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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (14660)	1/22/2003 8:08:53 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

Some kinds of experiments aren't very repeatable - those predicting chaotic motions. Could you give an example? I am not sure what we are talking on here. There is a pattern [in chaos] but we can't determine it except as a tendency. Like in fractal designs. Have you looked at the link I posted about Stephen Wolfram who has come up with some interesting results on cellular automata - you start with one cell, and applying several simple rules, obtain a continuous pattern that is quite orderly on one side and chaotic on the other. He says a couple of lines of algorythm, in the same way, can be responsible for the order AND the chaos of the universe. Nothing conclusive, of course, but interesting... netspace.net.au nytimes.com Ray Kurzweil's take on Wolfram's book: kurzweilai.net I have not read his book yet, but intend to quite soon. I'm not dissing science in any way (I'm a scientist), however, I think science becomes dogmatic and most advances come from people rethinking things we believe we know. Obviously. How can we forget Einstein ditching widely accepted theories just with his pen and paper while working as a pencil pusher in some bureucracy in his late 20s, when he came up with Relativity? We should definitely keep an open mind and carefully study new theories. However, there is a difference between an open mind for new theories backed with real studies, observations, and experiments and lending credibility to creative fairy tales like "Everything is alive. See how they move?". Quantum fluctuations of the vacuum suggest that there could be something waving, but that it would not be a 3D fluid, but rather a 4D foam (or even a fractional dimensional foam like 3.616 D). Yes I am familiar with the 4-D theory but, at the risk of boring the rest of the thread, just have to ask you what you mean by the "fractional dimension". PM, if you like. By the way, reading your posts, I feel you would be interested to read about Carver Mead's take on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. There was an interview with him on Gilder's site (I know, I know...) published in American Spectator. Here it is on another site - scroll down. I would be interested to hear what you think about his comments: laputan.blogspot.com I have Carver Mead's "Collective Electrodynamics" and will start it on my next vacation. In preparation, I am going through the books of J. G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick one by one, for mental exercise :)