mooeypoo

Gender and orientation are not binary. We tend to push them into binary definitions because society tends to work wtih "absolutes". This is a great video, by the way, about the subject. Slight NSFW, but in an educational sort of way:

Priceless sentence in a scientific forum. This should be framed and hung for prosperity. See, no one is under the jurisdiction of religion except for religious people. That's the point, and why religion is separated from state in most modern (advanced, free, democratic) countries around the world. That is without getting into religious arguments about homosexuality that do not belong in this thread (feel free to open a thread about those in *religion* forum if you insist on discussing it) What " real " issues are those? They do. They just hide behind pseudo-scientific claims because they know that "religion says so" is not a valid claim for laws since the days of the inquisition. A straw red herring. Nice. Are you suggesting that only religion is against adultery and therefore only religion is the source of morals? BEcause even if you do, that would require you transforming this thread into an issue of *morality* which it is not. It is a discussion about natural cases of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Which not only exists, but is quite prevalent. Shooting all over the place will not cause us to miss the point you are not really making any valid points. But good try. We're in a science forum, not a delusional claim forum. Beyond that, children without mothers or fathers exist in straight families too, so do STDs. In fact, ironically enough, religion's insistence against contraceptive *increases* danger of STDs, so it could be said that if you support religious sex education, it is YOU who support STDs. But I digress. We should really stick to the topic at hand here, which is the undeniable fact that homosexuality exists in nature, whether you personally like it or not. It's okay, though, it's not the first natural phenomena the bible got wrong.

! Moderator Note overtone, the rules in this forum are not really up to you to analyze, let alone in a public thread where the discussion can be derailed off topic. I assure you, no staff member works alone. We discuss and have consensus on actions, and if a note was posted, it is for your advisement, not for your discussion. When we ask not to reply to moderation notes, we do not 'suggest' it. We require it so threads don't get derailed off topic. The off-topic reply was removed. If you have a problem with moderation notes, use the "report" button to raise the issues to the staff's attention. Do not reply publicly.

! Moderator Note Moved to homework help. faslan, can you give us a bit more explanation on what you already tried to do and where you got stuck?

That explains everything. Sad as it is, I doubt her PhD is worth anything, not even the title "Dr." she supposedly gets at the end. Clearly, Ovid never heard of "hell hath no fury..." Yes. But then again we go back to context; most probably, these kind of people won't benefit from neither ridicule nor pure argument. But perhaps the people who listen in and watch will.

I think the key is how we phrase our criticism or ridicule. Now, I'm not entirely a fan of ridicule; I understand it's a method that people use and I am not against it personally (except that it depends *where* you do it, as in some places it is inappropriate, or against the rules, etc) but it's something that I, personally, don't relate to. It isn't just about ridiculing religion, by the way. I'm not too fond of most other ridicule; I can find it funny, but it tends to bug me a bit. Then again, that's a personal preference. That said, I think there's a huge difference in how we phrase things. For example: The idea that the Earth is 4000 years old is stupid.(ridiculing the idea) You're stupid if you believe the Earth is 4000 years old.(ridiculing the person) These two are radically different, and while the first is somewhat accepted, I don't quite see how the second would gain any sort of traction with anyone, other than offending them, driving them to be defensive and by that getting them to competely block any other claim that might come up. It's unnecessarily personal. It's not really necessary to be personal. It's enough to criticize (or, if we must, ridicule) ideas, not people. We don't know what led a specific person to hold a certain belief, so ridiculing the person is also short sighted in my opinion. They may be ignorant not by their own fault, or brainwashed. My personal problem with most ridicule is that it tends to stop there -- at ridicule. It might be funny, but it isn't really helpful, not just to the person participating, but also to random observers that listen- or read-in. "This idea is stupid" is not helpful. "This idea is stupid *BECAUSE*..." is a little better. "This idea doesn't work because..." is even better, in my opinion. I understand there may be cases where ridicule can convince people. I personally don't like it, it makes me feel like a cop-out, as if we don't have enough patience to not let emotions and frustration control debates that are, after all, fact-based.

Yes, well, inconsistencies in the bible go far beyond "just" numbers and "facts" (rabbits chew cud, etc). I think we have a couple of threads dedicated to those, and reopen them for additions every now and then. But yes, the point remains: Creationism is, by definition, against science.

Okay, accepted, but that is still different than "just" a belief in god/gods/higher power which is what that table represents.

Actually, "X are crazy" is an observation, not a stereotype, when that observation is backed up by an explanation why -- which in this case it is. Now, I don't particularly agree with that observation, since "crazy" is a loose and quite derogatory psychological term, but the idea behind it is that Creationists insist on sticking to their beliefs at the expense of reality. That isn't a stereotype, it's the definition of creationism. We have clear real and indisputable evidence that evolution takes place, so much so that evolution is undeniably accepted throughout all fields of science. We have clear real and indisputable evidence that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. So much evidence, in fact, no one in the scientific community disputes it. Creationism, by definition, is based on the belief that the Earth is only thousands of years old. This is proven wrong by science, shown to be clearly against objective reality, and hence, people who stick to their guns to insist that is true are ignoring reality. It might not be all that surprising to call that sort of mindset some sort of crazy. I personally think they're uninformed and, sometimes (too many times) brainwashed, so I try to refrain from making such a statement about their state of sanity. But I can understand where the determination is coming from, and it isn't about stereotypes. If you're a creationist, do you believe the earth was created only thousands of years ago? If that is the case, you can't claim you don't reject scientific discoveries, because all scientific discoveries, without a single lone exception, *ALL* discoveries reject that notion outright and without a doubt. So which is it? You're either not a creationist (and reject scientific discoveries by definition) or you follow science, and reject creationism. The two notions simply do not coexist; one rejects the other. I think we should be careful to separate "belief" with "creationism", especially in the context of this particular thread. We can argue about whether or not all belief can coexist with science (that's a different topic we might want to open a different thread for) but *Creationism* is radically different; it's not just "there's some higher power out there" with different levels of interpretations, it's the clear statement that the earth was created only thousands of years ago (4000 or 6000, depending on whose flavour of creationism you fancy) -- that goes *beyond* a choice of belief in a higher entity and into bunk claims.

! Moderator Note Moved to the homework section, since we're dealing with exercises from a study book. Welcome to the forum, Josue, and kudos on learning this on your own

Yes, I think I understand you, but I think it's the other way around. Change is defined by time, and not the other way around. Clearly, we're arguing semantics, but the entire point of "defining" things falls on semantics, which is why it seems we're going into the nitpicky realm. Just to be clear: I'm enjoying this discussion tremendously. I hope you don't see any of my nitpicky comments as anything other than attempts to sort out the ideas properly. I am starting to think that time might not be able to be properly defined outside the scope of its usage. That is, I think we, as limited human beings, intercept the universe in a certain way where we had to define things we observe. Space and time were aspects we had to define so we can continue to describe reality. Then, we found that they're very much related, and started to refer to them as spacetime -- but that's really a result of mathematical formulations that are based on what we initially defined: time and space. So, we "made up" time and space as a descriptions for concepts that describes the behavior of the universe; I'm not too sure we can roll back the clock (time again!) to find an independent definition of time. It would likely become circular, as it seems to be now. Does this make sense?

I agree up to the part where you state time is measured in terms of change. That doesn't answer 2 points: 1, swansont's point about a stable atom that can spontaneously decay (i'll have to find the post # for more accurate point) and 2, the fact time is relative to other perspectives, and seems to slow down the faster you go (so it is affected by speed, which is change, but not necessarily is defined by it) I understand the problem of the definition -- I think the problem is a lot deeper than we may realize or that mathematics technically represents, but I am not sure I am comfortable settling on your definition of time. It sounds to me to be as arbitrarily convenient as the one that states time is this "property" of space. I'm not sure it fits all cases we discussed.

! Moderator Note But we do mind, Schneibster. So do our rules. Please try to really make sure you're quoting actual people for their actual quotes. This isn't the first time a thread is forced to concentrate on off-topic conversation that seems to end with whatever was suspected to be said not actually being said. In general, it would be best if instead of concentrating on nitpicks of what someone supposedly said we concentrate on the broader discussion so we can all benefit from learning from one another rather than arguing about who understood what and where. It makes for much better discussions. Do not answer this moderation note.

You absolutely are. When you look at your feet, you see them the way they were a split-split-split second before, because of the time it takes light to travel from your feet and to your eyes. Which raises yet another interesting question: The way we observe time clearly depends on what we're looking at (which is the point of relativity) -- but it "changes" the rules of the game of observation: When we look at the world close to us, we technically see the present but not the future or past When we look at the sky, we see the past and are unable to see the present or future. When we look at rotating galaxies, we see some starts more farther into the past as some others, which means we have a distorted view not only of space, but of time as well. That cone is a way to make sense of something I don't quite think we are hardwired to make complete sense of.

Well, in that aspect, that's the point of all sciences -- find a way to describe objective reality as objectively and functionally as we can. Which is also why these explanations tend to continuously evolve.

That's an interpretation, though, isn't it? It is a working valid interpretation, but if you ask for a definitive definition of time, it's a bit problematic.

Oh, I am not at all talking about human understanding. I'm talking about limitations of our perception. We have a lot of those, even merely on a physical level. That's where things like Paraedolia and optical illusions come from. It's not that we can't understand them, but they are an indication of how our brain is hardwired. The fact is that since we know that our brain is hardwired to "trick" us sometimes (again, optical illusions are an example) we take an extra step to understand how to analyze, interpret and explain those in light of objective reality. My point is that perhaps we need to do the same about the concept of time and space.

These books and Star Trek were probably the biggest reason why I have a bachelor's in physics now. Awesome awesome books. (And yes, I'm exposing my deeply ingrained nerdtasticness, but it led to a future in science, so I accept it... )

Oh, my, a blast from the past.. here's the book if anyone's interested: http://www.amazon.com/The-Time-Space-Uncle-Albert/dp/0571226159/ (it's a series of books, the one about 2D discussions, if I remember correctly, is book #2 http://www.amazon.com/Black-Holes-Albert-Russell-Stannard/dp/0571226140/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y ) It's a series, if I remember correctly, and while it's very much watered-down physics, it truly impacted my curiosity to know more as a little girl.

This is probably the best explanation to why these sort of discussions about the definition of time (and length) are difficult. That did remind me, however, of a book I read when I was little, about relativity. The book was meant for kids (I think I was like 9 years old) and so it clearly has its own problems in representing physics properly *but* there's one thing that stuck with me there, and that was a sort of an analogy to the idea that our brains might limit our understanding of reality. So, the book gave an analogy of us looking at this huge rubber sheet that has heavy spheres on it and somewhere in the middle there's a colony of ants who can only see in 2D. We see spheres, and we also see that each sphere makes a little dent in the rubber sheet, so when an ant walks closeby, it "falls" in and has a harder time to climb out. We see why -- but the ants don't, because they don't understand three dimensions. They just notice that there's something "pulling" them towards the circles, and they even make up equations that describe it. Now, I understand this is oversimplified, and I don't by any means intend to present this as an explanation of either relativity or the meaning of time -- *but* this does raise an interesting question. Could it be that time and distance are merely some "reflection" of the actual behavior of the universe, reflections that are created by the way our brains intercepts reality? This would explain how space and time are (strongly) related, and how our entire physical understanding makes sense in mathematical and physical terms -- but also how we might not be able to properly define each of those terms independently. Does this make any sort of sense?

Look, you're really being wishwashy here. You're giving an example that people (two of them) told you is incorrect. You keep insisting that text with the name "Susskind" on them are completely and utterly undeniably true, and when you encounter several points to the opposite (from more than one person, already) you tend to backtrack and remind people it's not completely true, it's an analogy. So, you're correct in that I represented the order of your backtracking wrong. In between the 'swansont must feel awkward for doubting The Susskind' and 'it must be translation', you admit it may be an analogy. That would've been somewhat acceptable, if only it didn't take away from the discussion at hand, which, as you were told repeatedly (by even more than two people) is not being answered by that post. We can, with relief, move on. Luckily, you're here to validate the purposes of all who discuss the forums. Then again, these big bold red letters and that nice final sentence with the condescending tone at the end must mean I was insta-pwned, and must retreat to a corner, with no purpose at all.

Did you really just resort to moving the goal post now? You start by saying X is true. Then insist X is true because Susskind said it (even called it awkward, not sure for whom) Then claim it probably loses something in translation And now it's a metaphor. I wonder, then, at what point are we going to consider the remote and terribly implausible possibility that there was an error in the invincible text's content or (no!) in your initial assertion.

That's the entire point of oblivious turing machines -- you need to find the way to move the head so that you can still respond to reads. So, in this case, moving the head LRLLRLLRL... would still move it in general to the left, but would also give it the option to repeat a place for input it already intercepted -- hence, you will have a chance to 'rewrite'. Does this make it clearer?

Wait wait, if the atom decays, it emits radiation, which means it *is* changing. How is it 'unchanging'? Is there even ever anything that is unchanging at all? (Note: This has always been the sort of thing that blew my mind in quantum undergrad course(s), so I hope you guys bear with me here)

Well, wholegrain, let's consider this by looking over the definition of DFAs and the difference between DFA and NFAs. For instance, this seems to lay them out pretty well: http://theoryofcomputations.blogspot.com/2011/02/difference-between-dfa-and-nfa.html So, considering what DFA *must* have and what it *can't* have, can you answer your own question? This seems like a good resource too http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~squire/cs451_l4.html