Re: Why do particles decay randomly?
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:04:14 AM UTC-4, ColinHales wrote: Colin’s Wackier Version: Because the space they operate in, at the scale in which the decay operates, there are far more dimensions than 3. They decay deterministically in 3D and it appears, to us, to be random because of the collapse of the spatial dimensions to 3, where we As long as the collapse has a spatial result, I see no reason why the other dimensions would have a spatial aesthetic. Our own creativity and choice manifests in public space as a private sensory-motor participation. This ordinary awareness is, I suggest, is the origin of all implicate orders, zero point fields, compactified dimensions, and probably dark matter/dark energy as well. Rather than a collapse from intangible quantitative dimensions, the microcosm carries the same orthogonal-symmetric aesthetic oscillation as we do - from proprietary significance to generic entropy. It is not a collapse from abstract dimensions of *more* axes, but a de-saturation to a reduced sensory protocol, where only the impersonal, unintentional qualities are preserved; i.e. dispositions must be indirectly inferred from positional relations over time. With private intention, dispositions are generated directly and influence positional relations over time. humble observers gain access to it. Same reason atoms jiggle in space. Same reason an electron is fuzzy. Smoothness in 3D looks fuzzy to us. If you had to represent your will as a set of isolated positions, it would look fuzzy too. Thanks, Craig Quantum mechanics is a statistical description that is predictive in 3D. It explains nothing. I offer explanation, not description. J *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: [mailto: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:] *On Behalf Of *Craig Weinberg *Sent:* Wednesday, 10 April 2013 1:19 PM *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: *Subject:* Re: Why do particles decay randomly? On Tuesday, April 9, 2013 7:54:27 PM UTC-4, Russell Standish wrote: It is hard to answer this question precisely, because the large, radioactive nuclei are very complex structures, for which exact solutions of Schroedinger's equation cannot be obtained. Rather these things are usually studied via Hartree-Fock approximations. However, in loose visual terms, you can think of a neutron as being in a superposition of states, some of which are an electron-proton pair separated by a substantial distance. If the electron finds itself too far from its partner proton, the weak force is too weak, and the electric force is shielded by the orbital electrons, so the electron escapes, becoming the beta ray. This explanation has left out an obvious factor - an anti-neutrino must also be created as part of the process. This is often explained as being required to preserve lepton number - but conservation of lepton number is a somewhat ad hoc law - I don't know the real physical reason why lepton number is conserved. Anyway, the point of randomness is that this is a quintessential quantum process, very closely related to the phenomenon of quantum tunneling. Unless there exists a hidden variable-type theory underlying QM (which basically appears to be ruled out by Bell+Aspect), the process must be completely random. I wonder if we looked at the behavior of cars driving on the highway, would we conclude that the variation in how long they travel before exiting the highway must be completely random? Maybe the hidden variable is that matter knows what it is doing? Craig Cheers On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 05:57:11AM -0700, Craig Weinberg wrote: If any particle were truly identical to another, then they could not decay at different rates. While we see this as random (aka spontaneous to our eyes), there is nothing to say that the duration of the life of the particle is not influenced by intentional dispositions. Particles may represent different intensities of 'will to continue' or expectation of persistence. In this sense, organic molecules could represent a Goldilocks range of time-entangled panpsychism which is particularly flexible and dynamic. Think of the lifetime of a molecular ensemble as the length of a word in a sentence as it relates to the possibilities of meaning. Too long and it becomes unwieldy, too brief and it becomes generic. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. --
Re: The world is in the brain
On 09 Apr 2013, at 20:48, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, April 8, 2013 5:38:44 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Apr 2013, at 19:20, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 19:12 meekerdb said the following: On 4/6/2013 11:54 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 02:40 Craig Weinberg said the following: Ok, here's my modified version of Fig 11 http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/33ost_diagram.jpg I believe that you have understood the paper wrong. The authors literally believe that the observed 3D world is geometrically speaking in the brain. Yes our 3d model of the world is in our minds (not our brains). It's not there geometrically speaking. Geometry and there are part of the model. Dog bites man. Well, if you look into the paper, you see that authors take it literally as in neuroscience mind means brain. Mind belongs to philosophy. But mind is different from brain. And mind is part of both cognitive science and theoretical computer science. To identify mind and brain is possible in some strong non computationalist theories, but such theories don't yet exist, and are only speculated about. To confuse mind and brain, is like confusing literature and ink. Neurophilophers are usually computationalist and weakly materialist, and so are basically inconsistent. If we used a logic automata type of scheme, then mind and brain would be the same thing. ? Each bit would be an atomic configuration, and programs would be atomic assemblies. Two apples is not the number two. Maybe this makes it easier to see why forms and functions are not the same as sensory experiences, as no pile of logic automata would inspire feelings, flavors, thoughts, etc. That is what we ask you to justify, or to assume explicitly, not to take for granted. Bruno but would output behaviors consistent with our expectations for those experiences. Craig Bruno Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 1:16:48 AM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 08.04.2013 11:38 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 07 Apr 2013, at 19:20, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 19:12 meekerdb said the following: On 4/6/2013 11:54 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 02:40 Craig Weinberg said the following: Ok, here's my modified version of Fig 11 http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/33ost_diagram.jpg I believe that you have understood the paper wrong. The authors literally believe that the observed 3D world is geometrically speaking in the brain. Yes our 3d model of the world is in our minds (not our brains). It's not there geometrically speaking. Geometry and there are part of the model. Dog bites man. Well, if you look into the paper, you see that authors take it literally as in neuroscience mind means brain. Mind belongs to philosophy. But mind is different from brain. And mind is part of both cognitive science and theoretical computer science. To identify mind and brain is possible in some strong non computationalist theories, but such theories don't yet exist, and are only speculated about. To confuse mind and brain, is like confusing literature and ink. Neurophilophers are usually computationalist and weakly materialist, and so are basically inconsistent. I guess, this is a way how science develops. Neuroscientists study brain and they just take a priori from the materialist and reductionism paradigm that mind must be in the brain. The materialist view is just that the mind is a process in the brain, like a computation is the process of running a program in a computer. As processes they may be abstracted from their physical instantiation and are not anywhere, except maybe in Platonia. After that, they write papers to bring this idea to the logical conclusion. To this end, they seem to have two options. Either they should say that the 3D visual world is illusion (I guess, Dennett goes this way) I think illusion has too strong a connotation of fallacious. I think model is more accurate. So long as we realize the world we conceptualize is a model then we are not guilty of a fallacy. Models have no presence. The same model can be expressed in any sense modality, so that our ability to conceptualize models is not the same phenomenon as our ability to perceive and participate in the world. Modeling is based on equivalence, and equivalence is part of pattern recognition, so that in order to even conceive of a model, there first would have to be direct perception and participation in a real world. Caring about the world gives you a reason to care about modeling it. If your world is invisible, intangible, and unconscious, then no models are needed and all participation is better served by automatic algorithms. or put phenomenological consciousness into the brain. I don't know what this means. That phenomenological consciousness depends on the brain is empirically well established. That human consciousness is influenced by the brain is empirically well established. There is enough data from things like hydrocephalus, the recent psilocybin study, and NDEs to cast some doubt even on human-brain dependence in theory. Those exotic possibilities are not necessary however to see that there are a great variety of brainless species who nonetheless participate in the world in ways which seem more conscious than non-biological structures. Think of it this way. If our brain produced phenomenal awareness, then the tissues of the brain would have to be responsible for that - the phenomenal consciousness of the brain would be dependent on the proto-phenomenal consicousness of neuronal sub-brains...otherwise consciousness appears out of nothing, for no particular reason, to live nowhere. Craig But to put it into the brain implies making a spatial placement of an abstract concept. Let us see what happens along this way. The paper in a way is well written. The only flaw (that actually is irrelevant to the content of the paper) that I have seen in it, is THE ENTROPY. Biologists like the entropy so much that they use it in any occasion. For example from the paper: “Thus, changes in entropy provide an important window into self-organization: a sudden increase of entropy just before the emergence of a new structure, followed by brief period of negative entropy (or negentropy).” I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag,
Re: The world is in the brain
On 09 Apr 2013, at 21:19, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 08.04.2013 11:38 Bruno Marchal said the following: On 07 Apr 2013, at 19:20, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 19:12 meekerdb said the following: On 4/6/2013 11:54 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 02:40 Craig Weinberg said the following: Ok, here's my modified version of Fig 11 http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/33ost_diagram.jpg I believe that you have understood the paper wrong. The authors literally believe that the observed 3D world is geometrically speaking in the brain. Yes our 3d model of the world is in our minds (not our brains). It's not there geometrically speaking. Geometry and there are part of the model. Dog bites man. Well, if you look into the paper, you see that authors take it literally as in neuroscience mind means brain. Mind belongs to philosophy. But mind is different from brain. And mind is part of both cognitive science and theoretical computer science. To identify mind and brain is possible in some strong non computationalist theories, but such theories don't yet exist, and are only speculated about. To confuse mind and brain, is like confusing literature and ink. Neurophilophers are usually computationalist and weakly materialist, and so are basically inconsistent. I guess, this is a way how science develops. Neuroscientists study brain and they just take a priori from the materialist and reductionism paradigm that mind must be in the brain. Which is close to nonsense. Of course it is also very fuzzy. If you look in the brain, you see neuron, you don't see mind. Leibniz already knew this, and the pre-christian mechanist too. After that, they write papers to bring this idea to the logical conclusion. To this end, they seem to have two options. Either they should say that the 3D visual world is illusion (I guess, Dennett goes this way) This is unclear. You might give a reference. Dennett seems to take physicalism for granted. The problem of many is that they just seem unaware that the mind-body problem is quite severe in the weak materialist framework. or put phenomenological consciousness into the brain. Let us see what happens along this way. The paper in a way is well written. The only flaw (that actually is irrelevant to the content of the paper) that I have seen in it, is THE ENTROPY. Biologists like the entropy so much that they use it in any occasion. For example from the paper: “Thus, changes in entropy provide an important window into self- organization: a sudden increase of entropy just before the emergence of a new structure, followed by brief period of negative entropy (or negentropy).” I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Not too much problem with this, but Schroedinger's book is also at the origin of molecular biology, and is full of interesting insight. His philosophy of mind is inspired by Hinduism, and in my opinion, it is less wrong than material reductionism. Bruno Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:18 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: Where do you get the idea that subjective events cannot repeat? It seems another thing that you've just made up, with no rational justification. Subjective events cannot literally repeat for the same reason that historical events cannot literally repeat and you cannot step into the same river twice. All conditions are constantly changing so that it is impossible for every condition to be reproduced in a given frame of experience because what frames private experience is the relation with every other experience in the history of the universe, and to an eternity ahead. My current experience is due to the current configuration of my brain, and the current configuration of my brain is due to the preceding configurations. The current configuration is due to the preceding configurations because of the deterministic causal chain which you discount. But even without this causal chain, if the current configuration repeats due to chance at some future point, the experience would repeat. The causal chain is significant only insofar as it reliably brings about the correct configuration for experiences. A car mechanic is only significant insofar as he reliably fixes a problem with the car, but if the same operation were performed accidentally by a chimpanzee playing with the engine, the car would run just as well. Before we move to styrofoam balls, it's problematic that you don't even accept the modest assumption that the same matter in the same configuration will yield the same behaviour and same subjective states, such as they may be. There is no same. There is seems the same by some standard of sensory interpretation. Configurations of matter don't yield any subjective states, any more than configurations of TV sets yield TV programs. The TV sets are built so that the programs can be watched. They have no meaning or use otherwise. But the same configuration of electronics fed the same signal would produce the same TV program. If the configuration is different and/or the signal is different the program would be different. Disrupting the form of this matter disrupts the experiences, while swapping the matter for different matter in the same form does not. If you swap the matter in a TV set for cheese, it won't work, even if the cheese is in the same configuration. Maybe the TV set is constructed only of certain materials for good reasons, or maybe you can make a TV set out of cheese, but it receives different (more cheesy?) programs. If you swap the matter in a TV set for different matter of the same type the TV will work the same. You can do this blindly, knowing nothing about TV's and it will just work. If you know something about TV's you can swap out components for components of different type but equivalent function and it will work the same. But it does seem, at the very least, that building a person out of matter builds the experiences. Says who? Has someone assembled a living person from scratch yet? Have we even cloned an adult into another adult without growing it first from a zygote? We know that the person is the same regardless of the origin of the matter in their body. We know that the entire person is rebuilt from alternative matter over the course of normal metabolism and they remain the same person. We know that replacing components in a person with artificial analogues, proteins and other small molecules, leaves the person unchanged, and we know that molecules that arise naturally are exactly the same in every respect we have been able to determine as their artificial analogues. We have created bacteria with artificial DNA which function normally. We have not yet created an entire organism from scratch but if we did and it didn't work that would be a staggering scientific puzzle implying that something magical is going on, and you would expect that there would be some evidence of this in the other experiements we have done. Use the same matter but disrupt the form - no experiences; use different matter and keep the form - experiences. What different matter are you talking about? Can you use DNA made out of laundry soap? If laundry soap contains all the elements needed to make DNA you should be able to make DNA from it. Artificial DNA is made from various chemicals ultimately derived, I guess, from petroleum and minerals mined from the ground and ammonia synthesised from atmospheric nitrogen. The organisms now alive purport to create organisms in the future, but they might all be wiped out. The universe doesn't care and has no purpose or function. Then by that definition, we cannot be part of the universe since we are nothing but cares, purposes, and functions. We are part of the universe but we are not identical to the universe. The whole does not necessarily have all the properties of the parts and the parts do not necessarily have all the properties of the
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 9:15:09 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 09 Apr 2013, at 20:48, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Monday, April 8, 2013 5:38:44 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Apr 2013, at 19:20, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 19:12 meekerdb said the following: On 4/6/2013 11:54 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 07.04.2013 02:40 Craig Weinberg said the following: Ok, here's my modified version of Fig 11 http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/33ost_diagram.jpg I believe that you have understood the paper wrong. The authors literally believe that the observed 3D world is geometrically speaking in the brain. Yes our 3d model of the world is in our minds (not our brains). It's not there geometrically speaking. Geometry and there are part of the model. Dog bites man. Well, if you look into the paper, you see that authors take it literally as in neuroscience mind means brain. Mind belongs to philosophy. But mind is different from brain. And mind is part of both cognitive science and theoretical computer science. To identify mind and brain is possible in some strong non computationalist theories, but such theories don't yet exist, and are only speculated about. To confuse mind and brain, is like confusing literature and ink. Neurophilophers are usually computationalist and weakly materialist, and so are basically inconsistent. If we used a logic automata type of scheme, then mind and brain would be the same thing. ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDCwrbqHfTM The Future of Computing -- Reuniting Bits and Atoms Neil Gershenfeld talking about using digital fabrication to replace digital computation. Each bit would be an atomic configuration, and programs would be atomic assemblies. Two apples is not the number two. With logic automata, the number two would not be necessarymatter would embody its own programs. Maybe this makes it easier to see why forms and functions are not the same as sensory experiences, as no pile of logic automata would inspire feelings, flavors, thoughts, etc. That is what we ask you to justify, or to assume explicitly, not to take for granted. The fact that logic automata unites form and function as a single process should show that there is no implicit aesthetic preference. A program is a functional shape whose relation with other functional shapes is defined entirely by position. There is no room for, nor plausible emergence of any kind of aesthetic differences between functions we would assume are associated with sight or sound, thought or feeling. Logic automata proves that none of these differences are meaningful in a functionalist universe. Craig Bruno but would output behaviors consistent with our expectations for those experiences. Craig Bruno Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Losing Control
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: If you ARE the sequence of neurological events and the neurological events follow deterministic or probabilistic rules then you will also follow deterministic or probabilistic rules. That's a tautology. If I move my arm, then I am causing improbable neurological events to occur. Muscles, cells, molecules follow my intention rather than their own. The cells are not causing my arm to move - if they were, that would be a spasm. Muscles and cells follow your intention if they receive input from conscious centres in your brain, but the cells in those centres follow the mechanistic rules that neuroscientists know and love. Your intentions are the result of the activity in your brain. Your intentions do not cause any magical top-down effects. However, you don't believe that this is the case. So sometimes there must be neurological events which are spontaneous according to your definition - outside the normal causal chain. Spontaneous *IS* the normal causality. It isn't a 'chain'. The entire body and brain serve a single purpose - to support a particular quality of participatory experience. If it is not doing that, then the person is dead or in a coma. Unconsciousness is your causal chain. Consciousness is intentional self-modification of causality itself. But there is no evidence of a breach in the normal chain of causality in the brain or anywhere else. Don't you think it should be obvious somewhere after centuries of biological research? Absent this, you return to the default scientific position. The default scientific position is that particles decay after a random duration (i.e. spontaneous), making each event in the cosmos subject to non-deterministic and unique outcomes. Determinism is an approximate view from a great distance. This is what Multisense Realism specifically suggests: Perceptual relativity based on sense attenuation as the sole universal principle. The current scientific position is indeed that reality is not deterministic but probabilistic, with true random events. The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics restores determinism, but from the first person perspective reality is still probabilistic. Nevertheless, events at a biological scale appear as classical. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Free-Will discussion
On Saturday, April 6, 2013 6:49:45 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 06 Apr 2013, at 01:51, Craig Weinberg wrote: You already are aware of the relevant aspects of your brain function, and aware of them in a way which is a million times more detailed than any fMRI could ever be. No, you bet on them. You are not aware of your brain, in any direct way. Some antic believed consciousness comes from the liver. That consciousness is related to a brain is a theory, there are only evidence, we cannot experience any theory. By the same understanding that we know the brain is more likely to be the seat of consciousness than the liver, we also know that whatever we experience personally is most available impersonally as brain activity. We can manipulate brain activity magnetically and experience a change in our consciousness, when the same is not true of any other organ. This does not mean that our experience is caused by the brain or that brain characteristics can be translated into conscious qualities, but the correlation shows us that what an fMRI reveals is the correlation of events between space-time body and sensory-motor self. Far from being a map, most of the private experience is utterly opposite and unrecognizable to any of the forms or functions on the 'other side.' Craig Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Losing Control
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 10:03:51 AM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: If you ARE the sequence of neurological events and the neurological events follow deterministic or probabilistic rules then you will also follow deterministic or probabilistic rules. That's a tautology. If I move my arm, then I am causing improbable neurological events to occur. Muscles, cells, molecules follow my intention rather than their own. The cells are not causing my arm to move - if they were, that would be a spasm. Muscles and cells follow your intention if they receive input from conscious centres in your brain, but the cells in those centres follow the mechanistic rules that neuroscientists know and love. If that were so, then neuroscientists would not need to ask me to move my arm, they would simply predict when I think I am moving my arm. Your intentions are the result of the activity in your brain. Your intentions do not cause any magical top-down effects. The only magic is the idea that activity in my brain knows about anything other than activity in my brain. The fact that both of us are now manipulating our own brain chemistry, striated muscle tissue, fingertips, and keyboard from the top-down is indisputably obvious. Your brain doesn't dictate what you will say or do - it is your personal experience which shapes your brain activity at least as much as your experience is shaped by it. However, you don't believe that this is the case. So sometimes there must be neurological events which are spontaneous according to your definition - outside the normal causal chain. Spontaneous *IS* the normal causality. It isn't a 'chain'. The entire body and brain serve a single purpose - to support a particular quality of participatory experience. If it is not doing that, then the person is dead or in a coma. Unconsciousness is your causal chain. Consciousness is intentional self-modification of causality itself. But there is no evidence of a breach in the normal chain of causality in the brain or anywhere else. Don't you think it should be obvious somewhere after centuries of biological research? I can't help it that you are incapable of understanding my argument. I have addressed your straw man many times already. All chains of causality are normalized in retrospect. Whatever changes are associated with voluntary action are the only changes necessary. It's very simple, but I can't make you see it. If you arbitrarily draw a line at physics, then biology is impossible. If you rule out technology, then human flight is impossible. These rules and partitions are fictional. Absent this, you return to the default scientific position. The default scientific position is that particles decay after a random duration (i.e. spontaneous), making each event in the cosmos subject to non-deterministic and unique outcomes. Determinism is an approximate view from a great distance. This is what Multisense Realism specifically suggests: Perceptual relativity based on sense attenuation as the sole universal principle. The current scientific position is indeed that reality is not deterministic but probabilistic, with true random events. The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics restores determinism, but from the first person perspective reality is still probabilistic. Nevertheless, events at a biological scale appear as classical. I think that the current scientific position is likely a kind of delusional convulsion. a post traumatic nostalgic compensation for the revelations of the 20th century. There is no such thing as probability in physics, only an appearance of such from a partially informed perspective. There is nothing any more classical about biology than there is anything else, as photosynthesis already shows quantum effects. http://qubit-ulm.com/2010/09/quantum-coherence-in-photosynthesis/ Hey, look what else has quantum effects in biology: http://qubit-ulm.com/2010/10/quantum-effects-in-ion-channels/ Craig -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 6:40 PM, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.auwrote: The policy I'm referring to (editorial rejection based on perceived interest or status) seems likely to be a reaction to the very junk science problem you mention. I don't know what that means. What I am saying is in this wired world, where journal space is not a scarce resource, papers should only be rejected for obvious scientific reasons In this wired world anything and anybody can get published, some online journals will publish anything if you pay them, or hell you could post it right here for free; but getting published is one thing getting read is something else. Space may not be a scarce resource but time certainly is, nobody can read everything so good scientist look to high ranked journals like Nature and Science to find the best stuff. It's true that you're relying on the judgement of the editors but history have proven their judgement is pretty damn good. And if you disagree with the editors decision just publish it someplace else, just don't expect Science or Nature to endorse it. papers should only be rejected for obvious scientific I agree, I can think of only 2 reasons for rejecting a paper, it's not important or it's not true. Other papers, where there are doubts or confusion, should be subject to the author adequately addressing the referees' criticisms. And that's how Nature dodged a bullet during the cold fusion fiasco. It's largely forgotten today but back in1989 soon after their notorious cold fusion press conference Pons and Fleischmann did submit a paper to Nature, and given that at the time Pons and Fleischmann were respected scientists and knowing the potential importance of it the editors put it on a fast track for publication; and In just a few days they received comments from the referees. They wanted more data confirming the cold fusion reaction, but even more important, they wanted clarification of the experimental setup. As described in the paper the experiment was so vague and nebulous it would be impossible for anyone to reproduce it. Pons and Fleischmann responded that they were busy and just did not have time to supply the requested data. They then withdrew the paper and got it published in a third rate journal few had heard of. The results were predictable, others tried to reproduce the experiment but got no interesting results, Pons and Fleischmann said oh we forgot to mention for it to work you must do this and that. And so others would try again with this new refinement and again they got nothing of interest and again Pons and Fleischmann said oh we forgot to mention for it to work you must also do that and this. After a few dozen iterations of this reputable scientists, mindful that they were mortal and only had a finite number of years to do science, grew tired of this silly game and moved on to other more productive things. And now Pons and Fleischmann are no longer respected scientists, but Nature is still a respected journal. Furthermore, with Google, or Google Scholar, and arXiv, you don't need the status of Nature or Science to make your article visible or cited. If you're satisfied with arXiv and don't want a endorsement from Nature or Science then what are you complaining about? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 8:50 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: This to me is revealing of the overall decline of science as tool of Enlightenment into it's corrupt, indulgence-selling era. Yes, what's killing the Enlightenment is the lack of papers about astrology and numerology, so Nature and Science need to start publishing some. The same thing can be seen with universities, as the prestige brand institutions are elevated beyond the reach of anyone but the most overprepared students Yes, Harvard Yale and Princeton need to start picking stupider students, that will get the Enlightenment going again! John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
Their admissions standards have already tanked On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:46 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 8:50 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: This to me is revealing of the overall decline of science as tool of Enlightenment into it's corrupt, indulgence-selling era. Yes, what's killing the Enlightenment is the lack of papers about astrology and numerology, so Nature and Science need to start publishing some. The same thing can be seen with universities, as the prestige brand institutions are elevated beyond the reach of anyone but the most overprepared students Yes, Harvard Yale and Princeton need to start picking stupider students, that will get the Enlightenment going again! John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 1:46:09 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 8:50 AM, Craig Weinberg whats...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: This to me is revealing of the overall decline of science as tool of Enlightenment into it's corrupt, indulgence-selling era. Yes, what's killing the Enlightenment is the lack of papers about astrology and numerology, so Nature and Science need to start publishing some. There is nothing in numerology or astrology which is even remotely as flaky as modern cosmology. Our current understanding of nature is a way to make a lot of incompatible equations make sense by dismantling the reality of what those equations were supposed to describe. The same thing can be seen with universities, as the prestige brand institutions are elevated beyond the reach of anyone but the most overprepared students Yes, Harvard Yale and Princeton need to start picking stupider students, that will get the Enlightenment going again! Being overprepared is not about being intelligent, it is about being well financed and well chaperoned. Just ask Yale alum, George W. Bush. Craig John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 4/10/2013 1:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? You're referring me to an article on biological evolution by a guy with a Masters of Art on a Creationist website?? Do YOU like it? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the body (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in the mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. Terren On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/**schrodinger-disorder-and-**entropy.htmlhttp://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/**270/ http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.comeverything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.**comeverything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/**group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 10.04.2013 22:34 meekerdb said the following: On 4/10/2013 1:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? You're referring me to an article on biological evolution by a guy with a Masters of Art on a Creationist website?? Do YOU like it? You will find a similar sentence also on an evolutionary website. Such a statement will be the same. Look for example at Annila, A. S.N. Salthe (2010) Physical foundations of evolutionary theory. Journal of Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics 35: 301-321, http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jnetdy.2010.019 Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 10.04.2013 22:36 Terren Suydam said the following: This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the body (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in the mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. This was my point. The entropy in your statement has nothing to do with the thermodynamic entropy and the Second Law. Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the body (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in the mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. Hi Terren, Interesting idea, but I can think of a number of counter examples: cold/freezing, boredom, the rush of taking risks, masochism (for some people), the general preference for freedom as opposed to being under control, booze, I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the survivability of species in an environment that is largely also generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. Terren On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
A Mathematical Mystery Tour
This is absolutely fascinating and you don't have to understand mathematics to enjoiy it. A Mathematical Mystery Tour - BBC Horizon Documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lJlsXYs8Sg Dr. Roger Clough NIST (ret.) 4/10/2013 http://team.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 10.04.2013 22:52 Telmo Menezes said the following: ... I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the survivability of species in an environment that is largely also generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. What difference do you see when one changes evolution in your sentence by god? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 4/10/2013 1:38 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 10.04.2013 22:34 meekerdb said the following: On 4/10/2013 1:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? You're referring me to an article on biological evolution by a guy with a Masters of Art on a Creationist website?? Do YOU like it? You will find a similar sentence also on an evolutionary website. That wasn't the question. The question was do you like it, do you believe it, can you support it with your own arguments? Such a statement will be the same. Look for example at Annila, A. S.N. Salthe (2010) Physical foundations of evolutionary theory. Journal of Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics 35: 301-321, http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jnetdy.2010.019 Which is behind a paywall ($224), and says nothing like that in the abstract. To say that mutations improving organisms is contrary to the 2nd law is wrong in so many ways I hardly know where to start. First, the 2nd law is an approximate law that expresses a statistical regularity. It doesn't forbid improbable events, even ones that decrease entropy. Second, there is no teleological measure of improving in evolution; there is only greater or lesser reproduction. And greater reproduction means more living tissue which increases entropy of the whole Sun/Earth/biota system faster - and so is consistent with the 2nd law. The 2nd laws says nothing about randomness vs order or complexity (ever hear of Benard convection?). Brent Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
Hi Telmo, Yes, those are good counter examples. But I think to say pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution... is a sleight of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If evolution created those primitives, how did it do that? By what mechanism? Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are mediated by special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those nerves any different from a nerve that carries information about gentle pressure? You may be able to point to different neuroreceptors used, but then that shifts the question to why different neuroreceptors should result in different characters of experience. One way out of this to posit that phenomenological primitives are never created but are identified somehow with a particular characterization of an objective state of affairs, the challenge being to characterize the mapping between the objective and the phenomenological. That is my aim with my flawed idea above. Terren On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.comwrote: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the body (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in the mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. Hi Terren, Interesting idea, but I can think of a number of counter examples: cold/freezing, boredom, the rush of taking risks, masochism (for some people), the general preference for freedom as opposed to being under control, booze, I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the survivability of species in an environment that is largely also generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. Terren On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:55 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: On 10.04.2013 22:52 Telmo Menezes said the following: ... I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the survivability of species in an environment that is largely also generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. What difference do you see when one changes evolution in your sentence by god? A loss in explanatory power. Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 4:36:47 PM UTC-4, Terren Suydam wrote: This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the body (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in the mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. There's no sensation of pain in associated with increasing entropy in the brain itself though. Also analgesia and anesthesia would be impossible if pain were automatically associated with entropy. Craig Terren On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.rujavascript: wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/**schrodinger-disorder-and-**entropy.htmlhttp://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/**270/ http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@**googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.**comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** group/everything-list?hl=enhttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_outhttps://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:08 PM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Telmo, Yes, those are good counter examples. But I think to say pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution... is a sleight of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If evolution created those primitives, how did it do that? By what mechanism? Completely agree. I mean pain and pleasure as things that you can observe with an fMRI machine. As for the 1p experience of pain and pleasure... wish I knew. I don't think evolution created these primitives in this latter sense. Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are mediated by special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those nerves any different from a nerve that carries information about gentle pressure? You may be able to point to different neuroreceptors used, but then that shifts the question to why different neuroreceptors should result in different characters of experience. Yes, I've always been puzzled by that. One way out of this to posit that phenomenological primitives are never created but are identified somehow with a particular characterization of an objective state of affairs, I suspect the same. the challenge being to characterize the mapping between the objective and the phenomenological. That is my aim with my flawed idea above. Cool. Sorry for not getting what you were saying at first. You still have to deal with my counter-examples though, I'd say... (forgetting the evolutionary rant) Telmo. Terren On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Terren Suydam terren.suy...@gmail.com wrote: This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. Damage to the body (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a sudden increase in entropy of the body. Perhaps this is also true in the mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is pure speculation. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. Hi Terren, Interesting idea, but I can think of a number of counter examples: cold/freezing, boredom, the rush of taking risks, masochism (for some people), the general preference for freedom as opposed to being under control, booze, I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the survivability of species in an environment that is largely also generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. Terren On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: On 10.04.2013 07:16 meekerdb said the following: On 4/9/2013 12:19 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: ... I have seen that this could be traced to Schrödinger’s What is Life?, reread his chapter on Order, Disorder and Entropy and made my comments http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/04/schrodinger-disorder-and-entropy.html Still tilting at that windmill? A) From thermodynamic tables, the mole entropy of silver at standard conditions S(Ag, cr) = 42.55 J K-1 mol-1 is bigger than that of aluminum S(Al, cr) = 28.30 J K-1 mol-1. Does it mean that there is more disorder in silver as in aluminium? Yes, there is more disorder in the sense that raising the temperature of a mole of Ag 1deg increases the number of accessible conduction electron states available more than does raising the temperature of a mole of Al does. I agree that disorder is not necessarily a good metaphor for entropy. But dispersal of energy isn't always intuitively equal to entropy either. Consider dissolving ammonium nitrate in water. The process is endothermic, so the temperature drops and energy is absorbed, but the process goes spontaneously because the entropy increases; the are a lot more microstates accessible in the solution even at the lower temperature. You'd better look at what biologist say. For example: http://www.icr.org/article/270/ “and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity.” Do you like it? Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 4/10/2013 1:36 PM, Terren Suydam wrote: This is close to an idea I have been mulling over for some time... that the source of the phenomenological feeling of pleasure is in some way identified with decreases in entropy, and pain is in some way identified with increases in entropy. It is a way to map the subjective experience of pain and pleasure to a 3p description of, say, a nervous system. You will just further muddle the meaning of entropy. Damage to the body (associated with pain) can usually (always?) be characterized in terms of a sudden increase in entropy of the body. Consider dribbling some liquid nitrogen on your skin. Hurts doesn't it. But the entropy of your body is (locally) reduced. The pain comes from neurons sending signals to your brain. They use a tiny amount of free energy to do this which increases the entropy of your body also. Your brain receives a few bits of information about the pain which represent an infinitesimal decrease in entropy if your brain was in a state uncertainty about whether your body hurt. Perhaps this is also true in the mental domain, so that emotional loss (or e.g. embarrassment) can also be characterized as an increase in entropy of one's mental models, but this is pure speculation. It hardly even rises to speculation unless you have some idea of how to quantify and test it. The case is even harder to make with pleasure. It would be weird if it were true, but so far it is the only way I know of to map pleasure and pain onto anything objective at all. Damasio proposes that pleasure and pain map into levels of various hormones as well as neural activity. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 4/10/2013 1:55 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: On 10.04.2013 22:52 Telmo Menezes said the following: ... I suspect life is just meaningless from the outside. I'd say that pain and pleasure are fine-tunned by evolution to maximise the survivability of species in an environment that is largely also generated by evolution. It's a strange loop. What difference do you see when one changes evolution in your sentence by god? Do you see no difference? Are the operation of both equally mysterious to you? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Brain imaging spots our abstract choices before we do
On 4/10/2013 1:57 PM, Yon wrote: New replications of Libet's experiment... http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23367-brain-imaging-spots-our-abstract-choices-before-we-do.html Yon It's disappointing to me that they don't take advantage of these volunteers to repeat the Grey Walter experiment. ISTM that it offers a lot more precision and avoids questions of timing in reporting. Anyway it's another indication that consciousness may be overrated. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 4/10/2013 2:08 PM, Terren Suydam wrote: Hi Telmo, Yes, those are good counter examples. But I think to say pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution... is a sleight of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If evolution created those primitives, how did it do that? By what mechanism? Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are mediated by special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those nerves any different from a nerve that carries information about gentle pressure? You may be able to point to different neuroreceptors used, but then that shifts the question to why different neuroreceptors should result in different characters of experience. You have to ground the interpretation in behavior and its relation to evolutionary advantage. People who put their hand in the fire withdraw it quickly and exclaim to warn others. People that don't suffer reproductive disadvantage. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Brain imaging spots our abstract choices before we do
What we need now is 20 years of serious neuroscience, not more speculation about the handful of studies that have been done so far, he says. Too bad that we have no freedom to decide whether to pursue serious neuroscience instead of more speculation...it's all up to neurons, and there are ions that flow through membranes. As impotent spectators to the magic of calcium and potassium, we can only sit back and enjoy the view from beneath their puppet strings. Unfortunately they have learned nothing from Libet's mistakes. I can't understand how intelligent scientists could continue to conflate free will with the awareness of free will and the reporting of the awareness of free will - clearly three different sub-personal capabilities when fragmented in a contrived laboratory experiment. How could anyone who is serious about consciousness think that repeating a conditioned, meaningless reaction to some stimulus would yield good insight into the motivations and capacities of the human psyche? Craig On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:05:29 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/10/2013 1:57 PM, Yon wrote: New replications of Libet's experiment... http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23367-brain-imaging-spots-our-abstract-choices-before-we-do.html Yon It's disappointing to me that they don't take advantage of these volunteers to repeat the Grey Walter experiment. ISTM that it offers a lot more precision and avoids questions of timing in reporting. Anyway it's another indication that consciousness may be overrated. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:08:31 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/10/2013 2:08 PM, Terren Suydam wrote: Hi Telmo, Yes, those are good counter examples. But I think to say pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution... is a sleight of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If evolution created those primitives, how did it do that? By what mechanism? � Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are mediated by special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those nerves any different from a nerve that carries information about gentle pressure? �You may be able to point to different neuroreceptors used, but then that shifts the question to why different neuroreceptors should result in different characters of experience. You have to ground the interpretation in behavior and its relation to evolutionary advantage. People who put their hand in the fire withdraw it quickly and exclaim to warn others.� People that don't suffer reproductive disadvantage. That's begging the question. People would withdraw their hand with the exact same rapidity regardless of the aesthetic quality of the signal. Terren and I understand this, and we understand that your view does not understand this. In a deterministic universe, there is no need to motivate stones to roll down hill. You can't remove all causal efficacy from will on one hand and then rely on it to justify aesthetics on the other. It doesn't work, and even if it did, it doesn't answer Terren's question: how did it do that? By what mechanism?. Does evolution simply conjure pain from a magical box of infinite experiences, or are there some rules in place as to their nature? Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The world is in the brain
On 4/10/2013 3:26 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:08:31 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/10/2013 2:08 PM, Terren Suydam wrote: Hi Telmo, Yes, those are good counter examples. But I think to say pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution... is a sleight of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If evolution created those primitives, how did it do that? By what mechanism? � Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are mediated by special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those nerves any different from a nerve that carries information about gentle pressure? �You may be able to point to different neuroreceptors used, but then that shifts the question to why different neuroreceptors should result in different characters of experience. You have to ground the interpretation in behavior and its relation to evolutionary advantage. People who put their hand in the fire withdraw it quickly and exclaim to warn others.� People that don't suffer reproductive disadvantage. That's begging the question. People would withdraw their hand with the exact same rapidity regardless of the aesthetic quality of the signal. No, that's answering the question. Whatever aesthetic quality causes one to quickly withdraw and warn other is the answer to What aesthetic quality is pain? Terren and I understand this, and we understand that your view does not understand this. You use understand as a synonym for assert. Your understanding has no predictive power and is not consilient with other science. In a deterministic universe, there is no need to motivate stones to roll down hill. You can't remove all causal efficacy from will on one hand and then rely on it to justify aesthetics on the other. I'm not the one relying on will - you are. It doesn't work, and even if it did, it doesn't answer Terren's question: how did it do that? By what mechanism?. Does evolution simply conjure pain from a magical box of infinite experiences, or are there some rules in place as to their nature? I gave the rules - that's why it's an answer. Brent Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3272 / Virus Database: 3162/6236 - Release Date: 04/10/13 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Scientific journals
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 01:18:06PM -0400, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 6:40 PM, Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.auwrote: The policy I'm referring to (editorial rejection based on perceived interest or status) seems likely to be a reaction to the very junk science problem you mention. I don't know what that means. What I am saying is in this wired world, where journal space is not a scarce resource, papers should only be rejected for obvious scientific reasons In this wired world anything and anybody can get published, some online journals will publish anything if you pay them, or hell you could post it right here for free; but getting published is one thing getting read is something else. Space may not be a scarce resource but time certainly is, nobody can read everything so good scientist look to high ranked journals like Nature and Science to find the best stuff. It's true that you're relying on the judgement of the editors but history have proven their judgement is pretty damn good. And if you disagree with the editors decision just publish it someplace else, just don't expect Science or Nature to endorse it. papers should only be rejected for obvious scientific I agree, I can think of only 2 reasons for rejecting a paper, it's not important or it's not true. Lack of importance should not be a reason. What is unimportant to one person, may be important to another. That is what abstracts were invented for. The thing about editorial rejection is that it is based on an editor deciding that the paper is not worth looking into. Another good reason for rejecting the paper is that it has been done before. Although, having said that, it could be worthwhile publishing confirmations of experimental results by independent teams - I was thinking more in terms of theoretical papers. Another good reason is being out of scope. If I was the editor of the (fictitious) Journal of Bees, then I would be quite right in rejecting a paper about North Atlantic Salmon as being out of scope. Of course, Nature and Science do have rather generous boundaries of scope, but even they would be justified for rejecting a paper about creationist theory, for example. Physical Review has a stated policy that they will not consider papers in the area of foundations of quantum mechanics. That's fine - its quite clear, up front policy, about the scope of the journal. Other journals exist to cover those areas. Other papers, where there are doubts or confusion, should be subject to the author adequately addressing the referees' criticisms. And that's how Nature dodged a bullet during the cold fusion fiasco. It's largely forgotten today but back in1989 soon after their notorious cold fusion press conference Pons and Fleischmann did submit a paper to Nature, and given that at the time Pons and Fleischmann were respected scientists and knowing the potential importance of it the editors put it on a fast track for publication; and In just a few days they received comments from the referees. They wanted more data confirming the cold fusion reaction, but even more important, they wanted clarification of the experimental setup. As described in the paper the experiment was so vague and nebulous it would be impossible for anyone to reproduce it. Pons and Fleischmann responded that they were busy and just did not have time to supply the requested data. They then withdrew the paper and got it published in a third rate journal few had heard of. This is an example of peer review working correctly. It is not an example of the editorial rejection policy I was referring to. Furthermore, with Google, or Google Scholar, and arXiv, you don't need the status of Nature or Science to make your article visible or cited. If you're satisfied with arXiv and don't want a endorsement from Nature or Science then what are you complaining about? John K Clark Firstly, I'm not complaining about Nature and Science. I don't care about them, and the status they supposedly confer. I'm complaining about the editorial rejection policy (as opposed rejecting on the basis of peer review), that seems to have crept into use in other journals too. Why am I not satisfied with arXiv? Mainly, because when peer review works, it works well. The end result are papers that are improved over the original draft published to arXiv, or are withdrawn from publication because some fatal flaw has been discovered (or it was thought of before, etc). I have always diligently acted as a peer reviewer myself, when asked to, unless it was a paper completely out of my area of expertise. A lot of academics don't do this, or do only a lacklustre effort, because there is no credit for doing so, which is a major part of the problem. However, I have had recent experiences of sending papers to journal after journal, and having them rejected without any form of peer review, nor even explanation
Re: The world is in the brain
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:38:46 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/10/2013 3:26 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:08:31 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: On 4/10/2013 2:08 PM, Terren Suydam wrote: Hi Telmo, Yes, those are good counter examples. But I think to say pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution... is a sleight of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If evolution created those primitives, how did it do that? By what mechanism? � Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are mediated by special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those nerves any different from a nerve that carries information about gentle pressure? �You may be able to point to different neuroreceptors used, but then that shifts the question to why different neuroreceptors should result in different characters of experience. You have to ground the interpretation in behavior and its relation to evolutionary advantage. People who put their hand in the fire withdraw it quickly and exclaim to warn others.� People that don't suffer reproductive disadvantage. That's begging the question. People would withdraw their hand with the exact same rapidity regardless of the aesthetic quality of the signal. No, that's answering the question. Whatever aesthetic quality causes one to quickly withdraw and warn other is the answer to What aesthetic quality is pain? How could an aesthetic quality cause one to do anything if one has no effective free will? If you can't explain aesthetic quality in term of ion channels and brain activity then you must be talking about magic. Terren and I understand this, and we understand that your view does not understand this. You use understand as a synonym for assert. Your understanding has no predictive power and is not consilient with other science. The only assertion I make is that you are wasting your time trying to convince us that you're right when we can both see that you don't understand why you are wrong, and also why you think we're wrong. In a deterministic universe, there is no need to motivate stones to roll down hill. You can't remove all causal efficacy from will on one hand and then rely on it to justify aesthetics on the other. I'm not the one relying on will - you are. People who put their hand in the fire withdraw it quickly Why does this behavior occur as a consequence of some sensory experience rather than simple mechanics? If pain makes me withdraw my hand, it can only be because my will contributes to my hand's movements. Otherwise the pain feeling would be irrelevant as I would be a spectator and my will would be an illusion. It doesn't work, and even if it did, it doesn't answer Terren's question: how did it do that? By what mechanism?. Does evolution simply conjure pain from a magical box of infinite experiences, or are there some rules in place as to their nature? I gave the rules - that's why it's an answer. Translation - you have no answer except to try to confuse the question. Craig Brent Craig Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3272 / Virus Database: 3162/6236 - Release Date: 04/10/13 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
