Comments

  • How do we know that our choices make sense?


    Capturing knowledge in a formal system. Like m
    I'd define knowledge as "mental awareness of objective truth".
    4h
    Cidat

    Yes. The objective truth though lies in the eye of the beholder, to relativize the matter. Though everyone will claim his perceived knowledge to be objective. I say the world was created in six days 6000 years ago, or maybe the gods in the sky did the job. It's also possible to claim the physics can do the job, though you can always ask were the stuff of the physical universe came from, even if it's infinite in spacetime extent. Can one ask the same about God?
  • How can one remember things?
    Comparison does play a role, though: For example, if you notice that one day, a woman has a beauty mole on her face, and a few days later, she doesn't, that's a recognition of difference based on a comparison.baker

    That's very true. Her face doesn't "click" completely in a kinda engraved path. The mole is not in the inscription yet. Next time you remember the mole. You recognize her but the mole is new. Though I'm not sure you compare here. You notice that the mole is new because the "falling into the trail" isn't complete. There is a mole now. You can of course remember how she was and you feel the new "clicking" is not complete, because (indeed!) your old image , her old engraved trail, becomes activated too, to state the matter in a somewhat impersonal way. So the new is indeed compared with the old! Thanks for a new insight! I'm not sure why I wanna know this. Consider it a result of my scientific upgrowing. It's always nice to know things. I used to dismantle wake-up alarms. But to dismantle my grandma would go to far! Just imagine...

    Not sure where a tautology comes in.
  • Electromagnetic Fields


    Ah! It's you who wants to know! I thought it was the other guy. Sorry about that!

    It has been suggested in experiments that ion channels are receptive to the electromagnetic field of the brain, with firing in neural networks amplified by saturating EM fields so that patterns of ion flow become phase locked across denser swaths of tissue, much more synchronous then they would be via purely chemical effects. Some models propose that specific features of neurons are specialized for receptivity to EM fields.Enrique

    Now I must contemplate a bit! Will reconnect!
  • Electromagnetic Fields
    Why do you ask? Aren't you interested in electromagnetics? No! I'm not! Are you?
  • Electromagnetic Fields
    A strong EM field can have devastating effect on the form of matter. If you are placed in a superstrong electric field between two oppositetly charged plates, you won't survive. Like that Russian scientist who put his head in a particle accelerator, the field will disrupt your brain. Because the field is static (virtual photons( the field has to be huge. Real photons, which propagate real EM radiation, will do much more damage. Rōntgen or gamma radiation. You as a whole will feel more disruption in the strong gravity of a black hole. A static field too, like the electric field between the plates, but getting hold on you on every part of your body. Electric pulses in the brain are spikey electric potentials caused by positive ions traveling rapidly to and from in ion channels.These autonomously traveling pulses *not caused by an external potential) are the base of thought and emotion.
  • Electromagnetic Fields
    I'm not sure I understand your view on neurons. You wanna use the electric field to steer your thoughts?
  • Electromagnetic Fields
    I gave a very rough picture. The popular view. In reality, a particle takes many trajectories at once. This gives rise to the Schrōdinger equation. Though hidden variables can do the job of making the particle jump from trajectory to trajectory continuously, giving rise to the probabilities in QM. Like the image of a virtual particle pair popping in and out of existence is a popular view too. A particle is a field of trajectories, an excitation. A virtual pair is a fluctuation of these fields.
  • Electromagnetic Fields
    So, what's the cause of the field strength? Well, all photons couple to charged matter. It,'s how strong the photons "couple," a rather strange name, as the are emitted "created" by a "creation operator" which in reality it's a mathematical image, There is no operator who creates or destroys (by a destruction operator, no kidding!). The coupling strength, connected with the charge, determines the strength of the coupling and stands in relation with the fine structure constant, where the fine structure relates to a pre QFT phenomenon. An electromagnetic phenomenon. Consider the photon as a particle with the potential to push or pull.
  • Electromagnetic Fields
    For anyone who's knowledgeable about electrical energy, wants to do some research, or would like to bs with me, what is the cause of an electromagnetic field's strength? Is it density of charged particles, the rate of their motion, voltage as the energy differentials that drive this motion? What is the effect of a strong electromagnetic field on the form of matter? Does an electromagnetic field induce the blending of matter waves that would be distinct somehow in its absence? I'm thinking of this topic in the context of voltage potentials across a neuron's membrane, but any application will do.Enrique

    Finally! PHYSICA! Yes! Let me enlighten you! Matter is charged with a magic stuf called... electric charge. It's one of the seven (three, but the other six are always to be found in a colorless combination due to a non-abelian gauge, while the electromagnetic gauge is abelian). No physician actually knows what charge is. It sends out virtual mediator particles, like photons, which are not virtual in the real sense, but it means these are not at mass-shell. These fields reach out to other charged particles and thus an EM interaction can take place. The particle move away from or towards each other. At the very basic. Quantum field theory describes mainly particle reactions between two or some more real particles by means of a one photon exchange (or gluing and hyperglycemia exchanges, mediating between particles with the other charges, which are very short range). Likewise, gravity can be described by the exchange of gravitons. But the problem here is the curvature of spacetime. This is not present in the other interactions. QFT is mainly done in flat spacetime. Though in curved spacetime it gives you Hawking radiation. I think about the neurons. Consider photons as pure potential energy, capable of giving pure kinetic energy to the massive matter particles.
  • How can one remember things?
    but that begs the question.

    How?TheMadFool

    Can't remember I wrote that.
  • How can one remember things?
    if a computer had my memory it wouldn't even boot.bert1

    :lol:
  • How can one remember things?
    I think T Clark plausibly inferred that from what you did say.bert1

    How else can it be? His conclusion was false though.
  • Does God have free will?


    Haha, at least you have a sense of humor. Well if that's how your mind works, by basing your choice on choosing a number, then I wish you the best luck! What if nr4 causes you to get smashed by the stone after you have lift it?
  • Does God have free will?


    Imagine you were able to lift the stone in infinite ways. Which one would you choose given the context?
  • How do we know that our choices make sense?
    Would you mind defining knowledge? That way we both know what we are referring to when we discuss it.Average

    Knowledge is knowing. Be it how elementary charged (which by definition they must be) particles behave, how the Greek gods behave (in the Greek view on reality), or how to perform a dance. Knowledge cannot be defined formally, although Knowledge of formal systems, of which math is the ultimate example, can be very useful, as in physics. Knowledge can be best defined in practice, or by giving lists. You like the formal approach?
  • Does God have free will?
    No, if all things are possible, then all things are possible. When you see 'push'do you reason 'push....therefore pull'? Yes. Yes you do. And that is why you are not allowed the metal cutlery. Plastic spoon only.Bartricks

    If allthings are possible, then try picking one of the infinite ways to choose lifting the proverbial stone. You won't succeed!
  • How can one remember things?
    All I can add is that I believe memories aren't stored in the brain, but the actual empirical world, and that the process of recollecting the past is every bit as psychic as it would be to recollect the future.theRiddler

    That's a very nice view! It's indeed the face out there that's familiar!
  • Does God have free will?


    If all things are possible, nothing is possible. Oops! turned the sea into wine. Oops! turned the bread into fire! Watch your mouth guys! Good old J. would have a hard time, as well as God!
  • Anti-Vaxxers, Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Climate Deniers, Flat-Earthers
    you don't think breast cancer prevention is cool...? :brow: How odd. It'd be a great accomplishment, Nobel material. Know/knew anyone with breast cancer?jorndoe

    Where did I say I didn't. You imply this from reading my words. As a matter of fact, my mum needs a lower-back operation to relieve her from her pain. Somehow, a lot of people have a lower back thing. Curiously, as the work has become much lighter these days. They should send the colonists home! They occupy almost all beds and get only some extra oxygen A huge amount of technical stuff surrounds them. Mostly unnecessary. Just relocate them to their beds at home and give them an oxygen supply! And my mother can be treated next week.

    I merely pointed at the failures of the scientific approach. Opposite to the successes.. Mostly these are not mentioned in propaganda.
  • Does God have free will?
    Yes, Jesus and I agree about omnipotence. Jesus said "with God, all things are possible". He did not say "God can do all that is possible". So yes, I am comparing myself to JesusBartricks

    No one can compare himself with Jesus. He is the divine spirit emaculately in-, re- , and concepted by the Lord Himself, praise His Name! JEHOVA! To compare yourself with Jesus is comparing yourself with God. Hence the difficulties you have with the free will of the Holy Gracious, praise His Name! JEHOVA! You are projecting human-like features of the Holy Heavenly Father, praise His name! JEHOVAH! May His eternal glory be with you or enter you soon! To pretend to know if God is free, even to ask it, is a shameless act of mindless identity projection! How can you know what the act of creation looked like? Projecting time or will on His Pristine Being, diminishes the Good Lord, praise His Name, JEHOVAH! to the secular follies your atheistic mind wanders with. The Lord, praise His Name JEHOVA! won't tolerate! Going on like this will make it impossible for you to turn your head away from Lucifer one day. Praise His Name! LUCIFER! The act of creation is unknown. The word of the Lord, praise His Name, JEHOVA! will be known to the secular naive mind, like yours, only through the Lord-given words received by Brother Mozes, praise His Name! MOZES! Mozes itch! What the fuck I'm doing!? Goddammit! Well, seriously, how can you know the act of creation is the same as a human act of creation. Creation! Praise Her Name! ELISABETTAMYLOVE! How can you know the will of the gods is free or not? It's nice discussing it, but you place the question in a physical domain, and as such you can just as well ask if our own will is free, or if we can truly create.Hai Capito?
  • Solution to the hard problem of consciousness
    Focus on the word "God" in OMG! and Hawking's statement.
    now
    TheMadFool

    I just did!
  • Solution to the hard problem of consciousness
    Either you get it or you don't.TheMadFool

    How informative!Then I get it. Hawking just commented in his usual, science-indoctrinated way. Even with a mechanized voice, hiding him from an unconscious fear of gods, elevating himself to a god-like status. "God is a Mathematician". While in fact he ment: "Yo! I'm the master! The master Math. Dig that! And now listen y'all! It's me who makes the call! Time to see, that, I'm the math!" My math math math. Mad mad mad. OMM!"
  • Solution to the hard problem of consciousness
    What if, in fact, the human being is able to understand in him or herself, simply by virtue of the kind of being they are, something about the Universe, which can be found by no other meansWayfarer

    This is indeed the fact! How else can I understand you, or the physical world?
  • Solution to the hard problem of consciousness
    Hate to dissappoint you, but noWayfarer

    Who says I'm disappointed? Why should I be? I feel pity for the poor man It's his own fault he is an atheist. Luckily I know better. I don't understand though why he says that God is a mathematician. Probably because he considered himself as one. All bow to the wheelchair God!
  • IQ vs EQ: Does Emotional Intelligence has any place in Epistemology?
    Te question will always;remain: now that we found knowledge of the both, what are we gonna do with it?
  • Solution to the hard problem of consciousness
    Yeah, Hawking's comment is like how atheists (still) use "OMG!" as an expression of surprise/shock.TheMadFool

    I'm not sure I get this. When I scream OMG, to what comment of his does this correspond?
  • Solution to the hard problem of consciousness
    Bearing in mind that Hawking was a life-long and extremely vocal atheist.Wayfarer

    A vocal atheist? Are you joking? Says the computer voice:

    "Ahas shahientists, we thary to fihind out what ihis the nature of tha maahaath mind of God"

    So he believes in God. He is a mathematician. Which is not unreasonable from Hawking's humble POV.
  • IQ vs EQ: Does Emotional Intelligence has any place in Epistemology?
    rational thoughts are more bio-electrical in origin, and emotions more biochemical,Michael Zwingli

    Where did you get that from? Both are based in the lightning-like parallel paths that massive amounts of electrical spike potentials follow in a least resistance mode. Emotion and thought have the same neuronal counterpart. Every emotion is accompanied by the same neuronal functioning as a thought process. In emotion, the body is involved more than in thought though. Thoughts are pretty bodily detached. Though there is a connection obviously. If I sing a song in my mind I can feel it in my stomach, a tear can get in my eye, and I can't do it without moving my tongue. I can think about a friend, but are unable to do this in an objective, non-emotionless way. No extra biochemical reactions involved in the brain, although I (my body, that is) can respond biochemical directly, or indirectly by means of secreted stuff from the brain. And this secreted stuff is released by the integrated union of thought and emotion. The both are not part of one single structure, as you imply. One being the electric, one being the biochemical. The are both electrical mini hurricanes, taking place on the same neurons, which offer, biochemically, the same basis for their electric existence. Both thought and emotion are electrically charged structures, and you can ask, if so, then what the hell the difference can be.
  • Malus Scientia
    I think it's indeed more appropriate to see the apple as being Satan-given, but with the knowledge of a moral system replaced by a system of scientific knowledge. Western religion is all about:trying to retain a pre-Satanic, pure, holy, Good, a moral system, as one likes, as unconsciously known to animals. in a conscious way, after the knowledge of good and bad was apple-given. And Satan knew: mankind will get into trouble because of this. Luckily, the Bible was given to lead people to the conscious knowledge of the natural, divine, pre-Satanic moral system (unconsciously present in the child, in a pristine form, and continuously attacked by the Devil, who has a share fair of admirers in our Earthly realm, adhering to the anti of the God-given moral) as God had intended.

    After this new apple was bitten (reminding of the famous quantum apple, which, once bitten, makes us guilty as hell, so some physicist once claimed), the knowledge of science imposes a birthing upon us. In trying to retain the perfect scientific knowledge, the same harm is done as after the biting of the moral apple, after having perceived a knowledge of what the good and bad mean (,so not the explicit incarnation, but the feeling of bad and good itself, which was supposed not to be present in mankind). All in an effort to know the science, as was not intended by God, but by Lucifer. The Bible, in this case, is replaced by books containing the scientific system.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    It seems to me, though, that you may miss the sheer size of the US and its history of having mostly two and only two major parties, third-party candidates only occasional spoilers.tim wood

    Why is that? As a European I always wondered. In fact there is a two party system here too though. It takes centuries sometimes before a coalition is formed. The old situation is clung to until the formation is complete, but when installed there is the usual division between left and right. Why has the green party never got hold in the US? Are there mechanisms to prevent this, or the people just don't want them. How does Trump think about that green party? As he thinks about a tea party? What (hypothetically), if there would be more voters for Nader than Trump? Could Trump stop his March to the Capitol? I dreamt that Trump won the American elections and got scared in my dream. What influence that man has! Like I dream like exploding atom bombs sometimes. Luckily there are (still) dreams only!
  • What is beauty
    Doesn't saying you're in love with something or someone or some appearance or whatever just mean the same as saying that you love that person, or thing, or appearance, or whatever?Bartricks

    Obviously not. I truly are not in love with the conceptual works of Mondriaan or Escher. However I like them or pleasing they are to see. Sometimes I can hate them though, for their being bound to the purely formal, of which Mondriaan (or Rietvelt and van der Lek)) is the ultimate example. Reducing man and wife to two perpendicular lines placed perpendicular to the painting's frame.... what a farce! And the frame has to be hung up with a corner pointing down. How ingenious. Two lines perpendiculary driven in a corner. Was the man painting his marriage?
  • What is beauty
    There is an objective aspect of beauty. Objects can be beautiful. Objects can be ugly. I never understood why in aesthetics beauty has the upper hand. Isn't ugliness just as beautiful? Is beauty more difficult to create? Is ugliness a kind of taboo? Almost no one admits he finds a person ugly. And ugly people can be beautiful! Is there an aesthetics of the ugly? Why does one prefer beauty over ugliness? One can give symmetry or formal, mathematical reasons, but in my opinion these are insufficient. Is beauty subject to fashion? It certainly is. As such, it can be objective and a group of people will agree on it. Is an ugly person objectively ugly? Do all agree? What if I find that person beautiful? Will she be beautiful then. Of course, though others might agree and call my taste an objective failure.
  • How do we know that our choices make sense?
    Would you agree that there are incorrect conclusions?Average

    Firstly, I only now see your response. Something went wrong. Im not sure why your name is under my comment. Ah, I see why! I made a mistake! No wonder I waited in vain for your reply. Sorry. I draw the wrong conclusion that it was a computer error. Already one wrong conclusion!

    I don't say that everybody is right. That everybody is right and everybody jumps to the right conclusions. You already have one example! God forbid! Right and wrong conclusions can be drawn in every system of reality, be it within the framework of a vision in which the universe was created 6000 years ago within one of a universe filled with God's, or in the realm of an elementary particles view. Every system has its own ways and forms of knowledge and I'm not sure if a general abstract But I assume you mean the kind of conclusions I just made?
  • Does God have free will?
    So did Jesus.Bartricks

    Are you comparing yourself with Jesus now? All hail the second coming! Your inception of time is rather naive. It doesn't display a great knowledge of time. And that's why you are so confused. Knowledge and the truth about time can set you free!
  • Does God have free will?

    Let me go further.

    "God can do everything absolutely; everything that can be expressed in a string of words that makes sense; even if that sense can be shown to be self-contradictory..."

    Then they can do very little, as not everything can be expressed by strings of words. God can do oranges or blue, for example.

    "...a proposition 'God can do so-and-so' is true when and only when 'so-and-so' represents a logically consistent description"

    Not true. They can do a logically inconsistent dance. Logically undescribable.

    "...'God can do so-and-so' is true just if 'God does so-and-so' is logically consistent."

    Again untrue. God can do so-and-so even if so-and-so is logically inconsistent, like many people, like you, do.


    "...whenever 'God will bring so-and-so about' is logically possible, 'God can bring so-and-so about' is true."

    Boring. And untrue again! Obviously.

    Banno


    But hey, the writer is a lover of logic, so how else could God be for him?
  • Anti-Vaxxers, Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Climate Deniers, Flat-Earthers
    Genuine medical progress, a great scientific achievement, if it pans out.jorndoe

    Genuine medical progress: 6000 people born with grave birth defects, due to a mix-up between a left-handed molecule and a right-handed one.

    Genuine medical progress: 4000 people die unnecessarily each year in hospitals.

    Genuine medical progress: millions of animals die every year, in the name of science.

    Genuine medical progress: just a propaganda slogan. If it pans out.
  • Anti-Vaxxers, Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Climate Deniers, Flat-Earthers
    The universe was created. Who says this didn't happen 6000 years ago? If they think this is what happened...MikeBlender

    I think you are very right here. It's what one perceives that counts. It's not my idea of reality (creation 6000 years ago), but you can always tell me that it is my idea that I have about this matter.
  • God and time.
    My second argument tells you: time is made of sensations and their absence.Bartricks

    And there you are wrong. Time is just a coordinate on an apparently 4d-d curved spacetime. It can be associated a number, called the coordinate time. The proper time (eigentime, the own time, which is the one we measure usually in our rather spatially fixed positions, and which in a gravity field loves slower than in flat spacetime, which seems locally to be the case if we fall in a gravity field), is a value that is independent of coordinates values, and it's the time that is measured when you are not moving in the space, I.e, when the spatial coordinates are constant. So in a sense it is coordinate dependent. You make the spatial part of the metric, explicable in all kinds of coordinates, vanish, and the result is the Lorenz-invariant proper time, meaning just that it's the same in any coordinate system. No matter how fast you go, or where you find yourself, the proper time is always the same. If you are at rest in a gravity field, then the proper time you measure (I.e, the time between two points on your time-like path) goes slower than if you would make such a measurement in outer space because the timeliness metric component is different for you then (in flat spacetime, that component is just 1, or -1, or sometimes even I, if we set c=1). For a spacelike path, followed by light, there is no associated eigentime, as the projection of that path onto the time-axis is zero. So there can be no measuremt of two times. So there is no eigentime of light, which is reasonable as there is no restframe in which light doesn't move. I can remember having a hard time (there you go!) imagining this. On a rocket through space.

    This unstoppable character of light, lies at the bottom of SR (and GR, for that matter, which is nothing more than accelerated SR). In a sense you could say that interaction by light is instantaneous, as there is no time passage for light. So in a sense, all thing happen at the same time. Luckily there is space to prevent this.

    Note that I use entropic time as the ingredient of this vision. A value can be assigned to it, it's entropic time quantified.

    So in this light, can time (so not our subjective experience of it) be assigned to God? It depends. If he is part of this universe, then obviously yes. If they are outside of it? Maybe. It could be that there is a higher dimensional realm, of which our universe is an intersection. While time out there continues, the time at the big bang could have been fluctuating, giving rise to the big bang at their time-like command. Let the be a philosophy forum!