Sept. 26: FSM Comic Day

[Gengar003]

I am only going to continue to push my key point, because the majority of your logic is flawed, and worse, you appear to be parroting what we say, and then restating your own position regardless. You deny my entire arguement, and then ask me to give my arguement. You're sounding a lot like Van Douchebag, minus the swearing.

Which is exactly what I'm hearing YOU doing. Obviously, we're not communicating effectively.

Also, I find that my arguments about the edge of the universe as a whole and the "outside" interacting,

and the argument that says because they touch they'll both end up under the same set of laws, oil/water, super/subclass,

being refuted by the VERY STATEMENTS I DESIGNED THEM TO ARGUE AGAINST. And I have no better reply than to assume you missed the point and reiterate my arguments in those cases, making YOU think I'm just restating the original premise.

You guys are saying that there is not necessarily any reason to believe the outside/inside interact, and if they do there's no reason to belive they obey the same set of physical laws. I am trying to PROVIDE a reason, arrived at logically based on my knowledge of science and the assumptions we've arrived at in this thread. It does not make sense to refute a reason for an unexplainable phenomena with the fact that the phenomena is unexplainable.

So, were you missing the point, and do you get it now, or am I missing some point that you need to point out to me?

Apparently we're both too religious about our allegedly logical/scientific beliefs to see the other side.

You have made a DECISION to SELECTIVELY deny the possibility of LOGICAL solutions to the situation at hand, because you HAVE DIFFICULTY ACCEPTING the concept.

Yes. But not a religious difficulty,. To me, "Nothingness" though I do grasp the concept that it has no volume, no content, and is utter lack of existence, still will "exist." Because otherwise, there isn't any nothingness.

And again on selectively ignoring a point? Not ignoring so much as not going into. I'm arguing FOR a specific position here. Usually, when people do that, they don't argue their counterpoints. Though I *did* point out a way in which my theory could be flawed. If YarpsDat's statement on the behavior of dark matter was correct, then the whole point I was arguing is flawed. I kind of lost sight of my objective -- I didn't mean to be pushing a point, but to be constantly challenging anything you guys could say to foster discussion and hopefully eventually better understanding.

However, as you pointed out, we seemed to slip into a rut. One of us made a point the other couldn't (or wouldn't) grasp. That person, then, decided that the first one missed THEIR point, and reisterated it. Then the other person did, and back and forth. I did not mean for this to happen, and I apologize. We still don't understand each other's arguments, though, but I guess we should stop trying for a while. (Understand what they are, maybe, but if we truly understood the arguments, since we both seem dogmatically (though in the name of logic/science) convinced that we're right, we must not be understanding the others' and the other must not be understanding ours.)

But since nothingness seems to be a big issue, let's try this:

Think of a shoe box, or a package box Something medium-sized. Inside the box is nonexistence, the "nothingnesss" that's outside the universe, if there is an outside and it's nothing (which if yarpsdat's dark matter/energy statement it true, there shouldn't be).

What happens if you shove a stake perpindicular to one of the sidese of the box right through the middle?

What happens if you saw through the box, starting at the top and going parallel to the ground?

What happens if you open it and stick your hand in?

[LibertyCabbage]

A reminder that for ppl who haven't done theirs yet, you have this weekend to do it.

[Gengar003]

*points at self*

[Rkolter]

I am only going to continue to push my key point, because the majority of your logic is flawed, and worse, you appear to be parroting what we say, and then restating your own position regardless. You deny my entire arguement, and then ask me to give my arguement. You're sounding a lot like Van Douchebag, minus the swearing.

Which is exactly what I'm hearing YOU doing. Obviously, we're not communicating effectively.

GAAAAH I KILLZ JOOO!!!!!111!!ONE111!!

*cough* Sorry.

Yes. But not a religious difficulty,. To me, "Nothingness" though I do grasp the concept that it has no volume, no content, and is utter lack of existence, still will "exist." Because otherwise, there isn't any nothingness.

... I... that's just... wrong. Except the last sentence - Because otherwise, there isn't any nothingness. Which is exactly my point. There isn't any nothingness, by your definition of it. Heh. How is that for "strange science psychobabble"?

But since nothingness seems to be a big issue, let's try this:

Think of a shoe box, or a package box Something medium-sized. Inside the box is nonexistence, the "nothingnesss" that's outside the universe, if there is an outside and it's nothing (which if yarpsdat's dark matter/energy statement it true, there shouldn't be).

What happens if you shove a stake perpindicular to one of the sidese of the box right through the middle?

What happens if you saw through the box, starting at the top and going parallel to the ground?

What happens if you open it and stick your hand in?

But you see, what is in the shoebox is not "the nothingness that's outside the universe" because the shoebox contains volume. You cannot use this as an example because you are comparing apples to oranges. If you shove a stake through the box, it will punch out the other side, but that's because there is a volume for the stake to move through.

But let's take your example... assume you do have a shoebox with true nothingness in it.

You shove a stake through it: the stake immediately punctures the bottom of the box. The amount of stake that appears to be in the box is equal only to the width of the cardboard top and bottom - unlike a regular shoebox where there would be part of a stake inside the box, this shoebox would act more like a thick piece of paper, concealing none of the stake.

You look through the box - you see the opposite side as if no interveneing volume within the box existed. The other side doesn't appear to be a few inches away, but immediately next to the side you're looking through.

You put your hand in the box. Or, you try to. When you open the lid and put your hand in you immediately feel the resistance of the bottom of the box, with your hand having not moved into the box at all, for it contains no volume with which to conceal your hand.

Take it further - the universe is expanding because the space between each point and each other point is expanding. However, as there are no points within your shoe box, your shoe box does not expand with the rest of the universe (ignoring the matter of the shoebox itself of course). Eventually the universe dies a heat death, and the only object left floating in it is this curious shoebox that contains no space/time within it.

My point - Nothingness is not actually something in this case. It's not like a perfect vaccum. A perfect vaccum still has space/time within it. It can be contained (like a regular shoebox) things can be put into it. You can see into it (even if there is nothing to see). There isn't an analog of "the absence of everything including spacetime" within our universe.

[Warren]

But let's take your example... assume you do have a shoebox with true nothingness in it.

You shove a stake through it: the stake immediately punctures the bottom of the box. The amount of stake that appears to be in the box is equal only to the width of the cardboard top and bottom - unlike a regular shoebox where there would be part of a stake inside the box, this shoebox would act more like a thick piece of paper, concealing none of the stake.

You look through the box - you see the opposite side as if no interveneing volume within the box existed. The other side doesn't appear to be a few inches away, but immediately next to the side you're looking through.

You put your hand in the box. Or, you try to. When you open the lid and put your hand in you immediately feel the resistance of the bottom of the box, with your hand having not moved into the box at all, for it contains no volume with which to conceal your hand.

Take it further - the universe is expanding because the space between each point and each other point is expanding. However, as there are no points within your shoe box, your shoe box does not expand with the rest of the universe (ignoring the matter of the shoebox itself of course). Eventually the universe dies a heat death, and the only object left floating in it is this curious shoebox that contains no space/time within it.

My point - Nothingness is not actually something in this case. It's not like a perfect vaccum. A perfect vaccum still has space/time within it. It can be contained (like a regular shoebox) things can be put into it. You can see into it (even if there is nothing to see). There isn't an analog of "the absence of everything including spacetime" within our universe.

Whoa... I think I might sorta get this one....

[YarpsDat]

When I say "the universe," I mean "the visible universe," yes, but I also assume that, since I've assumed the universe as a whole will one day stop expanding, it will one day ALL be visible (nevermind that there'd be nothing to see).

Well

Primo: you haven't proven it will stop expanding. BTW, most of current theories claim the expansion will be accelerating.
Secundo: even if the expansion was to stop, the universe could have been infinite to start with. And visible universe will always stay finite, as we've proven a while ago.
Tertio: Apparently you do not understand the term visible universe.
"Visible universe" reffers to the part of time-space, that's available to us for observation. Note, it's time-space, not just space. It's that backward/downward cone part in the 4 dimentional chicken picture.
For example- sun 4 thousands years ago belongs to our visible universe- we can measure many things about it by the traces left in the ice caps, on the trees and buncha other things by examining the samples.
sun 8 minutes ago belongs to our visible universe- you can measure it's properties by looking out of the window.
sun 1 minute ago DOES NOT belong to our visible universe. Perhaps it turned black, or went nova one minute ago, we won't know it untill one minute passes.
Even if our little solar system was the whole universe, the visible universe wouldn't be covering the whole thing!!!

If the universe is NOT infinite in volume, [...], then when you reached the "edge" of it, what would you find if you went beyond?

You think you've proven the universe is finite, which you've not.
But even if you make that as an assumption, you're still wrong.
Even if the universe was finite, it wouldn't need to have an edge.

*sigh*
It's really unfortunate the bigger part of the population suffers "brain shutdown" the moment anything resembling math is involved.
And unfortunately, the universe, at both small scales (quantum mechanics), and large scales (general relativity), doesn't follow the "common sence" as developped by observing the moderate scales- as a result, to explain some details of the modern science, you need some math.
Or one could try to explain using a model- thus reffering to the comon sence, but one need to be caureful with that- more about it later.


The real disaster happens when people who do not understand the basics, are producing gibberish because to them (unable to tell real math from non-math due to the brain shut down syndrome) it sounds just like the real thing.

We could theorize that dark matter is dark because it's a whole new class of antimater, blahblahblah "edge" blahblahblah "outside"

That's like posting

Perhaps are 4 more blood groups: AB,AC, C and CC!

Except the later is obviously wrong (common sence), while explaining why the former is ridiculous requires you to use terms that sound dangerously math-like thus inducing a brain shutdown in the person.
After they recover from the shut down, they go back to proclaiming: "I still believe this or that, because I think that *repost the gibberish* and that's how I feel it may be"


Let's take your repeated saying "If the universe is finite, what lies beyond the edge", repeadetly using oil+water example to prove "there MUST be an edge, and there MUST be interaction"
You're using a 3 dimentional euclidean example to argue universal laws about 4 dimentional non-eucliedan case.
Sorry to say that, but you're like a medieval artist, trying to convey volume without even knowing about perspective.
Ocassionally you get a detail or two right, but overall, it's rather sad thing to watch.


How could I explain it to you?
To explain all detail I'd need to put you through half year course on multidimentional manifolds. And the prerequisites, like vector spaces, matrix algebrae...
Alternatively I could use a simplified model. But a problem about a model is that it is _simplified_- it explains some features of the theory, and you need another model to explain the other ones. And when using a model you need to rememer which features it explains and which it does not, and also what parts of the model represent the elements of reality, and which do not.
Model doesn't show the whole theory, and hence, there's a risk of misunderstandning.

For example the baloon model is the very model used to explain how universe can expand without an "edge" and without an "outside" to expand into.
The baloon's surface represents the universe, as the baloon inflates the space around every point is expanding away from that point. All the dots are moving apart... yet there is no "edge"- the dots aren't moving into any "outside", it's just that the space they rest on is expanding- the amount of space INSIDE the universe is increasing, but it's not because the universe is stealing space from some OUTSIDE.
The air inside is just a side effect of the modelness- it's there just to make the expansion possible, it represents nothing.
But you misunderstood it.
You thought the important parts of the model were the baloon's inside, that it represented the universe, and the air in there was some matter being added to universe. While in fact these were the irrevelant parts.
And you failed to realize the lack of center, edge and outside, that the model is all about!



Apparently, the baloon example, is too complicated for you to understand, so look here for something simplier:

That's a one-dimentional universe.
It started at t=0, in the red spot at the middle.
Then it started expanding, and after one year galaxies and stars formed. For the next few years the stars and galaxies are moving apart, though gravity creates some attraction here and there.

Okay, what can you say about that universe?

Is it finite? Yes.
Is it expanding? Yes.
Does it have an "edge"? No.
Is there an "ouside" and "inside"? No. (The areas that might look outsude and inside are in fact the future and the past)

And that's it. You spend a lot of time trying to assign properties to the "outside" (eg. that it obeys some laws of our physics), but you fail to realize the outside does not have to exist.
It "could" exist, why not, just like the chicken singularity, but the Ockham's razor suggest we shouldn't bother worrying about either.
You could as well assign laws of physics to flying pink elephants, which would at least be funny.

Nonexistence, if present, exists. It's mind-boggling. It's confusing.

And you probably think you're sounding smart. Right?

Just because we can't explain it's gibberish in a way you'd understand, doesn't make it right.
Reffer to the mind shutdown syndrome described earlier.

I just said that nonexistance WAS something, a "lack," which it couldn't be if it didn't exist.

Now you're just playing with semantics.
Some things do not exists, hence "nonexistence" exists- it's a 12 letter word in english, starting with n, which can be used to describe state or quality of being non-existent.
But then you use it to argue a physical entity/place, relating to that word exists.
And then you even say that "it doesn't make sence, yet it has to be so"
It's incorrect- if it doesn't make sence, it can't be so.
That's commonly known as "Reductio at absurdem"- you assumed something you called nonexistence exits, but the qualities of the obiect lead to logical contradiction (not making sence), hence the oryginal assumption ("nonexistence exists") must be false.
QED.
Unless of course, you can define the nonexistence in a way that's not internally contradictent.

Using words to accurately describe it is pointless[...] It doesn't make sense, yet it has to be so.

Woah! That's a pseudo-science gambit I haven't seen before!
"My brilliant scientific theory is so innovative even I don't understand it! Hence, I can't explain it in all detail, and hence all you can refute are my imperfect explanations, but my perfect theory remains true!!!"

I'm arguing FOR a specific position here. Usually, when people do that, they don't argue their counterpoints.

Umm. This is science, not politics.
You can't argue FOR a specific position just disregarding the evidence to the contrary.
For example you can't reasonably argue "There is no energy conservation rule, because the plants grow out of small seeds, and then produce new seeds. In that process energy is created out of nothing because one seed can create any number of them with no cost at all" without considering the counterpoints like ground and sun that deliver the energy and materials to the plant.

Discuss!

I'm kinda tired of "Discussing" cosmology when the other party hasn't even read one page explaining basic misconceptions about the subject.
Want to "Discuss!"?
Here's a homework for you (should be easy enough):
1) RTFM
2) prove the following quote wrong, for example using a quote from the FAQ

"dark energy -- the energy density (energy per unit volume) remains approximately constant, while the volume increases as the universe expands, so the total dark energy increases.", hence our universe is not a closed system.

If you fail to do so, I'll assume you haven't read the page, or haven't put an effort into understanding it, hence rendering the further discussion pointless.

[Rkolter]

For the record - I'm hinging my arguement on one small piece of this whole thing because I think it's a key point.

YarpsDat is pointing out a lot of other things; some I saw and didn't comment on, others I didn't really notice until he mentioned them. But YarpsDat's arguements are scientifically accurate, and I'll ditto them pretty much in whole.

The only things I'd point out:

sun 1 minute ago DOES NOT belong to our visible universe. Perhaps it turned black, or went nova one minute ago, we won't know it untill one minute passes.

The earth's 8.xxx minutes from the sun. If the sun went nova or vanished or whatever one minute ago, it wouldn't be part of our visible universe for seven minutes, not one. Just didn't want that to become a point of contention.

Does the universe have an edge? No.

Just a better explanation, maybe...

An easier way imho to think of it is like this - The Earth is roughly 25,000 miles in circumfrence and 12 thousand miles in diameter. If you walk in a straight line, you will traverse the entire circumfrence of the earth and end up where you started. This is because the earth is curved. Although there is always a place where the sky and earth meet, you'll never get to that edge, because that edge really doesn't exist.

The same is true of the universe. The universe is curved. It's probably not a sphere - in fact the prevailing theories have it be soccer ball shaped or saddle shaped, but the point is, it is still curved. If you walk the entire circumfrence of the universe, you will never find an edge, and end up where you started. Like the Edge of the Earth that sailors feared but really doesn't exist, the Edge of the Universe really doesn't exist either.

I'm arguing FOR a specific position here. Usually, when people do that, they don't argue their counterpoints.

Umm. This is science, not politics.

Seconded in full. I actually said the same words aloud when I read this statement, gengar003.

[Gengar003]

Perhaps are 4 more blood groups: AB,AC, C and CC!

In a way, yes. And even if it is absurd, it made you think. Maybe you don't put much weight on the thinking it inspired, perhaps because you're convinced you're right and I'm wrong. Maybe you are right. I'm not trying to teach astrophysics, I'm not trying to show off as some brilliant mind, I'm trying to make you all think.

I picked the word "antimatter" not for its actual meaning but for its literal meaning "anti-matter," not matter, opposite of matter. I should have clarified; but it was the first thing that came to my mind when I pictured matter and energy dying out and being "reborn" as inversely massive/energetic dark energy/matter. Perhaps "phoenix matter"

But that's not relevant; it's based on NO scientific fact, so ignore my phoenix matter hypothesis.

Nonexistence, if present, exists. It's mind-boggling. It's confusing.

And you probably think you're sounding smart. Right?

Just because we can't explain it's gibberish in a way you'd understand, doesn't make it right.
Reffer to the mind shutdown syndrome described earlier.

Actually, no, I was trying to communicate that YES, I understand its inherent contradiction (you mention this later).

Unless of course, you can define the nonexistence in a way that's not internally contradictent.

I need a word that means that something is present, though not necessarily in any physical (= physics, not physical like hard object) way. I'll use "is" or "being" or "present."

Nonexistence DOES NOT EXIST. (Yes, my original statement that it does could have been better worded as this) It's nonexistence; that's what it does, that's what makes it special. But it could be present somewhere.

Most people, me included, would say that it exists because of this; Something's present? It exists. You're then left with something that doesn't exist, existing, which makes no sense on just about any level, which is what you point out.

What I'm saying, or rather hypothesizing, is the presence, somewhere, of a state of nonexistence where nothing can exist.

That better?

Using words to accurately describe it is pointless[...] It doesn't make sense, yet it has to be so.

Woah! That's a pseudo-science gambit I haven't seen before!
"My brilliant scientific theory is so innovative even I don't understand it! Hence, I can't explain it in all detail, and hence all you can refute are my imperfect explanations, but my perfect theory remains true!!!"

Hee, hee, I actually quite like using that principle, but only jokingly with my irl friends. What I was getting at was that (like saying nonexistence exists, even though it doesn't exist, because that's what nonexistence is, the existence of something that doesn't exist) it is VERY difficult to describe a complex, abstract concept like nonexistance using the words in our language. I was trying to say that if you ignored the inherent contradictions that seemed to be there because of our words' muddying it up, one could grasp my description of it. Which, as I said above, is:

Nonexistence DOES NOT EXIST. It's nonexistence; that's what it does, that's what makes it special. But it could be present somewhere.

I'm arguing FOR a specific position here. Usually, when people do that, they don't argue their counterpoints.

Umm. This is science, not politics.
You can't argue FOR a specific position just disregarding the evidence to the contrary.
For example you can't reasonably argue "There is no energy conservation rule, because the plants grow out of small seeds, and then produce new seeds. In that process energy is created out of nothing because one seed can create any number of them with no cost at all" without considering the counterpoints like ground and sun that deliver the energy and materials to the plant.

Aside from immediately finding and agreeing with the flaw in your plant example, I admitted that I did lapse away from discussion to arguing a specific point, which is not what I wanted to do.

And, you'd be surprised at the number of high school students or non-science teachers/students who, having learned passingly about the law of conservation of energy and not given it more thought, would accept the plant argument and be astounded by the fact that the leading scientists missed that. People are dumb; I slipped into my "arguing specific, not necessarily accurate point to dumb people for sake of argument" mode, which should NOT be applied to this discussion.

I just said that nonexistance WAS something, a "lack," which it couldn't be if it didn't exist.

Now you're just playing with semantics.

Well, yes. Getting at the point mentioned above that our words will muck things up and we have to be careful and ignore the contradictions caused by semantics. .... now why the @#$# didn't I just say that the first time? I slipped into argue mode.

Various flaws with a finitely sized universe

(Stuff about finitely-sized universe)

...

All of which is dependent upon the universe as a whole being FINITE in volume, which, given entropy and that it's a closed system, it should. But for the dark matter/energy.

....

We can't aruge every one of them [various views]. I picked one, and went with it. Here we've found the flaw. This new avenue bears discussion.

There. I realized I was arguing a point, not discussing, and that I'd in fact disproved what I was arguing.

(inherent innacuracy of 3 dimensional euclidian models on 4 dimensional non euclidian space)

Agreed. I KIND of got at that. What I shot for instead, though, mainly, was that we (or rather, I), don't have any better model. I admit, I cannot give you a representation of 4-dimensional space. If you allow one dimension to be time, thus making 3 spacial and 1 temporal, I could show you that. But I can't do 4 spacial dimensions.

Did you mean time was the 4th dimension? Then the oil/water are 4-dimensional, too, and we're dealing with not 3-euclidian vs 4 non-euclidian, but just euclidian vs non.

But yes, my examples will be innacurate because they're not the same materials, dimension, scale, or really anything other than the most basic concepts like our universe.

I strive to oversimplify to the point where anyone could understand, and I love analogies/examples with commonplace objects. This does lead to better-educated people saying "that's innacurate" and refuting it accurately in many ways. There's also the segment of the population STILL not bright enough to grasp it.

Since it seems to be only you and rkolter participating, I'll try to step my examples up.

Then again, you didn't really seem to go for my abstract logic. I'll make sure to keep "argue" mode off from now on.

(sun from past is not part of our "visible" universe)

Then, our visible universe isn't all from the same time period. Radiating out from each person, a different visible universe consists of older and older parts until some end is reached.

Does this affect anything, I wonder?

Just a better explanation, maybe...

An easier way imho to think of it is like this - The Earth is roughly 25,000 miles in circumfrence and 12 thousand miles in diameter. If you walk in a straight line, you will traverse the entire circumfrence of the earth and end up where you started. This is because the earth is curved. Although there is always a place where the sky and earth meet, you'll never get to that edge, because that edge really doesn't exist.

I get it. I hadn't thought of that. The "edge" then (heh, not gonna let it drop so easily ), is our "Imaginary" edge... the horizon. We can never get to it. But we can see it. And we can try to figure out what would be beyond it, if it were real.

I'll leave you with some more questions about the box of nothing:

Well, first some clarification.

The box is "full" of nonexistence. Semantic-induced contradiction. Instead, we'll say that absolutely nothing exists inside the box.

I arrived at the same conclusion about the stake, rkolter.

Now what about these scenarios?

What if you shove it through at an angle?

What if you shove another stake down through the box, lined up so that half of it will end up "going through" the nonexistance, and the other half will end up going through whatever the side of the box is made of. Let's say it's 14 inches on each side, with a 12x12 inner space "full" of nonexistance. (semantic contradiction again, pretend I did a better job of explaining?)

What happens after the first 3 inches of the stake are shoved down into the box?

What happens after the stake is completely through and falls out the bottom? What does it look like? Or could it not come out?

What if you take a saw, and begin sawing across the top, paralell to the top. What happens to your poor saw as you cut more than 1" into the box, sawing back and forth all the while?

And now I go do my "homework"

[Rkolter]

I'll leave you with some more questions about the box of nothing:

Well, first some clarification.

The box is "full" of nonexistence. Semantic-induced contradiction. Instead, we'll say that absolutely nothing exists inside the box.

That is not a clarification. That is just a stupid thing to say. But so long as you accept the definition of "absolutely nothing" as meaning there is nothing, including space/time (and thus volume), we can go from there.

What if you shove it through at an angle?

Why would you ask this? Same thing. Shove the stake top to bottom, side to side, at a 41 degree angle, whatever. The stake goes in, the end comes out, the entirety of the stake is visible save the tiny portion blocked by the material of the box itself. The stake for all appearances seems to have grown by the length of the box that it penetrated. This is of course false. Since the interior has no volume, there is no interior volume to hold any portion of the stake.

It'd make a hell of a magician's trick.

What if you shove another stake down through the box, lined up so that half of it will end up "going through" the nonexistance, and the other half will end up going through whatever the side of the box is made of. Let's say it's 14 inches on each side, with a 12x12 inner space "full" of nonexistance. (semantic contradiction again, pretend I did a better job of explaining?)

*sigh* There is no 12x12 inner space, get it? This is the same question - stake pierces other side, entirety of stake visible sans the tiny portion being blocked by the box.

What happens after the first 3 inches of the stake are shoved down into the box?

Same question. Stake penetrates box, three inches (minus tiny amount for box material) visible on other side. Even though it should for all appearances not have pierced it because if it were a NORMAL box, the stake end would still reside within the box, because this box has no inside (no volume, no volume, no volume...) there is no inside to conceal the stake.

What happens after the stake is completely through and falls out the bottom? What does it look like? Or could it not come out?

The stake falls through. You now have a hole in your box. If you look through the hole you see what's on the other side of the box. The only curious part is that the hole doesn't appear to traverse any inside space - the side you're looking through, and the opposite side, where the hole is, appear to be one and the same. The stake is, presumably, fine.

What if you take a saw, and begin sawing across the top, paralell to the top. What happens to your poor saw as you cut more than 1" into the box, sawing back and forth all the while?

The saw would cut through the top, sides, and bottom of the box all simultaneously. At the point that you would have cut through an amount of box material equal to the top and bottom of the box, the box would fall in two. What happens to the non-volume space? When I played AD&D, the breaking of any magical item nullified it's effect. This box counts as a magical item. You'd be left with two halves of a very plain box.

There's one you didn't cover, that I will now, because I thought it would be interesting to do so:

What happens when I push one stake through, then line another stake up perpendicular to the first so that it should under normal circumstances punch through the first stake, and push it through the box as well?

The first stake goes through, and you have now 1/2 of a stake on either end of the box. Then you push the other stake in perpendicular to the first and push it through. That stake also pushes through without effort, and you are left with a box that's mounted in the center of an "X" of stakes.

Why? Because there is no volume inside the box, and thus no place for any stake inside the box. It appears that you just skewered the first stake, but in actuality, the first stake is not in the box. Neither is the second. In fact, you could push 100 intersecting stakes into this box until it looked like a porqupine. Wouldn't matter. None of the stakes would actually intersect.

[Gengar003]

So, on the one where the stake is lined up half "in" the nonexistence, half along the side, after pushing it three inches through, wouldn't half be out the bottom and half still in the side of the box? Or does the part in the box (not nonexistence) "jump" through the box, too, even though it has 14" of box to go through?

---

Clarification on the angle: How does it come out? If we put the box on a coordinate plane, lower-left corner being the origin, and shove a stake in the upper left corner at an angle, how does it come out?

Does it behave as if it actually did penetrate a full box and come out in the lower-right?

Does it come out at the same "y" coordinate on the other side at the same angle?

Or does it come out at a slightly lower "y" coordinate?

---

My question about "multiple stakes penetrating the box" depends on your answer to the single stake at an angle, so I'll hold off on that one.

---

And my question on the saw depends on your answer to the "half-in, half-out" stake, so I'll hold off on that one, too.

Though here's one that doesn't: If you shove the saw downwards through the box, does something different happen to it than if you saw it back and forth?

[Orion]

I think this box metaphor may be taken a bit too far and a bit too literally, especially since it requires the mixture of "nothing" and 3-dimensional space, maybe this might better explain Rkolter's concept of "nothing"

(normally I wouldn't get involved, but I'm so relieved that this hasn't turned into a full blown religious flame-war i'm willing to throw my meat on the fire.)

You have a cube (we could say it's the interior of the box, but probably best to let that metaphor drop).



It's got no matter and no energy inside it, just a 3-dimensional volume. an X times X times X space, measured in cubic (insert linear measurement of choice here)


now, what if I (as the godlike entity that I am) brutalized this innocent happy cube by shearing off it's third dimension.



now we have a square (EDIT: yes, it's a rectangle, leave me alone), it's 2-dimensional, while things may move across and up and down it's existing X-Y axis,, they may no longer move through it's "depth" because there isn't any there anymore. I took it. I'm a bastard.

it's got a surface area , but it's no longer an X^3, now it's just length and width (X times X).

Now, I inflict further pain and suffering on the now unmanned cube.

I cut off it's second dimension.



I love geometric suffering.

The square now lacks one of it's axis, leaving only a line, a single X, length

now you can still move along the line, but there is no depth anymore, or any surface, it's just straight back and forth.

I bet you know what's coming right now, so let's do this thing.

I cut off the last remaining dimension.

What's left is (if we're being generous) a point. Don't let this fool you into thinking it has any sort of existance, without any depth, length, or width it no longer has a spatial existance and thus is completely and utterly wussy.

It isn't an object, it has no matter. It isn't energy, it has none of that too. It isn't a volume, a surface, or anything with a spatial existance. Even the fact that I refer to it as an "it" gives it too much of an existance. For every purpose, even theoretical it does not exist. It cannot be moved through, it cannot be measured, it cannot be observed or tested in any way, you can't walk, fly, or move into it from anywhere else (the universe in this case) because there is not "there" to move into from "here"

This metaphor might not work as well as some others, so feel free to correct me, but I think it does sort of explain what we're going for. Please don't misunderstand and take this as something that can actually be done by puny scientists, only i have the power of dimensional destruction, this is just to help explain.

[Gengar003]

Excellent! But nonexistence is red.

"OH, I'VE SEEN THE INFINITE, IT'S NOTHING SPECIAL."
"Don't be daft! you can't see the infinite, it's... infinite!"
"I HAVE."
"Ok then, what did it look like?"
"IT'S BLUE."
"It's black."
"IT'S BLUE."
"It's black!"
"FROM THE OUTSIDE IT'S BLUE..."

So, if we're looking at nonexistence, the "opposite" of infinity, from outside the box, It'd be red

[Orion]

....

What?

I get the terry pratchett qoute, just not why it was brought up or who you're talking to.

[Gengar003]

Lol, well, in your drawings of the box... I guess the first one got me thinking the box was transparent so we'd be able to "see" the nonexistence...

Nvm.

[Orion]

keep in mind, none of my drawings are full of nonexistance, the cube has a volume, it's full of space, nonexistance is what you get when you take away everything else.

[Gengar003]

So it'd be red, but we wouldn't be able to see that it was red

So is it even really red?

[Orion]

...

I have bad news for you.

it's not any color.

[YarpsDat]

Just a better explanation, maybe...

An easier way imho to think of it is like this - The Earth is roughly 25,000 miles in circumfrence and 12 thousand miles in diameter. If you walk in a straight line, you will traverse the entire circumfrence of the earth and end up where you started. This is because the earth is curved. Although there is always a place where the sky and earth meet, you'll never get to that edge, because that edge really doesn't exist.

I get it. I hadn't thought of that. The "edge" then (heh, not gonna let it drop so easily ), is our "Imaginary" edge... the horizon. We can never get to it. But we can see it. And we can try to figure out what would be beyond it, if it were real.

Fascinating.
Gengar, are you really this impervious to logic?

You still insist to assume there is some edge.
And that there *is* something beyond it.

Have you even heard of Ockham's razor?


Continuing:

I strive to oversimplify to the point where anyone could understand, and I love analogies/examples with commonplace objects. This does lead to better-educated people saying "that's innacurate" and refuting it accurately in many ways. There's also the segment of the population STILL not bright enough to grasp it.

Nevermind the number of dimentions.
As I mentioned before, a model, not being the whole universe, needs to take some simplifications.
As a result, for a model to be correctly understood, you need to include some clarifications, for example what features of the universe does the model explain, or which parts of the models represent which physical entities.
Of course, anyone can invent a model. And if the model is simple enough, everyone can understand it. But to write the clarifcations you need to understand both the model and the theory it's meant to explain
You do not understand the basic cosmology, as you prove time and time again. Hence you lack the understanding needed to attribute meaning to a model.

For example your water+oil again. You used it to prove that whatever is inside, must interact with whatever is outside the "edge". (If I understand it right...)
So let's say the inside is visible universe, the edge is the event horizont, and there is something outside.
The very definition of the event horizon is that stuff within is the stuff we can interact with, and the stuff ouside is the stuff we can NOT interact with, which is the exact oposite of your claim.
If the model was invented by someone who knows a bit about science, they'd attach a little post it note to the model:"Warning- the through-the-edge-interaction model does not apply to visible universe".
But you, not knowing a bit, go the opposite way- you attach note with "there must be an through-the-edge-interaction" to the visible universe.

That's NOT how you should do it.

I need a word that means that something is present, though not necessarily in any physical (= physics, not physical like hard object) way. I'll use "is" or "being" or "present."
[...]
Nonexistence DOES NOT EXIST. It's nonexistence; that's what it does, that's what makes it special. But it could be present somewhere.
[...]
Something's present? It exists!

Again, playing with semantics.
First, nonexistence does not exits.
Then you redefine the word "presence" to mean anything you want. (I'm not sure what, because it doesn't seem to make any sence. Apparently it's a quality that can be assigned to anything you want.)
Then you attribute your redefined "presence" to your mis-defined nonexistence,
and then you use presence in the standard meaning to argue the nonexistence exists. You think (or pretend that you do) it's a step in logical reasoning, but in fact it's an ad-hoc assumption that it exists, which is contradicting assumptions made before.
And then you exclaim that the contradiction is somehow caused by the magical qualities of the object.
(while in fact it's caused by poor logic on your part)
Who are you trying to fool?

I could point out a number of further contradictions in your ramblings about nonexistence, but that's pointless.
As I said "reductio ad absurdum", if assuming Q to be true leads to contradiction then Q is false.
You assume Q="Nonexistence exists"=TRUE. It leads to contradiction. Hence Q=FALSE.
And hence "nonexistence" does not exist.

Whatever you say about "nonexistence" beyond this point IS NOT SCIENCE.
You're just trying to sound all mystical and all knowing, teaching us the mysterious ways of what lies beyond logic.
You could stop now, because neither me nor rkolter are stoned enough to buy that.
Or continue at will, but at least stop pretending it has anything to do with science, lest you fool some innocent person.




--------------------------------------------------------------------

To sum it up, your posts are just a collection of ad-hoc assumptions about everything, based on nothing particular, contradicting the modern science, and even contradicting each other.
You could have as well say:

Assumption: universe has an edge.
Assumption: there must be something beyond the edge.
[Assumption: there must be an interaction between what's inside and what's outside the edge]
---
Assumption:Strawberry jam exists.
Assumption:Strawberry jam does not exist.
Woah! I've just proven strawberry jam defies logic! What a strange substance it is! I know I'm talking nonsence but strawberry jam is so strange you can't speak of it in a different way!
I bet it must fill the "outside" of the universe too!
Assumption: what lies beyond the edge of the universe is strawberry jam.

It has exactly the same weight as your "nonexistence" theories, except "nonexistence" makes you think you're being profound and prevents you from realizing you're simply talking nonsence. (It's also a less funny than strawberry jam.)

[Gengar003]

I'd be worried about the contradictions If I were arguing a point. I'm stepping away from that, just discussing and thinking out loud.

I was thinking about visible vs. whole as if I were an omniscient being looking in from the outside, part of neither (as one does with the water+oil). Thus, when applied to real situations, it doesn't work.

Fascinating.
Gengar, are you really this impervious to logic?

You still insist to assume there is some edge.
And that there *is* something beyond it.

Lol, No, I'm not. I do understand. I'm asking you what's beyond the edge that doesn't exist. I KNOW it doesn't follow the logic and is a dumb question. But what's the answer?

But you, not knowing a bit, go the opposite way- you attach note with "there must be an through-the-edge-interaction" to the visible universe.

OMG lol you've caught me: I'm not a practicing cosmologist!!! I know (now) that it doesn't make sense for there to be interactions... and I'm still asking about what they'd be like. See the "edge" question.

Again, playing with semantics.

YES! YES YES YES I KNOW! I'm pointing out that semantics WILL FUCK THINGS UP. We're saying the same thing (I think:) My statements about nonexistence don't make sense. Right? I know they don't. I know they contradicit each other. But it's a SEMANTIC contradiction. To use the FAQ site you referred me to that states that as far as we know time and space came into being with the big bang, "before" then, (though there wouldn't be a before, at least not with our concept of time), there was nonexistence! Or there should have been. Maybe it was just nonexistence of 3 dimensional space and time and matter and energy? As the site says, we dont' know. But since all we DO know of are 3 dimensional space, time, matter, and energy (or spacetime, or gravity, if you don't want to call it energy, etc), nonexistence of THEM would be total nonexistence for us, right?

I could point out a number of further contradictions in your ramblings about nonexistence, but that's pointless.

You're right. I'm not coming in here with a groundbreaking 100% accurate proven new theory of cosmology. I'm "thinking out loud" mostly, attempting to increase my understanding and yours (though that seems unlikely), and that of anyone who'd happen to read this.

Assumption: universe has an edge.
Assumption: there must be something beyond the edge.
[Assumption: there must be an interaction between what's inside and what's outside the edge]
---
Assumption:Strawberry jam exists.
Assumption:Strawberry jam does not exist.
Woah! I've just proven strawberry jam defies logic! What a strange substance it is! I know I'm talking nonsence but strawberry jam is so strange you can't speak of it in a different way!
I bet it must fill the "outside" of the universe too!
Assumption: what lies beyond the edge of the universe is strawberry jam.

It has exactly the same weight as your "nonexistence" theories, except "nonexistence" makes you think you're being profound and prevents you from realizing you're simply talking nonsence. (It's also a less funny than strawberry jam.)

Yes, except "Strawberry jam existing" does not carry the goddam semantic contradiction of "NON-existence existing," nor does it carry the conceptual contradiction of something that DOES NOT EXIST ending up existing.

Whatever you say about "nonexistence" beyond this point IS NOT SCIENCE.
You're just trying to sound all mystical and all knowing, teaching us the mysterious ways of what lies beyond logic.
You could stop now, because neither me nor rkolter are stoned enough to buy that.
Or continue at will, but at least stop pretending it has anything to do with science, lest you fool some innocent person.

No, it's not science. I know that. It would be if we could study a "box" or just some nonexistence. It will be science if one day such a thing is proven to exist (lol semantics) and is studied and understood. For now it's not. Does that mean it's not worth thinking about to you?

I'm not *trying* to sound "all mystical and all knowing," I'm *trying* to play the devil's advocate. And how could some innocent person be fooled with you and rkolter here?

To sum it up, your posts are just a collection of ad-hoc assumptions about everything, based on nothing particular, contradicting the modern science, and even contradicting each other.

Based on logic implemented by me.

Yes, I realize a lot of my questions don't make sense. I enjoy thinking about the answers to them ANYWAY.

You need to realize I'm not a cosmologist. I'm not a physicist. I'm not claiming to be smarter than you. I'm not trying to be smarter than YOU or anyone else. I'm trying to be smarter, PERIOD. I'm trying to increase my understanding of these concepts while having a good time, and trying to make anyone who enters the conversation THINK about things (preferably while having a good time)

And hey, if you decided you could easily smash your mental sledgehammer of correctness through my incorrect "scientific" remarks, more power to ya. Betcha had fun, and anyone who read this far in the thread is probably more knowledgeable for it. I certainly am.

[Rkolter]

IMHO if you want to talk about nonsensical questions and make up answers for them, that's fine. It's also kind of fun.

But this is not what you started with Gengar003.

If you're no longer talking science, just say so. Talking about impossibilities is kind of fun and good brain exercise, but I'd be truely pained if someone took anything you said at all as legitimate science.