I would say your brain runs a program code that is more complicated as being “utilitarism” or “deontological”. There’s a lot to explore there, but I don’t like to present it as an “either-or” thing.

Thank you for taking the patience to put this into words so nicely! I really appreciate your perspective. Maybe I was being too rude calling Republicans “dumb”, I apologize. I guess I’m just as angry as many other people at seeing the proposed Republican plans (especially “slashing public spending” a.k.a. reducing social welfare) and seeing people actually vote for that.

Yeah, people in the US want change. I’m not sure what would be a productive and viable proposal that doesn’t completely fuck up the country. I’m European and have a non-interference policy for myself when it comes to the internals of the US. In other words, I don’t want to meddle too much with what’s going on in the US.

Truth is a lot like the stars. There’s one big one, and a lot of small ones. Maybe we just have to accept that quantum physics is all about the many small ones.

To be honest, I’m not sure what you mean by this.

I will try to explain, but it might be a bit difficult for me to put it into proper formulation.

I will try to explain it with a picture, if I can. You start with a base condition called x(0). It represents some physical quantity in time. As the system evolves, the quantity becomes x(t). Now, you can draw this graphically with “trajectories”, which are lines that draw out the curve that x(t) is making over time.

What happens, due to randomness, is that this trajectory splits up into many smaller ones. This is what I meant with “small truths”. Then they unify again, when the randomness becomes irrelevant again, and that is what i meant with a “big truth”. Maybe I just put it badly at words before, English is not my native language either.

wait - off topic: am i correct in guessing that you read my comment in another thread (about true randomness), commented there and then came to check my profile to comment here? i feel honored (to be considered that interesting).

Just curious but are we heading towards an “eat the rich” society?

I guess we should be, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Realistically, no. The people have clearly expressed how dumb they are and what they desire in the November election. They want dumb Republicans, they get asshole CEOs. I don’t see it any other way.

Honestly, I believe voting is the best way to bring change about a society that wants to change. It’s just that I have given up the thought that the US wants to change in the direction that I would go. So no, it’s not gonna happen.

Very interesting point! I feel that there is a lot to say about the ontology in quantum physics; (and I’m interested in that myself).

I’ve adopted a few views that helped me cope with the practically non-existent explanation of what is really going on:

1. Our brains are meat computers. Theories talk about the following: What does a computer measure after they have performed an experiment? In other words, theory isn’t supposed to be emotionally fulfilling. It is merely making predictions for the computer.

2. Truth is a lot like the stars. There’s one big one, and a lot of small ones. Maybe we just have to accept that quantum physics is all about the many small ones.

In real life I think a similar situation holds. First we have to make a distinction between a system having randomness; a completely unpredictable outcome and being chaotic; where the outcome is theoretically predictable but varies significantly with even tiny changes in input.

Yes, thank you for putting it so nicely into words. I was already aware of that distinction.

I’m studying physics right now and trying to organize my thoughts around that. I remember we talked about some mechanical contraption that exhibits non-deterministic (i.e. purely random) behavior due to the equations of motion having non-unique solution. If I remember correctly, it was a kind of “knife standing on its tip right at the edge of a cliff”-edge condition. There’s two solutions to that: It stands still or it falls down. There’s two distinctly different solutions because the equations of motion are non-continuous, i.e. even for the tiniest change in position, the net force changes from 0 to 1g.

Apart from that, there’s some more “pure random” stuff that I’m investigating into right now, like quantum stuff (as you mentioned). But there’s at least one more example that I’d like to think about:

A human/robot cannot fully predict their own future. That is because if they could, they could become aware of it and decidedly act against it. For example, if I predict that I will eat an avocado tomorrow, I might stop myself from doing that. So the prediction becomes wrong. In a certain sense, therefore one cannot predict their own actions. This isn’t due to a lack in accuracy, but it’s fundamentally impossible. I guess. Let me hear your thoughts! Your words are calm and collected; you seem to know stuff.

Btw, off topic; do you believe in true randomness? In other words, do you think that certain physics processes simply have an unpredictable outcome? (I’m asking because your response implies “No”, but I believe it is “yes”.)

Solar panels are the natural photosynthetic plants turned into technology.

Let’s see how things unfold.

Datacenter environmental impact is a short-term problem.

In ten years, we’ll have significant renewable energy disposable.

that makes sense, yeah

trickle down is when i piss on thatcher’s grave

Shootings in kindergardens should not get less attention that shootings at CEOs.

I’m not sure whether having deterministic behavior is a core characteristic of robots, but if so, I highly doubt that it makes a lot of sense to see me as a robot, because my behavior sure is random!

How many years before robots will take over the economy and rule the world?

it’s an element in the vector space that is spanned by the functions (x -> x^n) for every n in N.

Alternatively, it’s every function that can be constructed using only the fundamental functions + and •, and constants.

There’s one more outlier though which is Electrochemical cell, like galvanic element or voltaic pile

It was used around 1800 as a major electricity source, but I guess it quickly became uneconomical in 1866 or sth when the dynamo was invented.

Edit: wait yes, it actually says this in the second paragraph of the linked article:

The entire 19th-century electrical industry was powered by batteries related to Volta’s (e.g. the Daniell cell and Grove cell) until the advent of the dynamo (the electrical generator) in the 1870s.

So, I don’t know why you’re taking a stand for Uranium today. It used to be a good technology 30 years ago, but today it just doesn’t make any sense anymore.

First factor is cost. Renewables (Solar + Wind especially) have really really gone down in cost (see this link and this link), and the population will favor the energy source that is cheaper in the long run.

Secondly, the environmental impact of solar is really not that big. When we talk about how much CO2 solar produces, it’s mostly because that solar needs silicon and that needs energy to be purified. And that energy mostly comes from coal, gas or other non-renewables today. But guess what, as the solar revolution progresses, that emission goes down as well, so solar actually becomes more environmentally friendly over time.

tbf, we have airplanes, but most goods are still being transported over lands or seas.

Well but they’re not around anymore because the uranium inside them is all consumed by now, right?