In Science Fiction the 'Issue of finding scientific faults'

[Thor.]

Sigh, anythings possible when you put your mind to it. Its only a matter of time, made a small joke there. :smile:

If you watch that Nasa spokesperson, he himself said its possible, if its all smoke and mirrors then why would he lie.

 

To many its possible to make out like its not possible, seems a bit far fetched.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Thor.

[matortheeternal]

Sigh, anythings possible when you put your mind to it. Its only a matter of time, made a small joke there. :smile:

If you watch that Nasa spokesperson, he himself said its possible, if its all smoke and mirrors then why would he lie.

 

To many its possible to make out like its not possible, seems a bit far fetched.

 

I give up. You're delving into positivist silliness and fallacious arguments now.

Edited October 7, 2013 by matortheeternal

[Thor.]

I'm not delving in anything, to many it can be done or its possible from to many sources to make it out not to be. Its like denying ones words whose speaking in front of you.

 

I deny the fact it cant be done, you gotta try harder with actual source material.

 

that's how i debate. If there is no claim against your believes then mine is the correct one, or is yours depending on the source.

 

I'm hard one to changes ones opinion :smile: I stick to it if theirs a source.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Thor.

[matortheeternal]

I'm not delving in anything, to many it can be done or its possible from to many sources to make it out not to be. Its like denying ones words whose speaking in front of you.

 

I deny the fact it cant be done, you gotta try harder with actual source material.

 

that's how i debate. If there is no claim against your believes then mine is the correct one, or is yours depending on the source.

 

I'm hard one to changes ones opinion :smile: I stick to it if theirs a source.

Your grammar is making you impossible to understand. I can't argue with someone if they stop making logical sense. Your argument is a ridiculous blend of fallacy and incomprehensible ridiculousness.

 

Furthermore, you seem to lack the capacity to understand what my argument is. You continue to say that I'm saying it's not possible, when I'm not saying that. I'm saying we don't know if it's possible, that your sources are of poor quality (and provide misinformation), and that you are at fault for misinterpretting what is actually being said by White. He does not say a warp engine is possible at any point in any context, though he is quoted out of context by media to make it seem like he says that.

 

You're also guilty of beating around the bush, another fallacious method of argument by which you're not actually addressing my points or my argument. You continue to circle around what I'm saying without actually addressing any of my points.

 

There is no discussion or conversation happening here, because you have failed to actually address my posts in any way other than blithely out of context. If you want to actually have a meaningful conversation you should quote individual sections/paragraphs and make sure you address every point, instead of replying to a tiny piece of my post and thus strawmanning me into oblivion. (oh no, I did it again)

Edited October 7, 2013 by matortheeternal

[Thor.]

See this is a debate thread, and what we see is what we debate, doesn't matter if it was taken from individual sources or peoples or not. Which furthers my argument.

 

it doesn't matter who's qualified or not, its a open debate for anyone to join in.

 

its what strikes your fancy.

 

is that what you are wanting??, i read that last post of your and thats what came to mind.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Thor.

[rizon72]

If we only accept the status quo in science as what we know now, then our knowledge of the universe stops growing. The only way to grow is to question what is thought to be impossible.

Many times I see science fiction in two different sides, the hard side soft side. The hard side debates with only what we know now, I stress now because our understanding is always changing. Soft usually sees many possibilities, from somewhat realistic to the unrealistic.

Thirty years ago science wasn't keen on life in the universe, or even many systems with planets. Today, science is more likely to accept that there is life out there, and that many systems have planets, much more than they thought. What will we know in the next 30 years? We might discover that an FTL drive actually takes a lot less energy than we assume today. Or we might develop a new radical power source that can provide tremendous amounts of power. We must push the envelope, otherwise we won't go anywhere.

[matortheeternal]

See this is a debate thread, and what we see is what we debate, doesn't matter if it was taken from individual sources or peoples or not. Which furthers my argument.

 

Sources are a part of debates. If you make it so sources have no value in a debate, then there is no purpose for debating, because you can, more-or-less, find a source saying absolutely whatever you want.

 

 

it doesn't matter who's qualified or not, its a open debate for anyone to join in.

 

Debates are open, but people who debate fallaciously or who debate subjects they have no qualifications in are less convincing than others, and may risk being corrected or annoying other debaters (by persisting in delusions, be they of grandeur/qualification or otherwise). Furthermore, there is no purpose to debate if you do so with a closed mind.

 

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

― Carl Sagan

 

 

is that what you are wanting??, i read that last post of your and thats what came to mind.

 

This (my current post) is an example of what I would like for engaging in a proper discussion on forums.

 

However, this current debate has strayed from the original subject to the meta-subject of "how to debate properly" and "what is a fallacious argument". I think it's safe to say no matter how long we continue along this thread we won't return to the original subject. We will either forget our deviation from the original subject or become tired of the discussion. Either way, the purpose of continual postings has become naught.

 

(Something I felt two posts ago, if not earlier. I only persist out of the hopeless idea that I can actually get an idea through your thick skull.)

 

 

 

If we only accept the status quo in science as what we know now, then our knowledge of the universe stops growing. The only way to grow is to question what is thought to be impossible.

 

This is true, and I agree with these statements. However, on the subject of the current debate between me and Thor I will say the following:

 

Questioning is not equal to accepting. Just because you question ideas does not mean you consider radical speculative concepts to be "possible", or being pursued by current theoretical science (and within the scope of plausible concepts).

 

 

Many times I see science fiction in two different sides, the hard side soft side. The hard side debates with only what we know now, I stress now because our understanding is always changing. Soft usually sees many possibilities, from somewhat realistic to the unrealistic.

This is false. Hard SF does not debate only what we know now. If it did that, it'd be non-fiction. All SF involves an estranging novum. The difference between hard and soft SF is the degree of scientific analysis or thought put into the work. Sometimes Soft SF is just the result of a wanna-be SF writer attempting to write within the genre without doing proper research and making sure their claims and ideas have scientific basis. Not always... but sometimes, if not often times.

 

It'd be better to provide the more typologically correct distinction of Extrapolative vs. Speculative SF, please. "Soft SF" is often used to describe Science Fantasy, which is a hybrid genre and not actually Science Fiction (as described in my first post in this thread at the end of page 2).

 

Thirty years ago science wasn't keen on life in the universe, or even many systems with planets. Today, science is more likely to accept that there is life out there, and that many systems have planets, much more than they thought. What will we know in the next 30 years? We might discover that an FTL drive actually takes a lot less energy than we assume today. Or we might develop a new radical power source that can provide tremendous amounts of power. We must push the envelope, otherwise we won't go anywhere.

 

Just because scientific knowledge is constantly expanding doesn't mean we have to accept speculative ideas as scientifically possible.

 

It's possible that at some point in time Alcubierre's drive will be considered possible, but for now it is speculative and beyond the scope of our knowledge to make any clear statements regarding it. Allow me to be perfectly clear:

 

The statement "An Alcubierre's drive is possible" means, in my eyes, "It is scientifically possible to construct a drive following Alcubierre's theoretical model that would allow for faster than light travel." To clarify this even further, this is equivalent to: "We can construct an Alcubierre's drive, and probably will at some point in the future."

 

The reason I consider this to be false is we don't have the theoretical framework (supported by experiments and empirical evidence) to make such a clear statement regarding an Alcubierre Drive. There are numerous issues as outlined in the Wikipedia page and presented by several notable physicists. It might be possible, but until we have more empirical evidence it's not scientifically sound to say that it is.

Edited October 7, 2013 by matortheeternal

[rizon72]

 

The statement "An Alcubierre's drive is possible" means, in my eyes, "It is scientifically possible to construct a drive following Alcubierre's theoretical model that would allow for faster than light travel." To clarify this even further, this is equivalent to: "We can construct an Alcubierre's drive, and probably will at some point in the future."

 

This is where we differ, I'll use a different example. Let's say 'a rail gun is possible', to you that means it can be built right now. To me it means we have the mathematical ideas and theories but cannot build it at this time. To you the real gun is possible because we can build them now, to me, rail guns are real, not possible. Possible to me means there is some doubt about if it can be made real or not.

 

 

The reason I consider this to be false is we don't have the theoretical framework (supported by experiments and empirical evidence) to make such a clear statement regarding an Alcubierre Drive.

 

You probably don't mean this, but to me, I read this as a defeatists attitude. We don't have any experiments or evidence therefore its a waste of time and we should scrap it.

[HeyYou]

Is it possible? We don't know, that is why we experiment and test theories. Perhaps with our current technology, we cannot do it, but, who is to say that we achieve some breakthrough, and suddenly, things that were once 'impossible', now become 'possible'. The only way to know, is to try it. If it works, really cool, if it doesn't, well, at least we tried, and we can move on to something else.

 

For my part, I applaud this research. I would love to see them come up with a workable FTL drive.

[matortheeternal]

 

The statement "An Alcubierre's drive is possible" means, in my eyes, "It is scientifically possible to construct a drive following Alcubierre's theoretical model that would allow for faster than light travel." To clarify this even further, this is equivalent to: "We can construct an Alcubierre's drive, and probably will at some point in the future."

This is where we differ, I'll use a different example. Let's say 'a rail gun is possible', to you that means it can be built right now. To me it means we have the mathematical ideas and theories but cannot build it at this time. To you the real gun is possible because we can build them now, to me, rail guns are real, not possible. Possible to me means there is some doubt about if it can be made real or not.

 

 

No, my perspective is not that saying something is possible means "it can be built right now", to me saying something is possible means that we have the conceptual framework now to say that it could be built sometime in the future. However, there's a huge gap between theoretical science and engineering practicality. Those ideas that are on the edge of scientific practicality/theory are not "possible", they're the result of speculation.

 

There is plenty of doubt (at the theoretical level) as to whether or not an Alcubierre drive can be made real. I'll use direct quotes to support why I think this way:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_Drive#Difficulties

 

"The amount of exotic matter required for such a propulsion is as of yet unknown. Pfenning and Allen Everett of Tufts hold that a warp bubble traveling at 10 times light-speed must have a wall thickness of no more than 10⁻³² meters—close to the limiting Planck length, 1.6 × 10⁻³⁵ meters. A bubble macroscopically large enough to enclose a ship of 200 meters would require a total amount of exotic matter equal to 10 billion times the mass of the observable universe, and straining the exotic matter to an extremely thin band of 10⁻³² meters is considered impractical."

"A paper by José Natário published in 2002 argues that crew members could not control, steer or stop the ship because the ship could not send signals to the front of the bubble."

 

"Krasnikov proposed that if tachyonic matter cannot be found or used, then a solution might be to arrange for masses along the path of the vessel to be set in motion in such a way that the required field was produced. But in this case, the Alcubierre drive vessel can only travel routes that, like a railroad, have first been equipped with the necessary infrastructure. The pilot inside the bubble is causally disconnected with its walls and cannot carry out any action outside the bubble: the bubble cannot be used for the first trip to a distant star because the pilot cannot place infrastructure ahead of the bubble while "in transit". For example, travelling to Vega (which is 25 light-years from the Earth) requires arranging everything so that the bubble moving toward Vega with a superluminal velocity would appear; such arrangements will always take more than 25 years."

"A more recent paper by Carlos Barceló, Stefano Finazzi, and Stefano Liberati uses quantum theory to argue that the Alcubierre drive at faster-than-light velocities is impossible mostly because extremely high temperatures caused by Hawking radiation would destroy anything inside the bubble at superluminal velocities and destabilize the bubble itself; the paper also argues that these problems are absent if the bubble velocity is subluminal, although the drive still requires exotic matter."

You'll note that several of the objects of discussion here involve particles that we do not yet know exist. Tachyonic/Exotic matter, negative energy, etc.

 

Therefore to say an Alcubierre Drive is possible is to say these forms of matter exist in suitable enough quantities to be used in an Alcubierre Drive, and are capturable/directable, two massive LEAPS that have no basis in scientific research. We do not know if these sort of particles exist, so to say we know we can construct an Alcubierre Drive is 100% false.

 

 

 

The reason I consider this to be false is we don't have the theoretical framework (supported by experiments and empirical evidence) to make such a clear statement regarding an Alcubierre Drive.

You probably don't mean this, but to me, I read this as a defeatists attitude. We don't have any experiments or evidence therefore its a waste of time and we should scrap it.

 

 

No, it's not a defeatist attitude. It's scientific fact. We cannot make a clear statement about whether or not an Alcubierre Drive can be "made real" or not, because we lack the scientific evidence to back up such a claim. This is how science works (and applying normative attitudes to it is absolutely silly). You can't make a scientific statement like "An Alcubierre Drive is possible - it could be made real" until you have the scientific data to back up your claim. The experiments at NASA could generate some of this necessary data (to say whether or not it is possible).

 

This is how science works. Deal with it.

Edited October 7, 2013 by matortheeternal