StringJunky

I think it's pretty clear, to anyone reading a variety of quotes from him, inconsistency of his actions and failed promises for a while, that the bloke's a pillock. People voted despite those failings.

They must hate the other side more. From their perspective, he is lesser of the other evils. They hate any notion of socialism. You see this absolutism about firearms as well. they won't give an inch because, in their eyes, that starts a snowball. Yes. We've seen it here in otherwise very intelligent people.

People voted for him because he was in their team; an ideological ally.

At it's most basic, couldn't it be defined as that minimum state which gives something operational autonomy in making decisions/responses to stimuli? This can apply to non-living systems as well. They contain algorithms which allows them to respond to stimuli in a variety of ways, which is the decision-making part. I suppose one could go through all the living taxa, from bacteria, and work through them to the one that is deemed to be conscious. I've read worms are conscious, so one could analyse all the behavioural algorithms that they use and this might be the starting point of consciousness and say "This is what consciousness looks like at its most basic in algorithmic terms". Would this be a useful, empirical approach to nailing it down? I think what we should be looking for is the minimum rule set that makes something 'conscious'; no airy-fairy philosophical or metaphysical stuff to confound the definition.

When one gets to this stage of persistent conviction that one is right, in the face of contrary expert opinion and sources, one needs to let go and start again without that conviction and see how it pans out. Conviction blinds people.

That's very interesting. I never considered that other organs further down might influence the action of the stomach. Thinking about it, some amino acids, glucose or other product from the enzymatic action might pass through the stomach lining into the bloodstream and that would tell the body how to respond wrt to the churning time.

Yes, i meant evidence-based material which not easy to find. The way I'm looking at it is, how does the stomach sense what is in it? i can't see it having chemical sensors for specific food types to determine how long it should churn for and it's lined with mucus to protect itself from the acid which would probably mask any sensors that might be there anyway.

I haven't found anything that supports the idea of different foods being treated differently in terms of time apart from water which is evacuated pretty quickly. Probably stiffness of the food is the main factor for how long it stays in the stomach i.e. stiff mixing food takes longer.

It isn't uniform and that's what you seem to not be grasping and why the arms are perpendicular.

You've repeated that beyond usefulness The distortion of space at one arm is different to the distortion at the other arm; the distortion is not equal or simultaneous at all co-ordinates about the two arms. Your argument supposes that the the changes at each co-ordinate happen simultaneously to the same degree in all co-ordinates, which they don't. Relatively, there is a detectable difference when comparing the behavior of each arm against the other.

Yeah, telling a woman not to put stuff on their face is like... you know what I mean.

America is unique, I think, in thinking the way it does, in having a majority electorate that is so individualistic and capitalistic. It''s politically to the right of ugly.

This is where the discussion is going: clarifying to the OP their error in what constitutes 'natural' and 'chemical'.

Business as usual, that's how science works. People have had serious doubts about Einstein's GR and SR for a century but they are still there. The doubters are as important to science as the people that make the discoveries.

Gotta keep the shareholders happy and also attract new money.

Yes, that's very likely true.

I agree. I found this from a neuroscientist who thinks the same: Earthworms are conscious because they can respond to stimuli, like odours, and react accordingly. I think people erroneously conflate self-awareness with consciousness, which is another higher level of complexity, but is not the minimum parameter for something to be conscious.

i think you are not getting across effectively. it's important to define exactly what you mean by 'chemicals'. i'm not criticising but it's highly nuanced, ambiguous and easily confusing, this sort of conversation. It's easy to assume that people understand words to have the same meaning as you interpret them when you use them in a particular way, especially in the written word.

Because you choose to give them more impact or weight than the happy things. It's the same as seeing the glass as half empty. Unhappy things happening require effort to put you back on an even track whereas happy things are going in the right direction... unhappy things are work.

Everything is made of chemicals and the point of that list was to show you all the chemicals that make up a real blueberry. if you get food grade quality of either powder you should be ok. I think they are pretty stable and inert-ish chemicals for your use. Skin drying might be the main issue with one or both though.

Most likely. It went too far the other way.

Yes, i always wondered how water authorities, railway regions etc could, by privatisation, be made more 'competitive' when they monopolise their districts. The realities of shareholder-driven businesses is that the administration must show rising profits, year on year, in order to keep and attract new money. The usual tactic is to arbitrarily raise prices. The pharmaceutical industry is a glaring example of this practice.

I'm of the the belief that private policing, healthcare, firemen, prison staff etc lowers the quality of those services because those are vocational jobs and commercial administrations, being answerable to shareholders, are principally interested in profit and and maximising that at the expense of quality care.and working to the best social principles. I think we are now seeing the negative effects of private prison services here in the UK with increasing disorder within them. In a commercial enterprise, I think, the staff are just 'going to work' and not so so much trying to make a difference for their charges.

Quite possibly, but they are still in promiscuous mode more often in order to catch the fish.

i think gay blokes are generally more promiscuous than the average hetero. The sense of deviance is obviously from his frame because that's what he is. I think his assumption that most men are naturally gay is wrong. I've opened my mind to it in the past and does nothing for me. I can think a particular man is aesthetically pleasing but that's about it.