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Friday , April 11 , 2008

Laws against laws

Posted by talkfact , Reader : 301 , 19:37:05

The Oceans are full of plastic. There are regions of the oceans which look more like a soup (of plastic) than a clear sea. Why? Because plastic is not biodegradable, it resists every effort from Nature to make it a part of natural life on earth. How come? Well, the usual scenario is this: Scientists discover a law of nature. (This thing adored by Felix and Ian). Then they enter a laboratory. Here they produce, among other things, plastic. The problem with those substances, like plastic, you don’t know what happens when they enter Nature. Why? Because the substances created in the laboratory were created in 5-minutes-sessions whereas the laws of Nature have used millions of year to be created. There is not even a millisecond of possibility that those laboratory substances, created in 5-minutes-sessions, should start working harmoniously with the rest of the Nature (outside of the lab). So, we find two types of laws Natural laws, created by Nature during millions of years and Artificial laws, created in scientific laboratories during 5-minutes-sessions. Which laws would you trust? The laws of Nature developed during millions of years? Or The laws of the scientific lab, created in 5-minutes-sessions? This piece is, among other things, an answer to Felix and Ian also.

The Oceans are full of plastic. There are regions of the oceans which look more

like a soup (of plastic) than a clear sea.

Why? Because plastic is not biodegradable, it resists every effort from

Nature to make it a part of natural life on earth.

How come?

Well, the usual scenario is this: Scientists discover a law of nature. (This thing adored

by Felix and Ian). Then they enter a laboratory. Here they produce, among other things, plastic. The problem with those substances, like plastic, you don’t know what happens when they enter Nature.

Why? Because the substances created in the laboratory were created in 5-minutes-sessions whereas the laws of Nature have used millions of year to be created. There is not even a millisecond of possibility that those laboratory substances, created in 5-minutes-sessions, should start working harmoniously with the rest of the Nature (outside of the lab).

So, we find two types of laws

Natural laws, created by Nature during millions of years

and

Artificial laws, created in scientific laboratories during 5-minutes-sessions.

Which laws would you trust?

The laws of Nature developed during millions of years?

The laws of the scientific lab, created in 5-minutes-sessions?

This piece is, among other things, an answer to Felix and Ian

also.

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comment 22
narcisuss date : 13/04/2008 time : 02.17
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/narcisuss
I come in peace :)

what's this? philosophy on lsd?

comment 21
Ian date : 12/04/2008 time : 16.34
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Perfect Earlsy, another blog you have ruined, this is neither my blog nor yours, yet you choose to argue in it about personalities rather than the blog subject.
Bye bye!

comment 20
earlsy date : 12/04/2008 time : 16.01
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/secondtimearound

Thats it Ian. Whatever happens don't examine your own behaviour and see how it impacts on others...

comment 19
Ian date : 12/04/2008 time : 15.33
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

I cannot speak for Felix, but Earlsy could never be patronising to myself, he simply lacks the ability to do anything but make snide comments. His only contribution to any mature debate is to attempt to disrupt it by slinging mud at the people he doesn't like. Pathetic but that's his nature

comment 18
earlsy date : 12/04/2008 time : 15.01
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/secondtimearound

I apologise to TF if he took my comments as patronising. I really wanted to sound patronising to Ian and Felix because they were so intent on picking apart TF's blog that they did not take in the main thrust of his argument.

It is all there if you simply read with an open mind and a will to understand (not with a desire to criticise and humiliate).

comment 17
Ian date : 12/04/2008 time : 13.42
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Accepting that TF is not a native English speaker, I am still not totally sure what point he is trying to make. There seems to be a misunderstanding of the role of science. A scientist make create a new plastic by the application of the laws of chemistry, the fact that these plastics pollute the ocean is not the fault of science but the uses to which it is put.
Nature over millions of years has evolved a system of checks and balances, mankind often upsets this balance, greenhouse warming being an example. Even here universal rules still apply, it is ignoring these rules that causes the problem.
My understanding of TF's argument is that somehow the rules that science uses are seperate and distinct from those of the universe, in fact are in conflict with them, this is just not the case.

comment 16
Lalida date : 12/04/2008 time : 12.59
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/Real

TF and Felix,

It seems to me you 2 are going around in circle, can either one of you tell straight to your point instead of playing around with words?

comment 15
FelixQui date : 12/04/2008 time : 11.23
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

earlsy,
Yes, I think he did say that plastics are bad for the oceans. Neither I nor Ian have disagreed with that. However, if I understood him correctly, that is not the main point of talkfact's blog; rather, it is one example of the point he is trying to make. I admitted, and asked him to clarify, that I was not entirely sure that I had understood him correctly. Perhaps he did not understand me, either.

His main point appears to be that the whole of science is misguided and necessarily contrary to and against nature, although I'm not sure if he means nature or life when he writes "nature".

I don't mind people being non-native speakers, and I try to understand their point and comment on that, not the language. If your understanding of him is correct, then I completely misunderstood talkfact, but he's had ample opportunity to correct me; I don't think his command of English is so poor as you think it is. He could have corrected my misunderstanding had there been one. I think your comment sounds a bit patronising to taklfact.

Reading his other blogs might also help to see where he seems to be coming from.

comment 14
earlsy date : 12/04/2008 time : 11.04
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/secondtimearound

Ian, TF is not a native English speaker. Read the paragraph what starts with "Why?"

comment 13
Ian date : 12/04/2008 time : 10.31
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Earlsy, he did not say that, if he had done so it would indeed have been a good starting point for a discussion on pollution in which I would have agreed with many of his points and even added more.
He is saying the laws of science are not the laws of nature, a different argument altogether.

comment 12
earlsy date : 12/04/2008 time : 09.43
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/secondtimearound

Ian and felix. If you could stop reveling in your superiority for just a moment, maybe you could think about what TF actually said.

He said that substances like plastics created in a laboratory do not sit well in a natural environment like the sea. A good starting point for a respectful discussion about man's pollution of the natural environment...

comment 11
FelixQui date : 11/04/2008 time : 22.14
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

talkfact,
It might help if you gave a couple of examples of "laws of nature" that have developed, rather than having always been true.
The laws of evolution and the laws of motion have always been true.
What are some of the not-always true laws of nature that you have in mind?

comment 10
Ian date : 11/04/2008 time : 22.12
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Talkfact, let me try and explain it to you this way. A leaf exists, but it was created by a twig which was created by a branch which was created by the trunk. The 4 fundamental laws (we call them forces) have existed from day one. All subsequent laws derive from these basic four, to derive is not the same as to evolve, evolve means to change, the laws of nature are fixed and determined by natural constants, if any one law, no matter how trivial, was to change the universe as we know it would cease to exist.
If you ever studied basic geometry then Euclid's theorems are a perfect example how complex laws derive from simple propositions.

comment 9
FelixQui date : 11/04/2008 time : 22.08
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

talkfact,
When you say "nature" do you mean teh natural world, or just living things?
When you say "law of nature" what exactly do you mean? THe laws that govern teh natural world, the world of planets, electrons, galaxies, DNA, human brains, electricity and the rest, or just the laws that govern life?

Either way, the theory of evolution was true before ANY living thing existed. It is not a law that applies only to life on earth: it is true throughout the universe, is now, and always has been. Darwin discovered it 149 years ago, but it was working long before he realized what was going on. It was working long before anything like a life existed on this, or any other, planet. The theory of evolution is a law of nature, and like the laws of motion, and most generally the laws of the the 4 fundamental forces that Ian mentioned it has been around since the beginning of the universe.

You appear to confuse "laws of nature" with "nature", and by "nature" I guess you mean not "nature" but "life"? Is that right.

Life has existed on our planet for perhaps 3 billion years.
The laws of nature that made possible and led to that life, including us, have been in operation since the start of teh universe, several billion years earlier. The laws of chemistry, and ultimately physics, that govern what happens in cells, in their mitochondria, in their DNA, in their myriad bits and pieces, have all existed from day one. The materials that those laws work on are new. As you note, the earth has taken a long time, billions rather than millions of years, to end up looking teh way it does now. Teh mitochondria entered teh cell initially by accident, but it was a beneficial accident. It worked to enhance the cells repropduction, and so, in accord with the laws of evolution, it was reproduced. ANd has been reproduced ever since, in strict accord with the laws of evolution, which are reducible to the laws of chemistry and phsyics (everything that happens in and between cells are chemical reactions and physics), which are reducible to physics (all chemical reactions are caused by basic forces acting at the atomic level to create and modify molecules using energy), which is probably reducible to four fundamental forces. There is no need of any god, just time and teh mindless working out of the stuff in the universe according to a few set laws, some of which we now have some inkling of.

My view is fairly, though not perfectly, deterministic, but that is a very different thing to saying that everything came into being at the same time. Just the fundamental laws arrived at teh same time, and they've been working on the material to create what we see around us today: from a Big Bang (no noise and no light - they came later) to galaxies, stars, planets, oceans, rain, DNA, lions, carrots, the Grand Canyon, brains, computers, ideas, Blogs, religion, eco-systems, plastic, sunsets, rainbows, Shakespeare, Homer and all the rest of it.
Why would you say this is "a deterministic failure"?

Just to be perfectly clear: evolution took place. It is stil taking place now, and at a much more rapid pace than before because some products of evolution (us) have acquired teh understanding and technology to directly push it in new ways. We've been doing it for thousands of years, but now we have a better idea of how to intervene because of the discoveries of Darwin and his successors.

What do you mean when you say "the laws of the lab is a different thing"? What are teh laws of the lab? Can you give some examples of what you mean? It seems a confusing way to talk of laws.

Do you think that the laws of evolution did not exist before life?
Do you think that the laws of motion did not exist before there were objects for them to apply to?

comment 8
talkfact date : 11/04/2008 time : 21.39
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/jern
penfact

Felix, your comment makes me disappointed. I’m not discussing the truth
of the laws of Nature, but you have to agree they cannot have existed
from the very beginning. They have developed, haven’t they? And that’s
makes it a world of difference compared to if they had come into existence
from day 1. If you believe in Evolution you must admit it has taken million of years
before the earth came to look the way it does now. The cell didn’t exist from day 1
but you want to say that its laws existed prior to its existence? The mitochondria, for example, the centre of energy in the cell, started as a parasite attacking cells, randomly, and then
got incorporated in the cytoplasm. This changed entirely the functioning of living creatures. Do you mean to say this was planned by an omniscient God beforehand or what is it you are trying to say?
.
The laws of Nature is no more than something that has adopted to the circumstances
by and by…
Or do you mean to say the laws of Nature existed prior to Nature itself?
Strange idea, that would be..
If they existed from day 1 I gather you must have a religious faith as only
the most extreme determinist, like Ian in the 1950s, would argue they existed from day 1.

Dear Felix, you are on the wrong track, slippery ice, beware…
Your deterministic ideas about how the universe developed is a deterministic
failure. According to you no evolution took place, everything came into existence
from day 1. That’s even worse than the Bible.
I think we, and you too, have to accept that the laws of the lab is a different thing
and that’s why we face a number of severe problems today.

This piece answers all the questions you ever put forward, if you refuse to see that
I can’t help you.

comment 7
FelixQui date : 11/04/2008 time : 21.32
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

I've just made a new discovery, and it took less than a "5-minutes-session".
If you accidentally click twice on the "Send Comment" button, your comment gets posted twice. (I'm sure others have noticed this before, but did they realise the full import?)
Now, is this a new law of nature? Or is it an artifical law, and therefore not a law of nature, and necessarily contrary to and destabilising of nature? Have I unbalanced the world by making this observation? Will some scientist now use it to fiendishly flood the Chaopraya with plastic in another "5-minutes-session" quickie before supper?

comment 6
FelixQui date : 11/04/2008 time : 21.26
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

Ian,
Felix can not take up that challenge. I think it needs the late Carl Sagan, or perhaps Roger Penrose, although I suspect that at the first sign of something so artificially close to logic as mathematics, talkfact would recoil in horror.

I think I've torn my hair out enough for one day.

comment 5
FelixQui date : 11/04/2008 time : 21.26
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

comment 4
Ian date : 11/04/2008 time : 21.06
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Felix, he is not a scientific person, he is making the common mistake of thinking that the laws of nature (biology), are somehow different from the laws that govern the universe.
Now if you fancy the task of trying to explain how all the laws of physics, chemistry and biology have derived from the 4 fundamental forces that came a few milliseconds after the Big Bang, you are welcome.
I will watch in awe

comment 3
FelixQui date : 11/04/2008 time : 20.49
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/FelixQui

taklfact,
You wrote "the laws of Nature have used millions of year to be created". Can you give any meaning to this that is not your usual drivel?
What do you mean that "the laws of Nature have used millions of year to be created"? Most people think that they began with the universe, or very shortly (less than a second or so) thereafter. What could it mean, for example, to say that the well known law that the force on an object is proportional to the acceleration applied to it and the mass of the object (F=ma) took milions of years to be created? Do you mean it has only recently become so, and that in the known past some other relationship existed between force, mass and acceleration of moving objects? Do you have any reason for such an interesting belief, if that is the correct interpretation of what you wrote?
Please, please explain what you meant.

"5-minutes-sessions" Well, it took us until Newton to actually come to know the example I quoted above. And I'm not sure that he worked it out in a five minute session. I'm not sure how much lab work he did either. Do you think that law is not in harmony with nature? Has it unbalanced things? And do you mean the law is artificial and no longer a law of science anyway because a human being has now worked it out? That would mean there could not be any known law of science: on your peculiar definition it would be impossible for anyone to ever know a law of science, because as soon as it became known, it would an artificial law and no longer a law of science.

I guess that means there is no longer any gravity either (Newton also did some nice work on that, though much modified in teh last hundred years), which is perhaps why you have completely floated off the planet.

You have not answered any of teh questions I've asked in comments on your other drivelling blogs. If you think you have answered something now, please explain yourself a little more clearly and answer teh questions I've asked above.

comment 2
Ian date : 11/04/2008 time : 20.19
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

I won't bother to discuss your basic premise, there is little point. I will give you two fact, one supports you the other does not .... that is true science.

The island of Midway in the pacific is vanishing under a sea of plastic, it is the convergence point of several ocean currents.

Nature helped by biologists have already bred strains of bacteria that actively digest plastics.

comment 1
Lalida date : 11/04/2008 time : 19.49
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/Real

TF,

I trust The laws of Nature developed during millions of years?

It's unpredictable and non changeable.

The laws of the scientific lab, created in 5-minutes-sessions?

It's predictable and changeable.

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