The Sunday Rumble: 6.1.19

The things I do in bed!   No, not that sort of thing - behave!  I mean my habit of listening to the radio via an ear-piece.  Mostly, I am tuned to the World Service of the BBC and much as I detest that bloated organisation the World Service remains pretty good.  Last night I heard Mr. Jim Grant aka Mr. Lee Child, the inventor of the implacable Jack Reacher, being questioned by an audience.  I still remember my surprise at learning that he was an Englishman because his knowledge of the backwaters of America seemed immense.  Of course, his books are total tosh but they are 'tosh' of the very highest standards and, oddly enough, the fact that he is, so to speak, a foreigner living in the USA, makes him an exceedingly sharp observer.  He came across as very intelligent and humorous, a man you would be glad to have at your dinner table.

 

With history, read widely, read often:   That is the general message from 'Mike Konrad' at The American Thinker.  He begins his article with a perceptive quote from George Orwell:  "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."  As someone who has over the last 79 years been forced to change my mind innumerable times as more and yet more history books are written I think Mr. 'Konrad' is exceedingly shrewd!

 

Right, get fell in, you 'orrible lot!  You will all report for duty on Thursday at 21.00 hrs. at ITV Channel 3 where, over the next three weeks they will be showing a year in the life of the Parachute Regiment.  I guess that much of it will be concentrated on the selection course and I do hope they still have the 'milling' and the 'log race'.  The first, as I have explained before, is where you are 'partnered' with another 'wannabe' Para roughly, very roughly, equal in height, weight and reach and put in a boxing ring with clapped out gloves where you stand toe to toe and proceed to bash shit out of each other.  The 'log race' is where a team of 6/7 men with ropes race against the clock to carry a 'yuuuuuuge' log (which seems to get even 'yuuuuuuger' as time goes on!) round a cross-country course.  Such fun!  I do hope nothing much has changed because then you will all understand that the Paras are a particularly fine selection of refined gentlemen!

 

"Oh for the gift that God would gie us", and all that sort of thing!  Well, Mr. George Will provides a view, although mostly centred on Germany and it is worth reading because sometimes the outsider sees best!

 

Christopher Booker makes a futile gesture to polish Chamberlain's reputation:   Any such effort from anyone is futile. Chamberlain was crafty and stupid and it is unbelievable that he persisted for so long in believing that a deal could be done with Hitler, especially after his shameful betrayal of Czechoslovakia.  Sorry, Mr. Booker, but that was a 'Big Fail'!

 

I have dipped into Prof. Hawkins' book:   God, I'm brave!  As far as I can make out, when it comes to the universe, first there was nothing, then there was a big bang, and lo, there was something.  The implication was that sooner or later there will be nothing again.  Really, really enlightening, no, really . . .

 

Oh, no, not our Wayne!   Apparently that clean-living, upright British gentleman, Mr. Wayne Rooney, has been nicked by the American equivalent of 'the old Bill' for "public swearing and intoxication".  I can't believe this of an honourable 'son of Liverpool' like 'our Wayne'.  Shurely shome mishtake, officer!

 

No more rumbles today

 

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

David, the 'back waters of America' are exactly where America is to be found and hence all the political and social infighting over here.

[David Duff]

Whiters, one of the perceptive points he made was that the post-war construction of super highways resulted in a host of small towns and cities which had grown on the old inter-state highways, were left in limbo with no growth and gradual decline which is where, of course, he sets many of his yarns.

[Whitewall]

David, that is part of it.

Oh, there is this really big problem I'm struggling with David.... "that the Paras are a particularly fine selection of refined gentlemen!" 'Refined'?

[David Duff]

Oh dear me, yes, Whiters, as fine a selection of frightfully decent chaps who would treat ladies and enemies with equal politeness as you could find outside of Eton School! Er, well, sort of . . .

[Bob]

Hawkins doesn't believe nothing existed before the big bang, only that it has no observational value and can't add to our knowledge of the universe. That might or might not be true:

https://www.sciencealert.com/general-relativity-applied-to-big-bang-finds-not-the-start-of-everything

There are also credible theories that our universe is only one of many in a "super universe".

[David Duff]

Oh yes he does, Bob, because he insists that even time did not exist. But let's not argue about it, neither of us knows didley-squat about this abstruse subject.

[Bob]

Hawking doesn't argue that time didn't exist at all, only that it didn't exist in our universe. He didn't like the concept of the "multiverse", as it's more often called, but admitted it might exist, just in a more limited way than others imagine:

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-death-hawking-multiverse-theory-size.html

I hypothesize my didley-squat is bigger than yours.

[JK]

A zero sum if I ever saw one typed Bob.

[LoZ]

If the human mind can conceive of it, it exists in reality.

Somewhere, sometime. This big-bang or the next, or one in parallel.

"I think of it, therefore it is."

SoD

[Whitewall]

Maybe these humans will take it no more, create their own 'big bang'.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13500/france-in-free-fall

[Jimmy Glesga]

Good link Whitewell. The EU are responsible for the murder of their citizens as they knowingly allowed terrorists into the EU. The future for the Europeans is wait and see when the next atrocity happens but do not mention it or speak out!

[Loz]

Oh, and a multiverse, or even just one other universe in addition to our own, is a bit of a blow for God-denying physicists, materialists and mechanists (in roughly increasing order of God-denying, authoritarian, douche-bags).

Why?

Because the main criticism of Godel's proof of God is based on non-acceptance of "Modal Logic".

Modal Logic is just all the other logics - predicate, first order, etc. - that physicists, materialists and mechanists are ok with (I mean they have to be, don't they, how else are they going to express all their axioms, deductions and theories!), plus two extra little symbols added to the logic lingo: necessity and possibilty:

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/5929/what-is-modal-logic-for

So in the wiki article for Godel's proof, scroll down to the symbolic notation ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel%27s_ontological_proof

You'll see the square symbol which is "necessity", and the diamond symbol which is "possibilty", both used in several places.

In the Outline section of the article, it explain how necessity" and "possibility" is in other words "multiple worlds" ...

"The proof uses modal logic, which distinguishes between necessary truths and contingent truths. In the most common semantics for modal logic, many "possible worlds" are considered. A truth is necessary if it is true in all possible worlds. By contrast, a truth is contingent if it just happens to be the case in a world. For instance, "more than half of this planet is covered by water" is a contingent truth, that relies upon which planet "this planet" is. If a statement happens to be true in our world, but is false in another world, then it is a contingent truth. A statement that is true in some world (not necessarily our own) is called a possible truth."

So "multiple worlds" is an axiom of Modal Logic, which you are free to deny or accept, thereby denying or accepting the validity of Modal Logic itself. But if you do accept it, then Godel's proof is sound as a pound and you should accept it too.

If Hawking grudging accepted even some trimmed concept of "multiple worlds" then he died a God accepter, albeit not a believer i.e. he came to God through reason not faith.

As an aside, I wonder what happens to peeps who came to God through reason not faith in religious doctrine? Doesn't seem to mention that in any of them.

St. Anselm's ontologically argument - of which Godel's is a rigorous restatement - outlines the importance of "conceived in the mind" and "material reality" ...

"St. Anselm's ontological argument, in its most succinct form, is as follows: "God, by definition, is that for which no greater can be conceived. God exists in the understanding. If God exists in the understanding, we could imagine Him to be greater by existing in reality. But as said, nothing greater can be conceived of than God. Therefore, God must exist in reality."

So God-denying, materialist, mechanist, douche-bags who realize they need the multiverse, trimmed down or not, to extend their dominion further into the "real" world will have some heavy baggage to take on board: God exists, QED!

That's a hoisting by one's own petard of epic proportions. Even Godel's incompleteness theorems which force you to accept there is truth and form that cannot be proven or formulated in logic, OR, to accept that the definition of numbers have a contradiction - not great if you're a physicist! - which makes any physicist squirm like a bastard, comes second to the "Accept the God-proof - or else there's no multiverse to extend your science into".

It is just so beautiful.

SoD

P.S. italics in the quotes are bits added by me to clarify, ignore if they don't help.

[Loz]

Looks like the italics didn't make it, hey ho.

SoD

[Bob]

JK, from such an accomplished master of the purposeful mangling of syntax and logic, that is high praise.

SoD, right.