w62 E Flat Major

It is usually understood that when there is an argument among Rishonim [mediaeval authorities] it does not make sense to say one or the other was right. You might do like the Beit Yoseph that you go by three only. That is the Rif, Rambam and Rosh. When two of these three agree to anything, that is the law. Still that does not make the other wrong. And when you can not find a consensus among these three, then you go by the majority of Rishonim.

So in the case where many of the Rishonim that hold Physics is a part of learning Torah, how would you decide that? Some hold yes, and some hold not. Since the Rambam is clear, and the Rosh and Rif do not openly discuss this, it seems clear the law is like the Rambam--especially after many rishonim go with the Rambam in this point.
[You might add the fact that both the Rif and Rosh say that "outside books" in Sanhedrin are not what people often think are "outside books". They are not books of Math and Physics. "Outside" means giving explanations not from the sages of the Mishna or Gemara or Midrash.]


There is an aspect here of experience also. It does not to me seem that learning Torah alone with these two added things Physics and Metaphysics [as the Rambam phrases it in the Guide] really leads to human perfection.  

Learning Torah and the Wisdom of God as it is contained in the work of Creation

You see in the Nefesh HaChaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin the importance of learning Torah.
I agree with this. The only thing is that I add the learning the Wisdom of God as it is contained in the work of Creation as being also a part of God's Law.

You see this in Rishonim [authorities from the Middle Ages. That is everyone that wrote either commentary or law from Rav Hai Geon until Rav Yoseph Karo. Not inclusive] based on Saadia Gaon. I mean Saadia Gaon opened this understanding that many later Rishonim accepted. Among them the Obligations of the Hearts, Maimonides/Rambam, Benjamin the author of Maalat HaMidot and others.
In later Musar books you a distinct backing away from this. The Ramban [Nahmanides] would be one that disagreed and stated the tradition that would refer to Aristotle as "may his name be blotted out". That opinion of the Ramban got to be accepted but is not the opinion of the above mentioned Rishonim that went with the approach of Saadia Gaon.

I feel that Maimonides was right in this subject that the Wisdom of God as contained in Creation is on a higher level than the laws about human interactions --which is also Torah but still seems to be on a lesser level.

You see this in the story brought in the Guide about the King. Outside the palace of the King are the people that learn Talmud. Inside the palace are the Physicists. [This analogy certainly shocked people. You can see why there were a few attempts to exclude the Rambam/Maimonides from acceptance.]

And I might add that if personal experience means anything, I would have to side with the Rambam/Maimonides in this issue.

But not to learn layman's Physics books. Do it right, or do not do it at all.
Doing it right means, you do not need to be a genius. Just like learning regular Torah does not depend on how smart one is. It is a mitzvah in itself. [The way to go about it is the path of learning of Rav Nahman of saying the words until you finish the book. But also review.]

To start exploring other galaxies at this point makes sense. However you can not go faster than light. Anyway it would take lots of energy to accelerate and decelerate. You would need to find a way to make a worm hole. That is the only possible plan. [The energy problem might not be too hard if you had a way of converting gravity waves into energy or anti gravity.]


I can see a few possibilities. One is that in String Theory, the Branes that strings live on are also strings. [That is they are the same stuff, but just more dimensions.] They are higher dimensional --so the string has somewhere to be. So these branes should not be all that harder to deal with any more than ordinary matter. [They are not just "space-time". I mean space-time is hard to deal with. It takes something big like the sun to do something noticeable to space-time. But branes are just another form of strings.]

What did Jesus mean when He told his followers to heed those who sat on the Chair of Moses in Matthew 23:2?
It must be he held from keeping the Oral and Written Law of Moses.

[Another reference would be the story of the poor man and rich man that both died. The poor man saw the rich man in Hell. He asked the poor man who was in Heaven to give him a drink of water. But there was a gap between heaven and hell that was not possible to pass. So the rich man asked at least to go back to earth to warn others about the problems that he was encountering in Hell that resulted from his not sharing. But the answer was : They have the Law and the prophets. Let them go and study and keep them. So the rich man said, "They would listen if one would rise from teh dead and warm them." And he was answered, if they will not listen to the law of Moses and teh prophets then even if one would rise from the dead and warn them they also would not listen."
So there is no indication that the Law is no longer invalid.

I also noticed that Dr. Michael Huemer wrote some critique about Communism [which to me does that where the Democrats want to go] https://spot.colorado.edu/~... His point is that not just that Communism leads to many unfortunate results like Venezuela,--but that it has a false assumption in its very core. [The Labor Theory of Value that how much value something has is because of how much work went into making it. Clearly it is absurd. If someone works twenty hours making a pin needle, not one will but it for $50. Yet the LTV is the source of teh idea that the owner of the factory extracts extra value from the workers.]
Huemer is basing himself to a large degree on G.E. Moore. That is a school called the Intuitionists that hold the reason recognizes Moral Values

The Kant Fries School of Dr Kelley Ross has a different kind of critique based on Kant's idea that people have self autonomy. That is authority ought not be imposed on people except for the bare minimum of getting a working state.

My own complain against communism and socialism has always stemmed from one basic starting axiom. "Thou Shalt not Steal". Stealing from the rich to give to the poor, has never seemed to me to be any different from stealing period. 

I must say that there is a lot going on in the world that if you look closely seem to cast doubt on the core concepts of mass and forces.

For instance the four forces (Gravity, Electro-Magnetism, Strong, Weak) do not seem basic, but rather seem to stem from Quantum Mechanics. What I mean is in Quantum Field Theory if you solve things like electrons going around a Helium atom you have a phase inside the equation which has to disappear before you get to an actual physical solution. But the fact that it is still there forces there to be three of the four forces,-- and maybe even Gravity.

Another thing I mentioned a few days ago is the infinite mass that always shows up in any particle. [I mean the bare particle by itself is a whirling conglomerate of infinite waves. The particle that is measure in the lab is not the bare particle. [I mentioned there that this seem to show a kind of Kant kind of idea that the actual "thing in itself" is hard to understand. At least it is not so simple. Hegel thought there is access to the "thing in itself" by means of a dialectical process.]