EdEarl

It must be impossible to see any of the moon landers from Earth with any existing telescope. I wonder if the Thirty Meter Telescope or the European Extremely Large Telescope (39.3m) will be able to take a picture of them.

Truly, without prediction and experiment, it is a long way from the scientific method. However, I see some similarities as follows: Phenomenology (from Greek phainómenon "that which appears" and lógos "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. from Wikipedia In other words, observe what is occurring and what you are thinking. Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. from Wikipedia In other words, analyze what you observe. The Oxford Dictionaries Online define the scientific method as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses". Measuring is a type of observation. Formulate means analyze and predict. In other words, analyze what you observe, then predict and test.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogachara Had not heard of it before, but it seems almost scientific with the exception of prediction and experiment that minimize misconceptions.

There are many, includng SciShow and Phisics Girl for a variety of quick explanations. At the other end of the spectrum, many universities have recorded lectures by professors, for example Leonard Susskind of Stanford. For science news, a site like Phys.org or another is good. You can check youtube once you have a subject you want to investigate; though, there is not a formula for research, except be persistent.

I found a report of this AI chatbot on YouTube. It is a free service for people in New York and London, which advises a person on how to fight traffic tickets. It asks questions about your ticket and if it takes a case has a 64% success rate, and saved people over $4M. The person who developed this service intends to expand its services to other cities. It was launched in 2015 by a 19 year old. This means AI chatbots are relatively easy to develop, and I expect we will see a rapid increase in sophistication and a plethora of chatbot applications.

Coral Castle was built around 1923 over a 28 year span by one man, who had no heavy equipment and moved 1000 tons of stone, including one 27 ton stone. He worked alone and would not let anyone watch. The pyramids are bigger, but there were many workers. We cannot imagine how it was done; that doesn't mean it was done by aliens, magic or high tech.

Coffee is best black.

I didn't discover being allergic to milk until I was about 45, and suffered from colds until I stopped milk. An allergy test I took did not discover my allergy. Thus, my recommendation is purely from personal experience, which is unique and not particularly significant. However, there are easy and inexpensive ways to get calcium and other minerals that are in milk, without drinking milk. I would have been better off, if I had stopped milk sooner. I've had one cold since stopping milk, about 25 years. You may use or ignore my advice and life experience as you wish.

I am allergic to milk, not lactose intolerant, actually allergic. It causes mucus in my lungs, and caught colds every year until I stopped drinking milk. It is definitely not good for me. Milk is food for babies, and no animal except humans, drink milk except as babies, and some animals owned by people, cats for example. IMO we should follow the example set by nature, and stop drinking milk, except for babies.

Ice melting will dilute the oceans a bit, making them less salty, about 1.5%. The weight of ice on Greenland, a couple of miles thick in places, pushes ground levels down; they will rebound as ice melts. IDK if the rebound will affect tectonics.

CCDs can detect single photons at some wavelengths with near 100% efficiency. http://www.andor.com/learning-academy/quantum-efficiency-(qe)-in-high-energy-ccd-detectors-understand-qe-in-a-high-energy-ccd

IDK how sensitive current cameras are in telescopes, but it if this one is better, then images can be captured faster, making more time for other observations, or fainter objects can be captured with long times, making it possible to see things that cannot currently be seen. Since the time photons arrive is captured, will that change the nature of optical interferometry? Will it make arrays of smaller telescopes practical, instead of building massive telescopes like the ELT?

Must have had one too many dogs.

Reduce your carbon footprint and improve your health at the same time.

Newt?

Your answer is acceptable.

You sparked old memories. As a child, when I said, "I wish ...," my grandmother would say, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." More to the point, she also told me, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink."

Is this a crack in the wall called The Theory of Everything?

The universe is mathematical from both the large (relativistic) and small (quantum) perspectives. I, too, need evidence to believe that our brain does something besides compute.

@andrewcellini Your reference says: Propagation of action potentials are signals that ultimately originate from a sensory neuron, for example something touching skin, produce chaos in neurons. The oscillations occur in neurons whether or not they process input or produce output. @DrmDoc I disagree with this idea: However, I'm not likely to change your mind. My case is based on AI winning against the best chess, jeopardy, and go players, the ability to drive an automobile, make money in financial transactions, and win in air-to-air dogfights. A general AI does not exist that can do all these things; computers aren't fast and big enough yet. On the other hand, with AI can now be developed to do any knowledge work a human can do, except for complex creative jobs. If a computer can do it, then our brains only need to be able to be equivalent to a Turing machine. They don't need extra capability.

What do you mean by chaotic? Neurons are predictable AFAIK, except for a very small chance of a random quantum affect on a neuron. However, the consensus here seems to be that quantum random effects are insignificant. I suppose toxins that one may ingest may affect neurons adversely, and one might ingest something by chance.

That Turing invented Turing machines proves the brain is equivalent to a Turing machine, because Turing evaluated programs using his brain, paper and pencil. Turing also proved a universal Turing machine (infinite tape) could computer anything computable; although, some things require infinite time. Thus, our brains can compute anything computable, given infinite time, paper and pencils. AFAIK there is no proof that our brains can compute anything beyond what is computable. What do you mean by, "Our brain's functional responses aren't necessarily limited by its functional matrix."

I don't understand the motives of those who have suggested translating from neural net to computer program. A Turing machine is universal (computers are finite renditions of Turing machines), which means they can compute anything computable. Neural nets are equivalent to Turing machines, if given infinite memory. Thus, a finite neural net is equivalent to a computer of similar memory capacity. Actually translating from a neural net to a program is proof of equivalency, but AFAIK serves no other function; although, for a non trivial net the task could be massive. It is much easier to make simple finite Turing machine with a neural net as proof.

It may be that our brains sometimes do random things because quantum events are sometimes random. If it is true, then we could never capture all brain processes in an algorithm. If a neuron fires partly because of an electron tunneling, it will recover and that error will usually be insignificant. It is possible to make the wrong fight or flight decision, but such events are rare. When a computer reads a memory location to get an instruction and a random error occurs, the algorithm is usually trashed and might cause a crash. A random error in data might be insignificant or it might propagate the error via calculations into other data, and might cause algorithm failure without a crash. Computers are sensitive to memory errors; whereas, brains are not. That Turing machines are universal does not mean we can easily translate the contents of a neural net into a program, except by coding a neural net and letting it learn.