Really interesting post! Long time since I've been on LJ, but this post was fun to read through. I watched that video you posted first (the "Hippies" video) and when I read your comment I agreed with your skepticism about how he put a positive spin on what the "hippies" did. I think it's good to have someone sincerely playing "devil's advocate" in any area, but I'm not convinced the "hippies" were on the other side of a reasonable interpretation as much as off on a completely irrelevant tangent.
And after watching the Fred Wolf video... what the hell? I've seen more "reasonable" presentations claiming the "secret world order" is hiding free energy from the world on YouTube.
I think I can help with the weird "dance" thing - he says "you're creating matter" but what I think he means is that this is a physical dance that represents what happens (theoretically) when matter is created. I don't know enough QM to tell what theoretical physical process he's mimicking, but I do know that if he's not intelligent enough to explain what he's doing to the audience clearly it's somewhat doubtful that it's worth hearing. Also, vague "connections" to religious traditions looks to me more like a cheap shot for attention into an already-proven-gullible audience by trying to legitimize religions with physics. It bothers me when people do that.
Still, the optimist way of looking at it would be to say that maybe Wolf is just one of the genuinely crazy people in this group, like there are in any group, but that overall the group did have a reasonable stance (if you could get any of them to give you that stance clearly). So, I wouldn't count them completely out, but from the "evidence" so far they're about on par with those YouTube conspiracy theorists (i.e. they're going to be the butt of jokes).
Anyway, thanks for the post... it's all very interesting to read/hear about even if I don't have the time to really look into it completely myself. I do wish there were legitimate and practical ways of having meetings to discuss these more philosophical topics in physics, but when I have thought about planning such meetings the number of practical difficulties in keeping people with agendas (like Wolf) out is too overwhelming.
no subject
And after watching the Fred Wolf video... what the hell? I've seen more "reasonable" presentations claiming the "secret world order" is hiding free energy from the world on YouTube.
I think I can help with the weird "dance" thing - he says "you're creating matter" but what I think he means is that this is a physical dance that represents what happens (theoretically) when matter is created. I don't know enough QM to tell what theoretical physical process he's mimicking, but I do know that if he's not intelligent enough to explain what he's doing to the audience clearly it's somewhat doubtful that it's worth hearing. Also, vague "connections" to religious traditions looks to me more like a cheap shot for attention into an already-proven-gullible audience by trying to legitimize religions with physics. It bothers me when people do that.
Still, the optimist way of looking at it would be to say that maybe Wolf is just one of the genuinely crazy people in this group, like there are in any group, but that overall the group did have a reasonable stance (if you could get any of them to give you that stance clearly). So, I wouldn't count them completely out, but from the "evidence" so far they're about on par with those YouTube conspiracy theorists (i.e. they're going to be the butt of jokes).
Anyway, thanks for the post... it's all very interesting to read/hear about even if I don't have the time to really look into it completely myself. I do wish there were legitimate and practical ways of having meetings to discuss these more philosophical topics in physics, but when I have thought about planning such meetings the number of practical difficulties in keeping people with agendas (like Wolf) out is too overwhelming.
Later.