Views on Science/Scientists/Scientism (Split from Is the MCO Real?)

[Sanity Check]

 

 

Has anyone read this?
 

I owned it since the 1990s and never got around to actually reading it.

 

 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Has anyone read this?
 

I owned it since the 1990s and never got around to actually reading it.

 

 

 

Yes, a long time ago.  And this one, also ages ago:

 

And this one

 

And a favorite:

 

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Has anyone read this?
 

I owned it since the 1990s and never got around to actually reading it.

 

 

 

Yes .    One of the original pop 'scientific'  east meets west  works  ( conceptually ), so you  might enjoy it .  It isnt a good source to learn modern physics though .... so you might enjoy it .    

[Taomeow]

5 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

Yes .    One of the original pop 'scientific'  east meets west  works  ( conceptually ), so you  might enjoy it .  It isnt a good source to learn modern physics though .... 

 

Of course there's better sources to learn modern physics!

 

 

 

 

and so on.

 

The pop east meets west books aren't a substitute for a Ph.D. in physics should one pursue it.  Rather, they are a useful tool for setting some folks' skewed brains a bit straighter -- folks who've dislocated them by craning their neck to take a conceited view from the top of the ivory tower of "Real Science."  And much as I hate sounding woke, for the purposes of this sentence I have to, though I swear I mean something very different from what the true followers of the doctrine mean when they say those words:

Eurocentric/Western, and overwhelmingly white male as a default admission ticket for most of its developmental history, is what they really mean when they refer to "Real Science."  

 

 

[Nungali]

4 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Of course there's better sources to learn modern physics!

 

... you chopped off my 2nd  ' so you  might enjoy it '   and the smile , thus removing the context   of your 'quote' . 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

 

 

 

and so on.

 

Your images remind me of something .  Do you know what my prime motive originally was for enrolling at Sydney Uni (aside from the free education policy )  ?

 

It was because I loved the old buildings ( that some of  these pictures remind me off )     So, of course , all my lectures where in a different type of 'new'  building and surrounds   ( that look like the other pictures ) 

 

#

 

'Old' architecture is fairly rare in Sydney .....   I imagine myself  as some sort of student . chillin' out on the lawn and studying ........  something .. . ....  and being'cool' .    

 

 

but instead I ended up in some post 60s experiment in brutalist architecture surrounded by no nature and next to a major feed road  ....  

 

of course, that's all been fixed up now ..... 

 

 

 

[ We could run a similar thread on the development of Australian architecture .... something bad happened there post 70s as well !  ]

 

4 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

The pop east meets west books aren't a substitute for a Ph.D. in physics should one pursue it. 

 

Not a substitute at all ... an 'adjunct', perhaps .

 

 

4 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

 

Rather, they are a useful tool for setting some folks' skewed brains a bit straighter -- folks who've dislocated them by craning their neck to take a conceited view from the top of the ivory tower of "Real Science."  And much as I hate sounding woke, for the purposes of this sentence I have to, though I swear I mean something very different from what the true followers of the doctrine mean when they say those words:

Eurocentric/Western, and overwhelmingly white male as a default admission ticket for most of its developmental history, is what they really mean when they refer to "Real Science."  

 

 

 

There is that 'nature of reality'  question  again    

 

Its also not like that now , as far as overall  'admissions' go .... here since the 80s women enrollments significantly outnumber men  and regarding the 'white majority ' .... if you are indigenous , you are guaranteed a place  ; 

 

Since 2024, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australia are guaranteed a Commonwealth supported place at a university of their choice for non-medical courses (and will be for medical courses from 2026).

 

. When I enrolled  my 'admission ticket'  depended on two things  then  ;   was 1. Australian citizen , 2. Over 28 .    That was it . 

[Taomeow]

3 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

... you chopped off my 2nd  ' so you  might enjoy it '   and the smile , thus removing the context   of your 'quote' . 

 

 

Since "you" in your original post wasn't addressed to me, I removed it to minimize the recipient confusion, not to remove the context -- besides, it was a tautology, you said it twice and I removed it just once.  In any event, no harm intended.

6 minutes ago, Nungali said:

It was because I loved the old buildings ( that some of  these pictures remind me off )     So, of course , all my lectures where in a different type of 'new'  building and surrounds   ( that look like the other pictures ) 

 

#

   

With you on this one!  I would have loved to go to a school that looks like this!  A colleague of mine who went to the same school wound up teaching at the Edinburgh University and I'm not terribly prone to envy but god!  that work place of hers!  As for me, I graduated from a 13-floor parallelepiped.  

 

 

 

 

[old3bob]

8 hours ago, Taomeow said:

I had a horrible physics teacher in school, a horrible chemistry teacher, and a horrible math teacher.  Just my luck.  They were like that "if you don't eat your meat you can't have any pudding" teacher from The Wall.  Borderline psychotic, mean, vengeful, corrupt, you name it.  So all I did in school for those subjects was the absolute minimum I could get away with, if that.  But then for some 2 months we had a substitute math teacher from another school (a specialized math-slanted school where he was one of the teachers known as genius-makers).  He started giving us strange math problems of totally unfamiliar design that weren't hinged on whether you had memorized the formulas, and instead required something else, maybe pattern recognition, don't remember what exactly they were about of course.  And what a shocker! -- turned out I was a natural for those, and for two months I was treated by the teacher and my surprised classmates as a math star.   (We did have a resident math star, with many citywide math competitions victories under his belt, and he was sort of average with those strange different problems.  He managed, but not as spectacularly as he usually did with the usual.)  It was surprising and exciting.

 

That was the first time in my life when I discovered I may have something mathematical going beneath the surface...  sans the mathematical apparatus...  but those two months weren't enough for it to emerge, it just peeked out through the hole in The Wall...  And then our wall-building regular teacher returned and it was over.  

 

What I'm driving at is, there's not enough progress maybe at least in part because educational systems as we know them aren't catching those who could potentially facilitate it, and instead discourage some (many) potential "progressors."        

 

Not really related but your mention of seeing  "patterns" had a sort of example that happened to me early this morning when I looked up into the dark night sky from my back porch,  there were stars and constellations there that I had never seen before?  Wtf?  Anyway I kept looking and then realized that my mind had made or filled in that sight with the explanation of never before seen stars,  being that they turned out to be  just  reflections  from my nearby outside  lights on the few remaining and upper leaves on my tree where it was hitting at just the right angles to appear as stars was what I was really seeing. 

 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, old3bob said:

 

Not really related but your mention of seeing  "patterns" had a sort of example that happened to me early this morning when I looked up into the dark night sky from my back porch,  there were stars and constellations there that I had never seen before?  Wtf?  Anyway I kept looking and then realized that my mind had made or filled in that sight with the explanation of never before seen stars,  being that they turned out to be  just  reflections  from my nearby outside  lights on the few remaining and upper leaves on my tree where it was hitting at just the right angles to appear as stars was what I was really seeing. 

 

Easy on the bottle old3bob 😀

[Taomeow]

3 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

Not really related but your mention of seeing  "patterns" had a sort of example that happened to me early this morning when I looked up into the dark night sky from my back porch,  there were stars and constellations there that I had never seen before?  Wtf?  Anyway I kept looking and then realized that my mind had made or filled in that sight with the explanation of never before seen stars,  being that they turned out to be  just  reflections  from my nearby outside  lights on the few remaining and upper leaves on my tree where it was hitting at just the right angles to appear as stars was what I was really seeing. 

 

 

You did well with those stars -- first noticing them, then noticing the surrounding circumstances and arriving at correct rather than erroneous conclusions.  Part of the pattern recognition skill is to be able to first notice and then dismiss false or illusory patterns, the ones that appear to convince our senses they are there and fool our minds into believing in their existence -- or vice versa, convince our minds and fool our senses.  

 

In psychology, this fallacy of discerning a pattern that isn't there is known as apophenia, interpreting meaningless noise as meaningful.  Sometimes it is an early symptom of schizophrenia -- including society-wide mass psychoses induced by being continuously fed false/fake patterns by the media, the educational system, and assorted institutions.  

[old3bob]

4 hours ago, Apech said:

Easy on the bottle old3bob 😀

 

forgot to mention there were also multiple ufo's that night and one of them landed in my backyard whereupon some little gray guys disembarked from their craft to share their take on non-dualism with me ...while a big black cat observed us which I could see with my night vision device. 

 

[Taomeow]

You should also have mentioned what happened next.

[old3bob]

 

Good kitty, got a bad alien!  (while the little gray guys with big eyes are supposedly ok)

 

[Nungali]

9 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

Not really related but your mention of seeing  "patterns" had a sort of example that happened to me early this morning when I looked up into the dark night sky from my back porch,  there were stars and constellations there that I had never seen before?  Wtf?  Anyway I kept looking and then realized that my mind had made or filled in that sight with the explanation of never before seen stars,  being that they turned out to be  just  reflections  from my nearby outside  lights on the few remaining and upper leaves on my tree where it was hitting at just the right angles to appear as stars was what I was really seeing. 

 

 

As a lad , passenger in a car  late at night  with my friend and his parents ... I had been watching 5 UFOs  for some time  , low altitude, just ahead of us to the side and in formation and occasionally ducking behind a line of  trees along the road .  It became too much so I eventually said something about it , which of course , everyone thought I was cuckoo , but I insisted and I guess something in my manner  made them curious or  whatever .  But every time I would ; ''Look!  There they are ! '' they would duck behind the trees again . 

 

Eventually I realized that it was a damp night and power lines  ran alongside the road on the far side of the line of trees  and the car headlights were shining on five lines , making  little blobs of light moving along with the car   in 'formation' .

[Nungali]

7 hours ago, Apech said:

Easy on the bottle old3bob 😀

 

Now you have given me an image of old3bob , bottle in hand , staggering around the yard at 4 am  and trying to swat the stars while yelling ; ''Damn fireflies ! '' . 

 

 

 

 

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

Now you have given me an image of old3bob , bottle in hand , staggering around the yard at 4 am  and trying to swat the stars while yelling ; ''Damn fireflies ! '' . 

 

 

 

 well I was practicing my tap dancing before some unknown force or probably the little gray guys drew me outside to converse with them....

 

[steve]

20 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Has anyone read this?
 

I owned it since the 1990s and never got around to actually reading it.

 

 

 

I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it, also in the 90's as I recall.

I also read The Dancing Wu Li Masters, before Tao of Physics, and liked that more in some ways. 

 

[Nungali]

On 11/9/2025 at 8:04 AM, Nungali said:

.....

 

There 'are '  two types of 'strings'  (of course   ; a yin one and a yang one ) one is a  regular string  with  a middle and two ends  (   now we are getting into my 3:4 theory ) and the other, the ends meet forming a loop or circle . 

 

AND I can 'prove' it because we can observe this in everyday life and objects :  

 

eg 

 

 

    ....        

 

String theory: scientists are trying new ways to verify the idea that could unite all of physics

Published: November 13, 2025 

 

 

https://theconversation.com/string-theory-scientists-are-trying-new-ways-to-verify-the-idea-that-could-unite-all-of-physics-268149

 

before we know it , Supersymmetry might be making a comeback   

 

.

Edited Thursday at 09:19 PM by Nungali

[steve]

On 11/10/2025 at 9:04 PM, Taomeow said:

I had a horrible physics teacher in school, a horrible chemistry teacher, and a horrible math teacher.  Just my luck.

 

I had similar luck, one terrible professor each in physics, chemistry, and math, my three favorite disciplines.

I guess they were valued by the university for their research but they failed miserably as teachers. 

 

 

[Taomeow]

And here we go again.  Apparently, after a bunch of years proving that the universe we live in is a simulation, they now have mathematically demonstrated that it isn't, it's 100% real and, moreover, can't be simulated. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251110021052.htm  

 

Whew.  Good to know.  Not that I didn't...  The idea that nothing is real always seemed to me as either religious "opium for the masses" so they don't take their abysmal plight to heart and don't make too many waves...  if it's not real, who cares that you're poor and exploited and downtrodden, it's just illusion and in some other "more real" reality you are all-powerful...

...or the outcome of hallucinogenic drugs use that can temporarily, and sometimes permanently, cause depersonalization and the rest of the nothing is real effects...

...or, in the latest scientific incarnations, the conclusions a man of science arrives at who grew up with screens, computers, phones, video games and not with nature.  The world they have been exposed to, the only one they know, is then extrapolated in their mind to the rest of the universe.  Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about... 

Edited 21 hours ago by Taomeow

[Nungali]

Very well then ... I shall preach to you about non reality from that very pulpit you just described  ... until shit happens to me  .     

 

We better introduce the Mullah here ! 

 

Mullah Nasrudin was annoying the whole town, going around preaching about non existence and nothing being being real . So the king got his soldiers to seize him and bring him before him and the townspeople  in the arena .  There the King asked ;  '' O Mullah do you still insist nothing is real and this is all illusion ?''

 

'' I do ! '' replied the Mullah firmly . 

 

'' Very well, release the lions into the arena  !  ''  cried the King . 

 

'' Wait up .... '' called out Mullah  '' lions ?  What's this about lions ?'' 

 

The King then said '' Dont worry .... according to you , they , and yourself , are not real , so no harm will be done . Unless  you want to reassess  your view on reality ?'' 

 

''  Oh , I see '' said Mullah ,   '' ..... the lions and me are real, please dont release them in here .'' 

 

'' Very well, let the Mullah go'' declared the King ,  '' Now Nasrudin ,   do   you concede my point ?''

 

'' Your point ?  What is your point ?'' 

 

'' That reality IS real of course ! ''

 

'' Oh no , reality , me and even yourself are all illusory . '' 

 

'' What !  Throw him back in the arena and release the lions .'' yelled the King . 

 

'' No no ... dont do that , you, I and everything IS real, after all  .'' 

 

'Now the King being frustrated  asked , '' Look Nasrudin , are you claiming reality is real or not ?''

 

Nasrudin ;  '' Well, that depends if you are going to release the lions on me or not .''

 

 

[Nungali]

7 hours ago, Taomeow said:

...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251110021052.htm  

 

...

 

'' Summary:

New research from UBC Okanagan mathematically demonstrates that the universe cannot be simulated. Using Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, scientists found that reality requires “non-algorithmic understanding,” something no computation can replicate. This discovery challenges the simulation hypothesis and reveals that the universe’s foundations exist beyond any algorithmic system. ''

I had an interesting converse with AI about it  ( which should be  exhibiting 'algorithmic understanding '    )  

 

Me;  ''Give me an example of non algorithmic understanding other than   Godel's incompleteness theorem  . ''

 

AI ;   '' Besides the mathematical example of Gödel statements, non-algorithmic understanding is often cited in everyday human experiences involving intuition, common sense, creativity, and subjective consciousness. These abilities involve holistic pattern recognition and interpretation that do not rely on a fixed set of logical rules. 

 

Intuition and Decision-Making

Humans frequently make complex decisions rapidly and effectively without consciously following a strict sequence of logical steps or a complete set of data.

• Emergency Response: Experienced firefighters, paramedics, and police officers often rely on "gut feelings" to make split-second decisions that determine safety. This intuition is a rapid, subconscious processing of patterns from thousands of past experiences, a form of understanding that bypasses deliberate calculation.
• Medical Diagnosis: Experienced physicians may intuit the correct diagnosis for a patient even before all lab tests are complete, sensing the right path through subtle cues and pattern matching that are hard to articulate as a formal algorithm.
• Driving Safety: An experienced driver might instinctively brake or swerve before consciously registering every detail of a potential hazard (e.g., a ball rolling onto the road signaling a child might follow). 

 

Common Sense and Context

Common sense involves an innate ability to judge a situation through instinct and general reason rather than explicit knowledge, something AI systems often struggle with. 

• Understanding Nuance and Sarcasm: Humans effortlessly understand complex social cues, body language, sarcasm, and implicit meaning in conversations. An algorithm can follow rules of grammar, but grasping the full, subtle intent behind a statement involves a dynamic, contextual understanding that is not easily codified into an algorithm.
• Navigating Unforeseen Circumstances: A self-driving car (an algorithmic system) might make a dangerous maneuver if it lacks intuitive physics understanding or encounters a situation not in its training data (e.g., a mob attack ahead). A human driver would use common sense to turn around and find a new path. 

 

Creativity and Aesthetics

The appreciation and creation of art, music, and profound ideas involve a type of understanding that seems to emerge from a holistic process, not a rigid algorithm.

• Aesthetic Judgment: Deciding why a piece of music is moving or a painting is beautiful is a subjective, non-algorithmic process. While some algorithms can generate art based on patterns, the human capacity to attribute deep meaning and beauty is not a simple calculation.
• Innovative Problem Solving: Major scientific or artistic breakthroughs often stem from a flash of insight or a "light bulb" moment, where intuition suggests an entirely new approach when logical, step-by-step methods have reached a wall. 

 

Subjective Experience (Qualia)

The raw, subjective feeling of "what it is like" to have an experience—known as qualia in philosophy—cannot be reduced to mere algorithmic information processing. 

• The Sensation of "Redness": One can describe the physics of light wavelengths, the biology of the eye, and the neural processing of the brain in an algorithmically precise way, but this physical information does not capture the actual subjective feeling of seeing the color red. This internal, private experience is considered a non-algorithmic truth of consciousness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

5 minutes ago, Nungali said:

I had an interesting converse with AI about it  ( which should be  exhibiting 'algorithmic understanding '    )  

 

 

 

Mine mentioned the original and the best -- natural ecosystems.  

Also I asked it about those of the fuzzy-logical processes that are non-algorithmic.  It came up with 

Human subjective judgment (e.g., "it's quite warm")

Emotional reasoning

Artistic creativity

 

I would add that cats can be both -- algorithmic and non.  E.g. I had a cat who once picked up on the thought I had that the glare from the ceiling light was interfering with watching a movie but I felt too lazy to get up and switch it off.  The cat came up to the wall with the switch, looked me in the eye across his shoulder, then jumped straight up the way only cats can, hit the switch with his front paw exactly the way a human would do it, and turned the light off.  He did it only once, never before or after.  Definitely not part of the cat algorithm.

[Nungali]

This is a good article on the same - it delves into the Platonic 'pre-realm'  and talks about 

 

' ...  "The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them.... '' 

 

https://phys.org/news/2025-10-mathematical-proof-debunks-idea-universe.html

 

Oh yeah !    

[Nungali]

2 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Mine mentioned the original and the best -- natural ecosystems.  

Also I asked it about those of the fuzzy-logical processes that are non-algorithmic.  It came up with 

Human subjective judgment (e.g., "it's quite warm")

Emotional reasoning

Artistic creativity

 

I would add that cats can be both -- algorithmic and non.  E.g. I had a cat who once picked up on the thought I had that the glare from the ceiling light was interfering with watching a movie but I felt too lazy to get up and switch it off.  The cat came up to the wall with the switch, looked me in the eye across his shoulder, then jumped straight up the way only cats can, hit the switch with his front paw exactly the way a human would do it, and turned the light off.  He did it only once, never before or after.  Definitely not part of the cat algorithm.

 

It seems  'something'  ( the cats or not )  non allorgowhatchamaycallit is 'behind things '  ?      

[Nungali]

A venture into 'Neo - Hermetics' :

 

Previously mentioned above , conversations with Brian .  We ( a few daobums ) were discussing the 'mathematical formula of everything ' that had been posted .  It was complex , I could not follow it , some here seemed able to . But I did recognize some symbols , constants , forces ....   ' G ' stood out , one of the 'four fundamental forces of physics ' - gravity .  G was on the left of the equal sign  with other symbols and ideas  and there were similar on the left  , ie. 'after  =  , or ' the result is ' .   I said G should  not be on the left, it should be on the right ...'as a result of '   . Brian  said 'Interesting ' . 

 

What I meant by that is , it should conform ( or confirm ) my 3 ; 4 theory  ie. three fundamental 'things'  ( 'forces' , ingredients , etc ) in an 'ideal dimension' ( not 'real ' , or at least observable or obvious ) produce a 4th effect in a 'real' dimension .   I go through it in detail in my PP in an article on numbers . 

 

This overall pattern is attested  in many traditions, including on The Tree of Life and Ch 42 TTC . ( see my article for further examples ) .

 

This suggests that the four fundamental forces didnt just .... 'be' , all at once , or were implied , but that 1,2 and 3 'engendered' all things .  So with the 4 fundamental  forces :  the weak and strong force within the atom  ( let's say , 'in the microcosm' )  , the electro-magnetic forces  (  now having more observable effect in our world ... the 'middlecosm ' ?  )   producing the fourth fundamental force , gravity . And I previously mentioned I thought that is why the Unifeld Field  theory could not be developed , they cant 'fit gravity into it ' . I postulated that is because  it is a result or product of the other three .... not the idea of the first four forces just being there together .

 

As one hopes with  'Neo- Hermetics ' some agreement between 'ancient sciences' and 'modern science' might be found ... and it is , so many times if one looks at things the right way .

 

In this regard , one of the new theories about gravity is interesting , it says it is an  emanation from forces in the microcosm !   I would say   the  forces that bind atoms together are in the microcosm .  And the effect is in the macrocosm ... gravity's effect certainly is . 

 

 

'' A fresh look at gravity challenges long-held assumptions about one of nature’s most familiar yet puzzling forces. In a new study, two researchers argue that gravitational attraction is not a basic force at all, but an effect that emerges from deeper quantum processes tied to electromagnetism. If confirmed, the theory could help explain mysteries that have long resisted standard models — including the origins of dark matter and the energy accelerating the universe’s expansion.

 

...The work, published in Journal of Physics Communications, reimagines gravity not as a force stitched into the fabric of spacetime, but as something that arises from the quantum-level behavior of ordinary matter. *

 

... The idea builds on earlier efforts to rethink gravity as an emergent phenomenon — an effect that arises from more basic physical processes, rather than a force on its own ...''

 

https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/new-theory-suggests-gravity-is-not-a-fundamental-force/

 

.

* and that occurs in those sub atomic forces . 

 

.

Edited 12 hours ago by Nungali