"A handfull of photons" is such a crude term that it demonstrates you don't understand what a photon is (it's an electromagnetic particle-wave).

How many photons per second do you think are emitted by a light-bulb? (hint: it's somewhere in the (10^20) range, which is 10 followed by twenty zeroes).

There is no such thing as photon multiplication. A single candle emits easily over a trillion photons per second. A single photon cannot magically duplicate itself. This would break the laws of thermodynamics.

The problem with such a picture is that even those weak photons are visible from all directions.
Allow me this link to something I wrote almost a year ago on the same subject.
https://philpapers.org/post/22794 — Hachem

Unfortunately "a handful of photons" is so inaccurate and unscientific a description that the entire piece "isn't even wrong".

Furthermore "weak photons" aren't visible from all directions. If you shine your laser pointer across the room, why aren;t you able to see the beam itself unless dust or smoke passes through it?

Then we must explain how I can remain invisible in such conditions. — Hachem

You're not explaining the setup clearly at all, which leads me to believe you have not understood what I laid out earlier, but assuming you do understand, here is your answer:

The amount of photons that are statistically likely to strike my eyeballs, having bounced off you, from me, from the sun, can become so negligible that our eyes are not able to actually recognize it because the photons are too few and far between.

If you shine your laser pointer at a painted wall, you will notice that the beam reflects and shows a second red dot on another wall (usually), but it is much weaker than the main red dot. This is because most of the photons get reflected in random directions. The reason why your lazer pointer doesn't create reflection after reflection is because it loses strength too fast at each reflection, so only 2-3 dots are ever visible at a time...

You are a real live textbook. So, let me take advantage of it. You reflect enough light back to me that I can see you, but not enough that you can see me. But my eyes could be anywhere. Light that enters my eyes could just as easily fall on any place of my face, or my whole body. And still, you cannot see me, while I would still be able to see you if the light illuminating you would become so weak as to only allow your silhouette to be visible.
Is that what you are saying? — Hachem

The strength of light is drastically reduced when it diffuses against a surface and spreads out in many directions. So yes, it's possible that you could see me and that I would not see you, if the conditions were right.

The conditions required to create a silhouette can vary, contrast is required, which is different than seeing the light bounce off something directly such as the case we're discussing.

But tell me, when I am looking at you from my dark place, what is reaching my eyes, visible, or invisible light? — Hachem

"Visible" depends on the quality of the apparatus, in this case, your eye. If the light has become too diffuse you might not be able to see it (maybe a bigger eye with a bigger lens could though. If you can detect it with your eyes, then it's visible with the naked eye. Remember, "visible" in this case means "visible with the human eye"...

P.S: the distinction between light the human eye can see and the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation isn't so much a "nice touch" as it is the demonstrable and accepted scientific truth.

I am glad you are back, let me understand it straight. If I am standing in darkness while you are standing somewhere illuminated, I cannot see you because you cannot see me? — Hachem

Consider the following:

Light comes from the sun and bounces off of me (and other places) and then some of it travels to your eyes, rendering me visible to you. Some of the light bouncing off of me and other sources travels to various parts of your exposed surfaces, and then reflects in many directions (diffuses), and then some of that light might make it back to my own eyeballs, making you visible to me also. It could be possible that the distance between us was is so great and there are so few other light sources that by the time the light from me bounces off of you and makes it back to me, it is then of too low intensity to detect. You could then say "you're in darkness". Observe below:



Darkness is just the absence of light, but "light" is everywhere. Electromagnetic waves get emitted from every object above zero kelvin in the form of thermal radiation. This is why thermal imaging cameras can see in the "dark"; they detect a portion of the light spectrum which our eyes cannot.

In order to put something into complete and total darkness, you would have to get it to reach absolute zero temperature, otherwise it would be bathed in it's own thermal radiation. For this you would need an outer barrier that reflects all light radiation and all conductive heat transfer. Then you would need a layer of coolant capable of reaching internal temperatures of absolute kelvin, and then you would need to exist inside of that, at zero kelvin, in order to achieve perfect darkness. Observe below:

How come we can see illuminated objects while we are in a completely dark corner where no light reaches us? — Hachem

We don't. If no light is reaching something from any direction, and producing no visible light of it's own, then that thing sits in darkness.

Light reaches us though, so we see things... I'm not sure what your challenge is supposed to mean...

1. You might be right concerning the fact that with current telescopes we can see planets rotate. I honestly wouldn't know but I am willing to take your word for it.
Please do not forget that we are talking about the 17th century, and I do not think that the telescopes then, which were no better than cheap binoculars, would be capable of such a feast. — Hachem

1: They had a few large telescopes in the 17th century, but again, we don't need to identify rotation, we just need to identify the lunar emergence from behind Jupiter.



2: It means that there is a continuous flow of photons, and the "snap-shot" effect you're trying to describe is a mere consequence of us actually taking snap-shots. No such effect has been demonstrated to exist or to be the cause for the variations in eclipse duration of Jupiter's moon.

3: The distinction between parallax and resolution is not artificial, they're two completely different phenomenon. I've explained what they both are and asked you how they could possibly be responsible for differences in measured eclipse duration. "There are no intermediate states" is demonstrably false with more and better measuring equipment...

Vagabond Spectre wrote: Parallax and resolution are not the same thing, and parallax has little or nothing to do with this experiment. Parallax is the apparent motion of objects due to changing perspectives of observation, which unless you can correct me has nothing to do with visible light after the emergence of Jupiter's moon following an eclipse. Resolution is not an issue either, as we do not need to see Jupiter's moon with any high degree of detail whatsoever, we just need to see when the light from it becomes visible after it's emergence from behind Jupiter.

4: I'm not going to dig through any thread but this one. Take responsibility for your own position and at the very least quote yourself. I don't recall where you pointed out any light phenomena that the current model cannot explain, not do i recall where you actually presented a theory of your own which was explanatory or predictive in any way. Please present the evidence for your own claims. "I've already presented it" is lazy and self-deceptive.

5: Due to the expansion of space described in the current cosmological model, over very great distances light is essentially stretched out as the space between photons expands. This is what actually gives rise to a definitive edge of the observable universe, because at sufficiently large distances the cumulative expansion of space exceeds the ability of light to ever reach the other end (like a road that grows faster than you can traverse it, you will never get to the end). This comes from Einsteins special and general relativity, both of which have been demonstrated to have stunning predictive power.

Concerning the first part of this quote, this is as far as I can see an argument in my favor. We are capable of seeing objects as they really are, therefore with no delay. You reaffirm the idea by stating "bigger telescopes mean more resolution" which seems to indicate that we see distant objects as they are. I am curious as to how you reconcile the idea that telescopes give an accurate image of reality with the principle that it takes time for light to reach us (on that we agree), and that therefore the images we see represent an image of a moment in the past. All I am saying is that we are not looking at the past but at the world as it is now, and that is the puzzle we have to solve. — Hachem

Seeing an object with greater resolution doesn't mean we're also seeing them with less delay. That assumption doesn't follow from any logic I'm aware of.

why do you think better resolution means less time delay?

Quote what you do not agree with and say why you do not agree with it instead of simply asking again and again for clarifications. — Hachem

OK, I will highlight the crucial points of error numbered, in bold and underlined and explain why they are errors down below

The question is whether the differences in the times of eclipse and reappearance of the moon cannot be interpreted differently, without involving the idea that it takes time for light to travel through space. (1) We all know that when looking through the telescope at a planet like Jupiter, we do not see it rotating about its axis, or orbiting the sun. (2)We get each time a snapshot of a frozen moment in time, and the changes to the images we receive occur in jumps without any intermediate states. (3) This is understood as the effect of parallax, or more simply resolution. Because of the distance two points separated by relatively large distances will appear to our perception as one, and it takes time before we notice the difference between one position and another.

This is exactly the situation which Rømer is analyzing, but instead of understanding it as a case of parallax and resolution, he chooses a very specific approach. He considers the time it takes for astronomers to observe the disappearance or reappearance of Jupiter's moon as a fact that needs no further explanation. If we see the moon appearing at time t that is because the moon appeared at time t. And if we notice that when the earth is at another position, farther from Jupiter, and the moon appears or disappears at time t+x, then x must be caused by the longer distance between the earth and Jupiter. (4)This is much too easily discounting the fact that we only see immediately the differences between one view and another when we are very close to the object. (5)It is not surprising that Jupiter's moon seems to appear or disappear at a later time than when the earth is closer to Jupiter. The larger the distance between the earth and Jupiter, the more time it will take us to notice a difference between two consecutive moments. — Hachem

1: We do see rotation of planets, especially when we have powerful telescopes. Planets and moons are so large and rotate relatively slowly though, so it's very hard to notice with the naked eye in real time (like trying to notice the movement of shadows due to the rotation of the earth). We definitely observe rotation and we definitely observe orbits.

2: Yes, there are "intermediate states". Photons tend to come very tightly packed one after the other, and so unless you want to get down to the time interval between photon strikes (which decreases as the light gathering aperture gets smaller) there is a practical continuous stream of photons to measure.

3: Parallax and resolution are not the same thing, and parallax has little or nothing to do with this experiment. Parallax is the apparent motion of objects due to changing perspectives of observation, which unless you can correct me has nothing to do with visible light after the emergence of Jupiter's moon following an eclipse. Resolution is not an issue either, as we do not need to see Jupiter's moon with any high degree of detail whatsoever, we just need to see when the light from it becomes visible after it's emergence from behind Jupiter.

4: We see differences in distant objects as light reflecting those differences reaches us. This has long been proven since the invention of more powerful optics and more sensitive measuring equipment. Low resolution and distant objects can sometimes be hard to analyze, but luckily, in this case, being obscured and then unobscured by a planet creates a strong flashing signal for us to look for and to measure.

5: In order for what you say here to be true, some sort of time dilation effect would need to be acting on the light coming from more distant places, effectively slowing it down and making it appear to move more and more slowly. This does happen to occur over unfathomably long enough distances, but luckily, again, we can see the emergence of Jupiter clear as day. No resolution issues, no parallax complications, and correcting for special/general relativity is of almost marginal consequence.

Now that I've laid out my objections more clearly, I can see that your argument rests entirely on the assumption that "it takes longer to notice changes in distant objects" despite the obvious fact that bigger telescopes mean more resolution, which can eliminate any setbacks caused by resolution blur. The "no intermediate states" bit is unsubstantiated and must result from a confused understanding of how we carry out astronomical observations...

The question of your refraction pattern has no apparent connection with your hypothesis(?) that telescopes have access to light that might be millions of miles away as opposed to physically passing through them.

Regarding your experiment: It's what happens when you shine a laser through a small aperture.

I do not think that. Therefore, I say that the theory of light cannot explain vision and certainly cannot explain the fact that when we look through a telescope the object is there where we see it, when we see it. The same way we look at somebody coming down the road, still a few hundred meters away from us, and we know it will take some time for him to reach us. Light theory as it is can easily explain this last example, but it breaks when it comes to distant objects and great distances. — Hachem

Why does the contemporary assessment of the speed of light break down when it comes to distant objects and great distances?

When the captain looks through a telescope, he is seeing the light entering the telescope, which is more or less the same as the light that is entering the eyes of the sailor below. The captain can actually recognize the distant ship because the telescope gathers much more light from a wider area than a normal human eyeball does and so gains additional resolution. There is no contradiction of any kind. We don't see objects as they are even when using big telescopes, we see them as they were when those photons were originally emitted, and over long distances there are no issues. As long as we get a steady stream of photons to record even a single point of light is sufficient to measure the emergence of Jupiter's moon after an eclipse; resolution issues would not cause it to blip in and out of existence (and even if it did we simply get a bigger telescope and problem solved).

Where is the break down? Don't repeat yourself though, please try and make your argument clear this time...

Right, but I disagreed. I'm not talking about poetry, necessarily. But I scarcely see why that's removed from philosophy. Why is poetry an exception? Because its just a subjective and aesthetic interpretation of being? — Marty

We try to remove ambiguity in philosophical writing because otherwise we go around and around, talking about everything, and nothing, until the original issues we meant to actually address are long forgotten.

Ambiguity leads to misinterpretation and equivocation, and life is too short for good philosophers to have their ideas lost in transition...

You don't. Since interpretation is ulimately bottomless. — Marty

How about meaningful discussions with satisfying conclusions where clarity is a standard and utility is high? I don't care about endless interpretation, I care about useful and relevant ones.

Which is probably wrong considering that Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Plato, Aristotle - of which are ambiguous - have survived the longest. — Marty

Being ubiquitous or often misinterpreted probably indicates some degree of ambiguity, but these thinkers didn't become great because their writing was obscure or rife with double meaning, Generally it's because they were able to clearly communicate complex ideas that actually had merit of their own, which is something you just cannot see through a stubbornly post-modern lens.

The death of philosophy is when we're in agreement. — Marty

I don't get it... Is this yet another Nietzsche parody?

If the lofty and braggadocios claims of renaissance and enlightenment thinkers bother you to the point that you nod at the prospect of their passing, it is my regretful pleasure to inform you that Science, son of Philosophy, takes well after them and shall outlive us all...

1. The pinhole lens has a Nikon fitting but is not made by Nikon. — Hachem

Can you explain your setup in more detail? A laser pointer is shining at a mounted pinhole lens that is attached to a camera (a camera with a separate internal lens?). Or do you have a barrier of foil somewhere in-between the two meter gap between the camera and the laser pointer? (if so, where?).

If the diffraction pattern is caused by the pinhole, you should be able to see it projected onto the back wall (you might need to find the right distance to see the pattern clearly) without any need for a camera. If the diffraction pattern is caused by the glass lens of the camera, then using the pinhole as a pinhole projector will not reveal the diffraction pattern. You should be able to test this yourself!.

2. Your assumption of diffraction is not reasonable, Why should a collimated beam diffract when going through an empty opening? — Hachem

When a photon passes close to the edge of something it can become diffracted (it's direction changed). The closer to the edge of the pinhole that a given photon is, the greater the angle of diffraction.

3. Even assuming diffraction, the question still remains of why there should be such differences between the different images on the basis of shutter speed alone. I would very much like to see some calculations that take the speed of light into consideration, and explain to me the differences. — Hachem

The longer the shutter is open, the more photons the camera collects over a period of time, and so we see a cumulative sample of exactly where photons are striking the photo-receptors over that given period of time.

4. You are defending the theory or theories of light as they are taught. I have no problem with that. But referring to them is not enough. I will be very happy and obliged if you could show me where I went wrong, but appealing to authority is not enough. — Hachem

I think the burden is on you to show where Romer went wrong, and I don't think you've sufficiently done that. You haven't addressed the main evidence for Romer's hypothesis (that the speed of light is finite) which is the reliability with which that model allows to make highly accurate predictions.

Where did Romer go wrong? Why is this interference pattern even pertinent to his observations?

First, diffraction should not be a problem since we are talking about a 0.25mm aperture, with no lens. The different wavelengths are measured in nanometers. — Hachem

Light diffracts as it travels as it travels around the edge of an object, in this case, the inside edges of your pinhole. How far away from the pinhole is the camera again? Two meters?

Since when does Nikon make a lens-less camera?

Concerning your objection about my Rømer analysis you are assuming that which I think he had no right to do. If you assume that you are seeing the moment when a moon appears from behind Jupiter you have already decided that the difference between the times of observations can only come because of the distance and the speed of light. I do not know how to make it any clearer, but this obviously, as least to me, the case of a circular argument. Your theory has to be right for it to be right. — Hachem

The hypothesis is that the time difference is caused by a finite speed of light. The experiments and calculations based on that assumption lead to the creation of a model with repeatable predictive power. The fact that we can use the underlying assumptions to make reliable predictions is what lends credulity to this particular model.

If you have some other proposed mechanism for the deviations in eclipse duration I would love to hear it, but parallax can be accounted for and issues of resolution are not relevant.

Your theory has to be right for it to be right. — Hachem

The theory needs to retain it's predictive power and to not be contradicted by some competing or better theory. If you're really looking to upset our physical and scientific understanding of light as non-instantaneous you might as well start with the best modern measurements and experimental evidence rather than digging up poor poor Romer...

What you've produced is called an Airy Disk, which results from the light which diffracts when traveling through a very small aperture (comparable to it's wavelength) and is then redirected by your camera lens.

Regarding Romer, as far as I understand it, since he knew when the distance between Jupiter and the Earth was growing or shrinking (and by approximately how much), he was able to correlate changes in eclipse duration with distance gained or lost between the Earth and Jupiter during the actual eclipses.

Matters of resolution aren't problematic for his observations because the emergence of light after the eclipse was not dependent on having a detailed image, but merely the presence of light.

I'm not exactly sure what your main criticism of Romers analysis is. You suggest that there are these periods of no intermediate "updates" between the images we collect of distant moons, but in reality different photons are continuously and somewhat unpredictably (at very small time scales) striking our photo-receptors. Our ability to get continuous updates is limited only by our willingness to gather the photons with sufficient speed and at sufficient scales.

The way telescopes defeat the resolution problem is simply by gathering more photons and refocusing them into a size our own eyes can interpret. (bigger telescopes see farther because they gather more light from far away points which are slowly diffusing, thus increasing resolution).

Could you clarify exactly why it is that low resolution observations in Romers experiment makes an alternate model viable?

And honestly, really ambiguous thinkers and text are the ones that survive time and are the most interesting. I'm not one to buy into the idea that things need to be concise, clear, offer particular definitions. — Marty

If we're to get anywhere meaningful in a discussion, we need to understand each other. That means removing ambiguity and being clear about the things we reference.

Some poetry is great because it has all sorts of alternative meanings, but in philosophical writing unless we make distinctions readers might not know what it is we're trying to say. Poetry and much prose doesn't suffer from this endemic need for specificity because most poetry and prose doesn't attempt to formulate strong and robust ideas/arguments.

If I can interpret Aristotle a hundred different ways, how do I know which interpretation is the original and intended meaning? If we just go with whatever our own preconceptions indicate is the intended meaning it might be long before we're talking past each-other about our own personal and ill-defined views. If there is some useful interpretation of Aristotle's ambiguous texts, shouldn't we reformulate and repackage into something clear so we don't all need to figure it out for ourselves from the numerous possible meanings when we read them?

P.S: "Really ambiguous thinkers and texts" don't seem to hold a special place in timelessness. I can surmise that enduring ambiguity might be a useful for keeping a text alive as time passes and societies understanding (of it) changes... The only examples I can actually think of are religious texts such as the books of the bible, but the bible isn't very philosophical at all, and it's ideas are far less than interesting and robust. The evolution of biblical interpretation has been based primarily around emotional mass appeal and the private manipulative interests of various religious leaders throughout the centuries. If you want to create a world of ideological disarray and disagreement and watch as your good ideas are bastardized into one thousand scare-crows and herrings, then ambiguity is the way to go.

Reality, Existence, Being, World and Actuality. — Marty

It's a verbal soup that that can vaguely be equivocated with "truth".

These terms can only be made useful if we give them specific and robust definitions at the outset, or at least provide direction or a scope of inquiry if we're to create useful ones ourselves. When people casually bust out words and phrases like "essence of self" feel free obligated to stop them and question exactly what they mean.

It takes too much effort to address every meaning that can possibly be interpreted from a string of ambiguous words (especially the various permutations when such terms are packed like sour sardines into a single paragraph). It makes much more sense to have the speaker clarify as best they can exactly what they're referring to (if context doesn't make it clear) when they use such semantically controversial terms.

P.S, in response to the intent of your OP: "actuality" is just a fancy word for "reality", which is the place in which we "exist". I can only explain what existence is by pointing to examples of it: chair; dog; log; you. Existence is a property of some things. It might also help to define (point to) non-existence: flying pigs; extraterrestrial abduction of humans; free energy; corporate benevolence... "Being" and "world" are more vague, so I'll opportunistically define "being" as a thing capable of "perceiving" a "world", where "perception" entails some gleaning of data from things which exist in actuality/reality, and where "world" comprises a series of perception based "understandings" that are ultimately limited by the being's mechanisms of perception. "Understanding" is when the world of a being reflects some aspect of actuality/reality/existence in a useful or demonstrable manner...

P.P.S. I could continue cooking up definitions that sound like arguments indefinitely, and maybe I can even provide to some what seems like clarity, but writing like this glosses over so much so quickly that really nothing of value ends up getting said at all. The hard rewards of such ontological approaches are quite fabled indeed. Long and boring logical and epistemic approaches (such as empiricism) should be exhausted before anything resembling final conclusions be reached concerning the topics you have mentioned. Until I can tell you the exact and best definitions of "true", "nature", and "existence" (let alone dealing with a question mark at the end) we're going to have to settle for boring and lengthily defined specifics when we reference and investigate something with controversial and ambiguous terms.

Special pleading.

Ohe of the standard techniques spread about by Big Energy is to cast doubt in just this way: oh yes, climate is changing, but we really don't know how much and because of what. It's standard FUD, fear uncertainty and doubt. And then all those micro-doubts get strewn around cyberspace and repeated by various people, like micro-plastics entering the food chain; legislation is diluted, green energy schemes stalled, and Big Energy wins the delay it wants.

Meanwhile..... — Wayfarer

So it's not true that we are unable to make confident and precise predictions about the long term ramifications of climate change because Big Energy must always be wrong?

How many billions are certain to die?

Climate change is foremost a big uncertainty; we know that it WILL change, but we don't know just how severely, how quickly, and what the end result will actually be.

Rest assured though, change is bad because everything on earth, including us, is adapted to current conditions. Any change is going to have challenges and depending on the severity of the change, one day we very well may be in a quasi-apocalypse of our own making.

Resisting climate change is required to mitigate the uncertainty and inherent danger it poses, and so there is a very fine line between clarifying what we know for sure about the future of the climate and what might occur. Too much alarmism is a bad thing just as too much skepticism can has been (they feed off each-other).

The methane stored in perma-frost is definitely going to have some impact, and we should definitely be looking into it and trying to slow it, but it's too early to say what the full scope of it's effects would be.

We won't live to see the devastating effects of climate change, combined with the runaway effect that could be entailed by methane release. In most likelihood, we will learn to adapt to the new state of affairs provided by climate change, at the cost of hundreds of billions if not trillions to adapt our cities and current infrastructure and agriculture. — Posty McPostface

What existing infrastructure lasts longer than say, 50 years, before it gets replaced by something new? I firmly believe that the fungal like resilience of mankind will allow us to change and adapt much more quickly than nature...

ah so youve seen sources showing that the range of free atmospheric methane can range from 12-100+ years? Or atleast that it has been known to last as little as 12- years? — XanderTheGrey

As I have explained, yes, Methane has a lifespan of 12 years (give or take) in the atmosphere, but it has a global warming potential of 28 (compared to CO2 which has a global warming potential of 1 (which represents the effect of CO2 over 100 years as a standard)).

This means that pound for pound methane will warm the atmosphere 28 times more over a 100 year period than CO2 would.

So if this ~50+ gigatons of methane in the East Siberian Arctic Self is released within say 10-20 years(which is stated as a possibility by Natalia Shakhova's team [10-80 years]) then it would kill and displace billions. But with the information you speak of makes it much less alarming given that it happens to be released gradually in smaller increments over say a 40-80 year period. — XanderTheGrey

I have scarcely begun to consider exactly how billions would die because I've not let looked through it all, and even once I do, predicting the deaths of billions isn't exactly simple science.

I don't know that some instant cataclysm will occur which will "kill billions" by a long shot. We will be facing slow but steady sea level rise for the next 1000 years. We -might- be facing worsening weather for quite a long time. Many of us might have to migrate due to changing regional thermal norms (I.E: we need farmland). Whether all our farms suddenly fail one year, or some of them slowly fail while we slowly build new one's year to year, is up in the air...

You know what, i think I'm just going to make sure i have land and sanctuary in various parts of Canada, northern China, Russian, and New Zealand. — XanderTheGrey

I live in Canada, and I don't like the cold. Does that mean global warming is going to increase the property value around here?

In the worst case scenario, all the ice at the poles melts and land mass is reduced while temperatures continue to soar. This change would take about 1000 years to fully come to pass (the amount of ice to melt is staggeringly large, and it takes time for it to melt).

The earth's temperature would go to around 23 degrees Celsius as a global average. That's many degrees hotter on average that it is now, and in fact the earth has been in this state many times in the past:



What the world would really look like at this temperature is very difficult to predict. It would of course entail a complete upheaval of all existing ecosystems and require massive change and adaptation from mankind and nature in order to endure the change. Different trees would begin growing in different places, many or most biodiversity in fauna will disappear, to be eventually and hopefully replaced by the surviving animals capable of filling new niches...

It's possible that new deserts would form, and that old deserts would turn to forest. There might be a place for us in some new Mezosoic like climate; likely there is, but it's all fairly uncertain as of yet.

↪VagabondSpectre
ah, no it seems i wasn't wrong at all, over a 20 year period methane is 86-150+ times more warming than CO2(carbon dioxide), and over a 100 year period; it is 28 times more warming than CO2.(so i was correct: it lasts over 100 years) This was stated by Stuart Scott within the first 15-20min of the press conference video i provided above in intial post.

I verified it here using wikipedia as my source. I tried a simple screenshot but phone is having storage problems, the but lifespan is verified within the very first praragraph of the article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane — XanderTheGrey

Without looking at any of the sources, I can tell you that what the 100 times number refers to is warming potential. You take the decay rate and factor in the actual strength of the GhG in question, and then you can determine cumulatively how much warmth will be trapped by it over a certain period of time.

Methane is a much stronger green house gas, which is why we note that over a 20 year period it is "86-150" times more potent than carbon dioxide, but we also note that over a 100 year period it is only 28 times as effective. This is because methane does decay much more quickly than CO2. We can say that the warming potential is 28 times greater over 100 years, but we cannot say that methane lasts for that long in the atmosphere. According to previous sources I've been exposed to, methane actually decays in around 12 years, but the impact that it has during those 12 years is large.

One reason to speak of warming potential instead of talking about the decay rate and the strength of it's greenhouse effect is because the math involved makes it a bit more difficult to understand the relevant potency (sorting through units in thermodynamic exchanges isn't straightforward). By discussing the pound for pound effect of specific GhGs and referring to that directly it is hoped that a more accurate appraisal of the threat can be made accessible to laymen such as ourselves.

It lasts well over 100 years before decaying. — XanderTheGrey

Where did you get this information?

A far as I know methane doesn't last long at all compared to other GHG's.

I believe this is the first incidence of the term "high tea" on this forum. — Bitter Crank

I am envisioning a quaint British castle overlooking pristine shire-land below, dotted with fields, cottages, and cattle. In a cobble room adorned with banners and sigils John's man sits in dictation as our humble castellan paces the room in meditation, pausing occasionally to glance at a very old and jeweled great-sword mounted on the wall...

Is this an anime where a regular dude is surrounded by magical chicks and is forced to take them out with a regular old face-punch?

That's hilarious...

Pro: not Hillary Clinton

Con: emotionally petty and politically uninformed

Pro: holds up a mirror to the retardation of American politics

Con: holds up a mirror to the retardation of American politics

Under this new regime of power and identity, black people cannot possibly be racist because they "have no power" and so even if a black person was racist it wouldn't affect anyone at all, hence "reverse racism is a myth" (note: 'reverse racism' has also been redefined to mean "racism from non-whites" because new racism basically means "a white person". Similarly, a woman cannot be a misandrist, a gay person cannot be heterophobic, etc...

I've been immersed in this subject for about three years now...

Long story made short: Radical feminism is now taught using a suite of sociologically presumptive frameworks (intersectionality, patriarchy theory, new racism, etc, ...) which are based on circular and ultimately self-consuming moral arguments. The actual ideology is stunningly remedial despite constant efforts to make it sound intellectual via grandiloquent vernacular; it opens with a tautology about whiteness, maleness, and privilege/power in society from a sociological perspective (which deeply confuses historical colonialism with contemporary norms), but then instantly dives into long-winded nonsense like: "listening to the emotions, feelings, and lived experiences of people of color, and believing them, because as a white or as a male I'm in capable of comprehending the plight of the victims who I unconsciously oppress, and my existing beliefs are merely self-preserving racist norms I inherited from my white-supremacist ancestors who invented slavery". That women-hating men are all to blame isn't a conclusion of this theory, it's a starting point.

Identity politics has brought modern feminism to it's knees. It's been completely hijacked by the argument that one's identity (be it gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, etc...) gives actual validity one's arguments, and with the rebuttal that any disagreement is precisely the racist-sexist-homophobic-transphobic oppression that got us here in the first place, it becomes politically dangerous to even question them. They actually had to invent a ranking system (they call it "The progresssive stack") in order to determine which groups are the most oppressed, and therefore whose individual ideas are the most valid, and therefore who should be speaking first and who should be speaking last, or not at all.

It's sad to say, but basically it all boils down to the idea that since white men have all the power in the world, then white males are to blame for everything, including their own problems. The reason why this junk is so prevalent in the media is because every advertiser is so afraid of negative public backlash (except from white males it seems), that they feel obligated to pander to any and every minority or perceivably oppressed group when someone demands it of them. Being called racist or sexist can be a death sentence in today's culture, especially if any band-wagons pick up the trail, and so it will be quite awhile before advertisers stop leaning heavily toward this nonsense. (white tears are less important than black blood, as they say).

It turns out that when the hipster masses get together to shed communal tears at the man, it makes for very fashionable Twitter/Instagram campaigns. #BashTheFash of 'Anti-Fa' is the perfect example of the mentality that this movement promotes. "Let's dress in black, wear masks, arm ourselves with melee weapons and smoke bombs, and go do physical violence to this free-speech rally because everyone knows that Trump voters are all white supremacists and that violence is a legitimate means of expressing our own political ideas".

But not all advertisers are that afraid (or that dimwitted)... L'Oreal fired their first trans model, Munroe Bergdorf, a few days ago for the following social media post:



She then wrote a lengthy response, which pretty much sums it all up:

The steam and the combustion powered engine. They do all the work.

No but probabilistic wave functions and determined are. I can't believe the twisting and turning that you are willing to go through to get to your goal. Just forget the justification. You want your life to be fated? You believe in it deeply? Then just go for it. Nothing wrong with faith unless you make it wrong. — Rich

The more electrons we check in the experiment I described, the closer and closer the results correspond to our predictions based on past experience.

Determinism is still not disproven by our inability to predict how the wave property of a given electron will break, but this clearly isn't what you're so passionate about. You desire to nest free will inside of this wave property, but you still have not explained how quantum fluctuations (or whatever you have in mind) actually impacts your free will. You maintain that free will exists in the mind because quantum mechanics negates determinism, but you cannot explain how, and won't say anything about why "quantum fluctuating will" (or whatever) is any more in your control (your free will) than classical Newtonian mechanics.

Zero precision. All measurements necessarily are approximate and incomplete. You really are in a hurry to get to your goal. — Rich

Zero precision huh?

They are repeatable only to the extent that there always had to be an aspect of the experiment that is unknown. Heisenberg Principal. Hence the information is good enough for all practical purposes but necessarily unknown as far as completeness is concerned. — Rich

When we measure an electron, we cause it's "wave-property" to collapse. This experiment isn't affected by the Heisenberg principle because what it measures is precisely the likelihood that we will observe an electron with a spin along a particular axis when we collapse it's wave function from a previously "prepared state". This experiment is one of the reasons we know that the Hiesenberg uncertainty principle isn't just a matter of problematic instruments taking impactful measurements, but an inherently probabilistic aspect of quantum wave-particles.

Determinists are always mixing up precision with good enough FAPP. It is the difference between the two that makes Determinism obsolete and Determinism good enough for the faithful. — Rich

Collapsing wave functions and determinism are not mutually exclusive...

Really, you want to make Quantum deterministic? Well the only way is to explore the Infinite Worlds of Everett's Mega-World Many Worlds. First you have to devise a experiment that crosses into the Infinite Worlds. I would say Occam's Razor would implore the Calvinist version of fate and Heaven. Far easier with the same results. — Rich

I have no interest in dictating what "Quantum" should be. Instead of prattling on about faith and Calvinism you should take the time to actually read my posts and thoroughly explain your position. My tentative and evidence oriented acceptance of determinism doesn't amount to a fundamental belief about the way things are, it's a pragmatic assumption about, at the very least, the way almost everything is. As far as scientists are concerned, overwhelming and inescapable consistency in the causal forces remains despite discovering quantum indeterminacy. The only relevant implications of my acceptance of determinism (which for me is precisely the relinquishing of the free will delusion, which is really what this thread is about) are the implications that it has on moral blame, guilt, and subsequently understanding, forgiveness and rehabilitation as opposed to hatred and revenge.

We both still live with the illusion of free will, and must pragmatically behave as such (mostly), but only one of us lives with the delusion of free will. I don't hold it against you though, I blame causation. All I ask is that when you judge others, try not to envision some kind of inherently evil soul or malevolent will as being the source of their behavior, and instead extend to them as many excuses as you do to yourself when justifying your own failures.

The only scientific equation that we have that speaks to causality is quantum theory. It is probabilistic. Nothing is repeatable. Some much, much less so than others. Every event is different and measurements are always approximate and that is only for those events that can actually be measured.

If you need enlightenment, go read Daniel Dennet. He is about as close to a prophet as you are going to find for the determinism religion. Now, I know what it means to talk to people of faith, so this is going to get us no where, so let's call it an end. Otherwise it gets silly. — Rich

There is consistency in Newtonian scales and experiments are eminently repeatable. That said, experiments on the quantum scale are also repeatable (this is how we know what we know about it).

One curious experiment goes as follows: we "prepare" the spin of a group of electrons into a certain configuration (via powerful magnets) and then we begin checking the "spin" (the orientation of the EM field of the electron that was configured by the magnets) of individual electrons one by one. Some we find up, some we might find down (we can only check one direction at a time, and the "probability" of an electron matching that direction depends on how far removed that direction is from it's prepared state) but as we continue to test more and more of these electrons we see that the percentage of them which are "up" corresponds better and better to how close the direction we check is to the direction we prepared initially.

If we prepare the state of an electron along a particular axis (called up) and then we check the "up" direction, there will be a 100% chance that the electron is in the up position.

That's a repeatable experiment that actually gives us insight into why things on Newtonian scales are consistent; because the "probabilistic" nature of quantum events causes them to behave in patterned and partially predictable ways. In other-words, cumulatively, quantum events adhere to a distribution pattern which renders overall consistency.

If quantum experiments were not repeatable, we wouldn't have any reliable knowledge or data concerning them...

You talk about brains, and neurons, and gravity, and circuitry sounds very scientific and creates a lot of gravitas, but at the end has nothing to do with determinism. — Rich

Causality (what the laws of physics seek to describe) has to do with determinism because it "determines" how matter and energy behaves.

Experiments must be above all repeatable in order to show that the results of the experiment are adequately guaranteed ("determined") by the theory which explains/predicts them.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the true meaning of determinism-mas though. Could you enlighten me?

I sometimes fantasize about winning a megalottery and how I would spend it on promoting and experimenting with "good causes". Does that qualify me? — Jake Tarragon

I'm sold. And if anyone disagrees, I've got my pitch fork handy!

Naa man, lets like, make, like, ... Elon Musk the God Emperor of all mankind!

Surely if we had one genius and clearly benevolent central ruler who could just cut through any and all red tape we would be living the utopic dream before we knew it! Who was that old dude from "Gladiator" (2000)? One of those guys!

Obviously Musk is too busy God Emperoring Mars, so who else among us is ready to accept the most humble and graceful mantle of "philosopher king" that we, the unwashed masses, so sorely and deeply yearn for?

I've been meaning to open a thread to rehash our disagreements regarding telos, morality, sexuality, etc..., but I never did get to the bottom of how religion is actually intertwined with your moral views (I'm not really interested in your religious views unless they're the source of your moral ones).

Specifically what I don't understand is whether or not you believe morality is as the Christian God created it and as is revealed through (which bible do you prefer?). I know you subscribe to a "telos/human nature" based argument that more or less states "according to our objective nature, humans must behave in X manner to be moral/fulfilled/(happy?)/etc...", but do you maintain that you can discover this without appealing to god in any way? In other words, does your moral reasoning support your acceptance of the Christian god or does your acceptance of the Christian god support your moral reasoning? (you could say both, but we can ignore the circularity of this response; I need to know the answer to the latter question).

How do you know the origin of how i came to pragmatically or tentatively accept that determinism is the case?

Proposing an economically motivated conspiracy of mass delusion is quite an interesting theory... Who facilitated the spread of this propaganda? Is it global?

The difference between "faith" and an evidence based argument is exactly the evidence. Faith based belief requires no evidence...

Say you wanted to criticize the position that the force of gravity is a consistent aspect of causation which creates predictable and reliable results... How would you do it? Would you crack a joke about apples falling on my head, drag me down to the level of "faith", and go on about Calvinism some more?

It's not like I'm asking for you to produce a flying pig (that would suffice though), all I want is for you to challenge the evidence directly. Was Newton just confused about the apple because the earth is flat and it is constantly accelerating upward (simulating gravity via momentum)? Yea that must be it...

It's actually rather amusing and ironic how Determinism is merely a religious off-shoot of Calvinism. Determinists adopted the faith in fate without the God. In God's stead, naturally, there is Natural Laws. — Rich

Actually my, tentative acceptance of determinism is an off-shoot of science. It's kind of like the assumption that gravity is all pervasive; an assumption made easy by a massive pile of evidence, the cumulative argument, that indicates it is the case. But instead of addressing that pile, you keep bringing up Calvinism as if I care that it could be some vague progenitor of ideas that bear some similarity to my own, while not actually recognizing or addressing my position (sitting on top of the pile).

Yes, there is a mountain of evidence that if you damage a TV circuit, it will alter the picture not the TV studio where shows are actually produced. — Rich

What does this mean? You think your consciousness or free-will is beamed into you over some remote broadcasting network? Is this what you thought Einstein meant when he said "spooky action at a distance"?

The religion of course lies in the unshakable faith that all of this is fated — Rich

Well I can pretty much demonstrate that most of it is fated. All the successful predictions enabled by various scientific theories gives powerfully strong indication that there is consistency in a causal mechanism that governs most or all matter and energy. Even when it comes to the human consciousness there are demonstrable causal connections between brain health and how the consciousness it produces might behave. Losing neurons or neural connections (see Alzheimer's disease) prevents you from accessing the data (memories) stored in those neurons. Damage to certain lobes can radically alter the "good or bad" aspect of human consciousness (i.E: a tumor or brain injury to specific areas of the brain can make people do things that they before they considered to be immoral). A brain injury can do more than just alter picture quality, it can change the programming (the content) entirely.

What meaningful remote transmission is your brain receiving that is more important than your instinctive moral compass and the memories which define your life and knowledge about yourself and the world? (These are things we can be reasonably sure are contained within neural networks and the hard biological wiring of the brain because of the actual evidence (case studies in brain disease and brain trauma)).