gib65

What about those protein shakes? Are those worth buying? I mean, are they all that they're hyped up to be? Or am I better off, in a practical sense, just eating low fat meats?

I just got a new gym set and I'm going to start on a workout routine. I haven't figured out what I want to do, but I think I'm going to do some weight training. I also want to lose a bit of fat. Is it possible to build muscle and lose fat at the same time? I mean, they say that to build muscle, you have to eat a lot (a lot of protein and a lot of carbs), but to lose weight, you need to consume less than you're burning. Is it possible to do both at the same time?

In that case, my apologies. Sometimes these topics can be tricky. Thanks for all the formuli everyone. I've now got a lot to choose from.

That is a big one. What does is represent?

Thanks for the support, The Tree (or should I just call you "Tree"?). You're right about the ominous equations coming off looking like real equations to the untrained eye - and so almost anything we come up with, no matter how fallacious, might pass as a genuine scientific formula. But I should mention, just so no one gets the wrong idea, that this digresses a bit from the main point I'm trying to make in my paper. I'm only trying to say that the determinist, whether right or wrong, thinks of physical nature in the same way we think of mathematics - that is, as perfectly determined. Anyway, you say describing a falling particle would do the job just as well. It seems like a much simpler idea - much more parsimonious - but I'm not sure how it would be generalized to the entire universe. Can I ask you to elaborate on this?

Wow, Bascule, that looks pretty heavy duty. Did you do that all yourself? Is this what you do professionally?

Well, my story (one of countless others) does not involve mixing hazardous chemicals or accidents with household appliance, but it was extremely embarrassing. When I was about 19 or 20 or so, I used to help out a "friend" on occasion by getting autographs of famous hockey players for him. He'd pay me a whole whopping 50 cents per autograph while he'd pocket the rest by selling them to avid fans. Now I'm not a hockey junky by any stretch of the imagination. The only hockey players whose name I can put a face to is Gretsky and Sakic. Others, like Lafontain and Lemieux, I wouldn't know how to recognize (only their names are familiar to me). So Rob (my "friend") points them out to me, tells me their name, and I got ask for their autograph. Anyway, there was some big hockey thing going on in Calgary in the fall of '96 (anyone remember what it was?) so all the big names in hockey were there. In a hotel, Rob points out some famous Russian player (whose name I can't remember for the life of me), tells me his name and says to go get his autograph. The guy was going up some stairs and there was another man also going up about half a floor ahead of him. I get the two mixed up - I think Rob's pointing to the other guy. So I go rushing towards the stairs, calling out the name Rob gave me, run right passed him, and catch up to the other guy. Meanwhile I hear Rob laughing his face off. I look and see him pointing to the actual guy behind me. I look at him and see he's laughing too. "Oh... uh... he he, can I have your autograph, Mr. ____?" I say with a nervous laughter. He gave it to me anyway, and I got payed my whole 50 cents. On a side note, about 3 years later, I meet up with Rob at a party, and I hear him talking to some teenaged boys about how much he owes them for the autographs. I hear one of them say "You still owe me $50.00." That's right, $50.00!!! Not 50 cents, not $5.00 - $50.00!!! I asked Rob about them, and he tells me he makes so much more money off them now ever since e-bay came out. Hell, if I could make $50.00 per autograph, I risk going after the wrong people any day.

That's BS! It happens all the time in Star Wars.

Okay

Yes, long windedness is good. It's not so important what the equation means, just that there's a lot of symbols and operations. The reader needs to feel overwelmed by it (although I will take a moment to explain what it means). I like The Tree's link. I like the one for conservation of energy. That one's a monster, especially with the expansion of [math]\phi[/math]. Now, I will need to explain what this formula stands for, at least in one or two sentences. I read part way through the article that [math]\rho[/math] is the density (mass per volume) of the liquid. So if I took the expression in the brackets that's being multiplied by [math]\rho[/math] and divided both sides of the equation by it (thus getting an equation for [math]\rho[/math] by itself), could I call this the formula for liquid density? It would just be better for my purposes to have a formula in this form.

* slaps self on forehead * D'Oh! Of course! It would take time for such a long ship, wouldn't it.

No, not necessarily, but in highly nonlinear systems, our lack of knowledge is just that - a lack of knowledge. One thing that I do touch upon in my paper is the difference between what I call "ontological determinism" and "epistemic determinism". Ontological determinism simply means that a system in a given state S is determined, independently of anyone's knowledge, to acquire a specific future state S'. Epistemic determinism refers to our ability to know the future state S' given full and accurate knowledge of state S. Obviously, if nonlinear systems are not epistemicly determined, we can't ever know whether or not they are ontologically determined. But here, I should say that I'm not trying to prove they are in my paper. I'm simply explaining what a devout determinist would believe - that everything is ontologically determined, linear or not, epistemicly or not. I'm saying that a determinists thinks of mathematics as the perfect description of nature.

Yes, by "complex" I mean lots of symbols. I am aware of the non-determinicy of quantum mechanics' date=' but I'm talking about classical mechanics. The formuli used, if they are indeed scientific formuli, are used to predict outcomes of natural phenomena. If they are successful, the phenomena in question must be just as deterministic as the formuli that describe them. Great! I'd very much like to see it.

So let me see if I understand. Sam, who measures D, can know when D has completed its trip causing the ship to explode, but he can't know when V has completed its trip causing Tom to be jettisoned. Meanwhile, Tom can know hen V had completed its trip causing him to be jettisoned, but not when D has completed its trip causing the ship to explode. So neither one can say which event happened before the other. Is that correct? Is there any way of predicting the outcome at all? I mean, eventually, Tom and Sam will either rondezvous or not. Is there any way of predicted beforehand whether this can happen (Tom survives) or not (Tom dies)?

I need a really complex scientific forumla. I'm writing a paper and I'm using math as an analogy for physical determinism. I need something really complex to demonstrate how complexity has no baring on making things more "random" (i.e. the math is just as determined whether it's simple or complicated). So what's the most complicated formula from some field of science you can think of?

That's pretty neat. It's simple but elegant. And it's an idea I've never heard of before. I especially like the page flipping thing you can do with your mouse. You must have done some fancy programming for that.

You must be talking about the relativity of simultaneity, right? I hope you don't mind if I drag this on a little further - I'm still confused . I can understand what Einstein meant by the relativity of simultaneity, but I can't understand when it is used to reverse the order of "before" and "after". That is, for Tom, V completes its trip before D, but for Sam, D completes its trip before V. Let me make the scenario a little more complicated. Suppose Tom is in a jettison pod that is equidistant between the two light sources. On the pod is a self-destruct switch that, when flicked sends signals, at the same time, to both light source telling them to emit a light impulse. When the light impulse of V completes its round-trip, it triggers a light sensitive device that jettisons the pod. When the light impulse of D completes its round-trip, it triggers a light sensitive device that explodes the ship (it's a really, really large ship, so D takes a lot more time than V to complete its trip - enough time for the pod to fully jettison). So now the question is, does Tom survive or not? From the point of view of Tom's reference frame, he must survive, but from Sam's, he will not. Again, sorry if I'm annoying the experts, but when I encounter a paradox (or pseudo-paradox) like this, my mind won't rest until I get an answer.

Well, okay, make it a round-trip then. Isn't there still a paradox?

Sorry for the late reply, but I just read the OP's challenge and, even after reading over this entire thread (well, perusing), I still don't get it. I read Severian's explanation of proper time, but it still seems there would be a paradox. I don't want to challenge SR, so I ask this question with the understanding that it is my lack of understanding that's the problem, and I'd be grateful to anyone who can give me a clear answer. First off, let me simplify the scenario - instead of light impulses reflecting off mirrors, let's just say they take a one-way trip - that is, they travel from the source, hit the ceiling and that's it. We still have the same paradox but without the change of direction the light would take half way through their trip (so GR can't compensate). Also, let's call the travelling observer Tom and the stationary observer Sam. Let's call the light impulse that Tom sees as moving vertically V and the one he sees as moving diagonally as D. Now to Severian's explanation. Since the time it takes for V to complete its trip, as measured by Tom's clock, is the proper time [math]\tau[/math], that makes the time measured by Sam's clock for V the dilated time [math]t[/math]. I know, from past examples, that Sam's measurement is the greater one, so I assume that [math]\gamma[/math] is greater than 1. Now, in regards to D, if what Severian says is true, then it must be Sam's measurement that is the proper time [math]\tau[/math], and since [math]\gamma[/math] is greater than 1, the dilated time [math]t[/math], which must be what Tom measures, is greater than [math]\tau[/math]. Also note that the time that Tom measures for V and the time Sam measures for D must be the same - that's what it means for light to travel 300,000 Km/s independently of the speed of the observer. So if you follow this to its logical conclusion, Tom observes V finishing its trip sooner than D, while Sam observes V finishing its trip later than D. It seems to me that the paradox still exists. But as I said, I'm betting the farm that it's my misunderstanding. But I would like to know where I'm going wrong.

Well, something must be happening.

Well, that would explain what's happening in the brain to induce nausea, but I'm wondering what happens in the stomach. Does it result from the stomach lining getting eaten away?

That's very weird. So let me get this straight. The psychic, on some subconscious level, sensed the woman's depression. Then, when she goes home, she takes this subconscious impression or memory with her. Maybe she even shares in the depression - that is, she feels depressed too because she "feels her pain" (depression can be contagious, as Mike has first hand knowledge of). And because the psychic now carries the depression with her, it manifests in her own house. Yeah, the manifestation. This gets into the idea that mental content can be projected - as if it could exist in a region of space apart from the body. Personally, I feel more comfortable thinking of this as an idiosynchrasy of the person doing the projection. I can't fathom emotions existing "outside the body", whatever that means. In other words, the person doing the projection is only experiencing the projection. It's something mental. I might go so far as to say neurological or chemical. And if the projector (the psychic in this case) carries the emotion with her/him, it probably wouldn't take much for his/her mind, having this anomalous tendency, to "see" emotions as entities taking residence in the house. But, hey, I only prefer this interpretation 'cause it's the only one a mind like mine can fully understand - others may feel differently, and that's okay. I wouldn't call the psychic insane. Everything we experience is always projected. We always experience it as something "out there", something of the world, something independent of our being conscious of it. We each have our own unique neurological wiring and chemical balances, and this makes us experience a wide variety of crazy things. For some, it's too much. For some, they end up feel too different - or worse, depressed, or, in some other way, in pain. To me, it would seem the psychic is using her aberration to do good in the world - she's aiming towards solving people's psychological problems. I wouldn't call that insane - I'd call that serving a healthy purpose (unfortunately, one that's not widely recognized as such). So why was the depression without a spirit? Well, I'd take this to mean it's only a fragment of a spirit, the client's spirit. It is her depression, not her entire soul or being. Overall, sounds like the psychic is only half psychic - the other half is psychoanalytic. That is, she seems to have this nack for "going with" the story offered to her by the client (that an evil presence is in the house), contemplating it for a while, until she suddenly acquires a psychoanalytic explanation - and then accepts the psychoanalytic explanation at the expense of the supernatural one. That's an interesting algorithm for a human brain to carry out, if I do say so myself. This says more about you than it does about GutZ . Remember' date=' GutZ reports not having been disturbed by them at all. They "protect him", he said. There's one last thing I want to say. If anyone here likes the idea of the supernatural - that is, if it makes them, in some way, feel whole as a person to believe in it - then I'd like to offer some advice (take it or leave it ). Always understand the supernatural as an extension of the natural - DO NOT approach it as an [i']opposite[/i]! Understand that the supernatural - if it exists at all - is poorly understood in today's world, but with enough diligence and patience, those who want to can come up with intelligible explanations.

What happens in the stomach to trigger the nausea sensations we feel when we consume things that we shouldn't be consuming. There must be a layer of something coating the stomach walls, something that protects it from stomach acid, and when we consume things like alcohol or any kind of foriegn substance we're not used to, it somehow eats away at this layer, and once the actual stomach walls are exposed, the stomac acid starts eating away at this layer, triggering the nausea reaction. Am I right... or way off?

So what do you think they were? Something supernatural or just neurological/psychological? Do you believe in the supernatural?