sciwiz12

http://www.itis.ethz.ch/virtual-population/tissue-properties/database/low-frequency-conductivity/ Data base of tissue properties, in particular low frequency conductivity. http://www.physlink.com/education/AskExperts/ae512.cfm There, according to physics there are no magnetic field insulators, even weak magnetic fields penetrate the skull, my bad. I didn't know it was even up for debate but fine, I was mistaken, there, magnets get through just fine. Happy? Can we continue now?

Sorry, when I said nanite I wasn't referring to microscopic robots, which is why I tried to avoid saying nanobots. I'm no nano tech expert but I'm at least up to speed on advances in nano tech and also the problems with programmable matter, which I know is kind of a separate thing. Anyway, as far as sources I have a few in mind, I'm really lazy when it comes to citations so I'd have to work up the energy first and I'm not particularly motivated. I'm not going to say that I don't need to cite sources because I'm just right, that would be stupid of me. However, please don't make me go find my sources, it'd be such a pain. Anyway I'm not saying magnetic fields can't penetrate the skull, but from both personal experience and subsequent reading the skull is slightly resistant to electromagnetic fields. Obviously not so resistant that EEGs can't pick up brainwaves from inside the skull, nor so much so that MRI and fMRI can't penetrate the skull. But it is resistant enough that small magnets and 9volt batteries won't get through. Which is slightly disappointing, because I was really hyped to stimulate my PFC when I was younger, but alas and alack the current would rather travel across the skin than penetrate the skull. At any rate, the reason I asked is because I was watching a documentary on nano-technology and one of the labs used magnets outside of the body to pilot a nano (I feel like machine would be the wrong word here) needle to deliver an injection to a very specific region of the eye, however at the time of filming they hadn't moved to living subjects. I just imagined piloting nano electrodes to regions around key areas of the brain to stimulate those regions, and the likelihood that such a reaction would have a positive effect on "growth" in those regions. It's a tad pseudo-sciency to say the least, but a few experiments have suggested that electrical and magnetic stimulation of certain regions associated with mathematical skill, or certain regions of the PFC might correlate with higher test scores than the control group. Again I will cite my sources if you twist my arm about it, I know it's the right thing to do, but the laziness is strong within me. Also I really couldn't care less about ethics if I tried. People do whatever they want and other people who disagree try to stop them, that's all ethics is to me. I don't care if it's ethical to alter brains, or genes, etc... All that matters is do I feel like it, is it possible, do I have the resources, can I get away with it. If all of those boxes are checked of the rest is a moot point.

OK, yeah, I see that it was a mistake to try anything one more time, we apparently just aren't even communicating on the same level, I say something and you focus on the most irrelevant slices of my position. Although I'll agree that I should definitely cite my sources, sure, but here's my reverse ask, why the fuck should I bother? Is there some magical point at which I'm going to say something in a specific enough way that you look at it and go, "huh, you know actually that's a good point, I think if I could look at these particular sources directly with my own eyes I would be inclined to agree." Or, "you know, I don't think I fully agree but I think the better perspective is somewhere in between our perspectives." Because so far I keep seeing rehashing of the same arguments phrased slightly differently and it honestly wasn't convincing the first time, or any of the subsequent times. I was hoping that I could phrase my position in a different way to elicit a different response, I got maybe one thing that was different, kind of, but this was a failed experiment on my part, clearly those that disagree are just going to keep responding the same fundamental concept indignantly until I just stop the conversation by leaving. I would have liked to make some sort of progress, I really don't know why I'm surprised at this point honestly, I should just expect it at this point. Everywhere you go, no matter how intelligent and we'll educated the group, some faction will always hold contrasting views and resist any form of compromise and persuasion. FCK it, screw me for even bothering, who gives a FCK about advancing the discourse, it's all about being right and mocking anyone who disagrees because people who disagree are stupid. Clearly. Whatever, I'm done, have fun.

Danke

Hey, there's a valid point you raise there, but that seems to me like an important distinction. There are some publications regarding the reasonable ineffectiveness of math in some areas like biology and engineering where for various reasons the utility of the mathematics that we use doesn't do a very good job of describing the patterns in the universe. Still now that you mention it I think that's what this entire argument has been about really. There's the math humans do and the "math" or rather the appearance of order and consistency inherent in the universe. If you call the thing that people do math, then math is created and possibly subjective. If you call the laws and order in the universe math then clearly it's objective but also we don't necessarily understand it very well because the way we're describing it is often clunky and inefficient. So the real question isn't whether math is objectively real, the question is or should be which do you call mathematics. Is math the stuff people do with numbers or is math the ordered consistency of the universe. I would argue it is the work of humans, because it cannot be known that the order and consistency will hold. For instance you can't prove the sun will rise tomorrow, because there's always some small chance that in defiance of every rule mankind has conceived it will do something we could not have predicted or even imagined. So if we say math is the order and consistency of the universe you're making a very bold assumption that the universe is, at it's core, ordered and consistent, which is only probabilistically knowable. You could say that as long as the consistency and order hold, then we can treat them as certain, and I would roughly agree, but it's safer to simply say that mathematics is the work humans do to understand the order of the universe based on various assumptions which may or may not hold.

I'm aware that electrical stimulation of certain regions of the brain can insight various reactions, and I have recently seen work done with nano machines so small that they could not contain internal electrical components and so were piloted by magnets outside of the human body. Here is my query, what are your thoughts on the potential of piloting injected nanites to various regions of the brain and generating an external field which would cause the nanite to produce a small charge and stimulate regions of the brain through non-invasive means? I mean you still could theoretically run into the problem of getting magnetic fields through the resistant human skull, so maybe the specific approach I just suggested is infeasible, but what is the possibility of having nano machines pass small currents through blood vessels to brain regions. I guess it wouldn't necessarily make much sense considering that the aqueous blood plasma could conduct the charge away from the brain possibly(or I'm showing off my ignorance). Alternatively it is difficult to pass nano-machines through the blood-brain barrier without causing internal hemmoraging. Is it maybe possible to have the machines pass through in parts and assemble chemically on the other side of the barrier? Like have the various components of a machine hitch a ride on chemicals accepted through the blood brain barrier and then react forming bonds to assemble itself? No, that's just stupid and dangerous. Although what if you could use certain chemicals in the blood stream to form a sort of battery, no, I'm being stupid, I'll shut up now.

I'm sorry, I've been meaning to dig a lot deeper into physics, but something just occurred to me. The fundamental forces acting upon distant objects, quantum entanglement of particles across vast distances, is it possible that space is an illusion. Rather, is it possible that we could perceive space and distance as real on a super atomic level, and yet that the universe could be better explained if distance were not real on some subatomic level, that distance could be some sort of trick. I mean mathematically you can represent three dimensions with three coordinates. I could almost imagine some kind of singular... Thing which has three different kinds of properties with various values that could give rise to an illusion of space, and yet if space were not real then two objects could intersect in such a way that their spatial properties would seem to place them light years apart while in truth they merely have slight changes in three properties while everything in the universe is actually in one... "Location".

I will give it one final go. People see the face of Jesus in toast for the same reasons they see math in the universe. Human brains look for patterns, mathematics assigns names to patterns such that when the pattern is observed it can be described in reference to mathematics. The patterns themselves are real because we seem to live in a highly ordered and organised universe. At the same time they are not real because the universe does not consult mathematical laws in order to form patterns in the same way bread does not pull information about the face of Jesus in order to form a pattern. Math is only "discovered" because the universe is very ordered, but the universe doesn't need math to be ordered, humans need the universe to be ordered in order to create math from it.

Bump?

You might have heard of it, the devil's breath, schopolamine. If you haven't there's a documentary on Vice on YouTube that discusses the effects of the drug. Now I'm still studying chemistry and haven't had time to get very deep into it yet, nor neurology yet. I'm getting to it, anyway, so here's my question, to the best of your knowledge are the claims valid? For those who don't know, the drug supposedly kills you in even moderately high doses, but in sufficiently low doses inhibits activity in the frontal or prefrontal cortex rendering the victim unable to refuse commands and unable to form memories of the interval of time in which they are under the drug's effects. If the claims are, to the best of your knowledge, valid, could you theoretically implant lasting suggestions into the minds of the victims? I mean either in the first dose or after multiple sessions and administrations? Here's why I ask, if the base claims are true then this is unlike hypnosis under which a patient can resist commands that go against the person's nature. In theory if you could use the drug to implant long term suggestions as well, which follow the same basic principal that at least after multiple sessions the long term suggestions take precedent over the subject's will, and if anyone could get a hold of it, any person could potentially take over the world, or at least large portions of it. I mean, say for instance I kidnap Tom, after multiple sessions Tom's will is supplanted and he believes he is my servant. I then command Tom to kidnap Lisa and repeat the process. I then command Tom and Lisa to kidnap two new people and again, repeat the process. Having brainwashed a certain number of people I could pool resources including human labor to grant myself greater wealth and power, which I can use to provide my victim's with training in various covert, martial, tactical, and technical areas. Having sufficiently trained a sufficient number of victims I can turn my brainwashing methods into an almost industrial covert brainwashing factory. I can use my resources and victims to acquire more valuable human assets, filling the lives of influential politicians and businessmen with brainwashed sleeper agents. I could then acquire those more influential targets and worm my way up to greater positions of influence and authority. I could then scale up my production even further, expand into other territories and regions, and eventually stage multiple simultaneous cous. Coup's? Anyway, you get the idea. Theoretically if I were not discovered in time I could stage a hostile world take over in what? 40 years if I'm being conservative? Now I'm not planning to do this (too poor to illegally import mind control drugs) but I want to know if it all checks out in theory?

I give up. This is the same head bashing I would expect to encounter in a religious debate, not on a scientific forum such as this. I simply don't have the patience nor the energy to continue to engage in such a fruitless endeavour. You can go on believing whatever you want. I'm really not trying to be an elitist or take any sort of high ground, I simply see a lot of unsupported declarations and lack of logical standards. Maybe from your perspective I'm guilty of the same crime, I hardly see how that is the case as I've attempted to avoid matter of fact declarations and holes in logic but at this point I simply don't have the mental energy to keep bashing my head against this proverbial wall. However, I would propose the following: I will review philosophical, formal, and mathematical logic as well as techniques of proper argumentation, sound rebuttal, and fallacies. I don't believe I've committed any logical errors but I'm sure you seem to think that I have done so. Here's my counter ask however. Please, for the love of there is no God, review logic and the principals of sound argumentation as well as possible fallacies. I'll admit I'm a bit rusty, but you must admit that if I can seem entirely sound and flawlessly rational from my perspective yet somehow flawed and misguided from your perspective and vice versa that it is entirely possible that either of us may be in error. So I would urge you to please review your stuff and practice making sound and concrete arguments. I would really hate to cross your paths again and be subjected the the same unsupported matter of fact declarations. I guess I must just be delusional or something because it really does seem like your arguments take advantage of serious leaps in logic. Anyway, please do that, and if you refuse that's on you but if you do refuse you really can't pretend to claim a rational and intellectual high ground.

Arc, you simply declared that alien races would use the same system of mathematics because they must adhere to the same physical laws. I cannot accept this claim at face value until you prove that any sufficiently intelligent race under the same physical laws regardless of sensation and communication must necessarily develop the same systems of formal logic and mathematics. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong but you've declared it very matter of factly without showing why this should necessarily be the case. Under the same logic why wouldn't they all speak English? I mean they exist in the same universe under the same physical laws.

Also fine, if you want to declare any words I use to belong to some branch of mathematics I should tell you there's a completely non-mathematical way to describe the shape of any object: I can draw it. No mathematical terms are required, just a paint brush, or I could sculpt it in clay. Also it's faulty reasoning anyway. Even if I needed math to describe an object I need English to describe the world, that doesn't make words real, nor even that which words describe. For instance, I need words to describe the color of the ocean as blue, and you might argue that the oceans would be blue regardless which technically wouldn't be true because oceans aren't really any color,I digress. So you could apply the same reasoning you've applied to math. Words describe things in nature, I had to discover those things, thus words are objectively real. However I can also describe an invisible pink unicorn. Now if words were objectively real, since I described an invisible pink unicorn with words, it must therefore be real. "Hold on!" You might counter, "you're just using objectively real words to describe something that doesn't exist, that doesn't make words not real!" To which I say: blhkrjgfla. It is a word that refers to a specific object that by definition can't be described and doesn't exist but isn't nothing. "You just made that up!" You may counter. In fact I did, I made up a thing and a new word to describe it using the same "objectively real" system by which I can describe the color of the ocean, the feeling of the soil, and the taste of chicken. I really don't know how else to get this accross, your arguments are invalid. That's what I'm saying here, words can fit just as easily into most of your arguments. Words describe things that are real and it's almost impossible to describe certain things without words, but just because it's useful for describing things doesn't make it objectively real. My words aren't bound to the same rules of nature as the objects they describe, neither is math which follows its own rules, at times in spite of knowing that it's concepts cannot exist. If it were objectively real it would be bound to the same rules by which all objectively real things are bound, but is not. I really don't know what more I can say on the subject.

Here, let me use more formal logic. If a system is objectively real, then we will be able to observe any aspect of that system in nature. If an element of a system does not and cannot exist in nature, the system cannot be objectively real. Imaginary numbers cannot exist in physical reality and do not exist in physical reality. Imaginary numbers are a necessary element within our mathematical system. Thus mathematics contains elements which cannot and do not exist within nature, and because systems whose necessary elements do not exist within nature cannot be objectively real, mathematics cannot be objectively real. There, formal logic. Either show that imaginary numbers exist, show that systems which necessarily contain non-real elements can still be objectively real, or show that imaginary numbers are not necessary to a complete understanding of mathematics. Alternatively concede the point.

Daedalus: That was a really solid effort, literally from a certain perspective, I commend your attempt at rigor. Still the contention makes a few assertions that, A:lack imagination and B: as far as I'm aware have no basis in truth other than the fact that you said it was so. For instance: "geometric arrangements... Can only be described mathematically". Now if you said "can" be described mathematically I would have agreed but you've given no proof of the only part of your claim beyond asserting that such is the case. If that were true it would be impossible for me to describe in plain English the atom at every location by name and position according to some reference point without the use of numbers. As it so happens such a feat is technically possible, "there is a carbon atom to the left of the reference, below the reference, and positioned at the leading edge" you get the idea. Now I may take an absurdly long time to describe the geometry in this way but it could in theory be done. This once more alludes to the problem I mentioned previously, most of these arguments follow the form: "math is real because obviously math is real. Therefore P=NP QED" You get the idea, it proves nothing, it only reiterates that the physical universe can mostly be described fairly accurately in most respects through the use of math. Again it's like Christian logic: "God is real because you can only describe the universe because God made it that way. Do you see how everything in nature works, it couldn't work that way if an intelligent designer hadn't intelligently designed it that way." You know, actually that's a good way to test your argument. Whatever you are about to say, imagine the people you think are the most misguided applied the same logic to prove a ludicrous claim. If you would tear it apart if it were used against you, don't bother saying it. If you can conceive of no sound way to refute it I will entertain the notion. Also, in response to TheGeckoMancer: I mean I suppose I can say, and in fact have already said pretty much the same of you. Honestly I don't know why you would waste the time it takes to type out a response just to basically say:"I know you are, but what am I?" Perhaps you felt offended by my previous post, perhaps you really and truly feel I made no relevant points worth discussing, in which case I really don't know what to tell you, because having seen your arguments I am lead to conclude we must occupy different realities where logic and reasoning have developed in entirely different and diametrically opposed fashions. Just as you declare my suppositions and contentions to be fluff so too would I regard your contentions to be weak and severely lacking in substance and merit. I mean I'm sure you're a good person, and I'm sure you know how to form a solid and robust argument, clearly in this case you have not done so. I mean if you decide it's worth the time to really throw down the gauntlet and prove before all witnesses the incontrovertible objective reality of mathematics, I would invite you to do so. I am by no means invested in the idea that math isn't objective beyond the fact that I see no compelling reason to believe otherwise. I mean honestly you'd be doing me a favor, sparing me a trip down the existential rabbit hole. However if you find that you cannot mount a truly solid defense of your position, I would encourage you that least entertain the notion that the mathematics that we employ is not objectively true, but founded on human perceptions which are subjective according to what senses are available with which to abstract and develop a formal system, which by a recursive process of observation and revision can be addended or modified to asymptotically approach objective truth without ever being truly able to reach it.