>> ^Fletch:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Huh, so you see a tunnel of light when you approach c, I find this intriguing.
Yeah, just like when you drive through an actual tunnel. Does that intrigue you too? Maybe the road to heaven leads under the Hudson River. Who knew Weehawken, NJ was Paradise?


More that certain studies of mind have shown a seeming quantum nature to thought, specifically conciseness. That mind could be an entanglement of many different, yet simultaneous locations in space and time. What that all means, fuck if I know, just find it interesting that traveling the speed of light approximates certain peoples near death experiences. Not saying it is significant, only interesting. Or as Spock would say "fascinating". My mind sorts information of "likes" first and "relevance" second.

@bcglorf said: Can you please describe the other path you speak of?

Become an advocate for careerism. It's better for the world and better for us as individuals. Devote all waking hours to reading, working, and exercise. Don't limit your intellectualism to a single ideology.

Disdain meaningless experiential pursuits and don't get entangled with romantic pursuits until as late as possible. Even where I live, hyper-focused Silicon Valley, people who do these things are very rare, so the world is basically just waiting for people like that to come along.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm going to argue it in a different way and see if it changes your opinion.

I believe the war is maintained not for our safety, not for other nations safety, not to catch terrorists, not to prevent anything, but to directly funnel money into corporate pockets and in turn the very same people who support the war going on via donations and lobbyists.

Now, these same people are more than willing to cut benefits of teachers, government unions, and also seem to keep bringing up social security/medicare/medicaid. Plus the other myriad of programs they want to cut or eliminate........or PRIVATIZE, which is their word for turning public facilities to private gains that the government still has to pay for but has a company squatting over taking profits off the top of everything.

Now, here's where my other argument comes in. What if the tax rate was high enough on every person in these little "money circle jerks" that they couldn't keep enough of it to make it worthwhile and still bribe/donate to people?

I mean look at the ForaTV top15 video right now where he says in the 50s people making over 200k were taxed at 91 percent, so that would basically mean that making 2 million today would be the cut off for the sub 91 percent rate.

It would mean that people getting bribed and making in excess of a million dollars would need more bribe money to get the same benefit. It would mean people doing the bribing would have less money to bribe with.

I mean let's put it this way:

If you were working a job making 100 grand a year. New tax law comes in and now they want to take 75% of earnings after 100 grand. It would effectively make it so that you earning more money at your job would result in almost no benefit to you, so now money is off the table as an effective bargaining tool to use with you. That leaves other things to take into consideration when the money can't really be factored in anymore, and for politicians the only other things I can imagine as bargaining tools would be giving them houses/cars/etc and offering them jobs after their political career.....where they would be limited by the tax rates on their earnings. It'd make me a lot less willing to be a dirtbag if I could only make 1 million dollars versus the 60 some odd million some of these CEOs are getting without the majority of it being taken in taxes.


>> ^blankfist:

>> ^messenger:
>> ^blankfist:
I'm still not sure why people think taxing income is okay. And I'm speaking about federal income tax, not state and local. I think in times like this when the country is running record deficits, it should cut spending instead of looking elsewhere for more money.

So you understand there's a deficit, and the only way to reduce it is increase income (taxes), and/or reduce spending (cuts). Take a look at where the spending cuts are going to come from, and then decide if you want those cuts to be made. Cronyism, imperialism, war and all those other things we both hate are what the government does for fun. Until a true statesman is elected, they're never going to be cut. So what will get cut instead? Things that actually benefit the people living in the country. I'm not American so I don't know what your federal government provides in that regard, but either you're glad those services exist and are happy to pay for them with your taxes, or you need to include them in the list of things you'd like to have cut.

This is the part I don't understand. Yes, there are services that are useful, but the majority of what they spend their money on are immoral things I disagree with that put our lives in jeopardy over here. Wars and occupation have made us less safe. I don't care that they spend some of the money on things I agree with. They spend the most of it on things I don't.
I voluntarily support the ACLU, but if they started drowning kittens, I'd most likely pull my money from them. This is the ideological discussion we should be having about government right now. They're spending more than we as the people can afford and yet both parties are refusing to cut defense spending.
If we cut a large portion of our defense spending (the portion that puts us in overseas entanglements) we might be able to balance the budget and cut income tax completely. Why aren't we having that discussion instead of being defeatists about what the government will cut? Because people in favor of raising taxes are scared that cutting income tax may lead to less entitlement programs, so they're willing to bomb people over it. That's why.

>> ^messenger:

>> ^blankfist:
I'm still not sure why people think taxing income is okay. And I'm speaking about federal income tax, not state and local. I think in times like this when the country is running record deficits, it should cut spending instead of looking elsewhere for more money.

So you understand there's a deficit, and the only way to reduce it is increase income (taxes), and/or reduce spending (cuts). Take a look at where the spending cuts are going to come from, and then decide if you want those cuts to be made. Cronyism, imperialism, war and all those other things we both hate are what the government does for fun. Until a true statesman is elected, they're never going to be cut. So what will get cut instead? Things that actually benefit the people living in the country. I'm not American so I don't know what your federal government provides in that regard, but either you're glad those services exist and are happy to pay for them with your taxes, or you need to include them in the list of things you'd like to have cut.


This is the part I don't understand. Yes, there are services that are useful, but the majority of what they spend their money on are immoral things I disagree with that put our lives in jeopardy over here. Wars and occupation have made us less safe. I don't care that they spend some of the money on things I agree with. They spend the most of it on things I don't.

I voluntarily support the ACLU, but if they started drowning kittens, I'd most likely pull my money from them. This is the ideological discussion we should be having about government right now. They're spending more than we as the people can afford and yet both parties are refusing to cut defense spending.

If we cut a large portion of our defense spending (the portion that puts us in overseas entanglements) we might be able to balance the budget and cut income tax completely. Why aren't we having that discussion instead of being defeatists about what the government will cut? Because people in favor of raising taxes are scared that cutting income tax may lead to less entitlement programs, so they're willing to bomb people over it. That's why.

>> ^dannym3141:

I thought it was from the same one of the double slit experiment with wave particle duality.


It is...like I said, the movie takes actual legit science and tries to force it into the world view they are pushing on those watching.

Its mind-cancer, pay no attention to it.

Strange coincidence that the video I watched immediately before this one was about a group of whale watchers spending an hour to save a young humpback that was hopelessly entangled in fishing nets.

From a celebration of life to a celebration of death in one click.

It's amusing that you're trying to dismiss me like I was bothering you, when in fact you are the one who started this conversation. So you're an ex-christian, huh? Surely you know this verse:

2 Peter 2:22

If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning

It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."

You're much worse than any backslider. You're saying you left Christianity because you observed hypocrisy amongst Christians? What a joke that is. You left Christianity because you love the things of the world more than you love God.

You should fear God, and only a fool wouldn't, but I don't think you're a fool. You know He is real, but you suppress the truth because you don't want to stop living the way you do. You have been brainwashed, by the enemy, to think little of God and much of yourself. Jesus Christ ransomed you with His blood, paid the price for your sins with His life..but sold yourself back into slavery for empty pleasures. Now you mock God, when you're the one at fault, when you're the real hypocrite.

Galatians 6:7

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
Save your breath pal. I don't need or want to hear any sermons from you. Been there done that, chose to stop when I wised up and figured out that brain washing, mind control, and fanatical cults are not for me. Believe me, I don't fear you nor do I fear your imaginary god. If I did, then I'd be just like you wouldn't I?

Oh, and by the way I don't need any clues. Your brethren have clued me in on what kind of hypocrites they are time and time again. Every "Christian" I know, or have ever known is a back sliding hypocrite. They judge others while secretly behind closed doors they do the same things they just got through condemning others for in the public eye. Now please go pester someone else. This conversation is over.

The school board is creating both an impermissible entanglement with religion and an implicit endorsement of it by donating the use of their cafeteria to particular imams. Not all students go to see the same mosque, btw. Only some subset of even the Muslim students would benefit from this. This definitely would not fly under US case law.

Not to mention the absurd fundamentalism that would lead people to cut class instead of going to a later service. There are Muslim organizations in Canada that oppose the school board's decision.

The permissible version of this would be to just designate an area (not the whole cafeteria if it would interfere with other students) for individuals of any religion or no religion to go and pray or goof off, and not bring in religious leaders from the outside.

I take that as a compliment, as I respect Hitchens as a writer and speaker (though we disagree on some politics). I haven't read any of his work beyond news oriented articles on Slate (and some videos here), though, so I can't say how well we agree on this in particular. In any case, lack of originality is a pretty sad point to make against an argument. I'm fairly sure, for example, that I couldn't make an original case for the Pythagoran theorem - though I could probably submit 10 different proofs, they've all been done (and 100 others).

Your prose was matching his word for word, point for point..particularly about "thought crime". Also with the ridiculous comparisons between scientology and Christianity. It was so egregious that I couldn't help but feel I should just go to youtube and find a Hitchens video and comment there as my reply.

It's a certitude that the biggest mouths against Scientology have an agenda. It comes from a heart polluted by Thetans. Hey, this is fun!

To be fair, I'm sure many critics of Christianity (or Scientology) have some axe to grind, or are angry because the church makes them feel guilty about bad things they've done. That doesn't mean they're wrong. Similarly, most people posting bad reviews of Kias are probably people who had a bad Kia (or auto reviewers, but there aren't a lot of professional reviewers for religion). What you're doing here is an actual ad hominem fallacy (as opposed to the times you call it, when it's just you complaining because someone was mean to you). As with most fallacies, there's a grain of truth - it does make sense here to question arguments from people with a bone to pick. But you still question their points, not their backgrounds.

It's not the church that is making someone feel guilty, it's their own God given conscience that does so. People don't come to believe in Christ because they were guilted into doing so; that in itself is a ridiculous premise. People come to Christ in part because of personal conviction from their own conscience; they already knew they were guilty. They realize that it is not just other people they have offended but God Himself, and without a mediator they have no hope of standing on their own merits.

Yes, I know what you're implying, since you already shared your history with me. It's true many previous believers strike out in anger because they feel wronged for being indoctrinated. In your case, it's probably justifiable. However, it goes much farther than that. This kind of person tends to get disillusioned and emboldened, and goes to the other extreme, feeling cocky and self assured because they now perceive themselves as being elevated and enlightened over anyone who believes.

2 Peter 2:20-22

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”

These sorts of people usually become worse sinners than anyone else because they feel above Gods laws. They treasure this new found "freedom" and don't want to give it up in their self righteouness. What they perceive as freedom from the law is really mental and emotional derangement from sin. So in the same manner they still hate Gods authority because they prefer their sins.

Mr. Hubbard, obviously. It is a certainty that Dianetics perfectly describes the human condition. If you disagree, it's Thetans. Maybe I'll shorten that to IYDIT.

But yeah, people are bad. That was one of my premises, and it's why shame is so effective. Were you agreeing with me as a ploy? You know, make me feel like a moron for being on your side? Or maybe you're being like on Bugs Bunny where he would throw in "Rabbit Season" after a few rounds?

Chewbacca is a wookie from the planet Kashyyk. He has soft brown hair and talks with kind of like a growling, elk-call sound. IYDIT.

Your entire premise here is a fallacy. You are falsely equivilcating Christianity to Scientology, and then using attacks upon your Scientology strawman (which are easily refuted) to try to knock it down. Scientology was a story authored by a science fiction writer trying to deify himself.

"The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion."

L. Ron Hubbard

Dude, when I disagree with Scientology, it doesn't matter that L. Ron Hubbard really existed. Similarly, most people are happy to believe that there was a guy name Jesus who preached at that time. Also, this is a fantastically stupid point to bring up. With Jesus or Hubbard, the question isn't whether they existed, it's whether what they said was true (and, to a lesser extent, whether they or their celebrity endorsers could perform miracles).

And no, Christianity isn't a conspiracy to control people. Usually. The fact that it works like this isn't by design, it's by evolution. The churches and denominations that survive are the ones that approach things in a certain way. The people who try to be non-judgmental, independent followers of Christ? They're cool, but their churches don't last or franchise out. The ones that survive and flourish (like Scientology) in modern times tend to work this way.

Further in the past, they had more strategies available, like just killing people who didn't believe - now they have to be a bit more subtle.

What's completely stupid here is your chain of reasoning. Christianity is centered on Christ; whether or not He existed is central. Most of what Christ said centered around His claim to be God, and judge of the entire world. If He didn't exist it isn't true. This is just babble at this point, dude.

Regardless of how people may have abused Christianity in the past does not speak to its truth. If anything it confirms it, as the bible warns countless times of false teachers and prophets who will try to distort the message and use it for gain. The early church flourished under heavy persecution, and Christians were murdered continually for the truth they shared. Do you think the church was so successful in controlling people that they could make them sing praises to Jesus while they were being burned alive? Give me a break.

What you're talking about is the catholic church, and they aren't Christians. They are basically a pagan religion that worships Mary and the Pope. There is a conspiracy in that so called church, a will to power. Among Christians, however, we exist in fellowship. You were part of a church once and you still apparently want to stay that way, so I think you understand about fellowship.

>> ^honkeytonk73:

Interested in hearing what sort of potential application this can have. Computing? Communications? A new type of vibrating/non-vibrating Dildo?


Quantum computing, first off. But, putting even larger objects in superposition could allow us to do truly awesome and odd things; especially, if combined with entanglement.

But, for now the first things up are quantum cpus, communications (cryptography), nanotechnology, etc...

>> ^wraith:

That was my point. Fluids are incompressible.
Unfortunately, those bad analogies seem to stick in the minds of the physics lay-person. Just think of the mother of bad analogies: Schroedinger's Cat. The particle may be in a undecided state between "life" or "death", yet the cat certainly isn't. It's either alive and very pissed or dead as a doornail.
When explaining science, avoid analogies whenever possible or clearly mark them as such and point out their deficiencies.


I think explaining qubits does a better job for first time quantum beginners. It also makes them see the potential for awesome. BUT, it is hard to explain--plainly. I blame my college professors and books. Scientific American has an awesome article for the "lay"-man for qubits.

I get blank stares with entanglement.

@GeeSussFreeK I'm going to pick and choose from your comment instead of quoting, since it's huge.


There are some major problems with this claim, IMO. I would like to clean up the wording of your second sentence. Something that doesn't interact in anyway with the cosmos, doesn't exist meaningfully. So something that does not, cannot, and will not interact with an object doesn't exist to that object. Indeed, when our own galaxy is racing away from the other galaxies at a speed faster than the speed of light (the space in-between being created at a rate which pushes us away faster than the speed of light) you can say the same thing, that our galaxy is the only object that exists in the universe. Other objects existed, but the no longer do. They might "exist" in some theoretical way, but they don't meaningfully exist. I completely agree with this position. If a being we want to call God doesn't exist here in any way physically, than he doesn't exist.

I'm not sure you can say that something doesn't exist, just because we cannot observe it directly anymore. Galaxies moving away from ours at greater than light speed still have had an effect on things around them and we can see the "traces" of them, which at least suggests that they exist - like black holes, which we cannot see directly either. Futhermore, we can observe on the galaxies moving parallel or at least along side our own, how they move and can thus estimate the position of the big bang and theorize from the given evidence that galaxies moving in the opposite direction should exist even if we cannot see them or in essence EVER interact with them again.

A similar argument can't be made for God.


Which brings us to your first point. How does the universe exist? I assure you we have more question in that than answers. And every answer brings forth new questions. We are no closer today to understand basic ideas than thousands of years ago.

You are being a bit facetious here, I suppose? We are quite a bit, actually a huge leap, closer to the basic ideas than we were thousands of years ago. The problem is that the target keeps moving further back. First cells, then molecules, then atoms, now quantum entanglement (or what its called).

For instance, how to objects move? Force is applied to an object making it move relative to the world. The world moves in the opposite direction, but only relative to the opposite force, which means very, very little.

If space is infinite, how do finite objects transverse infinite space in a finite time?
It isn't and they wouldn't.

What determines gravity attract at the rate it attracts?
I'm not a physicist, so I won't venture too far off ground here. It's understood as far as I know. @Ornthoron could you perhaps confirm for me?

Why are macro objects analog and quantum objects digital?
Macron objects are perceived as analog, because we don't look closely enough and in short enough time spans. Any perceived analog object can be simulated digitally if you use enough data to do it. This is my understanding, anyway.

We can't even show that the sky is blue, only that it exists as a wavelength of light that human preservers sometimes interpret as a mind object of blue, we are no closer to understanding if blue is a real thing or a thing of mind.
This is a distinction between what is and what something is perceived as. Essentially you're touching upon qualia, which some cognitive scientists believe in and others don't. Blue is a real thing in so far as it's a wavelength of light. As for the rest, I don't know. It's a much harder question than you lead on, because a theory of mind is one of the hardest questions there are left.

I think you give to much credence to our understanding for this claim to be sufficient. To my knowledge, we have little understanding of the functional dynamics of the cosmos. We have pretty good predictive models, but that is a far cry for absolute certainty, a necessary for a claim such as this.


There are many metaphysical examples of all powerful beings and absence of their direct physical interactions being detectable as well. One of the more famous is of the "God mind" example. In a dream, you are in control of all the elements. Let's call all the elements of your dream your dream physics. The dreamer is in 100% control of the dream physics. The dream itself is a creation of his dream physics. The dream physics themselves are evidence of the dreamer. In addition, the dream, being wholly created from dream physics is also evidence of the dreamer. Parallel that back to us and you have one of the easiest and elegant explanations of the universe.

I think you are confusing a dream with the idea of a dream. You rarely have any control in dreams and even lucid dreamers don't have 100 % control. How a dream actually is made/dreamed is also a point of discussion in itself. A fundamental problem with this hypothesis is that WE think. Actors in our dreams don't think or do anything that has any effect in the world other than our memory of them. Like our thoughts, dreams don't have wills of their own.

Indeed, it is so comprehensible other views of the metaphysical nature of the cosmos will seem overly complex and lauded with burdensome hyper explanations, making this model satisfy an occam's razor over other possibilities. But complexity is hardly a model for evaluating truth, so I leave that just as an aside.

All other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. But all other things aren't really equal here. Some thing are just inherently complex, like gravity or magnets. When you don't think about the details, it's easy to think your hypothesis is correct, but when you dig deeper it falls apart.

Actually, even if you accept the premise, it still means that the dreamer is completely removed from us; he has no control, because not even traces of it has been observed in our reality (the dream). So the complete lack of evidence also points to this hypothesis being false.

When you think it even further, we run into the ever present homunculus argument. Who's dreaming of the dreamer? And so on.

That our reality is actually a real, physical one is a much better explanation, because it neatly explains itself more completely - thereby actually fulfilling Occam's razor better.


Indeed, there are further explanations that would seemingly leave little evidence for God except for things happening just as they "should". One being the Occasionalism model, which interestingly enough, comes from the same mind as the previous example, George Berkeley. There is no proof that causation is the actuality of the universe. Just as if I setup a room full of clocks, and from left to right the clocks would sound off 5 seconds from the previous clock. To the observer, the clocks "caused" the next clock to sound, and on down the line they go. The problem is, there is actually no causal link to bind them, I created it after seeing A then B happen again and again. The fact is, no such link is there, I, the clock creator created it to appear that way, or maybe I didn't and you just jumped to conclusions. It is a classic example that Hume also highlights in his problems on induction.

Correlation does not imply causation. We have much supporting evidence of causation though. Forces are demonstrably interactive. Whether they were secretly set up to seem as if they interact aren't necessarily relevant, because demonstrably they do. There is no evidence to the contrary at all.

In your clock example, it is a physical room, so there are plenty of things to test the hypothesis that the clocks cause each other to ring. Are the clocks identical? Are there cogs inside the clocks? If we break one, will the chain still go on without it? Etc etc.

From observing X number of clocks you cannot strictly speaking extrapolate that to all clocks. That's the essence of the induction problem. Your hypothesis is based on limited data, and on further analysis it falls apart. Causality itself hasn't fallen apart yet. I'd like to see a proper argument against it, for certain.

I will leave it there. I am resolved to say I don't know. I also don't know that can or can't know. I am uber agnostic on all points, I just can't say. And I don't even know if time will tell.

It's a good start to all questions to say "I don't know". I do that too on many, many things. It's a much better starting point than when preachers usually say, "I know".

Your questions are interesting to me, because they deal with a lot of philosophical and physical stuff, I like those.

On a purely pragmatic level though, they are largely not that important. look at it this way, do you live your life as if causality exists? If you do and it works as you expected, then causality probably exist. If you live as if it doesn't exist, then the world is suddenly a very strange place. Do you live as if what you observe as blue is actually blue? Do others see it as blue as well? If they all do, then it's probably just blue. Does it make a difference if some people see it as green? Not really, I'd think.

Do you live your life as if there's a God? Do others? Does it make a difference? That's a very basic test of whether he actually exists. I argue that it doesn't make any difference at all, other than expected behavior of either party - some live as if a God exists and other live as if he doesn't exist. If the only difference in the people themselves, then the God falls out of the equation.

I think I've sufficiently trudged through this now. Sorry for the wall of text, hope it makes sense.

@Drachen_Jager
@GeeSussFreeK

In response to the Stephen Hawking Infinite Universes and Reality theme... (Videosift ate my quote...)

Not saying I don't agree as it sounds like brain vomit with no proof, but an interesting idea. But, if the system that you speak of is balanced then there is also a Universe where they protect everything, canceling out any effect on us. This will always be true with "parallel Universes" as they exist only to be cancelled out elsewhere.

Quantum mechanics takes it one step further and says that if such a Universe knew about us in anyway our Universes would become entangled and our combined wave functions would collapse and create a new one. It would also mean that the "Evil God" is now beholden to OUR physics as well as theirs; our reality would become a hybrid of the two realities. This potentially would make the "Evil God" look like an idiot, destroy his conduit for power, or worse make him a literal baby under our combined mechanics. In fact he may lose any ability to control a single iota of minutiae of our now, combined realities.

This becomes a problem with our "classical" Gods, for if they interact with our reality then they must obey some physical rules; this lends credence to being able to dismiss a supreme power either MAN-MADE or a GOD. As both have to obey rules and these rules allow others to balance the control the "God or Man" can have over time. Truthfully, the rules/physics are more powerful than any God could hope to be.

They will always dictate and give definition from one polar opposite to the next; or three opposites, four, five, six... Math works because all it does is give meaning to boundaries that have always existed.

(A small addition that has a lot to do with the last part of the original Blog Post.)

The one I posted directly above has some small changes for easier reading. I still need to do a little idea storming at the end as I'm VERY unsure whether the forces at play would still hold the Universe together.

It's more likely that the "big rip" will win out, even over the weak and strong nuclear forces (which is a lot of energy considering that it just did it to the UNIVERSE! heh...

I also need to see, particularly under what conditions the Universe might start to be "swayed" by quantum fluctuations, the same you see at the beginning of the big bang, that had a lot to do with how matter and other non-baryonic (that 's the official way of saying, matter that isn't like the stuff we know: like Dark Matter) matter set up (when you look at the cosmic background radiation (CBR) map, the "hot vs. cold") topography wise; it's why the Universe isn't a smooth uniform (or symmetric) balanced energy place; which you would expect from a perfect explosion like the Big Bang, but the CBR shows that the explosion was far from being smooth and quite the opposite.

It's what gives us our galaxies and also where they're at. The question besides how gravity is related to the quantum mechanics realm; as we have NO theory (with a few hypotheses that almost all have to do with string theory: strings of energy in different "dimensional" configurations; like one dimension, two dimension (planer), etc..."; these little strings vibrate, kind of like a standing wave and intercede and connect into our dimension: think of a plane with limited dimensions on the x & y, then imagine a line intersecting in two spots--one coming "up" the other going "down", but the second connection BARELY hits the plane.

On our end we see a photon that appears to act like a particle and wave in whichever situation it's facing.Normally it may only act like a wave the first spot, but since the energy of this photon is a gamma ray (increased energy) it caused the string to vibrate more forcefully. Thus, connecting it to our "planer" observable space-time. But, when the energy decreases, the photon's string is pulled back and all of a sudden it only displays one of the two characteristics. Baryonic matter works the same way in String Theory, but requires VERY hard math to solve the discrepancies (one of the reasons some people hate it as it isn't a so called "elegant solution"; everything we've seen so far, while hard to grasp initially--tends to, "so far", work out to be very easy solutions).

However, string theory has described many things we have found out in the particle world very well. Another idea (which is more elegant and to me, the presence of "e" in it is very, intriguing) is E8 Symmetry. It's also a mathematical solution, so don't expect too much straight forward dialogue in it's definition. However, remember that Euler's number/The "Natural" number, "e", is related to a great many things already present in everyday life and the formation of almost everything from: you neural pathways, your circulatory system, clouds, trees/plants, sea shells, galaxies, fractals, and much much more...

What I need to know his how baryonic matter would react given a scenario were everything is ripped apart. Specifically, it's quantum mechanical reactions. Does it go into a "quantum critical state" (a fancy way of saying "pseudo"-superposition), as in this state it would still behave in a quantum mechanical way according to superposition. This leads to the last question. If it does enter superposition, is it possible that it may become "uncoupled, disassociated, or dis-entangled" from other matter, even non-baryonic matter like dark matter.

Anyway, just a bit more for what I wrote. More of me, thinking aloud, as I've read a lot about entanglement and superposition, but in this scenario I'd mot likely need an expert to think about it and give me an answer. Math will most likely be useless till we have some hard information on it; right now it's just pure observation. Then you may be able to commit yourself to some math that would show (or at least predict) what most likely would occur.

Another long ponderment! I'm keeping that word so screw you Merriam-Webster!

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Fact is that the federal government doesn't need 4+ TRILLION dollars to perform its constitutionally mandated functions. It takes that money to do a lot of unnecessary crap that buys votes (particularly union votes). The government could easily be trimmed back to a lean 1 trillion dollars by divesting itself of foolish entanglements in social experimentation and other welfare entitlements.
The states that are facing fiscal collapse (New York, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Illinois, California, et al) are almost UNIVERSALLY states that been controlled by decades of left-wing liberal "tax & spend" nanny state philosophy. The Chris Christies and Walkers of the nation were voted in to clean up the mess. To put it plainly, people got tired of dealing with children-liars who promise the world while brooming problems onto the next generation - and so they hired some grown-ups.
The kid in this vid doesn't come off as 'destroying' anything except his own credibility. It's an open display of a person who is not a critical thinker, and who has little or no understanding of economics, or civics.


Those states also have much higher income per capita than the red states. They're doing fine economically, just not quite balancing the budget.

It's a bit paradoxical that the states with the highest income per capita, which contribute much more to the Federal Government's income than they recieve in spending, are blue states, while the states with the lowest income per capita, which contribute much less to the federal government's income than they recieve in spending, are red states.

Maybe the reason the people in the red states think the government doesn't do jack shit for them is because they're in a state with both a poor population AND low taxes so as a consequence the government doesn't have the budget to do jack shit.