My friend and I are both sceptics. We both consider ourselves to have a mind geared for science. We both love physics. I believe in well established laws such as the conservation of energy. My friend believes in anti-gravity, chi, and Overunity (free energy).
We oddly both get our beliefs from experiments conducted by ourselves and others. The beliefs I hold come from well understood experiments. The beliefs he has come from things like Finsrud's mobile, psi wheels, and UFO conspiracy theories.
Finsrud's mobile is a ball in constant motion using only gravity and magnetism in Norway. This defies the fact that both those forces are conservative forces that should cancel themselves out in a complete circuit. In other words, you shouldn't have excess energy to overcome friction forever, so he thinks this device proves free energy. In reality this device has to be getting energy from outside the isolated system. If it is not a fraud, then I suspect some complicated set of forces involving agitation from the earth's rotation or the earth's magnetic field. I prefer the easy answer that it is a fraud. Physics demand that the energy come from somewhere.
Psi-wheels are little pieces of creased paper on a pin that you can make spin by putting your hand next to it. You can easily find instructions on the internet and you can replicate the experiment in minutes. It works, and my friend considers it proof of psychic energy. I consider it agitation from temperature changes coming from my hand to the air.
The UFO conspiracy theories are known by everone. My friend differs in the fact that he believes in some secret anti-gravity force involving electrical manipulation of gravity. He believes this force proves we misunderstand gravity completely, and oddly there is some reputable literature suggesting the U.S. military at least did experiments on this. I highly doubt that there is an electrically produced gravity force, but this new field would likely still fit what we already know about gravity if it existed. Otherwise, it wouldn't be gravity.
He believes I dismiss his evidence based on my blind faith in the dogmas of science. I'm dismissing his experimental evidence. I believe his ideas are based on blind faith in what he reads, and he clearly dismisses the explanations of experiments we both did in college.
How do two sceptics on opposite sides of the same issues get through to each other? We are both stubborn by nature, so how does communication happen in the end? Is there a simple way beyond experimentation to show that one person is being unreasonable? Is there some logical argument I can use to show that these examples are not proof against the natural laws of physics? The simple answer would be to say that he is believing in the stranger ideas, so he is wrong, yet we all know that some strange ideas are right. Quantum mechanics existing makes it hard to stand on this argument alone.
We oddly both get our beliefs from experiments conducted by ourselves and others. The beliefs I hold come from well understood experiments. The beliefs he has come from things like Finsrud's mobile, psi wheels, and UFO conspiracy theories.
Finsrud's mobile is a ball in constant motion using only gravity and magnetism in Norway. This defies the fact that both those forces are conservative forces that should cancel themselves out in a complete circuit. In other words, you shouldn't have excess energy to overcome friction forever, so he thinks this device proves free energy. In reality this device has to be getting energy from outside the isolated system. If it is not a fraud, then I suspect some complicated set of forces involving agitation from the earth's rotation or the earth's magnetic field. I prefer the easy answer that it is a fraud. Physics demand that the energy come from somewhere.
Psi-wheels are little pieces of creased paper on a pin that you can make spin by putting your hand next to it. You can easily find instructions on the internet and you can replicate the experiment in minutes. It works, and my friend considers it proof of psychic energy. I consider it agitation from temperature changes coming from my hand to the air.
The UFO conspiracy theories are known by everone. My friend differs in the fact that he believes in some secret anti-gravity force involving electrical manipulation of gravity. He believes this force proves we misunderstand gravity completely, and oddly there is some reputable literature suggesting the U.S. military at least did experiments on this. I highly doubt that there is an electrically produced gravity force, but this new field would likely still fit what we already know about gravity if it existed. Otherwise, it wouldn't be gravity.
He believes I dismiss his evidence based on my blind faith in the dogmas of science. I'm dismissing his experimental evidence. I believe his ideas are based on blind faith in what he reads, and he clearly dismisses the explanations of experiments we both did in college.
How do two sceptics on opposite sides of the same issues get through to each other? We are both stubborn by nature, so how does communication happen in the end? Is there a simple way beyond experimentation to show that one person is being unreasonable? Is there some logical argument I can use to show that these examples are not proof against the natural laws of physics? The simple answer would be to say that he is believing in the stranger ideas, so he is wrong, yet we all know that some strange ideas are right. Quantum mechanics existing makes it hard to stand on this argument alone.
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