I'm a science nerd, medical guy and technology buff in small doses. By profession I'm a pharmacist, working in hospital pharmacy and running a pharmacy recruitment agency on the side.
The frontiers of science, medicine and social behaviour.
Teaching children social skills. And not just for 1 year, but throughout school just like P.E. (Gym class).
Science, psychology, evolutionary psychology, politics/political social engineering
I taught myself how to use nunchucks at 15. Not the most useful skill, however what else would a juvenile delinquent do with too much time and too little parental supervision?
Lucky enough to be born in a western society, into a family that values education and intellectual debate.
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A reply on Conversation: Should Science be considered a Religion? REVISED.
A comment on Conversation: Mental illness is a horrible thing to live with, yet it can be a blessing.
When I was 19 I was a carer for a partner with mental illness, I was too young for this and it was draining and detrimental to my own mental health and life goals. University was put on hold, friendships were sacrificed and I ended up resenting my partner for not bringing to the table what a life partner should.
I now have a policy of surrounding myself with people that only contribute to my life, as I do for them in return.
You are very lucky to have a partner who is understanding, however I do not believe that adult relationships can be based on such asymmetrical needs.
A reply on Conversation: Is there a link between insanity and genius?
It's not too far back to the cold war era, as an outside observer I would say your current state of events are far less paranoid and xenophobic than the cold war period.
I think perhaps you have a rosier picture of the state of your nation in previous times. 18 year olds have always been trained to kill, the draft starts at 18 then moves up by age.
Civil rights are always fluctuating and have not been significantly eroded in practice in the past decade or so. You have far more scrutiny of changes and breaches to civil rights a la social media and Wikileaks, and civil liberties organisations are stronger and more vocal than ever.
Everyone has a camera phone now so police are forced to moderate their behaviour.
I suspect the very mechanisms in place to broadcast violations of civil and human rights is the reason many think these violations are on the rise, whereas the exact opposite may be the case. We are becoming more aware of violations of rights and this discussion and publicising of breaches is what brings it to the forefront of your nations psyche (which is a good thing, but leads some to believe violations are on the rise).
As for America's decline... maybe, maybe not, hard to tell. I can say this though, as 'atrocious' as America's human rights record may be, their decline will be countered by the rise of china, which is on a totally different level when it comes to rights.
A reply on Conversation: Is there a link between insanity and genius?
I'm afraid you fail FOX news 101
A reply on Conversation: Is there a link between insanity and genius?
Please help me out because I'm not that bright. When was the peak of human civilisation again? You know, that time when our ancestors had it so much better than we do... I just can't see it.
By the way, in psychology they refer to depression in the face of adversity as 'learned helplessness', it is an emotional state in which the subject no longer makes any attempt to improve the situation or alleviate the adverse conditions being imposed on them even after the conditions change and action could be effective.
So when you ask 'Do you ever think that depression may be the reasonable human response', my answer is a resounding no. It's an understandable response but in no way is it a reasonable response.
If your reaction to injustices in the world is depression you are no use to any cause that may wish to right the wrong. There will always be wrong in the world, and it's being tackled by those that don't curl up into a depressed ball and lament the state of the world.
A reply on Conversation: Asexuality: An Ideal Future?
I leave you with a friendly warning: Nothing is beyond the realm or spectrum of possibilities. Not God, not the flying spaghetti monster (may you be touched by his noodly appendage), nothing!
Philosophy as a thought exercise is fine, philosophy as a way of life will lead to emptiness.
You cannot base your life on possibility, for all is possible. Life must be based on probability, nothing has meaning otherwise.
A comment on Conversation: A universal definition of life.
I believe a sterile cloned animal would be alive based on my classification of anything that carries out cellular respiration being alive, I don't believe the ability to reproduce is necessary for a classification of living however it can be used as a guiding principle for classifying acellular forms, by which I mean that reproduction is a common trait amongst cellularly respiring life forms and therefor may help guide our classification of non-cellularly respiring forms.
Essentially, if some acellular form had the same properties as a cellularly respiring life form however was not a cell, that would be a pretty compelling argument to classify it as an acellular life form.
Here's an interesting one for you, what about Craig Venter's artificial bacteria cell? If you haven't seen the TED video do check it out, very good stuff!
A comment on Conversation: A universal definition of life.
With regard to the rock/moss situation, that's a little bit different to the virus situation because viruses, whether nucleic acid or software based, rely on their host to carry out the mechanisms of reproduction for them, whereas the rock is not carrying out reproduction for the moss, it is simply acting as some sort of input for the moss to grow from.
The same argument can be used for trees and soil. Soil only provides various inputs for trees such as nitrogen and water, even humans need food to function, even chloroplast containing bacteria rely on photons from the sun to provide energy for cellular respiration. No life form can survive independently of everything.
I suppose my point is whether reproduction is considered essential for a classification as living, in which case viruses may not not count, depending on your classification of reproduction, and software viruses in particular as their existence is dependent on a foreign entity (for lack of a better word) which itself has no means of reproduction.
A reply on Conversation: A universal definition of life.
Viruses are acellular, if you consider viruses to be alive then there's an example of acellular life.
the reason I brought up cellular respiration is that viruses do not have cellular respiration, if you remove reproduction from the argument of life as well, I don't think viruses have much left that could classify them as living.
A reply on Conversation: A universal definition of life.
In fact, I think I may take another shot at it later tonight :)