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Posts by Martin
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I mostly agree with Cassius' take on humanism. However, the definition of humanism by the American Humanist Association appears to be compatible with Epicurus' philosophy:
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Welcome Rolf!
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In the recent article "Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex" in Quantamagazine,
(Link:Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex | Quanta MagazineA new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and…www.quantamagazine.orgfound on the FB-page "Philosophy Matters": https://www.facebook.com/PhilosophyMttrs )
Philip Ball mentions two times that the suggested answer to the question is compatible with / does not contradict the second law of thermodynamics.
Considering that according to C.F.v. Weizsaecker, the second law of thermodynamics actually drives complexity -
see "Aufbau der Physik" or "The Structure of Physics", English edition by Thomas Goernitz, Holger Lyre, Springer Science & Business Media, 2007, ISBN 1402052359, 9781402052354:
https://books.google.co.th/books/about/The_Structure_of_Physics.html?id=DeexONN0zDgC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
- it should be possible to derive the answer given in that article from the second law of thermodynamics. -
Another big issue with fragments, especially from Philodemus, is whether a particular fragment expresses Philodemus' own view or that of an opponent.
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Welcome Pimagus!
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Welcome Eyal!
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Epicurus got in (at least) one shipwreck.
There are texts in which Epicurus describes looking at a wrecked ship and which indicate that he took a ship at a season which was dangerous for travel by ship to flee from Mytilene. However, none of these texts indicate that he was himself in a shipwreck. What is the reference for him getting in a shipwreck?
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Welcome Ken!
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Welcome James!
I am a physicist, too.
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Welcome Singleton!
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The idea that light is massless will be thrown away eventually along with the rest of Einstein's magic tricks.
According to the model which is the most consistent with observations, light has mass while the elementary particle which makes up light, the photon, has a nominal rest mass of zero. While we can carry out experiments in which it appears that light is slowed down or photons are trapped, a single photon cannot actually be at rest. In every frame of reference except for its own, it moves with the speed of light throughout its existence.
It might happen that in future, a photon rest mass of more than zero is discovered. The current model can accommodate this by separating the speed of light from the maximum speed of information transport, which would then be slightly higher than the speed of light, and which would then be used instead of the speed of light in the Lorentz transforms and some other formulas. However, a photon rest mass of more than zero would certainly motivate the search for a superior model.
Although from a theoretical perspective, Einstein's theories and quantum mechanics have replaced Newton's theory of gravity/mechanics, in actual practice, Newton's theory is still far more often applied than the newer theories because Newton's mechanics is accurate enough and more efficient to use for problems which are within its limits. Therefore, Newton's mechanics has never been thrown away. Similarly, it appears unlikely, that Einstein's "magic tricks" will be thrown away, because they do work well. We just do not know whether they have a range beyond which they become inadequate.
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Welcome Al-Hakiim!
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