GENIUS FORUMS

is that POSSIBLE...??? [ Hopefully is possible]..... plz..... is urgent.... S.O.S~...... Yes, it is possible. Given N points, it is possible to fit a polynomial of at least degree N-1. (That's probably the most parsimonious solution that is is continuous.) But it occurs to me just now that it could...

How do they work in different languages? Why don't they translate well? You're young, aren't you? Maybe still in college? You should certainly learn another language. If you are of college age, I suggest you learn French or Spanish, depending on whether you intend to flee to Canada or to Mexico whe...

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:My dog has the same philosophy.

My dog refuses to discuss philosophy. However, from his actions, his philosophy seems to be something along the lines of "treats are good."

So I guess he's a utilitarian.

Jason wrote:Philosophy and enlightenment: what exactly are we trying to justify with them?

I'm not getting where you are going with this. Why do you think that somebody is trying to justify something?

or if we assume that an event such as the hiroshima bombing would have effects which would reverberate through time. The New York blackout of 65 which occurred on 11/9/1965 occurred 7400 days after hiroshima and it happens that New York is at 74 degrees longitude. So what? Does that mean something?...

I was thinking that the process of finding an answer might make mathematics non-logical, but that's not right. Maybe you were thinking of something along the lines of Penrose's idea that some thought is non-algorithmic? Penrose at Amazon.com (Sorry Dave, I just had to fix that url link - D.R.)

sevens wrote:When you analyze word devices - puns, rhyme, metaphor - you begin to realize that these tricks of the tongue are woven into reality.

Have you thought about how those things work in different languages, and why they generally don't translate well?

Kevin's approach goes deeper because it literally defines the numbers from scratch. It says that when a single object is grouped together with another single object, the resulting number of objects shall be defined as "2". The process is purely definitional from start to finish. That's ac...

Around here we often say that 1+1=2 is a statement of pure logic, but I'm not so sure that it really is. This is a question that Russell and Whitehead tackled in the Principia Mathematica, where they attempted to derive arithmetic from pure logic. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehead-Russell...

If, say, in fifteen years it will be possible for the upper-middle class to buy a computer chip that could be interfaced with the human brain to dramatically improve higher brain fuctions, would you buy it? Yeah, I would, assuming the side effects are not too terrible. I mean, I already have a head...

At the moment, the knowledge on this topic is limited for practical reasons. One such practical limitation is the amount of brain that can be stuffed into a human head. A brain is certainly an amazingly complex piece of gear, no doubt. But in twenty years (or thirty or forty), it's pretty likely tha...

I'll read a little more if I can stand it. I was able to read about six paragraphs of the introduction before getting a headache and giving up. Here are some comments on the beginning bits: Nor, for identical reasons, can we think of the universe as the sum of its parts, for these parts exist solel...

analog57 wrote:Free will has necessary limitations, yet it still exists due to the fact that the mind is continually faced with choices, even when the brain is unconscious.

So, by free will, do you mean anything other than "the ability to make choices" ?

A person's intelligence is not an outside determining factor. It is an attribute OF the individual in question. Thus the determination is a self determination which is basically the same as free will. Are you saying people are stupid because they choose to be? A stupid person has the self determina...

I think this is a serious problem with the currently popular definition of intelligence. In past ages intelligence had a component of wisdom. You couldn't be intelligent unless you had at least a share of wisdom. There are a bunch of things that may be considered to be part of intelligence, or may ...

analog57 wrote:A person's intelligence is not an outside determining factor. It is an attribute OF the individual in question. Thus the determination is a self determination which is basically the same as free will.

Are you saying people are stupid because they choose to be?

Don't you think, see even, that he considers himself so essentially valuable that the death of no persons, citizens even, whatever the number, could be too great a sacrifice? No doubt he sees himself that way, and his security force is supposed to see it that way. So it's interesting that he was di...

The problem with that definition, Dave, is that it doesn't specify where this "problem-solving ability" should be directed. Is it intelligent, for example, to spend one's life solving problems in the fashion industry? I see that as the split between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence i...

Bosons are not only the force carriers. Protons and nuclei, which are 'matter' particles, can also be bosons. I did not realize that. I thought of 'normal' matter as being fermions. It seems like this might have implications beyond the BEC stuff. I'll have to think about it. The spin of quantum mec...

intelligence is simply, and only "a way to obtain knowledge" The dictionary gives "the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience," which is maybe a little better. Intelligence includes not just acquiring knowledge, but being able to apply it. I think of int...

sevens wrote:The fact that there exists instantaneous transfer of information between sub-atomic particles (...)

That's not quite a fact. That's one interpretation of what happens.

Well, I'm trying to understand this EPR paradox and the Bell test experiments, but they don't explain very much about the test. Why do they shoot the particles in opposite directions? Why not the same direction? Why do they think that the apparatus that produces the particles has no effect on the p...

Because the Exclusion principle only applies to Fermions. Bose-Einstein condensates are made with, you guessed it, Bosons. From what I was reading (which was, admittedly, the cartoon version for fourth graders), they were using atoms of rubidium. Does an atom act like a boson here? I was thinking i...

As I understand it, the uncertainty principle is brought about by the fact that our very observing of things influences our measurements, which limits the usefulness of those measurements. As I understand it, the uncertainty principle arises from the fact that something like an electron or a photon...

Dave Toast wrote: In such a space, according to Copenhagen, thousands of atoms can overlap and thereby collapse into the same quantum state, producing a 'real' condensate. And that is what really happens.

I'm missing something - why that isn't prevented by the Pauli Exclusion Principle?