This article is not meant to give credit to New Age ideas. It is here to demonstrate how one very important physicist saw things. I only pasted in the first page. The entire article can be found at this link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00EED81739F931A25750C0A9649C8B63
In one corner is Dr. John Archibald Wheeler, 90, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton and the University of Texas, armed with a battery of hearing aids, fistfuls of colored chalk, unfailing courtesy, a poet's flair for metaphor, an indomitable sense of duty and the company of a ghost army of great thinkers. In the other is a ''great smoky dragon,'' which is how Dr. Wheeler refers sometimes to one of the supreme mysteries of nature. That is the ability, according to the quantum mechanic laws that govern subatomic affairs, of a particle like an electron to exist in a murky state of possibility -- to be anywhere, everywhere or nowhere at all -- until clicked into substantiality by a laboratory detector or an eyeball. Dr. Wheeler suspects that this quantum uncertainty, as it is more commonly known, is the key to understanding why anything exists at all, how something, the universe with its laws, can come from nothing. Or as he likes to put it in the phrase that he has adopted as his mantra: ''How come the quantum? How come existence?'' Standing by the window in his third-floor office in Princeton's Jadwin Hall recently, Dr. Wheeler pointed out at the budding trees and the green domes of the astronomy building in the distance. ''We're all hypnotized into thinking there's something out there,'' he said. Twice a week he takes a bus from his retirement home in nearby Hightstown to sit here under portraits of Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, the twin poles of his scientific life, and confront the dragonlike ephemerality of the world, dictating his thoughts to his secretary, Emily Bennett. ''The time left for me on earth is limited,'' he wrote recently. ''And the creation question is so formidable that I can hardly hope to answer it in the time left to me. But each Tuesday and Thursday I will put down the best response that I can, imagining that I am under torture.'' He is under no illusions about who will win the confrontation. A heart attack last year has taken its toll, and he acknowledges that his thoughts are fragmentary, ideas for ideas, as he likes to put it, and not for his present-day colleagues but for the generations of colleagues down the line. It's what he has been doing his whole life. Dr. Wheeler helped explain nuclear fission with Bohr, argued quantum theory with Einstein, helped build the atomic and hydrogen bombs and pioneered the study of what he later dubbed black holes. Along the way, he indulged his taste for fireworks and mischief and became the hippest poet physicist of his generation, using metaphor as effectively as calculus to capture the imaginations of his students and colleagues and to send them, minds blazing, to the barricades to confront nature. The phrases Dr. Wheeler has coined constitute a kind of vapor trail marking the path of the aspirations of physics in the last few decades: black hole, quantum foam, law without law, to name a few. ''A major piece of him is that he is a visionary,'' said Dr. Kip Thorne, a physics professor at California Institute of Technology who was Dr. Wheeler's graduate student at Princeton. ''He tries to see farther over the horizon than most people by way of his physical intuition.'' ''He brought the fun back into physics,'' said Dr. Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has recently collaborated with Dr. Wheeler, ticking off the reasons scientists love him. Physicists, he said, are usually reluctant to talk about Really Big Questions, like the why of existence, for fear of being branded flaky. ''He taught us not to be afraid,'' Dr. Tegmark said. It is a season of celebration for Dr. Wheeler and of reaping the harvest from generations of seeds of inspiration. The Battelle Memorial Institution of Columbus, Ohio, has donated $3 million to endow a physics chair in Dr. Wheeler's name at Princeton, which celebrated his birthday with one-day symposium last July, and plans a larger event. This weekend the Really Big Questions that Dr. Wheeler loves will be on the table when prominent scientists gather at a conference center here in his honor for a symposium modestly titled ''Science and Ultimate Reality'' sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation and the Peter Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize. The Philosopher King Bohr Conversations Leave Indelible Mark Dr. Wheeler once compared himself to Daniel Boone, who, the story goes, felt compelled to move on to new territory every time someone moved within a mile of him. It was in nuclear physics, the science of the buzzing dense cores of atoms, that he first made his mark. Born July 9, 1911, in Jacksonville, Fla., the oldest child in a family of librarians, he earned his Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins at age 21. On Sep 16, 11:47 pm, "Jason (Memphis)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think that New Age religious people use ideas such as observer > reactivity, Hawthorne effect and etc. Of course, if you put a > speedometer on a traitor trailer truck to measure its speed, the mass > of the speedometer will influence the speed of the truck. However, > that does not mean that the speed measurement is completely botch, > which is sort of the stand that New Age religious follower argue among > other pseudo-arguments. > > On Sep 16, 8:30 pm, Isparklaria <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > I think he might also be saying that scientific dogmas become > > scientism. As I understnd it science is supposed to be dogma free. The > > results it gives and even the method itself are seen as best bets, for > > now. It is accepted that the result and even the method can change, > > based upon thinking and tangible evidence. Experiments in quantum > > mechanics produce evidence that requires revision in the epistemolgy > > of science. No one has yet been able to come up with a solid generally > > accepted answer in this area, but old rigid notions have been > > impeached by the evidence. > > > On Sep 16, 5:38 pm, "Jason (Memphis)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > wrote: > > > > I think that Price is just warning against scientism, that is, that > > > science is the be all and end all of everything. We've been down this > > > road before. When you get into how a machine or organism perceives > > > the world from the inside, science has issues. Science can only > > > explain how it (machine or organism or other another part of nature) > > > works and how it perceives the surroundings--and can't deal with the > > > personal experiences of being a log, tree, another organism with a > > > very different biological structure...only predict and possibly > > > control those things within physical limits. > > > > On Sep 16, 2:56 pm, Isparklaria <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > On Sep 16, 12:19 pm, "Jason (Memphis)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > wrote > > > > > > That reference on p. 28 is calling out the pseudo-science in New Age > > > > > religions. > > > > > I agree that it is common for proponnents of New Age ideas, practices, > > > > religions and so forth to use gaps in scientific understanding as > > > > "proof" of their opinions. In this they resemble many other > > > > dogmatists. However the second part of that statment does not negate > > > > the first half, which reads, "These conundrums, which ought indeed to > > > > make us reexamine any scientific dogmas we may embrace.” Jason, do you > > > > suppose that Price is saying science has dogmas or do you think that I > > > > have interpreted correctly by saying that he really means scientistic > > > > dogmas? > > > > > On Sep 16, 12:19 pm, "Jason (Memphis)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > Most of the books that I read are science and philosophy--only a few > > > > > are mostly skeptical. > > > > > > Price is more in line with the way I look at these alternative > > > > > religions. > > > > > > That reference on p. 28 is calling out the pseudo-science in New Age > > > > > religions. > > > > > > I wasn't calling you out either but I did remember our debates about > > > > > Martin Gardner, Carl Sagan, CSICOPs and so forth and thought that > > > > > Price might be in that category. > > > > > > Jason > > > > > > On Sep 16, 11:07 am, Isparklaria <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > On Sep 15, 8:27 am, "Jason (Memphis)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > >I thought that Michael would be turned > > > > > > > off by book because it goes after "New Thought" and "New Age" > > > > > > > religions. > > > > > > > Jason, > > > > > > > I thought that you might not like the book because it is more > > > > > > philosophically oriented, rather than just being skeptical. In > > > > > > addition to just challenging idealistic monistic metaphysics, new > > > > > > age > > > > > > interpretations of quantum mechanics and other physics, new age > > > > > > extrapolations from quantum mechanics and other poor examples of > > > > > > reasoning by new age/new thought adherents, the author also > > > > > > challenges > > > > > > scientistic dogmas (he calls them scientific dogmas). He says, in > > > > > > the > > > > > > middle of the first paragraph of on page twenty eight, in reference > > > > > > to > > > > > > the mysteries of quantum mechanics,” These conundrums, which ought > > > > > > indeed to make us reexamine any scientific dogmas we may embrace.” > > > > > > > On the other hand, I have noticed that as I have become more > > > > > > realistic > > > > > > about new age nonsense, you also have seemed to recognize the limits > > > > > > of scientism and pseudo skepticism. For that reason you may like a > > > > > > book that rightly points out there is often some good in new age > > > > > > religions. The author even likes the Bible, though he is an > > > > > > atheist. I > > > > > > can understand his feeling since I like the Bible and don’t believe > > > > > > in > > > > > > its crazy bully of a god either. Actually I do believe that I AM > > > > > > exists, but I AM is not God, a god, a goddess an angel or anything > > > > > > else like that. What I Am is, in my opinion, is so obvious that we > > > > > > most people miss it. The secret is hidden in plain sight, where no > > > > > > one > > > > > > dares to look > > > > > > > On Sep 15, 8:27 am, "Jason (Memphis)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > the book that we are reading for book club (Top Secret by Robert > > > > > > > Price) > > > > > > > > The first chapter was good. I thought that Michael would be > > > > > > > turned > > > > > > > off by book because it goes after "New Thought" and "New Age" > > > > > > > religions. In some of these alternative religions, your mental > > > > > > > powers > > > > > > > or mind influences the environment around you by vibrating your > > > > > > > surrounding with sort mind beam that helps you control your > > > > > > > surrounding (or some other mind control of your surroundings). > > > > > > > Most > > > > > > > people would just think that positive thinking and persistance > > > > > > > helps > > > > > > > you "do" or "say" the right things to get what you want--not > > > > > > > project > > > > > > > some sort of mystical mental energy on your surroundings to > > > > > > > control > > > > > > > it. > > > > > > > > Regardless, the book "The Secret" (not Top Secret) and New > > > > > > > Thought/New > > > > > > > Age religions are very popular in some circles and parts of the > > > > > > > country. > > > > > > > > Jason- Hide quoted text - > > > > > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - > > > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Memphis Freethought Alliance" group. 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