joigus

Well, in keeping with the topic too, the Bible is the fist book that defends genocide as a legit way of fostering your people's ambitions. So no, I'm no defender of Christianity. My opinion on the Bible, in case you want to know, is more or less abridged here: "Race" was a very important concept in the past. Egyptians depicted the Semites in no ambiguous terms in their papyri, with big noses and different clothes and hairstyles. In that sense I think I diverge (ever so slightly) from @iNow's picture only in the particular aspect that I think that the modern concept of it is an utilitarian re-definition (instead of a definition) for Europeans to keep making it rich to the expense of other peoples. But we could be discussing about this for ages. I think we basically agree.

If it's not too off-topic, I'd love to have a picture of the analogy. All analogies have limitations, but they're very useful tools.

Nothing is obvious in physics/cosmology. You don't come across as stupid at all. I think @Strange's answer just nailed what your confusion is about (+1.) I'll follow up if anything needs further clarification. Cheers!

I'm in a similar situation to @iNow: Very interested in this topic, I suspect enjoying the debate too, but in sorry need of more time to go over the main points.

OK, @Eise. You're pretty clever. I didn't want to do this, but you've forced me to. <BEGIN HUMOUR> Is there any way in which you can take it out of its generality so that it's right? Then you would be taking it at the point where I meant it to be. </END HUMOUR> You remind me of a friend philosopher (yes, I'm the type who enjoys the company of philosophers) who once told me: "What you're saying, taken to extremes, would imply that..." I retorted: "Then, please, don't take it to extremes, leave it where I put it." One of the rare occasions when I've been quick to answer to something.

Thank you. Well, I was just pointing out some mistyping. With a new theory, it's never just "a look." That's one problem. You must monitor the time you spend on ideas, own or from others. The premises alone tell me it's not gonna be worth my time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language) There may be newer/better more mandatory things. It's been a while for me. From Strange's reply I guess my answer is pretty outdated.

Google search: Did you mean: "V. Yanchi In" "quantum theory of gravity" No results containing all your search terms were found. Your search - "V. Yanchinin" "quantum theory of gravity" - did not match any documents. Suggestions: Make sure that all words are spelled correctly. Try different keywords. Try more general keywords. Try fewer keywords.

Are you getting answer from your question or are you getting answers for your question? Also, I have a feeling this belongs in Speculations, as you seem to have come up with some answers for a question that doesn't make sense, as Mordred pointed out. It's also a feeling that your bottom question could go in the bottom topic.

You're welcome, Studiot. When it comes to free will I'd rather start with examples from biology, however simple. Whenever people propose a computer program as a model for thinking, I always miss the dynamical aspect: a program that's constantly being edited while it's being used. That's more like what I think is going on.

You must be a very good teacher, Mordred. Thanks for the tips. The boy has no problem visualizing things, though. He takes brief spells of time processing the explanation in which he seems to be lost in his mind, I hear him mumbling something, and ends up shouting "now I understand!!!" It makes my day. He meant h with no bar for linearized gravity. For some reason h is universally used as the first order corrections to the metric tensor. I've never seen them written with any other symbol.

I don't know about that, but it wouldn't surprise me either. I don't feel very strongly really about defending Christianity or any other monotheism. The Romans played the same propaganda trick against the Phoenicians, so I see no reason why they wouldn't have played it again. I simply don't know enough about it to be sure one way or the other. But what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me.

Overall, ADHD attitudes (I'm not sure they're as much a congenital condition, though it may well be) are much more of a problem for a good teacher or a teacher than intends to be a good one than neurodivergence in the form of AS. Very detailed and interesting analysis. Thank you. Yes, I think I'm in the clear in this respect. I've developed an attitude not to expect anything to go according to plan. It's nice if it happens to go, though. Ha ha. I understand. I'm getting used to his "You got it wrong!!!" or "follow me?" . If you understand where it's coming from, it's quite funny and endearing in a way. I must say: I do not always follow him! I suppose those extreme cases have to do with environmental factors aggravating the situation... Look at it this way, Markus: I sometimes can't find a good reason to remove myself from social situations. You, on the contrary, can go back to your equations and your meditation in order to protect yourself. I know it's easy to say, but looked upon the right way, it's a gift!

Yeah, I'm generally optimistic, which doesn't mean I'm starry-eyed or overconfident. It may take time, but the course of change is well defined in one direction. Resistance is met, I know, primitive drives die hard. I hope I'm not wrong. Although I'm an atheist too, I agree that Christianity probably played a positive role during the first centuries when it entered the Roman Empire, by substituting human sacrifice and similar horrours by something more humane. Less damaging myths at that particular point in history if you wish. Some of my atheist friends do not agree with me. But obviously, after that, pretty much Christianity by itself with its different internal divides and war against other religions is involved in every major conflict that Europe and the Middle East have been involved in through the Middle Ages and after that. Both race (as a convenient political construct to argue in the past for the rights of your tribe to dominate over other tribes, to incorporate @iNow's last point) and religion, have played a major role in arguments for political power.

I think a basic, down-to-earth, practical-for-life, science education for everybody is important because we're living times when religions are loosening their grip on people's minds in the West and other countries with similar tendency. As a consequence, it's only too obvious that some religions are tightening their grip --as a defensive move-- on what's left of their flocks (or desperately trying to) in many developing countries, while swathes of people in the West are turning their heads towards the occult, and fresh-from-the-nonsense-factory myths. The reason why I imply that "race" is a blurry concept at best is because: 1st) Humans have a minimal genetic dispersion among primates 2nd) Africans have a maximal genetic dispersion among themselves in the human family So take, e.g., people of African origin. They have been some of the most discriminated-against for centuries, based on the colour of their skin. Let's leave aside for a moment the most emotional factors like those related to sheer cruelty, injustice, pigeonholing, etc., important thought they are. Does it make any sense at all to separate Africans based on a secondary characteristic (catch anything you can by Nina Jablonski on the role that vitamin D played on it) once we learn from science that humans are extraordinarily homogeneous from a genetic POV (Toba catastrophe being pointed at as the main culprit) and that, even that being very likely, Africans are among the most genetically disperse among themselves? Race, as a concept to divide humans, or even classify them, especially if or when one of the proposed categories is "Africans" vs "non-Africans" would be at least about as silly as trying to study animals as separated into "jellyfish" and "non-jellyfish." That completes my point about race. And I do hope nobody out there (I'm sure not you, @koti) misunderstands my use of the jellyfish example. Agreed. That's why it's so important to study mechanisms in people's minds as such, and not as "they do it just because they want to." I'm optimistic though. I think humans have an uncanny ability to collaborate that's not present in other species. We just need to stimulate it and render the irrational self-defence mechanisms dormant when they become more of an obstacle or bring about any kind of injustice.

+1. These are confusing times. Science education is more important than it has ever been. Just one more thing: The concept of race no longer is useful in any sense that I can think of.

Thank you, Studiot +1. I also have students with ADHD BTW, which is probably worth another thread --very different topic that I'm just mentioning. A crash course on these matters seems in order.

Thank you, @Phi for All. OK. I've been looking for "puffer fish+asperger" on the internet, and I think I may be starting to get a faint idea of what you mean. It may have to do with a day that he was overly defensive because he had been talking with friends on his social network and seemed to have felt "under attack." Is that what you mean? Thank you, @naitche. I just hope I don't let him down. The heads-up about the pressure on understanding and the one about expectations have been very valuable. Maybe the topics on which I'm a bit more faltering and I normally tend to try to wing it, I have to rehearse in advance so that the lessons convey an impression of easiness and smoothness. That's something about @Markus Hanke that strikes me. He "sounds" on his writing pieces as very articulate indeed. So maybe he's practiced on language to the point of completely compensating for the verbal handicap.

Bingo!

Does that help? v = 0 is when the velocity graph crosses the axis. Just "one instant." Let's say the particle is at rest but doesn't have time to rest. Words are tricky in physics. They sometimes project "mirages" in our minds...

Ok. I think it's what MigL was trying to tell you. It doesn't come to rest. It is not at rest. It goes through rest for an instant, so to speak. I'm still looking for a graph. Maybe Studiot can help with the graph, which is after all something you were asking for. Here:

I will have to go in bits and pieces, because it's taking me a while to get up to date with everything. By reductionism (not shallow, nor naive reductionism) I mean the contention that in general small (many in their instances, simple in structure, and few in their categories) parts determine what the big (much fewer in their instances, very complex in structure, many in their categories) self-organizing systems of matter do, and not the other way about. "Determine," for me, is a physical causal connection; not --repeat, not-- a contingency in our mechanisms of explanation. So it doesn't really matter that much whether the explanation is easy or convenient or how many variables you have to use to describe the causal connection. By emergent phenomena I mean those patterns of regularities that do not belong to the simpler parts on their own, but can be deduced in principle from the fact of there being many of them and how the different categories interrelate. A relatively small-scale example would be phospholipids in their role of forming membranes. You can't see a membrane in the properties of one individual molecule, but if you consider many of them in aqueous solution, it's relatively easy to understand how they tend to group together by hiding their fatty hydrophobic part towards the interior of a bubble, showing the polar part towards the exterior, and thus forming an isolating unit. It is because the questions of reductionism and emergence are important for this matter of free will or whether it makes any sense at all, or is just about words that I put it out here. I wish to correct myself. I think the panoply of states that determines decisions at least must include: wish belief fear revulsion reckoning ... More coming.

At maximum height \[\boldsymbol{v}=0\] but \[\boldsymbol{a}\neq0\] Is that what's confusing you?

Thank you. Yes, exactly. Yesterday night, while I was watching a documentary on the topic, I started thinking about something very similar, to what you're saying, although with respect to the signal sending/detecting problem, instead of the interstellar travel. It doesn't seem to occur to anyone to invest effort and resources to send signals around in all directions in order to increase the chances for possible ET civilizations to detect us. Would we want to do that? My instinct is that life anywhere is bound to be very cautious and tend to listen, probe and grope in the dark rather than be loud and proclaim "Hey, we're here!" My best guess is that there are probably some other ears in the universe listening in the silence and eyes watching in the dark. Maybe not many, but none very interested in being detected themselves.

I had you in mind, Markus, but I didn't want to press you for information, so I didn't mention you. Thanks a lot for your input. This totally checks with what I'm experiencing regularly. Sometimes I explain something, give him an example. He seems to have zero problems understanding very difficult things, like transcendent operations, limits, and the like. Geometry is a piece of cake for him once he pictures in his mind what's to be done. Only once it was a bit painful when dealing with projection of one vector on another, because he was stuck in trying to solve the triangle a, b and a-b, when it was about the right triangle. It took me a while to realise what he was trying to do. It's language what seems to be more of a problem sometimes. Especially when I require him to tell me in words what the idea is. I try not to press too much about it. I just try to rephrase slowly and deliver more clearly. I do have the feeling that something more abstract and quite independent from language is going on in his mind. If you just knew how many times I've thought I may have suffered from some kind of very mild form of the autistic spectrum myself. I certainly had many problems with the way most people used innuendo, double meaning, and the like. Yet I was very skillful with language. My way of seeing it today is that what we consider autistic-spectrum diseases may be more usefully considered as a different or non-overlapping spectrum of cognitive abilities that render you inefficient at dealing with certain situations that pose no problem to other people, precisely because your brain is trying to weave a more complex and powerful structure than standard. I love comedy. It's helped me a lot in understanding language, its limits and its flexibility. So that's going to be part of my homework for the Summer. You're welcome, and thanks back to you. I recognize this as a once in a lifetime opportunity. There are more comments I would like to make about these wonderful minds. I've met some of them while I was studying physics, but this is the closest encounter so far, and I'm loving every minute of it. Thank you. More comments coming, I promise. Something I've noticed (and I'm a novice in this) is that this boy does suffer! It's just that his way of suffering is different. He suffers when he notices that other people don't take things the way he does, and don't understand him. Please, hang around, because your comments always prove very valuable. To be honest, I want to help this kid almost as much as I want to learn from him. More information and observations coming in case you're interested.