lemur

First of all, in what sense does a geodesic "appear" to be a straight line except in the sense that some object, particle, or light is traveling as an expression of its own momentum without changing course due to force-additions? My understanding of geodesics is that objects/particles can be doing figure-8s but for them it is a straight line because they're not undergoing a change of direction relative to their natural momentum. Is this because no energy/matter can interact with the BH in a way that produces reaction-force in the black hole? So you're basically saying that nothing can push or pull the BH so how can it move? What about its velocity relative to other things prior to becoming a BH? I view gravity fields as whole entities, so I would think that all the curvature surrounding the BH is part of the black hole, so when it moves all curvature surrounding it moves with it. Likewise, I have the sense that although changes in a gravitational field may move at C, the field itself is a static thing with volume. So I don't think gravity has to 'get' from the singularity to the outskirts of the field, because I just think of the field as existing together with the singularity as part of the same spacetime-unit. That may be flawed but it is what makes sense to me at this moment. Idk, I think maybe force fields do move relative to themselves when they expand and contract to generate waves. I think they can maybe stretch and compress each other. Maybe I play with magnets too much, but it seems like when you push the repellant poles of two magnets together their fields compress like beach-balls pressing against each other. This analogy works better for magnetic repulsion, because pressure is more tangible when it's positive. Magnetic attraction also seems analogous to pressure but in the sense of being a vacuum, i.e. like moving two vacuum cleaner hoses toward each other while they're sucking?

I guess I have a lot of lay assumptions about things, but it always seemed to me like crystalization occurs due to the shape of the atoms/molecules. I figured that when they are moving fast relative to their weight, they can't settle enough to nestle together in a certain alignment. What kind of "bonds" are you saying strengthen or weaken and why? I don't know if you need more data to see that electrons don't move freely in any kind of current. If they did, wouldn't there have to be large sources of electrons to input into conductors and wouldn't they be piling up at the receiving end? I read recently in a book by Planck that electricity would be understood in terms of gas dynamics, and that made sense to me insofar as the electrons in a conductor seem to act as gas particles transmitting wave energy. Maybe I misinterpreted what Planck meant with that, though.

Does "electron drift speed" refer to the speed of the current moving through the wire or something else?

That is a redundant sentence. "High temperature thermal resistance" means the same thing as "low thermal conductivity at high temperature." Why does attraction force between solid atoms prevent vibration? Because they vibrate in unison instead of separately? What about different kinds of atoms that vibrate separately but have different thermal conductivity? I always assumed that better electrical conductors conduct heat better because of the same "looseness" between the electrons and the nuclei. In electricity, I assumed this "looseness" translated into fluidity of the electrons; whereas in heat-conduction I assumed the fluidity of the nuclei was facilitated by their "loose" nesting within the electrons.

My couch is mine so you sitting and watching TV on it is theft or hijacking or something like that. Your freedom is restricted to public property and limiting my actions that impinge on your freedom despite you exercising it on my property. E.g. I don't think it is legitimate for me to censor your freedom of speech or right to be notified of charges against you just because you're on my property. If I feel that your exercise of freedom is in conflict with mine, I think I have to respect due process and your rights in pursuing justice. Corporations have charters that explicate their prerogative as individuals, and these charters are supposedly limited by law. There is theoretically nothing a corporation can do to another individual that an individual can't. Should a state or other public government be allowed to govern as if it were a (corporate) private property? I don't think so. I think any public manager should regulate public property from the perspective of a universally free individual seeking access to publicly-accessible venues.

What, you don't appreciatize my vocabulation? "Synergy" refers to interaction effects and "interdynamism," well, I guess you just have to break that one down into "inter" and "dynamism." Forgive me for constructing words from roots. It's common in some languages to build words from the ground-up, my personal language for example.

Please explain coulomb/second. You are not differentiating between atomic electrons and waves that travel as current through the conductor? Do you distinguish between water molecules and ocean waves? Between air molecules and sound waves? Are these flawed analogies? If so, why?

Let's face it, it is psychologically impossible to erase the dream of explaining the atom and consciousness in the same brush stroke, despite the radical clove between the two in terms of substance. This is just will-to-power expressing itself in the convergence of human interests. Add the cosmology of the big bang to the duo and you get the ultimate ego-fantasy: i.e. the genius who merges the smallest possible frame with the biggest possible frame with the ability to be conscious. Ego = Mind X Consiousness^2: how's that?

Meaning the ionization of a particle is transmitted as a wave through subsequent particles? Did someone else mention nerves or did you just decide to frame the issue in terms of them?

Because collective restrictions on access to individual property is an impingement on individual freedom. If you are going to abridge my freedom to infrastructure, you have to have a good reason, right? A majority or multiplicity cannot restrict the rights/freedom of an individual simply because of a preponderance of interest, can it?

Why do you think current can be measured in electrons/second? Isn't electricity a wave that travels through electrons in a conductor as its medium? I think what you should be asking is what is the minimum amount of energy that would need to be added to a conductor to create such a wave. Is it a plank-constant that can cause a ripple through a gold wire or is more energy needed (I assume more is needed but I don't know how much or why). I think each material should have a minimum energy-wave that is related to its atomic structure, but that is just a guess.

So what factors prevent such variation from synergizing into full-blown interdynamism?

Then I would guess that any substance has a temperature where its conductivity is fully expressed and that its maximum conductivity occurs at that temp. Then, I would guess conductivity diminishes as temperature increases due to relative equilibrium between hot and cold poles. Are there materials whose heat conductivity does not chart as a bell-curve or some other curve? What are the factors that influence heat conductivity?

His assumption is based on the belief that animal protein is necessary to build muscle. Vegetarians are often asked what they do for protein and told that they can only get it from foods like beans, nuts, dairy, eggs, etc. (and dairy and eggs are animal protein). Do the amino acids in grass provide sufficient protein for large herbivores to develop extensive muscle? Is there something different about their digestive systems than that of humans? I have heard that cows, for example, can digest large organic cells that humans cannot because cows have multi-stage digestion. I suppose this is why Moses permits eating any animal that "chews the cud" in Leviticus or whichever book of the bible the dietary rules are described.

I think computerization would result in a lot more efficiency if people were actually interested in increasing rationality and efficiency. The problem, imo, is that people have lots of other interests that outweigh rationality and efficiency, and they use computing power to its maximum to achieve those interests. So if a bureaucracy is interested in fairness or better information, etc., it will use computing power to enhance the parts of its forms that it believes facilitates these values. The problem with bureaucrats, though, is that they rarely recognize that bureaucracy is an abstraction of reality that merely intervenes in reality in semi-effective ways. I would like to say that the problem could be cured by just re-focussing on concrete reality, but it seems like most people have developed an approach to reality that relies on manipulating bureaucratic rules and regulations. So the only real cure might be to subject people to incessant re-education brainwashing using films like the Matrix and old speeches by Timothy Leary.

I have also noticed some seeming validity in astrological explanations of personality traits and interactive dynamics between people. I'm not sure if this is because of the kind of complex chains of spurious correlations like that between birth month, hay fever, and athletics or if it's because human personality perception is subjective enough that any coherent description can appear to be true for most people. Another possibility is that astrology has the effect of influencing some people's perceptions of other people and that these perceptions and the corresponding behavior toward those people influences their personal/social development and personality expressions. In other words, if someone is always telling you that you're a certain astrological sign and telling you what kind of personality you have, you may be likely to become aware of these parts of your personality more than others, which could cause them to become dominant. Of course, this wouldn't explain people who've never been exposed to any astrological counseling, but then once you start fishing around for examples that confirm their expected characteristics, you're bound to find something and then if you extrapolate those to be determinant for other aspects of their lives, you have created a tautology. . . . or maybe the relations of the heavens just influence our nervous systems and development in a way that astrologers have tapped into for millennia.

Just a naive guess, but wouldn't any conductor conduct heat more efficiently at lower temperatures because the heat differential (I think I've heard people call this "delta T") is greater between the hot part and the cold part. A chimney drafts strongest in the coldest weather for the same reason, I think. Am I oversimplifying this or is it really as common sensical as it seems?

Don't be ridiculous. There are people with US citizenship poor enough to squat your back yard right now. They don't do it because they know they would get arrested. Don't be so naive as to think of the borders as floodgates or dykes waiting to overflow. The issue here is that people lack access to resources in the global economy and somehow a great number of people with citizenship in regions such as the US and other developed/prosperous economies are able to get access to not only basic necessities but also everyday luxuries. The issue is if it's so costly to ship food-surplusses to places where people are hungry, why not allow the hungry people to come to where loads of food is getting thrown away by people getting paid to do it?

Wikipedia lists this as the world's deepest mine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TauTona_Mine Now I'm going to go dig up the link Leader Bee posted.

If a large star in a galaxy collapsed into a black hole, why would it suddenly stop moving relative to its gravitational surroundings? I think your "fat man pulling the table cloth" analogy just makes a case for framing all motion relative to a black hole instead of vice versa, but I think that you have the freedom to frame any motion in any frame you want, regardless of whether a black hole is involved or not.

Didn't you learn how to do Mendel squares in school? Dominant traits are dominant because they get expressed even when hybridized with a different gene. Recessive traits are called recessive because they do not get expressed unless both parents have them. Are you asking what causes some genes to be dominant and some to be recessive? E.g. if blue eyes is recessive and brown eyes dominant, why? It is probably because brown results from the mixing of the blue with some other pigment (I'm guessing). It probably depends on the specific trait in question what causes one expression to be dominant and another to be recessive.

This doesn't have to do with (only) economics. It has to do with the logic of social-conformity vs. independent culture. When individuals shirk their independence to submit to "collective authority," they create a standard and expectations by which they judge and react to others. Imo, individuals don't just have the right but also the responsibility to abstain from collectivism insofar as it impinges on individual freedom. Of course there's no way to stop them from engaging in cultural collectivism, since they do it out of individual choice/volition (usually). What bothers me, though, is the idea that collectivists would actually go so far as to police the borders of a region, which makes it that much easier to assimilate individualists who live there. Rather, I should say, it makes it easier for them to filter migration in a way that promotes assimilation among migrants instead of promoting individualism. If it were possible to control migration/borders to filter out conformists, I might be for that, but the problem is that anytime you create criteria that people have to meet to enter a privileged situation, they tend to assent/conform to the criteria, which makes it nearly impossible for independent-minded individualists to pass through institutional gatekeeping in any form.

The problem when people put on shows like this is that it creates fear for "waves" of "mass immigration" that are imagined to exceed "the nation's resources." Of course it all seems logical when you assume that there is such a thing a national economies that are isolated from the rest of the globe, but in reality there is and has been a global economy since globalism began with colonialism, before the US constitution was written and even before Columbus or whoever discovered the Americas at all. Just recently, in fact, someone was telling me about "the Silk road" which is either the name of a book or a trade route (or both) that stretched throughout Europe and Asia. People walked back and forth across Eurasia doing business as they went. I've heard people argue that the global population was so much less then, but the counter-argument to that is that technological modernization has brought much greater efficiency. The point is that there is a global economy and no national region is independent of it, least of all the most prosperous and high-consumption economies. So, the question is why do these kinds of pundits (and nationalists generally) like to frame migration as a threat to national regionalism instead of the reverse? Probably for the same reason they frame the global poor as being too sick and pathetic "to be helped" by the US and/or other developed economies; i.e. because it makes citizens of the developed world feel strong instead of weak, as their high-dependency economies have made them. If so many people are surviving on $2/day, doesn't it make you wonder what they know that westerners don't, considering that most westerners would be lost trying to survive on $2/day? The fact is that once upon a time people migrated to the Americas in search of land/resources to live on independent yeoman farms/homesteads because they believed they could be independent from kings, landlords, and anyone else. The pilgrims suffered terribly after arriving on the Mayflower, but they eventually became self-sufficient. The question is why this American dream has been replaced in the media by a different dream that is about money and what you can buy with it. I suspect the reason is to bolster a consumerist economy instead of stimulating people to pursue greater independence, which would lower GDP since the more people do for themselves, the less money they have to spend to get it elsewhere. The question of opening borders isn't so much about inviting "immigration," it's about having a global economy where it's possible for people to be independently prosperous enough that there is no reason to flee one region for another. The ironic thing is that everywhere I hear of people living as simple farmers, there seems to be oil interests where the poor farmers are getting hunted off the land. Imagine if the story of the pilgrims had been that they were hunted off the land by colonialists who wanted to use their land for commercial oil drilling. Actually, this is basically the story of the cotton industry, which prompted the removal of American indians to reservations. The US has drifted so far from its ideological roots and still people have the gaul to talk about protecting it from 'intruders.' The 'intruders' are well-established; the question is how to convert them back to the dream they sacrificed in the process of creating a social-economic monster.

Oh, I see. You're already warming up to your big general philosophical argument that everything happens deterministically. I was literally just asking about how the machine catches the coin so that it doesn't bounce. And just in case you really want to get into the determinism discussion, how do you deal with multiple factors that influence each other while influencing the outcome. E.g. if the coin's flipping speed affects the density of air pocket it creates as it flips, how do you predict the synergism between the two variables except by statistically keeping track of large numbers of flips using the same machine/process; and even then, wouldn't there ALWAYS be variation in the results? You can't build a machine that always flips heads, can you?

I would like to answer Mr. Skeptic's quote with Swantsont's. Collective ownership is in conflict with individual/private ownership. All collectivism really is is one or more individuals institutionalizing themselves as a group/team that is supposedly greater than the sum of the parts. In practice, there is no sum of the parts; just individuals invoking the idea of collective interest/will/etc. to dominate individuals whose interest/will/etc. conflicts with those of "the group." I put "the group" in parentheses because from an individualist framework, no "group" actually exists except as individuals building on the previous work of other individuals. So, ultimately, collectivism is really just something one individual does to another and legitimates by reference to other individuals beyond her/him self. This may sound complicated, but what it comes down to is that no individual should be dominated by another (hence the reference to Swanson's post. There is a formal institutional means for asserting collective individuality and it is called incorporation. If multiple individuals wish to have collective property, they can incorporate and own private corporate property and regulate it according to their corporate charter and observe the public regulations on corporate governance. I suppose, the public government could be considered a corporation of the constituents of the government, but I don't see why public governance should concern itself with limiting migration to or from a particular region. The only reason I can think to restrict migratory freedom would be if someone was planning to work or otherwise act in some collective interest, though I don't know why this shouldn't be policed for citizens as well as non-citizens. As long as people are acting according to self-interest and respect the rules of a reasonable free market, why shouldn't they be allowed to travel and work freely? Do "republic" and "free market" really translate that easily into "citizens-only social economy?"