>food does taste better with salt added Right, so the mode of intake matters, not just the salt itself. For example one could eat bland (unsalted) food and drink salt water later which would produce less pleasure for…
Fine! Most of the credit goes to Chapter 6 of David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity.
Yes. Past attitudes were absurdly parochial. Half of Bach's manuscripts were lost. Writing was invented for tax purposes. Even natural selection sat on the genetic code for a billion years before branching out into…
New ideas take an effort to understand and most new things don't work or even if they do work they remain unadopted. Including apparently wonderful and well-developed ideas. Come to thing of it we have only a partial…
Yes indeed, including in some cases changing the temporal order of events based on reason or new data. For example, I once misheard a drinking mug shatter on the floor before it slid off the kitchen surface. But reason…
'Living in the moment' is a metaphor. Thoughts about the future always take place in the present.
What if you used the heat to melt rock?
Using the grid there must be a lot of transformers and cabling involved. Plus with massive amounts of power in situ one might be able to process the waste rock differently (e.g. if it's looser material with fissures,…
If speed is key, what about developing nuclear-powered TBMs?
>I'm a professional Nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability! Seriously, I think the typical professional carries a substantial psychological load due to the conformity and personal constraint entailed. >I think…
Agree it wouldn't work in the modern age of science with all the careers, bureaucracy and funding involved. But those days were the days of the amateur. And a return to amateurism may well be the best way forward in a…
Ha! And let's not forget NYC co-resident Elmer Bernstein, composer of this particularly fine Western theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuAZ4WhbI8o
>It has to be more then just getting blood moving Yes. I think it's because when walking or showering some attention is kept in the body. This matters for thinking purposes because new ideas signal their presence at an…
I don't think anyone intends anything harmful. People do harmful things because they are mistaken about stuff, including about what is good. But mistakes are a normal part of discovering the way forward, so, no, not a…
Sleeping isn't a waste of time, either. TV is source of background cultural knowledge and is enjoyable for that reason. When it ceases to be enjoyable one can stop watching. OK, one might be addicted to watching TV, but…
Is it even possible to waste time? Consider meditation. Widely considered to be a valuable and healthy activity, it literally consists of doing nothing.
Btw, Lionel Bart, composer and lyricist of the musical Oliver!, also did not do musical notation. He hummed the tunes to a fellow musician who transcribed them. I've no idea how much 'filling in' the other musician did…
This couldn't come too soon. We need to start developing the geoengineering knowledge to address climate problems, including problems we don't know about yet.
Look at ordinary people and societies and notice that they calcify and grow shells which make it harder and harder for change to occur. Only a profound influence such as brain trauma or war can make them to see things…
Yes there are such things as social problems, and the keeping the peace (which is the government's responsibility) entails addressing them. Sometimes keeping the peace will even entail looking after other people's…
I agree with lacampbell that we're not responsible for other people's kids. In western society the individual is sovereign and our only responsibility is to do no harm. It is equally important to note however that the…
'Spiritual emergency' and 'mental illness' are both pretty weird concepts. The latter, for instance, is a bit like attributing software bugs to hardware faults, isn't it?
>food does taste better with salt added Right, so the mode of intake matters, not just the salt itself. For example one could eat bland (unsalted) food and drink salt water later which would produce less pleasure for…
Fine! Most of the credit goes to Chapter 6 of David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity.
Yes. Past attitudes were absurdly parochial. Half of Bach's manuscripts were lost. Writing was invented for tax purposes. Even natural selection sat on the genetic code for a billion years before branching out into…
New ideas take an effort to understand and most new things don't work or even if they do work they remain unadopted. Including apparently wonderful and well-developed ideas. Come to thing of it we have only a partial…
Yes indeed, including in some cases changing the temporal order of events based on reason or new data. For example, I once misheard a drinking mug shatter on the floor before it slid off the kitchen surface. But reason…
'Living in the moment' is a metaphor. Thoughts about the future always take place in the present.
What if you used the heat to melt rock?
Using the grid there must be a lot of transformers and cabling involved. Plus with massive amounts of power in situ one might be able to process the waste rock differently (e.g. if it's looser material with fissures,…
If speed is key, what about developing nuclear-powered TBMs?
>I'm a professional Nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability! Seriously, I think the typical professional carries a substantial psychological load due to the conformity and personal constraint entailed. >I think…
Agree it wouldn't work in the modern age of science with all the careers, bureaucracy and funding involved. But those days were the days of the amateur. And a return to amateurism may well be the best way forward in a…
Ha! And let's not forget NYC co-resident Elmer Bernstein, composer of this particularly fine Western theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuAZ4WhbI8o
>It has to be more then just getting blood moving Yes. I think it's because when walking or showering some attention is kept in the body. This matters for thinking purposes because new ideas signal their presence at an…
I don't think anyone intends anything harmful. People do harmful things because they are mistaken about stuff, including about what is good. But mistakes are a normal part of discovering the way forward, so, no, not a…
Sleeping isn't a waste of time, either. TV is source of background cultural knowledge and is enjoyable for that reason. When it ceases to be enjoyable one can stop watching. OK, one might be addicted to watching TV, but…
Is it even possible to waste time? Consider meditation. Widely considered to be a valuable and healthy activity, it literally consists of doing nothing.
Btw, Lionel Bart, composer and lyricist of the musical Oliver!, also did not do musical notation. He hummed the tunes to a fellow musician who transcribed them. I've no idea how much 'filling in' the other musician did…
This couldn't come too soon. We need to start developing the geoengineering knowledge to address climate problems, including problems we don't know about yet.
Look at ordinary people and societies and notice that they calcify and grow shells which make it harder and harder for change to occur. Only a profound influence such as brain trauma or war can make them to see things…
Yes there are such things as social problems, and the keeping the peace (which is the government's responsibility) entails addressing them. Sometimes keeping the peace will even entail looking after other people's…
I agree with lacampbell that we're not responsible for other people's kids. In western society the individual is sovereign and our only responsibility is to do no harm. It is equally important to note however that the…
'Spiritual emergency' and 'mental illness' are both pretty weird concepts. The latter, for instance, is a bit like attributing software bugs to hardware faults, isn't it?