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  1. This is sad news. He was one of the great philosophers of our time. He belongs to one of the most science oriented philosophers and one of the most honest thinkers I have known during my philosophy study. He didn't spare anybody with too naive ideas, be it materialistic or dualistic, but he always was kind, never attacking people personally, but critical reflecting on their ideas. He was able to show that it is possible to have a theory of consciousness, without leaving a physicalist ontological stance. Many people thought that his book 'Consciousness Explained', should have been titled 'Consciousness Explained Away', but I certainly do not agree with that. Consciousness exists, but it can be explained. Same for free will. He could explain how a personal and societal relevant concept of free will can go perfectly together with determinism, where others keep sticking to either 'magical free will', or denying free will altogether. In his broader ideas, he was an atheist and humanist. I do not know much about his personal life, but at least I know he also knew how to enjoy the pleasant sides of life. Enjoyer of (red?) wine, making his own cidre, harvesting the apples himself. I remember I once saw a video, where he was sitting on his tractor. I think he lived a very fulfilled life. We should all be glad that he lived his life as he did. I will miss the many new ideas he could still have found, even in his higher age. A loss for the philosophical world and many other people who are, and might still be, inspired by his thinking.
    4 points
  2. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/04/19/daniel-dennett-philosopher-atheist-darwinist/ Daniel Dennett, the American philosopher, who has died aged 82, was, with Richard Dawkins, a leading proponent of Darwinism and one of the most virulent controversialists on the academic circuit. Dennett argued that everything has to be understood in terms of natural processes, and that terms such as “intelligence”, “free will”, “consciousness” “justice”, the “soul” or the “self” describe phenomena which can be explained in terms of physical processes and not the exercise of some disembodied or metaphysical power. How such processes operate he regarded as an empirical question, to be answered by looking at neuroanatomy – the engineering involved in brains. Darwinism, to Dennett, was the grand unifying principle that explains how the simplest of organisms developed into human beings who can theorise about the sorts of creatures we are. In Consciousness Explained (1991), he argued that the term “consciousness” merely describes “dispositions to behave” and the idea of the “self” was nothing more than a “narrative centre of gravity”. In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) he went further than any other philosopher or biologist in arguing that the whole of nature, including all individual human and social behaviour, is underpinned by a Darwinian “algorithm” – a single arithmetical, computational procedure. Borrowing Richard Dawkins’s notion of “memes” (“bytes” of transferable cultural ideas encompassing anything from a belief in God to an individual’s fashion tastes), Dennett argued that the Darwinian algorithm also explained, for example, the musical genius of JS Bach, whose brain “was exquisitely designed as a programme for composing music”. Dennett’s philosophy undercut any idea of teleology or “purposive” creation....
    3 points
  3. I don't know relativity oh my that's a laugh. I would never have have gotten my degrees without knowing let alone past the undergraduate stage. It's literally part of my job dealing with SR on a regular basis lmao. You might want to try again mate For me it's not a hobby or a curiosity but a career requirement
    2 points
  4. @externo A solid piece of advise. You really need to stop trying to tell us how SR and GR works or describes. We have gone numerous pages with posters correcting your misunderstandings. Which you continue to repeat. I highly suggest that instead of trying to tell us what SR states that instead you start asking questions concerning SR. Use the math and the knowledge of the posters here and try to properly understand SR. This is article was written by a Ph.D that regularly uses forums. He developed this article to provide corrections to all the numerous misconceptions posters regularly have with regards to SR. http://www.lightandmatter.com/sr/ This article describes the basics of SR in a very easy to understand format and explains the reasons behind its mathematics. Relativity: The Special and General Theory" by Albert Einstein http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30155/30155-pdf.pdf It is an archive reprint.
    2 points
  5. Except one (or two?) episodes of 'Tales from the Loop' playing with time, it is not the essence of the series, as it is in 'Dark'. The episodes of 'Tales' are relatively independent, but there are a few running threads through the episodes. But maybe this is not the place to discuss that. Maybe the admins could open a new forum for discussing movies and series? Ups, I did not say that!
    2 points
  6. I think you are mistaking pop-science journalism with science. I can’t reconcile either of these statements Science is performed by the scientific community. Any shifting is from them. Not all surprising results pan out, so it’s not prudent to chase after them until they are confirmed, and one result might not be nearly enough to formulate a new model. If a model is not wrong - it accurately predicts/matches results - then what constitutes a better model? There has to be some discrepancy between model and experiment for there to be improvement in the model. i.e. there has to be something that it gets wrong.
    2 points
  7. Egg, the egg came first. Every time I hear this problem it never specifies chicken egg, it just says egg. Which leads to a very simple solution; do chickens predate dinosaurs? No. Did dinosaurs come from eggs? Yes. Therefore the egg not only came first but came countless times before the chicken. Hopefully my answer eggceeds eggspectations.
    2 points
  8. Accelerated objects can be described perfectly well in special relativity. But accelerated frames of reference are outside the scope of standard special relativity. That's because accelerated frames of reference involve some of the mathematics of general relativity (though not the mathematics of spacetime curvature). Standard special relativity limits itself to the Minkowskian metric. The Minkowskian metric is invariant to Lorentz transformations, and inertial trajectories in spacetime transform to inertial trajectories under Lorentz transformations. Thus, all inertial trajectories in Minkowskian spacetime are on equal footing in that they all observe the same spacetime metric. The invariance of the Minkowskian metric to Lorentz transformations implies that it is not possible to measure one's velocity relative to Minkowskian spacetime, and that only velocities relative to other objects can be measured, which is made possible because symmetry to Lorentz transformations is broken. In the case of an accelerated frame of reference, the transformation from an inertial frame of reference to the accelerated frame of reference is not a Lorentz transformation, it is a transformation under which the Minkowskian metric is not invariant. That is, the metric of an accelerated frame of reference is not a Minkowskian metric. Thus, an observer in an accelerated frame of reference can distinguish between being in an accelerated frame of reference and being in an inertial frame of reference. Even though velocity is only relative, acceleration is absolute because one can measure one's current velocity relative to one's past velocity. Thus, absolute acceleration does not imply absolute velocity.
    2 points
  9. This is only true on a field that is of characteristic > 2. In discrete arithmetics it's not true that 1+1=2. In binary arithmetics 1+1=0 or 2=0 (mod2). The moral of my silly little story: Don't take anything for granted. Not even aether theory. Yes, I know what acceleration is. I wonder whether you do. As to your last statement, it went badly wrong the moment you wrote 'so if'. Because nothing you said after that follows from the antecedent. But don't mind me. Carry on with your enthralling conversation.
    2 points
  10. That's an interesting philosophical question, do you have scientific evidence you do believe in God? Aww bless, you seem awfully confused, are you saying that a belief in god is necessary to not rape women? Is that why some priest's choose to rape little boys?
    2 points
  11. This is a misconception which is as common as it false. SR is a model of Minkowski spacetime - it describes the relationship between any set of frames within this paradigm, irrespective of what their states of relative motion and acceleration are. In the special case of inertial motion, this relationship is simply a hyperbolic rotation in spacetime (=Lorentz transformation); if acceleration is involved, the relationship is a little more complicated, but nonetheless well defined: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceleration_(special_relativity) There’s no “paradox” in the twins scenario that somehow needs resolution, it’s simply a straightforward consequence of the geometry of Minkowski spacetime, which has to do with the lengths of world-lines.
    2 points
  12. Hence why I stopped adding to the mix. Once I saw you were progressing from their comments I didn't want to add any potential confusion. Threads can get too easily derailed.
    2 points
  13. Pretty sure there's a x-post here with @exchemist so briefly: If we're starting from your declared position of maximum attraction, we're moving against an attraction force for 900; then with a weakened repulsive force (poles wide apart); then against the same repulsive force; then finally with the mirror image of the attraction of the initial power stroke. In the absence of a proper mathematical analysis, by symmetry we have a nett zero sum. And then there's cam friction and the hysteresis braking mentioned earlier. Granted I've ignored secondary effects of the movement of the magnets themselves but frankly, that's beyond my pay scale. Suffice to say, if there was anything to see here, Faraday would have found it back in the day I think. Looks right enough, so you've got the 1800 phase shift covered. Shall we leave the +/-900 phase shifts to the OP?
    2 points
  14. OK. As I understand it, the idea is inserting the tab, or finger, causes the magnets to be attracted to it, instead of repelled from one another as they are in the previous phase of the motion. If we describe the operation in terms of an engine cycle, there are 4 phases:- 1) magnets close together no tab inserted, high energy of the field 2) magnets have moved apart due to mutual repulsion, reduction in field energy. Work imparted to output shaft 3) tab or finger inserted into the gap, causing magnets to be now attracted towards it, with further lowering of field energy. More work output to the output shaft (and some work output to the input shaft as well, due to the attraction) 4) tab removed from the gap between the magnets, which are now close together. This replaces the force of attraction to the tab or finger by mutual repulsion of the magnets, which are now at close separation, i.e. back to (1). It is this step that requires the substantial work input which returns the stored energy in the field to its stating value. Failure to realise the work need to do this is what can lead the incautious designer to think he has an over-unity machine, as the other steps all involve extracting work from the magnetic field. At least, that is my energy-based analysis of this machine.
    2 points
  15. Especially if you do so with some fava beans and a nice chianti Tell me, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming? /ot
    1 point
  16. Right. But, to be clear, there is energy in the magnetic fields, which can be made to do mechanical work, for instance in my example of the nail being drawn towards a permanent magnet, against the force of friction with a table top. My attempt at analysing the operating cycle of this reciprocating machine was to show how energy is alternately drawn from and returned to the fields generated by the pair of opposed magnets, so the net effect, over one operating cycle, is as you say, no net work done by the magnets and a mere transfer of input mechanical work to output mechanical work.
    1 point
  17. Really? Please provide references to peer-reviewed experiments that unambiguously (ie not just in your “interpretation”) detect the ether. What is it made of? What are its equations of motion? You really need to stop repeating things that have already been shown to be wrong. You’re not doing yourself any favours. What exactly do you want explained? One of the frames measures acceleration (using a local accelerometer), and the frames are related by the transformations given in my link, instead of Lorentz transformations. This concerns the rotation of rigid objects at relativistic speeds - it’s been known for a long time that this involves a metric that isn’t Minkowski, so that’s hardly a “problem with SR”, but falls outside its scope. No. These integrals concern total accumulated proper time; this is an invariant quantity that’s not relative to anything. I deliberately did not use relative quantities, but invariant line integrals. What the equations say is that (in this sign convention) it is always the inertial clock that accumulates the most proper time between a given pair of events in spacetime. IOW, any clock that doesn’t trace out a geodesic between these events will record less proper time in comparison - and we know of course that there’s only one such geodesic for any given pair of events in Minkowski spacetime. Therefore, there’s no paradox, and nothing needs resolving. It’s simply that, if you choose two different paths, you can’t in general expect them to be of equal lengths. The dilation between clocks is an integral measure - it concerns a comparison between total geometric lengths of world lines, so one must take into account the entire journey. Thus in general you can’t reduce this to a single instant. The most we can say is that the accumulated times begin to diverge the instant the travelling clock ceases to be at rest relative to the Earth-bound clock. Also, he never gets “younger” - he just ages less. So again - SR very much does resolve this, contrary to your claim. PS. I remind you again to bear in mind what the twin scenario is fundamentally about - it’s a comparison between total accumulated proper times on two clocks that connect the same two events along different paths. And this is precisely what I mathematically described, not more and not less.
    1 point
  18. This is what I come up with: {\not}\tiny\,\normalsize\partial [math]{\not}\tiny\,\normalsize\partial[/math] This didn't render exactly as it did in Online LaTeX Equation Editor. Try this: {\not}\small\,\normalsize\partial [math]{\not}\small\,\normalsize\partial[/math] Try this: {\not}\,\partial [math]{\not}\,\partial[/math] Testing: X \tiny X \normalsize X [math]X \tiny X \normalsize X[/math] How about this: \displaystyle{\not}\tiny\,\normalsize\partial [math]\displaystyle{\not}\tiny\,\normalsize\partial[/math] Or this: \not \partial [math]\not \partial[/math] This: \not{\partial} [math]\not{\partial}[/math]
    1 point
  19. do you agree the mathematics are required to calculate the age in order for the twin paradox to have any meaning Yes or no. The transforms in the Ether Link was prior to the SR version or did you forget Lorentz had to regularly fix his theory ? So what your telling me is that in order to calculate the age difference I would use the SR transforms in the same manner as done in SR and GR and they would be equivalent. However You also claimed that SR and GR cannot resolve the twin paradox yet you cannot calculate the age difference without using SR/GR is that correct ?
    1 point
  20. Seems to describe the situation, though I would add that some of our fellow Americans, due to prior prejudices they had mostly suppressed, were consciously and enthusiastically willing to spread their legs for him. TFG somehow gave them a safe space and In Group where they could resurrect their xenophobic (and other phobics) biases and most regressive feelings. Sorry to hear about your papa. It is painful and frustrating to watch, especially when you feel they should know better.
    1 point
  21. I would expect regardless of how good the source was, first exposure, assuming the recipient considered it a valid source, would tend to be believed at that point and make counter exposures more difficult to believe. My first exposure would have included the "saving American/Allied lives version" though I do remember thinking "why was the second bomb necessary, why so soon after the second, and was it not in part revenge?". But that version, "saving more lives" isn't set aside in my mind by knowing Emperor Hirohito was in favour of, or considering, capitulation prior. It's just sad to think that the bombs were used, regardless if they were better used that not. I find it extremely hard drawing lines with regard to civilians and war in most cases. Sometimes it's easier than others. Sometimes I agree with what, say, the UN or international community might find acceptable and sometimes I find it bizarre.
    1 point
  22. The following was posted in the forum announcements AI-generated content must be clearly marked. Failing to do so will be considered to be plagiarism and posting in bad faith. IOW, you can’t use a chatbot to generate content that we expect a human to have made Since LLMs do not generally check for veracity, AI content can only be discussed in Speculations. It can’t be used to support an argument in discussions. Owing to the propensity for AI to fabricate citations, we strongly encourage links to citations be included as a best practice. Mods and experts might demand these if there are questions about their legitimacy. A fabricated citation is bad-faith posting. Posters are responsible for any rules violations stemming from posting AI-generated content ___ We are happy to discuss the whys and wherefores, and consider modifications. In addition, a reminder that accusing people of being bots, or using AI, is off-topic. You are, however, free to ask for clarification in any discussion, including links to any citations. Faking a cite is easy, but a valid link with one is a little harder to manage.
    1 point
  23. Yes, it would be good to understand exactly what @swansont means. I suspect it may be the simple point that a magnetic grab, once it is clamped onto an object, does no work when the crane lifts said object. However, when a permanent magnet on a table top draws a nail towards it, against the force of friction, work is clearly done. That work, it seems to me, must be drawn from stored energy in the magnetic field.
    1 point
  24. So, both, the traditionalist camp (i.e. the bomb resulted in capitulation) as well as the revisionist camp had prominent US scholars. For example the American historian Aleperovitz wrote (to my knowledge) one of the first publications arguing that the use of the bomb was ultimately a strategy toward the Soviet Union. Funnily as student I was more familiar with the revisionist school of thought, as the lectures I attended were led by a very prominent (I was not aware of it at that time) scholar who was a proponent it. Which kind of shows how a perspective is heavily influenced where you go to school.
    1 point
  25. No I know the paper your referring to that proposed that. It was published well over a decade ago. I even recall numerous discussions on its merit on other forums. The claimed that supposed one way speed of light tests were two way tests All that did was motivate the physics community to develop new tests. This paper mentions some of those tests and regularly updated. https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.02029 Though this is the 2021 update. It's not even close to a complete list but it covers some of the major ones.
    1 point
  26. ! Moderator Note The topic here is a light clock.
    1 point
  27. If all spatial dimensions loop back on themselves seamlessly, so that whichever direction you travel in, after n light years you are back where you started, then what does 'centre' even mean? It's definitely finite with a volume oto (n light years)3. But there is no point more remote from the boundary than any other because there is no boundary. All points within the space are geometrically exactly equivalent.
    1 point
  28. That's interesting. I had always understood that magnetic fields have energy, as for example in the stored energy in an energised electromagnet. If they do not, where does the energy come from when an object moves towards another under the influence of magnetic attraction? And you yourself say a magnetic field has an energy density.
    1 point
  29. I am sorry to report a brief period of backsliding. A canister of honey coated almonds. Our eyes met across a crowded room, at the home of Sam and Janet Evening, and I felt a sick rush of almond lust that I had assumed was long ago consigned to my distant youth. I stumbled across the room, my mouth filled with saliva, and began to pack my cheeks like a squirrel at the peak of acorn season. Fermentable oligosaccharides! I moaned. Not the easiest phrase to moan with a full and avidly chewing mouth. California aquifers be damned! (also a challenging word string to enunciate while masticating) A beautiful woman who bore an eerie resemblance to the Santitas Corn Chip lady walked past, and I took advantage of the distraction, the substitution of one sensual delight for another, handed her the canister and said please keep these away from me! Pobrecita! she said, with a silken yet husky voice only a corn chip lady could possibly manage. Later I walked home, my feet pounding the hard macadam, back to the macadamia nuts to whom I had pledged my life and my sacred honor. One of the hardest journeys of my life.
    1 point
  30. I gave them the +1 each for you.
    1 point
  31. Conflating cultural and biological aspects generally makes poor arguments as it pre-supposes some natural order that folks should adhere to. While I am not (yet) saying that this is the case here, it is often a tactic used to push a narrative under the guise of "just asking questions", as we have seen in the past. So far OP seems to continue to ignore clarifications and counter arguments, though.
    1 point
  32. Excellent analysis, both of you. Sorry, I have no more reaction points available today or you'd both get a +1. This is exactly what I came here to explore. All I have to do now is re-read both comments carefully to make sure I understand. Thanks.
    1 point
  33. But you are not only asking questions. You are making contentious assertions - or at least advancing contentious opinions - too. You say it seems that the male of the human species is becoming less relevant. You cannot expect us all to go along with this without challenging it, because it is patently ridiculous. The human male has dominated human societies for millennia and a quick glance at the sex of those occupying positions of power and influence in modern societies will show you they are still predominantly male. We can't just answer your questions, if your questions start from a false premise. Surely you must understand that?
    1 point
  34. Over unity is the same thing as what is traditionally known as a “perpetual motion machine of the first kind”, i.e. one that claims to break the 1st law of thermodynamics. So it’s not a slur. There have also been ideas for perpetual motion machines of the 2nd kind, which claim to break the 2nd law of TD instead. As I have mentioned, it can be good sport to spot the flaw in the logic of the designer. A rule of some patent offices, e.g. the US one, is patent applications for perpetual motion machines will only be accepted if accompanied by a working model. Which they never are, of course. So recognising perpetual motion machines is something patent office examiners (as Einstein once was,incidentally) and patent agents have to be able to do.
    1 point
  35. Monopoles is an interesting study for example it's potential would fall off at 1/r as opposed to 1/r^2 for dipolar, 1/r^3 for quadrupolar ie the combination of two dipolar fields. As opposed to quadrupolar in gravity waves. Boit-Savant law can be uses to solve for the above if I recall.
    1 point
  36. Both: we’ve solved the conundrum presented by your machine, I’ve revised some magnetism I haven’t looked at since school, and you’ve become motivated to learn more about it. And for me, another perpetual motion machine bites the dust, which I can add to my tally.
    1 point
  37. In return, perhaps you could clarify something for me. What is the phase relationship between magnet pole separation and finger position? If we define zero degrees for the disk when a finger is directly between the poles, and zero degrees for the poles as minimum pole separation, then what phase difference between the two should we consider for optimum performance? And how is that optimal phase difference maintained?
    1 point
  38. One important difference, though, is that in the OP's machine the poles of the two magnets are opposed so that they repel. The region in which the fingers on the input disc move is in principle an area in which the field lines will be squashed outwards in the plane of the fingers of the disc.
    1 point
  39. Perhaps one way of looking at this contraption is to compare it with a Faraday disk (aka homopolar generator). In the latter, both motion and induced current are in the plane of the disk with the magnetic field perpendicular. The OP is rotating this so that motion and magnetic field lines are in the disk plane therefore forcing induced current into the perpendicular. However, different portions of the disk will see different current polarities depending on whether they are moving towards or away from the magnetic poles. In particular, the portion of the disk passing directly between the poles will see a sharp switch in polarity and consequent current flow component appearing in the disk plane. This will in turn deflect the magnetic field lines somewhat out of the disk plane as if attracted by a temporary opposite pole. I don't know whether it's a good picture, but in my mind's eye, I'm seeing this induced temporary pole falling into a potential well only to climb back out as it departs with no nett overall energy change in and of itself. However these circulating currents are a different matter as they will add a time lag to the ideal case making ascent harder than descent, acting as a brake in exchange for simply heating up the disk.
    1 point
  40. OK, in that case, what I think you will find is it takes significant effort to pull the finger out of the gap, as the force of attraction is stronger once the magnets have moved inward, than the force that pulls it into the gap when you insert it. So you do net work on the system that way and this provides the energy that restores the stored energy in the fields to the status quo ante.
    1 point
  41. OK, now we get to it. In your proposed machine, the magnets first repel one another, doing work and lowering the stored energy in their respective magnetic fields. You believe that when you insert the steel finger between them, they will then be attracted towards it, doing more work and further lowering the stored energy in their fields. And then, when you move the finger out of the way, they move apart again due to repulsion, extracting yet more energy from their magnetic fields. This obviously cannot be the case. So there is something wrong with your assumption. Either you will find the magnets are not attracted together when the steel finger is interposed, or you will find the finger resists being inserted or removed, such that the operator has to do work against the field, thus supplying the required energy. At the moment (being a chemist rather than a physicist) I am not sure which of the two it is, but logically it must be one or the other, it seems to me. My suspicion is that the magnets will not be attracted to the finger. If you consider the path of the flux lines when the finger is in between, they have to turn sharply horizontal within the finger and pass outward to each side. This I think means the dipoles within the finger will not be able to align themselves with either field in the way that you (implicitly) suppose, as they will be perpendicular to the fields, and so no attractive force will result. If that's right, you would be able to twiddle the finger wheel as fast you like and bugger-all will happen! But perhaps you should build it to confirm exactly how it fails to work.
    1 point
  42. The most basic electrical devices consist of the following elements: a resistor, a capacitor and an coil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductor The most basic electronic devices have the above elements plus a diode (or equivalent vacuum tube), a transistor (or equivalent vacuum tube), integrated circuits, microcontrollers, and processors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit Integrated circuits, microcontrollers and processors are programmable, that is, they execute a program that someone wrote and upload to them or to RAM and/or ROM. Where stands your "steel wool" with the above?
    1 point
  43. Logically incorrect, even if the premise is true. Equivalent to “All dogs are mammals. I am a mammal, therefore I am a dog.”
    1 point
  44. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan did so in August 2023 while dimissing a counterclaim by Donald Trump for defamation in the E.J Carroll case. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll Kaplan had already outlined why it was not defamation for Carroll to say Trump raped her. “As the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr Trump’s motion for a new trial on damages and other relief [in the New York case] … based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury’s verdict as a whole, the jury’s finding that Mr Trump ‘sexually abused’ Ms Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally – in other words, that Mr Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York penal law.” The title of my post was satirical - (one reason it was in quotes), and took aim squarely at the rampant hypocrisy of a grifter and moral imbecile like Trump attempting to wrap himself in the American flag while hawking overpriced GBA themed bibles in the middle of holy week.
    1 point
  45. A I believe the timing is off a bit. The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference (in July) asking him to act as intermediary. I.e. these attempts pre-dated the bomb, which is one of the arguments of historians who argue against the traditional narrative regarding the bomb.
    1 point
  46. 1 point
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