HAL9000

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > In my experience don't attempt anything in Vista > with less than 4gb of ram. For home use, I bought an dual 3.2GHz CPU machine a few months ago with 4GB RAM installed but decided to stick with XP-32 which can access 3 and a bit of that. I've got a beta XP-64 installed on dual boot that can address all of it, apparently. You can never have too much RAM. I'll probably skip Vista altogether - sounds like a bit of a nightmare - and go straight to Win7.

Ant Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I once featured very briefly in an HSBC ad. If my memory isn't playing tricks, I photographed one of their annual calendars back when it was called Midland Bank: the theme was 'purses through the ages'. We had to set up a temporary studio at the V&A Museum.

If you have a specific config you'd like to check out there are several custom build manufacturer's web sites that can provide quotes for comparison purposes. I received this via email recently. I don't know if it's of interest but it's the spec and retail price of a recent i7 desktop tower offer from my supplier: Base spec: Intel? Core? i7 Processor I7-920 3GB DDR3 Memory 320GB Hard Drive 22x DVD-RW Weight: 5 kg Standard Features: ATX Cases: ASUS ATX Case TA-250 LGA 1366 Motherboard: ASUS ATX Mainboard P6T Power Supplies: Power Supply 500W OCZ StealthXStream Intel Socket 1366 (Core? i7): Intel? Core? i7 Processor I7-920 DDR3 Memory: OCZ DDR3 1333MHZ 3GB KIT (3x1GB) SATA-2 Harddrives: 3.5" HD SATA2 320GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Optical Drives: SAMSUNG DVD?RW SATA 22x OEM DRIVE ONLY (Black) PCI Express Graphics Cards: ASUS Graphic Card ATi EAH3450/DI/256M Warranty Options: Standard Warranty (3 Year Return To Base) Price (ex vat): ?603.82 Product Details: Powered by Intel? Core? i7 Processor Technology this Workstation PC provides the computing power and storage options to handle the most demanding tasks. Ideal for Audio/Visual, 3D/CAD, Digital Photography and Database useage these PCs are aimed at those who need maximum power to get the job done.

We could do with the likes of you over there to lighten things up a bit. No one is immune to rhubarb-induced headaches.

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > (Pedantry apology) > Zoroastrianism originated in Persia. Quite so. Read as '...eastern and oriental...' But the ancient authors borrowed from many other religions, one as far away as Northern Siberia. The OT's Psalm 104 is very similar to the ancient Egyptian Hymn to Ra. The NT contains many quotes from and allusions to classical Greek and Latin literature. Some of the NT's rituals are adapted from Mithraism. Not to mention well-known examples such as the Gilgamesh Epic for the story of Noah and the Flood. The list goes on.

Just you wait, if it continues at this rate it's bound to split off into an alternative universe where the Copenhagen Interpretation is ditched for the East Dulwich Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and we'll be rich and famous while the lounge lizards are left holding their dicks :)

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Which kinda leaves you with more of a Buddhist > view of god than an Abrahamic one. Indeed - a lot of New Age sects have appeared in which Buddhist and quantum ideas are combined. There's strong evidence that oriental religions such as Zoroastrianism, Hinduism and Buddhism (amongst others) influenced the ideas found in the Judaic religions: monotheism, Judaism's cast system and Christian monasticism, respectively, to name but a few examples.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > silverfox Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Picking up on one of your earlier points Hal9000, > > what does Quantum Mind theory say about consciousness > > that may point to the existence of a God-like entity? > > After reading through HAL9000s links, I was > wondering the same thing... Firstly, let's call it Quantum Consciousness (QC) to avoid confusion. Secondly, let me clarify that I have referred only to the biblical (i.e. Jewish, Christian, Islamic) God in this thread, so far, although the theory may be applied to all god-like entities including a spontaneous apparition such as the Boltzmann Brain. Finally, QC essentially argues that all of the matter in the universe (including human brains - obviously) is entangled at the quantum level. It also postulates that consciousness arises through non-computable quantum-scale processes. One of the biblical God's attributes is ?all knowing? - even ones most private thoughts. QC provides a scientifically-based mechanism for God's omniscience. The concept has been applied to explain other religious ideas such as prophecy, divination, visions, prayer, the soul and the 'Book of Life' amongst others.

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Does QM stand for both Quantum Mechanics and > Quantum Mind simultaneously until someone explains > it to you? Quite: allow me to collapse the wave function of that duality. Wherever I've used 'QM' above it stands for Quantum Mechanics (See an Introduction to Quantum Mechanics). I've only referred to 'Quantum Mind' once above - I usually refer to it as 'Quantum Consciousness' - but they are one and the same thing: an esoteric derivative of Quantum Mechanics that attempts to explain how consciousness arises in the brain and the wider implications thereof. > Or at least accuse them of cruelty to cats. No cats were harmed or injured during the course of this thread or my research.

HAL9000 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Oh dear, I can't stop laughing.... I've just realised that my last post is missing a few lines. What made me laugh this afternoon was the idea of applying for a research grant to resolve Schr?dinger's paradox using real cats based on Brendan's theory about Egyptian resurrection and mummified cats - well, it seemed funny at the time.

Don't forget: Schr?dinger's thought experiment was intended to ridicule the Copenhagen interpretation. QM does not recognise the arrow of time therefore alive/dead and dead/alive are equivalent: it's just the change in quantum state that is important. The 'force/power' is God. The biblical God is omnipresent therefore not necessarily outside of the box. (In fact He chose to 'reside' in a box: the Ark.) One needs to make some assumptions: is God an 'observer' (i.e. does He collapse wave functions)? Does God play dice (hint: Einstein didn't think so)? Is God subject to the Uncertainty Principle? Does God cause decoherence? Is God local or non-local? Is God a hidden variable? Is God the father, the Son and the Holy Spirit an entangled trinity or three superpositions of the same entity? etc, etc. Oh dear, I can't stop laughing....

Hence all the apparently lost cats in East Dulwich are actually victims of the double cat flap uncertainty principle. They remain in a quantum lost/found state until an observer collapses their wave function. Simples!

Brilliant! :)

As mentioned above, modern scientific reasoning can be used to resolve questions such as whether the biblical God exists. As far as I am aware, no 'rational empiricist' has previously attempted to resolve this issue in terms of a Relativistic and/or Quantum Mechanical context - which is why I chose this area of 'blue sky' research. If the biblical God created a Universe that behaves consistently in terms of Relativity and QM, those parameters may also apply to His own actions (i.e. miracles). If the bible were written by people who knew nothing about QM then the miracles therein either shouldn't be resolvable or their resolutions should be randomly distributed across various interpretations. The investigation so far has yielded an unexpected result: the NT 'miracles' analysed so far can be resolved by one particular QM interpretation. What does that mean? Does God exist or did the ancient authors fabricate their miracles according to a coherent blueprint of the universe that has only recently been rediscovered? Maybe I?m just weird, but I find this subject quite fascinating.

I'd like to be trapped in a lift with Nigella Lawson - I've long admired her dumplings.

mockney piers Quite right. But it's a useful literary device. Theorists often test rival QM interpretations against well-known paradoxes that have come to serve as benchmarks. The resurrection 'miracle' can be described in terms of various QM interpretations that can be formulated, as it happens, into resolutions of the Schr?dinger's cat paradox. The box/tomb element provides the necessary isolation for those theories that depend on decoherence, which is more difficult to model using, for example, the double slit paradox.

EDKiwi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yeah what is that about? Jif -v- Cif

Silverfox: As bizarre as it appears at first sight, this subject is a major field of serious (albeit esoteric) scientific research. A plain language overview is available here: Quantum Gravity and the Ontology of Consciousness. Leading theorist Stuart Hameroff actually registered Quantum Consciousness Org for his own website. (I wish I'd thought of that first!) I realise that you're pulling my leg here, but Star Trek's writers often borrowed from esoteric science papers for plot themes such as the Enterprise's Bussard nacelles, the episode about the Dyson Sphere and many more. One example: Raymond Kurzweil's and Kim Eric Drexler's ideas about human 'singularity' and ?nano-technology? (respectively) were undoubtedly the inspirations behind the Borg's hive mind and their assimilating nanites. I'm not sure about a new thread though, sounds too much like hard work!

Jeremy & Silverfox The hypothesis outlined above is part of my own work in the field known as Quantum Mind (or sometimes Q. Consciousness). The disturbance in space-time posited is not electromagnetic but rather a quantum-scale electro-gravitational entanglement postulated by, for example, the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) theory of consciousness. My principal interest in the subject is to determine whether Judaeo-religious scriptures contain elements that appear to anticipate modern scientific understanding. One striking example is the apparent congruence between the QM paradox known as Schr?dinger's cat and the alleged events that took place in Jesus' Tomb (i.e. resurrection of the dead). I've already mentioned the 'Book of Life' example above. I'm not sure whether this tangent is entirely off topic in this thread, since this area of scientific research could eventually settle the question of whether a God-like entity exists or not. I'd welcome the opportunity to discuss this elsewhere if the Chair decides it is off topic.

The earth travels through space at great speed; at least hundreds of thousands of miles an hour. A biological neural network generates a electrical field that 'modulates' the space-time substrate rushing through it. By analogy, that is like a tape recorder (a brain) imprinting signals on to a tape (space) passing through it. Thus, 'thoughts' generated by living neurons are permanently etched into the fabric of space-time. In theory, it should be possible to tune in to and replay those cosmic imprints. Is it just coincidence that modern physics allows something like the biblical 'Book of Life' to exist within a scientific framework? Could the cosmic imprint be the biblical 'soul'?

I still look - it's my favorite section.

HonaloochieB Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'd start with the wooden nickels and build. Oh yes, the old wooden nickel trick, those were the days - before the grandiose delusions acquired resistance to the meds, alas.

I wouldn't normally but I'm trying to sell Tower Bridge.

Definition: Inuit 1.[noun] a member of a people inhabiting the Arctic (northern Canada or Greenland or Alaska or eastern Siberia); the Algonquians called them Eskimo (`eaters of raw flesh') but they call themselves the Inuit (`the people'). 'Inuit' is not entirely interchangeable with 'Eskimo' (which usually refers to the Eskimo-Aleut peoples). See: Inuit and Eskimo

This afternoon I met someone who had seen both shows. He had rejected the explanation based on averaging guesses as bullsh*t but thought that Brown?s ?admission? ? that the lotto?s normal balls had been surreptitiously swapped for heavier versions ? was the actual explanation! I couldn't be bothered to argue with him. Brownie must be laughing all the way to the bank.