the asinine cretin

Tee-hee. http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2011/06/26/cern-mug-summarizes-standard-model-but-is-off-by-a-factor-of-2/

My interested-layman impressions: 1. We don't have a secure theory; 2. We don't have an understanding of the bottlenecks involved in the leading hypotheses. Estimating the probabilities of life emerging from a given set of theoretical conditions is a dubious task. The following is the best thing I've seen lately, but again, I'm merely an haphazardly interested layman. http://www.ibioseminars.org/lectures/chemicalbiologybiophysics/jack-szostak.html

Dover books come to mind. Many of them are fairly short and sweet. They're cheap too.

This makes me so pissed. What a bozo.

Two major problems with cryonics (not purported to be a complete list by any means) are: 1. Cellular damage caused by freezing; 2. Containment failure. Possible solutions (admittedly far-out and speculative): 1. Gene therapy, or some such thing, for producing antifreeze protein(s) in cells, particularly the most important cells such as those of the brain. 2. Lunar cryonics vault (lava tube or excavated). There seem to be regions at the poles with stable liquid nitrogen temperatures that may provide ideal temps without maintenance for millennia.

I too have an attraction toward the application of Bayesian inference to everyday life. I also think controversial and/or dubious things like cryonics, suspended animation, and longevity projects such as SENS, are interesting and deserving of more funding. I have at times been taken by mathematical Platonism (e.g., after reading Penrose). I have an ongoing inner debate with myself about animal-related ethical issues. I'm a total non-expert and thus have only vague and tentative views on this, but I think non-standard theories of evolution are fascinating and often compelling. The extended modern synthesis, and all that (e.g., Pugliucci, Shapiro, Lynch).

Here is the press release. "Seven years ago, astronomers boggled when they found the first runaway star flying out of our Galaxy at a speed of 1.5 million miles per hour. The discovery intrigued theorists, who wondered: If a star can get tossed outward at such an extreme velocity, could the same thing happen to planets? New research shows that the answer is yes. Not only do runaway planets exist, but some of them zoom through space at a few percent of the speed of light - up to 30 million miles per hour." Okay, so I just lazily plugged in some values on wolframalpha and I'm a little alarmed at the result. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=13000000m+asteroid+impact+6000000+km%2Fs Earth vs. Earth's evil twin travelling at 0.02 c: The "ideal/imaginary" (I realize the problems here, it's just quick and dirty and only for fun) impact energy would be around 5.6x10^43 J? That's like a gamma ray burst. What's wrong with this picture? Really? Damn.

More on what I posted about the other day.

This is significant. Berkeley Earth Releases Global Land Warming Analysis (PDF) Phil Plait's blog post on the subject If you aren't familiar with Richard Muller (the founder of Berkeley Earth, author of Physics for Future Presidents, among other things) this presentation may provide some interesting context.

I don't believe that consensus is a scientific principle to begin with. It is a useful concept in contexts that must be informed by science, such as policy-making, but as far as scientific methodology is concerned consensus is not a criterion of truth (at least as I understand things). Appealing to scientific consensus to establish the veracity of something is simply a logical fallacy. If something is a matter of scientific consensus this is because the evidence is to some extent definitive, or at least highly compelling. Therefore, saying such-and-such is a matter of scientific consensus, or that "experts in the field say...", should translate to a higher expectation of overwhelming evidence. Problems arise when that evidence is less than perspicuous to the hoi polloi. Personally, I have seen very clear layman's terms expositions of the evidential basis of big bang cosmology. Do you believe that Big Bang theory is dubious for some reason?

It's not that anyone was appointed to the helm, as far as I know; Lindzen was there on the skeptical panel and presumably could have said more. He just wasn't as chatty and assertive as his non-climate scientist fellows, for whatever reason. And I'm not saying I"m a fan of Lindzen, only that I'd expect him to be capable of having an informed and substantial debate with the panel of actual climate scientists. Not that it matters, but I once had a brief discussion with Lindzen and wasn't impressed by what he had to say. I'll just leave it at that as I don't want to commit character assassination on someone who isn't even here. My only point is to say that while yes, Lindzen is the one actual climate scientist on the contrary side of that so-called debate, I would be particularly skeptical about things that he has to say, but I would take them seriously and take the time to do research. Crighton was busy parroting Lomborg, and the other skeptical guy was simply an offense to reason and I often wished he'd just shut up and let someone else talk. The scientific and climatological ignorance of the audience was thoroughly exploited.

I'm not being picky. I've pointed out specific ways in which that definition is inadequate and you don't seem to even be aware of what I've said on this thread. Repeating myself ad nauseum to someone who apparently doesn't read what I write is not my idea of a good time. I've already reflected upon the things you're bringing up and have suggested why an adequate understanding of the concept of the supernatural must go beyond that. I refuse to repeat myself. Read my previous posts if you are interested.

I really don't care about Michael Crichton's credentials, or lack thereof, I didn't find any of his statements in that debate to be substantial and compelling. Lindzen is a real climate scientist (although a well-known pathological contrarian) , and I was hoping to hear more of where he is coming from and maybe witness a serious scientific exchange between him and the actual climate scientists on the other side. The older shill on the "skeptic" side was given way too much time and was merely spewing meaningless think tank talking points. It was a joke.

I realized the Hubble volume bit after posting and just didn't care to fix it. Congratulations, you get a cookie! Evidently we aren't having a discussion here because I've explained various ways in which that definition of the supernatural fails, and I've offered a better understanding, and you've not engaged my posts at all. Boring. But anyway, if that's what you want to call the supernatural, knock yourself out. We can just talk past each other, I suppose.

I was an asshole too. We're square, mate. I hope you get out of the bad mood soon. I know how that goes.

Do elaborate if you would. I don't see how any of that follows from the preceding discussion. Also, QM is a physical theory. Even if wave function collapse has something to do with consciousness it would still be within the realm of physics. This kind of speculation gets pretty far out pretty fast. I don't want to go Deepak Chopra here or anything. Without a clear scientific reason to do so, I don't see the validity of postulating quantum mechanical theories of consciousness. At least as more than "what if" discussion.

I understand. F me indeed. I was intending to return a favor. You seemed to be sneering at my post when it seemed to me that you had barely skimmed it. If I am wrong about that I do apologize.

I don't understand how this is relevant. Care to explain? ETA: I presume you are insinuating that I have responded to you out of egoism. Maybe so. But what purpose does this insinuation serve? Am I supposed to be annoyed?

I obviously don't consider the Hindu milk miracle to be truly miraculous and I was quite explicit about this. Forgive me if I skip over your posts henceforth.

Quantum mechanics applies to quantum phenomena. You are then positing that consciousness operates on the quantum level? Free will refers to a non-computational activity of the brain based on quantum collapse, or some such thing? Quantum theories of the mind; Penrose, et al.? A falsifiable hypothesis based on evidence would be desirable. I think such theories are in the minority among neuroscientists. Maybe I'm wrong. Still, it seems like a long-shot. This is definitely an interesting turn in the conversation, however.

Oh, me, okay. Well, I must confess I do not know what you mean by throwing leaps into the mix, and all that. My view of the matter is this: Climate science in the '70s was an emerging field and in many respects quite different in character from contemporary climate science. Making comparisons without proper qualifications is dubious. But the real issue is that there never was a scientific consensus about global cooling and analyses of the scientific literature of the '70s reveals that it was in fact quite a minority hypothesis. And yet, given the available data of that time, it wasn't unreasonable. But to suggest that this obsolete minority hypothesis of many decades ago somehow casts doubt upon the mature scientific understanding that has since been achieved is quite illogical. It is thoroughly a canard. If you're interested I would first recommend the following paper. http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

I feel like maybe you're dodging the issue. Do you think that free will requires an inexplicable ghost in the machine or might our conscious choices be subject to the same kinds of underlying causality as our unconscious computational activity? Or maybe you're agnostic? Until we have a complete scientific theory of consciousness, who knows? Just curious. Anyway, I think determinism seems to be the issue. But a hard determinism need not be the case given the obvious complexity of human beings. I imagine a model of the mind would be a complex system with stochastic elements. But that's not quite what is meant by free will, no? It isn't that our actions are random and unpredictable, it is that we, as conscious subjects, somehow own our actions. We feel we originate events somehow outside of normal causality. What about this really requires an inexplicable locus of volition? Isn't the inexplicable aspect simply a vague subjective impression? How do you respond specifically to the suggestion that "free will" simply refers to our state of ignorance about the underlying neurocomputational processes behind a thought or impulse?

I don't hold that the expansion of the universe is unobservable or in any way unscientific. Yeah? So?