No, an electron is not capable of possessing both definite position and velocity at the same time.
As far as we KNOW- but we're finite beings that don't know everything. In a different frame of reference, it's still possible.
That's why, if you cool stuff sufficiently, you get the Bose-Einstein Condensate.
Uh, what the heck does the reduction of velocity in a gas in relation to temperature have to do with the position of an electron at a given point in the trajectory of it's velocity? Other than of course the obvious- actually stopping it's velocity long enough to measure it's position? Hmm, does that mean if we can vary the temperature between -246 and -247 Kelvin we could potentially measure *both* position and velocity (kind of like a computer graphic erasing itself and redrawing in a new position to simulate motion)? After all, once you have 3 positions, and the amount of time in between, you've got velocity...thanks for providing an experiment to disprove Heisenberg. Now all we need is to invent the apparatus needed. I suggest a scanning electron microscope about twice the power of any one we currently have, and a freezer capable of getting down to absolute zero and accurate enough to oscilate only one degree over a set time period, and a nice container of hydrogen so that you are searching for a single electron instead of a cloud of them.
I personally believe both Einstein and Bell were right- and the problem is the processing power of the human brain.
Reality is deterministic to me- but human beings are NOT. If we were omniscient, we might be more deterministic. The really cool thing along this way of thinking is God- who becomes omnipotent, more scient than we are, but not omniscient. The information is there- it's just arrogance to suggest that it isn't- but as finite beings we're not capable of processing in paralell sufficently enough to measure both position and velocity of an electron at the same time.
The neat thing about this line of thinking is that quantum mechanics is deterministic ENOUGH to defeat the speed of light through spooky action; but we're decades away from it yet. This experiment is a good start- if we can put particles into cat state then perhaps we will one day be able to put them in a definite state- a clockwise or a counterclockwise spin- and have the companion entangled particle chage state as well. The day we can do this, is the day the quantum network card will come into being, freeing us from ping time and totally destroying the concept of LAN vs WAN.
Mod parent up- this is the real thing. Synchronous communications have a tendency to be anti-productive. Asynchronous communications have a tendency to be productive up to a point, and easily ignorable if an emergency happens that needs to be responded to. Based on this idea, I'd also suggest removing phones from cubicles, as well as not allowing IM and P2P applications be installed in the first place.
Blogs are just authoritative statements from non-authorities who want their narcisistic rush. I find the majority of them to be boring to begin with, why would video be any different?
That's just not true. Aspects of the universe being random do not mean the whole universe is random. We can discover laws in a universe which has randomness. Besides, invoking an intelligent God has no effect on your argument. It becomes utterly useless to do any science at all- any laws we think we discover would actually be just local manifestations of God's will in what is by and large an arbitrary universe- and they wouldn't neccessarily hold true a minute from now, let alone be testible.
Why would God be as arbitrary as a human being? Just because we're arbitrary and biased doesn't mean God is; in fact it's likely that's a big difference between man and God. Seems to me Confucious said something about that...as did Isaiah, Ubantu, Koresh, and Mohammed. Science is the search for the mind of God, for the UNIVERSAL manifestation of God's will. Or at least, it used to be.
No, if you know C never happens then that is something useful. You seem unable to comprehend that the universe can have random aspects without making it impossible to predict anything. The whole field of statistics is about making predictions about random processes. I can't predict what the roulette wheel will come up with next time - as far as I'm concerned, it's completely random. But it's still useful to know that it will land on any given number 1/37 of the time.
But you don't know that C will never happen just because of statistics; all you know is that C has not happened *so far*. Statistics can tell us that the roulette wheel will reward the person betting on red or black 49% of the time; but it can't predict the earthquake that turns the table over and sends the ball rolling across the floor. Essentially useless- and rather stupid to depend on unless you've got *all* the information taken into account.
Indeed. But *this would still be true if lightning strikes were truly random*.
No, actually, it wouldn't. If lightning strikes were TRULY random, that is disconnected from the physical laws of the universe, then the copper rod would be no better of a disipator of the energy as the tree right next to it, or the blade of grass an inch away. RANDOM is random- totally devoid of physical law.
True. So religion can work in the presence of randomness too.
Religion and randomness are one and the same- the word Random is just a cop-out that says you don't want to investigate beyond a certain point, that you're willing to take this part on faith.
Randomness explains events occurring at what looks to be random, and more simply than any alternative.
Circular logic explains absolutely nothing other than the person refering to it is a coward who refuses to dig further. Simplicity is not valid when you're just inventing circular logic to pretend to explain something.
The conductor and the science behind it works whether or not the strikes are random.
If the strikes were truly random, that is, divorced from the basic laws of electricity, then copper would be no better of a conductor than stone, wood, or glass. Either things follow physical, natural laws, or you're just appealing to a religious authority.
All you're showing is that science doesn't completely explain everything.
Exactly- so we should stop teaching kids that it does, and stop censorship of alternative explainations.
You've got a god of the gaps thing going - science doesn't know what causes this yet so it must be god.
It's worse than that. If it was JUST that, I'd personally have no problem (some others might, but I'm more tolerant of other religions than that). No- science teachers have to claim that they can explain everything, but since they're so AFRAID of the concept of a God, and so afraid of being WRONG; they invent one called "random", so that they can continue to claim to be infallible before their students, inventing a new religion and not seeing the damage that causes. They tell us the p
Sure, there is absolutely nothing in science that says there is or isn't "GOD" somewhere offstage of the system/scope-of-discussion being explained.
Except you just interjected one into the system/scope-of-discussion being explained. Interesting that you gave it the same name as Arthur Dent's daughter...:-)
Maybe there's a God, maybe there isn't.
So if there isn't, you're still going to teach kids to worship an indeterministic universe?
Admit to WHAT "proof" of what?
Two things: That science doesn't know everything, and that scientists are just as superstitious as anybody else who believes in things that are "outside of the scope of the discussion being explained". In other words- science is just another religion, another set of beliefs and models about what is true, albeit a particularily successfull one, still only one among many. Human beings can NEVER know the fullness of truth- and shouldn't claim to. The real problem isn't what the cirriculum in science class includes or doesn't include- the real problem is that science has become nothing more than just another authoritative cult for far too many people.
The sex is important to the story line. I'm not quite sure how yet, but they've gone to great pains to say that the cylons (in their latest 12 models, not all of which are humanoid, but all of which now have *some* biological parts) are trying to actually become a race- but they can't figure out sex for the humanoids yet. They're trying several experiments- women who survived on Caprica are in baby farms, we've seen models try to seduce men in the fleet. Baltar has a chip implanted in his head that gives him some sort of a psycic connection to the cylons- who keept trying to get him to believe that Adama will kill his child that doesn't exist yet.
The religious stuff is there- but even more intense as the cylons are monotheists and the humans are polytheists (Christian God vs the Lords of Kobol, who seem to be Greek analogue instead of Egyptian this time around).
All in all, the style is a LOT more dramatic and a LOT less campy- though that may change now that the FEMALE Admiral Cain has showed up with the Pegasus (and immediately gained command because she's got more rank than Adama, and then started executing the men who had been seduced by the Cylons).
Very well done- certainly a LOT more realistic on the physics side than the original. Oh yeah- and the cylons are expert hackers- networked computers are BAD (and it was Baltar networking the computers together that allowed for the conquest of the Colonies).
House is no more about the medicine than Arrested Development is about building houses.
In fact, I'm begining to think that the show will end with bankruptcy- has the Bluth corporation EVER actually FINISHED a house? Asside from the test model that was build on no foundation?
You can make bullets out of practically anything- but yes, water and fuel that are pure enough to be useable might be a bit scarce, espeically if you're trying to run away from all the proven sources your civilization knows about....
To me, I still have yet to warm to the new BG from the old, but I do find the new one more true to life.
That's a new one to me- I thought it was AMA based, apparently it isn't! Also, thanks for the trick. I do have chronic low blood pressure, so in the summer I usually need closer to three liters- about 12 cups or "glasses". In the winter, I usually slack off to one liter a day- nice to know that's correct.
I thought the myth was that water was a toxin- though it is in extremely large amounts, I'm talking about two quarts, or the infamous "Eight glasses a day" (yeah, right, if your glasses are only 8 ounces) put forth by the American Medical Association. Unfortuneately, my local proxy considers snopes "unsafe for work" so...
Most Americans are dehydrated most of the time. Few of us drink the 64 ounces of liquid we're supposed to. Can we use this effect to our advantage as well as our disadvantage?
Aren't you lucky to live with the wussyfication, instead of growing up when I did- more picked on every year, getting suspended whenever I actually fought back, stabbing somebody in the 8th grade, torching lockers when I was in the 10th. Nobody bothered to help me then, few bother to help me now that I do have a DSM-IV diagnosis, because I'm over 35 and considered to be too set in my ways to teach. I had to help myself- learn to surpress the emotions I was always feeling, learn my own set of rules for figuring out what other people are feeling (I still get that wrong quite often), and try not to give in to the urge to kill.
What I don't get is why with these rave reviews, NBC hasn't done a couple of miniseries followed by a full series out of the footage yet- after all, they own BG and Sci-fi Channel in the United States. This show is getting enough of a following that they could completely steal the Sunday Night timeslot from all the other sci-fi shows currently in syndication.
But some of those random outputs confer beneficial characteristics.
So what? What does that say about either?
Most don't, but some do.
Doesn't matter- without determinism, you will never be able to predict what the mutation will be in a single individual. And unless you predict the mutations of every single individual, you will not be able to predict which one will be the solution that is most beneficial.
No determinism required.
And without the determinism- no prediction is possible.
If you want to call randomness God then go ahead, but tell me why it must be intelligent.
Because of the existance of the physical laws that determine what appears to us to be random. Without those physical laws, with an unintelligent God, we're left with a truly random universe- supernatural events happening entirely at random with no purpose or pattern. At which point it becomes utterly useless to do any science at all- any laws we think we discover would actually be just local manifestations of order in what is by and large a random universe- and they wouldn't neccessarily hold true a minute from now, let alone be testible.
Not at all. Knowing that event A happens 50% of the time and event B the other 50% and event C doesn't happen at all is still useful information.
But it doesn't tell you that event C won't happen a minute from now, or that events D-Z won't happen further down the line. It's FAKE information, appearing to be useful when it really tells you exactly nothing.
We don't know whether lightning strikes are random,
And in fact, we have at least 3 possible answers that tell us that they're NOT random- and in fact predictable given the correct sensors.
you no doubt claim they're not,
They're obviously not, they're a buildup of static electricity in the ground and a lower electrical potential in the clouds. By measuring the static potential of the ground, they are predictable microseconds ahead of time.
but knowing that a copper rod can conduct it safely to ground is still useful
Yes but not random at all- and in fact is the reverse- the copper rod provides a short circuit that conducts it safely to the clouds.
and doesn't require us to know whether the strikes are random or not.
Yes, but for that matter so does a metal hammer planted in the ground as in the Norwegian temples to Thor. Randomness explains NOTHING- it's just a theological concept.
The science of lightning conductors is valid whether or not lightning strikes occur at random.
Actually, the science requires lightning strikes to be non-random to work- but all you've actually proved is that people can use science as a replacement for religion, which is my original point. If that's what you're going to teach as science, you might as well be teaching ID- it's EXACTLY THE SAME THEORY AS EVOLUTION if that's what passes for YOUR science.
I'm glad I came back to answer this- got caught up in a flame war and then Christmas and didn't get back here right away.
I don't know much about your condition, but I am curious about something - can't you learn these by memorizing what they're supposed to mean, even though you may not be able to make an emotional connection to them?
Yes, that's the primary form of therapy- created in the last 10 years or so. It's also similar to what most of us who were born far earlier came up with on our own- but think of it as a BASIC program in your head- everybody you see, every phrase you hear, every body posture you see has to go through a conscious IF-THEN-ELSE set of conditions. It's tiring at the very least- and it's so complex that without help and tutoring, it's downright imposible to pick up anything more than an approximate model on your own.
Why didn't the people treating your condition give you, say, a list of them for you to learn?
Mainly because I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30- and by then, I already had a somewhat accurate list of my own.
Are you seriously suggesting that biology and quantum mechanics are not subjected to scientific rigor?
Yes I am- in fact I'm suggesting that these are actually closer to religions than to the sort of 100% always true never changing scientific fact that say, Newton's laws in Earth's gravitational field have become.
Have you never heard of medical trials?
I have- they never do quite approach 100% certainty, do thay? Which would be a requirement of your rules.
Medical experiments?
Same problem- experiments in the guise of observations.
Particle accellerators?
Rather hard it's been for them to come up with the same result twice, let alone rise to the level of your definition of true science.
Evolution is firmly backed by experiment.
Only for a very different version of the word experiment than is given.
We've dug up dinosaur bones! That's an experiment.
No, it isn't- that's mere observation. Designing a DNA strand, watching it evolve, carefully controling it's environment to create a dinosaur after billions of years- that's an EXPERIMENT.
It gathers data that was not known beforehand.
Since when? Dinosaurs existed sometime in the past- or if the FSM style religionists are right, were created as bone sometime in the more recent past. Both explainations are logically valid- and merely digging up the bone does NOT lend evidence to either conclusion. Carbon dating would, but it becomes unreliable after 8000 years or so. Geological dating helps, but when you talk to evolutionists and geologists separately, you quickly realize that is a circular definition- the layers are defined by the fossils found in them, and the fossils are dated by the layer they were found in.
Evolution is proably one of the most tested theories on earth.
Until you actually examine it, anyway.
Numerical models fit evolution.
Numbers are an abstract concept, numerical models can be created to prove anything. This is no proof at all.
We can interpolate the evolution of species by using fossils as data points.
Or at least we assume we can- since nobody's invented a time machine yet to check the interpolation, this is as often wrong as it is right, and no better at all than mere religion.
It's a successful technique.
It's a successfull technique because it's never been tested in any way that could actually prove it wrong.
Believing in thunder gods is not.
It's no different than believing in thunder gods- none of this proves that evolution is anything more than just another myth. That's not to say it isn't right- there's a core of truth in every myth- it's just to say it's not finished, and probably won't be anytime soon. And in fact, because it's based on random mutation that can't be predicted, it's actually no more predictable than ID, which is EXACTLY THE SAME THEORY replacing randomness with acts of God.
Yeah. It's called The Age of Reason? Some people like to call it a Free Society, where thought is not surpressed and we are free to laugh at ridiculous and irrational ideas like Intelligent Design and beliveing that masturbation is evil.
Isn't it odd then, that you claim that "thought is not supressed" but the very next phrase is based on supression of thought?
You'd be better off actually thinking about the points I raise- and becoming a bit more skeptical about your science than just accepting any Richard Dawkins that comes along, to dazzle you with philosophy disguised as science.
excpet evolution can be test, and you CAN make predictions with it.
Some parts of evolution can. Not all, unfortuneately- when you rely on random events, or pseudorandom events, or Acts of God for your input, you haven't really explained anything at all.
For the record, Evolution is not a theory, it's a fact.
Fine, then prove that randomness exists. REALLY exists, not pseudorandom events like quantum mechanics describes, not raditation breaking down, but real supernatural random events. That's what is required for Evolution to become a "Fact" with a capital F.
Evolution by Natural Selection is the theory.
Natural Selection is only HALF of the theory. It's the catalyst by which Acts of God, Pseudorandom numbers, or random events become orderly and non-random. Without the other half- pick one of the three, they're all equally good- the most evolution can predict is when a species will become extinct.
you can not use ID to make accurate predictions.
Yes you can, because ID is exactly the same as evolution in the process, in the catalyst of natural selection. The only difference is the input- and Natural Selection is so good at the output that it may not matter what the input is at all.
Your definition of random seems to fit as a definition of god.
That's because the entire idea of a "random" event was designed specifically to replace an "Act" of God. The definition fits because it was designed to fit, and vice versa. Complete circular logic, and never questioned by the very people who claim that there is no God because "random" mutations explain everything.
as well as the fact that most people living in any sort of high rise will have pretty low pressure.
There's an easy fix for that one- the rooftop water tower....a single set of incoming pipes brings water up from the mains and dumps it into a tank on the roof. A second set of pipes comes out the bottom and distributes it throughout the high rise- and everybody lower than the roof ends up with good water pressure.
No, it's a true hardware RNG, I would presume it uses radioactivity. (If it's not, I can quite easily construct an instrument that will do this).
Radioactivity is not random. Radioactivity is merely the decay of unstable elements into stable ones by positrons and neutrons escaping from their weak force bonds. It might not be entirely understood by human beings yet- but it is a pseudorandom process, not a random one.
Which is entirely indistinguishable from randomness - which is all we require of your God.
Sorry, randomness may be indistinguishable from God to us- but that is merely because science in it's headstrong attempt to separate itself from theology merely renamed God "randomness".
Heck, your God could just be a PRNG - by definition pseudo-random numbers look like random numbers, would we notice if the universe's random events were being generated by such a thing?
There are no random events in the universe. If there were, science itself would be useless, because by definition there would be no physical laws at all to discover. Anything could be nullified by a "random event".
Slashdot Mirror
No, an electron is not capable of possessing both definite position and velocity at the same time.
As far as we KNOW- but we're finite beings that don't know everything. In a different frame of reference, it's still possible.
That's why, if you cool stuff sufficiently, you get the Bose-Einstein Condensate.
Uh, what the heck does the reduction of velocity in a gas in relation to temperature have to do with the position of an electron at a given point in the trajectory of it's velocity? Other than of course the obvious- actually stopping it's velocity long enough to measure it's position? Hmm, does that mean if we can vary the temperature between -246 and -247 Kelvin we could potentially measure *both* position and velocity (kind of like a computer graphic erasing itself and redrawing in a new position to simulate motion)? After all, once you have 3 positions, and the amount of time in between, you've got velocity...thanks for providing an experiment to disprove Heisenberg. Now all we need is to invent the apparatus needed. I suggest a scanning electron microscope about twice the power of any one we currently have, and a freezer capable of getting down to absolute zero and accurate enough to oscilate only one degree over a set time period, and a nice container of hydrogen so that you are searching for a single electron instead of a cloud of them.
I personally believe both Einstein and Bell were right- and the problem is the processing power of the human brain.
Reality is deterministic to me- but human beings are NOT. If we were omniscient, we might be more deterministic. The really cool thing along this way of thinking is God- who becomes omnipotent, more scient than we are, but not omniscient. The information is there- it's just arrogance to suggest that it isn't- but as finite beings we're not capable of processing in paralell sufficently enough to measure both position and velocity of an electron at the same time.
The neat thing about this line of thinking is that quantum mechanics is deterministic ENOUGH to defeat the speed of light through spooky action; but we're decades away from it yet. This experiment is a good start- if we can put particles into cat state then perhaps we will one day be able to put them in a definite state- a clockwise or a counterclockwise spin- and have the companion entangled particle chage state as well. The day we can do this, is the day the quantum network card will come into being, freeing us from ping time and totally destroying the concept of LAN vs WAN.
Mod parent up- this is the real thing. Synchronous communications have a tendency to be anti-productive. Asynchronous communications have a tendency to be productive up to a point, and easily ignorable if an emergency happens that needs to be responded to. Based on this idea, I'd also suggest removing phones from cubicles, as well as not allowing IM and P2P applications be installed in the first place.
Completely right- and I admit as much in my journal (you'll have to scroll back to the previous five or further....)
Blogs are just authoritative statements from non-authorities who want their narcisistic rush. I find the majority of them to be boring to begin with, why would video be any different?
That's just not true. Aspects of the universe being random do not mean the whole universe is random. We can discover laws in a universe which has randomness. Besides, invoking an intelligent God has no effect on your argument. It becomes utterly useless to do any science at all- any laws we think we discover would actually be just local manifestations of God's will in what is by and large an arbitrary universe- and they wouldn't neccessarily hold true a minute from now, let alone be testible.
Why would God be as arbitrary as a human being? Just because we're arbitrary and biased doesn't mean God is; in fact it's likely that's a big difference between man and God. Seems to me Confucious said something about that...as did Isaiah, Ubantu, Koresh, and Mohammed. Science is the search for the mind of God, for the UNIVERSAL manifestation of God's will. Or at least, it used to be.
No, if you know C never happens then that is something useful. You seem unable to comprehend that the universe can have random aspects without making it impossible to predict anything. The whole field of statistics is about making predictions about random processes. I can't predict what the roulette wheel will come up with next time - as far as I'm concerned, it's completely random. But it's still useful to know that it will land on any given number 1/37 of the time.
But you don't know that C will never happen just because of statistics; all you know is that C has not happened *so far*. Statistics can tell us that the roulette wheel will reward the person betting on red or black 49% of the time; but it can't predict the earthquake that turns the table over and sends the ball rolling across the floor. Essentially useless- and rather stupid to depend on unless you've got *all* the information taken into account.
Indeed. But *this would still be true if lightning strikes were truly random*.
No, actually, it wouldn't. If lightning strikes were TRULY random, that is disconnected from the physical laws of the universe, then the copper rod would be no better of a disipator of the energy as the tree right next to it, or the blade of grass an inch away. RANDOM is random- totally devoid of physical law.
True. So religion can work in the presence of randomness too.
Religion and randomness are one and the same- the word Random is just a cop-out that says you don't want to investigate beyond a certain point, that you're willing to take this part on faith.
Randomness explains events occurring at what looks to be random, and more simply than any alternative.
Circular logic explains absolutely nothing other than the person refering to it is a coward who refuses to dig further. Simplicity is not valid when you're just inventing circular logic to pretend to explain something.
The conductor and the science behind it works whether or not the strikes are random.
If the strikes were truly random, that is, divorced from the basic laws of electricity, then copper would be no better of a conductor than stone, wood, or glass. Either things follow physical, natural laws, or you're just appealing to a religious authority.
All you're showing is that science doesn't completely explain everything.
Exactly- so we should stop teaching kids that it does, and stop censorship of alternative explainations.
You've got a god of the gaps thing going - science doesn't know what causes this yet so it must be god.
It's worse than that. If it was JUST that, I'd personally have no problem (some others might, but I'm more tolerant of other religions than that). No- science teachers have to claim that they can explain everything, but since they're so AFRAID of the concept of a God, and so afraid of being WRONG; they invent one called "random", so that they can continue to claim to be infallible before their students, inventing a new religion and not seeing the damage that causes. They tell us the p
Sure, there is absolutely nothing in science that says there is or isn't "GOD" somewhere offstage of the system/scope-of-discussion being explained.
:-)
Except you just interjected one into the system/scope-of-discussion being explained. Interesting that you gave it the same name as Arthur Dent's daughter...
Maybe there's a God, maybe there isn't.
So if there isn't, you're still going to teach kids to worship an indeterministic universe?
Admit to WHAT "proof" of what?
Two things: That science doesn't know everything, and that scientists are just as superstitious as anybody else who believes in things that are "outside of the scope of the discussion being explained". In other words- science is just another religion, another set of beliefs and models about what is true, albeit a particularily successfull one, still only one among many. Human beings can NEVER know the fullness of truth- and shouldn't claim to. The real problem isn't what the cirriculum in science class includes or doesn't include- the real problem is that science has become nothing more than just another authoritative cult for far too many people.
The sex is important to the story line. I'm not quite sure how yet, but they've gone to great pains to say that the cylons (in their latest 12 models, not all of which are humanoid, but all of which now have *some* biological parts) are trying to actually become a race- but they can't figure out sex for the humanoids yet. They're trying several experiments- women who survived on Caprica are in baby farms, we've seen models try to seduce men in the fleet. Baltar has a chip implanted in his head that gives him some sort of a psycic connection to the cylons- who keept trying to get him to believe that Adama will kill his child that doesn't exist yet.
The religious stuff is there- but even more intense as the cylons are monotheists and the humans are polytheists (Christian God vs the Lords of Kobol, who seem to be Greek analogue instead of Egyptian this time around).
All in all, the style is a LOT more dramatic and a LOT less campy- though that may change now that the FEMALE Admiral Cain has showed up with the Pegasus (and immediately gained command because she's got more rank than Adama, and then started executing the men who had been seduced by the Cylons).
Very well done- certainly a LOT more realistic on the physics side than the original. Oh yeah- and the cylons are expert hackers- networked computers are BAD (and it was Baltar networking the computers together that allowed for the conquest of the Colonies).
House is no more about the medicine than Arrested Development is about building houses.
In fact, I'm begining to think that the show will end with bankruptcy- has the Bluth corporation EVER actually FINISHED a house? Asside from the test model that was build on no foundation?
You can make bullets out of practically anything- but yes, water and fuel that are pure enough to be useable might be a bit scarce, espeically if you're trying to run away from all the proven sources your civilization knows about....
To me, I still have yet to warm to the new BG from the old, but I do find the new one more true to life.
That's a new one to me- I thought it was AMA based, apparently it isn't! Also, thanks for the trick. I do have chronic low blood pressure, so in the summer I usually need closer to three liters- about 12 cups or "glasses". In the winter, I usually slack off to one liter a day- nice to know that's correct.
I thought the myth was that water was a toxin- though it is in extremely large amounts, I'm talking about two quarts, or the infamous "Eight glasses a day" (yeah, right, if your glasses are only 8 ounces) put forth by the American Medical Association. Unfortuneately, my local proxy considers snopes "unsafe for work" so...
Most Americans are dehydrated most of the time. Few of us drink the 64 ounces of liquid we're supposed to. Can we use this effect to our advantage as well as our disadvantage?
Aren't you lucky to live with the wussyfication, instead of growing up when I did- more picked on every year, getting suspended whenever I actually fought back, stabbing somebody in the 8th grade, torching lockers when I was in the 10th. Nobody bothered to help me then, few bother to help me now that I do have a DSM-IV diagnosis, because I'm over 35 and considered to be too set in my ways to teach. I had to help myself- learn to surpress the emotions I was always feeling, learn my own set of rules for figuring out what other people are feeling (I still get that wrong quite often), and try not to give in to the urge to kill.
What I don't get is why with these rave reviews, NBC hasn't done a couple of miniseries followed by a full series out of the footage yet- after all, they own BG and Sci-fi Channel in the United States. This show is getting enough of a following that they could completely steal the Sunday Night timeslot from all the other sci-fi shows currently in syndication.
But some of those random outputs confer beneficial characteristics.
So what? What does that say about either?
Most don't, but some do.
Doesn't matter- without determinism, you will never be able to predict what the mutation will be in a single individual. And unless you predict the mutations of every single individual, you will not be able to predict which one will be the solution that is most beneficial.
No determinism required.
And without the determinism- no prediction is possible.
If you want to call randomness God then go ahead, but tell me why it must be intelligent.
Because of the existance of the physical laws that determine what appears to us to be random. Without those physical laws, with an unintelligent God, we're left with a truly random universe- supernatural events happening entirely at random with no purpose or pattern. At which point it becomes utterly useless to do any science at all- any laws we think we discover would actually be just local manifestations of order in what is by and large a random universe- and they wouldn't neccessarily hold true a minute from now, let alone be testible.
Not at all. Knowing that event A happens 50% of the time and event B the other 50% and event C doesn't happen at all is still useful information.
But it doesn't tell you that event C won't happen a minute from now, or that events D-Z won't happen further down the line. It's FAKE information, appearing to be useful when it really tells you exactly nothing.
We don't know whether lightning strikes are random,
And in fact, we have at least 3 possible answers that tell us that they're NOT random- and in fact predictable given the correct sensors.
you no doubt claim they're not,
They're obviously not, they're a buildup of static electricity in the ground and a lower electrical potential in the clouds. By measuring the static potential of the ground, they are predictable microseconds ahead of time.
but knowing that a copper rod can conduct it safely to ground is still useful
Yes but not random at all- and in fact is the reverse- the copper rod provides a short circuit that conducts it safely to the clouds.
and doesn't require us to know whether the strikes are random or not.
Yes, but for that matter so does a metal hammer planted in the ground as in the Norwegian temples to Thor. Randomness explains NOTHING- it's just a theological concept.
The science of lightning conductors is valid whether or not lightning strikes occur at random.
Actually, the science requires lightning strikes to be non-random to work- but all you've actually proved is that people can use science as a replacement for religion, which is my original point. If that's what you're going to teach as science, you might as well be teaching ID- it's EXACTLY THE SAME THEORY AS EVOLUTION if that's what passes for YOUR science.
I'm glad I came back to answer this- got caught up in a flame war and then Christmas and didn't get back here right away.
I don't know much about your condition, but I am curious about something - can't you learn these by memorizing what they're supposed to mean, even though you may not be able to make an emotional connection to them?
Yes, that's the primary form of therapy- created in the last 10 years or so. It's also similar to what most of us who were born far earlier came up with on our own- but think of it as a BASIC program in your head- everybody you see, every phrase you hear, every body posture you see has to go through a conscious IF-THEN-ELSE set of conditions. It's tiring at the very least- and it's so complex that without help and tutoring, it's downright imposible to pick up anything more than an approximate model on your own.
Why didn't the people treating your condition give you, say, a list of them for you to learn?
Mainly because I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30- and by then, I already had a somewhat accurate list of my own.
Are you seriously suggesting that biology and quantum mechanics are not subjected to scientific rigor?
Yes I am- in fact I'm suggesting that these are actually closer to religions than to the sort of 100% always true never changing scientific fact that say, Newton's laws in Earth's gravitational field have become.
Have you never heard of medical trials?
I have- they never do quite approach 100% certainty, do thay? Which would be a requirement of your rules.
Medical experiments?
Same problem- experiments in the guise of observations.
Particle accellerators?
Rather hard it's been for them to come up with the same result twice, let alone rise to the level of your definition of true science.
Evolution is firmly backed by experiment.
Only for a very different version of the word experiment than is given.
We've dug up dinosaur bones! That's an experiment.
No, it isn't- that's mere observation. Designing a DNA strand, watching it evolve, carefully controling it's environment to create a dinosaur after billions of years- that's an EXPERIMENT.
It gathers data that was not known beforehand.
Since when? Dinosaurs existed sometime in the past- or if the FSM style religionists are right, were created as bone sometime in the more recent past. Both explainations are logically valid- and merely digging up the bone does NOT lend evidence to either conclusion. Carbon dating would, but it becomes unreliable after 8000 years or so. Geological dating helps, but when you talk to evolutionists and geologists separately, you quickly realize that is a circular definition- the layers are defined by the fossils found in them, and the fossils are dated by the layer they were found in.
Evolution is proably one of the most tested theories on earth.
Until you actually examine it, anyway.
Numerical models fit evolution.
Numbers are an abstract concept, numerical models can be created to prove anything. This is no proof at all.
We can interpolate the evolution of species by using fossils as data points.
Or at least we assume we can- since nobody's invented a time machine yet to check the interpolation, this is as often wrong as it is right, and no better at all than mere religion.
It's a successful technique.
It's a successfull technique because it's never been tested in any way that could actually prove it wrong.
Believing in thunder gods is not.
It's no different than believing in thunder gods- none of this proves that evolution is anything more than just another myth. That's not to say it isn't right- there's a core of truth in every myth- it's just to say it's not finished, and probably won't be anytime soon. And in fact, because it's based on random mutation that can't be predicted, it's actually no more predictable than ID, which is EXACTLY THE SAME THEORY replacing randomness with acts of God.
Yeah. It's called The Age of Reason? Some people like to call it a Free Society, where thought is not surpressed and we are free to laugh at ridiculous and irrational ideas like Intelligent Design and beliveing that masturbation is evil.
Isn't it odd then, that you claim that "thought is not supressed" but the very next phrase is based on supression of thought?
You'd be better off actually thinking about the points I raise- and becoming a bit more skeptical about your science than just accepting any Richard Dawkins that comes along, to dazzle you with philosophy disguised as science.
excpet evolution can be test, and you CAN make predictions with it.
Some parts of evolution can. Not all, unfortuneately- when you rely on random events, or pseudorandom events, or Acts of God for your input, you haven't really explained anything at all.
For the record, Evolution is not a theory, it's a fact.
Fine, then prove that randomness exists. REALLY exists, not pseudorandom events like quantum mechanics describes, not raditation breaking down, but real supernatural random events. That's what is required for Evolution to become a "Fact" with a capital F.
Evolution by Natural Selection is the theory.
Natural Selection is only HALF of the theory. It's the catalyst by which Acts of God, Pseudorandom numbers, or random events become orderly and non-random. Without the other half- pick one of the three, they're all equally good- the most evolution can predict is when a species will become extinct.
you can not use ID to make accurate predictions.
Yes you can, because ID is exactly the same as evolution in the process, in the catalyst of natural selection. The only difference is the input- and Natural Selection is so good at the output that it may not matter what the input is at all.
Your definition of random seems to fit as a definition of god.
That's because the entire idea of a "random" event was designed specifically to replace an "Act" of God. The definition fits because it was designed to fit, and vice versa. Complete circular logic, and never questioned by the very people who claim that there is no God because "random" mutations explain everything.
as well as the fact that most people living in any sort of high rise will have pretty low pressure.
There's an easy fix for that one- the rooftop water tower....a single set of incoming pipes brings water up from the mains and dumps it into a tank on the roof. A second set of pipes comes out the bottom and distributes it throughout the high rise- and everybody lower than the roof ends up with good water pressure.
And one big reason for yanks moving there is due to the socialized health care.
No, it's a true hardware RNG, I would presume it uses radioactivity. (If it's not, I can quite easily construct an instrument that will do this).
Radioactivity is not random. Radioactivity is merely the decay of unstable elements into stable ones by positrons and neutrons escaping from their weak force bonds. It might not be entirely understood by human beings yet- but it is a pseudorandom process, not a random one.
Which is entirely indistinguishable from randomness - which is all we require of your God.
Sorry, randomness may be indistinguishable from God to us- but that is merely because science in it's headstrong attempt to separate itself from theology merely renamed God "randomness".
Heck, your God could just be a PRNG - by definition pseudo-random numbers look like random numbers, would we notice if the universe's random events were being generated by such a thing?
There are no random events in the universe. If there were, science itself would be useless, because by definition there would be no physical laws at all to discover. Anything could be nullified by a "random event".