lemur
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With light we know that frequency varies along a linear spectrum that contains all colors. But what about flavor and/or scent? It would seem that these sensory data would be more multidimensional but what factors actually cause flavors and scents at the molecular/chemical level? Is there more to it than Ph-level? Are there actual chemical reactions involved to generate specific flavors and what is it exactly that is getting communicated to taste buds other than a certain level of electrostatic potential?
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The Size of Atoms and Molecules: Incredible Claim?
lemur replied to Dekan's topic in Modern and Theoretical Physics
idk, but this example doesn't refer to the size of the atoms and molecules themselves. It refers to the number of molecules in a given volume at standard temperature and pressure (I assume you mean standard temperature and pressure at least). You can maybe argue that the molecules can't be any bigger than the volume of the container divided by the number of molecules in it, but how do you know how much smaller they might be than that? -
All that attitude accomplishes is to make subjective aesthetics of plausibility a filter for what should and shouldn't be subject to scientific rigor. I think you should separate the dogmatic aspects of materialism as an epistemological paradigm from the application of science as empirically accountable critical philosophy. I don't think anyone denies that material bodies die, hearts stop, etc. What is denied is that bodily death automatically amounts to death of consciousness/spirit. But you are denying my point about denial, which is that to accuse someone else of denying something, it has to be a proven fact to begin with. Otherwise you're just implying factuality by claiming denial. How does that prove that consciousness doesn't enter and depart the body? This webpage applet (at least I think it may be an applet) enters my computer and leaves it when I push the send button. It gets modified while in my computer but it doesn't die in my computer unless it is still in the RAM when the power goes off. How can we know that consciousness doesn't upload from and download to bodies when the RAM conditions are ripe for it?
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But it's an aesthetic reason to avoid chasing shadows. If someone really wants to chase shadows, science provides the means to investigate what the actual effects of a shadow can and can't be. In order to call something denial, you have to know that it is true. You are implying truth by claiming denial. That's putting the cart before the horse. Or maybe I should say you're claiming denial of a shadow where there's no proof of light to begin with. I know that materialism postulates that subjectivity is an emergent property of the physical body, but what basis do you have for claiming this as an objective fact that goes beyond the axioms of the paradigm? Really, I'm not denying the plausibility of your claim - just questioning the ultimate scientific veracity of it b/c I don't think there's any positive proof available to make any conclusions about the relationship between body materiality and subjectivity.
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I'm still surprised terror suspects were captured and held publicly instead of keeping it a secret the whole time, just as I'm still baffled that torture issues were brought to public attention through "leaked memos" etc. Part of me is glad democracy is strong enough to overcome secrecy, but another part sees the effects of media messages regarding the use of force as having an intimidating effect. I do think there's something to be said for the fact the force being applied is/was non-lethal and not permanently damaging to the suspects' bodies. Certainly you hear a lot about assassinations and maiming in global warfare. On the other hand, you can't really relativize the effects of torture and incarceration without charge or limit so there will always be some question whether the individual prisoners were personally deserving of what they went through or not. Without a constitutional trial, I suppose they will never be exonerated just as the people who feared "their kind" enough to support them being held without trial will never be held accountable - but then they can't be because there are too many holier-than-thous ready to torture and crucify anyone who takes responsibility when in reality public xenophobia is the ultimate cause.
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I understand the logic of Occam's Razor but ultimately it is an aesthetic of thought and not a physical law. Nothing about nature dictates that things will have any less complexity than they do in practice. DNA code, for example, doesn't consolidate itself by editing down to the shortest possible code sequence any more than computer programmers do. Yes, the goal of science should be to generate falsifiable theories and testable hypotheses, not insistent logics that attain veracity in practice by being convincing in their plausibility, etc. Denial of death is a funny accusation. After all, materialism has worked very hard to assert the primacy of material objects over subjectivity. So obviously that philosophy has an interest in insisting that the body and the entity are coterminous, that subjectivity/consciousness are nothing more than superstructures of the material body, etc. That can't be ruled out, but I also think it's not good argumentation to begin with an a priori assumption that the body is everything and then accuse any belief that regards consciousness as exceeding the material body as denial of its own death. The fact is that it's simply impossible to observe the death of consciousness because it is impossible to observe the life of consciousness except from one's own perspective as a conscious being. Body death IS observable, which provides positive certainty that is tempting to apply to subjectivity/consciousness as well. I don't really understand what you mean by actions of personality vs. meat. How can "the meat act" without that simultaneously being an action of the personality? The part that makes me skeptical of consciousness transcending the body is I just can't figure out a plausible physical form that could travel around outside of a body, e.g. patterns of static electricity. There would have to be some way for consciousness to leave the body and propagate itself externally until it could find a fetus of suitable developmental age to implant into.
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Interesting anthropological survey of religious mythological content. Still, Christ's resurrection seems like a hybrid case to me since Jesus is supposedly a flesh-and-blood son of a heavenly father. He also seems to keep referring to himself as "son of man," which seems to imply imo something about the relationship between man and God (the heavenly father). I guess the simplest analogy would be to say that Jesus is supposed to be like an Earthly compass that points to heaven, where Holy Spirit is magnetism maybe. Then, it's like when he dies he gets resurrected in the people whose lives he touched. So Mary is the first disciple to witness him resurrected (she thinks he's the gardener). You can interpret this as literal or as a spiritual experience that symbolizes that his teachings were reborn in her as she went from being disciple to teacher herself. Going back to the magnet analogy, it could be seen like a strong magnet that was used to magnetize a piece of mined (Earthly) iron so it could be used as a compass. The metaphor actually works within your logic of heavens and Earth since the magnetic field extends into space and iron is mined from the ground. But I wouldn't say Christ is purely an Earth god in the sense of representing fertility for its own sake. If anything, he's a mythological figure used to make a link between flesh and mortality and spirit and immortality, perhaps for the sake of converting Pagans to biblical monotheism.
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Wow, thanks. There seems to be a whole chemistry of nuclear chain reactions involving neutron absorption and (re)emission. After reading the article, I was surprised not to hear graphite mentioned since I have heard of that being used to control the reaction rate before. I had no idea neutrons worked like chemical catalysts in nuclear reactions. I thought they just added energy by colliding with particles at a high speed and thus lots of momentum with their relatively large mass for a sub-atomic particle.
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What about these stories you hear of people having near death experiences and looking at themselves from outside their body? Obviously that could be a type of dreaming that occurs in a state of trauma as the brain attempts to subconsciously distance itself from pain. However, what if indeed consciousness is something that seeks out bodies because of the special functionality that comes with having sensory input combined with motor-control over appendages for manipulating material objects? Granted, you would expect that if this was possible, there would be some empirical trace of consciousness when it transcends a body, but then how can we know exactly what to look for either? Certainly it's easier to dismiss the possibility as implausible, but what happens when you start speculating about possible channels, however implausible? E.g. you could ask how a temporarily dead person could see their bodies during an OBE if they didn't have eyes to look through, but what if consciousness can project visual images to go with sounds heard or other energy it can somehow receive? When you are dreaming, for example, your sub-conscious can create visual images to go along with sounds/voices you hear while asleep.
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Hydrocarbons Deep Within Earth: New Computational Study Reveals How
lemur replied to Moontanman's topic in Science News
This news has the potential to drive down market prices for fossil fuels if investors legitimately believe that there is practically unlimited reserves available. It would probably help if there were actual drilling methods developed and tested with some proven finds. Imagine what the roads, skies, and waterways will be like if there is a re-emergence of 1950s levels of faith in energy abundance. -
So they can add some energy to electrons but mostly they deliver their energy to atoms by collapsing into nuclei? Wouldn't that mean that atoms would have to absorb neutrons? But if they did, wouldn't they become heavy isotopes? I didn't think heavy isotopes could be created as easily as them catching a neutron. Is it that neutrons often "fly by" a nucleus without collapsing into it and thus exert force it while passing by? Or am I being too mechanical again for quantum logic?
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I think the reason Jesus "died for the sins of man" is that his destruction was the product of cooperation between two forms of worldly social authority that acts in the name of 'God:' church and state. To his church, he was blasphemous as a false prophet and to the state authorities he was blasphemous as a false king. So the fact that people would be so convinced of their judgment to destroy someone else claims of divine authority is itself the ultimate sin of man, i.e. to elevate worldly authority above direct divine revelation, which is what Jesus preached (revelation through Holy Spirit). So by forgiving the sins that destroyed him as an instrument of Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit itself becomes forgiving of its own destruction. That's why, I think, salvation is only supposed to require acknowledgement of Jesus; i.e. because Jesus embodies both the destruction of Holy Spirit and the forgiveness as such. So by acknowledging that Holy Spirit was destroyed, people are "resurrecting" it in the sense that they recognize what it is; which could be simplified to just "belief in Truth itself" or something like that. So, the resurrection of Jesus is supposed to mean the end of all sacrifices because people simply accept that sin is inevitable and they must acknowledge and accept forgiveness for it and try to redeem themselves by good deeds and living better, avoiding sinning as much as possible etc. I don't know if this explanation makes sense to others, but this is how it makes sense to me.
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To the extent that economics involves interdependencies between various resources and forms of labor, inputs are required for processes to be completed. As such, economic actors have power to facilitate or obstruct economic processes by contributing or withholding resources and/or labor they control. This is, of course, the basis for a free market - in that everyone is an owner of their own labor and/or resources, and may thus freely choose whether to engage in exchanges or not, and at what price. It is also the basis for economies of control and various levels of centralization and corporatization, in that power is used to withhold resources from those who fail to comply with mandates of controllers. The question is whether it is possible for economy to function and for everyone to have opportunities to prosper without some form(s) of coercion? Is it possible for people to be independent enough of each other that if some individual(s) choose to withhold their resources and/or labor, that others could continue to function and prosper without their input? Likewise, could it ever be possible for an individual to choose not to submit to the authority of a corporation, government, or other economic system and still be able to prosper economically? Will economic freedom ever be truly possible and, if not, how should economics be regulated in a way that makes economic coercion as fair and ethical as possible?
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I mentioned radioactive decay. Doesn't radioactive decay include fission reactions? So you're saying it was a hell of a pun, then? I don't understand these sub-sub-atomic particles like quarks because they don't appear to have any direct correlation with observable forces. Electrostatics are observable in charge, electricity, and other ways. What do quarks and (anti)neutrinos do? That raises another question. How can neutrons interact with other particles at all without charge-interaction? What pushes against what?
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I realize all this. Realize, too, that the source of my annoyance with statistics comes from social science where researchers DO have direct access to human individuals and yet still choose to elevate the mathematical accuracy gained statistically above the direct knowledge that can be gained regarding interactions at the level of empirical observabilities. Physics is different because there is no direct access to atoms and electrons to see what they're doing while they're doing it. Still, I don't think that statistical problem of social science is limited to social science. It is a fundamental problem of epistemological collectivism. If you can't think of physical reality as consisting of individual interactions, you're obfuscating the most fundamental level where events always have to occur insofar as the entities in question behave independently of others. E.g. if each electron or photon is ultimately independent of all other particles, then I don't think it should be fundamentally epistemologically modeled as a determinee of statistical probabilities. Its behavior may be more or less predictable by such statistics, but it is a step too far, imo, to imply or suggest that there is nothing beyond probability and randomness to its behavior. BTW, claiming that nature itself is playing dice implies that the basis for the probabilistic nature of these things lies in nature rather than in the approaches that have led to studying it in this way. This comes down to the question of whether there is such a thing as a natural theoretical/methodological approach and I don't think you can say there is until you claim to definitively know nature, which I don't think is possible. I think there is an inherent unbridgeable clove between what is and the ability to model it in knowledge. In this sense, nature is not so much uncertain because of probabilism as it is because of knowledge relying on concepts and representations that bring their own logical biases with them to the table. I don't think this ultimately matters, though, because I don't see the point of knowledge as being exhaustive. I just think its supposed to keep progressing by identifying shortcomings and constructing various solutions to those and then further criticizing. This may result in multiple divergent approaches/theories, etc., but at least you don't reach a point of saying that you have to accept the shortcomings of a particular model just because it's the one that works the best.
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I always think of Bush's speech about allowing OBGYNs to "practice their love for women," with regards to the topic of economic empowerment. I think what this speech was getting at was the problem that economics had become an obstacle to people actually practicing their trades. This has to do with everything from government "red tape" to liability concerns, insurance costs, public narrow-mindedness regarding how to undertake economic activities, etc. When I hear the assumption that people can't do things for themselves or that things like health and retirement have to be institutionalized in a way that ensures that class-distinctions will become sedimented into stone, I question what has happened to the idea of a free republic. I disagree. I think during the Bush regime, capitalism was brought to a critical point where government stimulus couldn't be used to centrally propel GDP growth anymore by funding mortgage-lending, etc. The bank bailout was a classic move to seal-in fiscal conservation and saving by putting the deficit in the hands of institutions who are the most concerned with avoiding losing the money through failed investments, banks. Now, the aftermath of that is that we've seen how difficult it is for the global economy to recover after how many years of growing dependency on government financing in one form or another? Obviously, fire, emergency services, police, and military are necessary to respond when people react to economic recession with violence and other destructive activities; but beyond that the question is what it would take to get the free market to the point where everyone could prosper without government intervention? Why is that so difficult to achieve? I don't think the problem is that people live too long. It is that people expect too high a standard of living when they retire. Retirement is viewed by many as a time of ultimate entitlement after spending their lives "working hard to earn the good life." The baby boomers are an enormous cohort. For all of them to live it up for many years without working would require everyone else to drop everything and devote all their energy to serving them and even then it would probably not be sufficient. Do you really want to have an economy where everyone has to serve others all the time? Is it possible that people take care of themselves most of the time and limit their consumption of services and resource-intensive goods and activities to occasional? I think people underestimate how big an issue this is. It has come to the point where men can no longer refuse to allow women to work and demand levels of pay comparable to theirs, yet they do not want to give up pay and perform unpaid housework with some or all of their time. Then there's the problem that women don't want to date/marry men that don't work full time or more and make high income. So men basically become ineligible for relationships if/when they take on household responsibilities and other unpaid work. Are you suggesting that it is somehow illegal for non-US military to set up training facilities in US-governed regions? The problem is this mentality that national borders have to be created and policed. The only reason they are necessary is to protect people from exploitation and abuse by others on the basis of ethnic-hostilities, and those even occur among people with the same nationality. If British loyalists had been willing to respect freedom and democracy within the republic, why should they have been treated as enemies? The problems of a republic almost always, imo, come from the will to exploit others in favor of some private regime, whether that is a "foreign sovereign" or a "domestic" one. After all, if someone is acting in a way that detracts from others' freedom, that is a violation of their rights and freedoms, right? And if people are respecting and not detracting from anyone else's freedom and rights, what does it matter what their nationality is?
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The only thing I really know about neutrons is that they add to the atomic weight of an element without adding to its charge. I suppose I also know that a star can develop into a neutron star, which would be very dense. Now I am wondering about the following questions: 1) are there any natural sources of free neutrons besides radioactive decay? 2) why/how to they decay into a proton and an electron after a short time? Are they actually just a weakly (nuclearly) bonded configuration of these two particles? 3) why don't they exhibit ideal gas law behavior? I would expect them to behave like a non-combustible form of hydrogen if they were permanently charge-stabilized, but apparently they don't. Is this because they lack the atomic volume that comes with being an atom with electrons orbiting due to electrostatic force? 4) Should anti-neutrons, if they are found to exist, be called "old-trons"?
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The only real value I saw in the neutrons was that I assumed they would be non-combustible, unlike hydrogen. I didn't know they decayed. I might have to start a new thread to discuss that. I suppose I'll throw in the discussion about why they don't follow ideal gas laws too. Interesting, thanks for raising these new questions for me.
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This may sound naive, but could it be possible to contain and use free neutrons as a lighter than air gas? Of course, I don't know where you can get them except for as a by-product of radioactive decay.
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repressing feelings of aggression and violence
lemur replied to lemur's topic in Psychiatry and Psychology
Yes, it's hard for people mired in cultures of emotional repression to realize just how cathartic it can be to just vent your anger without hurting anyone physically and be done with it. Egos aren't as fragile as they've been protected into becoming by anti-conflict policing. It's not that bad when someone tells you exactly what they think of you and then you know. It's as if people are trying to keep an impeccable public image that is never spotted with one critical word by anyone. BS, imo. Hmm, sounds like shunning/isolation/exclusion punishment. Is the expectation still that they will never raise their voices or openly express anger? If so, the repressive culture will probably continue. The trick is to distinguish between positive and negative expressions of anger. When positively expressed, people may yell and be visibly angry, but they will stick to saying why it is they're angry. When negatively expressed, they yell but they also resort to hurtful comments, name-calling, etc. in an effort to hurt the other person in regards to things that have little or nothing to do with the thing they're angry about. I think this happens because they've been repressing all sorts of things that angered them and once the last drop causes the bucket to overflow, so to speak, they get too personal. This also has to do, I think, with a will to dominate; which is why people wait to have sufficient dirt against someone before letting loose. They figure that they don't want to say anything until they know they can really do their enemy in. They can't just be angry at someone and then go back to working with them without a grudge. Yes, and the fact that scientists are typically more oriented toward constructive problem-solving. This one is better than even other science forums, which can often be ripe with bickering and insults. I don't usually see people take and make things personal in this one. -
repressing feelings of aggression and violence
lemur replied to lemur's topic in Psychiatry and Psychology
Good examples and explanation. I think part of the problem is a culturally learned behavior of reacting to any expression of anger or aggression as pathological. Basically, the most positively culturally sanctioned method of dealing with anger is to walk away or accept whatever it is you're angry about as if it doesn't bother you. Thus, you see people taking a passive-aggressive attitude where they express indifference toward the person or event they're angry about but then express their anger in some other way that may be indirectly related to the object of their anger. I think this magnifies the anger/aggression because people feel unable to gain satisfaction regarding the thing they're upset about it, so regardless of how nasty their passive-aggressive expressions may be, they retain a sense of unsatisfied "grudge." In my experience, grudges go away after fully expressing/communicating one's anger toward the object. I think I'd also rather have someone tell me off and be done with it instead of going around with a grudge, but of course no one wants anger/aggression expressed toward them as violence. Some people just like repressing others to torture them, though, as part of pursuing their grudge, which involves dominating the object of the grudge. -
repressing feelings of aggression and violence
lemur replied to lemur's topic in Psychiatry and Psychology
I think there's a taboo that renders anger more offensive than it should be. I think it has to do with a political-mentality that if you haven't already won the game, you might as well give up. Anger is lovely, imo, because it is the emotion that stands up for itself when challenged. -
I think the ideology of karma is designed to give people the sense that suffering is indeed fair because it has been earned by deeds in past lives, and the repayments of its debts will be rewarded by transcendence of suffering in the future.
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Good memory. That thread was from @2008 on the posts I checked. I wonder if size somehow makes a difference. It has always baffled me that zeppelins like the Hindenburg appear to have had heavy steel frames and a heavy payload. I suppose that's my subjective impression though, so I should go google it. Thanks for posting the link to the old thread.