DiscussMormonism.com

Howdy, Rock. Good to see you.

rockslider wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 19, 2023 1:39 am

[url https://youtu.be/HSdYZgjFIQo][/url] one of my favorites

That is nice, Rockslider. A nice rendering of O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Sugarland.

It’s a beautiful song of longing for the day of the coming of the Lord and completion of the promise plan of God.

For my penance, I post this without comment or explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcIIZpnZPgo

Chap wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:18 pm

So, basically it is a simple and objective fact that Joseph Smith did not know how to translate ancient Egyptian.

Chap, how does that follow?

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 26, 2023 11:35 pm

Chap wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:18 pm

So, basically it is a simple and objective fact that Joseph Smith did not know how to translate ancient Egyptian.

Chap, how does that follow?

So, after ALL OF THIS:

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 5:24 pm

Chap wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 7:45 am

He represented these texts as being in part the work of the biblical figure Abraham. A series of non-LDS Egyptologists have made plain their view that none of the material Joseph Smith produced bears any relation to an ancient Egyptian original text.

So Chap, are you saying that the English Joseph Smith produced doesn't resemble the English expert Egyptologists typically produce when they translate typical Egyptian hieroglyphics to English? Is that what you're saying? And therefore what?

Chap wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:18 pm

Look, KS: Nowadays, Middle Egyptian in hieroglyphic script is not some kind of mysterious language whose rendering into English is largely conjectural. Basically, we can look at a text, and produce a translation of it. There is no room for saying "Egyptologists understand this text one way, but Joseph Smith understood it differently –who knows who is right?" There is a whole consistent literature out there that makes sense when you have learned how to read it. You can grade a student's work on the basis of whether they translated the Egyptian correctly or not. Here are some online lessons:

https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/egy ... eroglyphs/

If you want to see how simple sentences work, here are some examples:

https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/egy ... /lesson-7/

Looking at the second link, if you did not translate the sentence romanised "ink sš nsw" as something like “I am a royal scribe”, then you just didn't get it right. Just like you would not be right if you looked at the Latin sentence "Arma virumque cano" and translated it as "Behold! A great prophet shall born in upper New York State" instead of "I sing of arms and a man". You'd be just plain wrong.

So, basically it is a simple and objective fact that Joseph Smith did not know how to translate ancient Egyptian.

your response is "how does that follow?"

My question is, how can you possibly not understand how Chap's last sentence "follows" from his immediately preceding, exquisitely thorough, fully complete sentences in that same post you cherry-picked from quoted?

Come on. This game you play is juvenile. Cut it out.

That, and PG’s post here:

https://www.discussmormonism.com/viewto ... 1#p2819511

should’ve been sufficient to answer his questions had he bothered to read their posts.

- Doc

Marcus wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:32 pm

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 5:26 pm

Marcus, you didn't answer my question.

Yes, I did.

Explaining that the DOE didn't think the idea of cold fusion had merit in 1989 and 2004, and explaining that that idea is not currently published in peer reviewed journals, does not imply that it would be tragic to carry on a fair debate over the idea of cold fusion.

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:36 am

Marcus wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:32 pm

Yes, I did.

Explaining that the DOE didn't think the idea of cold fusion had merit in 1989 and 2004, and explaining that that idea is not currently published in peer reviewed journals, does not imply that it would be tragic to carry on a fair debate over the idea of cold fusion.

A “fair” debate? Wasting people’s time insisting they discuss nonsense is tragic.
There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur.
But let’s get back on track:

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 27, 2023 12:54 am

That, and PG’s post here:

https://www.discussmormonism.com/viewto ... 1#p2819511

should’ve been sufficient to answer his questions had he bothered to read their posts.

- Doc

The waste of time in a discussion of cold fusion might not be a tragedy like a mass shooting, but not being tragic is a pretty low bar to clear. When I use the time God has given me in this life, I try to aim higher than just not being tragic.

Cold fusion, in anything like the sense that Pons and Fleischmann claimed to have seen, really is just silly. Saying that you've seen cold fusion in a room-temperature calorimetry experiment is like saying that you have added two plus two and found five. Conceivably there is some new form of mathematical operation, which yields five when given two inputs of two, and which is even an important new mathematical concept that will unlock all kinds of things, like a second coming of calculus. If you've made five out of two and two, however, then whatever it is that you did wasn't adding.

In the same way, once you understand what fusion means in detail—pushing positively charged nuclei close enough to each other for the strong nuclear force to overcome electrostatic repulsion—then the impossibility of Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion really is obvious.

Could they have found some other new kind of energetic reaction that wasn't nuclear fusion? Conceivably. Pons and Fleischmann were messing around with deuterium, which chemically is just hydrogen, and palladium; they measured more heat than they knew how to explain. So they might have found some novel wrinkle on a hydrogen fuel cell, and it might conceivably have led to some worthwhile improvement in fuel cells. In fact this never panned out, but it wouldn't have been crazy at the time to try to follow this up.

Selling their excess heat as cold fusion was completely indefensible, though. It was idiotic. Conferences about looking for new ideas for hydrogen fuel cells are worthwhile, and I'm sure they're held often these days. A conference about cold fusion in the sense of fusion at insanely high pressures might not be completely absurd, but it would be pretty pointless, because achieving such pressures will be many times harder than controlling high-temperature fusion. Conferences about cold fusion at ordinary pressures, as Pons and Fleischmann claimed, would make no more sense than conferences about how to add two and two to get five.

Dr. Shades wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 17, 2023 9:40 am

No, he's saying that the meaning that Joseph Smith produced doesn't resemble the meaning that expert Egyptologists typically produce when they translate typical Egyptian hieroglyphics to English. "And therefore what?" = Joseph Smith was lying about having the gift to translate.

Dr. Shades, how does that follow?