Prometheus

10 hours ago, Conjurer said:

I ran into a coin flip problem where flipping 4 coins has a 6/16 or 3/8 probability of landing 2 heads and 2 tails.  I expected this value to be 1/2, because you have a 50% chance of getting heads or tails.  Then that is only 6 of the possible 16 outcomes, instead of 8. 

This is correct. 

10 hours ago, Conjurer said:

Then I realized that the number of possible outcomes where there is an even number of heads and tails actually decreases, compared to the total possible outcomes, the more times you flip the coin.

Not entirely sure what you mean. I generated a fewf binomial probability mass functions, with odd or even numbers of trials. With an even number of trials the most likely outcome is an odd number, while for an odd number of trials the most likely outcome is equal between an odd and an even number. We will expect an even number of heads or tails every time we have an odd number of flips. This is a consequence of the combinatorics of the binomial PMF (the n choose k bit). Does this answer your question?

I used to ask this question when i was a nurse and got all kinds of answers. Viruses prefer the colder temperatures in noses during winter; immune systems weaken during winter months as part of annual biorhythms; people seal themselves off from the outside world more to stay warm (similar to the huddle together one). Some mix of all the above. I never did find a definitive answer.

19 minutes ago, boo said:

Evidence of the negative is everywhere. Im sure the 9/11 terrorists derived plenty of solace in knowing they would go to heaven once the plane exploded,. The evangelist sect who stand on the road side with anti gay signs, probably get plenty of solace in knowing they are doing Gods work.  Merely believing in a god or an afterlife may not be the biggest problem, but there are invariably other things bundled into the belief system which can have more negative effects

I'd recommend you read Hitchins' book  'God is not Great'. He discusses the case fairly thoroughly. 

The 9/11 terrorists were motivated by Wahhabism, sponsored by a Saudi Royal family simply wanting to maintain rule. Had the population not been amenable to religious manipulation the ruling class would have leveraged some other aspect of the human condition to their end. Simply blaming religion is not useful.  

We can't quantify whether religion has provided a net harm or benefit. How are you going to quantify those feelings of security or wellness some religious people experience? How do you count 'religious' war deaths that would have probably happened without religion anyway, as one culture sought to subjugate another culture? How do you count the silent suffering from paedo priests? 

I think it much more helpful to look at religion as a meme. It is easy to see why aggression could help some religious memeplexes spread, in the same way it is easy to see why aggression could help a species spread (i'm picturing honey badgers right now). The question should be how do we select for traits that are less aggressive. 

That's exactly what i was looking for, thanks.

9 hours ago, MPMin said:

Perhaps consciousness in the most fundamental terms requires a rudimentary form of all these attributes collectively:

.

A sense of self 

I don't think this one is a necessary property: through meditation, certain psychedelics, certain dream states or engaging in certain activities (some say dancing or sports), it is possible to exist without a sense of self and still be conscious. Certainly a different kind of consciousness, but still consciousness. However, i can imagine a sense of self being an important evolved trait that allowed sufficiently complex beings to exist to facilitate human consciousness.

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

I remember reading somewhere that "junk" was an unfortunate thing to name what we didn't understand.

Maybe they should have called it Dark DNA. Seems to work in physics. 

19 minutes ago, Strange said:

Doo be doo be doo ...

Told you it was a musical thing...

To dance and sing. 

The influx of gold into Spain from the New World provides some idea of what might happen.

8 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

Do you deny that this is an accurate representation of Pascal's wager?

More like this (though it still misses several thousand entries):

1 hour ago, Gees said:

None of this changes your statement regarding "pretence of academia". You are stating that Religions pretend to academics, which means that you are denying that theology is an academic study, or you are saying that it is nonsense -- which is an ignorant thing to say.

The academic study of religion has proven useless as a tool for modelling the universe. It is also useless as a spiritual practice. The only value i see it having, as i discussed with Strange, is as a humanity, alongside literature and such.

1 hour ago, Gees said:

Well as long as you are not alone in your opinions, you must be right.

I'm just being honest in stating these are opinions. I don't understand why you pour such scorn upon honesty.

2 hours ago, Gees said:

You are moving goal posts. You did not state that Religion was "wrong", you stated that it had failed. Are you wandering again?

2 hours ago, Gees said:

Religion is not a study of "empirical matters",

Now you're confusing  ought for is. Religions have made many empirical claims through the years, and still do so. I agree that religion shouldn't be a study of empirical matters, but the unfortunate truth is that for many people it is, like the numerous creationists in the USA  (between 20-50%, depending on how the question is posed). 

But if the validity of scripture is not part of the OP, why don't you tell me what you think the topic of this off-topic split  is, so i don't tread off the path again.

2 hours ago, Gees said:

Meditation is meditation -- it is not a study of consciousness. 

There are various forms of meditation. Vipassana meditation in Buddhism, in particular, is a study of consciousness but not in the academic sense. 

1 hour ago, Gees said:

Reading your posts is a lot like watching a butterfly flit through a flower garden. 

Not sure that's meant as a compliment, but i'll definitely take it as one.  I'd say reading your posts is like bouncing a ball off a wall, but instead of going anywhere sensible the ball just tries to whack you in the face.

1 hour ago, koti said:

Dude you replied to me with the same clip 3 years ago in some religious thread, remember? You can send it to me every week though, I love it! 

Hm. It's hard to keep track when one occupies such lofty planes of existence. Hang on, here comes level 100...

17 hours ago, koti said:

Looks like Prometheus passed with flying colors and he is now a level 99 Lama. I’d be spitting fire if in his place, good job Prometheus.

4 hours ago, Gees said:

No. The only thing I assumed was that when you used the word "pretence", you meant pretense. This is what you stated: "All this pretence at academia by 'religious' people seems to belie an insecurity and need for validation with science."

"Pretense at academia" means that they are pretending to be academic. It is not real, whereas you validate with Science which you believe to be real. 

Do we need another English lesson?

Apparently you do: i'm British so i spell it pretence. I mention science because loads of religious people try to hijack the apparatus of science to validate existing beliefs. I'm sure you have heard of Creationists, for instance. 

5 hours ago, Gees said:

In a nutshell, he explained that people will take what "is" and replace it with what "ought to be" so they can always be right. imo

Except i'm not trying to masquerade an ought for an is. That's why i explicitly said should, so that everyone (except you apparently), would realise that i'm expressing an opinion. I'm not alone in this view, as counting the number of angels on the head of a pin has become a metaphor for precisely this kind of pretence. 

Honestly, i'm not trying to to wail on you, but if you can't even distinguish when someone is expressing an opinion rather than stating a fact when they have used the word should, then how can anyone take anything you say seriously?

5 hours ago, Gees said:

I am not sure what you are observing. Religion has been around for tens of thousands of years all over the world as validated by archeology and still permeates cultures and societies today. If that is failure, what would be success?

And in those thousands of years religion has been wrong on the age of the universe, orbital mechanics, the origin of man and species - the list is pretty long. Religion has so clearly failed on empirical matters that only religious extremists consult scripture instead of the evidence for things like the shape of the Earth, or whether vaccines work.

6 hours ago, Gees said:

One of it's values lies in the study of consciousness.

As a practicing Buddhist, i would agree - sort of. Meditation gives great experiential insight into consciousness - but certainly not as an academic study. You can read every book ever written by meditation and know nothing about the experience of your own mind.

6 hours ago, Gees said:

Oh, but it is so much fun to watch you build your reputation on nonsense. Arguing with me is always good for an up-vote.

Whatever floats your boat.

1 minute ago, Strange said:

...religion is not part of the humanities but the study of religion is.

Nice way of putting it.

Just now, Strange said:

Oh, I would. (But that might just be because it was included in my humanities course!) It is a part of human culture and experience. And, has profound links to art, history and language.

That's very true. But there is a difference in the study of Christian mythology say (which i thoroughly enjoy,  at the moment studying the mixed Pagan and Christian themes in the Arthurian cycle), and the daily practice of Christianity. I think that's a big distinction. 

31 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

I'm certain one can obtain that information with just a few mouse clicks, which leads me to wonder if there isn't some specific point you wish to make with that bit of trivia. 

No ulterior motive: i considered googling it, but since you have literally written a book about it, i thought i'd ask you instead. My mistake. I only chimed in on this thread because i thought you might be interested in that lecture, which i had recently seen. I'm interested in dreams from an experiential perspective as i frequently have lucid dreams, OBE and various other hypnagogias, but i haven't studied any of the science so i'm afraid i don't have any more i can contribute.

1 hour ago, Gees said:

Your opinion is noted and worthless. It is based on the premise that "academia" belongs solely to Science. Nonsense.

It is based on the perspective that religion should be experiential rather than cerebral. I value the academic study of the humanities - the idea that academia belongs solely to science was assumed by you. But i would not include religion in the humanities. 

1 hour ago, Gees said:

What is wrong with laymen vehemently arguing a point with a person educated in the subject matter? Let's say that I took my layman's understanding of Physics to the Physics forum (like that would ever happen), and then I told Swansont that he had no idea of what he was talking about. What kind of fool would I look like? Well, that is the kind of fool some members in this thread looked like.

The difference being that science is backed up with mathematical models tested against nature. Religion is not: when tested against observation, it has consistently failed . It's value, if any, lies elsewhere.

The Pope doesn't necessarily know more about the practice of Christianity than some pauper who found value in the forgiveness offered by Christ and learned to spread that kindness - unless all you care about are appearances, then yes, i'm sure the Pope could name all the saints and prayers of compassion, even while staying silent during the holocaust.

1 hour ago, Gees said:

Compassion is not the subject of this thread, and since you admittedly don't care (underlined by me) what the subject is, you are off-topic. Your inability to discipline your mind to the subject at hand is one of the reasons why I do not relish discussion with you.

I raised compassion as i thought the idea that its study and its practice are different things, with value mainly in the latter, would be intuitive. This was to give an intuitive idea that the study of religion is useless without the practice.  The split off topic, as far as i can discern, is what Biblical scripture has to say about the Soul. I thought you might value another perspective - obviously i was mistaken.

No one is forcing you to discuss anything with me - just stop replying to me if you're getting nothing out of it.

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

You're missing the point, you're immortal right now, so be bored the whole time, or do something interesting or stop being immortal.

Even if you are immortal, you will die when the universe does; which means you have a choice, you can be happy happy happy, dead or you can be worry worry worry, dead or you can be bored bored bored, dead etc... It doesn't matter to me, just you...

Though thou shouldest be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same. Marcus Aurelius.

What is the simplest organism that is known to sleep? And the simplest known to dream?

9 hours ago, Gees said:

It is obvious as a nose on a face that the members posting here have no real education as regards Religion, and learned their religious ideas at their mother's knee or in their local churches. They have a very layman's understanding and did not even know what John Bauer was talking about.

What's wrong with that?

Compassion is a huge part of many religions: the academic study of compassion might be useful - but it's not the same as the practice of compassion. When was the soul put into humans? Who cares - the answer won't make you a better human being, which is what religious teaching should be trying to help with. 

All this pretence at academia by 'religious' people seems to belie an insecurity and need for validation with science. Spiritual practices should stand on their own merits, anything that needs propping up with pseudo-pseudoscience should be left to fall. 

And honestly Gees, though there are some aloof people on this site,  likely including myself, you are among the worst for it. Look at yourself before casting stones.

As i understand it, the analogy of a hive might be fitting, but not of a queen: there isn't a single structure making the decision, rather a consensus is achieved among all of them.

Yeah, that's it, the brain is a colony of democratic bees. How's that for a dream?

Interesting article, thanks. Not heard of biomining before. I would have thought the lack of atmosphere, thermal extremes and solar radiation would have been bigger barriers to biomining on asteroids than the microgravity environment, but there is no mention of these in the article. I wonder why...

You might be interested in the thousand brains theory, here's a good talk about it.

In terms of unconscious/conscious the 'thousand' cortical columns would be unconscious processes and their consensus voting. Interesting you should mention our awareness  of ourselves in a space: the theory is derived from the work done on grid cells. According to the theory each cortical column can do identical work, but becomes specialised because of the inputs it receives (hence many become specialised to sight, but in a person born blind would specialise to something else). Linking this to dreaming, i imagine that the inputs into the cortical columns are no longer dominated by sensory inputs, but by memories. 

This website gives estimates of the economic worth of many near earth asteroids. There are several companies looking into it. Luxembourg give huge tax incentives to prospective space mining companies, though i think Russia want to move in on it too. I can imagine the first few companies that make a success of it becoming out-of-this-world rich.

Might only become economically viable if there is an off-Earth economy; orbital platforms for instance.That way they can reduce costs and dependence on Earth for resources and don't need to worry about getting the resources on terra firma.