jamest wrote:Xamonas Chegwé wrote:jamest wrote:Xamonas Chegwé wrote:Nothing is independent. Everything is field equations and they all interact.
If you think that
definite matter
can exist as a 'field equation', or that 'field equations' can actually interact, then you're off your fucking trolley.
Every particle of matter or energy can be viewed as a field and represented as field equations that gives the relative probabilities of that particle's position, momentum, energy, etc. The field equations of a single particle in isolation are relatively simple. However, as the equation's domains are potentially infinite in extent, they all overlap and affect each other.
I wasn't referring to what matter can be viewed as, or represented as, or even mathematical probabilities. I explicitly spoke about definiteness and existence in the same breath, independent of all of that enigmatic shite. Is it your intention to turn materialism into a 'spiritual' endeavour?
I was talking about the current thinking of "matter" vis-a-vis quantum physics, nothing more. I wasn't getting into philosophical navel-gazing and mind-wankery. Of the two fields, I know which I consider "enigmatic shite".
My statement above was a heavily abridged version.
Just as well, since a lengthy exposition of such nonsense would be requiring of a lengthier whip to punish you thus.
Please, Hammer, don't hurt me!
The version that Newton was dismissing, that bodies have "complete, absolute and independent reality in themselves."
You actually believe that there's a credible version of materialism which lends weight to the idea that matter has no definite existence? C'mon squire, you're way too intelligent to believe that bollocks.
I certainly do. And, in case you weren't listening earlier, it is known as
modern physics! Matter and energy are interchangeable. The particles that make up both can, and do, mutate between the two states. E = mc
2, if you hadn't heard!
What relevance is the position of my head relative to a pile of sand? I agree with Newton's statement that bodies do not have "complete, absolute and independent reality in themselves" but I fail to see how this in any way changes ones proclivity towards atheism.
You're of the opinion that if matter
itself does not exist, that there's still good reasons to be an atheist?
No, I am of the opinion that you shouldn't try putting words into my mouth and then answering the wrong question - that way lies strawmen! Matter exists. It simply is not as fixed, independent and absolute as previously thought.
Wtf have you been smoking?
Nothing for years.
Despite his self-evident genius and the huge body of mathematical and physical texts he produced, he wasted far more time attempting to transmute base metals into gold, searching for the philosopher's stone and writing abstruse and (some would say) heretical
religious and occult tracts that he concealed from the world out of fear of prosecution.
He lived (mainly) in the 17th century, so
please give the guy some slack. Chemical knowledge was practically nil; religion was especially prominent at that time (born during the English Civil War!), when to be heretical had serious repercussions. The fact that he was seriously investigating chemical truths only serves to lend weight to the expansiveness of his inquisitive mind; the fact that he was challenging established religious views only serves to show that he was ballsy. You don't really have a point worth making, since your points only [really] serve to highlight what a genius he was.
Never said he wasn't a genius. In fact, I believe I used that exact word in the response you're replying to. But, in common with many geniuses, he was a little bonkers. And an all round nasty bastard too, if the accounts I have read are true.
Here's hoping that you're not in a bad mood tonight.

Not at all. Here's hoping you don't feel it necessary to call me a cunt any time soon!

I love cunts. I'm confused as per why the concept ever became the base of a derogatory comment.

Not something I can fathom either. But we live in a world where blind faith is considered a virtue and lust a vice - so meh.
