A conversation between an atheist and a Christian who discuss homosexuality and neon signs.
I grew up in a religious family. As a child, my mother dragged me to faith healers who showed up once a month in Albuquerque and tried to “cure” my deafness. The faith healers themselves, while varied in the way they delivered their healing sessions, almost always shared the same routine. They would prop me up on stage in front of the church, and begin yelling something to the effect that I had somehow been wronged. By whom exactly was never answered, though I once asked a pastor, “If God made me deaf, why do we need faith healers to fix what God has done? That doesn’t make sense.” (My pastor immediately started praying, though I never got an answer).…
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— go to most recent comments76 - Les Slater
#71 Duane’s take on part of Gonzo’s #68
This is complicated so will do it in multiple parts.
Part 1:
“You are suggesting that there is a residual form of ‘brain energy’ that continues on after death. The existence of such is beyond our current scientific understanding, akin to belief in a soul. Do you believe in some kind of afterlife? If so, based on what evidence or belief system?”
I do believe there is a ‘brain energy’ that continues after death. I’ve been thinking about this for at least 50 years. I’ve done a lot of thinking, a lot of study and some experimentation. One does have to demystify the brain. For about three years I used large amounts of LSD on a weekly basis. Tried to get some idea of how my brain functioned with relation to my environment while under the influence. The more I observed, the more I saw material causes related to what some might call mystical experience. One of the more interesting ones was the so-called out-of-body experience. A more interesting one was getting into someone else’s head, the in-another-body experience. I analyzed these and came up with plausible material explanations. After some years I became what I consider a consistent and thorough materialist.
The biggest question I pondered was that of ego. The question of the Star Trek transporter. One can imagine that such a machine is theoretically conceivable. It does raise some thorny questions though. One, is it really you, or is it just a duplicate? Does it matter? If you conclude it is really you coming out of the other end, then what does it all mean if it duplicates you more than once? Are there multiple yous? What would that mean? We would have to assume that you were reproduced in multiple space-time coordinates. That would mean that the yous would have different environments and the multiple yous would diverge into separate identities. Would any of the identities be YOU.
By the way, the above scenario has practical application in discussing contemporary theology. The case of a fertilized woman’s egg having a unique soul comes to mind. If that fertilized egg splits into two in the development of identical twins, how do we sort that out? If the original soul was unique and nature divided it, and the genetic makeups of both are identical, which one keeps the original soul and which one gets the next serial number? Can there really be any difference in these souls? Can’t the souls DEVELOP their uniqueness? What if you chemically influenced whether there would be multiple births or not? Would the creation of a soul just be a matter of chemistry?
77 - gonzo marx
interesting thoughts there, Les
as for your experimentations...allow me a Thought to share... resonant frequencies and/or harmonic concordance
as to the twins dilemma, could it be the trauma of birth itself, when the parasite sheds it's gills to use it's lungs, the removal of the umbilical to the host?
there's medical answers to much of this, but many of those are unsatisfying
hence the Metaphysical
it's trying to reconcile the two approaches that appears to hold the key, and we ain't there yet
but what i do Know is that many of what we currently think of as Answers will probably turn out not to be, the more we seem to find out, the more we find we were wrong in what we thought was fact previously
quantum mechanics , for example
deep Waters indeed, and we all need to learn to swim.
heh
Excelsior?
78 - JC Mosquito
Well, learn to swim better than Schroedinger's cat, anyways.
79 - Dr Dreadful
gonzo #73, duane #74:
It was not a Russian, but an early 20th century Massachusetts physician named Duncan MacDougall who tried to measure the weight of the soul.
If you go to [Sierra November Oscar Papa Echo Sierra dot com] and type 'soul' into the search box, you can read all about it.
As I recall, there's also a brief but lively account of the experiment in Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Everything.
(Sorry I couldn't link to the site, and indeed ended up having to spell its name out using the phonetic radio alphabet. For some reason the BC spam filter doesn't like that word.)
80 - gonzo marx
no worries Doc, i'd forgotten the Mass one..but the study i had read was indeed Russian, i'm positive of that...late 50's early 60's..VERY methodical
it was discounted by some due to where it came from at the time..i cannot verify the veracity, not find the reference in my own library at this time
but thanks for the links!!
Excelsior?
81 - duane
Thanks Dr. D. Great stuff.
And omigosh, check this out ...
"Perhaps the most surprising scientific evidence for the soul comes from quantum mechanics"specifically, from investigations of the subatomic phenomena that produce consciousness. Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist who has spent many years studying brain functions, has collaborated with renowned Oxford University polymath Roger Penrose on a model that explains consciousness as the result of quantum processes occurring in tiny structures called microtubules in brain cells. 'I think consciousness under normal circumstances occurs at the level of space-time geometry in the brain, in the microtubules,' Hameroff says. 'But the fluctuations extend down to the Planck scale [far smaller than an atom] because the microtubules are driven bioenergetically to be in a coherent state. When the blood supply and the oxygen stops, things go bad and the coherence stops, but quantum information at the Planck scale isn’t lost. It may dissipate into the universe but remain somehow entangled in some kind of functional unit, maybe indefinitely. If the patient is revived, the information gets picked back up again.' "
-- From discovermagazine.com June 2007
Penrose is definitely not a quack, by the way. Hmmm....
Well, it's just a theory.
82 - gonzo marx
heh...but a good one
reminds me of a Quote - "the more I learn about quantum mechanics, the more it reminds me of Taoist black magic"
Excelsior?
83 - SonnyD
# 71 Duane: What you described is the best description of a sociopath. A living breathing human form with certain human abilities: thought, memory, etc. But something vital is missing: the feelings that a complete human can have - love, empathy, sympathy, etc.
84 - Les Slater
"Penrose is definitely not a quack, by the way..."
Sounds like complete bullshit to me.
85 - Les Slater
Gonzo,
"the more I learn about quantum mechanics, the more it reminds me of Taoist black magic"
I had a boss once that had a masters degree from MIT. Actually I have had several bosses that masters and PhDs from MIT. But this one went back to a reunion or something like that. He met his old thermal dynamics prof and confessed that even though he got all A's in the course, he didn't understand a thing. The prof shot back, 'it's alright, it all turned out to be wrong anyway'.
Les
86 - bliffle
#83 " July 12, 2007 @ 05:06AM " SonnyD
"...the feelings that a complete human can have - love, empathy, sympathy, etc."
Yes, the human race would have disappeared, like all failed experiments, in an anarchy of Hobbsian murder and exploitation had not the evolutionary selection process selected for these high societal value attributes. Much as evolutionary selection developed high societal values among ants and bees.
87 - duane
To SonnyD (#83). Your physical brain is fully capable of "emotion", as I mentioned in my #71, which would include those attributes you list -- love, empathy, sympathy. Also, see bliffle's response (#86). But I am aware of and appreciate your own unique take on things.
To Les (#84). Right. It does sound like BS. But far be it from me to judge Penrose's work. His track record is just too overwhelming.
88 - gonzo marx
it appears the crux of the Question is whether or not the Whole is greater than the sum of it's Parts
does the physical process of meat and chemical reactions produce something Metaphysical?
i'm encouraged that it does by things like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
the verifiable fact that mere Observation by a sentient being can influence the outcome leads me to think that there might indeed be something greater than the sum of the parts as we Understand it at this time in our scientific development
"one Man's magic is another Man's engineering" R.A.H.
hence my mention elsewhere about my own experience vis a vis martial arts gnosis
Excelsior?
89 - Les Slater
Gonzo,
"i'm encouraged that it does by things like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle"
Are you 100% sure?
90 - gonzo marx
i'll ask Schrodinger's cat, if i can find it
Excelsior?
91 - duane
I'm uncertain as to whether the uncertainty principle is understood with any degree of certainty. Suffice to say that the uncertainty principle places no limits on the precision to which a single quantity (or fact) can be known. Thinking such is a misread of what the principle says. Gonzo may be 100% certain, without violating the principle. I'm certainly certain of this.
92 - gonzo marx
heh...duane that was certainly Funny...to me at least...yet i'm almost never certain about anything, hence my normal qualifier of "i think", which may be uncertain in itself , but certainly an attempt at certain honesty...
but i digress
Excelsior?
93 - Les Slater
duane,
"It does sound like BS. But far be it from me to judge Penrose's work. His track record is just too overwhelming."
See my #85; it applies here too.
94 - gonzo marx
well Les, that's the beauty of theoretical exploration...it's all a guess, built upon evidence and adjusted as more and more facts or proofs become available
much different than bald assertions of "fact" with little or no confirmed evidence or empirical data
such as saying "God told me..."
i'll take Penrose over Saul of Tarsus any day
your mileage may vary...
Excelsior?
95 - duane
We've all had ample opportunity to ascertain your honesty, gonzo.
Right. So ...
A waitress in a Colorado Springs restaurant. Deafness. Jesus. Gays. Atheism. Ice cream. The veracity of the Good Book. Salvation. Debating with dignity. Karate. Shoveling. Hebrew. Razors. Ghost writers. Mystery and the unknowable. The weight of the soul. Quantum mechanics.
It seems that the Biq Questions often come back to physics, in spite of the oft-mentioned bromide, to the effect, "The Bible has taught me about things that science can't." Oh ye of little patience.
96 - Les Slater
Gonzo,
"i'll take Penrose over Saul of Tarsus any day"
I might be inclined to also, but I'm not sure. It's a question of historical fairy tales vs what purports to be science. Many can put Paul into a proper perspective. There are much fewer, I think, that can genuinly make progress scientifically in the issues we are discussing here.
Les
97 - duane
Les (#93). Oh, you're a science skeptic. I'm sure that you are reading too much into the comments of the wisecracking professor. Thermodynamics (not "thermal dynamics") is not wrong. Ask the guys who designed your air conditioner or your refrigerator. Don't believe in the tendency of entropy in a closed system to increase? I think you should seek out a second opinion.
98 - gonzo marx
it's a matter of technique in approach, Les
i should have been more clear
one did the "God told me" bit, the other is working within the boundaries of science to work out theoretical answers based on empirical data
you knew that, clarification is for the Record
Excelsior?
99 - Les Slater
duane,
I am a skeptic, and yes, it is thermodynamics.
"Ask the guys who designed your air conditioner or your refrigerator."
And what would I expect them to understand? I claim both are 100% efficient. I doubt either designer would agree.
Les
100 - duane
Les: "I am a skeptic...."
Why? I'm intrigued.
"And what would I expect them to understand?"
Thermodynamics. Part of their engineering programs.
"I claim both are 100% efficient."
Well, they're not.
"I doubt either designer would agree."
And they would be right, of course.
101 - Les Slater
"Don't believe in the tendency of entropy in a closed system to increase?"
Not necessarily. Maybe as an overall tendency at this period of time, but not as an absolute that has to exist at all places, at all times and under all circumstances.
Second opinion? I discussed this with K. Eric Drexler. He agreed with my skepticism about the absolute authority of the second law.
Les
102 - gonzo marx
ok, you have any kind of link where he shows his proof to debate the second Law?
am truly interested since it is considered a universal constant, and yet i've never even heard of any kind of contention otherwise...
genuinely interested
Excelsior?
103 - Les Slater
#100 duane,
"And they would be right, of course."
Or mayby to their thermodynamics course used similar course material as the 'wisecracking professor' used.
Les
104 - duane
Wow, Les. Very impressive. OK, so you and Drexler are skeptical that the Second Law is universally valid under all circumstances. Not all circumstances are accommodated by the assumptions inherent in the Second Law, viz., it applies only to a "closed system." For example, the transformation of water to ice in your freezer looks like a local violation of the Second Law if one chooses to ignore the other system components, i.e., the space outside the freezer.
But don't let's get tedious. I am willing to defer to you and Drexler. But I'm wondering how this conjecture has bred skepticism in you as regards science. Are you, in fact, skeptical of all science, or just that at the bleeding edge? If the latter, then, sure, even scientists are with you on that. If the former, then tell me more.
105 - Les Slater
Gonzo,
"ok, you have any kind of link where he shows his proof to debate the second Law?" I have been looking for other work in this area for years. I have not seen any referrence to such.
I discused the with K. Eric Drexler after a lecture he had given at MIT shortly after 'Engines of Creation' was published. I bought my copy from him.
I thought that his ideas about powering nano-machines were naive. I raised a couple of questions and mentioned that I thought he should look to actual biological organisms for ideas on on where and how to get power. Somehow the issue of the second law came up. If I remember correctly, he said that some biological organisms violated the second law. I did not get a chance to persue that since there were others that wanted access to him.
I explain the basis of my skepticism when I get around to explaining to duane why all, or at least the usual ones, are 100% efficient. It really boils down to a moral question.
Les
106 - gonzo marx
understood Les, and thanks..i asked because i looked the fellow up after your mention, and didn't see anything on the topic among his list of publications or lectures
i look forward to your response to duane
Excelsior?
107 - duane
Les: "Or mayby to their thermodynamics course used similar course material as the 'wisecracking professor' used."
Haha. Very good, Les. Touche.
Well, gotta go. Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Looking forward to reading more from you guys later. I'm learning a lot.
108 - Les Slater
Ok, here goes.
This may have to be a part 1. It is fairly complicated, especially since it involves morality, or at least a societal value judgment.
It all started back in 1976 when we had a particularly hot June in Boston. My girlfriend and I decided to get an air conditioner for our apartment. It was a couple or so years after the beginning of the energy (oil) crisis. The air conditioner manufacturers were required to list the EER of their products. There was no Google back then. I had no quantitative idea what EER was.
Ok, I asked all the smiling salesmen, we had no eBay or amazon.com back in those days either, what EER meant. They ALL said that higher was better. I finally found one that said that EER meant 'Energy Efficiency Ratio'. I then asked, 'ratio of what to what?'. Nobody knew. I bought a Sears 5,000 BTU, 7.5 EER, unit. I finally found out that it was BTU's pumped per KWHr.
It did cool down the bedroom quite well. It was a small apartment with a small bedroom. I did know a little about how this thing worked. I heard about higher efficiency units. Was there a theoretical limit on how high an EER could go? Nobody seemed to know. People talked about motor and compressor friction but no fundamental limits. I thought about that for a while and gave up. After all I was not an air conditioner designer.
I understood that this air conditioner was also heating up the neighborhood. That wasn’t good. That in itself was reason to get a higher EER unit. I also discovered that the electric bill went up. I used the EER formula and figured out how many BTU's my electricity was contributing to the neighborhood. I started to resent paying the electric company to heat up my neighborhood in the summer time. I wasn't the only one doing this either. What a deal for the electric company.
I must figure out what's going on. This is evil.
I finally decided that rather than being pissed at the electric company or maybe trying to exorcize the evil, I might try to take a more scientific approach.
Stay tuned for part 2.
Les
109 - Paotie
Guys -
Thanks for a great debate and conversation. I'm reading these postings with popcorn in hand.
*munch munch*
Part 2! Onwards, Les.
:o)
Paotie
110 - gonzo marx
Paotie - glad if we could being as much enjoyment to the comments as you brought with the Article...
Les - "waiting Is.."
duane - got the time?
Excelsior?
111 - Les Slater
Part 2,
Well, I did a thought experiment with the aid of the first law of thermodynamics.
It did not take me too long to figure that ALL of the electricity that came through the power cord connected to the air conditioner was heating up the outdoors. This is at least obviously true when all has reach thermal equilibrium, when the room is cooled to its minimum temperature while the conditioner is running full time. There is no extra energy required to keep the room cool. The energy going to the outdoors is precisely the same as the energy coming through the power cord.
Maybe this is easier to see in the winter time. We'll use a refrigerator this time. If you had one room with an infinite air sink around it at a constant low temperature outside with a thermostatically controlled resistance electric heating and a frig in the room. Also a light bulb if you wish.
I contend that the electricity used will not make any difference as to whether the refrig is on or off.
Stay tuned for part 3.
Les
112 - Les Slater
I forgot to mention, this is only true if the frig, by itself, does not produce enough heat to sufficiently heat the room on its own.
113 - Les Slater
Part 3.
Even when the frig is cooling and actually lightens the heating load on the AC power source, the extra heat from the frig represents the heat from, no, actually is, the heat from the inside. Overall no extra power is required to keep the frig at low temperature inside.
To the extent that the refrig is heating the room, less power is needed from the electric room heaters.
In the bigger scheme of things this means that the cooling action requires no power, 100% efficiency.
Stay tuned for part 4.
Les
114 - gonzo marx
ya palmed quite a few cards so far in your little thought experiment
actual measurements of the pertinent details proves that there are indeed losses all over the place, all of which can be measured and explained
but i'll gladly leave the math involved to duane and other experts in the field who know much more than lil ole me
but do go on...makes for a Fun read
Excelsior?
115 - Les Slater
Gonzo,
"actual measurements of the pertinent details proves that there are indeed losses all over the place, all of which can be measured and explained"
Losses don't matter. Look at the bigger picture. All the losses can be considered as part of the consumption of the electric power. They all turn into heat. You totally get the heat you pay for with the elctricity, losses or not. The frig is the easiest example. Do you dispute my statement that the electricity used will be the same whether or not the frig is on?
Les
116 - Les Slater
Our desired product in the case of the room in winter is HEAT. All the losses turn into HEAT.
117 - gonzo marx
a bit confused here, do you mean the overall electricity used by the apartment in the time frame under question?
if such is the case, and the only variable is whether the fridge is on or not..then i would have to say that the consumption of electricity is indeed higher with the fridge on or not
even if it is just the trickle for the electronics involved in the operation of the thermostat inside the fridge and the controlling voltages for the compressor
but, as i said..i'm not touching this one any further, i'll gladly leave it to duane
do carry on...
Excelsior?
118 - RJ
Sooo...a cute young gal tried to strike up a conversation with you, and you responded by mocking her and her religion. Nice. You must be proud.
119 - Les Slater
"if such is the case, and the only variable is whether the fridge is on or not..then i would have to say that the consumption of electricity is indeed higher with the fridge on..."
I say it does not matter. The tiny electronics etc are still just losses, just like the rest of them; they still turn totally into heat.
If nobody else sees this after a while, I'll try to walk through it in more detail.
120 - Les Slater
"Sooo...a cute young gal tried to strike up a conversation with you"
Not everybody would take 'Do you believe in Jesus?' as a friendly jesture.
I don't mind and I do not insult them. It happened to me on Monday of this week. We ended up exchanging phone numbers.
121 - Wonderment
Consider this argument for the spirituality of atheists.
122 - Les Slater
I consider myself a spiritual atheist and the atheist prayer did not resonate with me at all.
123 - Les Slater
Back to the fridge.
I warned that this proplem was going to involve morality and value judgements. This is where Gonzo, and I presume others, go wrong.
My #116:
"Our desired product in the case of the room in winter is HEAT. All the losses turn into HEAT."
Gonzo #114:
"actual measurements of the pertinent details proves that there are indeed losses all over the place, all of which can be measured and explained"
Losses? I have stated that ALL the losses turn into HEAT, our desired product.
Why claim that we have a problem with value judgement and morality? It is that Gonzo does not see the losses, he clearly sees, as part of the DESIRED product we are looking for. He sees them as BAD things. How can BAD things be DESIRED? It's not a question of morality here, it is a question of thermodynamics, and what we are trying to accomplish.
Putting aside the fridg for a moment let's look at the normal electric heat with the thermostat. Let's attach a very small neon light accross the heater supply voltage so we can see whether the heater is in its powered cycle or not. That neon light will consume miniscule power.
A child, oblivious to the function of the heater, might be considered to find the little light going on an off as entertaining and the only object of concern. An analysis of the efficiency of the function of this entertainment light would find that efficiency quite low. After all, 99.999% of the electricity is just wasted as a heat loss. What a poor design.
More later,
Les
124 - Les Slater
There seems to be a fatal design flaw in the entertainment light. It never works in the summer. Also, even in winter, the time the light stays on seems to be effected by whether the frig is on or not.
125 - andy in wales(thats in uk)
"If somebody would have told the little foetus in the womb that there is no life after the 9 months...and the foetus believed...it would surely die...it would not develop itself and not prepare for life "after birth"."
!!!!!!
Just found a new way of losing weight! From now on I will tell myself that the enjoyment i get out of chocolate doesnt last long so therefore it's pointless eating it.
What a load of %*@@!!
Oh....hang on....someones speaking to me....'yes', 'yes', 'ok'.
'God' has just told me that all you non-beleivers are on the right track and he is fed up of being the subject of all this arguement. If he had known he would have caused all this trouble he would never have started this 'life and all else' project in the first place.
Dear Lord, thank you for what must surely be Divine inspiration. I would never have thought of it if it were'nt for you!!
WAKE UP Y'ALL (His words not mine)