Brian to Patrick:
> Nor did I imply otherwise. However, you cannot
> defend the position that all changes are motivated
> by claiming that when no motivation is known, we
> simply haven't discovered it yet: that argument is
> circular.
This statement is entirely logical.
What Brian is in effect saying is that we base any
hypothesis on that which we _know_, not on other
baseless hypotheses. That should be obvious!
Otherwise, it's like building a house of cards in
zero-gravity. A sound theory must have solid
foundation.
>> In this universe, all effects have causes.
>
> That's far from clear: consider vacuum energy and
> creation of virtual particles.
Erh, mmm, actually in this case, Brian, if virtual
particles are understood to be particles travelling
along 'meta-spatiotemporal' vectors within a larger
11-dimensional space (a la superstring theory), then
virtual particles are not "spontaneously created" but
rather are simply particles that happen to be
travelling through the thin 4-dimensional hyperplane
of our immediately observable universe. Their
'temporary' existence would owe to the amount of
time it takes for said particle to completely
traverse what I presume to be the minute Planck's
distance of our microscopic quantum world. Planck's
distance isn't very large and so, neither is the
'lifespan' of the interloping particle. Then again,
I'm not sure whether virtual particles emit the weak
force or not, which is a marker of particle decay if
I understand... Hmmm.
But that's just my little input. Carry on, folks :)
A discussion follows about the view I have (oh lordy):
>>> "Your Khoisan statement has an exact parallel in
>>> 'If (height) markedness had any legitimacy,
>>> Zydrunas Ilgauskas (7' 3", 2.21 m) could not
>>> exist'."
>
>> This is, in essence, _Glen's_ argument.
>
> No. Glen's argument is that because (height)
> markedness does exist, we must presume that the man
> behind the curtain is not over 7 feet tall unless
> we have very good evidence that he is.
As strange as that's worded, that is how I view
things, yes. An utmost efficiency in your theories,
people. That's all I ask. Proposing things that
aren't necessary is the opposite methodology... the
baaaaad methodology.
= gLeN
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