This is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read! As soon as I finished it, I started right over at the beginning, and read it again.
Have you ever considered what it would be like if you could return to your childhood with all the knowledge and memories you have now? I bet most of us have wondered something similar - but Harry actually does just that. He goes on a wild ride through time - again and again. But he's not alone, there are quite a few others that are like him, called kalachakras, or Ouroborans. When a message comes from the future - they can pass information backward (and forward) through time by a most clever means - he finds that someone of their kind is doing that which is forbidden to them, and the result is that the world will be ending sooner than it should.
Here's the wiki:
QuoteHarry August was born in the women's washroom of Berwick-upon-Tweed station in 1919, leads an unremarkable life and dies in hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1989. He then finds himself born again back in 1919 in the same circumstances, gaining the knowledge of his earlier life at an early age. He is an 'Ouroboran' or 'Kalachakra' and is destined to be reborn again and again. He is not alone and is soon contacted by the 'Cronus Club', an organization of similarly affected members, who look after him in subsequent lives. But Harry is rare in that he is also a 'Mnemonic' and can remember everything from his previous lives. Then as the end of his eleventh life approaches, a young girl Kalachakra gives him a message from the future for him to take back in time to his next birth, for problems lie ahead for mankind; and Harry finds himself at the centre of a battle, using his contacts and memories over several lifetimes to save the future from the mysterious and obsessive 'Vincent'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Fifteen_Lives_of_Harry_August
I highly recommend this great book. Let me know if you read and like it.
Of course I have. I imagined the concept when I was a kid during the 80s.
Unbeliever, you recommend it and I will have to read it! Right down my alley and yes, I've often wondered what it would be like to go back in time with my current knowledge.
Quote from: Mike Cl on April 25, 2017, 10:15:06 PM
Unbeliever, you recommend it and I will have to read it! Right down my alley and yes, I've often wondered what it would be like to go back in time with my current knowledge.
Pythagoras was the first Westerner to claim he knew his previous lives.
But he wasn't talking about having lived the same life dozens of times. Harry and the other kalachakras always started over in exactly the same circumstances every time. Just think, you could get a PHD in every possible subject, and become a real renaissance man (or woman, as the case may be...)!
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 26, 2017, 07:39:10 PM
But he wasn't talking about having lived the same life dozens of times. Harry and the other kalachakras always started over in exactly the same circumstances every time. Just think, you could get a PHD in every possible subject, and become a real renaissance man (or woman, as the case may be...)!
So was that a borrowing from Nietzsche or vice versa?
I have consciously thought about "if I relived my life" many times. A frequent part of dreamtime too.
Quote from: Cavebear on April 30, 2017, 07:23:44 AM
I have consciously thought about "if I relived my life" many times. A frequent part of dreamtime too.
I am more progressive than you, I am dead and gone already ;-)
If a book or a movie involves time travel, count me in. I even have a "Time Travel" category in my movie library. There are so many fascinating scenarios that can be delved into. I thought I'd heard them all, but every once in a while, some writer comes along with a new "what if" scenario, that I haven't thought of before. Now I'm thinking creative writers are still just scratching the surface of things to consider about time travel.
I just ordered it. Didn't even read the reviews or wiki link. Hell, it's time travel.
Quote from: SGOS on April 30, 2017, 01:43:29 PM
I just ordered it. Didn't even read the reviews or wiki link. Hell, it's time travel.
Have your read A Door Into Summer or Farnham's Freehold? Both have time travel and were written by Heinlein.
Quote from: SGOS on April 30, 2017, 01:35:53 PM
If a book or a movie involves time travel, count me in. I even have a "Time Travel" category in my movie library. There are so many fascinating scenarios that can be delved into. I thought I'd heard them all, but every once in a while, some writer comes along with a new "what if" scenario, that I haven't thought of before. Now I'm thinking creative writers are still just scratching the surface of things to consider about time travel.
Have you ever come across a book called
The Last Legends of Earth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Legends_of_Earth)? There's some time-travel stuff in it, and it was a fun read, too. Another book that I can highly recommend, and another that I read twice back to back. I haven't yet read the rest of the tetrad, though; I will as soon as I can find it.
I wait for movies to show up on cable TV. Any good time travel ones coming up there soon?
I enjoy time-travel stories, too, very much. Here's one I recently read that was memorable:
The Time Traveler's Wife (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Traveler%27s_Wife)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8WZxHScMk
Some of these time-travel tales can get really complex!
Quote from: Unbeliever on April 25, 2017, 07:55:14 PM
@Unbeliever
This is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read! As soon as I finished it, I started right over at the beginning, and read it again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Fifteen_Lives_of_Harry_August
I highly recommend this great book. Let me know if you read and like it.
Received the book today. It took 11 days since being shipped on May 1, even though Amazon implied it was being shipped from Florida. Instead, it arrived International Priority with a Royal Mail stamp from Great Britain. I'm wondering if this doesn't have wide circulation in the US. But I'm guessing it will.
I'm 50 pages in, and it grabbed my attention on the first page. The writer uses an easy flowing style that avoids pretention, while creating a pleasant rhythm, an earmark of good writing in my opinion. I know. It's a strange thing to applaud, but it's something I always look for. If I put a book down and a half an hour later, I can still play the rhythm in my head, I start taking as much interest in the writer as the content. These are they writers I seek out for seconds.
Claire North = Catherine Webb, also writes under the name Kate Griffin. Why all the pen names? Published her first book at the age of 14. She must be having an identity crisis. Author of books for young adults? This book seems more adult that that, although it's been 15 years since she was 14.
At any rate, I'm expecting the book to be a satisfying experience. I'll try and remember to comment again later. So when's the movie coming out?
I hope a movie's made of it, and a sequel, too! Glad you managed to get it, it should also be available from your friendly neighborhood library.
Enjoy!
I mentioned that time travel affords he author the opportunity to advance new scenarios. The Cronus Club is not made up of time travelers, although their gift has a similarity to time travel. The book begins with an interesting scenario in the first few pages: How can a group of people who can only repeat their own lives over know the future? When first explained, I frankly didn't understand this, although it's clear after mulling it for a while. That's one of those time concepts that excite me.
I'm half way through and wondering how this scenario plays out and what's causing it. I've got my ideas, but there are too many unpredictable turns in the story to know for sure. Or maybe it's not directly related to the story, but I'm betting it's actually the whole story.
Well, I don't want to give any spoilers, so I won't comment directly on the plot. But I did find their means of communicating between past and future to be pretty cool. The way the kalachakras of thousands of years ago would hide things for the future folks to find. They could get information about many obscure historical times. I bet they could, collectively, be a very efficient crime prevention force - since they'd know about the crimes before they were even committed!
Quote from: Unbeliever on May 16, 2017, 06:21:32 PM
Well, I don't want to give any spoilers, so I won't comment directly on the plot. But I did find their means of communicating between past and future to be pretty cool. The way the kalachakras of thousands of years ago would hide things for the future folks to find. They could get information about many obscure historical times. I bet they could, collectively, be a very efficient crime prevention force - since they'd know about the crimes before they were even committed!
I don't want to tempt you into giving anything away, but stopping a murder could prevent the birth of a key person that could save the world. But from my impression of the writing so far, I would guess that would be much too obvious of a scenario.
Actually, with people living their lives over and over and making small changes each time, it's impossible for me to imagine the kalachakras, even if they oppose that kind of behavior, aren't influencing profound outcomes all the time. You break your arm as a teenager, and decide to be more careful when climbing trees in future lives, something is altered, and the butterfly effect comes into play. Right now, I'm guessing the quantum mirror seems like the likely culprit.
Yeah, trying to logic out the whole situation with the kalachakras is difficult, to say the least! What happens to worlds lived in by them when they die? Do they continue, or is it a complete reset every time? How can they be in the same, shared, world with other Ks each time they live? Which world is it, anyway?
Jeez, it's hard to even put questions about it into words!
Quote from: Unbeliever on May 17, 2017, 05:21:41 PM
Yeah, trying to logic out the whole situation with the kalachakras is difficult, to say the least! What happens to worlds lived in by them when they die? Do they continue, or is it a complete reset every time? How can they be in the same, shared, world with other Ks each time they live? Which world is it, anyway?
Jeez, it's hard to even put questions about it into words!
It's like there is one continuous timeline for everyone else. They get to occupy it briefly, and then it goes on without them. The Kalachakra are caught in a loop, so even though they live thousands of years, they only get to see 70 years of it, more or less. There is a future that goes after they die, but they can never experience it. So in the world about them there is a whole lot of time, generations come and go, but someone always occupies a future that remains out of reach. Kalachakra just live the same years over, meet the same people, people who are dead in the Kalachakra future. They are dead, but somehow they end up in the past, so they are both dead and alive. This is intellectually disturbing for some reason.
Quote from: SGOS on May 17, 2017, 09:44:43 PM
It's like there is one continuous timeline for everyone else. They get to occupy it briefly, and then it goes on without them. The Kalachakra are caught in a loop, so even though they live thousands of years, they only get to see 70 years of it, more or less. There is a future that goes after they die, but they can never experience it. So in the world about them there is a whole lot of time, generations come and go, but someone always occupies a future that remains out of reach. Kalachakra just live the same years over, meet the same people, people who are dead in the Kalachakra future. They are dead, but somehow they end up in the past, so they are both dead and alive. This is intellectually disturbing for some reason.
Both dead and alive? That is exactly how I see our reality. Not intellectually disturbing to me, emotionally disturbing. Fortunately I like dead people just as much as the living, maybe more so. Time is an illusion, that is why we enjoy playing with it in fiction? Better to be both dead/alive than neither.
Quote from: Baruch on May 18, 2017, 04:16:33 AM
Both dead and alive? That is exactly how I see our reality. Not intellectually disturbing to me, emotionally disturbing. Fortunately I like dead people just as much as the living, maybe more so. Time is an illusion, that is why we enjoy playing with it in fiction? Better to be both dead/alive than neither.
Yeah, there's nothing profound in my description. It's just an ordinary fact of time travel, where going back in time creates two related realities that we visit, each where people exist in different states (living and dead). The Kalachakra, for all their powers (or because of their curse) can't travel through time like ordinary people might in a fantasy world. They can only relive one short segment of time over and over. Why does this disturb me intellectually? There can be only one reason; I don't understand it.
At an emotional level, it disturbs me because I want it to be different. Why should this disturb me? How should I know? It's an emotion, which has nothing to do with comprehension or knowledge. Time travel scenarios always affect me this way, both intellectually and emotionally.
Incidentally, by repeating the same life span over and over, the Kalachakra can see the future. How they do this is one of the most interesting consequences of time I've ever been forced to recognize by a time travel author. It's actually quite simple, and makes perfect sense. But to explain it would be a huge spoiler that doesn't belong in a public forum, at least at this time.
Quote from: Baruch on May 18, 2017, 04:16:33 AM
Both dead and alive? That is exactly how I see our reality. Not intellectually disturbing to me, emotionally disturbing. Fortunately I like dead people just as much as the living, maybe more so. Time is an illusion, that is why we enjoy playing with it in fiction? Better to be both dead/alive than neither.
Careful - if you mention Schrödinger 's Cat, Hawking may grab a sidearm!
(http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/schrodingerscat_fullpic_3667.jpg)
@Unbeliever Finished! Good book. Very creative. Did you pick anything up from the second reading that you missed the first time? You don't need to specify what incase someone else is thinking about reading it. I'll probably read it again, but not right away. One thing I wish would have been explained is the mechanics that would end the world. Was it just man's stupidity, a nuclear war, a quantum fluctuation that destroys all matter, or something else? While the mechanism was identified, the underlying mechanics were left to the imagination.
Quote from: Unbeliever on May 18, 2017, 04:51:30 PM
Careful - if you mention Schrödinger 's Cat, Hawking may grab a sidearm!
So I looked up Hawking's comments on Schrodinger's cat to see what his problem was. Now I can't say I ever understood Schrodinger's thought experiment to begin with, and in my research, it turns out that Schrodinger himself never believed any of it either. Then I got to Hawking's analysis, and lost consciousness during the first sentence when he started writing formulas with variables I'd never seen the likes of before. I don't know if Hawking is unusually bright or not, but everyone says he is, so I'll say he is too, but bright or not, I don't find him all that helpful, and I think he needs to get a translating app for that machine of his, so people can make sense out of what he is saying.
Quote from: SGOS on May 21, 2017, 11:12:51 AM
So I looked up Hawking's comments on Schrodinger's cat to see what his problem was. Now I can't say I ever understood Schrodinger's thought experiment to begin with, and in my research, it turns out that Schrodinger himself never believed any of it either. Then I got to Hawking's analysis, and lost consciousness during the first sentence when he started writing formulas with variables I'd never seen the likes of before. I don't know if Hawking is unusually bright or not, but everyone says he is, so I'll say he is too, but bright or not, I don't find him all that helpful, and I think he needs to get a translating app for that machine of his, so people can make sense out of what he is saying.
If QM is true, then reality is inconsistent/irrational ... at least to Black/White people. Attempts to generalize to probability are only partially successful (the cat is 50% dead and 50% alive at the same time, until you open the box). Paraconsistent folks ... not so much. We are comfortable with ambiguity.
There is new work being done on unifying QM and GR ... which is related to paraconsistency ... contextuality. The context in this case being, did we open the box or not? That things may locally make sense, but not make sense globally ... like the Escher drawing of the people on the stairway at the top of the building, where they are always doing up, but getting nowhere fast.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ec/3f/b1/ec3fb1199bd5765207e955fa63b85585.jpg
Quote from: Baruch on May 21, 2017, 12:27:22 PM
If QM is true, then reality is inconsistent/irrational ... at least to Black/White people. Attempts to generalize to probability are only partially successful (the cat is 50% dead and 50% alive at the same time, until you open the box). Paraconsistent folks ... not so much. We are comfortable with ambiguity.
Paraconsistency fails to capture what's actually happening with QM. The state typified by Schrodinger's cat is not actually ambiguous. It is in fact precisely defined. It's just that it's this strange new beast called a superposition, that is unlike anything we see on the macroscale. The physics of QM will tell you
exactly what superposition exists for the cat, and no other. It unambiguously answers which superposition represents the system's state, yes or no, true or false.
Quote from: Baruch on May 21, 2017, 12:27:22 PM
There is new work being done on unifying QM and GR ... which is related to paraconsistency ... contextuality. The context in this case being, did we open the box or not? That things may locally make sense, but not make sense globally ... like the Escher drawing of the people on the stairway at the top of the building, where they are always doing up, but getting nowhere fast.
Strange that despite this "paraconsistency", the mathematics used to join QM and GR is formulated with classical logic. Must be that contradictory nature.
Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on May 21, 2017, 08:51:49 PM
Paraconsistency fails to capture what's actually happening with QM. The state typified by Schrodinger's cat is not actually ambiguous. It is in fact precisely defined. It's just that it's this strange new beast called a superposition, that is unlike anything we see on the macroscale. The physics of QM will tell you exactly what superposition exists for the cat, and no other. It unambiguously answers which superposition represents the system's state, yes or no, true or false.
Strange that despite this "paraconsistency", the mathematics used to join QM and GR is formulated with classical logic. Must be that contradictory nature.
Superposition is ... spooky action at a distance ... or even just spooky action up close. Care to defend the consistency of that? Yes, infinite parallel universes, that either exist on their own, or are subsets that add up to the one real universe ... like the terms in a Taylor's series. You sound like a modern Aristotelian, defending Ptolemy against Copernicus.
Just open the box and see if the cat is dead for fuck's sake. What's the point of a philosophical discussion? If you want to know, get off your damn lazy ass and look. Forget the arcane formulas, or bullshit alternatives (the cat is both dead and alive). Get real. The cat is either alive or the cat is dead, and I don't give a shit which it is, but don't make a Federal case out of it.
And what asshole would put a vial of poison with some complicated timing device in a box with a cat? Most people just put the cat in a sack and throw it in the lake. I'll bet people wouldn't put up with Schrodinger's thought experiment if it was a cute little puppy instead of a cat. Schrodinger has issues with cats. It's just that macho thing. He compensates for his sexual insecurities by talking about tormenting cats. He thinks it will impress women. Sometimes it does, but he still has a little wiener when it's showtime.
Quote from: SGOS on May 22, 2017, 08:40:31 AM
Just open the box and see if the cat is dead for fuck's sake. What's the point of a philosophical discussion? If you want to know, get off your damn lazy ass and look. Forget the arcane formulas, or bullshit alternatives (the cat is both dead and alive). Get real. The cat is either alive or the cat is dead, and I don't give a shit which it is, but don't make a Federal case out of it.
And what asshole would put a vial of poison with some complicated timing device in a box with a cat? Most people just put the cat in a sack and throw it in the lake. I'll bet people wouldn't put up with Schrodinger's thought experiment if it was a cute little puppy instead of a cat. Schrodinger has issues with cats. It's just that macho thing. He compensates for his sexual insecurities by talking about tormenting cats. He thinks it will impress women. Sometimes it does, but he still has a little wiener when it's showtime.
For some people, statistics is their god, at least 50% of the time ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on May 21, 2017, 11:36:03 PM
Superposition is ... spooky action at a distance ... or even just spooky action up close. Care to defend the consistency of that?
It's only inconsistent because you've
decided that it's inconsistent. The math works, even if the action at a distance is spooky â€" the universe is not required to be non-spooky to you. Still can't use it as an ansible, which is the only thing that relativity requires.
Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on May 22, 2017, 05:18:45 PM
It's only inconsistent because you've decided that it's inconsistent. The math works, even if the action at a distance is spooky â€" the universe is not required to be non-spooky to you. Still can't use it as an ansible, which is the only thing that relativity requires.
Typo? "ansible"
As a demigod ... if I am a Republican, 2+2 = 3, if I am a Democrat, 2+2=5. There is no inconsistency, because accounting comes from the barrel of an anti-aircraft gun - Kim Jong Un. Want to challenge that?
Quote from: SGOS on May 21, 2017, 10:51:30 AM
@Unbeliever
Did you pick anything up from the second reading that you missed the first time?
No, I don't think so, but I enjoyed it twice as much.
QuoteOne thing I wish would have been explained is the mechanics that would end the world. Was it just man's stupidity, a nuclear war, a quantum fluctuation that destroys all matter, or something else? While the mechanism was identified, the underlying mechanics were left to the imagination.
That's why I'm really hoping for a sequel. The author also didn't get around to resolving the whole issue of how these kalachakras could be in that situation. After all, that was one of Harry's main reason for wanting to work on the quantum mirror, to find out how he could exist.
Quote from: SGOS on May 21, 2017, 11:12:51 AM
Now I can't say I ever understood Schrodinger's thought experiment to begin with, and in my research, it turns out that Schrodinger himself never believed any of it either.
As I understand it, he was trying to ridicule the whole idea of QM. Much as EPR was trying to ridicule that "spooky action at a distance" stuff coming out of the theoretical models.
Quote from: Unbeliever on May 22, 2017, 08:31:41 PM
As I understand it, he was trying to ridicule the whole idea of QM. Much as EPR was trying to ridicule that "spooky action at a distance" stuff coming out of the theoretical models.
Entanglement is real, and spooky. At that time it was simply a thought experiment to say ... something is wrong here. Turns out something is rotten in Denmark after all. And it isn't in the model.
Quote from: Baruch on May 22, 2017, 06:17:53 PM
Typo? "ansible"
I thought the reference to relativity would give you a good guess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible
Quote from: Baruch on May 22, 2017, 06:17:53 PM
As a demigod ... if I am a Republican, 2+2 = 3, if I am a Democrat, 2+2=5. There is no inconsistency, because accounting comes from the barrel of an anti-aircraft gun - Kim Jong Un. Want to challenge that?
What's there to challenge? Accounting is not arithmetic, or math in general.
Quote from: Baruch on May 22, 2017, 09:32:30 PM
Entanglement is real, and spooky. At that time it was simply a thought experiment to say ... something is wrong here. Turns out something is rotten in Denmark after all. And it isn't in the model.
If it wasn't in the model, how did Einstein et al know enough about it to construct thought experiments to argue against it in the first place? Entanglement was implied by QM theory long before it was observed and proven real.
Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on May 23, 2017, 07:15:50 PM
1. I thought the reference to relativity would give you a good guess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible
2. What's there to challenge? Accounting is not arithmetic, or math in general.
3. If it wasn't in the model, how did Einstein et al know enough about it to construct thought experiments to argue against it in the first place? Entanglement was implied by QM theory long before it was observed and proven real.
1. Thanks.
2. Tell that to a CPA ... they add, subtract, do other things (not necessarily honestly or accurately).
3. Per our old buddy Joe, Einstein was a god ;-) I prefer Feynman, at least he thought QM was real. Thought experiments are ... fictions. Einstein guessed well, sometimes. Just ask him how the Unified Field Theory is going. Einstein was always better at physical intuition (mental spooky) rather than math (his buddies had to help him). Feynman was very good at math.
Quote from: Baruch on May 23, 2017, 07:35:30 PM
2. Tell that to a CPA ... they add, subtract, do other things (not necessarily honestly or accurately).
Arithmetic tells you what numbers you should get when you add, subtract or do other things for mathematically consistent results. It's up to you to decide what those numbers mean, and to use numbers connected to reality. If your model of how money behaves is wrong, why is it arithmetic's fault that you got a funny answer?
Quote from: Baruch on May 23, 2017, 07:35:30 PM
3. Per our old buddy Joe, Einstein was a god ;-) I prefer Feynman, at least he thought QM was real. Thought experiments are ... fictions. Einstein guessed well, sometimes. Just ask him how the Unified Field Theory is going. Einstein was always better at physical intuition (mental spooky) rather than math (his buddies had to help him). Feynman was very good at math.
Thought experiments may be fictions but they are sometimes useful. Sometimes. I still find it bizarre that you think that the phenomenon of entanglement is a "contradiction," or "inconsistent." Please show how that is the case.
Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on May 23, 2017, 09:54:55 PM
1. Arithmetic tells you what numbers you should get when you add, subtract or do other things for mathematically consistent results. It's up to you to decide what those numbers mean, and to use numbers connected to reality. If your model of how money behaves is wrong, why is it arithmetic's fault that you got a funny answer?
2. Thought experiments may be fictions but they are sometimes useful. Sometimes. I still find it bizarre that you think that the phenomenon of entanglement is a "contradiction," or "inconsistent." Please show how that is the case.
1. Exactly the problem. Credit vs debit. Your credit is my debit, and vice versa. So adding or subtracting depends on whose ox is being gored, which balance sheet is being looked at. In that case accounting is much more than arithmetic ... just ask the IRS.
2. Consistency in context. You can always reduce your axioms to just one, and it is necessarily consistent with itself, but a trivial example. Entanglement is a contradiction to classical physics (that context) .. but not to QM (itself). But a Platonist would say that QM always was the one truth, and that the classical guys simply got it wrong. Planck had a better magic Greek organ than Newton. Or the optimist would say we are getting closer and closer to the one true Greek organ.
Nothing is contradictory to itself (if it is not total nonsense) ... except actual databases, which might have contradictory (implicit or explicit) data entries, and frequently do. If you have a perfect database, then no worry. Just think of Facebook ;-( Frequently business rules have to work on that inconsistent data ... hence the attempt thru Relational Database theory, to avoid the more obvious fallacies.
Quote from: Baruch on May 23, 2017, 10:58:27 PM
1. Exactly the problem. Credit vs debit. Your credit is my debit, and vice versa. So adding or subtracting depends on whose ox is being gored, which balance sheet is being looked at. In that case accounting is much more than arithmetic ... just ask the IRS.
So in other words, what is the sound of one hand clapping?
Look, it's not as if the IRS came up with this numerical voodoo that you're on about. You being on the hook for some amount is actually kind of valuable for the lendee. You did promise to pay that guy back with interest. On the other hand, you have ready money that you might not have been able to raise on your own in a short enough time to matter. So there is actually some value to being a debtor as well.
These patterns occur again and again, governments or not, so we may suspect that they are a feature of money and commerce than any coersion on the part of any authority.
Quote from: Baruch on May 23, 2017, 10:58:27 PM
2. Consistency in context. You can always reduce your axioms to just one, and it is necessarily consistent with itself, but a trivial example. Entanglement is a contradiction to classical physics (that context) .. but not to QM (itself). But a Platonist would say that QM always was the one truth, and that the classical guys simply got it wrong. Planck had a better magic Greek organ than Newton. Or the optimist would say we are getting closer and closer to the one true Greek organ.
You know, I like it how you think that somehow science is so conceited to think that it ever has the final answer. While most people outside science think that science is a list of "final answers," anyone who has been on the inside, doing real science knows that this is merely appearances, and that "final answers" are merely an approximation, much like classical physics is to quantum mechanics and the relativity twins.
There have been discoveries that definitively answered a huge number of important questions about how our world works, and it's usually these that people think of as "final answers." This is only an approximation. A good approximation, but still an approximation. Nobody expects the principle of energy conservation to be overturned anytime soon, and if it were to occur, we would know where they would occur. By any reasonable criterion, this is a "final answer," yet it still might even after this be subject to revision. Furthermore, since scientists thrive on new discovery, they will always be probing those frontiers in hopes that one of those "final answers" might give a bit, or even break altogether.
The classical physics that you learned in high school is an approximation, but on the scale we normally work and live it is an approximation that is so good that any error in prediction is going to be overwhelmingly due to errors in measurement or characterizing the system than in the fact that it is an approximation. But the fact that classical physics is an approximation has been known from at least the 1910's when physics realized that Einstein was right and that classical physics didn't square well with Maxwell's electromagnetism, and the problems cascaded from there â€" but
only on the scales of the very small, or the energy levels of the really fast, or the gravity fields that are really strong. Otherwise, classical mechanics works extremely well.
Quote from: Baruch on May 23, 2017, 10:58:27 PM
Nothing is contradictory to itself (if it is not total nonsense) ... except actual databases, which might have contradictory (implicit or explicit) data entries, and frequently do. If you have a perfect database, then no worry. Just think of Facebook ;-( Frequently business rules have to work on that inconsistent data ... hence the attempt thru Relational Database theory, to avoid the more obvious fallacies.
Databases are not lists of unprocessed data. They are catalogued and organized into tables, which will very quickly show you the most common inconsistencies. Consistency checks upon entry of data into the database catches the rest. You don't use databases to answer questions that you don't know how to solve, and as such, you would already know the relevant consistency constraints.
Consistency checks on data entry into databases? I work with one of the largest DB on Earth ... and it is a mess, because of human interaction with it. There is always a data entry override, and it is used liberally. See with DB, what users want, is free text, no fields, not tables, no data type control ... just free text. Users wanna be free.
DB consistency only happens in toy applications built in college by students, and are checked by TAs. That doesn't happen in the real world ;-( And even if you use tables and fields, there are anomalies that develop in reports, per relational database theory. This is why there are multiple levels of "normalization" to control that. But it isn't completely controlled, you can only rule out the most obvious anomalies ... assuming the data is any good (which it often isn't).
The IRS partly does what Congress tells it, and partly does its own thing as "interpretation" of the Congressional mandate. And yes, like a stiff drink, debt is OK in moderation. But don't do too much of it. Certainly billions is too much, let alone quadrillions (CDS market). And yes, authority never coerces ... right Dr Mengele?
Yes, Hitler approximately won the war ... so much for approximations. All written out numbers, have a finite number of digits, they are all rationals. It is impossible to explicitly list an irrational number. But it is possible to imagine them, even if they aren't imaginary numbers.
Energy conservation was overturned by Einstein, Einstein. And mass-energy conservation was overturned by the same guy, in gravitational waves and the Big Bang (yes, he fought against universe expansion ... and it still is freaky). Adding additional digits onto known constants ... that is what they thought physics would be in the 20th century, 120 year ago. They were wrong, arrogant Victorian pricks that they were.
Your explanation of approximation is ... humanities level, very odd for a statistics guy. Pi is approximately 3.14, and better approximately 3.14159 ... but that isn't what makes Newton different from Maxwell/Einstein or QM. Already, Planck, trying to make a more efficient incandescent bulb ... overturned all of fucking Newton. Maxwell (as perfected by Einstein) already did too. There are equation tricks, called approximation, that classical physics is to reality as h-bar approaches zero ... but it isn't zero ... there is no approximating. That is like saying the circumference of the Earth is approximately zero, relative to the size of the solar system. Muddled explanation.
I don't believe for a second that you are actually working with a real database, Baruch. I don't and didn't believe you when you said that you were an engineer working on the Hubble, even tangentially. I've known engineers and you don't speak like one, nor do you seem to have any expertise that intersects with any engineering field. You certainly have no expertise that intersects with any scientific field. When you talk about energy conservation being overturned by Einstein, my only response is "Really?" When you talk about mass-energy conservation being overturned by Einstein in general relativity, my only response is, again, "Really?" Because I have no less than four books on relativity (general and special) and they say otherwise. When you say that Plank overturned Newton, again, I have to say, "Really?" Wow! Newton was wrong, completely and totally! The NASA engineers (you know them, right?) who sent man to the moon and interstellar probes to the planets will certainly want to hear about that, because they've been using Newtonian mechanics to calculate orbits so they must be told or they'll miss... oh, wait, they didn't. Huh. Imagine that.
And of course your expertise with history is just as questionable as your expertise of... well, anything. You somehow imagine that "Hitler won the war" to be of the same league of historical approximation as predicting when a space probe will arrive at a planet to be a mechanical approximation. Of course, we know that isn't true. But the problem is not with approximations, it's all with you, with your false equivalency bullshit. You're angling to make yourself sound good even in the face of intellectual failure. Your word nonsense sounds to me like I always suspected it is â€" excuses to distract from the fact that you have no technical knowledge whatsoever and are trying to bullshit your way through this forum.
I've had enough. Not only is the modern world and modern science beyond your comprehension, you seem to revel in that fact. You invoke paraconsistency like a shield in many of your arguments, when in my opinion, paraconsistency is merely a way to make "giving up" into something respectable-sounding. Sorry, it's just more excuses.
And you're very good at making them.
And you know what they say about people who are good at making excuses â€" they're seldom good for anything else.
Call me a "bad professor" or whatever excuse you want to make for yourself. I don't care anymore.
I know you are the biggest "expert" on the Internet. I can see your gigantic ego, from here, even without the Internet. Seek help, dude.
(http://www.vwgolf.net.au/image.php?u=104&dateline=1314055965)
Quote from: Unbeliever on May 30, 2017, 06:55:02 PM
(http://www.vwgolf.net.au/image.php?u=104&dateline=1314055965)
You aren't making yourself look good Homer ... and sometimes Hakurei ... posts like he has been drinking ... just saying. As a dry drunk I know the type. I don't argue with cave men, just cave bears ;-)
Hey, I'm just here for the entertainment.
Quote from: Unbeliever on May 30, 2017, 07:35:38 PM
Hey, I'm just here for the entertainment.
I am here for the therapy. But the bed side manner of some of our counselors ... isn't so good.
Quote from: Baruch on May 30, 2017, 09:45:24 PM
I am here for the therapy. But the bed side manner of some of our counselors ... isn't so good.
Maybe you should discuss that more. Therapy isn't a negative thing.
Quote from: Cavebear on October 09, 2017, 01:41:41 AM
Maybe you should discuss that more. Therapy isn't a negative thing.
I agree. But I am bear-phobic, so you aren't the one.
Quote from: Baruch on October 09, 2017, 10:54:49 AM
I agree. But I am bear-phobic, so you aren't the one.
I wasn't suggesting I was the one to provide the therapy. But I suggest you find you find one. While I am kinder to you than you deserve (and actually care, because you are one of the more educated and lesser of the crazy theists) you clearly need professional help.
I keep thinking there is hope for you yet.
Quote from: Cavebear on October 11, 2017, 05:32:07 AM
I wasn't suggesting I was the one to provide the therapy. But I suggest you find you find one. While I am kinder to you than you deserve (and actually care, because you are one of the more educated and lesser of the crazy theists) you clearly need professional help.
I keep thinking there is hope for you yet.
You like cats. And all cat owners go to Heaven, because the cats do, and still can't open the little cans.
Quote from: Baruch on October 11, 2017, 07:37:44 AM
You like cats. And all cat owners go to Heaven, because the cats do, and still can't open the little cans.
No we meet over The Rainbow Bridge. Because that's where all good cats go (and all are good) and yes, we humans get to go there so the cans can be opened. Sort of a can-can... Who hee!