Area54

The plasma drive offered a one way trip of 20 years, not 20,000 years. You decelerate as you approach the star the same way as you accelerate when you leave the solar system. The plasma drive is a rocket. I'm not sure that speeds of only 20% the speed of light, as envisaged in the program, are considered relativistic. Obviously there is some effect, but that is true of riding on a bicycle. One critical factor not considered was the damage caused by impact with debris a 0.2c. Large abrasion pads at the front of the craft for small particles and lasers to zap anything more substantial have been proposed by others. (The program dealt only with protection from radiation, via the thoroughly unproven suggestion of hibernation. One researcher believes he has demonstrated protection of DNA from ionising radiation during hibernation )

You must have been the only person on the planet to see this documentary. The rest of us were watching one about sending a manned mission to Proxima Centauri. In a program as brief as this many aspects of the journey need to be overlooked. For this issue we currently have multiple ways of landing on planets so it, arguably, merited little or no consideration in the program. We were definitely watching different programs. The laser was for the mini-robot surveyors you mentioned. The proposed propulsion for the explorer's craft was a plasma drive. So your insurmountable problem is not the issue you think it is. I believe I have encountered your skeptical views on this topic before. Perhaps they are correct, yet individuals and companies are spending real money towards these goals. And that investment is increasing, not decreasing. If you furnish me with your particulars I shall arrange for my great-great grandchildren to tell your great-great-grandchildren, "I told you so!"

It is not considered a good idea by me. If I have interpreted Sting Junky's remarks correctly, " In a nutshell, one should go to a doctor and get diagnosed and prescribed properly", it is not considered a good idea by him. I don't. They have the training to correctly interpret and evaluate the information they find there. Which is precisely why I advised xhiuang that " It is generally not considered a good idea to seeks answers to medical questions on an internet forum", rather than stating "never, under any circumstances seek any information concerning medical issues online", and why I suggested " treat any replies you receive cautiously", rather than "ignore any replies you receive to your question". You should remember to keep things in perspective.

On this point I am with Michaeltannoury. There didn't seem to be any ambiguity in his OP about authorship.

I shall take the bait. What is that "one basic thing"?

No. Before steam railways, but after railways, which have been around since at least 600 BC, as per the wikipedia article. I knew that railways in mines and quarries long pre-dated the introduction of steam, and were therefore in use when cattle had a wider meaning, but I only learned of the Greek example today. I have a cattle grid, but sadly neither cattle, nor hedgehogs. Edit: I know you were meaning mechanically powered railways, but I just wanted to be pedantic.

beecee's post is accurate, but until recently the possibity of future collapse, or of repeated recycling, was considered quite feasible, just as you suggest.

As others have remarked, this renders the word "conscious" of little practical value. However, if we take this definition at face value, then it is trivially true that consciousness and evolution are linked: awareness (sentience) is a factor in determining fitness which impacts on selection and thus evolution. What has not, as far as I can see, been directly addressed yet is that Gees opens with a strawman: Perhaps Gees will favour us with a couple of such examples to demonstrate that her statement is not groundless.

Worth of the sun? Invaluable.

Thank you. That makes sense. I didn't pick up on the important distinction. It had seemed to me that you were attempting to support his thesis. All is clear now.

I first became aware of the SEP several years ago. It may be more than a decade. I've read large chunks from it, including several on consciousness. (That's part of the reason I've characterised parts of your posting as nonsense.) I've also read a reasonable amount of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hume, Descartes, etc, and the more recent and scientifically inclined Penrose and Dennet. So your indirect attempt at being patronising is simply amusing, as are your presumptions that you have (a)studied more about consciousness than I and (b) that you have a superior understanding of its complexity. In future please commment on the factual content of my posts and leave the implicit insults where they belong. I have no interest in starting a thread on consciousness. This one is sufficient for the moment. I'm quite comfortable here. If you don't like it, you are free to leave.

No. I credited everyone with the smarts to see that on line could refer to computers, forums and railway lines, or even on topic, leaving them the freedom to go in their preferred direction. Had we been talking about sheep rather than cattle, there would have been the option of discussing rams.

Unless you can demonstrate that the difference you can speak of actually exists and is not the result of observational bias then you should certainly drop all reference to it. Critics will quite rightly single out any weaknesses or errors in your thesis, even when these are not central to it.

The angular placement of the two blades imparts a sideways motion. Unless you were unfortunate enough to hit it when negotiating a very tight bend, combined with an equally unfortunate independent velocity of the buffalo, this would be very unlikely. Babbage was English. There are more cows in England than buffalos or bisons. As Babbage himself may have said in his Engish accent, "What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can't wash your hands in a buffalo."

Although you have posted this in Organic Chemistry it is really a health question. It is generally not considered a good idea to seeks answers to medical questions on an internet forum. I would suggest you treat any replies you receive cautiously. For one thing, I suspect the effects could vary significantly between individuals.

That is an excellent question and a damnably tough one. A proper answer requires rational thought, but for many suppressing the associated emotion will be difficult. I shall follow this thread with interest to see what others think. I need to reflect on it more before forming even a provisional opinion. (My subsconsious was doing a neat job of reflecting on it while I was typing and came up with this thought - "Whatever we do we must avoid the appearance or the reality of a witch hunt".) Edit: I just noticed your location. I hope you get through Irma without incident.

Today I learned that the cowcatcher device fitted to the front of railway locomotives to displace any objects blocking the line was invented by Charles Babbage, the same Charles Babbage who designed the first (mechanical) computer. "A well made cow-catcher could throw a buffalo weighing 2000 lbs some 30 feet." Source: The Historical Atlas of North American Railroads ISBN 978-0-7858-2781-8 page 44. Prizes on offer for whomever comes up with the best "on-line" pun!

I presume this is a dynamic equilibrium situation. If so, do we know what the average 'lifetime' of a pair is?

It is a crap theory, but it is a neat hypothesis. As Huxley said to Darwin, "That's so obvious, why didn't I think of that?" The odds are several others have and the literature is probably full of relevant research.

I believe your thinking, as expressed here, to be in error. In what way? There are mental processes of great variety at work. There appear to be more of them, sometimes of greater complexity, in the minds of humans compared with the "mind" of an earthworm. (And we'll try to overlook the fact that "mental processes", "complexity" and "mind" probably ought to be defined before we go further. Until we do I'll run with the notion that our individual definitions of these is close enough for government work.) You are talking about theories of consciousness. I do not see how we can begin to talk about theories of consciousness until we have defined which conscious we are discussing. I illustrate this with an example from geology. There are two (very) general types of igneous rocks - granites and basalts. If geologists were to discuss only the origin of igneous rocks there would be endlesss and ineffective debate, since the origins of granites and basalts is quite different. (And to add to the confusion there are a small number of granites that originate in similar way to basalts.) However, by tightly defining the igneous rocks we are discussing and being much more particular than just granite and basalt, we can derive satisfactory theories that remove apparent conflicts. Therefore, if your thread is to achieve anything, before discussing theories of consciousness we must define which consciousness or consciousnesses we are talking about.

What's the incidence of myopia in non-human animals?

It's in the link I gave. 28th March 1949.

I understand that Lemaitre would become very expansive, but Hoyle was always very steady in his behvaiour.

This is not the case, although it is a common misbelief. Hoyle denied he intended it in a negative fashion. See here. Edit: Cross posted with Strange.

It is not an assumption. It is a reasonable inference from observation. The significant proportion of populations expressing homosexuality in a wide range of animals is unlikely to have arisen and persisted unless there was a significant evolutionary advantage, given that it does possess a clear evolutionary disadvantage.