HN user
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 the same quantity of sodium consumed. So there might be different physiological effects.
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 multicellular life.
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 understanding of the role of present technologies. In evolutionary terms, things persist for multiple reasons and we can't identify all of them. Small wonder we can't predict the future of technology and remain sceptical of implied claims to the contrary.
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 corrected the memory.
https://hilo.hawaii.edu/~ronald/310/310-Dennett-MultiDrafts....
I'd like to add that I think 'living in the moment' is powerful and useful despite not being literally true because it points to something real and important.
'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, compress it against the sides of the tunnel or perhaps even melt it rather than removing it. Admittedly I'm rather ignorant of soil and rock physics.)
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 we'd all be better off if we talked more openly about it
Well I tend to classify unwanted thoughts as the purely mental equivalent of chewing on chilli. Why would I think unwanted thoughts? The answer is similar to why would I prefer foods that cause pain to my tongue and mouth.
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 number of intellectual pursuits.
Ha! And let's not forget NYC co-resident Elmer Bernstein, composer of this particularly fine Western theme:
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 emotional level.
Whereas sitting at a desk one's attention is mostly in "in the head" and this is also why lengthy sitting at work or in front of the TV is unhealthy.
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 waste.
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 that's a separate issue. Here one is using the TV to avoid addressing other problems. True, it might take a period of mindless watching in order to appreciate this. Has that time been wasted? Well, no, because it had to be spent in order to gain that very appreciation.
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 in terms of harmony, arrangement and so on. But here's another question: if Bart had formally learnt to read music, or Goodwin had written his songs down, would they still have been able to compose them?
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 differently. Whereas an outsider can develop in his own way, guided by intuition rather than by the social forces which stultify.
The genius is an outsider.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4226320/
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4480-you-know-what-the-fello...
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 children. For example, children evacuated from London in WW2.
But problems are solved by individuals. So part of the gauge of the strength of a society is how receptive it is to knowledge originating in the minds of rare individuals. Does it protect them? Or does it shut them down with censorship, disemployment and so on?
It's vital that people realise that they are not responsible for the fall of every sparrow, lest they be burdened with undue guilt. Their minds are then at least capable of remaining free and creative.
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 individual is missing out if he foregoes the pleasure of friendly interactions with other people, and is free to be a good neighbour and to give where he chooses. He is also wise if he aligns his ambitions with the general good of all.
But he may not be compelled. Indeed, it is the societies where people have talked about us all being responsible for everybody else that have murdered the most people (e.g. Soviet Union).
The foregoing interaction with lacampbell might be an analogy of how society fails creative types. They are often awkward, abrasive people who insist on doing things their own way. As a result they are denied jobs, ostracised socially (in the name of friendliness) and generally swept under the rug.
Society would far rather give academic posts, for example, to those who fit in enthusiastically:
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-head-g...
The desire to be accepted and to fit in, despite appearances, is not really about friendliness, is my guess. It is actually rooted in the fear of others and the fear of being cast out of the tribe. Like all emotions this fear enacts behaviours which tend to install it in other people. As a result of early socialisation most of our creativity goes into being/appearing normal instead of into making original stuff.
'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?