MigL

To satisfy a need.

Well, np. Everything I am comfortable trusting, has evidence that I, or others, can reasonably reproduce. Religion is, by definition, a belief system based on faith, not evidence, and, as such, hasn't, nor does it require, any evidence. Science is not 'evidenced' by authority figures like the priests of religions. Anyone can do scientific experiments, make observations, and obtain evidence.

I have a question too. We are a science forum, and only deal with the scientific ramifications of religion. Wouldn't Night FM be better served asking these questions of his pastor/priest/rabbi/iman/etc. ? I, for one, am getting tired of faith based questions on a scientific, evidence based forum. There are more appropriate places for these types of inquiries.

People who commit crimes and claim the 'not of sound mind' or insanity defense are usually tried on the basis of recognizing right from wrong. No judge, jury or lawyer ever asks whether they are religious or atheist. They only question whether they recognize right from wrong, not the source of their moral standards.

The fact remains that whatever is 17 GLY away will take 46 GY to affect us at the speed of causality. Saying something is 17 GLY away, right now, means nothing, as there is no 'now'. If it can't affect us, is it really there ? ( that's what hypothetical means )

Some of us are funny that way. We put our faith in what is evidenced, not what is imaginary.

Way to make women's problems all about you ...

Exactly. All are used for hitting stuff. ( in the case of a hit-man it is usually heads, although 'enforcers' often do kneecaps )

If you assemble all the same atoms as in your body, and put them all in the same quantum state as the ones in your body, you will have duplicated yourself, with all the same memories, and 'it' will be alive. Think of transporters in Star Trek. There is no magic that happens, to go from non-living, to living. We just cannot do it As the HUP renders it impossible.

I 'believe' that's wordplay, and mostly crap.

True. But we can attempt to 'see' what happens to the frames around the photon. As Einstein did when he imagined travelling along with one, to arrive at SR.

At the time, the spread of Communism, and the influence of the Soviets, was what needed to be kept in check. So the Americans supported a corrupt SV regime to counter the NV, supported by the Soviets, trying to invade and take over the South. America was never 'all in', and the war was lost at home, because it was the first televised war; people didn't like seeing their kids body-bags on the 6 pm news. We are friends with Vietnam because they have transitioned to a semi-capitalist state, and we are favorable for their economy; so who really won ? ( much like Germany, who failed to conquer Europe with two world wars, but succeeded in the 90s with the introduction of the Euro ) No, it is just temporary. It is being relocated further East. (part way through the Ukraine, if D Trump gets elected )

How so ? In both cases, it is used to hit things. Pliers and blowtorches can similarly be used by mechanics and hit men,

In empty space, a photon would not know it is moving, as it is moving at constant velocity, and there are no reference points for it to discern its velocity or distance travelled. Further, it would need to interact with any reference point, so it needn't be totally empty space

Without any reference, like air resistance, ir points passed, such as empty space, would you feel motion or displacement ? I assume it feels a little stressed from the stress-energy-momentum tensor forcing it to change its path through curved space-time around massive bodies. Bad pun ??

All of this stuff is in your body also ( including the Hydrogen and Helium in the sun ), which, unless you're a chatbot, i presume is alive. So there is still no such thing as 'living matter'. ( and sand and glass are just about the same thing; one is solid, the other, a very 'slow' liquid )

Think of the 40 million lives that could have been saved in WW2, if only we had let Hitler take all of Europe. What were those people thinking ... 'Sieg Heil", Trurl

Not non-life and life. You used the terms 'living matter' and 'non-living matter' here You want to try to define this nonsense ?

Science is the process of observing an effect, and drawing predictions and relationships grom that observation, Humanity is not necessary; animals do it also. The gazelle on the savannah have deduced that where the grass is greenest, water may be found. Predatory fish know that where there is garbage, other fish, who eat garbage, may provide a meal. Birds have figured out to take advantage of thermal drafts and the Earth's magnetic field, to navigate long distances. Science is just a word we humans use; the process we call science is undertaken by almost all life. On the other hand, the word, and concept, of religion is strictly human ( as far as I know ).

Sure B Mussolini introduced pensions, and systems so that trains ran on time; but at what cost to the people of Italy and Europe? It doesn't mean anyone wants to be ruled by a fascist dictator; do you ?

Diplomacy, and especially compromise, in an unjust war is otherwise known as losing. And I'm not talking about the greater Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as some of my friends have a difference of opinion about what is just. I'm talking about the Russian invasion of Ukraine where D Trump has said he would negotiate peace by letting the Russians keep the territory they've illegally taken, after the Russians have destroyed most of the country. That's great for V Putin; he gains territory and doesn't have to pay reparations for ruining the rest of it. He'll probably try for the rest of it the following year; and then the countries next to the Ukraine. I guess if D Trump was the American President during WW2, he would have negotiated with Hitler to stop the war, by letting him keep all of Europe, to about 30 km from Moscow ( after Op. Barbarossa ). That would have solved everything ???

Life is not simply matter, living or non-living ( please define these terms as they are nonsensical). Life is matter undergoing a process, that happens to be self-replicating.

Is the problem stated correctly, or am I fairly obtuse today. I see contradictory requirements, such as "the least number of smaller circles that can be fitted inside a mother circle" and "must contain the maximum number of circles of the same area" If not for the second requirement ( above ) the answer would be trivially simple. One circle with the radius approaching the limit of the mother circle. What am I missing ?

It's not the small number of cells involved, but the 50 Million connections. Our best supercomputers are currently massively paralleled simple compute engines. The difficult part is the programming that executes on these simple computers for one or many processes to take advantage of the massive parallelism efficiently. Nature and evolution have been 'working' on the brain of insects like the fly, for about 480 Million years. It won't happen anytime soon, but give our guys a little time to figure out true AI.

True. But that is a hypothetical distance, because SR involves space and time. Any light that traverses that distance will have come from from 46 GLY away; there is no 'now' or 'currently'. A lot happens during the travel time; like expansion.