Simon Paynton

jakelafort wrote:
I thought as mass approaches speed of light it becomes infinite?

I think that mass becomes infinite as it approaches the speed of light through space, not time.

jakelafort wrote:
And if big bang is a beginning at what point does blocking become the nature of the thing as a whole?

It’s a shape.  I can’t visualise something in 4D, but I presume we have length, breadth, height, and time.  Eventually, if there’s heat death, then events stop happening and time runs out.

Inside the shape, local events exist a…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
Does it follow that the universe is eternal?

You’re talking about a finite 4-dimensional block.  It must have edges.  At one edge is the Big Bang.  At the other end is heat death, or whatever its terminating fate is.  In between, is the history of the universe and all its internal events.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I must respect your beliefs?? Some chance of me doing that when I don’t even respect my own. I don’t believe things to feel safe. You don’t want your beliefs respected. You want them immunized for criticism.

Someone said that people with intellectual humility are more successful, they didn’t specify in what way. …[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Me, in conversation with a evangelical street preacher in Dublin last week.

What did they say back?  Anything?  Very well put.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
The Gettier Problem: True Justified Belief without Knowledge.

Again, I think the problem with True Justified Belief is the statement, I am factually justified.  To know I am factually justified, I must know that my belief is true, yet I use this justification as proof that the belief is true.  I justify the truth o…[Read more]

@regthefronkeyfarmer – but I never said the truth had to be justified – just “true”.  Anyway I like your definition of understanding better – understanding the factors that make something happen, and everything has a causative structure.

I understand that the concept of truth is not simple and is hard to define precisely.  If something is l…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Religious justification is more powerful than anger or hatred and that is how ordinary people become instruments of atrocity.

I actually think that extremist religion and politics can justify “righteous” anger and hatred, blotting out all compassion or respect for human rights.  That’s because morality has an…[Read more]

Understanding – apprehending the truth – is an aspiration or goal.  We can’t guarantee to reach an adequate understanding of something.

Understanding is true belief.  False beliefs are either redundant or harmful because delusion is always unsatisfactory.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Univ. of Oklahoma punishes instructor for failing Christian student who didn’t do the assignment.

She wrote a right-wing rant instead.  I think that the student, Samantha Fulnecky, will never be able to get a normal job now.  But there’s plenty of work spouting off on YouTube, playing the victim and pretending to be…[Read more]