The double-slit experiment holds for light too. If you fire individual photons through the slits, you still get the interference patterns. It's not just an analogy: they genuinely behave the same, which speaks to a fundamental law.

Now do not get me wrong - the use of probabilities in these circumstances applies the best tool that we have available, but by failing to provide an true single outcome, this type of mathematics becomes a description rather than an explanation. — Gary Enfield

This is called 'the measurement problem': wavefunction evolve deterministically according to the many-body Dirac equation, but those wavefunctions correspond to multiple measurement outcomes. Which outcome... uh... comes out is probabilistic.

But...

The question we should ask is - what does this apparent lack of cause represent? — Gary Enfield

Quantum mechanics *is* backwards deterministic, that is: the cause of a measurement is fully determined by the outcome. It's the other way round that's problematic: the effect is not predictable.

Is it just a hidden cause - ie. a factor within Matter/Energy that we have yet to discover?
Could it be factors that lie outside the realm of our physical Matter/Energy - ie. a different type of stuff that could interact with it to preserve causality?
Or could it be that there is true randomness and spontaneity in the Universe? — Gary Enfield

There are other options.
1. Multiverse-type realities in which all possible outcomes are actual outcomes (e.g. the many worlds interpretation).
2. No causal arrow of time, such as was discussed here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9391/determinism-reversibility-decoherence-and-transaction/p7
3. Quantum mechanics is an approximation to a more fundamental theory that applies only at statistical scales.

It's that you are lucky and nevertheless implicitly take credit for this luck. — baker

I take credit for nothing. On the contrary, I'm well aware that being alive is a privilege and I intend to fully exploit it.

It's not that they are depressed. — baker

If you're not only not enjoying life atm but cannot imagine anyone else enjoying their life, to the point where you suspect they're lying about enjoying life, yes, it probably is depression.

So why not skip to the end and not concern yourself with doing things you like? That argument only works if you have to stay alive in which case you should do stuff you like. — Darkneos

If you're enjoying doing something, and you have the viable option to keep on doing it, why wouldn't you? Because one day you'll have to stop anyway? What a silly reason? "This film is great, but it's going to end so may as well stop watching half an hour before the end," said no one ever. "Delicious wine, but it won't last forever so no point finishing this glass," said no one ever. "We're having a lovely holiday, but we have to go back to work sometime so may as well do it three days early," said no one ever.

All that sounds like a chore to make life bearable and when you die you won’t remember anything at all. — Darkneos

You say:

don't just jump to depression like every other place I try to discuss this — Darkneos

then you completely discount the possibility that other people aren't depressed. I'm a man who takes a massive bite out of the ass of life. If you can't, that's sad, but your limitations are not my limitations. Life is the only fun thing that you can do for longer without it being detrimental to your health.

Thanks Pfhorrest. Perhaps the conspiracy theories are a little premature.

Wasn’t a big part of the rationale about ‘ditching the Eurocrats’? — Wayfarer

Aye, I genuinely think they'd expected that ending freedom of movement would somehow only effect brown-skinned people. I mean, we're British! Surely we can do what we want!

Studies overwhelming suggest that children raised in two parent homes are more successful in every possible category. — synthesis

Well, that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does. People do have the ability to split when a relationship is bad, which ups the average for parents that don't split. Children have been shown to do less well in school if their parents divorce, but that's not the fault of divorce, that's the fault of bad marriages. The worst off kids are those whose parents are in conflict but haven't yet split. (Musick K, Meier A. Are both parents always better than one? Parental conflict and young adult well-being. Soc Sci Res. 2010 Sep;39(5):814-30. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2010.03.002. PMID: 20824195; PMCID: PMC2930824.)

Here's the problem (especially with professional moms). I have known and worked closely with over a dozen highly successful, dedicated professional moms over the years. Every one of them were over-worked and completely burned-out trying to be the super-woman that society tells them they should be. — synthesis

The thing I most see complained about in this regard is that, as well as being mothers and full-time workers, they also have to do most of the housework as if they weren't working (feminists call this 'unpaid labour'). It isn't surprising to me, given that people tend to know like-minded people, that men who espouse traditional gender roles also know women who are stressed out. Generally, women do not see work as the thing that needs to give. Single working mothers also have less of a problem in this regard, which again points to the men as the problem. (https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC89089). It's also a situation that is improving over time. Best thing you can do to support a woman who is struggling to juggle work, home and children is to do more of the second two, not forbid the first one. You identify the cause yourself, but didn't know it:

Almost every one had a horrible marriage — synthesis

Yep, that'll do it.

Yes, and people should have every right to make these choices. If you believe you can have it all, go for it, but remember, live by the sword, die by the sword. — synthesis

It's like the market is supposed to be. Letting each mother choose how best to manage their lives is more efficient than being told by a bunch of men with outdated ideas.

Almost every society that does not make "the family" and its needs THE priority, fails. And it's exactly what you're seeing in the West today. — synthesis

That's absolutely untrue. Distributed parenting has been the norm throughout most of the lifetime of the human race, and still persists today. The children are healthier, more sociable, and more capable.


We've gotten somewhat off-topic. Irrespective of whether working women is best for the children, best for the father's, best for the mother's or best for society, it is absolutely best for the market, and yet the market has always resisted. The market does not act in its own long-term interest willingly: it has to be forced to do so.

IG have stopped trading GME and AMC again: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55871381

I saw an interview with the RobinHood CEO in which he suggested existential reasons for this. I don't really have much of a grasp on how buying frenzies hurt brokers, seems kind of counterintuitive, but IG are claiming the same thing here. Anyone know why these frenzies might hurt brokers?

There was a Daily Express (I know, but it's good) interview yesterday with a woman in exports bemoaning the amount of bureaucracy, the amount of parked up lorries, the amount of traffic, and the drop in custom on the continent. She said if she'd known it was going to be like this, she wouldn't have voted for Brexit.

:meh:

:up: whole post.

The scientific rationale for the existence of God is derived from an empirical limitation if God did not create our universe, thus, if he does not exist, then God cannot create our universe, however, as our universe is here, then God must exist, otherwise he would be limited, and our Universe would not exist. Therefore, the conclusion is that God must exist in order to create our universe in the first place. — EesahDhanyaalAhmed

I'm not sure any scientist would appreciate your adjectives. If God did not exist, he could not have created the universe is sound enough. Goes a bit pair-shaped right after that. Clearly God not existing is no barrier to the universe existing, so long as the latter doesn't depend on the former which, thankfully, it doesn't.

P.S. Hello, welcome, etc. I used to work in Newcastle. Lived in Durham. Probably the worst three years of my life. I went back to Newcastle recently, it seems much improved.

1) what if other people world-wide verified the same experience? isn't that enough for reducing the probability of it being a false memory? — BARAA

Yes, consensus is encouraging. This is why it's important to have e.g. scientific consensus so that you can't have people just making stuff up.

However you also have to consider contrary evidence. When thousands of pilgrims and the Pope all swear that the Sun danced around before crashing to the earth, yet no one of the other billions of inhabitants of the earth saw it, the Sun remains in the sky, and the Earth remarkably unscorched, you have to conclude that thousands of people can be wrong at once.

2) Remembering something that hasn't happened yet and then witnessing it happening is a remarkable event by itself. — BARAA

And is itself a statement about a memory, which is not compelling.

reason...the probability of misremembering a specific event is inversely proportional to the importance, remarkableness and hugeness of that event and therefore an event that's very important,very unique, very remarkable and very huge(let alone its psychological impact) is very unlikely to be misremembered.... — BARAA

There's an error here. Yes, a remarkable event is likely to be remembered, but you're not assessing the event: you're assessing the memory. The converse isn't true: the remarkableness of the memory is not a measure of its fidelity. It isn't difficult to people to remember things that never happened, such as in memory implantation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_implantation

I want to know WHY people choose to go on. — Darkneos

I like it. Why would I stop? I get to meet people, have interesting conversations, make friends. Sometimes I get to have sex with them. Sex is excellent. Sexcellent! Sometimes we make music. Making music is also excellent.

Also, I haven't read all the books I want to read yet. I'm actually annoyed that I'll probably die before I do. I don't want eternal life, but Christ gimme time to get through the essential few thousand.

There's interesting problems to solve, and we're increasingly technologically advantaged to solve them. I mean, imagine you die tomorrow, then the day after they prove that the universe was created by a sneeze. I'd be gutted to miss that, if only I was capable of being gutted.

Films are good. I recommend anything by Chaplin, Murnau, Pabst, Dryer, Powell & Pressberger, Bergman, Fellini, Herzog and the Coens. Try not to die before seeing all of their films, plus Apocalypse Now and Last Year in Marienbad.

Also, Paris does grow on you. Trick is to get to know it on foot or by water, otherwise it's just a dirty great mess. There's places in Italy I haven't been yet, and I feel like I need to know Japan better.

Deep sea diving! Oh my god, it's the best! You haven't lived til you've caught a drift through a shoal of glass fish or woken a grumpy turtle or tickled a sting ray or accidentally played chicken with a shark. I hear skydiving is good, not done that yet.

^ Philosophy it is not, but it's the actual answer to the question: Why do I want to keep living? There's so much you can do and so little time. Why would I want *less* time?

I've never said nor implied Biden colluded with foreign powers to win in 2020, so... — NOS4A2

... your point was utterly irrelevant, yes.

No, I couldn't care less because there is no crime or evil occurring anywhere folks like yourself have been crying wolf for the past half-decade. — NOS4A2

Depends how much you care about democracy, I suppose. For people who do, a President that courts foreign interference in elections (and then attempts to interfere with his next election) is a huge cause for concern. I think after Jan 6th everyone is cogniscent of the fact that his supporters are somewhat more ambivalent about the security of their democracy.

Remember, women and families existed before Karl Marx. — synthesis

Historically, women worked, and children were raised by entire villages. That arrangement doesn't work now, so different arrangements are judicious. I'm happy to accept that some of those past arrangements would have put the bulk of the burden of labour on men and the bulk of child rearing on women.

But once again the world has moved on. It is much simpler to have flexible arrangements. Covid might change things yet again, pushing us more toward remote working. The optimum arrangement for raising children is, in other words, context-dependent. The Victorian values you espouse would have been no use 20,000 years ago and are of no importance today. Time mocks absolutes.

Talk from your own experience. — synthesis

Easy enough. I know happy, well-adjusted children raised by single mothers, single fathers, parents where the father works, parents where the mother works, parents where both work, and same-sex parents. I also am all too familiar with the damage done by conservative ideas of concrete family structures. The charity I raise for is Women's Aid. Back in 2015, the UK's conservative government started hacking funding for shelters for women attempting to flee, often with their children, domestic violence, resulting in two-thirds of victims being forced to choose between homelessness and a life of abuse, all in the name of the conservative patented Traditional Family Values.

So far, the One Single Formula for getting it right is making itself highly inconspicuous to me through lack of evidence, like God or trickle-down economics: it's more a religious belief than anything approaching an empirical fact. I am more than happy to see women increasingly empowered to choose for themselves whether to stay at home, work, take it in turns, or go it alone as they see fit, not as conservative men think they should see fit. Like a lot of men these days, I'm also keen to see the burden of labour increasingly shared, and as a result see fathers given the chance to bond more with their children rather than be squeezed out by outdated values manifested in maternal gatekeeping.

We had a big push here for more paternity leave rights in response to how many men want to take more care if their children in early years. Traditional Family Values aren't working for them either. Alas the legislation was so diluted by the time it was realised that we're still waiting for that to pass, but the desire is there.

The great thing about empowerment is that empowers people to do the thing you'd like to see them do. Most women this empowered might well proceed as per Traditional Family Values: after all, it's what appears normal. But the flip side is that those for whom such outdated values don't work don't have to abide by them. We call this freedom.

People need to empower themselves by choosing that path which makes the most sense for themselves and their families. — synthesis

So women (since you specified women, not "one of the parents) can empower themselves so long as that empowerment looks identical to being trapped in domestic servitude?

Black is white, up is down, and patriarchal fundamentalist attitudes toward what women should be allowed to do is basically women's lib.

Of course you could(n't) care less. He's your man, and anything he does is fine by you. He said it himself: he could shoot someone in the street and his mindless supporters would stay with him.

But yeah if you have evidence that Biden colluded with foreign powers to win in 2020, throw it up. That's evidence in the usual sense, not in the sense of photos of his son smoking in a bath, i.e. we shouldn't have to make twelve leaps of faith to get from the evidence to the conclusion.

That is what was happening in the time of Nazi Germany and, at the moment, I think we are on the potential brink of a new dark age. I am just hoping that it can be averted, or dissipated somehow. There are many positive attitudes and signs as well as the negative ones. Perhaps philosophy can help in this. — Jack Cummins

The comparison is apt imo, the key features being: convincing the public that certain people present an existential threat to them; convincing the same public that we are the only ones with the means and will to destroy this threat and restore the nation.

It's a motif we've seen a few times recently and it remains successful. The medium of its success is propaganda, the same means by which we convince people that they have a problem with their lives and this new gadget or lotion is the only thing that will solve it.

I don't think we can tolerate propaganda and be free from prejudice. If it's that easy to convince hundreds of thousands of people that a pizza shop with a secret tunnel hosts Satanic cannabal paedophiles in government, it's going to be easy to convince people that Jews have yet another secret world domination plan or some such.

I do think that philosophy would help a great deal, both as a self-defence against psychological warfare and as a means of understanding the irrational nature of one's own prejudicial arguments.

If we taught our children the basics of logic, of empiricism, and of critical thinking, along with some history of our failings in these regards, I think that would go some way to reducing their susceptibility to propaganda and therefore prejudicial beliefs. And yet (and not wishing to pick a fight with anyone) we tend to do the opposite, and frighten children into believing incredible things without evidence with the threat of harm for thinking critically, for doubting.

It seems consistent with your disregard for evidence that a Special Council investigation finding a President welcoming and benefiting from Russian interference in US elections is negligible.

On gDrive because CNBC keeps taking down the full video elsewhere. — StreetlightX

They maybe had to take it down because it's unethical for a television journalist to use his platform to actively try to devalue the stock price of a particular company. The only argument he had left by well before the midpoint is: IT'S GONNA CRASH!!!! I'm pretty sure there's rules against market manipulation by using the media to scaremonger.

And it probably is gonna crash tbf. But protecting a financial elite that stands to lose tens of billions through failed market manipulation under the guise of benevolent nannyism for the little guy who might lose a few thousand is more transparent than he realises. Do they know they might lose their investment? On the stock market of all places? Yeah, they know, you condescending ****!

A lot of good that did. What they got was a pro-American, “America-first” agenda. The KGB fell with their commie empire. Maybe Trump cultivated them and we can thank him for the fall of the Berlin Wall. — NOS4A2

Hell of an insight into how you rationalise Trump from the vile, pathetic human being he is to the American hero you see him as. Usually people consider things like evidence and logic but you fasttrack the shit out of it.

Right, that's what I'm talking about. I once worked for a penny-stock company and their whole business strategy seemed to be to look promising enough to boost their stock price enough to convince investors that they're worth lending money to actually do that promising stuff with. — Pfhorrest

Yeah, this is my understanding of it. One of the principle consequences of low stock value is an inability to attract loans and investments. As the ghost of Gary Numan in that video said, driving down the value of a company does genuine harm. Shorting the crap out of them can destroy their ability to transform their business, can ultimately destroy the business itself when it becomes more attractive to liquidate than to persevere.

I've heard all scientific explanations for deja vu but in fact I'm asking about another phenomenon.... it's how can the brain remember a memory seconds before it actually happens and then waits for it to happen till it happen in real life? — BARAA

Your assumption appears to be that the brain is a reliable and high fidelity piece of equipment such that if it says you remembered a thing before it happened, you can be quite sure that's what you did. This, especially if you know about deja vu or anything else about fallibilities of the brain, seems a rather biased assumption.

I would take it for granted that you didn't remember the future, and consider why your brain could be mistaken about it. But given the above, I'd be dubious about the way you remember and interpret that moment in time.

My understanding is that deja vu occurs when your brain glitches and processes the same thing twice, meaning that the second time you process it it feels familiar, but you can't pin down why. This is called 'split perception'.

Yes. In nature, as opposed to math or logic, no two things are ever identical or equal in every way. They may be equivalent in certain respects but not equal. — magritte

Let me stop you there. Equality in this context is not about an Arkansas inbred being given the same job and pay as a prodigious scientific genius. Equality is about precisely one's individual merits being the _only_ criteria for the limits of their success.

Biden referred to racism as a bad thing. One aspect of racism is to systematically disadvantage people of colour _despite_ their individual merits. What would be odd is if he then insisted in his appointments that only white men have the merits to be in office when, on paper, the non-white men and women you're complaining about seem par for the course for that level of public office, that is: they seem as qualified as the white male appointees you have no problem with.

The point is that if the world (or my much-needed brain transplant surgery) is at stake, I want the genius to do the job and not a well-respected minority representative. — magritte

That would be a good argument for demanding higher prerequisites of all appointees but a poor one for arguing against equally qualified non-white or female appointees. Since you haven't explained why the non-white men and women appointed are less qualified than the white men appointed but you particularly single them out as usurping roles meant for geniuses... well, that's not good.

It would be hard to defend the thought that kids are better off with working moms than ones who are able to stay at home. — synthesis

This is sounding like an argument for not empowering certain people.

A neutral surveys of the breakdown of Biden's appointments might be helpful.
CNN
PPS
Brookings — magritte

I'm not sure I'm seeing what you're seeing. Seems like the usual array of backgrounds in industry, law, politics and the military.

No, you don't get it. You are taking a neutral questioning remark to be racist. — magritte

Well, I don't know you and hope to be surprised but yes when people start claiming that women or ethnic minorities only got their jobs through positive discrimination then outright refuse to justify why the people in question weren't in fact qualified... it doesn't look promising. Or neutral.

I take it that you actually believe this statement of Biden's and that now Biden intends for 'equality' to become not just an American ideal but an American fact. — magritte

Are you against equality as a fact?

Is Black Lives Matter the same as Black Power? If not, which one should we be talking about? — magritte

We're talking about Biden's appointments, a topic you raised. It's still unclear to me why you think they were appointed because of their gender, skin colour, sexuality, etc. rather than regardless of their gender, skin colour, sexuality, etc.

Not all claims require proof by the claimant. — magritte

Claims of fact do demand evidence. Otherwise "fact" and "making shit up" become the same thing: the post-truth philosophy.

Anyway, proof not required here, just any indication that what you're saying is remotely true.

Or perhaps I need only appeal to explicit idealistic motivations from the inaugural address as proof for misplaced intentions in naming people to key administration posts? — magritte

Oh, I get it. Him saying that racism is bad suggests that black people aren't qualified to do their jobs kind of thing.

It would be difficult not coming to the conclusion that empowering the individual is the best hope for mankind. — synthesis

Which individual? If you mean all individuals, that's a group. Unless those that are not empowered are just a random sample, it's difficult to avoid groups if you want to empower people.

This is why you must do whatever is possible to have the smallest government possible. Government is at best, treacherous, at worst, the Devil, Himself. — synthesis

As I recall it, left to their own devices the private sector failed to empower women until equal rights and opportunities legislation forced their hands, and even then they opposed it when they could. Women in the workforce has turned out to be one of the biggest economic boons for the private sector: twice the recruitment pool, which keeps wages low and prices high for twin-income households.

Another example of capitalism failing to act in its own interests.

You could just bookmark the URL? There's usually a little star or something in the address bar. What internet browser do you use.

If this is being preserved for posterity, I might go back and edit my embarrassing snapping at MU :fear:

it occurred to me that the mechanism seems to be the same as a lightning strike — Enrique

Yes, very apt. The possible trajectories are explored down from the sky to the ground, but only once it reaches the ground does it become lightning. Of course, lightning will still explore different endpoints, but it's still a canny comparison.

To be fair to me, why would I think that Trump's initial appointees were political choices rather than based on competence? What norms should I use? — magritte

It's your claim. It's not on others to explain it to you.

If I were Biden, I would want to make an impact urgently in the first 100 days. To do that, leaders of proven competence and accomplishment are needed now, regardless of affiliation. — magritte

You still haven't given a hint of a clue that he hasn't.

Easy for you to say, as long as you don't face the prospect of becomig the ridiculed old spinster. — baker

I'm not sure anyone ridicules old spinsters. The typical story told is that women feel like they become invisible, but it's worth bearing in mind that today's and yesterday's invisible older ladies were the day before's catcalling victims.

One can grow old graciously, without demanding an adoring crowd, and without giving a crap that no one thinks you're hot shit anymore.

Nothing greater than 100%, not even GME anymore. — Michael

Apparently the whole stock exchange is spooked.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2021/jan/29/stocks-slump-gamestop-trading-frenzy-spook-investors-reddit-wall-street-pound-brexit-inflation-gdp-business-live

Ummm... Whoops!

So quite frankly, I think the outrage is totally misplaced. — Benkei

The outrage as I understand it is not that normal risk measures were applied but that brokers banned purchase of stocks to ensure those stocks could be wilfully devalued by those betting against them, i.e. the apparent collaboration between hedge fund managers like Melvin and brokers like Robinhood to manufacture a particular market outcome. If brokers were simply following normal procedure, the outrage would be misplaced. It depends how justified you think the paranoia is, I guess.

I actually have a feeling it will be done far more subtly than this - in fact, we're already seeing how the response is shaping up. It's not to criminalize the purchasing of stock, but to control access to brokerage. Hence why Robinhood and others - who have a vested interest in servicing the hedge funds which provide them the majority of their business - stopped the purchasing of GME stock, and only allowing selling. What's being played out now in SEC complaints is how legal this is - and the pessimist in me reckons it's going to be A-OK. — StreetlightX

One would hope this would lead to a demand for brokers who promise not to do this sort of thing, and a mass exodus from platforms like Robinhood.

One precedent for this which I've studied alot is in the case of sovereign debt, where solidarity among lending institutions (banks and so forth) simply refuse to lend more to indebted countries in order to enforce austerity and political change (this is basically the story of international finance relations since the 70s, and no one talks about it). — StreetlightX

Mmm such as Greece. I'm not sure how Varoufakis' backup plan would have played out (he's a bit of a blowhard) but I kinda regret we never found out. Seems to have worked out okay, though. Adults in the Room describes a somewhat different story in which really it came down to one stubborn man who never approved of Greece being in the EU in the first place, with everyone else promising the Earth then backing down. Again, not sure Varoufakis is a trustworthy narrator.

So, was what Robinhood etc were doing earlier something more than just requiring 100% cash on hand to buy? Like, you couldn't buy it at all, even in cash? I thought it was the latter but then my brokerage's notice plus fdrake's mention of margin earlier makes me wonder if wasn't just that. — Pfhorrest

As I understand it they were capping the amounts they'd broker.

The most relevant point - was there market manipulation? Yes, but it was by the hedge funds who are screaming out for market regulation right now. — StreetlightX

What's alarming to me is that, even when the stock prices started to increase, they refused to close their position. This either suggests that they had their eye on the ball less than a bunch of amateurs on Reddit, or, more likely, their belief in their entitlement to an even greater profit made them forego the profit they had secured.

Melvin have been bailed out by friends, brokers have intervened, the government are monitoring the situation, and we're probably going to see legislation criminalising the purchase of stocks that the financial elite have a vested interest in. Even when they lose, they don't lose, instead just rigging the game even more in their favour. But they'll still tell you that, left to its own devices, the market looks after itself.

Am I the only one a alarmed by the many socially correct rather than competence and accomplishment based appointments of the new administration? Ideology and loyalty seems to take precedence over competence, accomplishment, and character once again, reminiscent of the former evil administration, only in the opposite direction. If quick fixes to huge problems don't come in the first 100 days then will disappointment and apathy follow? — magritte

Why do you think them incompetent?

And doing so comes at a cost. It's not free. — baker

Only if you value what's lost, in which case you'd opt in.