"Vortex Based Mathematics by Marko Rodin"

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I tried to drum up a hypothetical discussion.

Yeah an example is needed.

I'll work on it.

reply to post by Mary Rose


I think your feeling is wrong. Intuition is useful in science, as it can help you solve problems more easy in some situations, or it can help you come up with new ideas. So in other words, it is used, there where it is useful. But in the end you will always have to back whatever your intuition came up with with actual experiments or maths. A (sincere) scientist does not publish anything based only on his intuition alone and call it a scientific paper. That is why Haramein and the likes is not taken seriously. His ideas are based on his intuition and he presents that as science, while most of it is just ignorance and can easily be proved false.

reply to post by -PLB-

1. It's not used enough.
   
2. Haramein has scientific papers and he is taken seriously by scientists who are not intimidated by the mainstream.
   

reply to post by Mary Rose


1) On what do you base that? As far as I can read in this thread you do not have the affiliation with the scientific community required to make such a claim.

It is our human nature that makes us want to be in the state of understanding of the world around us. That gives us comfort, and giving up a certain believe may be frighting or uncomfortable. This, of course, also happens in the scientific community. It has nothing to do with science itself though, but with human nature. Interestingly though, in my perception this part of human nature is actually a lot less influential in science than other areas. There are several examples of ideas that has put the whole scientific community on his head, and there are currently working numerous scientists on exotic ideas.

Is this what you are talking about? And if so, what do you suggest to do against it?

2) I mean the vast majority does not take him seriously.

Originally posted by -PLB-
As far as I can read in this thread you do not have the affiliation with the scientific community required to make such a claim.

It doesn't take a scientist to know that he has written scientific papers and has scientists that he works with. Right the vast majority don't take him seriously. That's a reflection of the problem I'm talking about.

Originally posted by -PLB-
It is our human nature that makes us want to be in the state of understanding of the world around us. That gives us comfort, and giving up a certain believe may be frighting or uncomfortable.

What I have in mind is not scientists being reluctant to give anything up, but scientists hesitating to express their intuition for fear of ridicule.

I don't think it's the scientists who need to change. I think it's the power-brokers who control the environment scientists work in.

But I need to come up with an example to illustrate what I mean.

Originally posted by Mary Rose
I tried to drum up a hypothetical discussion.

Yeah an example is needed.

I'll work on it.

OK thanks. Even if it's hypothetical, more specifics are needed.

Specifically what I don't understand is how two different scientists can't come up with two completely different spiritual interpretations of the same observations. And if their spiritual interpretations aren't subject to any physical measurements, they may never come to any kind of agreement on their individual spiritual interpretations, like they can with their objective measurements.

Originally posted by Mary Rose
reply to post by -PLB-

 

1. It's not used enough.

Buddhasystem was explaining to me how particle physics becomes more intuitive the more you work with it. It doesn't seem that intuitive to me because I don't work with it much, but it apparently seems more intuitive to him and other particle physicists.

And I agree with PLB that it's probably used quite a bit to develop hypotheses. Since you don't have an example let me give you one.

In 1997 the working hypothesis on the expansion of the universe was that the expansion was slowing down. We didn't know how much it was slowing down, but we thought if it slowed down a lot the universe would eventually collapse, and if it didn't slow down a lot, it might just keep expanding but more and more slowly. I suppose this hypothesis was based partly on some incomplete observations and partly on intuition. But I don't know of a single scientist on the planet who had the intuition to predict the results that were actually found, that the rate of expansion was actually speeding up (aka "dark energy")

So at least in this particular example, the value of intuition seems quite small, and the value of objective, verifiable measurements seems quite high. I'm sure there are other examples where intuition has proven to be of more value, so I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be used, especially for hypotheses. But none of that intuition made it to the published papers, it was all based on objective evidence, and the scientists admitted they were blown away (meaning surprised) by what they found being totally NOT what their intuition told them to expect.

Originally posted by Mary Rose
reply to post by -PLB-

 

1. It's not used enough.
   
2. Haramein has scientific papers and he is taken seriously by scientists who are not intimidated by the mainstream.
   

You are speaking of intuition here. In your first bullet item, you make a claim to which you have no right, since you never did learn science and have no clue as to how both problem solving and theory development work.

Your second bullet point -- Haramein's papers have nothing to do with observable reality and less with science. As I said before, I claim that Moon is made out of cheese. That goes way against "mainstream" but is a moronic statement nevertheless. Same goes for Haramein.

Originally posted by Mary Rose
It doesn't take a scientist to know that he has written scientific papers and has scientists that he works with. Right the vast majority don't take him seriously. That's a reflection of the problem I'm talking about.

Do I understand correctly that your claim that intuition is not used enough in science comes from Haramein? His papers are not accepted in the scientific community because his ideas lack experimental support and are demonstrably wrong. In other words, his work is not scientific. If that is what you want science to be like, any crackpot can start publishing any theory, and we should take all those theories equally seriously. That would not work. The current system effectively sifts out the woo, and that is a very good thing. That it sifts out too much for your liking is too bad, but since you are not a scientist thats not relevant.

What I have in mind is not scientists being reluctant to give anything up, but scientists hesitating to express their intuition for fear of ridicule.

I don't think it's the scientists who need to change. I think it's the power-brokers who control the environment scientists work in.

But I need to come up with an example to illustrate what I mean.

But like I said, this is a completely separate subject. You are talking about politics. Currently the best system we have is the secular democratic system. This includes creating an environment where science strives. The only situation I can think of where scientists were more free to experiment is Nazi Germany, where they were not really restricted by any moral code. But like you say, an example would really help, including an explanation of how to prevent that from happening.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
Your second bullet point -- Haramein's papers have nothing to do with observable reality and less with science.

Haramein is working on a unified theory which challenges the mainstream approach of looking for a fundamental particle, and, which incorporates spin. He is building on what has already been done but with a different approach.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
. . . two completely different spiritual interpretations of the same observations. . . . like they can with their objective measurements.

Objective measurements? Are you talking here about observations, or interpretation of observations?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
. . . but we thought if it slowed down a lot the universe would eventually collapse . . .

Is that what you meant to say?

Anyway, we seem to be in agreement that intuition is acceptable in mainstream science today for formulating a hypothesis.

So it’s only the discussion that takes place in interpreting results that is at issue.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
In your first bullet item, you make a claim to which you have no right, since you never did learn science and have no clue as to how both problem solving and theory development work.

Yes, I do. As a citizen of planet earth I have the right to observe and comment on the goings-on in the mainstream that affect my future. I have a stake.

Originally posted by Mary Rose

Originally posted by buddhasystem
Your second bullet point -- Haramein's papers have nothing to do with observable reality and less with science.

Haramein is working on a unified theory which challenges the mainstream approach of looking for a fundamental particle, and, which incorporates spin. He is building on what has already been done but with a different approach.

I'm building a house but I can't make it past the first layer of bricks because I suck as a mason. Everything falls apart after I lay down two or three bricks. However, I challenge the mainstream masonry. I incorporate spin into the mortar I use. I'm the greatest bricklayer ever (inside my head or what's left of it, and for a few gullible simpletons out there).

reply to post by buddhasystem


Not a valid analogy and an ad hominem thrown in, as well.

Originally posted by Mary Rose
[What I have in mind is not scientists being reluctant to give anything up, but scientists hesitating to express their intuition for fear of ridicule.

They can express intuition all they like without ridicule as long as they say that it is intuition and not science - as long as they are prepared to say that they are wondering out loud, or they think it is an ethical issue, or whatever else and clearly identify it as something that is not actually open to verifiable study.

In that case they are not dealing with science - they are dealing with ethics or some other non-scientific field which has its own rules (not that scientists shouldn't have ethics or that ethics is not worthwile - but it is simply not science)

Originally posted by Mary Rose
Objective measurements? Are you talking here about observations, or interpretation of observations?

In the expanding universe example I gave, the observations were of type 1A supernovae. The interpretation of the observations is still lacking over 12 years later, as the objective measurement was not the intuitive one predicted by hypothesis, so we call it "dark energy", where the "dark" means we don't really understand it. There are intuitive speculations about possible interpretations, but I've only seen one scientific paper that goes beyond speculation to show a mathematical interpretation (there may be others I haven't seen). That one paper by a group of mathematicians says there is an alternative explanation to the mysterious dark energy, which is that the observations made do not require "dark energy" to interpret the observations, if the Earth is at the center of the universe.

Mainstream science of course thinks there's nothing special about the place of Earth in the universe (called the "Copernican principle"):

Michael Rowan-Robinson emphasizes the importance of the Copernican principle: "It is evident that in the post-Copernican era of human history, no well-informed and rational person can imagine that the Earth occupies a unique position in the universe."

There may well be people in organized religion who would like to put the Earth back at the center of the universe, where it was before science removed it. So the spiritual and religious implications of such a possibility are profound:

Mathematicians' Alternate Model of the Universe Explains Away the Need For Dark Energy

An alternative theory eliminates dark energy by placing Earth at the center of expansion ...
For now, the mathematician duo hopes to work out a testable prediction that can truly pit theory against observation.

The authors of that paper apparently are looking for ways to make more objective observations, rather than relying on any kind of intuition, spiritual or otherwise. That's the way it should be if you ask me.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
. . . but we thought if it slowed down a lot the universe would eventually collapse . . .

Is that what you meant to say?

Yes, why?

Here's a picture showing the 1997 view of a theoretical collapse for omega (ratio of matter density to critical density) greater than one, the bottom curve which shows the collapse. The other two possibilities considered in 1997 were omega =1 and omega

Originally posted by Mary Rose
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

Not a valid analogy

Please explain. Haramein fails to explain most basic observed features of an object from get go. He effectively says the Moon is made out of cheese, in the face of evidence such as lunar soil samples. I call it an epic failure. Sic, the analogy is appropriate.

reply to post by buddhasystem

But as Haramein points out, there's a whole list of unsolved problems is physics, which he explains means that physicists don't really know what the heck they're talking about, therefore the moon rocks could really be made of cheese and scientists wouldn't even know it until they solve the unsolved problems in physics.

So according to Haramein, that list of unsolved problems in physics should more or less confirm both his theory and your cheese theory. That's pretty much the way the answer reads on his website, I kid you not.

reply to post by Mary Rose


The best I can do for an example is to post two documents, from which I'll simply propose a hypothetical situation.

This will require reading a 3 page .pdf "A Plausible Explanation of the double-slit Experiment in Quantum Physics."

The paper is about the 1989 Tonomura double-slit experiment with single electrons.

Suppose a scientist on Tonomura's team had misgivings about the experiment after it was conducted and then had a dream vividly admonishing the concept "The electron emitted is not the same as the electron detected."

reply to post by Mary Rose


then he needs to devise some method of determining whether that is the case or not.

what's the problem??

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
then he needs to devise some method of determining whether that is the case or not.

The point of the hypothetical is whether or not a team would want to consider the dream of someone on the team as a credible source of information, since it is contrary to the experimental evidence - that which was observed/perceived by everyone else on the team.

reply to post by Mary Rose


Well the answer to that is easy - no they would not. The experimental evidence is repeatable, objectively observable and measureable.

the dream is none of those things - hence the dream is simply not science.

As a starting point - and inspiration if you like - to an investigation whether the attributes dreamed about are observable it is fine.

But it is not scientific evidence in and of itself, and never can be.

I'm sure you know this and do not understand why you ask the question??