Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[ZAKtheGeek]

I could liken it to the anatomy of a man made of straw if you'd like.

NO COMPRENDE WHATSOEVER

[POS Industries]

I mean you're taking a minor detail from someone's statement and attempting to use it to disprove the entire point. It's a logical fallacy referred to as a "Strawman".

[Sithdarth]

Same to you. You know damn well what I meant.

No I knew what you typed. I'm not privy to your thoughts I can't tell if you typed the wrong word.

Further there really is only on interpretations of this experiment. You seem to have it confused with the ones where people make light come out of a Bose-Einstein condensate before it goes in which is something totally different. Those effects are not governed by Schrodinger's equation alone. You have to introduce terms for energy and such which give the equations a time direction. However for quantum events which consist purely of causality with no energy transfer there is no arrow of time. This causes serious problems for any notions of an order of events in the early universe.

[POS Industries]

Yes, I used less-than-apt terminology. And no, I was referring to the experiment you linked, that the idea that quantum effects propagate into past is not the widely-accepted interpretation of that experiment's results. It is an interpretation held by some, but that doesn't make it fact.

[ZAKtheGeek]

I mean you're taking a minor detail from someone's statement and attempting to use it to disprove the entire point. It's a logical fallacy referred to as a "Strawman".

I'm not trying to disprove anything. I'm just pointing out how these two things you've said seem to contradict each other. Your options are threefold: 1)Pick one and reject the other; 2)explain why I'm wrong and they're not contradictory; 3)make no sense.

[Sithdarth]

Yes, I used less-than-apt terminology. And no, I was referring to the experiment you linked, that the idea that quantum effects propagate into past is not the widely-accepted interpretation of that experiment's results. It is an interpretation held by some, but that doesn't make it fact.

Well for one using the term widely accepted when discussing quantum mechanics doesn't really have a meaning. No one logical interpretation has ever been able to resolve all the problems presented by the math and none of them really have an overwhelming following. We, and quantum mechanics, can argue till the sun burns out about which logical interpretation to use but that has no bearing on the actual math. The math tells us that any quantum interaction not involving energy transfer is symmetric in time; in other words there is no inherent time direction in the math for quantum causality. We can put it in later with logic but no ones ever actually proven with math why it should be there and as such any Quantum mechanic that tells you its there is expressing an opinion not a fact.

Of course getting away from pure causality we still have several problems applying classical logic to the early universe:

1) Since positions and lengths were uncertain by the same degree as they are now there was a time when the universe's size was fluctuating be a very significant amount.

2) It was moving at relativistic speeds during a time when quantum mechanics dominated. As such we can't even mathematically describe what was going on yet. We can say for sure it wasn't nothing like what we experience now.

3) At one point the fundamental forces weren't differentiated from each other. Which pretty much destroys any chance of classical thinking having any connection to what was actually going on.

4) One of the major problems faced is how time seems to lose meaning when you go to very small scales near very large concentrations of mass. These conditions existed over the entire universe during its initial expansion so we really can't expect time then to be anything like time now.

Edit: Oh and you last sentence cuts both ways. Just because more people believe one thing over another doesn't make it right. However, that line of argument leads to absolutely nowhere when talking about quantum mechanics because the no logical interpretation exactly matches the math. I choose this interpretation of the experiment because it requires the least amount of logical hoops to be jumped through before one's conclusions match the math.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Originally Posted by Serenity

Everything is moving out from a central point.

I am just here to point out that the universe is not expanding from a central point. It is expanding from every point.

End transmission

[Serenity]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

I mean you're taking a minor detail from someone's statement and attempting to use it to disprove the entire point. It's a logical fallacy referred to as a "Strawman".

Actually, no, that is not called a strawman.

A strawman fallacy is when the opponent's position is obfuscated and changed by you so you can destroy their imaginary position. It's when you adjust your perception of the other person's argument in order to defeat the percieved argument, which is of course not nearly so good. For example, "Censorship is wrong" is not a rebuttal to "this book is terrible and should never have been made", because the person making that point never said that the book should have been censored.

Taking a minor detail of the point or statement and attempting to use it to disprove the rest of the statement is either a valid logical argument or a ad hominem, depending. If the method of disproving is to say that "look, you obviously can't make a point, so why should we listen to you", then that's an ad hominem attack. On the other hand, a valid logical argument would be "but this minor point contradicts the rest", when the minor point is actually important to the point.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Well, to the point where he was adding weird-ass connotations, meanings, or whatever unnecessary points to the argument: points that were neither important to, nor aspects of the argument, it should still, I think, qualify.

What I think POS inadequately explained was a failure of context. For instance, I remember once, in an argument, referring to a system that forced people to do something.

Another person pointed out that, because they were not forcing people to do anything, my entire argument was invalid.

Except that I referred to forcing people to do something as part of drawing a comparison between their method of doing things and other, possible methods.

Failure of context: when you just stop making any friggin' sense.

[Fifthfiend]

This is probably the place for this kind of thing.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/nationworld/ci_7106072

San Diego diocese seeks donations
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 10/06/2007 08:01:28 PM MDT

SAN DIEGO—The Catholic Diocese of San Diego is asking parishioners and priests to make contributions to help pay for the recent $198.1 million sexual abuse settlement.
A memo issued this week by Bishop Robert Brom asked priests to contribute one month's salary, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

"We cannot ask of others what we are unwilling to do ourselves," Brom wrote in the memo to about 280 priests, whose monthly salary can be as much as $1,535.

The donation requests will help "cover the expense involved in compassionate outreach to our brothers and sisters who suffered sexual abuse within the family of the church," the memo said.

The idea came from current priests who saw it as a gesture toward the 144 people who allege they were abused by clergy members and church workers when they were minors.

"It's a way of kind of righting some of the injustices done to them and also start the healing process," said the Rev. Ned Brockhaus of St. John of the Cross in Lemon Grove.

Judy Bethel, a Catholic and San Diego resident, said that if Brom hadn't sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the diocese in February, he could have settled the suits for less money.

"I think he's asking us to bear the cost of his mistakes," Bethel said. "I, for one, am not willing to do this."

The average payout will be $1.38 million per victim, according to the terms of the agreement announced last month. The San Diego diocese will pay about $107 million of the total; the rest will come from insurance and the Diocese of San Bernardino, which was once part of the San Diego diocese.

I mean, doesn't the Catholic Church have like, billions of dollars in assets? But they're hitting the laypriests and parishoners up for the bill for the Bishop's fuckups?