FRIEND: Hey Kent, you have any experience with probability?

Phikent: probably

FRIEND: Very funny. ;-)

FRIEND: A friend and I disagree on the answer to a question. Want to give it a try?

Phikent: will try

FRIEND: Ok. Examine this problem carefully:Lisa just had two children. The doctor comments to her that at least one is a boy. What is the probability that both are boys?

Phikent: aww jeez, I dunno

FRIEND: ::bangs head on desk::

Phikent: I'd say that there is only a slim probability that the mother, the babies, the hospital room and Kansas City will exist at all

FRIEND: Solar problems?

Phikent: ahem, Lorentz (Einstein's guru whom he ignored), later Bohr said that at the basis of matter is no substance

FRIEND: How do you define "substance"?

Phikent: nonexistent stuff

FRIEND: What qualifies something for existence?

Phikent: pretending to exist

FRIEND: Could you say, then that my computer does not exist, because it does not have the ability to pretend?

Phikent: no such thing as organic/inorganic

FRIEND: That isn't the point I'm making.

FRIEND: Trees do not have the ability to pretend either....do they not exist?

Phikent: puter pretends too, same primordial hologram

FRIEND: Computers are not yet able to pretend. Until a sufficient AI code is developed, anyway.

Phikent: trees pretend most excellent

FRIEND: How do you define "pretend"?

Phikent: whim

Phikent: whim in change

FRIEND: What is whim?

Phikent: pretending

Phikent: mobius loop, eh?

FRIEND: Circular definitions are EVIL! :-)

Phikent: all we got, forced on us by the demon called EXPLAIN!

Phikent: explanations are special kinda pretends, the kind that hope to ward off oblivion.

FRIEND: Ah, but explanations don't need to be words...and only words need definitions (of that variety, anyway). :-)

Phikent: words trickle down outta experiences

FRIEND: Words are a common way to exchange ideas based on physical reality.

Phikent: but the experience precedes the word

FRIEND: Yes, and is the word's basis.

Phikent: otherwise no cottonpickin word.

Phikent: For instance, infinity first had to be experienced prior to cooking up the word.

FRIEND: Infinity does not need to be experienced. In fact, it can not be. That's why we have such a vague concept of it.

Phikent: where did the word come from then?

FRIEND: Combinations of other experiences and concepts.

Phikent: good enough

Phikent: fits right in as a keyword in that most of the experience of the Universe is beyond binary thought.

Phikent: 99% is unknowable

Phikent: which demands different level of experience beyond meat, potatoes and the sawbuck.

FRIEND: or perhaps just a different level of insight.

FRIEND: Newton saw in the falling of an apple things which many overlooked.

Phikent: Newton was an alchemist, rejected the machine universe, hated Cartesian to the point he forbade his name mentioned in his household

Phikent: What we call Newtonian science is a total joke.

FRIEND: Does that reject the notion that deep connections can be glimpsed through observation of simple events?

Phikent: deep connections precipitate simple events

FRIEND: Is that a "yes" or "no"?

Phikent: maybe

FRIEND: You are unsure if deep connections can be found through observation of simple events?

Phikent: maybe-ness, far superior to yes-no-ness.

FRIEND: With maybe-ness, you are never wrong. But you don't advance either.

Phikent: advance?

FRIEND: Maybe-ness leaves everything indeterminate. It is existentialism.

Phikent: binary perceptions advance towards continuous perception

FRIEND: Existentialism impedes progress on nearly any scale.

Phikent: as compared to what?

FRIEND: Most other general outlooks.

FRIEND: My beliefs are opposite that of existentialism. I believe everything has an answer and an explanation. I reject chaos theory.

Phikent: well, Newtonian physics has been surpassed by quantum mechanics, that's good.

FRIEND: If the people who had developed quantum physics had been existentialists, they never would have bothered. ;-)

Phikent: don't like that word, existentialism, eh?

FRIEND: Nope. I favor (for the most part) science. Science and existentialism don't mix.

Phikent: Frankly I never understood what it meant, some kind of opposite to fundamentalism, another term that kinda sux.

FRIEND: Existentialism is the belief that any order, logic, or organization you perceive...in anything...is illusory. Everything is random and chaotic.

Phikent: science is a general methodology which includes many approaches, most of the current far beyond what we blame Sir Isaac for.

FRIEND: Yes.

Phikent: Got Quantum-heads, probability-freaks, chaos, string...

Phikent: got a gang that swears to god that there are unmoving fundamental laws, got another gang that swears there is no basis for fundamental laws that don't do like everything else, that is, change.

FRIEND: If you assume that nothing is consistent, you assume all logic to be erroneous, and you become an existentialist.

Phikent: science ain't one entity and it has to move and mutate or science will wither up.

FRIEND: Science exists on the premise that the universe can be explained with logical, consistent laws.

Phikent: they also say that 99% is beyond explanation

FRIEND: Beyond *current* explanation. ;-)

FRIEND: Big difference.

Phikent: good enough as long as they allow the abandonment of old explanations that have fallen to goo, you know like particle physics.

FRIEND: Certainly.

Phikent: but some cling and try to turn science into the immutable

FRIEND: They are the scientific conservatives.

Phikent: well see we kinda have pure theorists, the dreamers, and then engineers that sort of cling to doodad aspect of science

Phikent: America is an engineering stronghold and we seem to court what we identify as Newtonian science because this aspect allows us to cook up cool new gadgets quicker and faster, but...

Phikent: In Europe, India, China, the Balkans, the theorists seem to better thrive.

FRIEND: Newtonian concepts are oversimplifications of more complex ideas...kinda like religion. It is useful for those who cannot understand anything greater, but is not exactly correct.

Phikent: engineering is kinda different from theoretical science, and in a sense here in America we have a dearth of great theorists, we don't support them well. So that leaves our sciences vulnerable to special interests as well as not getting the necessary pipeline from unhindered research all in a time when the knowledge pool demands doubling about once every nine months. we are forced to send a lot of cherished tidbits to the trash heap, one of them I believe to be the addiction to the binary perception.

FRIEND: We aren't working at peak efficiency, at any rate.

Phikent: certain fallout occurs

Phikent: like maybe attacking Yugoslavia where breakthroughs are being made that negate our military industrial scene.

FRIEND: I should get going...nice chatting with you. :-)

Phikent: me too.