Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Gunnilingus

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/9787261/Deport-Piers-Morgan-petition-creator-Alex-Jones-in-pro-gun-CNN-rant-at-British-presenter.html

Alex Jones Gun Rant at Piers Morgan

This is an amazing video.  We rarely get to see the raw unbalanced emotion of the extreme right wing on display like this.  It reveals much about their side of the argument.  It's about them believing that a few assault rifles will protect them from the US Armed Forces.  As if!  They think they're in "The Bourne Legacy!"

Rarely do the demented display the fact that they're demented so openly and without care. 

It's really something to watch.  I especially love the raw flow of righteous indignation and searing anger.  I was waiting for his head to just pop like an overfilled water balloon.  If only mouth-foaming were an Olympic sport!

200 comments:

  1. They should have set up some fake blood to dribble out of his ears, at least! Where do these assholes get off telling us, as Jon Stewart points out, that we have to live in a dystopia now and forever, just because idiots like this fear a possible upcoming dystopia??

    Typical bullying anyways. "I only beat you up every day now, 'cos if I didn't you'd turn into a smartass and well, I'd have to beat you up every day, and you wouldn't want that, would you? Heehee."

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  2. This attitude is reflected by the GOP/Teabaggers politically. "We want to save the country from becoming a banana republic with homeless waifs everywhere, is all. We hope to accomplish this saving of the country by turning it into a banana republic with homeless waifs difting around everywhere! Can't you see that, it may not be good for the old, the poor, the sick, no, but it's good for the country. Those newly destitute people will be able to hold their heads HIGH and say, "I'm an American! My country right or wrong!", you know, if anyone were ever to talk to homeless people that is."

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  3. Look at Mike's attitude. He berates me for bringing up points that he simply refuses to consider then brags that him and his mentally challenged friends laugh at us!

    This in the name of some kind of 'righteousness', in the name of, "Everything that is written in the Bible that GOD did, was GOOD, even if it was some assholy, self-centred, 'FUCK YOU' bullshit that no decent person could possibly agree with."

    Mike is not a decent person, he's a Godly person, and he thinks that one equals the other, without thought.

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  4. http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2013/01/08/alex-jones-i-am-an-angry-person.html?

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  5. Wow!

    I mean, Wow!

    That man makes Glen Beck look sane.

    It's not a pretty sight. What a fucked up dude.

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  6. He was holding back on Piers Morgan, then.

    Wow.

    Mike, you like that dude? Is he one of yours? One of your peeps?

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  7. I'm happy he did what he did though. The clueless masses who are still fooled by the right wing's propaganda need to see the real face of the far right. And it has to be in their faces, so to speak, for them to really see it. So we this.

    He sure hates Bill Gates, doesn't he? And Justin Biebler. And just about every human on the planet. Oh, probably not that fond of the animals either. Heck, he's probably pissed at the plants as well.

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  8. C'mon Mike! Get back here and defend this flaming bag of dogshit. What kind of a christian are you, anyhow?

    (the kind with a small "c")

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  9. http://www.opposingviews.com/i/911-call/audio-father-tom-donovan-calls-911-after-getting-locked-handcuffs-church

    Father Tom Donovan Calls 911 After Getting Locked in Handcuffs at Church
    --------------
    This is just precious.

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  10. What the hell was that about? He gagged and handcuffed himself? Maybe he said to some kid, "Hey if I gag and handcuff myself, then you free me, I'll gag and handcuff you, that'll be fun, no?"

    I don't get it. Ima go gag and handcuff myself.

    Wait, I don't have any handcuffs. Where'd Father Dumfuck get handcuffs?

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  11. I'd imagine he went and bought himself a pair. And I'd also imagine that it was a sexual thing. It's likely he was alone, or hey, maybe his boyfriend split on him with the poor box.

    Twisted christians... a pretty common thing.

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  12. I do love to watch the moral pontificators get their just desserts. It's so sweet.

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  13. Scientists searching for large molecules in deep space, with ever more precise equipment, have found the chemical responsible for the smell of rum and the taste of raspberries in the cloud of crap surrounding the centre of our galaxy.

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  14. Whoa. He's angry, and deluded.

    I'm not sure what the proposed gun laws are going to entail, but if they aren't a repeal of the 2nd amendment he needs to calm down.

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  15. Hey, my new pic is me on a fishboat, fishing for tuna off Triangle Island, 1995, I think.

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  16. I'm gonna design a short cat-o-nine tails style whip and market it as the 'Evangelical Backlash.'

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  17. I squinted my eyes and everything trying to envision any kind of wheels in that picture, Ed.

    Think you're on to something Brian. Maybe when they have the means to lash the hell out of themselves, they'll settle down and stop trying to make everyone else suffer.

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  18. The dark thingy in the lower right of the picture, peeb? I zoomed in and it started looking like a guy in a gorilla mask...

    <---------Ed doesn't have a HD monitor...

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  19. It's a scan of an ink-jet printer printout, all blurred and that. I was surprised to see it and Emma booted it up to Facebook along with her old family pics.

    I have no clue where the original is. It was one of half a dozen or so with me holding up a big tuna(called gorillas, funnily enough) and a mast shot of the checkers(built in boxes) full of fish, and that.

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  20. LMAO.. the 'wheel' on the upper right is a pully on the davit!(yarrrr... real boatie lingo)

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  21. Judge you Eduardo VillaIngenieros! The casi calvo, blanco, hombre con el bigote gigante! He who cracks wise at El bar de Santo Brian. Te conozco. Oh... te conozco. Pero the locals know nothing of your flamboyant dance routines with Miguel Mantequilla de Cacahuate. The massive amounts of cocaine you smuggled into nunneries hidden in your mustache. And your stint as a pleasurer of viejas under the name Clint Tickler.

    You are crafty, but Harry is wise!

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  22. "Hey, my new pic is me on a fishboat, fishing for tuna off Triangle Island, 1995, I think."

    Yeah but peeb you look 14.

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  23. Really? There's a type of tuna called 'gorillas?'

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  24. Ok, if the google hits are any indicator of correctness that would be a type of blue fin then?

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  25. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albacore

    Apparently the sizes, from peanut, schoolie, (some other really stupid name I don't remember), gorilla, are common names for small, 'regular', big, and really big in some fisheries, tuna being one of them.

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  26. I guess the google hits weren't, 'any indicator of correctness' then. Triangle Island looks pretty far North, was this a vacation you and Emma were taking?

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  27. Harry, this was no vacation, this was a job. I'd never throw a line with a hook into water for the purpose of catching and killing a fish if I wasn't going to be paid for doing it.

    At the very least, the idea of going fishing for 'fun' would be the equivalent, for me, of going to some kind of Christian camp out in the toolies, just because someone else was paying for it.

    Honestly, it boggles my mind to think that people buy a boat, gear, licence etc. and waste their entire weekend trying to kill a few fish. How frickin' heroic, NOT!

    I dont even like to 'hunt' through the supermarket to 'catch' a piece of cow. Sure I'll eat it, you know, 'cos I get hungry.

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  28. Peeb, you've totally intrigued me man. Are you a meat eater with vegetarian sympathies? Or is it the industrialization of hunting and fishing that bothers you and not necessarily arguments about animal sentience?

    Sorry for the continued interruption Bri, I be curious.

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  29. Hmm, I get the feeling that my answer is going to be a lot less interesting than you suppose it might be Harry. I don't like veggies. A slice of tomato and a bit of lettuce on a burger is okay.
    So, I like the taste of some fish, sure, some fowl, why not, and cow and pig and that.

    It does bother me a bit to kill an animal, but it didn't exactly have much of a life to start with, these weren't someones' pets.

    But still, cracking a salmon's head with the back of a gaffhook, when it was just in the water doing it's thing or slitting a tuna's throat so it bleeds out before I freeze it does seem a bit mercenary to me, especially when I'm actually doing it for money.

    I'm not even sure that's an answer, much less an interesting answer, Harry.

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  30. I feel the pain of a tick that I have to kill by removing it from my dog. I'm totally serious. I just used to be an insensitive bastard that killed animals for sport (as a kid, even for target practice) and as I age I feel other lives more keenly. As I study my pets (dog, cat, three green anoles, one eyelash gecko, one red eye tree frog, assorted fish in a large tank) and even insects, which I already knew well but never empathized with till recently, I see evidence of a *viewpoint,* an *I AM,* a being that dearly wants to SURVIVE no matter how unintelligent or inexpressive it may be, and I feel it's pain. It can be almost debilitating, so I have to temper it with logic (death is part of life, etc) and so not give in to constant despair.

    But hey, that's just me. It's not sane. But seeing as how 'sanity' is an opinion of the majority of the minority regardless of which side of that equation happens to be *right,* I don't really care about labels like that.

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  31. As to insects, I used to tell myself that they don't have a real consciousness, just something like a basic program, and they weren't anything worth worrying about. I thought about for example of the insect compound eye and told myself that it was so inferior to our eyes and they couldn't even really see things well... now I am able to interpret my observations better and I realize that insects see far better than we do at close ranges, which when accounting for their diminutive size actually translates to better range than ours are efficient at, and many of them have almost 360 degree vision, and their sense of smell is orders of magnitude better than ours is, and they are covered with sensory hairs in little pits and so forth... in short, I am convinced that they FEEL far better and more keenly than we do, including PAIN... they are constantly immersed in a bath of sensation, with many more stimuli being sense at any given moment... to judge them as less worthy to live than we are, is to be PREJUDICED.

    Yes, it's that bad. I have to control it in order to retain functionality in society.

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  32. On another blog, JohnM is telling us about the Bible saying that unbelievers will deny that God is clearly seen in his Creation.

    I told him that God is not clearly seen in his creation, by me, to which he replies, "Thank you for proving my point."

    I guess he thinks he's trapped me in a delicious paradox which creates confusion technique and my answer will somehow have to be that I have to admit he's right about his proof which I provided and right about his God.

    These guys are fooling no-one but themselves with these word-games, but the fact that they are willing to use them is kind of telling, since they really do believe their little game does prove something, at least to themselves.

    Funny thing, on another blog a creationist showed up to preach at us, to 'talk about God', as he put it, and when I said, "Casey is preaching to us.", he was fine with that.

    I'm not sure why they imagine that preaching to atheists is a good idea at all, not at all. I mean, "I have lots of evidence, lots of proof, here it is, The Bible, and according to it, blah blah blah, so there!"

    Didn't they get the memo that atheists don't believe that there are any gods(it's in the name 'atheist') and they're not going to be even slightly impressed with books that purport to be TRUTH since they're supposedly inspired by God!?

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  33. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLyUOs3_6Kg

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  34. Sometimes I think the problem is that fundies are too stupid to believe that we actually in fact do not believe in god. Their imagination doesn't allow it, since god is tattooed on the inside of their eyelids. So they, I guess, think we hate god or whatever. They do not seem to grasp the concept of disbelief in god very well.

    God is proven by the bible, and the bible is true because god says it is, and they can't see that that argument is circular, because to them a circular argument is still valid if it's about god.

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  35. That Louis C.K. vid was awesomely funny, pboy.

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  36. I showed it to my wife and since she was raised as a strict catholic, more so than I was, she totally lost it. (As in, laughed her ass off)

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  37. The thing that kills me about the fundies is their incredible lack of imagination, in that when you try to illustrate the idea of say, disbelief, by perhaps telling them 'Imagine how you feel about unicorns or fairies...' That sort of thing.

    They can't do it. They can't imagine being anybody else, either, say a believer in Krishna.... those arguments, which in reality are powerful arguments, do not scratch their mind-shield in the slightest. No wonder they lack all empathy; they lack the imagination to think like anybody else other than who they are, and heck, they seem almost proud of it.

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  38. To a person like Mike, the bible is all you need to know. Notice how he judges my morality wicked and wrong solely because it conflicts with *his interpretation* of bible morality? It's so infuriating to not even be able to have the discussion with him because he thinks he already has all the right answers just because his religion tells him so. He cannot even imagine that any of that is untrue for to do so is already to have given up the faith, in his mind. So no doubts allowed, period, how dare you even ask.... His mind is welded shut.

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  39. Of course, there are some christians whose take on bible morality is very close to my own morality, because they intelligently chose to pay more attention to the words of Jesus than the rest of the book. Not that Jesus had it all right, not by any means, but for his time it wasn't too bad.... basically be humble and have empathy, and that's about it. Love others, all others. That's not bad at all. And then there's Mike, despising all people that disagree with him.

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  40. The fundies say they don't have to follow the 'old rules' in the Old Testament because Jesus came and fulfilled those prophecies and somehow negated the old rules, but then they insist that the Ten Commandments are still valid, even though they are a part of those same old rules. The hypocrisy runs so deep, yet they are blind to themselves so they can't even see how stupid they've allowed themselves to become.

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  41. And what about the New Rules, the Jesus rules, which say among other things that a true follower of Jesus Christ needs to divest themselves of all worldly goods?

    Nah. They undoubtedly have a loophole. Lawyer-like, they always seek a way out of the tough rules, old or new, and find a way that they can pretend they're still christians.

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  42. The fundies say they don't have to follow the 'old rules' in the Old Testament because Jesus came and fulfilled those prophecies and somehow negated the old rules...

    They (i.e. Aquinas) make a distinction between civil, ceremonial and moral laws and the moral laws are the only ones that apply universally. Of course, there is no evidence that this distinction existed when the Hebrews were actually putting pen to paper, so take it for what it's worth.

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  43. Oh yeah... that's what the lawyers came up with. Pretty weak tea.

    How are the severe penalties for say, a son getting drunk and cussing at his father (death by stoning) not moral laws? If 'Thou shalt not kill' is a moral law, then 'thou shalt not get drunk and cuss at your father' must be too, no?

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  44. Plus 'keep holy the sabbath' is a commandment, and yet who does that anymore? Everybody works on the sabbath. Hell, christians CHANGED THE DAY from Saturday to Sunday! They frigging changed the day! Who killed the guy that tried to do that? I don't recall him getting stoned.

    (stoned... heh heh... heh...)

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  45. Plus, why are protestant fundies going by Aquinas anyhow?

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  46. It's all about bum-holing little boys, we have the proof! LOL

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  47. Guns-guns-guns!

    Colin Powell, "I see no reason for a Bushmaster to be in the hands of someone who might be deranged!"

    Oh, you mean a 'Markin? LOL

    It's not so funny when you consider that the reaction, the fallout, of twenty-some people dying at the hands of a mentally challenged boy, is, that the sales of guns SPIKE!

    Anyone who feels the need to own an assault rifle arsenal because they don't trust the gubbmint, the same dimwits who feel that prayer in school and the Pledge of Allegience ought to be MANDATORY or your family ought to just fucking LEAVE the U.S.A., they, they are fucking deranged from the fricking starting post. That stupid fucker who was ranting on CNN is nuts and he should never be allowed to own a gun!

    Can you imagine that prick as a cop? He'd be shoving his pistol up anyone he doesn't think is 'Markin enough for him's NOSE, just to show how 'Markin he is compared to the pinko, longhair, commie, fascist, unMarkin that he's 'dealing with according to LAW'!

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  48. The people that love guns the most, are the biggest cowards. That guy, is a total coward. Wayne LaPew or whatever, is a coward. They're all bullies, and all bullies are cowards.

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  49. On that crazy(as in the results are crazy) double-slit experiment, delayed choice and quantum eraser, seems to some to show that observation is causing the wave/particle to act either as a wave or as a particle, demonstrating that a simple choice observation or no observation can manipulate the effect. Showing, I'm supposing that our minds manipulate reality.

    Fair enough, then this proves that there cannot be an all-knowing God, since the experiments all done in God's Creation, under God's 'observation', should always show that observation has taken place.

    Meh, maybe God gave it HIS all in creating this wonderful universe, and passed on to God-heaven, who knows, but He's not here making observations on those experiments, we know THAT for sure!

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  50. Observation creating reality.
    And I don't see you calling bullshit on it?

    You cool with that? Because it's bringing consciousness into the mix.

    I'm telling you, one day science will describe the simple statement "everything is consciousness, all is a vast dream we share" with enough polysyllabic words that you're going to accept it, Pboy, and not even realize it's what I'd been talking about for years.

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  51. Our minds manipulate or rather influence the flow of reality as it manifests, by needing and insisting on a coherent STORY. It's really more of a story-based reality than a matter based one.
    (salvia insight)
    We see chaos and choose whatever comes next in our story out of it. Good or bad, we choose it, but not consciously, no, we choose 'the next obvious thing.' What is the next obvious thing to us, can be altered somewhat, but not radically changed.

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  52. And.. and hell with double slit diffraction, how about single slit diffraction!!?

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  53. Last night I was in deep meditation, blank mind, feeling the flow of the 'wavefront' of reality as it was manifesting to me, and I felt another of me branch off at one point. What I felt was a version of me 'peel off' of me and go off in a different direction. To describe the sensation is difficult at best. Imagine me sitting in a chair, and then you have a slight case of double vision, and it becomes more pronounced and I separate into two "me's"... from my point of view I very clearly felt my entire body sitting peacefully and then felt for a second two bodies superimposed, then felt one pulled (0r rather flowing) out of me off to the right side and flow back behind me, leaving me still sitting there as before...

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  54. How to describe the sensation of feeling your own body become two bodies gradually, feeling every part of me, inside and out, become doubled and separate one from the other, interpenetrating at every point as they separate, pulled apart by some 'flow' like taffy, but with no distortion of either version of me? And retain my clear consciousness throughout so that I could just marvel at it through the experience?

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  55. Another salvia insight: I can (and often do) stop and take note of a particular moment in time, say as I see a particular time on the clock in front of me, and focus on that moment *to the point where it remains real while my regular consciousness flows forward normally into the future.* I'm not sure I'm conveying what happens here... What I mean is, that moment remains real to me, NOT IN THE PAST, but I also at the same time see the normal flow of time afterwards, which also seems equally real, as if *every moment in time is frozen back there in the past, but still equally real to me as the present moment is.* It seems not that the past becomes unreal as we progress into the future, but only our memories of it fade and make the past SEEM less real than the 'present.'

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  56. Single slit produces a single image of a slit on the target every time. It's when there are two silts that interference happens.
    Or did you mean something else there?

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  57. "Single slit produces a single image of a slit on the target every time."

    http://www.vias.org/physics/bk5_05_08.html

    http://phys.educ.ksu.edu/vqm/html/singleslit.html

    .. and many more.

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  58. And you know Brian that I didn't word my comment in such a way as to suggest I believe that our conscious minds are affecting the experiment. No I didn't.

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  59. Here's a good reason why. I set up the experiment and it's like a double blind, the computer decides if it can be known or not that the light-path might be known or not.

    We come along and look at the 'screen' and declare, "Oooo, that was a good one, I guess it COULD be known, that's why there are two 'pillars' and not a diffraction pattern.

    Later we look at the 'screen' and declare, "Oooo, that was an instance that it has been decided(by the computer) that the path of the photon CAN be determined, how interesting!"

    But our consciousnesses have nothing to do with it, right?

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  60. Hmm, yea, just woke up.. one of them is a can be known, and the other is a cannot be known, still, our consciousnesses understand that this is happening and are rightfully amazed, but the photon is hardly in contact with our minds.

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  61. I didn't know about single-slit diffraction, thank you. Does that count as interference like as in the double-slit experiment?

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  62. I dunno.. just found that. I was thinking, you know how they demonstrate the double slit experiment with waterwaves, a little tank of water, lit so you can see the waves propagating along, and if they put a barrier with two slits, you see the diffraction pattern. Well, I'm thinking that they put in a one slit barrier first to show how the waves spread out from a point, first!

    Seems to me that if light acts like a beam of particles there should be just a line, but if it acts like a wave why not a smear, like light from a point source, like the spreading out as in a pin-hole camera?

    The diffraction is weird, but some sites explain it, well they have to really now, don't they?

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  63. This is sort of off the top of my head. All matter is, is particles of energy, all energy is waves. A particle, or a packet, a quantum, of energy is a particle of waves.

    Why do they have properties of particles and waves, because they are particles and they are waves.

    Now if a slit is wide enough the whole packet can breeze through it largely unaffected, no problem. But we know the size of the packet, the wavelength, the amplitude, the total energy of each photon, so, we can make a slit smaller than this, which fucks up the packet, the particle nature of the packet and kind of invokes the wave nature of it, the small slit forcing the light to radiate out from the slit, as waves do.

    According to the single slit diffraction sites, as I understand them, if a slit is 'just right'(could be many 'just rights') the light tending towards one side of the slit will radiate from there and the light tending to the other side will radiate from there, forming two rays which diffract.

    There is a theory(or was, maybe) that each photon acts as if it were bigger than it's package, i.e. the package of energy is mostly a certain size, but the magnetic portion(or perhaps both) aren't actually localized, but interact with a much larger volume than they occupy, much like an atom is a certain size simply because the electon cloud but has a larger volume of influence due to the magnetic field and such.

    The slits have to be sized according to the photon size but perhaps not according to the volume of influence associated with that photon.

    Seems to me the single photon/double slit experiment, the volume of influence would be like a wave front of a boat, where the direction of a boat would be influenced, going through a narrow gate, if there were another narrow gate beside it and it's wave front broke up and radiated out of the other gate influencing the direction of the boat.

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  64. To clarify,if one photon is like a tiny boat with a large wave front, the wave front hits both slits radiating, the photon follows this wavefront and the secondary wavefront influences the photon itself.

    In an actual boat, the wavefront would be very close comparatively since it is caused by the boat pushing on the water, and part of it's wavefront radiating from a second gate would be very small.

    But a photon having a volume of influence much greater than it's size would be influenced more by more of that volume of influence being split by the double slits, the photon isn't causing a wavefront, it's just it's own volume of influence interfering with it's self, since it was split by the slits.

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  65. You are aware that waves usually require a 'substrate' to wave 'in?'

    Water waves require water, but in the case of subatomic particles, the waves are waves of probability?

    Waves of probability. I love that.

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  66. I *think* that's what you mean by 'volume of influence,' but I'm not sure.

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  67. You seem to be saying that the wavefront goes through both gates but the photon only goes through one, but I *think* they've eliminated anything like that; as I understand it the photon equally 'passes' through both slits. Plus there is no 'photon' as such while it's doing it, there is only waves of probability, the probability of where the photon possibly can be, with no actual location. No actual location, just the probability that it is in one place or another or another or another and so forth, and those probabilities form waves that can interfere with each other. Or so I have learned from multiple sources, from Brian Greene's books and several others, plus online sources, plus television specials and so forth. Have you learned differently somewhere?

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  68. If the photon has a large 'volume of influence' and you see that kind-of like a bow-wave of a boat, and the photon went through one of the slits but the bow wave went through both slits so it could interfere with itself, you are dismissing the result when that actual electron comes out of the one slit that it went through. It would once again have a large bow wave, and the other slit would only have the remains of the portion of the original bow wave that entered it, but no photon emerges from that one, so the interference pattern on the other side would not be symmetrical, no?

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  69. "If the photon has a large 'volume of influence' and you see that kind-of like a bow-wave of a boat, and the photon went through one of the slits but the bow wave went through both slits so it could interfere with itself, you are dismissing the result when that actual electron comes out of the one slit that it went through..."

    yea, it doesn't 'go in' a photon and 'come out' an electron.

    " It would once again have a large bow wave, and the other slit would only have the remains of the portion of the original bow wave that entered it,..."

    The analogy with the boat and bow wave holds because the bow wave of the boat is 'dashed' against the wall, except for the very front of it and at the other 'slit'. The boat would be influenced by the part of the bow wave coming through the slit but only very slightly, because it is a water wave, and the boat isn't a packet/quantum of wave itself.

    ".. but no photon emerges from that one, so the interference pattern on the other side would not be symmetrical, no?"

    The idea is that depending on the phase of the photon whether at it's max. magnetic phase or max electric phase, the sphere of influence would be larger or smaller and it only has to interact with itself for an instant, just enough to change it's vector.

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  70. ".. but no photon emerges from that one, so the interference pattern on the other side would not be symmetrical, no?"


    Sorry, missed this.. the 'interference pattern' is built up through individual photons going through either slit yet changing course because the photon likely changes from magnetic to electric and back in quantum leaps too! LOL

    Wonder what would happen if the laser light was so accurate that the photon, as viewed as a particle, COULD only strike the wall through the left slit? The photon wouldn't 'know' this of course and might show an interference pattern. That'd be interesting.

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  71. This 'volume of influence' thing is badly stated. Thinking about a photon as an energy packet, well, what 'contains' the packet? Nothing. It's a 'discrete bundle' in the sense that light travels in that way is all.

    But it's just a spot of electro-magnetism zipping along at well over 35 mph! (If you can believe that!!)

    Anyways, saying energy travels in packets is like saying that a river, is just exactly the same as trillions of drops of water travelling downhill. Sort of yes and no.

    So, how 'contained' is a spot of energy? Well it would likely be represented by a bell curve, with most of the energy in the middle but spreading out however far the magnetic field part of that small a 'bit' of energy would spread! Maybe not a bell curve per se, but the highest in the middle spreading away for like you know, planck lengths and planck lengths, for light anyways. Radio waves, maybe up to kilometers!

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  72. Plus, off the top of my head, it's no frickin' wonder we have a huge problem conceptualizing light. As I understand it, as something approaches the speed of light, the dimension in line with travel, shrinks. So, for example, if it were a spaceship, rulers inside the ship would appear to us to be a foot long, but from a non-fraction-of-light-speed-observer, it'd be shortened considerably, depending on the relative difference in speed between traveller and observer. The distance to destination would shrink relative to the traveller, but not, of course the observer.

    Now a photon of light, which, incidentally ALWAYS travels 'at' light-speed would have, from 'it's perspective' zero time travel between emission and collision.

    Not only that there'd be no dimension from an outsider's perspective in the direction of travel, so we can't observe light and see it's dimension in the direction of it's travel, it's zero, just like the travel to destination time!

    But we 'see' it as a wave, which moves up and down in the exact same direction that has zero dimension! Or, it ACTS as a wave moving up and down in that direction.

    Now. I repeat, now. Imagine the Big Bang expanding into nothingness. How fast does it move? How fast can a new 'something' move into nothingness not even empty space, just nothingness. I don't think we CAN imagine that, it'd be like trying to imagine sticking your head up your own arse and wondering what it'd be like to have it come out your mouth!

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  73. Now, considering the speed of light and the universe starting as a Big Bang, think about this. We can, we hear, see the beginning of the universe, the remnants of the Big Bang, as a few degrees above absolute zero, microwave background radiation. It's everywhere and all around and so on.

    What does this even tell us? This radiation hasn't been around since the beginning of space and time, that's not possible since those microwaves are travelling at the speed of light, which we're not and they've already gotten where they were going AT THE START OF THE BIG BANG!

    Where'd they end up? They apparently ended up with us looking at them coming at us, you know, with our detectors!

    So, the Big Bang exploded, causing lots of radiation, radiating into nothingness, gets where it's going RFN(right fucking now) from it's POV, and we, on this planet are 'out there' in what is nothingness, waiting to 'see it'!!!

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  74. In other words, how do we, as material beings and planetary stuff and a star, get so far out into space that we can look back and see electro-magnetic microwave photons that presumably zipped by us into nothingness before we formed into heavy elements even?

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  75. You're mixing up the 'viewpoint' of the photon with our non-photon viewpoint, aren't you? Those photons that hit our eyes for us to see experienced zero time from emission point to the point that they impact our retina, but we sure did.
    And I meant 'photon' in that first post and accidentally posted 'electron.' But both are elementary particles that would fit the experiment since they are quantum particles. Noodge.

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  76. Or are you talking about the microwave background radiation now? If so, I think it's pretty much everywhere.

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  77. What does this even tell us? This radiation hasn't been around since the beginning of space and time, that's not possible since those microwaves are travelling at the speed of light, which we're not and they've already gotten where they were going AT THE START OF THE BIG BANG!
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    This is what confused me, because they didn't get where they were going at the start of the Big Bang, they're still flying around; it's just that no time has passed for them, only for us.

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  78. Yea, hmm. I'm not sure I'm the one mixing up the perspective here. Really though, we don't, can't observe light travelling at all, just light colliding with our eyes or, in the case of other electro-magnetic waves, with other detectors.

    When they first discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation, they found that if they pointed their detector anywhere, including the ground, there was no difference. So this is something I don't understand. The ground emits cosmic background radiation?

    Now those microwaves, if they were emitted at the beginning of the universe, well, surely they ought to be the furthest 'things', if photons of E.M. energy are things, out there. In other words, if there is a point where the universe started, all the stuff that became material stuff would be not as far out from that point as the stuff which became primordial E.M. radiation.

    The idea of primordial radiatioh hanging out 'cos no time has passed for it makes no sense, no time passes for any E.M. radiation relative to itself, there's no 'hanging out' for shit like that.

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  79. oh yea, in the case of the double-slit experiment, delayed choice and quantum eraser, seems we have a category offence.

    First, we create entangled photons, which we think of as particles or quantum wave packets, do the experiment and conclude that that's not what they are, why they're 'probability waves', yea, that's right.

    What? We have a mental model of how light is, do an experiment and declare that light isn't conforming to the model. How does that help us decide how light is, how the model has changed?

    In other words, this is either a model changing experiment or it isn't, right? So we have a model of what light is, conduct the experiment where light isn't acting the way the model predicts it should, and instead of changing the model, we just fuzz up the explanation.

    Again, if I send an entangled tennis ball out in a certain direction, in the model it's clear that it's a tennis ball. If during the experiment we need to change that tennis ball into a probability wave to explain what's happening, then turn it back into our tennis ball when it is detected, then something is fishy, don't you think?

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  80. Not if the probability wave is the real reality and we're just focusing on one outcome that then becomes real due to our focus on it, because it is the next obvious thing to us in the story. The probability wave is due to multiple universes, multiple possible outcomes forming a 'cloud' effect showing all possible outcomes at the same time as distributed by probability of happening, and the collapse into a particle is us focusing on only one of the possible universes or outcomes.

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  81. Note that I use 'universes' and 'outcomes' here interchangeably. In a multiverse, or more correctly in an omniverse, each possibility is a potential universe. Possibly even a real one.

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  82. I must note that in an omniverse scenario even whether a particle is detected at point A or at point B is a split into two universes. It's detected at both, but we choose which plotline to follow.

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  83. "Not if the probability wave is the real reality .."

    So, the experiment now 'goes', We create a probability wave, or we create a pair of entangled probability waves..

    Given that, 'collapsing into a particle', makes no sense.

    It's like, we have this old model we like, we kick that in the nuts and say, but you know, we like this old model and we are going to cling to it! Truth is, light isn't a quantum packet travelling through space at all!

    The quantum packet idea is introduced at the start of the experiment, blown out of the water during the experiment then reintroduced to explain the results of the experiment.

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  84. I don't get the 'entangled' part of your argument. I thought entanglment didn't have much to do with the double-slit experiment.

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  85. And the plain truth is, that light is a quantum packet, it just is, 'cos we can create these quantum packets, aim them at a target and the result is that these quantum packets arrive at the intended destination and the result is observed!

    Electon clouds moving 'up' a quantum level then falling back down a quantum level releasing a quantum packet explains the phenomenon.

    Add heat to a bar of iron and this excites the electron clouds which then shed quantum packets of radiant energy, some, as orange light, for example.

    You going to solve any problems going for the 'old', "..add energy to the iron bar and this excites the electrons which then release a probability wave which 'explores' every part of the universe then collapses on the most likely spot!

    Hey, you NEED salvia to bother with that, yes?

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  86. GAKK! Now I'm rereading the delayed thingy/quantum eraser thingy?

    Okay then:- "This experiment involves an apparatus with two main sections. After two entangled photons are created, each is directed into its own section of the apparatus."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment

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  87. Now doesn't, "After two entangled probability waves are created, each is DIRECTED into its own section..", sound NOT RIGHT, somehow?

    Now we're 'directing' probability waves! WE'RE FUCKING GODS!(not)

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  88. Pboy, I respect your intellect and analytic ability probably more than you even realize, but do you really think that you are right and the majority of quantum physicists are wrong? It seems so. Are you scoffing at them like you do my ideas?
    I have read that basically, if quantum physics makes sense to you that you're not understanding it properly or some such thing. The point is, the results do NOT make sense in the 'common sense' use of the word.

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  89. Brian. At least agree with me that directing probability waves doesn't sound right?

    We can agree that they're changing categories here, can't we?

    On the one hand, thinking of photons as quantum packets, we know they're pointing them, hey, we point flashlights all the time.

    But on the other hand the quantum packets themselves are probability waves, as per the experiment.

    Something isn't right there, right?

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  90. Come ON Brian!

    This, "..quantum physicists are wrong?", sounds a LOT like, "What, all the priests are WRONG?"!

    At least agree with me, that if you were at a demonstration, and some quantum physicist said, "Yes, we create a pair of entangled photons and direct one one way and the other another way, such that we can show that they're not actually directable quantum packets of energy AT ALL! HAH! They're actually probability waves y'see! Notice how we detect the truth of this by detecting the anomaly of how the quantum packets behave at the detection stage!

    You're NOT going to point out that at the beginning they're assumed to be directable photons, in the middle they're not, then at the end they are again???

    Because, well, they're our frickin' heros? That's the answer?

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  91. And I know I was taking a pop at you on the salvia thing, that was, and is, a joke, un chiste, I'm ribbing you, just fooling around, pulling your leg, kidding, breaking your balls, fucking with you, having a laugh, yanking your chain, being a bit of a dick and so on and so forth.

    But the salvia thingy and the photon experiment thing are two separate things, right? I seriously have doubts about our(humanity's) physical model of what photons are like, is a good model, if I, some poor schlep, can pick holes in it.

    And I know that you can see the same 'holes' in it, I know that you're not deluded. If physicists have even thought of that categorical difference between how they set up the experiment and explain it and what they're trying to tell us the experiment explains, well they're keeping it a secret from us, dont you think?

    The onus isn't on us to explain either the experiment or their own negligence in explaining it, neither of us, since the onus is on THEM to explain it in such a way that they don't seem to be contradicting themselves, right?

    I think they ARE contradicting themselves here. If they're saying it seems to be a paradox, okay, I suppose.

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  92. Oh, I'm not even slightly pissed, pboy. And I agree it sounds suspect, but I think they *can* direct 'quantum packets' as such, at least point them in a certain direction, however many of them do 'disobey' and hence cometh the strangeness. You may understand a photon better than I do, for all I know, and have a great point that I'm not seeing yet because of that. I wasn't 'hero worshiping' although I realize it sounded like that; what I was doing was giving a certain amount of weight to the abilities of this particular group of people which, unlike priests, have honed their critical thinking ability to a fine edge indeed. What I was basically thinking, *from personal experience* is that most times when a non-quantum-physicist sees what seems to be a subtle hole in their theories, and tells an actual quantum physicist or looks it up, they indeed have already thought of that, and usually a long time ago.

    Now that that's clear, I will add from my salvia-addled perspective (since I know how much you love to hear about this stuff) it seems to me that if this place is a story-based pseudoreality that has much in common with a dream, then the closer we look at these very small things, the more we will have false starts, such as discovering a thing, and then discovering that said thing turned out to not be true, and here's why, but oh wait, as more time passes hey, that thing we disproved, well it turned out to be true because of this other thing we just found out or ruled out, and later on still, shit that thing doesn't seem to be true anymore, and so forth. Like as in how the original copenhagen interpretation implied a mystic component to reality so much that several of the pioneers of the science itself, like Max Planc and Neils Boer, themselves became mystics, and then we found decoherence and that seemed enough to take the place of the observer, and if we wait long enough it will change again *as the belief in it changes.*

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  93. Well, if you mean that people have mental models of what is real, what it's all about, how they view reality, that kind of thing, a religious point of view is as valid as any other, whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

    Of the however many varieties of religion, and the however many varieties of Christianity, a Christian will be happy that her variety is the very best and truest one, will be willing to include all other Christianities and even all other theisims in her battle against the dreaded atheism.

    In general, being 'spiritual' is better from her perspective than not, but it all amounts to tribalism. I'm pretty sure that atheist or no, she'd expect us all to be on her side, humanities side, if it came down to us against interstellar aliens(as if that's ever going to happen).

    Science is supposed to be something that we can all agree on, even if it's just that we don't have a very good model right now.

    Some theists use this idea that we can disagree about the mechanisms of the model to try to undermine the model itself, in the case of Evolution, for example, and are quite happy to agree with other Christian denominations that agree with them on this subject.

    This makes no sense at all for competing versions of Christianity to agree on basic principles but disagree on others, while not 'allowing' for people to have some differences of opinion over how Evolution has proceeded, which is exactly not how religion is supposed to work and exactly how SCIENCE IS supposed to work!

    At one time there was a 'kooky' scientist who thought that there were plates on the Earth's crust that moved while the consensus of 'mainstream' science was that that didn't happen.

    Similarly there was, at one time, a universal Christian church whose ultimate authority rested in Rome, and some kooks thought that that wasn't working very well.

    But the overriding principles of geology didn't all fly out the window just 'cos the 'kook' was right, just exactly as the overriding principles of Christianity didn't go out the window.

    Point is, you may well be right, but I disagree that the scientific model of how quantum packets of radiant energy operates, is evidence for your theory!

    We may well be a three dimensional projection of some greater reality on the 'skin' of a black hole. I doubt this because it seems to admit to black holes, which would be three dimensional projections of some greater reality! The mind dutifully boggles, no?

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  94. Well, if you mean that people have mental models of what is real, what it's all about, how they view reality, that kind of thing, a religious point of view is as valid as any other, whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
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    I disagree for the obvious reason that it does not comport with observable reality that is testable.

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  95. Point is, you may well be right, but I disagree that the scientific model of how quantum packets of radiant energy operates, is evidence for your theory!
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    Not evidence. More like an opening. More like an area of scientific results that are no less ridiculous than my theory, and still do not preclude it, because nobody can say that it is definite that the copenhagen interpretation is not valid. Look for it. Look online for the *proof* or even the *strong evidence* that the copenhagen interpretation is not the correct one. If we discard it, then we're left with multiverses and omniverses and such, which could still be true and not invalidate the copenhagen interpretation. For if every time there is a decision made the entire universe splits, what created a whole new universe of MATTER and ENERGY which must needs constitute that new universe? It came from NOWHERE. Absurd!

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  96. Do you know what it appears is the primary *reason* that modern quantum physicists have mostly (not entirely to a person) discarded the Copenhagen interpretation that requires that consciousness takes a role in the collapse of the wave form into a particle?

    I've looked and looked, and all I can find is that the reason it is discarded, is BECAUSE it introduces CONSCIOUSNESS into the equation. They discard the consciousness-based theory because it is consciousness-based, and for *no other reason.*

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  97. Thought I covered this. The reason consciousness isn't involved is because we could automate the operation, look at the final result, a diffraction grating or not, and know that we either 'could have known' or 'couldn't have known'.

    It doesn't make a difference to the machine, or to the set-up if you prefer, if a consciousness was 'looking' or no.

    If it's automated, and filters are put in place or no at random, and 'we' could know the result, we can know that a certain set of filters was used just by looking at the results. No consciousness at all actually involved!

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  98. If we had the process set up to randomly put a polarizing filter in, or not, before the light passed, and/or after the light passed the slits, there'd be no consciousness busy placing, or not placing the filters.

    Now if set up the process like that and had it locked in a titanium box with a key which would wreck the process, if consciousness was involved, we'd always get a diffraction grid, right?

    Is this what we see? I doubt it.

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  99. IOW someone who knows what's going on sets it up, runs it, and someone who has no clue looks at the results. Whose consciousness is the photon 'reading'?

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  100. Certainly as atheists we can't expect the Almighty Creator of the Universe's consciousness to be peeking, but there are a lot of believers out there who would be disappointed to know that God doesn't know such things, don't you think?

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    1. Hawking refuted Einstein by saying "God not only throws dice, but sometimes He throws them where they cannot be seen"

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  101. You're re-phrasing schroedinger's cat. We can 'not look for a while' and both options exist in superposition, then when we finally look it resolves into one or the other, no? Putting the whole process in a box merely delays *when* we observe it. And as the delayed choice Q.E. proves, such knowledge in the 'future' will effect the 'past.'

    I'm having trouble understanding you a bit, so maybe I'm missing what you're saying. Diffraction grating = interference pattern? Polarizing filters = 50% reflective mirrors? Huh?

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  102. From what I see in some places, it is said that this experiment is in effect the same as measuring which slit the photon went through, but then dumping that data and not getting the interference effect, but I'm not sure that's even true since actually reading the experiment, say on Wikipedia, seems to indicate more the idea that the measurement after the fact travels back through time to cause the registered result. Either way it's very counterintuitive.

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  103. IOW someone who knows what's going on sets it up, runs it, and someone who has no clue looks at the results. Whose consciousness is the photon 'reading'?
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    The collective one, of course. The only one there is, but that which is divided into the many.

    Realists really hate that idea.

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  104. If I am you and you are me and I am also all that I can see, then when you conduct the experiment and I see the result, it's the same as if you saw the result. We are the same identity at the most basic level; all of our differences are after that fact, all differences between us are illusion. We cling to that illusion because we want to be individuals, we want there to be more than one of us, we want diversity, because it's fucking lonely to be the only thing there is. In a way, I see the idea of the one fracturing into the many as sort-of a nervous breakdown of the one.

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  105. Let's take the consciousness out of the mix.

    We discard Copenhagen, and we are left with the Many Worlds hypothesis, or a variant thereof.

    In this world we chose one option, in the other parallel one we chose the other option. Our choice created a whole new universe of matter and energy and time and space.

    Compared to that, I'll take Copenhagen. But even if I didn't, what sort of material, what sort of thing, can suddenly create a whole entire parallel universe complete with all that we see in this one?

    Only one 'material.' Consciousness again!

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  106. And in what scenario can an action or a decision alter an entire world or even create a new one out of 'whole cloth?' Only in a dream scenario.

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  107. Think about it. If there was always matter and energy, that makes no real sense. However if once there was no matter nor energy, that also makes no sense. If the universe is limited, then what lies outside it? If there is no outside to it, then how did something come to be inside of nothing? If it came from somewhere else, then how did it come to be there first, before it came here and made our universe in some Big Bang or whatever? And if nothing was here, then how could anything explode inside of nothing, if such included zero space and zero time? If the universe is unlimited and infinite, how can one even imagine such a thing as infinite distance or infinite time? Or infinite matter enclosed in an infinite space? If there is no beginning to time, is it circular somehow? If so, how does such a closed loop come into existence inside of nothingness? If it's not circular, how can we imagine infinite time? If it has a beginning though, how can we imagine what came before it?

    To say "God" is to want a childishly simple answer to a complex question. However, to say 'consciousness' then once one realizes that it is indeed totally possible and just as likely that all we see and sense is patterns of consciousness rather than real things as such, and *this resolves all those questions that I just posed, and indeed all such questions.*

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  108. Hawking refuted Einstein by saying "God not only throws dice, but sometimes He throws them where they cannot be seen"

    Really? That's too bad.

    "Diffraction grating = interference pattern? Polarizing filters = 50% reflective mirrors?"

    Yea, I was talking about the 'multiple bars pattern'. And no, I was talking about polarizing filters, how they polarize the light to find out which slit the light went through.

    "The collective one, of course. The only one there is, but that which is divided into the many. Realists really hate that idea."

    Yea, you're right.

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  109. Think about it. If there was always matter and energy, that makes no real sense. However if once there was no matter nor energy, that also makes no sense. If the universe is limited, then what lies outside it? If there is no outside to it, then how did something come to be inside of nothing?

    Pfft. You're right Brian. Just think about it.

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  110. Yea Brian, it's Inception, it's Shutter Island, it's Vanilla Sky!

    You're right of course, I said it myself a couple of comments back.

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  111. Ahh, you didn't think about it, really, did you? Unless summary dismissal is considered "thinking about it."

    Anyhow, how 'bout them Mets?

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  112. "Ahh, you didn't think about it, really, did you? Unless summary dismissal is considered "thinking about it.""

    GAKK! You just can't stand it if anyone agrees with you?

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  113. I said(for example):-Certainly as atheists we can't expect the Almighty Creator of the Universe's consciousness to be peeking..

    Your answer, after much thinking about it, presumably, :- Hawking refuted Einstein by saying "God not only throws dice, but sometimes He throws them where they cannot be seen...

    Yet I'm being called out by you for not thinking about it? Honestly?

    Isn't your response some kind of answer to, "Hey, Einstein said something about God playing dice with the universe, didn't he? And he was smart!

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  114. Nah, I'm not trying to call you out. And I didn't really get your God comment so I just threw that in about Einstein because it sounded like it more-or-less pertained to what you were trying to say. I was incorrect, it would appear.
    I also do not expect you to try to ponder something that you already have soundly rejected, after all. I was more just busting you up. Also, that last thing there you said about 'Hey, Einstein... and he was smart!' If you read it right it was more me saying that Einstein was wrong, more or less, and Hawking was 'smarter' in that he was correcting him.
    To be honest, I've had trouble following you in this conversation from time to time. I've even gone and re-read the Wiki page about the delayed choice thing. Didn't much help me though. I see 50% reflective mirrors in it... thought that was what you were talking about when you said polarizing filters... You referred to the interference pattern as a diffraction pattern, and that threw me a bit as well. I'm hardly an expert on it... sometimes it's better to keep things simple here with me.

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  115. It appears that quantum physicists themselves have different opinions on this stuff, which only adds to the confusion. Hell, they sound confused. So it's hard for me not to be.

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  116. I did notice back when you were talking about one-slit diffraction or one-hole diffraction, that it was NOT the same thing as the interference pattern or as interference in general. Diffraction is not interference in that sense. Or at least I don't think so. So another source of confusion for me.

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  117. "If light consisted strictly of ordinary or classical particles, and these particles were fired in a straight line through a slit and allowed to strike a screen on the other side, we would expect to see a pattern corresponding to the size and shape of the slit. However, when this "single-slit experiment" is actually performed, the pattern on the screen is a diffraction pattern in which the light is spread out."

    Yea, I said, diffraction grid, talking about the bars of light, my mistake, I think I mentioned that mistake already, apparently not enough though, heh.

    Now the polarization thing, was how I recalled how they could tell which slit the light had gone through, since a polarization filter would tag the light as having come through THAT slit and not the other slit. I might be full of shit here but I had thought that when this filter was in place, since we COULD know, then there'd be no diffraction pattern(not grid) but two 'posts' of light(as per particles hitting the back wall).

    Now, I had thought that one method of trying to confuse the situation was to depolarize the light after it had moved through the slit allowing a diffraction pattern, since we then 'could not know' once again. And again, I may be full of shit there.

    Nevertheless there is a method of knowing, a rearrangement where we then cannot know and this could be easily mechanized where the thing could perform as 'known' resulting in two bars or 'unknown' resulting in a diffraction pattern, meaning that there'd be no consciousness involved.

    If you insist that it's the universal consciousness, then that would presumably always be present and if it knew always, since a photon would be part of that universal consciousness, it's come up two bars(known), all the time, which obviously isn't the case.

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  118. I get what you're saying now, that if the light can be known or not, by ANY consciousness, then it's act as if a consciousness was/is influencing it.

    I'm turning tables on this by saying that if a universal consciousness, say God, or just 'the universal consciousness that all reality comes from' is peeking, then it doesn't matter how we confuse the issue, this overriding consciousness would KNOW which slit the photon went through, and presumably the photon would know this and react accordingly. i.e. not as a wave, but as a particle.

    Given my perspective, no consciousness necessary, and your perspective, 'hey, consciousness available on tap', I think you're actually stubbing your toe here, since you, on the one hand are amazed that the photon seems to be affected by observation, and on the other other hand you're saying that there's ALWAYS a consciousness 'there' looking.

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  119. From what I've read, they can't construct such a closed system in a box and have it negate the 'conscious observation' thing. But maybe I'm still not getting you here.
    As to the delayed choice experiment, they use different pathways and partially reflective mirrors, no? This allows them to 'look' at which pattern they will see, after the fact of it happening, and the pattern still is 'interference pattern' even when they do not 'look' till afterwards, seemingly going back in time to influence the pattern. That is I think the gist of it, no? Am I wrong?

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  120. One thing that I keep coming across, but I can't find in the actual description of the DCQE experiment, is the idea of them checking which slit the photon goes through, then not looking at the result but dumping the data so that nobody gets to ever look at it, and according to what I've read, when nobody sees the data, even when the measurement was taken, there is an interference pattern. If that is true, then consciousness is DEFINITELY involved, but alas, I cannot find that description in the official description of the experiment.

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  121. Well, Brian, my point was that we could set it up so that there is a random dumping of the data which we're not going to know about, so it's not our consciousness that's knowing or not whether the data has been dumped.

    Since none of our consciousnesses were involved, we're back to the great universal consciousness, or God.

    But this is a paradox since presumably the great universal consciousness, or God, always knows which slit the photon went through, I mean, they're both 'all knowing', either God being the creator or the great universal consciousness being reality itself.

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  122. Let's say we get some brainacs to set up the equipment so that it runs automatically and at random.

    A light comes on and 'we're off!' We watch and get the results, is it a waveform or a particle form? We record it.

    Those guys come back at the end of the day and give us our pay. We weren't the slightest bit interested in what was going on, so off we go to the bar.

    Now, the brainiacs weren't running the machine, they were off to the whorehouse(or wherever brainiacs go when they'ver got nothing to do, so the operation/results have nothing to do with them. We're at the bar and we didn't care what was going on, we just recorded the results.

    So we're down to a universal consciousness, either personal, i.e. God, or impersonal, just 'the universal consciousness'.

    But God wouldn't just observe enough to influence the photon, no. He'd observe EVERYTHING! He's always know, stored data or no stored data and therefore the results should always be that there is an observer.

    The same goes for a universal consciousness which is 'the ulimate reality', since it(the universal consciousness) is causing us to imagine every tiny aspect, even the photons, to 'be' in the first place.

    Would the path of a photon be known by an ultimate observer? Fuck yes!

    Unless there are rules which this ultimate observer must obey, which makes it/him less than 'ultimate'. This would mean that if we're positing an ultimate observer, it/he who/that doesn't know which slit the photon goes through, doesn't know how his creation is going to act, doesn't know the process by which it's component pieces of itself(each photon) works, there's an ultimate Creator/consciousness above him/it.

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  123. That's precisely what I've read many times, that they've tried that, and when they dump the data the result is identical to when they take no measurement! As in, they take the measurement (which would cause the waveform collapse if it were just the measuring that was doing it) and nobody ever gets to see the measurement, and the experiment acts like the measurement was never taken, just because nobody looked at the result. This is how I heard the experiment described about five years ago or more.... and I can still find these descriptions online... My question is, did they really do it that way?

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  124. But God wouldn't just observe enough to influence the photon, no. He'd observe EVERYTHING! He's always know, stored data or no stored data and therefore the results should always be that there is an observer.

    The same goes for a universal consciousness which is 'the ulimate reality', since it(the universal consciousness) is causing us to imagine every tiny aspect, even the photons, to 'be' in the first place.

    Would the path of a photon be known by an ultimate observer? Fuck yes
    ----------------
    No no no no! The ultimate observer is composed of US, and WE are doing all the observations, because in reality we are the ones creating this place, not God. Not some godlike 'ultimate observer' that you are assuming has godly powers.... just us, all of us, and if we don't know it, neither does the 'ultimate observer.'

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  125. Unless you're actually saying that God or the ultimate consciousness is hiding the data from himself/itself?

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  126. The theory goes, when we observe it, we are actually creating it, but are not aware of it. So an observation is an act of creation. That's where creation happens. We are the One, but we are all divided into individuals that believe they are not a part of the One.
    So goes the thinking at any rate.

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  127. Again, the One is all of us. Everybody. It's not omniscient. It's not god. It's not like god. Our observations do the creating, not the One. The One is what our observations manipulate to form the creations, and the One is also all of us, all combined. We do the thinking, the One gives us what we expect. To the One, the photon does all possible things at once, but we decide which one of the things it is doing that we are willing to see.

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  128. Unless you're actually saying that God or the ultimate consciousness is hiding the data from himself/itself?
    --------------
    It's fine to not believe this and to think it pure crap, but know what you're dismissing!

    You are confusing the One thing, with God. There are big differences.

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  129. To the One, the photon does all possible things at once, but we decide which one of the things it is doing that we are willing to see.
    -----------
    I just wanted to emphasize the above. It's key to understanding what I mean here.

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  130. By the way, I truly like talking to you about these things even if you think it crap. Hope you're not thinking that I'm getting upset... far from it!

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  131. On an aside, apparently I've started meditating in my sleep. I have some vague memories of it... last night I was experimenting in my dreams!

    Salvia is pretty much like a very vivid dream... including the 'hard to remember' part... so I guess the more I get practice controlling my salvia state, the more I can control my regular dreams.. an unexpected side benefit.

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  132. I distinctly recall that last night while asleep, I was thinking in a certain manner about my body, doing something really strange with my own body-consciousness, and I made my entire body burn, inside and out, several times... can't for the life of me recall what it was that I was doing/thinking then that caused it... but I think I was thinking about my body in a new way.... a very strange way... Too strange to recall!

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  133. Well, seems to me that your further explanation of the One in relationship to each individual, is side-stepping my question.

    If the apparatus is set up such that it operates on it's own, then no consciousness can be pointed to to explain how the photon is being manipulated by it.

    Now it would be easy enough to allow a computer to operate the equipment such that no-one knew whether data had been dumped, or the light was 'tagged' in some way that we could know which slit it went through, and we would only see the results.

    We could easily make it so that the final data collecters knew nothing whatsoever about how the apparatus was supposed to work, only that their job was to see if there was a diffraction pattern or no.

    So, which consciousness is 'there' influencing the result?

    You previously said that it was the ultimate consciousness, now, not so much.

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  134. I agree with you, if that is indeed possible. I'm just not sure that it is. I think they've tried it.

    If a totally unaware observer is the one observing it, it shouldn't matter, since they are a part of the One consciousness, along with the researchers that DO understand the results.

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  135. ...aaaaaand we have another school shooting, this time in Houston, Texas.

    Ahh, Texas. Anyhow, one person critical and a couple of others shot but okay, or at least so it appears thus far, which is still very early on....

    Texas, where adults play 'cowboys and indians...'

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  136. "..since they are a part of the One consciousness, along with the researchers that DO understand the results."

    ... and since it's the One consciousness which is creating this reality, it, the One consciousness ALWAYS knows, therefore the result should ALWAYS be the particle form, that is NOT the wave form!

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  137. Seems to me that you're willing to understand where I'm going with it just so far as it agrees with what you already think, and you're just missing out the bit that disagrees with you, you're not understanding the part that disagrees, you're ignoring, misunderstanding, skirting around, glancing off, coming in on a tangent to, the part that isn't agreeing with you.

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  138. "If a totally unaware observer is the one observing it, it shouldn't matter, since they are a part of the One consciousness, along with the researchers that DO understand the results."

    Someone looking at the end result, either evidence that light is a wave or evidence that light is a particle, isn't 'the observer' of the phenomenon, if they're not understanding.

    If they see evidence of light as a particle, it's because the potential evidence of light as a wave has 'collapsed', but only if the guy recording the result knows what he/she is looking at.

    If the guys who set up the apparatus know what they're testing for but set it up to be automatic, a computer 'decides' by random choice whether there ought to be one or the other result, then they're not 'observing', their consciousnesses aren't responsible either!

    If consciousnesses were involved then the photons would always give us a 'no consciousness involved' response since the photon can't be reacting to 'a possible consciousness involved' even thought it seems like that... unless, with an automated process and data collectors who have no clue, always gives us the 'no consciousness' result.

    When the process is run through 100 times and 100 pieces of data are collected, the makers of the apparatus cannot know, they can assume that it was 'possible to know', but they can't ever know.

    One of the elements of getting a wave pattern is that a conscious can't ever know, yet we'd get mixed results.

    Unless the photon reads the mind of the data-collectors together with the minds of the apparatus makers and follows the rules as if it knows they 'could' try to cheat, until it's too late to try to cheat, but they won't try to cheat once the result is recorded and the next run through is started.

    What if the data-collection was automated? The person analysing the data could never know, but he/she will see individual results showing that he/she could have known, if they were actually observing at the time.

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  139. Now, you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you invoke an overall consciousness forcing the photon to act one way or another, since it's the 'observer', then you're saying that there is always a reason why the photon probability wave to collapse and we should always see evidence that photons are particles, since unlike us human observers, an overall consciousness which creates our reality always knows which slit the collapsed probability wave is going through.

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  140. Okay, as far as I can tell, you've just overturned 100 years of quantum physics research. Get published immediately!

    Or maybe I'm wrong....

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  141. an overall consciousness which creates our reality always knows which...
    -------------------
    Not the kind of thing I'm talking about at all. It doesn't 'know' which, it is the photon in all it's possible outcomes, and it is also us the observer, which chooses which of the many outcomes/possibles become realized.

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  142. But hey, I can't say that this stuff is the way it is. To be frank, you sound more logical than I do in this.

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  143. Pboy, has anybody TRIED your idea there of an enclosed system and an unaware observer? Have you checked? (Note: I have not) I'd be curious what someone involved in the research would say...

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  144. Unless the photon reads the mind of the data-collectors together with the minds of the apparatus makers and follows the rules as if it knows they 'could' try to cheat, until it's too late to try to cheat, but they won't try to cheat once the result is recorded and the next run through is started.
    -------------
    Note: Devils Advocate Argument:

    In this scenario, the photon is a part of the One, as were the minds of the apparatus makers and so forth. As was the apparatus. As is this blog, and you and me. The dream follows a plotline. All are involved at once. What we decide makes sense, is what we end up perceiving.

    I know, it's ridiculous. I agree, but that's how it goes.

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  145. Yea, well, that's what I was trying to say before when I said that everyone develops their one worldview and follows the ideologies they think, or don't as the case may be.

    Here's a radical experiment. We get the scientists to set up the apparatus and run the experiment. At the crucial time we set off a tiny packet of explosives carefully placed to destroy their reasoning skills!

    Would they now see a wave pattern where there was a 'particle' pattern?

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  146. You really wanna have this conversation? Okay,

    It wouldn't make any difference. If the see the pattern and can remember it through all the confusion, they've seen it. If they're too distracted to actually see it, hey, they didn't see it. If they indeed saw it, they count as the observer regardless of their knowledge of the experiment, since their observation cannot go against the already-established pattern of quantum behavior.
    What I really want to know is, if nobody sees it but the measurement is taken (the results are dumped before anybody can see them) then does the pattern remain an interference pattern or does it "collapse" into two bars anyhow? I've heard from several sources that if nobody sees the result of the measurement, it's just as if the measurement is never taken. In other words, you still see the interference pattern. Now, IF THAT IS TRUE, then consciousness is definitely involved.

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  147. What do you make of this:



    2. Leave the electron detectors on, but don't gather the information. Suppose we take our modified double slit set up -- with electron detectors at the slits -- and still leave everything intact. And we will keep the electron detectors at the slits turned on, so that they will be doing whatever they do to detect electrons at the slits. But, we will not actually look at the count of electrons at the slits, nor will we record the count at the slits in any way, so that we will not be able to obtain any results from these fully-functioning electron detectors.

    The result upon analysis: an interference pattern at the back wall. So it seems that the electron detectors located at the slits do not themselves affect the electron, even when the equipment is fully functioning and detecting (in a mechanical sense) the electrons, so long as we don't obtain the results of these measurements.

    http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/chap2.html

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  148. I tell you right now, IF THAT IS TRUE, if they ran the experiment that way (and it seems an obvious thing to do) and the results were as said here above, then CONSCIOUSNESS being involved is the ONLY conclusion.

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  149. Also I might add, if it is NOT TRUE, then one would think that someone in the scientific community would have said so long ago, because if it isn't true, it seems to take consciousness out of the mix, and I know for a fact that most of today's scientists in that field want to do that, and have been trying to definitively do that for a long while, ever since the Copenhagen interpretation. (It makes hem squirm)

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  150. Geez Brian, it seems that if I want to talk about it you misunderstand what I'm saying and if I say 'fine', you want to talk about it more. I don't know how it'd be possible to detect an electron without affecting it at all, isn't that exactly the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?

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  151. I see Boehner is trying to turn tables on their idea that their mission was to make Obama a one term President. Having failed, he is not couching it as the Democrats want to destroy the GOP!

    Hah.

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  152. christ! I'm making lots of horrible typos.. "he is not couching it'... should be, "he is NOW couching it"

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  153. I don't know how it'd be possible to detect an electron without affecting it at all, isn't that exactly the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?-------- You can't know both location and vector, but you can know one or the other... (my comp has a glitch now so I can't hit enter and skip down to the next line for some reason)

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  154. If the particles pass through running detectors and the results are different depending solely upon whether a person ever sees the results, I think even you would be forced to agree that consciousness has a role, no?
    I'm really interested in finding out if that's the actual case or not. I wonder how to check? I'm sure there's no 'talk to a quantum mechanical researcher' blog online... Hmmm....

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  155. If they pass through running detectors and when nobody gets to see the results they are identical to when no detectors are present, you must admit that it proves the effect of the detectors negligible and also that since the sole variable is whether anyone *knows,* that consciousness is involved.
    I also have the answer to the oft-asked question (back when the idea of consciousness was being debated among quantum physicists as the telling factor) of "well then, what if it's a bunny that is the one looking, is a bunny's consciousness enough to collapse the waveform?"
    It's "no." Why? Because a bunny, while perfectly conscious, cannot contribute the results of it's observation to the HUMAN STORY LINE. It's really a story-based reality, if the ground of all being is consciousness.

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  156. Now if you want to collapse the waveform of a carrot, a bunny's just the thing...

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  157. Of course, the bunny can only collapse the waveform in such a way that the bunny perceives the carrot in bunny-perception. For us humans to collapse it, we can't just take the bunny's word for it; we must observe it ourselves...

    (joke, btw)

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  158. Yea, I could use some rum in my coffee right now.

    But, as to the other stuff, looking at it from the back of the classroom, as it were, who the fuck cares? What does it mean for you and me?

    You and I live in the realm of electro-magnetism. Things are real only if they're electro-magnetic, since, 'if we strip away the electron clouds of atoms and molecules', well, remember that 'vast empty space' between the cloud and the nucleus.

    Stuff sticks together because of electromagnetism and electromagnetism alone makes the rules.

    All hail Electromagnetism! YAY!

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  159. who the fuck cares? What does it mean for you and me?
    ---------------
    It means a lot for me if this is all consciousness. It has no meaning for you?

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  160. Still, I point out that there is a lot of presupposing going on, and that can't be thrown out the window so easily. The experiments presuppose the existence of photons AS discrete bundles of electro-magnetic energy. True or false?

    As the experiment 'progresses' and the various filters/detectors are enabled, the results are observed, it is proposed that light is definitely NOT simply discrete bundles of electro-magnetic energy!

    Once again, true or false?

    The final result is obtained, and described as the effects of discrete bundles of energy.

    True or false?

    To sum up, we 'see' photons leave the source(we cause photons to leave the source), something happens which, it seems cannot be explained in terms of photons, then finally we observe('see') photons again!

    The photons which we caused to leave the source is just as mysterious, just as non-directional at the very beginning of the experiment and at the very end of the experiment as they are in the middle of it, right?

    But that's not how we think of them no. We presuppose light to be a certain way, find that's not the case, then use our original presuppositions about light for our conclusion!

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  161. "Early in the history of this experiment, scientists discovered that, by decreasing the brightness of the light source sufficiently, individual particles of light that form the interference pattern are detectable. They next tried to discover by which slit a given unit of light (photon) had traveled."

    Here scientists are presupposing the nature of light, yes?

    I'm not saying that they have no reason to suppose that light consists of packets of energy that are directable, it just seems to me that that model is falling apart under observation, yes?

    And at the end, well, we put humpty dumpty back together again and the photons are hitting the screen at the back of the experiment so we can see the 'crazy' results!

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  162. Okay, I think I finally see your point. And it would seem that what you're saying is right, but one thing I am thinking is that this very experiment is what caused scientists to begin to think of photons and so forth as not *merely* discrete bundles of energy, but as more of a probabilistic field in which can manifest a discrete bundle of energy when the field is collapsed. I don't think they're completely mis-defining a particle like you seem to be suggesting here. I think they've updated the definition, although it may well be that they're not right about it.

    So in short, dunno.

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  163. How do you explain the idea of the detectors left running but the results dumped before anyone can see them, if that is true? Even if we're totally misdefining the idea of a photon, even so, that result STILL means that consciousness is definitely involved here. Or do you see another interpretation (again, if that is true)?

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  164. What do you think a photon really is, then? If you have an idea about it, I mean?

    I am always reminding myself that in an atom, any atom, you have these quantum 'particles' called electrons and protons and neutrons, forming the atom, and all of them are bundles of energy. What I mean is, there is no 'there' there. There is nothing solid in a chunk of 'solid' matter, nothing at all that is not energy in one form or another... We're composed of energy, and empty space, and that's it. We're like ghosts that think we're solid matter just because to us another ghost feels solid.

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  165. I suppose when they have the photon gun turned all the way down to 'one' then they fire off a photon and always see just one dot on the screen, so they can at least assume that there's only one of whatever a photon really is being fired. Then that one thing goes and acts like it splits into two things and then goes back to being just one thing....

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  166. I'm not a quantum physicist, I don't claim to be able to resolve any of the issues, Brian.

    In general, the universe that we see around us and record is everything to do with your and my consciousness, as far as observing and recording go.

    Nevertheless I disagree with the idea that as goes dots of radiant energy, so goes reality.

    Reality isn't dependant on the idea that everything is travelling so fast that time has stopped, relatively, for them.

    Imagine Brian, a particle is a particle here on Earth, we know what a particle is, and in general when we thin of a particle, it's not in the position of being outside of time as far as it, itself is concerned, right?

    You know what, a particle of light likely DOES act as if it is a particle travelling at the speed of light! REALLY!

    How long an experiment took to set up and complete, how many photons are being 'allowed' to go through the experiment at one time, and so on, doesn't mean that light 'travelling' means the same to it as it does to us, who cannot really concieve of no time passing for its point of view and practically no time passing from our point of view!

    "Why the distance travelled and time it took is well understood! It took 2ft/186,262mi seconds to get from source to destination! That's 10^-9 of a second, and that's practically instantaneous. From ITS perspective, it arrives exactly instantaneously!"

    You think there might not be some weirdness involved in the results of experiments checking in on their 'progress' from front to back of some apparatus?

    I think there might be, but that's just me.

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  167. Y'see Ed, they fucking know they're hypocrities. They just don't give a Good God DAMN! LOL

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  168. WHOA!!!

    It's sometimes hard to believe that real people are in the real world and still manage such incredible heights of stunning hypocrisy. My head is spinning.

    See, this must be a dream... real people can't be that small and venal and pathetically craven. I'd feel a lot better if I made them up.

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  169. I expect to see this on Rachael tomorrow night at the latest.

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  170. Pboy, on particles and time and "C," remember that not all particles travel at the speed of light. Most do not I think, except the electron maybe, and the photon of course. A few others maybe, not sure here...

    That catholic hospital thing is still stunning me. Pboy's right, at least some of them know that they are hypocrites and are just that craven.

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  171. Well, that was exactly my point, that most things we talk about that are particles, they aren't zipping around so fast that they're outside of time from their perspective.

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  172. Hmm. The point being:-
    I'm not a quantum physicist, I don't claim to be able to resolve any of the issues, Brian.

    In general, the universe that we see around us and record is everything to do with your and my consciousness, as far as observing and recording go.

    Nevertheless I disagree with the idea that as goes dots of radiant energy, so goes reality.

    Reality isn't dependant on the idea that everything is travelling so fast that time has stopped, relatively, for them.

    Imagine Brian, a particle is a particle here on Earth, we know what a particle is, and in general when we thin of a particle, it's not in the position of being outside of time as far as it, itself is concerned, right?

    You know what, a particle of light likely DOES act as if it is a particle travelling at the speed of light! REALLY!

    How long an experiment took to set up and complete, how many photons are being 'allowed' to go through the experiment at one time, and so on, doesn't mean that light 'travelling' means the same to it as it does to us, who cannot really concieve of no time passing for its point of view and practically no time passing from our point of view!

    "Why the distance travelled and time it took is well understood! It took 2ft/186,262mi seconds to get from source to destination! That's 10^-9 of a second, and that's practically instantaneous. From ITS perspective, it arrives exactly instantaneously!"

    You think there might not be some weirdness involved in the results of experiments checking in on their 'progress' from front to back of some apparatus?

    I think there might be, but that's just me.

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  173. I fail to see what difference it makes whether a particle experiences zero time from it's own point of view due to moving at C. To us, time passes and photons take a finite amount of time to get anywhere regardless of them not 'knowing' it is passing. And as I said before and you recognized as true, most particles do not do that anyhow. I have never seen any scientist assign a significance to the fact that photons do not "personally" experience the passage of time. I have never heard that the theory of matter hinges upon that fact, either. Have you? I may well have missed something, but I think I'd have read about that in one of Brian Greene's books or elsewhere in other similar books that I've read.

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  174. I think that the only significance to the fact that a photon experiences zero time passing is how that prevents it from decaying.

    Also, you said " who cannot really concieve of no time passing for its point of view and practically no time passing from our point of view!" I'd just add that the second part of that is dependent upon the distance involved, that if said photon is emitted by a distant star that second time lapse (for us) can be huge, even while still being 'zero' for the photon itself. Just because the distance in the experiment is a couple of feet and so the elapsed time *for us* is a microfraction of a second means little since that variable can be increased by simply increasing the distance in the experiment.

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  175. that if said photon is emitted by a distant star that second time lapse (for us) can be huge,
    ----------
    Okay, this isn't precisely right, since we're talking about the experiment, but you get the idea... it still holds true that if you increase the distance traveled in the experiment the second time factor increases accordingly.

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  176. Heh, Brian.

    You know what a particle is, right? We can consider a photon as a particle, but, most particles don't zip around at light-speed and most particles have mass.

    And when I say 'most particles', I don't mean 'number of particles in the universe', since there's no doubt that the total number of photons in the universe outnumbers the total number of any other kind of particle in the universe.

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  177. I understand that the double-slit experiment works just fine with other particles that do have mass. Anything that small is subject to the quantum weirdness. Electrons for instance, have been substituted for the photons and the results were identical.

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  178. Is that the reason that I've not been able to understand you well here? That you thought it was only photons that behave this way? Just wondering... it it would explain me not understanding why photons in particular seemed to be bothering you.

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  179. Come to think of it, it would also explain me not understanding why the fact that at one point I accidentally changed 'photon' to 'electron' and it rose to the level of your notice... I wondered why a distinction that didn't matter made a difference to you...

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  180. You know what a particle is, right? We can consider a photon as a particle, but, most particles don't zip around at light-speed and most particles have mass.
    ------------------
    I see it now. You were attempting to perhaps establish a difference between a photon and other particles, no? I didn't see this before at all. Funny how lacking the visual and verbal element can create such miscommunication.

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  181. I wonder though if electrons actually have mass. I read somewhere that they are equivalent to somewhere around 1/1500 of a proton.

    But an atom absorbing a photon gains mass too, since energy is part of the mass of 'stuff'. But it's weird 'cos a photon is considered massless but the energy contained by something adds to the mass of it.

    Hey, once again, I'm no physicist, all I know is that once you get down to that level, under that electro-magnetic threshold, the bits and pieces of it, it all goes squirrelly.

    "If you think you understand it, you don't understand it!", I think Feynman said, but he's bat-shit brilliant. LOL

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  182. In the movie 'Easy A', the funniest, to me, line, is when the protagonist is having a crisis of faith and she goes to a church for advice.

    She arrives in a church and is looking around then is confronted by a nice lady who is wondering what she(Olive) is looking for.

    Olive:- I was just wondering if there's a minster around?

    Nice lady:-(gives her blank look)

    Olive:-Is it not a minister?

    Nice lady:-(another blank look)

    Olive:- ..a Reverend?

    Nice lady:- (yet another blank look)

    Olive:- ...A Wizard?

    high-fucking-larious!

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  183. Some scientists believe that a photon does have a very small mass.

    Also, I am quite certain that the weirdness applies to all quantum-sized objects, in other words, all particles. I even think it applies to whole atoms...

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  184. I'm pretty sure that most physicists rule out the possiblity of a photon having mass since the calculation, how much energy would it take to increase the velocity of some ever-so-slight mass to lightspeed would be infinite.

    I understand your POV about the 'fakeness' of solidity. A 'solid' object is a certain amount of atoms(ions) with their electron clouds being shared/not being 'assigned' to one positive ion/that kind of thing, BUT take away the EEE-fucking-normous(comparatively) size of the electron clouds and we're left with tiny(squared) positive ions, all still 'composed' of almost nothing at all.

    It's a leap, it takes a giant leap of imagination to begin to acknowledge to oneself that solid shit just isn't fucking solid, as we think of solid.

    But, from my POV, that doesn't matter(no pun intended) since it's the forces of the electron clouds that interact with each other, with electro-magnetic radiation, that are exactly our experience of solidity/liquidity/gastronomicalidity(huh?)!

    Grok that and the so-called facts about 'space' between the electron cloud and the ion is nonsense. It's like saying that, you know, there's the swimming pool and you, but you are 70% water! Yikes!

    Even a bathtub of water is still almost all water after you slip in. "Why that's absurd, though true."

    Same thing.

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  185. Wha huhnh?

    Not sure I'm 'grokking' you here. I guess I can understand the attitude of 'so what?' to the idea of matter being mostly space with some energy thrown in, but I can't seem to share it.

    We're not going to solve this, you and I. So conjecture is still fun but there's nobody around to tell us what is the right answer.

    I say consciousness, you say energy and space and time and so forth.... but to me, all of that is just consciousness that we decide to perceive as matter and such. The difference is all the difference in the world, to me. It brings the idea of 'mind' to the forefront of reality, as the ground of all being... I still acknowledge science of course, but as the best descriptor of the dream, not as fact in and of itself when the subject is reality itself.

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  186. Well, I think that reality is weird enough to understand as an electro-magnetic phenomenon, then some idjit(yes, I said it) dreams up that our consciousness has to do with quarks and such, pfft!

    This is in no way 'calling down' your theory at all, I mean quarks and such are just a mental model anyways, right, a scientific model, right?

    Now, bear with me here. Theologians call into question the reality of reality since we're absolutely stuck in our own minds, no doubt about that, every single thing we think, see, feel, hear and smell, is subjective.

    Burnt toast? Fucks sake, you are having a fricking stroke!!! Or, you might be burning the toast. Or BOTH!

    But everything is, in a way, all in your head, all to do with consciousness, right?

    What a frickin' coincidence if reality was not only constrained by reality to be subjective to each individual, but actually to do with consciousness!!

    What a fricking coincidence!

    Now though, if we're in an objective reality that's not really an objective reality at all, I dunno, I'm kind of lost here already, aren't you? Don't you actually have to describe stuff according to a reality that you don't think is real, at this point?

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  187. http://skepticink.com/tippling/2013/01/24/on-thomas-nagels-atheistic-anti-evolutionism/

    Here's a good article. The comments are more on this topic, consciousness vs. material reality although that is part of Nagel's reasoning.

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