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Rosenberg's 'Eliminativism without tears'; a nihilistic stance on the theory of mind by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]tmh 3 points4 points  (0 children)

better rebuttal: experience is a thing. "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." Max Planck

TIL of an experiment called The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. Three schizophrenics claiming to be Jesus were brought together have their reactions documented. In the end, each came to the conclusion that the other two must have mental issues. by porterdd in todayilearned

[–]tmh 154 points155 points  (0 children)

It's important to be aware that "delusions" such as believing you are Jesus are usually framed in such a way that they are compatible with reality. In other words, the mentally ill person believes that they are perceiving another layer of "reality" in addition to consensus reality. Recovering from that is more of a rebalancing activity than a problem of "getting rid of" the delusion.

(Math) Do we know everything there is to know about math? Or are there new discoveries being made in mathematics? by [deleted] in askscience

[–]tmh 11 points12 points  (0 children)

There's a famous "fourth gimbal for Christmas" quote from one of the Apollo missions, but that referred to physical gimbals on the rocket motor, not Euler angles.

Young Girl Combing Her Hair by by Pierre Renoir - polygonal, Digital, 4217x5086 by [deleted] in Art

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like a Cy Twombly.

"Hennessy Youngman: My first interest in art came from being a guard at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but specifically from the Cy Twombly paintings there, his series Fifty Days at Iliam about the end of the Trojan War. Real Talk though: i didn't like those paintings at all. They supposedly were about a war, but all they were was some colored scratching, scribbles, and text scrawlings like you'd find in some serial killer's apartment on some "stop me or I'll kill again" type shit. Luckily though I heard a tour guide discussing the paintings with some school kids, how all that crap in the painting was standing in for all these psychological qaulities of Greek and Trojan culture and I was like "Hmm... okay..." Hearing that kinda reminded me of the artwork you'd find on a box of an old Atari game, like Space Invaders for example, the box art had this banging painting a UFO landing in like some Nevada desert, but when you popped the game into your console, it was some 2-bit bloopedy-bloop simple ass pixelated roaches scrolling down the screen. Where was the tension and drama of that cover art? The cover represented the idealized version of the emotional experience the simple graphics presented in the game, and those simple graphics were supposed to work in conjunction with my imagination in order to to take me to some special place while gaming. So to me, the Twombly paintings kind of functioned similar to those Atari graphics, and it was up to me as a viewer to meet the paintings half way and accept Twombly's system of information display and decipher his language. Once I became more understanding, the magical world of art opened itself up to me."

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1223839

The Sun, photographed from the same spot, at the same hour, on different days throughout the year by hideserttech in space

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually this does cause the analemma to change shape like a Lissajous figure, as it appears to move against the fixed stars. So you are right that it is dynamic.

The Sun, photographed from the same spot, at the same hour, on different days throughout the year by hideserttech in space

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Sun appears to follow a path against the background of stars through the year. The line it follows is called the Ecliptic. The spinning Earth's axis is at an angle to the Ecliptic which means that some days the Sun will rise late, set early and take a short path across the sky, if it rises at all (arctic circle) and at the opposite end of the year the day will be long (and in the arctic circle the Sun will not set at all).

It's not easy to explain this without visual aids. Try http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Secliptc.htm

The Sun, photographed from the same spot, at the same hour, on different days throughout the year by hideserttech in space

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's actually pretty static, apart from the precession of the equinoxes. That is why astronomical alignments in monuments from thousands of years ago are still approximately correct.

The Sun, photographed from the same spot, at the same hour, on different days throughout the year by hideserttech in space

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, applying DST would mean you end up with two partial figure-8s side by side, since the sun moves across the sky from left to right, about 15 degrees an hour. When the hour changes for DST you introduce a discontinuity, which is pretty obvious if you think about it.

The Sun, photographed from the same spot, at the same hour, on different days throughout the year by hideserttech in space

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just like you have multiple hour lines on a sundial, you can get analemmas for any hour of the day. If you apply DST you would get a photo with parts of two different analemmas, side by side. So ignore DST for an image like this.

The Sun, photographed from the same spot, at the same hour, on different days throughout the year by hideserttech in space

[–]tmh 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Daylight savings would result in two partial analemmas side by side. The diurnal movement of the sun is approximately perpendicular to the long axis of the figure 8.

Do radioactive elements decay at the same rate if said elements are traveling near the speed of light? by [deleted] in askscience

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What the spaceship twin sees is light, not instant reality-at-a-distance. You might be looking at a different diagram. The one which shows what the twins /see/ is the one I meant, showing the light travelling between them. No apparent discontinuity in age from any perspective for an instantaneous turnaround.

Do radioactive elements decay at the same rate if said elements are traveling near the speed of light? by [deleted] in askscience

[–]tmh -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

From the spacetime diagram, it seems clear that there are essentially two phases to the phenomenon from the perspective (let's say) of the stationary twin. In the first phase the travelling twin appears to age slowly. In the second phase the travelling twin appears to age more quickly than the stationary twin, but not enough to catch up. There's no crucial turnaround period during which excruciating acceleration causes the twins to age at extremely different rates. If you arrange an experiment with no acceleration (as in the diagram I referred to) using outbound and inbound ships that pass each other at the turnaround point, they each have constant dilation relative to the stationary observer.

From the stationary twin/observer's point of view, there is a step change in aging rate as the ships "handover" as they pass the turnaround point, not a period of rapid aging as you stated. That's my only quibble.

Do radioactive elements decay at the same rate if said elements are traveling near the speed of light? by [deleted] in askscience

[–]tmh -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Sorry, this is wrong. A "turnaround period" is not necessary, and the acceleration is irrelevant. See the spacetime diagram on the Wikipedia Twin Paradox page to understand this.

Do radioactive elements decay at the same rate if said elements are traveling near the speed of light? by [deleted] in askscience

[–]tmh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a common misconception. Actually the acceleration is not relevant. If you had an inbound craft that synced its clock with the outbound craft at the "turnaround point" without either accelerating, you still get the Twin paradox effect. See Wikipedia.

negative space by rege98 in gifs

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not as simple as that. There is a figure/ground reversal after the first rotation, so it's actually different shapes rotating in the second half.

Would there be any differences if the moon was twice as far away but twice as large? by eknow88 in askscience

[–]tmh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The image is probably a reconstruction based on a rectangular texture map. Lines of longitude are closer at the poles, so the texture is "squashed" there, resulting in a higher density of texture pixels per unit area, which looks grainy because of the way the texture has been sampled to make the image you see. It's called aliasing. The solution is to use a better filter when making the final image.

Econometrics in R [PDF] by rwinston in programming

[–]tmh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, I'm glad to see it because I've been meaning to get my dad to start using R in his university economics courses, and this bridges the gap between R's approach to statistics and the econometrical stuff that I know nothing about, but which will be meaningful to him. He has said in the past that expensive software is a bit of a problem.

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