Charlie Hebdo suspects killed in police raid

January 9, 2015 • 10:46 am

According to my CNN news feed:

The Kouachi brothers have been killed in an operation by security forces, the mayor of Othis, France, Bernard Corneille, told CNN. Police have said Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, were suspects in Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.

And from the New York Times:

French police on Friday killed the two brothers suspected of murdering 12 people at a Paris newspaper on Wednesday and freed his hostage unharmed, the authorities said. The police launched a simultaneous raid on a kosher supermarket in Paris where an alleged associate of the brothers was holding an unnamed number of hostages. At least some of hostages escaped unharmed, according to the police.

Shortly after 5 p.m., explosions and gunfire were heard at a printing plant outside of Paris where the two brothers were holding a single hostage. The brothers were killed in the assault, police officials said.

There was no way those two were going to be captured and stand trial.  I only hope the hostage is safe; there is no word on that.

And won’t the brothers be surprised when they don’t get their virgins post mortem. Oh, wait. . . .  It’s always galled me that those who believe in the afterlife—and a post tomorrow will show how numerous they are in the U.S.—will never find out they were wrong.

174 thoughts on “Charlie Hebdo suspects killed in police raid”

  1. CNN is reporting the hostage that the brothers had, was released and is safe. On the other hostage situation, it may not be so good. Not sure yet.

    1. There are unconfirmed reports that two people were killed in the beginning of the kosher market incident.

      The hostage takers are dead.

  4. The afterlife mongers: there are few people more disrespectful of the genuinely astounding universe we get to be a part of for just a very short time.

  5. It helps me to think of the surprise when they find out their virgins were of there sex. After all, there are strong indications that god has sense of humor or there would be no Islam, Christianity of Judaism.

    2. Especially if they find that they are de “virgins” of someone else. The perspective of an eternal life as a sex toy without any other right or activity may be very unattractive.

      ‘Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.’ (W. Allen)

      Desnes

    3. Rather like that joke about the cardinal bring in the pope good news and bad news about something that has just happened.

      Cardinal: “The good news is Christ has returned in the flesh!”

      Pope: “That is wonderful! How can there be any bad news about that?”

      Cardinal: “The bad news is he is in Salt Lake City …”

  6. It’s always galled me that those who believe in the afterlife…will never find out they were wrong.

    It doesn’t gall me for that reason. It galls me a bit that some of the victim’s families may have wanted to see them face justice, and now can’t (then again, they may be happy the terrorists are dead; I don’t know and it probably varies by family). In general I’m not going to waste much emotional energy on dead terrorists.

    1. This “facing justice” thing smacks of the same tribal morality that motivated the killers in the first place.

      It’s one thing to want to prevent people like this from committing these sorts of atrocities again, but using the justice system in order to wreak vengeance on the perpetrators makes one just like them.

      1. But isn’t the justice system, specifically a prison term, the means by which one would prevent people like this from committing these sorts of atrocities again?

      2. Justice, properly administered isn’t about “wreaking vengeance”, it’s about things like, but not exclusive to, a fair trial and accountability. Many justice systems aren’t well managed, and don’t have enough focus on rehabilitation and things like treatment for addiction, and that must be addressed. However, because our various systems are imperfect, is not a reason not to use them at all. We can’t just ignore criminal behaviour, so I’d be interested to know how you think this should be dealt with?

      3. I don’t think wanting a trial and judicial sentence is necessarily about vengeance. In fact since France has no death penalty, many of the victims’ families may not have wished to see the perpetrators dead; many people might think that what happened to them was far more vengeful then a capture and imprisonment.

  7. It’s strange that no one has ever reported back from the afterlife.

    You would think they could at least send a postcard.

        3. With the repression these guys put themselves through in life, I’d give them 30 seconds per virgin tops.

          Alas, 36 minutes have passed and there’s been no report back.

          Allah is dead.

    2. Harry Houdini promised his wife that if there were an afterlife, he’d figure out some way to contact her, but he never did.

      If anyone could have figured it out, it would have been Houdini, so I consider that positive evidence for the nonexistence of an afterlife.

          4. Yeah, I love that part of it:

            One weiner, one bun, NO CONDIMENTS!

            Perfect lampooning of the sexual hangups of religious people! 🙂

    3. Evidently Mohammed’s flying horse is like a cow on a stairway: he can go up, but not down.

  8. It looks like the police did a good job.
    Too bad that they got their wish to die as “martyrs”. I would have preferred them to slowly rot in some prison cell somewhere.

    But it seems that nobody else got hurt, so who am I to argue with the results.

    1. My theory is if they wished to die as martyrs, they wouldn’t have gone on the run or taken hostages. They were looking to be live heros imo. Some have postulated that this (the move away from suicide activists) is an expression of strength in the extremism camp. I’d be interested to know what others think of this.

      1. If they are killed they are martyrs to the cause, if they live they are icons. You pays your money you takes your choice.

  9. That’s a shame. Dead, they are martyrs to the cause; captured alive, they are criminals and failures.

    The police likely were left with no reasonable option but to kill the two, but it would have been much better for civilization had they somehow managed not to.

    b&

    1. Unless, as suggested by someone else (I don’t remember who… apologies for that!), perhaps they were shot by female officers. No martyr status goes along with that, apparently.

      1. I’m sure some sophisticated theologian has some sort of “out” for that…like, it wasn’t the woman who pulled the trigger, but the man who made the bullet, or some such nonsense.

        b&

    2. Additionally, despite every attempt to block information reaching one group about the other, they would have had to go in simultaneously.

  11. It’s always galled me that those who believe in the afterlife—and a post tomorrow will show how numerous they are in the U.S.—will never find out they were wrong.

    It’s mean of me, I know, but I wish there could be a momentary mind-blasting realization before death for some (these brothers, for example) that only nothing is waiting for them – no paradise, no virgins – just nothing.

    …and maybe a momentary vision of a giant middle-finger flipping them off.

    2. How many virgins is it for a martyr – 40? Sounds a lot when you say it out loud: “40 virgins.” Still, someone should point out to would-be martyrs, that eternity is a very long time.

    3. There should be an ‘Oh, shit!’ moment like in a cartoon when the coyote runs off the cliff then suddenly realises there’s nothing but an abyss below him.

    1. From there:

      “UPDATE: BBC confirms the change in policy:

      “This guidance is old, out of date and does not reflect the BBC’s long-standing position that programme makers have freedom to exercise their editorial judgement with the Editorial Policy team available to provide advice around sensitive issues on a case by case basis. The guidance is currently being revised.””

  14. What’s galling to me is not only that they may not find out they were wrong, but their ideas and the cause they died for lives on. While there may be two or 3 fewer terrorists alive today, the ideas that motivate them are as alive as ever. And that’s terrifying. But it’s why I think this is a war of ideas. Of course, that just makes me think of Monty Python:

    “It’s all very well to laugh at the military, but when one considers the meaning of life, it is a struggle between alternative viewpoints of life itself. And without the ability to defend one’s own viewpoint against other perhaps more aggressive ideologies, then reasonableness and moderation could, quite simply, disappear. That is why we’ll always need an army, and may God strike me down were it to be otherwise.”

  15. More news. It might not be over. According to the Telegraph a third siege is happening in Montpellier. Treat with caution though.

      1. With luck it is just an “ordinary” thief who has chosen a very bad day to rob a jewellery store.

  16. I can’t even follow this story on cable news anymore. I turned on MSNBC and they had some muslim apologist on. Turned to CNN and they had one on too, complete with shaved head a full black beard. As a last resort I turned on FoxNews (I’m sure there are no apologists there). Wrong! They had a correspondent from the NY Times explaining why Fox had to “be very careful” how they reported this story. At least Shep shut down his mike. But the next guy up on Fox was saying how this was all Obama’s fault. Yikes!

  17. BBC is having a discussion on this. They had a Muslim commentator come on and say, well, we don’t want a law but, really, they should take into account the feelings of Muslims in this.

    Another said: You are asking for defacto Shariah law.

    Oh no! We just want our feelings …. Really, the feelings of Muslims are at a different level from other examples, such as depictions of the Pope

    So, you think Muslims should have a special protection?

    No, people should just take into account the feelings … blah, blah, blah

    * * *

    The BBC moderator and the one guest really did it well and didn’t let the mealy-mouthed bullshit get past without ripping it up. Well done BBC.

          1. I feel sorry for his kid, too. This guy is stuck between a rock and a hard place and he’s forcing himself/being forced to lie about his innermost feelings. By the time their kid is old enough to understand why, the damage may be irreversible and there’s a high risk the father will be shunned.

            And if the mother doesn’t love the father anymore, but feels obligated to stay with him( maybe out of fear of losing the child ) because of the rules, she’s in just as shitty a situation.

            This kid will be torn.

  18. We now have the French President and the American President saying a few words on this after the fact. It was just terrorism against freedom. Actually the French President said specifically this was not Islam.

    So there you have it. More terrorist that just spring up out of the ground – kill people and then we are all good. Just how stupid are people to be?

    1. As long as they keep denying a major root cause, there can be no useful progress towards a solution.

  20. A Hezbollah leader says Jihadist extremists have done more to harm Islam than any cartoonist ever could. I guess that would be the “no true terrorist” argument.

    If a public figure were to suggest that the NYPD were “reaping what they sow” or “should have expected it” when two of its officers were gunned down, that public figure would be vilified and shunned by the media and rightly so. And yet the Bill Donohos and Laura Ingamses get to go right on spewing their bile about the Charlie Hebdo massacre because, apparently, religion.

    When people are offended, they can and should protest. We don’t have the death penalty for hateful speech and what should be truly offensive is any statement that lends the least bit of justification to the slaughter of people engaging in speech, no matter how hateful or inciteful it may be and no matter what the subject is. I hope I will feel the same way should this kind of thing happen to a right-wing and/or racist opinionator, and I also hope I never have to find out!

    1. I hope I will feel the same way should this kind of thing happen to a right-wing and/or racist opinionator, and I also hope I never have to find out!

      I think we already have the answer.

      Some French cartoonists drew cartoons mocking Muhammad.

      In response, nearly all Muslims took offense and a couple of them gunned down the cartoonists.

      In response, nearly all French people took great offense at the murders…and started showing those cartoons and others everywhere.

      What Muslims have been attacked in response to this horrific outrage perpetrated by Muslims? The criminals committed suicide-by-cop rather than face arrest, yes, but where are the calls for firebombing of mosques or assassinations of the imams who issue fatwas?

      That’s what it means to be civilized: you don’t stoop to the barbarism of those who would drag you to the gutter.

      Any Muslims who want to publish cartoons mocking Charlie Hebdo or others who’ve offended Islam and Muhammad, do please feel free to contact me for assistance. I’m no expert but I have a bit of experience. I’d completely disagree with the sentiments expressed…and yet I’d be most delighted to help Muslims participate in the great tradition of editorial lampooning.

      b&

      1. There have been attacks on mosques in response. Right wing (likely Christian) extremest bigots take these attacks as a reason to lash out in kind.

          4. Yeah, I remember after 9/1/1 some dumb asses trashed a Sikh temple not far from me. Hey, thugs, not even the right people!

      2. Agreed.

        I was thinking more along the lines of a hypothetical: were someone to murder Rush Limbaugh or that pastor who said homosexuals be put to death, would I remember to be outraged? Could I keep myself from forming the thought “what did they expect?” or “serves them right” even if I never said it out loud? I don’t want them to be killed and, like I said, I don’t want my character to be tested in that way (I might not be proud of my response).

        I am quite certain however I would not be wearing a “Je Suis Rush” button … !

        1. I would be outraged (well, maybe after a brief flicker of joy).

          I disliked Reagan in the strongest terms; but when whats-his-name shot him, I was outraged. I really was; and it really surprised me.

        2. I am quite certain however I would not be wearing a “Je Suis Rush” button … !

          Were he murdered in similar circumstances, I would. I wouldn’t at all express solidarity with his views, and I’ve no doubt I’d experience no small amount of schadenfreude at his death…but I wouldn’t have any trouble expressing solidarity with his right to the freedom of the press and condemnation of those who would use violence to oppose him.

          I can’t watch five seconds of him on YouTube without shouting obscenities at the fuckwit, but I’ll not countenance anybody opposing him with other than words (and cartoons and the like).

          b&

      3. “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
        ― George Orwell

        “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.”
        ― Oscar Wilde

        “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
        ― Voltaire

  21. Why is no one going after the people that inculcated these men with the ideology that they used to justify their actions. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was on the ABC last night, she seemed totally bored having to re-iterate the obvious, that we have to dismantle the structures that create the problem, not wait until the violence rises again.

    Once again the president of France said “these fanatics, have got nothing to do with the Muslim religion.”…does he really believe that?

    1. I think it’s a confusion of two different issues. On the one hand, there are peaceful people who call themselves Muslims, and the reporters are anticipating “revenge crimes” and trying to forestall it. On the other hand, they undermine this laudable first goal with foolish No True Scotsman logic, thinking that, if they can demonstrate that the terrorists have nothing to do with Islam at all, then ordinary Muslims won’t be blamed and attacked.

      It’s a confusion of ideology with people. Apparently, it’s not enough that there are self-identified Muslims who weren’t involved: the whole ideological edifice must be protected, regardless of the reality. I don’t know if this is a deliberate, agenda-driven muddying of the issue or an honest mistake borne from poor or mistaken trains of thought.

  22. So here we are once more. Another horrific attack on secularised values; another attack perpetrated by people of Islam. Again, all news outlets have as there main priority to say “This is not about Islam”.
    25 years ago we could say “Je suis Salman”. I did. Have we learnt nothing since then? The Charlie Hebdo assassinations will be discussed over the next few weeks. Then, our outrage will subside and it’s yesterday’s news. Like after the public beheading in London. (I have already forgotten the names of the killer and the victim. But I remember that it was not about Islam.)
    But soon enough, another attack happens in a European city. Not if, when. They will shout “Allah Akbar” while they kill and avenge their prophet. Our outrage is awaken from its sleep and again the same polemics are heard. “This is not about Islam”. That polemic, too, will subside.

    25 years ago I saw a photo of a small child, four or five years old, in England with a placard that read “I am willing to kill Rushdie”. I suspect that child grew up to be just like its father.

    I am very pessimistic about Islam and how it will make its mark on modern Europe.

    1. There’s two long term outcomes for humanity.

      1) We move past superstitious nonsense and our progeny outlives this planet.

      2) We die off.

      Islam will play a role either way.

      1. They are long term indeed. My concern is foremost for the next hundred years, not for the inevitable heat death of the universe. But maybe I detect my own surrender in your answer. My pessimism tells me that Islam will play a large part during the rest of my years, not despite living in Europe, but because.

        1. The heat death of the Universe is obviously much longer term and even escaping this planet is well beyond our lifetime. It is sad, given recent scientific discoveries, that so much human brain power is wasted in fantasy and not looking outward to the wonder of the Universe we find ourselves in. I think I’m starting to wax poetic because this week has burned me out mentally. Thinking about how small we are in the grand scheme of things is just the antidote to megalomaniacal religious claims. Contrary to apologetic claims, this gives me great comfort during stressful times.

          1. “It is sad, given recent scientific discoveries, that so much human brain power is wasted in fantasy and not looking outward to the wonder of the Universe we find ourselves in.”

            QFT a

            /@

            >

  23. “It’s always galled me that those who believe in the afterlife…will never find out they were wrong.”

    I’ve always felt this way too. I know it is a little petty to feel this way, but I’d like them to stare into the abyss and know that they were wrong.

      1. I especially felt that about the Taliban who did the school massacre in Pakistan. The ones who burned a couple of teachers to death, remember?

        One almost wishes there was a hell, specifically for those charming swine.

  24. “Charlie Hebdo suspects killed in police raid”

    Well, I guess that proves that even the darkest of clouds have silver linings.

  25. I do hope the hostage(s?) got out OK, though I don’t hold out much hope.

  26. And a special one for Ben. Ben Affleck.

    https://fr.news.yahoo.com/terrorisme-menaces-sur-la-france-091100143.html?nc=0

    “Vous ne serez pas en sécurité tant que vous combattrez Allah, Son messager et les croyants (…) Des soldats qui adorent Allah et Ses messagers sont venus parmi vous. Ils ne craignent pas la mort, ils cherchent le martyre au nom d’Allah”

    That is: “You won’t be safe until you stop fighting allah, his messenger and his believers.”

  27. ” And won’t the brothers be surprised when they don’t get their virgins post mortem. Oh, wait. . . . It’s always galled me that those who believe in the afterlife—and a post tomorrow will show how numerous they are in the U.S.—will never find out they were wrong.”

    What a surprisingly unscientific thing to say! What evidence does anyone (alive) have to support that belief?

    1. The evidence is overwhelming that thinking is what living brains do — beginning, in fact, with the invention of beer several millennia ago. The CERN team’s discovery of the Higgs and consequent completion of the Standard Model sealed the deal; physics at human scales and well beyond is complete, and there just simply isn’t any mechanism for out-of-body cognition nor of transfer of consciousness out of the body to elsewhere.

      You can, of course, invent all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories that can’t be disproven that would incorporate an afterlife; a trivial example would be that we’re all just subroutines in a Matrix-style computer, and the afterlife represents copying of your subroutine to a different simulation. But no sane person wastes time seriously believing in such nonsense.

      Cheers,

      b&

      1. But no sane person wastes time seriously believing in such nonsense.

        Unless there’s a job to be done. 🙂

          1. Not quite, but I think cows are well aware of their matrixity in the current Homo Sapiens Sapiens configured universe.

            That’s why they’re big on grass, imo.

      2. Hi Mr. Goren,
        Yes, I’m aware of the “overwhelming” evidence of what thinking brains do. I’m also aware of the overwhelming lack of evidence for what happens to human consciousness when a body dies.
        I’m not saying there IS an “afterlife” (in the sense of there being something that it is like to be dead). I’m also not saying there ISN’T such a thing because there is no way to know whether the statement is true or not. To make the statement as if it is true based on absence of evidence breaks the rules of science.

        1. I’m also aware of the overwhelming lack of evidence for what happens to human consciousness when a body dies.

          What “lack”? Without a body, there isn’t any consciousness. Asking what happens to consciousness after the body dies is as incoherent as asking where the flame goes when the candle burns out.

          Consciousness is an activity of the brain. No brain, no activity.

          …or are you equally perplexed about what happens to the pulse when the heart stops beating? The breath when the lungs stop pumping? The run when the sprinter sits down, or her lap when she stands up again?

          b&

          1. “Without a body, there isn’t any consciousness.”

            Yet another statement made without any evidence to support it.
            I’m not saying there IS consciousness that exists apart from a brain. I’m also not saying there ISN’T such a thing because there is no way to know whether the statement is true or not. To make the statement as if it is true based on absence of evidence breaks the rules of science.

          2. To assert that, PeacePecan, requires buying into dualism, for which not only is there no evidence, but itself is an incoherent idea. To insist that consciousness “goes somewhere” upon death demands a naive framing of what it is to be conscious. We’ve made some progress understanding the subject over the years, although much more remains to be learned.

            Ben’s correct. It makes as much sense to wonder where the flame goes when the candle is extinguished. Saying it is simply gone is not unscientific.

          3. Thank you, Mr. James. I very much appreciate your ability to engage in a discussion without the unnecessary and counter-productive condescending.

            Some forms of dualism do appeal to me, but I think the truth is that I don’t know what to believe regarding consciousness.

            I’m still uncomfortable with the idea of making confident statements about things based on what seems to me to be absence of evidence.

          4. Quite simply, the SM, with the results from the LHC, tells us that there can be nothing other than the forces and particles we already know about that can interact with the human brain, and therefore nothing that can constitute consciousness separate from the mortal and mouldering brain.

            Please review Sean Carroll’s presentation from Skepticon 5 (easily found on YouTube) before challenging that he assertion.

            /@

          6. @GBJames
            “And therefore, Unicorns!”

            So much for my previous assessment of your abilities. New data is leading me to a different conclusion.

          7. PP, my abilities are just fine. I can recognized bogus reasoning when it jumps off the page and screams. Your argument for “lack of evidence” regarding post-demise consciousness is equally valid for unicorns and leprechauns. I’ll borrow your phrasing, with your permission…

            “I’m not saying there IS an “afterlife” an invisible pink unicorn). I’m also not saying there ISN’T such a thing because there is no way to know whether the statement is true or not. To make the statement as if it is true based on absence of evidence breaks the rules of science.” [emphasis, mine]

          8. @GBJames:
            “Your argument for ‘lack of evidence’ regarding post-demise consciousness is equally valid for unicorns and leprechauns.”

            That may be true, but can’t you perceive a qualitative difference between openness to the (possible) existence of storybook creatures and keeping an open mind regarding the possibility of consciousness (somehow) persisting after the death of the body? If you had the opportunity to engage in research directed at more fully understanding one or the other, wouldn’t you choose the latter?

          9. No, there is no qualitative difference. They are equally vapid ideas. So, if I have to pick one to research, I’ll go with the unicorns.

            Do you think there might be some Templeton money available to fund the research? Invisible pink unicorns are really cool!

          10. “…equally vapid.”
            Yet, still you were able to make a choice.
            What is it, exactly, that makes invisible pink unicorns so cool? Come on, be honest.

          12. No, Mr. Goren, I haven’t ascended to that level of nonsense (yet).
            Thanks for all of your enlightening comments.

          13. “Yet, still you were able to make a choice.”

            Long ago I learned how to flip coins. It is a perfectly legitimate technique to select one of two equally valid/invalid options.

            In this case, I must admit, I used a loaded coin for purposes of tweakery. A less flippant response would have been a refusal to play the “choose one” game which is simply a rhetorical device anticipating a preferred result.

          15. Jerry after an evening of celebration?

            Something like loaded dice but designed to land on it’s side?

            A early morning brain-fart?

          16. @GBJames:
            “…A less flippant response would have been a refusal to play…”

            And that would have been horribly unfriendly.
            Thanks for all of your enlightening comments.

        1. Please, not this “It’s only a theory!” nonsense.

          Do you proclaim Newtonian Mechanics to be “only a theory” before attempting to leave the tenth floor of a building by the window?

          The Standard Model is more firmly evidentially established than any other theory in science, with the evidence literally spanning a baker’s dozen billion years and more orders of magnitude of scale than I can count. You’re on firmer ground rejecting the oblate spheroid nature of the Earth’s shape than you are the Standard Model — and that’s no exaggeration.

          b&

          1. “…and that’s no exaggeration.”

            Good. We wouldn’t want that, would we?

            So, is the standard model based on evidence or is it based on absence of evidence (or is it both)?
            If any of it is based on absence of evidence, I think it’s reasonable to maintain a certain amount of skepticism.

          2. So, is the standard model based on evidence or is it based on absence of evidence (or is it both)?

            The Standard Model is a comprehensive theory of physics that includes all the fundamental particles and forces of nature. You’re likely familiar with the parts most directly relevant to everyday life: electrons, photons, and the electromagnetic and gravitational forces.

            Our confidence in the model is the result of an incomprehensibly thorough search across nearly every scientific discipline, with the crowning pieces coming from the largest and most expensive single machine ever built by humanity (the LHC). That search has found everything that the theory says should be there — and, just as importantly, it’s looked everywhere there could possibly be anything that’s not part of the theory, and failed to find evidence where evidence must be found.

            You’re indoors as you read these words, most likely. Imagine you’re going to make an inventory of every living animal in the room you’re in that weighs at least ten pounds. That search likely wouldn’t take you very long, and, if you’re even slightly methodical about it, you can have overwhelming confidence in the results of your census.

            Once you’ve completed your search, you will certainly note that absent from your search were any fully-grown T-Rexes — and, especially, any such dinosaurs that are both hungry and in a particularly foul mood.

            It’s pretty clear that you yourself are quite unfamiliar with the physics under discussion, but your suggestion that, maybe, just possibly perhaps, consciousness survives death because we haven’t yet found evidence against it is every bit as absurd as suggesting that, maybe, just possibly perhaps, there really is an angry and famished T-Rex somewhere in this room, if only we keep looking for it.

            Cheers,

            b&

          3. Thank you.
            Sorry for the delayed response. I had to feed my hungry T. Rex, but I couldn’t find him using the standard model. (You know how those pesky models can be so imperfect, much like analogies that way.)
            Any hoo, in all seriousness, I guess I have some reading and thinking and discussing to do. You and your fellow physics enthusiasts are understandably confident given your apparent knowledge and experience with the subject. Do you think it’s possible
            that physics (as currently understood and implemented) simply can’t tell us everything there is to know about reality?

          4. Do you think it’s possible that physics (as currently understood and implemented) simply can’t tell us everything there is to know about reality?

            There’s a great deal that we know unquestionably that we just simply can’t (fully) explain today.

            Perhaps most pressing is how to reconcile the Relativistic and Quantum descriptions of gravity. Relativistic Mechanics tells you exactly how gravity works at human scales and above; Quantum Mechanics tells you exactly how gravity works at human scales and below. But what Relativistic Mechanics says about gravity at the tiniest of scales isn’t what Quantum Mechanics says, and what Quantum Mechanics says about gravity at the largest of scales isn’t what Relativistic Mechanics says. (Remember that they both agree with each other — and with Newton, most importantly — in the middle, at human scales. And with observations at small scales for Quantum Mechanics and large scales for Relativistic Mechanics.)

            Reconciling the two isn’t just important for the sake of science, but because the two domains actually do overlap in some very-important-to-understand scenarios…like the Big Bang. We know (with some really big and obvious caveats) everything there is to know about the Universe back to less than a small fraction of second of its beginning (or, at least, the beginning of its current form)…but, past that, all we have are a variety of informed guesses, all of which we know are worng, but some of which are certainly less worng than others.

            There’re some very strong hints of an imminent breakthrough on the major sticking points, but there’ve been plenty of false alarms in the past; we just won’t know until we come up with answers we can be confident in.

            BUT!

            None of that has even the slightest most remote hypothetical bearing on the question of consciousness.

            It goes back to that concept of some ideas being less worng than others.

            For example, I tell you, in all honesty and sincerity, that the Earth is flat.

            Yes, flat.

            Don’t believe me?

            Grab your favorite regional map, spread it out on the table. See? Flat! And, unless you know what you’re doing and have the right equipment, you yourself are incapable of demonstrating otherwise.

            But, of course, we know that the Earth isn’t actually flat; Eratosthenes famously conclusively showed that the Earth is a sphere with a careful measurement that was within some minor error of what we know it to actually be.

            That does not change the fact that, at personal scales, the Earth is truly indistinguishable from being flat. You’ve still got that map, right? There’s your proof.

            And, again of course, we know that the Earth isn’t actually a sphere; it’s an oblate spheroid. But even intercontinental airline pilots don’t need to worry about that deviation and can’t measure it.

            And, most obviously still, the Earth of course isn’t even an oblate spheroid. It’s actually an highly complex and dynamic object. But, once again, if I handed you a basketball-sized perfect-to-scale model of the Earth, you might not even be able to feel the texture of the mountains — and your fingers are actually extremely sensitive at that sort of thing.

            Each of those theories — and, yes, they are all theories — of the shape of the Earth is correct over its particular scale. Each is progressively more correct and less incorrect. And each reduces to a simpler theory at a relevant scale; you could use a suitably-detailed oblate spheroid globe to find your way to the corner market, but it’s serious overkill and is going to give you the exact same answer as your paper map.

            Consciousness as anything other than a mechanical function of the biochemical workings of the brain is akin to suggesting that maybe the Earth is not, after all, a complex and dynamic object closely approximating an oblate spheroid, but that it could instead possibly be the back of a giant turtle swimming in a vast ocean. And objections that we don’t know everything there is to know about physics are as relevant to consciousness as the fact that you don’t know where my cat is right now to the shape of the Earth.

            Cheers,

            b&

          5. @Ben

            I like your flat-earth example (though I periodically get into arguments with people who _know_ that ‘flat earth’ is a discredited theory hence worng). Contra your statement that the non-flat-ness of the earth cannot be detected on a personal scale, I did once see an instance where it could – on Penrhyn atoll, which is 10 miles across – the tops of the coconut trees on the far shore are just out of sight (and soon come into sight if you start across the lagoon on a boat). Knowing the height of the trees one could work out the diameter of the earth (I did it the other way – and worked out the trees are just under 66 feet high).

            This ignores possible ‘mirage’ effects but those shouldn’t be in evidence over water in the morning before things heat up.

            But that is the _only_ instance I know of where the non-flat-ness can be detected.

          6. Contra your statement that the non-flat-ness of the earth cannot be detected on a personal scale, I did once see an instance where it could – on Penrhyn atoll, which is 10 miles across – the tops of the coconut trees on the far shore are just out of sight (and soon come into sight if you start across the lagoon on a boat).

            What you observed was a local curvature. How do you know that that curvature is global and not just some local change in elevation? After all, we see all sorts of mountains and hills that’re far more impressive than the near-invisible bump you saw.

            And that’s not a minor nitpick. The ancients watched the masts of ships vanish over the horizon, too, for a looooooong time before they finally figured it out.

            Now that we know, yes, it’s added confirmation…but it’s not enough in and of itself to establish global curvature. For that…you need a couple tall poles sticking straight out of the ground, due north / south of each other, at regional distances (at least hundreds of miles, ideally a thousand or so), and somebody to measure the angle of the Sun at local noon on the same day in each location — and, of course, to report back with the measurements.

            …at least, that’s how Eratosthenes did it….

            b&

          7. @ PeacePecan

            Do you think it’s possible that physics (as currently understood and implemented) simply can’t tell us everything there is to know about reality?

            No.

            But the laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely understood. Seriously.

            Clearly, physics (alone) can’t tell us everything there is to know about, say, evolution or human consciousness. But what it can tell us is that *any* explanation of evolution or human consciousness – or any every day phenomenon – must be consistent with what we know (in the same way that general relativity is consistent with Newtonian gravity at human scales).

            Thus, any hypothetical explanation of, say, human consciousness that demands *new* physics at human scales can be immediately ruled out. And that means that human consciousness cannot outlast the mortal and mouldering brain (as that *would* required new physics).

            Sure, there is new physics to be understood at cosmological (very large) and Planck (very small) scales, but that’s not going to change the physics of everyday life (although it may tell us where that physics comes from; the SM emerges naturally from string “theory” for example).

            /@

          9. “Do you think it’s possible
            that physics (as currently understood and implemented) simply can’t tell us everything there is to know about reality?”

            And therefore, Unicorns!

          12. @Ben Goren
            @Ant

            I’m curious to know what folks who frequent this forum think about Roger Penrose and some of the ideas he has put forth regarding consciousness.

          14. @chrisbuckley80
            “Or very big fish”

            Why make a biblical/religious reference?
            Do you think it’s necessary to be a Christian (or religious in any other sense) to ponder the possibility of consciousness persisting after death of the body?

          15. chris will answer for himself, but I think that the possibility of consciousness persisting after death *is* a religious idea; thus to entertain that idea, you would be religious in some sense.

            As a scientific hypothesis, we have precisely no evidence that would validate it and, as noted elsewhere, the whole of the Standard Model of physics (one of the best evidenced and most confidently validated scientific theories) against it.

            /@

          16. It also helps to understand what consciousness is.

            “Self-awareness,” right? Can we agree upon that?

            Because understanding the phenomenon falls out pretty quickly from there.

            A more useful definition would be the target of a recursive model (computer simulation, whatever) of reality that includes itself in the model.

            You have awareness of the world by building mental models of what you perceive with your senses. You see that chair across the room, but you don’t directly experience it; you have some sort of a mental representation of the chair.

            We have well-known but poorly-understood “mirror neurons” that fire in similar patters as others based on our perceptions. If you see somebody who looks mad, you know that they look mad because your mirror neurons are firing in the same basic “mad” pattern as the original “mad” neurons in the other person’s brain.

            Neuroscientists have yet to nail it down, but it’s almost certain that the way that you yourself know when you’re mad is because some mirror neurons in your own brain are making “mad” patterns that mimic the firing of other “mad” neurons in your own brain, and that’s how you become aware of your anger.

            Viewed from this perspective, consciousness isn’t at all mysterious, even if the picture we have of it remains rather fuzzy.

            b&

          17. In a broad sense, no it isn’t necessary to ponder or even believe in life after death to be religious. Some religions have no notion of an afterlife (or no notion of an afterlife in the form of continuing this consciousness), but I think it is fair to require some kind of supernatural belief for something to be a religion, lest we fall into the trap of making the word meaningless such as when theists try to say we’re all playing the same faith game. For example, I’m not sure what a coherent explanation of reincarnation would be with positing dualism (even though this is still stretching the definition of afterlife) and, as Ant and Ben have pointed out, something additional to the Standard Model; i.e. the “something else” would have to possess, for lack of a better term, new matter and interact with it in a way similar to how it is interacting with your mind now.

            As for Christians, I will say in general, yes it includes belief in the afterlife; but, on an individual basis, if someone claims to be Christian and doesn’t believe in an afterlife, I’m not getting into a debate with them about what a true Christian is. I’d rather address the claims being made regardless of what label they wish to apply.

            Finally, I made the Biblical reference because I have a dry sense of humor that doesn’t always necessarily convey the humor when it’s sent through text over the Internet. Nevertheless, to explain my silly little line, I referred to that Bible verse because the traditional religious interpretation of it is that Jesus somehow violated the laws of Physics and manifested matter out of nothing; i.e. making copies of the loaves and fishes until everyone ate and then a big pile was left over at the end. I was playing on that silly interpretation by making the story better comport with Physics and just declaring the two fish to have been very big. 🙂

          24. @Ben (re measuring the diameter of the earth)

            Yes I know how Eratosthenes did it. You can also do it by a different method if you have a truly ‘level’ (which in this context does NOT mean ‘flat’) surface – the surface of a lagoon is probably as close to ideal as you can get in nature, since it is relatively free of waves and tides – and an object of known height at a known distance. The geometry is fairly simple. A big lake would work equally well.

            Since we’re talking about objects on land, whose position is fixed, that would lend itself to much more precise measurement than a ships’ mast since the position of the ship is not well fixed.

            “What you observed was a local curvature. How do you know that that curvature is global and not just some local change in elevation?” I’m talking about the surface of a lagoon. Water is guaranteed to be level i.e. have no change in elevation. I suppose Occam’s razor would suggest that the local curvature is universal. But obviously whatever theories were produced to explain ships disappearing over the horizon would be equally applicable in this case.

          25. But, again, until you’ve established that water really is guaranteed to be level, you don’t even have a starting point. And, again again, it could still be a local curvature.

            Eratosthenes made his measurement over a significant fraction of the globe. That’s what made it special, and also conclusive.

            And, if the Earth were the size of Jupiter, even Eratosthenes’s measurement would probably have to have been seen as preliminary were it over the same number of miles; you still would have wanted to have done it over a similar range of degrees of latitude, rather than absolute distance.

            b&

          26. “A big lake would work equally well.”

            Remember… Ben lives in the desert with mountains and such around. Here, in Milwaukee on the shore of Lake Michigan, on a calm day in summer, we don’t have to worry about translating from “local affect” to the big picture. As long as we face east.

          27. @GBJames

            ‘“A big lake would work equally well.”

            Remember… Ben lives in the desert with mountains and such around.’

            Yes I did remember that. I doubt whether Ben could apply the method I suggested. I did think of salt ‘lakes’ but when they’re dry you could never be sure they’re truly level, and besides mirages would play hell with any attempts at observation.

            “Here, in Milwaukee on the shore of Lake Michigan, on a calm day in summer, we don’t have to worry about translating from “local affect” to the big picture. As long as we face east.”

            Google says 80 miles across. That’s BIIIG. A bit too big for the method of measurement I suggested, a rough calculation shows that a building in Muskegon would need to be 4200 feet high for you to see it from the lake shore at Milwaukee, even if the atmosphere was clear enough to see anything at that distance anyway. Lake Winnebago is more the size I had in mind.

          29. “Infinite… You can watch the Denis Sullivan sail east.”

            I’m sure you can, and it would provide the classic curved-earth view of slowly disappearing over the horizon, though as somebody (Ben?) noted, the flat-earthers had theories to account for that.

            But my point was that, if one wanted to measure the curvature of the earth with primitive surveying equipment, having a fixed (land-based) target the other side of a lake (or lagoon) would be easier and more accurate than a ship whose distance could only be approximately known. It does require that the size of the lake and the height of the target be within certain limits to make it work – it just so happened that Penrhyn lagoon was, fortuitously, of the right proportions that gave me the idea. But then Eratosthenes had equally fortuitous luck in that the sun shone straight down the well at Syene.

            But I was wrong to say my lagoon example was the only case where the earth’s curvature is detectable on a personal scale, obviously the Denis Sullivan-type phenomenon is another manifestation of the same thing and equally valid.

          30. These days, when everybody and his brother has a GPS in his pocket, knowing the exact distance to the ship on the lake is not difficult.

            Of course flat-earthers will have theories for dismissing the evidence. They pretty much have to if they want to maintain the fiction.

          32. “These days, when everybody and his brother has a GPS in his pocket, knowing the exact distance to the ship on the lake is not difficult.”

            True, but I was visualising a method the Greeks could have used. (Or me, in 1982, equipped with a map of the lagoon and a pocket calculator. The Greeks could have had such a map, and the calculations involve only basic geometry and square roots which they were a whiz at).

          33. Oh. I thought we were comparing modern day situations and the influence of geographic bias on local observations.

          34. Well, my involvement was related to Ben’s statement that
            “That does not change the fact that, at personal scales, the Earth is truly indistinguishable from being flat.”

            And my example of the lagoon, like yours of the ship, are exceptions to that. (Depending how one interprets the term ‘personal scales’)

            Eratosthenes crept in somewhere and I digressed about how to actually measure the curvature.

            Yes today you could use GPS, but of course the presence of GPS satellites means we already know the curvature precisely. I was hypothesizing about how one could measure it without that knowledge.

          35. Here’s a current article in Scientific American on the troubles Alfred Wallace had with the problem, taking exactly the approach you describe:

            http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/2015/01/12/wallaces-woeful-wager-how-a-founder-of-modern-biology-got-suckered-by-flat-earthers/?print=true

            The problem with attempting to demonstrate the curvature of the Earth at scales that can be covered by a person on foot over the course of a day is that the curvature at those scales is dwarfed by local variations in geography. It’s something on the order of inches per mile.

            That’s why Eratosthenes was so convincing: he measured it at a scale that vastly dwarfed any mere mountain.

            Reenacting the Apollo missions would demonstrate it in such a visceral way that continued denial would be psychologically impossible, I think. But also a complete waste of mission specialist accommodations, at least until Elon opens his Lunar Hilton Resort.

            b&

          36. Hi Ben

            Reading your fascinating link, Alfred Russell Wallace came to the same conclusion I did, effectively – using a body of water (in his case a canal) with fixed points at each end of it. The fact that his flat-earth opponent had as much money as Templeton doesn’t invalidate Wallace’s method or his conclusions.

            “The problem with attempting to demonstrate the curvature of the Earth at scales that can be covered by a person on foot over the course of a day is that the curvature at those scales is dwarfed by local variations in geography. It’s something on the order of inches per mile.”

            Inches for the first mile, but it rapidly compounds. It’s 66 feet after ten miles. And ten miles across a lagoon can be covered in a few hours in a boat, whether an outboard-powered dinghy (as in my case) or a small sailing boat. And a body of water ensures that there are no local changes of geography to confound the issue.

            Provided the atmospheric conditions are such that temperature gradients don’t arise (so no mirage effect) – a lagoon on a fresh morning with a light breeze is probably as good as you can get for that.

          37. Inches for the first mile, but it rapidly compounds. It’s 66 feet after ten miles.

            So? The tree across the street is at least that big, and there’s more elevation gain than that just driving a mile or so to the parking lot at South Mountain Park where I often take Baihu…after which there’ll be more than twenty times as much elevation change on one of our two-mile loops.

            And, remember, your assumption that it being water is what makes it definitive also rests upon the assumption that gravity works by pulling things together. But if it pulls things down, as is the assumption for flat-earthers, it’s easy to see how you could have local variations in the definition of “down” without any trouble at all.

            That’s the sort of thing that Wallace dealt with, and it’s why the only real evidential way to get the point across to people so determinedly blinkered is to present the spherical nature of the Earth in a single visceral gestalt.

            Eratosthenes demonstrated a degree of curvature that literally made Olympus itself seem as inconsequential as a pebble.

            Today, advanced amateur rocketry and GoPro-style videography would probably get the point across, but any remaining flat-earthers today know full well what the shape of the Earth is and will run like the plague away from anything that would obviously demonstrate the absurdity of their position. They’d never go anywhere near such an exercise…

            …but they’d be all over your waterway examples like creationists on moths of a different color.

            b&

          38. This is going to run and run…

            “So? The tree across the street is at least that big, and there’s more elevation gain than that just driving a mile or so to the parking lot at South Mountain Park where I often take Baihu…after which there’ll be more than twenty times as much elevation change on one of our two-mile loops.”

            Which is why no land-based demonstration is likely to be convincing.

            “That’s the sort of thing that Wallace dealt with, and it’s why the only real evidential way to get the point across to people so determinedly blinkered is to present the spherical nature of the Earth in a single visceral gestalt.

            Eratosthenes demonstrated a degree of curvature that literally made Olympus itself seem as inconsequential as a pebble.”

            Considered as a ‘single visceral gestalt’, what Eratosthenes did was lacking in impact. No fault of Eratosthenes, but his measurement points were hundreds of miles apart and certainly couldn’t be ‘covered in a single day’.

            But I think we’ve covered all points by now. I’m off to Piha Beach (where the sea is decidedly not flat, it has some very nice entertaining transitory local lumps in it).

      2. @Ant
        “…consciousness persisting after death is a religious idea…”

        No faith required, no god(s) required, no worship involved. No religion. Just pondering and keeping my mind open to the possibility. Call it hope or wishful thinking if you like, but it’s not religion.

        1. It is, however, explicitly ruled out by physics as we understand it. Discovery that it actually exists would literally send all of science back to the beginning. Such a discovery would be on the scale of the next resupply mission to the ISS bouncing off a polished copper dome with holes in it, and the subsequent realization that the holes are the stars….

          b&

          1. It seems to me that it depends on the nature of the “discovery” – I don’t think “back to the beginning” is necessarily a foregone conclusion (but, of course, I’m just a hopeful, wishful thinker).

          2. If you don’t realize that “back to the beginning” is exactly what it means, then you don’t at all understand the physics.

            We know that thought is a physical property of brains.

            We know that communication has hard-and-fast limits on the matter and energy required to transfer information.

            We know that there are other hard-and-fast limits on what can interact with the type of matter that makes up brains, and the results of those interactions.

            At no step in any of that rock-solid knowledge is there room for the information that comprises your memories (just for one example) to leave your skull other than by the well-known and obvious examples of speech and writing and so on. If your memories left your skull at any point in your lifetime, from the moment they’re formed until after you die, we would have detected it long ago as surely as you’d have noticed that hungry, angry T-Rex standing behind your left shoulder.

            There just simply isn’t anywhere we haven’t looked that that sort of thing could still be hiding.

            b&

        2. No, not *religion*, but *religious*. That is, the notion comes from the same kind of wishful thinking that, /inter alia/, gave rise to religions.

          But nowadays it’s worse than wishful thinking, because it’s contradicted by science.

          (Of course, science *might* be wrong; but given the evidence we have from collider physics [my research area, a generation ago] and cosmology, the likelihood of that is vanishingly small. Holding out a hope that it’s wrong is, quite literally, irrational.)

          /@

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