Mozibur Ullah

@cmaster-reinstatemonica: No, abstraction is not about restricting thought but about generalising phenomena by 'abstracting' properties. Further,there is a division of labour amongst mathematicians as the sheer mass of maths is huge which makes collaborations important these days.

@cmaster-reinstatemonica: I have a math's degree. You may not care about any connection to reality but most mathematicians, including pure mathematicians do. There is a chain of thought that relates even the most abstruse mathematics to reality. This is why mathematicians talk about mathematicial objects "found in nature".

@cmaster-reinstatemonica: No, mathematicians do not "arbitrarily" change axioms to investigate phenomena. They do it usually to generalise or isolate a phenomena that they observe. For example, the theory of digroups arose from the theory of Liebniz algebras in order to isolate a phenomena and then they were generalised to generalised digroups in order that the usual isomorphism thms hold.

@Jo Wehler: No, it's no joke. My examples support the claim I'm making. Have you not come across a curved surface in your life? Or do you live in a world of straight lines , square and cubes etc? Riemannian manifolds model curved surfaces. Do you understand Riemannian geometry?

@Jo Wehler: Like I said, non-Euclidean geometry arose from Euclidean geometry and Euclidean geometry has some connection to reality. Likewise Riemannian geometry is the geometry of curved surfaces, and these are all around us. Goedels theorem is a formalisation of the Cretan Liar's paradox and this paradox highlights the limits of language - and we are immersed in language. Whilst topos theory, an invention by Grothendieck, is a generalisation of set theory and sets are all around us.

@Zev Spitz: That the Jews had "nothing" was entirely due to the Holocaust which was executed by Germany, a European power - it had nothing to do with Palestine or indeed the larger Arab world. It's monstrous that Palestinians are having to pay for a European crime. In fact, Lord Moynes, when the war with Nazi Germany was turning in the British favour, offered the Zionist leadership part of Germany as a homeland for the Jews, they refused. That would have been justice. Instead they chose the road of injustice to the Palestinians with the end result of apartheid and plausible genocide.

@Zev Spitz: You wrote that Amnesty apartheid report "conflates" between the Israeli Palestinians with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The point is that Israel is the de facto power in the West Bank and Gaza - this is why they are referred to as the "Occupying Power" and when taking this into account the case for aparthied is clear.

@Zev Spitz: The interim ICJ judgement said, " “In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances... are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.” Thus my claim of plausible genocide.

@F1Krazy: It's not exactly a long post ...

@F1Krazy: Reading beyond the first paragraph shows that I am contesting that Israel extends full human rights to Palestinians. The evidence I give for this is that several respected human rifhts organisations have declared Israel to be an apartheid state and that the ICC has ruled Israel is currently commiting plausible genocide. Where am I not being clear?

@F1Krazy: you wrote "It should be made clear that this is a frame challenge ...". Did you read my first sentence when I said "I don't agree with the premise of the question"? How is that not being clear?

@dEmigOd: No, that isn't what I said. I suggest you read my answer again .

@F1Krazy: Can you explain to me why it isn't "a frame challenge"? When it so obviously is?

@dEmiGod: Because facts on the ground are more important than rhetoric - especially when the facts on the ground shows up the emptiness of the rhetoric. In fact, more, it's complete moral bankruptcy.

@Obie2.0: You're missing the point!

@Obie 2.0: ... after being at Oxford. No sense of the dedication to learning which is what Oxfords about. A bunch of rich spolit kids. And then I foumd out just how few days they had for holidays. Two weeks if you're lucky. And then I thought, these guys are crazy ...

@Obie 2.0: I don't think so. I think its like women joiming the workforce. Everyone thoight it was a biggie when it first happemed. But the country did not fall on its knees. Life and work carried on. I'd also advocate for a tjree day workimg week. It gives people far more time for their friends and family. I read pne horrendous statistic that most people in the USA vould barely count on even one friend. Don't you agree that os a terrifyimg indictment of the US economy? I lived with American students in my second year at uni, and all they could talk about is how much money they could make ...

@Obie2.0: I mean professional unions. I mean advocacy groups. I mean media training for scientists. I mean policy training. I mean professional development routes etc etc. I recall listening to a female professor of mathematics at a maths conference who mafe that change and foumd the work dynamic and challenging. So obviously the appetite is there.

@Obie 2.0: Amd I'm pretty sure there will be many willing takers in the future as we get a more scientifically literate workforce. They need their own unions.

@Obie 2.0: No, that seems to be what you expect science to be like. I'm saying that scientists should be able to advocate professionally - as well as in their capacity as private individuals - like every other professional does.

@Obie 2.0: Scientific research has to be professionally irreproachable. But likewise lawyers. But the latter advocate whilst you are saying the former cannot. This makes no sense. Scientists are citizens too.

@Obie 2.0: ... out the plastics. This is just greenwashing. I say go to the source and bust it wide open there.

@Obie 2.0: I'll repeat what I have said before as it clearly seems you have not understood it: Science is not neutral. But there is a division of labour where politicians, in dialogue with senior scientists interested in policy, advocate for specific policies that are informed by science - like cancer-busting drugs, or climate-mitigation policies and so on. One which I would like to see is plastic manufacturers actually in est in biodegradable plastocs. I imagine there are many thousands of chemists who would delight in doing just that - instead of putting on the poor consumer to sort ...

@Obie 2.0: I'm dismissing net neutrality becauze they have identified much higher threats. Existential threats in their view. To focus on net neutrality when there are bigger threats is a dereliction of public duty which is partly what net neutrality is about.

@Obie 2.0: I know what "net neutrality" is. I'm saying, as ten nobel peace prize winners are saying, the debate has now far transcended such sterile debates that are of a different epoch. They are talking about "an existential threat to democracy". I'll repeat that - if you didn't get that the first time around, "BIG Tech poses an existential threat to Western Democracies."

@Obie 2.0: Science is not neutral. This is a mistake. There is a division of labour. Scientists do the science and its left to politicians to advocate for the science. However, many scientists angry and upset also want to get into policy advocacy and I think good luck to them. It should only improve the climate of opinion. Like raise the bar higher.

@Hypnosifl: Oh, and one last thing. Democritus explained the mental world through what he called "soul atoms". It's strange how his fans never seem to mention this.

@Hypnosifl: ... real physicists take any serious notice of timelike loops and acausality is frankly not true. That some do so is merely an exploration of the mathematical consequences of a theory so as to understand the limits of the theory. Its not because anyone - well apart from you - believe it to be true.

@Hypnosifl: ... attempting to understand a book by analysing its atomic composition. Most people would just laugh and say you're on a fools errand. I've already pointed out that Hawkings Chronology Conjecture is based upon a long-standing implicit physical principal of causality. The ADM formulation of Hamiltonian GR relies on time evolution. Yvonne Choquet-Bruhats proof of the stability and existence of Einstein's field equations relies on the ADM framework and so on temporal evolution. The notion of generally hyperbolic manifolds requires a time orientation. Your idea that ...

@Hypnosifl: ... plus one apple in my right hand. And thats true because 1 + (-1) = 0. Of course that just nonsense. Because we already know that on the level of apples that kimd of arithmetic doesn't obtain. We still need physical intuition amd we get this through experience, experimentation and theory not blindly chasing mathematical chimeras. No, its not possible to derive peoples behaviour and that of life from physics. This is another myth from the physicalists stall. Even then, its not correct to say that when parts make a thing, then the parts are more fundamental. Try for example ...

@Hypnosifl: ... wasn't a systematic philosopher. Its easy enough to find other arguments of his which diametrically oppose your mathematically inspired phikosophy. After all, he made fun of mathematicians who thought using the Banach-Tarski paradox to describe matter as a good idea. There's no need to wuote Democritus or Aristotle at me. I've reaf them both. Still, I note that nothing in your quotes bu Democritus mentions mathematics as the only way to understand the universe. This should be obvious. I have zero apples in my hands. And then look, I have minus one apple in my left hand and ...

@Hypnosifl: I've already given you one good argument as to why atomism is fundamentally not correct. There is no notion of particle that makes sense in terms of general covariance. Aristotles argument was against the existence of the void which ancient atomism presupposes. It's the same argument, as I have already pointed out, that Newton used to admit action-at-a-distance made no sense. You are relying on Feynman as an authority in tge same way you are relying on the general disparagement of Aristotle by physicists for your own argument. And you're cherry-picking your arguments. Feynman ...

@Hypnosifil: ... spacetime symmetry group disappears and with it too the notion of a particle. The fundamental concept is that of a quantised field and this does not mean particle. That is atom.

@Hynosifil: ... due to their philosophical prejudices. You're also wrong about Democritus. I don't recall he suggested that mathematics was important in the study of nature - have you read De Rerum Natura? - that was Plato, and he got that from the Pythagoreans. More, as I've already pointed out in modern physics the notion of a particle is incoherent. QFT on flat space thinks of particles as irreducible representations of the Poincare group. But spacetime is not flat - far from - as Einstein taught us - and when taking account of general covariance the notion of a distinguished ...

@Hypnosifil: ... think otherwise is another myth that people tell themselves. Far from what you suppose, final causes are important. It's impossible to understand people and their doings without thinking about purposes and intentionality. You are confusing cause and effect in tge general sense with the purely physical. Even there, its quite possible to use tye language of final causes. Newton did. After all, in the Principia he described in his first law of motion, particles as "persevering" in rectilinear motion. It was later physicists, particularly French ones, who removed that ...

@Hypnosifil: No, you're wrong. Aristotle could imagine atomism but he argued against it. The algebraist Rene Thom said that Aristotle was the only significant philosopher who argued for the continuum for a millenia. Given that modern physics do not have particles as a fundamental category, its not clear that he was wrong there. Science is built upon authority as much as argument. Why were you quoting Feynman at me if you didn't think his authority as a physicist wasn't important? Its quite clear to me that science and philosophy relies as much on authority as religion - that some people ...

@Hypnosifl: All this modern European arrogance is what lead to the Europe comitting suicide in the first and second world wars. Just when they thought they were the best, they were the worst.

@Hynosifl: Moreover, early modern physics wasn't "reacting" to Aristotle, this is a story we've been telling ourselves or rather we've been told it. It doesn't stand up to any serious reflection. It merely reflects a modern European arrogance that they are something new in the world. Its the same parochial arrogance that Plato accused his compatriots of for thinking the Greeks were so superior to everything that came before. It only goes to show how when so much has changed, nothing has changed at all.

@Hypnosifl: No, Aristotle provided lots of argument. Newton respected Plato and Aristotle enough that he called them "his friends". He was referring to Aristotle when he admitted that his notion of gravity, being action-at-a-distance, was philosophically untenable. This argument comes from Aristotle.

@Hypnosifil: Ever since physics stole a march on philosophy in the modern era, physicists have been knocking philosophy. Never mind the subject arose from philisophy. Physicists are well known not to know the history of their own subject. In other places Feynman makes fun of mathematicians for making silly physical mistakes because they're relying on purely mathematical results without thinking about the physical principles involved. See his story about the Banach-Tarski paradox.

@Hypnosifil: Whilst there's no ready to hand experiment that can show Hawking radiation, the principle of causality is encoded into language, and physical practise since time immemorial. If you want to dispute it then you are going to have to provide some very strong proof, like a replicable experiment. It won't do to simply say because QM is bizarre we can freely speculate any old idea. Schrodinger, Planck, Einstein, Lorentz were forced to their conclusions because of experiment.

@Hypnosifil: And as for Hawkings 'chronology protection conjecture', well that's not an argument of quantum gravity as you put it but exactly the same reasoning I said that physics disbarred time travel. I just haven't bothered to give it some formal name because no physicist would have thought otherwise.

@Hypnosifl: You're making the mistake that simply because GR has certain 'mathematical' solutions then they must be physical. No, in physics, its physics that comes first. Can you show me a real, live timelike loop? No, of course not. No-one has found one, not that many physicists have bothered to look for one.

@Hypnsofil: I didn't bother replying to your notion of "epistemological possibility" because it displays such a lack of understanding of what physics is about that one barely knows where to begin. Physics is not about epistemology, its as I already said, about physical ontology.

@Hynosifil: Throwing around words like "epistemological possibility" makes no sense in physics. Physics is not about epistemology but about the basic ontological categories of physical nature. You're simply displaying a lack of understanding about basic philosophical notions.

@Hypnosifil: No, it's not a conjecture but a Principle on causality. Aristotle followed it. Newton followed it. Maxwell followed it. Einstein followed. Hawking followed it. But for you its a mere conjecture that somehow hasn't proven its worth. Completely wrong. Moreover, you haven't understood what is meant by "reflection" on "intuition".

@Hypnosifil: ... an attempt to win an argument by any means possible ...

@Hypnosofil: Physics is merely intuition about nature strengthed by reflection on nature. You seem to be confused about what is meant by causality and physics, after all, you linked to Hawking's Chronology Protection Conjecture which isn't a conjecture but a formalisation of an intuitive physical principle that all physicists assented to and so didn't need formalising. So which is it? You accept Hawkings Chronology Protection Principle or you reject it? Or does it depend upon who you arguing with and how you might win that argument? Because then it isn't a principled argument but merely ...

@Nullius Verba: No, just because the maths allows it foes not mean that it is possible. Newtonian mechanics is time indifferent, nevertheless Newton did not make the mistake of thinking that time can run backwards. And there's a difference between being open-minded and thinking, well, if QM is bizarre, then any old shtick goes. No, it doesn't. In QM, physicists were forced to those conclusions because of experiment and not because of free speculation.

@Hypnosifil: "with an obvious bias towards predictions of models that have many other successful predictions". Exactly - there is no more successful principle than the forward march of time, of causality, in a word ... no-one has discovered or demonstrated where causality does not work, physically speaking. No-one.