How did he get his information?
Dr. Raj Baldev has explained the history of over 1 trillion 250,000 billion years before the Big Bang. . . Read more at http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=641
Re: How did he get his information?
Hi Norman, Who gave this guy a Doctorate? That webpage appears to be merely an advertisement for a book. I think that your question is more important that the ramblings of Dr. Raj! How does anyone get information? Does the acquisition of information always take some form of work? Stephen - Original Message - From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 11:49 AM Subject: How did he get his information? Dr. Raj Baldev has explained the history of over 1 trillion 250,000 billion years before the Big Bang. . . Read more at http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=641
RE: More is Better (was RE: another puzzle)
Lee Corbin writes: [quoting Stathis] I think that if it is given that either you or your duplicate must die, then you should willingly sacrifice yourself if it will enrich your duplicate. Either way, I think you wake up the next morning very satisfied with the outcome. How do you wake up the next morning if you're the one who died? Unless you can effect some sort of mind merge just before dying, you lose all the experiences that you have had since you and your duplicate diverged... Well, Stathis, for heaven's sake! You've already admitted that a little memory loss does not threaten your identity! Recall the Aussies you wrote about who customarily lose an entire evening's inebriation :-) Yes, and I also admitted that there is an inconsistency in my position. Having my duplicate who has already diverged live on while I die is not just memory loss, but rather replacement of the lost memories with someone else's, which I feel is a greater threat to my identity and which I would be less likely to agree to. Memory loss would be more like having myself backed up and the backup run after I have died. If the backups are frequent, I suppose it is better than no backup at all, but I would still feel afraid of dying. At its most basic, for me anyway, the fear of imminent death is the fear that the person I am *now* will be wiped from the universe and never have any more experiences. The same consideration ought to apply to memory loss, but people don't generally think of it that way, because they know that they'll be OK afterwards, on the basis of past experience. So remember: your duplicate in the next room is *exactly* in the same state you are in right now if you lose a little recent memory, and then have some new experiences that are identical to his over the last few minutes. So he *is* you! That's what I mean when I say that we must regard duplicates as selves. And let's go back to this crazy transfer that seems (from my viewpoint) to occupy the attention of those who believe in continuers. So you expect to be the person who arrives at the other end if you are disintegrated here and teleported there. You even expect to be him if the original here is not disintegrated. (Here I must lash out at the bizarre probability calculus that ensues for many at this point: whether or not they *are* the remote version seems to depend on what happens locally here. Sheese.) There is a transfer of information in order to effect the teleportation, but this is just a technical detail; there is no actual transfer of identity, if that is what you meant. There are only people's beliefs and memories concerning who they are and who they were, coupled with the fact that human minds can only experience being one person at a time. As for how what happens here can affect whether or not the person entering the teleporter finds himself over there: if you destructively teleport an apple there, there is a 100% chance that the apple is over there; whereas if you non-destructively teleport an apple there, choosing an apple at random because you are only allowed one apple at a time, there is a 50% chance it will be the one here and a 50% chance it will be the one there. Where's the problem? So if all the 1000 Stathis's in the various rooms are to die but one, then that one continues all the others. Now we play a trick. The 1000 don't actually die but are placed in instantaneous suspended animation. Oops! The big Bean-Counter Upstairs who keeps track of where the serial numbers go is confused! He had better have all 1000 Stathis's continue in the one, just in case something goes wrong with the suspended animation machinery. But then... what to do when nothing goes wrong? How to send all the souls back into the original bodies??? (Of course, here in this paragraph I am just attempting to ridicule a point of view in which I do not believe. The truth is, of course, is that no transfers take place, and the whole idea of a continuer is wrong.) If you believe that the 1000 will continue in the one (what, I wonder, with probability 1000?), then they'll continue in the one whether or not they're disintegrated. Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here. Do you mean that 1000 versions of me are running in parallel and all but one are stopped or suspended? It's obvious to me that however often the number running is changed, I won't be able to tell that there is any difference. This wouldn't work if they had serial numbers because if each version knew his number, they would start to diverge, and stopping one of them would then lead to the loss of unique experience, as discussed above (you might say it doesn't matter if it's something as trivial as a serial number, like losing a second of memory, but the point still stands). It wouldn't work if they had souls either, because killing some of them, even if they remained running in parallel, would send the souls to heaven or hell
To Eliminate Suffering
Stathis writes I have not undergone conscious sedation myself, but I have administered the anaesthetic (midazolam, diazepam, propofol, fentanyl) for hundreds of gastroscopies and colonoscopies... The dose of the anaesthetic agent in conscious sedation is titrated according to how the patient responds: if he is very anxious the anaesthetist might give more midazolam, which is primarily given for its anxiolytic effect that is, I understand, for its anesthetic (pain-relieving) abilities for its anxiolytic effect rather to induce amnesia, while if he is complaining of pain more fentanyl is given. Not everyone has complete amnesia for the procedure afterwards, but even if amnesia were guaranteed, certainly no doctor would deliberately allow a patient to suffer just because he won't remember it. I'm heartened to hear this, but am unconvinced. It is just as I worried about from the beginning: the philosophic consequences are debatable enough that some doctors are bound to suppose that if the patient doesn't remember it, then it doesn't matter. That attitude must be identified, abhorred, and stridently criticized whenever it is encountered. The only situation I can think of where midazolam might be used primarily for its amnestic effect is with young children (you squirt it up their nose!) who need to have a series of unpleasant treatments, and would become very distressed each time if they could remember the details of their last experience. Yes, and given that it is *certain* that the pain cannot be avoided, then it probably is better for any patient to not remember it. (The only qualification to that is under what circumstances it is justifiable to deny information to an adult.) But here again, I strongly suspect that from the physicians' view, a desired state of the children has already been achieved: they're easier to handle and don't complain. How can this but fail to lessen the search for more effective anesthetics? Lee
RE: How did he get his information?
Stephen writes Hi Norman, Who gave this guy a Doctorate? That webpage appears to be merely an advertisement for a book. I think that your question is more important that the ramblings of Dr. Raj! I read the page and was pretty dubious myself, although I don't have the balls to say what Stephen did. From this page: Dr. Raj Baldev said in his book that Black Holes suck and destroy the material on one hand, recycles it and then ejects the material so violently in the space that they ultimately form stars and planets therefrom. After about 9 months from the release of the book of Dr. Raj Baldev, Stephen Hawking, one of the noted authorities on Black Hole changed his idea about the Black Hole. Hawking was of the firm opinion that nothing could escape from the Black Hole, not even light and nothing could come out of it. But in July 2004, at 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, he admitted his mistake that he was wrong for thirty years. Hawking wrong about nothing could escape black holes? Has the writer never heard of Hawking radiation? Hawking began writing about black holes evaporating as far back as the 1970s. Was it not the result of Dr. Raj Baldev's new hypothesis on Black Hole? No. Since Hawking did not mention the credit of his changing mind in his new research, the lawyer of the Publisher of the book of Dr. Raj Baldev served upon a legal notice on Stephen Hawking, on which he offered no comments. This issue remained on net for about a year, which the author ignored and decided not to move the court keeping in view his personal respect for Stephen Hawking. Well, why isn't there (if this is the case) a lot of condemnation on the net of Dr. Baldev? I hope that it is not out of sensitivity to his and his supporters' feelings. Also, I can't help but wonder if Dr. Baldev isn't trying to justify the Hindu theories that examine ages of the universe far, far greater than mere billions of years. How does anyone get information? Does the acquisition of information always take some form of work? It would indeed seem to me that if System A obtains information (from outside System A), then work must be performed. That is, I lack the imagination or the knowledge to see how in the simplest case I can think of, a traveling photon that crosses the boundary of System A and leaves a record can do no work. Lee Stephen - Original Message - From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 11:49 AM Subject: How did he get his information? Dr. Raj Baldev has explained the history of over 1 trillion 250,000 billion years before the Big Bang. . . Read more at http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=641
Re: More is Better (anesthetic)
The discussion about whether it would be okay to use anesthetic that worked only by removing memories is missing one important piece: that the effects of pain are not just floating "experiences" perceived by the "mind", but have very real effects on the body - high stress levels, release of stress hormones, behavioral trauma, etc. Before stating whether you'd be willing to undergo torture followed by memory loss, it also has to be specified what the long term effects of repeated stress would be. If it's stipulated in the thought experiment that there would be -no- lasting effects at all; i.e., no way in principle that you or someone else could tell after the torture that you'd been tortured as opposed to merely sedated, then it doesn't look like such a bad deal.On Jul 1, 2005, at 10:52 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:I have not undergone conscious sedation myself, but I have administered the anaesthetic (midazolam, diazepam, propofol, fentanyl) for hundreds of gastroscopies and colonoscopies. Sometimes the patients are more or less fast asleep for the whole experience. Other times, they seem to be fully awake, talking to you with only a slight slurring of their voice, as if they have had a few beers. In fact, benzodiazepines are not that dissimilar to alcohol pharmacologically, and patients who go into delirium tremens from alcohol withdrawl are treated with large doses of diazepam. (It is ironic that any adult can buy as much alcoholic beverages as he wants, but for diazepam, which basically has all the effects of alcohol but is much safer, a prescription is needed.) The dose of the anaesthetic agent in conscious sedation is titrated according to how the patient responds: if he is very anxious the anaesthetist might give more midazolam, which is primarily given for its anxiolytic effect rather to induce amnesia, while if he is complaining of pain more fentanyl is given. Not everyone has complete amnesia for the procedure afterwards, but even if amnesia were guaranteed, certainly no doctor would deliberately allow a patient to suffer just because he won't remember it. The only situation I can think of where midazolam might be used primarily for its amnestic effect is with young children (you squirt it up their nose!) who need to have a series of unpleasant treatments, and would become very distressed each time if they could remember the details of their last experience.--Stathis Papaioannou
RE: How did he get his information?
After about 9 months from the release of the book of Dr. Raj Baldev, Stephen Hawking, one of the noted authorities on Black Hole changed his idea about the Black Hole. Hawking was of the firm opinion that nothing could escape from the Black Hole, not even light and nothing could come out of it. But in July 2004, at 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, he admitted his mistake that he was wrong for thirty years. Hawking wrong about nothing could escape black holes? Has the writer never heard of Hawking radiation? Hawking began writing about black holes evaporating as far back as the 1970s. I think he's talking about Hawking changing his mind as to whether information can escape from black holes. Hawking always said radiation can escape, but believed all information was destroyed. He changed his mind about that. The above quote is pure bovine excrement. Baldev probably got his doctorate in farming technology. Jonathan Colvin
Re: How did he get his information?
Lee, Stephen, Stathis, Jonathan, Thanks for your illuminating responses. I went to http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=641 and left a message telling them that I objected to the slur on Hawking, and that I thought Dr. Baldev was a charlatan. I also rated the article as Bad, the worst available rating. Somebody responded with thanks. In addition to their gratitude, I noticed that my Bad rating of the article had been magically transformed into Good. Norman - Original Message - From: Jonathan Colvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 8:59 PM Subject: RE: How did he get his information? After about 9 months from the release of the book of Dr. Raj Baldev, Stephen Hawking, one of the noted authorities on Black Hole changed his idea about the Black Hole. Hawking was of the firm opinion that nothing could escape from the Black Hole, not even light and nothing could come out of it. But in July 2004, at 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, he admitted his mistake that he was wrong for thirty years. Hawking wrong about nothing could escape black holes? Has the writer never heard of Hawking radiation? Hawking began writing about black holes evaporating as far back as the 1970s. I think he's talking about Hawking changing his mind as to whether information can escape from black holes. Hawking always said radiation can escape, but believed all information was destroyed. He changed his mind about that. The above quote is pure bovine excrement. Baldev probably got his doctorate in farming technology. Jonathan Colvin
Re: How did he get his information?
Hi Norman, On a lark I Googled and found: http://www.igcar.ernet.in/igc2004/balbio.htm His specializations include materials characterization, testing and evaluation using nondestructive evaluation methodologies, materials development and performance assessment and technology management. He has steered and participated in many national programmes of great significance namely DST project on Intelligent Processing of Materials, Characterization of Cultural Heritage, IAF programmes of ageing management, Dept. of Space and Dept. of Defence programmes. He has 33 years of experience, which has led to many first of its kind observations and discoveries in the field of materials characterization and applications. He is known for his contributions to KAMINI Reactor, hot cell facilities for examination and reprocessing of fuels and reactor technology particularly in the area of materials and manufacturing technologies. Charlatan, maybe... Stephen - Original Message - From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2005 12:27 AM Subject: Re: How did he get his information? Lee, Stephen, Stathis, Jonathan, Thanks for your illuminating responses. I went to http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=641 and left a message telling them that I objected to the slur on Hawking, and that I thought Dr. Baldev was a charlatan. I also rated the article as Bad, the worst available rating. Somebody responded with thanks. In addition to their gratitude, I noticed that my Bad rating of the article had been magically transformed into Good. Norman
Re: How did he get his information?
Thanks for the interesting detective work. He seems to have had a very distinguished career - one that is not that of a charlatan. But how could somebody with such a distinguished record suddenly promote all these weird ideas? Is he becoming unbalanced? Is my information incorrect? If the attack on Hawking occurred as reported, that behavior is unprofessional at best. Norman - Original Message - From: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 9:55 PM Subject: Re: How did he get his information? Hi Norman, On a lark I Googled and found: http://www.igcar.ernet.in/igc2004/balbio.htm His specializations include materials characterization, testing and evaluation using nondestructive evaluation methodologies, materials development and performance assessment and technology management. He has steered and participated in many national programmes of great significance namely DST project on Intelligent Processing of Materials, Characterization of Cultural Heritage, IAF programmes of ageing management, Dept. of Space and Dept. of Defence programmes. He has 33 years of experience, which has led to many first of its kind observations and discoveries in the field of materials characterization and applications. He is known for his contributions to KAMINI Reactor, hot cell facilities for examination and reprocessing of fuels and reactor technology particularly in the area of materials and manufacturing technologies. Charlatan, maybe... Stephen - Original Message - From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2005 12:27 AM Subject: Re: How did he get his information? Lee, Stephen, Stathis, Jonathan, Thanks for your illuminating responses. I went to http://internationalreporter.com/news/read.php?id=641 and left a message telling them that I objected to the slur on Hawking, and that I thought Dr. Baldev was a charlatan. I also rated the article as Bad, the worst available rating. Somebody responded with thanks. In addition to their gratitude, I noticed that my Bad rating of the article had been magically transformed into Good. Norman -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.8.8/37 - Release Date: 7/1/2005
