Genecks

Why can't it be done? It looks to me that the sun just keeps on giving out energy. So, if the problem to keep a device there is an energy problem, then the energy problem is solved. I'm aware the sun's energy is limited, but it's going to keep out giving large amounts for more extended periods of time.

So, here's a great question, I think. Could we throw an artificial intelligence at the sun and have it use the sun's energy to solve life's problems? I reason if it could be pre-programmed to solve complex issues and use the sun's energy to generate a wormhole, it could back here might fast, possibly converting the sun's energy into matter, thus enabling wormhole generators and the like around our solar system. Here is how I envision this: Scientists make an artificial intelligence with various tasks to complete - Test theories - Compute possibilities - Turn energy into mass - See if a wormhole can be made They then take this advanced AI with mass-to-energy capabilities, which would be dependent on the sun's energy, and they send it out in space toward the sun. Once the device gets to the sun, it starts to get to work. It uses the massive energy of the sun to quickly examine the reality of the universe. If possible, it will turn energy into mass. Furthermore, with a pre-programmed design in place, it will attempt to make a wormhole to quickly get back to Earth. Because it's using the sun's energy, there shouldn't be energy problems. It would be small. It would be lightweight. It wouldn't have any natural predators except intense energy and heat (but this would have been worked out). Furthermore, if successful, it would quickly get back to Earth; but with relativity in mind, time would still pass on Earth. And if it could be super successful, perhaps it could do more than just generate a stargate, such as multiple stargates to organize the sun's energy as we want (but I reason that would be for the next AI system that is thrown at the sun).

For those who are attempting to be frugal yet obtain reading materials on neuroscience, an individual should become aware of the libraries around him or her that offer reading materials. Some public and private university and college campuses allow individuals to visit them, use their resources, and check out materials. From there, if a reading material is not available, such as from the on-site computers that may or may not offer individuals to access databases with eBooks and access to journal articles, a person can go about using interlibrary loan. In my experience with neuroscience education, the academia route brings forth subjective grading routines that may not be representative of the knowledge acquired from learning materials. One of the things that an educational experience in the biological sciences will present is a large amount of memorization. The memorization aspect is not as important as "understanding" the material or at least seeing how concepts relate to each other and making sense of the learning material enough that the learning material can be referenced to again in order to use it as one's foundation of understanding the realm of neuroscience. Memorization tends to be a key aspect in entrance to medical school, at least in the U.S.A., and many educational facilities put emphasis on this when encountering neuroscience-related courses, such as neuroanatomy. Academia, at least in my experience in the U.S.A., focuses on memorization. The method I'm discussing here is for self-education: Being able to interpret the material while having the ability to reference it at later time. That method is more of a relaxed method than one may encounter in academia. From the method I'm suggesting, the materials a person uses become an extension of the person's memory for later retrieval of concepts that were previously learned. For those worried about the necessity of memorization while self-educating, memorization is not as important as being able to encounter, interpret, and have an intuitive understanding of the material to see how many of the concepts relate to each other. As such, as one moves from one subject of biology to another, a person can review his or her foundational knowledge that exists in the material he or she has encountered in the case material is forgotten through time. This is not to say that a level of memorization is not important; but what is more important is being able to quickly review foundational knowledge in order to learn new topics that build on that foundational knowledge. For instance, if a person is studying neuromathematics, a mathematics textbook may be useful to review for its foundational knowledge. A basic neuroscience education does not require more than a knowledge of high school algebra. Calculus and higher mathematics get involved when a person begins to investigate the physical aspects of the nervous system and more intricate systems, such as vision. Mathematics do get involved, but their involvement comes as a person begins to increasingly specialize in a particular field, such as vision or memory. That is not to say that many aspects of neuroscience in relation to vision and memory cannot be understood with higher maths: They can; but there is eventually a roadblock. Another thing an educational experience in academia will present is an ability to become familiar with electronic databases, such as the Web of Science and ScienceDirect, that offer a person an ability to look through scientific journal articles. Although a person may hold an interest in being able to read scientific articles, I suggest developing a wide and foundational knowledge of neuroscience before attempting to read neuroscience articles. From there, a person may be able to identify his or her weaknesses in knowledge, such as genetics or molecular biology, which may lead to further reading in the biological sciences, as there are books that specifically those topics that could be used for a course. Again, libraries are useful when coming to roadblocks. One book that individuals may be interested in is Principles of Neural Science by Eric Kandel and others. Older copies should not be too difficult to obtain. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Neural_Science As of the date of this post, I would not suggest buying a book prior to the third edition. Combined with information an individual can get from the Internet, Internet webforums, such as this, and other websites may be used to generate discussion and learn more. Neuroscience does not stop at understanding the biology of the brain. There is psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and more that is involved. The further one wants to go into the neurosciences, the more one will need to increasingly acquire knowledge and information in those fields. There are other fields, such as neuromathematics, neurology, neuropsychology, neuroengineering, neurochemistry, neurosurgery, and so on. Although specialization can occur, foundational aspects tend to have a critical impact on how one perceives his or her research and its meaning for not only the researcher but the public. And one of my best pieces of advice is this: Ask a lot of questions. Hands-on techniques are more than likely going to be learned inside of a laboratory. As such, a person may want to request an audience with a research group if interested in becoming part of the research collaboration. Research groups exist in businesses and as part of educational facilities. Hands-on techniques can also be obtained when moving up through an educational system. Although it's possible to do some research on one's own (such as electrophysiology), the financial burden may be too much. Furthermore, competition exists in the research world. Personal connections may enable some people to easily get into a laboratory, while a work ethic and a knack for innovation may help others.

Watching cadaver videos.

So, I'm not finding as much information as I want on the Internet about holonomic brain theory, so any mathematicians, biologists, philosophers, and physicists may feel free to contribute to this thread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory Here is my issue: What is doing the observing of the hologram? It all seems really mystical, and this might get into philosophy. However, that's ok. Supposedly, objects hit the eye, that gets translated and transformed in the brain somewhere, and out of it all comes some kind of hologram. That's great, so what I'm seeing is a hologram. But then, where am I? I have not found any decent models that diagram holonomic brain theory. My suspicion is that it leads to a kind of Cartesian theater. If I understand the theory correctly, information gets sent to the brain. However, after information gets sent to the brain, waves arise from the particles, atoms, and molecules in the brain. They eventually generate an interference pattern, which becomes the hologram.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_brain http://sciencefocus.com/qa/how-long-can-brain-live-outside-body http://www.fastcoexist.com/3015553/futurist-forum/not-science-fiction-a-brain-in-a-box-to-let-people-live-on-after-death I don't see why not. However, one link talks about the consciousness issue: How would you tell if consciousness was still occurring? There are other issues, though. Biological issues arise, which may not be axiologically worthwhile. These involve neurodegeneration, disease, trauma, cancer, and so forth. The circulatory system is also an issue, which I think Dr. Robert White noticed while doing his research. And combine all of that with the problem of consciousness, you've got a handful of issues. The University of Reading experiment (in one of the links) goes into how brain tissue from a rodent was used to control a machine: Whether or not the rodent had some sense of consciousness, I do not know. Ethics aside, it's possible to keep a brain alive; but then you have a slew of other entropy-related issues. If the whole Ship of Theseus paradox and consciousness could be resolved, then there would more than likely be an ability to transfer one's existence to a computer. It's for those reasons I started to dislike the whole Ghost in the Shell scenario of android/cyborg bodies and brains: It didn't seem plausible. Also, the issue of having a robot body would be complicated and energy-consuming. If a brain in a machine were to happen, then it would probably be like the villain from Robocop 2. http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Cain_%28RoboCop%29 As an aside, there is a lot of fascinating and profound science that happened in the early 1900s that is not discussed very much. Even with that dog experiment, however, the animal eventually died. Also, I'd appreciate a green mark or reply if my post has helped.

Part of me is wondering if the reason I'm studying physics as of late is because there is going to be a paradigm shift. I mean, I can teleologically see the reasons for why I'm studying physics as of late, from my own memories and perspective. However, it appears that there is a trend about where people are not too sure where to go in physics. Yeah, I can perceive "the measurement problem." What's whacky is that from a block universe view, it's not a problem: It is. The Daoists had it down: Reality is what it is. All of that sounds pretty circular. Einstein did not seem to have cognitive dissonance with the block universe theory. And it makes me wonder if "science" really exists at all. If there is no free will, then everything science attempts to do is an illusion: Everything is predetermined, even scientific results. It's weird, because the results would have never been obtained if the subject was never there: At least from block universe theory. General relativity had to be found by Einstein by necessity. The praise my be unwarranted, but then the praise was all part of the block universe: It was predetermined. If all is predetermined, then it could be argued that giving up on science, be that a person perceives everything as fatalistic, is "predetermined." I'm sure people want to generate alternative theories to the block universe. This looks like one of them. It lacks substance.

Nice find. I don't recall hearing or reading about this thing before. i was a child in the mid 1990s, so I doubt I would have heard or read about it. Here is an interesting year of 2012 excerpt from the New York Times in relation to the animal: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/magazine/can-a-jellyfish-unlock-the-secret-of-immortality.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

The risks are often dependent on the bacteria that you are growing. If you're growing a mouth or throat swab, you might breathe in Streptococcus sp.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptococcus That is not something that you would want to breathe in. In general, you would want to use septic technique and keep a flame nearby. People do open the dishes, but that is often to take a sample from the dish and do something with it, such as grow another bacteria colony on another dish (perhaps to isolate the colony from the dish from other colonies). I would suggest you take a microbiology course at a community college or university rather than culture bacteria yourself. You could also read microbiology books. It's not impossible to do your own microbiology, but I don't see the point in doing it unless you're a researcher. A lot is already known about microbiology. Unless you're getting into molecular biology or there is some extravagant unknown organism that you're coming across and want to identify it before others (this generally requires training/education in microbiology, anyway), I don't see the point in what you're doing.

Yeah, I agree that this sounds like the Many-Worlds hypothesis. However, what could be more disturbing is if you don't die and just age like an immortal without beauty. So, I could see how you might argue that there is an event that causes a person to die but that person lives on. So, for me, it could be argued (sounds freaky) that I've died plenty of times before yet part of me (perhaps consciousness?) keeps slipping into another universe where I'm conscious. What if you met a heroin addict who survived overdosing multiple times? But in another reality, however, that person died and what you're seeing is some kind of Many-Worlds monster? How would you test for that? What if the way to test for it was to test the person's memory? What if the person was moving at ridiculous speeds, yet was considered to be somewhat mentally defected, deficient, or undereducated yet maintained a memory of past events from years prior as if it was yesterday? It does sound like the revolver death scenario. I'm not sure about the feasibility of the Many-Worlds theory. Then again, I don't really understand "empty space" and virtual particles. I've been studying metaphysics as of late, and I've been questioning whether or not Rene Descartes was wrong about the demon. Some people think that's ridiculous, but I do not think so. I'm taking a foundational approach and reviewing my knowledge. I believe I'm starting to see flaws in human thinking over the past few hundred years: That would mean our intuitions about reality are wrong. This has been speculated before but not observed. People have alleged they've seen ghosts, the super natural, and so on: But it's been difficult if not impossible to "scientifically" prove these things. However, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. I'm thinking that the human race is in its infancy in understanding the universe. When I think of the Many-World's hypothesis, I encounter material that generally refers to the first-person perspective. So, it often appears that there is the infinityn universes that can exist, where n is infinity ontop of another exponential infinity, ad infinitum, thus a tree with infinite branching of each branch. I'm not sure what the answer is; and I'm not sure about the Many-Worlds hypothesis either. I'm skeptical. However, as I've been studying Einstein's relativity, the block universe, and quantum mechanics, I've become skeptical about Einstein's view of reality. The lack of a theory of everything and a complete understanding of the origin of the universe causes me to scrutinize Einstein's theory. However, it could be said that the delimiting factor is consciousness, which has been allegedly used to interpret reality rather than humans acting as philosophical zombies. As with the Many Worlds hypothesis, I've considered something disturbing that I've never thought of before. However, I saw an interpretation of the block universe in relation to consciousness on physicsforums.com, so maybe there is something to it. And it's been alleged that each person takes up his or her own personal space-time in the universe, as though consciousness is on a plane of its own existence. What if I'm the only one consciousness and all of you are philosophical zombies? David Chalmers has held that view. But let me take it a step further, and I hope to return to the death topic. What if, regardless of all of you being philosophical zombies, that when it comes to your consciousness, I and all other people, are philosophical zombies. So, it's like each person is in his or her own dimension where everything is fake except him or her yet the universe presents some aspect of reality. So, we are all in our own universes. Somehow, you're conscious to read this in your universe. That, however, does not mean that you're part of my universe. It makes for an interesting issue when someone is dead or allegedly passes. Because if I'm the only one who exists in this universe and that everything else is an illusion, it's as though the universe is trying to deceive me into thinking that people die. How would a person test for any of that? If (1) the Free Will Theorem is correct and (2) the universe has an intelligence, then I'm worried that the universe might be attempting to deceive me about reality. That's a very powerful demon that I don't think Rene Descartes could have avoided.

First off, I thank those who have given me some concise updates. Yeah, I would think people developing their own colonies would be the next best idea. One of the arguments, as I understand, is that human beings could live without honey bees. However, there would be a need to move to a vegetarian diet. It wouldn't be impossible, however. But as long as colonies of honey bees are maintained and genetic diversity in enabled, there should eventually be a way to bring back bees into the ecosystem if mother nature intends to take them out. Well, it at least looks like various causes and factors have been found. I am not surprised that viruses are involved but the species that have generated the viruses amazes me more.

A few years back, I heard about the honey bee "crisis." Allegedly, honey bees were not around as much and were not pollinating foods as we humans would like them to. I don't know if scientists ever got down to the cause and/or causes. Where are we on this honey bee "crisis" in the world?

Let's just say I don't believe the news. I'm throwing that out there. There are a few websites, such as about.com and scientificamerican.com that talk about how expensive it would be to engage in nuclear transmutation of bismuth into gold. That's nice. Supposedly, computers used to cost a lot back in the 1980s, a really top notch one. However, technology, theory, and methodology has improved. Now it's said that "It would cost more than one quadrillion dollar per ounce to produce gold by" the experiment that was used in the 1980s. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that. Actually, another issue is that no one ever seems to cite the journal articles or publications, as if this stuff is TOP SECRET. I have not seen any journal articles yet with equipment describes, so I can't make a cost estimate. And I feel like these news sources are talking out of their black holes. Seeing as gold has become expensive with all-time highs, then is it worthwhile to turn bismuth into gold yet?

Pretty much. And the other research interests can wait. So, we'd be like worker bees in a lot of ways.

I'd hate to pick a fight in relation to people's personal life philosophies; but I'm going to pick a fight. I hope it won't get too bloody. So, I like the transhumanist train of thought in the 21st century. I think we'll learn so much more about ourselves and the universe by expanding upon ourselves with technologies and medicine than researching other things. So, I've been learning about quantum physics and quantum mechanics as of late: I believe I'm start to grasp the mentality required for it. However, I just see a lot of it as pointless. You might say that I'm the kind of person who would say, "Let the world burn if that means the Truth about reality and the universe is found in the process." And so, for those who care about ecology, I wouldn't end up caring about it, because it lacks utility in my transhumanist view. For the physicists, I see that bioengineering appears to have some use in the transhumanist paradigm, when it comes to developing technologies to move along investigation into biological research. Otherwise, I don't think I need to know the physics and structural integrity of a red blood cell: They could just be regenerated and made from stem cells. So, with astronomy, cosmology, and quantum physics, I could care less. I think they're interesting in trying to answer the hard questions: origin of the universe, free will vs. determinism, and so on (but the time to solve those problems would be ridiculous). I guess what I'm trying to say is that many of these professions out there have great goals and plans, but people aren't going to be able to accomplish those goals and plans in a lifetime. Yes, it might be said about transhumanism that its goals and plans won't be acquired in a lifetime. However, I've often wondered if people from other trades and professions simply moved toward medicinal technology and research, such as regenerative medicine. So, why is it that other professionals don't jump on board toward transhumanism? I don't get it. I never did. I guess, then, I'm saying that I believe other professions that aren't targeted toward human longevity are wasting their time, at least in this lifetime.

Prove your worth to your professors and those who work with those professors. I'm sure you could get in. I could probably get into the Society for Neuroscience if I wanted. I haven't got around to it. I'd have to make a few phone calls, blah blah blah, and I'd probably be in. I'm more interested in the journal articles and talking with other professionals than just being a member of the society.

Yeah, prior to your posting but after I made the thread, I found this video: One of the reasons I questioned it is because of how CERN (CORRECTION:Fermilab) and LHC came about. It seems like LHC came about after CERN (CORRECTION: Fermilab) was developed. And the other thing is the amount of land these scientific enterprises take up. The LHC took up a large amount of space. Because of that, I became curious as to whether or not it could be put on a microchip or something really small. Because very small particles are being played with, I couldn't see why it wouldn't be practical to have a proton be looped around on a microchip. I don't know how; but I didn't understand why it wouldn't be practical.

Serious question. Why couldn't the Large Haldron Collider have been put on a microchip? Crazy thought, maybe. But a serious question.

So, I've been learning about different dimensions as of late. And I've read views and theories on time travel. From what I've read, it appears more practical to be in this dimension and attempt to travel into the future rather than the past. The reason the past is impractical or impossible in this dimension, if I've read correctly, is because of the energy requirements to reverse entropy. However, my current view eliminates that necessity and avoids the grandfather paradox. However, the time traveler becomes stuck in time. Time for the time traveller can either be erased or re-written per the time traveller. Furthermore, this makes for an interesting universe we currently live in, too. My view is that a time traveler jumps out of the 4th dimension, into the 5th dimension (or some dimension whereby all aspects of the 4th dimension are observable), collapses all spacetime frames to a previous point in time, thus conserving mass and energy while going back in time to a particular point in time. To imagine this, think of a deck of cards. The cards are facedown. I take a card off the top of the deck, and I lay it down: That's the beginning of spacetime. And I take more cards off of the deck, one-by-one, until there are about 20 cards on the table: Each card is adjacent to the next card. However, if I want to time travel (and I'm in the 20th card, which is my spacetime) to the 10th card, then I need to jump out of the 20th card, have all the cards going back to card 10 put back into the deck (perhaps in order), and then jump into card 10. That way, the deck conserves the mass and energy from the other spacetime frames. The issue, however, is determining how I'm going to jump out of the card, how I get the energy to do that, and so on. It does avoid the grandfather paradox, however. Say my grandfather is in the 10th card and has not met my grandmother, which gave birth to my mother, which gave birth to me. Let's hypothesize that I'm an unusual fellow and I go about killing my grandfather to test the grandfather paradox. I still exist, anyway. The reason for this is because I separated myself from the 20th card. So, I'm stuck in the past with my physical form: I don't get to change my own personal history: And if I attempted to, I'd be getting older before I was ever born. Thus, once you exist, then you exist; and there is nothing you can do to the past during time travelling to stop you from existing. So, it's like Mary McFly coming back to his house and noticing his family appears more affluent. This does, however, leave a doppleganger possibility, thus giving rise to fear a doppleganger. If this theory is correct, it may explain why we haven't seen any time travellers: Because time has not collapsed as of yet. If there was a time traveller, then the time traveller surely did not appear in my lifetime. Otherwise, if the time traveller had appeared in my lifetime, I wouldn't have noticed it. I think my collapse model prevents anyone from ever noticing, because a person's existence would collapse before ever noticing. It makes for an interesting question, though. If there was a time traveller, when did the time traveller show up? What point would the collapse be noticeable? Perhaps during my lifetime at best, as a guess?

I once had this dream, I think I was in my late teens, where some some enemy opponent kicked me in the balls. It was a street-fight like dream. I don't know how the dream got to that part of the plot nor recall, but the guy kicked me in the balls. And what happened, while I was asleep, was that I felt it. That's maddening. Now, a person might say, "Well, you were sleeping the wrong way and injured yourself outside of your dreamstate." Perhaps my pillow or a blanket was between my legs in an uncomfortable way (maybe I was lying on my bed in an poor position unbeknownst to my conscious awareness at the time during my dream, and the dream was manifesting itself as a projection of a causal explanation (real world: pillow is putting pressure on me or laying the "wrong way"; dream world: guy is kicking me in the balls). And so, would I say that I felt pain? Well, it sure felt like pain. At least, it felt like pain. It felt numb and tingling. And I felt as though there was an impact that caused pain. However, the pain felt momentary and not as intense as I would think it would in the real world in a street brawl. I woke up directly after the guy kicking me in the balls; and if I remember correctly, I felt a sensation in my scrotum even after I woke up (and further if I recall accurately, there was nothing to suggest pressure was put on that part of my body while I was sleeping). It was as though the pain was a mocking of the real world. And yeah, I've been kicked in the balls (roughhousing, whatnot). So, I know what it's like. It's a sharp pain and tends to be localized. The dream pain was there; but it didn't seem to accurately represent what the pain would feel like in the real world.

Well, that the original poster wants to accuse professionals of a conspiracy, then original poster would need to prove intent. However, I think that most professional, at least scientific professionals, are skeptics. And I believe many if not most are skeptics by nature. So, even though scientific professionals are using statistics, there may be a level of doublethink involved from not holding absolute skepticism while allowing for the possibility that a particular philosophy of time, if not philosophy of space and time, is possible. As an aside, proving intent may come with some kind of free will argument and acceptance of free will, unless the OP is arguing for legal compatibalism. I don't think it's really double think. I think it's skepticism with hope, and the hope is that something will pan out to lead to a greater truth. Otherwise, yeah, there is the problem of induction: And everything we know could indeed be a lie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_of_faith What has bothered me about the validity of statistics, if we were to take into account "free will" or choice is how to account for "free will" as a variable in the experiment? It seems like a confounding variable if it exists, thus preventing any possibilty for reproduction of an experiment. But even that could be said for a superdeterministic universe. Statistics has some utility from an indeterminist perspective. No, it's not perfect, exact, or absolute. At least, if it's not a social invention for people to act smart and talk as though to increase Darwinian fitness, then there is some utility and greater theory that can lead to a better understanding of nature and the universe. With that, from my scientific perspective, that means there is a better method out there.

I don't get it. Why post on this so late in the game with a moderator's note?

It was the will of the universe, dude. You don't have wings, because you were born a human being (at least I assume such). And if you were not born a human being, you wouldn't be asking this question. But if you want wings, maybe consent to some mad scientific experiments and hope you don't die in the process. Otherwise, maybe you'll want to become a pilot. And if you want to argue about free will, then blame your pre-cognitive self that chose to be a human.

In relation to the last three lines you write, perhaps it would be best to argue that entropy has prevented any possibility of understanding reality due to the increase of chaos or complexity from time "zero." However, the clockwork universe is simply another way of saying "growing block universe." And feel free to present your arguments and evidence to refute the block universe, which Albert Einstein believed. At the least, I assume you're making an age fallacy in relation to the clockwork universe. I only mention Einstein, because he was born after the development of the "clockwork universe" philosophy. So, maybe you're saying special relativity defeats the idea of the clockwork universe or growing block universe and is better that we're in a block universe (everything already is) rather than a growing block universe (determinism; things are flowing from some beginning point in time). And as the original poster has discussed, there are different levels of math where things break down. And I keep coming to see the problem of "the measurement problem." These issues with statistics and philosophy are starting to cause me to question Benjamin Libet's free will experiments due to the measurement problem. I don't know why no one ever taught me about "the measurement problem" except the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (which was a riddle; and I believed I once had a solution; but then I got distracted). Perhaps if children learned about it, they'd all write off modern science, get high on drugs, and tune out. Yes, there may indeed be some level of professionalism to all of it, to not project a block universe view, and argue for indeterminism as if to gather money from those willing to believe in the philosophy of indeterminism. Much of me is starting to feel that statistics is a "social invention." It was a way of discussing one's observation of a particular phenomena. But more foundational, it looks like statistics and various mathematics are social: They're meant to describe individual experience to others. Statistics has utility if we have free will, there is some aspect of our universe that is indeterministic, and that by having free will, we can take advantage of those statistics to change the value of our "lives." Otherwise, if it's the block universe and everything is fixed, then statistics are little less than noise. Statistics has allegedly been around for a long time. However, it developed more academically and intellectually in the 1800s. So, we've started to discover if not invent statistics. You build a bridge and statistics are involved: The bridge is a social invention. The drugs are social inventions. And even if you build a bridge for yourself, perhaps as some hobby, it would appear to be individually relevant. However, all presented statistics are individually relevant; but they can be used to discuss something in society. Historically, statistics have been used to discuss things in the environment: Gambling. No, I assume I understand what the original poster is going about. It's a philosophical issue rather than a scientific one, and perhaps that would have been the best reply while either explicitly or intentionally mentioning that it goes back to the philosophy of science. It's a philosophical issue, thread creator. Also, since I'm typing about statistics, and not to de-rail the thread, it bothers me that the universe is measured to be flat with something like a -/+ 0.5% error. Like, wtf? That a triangle exists means it exists with 180-degrees -/+ 0.5%*180-degrees???? That seems to imply indeterminism is true. I posted a thread about the solomon curve in the past week. But deriving the theory "Driving closer to the speed of other drivers in my lane will reduce the likelihood of getting into a car accident," does not necessarily mean that I will not get into an accident. Furthermore, being able to derive a theory does not mean that the theory is correct. And it does not mean that there is such thing as "likelihood." All of it is mind-boggling, indeed. I think if there is something that the thread creator should walk away with, it's this thought: "It's just theory." In theory. Isn't in the "real world" that heads is more likely to show up on a U.S. coin? And in the real world, we're more likely to have males, despite it being alleged that there is a 50% chance of having either a boy or girl as a child, independent of how many times a person has had a child? - The y-chromosome weighs less In theory, a six-sided die will potentially give any of the sides at an equal probability in accordance with the other sides... But then again, it depends on initial conditions of the die... And as Einstein argued in the past, "God does not play dice." http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/multimedia/2013/mar/04/why-did-einstein-say-god-doesnt-play-dice It could be that we're the dice: Hence, the measurement problem. That is, unfortunately, saying that we've never truly repeated any experiment ever done in science, because we lacked the initial conditions.

Bring them to court and have a jury trial. Regardless of how the law is setup, it's the jury that gets to determine things. Then again, there tends to be a kind of jury tampering from time to time. If the jury is aware that law can be democratic, then there is a chance the members of the jury will find the force used against an individual as unreasonable. It ends up being community opinion. This is one reason one needs to be aware of the legal history of a particular place he or she lives in: So that one's legal rights are not tampered with. It is best to not get involved with a society's people until understanding the laws and case history of that society's people. You're in the U.S.. The United States has a messed up government that is starting to ignore the U.S. constitution, have ex post facto laws (which are unconstitutional), and develop laws just to appease to complaining populus. If I had a time machine, I'd go back in time and live in the early 1800s of the United States and stay there. The way current law is heading, it's acting in the interests of legal bodies rather than the We the People. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140114/08253425866/jury-finds-two-officers-charged-beating-death-homeless-man-not-guilty.shtml If a community or local government can brainwash its citizens into approving unconstitutional government activity, it's pretty much got a way of manipulating people for its own benefit. In that case, the police were able to brutally attack a citizen. That the jury did not criminally penalize the police is unfortunate, especially when other modes of conflict resolution could have occurred. From my interpretation of law, it's best for those in law to seek peace and resolution rather than a violent resolve. Otherwise, it leads to instability in society and the potential for anarchy and more violence. I wonder what the transcripts were like from that case, and I wonder if the prosecuting attorney was going to put much effort forth in persuading the jury into thinking that the police used excessive force. However, there tends to be a bit of bias and good ol' boys network involved with that thing. The political structures of the government tend to look out for each other. That unfortunately serves the interest of the government. I sometimes wonder why the members of the government have not taken the initiative to hide in their shelters, nuclear bomb all of us, and then come out as a ruling elite.