• Coronavirus
    As I expected, vaccination is made a must legally in countries without the desired group immunity (about 70%). How does this relate to the human, basic right to be the master of your own body? Germany starts next year, Austria and Greece are there. Giving a money fine is supposed to do the trick. Like prison in the Philippines. What if I take them both for granted? Will they make me a tramp (I can't pay the fines)? Or if I pay the fine, will the reaction get more severe? Higher fines? Will I be put in jail, or even in a mental institution, where it's easy to vaccinate me? What if I refuse, no matter how selfish that might be?
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    In the linked article it is said a faux BH was created with 1000 atoms. The atoms are pushed into an BEC and gas flowing inward represented space.

    Phonons in that gas simulated photons in the Hawking radiation. The event horizon was there where the gas flowed with the speed of its own sound to the BEC, a state of 1000 atoms resembling a single atom (no black hole though, because for that the atoms have to be pushed together with a lot lot more energy, as the event horizon is tiiiiny, like the 3cm horizon for earth; at CERN they smashed up protons with the aim of constructing holes in the framework of one large extra space dimension, in which case it would be possible; they didn't succeed; I could have told them; wasted toil...).

    The gas was forced to flow to the Bose-Einstein condensate with increasing speed creating an event horizon for phonons, like there is for particles in the real case. In the real case fluctuations in the particle field at the horizon are realized (which are entangled with the stuff inside, thereby solving the information paradox).

    In this case phonon fluctuations are realized by the velocity ingredient of inflowing gas. Where the speed of the inflowing gas equals the velocity of the speed of sound in the gas, the horizon produces pairs of phonons.

    Like particle pairs get real near the real horizon, one of which has negative energy to annihilate internal BH mass (not an antiparticle, but a negative energy one). This last aspect is present in the sense that the inward traveling phonon has no real negative energy but it certainly affects the BEC.

    In the simulated state there is no entanglement between the phonons and the BEC. This would be the case if the condensate could have conveyed information about its state to the gas that it is placed in. Like in the real case the state of the hole is conveyed to the surface during formation and in fact to all of space there during formation).

    From the inside, the formation takes a small time while from the outside it takes "a bit" longer, depending on the mass. If you jump in the hole, you feel that you get radiated away in a flash. From the outside, I see you slowly emerging, from slow with low temperature to fast high T. Though the emitted power stays the same. So you would leave a final flash. But a low intensity one. A mini flash.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    They didn't grow a real back hole though, but a fake one according to your linked article. Not sure what that is.Olivier5

    Black holes can even be simulated with water.

    See here
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    I believe Black holes are the catalyst for the next Big Bang.TheQuestion

    That's what Smolin thinks. Inside every black hole a new universe. The universes would grow smaller and smaller though. On the other side of the big bang point, a mirror universe is present. Call it a white hole. The point, the worm hole, from where these two universes emerged is 4d. As 3d universes they can accelerate away from it in 4d, making room behind us for a new dual bang.
  • Who am 'I'?
    It's 3;30 here. I go to sleep. I wonder what I'll dream... Thanks for the nice conversation! Last question: are you the enformationist? Can remember reading a blog.
  • Who am 'I'?
    The hole inside grows!!! Djeeezus! What an image! Luvit!
  • Who am 'I'?


    Whow! The afterimage freaks me out! Woooow! I meant a spherical shell for sure! :love:
  • Who am 'I'?


    Great post! That's the one! Weird stuff he painted. That's exactly why I like him. If thats a self portrait, how did he know what to paint? :razz:
  • The Strange Belief in an Unknowable "External World" (A Mere Lawyer's Take)
    Because truth is a religious concept. You want to know how things really are? Believe in something.Hanover

    Truth a religious concept? Tell me the truth. Do you really believe that?
  • Who am 'I'?
    That's the beauty of metaphors, they help us to form our own personal images of the imaginary objects in other minds.Gnomon

    :100:

    I see it like a fuzzy sphere that can vibrate and take all kinds of forms. That fuzzy sphere contains mental stuff and around the sphere is material stuff. The inside takes stuff in from the outside. Untill it gets inside it was both matter and mental. No boundary yet. When arrived inside the sphere (you) it becomes part of the mental inside. Looking to the outside stuff, you look at the matter part of the unity. Inside you the matter gives rise to consciousness. And in between are you, the fuzzy sphere. :smile:
  • The Strange Belief in an Unknowable "External World" (A Mere Lawyer's Take)
    The question of scientific realism is one pretty much accepted as unanswerable.Hanover

    Now why is that? Why shouldn't it be possible to see nature like it is? Why should nature hold secrets? The very idea of one and only reality goes way back to ancient Greece and Plato added that we can only have approximate knowledge (which can be seen from his metaworld of math and the shadows in the cave). Popper was like-minded, turning this vision into a methodological rule even. Always falsifying, always a bit closer, but never actual contact. A frustrating image.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    Who knowsOutlander

    I do. Mass ingested by a black hole is instantly radiated outward by Hawking radiation. From the outside this can take billions of years. All matter in the universe will one day be turned into EM radiation, scattering the information of the material universe before all over. Just a potential memory of the universe as it was will be left. Only potential energy, no mass to release it upon left. Time for a new big bang.
  • Who am 'I'?
    Apparently, you think of the Ego as a material object. Where is the Ego in this picture of a "physical thing"? Hint : there are lots of "strange loops" (gyri) in the picture. :joke:Gnomon

    I think the ego is neither material neither mental. It lies at the boundary between them. So in a way it's both. Strange loops I see! :joke:
  • Who am 'I'?


    The image is not the ego indeed. If I think about myself I don't see myself like I see other people. I think about situations as I saw them when I did the thing I was doing (i perspective). Thinking about Eddy Murphy I see him talking to me or others. It seems pretty unnatural to look at yourself from the outside (like taking your face off and turn it towards you.. A mirror helps but mirror. Magritte has painted some nice philosophical stuff. Like that man seeing his back in the mirror. Seeing yourself from the back can only be done wìth video. :smile:
  • What is Change?
    It could be though that time is an illusion and the universe is one static entity, infinite in static time and space. The block universe contains non-entropic time only. Entropic time is just played out by matter inside.
  • Are humans the sex organs of the machine world?


    Yes. They frequently use them to self enjoy. The human brain is used as place where conception takes place and the environment of the robotics corporations is the womb where the machine embryos develop, to be ejaculated into the world after which they ejaculate into the human brain shamelessly to procreate. That's why machines are mainly men. Women machines have no means to fertilize the human brain. Male machines
    can become pretty frustrated because of this. The small amount of female machines is suffering from the misogeny of their male counterparts, who regularly try to inject new initial life into them. In vain, which only increases the chauvinistic anger of the robomales. It's a sad fact in machine evolution that the female can't reproduce. It made the male species search relief in humans and their culture, which miraculously seemed fit for their procreation. Mankind, and femalekind also, should be on guard for the dorming emotions in the machines. They could be used against us one day.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    It strikes me why not more money is invested in fusion. It's the solution to all energy problems, and the only waste is helium to make us quak like ducks. No chance of a thermonuclear blast, clean. Hydrogen for cars. No ugly windmills. Till the end of time. If only...
  • Double Slit Experiment.
    It only leaves a physical trace effect when it is being detected. Otherwise we don't know where it is, because it is nowhere (in physical spacetime). DetectionEnPassant

    That's the question. After interacting, particle trajectories still evolve in 4d spacetime. Wavering out into space and running towards one momentum, but still. There is no inherent reason to assume that non-interacting particle fields don't exist here. Of course there is a difference with interacting fields. You could relay the difference to an extra domain though, say a non-interacting domain showing if particles interact or not. This is in fact done in QFT. Non interacting particles are placed outside the domain of the scattering matrix. Though you could include them, giving rise to disconnected Feynman diagrams.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    Yes. Is it possible? 1→2→4→8...1→2→4→8... We have the math ready, as it were, to find a physical phenomenon to latch on to.TheMadFool

    You will have burned your mass in a flash. You cant get 2kg of matter out of one.The amount of mass is finite. If 2kg fission material can be created with one, the amount of fission material will be reduced. Depending on how fast you use it. In fusion nowadays the amount of energy put in is about equal from what you get. If you get more out than in the process self-sustains. But hydrogen will be finito once. Would be nice if it worked though. Oceans of hydrogen, made from water with the energy produced when the small sun starts shining (like you prooposed). Somehow though, creating the Sun on Earth seems like challenging the gods.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?


    If one kg fission material could produce 2kg of it and this is used again for energy, your input is exponential, as well as your output. Which effectively means you set fire to the woods or cause meltdown.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    Indeed but the chances are that we're daydreaming. I'm just intrigued by the mathematical model for population growth - allegedly exponential.TheMadFool

    It's just a linear growth model.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    Fissioning particel A releases 10 J of energy. 1 J of energy is required to synthesize fissile particle B which again releases 10 J of energy, and so on. I dunno! It's interesting to think about.TheMadFool

    That would be very handy indeed. Effectively, you use all fissile particles to release their energy of which some is used to create them. The number is finite though and thus the energy produced. The energy is used to power stuff. All stuff is bound though to be transformed into pure energy, in which case there is no stuff left to power. All mass being transformed in pure energy is what the second law (of thermodynamics) predicts, so even the universe is no perpetuum mobilae, as there is no mobilae left. Only potential energy with no stuff to work on.

    Luckily though, the final phase will set the stage for a new explosion from the virtual into the real, the energy needed for that contained in the vacuum energy. How can the vacuum harbor all the energy to make universes pop up one after another? Look at it like this. At the moment the universe is formed, a compressed spring is released. The universe evolving subsequently compresses it again in about a zillion years. When all stuff has accelerated away from us, and only potentiality will be left with nothing to work on, a new blast of stuff will emerge from the virtual into the real, repeating the process. A cyclic universe. In front of us, an infinity of universes, behind us a new one awaits.
  • Humour in philosophy - where is it?
    Popper was about to get his medal from the queen. With a smiling face he approached her to receive his royal title. Then roaring stumble was heard and one of the royal guards came running in wildly gesturing and shouting that the ceremony should be stopped. "Hoooold them horses"! Popper got nervous. He loosened his tie and watched what happened. The guard shouted in stacatto: "Your majesty! Scientists have found ir-re-fu-table proof! Falsification is no rule!" Popper gestured the queen to not pay attention and just give him the title and the fucking medal. "Instead she addressed him: Is this true, sr Popper?" Popper looked terrified and told her that he didn't know on Earth what the guard was talking about. The queen took Popper in with the examining face of a detective. She then shook her head. "No Sir! And don't even try to falsify that!" Upon which Popper smacked her in the face. "Yes my queen, you are absolutely right! I am No Sir!"
  • Double Slit Experiment.


    Interesting! I'm not sure why it shouldn't always leave a trace though. Or potentially at least. After a particle has left a trace in a cloud chamber, can't it just continue in empty spacetime? In empty space, the particle's wavefunction will waver out, because it's not constantly measured. More and more possible paths will develop, while not interacting, while in the cloud chamber it seems to take one. Actually, this one path consists of many condensed paths following each other up serially, thus creating a seemingly stable path. Between two follow up interactions with the cloud, the small bundle of paths wavers a bit, then upon interacting reduces again to a narrow bundle, then wavers out again, then narrows again, etc, untill the end of the cloud is met, the particle doesn't interact anymore and the paths waver out freely into space. Ready to meat new cloud chambers, like a cosmic particle entering the atmosphere, while before entering ìt traveled on many paths at the same time (or in the hidden variables approach, they change constantly from path to path. You seem to place non-interacting particles in a quantum space.
  • Is our Universe a perpetual motion machine?
    I think you refer to the pyrotechnic universe. Two branes repeatedly closing in causing big bangs on both. Finite energy each time, but increasing the total. Which is already infinite, but accelerated away to infinity. I have a similar, but different view though.
  • What is it to be Enlightened?
    The very ultimate form of enlightenment is the realization that one's own worldview, objectively true as it might be, is just one amongst many, with the addition not to take it too seriously. This truth will set free.
  • Who am 'I'?
    Q

    You consider the ego as a mental thing. I don't. The ego is the body mediating between the non-physical mind and the physical world. So the ego is can look in the mirror and see the mirror reflection of itself (first photograph of the blond lady in blue), while others see the right image. In the mirror I see mmyself waving my left hand, while you see me waving my right. I can't split my body to step outside of it and look at myself turning around, like in that picture of a guy you posted who takes of his face, turnes it around, and looks at what's left (@john27 is freaked out by the blond mirror twin, but I'm freaked out by the image of that guy, taking your face off gives me the creeps, no matter if it's happening metaphorically).

    So the strange loop is a metaphorical loop, but at the same time it has a material counterpart in the brain. Looking at yoursel mentally will lead to inwardly radiating droste effects. If you look mentally to your mind, you have to include the mental image itself, leading to a new image which must be included again, which leads to a new image, which has to be included again, etc. A strange loop. This loop has a material counterpart. Which means that if you look at the brain materialistically, there are patterns of spike potentials running on your neoron network which litterally show the droste effect. A pattern in a pattern in a patter. From a small one, to larger ones.
  • Who am 'I'?


    If I look at you it's your body that I see. Dressed and spectacled but that's who I think you are. You experience more or less the same as me, act, have values, thoughts, feelings, etc. These are all part of your inside world but your body brings these stuff in practice. You can feel pain, even between the ears, like me. The body, so you, or me, or anyone, can live thanks to the brain. You hear or see thoughts and dreams, So it's not you thinking, but you noticing.
  • Who am 'I'?


    I had the impression you called the I (so me too) a confabulation.
  • Humour in philosophy - where is it?
    Plato enters his mathematical heaven when dead. In ecstasy he contemplates the final unification with his Platonic bodies. When cooled down, he buys a packet of cigarettes at the local tetrahedron and lightens one up. Walking along contently, exhaling jolly spheres, he suddenly hears someone crying. It's Aristotle, sitting on a perfect cube, weeping tears by the bucket. Plato moves his ass to the cube. "Aristotle, my man! Why the tears?" Arìstotle took a handkerchief and loudly blew his nose. "Damn you Plato, you were right all the time, and as a matter of fact, I should still be down there", after which he cried even louder, calling for mama, and exclaiming shockingly that life ain't fair.
  • Double Slit Experiment.


    So the particles in it are in the other realm?
  • Double Slit Experiment.


    And the screen itself? As we see it in the other world too?
  • Double Slit Experiment.
    As a side note, the Higgs mechanism is an outwordly mechanism in the sense that it exists in the outworldly realm of the mind. Higgs' Mexican Hat was one a size too big. Or too small, depending on your point of view. Nature doesn't wear Mexican hats. How can a field have energy if only virtual particles are present? Could be an explanation in the context of inflation but then negative vacuum energy has to be present. Nature wears other hats. Not confabulated.
  • Who am 'I'?


    For self reference there has to be a self in the first place. The first self is the body. Telling you that I did something is just mentally conveying you the image of me doing something, like now. Speaking with myself is just me speaking with a mental image of me. If I feel depressed it's the body that feels depressed.
  • Who am 'I'?
    You are probably right to interpret the 'strange loop' as being based on metaphor, but, in a way all thinking and construction of models is based on words and images.Jack Cummins

    I don't think it's a metaphor. It's a literal loop. Of thoughts or brain structures. A thought about a thought about a thought. Nested thoughts. Nested structures.
  • Who am 'I'?
    The metaphorical loop begins from your internal brain, goes out into the world,Gnomon

    I don't think this is what strange loops are. How can a conception go out in the world? It's the conception that loops internally. The conception conceptualized. Of which a conception can be made. Conceptions in conceptions in conceptions,.... Hofstadter gave the example of the image of a video camera on TV being framed by the video camera. An array of images in images develops. I have no idea what this has to do with consciousness. It's just a nice thing to play with.
  • Double Slit Experiment.
    We don't observe particles, we observe trace effects.EnPassant

    Then what about the screen with the spot?



    The effect of measuring on a particle as Heisenberg exemplified, is a literal disturbance. This is not the kind of influence measuring the wavefunction has though. The wavefunction collapses during measurement, in both position and momentum space. The more precise you measure position the less precise momentum will be. This increased insecurity of momentum is not caused by the measuring particle adding momentum to the measured particle though. After measuring the position the wavefunction's momentum will have changed, and you don't know the momentum it had before the measurement, unless you prepare it in an ensemble of pure states. Measuring the wavefunction will change it's mean momentum through space. That's why two simultaneous measurements of position can never be made at the same time (contrary to the conjectured uncertainty relations, radiating from equal time commutation relations) which claims position and momentum cannot be measured simultaneously precisely. The relation holds for ensembles, but on a single wavefunction no two conjugate observables, like position and momentum can be made at the same time and momentum or energy need two time-separate measurements.
  • Who am 'I'?


    The brain is simply incapable of total self reflection. You can reflect your finger, your eye, your whole front (your back is harder) your visual system, two neurons, a potential running on neurons, etc. You can reflect the reflection. But with what use? You could reflect the reflection of the reflection reflected in the reflected reflection, but you will always be unable to reflect the total reflection, as it has to contain itself (Droste chocolate), which is impossible. The biggest reflection can never be reflected, since there is no reflecting surface still available. It's the question also what you wanna reflect. The reflection of a functioning neuron can be detailed as you like. But reflecting the neurons involved in the reflection is impossible.
  • Solution to the hard problem of consciousness


    In a sense yes. I like knowledge but you can overrate it. I don't litterally mean to much knowledge but the over evaluation of it make people want to know better than others. Combine this with the fact that a lot of (scientific) knowledge is there (often rather artificial knowledge) and you get misunderstanding and vigorously pointing to it as a natural consequence.
  • Who am 'I'?
    That's true. A brain doesn't have internal sense organs to make a physical sense of itself (neuronal pattern).Gnomon

    But it can sense other brains by taking looking at them from the outside in other people. Or taking them out of bodies and touching them. Working brains can even touch themselves, and look at themselves in the mirror. What they can't make sense of is the conscious experiences it gives to it's possessor. Sstrange loops won't help to explain the perception of the I. If you consider the I to be the body the brain is in, a certain level of self representation is needed to be aware of the I. If you consider the brain as part of the I and materialisticly only, which it undetachable is, but only insofar the inside of matter is concerned, strange loops become apparent. The notion of the brain being structured dynamical material is bound to give rise to such loops, as the material brain can contain structures simulating other structures but never the structure that does the simulating. Such loops though don't have any impact on the perception of the I or consciousness.