TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Chill Out Room
-- A universe from nothing... (for space/science nerds)
Pages (6): « 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 »

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Hey, I want to play this game too!

Fair enough

quote:

Unless properly understood, science is fairy tales, and there's nothing wrong with it: Fairy tales serve the purpose of explaining the world, and science does a marvellous job at that.

Let me stop you right there and look no further. One does not need to know the introcate details of a system, science in this case, in order to trust or give it weight. As long as the definitions of the system are understood, Principles that lie within that system may be taken as affirmatives.

When we are dealing with such broad context i think it is necessary to play semantics. It is safe to say thus that religion, myth, fable etc may fall into the category of mental masturbation which hold little to know bearing of testable results and cannot be challenged as they are proclaimed to be the word of dietie and immaculate.
Science falls under the category of testable observations. Repetitiveness giving accuracy to findings and in a way shaping the ingenuity of the society we have structured up til today. It may have been religion which motivated the ancient egyptians to build the pyramids, but it was science that actually constructed them.

So in essence the ego is stimulated by mythology and gives ease to the mind and motiviation to strive for better (an afterlife of some sort with desirable substance). Where science is used as a tool for discovery and advancement.

So to compare the two is like comparing apples and oranges.

If you wish to believe in ancient tales developed by unsophisticated methods of analysis which hold no room for modification or change and instead shoddy interpretation to have them make sense of todays world by all means. A closed system will always be closed and thus there is no room for change. Here i am talking about relgion and mythology.

For science, there is always room for change and modification, there is no real constant until something more accurate is discovered that leaves old findings simply as stepping stones for advancement in theory. One does not need to understand everything to have trust in the findings (sure it would be fun but thats not the argument here) . You can hold trust in these findings simply because the scientific community (remember how i defined the system before) agrees with it.

quote:

Science is able to explain loads of things no other human enterprise ever even intended to know, no one here is disputing that. But, science is not the report of scientists - it's their practice. If you take what they say at face value, you're much better off than following a priest most of the time, but that does not make you smarter than a religious believer. You're believing what you're told, pure and simple.

Sure but i know what i am being told has been verified by a comittee of scientists who have a more introcate knowledge of the specific subject and thus peer reviewed. Slightly different then fairy tales if you ask me.

quote:

Do you really think I just pick up a book on linguistics and take everything as facts because other people made some experiments? Well, screw them, I want to have some of the fun myself!

linguistics is a different category all together. With science your more limited to pick and choose between your theories with regards to a specific subject. For instance, there is no alternative towards evolution. sure cladistics are not constant but the general idea is a widely accepted theory (the only prominent one).

quote:

Yeah, dismiss him. Darwinism is sacred, how can he lump it together with these puny beliefs barbarians hold?

couldnt have said it better myself. And i should no better to use semantics when you're around. Clearly i am using the term myth colloquially to interpret it as a falseview on how the earth works.
Good job on that definition by the way

quote:

Oh, yeah, because the world is divided between science and religion! If I don't blindly trust one, I must blindly the other, right? How naïve are Egos and I to believe people should actually bother to know more about the things they believe, do their own research and not take anything for granted, instead of relying on others for everything! I guess that makes us religious fanatics. And I thought I was an atheist scientist

Trust as you must i simply prefer to trust that which has empirical basis. I will however take pascal's wager and not dismiss god altogether.


Good show lira

not exactly what i was thinking. i profoundly agree with Nrg2Nfinit, however i can see your points and both agree/disagree with some of your points...

im not religious and i don't think bashing religion is correct, but i do believe Darwin has an upper hand when placed side by side with religion, no one is calling religion a puny barbarian belief however, at least Darwin and science is based on theories that are based on FACTS.. so i can see you use of the word 'fairytale' but i don't agree it's a good way of describing what science is at all.. i could see 'fairytale' being used for religion however, the only 'proof' a religious person has is their book & blind faith.. how could an old book have leverage with science?

im a very skeptical person and i think blind faith just doesn't cut it. we can define all the words we want and tie them to beliefs and try to make a point here, but what it comes down to is pure fact and knowledge (imo) that sways my perspective. i'm open to listening to religious point of views yet they must at least be well-constructed points, not garbage:

quote:

Originally posted by yukii however, at least Darwin and science is based on theories that are based on FACTS.. so i can see you use of the word 'fairytale' but i don't agree it's a good way of describing what science is at all.. i could see 'fairytale' being used for religion however, the only 'proof' a religious person has is their book & blind faith.. how could an old book have leverage with science?

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Unless properly understood, science is fairy tales

quote:

Originally posted by Domesticated

unless all of science were theory, then yes, you can call it fairytale.

religion = no proof = fairytale

quote:

Originally posted by yukii unless all of science were theory, then yes, you can call it fairytale. religion = no proof = fairytale

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Unless properly understood

I don't know how I can make that any clearer.

dude, you won't be able to, what is not properly understood in science ffs? maybe im fucking tired & missing something.

quote:

Originally posted by yukii dude, you won't be able to, what is not properly understood in science ffs? maybe im fucking tired & missing something.

Ugh. Lira was saying that if you don't understand science yet believe in it, then you are basing your assertions on blind faith, just as with religion. Thus science would be a 'fairy tale' if you didn't understand the fundamentals behind it.

ah, i see that i am tired.
okay, i suppose i now see his point, but aren't we assuming that people who are religious know at least the basic concepts of their religion? just as i think anyone knows the basics of science? my point is, sure we can have blind faith on religion, and science.. i don't see how far the point goes other than that person him/herself for making that religion/science a 'fairytale'.. what i would find more relevant is which has hard evidence?

quote:

Originally posted by yukii ah, i see that i am tired. okay, i suppose i now see his point, but aren't we assuming that people who are religious know at least the basic concepts of their religion? just as i think anyone knows the basics of science? my point is, sure we can have blind faith on religion, and science.. i don't see how far the point goes other than that person him/herself for making that religion/science a 'fairytale'.. what i would find more relevant is which has hard evidence?

as stated a million times above, we're talking about the PEOPLE pushing the beliefs, NOT the actual beliefs.

i havn't been talking about science, but about the people who DON'T understand science, but claim to!
the point of what i was saying, and the point of the safran clip is that many people are annoying because they boast evolutionary theory, or denounce religion, but have no basis for their beliefs...

in this way lay-scientists and religious followers could be compared because they both rely on belief structures to find them truth, NOT empirical evidence.

None of you are scientists, therefore you all suck

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz None of you are scientists, therefore you all suck

EXACTLY!!
but i admit it!!

quote:

Originally posted by Domesticated Ugh. Lira was saying that if you don't understand science yet believe in it, then you are basing your assertions on blind faith, just as with religion. Thus science would be a 'fairy tale' if you didn't understand the fundamentals behind it.

So spending years studying the fundamentals behind theology gives the theory stout?

I understand Lira's point however I'd have to say his and Egos' point is moot. Believing something that's easily refutable, the equivalent of myths and fairy tales with just as much historicity, even with years of erudition still leaves one with a bunch of knowledge about a completely unknowable and more importantly, unprovable subject. If one has little time to read the tenets of biology, physics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, evolution, et al. but uses logic and their basic education to follow a path analogous to someone more read in the same subjects, it doesn't mean their belief is based on blind faith. I base my beliefs on the ability of human ingenuity to answer the questions blind faith not only fails to do, but refuses to try.

quote:

Originally posted by yukii okay, i suppose i now see his point, but aren't we assuming that people who are religious know at least the basic concepts of their religion?

Some do. Craig (Moral Hazard) knows his theology very well, for example, and it'd be an unfair mistake to say he's clueless when compared to a passive atheist that dismisses religions "because they're all wrong whereas science is sound and swell".

quote:

Originally posted by yukii just as i think anyone knows the basics of science? my point is, sure we can have blind faith on religion, and science.. i don't see how far the point goes other than that person him/herself for making that religion/science a 'fairytale'.. what i would find more relevant is which has hard evidence?

I hate to break it to you but religion is based on facts too. How do you think a religion that preached that humans breathe underwater and fly would fare? Religion (and science, for that matter) is an answer to a problem. And it must be related to the facts in a way or another. Christians think miracles happen because of what they perceive as facts: an unlikely cure, a fluke you prayed for, and so on. The difference between science and religion is not that science alone is based on facts. Science is just more reliable.

quote:

Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit Let me stop you right there and look no further. One does not need to know the introcate details of a system, science in this case, in order to trust or give it weight. As long as the definitions of the system are understood, Principles that lie within that system may be taken as affirmatives.

The difference from religion in this case being that...? If a priest says God exists, and I trust it, the principles behind it can be taken as affirmatives, no?

quote:

Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit When we are dealing with such broad context i think it is necessary to play semantics. It is safe to say thus that religion, myth, fable etc may fall into the category of mental masturbation which hold little to know bearing of testable results and cannot be challenged as they are proclaimed to be the word of dietie and immaculate. Science falls under the category of testable observations. Repetitiveness giving accuracy to findings and in a way shaping the ingenuity of the society we have structured up til today. It may have been religion which motivated the ancient egyptians to build the pyramids, but it was science that actually constructed them.

Are you truly saying that science involves no mental masturbation? That hypotheses do not precede/influence observation? There's a very good reason why we ditched this sort of Baconian thought: it's impossible.

By the way, since we're bashing "mental masturbation" (of which philosophy seems to be a member), I'd like to remind you that science was known as "natural philosophy" until a couple of centuries ago. Mental masturbation spawned science.

quote:

Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit If you wish to believe in ancient tales developed by unsophisticated methods of analysis which hold no room for modification or change and instead shoddy interpretation to have them make sense of todays world by all means. A closed system will always be closed and thus there is no room for change. Here i am talking about relgion and mythology.

Religions aren't closed... and they change

(the problem lies way deeper)

quote:

Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit For science, there is always room for change and modification, there is no real constant until something more accurate is discovered that leaves old findings simply as stepping stones for advancement in theory. One does not need to understand everything to have trust in the findings (sure it would be fun but thats not the argument here) . You can hold trust in these findings simply because the scientific community (remember how i defined the system before) agrees with it.

That's a very very very bad idea. Scientists are not infallible, and the scientific community is not always the apex of rationality: Phrenology had got almost everything wrong (their idea that some parts of the brain had specific functions proved to be useful though), and Lysenkoism had disastrous effects.

By the way, the "scientific community" also rejected Copernicus because geocentric astronomy could do a very good job (people often think it was just religion that got in the way).

quote:

Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit Sure but i know what i am being told has been verified by a comittee of scientists who have a more introcate knowledge of the specific subject and thus peer reviewed. Slightly different then fairy tales if you ask me.

Shouldn't this apply to theology as well?

quote:

Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit linguistics is a different category all together. With science your more limited to pick and choose between your theories with regards to a specific subject. For instance, there is no alternative towards evolution. sure cladistics are not constant but the general idea is a widely accepted theory (the only prominent one).

I fail to see how evolution affected chemistry. Saying evolution is the only choice even within science is a great over generalisation.

quote:

Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit Good show lira

It's been a pleasant discussion

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz None of you are scientists, therefore you all suck

Oi, I'd like to remind you that linguistics is a social science, and social sciences are 67% a science. Therefore, roughly speaking, I'm two thirds a scientist, one third an anarchist, and one third a smart-arse

quote:

Originally posted by Lira I'd like to remind you that linguistics is a social science, and social sciences are 67% a science. Therefore, roughly speaking, I'm two thirds a scientist, one third an anarchist, and one third a smart-arse

and 100% shitty mathematician.

I think the extra third was because he is a smart-arse.

quote:

Originally posted by Capitalizt and 100% shitty mathematician.

Whoosh!

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles I think the extra third was because he is a smart-arse.

Precisely

quote:

Originally posted by EgosXII as stated a million times above, we're talking about the PEOPLE pushing the beliefs, NOT the actual beliefs. i havn't been talking about science, but about the people who DON'T understand science, but claim to! the point of what i was saying, and the point of the safran clip is that many people are annoying because they boast evolutionary theory, or denounce religion, but have no basis for their beliefs... in this way lay-scientists and religious followers could be compared because they both rely on belief structures to find them truth, NOT empirical evidence.

in other words, all the other people who are studying these subjects at school, enjoy learning about it on their free time, and like debating about it, are according to the safran video a dumbass, wasting their time bc they don't know what they're talking about since they aren't a scientist!

nice point

"ve believes zen nothing!, Lebowski. Nothing!"

"He's a nihilist."
"Ah. That must be exhausting."

I'm sure you're playing devil's advocate to an extent here Lira, but I can't in good faith let all this slip by unopposed.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Some do. Craig (Moral Hazard) knows his theology very well, for example, and it'd be an unfair mistake to say he's clueless when compared to a passive atheist that dismisses religions "because they're all wrong whereas science is sound and swell".

Of course. I'd be worried if the average theist were not more familiar with theology than the average atheist, but that's beside the point. I'm sure that the average numerologist knows more about numerology than the average non-numerologist, but that surely tells us nothing about the efficacy of numerology as applied to the world we all share? The failure of theology is not that it is incapable of sophistication, but that it lacks any real application to the world-in-itself - what can theology teach us that any other system of thought cannot teach us in a far more parsimonious (or - better yet - more accurate) way?

Fwiw, I'm actually quite capable of appreciating theology on its own terms. For reasons I don't really understand, I actually enjoy reading scholarship concerning - say - what the Biblical authors thought concerning the nature of Jesus. Did they consider him the Son of God? If so, what was their understanding of when this "sonship" was "appointed"? What it with his resurrection (Rom 1:3-4), his baptism (Mk. 1:11), his conception (Mt. 1:18, Lk. 1:26-35) or was he the logos that pre-exists existence itself (John 1:1-2)? These are interesting debates on their own terms, but they still have ultimately no bearing on anything meaningful: deciding in which sense we can call Jesus the "Son of God" surely won't change our understanding of the universe or the means by which we should live our lives.

Theology has the potential to be sophisticated and interesting, but let's call a spade a spade: it's still bullshit from top to bottom.

quote:

I hate to break it to you but religion is based on facts too. How do you think a religion that preached that humans breathe underwater and fly would fare?

Well, religion is ultimately based on "minimally counterintuitive" facts - i.e. facts that are slightly incredible, but not so incredible as to defy all belief (see this link - I've posted it before but it deserves to be reposted). You won't find religions predicated on the fact that humans can breathe underwater, but you will find religions which assert that certain, special human beings can walk on water, or survive in the belly of a large fish underwater for three days. You won't find religions predicated on the fact that human beings can fly, but you will find religions predicated on the fact that the human soul can fly to certain places under certain circumstances, say in a dream or after death.

In any case, the fact that certain beliefs are universally present within all theologies - and others universally absent - is surely evidence of their cognitive origins. I can think of no other way that supposedly ineffable truths would have made themselves known to such a distinct array of religious traditions.

quote:

Religion (and science, for that matter) is an answer to a problem. And it must be related to the facts in a way or another. Christians think miracles happen because of what they perceive as facts: an unlikely cure, a fluke you prayed for, and so on. The difference between science and religion is not that science alone is based on facts. Science is just more reliable.

I think you're giving theology more credit than it deserves here. The universal inefficacy of prayer is not hard to demonstrate, nor is the universal non-violation of natural laws - can differences in perception really account for that fact?

quote:

By the way, since we're bashing "mental masturbation" (of which philosophy seems to be a member)

Haha, steady...

Philosophy often lends itself to "insights" that scarcely improve our understanding of the world or our capacity to engage with it, but at least there's a certain intellectual rigour behind it. The analogy that Dan Dennett used - and that I'm going to badly paraphrase because I can't be bothered looking it up - is that if philosophy is a game of tennis, then theology is a game of tennis with the net removed and all the court lines scrubbed off: they're both playing by a set of somewhat arbitrary and self-contained rules, but at least there are ways of "losing" at philosophy. Can you think of a theological idea that was ever rejected for anything other than decretal or otherwise arbitrary reasons?

quote:

Religions aren't closed... and they change

Religious practice changes quite fluidly, but theology really doesn't - at least not once a central dogma's been laid down. One can trace the trajectory of Christian thought almost by the decade for the first century or so, but it comes to a standstill pretty soon after that. I mean, can you find me a Christian who disagrees strongly with anything St. Augustine had to say in the 4th century? Can you find me a scientific discipline that looks to 4th century ideas as an equivalent source of inspiration?

quote:

That's a very very very bad idea. Scientists are not infallible, and the scientific community is not always the apex of rationality: Phrenology had got almost everything wrong (their idea that some parts of the brain had specific functions proved to be useful though), and Lysenkoism had disastrous effects.

Well I agree with you about placing unwarranted faith in any epistemic method (scientific or otherwise), but Lysenkoism isn't an example of what happens when you place to much faith in the scientific method, it's an example of what happens when you completely ignore the scientific method and go off searching for whatever method happens to validate your world view. Millions of people died basically because the Marxists couldn't accept the fact that Lamarckism is bullshit - science can't justly wear the blame for that one.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade I'm sure you're playing devil's advocate to an extent here Lira, but I can't in good faith let all this slip by unopposed.

It's my pleasure to continue this debate with you, James

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Of course. I'd be worried if the average theist were not more familiar with theology than the average atheist, but that's beside the point. I'm sure that the average numerologist knows more about numerology than the average non-numerologist, but that surely tells us nothing about the efficacy of numerology as applied to the world we all share? The failure of theology is not that it is incapable of sophistication, but that it lacks any real application to the world-in-itself - what can theology teach us that any other system of thought cannot teach us in a far more parsimonious (or - better yet - more accurate) way?

Oh, but I agree with you there. What I'm opposed to is the hubris, present in the very beginning of this discussion, regarding atheists and their "superior" beliefs. That's why I actually like the point John Safran makes in that video: it's not just what you know that matter, but how you came to know that.

Numerologists, Astrologists, and other zany -logists, base their knowledge on pretty shaky grounds, and their explanations are so full of ad hocs as to become useless. But, as Carl Sagan (naïve as I think he is) defends in his "Candle in the Dark", it's way more important to know "Why we know the Earth is round", than simply stating it is round. The answer "because I was told so" gives you little reason to brag. Giving a person (or a group) unchecked trust is a recipe for disaster.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Fwiw, I'm actually quite capable of appreciating theology on its own terms. For reasons I don't really understand, I actually enjoy reading scholarship concerning - say - what the Biblical authors thought concerning the nature of Jesus.

Yeah, I noticed that on Goodreads

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Did they consider him the Son of God? If so, what was their understanding of when this "sonship" was "appointed"? What it with his resurrection (Rom 1:3-4), his baptism (Mk. 1:11), his conception (Mt. 1:18, Lk. 1:26-35) or was he the logos that pre-exists existence itself (John 1:1-2)? These are interesting debates on their own terms, but they still have ultimately no bearing on anything meaningful: deciding in which sense we can call Jesus the "Son of God" surely won't change our understanding of the universe or the means by which we should live our lives. Theology has the potential to be sophisticated and interesting, but let's call a spade a spade: it's still bullshit from top to bottom.

And, once again, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Well, religion is ultimately based on "minimally counterintuitive" facts - i.e. facts that are slightly incredible, but not so incredible as to defy all belief (see this link - I've posted it before but it deserves to be reposted). You won't find religions predicated on the fact that humans can breathe underwater, but you will find religions which assert that certain, special human beings can walk on water, or survive in the belly of a large fish underwater for three days. You won't find religions predicated on the fact that human beings can fly, but you will find religions predicated on the fact that the human soul can fly to certain places under certain circumstances, say in a dream or after death. In any case, the fact that certain beliefs are universally present within all theologies - and others universally absent - is surely evidence of their cognitive origins. I can think of no other way that supposedly ineffable truths would have made themselves known to such a distinct array of religious traditions.

Regarding your last sentence, they could have been with us long enough to be part of very early human culture. Suppose language arose just once, in Africa, before the most adventurous of our ancestors departed to other continents: that could explain its ubiquity. Same with this kind of religion.

Now, back to actual facts and "minimally counterintuitive" facts. Sure, life is infinitely more fantastic through the light of religion, but it still needs to be credible enough to strive, and that's the only claim I'm prepared to defend here. The human soul must exist, according to different religions, because living beings need an elán vital of some sort. It's still an answer to a question, and the question arose out of facts perceived in the outer world. That's what I'm trying to get at.

By the way, do you happen to know if Boyer is Jewish? I'm sure I'm already acquainted with his work, but I think I read another article of his, in which he talked about this very same phenomenon. He gave the example of a Jewish tradition in which his father would drink wine as he would ran across the house (or something) and then his father would claim some saint figure drank the wine.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade I think you're giving theology more credit than it deserves here. The universal inefficacy of prayer is not hard to demonstrate, nor is the universal non-violation of natural laws - can differences in perception really account for that fact?

Hey, I said it was an answer, I never said it was any good

(Though, as I recall it, prayer can have an effect similar to placebo, so it's literally better than nothing, reason why it must've been a belief worth having in the past).

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Haha, steady... Philosophy often lends itself to "insights" that scarcely improve our understanding of the world or our capacity to engage with it, but at least there's a certain intellectual rigour behind it. The analogy that Dan Dennett used - and that I'm going to badly paraphrase because I can't be bothered looking it up - is that if philosophy is a game of tennis, then theology is a game of tennis with the net removed and all the court lines scrubbed off: they're both playing by a set of somewhat arbitrary and self-contained rules, but at least there are ways of "losing" at philosophy. Can you think of a theological idea that was ever rejected for anything other than decretal or otherwise arbitrary reasons?

No, not really.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Religious practice changes quite fluidly, but theology really doesn't - at least not once a central dogma's been laid down. One can trace the trajectory of Christian thought almost by the decade for the first century or so, but it comes to a standstill pretty soon after that. I mean, can you find me a Christian who disagrees strongly with anything St. Augustine had to say in the 4th century? Can you find me a scientific discipline that looks to 4th century ideas as an equivalent source of inspiration?

Yes, and no. Here, regarding your first question:

quote:

With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation. � De Genesi ad literam, 2:9, nicked from Wikipedia due to lack of time

If contemporary Christians read this passage of Saint Augustine, they'd stop being so antagonistic to science. Actually, I think Christianity would benefit a lot if this were taught more frequently.

Now, back to your second question: No, not really. And this is the best thing about science!

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Well I agree with you about placing unwarranted faith in any epistemic method (scientific or otherwise), but Lysenkoism isn't an example of what happens when you place to much faith in the scientific method, it's an example of what happens when you completely ignore the scientific method and go off searching for whatever method happens to validate your world view. Millions of people died basically because the Marxists couldn't accept the fact that Lamarckism is bullshit - science can't justly wear the blame for that one.

Still, the Soviet scientific community that didn't die off was to blame to an extent

quote:

Originally posted by Domesticated He answered that. "If you were to go "up" or "down" you wouldn't travel to any of our planets. You would come out of the planetary disk and sort of look at them from above or below. There are however galaxies "above" us and "below" us and all around us. The "flat coins" are distributed all around us"

I think you misunderstood me. Look at the bottom image on this picture:



If space were shaped like that, you could move in only 2 dimensions, length and width, but not height. What would happen if you turned up or down and moved forward in that case?

quote:

Originally posted by Gauss If space were shaped like that, you could move in only 2 dimensions, length and width, but not height. What would happen if you turned up or down and moved forward in that case?

Space IS shaped like that bottom picture. It's copy n paste time..

quote:

When one says that "space is flat", one doesn't mean that the universe is flat like a "skin of a balloon" as you say, rather "flat spacetime" refers to what is know as Minkowski space. In relativity, the three spacial dimensions are combined with a time-like to create the four dimensional spacetime, which in special relativity is described by Minkowski space. However, one can only use Minkowski space to describe the universe where it is locally flat, that is where there is not significant gravitation. Where there is significant gravitation, we say that spacetime has become curved. Four dimensional space is very difficult to visualize since we are intuitively only aware of the three dimensions, however one can 'draw' a 3D projection of spacetime. See here: You can see space can be curved by mass and energy in local areas..but the amount of matter in the universe is practically invisible compared to the amount of empty space. Planets, suns, and galaxies barely register in the grand scheme of things..so on the whole, spacetime is not curved. Calling it "flat" is not 100% accurate, but it is a very good approximation because curvature only occurs around a few rare clusters of matter floating through massive amounts of empty (flat) space.

paste #2

quote:

Now for the abstract bit. As I understand, the universe's 'shape' isn't like a real shape, but corresponds to the average distribution of energy in spacetime throughout the universe. So a 'flat' universe doesn't correspond to flatness like a flat surface, but instead means that on the average the energy distribution throughout a "flat" universe is almost the same everywhere when you look at the whole universe. To help you understand this, think of how light REALLY curves as it passes a black hole, which is REALLY dense. In fact, it is said light gets 'trapped' within black holes, which is a consequence of this curvature, which is itself a consequence of high energy density. On the average, the whole universe is not curved because the density everywhere is about the same. So the bottom line: flat spacetime on a universe size scale really refers to a pretty uniform (meaning everywhere about the same) energy density (meaning anything causing spacetime to curve). Curvature only occurs in insignificant local areas of the universe where matter is gathered and doesn't register at all on large scales.

quote:

Originally posted by Gauss I think you misunderstood me. Look at the bottom image on this picture: If space were shaped like that, you could move in only 2 dimensions, length and width, but not height. What would happen if you turned up or down and moved forward in that case?

Clearly you can move in three dimensions in space so those pictures are just simplifications on how the universe is shaped.

Space is 3D. Why planets are arrayed the way they are around a star has already been explained a couple of times in this thread. It's to do with gravity and the way the solar systems formed.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Oi, I'd like to remind you that linguistics is a social science, and social sciences are 67% a science. Therefore, roughly speaking, I'm two thirds a scientist, one third an anarchist, and one third a smart-arse

Social science

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.