Bay 12 Games Forum

Greg Egan's novel Permutation City explores a similar idea. Consider a universe consisting of an infinite mass of static-like dust, every possible pattern is in the dust somewhere, at sometime. Therefore all possible conscious patterns exist within the dust, and all possible subjective universes exist within that framework.

It would be like the branching universes but within a single infinite chaotic universe. Time travel would be as simple as latching onto a track which matches the time period you want, but hs the pattern of yourself within it. But it wouldn't be "real" time travel, because you could travel to fictional versions of any time period.

Tahiti < 1900

Rewatching Wolf's Rain with my parents (this is the 8th or 9th time I've seen it or something), and more than halfway through Baudolino.  It's going really well.

I'm enjoying streaming MGS, as well, and I have hot chocolate.  Somehow, today has been a very peaceful day.

Wolf's Rain, Yoko Kanno did the soundtrack? I might have to check that out

EDIT: I now has ze Wolf's Rain, probably should complete watching some other stuff though I'm partway through enough things already.

Maybe someone can help me with this show's name:-

It's a series which ran for 1 season, late 90's about a government agent who's identity has been erased from computer records and he's on the run (yeah I know, real original). In about episode 2 he meets a hacker kid who's created some VR headsets for cybersurfing. They use them to "hack" the government computer in cyberspace (which basically looks like running around in offices due to "VR") , and they're detected. The government pulls the plug on the system, but the hacker kid is too slow to escape so his mind is left behind in cyberspace and he's left as a vegetable.

BTW this was a serious show, not a comedy.

http://www.math.cornell.edu/~numb3rs/baker/407.html

Snippets of Numb3rs logic, then the real maths. This one is about evolutionary algorithms. I saw this episode and was like WTF? with their "version" of the theory.

http://www.math.cornell.edu/~numb3rs/baker/408.html

This next one also contains Charlie mangling the meaning of another search algorithm

Basically I found the first one by googling, and the next one by trial and error. Presumably there's an index somewhere...

FAKEEDIT: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~numb3rs/ is the index, go and pick out some good ones

@RedKing: In the case of the fetal testorestone studies, correlation vs causation are not the point.

higher fetal testosterone is correlated with typical "male" behaviors. It is also correlated with being male. Therefore being biologically male is correlated with the typical behaviors. What caused what is not the issue. The correlation is the point.

Causation is not the point in this argument, so it's irrelevant.

I think the study in Susan pinkers book had several hundred mothers, so it was quite a large study by statistical standards.

Well actually, yes. One exception disproves a statement about "all boys" and "all girls". I'm not saying all kids are like my kids, I'm saying not all kids are like the stereotypical kid model that evolutionary arguments present: one in which boys are geared towards games and toys which resemble hunting/fighting/competition and in which girls are geared towards nurturing/group/cooperative activities.

Yeah, back to my point that saying evolutionary arguments forces difference 100% of the time is a mis-characterization of evolution theory, and a bit of a straw-man argument, seeing as this is not what the theory says, or how evolution works. Testosterone and Oxytocin for example encourage those types of behaviors. One chemical is much more prevalent in males and other other much more prevalent in females. In General.

If there's anything that having kids (especially one of each) has shown it's that the evolutionary biology arguments are mostly bullshit. There is some physical difference (aggression levels, for instance) in the aggregate, although not necessarily applicable for every single individual. There's a boy in my daughter's class who cries at the drop of a hat and is utterly passive. But socialization (and in our case, deliberate efforts to avoid gender-stereotypical socialization at home) plays a much bigger role.

Evolutionary arguments have never relied on every individual meeting some idealized form. What is important is that sufficient individuals reach sexual maturity and have offspring, the rest can die or do random non-breeding stuff, it doesn't matter. To say that because some individuals do not meet the "ideal form" that it contradicts evolutionary arguments is a gross mis-representation of how evolution works.

For examples flies lay thousands of eggs, most of those offpsring die without passing on their genes.

Or 90% of male humans could be gay, as long as the remaining males humans have sufficient children to maintain the population levels.

Evolution is all about the average example of the species being "good enough" to procreate. (where good just means able to pass on genes, not any sense of "quality" or inherent value).

BTW: You have exactly one of each, that's hardly a statistical sample which you can use to make statements about "all boys" and "all girls". They could be exceptions to the general trend, like you said. But that would still not invalidate any evolutionary ideas.

Of course there's a middle-ground and exceptions, but i'll point you back to the studies of pre-natal testosterone levels (decreases verbal ability in males or females, and other effects) and of adult males sniffing female brain hormone Oxytocin (measurably increases ability to read facial emotions, amongst other things).

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/?ttype=2&tid=10123

Prenatal Testosterone in Mind
Amniotic Fluid Studies
Simon Baron-Cohen, Svetlana Lutchmaya and Rebecca Knickmeyer

 Table of Contents and Sample Chapters

This pioneering study looks at the effects of prenatal testosterone on postnatal development and behavior. Hormonal effects on behavior have long been studied in animals; the unique contribution of this book is to suggest a connection between human fetal hormones and later behavior. It details for the first time testosterone's effect on social and language development, opening a new avenue of research for cognitive neuroscience.

The authors look at samples of amniotic fluid taken during amniocentesis at 16 weeks' gestation, and relate the fetal level of testosterone (which is present in fetuses of both sexes, although in different quantities) to behavior at ages 1, 2, and 4 years. They argue that the amniotic fluid provides a window into the child's past—a chemical record of that child's time in the womb—that allows informed prediction about the child's future brain, mind, and behavior. This is not the retrospective speculation of psychoanalysis, they point out, but an opportunity to study development prospectively and trace developmental precursors and causes of later cognition.

The study suggests that prenatal levels of testosterone affect a range of later behaviors in children, from the inclination to make eye contact with others to the size of the vocabulary. It also suggests that prenatal testosterone level may be related to the development of typically "masculine" and "feminine" behaviors. The study's ongoing research explores whether fetal testosterone has any link with the risk of developing autism. Connecting endocrinology and psychology, the authors propose that there is a biological component to behaviors often thought to be produced by the social environment.

Later studies have correlated effects of pre-natal testosterone into the teen years.