Welcome to the group ORIGINS which you have just joined, and made useful comments.
Your photographs and choice of music are fantastic.

Thanks, Chthulhu, for the compliment on the pictures. Every once in awhile one of Hemant's contests is really inspiring, and these were mostly ones I did for the misspelled motivational poster contest. Glad you liked them. You have some great ones too - as a fan of MYST I really like the CG landscapes.

No problem and thanks for adding the link.

Hey Brad, what's up? School is starting tomorrow, and I'm finishing up an essay that's due tomorrow as well. 3500 word requirement, started yesterday and I have 2100. Only 1400 to go...

Where did you go when you were in Oz?

G'day Brad, and thanks for the welcome. There are indeed quite a few of us in the land of Oz who have peeked behind the curtain. ;^)

Good point about epistemology and ontology. - but then again I have no formal philosophical training...I just muddle by the best I can :-)

Well, I don't have formal training either. I am self educated, and do plenty muddling of my own. I'm just smart. :P

But I am interested in if you believe that we can measure anything - let's call it physical - that lies outside the boundary of the universe (the known space-time continuum we apparently inhabit).

Well, we can debate how "boundary" would apply to the universe, but that aside... It depends somewhat on what you mean by "universe." It is possible the known universe exists as a p-brane or something in a supervening universe. I generally use "Universe" (with a capital) to mean "all of existence," which would include the supervening universe, and so anything defined to be outside the Universe would be defined out of existence.
In the case of multiple p-branes/universes, I'm inclined to think that, yes, we could measure/observe things "outside." Is it possible that things existing outside our universe could be incapable of interacting with our universe even in principle? Perhaps, but if something can and does interact, then that would leave evidence, and be observable.

Indeed, we did. The forum is somewhat limited, unfortunately.

About testing M-theory @ LHC, I think the point is that it can be tested at all. Of course, what we find may not rule out string theory, but Smolin's argument is only valid if it could never even be tested in principle. This is simply not so.

About observation... We know much of what we know without any direct observation. Much of it is by inference from observational evidence, rather than observation itself. Philosophically speaking, I think "observation" is used more loosely. When your definition of "universe" includes observables (and is restricted to such), your definition of observables becomes important. There are any number of arguments, many of which will lead into metaphysical claims, which imply the existence of things which do not fit into your conception of a universe. Do you reject metaphysical claims as being without content? I wonder if you're making the common mistake of conflating epistemology and ontology.

Thanks Brad. Some great stills there.

This Western Canadian Rammstein fan is just fine. Thank you for asking. I really (really) like your "molecule" photo. One of my favourites as a schematic of ATP. I didn't upload it here because it came from a text and they didn't give me rights to the image. Where did you get your molecule?

lol, I live in middletown!!! Small world I guess! I just moved here a couple weeks ago, and have been staying with my friend in Middletown. I'm moving over to an apartment in J-town on the first :D Such excitement in my life! Six Flags over Jesus is nearby here. As an atheist, I was convinced I moved to the wrong area of the U.S. I've never, in my life, have seen a church that big.

Thanks for the add!
I did write in to the Pres. Hopefully they are smart enough not to fire Myers. I will definitely cross them off of my future colleges to attend.

I'm hoping that the President U of MN realizes that the majority of Catholics writing in to him are ignorant, and not potential future students of their University.

Hi Brad - I think we may have cross-friended each other: if you didn't get a friend request from me, then my apologies!

Thanks for joining my group!
TTYL
Dianna

Thanks! Actually I think I've got "At the Mountains of Madness" somewhere too... I'll get to it, thanks for remembering me :)

oops, it's "The Colour Out of Space"...excuse me, I read it in spanish...

Nice to meet you :) That blog made me understand why someone at the nexus calls himself the "call of brenthulu" lol...and to think I have read Lovecraft indeed (just the color that came from space though)...sheesh...

Hey, you need to spam links all over de-conversion to get people over here!