User talk:GrantC

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(Hameroff and Penrose at it again)
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::Just as well, the claims about microtubules still don't make sense because neurons are not the only cells with microtubules in them. So consciousness would not have anything to do with the nervous system then. But some of the stuff they cite is interesting, like the claims about the connection of quantum effects to photosynthesis. Are these legit or just inflated claims?
 
::Just as well, the claims about microtubules still don't make sense because neurons are not the only cells with microtubules in them. So consciousness would not have anything to do with the nervous system then. But some of the stuff they cite is interesting, like the claims about the connection of quantum effects to photosynthesis. Are these legit or just inflated claims?
 
::But, on another note, I am loving the zeal: "Orch OR is the most rigorous, comprehensive and successfully-tested theory of consciousness ever put forth. From a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions." I can't even.... [[User:Nebuchadnezzar|Nebuchadnezzar]] ([[User talk:Nebuchadnezzar|talk]]) 19:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 
::But, on another note, I am loving the zeal: "Orch OR is the most rigorous, comprehensive and successfully-tested theory of consciousness ever put forth. From a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions." I can't even.... [[User:Nebuchadnezzar|Nebuchadnezzar]] ([[User talk:Nebuchadnezzar|talk]]) 19:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
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:::I've always found the microtubules connection to be dubious. It's not enough for something to display quantum effects for it to be any kind of quantum computational device. Of course, Orch OR keeps jumping around, unable to decide whether consciousness requires a full-fledged quantum computer in the brain, or just some quantum effects. Some microtubules experiencing resonance effects does not a quantum computer make. I wouldn't be surprised if those claims were legitimate, as quantum mechanics effectively underpins all of reality. If you want to get pedantic, everything other than gravity is directly explained by quantum mechanics and its extension to macroscopic objects. To say more about the photosynthesis case directly, I would have to look at the specific paper in question, but H&P don't cite it directly in their summary (or even mention the authors), and I don't feel like wading through their crap to find it.
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:::Zeal is something these guys seem to have a lot of. Given that only six of their twenty predictions have been proven, and whether the rest have been refuted is certainly a matter of debate, I would be far from considering this rigorous, comprehensive, or successfully-tested. Let's not even think about what "treating" brain microtubule vibrations would entail. We can't even control more than a few qubits under ideal conditions. "I can't even..." indeed. - [[User:GrantC|Grant]] ([[User_Talk:GrantC|talk]]) 20:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

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Contents

Big Bang stuff

Could you please look at Quranic scientific foreknowledge? There are some questionable bits in the commentary in the Big Bang section. I've tried to fix the worst, but I don't have the time to continue. And the rest of the commentary in that article is not very good either, but I'll leave that for a later moment.--ZooGuard (talk) 08:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

It seems like you got the worst of it. There are a few other small things I'm poking through, but the majority of the rest is at least reasonably accurate (if not well written). I'll check once more to make sure I didn't miss anything. - Grant (talk) 15:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for editing Quranic scientifc foreknowledge

It's nice to have someone who has actually studied the Big Bang write about it, rather than me and my high-quality in-depth study of Wikipedia. My apologies for any stupidity of mine.

If you've got the time, would you mind also editing the "Universal expansion" portion of the article? FuzzyCatTomato (talk/stalk) 19:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

No problem! The effort was sincere, and most of the mistakes were relatively subtle ones. I would be happy to take a look at that part of the article a bit later. - Grant (talk) 21:20, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

The Arts

So, you're into the arts and shit? Do you have any particular favourite form of art (visual, music, drama, etc.)? Also, are you an artist yourself, or are you just a fan of stuff? DØØM MĖSSIÅH Deserved doom shall be unto youDolan.png 11:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no personal preference towards different forms of art. Personally, I'm a classical musician, though I've let practising fall to the wayside as of late. - Grant (talk) 16:07, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Really? What instrument? Do you compose, or just play? What are your favourite artworks in different forms? Sorry if I'm being annoying or anything- haven't met up with any IRL people for ages. MESSIAH OF DOOM The epitome of Gods and Men alike Dolan.png 08:20, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I play the clarinet, the tenor sax, the tin whistle, and I'm slowly but surely learning how to play the uilleann pipes. I have often thought about composing, but I haven't really had the time, so I mostly just play. I enjoy a wide variety of music, though mostly the romantic and modern eras of orchestral music, especially composers in the vein of Gustav Holst and Edward Elgar. As for visual art, most of my favourites have been painted by local artists, so they're not really mainstream. In performance art, I have to say that Shakespeare is hard to beat, especially Hamlet. - Grant (talk) 17:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
That's pretty cool! I'm not really into, like, wind instruments and stuff- as I'm sure you're aware, guitar is really my speciality, though I can also play drums and bass, and I'm reaching myself piano and singing. When you get the time, you really should compose some stuff- even though I'm sure that you'd probably like different stuff than my usual styles, I can tell you that, at least for me, writing/composing music is honestly one of the most satisfying and interesting things that I do. At what age did you start learning, by the way? Why?
As for performance, I agree that Shakespeare is awesome (though my favourite plays are actually Richard III and Macbeth). However, my absolute favourite theatre performance thing is Little Shop of Horrors- I took part in a high-school performance of the play, which was my first introduction to theatre. It's an awesome play, and the people I met in the process really made it a really cool experience.
(In case you didn't guess, this is Messiah- I'm having a break from using my account at the moment). 101.168.170.147 (talk) 10:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

when reasonableness fails

There I was, trying to follow your reasonableness model and it turned into something crazy. When statisticians disagree (nobody agrees about multiple comparison adjustment), it turns to nothing worse than friendly jokes. I imagine physicists aren't much different. I guess reasonableness doesn't work everywhere! MarmotHead (talk) 13:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Heh, indeed. While I've had some heated debates with my colleagues on why a particular calculation is, in fact, correct, it has never come down to frustration or anger. That said, there are always some people who are more than willing to troll. I try to adopt a policy of reasonableness because there's always a chance the individual on the other side will be open to criticism or legitimate discussion. When they're not, I kindly tell them to "eff off," if you will, and go on with my day. Perhaps that latter part isn't so kind of me, but so be it!
I noticed that craziness this morning and followed some of the threads back to take a look at what happened. That guy (or gal) seems to be putting a significant amount of effort into getting his points across. Given that everything he/she says is continually reverted or deleted, I don't understand what's motivating him/her to continue. I sometimes wonder if trolls think they're actually an inconvenience... - Grant (talk) 15:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I must ask, wouldn't it be "When reason fails," rather than reasonableness? Is reasonableness properly a word?--"Shut up, Brx." 15:37, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
English speakers are in the fortunate position of lacking a national academy to prescribe what is and isn't proper usage. Within reason, understandable words may be coined by following generally recognized forms, even if we don't have the Teutonic flexibility of Wortkettenbildungsfähigkeit. If "craziness" is properly a word, then so is "reasonableness," which, by the way, carries a different set of denotations and connotations than "reason." Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Wow, Wortkettenbildungsfähigkeit actually means something! Cool stuff.--"Shut up, Brx." 16:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. I'm uncertain how I feel about the flexibility inherent in English vocabulary, but given that it has produced most of the words I use on a daily basis, I can't exactly be too picky. - Grant (talk) 16:43, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I do like the German word mashup algorithm! MarmotHead (talk) 16:48, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Compound nouns are interesting, to say the least, but they make direct translations a significant pain. - Grant (talk) 16:57, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
traduttore, traditore (or omnis traductor traditor[wp] if you'd rather go with quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.) Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
To some extent, I think there's something to be said about that. Certainly there are some idioms and sayings I know in French that don't translate at all into English. As for the latter phrase, German is a little too close to English for impressing people, I find. On the other hand, the various Latin declensions and other quirks of vocabulary that make it so difficult to learn do indeed make it sounds entirely incomprehensible to the average English speaker. My grandfather was fluent in Latin, but he passed away well before I could try to learn any of it from him. - Grant (talk) 18:04, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Some time in a previous century, I found a book on language death, specifically the decline of Scots Gaelic in East Sutherland. What had once been a language capable of rendering nicely inflected shades of meaning became a pidgin only used for talking to old folks who hadn't kept up with the times. One source was explaining how to say a teapot fell off the table, saying something like "he fell, or she fell, it doesn't matter" which I interpreted to have the subtext "it doesn't matter any more." The ideal of language as a rich but unambiguous communication tool is doomed to remain a far horizon of shifting sand, growing never nearer. So far I've been able to live with that. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I find dead languages quite interesting, perhaps more so than extinct languages. Much of a language's syntax and vocabulary can be written down and recorded, but things like idioms, colloquialisms, and inflections are often lost when the last speaker is no more. This kind of language death can be quite insidious, as it can happen slowly. I know that among some of the Germanic languages, dialects rise and fall relatively often. - Grant (talk) 07:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Hameroff and Penrose at it again

So this is a (somewhat) new thing from them. They're hyping a few new studies:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/01/16/discovery.quantum.vibrations.microtubules.corroborates.theory.consciousness

http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/discovery-of-quantum-vibrations-in-microtubules-inside-brain-neurons-corroborates-controversial-20-year-old-theory-of-consciousness

What say you? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

If anything, I find myself more boggled. Their new formulation seems to (for some reason) rely on general relativity having an effect on quantum mechanics. While I'm sure there does exist some unified theory that manages to bridge both fields, I have no idea why it should be necessary for consciousness. Moreover, the existence of warm quantum vibrations doesn't really mean much. On its own, this means little, since quantum effects don't actually require low temperatures to be seen in macroscopic objects (read: neutron stars). I'm not sure that their assumption that these vibrations can be used to generate qubits actually holds much truth to it. - Grant (talk) 13:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Just as well, the claims about microtubules still don't make sense because neurons are not the only cells with microtubules in them. So consciousness would not have anything to do with the nervous system then. But some of the stuff they cite is interesting, like the claims about the connection of quantum effects to photosynthesis. Are these legit or just inflated claims?
But, on another note, I am loving the zeal: "Orch OR is the most rigorous, comprehensive and successfully-tested theory of consciousness ever put forth. From a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions." I can't even.... Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:47, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
I've always found the microtubules connection to be dubious. It's not enough for something to display quantum effects for it to be any kind of quantum computational device. Of course, Orch OR keeps jumping around, unable to decide whether consciousness requires a full-fledged quantum computer in the brain, or just some quantum effects. Some microtubules experiencing resonance effects does not a quantum computer make. I wouldn't be surprised if those claims were legitimate, as quantum mechanics effectively underpins all of reality. If you want to get pedantic, everything other than gravity is directly explained by quantum mechanics and its extension to macroscopic objects. To say more about the photosynthesis case directly, I would have to look at the specific paper in question, but H&P don't cite it directly in their summary (or even mention the authors), and I don't feel like wading through their crap to find it.
Zeal is something these guys seem to have a lot of. Given that only six of their twenty predictions have been proven, and whether the rest have been refuted is certainly a matter of debate, I would be far from considering this rigorous, comprehensive, or successfully-tested. Let's not even think about what "treating" brain microtubule vibrations would entail. We can't even control more than a few qubits under ideal conditions. "I can't even..." indeed. - Grant (talk) 20:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
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