An apparently difficult set of notions, that are indisputably true, but very few people see as true:

There is a set of concepts that I use that are beyond a doubt true and that very few people seem to realize are true and that I cannot seem to convince people to adopt.

The basic idea is that we should not accept any claim until there is evidence or logic supporting the claim.

I submit that this MUST be applied to any claim AND one must employ brutal intellectual honesty when applying it.

What I see though is that very few people can truly apply this process.

Even people that can apply it to one area are incapable of applying it to other areas.

For example, I have seen atheists that have adopted this approach to religion but then cannot apply it to political world view questions or cannot apply it to "conspiracy theory questions" or cannot apply it to questions like "Is there such a thing as absolute morality."

(This post is essentially just putting a stake in the ground. There is much, much more to flesh out here, but it would take much more work then I wish to expend right now. Hopefully you will see the general point that I'm trying to make...?)

Face up to the truth!

The issue is not simply trying to think clearly about what is true. The much more important issue is to face up to the truth when you are confronted by it!

Is it possible that technological progress isn't linear?

Seems to me that much of the technological advances have resulted from the major physics insights. Physics hasn't really had major new insights since the early 20th century. That's probably because we now fundamentally understand the workings of our universe. There are no new fundamental mechanisms. These fundamental mechanisms are the tools that can be used in technology. My contention is that since there are no new tools available, and haven't been for a long time now, and so this has resulted in a "saturation" in the technology innovation curve. The technological innovations, the new technologies that are possible will not be steadily increasing. At some point there will be no more new technologies.

Poynting vector

I've been thinking about the Poynting vector and how to reconcile it with logic. In the original paper Poynting demonstrated how for a resistor with a DC current the Poynting vector points inward. This indicates that the power is directed into the resistor. The E field points in the direction of the current. The H field circles around the resistor. The cross product is inward. Is the Poynting vector just an analog to P=I*V ? The H field is related to the current, the E field to the Potential drop. So, since I * V makes good logical sense (V is how much energy is given up by each unit of charge and I is the amount of charge per second so it makes total sense) then S=E X H is just a result of I*V, right???

three things that I was told lately that I need to "discuss"

- "the scientific method sometimes fails because people are too married to their ideas"

- "every creature has a purpose"

- "it is better to ignore the truth and be happy" (actually this isn't exactly what was said but I think that this was implied)


I want to address all three of these but do not want to type that much. Any comments?


The flaws seem quite obvious to me but I expect not to others....?