atheism VS theism part 3

Once again welcome to my blog. This time I will answer the responses posted by controinfo to my previous blog. I have to begin by saying most of those responses were somewhat disappointing. To begin with is an attack on a position I never held. I never said anywhere in my blog that the development of language isn’t a complicated thing to understand or that it isn’t intriguing or anything remotely like that. I never said understanding the development of language isn’t an object of science either, so I’m not sure where it is that controinfo is getting that from. I meant exactly what I said: That language is like a tool to grasp something about reality. It seems rather pointless to respond word by word to his blog as controinfo’s response seems all over the place and not very clear, but I will answer the main concepts. The only fairly tangible concept in the first part of the response is the idea that objects become properties, as though there was a parallel between quantum mechanics and the difficulty that we find in describing terms like “cat” and “dog”. I’ve heard it said by others as well that when discussing in a conversation we don’t really know if both the people involved are meaning the same things. For example: Two people say that “the car is blue”. The argument is the following: the meaning of the word blue to the first individual could in theory be a completely different one than for second person. More or less it’s a semantic argument. Now lets analyze the actual stupidity of such a statement. Let’s say that person #1 asks person #2 to meet them the next day at 3:00 pm at the park. The next day both of individuals show up. If there was a problem of identity or the meaning of terms we would have found problems in our communication. The point is that objects in the physical world are easier to define because we are able to understand each other at same level. (Such as when two people decide to meet at a park at the same time). This pseudo-intellectual argument seems to say that we can’t really know whether or not either person really understood to meet at the same time and somehow both managed to be there by chance. That really is some bullshit if I’ve ever heard any..,and bullshit easily surpassed by a simple discussion of probability. A simple statistical analysis of the probability of both people to find themselves at the same place at a specific time is all that is needed to acceptably demostrate beyond any statistically reasonable doubt that there is sufficient meaning in words to be useful for us. In the end, the problem of meaning in the context in which it was proposed is more a semantic problem than a scientific one. In quantum mechanics the problem doesn’t seem to be one involving a difficulty in understanding the terms particle or wave. Those are well-defined macroscopic states of matter. It involves trying to describe physical reality even at the quantum level, in terms of the macroscopic world. Unfortunately, the discussion about how to define 'dog' and 'cat', is one that occurs within a Newtonian construct of space and time. Despite the foreseeable objection of Controinfo that he is discussing the emergence of problems (i.e., the semantic problem of meaning) in the world from first principles, Controinfo’s discussion is assuming that whatever meaning can be given to the term 'dog', it applies to some object that is somewhere in space at some moment of time. How could one go outside such a framework and discuss 'thing' in a way that doesn't involve a space-time assumption of 'things'? In other words, how do we talk about an object without ASSUMING that it is somewhere in our universe as time passes? Well, we probably don't yet know how to have such a discussion. Therefore, when trying to interpret what quantum mechanics produces, we end up mixing together properties that we normally ascribe to DIFFERENT objects in our macroscopic world. But, this is wrong because the macroscopic world in which things exist in space as time goes by, results from an "emergence" of properties of things as space and time "emerge" from whatever they are at the quantum, non-classical level. The problem of how space and time emerge is a difficult one whose nature cannot be remotely obvious to people that are outside of theoretical physics. The statement that objects "have become properties", is not much more than a vague, failed, semi-poetic attempt at paralleling the problems of semantics with those of physics, a way of trying to explain quantum superposition in terms of the classical Newtonian viewpoint. If you want to deal with the concepts that arise in modern science, you have to understand something about the theory and how we are forced to it by experimental evidence. In short, the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics stem from ignoring what modern physics tells us about space and time and so it is not surprising that many non-scientists and non-philosophers of science end up banging their heads against the wall, trying to find parallels with religion and mysticism that have nothing to do with the space-time issues that serve as barrier to our understanding of things like quantum superposition. If you try to force the quantum state to tell you about how 'things' are in space at a given moment of time, then you will get quantum superposition. If we were capable of addressing the microscopic world in a way that doesn't force a description of properties in this space-time framework (which we don't yet have), then we would expect to find a completely issue-free interpretation of the state of the system and the apparent paradoxes of quantum superposition would vanish. But, as stated previously, we don't yet know what space and time are like at the quantum level. Now to the question of creativity. Controinfo has come up with a thought experiment in which he uses the principles of special relativity to suggest a way in which general relativity might emerge. Using the term bullshit to characterize this train of thought is an understatement.The idea that Einstein exercised "creativity" in the sense of a painter with an empty canvas is another typically ridiculous fallacy. The theory of special relativity is simply what results once you understand the implications of Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism which speaks to the absence of preferred reference frames. This technical statement is meant to express the idea that Einstein was not being creative. He was following the inevitable line of reasoning he was forced to by one theory that was already well supported experimentally (Maxwell's). With special relativity in place, general relativity is what results from applying the equivalence principle to accelerated frames. This other technical statement also expresses the notion that very specific theoretical requirements needed to be met for a logically coherent theory to emerge. The equivalence principle is a precise prescription for how general relativity must be, given the equivalence of gravity and acceleration. Again, the kind of thinking going on here was not of the form "uhm...let's make a nice theory of the universe in a way that we like" - type scenario. I found it amusing that Controinfo is making claims about relativity and what Einstein’s mindset was, based on the fact he watched a show on the history channel that most likely was not longer than an hour. Even if we were to ignore all I’ve just said, I already explained in the past blog that even if creativity was more of a factor than it was, science has a framework to turn that creativity into productivity. This goes beyond any kind of speculation and fantasizing I already discussed in my previous blog. One of the problems is that controinfo is confusing creativity with endless speculating and fantasizing. Controinfo’s response wasn’t so much a response as repeating points which I had already refuted. Controinfo’s constant attempt to create some common link between scientific thinking and religious thinking shows a lack of understanding (and even ignorance) in regards to both.