Write4U:
If the attempts to understand consist of reading and using excerpts from mainstream science, then its called proof, no?
No.
Proof involves, at a minimum, a chain of logical reasoning from accepted premises to a conclusion. Attempts to understand are not proof of anything. But that's probably not what you were trying to say, so let's leave that to one side.
You seem to think that reading a scientific article automatically means that you understand it. But understanding does not automatically follow from the mere reading of a piece of text. Understanding requires a lot more work than that. Understanding means having the capacity to draw appropriate links between ideas. Understanding means having the capacity to generate new ideas from the information one has absorbed. Understanding is often demonstrated by being able to communicate the important aspects of the thing to somebody else, in your own words.
The same goes for "using excerpts". "Using" is a very broad term. If, by "using" you merely mean cutting an excerpt from one place and pasting it to some other place, then sure, you're "using" the excerpt. But that is also a far cry from understanding the content of the excerpted text.
Why do you think I quote peer reviewed articles I understand and not "my own words" which apparently you do not understand? I am trying to make it easy for the reader to understand what I am saying.
One very important thing to keep in mind when you're trying to demonstrate your understanding of something is
relevance. If you are "using an excerpt", there should be a clear connection between the excerpt and the idea you're trying to communicate, or the argument you're trying to advance.
Sadly, most of your cut-and-pasted "excerpts" do nothing at all to support any arguments
you want to make. In fact, my observation is that most of your "excerpts" barely get beyond regurgitating simple definitions of scientific terms. And then, after posting such an "excerpt", you often go on to demonstrate that
you don't understand even the definition that you have posted - or else that you are unable to draw any relevant connections between the definition and what you were previously trying to discuss or answer.
The problem here, Write4U, is not that readers of your post can't understand what you are saying. Your readers, for the most part, don't need you to cut and paste definitions of basic scientific terms that
they already understand. In fact, the
only value in such definitions would be if
you came to some understanding of their meaning, such that you could then have a useful discussion with the people who already understand them. But you rarely, if any, do any mental processing on the definitions you post.
To take one example at random, consider the mathematical terms "function" and "value". People here have repeatedly tried to school you on the accepted meanings of those words.
You have googled those words, and you have cut and pasted your "proofs" of how they are usually defined. And yet, you're
still utterly unable to use the words "function" of "value" appropriately, when it comes to writing down
your own ideas. Worse still, when anybody tries to correct (once again) your errors of usage of those words, you insist that
your incorrect usages are, in fact, appropriate, and to try to support those claims you usually then re-post the basic definitions and claim that you understand them. And so, the cycle repeats. What's missing here is any learning on your part. What's missing is that you never actually reach the point where you
understand. All you seem to have is a scrapbook full of miscellaneous words that you string together at random whenever you try to talk about technical topics.
You often claim that all these sources you quote explain your ideas better than you can. It might well be the case that some of your sources explain ideas better than you do, but they aren't
your ideas. And almost inevitably, when we drill down even a little into what you write, we almost immediately find that your conceptions of things differ from those of your sources. This is usually because you don't understand what the sources are telling you. And then, annoyingly, you refuse to take action to correct your own specific errors after they are pointed out to you. Instead, you usually try to pretend that you didn't really make a mistake at all, or you try to change the topic to something irrelevant, often by cutting and pasting something unrelated.
But for some reason no one bothers to read quotes that support the principles on which I base my missives.
Often, there is no need to read the full text of things you "excerpt", because it is clear from the parts you quote that the full text is most likely going to be irrelevant to anything
you are arguing for. Often, the parts you quote don't even relate to any argument you're trying to advance. Or else, the full text only contains further explanation of a definition that is already well understood by everybody but you in the conversation.
I am aware that my command of scientific jargon is lacking and if I use "my own words" (such as "quasi-intelligent" or "permittive") then it is not the content that is being discussed but the semantics for being wrong, or obscure.
Science is about more than "jargon". Scientific terms are not just words that are used to keep science as a sort of secret language, to shield the understanding of science from the uninitiated. Scientific terms are defined in precise ways so that we can all be on the same page when we talk about scientific concepts. Clearly, there is no point in having
any discussion in which the parties are using the same word to refer to different things; that only makes for confusion and misunderstanding.
As far as using your own words is concerned, that's fine. But if you're going to throw a term like "quasi-intelligent" out there, it stands to reason that you must mean something by it. When you can't explain how "quasi-intelligent" is distinguishable from "intelligent", that begs the question of why you used the term in the first place. As for the word "permittive", which you have used in the context of a "permittive condition", it is not an adjective that exists in regular English. Therefore, if you want to use it, you need to say what you mean by this newly-coined word of yours. If all you mean is "permissive", there's already a word for that; we don't really need a new one. And wouldn't you want to avoid confusion with the word "permittivity", which has a very different meaning in science?
These particular matters were discussed with you previously, of course. But here you are, months later, apparently complaining that people are quibbling about "semantics" and that you should just be able to use words like "quasi-intelligent" and "permittive" without explaining what you mean by them. You're also trying to imply, I think, that the problem is not yours but your readers', because you hold that using those words is, for unexplained reasons,
not wrong or obscure. Again, you're unwilling to learn anything from previous discussions, apparently.
I don't see the logic in the demand that I use my own words.
Your readers can't access
your ideas from somebody else's words. Nobody speaks for you but you. You can, of course, quote somebody else and say "I agree with everything Tegmark says here", or similar, but that's of very limited value if you're unable to demonstrate that you
understand what Tegmark said there. Worse, if it turns out that things
you say contradict what you quote, then there was no point in posting the quote in the first place; it was just a waste of time for anybody who wanted to know what
you thought.
The intent is clarity and a quote from Einstein offers clarity to all who are familiar with science. And strangely, when Einstein used the phrase "spooky action at a distance" (not a very scientific description), no one complained about his choice of words.
Einstein explained exactly what he meant when he used that term. He could do that because he understood what he meant. He defined his terms clearly for his readers/listeners. When he quoted other people, the quotes were relevant to arguments that he was making. He also used "scientific jargon" in which the meanings of words were the generally-accepted meanings in the communities with which he was communicating. And when he coined new words, he defined them.
