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The science behind RHCs liver thread

Discussion in 'Liverpool' started by Prince Knut, Apr 30, 2016.

  1. Prince Knut

    Prince Knut GC Thread Terminator

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    You'll have to read it to find that out. But psychologically, I'll answer it this way - human beings, even the most intelligent ones, are not programmed to think of absolute nothing, or something coming from nothing, we take the most powerful forces around us and extrapolate them into supernatural scenarios - in this case deifying computers. Caven made Gods out of rivers and planets - modern man makes them out of computers. Deep Thought on steriods.

    Just my opinion though. :emoticon-0114-dull:
     
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  2. saintKlopp

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    In common usage theory and hypothesis are regarded more or less as synonyms.
    In science the distinction is clear. A hypothesis is a speculation whereas a theory is an explanation of the process behind any given phenomenon.
     
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  3. saintKlopp

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    If my computer's a God then I'm well screwed.
     
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  4. Prince Knut

    Prince Knut GC Thread Terminator

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    Well, get Karl Popper here. :emoticon-0137-clapp
     
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  5. Diego

    Diego Lone Ranger

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    Still doesn't explain how/why the universe is AI.

    May read one day but probably won't <laugh>
     
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  6. Diego

    Diego Lone Ranger

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    You have hit on a big bug bare with me there which has lead to discussions and arguments with several different friends.

    Religious pov...........God created everything, "where did he come from"......he thought himself into being. What does this even mean?

    Science pov.......The universe was created by "the big bang" when particles collided in the void.
    Void in what and if it was a total void where did the particles come from and what were they?

    FFS, you are intelligent men and women, if you don't know just say so, we are all in the same boat here.
     
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  7. Prince Knut

    Prince Knut GC Thread Terminator

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    About the gist of the interview:

    The mathematics of matrix theory seems to have some of the ingredients of a particular type of neural network. The idea then is to show that at least one of these neural network architectures can learn one of those laws. That correspondence would be an indicator. That’s what’s wild and beautiful about this idea, because if that’s nature at its most fundamental, then nature itself is like a neural network.

    Wouldn’t it be a leap to go from this correspondence between the laws of physics, matrix theory and neural networks to then saying that the universe actually is a neural network?

    It is a leap. It would be analogous to a neural network. We’re still playing with the idea, and it might end up taking us in another direction.

    It also wouldn’t necessarily mean a neural network in the sense of a hardwired computer. A computer is just the substrate for neural networks. There could be something more biological going on. The universe itself produced brains, so why couldn’t the universe itself be a superbrain?

    If you find enough of these correspondences, would we have to consider neural networks to be as “real” as physical laws?

    I think we would have to. It would be real in the same way that we think electric or magnetic fields are real. Or think about when Paul Dirac predicted antimatter. You have a mathematical equation that seems to say something absurd about reality – that antimatter exists – and it then turned out to be a hidden part of reality.

    How does a self-learning universe differ from an evolving universe?

    Evolution depends on the idea of fitness within an environment. In evolution, species get killed off. In the same way, an evolving universe depends on there being a large population of universes and only the fittest ones – say with the right constants of nature – will survive.

    Learning means that you have an opportunity to make a mistake without getting wiped out. These matrix models have a lot of space in which to store information. So you store that mistake as a memory and keep moving forward. It’s akin to jazz improvisation.

    Hope that's not too much.
     
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  8. Prince Knut

    Prince Knut GC Thread Terminator

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    Quantum flux, perhaps not the same thing. :emoticon-0112-wonde
     
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  9. Diego

    Diego Lone Ranger

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    In a lot of ways this is man trying to put nature, the world, the universe into a box/structure they can understand.
    It's nothing new really, nature (the world/Gaia) has always worked to balance itself and the Universe is just a far wider example of that,
    I kind of picked up on the AI bit and took it out of context because i haven't read the full thing.
    Nature, the planet and imo the universe is in balance and strives to keep it that way. on the other hand everything could (and probably is) totally random and bigger forces will just devour/destroy smaller ones until we end up with one great mass in the great void in "nothing?"

    Not enough pixels left to go deeper <laugh>
     
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  10. saintKlopp

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    I'm not sure what you mean by that. Unless the theory has changed since I last looked (quite possible), my understanding is that there was no void - the universe was a singularity which expanded, not material that spread into a void.
    I don't think scientists ever claim to fully understand the nature of this - I think that impression is mistakenly conveyed by science journalism.
    I'm probably going to outrage all the believers on here now, by saying the fundamental difference between the two groups is that theism starts with the conclusion and tries to make the evidence fit whereas science gathers the evidence and draws the conclusion from it.
    All theories are open-ended and subject to modification because new evidence is always possible.
     
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  11. Diego

    Diego Lone Ranger

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    It's a word that means nothing.

    i would have a lot more respect for someone who said "i have no idea how it all started" than i have for anyone that makes something up.


    EDIT..............A singularity from where that expanded into what?
     
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  12. saintKlopp

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    But we do have ideas - we just don't know if they're the right ones. It's not all just made up - it's the result of an extrapolation of observable physics, but no-one claims to have the definitive answer. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you should give up trying.
    The word singularity has a number of meanings. In the case of the cosmological model it refers to the state of the universe before the beginning of its observable expansion, a "singularity" meaning no-one knows its exact nature because those laws of physics appear to break down - or to be inapplicable, let's say.
    It's a tricky thing to explain, and I'm not the best to try because I'm no scientist and my own grasp of it is vague - so I'd suggest you look into it and find someone who can do a better job. What exactly it was is the subject of a number of conflicting theories and hypotheses, and of course we may never know the answer.
    It didn't expand into anything because there was nothing for it to expand into - the void between matter is itself part of the universe, there is no "outside"
    The whole thing is a real head-**** tbh, but I do find it fascinating.
     
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  13. Red Hadron Collider

    Red Hadron Collider The Hammerhead

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  14. moreinjuredthanowen

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    My hypothesis is this universe is contained within jewel set in an earring worn by a rich woman. The parallel universes are contained within her other earring and the matching necklace.


    Prove that wrong then.
     
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  15. saintKlopp

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    Is that the interstellar background hum?
     
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  16. Red Hadron Collider

    Red Hadron Collider The Hammerhead

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    <laugh> If you like, but not really.
     
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  17. saintKlopp

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    It was just as enigmatic.
     
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  18. Red Hadron Collider

    Red Hadron Collider The Hammerhead

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    <laugh>
     
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  19. Prince Knut

    Prince Knut GC Thread Terminator

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    Scientists theorise astronauts could sip water made by sunshine

    Rhys Blakely
    Tuesday November 30 2021, 12.01am, The Times
    Science
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    Asteroids rain down on the Earth early in its formation, carrying water that partially formed the oceans
    UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
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    The next time you take a gulp of water, consider this: half of what’s in your glass is likely to have come from sunbeams.

    An analysis of dust gathered from an ancient asteroid appears to have solved part of the mystery of where the Earth’s water originated. The results suggest that half the liquid in the oceans owes its existence to the stream of charged particles emitted by our star. Known as the solar wind, it created water when it reacted with oxygen atoms in space rocks that then crashed into the planet.

    The finding, published in Nature Astronomy, raises hopes that other rocky planets and moons could have extensive reservoirs of water created in the same way, which could one day support voyaging astronauts.

    Dr Luke Daly, of the University of Glasgow, who helped lead the study, said: “It could open the door to a much better understanding of what the early solar system looked like and how the Earth and its oceans were formed.”



    Science
     
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  20. Prince Knut

    Prince Knut GC Thread Terminator

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    Why is there a cosmic speed limit? It could even be why we're here
    Nothing in the cosmos can travel faster than light speed. By distinguishing cause and effect and stopping everything happening in a jumbled mess, our existence depends on it

    PHYSICS 17 November 2021
    By Joshua Howgego

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    Anna Bliokh/Getty Images

    TIME, various wags supposedly said, is nature’s way of stopping everything happening at once. That might not be the most useful way of thinking about things, however, not least given our confusion about how time works (see “Why does time only move forwards?“). Take a long, hard look at physics today and it isn’t time that stops everything happening at once – it is light.

    The idea that light always travels at the same speed, and that nothing can travel faster than that, is hard-baked into modern physics. It is still difficult to get your head around the mind-boggling consequences. Think of travelling in a spaceship with the beam of your headlights zinging off in front of you into the vacuum of space. A stationary observer outside your ship would see those photons travelling at light speed – 299,792,458 metres per second, for those taking notes. The crux is that so would you, no matter how fast your ship was travelling in the same direction.

    Read more: 13 of the most profound questions about the cosmos and ourselves
    According to Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity, which he developed in the early years of the 20th century, space and time themselves warp to accommodate the otherwise insurmountable contradictions that arise from light’s absolute speed.


    His special theory of relativity gives a mathematical explanation for the cosmic speed cap: as objects with mass accelerate to higher speeds, they require more and more energy to keep them accelerating. To attain light speed, you need infinite energy – an impossibility. Light only gets a free pass as it has no mass, as in fact do other massless things, such as the ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves.

    But why all that? One answer is that light speed – or let’s just say, a cosmic speed limit – acts as a brake on the rate at which influences can propagate in the universe. If anything went faster, it would open the door to effects preceding causes. “If you can travel faster than light, you get all kinds of problems with causality,” says Claudia de Rham at Imperial College London. The universe’s past, present and future would conceivably occur in a jumbled mess all at once – and we wouldn’t be here to wonder about it. In those terms, a cosmic speed limit might be one of those things that is “just so” in a universe with intelligent observers (see “Why is the universe just right?“, and “Why is the universe intelligible?“).

    There remains the question of why that speed limit – why not twice as fast, say? Cosmologist João Magueijo, also at Imperial College, has spent years exploring the idea that the speed of light might have started off much higher, perhaps infinite, at the big bang and slowed down since. This would explain certain puzzling features of the universe today such as its strange uniformity. “This is actually a very minor tweak to relativity,” he says.


    A speed of light that evolves over time wouldn’t itself be that dramatic, says de Rham, but she adds that current observations give no reason to believe it does. There would still need to be some other parameter behind the scenes that sets how the speed of light changes, she says – so such considerations don’t help much with the “why?”.

    For his part, Magueijo suspects that the speed of light is bound up with very deep matters of physics that we don’t fully understand yet, relating to the nature of space and time themselves and whether they emerge from some deeper layer of reality. Get a glimpse of what is pulling the strings, and the cosmic speed limit isn’t the only thing we might see in a whole new light.

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    Take our expert-led online cosmology course revealing the biggest mysteries in the universe
     
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