OK, now all we need
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Stan Shannon wrote:
And he was able to arrive at that conclusion after consideration of the system in its most elemental terms - a falling apple.
I am so glad we have wise and hard thinking folks like you to explain Newton to the rest of us. I am sure that many folks have compared you to Asimov. However, some few of us holdouts who don't recognize your insights quite as well as I am sure your friends and family do, think that what made Newton great was he realised how complex the answer had to be to explain the apple falling down and the moon remaining in orbit.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
he realised how complex the answer had to be to explain the apple falling down and the moon remaining in orbit
Sorry Jon, but Stan is right. Newton saw past the complexity of all the different situations. He really did come up with the simple explanation. It can be distilled down to a paragraph, yet still explain all gravitational effects, between all objects, within the framework of Newtonian physics. (Hence the name. :laugh: )
Silver member by constant and unflinching longevity.
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Like the time Charles Firth from The Chaser's War on Everything interviewed and began flirting with one of the male members during some roadside sign-flaunting. :laugh:
That was *awesome*
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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Christian Graus wrote:
I read that hells angels go out to stand between them and bereaved families they are trying to intimidate.
The Hells Angels may have done this, but you may also be confusing them with the Patriot Guard.[^]
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
Hmmm... I think you may be right, I am going on my recollection of reading about it in Time, and I'd have sworn it was Hells Angels, or at least, an existing group, not one formed for the purpose. But, I've been wrong before. I mean, how many groups can there be, when there's only 15 odd phelpses ?
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Is this American Dream (of success, fame and wealth through thrift and hard work) then just a glorified myth that only the rich and powerful can aspire to, yet out of reach of the poor and weak ?
It is the most well tested and validated political mechanism for minimizing poverty and maximizing opportunity for the greatest possible number of people. Is it perfect? Nope. But it is the best system we have and has been historically validated to be so.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
The trouble is, it's judged and validated by those for whom the system works. The people who have been crushed by it, are rarely asked and if they were, their opinion would not be counted to matter, much. That's the point. You judge a system that, you agree, crushes the weak, based on how satisfied the strong are with the result.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Perhaps hand-holding has its uses and benefits especially for those whose vulnerability is evident. A cradle to grave system does ensure that those who suffer such vulnerabilities do not fall below a certain safety net.
The problem is that no social safety net is ever safe enough. Once you have rationalized the need for one in the first place, there is no such concept as a 'minimal acceptable level of social security'. The same logic the justifies the existence for one at all justifies the existence of the most secure and comprehensive safty net any government can achieve.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The problem is that no social safety net is ever safe enough
Rubbish. If every person has the opportunity for a roof, food and medical care, then it's enough.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Electrical activity within the brain.
The brain's functioning is more chemical than electrical.
Well, sort of. I mean, it's electrical activity that makes it work, but it's all caused by chemical reactions. Just like a chemical reaction is why a battery gives you electricity. It's not a dichotomy.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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Christian Graus wrote:
I read that hells angels go out to stand between them and bereaved families they are trying to intimidate.
The Hells Angels may have done this, but you may also be confusing them with the Patriot Guard.[^]
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
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Oakman wrote:
he realised how complex the answer had to be to explain the apple falling down and the moon remaining in orbit
Sorry Jon, but Stan is right. Newton saw past the complexity of all the different situations. He really did come up with the simple explanation. It can be distilled down to a paragraph, yet still explain all gravitational effects, between all objects, within the framework of Newtonian physics. (Hence the name. :laugh: )
Silver member by constant and unflinching longevity.
RichardM1 wrote:
It can be distilled down to a paragraph, yet still explain all gravitational effects, between all objects, within the framework of Newtonian physics.
You are right, of course, but compared to the simplicity that Stan prefers (e.g. Pi=3.0) the explanation is quite complex.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Sure it's unsatisfying; especially from my viewpoint as a physicist. The boundary between classical and quantum has always troubled me. However, I'm not really active with physics anymore. I wasn't smart enough to handle the deeper mathematics, so I couldn't build a career on purely theoretical physics. I had to go into other things. I think about these things, but at the moment I don't have much time - I'm occupied with a million other things. I try to follow the popular press and read articles by scientists I know are working on the problem. Aside from that, there isn't much that I can do in a realistic sense to add to the solution or debate.
73Zeppelin wrote:
Aside from that, there isn't much that I can do in a realistic sense to add to the solution or debate.
Then take Stan's word for it: God touched Adam's forehead and said: "Thimk!"
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Oakman wrote:
That's good. God doesn't want to debate anyone today, either. He told me so.
Yeah, we're still at war, but we've agreed to a Christmas Truce.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
The problem is that no social safety net is ever safe enough
Rubbish. If every person has the opportunity for a roof, food and medical care, then it's enough.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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73Zeppelin wrote:
we've agreed to a Christmas Truce
I prefer a Christmas Spruce myself. The teal color goes nicely in my livingroom.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
I prefer a Christmas Spruce myself. The teal color goes nicely in my livingroom.
"Teal". Gah. I have a complex about that word.
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Christian Graus wrote:
If every person has the opportunity for a roof, food and medical care, then it's enough.
Not educational opportunity, too?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Well, I don't see how that's possible. My kids will obviously have more opportunities than the kids of a single, drug addicted, illiterate mother. But, you're right, in that access to education is something that all people should receive. But that's not welfare, that' just something that should exist by default in society.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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Well, I don't see how that's possible. My kids will obviously have more opportunities than the kids of a single, drug addicted, illiterate mother. But, you're right, in that access to education is something that all people should receive. But that's not welfare, that' just something that should exist by default in society.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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I have always admired what I understand the Japanese model to be. Free education as long as you can pass the exams. And the exams, especially for the good schools, are tough.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Well, education is essentially free here, but the fact is, kids from more educated households will have a head start. But, in theory, anyone can get any sort of education here, which is perhaps why it did not occur to me to mention it.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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I have always admired what I understand the Japanese model to be. Free education as long as you can pass the exams. And the exams, especially for the good schools, are tough.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
That was the problem with the UK's former 11+ exam. If you passed you got to go to a better class of school - a Grammar School, but those who failed got to go to a Secondary Modern. Secondary Modern was for failures and thus many of these pupils were marked as such - failures - and to tell a child of 11 they were failures was considered an abuse of sorts. Thus, this system was abolished during the 1970's in favour for Comprehensive Education where all pupils were taught at the same pace irrespective how the individual pupil performed. This Comprehensive Education was not beneficial to all as those that were either "bright" or "dumb (for want of a better word)" as their needs were not necessarily serviced. But... Today, there is some discrimination insofar that ability by subject dictates would level of schooling you receive - that means if you are a wizard with, say, mathematics, you would be placed into a classroom together with similar pupils who have the potential to do well but if your mathematics was not at that standard you would be taught but not at the same degree of excellence. Also, there is an identification of those who might be classed as "gifted" and suitable education packages for those are under way or under review. Personally, I do not like the label "gifted" as it does signify some degree of "special measures" that could result in some kind of resentment from other pupils which can, and does, lead to some degree of bullying.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
The problem is that no social safety net is ever safe enough
Rubbish. If every person has the opportunity for a roof, food and medical care, then it's enough.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
Christian Graus wrote:
and medical care
And if the opportunity is the choice between self destructive behaviours and acting as a contributing member of society do not those opportunities follow upon making the right choice at that opportunity? And what level of medical care is enough? Access to MRI and major surgery? Free prescription drugs? Where does it end?
I'm pretty sure I would not like to live in a world in which I would never be offended. I am absolutely certain I don't want to live in a world in which you would never be offended. Dave
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Christian Graus wrote:
and medical care
And if the opportunity is the choice between self destructive behaviours and acting as a contributing member of society do not those opportunities follow upon making the right choice at that opportunity? And what level of medical care is enough? Access to MRI and major surgery? Free prescription drugs? Where does it end?
I'm pretty sure I would not like to live in a world in which I would never be offended. I am absolutely certain I don't want to live in a world in which you would never be offended. Dave
DRHuff wrote:
And what level of medical care is enough? Access to MRI and major surgery? Free prescription drugs?
Yes if your country offers Universal healthcare free at the point of delivery paid by your taxes, as happens in the UK. But if, say the USA doesn't offer such universal healthcare, then presumably you need to rely upon the kindness of charity, which can be demeaning.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
So, let me ask the question this way. If we are to propose this cemf hypothesis, is it possible to reduce it to a more basic, elemental theory. Do not all of these components reduce to underlieing physical interactions? Isn't there some hypothecial partical of magnetism? The monopole or whatever its called. Isn't an ion merely an atomic nucleus with too few or too many electrons? Doesn't this model suggest that the basic unit of consciousness is somehow an interaction at this level? I'm open to that concept, but I simply do not understand why conscioiusness would be any more likely to be generated by that model than by me banging on a rock with a hammer.
Because it most likely comes from some kind of organized interaction, the roots of which, probably lie in quantum mechanical interactions. I think the key is "organization" on some level. A hammer on a rock isn't a sustained process that displays some kind of organization. Electromagnetic fields can resonate an produce peculiar effects as well. So there are lots of possible mechanisms to investigate, and possibly mechanisms to discover as well. You can boil it all down to individual particles if you like, but it's well known that groups of particles demonstrate much different behaviour than a single isolated particle. So I think that consciousness probably arises somewhere at the boundary between classical and quantum physics (i.e. between organized groups and individual electrons, lets say). It seems to be plausible that there are effects that occur near this boundary that we don't understand - simply because the boundary between classical and quantum physics is poorly understood.
Based on the explanations in the site you pointed to, this does not pass a simple sniff test. If the skull were as good a Faraday cage as is claimed by the writer, cell phone radiation would not penetrate. I do agree that radio waves that are on order of the frequency with brain waves would have not effect on the brain waves. Brain waves are all grouped in frequencies less than 18 Hz, and the brain is not an effective antenna for waves with 10,000 mile wave lengths. EM radiation that had a frequency well matched to the head would be in the gigahertz range (300,000,000 m/s / head size < .33 m). To have internal structure in the field that would hold the information of the mind, the frequency would have to be much higher. Assume the mind can be represented by a gigabit, in the form of active memories, thought and mind 'process'. Assume a BIG headed, blockhead of a kid, with head that is 1/3 meter on each side, so would hold that data in a cube, 1000 bits on a side. Since the .3m is the size of GHz waves, it would require terahertz freq waves to fit the data. But our brains do not emit in the THz range. The brain waves are EMF manifestations of chemical processes that resonate in the < 18 Hz range. The EMF energy generated by these is minuscule, and the interaction they would have with EMF waves is minuscule. There are no standing THz EMF wave in our heads. Physics says this theory is total BS.
Silver member by constant and unflinching longevity.
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Christian Graus wrote:
and medical care
And if the opportunity is the choice between self destructive behaviours and acting as a contributing member of society do not those opportunities follow upon making the right choice at that opportunity? And what level of medical care is enough? Access to MRI and major surgery? Free prescription drugs? Where does it end?
I'm pretty sure I would not like to live in a world in which I would never be offended. I am absolutely certain I don't want to live in a world in which you would never be offended. Dave
DRHuff wrote:
is the choice between self destructive behaviours and acting as a contributing member of society
I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that all people on welfare are deliberate cheats ?
DRHuff wrote:
And what level of medical care is enough? Access to MRI and major surgery? Free prescription drugs?
No, nothing should be free, or people will just take it. But, subsidised drugs, for sure. I went to a GP in the US, who gave me a bad diagnosis, b/c they would not listen to me, and filled me with useless drugs. This cost $500. I shudder to think what a good doctor would cost. This is just unacceptable. In Australia, I pay $25 to see a doctor, and $20 tops per drug. I also get a doctor who listens to me. A free doctor here would be better than what I paid $500 for. Your system is abused, it's abused by the doctors and the insurance companies.
DRHuff wrote:
Where does it end?
Perhaps with a fair society ? Certainly it would end with something far different to the USA today.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.