Iggy

The official report has debris causing the collapse?

I don't believe that is quite the process. Water is eliminated by the kidneys. Alcohol causes dehydration because it inhibits an antidiuretic hormone that comes from the pituitary gland. Basically, alcohol causes the pituitary gland to tell the kidneys that the body could do without retaining so much water. According to the following paper, it varies, but urine production is greatest 60 to 120 minutes after drinking and returns to normal 30 to 60 minutes after enzymes in the urine show peak concentration. Interestingly, urine production returns to normal even if you continue drinking and maintaining a high blood alcohol level... according to this in any case.

From watching the video it looks like a point on the roofline accelerated downward at 9.8 m/s2 for about 2 seconds (accelerating much, much less before the 2 seconds and significantly less after). I would suspect, but I haven't looked into this at all, that the core of the building (or some part of its interior) collapsed first while the perimeter (or at least the part of the perimeter measured on the video) stayed pretty much in place. The core would have picked up some speed before it ripped down the perimeter around it. For a short time the perimeter would have collapsed not only from its own weight, but from the transferred momentum of the already-collapsing core. It's like dropping two concrete blocks that are connected by a rope one after the other. The second one dropped will, for a time, be yanked down by the already-falling first. The second one could accelerate at 9.8 m/s2 or more. If all of the measurements in the video are accurate then something like this had to have happened regardless of the cause of structural failure (fire or demolition) because things typically don't like to fall at 9.8 m/s2 with air resistance. Some part of the building must have had a greater velocity than the spot that was measured on the roofline in the video during those 2 seconds.

Right. When I originally said "I would say that an observer inside or on our past lightcone sees the same stuff (the same mass), but that the mass is doing different things.", I didn't mean to imply that (s)he saw all of the same mass, but my wording was sloppy in that. +1

yes, and I should be more specific to avoid confusion. An observer in or on our past lightcone cannot see mass that is unobservable to us. The mass may be doing something different when (s)he observes it, but it is the same mass. Before responding to your specific points, let me give an example so that we're on the same page. An observer in our current location 6 billion years ago would be in our current past light cone. They would see a nebula that will one day collapse into our sun. They don't see our sun doing what it is currently doing. They see the same mass, but it hasn't yet collapsed into a star. It is the same mass, but doing something different, as I put it. Every world line that crosses D's past light cone also crosses ours. This means that all of the mass which D saw, we currently see. Again, each world line crossing E's past light cone also crosses ours. We see all of the mass that E saw. B can observe mass which we cannot observe because there are world lines crossing his light cone which doesn't cross ours. The would be at the extreme bottom left of his past light cone. If the same world line crosses the past light cone of two different observers then both observers see the same 'stuff' or the same 'mass'. The mass may be doing something different at the time of each observation (different events), but it is the same mass (same world line).

I would say that an observer inside or on our past lightcone sees the same stuff (the same mass), but that the mass is doing different things. Someone outside our past light cone would genuinely see different mass, but that mass isn't causally connected to us so it wouldn't matter if it vanished. Scrolling past the OP's image again, I noticed I misspoke, The outside of the bell-shaped cone of the original image is, I think, two comoving observers rather than a forward pointing light cone. my bad.

Martin sleeping well is evidence that he didn't sleep with a rabid sabertooth cat. It is "evidence of absence", not "absence of evidence". Iit's modus tollens, a valid argument: if you sleep with a rabid sabertooth cat you will die Martin slept Martin did not die therefore, Martin didn't sleep with a rabid sabertooth cat Reading some of Copernicus -- like, In the middle of all sits the Sun, enthroned. In this most beautiful temple, could we place this luminary in any better position from which he can illuminate the whole at once? He is rightly called the Lamp, the Mind, the Ruler of the Universe. Hermes Trismegistus names him the Visible God, Sophocles' Electra calls him the All-seeing. So the Sun sits as on a royal throne ruling his children, the planets which circle round him. You might be able to spot the influence of Neoplatonism. If you can't I don't mind. and even if there were a record, it could be forged or it could be a lie, but that doesn't matter. All that matters is that there was an untestable pseudo-scientific idea that later became testable (through the work of Copernicus and others). This means you can't reject pseudo-science as "meaningless". It can be rejected for other reasons, but not that one. Chinese astrology may have been pseudo-science, but the astrologers ended up being able to predict solar eclipses. If pseudo-science were necessarily meaningless then that couldn't happen. I don't understand where you're coming from. You agree that aspects of pseudo-science can become fruitful and important for science. My point was that an idea being pseudo-science doesn't necessarily make it nonsense or wrong. If you agree then why not take that as a simple correction? I'm not implying that crackpot pseudo-science ideas should be indulged. If they aren't testable then they aren't science and they can be rejected for that reason. I don't think you've read his books. There was a movement in the philosophy of science early in the last century to do exactly what you said -- to reject pseudo-science because it is inherently meaningless. That idea was very common among scientists and philosophers. That is what Popper successfully refuted when he formalized a new scientific method (falsifiability). The new method doesn't have to say that pseudo-science is meaningless. It separates science from pseudo-science with a different criteria.

Now you've got me echoing imatfaal, it would be tough to agree with the summation. We don't currently see most of the events which have happened in the universe, but that's not quite the same as saying "we see only a small part of the universe". Using the same analogy, we don't see most events that happened on the moon but that doesn't really translate to "we only see a small part of the moon" or "what we see is an empty moon"

I'm not sure how you mean by fine, but I think it accurately depicts the observations we can currently make. The only technicality that I could add is that the past light cone wouldn't have straight lines. The curved bell shape of the original image is actually a forward pointing light-cone. A past light cone starting from WMAP would have the same bell shape like the diagram about half way down this page. That is a very small technicality though. I very much agree with the OP.

I don't mean insult, but it is a little banal. Your OP is very nicely illustrated, but I think it can be totally summarized "if you weren't looking at something that happened then you missed it". I don't think that would surprise most people. Nobody would expect that every time you look at the moon you'll see an apollo spacecraft landing there.

That shows us why ridicule is usually pointless and doesn't work. I have no idea right now if you even disagree with the points I made or the quote I gave. Ridiculing the author accomplished nothing.

Pseudo science is not necessarily nonsense. Nor is it necessarily wrong. Popper (the father of the scientific method) made both points while addressing the OP in one quote:

If there is no global notion of time (dr.Rocket explains here) then it would seem to follow that there is no global notion of time symmetry. I really don't know though. GR is far above my head.

That seems reasonable to me.

Right. I can understand the evolutionary need for crying in the general sense -- especially with group animals. Like iNow said, for communication. I saw 'African Cats' a few days ago where an injured lion couldn't keep up with her pride. She was visibly emotionally distressed and crying out to the pride, just like mothers of many species would do if they couldn't find their young. Emotion of a certain type needs to invoke an instinctive calling out. Humans have the same emotional trigger, but we don't necessarily have to use it for vocalization. We are good enough not only at saying something like "I'm hurt. I can't keep up!", but knowing when it's appropriate to call out for help or to call out for our young. In other words, if we are good enough at communicating and good enough at figuring out when to vocalize something then the emotional trigger would no longer be needed in the way that it is traditionally used. Maybe that freed up the emotional trigger to serve a different purpose -- some purpose that tears might help serve. I don't know what. A concession of defeat sounds as reasonable as anything I can offer.

It is interesting that humans seem to be the only species that cries tears, which is distinctly non-vocal, while we are the only species that vocalizes emotions in a non-instinctive or non-visceral way. I wonder if there is an evolutionary correlation.

sympathetic, not parasympathetic

I agree. What trips me is thinking that entropy is not time symmetric, but it is nonetheless derived from the equations of motion which are time symmetric. The arrow arises more from the boundary conditions of the system than the underlying physics. I tried to say this earlier in the thread but mangled it horrifically. So I think Michael makes the perfect distinction. It is like the arrow comes more from nature than physics. In other words, it comes more from the initial condition of the universe and not the laws which explain how the system should behave. I could be entirely wrong on this line of thinking.

Wait, the fact that the mechanism is poorly understood doesn't mean it's *impossible* for science to understand it. It might be -- and that's something I'm actually in complete agreement with -- that we didn't research it enough. Or, alternatively, that we don't have the proper tools just yet to completely understand all the effects. That said, I want to emphasize, again, that there seem to be two main issues here. Whether or not hypnosis works, and to what extent. The scientific literature seems to support the idea that hypnosis works, even though it's not quite clear *how* (which is something science SHOULD be able to fix given time, resources and more data). However, it seems to me that the OP jumps to the conclusion that therefore hypnosis works to a relatively *extreme* extent. That's fine, but he supplied no proof for that, which is why I raised a flag. Hate to muddy waters, but there is a perfect symmetry here that is too hard not to point out. No one knows why the most popular general anesthetic works either (diprivan). Its mechanism of action is at least as unknown as the mechanism of action of hypnosis, so these two questions stand on a perfectly level playing field: General anesthesia results from hypnotic agents, but science can’t explain why. There are limits to scientific knowledge, right? General anesthesia results from hypnosis, but science can’t explain why. There are limits to scientific knowledge, right? The perfect control question. The first would be easy to answer, "yes". The second feels more like the kind of mistake in reasoning that Steve Jobs recently paid a heavy price for making. No easy answer for sure.

Then, if I understand you correctly, you would suspect that there is something about the laws of physics which distinguishes past from future?

we already agreed that it is the same object -- not a duplicate. But you know from everyday experience that isn't so. You know that the key was here yesterday. You know that it is here today. You want to say "either the key was here yesterday or it is here today", but you must know that isn't true. It is self-evidently false.

I don't follow. The key was here yesterday. The key is here today. They are both true. And is the logical conjunction.

No, my point was that we don't have that fact. I just as easily could have suggested that the lady in the video had some kind of sensory neuropathy or congenital insensitivity to pain so that it would have made no difference if she were hypnotized or not. My point was that we don't have these facts -- even if you assume everything reported in that video is completely on the level (which is another fact that I don't have) I don't know enough about hypnosis to say what it has to do with the power of suggestion. I do know that a lot is possible with the psyche. Surgery predates anesthesia. For at least a couple thousand years, until the 1800's, people had major surgery without anesthetic. They got through it with mental discipline, fortitude, a stick to bite down on, and some burly chaps to hold them to the table. Luckily, we don't have to do that anymore.

Right. That would be what wiki calls the "psychological/perceptual arrow of time" Common sense should tell us that an object, like a key, can be at the same spot two different times (yesterday and today, for example) but cannot be at two different spots at the same time. Common sense keys us in on that. edit -> sorry, I should maybe avoid idioms. I noticed you spelled view 'vue' which suggested maybe you speak french natively although your english is fantastic in any case so I maybe shouldn't have thought twice about it... Common sense and experience tells us as much <- edit The laws of mechanics do as well.

I see. The idea of the arrow is that it points one direction or the other. The idea is not that it 'flows' or 'moves'. Think of it this way: if there were a preferred direction in space then everyone, on any planet, any species, would be able to point in that direction and say "that direction is special". That would be an arrow of space. An arrow of time is anything about nature or how the laws of physics work that lets us point to the future or the past and say "that direction is special because..."