But it would likely affect the pool of qualified candidates in the future — Srap Tasmaner

Good point. But academic employment is dismal these days for many, including minorities. Adjunct professors is a way to milk the most out of individuals without providing benefits traditionally offered.

I taught for years at a state university, and had no part in admission practices and didn't think about them. However, where AA became a factor in hiring faculty I participated in and observed, first hand, what it meant and what the results were. Gender and racial factors were made clear through word of mouth and not the written word. Instead of emphasizing academic and teaching excellence we were encouraged to think minimally competent but diverse racially or genderwise.

Nevertheless, this didn't work badly with one notable exception where moral misadventures ensued. When that individual came up for tenure, the hiring committee pressured the dean to deny tenure.

It doesn't seem this ruling affects hiring practices at universities.

Coooool fractal based image! — universeness

Not quite. There is no repeated configuration at varying scales, just an obvious symmetry. It arises from a self-generating Euler reverse continued fraction involving sines and cosines in the complex plane, and appears HERE.

In math, fractals are usually produced by much simpler iterative schemes.

But, I've created a large number of such images by going beyond iteration of a single function, and after a while one feels the "noise" and "saturation" of too much beauty.

You are ignorant if you think that political and social landscapes aren't instead ruled by structural attractors. They have memories and thus place constraints on their variety. They evolve as information systems and don't simply unwind as an accumulation of accidents.

So to the degree that semiotic systems have sensitivity to initial conditions, this is a designed-in level of accident. Evolvability itself evolves. The criticality that grounds a living and mindful system is precisely tuned. — apokrisis

Here is what the science fiction author Stanislaw Lem had to say with reference to fiction:

“Even though a circular causal structure may signalize a frivolous type of content, this does not mean that it is necessarily reduced to the construction of comic antinomies for the sake of pure entertainment. The causal circle may be employed not as the goal of the story, but as a means of visualizing certain theses, e.g. from the philosophy of
history. Slonimaki's story of the Time Torpedo3 belongs here. It is a [belletristic] assertion of the "ergoness" or ergodicity of history: monkeying with events which have had sad consequences does not bring about any improvement of history; instead of one group of disasters and wars there simply comes about another, in no waybetter set.

A diametrically opposed hypothesis, on the other hand, is incorporated into Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder"(1952). In an excellently written short episode, a participant in a "safari for tyrannosaurs" tramples a butterfly and a couple of flowers, and by that microscopic act causes such perturbances of causal chains involving millions of years, that upon his return the English language has a different orthography and a different candidate not-- liberal but rather a kind of dictator-- has won in the presidential election.

I quoted this in a paper I wrote a few years back. The ergodic theory of history may prevail in social landscapes. Here is a comment I made:

The dynamical systems of mathematics (sets of points and functions to be iterated),
particularly in the complex plane, show both sorts of narratives. There are instances of very
stable regions in which all points under iteration of a particular complex function converge
to a central point, an “attractor”; and there are at times very sensitive regions where
starting the iteration process at two different but neighboring points leads to severe
divergence of outcomes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have mentioned what could be seen as a kind of iterative process going from ground up, influenced, perhaps guided or corrected , by "communications" or signals from above. Elaborate on this a bit if you would. I have looked at a paper you suggested, but it's a bit too technical. I'd like to design a simple analogue in the complex plane in which the iterative process includes alterations of the generating function at each time step, these suggested by "observations" at the end of the process. I think of a plant growing upward while at the roots things are happening that more or less guide the outcome above.

Or perhaps this is just babble like that nonsense on the Andromeda Paradox. :roll:

I was told she did the White House portrait, but now I can find no reference to a painting by a woman. So maybe it was a tale and not a fact. :chin:

It's the notion that a few seconds on Earth could mean fifteen minutes in distant galaxies. :chin:

If we send two signals to the Mars Rover, spaced at exactly 10 seconds apart, does the Rover receive them in that same time spread? Assume the relative positions don't change.

That's inspirational, Uni Man! I wish I had artistic talent. A great Aunt of mine painted the portrait of Alben Barkley, VP under Truman, and my aunt was very talented, as is my daughter. Skipped me. My only claim to art are the unpredictable images that came forth from an obscure branch of mathematics I have dabbled in for years.



Dream of Gold

Perhaps conservatives are better in managing their money. I am an independent who leans conservative and I look for bargains. Social injustices are not top of the agenda when I spend money.

Sorry. It seems trivial. Philosophers sitting around the campfire making up spooky stories, flashlights under their chins. Not that there's anything wrong with that. — T Clark

Especially if those spooky stories illuminate special relativity in such challenging ways. :roll:

Some of the materialists here get all huffy when you ask them if insects are conscious — RogueAI

Go see Naked Lunch and you will come away with a new respect for insects. :cool:

I am an old man and my feeling is that, compared with sixty years ago, there is too much of everything. Hardly anything stands out from a prolific environment, whether visual art or mathematics (the latter was my profession) or you name it. How can something have meaning when there are so many somethings?

It's an existential challenge made more difficult now with so much being done. (And so many brighter than oneself :cool: )

Best to put this baby to beddy bye. :cool:

about five to twenty minutes has elapsed — jgill

I'm glad you're not on my appointment list. — Metaphysician Undercover

The time varies from 5 to 20 minutes depending upon the relative positions of the two planets.

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/communications/ :roll:

I don't know. When I see a sum "c+v" relating to the speed of light I am suspicious. When that occurs there is an additional factor involved which keeps speeds below c. But my knowledge of SR is very limited.

Please explain how "even the slightest movement of the head or offset in distance between observers can cause the three-dimensional universes to have differing content." And how can this purported difference in content cause a difference in simultaneity of months? — T Clark

I'll second that. Curious. Does chaos theory intersect relativity?

↪jgill
not some sort of secret mystical wisdom if you look hard enough? — Darkneos

If one meditated continuously on a bear turd in the forest eventually there would be a moment of enlightenment.

A waste of time, I think.

1. Seems OK. Beyond that it fizzles off into babbling, IMO.

I generally view philosophy as a means to explore and understand language rather than as something to elicit ‘truth’. — I like sushi

:up: Sounds about right.

Milton Friedman criticised the concept of wage-price spirals, arguing "It's the external manifestation of inflation, but not its source... the inflation arises from one and only one reason: an increase in a quantity of money.

(Wikipedia)

Oh oh. You mean we can't keep giving money away?

So do distant events occur in the past relative to my reference frame? Or the future? Or not at all? — Michael

When the Mars rover sends a message back to Earth it takes, what, about five to twenty minutes to reach us. When we receive it about five to twenty minutes has elapsed, in our time, since the message was sent. That's how I see it, but I've been wrong before.

the idea that workers being paid a living wage in the richest country on Earth somehow hurts older Americans is a lie — Mikie

Not talking about a "living wage", only raising wages in general for the purpose of blunting inflation. That's a recipe for leaving older generations on fixed incomes behind.

I don't think the liberal response to rate hikes is ageism. It's just an impotent gesture — frank

Deal with inflation? (1) raise wages (2) raise interest rates.

(1) simply ignores inflation by feeding the wage-inflation spiral. (2) was pretty effective when Volker took the reins. But, admittedly, the country is in unexplored financial territory now.

I consider this "paradox" untenable since simultaneity cannot apply to distant events.

Compensating workers more drives up the spiral and leaves retirees behind in the dust. — jgill

No it doesn’t.

The excuses for keeping wages low are getting more and more pathetic. Now it’s supposed to hurt old people… :roll: — Mikie

"Perhaps that's acceptable since ageism is thriving"


ego requiem meam causa.

Compensate workers more. — Mikie

According to Bing AI, 40% of American seniors rely solely on SS to survive. Many others are on fixed income retirement plans as well. These people are left behind to suffer the most devastating impacts on society from high inflation. Compensating workers more drives up the spiral and leaves retirees behind in the dust. Perhaps that's acceptable since ageism is thriving.

:up:

And I do understand the formula that is used, but how can you explain the illogicality of it? — Sir2u

Not sure you can. If you understood the nature of light in that no matter what reference frame it moves at light speed, c. Didn't Einstein come upon this while riding his bike?

What would Aristotle say? :roll:

I've thought about this in mathematical research. In a sense, once definitions and rules of procedure are in place one could say that all that deductively follows exists somehow. It's a matter of discovering these outcomes. Of course, new definitions crop up all the time. The ideas of measurement and continuity in Euclidean spaces led to the generalization of metric spaces and point-set topology. These, in turn led to Banach and Hilbert spaces and algebraic topology. It goes on and on.

Although this line of thinking might be interesting among (analytic?) philosophers, most math researchers don't care. It's challenging enough to speculate and create the deductive schemes.

Just started Vortex on Netflix. Not what I expected! Talk about a strange murder mystery. In French.

Your still wrong! — Sir2u

$\Delta \tau =\Delta T\sqrt{1-\frac{{{v}^{2}}}{{{c}^{2}}}}$

On the right the time that passes on Earth (delta T), and on the left the time that passes onboard the ship (delta tau) moving at near light speed.

In an ontological sense both spacetimes are 'here' in ontological space but being distinct geometries they are distinct universes. — EnPassant

Well, they certainly have a variety of metrics which supposedly reduce to one another as scales change. I wasn't even aware there were quantum spacetimes. Thanks.

They ask her one question after each time she awakens, however: What is the probability that the coin shows heads?

This statement isolates SB from the coin toss. "What is the probability that the coin shows heads?" 1/2.

there is something wrong with the math here. — Sir2u

Time dilation aboard the ship. Lorentz factor. From the standpoint of Earth, yes. Hopeless. From the speeding ship perspective the clock ticks slower.

They ask her one question after each time she awakens, however: What is the probability that the coin shows heads?

Meaning comes up heads. 1/2

Mathematicians have abstracted the notion of "spaces", introducing "points" in such spaces that can be functions for example. Then there is a question of metrics - how to define and measure "distances". And it's true that various spaces have subspaces - like your walking, talking kind. Objects composed of these kinds of points can be relocated as isomorphisms, etc. One can take a disc in the complex plane and relocate it in the plane, preserving its character. So these subspaces are roughly like what you are describing. Unbeknownst, you are venturing into abstract mathematics.

It all seems like an intentional distraction from the antagonisms existing in the real and political worlds.

I cited my source for the proposition that climate change policies that are not adhered to by major climate change contributors will not be effective — Hanover

This needs a cited source? :roll:

And then there is Stormy Daniels. Where is that woman? :chin:

I have only provided an example of someone who considers themselves to be a "Luddite" and refrains from using some aspects of modern technology. I infer nothing more than that. This individual has created thousands of jobs over the years.

But there are dammed rivers he would return to the wild if he could.