Random thoughts

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Ecurb
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Re: Random thoughts

Post by Ecurb »

Sy Borg wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 4:37 pm

What happened after the Mongol Empire lost its grip on those regions?
I can't remember. Tamerlane (an Islamicized Mongol) founded the Timur Empire in Turkey and Asia at the end of the 14th century. The Islamicized Moghuls ruled in Northern India (and built the Taj Mahal) in the 17th century. But the trade routes and the mail systems connecting vast areas of land disappeared, or were far more dangerous.

The Turks remained a world power (Influenced by Tamerlane) -- conquering the Byzantines in 1453 and threatening Europe for the next 3 centuries. The sea battle of Lepanto (in which Cervantes fought) was in 1571, and slowed Turkish expansion, but they still were able to besiege Vienna as late as the 1680s (I think).
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Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts

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Ecurb wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 5:29 pm
Sy Borg wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 4:37 pm

What happened after the Mongol Empire lost its grip on those regions?
I can't remember. Tamerlane (an Islamicized Mongol) founded the Timur Empire in Turkey and Asia at the end of the 14th century. The Islamicized Moghuls ruled in Northern India (and built the Taj Mahal) in the 17th century. But the trade routes and the mail systems connecting vast areas of land disappeared, or were far more dangerous.

The Turks remained a world power (Influenced by Tamerlane) -- conquering the Byzantines in 1453 and threatening Europe for the next 3 centuries. The sea battle of Lepanto (in which Cervantes fought) was in 1571, and slowed Turkish expansion, but they still were able to besiege Vienna as late as the 1680s (I think).
The shifting regimes are not easy to contextualise - the cross-pollination between northern Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the subcontinent and East Asia. As an Australian, it's a whole other world to me.

It seems that the plague brought down the Ming dynasty, and it was replaced by the Qing dynasty, and apparently at first the Chinese also took advantage of the opportunities presented after the slate was cleaned, so to speak.
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JackDaydream
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Re: Random thoughts

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I am just wishing to voice something that I am wondering about. That is the nature and effects of solar flares which I have been reading of recently. These are coming to the attention of scientists. It appears that the main impact they could have could have is on electrical systems and they are unlikely to cause radiation danger..

However, I am thinking about whether they have some kind of subtle effect on humans. I was feeling really weird all day yesterday, even shivering and feeling like I may have a temperature. However, it did not feel like I was ill and my thoughts seemed to be racing. I looked at my phone and saw in a news item that there had been a lot of unusual solar activity. I was googling about solar flares and read that they can make people feel sick and dizzy. I have been feeling a bit 'strange' and noticing that friends I speak with seem to be feeling a little odd too. When I talk to one friend we are often friend it seems that we are both speaking at the same time and struggling to slow down. I am curious whether other people are noticing anything unusual in the last few weeks and whether others have any thoughts about what is going on, with the solar flares which scientists are observing.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts

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Nothing unusual for me, as far as I can tell, aside from finally finding someone to fix my leaky roof.
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JackDaydream
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Re: Random thoughts

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Sy Borg wrote: September 8th, 2022, 6:29 am Nothing unusual for me, as far as I can tell, aside from finally finding someone to fix my leaky roof.
I am glad that you have found someone to fix your leaky roof because I my ceiling has leaked a few times and it is horrible. A couple of times it felt like it was raining in my room. It only happens occasionally though because it is coming from the left and going through the room of the man above me. He is having more of a problem with the leak though regularly.

The one issue which I have at the moment is that my bed where I am living is broken. It was ever since I moved in and its getting worse and worse. The mattress falls into the base of the bed. It is hard to balance on and the sheet falls off. I have tried stuffing the base with books but it didn't help much. I need to move out anyway, and everyone else in the house too, because the house is going to be renovated. So, I haven't got as far as trying to move the base and sleep on the mattress and it is the most gigantic bed ever.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts

Post by Sy Borg »

JackDaydream wrote: September 8th, 2022, 3:55 pm
Sy Borg wrote: September 8th, 2022, 6:29 am Nothing unusual for me, as far as I can tell, aside from finally finding someone to fix my leaky roof.
I am glad that you have found someone to fix your leaky roof because I my ceiling has leaked a few times and it is horrible. A couple of times it felt like it was raining in my room. It only happens occasionally though because it is coming from the left and going through the room of the man above me. He is having more of a problem with the leak though regularly.

The one issue which I have at the moment is that my bed where I am living is broken. It was ever since I moved in and its getting worse and worse. The mattress falls into the base of the bed. It is hard to balance on and the sheet falls off. I have tried stuffing the base with books but it didn't help much. I need to move out anyway, and everyone else in the house too, because the house is going to be renovated. So, I haven't got as far as trying to move the base and sleep on the mattress and it is the most gigantic bed ever.
For a while I could not get roofers to even reply to messages I left. Finally, an old school bloke turned up and had it fixed in five minutes. Old school tradesmen are the best!

Your bed situation sounds terrible. We great apes thrive on a good quality of non-consciousness every night. Maybe you could you put a lilo on the top of it for more stability? When I was young we had the Encyclopaedia Britannica - twenty-something volumes taking pride of place on the bookshelf. That might have been enough to stablise your bed :)
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Random thoughts

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From another topic:
Sy Borg wrote: September 26th, 2022, 5:00 pm So it's not destiny or fate. If the asteroid responsible for the Chicxulub crater was a larger object, life may have been reduced to subterranean organisms or been snuffed out altogether. If the object had been much smaller, dinosaurs would probably still be dominant. But here we are, neither microbes, dinosaurs nor dead.
This finally clicked with me. Bayesian statistics bids us always to recalculate (probabilities) when new information becomes available. Here, the new information is that the event in question is no longer in the future; it's in the past. So that which was indeterminate before the event becomes certain after the event. In effect, the probability of a past event occurring is 1.0, because it did happen.

So it isn't surprising at all that the meteor was the size it was; it was certain that it would be so, even if someone at the time thought otherwise. This argument would seem also to apply to those debates about physical constants having the exact values that they do (thus enabling our modern world, as it is).
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Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts

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That's the anthropic principle. That is, the universe's constants facilitate life like ours because, if not, there'd be no one to ask the question.
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Random thoughts

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Sy Borg wrote: September 27th, 2022, 8:40 pm That's the anthropic principle. That is, the universe's constants facilitate life like ours because, if not, there'd be no one to ask the question.
Ah yes, I'd forgotten what it was called. But that wasn't my realisation.

I realised that time passing can sometimes offer new information, and therefore a recalculation might be useful. In the case of the Anthropic Principle, the probability of events happening has changed because the events have happened now, as they had not before. So before, we had no idea if or when events might occur. But now that they HAVE occurred, we can know that they were always going to occur, even if we didn't (couldn't) know it before.

So the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs did land, and it had a particular mass. This caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It was always going to, we now know. And it was never going to extinguish all life, because it was the size it was. Our recalculation shows that these past events were certain (probability 1.0) to occur, because they did occur.

This seems to formalise, somewhat, the proverbial power of hindsight, wouldn't you say?
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Random thoughts

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Today's "random thought(s)":

For almost any problem or issue, context is nearly always a lot bigger than you think.
For almost any problem or issue, a different perspective nearly always has value.
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JackDaydream
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Re: Random thoughts

Post by JackDaydream »

I am using this as the 'Shoutbox' for random thoughts which need to be contained somewhere. I have experienced a slight altered state of consciousness. I experimented with a little bit of cannabis which I found in a corner of one of my clothes pockets. The only thing is that I didn't smoke it but put in my vegetable lasagne, but I microwaved it. I am not sure if that should work or not but I do think I feel something when listening to The Stone Temple Pilots and also, when writing posts earlier.. So if my posts for today read as a little odd it may explain why, because I was leaning back on my broken bed thinking how the division between inner vs outer, is a possible illusion.

I quite like the effect of microwaved cannabis , but I am not advocating it and I tried it this way because I don't smoke normally. But, I may also be a little spaced out because I am considering moving back to Bedford, my hometown, which would be a fairly dramatic change.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts

Post by Sy Borg »

Weed ought to be legal everywhere. It was only outlawed in a response to Mexican migration. It's far less dangerous than alcohol or many prescription drugs.

Another random thought: I was thinking that consciousness is an appetite. We have an appetite for energy. Satiating that need results in digestion. We also have an appetite for information/stimuli, and satiating that need results in consciousness (so the idea goes).

If you are denied energy, your digestive system starts eating itself. A prolonged period of being denied energy that can be absorbed results in death.

Likewise, if you are denied stimuli, your mind will consume itself. A prolonged period of being denied stimuli results in death. How? Without stimuli, all we have are memories. If you continue over a long period to without sensory input, all you will have are memories of memories. After a while you will only have memories of memories of memories. Remember that time when I remembered the memory of that night Venice? After a time there would be no point, no source of motivation, and the mind would simply give up after effectively eating itself.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts

Post by Sy Borg »

Pattern-chaser wrote: September 28th, 2022, 12:03 pm
Sy Borg wrote: September 27th, 2022, 8:40 pm That's the anthropic principle. That is, the universe's constants facilitate life like ours because, if not, there'd be no one to ask the question.
This seems to formalise, somewhat, the proverbial power of hindsight, wouldn't you say?
Sorry, I missed this. Yes, the anthropic principle is circular.
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Random thoughts

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Sy Borg wrote: October 27th, 2022, 4:19 am Weed ought to be legal everywhere. It was only outlawed in a response to Mexican migration.
Yes, just as Germany is about to do, it seems. 👍

I thought it was criminalised by the Nixon administration in the 60s — the 'war on drugs' — with the express purpose of criminalising young political activists, white and black. I think this criminalisation prevented them from being allowed to vote, but I'm not sure.



Sy Borg wrote: October 27th, 2022, 4:19 am Another random thought: I was thinking that consciousness is an appetite. We have an appetite for energy. Satiating that need results in digestion. We also have an appetite for information/stimuli, and satiating that need results in consciousness (so the idea goes).

If you are denied energy, your digestive system starts eating itself. A prolonged period of being denied energy that can be absorbed results in death.

Likewise, if you are denied stimuli, your mind will consume itself. A prolonged period of being denied stimuli results in death. How? Without stimuli, all we have are memories. If you continue over a long period to without sensory input, all you will have are memories of memories. After a while you will only have memories of memories of memories. Remember that time when I remembered the memory of that night Venice? After a time there would be no point, no source of motivation, and the mind would simply give up after effectively eating itself.
That's an entertaining 'random thought' if I ever saw one. Food for thought... 🙂
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