Leaderboard

It lies in the kind of relationship between the 'lower order phenomena' and the 'higher order phenomena'. For supervenience this means ontologically we look at same system with different views: we can chemically analyse the paper of a book, measure its dimensions, chemically analyse the ink, and can even describe the form of the ink blobs on the pages. This is the view needed e.g. in forensic investigation, or archaeological research. But we can also just read the book. But it is the same book! Both views are completely OK. But it is clear you will understand nothing about the contents of the book, if you only do physical- or chemical analyses. But this is what 'freewill deniers' do: they look at the lower order phenomena only. And then, by using a magical definition of 'free will', it is easy to deny its existence. Nothing at the lower order phenomena points at some magic. So case closed. Epiphenomalism states that brain states cause mental phenomena, but mental phenomena cannot cause changes in the brain. But it simply doesn't fit to the concept of the naturalist conception of causation: causation implies energy- and momentum exchange (action is reaction), but in this case, we then should see energy leaking away from the brain, that never comes back. One option to get out of this, is proposing a 'mental entity' that cannot be detected by other physical means, but is the home of our mental events. In other words, a soul. Only for this reason, epiphenomalism is not a viable alternative for naturalists. The other problem is that it is a self contradiction. Epiphenomalism means, per definition, that the processes would run just the same, if it produces mental events or not. So it would mean that philosophical zombies are possible: entities that exactly look like humans, behave exactly the same like humans, but they have no mental life. How could such a zombie write an article about epiphenomalism? He has no idea about mental events, also per definition, so when we talk with one, we might soon discover that it looks like a human, but it isn't. Which contradicts the very definition of a philosophical zombie. Here is a short short story from Raymond Smullyan: An Unfortunate Dualist. Read it, it is fun!

Amusing thread. Just a warning (from a retired physician)- pica- the craving to eat non-food items= often signal a vitsmin or mineral deficiency. Clay pica was very common in The South prior to WWII when malnutrition was fairly widespread...Craving to eat corn starch, for some reason, usually signals iron deficieency, Olfactory hallucinations or cravings can also mean intracranial lesions- tumors, abscesses, strokes and such. While Fe-deficiency is common and easy enough to treat (Fe pills) it's cause should ALWAYS be tracked down. Healthy people don't get Fe deficiency. There's ALWAYS a "cause." The may be as benign as heavy menstrual flow or hiatus hernia, but serious things like peptic disease, and especially GI tumors need to be excluded and treated. NEVER take Fe supplements unless instructed to do so by your doc who has done a complete work up to make a diagnosis...If you have, say, a colon cancer that weeps blood a drop a day, and you;re taking supplements on your own, you won't develop the anemia easily caught on your yearly screening blood work. Suspicion won't arise, and focused testing won't be done and a diagnosis will be missed until you have a football growing out from under your ribs. Too late. Too bad. Oh, BTW- olfactory "cravings" more often than not are traced to psych problems, not physical pathology.

Many things are comparable and it is dangerous to only focus on the most extreme outcomes. Keep in mind, we have a examples what happened when fascism reigned (in its various forms) and the fact that folks look at it and think, yeah, we want something like that is dangerous in itself. In fact, you could argue that due to the social upheaval at that time (after WWI, oppression of the working class and associated rise of socialist and communist ideals, Russian revolution, Great depression, novelty of democratic systems etc.) it was excusable that folks desired a strong leader type and were susceptible to populist appeals. Now with that lesson learned, even inching toward that again, is a huge backslide, especially for the Germans (for historic reasons- heck courts have verified that the leader of the potentially second strongest party is a Nazi). What we do see is that once in power those parties start to erode checks and balances. Not at the rate nor necessarily as brutally as in the interwar period, but it is like putting your small finger on the hot stove after burning your whole hand and thinking this is so much better. The reasons are quite similar to a large degree. Fear, misinformation, and the associated desire to be ruled by a strong ordering hand that make things great again. If we only focus on the genocidal aspects, we won't notice the erosion of democracy right under our noses. Well fascisms was a new thing, but in both countries the groups were originally "just" agitators, and while Mussolini had a rather fast rise and was asked by Italy's king to form a government after they basically incited an uprising. Hitler at the same time was seen more like an upstart and after the failed putsch was seen as a controllable asset for the establishment right. They were wrong, of course. Now today folks still find whatever that was appealing, but aside from a much smaller militant wing most cannot be arsed to perform violent actions. And the nice thing is they don't have to. Instead of firebombing press and political opponents, they can do that now from home on their cell phones (Luegenpresse, anyone?). Again, the bad thing is not (only) that they are making a comeback. The bad thing is that I don't think we are learning from our past and are also forgetting things at an incredible pace.

As this is the person who once tried to convince members of another forum that you can be strangled by your own thymus gland in cold weather, nothing is off the table. 😄

This is also very much the lesson you get, growing up in Germany (well perhaps not anymore, things are changing, unfortunately). But ultimately the perpetrator were the the (great)grandparents of the folks in class. It is trivially easy to understand that Nazis are not something alien and evil. And over the last decade or so we have seen the allure of fascism in the Western world, suggesting that lessons were not learned.

If the moon does not exert a force on the earth, why does the moon orbit the earth? (consider Newton’s third law) In any event, tides present no conflict with Newton’s laws, and nothing is being ignored. The issue is your lack of understanding of physics, which is not going to be fixed by looking at this exercise; there are too many issues to address. (coordinate systems, linear vs rotational physics, action-reaction) Basically, if you think that physics is wrong, it’s invariably your understanding of physics that’s wrong or missing.

Sounds like Gwyneth Paltrows latest body cleanse

I think it is easy to blame the Nazis for Naziism and similar level atrocities, but if we want to avoid becoming part of it it's important to recognize we are all born capable of the same.

Can you link to the research rather than the paywalled pop-sci summary? At least we’d get an abstract. I can read as far as “a handful of studies have also hinted that” which is not a phrasing that one uses when there’s solid evidence. It sounds like there’s a blip in the data that might not be statistically significant, and perhaps someone has made a plausibility argument

I don't see a clear line of evidence that geomagnetic storms directly cause CV problems. There is a more direct causal link between GM activity and levels of PM 2.5, and the latter is a definite influence on CV problems due to particulates of that size passing through the alveolar membrane and entering the bloodstream. I find no evidence that the pineal gland has anything to do with this, outside of various pseudoscience theories. If the pineal gland does anything besides respond to day/night cycles with melatonin production, no one has found evidence of it. If it were so easily "messed up" by magnetic fields, then I would think power plant workers, physicians, particle physicists, auto salvage yard workers, and anyone receiving an MRI would be in SERIOUS trouble!

The identifiable reason is that some Arabs are Israeli citizens. It doesn't keep them from being discriminated against in Israel but it means that they can no longer be kicked out of Israel. Of course none of them get back the land that was stolen from them. Correct. Some people manage to come and go. Again, you make it sound as if Gaza cannot be compare to a concentration camp if some people can leave, or if people aren't starving. https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/ Similar to the way Jews worked outside the camps. https://abcnews.go.com/International/detailed-hamas-secretly-crossed-israel/story?id=103917182 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip#:~:text=Israel controls the Gaza Strip's,borders are heavily militarily fortified. Like many others, you seem to have reached a conclusion first then found arguments to support it. Whether or not Gaza precisely meets any given definition of a 'concentration camp', it seems clear to me that the people who make the comparison are not overreaching to any great extent.

No you misread the metric. The measure is per 100,000 person-years, not persons. The second thing you likely missed is reading through the study design, where they describe their follow up. Specifically the start date is when they get their first dose dispensed (for the user group). The follow-up ends either with the latest known consultation or the first diagnosed case of cancer. Because the result was statistically insignificant (.11). The statistical power of that cohort (i.e. folks that were cancer-free for over 15 years and remained enrolled in the program) is just too low to be sure that it was not a statistical fluke. The caveats are pretty much standard, having more data is of course better, but often not feasible and often nearly impossible for multi-year studies. Keeping folks in these programs is very, very difficult.