Edtharan

The Planck length, according to current understandings of Quantum Mechanics, is the smallest distance possible. This means you can't have a sub-Planck length at all and no particle can have a dimension smaller than the Planck length. "Logically Consistent" does not mean "Actually Exists". It is possible to show that Pink Unicorns are logically consistent, but it does not mean that they exist. The error does not lie in the logic, but instead in the initial assumptions that was used to derive the conclusion.

Actually Logic does not dictate this, that is an assumption, not a logical conclusion based off of evidence.

That is the strawman argument. Evolution does not claim that is what happens. Evolution say gradual changes over many generations. Ok try this little experiment (you can do it on paper, but if you can program it would be faster to code it): 1) Start by writing down a sentence (not too long, but any length will do). 2) Generate 100 random strings of letters, numbers and punctuation marks. 3) Rate each random string. To do this we will simply give 1 point for each letter/space/punctuation that is in that string that also appears in the sentence and an extra point if it appears in the same location. 4) Take the top 10 rated random strings and make 9 copies of each, however, you need to randomly select one letter/space/punctuation mark and randomly change it. 5) Repeat steps 3 and 4. At first you will find that there appears none of the strings will closely match the initial string, even after some time it will appear like random collections. However, once this state has existed for some time, you will see a fairly quick transition towards the initial sentence. But, at any point can you state that it when from completely random to the sentence in one (or a couple) of generations? This is a bit like your statement: "out came a human from an ape embryo". The Random strings in this case would be like the Ape embryo and the sentence would be like the Human. There is no instant transition, but a gradual change from one to the other, with intermediate forms that contain both random symbols and coherent parts of a sentence. However, this is not a complete model. In the real world there would be many different "solutions" to an evolutionary problem (like how to select the best mate, how to avoid predators or how to get the best food). In my example above, this would be like having several, different initial sentences. If you did this, each sentence would be rated as compared to each sentence and only its highest score would be compared. In this situation you will find that sentences will emerge out of the process. This is much more like real world evolution, as there is an ancestral form (the random strings) that evolve into the final forms (the target sentences). In fact you could do this starting from a single sentence (rather than 100) and only keeping the top 10 sentences.

What do you mean by systems (computers?). I asked for proof and you just repeat the claim . This is a tautology. To be aware, you have to know you exist, but to have a concept of "you" you need to be aware... What if you programmed a robot to be aware of itself? Would it be conscious then? There have bee a few robots that use self examination to achieve goals. They examine the stare they are in and compare that to the state that they want to be in. They then use that difference to move towards the desired state. In several examples I have seen, a robot arm examined its current position and the projected position of an incoming ball. It then change its arm's position towards the ball. It did this continuously until it caught the ball. Actually, recent research indicates that animals can have a quite complex internal life. Although not a peer reviewed journal, New Scientist does have an article reporting on peer reviewed research about such things: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19826571.700-is-there-anything-unique-about-humans.html But I come back to my original question to you: Just by looking at a Human Brain, what structures tell you that it has consciousness? There is a test called the Turing Test designed to determine if a computer program was intelligent or not (the test has now been shown not to be the definitive indicator, but for the time it was quite good). Many of the Chat Bots that exist actually manage to fool most people into thinking that it is a real person. Have you proof of this? Humans seem to operate of Stimulus -> response, sometimes the Stimulus is complex and the Response is Complex, but it is still stimulus -> response. Research can be reading about them. However, research does not stop once you find something that confirms your initial thoughts. Proper research involves trying to find information that disproves your initial thoughts. This is where most people fail in their research, they stop researching when they find something that agrees with them. This is actually a logical fallacy called a Retrospective determinism (actually it is a conclusion based on that fallacy). Therefore it is not a good argument for the existence of consciousness. It is even worse. Can you prove that I "think" (therefore am) and am not just some complex system designed to give the impression of thinking? So if true, it gives absolutely no indication that something else is conscious or not. So this doesn't actually prove it at all .

The particular law is Newton's 3rd Law: "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction". The key phrase here is "Equal and Opposite". So to life a vehicle by this method, you would have to push air with an equal force as gravity is pulling on the vehicle. The problem is, that using such a device like this would probably take more energy than using something like a propeller. To create an anti gravity device, you would need to soem how negate gravity. We can do this with the Electromagnetic force as it has both a positive and negative aspect to the field. However, Gravity (as far as we know) only has an attractive field. This makes our ability to manipulate the Gravitational field very limited. So it look like it might actually be impossible for us to create an anti-gravity device as we can not manipulate the gravitational field like we can the electromagnetic field. Actually the article states that it is not anti-gravity at all, so even if this is shown to be true, the it still would not be anti-gravity.

An agreement with you for one (that brains are not binary)? You state that brains are not binary, and the very next sentence (mine) agree with that, and you think I said that you said that brains were binary. You made an assumption about me without actually trying to understand what was written. If you then read the rest of my post, I then go on to show that binary systems can behave in a similar way to the brain. This kind of argument is called: Cherry Picking.

How do you know it doesn't have awareness? Without other evidence to support that conclusion it is just an opinion. Just by looking at a Human Brain, what structures tell you that it has consciousness? Can you see a physical difference in the brains of a conscious and unconscious (or comatose) human? Can you prove to me that you are conscious (more so than a mouse or a really clever computer program)? Think about this: If you are in a dream and you are talking to someone and they claim they are conscious can you prove that they are or are not conscious? If you are awake, and talking to someone and they claim they are conscious can you prove that they are or are not conscious? Until you can answer these questions in a way that provides a repeatable method to determine consciousness, you can't actually claim that "They are facts to me." They are instead you opinions (you are allowed to have your opinions, but don't call them facts if they are not). But because we can't prove either way they can therefore not be called fact. No this is not scientific. Science is about questioning and relying on evidence. If the Dr gives you actual evidence (maybe in the form of data collected form an experiment to back up what he says), then that would be scientific. If he gives that kind of evidence, then we would be relying on his evidence, not his authority. Just be cause someone is a Scientist does not mean they can't be wrong. If we just relied on some scientist's word (without the evidence to back it up) then we might have just relied on what Einstein said and dismissed Quantum Mechanics altogether. Einstein did not believe that QM was inherently uncertain and that there was an underlying classical physics underpinning it. However, he was wrong. QM does appear to be inherently uncertain. Einstein did not have the evidence to back up his claim, but because there was evidence to back up the uncertainty of QM, that is the theory that became accepted. So, can you understand now the reason that you need to back up your claims/beliefs/assumptions/etc with evidence, and not opinion (despite whoever that opinion actually comes from). No matter how intelligent or studied someone is: They can be wrong in their opinions.

This is not anti-gravity. Antigravity would involve shielding against gravity or somew how nutralising the gravitational field. This is instead plain old Newtonian "Action/Reaction". As the electcic field acts on the positive ions, it pushes them downwards. This creates a reaction opposite to the ion movment in the device (the electric field and its generators) which pushes them upwards. It is no more Anti-Gravity and Helicopter blades. It just used a different mechanism to push the air downwards (first ionising it and then accelerating them in an electric field).

Hmm may be if you actually read the rest of the post you might have seen that I was not saying that you thought the brain was binary. You seem to have jumped to a conclusion about my post without actually reading it. Nowhere in my post do I claim that you said that brains are binary. What I was saying what the even with binary processes you can get behavious that are seen in the real brain. Actually, a neuron is either fireing or not. That is a binary process and that occurs in a real living brain. So although you say that the brain is not binary, it does in fact have binary processes at the core of it's component's opperation.

Well it dosen't usually push all the water out of the pipe, so ther is still water in the pipe. But, when you heat water into steam, it take up more room that water as a liquid. Therefore, when the water boils in the pipe, it must push some of that water out of the pipe. However, once all the water in the pipe has been boiled into steam, then there will be no more expansion, but since the water in the tube will have momentum as it is pushed out, it will continue to move out of the tube without the pressure of the steam. This creates a vacume (and expanding a gas like that cools it down which then means that the steam will take up even less room). Also the heat energy in the metal of the pipe will have been used up in flash boilingthe water, which now mean it is less that 100 degres C. As the temperature is now less than boiling and the slight vacuum has colled the steam it will condense creating more of a vacuum. This vacuum "sucks" water back up the pipe, and in the mean time the pipe is being reheated by the candle (or other heat source) so that when the vacuum has sucked the water back in, there is enough temperature in the pipe to flash heat the water again, and the cycle repeats. It is actually this cycle that give the engine its name. The "Putt" sound is when the water flash boils. Then as the steam condenses and creates the vacuum that sucks more water back into the engine (from outside the boat), ther eis a pause in the sound. Then in the next cycle the water is flash boiled and you get another "Putt" sound. And so you get this nice Putt, Putt, Putt sound. No, the ends of the engine (what look like exhaust pipes) should be under the water. This allows water to flow back in when the vacuum forms.

Making claims without providing references for them is speculation... The human brain is not binary. It is an analog system. There are neurons the inhibit and neurons that excite, but they don't have to have a binary state. But, even just assuming that we can only operate with a binary state, you can get complex behaviours out of even that. We will use a really simple form of a Neuron. The Neuron will be made up of 3 parts: 1) Dendrites: These are links from this neuron to other neurons. 2) Soma: This is where the main "processing" takes place. It has a threashold level that needs to be achieved by the Dendrites before it will activate the neuron and post a signal on the Axion. 3) Axion: The neuron "posts" its activation state to this so that other neuron's Dendrites can read it. An Axion can be Inhibit or Exite the recieving Neurons (designated as a + or a - sign). To start off with we have a single neuron with 5 Dendrites, an Activation threashold is 3 and + Axion. As we don't have other neurons this neuron will be manually activated (it will be the Input Layer of the Neural Network). So, if we put a "+" activation on 3 of the dendrites and nothing on the other dendrites then this neuron will activate. If we then put a "-" on one of the remaining 2 dendrites it will not activate. That is pretty simple and could easily be replicated in code, or even as an electrical circuit. It is also distinctly not quantum in nature. Now imagine we have 6 neurons: 1) 3 Dendrites, Threashold of 1 and a "+" Axion 2) 3 Dendrites, Threashold of 2 and a "+" Axion 3) 3 Dendrites, Threashold of 1 and a "-" Axion 4) 3 Dendrites, Threashold of 1 and a "+" Axion 5) 3 Dendrites, Threashold of 1 and a "+" Axion 6) 3 Dendrites, Threashold of 2 and a "-" Axion Nerons 1, 2 and 3 are all input neurons (that is their dendrites are going to be manually activated by us). Neuron 4, 5 and 6's dendrites connect to each of the input neurons. Now, if the 3 dendrites on Neuron 1 are activated, Neuron 1 will activate. This will then trigger all 3 secondary Neurons (4 and 5 ) to activate but not 6 (the output could be read as 1, 1, 0). If we also send a signal to all 3 of neuron 2's dendrites, then it will activate (recieving 3 with a threashold of 2). This then gives enough +'s to activate neuron 6 as well. This means the input is: 1) 1,1,1 2) 1,1,1 and the output is: 1,1,1 Not all that interesting. But let's now activate Neuron 3's Dendrites. Giving us the Input of: 1) 1,1,1 2) 1,1,1 3) 1,1,1 As 3 has a negative Axion, this inhibits the activation of any neuron connected to it. This means that neurons 4, 5 and 6, even though the have two "+"'s, they also have one "-" dropping their total to one "+". So Neuron 6 won't fire and the output is: 1,1,0 again. Now for the interesing part: Instead of having Neurons 1, 2 and 3 as input neurons, we will connect them up to the Axions of 4, 5 and 6 (leaving all values as they are). This means the inputs to 1, 2 and 3 are: 1) 1, 1, 0 2) 1, 1, 0 3) 1, 1, 0 S0 Neurons 1 and 2 activate. This means that neurons 4, 5 and 6 get these inputs: 4) 1, 1, 0 5) 1, 1, 0 6) 1, 1, 0 This means that Neurons 4, 5 and 6 activate. This cycles back around into Neurons 1, 2 and 3: 1) 1, 1, -1 2) 1, 1, -1 3) 1, 1, -1 Neurons 1 and 3 now activate. So now Neurons 4, 5 and 6 get this input: 4) 1, 0, -1 5) 1, 0, -1 6) 1, 0, -1 And the whole thing grinds to a halt . This might not sound very interesting at first, but play around with this simple neural network and see the variety of activation patterns that you can get. You can get stabel patters that keep repeating forever (or until other neurons get activated). The thing is, this is only 6 neurons, you have billions of them and they are constantly recieving new inputs all the time. Not onyl do you have lots more, your neurons work slightly differently. In stead of just having an ON/OFF value, they can have any value between 1 and 0, and you also ahve many differnet types too that work slightly differently. There is also "long range" signalling in the brain where a single neuron can effect neurons not directly connected to it and can potentially effect all the neurons in the brain. You can have neurons that don't just excite or inhibit other neurons but can release chemiclas that change the way neurons behave (raise of lower the activation threashold, turn it from an Inhibitor to an Excitor, or other things). None of these require QM effects (although it might achieve them though chemical reactions that rely on QM effects), and they can be all simulated on a binary computer (you can get analog computers and Neural Networks can be simulated on them too), or if you have enough time with pen and paper. It is to do with computing speed. Each simulated neuron might tak a few hundred clock cycles to compute it in a really simple Neural Network simulation. But if you were to simulate a human brain with 100 billion or so neurons, then we need to multiply 100,000,000,000 by a few hundred (say 500 - actually for us to simulate a real neuron we might be looking at many, many more clock cycles). This gives us 50,000,000,000,000, or 50 thousand billion (50 trillion) clock cycles. My computer can do 2,000,000,000 clock cycles each second. This means in 50,000 seconds (or just under 14 hours), I could simulate a fraction of a second of a human brain's operation. Not only will it take a long time to simulate, we have to get the dat in there in the first place. That means examining the 100,000,000,000 or so neurons for their connections (whicb number in the thousands for each neuron). We migth have the technology today to simulate a amphibian or reptile brain, but we are no where near the computing power to simulate a human brain. But we could just wait a few years. If (and that is a big if) Moores law holds true we should be able to simulate a Human brain is a couple of decades. If the computing speed doubles every 18 months, then in a few decades we should have the computing power in a single computer that would be able to simulate a human brain at real time speeds. No, it down to computing power. In factr they can simulate superpositiojn on computers now (the maths are far too complex to do by hand, they need computers to do the maths). I mentioned it passing earlier, but you can actually get analog computers. Also in programming there is a data type called a floating point number that deals with such values. And besides, you can simulate complex phenomina on a digital computer. Complexity is not random, does not rely on QM and is unpredictable unless you actually follow the simulation through. This is a claim so show your proof, or at least why you can to this conclusion. Actually the more we come to udnerstand the human brain the more it looks like a lot of small analog computers networked together. In fact a neuron works pretty simply: If the inputs on it's Dendrites exceed a given threashold, then activate and send a signal to it's Axion. There are a few minor twists and turns in there (mainly in how the neuron responds to different types of signals and so forth), but nothing that we have discovered so far that couldn't actually be simulated on a computer. This is Wishful thinking. Also with "It must have. It goes to reason." You are using Argument from Ignorance. You are usingthe rhetorical Question (even if you did't use the question mark) "It must have". This is: You can't think of any other reason, so your claims must be true. Just because you don't have the knowledge to come up with another explaination does not mean your explaination is true. Finally, you are also doing Reification of Mind and Consiousness. You first have to establish these are real (rather than just assuming that they are real). We know that the Brain exist (we can see it and poke it). But what is "Mind", what is "Conciousness"? Are they real entities we can talk about, or are the a shorthand for "Something" that the Brain does? Three logical fallacyies in one paragraph.

That quote is so out of context. Clark said it in relation to writing science fiction. Yes - Fiction. And besides, it would only appear like magic until it was explained. Once it is explained it would not longer be magic, it would be Science. You have made a big leap here. You need to ask the question: "Why do we turn in bed". What advantage doe it bring? Stopping Osteoperosis or extending life spans would not likely be the first reason simple because evolution would not select for this strongly. As long as an animal lives long enough to succesfully reproduce, that is all evolution needs (that is why there is so many bad designs in the biological world - good enough is good enough). Living beyond that period is not needed. Well ther eis a really simple explaination. Blood. When lying down to sleep, you put pressure on parts of your body. This resticts blood flow and if this pressure remains for too long, it can cause damage. So turing during your sleep will relieve the pressure and thus allow the blood to circulate better. In birds eggs it would be something similar I would expect. The blood in the developing embrio would not have a strong heart to pump it around, this could make it pool and negative effect the embrio. Turning the egg would then have the same effect as it does for us, namely that it stop the blood from pooling and allows it to flow better. Pure speculation in an attempt to fit something to your own ideas. What you should do is look at the meaning of the word at the time it was written. That is the meaning that you should assign to it. You may be familiar with the opening theam form the cartoon "The Flintstones". Ther eis a line in it that says: "And have a gay old time." In modern menaings this could merna that the creators of The Flintstones were making a political statment about Homesexuals. Or if we actually look at the meaning of the word when the title was written, it should emna that they ment us to have fun. In a matter of a few decades the meaning of that line has changed dramatically. However, if we are to understand what the line actually menat, we have to look at what the word meant when it was written. Interpereting in today's lexical landscape is just to twist the words to fit our own desiers. This is what you are doing. You are using modern menaings (well your own meaning and not one that existed before you proposed it) to interperest a word that was penned a long time ago. You are making the Equivocation logical falacy doing so.

Whether a theory is "excitable", "cool", "elegent" or "sexy" does not determine if it is true. Only evidence does that. What you have been asked for is that evidence and you are not providing it. If I came up with a theory that relied on some statement X being true, but X had not been shown to be true, then my theory is just as uncertain as the statement X. Once I could show that X is true, then that lends support to my theory. It makes it possible that my theory could be true. It is a bit like building a house. If you don't get the foundations built solidly, then it can fall over. What you have done, by not providing evidence to support the propositions you have based your theory on, is to build a house without any foundations. Without those foundations your theory, no matter how rigourious and exact your logic is, can still fall over and be shown to be false if those foundations (what you based your theory on) are wrong. We shouldn't have to prove your theory plauseable. You a the one that has to do that. We have to show where you have gone wrong (and if we can't then that lends support for your theory). You can never really prove a theory correct, but you can prove what you based it on is.

Good question (I like how you keep questioning). We know how atoms act during fusion, and this tells us how atoms in stars behave. We can check this through several methods, the main ones are through the spectral lines of a Star. Spectral lines are dark lines that show up in the light from stars when you pass it through a difraction grating. It is like with a prisim how it splits the light up. The spectral lines are caused as certain elements in the atmosphere of stars absorb certain frequencies of light and when you split the light up line that you can see them. Other methods used to work out what is happening in a star is through the star's mass, colour and size. Using these (and a few other observations) we can test our theories as to what is happening within a star. If the model maches the observed data we can say that the model is describing the processes that occure within the star. This means we can extrapolate what we know from experiments here on Earth and check to see if the Stars behaves the same way. Because wew can work out what the processes are that are going on inside a Star this way, we can then use that model to work out what will happen to a star over it's life time. We can check this too as we can see many stars and some are younger and some are older, and although there seems to be a lot of difference between them, they have enough similarities for us to check the models and that we got the life history of the star worked out correctly. Only from our perspective is it long duration. In the perspective of the time span of the universe, steller evolution is quite rapid. In the perspective of a Mayfly, our lives are a long duration process. I don't really think it does provide any evidence that there is some underlying process at work (there might be or their might not be, but this doesn't really provide proof of it). Stellar evolution is just a battle between two forces: Gravity and Heat. What we call a Star is just a place where they balance each other out (and Heat will loose in the end ).

If someone is genuinly interested in the answer, then the is no such thing as a bad question. An inquiering mind needs to be open, but with that you need to have the ability to critically analyse what you encounter. I find it funny (not in a good way) that those that are trying to convince you of their beliefs, calim that scientists have colsed minds and that to accept their beliefs you must have an open mind. It is usually the other way around, the scientists are willing to question and accept many more things, but only so, long as it stand up to critical analysis. Where as the one trying to convinse you of their beliefs have closed their minds to any other posibility, even that they might be wrong. The fact that you are willing to ask these questions and to investigate answers means you have an open mind. The fact that you don't just accept the first plausable sounding answer that you encounter means that you are willing to accept critical analysis. What you are doing is exactly right. There is no need for an apology because your post was perfectly in line with what this site stands for: Scientific Knowledge (and learning). Keep it up.

Have a look at this web site: http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/boat/index.htm These boat engines use the hear of a small candle to flash boil water into steam, this steam pressure pushes a column of water out of the engin thus pushing the boat forwards. Then the steam condenses and water rushes back into the engine ready to be flash boiled again.

The problem is Heat and Gravity. You are probably aware that when you heat up most substances they expand. To initiate fusion you need a very high temperature. Now heat is usually expressed as the particles moving faster (in a solid they vibrate faster - at high enough temperatures they will then vibrate so fast that they will break off from the solid, this is called melting). In a fluid (gas or liquid), the particles are free to move around and this heat is expressed as the velocity of the particle. It is this reason that substances expand when heated. If you heat a liquid enough the particles have enough velocity to escape the mass, this is called evaporation (and the liquid will become a gas). That is all pretty basic stuff (but as I don't know what you know I have to cover it). Now, with Gravity, there is a property called Escape Velocity. This is the minimum speed which an object must have to permenently escape the gravitational pull of the object. FOr Earth this is around 11km per second (or around 39600km per hour - what would the speeding ticket you'd get for that be like ). To get Earth to the point of Fusion you would ahve to heat it up quite a bit. First, it would turn all the rocks and solids to liquids, then gas. However, the particles that would exist at this point would have enough velocity to exceed the Escape Velocity. Therefore if you were to heat up the Earth enough to reach fusion temperatures, it would blow it's self apart before you got to the requiered temperatues. This means that if the Earth actually exists, then it can't have reached a temperature high enough to sustain a fusion reaction. Without that sustained fusion reaction, it could never have been a start. However, if there was a star that blew apart (that is the temperatures reached during fusion were high enough to fling matter off an object with a higher mass - and therfore gravity - than Earth), then this matter would move out into space and begin to cool. At which point the velocities of the paricles would drop below the escape velocity of the gas cloud, and it would begin to condense. There might be enough mass to form another star (although smaller than the first one) and part of the mass of this gas cloud might not fall into the star but swirl around it. Eventually this gas would condense into dust, planitisimals, and then planets. However, as these planets would have far less mass than the first star, if they ever got to the temperatures needed to sustain fusion, they would blow them selves apart first. One other point about Gravity (and this is why a planet will not get hot enough to initiate fusion): When a gas cloud contracts to form a star, the heat needed to initiate fusion comes from gravity. When you compress a gas it heats up (and if you expand a gas it cools down). So as the Star contract under it's own gravitational pull, it will heat up. But... When you heat up a gas it expands. So, if the gravity is strong enough to overcome the expansion do to the building up of heat, then it can become hot enough to initiate fusion. However, if the gravity to too weak, then as it contracts, and heats up, the pressure from the hot gas will prevent it from contracting. It will slowly radiate this heat out into space as electromagnetic radiation (most likely infrared radiation). Then as it cools this way, it will again contract and heat up again. This cycle will repeat until the physical integrity of the matter that make the could is enough to brace it against the gravitational pull, at which point it will no longer contract. This means that objects smaller than a certain mass will never get hot enough to initiate fusion. Earth is well below the size for this to occur. In fact Juptier is far more massive than Earth, and it is not massive enough to intiate fusion. However, with Jupiter, its gravity is still causeing it to contract and heat up with this heat radiating out into space. Because of this Juptier actually radiates more heat that it recieves as the heat caused by it's contraction is being radiated out as infrared radiation.

You are getting confused between the common useage of the term "Observer" and the technical term "Observer". In the common useage an Observer is usually a person. In the technical useage, an Observer is anything that interacts with the subject. This can be a person, a photon, an electron, etc. It does not requier the "observer" to be consious, only that it interacts with it in some way. In the case of a photon an electron, when the photon hits the electron, the photon interacts with the electron (and the electron with the photon) and so "observes" the electron (and the electron observes the photon too). There is no consiousnes involved in this useage of the word "Observe". Because of this when anybody uses the term "Observer" in relation to Quantum Mechanics in an argument for Consiousness, thy are falling for the Equivocation Logical Fallacy.

Dimension is a "direction" of measurement. So in this caase, Hyper Dimension or Sub Dimension are equivelent. There is no real meaning to them, they are made up words, usually used in a science fiction stories because they sound like they could exist. In my own experimentation with AI specifically Artificial Neural Networks, I have developed my own ideas as to what conciousness is. I have never approached anthing close to consiousness in what I ahve done, but the understanding on how neural networks (and hence our brains) work has given me some ideas. Firstly, "consiousness" as we seem to think of it, does not actually seem to direct our actions. In recent studies voluenteers were able to make a concious (and arbitary) decision when to press a button. However, fMRI scans of their brains showed activity in areras of the brain that would relate to performing such a task before the voluenteers were "consious" of makeing the decision to press the button. This means that the brain had chosen to press the button before any consious activity or choice to do so. Now to my experiments. In my experiements I was trying to develop a simple Neural Network to identify edges of an object. I would feed it a Bitmap and it would identify any edges. Now when developing this Neural Network I would have to train it by giving it a series of images and the expected outputs. What I realised was that ther ewas a feedback loop that existed (and that I was a part of): Initial Image -> Neural Network -> Output -> Check Output's correctness -> Initial Image -> and so on. I realised that his loop was important, when I heard aobut the fMRI studdies a few years later. Most algorithms can be described as: Input -> Processing -> Output. But the Neural Network that I was working on had that extra feedback loop that checked the correctness of the algorithm, and that the algorithm could change based on the output of the feedback loop. Now in the fMRI study conciousness occurred after the decision to press the button. Inother words the Input -> Processing -> Output needed to make the decision to press a button had occured, but then there was further activity that seemed to only kick in as a "awareness" of that decision. But what would that awareness be useful for? Well for one it could be used for checking that the result of the decision mached what was intended. In otherwords, just like that feedback loop from my experiment. This actually makes a lot of sense. Conciousness as an evaluationion of decision to effect. As a feedback loop that is used to evaluate and adjust our "decision algorithms" (subconsious) as to their expected output (effects/actions). In terms of the fMRI experiement, the activity of the brain to press the button is evaluated against the decision to press the button. It is in effect like our brain is asking its self "Is this what I want to do?" Many animals (and even computer programs) have a feedback loop that evaluates externally, that is after they take an action (say to press a button), with their intention (to press that button), but it is the internal feedback loop (a feedback loop within a feedback loop) that I feel is important to understanding consiousness. Consiousness is an Awareness of our Internal state. That "awareness" implies some kind of feedback. This is why I think that consiousness is the result of a series of feedback loops that evaluate our internal state. This hypothisis fits the data, and it also offers predictions (that with further analysis with fMRI we could see the functioning of the neural activity in the brain and the existance of consiousness as being a feedback loop. As far as I am aware, brain imaging is not yet up to the task (resolution, both spatially and temporally) but with further developments in imaging, I believe that this will be the result. It doesn't need QM to explain the "unpredictability" or "creativity" of it as feedback loopps can do this. Because of the Feedback loops it is a chaotic system and this can account for it (the fact that consiousness is neither random or linear, indicates that it is a nonlinear/chaotic system which is supported by my hypothisis).

The Sumarians and the Babalonians used a base 60 number system (that is they had 60 different symbols for numbers - but importantly no symbol for 0). It is why we have 60 minutes in an hour (our system for measuring time comes form the Babalonians ). They also had no symbol for 0. They could use a space to represent a zero, but it was not used in the same way that we can use 0 (as a number unto it's self), it was more like a delimiter. Like how when writing large numbers we use a commer to seperate groups of digits's to make it easier to read (like for a million we can write 1,000,000). So for the number 40 the Sumarians and the Babalonians could have used a single symbol, the one they had for 40. Or in roman numberals it would ahve been XXXX (X is the romal symbol for 10). Actually, lets look at the Roman numbers. These came after the Old Testiment was written and was an advanced number system (more so than what would have been around during the writing of the Old Testiment. The roamns had these symbols: 1= I 5 = V 10 = X 50 = L 100 = C 500 = D 1000 = M Now they don't have a symbol for 4 like we do, so how could they write that? Easy "IV". Because the I (1) is infront of the V (5) you subtract the 1 from the 5 to get 4. You could also write it like "IIII", but that is harder to read than the "IV". You can slo write much larger numbers too. Say for example 2008. It would be written like "MMVIII". This is read 1000 + 1000 + 5 + 3 or 2008. Notice that even though 2008 has two 0 digits in it, the roman numerals have absolutly no symbol for 0 at all. The concept of 0 as a number did not exist at this period in history. Lets have a look at the number 666 in Roman Numerals: DCLXVI : D (500) + C (100) + L (50) + X (10) + V (5) + I (1) = 666. Or it could hav ebeen written like: CCCCCCXXXXXXIIIIII , or like CCCCMLXIIIIII (but these are harder to read so the shorter version is prefered). Or lets take 999 which is: CMXLIX None of these actually creates a distinct pattern like you said attracted you to these numbers in the first palce. yourdadonapogos is right. 101 and 5 are the same thing. 101 in Binary (base 2) is equal to 5 in Decimal (base 10). 666 in Base 2 is 1010011010, and 999 is 1111100111. Or lets try a different base number system like hexadecimal (base 16 - used in computers a lot) 666 = 29A and 999 = 3E7. none of these patterns stand out very much, they look more random than 666 or 999.

I do not doubt that Dogs can show reasoning (they are quite inteligent). But your example was ment to show not that dogs can reason, but they have abstract reasoning (there is a difference). The way you just described it does not requier any abstract reasoning. Well since I didn't know aobut this, then this would offer another plauseabel explaination. If your Dog had been near the rifle range down near the targets, and was not visible to the shooters, then if somone shot at the targets, it could give the dog quite a scare. As they would know what the sond of the gun is and its effects, that could leave a lasting impression on it. As the shooter was somone they didn't associate normally with holding a gn, when it saw you with a gun (an unusual sight) this trauma resurfaced and the dog took fright. Now, I am not saying that this is what happened, but it is a plauseable explaination (based on the knowledge of the incident that I have). Yes, there is reasoning, but not abstract reasoning which is what was being disscussed. I am not saying that dogs (or other animals can't use abstract or symbolic reasoning), just that your incident does not offer proof one way or the other. My orriginal post on this line of dicussion was to Pioneer. Pioneer was saying that there needed to be a fundamental shif in the way the brains opperate for us to develop agriculture, I was arguing that this was not the case. I was arguing that threre was "Invention" or 'Discovery", but there didn;t need to be any fundamental shift in operation or structure for this to occur. Pioneer was claiming that the birth of Agriculture requiered a seperation between Consious and Unconsious thought processes, and that this occured around 10,000 years ago. In my scenario it only requiers that groups of hunter gatherers noticed a certain pattern (that plants grew where they left seeds previously). Typical Hunter Gather behaviour would then select plants that produced more seeds (as there would be more seeds left at the end of the season and so more of these plants would end up growing and therfore more seeds would be produced next year, and so on). Over time, because this "Midden" crop (that is the new plants are effectivly growing on the middens left from the last year) would offer a regular and reliable source of food, it would encourage Hunter Gatherers to return to the same spot, the would then also encourage the development of that species of plant. This feedback effect would lead to the develolment of agriculture. In this scenario it would not even take any thought/reasoning to develop such crops beyond noticing and taking advantage of such a regularity.

This doesn't need abstract thought. The situation was unusual and the Dog might have reacted to such an unusual situation. The Dog would have seen the gun used to kill, so that is not an abstract situation. It might ahve been the way you were holding it, if the dog had seen your father shoot the gun and the way you held it might have been similar to how the dog had seen your father hold it just before he shot it, the dog might have though that you were going to shoot him. As I don't know all the details (and you probably don't remember them and the details for the dog would hav been different than the details you would have been aware of), I can't say what really happened, but from what you have said, abstract reasoning is not needed.

I would say that there is one line that really is an athiest's creed: I think that is athiesm in a nutshell.

I like that one . Next time I get into a conversation with a creationist I'll use it. I'll ask them to prove that they weren't just popped into existance 5 minutes ago. They can show me photos, but I'll keep asking for the "Missing Link" that shows them turing from a babby into the age they are now. And each time the show me a photo, I'll ask to see the photo that fills the gaps between the photo they just showed me and the others.

From what I have learnt about the birth of agriculture was that it started because Hunter gatherer groups remained in the same area year to year. If the group sets up camp in one location one year, then gathers wild grains (there is evidence that they did this - actually that is the "Gatherer" part of hunter gatherer) but then does not eat them all before they have to move on. Next year, in the place that they made camp, they return again, but now find a bunch of grain plants growing in the middle of their old encampment. Nice, easy source of grains, you don't have to even go anywhere (could this be the original home delivery? ). All it would take is one group to be aware of this and they could quickly gather a lot og grain and then leave a lot scattered around for the next time they come. Eventually they would be able to gather enough grain like this so that they had enough food stores to last the times when they would have normally had to leave for better hunting grounds. Eventually they would have noticed that other animals that they liked to hunt also ate the grains. Then all it would take is for the group to keep a portion of their grain product to attract game to their encampments, or nearby in "killing" fields (set a trap for them). Then a single genius could think that if they could attract the animals and trap them, why not trap more than you need now, and keep them traped untill you needed them. And then farming would be complete with both agriculture and aniamls. Naturally, the animals that were easier to keep penned up (the most docile) would be kept and thus selective breeding would ahve started. Also, with grains, selective breeding would start by the fact that plants that producved more grain than other types would end up with more seed being left over for planting and this would cause the grain plants to develop traits that gave more seeds than the standard wild varieties. The difference between the human reaction to that movie and the dog is that the movie has abstract symbology in it. Dog arn't all that great with abstract symbology, their mind doesn't work that way. For example. If you were watching the movie Psycho with the Shower Scene. We see this as scary as we can see the abstract symbology of someone unaware of danger being threatened. We understand that the guy is evil (the concept of evil is abstract) and that his intentions is to harm the lady in the shower. To a Dog without abstract concepts (and theory of mind) all they see is a lady in a sower and someone walking towards her. That is so not scarry. So the Dof would not have had a scarry experience to raise their adrenalin levels and so they would not be jumping at shadows. However, if you showed that dog something that did not requier abstract reasoning or a complex theory of mind, then they too would be jumping at shadows in the woods. Ask any dog owner, during a storm (something a dog would see as a real threat) they will get twitchy and will hide and be easily starteled. If that storm is in a movie, it has the same effect and can last for a while even after that scene has passed. So yes, dogs can be scared by movies, just as humans can be. Your example fails because it requiers humans and dogs to have certain mental functions that are the same. Actually, I'd say it is because that bush could have had a wolf in it. So in effect, if that hidden wolf jumps out of the bush, it could appear that the bush just turned into a wolf. And, to make sure that people learn check if a bush has a wolf in it or not, you can make a story up that is scary (and full of abstract concpets ) as emotion (especially fear) are good at fixing new information (memories) in our brain. FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) of human brains prove this. You have overly complicated this. The answers are quite simple but the means to answer them have only really been invented recently. Without these devices like FMRI people had to essentially "take a geuess" and they got a lot of it wrong. To cover these mistakes, they made their explainations more and more complex, but we know better now. We have the tools to answer most of these questions.