StringJunky

Thank you.

I think of it as a language system used for describing the quantitative properties of the world around us.

It's not wasted, you learnt something important and an aspect of the human thought process: the need to segment what we perceive into little interconnected boxes which is not necessarily a reflection of reality. We actually process analogue phenomena in a digital way. As an artist teacher once said to me; "Lines? I see no lines!" We have to do this or else we couldn't communicate.

What I meant was, prior to the BB, time as we know it may not have been a measurable parameter in the way we understand it. Look it at it like this: if everything was once very close together such that there was no space, and time is interlocked with space, how could it exist without space until space started to form? As counter-intuitive as it first appears the universe could have evolved up to the BB through many phases without time being a parameter in them. You could look at, as you wish, that it existed for all time or, strictly speaking, no time before the BB ie temporal properties weren't part of the universe then. Like you say there was probably a different kind of reality but I speculate time was possibly latent and not expressed Pre-BB. This way, I think, you can talk about what happened before the BB without invoking time and the problem of infinite time. We should not assume the pre-BB universe evolved in the familiar temporally linear fashion. These are just my thoughts by the way.

Adding to Unity+'s point: Forget the imminent gong, albeit no doubt deserved, and just give them the science. Argument from authority is considered quite poor form here as well as in science generally I believe. One's expertise, or lack of it, is on parade when one posts whether one declares a PhD or not. . Look what Einstein did and his track record, are we to believe everything he said as correct? He went up one or two garden paths and came out wrong. Anyway, it's quite nice and quite rare to see any form of collaboration on an idea here because I don't think I've seen it once in four years. So what if it turns out not mirroring reality in the final analysis, some valuable insight(s) will likely be gained by the participants and readers from an attempt at correct formulation of an idea tempered by ongoing critique.

Time may have started with the BB but it doesn't necessarily mean to say the universe started with the BB - Time as we understand it may not have been a functional property of the universe pre-BB. You have to comprehend this in the context of being , as an observer, inescapably bound within the confines of the universe and as such bound by the prevailing natural laws that existed within it pre-BB. By this, I mean it's no good imagining yourself outside the universe observing it with your own clock ticking normally whilst imagining it. The universe could have been around forever but the clock only started ticking 13.7 billion years ago.

You want a selective chelating rust remover which will just bind with and loosen the rust. There's some stuff called Evapo Rust but Black Strap Molasses is supposed to work as well - I part molasses to 9 parts water. This is soaking stuff in a bath. Maybe you could thin some down with water just enough to work into the rust with a brush and keep wetting the area with it periodically until you have the desired result. It has to be Black Strap and no other type. This type of molasses apparently has a high mineral content which does the chelating.

That was very bad manners towards Swansont. He is more than able to answer your question. Since when was it a crime to respond to a post where somebody else was quoted?

Yes, Everything that happens in our lives is recorded in the modified behaviour of those people and those things we encounter whether we, or they, acknowledge it or not. One's brief existence does contribute, even if only in a subtle way, to the collective human psyche and body of knowledge. Since the advent of the internet this concept is becoming more true by the day. Look at all of us within SFN exchanging our ideas and knowledge crossing distances far beyond our own localities in periods of only seconds and recorded for perhaps many years. How many more people will read our words long after we have departed and replicate or act on them in some form or other? You don't have to be a Da Vinci, Newton or Einstein to be immortal in the secular sense, they just happen to be noted. Bear in mind they never created or discovered what they did in isolation, their ideas were built on the efforts of those that came before them in which they embody. Newton understood this very well: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." I hope this and what iNow said goes some way to assuage your pessimism regarding the secular approach ...it's real. What we do now echoes around us energetically into the future.

Being consciously remembered is not as important as your thoughts, words and actions subliminally shaping the actions and beliefs of those you have 'touched'. It gives me a quiet pleasure, for a minor example, to have argued with people on some matter and then sometime later, when our feisty conversation has long been forgotten, they later reiterate my words as though they were their own...you've modified their behaviour which will transfer to those around that person. Think of your words and actions as code which are passed on into the future by those who are exposed to you. Actually, I don't find an analogy of all humans as being like a single computer all that difficult to comprehend ....7 billion cpu's coupled to the motherboard of Earth.

Better to put it here. Then you will have more reliable information because if somebody gives you wrong information, it will be corrected.

John Gribbin's Stardust comes to mind. Buy it Dekan it's a very readable paperback and you should find it somewhere for only a few quid.

And also the synergistic or emergent effect of increasingly complex molecular arrangements and interactions leading to the process called life.

Logic says go with the system that has evidence. "Since things are much more ancient than letters, it is no marvel if, in our day, no records exist of these seas having covered so many countries. . . But sufficient for us is the testimony of things created in the salt waters, and found again in high mountains far from the seas." - Leonardo Da Vinci http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/vinci.html With an open mind, travel down both paths side by side and see which one gets you the furthest.

There is no shadow being cast by the craft yet there are short ones being cast by the barrels and black-clad figure. The shadows of the blue barrels are pointing in a different direction to the black-clad figure. In the other picture you can see radically different shadow orientations between the lone figure top left and the other three figures.

That makes it a clearer, thanks.

I reverted to IE10 because 11 was too buggy.

I know scientists don't really go with singularity idea now but a thought struck me recently: Would it not take an infinite amount of time for the universe to go from the infinite density of a singularity to the finite density it is now? Or the alternative solution is, in some period, it expanded at an infinite rate to reach a finite density.

I didn't realise it was his paper. I thought he'd found it and wanted it scrutinising. If this is the case then that's up to the mods.

I think MD is basically mainstream but he likes to test out thought experiments. Some people learn by arguing.

That's better. I was thinking MD, at the very least, deserves a more refined response than your original offering.

It would have been much better for you to follow this with an objective critique of the paper, if it really is crap, to justify that comment.

They are hip, cool and expensive. I've just been reading that a consultant for Sophos uses AV's on his home Macs so that probably answers that. It's really more down to safe practices by the consumer than software ultimately.

Apple's Unix-based OS is a different beast to PC so I'm not sure AV's are the best route...it might even compromise it and mess it up.The best thing to do is Google the online security advice and apps associated with your bank. Here's bit of general advice: Never respond directly from your email client to any request purporting to come from you bank ,,,always go and login to your bank account your usual way and check or execute requests from them there...if they are there. Never click on any links purporting to come from them that claim to take you to your account or anything else...always go your usual route and check if it's true. If you can, have a wired connection to your router for your banking pc or at least make sure it's WPA2-PSK standard wireless encryption and have a very strong password. Your bank will never request personal or password details via email. In the address bar the address will start https//www.bankname.com...note the extra 's' in https...this means it's a secure connection and if it's not there, stop. It could be a spoofed site.

In Linux you cannot make yourself a root user all the time, like you can in Windows, you have to sign in everytime you want system-level privileges.