Posts by Martin

Welcome Clive!

Welcome Khoirul!

As mentioned in the reply to one Image, the quote is there. At first sight, the translation seems to be accurate.

The quote is not included in the free on-line excerpt of what seems to be the political testament of 1768 but a number of books contain that testament. During may time-out in Germany, I can search for it in the library of Cologne, which was an independent city state until Napoleon and became part of Prussia after Napoleon's defeat and therefore should have some books on Prussia and its kings in the library.

Welcome Oscar!

While trying unsuccessfully to source the quote, the search - mostly under http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/autor/friedric…on-preussen-185 -

showed that the quote adequately describes his strong disagreement with Christian metaphysics.

He regarded the claim that Jesus was the son of God a misinterpretation of the New Testament and knew about the increasing distortion of the belief in early Christian history and the oppression of other religions and denominations after Christianism's power grab.

What is relevant in the broader context is that he agreed largely with Christian ethics, which he regarded as instrumental to have loyal citizens, was within Prussia for main stream Protestants the equivalent of the Pope and was in general tolerant to any religious group.

He would interfere when he got the impression that a group tried to oppress other religious groups, had a negative effect on the economy or sided with Prussia's rival Austria.

Happy 20th!

Welcome Jasper!

I agree except for the golden mean. It is OK as a guidance for many things, and hedonic calculus often results in moderation. However, I attribute some of my greatest pleasures and successes, which in turn enabled further pleasures, to go full throttle into mostly beneficial obsessions for extended periods despite some pains which I incurred. I do not recall anything from Epicurus which would advocate the golden mean as a standard.

Thanks for the details. On the 3 items, let us agree to disagree, especially since they are mostly outside philosophy.

I hope we can meet up occasionally when you are here.

I will be on a time-out in Germany for about 2 months from April, and sooner or later after that 2 weeks in Canada. So, if we cannot meet soon after your arrival, we should have plenty of opportunity in the second half of the year. To discuss details, we should eventually use private communication channels.

"Determinism applies to statistics and macroscopic scales. Randomness and probability apply to individual instances.

As individuals we have free will, as a group our behavior is predictable.

This is why the swerve is important on a quantum scale, while macroscopic events obey strict causality."

These assertions are typically adequate but not in general/strictly:

Instead of boiling smoothly at 100 C as usual, a large portion of liquid water may overheat considerably above 100 C and then suddenly evaporate by a large percentage with explosive power.

A totalitarian regime may appear to be stable and invincible for decades and then quickly crumble in an unexpectedly successful revolution (France 1789, East Germany and Romania 1989, in a wider sense the victory of the American independence movement over the UK, the victory of the meager remainder of the Texan "army" against the much larger contingent of the Mexican army at San Jacinto 1836).

So, the swerve may become important for macroscopic events but this is just much less often observed than at a quantum scale (and in complex non-linear systems which by their structure amplify quantum fluctuations or other microscopic fluctuations to macroscopic events), where swerve may happen at a rate of about every millisecond.

"Why do we need to demand social justice for workers in India or China, if we never met one?"

Because that social injustice makes them unfairly compete with our offspring for jobs and has reduced potential growth of our own paychecks for 2 decades already. The loss of mass-manufacturing in Europe and North America is a major contributor to unpleasant political developments. Therefore, it is in our own interest to support social justice in Asia. Another reason is to prevent undesirably large streams of migrants.

As lab manager at manufacturing service factories in Thailand since 2004 and in other jobs already since 1996, I have unintentionally been supporting economic globalization. I am pleased to see how much social progress local engineers have made but I am very dissatisfied with the meager progress of workers' rights and prosperity at lower levels. That lack of progress has certainly contributed to the dramatic drop in Thailand's political stability since 2005.

Florius, I appreciate your clarity and depth regarding philosophy and agree mostly with your comments. Now, I found 3 items where I disagree. Here is the first one:

"Why do we need unverifiable theories about black holes, if we have never encountered one?"

Black holes are an important part of cosmology and therefore directly relevant for our understanding of the world. Although we may not be able to verify all details of the models of black holes, we have sufficient evidence of their existence and therefore encounter them remotely. E.g. we are fairly sure that there is one in the center of our galaxy.

Our offspring might even accidentally produce one in a future accelerator and better will have a fairly good understanding before taking that risk.

That black holes are often in the science headlines reflects rather public interest than that current science was putting a lot of effort on them. The percentage of researchers in that field is extremely small. I am an old physicist and have never knowingly met any of them in person.

Happy 20th!

Welcome Florius Lupus!

Welcome Godfrey!

I perceive bright as more inviting. However, dark is more comfortable to my eyes when working a long time on the computer. So, although I suggest light for the first look, I might set it to dark for myself later on. I agree with Elayne's explanation.

Welcome Domagoj!

Welcome Elayne!

As mentioned in an earlier related discussion on FB, I do not expect infinity and eternity of the universe to be the truth or to have any relevant meaning. Regarding the items under 5, I still need to make up my mind on some subtle differences I have with some of them and and verbalize those. Everything else is fine with me for now.