Strange

I bet. There was an amazing article a while ago about a woman who had her 3D sight restored. Unfortunately the article is subscription only: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227112.900-how-i-learned-to-see-in-3d.html I'm guessing it might make it easier for you to see the reflected image more "objectively". But I'm not really sure.

Cool. I wonder how long the battery lasts ....

Doh! Sorry, I missed that paragraph. I think it may be an advantage in this context.

Elections are not random. If you poll sufficient people you can predict the result. Even if you don't poll people and you can't predict the result, the outcome is determined by how people vote, therefore not random. A random election would be one where the outcome is determined purely by chance and the votes are irrelevant. "Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.[1] This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.[2] In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable.[3][4] This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory Although tossing dice and roulette wheels are normally considered random, that is only because it is hard to predict the result. People have won money at roulette by analysing the speed and bounces of the ball and predicting where it will land. Why would that make any difference? The world was just as random or not before humans appeared as it is now. Change is independent of whether a system is random or deterministic. I see no reason to.

I don't know about you, but I'm not spherical. And neither is the galaxy. And nor is .... oh, never mind. Yes, spherical surfaces are common, for good reasons, but we see all sort of other shapes as well (for exactly the same reasons, interestingly). But that isn't what you said. So I assume you want to retract your previous statement because it was wrong; that's good of you. How did you measure the size of the reflected cube? Did you place the ruler next to the mirror? Because, of course, if you had placed it next to the reflected image (e.g. by placing it next to the original cube) then both cubes would be the same size. Is this anything other than the effects of perspective? What do you suggest? Just ignore the data that doesn't fit with out current models? Pretend it didn't happen? Or is it more productive to try and come up with an explanation? You have that back to front. Homogeneous and isotropic are (working) assumptions used to derive the math. So far they appear to true to quite a high degree of accuracy. But obviously not perfectly so. That is a bit like saying it is either grey or not.

Do we need to remind people that it wasn't a real experiment?

Excellent points, very well made. The only thing I might take issue with: I agree that people know what they think when faced with a single issue. What they might not have thought through is the wider implications of a particular decision in one case when applied to other cases. This is where philosophy can really help: knowing what questions to ask.

I don't think they are random. Weather? Entirely deterministic and also unpredictable (in the long term). I agree there are random processes involved in that. One of the many things that make it different from either memory or imagination. One could draw an interesting analogy between evolutionary processes, such as selective breeding, and creative thought. For example, the subconscious might try combining lots of different ideas that the mind has accumulated to produce new ideas and then using some sort of selection process to choose those that "survive". If one did that, it would have to acknowledge that it is a very flawed analogy and not to be taken too seriously. No. My new job is very definitely not random. It is based upon my existing skills and contacts.

Or, to put it another way: no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Titan The greater pressure and lower temperature (and higher proportion of nitrogen) would lead to higher pressure. But I haven't seen a figure for that. It doesn't sound as if it would be dense enough to swim. (As it is a gas, you would be flying, rather than swimming, I guess.)

Very rarely. I might by a lottery ticket once or twice a year. That's about it. No. But I can pretty much guarantee it won't be random. It might be related to a new job, what to eat for dinner, etc. Even if I win that lottery, my thoughts will not be random; I will be planning how to invest the money, which car to buy, etc. Unpredictable but not random. A bit like the weather, me. External environment, learning new things, changing job, moving to a different country, ...

Combining old genes does not permit a specie to survive to important environmental changes, it also takes mutations. What does recombining genes have to do with imagination? Exactly. You decide you are right, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I doubt imagination is really random. It is mainly based on past experiences, perhaps combined in novel ways. It comes from our limited ability to understand the complexities of human nature. Even people with serious mental disorders do not behave randomly. So you have managed to drag this thread about whether the study of evolution is science or not back to your favourite topic. Which has been shown to be mistaken in at least two previous threads. As has been shown before you are wrong. Ironically, though, you seem unable to learn and change your idee fixe. I understand what you mean. But you are still wrong. Except they aren't. But you seem unwilling to change your mind about this either.

Well it improves learning and hence survival, if that is what you mean.

And if it was 208GHz before the big bang, wouldn't expansion have made the frequency much lower? Or was it a higher frequency at the big bang that has now been reduced to 208GHz? And why 208GHz, anyway?

As memory is very obviously not random (we remember things that actually happen and are more likely to rememebr things that have an emotional impact) can you explain, either: 1. What you think the word "random" means? 2. In what way you think memory is governed by unpredictable chance events?

On another forum, one poster insisted that the Doppler effect was caused by distance and not relative velocity. This is easy to test just by standing next to a road. He was unwilling to try any such test...

I have never seen anything that suggests that. I think Hawking radiation is electromagnetic radiation with a black body spectrum; in which case it isn't dark matter (which doesn't interact electromagnetically).

Well, I was hoping to hear about philosophy solving real world problems. But go ahead, anyway...

Exactly. You will not get an interference pattern (because you have changed it to a single slit experiment). Anything you do in order to know which slit an individual photon (or electron, etc) goes through will prevent an interference pattern forming for the same reason.

Ah, good point. I had forgotten the "to infinity" bit of the definition. Thanks for the reminder!

Almost certainly not. If the photon had exactly enough energy to free the electron, but give it zero kinetic energy, then the electron would immediately bind to the atom again. A free electron will have some kinetic energy and therefore velocity.

The important point is the relationship between mass and energy (the form of the energy is less important). In this example, the greater binding energy of the nucleus leads to the nucleus having greater mass than the individual components.

When will you do that? We are on to the second page now.

Nor that the past was hotter, which was the claim I was curious about.