Prometheus

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.

Just found this channel and had to share:

I definitely agree. Maths does this to me all the time.

There are plenty of beeps and sounds coming from the monitor, but this isn't one of them. It's more of a thunk, coming from the belly of the machine, so i'm thinking the electronics that create the EM field as swansont said. I tried to find a sound of it online, but came across a load of ASMR stuff instead - that's some weird stuff. I'll record next time i take out a book.

... when you check out a book on an rfid self-checkout machine in a library. I assume it has something to do with an electromagnetic field, but does anyone know more?

...or we create our own magic.

As computation improves, much early stage development can be better modelled. This considerably saves time and money. Ethics committees are always looking to streamline their services, but the nature of bureaucracy only allows so much improvement. Developing an opt-in culture to research could help mid-late stage development, where whenever someone engages with health services they are automatically informed of potential trials. In general i suspect that as various health tech platforms start to monitor people in health and disease, that data will become a viable currency that individuals could sell (or give away freely). Could be useful for post-licence surveillance and phase 4 trials. I'm not sure that is true. Source?

How are we defining full dive? To my mind it should at least engage all the traditional senses (Aristotle's 5).

Isn't that why art is so important? It can communicate that which cannot be put into words. You can't watch Grave of Fireflies without feeling some measure of pain. The medical definition was made precisely to try to stop such incidents from happening. Clearly hasn't worked in all cases.

In medical circles the standard definition is, “whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever the experiencing person says it does.” Never really found that helpful, myself.

There are topics in computer science that a background in statistics would be ideally suited for. Something like machine learning has a lot of overlap with statistics (though there's debate over their similarities/differences). Guess it depends on what problems in computer you want to work on and how much the programme focuses on aspects you are not familiar with. It's probably best to ask the person in charge of the programme - they will know exactly what it entails.

You could look into Raman spectroscopy, doesn't require any tagging/staining. It comes with it's own problems, but might suit your needs.

Don't really understand the set-up, but all cardiac myocytes have the potential to be pacemakers: a heart will beat spontaneously without innervation, assuming the right electrolyte balance is maintained in the water. If they are using this as evidence of some property of water i'd consider it a huge red flag, hoisted high and waving vigorously.

I thought this was a pretty good review of the state of BCIs, even though it's five years old. Has a section on gaming too.

Once you give AI an objective function to maximise it will do so indiscriminately. If the agent is intelligent enough to realise that someone could try to change its objective function it will take measures to ensure that doesn't happen - as that would interfere with it's current objective. Re-programming such an agent would be difficult - and impossible for itself. This has a name in AI safety circles, but it currently escapes me*. One solution put forward is actually to allow some doubt over the objective function, so that the agent will have to seek external validation (human satisfaction for instance). Such an agent is constantly re-evaluating it's goals in light of sensory input (humans smiling or something more sensible), and might be safer. The biggest problem for AI safety is the likelihood that various states and companies will rush towards developing the technology and so neglect these sorts of safety concerns. *It comes under the banner of Instrumental convergence. Basically unconstrained AI agents might be expected to behave in similar ways, because they all help maximise objectives, regardless of the objective. Things like self-preservation and resource acquisition would help an AI achieve its goals for obvious reasons. Goal-content integrity would similarly help it achieve that goal.

I occasionally get something vaguely similar as part of an Isolated Sleep Paralysis episode. I will see the objects in my room but cannot tell what they are: it's lines, textures and colours, but no actual things. I imagine it's what it is like to suddenly see after a lifetime of blindness - the brain receives the signals but can't interpret them. Visiting an opthamologist seems like the first thing to do though. If the eyes are all clear, maybe then check out a neurologist to about ISP. Good luck with your surgery... Hmm, do you suffer from sleep apnoea? Wonder if lack of oxygen during sleep could cause it: your bariatric surgeon should know.

All the numbers you hear regarding healthy BP refer to brachial (arm) BP so I'd stick with that if you're going to be discussing it with your health providers. Here and here confirms nevim's statement. Ideally, should also be sat for at least one minute and the arm should be supported, or at least taken in a consistent manner to allow more meaningful comparisons across time.

Because i usually vote for small parties i'm actually better represented in European parliament than i am in my 'own' `British parliament. But i'd agree the EU is an unprecedented and daunting project . I'm just disappointed the older generation of British people won't allow the younger generation the opportunity to work on it.

Any relation to the noble eight-fold path?

People have always seen existence through the lense of contemporary understanding. In the ancient world it was a drama played out amongst the stars, with the rise of monotheism it was a monarchy, with Newtonian science it was clockwork, and in our age it is a computation, a simulation. It tells us far more about the people thinking such thoughts than it does the actual universe. I wonder what people will think in the next age.

How does Venus retain its atmosphere without a magnetosphere? If it can keep its atmosphere in its current orbit does it follow that it can in Mars's orbit? Or are other factors like tidal forces involved?