Speed of information

Nowadays, we say that the speed of information is the speed of light. That is justified by the rôle of the speed of light in relativity, in which it is the speed of causation. But it is also justified by the use of electromagnetic waves to transmit information between people. It was not always so. […]

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6D invariant interval

Since one may associate either the arclength (travel length) or the arctime (travel time) with direction, one might think that the full coordinates for every event are of the form (s, t, ê), with arclength s, arctime t, and unit vector ê. Since the direction is a function of either the arclength or the arctime,

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Conventions in science

The main convention of modern science is that it is based on observation only. This convention treats experiments, interventions, and projectiles as if they always happened naturally. Then it is easy to assume, for example, that the transmission and reception of light are at the same speed, a convention promoted as a fact. It also

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Centrist virtue

According to Aristotle (as noted here), the nature of virtue is to seek a mean or middle between extremes, which is an intermediate state between them. These contrary extremes are often called vices, but that implies the operation of evil, which is contradictory to the good, and should be completely rejected. It would be better

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False Gospels

The false gospel of sensitivity: Christians should always to be sensitive to other people, and never offend them in any way. It is false because Jesus offended many people. Matthew 15:12:  Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” The true gospel

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Physics of subjects

If a stone rolls down a hill, we would say it is simply following the law of gravitation. It is not “going somewhere” as if it had a destination – that would require nature to have a soul, a view that died out in the early modern period. But if a person or an animal or

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Science vs. metaphysics

Modern science began with a turn away from medieval debates about metaphysics to focus on how things happen, rather than a metaphysically-adequate why. This was an indifference to metaphysics, not a deliberate ignorance or repudiation of the subject. But that began to change in the 19th century with the influence of materialism, secularism, and the

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Authority of the Bible

The authors of the texts that later became books of the Bible certainly did not think they were writing parts of Scripture. Yet they certainly did think they were writing texts with authority for a particular group of people at a particular time. Others realized later that the texts had a wider audience and a

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Science and conformity

For the purposes of understanding science it is best to focus on “closed theories” – Heisenberg’s term for theories that are superseded. That’s because we understand the limits of closed theories, so a true evaluation of their content can be made. This fit well with the old model of academia: focus on a canon of

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Space and time as references

A clock provides a linear reference to measure duration of motion. Similarly, there is a linear reference to measure length of movement. What is this linear reference? In mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) a linear referencing system (LRS) “is a method of spatial referencing, in which the locations of features are described in terms of

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