RadarArtillery

Thank you. I ended the experiment after 17 hours due to work schedule changing, but I'll find a way of recording all of that information for the next time and will be certain to do it during a vacation period. I'll do the control testing first, followed by the test using the supplement several weeks later (To insure full recovery from sleep deprivation)..

I've decided, for my own curiosity, to find out what happens to the human body when a person tries to use energy supplements as a substitute for sleep. I will be performing the experiment on myself, over the course of at least 57 hours (From 4:00 AM May 19 to 12:00 AM May 21). I'm aware that this isn't the safest -- or wisest -- of things to be trying on my own, especially given I've no experience or education in the medical field. I'm not here to ask your opinion on the safety of this, I'm instead here to ask what information I ought to be recording and at what intervals. My current log looks like this: Subject is caucasian, seventeen years of age, and in good health with no known heart or respiratory impairments. The subject occaisonally has trouble concentrating. Tuesday May 20, 2014, 2:16 AM: Subject consumed one two oz (Energy 2000) energy shot instead of getting sleep. Last awoke at 2:00 PM, after ten hours of sleep (Having gone to sleep last at 4:00 AM on Monday May 19). When I'm finished, and at intervals throughout the experiment, I will be posting the log here for everyone to read. If you find that it's missing information, please tell me what I need to be recording. This is a short-term experiment, so that I can learn (Through feedback from yourselves) what kind of information to record and what equipment I will need to do that with. After the experiment is over, I will review my own information and the responses I receive, and eventually take time off of work for a long-term experiment.

It's very exciting to hear you mention the possibility of the observable universe being larger then the "Real" universe! I had just thought of that half an hour after I made the post, and had wondered if it had crossed anyone's minds. The idea that one of the protogalaxies we observe might even be our own Milky Way (Certainly not likely that the universe is THAT small, but it's interesting to think about) is simply fascinating, and wonderful fuel for science fiction. I'll certainly look into this issue more, because it's very interesting. As for the first part: I had thought of that, yes. If the universe is larger then the observable universe, it would take a very long time to prove this (Which is why I call it a proposition. Right now, unless the universe is quite small or quite old, we wouldn't be able to test it.) At any rate, though, you must admit that this is a very interesting concept. If it *were* possible

I was reading a book by Professor Hawking, and he proposed that the universe might actually be just like the Earth: Finite in size, but with no bounderies. That is, one giant sphere where you can never fall off the edge, because if you keep moving in one direction you just end up back where you started. So, I realized something that that proposal of his implies: Imagine the sphere as one big 2D circle, and that you are at the zero degree point. Imagine there is something you want to observe at the 90 deegree point. The light only needs to travel a distance of ninety degrees to get to you, but since the universe is a sphere and light is emitted in every direction, it would also travel the remaining 270 degrees around the *other* way and you could observe it from that side too. The light traveling the 90 degree rout would reach you 75% faster then the light on the 270 degree rout, so the light from the 270 degree rout would be 75% older and be from a point 75% older in the object's history then the light you're observing from the 90 degree rout, which would mean you could look at the same point in space from two different angles and not even realize it, because in one direction it would look like a nebula and the other it would appear to be a star. This means that if we could discover such an object, and could get light from both angles, and knew the precise rate of expansion of the universe, we could precisely measure the size and age of the entire universe and our position in it relative to the object. Of course, all of this depends on Hawking's proposal, which is just that right now: A proposal. Not a theory, not even a hypothesis. Still, I thought you all might find this to be interesting. This is listed in Speculation because of being a proposal based on another proposal. Is this the right place for it?

Thanks! I'll check it out later on in the day.

You misread what I said, mate. The Scopolamine was something entirely different and unrelated to the whole psychic bit. I mean, there's not exactly any psychic properties to a chemical compound. Welll, actually, there's not a lot of beating involved these days. The most common method is sensory deprivation and extended periods of duress combined with drugging. Smacking people around isn't as effective as the more psychological methods, in most cases. Why hit someone and risk their adapting to the pain when you can put them through something that only gets worse over time instead? The CIA's research into psychic phenomena was inconclusive, of course, because psychic powers don't exist, but it was part of a larger psychological warfare program that also included testing of various chemicals (Including LSD, by the way!) and exotic torture methods (Like waterboarding!). The majority of their experiments were flops, but they did churn out some useful stuff!

It's interesting to think of it that way, because when you look at it, society really does seem to glorify things like that. The question here, though, is whether this is a function of evolution or Memetics... Or both. That is: "Nature versus Nurture". I think it's a combination, of course. Look at the 80s, when you had a lot of people selling blatant silliness and being taken seriously: Psychic mediums, Dianetics, Parapsychology, the like. Even the CIA was experimenting with psychic powers, and did so for years, until they finally realized they were wasting money on the modern day equivalent of witchddoctors. (Though they did do some interesting research on Scopolamine, which is more or less a perfect mind control drug. There's a Vice documentary on the stuff, and its use is apparently quite common in parts of the world. I'll put a link at the bottom.) There is no reason to believe that the genetic line of people who took these things seriously has died off (After all, how many people here don't have a recent ancestor who still believes in those things?), but the idea that those things should be taken seriously mostly has died out. Every generation has their religion, or their psychic powers, or their mind control. This tendency seems ever-present in our society, and gives rise to concepts that are inevitably killed off by people like James Randi or Richard Dawkins.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about what the origins of religion might have been, and I proposed a particularly ironic idea you might find interesting. That is: What if the reason people seem to be so universally willing to believe things without evidence is because they've inherited a predisposition to it? If we look at history, we'll see that in many places, people who didn't believe in the regional deity (Or deities) were often killed or generally treated as social outsiders, which would make it particularly difficult to pass down their genetic material. People who did believe in a god, in situations like that, would be more accepted by society and therefore make a more fitting mate. The same thing is even evident in less religiously centric societies in more modern time. For example, look at Stalin's Russia or early Communist China, or even modern day North Korea: People who are skeptical about an ultimate authority, whether it be that of the state or the church, do not do very well in those environments. So, it's not so much religion that I'm speculating people may have an evolved predisposition to, but unquestioning loyalty to authority figures, whether real or imagined.

You made the claim in a previous post. Acme just referenced that post, but in case you don't catch it, it's when you said: As for the evidence you posted, I haven't got time to look at it *now*, but I will look at it soon.

Well, that still depends on your definition of proof. Let's ignore percentages for now and just focus on what we believe to be concepts of proof. I believe what you're trying to say is that "Proof would be absolute, complete, and total evidence for something". In this case, there never can be proof, because you can't even completely prove that, for example, The Easter Bunny doesn't exist. You can also never prove that every calculation ever done wasn't wrong. Instead you "Trust" things when the evidence is strong enough to support those things. Would that be an accurate description of your point of view? Interestingly, I express a similar hope. Despite the fact that it's almost certainly not true, I very much hope that I'll go to Valhalla when I die. All the mead, sex, and food you could ever want for eternity. Sounds like quite a party. Despite that hope, it's had very little affect on my life. The most it's done is made me less terrified of death when I was in life threatening situations. I agree. Having been raised in a home where faith was quite prevalent, I can tell you firsthand that it's like talking to someone who's been... Well, brainwashed. It's as if they've actually lost the capability to explore new ideas entirely.

You cannot! That's why faith in a religion is a bad thing. I still feel, though, that it's something society should be taught not to do rather then made not to do. That is: Teach that evidence is necessary for any kind of trust (using your definition again, as I like it) in a conclusion. Teach that faith really isn't a good thing to base important decisions on. Do not, instead, begin to arrest people for having (or even sharing) faith. With science becoming more and more accessible to people, and with the internet becoming so widespread, it really is only a matter of time before society changes for the better in this regard. To quote Doctor Phil Mason: "The internet is the place where religions come to die".

I like your way of looking at it, but there is one problem with it: You say that a good explanation does not have to be proven. Well, that really depends on what you mean by "proven". Does proof, to you, constitute absolute 100% proof? If so, your position makes sense, since you can never really prove something beyond ninety nine percent. At that point, we have to start trusting that, since all the proof available leads us to one conclusion, it is more likely to be true then any other conclusion. Does proof to you, instead, constitute say... Above 80% certainty? This is the point where the majority of the proof points in one direction, but there still exists a few nagging bits here and there that detract from your conclusion. Here the line between trust and hope begins to get just a little bit blurry, but it's still reasonable to believe in whatever the subject of this certainty is. Does proof to you, instead, constitute just barely above 50% certainty? At this point, you have nearly equal evidence to support your conclusion and to detract from it, but just a tiny fraction of the evidence is on your side. Here there is very little if any line between proof and trust, I think, for me, proof would be either 100% certainty or 80% certainty (Depending on the context we're talking in). "Proof" in an absolute sense can only really be 100% certainty, but "Proof" in the sense that evidence is good enough to allow you to trust in the correctness of your conclusion (Which would really be trust, if I understand your definition correctly) without 100% certainty required. This is an interesting subject, because there would naturally be a "Perfect ratio" of certainty. A perfect percentage. If we required 100% proof of everything in science, we could never advance. If we required 0% proof, we could never know that anything in it was correct. There must be a perfect point between these two percentages that allows science to advance as rapidly as possible while maintaining its credibility. I wonder what it is.

This sounds like more of an argument based on personal choice. I won't debate that you don't like cheeseburgers; I'm sure you're quite capable of deciding what you like. That being said... I feel like you're trying to convince everyone else that cheeseburgers and meat in general is gross based on little more then your own personal opinion about them. You've spoken of massive health benefits of a vegan diet, and told us that the body cannot properly digest protein (Weird, since we literally need protein to continue functioning. Also weird, since vegetables contain protein and you're still consuming it if you eat them.), but you haven't referenced any solid links to why you believe these things. I'd like to see the evidence supporting these claims.

To begin with, I wasn't sure where to place this, because it is an ethics question, but it addresses religion quite heavily. Faith is not something without place in the world... Hey, wait a minute, don't laugh just yet! Read on for a bit. In any kind of social relationship, faith is necessary for normal functioning. When someone asks you to come over to their house to watch a movie, you have no way of knowing that they don't intend to tie you to the sink and steal your kidneys, so you must take it on faith. In cases like this, faith is what separates 'normal' people from those with certain anxiety disorders. In a more realistic situation, you often have faith that someone you're in a relationship with won't betray you for someone else. A lot of people carry the human tendency to believe without evidence over into religion. You may wonder this, then: If faith in a relationship is a good thing, why is faith in a religion often portrayed as a bad thing? Well, I'm sure many people have many opinions on this, but consider the following: If you have faith that your friend will not murder you and you go to his home to watch a movie, and he does murder you, you're the only one affected by your misplaced faith. If you had instead told all of your friends that you trust this man, without any evidence towards his being deserving of your trust, and he then murdered you and all of your friends, some of them would undoubtedly blame you. While it's true that you did not murder your friends, you still lead them into the situation in which they were murdered. In this case, people would more likely then not condemn your faith in this man's character. Compare this to the case of religion. Imagine you have faith in a god. No one will fault you with this, because the only person who can be hurt if you're wrong is you. Imagine, though, if you begin to try and share this faith with other people. Imagine if you convince millions of people that your faith should be followed, and they all do. Now imagine that the religion you have faith in tells all of these people that, for example, gravity does not exist or that the world rests on a giant turtle. This is why faith in religion is, in my opinion, a bad thing: It has the potential to hurt and misguide a lot of people for no real reason. After all, there's no evidence to support ideas that have to be taken on faith: If we don't have any reason to believe in an idea that can hurt and mislead people, then wouldn't teaching others this idea without evidence be... Immoral? In conclusion, I want to make a few things clear: I'm not trying to say that the right to spread faith should be questioned. If you begin legislating ideas and concepts, then who's to stop you from going farther? Who's to stop you from, for example, making it illegal to take any standpoint you disagree with? While faith on a grand-scale does appear to me to be quite damaging, I believe it's something a free society has to eventually work out of its system by being taught not to do, not made not to do.

I would very much like to see the design proofs you speak of.