My umbrage comes from the sheer laziness that dark energy is and the further, lazy dismissal of Penrose's rings seems; it seems to be a symptom of all that is wrong with science today. When I first read about dark energy, I knew immediately that it was bullshit because it wasn't based on any actual observations, it was based on the fact that the standard model wasn't fitting what we were actually observing in the universe and the scientists were scrambling to find "some reason" why this was. So some moron suggests magical pixie dust is pushing the universe apart and causing the apparent discrepancy between their theories and reality.

Then I read about Penrose's Rings a few months ago while I was trying to find alternate cosmology theories that better explained what was being observed in the universe and I was like "Holy shit! That makes so much more fucking sense! An actual scientific theory based on actual observations and not a desperate attempt to patch up a hole-filled dogma!" Because that's what modern science seems to be devolving into now... dogma. Gone is the curiosity of the universe and the willingness to test out new theories. No, now inconvenient facts are swept under the rug and ignored and only theories based on desperate attempts to patch up failing models are allowed because a bunch of egotistical jackasses who built their careers on said failing models can't fucking admit that they might be wrong. When was the last major scientific breakthrough made? I can't even recall as it seems like science has been rather stagnant for most of my life, if not throughout all of it.

The rings Penrose found might be the knock from opportunity that science has been looking for and wherever they actually do take us if there are scientists serious enough to study them could be intimately fascinating. I have my theory on what they might mean, I might be ultimately proven wrong and my views on cosmological theories will change again accordingly, but I think it's significantly better than believing a hypothesis that ultimately boils down to "God did it" when you take a real strong, scrutinizing look at it.
Edited by Comrade Queen, Oct 31 2013, 01:54 PM.
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the Wallace Islands
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Corporal
 *  *  *
The fact that most scientists' first reaction to a lot of out-of-the-box ideas is sometimes: "that's crazy," is sort of a good thing. First of all, most people's ideas are fucking crazy. There's freedom to explore new ideas, because that's how you become famous in science, proving everyone else wrong. The fact that it's competitive is really really important.

There's strong motivation for coming up with ground-breaking new ideas if you can put your money where your mouth is and have the experiments that will back them up. Eventually, you're going to win, it may take a while, but you will. But you have to have the goods to move everyone onto your side.

No one's got an alternative that's well formed and that makes big clear predictions. You shouldn't be surprised that the orthodox opinion is that we should modify what we have rather than throw it out completely.

"Oh that dark matter stuff is obviously bullshit," is not a research program.

There is a fine line in this case between "fudge factor" and "prediction." Neptune was a fudge factor of an extra planet that would explain irregularities in Uranus's orbit (according to Newtonian mechanics), until we found the damn thing.

So anyway, I actually have a personal hunch that dark energy may be a dead end too, but I'm comfortable waiting it out. What I know of Penrose's ideas are interesting...but I'm not qualified to 100% sort it out.
Edited by the Wallace Islands, Oct 31 2013, 02:45 PM.
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Comrade Queen
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Comrade Bitchqueen
the Wallace Islands
Oct 31 2013, 02:43 PM
The fact that most scientists' first reaction to a lot of out-of-the-box ideas is sometimes: "that's crazy," is sort of a good thing.
Unless it's dark energy, which they're pushing like it's the gospel from beyond.

And by the way, there's still an observed gravity perturbation on our solar system that isn't accounted for, yet scientists now claim another full sized planet is unlikely. Interesting contradiction.
Edited by Comrade Queen, Oct 31 2013, 05:54 PM.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

New Harumf
Oct 31 2013, 01:34 PM
I can prove 1 = 2 with some algebraic tricks!
No you can't. Algebra is shorthand.

x = y is a perfectly valid equation.

But it's not true once I say that x = 4 and y = 6.

By the same token the "clever" way of proving 1=2 using algebra has a divide by zero equation in it. You can't magically make dividing by zero come out as anything but infinity (or Err) just because you used algebra instead of numbers.
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New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
Actually, someone did divide by zero - that's how the Big Bang started.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

Spoiler: click to toggle
Edited by Nag Ehgoeg, Apr 7 2014, 12:22 PM.
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