From: nospam@example.net   
      
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   On Tue, 1 Apr 2025, Richmond wrote:   
      
   > D  writes:   
   >   
   >> Electrons are fundamental particles with specific properties,   
   >> including mass, charge, spin, and wave-particle duality. While their   
   >> properties can be described in terms of energy and wave functions,   
   >> they are not purely composed of energy.   
   >>   
   >> So we can measure the properties, although we cannot see the   
   >> "electron". Does that make it more clear?   
   >   
   > I read up about measuring the properties: Millikan’s Oil Drop Experiment   
   > (1909-1913) – Measuring e. But what he actually measured was an oil   
   > drop, and he did the rest by theory, calculation, and assumption.   
      
   Surely, since then, technology has advanced enough for us to be able to measure   
   the effects of electrons? We can measure electricity, fields etc.   
      
   But I bet you are the scientists of the two of us, so maybe you know?   
      
   >> But... you are of course welcome to use the word "god" instead of   
   >> electron, and the theory of electrons, chemistry etc. would work, and   
   >> you would have shown that god is a mental tool, a component of a   
   >> theory, and he has charge, mass, spin etc.   
   >>   
   >> Hardly everyones definition of god, but why not? ;)   
   >>   
   >> If you are talking about the common definition of god, he is by   
   >> definition outside of our reality, and has no properties that can be   
   >> measured. Those are all part of the world.   
   >   
   > It must have come as a shock to all concerned then, when he told Moses   
   > to take his shoes off. ;]   
      
   )   
      
   > But I think God is defined to have created the world, which is quite   
   > definitely an empirical event.   
      
   We do have a theory about the big bang, but, assuming that the big bang was in   
   turn, caused by something else (god?) that is something we will never know,   
   since by definition, the cause was outside time/space, so that is forever   
   unknowable to us. I remain agnostic about that. As per your questions and   
   arguments, I admit that we have a theory about big bang, also we can never be   
   sure about it.   
      
   > The question, as with electrons, is could there be some other   
   > explanation?   
      
   Of course. Throughout the history of science there have been examples of   
   competing, working, theories, so I find it plausible that there could be   
   another   
   explanation, or electrons are "reduced" to a more fundamental level, as in QM.   
      
   Going back to the dawn of science, there are plenty of times when realists   
   thought something was proven, phlogiston, ether, only to discover, that it was   
   in fact not true.   
      
   I think this is another strength of the constructive empiricist approach, it   
   can   
   live happily with the measurable effects, and does not commit one to believing   
   in the real existence of the underlying theoretical framwork.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)