DrP

My point is though that there was nothing special about him - he was just a man. He said so himself. He wouldn't have reached his theory and discoveries without the centuries of work that had gone on before him. (Thus the famous "Standing on the shoulders of Giants" quote). Necessity is a driver too for invention... In the distant past the drive was to protect your family group from wild animals and to provide enough food. The last few millennia have been driven by very competitive races to win status and power in the civilized world globally.

Yea, give us some more details. Here is the conversation we had about it. It was generally thought that the most likey explanation was that the injury caused the dream.... there has never been a substantiated case of it being the other way around. SOme people will claim the injury came from the dream because they cannot fathom how an injury can occur whilst asleep... but it is well shown that people can injure themselves whilst sleeping. So, what happened?

Yes... but would we wouldn't have gotten to inventing anything modern or any electronics at all without the invention of the wheel thousands of years before... because the wheel made better trade and travel possible.... which further enhanced our communication abilities and so on which enabled shared ideas and education etc... The wheel wouldn't have been invented without the axe already being invented thousands of years before that.... because you need an axe to make a wheel... also for defence maybe... what is the point of a wheel if it is too dangerous to travel anywhere? ... so, just because we came up with all of our most complex ideas in the last few centuries, doesn't mean those that lived 400 years ago were not as intelligent or didn't have the capacity to understand what we now take for granted. It would have taken many centuries of having and using the wheel and then developing society to a point where it was even possible to contemplate electricity and the nature of reality. The evolution of our technology is like the evolution of our life... takes a long time, but with sudden 'breakthroughs' we see fast developments. All of our most complex inventions are all in the last few seconds of the year comparing a year to when time began... it is the same with the complex life forms... we've been here for a few seconds compared to the length of time taken for us to develop. This is because people don't understand evolution. Monkeys never turned into men... no one ever claimed that they did except people who don't understand how it works. Monkeys and Men both developed from the same common ANCESTER... they share an ancestor... they didn't change from one to the other. This is well known. PS - also - not ALL of our learning comes from the past 150 years.... Isaac Newton? Heard of him? Do you know the phrase "Standing on the shoulders of giants"?

I think you are right, but I don't have a reference, I seem to remember reading the same thing several times and seeing similar things said in other threads. Advanced discovery doesn't necessarily mean higher intelligence I suppose - standing on the shoulders of giants and all that. We've had longer to apply our equal intelligence and have invented more stuff.

Whether or not it is superior is debatable as mentioned earlier in the thread (we can't build a self repairing self replicating machine yet... or if we can I haven't seen one yet... how are nano bots progressing?). But as you point out - humans ARE part of nature anyway, so anything we design could be attributed to the design and evolution of nature.

Being fair I think this is a strawman argument. Captain Kirk isn't a magnet (except for the chicks) and the planets he beams to aren't usually vacuums... lol.

How did the magnet get teleported into the vacuum?

What is the question? Odd one out?

We had a thread about this recently. I think it was generally accepted that real pain can effect your dreams... but of course, your dream wont cause you injuries unless you thrash about physically and harm yourself in your sleep without realising it. Here is the thread.

Of course the materials (like clay) are sourced on Earth - where else would they be from if they are responsible for catalysing life on EARTH? I don't see the clay changing it's behaviour from interaction with organics. It is still the same clay as far as I can tell (A geologist would tell you). I would assume there are hundreds of mechanisms and little quirks which sped the process up along the way. (none of them fast enough to get the job done in 6K years though). On a different planet you might get different rocks and different life forming... or none at all as it is all so complex. But if there is clay... and water... and heat... and a mixture of other bits and bobs then how wouldn't it form? If it formed here it can form elsewhere that meet the Goldilocks conditions. Maybe the Goldilocks conditions are different for different forms of life.

With regard to the probability of complex chemicals forming by chance over huge timescales, there may still be (almost certainly imo) other un seen/undiscovered mechanisms in play that 'might' have sped processes up. The formation of long chained organics which reproduce with chirality for example were previously though impossible, but have recently been shown to form in the platelet spaces between layers of silicon clays pretty quickly. What other catalysts and organisers played a part in the VERY complex process of the evolution of our life from chemical to biological? I am sure there must have been many more short cuts which shaved billions of years of our 'chance' evolution.... maybe we will discover these mechanisms as time goes on.... alas, I assume that most of us here and probably many generations of our offspring will not be around to find out.

Although it doesn't make a very good plate. lol

I think you will find that most regular members here, opposed to 'going along with the crowd', will make their own decisions on things based on the evidences they receive. Many here will change their views on almost any topic if you provide correct incontestable evidence. Quite the opposite from 'going along with crowd'. I have seen the person you are talking to here above change his views on a number of things when shown supported evidence of a claim. This usually comes with a 'thank you for correcting me' comment. No one here will take your word for your assumptions or musings without some testing, demonstration or proper maths. The field which you are speculating on is pretty well researched and modelled. If you want to change it you have to show you have a better model - not random musings based on guesses and assumptions. No one will sheep like follow you into believing untested claims and nor should they.

I think you need to look for materials with a high specific heat capacity. I think people used to heat rocks in a fire then put them in their beds to pre warm them. What is the application? PS - water is quite high iirc - thus the humble hot water bottle.

'Visible light' is just a range of frequencies in the Electromagnetic spectrum.

Of course not and I didn't say so either. So - following your line of argument, what retraining will she go through to prepare her for the office then? What retraining did the current pres get to prepare him for the arduous task of office? What courses did they send him on? Hey, maybe she will be a great president. If she runs she will win I reckon. Whatever party she joins or runs for, whatever her politics, half of your voters won't care - they will vote for her because they like her and trust her.

OK - is she suitably qualified? Are you sure it's that simple a job to be POTUS? I would have thought it a very delicate specialised position requiring superb diplomatic skills.... I would feel happier knowing the person taking the job has some training and qualifications. That's just me though I suppose. Presumably though they get a thorough briefing of what is expected of them when they reach the White House anyway so that you don't get some idiot in power who doesn't know what the rules are going around sacking everyone that disagrees with him, trying to run it like a dictatorship, spreading false information and lies to the public so that their business interests and those of friends and family can benefit without any regard for the poor or the environment or worse case scenario, start a nuclear war by threatening and sabre rattling with the worlds unstable dictators. - I mean that would be awful, no sane country would promote anyone like that to power surely. No of course I wouldn't (unless they had prior training in brain surgery). - Maybe it was a poor comparison... it is an obvious strawman but I think it proves a point. You don't employ a plumber to groom your horse or an Olympic swimmer to do your company accounts. Why employ a chat show host to be the pres? It is trivialising the office! I hear TenOz's comment about them having to have people skills and celebs obviously have - but it is becoming a joke. You must have experienced politicians with people skills. If she runs she'll get in because the majority of the voting people will see her and get excited.... like what happened last year - this could lead to someone currently not in the public eye missing out on the chance to lead and lead well because the public will say 'oooh! Oprah! vote for her' without even considering anything political and then whatever her whimsical opinionated factless based policies will shine through like they have with this current guy. It is totally embarrassing imo.

I think Arnie would be awesome... if he is aloud to run after Trump's administration - he is a foreigner after all.. neither do I - but I have to ask again.... would you trust her to undergo brain surgery on you? If not then why not?

At least she could give everyone a car as a campaign promise... that'd be popular! I still do not see the idea of making any celebrity the president as anything but an embarrassment. It shows the sensationalist and emotional mindset of the majority (enough to get them into power anyway) of the nation. I'd rather see a well trained/experienced politician who knows what they are doing. Would you trust her to operate on you if you needed brain surgery? If not then why not? Is it because she is black; or that she is a woman?

ah good - photon momentum - that's what I thought. Thanks.

It's still a better explanation than 'Look! I am moving the vanes with the power of my mind!!" I have heard so many explanations for it that I am confused now. I think the vacuum is important to determine the direction of travel - Physics link suggests so anyway. It says that the light effects only work in a vacuum.... in a poor vacuum they are over ridden by a more dominant thermal effect which cause the opposite to happen of what you'd expect to happen in the vacuum. What the exact mechanism is I do not know - I thought it was transference of momentum from the photons absorbed into the black being different to the ones being reflected by the white... causing a net difference in momentum gain by each side of the vain which causes rotation. Now I am even more confused.... one thing I am confident about is that it isn't mind power doing it. lol. Actually I used to think it was just a thermal effect - but have been sold on the momentum gain from photons idea.

Being fair I think (from reading his posts) the 'boys will be boys' was part of the explanation... not an acceptance or an excuse but rather a reason. I can't see where either side of this discussion is coming from - you are both right (imo) - The tendency and drives are in all humans... it doesn't excuse abusive behaviour and no-one (as far as I can see) has said that it does.

Could be a bit of both even? That article suggests a 50% increase! That seems quite a lot, so something must be happening.

125 bytes?

If it were true then it would have to be to do with the vibrational frequency of the music resonating some how with the way the photons are absorbed..... IF it is true then I wouldn't mind betting that the power required to provide the rock music would be more than the extra power you'd get from the resonances. - But, I'll confess I do not know, I'm just speculating.