Pea

Haha! Good point. I will edit the above to reflect what I used today. Thanks, Gordon. Does black pepper help activate the bio-availability of turmeric? Sounds like it would be a better option than the cayenne. http://nutritionfacts.org/2015/02/05/why-pepper-boosts-turmeric-blood-levels/ -Pea

Ginger turmeric elixir 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice 5 grams ginger 10 grams turmeric 1/4 tsp cardamom Pinch cayenne 3 cups filtered water Fresh mint Combine first 6 ingredients in Vitamixer and blend Add fresh mint sprigs to glass. Enjoy! -Pea

Thanks for the info on cinnamon. I had no idea. I drink a couple of cups of Harney and Son's cinnamon spiced tea everyday. (Usually their decaf version) I wrote to them to find out what type of cinnamon they use. Thanks! -Pea

Don't know if this is true for aquafaba, but a copper bowl is supposed to be the best for whipping egg whites. The copper reacts chemically with egg whites to form the fluffy, high peaks. If you use a stainless steel or glass bowl, add cream of tartar or lemon juice to achieve the same result as with a copper bowl. I am looking forward to trying the vegan recipe! -Pea

Dean, Perhaps you could use a counterpoint; someone to act as doubter to help hone your arguments. XD I will offer 2: 1) Consider the story about the spherical cow: A physicist, an engineer, and a psychologist are called in as consultants to a dairy farm whose output has fallen. They each inspect the operation and make a report. The engineer states: “Efficiency could be improved if the diameter of the milking tubes is increased by 4 percent to allow for a greater average flow rate during the milking periods”. Next, the psychologist proposes: “The inside of the barn should be painted green. This is a more mellow color than brown and should help induce greater milk flow. Also, more trees should be planted in the fields to add diversity to the scenery for the cattle during grazing.” Finally, the physicist comes forward. He asks for a blackboard and then draws a circle. He begins: “Assume the cow is a sphere....”. Many important features of consciousness are the results of unpredictable, nonlinear interactions among billions of cells. Just as we will never be able to predict/compute the behavior of the stock market, how can consciousness be simulated even if we had enough virtual processing power? Non-linear systems are notoriously difficult to work with. What seems remarkable is that we can sometimes approximate the solutions to nonlinear equations by modeling them with solvable linear equations. They can work well up to some specified level of accuracy and within some specified range of input values, but interesting phenomena like singularities, solitons and chaos get hidden by the linearization. 2) David Tong from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics University of Cambridge asks ”Could the Known Laws of Physics be Fundamentally Discrete ?" and then goes on to argue that “the presence of discrete structures in nature is either emergent or illusory”. The argument is that certain asymmetries in particle physics can't be discretized - they are irreducibly continuous. At least according to our current understanding. -Pea

Very cool Dean! I really like your exchange with Dr Dennett. I’m no expert, but your analogy sounds like it would fall under Cramer’s Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics which I mentioned in a previous post, and is an interpretation I favor. Cramer’s explanation is consistent with the mathematics of QM but seems to defy our concepts of space-time. In TIQM, a source emits the usual retarded wave forward in time, and also emits an advanced wave back in time. A quantum event is a "handshake" taking place through an exchange of advanced and retarded waves. The emitter sends an "offer" wave to the absorber forward in time. The absorber then returns a "confirmation" wave to the emitter backwards in time. The transaction is completed with a "handshake" across space-time, which leads to the transfer of energy from emitter to absorber. Cramer's "transaction" is therefore non-local, because the future is affecting the past. Here's a video where Cramer talks informally about TIQM. -Pea

Hi Dean. As I understand it, inference devices are physical machines that obey the rules of logic and mathematics. By definition, they must exist in the same physical universe as the system they answer questions about. Wolpert’s mathematical proof is independent of any particular set of physical laws or computational structures. It sets physical limits of inference for past, present and future along with all possible calculations and control. He proves that it's impossible for a inference device A to both know its own answer to an arbitrary question and to also know the answer to the same question by a different inference device B. Using Wolpert's framework, we can model the current simulation of the universe as an inference device (A), and the future simulation of the universe as another inference device (B). The state of the universe changes from one instant to another so our inference devices are defined within the context of an instantaneous state of the universe. In this way, Wolpert's work shows that a simulation of the current state of the universe (device A) cannot know with absolute certainty the future device B’s knowledge about the state of the universe. According to Physicist, Phillippe Binder, this has implications for our ability to come up with the kind of theory of everything. As Binder points out in his essay (“Philosophy of science : Theories of almost everything” Nature 455, Oct 2008, 884-885), Wolpert's work suggests that "the entire physical Universe cannot be fully understood by any single inference system that exists within it”. So, at best we can hope to a have a "theory of almost everything." Really sorry to hear this. I look forward to our discussions and really enjoy learning from you. Please accept a heart felt "hug" from me. - Pea

Hi Dean, I very much like the way you think! I am curious how your concept of “simulations all the way down” differ from “if the gods created everything, what created the gods?” From a traditional religious perspective, the god sits outside of time. Hasn’t the idea that we can never, in principal, find the theory of everything been proved? Physicist and computer scientist, David H. Wolpert, built on Alan Turnings work by formalizing a description of “inference machines”. He logically proved the following 2 conclusions: “ a) For every machine capable of conducting strong inferences on the totality of the laws of physics there will be a second machine that cannot be strongly inferred from the first one; b) Given any pair of such machines, they cannot be strongly inferred from each other.” - PhysicaD: Nonlinear Phenomena Volume 237, Issue 9 , July 2008, Pages 1257–1281 It is comparable to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and Turing’s halting problem, both of which are variants of the liar’s paradox. We can’t escape paradox. It is my interpretation that Truth sits at the heart of paradox. As for me, I choose to live my life as though some sort of god(s) exists. I make an active choice to live as though my existence has meaning mostly because I don’t know how to live if the alternative is true. It is, I suppose, an act of faith. Faith, after all, is only a valid concept in the absence of knowledge. …………..I am sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. Our world needs more people like him. -Pea

Interesting stuff, but as Peter Russell points out in the video (above) science can’t explain consciousness. Scientific theories must be testable and make falsifiable predictions. He goes on to suggest we need a new paradigm because we assume “matter is insentient”. Yet in doing this, isn’t he shifting from the realm of science to that of philosophy? In what way has science defined matter as insentient? This sounds like religious conjecture. Which is fine, but why cloak the ideas as science when they are not? As far as matter being “insentient”, some religions, like Judaism, have a long history of teaching the opposite. Namely, that all matter is imbued with “a spirit”. According to some Jewish teachings, all matter in the universe has Nefesh (the natural), all living things also have Ruach (the life) and people have an additional Neshamah, (the intellect). Three levels of consciousness/spirit. Hey, I am one of those who want to have “a meaningful life”. Yet I am not comfortable with physicists who make a slight of hand switch from scientific theories to philosophy. Philosophy is not science. Philosophy uses logical analysis, science uses empirical measurement. Peter Russell admits we can’t measure consciousness. Consciousness is subjective. Science concentrates on the objective world. It seems like this trend of a few physicists cloaking their philosophy with scientific theories, stem from the strangeness of quantum mechanics. I prefer Richard Feynman’s approach “"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics avoids the philosophical problem with the collapse of the wave function and role of the observer (i.e. consciousness). TIQM looks at the emission and absorption of photons as a time-symmetric process. QM waves move both forward and backward in time. Doesn’t make it “true”. But what do we mean by true? It is a working model. Science gives us working models, not truth. Science attempts to represent the world (or a “piece” of it) as a closed system with perfect formalism. With each new fundamental scientific discovery (that doesn’t fit into the closed system), we break it open and then close it up again. Science is a systematic process of establishing closed systems over and over again. Complex, open systems are generally very sensitive to external influences, making their behavior unpredictable. Welcome to the human condition! Pea