StringJunky

In this article Reactions between some alkali group metals and platinum group metals it has this to say:

No, because everywhere inflated; all adjacent points in the universe gained distance from each other.

Perhaps you should book-end that with [sarcasm] ... [/sarcasm] just to be clear.

sodium bicarbonate + acetic acid -> sodium acetate + carbon dioxide There is no reaction AFAIK if sodium chloride was present.

Looks like a word-for-word translation of a language, like Chinese.

This harks back to what I said earlier about everybody has a different idea of where poverty starts. Would Bill Gates be on a massive downer if he lost 80 billion dollars and was down to his last billion.

It depends who you want to measure your circumstances against. To me, poor is worrying about where the next meal is coming from; to someone else it's not being able to go on ones usual winter holiday at Gstaad this year.

Yes, in First World terms but not Third World terms.

If you don't have success and/or money then the elixir of life is those two things. If you do have those things one may realise they are not what they are cracked up to be. Sometimes it's better to be poor and dream of the unattainable; to live in hope is better than knowing there is none. Yes, I'm a depressive. Seriously, money is distraction not a solution.

You need to talk to somebody qualified that can help you see what's what and ascertain if you have any medical issues and/or reacting hard to some sort of life stress; we can't do it

No, it doesn't matter. Once AI behaviour becomes indistinguishable from that which it mimics, in every scenario that is thrown at it, it's pretty much 'alive'. To think otherwise implies that there is something else present that is outside the realms of current science.

You are software/information, so, it could be written on a piece of paper but you need hardware to run it. Yes, you can just be reduced to code. Anything else is magic, which is what you don't seem to realise; there is no plausible alternative. An organism is not self-aware after executing one instruction; it would be no more life than a simple machine. An organism executes many instructions in any given moment; it's that concerted ensemble of executed instructions that makes something functionally independent which ultimately defines it as living. And, no, I don't know when that point is reached. It's a funny old thing, emergence; it perplexes and fascinates me at the same time how just one more step transforms things to a new phenomenon although in the case of life it seems to be a stepless continuum. However one wants to to slice and dice it, we are wet machines.

Self awareness, feelings etc are complex emergent processes of simpler molecular processes. It's the same with electronics; one reaches some, as yet unkinown, level of complexity and artificial intelligence and biological intelligence becomes indistinguishable from an operating and output point of view.

Yes, When we walk into that beautiful wood with the sun's rays dappling the ground through the trees, there's murder, rape and pillage going on every second of the day. Just go fishing and you see it all. Six little ducklings following mummy duck and, one by one, they disappear throughout the day; snacks for unseen monsters lurking below.

In any natural space everything is trying to eat each other. Fear is a necessary constant in nature unless it's an apex predator; happiness not. That's a very broad brush you are using there and anthropomorphising animals

Sometimes, things are over-analysed...

Nobody can find a technique that can predict what the next prime will be, to infinity without going through the list and working it out. They are trying to find a bespoke formula that can predict them; a shortcut. The pattern of occurrence of primes appears to be random but I think they think otherwise and, I think, that's one of the reasons why it is so difficult. This article by Marcus Du Sautoy gives an easy, potted read to the problem and it's history.. https://plus.maths.org/content/prime-number-lottery

Yes, it's a resistance between fields.

Sorry, I was agreeing with you. I should have said "Indeed, it was a long time ago".

It was a long time ago.

That's because you have become accustomed to, and like, antibiotic and steroid treated meat; it is the standard by which you judge everything else. Not CJD; It's BSE. CJD is what humans get.

Yes, I should have mentioned that.

The source is more important than the medium, don't you think? I think it's just your age.

To use a computer analogy: psychology is the software and neuroscience is the hardware. As psychology affects, and is affected by, the neuroscience it's pretty important. My opinion is that learning psychology is a load of pot air without a strong grounding in cognitive neuroscience; the latter is much more empirically-based than the latter . I started a psychology course...