1

Physiology & Medicine / Where in Our Brain does Consciousness Lie?

« on: 27/09/2012 20:29:53 »

Hi,

Here's another "Where in Our Brain..." question. I know this is inherently a very speculative topic, but I read somewhere a few years ago about an experiment where they had some rats memorize a maze. Then they started to progressively lesion the rat's brain after each test to see when the rat would no longer be able to remember the maze. It seemed that even after a significant portion of the brain was removed and it couldn't properly move its limbs, it still knew where to go. The admittedly speculative and likely self-serving point it was trying to make was that memory, once past the hypothalamus, is actually stored 'in a different place' and brought in QM to its defense. I know, meta-physics through and through.

But it made me wonder, has consciousness been defined in any clear way yet by science? And can we say that it lies in any particular part of the brain?

P.S. If anyone can point towards or against the validity of the experiment mentioned, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've never been able to track any reference of this experiment down though.

2

Just Chat! / Can an Infinite, Designer, Creator God be Brought Within the Realm of Science?

« on: 21/01/2012 06:08:58 »

Sorry folks, I tried to restrain myself, but the questions kept coming after a recent response to ns8t I'll try and keep this scientific, well, that of course being the point of this post. So to be clear, the context of the post is the consideration of a scientific theory of God, not an attempt to prove God's existence.

Now I'm not sure how many of you ascribe to the Multiverse theory, but if you do, then please consider: the theory explains an already very complicated universe by theorizing a structure that is orders if not infinitely more complicated then the thing it intends to explain.

Similarly, I read on a Wikipedia article that while applying Occam's razor on the creation of our universe, a theory of God might seem reasonable, but in reality it entails the explanation of the creation of our universe through theorizing a being that is of infinitely more complicated structure than the universe itself. Does this not sound much like the above?

So my question is, why can we have a scientific Multiverse theory, but not a scientific theory of God? As scientists, I'm sure it's easy to side-step many of the order-entailing-design-thus-God's-existence accounts by religious people as mere coincidence. But how many coincidences does it take to have grounds for a scientific theory as such? Again, I'm not saying these accounts should double as proof of God's existence. Nor am I bashing the Multiverse theory. I'm only speaking about an established scientific theory of God, much like the theory of evolution.

To say I believe in evolution masks how obviously true the theory of evolution is to me. And I am well aware that to say the "theory of evolution" masks the large extent to which evidence supports the theory. But if we can be, for example, 99.9% certain about the theory of evolution, why can't we have an established theory of God and be certain/uncertain about it to some degree?

3

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Can Collisions be Described Without Referencing Time?

« on: 16/01/2012 17:00:03 »

This question follows from conjectures that time is just a tool we invented to divide up our day into manageable parts (granted I've only heard of this in popsci). But it also follows from my earlier post on whether time dilation can be looked as simply being a case of a longer-than perceived route that particles have to take at a quantum/planck scale.

So to approach the question from a more fundamental level, I wondered about particle systems. Can we describe the transitioning of states of a well-defined particle system without referencing time? I ask this because knowing all the variables of a system allows us to know exactly what the next state of the system will be without a need to reference time.

This is not the case, however, when considering a singular exception (as far as I can gather): that of a collision. While we can know in advance the path of any particle given any systemic state, we seem to inherently need to speak of a very specific moment in time in order to describe a collision event. So I guess the question becomes, can we describe collisions without referencing time?

4

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Could This Be a Valid Alternative Interpretation of Time Dilation?

« on: 12/01/2012 23:43:06 »

I don't mean to hog the board with all these topics, but I get bursts of interest in different fields and the field of the moment happens to be physics

So you get in your car and know of two routes to get to your destination. When zoomed out far in the map, both routes look nearly identical in shape and length, so you imagine they should both take the same amount of time. But what you fail to realize is that if one zooms into route A enough, it becomes clear that it is at a smaller scale much curvier than first perceived. Whereas with route B, it appears to be going pretty much straight to the intended destination even after zooming in.

So if you take route A, you will in fact have to travel a lot farther than you expected and thus it takes you a lot longer to get to your destination. But if you were looking at your location on your navigation display when zoomed out enough, it would appear that you are going in a straight path to the destination, only far slower than if you took route B. (I'll see if I can create a diagram if anyone needs help visualizing this).

Now when we talk about time dilation, what gets me is even as we say that time is the 4th dimension, yet don't treat it as we do the spatial dimensions, I have to ask: why not? As far as interpretations go, the standard explanation of GR time dilation makes sense and is perfectly reasonable to me on most respects. But just the fact that the dimension of time is treated as somehow different seems to me as a bit unnecessary.

So I have to ask, why can't we say that particles at the quantum, or perhaps even the planck scale, are having to travel farther to get to their intended destination then perceived/expected. And if they have to travel farther in the 4th dimension the faster they go, than certainly they must take longer and longer to get to the destination, no?

I realize of course, that the most obvious answer to this is that there is no experimental evidence for this. But is there really evidence for a particular mechanism that explains time-dilation in a non-spatial 4th dimension? But actually, ignoring the evidence part for a bit, I'm mostly just wanting to ask, is this a reasonable interpretation, or does it conflict in some fundamental way with established physics?

Ok, this OP is a bigger than expected, thanks for reading it those of you that did!

5

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Why (As In the Existential Why) is 'c' Invariant to Reference Frames?

« on: 10/01/2012 02:46:03 »

So of course most of you know the answer to the typical why question better than I do: because that is how it must be for Maxwell's equations, that describe a fundamental reality of our universe and hold up to experimental results, to make any sense.

But what I mean to ask is what purpose does reference frame invariance of c serve in our universe? Or to put it another way, if our universe worked in a way that it agreed with the common sense of laymen like yours truly by having a constant speed of light, but where you can catch up to photons that just left you, why would you not want to live in such a universe?

6

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What Are/Would Be the Results of This Modified Dual Slit Experiment?

« on: 06/01/2012 17:10:34 »

So a random thought occurred to me. I have heard about this "pilot wave" idea that seems to provide an explanation for the strange results in the dual slit experiment. In fact I saw a science show (yes, a popular science show -__-) where an experiment was featured showing that under certain conditions the surface of water can be an analogue for these "pilot waves" thus guiding the (water-drop) particles in the wave troughs in such a manner that these particles are able to produce an interference pattern when traveling through two slits. Hold that thought.

Now looking at quantum tunneling, where particles are able to cross what should be impassable barriers, I had to wonder: certainly the particle crossed the barrier, but was the barrier able to stop its pilot wave from passing? I assume not since as far as I understand it, assuming these pilot waves exist, they should provide a direct measure of the probability of finding a particle at the quantum scale. And as the theory goes, the very reason a particle is able to cross this impassable barrier in the first place is because there was a chance of it existing there, and so it follows that this chance is represented by an actual pilot wave that passed through the barrier.

Still I think it would be a worthwhile experiment to have particles that pass through such a barrier via quantum tunneling to then be directed through a dual slit to see what sort of pattern appears on the other end. Any thoughts? Has such an experiment already been done?

[Edit: Oh, almost forgot, the whole point of the experiment would be that, on the off chance that these pilot waves are stopped by the barrier, then the particles should in theory produce two bands through the slits rather than an interference pattern since they have lost their guiding pilot wave.]

7

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Does an Average Increase in Entropy Explain Away a Local Decrease?

« on: 03/01/2012 05:22:31 »

It's been some time and while watching a science program, I was reminded of a topic I started a while back about entropy (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=34313.msg325403#msg325403).

I am wondering about, for example, DNA. Is it safe to say that if you leave a long DNA molecule alone to weather the forces of nature, then we may point to entropy as the central culprit in its eventual break down into nucleotides, molecules, atoms, etc?

If so, then a functional DNA molecule can be said to be in a more ordered, lower entropy state then one broken into its constituent parts.

And if the universe started off with low entropy, tends towards an increase in entropy, and DNA obviously didn't exist until billions of years later, then is it that the universe on average increases in entropy that explains away that somewhere/time locally the direction of entropy actually reversed in the formation of a DNA molecule?

DNA is an arbitrary choice of consideration here.

8

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What are the Dimensions of Matter?

« on: 07/07/2011 17:35:44 »

So my question had something to do with why we have a 3D experience when matter is 4D...but then I remembered someone somewhere said that matter isn't 4D

So instead of my original question, I think this needs asking first: if matter needs 4 coordinates to be defined in spacetime, isn't it by definition, 4-dimensional? I get the feeling that I'm not asking the right question...

9

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is the universe flat for a second reason?

« on: 06/11/2010 19:36:22 »

Hey folks,

I've read about how the universe is flat and the experiments that lead to this conclusion as well. What do you think of the following being another reason for the universe's flatness?

I read some where on these forums about "4d black holes", and have the general impression that as 4d space is bent by mass, mass follows the curvature. This suggests to me that all mass is actually defined in 4 dimensions. But if this is the case, then doesn't the fact that collisions between 4d masses consistently occur in a 3 dimensional manner require a flat definition of spacetime? In other words, an extreme flatness of spacetime could force 4d masses to interact within a single thin 3d slice.

I think this also suggests a possible mechanism for quantum tunneling. If fundamental particles that are small enough collide with enough momentum along this 3d slice, then like billiard balls hitting each other fast enough, one might just skip over the other.

10

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is the speed of light increasing?

« on: 04/11/2010 17:48:34 »

Hey folks,

As I've said before I'm no physics guru, it's just a hobby of mine so most of this post is gonna involve a bit of visualization rather than hard math of any sort.

One common visualization of course is that of spheres on a fabric representing objects in space-time. So I was wondering, if the speed of wave traversal increases with increasing tension of a string (1D) / fabric (2D), then shouldn't the cosmic speed limit, and hence the speed of light, increase with increasing tension of space-time?

I ask this considering the fact that the universe is expanding: if space-time it self was created in the big bang, then that along with the effects of dark energy (with both expanding the universe) should be increasing the tension on the fabric of space-time, no?

And if it is, then shouldn't the speed of light be increasing slightly with the expansion of the universe and, specifically, space-time?

11

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / A photonic paradox or a dumb question?

« on: 18/10/2010 22:07:38 »

Hey guys,

So yeah, I ask this knowing that there's a chance that it's a dumb question, but anyway, assuming we need photons of some sort to detect what's "out there" in the universe, then what if, hypothetically speaking, a chunk of the universe were just photons floating away from us such that they would never reach us. For example, referencing the pie graph at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html, what if 23% of the universe were photons that never reach us for detection? Couldn't these photons very well serve the place of "dark matter"?

12

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Does Entropy require a grand design?

« on: 02/10/2010 18:44:53 »

Hey everyone,

Please consider a hypothetical universe where all the major forces (strong force, weak force, etc.) are all governed by an "application/program", respectively; a universe of course, of a grand, non-reductionist design.

My question is in such a hypothetical universe, does entropy require one of these grand programs to be fully defined? Or is a mere reductionist view of atomic/molecular bonds giving way enough for a full definition of entropy?

13

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Why are solar systems and galaxies circular and not spherical?

« on: 17/03/2010 01:24:53 »

At least the physics that I know (101 physics mind you) dictates that solar systems and galaxies alike would be spherical.

14

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is there an experimental graph of EM waves?

« on: 10/02/2010 17:08:07 »

Hey folks,

I'm curious if there's an experimental analog of EM waves to the sine wave graphs that can be produced through measuring sound waves. Of course the frequency of an EM wave can be measured, but has the actual 'trajectory/path' that EM waves make been graphed onto paper? In other words, are the diagrams (i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Onde_electromagnetique.svg) of the graph of an EM wave educated assumptions derived from the general behavior of waves, or are they experimentally derived?

BTW, I'm not sure what the policy on posting links to other sites is, but I assumed Wikipedia isn't an issue. Do let me know otherwise.

15

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What does velocity squared represent?

« on: 31/01/2010 16:45:24 »

When I think of energy, it seems intuitive to me that an object moving has energy; kinetic energy to be specific. But mass X velocity does not give the units of energy, mass X velocity^2 does. Now, considering the equation for kinetic energy:

KE = 1/2mv^2

I understand (hopefully correctly) that the "1/2" is used to average the initial and final states of something, though I'm not sure exactly what is being averaged. Anyway, this is likely an elementary question to you guys, but what exactly does "v^2" represent, and a related question is, why does "v" alone not define energy (aside from the obvious reason that the units don't add up).

16

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is entropy doing it's job?

« on: 21/01/2010 23:49:16 »

Hey all,

Ok, I'm assuming there's a relatively straightforward answer to this since it directly involves the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. When one typically thinks of an explosion, intuition tells us that something goes from a higher ordered state to a lower ordered state; so in an explosion, we intuitively think that entropy is increasing.

Now, I'm not sure what to call the big 'bang' anything but an explosion. So let's follow the logic: the universe starts with the big bang, thus it starts with high levels of entropy, and then goes on to form galaxies, stars, planets, etc., all the while going from a state of higher entropy to lower entropy.

Now, I'm sure that a good physicist can explain to us the technical reasoning behind why galaxies form, stars form, planets form, etc. But that's not the point. The point is that even though the whole universe has gone from a high entropy state to a lower entropy state, why then are we always told that in a trillion years or so from now, the universe will be filled by a 'soup of diffuse energy with which you can't do work'?

If we're only talking observation, I observe two contradictory tendencies: 1) Entropy is in fact the law of the universe. When I cut vegetables and put them in a bowl one after another in layers, and mix them, they will never go back to the ordered state. 2) Some 'law of ordering' does seem to be active in the universe. Not only is it active, but it is active to a greater extent than entropy; this is necessary for order to be created in a thoroughly disordered universe (as was the case following the big bang).

The point of all this is that the only way the case of entropy leading us to a universe with only diffuse energy that can't be used to do work is possible is if the universe had started with galaxies, stars, planets, etc.

Any thoughts?

17

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is There Such a Thing as Space Density?

« on: 19/01/2010 00:25:47 »

Hey all,

This is something that recently caught my attention. I'm no expert at all so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I was reading about the velocity of waves for my physics class and what determines it (i.e. how the velocity isn't determined by either the wavelength or frequency, provided there's no shift of medium). Anyway, it piqued my curiosity when I started reading about EM waves. I know space is supposed to be "medium-less", but doesn't it bend and compress via relativity (i.e. being next to a massive object) just like air does (well...for a different reason)? Can space be treated as a medium?

If space is thought of as a medium, does it have a density like other mediums? A mass?

18

New Theories / Meaning of Pain

« on: 02/12/2009 20:43:58 »

Man, I'm gonna get a bad rep if I keep posting under New Theories [] Especially since my last post on Free-Market Regulation was obviously uninteresting (admins may remove that btw). Anyway, I just had one of those moments and just wrote down a quick two page summary along with a hypothesis on the meaning of pain some time back. If a kind admin feels that it isn't too out there, I'd appreciate it if this post could be moved to a less...eccentric forum. Anyway, here you go:

Whereas nociception defines the manner of neural response to pain, it is not clear what role this neural response has in the learning process. In fact many steps in the learning process that involves pain or pleasure seem to be taken for granted. For example, while the role of pain generally seems clear, this clarity shouldn’t stop one from asking: why? Why does pain make such obvious sense to an animal that it should be taken for granted? Certainly it is obvious that an animal should have the capacity to know when its body is in danger of damage or is being damaged. But this obviousness should have nothing to say on the complexity of the mechanism that actually causes pain to ‘make sense’ to an animal; which in turn ultimately provides a neural mechanism for learning from pain. To us, pain generally means something bad to be avoided. Unfortunately, this straightforward understanding cannot be directly conveyed to the CNS, but requires the traversal across the neural medium built from action potentials.

A proper consideration of this issue requires us to further consider the issue of pain and consciousness. By its very definition, pain is something one ‘feels’; hence implying the role of the feeling conscious mind. While there is more and more research that seems to point to a gradation in the levels of consciousness across various animals, we will assume here, in light of the significantly greater level of consciousness produced by the human brain as compared to the brains/neural systems of other animals, that for all-intents-and-purposes, non-human animals are effectively devoid of a conscious mind on the scale being considered.

Furthermore, a normal animal, when put in a situation where the experience of acute levels of pain in one of its limbs is imminent, for instance, would without any level of ‘thought’ experience an automatic retraction of its limb. This is a gift from the CNS, available essentially from birth, which may likely save the animal from any potential or further damage to the retracted limb. The source of said pain, given the acute levels of pain it generated, would very likely be something deemed worth remembering and will likely be remembered quite well and for a long time. Thus, the animal will ‘learn’ to avoid in-advance, the source of such acute pain in the future.

Now, consider this: an animal that is devoid of this gift from the CNS allowing for the automatic response to pain is subject to the same scenario as the one in the above example and in the same limb of the body. To further qualify this example, this animal was recently born and it will be the first such experience in its entire life. What happens? The source of the acute pain comes in contact with the limb and there is no automatic retraction of the limb. However, nociception is still occurring and all the sensory structures meant to detect pain are still sending their action potentials down their afferent axons towards the CNS. What does the CNS make of it?

Well, again, it may seem quite ‘obvious’ to us that these actions potentials one way or the other inherently cause us to ‘feel pain’, and thus inherently hold information that serves as a proxy for pain. However, would we say the same of ourselves when we were babies; before we were conscious? Is it just as obvious in this instance? In fact, this is similar to asking if our understanding that nociception is an inherent proxy for pain also holds for non-human, and thus effectively non-conscious, animals. If pain is something one feels through a conscious mind, then why should the nociceptory afferent action potentials of a baby mean anything at all? Why shouldn’t they be as incoherent as all the other afferent action potentials going from the various micro and macro sensory structures to the CNS (for a baby)?

To expand on this point, there have been experiments that have shown that even new born babies have a peculiar disposition towards the recognition of human faces and facial representations. This suggests that there are systems in place from birth that have the sole responsibility of parsing some version of the original retinal image in the attempt to extract facially relevant information. We never had to learn to be able to pay special attention to the basic identifying features of a human face; it was again, a gift from the CNS.  Upon deeper consideration of relevant literature, one will likely find many such examples of where the CNS gifts us and all animals with species-specific functionality that is generally of some benefit to the particular species. This gift by the CNS can come in a variety of forms; anything from automatic retraction of limbs to avoid tissue damage, to all the primary, secondary, etc. areas of the different modalities of the brain, which provide us with mechanisms for extracting species-specific and relevant information from the raw sensory input.

It could be said that these gifts of the CNS generally act as guides for animals engaging in the learning process; especially so in the early stages. Again going back to the example of facial recognition, the above mentioned neural mechanism guides human babies towards details in the retinal image that are likely to be of greater importance towards their survival than most other details that will pass by their vision. Following this line of reasoning it could be further stated, with the automatic retraction of limbs being one of these gifts by the CNS, that the automatic retraction mechanism is also one of these guides. The question is, towards where is this mechanism meant to guide us?

My primary hypothesis, hence, is that the mechanism responsible for the automatic retraction of limbs in a variety of animals is not merely there as a ‘quick-fix’ for extreme levels of nociception, but rather, this mechanism is critical in the early stages of an animal’s learning process of what pain means. In our case, it is likely that when we (or rather our brains) as babies ‘notice’ that this mechanism saved our hands from experiencing tissue damage when it touched a hot cup, for instance, we eventually learn the connection between nociceptory neural patterns and something bad meant to avoid. This is so because extreme nociceptory neural patterns are likely to coincide with the activation of the limb-retraction mechanism or similar.

Following from this, a related hypothesis is that if an animal was removed of its capacity to rely on this limb-retraction mechanism soon following birth, it would then become unable to properly learn from pain-inducing events. This is so since they would lose a guide that normally directs them towards learning the significance of nociceptory neural patterns. In other words, they would not properly make the direct connection between nociception and, for example, tissue damage. This is not to say that such an animal would be unable to learn this connection eventually. For example, even though they will not automatically retract their limbs upon extreme nociception, they would still be able to eventually make the connection between damaged tissue and nociception.

Of course, the drawback to learning pain via the actual observance of damaged tissue as opposed to via a limb-retraction mechanism is that the damage has already been done before one is able to learn from it. Not only this, but even after learning the connection between nociception and tissue damage, the fact of the matter remains that whereas the limb-retraction mechanism is automatic by nature, the nociception/tissue-damage connection requires the use of more deeply-rooted neural connections in the CNS thus increasing the reaction time. Also, since such a mechanism would not be automatic (unlike the limb-retraction mechanism), the requirement of properly-planned movements of the limb is introduced as well; this may also increase the reaction time. The greater reaction time ultimately amounts to greater tissue damage before an animal can ‘think-up’ a proper extraction route for the limb being damaged.

19

New Theories / Free-Market Regulation

« on: 27/11/2009 05:11:47 »

DISCLAIMER: This is not really a new theory. I just didn't see an economics section, and wasn't able to find a economics forum on the web. So here I am! Also, I am not a socialist, communist, or fascist, and don't prefer to be a capitalist (can't really be helped though this day and age). But I'm all for 'free'-markets! Anyway, here you go, and thanks in advance  []

There is an argument by hard-line capitalists that bastardizes the 'free' in a free-market system. It seems to suggest that this free should mean free of regulation; as if a regulated free-market system were an oxymoron. A regulated free-market system is not an oxymoron! It's merely a form of qualification. It's similar to how you might say that something is west of east; it isn't an oxymoron, you are qualifying that something is just west of a certain eastern reference point. Now, a free-market system is, inherently, a system. And any worldly system is regulated in some form. Even if a free-market system isn't regulated by humans, it is still bound by natural thermodynamic regulations. In fact, there is no worldly system that isn't bound thermodynamically.

So it's meaningless to ask whether a particular worldly system is regulated or not; it's more accurate to ask about the degree of regulation. We don't live in caves, we don't drink from streams, and we don't take dumps out in the open. That would be the daily state of affairs had we accepted the natural regulatory system as enough for us. And no, we didn't think it to be enough, and rightfully so. What we did do was to regulate and control our activities a bit more than this natural state of affairs. And soon enough we found ourselves living in these marvelous civilizations that we so often boast about, and for good reason of course.

But how ironic is it that it's the economists of our very own great civilizations that tell us that a free-market system that has regulations that even cave men may find lacking is good for us! So let's be clear about a few things then 1) a free-market system without regulation is a non-entity 2) to complement the advances of modern civilizations, a free-market system would ideally have a complementary level of regulatory systems in place.

To those who have gradiophobia (fear of gradations and uncertainty i.e. reality; finding black/white perceptions appealing), it's all too easy to argue that any piece promoting regulations of 'individual freedom' is a propaganda piece for economic collectivists. Well, truth be told, the moment cave men decided to give up their natural dwellings and build some dwellings with their own hands, they took the first steps towards the adoption of the social contract. What is the social contract you might ask? Well, put simply, it's when individuals as citizens give up their rights to the state, and in return expect rights from the collective citizenry of that state. So yes, unless you do live in a cave and drink from streams and take dumps out in the open, you are a collectivist. Of sorts; the caveat of course being that a discussion of the free-market system specifically brings into focus economic collectivism. Never-the-less, the over-arching point here is that all us have already submitted to this social contract that binds us to collectivist terms of interactions with our fellow man.

So the question is, what but the most arbitrary of reasons can one have to extend this collectivist approach to human interactions but not to human economics? Albeit, the point of this piece isn't to go into the specifics of appropriate economic regulation. Rather it's to wholly extinguish the notion that a free-market system is one best served unregulated. I will take my house and my plumbing thank you very much. Actually, there is one more important, though unrelated, point here; the free-market system isn't the birthright of capitalism. Rather, more poignantly, the free-market system does not belong to capitalism; it is merely borrowing it. If the capitalist ideological state can't get its act together and come to the unavoidable conclusions reached above soon, than it's curtains indeed to an anachronistic and static ideology.

P.S. I'm no expert on economics and took no classes. So I hope to learn more than anything. BTW...this was originally written for a different audience, so please don't mind the perhaps aggressive tone?

20

New Theories / Systems, Equilibrium and Wealth

« on: 24/03/2007 22:57:01 »

Systems, Equilibrium and Wealth

Hi all,

I suppose the following is what would be called a rant:

All systems tend towards equilibrium. The monetary system is, well…a system. The flow of water can be thought of as a system. The system describing the flow of water will tend towards equilibrium and thus naturally tends towards the lowest energy state available to it as defined generally by its distance from the ground.

Now, in order to get water on one side of a wall to be a lot higher than the other, one would have to put energy INTO the system. Thus, one has to CAUSE an unequal distribution of water on opposite sides of a wall; it does not come to exist of its own accord. And so, you have a dam.

Using similar logic, the system describing the flow of wealth or money will tend towards equilibrium and thus naturally tends towards the lowest societal level available to it as defined generally by the relative difference in wealth between the wealthiest and poorest human beings on this planet.

So, in order to get “40% of world's wealth [to be] owned by 1% of [the] population” (http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/12/05/globalwealth.html), one would have to put energy INTO the system. Thus, one has to CAUSE an unequal distribution of wealth among the individuals that make up the population at large; it does not come to exist of its own accord.

Even so, clearly, the system describing the flow of water is in no way similar to the system describing the flow of wealth. This is because for one to be similar to the other, 40% of the entire world’s water (not just fresh water, but the other 99% too) would have to be put behind dams and be in control by a few.

The level of inequality in the distribution of wealth that human beings have decided to inflict on fellow human beings and the extent to which our species runs full sail in opposition to the forces of all equilibriums is very likely to be unmatched in finding an equivalent situation anywhere in the universe; a testament to the effects of implementing man-made systems in place of the single and natural system.

What is this single and natural system? Well, for those that have agreed with anything I have said so far, hopefully you can consider what I am about to say in conjunction with what I have already said. Furthermore, it is regrettable that what ever credibility I may have built through logic will be destroyed for some who find nothing credible in those who mention anything approaching what can be considered to be a ‘religious understanding’.

Simply, everything I have stated above is firmly grounded in Quranic teachings. I am a Muslim. What kind of strange Muslim am I you may wonder? Well, the answer to that can be found at http://www.ourbeacon.com/phbb2, or even the base site which contains links to some interesting books.

Thank you for your time