I was hoping for some basic algebra by the end.

and if THEESE folks hadn't invented, stumbled-upon, or otherwise orchestrated these wonderful (mostly toxic) phenomena, they would have eventually appeared anyhow.....Including Algebra, Calligraphy, and the game of polo.

I first learned programming concepts in 4th grade (LOGO), but I didn't know that's what it was at the time.

In 9th grade I took an intro to programming course (QuickBasic) and from that point on, that was what I wanted to do with my life.

Unfortunately, back then, there was no path to employment that didn't involve college and I couldn't get into college (or graduate, even if I could have).

Today I work closely with programmers and constantly wish I could be doing it, but I feel like I'm too old to start all over now.

If you're interested in learning some programming basics, I can tell you it's really not that difficult. It's almost all algebra and logical statements.

It feels like I've done 68,000 years of linear algebra.

>> ^nanrod:

What I got out of that is that Romney/Ryan are proposing to increase the tax burden on the rich. The math is actually simple. There will be a revenue neutral 20 % across the board tax cut with neutrality achieved thru closing loopholes and the middle class will benefit from the cuts. If the overall package is revenue neutral and the middle class benefits then someone, presumably the upper classes must be paying more under this scenario. It's simple algebra.


LOL That was awesome.

You forgot your "sarcasm" tag though.

What I got out of that is that Romney/Ryan are proposing to increase the tax burden on the rich. The math is actually simple. There will be a revenue neutral 20 % across the board tax cut with neutrality achieved thru closing loopholes and the middle class will benefit from the cuts. If the overall package is revenue neutral and the middle class benefits then someone, presumably the upper classes must be paying more under this scenario. It's simple algebra.

>> ^Jinx:

>> ^messenger:
I was thinking the same as you two, especially about the level, but then again, anybody who thinks they're going to understand relativity without a very strong grasp on mathematics is, well, like me, totally deluding themselves that they can ever really understand it. But still I plod on, starting with a couple hundred hours of Khan Academy videos. Hopefully there'll be some quantum physics ones up there by the time I'm through the Linear Algebra, Calculus and Physics playlists.>> ^dannym3141:
As much as i love science, i really can't appreciate this style. I watched a few bits and found that the language he used was over complicated for simple ideas, he talked very quickly over even mathematical content and in a fairly monotone style which only made it more difficult to follow, and the visuals weren't very good either because they were utterly filled with text - the whole point of visuals is to simplify.
I think anyone would get more out of even a half decent text book.

>> ^Jinx:
Yeah, this is perhaps too advanced for somebody without a very solid foundation of maths. Still nice though.


Yeah, I think you're right. Mathmatics is the language of Science. People are turned off by seeing equations with wierd triangles in them, and letters with subscript 1s and 0s when its really just shorthand for things they already understand. I think it would be possible to describe almost all the contents of this video in plain english with simple maths, but it wouldn't be nearly as concise or precise.
Basically. I watched this video because my 16yr old sister has been doing relativity in school and I thought she might find it useful. After watching for about a minute I realised she wouldn't get any of it.


I'm doing physics at a master's level right now, i understood the video because i already understood the physics, however the maths explanations were too fast and confusing for me to even relate to the maths that i already know must appear! It's only when i saw it on a huge screen of formulae that i strung it all together.

As for your sister; that's why i mentioned the text book. This is degree level stuff, and anyone understanding it either already knows it or would get far more from a textbook anyway. Tipler 6th edition for example explains this in less time (!) and better.

It's just a bad presentation, but i knew it would get 10 votes and i'm happy to see you lose your p. (to bloodscourge that is, ofc)

>> ^messenger:

I was thinking the same as you two, especially about the level, but then again, anybody who thinks they're going to understand relativity without a very strong grasp on mathematics is, well, like me, totally deluding themselves that they can ever really understand it. But still I plod on, starting with a couple hundred hours of Khan Academy videos. Hopefully there'll be some quantum physics ones up there by the time I'm through the Linear Algebra, Calculus and Physics playlists.>> ^dannym3141:
As much as i love science, i really can't appreciate this style. I watched a few bits and found that the language he used was over complicated for simple ideas, he talked very quickly over even mathematical content and in a fairly monotone style which only made it more difficult to follow, and the visuals weren't very good either because they were utterly filled with text - the whole point of visuals is to simplify.
I think anyone would get more out of even a half decent text book.

>> ^Jinx:
Yeah, this is perhaps too advanced for somebody without a very solid foundation of maths. Still nice though.


Yeah, I think you're right. Mathmatics is the language of Science. People are turned off by seeing equations with wierd triangles in them, and letters with subscript 1s and 0s when its really just shorthand for things they already understand. I think it would be possible to describe almost all the contents of this video in plain english with simple maths, but it wouldn't be nearly as concise or precise.

Basically. I watched this video because my 16yr old sister has been doing relativity in school and I thought she might find it useful. After watching for about a minute I realised she wouldn't get any of it.

I was thinking the same as you two, especially about the level, but then again, anybody who thinks they're going to understand relativity without a very strong grasp on mathematics is, well, like me, totally deluding themselves that they can ever really understand it. But still I plod on, starting with a couple hundred hours of Khan Academy videos. Hopefully there'll be some quantum physics ones up there by the time I'm through the Linear Algebra, Calculus and Physics playlists.>> ^dannym3141:

As much as i love science, i really can't appreciate this style. I watched a few bits and found that the language he used was over complicated for simple ideas, he talked very quickly over even mathematical content and in a fairly monotone style which only made it more difficult to follow, and the visuals weren't very good either because they were utterly filled with text - the whole point of visuals is to simplify.
I think anyone would get more out of even a half decent text book.


>> ^Jinx:

Yeah, this is perhaps too advanced for somebody without a very solid foundation of maths. Still nice though.

I'm thinking it wasn't Jesus Christ that knocked over the strangely positioned picture. It's more likely that it was Jesus Alvarez, her practical joke loving buddy from 4th period Algebra.

Now I remember why I didn't like math in high school... BOOOOORRRRRING. Maybe if she had slipped an "arrow to the knee" joke in there somewhere, I would have stayed interested. This video reminds me of math in high school and how every time I'd reach the answer to a long and complicated algebra equation, my response would be... "Uh, so what?" The answer is X=19. So what? Big fucking deal. I've never understood how to people find that interesting.

So here I am, watching this video and she shows us all these spirals in flowers and how they all coincide with the Fibbobotchy numbers, or whatever... and in the end, I still have to ask, "So what?" There are spirals in flowers. Ooooh. Big whoop. Sounds like just the sort of thing the government likes to spend hundreds of millions of "research" dollars to find out. I'm sure this amazing find will save the lives of dozens of imaginary people somewhere in the back of this girl's mind.

I actually tend to believe in a 1 dimensional universe. Less like the hologram illustion and more like a computer program abstraction or a algebraic statement.

I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.

You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.

A mind created and designed it, therefore a mind is involved, therefore it is an invalid example..

Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.

Abiogenesis is unproven because there is no evidence, it is just metaphysics. It's your faith that it is true. It is not the only coherent explanation, it is just the explanation that you have to believe because you have ruled out an intelligent designer apriori.

There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.

Here is the hypothesis

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1156

Here is a story about ID being published in a biology journal making predictions for cancer research

http://www.discovery.org/a/2627

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.

There is obviously a concrete difference since life doesn't come from non-life, and has never once been observed doing so. You have everything in the world to prove here. Everything in the Universe is made up of atoms, does that mean there is no difference between you and me? Is there no difference between a duck and a neutron star? You can't just say that because there are trivial similarities that they are the same thing.

And if you think like that, and you just believe we are all chemicals in motion, then you can't trust your own mind because if our mental processes are just chemical reactions, then there is no reason to believe anything is true. If our mental states have their origin in non-rational causes, rationality can't be trusted. You can't know if the rationality we have from evolutionary processes is discerning the truth of the world or not. Even Darwin realized this:

"With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.

Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex
?
Well this is plainly false. RNA to DNA is far more probable than ROCKS to RNA. The reason it is labeled magic is because there is no proof. It doesn't mean that they are both equally likely. It is less likely by large orders of magnitude.

The magic is RNA self-replication:

http://www.lifesorigin.com/chap10/RNA-self-replication-3.php

And if you had bothered to do any real research, you would see that the leap from soup to these complex molecules is anything but trivial..here is a list of just of basic issues...

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/chemlife.html

Some quotes for you:

Instead of revealing a multitude of transitional forms through which the evolution of the cell might have occurred, molecular biology has served only to emphasize the enormity of the gap. We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive....

Molecular biology has also shown that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals. In all organisms the roles of DNA, mRNA and protein are identical. The meaning of the genetic code is also virtually identical in all cells. The size, structure and component design of the protein synthetic machinery is practically the same in all cells.

In terms of the basic biochemical design, therefore no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth. For those who hoped that molecular biology might bridge the gulf between chemistry and biochemistry, the revelation was profoundly disappointing."

Dr. Denton, Ph.D (Molecular Biology),
An evolutionist currently doing biological research in Sydney, Australia

Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine in itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene (it's complexity) must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls.

A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain, one consisting of a 1,000 links could exist in 41000 different forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41000 = 10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives us the figure '1' followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension."

Frank Salisbury,
Evolutionary biologist

Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.

If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

I did, see above. Here is a bunch more: http://www.discovery.org/a/2640


>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
What I insist is that you substantiate your claims, which you have failed to do.
I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.
You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Abiogenesis is purely metaphysics and unproven.
Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.
There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.
Given two possibilities, one being unlikely, and the other being false, I'll go with unlikely.
>> ^shinyblurry:
So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by
non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a
retraction?
No, see above.

You said, and I quote: "if you already have DNA, you can certainly expect a cell to form."
Do you mean that DNA must already have the information required to do so? because lots of DNA does not, otherwise are you asserting that DNA is somehow "mind", which you claim would be required for that information to come into being?
>> ^shinyblurry:
The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.
So there is no difference between you and a rock? I can admit I see similarities, heart wise..:)
Let's see some evidence for your claim that there is no difference between life and non-life.

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.
You can't disprove unicorns, I can't disprove the life boundary, and we have no reason to believe either exists.
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's not false. This is your pathway to DNA: RNA - (MAGIC) - DNA This is your pathway to RNA: ROCKS - (MAGIC) - RNA Just because you can get RNA to self-replicate doesn't automatically mean it is either likely or plausible this could happen.
Please consider this image: http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/f/f6/RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg/350px-RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg
The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.
Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex?
>> ^shinyblurry:
It is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent" design in nature, which biologists acknowledge, is actual design. It is only useless to you because you have ruled out design apriori, which is just simply ignorant.
Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.
If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

My sister teaches Algebra right across the hall from this guy...she's just as badass...lol

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@ChaosEngine Corporations are a creation of governments, not people or free marketers. If we want to do away with legal protections for corporate entities, fine by me, I have been calling for it for quite some time. Then again, that means you will most likely have to work for yourself in the future, which is a less lazy way to live.

The problem is not companies/corporations per se, but the idea that the market determines the "winner". A market is in essence a natural selection mechanic. It doesn't reward the best or the brightest, simply the most efficient/ruthless. And that's fine if that's how you want to run your society, but most people don't.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

And saying you can't apply the idea of individual rights to influence all following decisions is to disallow any conversation beyond the surface of any subject. You can't talk about calculus unless you already have a working foundation of simple algebra, everything has a foundation from which is erects more complexity. To build any functional, rational structure, it has to be continually built on one foundation or it will be inconsistent, IE trying to apply the rule of math to the rule of friendships or something. Are you making this an appeal to be inconsistent, or an appeal to a different base of measure? If you wish a different base of measure, then purpose one, but I refuse to make believe that an inconsistent building is a better one to make, that can be steered to very evil ends, as many large corporate bodies have had. But even private people have done so too, look at prohibition of alcohol. People can be just as evil as corporate bodies.


In math, all rules are absolute and all theories scale infinitely. That is not the case in the real world. You cannot apply Newtonian physics to quantum theory and you don't build a sky scraper using the same construction techniques as a log cabin.

"Think" is not a four letter word. You cannot simply apply one rule to every situation. You must measure, analyse, judge.

The idea of individual rights is a hugely important one. It should always figure prominently in the discussion of any idea. But it is not the only measure of fitness.