Something deep or profound

[Mole]

I don't understand that big thoughts.

What part don't you understand?

 

[nolla]

The huge letters. By the time I get to the end, I've forgotten what it was about.

 

[Mole]

The huge letters. By the time I get to the end, I've forgotten what it was about.

Just like life itself.

 

[nolla]

Yes. Maybe the letters aren't too big, maybe I'm too small.

 

[Beargryllz]

You have two eyes. You have two kidneys, two nostrils, two lungs, and a whole lot of redundancy throughout your body.

You can live with one kidney and one eye, but there is a very special property with the eyes. You don't add redundancy by adding a second eye, you add a function unique to certain species. An eye would detect light, and an eye would allow a person to see. But when you have two eyes, you have something that other organ pairings cannot mimic. You actually have a structure for perception, but then you have another structure, in another place, with a different reception of the same stimulus (or in some cases, the second eye allows an entirely new stimulus to be detected). The important part is that the structure is no longer a redundancy, it isn't that you can see twice as much, but that you can now see something completely new, something you couldn't possibly see with one eye.

A person with one kidney can filter blood, and a person with two kidneys can filter blood (Truthfully, you only actually need the filtering capacity of 1/3rd of one kidney, but this is unimportant). But a person with one eye cannot actually perceive the world in the same way that a person with two eyes can perceive the world. Whenever identical structures give rise to new functions, I have to admire the design. We could say something similar about the billions of neurons making a whole brain with a whole new function, but the eyes are more obvious, more beautiful, and the function from the pairing is so simply explained. And it only takes two of them to give rise to the new, unique function. You aren't pouring more water into the glass when you add an eye, you're now pouring water into water and making wine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binocular_vision

That 120 degree field right in front of you is something very special, just as beautiful and magical as a pair could make. It's like a man and a woman making a child, so magical, but the eyes, I think, are overlooked.

 

[Sanctus Iacobus]

Life is not about me. No really. I spend most of my day pontificating from this point of view... that life is about me... and it's easy to see why we all see things this way, after all we're born and the longer we're alive the more we have in common with our memories. Each generation rarely looks behind itself long enough to fully acknowledge an exterior source and/or a higher power... then we have kids and the stress and responsibilities overwhelm the escaping sense that the life we now live is not much different from the parents we were born to.

We all think about our pasts and futures, but such a thing does not really exist apart from our imagination. There is only Today. It's as if the world had roughly 8 billion aerobic bikes, and Today each one of us persons currently living jumps on our respective aerobic bikes and pedals our hardest, just like every generation before us. Never mind they're all dead and buried, as we will likely be. Nevermind eternity beyond that.

Nevermind that. Today we ride.

 

[Ginkgo]

If inanimate objects can't believe anything

and atheists don't believe in god

then...

when i have sex with the jetstream hole in the jacuzzi

I have sex with an atheist.
*shudders*

 

[Ginkgo]

but the eyes, I think, are overlooked.

Was this irony intentional?

 

[ahriman]

You probably already know this but I find incredible that somehow I am aware of my location and what I am doing and that it is really "me" doing it yet I can't find "me" in any part of my body and neither can anyone else.

 

[Thalassa]

How do those comments that say "I'm 14 years old but I love this band from the 80's/90s!!!111" always get voted to the top on youtube?

 

[ahriman]

On a similar topic Marmie How does a baby biting a childs finger get 341 million thumbs up? Maybe I'm just insensitive and lack a sense of humor but your a retard if you think that clip was entertaining and funny.

 

[Octarine]

I would say the last thing I learned of profound significance is that the "orthodox" view of quantum mechanics makes randomness a fundamental part of reality. In other words, randomness at the quantum level is not just the result of hidden variables and/or chaotic behavior being approximated as random.

Or maybe it's a way of limiting the computational complexity of the system we're living in.

Wait, forget I said that.

Re: Marmie's Youtube observation.
Why is it that there is a fan of every piece of art, no matter how ugly or "low quality" it seems. And why are these people over expressed on Youtube?

edit - just saw that today's XKCD was relevant: http://xkcd.com/915/

 

[Beargryllz]

Was this irony intentional?

I noticed it within seconds of posting it and just let it go

 

[King sns]

I don't know how profound this is, but I'm reading a really cool book about what we're learning about the subconscious. Called "Incognito, the secret lives of the brain." It pretty much talks about how reality is very much changed and "watered down" by our consciousness.

 

[King sns]

The huge letters. By the time I get to the end, I've forgotten what it was about.

Maybe that's why it was so profound. A new system to cause memory loss in people who need to forget something. (For psychological purposes or otherwise.) Just talk about it in big blue print.

 

[Mal12345]

Please post anything deep or profound that you learn and feel like sharing.

It has been a long time since I learned something deep or profound.

I would say the last thing I learned of profound significance is that the "orthodox" view of quantum mechanics makes randomness a fundamental part of reality. In other words, randomness at the quantum level is not just the result of hidden variables and/or chaotic behavior being approximated as random.

Please share!

Many physics-minded people are prone to declaring that quantum uncertainty is epistemological in nature. In fact, it is physical, or as physical as can be.

Although, where you say "fundamental part of reality," perhaps it is better to say it is a fundamental part of THAT reality, i.e., the quantum world. Such dualism is perhaps the only way to save ourselves from a complete skepticism regarding knowing the world around us. It also blocks the naivist approach of those who believe that the causality which rules the macro realm of common sense must also rule that of the sub-atomic.

The weird results of the double-slit experiment may easily be ruled out as an effect of the measuring instruments. However, in recent years some very complex experiments have been made which rule out those effects. The particles involved are not being affected during the process of measurement. It seems, in fact, that the results are being affected by the mind of the one viewing the results, whether they involve subatomic particles, atoms, buckyball molecules - or even objects on a size-level viewable by the naked eye, that is, the macro realm.

The sub-atomic realm consists, quite literally, of information, not of objects. The macro realm, under some carefully guided circumstances, can be made to appear the same way. These objects are thus not ruled by the laws of causality, but the laws of chance which determine the status of information. They are no longer what we would normally call "objects" except as a way of bringing them under the guise of normal everyday circumstance (e.g., kinetic energy).

 

[CrystalViolet]

The concept of connection. Blows me away every time I think of it.

 

[ygolo]

Cool. People are participating. One thing that I think is cool. Is that we can have this type of discussion with people from all around the world.

You probably already know this but I find incredible that somehow I am aware of my location and what I am doing and that it is really "me" doing it yet I can't find "me" in any part of my body and neither can anyone else.

Proprioception and identity. Yes, this topic can get really deep

Or maybe it's a way of limiting the computational complexity of the system we're living in.

Wait, forget I said that.

Re: Marmie's Youtube observation.
Why is it that there is a fan of every piece of art, no matter how ugly or "low quality" it seems. And why are these people over expressed on Youtube?

edit - just saw that today's XKCD was relevant: http://xkcd.com/915/

Maybe Miles Davis (I believe it was him) was right, and there is no wrong note in music. Despite what Prisig said, it is hard to deny the subjective component to any art.

I don't know how profound this is, but I'm reading a really cool book about what we're learning about the subconscious. Called "Incognito, the secret lives of the brain." It pretty much talks about how reality is very much changed and "watered down" by our consciousness.

I heard about that book on the radio ("Fresh Air" I think). It is pretty neat to think about.

Many physics-minded people are prone to declaring that quantum uncertainty is epistemological in nature. In fact, it is physical, or as physical as can be.

Although, where you say "fundamental part of reality," perhaps it is better to say it is a fundamental part of THAT reality, i.e., the quantum world. Such dualism is perhaps the only way to save ourselves from a complete skepticism regarding knowing the world around us. It also blocks the naivist approach of those who believe that the causality which rules the macro realm of common sense must also rule that of the sub-atomic.

The weird results of the double-slit experiment may easily be ruled out as an effect of the measuring instruments. However, in recent years some very complex experiments have been made which rule out those effects. The particles involved are not being affected during the process of measurement. It seems, in fact, that the results are being affected by the mind of the one viewing the results, whether they involve subatomic particles, atoms, buckyball molecules - or even objects on a size-level viewable by the naked eye, that is, the macro realm.

The sub-atomic realm consists, quite literally, of information, not of objects. The macro realm, under some carefully guided circumstances, can be made to appear the same way. These objects are thus not ruled by the laws of causality, but the laws of chance which determine the status of information. They are no longer what we would normally call "objects" except as a way of bringing them under the guise of normal everyday circumstance (e.g., kinetic energy).

I did qualify my statement with the fact that it was the "orthodox" view of QM (or at least the one I was taught).

In the "orthodox" view presented to me, the macro-realm, classical physics, also, essentially "consists of information." What is fundamentally different is the nature of that information.

Search "Quantum Entanglements, Part 1" on youtube. There is a whole series of videos by Leonard Susskind of Stanford.

The double-slit interference pattern is fundamental to waves. Attributing the resulting pattern to "measurement error" is quite a stretch (measurement has a dramatic effect, certainly, but that dramatic effect is not an "error"). The experiment is actually pretty convincing evidence that the particles were "behaving like waves" ,because the interference pattern is exactly what would be produced by waves.

The concept of connection. Blows me away every time I think of it.

Yeah, this can mean so many different things, and true in all of my interpretations.

 

[Ginkgo]

 

[Ginkgo]

Roads are for fools and for highwaymen.