TheVat

This is an approach to ontology that is sometimes called a "bundle theory, " and goes way back to David Hume. Physical entities, rather than having any sort of substance, are construed as bundles of properties. They ARE their properties, rather than some thing that HAS properties. (plus one to your whole post, BTW) I think bundle theory is quite germane to modern physics, which as @swansont noted is pretty much a black box operation insofar as Aristotlean "stuff" is concerned.

This explores the possibility of viral transport with PM 2.5 particles... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81935-9 The rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 in the COVID-19 pandemic had raised questions on the route of transmission of this disease. Initial understanding was that transmission originated from respiratory droplets from an infected host to a susceptible host. However, indirect contact transmission of viable virus by fomites and through aerosols has also been suggested. Herein, we report the involvement of fine indoor air particulates with a diameter of ≤ 2.5 µm (PM2.5) as the virus’s transport agent. PM2.5 was collected over four weeks during 48-h measurement intervals in four separate hospital wards containing different infected clusters in a teaching hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our results indicated the highest SARS-CoV-2 RNA on PM2.5 in the ward with number of occupants. We suggest a link between the virus-laden PM2.5 and the ward’s design. Patients’ symptoms and numbers influence the number of airborne SARS-CoV-2 RNA with PM2.5 in an enclosed environment. (I realize the topic may be meandering a little here, so am open to moving this elsewhere if that works better)

First, great post, +1. Second, quick clarification for anyone uncertain about an overtone window -- I think our ferryman was subject to some mischief from their auto-correct and meant Overton window, the term named for political analyst Joseph Overton.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Heather Cox Richardson, eminent historian, on how, politically, the dog has finally caught the car: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ Offers a fascinating (and disturbing) history of how politicians have used the abortion issue and magnified the degree to which conservatives opposed the procedure. And created the mythology of "pro-abortion." Try to think of anyone you know who actually favors abortion as a desirable method of birth control. Anyone who's looked at the record knows that it is Republicans, opposing sex education, access to contraception, reproductive counseling, and women's rights more generally, who are responsible for most of the abortions in my country.

Thanks for visiting, @DrDon. Good luck with your 5th or 6th book (I hope this ordinal number indeterminacy does not reflect some sort of Schrodingeresque uncertainty as to the book's existence). Regarding "This brings up a more important point is that the mapping of words onto scientific concepts is a dangerous endeavor. It is highly unlikely that any word can be mapped into a concept so well that it is impossible to find an exception. There will aways likely be a qualification of some sort. Accordingly, don't hold onto words very hard. They will fail you. Instead, understand the more nuanced scientific principle for which the word is nothing more than an imperfect and ultimately inaccurate placeholder." This should induce caution in all armchair philosophers who want to reify certain words.

I appreciated @CharonY's point that one might just as well promote vitamin D or melatonin, for immune support, which have a clearer causal path in reducing severe illness than does ivermectin. In some places, turmeric (curcumin) was promoted as protective in its immune-boosting properties. I would make a guess none of these are as protective against grave lung problems, re covid, as reducing PM pollution and urban air pollution generally. Not only do small particulates harm lungs and vascular linings, but they can ferry viral particles if they get into more enclosed spaces.

Fair warning - if our sunken locker owner is swimming towards philosophy (which may be where this thread was always headed) then truth is, in the correspondence theory, a statement which correctly corresponds to an external state of affairs, i. e. to a fact about reality. The correspondence theory, at least as Bertie Russell advanced it, is associated with metaphysical realism. So, if a realist utters the phrase "gravity is curved space-time, " and holds that to be true, she is NOT merely suggesting that gravity is a mathematical model with some curved geometry in it, or that objects move as if space were curved, or that we're just passing around some handy tools to predict where Mercury will be next Tuesday. She is saying that space-time is curved, just like the rail on that rocking chair except much more strangely. IOW, a statement is being made that purports to objective truth. Just saying, not all definitions of "true" would presume a subjective stance.

Ha! Not to derail the chat (and ball bearings can really derail), but the gift was from a friend who did mechanical work at a small airport, and they were aviation ball bearings. A canning jar full of them. They have always existed. At least, that's the vibe they give off, sitting on various shelves and end tables over the decades.

BTW, bit of confusion on @dimreepr location. Beecee refers to Trump as dimeeper's former President, and Kamala as his current veep, but the profile puts him in UK? Not terribly germane to the topic, I was just curious.

@beecee -- as I was catching up, I saw this bit in your posts.... While I agree with many of your ideas, this struck me as a little facile. The logic seemed on the order of saying "Pancreatic cancer patients are mortally ill. Therefore we shouldn't be concerned about sterilizing their rooms or feeding them or supplying meds. " We have hospitals to make people well, even if they sometimes fail. If we determine as a society that prisons should be places of rehabilitation, then we don't want to let them become harsh and cruel just because the rehab doesn't always succeed with every prisoner. Or because some prisoners have acted cruelly.

All it needs are a few ball bearings.

My wife once received ball bearings as a gift, which suggests that some people really need that long list. Abstractions, like nothing, can be defined conceptually, saving the chore of infinite cardinality. Concepts like nothing depend on some sort of duality, because "the absence of things, " needs the presence of things to gain meaning. Nothing/something is a duality, each dependent on the other.

Like Bufo, I think it would be good to see some solid peer-reviewed trials that make it past a preprint server. Otherwise, this sounds a lot like the hydrochloroquine mass psychosis all over again. Given the reports coming mainly from southern US states of people taking ivermectin in its veterinary dosage (i.e. horse body mass preparations) and getting quite sick (some have shed the linings of their intestines, which comes out as a sort of rope-like extrusion - aren't you glad to have that detail?), I hope that the hysteria can subside and see if any meaningful facts emerge. If vaccines are in short supply many places, that's not a logical argument for taking snake oil. There is never a "front line" justification for an off-label use of a pharmaceutical when any positive effects (beyond placebo) are unproven. (if you're just looking for a placebo, try dropping some TicTacs in a pill bottle) Also, as was the case with 'quine, sometimes the on-label uses are of vital importance and a rush on supplies can deprive others in great medical need, e.g. people suffering from tropical parasites, people who really need their horses to make a living, et al.

I have invited Dr. Don Lincoln, physicist and well-known science author, who works at FermiLab, and who was quoted in this thread here.... ....to join this discussion. If he declines, I will let you all know, so as not to leave you hanging. Mr. Jones suggested I'm a name dropper - I can only add that I have carefully not mentioned my long-ago acquaintance with Isaac Asimov, which I humbly offer as evidence to the contrary.

We're blind elephant fondlers, gradually working our way around the beast. Davy, Will do. Going out a door ATM, so might be a while.

I have Don's email -- he was the resident physics expert at my erstwhile science forum for a decade. Would you like me to invite him here to comment?

So, have to ask, is string theory physics? Or, because we don't know to what degree it might describe the real world, is it a theoretical framework that lies on the borderlands of metaphysics? String theory seems to describe a landscape of possible universes, most of which intelligent life can never behold. At least, with Davy's long-fingered lemurs, we can go to Madagascar and look at quite a few of them. (careful, they will steal your glasses)

Observations are just that -- they are not logic. Logic lies in statements about what has been observed. One can easily stumble in interpreting an observation and make a fallacious statement about it. And draw false conclusions. We humans have a glorious history of doing that.... I observed the sun come up in the east this morning. The sun appeared to be moving across the sky, so I conclude the sun was moving while the Earth was standing still, and that the sun orbits the Earth. So "my logic is simple" didn't get me too far towards the truth, did it?

I noticed that NPR's count of the new laws in TX that went into effect today was.... 666. By the number of the Beast ye shall know them... https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1032894148/in-texas-666-laws-take-effect-sept-1-including-many-conservative-priorities @Phi for All, I think this is similar to the gun laws where you essentially have minority rule. IIRC reproductive choice has majority support in TX, and the new "bounty hunter" system of burying clinics in lawsuits is also widely opposed. I feel it's not too late for Justice Roberts to resuscitate his conscience if any cases do find a twisting turning path to SCOTUS.

First, welcome @Davy_Jones, who I know as another contributor of my now-defunct sciencechatforum. While I agree that the whole question of what forces and fields really are crosses into the land of metaphysics, I am also one who wonders at how tenuous our grasp of what gravity is. If we're allowed to free-fall in a gravitational field, then we don't experience a force. We only experience a force when we land on something and our body's atom's outer electrons experience electrostatic forces from, say, a chair's outer electrons. Without that repulsive force, we would just continue our freefall through the chair, the floor, the earth's crust and so on along a space-time geodesic. (and be in pretty bad shape, no doubt?) So, is gravity then construed there as a pseudoforce? Were we only following a line of curved space until a real electrostatic force made itself known to us? It's in such perspectives that gravitons seem especially incoherent as anything but a math toy. John Wheeler always comes to mind... "Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve." From a meta perspective, it's awfully hard to say what this "telling" process is.

https://sicara.ai/blog/artificial-general-intelligence I understand there is a rule here about no one has to click on a link. For some subjects, where going through a quantity of literature is vital to any meaningful participation, I don't quite see how such a rule can work. It would be ridiculous for me to copy-paste everything in this article on AGI, and create such a long post. So, erm, I guess I'll summarize and then suggest it for further reading? Summary: we are far from AGI. Progress has been made since the sixties, but there is still a great distance to go. Since the law at least tries to be grounded in some reality, it seems likely that we won't be assigning personhood to either washing machines or to AI that can't recognize the simplest objects out of some predefined context.

Sense of identity, of a self, seems intimately tied to our environment and experiences of others. Without developing a sense of other, and the boundaries between self and world, seems unlikely that a conscious awareness of identity would emerge. IIRC, studies in child psychology show there is no sense of being a separate being until a couple of years pass. Will try to catch up with this later...

Second that. Wow. Instrumental breaks were outstanding. Though maybe bring the piano break up a little in the mix -- didn't need quite so much rhythm section right there. And agree with @swansont the Dead cover of Good Lovin really thrives with their unique sound. You people are going to have me in a tie-dye and ponytail, if this keeps up.

Sometimes a cover supplies something that the song really needed (and was not quite getting from the original band), like Joe Cocker taking The Animals Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood and knocking it out of the park with his vocals. Or Santana's cover of Fleetwood Mac's Black Magic Woman. Or Janis Joplin taking Bobby McGee away from Kris Kristofferson. I'll give the Dead version a listen. That's a band I used to be meh about back in the day, but have found more to like as I get older. And, as far as covers go, Counting Crows slow tempo version of Friend of the Devil is a far lesser thing than the original.