Re. free will: even if the universe is mechanically deterministic (and that’s a huge if) there’s still a random input that can’t be calculated: the arrival of microwave photons from the edge of the observable universe, which by definition could never have interacted with us before now, which contribute to the thermal motion of everything.
ETA or do you mean the subjective sense we have that our will is us doing something that otherwise wouldn’t have happened?
Trans-oceanic telecommunications cables. I know they exist - I’ve seen pictures and film of them being laid down and read explanations and how else would it have worked and yet I don’t want to believe that there are big cables crossing oceans and other bodies of water. It’s like they don’t belong down there, deep in the Atlantic or Pacific or whatever. Every time I think about it, it blows my mind.
Also, CD and DVDs. I understand the technology, I’ve been taught how it works, but still…shine light on this and get music also blows my mind. Somehow magnetic tape makes sense to me, but CD and DVDs are a little bit woo.
Whenever I’m in the States, I buy a Powerball ticket because if I win, not only will I be rich, I’ll piss off all of America because I won’t have to pay any tax on it.
History, almost all of it. I get that this stuff happened and a sizable portion of it happened how we think it did, but somehow it still blows my mind in multiple ways. I can’t believe we’ve had eight thousand years to develop and still haven’t blown ourselves up yet, that the printing press came before the telephone, we have the technology to blow ourselves up and we still have a hard time convincing eachother to do something about climate change, that a mosquito killed Alexander the Great… You get the picture.
For what it’s worth a plane crash is basically a list of the worst ways to die ever. If the odds per hour are even in the same league, I’d rather drive than fly.
Holy crap! That’s exactly what I came in to post. I really try not to ponder this very often, because it completely freaks me out!
That is a traditional assignment with Halloween being the start of winter and Beltane the start of summer. It makes more sense than the standard assignments where I live. We get our first snow in early November and it gets warm enough to go outside without a jacket around Groundhog’s Day. The winter solstice is the midpoint of winter, not the beginning.
Yep, the whole “1” and “0” thing for computers. My mind can’t wrap around the idea that *everything *we do on computers comes down to 1s and 0s.
Aw, but don’t worry! If it turns out to be true, which it very well might, you won’t be around to care.
It really is regional, though.
Around here, winter isn’t too bad until after Christmas, usually - it’s getting colder and darker and there’s some snowfall, but the worst months are usually January and February and (this year notwithstanding) even March. It really does mark the beginning of the “winter” weather! Having winter start at the solstice makes sense because you can convince yourself that the days are already getting longer and that you can survive the next couple of months of hell!
Equinox to mark the start of Spring also makes sense; it’s about when you start getting good weather interspersed between cold and snow, the maple trees start producing sap, some early trees start to bud new leaves in the weeks after…it really is springtime.
The summer solstice comes just about when the weather really starts to stay hot and humid, and the fall equinox comes around the time that the leaves are falling, the nor’easters are blowing in and the days begin to get darker.
Basically, the equinox/solstice method makes perfect sense for Quebec!
I understand it and it makes perfect sense to me, but it still fills me with a deep sense of wrong when I see helium balloons act completely opposite to the way all the other objects in the car behave.
Others have mentioned CDs/DVDs, and using 1s and 0s to represent data. What boggles my mind is the whole concept of sound reproduction. I think of that little membrane vibrating in a speaker, and I can see how that would work to reproduce a single tone at a fixed frequency, but I really can’t fathom how that little membrane can faithfully reproduce all of the different sounds and nuances of a complete orchestra. And of course, by extension, how the eardrum works the same way.
This, this, a thousand times this. The guy who wrote Consciousness Explained even calls consciousness an illusion, which it clearly cannot be. An illusion requires an observer - if there’s nobody to fool, it’s not an illusion. Or, put another way, if you ask, “who is the illusion of consciousness tricking,” the answer has to be, “you,” but the point of the argument is there’s no *you *to fool.
On the other hand, our cells are a loose confederation of living things - they never visit each other, they only communicate by electricity and chemicals. No neurons ever drop their walls and merge. Where am I watching this movie of my life!? It’s impossible!
Heh, I feel the same way about aircraft carriers. Hell, the Nimitz class supercarrier weighs in at a mere 101,000 tons. How the hell does that thing not sink?!
I did read the other responses and they are misleading. No matter how you calculate it (per trip, per mile flown, per year, whatever), flying is orders of magnitude safer than driving.
Humans are notoriously bad at calculating risk. Your kid is far likelier to die from daibetes caused by sitting around the house watching TV and playing videogames than from getting kidnapped by a psycho outside.
I used to consider December a winter month, but now I file it under “late autumn”. The climate really is changing.
I agree. Isn’t it weird to not be able to go skating at outdoor rinks over Christmas break? Many ski resorts aren’t even open, or just a few runs with machine-made snow. It’s sad.
I’m surprised I haven’t seen the Sunk Cost Fallacy mentioned yet.
Say you’ve bought a ticket to a concert, but on the night of the event you just don’t feel like going. It feels “wrong” to not use it, like you’re wasting money…but from an intellectual standpoint the money is already spent either way (a “sunk cost”) so should not factor into your decision, the only thing that matters is what happens going forward - whether going to the show or staying home will make you happier.
That’s the rate per trip of equal distance, for example comparing a 1,000 mile trip by plane versus the same trip by car.
I once worked out that per typical trip (e.g. your average car journey is 10 miles, say, but your average flight is 1000 miles), that the car is safer. That fits with the article that says that both methods of travel have similar danger per hour. 10 miles at 50 mph is safer than 1,000 miles at 500 mph.
There are numerous very attractive women who I know for a fact won’t fuck me, and it feels so WRONG!
I’m not superstitious or religious in any way, but I really really want to believe that karma exists. It seems so real to me, even though I accept that there is no physical mechanism to explain how it could be possible.