Phi for All

Sure. Archeologists have been tracking fossil records on many species. There's nothing to suggest brains are getting bigger. There's nothing that correlates brain size and intelligence. Some rodents have bigger brains than monkeys, but the monkeys are smarter. Cows have bigger brains than any monkey. Between humans, brain size doesn't correlate to intelligence. Albert Einstein had an average sized brain. Whales and elephants have much bigger brains than humans, even when you consider scale. Again, it's not just the brains that determine what humans think of as intelligence. A whale has very few components for increasing their intelligence with a broad array of experiences, the way humans can manipulate with their hands and tools and the ability to travel across most mediums. A whale has no way to exploit more intelligence. Humans pioneer our own intelligence, using our unique combination of abilities, giving us shared cooperative experiences that we communicate through elaborate processes. We are so much more than a species that got a little smarter.

! Moderator Note We can talk about general trends in the industry, but we don't allow advertising for specific commercial products here. You've copy/pasted most of your OP from another site, but please don't use our discussion forum for commercial purposes.

The emotions weren't used to analyze what little you could tell us. For that, we used passionless physical laws which have a long history of being right. I apologize if our analogies weren't appreciated. Sometimes, when people aren't learning one way, it's good to mix it up and try something different. What else were we supposed to use to make a "true observation" except what you presented?

"Up", in this case, being symbolic for spreading successful traits to future generations, yes? Because the direction of the tree has no correlation to intelligence or the selection for its many components. "Brain" in general? Vertebrate brain? Primate brain? Human brain? And why compare a relationship between two species to the evolution of the brain? I'm not sure what your point is here. Your species gets whatever superiority it has based on being smarter, so of course you think a little more intelligence would benefit every species. You have a cognitive bias towards cognition. Why do I get the feeling you're speaking in "the Darwinian sense" when you mention "fittest"? And how does the above support your "intelligence is inevitable" argument? In today's society, an intelligent woman doesn't necessarily need a man to stick around once they've passed their genes along to the next generation .

What about something that existed but hadn't been discovered yet? Three jars, one with nitroglycerin, one set up as a mercury switch, and a Leyden jar for the electric charge. The mercury switch wasn't known during the Civil War, but I don't think any of the materials were unavailable at the time. Rig it like a dead man's switch so the mercury completes the circuit if the soldier turns his hand or stops standing upright.

"Mr. Springsteen, I have an idea for a song about going through life with the lights off. I can't tell you any more, but if you'll just write the song and the lyrics and give me 100% ownership, I'll give you 1% of the royalties and the right to play it whenever you want. Make it really catchy, OK?"

So simple that you can't believe somebody who studies this professionally didn't figure it out? If there was a simple way to violate physical laws, wouldn't we see SOME examples? Be realistic, it's MOST PROBABLE that your hypothesis is flawed. Most ideas are wrong, and you can't avoid that. Especially from folks who don't have a deep background in the sciences (which I assume about you because you're here trying to overthrow Newton instead of working with him). I would suggest you scan our Speculations section for similar titles. It's possible somebody else made the same discovery you did, and then came here to do what you're doing. Hopefully something will resonate with you, because this current approach isn't going to help in a meaningful way.

I disagree. Lots of top-tier predators outsmart their prey without getting any smarter about it. Our intelligence emerged primarily because of the combined effects of cooking our food, tool use, agriculture/animal husbandry, great communication/cooperation, and having the time to specialize in pursuits OTHER than hunting and gathering.

Why? You realize the flower is evolving too, along with the bird and it's beak, right? If the flower gains the benefits from specializing for the bird with the longer beak, it becomes more successful too. The environment is ever changing because of the process, and all life within it is finding their own "optimums", and being smarter is not only NOT inevitable, it's not even necessary for most species.

You'd be wrong. Evolution doesn't have a goal at all. It's just increases in allele frequency within a population over time. What benefits could a bird have with a slightly bigger brain if it could no longer fly? I think you're placing far too much importance on intelligence, probably because you're so smart you can't imagine it wouldn't help any other species. Birds are extremely specialized. I don't think you appreciate the sacrifices they've made in evolutionary terms so they can fill their niches. Barely any bone density, only enough muscles for flight, they even use physics and gravity instead of muscles to swallow food and water, all to make them lighter for flight. And they rule the skies! Bigger brains and higher intelligence are great for humans mostly because of all the other things I've already mentioned. But our big brains don't help us much against a shark if you toss us into the deep ocean. And it wouldn't help the shark out to be a little smarter either, no matter how non-intuitive it seems. Higher intelligence comes at a cost (remember?), and sharks have been much more successful in their environment for a much longer time than humans. Giving up anything they have now in exchange for bigger brains could hamper them as much as it would birds. Why look at anything about evolution in "a Darwinian sense"? The process is fact, and the theory has advanced a great deal in all that time. It's like talking about modern orbital mechanics "in a Copernican sense". Intelligence, and higher levels of it, don't translate across the board to benefits for other species. They need to be able to act on this higher thought. It even plagues humans some times, when our smarts get ahead of our other capabilities. Lots of wonderful ideas were conceived but not possible until solid-state technology made them viable. Even further back, the steam engine was invented long before we had the practical mechanics to derive work from it. It started probably with being able to cook meat using fire. We had better protein that lasted longer, our guts reduced since they didn't have to process raw meat, we started walking upright which freed our opposable-thumbed hands for tool use and exploration, and the whole time these were developing simultaneously, we were improving our communications skills, which bolstered our cooperation skills, and put us on the road to top-tier predator status. Things changed for us most drastically when we realized we didn't have to gather food as we roamed if we stayed and planted seeds. Agriculture and animal husbandry gave more humans the luxury to do things other than hunt, and increased our nutrition (and our intelligence) enormously. So it really doesn't work the way you think. How do those other species acquire their bigger brains? Without all the elements to drive selection of the traits involved in higher intelligence, it's not going to happen, especially if the species in question is already pretty successful in their environment.

Why would you work on that instead of studying mainstream evolution? You could have saved that "long" time and made better use of it. No offense, but bigger brains isn't a goal of the process. More brains is NOT necessarily a net survival benefit for many species. Birds, for instance, don't need them, and if they had a bigger brain they might not be able to fly. How would that effect their survival favorably? Would they be smart enough now to figure out how to survive while grounded? Intelligence is far from inevitable. You might be able to argue that humans are on a course for even higher intelligence, but brains are limited wrt how much they'll be able to help. At a certain point, too big a head doesn't survive birth. Intelligence helps humans in large part because of many other factors evolution has favored in us. Our intelligence is enhanced by having thumbs that oppose our fingers, allowing us to make and use tools, which gave us agriculture, which gave us time to make more tools, and learn to communicate and cooperate. It's a cascade effect, something you aren't going to get just by giving another species a bigger brain.

I only commented that your arguments were fallacious and ironic. That's all. Your strawman responses are evidence in support of my comment.

It's ironic that you would use anything about Bush II to show how someone is a complete buffoon because of mistakes they made. I think your arguments against Tyson are fallacious.

! Moderator Note I would encourage you to continue to narrow the parameters of discussion in a new thread, since this is a big topic regarding a broad spectrum of behaviors. I'm going to close this thread and give you a chance to direct some interest to specific questions you may have. Thanks for your interest in science discussions!

It technically dehydrates only if the salt to water ratio is too high, is what I read. If you have a high salt intake, you'll retain more water to compensate. If you don't drink enough, the body will siphon it off from the cells to maintain chemical equilibrium. I think it's more about the balance than the leeching effect of salt. Again, since the equilibrium is critical, if your body needs the salt but doesn't have enough water to satisfy homeostasis, you'll get several prompts regarding thirst. It seems to me that the study from your link shows that the cycle is more of a weekly or monthly event in regulating sodium concentration rather than hourly or daily, suggesting it's to give us time to find water so the cells don't get robbed. Does that make sense? So yes, salt can aid hydration by making us aware of a thirst.

From your article: This is what I was referencing. Homeostasis requires some careful balancing of salt to water for interaction with many chemical compositions. It will take water from the cells and then send a thirsty signal to the brain. When you pee out the water, your body is getting rid of the excess salt that caused the imbalance that leeched more water to flush it out with (). Your mouth goes dry, you start licking your lips, and you really want to get a drink ASAP. Technically, osmosis is the mechanism that sucks water from the cells, not the result. I think this is the study your article references: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-body-regulates-salt-levels

Right after I wrote "not true", I wrote, "What about the embryonic regenerative cycle?" I would start with that. Human regeneration is easy if you're an embryo. Exactly. Aging is more of a wearing down of function within an organism as a whole. That's what causes cellular repair and replacement to deteriorate over time, isn't it? The cells don't get old, but as we age the processes used to repair/replace them decrease in efficiency.

The body MUST maintain a tight ratio of salt to water, so if you increase salt intake, your kidneys retain more water to compensate. It's possible the article you read counted this retention as helping with hydration. I don't know about salt making you pee more. Can you link to the article you read? Popular science writers are notorious for trying to punch up dry subjects with excessive "moisture".

Not true. What about the embryonic regenerative cycle? Isn't that why scientists have hope for regeneration, because we already have elements in place? Wow, those are some major assumptions. Why would regeneration affect memory and consciousness? This is no longer interesting to me. Too many wild-ass guesses with no basis. I think regeneration holds some very promising benefits for humans, but I think it will be more like growing new teeth rather than replicating identical copies of people.

Iirc, apoptosis is less of an "update" in terms of cell age, and more of a cleaning out of unnecessary bits (a refresh as opposed to a reset?). It's not a rejuvenation. It's more like the cell is a file folder, and periodically needs evaluation to remove the pages and pictures and sticky notes that don't need to be kept in that folder anymore, for whatever reason (very limited analogy, don't take it too far). Can you cite a good source claiming it's more like a reset button? Or did I misread what you're saying?

The OP has used their first day limit of 5 posts, so I'll be back tomorrow to hear more.

That's not what I got from that. "Restoring to full functionality" doesn't mean "reversed the aging process". I didn't read anything about changing the age of any cells to match with any other cells. It sounds more like the salamanders can regenerate the bond with a severed limb, but sometimes a blastema also forms, growing an extra limb (eye, brain parts, etc) from the cells. It's clear that transplants between individual salamanders works, but it doesn't sound like there is any deterioration due to age being reversed in the regeneration process.

I disagree. Can you show where there has been ZERO progress on racist behavior through education and protest? I think you're using a definition of "effective" that will always be hard to attain. I think progress is slow, slower than I'd like, but NOT non-existent. We already do in many countries when racism becomes active discrimination. Laws prohibit using ethnicity to unfairly make distinctions in business and government. I'd be very careful about allowing laws that enforce "respect". The law needs to be very clear, and current laws focus on acts of discrimination rather than attitude. I suppose it's similar to what some propose for drug laws. We already have laws against reckless driving, assault, and other crimes those on drugs often commit. Why do we also need laws against possessing the drugs themselves? What about people who take drugs but don't commit other crimes? Similarly, why aim laws at racists who don't actively discriminate? Are you saying that "feeling" racist is the same as "acting" racist? Who gets to decide how people feel about other ethnicities, and how do they do it, what criteria do they use? It's my answer for most of society's woes, but I think education is a better way to address this problem. Putting people in prison should be MUCH more thoughtful, and never part of a knee-jerk reaction.

Menthol can act as a numbing agent for general throat irritations. If I had a cough associated with other cold or flu symptoms, I'd take a better all around medication. For a cough by itself (from a tickle in your throat), I think anything that keeps your mouth and throat moist will work. I don't really think cough drops are very effective, but the mechanism is probably to relieve as much irritation as possible before the trickle of saliva & medications gets to your esophagus. You're right, once it gets there, the mechanisms for removing unwanted irritations involve less coughing and more vomiting. It could be part placebo too. I know when I go to weddings, plays, and funerals, I take some mints to suck on to keep my throat moist. It seems like the tickle always happens when you're supposed to be quiet, so there may be something psychosomatic going on there. I hope this was a spellcheck mistake.

! Moderator Note Due to many non-mainstream claims, this thread should be in our Speculations section, so I'm moving it there.