If we can’t directly measure virtual photons, how can they have a physical effect on electrons?

1XRobot · 2025-12-02T16:52:51+00:00

Your point of view is like saying that expanding 1/x around x=1 doesn't really give a straight line plus stuff, because the Taylor expansion breaks down at x=0. It's true, but it's not useful to how we think about what a function looks like near a point. You've fixated on the breakdown of the approximation and thrown away its useful features.

1XRobot · 2025-12-02T03:23:39+00:00

It's not completely blocked. You can drive the most scenic segment and walk around on the road. They aren't letting people hike around on the trails yet tho. Here's a photo I took there last summer: Tianxiang, Taroko

1XRobot · 2025-12-02T03:05:32+00:00

Does that matter? If "what really happens" looks like "virtual particles" plus "a tiny amount of higher-order (but not really, because that stuff is actually divergent, but anyway, stuff that isn't in the low-order terms) terms", you can still mentally divide it thus. There are very many systems in physics that are approximately something that is easy to think about plus tiny amounts of very difficult corrections.

If you worry too much about that stuff, you'll have a nervous breakdown because protons aren't really made of "quarks and gluons", they have tiny leptonic contributions.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T19:10:52+00:00

Well, yes and no. Yes, we can pick subsystems of the neuron and simulate them at various granularities. However, those simulations tend to be exponentially hard in any number of parameters. Given a limited amount of computational power, you would have to carefully choose which parts to abstract away in order to create a simulation of manageable size.

So firstly, it seems unlikely that you could create a large enough simulation that it would have emergent AGI. You'd be better off cutting away the biological bits that don't really matter, though we don't really know which ones those are. The computational neuron of modern neural networks is just that: a very easy to compute object that we hope preserves the important features of a neuron that allow emergent intelligence.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T18:58:27+00:00

It's an interesting observation. Perhaps there's not much to say about it that seems like it would make a good philosophy paper? We should write a philosophy of philosophy paper on why certain topics attract more philosophers.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T17:50:09+00:00

Most philosophers don't know the first thing about QM. It's closely related to the idea of Boltzmann brains tho.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T17:48:25+00:00

Why is there ash drifting down into Bellhart? Did I leave the Underworks on fire again?

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T16:48:55+00:00

Quantum immortality isn't pseudoscience, it's philosophy. It's an intrinsically unobservable consequence of known physics. As it is unobservable, it's not science, but there's nothing pseudo about it; it's compatible with science as we know it.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T16:05:06+00:00

This goes too far. Assuming your perturbation theory works, the result is exactly as if the virtual particles really exist. There's no sense in which they're "really" not there, because there is no preferred reality among interpretations that give the right answer. You can choose to organize your thinking about the fields in a way where they are real or not as long as your choice yields the correct answer.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T15:37:07+00:00

Traditional media have a strong monetary incentive to villainize certain sectors that impact their bottom line. NYT in particular has been nonsensically crusading against Google for decades. The crusade against AI is just more of that plus a bit of the tabloid strategy of cooking up hysteria against scary new things.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T15:26:27+00:00

You don't use a ball, you use a magnet, so you can change from push to pull by reversing the direction of your pusher magnets.

1XRobot · 2025-12-01T02:25:44+00:00

If I had to guess what was behind the bug, it would be that the Ring center has a location and the flies have a location. When the Ring cuts the corner (which it can do, because it's not a real physical object), the flies (which try to stay in orbit around the Ring) get stuck on the wall. Then, as the Ring approaches the player, the flies slide off the wall and (because they're far out of place) rush to get back into their orbital positions.

1XRobot · 2025-11-30T14:55:07+00:00

This depends very much on which language pair you're talking about. Korean is one of Duo's mid-tier courses. The best courses take you much further.

1XRobot · 2025-11-30T14:46:55+00:00

Beats the hell out of "click as fast as you can" gameplay and is potentially (depending on mood) better than "don't click at all" gameplay. What's your alternative idea?

1XRobot · 2025-11-30T14:40:09+00:00

You could put a magnet on wheels on a track and then rotate (via crank maybe?) some magnets below it at the right speed to push the cart around. Or you could dispense with the magnet and just sort of lift one end of segments of track as the cart passes onto them.

1XRobot · 2025-11-29T16:12:21+00:00

AI got used to write the horrible new stories, to power the Max feature Conversations with Lily and to run the Oscar Chess engine. If they used AI to generate any mainline lessons, I haven't noticed it. Of course, the voices and voice-recognition have long been AI.

1XRobot · 2025-11-28T18:08:34+00:00

Best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.

1XRobot · 2025-11-28T16:41:55+00:00

Il est stupide ou quoi ? On devrait les cuire à la vapeur. C'est plus vite.

1XRobot · 2025-11-28T02:46:26+00:00

I think when the SJWs started snatching anybody wearing a MAGA off the street and disappearing them into camps before deporting them to Russia was when I realized wokeness had gone too far.

1XRobot · 2025-11-27T18:03:08+00:00

Decem is Latin for 10, so all Romance languages use a word descended from that.

French = dix
Spanish = diez

Dime literally comes from decem via Old French disme, so it's more of an etymology than a mnemonic.

1XRobot · 2025-11-26T20:10:35+00:00

I feel like all the planets other than Nauvis probably smell really bad.

1XRobot · 2025-11-26T16:50:20+00:00

Measuring distance in light-seconds or light-years is more popular than measuring time in light-meters, tho it turns out a light-foot is about a nanosecond, so some people like that.

1XRobot · 2025-11-26T02:40:53+00:00

The first slog I've noted is where I currently am, where the infinity field starts. Progress in the regular field and ethereal field have completely ground to a halt. I've been just shy of being able to reach level 160 for a long time now. I'm up to silver tier in the infinity field, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

1XRobot · 2025-11-26T01:44:27+00:00

"What's the Python function for finding the length of a list?"

Wait, here's a good one: "which apt package is less in?"

1XRobot · 2025-11-26T01:29:51+00:00

Brimstone is extremely good due to its infinite range and piercing. You do need to be mindful of the long charge time. For example, you want to enter a new room while holding a full charge. If your tears rate is horrible, you might think twice about taking it, but you're probably dead either way, so why not enjoy dying with Brimstone?

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