Seems possible that physics will have to be rewritten, Cern seems to show neutrinos faster than light

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/11/neutr...-+Blog+Posts%29

Seems there is some partial confirmation, though the doubts about GPS which Iridur mentions are not yet resolved

I heard from a friend that this has been disproven. Is there any links, because I can't find confirmation.

Don't think there are any new experiments which directly touch on it as yet: not that I have found anyway. There are theoretical objections which suggest that it may not be right, but we need to wait for further experiment, as I understand it. Might be wrong though

Just checking. Thanks.

http://www.nature.com/news/flaws-found-in-...urement-1.10099

Update suggesting that there are errors in the equipment. No final verdict yet

This might be bad. Personally I want the idea that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light to be dismissed. But I have the feeling that it won't now.

Why do you want that? Either it can or it can't. It is better to get it right whatever the answer is, surely?

I want it because I feel that (1) people tend to get to cozy with scientific theories that have been around for a time. I find it irritating when I get lectured as if the statment were a fact, rather than a probibility that it is true via the empirical senses of the world. (2) also, this may unlock new posibilites if nothing can go faster than the spped of light is false. Perhaps traveling faster through space maybe (that's if we find a way not to die from going at such high speeds)?

Just personal taste I guess. No particuler reason.

Well it seems to me that reputable scientists adopt it as a working hypothesis: not as a fact. The very report we are discussing demonstrates that, surely? That was my point in one of the philosophy threads: moral utterances are not different in this respect. I am a practical person, mainly. So what interests me about your stance is what follows from it.

I am perfectly happy to concede that most of what we know is probability not certainty. So if we accept that, what now? There are possibilities:

1. There is the option to say that we cannot act on any of what we know. Even verification through our senses is not certain: we may be drugged or dreaming or hallucinating for some other reason. To me that stance renders life narrow and boring. Solipsism is objectionable for many reasons: but mainly it is lonely. And that paralysis leads to stagnation.

2. We can do what is normally done: we can act "as if" what we know is true, and see where that takes us. It gets us quite far, I would argue. "If" cholera is a disease which accounts for several deaths in one location then we can try to see what makes a difference to the number of deaths. "If" it is a disease, and it is directly inflicted by an angry God, we can pray or make human sacrifices or whatever, to see if we can jolly him into a good mood. "If" it is a disease and it is caused by contaminated water, we can try to clean the water and see if that makes a difference. The latter works and the former does not. So those theories do not have equal status. You may prefer to say that they do: I think that is silly. But it does not change the fact that neither theory is "known" in the sense of being certain. At least not by the criterion of "verification" through the senses. For all we know God is pleased by boiled water, and there is no such thing as a disease organism. That we can now see what we think of as disease organisms is no guarantee they exist: God could have put them there to fool us, just as he did with fossils and holes in our socks. But it is not very likely.

Have you read Gulliver's travels? If so you will remember Laputa. Swift lampooned the consequences of your second objection. There was a scientist there who was researching how to get sunbeams out of cucumbers: he had been at it for years. There was no reason to suppose he was ever going to succeed, nor any reason to think he was ever going to stop trying. If nothing can go faster than the speed of light there is no point in diverting resources on the assumption that it can. And that was Swift's point; for the people in Laputa were starving, and they were oppressed by superior weaponry held by the rulers who had made such research a priority. Quite apart from the fact that your second objection cannot be squared with the first, because we can never "know" if anything can go faster than light, no matter what we do, if we take your first position: such research has a cost and that cost must be met from the ongoing scarcity. So if we research it we will have less for other things. In that case it is no more than folly not to act "as if" our findings can point us in the right direction.

It follows from what I have said that I think you have misunderstood the position of most, and what you are objecting to is a straw man. It is certainly true that some of what we teach children is simplified, and presented as unquestionable. That is not predicated on a misunderstanding of what and how we "know": it is predicated on our judgement of what they can grasp as they grow. Nobody can verify everything for themselves: we haven't time. If we did foster such an expectation we would have a very high death rate while children tested their various hypotheses about fire and gravity and strangers. Can't see any merit in that at all. So far as I can see we are social animals and we pass on a great deal through cultural transmission. And that is a good thing, on the whole. As we mature we find out that not all things presented as certainties are: and later that almost none of them are. Welcome to the adult world, at that point

It is also true that some people never reach what I am shorthanding as adulthood. They are perhaps unfortunate in never realising that the simplifications and prescriptions of childhood are for the purpose of keeping them safe in various ways; and they either cling to the "certainties" they were given: or they reject all of it and are left with no bathwater and no baby. Most of us go through a stage of the latter in adolescence and I think that is a maturational stage for developing human beings: but it is not a very useful end point for the reasons I have given.

Just my take on it.

Of course, the majoriety of scientists do. But that is not who I am critisisng. Rather, the people who take science's hypothesises as fact, rather thanlike a fact devived from empirical sences that seems to be the best possible explanation as of now. In pratical life, yes. I am happy for this to be accepted. After all, if we take the example of hume's sceptism where let us hypothetically imagine a house has a bomb in it. A friend phones to tell the owner that he needs to get out before it explodes. The owner replies that because he is not feeling it via the sences it doesn't exist and puts the phone down. It would be stupid in my view to live your life like this, and since it is most likely that the bomb is in the owners house, it is better to take the chance of fleeing rather than staying. My quarel is the theoretical implications rather than the pragmatic. I am not attacking the report, which seems pragmatic.


1. There is the option to say that we cannot act on any of what we know. Even verification through our senses is not certain: we may be drugged or dreaming or hallucinating for some other reason. To me that stance renders life narrow and boring. Solipsism is objectionable for many reasons: but mainly it is lonely. And that paralysis leads to stagnation.
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To this, I believe we cannot know anything. Or at least if it is true or not. But do we really need truth to live. Personally I think not, but what is only like truth that acts as a guide for our actions. On the contray to me, a life of doubt leads to a life of possibility and wonders. As for soliphism, I'll object to it due to more the pragmatic reasons rather than the emoutinal. I prefer Kant's idea of the noumenal and phenomenal.


To me, the status of the argumant is derived from the methords and reasoning used. Since such acts are done using empirical devices then they credibility is souly dependant on the empirical world. Which is fine, since we live in the empirical world it can be argued, or are at least observers of it. So why wouldn't we come to this conclusion.


Again, I would argue that the likeliness of such a thing would depend on the sphere of existance of which the conclusion is made.


I never implied we should. From a pragmatic stance, such a thing would be foolish.


Personally, I do not like this. A person I knew when he was in school was in a science lesson, and they were disscussing the idea of absolute zero. The teacher said that when matter reaches this, it stops moving completely. My friend then went of to hypothesise that at some point, on an unbelivabley small level that matter would still be moving. Hense, it could never reach absolute zero because of this. This is because he believed than a variation of zeno's paradox of motion applied to the amount of energy in something as well. That no matter what it appeared to look like, they'd would still be some energy left over. The teacher however just appealed to the authoriety of scientists and got him to shut up. Whenever he was right or wrong or not is not my point here, but instead of discussing the proposition or not, or even allowing doubt on the matter the teacher just shut him up. Personally, I would like to see more debate in schools and less here's what you need to know, learn it kind of stuff. I believe the magazine philosophy now was setting up philosophy classes in primary schools to get children to think outside the box, and with good results. There must always be room for doubt for me unless we want to end up as mear machines.

But anyway, I have straid. It is not children I am not so concerned about, but people manipulating science for there own ends because it is seen as some sort of magical cure that will solve all of humanities problems, rather than a logical process based on empirical phenomina.


I never implied we could verify everything ourselves.

Good in ethical context, or self-intrested context?


Agreed, but what I worry about is people manipuating other people who use such simplifications and claim it good and right to do so.


Fair enough, I hope I haven't used to many fallicies in my responce.

Ah well. You did say before that you think philosophy is not practical, and it seems that you have no practical use for it. If that is a proper appreciation of your position then I am sorry to say that I have no interest in it. To me it is of practical import and if it has no such implication then it is a game. I am not much for games

Fair enough . Though, if you let me play devil's advocate here, it could be argued there is some pratical use in philosophy. As far as I can tell it is in the field of artificial intelligance however. Apparently, when asked which field AI developers felt most close to (Source: Introducing Artifical intelligence), the majoriety claimed instead of Science, pychology or mathmatics that they felt most close to philosophy strangely enough. Even if this is not true however, a great deal of philosophy goes into this area. Perhaps it is the more abstract philosophy which is useless.

My question to you however is, what goal do you wish to achieve by being pratical? To what end do you wish to meet?

How should we live/what should we do, about sums it up, I think

Personally I have my doubts of there being a set way to live or not.

How do you know?