petrushka.googol

As far as conventional wisdom goes the tunneling microscope is of very recent vintage...

I will break a tradition here and in contravention of posting norms express the dichotomy of the subject in verse :- As regards Felis Tigris Tiger Tiger burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry. As regards Felis domesticus Kitty Kitty... Why are you so pretty, Night or Day.... I see you at play... Pray tell me 'bout your inner laws... And take care of that Paw! Need I say more

When "consciousness" is poorly understood it is hard to understand how we can extrapolate the same paradigm to the Internet.

Quantum registers would rely on superposition and a fuzzy state...which means they can be used to store data for more combinations per register than conventional electronic registers. Imagine what this would mean to a game like chess....even a brute force approach might yield tangible results. As far as I know (i accept that I am not a precept on the subject) the closest physicists have got to quantum circuits is using superconductivity in Canada where it was feasible to entangle a trivial number of photons. (i'm not sure of the exact figure though...). What the future entails is as much a conundrum to me as a Rubik's cube... Your thoughts would be appreciated...

In a nutshell, using entangled states 2n different states can be simultaneously accessed using n register bits which resolve to a single measured state when the wave function collapses. Currently this is infeasible. Efforts are on to replicate quantum gates, but like teleportation whether this is completely feasible is debatable. (at least at this juncture.).

As a spin-off of this I see the following benefits accruing : 1) Developing a compassionate and empathizing personality. 2) Developing a need to procreate (at least in the long run...is this an evolutionary adaptation? 3) Maybe this experiment could be extended to pets...and further more..more hybrid species could be generated by computer algorithms which could be offered for virtual "adoption". This offers new vistas in parenting. 4) Parents could be offered courses based on virtual parenting where they could take their digital "wards" to a virtual cinema and see how their "wards" react. This is a sociological exercise and prepares parents for the challenges ahead if they are in courtship. 5) It promotes serious parenting as opposed to frivolous exchanges which more often than not end in discord. i agree on the latter assertion though. Philosophers and scientists are not mutually exclusive. Consider... a) Archimedes b) Pythagoras c) Hypatia of Alexandria and the list goes on... I would even include Isaac Newton on the list.

As a control consider a subject sans clothing. It usually is a positive style statement expressed like the emperors new clothes and the impact, whose probity can be doubted, is definitely hard hitting. Consider quite the opposite scenario. As you say class and ethnicity do affect your attire but then, who can deny that? It shows the hidden angst of the individual as you couldn't expect the Third Estate to dress in ornate finery....Does this not carry a hidden import? Or is this sheer coincidence...Leave it to you to decide.

Well there is no a priori evidence for the latter. Maybe you could cite certain examples to corroborate your viewpoint.

To clarify : Skill - level indicates possibility of succeeding in an atomic task with a level of understanding commensurate with the given weighted average. I agree delegation is a factor but again, this only applies to individuals with equivalent levels of skill. You cannot delegate a task that requires basic skills to an expert because that would imply under-utilization of skills. On the 3rd observation I concur, but then motivation is intangible and without that even forming a coherent team is impossible. Multi-processing or multi-threading as you state implies asynchronous use of resources in a pool which is exactly what a team is like, if viewed as such. (mulit-processing does not imply multi-threading always). Serial tasks as you state cannot be delegated if they are dependent, but again what is the yardstick for atomicity? If you break up the first task into mutually exclusive sub-tasks assignment across resources becomes a realistic and feasible option. Your thoughts....

Without resorting to apotheosis I would be tempted to use the euphemism "Consultant"

Adding probabilities gives total > 100% which is a fallacy. My tacit assumption is that if a task is assigned to 3 individuals it will be at least 3 times more complex and hence the minimum level of success is the product of their weighted averages. If the task is simple enough for 1 individual then the scenario is different and there is no need to add another person as you rightly mention.

Skill level of a neophyte and an expert are not equal. That is an axiom. I don't get the drift of the second argument.....That is exactly what i'm trying to say...mediocrity defeats purpose...introduce an expert into the group as an observer...albeit only for a short time...and he can transfer the knowledge required to tie the laces to the unskilled pair...which obviates the need for prolonged interaction with the control group once the primary objective is realized..and is in fact counter productive...for he / she could be used to transfer skills to another "compromised" pair....which is a win-win situation for all.

Whether this post belongs to the domain of motivation theory or compound probability or sociology or game theory or even abstract philosophy is hard to determine. The gist of my argument goes thus "In a research project of n people with n1 people having a skill level of s1, n2 with s2...and so on", the optimum combination is a minimum number of n2 (where n2 > n1) with an exposure to the project lower than that of n1 (where exposure is measured in man-hours)", and others allocated along the same lines by extension of the same principle. To illustrate consider a research project done by 3 individuals. Two of these have knowledge factors of 0.5 (an index of comfort level with the work done based on skill sets / experience etc.), and one has a knowledge factor of 0.8. The collective efficiency of all 3 based on the above is 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.8 = 0.2 If all 3 were of the lower level of expertise their collective efficiency would be 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.125. If all 3 were of the higher level of expertise their collective efficiency would be 0.8* 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.512. No doubt the last option affords the best collective productivity (on an immediate basis) but sustaining this level over an extended period of time is more difficult. The second option on.the other hand offers less prospect of overall success. The first option seems to afford the best mix of talent and expertise that is sustainable. Thus selecting an ideal combination for a research endeavor is less likely to be a brute force combination of mediocre individuals or even highly talented individuals (who may be suspect to ego conflicts) and more a choice based on prudence as illustrated above. Please express your viewpoints.

In computer science, a B-tree is a tree data structure that keeps data sorted and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. My contention is that internally human memory could be analogous to this structure, albeit with a very large number of leaf nodes. When a particular activity takes place that was done before, it is validated against past experiences based on the b-tree search, and if the experience is analogous to an already experienced set of phenomena, then the course of action is more or less in line with that taken earlier. This could explain the concept of a reflex arc. For oft repeated actions the response is traversed in less time (you could think of it as a preferred path and is traversed with minimum gestation. (much like finding the path home, where the one most traversed is associated with the least time - since there are less internal validations to be done before arriving at the final destination.)) Is this a simplistic model or expressive of reality? Please express your ideas.

What is the driver of social activity? Is it the upper sub-stratum of the elite, or as we go down the "economic food-chain",those denizens who have to bear the brunt of nature's ire and yet perform at their chosen workplace. eg)janitors and the like. Think of what would happen if their tire of society went on an impromptu agitation? What would be the impact on the economic system? What then is the right approach? Top-down or bottom-up. Please express your opinion.

The domain of a force i.e. the extent to which it can be perceived is defined by the inverse square law. (F -> 1/r2). If we take the limit of this over infinite distance we can see that the magnitude of the force approaches zero but actually does not become zero. This has implications in the context of a very large (but not infinitely large) Universe. This means that even the most distant quasar can exert its footprint in our galaxy, for example. Also as we know radiation from the most distant quasar does in fact reach us, although we detect it after an appreciable time. May our Universe could be biased in one direction (of expansion) (based on random distribution of galactic clusters in different "directions") and it subtly tugs the more remote less dense quarters through a very small force acting over a very large distance. How realistic is this model? Please express your viewpoint.

What i am trying to imply is that there is a tacit intelligence here...gravitons are smart enough to sense other gravitons (as opposed to say photons) and remain coupled...which at the macro level makes the Universe stay together.

Superluminal communication is postulated to be false. Entangled states cannot transmit information spontaneously faster than the speed of light. Or so the argument goes. We all know that the Universe is held together by gravity. Gravity is "carried" by gravitons. The Universe does not "fall apart". The force of attraction from the most remote galaxy is almost zero at a very large distance. It tends to zero (by limit -> infinity) by does not actually become zero. It "holds" albeit very feebly, the most remote stellar system in the Universe, when distance is measured from its coordinates. That is why the Universe does not fall apart. Gravitation is always attractive and force information from the most distal gravitons are transmitted correctly and the result is a finite "packed" Universe. I postulate that gravitons display entanglement, altough we take it for granted, and the most distal components of the Universe "feel" each other. Space Time is not broken but continuous. Here force acts over a distance that is more than that which conventional forces and simple inverse square laws can justify, and entanglement is responsible for keeping particles oriented in unison. I believe that we should see the Universe as a collective whole. Then we can say that there is nothing that is truly non-local. It is all a construction of the mind. The Universe is Integral. It cannot be differentiated. This is my postulate.

How can we promote family values while maintaining the interest of wooing the opposite sex? I think virtual marriages are the solution. Partners can share their key genetic information like racial profile, sex, age, height, weight etc and an algorithm could create a virtual kid that the prospective parents can "adopt". The kid will actually be an artificial intelligence bot that responds to the stroke play (transactional) of the parents. They can watch the kid grow and those parents that do a good job could be rewarded by actually being introduced to each other. Virtual kids of other parents could be adopted by new virtual parents. That way parents can look after a child who gene pool does not necessarily match theirs. How feasible and realistic is this? And does this promote good social mores?

I personally would evaluate a necktie as an additional constraint on the human psychosomatic identity. In this context any additional needs to conform with a standard would also imply a parallel impact on the mental outlook of the individual. To illustrate, picture a platoon where all the soldiers wore clothes that no one else in the platoon wore. What would the "collective psyche" of such a control group be? Your thoughts...

Does your attire reflect subtle psychological imports? For example, a uniform sans a tie is very rarely a uniform. Also it implies a high state of alertness and aggression. Evaluate this against a trademark jeans-tshirt-sneakers combo and we see a behavioral pattern emerging here. How does this modify basic evolutionary responses which were based on " a no clothes approach". Our simian ancestors weren't known for their dress sense.... Does this mean anything, if at all? Please express your ideas. Thanks in advance.

Here is a poem based on Physics that I penned some years back.... Light is a mystery, And men throughout history, Have tried to explain, Why light travels in straight lines?... That's all very fine. Light is both particle and wave, And as to how that is true..., I have not a clue. Light bends when near a star, Physicists can state that from afar, And the fabric of space-time, Like some engrossing pantomime, Continues to mystify us. Light is truly a wonderful thing, For all the joys it can bring, Like children let us continue to have fun, In the radiance of our star - the Sun.

If we tweak the definition of life....then maybe viruses could fall in that category...but again that is open to debate on several premises.

A zygote has an existence only in the context of its mother. It is encapsulated from the exterior by its mother's body. Its "data exchange" with the macro-environment is thus null. That is what i am implying. A corpse (at least one that is buried) decomposes to simpler substances. From complex molecules the transition is towards simpler aggregates. This is what i am trying to say. A fridge "alive". Well yes, if there is a paradigm shift in the context of what you define as "living". The definition of living in 2250 may not be that which we readily accept today....

To clarify : I am implying energy exchange between the somatic parent and the environment. (not local transfers). A corpse, as far as I know, does not show an increase in entropy. If you could visualize a automaton with a carbon fibre body and an "interactive" intellect then by my hypotheses it could be defined as "living". If you were to meet an alien with the above description would you write it's epitaph and label it "Dead" or try to interact with it? Would it not then still be living? (albeit unconventionally).... I think you get my drift....