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| Thread: Immortality and the definition of life |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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ohforfsake
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posted September 15, 2009 10:47 PM |
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@JollyJoker
There are also other forces than gravity, we do not know what makes the universe expand (we haven't be able to describe the force acceptable yet), but we do know it's quite certain it does expand.
I remember before quantum mechanics, and before the idea of the nuclear forces, then according to gravity the life of a atom (the electron moving around the nucleus) would be very very short lived, simply because according to gravity the electron should fall very fast towards the center.
After we found out about quantum mechanics (and the nuclear forces) this was described to an acceptable degree. Likewise in the future we probably have an acceptable theory of why the universe on a large scale (like on the very small scale, an atom) differs from the local enviromnet (Earth) which we're in.
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JollyJoker
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posted September 15, 2009 11:03 PM |
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Yea, I know that, and that's what I say: we don't know that much which is realy definite. That's why we should be careful with what we assume as "certain".
And it's in no way certain that the universe doesn't gain mass. I mean, the standard model doesn't explain where the mass that is there has been coming from - how could it claim, then, it would be constant?
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TheDeath
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posted September 15, 2009 11:25 PM |
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The nuclear forces have nothing to do with keeping an electron in orbit, they are about keeping the nucleus together (hence nuclear), and the electron is not part of the nucleus 
Gravity is too weak to pull an electron towards a proton -- eventually they will repel each other much more strongly than gravity can pull them together because the electromagnetic force is much stronger.
@JJ: it's not just space that is expanding, matter is as well. It's not like only at the boundary new space is created or something -- that is NOT observable. We OBSERVE stars and galaxies going further away from us (at least according to redshift). This means that the whole Universe & space is expanding.
It is like "scaling" the whole thing (a 3D transformation). Eventually (a long time) atoms will be split apart by several meters, since everything is SCALING/EXPANDING (but the atom itself is not, only the SPACE between it and electrons is etc...).
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ohforfsake
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posted September 15, 2009 11:54 PM |
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Quote:
The nuclear forces have nothing to do with keeping an electron in orbit, they are about keeping the nucleus together (hence nuclear), and the electron is not part of the nucleus
Gravity is too weak to pull an electron towards a proton -- eventually they will repel each other much more strongly than gravity can pull them together because the electromagnetic force is much stronger.
This is very off topic, but you should be aware that electron and protons attract eachother as they've an opposite charge.
Beside magnetism wasn't anything new in the 1920's yet at that point it made no sense for the world that electrons could orbit the atomic nucleus.
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TheDeath
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posted September 16, 2009 12:05 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
The nuclear forces have nothing to do with keeping an electron in orbit, they are about keeping the nucleus together (hence nuclear), and the electron is not part of the nucleus
Gravity is too weak to pull an electron towards a proton -- eventually they will repel each other much more strongly than gravity can pull them together because the electromagnetic force is much stronger.
This is very off topic, but you should be aware that electron and protons attract eachother as they've an opposite charge.
Beside magnetism wasn't anything new in the 1920's yet at that point it made no sense for the world that electrons could orbit the atomic nucleus.
Sorry I was trying to say proton and proton (because without nuclear forces, they would repel each other much more strongly than gravity). I should review my posts before/after posting them
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posted September 16, 2009 12:45 AM |
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Guys, guys, guys, there's so much wrong here it's no wonder you can't have a productive conversation.
Examples just on this page:
Gravity isn't why a classical atom would collapse; emission of energy via electromagnetism is the primary reason. [see: J Chem. Ed. 1983 (40-42)].
And electrons have no fixed positions. They don't "orbit" anything.
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pei
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posted September 16, 2009 03:37 AM |
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Proof it
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JollyJoker
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posted September 16, 2009 07:47 AM |
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Quote:
@JJ: it's not just space that is expanding, matter is as well. It's not like only at the boundary new space is created or something -- that is NOT observable. We OBSERVE stars and galaxies going further away from us (at least according to redshift). This means that the whole Universe & space is expanding.
It is like "scaling" the whole thing (a 3D transformation). Eventually (a long time) atoms will be split apart by several meters, since everything is SCALING/EXPANDING (but the atom itself is not, only the SPACE between it and electrons is etc...).
Exactly. That's why nothing is "pulling" or "warping", and that's why the universe isn't expanding because of gravitational effects.
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TheDeath
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posted September 16, 2009 03:30 PM |
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Exactly. That's why nothing is "pulling" or "warping", and that's why the universe isn't expanding because of gravitational effects.
You're right, but I never said that it's expanding because of gravity -- actually gravity would contract it (i.e it is the opposite effect). Whatever the reason it expands, it must be much stronger than the gravity since it expands (not contracts or stays still). 
Anyway I think this was a bit off topic.
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JollyJoker
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posted September 16, 2009 03:48 PM |
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What you said was that the universe isn't gaining matter, and you have no reason to say so. For unknown reasons the universe is getting bigger - gaining space - and there is no reason in the world to assume that it would not gain matter as well.
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TheDeath
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posted September 16, 2009 03:55 PM |
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Well partly true. I said that it's irrelevant whether it gains matter or not -- because clearly, the gravity increase (more matter means more gravity) is not enough to keep it from expanding, so "Big Freeze" is inevitable even if matter is being created. That was the initial point actually. 
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JollyJoker
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posted September 16, 2009 04:13 PM |
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Death, that's an assumption based on actually NOTHING.
Since you have not the slightest idea what MAKES the universe CURRENTLY expanding, you haven't got any idea either, whether the expansion will endlessly go on this way or not. The effect may slow down or cease altogether - there is just no way to tell at this point with the information available.
Don't you see that?
If you have no idea what causes an effect - on what will you base a prediction about its further development?
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TheDeath
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posted September 16, 2009 04:29 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 16:48, 16 Sep 2009.
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If you have no idea what causes an effect - on what will you base a prediction about its further development?
It's called extrapolation JJ. If you have a set of data you can extrapolate and predict the future based on the current data.
The bold part is important: of course it can abruptly change, but there is no reason to assume that -- it CAN do that just as there can be an afterlife. However that is not based on anything (well afterlife at least is based on religion/whatever ). The current expansion model, at least, is based on something: extrapolating current data.
One example to do so (and popular) would be to create a polynomial with the least squares differences method from the data. It is extensively used in research in all areas, and speaking from experience with software programming myself.
PS: theoretically speaking -- and any scientist must admit this or he's no scientist (but a dogmatic person) -- everything science-related must be able to be disputed, and that means, we must not assume that we know ANYTHING about 'what causes something' as certain truth, because if we do that, we take a dogmatic approach.
Rather, until data or evidence is put to the table, we'll "assume" that the extrapolation we make is correct. Even the judicial system works this way (of course without extrapolation but still assumption on guilt ).
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mvassilev
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posted September 16, 2009 04:46 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
If you have no idea what causes an effect - on what will you base a prediction about its further development?
It's called extrapolation JJ. If you have a set of data you can extrapolate and predict the future based on the current data.
A bit off-topic, but I once used this very argument, and you criticised my for it quite heavily.
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TheDeath
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posted September 16, 2009 04:49 PM |
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A bit off-topic, but I once used this very argument, and you criticised my for it quite heavily.
Well probably where you used it, I was using a different perspective (i.e not hardcore scientific one), but I don't remember so I could be wrong.
(I also edited my post, fixed a missing word, again big mistake, as "least squares method" makes no sense, it actually is "least squares differences method" lol).
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JollyJoker
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posted September 16, 2009 04:51 PM |
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Death, that isn't right - or at least not scientifical.
Extrapolation is fine - but only if you have an idea what causes effects.
Take for example the weather.
If you had not the slightest idea what was causing the weather - let's say you lived somewhere in Romania about 6000 years ago. After watching the weather 6 weeks, would you be able to make a halfway correct prediction by extrapolation. How about 6 months? 12? 10 years? now think in bigger dimensions: based on current info, can you predict the general weather in 100 years?
What about standing at a shore watching a couple of hours of the tides? Strange extrapolations, actually, if you have no idea what is causing the tides.
And so on.
Extrapolation of effects you have no idea what is causing them is just speculation.
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TheDeath
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posted September 16, 2009 05:04 PM |
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But neither having an idea guarantees it's true either. None of this is theoretical -- the theory happens when the prediction comes true. For example, a guru can have all the elaborate ideas about the Universe he wants, but if he doesn't predict anything, then it doesn't pass the stage of hypothesis into theory: a theory is something that has successfully predicted something.
Theories can, of course, be refined, in fact this is the backbone of science. They can even be scrapped totally. But that's when they fail to predict things (within a measure of error obviously), not before that.
For example, in this scenario, we can predict what the expansion of the Universe will be in 5 minutes. This means it's a theory -- not very explained one but that has nothing to do with it (explanation is just human concept of grabbing some understanding, not scientifical analysis). It does predict stuff -- we can assume it will predict in a lot of future years.
While obviously this is a bold claim and I do not say it may necessarily be this way, it does pass prediction tests so it is a theory. At least currently, but hey, refining is what makes science tick.
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JollyJoker
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posted September 16, 2009 05:15 PM |
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Please, death. It's like you seeing a very small part of a graph and you try to extrapolate the limes of it.
It just doesn't work, and it just doesn't ever leave the realm of SPECULATION. It says, IF, nothing changes, THEN we can predict this and that.
But since no one has any idea what is actually going on and WHY, it's an IF without any REAL foundation. It has a religious quality: you could just as well say, IF there is an afterlife, we are probably immortal anyway.
In short, you cannot base a point on it.
In fact, it's exactly the opposite way: BECAUSE you cannot make any prediction currently of what will happen in our very far future, immortality becomes interesting since you might simply SEE for yourself, instead of juggling evidence around.
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TheDeath
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posted September 16, 2009 05:24 PM |
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It just doesn't work, and it just doesn't ever leave the realm of SPECULATION. It says, IF, nothing changes, THEN we can predict this and that.
How's that different from:
IF something changes, THEN we can't predict it.
On the other hand, that assumption doesn't even have data for it.
Like I said before having an "idea" isn't measurable, that's not necessarily a scientific analysis -- it's just comforting for humans. The ONLY way to actually pass a prediction is to happen WHEN it happens -- like say, predicting the expansion in 5 minutes. We'll have to wait and test it in 5 minutes for that. The more predictions made, usually it strengthens a theory (even though this is subjective of course).
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you could just as well say, IF there is an afterlife, we are probably immortal anyway.
not quite as this one does make predictions. We are right no spot if we count a few minutes from now for example.
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BECAUSE you cannot make any prediction currently of what will happen in our very far future, immortality becomes interesting since you might simply SEE for yourself, instead of juggling evidence around.
Or it is a dream that will be crushed by Big Freeze?
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JollyJoker
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posted September 16, 2009 07:57 PM |
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It just doesn't work, and it just doesn't ever leave the realm of SPECULATION. It says, IF, nothing changes, THEN we can predict this and that.
How's that different from:
IF something changes, THEN we can't predict it.
If you know what causes an effect you can PREDICT whether there will be changes or not, how the changes will be, if any, and how they will influence things.
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