Plato, you bastard.
Reading on the VRE the initial chapters of a book by Lee Smolin, Time Reborn. (I get the impression he is controversial in his field of physics.) He is claiming that the Platonists have won, that modern western scientific thinking is that time is an illusion and that the laws of nature are out of the flow of time, that they exist on some eternal
( Read more... )
Given what you've written here, I'm not that clear on what Smolin has to say about time.
Sorry - he apparently thinks the idea that the laws of nature being envisioned as "timeless", eternal and unwavering is wrong, that Newton's idea that time is some absolute thing is wrong in light of Einstein, but he has some bone to pick with Einstein as well involving how Einstein presents an intertwined time and space. Haven't gotten into where he thinks Einstein messed up. But you can see where I might suspect crack-pottery, since attacking Newton and Einstein is part of the crackpot toolbox.
Why are you reading this? Did somebody recommend this book to you, for some reason?
My former friend, Peter Watts, is still on my FB, and he was trying to read it. I had heard of the author Lee Smolin somewhere before. but couldn't place him. In a moment of weakness, I thought, well, even tho' Watts is kind of an angry asshole, he does read interesting things; I'll just order the book from the stacks and check it out. It is interesting so far.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Maybe Watts does know him; he does interrogate scientists in bars about topics he wants to use in his books, I hear. Think that is why he was going on about him, maybe - a buddy wrote a book, gonna help him out with publicity.
In any case, what is that Latin phrase about something standing on its own, making its own case?
Reply
I'm fairly certain he's not bonkers ;-)
He's Harvard educated, FWIW and, from his bio, appears to be an accomplished theoretical physicist.
I've never made a formal study of Latin, so my knowledge of Latin is limited to what I've gathered through formal training in biology, and bits and pieces randomly gathered over the years. I'm not sure which phrase you're referring to, but feel free to educate me on this point, since that particular bit of Latin lint hasn't found its way into my cortex.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he and Watts had sunk a beer at some point in the past (if such a thing as a past is, in fact, a sensible concept).
Thanks to your prompting here, I've started reading Carroll's book, and am currently reading a chapter about time loops; such a discussion always raises questions about free will, of course.
Reply
Reply
Think anyone who was watching John Oliver absorbed his point about replication, p-hacking, not over-applying animal studies, the amount of total bull on FB that evokes "science."
Reply
Reply
I comfort myself with this: I predicted in 2008 that there was no way America was going to vote in a Neeeegro over an older, white, Vietnam vet, especially with all the legislative experience that McCain had. I just pictured all those closet bigots in the voting booth, unable to imagine someone half African being capable or being worthy of being Commander in Chief, Chief Executive, etc., and voting McCain because McCain was plausible. He looked like any number of previous presidents. Obama did not.
My mystical prediction powers were totally wrong. My sense this time that no one is going to vote in a Granny - No Vaginas In the Oval Office! Trump is also personality and emotion over substance, and we love that sh*t - see Ronald Reagan, faux-folksy, morning in America, shining city on a hill, blah, blah, blah. What I am hoping is that my mystical prognostications will be dead wrong again, and America will, in the voting booth, refrain from giving the established order The Finger by voting Trump.
I feel that is what this is about - citizens wanting to give someone in charge the finger by voting for Jesse Ventura, but he isn't running, so Trump will do. Not about building a wall or excluding Muslims, just wanting to give someone in charge of this circus the finger.
Reply
I have been enjoying the slew of theories about what his endgame may be. This is a personal favorite:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/introducing-the-trump-news-channelcoming-in-2017/496562/
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment