A recent visitor to Choosing Hats who goes by the name “noen” made a few comments which imply that he does not believe the material on the site is up to his ‘standards’. For example in response to the post here he wrote, “Not really impressed” and “The argument is without merit”. Of course I doubt that the post was written with the intention of impressing noen, and he merely asserts that “the argument” (it is unclear what argument he is referring to) is “without merit” but never explains why he thinks this way.

He also commented here to ask, “Are you picking on Objectivists?” and to hand wave Objectivism with, “Talk about low hanging fruit”. Of course it is hardly true that I have been “picking on Objectivists” and I have not seen a large number of responses to Objectivism nor any kind of refutation of the position by noen.

These comments pale in comparison to the one noen left on the post found here where he writes as though he is an authority in the area of physics.

“The universe consists of particles moving in lines of force or whatever physics determines ultimate reality is. That’s it. There is no need to postulate other ontological realms.”

 

“The mathematics breaks down at the singularity but not within the event horizon. We know what happens there. You get converted into paste and then into a stream of particles. The physics for that is straight forward. It’s at the singularity where our current theories ‘blow up’.”

 

“The singularity is thought to be a point inside the event horizon. If the black hole is rotating it can be a ring shape. But really, this is all speculation. The existence of singularities is thought to be a failure of general relativity.”

 

Apparently noen knows that the universe consists only of matter in motion and rejects metaphysics. However, these are metaphysical claims. He then writes about mathematics which also apparently exists as matter in motion. However, it is difficult to see how mathematics could consist of physical entities. Digging an even deeper hole, noen posits alleged information concerning a singularity. He writes about the event horizon and is even so bold as to state that, “We know what happens there”; explaining that one will become paste just prior to becoming a stream of particles (but is this not what we are anyway on noen’s view?). He states that the physics for this are “straight forward”. He goes on to write more and more about the nature of black holes and insists upon some knowledge including that of where the “speculation” begins.

With all of this supposed knowledge of science one would think that noen has a pretty good idea of how we know that nature is uniform since everything he has written is contingent upon such knowledge. What is noen’s answer to how we know that nature is uniform?

“We don’t ‘know’. Science is guesswork. Very very good guesses, but still… it works.”

What more needs to be said? “Science is guesswork.” I love it. Sometimes I wish I had Richard Dawkins around when I read these sorts of “explanations” although I would not want his heart to give out. We can safely assume that there is no need to listen to noen on these matters. One guess is as good as another! Just what has been accomplished in terms of an apologetic? When one rejects the God of the Bible who ‘holds the world in His hands’ one becomes futile in his or her reasoning. In noen’s bold matter-of-fact guesses we have just one more example of such futility.