amanda more

amanda more,

 

 

It's most important while talking about this issue not to simply use the term "scientist", but specify which kind of scientist you are talking about.

 

It's the manner in which we generalize all living things. The sciences involving nonliving things can be isolated and made into formula.

 

When you take a living thing from its environment and isolate it you have changed how it lives. The data is speculation and can't account for a real life scenario. A formula would only be good in a lab setting for sure.

 

In order to have accurate scientific accounts of living things it takes a life time of work and one must also account for how things are changing in their life time.

 

Its not to say there is no credence in the work of psychologists and specialized statisticians, their work is merely subjective and probabilistic at best ultimately.

Houston, we have a disagreement.

One can think of math then science then engineering. Math is the language of science.

I could let X = scientist. Any scientist studying any science. I grow weary of the idea that detailists have found the road to nirvana through a type of exactness. Generalists or practitioners in the real world have then stepped out of the realm of science, according to those into a tree instead of the forest.

If a statistician was to come into your classroom and count the number of students there, then that work would not be probabilistic and subjective. It would also be a tree. Science is however more interested than in just a data point. Even if the height of the students was taken and the mean and median was found that is actually not subjective and probabilistic. It is exact. (within measurement variance)

Science is encumbered with doing more than adding together a huge number of data points. As one looks at a forest, then one has essentially lost the characteristics of the individual tree. That loss is more than made up for in relevance.

back to topic- one person's meaningless tree is another's treasured Bonsai. How does the above arguement play out when people form couples? Is there too much pressure today to have people have the same interests? Instead of seeing someone as part of a generation or in line with most in their gender is it so passe to do that we find ourselves wondering at our difficulties with Jane or George specifically individually? Could we benefit from allowing more difference from ourselves and considering group characteristics?

This thread is about IQ.

I,personally, have absolutely no interest in this. But I'm odd. One guy at a coffee shop thought if he talked jazzy then everyone could get their ears talked off by his views on UFOS. I do not care.

I told him if one landed a block away I would not be one of the ones who would go look.

Equation to your heart's content. Start it as a new subject line. I am not checking physics or speculations for a reason. There is a huge body of knowledge that I will never know much of and lots I just can't be bothered with it.

 

 

And which way around is the correct association? I.e. geniuses have an easy time with IQ test hence they usually have high IQs. But then IQ may still be a lousy predictor because you can get a high score without being a genius. Or is it a cut-of? Maybe chances of being genius is lower at IQ below, say, 120 but does not scale with higher values?

There is this kind of thinking. Now we could go on and on about George. He has this kind of thinking. We look on him as odd. But wait. Here is Jane. She also has this kind of thinking.

The struggle may be if we color coded different groups of people then maybe it would be a more neutral evaluation. Having more of the kind of thinking measured on a test does not imply higher esteem. It is like saying the red colored M and Ms are somehow more elevated than the yellow ones.

And is it really true that someone with athletic ability is, instead of a different category of M and M somehow the Duke, or Count or King in some kind of feudal system? A high IQ is a potential for genius. Derek Jeter could have had a test showing athletic promise. It doesn't make him a better person or a superior person and a high IQ doesn't make anyone of higher status than anyone else.

We are kind of OK accepting that some are born with a level of natural athletic ability. Of these most will not make the major leagues. Why not accepting that some are born with a little more of just those skills measured on IQ tests? Especially since it may also test a different outlook on life?

Unless George happens to run across Jane he may not fully appreciate the loneliness and lack of in depth in communication with others.

By virtue of this highly complicated intricate modern era, personally, I have no problem finding a way to find the Georges and at least not crush them. The Derek Jeters of another generation may be born without the ground to play and run. We then won't have any more.

Constant adamant consideration of George only and "that way he is" can be most counterproductive. Suppose Will liked to sit around and stare at a box every Sunday and Monday night in the fall? Although he may be surrounded by these creatures who never do it themselves, he can take heart. There are millions of others showing him that he is not alone.

He is thus put in the group of green M and M's that watch football this much.

According to wiki the best reaction formula is

2CH₄ + S₈ → 2CS₂ + 4H₂S

Using Natural gas as the carbon source in the presence of silica gel, requiring 600 °C

 

This method has all but replaced the charcoal method due to price and high temperature, you should be able to do it but it would require temperatures around 850 ^oC

And be careful because as I am sure you know it is highly flammable and has one of the lowest autoignition temperatures around 90^oC

 

Here is an interesting Article from way back

You do know enough to check the level of poison when doing anything chemical? Right?

Oddly enough though common it may be, H2S is toxic. When I was new to a job as a mechanic in a chemical plant they looked to me. Despite alarms that were depended upon. I let them know when I smelled it. They were so used to it that they couldn't. They could unknowing get a toxic dose.

Saying that- in the good old days of real chemistry sets I made it. Not enough to effect me. uh- not enough to effect me not enuf to effec me .............

You should start a thread about your diet pills so those who know more about this sort of thing can find the post and respond. I for one can't see it being feasible however i heard about some operation that kills your taste buds r.e. if food doesn't have any taste your going to only consume it as fuel. Maybe a good pet project for you would be to go and collect all the supplements neccessary seperately such as protein drink, mineral supplements and vitamin supplements and consume the proper amounts as per a nutritional guide. My "guesstimate" is you feel like crap, your bowel movements are going to be bad (think peeing out your bum) your going to be constantly hungry (at least til your stomach shrinks) and I think as a hypothesis cause I'm no doctor, that your going to have severe stomach problems such as acid reflux , ulcers, and all around discomfort.

 

All in all it sounds like a horribly self destructive diet and in the name of science I'm behind you 100%

Except this may be a case of someone who particularly enjoys the one person account over and above a scientific study. Even here he could have all the problems you mention and site them as benefits.

Huge corporations can't site real data showing two year effectiveness for weightloss. So they report how they all have now so much "energy."

The obesity epidemic is still actually intractable as far as I can see. Unless the 120,000 per person derivatives do crash (really off topic)

At that point even with huge resources, people will suddenly need food. That is one way to stop obesity.

from post #1

Mr Rayon

The community of science that interprets this development are not traditional scientists. They do so with psychologists and specialized statisticians therefore it is not exact. The interpretation is qualitative. Anytime some thing is qualitative it is also subjective. I would imagine that people see marriage as a stable platform with which to procreate, it is not the only way however. The important question is what is a persons purpose for marriage; Is it to: procreate, have pleasure sex, for money, for love....

 

 

I personally don't think that this is necessarily a problem, the jury is still out on what these groups of people will do. maybe people in this group decided there are more important things than marriage.

 

 

statement of bias:

I my self do not object to being married.

I think you have answered my question from another topic. As long as scientists stick to the herd behavior of antelopes they are cool. Once they look at humans though, they then are not traditional scientists. I assume biologists who do forest work you would consider traditional scientists. That individual tree has a bug on it. A data point. But that scientist may have a stronger interest in the forest or the ecosystem. By yours and it seems most people's reckoning then he loses being a traditional scientist if he generalizes something about the forest from his data points. Alternatively, you and many people find if he knows about the ecosystem, he may bring something with him to tell about the condition of the forest. For herds of human that would be considered subjective.

Crime drops. Would it be out of line for science to notice there are less males in the 18 to 25 year old group? If so, why? Data gathering surely without any kind of ties to things that are of importance surely is not even really science?

The link between marriage and life expectancy is kind of complicated. In a study it was found that males with younger wives benefitted most (in terms of life expectancy). Strangely, the inverse appears to be the case for women.

Press release

 

Also it appears that the gap in life expectancy between married and unmarried males has diminished (but I would have to dig out that data).

IIRC children had no influence (i.e. no difference between married couples with and without children).

As sexist as it is when one thinks of nursing one thinks of females. A guy benefits when he has married an able bodied female for nursing care. If he marries older he isn't as disadvantaged because he won't have societal pressure to do caretakering. While in this marriage (to an older woman) he has less need of nursing but benefits from mothering.

The males in a marriage are as a general rule not good nurses or mothers.

Although a guy who goes for young may find that as motivation enough to take care of himself. He may eat right and work out and go to doctors to attempt to keep up. Women may take care of themselves whether they marry someone younger or not.

The context here is statics. The calculations of stability is based on well-established mechanical frame work. Just stating a value without that context is meaningless.

 

CharonY

Wrong. Meaningless? You want truckers to do what?

Mathematical treatment of data is essential. However, one cannot simply throw numbers around. An important part of statistics is the proper use of these values. An important part of each science is to define in which context each measurement is valid and informative. Context is everything.

"That bridge will hold 20 tons" If one is a mathematician and a pure scientist it may be considered throwing numbers around. Is there scientific proof? Have you sent trucks across identical bridges and discovered when they collapse?

Science is certainly a tool with some heavy mathematics underpinning what is relevant here. Arguments that belabor the lack of perfection in practical use in the real world are not of interest to me. Those individual trees.

on topic:

Steroids have shown that a lot of athletes who were assumed to be better than one in 100,000 in athletic ability have actually gamed the system. They might have been considered the "geniuses" of the athletic world. Baseball statistics do measure something. They may be measuring a faulty something. An IQ test could well be just as faulty. One would expect a series of questions would have all kinds of problems.

Still, even steroid users who make it to the big leagues do have athletic prowess.

IQ measures something. There will certainly we can all agree a higher potential in the upper pool of test scorers than the lower pool. Fulfilling high potential has to do with endeavors that are generally nonmenial jobs or pursuits. If we provide the environment for high productivity, if we try to at least not hang them out to dry then there are geniuses who will bloom into productive geniuses.

And well genius is like a lot of things- I know em when I see em.

I do have to admit I find it discomforting though that doctoring is as much an art as a science.

A lack of energy balance most often causes overweight and obesity. Energy balance means that your energy IN equals your energy OUT.

 

Energy IN is the amount of energy or calories you get from food and drinks. Energy OUT is the amount of energy your body uses for things like breathing, digesting, and being physically active.

 

To maintain a healthy weight, your energy IN and OUT don't have to balance exactly every day. It's the balance over time that helps you maintain a healthy weight.

 

The same amount of energy IN and energy OUT over time = weight stays the same

More energy IN than energy OUT over time = weight gain

More energy OUT than energy IN over time = weight loss

Overweight and obesity happen over time when you take in more calories than you use.

 

high-blood-pressure

This is certainly old school stuff and many today do say this. Then why would it be possible that sleeping more means thinner people? At first look surely sleeping uses less calories?

The thing with statistics is you can make just about any number up and people will believe it "87% of all people know that!"

The essence of science is mathematics. Mathematics is used for logic and what is called stochastic processes. Sorry that in the real world statistics means a lot. More than hearing from one person's personal account however much your heart may go out to them. You might consider that you already use statistics. You feel exhausted but figure your odds of sleeping on the grass is safer than the highway. People can be lied to in thousands of ways. It seems a shame that a little arithmetic is somehow weighted so differently that people rather listen to George than the AMA.

Tell us Amanda , also if you could kindly spare the time of a thought , do such studies show how many billionaires are likely to join the bankrupt class ?

 

 

This is retrospective studies. They show how many have changed say from last year. The point is however poor the crystal balls are that culturally each one distorts how things are and have been getting by in the present. I am thoroughly tired of the idea that it is distortion to ever talk about the forest when we can be so exacting and more exacting about a tree. So what? My interests lie in the forest although others may jump much more quickly to the ecosystem. So lambasting real thought this way does nothing to advance what I consider on topic.

I will say that is one reason that educated people whatever the IQ or if genius or not can lose patience rather quickly with others.

Perhaps impatience is a well correlated characteristic of genius? Although not in the definition exactly.

Isn't it slightly politically incorrect to use the term ' lower classes ' for some of the Queen of Englands subjects , while all subjects to her are the same

' lower classes ' , there is then only one place for a ' lower class ' subject to go if they were to leave this ' lower class ' and that would be to become monarch ? Mathmathical chance is against the masses becoming monarch , they'd better try to bed a royal heir to increase an offsprings chance to leave the ' lower class ' !

"lower classes" as in say lower middle class middle middle class and upper middle class

The study i was thinking about had something to do with those in poverty advancing to the middle class. Not being versed in England English I can't quibble on the vernacular.

So would you like not a wager but a guess. _______ % of Americans advancing from poverty to the middle class

________ % of Britishers advancing from poverty to the middle class

I think the issue is that people see singleness as safely stable, and relationships as risky gambles that can either be hugely beneficial, or cripplingly disastrous (usually first one, then the other) and over the last decade or so it's gotten really hard to invite more potential risk and instability. People see the truth behind the utility of interacting and desire the mutual support through life struggles - in the same way they see the truth that it's good to carry no credit card debt and beneficial to have a disciplined financial budget.

 

They see it, they generally even desire it - they just don't feel confident that they can get there from where they are.

Statistically, a male lives longer if married. Women may be up for the risk if it means they have a better shot at offspring. People who aren't OK off are still having children- just not marrying.

Again here people may be willing to do risky things in other aspects of their life- but center on one particular behavior which engenders fear?

I think if you don't have a society strongly indoctrinating the ones without the biological imperative to couple in a deep way, then they don't. I also think that many are comforted by a kind of media lie regarding not only their infinite chances in the future but the James Bond life of singlehood. Instead of the fifties "You are not a man until you have a family" it has become "How can anyone have been so unlucky as to have been caught with any dose of responsibility."

The processing does not involved the addition of any substances other than drinking water, potassium ions, and beneficial/essential microbes.

I think that there seems to be a big misunderstanding regarding science and nutrition. On a news segment, this one old guy only ate hot dogs and had lived on them for years. So idiosyncratic diet may not be immediately life threatening. Just don't even try to envision that what you describe has any strong support in science. You can really do what you want.

I recently met a 40year old who had been vegan for ten years. She said she felt great until she didn't. Had no B12 for those years.

The impression I got is that she expects to have permanent difficulty.

Science knows about that one but can't possibly know them all. At least not now. So I am confidant in saying there is no double blind scientific study that has proven a substance that you surmise would be of benefit to health in any way. If you hate the taste so you don't eat much of it then you could lose weight. But you could go on a hot dog diet and lose weight.

I'm convinced that the benefits of the hypothetical food product I discussed outweigh the drawbacks sufficiently that I'm willing to live off it.

Well we all make personal choices. Just because a technology is available to do something doesn't mean there is a reason to do it.

I wonder how many technological innovations ever get much science regarding benefits behind them?

Are we measured in intelligence with a bias based on the method of measurement ?

 

If we include the ability to make a cup of tea and a ham sandwich in the measurement of intelligence , then a child may see an adult who does such things as intelligent . Most children in their point of view are not intelligent , as they can't do these things . If you want your plumbing fixed before it floods the ceiling , the plumber is the most intelligent person in the world . Find a Medical Doctor with 2 degrees and whatever else he/she has spent his/her time obtaining and sadly , they are no use .

 

Intelligence is simply the opposite of ignorance . Some are intelligent at some things and others at others . Narrow your method of measurement and you will not see the big picture . Make a stereotypical way to find a genius and you will find the stereotypical genius . I'm going to make my ham sandwich and cup of tea . I'm a genius if the right people are found to judge these activities as so .

 

 

Gees, one would think anyone using measurement here is against mom, America and apple pie. Give me an example say in the world of herd behavior of antelope. For descriptions of natural phenomena such as the herd behavior of antelopes one would generally find very little to quibble about regarding certain defined characteristics. Few things in science really have the accuracy everyone seems to demand from IQ. Why? I am astounded at cultural differences clouding everyone's perceptions.

There is this very blind American Horatio Algerism. It is the American religion. Fine, but true believers don't acknowledge their religious zeal. Isn't it well known that those born even with in utero nutritional deficiencies say have the exact same chance of making six figures as those born with already paid for Ivy League educations? Really? On the flipside in England "everyone knows" that the lower classes can't really make it out of their class. Are we left with Horatio Algerism versus European fatalism?

So, class,money what do they have to do with anything. I ask you to acknowledge your rose colored spectacles or dark shady sunglasses. I'd like to wonder from some -quantifiable- (ah yes imperfect- and rife I suppose with lots of socio-politico-historical analysis) concept here. Like if one can see that 160 IQ people are being measured on something are there enough non-menial jobs in this country even? And perhaps do the jobs even exist for people who have this -something-?

If lots of these positions providing a living wage are going begging then by some measure this group of people aren't fulfilling a kind of potential that is readily available. Are we utilizing the pool of let's say -high scorers- here or letting them languish? Maybe no one will ever be convinced that genius has any relation to some list of questions. However we believe, it can be possible as an initial order of magnitude to talk about genius and IQ. Potential is a seed which has fallen on the ground. If we stick them all on a dessert we will get no green shoots. We may not have to provide well tended moist soil but we can at least see how these seeds are doing. We might also wonder if we would have genius well represented in our culture if we leave this particular group completely on parched ground. For me genius is both the seed and the future product of the flower that will have bloomed.

The seeds don't need a cutoff IQ. But a study may.

Can you guess the percent in America and then the percent in England who are able to be upwardly mobile from poverty to the middle class? More math here. Make me look this up.

You need to decide what you want to do. At TI they have avery true adage, "More than two objectives is no objectives."

What? Really?

Maybe that explains things as diverse as calcium channel blockers and economic collapse.

Ah, it is a must to decide a hardcore objective just pat yourself on the back for being decisive? Damn the torpedos- full speed ahead.

Who here has not gone through an iterative process where you realize that won't quite work then tweak it or back to the drawing board to begin again? There is not a cradle-to-grave objective today if there ever was one.

A good model for behavior might be based on the two sides of the brain itself. If more people listened to a kind of gestalt regarding their gut feelings and analytical sense they wouldn't have handed Matloff billions.

If TI is Texas Instruments, sell. You heard it here first. Now to the actual inquiry:

If Computer Engineering gives you a good dose of undergraduate general engineering courses you will be well rounded in science just from that. You will have a much better chance then on working on your dreams after a simple BS degree as opposed to the world of post-doc slavery. If the only way is to continue at university it would be trivial to do Physics gradwork with some makeup on fun physics and perhaps math undergrad stuff. Your undergrad return should lead you to interact enough with grad students to understand college politics. I think you will find many are primarily motivated by their Visa status which prevents them from enjoying work in industry.

With money comes power. Better to pull down cash at 25 and sock it away. Right there you then have the luxury to pick and choose who and where you will land for further work,education. Now here we already have two clashing objectives. The best place in the world to actually do what you want to do is Silicon Valley. Clashing with a high cost for a studio apartment restraining the savings thing. Oh,oh. If you haven't secured a significant other in time to move there it has to have a male/female ratio close to Alaska. That may be another objective? Thinking there are now 3 and counting.

Life. Doesn't lend itself well to programming. Alas.

Good point. I don't think anyone was arguing that vision had to be the only or primary criterion of self-awareness, but rather, it is just one way to try to test the sophistication of self-awareness. For many animals smell would certainly be a more important sense to measure the contents of consciousness.

 

I often wonder what human culture would have been like if we had had the olfactory capacity of blood hounds. Would we have libraries with information encoded in a variety of scents? Would telecommunications be more concerned with reproducing the smells of distant communications and environments? We do seem to be anthropocentric in favoring visual data as the route to understanding animal intelligence.

I had a dog tied to the front porch (jumped, tunneled otherwise) Humans walking by were probably convinced that the interior environment was more enriching. I am not even sure if life indoors is all that enriching for humans. But I noted that for him every passing smell, movement was of interest. I was wondering since we share so much if Chimpanzees had more going for them in an olfactory sense. I do so love Pubmed yet those darn genetic studies abstracts seem especially obtuse: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15687286 So perhaps we did very recently give away some nuance of a sweet flower smell and presumably our brain uses that for something else. Like a name. As I recall Shakespeare had a few lines lamenting that . . .

 

 

Granted, I could be deluding myself to avoid my own realistic limitations, but I do wonder if that general mentality leads to people putting off dating. We live in pretty uncertain times and the standards we use to weigh our own positions and capabilities can't help but to feel a little outdated.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if people had some of the lowest confidence levels in "knowing what they are looking for" compared to other times in recent history, and equally low confidence regarding "what they themselves have achieved" in terms of feeling confident and in (some degree) of control of their lives.

You also mentioned wanting to wait to be economically better off. The data show that even among the wealthy upper 17% 46% got there from two earner families. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States

The people who have married under 35 right now are better off. So a 35 year old woman has had some men taken off the market. I think I am also discounting because I haven't met any young American male with a bank account. So he finds he needs the toys he has or is in the vast majority who don't have college degrees and don't have the bucks. When they say shrinking middle class, this recession has destroyed middle class wages for skilled workers.

So, he feels he can't support himself in the style he is used to very well already. Right now 60% of college students are female.

People used to want to be useful to others. They were able to see a certain truth that there can be a utility to interacting. Now they see singleness as just fun. It is branded that way in this culture. So a significant other would be some kind of drag then. Whatever happened to people wanting to go through life struggles together supporting each other? If one met a realistic honest person is that off-putting because then the truth and reality of life rears its ugly head?

I think having cognitive abilities that are very advanced is one quality of a genius. If one is able to proficiently utilize their memory, judgment, and perception to succeed in accomplishing great intellectual feats, I believe that makes them a genius. The Encyclopedia Britannica Guide to the Brain discusses different ideas concerning what it means to be intelligent. One of these ideas was that the ability to solve analogies (a psychometric factor, as the book indicates) is one determinant of intelligence. To me this seems like a fair statement. But on the whole, I summarize a genius as one who fulfills their potential to become an intellectual powerhouse, and I believe many people have that potential.

I still want mathspeak. Odd there is only one web reference (which makes it suspect not that I looked hard) so the validity is in question. Because IQ is not a true gaussian function there are more people over 160 IQ than that would estimate. Thank goodness. So for one in a thousand that comes to 300,000 in the USA. Many are children. I imagine few are incarcerated. So from that and various intense occupations could we guess how many are out among us doing great stuff? I don't think it is just gumption but can also be a measure of the level of meritocracy. And diversity. I love the TV show Big Bang Theory.

(underlines added)

 

The truth is that most people who argue the pro-life side of a suicide debate are religious folks who believe hell (or its equivalent) awaits anyone who commits suicide. They're also the sort of people whose lives are satisfying overall, and are deluded enough to think that every other person has similar circumstances. Now I know that denying an argument based on its presenter is a fallacy, but here, I only mean to deny the unspoken premises: That all lives are more good than bad; That suicide leads to even greater suffering for the one committing it. I do have to admit that, in many cases of suicidal thoughts and actions, the motivation lies in a childish knee-jerk-like pouting brought about with little more than anecdotal suffering. Such instances could be disqualified with relative ease; the validity of logical no-hope-of-improvement conclusions could be tested. But there are instances where a person would truly be better off dead, and help in that situation should be available.

 

This is not an argument of pessimism vs. optimism.

 

Males do hate it when women have a point that's valid.....thanks for hiding it so well...but just to rile us, could you try to be more clear with the statements I didn't underline?

It is a double bind. They hate to be shown the fallacy of their logic. They hate it when something nonsensical like emotion is brought in. But alas as logical as a computer is, a human isn't. And if a human doesn't at least mention art, beauty and emotion then it is a cold argument.

Also a fallacious one. So in a horrible economic collapse all the smart logical ones do themselves in while the sainted fanatics sail along. That would seem to be eminently logical to you?

oneself. As it stands in America, the desire to die, by itself, classifies a person as mentally ill, and therefore unfit to decide their fate. For these people, I agree, there should be information available on simpler ways, or maybe even a government aid program, to end one's life. The whole idea, though, is taboo in nearly every religion, and, considering most of the world is religious, a very difficult subject to breach in any group. Politically speaking, voting for any legislation allowing for suicide would be political suicide. Ethics is not a primary concern in our society, despite so many claims to such. Appeasement of the ignorant, selfish and whiny majority is all we can reasonably expect from today's leaders.

The truth is that most people who convince themselves they are reasoning in a logical fashion about this have- guess what? A brain with a deficit in neurotransmitters. The intense research has I suppose created some level of cognitive dissonance that goes against a certain amount of male centered self determinism. It is really a kind of narcissism to believe that control is to be worshiped? It also shows a bit of immaturity. People who believe they are being logical about this then turn out to hold polar opposite views regarding other things. They couch their personal knee jerk reactions with this kind of rhetoric. Medical expenditures are nontrivial. Costs are not unimportant but if this obsessively targets your thinking then consider other spending.

Tell me in an exacting deliberate fashion all the ways a glass is half empty. Convince others. You have lied. No matter how logical you consider yourself.

Stockbrokers love to get a hold of doctors. Just because one is brilliant in one field it doesn't mean you cannot be a sucker in everything else. In fact you will have a chance to be blinded by your past success.

Don't males hate it when females say something out of left field? So here goes it. I asked a philosophy professor this question once. Instead of stepping through all those freaking terms they have let's use an example. It all comes down to pondering something seemingly nonsensical like this: "Is it OK to go to the moon for the view?"

I remember one Spring seeing some immature dead birds in a nest on my balcony, and I realized that they must have struggled to survive and died during the Winter. This set me thinking that this is the essential rule of life: Species will always try to bring as many creatures as possible into existence, so there will always be a harsh dividing line between the ambition of the species to propagate and the resistance of the environment to that propagation. The result of this conflict is that terrible suffering is a natural implication of existence, since no species will ever voluntarily contract within parameters short of that boundary of suffering, but will instead have to be limited by a painful butting up against that boundary. Humans face the same fate, since their ambition will always extend beyond what their circumstances will permit them to have, so reality will always painfully limit what they feel they need. So the poignant story of the mother bird struggling to keep her offspring alive through the Winter and ultimately failing in the hideous death by starvation of her brood becomes universal.

 

While it is true that many human lives seem to sail past many of the worst terrors, everyone most fears death and no one can escape that last, final horror. But given the very broad ambit of human imagination, anticipation, and awareness, everything awful is always present to our minds in the background. Martin Heidegger said once that the hasty way most people drink a cup of coffee already shows that they are at some level aware of death. Since good feelings are associated with successes which no longer require our attention, our minds tend to move on from them quickly and to concentrate on bad things, so the bad is magnified in our experience even beyond its actual magnitude. The actual occurrence of something bad often takes only a very short time, but the anticipation of it or the remembrance of it augments it enormously, again making life feel much worse than the objective dimension of misfortune requires -- yet still, we can't avoid those unpleasant anticpations, regrets, and memories.

 

Doesn't it seem to be the natural conclusion from all of this that it would be better just to avoid the entire adventure if possible? Even if things turn out well, negative feelings about evils which have not (yet) materialized will still spoil things; and if things do turn out badly, they can be horrible beyond imagining. And the bad will naturally statistically predominate over the good, given that we are organized entities in an entropic world.

 

I recognize that mine is the minority viewpoint, and I am puzzled why more people can't be persuaded to agree with it. But I certainly respect everyone who is willing to consider these questions rather than just lose his way in a world of trivial things.

Ah,Marat my sister is a doctor. A prescription is neither a philosophical treatise or in any way even a well reasoned argument. It is a mechanic ordering up some brake pads. May decide then to replace the spring.

As sad as it is that car will end its days.

The half empty/half full argument works. Submit yourself to an analysis of your Dopamine and Seratonin systems (ah yes well we may not be quite there yet) and suddenly logic evaporates.

I just had someone posit that he was a computer and everyone should be. So, "When someone has the part of his brain regarding emotion damaged he just wants to sit. " I said. Why do you logically get up in the morning? Because you feel like it. Why do you logically brush your teeth- because you feel like it. As much as I adore math, logic must yield to a kind of philosophy at least. We are not computers.

It is so great they have this term now PTSD but for health professionals, many used to call it burnout. Allthough aren't warzones and ER's rather similar?

And well I was premed for two years and if I had a quarter for everytime I said "I am glad I'm not a doctor"

Surely you were the kind of kid that understood that every day was a kind of denial.

I always wondered how authors from New York and California coauthor. The book I am considering writing (generally I need to get a flu for nine days to write one) has this working title. Buzzkill "Why We Avoid Reality At All Costs" But I am still trying to answer the question. The original direction was to do something about the way scientists, engineers etc. are in a separate camp from the everyone else. The other group includes politicians and journalists. This is just too advanced and technological a society with almost every decision having a huge scientific component to be led by such ignorance. I tire of asking us to understand them. I want them up to speed to understand the elementary school version of us.

I know someone who knows a tutor of a famous person. Now you heard it here first. It isn't like any of the handlers would let her contribute. Shhhh. Brittany Spears is good in math.

So I wonder instead of my own feverish attempt (literally) to write, I might envision a group of ultra short essays by contributors. I just had this discussion with an astrophysicist where he told his class that science is the asking of how not of why. I let him know it was his experimental physicist bent. I didn't insult him further by telling him that I consider science as a tool much like one of an assortment of wrenches that I might use or not. The questions I will always ask are why?

Using an economic argument from another post health cannot be done offshore. What underlying economics, logical difference is there between a person like Howard Hughes holding up in a hotel or a person in an ICU? Both are creating jobs and adding to the economy. I knew 20 year olds that had to be as high and disconnected as many in hospital beds. If one has ever felt anger at the morning alarm then getting to sleep in may have a different perspective. As bad a side effect as modern medicine has created with these issues there are some really good drugs.

A line segment can be divided into small segments and then smaller still. There are an infinite number of line segments in a segment. Watching water boil may not only seem like an eternity but actually be one in those moments. Hard to believe when one is so active and vibrant but it may not be so bad to exist at that level for a certain number of albeit externally circumscribed moments.

So instead of being a God one is relegated to a concierge. Even here the big picture might be that with all the costs here someone runs the cost benefit and decides to develop treatments for the disease. Have you ever met Dr. Bird? He seems fine with having invented the respirator. If you ask for an invite and fly out to Idaho, he might be better able to explain himself. Or not. He is 89 and very busy.

So how about it? This is a very short popular vernacular style book and certainly do it anonymously. I can program better than write- but I just enjoy sailing along knocking out these things so am totally cool that I'm a hack.

Although we both know you would be a poor second to Brittany Spears.

To take an economic view of the situation, if the 'market' is glutted with a large surplus of unsellable male 'products' (too old, too set in their ways, odd-balls who were not paired off in the first phase of 'normal' pairing circa 25-30), and the 'consumers' are females who have very few 'assets' with which to 'purchase' a mate (too old, a bit batty from spending too much time alone with too many cats, perhaps 'burdened' with children from earlier boyfriends or husbands who took off), then the supply of shoddy goods should meet the demand from consumers with little spare currency at some mutally agreeable 'price,' i.e., marriage.

 

The reasons this doesn't happen, i.e., that 'the market is not cleared,' are many. Some factors include:

 

1) Social skills attenuate to the point that people no longer seek partners or can no longer attract them.

2) People re-focus their interests out of despair over ever finding a suitable partner, and so are no longer looking.

3) Sex hormone levels decline in both genders to the point where the effort required to find a partner exceeds the tolerance for investing in that effort.

4) Unrealistically high expectations for a partner formed at an earlier age induce misperceptions of the actual 'market value' of the 'products' on display.

5) People adjust to living alone and no longer really need a partner.

6) The people who were not paired off in the first round of 'trades' were those who did not really want a partner in the first place, whether they admitted it to themselves or not.

So Marat, I am wondering if you are more than one person or have easy access to an expert system. I keep trying to find ways to disagree and just find I am learning more and more. I am a big book reader and would love to have you reference something you have contributed to. I started school adamantly not wanting to teach or do nursing. So grabbing a PHD seemed like a nonproductive area as I still never wanted to teach. But I failed to assess the value to enjoying more of a university environment for the people that are there.

So to punch in to stay on topic. Although a university environment has to provide human interaction, I am wondering if even there,there is a problem where we are addicted to the kind of conversation we all now have online. I don't see you checking your phone as soon as the conversation lulls, for instance. So minor distractions evaporate. Is this then like a glass of beer to socialize then the beer becomes the goal. I have been calling twenty somethings the loneliest generation. There is huge irony with this of course. The "always connected" may prevent true connecting with a significant other.

True. However, I want to be as much in shape as possible. That's why I need my food product.

Didn't that always seem to be a rather unfortunate aspect in science fiction that people were forced to eat "pill food."

Let's see if we could cost out your food substance. Any protein costs. It would be doable for the 1800 calories of a middle aged female but prohibitive for the 4800 calories of an active 15 year old. Parenteral nutrition today is very, very expensive.

It is essentially some kind of canned product and would be subject to recalls that seem to happen from time to time. Those who go for "natural" need to consider the sprouts lesson from Germany. Fresh does have a danger that cooked does not. Pathogens are not nontrivial aspects of life.

Food is a huge cost for the majority of people on the earth.

 

The reasons this doesn't happen, i.e., that 'the market is not cleared,' are many. Some factors include:

 

1) Social skills attenuate to the point that people no longer seek partners or can no longer attract them.

2) People re-focus their interests out of despair over ever finding a suitable partner, and so are no longer looking.

3) Sex hormone levels decline in both genders to the point where the effort required to find a partner exceeds the tolerance for investing in that effort.

4) Unrealistically high expectations for a partner formed at an earlier age induce misperceptions of the actual 'market value' of the 'products' on display.

5) People adjust to living alone and no longer really need a partner.

6) The people who were not paired off in the first round of 'trades' were those who did not really want a partner in the first place, whether they admitted it to themselves or not.

I think it is a system actually based on some levels of lies we tell ourselves. Most people, male and female lie to themselves about their real interest. It is crushing to a guy to foresee that he will never again risk his heart in order to have access to a female. He tells himself he is just biding his time and occasionally playing the game. There is no biological imperative regarding him. He wakes up at 55 and decides the reason no 35 year olds are attracted to him is money. A female thinks she is doing the right thing but as 35 approaches dating becomes rife with those she is attracted to disliking the obvious need she has to scout out appropriateness. He holds the cards now and feels he doesn't need to play fair because he has forever. He also has had his heart broken and may likely seek those who are a mismatch because it will prevent deep entanglement. Financially, three quarters of 35 year old men for the last thirty years can't support themselves. So women do this calculation of having another mouth to feed in addition to any offspring. Even in the first round those who actually marry today are well off. One 30 year old I know was anticipating access to 35 year olds when he is 55. I said- what kind of woman wants to date her father's buddies? So even if anticipating coupling at that age this is no longer some feudal system where that is her only chance for advancement. I guess though I wonder that anyone ever finds anyone. The flip question becomes interesting.