Tub

Hello, Drk. I stumbled across two new words recently: one was " catachresis ", which is relevant to " phase " and " faze "; the other is "ultracrepidarianism " which could apply to a few people in these forums ( not including you, of course..ha,ha.. but definitely including me ). You may already be familiar with these words but, if you aren't, and knowing your interest in Greek and Latin, i think you might be interested in their etymology. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ultracrepidarianism

This too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality

Sorry, A. I think there has been a bit of miscommunication here - two countries separated by the same language. When i wrote " on railway-line " that was my pun. Here in little England, we don't say " railroad tracks " but we do say " railway lines ". If you were English you would probably have thought that my pun was the greatest, funniest pun ever invented! Can i give you another great pun: ....... it seems we had a crossed-line. Do i get the prize now, or will i be "punished " for not being funny?

Thanks again - especially for the great link.

Thank you both. May i also ask, is it possible that light from a very distant source could be affected so many times by lensing ( a sort of slalom effect ) that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to trace that light back to its source?

Could gravitational lensing be the same effect as described by Fermat's principle, or by refraction, as both describe the deflection of light passing from one medium to another of a different density? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_principle P.S. I'm sure you both don't need the link but someone else like myself might.

Thanks, Cap'n. All's well that ends well. ( I'm using my smartphone now).

Ha, ha. Thanks.

Thanks, dimreepr. I must admit i felt as though i was walking into the lions' den with my post. Anyway, you are right, culture does involve us all and can become a common feature of the consciousness of each individual, but there are differing elements to consciousness that are unique to different people. If all goes well, each human brain is born with roughly the same psychological apparatus required for developing and sustaining consciousness, and if i could liken this apparatus to a suitcase, we all have a similar suitcase and lots of things we pack into it are things that everybody else might pack, but some things we pack are unique to ourselves: an Inuit grandmother wouldn't have packed exactly the same things as a Korean dictator. I think that's where the individuality comes into the equation. At the moment, Gees and i hold different opinions as to whether it is consciousness per se that evolves or it is the capacity to be conscious that evolves and then accumulates consciousness. In other words, as i presently see it, the suitcase evolves but the contents of the suitcase accumulate. Either one of could be right or wrong. Thank you too,Tar. Even if i'm wrong, we can sometimes see the truth by seeing what is false.What i've underlined in your quote above is exactly what i was trying to get at. However, i have to add that i don't think that that is the be all and the end all of the matter: identity/self also needs examining further, ( especially that word " separates " ), but i think i have gone far enough into the lions' den just now.

Although i agree with Gee that it is more important to understand consciousness rather than try to define it, i'll act as a guinea-pig and, just for arguments sake, offer-up this short attempt at one subjective definition: The content of my consciousness is all my life-experiences: my upbringing, my education, my environment, and all the other influences brought to bear on me, and this creates my sense of identity. Without that content there is no self-consciousness, and that content is my consciousness so, at the risk of being ridiculed, i will here define consciousness as identity. Be gentle with me.

Shouldn't you have said " on railway-line " pun?

I think it was most likely caused by what i've underlined in your quote above - apart from the problem with the SFN Homepage, the rest of the phone was perfectly fine and, after all, the problem did start the first time i used the phone, then still with W8, after the latest SFN update.It would be interesting to know if anybody else is still using W8 on their phone and having the same problem that i did. Thanks again SJ.

Re the ScienceForums Home page crashing the browser on my Windows8 phone. Thanks again, StringJunky. As a last resort, i followed your advice, updated to W10 and everything is back to normal. Re the ScienceForums Home page crashing the browser on my Windows8 phone. Even though all the software on my phone was up-to-date, StringJunky, who also has a Windows phone, advised me to upgrade the whole OS to Windows10 and that solved the problem right away. Still don't know what caused it though. Thanks to you both for your readiness to help.

Thanks. Seems like the " Who's Online " problem might just be fixed now. I'll sign off right away and see if my name does disappear from the online list. Edit: Yes, my name does vanish now when i sign-off. Just that phone now! I'll post here again if i ever solve the mystery of the crashing browser.

Done that, iNow. And, believe it or not, i managed to make things worse for myself! Last night, i downloaded something called " SurfCube 3D Browser " (for free ) and it actually worked for a while until that crashed too - before i had time to sign-out from the SF website! Now my name is permanently on the Who's Online list! I've e-mailed the Administrators about this so we'll see what happens. What is very strange is that the browsers only crash when i try to get onto the SF website Home page - every other website loads as normal. Weird. As i said to StringJunky, it looks like a new phone is needed - maybe i'll try Android this time. I shouldn't really be complaining about something so trivial though, seeing what's happening to people in your part of the world. The weather here in England is pretty bad but it's nothing compared with Irma.

Thanks for the advice, SJ. I've already tried just about everything without success so it looks like a new phone is needed. On another matter, perhaps related to this, my user-name is permanently displayed on the Home page even after i've signed out!

Hello,Tar. Thanks. What you say opens up other avenues for thought, but, for myself, i would prefer not to explore any possible religious aspects at the moment, just the implications for psychological enlightenment - what Jung called " Individuation ".

I think if you equate Freud's model with the ingenious metaphor of the Christian crucifixion, you may see something surprising: superego --------- good thief id ---------------------- bad thief ego ------------------- christ Do you see what i think i see?

Thanks iNow. Unfortunately, i can't try out your idea of ticking the Remember Me checkbox, when i'm on my phone, as the browser crashes before i can sign-in. What's worse, i tried a new browser on my phone, instead of Internet Explorer, and that worked fine until that crashed too before i could sign-out! Now it looks like i'm permanently signed-in ,lol. Shakespeare was right: " When sorrows come, they come not in single spies, but in battalions". Edit: Now, 10 minutes later, i'm not signed-in! Think i'll just go back to bed

Yes, it is very bizarre. At least i can still easily access the website on my PC. If i ever get to the bottom of the problem, i'll let you know what has happened. Thanks for your replies.

Hello again, Cap'n. Just to add a little to my other posts above, i think i've isolated the problem on my Windows8.1 phone and it seems to be just unable to load the Home page. The phone is definitely updated and works properly in every other way, so the problem seems to be confined to some issue between the phone and the Scienceforums Home page, as i've been able to access all the forums and subforums through the back-door as it were: e-mail link----General Philosophy----All Activity----- Past Hour/Today, then accessing the different threads through their blue banner headlines, then working backwards through the various subforums and forums to whatever thread i want to visit. It's slow doing it this way but it does work and everything is fine - but only until i try to go to the Home page, when the browser ( IE ) crashes every time. This has only happened after the latest update and no other website Homepage i visit causes the browser to crash. It mystifies me that i can access every page on the website apart from the Home page. Hope you can help.Thanks.

Ha, ha. On reflection, perhaps i should have just said Windows8 phone. No offence intended, Bill...well maybe just a little.

Sorry to quote myself, but part of my Edit 2 wasn't saved properly for some reason and i couldn't alter it in that post. Anyway, for a little more clarity, it should read as follows: Edit 2: I e-mailed a link to a page of a thread to my phone and i find i can navigate ok, from that link, to and from the other forums that are linked to that forum that contains the linked page: i.e. i linked to a page in General Philosophy and from there can access the Religion and Ethics pages and their threads without a problem, but, as soon as i navigate to the website Home page, the browser crashes again. Puzzling.

Hello again, Cap'n. I was just about to post a reply to SringJunky when you posted so i'll post that after this post. (It's actually appeared above your reply to me ). Yes, the whole browser just crashes and disappears, though i can use it immediately again for other websites without a problem. What i was saying to SJ was that i found a fix by entering the web-address directly into the browser rather than by accessing the address from my " Saved Favourites " folder and that method works fine. Still can't get access from the SF folder though. I'll check for updates. Thanks. If you read my reply to StringJunky above, there's a little more information that might be relevant. Edit: Just checked and my phone-settings are all updated but unfortunately my fix seems to have only been temporary, and the browser crashed again, even after i entered the address directly. Edit 2: I e-mailed a link to a thread to my phone and i find i can navigate ok , from that link ,through the other forums on the same page that contains that thread and others, but as soon as i access the " Home " page the browser crashes again. Puzzling.

Hello, SJ. The browser is the version of Internet Explorer which is bundled with Windows 8.1. Sorry i don't know exactly what version of IE that is, although, in Settings,my website preference has always been set at " mobile version ". Edit: I've just managed to fix things: i had been logging into the website from my saved " favourites " folder and so i decided to delete that and re-enter the web address directly into the browser which worked perfectly. I then saved the web address in " favourites " again, tried to access that way again and failed again so i guess that in future i'll just have to re-enter the web-address directly into the browser. Thanks for your reply anyway. Edit:. As i have just told Cap'n Refsmaat below, the fix turned out to be only temporary. Back to square one.