stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,13:50    One problem that you run into with following IDers is that most of them are just ignorant and arrogant. While this makes for some good laughs, it's not very challenging. We've been trying to recruit some smarter creationist to debate here. It's not very easy. It seems for every educated creationist familiar with science, there are about a million AFDaves and FtKs. Since we haven't yet managed to recruit such an educated creationist, perhaps we should make do by discussing the best of the bunch, Telic Thoughts. It's slightly better than the others. If Uncommonly Dense is like a clown car, Telic Thoughts is more like an AMC Pacer.

jeannot Posts: 1201 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,15:47    Talking about educated creationists, we have Daniel Smith here. I don't know him but he seems more familiar with science.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,16:39    yeah. I haven't had a chance to read his thread much yet, but he does look a cut above the AFDave FtK class of creationist.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,17:22    I haven't read much Telic Thoughts. The contributors there seem pretty diverse. So far, all I can tell is Mike Gene has at least some brains, and Bradford is an idiot.

ck1 Posts: 65 Joined: Oct. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,17:25    Is Mike Gene a professional biologist?  Ph.D.?   I know his/her identity is secret, but what is known about Gene?

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,19:09    Quote (stevestory @ Sep. 22 2007,17:22) I haven't read much Telic Thoughts. The contributors there seem pretty diverse. So far, all I can tell is Mike Gene has at least some brains, and Bradford is an idiot. And Joy is insane.

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,21:32    Uncommon Descent has been off-line a lot, and when they do blog, it's mostly non-science topics. AtBC has a very robust peanut gallery for these non-science topics, so I've been commenting over at Telic Thoughts. (By the way, MikeGene has a rabbit theme.) Wonders for Oyarsa posted an interesting simulation, The Amazing Toxic Asexual Bunny Mutation Simulator. But it didn't show what he thought it did. Wonders for Oyarsa thought that for evolution to find a specific beneficial mutation, junk portions of the genome would become scrambled. In fact, evolution can try all sorts of mutations and then discard them before fixation. This was pointed out in the very first comment. But of course, it had no impact on the discussion whatsoever. Quote Raevmo: Kimura showed mathematically that for a neutral mutation the fixation rate is identical to the mutation rate (independently of population size). Amusingly, Wonders for Oyarsa overlooked genetic fixation occurring right before his eyes. Fluffy Bunnies has a very small genome, so only about 30% of the original junk typically remains. But even that significant portion should have been a clue that his intuition was wrong. I suggested that Wonders for Oyarsa approach his intuition skeptically, to make an attempt at falsification— to no avail. In response, I posted KILLER RABBITS, Not-so-fluffy Bunnies. To his credit, I do think that Wonders for Oyarsa tried to learn from the exchange. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,22:51    Mike Gene seems to be denying that there is an ID community. So maybe I was too optimistic and they're a bunch of idiots too. http://telicthoughts.com/the-neg....scovery I'm withholding judgment. It's still early.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,23:28    Hi Steve, When MikeGene and I get into heated discussions it is usually over what I call "Shield Bashing". A lot of people at Telic Thoughts (including MikeGene) take the tactical position of claiming to be oppressed.  It makes it easier to complain. Bradford takes it to an extreme.  He appears to be fairly knowledgeable but often uses that knowledge to be bombastic. BTW, I don't know if you are aware of this.  I think MikeGene split off from the "ID community" to form Telic Thoughts because of fundamental disagreements with people running ARN. Personally, I think there was a spark of earnest interest in doing science when Darwin's Black Box came out.  I agree with Dawkins' review that DBB was better, in this regard, than Edge of Evolution. I suggest the ID MOVEMENT decided to go the PR route.  Behe changed his definition of IC and the one ID Hypothesis that came close to being scientific, EAM, was abandoned. In short, I think you are pressing some hot buttons with MikeGene.  Yes, he is biased in blaming the “ID critics” for shutting down explorations but note the title bar declaration “Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design. Telic Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design.”   The word “independent” is obviously intentional.  If there is an “ID Community”, MikeGene and Telic Thoughts don’t consider themselves part of it. You may also want to look at their “About Us” description. There is some history there.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,23:34    Hi Jam, You wrote...     Quote And Joy is insane. Is that a problem for you? :D Joy is the reason I have stuck around for a year. She is very knowledgable and provides substantial, thought-provoking challenges. You might also find her political leanings surprising.  (let's just say she has never been a big fan of our current president).

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,23:35    Thanks for the info. I don't know anything about the history there. I wrote a post on Telic Thoughts but deleted it. If someone's complaining that ID, with its millions of dollars and hundreds of supposed scientists, can't succeed because the community isn't large enough, well, I'm not sure I can talk to a person like that.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 22 2007,23:37    comment, I meant. Not post.

Alan Fox Posts: 1556 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,03:33    The ex-UD commenter Bilbo appears capable of independent thought. Edit: ps Here too

J. O'Donnell Posts: 98 Joined: Sep. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,04:33    Quote Yes, he is biased in blaming the “ID critics” for shutting down explorations but note the title bar declaration “Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design. Telic Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design.”   Yes, they are considerably incorrect there. ID killed itself by being a dead lifeless duck scientifically and producing no testable hypotheses or data. When I challenged Mike Gene in the past to demonstrate an actual testable hypothesis for ID, the usual retreat to "What would evolution do" came up, completely dodging what I was actually asking. But in general, Telic Thoughts is a veritable fertile field of actual positive thinking about ID compared to cesspools of stupidity like UD. It's completely unfair to compare TT to UD, as TT has intelligent discussions on their site, doesn't suppress comments from those who disagree with them and actually have credibility (see the Dr. Pianka incident from a while ago). Stevestory. Quote Mike Gene seems to be denying that there is an ID community. So maybe I was too optimistic and they're a bunch of idiots too. Although I still think TT talks a whole load of nonsense (like about Front Loading, I've still never seen them actually put down a proper testable prediction of this), they are far from idiots and if we take UD as being the "ID community", then I would not blame the group at TT from wanting to have no association with it. -------------- My blog: Animacules

Bob O'H Posts: 2564 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,05:11    Quote like about Front Loading, I've still never seen them actually put down a proper testable prediction of this Ah, but someone has.  In a journal that is sometimes peer reviewed.  It's still a pile of crap, but it's a published pile of crap with predictions. Bob -------------- It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

keiths Posts: 2195 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,05:27    JAM wrote:   Quote And Joy is insane. Thought Provoker responded:   Quote Joy is the reason I have stuck around for a year. She is very knowledgable and provides substantial, thought-provoking challenges. TP, Someone who believes that life depends on superconduction, and that there is a conspiracy to suppress information about superconductivity, is neither knowledgeable nor sane. Joy on superconductivity in biology:   Quote Such an act of total measurement - the 'snapshot' - would collapse all sustained quantum states in the person being copied - including condensed matter/gel states, superconduction and molecular electron sharing, superpositions, etc. - thereby rendering that person DEAD. Mere decomposing raw matter in 4D. Joy on the conspiracy:   Quote keith, way back at the turn of the last century when I was in the very middle of all this - seeking everything science knew about consciousness - superconductivity was discussed quite openly and in depth. Something happened that relegated that particular finding to the deep hole of "if I tell you that I'll have to kill you" and it's disappeared from accessible databases, including Tuszynski's. How the hell some al Queda wannabe could turn it into a weapon is beyond me (that might give the label "biological WMD" a whole new angle!), but a lot of things changed back around that time. I know how that works, so who am I to complain? And that's just one example. -------------- And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G Please stop putting words into my mouth that don't belong there and thoughts into my mind that don't belong there. -- KF

Alan Fox Posts: 1556 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,06:28    Quote (keiths @ Sep. 23 2007,00:27) JAM wrote:   Quote And Joy is insane. Thought Provoker responded:   Quote Joy is the reason I have stuck around for a year. She is very knowledgable and provides substantial, thought-provoking challenges. TP, Someone who believes that life depends on superconduction, and that there is a conspiracy to suppress information about superconductivity, is neither knowledgeable nor sane. Joy on superconductivity in biology:   Quote Such an act of total measurement - the 'snapshot' - would collapse all sustained quantum states in the person being copied - including condensed matter/gel states, superconduction and molecular electron sharing, superpositions, etc. - thereby rendering that person DEAD. Mere decomposing raw matter in 4D. Joy on the conspiracy:   Quote keith, way back at the turn of the last century when I was in the very middle of all this - seeking everything science knew about consciousness - superconductivity was discussed quite openly and in depth. Something happened that relegated that particular finding to the deep hole of "if I tell you that I'll have to kill you" and it's disappeared from accessible databases, including Tuszynski's. How the hell some al Queda wannabe could turn it into a weapon is beyond me (that might give the label "biological WMD" a whole new angle!, but a lot of things changed back around that time. I know how that works, so who am I to complain? And that's just one example. Well, nobody's perfect, Keith. I recall Joy posting some interesting stuff about sustainability, (couldn't find it just now, sorry) so she ain't all bad.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,09:51    Quote (Alan Fox @ Sep. 23 2007,04:33) The ex-UD commenter Bilbo appears capable of independent thought. Edit: ps Here too Good for Bilbo.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,09:54    Quote (keiths @ Sep. 23 2007,06:27) Joy on the conspiracy:   Quote keith, way back at the turn of the last century when I was in the very middle of all this - seeking everything science knew about consciousness - superconductivity was discussed quite openly and in depth. Something happened that relegated that particular finding to the deep hole of "if I tell you that I'll have to kill you" and it's disappeared from accessible databases, including Tuszynski's. How the hell some al Queda wannabe could turn it into a weapon is beyond me (that might give the label "biological WMD" a whole new angle!), but a lot of things changed back around that time. I know how that works, so who am I to complain? And that's just one example.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,10:19    Quote (J. O'Donnell @ Sep. 23 2007,04:33) It's completely unfair to compare TT to UD, as TT has intelligent discussions on their site, doesn't suppress comments from those who disagree with them... You are incorrect on that count.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,10:20    Hi Keiths, You wrote...   Quote Someone who believes that life depends on superconduction, and that there is a conspiracy to suppress information about superconductivity, is neither knowledgeable nor sane. Joy is quite capable to defending herself.  MikeGene's rabbit threads are available to open discussions.  If someone wants to ask her something, there is a recent rabbit thread available that anyone can use. Meanwhile, I thank you for the opportunity for me to point out the use of quantum mechanics in life. It appears photosynthesis involves quantum superposition to achieve super conductivity. This is from Berkley Lab's Research News.  The article is titled Quantum Secrets of Photosynthesis Revealed.   Quote BERKELEY, CA —Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Speed is the key – the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously so little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a long-standing mystery that may have finally been solved. ... Electronic spectroscopy measurements made on a femtosecond (millionths of a billionth of a second) time-scale showed these oscillations meeting and interfering constructively, forming wavelike motions of energy (superposition states) that can explore all potential energy pathways simultaneously and reversibly, meaning they can retreat from wrong pathways with no penalty. This finding contradicts the classical description of the photosynthetic energy transfer process as one in which excitation energy hops from light-capturing pigment molecules to reaction center molecules step-by-step down the molecular energy ladder. “The classical hopping description of the energy transfer process is both inadequate and inaccurate,” said Fleming. “It gives the wrong picture of how the process actually works, and misses a crucial aspect of the reason for the wonderful efficiency.” link And, of course, there is the Orch OR model of consciousness put forward by Sir Rodger Penrose and Dr. Hameroff....   Quote In this paper we propose that aspects of quantum theory (e.g. quantum coherence) and of a newly proposed physical phenomenon of quantum wave function "self-collapse"(objective reduction: OR -Penrose, 1994) are essential for consciousness, and occur in cytoskeletal microtubules and other structures within each of the brain's neurons. The particular characteristics of microtubules suitable for quantum effects include their crystal-like lattice structure, hollow inner core, organization of cell function and capacity for information processing. We envisage that conformational states of microtubule subunits (tubulins) are coupled to internal quantum events, and cooperatively interact (compute) with other tubulins. We further assume that macroscopic coherent superposition of quantum-coupled tubulin conformational states occurs throughout significant brain volumes and provides the global binding essential to consciousness. from the peer reviewed paper  Orchestrated Objective Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: The "Orch OR" Model for Consciousness DNA strands are used to build artificial quantum computers. IMO, the question gets turned around.  What makes you think life ISN'T dependent on quantum superposition and superconductivity?

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,10:23    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 22 2007,23:34) Hi Jam, You wrote...       Quote And Joy is insane. Is that a problem for you? :D It's simply an observation. Joy routinely makes false claims to support her positions, and when her claims have been shown to be false, claims her positions to be supported anyway. Quote Joy is the reason I have stuck around for a year. You have my sympathies. Quote She is very knowledgable and provides substantial, thought-provoking challenges. She is not knowledgable at all in the field of biology, TP. Quote You might also find her political leanings surprising.  (let's just say she has never been a big fan of our current president). Not at all. That doesn't mean that she's not insane. Her support of the lies of the animal-rights movement is not surprising, either.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,10:46    Hi JAM, You wrote...     Quote She is not knowledgeable at all in the field of biology, TP. I agree, Joy's expertise appears to be more in understanding physics as opposed to biology.  And, yes, she does have an unusual philosophical outlook (which she admits to). What she brings to the table is the thought that it may be time to quit treating the different scientific disciplines as separate.  Biologists can't continue to ignore General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. This concept is what drives Sir Rodger Penrose.  Combining General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics results in some interesting conclusions.  While many people don't like the implications, Penrose's OR quantum interpretation is testable and is being tested.  So far, it has never been falsified.  Penrose also provides verifiable equations, E=h/t may become the next E=mc^2.  Penrose is making a specific proposal for the timing of quantum superposition collapse. It is obvious that Penrose has convinced himself (and others) of the solidity of the basic OR quantum model long ago.  Once he considered it a given, Penrose started to look in its implications.  Its implications to the study of consciousness is potentially very profound.  However, like Joy, Penrose wasn’t as strong in biology as physics.  This resulted in Penrose teaming up with a scientist who has dedicated his professional life to the study of consciousness, Dr, Hameroff.  The Orch OR model of consciousness was introduced about 10 years ago. Joy claims to be a “professional fool”.  Sometimes listening to fools allows you to think outside artificial barriers of thinking (“outside the box”). P.S. for those interested here is the link to www.hameroff.com

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,11:26    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 23 2007,10:20) MikeGene's rabbit threads are available to open discussions. False.   Quote If someone wants to ask her something, there is a recent rabbit thread available that anyone can use. False again.   Quote from the peer reviewed paper  Orchestrated Objective Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: The "Orch OR" Model for Consciousness Tell me, TP, what is the factual basis for your confident assertion that this paper was peer-reviewed?

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,11:31    Quote (JAM @ Sep. 23 2007,12:26) Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 23 2007,10:20) MikeGene's rabbit threads are available to open discussions. False.   Quote If someone wants to ask her something, there is a recent rabbit thread available that anyone can use. False again.   Quote from the peer reviewed paper  Orchestrated Objective Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: The "Orch OR" Model for Consciousness Tell me, TP, what is the factual basis for your confident assertion that this paper was peer-reviewed? JAM, have you been censored at TT? If so, under what conditions?

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,11:33    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 23 2007,10:46) I agree, Joy's expertise appears to be more in understanding physics as opposed to biology. With the emphasis on "appears." Given her rank dishonesty about biological subjects, I suspect that she's just as dishonest and/or deluded about physics. Quote What she brings to the table is the thought that it may be time to quit treating the different scientific disciplines as separate.  Biologists can't continue to ignore General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Can you offer any evidence that would allow me to conclude that biologists do ignore these subjects? I certainly don't consider them separate. Quote This concept is what drives Sir Rodger Penrose. 1) How would you know what drives him? 2) If it doesn't drive him to test hypotheses, he's not very driven. Quote Combining General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics results in some interesting conclusions. Science is about testing hypotheses, not about generating interesting conclusions. Quote While many people don't like the implications, Penrose's OR quantum interpretation is testable and is being tested. Then point me to the data instead of his speculations. Quote Its implications to the study of consciousness is potentially very profound. Potentially, yes. Probably, not at all. Quote Joy claims to be a “professional fool”.  Sometimes listening to fools allows you to think outside artificial barriers of thinking (“outside the box”). Sometimes, but not this time.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,11:36    Quote (stevestory @ Sep. 23 2007,11:31) JAM, have you been censored at TT? If so, under what conditions? Severely. I've been banned three times, but TP keeps persisting in his fantasy that the folks at TT are tolerant. Primarily, I've been banned for pointing out obvious ways to test their hypotheses. Most recently, I was banned for arguing with Sal about malaria.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,11:54    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 23 2007,10:20) from the peer reviewed paper  Orchestrated Objective Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: The "Orch OR" Model for Consciousness TP, let me explain some of the silliness in this paper:     Quote Several types of studies suggest cytoskeletal involvement in cognition. What Penrose omits is the fact that the evidence supporting the involvement of the ACTIN cytoskeleton is an order of magnitude greater than the evidence supporting the involvement of the MICROTUBULE cytoskeleton. This alone trashes Penrose's credibility in my eyes.     Quote For example long term potentiation (LTP) is a form of synaptic plasticity that serves as a model for learning and memory in mammalian hippocampal cortex. LTP requires MAP-2, a dendrite-specific, MT-crosslinking MAP which is dephosphorylated as a result of synaptic membrane receptor activation (e.g. Halpain and Greengard, 1990). But what else does it require? Penrose doesn't say, and you aren't reading carefully enough to be skeptical.     Quote In cat visual cortex, MAP-2 is dephosphorylated when visual stimulation occurs (Aoki and Siekevitz, 1985). Is that a cause or an effect, TP? Is this provoking any thought in your head?     Quote Auditory Pavlovian conditioning elevates temporal cortex MAP-2 activity in rats (Woolf et al, 1994). Phosphorylation/ dephosphorylation of MAP-2 accounts for a large proportion of brain biochemical energy consumption (e.g. Theurkauf and Vallee, 1983) and is involved in functions which include strengthening specific networks, such as potentiating excitatory synaptic pathways in rat hippocampus (Montoro et al, 1993). This is trivial relative to the known roles of CaM kinase II, receptor phosphorylation, and receptor trafficking in LTP. Only the last of these (one of the things we study) is known to have any dependence on MTs, and the role of MTs and MAPs may still be constituitive. Quote The mechanism for regulating synaptic function appears related to rearrangement of MAP-2 connections on MTs (Bigot and Hunt, 1990; Friedrich, 1990) Think, TP. "Appears related...," is sufficiently convincing to someone who has the audacity to call himself "Thought Provoker"? I suggest that you read some LTP reviews from folks in the LTP field and look at the primary literature cited. Very little of it has to do with MTs or MAPs.

Alan Fox Posts: 1556 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,12:10    I see steve's been moonlighting.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,12:39    Hi JAM, You asked... Quote Tell me, TP, what is the factual basis for your confident assertion that this paper was peer-reviewed? I may be wrong about this.  But this was included in the acknowledgement... Quote Citations to "This Volume"refer to Toward a Science of Consciousness, (1996) S Hameroff, A Kaszniak, A Scott (eds), MIT Press, Cambridge. Also published in Mathematics and Computer Simulation 40:453-480, 1996 And the paper has been very much reviewed, and criticized, by the likes of Tegmark, Grush and Churchland. But like I said, I may be wrong.  Maybe MIT Press and Mathematics and Computer Simulation are less particular than I gave them credit for.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,12:48    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 23 2007,12:39) Hi JAM, You asked...   Quote Tell me, TP, what is the factual basis for your confident assertion that this paper was peer-reviewed? I may be wrong about this.  But this was included in the acknowledgement... Quote Citations to "This Volume"refer to Toward a Science of Consciousness, (1996) S Hameroff, A Kaszniak, A Scott (eds), MIT Press, Cambridge. Also published in Mathematics and Computer Simulation 40:453-480, 1996 So what? Neither of those suggest that the paper was peer-reviewed. Quote And the paper has been very much reviewed, and criticized, by the likes of Tegmark, Grush and Churchland. Oh, come on! That's not what "peer-reviewed" means, and you know it. "Peer-reviewed" means that it is reviewed by peers BEFORE publication, not after. Quote But like I said, I may be wrong. You probably are. My question is, why would you make such a claim without evidence? Quote Maybe MIT Press and Mathematics and Computer Simulation are less particular than I gave them credit for. That's just pathetic, TP. The point is that contributions to the secondary literature are rarely peer-reviewed, while those to the primary literature almost always are. I know that none of the reviews I have published were peer-reviewed.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,13:01    Hi JAM, You wrote... Quote Severely. I've been banned three times, but TP keeps persisting in his fantasy that the folks at TT are tolerant. Primarily, I've been banned for pointing out obvious ways to test their hypotheses. Most recently, I was banned for arguing with Sal about malaria. I remember something about you being banned because you tried to use an alias after being banned previously. Can you provide a link to the first time you were banned? I have seen some biased use of sending comments to the memory hole (some of mine have ended up there). I have only known of one person being banned, that was you.  Zachriel (an ID critic) pressed MikeGene pretty hard about why.  The answer was in reference to your subterfuge. I have seen some pretty vocal critics on Telic Thoughts that didn't get banned.  Nick Matzke makes regular appearances there.  I have dared MikeGene to simply ask me to leave when the going has gotten tough between us.  He has not done so. I am of the opinion that I would not stay where I am not welcome.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,13:55    Hi JAM, Thank you for the opportunity for me to expand my understanding of Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR. You wrote...   Quote What Penrose omits is the fact that the evidence supporting the involvement of the ACTIN cytoskeleton is an order of magnitude greater than the evidence supporting the involvement of the MICROTUBULE cytoskeleton. Dr. Hameroff provides an explanation for how the ACTIN in needed to support quantum isolation in microtubules. I would be very interested in seeing a hypothesis on how actin can be a SOURCE of consciousness. To the quote "In cat visual cortex, MAP-2 is dephosphorylated when visual stimulation occurs (Aoki and Siekevitz, 1985)." You responded with...   Quote Is that a cause or an effect, TP? Is this provoking any thought in your head? The time order of cause and effects gets very interesting when dealing with quantum mechanics.  Retrocausality is practically a given. Libet's observation of the readiness potential for conscious actions brings provides support in considering consciousness is a retrocausual superposition of quantum states. If you are not familiar with Libet, his experiments show a half a second time period of electrical brain activity prior to a conscious decision being made. Libet's experiments have caused a stir in the study of consciousness.  Playing professional tennis and hitting a fastball should be a physical impossibility.  One answer is that we are helpless observers watching our bodies perform while deluding ourselves with false memories. Another is that consciousness is a result of orchestrated quantum effects interconnected in both space and time. Dealing with time as just another dimension is a given in the study of General Relativity. The EPR paradox has demonstrated "spooky action at a distance" for seventy years in quantum experiment after experiment. Putting them together with the study of consciousness provides a lot of explanatory power for scientific observations like Libet's. As to direct experimental results...  I recently found this...   Quote “In recent times the interest for quantum models of brain activity has rapidly grown. The Penrose-Hameroff model assumes that microtubules inside neurons are responsible for quantum computation inside brain. Several experiments seem to indicate that EPR-like correlations are possible at the biological level. In the past year , a very intensive experimental work about this subject has been done at DiBit Labs in Milan, Italy by our research group. Our experimental set-up is made by two separated and completely shielded basins where two parts of a common human DNA neuronal culture are monitored by EEG. Our main experimental result is that, under stimulation of one culture by means of a 630 nm laser beam at 300 ms, the cross-correlation between the two cultures grows up at maximum levels. Despite at this level of understanding it is impossible to tell if the origin of this non-locality is a genuine quantum effect, our experimental data seem to strongly suggest that biological systems present non-local properties not explainable by classical models." (emphasis mine) Nonlocal correlations between separated neural networks BTW, the term "nonlocal" is a direct reference to "spooky action at a distance" of the EPR Paradox

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,14:23    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 23 2007,13:55) Hi JAM, Dr. Hameroff provides an explanation for how the ACTIN in needed to support quantum isolation in microtubules. Explanations aren't enough. Let's do real science, shall we?   Quote I would be very interested in seeing a hypothesis on how actin can be a SOURCE of consciousness. You won't get one from me, because it would still be silly, just less silly than hypothesizing that MTs are the source. Perhaps I'm not being clear. I'm trying to explain to you that attributing the emergent property of consciousness to something as distinct as MTs is laughable. Since the motile response of a single fibroblast to extracellular cues is an emergent property in which the roles of the actin and MT cytoskeletons are hopelessly intertwined, what reasonable person would assume that consciousness woud be so much simpler?   Quote The time order of cause and effects gets very interesting when dealing with quantum mechanics.  Retrocausality is practically a given. But dephosphorylation is not quantum mechanics, so you have no point. My point is that Penrose is pointing to things happening in the realm of MTs, while ignoring the much larger number of events that don't involve them. That's why the paper is a crock. You're trying to pretend that they are thinking on a less reductionist plane than I am, when the reality is that they are far more reductionist!   Quote Libet's observation of the readiness potential for conscious actions brings provides support in considering consciousness is a retrocausual superposition of quantum states. But none of that is relevant to an observation of dephosphorylation of a MAP.   Quote Putting them together with the study of consciousness provides a lot of explanatory power for scientific observations like Libet's. Reducing all these things to MTs is just laughable.   Quote As to direct experimental results...  I recently found this...       Quote “In recent times the interest for quantum models of brain activity has rapidly grown. The Penrose-Hameroff model assumes that microtubules inside neurons are responsible for quantum computation inside brain. Several experiments seem to indicate that EPR-like correlations are possible at the biological level. In the past year , a very intensive experimental work about this subject has been done at DiBit Labs in Milan, Italy by our research group. Our experimental set-up is made by two separated and completely shielded basins where two parts of a common human DNA neuronal culture are monitored by EEG. Our main experimental result is that, under stimulation of one culture by means of a 630 nm laser beam at 300 ms, the cross-correlation between the two cultures grows up at maximum levels. Despite at this level of understanding it is impossible to tell if the origin of this non-locality is a genuine quantum effect, our experimental data seem to strongly suggest that biological systems present non-local properties not explainable by classical models." The experiment has nothing at all to do with microtubules, TP. Therefore it doesn't even come close to testing a microtubule hypothesis.

creeky belly Posts: 205 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,14:35    Quote The EPR paradox has demonstrated "spooky action at a distance" for seventy years in quantum experiment after experiment. Putting them together with the study of consciousness provides a lot of explanatory power for scientific observations like Libet's. As to direct experimental results...  I recently found this...   Quote “In recent times the interest for quantum models of brain activity has rapidly grown. The Penrose-Hameroff model assumes that microtubules inside neurons are responsible for quantum computation inside brain. Several experiments seem to indicate that EPR-like correlations are possible at the biological level. In the past year , a very intensive experimental work about this subject has been done at DiBit Labs in Milan, Italy by our research group. Our experimental set-up is made by two separated and completely shielded basins where two parts of a common human DNA neuronal culture are monitored by EEG. Our main experimental result is that, under stimulation of one culture by means of a 630 nm laser beam at 300 ms, the cross-correlation between the two cultures grows up at maximum levels. Despite at this level of understanding it is impossible to tell if the origin of this non-locality is a genuine quantum effect, our experimental data seem to strongly suggest that biological systems present non-local properties not explainable by classical models." (emphasis mine) Nonlocal correlations between separated neural networks BTW, the term "nonlocal" is a direct reference to "spooky action at a distance" of the EPR Paradox So the result of the experiment was to couple two macroscopic neural cultures, and then see how strongly coupled the state was? How did they deal with decoherence? Unless you're dealing with superconductors, optical qubits, ion traps, or cavity QED, there's no way to keep the quantum state from reverting to a classical state (300 ms is way too long). I think you could make a strong case that this is probably not a quantum effect they're observing.

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,15:31    Quote (stevestory @ Sep. 23 2007,11:31)   Quote (JAM @ Sep. 23 2007,12:26)     Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 23 2007,10:20) MikeGene's rabbit threads are available to open discussions. False. Quote If someone wants to ask her something, there is a recent rabbit thread available that anyone can use. False again. Quote from the peer reviewed paper  Orchestrated Objective Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: The "Orch OR" Model for Consciousness Tell me, TP, what is the factual basis for your confident assertion that this paper was peer-reviewed? JAM, have you been censored at TT? If so, under what conditions? I attempted to find out the reasons why as I had never seen any behavior deserving expulsion. So I tried the direct approach in a Rabbit Thread. Quote Zachriel: So what happened to JAM? MikeGene: The contributors voted to ban ‘JAM’ for misbehavior with multiple members well over a year ago. Since then, the person has re-entered TT with new screen names, where ‘JAM’ was simply the fifth. Zachriel: You have every right to control your own forum. However, I have never seen any post by JAM that could be construed as "misbehavior". Knowing that he was the same commenter, you nevertheless allowed him to post for quite some time under the nick "JAM", so what prompted the current banning? What other names did he post under? Bradford: The individual we're discussing has resurrected himself under different identities. The initial misbehavoir took place quite some time ago under a different moniker. I am not going into identity details but to answer your question about "allowing," it was not immediately clear what was occuring. Zachriel: That's understandable. Perhaps someone else can explain (on this open thread) why JAM has been accused of "misbehavior". Bradford: Just to be clear. The reason "JAM" was banned centers on deception, namely, making an end run around a process through an identity change. There are other reasons why the individual was initially banned. Zachriel: What reasons? Under what name? As I said, I have seen nothing that can be construed as "misbehavior" by JAM. But I haven't read all of his posts, either. The accusation has been made, and I would like to know the basis of that accusation. As JAM apparently has some knowledge of genetics, I would think his contribution to these discussions would be informative. MikeGene: The misbehavior occurred under the first screen name (and frankly, I don’t recall the details as these things are not important in my life). But this is all irrelevant now and won’t be pursued. Zachriel: That's your choice. I just thought I would ask. I never did find out why. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,15:34    Quote (Zachriel @ Sep. 23 2007,15:31) I never did find out why. For pointing to data and offering ways to test hypotheses.

Art Posts: 69 Joined: Dec. 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,17:09    Telic Thoughts is as averse to facts and exposés that reveal their inconsistencies as any other creationist or ID forum.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,17:15    I'd say it's slightly better than other ID sites. I've put up maybe 10 comments and they've all gone through. Uncommon Descent would have banned me for that, and at FtK's site she would have deleted them all.

Joy Posts: 188 Joined: Sep. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,17:17    Now, I ask you... Why in the world would I be disposed to take a new commenter to our blog at face value with this public sideshow going on? [Oy!] ...and you call US "idiots." JAM was banned from TT for bad behavior once over a year ago, and every time since then for deception. As soon as we had confirmation that a new pseud was him, he was locked back out. What his discussion as the new pseud was to that point on any thread is completely irrelevant - we do not allow banned pseuds to come back as different pseuds. If/when a commenter's behavior becomes frequently disruptive, off-topic or obsessive to the point of creepy, they're outta there. Among the few who have been banned from TT are both critics and ID supporters. You yourselves apparently banned someone [pseud: "Supersport"] just yesterday for being a troublemaker. If "Supersport" signs in with three or four new pseuds (and you catch him via his computer address info) in the next couple of months, would you count those in your total of "people" banned, or count him and all his pseuds as a single ban? Point being that one person's personality clash with a commenter isn't enough to get someone banned at TT, and one person's forgiveness doesn't get a banned commenter back into the fold once he's gone. This is completely reasonable. Whether it seems reasonable or not to posters here seeking new and better 'creationists' to play with is not a consideration. Good luck with your recruiting efforts. You'll need it.

Albatrossity2 Posts: 2780 Joined: Mar. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,17:30    Quote (Joy @ Sep. 23 2007,17:17) Now, I ask you... Why in the world would I be disposed to take a new commenter to our blog at face value with this public sideshow going on? [Oy!] ...and you call US "idiots." JAM was banned from TT for bad behavior once over a year ago, and every time since then for deception. As soon as we had confirmation that a new pseud was him, he was locked back out. What his discussion as the new pseud was to that point on any thread is completely irrelevant - we do not allow banned pseuds to come back as different pseuds. If/when a commenter's behavior becomes frequently disruptive, off-topic or obsessive to the point of creepy, they're outta there. Among the few who have been banned from TT are both critics and ID supporters. You yourselves apparently banned someone [pseud: "Supersport"] just yesterday for being a troublemaker. If "Supersport" signs in with three or four new pseuds (and you catch him via his computer address info) in the next couple of months, would you count those in your total of "people" banned, or count him and all his pseuds as a single ban? Point being that one person's personality clash with a commenter isn't enough to get someone banned at TT, and one person's forgiveness doesn't get a banned commenter back into the fold once he's gone. This is completely reasonable. Whether it seems reasonable or not to posters here seeking new and better 'creationists' to play with is not a consideration. Good luck with your recruiting efforts. You'll need it. "Bad behavior" is pretty generic. "Personality clash" is also pretty vague. Do you have any actual examples of "bad behavior" on the part of JAM? As for the difficulties in recruiting "new and better "creationists" here, it is admittedly very difficult. But maybe that is because creationists these days are neither new nor better... -------------- Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.                         - Pattiann Rogers

keiths Posts: 2195 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,17:45    Alan Fox wrote:     Quote I recall Joy posting some interesting stuff about sustainability, (couldn't find it just now, sorry) so she ain't all bad. Nobody's all bad.  I've even found myself in agreement with DaveScot on occasion. *shudders* Thought Provoker wrote:     Quote Joy is quite capable to defending herself.  MikeGene's rabbit threads are available to open discussions.  If someone wants to ask her something, there is a recent rabbit thread available that anyone can use. I did challenge Joy, directly.  We had a long exchange, during which she (like you) was unable to come up with any evidence for superconductivity in living organisms, much less humans.  Eventually she banished a comment of mine to the Memory Hole for merely quoting her. TP:   Quote Meanwhile, I thank you for the opportunity for me to point out the use of quantum mechanics in life. It appears photosynthesis involves quantum superposition to achieve super conductivity. Where did you get that idea?  The Berkeley research you cite doesn't involve superconductivity at all.  Nor does the Orch OR hypothesis.  Are you confusing superposition with superconductivity? Look, TP, I know that you really, really want Joy to be right, but your desire is clouding your judgment. There is simply no evidence that superconductivity occurs in the human body, nor that life depends on it.  Joy is simply wrong. -------------- And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G Please stop putting words into my mouth that don't belong there and thoughts into my mind that don't belong there. -- KF

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,18:33    Quote (Joy @ Sep. 23 2007,17:17) JAM was banned from TT for bad behavior once over a year ago, and every time since then for deception. Could you point to his original banning? Addendum: It seems to have happened sometime after late October 2006. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,19:30    From this: Quote Joy: FYI, Smokey [a.k.a. JAM] was originally banned (if I recall correctly) for being your basic disruptive, insulting juvenile delinquent who constantly derailed topics and couldn't play nice. I found this: Quote Krauze: Smokey, I don't have time for your snearing attitude and your attempts to paint everything I write in the worst possible way. So consider yourself banned from this thread. That's not a complete ban, only from the thread. And I can't find "your basic disruptive, insulting juvenile delinquent who constantly derailed topics and couldn't play nice". -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

silverspoon Posts: 123 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,21:44    Hi Joy. Maybe you’d be kind enough to expand on the topic you started here. http://telicthoughts.com/tmi-29-years-later-lies-and-damned-lies/ I’m especially interested in several of your comments; like this one: Quote The steam being released from TMI-2's cooling tower in the hours, days and weeks following the accident was contaminated with primary coolant water and the lode of radioactive material released from failed fuel and melting core, to the tune of millions of curies of everything from noble gases to heavy metals. The natural draft cooling towers at TMI, and elsewhere including fossil plants, consist of condensate water. Condensate water is several systems removed from primary coolant water. For the condensate system to become contaminated first there would need to be tube ruptures in the generators, then tube ruptures in the condenser. Neither was documented at TMI. Even if TMI had experienced a steam generator tube rupture the primary water wouldn’t have entered the condensate system. What I see you doing here is perpetrating the misconception that the TV and print media fostered at that time, and since. Almost every time there’s a nuclear incident they show a cooling tower. If you really are an ex HP tech then you know better. And this from you: Quote I've seen a full-grown male human being get sucked through a 12-inch hatch that blew once in the airlock into containment, breaking every bone in his body and hurling him more than 50 feet through the air on the other side. The emergency escape hatch at Surry is 18” in diameter. Please stop an think about this. An escape opening nowhere near large enough for someone to egress containment if the main door fails? Preposterous! I’ll take you saying you’ve seen this happen to mean that you were onsite, but did not personally witness the event. For that to happen you’d have to be looking through the outer hatches sight glass. That’s highly unlikely for someone who issued and read dosimetery. George came out of that accident with five or six broken bones, and a number of internal injuries. He’s doing well, and should retire within a few years. The next time I talk with him I’ll let him know he needs to check out all those other bones that were broken. Maybe he can sue the radiologists for malpractice. And this: Quote Stillbirths rose 280% that year. Deformities of human and animal babies that were born were horrific. The incidents of miscarriages and stillbirths after the TMI accident was studied. It didn’t show what you have said. What it did show is a very slight increase of about 1% after the meltdown. The surrounding area had a spike in miscarriages a few months prior to the accident, up to very shortly after. I’m can’t remember what this was attributed to, but it certainly wasn’t the accident. It may very well have been a 280 % increase, but most came before the accident that year.   All in all, your exaggerations, and lack of knowledge of basic nuclear plant systems leaves me somewhat skeptical of your honesty and sanity. -------------- Grand Poobah of the nuclear mafia

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,21:45    Hi creeky belly, You wrote... Quote Unless you're dealing with superconductors, optical qubits, ion traps, or cavity QED, there's no way to keep the quantum state from reverting to a classical state (300 ms is way too long). I think you could make a strong case that this is probably not a quantum effect they're observing. I am going to guess what you mean by "way too long".  Max Tegmark suggested the brain so wet, warm and noisy that it would force an almost immediate decoherence. Penrose offers E=h/t as the equation for determining timing of decoherence where E is gravitational energy, h (h bar) is Planck’s constant over 2 pi and t is time.  The more mass that is involved the shorter the Objective Reduction (OR) because when E is large, t is small.  The tubulin dimers in microtubules are small enough that they can avoid decoherence for a long time as long as they remain isolated from large mass. Here is a paper from Hameroff discussing the timing of consciousness.  It includes discussions on Libet, cutaneous rabbit and the “color phi” phenomenon.  These scientific observations support the idea that consciousness transcends time on the order of 100s of milliseconds.  Hameroff describes how and why the quantum effects in neural microtubules organized in dendritic structures for processing could and would account for these observations. You have mentioned multiple artificial ways for quantum effects to last 100s of milliseconds.  Is it so hard to consider that billions of years of evolution could do the same thing naturally?

Art Posts: 69 Joined: Dec. 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,22:12    Quote (silverspoon @ Sep. 23 2007,21:44) ....All in all, your exaggerations, and lack of knowledge of basic nuclear plant systems leaves me somewhat skeptical of your honesty and sanity. Seriously, now.  Long-time ARN and TT participants understand that joy's ramblings are pretty far detached from reality.  But there's no reason to question her honesty - she really believes the stories she tells. joy's, um, creative fiction gives TT much of its distinctive flavor.  Who's to argue with the wishes of the TT crew, and the face they choose to put forth to the world?  Read and enjoy, and remember who is doing the writing.

k.e Posts: 1948 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,22:18    Hi TT Quote consciousness transcends time on the order of 100s of milliseconds. You do realize that *time itself is not quantifyable and may not exist in fact. That is to say time as a physical element and that your statement is as meaningless as the Behe pseudo quantity 'irreducable complexity'? (Edit for clarity) *The present moment as a boundary point between future and past moving through linear unitless history as perceived by conciousness. Are you sure you are not talking about history or perish the thought ....the future? It seems to me you are conflating an emotional concept i.e. how you feel about time with your personal perception of time. You might as well say consciousness transcends digestion, which of course is a necessity, do I need to expand on that? Who was it that said "I think therefore I tick" ? Say that with an Irish accent TT. Hitching your metaphysical wagon to Pennock .....*yawn* ....he's almost as prolix as Dembski just better at dodging raindrops ....for my taste anyway. -------------- The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,22:19    Quote (Zachriel @ Sep. 23 2007,18:33) Quote (Joy @ Sep. 23 2007,17:17) JAM was banned from TT for bad behavior once over a year ago, and every time since then for deception. Could you point to his original banning? One would think that if I had been banned for bad behavior, the simplest way to demonstrate it would be to point the reader to my comment(s) that represented this behavior.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,23:16    Hi K.E. Thanks for your comment.  You wrote...   Quote You do realize that *time itself is not quantifyable and may not exist in fact. That is to say time as a physical element and that your statement is as meaningless as the Behe pseudo quantity 'irreducable complexity'? I understand time to be just another dimension like the three spatial ones.  This is the lesson from General Relativity.  Each point in Minkowskian Geometry (Minkowski was one of Einstein's teachers) consists of four complex coordinates. Things get interesting in Minkowskian Geometry.  For example, the shortest distance between two points isn't a straight line.  This is what happens in the Twins Paradox, it becomes a geometry problem.  The space traveling twin takes a shortcut. All of this might be just an interesting mathematical exercise except for the scientific verification.  Flying planes East and West around the Earth shows General Relativity (i.e. Minkowskian Geometry) is reality.  Special Relativity was incomplete.  The universe has an inertial frame of reference with time just being one of the four dimensions. The EPR paradox (which has become a given quantum property) demonstrates interconnected effects over space/time.  When merged with General Relativity, the effects cross both space and time. If time is a “qseudo quantity” then so is length.  You may not want to know my opinion on the alleged existence of “particles”. Bringing all the sciences to bear to the fundamental question of consciousness suggest explanations that we otherwise wouldn’t consider.  For example, interconnected effects across time and space.

k.e Posts: 1948 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 23 2007,23:29    Quote ... For example, interconnected effects across time and space. Of course...I was wondering when you were going to get to that, you saved me a lot of time. Now all you have to do ..... is produce the evidence. ...oh wait ,you aren't suggesting a cosmic quantum pantograph wrote the good book ....are you? No? Those ancient scribes were dreaming....right? -------------- The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

creeky belly Posts: 205 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,00:28    Quote Penrose offers E=h/t as the equation for determining timing of decoherence where E is gravitational energy, h (h bar) is Planck’s constant over 2 pi and t is time.  The more mass that is involved the shorter the Objective Reduction (OR) because when E is large, t is small.  The tubulin dimers in microtubules are small enough that they can avoid decoherence for a long time as long as they remain isolated from large mass. This is absurd, they would most certain couple strongly with the EM force, it would be way more dominant. If you're talking about any type of molecule, it's their electric orbitals which count. And it's waaaaay stronger than gravity. Even the microtubules would be subject to it's coupling effects. Quote You have mentioned multiple artificial ways for quantum effects to last 100s of milliseconds.  Is it so hard to consider that billions of years of evolution could do the same thing naturally? Pretty much all of them do not last for 100ms, most couple to the environment after anywhere from few pico/femto seconds to a micro second. In addition, all of them require great care in keeping them from coupling when they shouldn't and safety from decoherence. How are the atoms coupled specifically to send information? You don't just get spooky action at a distance, you need a specific interaction to generate it.

Richardthughes Posts: 11178 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,01:07    Quote (creeky belly @ Sep. 24 2007,00:28) And it's waaaaay stronger than gravity. HOMO -------------- "Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield "You magnificent bastard! " : Louis "ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard "I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932 "...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,06:20    Quote (JAM @ Sep. 23 2007,22:19) Quote (Zachriel @ Sep. 23 2007,18:33) Quote (Joy @ Sep. 23 2007,17:17) JAM was banned from TT for bad behavior once over a year ago, and every time since then for deception. Could you point to his original banning? One would think that if I had been banned for bad behavior, the simplest way to demonstrate it would be to point the reader to my comment(s) that represented this behavior. One would think. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,07:22    Hi K.E, You asked...   Quote ...oh wait ,you aren't suggesting a cosmic quantum pantograph wrote the good book ....are you? No? Those ancient scribes were dreaming....right? Did I fail to mention that most people would consider me an Atheist in the same way Dawkins is an Atheist.  Technically I am agnostic towards God, fairies and orbiting tea pots.  These things might exist but I doubt there is empirical evidence any of them. Where Dawkins and I are different is that I embrace Gould's NOMA.  I consider philosophical questions distinct and separate from scientific ones.  Philosophy is about searching for Truth (capital "T").  Science is about determining useful knowledge. I believe the Oracle of Delphi was both accurate and prophetic with the proclamation that no one is wiser than Socrates. I don't know the Truth, do you? While the search for Truth is important, I generally find it more enjoyable, and fruitful, to discuss science.  At Telic Thoughts, I have a habit of suggesting... Let's do Science!   See my response to creeky belly for that.

k.e Posts: 1948 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,07:41    Quote At Telic Thoughts, I have a habit of suggesting... Let's do Science!   Well ....what a suggestion! Does that method at that place seem slightly oxymoronic to you? As far as teh TRVTH© is concerned .....I always reach for my dictionary. http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/ TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time. As I get older I become more suspcious of language and its uses. Anyway good luck. -------------- The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

slpage Posts: 349 Joined: June 2004 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,08:00    Quote (JAM @ Sep. 23 2007,10:23) It's simply an observation. Joy routinely makes false claims to support her positions, and when her claims have been shown to be false, claims her positions to be supported anyway.... She is not knowledgable at all in the field of biology, TP. Joy is exceptionally paranoid and self-important, and I agree with JAM - not very knowledgible in biology.

slpage Posts: 349 Joined: June 2004 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,08:13    Quote (Joy @ Sep. 23 2007,17:17) Good luck with your recruiting efforts. You'll need it. Yeah...  I wonder - how many new people post at TT? I've not wasted my time there in some time, but when last I visited, I recall seeing the same few names starting threads and making comments. Must be all those folks that are signing on to ID are doig it elsewhere.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,11:03    Hi creeky belly, You wrote...     Quote This is absurd, they would most certain couple strongly with the EM force, it would be way more dominant. If you're talking about any type of molecule, it's their electric orbitals which count. And it's waaaaay stronger than gravity. Even the microtubules would be subject to it's coupling effects. Have you heard of Bucky Balls?  These are miniature soccer balls made up of 60 carbon atoms.  They demonstrate EPR-like effects.  The basic question is, why do Bucky Balls behave differently than normal soccer balls?  Penrose offers it is due to their mass. By the way, Penrose and Stephen Hawking had a famous debate over this issue in 1994.  While Hawking didn't agree with Penrose, he didn't suggest Penrose's idea was "absurd".  I would be curious as to what Hawking thinks about it today in light of advances in maintaining superposition longer and with larger massed objects. The Schrödinger's cat paradox refuses to go away by itself.   Penrose's OR quantum interpretation explains it. Penrose has suggested an experiment named FELIX to test his hypothesis with a tiny mirror.  The mirror is would have just the right mass to be in superposition for the forward going light beam but not for the return.   Quote Pretty much all of them do not last for 100ms, most couple to the environment after anywhere from few pico/femto seconds to a micro second. In addition, all of them require great care in keeping them from coupling when they shouldn't and safety from decoherence. How are the atoms coupled specifically to send information? You don't just get spooky action at a distance, you need a specific interaction to generate it. You are correct that currently it doesn’t appear we are capable of developing long term quantum memory, yet (we are working on it).  However, we do know the photons can avoid decoherence for years.  I don’t know if any scientific observation like this has been done for cosmic particles other than photons.  Do you know of any?  I will look for them. Penrose argues against Strong AI.  That is, Penrose argues the human mind can’t be a consistent formal algorithm.  And pseudorandom generators don’t help (they are algorithms).  Here is Planet Math's analysis of it.  Penrose argues that Quantum effects are non-algorithmic and non-random.  Ergo, it is extremely likely the human mind (consciousness) depends on quantum effects. Whether or not Artificial Intelligence could have been accomplished without quantum effects has probably become a moot point since AI researchers are now designing quantum computers into their systems.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,11:04    Quote (Art @ Sep. 23 2007,22:12) But there's no reason to question her honesty - she really believes the stories she tells. Art, 1) The hypothesis that she really believes that I was banned for "bad behavior" predicts that she will point to evidence of the behavior that she judged to be bad. We may not agree with her conclusion, but she shouldn't be reticent. 2) The hypothesis that she doesn't really believe that I was banned for "bad behavior" predicts that she won't point to any evidence, and continue to make vague accusations.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,11:13    Hi JAM, I suggest the burdon of proof in this situation is yours. Joy and MikeGene aren't any more capable of finding the comment(s) that caused the problem than you are. You indicated that you were banned three times.  MikeGene and Joy have offered explaination as to why they automatically enforced the ban on your two aliases. If you want to continue to try and make a case, then it is up to you to make it.  I already asked you once to provide a link to the first instance so I could judge for myself.  You have yet to do that.

k.e Posts: 1948 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,11:15    Quote Ergo, it is extremely likely the human mind (consciousness) depends on quantum effects. Why limit your 'Ergo' just to one mannic mathematicians meanderings. I suggest you top it off with String Theory. -------------- The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

Albatrossity2 Posts: 2780 Joined: Mar. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,11:18    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,11:13) Hi JAM, I suggest the burdon of proof in this situation is yours. Guilty until proven innocent, eh? I think not. If JAM doesn't think that he misbehaved, how can he find the evidence that others feel is proof of this misbehavior? It makes a lot more sense for the accusers to provide the evidence, since they are the ones who judged JAM to be unworthy of posting at their blog. They made the charge; they need to back it up with proof. And, in my view, the longer they go on giving excuses for not doing that, the weaker their case gets. -------------- Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.                         - Pattiann Rogers

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,12:15    Hi Albatrossity2 and K.E., One of the things I have noticed in blogs is the tendency to engage in "Shield Bashing".  This is generally done by trying to frame the debate where the other side is expected to prove their point thus allowing the shield basher to alternate between laughing at their pathetic attempts and/or be indignant over arrogance of the presumptions. I have been banned from Uncommon Descent and Scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy.  I don't think my behavior warrented being banned in either case.  I can (and have) presented the comment that got me banned from UD with minor effort. I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so.  Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise. The "innocent until proven guilty" works both ways.  Telic Thoughts should be considered innocent until proven guilty. The case needs to be made by TT's accuser, JAM. Unless, of course, you just want to believe what you want to believe anyway.

mitschlag Posts: 236 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,12:43    Wouldn't the simplest and fairest thing be to reinstate JAM?  Then, if he "misbehaves" again, ban him again. It's easy. -------------- "You can establish any “rule” you like if you start with the rule and then interpret the evidence accordingly." - George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984)

creeky belly Posts: 205 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,12:44    Quote Have you heard of Bucky Balls?  These are miniature soccer balls made up of 60 carbon atoms.  They demonstrate EPR-like effects.  The basic question is, why do Bucky Balls behave differently than normal soccer balls?  Penrose offers it is due to their mass. By the way, Penrose and Stephen Hawking had a famous debate over this issue in 1994.  While Hawking didn't agree with Penrose, he didn't suggest Penrose's idea was "absurd".  I would be curious as to what Hawking thinks about it today in light of advances in maintaining superposition longer and with larger massed objects. The Schrödinger's cat paradox refuses to go away by itself.   Penrose's OR quantum interpretation explains it. Penrose has suggested an experiment named FELIX to test his hypothesis with a tiny mirror.  The mirror is would have just the right mass to be in superposition for the forward going light beam but not for the return. Buckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). That's essentially the best way for determining whether something will exhibit quantum effects. In addition, nuclear spin quantum computers have made use of a rather large molecule (like the one that figured out that 15 factors into 3 and 5), however, there's big difference between 1 molecule of a substance and 1 mol. I'm not here to debate with you the primary tenets of quantum mechanics; I know things like Schroedinger's cat are physical implications for the wave-like behavior of light and particles. (An aside: "Dead" is not a quantum state, it's a macroscopic description of the animal, what we're really asking is: which detector fired? That requires collapsing the wave function in order to fire the gun, release the poison, whatever.) What I called "absurd" was ignoring the effects of the EM potentials and interactions, when they are much more dominant than gravity. You can't just handwave it away and say it will be fine, especially when the quantum computer is immersed in a electric dipole fluid along with one of the strongest ferromagnetic substances. That's absurd. All of this makes it less feasible that our brain can properly transport quantum information.       Quote You are correct that currently it doesn’t appear we are capable of developing long term quantum memory, yet (we are working on it).  However, we do know the photons can avoid decoherence for years.  I don’t know if any scientific observation like this has been done for cosmic particles other than photons.  Do you know of any?  I will look for them. Penrose argues against Strong AI.  That is, Penrose argues the human mind can’t be a consistent formal algorithm.  And pseudorandom generators don’t help (they are algorithms).  Here is Planet Math's analysis of it.  Penrose argues that Quantum effects are non-algorithmic and non-random.  Ergo, it is extremely likely the human mind (consciousness) depends on quantum effects. Whether or not Artificial Intelligence could have been accomplished without quantum effects has probably become a moot point since AI researchers are now designing quantum computers into their systems. Photon states work differently than electrons, they're based on the polarization rather than the spin state. We typically refer to them as flying qubits, and in fact some basic quantum cryptography systems (random number generators, AEC transmission lines) have already been created (google Magiq). Unfortunately, as you know, lower energy photons (like the kinds that would be safe to transmit through the body) are absorbed and scattered easily by electrons. They wouldn't make very good transmitters in our bodies.

Nerull Posts: 317 Joined: June 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,12:46    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,12:15) Hi Albatrossity2 and K.E., One of the things I have noticed in blogs is the tendency to engage in "Shield Bashing".  This is generally done by trying to frame the debate where the other side is expected to prove their point thus allowing the shield basher to alternate between laughing at their pathetic attempts and/or be indignant over arrogance of the presumptions. I have been banned from Uncommon Descent and Scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy.  I don't think my behavior warrented being banned in either case.  I can (and have) presented the comment that got me banned from UD with minor effort. I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so.  Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise. The "innocent until proven guilty" works both ways.  Telic Thoughts should be considered innocent until proven guilty. The case needs to be made by TT's accuser, JAM. Unless, of course, you just want to believe what you want to believe anyway. Erm, I'm not understanding this at all. When someone receives a punishment, when does it become their burden to prove they don't deserve it? Thats not generally how things work, anywhere. Well, anywhere you'd want to emulate, at least. -------------- To rebut creationism you pretty much have to be a biologist, chemist, geologist, philosopher, lawyer and historian all rolled into one. While to advocate creationism, you just have to be an idiot. -- tommorris

Jim_Wynne Posts: 1208 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,13:00    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,12:15) Hi Albatrossity2 and K.E., One of the things I have noticed in blogs is the tendency to engage in "Shield Bashing".  This is generally done by trying to frame the debate where the other side is expected to prove their point thus allowing the shield basher to alternate between laughing at their pathetic attempts and/or be indignant over arrogance of the presumptions. I have been banned from Uncommon Descent and Scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy.  I don't think my behavior warrented being banned in either case.  I can (and have) presented the comment that got me banned from UD with minor effort. I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so.  Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise. The "innocent until proven guilty" works both ways.  Telic Thoughts should be considered innocent until proven guilty. The case needs to be made by TT's accuser, JAM. Unless, of course, you just want to believe what you want to believe anyway. I think TP should be banned from ATBC. If he wants to know why he's been banned, just say "bad behavior" and let him prove that he didn't engage in any. Note that I will personally define what constitutes bad behavior, perhaps next week, but I won't tell TP what my criteria are. ATBC will be presumed correct until TP proves otherwise. Sounds fair, no? -------------- Evolution is not about laws but about randomness on happanchance.--Robert Byers, at PT

Albatrossity2 Posts: 2780 Joined: Mar. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,13:02    [Interesting perspective, TP. But I don't think that this is "shield bashing", as you describe it. This is a simple lack of evidence, rather than any attempt to frame anything. I'll try to be a little clearer. JAM maintains that he got banned for posting comments that included arguing for cogent hypotheses and testing of those hypotheses. TT admins maintain that he got banned because of despicable behaviors. Unless arguing for testable hypotheses is despicable, one of those is wrong. JAM could undoubtedly link to a message where he said what he says he said. That would be pointless. It would then become incumbent on the TT admins to point out the messages that they were concerned about. Which is what I, and others, are asking them to do now. Why not bypass the intermediate step? As for this statement     Quote Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise. No. The burden of proof rests with the accuser (you). As it does in this case. Show the evidence, and let the jury make up their minds. You seem to be arguing for a situation where the persons making the accusation (TT admins) don't have to prove it. I won't even speculate why you would do that.  While we wait for the TT folks to step up to the plate (or not), maybe you can expound on that interesting behavior. -------------- Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.                         - Pattiann Rogers

Bob O'H Posts: 2564 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,13:05    Quote Buckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). Hey, that's given me a great idea for a film, intended to get more girls interested in physics:   Bend it Like deBroglie No? -------------- It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,13:14    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,11:13) Hi JAM, I suggest the burdon of proof in this situation is yours. I disagree. Quote Joy and MikeGene aren't any more capable of finding the comment(s) that caused the problem than you are. Why not? Quote You indicated that you were banned three times.  MikeGene and Joy have offered explaination as to why they automatically enforced the ban on your two aliases. But the ban wasn't enforced automatically, and their justification is entirely dependent on there being valid reasons for the first banning. Quote If you want to continue to try and make a case, then it is up to you to make it.  I already asked you once to provide a link to the first instance so I could judge for myself.  You have yet to do that. I have no idea when or what that first instance was, TP, except that it occurred before I was banned. Can we agree that TT is not nearly as tolerant as you have repeatedly claimed them to be? And what about microtubules? Are you grasping the absurdity of the extent of Penrose's reductionism? How can consciousness be reduced to microtubules, if a fibroblast's "decision" about which way to turn resists such reduction? Why microtubules and not the actin cytoskeleton? Do you realize how ridiculous a mention of "cytoskeletal microtubules" appears to anyone with the most rudimentary education in cell biology? Can you name an instance of non-cytoskeletal microtubules?

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,13:32    Quote (creeky belly @ Sep. 24 2007,12:44) Buckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). Proportional, or inversely proportional? (And perhaps to mass rather than size?) Henry

creeky belly Posts: 205 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,14:05    Quote Proportional, or inversely proportional? (And perhaps to mass rather than size?) Henry Sorry, I should have clarified. I said proportional when I meant comparable, and by size I meant volume. Essentially a 1000 kg car (average dimensions of 2m on a side) at 10 m/s has a wavelength of about 1e-37 m, or 1e-28 nm. An proton (1e-4 nm radius) moving at the same velocity has a wavelength of about 600 nm. That's not to say you can't see quantum effects through macroscopic objects (take NMR and spin-spin times), but it's a pretty good indicator of what basic objects are prone to quantum effects.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,14:16    Hi JAM, I will deal with the politics first and then with the science in another comment. You wrote... Quote I have no idea when or what that first instance was, TP, except that it occurred before I was banned. Can we agree that TT is not nearly as tolerant as you have repeatedly claimed them to be? Actually, I have loudly questioned MikeGene about whether or not Telic Thoughts lives up to its About Us declaration multiple times.  I have even pointed out the biased treatment of the Smokey verses Bradford discussions.  I felt you two were opposite sides of the same coin. MikeGene estimates Telic Thoughts has banned a total of 10 people (7 ID critics and 3 ID supporters) in the 2.5 years of its existence.  You (with your three aliases) were apparently one of them. Telic Thoughts is a pro-ID blog.  In case it has escaped everyone's notice, I seem to be the only one who seems to care whether or not people from After the Bar Closes choose to participate in discussions at Telic Thoughts. Jam, it is obvious that you have a biased opinion of Telic Thoughts.  Based on your actions here, I would have to agree it would not be in Telic Thoughts best interest to reinstate your privileges. If you actually wanted to come back, you missed an opportunity.  It would have been relatively easy to convince me that you were unfairly treated if you tried.  Had you done that, I would have tried to make the case that Telic Thoughts could use more balanced discussions. Besides, I liked "Smokey".  I might have had a chance, but now, with the way you chose to approach this, I don't see how it would be remotely possible. As it is, it looks like the shield bashing games will continue.  After the Bar Closes will be smug in their presumption that ID proponents are arrogant and unreasonable.  Meanwhile, Telic Thoughts will be smug in their presumption that ID critics are arrogant and unreasonable. Everyone can continue to be comfortable with their stereotypes reconfirmed. Oh well, I tried.

Albatrossity2 Posts: 2780 Joined: Mar. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,14:20    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,14:16) As it is, it looks like the shield bashing games will continue.  After the Bar Closes will be smug in their presumption that ID proponents are arrogant and unreasonable.  Meanwhile, Telic Thoughts will be smug in their presumption that ID critics are arrogant and unreasonable. Everyone can continue to be comfortable with their stereotypes confirmed. Oh well, I tried. Self-fulfilling prophecy. If you act arrogant ("I don't need to back up that accusation!"), and then get deemed arrogant, whose fault is it, anyway? And actually, we weren't asking you to try. Speaking for myself only, I am pretty sure that I was asking the TT admins to back up an assertion. I don't think you are arrogant, but I gotta admit I wonder why you would stick up for some folks who do seem to be... -------------- Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.                         - Pattiann Rogers

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,14:31    Hi Albatrossity2, You wrote...   Quote Self-fulfilling prophecy. If you act arrogant ("I don't need to back up that accusation!"), and then get deemed arrogant, whose fault is it, anyway? It is a double-edged sword.  Jam is accusing TT of being intolerant without backing up his accusation.  You are DEMANDING an explanation. Which side is arrogant?   Quote And actually, we weren't asking you to try. Speaking for myself only, I am pretty sure that I was asking the TT admins to back up an assertion. I don't think you are arrogant, but I gotta admit I wonder why you would stick up for some folks who do seem to be... Most people consider me arrogant (so do I). To me, this isn't about taking sides.  It is about provoking thought.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,15:15    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,14:16) Hi JAM, I will deal with the politics first and then with the science in another comment. You wrote...     Quote I have no idea when or what that first instance was, TP, except that it occurred before I was banned. Can we agree that TT is not nearly as tolerant as you have repeatedly claimed them to be? Actually, I have loudly questioned MikeGene about whether or not Telic Thoughts lives up to its About Us declaration multiple times. Yes, but elsewhere, you have touted TT as tolerant.   Quote I have even pointed out the biased treatment of the Smokey verses Bradford discussions.  I felt you two were opposite sides of the same coin. What sort of coin?   Quote Jam, it is obvious that you have a biased opinion of Telic Thoughts.  Based on your actions here, I would have to agree it would not be in Telic Thoughts best interest to reinstate your privileges. So what? That seems obvious, since they seem to be far more interested in shield-bashing than in discussing science.   Quote If you actually wanted to come back, you missed an opportunity. What makes you think I wanted to come back?   Quote It would have been relatively easy to convince me that you were unfairly treated if you tried. What makes you think that I was trying to convince you?   Quote Had you done that, I would have tried to make the case that Telic Thoughts could use more balanced discussions. Besides, I liked "Smokey".  I might have had a chance, but now, with the way you chose to approach this, I don't see how it would be remotely possible. I don't think you would have had a chance.   Quote As it is, it looks like the shield bashing games will continue.  After the Bar Closes will be smug in their presumption that ID proponents are arrogant and unreasonable. It's not a presumption.   Quote Oh well, I tried. I'm not willing to be as obsequious as you are to the TT crowd. Let's do science! Or do you have too much invested in this microtubule hypothesis to discuss it with someone who knows something about the neuronal cytoskeleton?

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,16:05    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,13:15) I was posting to After the Bar Closes a while ago but quit doing so.  Now, if I were to simply accuse SteveStory of being rude to me as the reason I quit, would it become Steve's burden to prove otherwise. Hopefully I wasn't rude to you, and that was just a hypothetical.

Albatrossity2 Posts: 2780 Joined: Mar. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,16:13    Quote It is a double-edged sword.  Jam is accusing TT of being intolerant without backing up his accusation.  You are DEMANDING an explanation. Which side is arrogant? I don't care if I get an explanation or not, so I am pretty sure that my DEMAND is something that exists only in your mind. In my world discussions are enhanced, and thoughts are even provoked, by providing evidence. This happens faster if evidence is provided without DEMANDS, but it can still happen if someone (like me, or k.e, or a number of others on this board) asks for it (politely, at first). If it is available, then it is helpful for the rest of us to see it, and then make whatever conclusions that seem to be warranted by the evidence. So let's go back to my previous message, with the hypothetical scenario played out as you want it to be. 1) JAM provides a link to a post which looks reasonable. 2) The TT admins, if they want the evidence to speak for itself, would then provide a link to the post(s) which they found so offensive. 3) Evidence in hand, the jaded and biased and horribly arrogant crowd at AtBC can conclude whatever they can conclude from the evidence. As I said before, why not skip the first step, since it is obvious to all (except perhaps you) that we must proceed to step 2 regardless of what happens in step one? But if the TT admins deem this to be arrogance, or an unjustified waste of their time, we are reduced to making a conclusion without all the evidence. I don't like to do that. Do you? -------------- Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.                         - Pattiann Rogers

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,16:13    Burden of proof might not be a valid concept here. It makes sense in a courtroom where one side has to win. Having the burden of proof means the other side is the default winner. But does one side have to win in an argument about whether a banning was justified? I think visitors to a site can distinguish a site with 'ruthless' moderation from a site with laissez-faire moderation without making one side the default winner.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,16:34    Hi SteveStory, My apologies.  I had intended on making it clear that it was a false hypothetical. In fact, I found my welcome to After the Bar Close to be very warm (Kristine offered me "Shimmies"). As penance, I took the time to find my first post here (it was the career survey).  That turned out to be ironic, because as it happens I wasn't too happy at the time with Telic Thoughts. Here is what I wrote... Quote Excuse me while I take some time to mope in my beer. I just said goodbye to Telic Thoughts after about 6 months of posting there. BTW, I have a BS Electrical Engineering with an MBA.  I put myself down for BS Science. Don't get me wrong, as ID Proponents go, the TT bunch are pretty intelligent and most want to be open minded.  You see, I like to think I am pretty good at getting to the heart of issues and pointing them out (my engineering training).  I think I did a pretty good job.  I bent over backwards to put it in terms they could embrace by accepting all base ID assumptions (even Dembski's "math").  To no avail.  If it didn't support Theism it wasn't a "science" they could find acceptable. I know better than argue with anyone about their faith, but I thought that maybe with a little open-mindedness and a firm declaration it's about science and not religion, that maybe, just maybe I could make a dent. Oh well, pass me another beer, will ya? The interesting part was the reply by someone named SteveStory... Quote Telic Thoughts is a unique ID blog. Unlike all the others (UD, JoeG, FtK,...) they aren't scared to death of informed commenters. They don't ban people for being knowledgeable. As far as I know. Which is really based on very little info. I've been to TT only a handful of times. link I decided to give Telic Thoughts another chance.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,17:04    I based that on very little information. I posted about 10 times and all they did was move some of my posts to the 'memory hole'. That's a downright reasonable reaction. A normal ID blog would have disallowed 9 out of 10 comments and then banned me.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,18:57    Hi K.E., Quote Why limit your 'Ergo' just to one mannic mathematicians meanderings. I suggest you top it off with String Theory. I am coming to the conclusion that the String Theory is the result of the last desparate holdout in a belief that matter is made up of something solid. I happen to think the Universe is one giant wavefunction existing in Minkowskian space/time Geometry.  Something like a Mandelbrot Set.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,20:05    Hi creeky belly, Thank you for your reasoned responses. You wrote... Quote Buckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). That's essentially the best way for determining whether something will exhibit quantum effects. In addition, nuclear spin quantum computers have made use of a rather large molecule (like the one that figured out that 15 factors into 3 and 5), however, there's big difference between 1 molecule of a substance and 1 mol. um.... E = h/t came directly from deBroglie's work. "The de Broglie relations show that the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum of a particle and that the frequency is directly proportional to the particle's kinetic energy." link Momentum and kinetic energy are proportional to mass, not size. deBroglie's equations are... p = hk E = hw When you substitute 1/t for w, you get the form Penrose uses. Quote I'm not here to debate with you the primary tenets of quantum mechanics; My point is there is no such thing as a minor inconsistency in logic.  You would not be the first one to attempt to hand-wave away the inconvenient existence of "quantum weirdness".  For seventy years people have been waiting for the logical explanation to present itself.  Penrose quit waiting.  He accepted it as reality and built a consistent model to explain it all.  The final piece was consciousness. Are you familiar with the story behind Penrose Tilings? It started out as a mathematical curiosity.  At one time it was assumed that any effort to tile a surface (e.g. a floor) with a limited number of shapes would result in a repeating pattern.  This is known as periodic tiling.  However, attempts to prove that mathematically failed.  One day, someone proved that aperiodic tiling was, in fact, possible.  The race was on to find examples.  The first example had 20426 tile shapes.  To make a long story short, Penrose found a solution that used only TWO tile shapes (he did it in his spare time as “a hobby”). This still might be considered just an interesting mathematical curiosity except for two things.  Ten years later, an “impossible” crystal formation was discovered.  You see it was thought that all crystals had to be made up of repeating structures (periodic).  An aperiodic crystal formation was discovered, it matched Penrose Tilings. The second interesting aspect is that Penrose claims his solution couldn’t have been found algorithmically, i.e. Turing Machine couldn’t be programmed to find the answer not matter how powerful it was.   Quote What I called "absurd" was ignoring the effects of the EM potentials and interactions, when they are much more dominant than gravity. You can't just handwave it away and say it will be fine, especially when the quantum computer is immersed in a electric dipole fluid along with one of the strongest ferromagnetic substances. That's absurd. All of this makes it less feasible that our brain can properly transport quantum information. Penrose admits that he might be wrong on the details of how.  He isn't a biologist.  But it is obvious Penrose is firmly convinced he is right about the quantum physics.  The implications make others uncomfortable, but a lack of comfort doesn't hold a candle to experiment after experiment showing interconnected quantum effects are a reality. Dr. Hameroff is convinced Penrose is right based on his experience in suppressing consciousness (anesthesia).

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,20:23    Hi Jam, You asked...   Quote Do you realize how ridiculous a mention of "cytoskeletal microtubules" appears to anyone with the most rudimentary education in cell biology? Can you name an instance of non-cytoskeletal microtubules? Here is one of many hits I found using the term "cytoskeletal microtubules" in a google search. It was from The Journal of Cell Biology where they were distinguishing cytoskeletal microtubules from flagellar microtubules. This is one of those situations where being quiet would have been the smarter choice.  I had presumed that "Smokey" wasn't just arguing for argument sake.  Now I am not so sure.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,21:05    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,20:23) Hi Jam, You asked...       Quote Do you realize how ridiculous a mention of "cytoskeletal microtubules" appears to anyone with the most rudimentary education in cell biology? Can you name an instance of non-cytoskeletal microtubules? Here is one of many hits I found using the term "cytoskeletal microtubules" in a google search. It was from The Journal of Cell Biology where they were distinguishing cytoskeletal microtubules from flagellar microtubules. In that context it is a meaningful distinction. However, neurons lack flagella, cilia, and mitotic spindles (the last of which is still the cytoskeleton IMO). Are you trying to claim that Penrose was distinguishing anything from flagellar, ciliary, or spindle microtubules, or was he just adding extra polysyllabic words to his tome? IMO, it's just part of an attempt to obfuscate his sloppy equivocation between the cytoskeleton and the microtubule cytoskeleton. Again, changes in the actin cytoskeleton have been implicated in neuronal plasticity to a far greater degree than the microtubule cytoskeleton (including the transport of mRNAs encoding beta-actin and actin-binding proteins), yet Penrose ignores it. It seems to me as though he heard about MTs first and can't be bothered with anything more holistic, even though emergent properties involving both are involved in a fibroblast moving 5 microns on a plastic dish. If that can't be reduced, how sensible is it to believe that consciousness can be reduced so much further?

creeky belly Posts: 205 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,21:43    Quote Hi creeky belly, Thank you for your reasoned responses. You wrote... Quote Buckminster fullerines don't behave like normal soccer balls because their quantum wavelength is proportional to their size (deBroglie's equation). That's essentially the best way for determining whether something will exhibit quantum effects. In addition, nuclear spin quantum computers have made use of a rather large molecule (like the one that figured out that 15 factors into 3 and 5), however, there's big difference between 1 molecule of a substance and 1 mol. um.... E = h/t came directly from deBroglie's work. "The de Broglie relations show that the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum of a particle and that the frequency is directly proportional to the particle's kinetic energy." link Momentum and kinetic energy are proportional to mass, not size. deBroglie's equations are... p = hk E = hw When you substitute 1/t for w, you get the form Penrose uses. And if you read my clarification you'd understand what I meant by "size":         Quote Sorry, I should have clarified. I said proportional when I meant comparable, and by size I meant volume. Essentially a 1000 kg car (average dimensions of 2m on a side) at 10 m/s has a wavelength of about 1e-37 m, or 1e-28 nm. An proton (1e-4 nm radius) moving at the same velocity has a wavelength of about 600 nm. That's not to say you can't see quantum effects through macroscopic objects (take NMR and spin-spin times), but it's a pretty good indicator of what basic objects are prone to quantum effects. Another way to write deBroglie's equation is obviously: lambda = h/p Where lambda is the quantum wavelength. When the quantum wavelength of the object is comparable to its size (cube root of volume if you want), it will exhibit quantum characteristics.         Quote My point is there is no such thing as a minor inconsistency in logic.  You would not be the first one to attempt to hand-wave away the inconvenient existence of "quantum weirdness".  For seventy years people have been waiting for the logical explanation to present itself.  Penrose quit waiting.  He accepted it as reality and built a consistent model to explain it all.  The final piece was consciousness. Are you familiar with the story behind Penrose Tilings? It started out as a mathematical curiosity.  At one time it was assumed that any effort to tile a surface (e.g. a floor) with a limited number of shapes would result in a repeating pattern.  This is known as periodic tiling.  However, attempts to prove that mathematically failed.  One day, someone proved that aperiodic tiling was, in fact, possible.  The race was on to find examples.  The first example had 20426 tile shapes.  To make a long story short, Penrose found a solution that used only TWO tile shapes (he did it in his spare time as “a hobby”). This still might be considered just an interesting mathematical curiosity except for two things.  Ten years later, an “impossible” crystal formation was discovered.  You see it was thought that all crystals had to be made up of repeating structures (periodic).  An aperiodic crystal formation was discovered, it matched Penrose Tilings. The second interesting aspect is that Penrose claims his solution couldn’t have been found algorithmically, i.e. Turing Machine couldn’t be programmed to find the answer not matter how powerful it was. Which does nothing to address the point that I raised, namely that there's no way to express a macroscopic object in terms of a pure quantum state (instead of a mixed state). You seem (along with Penrose) to think that we can handwave our way up from QM with electrons to QM with mols of atoms. Bulk QC with large magnets This is realistically the only way to get even partial macroscopic entanglement: Large precision magnets, low temps, and photons. From the paper: "99.99999999% of the time a generously sized room-temperature sample (10^22 spins) contains no 100-spin molecules in the ground state a1, a2 . . . an, or in any other single one of its 2^100 quantum states." IOW: large molecule + room temperature = no entanglement         Quote Penrose admits that he might be wrong on the details of how.  He isn't a biologist.  But it is obvious Penrose is firmly convinced he is right about the quantum physics.  The implications make others uncomfortable, but a lack of comfort doesn't hold a candle to experiment after experiment showing interconnected quantum effects are a reality. Dr. Hameroff is convinced Penrose is right based on his experience in suppressing consciousness (anesthesia). Again, maybe I missed it, but what was the last experimental quantum computation paper that Penrose wrote? Penrose can have all the theory he wants (gedanken out the wazoo); it's not discomfort if it doesn't describe reality, full stop. And this still doesn't explain why we can just handwave away EM interactions or temperature effects (how do you get a ground state in a 325K person?).

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,22:05    Hi Jam, You ask...   Quote Are you trying to claim that Penrose was distinguishing anything from flagellar, ciliary, or spindle microtubules, or was he just adding extra polysyllabic words to his tome? IMO, it's just part of an attempt to obfuscate his sloppy equivocation between the cytoskeleton and the microtubule cytoskeleton. It has been suggested that I am wasting my time here.  That may be true in your case, but on the chance that others are listening in I will continue. You continue to make reference to Penrose.  Penrose is not the biologist, Dr. Hameroff is.  To avoid confusion, let me quote from a paper written by Dr. Hameroff and NOT the physicist Penrose... III. The neural correlate of consciousness a. Functional organization of the brain Most brain activities are nonconscious; consciousness is a mere “tip of the iceberg” of neural functions. Many brain activities—e.g. brainstem-mediated autonomic functions—never enter consciousness. While consciousness is erased during general anesthesia, nonconscious brain EEG and evoked potentials continue, although reduced.[xiv] ... Membrane-based neuronal input-output activities involve changes in synaptic plasticity, ion conductance, neurotransmitter vesicle transport/secretion and gap junction regulation—all controlled by the intra-neuronal networks of filamentous protein polymers known as the cytoskeleton. If simple input-output activities fully described neural function, then fine-grained details might not matter. But simple input-output activities—in which neurons function as switches—are only a guess, and most likely a poor imitation of the neuron’s actual activities and capabilities. To gauge how single neuron functions may exceed simple input-output activities, consider the single cell organism paramecium. Such cells swim about gracefully, avoid obstacles and predators, find food and engage in sex with partner paramecia. They can also learn; if placed in capillary tubes they escape, and when placed back in the capillary tubes escape more quickly. As single cells with no synaptic connections, how do they do it? Pondering the seemingly intelligent activities of such single cell organisms, famed neuroscientist C.S. Sherrington (1957) conjectured: “of nerve there is no trace, but the cytoskeleton might serve”. If the cytoskeleton is the nervous system of protozoa, what might it do for neurons? IV. The neuronal cytoskeleton a. Microtubules and networks inside neurons Shape, structure, growth and function of neurons are determined by their cytoskeleton, internal scaffoldings of filamentous protein polymers which include microtubules, actin and intermediate filaments. Rigid microtubules (MTs) interconnected by MT-associated proteins (MAPs) and immersed in actin form a self-supporting, dynamic tensegrity network which shapes all eukaryotic cells including highly asymmetrical neurons. The cytoskeleton also includes MT-based organelles called centrioles which organize mitosis, membrane-bound MT-based cilia, and proteins which link MTs with membranes. Disruption of intra-neuronal cytoskeletal structures impairs cognition, such as tangling of the tau MAP linking MTs in Alzheimer’s disease (Matsuyama and Jarvik, 1989, Iqbal and Grundke-Iqbal 2004). Actin is the main component of dendritic spines and also exists throughout the rest of the neuronal interior in various forms depending on actin-binding proteins, calcium etc. When actin polymerizes into a dense meshwork, the cell interior converts from an aqueous solution (sol state) to a quasi-solid, gelatinous (gel) state. In the gel state, actin, MTs and other cytoskeletal structures form a negatively-charged matrix on which polar cell water molecules are bound and ordered (Pollack 2001). Glutamate binding to NMDA and AMPA receptors triggers gel states in actin spines (Fischer et al 2000). Neuronal MTs self-assemble, and with cooperation of actin enable growth of axons and dendrites. Motor proteins transport materials along MTs to maintain and regulate synapses. The direction and guidance of motor proteins and synaptic components (e.g. from cell body through branching dendrites) depends on conformational states of MT subunits (Krebs et al 2004). Thus MTs are not merely passive tracks but appear to actively guide transport. Among neuronal cytoskeletal components, MTs are the most stable and appear best suited for information processing Wherever cellular organization and intelligence are required, MTs are present and involved. MTs are cylindrical polymers 25 nanometers (nm = 10-9 meter) in diameter, comprised of 13 longitudinal protofilaments which are each chains of the protein tubulin (Figure 8). Each tubulin is a peanut-shaped dimer (8 nm by 4 nm by 5 nm) which consists of two slightly different monomers known as alpha and beta tubulin, (each 4 nm by 4 nm by 5 nm, weighing 55,000 daltons). Tubulin subunits within MTs are arranged in a hexagonal lattice which is slightly twisted, resulting in differing neighbor relationships among each subunit and its six nearest neighbors (Figure 9). Thus pathways along contiguous tubulins form helical pathways which repeat every 3, 5 and 8 rows (the Fibonacci series). Alpha tubulin monomers are more negatively charged than beta monomers, so each tubulin (and each MT as a whole) is a ferroelectric dipole with positive (beta monomer) and negative (alpha monomer) ends.[xxiii] In non-neuronal cells and in neuronal axons, MTs are continuous and aligned radially like spokes of a wheel emanating from the cell center. MT negative (alpha) ends originate in the central cell hub (near the centrioles, or MT-organizing-center adjacent to the cell nucleus) and their positive (beta) ends extend outward to the cell perimeter. This is the case in axons, where the negative ends of continuous MTs originate in the axon hillock, and positive ends reach the pre-synaptic region. However dendritic cytoskeleton is unique. Unlike axons and any other cells, MTs in dendrites are short, interrupted and mixed polarity. They form networks interconnected by MAPs (especially dendrite-specific MAP2) of roughly equal mixtures of polarity. There is no obvious reason why this is so—from a structural standpoint uninterrupted MTs would be preferable, as in axons. Networks of mixed polarity MTs connected may be optimal for information processing.   Intra-dendritic MT-MAP networks are coupled to dendritic synaptic membrane and receptors (including dendritic spines) by mechanisms including calcium and sodium flux, actin and metabotropic inputs including second messenger signaling e.g. dephosphorylation of MAP2 (Halpain and Greengard 1990). Alterations in dendritic MT-MAP networks are correlated with locations, densities and sensitivities of receptors (e.g. Woolf et al 1999). Synaptic plasticity, learning and memory depend on dendritic MT-MAP networks. Since Sherrington’s observation in 1957, the idea that the cytoskeleton—MTs in particular—may act as a cellular nervous system has occurred to many scientists. Vassilev et al (1985) reported that tubulin chains transmit signals between membranes, and Maniotis et al (1997a, 1997b) demonstrated that MTs convey information from membrane to nucleus. But MTs could be more than wires. The MT lattice is well designed to represent and process information, with the states of individual tubulins playing the role of bits in computers. Conformational states of proteins in general (e.g. ion channels opening/closing, receptor binding of neurotransmitter etc.) are the currency of real-time activities in living cells. Numerous factors influence a protein’s conformation at any one time, so individual protein conformation may be considered the essential input-output function in biology. Here is a diagram and video showing microtubules appearing to actively orchestrate a cell dividing. Here is a video that makes a mockery of thinking of microtubles as passive cytoskeletal components. They one the DNA was just for structural support.  After all, how could something made up of only four bases be important?

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,22:43    Hi creeky belly, You wrote...   Quote Another way to write deBroglie's equation is obviously: lambda = h/p Where lambda is the quantum wavelength. When the quantum wavelength of the object is comparable to its size (cube root of volume if you want), it will exhibit quantum characteristics. Did you read the link I provided? p = momentum = mass * velocity "size" neither volume nor the cube-root of volume has anything to do with momentum. From the career survey results, I would have thought a majority of the people in this forum would be explaining this obvious physics property to you. Was I too polite? YOU SCREWED UP!  LOOK AT THE LINK I PROVIDED. Do you see the "m" in the first equation under the words "de Broglie relations"? "m" stands for MASS!   Quote Which does nothing to address the point that I raised...IOW: large molecule + room temperature = no entanglement Do you see temperature in deBroglie's equations too? Quote Again, maybe I missed it, but what was the last experimental quantum computation paper that Penrose wrote? Penrose can have all the theory he wants (gedanken out the wazoo); it's not discomfort if it doesn't describe reality, full stop. It does describe and explain the reality of quantum effects. Did you happen to read Penrose's book The Road to Reality?  It came out in 2004.  It is 1100 pages of step by step explaination of his detailed view of reality. Penrose is 65 years old.  He has been knighted.  He knows he will be proven correct.  This book should dissuade those tempted to suggest he got lucky again.  After all, Penrose was right about Black Holes and aperiodic tilings.  Why should he be correct in suggesting the obvious implications of deBroglie's equations are correct?   Quote How do you get a ground state in a 325K person? A tubulin dimer is 8 nm by 4 nm by 5 nm and weighs 55,000 daltons.

BWE Posts: 1902 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,22:51    Quote (JAM @ Sep. 23 2007,10:23) [quote=Thought Provoker,Sep. 22 2007,23:34]Hi Jam, You wrote... Quote You might also find her political leanings surprising.  (let's just say she has never been a big fan of our current president). Not at all. That doesn't mean that she's not insane. Her support of the lies of the animal-rights movement is not surprising, either. Lies... Hmmm... I smell a history??? -------------- Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered When wished on the morning star Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it Look what it's done so far The Daily Wingnut

creeky belly Posts: 205 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,23:13    Since my last post has been relegated to the Bathroom Wall for tone I'll just repost the calculations: perhaps you should look at what I calculated: For the car lambda = 6.62 x 10e-34 m^2 kg/s / (1000 kg * 10 m/s) lambda = 1e-37 m = 1e-28nm size of car: 2 m lambda is much smaller than the size of the car, thus the quantum effects are NEGLIGIBLE For the electron lambda = 6.62 X10e-34 m^2 kg/s /( 1.67 x10e-27 kg*10 m/s) lambda = 60 nm size of electron = 1e-4 nm since lambda is larger than the size of the electron, it will exhibit quantum properties

k.e Posts: 1948 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,23:21    Oh FFS   Quote blah blah .....Penrose is 65 years old.  He has been knighted........blah blah ......So have Mick Jagger and Bob Geldoff .......your actual point? In fact TP WHAT IS YOUR POINT? You seem to be trying to describe a reality that requires a puppet operator. You seem to be pleading for the cosmic pantograph. Do you have a way of testing Penrose's idea using the scientific method? You should know I posted a couple of times on TT and was banned for saying a fact was not an idea and that ID was just an idea and just as useless as the idea of god or any other idea for that matter. Why would they ban such an obvious...idea? -------------- The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

creeky belly Posts: 205 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,23:25    Here are some links to places where they also did the calculation: here and here and here's some stuff about that pesky cube root of volume here here's a page from a textbook here

k.e Posts: 1948 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,23:34    Do you believe in UFO's TP? -------------- The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 24 2007,23:51    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,22:05) Hi Jam, You ask...     Quote Are you trying to claim that Penrose was distinguishing anything from flagellar, ciliary, or spindle microtubules, or was he just adding extra polysyllabic words to his tome? IMO, it's just part of an attempt to obfuscate his sloppy equivocation between the cytoskeleton and the microtubule cytoskeleton. It has been suggested that I am wasting my time here.  That may be true in your case, but on the chance that others are listening in I will continue. What you quote only confirms the sloppy reductionism of both Hameroff and Penrose. Quote Disruption of intra-neuronal cytoskeletal structures impairs cognition, such as tangling of the tau MAP linking MTs in Alzheimer’s disease (Matsuyama and Jarvik, 1989, Iqbal and Grundke-Iqbal 2004). This is an irresponsible case of stating hypothesis as fact. It's not yet known whether the plaques and NFTs of AD cause cognitive impairment or are the effects of a more subtle mechanism that causes cognitive problems. It's one of the major issues in AD research, and claiming that it is already solved is ludicrous. Quote Wherever cellular organization and intelligence are required, MTs are present and involved. No quarrel there. You seem to have trouble understanding that presence and involvement don't justify reducing consciousness to MTs, just as knowing that MTs are involved in fibroblast motility doesn't justify a similar reduction. Quote Since Sherrington’s observation in 1957, the idea that the cytoskeleton—MTs in particular—may act as a cellular nervous system has occurred to many scientists. I take issue with "in particular." Quote Here is a diagram and video showing microtubules appearing to actively orchestrate a cell dividing. No, TP. MTs are involved and essential, but there's no evidence of orchestration. The movement is caused by motors. Quote Here is a video that makes a mockery of thinking of microtubles as passive cytoskeletal components. Straw man, TP. I had hoped that you were more thoughtful than that. I'm not claiming that they are passive. I'm pointing out that there's no evidence to support the reductionist notion that it all (or even mostly) boils down to MTs. TP, If I keep asking you this question: If that [fibroblast motility] can't be reduced, how sensible is it to believe that consciousness can be reduced so much further? ...and you don't answer it, grossly misrepresenting my position instead, are you thinking about what I'm writing at all?

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 25 2007,00:07    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 24 2007,22:43) Hi creeky belly, YOU SCREWED UP!  LOOK AT THE LINK I PROVIDED. Do you see the "m" in the first equation under the words "de Broglie relations"? "m" stands for MASS! ...A tubulin dimer is 8 nm by 4 nm by 5 nm and weighs 55,000 daltons. You and Hameroff screwed up. The Dalton (always capitalized) is a unit of mass, not weight.

qetzal Posts: 311 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 25 2007,00:23    Quote (JAM @ Sep. 24 2007,23:51)       Quote Disruption of intra-neuronal cytoskeletal structures impairs cognition, such as tangling of the tau MAP linking MTs in Alzheimer’s disease (Matsuyama and Jarvik, 1989, Iqbal and Grundke-Iqbal 2004). This is an irresponsible case of stating hypothesis as fact. It's not yet known whether the plaques and NFTs of AD cause cognitive impairment or are the effects of a more subtle mechanism that causes cognitive problems. It's one of the major issues in AD research, and claiming that it is already solved is ludicrous. Hameroff seems to do that rather a lot. Consider this claim: Quote To gauge how single neuron functions may exceed simple input-output activities, consider the single cell organism paramecium. Such cells swim about gracefully, avoid obstacles and predators, find food and engage in sex with partner paramecia. They can also learn; if placed in capillary tubes they escape, and when placed back in the capillary tubes escape more quickly. A quick PubMed search suggests this is arguable at best: Quote Behav Neurosci. 1994 Feb;108(1):94-9. Is tube-escape learning by protozoa associative learning? Hinkle DJ, Wood DC. Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260. The ciliate protozoa, Stentor and Paramecium, have been reported to escape from the bottom end of narrow capillary tubes into a larger volume of medium with increasing rapidity over the course of trials. This change in behavior has been considered an apparent example of associative learning. This decrease in escape time is not due to a change in the protozoa's environment, their swimming speed, frequency of ciliary reversals, or the proportion of time spent forward or backward swimming. Instead, most of the decrease results from a decrease in the proportion of time spent in upward swimming. However, a similar decrease in upward swimming occurs when the task is altered to require escape from the upper end of the capillary tubes. Because the protozoa exhibit the same change in behavior regardless of the reinforcing stimulus, tube-escape learning is not associative learning. PMID: 8192854 Skimming through some of the links on Hameroff's site, he seems to repeatedly oversimplify unsettled questions in ways that conveniently fit his preferred hypothesis. As one more example, he states that gaseous anesthetics work by binding to hydrophobic pockets in proteins, and argues that this supports his model of superposition of states in tubulin. Here again, a quick search suggests that this is just one possible model of how such anesthetics work. None of this is actual evidence against Hameroff's claims, of course, but I'm always more suspicious of someone who's willing to employ such dubious arguments.

Thought Provoker Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 25 2007,09:55    Hi All, When SteveStory popped in at Telic Thoughts as "Steve" and started asking reasonable, yet probing questions, I was encouraged.  I think it is good to look at things from various points of view. Once I realized who he was and that he had started a thread discussing Telic Thoughts here, I attempted to try and inform the discussion. SteveStory indicated he was looking for something a little more substantial than the typical creationist fluff. I suggest that I have offered such. However, this has caused this thread to steer significantly off-topic (which, of course, happens all the time). I also have got to get some real work done in real life. Meanwhile, I hope I have managed to provoke some thinking here.  And, as a bonus, I started another thread called The Magic of Intelligent Design. It is a repost of something I had presented at Telic Thoughts.  It provoked some thinking there (both for and against).  Maybe it could do the same here.

JAM Posts: 517 Joined: July 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 26 2007,16:52    Quote (Thought Provoker @ Sep. 25 2007,09:55) However, this has caused this thread to steer significantly off-topic (which, of course, happens all the time). Hi TP, Over on TT you claimed: Quote I can defend the Penrose-Hamerof hypothesis, in detail. Then defend in detail, using actual data and citing the primary literature, their attribution of consciousness to microtubule properties instead of those of actin filaments.

Gunthernacus Posts: 235 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 28 2007,13:50    Secret Message for Paul Nelson Paul Nelson comments, "No, I'm debating Michael Ruse in southern California, about what would make us adopt the opposing position on ID vs. Darwinian evolution." and he links to UD. There he offers this quote:     Quote An alert mind keeps in reserve and in good trim all that’s needed to destroy its dogmas and opinions. It is always prepared to attack its “feelings” and to refute its “reasons.” — Paul Valery, Analects YEC notions excepted, of course.  FFS, a YEC "debating" about what it would take to get him to accept Darwinian evolution?  I guess the following week, the KKK will give 5 good reasons for affirmative action and a representative for NOW will offer a scenario in which suffrage is a bad idea. -------------- Given that we are all descended from Adam and Eve...genetic defects as a result of intra-family marriage would not begin to crop up until after the first few dozen generations. - Dr. Hugh Ross

ericmurphy Posts: 2460 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 28 2007,17:38    Quote (stevestory @ Sep. 22 2007,11:50) One problem that you run into with following IDers is that most of them are just ignorant and arrogant. While this makes for some good laughs, it's not very challenging. We've been trying to recruit some smarter creationist to debate here. It's not very easy. It seems for every educated creationist familiar with science, there are about a million AFDaves and FtKs. Since we haven't yet managed to recruit such an educated creationist, perhaps we should make do by discussing the best of the bunch, Telic Thoughts. It's slightly better than the others. If Uncommonly Dense is like a clown car, Telic Thoughts is more like an AMC Pacer. I had a long-running argument with JoeG (Joe Gallien, I think his name is?) on Telic Thoughts a couple of years ago. He kept claiming there was no evidence for macroevolution, and that there was no proposed mechanism for macroevolution. It got kind of repetitive after a while. -------------- 2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity "Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams

Wesley R. Elsberry Posts: 4991 Joined: May 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Oct. 06 2007,13:22    Weird. MikeGene goes way off in the weeds. Antievolution in a “Post-Wedge” World? -------------- "You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Oct. 09 2007,20:59    They're talking about Abbie, a.k.a. ERV. (I already let her know.) -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Oct. 09 2007,21:09    Telic Thoughts guy says: Quote First, it's not really surprising that some SIVcpz Vpus have only one CK II site, and have a string of negatively charged amino acids in place of the second site. CK-II site phosphorylation also results in negative charge. I found it interesting though, that virtually all HIV-1 sequences have both serines, even though they undergo so much variation during replication. The reason why may actually be that changing from a serine codon, to , say aspartate, requires at least two nucleotide substitutions, thus resulting in a rugged fitness landscape where a possible tranversion would result in a poor replicator. It's got to climb up a peak in order to mutate again to aspartate. So here we get a better understanding of Behe's thinking regarding "the edge of evolution". That's a strikingly vague comment. Can you clarify this with some numbers, mister Telic Thinker? Or just this kind of hand waving?

ERV Posts: 329 Joined: Sep. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Oct. 09 2007,21:39    Quote (stevestory @ Oct. 09 2007,21:09) That's a strikingly vague comment. Can you clarify this with some numbers, mister Telic Thinker? Or just this kind of hand waving? I know, I totally dont get their point. "Aspartic acid cant be phosphorylated, therefore Creationism is true.  Fitness landscapes." What?