geordief

Or going through the rubbish looking for evidence pointing to the identity of the culprit.That can be satisfying. This happened to a close friend who was very annoyed and wrote them a letter to put her case but she ended up paying the fine (over a hundred euros) It wasn't fly tipping or casual littering but putting the wrong kind of rubbish in the wrong place.

Is that a software/hardware distinction or do those definitions bleed into each other?

You mean Russia has enough of these drones to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses and prolong the blackouts through the whole winter? Do you think the Patriots would have a role in combating the drones that are causing the damage at the moment?

I not sure how effective the Patriot anti-missile system would be against Russia's current campaign against the civilian infrastructure. I get the feeling it may be more intended to counter what may be in the pipeline regarding larger more accurate missiles that Iran may provide in the near future. I think the cost of the Patriots against the current drones may be extremely lopsided and I hope that Ukraine may weather the present storm without needing to use Patriot systems.

Imagine (not to hard I know) that in the near medium or farther out future that our civilisation managed to bring itself to the point where further "civilized" life was no longer possible on this planet Also the option of continuing on planets in tha Solar system was judged unrealistic. Under those circumstances might our descendants who could themselves at this existential dead end find a way to broadcast their dna across the galaxy with the aim of colonizing another planetary system even if all the members of their current civilisation were doomed to perish? What methods might be employed to "seed" another planetary system? Might a virus or viruses be modified that could carry the dna of the expiring civilisation? Could some record of that civilisation also be embodied into the code? I understand that a lot of the human (and other?)dna is surplus to requirements.Could that be used as "storage space"?

Glad you enjoyed it.

Some kind of a gremlin in the works

Two for the price of one

I have often wondered exactly the same thing Has anyone else wondered the same thing? Is it just "suck it and see" or is there anything that can be said either way?)or is there even a middle way?) If the answer is that the entity that was built by "filling in the gaps" in the existing conscious entity was exactly the same ,then that would presumably shape our understanding of what it is to be conscious on the first place. Would consciousness show its face to be banal rather than the be all and end all it feels like to me? Would it preclude "degrees of consciousness "?

Thanks to @TheVat there is this site that addresses the importance of seagrasses https://www.seagrasswatch.org/seagrassimportance/ (This came up in an earlier thread )

SSS Warning :Sarcasm Sargasso Sea

We sometimes hear it said that such and such a person ,or a team has "created life" OK ,let us imagine that this is actually achieved (however we might define life)....If this was to occur, it would be ,initially something very basic compared to what we would understand as a living entity. Suppose we were to ask "Can you create something comparable to life forms that actually exist?" would there be any paths to achieving this? Any paths that did not involve millions of years of evolution and natural selection? Could the idea even be entertained if there were not a physical environment for the new creation to develop in? I would not accept as an answer a carbon copy (or an edited copy) of an existing life form.The new creation would have to be an entirely new entity that should be either immediately (seems incredible) ,or after a period of evolution develop into something that would bear comparison (or outshine)an existing living creature (not necessarily a higher order one but why not seeing how hard it might be to bear comparison to a lower order one?) In the Bible ,God was supposed to have created humans in very short order-the 7th day wasn't it What chances are ther for any natural process or intelligent designer (to coin a phrase) to achieve anything along those lines? I suggest ** that we are equally as unlikely as any imagined God to pull off this feat and that the essential ingredient in developing life forms is lots and lots of time.(as the physical world develops, then so can life,if circumstances permit) **I doubt this is controversial

That's right .I keep forgetting that. Was history rewritten by the sore loosers? I find it dismal if we cannot keep ahead of the censors(I suppose if they back up their lies with brutal suppression it is understandable) I liked that Good Soldier Svejk book. We had a Czech woman to help us once in the BnB and she was chuffed that I had read it.

Is that the title? Doesn't come up in a search. Who is the author? (The title reminds me of a film I saw in the 80s."My Life as a Dog" but there is no connection.) I also picked up an old(17th century) French book,"Fables" by La Fontaine. Hard work .It is his translation of Aesop's tales.He was a gas character and a slave who become a free man(a bit like Jeeves with Bertie Wooster)

Is AI in this context not always going to be playing catch up? Who would have imagined a blank page would be a symbol for (whatever it is understood to mean)? Will AI be writing affecting poetry next and putting our creative thinkers and communicators out of business? Or will it be doing a valiant effort at copycating what is already out of date?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04201-6 "Did physicists create a wormhole in a quantum computer?" I was wondering what anyone here makes of this latest news as published today in Nature? Did they just simulate the transfer of information or did it really happen (both?) How might this affect the search for a theory of quantum gravity?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63813122 This article has a good few examples for how the Chinese people are getting around the censor in the aftermath of the recent death of their former President. I wonder who will come out on top? The censors or the censorees? It has been ,I think accepted wisdom that the censor fights a losing battle ,rather like poor King Canute but the Chinese CP seems to be game for the fight Can it win ?

Would that interference be between their probability waves? It wouldn't affect their respective frequencies?(I assume they would have to be identical?)

Is there any interference? I understand different photons can have different frequencies.

Ah yes,I forgot about M's wall Perhaps I will ask that question of mine again elsewhere. So reflecting off the side of an optical fibre would not be an interaction that would cause a loss of entanglement?

Is it possible to be on both sides of the wall? Is there a medium that holds all the interactions? The field? Is that a school of thought?(or even mainstream theory?)

No ,I didn't mean for them to get captured by a BH or BHs but to get slingshotted by it or them into each others' path. Totally incredible,I know 😉

Does it follow that Saddam was not a bully? He met his end with more dignity than his executioners Or can you be a bully and still be physically brave? Was he just deluded into thinking those who did not share his allegiances did not deserve respect?

I don't think I that was what I had in mind regarding the BHs I just meant that one or both of the particles could encounter a BH along their trajectory and undergo gravitational slingshots that would take them on collision course with their entangled partner. I guess that circumstance might be impossible to prodjects uce except by chance and more or less impossible in the lifetime of our universe. So maybe not even a thought experiment. In any event any entanglement that had lasted to that point would be broken(by those last remaining objects in the universe )

Could they just meet again under the influence of gravity? Their trajectory could be altered if either or both of them went close enough to a small black hole I imagine entanglement would be lost when they met again