Recent content by stev

What is the difference between karma, and the explanation of disease and death used centuries ago - that it was caused by some kind of wrongdoing by the person with the misfortune. I thought the very notion of medical science disprooves this?

s I think the Christmas truce simply reflects how world war one was anything but a peoples war. The soldiers were just the unquestioning pawns deployed by the pro-war elite and had no deep feelings of hate toward the other side. Would we have done this with the Nazis?

Could you compare it to the notion of the big bang: So much (I really mean all) information is coming from this nothing point - that doesn't last even the smallest fragment of time - that we call reality.

"What you write as 12:00 looks like hours and minutes, implying any value of seconds in there is acceptable. I suspect what you really mean is 12:00:00.000... In principle, it exists no matter how finely you divide the time unit (exclusive of quantum considerations). In practice you can only...

"From a purely mathematical perspective, a point is 0 dimensional and has no length. If you move a point a tiny bit. you are creating an interval, which is a 1 dimensional thing and has a length." This is what was confusing me - how can we say it exists if it is 0 dimensional and has no...

Well if it doesn't, then when is 12:00?

Is there ever a point in time that is actually the real time? If we take for instance, midnight, which is usually thought of as 12:00. Is there ever a point in reality where the time is actually 12:00? For there to be a point in reality which is 12:00, then 12:00 must last, or be, a certain...

No I didn't, but after jtbells post I was thinking about how we must therefore reflect the light from the stars as well as lamp posts! How could you achieve the conditions needed? I guess you would need to be in the middle of nowhere with a clear sky above and no moonlight?

Thank you for clearing that up for me, much appreciated. But do we ever now just how much anyone object is actually lit up? If someone shines a torch on a wall which previously was dark, and I am standing next to that wall, then I will see the torches lighting affect as greater than if I was...

Is it possible for a torch to light up a wall, but not reflect back to you so that you cannot in fact see the light hitting the wall? For instance I can see streetlights from a couple of miles away out of my bedroom window - therefore the light from the streetlights must be reaching me - but...