1

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Centre of the universe?

« on: 24/03/2021 17:30:46 »

Hmm. Not sure I'm convinced about that. There must be stars at the edge of the universe, on the cutting edge so to speak of the big bang that will have stars behind them but none in front of them in their direction of travel?

It sounds like you're assuming that the big bang happened at a point in space, where stuff expanded out into a void. This isn't the accepted model; the *whole universe* was hot and dense at the big bang, and then expanded uniformly, everything flying away from everything else; it didn't expand *into* anything, it just expanded, that is, the space between stuff increased. There was no edge then and there's no edge now.

Wherever you are in the universe, everything is receding from you in all directions. What we call the 'edge' of the universe is just the limit of what we can see; we know that the whole universe is vastly bigger than that (possibly infinite).

2

General Science / Re: Can someone please explain how what is shown in this photo happens?

« on: 07/01/2021 20:48:25 »

This can happen when the sun is at the right angle, pretty much overhead or just over the point where the hose leaves the planter. This foreshortens the shadow and emphasises the curve so it appears to be looped.

Here is a kitchen worktop version using an electric cable and a torch:

3

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 23/02/2017 08:59:36 »

I am also surprised by a phrase like "which tasted good". This language seems to infer conscious experience when it is possible that in some animals the signal from the sensing cells to the matches memory of those signals and generates a chemical response to consume the food automatically or may be it is completely automatic without memory at all.

Consciousness isn't required for a positive response to the release of a reward system hormone like dopamine or serotonin (or some equivalent reward activity in simpler organisms).

4

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 22/02/2017 12:53:10 »

I guess what irks me is that there actually is a fair amount of information about the neuroscience behind things like perception, memory,  language, learning or emotion etc. - a lot of it a click away on Wikipedia. But there's this odd assumption that "Well, I have a brain, so I must know how it works,  and if I can't explain how the brain performs some task, it must be mysterious." There's no other area of science I can think of where so many people do this. I'm not criticizing anyone for asking questions, or not knowing something , just the tendency to make sh1t up willy nilly. 

Agreed - although quantum mechanics is another field where it happens - when it's used to 'explain' any odd or unexplained phenomena. When it's used to explain consciousness, all reason seems to disappear.

5

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 22/02/2017 09:20:21 »

Why do discussions about consciousness always go off the rails?

The hard to grasp and the unexplained always seem to attract a raft of pseudoscientific debris...

6

General Science / Re: Are pyramids stones natural or made by man?

« on: 19/02/2017 12:55:59 »

Why anyone should've taken the huge effort necessary,  in order to pile stones up to create the pyramids in Egypt, is a deeply disturbing mystery.

The why isn't mysterious, it was religious belief.

7

General Science / Re: Would you be up for cryogenic preservation after your death?

« on: 19/02/2017 12:43:57 »

I am an atheist and don't care what happens to my physical body after death, as far as I can see/care no matter how long one is frozen (not to mention our inability to unfreeze living tissue at this time) even if I were to be thawed out the "I" would not be there. Death is final, there is no coming back. The you (or me) is a product of your experiences (and DNA) and will not be saved.

Your experiences are encoded in the connectivity (and possibly other characteristics) of the cells in your brain, so if the cryopreservation and subsequent recovery process retained every physiological detail, it would subjectively feel like waking up from anaesthetic. The chances that this could be achieved in practice seem remote, and would only be worth doing if the brain was healthy at preservation time.

I wouldn't do it in order to live in the future until it's been demonstrated to work successfully in humans - but otherwise I'd be happy to allow my body to be cryopreserved at death for research purposes - as long as that didn't involve trying to reanimate my brain; even if they got it going again, the chances it would function properly seem remote, and I wouldn't want to risk it.

8

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 16/02/2017 11:28:30 »

... scientists have been probing individual regions of the brain for over a century, exploring their function by zapping them with electricity and temporarily putting them out of action. Despite this, they have never been able to turn off consciousness...

That is incorrect: Consciousness On-Off Switch Discovered Deep in the Brain.


Also, of course, there are anaesthetics, and all the other involuntary means of turning off consciousness, such as a blow to the head, fainting, and so-on.

9

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 14/02/2017 11:01:08 »

Nice one, dlorde. I am surprised by the lack of evidences in your claims.

Lol! I didn't make any claims.

... please consider the reality of biological hypercomputation as a neurophenomenological science based on general relativity (GR), not pseudo-science.

How does GR relate to hypothetical hypercomputation as a neurophenomenon?  What evidence is there of biological hypercomputation?

With respect, I suggest you read more on the role of quantum channels and microtubules in the organization of consciousness.

Interesting that you don't seem able to provide any information yourself... But if you're talking about Hameroff and Penrose's Orch-OR 'quantum consciousness' theory, I've followed it from the beginning - it was a crock then and it's only got worse; Hameroff is now talking about 'quantum souls'... and despite their attempts to spark media attention again, Bandyopadhyay's 'research' doesn't say what they claim it says. I now see they've teamed up with Deepak Chopra - that should tell you all you need to know. 

10

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 13/02/2017 13:12:15 »

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003723

OK, this seems a straightforward mathematical model of how two identical reciprocally connected neuronal populations synchronize activity, measuring how the coupling delay affects the efficiency of the communication between them. They found that the excitatory coupling causes spontaneous phase coherence, and the two populations organize themselves in patterns of in-phase or anti-phase synchronization, depending on the delay.


An interesting mathematical model of synchronization between coupled neuronal populations, but I don't really see the relevance -we know areas of the brain synchronize, and this model gives a mathematical basis for it.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815018406

I'm rather dubious about this one - the size of the effect they claim was so low that they say they had to repeat it hundreds of times to get a significant result. Statistical analysis of EEG traces in this way is error-prone, and other studies have found that when traditional methods of averaging and calculations for event-related potential are used, there is a distinct evoked potential in the EEGs of senders, but not in receivers. Given the lack of credible physical mechanism, I'm sceptical. At best, the jury is out on this.

My guess is that mind and matter "entanglement" (neuronal phase coherence) are part of a greater (collective) consciousness, allowing brain-to-brain connectivity in a group of people via quantum channels.

Neuronal phase coherence is synchronous activity between connected neuronal populations, you could call it entrainment, but 'entanglement' doesn't seem an appropriate description.What are 'quantum channels' ?

The brain is not consciousness.

That doesn't answer the question.

Do you consider general relativity pseudoscience? I do believe in the power of the mind to physically interact with matter...

That's a red-herring - GR hasn't been mentioned - and no, GR may be incomplete, but it's not pseudoscience.



Your statement of belief is ill-defined metaphysics, not science.

11

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 13/02/2017 09:25:46 »

How do you explain the neuroscience of brain-to-brain connectivity and neuronal phase coherence?

What do you mean by the 'neuroscience of brain-to-brain connectivity and neuronal phase coherence'? If possible provide a reference.

I agree however that synchronicity must be implicated in the neurophenomenology of consciousness. I suggest that macroscopic quantum coherence must be correlated to the optimal computation (hypercomputation) of conscious experience through bioelectromagnetic fields. The mind and matter are entangled together inside the brain at the molecular level where quantum-like interactions seem to orchestrate consciousness. I call this biological phenomenon "synaptic hypercomputation".

What makes you think hypercomputation is possible? why would it be necessary for consciousness?


I don't see how macroscopic quantum effects can be relevant. Explain what you mean by 'macroscopic quantum coherence' in the brain, and how it would aid understanding of consciousness. The quantum entanglement you mentioned previously is a non-starter; entangled particles must have a common source and cannot transfer or exchange information - also, entanglement resolves anytime an entangled particle interacts. The brain is not a vacuum - if there were entangled particles, they would interact within microns.


With respect, it just sounds like a bunch of speculative unexplained processes being invoked to explain consciousness, another unexplained process. That would be pseudoscience. You can't explain the unexplained with the inexplicable.

12

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Do mammals have cannabinoid receptors?

« on: 09/02/2017 23:28:46 »

Is the CB1 receptor in humans the product of evolutionary genetic fine-tuning?

It is primitive in other species since only humans have acquired the capacity to exploit THC molecule for psychological purposes ?

How can you be certain that only humans get stoned?

It's an interesting question, but it would suggest that cannabis was not just a popular psychoactive for a significant evolutionary period for a significant proportion of the extant human or pre-human population, but had some selective advantage. 

There have been population bottlenecks in human evolution where local environmental conditions and resources could have a significant evolutionary effect, but it's hard to see what the selective advantage of cannabis intoxication might be, given the much more significant selective pressures likely to be present in population bottleneck conditions.

13

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Where is consciousness in the brain?

« on: 09/02/2017 23:12:37 »

Neurological studies suggests that evan_au has the right idea. When a stimulus that is not sufficient to produce conscious awareness is given, it will produce a limited activation response local to the areas dealing with the relevant sense. It may cause localized activations in more distant areas, but they die out in fairly short order. When the stimulus intensity is increased until it crosses the threshold for conscious awareness (the subject reports sensing it), the initial activation is greater and causes a wave of activity to sweep across the cortex, triggering bursts of activity in many areas and 'echoing' back and forth for a much longer period.

There do seem to be particular areas in the brain that control the various aspects of the sense of self (locality, agency, bounds, ownership, etc.), and these will also be particularly active, but conscious awareness seems to involve widespread activation and synchronization of activity across the brain.

14

General Science / Re: How can you tell if your spaceship is standing still in outer space?

« on: 27/08/2016 19:34:15 »

Postulate 2 There must always be velocities that are faster or slower than the velocity of the local frame.

Faster or slower than the local frame relative to what? If the local frame is stationary relative to, for example, the Earth, there will not be a slower velocity than the local frame, relative to the Earth... There could be faster velocities, but I don't see how that would help for Postulate 3 (shouldn't P3 be the Conclusion?)

15

General Science / Re: How can you tell if your spaceship is standing still in outer space?

« on: 27/08/2016 14:48:03 »

...Can you make an absolute velocity sensor?

No, because there's no such thing as absolute velocity. All velocities are relative to some frame. For example, you may have zero velocity relative to the Earth, or to the galaxy, etc. Blame Einstein, it's his fault []

16

General Science / Re: Dowsing or Dousing...is there any truth in it ?

« on: 27/08/2016 12:50:11 »

I do believe there is a science to divining.

There is; the physical side is called the ideomotor effect, the psychological side involves some or all of expectation bias, confirmation bias, the Texas Sharpshooter effect, the band-waggon effect, choice-supportive bias, framing, the clustering illusion, hindsight bias, illusory correlation, the overconfidence effect, self-serving bias, selective reporting, in-group bias, etc. (I probably missed some). See Cognitive Biases. The science suggests the divining effect isn't real.

Ok to explain as example solar panel works with magnetism and kinetic energy. A warm spot and a cold spot create magnetism which in turn creates a kinetic energy in the middle from atoms moving back and forth.

Nope, solar panels use the photoelectric effect.

Then the movement of the water would create a kinetic energy.

You don't seem to understand what energy is; it's not some sort of stuff that gets created, it's an indirectly observed quantity; kinetic energy is what something has by virtue of its motion and depends on its speed and mass.

I think if some one took time to figure it out from a science or mechanical point of view they could possible get it to a 90 percent chance or above. Simply put cold=negative Hot=positive both put together with something in the middle of them with minerals in it equal magnetic.

I'm afraid that's nonsense. To quote Wolfgang Pauli, "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."

There have been many controlled tests of dowsing and it never works. You may think that's because an artificial test isn't like dowsing out in the real world, but an important part of such tests is to get the dowser's agreement that the test conditions are acceptable and the test is one they feel they can easily succeed at. Then they are given a 'dummy run', where they are told the position of the material that they are to dowse for, and allowed to ensure that they can detect it as they expect, and that they get no false positives from the other locations where the material could be hidden. When they are fully satisfied that they have successfully dowsed the given material in the given test situation, the material is moved to a random position without their knowledge (which could be the same position they dowsed in the dummy run), and they are asked to find it. They never do any better than chance, and are often shocked by their failure. They also tend to make all kinds of excuses, despite having previously agreed they were happy with the conditions and that they could successfully dowse when they knew where the material was.

There have been suggestions that when dowsing for water, the terrain or vegetation provides subliminal cues to where water is likely to be, which sounds plausible, but a number of tests have shown that this doesn't seem to be the case (except for obvious situations like dry stream beds). There have also been suggestions that electromagnetic fields created or warped by moving water or that changes in water vapour density (local humidity) might be detected, but again, tests show that such fields are at the threshold of instrumental detection, and even electromagnetic fields many times stronger can't be detected by a dowser, likewise for local humidity changes.

So not only does it fail under controlled testing, but there is no plausible mechanism for detection; the physics of everyday life constrains the possibilities. Movement of dowsing rods or pendulums can be explained by the ideomotor effect.

17

Technology / Re: By what physics principle might this cooling device work?

« on: 28/07/2016 22:46:16 »

So by those results, unless the wind is blowing along the wall the bottles are sticking out of, the effect will generally be to funnel air into the room. When the wind is parallel to the wall, it is likely to draw air out of the room. More research is warranted.

You seem to miss the fact that the air inside being hotter causes draw.

I was aware of that suggestion, but as I said, I was referring only to the results of my own experiment which didn't include a temperature differential. 

18

General Science / Re: Could cannabis use decrease risk of domestic violence?

« on: 28/07/2016 22:37:27 »

"dope-induced apathy" will apply to all activities, be it domestic-chores or domestic-violence. Persons who would be inclined to do those things will be less likely to do them if on dope because of the apathy it causes.

Perhaps, but not all dope causes apathy. The indica varieties tend to do this, but many sativa varieties produce a noticeable physical boost, a stimulating, slightly 'speedy', effect.

19

Technology / Re: By what physics principle might this cooling device work?

« on: 28/07/2016 13:42:12 »

In time-honoured tradition, I did an experiment, putting the cut off end of a plastic bottle at various angles to the path path of air from a fan at its slowest speed, and moving a thin strip of tissue paper across the neck of the bottle. When the bottle was at less than about 80 degrees to the fan (i.e. the bottle was angled in the direction of the airflow, the paper was blown away from the neck of the bottle. When the bottle was more than about 80 degrees to the fan (i.e. the air was blowing perpendicularly across the open end) the paper was sucked towards the neck of the bottle.

So by those results, unless the wind is blowing along the wall the bottles are sticking out of, the effect will generally be to funnel air into the room. When the wind is parallel to the wall, it is likely to draw air out of the room. More research is warranted.

20

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How long is one second?

« on: 25/07/2016 16:28:45 »

... The magnetic field of the the magnets inside the Caesium clock, acting like a gyroscope and being subjective to the Earths magnetic field influence, a compass needle points north.

One would hope that if Earth's magnetic field was considered likely to affect the clock's accuracy, they would shield it.