bombus

But like how does it actually work? Why does it work?

I wonder if any of these 'particles' exist at all. I have wondered whether they may actually be the absence of something - a 'gap' or twist in the virtual field. I'm sure I once heard someone at CERN saying that electrons have an infinitiely small radius (although their wavelength is measurable). Maybe they are more like reflections than actual 'things'. Does this make any sense? I'd be suprised if this thought is original...

No, the experiments proved the aether didn't exist because a consequence of the existence of the aether that should have been there wasn't. IOW, the aether was falsified. I disagree. The experiment attempted to find 'suggested' effects of the aether and failed to detect any. However, the expts pre-supposed what the aether is. if the aether is more like pixels on a computer screen (for example) within which reality occurs, it's effects would be undetectable. That I think is kinda what Einstein was alluding to in his quote. Feeling the rocks only allows you to detect the radiation (and increased motion of the molecules and atoms of the rock). That most of the heat is radiated into space is irrelevant. It still has less capacity to do work (greater entropy) than the radiation that was absorbed by the rock. Meanwhile, in plants some of the radiation absorbed made sugar, which is a decrease in entropy. You said "eventually" and "far more quickly". You can't have both Yes I can. eventually means a few years or maybe centuries, and this is far quicker than reflected photons travelling through space for billions of years. The sugar can remain AS SUGAR for years! Meanwhile, the rock radiates its infrared within a few seconds or hours. years but not billions of them. Also consider what happens when the sugar is burned. Some of that energy is used to make high energy phosphate bonds which are then used to synthesize proteins and nucleic acids -- reducing entropy. It is not until those compounds are broken down that entropy is finally equal to what the rock did within a few seconds or hours! So no, life is a way of locally decreasing entropy. I refer you to the answers above Life does NOT = evolution. Or evolution does NOT = life. Evolution happens to populations of living organisms. Therefore you cannot say that evolution = chemical reactions. Evolution also happens to other populations. You said that that the theory only applied to chemicals. Life is chemicals.

Try this too. It's from wikipedia, but for the more obscure subjects it's usually quite reliable IMO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

To be honest, I'm talking more metaphysically. I suppose what I am trying to say is that the reality we exist within is due to infinitely complex patterns occurring within spacetime. After the big bang matter and anti matter cancelled each other out, leaving a tiny amount of matter left - but actually hardly anything at all. Reality is a 'wafer thin' ripple in perhaps nothing. I'm also being flippant and as has been said above, my comment has no real place in this discussion. To add to the above, reality is an incredibly complex mathematical structure, and that is what ultimately determines the patterns of tiger stripes...

Originally Posted by bombus View Post What scientific theory is that? There isn't one. Penrose's microtubule hypothesis is falsified by this paper. No it does not! The neocortex, thalamus, and interconnecting loops And how are those structures controlled? To answer B) Classical theory suggests that every action in the universe was pre-ordained at the Big Bang. No, it doesn't, it suggests classical systems are deterministic. Obviously quantum effects played a huge part in the Big Bang and explain the non-uniformity of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Free Will and deterministic universe do not go well together! Thusly free will cannot really exist. Why? Because it means that any state is predetermined by an earlier state. QM suggests that this is not the case, so free will is possible. Randomness in lieu of determinism gives way to free will? Do you consider "free" behavior to be random? Free will is not random - maybe because of the influence of consciousness. c/f the double slit expt. You really need to stop using science as the basis of metaphysical statements about consciousness. You're merely confusing yourself. No I'm not! This thread is about the brain. The brain is not consciousness! Your brain can be unconscious. Unless you're a reductive materialist you really shouldn't use the two synonymously. Read about how unconsciousness is produced by anaesthetics. You can find i here: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penrose-hameroff/fundamentality.html

If you wish to believe that free will does not exist, you are welcome to that belief (which is scientifically unprovable either way). I happen to believe that I have free will, and thusly welcome a scientific theory that allows this, rather than one that does not. I will answer question A) with another question: What are the physical mechanisms within your brain that enable you to control the flow of electrical impulses - to allow you to think freely? The answer is that there are none. So how can you do it? To answer B) Classical theory suggests that every action in the universe was pre-ordained at the Big Bang. Thusly free will cannot really exist. QM suggests that this is not the case, so free will is possible.

The issue is whether conscious observation, or maybe just consciousness, can alter 'reality' at the subatomic level. Classical physics makes it impossible for us to think freely, because everything we think is based on what we were thinking beforehand, and everything was determined at the Big Bang. QM and the consciousness issue allow for us to get out of this problem. I can see the merits of both camps, but if given the choice, like I said earlier, I'm with Penrose and Hameroff. try here: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/

Try this, it's great!

Well, as a scientist I'd have to see the proof of that before I believed it! Mind you, I can crush double-decker buses using only the power of my mind:)

Science proved that the aether could not be detected (by scientific investigation), which isn't exactly the same thing. Einstein just ignored it because of this, but never said it didn't exist. "More careful reflection teaches us, however, that the special theory of relativity does not compel us to deny ether...To deny the ether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever". Albert Einstein Not necessarily. Remember, we are talking about photons that have been absorbed by the chemicals of the rock, pushing the electrons to a higher energy state. When the electrons fall back, they re-emit photons in the infrared. All you need do is feel that rocks sitting in the sun are warm. Yes, but most of that heat is reflected into space. Now, if you are talking "reflected", that simply means the photons bounce off the material. Wavelength is unchanged. The chlorophyll of plants is such that it is very good at absorbing at particular wavelengths BUT some photons are reflected -- the ones in the green of the spectrum. Which is why, of course, plants are green. That's the fallacy. Plants capture photons in the red frequencies and converts them to SUGAR, not heat. A rock either reflects them or absorbs them and re-emits them as heat. Thus the rock goes to increasing entropy more quickly. Yes, but the sugar is eventually emitted as heat, far more quickly than the reflected infra red photons ever will. Life is a great way of increasing entropy. Since evolution applies to populations of organisms and Gibb's Free Energy applies to chemical reactions, it would be a mistake to say that evolution lowers GFE. Life, therefore evolution, is just chemical reactions.

This explains it (from wiki, but correct): Quantum version of experiment By the 1920s, various other experiments (such as the photoelectric effect) had demonstrated that light interacts with matter only in discrete, "quantum"-sized packets called photons. If sunlight is replaced with a light source that is capable of producing just one photon at a time, and the screen is sensitive enough to detect a single photon, Young's experiment can, in theory, be performed one photon at a time with identical results. If either slit is covered, the individual photons hitting the screen, over time, create a pattern with a single peak. But if both slits are left open, the pattern of photons hitting the screen, over time, again becomes a series of light and dark fringes. This result seems to both confirm and contradict the wave theory. On the one hand, the interference pattern confirms that light still behaves much like a wave, even though we send it one particle at a time. On the other hand, each time a photon with a certain energy is emitted, the screen detects a photon with the same energy. Under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, an individual photon is seen as passing through both slits at once, and interfering with itself, producing the interference pattern. A remarkable result follows from a variation of the double-slit experiment, in which detectors are placed in each of the two slits, in an attempt to determine which slit the photon passes through on its way to the screen. Placing a detector even in just one of the slits will result in the disappearance of the interference pattern. The detection of a photon involves a physical interaction between the photon and the detector of the sort that physically changes the detector. (If nothing changed in the detector, it would not detect anything.) If two photons of the same frequency were emitted at the same time they would be coherent. If they went through two unobstructed slits then they would remain coherent and arriving at the screen at the same time but laterally displaced from each other they would exhibit interference. However, if one or both of them were to encounter a detector, then they would fall out of step with each other, that is, they would decohere. They would then arrive at the screen at slightly different times and could not interfere because the first to arrive would have already interacted with the screen before the second got there. If only one photon is involved, it must be detected at one or the other detector, and its continued path goes forward only from the slit where it was detected. The Copenhagen interpretation posits the existence of probability waves which describe the likelihood of finding the particle at a given location. Until the particle is detected at any location along this probability wave, it effectively exists at every point. Thus, when the particle could be passing through either of the two slits, it will actually pass through both, and so an interference pattern results. But if the particle is detected at one of the two slits, then it can no longer be passing through both—its presence must become manifested at one or the other, and so no interference pattern appears. This is similar to the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics provided by Richard Feynman. (Feynman stresses that this is merely a mathematical description, not an attempt to describe some "real" process that we cannot see.) In the path integral formulation, a particle such as a photon takes every possible path through space-time to get from point A to point B. In the double-slit experiment, point A might be the emitter, and point B the screen upon which the interference pattern appears, and a particle takes every possible path; through both slits at once; to get from A to B. When a detector is placed at one of the slits, the situation changes, and we now have a different point B. Point B is now at the detector, and a new path proceeds from the detector to the screen. In this eventuality there is only empty space between (B =) A' and the new terminus B', no double slit in the way, and so an interference pattern no longer appears. The rest is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_slit#Quantum_version_of_experiment

I agree with that. I think conciousness itself is intrinsically linked to QM. It's the mechanism that allows free will. I'm with Penrose and Hameroff.

Sickle cell syndrome maybe? Also cystic fibrosis. Unfortunately both of these are a disadvantage if you have homologous pairs of the gene (two the same - just having one is an advantage)

Premise D: Conciousness is a property of spacetime and not unique to living organisms (Pansychism)

Great stuff. I like it!

Fine by me. (Oh ye of little faith) Should we also stop talking about superstring theory? No, don't answer that one...

Surely energy reflected off a rock would be on average of a much higher frequency than energy emitted as heat/infra red radiation by a plant. Photons emitted into deep space may travel for millions of years before being able to hit something and be converted to heat. Life captures many more photons and ultimately turns them to heat far more quickly than a bare rocky planet would. I refer you to my comment above Aaahhh, well, they exist but cannot be detected. Matter is a result of eddies in the flow of spacetime, just like peacocks tails and tigers stipes are the result of eddies in the flow of eco-energy. I have absolutely no scientific proof of this whatsoever, but science would not be capable of proving it either way anyway. A bit like the ether.

Well if we agreed that life uses energy from the system to delay (or even temporarily reverse) the effects of 2nd law of Thermodynamics, it's effect is to increase the overall entropy of the universe. Life captures solar energy and ultimately converts it to heat better than a bare rock would (less reflection, convertion of photons to heat...), so ultimately the universe increases entropy by having life. Thusly, life may be a very effective way of increasing entropy, thus could be just a side effect of the eddies in spacetime of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Still with me?

Life disperses energy. Life increases entropy in the universe. Life is NOT order from disorder. I agree, except that I would argue that life is order from order, not order from disorder.

I think the homeopathic part of this is kinda irrelevent. It's the dilution effect on histamines that's the puzzler.

I think you misunderstand what he is saying. He is saying that the reason why life exists at all is due to the fact that it allows energy to be dispersed more effectively. Thusly, life is the side effect (of the 2nd law of Thermodynamics).

Thanks for that. Well, if the plane melted, maybe it was hot enough for the girders to soften, but was it hot enough for long enough?

It's not really the homeopathic medicine argument that's puzzling, it's the histamine solution still working at levels of dilution that should negate its properties.