₦airaland Forum

deleted. Redundant post!

To add to the above again. Sorry.

I use the word 'space' for want of a better word. Perhaps the word should be 'thing', when not part of 'spacetime'! Obviously Particle Physicists and Mathematicians are trying to use terms understandable to everyday people to explain what they think is going on. The fact that scientist don't all agree is irrefutable, but for theoretical purposes, the dialogue is still interesting. Obvioulsy most of these hypotheses will end up in the dustbins of history as more information comes to light. And then come back again to be refined, only to be again discarded!

I am of the opinion that we will continue to search and find 'answers' which will only open up newer questions. The 'Truth' if it is out 'there', will always remain hovering on the other side of our comprehension as long as we function within the boundaries of 'spacetime'. We lack the capacity to fully understand anything outside of these boundaries, just like the 'simple' concepts of 'nothingness' and 'eternity' will ever remain a paradox to us, calculated only in mathematics and physics but never quite understood.

All we are left to do is to exchange ideas and concepts, which may have little to do with the 'truth'.

To add to the above.

The word 'expansion' (http://ardictionary.com/Expansion/6515) may not be the exact phenomenon going on. I think we use it for want of a better word, seeing that by nature 'expansion' is really a 4-dimensional concept i.e. spreading out in 3-dimensional space in a time continuum. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that 'spacetime' is 'seeping' into unknown space. In other words the 4th dimension is encroaching into other dimensions!

Now that's 'simpler' to understand, isn't it?!

I think our 'disagreement' is in our understanding of what constitutes the 'universe'.

While i am of the (obviously uninformed) opinion that the 'universe' is not a 4-dimensional entity, and that bubbles of 'spacetime' exists within a wider universe, your take, if i am not wrong, is that these my bubbles of 'spacetime' is infact the universe itself.

I am no physicist or Mathematician. I am just a fan of Stargate (SG-1 and now Stargate Universe), but i do understand that in particle physics things can be in more than one space at the same time! Now how do you explain that, if 'spacetime' is the universe? Again, i understand that the talk these days is that 'gravity' seeps into 'space' which lies outside of our 'spacetime' continuum. If that's what they are talking about, then where on earth does it seep into?

I am told that higher dimensions exist in theoretical physics. I have also heard that 'gravity' is not what we once thought it to be (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton) and that it actually seeps into these higher dimensions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_dimension), not exactly subject to 'spacetime' physics. For me, this space is still within our universe!

That space is also where i believe 'spacetime', not the universe, is expanding into!

Deep Sight:
Beneli. . . .? ? ? ? ?

Exactly! That's 'science' for you!!

To help in this discussion, here is my attempt at answering some of the very interesting questions raised by Deep Sight.

  1. Does anything conceivably exist outside the universe?

Yes and No-whatever exists 'outside' the 'universe' is outside our comprehension. So it's not concievable to us, really. Having said that, the understanding is that our universe is just one of many so called 'universes', each with their own scripts and laws. Even within our own 'universe' at the level of quantum mechanics, the laws and scripts played out there are quite different to the ones we can understand using 4-dimensional calculations. Some suggestions are that cosmic holes may be the gateways to these other universes. But these are just suggestions. It is also suggested that inbetween the 'universes' could be higher dimensional spaces, but certainly not 'nothing'.

  2. Even nothingness. . .?

No-see answer to 1.

  3. Is the universe the same thing as spacetime,

No-spacetime is just the 4th dimension. The 'universe' is a lot more than the 4 dimensions, according to mathematics and theoretical physics.

  4. or does it exist within spacetime.

No-see the answer to 3.

Addendum: There is a lot of talk of the 'universe expanding'. I think that is where the problem is for some. If there is nothing like 'nothing' then what is the universe expanding into? Well the simple answer to that, a view which some scientists hold, is that the 'universe' is not expanding!  What is expanding is 'spacetime' and NOT the universe per se. Outside of 'spacetime' exists 'space' not subject to our understanding of 'space' and 'time'. This 'space', however, is still within the 'universe'.

the_seeker:
if you call it Faith and not Reason, then i put it to you that so called atheist also disbelive in God by Faith and not reason.
Same way science cannot prove God, it also cannot disprove him. So how does an atheist 'know' that God does not exist if he cannot prove it. He only accepts his belief by faith

I agree with you.

the_seeker:
God does not need science to prove Him. He can only be known through reason

No, certainly not by reason, but by Faith. God can be 'known' only by Faith.

Using reason, logic or science to try to apprehend God will always leave room for arguements that lead nowhere. The 'wave function collapse' thing you mentioned provides, those that would argue for God, a theoretical tool they can use for their arguments or something 'tangible' for the scientifically minded to anchor their 'understanding' of what they already have believed in through Faith, but it certainly provides no 'evidence' for His existence. Those that would argue against His existance would say it's just another process in quantum mechanics. Nothing more.

the_seeker:
something in the video reminds me of a paper i read somtime ago. The author 'proved' the existence of God using collaspsing wave functions. he claimed since only the act of observation can fix the position of an electron and thus cause the probabilty wave equation to collapse, the universe would never have formed at the point of the big bang if there was no one to observe. Simply because atom would never have formed if there was no one (God) to observe them. The electronswould have been 'everywhere' at the same time

I doubt it proves the existence of God, but it certainly adds more weapons to the arsenal of those that would use science to argue for His existence!

My understanding of this whole space-time thing etc is obviously amateur, picked up here and there from watching Stargate and all that kind of junk, but somehow the only way to get my head around warping/bending space, time travel etc is to visualise space-time as clusters of ‘parallel’ continuums which together form the multiverse. The ‘parallel’ here is not 2,3 or even 4-dimensional.

In other words, there are higher dimensional ‘clouds’ if you like, that encompass each cluster of space-time continuum. So we actually limit ourselves when we talk only in terms of space-time, as each cluster has a lot more than 4 dimensions. I believe theoretical physicists are currently discussing the possibility of up to 11 dimensions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory

With this understanding movement across space without the boundaries of time(in other words time travel, moving outside of the speed of light and so on) would involve leaping into higher dimensions. This would be the ‘hyperdrive’ talked about in science fiction.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperdrive

Conceptualising space warping and time travel in only 4 dimensions makes it extremely difficult (nay impossible) to understand. When you think in terms of higher dimensions, a bit of illumination dawns!

The 'Z' in Deep Sights diagram would then be something outside of the 4-th dimension but certainly within a particular cluster-continuum of a universe.

@imconfused,
I have recieved it.

@imconfused,
Sorry for the late response to your post-i was drop dead busy in the last 48 hours and hardly checked my mails!

You can send me a copy of the CV at elias_beneli@yahoo.com(that is elias underscore beneli), and we'll take it from there.

Best regards

Deep Sight:
You have stated that such exist irrespective of the human mind. Thus you have stated that numbers exist irrespective of the human mind. Thus self-existent.

Pardon my barging in to your very interesting and educative discourse. With reference to the bolded part can i add my humble perspective.

I doubt that anybody will be bold enough to say that they know the answer to the question of whether 'numbers' exist irrespective of the human mind. To be able to answer that question one has to be able to say with authority that they understand what 'the human mind' is. Who really knows what it is? Who knows what consciousness is?

Is the 'mind' something unique to each individual or is it part of a universal entity? Does consciousness exist irrespective of the limitations of biology or is it integral to biology? Who can answer that with authority?

So back to the question of numbers. No body has enough information to be able to say whether they exist because of us. Or irrespective of us. That's my take.

Horus:
Most fact-finders now know that Santa is an anagram for Satan.

@ Horus, i have come across that somewhere as well, but 'Santa', as you may well know, is also the Spanish for 'saint'. The name 'Santa' Claus, however comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas or Saint Nicholas. It is believed that Saint Nicholas of Myra is the primary inspiration for the Santa Claus of the pagan celebration of Christmas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas, and not Satan as some of the 'fact-finders' would insinuate.

@ Styrax,
Thanks. I won't go and see 'New Moon' then, even if somebody puts a gun to my head!

I have responded to your mail.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend then!

redsun:
Religious people are like children,they need to taught every thing,they need to be taught morality,taught fairness,taught kindness,taught self control and self indulgence,common sense,they seem never to have natural intuitions.

Anyway,the blind must led,whichever way.There is utmost freedom in being non-aligned.

Change your circle of acquaintances. Broaden your horizons, is my candid advice. Because it appears that you have had limited contact with 'Religious people'. Those you describe above, sound more like people with learning difficulties. Their doltishness have little to do with 'Religion' or lack of it. Yours sounds more like the prejudiced statements of one trying to justify his belief system in an arguement with someone else who shares a different view-a defence mechanism if you like, a painting-of-a-dog-black kind of mentality, in order to hang it.

It's not only interesting that some people who don't know, don't know that they don't know; It's actually a very dangerous thing.

sauer:
Hey, it's Richard Dawkins, not Hawkins, or are you perhaps carried away by hearing too much of Stephen Hawking??

And also, Just so you know, Albert Einstein never believed in your god. Was a jew, and only talked of God in place of Nature. Substitute "God" with "Nature" in that quote, and boom! u have it!

You are right it's Richard Dawkins! Sorry.

I didn't come up with the words of the quote my friend. Those are the man's words, so why should i substitute 'God' with 'nature'. The issue, however, is not whether the man believed in God or not, he did going by some of his statements-'I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings'.
- Albert Einstein, responding to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein's question "Do you believe in God?" quoted in: Has Science Found God?, by Victor J Stenger

The fact that he didn't believe in a Christian God doesn't ruffle my feathers in any way. He had a right to believe in whatever deity he wanted to. It is his choice. Just like it's yours to either believe or not believe.

My point is that neither the believer nor the unbeliever can lay claims to having the 'evidence' for the positions they take, so evrything boils down to 'Faith'.

Neither the so called Atheists nor those who believe in a God have the ‘evidence’ to back up the things they choose to believe-or not believe-in. The choices made have nothing to do with ones level of exposure, education, or as somebody mentioned earlier with ‘being a slave to rationality’.

Those who, like Richard Hawkins, say that belief in God amounts to a delusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion, should have the humility to admit that they don’t have the evidence to support their stance. In other words by using the word ‘delusion’ in connection with people who believe in God, they only reveal their own ignorance of the meaning of the word. (http://www.answers.com/topic/delusion)

The fact is that Science has not disproved the existence of God; neither has Philosophy nor History nor Archaeology. And until there is evidence that God does not exist, belief or unbelief in God will always boil down to personal choices, made in spite of the evidence or lack of it. That is where the faith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith) thing comes in.

It certainly takes a lot of Faith to believe that the universe was created from a cosmic explosion of a subatomic ball that hurled space, time, matter and energy in all directions. Those that believe in God say that this explosion happened because God said ‘let there be, ’. The 'atheist' is not quite sure why it happened. Current ‘rational’ thinking is that matter came out of 'nothing', possibly from the other side of a Singularity (a black hole), that connects the membranes of different universes. The ‘why’ for them, is that this event was ‘random’. And this is accepted as ‘rational’ thinking.

The only thing that separates the ‘atheist’ from ‘theist’ is what they have chosen to submit to. The Atheist holds his own power of reason and intellect as supreme and submits only to himself and to 'logic', while the 'theist' believes in someone or something that is greater than himself, to which he submits.  What that someone or something is, is a matter of choice that has been influenced by so many intermingling factors. The several influences of my life have lead me to submit to the Christian Faith.

‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’. I am content in this knowledge. For those who have a problem with that, it's their choice which has nothing to do with a 'superior' intellect.



'Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish'.
-Albert Einstein

@Styrax, i have sent you an email.

styrax:
Doing things a little differently, using help of technology to make health available for subscribers while "roaming" using programmable EMV compliant smartcards that have sizable memory to contain holder's biodata, detailed medical history and secure link to extended medical records and imaging on hosted servers.

So instead of declaring primary care providers, subscribers can walk into any participating care provider and be attended to without being subjected to rigor of extensive clarking and what-not, also will help to reduce frauds in claims by care providers and the rest of that.

Just acquired the necessary hardware and did extensive software coding to bring up a unique solution for nigeria health care and insurance. I quite understand, similar things are being used extensively in europe especially germany and france.

Of course can go into too much details than this, otherwise i will be sounding like a nerd.

so what sayeth thou?

I think you are on to something here, my friend.

First question: Is the idea/product 'patentable'? If so try to secure it as your Intellectual Property with the Nigerian Patent Office that way you won't be worried that somebody else will run to the banks with it!

Am i interested? I think i am. There is something in your idea that is very useful. We need to obviously sit down and work out what is workable in the Nigerian terrain and what is not. I am still trying to get through the hurdles of getting a HMO registered. I am stuck in the form-buying stage. I should be in Naija early next year to push on a little more. Unfortunately the crises in the banking sector has put me back several months because the product i have (which also is novel and therefore patented) has a lot to do with the banks.

What next then you may ask? I suggest that you get the product registered as an Intellectual Property, so that when we start to talk we will be talking as equals. When i registered my product it cost me about 60k in Naira.

What sayeth thou ?(i like that phrase, so i apologise for borrowing it from you. I didn't plan to steal your mojo or anything!)

PS: Where are u based?

styrax:
@beneli
_{We share common interest in entering nigeria's hmo scene, i have this novel idea that might interest you}

I am all ears eyes.

princekevo:
More so this guy seems to be the best governor Abia state has ever had till date. Those from Abia state stands to correct me if am wrong.

Your sarcasm is paralytic!

ndu_chucks:
(16)The lost children of Biafra (who are they and where are they now?

Some of them grew up and became Nigerians. Some, like myself, managed to find their way in life and were able to become citizens of a much wider world, and in the process found the strength to be able to break free from the limiting chains of ethnic and primitive tribal bigotry, in spite of the hurdles that are thrust in front of them. While others still nurse unhealing wounds, around which festering scars have appeared that are too disfiguring and too painful for them to let go.

But many, the majority, did not make it. Their bones now lie scattered and broken in the eroding lands of what has become the South Eastern states of Nigeria. These ones, lost in the sands of time, yet whose names are engraved in the matrix of the beings of those that survived of their families; engraved like an image indented in molten gold that has hardened and will outlive a lot of those that gloat over their misfortune; these ones, perhaps, are the ones that are truly 'the lost children of Biafra'. That's what really happened to them. They died in a senseless war, yet in the hearts of those that survived, they live on.

War is not a good thing.

It's not so much an 'African smell'.

Some of the guys (men and women) that 'smell' are those who have not acquired the good habit of using deodarants. Some simply can't afford it. Sometimes it's the lingering odour from having indulged in a steamy dish of pounded yam and the heavily spiced soup that usually goes with it. What some people don't realise is the fact that some of our spices do have very powerful odours, which the 'uninitiated' can't fully appreciate and which follows us evrywhere we go. That's until we've had a good wash and sprayed that perfume or whatever it is that we like to spray on ourselves.

It's just like the lingering smell of garlic on the breath of someone whose just had a heavily spiced Asian meal and forgotten to rinse out there mouth and pop a mint or something in it.

Unfortunately a lot of the newly arrived guys-the illegal ones anyway-can't afford to attend to their personal hygiene. Others who do are not aware that the smell from the food can linger with them for the whole day. And it is a problem which can't really be ignored. It's just that there's really no nice way to tell your paddy that s/he smells of crayfish without coming across insensitive!

So it's not an 'African thing' per se.

blandish:
@ Beneli

could you please define what you mean by informed? because I live in PH, Abuja and UK and it is the norm, everyone from a banker to a fufu seller refers to a mixed race as half cast, there is no embarassment in this issue and 99% of nigerians are definitely not ignorant because they use the word, if the west decide that they do not want to use this word, I have not heard them making any announcements to nigerians not to use this word. in their land it is not acceptable, in ours it is, soon you are going to tell me that because the western countries now accept gay marriages or gay relationships, since it is not openly acceptable in nigeria, then nigerians are ignorant.

Beneli which word do the informed people now use, curious to know.

Before we close this offtopic discussion, can i try to respond to your questions?
1. An informed person is a person who has had access to balanced information concerning the subject in question. I tried to see if i could find a more official definitions but no joy there, unfortunately.
2. Informed people use terms such as  'mixed-race', bi-racial individuals etc to describe people of mixed 'racial' heritage. It's not perfect, given that there's a lot of questions about what constitutes 'race', but it's still an improvement. The use of the expression 'half-caste' is rather insulting to the individuals concerned and, quite frankly, not very 'informed'.

I hope the above, helps! And no, i am not trying to be patronising.

So back to the topic.