EdEarl

At one time I did the math, Fourier transforms, and it works. I cannot explain it in words; though, a better mathematician then I am, might be able to. A sine wave riding on DCV becomes AC only when going through either a transformer or capacitor. An inductor doesn't see DCV, and affect a sine wave on DCV as if it were AC. When designing electronics, it is necessary to know whether a wire has DC, AC or AC on DC, but designing to accommodate is simple and easy. I don't understand what Handy andy wants to do, but ignoring the AC aspect of pulsed DC may give you incorrect results.

Zapatos and Thorham wrote my answer to Itoero. Thanks. I programmed for pay, and didn't care about the programs, except that they were good enough to keep my job, which was easy. Coding is about as emotional as doing a crossword puzzle. It's hard to imagine I suffered intense mental activity.

Studiot said in #7 Sorry, they may be measured in Hertz or cycles/second. Moreover, applying a Fourier transform to a pulse or pulse stream gives an equivalent set of sin waves (AC) that add and cancel to make the pulse(s). As Sensei said, "Typical DC does not have frequency, does not have pulses." On the other hand, it makes sense to talk about pulsed DC sometimes, because the information given by a Fourier transform is often too complex to understand. Both viewpoints are valid.

The human body has more microbes in and on it than it has human cells; thus, careful selection of microbes may not be possible. However, since they grow in and on people, they may not survive the Martian environment. Moreover, people will be sealed inside an environmental suit, habitat or other structure that will prevent mass contamination of Mars. Inevitably, some will escape.

While writing a program, I decide to use a hash to search for a key instead of a linear search, because it is much faster. What is emotional about that decision

It seems the land bridge had some parts missing. Unfortunately, they let us guess how long these gaps were.

If they didn't build boats, how did they get here?

They weren't homo sapiens; who were they? This info opens a lot of questions, for example did these people get here by boat?

DrP is making sense. If you don't understand his basketball analogy, they you should think again. The Earth is not heated consistently; the N pole is nighttime almost 6 months of the year while the S pole is daylight, and every 6 months they switch. The sun rises above the horizon and circles the Earth around the pole. If there is a slight depression at either one of the poles, the depression will never have sunlight fall directly on it. There is a crater on the moon at one pole (at least) where the sun never shines.

I wonder if elephants understand what rational though is; if not, then they can't think of us as rational. Moreover, I don't always think of people as rational, many seem to make emotional decisions.

Magnetism is neither hot nor cold, nor does it make hot or cold. Hold a magnet in your hand to discover this fact. Ice at the poles does not significantly affect magnetism, nor does it make magnetism. Get an ice cube and use a compass to check whether it is magnetic or not (it's not). Yes, ice melts when it warms. Put your hand in the sun for a few minutes; that is radiation from the sun. It is warm/hot, not cold. Our air does help protect us from radiation, and the Earth's magnetism does too. Magnetism is not cold. Ask your physician. Temperature measurements around the world show it is warming most places, but it is uneven and the poles are warming more than elsewhere. Underground is a bit excessive, but an earthship (http:earthship.com) is a smart idea.

There are many possible high tech methods of air conditioning, and there is http://earthship.com/

The Wright Brothers flew December 17, 1903.

True, and, yes, we may not see it happen. I think sentience will require many modules, language, logic, interacting with space-time, vision, hearing, smell, etc., and each time one is added to the system, scientists will look for emergent functions. Thus, they may see it, if they think to look in the right way.

IMO some here think that making a sentient AI will be more difficult than it will actually be, merely because we currently don't know how to do it.

Aquatic life poses extra difficulties for technology development, for example steam engines were preceded by eons of fire use. Dolphins can't make fire, they don't cook food, they use no tools naturally, yet they are very intelligent and have some facility for communication among themselves. However, toothed whales use bubbles and mud as temporary corals for fish, and use bow waves to access food.

There are now estimates of how many Earth like planets exist in the Milky Way. Do we know enough about the history of our galaxy to estimate how many of those worlds have been sterilized by stellar explosions, whether such worlds may recover enough to support life after sterilization, and how such events affect our expectation of finding aliens.

Animals that can do some interesting, I dare say amazing, things include dolphins (@7:30), crows, elephants, bonobo, orangutan, and gorilla. Are they sentient? You decide.

Our brains continue to grow after birth, and the senses are crucial to its proper growth and mental development. Without senses, the brain would be adversely affected, and we would not recognize it as capable of human thought even after heroic medical intervention restored the senses.

AFAIK no religion is completely consistent with science; although, I am ignorant of most religions. Wikipedia lists 19 major religions, but most, maybe all, have variations (e.g., Christianity - Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, etc.); there are religions of indigenous peoples (e.g., various American Indians) and religions from antiquity (e.g., Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Celtic, etc.) that aren't mentioned among the major religions. I've seen estimates of over 4000 religions; it is unlikely anyone knows them all. Nonetheless, I believe none are 100% scientific and no two religions are alike; there seem to be an infinite number of possible religious beliefs. Buddhism is not completely scientific.

No problem We can agree to disagree; I believe we are biological machines and our brain makes us aware.

The De Broglie–Bohm theory is a deterministic interpretation of QM that explains all the observations also leading to the Copenhagen interpretation, meaning no free will. Moreover, Heisenberg Uncertainty only means we cannot measure accurately or predict the future, it does not imply free will, IMO.

If the Many Worlds Interpretation is correct, in one universe you make some decision and in another universe you make another; all possible choices are made, always. Thus, the idea of determinism or free will is moot; alternatively, you might consider it all inclusive determinism.

The perimeter of a disk with 1 meter circumference spinning at 70,000 rpm would be moving 70,000 K/m, only 1/60th the 70,000 K/S.

SpaceX (Elon Musk) engineers are working on a rocket and crew capsule to take 100-200 people to Mars in one trip with a cost of about $100,000. The reason we need people on another planet is to assure human survival if humanity is annihilated by either a natural or man made event. People on Mars could repopulate the Earth.