MWresearch

Okay, and...???

 

All this talk of religion and benefit to the human race and independent thought and making everything automatically better or allowing humanity to progress and focus on research and knowledge are all red herrings and a bit nonsequitur to what I said.

 

I'm still not following the logic of your point since none of what you're saying challenges my core point that beliefs sometimes allow you to be identified as a member of a larger group or tribe that shares those same beliefs, consequently bestowing the benefits and protections that come with being part of a pack or herd.

Did you already forget what you said?

"My point was that beliefs allow you to be identified as a member of a larger group or tribe that shares those same beliefs, consequently bestowing the benefits"

That is not always the case that a group brings benefits, or that if they do the benefits for the individuals do not always benefit humanity, and furthermore, as I said and you consequently ignored, this group belief mechanism you speak of no longer seems to be a "good" reason to believe something for the purposes of the topic. As mentioned, it has been a very long time since the overall benefits of assuming a strict group identity has brought more benefits than costs. Even the concept of countries and nationalism creates pride and elitism, leading to wars and disputes, excuses to deny resources so that few may gain power and so on. Really, modern nationalism is a mask for trade specialization, where certain regions are better at producing specific goods than all others.

Please clarify what point about religions you made and what specifically you'd like me to address.

A religion is a group, being part of that group did not necessarily benefit more of the human race than it damaged nor present a better opportunity to survive. Sometimes it is better to have more independent thought, just being in a group, pretentiously so or otherwise doesn't automatically make everything better. Grouping itself isn't solely what allowed humanity to progress, it's the ability to focus on specific research and record knowledge over years as different individual members explore a wider variety of ideas, technology based or sociologically based, branching off from that knowledge.

The reason I included apple pie was that you wanted somethings that was widely represented on TV and Hollywood.

Apple pie is synonymous with America and the american way of life and used to represent it.

Otherwise any food would do.

I suppose you could say something like bigMac or whatever.

 

Check & check.

 

Since you can't edit the original post, you could ask a moderator to do it. However, since few people go back to the OP, I suspect the best course of action is to post your new list and simply mark it as New Updated List.

 

A new item: Milk

Actually I think new people continuously go back the OP, that's why I want to update it, plus older ones would have to see if their suggestion made it on the list.

Walk into the home of the leader of a drug cartel like the Zetas in Mexico and identify yourself as a member of the DEA who believes that leader must be assassinated and report back (if you're not dead) with your findings on what "merely identifying yourself" has to do with survival.

 

Imagine yourself in a plane crash stranded on a remote island with just a few others. Merely identifying yourself as part of the group who shares similar beliefs will increase your chances of survival, the likelihood that resources will be pooled and you won't have to fend for yourself.

 

Go into a Boko Haram camp in Nigeria or an ISIS camp in Syria and declare your belief in Jesus as savior or better yet your belief that Muhammed enjoyed fornicating with pigs and eating his own feces and tell us then if you finally grasp my point that beliefs can play a very large role in our acceptance in a group and consequently our likelihood of survival.

 

Of course there are exceptions and surely specific circumstances matter, but that's really not the point. The OP asked what are some good reasons for believing in things and I responded that sometimes beliefs increase our likelihood of survival. Sometimes they identify us as members in a larger group and confer upon us the accompanying benefits. Religion may in some instances be related, but ultimately is largely irrelevant to my core point.

And what of my point about religions, a rather important set of groups throughout history? But now that I think more broadly about it, I also don't see how it logically connects to "what is a good reason to believe in something..." Survival or other subjective statements don't make sense as the basis to determine if general statements are truthful, to me it sounds like you're trying to use apples in place of oranges or are you trying to make a subjective argument for what you assume are arbitrary standards. I guess the op will have to clear it up, what is a logical reason to believe it, or what is an ethical reason.

My point was that beliefs allow you to be identified as a member of a larger group or tribe that shares those same beliefs, consequently bestowing the benefits and protections that come with being part of a pack or herd.

And what does merely identifying yourself have to do with survival? What if it's a cannibalistic satanist group that also commits mass suicides? Surely the mere act of being in a group does not suffice, and a culture tends to outlive individual lives anyway. Religion had its part a long time ago. For humanity, it was often meant as an incentive to bring people together if that's what you mean, at least for the more reasonable ones. But, it eventually became a tool for destruction and manipulation, ultimately it did not become as large a benefit.

 

Seawater, cheese, bile, flame are all good ones so thanks for those, can't believe I missed fire. Sunshine I would put as a sub-category of light, it's really just a variety of different frequencies of light with the dominant frequency being optical light. Apple pie, a mixture of plant material, sugar and a fibrous material that changes in high temperatures. It is unique, though, I wonder if there is a general category for it which similar foods could be included in, perhaps pastries. I suppose ivory and teeth do have some differences from the bone in ones leg, perhaps they can be sub-categories unless I can identify unique enough differences in composition and function from a typical leg bone.

The only real thing I need to do now is to be able to edit the list again.

Tradition should be in the middle, there are good ones and bad ones. Obviously things like not letting women vote or have a say in their own lives isn't a good one, but traditions such as "treat others how you want to be treated" have helped many societies.

It's just something you have to have a feel for John. I do because I don't spend all my time focused on one subject like Chemistry, I talk to people, watch popular movies/tv-shows, study different fields and I do online marketing. When I say "an average person could google or ask a teacher about it..." I mean many people already do, it's the same situation as Dark Matter. It was the center for pop science hype and it was mentioned on some major news outlets because its creation earned a team of scientists a noble prize and many people are fascinated with extremes of science, like the coldest substances on Earth which Bose-Einstein Condensates are sometimes associated with and furthermore there is also a growing fascination among different people with quantum mechanics which Bose-Einstein condensates come up in. Frankly, something like Lith-Moly grease has not gained much momentum as any focus of interest for a variety of people. However, grease in general has accomplished this and I would add it to the list if the site weren't broken and I could still edit the post. It's a commonly known substance, its used in cooking, both advanced and common, it's used in mechanics both advanced and common and some paints and results from different chemical reactions in nature with different animals and has maintained this status throughout history. Have people done this with your molybdenum grease? Has it become the center of attention for any sort of public domain? Has been an integral part of any society or industry, past or present? Has it been a critical element in any popular story whatsoever? Have many different artists expressed it in different ways? Would you honestly expect an average person from a variety of countries to know what it is? Was it ever a common discussion point for even 1% of the population of the planet?

Maybe one day after enough time has passed, enough uses will have been discovered for your Lith-Moly grease, it will have been talked about on different TV shows, made different headlines in online newspapers, mentioned in many blogs, studied in different fields, talked about among different average people, but not today. I'd say that biker molybdenum compound is your best chance for something containing molybdenum to make it on the list, perhaps you could do more research on it to discover its wide range of relevance and interest, ask different people if they heard it and use it.

 

Jade, that's one I just thought of. Once it was one of the most coveted minerals Asia and it is still popular today and widely known among literally millions of different people, formerly used in architecture, weapons and now mainly for jewelry and occasionally religion and superstition. As such, it also sometimes appears in subjects of economy and geography and geology, perhaps even astronomy if there's jade meteorites or jade on other planets.

 

Also, just so you know, I did in fact compile most of the list myself. Ultimately I do make the decisions but that doesn't mean I don't have standards. If I want something on the list that doesn't fit the parameters, I won't put it on. Frankly I want to take ununonctium down because I realized it's probably not the heaviest element anymore, which means when people inevitably google or ask someone "what's the heaviest element?" or "what's the highest atomic number?" they won't get ununonctium. As a side tangent I wonder why someone hasn't predicted the highest possible atomic number using quantized space-time to show a cutoff limit where a synthetic element would decay in an amount of time smaller than the smallest possible unit of time.

Some (not all) motor bike fans may know of a select few compounds containing molybdenum and it is also possible they share that knowledge with many different people to the point where it is commonly known over a vast region of Earth. That is not what is being disputed, what is being disputed are things of the opposite nature, things that are largely unknown. If you want to make an argument for a specific compound that has respectively known relevance to an abundance of average people who do not specialize in a field such as Chemistry or Engineering, you're free to do so as I mentioned in the first post. Your problem however, still remains. Just because one select group knows of one thing does not mean it is average, it does not mean the information is disbursed or comprehended by a variety of different people. An average person could easily know of "Bose-Einstein Condensate" because of pop-science shows like NOVA and PBS, or, by googling "coldest material ever" or asking a science teacher "what's the coldest temperature ever made on Earth?" If there was no chance of it being average, why was it suggested to me by a person who does not appear to specialize in a field of quantum mechanics? And dark matter was suggested to me by a person who does not have a Ph. D in higher energy atomic physics or astronomy. And that is even ignoring the fact that people might have learned something without specifically remembering what it's called. People might not know what degenerate matter is off the top of their head, but I know many people hear of a "neutron star" and wonder it is made of, so it is simply a matter of explaining that degenerate matter is ultra-dense matter that makes up a neutron star in order for any misunderstanding to be cleared which is what they do on pop-science shows and in school when teachers go off on tangents about different phases of matter. Learning a specific molybdenum compound from practical use? That likely requires at least one year of chemistry or a lot of training with mechanics, specifically in motor bikes as you so conveniently pointed out. But as I said, if you feel a certain molybdenum compound is well known by a variety of people, both in and out of related fields over a vast region of Earth, you are free to suggest it. I am questioning whether or not you understand the word "esoteric." Motor bike enthusiasts, even though they may not have a degree for in field of science, is still a very very specific group. Once again, I refer you to the first few posts. Look at their examples, think of something that has meaning or is known to many different types of people over a wide region if you want to suggest something, do not bring up substances that are esoteric.

Even fulgurite fits this criteria. Though many do not know it by name they know it by its properties and formation. Beaches exist around the world, so many people know it as "the glass stuff that comes from lightning striking the beach." Obsidian, used by Native Americans as cutting tools and hunting, sold as jewelry or a collectible in common rock shops or costume jewelry to average people, plentiful in heavily populated hot spots such as Hawaii where it is well known to the inhabitants. Lanthanides, used in common electronics, used in common glass products like even sunglasses, taught as a category of elements to many different people who are required to take a semester of chemistry for their degree, known to many rock collectors, some historians, some economists and some geographers specifically for their respective fields of study, known to rock sellers and some miners of minerals. Dark matter, the center of attention in astronomy and random discussions of average people who are skeptical of its existence and talked about at least once on every major news outlet, both televised and online, brought up as a publicly available lecture from different physicists at different universities, mentioned on pop-science and TV shows countless times, used as the basis elements science fiction stories like those of Star Trek and in video games like Quake 4. Pollen, seen around the world by different people in different countries, studied in biology, used in farming, captured in art and literature. Water, a particular substance needed by all humans, used in many industries even nuclear reactors, one of the 4 old elements of nature and also used in art. These are the kinds of things I'm looking for. If you can argue that a specific molybdenum compound accomplishes something of this magnitude, you are welcome to suggest it.

The problem still remains that you're out of touch with society, it doesn't matter if an extremely specific branch of a select group of people of a specific industry has a specific compound, what matters is the commonality between different peoples, things that you could expect an average person to know and understand. As I said, this is not the philosophy section, there is no overall debate, I give parameters relating to well-known materials or things brought to light in pop-culture and if you do not want to post within such parameters then no one is forcing you to. You simply have to have a feel for society and what the average person knows to continuously avoid the problems you seem to run into. The first couple people who posted had no trouble with this, but a Ph. D such as your self who resides in the realm of the esoteric and theoretical, does.

But in your focus on strict science you have forfeit a basic understanding of a basic social concept. You personally may find something impressive, but does the rest of the world? And furthermore would an average person have any knowledge of it? Every culture around the world has entire stories about things like rock, water, wood, a lot have stories about gun powder, use glass, mine crystals, the developed countries have questions about dark matter, other planets, materials in space and what stars are made of, etc. As I said, if it is esoteric it is likely not viable, you will have to make a particularly exceptional argument for it. Whether or not you are in touch enough with society to know if Molybdenum compounds are esoteric is not something I can directly help you with.

I have made it reasonably clear what the standards are and furthermore this is not the philosophy section. If you can think of a popular story about Molybdenum Trioxide and many of the other esoteric compounds and explain how it has captured the interest of the public around the world, you are free to explain. If you are honestly confused about the parameters, then use if whether or not the substance is esoteric as a rule of thumb. Generally, compounds for which you need more than a year of college to learn the existence of will not meet any of the conditions I've specified.

They do have quakes, those quakes release gamma radiation. The frequency of quakes is roughly 1 every decade or so in some stars examined.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starquake_(astrophysics)#Starquake

I'd really appreciate it if you read what I said. It is extremely apparent that I am familiar with that phenomena when you look at the fact that I addressed it by its proper name in the first post before yours, a "starquake." That's not remotely what I'm asking about. What I am asking about are smaller regular tremors which may shift the crust in small amounts without cracking it and releasing any bursts.

Something doesn't have to be anywhere near interesting to merely be documented, it just has to be different in the slightest possible way from something else that is already discovered. Interesting would be anything that has captured the public's interest, has been used in commonly known manufacturing, had science fiction or fantasy stories written about it, so versatile throughout history it is taught in middle and high schools, those sorts of things. Glass, water, wood, rock, dark matter, "are there magnets with only one pole (magnetic monopoles)?" "what is a neutron star made of (neutronium)?" "does Jupiter have a surface (metallic hydrogen)?" all fall under those conditions. But the thousands of compounds you're talking about (for instance any molybdenum compounds) usually don't meet those conditions.

There are something like 100 million different chemical compounds known, and they are all uniquely identifiable.

It's going to be a long list.

Not all of them are particularly interesting though.

I'm under the impression that neutron stars are rather calm on their own. Their gravity and magnetic field is so intense that the crust is essentially locked into place and it is only rarely that there are sudden shifts that create starquakes. But, maybe not, I don't know. Is this true? Or are there hundreds of small quakes every second on a neutron star that would be similar to a constant 6.5 magnitude earthquake on Earth?

Completely forgot Rare-Earth metals. Surprising no one caught it in the chemistry section. Oh wait nvm I did get that already, lanthanides.

Lightning is an electrical discharge that creates plasma, specifically, I think it is fine as a subcategory. As for fulgurite, it is a physical alteration of general glass minerals, I think I can keep it in a sub-category. I wouldn't make a separate category for beach glass.

Alright then, I will add those.

Thanks for those. Some of them I added like pollen which was a good one, snot, foam, egg, bose-einstein, flint. However, polymers are what plastic is made of. As for tooth and shell, those very closely resemble regular bones, a turtle shell is just a bunch of bones fused together. A squid beak is made of chitin, already on the list. I'm not exactly sure what to with bird beaks, because they are made of keratin which hair and fur and feathers are already made of. So I will just made a general keratin category. Leaf is part of my general plant category that includes chlorophyll because when people think of plants they think of green colors and leaves. Fulgurite I will leave under the obsidian/glass category since it is specific physical alteration of glass that is not outside of the typical capacity of glass, especially when you see all the glass blowing that people do. Fossiles are rocks in the shape of left over bones, I am not sure if I should create a category for them. Cells I am also unsure about, it seems too general because I already have plants (leaves), wood and skin and blood. With keratin it is only the arrangement or formation of molecules that changes between its sub-categories like different types of glass. Between plant tissue and animal tissue it is a combination of changes in the fundamental chemical composition as well as the structure and variety of functions. So, I think I should keep them separate. Amorphous and Soluble I will add, I like amorphous. As for wings...not sure if I can work in a specific piece of an animal like that, but I will put it on the list for the sake of having something.

For a specific project where I seem to have exhausted most possibilities, any relevant suggestions would be appreciated. I need a list of substances or substance-like things which need to be particularly unique in some way, likely more general than specific. The substances could be anything from wood, rock, halogens, oxides, plasma, magnetic monopoles, neutronium, alcohol to anything with noteworthy properties. However, I cannot use substances that are purely fantasy or created out of thin air in movies and games. At the least they must be accepted as scientifically plausible. It also would not help to be overly specific. It wouldn't be worth mentioning acetic acid since the general term "acid" would suffice unless acetic acid has exceptionally interesting properties that separates it from all other acids. I can also accept particularly mysterious adjectives that can arouse curiosity, such as the words "old, futuristic, dream, cybernetic..."

 

The substances and unique things I have are...

 

Acid (or corroded substances)

Air

Alcohols

Alkaline-Earth metals

Alkali metals

Amber

Ash

Asteroid

Blood

Bone

Bose-Einstein Condensate

Carbides

Carbon (includes coal, graphite, diamond, nanotubes and C4)

Chalcogens (oxygen group)

Chitin (makes up bug exoskeletons and squid beaks)

Chlorophyll

Clouds

Comet

Crystal

Degenerate Matter

Dust

Egg

Electricity

Energy

Fat

Ferrofluid

Fiber (bread)

Flint

Foam

Fractal

Fruit (and vegetables)

Gas

Glass (includes obsidian and fulgurite)

Glitter

Ground (dirt, clay)

Gun Powder

Halides

Halogens (fluorine group)

Ice

Keratin (includes hair, fur, feathers and bird beaks)

Lanthanides

Lava (or magma)

Leaf

Light

Liquid

Magnetic Material

Magnetic Monopole (magnet with only a north or a south)

Mercury (liquid metal)

Metallic Hydrogen (hydrogen under enough pressure to act like a metal)

Metal

Mineral

Mollusk Shell

Mountain

Mud

Neutronium (neutrally charged degenerate matter)

Noble Gases

Oil

Opal

Ophiolite Crust

Ore

Oxides (materials with specific nonmetal oxygen bonds which Rust would fall under)

Paper

Photonic Matter

Plasma (includes lightning)

Plastic

Poison (which pesticides and things like cyanide fall into)

Pnictogens (nitrogen group)

Radioactive Material (or actinides)

Rare-Earth Metals

Rock

Latex (also rubber and gum)

Sand

Semimetals

Shale

Skin (includes leather, muscle tissue and organ tissue)

Slime (synonym of goo and sludge)

Snot

Sound Waves

Snowball

Solid

Storm

Strange-matter

Super-fluid

Super-solid

Taons

Tar

Treasure (precious metals)

Ultraviolet Light

Ununoctium

Urea

Waste

Water
Waves

Wax

Wood

 

Adjectives that can describe very unique substances, structures and events

Amorphous

Ancient

Aristocratic (rich)

Atomic

Barren

Bent

Bombarded

Bright

Bulging

Cavernous

Changing

Cimmerian (gloomy)

Cold

Corroded

Cracked

Cybernetic

Dark

Dead

Dented

Digital

Docile

Dreamy

Dry

Dying

Ejected (includes marooned, castaway and jettisoned)

Entangled

Eroded

Evil

Exhausted

Flat

Forested

Frozen

Futuristic

Good

Graceful

Heavy

Hollow

Hot

Impoverished (poor)

Invisible

Igneous

Large

Light

Living

Loud

Molten

Monstrous

Peaceful

Phased

Plentiful

Pollen

Primordial

Quiet

Rainbow

Rainy

Rejuvenated

Rough

Scarred

Shattered

Slowed

Small

Smooth

Soluble

Sped

Superficial

Temporal

Terraformed

Transformed

Vampiric

Violent

Windy

Undiscovered

Undulating

The issue isn't mixing them up its "since these effects affect relative mass and space-time curvature, couldn't the event horizon size change relativisticly change?"

For an individual person entering a black hole, even though it makes perfect sense, it's still weird that someone falling in to a black hole doesn't ever experience passing through the event horizon, that space-time becoming infinitely dilated and contracted is relative. But, since relativistic affects of acceleration due to motion is seemingly equivalent to the relativistic effects of gravitational fields, would accelerating towards a black hole near the speed of light cause the perception that it's event horizon has shrunk not due to length contraction, but due to a relativistic lesser difference in the space-time rotation of the frames?

 

Or in other words, if two observers are in similar gravitational fields, they will see each other's time and lengths being similar. If someone moves at 99% the speed of light, would they relatively see a black hole having less relative gravity and thus a smaller event horizon in all directions (not just the direction of motion)?

That proof looks legitimate when I look at the culmination of theorems, but there's still this huge gap. Where did the first derivation of sin(x) not being related to a circle but rather only factorials and multiples come from? How was that factorization theorem discovered? Lets say I never heard of a circle before. How would I discovery or derive sin(x) from scratch using factorials and multiplication?

On wiki, it just plain doesn't explain anything. In the PDF, it makes a giant leap between two theorems without explaining the intermediate information. It just talks about the bell curve, then the Beta integral, then out of nowhere the paper's talking about (cos^5)(sin^7) without explaining how trig functions are at all related to anything in the entire paper.

The Beta functions is already just a quotient of gamma functions so it makes the logic seem rather circular.