EdEarl

I agree with you; most if not all of the brain contributes to consciousness. "Center of consciousness" is an idiom, which I should not have used. Jeff Hawkins and others say higher order thinking including consciousness is associated with the neocortex, which tends to indicate the cortex is especially important in those thought processes, but that is different than the spiritual idea some have of a center of consciousness. When a reflex action occurs, signals are sent throughout the brain simultaneously, but neurons are organized hierarchically; thus, it seems there must be some time differential between signals arriving at high vs. low level neurons in the hierarchy. My recollection of reflex reactions is as if the reaction occurs, and shortly afterward I am aware of it.

No problem. I said all I'd intended and know the issues.

National Geographic made a documentary that includes a nuclear bomb propelled interstellar ship. See: "Nat Geo Evacuate Earth"

Quantum mechanics is weird. Subatomic particles aren't like baseballs. Thus, one just has to memorize the QM wave-particle characteristics and equations. Our bodies and minds have not evolved to sense QM things and interactions.

Engineering will give you a good background in math, which is essential. Youtube has many videos about physics, some that require no math and some in which math helps. You may get quite a bit of physics as part of your undergraduate degree. I know electronic engineering students get a lot of physics. Leonard Susskind of Stanford has recorded some of the ones that require a little math. I know other universities have videos on youtube, but I have listened to only a few and don't know much about them. After you watch the no math and little math videos you should find studying physics with full math a little easier. Here is short video.

This link may help. http://www.ge.com/thegeshow/flight/#ch2, or it may be too basic.

This issue is part of the "Healthcare Dilemma." In general senior citizens, such as me, cannot afford health care now. Yet, some health care workers are underpaid. Medicare is spending outrageous amounts of money, which is ever increasing, and the government may not be able to afford medicare in the future. Etc. What to do? I do not know. No one seems to know. If I live long enough, it seems my insurance will be unable to pay for my care, and I will die from lack of care. Well, I have lived a fairly long life, and now, I guess, any day is a good day to die.

I do not know what you mean by an electromagnetic circuit. Thus, I will give you links to some applications of electromagnets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_motor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_actuator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_accelerator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

Removing the center of the Earth would decrease its mass. Moreover, the remaining crust would probably break apart and mostly collapse into a smaller body, with some perhaps flying away into space. Exactly what happens might be modeled in a computer simulation, but could not be modeled without knowing what you think happens to that missing core. Does it just magically disappear, does it eject into space, or what? Note, you need not answer, I will not (probably cannot) write such a simulation.

That might depend on what illness means. However, viruses attack cells of various kinds, not just human cells.

Consciousness seems obvious to us, but a definition is elusive. And, whether we have free will or not is a matter of opinion. As far as I know, a scientific consensus has not occurred on either. Yet, I believe we should be as scientific as possible. Toward that end, I suggest we consider a simpler system. For example, we might discuss free will and consciousness independently. Moreover, we might discuss consciousness of an infant, who has no experience to complicate and confuse us. A newborn can suck, poop, and hear, feel, smell, etc. It will react unconsciously to being touched, hit, burned, etc., but lacks many semiautomatic responses to its environment, such as catching a ball thrown at its face. Thus, we can separate autonomous responses that are unconscious, from learned semiautomatic responses. We consciously train ourselves to do things like catch a ball. Thus, I ask, is catching a ball thrown at our face truly "unconscious." Our brain is massively parallel. Not only do we have two more or less independent hemispheres, each hemisphere contains billions of neurons organized into independent functional areas that control muscles, respond to our senses, and make decisions. Thus, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Yet, neurons are relatively slow compared to transistor speeds. Thus, we can catch a ball thrown at our face, before the brain has time to send signals to our consciousness telling us what has occurred. I think there is nothing magical, supernatural or incredible about an autonomous or semiautomatic response to stimulus not notifying our center of consciousness until after the event. Although, our brains and bodies are exceptionally adept at survival and remarkably able to think about complex ideas. These links are interesting, and I think relevant to this discussion. The first is over an hour, the second is about 20 minutes.

Yes, tyvm. My wife will need to ask her principal whether it is ok to use this demo, because the company might hold the school liable.

There are patents for all kinds of things that do not work, including perpetual motion machines. Moreover, in a few cases, the government has patented something after it was already patented by someone...patent theft. Additionally, some countries do not honor US patents, but anyone can order a copy. Thus, patents can be stolen by a foreigner who lives in such a country. One of the biggest problems is that patent owners only have 13 years plus one 13 year renewal, and corporations would rather not pay for a patent and wait till it expires. At which time, anyone can make and sell things previously protected by patent.

I see prices of lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate are about $6K/ton, and lithium metal are about $60K/ton. I suspect that part of the expense of making the metal is the danger of handling lithium. It is generally toxic, and lithium hydroxide is corrosive.

I would object to being boiled, but some organisms do live in water that is boiling hot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermophile

My wife says, thanks! She feels much better now that she does not need to listen to the scientists. She can now buy a Hummer.

My wife is a special education teacher, K-5. Among her many duties is actually teaching; although, paperwork consumes much of her time. All of her children need more attention, but a sp-ed teacher is often one-on-one with a student. Educational computer programs (special games) could help, but I have been unable to find either open source or free programs that would be helpful. Does anyone know of any free computer programs for this purpose? If so please leave links. tyvm

Elon Musk expects to cut the cost of launching into orbit by 1/100th within a few years by making everything reusable, from booster to crew vehicle. I believe that makes payload cost about $220/kg from Earth to orbit. NASA believes the Moon has lots of water.

True that the cycle times have not increased in a few years, but the number of processors per microchip has been growing, which increases power per chip. I am aware of the laws of diminishing returns on number of processors, but additional processors allow my laptop to do run more than one process at a time, which helps. I'll give you the lack of a quantum computer. i saw something once in which someone claimed limited success, but cannot find it now.

The video titled "A Conversation with Augusto and Yapohen Pirahã" is very interesting. It shows the difficulty of first contact with another society, and how different people involved in these situations have different impressions of the interactions. I cannot discern how to what degree the Pirahã answers to questions were politically motivated rather than factual. I have no personal knowledge about the controversy between Chomsky and Everett. I am not an expert on the Chomsky Hierarchy, but I have worked on computer languages and believe it to be pragmatic. Whether people process language in this manner or not, I do not know. I don't believe analysis of all the worlds languages will settle the issue, and I know of no proof that people do process language using recursion. That's my opinion, which is worth nothing.

I agree. Loss of glaciers in mountains will cause rivers to be dry when it does not rain, crops to fail, and millions or billions of people to migrate and/or wars over water with much loss of life. The prospects are not good.

Please explain my error?

True, but laser pointers are.

Lithium batteries seem to be the best for mobile application, and supplies appear to be available for a while. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial Liquid metal batteries seem to be the best for stationary, grid use, and recent developments are promising. See: =Ed=

You can logically think about being outside of space-time, but it is not logical to think you can do it.