As much as what the eye can see…

How much would that be? In answer I guess most people would offer something that would depend on visual acuity, or the absence of visual obstruction. While it seems perfectly normal that what you see is what you percieve, quite the opposite is true.

A recent physics article in physorg.com explained it as follows:

This is a consequence of the eye's main characteristic, namely as a detection threshold. Below a certain threshold number of incoming photons, the eye remains blind (no light is seen), whereas above the threshold the efficiency (i.e. the probability of seeing) is close to one.

In their calculations, the authors also considered the influence of experimental imperfections, such as photon losses, which are inevitable in a real experiment. They found that the setup is surprisingly robust. A strong Bell violation can be obtained even in case of high losses, demonstrating the presence of entanglement. This is a very astonishing feature since entanglement is generally an extremely fragile property, highly sensitive to experimental imperfections such as losses.

I may have this wrong, but what I think it means is that our eye’s make things up, in this particular case it is photon’s, but it could be just about anything you see.

If you can imagine your perception as a flat screen TV in which there are increasingly more pixels dead, our perception of the degrading picture will remain as it was without any dead pixels.

But perception is not the only ability that can be influenced by entanglement? It also plays a role in something known as the placebo effect.

More on nature, laws and such...

It seems when looking for "laws" to help in defining nature and life that this is probably not the wisest thing to do, as the mere concept of "laws" still have some wrinkles to iron out. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, three issues are especially pressing ones.

The first concerns whether laws “govern” the universe, exactly what it means to say that they do, and how that affects our understanding of lawhood.

The second is the issue of whether there are any contingent laws of nature. Necessitarians continue to work feverishly on filling in their view, while Humeans and others pay relatively little attention to what they are up to; new work needs to explain the source of the underlying commitments that divide these camps and to figure what each group is doing right.

Finally, more attention needs to be paid to the language used to report what are the laws and the language used to express the laws themselves.

It is clear that recent disputes about generalizations in physics and the special sciences turn on precisely these matters, but exploring them may also pay dividends on central matters regarding ontology, realism vs. antirealism, and supervenience.

Lies, lies, lies

Take for instance the book of revelation. A book that was written by a spirit that had been preaching a message of peace and of love, and when he was banned by the authorities he retreated to a cave. It was the only shelter he could find, but then again the only shelter he would need to tell us of the things to come.

The author of the book of Revelation was John, but not the Baptist, although they did share a common bond. John was a spiritual teacher, much like many you would find in a man of his time. And to his fold and followers he spoke the word of God, interpreted it for those who were lost and searching for their soul.

And the word of John would bring peace. He would answer people’s questions about God and good and evil and forgiveness and salvation, for you see John was a man of God. A man that had, either by luck or suffering, been given a glance beyond the horizon of perspective to see the full plane of our existence. John was a man that had seen God, and with that been blessed to understand that we are much more than this, much more than we could ever understand. And that the reason for our existence would be pain and suffering if we would choose it such, or beautiful and bliss if that be what we worth. And low behold, it was.

If he was giving the people things that work, or things that made sense; if John was professing a word that’s true and pure and good, then chances are that he’d survive and even thrive. As well he should for giving people what they need. But then again, this is exactly the reason he was removed and banned from his own town.

John was only telling the truth, and giving people what they asked of him. And if people receive more good from a man like John than what they get for their taxes, you can see the reason why he was removed. Why, he was starting to cause unrest in the neighborhood and people were starting to refuse to pay their legal due. In a sense the man called John had inadvertently reached the delicate tipping point where the spirit comes face to face with establishment and people start to choose. Spirit always comes up trump.

In the face of such a show-off the establishment always get nasty and vindictive, and the spirit goes on doing what it always does in happiness and bliss. And such was the case with John, who moved into a cave and lived a hermits live of contentment and serenity. But such is the nature of the light, that once you meet the vantage point of life and what there is beyond, your life and everything makes sense. And in that sensibility there is nothing left but for you to tell of what you find.  And tell he did, the book we all know as Revelation.

My question now, and considering this, is do you think the Book of Revelation is anything but true? I think that we would all have to agree it is, at least to John it is. And John was a man who spoke of things that the people of his time considered more valuable than taxes.

Then lastly this: “Do you think the Book of Revelation is a prophesy of the end?” Do you think that he was sitting there in all his joy and love and kind, and thinking to find something that he could do in the happiness of the enlightened world he lived. And then in a flash of inspiration, and with all the creativity that tend to flow from being in a place as this, he then decides to write the horrors of apocalypse?

In time before time it was known that the truth shall set you free. Thank you for reading me, and do spend some time to make up your own mind. It is something I could highly recommend.

the laws of attraction

The big secret is slowly losing it's magic and mystery as science lifts the veil over sexual attraction. Like recent research that showed that a 10 second kiss a day is associated with lower levels of stress.

I suppose that makes some sense, but how do you explain the fact that men lose their ability to discriminate between beauty when they smell women ovulating?

How does your idea of sexuality change when you know that women make pheromones called copulins during ovulation that causes men to behave irrationally? Apparently these copulins smell like curdled butter?

How does your idea of the mating game change when you know that attraction is charged by the subliminal observation, once again thanks to our noses, of another persons' immune profile?

Does your idea of relationships change when you know that using a chemical contraceptive changes your 'powers of observation' towards subtle biological clues of sexual compatibility?

Do you start to question your ability to make your own choices when you find out that everybody's face add up to a number between 1 and 10 that determines universal attraction?

These and more, are facts that science are busy uncovering about the laws of attraction. Kind of takes something away from the mysticism of falling in love, doesn't it?

Or maybe it is a reminder that there are more to partners than attraction? Maybe it is necessary to understand that sexual attraction and biological compatibility speak a language all on their own? A language that knows nothing of toothpaste and caps, or toilets and seats, or snoring, or fashion.

Our bodies are communicating without our knowledge or influence, and we are only now beginning to understand how that communication changes who we are and what we do.

It certainly changes our whole approach to relationships, or does it?