I’ll admit that for a while now I’ve been unsure what to do with the following bit of photographic evidence that happened to fall into my hands. But, following PZ’s sterling example, our first duty must always be to honesty, and let the chips fall where they may.
Vince, please present the full argument from quantum mechanics that this teapot doesn’t exist; at least more than “by quantum mechanics”. I am sure your argument will take us a long way in ‘proving’ that God doesn’t exist.
Also you ask:
“If a physical object can’t, in principle, be observed, then in what sense is it a physical object?”
The teapot is a physical object in the same sense God is a physical object.
I never said there was anything wrong with following a religion.
Vince, #26 I said “The teapot is a physical object in the same sense God is a physical object.” Now that I think about it, I think that is confusion on my part. Staying strictly on topic, I think what Russell was trying to say is that to whatever degree of accuracy you can observe the volume between Earth and Mars he wants the teapot to be smaller than that. So I still think its very much *not* disprovable.
Sorry, I was responding to a part of the quote in that wikipedia link when I wrote about parents passing a religion down.
Also, by “physical object” I mean a material object, an object made up of standard model, etc., particles.
If you can’t observe any of the properties associated with a teapot, then it’s not there.
Cynthia said – “Now, it’s truly unfathomable to me how this little teapot has ended up sitting in the middle of the American Revolution. Go figure! ”
Cynthia, no history of “American Independence” in your school? – it was all a storm in a teacup – the storm brewed & brewed until it spilled over, it was a costly and blood-thirsty storm over taxes on T
Vince, Suppose I believe in this thing described in #27; if someone wants to say that it doesn’t exist they should have 100% accurate knowledge about everything.
I don’t know what you mean here. If I send out a probe and it travels to every corner of the solar system and finds nothing, then it doesn’t exist as a real object. Therefore the existence of this thing in the solar system is disprovable. Why should I need to know the complete quantum theory of gravity (which makes up a part of “knowledge about everything”) if I need to know whether this teapot exists?
Actually this teapot was destroyed be a meteor a couple of thousand years ago, so we can’t prove or disprove its existence empirically. But there are compelling non-eyewitness accounts suggesting that it cared about us and insisted upon our devotion.
No I don’t mean a theory of everything (I mean experimental knowledge).
So yes if you *can* perform 100% accurate observations 😉 between Earth to Mars in every direction at the same time and it doesn’t show up then I’ll stop believing in it. But until that happens no one can tell me not to believe in it.
Since it was destroyed by a meteor, surely there must be debris floating around space. So, send out a few thousand probes and let it search every planet and every little spot in the solar system. It must find something. If not, then most likely it never existed.
Teapots don’t care about us. Teapots don’t even have a will or an intellect for God’s sake!
Can you prove that this teapot didn’t have a will or intellect? How can you make such definitive statements about things that science can’t prove?
Perhaps you can’t prove it didn’t have a will or intellect. I suppose you’re perfectly entitled to believe that it did have a will or intellect, though you’d have no basis for that belief unless you knew something about this teapot that sets it aside from all other teapots that leads you to reason that this teapot is smart. Or perhaps many people throughout the ages testified that the teapot once existed and had a will and intellect and wrote about the cool things that the teapot did for them and said to them.
“Since it was destroyed by a meteor, surely there must be debris floating around space. So, send out a few thousand probes and let it search every planet and every little spot in the solar system. It must find something. If not, then most likely it never existed.” What will be the experimental errors in this suggested experiment? I am a believer and I won’t accept anything less than 100% accuracy.
Come on Quasar, Clifford’s “Storms in a Teacup” are explicitly about a battle brewing within physics, not a war brewing within civilization!
Face it, with an underlying intent to break away from the Motherland, colonial rebels staged a tea party to stir up support for revolution. In fact, the tea party was merely a platform to express a rallying cry; a rallying cry aimed to entice young recruits for battle. After all, leaders of the American Revolution knew good and well that residents from the old country were being hit with even higher taxes than the colonists: taxes needed to cover enormous debts following the costly Seven Years’ War.
These revolutionaries (including a few of my ancestors, in fact) were willing to sacrifice their safety: the safety of living under the security of a great military might, The British Empire. Simply put, they chose a chance for independence over safety and security. Doubtlessly, it was a huge gamble. But luckily, the chance for independence- needless to say – paid off quite handsomely.;)
Why all this argument? It is the “Teapot Nebula.”
Oh my goodness, could that really be the Doormouse out there?
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/7.3.html