1 year later....still glad u went to law school?

[paymen]

I would not dismiss as complete b u l l * & ^ % the behaviorist theory with its Pavlovian principles and the like ... I remember it very well indeed when a friend of mine was talking one day to a woman about some pills she'd be getting from her ... stuff prescribed to her before by an idiotic doctor ... she became dependent on them having to find sources herself later on ... well, I remember the scene very well when she was asking her for the pills, promising the latter to do everything for her, become her slave ... now this woman turned out was a lesbian and yes ... my very good friend, a straight woman all the way, was willing to become her slave just to get the pills ... that's the "power" of addiction ... what do I mean? People become "conditioned" to do the most unbelievable things in order to get something they desperately need, be it drugs, gamble money, whatever ... I'm sure many of you may find alternative explanations for the behavior of my friend, but I'm pretty sure mine is the most logical explanation of all!

[ycer]

I would not dismiss as complete b u l l * & ^ % the behaviorist theory with its Pavlovian principles and the like ... I remember it very well indeed when a friend of mine was talking one day to a woman about some pills she'd be getting from her ... stuff prescribed to her before by an idiotic doctor ... she became dependent on them having to find sources herself later on ... well, I remember the scene very well when she was asking her for the pills, promising the latter to do everything for her, become her slave ... now this woman turned out was a lesbian and yes ... my very good friend, a straight woman all the way, was willing to become her slave just to get the pills ... that's the "power" of addiction ... what do I mean? People become "conditioned" to do the most unbelievable things in order to get something they desperately need, be it drugs, gamble money, whatever ... I'm sure many of you may find alternative explanations for the behavior of my friend, but I'm pretty sure mine is the most logical explanation of all!

May it not be that she was lured to this specific lesbian woman you mention as a source for the pills because she somehow was intrigued by the idea of having woman-to-woman sex? (She could have found a straight woman or a man to give her the pills, for instance) On the other hand, it's conceivable that it was securing the addicting pills that led her to strings-attached sex, just like you say. In other words, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

How about the drugs themselves having induced these "forbidden" desires to have lesbian sex? Too simple and novel for you? Later on, she asks her for drugs, given the fact she may have some.

[straub]

I would not dismiss as complete b u l l * & ^ % the behaviorist theory with its Pavlovian principles and the like ... I remember it very well indeed when a friend of mine was talking one day to a woman about some pills she'd be getting from her ... stuff prescribed to her before by an idiotic doctor ... she became dependent on them having to find sources herself later on ... well, I remember the scene very well when she was asking her for the pills, promising the latter to do everything for her, become her slave ... now this woman turned out was a lesbian and yes ... my very good friend, a straight woman all the way, was willing to become her slave just to get the pills ... that's the "power" of addiction ... what do I mean? People become "conditioned" to do the most unbelievable things in order to get something they desperately need, be it drugs, gamble money, whatever ... I'm sure many of you may find alternative explanations for the behavior of my friend, but I'm pretty sure mine is the most logical explanation of all!

Hahaha - I was kinda confused what it's all about, now I think I get it!

[Morgan de Toi]

[...] Americans may think of themselves as also having a few intuitive traits. The USA is very structured, but also built on resourceful, inventive and entrepreneural people. Some of the USA is theoretical and well-read (northeast) and some experiental. One east-coast American thought practical (sensing) represented the blue collar and conceptual (intuition) the white collar. Americans trust experience, yet may have a hard time separating that from theories. I doubt most Americans actually understand the difference. [...]

To illustrate the creative advantage of intuition over logic: logic is represented by the pure foundation notes, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Creativity bent logic this way and that and discovered notes beyond the foundation: sharps and flats. By splitting the pure, creativity exponentially increased music's potential and possibility. Over time, once their measure had been gained, once their definition had been worked out and agreement reached, logic incorporated sharps and flats into known, thus expanding music's foundation. As musicians, logicals have potential for technical perfection. They would sit at the keyboard armed with a background of vast musical knowledge from which to build music. Logical creativity is contained within the bounds of known rules and notes. Their challenge is to find new musical interpretations, mixes, and twists, and does not range beyond proven limits of upper and lower. They convert old music into new sounds.

Intuitives bring an equally vast knowledge with them, but their challenge is different: to marry what's known, with what's felt. Intuitives follow emotions, not rules, not notes. Inside logic's music base they search for sound combinations, distortions, and subtleties that most accurately reflect how they feel. They take known and using emotions as guide, find sounds that ring as true without as within. They convert sounds of music into musical experiences. Intuitives go beyond what is deemed logically possible. They know one thing logicals do not. Infinite possibility and ultracreativity live in one place, intuition. And the only bus that goes there is emotions. Logic, no matter how broad or wide, follows a straight line. Intuition neatly tucks the logic narrow into its brace and continues on its merry own... 360-degrees around and beyond it.

[tandem2]

Politically speaking, Jordan was not such a good fella He joined the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in May 1933. The following November he joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) - the brown shirted storm troopers. He enlisted in the Luftwaffe in 1939 and worked for a while at the Peenemünde rocket center. During the war he attempted to interest the party in various schemes for advanced weapons, but these were ignored because he was considered "politically unreliable", probably because of his past associations with Jews (in particular: Courant, Born, and Wolfgang Pauli) and "Jewish Physics" (such a stigma also followed Werner Heisenberg for some time under the Nazis). It has been speculated that Jordan would have likely shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Max Born were it not for his membership in the Nazi party.

Wolfgang Pauli declared Jordan "rehabilitated" to the authorities some time after the war, allowing Jordan to regain academic employment after a 2-year period and then recover his full status as a tenured professor in 1953. Jordan went against Pauli's advice, and reentered politics after the period of denazification came to an end under the pressures of the Cold War. He secured election to the Bundestag standing with the conservative Christian Democrats. In 1957, Jordan came out in support for the arming of the Bundeswehr with tactical nuclear weapons by the Adenauer government, while the Göttinger 18 (which included Born, Heisenberg, and Pauli) authored the Göttinger Manifest in protest. This and other issues were to further strain his relationships with his former friends and colleagues.

While one surely not get so excited about Jordan's politics, people have clearly been applying double standards there. Because of reasons that seem partly comprehensible, Jordan was close to these far-right programs and he became politically organized. David Bohm was organized in completely analogous far-left, communist organizations. Nevertheless, Jordan is usually treated as trash while Bohm is routinely celebrated as a saint hero. And by the way, Jordan was much better a physicist than Bohm. Because Nazism and communism were two comparably big evils - and Stalin actually killed more people than Hitler - this asymmetry in the treatment of these two guys is a worrisome testimony of the pro-communist bias in the Academia. A membership in NSDAP or SA was not an "ultimately selective" crime. By 1945, there were 8.5 million NSDAP members so it should not be shocking that something like 10% of German physicists would be members, too. In 1934, there were 3 million members of SA. The political bias in science - and even in Nobel prizes - is wrong in all directions. I guess Jordan will remain an "unsung hero" of quantum mechanics for quite some time if not forever.

[exgss]

To answer the question the thread poses: yes, 1 year later I am still glad that I went.

[kehre]

Interesting avatar as well! The question that has baffled scientists, academics and pub bores through the ages: What came first, the chicken or the egg?

It points out the futility of identifying the first case of a circular cause and consequence. The predestination paradox (also called either a causal loop or a causality loop) is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. It exists when a time traveller is caught in a loop of events that "predestines" him/her to travel back in time. Because of the possibility of influencing the past while time travelling, one way of explaining why history does not change is by saying that whatever has happened was meant to happen. A time traveller attempting to alter the past in this model, intentionally or not, would only be fulfilling his role in creating history as we know it, not changing it. The predestination paradox is in some ways the opposite of the grandfather paradox, the famous example of the traveller killing his own grandfather before his parent is conceived, thereby precluding his own travel to the past by canceling his own existence.

A dual example of a predestination paradox is depicted in the classic Ancient Greek play 'Oedipus'. Laius hears a prophecy that his son will kill him. Fearing the prophecy, Laius pierces Oedipus' feet and leaves him out to die, but a herdsman finds him and takes him away from Thebes. Oedipus, not knowing he was adopted, leaves home in fear of the same prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Laius, meanwhile, ventures out to find a solution to the Sphinx's riddle. As prophesied, Oedipus crossed paths with Laius and this leads to a fight where Oedipus slays Laius. Oedipus then defeats the Sphinx by solving a mysterious riddle to become king. He marries the widow queen Jocasta not knowing she is his mother.

A typical example of a predestination paradox (used in The Twilight Zone episode "No Time Like the Past") is as follows: A man travels back in time to discover the cause of a famous fire. While in the building where the fire started, he accidentally knocks over a kerosene lantern and causes a fire, the same fire that would inspire him, years later, to travel back in time.

A variation on the predestination paradoxes which involves information, rather than objects, traveling through time is similar to the self-fulfilling prophecy: A man receives information about his own future, telling him that he will die from a heart attack. He resolves to get fit so as to avoid that fate, but in doing so overexerts himself, causing him to suffer the heart attack that kills him. In both examples, causality is turned on its head, as the flanking events are both causes and effects of each other, and this is where the paradox lies. In the second example, the person would not have traveled back in time but for the fire that he or she caused by traveling back in time. Similarly, in the third example, the man would not have overexerted himself but for the future information he receives. In most examples of the predestination paradox, the person travels back in time and ends up fulfilling their role in an event that has already occurred. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the person is fulfilling their role in an event that has yet to occur, and it is usually information that travels in time (for example, in the form of a prophecy) rather than a person. In either situation, the attempts to avert the course of past or future history both fail.

Ah, cause and effect! We have perfected images of how things become what they are -- sperm, egg, embryo, etc -- but we have not gotten past an image, or behind it. For example, we describe a cause as producing and effect, but this is a crude duality.

Cause and effect probably never occurs -- in reality there stands before us a continuum of which we isolate a couple of pieces... we do not see cause, we infer it. So, if we chop up the endless continuum of the world into manageable pieces for our digestion, let us not imagine that the menu we prepare for ourselves is the only, or even the tastiest, one. Yet the hubris of science insists that it is!

We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we are able to live -- with the postulation of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith, nobody could now manage to live!

Suppose for a moment, in the spirit of certain out-there physical theories, that parallel universes exist. Suppose more specifically that for every possible permutation of matter and energy in the universe, there exist corresponding parallel universes. As I understand it, the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics essentially espouses this view (not down to the last detail, but I believe they are essentially equivalent). Anyway, let's be a little bolder. Let's suppose that time is a 4th physical dimension linking each of these parallel universes. That would make each universe timeless, essentially a snapshot describing a particular permutation of matter and energy in a 3-dimensional space; the 'flow' of time would actually be movement in the 4th dimension from one snapshot 3D universe to another. The laws of physics, then, would not describe the changes in matter and energy in a dynamic world so much as they would describe the particular motion along the 4th dimension from one snapshot universe to the next that we human consciousnesses seem to be following. As far out as this sounds, I seem to recall reading that it was essentially the worldview of a relatively prominent physicist.

So... if the above were an accurate ontological description, wouldn't we drastically have to redefine our notions of 'cause and effect'? The idea of cause and effect that we commonly hold would merely be an illusion generated by the particular path we are riding through a series of static 3D universes. So long as we suppose that this multi-universe space is interconnected with alternate traversable paths (which from our point of view would correspond to a dynamic universe with different physical laws, or perhaps with nothing resembling laws at all), there is nothing that makes our particular path anything special -- and therefore conclusions that we derive from it and hold to be absolute (e.g., cause and effect) are actually relative, and do not hold for the entire ontology of existence.

Of course, to even consider this speculation requires abandoning some conventional ideas of cause and effect (e.g., that all existing things need a cause -- what 'caused' each permutation of the universe to 'exist'?) But the above paragraph goes further -- it calls into question the validity of our entire notion of the cause/effect relationship. We take it as a given, above all reproach, but even such a foundational concept is not necessarily foolproof. So what? Well, it's just a little shot of humility I guess. As an added bonus, you can pretty much summarily chop down any 'proofs' for or against the existence of God, since no assumption is above reproach beyond the limited scope of self-evident, subjective phenomena (e.g., "I am seeing the color I call blue right now" or "I think therefore I am").

[munee]

I would not dismiss as complete b u l l * & ^ % the behaviorist theory with its Pavlovian principles and the like ... I remember it very well indeed when a friend of mine was talking one day to a woman about some pills she'd be getting from her ... stuff prescribed to her before by an idiotic doctor ... she became dependent on them having to find sources herself later on ... well, I remember the scene very well when she was asking her for the pills, promising the latter to do everything for her, become her slave ... now this woman turned out was a lesbian and yes ... my very good friend, a straight woman all the way, was willing to become her slave just to get the pills ... that's the "power" of addiction ... what do I mean? People become "conditioned" to do the most unbelievable things in order to get something they desperately need, be it drugs, gamble money, whatever ... I'm sure many of you may find alternative explanations for the behavior of my friend, but I'm pretty sure mine is the most logical explanation of all!

Exactly, paymen - trying to make love to a drugged person is like trying to make love to a robot! Great illustration!

[Lipsheetz]

munee, depends on the kind of drug that person is on. What you're saying is definitely true with opiates (heroin, morphine and the like); however, stimulants (meth, cocaine, etc) are considered to be pro-sex drugs ... likewise E (ecstasy) increases sensual/erotic sensations (although it inhibits sexual intercourse itself due to causing temporary ED) ... marijuana has been used as an aphrodisiac for thousands of years, yet ironically it has also been used to decrease sexual desire (modern research teaches the lesson that marijuana's effects are determined by the personality, physiology, intention, environment, and culture of the user) ... as far as LSD is concerned, well, you'll hear stuff like, "You can come for 45 minutes without stopping - 45 minutes 'earth time', measured by clock," "I came 5 or 6 times within a minute that night" ... well, you get the point ...  

[pentium]

Suppose for a moment, in the spirit of certain out-there physical theories, that parallel universes exist. Suppose more specifically that for every possible permutation of matter and energy in the universe, there exist corresponding parallel universes. As I understand it, the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics essentially espouses this view (not down to the last detail, but I believe they are essentially equivalent). Anyway, let's be a little bolder. Let's suppose that time is a 4th physical dimension linking each of these parallel universes. That would make each universe timeless, essentially a snapshot describing a particular permutation of matter and energy in a 3-dimensional space; the 'flow' of time would actually be movement in the 4th dimension from one snapshot 3D universe to another. The laws of physics, then, would not describe the changes in matter and energy in a dynamic world so much as they would describe the particular motion along the 4th dimension from one snapshot universe to the next that we human consciousnesses seem to be following. As far out as this sounds, I seem to recall reading that it was essentially the worldview of a relatively prominent physicist.

So... if the above were an accurate ontological description, wouldn't we drastically have to redefine our notions of 'cause and effect'? The idea of cause and effect that we commonly hold would merely be an illusion generated by the particular path we are riding through a series of static 3D universes. So long as we suppose that this multi-universe space is interconnected with alternate traversable paths (which from our point of view would correspond to a dynamic universe with different physical laws, or perhaps with nothing resembling laws at all), there is nothing that makes our particular path anything special -- and therefore conclusions that we derive from it and hold to be absolute (e.g., cause and effect) are actually relative, and do not hold for the entire ontology of existence.

Of course, to even consider this speculation requires abandoning some conventional ideas of cause and effect (e.g., that all existing things need a cause -- what 'caused' each permutation of the universe to 'exist'?) But the above paragraph goes further -- it calls into question the validity of our entire notion of the cause/effect relationship. We take it as a given, above all reproach, but even such a foundational concept is not necessarily foolproof. So what? Well, it's just a little shot of humility I guess. As an added bonus, you can pretty much summarily chop down any 'proofs' for or against the existence of God, since no assumption is above reproach beyond the limited scope of self-evident, subjective phenomena (e.g., "I am seeing the color I call blue right now" or "I think therefore I am").

The quantum level is the smallest one science has detected so far. The study of quantum physics began in 1900, when the physicist Max Planck first introduced the concept to the scientific world. Planck's study of radiation yielded some unusual findings that contradicted classical physical laws. These findings suggested that there are other laws at work in the universe, operating on a deeper level than the one we know. In fairly short order - physicists studying the quantum level noticed some peculiar things about this tiny world. For one, the particles that exist on this level have a way of taking different forms arbitrarily. For example, scientists have observed photons -- tiny packets of light -- acting as particles and waves. Even a single photon exhibits this shape-shifting. Imagine if you looked and acted like a solid human being when a friend glanced at you, but when he looked back again, you'd taken a gaseous form

This has come to be known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The physicist Werner Heisenberg suggested that just by observing quantum matter, we affect the behavior of that matter. Thus, we can never be fully certain of the nature of a quantum object or its attributes, like velocity and location. This idea is supported by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Posed by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, this interpretation says that all quantum particles don't exist in one state or the other, but in all of its possible states at once. The sum total of possible states of a quantum object is called its wave function. The state of an object existing in all of its possible states at once is called its superposition. According to Bohr, when we observe a quantum object, we affect its behaviour. Observation breaks an object's superposition and essentially forces the object to choose one state from its wave function. This theory accounts for why physicists have taken opposite measurements from the same quantum object: The object "chose" different states during different measurements.

But may it be that measuring a quantum object does not force it into one comprehensible state or another, but instead, a measurement taken of a quantum object causes an actual split in the universe? The universe is literally duplicated, splitting into one universe for each possible outcome from the measurement. For example, say an object's wave function is both a particle and a wave. When a physicist measures the particle, there are two possible outcomes: It will either be measured as a particle or a wave. This distinction makes Many-Worlds theory a competitor of the Copenhagen interpretation as an explanation for quantum mechanics. When a physicist measures the object, the universe splits into two distinct universes to accommodate each of the possible outcomes. So a scientist in one universe finds that the object has been measured in wave form. The same scientist in the other universe measures the object as a particle. This also explains how one particle can be measured in more than one state. As unsettling as it may sound, the Many-Worlds interpretation has implications beyond the quantum level. If an action has more than one possible outcome, then the universe splits when that action is taken. This holds true even when a person chooses not to take an action

Another disturbing aspect of the Many-Worlds interpretation is that it undermines our concept of time as linear. Imagine a time line showing the history of the Vietnam War. Rather than a straight line showing noteworthy events progressing onward, a time line based on the Many-Worlds interpretation would show each possible outcome of each action taken. From there, each possible outcome of the actions taken (as a result of the original outcome) would be further chronicled. But a person cannot be aware of his other selves -- or even his death -- that exist in parallel universes. So how could we ever know if the Many-Worlds theory is correct? Assurance that the interpretation is theoretically possible came in the late 1990s from a thought experiment -- an imagined experiment used to theoretically prove or disprove an idea -- called quantum suicide. Since Many-Worlds was proven possible, physicists and mathematicians have aimed to investigate the implications of the theory in depth. But the Many-Worlds interpretation is not the only theory that seeks to explain the universe. Nor is it the only one that suggests there are universes parallel to our own.

­Since their science was developed, physicists have been engaged in reverse engineering the universe -- they have studied what they could observe and worked backward toward smaller and smaller levels of the physical world. By doing this, physicists are attempting to reach the final and most basic level. It is this level, they hope, that will serve as the foundation for understanding everything else. Following his famous Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein spent the rest of his life looking for the one final level that would answer all physical questions. Physicists refer to this phantom theory as the Theory of Everything. Quantum physicists believe that they are on the trail of finding that final theory. But another field of physics believes that the quantum level is not the smallest level, so it therefore could not provide the Theory of Everything. These physicists turn instead to a theoretical subquantum level called string theory for the answers to all of life. What's amazing is that through their theoretical investigation, these physicists have also concluded that there are parallel universes.

Time Travel

The many-worlds interpretation could be one possible way to resolve the paradoxes that one would expect to arise if time travel turns out to be permitted by physics (permitting closed timelike curves and thus violating causality). Entering the past would itself be a quantum event causing branching, and therefore the timeline accessed by the time traveller simply would be another timeline of many. In that sense, it would make the Novikov self-consistency principle unnecessary.