Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2015 April 2

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April 2

Is Interpretivism Opposed to Using Mathematics in Understanding Social Reality?

Interpretivism rejects the Positivist claim that social reality can be studied objectively the way we study physical occurrences. In addition, Positivists believe that we can use mathematics to construct a formal model or explanation of a social phenomena. If Interpretivism rejects the objective analysis of social reality, does it mean that it also rejects the use mathematics in doing research?Rja2015 (talk) 11:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

If you really want to get into the philosophy of scientific study, I highly recommend the works of Karl Popper and see where it leads you. The kinds of questions you are asking here really lead people to give their own opinions, and are hard to answer using cited examples and references because you're really asking for philosophical justifications for scientific practices, and those justifications aren't published alongside the protocols themselves. Instead, you should focus on seeking out the philosophers who use the language and think on the level you are thinking of; Popper's work is the sine qua non of modern Scientific philosophy. --Jayron32 11:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

It's also worth pointing out that Popper also strongly rejected Positivism, and now most modern scientists are Popperian, relying on falsifiability as the sine qua non of science. Interpretivism is a DAB with links to Antipositivism and Qualitative_research, so that's interesting, but the articles (especially the former) contain many refs that presumably explain more details on the perspective. It's also not clear to me if Interpretivism would reject falsifiability, but if so, then works from that perspective wouldn't be considered "science" by many scientists, though it may still be a valuable academic exercise, perhaps with some similarities to ethnography. Somehow logical positivism and postpositivism fit in there as well, but OP would indeed be best served by reading some of the original sources. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Potassium iodide as an radionicleotide preventative

Our article Potassium_iodide#Thyroid_protection_due_to_nuclear_accidents_and_emergencies state that potassium iodide only protects against the effects of radioactive iodine, and no other radionucleotide. However, cæsium is biochemically similar to potassium, and can be absorbed into bones. Cæsium is produced in nuclear power stations, and can be released in the event of a meltdown. Can cæsium be produced by nuclear weapons, and is there sufficient potassium in potassium iodide pills to stop the cæsium being absorbed by humans? Can radioactive cæsium induce cancer of the bone-marrow, leukæmia, etc.? LongHairedFop (talk) 12:48, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The thyroid needs iodine to function, so providing it with sufficient nonradioactive iodine (disregarding the radioactivity of potassium) so that it doesn't need any more prevents it from taking up the radioactive iodine. However, no part of the body needs cesium, AFAIK, so this logic doesn't apply in that case. StuRat (talk) 13:46, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

It does if you understand what the OP is asking. Chemically, cesium and potassium are similar, so the same sorts of ways your body uses potassium it may also use cesium. I have no idea if that statement is true or false, but if we take the supposition to be true, then radioactive cesium would be a problem because the body would use it in ways that it uses potassium, including as the OP notes, in bones. I have no idea about the truth of the supposition, or how to answer the question, but it's a sound question, based on what the OP already stated. --Jayron32 14:20, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Things are in danger of getting confused. ¹³¹I has a very short half life (days). Caesium has a half life of some 30 years. Potassium iodide is fine as an 'emergency' dose, as it is the lesser of the two evils (it requires a pretty high dose to be effective) . Long term, apple juice is probably better for Caesium. It has both potassium (which reduces the bodies uptake of Caesium -which will be present in food stuffs from contaminated land) and ascorbic acid which acts as a mild chelation agent.--Aspro (talk) 14:26, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I didn't think to check the half-lives; you are right it's the isotopes with half-lives around 1 day to 1 month are the most problematical - they are long-enough lived to be absorbed, but short enough to have a high radiation intensity. Looking at Isotopes of caesium, 129, 131, 132, 136 have half lives around this period (1⅓, 9⅔, 6½, and 13⅙ days respectively). 129 and 132 both undergo beta-decay, 131 uses electron capture, 136 undergoes beta-negative decay. I don't know how frequently 129 and 132 are produced in fission. LongHairedFop (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Ah! So glad I did not forward cranberry juice as a prophylactic (although even that would serve admirably too): “For practical reasons the curative-like use of apple-pectin food additives might be especially helpful for effective decorporation of Cs-137.” Page 303 http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://cis.uchicago.edu/outreach/summerinstitute/2013/documents/sti2013_kojima_radiationprotectionafterthechernobylcatastrophe.pdf&sa=U&ei=HVUdVaLlKsbgaNaxgOAG&ved=0CBQQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNHPlov4rBHa9xXP8lghkF38K-F_Ig --Aspro (talk) 14:48, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Erm, folks, there's some bad confusion here. Potassium iodide is used to provide iodide to compete with radioactive iodine in the thyroid. The formation of thyroid hormone is very specific, and chlorine will not do. The potassium is just a carrier to get the iodine into your system as a chemical salt, because eating elemental iodine would be an unpleasant affair (just touching it leaves long-lasting brown marks where it reacts with your skin). You could use sodium iodide according to that article - but some heart patients etc. are on low sodium diet and sodium iodide is more hygroscopic, making it less convenient to store in your bomb shelter. (This is much like the preference of pyros for potassium perchlorate rather than the sodium salt) In any case, potassium iodide offers little real protection from radioactive cesium because potassium is a different ion, a very common ion in the body, and being taken in conjunction with iodide that pretty strictly limits how much of it you can eat. It would be vastly, vastly cheaper to pursue the same agenda via salt substitute, but I'm not sure that works either. Wnt (talk) 17:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Think the OP understood the purpose of iodine, his question was about the possible benefit of potassium component regards Caesium. Trying to treat it with salt substitute could lead people to innocently take too much and develop hyperkalemia. The link in the post I put above suggests apples (and other potassium and ascorbic rich foods) are a more 'practical' long term prophylactic.--Aspro (talk) 22:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I've often encountered this notion that "natural" potassium, metered in fruit intake, is good, but "chemical" potassium, metered in grams, is bad. I'm afraid I've never understood that, because, well, it's an ion. There are lots of times when I'll give credence to claims of herbal synergy etc. but that's when there are hundreds of complex chemicals ... not this. Wnt (talk) 02:17, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I used the word practical. I didn't say "chemical" potassium, metered in grams, is bad. A good balanced diet from uncontaminated foods should give one all the potassium one needs (which in itself is mildly radio active). Adding a medical intervention (such as low sodium salt – which in itself is mildly radio active also) is unnecessary for long term health management. Fruit juices also includes ascorbic acid (and other stuff), so their is another vitamin that does not have to be obtained from a bottle. Talk to any doctor here in the UK and they will not proscribe any supplements unless there is an obvious short term need. Lay people when offered a panacea often take too much in the belief that more will do them even more good. Thus, low sodium salt is better avoided unless prescribed for another indication.--Aspro (talk) 14:20, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Somehow this has gotten off track. To begin with, we started out talking about doing something to prevent radioactive cesium uptake, presumably following the sort of nuclear exchange that seems to get more likely every week recently. Under such circumstances the usual medical guidance would be ... outdated. In any case I think hyperkalemia isn't that common of a problem - very few of us has any reason to think we get too little sodium, and we routinely hear recommendations to get more potassium (which we very rarely live up to by eating fruits and vegetables), so what part of sense doesn't it make to swap out some of the sodium for potassium? Within reason, of course. For many purposes a 50/50 mix just plain tastes better to me; sodium salt by itself doesn't always satisfy my desire. Wnt (talk) 17:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Too little sodium is hyponatræmia.--Aspro (talk) 18:15, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Arby's trans-fats

Arby's "food" is apparently laced with trans fats: [1]. However, their ingredients list does not list any partially hydrogenated vegetable oils: [2] (you have to scroll down past the "summary" ingredients to get to the "detailed" list). So, could all these trans fats be naturally occurring, or are they just not listing the PHVO ? StuRat (talk) 13:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Almost all items have 1g or less of trans fat per serving, mostly a small percentage of the total fat. Milk products and beef both naturally contain trans fats, and for a meat-centric menu like that of Arby's, that's probably the source of the trans fat (except for the breakfast biscuit which lists hydrogenated oils as an ingredient). -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:52, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it, only partially hydrogenated vegetable oils contain trans fats. Completing the hydrogenation process eliminates them. However, as they say "hydrogenated" versus "fully hydrogenated", that leaves open the possibility that they aren't fully hydrogenated after all. This gets to the heart of my Q, could there be disguised PHVOs in that ingredients list ? StuRat (talk) 14:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Then your understanding is incorrect. PHVO is not the only source of trans fats. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

That's not what I said. I said that completing the hydrogenation process eliminates the trans fats produced by partial hydrogenation. I realize there are other (natural) sources, although I thought they were on the order of tenths of a gram per serving, not grams. StuRat (talk) 15:36, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood "only partially hydrogenated vegetable oils contain trans fats". SemanticMantis (talk) 17:57, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the term "hydrogenated" necessarily implies fully hydrogenated (in which case there can be no trans fat) and sometimes it can mean partial hydrogenation (which typically results in some trans fat). -- Ed (Edgar181) 19:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

It does, per the Code of Federal Regulations (Ctrl+F hydrogenated): [3] shoy (reactions) 19:16, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks ! The wording "if partially hydrogenated, the name shall include the term partially hydrogenated" seems to exclude them dropping the partially to trick consumers. However, Arby's still seems to have more trans-fats than one would expect, if they haven't added any. I wonder if they have a trick similar to the "no added sugar" trick. There, they take some ingredient with lots of sugar, like apple juice, remove most everything but the sugar, then add it to the product, calling it "clarified apple juice". Perhaps they found a way to remove everything but the trans fat from meat, then they can add in trans fats, while claiming they are adding meat. StuRat (talk) 19:30, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Yep, it's not "laced" it's there naturally, see Trans_fat#Presence_in_food. See also here [4], and other sources [5] which claim that not all trans fats are equal, and that certain naturally occurring trans fats may be beneficial in certain contexts. When you search google for /trans fat beef/ [6], they scrape some USDA data and say 1 3 oz serving of 85% lean ground beef has 0.9g trans fats. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:59, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the artificial chemical grouping of trans fats doesn't take into account that those present naturally in meat are, in all likelihood, better handled due to millions of years of natural selection than those that were first created over a platinum catalyst at elevated temperatures as a cheap lard substitute.

Additionally, there may well be some misleading (perhaps it would be safer to say "confusing") text here. It was reported that Arby's got rid of the trans fats in their cooking oils and from the process used by their upstream suppliers for preparing french fries. [7] Note that the processing of other foods before they reach the franchise is not mentioned. Our article trans fat says beef fat is 2-5% trans fats, so how is their Roast Beef max is 2 grams / 27 grams trans fat? Hmmm, I don't know. The sad thing is that they are still much, much better than many other stores that continue to push off this unsafe synthetic crap as if it were food. [8] Wnt (talk) 17:11, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Malassezia yeast commensal frequency of occurence

What percentage of caucasian people have Malassezia genus yeast/fungus as part of their normal skin flora? --78.148.106.5 (talk) 14:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The existence of Malassezia is not recorded well. It can exist, but nobody ever cared to look for it. The existence of diseases or conditions related to it are recorded. For example, I just checked an institutional medical database for studies. Out of 1,830,151 people who identify themselves as 'white', I found that 20,654 have been diagnosed with a Malassezia-related condition. 209.149.115.177 (talk) 14:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Frozen coffee

I bought some iced coffee (coffee with "cream", sugar and crushed ice). I immediately put it in the freezer. The next morning it was frozen solid. I then allowed it to thaw. Once partially thawed, I had a mixture of coffee and ice again. However, the ice was not the crushed ice it had started out with, but rather a single mass of ice (clear, so containing no coffee). I don't think the ice melted then refroze. So, how did the ice transition to a single mass ? My guess is that pure water froze first, connecting the ice together, then later the remaining coffee/water mixture froze. Does that sound correct ? StuRat (talk) 14:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Zone melting--Aspro (talk) 14:52, 2 April 2015 (UTC).

Also fractional freezing. When a solution freezes, the various components freeze seperately; the ice is "pure water" ice. The chunk of ice is the frozen water from the coffee as well, as the coffee freezes, the ice "Seperates" from the water, making the remaining water more concentrated coffee, and the ice pure water ice. People I knew in college used to make "freezer whiskey" in this way (marginally more palatable than pruno) by freezing beer. As the beer froze, you'd skim the ice off the top, and the remaining liquid was more concentrated alcohol. --Jayron32 15:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The other interesting part is that the coffee didn't continue to separate until I got an unfrozen syrup. At some concentration, it too froze solid. StuRat (talk) 15:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Did it freeze solid, or form a slush? Not to deny one possibility or the other, but many times, what you get in these situations isn't a single phase piece of ice, but small (but still pure) ice crystals with the solute particles interspersed between them, or a block of ice with lots of "holes" filled in with the heterogeneous solid particles. The appearence at a slightly closer scale may reveal that it isn't really a frozen homogenous block of coffee, but something more heterogeneous and complex. --Jayron32 15:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Solid, although it did contain an air gap between the ice. Presumably there was an air bubble under the ice pack that was eventually fully enclosed in ice. StuRat (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Suppose the morel of this tail.. is to make your own iced coffee pro re nata.--Aspro (talk) 22:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

MosFet voltage drop

hello, in the article it says that the mosfet enters saturation when V_GS > V_th and V_DS ≥ ( V_GS – V_th ). Does this mean that Drain must be more positive than Gate by at least V_th volts? Also, the transistor's symbol in the datasheet indicates a diode between Drain and Source with its cathode at Drain. Is it an extra diode they added to this particular transistor (to clamp inductive kickback maybe) or do all mosfets conduct when Source > Drain regardless of what Gate is, because I thought mosfets were bidirectional... Asmrulz (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Assuming you're referring to an n-channel MOSFET:

1. No, the transition from linear (triode) mode to saturation mode is when the drain voltage is V_th below the gate voltage. For example, if V_th is 2 V and the gate voltage is 5 V, the transiton from linear to saturated is at a V_DS of 3 V.
2. Your second statement is correct. The diode symbol represents the drain-body p-n junction, and the source is normally connected internally to the body. If the drain-body junction is forward-biassed (V_DS greater than about -1.4 V), the FET will act as a normal p-n diode and conduct, irrespective of the gate voltage. Tevildo (talk) 09:10, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you so much! Asmrulz (talk) 12:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

How does relative permittivity work in homogeneous mixtures?

Would that be one of those colligative properties or would simple mole/mass fraction work or...? Thieh (talk) 15:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

We should link to permittivity, for those attempting to answer this Q. StuRat (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

No, it's not like colligative properties as I understand them. It's more a function of atomic spacing, phonons, and free electrons in specific orbitals - the properties that define conductivity, dielectric and ferromagnetic properties. Relative permittivity describes modification of the speed of electromagnetic wave propagation as well as the wavelength. It's more like index of refraction and chromatic aberration as it can be frequency dependent. In addition permeability is also a factor. An interesting application that may help understand it is a ferro-magnetic microwave circulator using the faraday effect in radar or optical circulator used in fiberoptics. Radar shares an antenna for both a high power transmitter and a very sensitive receiver. The receiver would be destroyed if it had to absorb the energy of the transmitter so a circulator is used to isolate them. Plasma can have these properties. So, I guess I would say that a chemical solution can have specific permittivity and permeability characteristics but it's very dependent on the chemicals in solution and the changes so permittivity would not follow the same rules as other solvents. It's very dependant on the polarity of the solvent. It's not like creating antifreeze mixtures that lowers freezing point and raises boiling point of water that only depends on concentration. --DHeyward (talk) 22:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

What percentage of the contiguous United States are completely undeveloped?

What percentage of the contiguous United States are completely undeveloped, as in no cities, towns, villages, suburbs, farmlands, roads, highways, etc.? I was checking Google Maps, and everywhere I looked was covered with houses, commercial buildings, public buildings, parking lots, driveways, roads, and highways. It makes me wonder about the percentage of land in the contiguous United States that is completely undeveloped and is covered by native flora and fauna. Or perhaps, all the native flora and fauna are confined to nature/wildlife parks, and indigenous peoples are confined to Indian Reservations? 140.254.136.157 (talk) 15:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

It's really going to depend on your precise definitions. Even in the interior of Alaska you will still find some development, just very sparsely spaced. So how sparse meets you def ? (One form of "development" even in national parks is fireroads/firebreaks. Logging roads are another.) StuRat (talk) 16:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I mean land that does not have any man-made buildings, roads, or signs. 140.254.136.157 (talk) 16:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Within 10 miles ? 100 ? 1000 ? And excluding signs will leave out most national parks, as they have signs on trails. StuRat (talk) 16:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

To put it simply it depends how large are the squares that you use to split the land. You can get a number of 0% undevelopped if you are looking for square pieces of land with no sign that are 100 miles times 100 miles. But you can get more than 50% of undeveloped land if you are looking for square pieces of land that are one yard times one yard.--147.85.172.6 (talk) 18:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's another version of the coastline paradox. StuRat (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• More than 50% of the US population lives on the shoreline, which tells you something. See map. μηδείς (talk) 16:44, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Some useful info at National_Wilderness_Preservation_System. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Not quite what you asked, but this story might be of interest. The researchers looked at forest cover from satellite images and found that globally 70% of all forest land was within less than 1 km of non-forest land (usually some form of human development). The tendency for habitat fragmentation and encroachment that this implies is bad for biodiversity, etc. Dragons flight (talk) 18:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

By 1997, about half of the terrestrial globe was no longer "wild" due to human alterations. That number is surely higher now, but Vitousek et al. (1997) is a classic work on the subject [9], and here's a nice general review [10]. This article [11] says humans have altered about 83% of global land, accounting for 98% of arable land. Article is paywalled, see NatGeo coverage here [12].

Depending on the definition and methods of calculation, humans also appropriate about half of global net primary production [13]. In the contiguous USA, the two of the biggest biomes by area are the corn/soy Agroecosystem and turf grass. Turf grasses take up about 3X the land area of irrigated corn, the single largest irrigated crop in the USA [14]. See also [15], and refs therein. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:42, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• Here's a map that quantifies human influence on the land in the USA [16]. The depressing conclusion: about 0.9% of the contiguous USA is "near pristine.", though 22% can still be considered "wilderness," albeit mucked up in some way. Data in the NYT map comes from here [17], which has lots of other good global maps. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• Human influence on the land was a factor way before the USA existed, including that corn was grown in most of the US pre-Columbus, and Native Americans purposefully set fires (while now we suppress them) and hunted the extant megafauna to extinction. The big changes since colonization were clearing of most old-growth forests (although there is far more forest cover in the east now than there was in 1900) the extinction of the Carolina parakeet and the passenger pigeon, and the elm and chestnut blights, as well as the importation of the Starling, and the horse. Looking for "pristine" is more of a religious quest than a meaningful concept outside of the Antarctic interior. μηδείς (talk) 01:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

And as a developing tourist destination, even Antarctica may not be free of substantial development indefinitely. But as regards the other observations, I think the OP was looking for insight into the modern state of affairs as defined specifically (if somewhat nebulously) through the concept of development, not inquiring after conceptualizations of what is meant by "pristine". That is, he seems more concerned with getting a statistical representation of what the world looks like, in a very physical sense, today, not inquiring after a general theoretical dichotomy between "natural" and "human-influenced" ecology. We can all mostly agree that those two concepts stopped being independent really anywhere on this planet a long time ago. But using his narrower definition of land upon which man-made structures are to be found, very little of the contiguous U.S. would qualify as "developed" in pre-Columbian/prehistoric North America, though clearly there was a great deal of variation amongst pre-contact native peoples with regard to both population densities and the use and nature of permanent dwellings; some had small communities based around a single large structure, others developed multiple-dwelling communities, and some isolated peoples essentially remained hunter-gatherers right up until the point of European contact. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

According to our article Wilderness, about 2.58% percent of the contiguous "lower 48" states are formally designated as wilderness. Alaska obviously has much more. I have had the privilege of spending months in the wilderness areas of California, the most populous state by far. The sense of remoteness from civilization after a few days in the wilderness is genuine. Such experiences have been deep and profound, and have enabled me to feel a sense of connection with the lives of our ancient ancestors. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

• I should also mention that your final question is a false dichotomy. I live in a central location in a large city in the USA. I have dozens of native plant species in my yard, about 10 different native bird species that visit, hundreds of native insect species, and even a few native mammals. Oh and at least three different native lizard species :) -- Just because a place has been developed by humans doesn't mean there aren't native flora and fauna around. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:54, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Could the ability of people savants exceed the functional capacity of the computer?

Unanswerable. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
If using a special programs to teach people savants, could the ability of people savants exceed the functional capacity of the computer, for example in solving the problem - could linguistics of languages (been formed by) forming by mathematics?--83.237.221.247 (talk) 17:31, 2 April 2015 (UTC) In pure calculations, no. So, for example, if you asked a savant to multiply a 100 digit number by another 100 digit number, maybe he could, but perhaps 1000 digits times 1000 he couldn't do, while a computer could (although it would require specific software to do so). However, the advantage of the brain over computers is our ability to synthesize different areas of knowledge (let's say to fix a broken car). A savant may be less able to do this than an ordinary human, but still better able to do so than a computer. So, potentially a savant could outdo a computer on something that an ordinary person could not, which requires both massive calculations and synthesis of knowledge. Protein folding comes to mind as a possibility. StuRat (talk) 18:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC) 1) Did this mean that the mathematical logic of the computer is been absolute?--85.140.138.99 (talk) 18:59, 2 April 2015 (UTC) 2) There is no protein cells called neurons?--85.140.138.99 (talk) 19:07, 2 April 2015 (UTC) 1) What does "absolute" mean? 2) There is no such thing as a "protein cell", so there is no such thing as a protein cell called a neuron. Also, this doesn't seem to be relevant to your topic... --OuroborosCobra (talk) 19:14, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Sorry, and is there a possibility of the existence of the insulin (hypoinsulin) cells called neurons?--85.140.141.35 (talk) 19:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Insulin is a hormone, not a cell. Hypoinsulin would be like diabetes, a shortage of insulin. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Agree, that the possibility of thinking (mind) is been limited by capabilities of the biochemical cell.--85.141.237.42 (talk) 20:52, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Which human cells are not "biochemical"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:55, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Why are we still responding to this? This IP has absolutely no direction of inquiry, generally ignores most of our replies only to ask completely off the wall questions having nothing to do with the original topic, etc. We've done this dance, why are we still feeding this? --OuroborosCobra (talk) 21:20, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Looking for an interpretation of QM

In the article on the Relational Quantum Mechanics interpretation, it seems to consider the correlation between observer and observed as considering both on equal footing.

Is there a similar interpretation in which:

• Observation by a macroscopic object is not required.

• The state according to an observer is redefined as the state according to the position and time of the observation event.

• An objective state is re-introduced as the map of the relative states onto spacetime according to this location of the observation.

Note: I'm asking about a serious (even if unpopular) physical interpretation, not something mystical like the "cone of consciousness".

166.137.12.83 (talk) 19:07, 2 April 2015 (UTC)Collin237

There is no absolute position and time of an event. What is obscure is whether that is the limit of observation or whether that is a fundamental property of the universe. Right now, it is both. Every attempt to prove that is a product of observation has failed to rule it out as a fundamental law. To wit, Spooky action at a distance and quantum entanglement. --DHeyward (talk) 20:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Simultaneity puts a bit of a wrinkle on absolute times of events, no? SemanticMantis (talk) 20:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought "no" and didn't write it. There is no such thing as an absolute position and time. "simulataneous" is observer dependant. The hard part to understand is that observer dependance is fundamental and not "measurement error." And it's fundamental at the QM and GR spans (though different phenomena). I personally suspect that they are very related. --DHeyward (talk) 21:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

See Relativity of simultaneity. Two events are only simultaneous for a finite number of observers. Other observers will see one event has happening first, another observer will see the other as occurring first. --Jayron32 01:30, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

This is not relevant to the question. It would be silly to say that there's no absolute position in the Euclidean plane because points with the same y coordinate in one coordinate system have different y coordinates in another coordinate system. Spacetime works the same way. You just have to list all of the coordinates, or identify the event in some coordinate-free way. -- BenRG (talk) 08:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "the state according to the position and time of the observation event".

You can't map quantum states to spacetime except maybe in very special (unrealistic) cases. Even in a macroscopically almost classical world, objects like protons are still quantum. There's no way to treat them as three quarks with particular positions and spin directions and colors. -- BenRG (talk) 08:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

The description of the Bell inequality being false often refer to observers "Alice" and "Bob", and they can't be removed without spoiling the argument. But the Bell inequality is always false; removing the people -- or even removing everything macroscopic -- won't make it true. So the description can't require "Alice" and "Bob" to be macroscopic, and the argument would still hold even if "Alice" and "Bob" were just labels for points.

Note that regardless of how the experiment is set up, none of the particles referred to in its description is part of "Alice" or "Bob". So if "Alice" and "Bob" are points, they cannot be particle positions. So this interpretation still has each particle occupying all points. But it also has each point containing information about all particles occupying all other points.

A correlation between N particles and their fuzzy positions would be a function of N+1 positions, with the metaphor that if there were such a thing as a Planck-size "Maxwell's demon", what its maximum-information prior state knowledge would be if it's at position N+1.

I've seen Adrian Kent get close to this idea, but unfortunately he chalks it up to "consciousness" instead of actually theorizing.

166.137.14.113 (talk) 05:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)Collin237

If the Neanderthal man had not gone extinct, then would it be put in a zoo?

If the Neanderthal man had not gone extinct, then would it be put in a zoo? Or would anatomically modern humans recognize Neanderthals as "people" and assimilate them into human populations? 140.254.136.174 (talk) 20:51, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

What makes you think Neanderthals wouldn't have put us in a zoo? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Besides which, many human population groups have some Neanderthal DNA - which means they alredy assimilated, a very long time ago. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Broadly speaking, how far apart in the phylogenetic tree would humans stop recognizing closely related species as "humans"? 140.254.136.174 (talk) 20:55, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The question calls for speculation, and is largely unknowable as a hypothetical. However, I would assume that the distinguishing characteristics are not genetics/ancestry but rather intelligence and language. To my way of thinking, regardless of ancestry, any species that could function in our world as at least approximate equals should be reasonably entitled to basic freedoms rather than enslavement and exhibition in zoos. Dragons flight (talk) 21:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

We've put modern humans in zoos, so I do not doubt that at some point in time we would have put Neanderthals in zoos as well. Now, whether it would still be common or contemporary practice is another question... --OuroborosCobra (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

What do you call "recognition?" Slavery exists today based on ethnicity, race and religion - not species. 160 years arguments were made over personhood vs. property in the U.S. There are variations in how animals are treated today based on how close they are to human (to wit, there are different ethical rules regarding primate research and lab rat research). We even have rules regarding animals considered pets vs. food which casues lots of international issues when the same animals are viewed differently (dogs and horses come to mind.) However, I suspect that unless mating produced offspring, the classification of "human" would be reserved for "homo sapiens." It doesn't mean that rights wouldn't expand for closely related species. --DHeyward (talk) 21:26, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Modern human, wearing clothes

The OP asks, "Broadly speaking, how far apart in the phylogenetic tree would humans stop recognizing closely related species as "humans"?" We have an article which addresses the question, if you accept that "human" and "person" are synonyms in this context: Great ape personhood. I have seen a lot of speculation in various media about whether a Neanderthal dressed in modern clothes would be sufficiently different from modern humans to attract attention, with opinions on both extremes. My personal opinion is that they wouldn't, and I find the images I have included rather convincing to prove this point. As Baseball Bugs says, the Neanderthals didn't really go totally extinct, as there was some interbreeding. A digression: I see that our Neanderthal article currently cites the abscence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in contemporary human populations as an argument for reduced fertility in the offspring of female Neanderthals having mated with modern human males. An alternative explanation of the abscence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in today's humans was suggested on this reference desk at a time when it was believed that no interbreeding had occurred, by yours truly, NorwegianBlue ^talk 00:09, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

So, if you dress a Neanderthal he would be able to mingle with computer geeks? --Noopolo (talk) 04:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, in order to survive with modern humans, they would have needed to evolve, too. Perhaps we might have ended up with something like the ant's caste system where we would be the thinkers and planners and the Neanderthals would be the hunters, soldiers, laborers, etc. StuRat (talk) 05:43, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

If you dressed up a Jew in contemporary clothes, could you tell him apart from modern humans? If you looked at a Japanese and a Chinese, clothed or not, can you reliably tell the difference? Many societies have considered Jews subhuman, and imperial Japan considered the Chinese subhuman. Our treatment of animals is no more based on science or any objective morality than the Nazi treatment of the Jews, or the Japanese treatment of the Chinese. --Bowlhover (talk) 07:54, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Equating genocide to our treatment of animals sounds like a crazy defense of animal rights. Starting by the fact that we can draw lines between species, and that we don't want to annihilate animals (at least not on purpose). Noopolo (talk) 11:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Bowlover, that may be the most ridiculous strawman argument I've ever read. Let's just shoot it down with "I can tell when you dress an animals up." Your examples prove the difference as your two examples are human. And yes, science can tell the difference with DNA, bones, etc. Give a blood sample to a crime lab and "human or not human" is pretty straight forward and scientific. --DHeyward (talk) 12:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Hmm? The fact that the two examples are clearly human was obviously Bowlhover's point. Yet despite that, these two groups have been treated horrificly by other humans in the past. This treatment had no scientific or objective moral reason. There are obvious parallels with modern treatment of animals. Why is it completely unacceptable to eat dogs, or at least raise dogs for food in some places? Is there scientific or objective moral reason why dogs should be treated so? Whereas in many countries where this is so, chicken can be kept in tiny cages for their whole lives. And certain pigs likewise. Duck and geese can be force fed with a tube. Even if you can come up with some scientific or moral reason for some of the many inconsistencies in the way we treat animals, it's questionable if you can come up with them for all of them [18]. Even the Great Ape Project could be seen in the same way. Is there a good scientific or objective moral reason to only include great apes? Nil Einne (talk) 13:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

My point was that the "dressing up" standard is ridiculous. Germans and Jews were hard to tell apart, yet the latter was put into gas chambers by the former. Japanese are almost indistinguishable from Chinese, but the former enslaved, raped, experimented on, and massacred the latter. The fact that a group of people can pass the "dressing up" standard is no guarantee that they should or would be treated as humans, and the fact that they don't pass doesn't mean they won't or shouldn't be. (Example: I can clearly tell a black person from a non-black person like me, but that doesn't mean black people should be enslaved. Not too long ago, of course, the majority opinion was precisely opposite.) You can tell a human from a pig? Good for you. That has precisely the same moral significance as being able to distinguish men from women, Chinese from Ethiopians, and Aztecs from Spanish. --Bowlhover (talk) 18:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

(Sorry, yes, this is a purely speculative side-track. Enjoy:) There's actually some deep philosophy behind the question. If Earth had multiple sentient species, what would that mean? What is sentience? We take for granted (at least nowadays!) that there is no race of people that is incapable of working mathematics, or even of appreciating music and art the way we do. "Intelligence" comes with such things, and political conniving and trickery, and noble crusades over usually loony beliefs, and all the myriad aspects of humanity, and for every population on Earth it seems to be just the same. Is that natural law? Is it inevitable that an animal either evolves to host a "soul", to put the dualism explicitly, which has all of these properties because that's how God (or somebody) made it? Or is it possible that when human ancestors met, that some simply lacked some characteristics that seem universal nowadays? Might the Neanderthals have had their own ways of communicating which were simply unintelligible to the users of modern human speech, not merely because the codings were different but because the content itself was not interpretable to modern humans (and perhaps vice versa?) I have sometimes wondered if some similar effect lingers on to this day - whether beside the pattern of sentient communication as I see it, others exist superimposed that can't be interpreted. The one case I know of, of course, is that autistic people don't read body language; but this may be relatively minor, since the most significant differences may be the most difficult to perceive. For example, sometimes I wonder if proponents of censorship have some kind of antithought that allows them to communicate, say, what kind of things mustn't be said even though they have no prior knowledge that the content exists, or is even possible. Wnt (talk) 13:14, 3 April 2015 (UTC)