Sisyphus

No, you aren't. The statement, "it might be the case that the paper doesn't say anything until a conscious mind becomes aware of it" is not especially related to quantum mechanics.

No, you're not.

No, I want you to acknowledge that you understand that you're not talking about QM. The question that is up in the air is whether or not a computer printout has ink on it that says A or B before a conscious mind looks at it. I know it can't be proven one way or the other. But what can't be proven one way or another is not a matter of interpretation of QM. It's a matter of interpretation of all sentient experience. Does the world disappear when I close my eyes? Can't prove it. Do the sensations my mind experiences even correspond with an external world that's anything like the one my mind pieces together? Can't prove it. Are my memories or my rational faculty at all trustworthy? Don't know. When I conclude that 2+2=4, is the fact that I can't see how it could possibly be otherwise "proof" of anything? Nope. Actually, that particular philosophical tradition is several centuries older than QM.

Or you could just reintroduce a natural predator, and wait for the population to stabilize on its own. Sounds like you need some owls.

But you're talking about relativistic scales. In classical physics there are cases where you can assume perfectly rigid bodies and get approximate answers. Same with point masses, spherical cows, ideal gases, frictionless surfaces, etc. But you can't anymore when those things are no longer insignificant and incidental to the purpose of the thought experiment. Like when you make your rigid pole one million light years long, and you have to put it in a universe quite a bit different from ours for it to make any sense. So the answer is just, you made the universe where that's possible, you tell me what the rules are.

I didn't say it had no rotational energy. I said it had transferred as much as possible.

It would, except that it would take much longer than the lifetime of the sun. Further away, but slower. Farther orbits have more energy in the same way that dropping something from a greater height releases more energy. However, it is also slower. This makes sense if you keep in mind that gravitational force decreases the farther away you go.

It is directly related. I think reading about the ideal gas law, which roughly desribes the relationship between temperature, pressure, and volume of gases, will answer most of your questions. As pressure increases, volume decreases, and vice versa. And remember, density is just mass per unit volume. Put the same mass in a smaller volume and you've got higher density. Give the link a look, and come back with any questions you have about it.

In other PETA news, they're protesting the famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. Not so much because they're eating fish, but because vendors often toss the fish around from display case to pick up counter, etc., which has become a minor tourist spectacle, and it's "disrespectful." If only fishmongers would be more sensitive to those fish's cultural taboos against disrespecting the dead! http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-flying-fish13-2009jun13,0,7652933.story

Well, "paranormal" stuff is unscientific, by definition. If it were supportable by science, it would be called something else. Dreams (though not whatever "the dream plane" is) and the subconscious mind, however, are not "paranormal phenomena." If you wanted to study them, you could approach it from neuroscience or psychology.

No. It is impossible for there to be such a thing as a completely inflexible pole. Information can't be transferred at faster than the speed of light.

When I say you're "moving the goalposts," this is what I mean: You: QM is amazing! One interpretation is that [phenomenon] doesn't exist until a conscious mind looks at it. Me: But in order to say that's possible, you need to demand a standard of proof in which you could say the same about anything. It's not special to QM. You: Exactly! Me: ...

Ok, but do you see how you can say that in any situation? It invalidates nothing. Mousavi campaigned on ending government monopoly on the media, disbanding the "morality police," codifying absolute equal rights for women, and trying to establish friendly relations with Europe and the United States. Oh, and not only does he admit the Holocaust actually happened, but he says it was a bad thing! So yes, even if in every other respect he's no better, he's still a much better choice for Iran and for the world, even if "that was once said about Saddam Hussein."

I am closed to all opinions, regardless of whether they agree with mine.

Under normal circumstances, gravity alone won't cause an orbit to decay and crash. The shape of an orbit (excluding outside influences) is an ellipse. When orbits do decay, with satellites and stuff, it's generally because of friction with the (extremely thin) atmosphere. This causes it to lose energy and "fall" lower down, which actually gives it greater velocity. The Moon doesn't have that problem. However, it hasn't always been in the same orbit, and it is changing to this day. This is because of tidal forces. Tides happen on Earth because the near side of the Earth is closer to the Moon than the far side, making different parts of it have slightly different gravitational attraction. This causes the slight "stretching" that we experience as rising and falling ocean levels, and creates a slight "friction" effect in the Earth's rotation. The Earth's rotational energy is very gradually being transferred to the Moon's orbit, causing the Moon to "higher" (further away) by a couple inches a year, and slower (higher orbits have more potential enery and are slower). The same effect once applied in reverse, although due to the difference in size it was much greater in reverse, and the Moon has long since transferred all possible rotational energy, leaving one side always facing the Earth. This is called "tidal locking."

Good point. But Mousavi doesn't need to be a good guy to be a much better choice, and a good sign for what Iranians want.

Except the French. It didn't originate with them, but we still would have probably failed if not for their assistance. Also, the Iranians wouldn't be obtaining "independence." I definitely agree with the main point, though.

Just thought of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross Obviously not biological and so I realize not really a valid comparison. Still, it's human muscles supplying the power.

Per usual, Wikipedia is pretty helpful for basic questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct It seems "instinct" is longer considered a technical term, but a lot of what is popularly called instinct just arises from the architecture of the nervous system, in the form of reflexes, "fixed action patterns" hardwired into the brain, etc. The question "how does a blank know how to blank" seems intuitive, but it's really not fundamentally different than asking how a hand knows how to have four fingers and a thumb.

Oh, I'm sure there was substantial vote-rigging, but I'm actually optimistic. Even if Ahmadinejad manages to retain his office, this feels like a turning point for Iran. Hundreds of thousands of people are protesting in Tehran. How can that not be the beginning of the end for the conservatives? The Times, They Are A-Changin', and all that.

Do I seriously need to? In this case the extraordinary claim, I think, is that the car didn't crash because it ran into a brick wall, but only because we are aware of it. The interaction is whatever the method of measurement is, which Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle proves it is impossible to make without affecting the measured. Again, you're making the extraordinary claim, and not even about QM. You're saying that, for example, a computer printout doesn't say one thing or the other until you look at it. While technically you can't prove that isn't the case, it's an argument that has nothing to do with the double slit experiment. Again, in QM, there's no such thing as "just looking." You can't "prove" anything by that standard, ultimately. But we were talking about what's special about QM, and you keep trying to move the goalposts. Do you talk like that to people in person?

I'd say a very large percentage of the urine I've seen in my life has been in toilets. It's not weird at all. In fact, one of the primary functions of the toilet is to dispose of urine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet

Not really, though. It's the physical set up of the experiment, not the intention of the experimenter. If you have a device that measures which slit it goes through, all you're doing is forcing an external interaction at an earlier point, and that external interaction forces it to be one place or another. Measurement requires interaction, and interaction causes change. If you put a brick wall across the road to measure whether a car goes by, whether or not you choose to "measure" (i.e., build the wall) will certainly affect the outcome, but it would be an odd way of phrasing it to say that your free will caused the car to crash. The car crashed because there was a wall in the way. There is, of course, an important difference between car and electron, which is the point of the experiment. When there's no "wall" in the way of the electron and thus no difference in the external world until it hits the second screen, it turns out it went through both slits. When there are walls in the way, you're forcing an interaction and thus a wave collapse sooner, and so it has to be in one place or the other. Freaky. But consciousness still doesn't enter into it.

QM does indeed make some previously purely academic philosophical questions a more practical concern. Physics has a history of doing that to philosophy and mathematics. However, consciousness doesn't particularly enter into it, although certainly many (mostly non-scientists) have tried. One issue is similar to the tree in the forest, though "someone around to hear it" is replaced with "something that will be different depending on whether or not it has fallen" or some such. It is reminiscent of but not the same as the original...

My point, though, was that there's nothing especially quantum mechanics-y about those doubts. There's no more reason to suspect that it it's not there until a conscious being looks at it than it is for classical physics, or everyday life. You say "choosing to ignore it" as if quantum physicists in particular are ignoring some possibility especially relevant to them. But in the exact same way, every one of us goes about our daily lives under the implicit assumption that the world is still there when we're not looking, and that objection can always be raised, no matter what the subject. With QM, "observation" is indeed special in a way that in some ways parallels that idea, but the "observation" means interaction with something external, not awareness by some conscious mind particularly. In fact, you could argue that it specifically doesn't mean that, as the only conscious minds we know of (humans) have no way of directly observing quantum phenomena.