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And it was obvious that heavier things fell faster than lighter things, up until it was actually tested. You claimed it was a fact, not that it was obvious (to you) Other things that seem obvious that prison time reduces the odds that someone would re-offend, or that the death penalty is a deterrent, and people claim these things are true. But those “obvious” things don’t hold up to scrutiny. “A large body of research finds that spending time in prison or jail doesn’t lower the risk that someone will offend again. In some instances, it actually raises the likelihood that they will commit future crimes.” https://daily.jstor.org/rethinking-prison-as-a-deterrent-to-future-crime/ The death penalty does not deter crime “there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws” https://www.aclu.org/documents/death-penalty-questions-and-answers#:~:text=A%3A No%2C there is no,than states without such laws. So yes, I expect that issues of deterrence have been studied. And they have been. “Research shows clearly that the chance of being caught is a vastly more effective deterrent than even draconian punishment.” “Increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime” https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence So apparently there are studies. If it’s a “great incentive” one might expect clear evidence of the deterrence. The bottom line is that if you claim something to be true, you have to be prepared to back it up. Others do this regularly, and it’s required by the rules. It’s exhausting having try and get you to do this when you’re posting an opinion that you’re asserting as fact. It takes time to debunk you and it’s not fair that you can just spout BS and move on. It’s a fundamentally dishonest debate tactic, and common enough that it has its own name - Brandolini’s law, aka the bullshit asymmetry principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law

! Moderator Note It's been painfully obvious for a LONG time, but it's still frustrating that you don't bother to source your conjecture the way others do. You seem to think your raw opinions are meaningful without facts and evidential support. This has allowed you to post a whole lot of crap in otherwise scientific threads. You need to stop it. You seem very smart, and you often represent a POV that we need to see, but you ruin it with unevidenced opinion that you assert like it's fact. We can start trashing bad faith posts like that if you can't stop yourself, but we want to let you know our thinking on this.

Define 'comfort' Okay, that's an unusally low temperature. Recommended humidity for occupied rooms is 40%-60% RH because reasons. Air @ 10oC and 100% RH contains 9.4 g/m3 moisture (calculator here) Air @ 15oC containing 9.4 g/m3 moisture is @ 73.3% RH (same resource) If its a contractual obligation job, then dehumidification seems obligatory. However, there are other considerations to bear in mind. Maybe 73% RH is tolerable to you in which case, a modest addition of dry heat would do the job. Same if the initial humidity was more like 85% If the room is humid only because of your breathing/perspiration and it's less humid outside then maybe all that's needed is a small fan to increase the ventilation rate a bit. Most typical occupied spaces are best served with ~7 air changes per hour or they can get a bit clammy. (Up to double that figure for say a computer room) People are walking humidifiers emitting 6-7 MJ/day largely as moisture saturated warm air so there's major shifts in emphasis when dealing with small, busy rooms versus large sparsely occupied ones. Guess it's down to the individual. Personally, I find 50% a bit on the dry side these days, but it is the standard target for the HVAC industry etc (eg industry source) 600W of dry heat input would make a room this size quite warm quite quickly. I checked the site and it does indeed say that. Absolute nonsense. These values are what would be required to prevent condensation on say the inside of a single-glazed window. Following this guidance would be a health hazard for any occupants.

Perhaps we can dispense with the notion that he’s a genius, and stop paying attention to his nonsensical ramblings.

"More than lack of food" implies lack of food and other factors, which I don't think is what you mean. I think you mean something other than lack of food. Because it seems obvious to me that lack of food there was not, at least for the general population before the situation got to the dramatic point it has. And I didn't. But I admit was somewhat lazy with my criterion. So here's some analysis taking your definition as the starting point. This doesn't seem to be the case for Gaza/Israel. Unless you're willing to accept several million people of the same ethnic and/or religious minority have met a very different fate for absolutely no identifiable reason. Some of those people of exactly the same ethnic and religious group seem to have made their way to the Supreme Court, the Knesset or the IDF. They are Israeli citizens: These data are from Israel only, not Gaza or the West Bank. More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Knesset For 20 years Gaza has been under the rule of Hamas. I'm not sure that Palestinians have been forcibly retained in Gaza for all that time. But I do get from testimonies that leaving is considerably difficult, and it must go through special permission, and ridiculously elaborate security measures, including digital cards and such. Nevertheless, here's a screenshot from the World Bank data webpage corresponding to Gaza+West Bank Which seems to imply that some people seem to have managed to trickle out, in spite of all those guards watching them from the turrets. Let's see about life expectancy Similar to Albania, considerably higher than Rwanda, about the same as Tunicia. All of those well-known concentration camps? https://data.worldbank.org/country/west-bank-and-gaza Population growth of only Gaza: Population of Gaza in 2005: 1,299,000 people. Population of Gaza in 2023: 2,300,000 people. Although I can imagine that it must not have been easy for many of them to leave due to the economic conditions --and that in spite of the large amounts of money thrown at them that could have been invested otherwise, as @MigL has observed before. Moreover, it is apparent that no Arab countries are willing to take regugees from Gaza, or no Arabs from Gaza are willing to go to other Arab countries, or both. They seem to like to go to NY or London, for some reason. Prisoners in their territory? Quite a number of them enjoyed work permits and crossed the border on a daily basis to work in the kibbutzim with their socialist benefactors. An opportunity to collect intelligence for the attacks that Hamas couldn't and didn't miss. So no, Gazans were not under guard when the attacks of October 7th happened. Frankly I find it impossible to recognize any condition from the definition you presented that applies here. What about the bit "those deemed political enemies" in your definition? Well, the logistics of the map of the West Bank doesn't look to me as the places where part of the population is divided according to what they think. It looks more like the logistics of urban guerrilla: Isolating places where the chances of getting shot from a window are more than so-and-so percent. And that's what they are. So there's nothing political about it. But of course the main issue is not political, in spite of many people trying to make it political. It's mostly that thing that shall not be named. It's that thing that shall not be named what gives it the character of an unsolvable problem. If you misdiagnose an illness you guarantee that it will never get better. If tomorrow all the Muslims of Palestine converted at once to, say, the Ahmadi Muslim faith --which are now a tiny, tiny minority there, the problem would be solved in a matter of months. Unfortunately, they are mostly Sunni followed by a minor amount of Shia, and the rest of the Muslims consider the Ahmadi heretics. So no, it won't work. And it never will. It takes a religious component for a problem to become so vicious, so stagnant, so irredeemably impossible as this one. It will never get better. Not for as long as the religious component of it survives. I grew up seeing the buildings of Beirut smashed to smitherines on the TV, and I'm pretty sure I'll leave this world with a similar scenery from the Middle East. Only this time on YT. Etc, etc. The situation is a tragedy for everyone involved, and it breaks my heart seeing Palestinian kids used as cannon fodder by Hamas, but pretending that the State of Israel is some kind of Khmer Rouge of the Middle East is just ridiculous. And no, it's not going to solve the problem either. It's going to make it worse and worse. This kind of hiperbolic discourse (like those morons saying "apartheid", "genocide", etc in the campuses) only weakens the arguments coming from any kind of progressive thinking. And if you ask me, they only make the Trumps and the Wilders and the far-right extremists more likely to seize power, not less. They're biding their time, make no mistake about it. Sorry for the lengthy diatribe. I will probably shut up pretty soon. It's a pain to participate in these debates, because the fog of propaganda makes the main arguments almost invisible.

I doubt it very much. Hamas took over 'governance' of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority by force ( bombings and murders ) almost 20 years ago. There has been no semblance of governance, and certainly no elections, since. International aid, meant for the population ( and the children INow mentioned ) is stockpiled by Hamas to take care of their fighters when the IDF retaliates, and they have to scurry like rats to their underground tunnels and bunkers, conveniently located under hospitals and schools, where the Palestinian population ( and the children INow mentioned ) can be collateral of the IDF retaliation, and Hamas has another propaganda victory for fools and anti-Semites to protest/boycott Israel about.

I do, indeed. There’s literally decades of research supporting this topic and the conclusions are consistent. That said, they’re OT, mistermack wont read them, won’t change his stance as a result of them, nor will he offer counter examples showing them wrong (choosing instead to rely on his common sense folk wisdom outdated opinion) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228187332_The_Effectiveness_of_Correctional_Rehabilitation_A_Review_of_Systematic_Reviews

Here's a Venn diagram explaining why Marjorie Taylor Greene's book isn't selling well:

Example: Consider the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. As far as I know it operates effectively irrespective of Earth's rotation or its orbit around the sun, which constantly changes the LHC's orientation. According to your theory, the LHC's performance should vary with these changes, necessitating regular adjustments? Could you explain how your theory accounts for the consistent operation of the LHC under constant change of orientation? What does the lack of adjustments for absolute motion tell you?

Thank you. Yes, I'm familiar with it but it's not falsifiable, so I don't consider it an explanation of what I want to understand. Invoking a new universe every time a leaf makes a ripple on a pond is what I would call an ad hoc explanation.

I always thought that a humid atmosphere feels warmer because perspiration evaporates a bit slower.

Ohm's law for a capacitor??? Are you really designing microprocessors? Not my topic, but capacitors build up voltage until it is the same as the voltage in the circuit. Then it behaves just like a insulator, so the current stops (unless you overload it...) As the capacities you mention, the 4.7 μF is slightly bigger, so it would take a tiny bit longer before the current ceases.

100% of 200 plus 25% of 200 is 250 There's no reason why 100% of 250 minus 25% of 250 should produce 200 They are %'s of different quantities. Goverments and oligopolies sometimes use these maths to raise the prices a little more than it would appear to people untrained in maths. (1.01)10 is more than 1.1 (it's 1.1046), so ten increases of 1% increase more than 1 increase of 10%

What?

Stopped feeding them - seriously? You make them sound like stray cats. If you didn't intend a racist slur on these people, then perhaps you should learn some of their history. These people owned and ran farms and grew olives and dates and other cash crops. They sustained themselves for generations and then were driven off their lands and shoved into a tiny space without consent or due process of law. They didn't go there because Israel "made it nice." The Naqba ravaged their lives and means of economic autonomy and created a misery and anger that comes from that genuine condition and is amped up by each new round of brutality and heavy civilian casualties that Israel's many attacks have brought, and the ongoing degradation of being shoved into horrible conditions of overcrowding and restricted rights and various embargos. It's rather like someone knocking you down, putting their boot on your face and whenever you punch at their leg they cry, Look! Look how awful a person he is! He is a vicious leg puncher! No wonder I have to keep this boot here! Oy!

I'm so angry, I'm going to divert the planet Mercury and smash it into New York. Are you going to flee in panic? Because Hamas has pretty much the same chance of killing you and everyone you know. As I'm sure you're well aware. Your standard of reasoning is pathetic. Israel on the other hand, with it's nuclear weapons and religious nut leadership, is more than capable of killing you, by kicking off a nuclear exchange that might end up making you history. But using your logic, of going by what people say, then of course they have no nukes, no sir !

Okay, which pile of dead bodies do you want to count first? The dead residents of the Gaza strip, men, women and children that were directly killed by Hamas members since they seized power? The Gaza residents who died from lack of resources because Hamas seized the resources for themselves? The residents who died from Israeli fire because Hamas forced them to stay put in the line of fire or be killed by Hamas immediately? The Israel residents who were killed by Hamas on October 7? The Israeli soldiers killed by Hamas? The Hamas fighters who were killed by IDF attacks? The Israelites killed by Hamas launched rockets over the last thirty years? Pick one and we can start counting.

"Ummm... I'd love a cream cake". (determinism), but I'm not going to have one as I'm on a diet. (freewill). True or false? I constructed this to be analysed.

But, does the hen recognize what it has found, or is it just a shiny rock that attracts it attention? And for the hen's purposes, a nugget of gold is less valuable than a small rock. Chickens ingest these small rocks to hold in their gizzards, were they serve in lieu of teeth. The contractions of the gizzard use the rocks to grind up the grain, etc. into small digestible bits. Gold, being a soft metal, serves as a poor substitute for common rocks.

Right. Which is what Hamas and those that backed them in their latest terror attack on Israel wanted. Maybe not the completeness of the violent retaliation, but certainly the re-igniting of the hatred toward Israel. I agree both sides have blood on their hands. I just don't see what other options either side has available given the hatred of Israel by all those that have suffered from it's creation and existence, historically and recently. Certainly Israel cannot trust terrorists with clearly stated objectives to eliminate their existence, yet there seems to be little they can do to eliminate the threat without using means that would perpetuate it. Both sides, for the most part, were born with the problem.

Let me give it shot ... I apologize for not reading the previous 6 pages but I'm recuperating from eye surgery ( Ahmed valve installed for Glaucoma control ) and gave up after the lengthy title. A variable light speed to explain numerous 'problems' with modern Astrophysics, such as the horizon problem,, expansion and red-shift was first proposed by R Dicke, in the 50s. The biggest drawback is that there are simpler solutions that don't 'break' Physics like a variable speed of light would. Variable c ( with time, energy, distance, etc. ) would eliminate two very important 'pillars' of modern Physics, Lorentz invariance and CPT symmetry, and all Physics would come crashing down. This is still really hard to type, even with 150% screen magnification, so I'll let PBS explain in more detail

The effectiveness of carbon sequestion via weathering of basalt etc. is ultimately limited by actual reaction rates. One only has to consider the rather slow disappearance of such basalt structures as eg the Giant's Causeway (and essentially the entire surface lithosphere of Northern Ireland), Fingal's Cave, Iceland to understand that these carbonation reactions are not lightning fast. Even in finely divided form, a visit to a basaltic black sand beach is scarcely seething with chemical activity. But that does not make it a factor to be ignored. It cannot be a solution to all our problems but it can help. EDIT: I see @studiot has just made the very same point (simulpost) I found quite a useful summary of its global relevance at https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.2138/am-2019-6884/html?lang=en. I've wondered for a while whether weathering of the calcium silicate content of concrete had a similar effect, and found an interesting Caltech article at https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/weathering-cement-important-overlooked-sink-carbon-dioxide-53134 ... which I found quite interesting.

More generally known as the principle of cussedness: these are laws by which nature opposes an attempt to change to the system.

I've been ill the last 2 weeks, still not quite healthy. I would like to give just a short overview of different positions in the free will debate, independent of the whole contents of this thread, just in the hope to clarify a little. Conceptually, there are 2 main view points: compatibilism and incompatibilism. Incompatibilism states that determinism and free will do not go together, so one of them is, at least partially, false. Dependent on what is supposed to be false, there are 2 main positions: Determinism is false: this is mainly libertarian free will. What we choose or decide to do, i.e. how we act, is at least partially, independent on previous causes. The mind has some kind of independence from the physical world Free will does not exist at all, it is an illusion played on us by the brain. The extremes of both are dualism (the soul has causal influence on the physical world) in the first case, and what is sometimes called 'hard determinism' (we are 'slaves' of the causal processes in the brain) in the second. Compatibilism of course says that free will and determinism are compatible. It is important to see that compatibilism does not say that (a little bit of) free will is possible in a determined world. It is not some vague compromise between determinism and free will. I think that most compatibilists go even so far that they say that determinism is a necessary condition for free will (I belong to this 'camp'). If, e.g. it turns out that quantum processes play an essential role in brain process, this would be a disturbing factor in our expression of free will, not an opening for free will in an otherwise determined world. It is also necessary to say that these or not just positions, but that for all these positions arguments are given: they are reasoned, grounded positions. So here my first point: Somebody who says 'yes, we have free will!', or just the opposite, has still said nothing. She (or he) must say in which sense. Second point: Next to certain (scientific) facts that all camps must accept, it means that the discussion is about which interpretation is the best one. The question what means 'best' of course opens a complete new can of worms. Third point, not that easy: People come to very different practical conclusions based on their conception of free will, but the rational connections can be loose. Examples: None compatibilist determinists thinking that we should not punish criminals, but therapise them, because without free will they are not responsible None compatibilist determinists saying that for our daily life it makes no difference at all: in the end, society and its judges are just as determined as the criminal Libertarians defending that every individual is completely responsible for his life: if people are poor, then they made the wrong choices in their lives, no need to help them, independent of the country or culture they come from People who think their their lives have no meaning if they have no free will (eh.. which concept of free will?) Compatibilists taking as default position that people have free will, but there are people whose circumstances are so extreme that they cannot be held responsible; or they miss one of the necessary capabilities for free will, e.g. to rationally evaluate their options for actions (maybe Down syndrome as an example?) None compatibilist determinists who say that their position leads to more tolerance to others, and lift the heavy burden of absolute responsibility, like that concept of responsibility that can be found by especially the French existentialists. I have known people falling more or less in a depression because of those views. In the hope that this helps a little to get rid of the sharp tone of the debate in this thread.

Local relative motion in a static background would be limited to subluminal speeds in accordance with the usual laws of kinematic, so for redshift we’d find z<1 always, whereas with metric expansion there is no such limit. Furthermore, if there is only local motion in an otherwise static space, then some of these objects will recede from one another, whereas others approach each other, like molecules in a gas. We’d see a mix of both blue- and red-shift, unless you want to postulate that we are the Center of the universe, and everything moves radially away from us for some reason, which is not very plausible. But with metric expansion, it’s the space in between that “expands” (I don’t like this term, but it has become standard), so on the largest scales everything will appear to recede from everything else, and it will do so the same way no matter what direction you look at, and irrespective what’s in between here and there. Also - if the rate of apparent recession isn’t constant (which is what seems to be the case), then, if you were to deal with local motion, you would have to have either some mechanism of acceleration, or some explanation as to why everything falls away from us. Overall you’d end up with a model that’s actually much more complicated and much less plausible than metric expansion.

Please tell us more when you reply as more detail makes it easier to help. Differentiation is a process. A differential is the result of that process. (That is differential as a noun) But differential as an adjective refers to the difference between two values eg the differential pressure between inside and outside = (inside pressure - outside pressure) But there is considerably more required to understand things. Why is this posted in homework help ? Is this really homework or are you asking about mathematical theory, in which case you will attract more attention and answers if you placed it in the mathematics section.

You appeared to cite it. Did you just make that number up? And we’re supposed to take your assertion as fact? If you answered my question, or read what Markus posted, you’d see that such pedestrian speeds are small compared to recession values of distant galaxies. Ignoring it in certain calculations is completely reasonable, e.g. when it’s smaller than uncertainties in the result. If you only know z to one or two digits for z >1 , ignoring a speed with z ~ 0.01 is not a problem, if you understand how significant digits work.

! Moderator Note ... and you're real out of here!

Like savages? http://www.ajic.mb.ca/volumel/chapter2.html

In classical mechanics, this would be the case. Physics is more than classical mechanics. EM radiation possesses momentum. This was predicted by Maxwell (i.e. before relativity and QM) and experimentally confirmed in 1903 by Nichols and Hull.

The OP is not genuine. It is plagiarized from https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/height-of-a-stable-droplet-on-a-perfectly-wetting-surface.1057037/post-6964327.

1. How would you define the mind's reality in a way that separates it from its plasticity? 2. What aspects of the mind do you consider to be inherently plastic or non-plastic? 3. How do you reconcile the mind's plasticity with its fundamental nature as a real and influential entity?

My main point is that the mind is what the mind is, irrespective of how anyone conceives of it. I'm not pointing to any particular conception of the mind, physical included. If someone thinks the mind is physical, then okay; I can go with that, for the sake of the conversation. Yes, I can agree that if we define it as something that is real and has an effect on the world, then the mind could be considered tangible. This excursion was an exercise in untangling the conflation of two concepts- The reality of the mind which was my focus, and its "non-plasticity," which I never even hinted at. I assume that you're asking for speculation and not theory. Here is my educated guesses in order: If we're just going by physical evidence, then the answer appears to be "no." This is from something I've written somewhere: One way this could be interpreted is that even within a single individual animal, the mind is unique at every instance of physical operative time. The common denominator of a term in all of its uses is in its definition https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mind This is why we must be absolute sticklers for definitions, and why we should not create new meanings when few would correctly use and most would just misinterpret (esp. "technical meanings" such as "learning" in "machine learning" or even "intelligence" in "artificial intelligence"; I can go very much in depth into this as in write an entire article but maybe elsewhere) I wouldn't say "mirror image." However, minds exist even if not in isolation. ("Can minds exist in isolation" is some other topic altogether) Minds have a subjective character that's partially epistemically locked from externality. Here's the old question of "Do you know exactly what it is like to be me?" (okay now I realize that the item #1 should include "it's subjective in character")

@AIkonoklazt @iNow argues that the mind is not a tangible entity, while you argue that it is, correct? iNow's main point is that the mind is constantly changing and adapting, and that this ability to change is what allows us to learn and remember. Your main point is that the mind is a product of the brain, which is a physical organ. The brain is constantly changing and adapting, and this ability to change is what allows us to learn and remember. If the mind were a completely separate entity from the brain, then it is unclear how it could be affected by the brain's plasticity. However, if the mind is a product of the brain, then it is possible that the brain's plasticity could also affect the mind. The use of the pronoun "it" to refer to the mind is also a point of contention. Right, If the mind is not tangible, then it is unclear what "it" is referring to. However, it is possible to use "it" to refer to the mind in a metaphorical sense, just as we might use "it" to refer to a computer program or a piece of software. Both of these points are valid. Ultimately, I think, the answer to this question depends on how we define the term "tangible." If we define it as something that can be seen or touched, then the mind is not tangible. However, if we define it as something that is real and has an effect on the world, then the mind could be considered tangible. The debate over the tangibility of the mind is a whole other debate, and there is no easy answer. Ultimately, the goal of any discussion should be to understand each other better, not to change each other's minds. If you both can keep this in mind, you may be able to have a more productive conversation.

DienHuzen has been banned. Thank you for showing us your hate agenda so early on, you barely wasted any of our time at all.

According to Wiki, the only estimate of its mass was by Benoit Carry, whose results are thought to be most likely wrong, by a factor of 10 or more. The technique depends on the perturbations 33 Polyhymnia causes to other bodies, and this is subject to large uncertainties due to its small size. My money is on nuclear physics being right and these results being wrong.

Wait, are you describing religion? This is exactly the way I feel about the Abrahamic religions, that they've been a poison to our existence because they pretend to help when they mostly hurt.

You just couldn't resist ,could you?

Then doing our duty kind of sucks given all the war, genocide, global warming, pollution, nuclear weapons, etc.

So a predetermined sense of free will for all sane individuals?

The smooth change of refractive index condition is exactly what happens in marine acoustics. (It is not the only thing though.) In this context the eiconal equation is discussed chapter 2 page 5 et seq of the book most people refer back to by R J Urick Sound Propagation in the Sea. Originally written in 1979., but is now availble as a free pdf. Alternatively the eiconal equation for optics and many other uses such as the propagation of discontinuities is discussed in Erich Zauderer's book Partial Differential Equations of Applied Mathematics Wiley 1989

I came across some new info that solidifies the idea that I have at least some Sámi in my ancestry. It was a YouTube video which broke down the DNA of a Sámi male. It used results from the same test I took. It identified one of the genetic groups as matching one of mine. It returned a result of 7% Inuit, which adds weight to my suspicion of where my 2% result came from. The icing on the cake was in another video on the Sámi, which had a photo of a Sámi girl. I saw a strong resemblance to my sister. I called my wife over and asked her if the photo reminded her of anyone( without giving her any other context), and she said my sister. So while still not 100% conclusive, I'd say that the odds are pretty high.

So, the conventional wisdom is that if you shorten the treatment you can promote the selection of resistant bacteria. Generally speaking there is a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) at which they inhibit bacterial growth which is dependent on the strain, but can also be influenced by their growth condition (in the lab standardized media are used to measure MIC, which might not be exactly the same in the body). Now if the effective concentration of the compound drops below MIC, the effects are actually a little bit weird. If you look at defined cultures, e.g. mixing non-resistant with resistant bacteria, you still see a selective effect. But if you take a more complex sample, say fecal cultures or wastewater, the studies have been quite mixed whether there is a selective pressure (and/or there are other factors that would override it). It is fairly fascinating, actually.

I was saying that your stance of "physical cause the mental and that's that" is indeed epiphenominalism. I don't get what you said regarding the "baggage" of epiphenominalism, since the position is simply that of "physical causing the mental and that's it." I accept my theoretical nothingburger, and I don't see why you can't also just accept what your position directly entails. Okay, FINALLY something I can definitively talk about. Technological parallels of the mind have always failed and will continue to fail: First hydraulics, then telephones, then electrical fields, and now computers and "neural networks" that aren't remotely "neural." Information processing itself is a evidently a bad analogy of what the brain does: https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer From the point of view of computer science and engineering, machines don't deal with referents at all, and thus the mind isn't a machine and a machine could never be a mind. The following is an illustration of what an algorithm is and how one operates: Machines don't and can't deal with referents while the mind does, which explains perfectly "bad" but expected machine behaviors such as vulnerability of deep "learning" networks to adversarial attacks which place pixels invisible to the naked eye into images to completely scramble identification (e.g. Have a machine label a panda as a gibbon): ...as well as so-called "hallucinations" of LLMs when all they do is similarly find the nearest zone in the mathematical landscape (read carefully to see what went "wrong" in this example): Contrary to what some companies and experts may try to tell people, these categories of "errors" are fundamentally unfixable because according to the programming of the algorithms these are NOT ERRORS; They are the results of how the deep "learning" works. (How "machine learning" isn't actual learning is yet another topic)

But I answered it! Here the complete citation, not just the first part: But they are! But again you are using a vague word, 'responsible'. (you used 'driven' before, also vague). What is this 'responsible'-relationship? You say it is causation, I say it is supervenience. So my answer to your question is simple: there are no other variables. But there are different ways we can look: from the low levels like atoms, molecules, and neurons; or at the higher level of persons, (true) beliefs, actions, motivations, (free) will etc. The latter we are using in day-to-day life, the former by neurologists, biologists etc. And to epiphenomalism: In the fist place, I highlighted the important word: 'cause'. In the second place you left out what more is written there, immediately after your citation: So what is this: mental phenomena are caused by physical processes, but they miss the other half of what causality is: that events, mental events in this case, are caused, but cannot cause other events themselves? And isn't this just evading: I actually haven't. I've said "it depends on how you define it." If not causation, what is it? Or what is then the applicable concept of causation, according to you? I agree with your second sentence. But you have found another word to describe the relation between physical processes, which is again more vague, 'rooted'. I was more specific: it is a relation of supervenience. And everything you wrote about your views on the matter, show for me that you mean causality. And if you want it or not, this stance is called 'epiphenomanilism', with all its problems. From the same Wikipedia article:

Landscape of Earth under the sea as if it were drained.

And that changes the point how ? Mistermack hates Israeli Jews and ALL others that support them. Reminds me of idiots who claimed the World Trade Center was brought down by the American Government and Big Business because it is extremely valuable real estate. I guess if you can't make a valid argument, you use demerit points ...

I can see some truth to the first paragraph, but your second went in a tinfoil hat direction I would question. I can see political opportunists making the most of a war, but welcoming it? Especially when that attack in the south made Israel's defense forces look inept and clueless and sort of asleep at the wheel.

That is a strawman and is not why the aircraft carrier is being moved there ,as you must know. "Funny" would not be the first word I would start a thread with on this godawful subject.