Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/21/17 in Posts

  1. Ah! I see the problem now - you are only about 5 years of age!... well, you are very intelligent for a junior! Well done for thinking about such things. Ask your teacher to explain it to you and they can show you with a diagram how the suns incident rays on the earth are parallel. If you still don't understand it then re address the topic in a few years when you've grown up a bit, learnt a little science, and you might grasp it then.
    3 points
  2. Damn xeno-asteroids, taking our gravity away.
    2 points
  3. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii has discovered a visitor from afar. Pan-STARRS primary mission is to detect near earth objects that pose an impact threat but sometimes they get to do fun science like this. The asteroid seems to come from the constellation Lyra, but the exact origin is still unknown. It has been named Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first” and they think it has traveled millions of years to visit us. https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/20/16679890/interstellar-asteroid-oumuamua-pan-starrs-solar-system http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1737/ From the second link:
    1 point
  4. Headline says it all Beach that vanished 12 years ago in a storm reappears overnight. Mind you it could only happen in the Emerald Isle https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/irish-beach-returns-overnight-after-vanishing-in-storms-12-years-ago/ar-BBFqwut?ocid=spartandhp
    1 point
  5. Wouldn't you have loved to be there!
    1 point
  6. That is a dangerous attitude. It sounds like you are saying the president can't be criticised because he is the president. Next step: dictatorship. Pathetic. It is nothing to do with panic. He has DENIED it. If we take action early enough, we may not have to. Prevaricate (and deny) for too long and it may require more drastic measures. Actually, it is probably already too late. Lifestyles will have to change.
    1 point
  7. I, for one, am not a fan of the way this administration seems to define “draining the swamp” and how they approach “watching out for the little guy.” It seems very much that the fox is being actively invited into the henhouse and handed the finest cutlery.
    1 point
  8. tar posted the below illustration Jan 2016. It seems he was predicting his own future. democrat republican independent trump supporter http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/89809-what-is-americas-biggest-problem/?page=21&tab=comments#comment-902878
    1 point
  9. Tar; Sharing insights and attempting to find answers to difficult questions is what Philosophy forums are for, so I also wish there were more people interested. When I get an up vote, it means that someone agrees with me, so I start thinking that I am right; but I may not be. When I get a down vote, it means that someone disagrees with me, but I don’t know WHY they disagree. It may be that my information is wrong, or my reasoning and logic are wrong, or they just don’t agree or they dislike my thoughts. So the “click-it squad” is more like an opinion poll that gives no reason for the opinion. This makes it useless in Philosophy because nothing is learned. I am pretty sure that you put the up vote on my post to counter the down vote, which I appreciate. With the two warnings that I already have, a serious accumulation of down votes would shred my reputation to the point where I would lose all credibility. I would have to leave this forum -- as many others have done. Probably, the easiest way to divide them is by what is private and what is shared. Your thoughts, memory, and knowledge are only known to you, and can only be known to me if you choose to share them with me -- this is the first division -- the private division. Your awareness, feelings, and emotions are not private. Awareness works between things, and feelings and emotion are shared physically and materially through your body language and pheromones, and they are shared mentally through your moods, your attitude, and your personality. More than that, they actually work between things, so you can “feel” the atmosphere when you walk into a room where people share an emotion, you can “feel” the life when you walk through a forest, you can “feel” the love or hatred aimed at you from another person. You can recognize it even if they don’t say one word. Even if you are able to know that someone hates you, you will not know why unless they tell you, because their thoughts are private and not known to you. This second division is something that we use every day, but do not question how or why it works the way it does. I think I was reading a novel when I first considered it. I read that a newly wed couple “radiated” joy (emotion). But I have never read that someone “radiated” plans (thoughts). That would be kind of silly. I have also read novels where it was described that “fear rolled off of him in waves”. But I have never read that “calculation rolled off of him in waves”. As that would also be silly. Pick up any novel and you will find examples of how we describe, and think of, feeling and emotion. It is always characterized as being in motion, as working between life forms or things of great beauty or ugliness; such as, “My mind recoiled from the horror.” People don't actually have to move for their minds to "recoil", but we describe it this way. Science may find that there are physical and material reasons that cause these feelings and emotions to be shared, but it does not change the reality that this division of consciousness, this communication, works outside the body and between us. We long ago recognized that emotion (e-motion) came first, so it was the mover and shaker that shook out thought, and this idea is confirmed in evolution -- the rational mind came last. To my mind, emotion is a force, like gravity is a force, so that makes it physical even if it is not material. This is where it becomes difficult to explain. (This is also where the ‘can of worms’ can open through anthropomorphism.) When you talk about focus consciousness emerging, you seem to be talking about something that already exists, or like human consciousness. Do you really believe that the bacteria that inhabited this planet for millions of years had a “focus consciousness” that was anything like ours? I don’t think so. At best, they had a very primal awareness of themselves, their immediate surroundings, and the knowledge of the need to survive -- much like they have today. I don’t think that the force that we call emotion actually had consciousness before it became part of life. I think that becoming life turned it into consciousness by giving it a focus. Also consider that we know that knowledge accumulates, so is there any reason to consider that it did not accumulate in evolution? That much of the knowledge and thought was simply not there at the beginning? I didn’t know what “ghost in the machine” was and had to look it up. (chuckle) I never saw the movie, but learned that this was an argument against Descartes dualism. So I assume that this argument favored monism. I never put much store in either argument. All philosophers, even bad philosophers, know that one needs a valid premise to use for their considerations. I chose mine long ago. As I child, I saw these words written on a building, “We are physical, mental, and spiritual beings”. Since that time, I have checked with Philosophy; and with Religion, Eastern and Western; and with Science. No one disputed the validity of these words, and this idea is thousands of years old, so it is as valid a premise as can be found. I am going with trioism, one part material and two parts intangible. I am not sure what your meaning is here. You could be talking about reincarnation, or maybe the theory that we are in consciousness rather than consciousness being in us, or maybe you are talking about emotion. Not sure. That’s fine. Maybe you could consider that if hormones cause homeostasis within a body, that pheromones can cause it within an ecosystem. Even though pheromones are outside of the body, you could consider that they are within the “body” of the ecosystem. If I remember correctly, you do a lot of work with people, who have addiction problems. Have you ever wondered what addiction actually is? I suspect addiction is caused by a chemical that is introduced to the body and causes a "want", much like hormones and pheromones do. But the "want" is not temporary, so this tells me that the chemical is actually causing a bond. Emotion causes bonding, but emotion also works through chemicals, so I suspect that addiction is an artificial and unnatural bonding caused by chemistry. It would be very difficult to defeat by willpower alone, so I suspect that is why we are using alternative drugs to defeat this bonding. You might want to consider that a hurricane is physical, which would be why it is affected by heat and air. Consider that an ecosystem has boundaries. These boundaries encapsulate what is part of the ecosystem and what is not, much like our bodies separate our consciousness. What makes up the boundaries of an ecosystem? Mountains, large bodies of water, moisture, temperature, maybe electromagnetic forces -- all physical things. So I think that it is reasonable to question whether or not the homeostasis, or the self-balancing nature, of an ecosystem is also affected by physical influences and parameters. Hormones and pheromones are both physical, and they react to or cause a reaction that shows itself in feeling and/or emotion, so how can emotion not also be physical? I don't know that thought is physical and have not yet decided on that. Gee
    1 point
  10. ! Moderator Note No. Sorry, but this is ridiculous. At a certain point, it becomes obvious you aren't accepting any of the explanations given. And whether you're purposely trolling or simply don't understand that you need to try to study physics before deciding it's wrong, it makes no difference to these discussions. It's a whole lot of effort wasted on someone who seems unwilling to take knowledge on board as it's presented. Thread closed. No more like this. Please go study physics. Or better yet, stay and ask questions instead of this guesswork revisionism.
    1 point
  11. A year ago, you claimed Trump was a through-the-teeth liar. He certainly hasn't eased up on the lies, so what changed for you? At what point did the truth stop mattering?
    1 point
  12. The death knell of any joke: being explained. Nothing sophisticated about it, just a cheap poke at xenophobia. If it doesn't make sense it's because xenophobia rarely does so. Obviously the Kuiper belt is too porous, we need to build it higher.
    1 point
  13. Do we have a system immigration protocol? At the least we should find out where it's been, and what's been influencing it.
    1 point
  14. There is no matter involved in a merger of "just" two black holes and so nothing to generate Em radiation. But if there is an accretion disk, then that could be affected in such a way as to generate radiation; but even this might require more than our current theories to explain it (I really don't know). I think because of the size of the accretion disk that would generate it. Interestingly, he touched on this in another blog. The energy for the gravitational waves comes from the system: the extremely stirred up spacetime between the black holes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/10/ask-ethan-could-matter-escape-the-event-horizon-during-a-black-hole-merger
    1 point
  15. That is not what he said. He was just pointing out that your lack of mathematical knowledge doesn't really equip you to tell other people about the nature of mathematical functions. But, while it may sound extreme, it is probably true that only people with a certain level of mathematical knowledge can fully understand the details. Most people are capable of understanding the general principles, though, if they are well explained. Unless you think effects like superposition or entanglement are intuitive, then it is pretty obvious that it is not metaphysics or dogma that tells us this, but simply our observations of the world.
    1 point
  16. No one man can understand it all these days. I have read somewhere that one of the ancient greek philosophers was the last man on Earth who could understand all known knowledge. That is why we need to talk to and equally important listen to each other.
    1 point
  17. Arbitrary decision of IEEE float/double creators. For example, you (programmer) can by yourself decide that -128 means -infinity and +127 means +infinity and numbers between them -127....+126 are normal numbers (when working with 8 bit signed integer). Then overload operators +, -, *, /, comparison to support custom made infinities.
    1 point
  18. No, it's physics. But you have to actually study physics to have an understanding of it. I don't accept this. And since you have admitted to being neither a physicist nor a mathematician, I don't see where you can stake any claim to the contrary. Photons are not points. Nature is complicated. The math is part of our attempt to model what nature is doing.
    1 point
  19. Two reasons: 1) It applies to businesses. This isn’t a business. 2) Applies to PII. There is no PII collected here. More orecisely...The only data here that could allow one to trace the user is the email*. The user has the power to change or refrain from sharing that email so maintains the power, not the the site. This makes the user the controller, not the forum. The forum is just the processor, so being compliant simply means giving the user additional privacy options like ability to alter that email without external assistance or 3rd party services. *IP address could be used to identify users, but those aren’t exposed to anyone outside of staff and can’t be changed anyway. **I’m not a lawyer or expert in this space. Users should retain their own counsel to determine what’s best for them in complying with this change approaching in May.
    1 point
  20. Gee, Thank you for discussing this with me. I think, like you, that some others have some axe to grind and don't really enjoy the Socratic method of discovery. I am pleased to find someone interested in sharing insights and attempting to find answers to difficult questions, that don't readily submit to surface inquiry. There are some things I forget about how and why you have the divisions and the particular details of which aspects of consciousness belong to which division in your model. I am thinking that emotion is indeed required, and rational thought is not the only aspect of humans that make us alive and conscious, but am still open to the possibility that emotion is physical, and I am not convinced that we will find consciousness, as a substance, separate from the physical body and chemistry that causes a point of focus consciousness to emerge. I am not a ghost in the machine type of guy. I similarly am not thinking our brain/body/heart group is a conduit for a substance that is floating around looking for a vessel. My solution, currently is the norepinephrine/serotonin/dopamine combined with the hormones and pheromones which are actual physical things, that cause us to want to survive. Consciousness, I don't think has to be a substance in and of itself, but is an emergent characteristic that like a hurricane made of water, heat and air, shows attributes unlike the attributes of any of its components. Regards, TAR
    1 point
  21. Because I can. Whataboutism in whatever trolly format shouldn't stand, no less an OP on a science forum with rules governing that sort of thing.
    1 point
  22. How, exactly, is this supposed to prove the Collatz conjecture? You have a "probabilistic" reason to think that most things get down to 1; that simply is not enough. The conjecture must be true not just "probabilistically", but for all integers.
    1 point
  23. The difference in response is rather telling, too. DT and RM blame their victims relying on he said she said and attempts to divide (“this is a liberal plot” or “you can’t trust the media”). AF owned it and apologized with integrity. http://abcn.ws/2irVg6d
    1 point
  24. Yes, you can see that he's having a joke. Or do you really not understand that people grin when they are messing about. Obviously, what he dis was wrong on a number of levels, but it's not what you are trying to pretend. To show that your tacit assertion was false.
    1 point
  25. What Franken did was wrong. I didn't say otherwise. This is similar to what we saw all through the 2016 Election cycle; Clinton's email use was wrong and somehow that made her wrongs and Trump's wrong a wash. I think it is important not to do that. What Weinstein did is multitudes worse than what Franken did. Being able to identify that shouldn't be an apoligist position.
    1 point
  26. Yes, which is the issue here and the ulterior motive of the OP. I took a closer look at the image. His hands aren't touching her breasts because you can clearly see shadows under his fingers. I seriously doubt gesturing in a sexual context near one's proximity rises to the level of sexual assault insomuch as tactless and behaving in bad taste. The kissing thing however crossed the line. To me, that sticks out more than the image does.
    1 point
  27. Perhaps a hand wringing gotcha fail, like the Uranium One outrage nonsense. Then proceeded to list the victims from twenty plus years ago and completely unrelated incident, so don't preach to me about staying on topic, when you clearly divert from it at your whimsy to avoid answering pointed questions. What Franken did is dwarfed by the accusations leveled at your president and a sexually deviant republican judge who preys on teenage impressionables. In fact, in your reply seems to relish the fact she was inappropriately treated ( as weak as it is) as a desperate attempt to draw a false equivalency to the real story in the news cycles lately. Epic fail.
    1 point
  28. Spare us the phony outrage. Franken behavior was inappropriate. However, by this photo it's blatantly obvious that it's a childish antic for a photo, not deviant sexual exploitation. That's what separates him from the pervert who calls himself president or the judge who actually accosts teenagers for his jollies. And being the OP why can't you ever answer questions, instead of deflecting with ridiculous commentary? So I will ask you again, breast bad, pussy good?
    1 point
  29. What did the British particle physicist say when he got accepted to work at LHC? SMASHING!
    1 point
  30. "Sieg hail" Was a Nazi chant. It meant 'Hail Victory' I think. It sounds the same as 'seek ale' Ale is beer - an alcoholic beverage. Ha ha ha - No, but last night though!... ;-) - just kidding - your mum is too hairy for me and her claws and teeth are too sharp.
    1 point
  31. I would draw out the resonance forms of M in the conjugate base form.
    1 point
  32. No what? As I understand the rules of this forum I shouldn't have to go offsite to find out what you are saying, particularly to a page which has no less than 23 'see also' pages as well as an extensive reference base.
    1 point
  33. It's truly fascinating thinking about it. Before we experienced the life we are living, we weren't bored because we didn't have anything to do for billions of years. So death should be equally insignificant to us. We always yammer about what comes after life, not what came before it. It drives me crazy thinking about how our consciousness is indeed the product of our brains, and that every human has consciousness produced by their brains, and that, theoretically, there will be an infinite amount of humans (really just theoretically). I've always - incorrectly, and I am aware of this incorrectness, but I cannot manage to throw away this thought pattern - thought about how it is that we experience the very life we are experiencing, and not that of our neighbour, of our friend, of the starving African kid - what made that we were supposed to live the life we're living? What makes that I am the conscious entity in Belgium typing this message as we are speaking, and that I can be spared from the African starvation misery? Whereas another entity was meant to undergo that misery? We are oriented in time and space, and what makes that the very person I am lives in the very time and space I am living in right now? I could've "had" the consciousness of a total different person, yet I am experiencing the life of this Belgian medical student. Why? What makes that the conscious entity that is experiencing this life was awarded this most advanced life form, instead of that of a dog, or a mouse? Would it simply not be compatible with those life forms? It is so incredibly fascinating to think about this: when we die, for us, it stops. And we will not be aware of it having stopped, we will be aware of totally nothing. It is truly fascinating indeed to speculate on how that would feel to us - because no one alive could ever tell. I'm not believing in any afterlife. I am aware of the finity of our existance but I cannot help but think that we will get to experience another life next. This incorrect thought pattern of mine would be like there's a finite amount of consciousnesses, and when someone dies, the consciousness stock gets refilled and a newborn baby gets consciousness from that stock and you get to live another life without having any clue you've already lived one. It's crazy to think that way, isn't it? Which must be why it's most probably false. The consciousness in my brain is inherent to my brain and everyone's consciousness is inherent to theirs. Which means that every consciousness is unique and there is an infinite amount of consciousnesses. Yet, something inside of me refuses to believe that I (for what it's worth here, "I" is meaningless), my consciousness, will not be assigned to another brain when I die, forgetting about the live I'm living now. Is it actually somewhat clear what I mean? Forgive me but we can only speculate and think of this from a rather philosophical point of view as we are speaking. Biology and medicine are not ready for answering the questions I gave. It is up until this day not possible to answer my questions from a pure scientifical point of view, imo. Per conclusion, what makes it that our brain is able and allowed to experience, think of, and above all, question its inherent consciousness? I am a strong believer that indeed, everything we are is the product of our brain. But why would it allow itself to create a product which could endanger its own existance and credibility, why would it allof such a product leading to doubt itself? Why would it even allow us to consider its highest form of development? Why was its cortex ever developed so far that it could fall victim to its own thoughts? It is thinking of these things that reminds me of Emerson Pugh, who said that "If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't." Bull's eye, Pugh. Unless ... Every brain has the same identical basal consciousness from the moment you could speak of consciousness (perhaps even before birth, considering that the self-consciousness thought to arise at approx. 1.5 years of age is a different form of consciousness) and the way that consciousness can think and express itself is totally dependent on neurogenesis and the way neurons interact with each other. What if there indeed is a certain basal consciousness present in me, you, and the starving African kid, an identical form of basal consciousness, molded to what it is today because of experiences throughout life and environmental factors? And what if I can think this way the African kid probably wouldn't because I know more on the subject, I refuse to allocate the source of our consciousness with a deity, and I allow certain brain regions to think on this matter in higher spheres, on a higher level of consciousness? Surely enough if the African kid got lucky and it's mother won some rare lottery and got to move to Europe and live a better life, it could now probably think the same way I think and could also question why his "consciousness" was 'put in' the body of the lucky African kid and not in one of the millions of unlucky ones? (Note that "the African kid" is of course a stereotypical metaphore and in no way implies racism; it's just an easy example) Geez. Time to go to bed.
    1 point
  34. If you cut a magnet, you wind up with two smaller/weaker magnets. The best way to think of it in order to not get confused is this: Imagine the magnet being made of many tiny magnets. If they align the magnetic field adds up to a stronger field. So if you cut your big magnet, the tiny magnets still line up and add up. If you were to then rotate one of the pieces, some of the tiny magnets would produce the opposite field to the others, so the net effect would be much weaker in most places (not zero because the strength also depends on distance).
    1 point
  35. new note to self: Don't sign up to any websites where you cannot delete your account, and where you cannot read the instructions on how to delete your account before signing up! Every web site has a way to delete accounts, and yes their posts are removed.. so what? This is just a crooked way that websites can claim "millions" of users so they can charge more for adds. Like the song goes, "Once you check in, you can never leave" very dishonest.
    -1 points
  36. Stange, Well slow down a bit. I told you about the audience being a world wide audience. Trump is a ratings guy. Many people around the country and the world watched. Possibly the largest audience ever. In person attendance Obama won hands down. The largest audience claim remains highly possible. (There were no gun homicide victims in Chicago that day.) This is exactly the kind of spin and misinformation that underlies the claim that Trump is a liar. The Times documents all those "lies" and each one can be explained as an exaggeration or the words can be taken wrong and spun as a lie, when he actually said a true thing. For instance here, he did not say two people were killed that day, he said two people were shot. Regards, TAR Take illegal voting in California for instance. Lets say it was not millions. Lets say it was 10 or 100 or a 1000 or 10000 or a million 999 thousand, it would still not be a lie to suggest there were illegal votes cast, where people lied on forms concerning their citizenship and voted absentee. Or somebody took elderly ballots and filled them out and sent them in, or any number of other ways an illegal vote could have been cast. The system is rigged to not check on these things, under the guise that checking would be voter suppression. You guys are pretty rough, giving me down votes in a tread about truth mattering, for telling the truth. Its restbit time again. I will let you guys flail around in your own self righteous lies, on your own. I am out. For a longer while.
    -1 points
  37. you should definitely do that. How would such a diagram look like, drawn on scale?
    -1 points
  38. No, a weather report does not make predictions, it just explains them. Equations are algorithms which take an input and produce an output. Mathematics makes predictions that we can measure and that are consistent. We can measure numbers but we can't measure "wet and windy" unless we have an idea of what "wet and windy" is.
    -2 points
  39. -3 points
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.