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This is sad news. He was one of the great philosophers of our time. He belongs to one of the most science oriented philosophers and one of the most honest thinkers I have known during my philosophy study. He didn't spare anybody with too naive ideas, be it materialistic or dualistic, but he always was kind, never attacking people personally, but critical reflecting on their ideas. He was able to show that it is possible to have a theory of consciousness, without leaving a physicalist ontological stance. Many people thought that his book 'Consciousness Explained', should have been titled 'Consciousness Explained Away', but I certainly do not agree with that. Consciousness exists, but it can be explained. Same for free will. He could explain how a personal and societal relevant concept of free will can go perfectly together with determinism, where others keep sticking to either 'magical free will', or denying free will altogether. In his broader ideas, he was an atheist and humanist. I do not know much about his personal life, but at least I know he also knew how to enjoy the pleasant sides of life. Enjoyer of (red?) wine, making his own cidre, harvesting the apples himself. I remember I once saw a video, where he was sitting on his tractor. I think he lived a very fulfilled life. We should all be glad that he lived his life as he did. I will miss the many new ideas he could still have found, even in his higher age. A loss for the philosophical world and many other people who are, and might still be, inspired by his thinking.2 points
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The following was posted in the forum announcements AI-generated content must be clearly marked. Failing to do so will be considered to be plagiarism and posting in bad faith. IOW, you can’t use a chatbot to generate content that we expect a human to have made Since LLMs do not generally check for veracity, AI content can only be discussed in Speculations. It can’t be used to support an argument in discussions. Owing to the propensity for AI to fabricate citations, we strongly encourage links to citations be included as a best practice. Mods and experts might demand these if there are questions about their legitimacy. A fabricated citation is bad-faith posting. Posters are responsible for any rules violations stemming from posting AI-generated content ___ We are happy to discuss the whys and wherefores, and consider modifications. In addition, a reminder that accusing people of being bots, or using AI, is off-topic. You are, however, free to ask for clarification in any discussion, including links to any citations. Faking a cite is easy, but a valid link with one is a little harder to manage.1 point
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do you agree the mathematics are required to calculate the age in order for the twin paradox to have any meaning Yes or no. The transforms in the Ether Link was prior to the SR version or did you forget Lorentz had to regularly fix his theory ? So what your telling me is that in order to calculate the age difference I would use the SR transforms in the same manner as done in SR and GR and they would be equivalent. However You also claimed that SR and GR cannot resolve the twin paradox yet you cannot calculate the age difference without using SR/GR is that correct ?1 point
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Seems to describe the situation, though I would add that some of our fellow Americans, due to prior prejudices they had mostly suppressed, were consciously and enthusiastically willing to spread their legs for him. TFG somehow gave them a safe space and In Group where they could resurrect their xenophobic (and other phobics) biases and most regressive feelings. Sorry to hear about your papa. It is painful and frustrating to watch, especially when you feel they should know better.1 point
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I would expect regardless of how good the source was, first exposure, assuming the recipient considered it a valid source, would tend to be believed at that point and make counter exposures more difficult to believe. My first exposure would have included the "saving American/Allied lives version" though I do remember thinking "why was the second bomb necessary, why so soon after the second, and was it not in part revenge?". But that version, "saving more lives" isn't set aside in my mind by knowing Emperor Hirohito was in favour of, or considering, capitulation prior. It's just sad to think that the bombs were used, regardless if they were better used that not. I find it extremely hard drawing lines with regard to civilians and war in most cases. Sometimes it's easier than others. Sometimes I agree with what, say, the UN or international community might find acceptable and sometimes I find it bizarre.1 point
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Yes, it would be good to understand exactly what @swansont means. I suspect it may be the simple point that a magnetic grab, once it is clamped onto an object, does no work when the crane lifts said object. However, when a permanent magnet on a table top draws a nail towards it, against the force of friction, work is clearly done. That work, it seems to me, must be drawn from stored energy in the magnetic field.1 point
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So, both, the traditionalist camp (i.e. the bomb resulted in capitulation) as well as the revisionist camp had prominent US scholars. For example the American historian Aleperovitz wrote (to my knowledge) one of the first publications arguing that the use of the bomb was ultimately a strategy toward the Soviet Union. Funnily as student I was more familiar with the revisionist school of thought, as the lectures I attended were led by a very prominent (I was not aware of it at that time) scholar who was a proponent it. Which kind of shows how a perspective is heavily influenced where you go to school.1 point
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Japan was actually in the process of brokering a conditional surrender mediated by the Russians, the Russian entry into the war in the Pacific was a much more crucial factor in the japanese decision to surrender than the dropping of the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The A-Bombs just provided a less shameful reason to surrender by pointing to an enemy super weapon capable of levelling any of their cities, than being afraid of another front of conventional warfare with Russia. Except it is known that it didn't, because he was already trying to convince his ministers to end the war as early as June of 1945. The bombs weren't dropped until August. He was going to capitulate, bomb or no bomb. A lot of people think that Japan Rejected the Potsdam Declaration, they did not. What they did was a little more nuanced. They publicly addressed their answer (to their own people) with Mokusatsu, which the press mistranslated into English as rejected, when it actually meant, in that context, to kill with silent contempt. Basically they ignored the demand for an unconditional surrender from the Allies because the preservation of the Emperors position wasn't immediately on the table, even though it was something the allies were discussing behind closed doors. There was also a disconnect between the Japanese Ambassador Sato, who was the ambassador to the Soviet union, and leadership back in Japan. Japans military leadership had it in their heads that if they caused more massive allied casualties during the expected allied land invasion of Japan, they'd be able to keep some of the land they conquered in a peace agreement, wanting something closer to a stalemate than a surrender. Sato believed his superiors had honestly lost their grip on reality there, as some of the land they wanted to keep, had already been liberated by allied forces. As I said above, Mokusatsu means to kill with silent contempt. As in kill the ultimatum by ignoring it, meaning no formal answer, Suzukis announcement was directed at the people of Japan and the Americans heard about it due to mistranslation in the press. It doesn't mean rejected. Kyozetsu or Kyohi suru means rejection or refuse. If it helps, imagine you asked to borrow a hammer, if I directly say no to you, that is Kyozetsu. If I sneer, turn around and walk away, that is Mokusatsu. What Suzuki was effectively saying, was that the Potsdam conference and what they were demanding of Japan, wasn't even worth the dignity of a direct response. If the bombs had not been dropped, I seriously doubt the war would have lasted much more than a few months. Especially once the decision fell to the Emperor. Why are you surprised when she was Japanese and resident of Hiroshima? Might as well ask British people why they found the blitz offensive. Morality in my opinion is all about point of view because we all have a different perspective on the context of our existence. Yes the japanese were absolutely brutal to those they conquered, civilian or combatant. A lot of it was absolutely evil and morally repugnant. Especially civilian casualties. However, there is an argument to be made in not sinking to someone elses level. 19 billion civilians, or a couple of hundred civilians, I don't think it's the numbers that are the morally significant factors but the fact that they were civilians. The majority of those civilians had little to no control over what their militaries and governments decided to do, especially in Japan which was not by any stretch of the imagination a functional democracy at the time. It was more like Tsarist imperialism if anything. As far as I'm concerned, most extreme military actions that are taken, are symptomatic of diplomatic failures, not the only options remaining. This was definitely true of the A-Bombs. Yes we can't change the past but that doesn't mean we have to like it either. Honestly I'm surprised that you're surprised. Really for all we know her great grandparents or some other recent ancestor was killed in those blasts. Oh good, someone that actually is aware of this. +1 Have you also noticed that most of the historical sources that credit the bombings ending the war come from the USA?1 point
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If all spatial dimensions loop back on themselves seamlessly, so that whichever direction you travel in, after n light years you are back where you started, then what does 'centre' even mean? It's definitely finite with a volume oto (n light years)3. But there is no point more remote from the boundary than any other because there is no boundary. All points within the space are geometrically exactly equivalent.1 point
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That's interesting. I had always understood that magnetic fields have energy, as for example in the stored energy in an energised electromagnet. If they do not, where does the energy come from when an object moves towards another under the influence of magnetic attraction? And you yourself say a magnetic field has an energy density.1 point
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Pretty sure there's a x-post here with @exchemist so briefly: If we're starting from your declared position of maximum attraction, we're moving against an attraction force for 900; then with a weakened repulsive force (poles wide apart); then against the same repulsive force; then finally with the mirror image of the attraction of the initial power stroke. In the absence of a proper mathematical analysis, by symmetry we have a nett zero sum. And then there's cam friction and the hysteresis braking mentioned earlier. Granted I've ignored secondary effects of the movement of the magnets themselves but frankly, that's beyond my pay scale. Suffice to say, if there was anything to see here, Faraday would have found it back in the day I think. Looks right enough, so you've got the 1800 phase shift covered. Shall we leave the +/-900 phase shifts to the OP?1 point
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Judge Lewis A. Kaplan did so in August 2023 while dimissing a counterclaim by Donald Trump for defamation in the E.J Carroll case. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll Kaplan had already outlined why it was not defamation for Carroll to say Trump raped her. “As the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr Trump’s motion for a new trial on damages and other relief [in the New York case] … based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury’s verdict as a whole, the jury’s finding that Mr Trump ‘sexually abused’ Ms Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally – in other words, that Mr Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York penal law.” The title of my post was satirical - (one reason it was in quotes), and took aim squarely at the rampant hypocrisy of a grifter and moral imbecile like Trump attempting to wrap himself in the American flag while hawking overpriced GBA themed bibles in the middle of holy week.1 point
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A I believe the timing is off a bit. The Japanese emperor sent a private message to Stalin before the Potsdam conference (in July) asking him to act as intermediary. I.e. these attempts pre-dated the bomb, which is one of the arguments of historians who argue against the traditional narrative regarding the bomb.1 point
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Wow, so much to unravel here. Yes. The scientific background was in the open. So it would be just a matter of time. And then the point Swansont mentioned: That is true, more or less. But Japan simply did not capitulate. So the war could have taken much longer, taking many lives of American soldiers. Yes, but only after Germany was defeated. Heisenberg was in charge. The infamous meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr in 1941, gave the latter the impression that the Nazis were making serious work of the atomic bomb, and brought this impression to the US. Yep. I have seen the 'atom cellar' in Haigerloch: Does not quite compare to Los Alamos, is it? I would not put my hand in the fire for this, but it surely was a reason: Truman said something like this about the Soviets and the atomic bomb: "Now we have a real hammer on those boys". Another reason might have been to have a 'real live test'. A hint for this is the second bomb. One of the A-bombs was a U-235, the other a plutonium bomb. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare their effects 'in the field'? About the capitulation of Japan: there was a struggle between the civilian government and the military. The government wanted to give up, the military wanted to fight until the bitter end. One of the struggling points was the position of the emperor. The US wanted an unconditional capitulation, the Japanese government found that the position of the emperor could not be discussed. In the end the Japanese government made a very unusual proposal: let the emperor decide. In the meantime the first atomic bomb was dropped. If this fact had an influence on the decision of Hirohito is not known, fact is that he chose to capitulate. His speech in which he called for the capitulation was recorded, to be brought to the Japanese radio studios. Radical militaries tried to steal the recording on its way to the radio station, but they did not succeed. Hirohito's speech was broadcasted, and Japan capitulated. And the US more or less let the emperor untouched. Had the US made it known that the emperor could stay earlier, Japan might also have capitulated earlier. Maybe the A-bombs would not have been necessary. Main source: Bert Röling, who was a.o. member of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (also called the Tokyo Tribunal, similar to the Nürnberg Tribunal in Germany). Hmmm. Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch were hardly Nazis, they were Jewish and fled Germany in 1938. Otto Hahn: Fritz Strassmann: So four of the 'main characters' were definitely not Nazis. Equating 'German' and 'Nazi' is simply wrong, also during WWII.-1 points
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The Doppler effect is an effect due to waves, so what changes is the speed relative to the waves. Lorentz transformations are classical wave mechanics equations, they cannot exist without a propagation medium. Acceleration causes variation in the Doppler effect and therefore variation in the speed of the waves relative to the accelerating one. The study of acceleration shows that the symmetry is observational but not physical. Only at the end of the trip, until the Doppler effect is transmitted at the speed of light, because it is not light which changes speed in relation to the waves. What do you mean by “en route” What works is the mathematical law, not Einstein's interpretation. Here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox#Relativity_of_simultaneity you can see that there is a "simultaneity jump" Its in Lorentz theory you have to disentangle what you observe from what’s happening with the clocks, in Einstein's theory what’s happening with the clocks is considered physical reality, it's the only way to explain the constancy of the speed of light, or else this constancy itself is not physical reality and then it's no more Einstein interpretation but Lorentz. If time is not physical, neither is Minkowski space-time and Lorentz is right.-1 points
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If time dilation was a relative effect, it would not be absolute and the twin would not return younger. If the speed of light does not change relative to a moving object, how does a light clock work? It is the measurement of the speed of light that does not vary, not the speed itself. Meters and measuring standards are transformed in such a way that they always measure the same round-trip speed.-1 points
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I will try to explain the logic behind this simple way to calculate time delta t’ Time and distance are scalar quantities The speed v multiplied by 1 second is distance dv. Distance dv is real distance between observer in rest frame and observer/light clock on the train. To travel this distance dv- any distance from 0m to 3x10e8 will take 1 second. Time t=delta t does not depend on speed of light . it depends on distance L- distance between mirrors inside the light clock. The direction of distance dv is perpendicular to the distance L. This two DISTANCES create triangle and the hypothenuses of triangle is time t=delta t’ that is pretty simple . What was logic of using speeds v and c to calculate time t=delta t’ at the first place ?-1 points
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I am talking about the original experiment with two observers,light clock and train car. SR is very well explained with this experiment . I would like to ask: has anybody ever tried to calculate time dilation for above mentioned experiment when the light clock distance L=1.5 x10e8m? For this distance time t=delta t =2x0.5 sec=1 sec. In 1 sec time 1) for speed v=1 m/s the train will be away from static observer For distance dv =1m this is the real distance - nothing relative about this dv distance . ***from the point of view of non moving observer relative distance dv relative to moving observer (with light) clock will be dv relative =1 the speed v=1 m/s DIRECTION OF SPEED VECTOR is from static observer to moving observer. *** from point of view of moving observer the distance dv relative =1m/s the speed is v=1 m/s BUT THE DIRECTION OF SPEED VECTOR IS 180 degrees (opposite ) from the other relative speed. the value of time and distance is the same for both relative positions And the both realize times and distances are equal to real time and distance . what make big difference is the direction of speed vector. for any speed from 1 m/s to speed c=3x10e8 m/s the time will be 1 sec the distances will change - for different speeds in one second - the distance is v x 1 s =dv The speed v is not going to affect the time t=1 s what is changing is distance dv. when train is leaving static observer - going a way - for any speed from 0 to c speed vector will be constant. The speed of the light beam inside the light clock first 0.5 sec is moving from railway tracks to height of 1.5x10e8m The speed c vector is UP. For the second 0.5 sec the beam goes from 1.5x10e8 to train tracks . The speed c vector is DOWN. If one wants to calculate the time t=delta t’ There is two ways: 1) to use distances traveled in time t=delta t=1 second the train travelled for speed 1 m/s distance eV=1 m the distance travelled by light beam inside the light clock is 2L =1.5x10e8 up +1.5 x10e8=3x10e8 m THESE ARE SCALAR VALUES AND DIRECTION OF MOTION IS NOTBA FACTOR. we can use Pythagoras rules and calculate the distance of hypotenuses. The distance h/c=time delta t’ Angle ALFA=tan (dv/2L) is the same as in Lorentz factor v^2/c^2 how? for time period of 1 sec the v=dv and speed c =3x10e8 m ONLY IN SCALAR QUANTITY. Now 2) to use speed v and speed c to calculate the time : SPEED VECTOR DIRECTION is crucial. The first 0.5 sec the vector of speed v is going away from static observer. at the same time the light beam inside the clock for the first 0.5 sec is going up and away relative to static observer. Observer in the first 0.5 seconds see the light moving at the slower speed than speed of light - but very close to speed of light. (1m/3x10e8=0.3x10e-8) thisnis the change in distance at L =1.5x10e-8m There is no time dilation,the distance becomes longer . If the light clock test is done with light clock L=1 m The elongation of distance will be in 10e-8 s x speed c Time in 10^-9 s - time dilation ? does this look familiar ?-1 points