Posts by mistyfox812

neonsailor12 said:Look, I honestly don't get what everyone is finding so confusing about the plot. Sure, it isn't linear, but hey, that doesn't mean it's illogical.

You’ve got two questions there—one from Carol Jackson45 and one from me—but they're hidden because they're spoilers. If you just highlight those parts of the text, you can read them. Then you can reply to them invisibly too.

I honestly can't tell if they actually intended for this plot to make sense, or if the whole thing was just some massive joke playing on that "genius heist movie" trope.
spoiler: I mean, seriously, why the hell did they stage that entire elaborate heist in Rome if they had already swiped the goods before they even reached the city?

All in all: two strikes against it.

Einstein said:I checked for Oxford at my local library and they've got 5 volumes on it.

I'm totally new to philosophy, and everyone keeps telling me I need to dive into the history of it first. Which era should I actually start with if I don't want to burn out and lose interest immediately?

The Greeks, obviously. Start from the jump. If you're a total newbie, maybe try Nietzsche's 'Philosophy in a Tragic Age'—it’s a blast, or at least it was for me. It's short and sweet.
And honestly, I don't think you even have to slog through history right away. You've got that brilliant book by Thomas Nagel, 'what does that all mean', where he just jumps straight into the problems without all the historical baggage. Once you actually get the core issues down, it'll be way easier to see what those old-school philosophers were actually trying to get at. Then you can circle back to the history later. That book is pretty quick too, highly recommend it to everyone.
If you're dead serious about doing the history thing, then go with Oxford, Greek Philosophy—but man, that's a massive undertaking.

Coplestone.
Sadly (as far as I know), only the first two volumes have been translated into English—Greek philosophy and medieval philosophy. Though, "medieval philosophy" might be a bit too broad for you... what are you actually looking for? But man, they’re great, definitely recommend them. (Maybe the others were published later, like after the nineties, so they aren't sitting on our library shelves anymore?)

Edina said:Also, I'm super interested in anything related to neo-pragmatism (Willard van Orman Quine, Richard Rorty, and Donald Davidson), and just pragmatism in general.
Regarding Quine...

So, look, I was actually posting here a little while ago, and I tried to give you an answer then too. Maybe someone a bit more of an expert can jump in and explain things way more clearly than I can.

mistyfox812 said:Basically, for any action—like one system making a demand—to actually work and have an impact, it’s forced to satisfy this massive, immeasurable flood of requests. These requests end up transforming the system, making it bend to its own way of translating things. It’s like this endless loop, right? A spiral. Once another system picks up that demand, it fires back a counter-demand that’s all about whether it can even receive the message in the first place. Without that, there’s no translation. Like, if you want to ask someone for the time, you’ve gotta say it in a language they actually get, being clear and stuff. That whole thing—where one action smooths out over other actions, through these counter-actions and back again—is where the paradox lives. It’s that ambiguity, that total mess of meaning... honestly, it feels like it makes it impossible for humans to ever hit on some "pure truth" because of how our language is wired.

Yeah. I’d put it like this: you can never shrink context down into just "text." Or, if you really wanted to explain context, you’d need a text so huge it’s basically infinite.
That’s why I feel like starting from that spot—trying to define a human being using some "general systems theory"—just won't get you very far.
Any "general systems theory" or "theory of everything" totally misses what we learned from Heidegger: that a human being isn't just like an animal, and a rock isn't the same thing as a number... (which is what I was trying to get across here )

mistyfox812 said:Sending a question and getting an answer are totally codependent; they're intertwined and can't exist without each other, just like day and night, black and white, or good and evil.

As for the grammatical imperative, it’s just a symptom of that deep-seated human narcissism we’re all born with—without which, we wouldn't even be human.

Bottom line: the imperative is inseparable from its opposite. That opposite is already baked into the imperative itself, implied by it, or triggered just by the fact that the imperative exists (while the imperative is also tied to its own antithesis).

When you use metaphors like day and night, it feels a little too disconnected, like there's this huge gap between opposites. But those gaps are exactly what narcissism creates—that "I am separate," "I am an individual particle" vibe (look at Houellebecq). That's the mantra of narcissism.
What you're doing is abstraction—pulling something out of a whole and giving it its own identity by isolating it. So, if I'm following you correctly, I think metaphors like light and shadow, or foreground and background, would probably work way better for what you're trying to say.

Essence said:Look, mistyfox812, I’m just gonna be real with you—this isn't working anymore. I honestly would've loved to keep doing these online tutoring sessions with you, hopping from physics to math to philosophy and history, but my schedule is just totally blown. There's zero time left. We pretty much cleared up all those misconceptions about Plato, and honestly? We basically figured out everything there is to know about you.

I really hope that after this lesson you’ll stop putting Plato on such a high pedestal. Like, seriously. Be open to everything, sure, but don't be so wide open that you lose your damn mind in the process. If you aren't careful, you're just gonna spend your whole life blindly following stuff that makes zero sense to you. Don't let that happen.

Hey there! What's up?
👋

So, how exactly do you deal with people you can't stand? Look, if you stop pushing all these lies after this, I promise I won't fire back with any insults or total nonsense. Honestly, I’ll be more than happy to just walk away from this whole thing. You haven't just been arrogant—and trust me, I've seen some ego on these boards—but you've also shown you're totally fine with twisting facts, lying, and throwing jabs. It's all wrapped up in this pathetic cynicism, which, let's be real, is always just a sign of being spiritually weak.
I’ve touched on most of what we talked about—okay, maybe not all of it. It’s tough to clear the air when you’re throwing mud at everyone in sight. But honestly? In every single topic where I actually jumped in, I showed why your take just doesn't hold water. And even in the spots where you weren't technically wrong, I pointed out how you were totally twisting my words. Look, let me just remind you where this whole thing started: that wild leap you made trying to prove God can't exist based on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Man, I felt like I had to step in—not even for God's sake, but for Heisenberg's, because that was just wrong. That kind of logic is exactly what people mean when they talk about bad metaphysics: making this massive, illegal jump from a concept to actual reality. It just doesn't work.
Man, you totally took my little comment and ran with it! You went off on everything—religion, sheep, Plato, Democritus, Epicurus... even physics and politics. Then we were deep in the weeds talking about the meaning of history, democracy, Hitler, feminism, and basically every other topic under the sun. Seriously, where does it end?
I already covered most of that—but you just keep finding ways to expand on it every single time!
I totally missed answering that part about Plato’s Republic. But honestly, man, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. It's super obvious because your posts are all over the place. Like, in your first post, you're claiming Plato is this big-time aristocrat who wants slaves and thinks women shouldn't have any say in politics—but then your later post just completely contradicts that! It looks like you actually picked up a book in the meantime and realized all three of those points were wrong. I mean, seriously? There aren't even slaves in the Republic. Women are treated as equals. And as for the aristocracy thing—it's not some hereditary, "born into it" type of deal. In the Republic, it's just rule by the *ariston*—the absolute best people—regardless of where they came from. So now, you're basically accusing Plato of trampling on the rights of the very aristocrats you were just complaining about. Makes zero sense!
Whatever, I’m done talking about it. I'm just over it. Honestly, there’s zero point trying to explain things to arrogant know-it-alls—and I don't even mean they lack knowledge, I mean they're just too full of themselves. They're like these closed-off Houellebecqian elementary particles that freak out at the mere thought of anything changing within them. Anything that threatens the ego? Total nightmare fuel for them. That’s why these "particles" cling so hard to pure empirical data. It feels safe to them because all the change happens "out there," while their precious little egos stay exactly the same. But man, true realization requires you to actually change who you are. To really learn or understand something, you have to let go of the ego entirely. If you can't wrap your head around that, you're never going to get what Plato was talking about. So yeah, I'm keeping my thoughts on Plato's Polity to myself. Like Goethe said: "Don't tell anyone, only the wise, because the crowd will just laugh at you..."

Look, I don't want to just tear you down without actually pointing you toward the right path. Seriously. So, I’m gonna drop a Heisenberg quote on you—but hey, if you're feeling all arrogant or uncomfortable right now, maybe just wait until you're feeling more chill before you dive into this:
I was honestly too insecure to jump into those debates myself, but man, I was listening. Really soaking it all in. I kept thinking about this whole idea of "order." The way some of those speeches were all over the place—it felt like a sign, you know? Like even when you have different versions of true order, they can clash, and that friction actually creates total chaos. It hit me that this only happens when we're dealing with partial orders; little fragments that broke away from the main core. They still had their own energy, sure, but they’d lost that sense of direction toward the center. The longer I sat there listening, the more it messed with my head. The lack of a central point was actually physically painful for me, but honestly? I wouldn't have known how to find my way back to the middle of that messy web of conflicting opinions anyway... We were stuck in those discussions forever, and then suddenly, this kid shows up in the courtyard with a violin. Once everything went quiet, the first massive D-minor chords of Bach's Chaconne just soared right over our heads. And boom. Suddenly, the connection to the center was undeniable. Those sharp, clear structures of the Chaconne were like a breath of fresh air, blowing away the fog and showing the outlines that were hidden before. You could finally talk about a central core again. It’s always been possible—whether you're looking at Plato or Bach, using music, philosophy, or religion as the language. So, it's gotta be possible now, and it'll be possible in the future too.

Essence said:And now mistyfox812 is back at it again, trying to strip all the soul out of physics and turn the whole thing into nothing but math. Like, matter isn't even made of Democritus's little particles anymore—it's just a bunch of spreadsheets and numbers.
...mistyfox812:
Basically, particles are just a collection of properties we express through numbers. These properties don't have anything to do with stuff we can actually see, hear, touch, or taste. They only exist in our thoughts.
Essence-
Man, Heisenberg would be rolling in his grave if he saw how you're twisting his matrix mechanics.

Actually, here's what Heisenberg wrote (physics and metaphysics, Penguin Books, p. 356):
'' 'In the beginning was symmetry,' which is way more accurate than Democritus's idea that 'In the beginning was the particle.' Elementary particles are just embodiments of symmetries; they're just the simplest way to represent them, but they're really just a consequence of those symmetries.''
And also (same book, p. 364.):
''...the representatives of one or more properties are mathematical forms that outline elementary particles; they are, so to speak, the ideas of elementary particles, which ultimately correspond to the actual object of an elementary particle.''
But hey, what did he know about physics, right? Just some fascist metaphysician, a homoerotic Plato follower. And why should we listen to him when you clearly don't even know the first thing about physics? You've probably never even heard of quantum physics—too bad he died before you could give him an update.

Essence said:So, you were hunting for that specific Quote to prove Democritus was basically a thorn in Plato's side—mostly because it was pretty obvious you'd never even heard of it before. Then, once you finally tracked it down and realized it actually *was* legit, you suddenly started screaming about how it’s unreliable just because it doesn't back up your little theory. Now you're leaning hard on "credibility" like it's your ultimate trump card. But honestly? If we're playing that game, why should anyone believe Diels or any other historian or biographer for that matter?

So you're basically banking everything on one super sketchy piece of testimony. Like, what is that EVEN based on? Aside from all those paranoid projections you've got going on, that's literally your only foundation. And then, the second I point out that this whole testimony is probably just some malicious fabrication, you suddenly try to throw the entire field of history under the bus. Seriously?

Essence said:I was being totally sarcastic when I said that looking at what’s left of Democritus makes you think those Platonic followers actually succeeded in wiping out his work. I clearly stated—like, super clearly—that Plato backed off from that whole thing because his buddies talked him out of it. But hey, apparently I need to grab some crayons and draw it out for you since reading is obviously too much to ask?

Man, you're seriously spreading that same old rumor again? The one cooked up by that guy whose teacher sold Plato into slavery? Seriously, you're just spreading total nonsense here.

Essence said:Man, you’re such a little liar—and honestly? A total blind, religious fanatic, too. Why won't you just be real with people for once? Just admit that these works are being systematically wiped out and erased by the government and the church. It's simple, really. You don't want to go public because it doesn't look good to stand on the side of the people who burn books.

It’s honestly kind of sad when you can't see your own fanaticism. And trust me, it isn't even that hard to spot if you're actually looking.
There’s actually this pretty reliable trick for spotting blinded fanatics in any debate. Honestly, it doesn't matter what the topic is—literally anything. When they run out of actual arguments, they just start dragging up Hitler. It’s like, because they can't handle someone having a different view, they decide their opponent is pure evil, and in this day and age, Hitler has become that go-to archetype for them. Homework for Essence: just count how many times he gets brought up in this thread.
And honestly, if you want to call me a liar, go ahead—it’d actually make sense at this point. You'd have to take what I said and twist it into something it definitely isn't. But you didn't do that. That's the thing. Fanatics don't even care about arguments anyway. They just stick to that whole "spit first, ask questions later" kind of vibe.

Essence said:The early Church Fathers were actually pretty smart—they knew exactly where they’d face the most pushback against their faith. They realized people saw their religion as just a messy pile of old-world myths that couldn't hold a candle to the deep philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans. So, what did they do? They reached for Plato. They leaned hard into his ideas because they knew those concepts would be the backbone of Christian theology. That's basically what I was getting at when I said Plato *is* Christianity—and you totally caught my drift!

So now I’m the liar? Seriously? Here is the exact Quote you wrote. Like, how am I even supposed to read this other than exactly

Essence said:Christians didn't just "take" Plato's teachings and tweak them to fit their own vibe.
Christianity *is* Platonic teaching.

So wait, you're saying Christian doctrine is basically just Platonic teaching? Yeah, no. That's just not true. And I already shut that down. Now you're totally switching up the story! You're acting like Christians did take Plato's stuff and reshaped it—which is the exact opposite of what you just said.

Essence said:mistyfox812
Look, since everything else she wrote was basically just nonsense—and I’ve already torn most of that apart anyway—I’m only gonna tackle this one point. It’s not even about her personally; it’s about correcting a pretty widespread misconception (which is exactly why we're all here, right?).
Essence-
You haven't actually proven anything. You didn't even bother to address—let alone debunk—the massive pile of quotes and conclusions I laid out.As for misconceptions? We've pretty much crushed them all, both regarding Plato and you.😂

.

I did prove everything I set out to prove. Let me say it one more time:
1. your idea that Plato’s philosophy is just Christianity in disguise is totally wrong
2. your claim that Plato hated Democritus is just plain false
3. your take on Plato having a negative impact on science is incorrect
4. your whole thing about Plato discriminating against women is just wrong

Regarding #4: I totally forgot to bring up the argument from the Symposium where the wisest man, Socrates, gets his most important teaching—about the philosopher being an eroticist (pretty sure Epicurus read that book too)—from a woman named Diotima.

Since you couldn't actually defend those points—I mean, you tried with the second and fourth ones, but I showed why they don't hold water—you just pivoted to attacking general practices instead. Then you started throwing out Plato quotes that have nothing to do with the actual debate, which I haven't responded to yet because—like I said—I don't want to go down a rabbit hole until we wrap this part up.

Essence said:Look, your whole issue is you don't get that the wave function isn't some physical "thing." It’s just a mathematical probability function we had to come up with because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

The thing is, the wave function wasn't "invented"—it was "discovered."
And also, what do you mean "not material"? You're drifting into some weird idealistic territory there! Didn't you basically redefine "material" as anything we can actually measure? Well, we can totally measure how well the probabilities from that wave function line up with an actual experiment.

Just because you're sitting in your room reading Feynman and thinking you've actually mastered this stuff... man, that's not real knowledge. Studying like that just leaves you with a bunch of wrong assumptions about everything else—philosophy, the history of science, all of it. You haven't actually learned a single thing about physics.

Essence said:mistyfox812
It’s just common sense to assume that if something exists, it’s got mass, right? But photons? They aren't some little tiny marbles—I mean, even if they were, why stop at spheres? Why couldn't they be pyramids or cubes or something else entirely? Besides, you can't get interference from a bunch of little balls. It just doesn't work like that.
Essence
But seriously, let's take a look at what we're actually dealing with here.Feynman So, he's talking about light. Since you brought him up first, I'm guessing you've got some serious respect for his take on things. Honestly, lucky you—I actually happen to have about ten of his books sitting on my shelf right now, including those famous ones.Lectures on Physics.

I really want to... I mean, seriously... just look at it. You really have to emphasize how much this matters. It's not just some small thing you can brush off, you know? It's huge. Like, massive. I'm being totally for real here. It hits different when you actually sit down and wrap your head around the scale of it all. It’s everything. So, that's how the light hits us—just like that. Particles... man, where do you even start? It's wild to think about. Everything we see, everything we touch—it's all just these tiny, frantic little bits of energy dancing around. It feels almost impossible to wrap your head around, right? Like, how can something so small be the foundation for everything so massive? Just makes you feel pretty small sometimes, honestly. But also kind of incredible.Look, you’ve gotta get this: light acts like a particle. Seriously. Especially if you actually paid attention in school—you probably spent half your time being lectured about how light is just some wavy thing. But forget that for a second. You need to understand the particle side of things. I'm serious, man—the way it actually acts? It’s totally behaving like particles.. R. Feynman / QED

Man, Feynman just loved to joke around.
Like, in that book of his, he does such an awesome job breaking down wave optics—you know, where light basically acts just like a wave? It’s super cool.
Of course he gets it—he knows light acts like a wave and also plays by the particle rules. He’s basically trying to mash both models together under this new idea of a "particle" that somehow covers all the bases.
But look, this whole new idea of what a particle actually is? It’s definitely not just some Democritus-style little hard ball rolling around. That's old school. We're talking about a whole complex set of symmetries and quantum numbers instead. Totally different beast.

Essence said:I mean, seriously? If you don't trust a lawyer you actually went out and hired yourself, who else are you gonna turn to? Like, really? Let’s see what else your legal counsel has to say about photons being nothing more than total figments of our imagination. Unbelievable.

So, get this: it’s pretty obvious right off the bat that a photon's energy is just its momentum multiplied by *c*. Or, if you're playing around with units where *c* equals 1, then energy and momentum are basically the same thing. Which totally means the rest mass is zero... but wait, if we're talking about a particle with zero rest mass, what actually happens if it stops? Well, it doesn't! It can't! It's stuck cruising at the speed of light forever. It's wild, but a photon actually carries energy despite having no rest mass—it just gets that energy from constantly, perpetually ripping through space at the speed of light.
Man, I just started diving into Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman. Honestly? It’s kind of blowing my mind. Like, I thought I knew what I was getting into, but this guy just writes differently. He makes the heavy stuff feel... I don't know, reachable? It's definitely not some dry, soul-crushing textbook you'd find at a university library. It feels more like sitting in a coffee shop in Seattle, grabbing a latte, and having this absolute genius explain the universe to you without making you feel like an idiot. Seriously, if you haven't picked this up yet, you're missing out. Total game changer.

Look, from what you just said, it’s pretty obvious even your own lawyer isn't backing you up. Everything I laid out in my last post? Spot on. And honestly, much as it pains you to hear it, light isn't some mystical "world spirit" or whatever. It's just particles—photons—carrying their own energy and momentum just like any other physical particle out there. At the end of the day, the material world is just everything we can actually measure with our instruments, and yeah, that includes light too.

Look, I never said a photon was a ghost, and I definitely didn't say it lacks energy or momentum. You’re seriously twisting my words and making stuff up now. Honestly, man, you're gonna end up regretting this kind of behavior.
So, I was saying there’s basically zero reason to assume a photon is shaped like a little sphere—what's your take on that? And honestly, when people toss around the word "matter," they usually aren't talking about stuff without mass, like light. It’s just standard practice to draw a line between "matter" and "radiation," kind of like how we look at the conditions in the early universe.
Look, if you just go ahead and swap out the actual meaning of a word, sure—you're "right." But that's a total cop-out. You could just redefine every single term on the fly and technically never be wrong, but that kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn't it?

Essence said:mistyfox812
Saying "particles stay particles" is basically a total nothingburger.
Feynman actually suggested using the term "wavicles" just so people wouldn't get stuck thinking these "particles" are some kind of tiny little marbles.

Essence-
Haha, wow 😂..... I am literally laughing my ass off over here. Seriously, mistyfox812, knock it off, man... What do you even have in your head instead of a brain? Just a piece of wire
to keep your ears from falling off? 🙂

Let me break this down for you: your whole argument about light being a wave in one case and a particle in another is straight out of the pre-quantum era. Quantum physics actually exists because we needed a single theory that works across the board for every experiment—not so we can switch between wave equations and treating light like a swarm of bullets depending on how we feel like doing the math.

Anyone who actually knows anything about physics can see just how much you're struggling with modern principles. But hey, you clearly don't have a clue, and since you can't prove me wrong, you just stay quiet.

After I went through the trouble of explaining that, unlike classical physics, particles in quantum mechanics have an associated wave function used to calculate the probability of finding a particle in a specific spot...

Honestly, I was gonna skip this because talking to you felt totally pointless.
But since a philosopher's job is basically calling out people who think they’re geniuses when they actually know nothing, I guess I have to deal with your arrogant ignorance. And honestly? As long as you're this cocky, there's no hope for you to ever actually learn anything.
So, here’s a question for you: how is probability linked to a WAVE function?
Why is that function called a wave function specifically?
Is there anything in probability theory that suggests probability should be described by a wave function?
And is there anything in classical mechanics regarding collisions between billiard balls that suggests those probabilities should be handled by some kind of WAVE function?

If you can actually wrap your head around what those questions are asking, maybe then you'll realize why "elementary particles" aren't just little tiny balls.

Essence said:mistyfox812
This Galilean conclusion basically comes from his thoughts on inertia—you know, that principle he actually pioneered. It’s the idea that an object keeps moving at a constant speed unless some force hits it. Did he figure this out through experiments? Please. No one has ever actually seen an object with zero forces acting on it.
So you're asking if Galileo reached the law of inertia via experimentation? Nah, he didn't. He got there because his eternal soul, which just happens to be temporarily chilling in his body, revealed the secret he picked up from Plato.🤣

Oh, come on, stop talking nonsense. If poor Galileo hadn't spent years rolling balls down inclined planes, he never would've stumbled onto the law of inertia—even if he'd sat around abstracting and meditating on it for a million years like all those guys before him.

And honestly, what even is "body inertia" if there isn't actually a force acting on it? Nobody knows. You can guess, sure, but you can't claim anything for certain because there's zero experimental proof. But hey, this conversation is probably way too heavy for you anyway.😬 😬
.

Then Einstein starts rambling too—and I'm quoting him again since it clearly didn't sink in the first time: ''Only theory determines what we measure.'' If poor Galileo hadn't already had a hunch about it, he wouldn't have bothered rolling those balls. Hundreds of other people could've rolled the exact same balls and never realized what was actually happening.

Still, Einstein is just talking trash. Arrogant ignorance, if you ask me.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
Look, Democritus didn't actually come up with the law of conservation of energy. That wasn't even formulated until the 19th century. Talk about missing the mark by like two and a half thousand years... total fail.
John Walker74
Oh my god, stop. Seriously. You know, sometimes when I’m scrolling through your posts, I actually feel bad for ever saying your head was empty. I was totally wrong about that. Your brain isn't empty—it's clearly just packed full of helium. Honestly, if it weren't for that one tiny little wire running from your left ear to your right, you probably wouldn't even be able to walk straight without tripping over your own feet. Just... please, pray that wire doesn't snap, because then your ears might actually fall off. That's basically how I picture your brain anatomy working.😬😬

So, you're asking me to actually write out how that conservation law works? Hey, if I pull it off, maybe I'll snag a Nobel Prize or something! Haha. Look, there are all sorts of different forces and energy types out there. You might think this whole thing was just hashed out back in the 19th century and we were done for good, but that's not how it goes. Just like how we kept discovering brand new forces and energies in physics, the law of conservation of energy has kept evolving and popping up in all kinds of different forms. It’s a moving target, really.

Thermodynamics has its laws about energy conservation, mechanics has its own thing, electromagnetism does its own thing, and nuclear physics? Yeah, that’s got its own set too. But they all share this one single principle: you can flip energy from one form to another, but you can't just delete it. And honestly, nobody has ever managed to break that rule yet.

Anyway, just a quick thought on how Democritus understood physics and that whole energy conservation thing. I’m feeling way too lazy to type this all out myself, so I’m just gonna copy-paste from a legit source:

So, Democritus was born in Abdera, Thrace. The guy was a prolific writer, but honestly, we’re left with basically nothing but scraps and fragments of what he actually said. Still, his take on atomic theory was wild for the time. He argued that everything in existence is just made of these tiny, invisible, indestructible little bits of pure matter—atoms, or "indivisibles"—just bouncing around forever in an infinite void. Here’s the kicker: even though all these atoms are made of the exact same stuff, they vary in their shape, size, weight, order, and position. It's like... the reason we see different things, or why things grow and die, isn't because the atoms themselves change, but because of how they’re all clumped together. Democritus viewed The creation of Worlds as The Natural consequence of The ceaseless whirling motion of atoms in space. Basically, atoms just smash into each other and spin around until they form bigger chunks of matter. Pretty heavy stuff, right?

Man, it’s wild to think about, but his atomic theory actually anticipated the modern principles of the conservation of energy and the irreducibility of matter. Just crazy how ahead of his time he was.

.

So, like... okay. Basically, this whole idea of energy? It traces back to Aristotle, which means it actually comes after Democritus. But honestly, the way we talk about it in physics today is totally different from how Aristotle saw it. It wasn't until the 19th century that we finally figured out that all these different types of energy can actually be boiled down to one single physical value. Crazy, right?
Man, you missed the mark by like two thousand years. Seriously, you're way off on the whole concept too.

So, saying someone "anticipated" something? Please. You could argue Parmenides anticipated it too, or some other random guy for all I care. But look, what we’re actually talking about here is the heavy lifting—finding the serious, rigorous work required to actually formulate that law.

John Walker74 said:In order to save ourselves from inventing new words such as wavicles, we have chosen to call these objects “particles”. R. Feynman
So, he wasn't actually suggesting we call them wavicles; he just thought there was zero point in us busting our humps trying to cook up new names like "wavicles."

.

That’s exactly my point! We kept the label "particle"—just to avoid making up new words—but that name doesn't actually describe what used to be called a particle. We're stuck with the old terminology, but the whole idea that a particle is some kind of solid little ball? That's totally wrong.
That's why I asked you earlier, "why a sphere instead of a pyramid"—because both ideas are equally messed up.
You've got the wrong idea about what these "elementary particles" actually are.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
Modern physics is totally built on experimentation and math—the only reason I just brought up math is because of the context I was writing in, you know, the whole Platonism vs. science thing.
John Walker74-
Stupidity is stupidity, no matter what context you wrap it in. And honestly, your little excuse about why modern physics is "just" mathematical physics is so transparent. Look, Plato inspired Kepler, and since Plato dealt with math, sure, call him a great physicist if you want. But claiming someone is a great physicist when they basically stabbed science in the back by teaching us to rely solely on pure reason while ignoring empirical evidence? That’s just ridiculous.

🙂

.

And you still haven't learned how to read. I was clearly talking about Platonism and science, not freaking Plato himself. And don't even get me started on that fake thesis of yours about how Plato's teachings set science back.

You're still being arrogant, still lying, and still twisting things.
It's bad for your health, man. No wonder you're feeling sick to your stomach.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
The idea that physical insight moves from experiments toward laws is wrong—it actually works the other way around.
John Walker74-
I didn't specify which direction the insight travels, but honestly, an unexpected experimental result can totally pivot a theory in the right direction. So yeah, the path can definitely go both ways.

Take the famous Michelson-Morley experiment, for instance. It left everyone completely baffled, and we basically had to build a whole new theory just to make sense of what happened. Philosophers could've spent another thousand years just theorizing, and nobody would've even dreamed that time is relative. If they hadn't run that experiment, we might still be lost, because relativity flies in the face of everything we experience in our daily lives. But hey, there's no point talking about Einstein with someone who doesn't even know Newton's first law from middle school.😛 😛😛

That’s exactly the thing—it clicked for Einstein while he was still just a kid, long before he even knew about the Michelson-Morley experiment (that famous hypothetical setup where you try to outrun light). And that’s precisely why Einstein could wrap his head around the Michelson-Morley results when someone like Lorentz—who clearly had it all laid out in front of him—couldn't.

Arrogance is everywhere; actual knowledge? Not so much.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
This conclusion from Galileo comes straight from how he thought about the principle of inertia, which he actually laid down first. It basically says: an object with no net force acting on it just keeps moving at a constant velocity. Did he figure this out through some experiment? Please. Nobody has ever actually seen an object with absolutely zero forces acting on it.
John Walker74-
So, I totally thought the law went like this: an object at rest wants to stay at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion at a constant velocity, provided the vector sum of all forces acting on it equals zero. Like, you don't even get the first Newton's law right, yet here you are trying to lecture me on quantum mechanics. 🙂Ugh... such a total amateur. Good luck talking to him now.

Right this second, I am looking at an object where the vector sum of the forces is zero. This mysterious item "that nobody has ever seen" is the book sitting on my desk. Gravity is pulling the book toward the floor, but the molecular forces in my desk are canceling out that gravitational pull. So the book stays still, and I’m seeing the law of inertia in action—experimental proof that the law is legit. You could technically test the other half of the definition too, but I won't bore you with that since it's probably way over your head anyway.😁 😁

You seem to have some serious issues with historical timelines. And honestly, with reading, too. Galileo wrote it clearly. And I wrote 'on which no force acts' perfectly fine, because that's exactly how Galileo formulated it.
And then you go bringing up Newton, who lived later on.
Next time, if you don't get what I'm saying, just ask.

You seem to think there's some massive difference between moving at a constant velocity and just sitting still. Honestly, it's not surprising—it's the classic mistake people make when they haven't studied physics. A velocity of zero is still a constant velocity. Galileo's principle of relativity basically wipes out that distinction between being at rest and moving at a steady pace that you seem to think is such a big deal (just like Aristotle did).
And, since you're so obsessed with perfect wording, Newton's first law doesn't even mention a vector sum; it just says: '...unless an external force changes that state.'

Yeah, maybe there's a bit of arrogance involved, but mostly it's just plain old ignorance.

John Walker74 said:mistyfox812
Anyone who’s actually tried to replicate that experiment knows those two rocks aren't hitting the ground at the exact same time.
They’d drop simultaneously in a vacuum, sure, but not in air. And Galileo didn't have access to a vacuum.
John Walker-
And where on earth was poor Galileo supposed to get a vacuum? You were literally claiming in previous posts that empty space doesn't even exist—man, just pick a side already! But whatever, that's not even the point right now.

The point is, since you're such a hardcore follower of Plato, you've clearly never even attempted the actual experiment. That Great Teacher of yours taught you to just toss empirical evidence out the window, didn't he? Honestly, the air resistance on small stones falling at low speeds is so negligible that you don't need some crazy, high-tech setup like you're imagining just to see what happens.

Just grab two rocks of different weights, hold one in each hand, and let go at the same time. You'll see they hit almost perfectly together. The difference is so tiny you won't even notice they weren't simultaneous.

So, "the difference will be so tiny"—meaning they *won't* fall at the same time. There will be a difference. And you can actually see it with the naked eye; it's super subtle, but you can tell one object always hits just a hair before the other. Galileo only concluded that there'd be no difference in a vacuum through pure reasoning. He couldn't actually demonstrate it himself. It's kind of like what Pauli said: ''Contrary to the purely empirical view that natural laws can be rightfully derived only from experimental material, many physicists have recently re-emphasized the fact that intuition and directed attention play an important role in developing concepts and ideas, usually far surpassing mere experience, and that they are necessary for constructing a system of natural laws (i.e., scientific theories).''