/sci/ - Science & Math

I think that fluorine atom looks like it'll cause you some shit.

Longer than you might be hoping for, but still reasonably soon. In under ten years to it being implemented and used, but it's still a problematic process, and a trachea is a long way away from a kidney or heart.

That said, the development of it is advancing in leaps and bounds and I expect in about three years or so, you'll be seeing the first tests of artificial organs being well underway.

>>5026648

Increased CO2 in the atmosphere acidifies the oceans, which makes forming things like the shells on shellfish or coral reef skeletons incredibly difficult. Decreased coral growth or the death of massive amounts of shellfish is inevitably going to have consequences on food chains.

That's just one example, really, but it jumped immediately to mind.

>>5026104

I'd like to create a simulation of a whole cell but, prior to that, I'm more interested in developing a large glossary of proteins and the DNA that codes for them, as well as the various other enzymes/molecules that need to be present for it to be constructed correctly. It'd greatly speed up genetic disorder analysis and genetic engineering.

Alternatively, fuck it, I'd like to use HIV to develop a retrovirus that could be turned into a vector for genetic engineering in humans.

>>4690095

Some people just can't be thankful.

Yes, some people are idiots and we should try to fix this. Just don't get depressed over it; be glad you live in a time where you can even realize this and attempt to fix it. You should be celebrating how awesome it is to know this stuff, not bitching about some people not.

>>4690043

This does not surprise me. I'm just amazed how much of the population has come around to acknowledging the factual history of the world, and that's before we get to how awesome it is that we know as much as we do.

Seriously, dude, that you can even find this upsetting is an amazing and awesome fact of being alive today.

>>4685651

Godel's theism is no more an effective argument than Einstein's deism or Hawking's agnosticism/atheism.

Saying "Smart Person X believes Y so why don't you?" is a bad argument; it's an argument from authority, a form of logical fallacy. Just because someone who has proven to be intelligent has an opinion does not mean it's automatically correct, though it certainly does give you reason to listen to their reasoning/evidences.

>>4685642

Nothing I said there becomes any different whether you're talking on a timescale of two hundred years or two hundred million.

Also, you did ask about living forever, not a specific breadth of time.

>>4685597

It depends on what you mean by forever. Accidents, ennui, murder... These are all bound to claim many, many people. Similarly, there are certain things that suggest that forever is something of an impossibility; that the universe will go cold and die and we shall go with it. Maybe some things suggest otherwise but, for now, that seems likely.

However, can we ensure it that human beings, under the right conditions, will not just cease to function? Certainly. It's likely to happen within the next few decades.

>>4685581

If by zombie, you mean highly suggestible people who wander around in a trance, are largely inured to pain, and obey your commands, then all you need is blowfish toxin.

If by zombie, you mean human corpses that are more or less invulnerable, only die from having the brain destroyed, and can otherwise function without ingesting anything...

Well, it's possible, but not in any sense you'd want it to be. I.E. If you had "zombies" with nanites saturating their tissue and subverting the nervous system, producing ATP and receiving energy via microwave transmission... Well, yeah, that's possible.

But it's really not what you're after.

Either the universe is all space, and hence the idea of some place "outside" it is just nonsense (however much it contradicts our common experience), or there's other universes out there but they have no overlap with us and vice versa.

Cosmology's weird.

Phlogiston and vitalism are probably my favourites. Phlogistone is an excellent example of how what can, at the time, seem like a sound theory is still capable of being demonstrated to be wrong. Vitalism, meanwhile, is just a great example of the holes in human thinking and projection of ignorance.

24%, eh? Well, assuming there's no unwanted side-effects, that'd bump the average life expectancy of an average human male to, what, a little over 85?

Not bad, man.

>>4628425

This really should've been the /thread point, right here.

>>4630433

They're all clearly intelligent in some form. A clearly has extremely levels of motivation and dedication (with at least basic intelligence to back it up), B has to have at least a capable memory and ability to recall/reshape information to do as well as he does, and C is creative and has a diversity of interests. C might not succeed in academics, but they're apparently very capable at taking diverse information, sifting through it, and taking the most useful parts for a situation.

They're all very smart people in their own right. I'd say B is probably the least useful of the three, though, because he clearly lacks the ability to self-motivate.

>>4631388
>>4631400

Y'know, before you accuse someone of being fake, you might want to remove the trip code.

>>4631629

Sadly, a lot of them do. Certain religions don't allow the use of even the most basic forms of medicine because whether someone lives or dies is the will of whatever deity or deities they worship.

>>4631614

There are a wide variety of reasons. For some people, a conspiracy theory grants a sense of control; the world might be scary and painful but at least SOMEONE is in control of it, right? It's not all random misery and suffering, with people blindly flopping around in the dark; someone, someTHING, at least keeps it rolling according to some grand plan.

As has been noted, it has the same appeal as religion in that regard.

For others, it's not quite so clear. Sometimes, they really are convinced by the evidence (often incredibly shaky at best) but enter this sort of closed loop where no piece of evidence would be convincing on its own but, together, they sound somewhat sound to them. You can spend all the time in the world convincing them that a piece of evidence isn't solid, but then they talk about other evidence. Unless you have some crushing way to show that they are all wrong simultaneously, the person mentally reinforces the idea you've smashed already. After all, all the other evidence supports it...

This isn't exactly comprehensive but those are two very common examples.

>>4626882

If you bring chance into the equation, then the prediction can't be accurate, which is really my point here.

There is no way for there to be accurate predictions as a part of the system (I.E. The predictions can have no effect on the system).

>>4626846

If you were given knowledge of the future, it automatically becomes invalid because your knowledge of the future would have to include you knowing of the future, which would have to include you knowing of you knowing of the future, which would etc. etc. etc.

There is no escape from this loop. If it didn't include infinite recursion, then it's not an accurate map of the future.

>>4626826

Because your decision to shoot yourself would be influenced by the prediction. You'd not do it otherwise. The prediction can't include itself, making the prediction flawed and, hence, not a proof against determinism.

Again, YOU CANNOT MODEL A SYSTEM THAT YOU ARE A PART OF.

Not a clue, OP. Might be a bucking reflex. Very few animals do it standing up, after all.

>>4626801

Yeah, I just found it in a book online. It's an interesting concept and basically what I'm trying to get across here.

If you influence a system and, hence, a part of it, you have to predict your own future, effectively meaning you have to predict your own future. Infinite recursion, total inability to do so. Ergo, impossible.

>>4626765

No, reading the future being impossible is so because any entity predicting the future cannot be a part of the system it's modelling, due to infinite recursion. If an entity were outside and incapable of interacting with the system, it COULD model the future perfectly.

>>4626770

See above.

>>4626774

Never heard of it, but I am googling as we speak. Always happy to look up new stuff.

>>4626728

You couldn't model the future, because any attempt to model the future including you would become a recursive loop. You'd have to model yourself modelling the future, which would be of you modelling yourself modelling the future, repeat ad infinitum.

And, of course, any model not including you would be an inaccurate model to begin with.