₦airaland Forum

Geist:
Are you in the best position to claim the bolded? I think there is a topic on FP addressing this issue already

In what position do I have to be exactly to know that hijab does not prevent a lawyer from carrying out her legal duties? Please, if you have an argument that shows my position to be erroneous, I'm very curious to see it. Share it here, there are too many topics on front page to know what you're on about.

wirinet:
You avoided to answer my questiin; do you support the rights of a rastafarian to wear dredlocks to a court room as it does not interfere with ability to practice the profession? Will you agree to stand before a rastaferian judge wearing dredlocks?

I didn't avoid your question, you missed my answer. Here it is again:

AgentOfAllah:
To be honest, I don't know what effect a judge in dreads has. Get this: your hair style or head gear does not define what's inside your head. I would absolutely stand before a judge wearing dreads, or any other judge, in so far as they are qualified to assume that position.

You still haven't told me how wearing hijab amounts to "imposing your religious expression on others". Has she forced others to wear hijab, or what's your point?

wirinet:
Secularism does not mean imposing your religious expression on others. Wearing an hijab to state functions like a courtroom has the same effect as a judge wearing dreds to court. It gives the impression of religious bias in the person expressing his religion in public.
Would you agree to stand before a rastaferian judge wearing dredlocks?

To be honest, I don't know what effect a judge in dreads has. Get this: your hair style or head gear does not define what's inside your head. I would absolutely stand before a judge wearing dreads, or any other judge, in so far as they are qualified to assume that position.

You still haven't told me how wearing hijab amounts to "imposing your religious expression on others". Has she forced others to wear hijab, or what's your point?

Essy697:
U don't have to argue with ds pple dy ve bin blindfolded by sentiments therefore they won't seen any wrong in what she did...let dm be.. let dm continue to wallow in Ignorance..Islam a religion of Peace my Foot.

You mistake my position! Let me be clear, I support the right of anybody to wear their hijab in or outside the courthouse because I don't believe her hijab interferes with her ability to practice her profession. This is not a sentimental position either, unless there is something sentimental about secularism.

eodavids:
Your point is clear, @agent

But the point is:
Others, both her mates and previous graduates of Law school have certain areas and aspect of the institution's modus operandi which may not conform to their belief. All such people have kept quiet in the interest of peace and uniformity.

By this act, perhaps all future students will find a voice and must be given their right to difference.

Can you expect what right to difference will introduce

Oh common. Let's not go there na.

What do you mean let's not go there? This is why we will forever remain at the mercy of bullies and criminals. You get trampled upon like no man's business, and just because other people allow themselves to be so abused, nobody should scream bloody murder? C'mon man, we can do better!
Like Wole Soyinka once said, "the man dies in him who keeps silent in the face of tyranny". Don't be a dead (wo)man!

wirinet:
Practising her religion in a secular court? If you guys really want to practice your religion, why did the lady come to church without the company of a male relative, why are Muslim ladies no going around with burka as is specified in the Koran.

I'm sorry, but your argument is rather absurd! It is a secular court, not an anti-religion court. The goal of secularism has never been to eliminate religious expressions. It is to remove any direct influence of religion from state transactions. So, please tell me, how does wearing hijab interfere with state transactions?

I have seen many claims on here that wearing hijab to one's call to bar is against the law, but I have yet to see anybody cite the specific law that is being violated. This is not about Amasa's religion, it's about her secular rights, and in this case, the law school, in spite of its unique position as the nurturer of Nigeria's judicial institution, is evidently the erring party here. The law school should ferociously adhere to, and promote the spirit of Nigeria's constitution, not brazenly violate it, as it has done against this young lady. I'm happy she's brave enough to stand her ground, and I stand with Amasa Firdaus!

akindlesfarm:
pls what really is antimatter, I heard that a gram of it can destroy a large country

Not if that country is made of antimatter! An antimatter is simply any composite or elementary particle having exactly the same mass as its matter equivalent, but different charge. For example, an electron is matter with negative electric charge, and its antimatter equivalent is an antielectron (usually called a positron), with exactly the same mass and properties as an electron, except its charge is positive. Likewise, you have protons with positive (electric) charge and antiproton with negative electric charge. So you can have an antihydrogen atom, consisting of antiproton and positron. Now get this: If we were to wake up one day, only to find out that the charges of all the particles in our universe have changed, and we now live in an antiuniverse, everything will remain exactly as they are now. We wouldn't even know the difference. So for all we know, ours might be the antiuniverse.

Now, we consider a case where antimatter collides with its matter equivalent: Whenever this happens, this collision will usually give out a burst of gamma rays (high energy electromagnetic waves), and, depending on the momentum of the collision, may also create other smaller particle-antiparticle pairs. The most important rule of this collision is that energy and momentum are conserved.

Now, supposing our hypothetical country is matter, and a gram of antimatter were to collide with it, we can easily calculate the lower limit of energy it would produce (assuming zero momentum just before contact). Using Einstein's Energy-mass equivalency equation:

E² = p²c² +m²c⁴.
But since p = 0 as per the initial condition, this equation reduces to the more compact, and certainly more familiar version of itself:

E = mc², where m = 1g of antimatter + 1g of matter = 2g or 0.002kg

E = 1.8 X 10¹⁴ J

This is merely twice the amount of energy (0.88 X 10¹⁴ J) that Fat man, the monster which the US unleashed on Nagasaki, dispensed, by comparison. To be sure, the city was devastated, and more than 30,000 individuals lost their lives, and its overall effect, including fireball, air burst, radiation and thermal burst would have easily covered a radius of 2-3 km. But in spite of all that devastation, it couldn't even wipe out a small city, and Nagasaki still stands strong today. So it is inconceivable that something twice the energy of Fat man would wipe out a whole country. But yes, it could do some wicked damage.

The main advantage of antimatter-matter collision over nuclear fusion/fission is its 100% conversion efficiency (assuming matter is freely available), which means for an insanely small size, you can get an insanely large amount of energy out.
The Plutonium rod in Fat man weighed about 6 kg, of which only 0.001g was converted to energy. 0.001g of antimatter will give out 0.002g worth of energy when it reacts with equivalent matter. Now, if you had 6 kg of antimatter, then we can start talking about destroying countries.

With that, you should be able to wipe out any country equal to or less than 54,000 sq.km, like Netherlands or Togo.

Naezara:
...

Whoa, thanks Zara You do me great honour! Would that I could pay back with a teddy hug

sinequanon:
I am laughing.

I am not sure what amuses you, but a good laugh is healthy, so laugh on.

You wrote a total mess up there, and completely lost track of the argument. It will be useless debating with you.

It could be the case that I've lost track and my argument is a total mess, but until you actually show me how so, I can't take your word for it.

I'm not going to wade through the whole lot, correcting the mess, but if you pick any one of your objections, I can demonstrate how illogical you are. And I give you the pick, just to show you that I am not cherry-picking. No way will I go through the entire thing you wrote, containing so many inaccuracies.

If you're tired of the conversation, it's okay, but don't patronise me. Whenever/if ever you're willing, everything I wrote is up there for you to shred. If it's as bad as you say, it shouldn't be difficult to counter, I imagine.

As a small courtesy, I will take your first objection, regarding Occam's Razor. Science can be grounded by philosophy, not the other way round.

"However, if our philosophical framework is grounded in scientific method..."

The emboldened is wrong! Logical positivism as well as experimental philosophy are both philosophical frameworks grounded in science. In fact, the relationship between philosophy and science is more of a feedback loop, rather than hierarchical, as you seem to suggest. I believe "armchair philosopher" is the appropriate pejorative term that describes people who hold tyrannically linear views such as yours.

Suppositions like this show that you are clueless about philosophy, and have a lot of reading to do. Sorry, but your above supposition is nonsense.

I wasn't aware this has now shifted from a discussion about evolution by natural selection to philosophy.

The rest of your post is riddled with similar things. If you were to stand up and present such ideas in front of knowledgeable people, you would make a laughing stock of yourself. Sorry.

Oh! I see, so you were tickled by my ideas, and you now feel the need to justify your delicate excitability. You obviously consider yourself a knowledgeable person. Well, let me be clear, I am not afraid to present my ideas in front of knowledgeable people. I freely admit that I am not, myself, knowledgeable, but I have been privileged to meet many in my life time, and one thing I am sure about is that knowledgeable people generally don't laugh at people for having contentious ideas, that's what crass ignoramuses who have arrogated omniscience to themselves do! Knowledgeable people debate the ideas and diligently point out the flaws without any drama. So if you're a knowledgeable person, you're an exotic breed! Meanwhile, it's beginning to look like you are incapable of defending your 'directedness' theory, so you have instead resorted to ad hominems. Well done!

The only mentally challenged person is the bumbling idiot who wrote this article, as they don't seem to appreciate the absurdity of referring to a super intelligent, super genius, highly creative super what what person as mentally challenged.

sinequanon:
No. I will say that it is ill-defined, in that the notion of assigning number to assumption is ill-defined. So Occam's razor is a rather qualitative protocol. One assumption can be argued to be two, three, four... assumptions, depending on your philosophical framework.

You're right that Occam's razor is qualitative, you are also right that changing philosophical framework can change the way assumptions are perceived. However, if our philosophical framework is grounded in scientific method, then I don't think there can be any ambiguity about the quality and quantity of any assumptions made. Scientific propositions should be falsifiable, else, we're not discussing science anymore. Occam's razor is routinely used as a protocol to eliminate propositions that are irrefutable because they are unfalsifiable. For example, introducing directedness to natural evolutionary processes assumes that there is one or more sentient entities with unfathomably impressive capabilities, including the capability to make long term predictions about the environmental development of our planet, and/or outrightly exercise holistic control over it. Now, unless such an entity (or entities) can be defined in a testable way and shown to be a necessary actor in the evolutionary process, such a position is unfalsifiable. On the other hand, the position that evolution by natural selection is undirected needs not make assumptions about the existence, capabilities and interests of any sentient entities, it just needs to show that all the processes that cause evolution can be explained by naturally observable phenomena, and is thus, falsifiable. Occam's razor cuts away, and rightly so, the more superfluous of the two. I'm interested to read about your alternative framework within the realms of science that prefers directedness over undirectedness.

No. I have explained, already.
You earlier cited extinct species as "just one reasons why evolution seems purposeless to an objective observer".

I said that just because they became extinct does not mean that they had no purpose. Then I gave you the specific fact that the extinct ancestors of man gave rise to man. That could have been the purpose of the extinct lineage.

This is a baseless assumption. Maybe those extinct ancestors were the real purpose, and man is a virus-like mistake that led to their extinction. Do you now see the pointlessness of stamping a purpose on anything without first defining what that purpose may be? You must first show why man is a purpose, for your assumption to carry any weight! What about other extant species that came from the same extinct ancestors of man. Are they also a purpose? If so, what is that purpose?

I can concisely cite an inclusion of the fact, but not an omission in what is an extensive definition.

The wiki discourse omits the point. But obviously, I can't pinpoint where it is omitted, as there is no rule as to where it should go. Feel free to search through it. All I can say is that it is a sufficiently important premise that it would certainly have been included if intended.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

You can also read the wiki article on the teleological argument:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology_in_biology

In order to demonstrate the supposed equivocation in ToE regarding directedness, you cited as an example for "undirectedness", one of Dawkin's books, "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design", which is described on Wikipedia as "an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.". Now, by way of contrast, you have cited the Wiki discourse on evolution because it does not allude to "undirectedness". The link you shared is not a discussion about evolution by natural selection, it is about evolution in general, so there is no reason to for it to specify undirectedness. It is well known that directed evolution can and routinely does occur, which is why we have so many morbidly engineered dog breeds. In the page that specifically discusses natural selection, 'random mutations' was clearly stated as a way in which variations occur, from which natural selection (of the most adapted varieties) can then proceed.

So I'm still waiting for you to clarify the equivocation, because I see none so far.

In evolution by natural selection, a species can serve the purpose of giving rise to another species, and then become obsolete! So it has "served its purpose", and you can then say that it "ends up having no purpose". This is quite different to what you later wrote, that it was pointless.

So, when I say "in some sense", I am still referring to the context of evolution by natural selection.

The emboldened statement is inherently nonsensical, unless you're claiming natural forces are deliberate, or that the process of evolution can predict the forces of nature and prepare well in advance for any particular outcome. Is any of these your claim?

Even if we are to accept this study, you are misinterpreting it. It says that the 75% is NECESSARY! So it has at least the function of buffering deleterious mutations. By "non-functional", they are referring to more specific coding functions.

Also, what they are calling a "non-functional gene" can later, through mutation become functional.

So, that is two reasons why your characterization of the DNA as waste does not follow logically.

No, you're the one who has misinterpreted the study. It proceeds from three fundamental assumptions: (1) that mutations in the human genome are random, (2) they tend to be deleterious when they occur on functional genes, and (3) the deleterious mutations are subject to a fixed average rate per generation.
So yes, if mutations are random, and occur at a fixed rate, we'd better had a disproportionate amount of useless genomes to reduce the likelihood of random mutations damaging functional ones. That, or we should be able to reproduce a 100 million times for viability. There's no conceivable reason to consider a directed process which is so unnecessarily complex as explanation, when mindless nature is a simpler, demonstrable and generally more compelling explanation for the complexity. The only question then is whether these assumptions are justified. So do you reject the assumptions made in the paper?

"foresight or purpose" in the logical OR sense. BOTH must be absent.

Okay. I apologise for not paying attention to this vague definition earlier on. I shan't make that error twice! So, are you now saying 'directedness' is synonymous with foresight, even in the absence of purpose? If so, pray tell, what practical function does foresight alone serve in your so-called directedness, supposing there is no actual purpose?

As for the example, YOU cannot assume why the child is acting the way he is. It is my example.

I listed all the categories under which any reason you give will fall. Basically, the only scenario in which a child dancing crazy in the courtyard can be construed as undirected is one in which the child is truly crazy, and there's no reason why you, I, or any other person should make any assumptions about the purposefulness of the child's actions without being privy to his mental health history.

Jupxter:
Claps hands @ however such an argument does not take into account that the phenotypic pressures that cause any particular species to be well-adapted to its environment are dynamic and ever changing, so today's optimally adapted species can quickly become tomorrow's fossil record (if they are lucky enough to fossilise, that is). From this observation, the only thing that can be inferred is the absence of purpose. Now, since a strong causal link is established between environmental factors and evolution of species, one would have to: (1) Demonstrate that there is purpose in environmental dynamism and that (2) the consequences of this dynamism were intended; in order to argue for direction (as defined by you).

Excellent thesis, Jesus, i have someone else that sees things how i see them. Well done..

Thanks man.

Are you in Lag ? We should hook up and chat over a drink. It will be like Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms meeting, or rather Physics and Chemistry

Lol...who is the hydrogen and who is the oxygen in this your analogy? Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near Lag. Maybe if I come visiting I shall holla!

sinequanon:
Occam's razor does not confer justification. It is only a protocol.

I did not claim that it confers justification. Justification was given in the line that followed. You're correct that Occam's razor is a protocol. Precisely, it is one whose point is to sanitise scientific propositions by eliminating as many assumptions as possible. Do you accept that Occam's razor is a fundamental tenet upon which scientific method is necessarily predicated?

"Exude any sense of purpose" is woolly.

Then let me rephrase: "This extent of wastefulness alludes to a lack of purpose".

Also, according to the ToE, extant species, like humans, would not exist if it were not for a whole line of extinct species. So your argument is groundless.

Sorry, but I don't see how this renders my argument groundless. It's almost as though you missed the next line where I remarked upon how ever changing environmental factors can change the fortunes of any species from extant to extinct. It seems you assume those extinct species were somehow not well-adapted before their environments evolved and killed them off. This assumption is incorrect, for the only reason there is an abundance of fossil records is because they must have been abundant in their time, thus well-adapted to their environment! My position is simple: you cannot find purpose in biological evolution without first finding it in environmental changes.
If you cannot show me that there is deliberation behind earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, depletion of the ozone layer, rains, comets and so on, then you'll have a tough job making a case for purposeful evolution, I'm afraid.

EDIT: A good example is Richard Dawkins' book "The Blind Watchmaker".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

I asked for two examples, one providing an instance where the idea of "undirectedness" (as defined by you) is used and another where it is not, but you've only provided one example in which it is used, so I don't quite know where the equivocation lies. Recall that your claim was that these two ways of definition create a problem of equivocation. Or did I misunderstand you?

Don't shift your point. Let us debate fairly and diligently. Your original questions says "ends up being pointless".
You recognize that something can be given a purpose that "ends up" pointless in some sense. One could also argue that the point may have been to discover its inappropriateness -- i.e it was a deliberate exploration or learning experience for better success.

I'm sorry you perceive it that way, but there was really no intent to shift my point. Yes indeed, something can be given a purpose which ends up being pointless in some sense. As it turns out, the sense of our conversation is evolution by natural selection, nothing else. But let's leave abstraction for a moment, shall we? Would you say there is purpose in a gene mutating to form non-functional proteins (such as in point-nonsense mutations)? Also, as it has recently been shown that more than 75% of the human genome is nonfunctional (D. Graur, "An Upper Limit on the Functional Fraction of the Human Genome," Genome Biology and Evolution, vol. 9, pp. 1880-1885, Jul 2017.), then I ask, who or what is supposed to be discovering the inappropriateness of this wastefulness, and to what end?

Your line of argument then has to explain how you get from pointlessness to undirectedness. They are different concepts. A child can talk to himself and do a crazy dance in the middle of his backyard. His behaviour may be considered pointless, but it is directed.

No, I don't feel I have to explain the transition from pointlessness to undirectedness. The definition you provided adequately explains this connexion: You previously stated that "undirectedness" means the absence of "foresight or purpose". These were the words you used. So since, by definition, anything that is pointless lacks purpose, the transition from pointlessness to undirectedness is already established...by you, no less! Your example is irrelevant here, because a child dancing crazy in the courtyard is doing it to maximise pleasure, minimise pain or because he is really crazy. The former two aren't pointless, whereas there is no deliberation in truly crazy behaviour as far as I know (I may be wrong).

sinequanon:
In the sense Richard Dawkins (for one) uses the term "undirected" it means "with no foresight or purpose". In fact, he stresses that the word "selected" is unfortunate and should not be construed as implying "directed".

Okay, now that you've defined "undirected" more clearly to mean "with no foresight or purpose", then yes, this presupposition is justified, and should be the natural starting point, following the principles of Occam's razor. Let me invoke just one reasons why evolution seems purposeless to an objective observer: Now, bear in mind that current evidence puts the percentage of extinct species at around 99% (W. E. Kunin and K. J. Gaston, 1997). This extent of wastefulness does not exude any sense of purpose. You may be tempted to argue that the wastefulness is justified if this is a self correcting process that iteratively produces better results, however such an argument does not take into account that the phenotypic pressures that cause any particular species to be well-adapted to its environment are dynamic and ever changing, so today's optimally adapted species can quickly become tomorrow's fossil record (if they are lucky enough to fossilise, that is). From this observation, the only thing that can be inferred is the absence of purpose. Now, since a strong causal link is established between environmental factors and evolution of species, one would have to: (1) Demonstrate that there is purpose in environmental dynamism and that (2) the consequences of this dynamism were intended; in order to argue for direction (as defined by you).

You are saying two different things.

The theory is sometimes stated including the idea of "undirectness", sometimes not. So whether it is required or not cannot be determined, until the equivocation is resolved.

Can you specify examples of both definitions, and cite their sources. I need context to better understand the equivocation you're referring to.

Not at all.

So you don't accept that something which is pointless has no purpose?

Graycoder:
Okay, I understand your question, but no the concentration does not affect it. The concentration in the case of water means the number of moles. And all reactions have mole ratios of reactants and products produced. So, even if the organism is thrown into the Atlantic ocean, the same amount of water that might attack it will not increase, in proportion to the amount of protein.

Okay, thanks! I accept your answer, but your calculation seemed to assume a serial, rather than parallel hydrolyzation process, which was why I asked the question. Anyway, don't mind me. I was just being pedantic.

sinequanon:
"Natural selection of favorable mutations is a directed process" is not a claim made by scientists.

It is implied in the word "selection", isn't it? That is to say, nature is doing the selection, albeit, mindlessly. Unless you wish to impose a mind (by which I mean purpose) on the director, in which case the onus is on you to explain why this is necessary. I should stress that evolution doesn't necessarily rule out a sentient director, it just doesn't see any need for it.

I have said that scientists have provided no evidence that "mutations are undirected".

This is true. But the theory of evolution itself does not require mutations to be undirected, it takes mutations as a matter of course and proceeds from there.
However, back to whether they are directed or not. Would you say it is safe to assume that if >90% of the mutations that occur end up either pointless or harmful then they are undirected?

Graycoder:
What I calculated is the number of years it would take water to hydrolyze all the proteins of a typical animal. And obviously, it is impossible for any organism to remain in water for 6 billion years. It will reproduce, move around and die even before one bond from one protein is broken. These FACTS provided by pro creationists has however proved that evolution is possible.

I understand your calculation. My question, however, was whether the concentration of water affects the hydrolyzation rate. Say it takes 1 bathtub of water to fully hydrolyze a typical animal in 6,000,000,000 years, will immersion in two bathtubs worth take half the time? That was my question. Put in other words, if a typical animal were to be submerged in a river, and the water were pure, would it really take up to 6 billion years to hydrolyze?

Graycoder:
It could be more than millions if you consider evolution. 600 years for one bond of protein that contains 10 thousand bonds and an organism that contains 1000 proteins.

That's 600 X 10000 X 1000 = 6 billion years for an organism to melt back into amino acids.

Forgive my ignorant question, chemistry isn't my forte. But is this rate not affected by the concentration of water?

sinequanon:
It is equivocal and opaque in regards the teleological argument.

(Specifically, its claim that random, "undirected" mutations feed the evolutionary process.)

The theory justifies the use of the idea of undirectedness firstly by claiming that direction is not necessary to account for biology, but at the same time, hides behind the claim that "chance does not require any explanation". Therefore, it makes a teleological argument, without any evidence.

I'm not sure I understand your meaning. Do you dispute that mutations occur randomly or you dispute that natural selection of favorable mutations is a directed process?

butterflyl1on:
Is 600 years the millions of years it allegedly took evolution to occur? Protein does not exist in water but breaks down in water very slowly. The entire break down takes that long and it's a process which culminates within a 600 year period. This nullifies evolution rather than support it.

Does the word 'reproduction' mean anything to you? Is it conceivable to you that living organisms can significantly multiply their populations within this 600yr time scale?

Akin1212:
Lol, I'm with you bro.

I don't know how people can believe that they are clay, only dumbness can do that to a man.

It's mostly ignorance my brother. If robots made such a claim, we can forgive them. At least, they are silicon based. Hydrocarbon mugus sef dey form clay..lol

Akin1212:
Science is a study, and there are disagreements between scientists, this is largely because so many scientists are also believers in the fairy tale god, and they don't want to let go. However, lap proceedings distinguish what is true and what is false. Nobody wants to share ancestors with Chimpanzees, so we have to establish the truth.

Dunno about others, but I think I'd rather share ancestors with chimps than with kpotokpoto.

shaybebaby:
This is AgentOfAllah guys, my personal paddy. Abeg help me welcome him here. The brother sabi book pass book sef.

"Sabi book pass book" Lol..you go fear intro.

vivie01:
Sabi book pass book sef? He be Professor Emeritus be that oh? Oga AgentOfAllah, we are glad to see you here! We dey loyal sir!

Tank you ma. Na follo follo carry me come dis side. Oya, as you were!

Akin1212:
I discovered he probably does not know science or he is just turning it upside down. But then again, he might not have even read the piece he is even copying and pasting. It seems you have a history with him, as a matter of fact, this is my first time of engaging him. But am I even engaging him at all, or I am engaging the copied articles?

Yeah, we do have a history...lol. Hate to disappoint you..but yes, you're practically engaging the copied articles. You'll find that the bulk of his 'response' to you are copied and pasted.

I was dazed that he asked if a cup evolved from a bucket, can you just imagine that level of ignorance? I am too old for his intelligence quotient level.

If you did wonder where lies his depth, you needn't anymore!

Thanks anyway.

You're welcome!

OLAADEGBU:
The straw that the sheep gave the goat to eat?

Maybe! The goat knows best. Although, some stubborn goats also have an appetite for regurgitated straw, while others can shi.t out so much straw men in an astonishing fit of direct arse-to-keyboard diarrhea.

Akin1212:
I would be wasting my time going back and forth with you, every part of science you have quoted are not even understood by you. You don't even argue rationally.

You're being very kind to suggest DoctorAlien argues irrationally. That bloke doesn't argue at all, he just copies and pastes a gallimaufry of nonsensical sentences with scientific sounding words from creationist websites for bamboozling effect. It does help to focus on a specific objection of his. Although, this is difficult to do with him in particular, because he tries to inundate you with multiple copy-paste arguments so that you give in out of exasperation. I believe it's called Gish galloping. People with depth don't need to ask a million questions, they just need to ask one that devastates your whole argument.

I do admire your persistence though, and you have done a great deal to expose his shallowness. Alas, in typical DoctorAlien fashion, he's perfectly happy to dwell on the pedantic and spray you with more verbose nonsense, without even attempting to falsify your previous counterarguments.

I would ask you not to waste your time, but seeing that I am also learning from your posts, I will selfishly keep mum!

Jupxter:
You never seize to amaze me my dear comrade. Your thesis is a direct answer to questions about existence...You are so so close, in fact,you're sitting on it...How are you? Leaving social media, time to take our private experiments to the field.

I'm cool You?

In fact, the study of our physical universe always makes one feel so close to the answers, yet, so far! Although, I'm very comfortable without answers too. Answers collapse the imaginative field within which questions naturally thrive, thus killing all the fun in possibilities.

PastorAIO:
Hmmm this is absolutely fascinating. So basically we are dealing with nebulous poorly defined terms when we say things like 'the universe came out of nothing'. Or rather when Olaadegbu says, ' the universe came out of nothing'.
It seems that this isn't really the position of most contemporary scientists and would in fact reduce this thread to one big massive straw man argument. But what a poorly strawman, the straw is not well bound and there are tufts of straw falling all over the place. sigh.

Precisely! Nevertheless one cannot blame a goat that loves its straw.

PastorAIO:
Thanks for that.

I think that your last statement would depend on how you define Nothing. For instance would an empty vacuum be classified as nothing. Or would Nothing involve also the non existence of Space and Time.

Even if we presuppose the existence of absolute vacuum, it would just be the absence of matter in general. Since matter isn't everything, it would not necessarily be nothing. In fact, vacuum is known to possess quanta of energy known as zero point energy, which, when summed up in all of space, amounts to something quite significant.

On the other hand, the non-existence of space and time is something quite speculative. In the best case scenario, we can shrink the known universe to the diameter of a Planck's length by going back in time. Below this, we know the universe existed in some sort of singularity, but we don't quite know for how long it remained in that state. Additionally, the nature of singularity is so nebulous as to defy conceptualisation. How then does one begin to understand nothingness when we are still unable to see beyond something?

PastorAIO:
Is it possible for something to become nothing? For example, if an electron and a positron collide what will happen to the electron?
What if that process were reversed?

If an electron and a positron collide, both the electron and positron will cease to exist, but their energy must be conserved. As such, they will most likely emit electromagnetic energy (photons) which will exist indefinitely unless absorbed by another system, in which case, it will simply be converted to another form of energy.

The reverse process is trickier! It's not so easy to covert a single photon into an electron-positron pair (massive matter) since the electron and positron will have to go in different directions to exist (change in momentum from the original photon). For this to happen, the photon must collide with something (typically an atomic nucleus). However, multiple photons can be converted to massive matter and still conserve energy and momentum (since massive matter can have zero momentum).

In all cases, something keeps converting to something else. There is no conceivable scenario in which something pops out of nothing, or for that matter, no conceivable scenario in which nothing exists!

Alwaysking:
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Jesus mate, must you suffer us with your depraved and boorish voyeurism?