Radical Edward

don't mention hawking... MrL gets all upset.

I've heard about these things, for example, babies "walk" ability, that again is lost and has to be relearned. Are these things just lost through lack of practise then? for example, are babies who are exposed to water from a very young age able to learn to swin more easily?

cool, lemmings are self aware. I knew it.

I would guess that looking at the way animals treat the dead is not quite as useful as how they treat the living. the way they treat the dead could be interpreted sa "not understanding why the other elephant isn't moving anymore" rather than mortality itself, wheras looking after the sick and ill seems to me to show a more in depth understanding of illness, and possibly death. Of course this is just conjecture, but it is what comes to mind. As you pointed out earlier, we can only even assume that other humans posess consciousness and so on, because as yet we don't have an understanding of what consciousness is, because the current scientific model is still rather crude.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2906621.stm yet another bbc site, the source aof all things good REcent advances have been made by british scientists, who have produced nanowires with a diameter of just a billionth of a metre, by modifying prion proteins to accept a thin layer of Gold. Also important is that these wired have a resistance of 80 Ohms, which is very important, as when one considers microtubules the resistance is much higher.

my point was that the whole mechanism behind solar sails is an obvious mechanism, because light has momentum, and momentum must be conserved.

interesting.... are any animals known to care for sick/injured members of the group/herd/pod etc?

if Japan revoked it's constitutional objection to war, should we bomb them?

I wouldn't be suprised if there are quite a few animals that are aware of mortality, for example look at the way than many great apes, and even elephants treat the deceased. this can even be applied to dogs, who will often pine away when their master leaves or dies.

where on earth do they employ this bizarre policy?

Sun Tsu's thirteen chapters is nice and short, and most of what he says makes sense. It is however more about the art of war... utilising the lie of the land, tactics, information and so on. Another issue is finding a good translation, which sometimes can be difficult. I forget who translated mine, but it is pretty good I think, and actually discusses some of the translation complexities in the footnotes. If you want more on the origins of war, then you want to look more to the human condition, think about aspects of the human mind that make us prone to it. land, dominance, power... they are all natural instincts, and can be seen in conflicts between other creatures when they defend their territory, and perhaps most notoriously ants and termites who afaik (do any bees or hornets do it? I don't think so) are the only other creatures on earth that war on the scale that we do. Be careful when mentioning religion. While it is a common reason for wars occuring, it is not the origin and exclusive reason.

momentum is conserved in solar sails. again the mechanism is well known. p=:h:k

the singularity is the end of information. I wish we could use it to dispose of some of the crap that people make up about this particular physical phenomenon.

it is when you consider things like momentum conservation are undesrstood, and sentience isn't at all.

there is a possibility for telepathy I think, as we don't yet know the underlying mecahnisms that result in intelligence and sentience. telekinesis though I think, is far far less likely.

and then there is just general interest. I learn alot of stuff just because it interests me, not because it will have any effect on the outcome or path of my life whatsoever.

more benefit from iraq though, as you can do it under the guise of altruism. It becomes painfully obvious that the US is trying to make money when you look at all the contracts for reconstruction that it is handing out. It will be interesting to see how the US reacts once they have won this thing, as many Iraqis are saying "once you kill saddam, we want you to pack up and leave"

sounds like the UK in the 60s... heh.

are you going to supply the $497 for the Hyperdimensional resonator (aka box with varieble resistor and mocroswitches) yourself you know, it really makes me wonder if people ever buy those things....

that was a very very quick look on google. I am certain that I can find many other sources on exactly the same thing. and of course more, not to mention reports on the behaviour of the fedayeen in the current conflict etc etc etc.

incidentally, my problem was having a year to two years of my primary school destroyed by bad teachers, one of who believed that all children should be taught at the same pace... and an army always marches at the pace of the slowest. as a result, I was held back with all the kids who couldn't even read or write, while at the same time I went home and worked my way through Lord of the Rings... sigh. It is actually one of the things that always annoys me, that chindren who are regarded as 'disabled' or hindered in some way by their lack of 'intelligence' for want of a better word always het the help, where as those children who are exceptionally clever are effectively held back, and disabled by the system itself. So many people cry foul and call it elitism, but why should clever children be denied the opportunity to skip a year and really be stretched. It is to this problem that I attribute alot of my laziness, I never had to work at all right up until my A levels, and then at degree level I just couldn't be bothered anymore, and still don't make an effort. still, I'm doing a PhD though... heh.

heh, I posted this in another thread.

in the UK, public schools are the same as private ones, Schools run by the country are called state schools. how is the situation in the US regarding naming them? incidentally eton is a public school for boys in the UK. it is where the likes of Prince William and Prince Harry went. A freind of mine went to eton, and he had to get permission from William's (armed, apparently) security guard to break out of the school at night so he could go to the pub with his friends. he had to tell the guy that he was going to climb over that wall there at about 11pm, and not to shoot him.

there are a number of reasons. Iraq being irritating, money power and votes. to name but a few. note how billions of dollars of reconstruction contracts are ALL going to US companies.

If you are going to make a bomb, as it sounds like, then please make sure you are in a remote part of arizona, and have your will written out first.