lemur

This is probably a completely elementary chemistry question, but I'm trying to figure out why molecules like O2, CO2, CO, H2O are stable. With H2, it makes since to me that the two H atoms combine to form a full outer shell, and thus resemble Helium. However, O has 8 electrons so O2 must have 16, which is 2 less than a full outer shell, so why doesn't it receive two more electrons? I understand that ionization also makes a difference and that charge-neutral molecules wouldn't have a reason to bond further but how does that work in practice? E.g. does O2 break apart into, say, one O cation and one O anion and then each receives compatible pairing partners? How do you figure out the process that will occur when compounds are mixed and heated, etc.? It makes sense to me that heat breaks bonds and frees electrons, but how do you predict the details of how and what exactly will happen?

If that were the case, why wouldn't free positive charges with the mass of an electron be observed in any situations?

I think what it specifically says is that blasphemy of Holy Spirit is a sin. Generally, I think it can be simplified to the idea that people can know for themselves when something is truly good or not, or they can at least make a true good faith attempt to do the right thing. So, for example, when Pilate admits that he sees no fault in Jesus but then he still decides to crucify him to satisfy public opinion, that would be a good example of going against Holy Spirit. The other would be when the people call for Pilate to kill Jesus because they say that their laws don't allow them to do it themselves. If you truly believed in the commandment not to kill, you wouldn't want someone else to do it for you. It has to do with doing things in good faith or bad faith, imo. Whatever you call it, according to religious mythology it is all part of the creation. Humans and their knowledge and ideas, reasoning, etc. are all part of "going forth and multiplying" that began with God supposedly replicating himself and his creative potential by creating humans "in his image." I think that's why the bible eventually talks about armageddon as an eternal war between good and evil. Once God created evil, he won't destroy it because that would also be evil and so evil has its place in the creation next to good. It seems as though what God and the prophets usually do is to try to show people the light of what is evil and good so they can act on it themselves. Then they go forth and multiply that for others. Ultimately, everyone is free to make their own choices between good and evil but those that see the light try to help others see it so they can make better choices. It's like if you know that fire can hurt you, you would tell someone to be careful around fire but you wouldn't go around stopping everyone from getting near fire for any reason.

I agree that the way phase-change is taught gives a false impression of how substances behave, or rather it causes students to assume that facts like the boiling point of water are truths that have a life of their own, which is why the OP expresses shock at the idea that the boiling point of water can change according to different factors. If people would just be taught why materials behave as solids, liquids, and gas and why they go from one type of behavior to the other, then the boiling points of various liquids would just be a convenient index for predicting when something was going to boil when you were trying to boil it and how hot it would be at that time..

In response to the thread title, it is actually a really interesting idea that people could be so indebted that death itself wouldn't be sufficient repayment. I.e. you can't "die for your own sins" because that wouldn't be sufficient payment for the debt you owe. Then what? Btw, this is not a deviation from the thread topic because I think it is the whole reason people are supposed to imitate Christ, "become part of the body," etc. I.e. because ONLY redemption is sufficient repayment for the debt of sin - not sure how that fits with forgiveness though. A contradiction maybe?

I think the issue is that by creating a creation that "goes forth and multiplies" infinitely, God created both goodness and evil as a byproduct. The story of the fallen angel is a good illustration because the angel gets perverted by his own narcissism as God's great angel. So when (parts of) the creation becomes oppositional towards other parts, that could be seen as parts of God going bad. God did, however, supposedly create the distinction between good and evil and replicate this ability to distinguish between them in humans, so you could say that God is everything AND he is the means of distinguishing good from evil - and maybe the wisdom to know how to deal with evil in a way that resists generating more evil or destroying/perverting goodness in the process.

What if women consented to and desired sex for the same purpose? Would this make sex a perverse and pathological means of renewing emotional bonds in a relationship?

What does that context have to do with whether energy can be stored or not? AC power is converted into DC power in my battery-charger, I believe. Does that mean the energy being stored in the batteries is DC and not AC? I don't think so. As you said, electricity isn't a liquid running through a pipe. I was thinking more in terms of the amount of power used to fill up the water tower minus the amount generated by letting the tower run empty through the generator turbines. Then I would want know the total costs of building and maintaining the water tower and peripheral equipment over the lifespan of the tower. Then I would want to divide that by cost per household-served per month according to a certain level of nighttime power usage. Intuitively, it does seem inefficient compared with chemical batteries. I think it would actually make more sense for each device to have its own battery designed to give it a certain amount of nighttime functionality. A refrigerator or water-heater would just have to maintain its temperature overnight, but the battery systems could adjust to different temperature conditions. Or economics does. The problem in regions with large income gaps is that something that could be very profitable for those with low income can be blocked by the fact that businesses don't want to provide high levels of access at prices that those with low income can afford. I'm tempted to say that this is less of a problem in regions where there is less economic disparity, but in reality I think they're all part of the same global economy that makes it difficult for the poor to get access to the means to improve their material conditions.

As I recall there was talk about reclassifying the suspects/prisoners to handle them in the regular justice system institutions but there was a public outcry against "letting them into the system." There is a strong public will to "keep foreigners foreign" in both the US and Europe that has a strong effect on politics of this kind, imo. E.g. National governments have an interest in organizing anyone and everyone into autonomous nation-states because it allows them global levels of power without incorporating people into their own national institutions. I think this also reflects why there was an interest in creating a Jewish state and now a Palestinian state. It is all part of a contain-and-conquer approach toward global governance, imo, otherwise known as "statism."

So if you filled a tank 1/4 full of water and began electrolyzing it, the water would electrolyze slower as the pressure increased inside the tank? What does the pressure affect exactly then? The free electrons in the electrodes or the ability of the water molecules to break apart? Maybe I should start a new thread on this topic because I'm starting to think about all the forces involved with surface tension, phase change, bonding between the atoms, etc.

At some point in my academic development, I gained the ability to take a step back and look at what goes on in terms of academic life and research from a more generalist perspective. At that point I realized how much effort, time, and resources are devoted to generating academic lifestyles. The same is true of corporate lifestyles, etc. Most people are in the business of enhancing work and leisure experiences for others. The idea that people would drop all work/leisure enhancement activities as being a wasteful diversion from some core focus is practically unimaginable for most people. So you can't really waste your time/life by missing research opportunities because research opportunities are themselves mostly a justification for people to waste their time and get spoiled lavishly for doing so. Sure, there are lots of things that you could be doing to improve the world but you would be working against social-economic institutions that have been designed to obscure and prevent people from improving the world for themselves, so it's not that much of a waste when people shirk attempting to do good. Really, the main thing you can do to validate your existence is to cultivate some clear vision of how things work for yourself and a sense of how your activities influence your own life and that of others. This makes you into a responsible individual with a sense of active participation and influence in their own life. I think the rest flows from that point.

Walking away and fantasizing about how you could have dealt with the person is a prime example of sublimation, imo, which is when people repress and then find safe expressions for the feelings they repress. The problem with you asking what is considered repression, is that it's indicative of a repressive approach to problem-solving. If I say it IS repressive, then you might considering repressing what is repressive because it's bad. The whole point of expressing things to avoid repression is that you have to actively express whatever it is. If you have fantasies of conflict, you should express those, even if just by playing them out within your mind. What would work even better though, imo, would be to directly express your anger/aggression to the person it's directed to in the least harmful way possible, e.g. by telling them why you are angry and not being afraid to express some anger in your tone of voice, for example. Warning: please don't do this if it would put you at risk in some way. Only do it if you can be reasonably sure that you won't be subject to harmful retaliation, etc. If, however, you have people who won't try to destroy your life for letting out some anger, I would recommend trying it and seeing how you feel. I find that if I vent my anger in a constructive way to the person I'm angry with, they will often accept it and apologize, etc. I then also apologize if I was rude due to my emotions and that is usually appreciated as well.

I sort of hinted at it in the OP, but maybe I should re-emphasize that one possible cause of violence can be that people evoke or "summon" it, often cooperatively, to bring about resolution, or at least termination/repression, of conflict. People can always quarrel and bicker and as they grow tired of the bickering, they may actually want to bring things to a head, so to speak, because they believe their bargaining position following the fight will be better than before. I'm not saying that victims bring violence on themselves or that perpetrators always premeditate it to achieve a goal. I just think it is something that is in the shadowy underbelly of our cultural scripting that few people want to face up to but many are naturally inclined to do. It's just a lot harder to work things out maturely, so you end up with harassing provocations like, "why don't you just hit me and get it over with," or "bring it on and see what it gets you," etc.

I haven't read the whole thread, sorry, but has anyone mentioned economics or general social science?

Maybe so, but what about electrolyzing water within a closed tank so it compresses itself as it electrolyzes? If anyone would know about the effects of increasing pressure on electrolysis of water, I would think it would be you, swansont.

So you think that a person could be endowed with similar enough knowledge and personality culture that they would basically be the same person as another person? If that was the case, then why couldn't the same person be "reincarnated" while they were still living?

How did I suggest that electricity is like water flowing through a pipe? I just thought that pumping water into a tower would be a way to store energy as gravitational potential, that could drive turbines as it flowed back down at night. All power can be stored by converting it into potential energy. This can be chemical potential as in batteries or mechanical potential in the form of compressed springs or gravitational potential in the form of mass elevated to some altitude. Here I will concede that I have no idea how much energy would be lost in the conversion using a pump, water tower, and turbines on the down-pipe. I would like to know more about the efficiency of using chemical battery storage at the levels needed to save solar power everyday for nighttime use. The water tower idea seemed good to me because you could use the same water tower for many years whereas batteries seem to lose their ability to hold charge, which means they need replacing, which means they require factories, energy, and shipping to replace/recycle old batteries. I've read about it, too. I hope I didn't give the impression that it was my brainchild. I was just wondering if anyone knew how feasible it would be, how much power could be stored, the (in)efficiency of power loss in the process of pumping and driving a turbine as it flows back down, etc. By "geyser," I assume you mean a gas water heater. If so, why remove these at all? Why not just teach people how to build their own solar water pre-heaters by connecting a bunch of CPVC water pipes and painting them black to use as a pre-heater? If their existing water-heater has a thermostat, it will automatically use less energy because the water was already hot when it entered the system. I think there may be some other problems with pressure build up in the CPVC pipes, but if you have clever people innovating, they should be able to work out the bugs and share the info with consumers.

Isn't that all Holy Spirit is? i.e. direct access to divine revelation instead of having to seek intermediaries with God? True. Like I said, though, it seems like it means something slightly different when you don't take it in the context that his persecution and killing were themselves the sins that he died for, which everyone else was responsible for. E.g. there have been people for centuries who have been saying that Pilate and the soldiers were just doing what 'the Jews' called for - and therefore blamed 'the Jews' for Christ's death when everyone was complicit in some way or other in that they all assented to worldly authority (of church and state). I think it's good that Christians have been making amends for centuries of anti-Semitic doctrine blaming 'the Jews' but technically in Christianity NO ONE can be exonerated for contributing to Jesus' killing because if everyone would have heeded his word (and the commandment not to kill), he wouldn't have been killed at all. Maybe a moot point considering the overall path the story, and thus the theology, takes that basically necessitate the crucifixion and thus resurrection, salvation, and redemption. But the big question is where does the easter bunny fit into it all, right?

The situation that seems to keep arising in the stories of Jesus is that people would sin against others in denial of their own sins. Hence, when a prostitute was going to be stoned, Jesus said that the one without sin should cast the first stone and they all put down their stones. So, likewise, even the highest priests (pharisees) and highest state officials (Pilate and the soldiers) were not above sin. Their sin was unforgiveness and failure to consult Holy Spirit for divine revelation. Thus Jesus said to forgive them because they don't know what they're doing - i.e. they didn't understand his teachings and the spirit of forgiving enemies and loving sinners (i.e. everyone). But since he forgave them even for this, all debt was released and people had to live in forgiveness of having committed the ultimate sin, destroying God (foresaking Holy Spirit).

There's no friction or action/reaction in the interaction between objects and the 'spacetime' they travel through. Objects take the path of least resistance as long as they are uninfluenced by outside forces. When an object follows a curved path through space, it is only moving under its own inertial momentum. It's not like something rolling on a curved track that experiences force as it is impeded in a straight-line path. There's no centrifuge effect pulling Earth away from the sun while the sun's gravity holds it in orbit like a rope. Earth is simply in free-fall in a curved path around the sun. edit: I believe this explanation illustrates the meaning of spacetime curvature but I always have to mention I'm not a licensed physicist because otherwise someone might think I was and allow me to spread false information (so I'm told, anyway)

So not only are the effects of the charge/pH of the substance being registered but also the shape of the molecule? How can a cell decipher the shape of a molecule?

You're taking this in the philosophy/religion direction. If I did that, I would be accused of hijacking. Still, I think it would be worth discussing the non-arbitrariness of up vs. down metaphysics but it should be a thread in philosophy. As for the bit about ego fearing its own death, that's valid but you could just as easily hypothesize that the ego is a mechanism that drives consciousness to escape the body at the moment threat of destruction becomes too great to stand. The question continues for me: if it could escape the body, where/how would it travel?

That is too abstract for me. When I hear that Jesus died for people's sins, that means that he literally got crucified because of the abuse of worldly authority by the state and church. Likewise, I think all the people supported these institutions because they were themselves indebted by sins, which they were suffering for in submission to authorities. So not only did Jesus preach liberation through the holy spirit and forgiveness of the sins of ones enemies, but he practiced it by saying "forgive them they know not what they do" when he was being persecuted and crucified. So it's not like a situation where he forgave the sins of criminals by criminalizing the government/police. He forgave everyone's sins by reducing them all to the same unified corruption against him, and by allowing them to sacrifice him in forgiveness for their sin, the debt was paid with his loss and restituted with his resurrection in the body of Christian faith and good will.

Interesting. So there are these various methods for analyzing the composition of various flavors/scents in terms of numerous compounds, but what is it about each that produces a particular effect? It must be more than just the pH level of the substance in question, right?

I think there's more logic to it than that. It's not a quantitative balancing of amounts. It has to do with people suffering for as long as they don't experience forgiveness/redemption. Their hearts are heavy with guilt/shame. When you steal from someone, for example, that person may never forgive you even if you give back what you stole and tried to redeem yourself in various ways to them. They may still just always view you as a thief. So if you care, your heart weighs heavy with the burden of righting your wrong. Jesus preached forgiveness so if being unforgiving is itself a sin, then the debt-holders of sin are themselves sinners. So by accepting punishment from the righteous of church and state and forgiving his punishers for being unforgiving, he is stopping the vicious cycle by saying there is an ultimate authority that everyone is sinning against, and that is God the father, and "God forgives you all because all your sins culminated in my death but I am not dead but re-risen so that you too may live without fear of death and punishment for sin." That's not a quote from the bible but it sort of paraphrases the main ideas, I think. It makes sense if you think about sins as crimes punished in civil court by issuing settlements and debts. If everyone was indebted to everyone else for sinning against them, then they would all have to enslave each other to get money to pay their own debts. So Jesus basically wants to pay off all the debt with his own life because by contributing to the death of God, everyone racks up the ultimate debt, which is then forgiven. Why is it such a difficult concept to explain?