James Randi: We All Make Assumptions

Recorded: 2000
Location: California IT
Lecture: Chasing the Chimera

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• james
• randi
• educational
• jref
• the
• amazing
• paranormal
• investigator

[kbernstar]

@extrateresstrial Typical raging because someone smarter than you could ever hope to be is attacking your core beliefs in pseudoscience and trickery.

I don't know why Randi bothers taking these psychics down. After all, those frauds are taking money from idiots like you who didn't deserve to have it in the first place.

fyi you spelled terrestrial wrong

[kbernstar]

@extrateresstrial Sounds more like you are butthurt that psychics don't exist.

He's offering his own million dollars to anyone who can prove they're psychic. What other skeptic offers that?

[houdin654jeff]

@polancot1 As opposed to every comment being, "I like the part where Homer said 'mmmmm,'" or "lolz so funny wat a idot XD."

[polancot1]

Every comment is a book report -_-

[a1mint]

@BlankPicketSign ... almost like a computer program that can not reach outside. Perhaps something outside our state could provide a helping hand. Good grief, some might argue this is some sort of god. Crap please noone take us down that bullshit.

Anyway, I have no idea if you're following all this, but it's my explanation of how the universe can exist.

[a1mint]

@BlankPicketSign ... but as for remaining confined in the rules and mechanisms of reality (the artifact balancing on that quantum soup), the restrictions make it impossible to cross the distance of stars for humans. Our entire existence is just way too fast. Kind of like poof-here-we-are-oops-poof-the­re-we-go. Like a drop in an ocean. Like a pindrop on the moon. Billions of times less even.

So, how to escape the confines of time. The problem is that we entirely operate *inside* matter so to say.

[a1mint]

@BlankPicketSign ... then when a few particles by random happen to line up in a way that it can support an artifact that's sustainable and replicable, it could start a universe. It would spread out from a spot outwards. Then along the edges of that expanding sphere, it would deposit matter. The only thing that's in time is the movement of what matter is made up of (moving at a constant speed of light - electrons rotating etc).

Given all that. *Maybe* we could peek back into that quantum soup...

[a1mint]

@BlankPicketSign ... in fact it gets really weird. First consider how the universe might have come to be. Imagine the ultimate state of nothingness not being a black empty vacuum space at all (it being something still). Imagine time merely being the movement of electrons, atoms, nothing more. Imagine the lowest possible state being a random soup of quantum particles popping in and out of existence everywhere always. They do that just because they can.

[a1mint]

@BlankPicketSign I should have said outside the solar system, yes.

You can keep your eye on scientific discoveries for hope. Things like wormholes and folding are pseudo science pretty much. Perhaps something about quantum theories.

Ok maybe maybe. Here's something: reality as we know it including time is merely an artifact balancing on the ultimate eternal timeless random quantum state. If there was a way to reach *through* that foundation then you could reach anywhere instantly. Weird.

[BlankPicketSign]

@a1mint

"we will... never visit other planets"

I think you meant "Stars" >_>, Cause Mars and Europa are really close =^_^=

You are making very sound arguments, And I agree with you

Perhaps I am simply holding on to an illogical glimmer of hope that one day we will venture throughout our galaxy. Maybe I should hold on to the Science we have now, and not waste time on impossible dreams

Or maybe I just don't like using Absolute Assertions like you have been using, And prefer to say "Maybe" =^_^=

[a1mint]

@BlankPicketSign ... now, what *MIGHT* be possible, is that one day we will discover a different type of broadcast we can pick up from outer space. An alien race way out there could have been sending out a continuous feed about everything they know and do, for others to enjoy.

We should do the same. Send out a continuous stream of knowledge, information, our lives, everything. Why not? It's like paying it forward. But it'll be a one way stream.

[a1mint]

@BlankPicketSign Things we don't understand fully are open for re-interpretation and understanding.

But things like the laws of nature aren't known to be flexible at all. For instance, the conservation of energy. You can not create or destroy energy.

You can't compare things like how once people used to think the world was flat and flight was impossible. Those then conclusions weren't made scientifically.

End of day, we will, unfortunately, never visit other planets. Sad, but true.