Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!ucbvax!ernie.Berkeley.EDU!jwl
From: jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (James Wilbur Lewis)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: pseudo-scientific gibberish
Keywords: Pseudo-science, Convergence
Message-ID: <22516@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 11 Jan 88 03:26:15 GMT
References: <3445@ihlpl.ATT.COM> <7706@eddie.MIT.EDU> <5409@sol.ARPA> <4079@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <534@gethen.UUCP> <4135@uwmcsd1.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis)
Distribution: alt.flame
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 71

In article <4135@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
-In article <534@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
->>     You did not say anything about my examples concerning Quantum Theory or
->>Cantor's theory of transfinite Cardinals and Ordinals.  I recommend a book by
->>Rudy Rucker called "Infinity and the Mind."  You do not mean to say that any
->>of these are pseudo-sciences do you?
->
->No, I didn't say anything about them.  The difference between them and the
->various Pre-Birth and Post-Death experience theories is, simply, that
->they, at least, are verifiable by means outside of the vagaries of the
->individual human mind.  
-
-As a Logician (yes, I am also that), I can tell you that this is not true.  No
-Mathematical theory can be employed to prove its own consistency ... unless it
-is inconsistent. 

Well, loathe as I am to argue with a real live capital-L "Logician" [TM] 
(not to mention a Physicist to boot! Wow!)  I must disagree.  One of the
first things they teach in Logician School is that a "theory" is differnet
from a "formal system".  I also recall that Goedel's theorem is concerned
with the latter.  And we are free to invent a stronger system to prove
the consistency of a weaker system...

-So, as far as Mathematics is 
-concerned, there is no means of verification with the strictness you demand.  

Eh?  I thought you were talking about "theories", a.k.a. "theorems", which
can often be verified with no trouble at all.  But then I'm not a
Logician, so what do I know?

-  It may be that 
-infinite sets do not even exist in the first place (meaning that it may be 
-possible to prove the Axiom of Infinity of set theory inconsistent with the
-rest of set theory).  It all goes back to Mathematical intuition in the end.

WTF are you talking about?  The integers don't exist?  Huh?  And what's
this "Axiom of Infinity"?  Does it have anything to do with the Axiom of
Choice?

->Various tenets of Quantam Theory have been
->PROVEN true - not by people asserting that they are true, but by
->experimentation. 
-
-The Aspect experiments (which you refer to) did not prove the Copenhagen 
-version of Quantum Theory. 

Do you know the difference between a formal system (like quantum theory)
and a theorem of that system (existence of local hidden variables)?

Maybe they don't get to that until Graduate Logician School.

-  This is very curious, because THERE ARE NO THEORIES ON NDE's TO DATE.

Of course there are! You're full of shit! 

-That is, the only way for the experiment TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF PERCEPTION
-AFTER BRAIN DEATH is if you assume that PERCEPTION AFTER BRAIN DEATH IS NOT
-POSSIBLE.

I must admit, you seem eminently qualified to tell us what brain death is
like.

Look, calling yourself a Physicist or a Logician [TM] isn't going to impress
very many people on this net.  Shit, I bet you're probably just a 
wet-behind-the-ears undergrad who's taken a couple of courses and fancies
himself an expert.  That's what you sound like, anyway.  Get a life!

-- Jim Lewis
   U.C. Berkeley

(a mere Student, and damn proud of it.)