Genecks

Not with current technology until mind reading technology comes around. If it cannnot be detected, then the question comes up how you can detect it. And if it cannot be detected by any means, then you are making false statements. However, if belief is detectable, then the belief that you have a sixth toe is detectable. Karl Popper: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html One issue is that Popper's science is built on relativity. That's not well described, though. But I believe it's a given. 4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. First off, I don't think anyone here can Truly conceive of something faster than light. You can set forth some properties, but the realization of that thing is impossible except from a monist viewpoint. Sure, tachyons. Great. But I haven't observed any tachyons. Maybe my evolution prevents me from observing tachyons. Now, if tachyons are supposed to make no sense and are logically paradoxical, then why can't we say that the OPERA experiment was the observation of a tachyon? Scientifically, we can't, because there was an issue with causality. But tachyons break causality. A speed faster than light was found. Causally, it did not make sense. However, causality not making sense happened after getting the result to see how the result was caused. Initially, things were going as planned. Psychologically, no one noticed an issue with the fiber optic cable. I guess you could say I'm somehow relating this to Descartes' evil demon. This leads to an interesting question: The first time the experiment was done, was the fiber optic cable damaged? That question leads to a trippy potential answer: History was re-written post-tachyon observation (speed result) as to where the cable was then misconfigured... and no one is the wiser. With that in mind, I see some value in Kuhn's view of science being mobocratic and psychology-based. With that said, it's like saying, "Yeah, a tachyon was observed; but it doesn't make any sense." Perhaps a wormhole could be taken back in time to see the configuration of the fiber optic cable; and if it is properly configured, evidence of a tachyon could be argued. I feel like I'm going in the right direction with this thread how I wanted.

Yes, but no data has been found to contradict the theory of relativity (scientifically). That's what I have an issue with. If it's "correct" or "true," then there is nothing to contradict it. And if there is nothing to contradict it, then it is not falsifiable. Aristotle's physics were falsifiable. However, I don't believe he held a grasp of the falsification of his metaphysics, despite arguing against attacks on his metaphysics. Arguments generally come down to the law of non-contradiction. Also, without a doubt, I believe the theory of relativity comes with metaphysical arguments. With my first statement in this post, I say "scientifically." Personally, I think repeatability is a myth. That's when I look at the reductionist aspect of it all, because it appears to me that repeatability is reliant on a metaphysical notion of free-will or independence from the variables that are involved. However, that's not true, because a person's past experiences are involved (this makes me think of "the measurement problem"). This is why I have become interested in psychologism, and I've read that there has been a resurgence in the philosophy of psychologism as of late. It's hard to deny that there is electricity, electronics, and the such. However, as an experiment, I did play with the belief of electricity being a figment of a deluded mind, and eventually lightning made the electricity in the house I'm at go out for a while: After enough mental repetition of the belief. This, however, may not necessitate that electricity is a figment of my imagination. But I can sense some relation to chaos theory, or at least initial conditions of conceiving of electricity being non-existent with the eventual power outage. Data that has been found to contradict the theory of relativity has been called by science "a mistake" or an error, such as the neutrino issue. In 2011, the OPERA experiment mistakenly observed neutrinos appearing to travel faster than light. My issue with repeatability still stands. This makes me think there may be more to psychologism. However, the metaphysical implications are not understood. And I do not know if it would be possible to escape the metaphysical methodology of science due to my past experience with it. With the psychologism branch of philosophy vs. science, I see the following: Psychologism: I perceive that reality is physical Scientist: Reality is physical In that there are more metaphysical aspects to reality, such as idealism or monism, then psychologism is true over current scientific understandings. It's just that the metaphysical breakthrough to go beyond relativity has not been understood nor found. If relativity is true, then it cannot be false. And if it cannot be false, then it cannot be falsifiable. If it is not falsifiable, then it is not science. If there is something that falsifies relativity, I have an assumption that it will be independent of time and space. Rather than illusions, it may be better to say that they are improperly defined, thus potentially falsifiable. I had an experience with the telephone time being off a few minutes from a phone call I received: The phone call came about three minutes into the future from the time I saw on the phone. None of that made sense to me, though. Sure, equipment might be faulty. The other issue I perceive is whether or not there actually exists data but the ability to prove such data is impractical.

I went on Google and came across a closed thread on physicsforums.com: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=748719 When I think of falsification, all you need is something that proves the theory false, some kind of observation. For instance, if something was observed to be going faster than light, it would disprove relativity, for what I understand. But it seems that no evidence has been found to disprove relativity. Nothing has been found to disprove relativity. As such, it seems that relativity is as much as saying 1+1=2. I've considered some ways that relativity can be disproven. However, that is dependent on a views of psychologism and biocentrism. With that, it's like asking, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Which came first, time or the word "time"? The word time came first. Even more complex is the psychologism feel of Truth, whereby the neutrinos that went faster than light actually did go faster than light. In that view, repeatability is a myth. And I do think repeatability is a myth with the measurement problem in consideration. Thus, I've started to have increased belief in the Von Neumann-Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics. And this starts getting me on a Daoist feel of Truth, whereby anything and everything is an approximation, for the Dao cannot be described.

Alright. Thank you, all, for the replies so far. Here is a question, though. If a person is focusing on a company for a career, how much time should a person devote looking into the company and understanding what the company is doing before applying? For instance, I saw a position for a research technologist on Careerbuilder.com, and it appears there are a few publications from the laboratory. I don't want to read all of the research papers, so I'm attempting to read the methods to get a quick glance at what is going on at the lab. For the company I had an interview with last week, I couldn't find much information about the company at all. However, during the interview, I was given a tour of the establishment, so I was able to better understand what was going on.

Keeping reading science books and keep asking a lot of questions, such as on the Internet, if you have trouble understanding things.

I don't understand your reasoning behind that statement. Could you please explain it to me?

I've been looking over the job descriptions and eligibility requirements for Medical Laboratory Technicians and Medical Laboratory Scientists: http://www.ascp.org/certification One of the things I've been questioning is if these jobs are for the students who did not do too well in their college and university programs. There does not appear to be a GPA requirement. There may be GPA requirements to get into various programs, such as a 2.0/4.0 GPA. This website discusses people who get a 3.0/4.0 GPA having their GPA heavily weight for admission to the program. It looks like the Medical Laboratory Technicians get paid around $35,000 USD and that Medical Laboratory Scientists can get paid around $50,000+ USD. As such, I interpret that it's more worthwhile to become a MLS rather than an MLT. Regardless, this keep me coming back to a point: Are the majority of people who pursue MLS and MLT positions students who did not do too well in school? I have that question, because I would think they would go into a health profession, such as physical therapist, physicians assistant, or some other career that pays more, especially if they already hold a bachelor's degree. The MLT eligibility appears to only require a pre-requisite associates degree, while the MLS requires at least a bachelor's degree.

As of the past couple of years, I've been studying law. I'm not in law school, but I've been re-evaluation various aspects of law. There is the continual argument that ignorance is no excuse for the law on the premises that (1) the government puts out information for its people to understand and know the law and that (2) ignorance of the law would be willful (that is to say that people willingly seek out to know and understand the law. Allegedly, these two premises are supposed to enable people to be pro se, thus their own attorneys. However, in the face of the metaphysical argument that anything is "willfully" done, there exist determinist if but fatalistic arguments. Although it was never brought forth into fruition throughout my education into my initial legal adulthood, the potential for Einstein's relativity to be an argument for fatalism makes a metaphysical argument that no individual willfully seeks out knowledge of the law. Furthermore, I don't get mail from my county, state, and federal government on laws that were recently passed: As such, I believe it's complete bull that the government attempts to make people know the law. These issues along with metaphysical arguments against free will have persuaded me that the current model of government maintains a tyrannical form with a metaphysical belief system that relies on an empiricial rules of evidence. Regardless of the empiricial rules of evidence that exists in court room style argumentation, there is nonetheless empiricial evidence from Einstein's relativity and other argument in relation to the laws of physics that there is no free will. As such, an individual cannot willfully seek out knowledge of the law. As with moral blame, there is often the argument that free will is necessary for moral blame to exist. As such, it appears that many governments are seeking the paradigm of "legal compatibilism" in order to prosecute and blame people for alleged wrongful acts. This paradigm of legal compatibilism may as well be saying that there exist individuals in society who do not fit the mold that the government people desire, thus they need to be eliminated through incarceration, fines, or the death penalty. From studying law, I came across complications, which felt Orwellian in nature. The issue was looking into legal systems that existed prior to the Christianity based legal systems. With this being said, I've attempted to look into the Stoic philosophy in relation to a legal paradigm. From what I've understood, the Christian school of thought did not like the nature-based, deterministic paradigm of the Stoics and strongly opposed it. Understandably, when there is no right nor wrong and only nature, it becomes difficult to argue for moral responsibility. As such, I perceived an existential indifference in relation to living. From my analysis of law and government, turning back to clock and developing a just legal system would involve a return to stoicism or at least indifference. I conceive a possible society, such as in the movie Equillibrium: A very calm and conformist society devoid of much personality. It appears to be the main way to generate peace. As such, if governments were destoryed, there would be an indifferent human race. With indifference, there would be a lack of greed, desire, etc. etc.. It would be a very boring but calm society, as though people are awaiting their deaths and the end of the universe. That is not to say that people can't do something with their time, such as conduct metaphysical investigations and scientific research. But the system of moral responsibility would be thrown out. I think any government system would feverishly resist any attempt to bring about an indifferent society based on deterministic views of the universe.

It looks like you want a fast processor and a fast connection. I believe I understand what you're doing. You're looking through court dockets and attempting to collect as much information between defendant and plaintiff.

It appears to me that the bots are lacking transitional sentences, coherence, and lacking an understanding of social contextual aspects. Given transitional sentences, I could see the bots being more human-like.

Seems cleverbot almost passed.

I used wrote memorization and repetition a fair amount. I gained a general idea of how long I could hold onto concepts, understanding, and memorized beliefs. I drank a fair amount of coffee. And I lost a fair amount of sleep. And for those classes where I couldn't see a tutor, sometimes seeing the tutor/TA can be the most valuable and quick method for getting informed on how to do some assignment (this worked well when I was doing organic lab assignments). I sometimes felt that the TAs wouldn't give me certain information, but they actually did when I showed up: Such as how to go about solving a problem. They won't give the answer, but sometimes they'll hold your hand: This is quite useful to speed things up, and it happened for me in my organic chem lab course. Seeing as you're post-grad, I reason groupwork when possible would help. The best thing to do from day 1 is collaborate with a few individuals and fight the system.

I've been applying to jobs that require a bachelor's degree. I had an interview yesterday with a chemical company. The interview left me thinking that it was a bench monkey job that would become quite boring after a while. However, I don't have a problem with a boring job that would pay well: $30,000 to $35,000 USD / year. Seeing as I only have my B.S. in Neuroscience. Of the things that I have been wondering after the interview are questions like this: 1) If I get into industry with my degree, after a few years (perhaps 3+ years), would I increasingly become stuck in industry jobs? 2) If I take the industry route, would someone eventually extend an offer to me to get a higher degree and get more pay? 3) If I take an industry job in a specific company, such as a chemical company that specializes in say refining oil, am I going to be stuck in those types of industry jobs (or perhaps that particular business) and not be able to move around? 4) Is there little pay advancement after the first few years? 5) How long would a company want me to stick around? 6) How bad would it be if I took the position, stuck around two years, and tried to find a higher paying job? 7) Could I find a higher paying job after a few years, perhaps a job paying $10,000 USD more? Any of you have any perspectives on these questions in relation to industry jobs that involve scientific methods? I think I would acquire many skills from the business. I'd get good at a few techniques. I reason I'd master the techniques quick enough. Afterward, the work would become mighty boring and repetitive, which I don't have a problem with.

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131015123525.htm primary: Mohammad Dastjerdi, Muge Ozker, Brett L. Foster, Vinitha Rangarajan, Josef Parvizi. Numerical processing in the human parietal cortex during experimental and natural conditions. Nature Communications, 2013; 4 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3528 To answer your questions, as the article states: I don't know what number would be required to reveal imagined, unspoken words. I would believe that brain plasticity would be a barrier to entry that would need to be overcome to build an accurate model. I'm assuming it's going to be a lot of electrodes, as there exists a large number of neurons. As I've mentioned, technological limits exist, such as human resources and power consumption. As the article states: As such, from the argument made by the article, it would be impractical for an individual to be moving about. I believe her fears are unwarranted, at least for the moment. As I believe I have mentioned, even if someone could develop a model of understanding thought processes, getting technology to be at such a small scale and power consuption would be an issue. I remember someone trying to build a grid of electrodes over snail neurons from some years back. Christopher Harris Ph.D has done research in multi-electrode analysis. Power consumption will still be a problem. The technology is still in the works, and I think what your sister is imagining as possible does not exist at the moment.

There is a Doogie Howser (TV show) screenshot that has a picture of Albert Einstein in a poster. However, to date, I cannot find any images that have Albert Einstein looking like this. I cannot tell if it is a real or fake image. Does anyone have an idea what year Albert Einstein would have looked like this:

If I understand your argument correctly, the beginning geometry was a point in space or spacetime. From there, inflation occurred, which prevented a collapse (fizzle) from occurring. Is that right?

This is the thread where I complain about genetic and cellular evolution. One of my pet peeves with evolution is the existence of DNA and RNA. In what I've studied about evolution, what bothers me is that somehow, magically DNA, RNA, or some pre-cursor to those molecules found a way to exist on planet Earth. The reason this bothers me is because I cannot fathom conditions that would allow and enable RNA or DNA to maintain itself for long periods of time without denaturing. If the molcules were made in the ocean, I don't understand what the molecules would not have denatured over time and been destroyed. The other issue that bothers me is how exactly these molecules found themselves into a fatty-layered membrane in order to replicate. I cannot conceive of a way for such to occur; and at best, I've read that maybe some kind of catalyst caused the membrane to occur (I lost the source long ago); but that doesn't mean that RNA, DNA, or some genetic precursor should have been able to get into the membrane. And even if it could, how is it going to prevent itself from denaturing? Why didn't genetic material get destroyed early in its evolution? What allowed it to maintain itself?

Well, since I'm going to re-use this thread, I'll pose another question: Why didn't the big bang fizzle out right away? If I've read correctly, the theory is that we live in a zero-energy universe, whereby everything cancels out. I can only assume it had something to do with geometry, perhaps the universe beginning at the inner-side surface of a sphere and blowing inward toward the center; but that seems contradicting, as things are allegedly accelerating away from each other.

I spent some time over a month ago seeing what model for the big bang exists. As far as I was able to get, the argument was that a quantum fluctuation generated the universe. Is that quantum fluctuation argument the current view on how the universe was generated?

To be able to do thought reading, the mechanism of "consciousness" would need to be understood. This is an assumption. Anything else would be automatic: Imagine a person born a psychic but without an understanding of the mechanism that enables him or her to read minds. Consciousness might be described in this situation as self-aware thoughts or thoughts, upon reflection, are understood be coming from within one's self. As far as I know, nobody has unlocked the mystery of consciousness. I theorize that a brute force methodology, a method by which consciousness is scientifically understood and "figure out," would involve the killing of large numbers of human beings (I'm thinking well over a million people) in an attempt to understand if not determine what consciousness is. The technological limitation, in my belief, is human resources. If there is something more mystical, magical, or technologically superior to enable a person to understand consciousness or read thoughts, then that knowledge is highly guarded. In my opinion, if consciousness is some kind of infinite regress, then that would mean being able to reach into the bottom of a bottomless pit in order to read someone's mind. To say the least, I assume your "sister" is being paranoid without grounds. Unless she can explain how or why she came to these beliefs, then I don't see why she should have them. I reason that a person could spy on information coming into a person's senses, such as taste, touch, audition, vision, smell. However, I do not know of anyway a person can invasively monitor a person's thought processes. However, there may be one way. I've read that there is movement of muscles in relation to the tongue in some people while they think to themselves. That could be invasively monitored. An MRI technology was discussed. Considering that MRI technological is expensive and bulky, unless your sister is inside of an MRI machine, then there are few arguments to suggest someone is reading her thoughts. Bottom line is that not enough research has been done on consciousness in order to read someone's thought processes, at least scientifically. Anything else would be some shady, New World Order, been-here-since-the-beginning-of-humanity type of issue: And scientifically, there would still need to be human resources to do the research (for which there historically has not been that many people until the 1900s). To further stress this, to even attempt to build a model of what is going on in someone's thought processes, you would need to be able to understand what all the neurons in the network are doing. From there, you would need to build a model to explain why the activity of a neuronal network pattern leads to a certain result (such as me thinking the word "gyro," because I'm hungry of a gyro at the moment). And if that can be done, then yeah, you would know that throughout the past 24-hours, the word "gyro" came to my "mind." However, the invasive nature of understanding the neuronal network comes with problems: (1) You'd have to take off my skull to get to my brain; (2) if not my skull, then somehow build a statistical model that gives high accuracy to know when a person is thinking the word "gyro." Both (1) and (2) would require investigation with various techniques, such as electrophysiology, in order to know if neurons are being fired. Furthermore, electrophysiological techniques if done improperly could cause neuronal death, which would destroy the neuronal network a person is investigating, thus deter an ability to develop an algorithm to determine whether or not someone is thinking a certain word, such as "gyro." And given the technological and power limitations of nanotechnology, it would be impractical to believe that tiny robots invaded all of my neurons in order to help a person build a model in order to argue that I've thought the word "gyro" today. Although language research has been done with Ecog, I've not seen any research where Ecog can determine whether any person out of a group of people is thinking a specific word, thus a word like gyro is a word. What is left, then, is someone investigating my brain. However, to do that with electrodes, you'd have to grab me first. Then you'd have to constantly probe my neurons in an attempt to build an algorithm. However, if I were released into the public once more, my brain would undergo plasticity. And if I'm taking into consideration the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, then I do not believe the algorithm would be able to sustain any ability to read my mind. As such, for the model to sustain itself, then it would need to adapt as my brain plasticized (as the neuronal network changed with time). However, as I've already mentioned that nanotechnology has many power constraints, I don't see why anything should be able to adapt itself while inside of my skull as my brain plasticized. So, you're left with questioning what consciousness is. As I've taken holonomic brain theory into account, if consciousness arises as some emminating of a field and the field can be invasively observed, then there would be no need to use nanotechnology, electrophysiology, or the such in order to observe my consciousness: All that would be needed is a way of accessing the field, analyzing it, and then translating it in an algorithmic way so that it can be interpreted. However, that would be dependent on a technology that could actually pick up the field, and I know of no such technology nor if such a field actually exists. So, if any mind reading is going on, then it's some kind of psychical issue. 1) Nanotechnology has problems with power consumption and adaptation to the brain changing throughout time 2) The scientific basis for consciousness has not yet been understood 3) To generate a scientific basis for consciousness or some alternative theory with scientific evidence, large amounts of human resources would be needed to generate such a theory 4) The techniques used to investigate consciousness may cause some neuronal destruction, which would deter development of a method of thought reading 5) Electrophysiology takes a ridiculous amount of per neuron 6) Any model of consciousness would need to account for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which may be the biggest factor preventing an invasive algorithm from being developed In building a model in order to read thoughts, there are large numbers of conditions in a neuronal network that occur that would need to be accounted for. This is often observed in people who work with artificial neural networks, such as programming them. So, if such a technology for mind reading exists, the question becomes this: How was the time and resources to develop such a technology acquired? Anyone could be justified in being paranoid about reality, especially with philosophical issues, such as the dream argument and the Münchhausen trilemma. To falsify your sister's belief, science could attempt to do brain scans, brain visualization, and other neuronal investigations. The scientific method could be used in an attempt to disarm the paranoia. That, however, does not rule out that she might be a brain in a vat scenario nor other philosophical conundrums.

I've read various Internet discussions about the Golgi stain. However, I've not come across any feasible answers as to the mechanism. If it's being argued that it's mechanism is unknown. I don't believe it's purely random and violates the laws of causality. It might, but I don't believe that. My current hypothesis is that during staining, proteins, perhaps an ion channel, has its molecular configuration changed that enables the silver nitrate to attach to it. I think the answer would be found in attempting to molecularly manipulate various biomolecules until the silver nitrate attaches to a particular configuration. I don't think answering the question of how it attaches to neurons should be incredibly difficult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flicker_fusion_threshold

My answer is that I do not know. It appears that not enough research has been done in neuroscience to provide a feasible answer. However, you may want to read these articles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specious_present http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time I see what you're getting at. However, the research on the perception of time has not been finalized. Being able to understand how time perception works may help in generating a new system of reaction speed and reaction time in humans in order to help them react to dangerous situations quicker than usual: Perhaps in determining how to avoid a car crash in a split second. If you ever watch the anime Cyborg 009, there is an episode with a main character who's cybernetic body is going pretty much at high speeds, which seem close to the speed of light. Because he's moving and cognitively processing information at a quick rate, he has the opportunity to change his environment at relatively high speeds unlike others who are not moving as fast as him.

What I mean by that is that if you attempted to replace parts of the brain as time goes on, does the brain still belong to the same person? More importantly is whether or not that person, inside themselves, believes that he or she is the same person. This kind of question also comes up when people speculate about teleportation technologies, such as in the Star Trek shows and movies. I think the issue has been covered here before. I speculate that there may not be individuality to the human brain and that it is an illusion. However, it's hard to generate that belief when I've been around animals, such as dogs, that appear to have a sense of individuality and morality. Perhaps not so much a paradox. It's a mind/body dualist issue. However, I've often considered that the biological maintenance to be more philosophically sustainable due to the metaphysical and physical constraints related to personhood and the mind. I like to use X-Men's Wolverine as an example. If you've followed the Wolverine and X-Men comics, you'll notice that he lives different lives. He sometimes does not know who he was over one-hundred years ago. He's biologically alive. However, there are discontinuities in his memories, thus his "personhood." The main point to take away from this thread is that entropy-related issues, such as neurodegeneration and disease, are going to be the most complicated factors when attempting to keep a brain alive. To counter that, my view is that neuroregeneration would be necessary. And then, you can see where that Wolverine argument starts to come in. But even attempting to keep a brain alive, there are other issues, such as consciousness. What is consciousness? If the holonomic brain theory is right, and perhaps there are severely more complicated issues related to the brain (perhaps a vacuum exists in the skull related to the brain that involves virtual particles), being able to replicate the conditions for keeping the brain alive may become impossible. However, neurosurgery has been performed on animals and humans before, so it's not like the brain can't be tampered with through surgery and the person brought back to life and moving around claiming to be an individual. Scientifically, I don't see why not. However, philosophical issues come into play. I've not read of many scientific articles where scientists take a brain and put it into a robotic environment in order to make a cyborg. It seems like the University of Reading experiment attempted to do that, but it wasn't the whole brain, if I understand correctly. Furthermore, that brain wasn't encased well enough for all motor connections to be connected to a robotic body. It's a beginning in attempting to encase brain matter in a robotic body, but it has not been completely done yet. There are also other issues, especially if using an incomplete technology, such as neural degeneration from lack of usage (atrophy of the nervous system). However, I've read that the visual system tends to maintain itself after a certain biological age. I don't believe this level of quality is maintained for cognitive or motor function systems of the brain.

How useful would something like metal foam be for fractional distillation?