Lord Antares

It's not just that it cannot be proven, it's that it doesn't make enough sense to be provable. It's like one of those questions such as : is the universe holographic?, Are we real or do we just think we are real?, or like defining higher dimensions etc. The answer, if there is one, has absolutely 0 impact on our views and behavior. It doesn't really mean anything. It's not even philosophy.

There it is. Just 4 posts above your previous post. Just scroll up.

If by ''white land'' he means countries populated exclusively by white people with almost no other races, then of course there is. The same way that many countries in Africa are ''black land''. I'm not saying I support his point, I'm just wondering why you are saying that.

I noticed that you are actually the same person as in post #3163, so you already asked this and got positive and reinforcing answers

This. It doesn't matter if you have more time at your disposal when you will be braindead and will not function. It's more useful to use some of that for actual sleep. I don't know the side-effects of that drug, but I'm guessing they stack up after a prolongue state of wakefulness. Alright, I assumed it would come to this. No one will support you in this endeavor here. Topping the world record would almost certainly mean death. If not that, you would certainly get permanent brain damage. You could not get away with no brain damage after such a prolongued time with no sleep. Yes, you feel great because you are on drugs. Wait for some more time and you will see. The problem with using drugs and not sleeping is, even though you might not even feel the need for sleep while you are on it, it will hit you sooner or later. Oh boy, will it hit you hard. I must talk you out of this. It is unhealthy. I would feel responsible if I didn't try to talk you out. You are aware that you will suffer brain damage if you go through with this, right? Offtopic: It says he has 4 posts while he clearly has more. So, a glitch of some kind. Maybe the server needs some sleep too.

So, you're ignoring the point about the record-setter dying afterwards. That is irrelevant or what?

Hmm, I've never heard of modiwake. I googled it and it seems to have ''very good'' effects. Is it legal? The person who set the world record died afterwards. I don't think it's worth it just to get into the books.

I notice that this link mentions taking drugs, but I won't be clicking on it. What kind of drugs? Meth?

It might be that effects are already showing at 28 hours

You wot m8? You will feel like shit after day 2. You will be braindead and the only thing on your mind will be sleep. After that, you will become psychotic. Trust me, this can only result in failure and disappointment.

Are you really trying to argue with a person who is claiming he is about to be awake for the rest of his life? Yes, if the rest of his life will be about 10 days. Don't try it, you can hurt your brain and you can actually suffer permanent damage, not to mention death if you make it through for a long time. I realize you will probably fall asleep before that, but still, it's worth mentioning

Lol.

But will you reply in the other one?

And being in that position can make you biased as well. Take the following thing from the statistic you linked below: 52% of men and 48% of women think that most men are capable of rape, under the right circumstances. This is ridiculous. One would think that referring to statistics would be the most objective way to do this. Alright, excuse me but I will skip on some of these things as they are getting further and further away from the initial point. Not that it is your fault, I'm just saying. Strawman argument from you. I will address it below quoted at the proper place. Quote from the 31% percent statistic: I don't know what you would define as a ''sexually explicit or sexist remark'', but it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that ''hey sexy'' might be it, as per this article. So, I didn't say that, the statistic did. Yes, I see it here but it isn't the same thing as we are talking here. Plus, I personally didn't say that this would be considered sexist, but a more ''ugly'' version, such as ''hey sexy babe'' might be considered sexist. A significant part of the 31% statistic might be this. YOU DON'T KNOW THAT. Also, this cosmopolitan article says that 1 in 5 women will be raped at some point in their life. In another part of the article, 27% of women said that they have been raped. There is a significant disparity there. And seriously, 1 in 4 women are raped? Even more than that? And most significantly to the topic: So what? The point still stands that the rate is not higher than in other fields. However you twist it, the numbesr themselves that there is no reason that sexual harrassment should divert women from physics, as opposed to other jobs where they get equally harrassed. This has shown nothing so far. The other thing you said about blind grading etc. stands. It is clear indication that something is wrong. But not this.

No, it doesn't mean just that. The figures were (I believe) that 20% of students in STEM fields were female, which means 80% were male. In average, ''general'' careers, the figures are 50/50. However, on average, all careers have around 30% rate of harrassment. There being more men in STEM means that men in STEM are, on average, more polite and supportive of women. Do you see what I mean? No. Why would it? The figures for STEM are ~30% and the figures on average are still 30% for other fields. How does that mean that the other fields are less stressful for women? In other words, why would, based on these numbers, other careers be more appealing to women if the rate of harrassment is about the same? Thus, the statistic says nothing about STEM being less appealing to women. EDIT: In other words again, the 50% of men in other fields harrass the 50% of women to a degree of 30%. In STEM fields, the 80% of men harrass the 20% of women to a degree of 30%. This means that the men in STEM fields are, on average, much nicer. Alright, this already makes sense. I agree that this shows the existence of the issue. There might need to be repeats of this experiment for more accurate results, but I agree that it is relevant to the point.

Hey wtf, you need to make your intentions with this post clear. It has occured to me that you primarily wish to discuss the philosophy of probability and how this relates to us evolving into humans and then writing Hamlet, whereas the mathematical probability of that happening is so low, that it wouldn't be expected to ever happen. The rest of your post is diffferent, with the machines and breeding. It is a different argument alltogether. There are much simpler ways to get monkeys to understand language. See my example of Koko the gorilla and Sensei's videos. You need to make it clear to me if you want to discuss the former or the latter. The latter is a discussion about evolution, linguistics, psychology etc. whereas the former is a discusiion about philosophy of probability. I think that both cannot be discussed in the same thread, as they are such different topics.

Alright, thatnks for the in-depth post. You have made me aware of the problem of harrassment. Not that I didn't know about it, I've had to stop harrassment a few times in my life. But you have made your point of it being under-reported. I am sorry about how you have been treated, it does make me angry. However, this does not impact what we are talking about specifically. The question was ''why are there significantly less women in physics than there are men?''. Your examples of sexual harrassment only prove that it is a general issue, but what relevance does it have for the field of physics? In other words, women are generally harrassed in all careers, yet there is a significantly higher number of them in many other jobs. Why does your argument not apply to those? How can you say that women might not want to get into physics because of potential harrassment, when there is an expected equal amount of harrassment they would receive in many other jobs? Furhtermore, swansont has made the point that since there is a higher amount of males in physics, there is a higher expected chance that a woman will get harrassed. This makes sense but it is not the case. In the statistic he linked early on, the rate of harrassment is about the same for STEM fields as it is for ''general'' jobs which have a much higher rate of women, which in turn means that, on average, men in physics are much more polite and therefore, you will have a higher percentage of people supporting you if you get harrassed!

Why is this necessary, wtf? You are a respectable member and I wouldn't expect this from you. The place where it was moved is irrelevant to the thread. If there is no difference in discussion, then you shouldn't mind it. It was split in the first place because you pointed out that it was a hijack. If you didn't, I think it would have probably got left where it was. Ignore the pettiness and continue the argument. I agree that it should have been moved to philosophy (or evolution), but this is immaterial. I would like to continue the discussion with you further, as only now has it dawned on me that saying that it already happened isn't irrelevant. It's funny that YOU should say that.

Now that I've read this with attention, I think it's interesting thinking! It is not clear to me that the monkeys will ever care what they are typing. I don't see how them typing a combination of preset letter will get them thinking or even understanding it. Think of it like this: You awake in an alien land surrounded by machines you cannot fathom and beings you do not understand. They give you letters (gibberish to you) and reward you (in whatever way) when you match these letters into word. Now, they NEVER explain to you what these mean or what you have just done. Do you think that you would ever understand what you have done if you have received nothing but reinforcement when typing what they find coherent? Then the process would have the more complicated if you think about understanding it. They would eventually have to introduce semantics and you would need to get sequences of words in the correct order for a reward. Then, these will become obsolete and you will have to guess new sequences. But the main point is, you are just sitting and typing. You NEVER have anything to connect your typing to. The people who decyphered hyeroglyphs had context, position, referral, not to mention shapes which resemble something etc. It is not clear to me that even YOU would ever get anything out of it in such a scenario you've described. Anyway, I'm not sure if only this specific scenario interests you or if you want to talk about the general advancement of monkeys' understanding. You are aware, are you not, of Koko the gorilla? She has been taught sign language. She talks as if a mute person would. If she seeks to describe something which hasn't been established, she and her trainer search for new signs and descriptions. She watches movies and comments on them; expresses emotion. She paints and she exhibits a lot of behaviour which you might think only human would. So definitely check her out if you haven't.

Ahaaa, I think I understand. The only way that a sequence will get terminated is if it reaches zero. Therefore, all finite sequences must end up at zero. Therefore, the probability that a given finite sequence will lead us to zero is 1. If a sequence veers a way from zero constantly, it will never be a finite sequence, unless it reaches zero. Furthermore, there is an infinite amount of sequences which lead to zero. Therefore, any given sequence has a probability 0 of occuring. But funnily enough, one of the sequences must happen, and therefore, a probability zero event must happen! Does this sum it up? Nice post, +1. However, there is also an infinite number of infinite sequences. Any infinite sequence CANNOT lead back to zero, as it would terminate there and be finite. So, technically, it is possible that a sequence such as HTHTHT... continues indefinitely, which will be an infinite sequence and never terminate. This sequence also has a probability 0 of happening, but it is technically posssible.

Alright, thanks for the perspective, it is some valued information, even though it's anecdotal. I believe you and I must say that this happened to you more times than I would have guessed, which might mean something. HOWEVER, there is a big oddity in reference to swansont's statistic which I would like your input on. His statistic quotes 31% of women being harrassed at some point during their career on the job, which includes once or all the time. It seems to me that your cases of harrassment are greatly disproportial with respect to this statistic. Judging by your case alone, one might assume that close to 100% will be harrassed and almost always multiple times. So, going by this statistic, you are in the highest percentiles of harrassment. In other words, the majority of women haven't experienced the level of harrassment you have. ALSO, a question for you. Since we are arguing that sexism has decreased since ''ye olde ages of the 20th century'', it might be relevant to ask you have you noticed any difference in the last ~5 years. I don't know how old you are, but if you are ''older'' (whatever that means), you might have noticed some difference over time. Not if the people you're working with are the same people, mind you. Also, I don't know if you read my post addressed to Swansont fully, but I think the last bit (the last fragmented quote) is especially overlooked. I would appreciate your input on that.

I understand this. I understand that, given infinite time, everything must happen with probability 1. HOWEVER, I am trying to be 100% technical here. Since getting to 0 from either 1 or 700 with infinite flips yields the probability of 1, it should happen, but technically, it doesn't have to. Technically, it is possible to flip only heads forever. To assume otherwise would be a gabmler's fallacy. I understand that this would never happen in a real example, I'm just trying to be technical. Another example is: 1) A number from all the natural number is randomly drawn and you need to pick one and guess it. 2) You need to pick 2 numbers and guess one of them. Is the probability of both technically the same? The probability of guessing either is 0, but shouldn't it be a technically higher probability for the second case? Even though both are 0% of infinity and so, in a way, the same. Also, why not infinitesimal chance, rather than 0? I would think that would be more apt. At least it woul be clearer in my view. Of course, mathematics is complicated and has been developed for a long time, so there must be precise reasons. EDIT: I think studiot addressed this. OK, I follow. Not only one that is all heads, but there are an infinite number (in the inifnite case) of ones that are MORE heads than tails, achieving the same thing! Yes. I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly here. I agree with everything you said here but I'm confused as to the conclusion of this. You say that an all heads, as well as MORE heads than tails infinite sequence will never lead us back to zero, which I agree with. But I'm not sure what the conclusion means. Unless...hmm maybe this: Is it that we cannot prove that there are more infinite sequences while on meter 700 than on meter 1 which lead back to zero, which in turn means that there are an infinite amount of sequences for both, hence equal probability? Ahhh, if so, it makes sense to me now. Do reply back to say if this is what you meant.

That is not a fair comment. I never said the problem doesn't exist, just that it isn't as significant as you say. Saying that the is NO sexual harrassment would be stupid. I thought it went without saying, but maybe I should have been clearer. This confuses me. What do you mean by that? Do you mean that, of the 1/3 women who were harrassed, 3/4 did not report it? I actually condone not reporting it in many cases and I will get to why I think so. This is an important point of discussion for me. But a few other things first. As we do with serious offenders. Someone saying ''hey sexy'' is more like the asshole driver who drives really close to your back. You don't ''remove'' such a person from driving/working. No we don't, and this doesn't happen with rapists either. They are put to jail. If someone says ''hey sexy'', you don't remove him from work forever. That would be stupid. Might I argue that if I were to make a poll on this forum on how many people are male as opposed to female, and sufficient people took part in it over time, it might prove or disprove my point about interest in physics? Surely, if they vote for their gender anonymously without having to expose their identity, a significantly higher percentage of men WOULD mean that women have a lesser interest in physics, no? Alright, this is what I wanted to talk about. ''Cosmopolitan surveyed 2,235 full-time and part-time female employees and found that one in three women has experienced sexual harassment at work at some point their lives.'' First of all, at some point in their lives which might span up to 50 years. Secondly, something as simple as ''slut'' and ''hey sexy'' constitutes as harrassment in this survey. SURELY, over a years span of time, it is very much expected that you will receive a comment like this at some point in time. This is my main issue here. Serious sexual offense is completely different than mild, rare verbal offense. I have received a few insulting comments during work (through the principle of randomness and interaction with a lot of people) and I didn't report them. But I wasn't sexually harrassed, so that makes it alright, right? A line needs to be drawn at what reportable sexual harrassment is. Obviously, we won't talk about rape, physical moves etc. as this goes without saying. But look at this. When a man receives a mild insulting comment, he is expected not to report it, otherwise he is a ''pussy''. I would never think to report it either, because it is so weak of an offense, that if I am bothered by it, then I will have problems in life. But if a woman receives mild insulting comments (like slut), she is expected to immediately report it. By doing this, it would in fact prove that women are the weaker sex, which is the exact opposite of what feminism should be doing. Do you not agree that everything that is included in the article as sexual offense is not very serious? I could see if someone dismissed a claim for harrassment only because someone said one word to a woman (and keep in might, she might have provoked the insult, the same as in a case of male to male ''verbal violence''. You cannot push women to report every single tidbit thing that she gets insulted with and call them ''independent''. This is contradictory. Of course, if she gets harrassed regularly in such a manner, that is a diffferent issue, but what do you think the percentage of the 31% that is? So the statistic is somewhat skewed, isn't it?

This misses the point very, very hard. Obviously, the monkeys are a metaphor for randomness. This was immediately obvious to everyone else. I cannot fathom how you though I was describing a realistic scenario. If I was describing a realistic scenario, the monkey would not have infinite time at his disposal. Allegedly? This IS probability and it belongs in mathematics as it is both universally accepted and shown to be correct. Your further comments or this are, to be polite, senseless. If you feel like I am making a speculation in the mainstream forum or otherwise breaching the rules, please report it to the most. Do not taint the thread with ignorant comments. You have contributed absolutely nothing to the discussion. Your comments about the monkeys not getting a result after weeks (!) of trying shows a tremendous lack of understanding of probability. I do not appreciate your comments on me being an ass, especially because you are wrong. And by the way, even if we were talking about real monkeys, this would hold true (if you can get past their infinite lives). Even an actual monkey would, after an unfathomably long time, reproduce Hamlet through the rules of randomness and infinite time. To say this is not a speculation, it is fact. You should not make further comments if you don't understand this. I will read and reply to this tomorrow, as good quality posts should be replied and given attention to when completely sober.

No. This certainly doesn't happen anymore. It might have been true in the 20th century, but certainly not now. Times and have changed, and I don't think I could to one woman whose parents would discourage her from studying physics. At least not a higher percentage of them than men. Times are more liberal now. Of course sexism exist, but not at the level which you are making it seem. Seeing some women get bullied away from the forum shows that prejudice against women exists, but it does not show that it is at a statistically significant level. Fair enough. But one might argue that you would need to present evidence to me which shows that women are harrassed to a statistically significant level in the first place. In other words, if you want evidence, you should present figures when you're making a claim first. The claim being that sexism is as abundant as you're saying it is. I am not sure why objectivity would be excluded by the fact that us 3 are men. We can try to make objective observations, such as yours of sexism. I'm not sure why you're saying I think sexism is not an issue. It is, but at a much lower level of frequency. Cars running over people is an issue, but not so statistically significant that we should remove cars from use. Agreed totally. As Raider says, this sounds alien to me. I cannot remember hearing this being said. Maybe in isolated cases and other people would most certainly not agree with this. All in all, of course sexism exists, but it can't be as big of a factor as the women's lack of interest in physics. Impossible. Keep in mind, I am arguing a statistic, not whether there is or isn't sexism in science.