DiscussMormonism.com

The Law of entropy increase is not the thing that prevents your machine from working. It's the statement that there will always be something that prevents your machine from working. Too long to be stitched on a pillow or printed on a T-shirt, but a way of thinking about entropy that is definitely w...

Dr. W, I love that story. But what was Sean’s answer to the question? Sean's response, such as it was, reflected very well what Physics Guy has been saying on this thread so far. To quote Sean Carroll's final comment on the subject (which removes any doubt one may have had that Carroll is a physici...

A physicist (Sean Carroll) and a biologist (Mike Russell) were sitting together on a flight to Denver. The physicist asked the biologist, “What is the purpose of life?” “Ah, that’s easy”, replied the biologist, “the purpose of life is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide.” Our physicist (Physics Guy) claim...

Oh o.k. I am just pent up because of my wife's chemotherapy, so I was misreading you. I probably shouldn't post much til I pull myself together.... Philo, Sorry to hear that your wife is undergoing chemo. A spouse suffering from cancer can make things very stressful, especially if there are just th...

If we can take something alive apart by pieces, and reduce it and figure out how it works, and then put it back together but it does not come back alive, would that not indicate a vast and exciting mystery to us?! How you can possibly say its boring when in fact, you are ALIVE to say its boring is ...

As mentioned upthread, there is a relatively small group of brain cells, the manipulation of which can be used as a fully functional and fast acting on/off switch for consciousness in humans. I'll see if I can find and post the reference tomorrow. Below is the link to an expanded version of an earl...

Brains can’t be separated from their environments, either, though. At least not while preserving consciousness. According to the paper, the conscious part of the brain can be separated not just from the outside world, but from other parts of the brain not participating in consciousness. By separate...

Many descriptions of biochemistry bother me because just when they are trying to convey the marvel of it all is when they fail to mention—or even conceal—the most marvelous thing about it. The most marvelous thing to me is that it's all just chemistry. There is nothing going on in, say, the synthes...

The idea that the laws of nature systematically favor the emergence of life, at least to some degree, is hardly unscientific. [SNIP] If natural law favors life, that still doesn't necessarily mean that natural law must have been designed to be like that by a benevolent God. It’s my view that natura...

if the Christian God of the Bible... were to somehow appear to me in the flesh, he would have at least as much explaining to do to me as I would to him. If Shades were to ever create a 'Hall of fame threads', quotes subset, I nominate this one. Hello 'Tana, Been a while since I've seen your screen ...