mistermack

I still think that the OP's picture of a static picture of curved fabric of space in a gravitational field is not what's happening. If you take any point in the universe, any inertial frame at that point will be accelerating, depending on the strength and direction of the gravitational field at that point. Take the surface of the Earth, every inertial frame at the surface will be accelerating downwards, at 32 ft/sec/sec. And any object in that inertial frame will also accelerate downwards at the same rate, if no force is acting on it. It's easy to test that, by jumping off a cliff. So if you are talking about the "fabric of space" then you can't maintain that it's static and curved, when inertial frames are accelerating everywhere. If space has a fabric at all, it's the bit that defines the motion of an inertial frame. So if you take a photon passing by the Earth, up by the space station, then it's experiencing a constantly changing acceleration towards the centre of mass of the Earth, because at any point the inertial frame that it's in is accelerating. But it's going so fast that it's route is only slightly altered as it passes by. When the same thing happens on cosmic scales, you get gravitational lensing.

Pro-life is a real lie. Humans are destroying life all around the planet, because we are destroying bio-diversity. Each aborted fetus is actually a bonus for "life". In numbers of humans we are way past what the living world can tolerate. If you were really pro-life, you would be in favour of mass sterilization, and a one-child policy, as well as free abortions. I am, but not compulsory. If I was world dictator, I would remove financial incentives towards big families, by reducing state child support, and providing guaranteed pensions in developing countries.

I don't think that follows. Even the smallest pieces pose a threat, because of the huge speeds that they orbit at. Even dust grains are said to be a hazard. If you could invent an anti-satellite weapon that shoved the satellite into a lower orbit, making it burn up in a reasonably short time, that would be ideal.

No, you're not getting it. Spacetime is the shape of space, over time. In other words, space does not curve, as you state in the OP. If you are picturing curved space, and asking why it returns to it's "unbent" condition, then you are talking about something that doesn't exist. Spactime is a model combining three spatial dimensions with the time dimension. You combine uncurved space with time, in a gravitational field, and you get a curved four dimensional model. Picture a brick, in space, rotating round a fixed point on a tether. Forgetting losses, it will rotate forever. You can model it as spactime having a constant curve, making a circular path. As soon as you release the tether, the brick will instantly travel in a straight line. Space was never curved, it was the tether that made the brick rotate. A satellite oribiting the Earth would do exactly the same thing, if the Earth suddenly lost it's gravity, for the same reason. It's lost its "tether". It's not space "springing back straight", it was never curved. You are just confusing curved spacetime, with curved space.

It's spacetime that's curved. Not fabric of space.

And of course, gravity is more intense in some places than others, and might be zero in some places. That's not how they portray god either. The suggestion that gravity and light are the same, because they both travel at the same speed, is like saying that a tree and a metal box are the same, because they float down a river at the same speed. Their speed is a property of the river, and the speed of light and gravity is a property of spacetime.

That's right. In your imagination, without proper evidence, it can be anything you like. Exactly like Jesus.

That's a ludicrous statement. ARTIFICIAL consciousness would involve design WITH design. How on earth could it be otherwise? You're virtually saying that black is white.

No, that's just your imagination. I am capable of writing that, If that was what I meant. Try replying to what I write, not what you imagine I might have meant. Edit : Let me have a go of making it crystal clear. In everyday English, we say that the shape of the mountain guides the course of an avalanche. Or the shape of a valley guides the course of a river. There is no intent or design involved. Maybe English is not your first language.

Why are you asking me?

You need to do a bit of reading. Natural selection take natural variation in the population, and SELECTS what works, and DISCARDS what doesn't. So it guides the gradual change in the population towards a form that works better. Guides it mindlessly but still guides it. That's why I wrote "guiding" in inverted commas. I thought I'd made that obvious.

The Romans used to dump unwanted babies. Since abortion was as deadly for the mother as the fetus back in those days, it was the more humane option. The Romans were incredibly callous to in thousands of ways, so this was just one more. They were practical people, who live their lives far closer to death than we do. Death was all around you back then, as well as horrible disease. Even in the 1800s, in England, children were not considered people, till they got to the age of 8 to 10. They had a nasty habit of dying suddenly, so it was best not to get too attached to them. I've always been of the opinion that there is no right and wrong, just the morals that are current and practical at the time, with a dash of inherited instinct. I happen to think that abortion is one of those questions with no right answer. There's nothing wrong with removing a few cells, but I would really dislike late abortions where the fetus was viable. There's not a lot of difference between doing that, today, and the Romans taking unwanted newborn babies to the dump. So a compromise date of so many weeks being the limit is not great, but it's better than anything else on offer. The argument that it's wrong, because this old book says so (very indirectly) is rubbish. But that's what drives the ban-abortion lobby in the US.

I still haven't heard, in plain English, why ARTIFICIAL consciousness is impossible. Take out artificial, and that only leaves evolved. If consciousness can evolve with only natural selection "guiding" the process, then what, given enough time, is the absolute barrier to making it happen, using electronics? And answer, if possible, in unambiguous everyday language. Is that asking too much?

That's your pituatry gland.

Since I am completely composed of cells, and stuff made by cells, then looking in my life, I see cells. Behe's book is not aimed at scientists. It's aimed at religious people who have a sketchy knowledge of science, but who are beginning to wonder about evolution. It's smoke, mirrors and bullshit. ( going by the reviews ) It might be an entertaining read, I don't know, life is too short to read all that kind of stuff. But it should be in the fiction section, not non-fiction.

It's odds on that the test will produce a negative reaction, unless your material is neutral.

You seem to be restrictiong consciousness to humans then, or would you say that chimps and dolphins have a version? There's nothing wrong with that view, except that the word consciousness doesn't really cut it, as most people would say that their dog or cat is conscious, obviously at a lower level than a human. To me, what you describe should be named human consciousness, and the word conscious should apply to everything down the chain, all the way to amoebae and beyond.

That's interesting. What kind of animal would you say is on the verge of consciousness? There must be a point in the evolution of higher animals when they begin to be conscious then. Unless you view consciousness as a purely human thing. I'm personally right at the other end of the scale. Consciousness for me goes right back to having a way of detecting the environment, and reacting to it. To me that's still consciousness, just at its most basic. I haven't read anything in the OP or in posts, that prevents a machine from being conscious. Not in normal everyday language anyway. Edit : got confused with two threads there.

There's a time and a place for humour. And scienceforums is not it. 😒

Modern cars are so weight sensitive that I would say it's a non-starter. Also, it's an idea past it's sell by date, with electric cars coming in. In any case, the energy input/output balance sheet seems to make it impractical. To release the energy from the fuel, you are combining oxygen to carbon, with it's resultant energy release. It stands to reason that to break that carbon/oxygen bond, you will need more energy than you got making that bond. And you also need some of the energy to move the car. For that reason, I wouldn't think that it's practical for use with ships or trains either. This method of producing carbon might be of some use, where you have huge quantities of high grade waste heat going to waste. Wherever that is. A power station maybe?

I think we're talking at cross-purposes. I don't know what you mean by "first-subject phenomenon" and my point was that I did not offer a definition, as you have assumed. I said in my first post that "unlike other words, it doesn't have a meaning that's blindingly obvious." and "For me, the meaning comes from the contrast between being conscious and unconscious. " That is in no way a definition, as you keep insisting. Nor was it offered as one.

Shouldn't the title be " Nothing we know can come from the nothing that we imagine" Since something is infinitely greater than nothing, then you have to get a clear understanding of a real physical infinity, before you can make progress on that score.

How can it be self evident, when 99.99 % of people when asked, wouldn't have a clue what that meant. As I don't. Oh really? Wikipedia says : "Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience or awareness of internal and external existence." And then describes awareness as being conscious of something. In any case, I didn't offer that description as a definition, you filled bit that in yourself. I said that for me, that's where the meaning lies.

Well, If people are not moved by those arguments, it might be because they aren't true, or not valid. Murder is rare, the rare argument is a non-starter. Hormones don't cancel out the presence of a Y chromosome from birth. And suicide blackmail is another non-starter, I didn't even know anybody had advanced it. The problem is that rare or not, one person with a Y chromosome from birth, competing against people who haven't got that, can have major consequences. Caster Semenya for example, winning gold, moved every other competitor down by one place. And millions of people watching were left scratching their heads, as to how it could be happening or considered fair.

That is coming across as a bit weird, but I think it's a language barrier thing. In this country (at least) people in industry often write 1 off or 2 off when ordering goods, ( I have no idea why ) but all it means is "quantity of 1" or "quantity of 2" etc. I might be wrong, but that's what it comes across as. You don't see it elsewhere, but maybe that's what he's picked up. As far as the question goes, I don't see that different kinds of magnetism have been established. If you compare a flow into a pipe, and a flow out of a pipe, you will experience them in a different way, even though it's just one kind of flow.