Phi for All

! Moderator Note Relativity does NOT confuse scientists, but it seems to confuse you. This is NOT Science News, it's personal Speculation, so I've moved it to that section. Please take the time to read the special rules for that section. Sorry if I sound testy, but it's been a bad week for science denial. Relativity, and even Quantum Mechanics just HAVE to be wrong if someone doesn't get it intuitively, it seems. Big gusty sigh. Have a good weekend, good luck with evidence to outweigh what Relativity has to support it.

I think we're done with you. I really worry you're going to start hurting things when you find out you can't destroy it all. You're an evil little troll.

Slightly off-topic, but could a virus infect an individual's ego to the point where that person completely lost touch with reality, and deluded themselves into thinking that destroying all life was the answer to their personal problems?

! Moderator Note Duplicate threads in other sections have been hidden. One thread per topic, please, otherwise it becomes too confusing, negating any benefit from snagging more members.

Well, nobody here is interested in hearing all these tired, long-debunked pseudo-arguments based on ignorance and misinformation. Go to TalkOrigins if you have any questions regarding any of these arguments you've been fed. They've all been shown to be full of little falsehoods and half-truths, perpetuated by religious extremists who refuse to first learn what they claim is wrong. If you really take the time to study what you deride, you may rid yourself of some heavyweight ignorance. And that would be fantastic for everyone, and a much more interesting discussion.

! Moderator Note Please, this section is for science speculation. Religion is completely off-topic. We are one of the few science discussion sites with a Religion section, please keep religious discussions in that section. They aren't appropriate here. Thanks for understanding.

! Moderator Note You've been shown the equation is flawed, it has units that can't be mixed like this in the same equation. Also, you need to find a way to communicate this idea to anyone listening. If it only makes sense to you, it is NOT science. Please try to overcome these two obstacles before going further, otherwise this discussion is pointless. Please listen to what these people are telling you, you don't know math and physics, by your own admission. On a related note, The Journal of Advances in Physics is on several predatory-publishing watchlists. They are not considered a rigorous journal.

! Moderator Note We need to keep speculative science out of the mainstream sections, so students don't think they can use your idea to pass their test. I'm moving this to Speculations, please make sure to read the special rules governing that section. If you have objections to the move, Report this post, but please don't talk about them here.

I think this is where you went wrong. Higher quality, more expensive wines don't necessarily have the most alcohol content. Fortified wines like Thunderbird, MD 20/20, and Night Train Express are classic hobo wines, very cheap and around 18% AC.

I remember reading once that even the conductivity of electricity through copper wire is a QM effect, but we didn't need QM at the time to take advantage of it, and it evolved more or less by trial and error. But when QM was actually applied, we could suddenly make things with very specific optical and electrical properties. QM revolutionized chemistry as well. Solar panel technology comes to mind, and I'm sure there are many others. I'm scheduled for a PET scan in the next month, so it's a good thing I don't think QM is waste of time. I'd hate to think of the alternative to modern medical imaging.

I think this landslide will be a good thing for the right. For too long, the Republicans have been avoiding ANYTHING the Democrats support, even smart things. This seems to suggest that the two parties have nothing in common, and we all know that can't be true. It's just not possible that the majority of Republicans share no stances with the majority of Democrats. Yet we've seen how this Republican party of the last couple of decades seems determined to draw a line that excludes anything the Democrats want done, even if it's in the best interest of the vast majority. If you really talk to people, you find they have MUCH more in common, but holding the party line has become a bizarre thing for those on the right, and the farther right the more bizarre it's gotten. I'm hoping this current circus with Trump will help underscore how hideously inaccurate Republican representation has become.

Interesting. My mother called that lighter area at the nail base the "half moon". But the only plates she shifted were the eating kind. Although she did have some plates on the walls, which could fall off during an earthquake. She also used Tide laundry detergent, and the moon affects the tides, so I suppose my mom could have been responsible for at least some of the movement of the ocean floor. Or she was a werewolf. The evidence is inconclusive.

I'm kind of surprised more people who believe in god(s) don't accept evolution as their god's handiwork, instead of recycling arguments that have long been refuted. I mean, it's awesome to wave your hand and make things exist that didn't before, it's very impressive and all, but it doesn't seem very patient. And the Young Earth Creationists would have us believe their god was so impatient that he literally took just a solar day each to make things like... all the animals except humans. I've always thought it's much more awe-inspiring to devise a mechanism for slow, inevitable change over time. If a god(s) created us using a mechanism that takes hundreds of millions of years to "cook up" all the recipes we see today, I think that's much more impressive. Think of the patience!

On your computer, where the transistors are only possible with QM? Try doing the calcs without your computer, or any other solid-state device, and let us know how it works out. But don't use your computer anymore, Mr QM-is-wrong. That would be hypocritical.

Hopefully never. Science works with theory instead of proofs so improvements can be made as new information becomes available. Granted, with the theories of Evolution and Relativity, the evidence in support keeps piling up, while the evidence against is in the form of these feeble, already debunked creationist attempts to misunderstand the science. It's easy to think of the theory as fact, but we actually want it to be a work in progress, so we constantly refine it and increase our understanding of the mechanisms. Evolution is fact, and the Theory of Evolution explains it to the best of our current ability and information.

Actually, you can sharpen just about anything solid to a wicked degree, even wood. Sharpness is determined by the method and tools you use to sharpen the metal. Hollow grinding, for example, uses circular grinding to achieve a thinner angle at the very edge. Done carefully, just about any metal can have the same sharp edge, tungsten steel and titanium also. But as others have pointed out, keeping that sharp edge after you've started working with the object is the tough part. And even with the best steel, if you make the edge too razor sharp, the edge will become dull and nicked more easily. It really depends on your application. A short blade for shaving or cutting hair can be razor sharp, but longer, heavier blades have weight and momentum and don't need as sharp an edge. If you made a small razor blade from iridium, an extremely dense metal, it would probably be amazing for shaving hair off the body. But the larger you make the blade, the more brittle it would be. An iridium machete would be very heavy, and would probably shatter the first time you struck a branch with it. Edit to add: An iridium blade would be brittle no matter the size, but for applications like shaving, it's brittleness isn't as much of a consideration. Until you need to sharpen it again.

You challenge mainstream science, and then consider the "onslaught of questions" ridiculous and insulting?! I understand now why you seem to have such a chip on your shoulder for someone supposedly interested in a rigorous approach to the subject. You sure haven't convinced me to invest time in a video though. I can make a quicker assessment of what you're saying (or mostly NOT saying) using the written word and equations. I would have to blindly trust you to make a video worth my while. I don't. So far you've been petulant and uninspiring. You don't provide evidence, and you don't answer very many questions posed to you. That makes it a real chore to discuss science with you, on this science discussion site. Just sayin'.

But sight and hearing are senses, perceptual indicators that track visual and aural cues that our brains then interpret for us. We have no sensory mechanisms for detecting good and bad. That type of judgement is nuanced by tons of factors, different for everybody, and includes input from most of the senses. Again, you're trying to ask science to make qualitative judgments it's not qualified to make. Science can't tell you that something smells bad. Bad is subjective, and smells one person may hate are loved by other people. Science can't even tell you that silk feels good against your skin. It could tell you that 88% of humans think so, and that the other 12% are either neutral or think it's a bad feeling. How can I give a scientific definition of good when my good is different from your good, in many ways? I might say it's good to lie to a woman who wants to know if her child died in pain. I might say it's bad to lie under oath in court. But what about when a child lies about stealing a cookie? Lying is a cognitive marker in youth, it shows that a child is learning to predict the future and plan for ways to improve that future. So how can you think there's some kind of sense you could develop that would act like sight and sound when you wanted to judge between good and bad? Our sense aren't our experiences. The pictures your brain receives from your eyes are 2-dimensional, and your brain uses other cues (shadows, lines, perspectives) to add the third dimension. The brain is constantly interpreting what our senses tell us, and the brain is also making value judgments and decisions based on what we experience.

If I can get these questions in before your question: What do you mean by scientific? How are you using it in this context? Are you asking for a precise definition of good and bad, or are you asking for a version of good and bad that can be applied to all humans, or are you asking if good and bad are universally definable in all situations? How does your idea deal with the fact that lying can be both bad AND good? What about situations where my culture says it's bad to allow people to marry when they're fourteen years old, but another culture encourages it, and considers it a good thing? Do you consider individuals to be good or bad overall, or is this scientific version applicable only to situations (as in, you aren't a bad person, but you can do bad things)? I'm having a hard time imagining any definition of good and bad that can be applied to everyone in a given situation. But I may not understand what you're really asking for, so help me with exactly what you mean by "scientific version of good and bad".

! Moderator Note Nice job, but sadly, this isn't the venue for it. This is a science discussion forum. Discussions are supposed to be possible without clicking outside links and watching videos. Sorry, but we aren't here to promote your videos. You should stay and join in the discussions, if you aren't too pissed off about having your video axed. It does feel good to lighten up, though.

What about more nuanced scenarios? Research has shown that we often prefer a broader range of choices (which makes us feel good/optimistic when we decide to go to the ice cream shop with 31 flavors instead of the place that only has vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry), but are actually demotivated by having to choose from a broader array (we would have been happier making an easier decision). So more choices can be bad. When choices are clearer, simpler, we can be more confident that we chose well. If I finally choose from a broad array, there's a good chance I'm going to regret not choosing one of the many others. I know I'm not missing out on anything when I choose vanilla over chocolate and strawberry, but out of 31 flavors I'm probably going to be curious about at least ten of them. I choose one and wonder if one of the other nine wouldn't have been tastier. So is choice good or bad? When does too much of a good thing turn it into a bad thing? Doesn't that differ with each person?

This is what I was trying to tell you earlier, theories aren't true or false. They represent our best explanations for various phenomena, backed up by the most supportive evidence. Science isn't the right tool to use for morality, or questions about good and bad that have no quantitative measure. You don't use a story to measure the width of your driveway. It's not the right tool. If you really want to use science for this idea, you need to figure out an experiment you can perform that will test the idea. This story format isn't really adaptable to the kind of testing that might lead you to predict how your idea might work.

FTFY.

Oooh, I saw this illusion recently. Two identical rectangles, one placed portrait against a background of receding train tracks, the other placed landscape over parallel train tracks. The brain sees the visual cues of the receding train tracks, and tells your eyes that the portrait rectangle MUST be longer and skinnier than the landscape rectangle because it MUST be farther away. By a LOT, so much so that it really was hard for me to believe it when one of the rectangles was removed and placed exactly over the other.

Let's drop the word theory. That always bugs scientists, since a theory is the best you can get, and represents our current best explanation of a specific phenomenon. Theories don't have just one person writing about them, they have tons of experiments, observational data, peer review, all the evidence that makes an idea trustworthy. I think you should also stop talking about truth. I know you're looking for a universal good and bad, but science just doesn't use subjective words like truth. Ten people will tell you ten truths, and they'll all be true (for them). This excerpt is peppered with subjective terms, like "value" and "worth", "rewarding" and "beautiful". It's hard to look for objective good and bad when there's so much subjectivity around. I also disagree with the candy-would-taste-bland-without-our-reward-system assertion. I've heard stories of natives who'd never been exposed to modern foreigners, or our reward systems, who were given candy for the first time. They didn't think it was bland. They thought it was great! Also, you talk about eternal bliss being a constant condition. Who are these people that get to be happy all the time? Can that even work? I know it's pretty cliche to point out that experiencing all emotions helps you appreciate the "good" ones, but isn't it true? I can appreciate wealth more if I've been poor, and happiness is all the sweeter because I've been absolutely miserable, and I know the difference now. I've learned something good, and I know that's better than the bad ignorance I used to have. Perhaps that's the only universal good/bad in science. Knowledge is good, ignorance is bad. Even knowledge that can be used for bad is good. And ignorance, even though it may allow bliss to flourish, is always bad. Please understand that I'm not shooting the whole idea down. I'm pointing out some parts that don't seem right to me, and I'm asking you to think about it and either explain it more clearly, or acknowledge that it's a problem in your hypothesis.