A revolution in thought

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Then take a few Anatomy and Physiology courses.

If you truly want to understand it, then inevitably, you're going to have to do some reading. And calling it a "theory" is disingenuous. We know that the eyes are sense organs; it's not a theory at all, any more than it's still considered a "theory" that the Earth is a planet in orbit around a star we call the Sun -- not unless you want to redefine the word "theory" beyond recognition.

Well, guess what? Given what we know of the anatomy of the eye and of neural function, it is impossible -- at least as close to "impossible" as you can get in the sciences. I mean, it's possible that the Earth is really flat, and that all of our decisive proofs to the contrary can be chalked up to unknown principles of physics that create the illusion that the Earth is round. But it's certainly not very likely.

And if you start insisting "but you can't prove that the Earth is round; you just admitted it, so it's possible that it's really flat" then you've just insisted that we can't ever know anything at all. In which case, there's no point in going on.

There is more than enough proof the earth is round unless, like you said, unknown principles of physics exist (which they don't), but there is no absolute proof that the brain is interpreting impulses and turning them into images, even though it is a logical conclusion. So why can't you open your mind to the possibility that something else is going on? It doesn't change what science already knows. This is just an observation that the brain may be using the eyes to see the world, instead of the brain interpreting what it sees through signals.

[The Editor]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

There is definite proof the earth is round, but there is no absolute proof that the brain is interpreting impulses and turning them into images, . . .

There is.

You just refuse to read what has been given to you. You are rather like the late-ungreat leader of the Flat Earth Society who refused to talk to NASA.

--Ed.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's not true. If the Earth is billions of years old, it isn't at all surprising that trillions of babies could have been born since that time. People had big families. Many children died at birth so we can't even calcuate specifically how many babies were actually born since humans have been in existence. I believe he was estimating but I don't think his calculations were as off as you may think. Of course, you hope he is off, so you can discredit everything he's written.

If you're talking about human babies, like most of use were when we read that, you're off by quite a bit. If you are assuming "babies" are the result of sexual or asexual reproduction of all living things, then your number might not be inaccurate.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Your response to my post is practically a text book example of not giving the benefit of the doubt.

Now david, you know this is not true. A great many people take stuff that is wrong quite seriously. Does Xenu ring any bells? It is a matter of presentation and both Lessans and peacegirl suck at presentation.

It seems clear to me that Lessans did not write that nonsense about "trillions upon trillions of babies". Peacegirl wrote it and, once again, failed to distinguish between Lessans' words and her own. We really have no idea how much of the confusion in Lessan's book is due to the work of the author and how much is owed to his editor/co-author.

If he is not trustworthy with regard to the small details, why should we trust him with the big truths?

He did actually write that, and I'm not sure why he used trillions instead of billions or even hundreds of thousands. Maybe this was off the top of his head, and he didn't take the time to seriously calculate this number because it had nothing to do with his actual discovery. It wasn't even in the book; it was in an announcement on a letterhead. It's amazing how people will use anything to discount him. It's like everybody telling me I can't have the truth in hand if I can't even work the quote function. It's so easy to twist something to make it look untrue or incapable of being true. All of these accusations are based on false reasoning.

[The Editor]

It is just one of his, and your, many errors.

--Ed.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Heck, name one human who can instantly recognize his or her significant other with 100% accuracy.

If they can't, they probably need a stronger pair of glasses. I hope you're kidding.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Is it possible the the brain uses the light signals to see, with light being a condition.

What the fuck does that even mean?

You're just parroting word for word what Lessans wrote, and he didn't know what he meant by it, either! That's why he wrote such stupid stuff about how if the sun were turned on at noon you would see it instantly, but you wouldn't see your neighbor for eight minutes!

Oh, and by the way, peacegirl, The Great Infallible One, at one point in his "book," wrote that nothing reaches the optic nerve. Now you are admitting that light impulses are relayed via optic nerve to the brain. Are you saying The Great One was wrong?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Then you got nothing. This was one thing you could show he was correct about, and really people are more apt to mock the weird sight crap than a solved puzzle. That discounts him more than anything else in the book because it's the most outrageous and disproved claim. The rest of his stuff is more philosophical and psychological and has a lot more room for interpretation.

Speaking of interpretation, that is why mere observations, no matter how astute, are the least compelling and lest convincing type of evidence. Observations by a single person are subjective; a matter of perception and interpretation. Now, if you get a lot of people making the same observation and that's a bit more compelling. You get people using those collective observations to form testable hypotheses, then tests, then repeated tests and you get data that can be analyzed and start forming a body of knowledge.

Nobody here accepts a single study "hook line and sinker", that would not be critical thinking. Critical thinkers consider each bit of data, each bit of evidence, within the context of a whole body of evidence. In science contradictory studies are reviewed and analyzed and hypotheses are formed for the reasons for differences and new studies conducted to try to repeat findings. It's a messy process, but it works over time.

Perhaps you've noticed none of us really use the word "proof", we use evidence or data.

You rely solely on personal observations, such as shit your dogs do. That's not science.

I just said that I would not use my breed of dog to generalize for all dogs. Each breed is different, but I don't think any dog is capable of sight recognition, especially detailed recognition. When it comes to observation as being reliable, it all depends on what is being observed, and for how long. Accuracy is obviously the key here, and empirical data will either support or negate his findings. But his knowledge is more than an assertion or hypothsis. I realize that you question whether his description of how conscience works is an accurate observation. I can only tell you that it is, and I will continue to reiterate that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's not true. If the Earth is billions of years old, it isn't at all surprising that trillions of babies could have been born since that time. People had big families. Many children died at birth so we can't even calcuate specifically how many babies were actually born since humans have been in existence. I believe he was estimating but I don't think his calculations were as off as you may think. Of course, you hope he is off, so you can discredit everything he's written.

They are not only off, they are orders of magnitude off.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's not true. If the Earth is billions of years old, it isn't at all surprising that trillions of babies could have been born since that time.

Are you saying you think humans have been around for billions of years?

[LadyShea]

If the Earth is billions of years old, it isn't at all surprising that trillions of babies could have been born since that time. People had big families. Many children died at birth so we can't even calcuate specifically how many babies were actually born since humans have been in existence. I believe he was estimating but I don't think his calculations were as off as you may think.

Scientists have calculated the estimated number of human beings who have lived.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

It's amazing how people will use anything to discount him. It's like everybody telling me I can't have the truth in hand if I can't even work the quote function. It's so easy to twist something to make it look untrue or incapable of being true. All of these accusations are based on false reasoning.

What discounts him is that he's wrong, and his wrongness has been shown to you again and again and again.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Does Xenu ring any bells?

Speaking of which, I've had enough of trying to oppose the undeniability of Mr. Lessans' discoveries and astute observations. I'm off to the garage to build the Lessantology counterpart of an e-meter (maybe I'll call it the "pee-meator"), which specially trained Lessantologists will use during auditing sessions to measure relative satisfaction levels among choices. And it will all be VERY VERY REAL.

After that I will start building a Lessantology Celebrity Center in our backyard.

[Doctor X]

If you need some stereo equipment. . . .

--J.D.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Once again

This is one study, out of several, that indicates dogs can recognize things based on sight alone. I chose it because the abstract was clearly written and easy to understand for laypeople. TLR has posted links to others, and there are many more available for review. Does this all constitute absolute proof? No. Nobody said it does.

Statistically 30+% above chance over 50 trials is very significant.

It's not significant if the test itself is flawed. I still don't see how a dog can grasp what the test giver is trying to get him to do. I've never seen a dog able to follow instructions to hit a lever when he recognizes his handler, which involves higher order thinking skills that a dog just doesn't have (in my opinion).

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by erimir

There are 455 unique combinations of 3 letters between A-O, and we don't care about order.

That would be (15*14*13)/(2*3)

You have 15 choices for the first letter, 14 for the second, etc. Each three letter combination has 6 orderings, so that's why you divide by 6.

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO

When you have ABC, besides obviously taking ABC out of contention, you've taken out any combination of AB, AC or BC with a third letter. There are 12 combinations for each of those pairs (aside from ABC, of course), which means you've you've taken out 36 possible combinations. The same is true for DEF, GHI, JKL and MNO. Which means aside from the 5 I just used, a further 180 can't be used now.

That leaves 270 combinations for the remaining lines - one line in and we've reduced the number of combinations available by 40%. We still need 30.

___________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF

Now, for each of these combinations, we've taken even more out of consideration. For ADG, we've taken all combinations of AD, AG and DG with a third letter. This would be a further 36, however, some of these have already been taken out by the previous line. Namely ADB, ADC, ADE, ADF, AGB, AGC, AGH, AGI, DGE, DGF, DGH, DGI. That's 4 letters for each pair, 3 pairs, 12 triplets to subtract from that 36. That means it's 24 for each of those five triplets in the second line.

So, in addition to the five in second line, we've removed 120 more triplets from consideration. That leaves us with 145 combinations for the remaining five lines, which require 25 further combinations.

For those of you keeping score, for the first line we had 13 times as many combinations as we needed (455/35). For the second line, we had 9 times (270/30). For the third line, we now have only 5.8 times (145/25).

Ok, so let's add another line!

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF
AEI HLM OBF JND CGK

Each of these, again, would remove 36 combinations, except that some of them have already been removed. So, let's look again at AEI. That means AE, AI and EI can't appear with another letter. A, E and I have each appeared with four letters before, and so the combinations with those have already been removed. But some of those four letters now overlap, making this more difficult. (That is, AED violates twice, because D has already appeared with both A and E)

A or E have already appeared with BCDFGHK before, meaning that there are 5 combinations invalidated by AE (since you can't form a triplet with AE and any of ILMNO). A or I have already appeared with BCDGHLO, so same thing. For EI, you find the same thing. So that's 15 for AEI.

For HLM, you get HL appearing with EGIJKO, so that's 6. HM, it's BEGIJKNO, that's 4. LM, it's BIJKNO, 6. That's 16 removed for HLM.

For OBF, you get OB appearing with ACIJLMN, so that's 5. OF, it's CDEILMN, another 5. BF, it's ACDEJMN, another 5. So that's 15.

For JND, you get JN appearing with BCFKLMO, that's 5. For JD, it's ABEFGKLM, that's 4. For ND, it's ACEFGMO, that's 5. So that's 15 again.

For CGK, you get CG appearing with ABDFHIN, that's 5. For CK, it's ABEFHJLN, that's 4. For GK, it's ADEHIJL, that's 5. So that's 14.

That means in addition to the 5 appearing IN the third line, a further 75 combinations from consideration.

This leaves 65 unique combinations. We still need 20. You see now we barely have over 3 times as many combinations as we need now. It seems that our supply is shrinking too fast.

Ok, so let's add another line!

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF
AEI HLM OBF JND CGK
AHO LBN FIK JCE

Ok, this time I was having trouble coming up with five whole triplets, so I figured I would just evaluate things here...

A or H have appeared with BCDEGIKLM, so AH removes 3 more. A or O have appeared with BCDEFGILMN, so AO removes 2 more. For HO, it's BEFGIKLMN, that's 3 more. So that's 8 from AHO.

L or B have appeared with ACFHIJKMO, that's 3. For LN, it's CDFHIJKMO, that's 3 again. For BN, it's ACDFJMO, so that's 5. So LBN takes out 11.

F or I have appeared with ABCDEFGHLO, that's 2. FK, it's BCDEFGHJLO, another 2. For IK, it's ACEGHJLO, that's 4. So for FIK, it's 8.

J or C have appeared with ABDFGKLMN, that's 3. JE, it's ABDFHIKLMN, so another 2. CE, it's ABDFGHIKN, that's 3 again. So that's another 8.

So, this last line, of only 4 triplets, removes an additional 35 triplets from consideration.

This leaves 26 unique combinations, and we still need 16. Getting quite close now.

Let's try to add some more...

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF
AEI HLM OBF JND CGK
AHO LBN FIK JCE
AFJ CDL ENG
AKM BDI GJO
CIM DKO FGM


At this point, there are no more triplets I can make without repeating a letter. You'll notice that I'm still short 7 triplets to make 35. I'm willing to believe that maybe I haven't used letter optimally, but...

You got 28 groups I got 29 so either you missed one or I screwed up with an extra that is incorrect. Either way useing the original rules with no 'beer bet' tricks it does not work, and any solution peacegirl claims to have is either a trick or bogus.

[LadyShea]

I just said that I would not use my breed of dog to generalize for all dogs. Each breed is different,

Another thing you know nothing about. Breeds are no more different from each other than human races, and breeds are largely human constructs. Dogs are dogs just as humans are humans. If not bred by humans for specific "breed" standards (mostly appearance standards), dogs left to procreate on their own become breedless. Look at any wild dogs or cities with large stray populations. Not a recognizable breed in sight.

I realize that you question whether his description of how conscience works is an accurate observation. I can only tell you that it is, and I will continue to reiterate that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

What does that even mean, peacegirl? Do you mean you can't provide evidence that your dad was correct until everyone simply accepts his word for it and "changes the conditions" according to his notions?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by erimir

There are 455 unique combinations of 3 letters between A-O, and we don't care about order.

That would be (15*14*13)/(2*3)

You have 15 choices for the first letter, 14 for the second, etc. Each three letter combination has 6 orderings, so that's why you divide by 6.

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO

When you have ABC, besides obviously taking ABC out of contention, you've taken out any combination of AB, AC or BC with a third letter. There are 12 combinations for each of those pairs (aside from ABC, of course), which means you've you've taken out 36 possible combinations. The same is true for DEF, GHI, JKL and MNO. Which means aside from the 5 I just used, a further 180 can't be used now.

That leaves 270 combinations for the remaining lines - one line in and we've reduced the number of combinations available by 40%. We still need 30.

___________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF

Now, for each of these combinations, we've taken even more out of consideration. For ADG, we've taken all combinations of AD, AG and DG with a third letter. This would be a further 36, however, some of these have already been taken out by the previous line. Namely ADB, ADC, ADE, ADF, AGB, AGC, AGH, AGI, DGE, DGF, DGH, DGI. That's 4 letters for each pair, 3 pairs, 12 triplets to subtract from that 36. That means it's 24 for each of those five triplets in the second line.

So, in addition to the five in second line, we've removed 120 more triplets from consideration. That leaves us with 145 combinations for the remaining five lines, which require 25 further combinations.

For those of you keeping score, for the first line we had 13 times as many combinations as we needed (455/35). For the second line, we had 9 times (270/30). For the third line, we now have only 5.8 times (145/25).

Ok, so let's add another line!

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF
AEI HLM OBF JND CGK

Each of these, again, would remove 36 combinations, except that some of them have already been removed. So, let's look again at AEI. That means AE, AI and EI can't appear with another letter. A, E and I have each appeared with four letters before, and so the combinations with those have already been removed. But some of those four letters now overlap, making this more difficult. (That is, AED violates twice, because D has already appeared with both A and E)

A or E have already appeared with BCDFGHK before, meaning that there are 5 combinations invalidated by AE (since you can't form a triplet with AE and any of ILMNO). A or I have already appeared with BCDGHLO, so same thing. For EI, you find the same thing. So that's 15 for AEI.

For HLM, you get HL appearing with EGIJKO, so that's 6. HM, it's BEGIJKNO, that's 4. LM, it's BIJKNO, 6. That's 16 removed for HLM.

For OBF, you get OB appearing with ACIJLMN, so that's 5. OF, it's CDEILMN, another 5. BF, it's ACDEJMN, another 5. So that's 15.

For JND, you get JN appearing with BCFKLMO, that's 5. For JD, it's ABEFGKLM, that's 4. For ND, it's ACEFGMO, that's 5. So that's 15 again.

For CGK, you get CG appearing with ABDFHIN, that's 5. For CK, it's ABEFHJLN, that's 4. For GK, it's ADEHIJL, that's 5. So that's 14.

That means in addition to the 5 appearing IN the third line, a further 75 combinations from consideration.

This leaves 65 unique combinations. We still need 20. You see now we barely have over 3 times as many combinations as we need now. It seems that our supply is shrinking too fast.

Ok, so let's add another line!

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF
AEI HLM OBF JND CGK
AHO LBN FIK JCE

Ok, this time I was having trouble coming up with five whole triplets, so I figured I would just evaluate things here...

A or H have appeared with BCDEGIKLM, so AH removes 3 more. A or O have appeared with BCDEFGILMN, so AO removes 2 more. For HO, it's BEFGIKLMN, that's 3 more. So that's 8 from AHO.

L or B have appeared with ACFHIJKMO, that's 3. For LN, it's CDFHIJKMO, that's 3 again. For BN, it's ACDFJMO, so that's 5. So LBN takes out 11.

F or I have appeared with ABCDEFGHLO, that's 2. FK, it's BCDEFGHJLO, another 2. For IK, it's ACEGHJLO, that's 4. So for FIK, it's 8.

J or C have appeared with ABDFGKLMN, that's 3. JE, it's ABDFHIKLMN, so another 2. CE, it's ABDFGHIKN, that's 3 again. So that's another 8.

So, this last line, of only 4 triplets, removes an additional 35 triplets from consideration.

This leaves 26 unique combinations, and we still need 16. Getting quite close now.

Let's try to add some more...

__________________

ABC DEF GHI JKL MNO
ADG EHK ILO JMB NCF
AEI HLM OBF JND CGK
AHO LBN FIK JCE
AFJ CDL ENG
AKM BDI GJO
CIM DKO FGM


At this point, there are no more triplets I can make without repeating a letter. You'll notice that I'm still short 7 triplets to make 35. I'm willing to believe that maybe I haven't used letter optimally, but...

You got two right. ADG and DKO, and of course the first line is correct.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by Adam

I just PM'd you two. I think maybe I see what I'm missing.

I would like to see that proof if I could, I only got 29 groups.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's not true. If the Earth is billions of years old, it isn't at all surprising that trillions of babies could have been born since that time. People had big families. Many children died at birth so we can't even calcuate specifically how many babies were actually born since humans have been in existence. I believe he was estimating but I don't think his calculations were as off as you may think. Of course, you hope he is off, so you can discredit everything he's written.

One more time, humans have only been on the Earth a few million years, or less, and there have been aproximately 26 billion Humans who have ever lived on the Earth.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Adam

This is why I think I'm misunderstanding the problem. You absolutely can make 35 triplets without repeating any unique pairs. Is that really the only requirement?

No letter can be twice with the same letter.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by erimir

Order isn't supposed to matter... that is, ABC would disallow you from using ADC.

Exactly.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You got two right. ADG and DKO, and of course the first line is correct.

Is each line supposed to use all of the letters?

That is, should the second line also contain ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO, just in a different order?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Adam has solved the puzzle, BTW.

I'll definitely admit if someone has a solution. I don't want to keep that from anyone who has worked it out.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

There is more than enough proof the earth is round unless, like you said, unknown principles of physics exist (which they don't), but there is no absolute proof that the brain is interpreting impulses and turning them into images, even though it is a logical conclusion.

Says the person who, by her own admission, is ignorant of the relevant anatomy and physiology.

You are aware that with modern technology, such as P.E.T. scanners, we can actually observe the brain processing signals as they come in from the optic nerves, are you not?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

If they can't, they probably need a stronger pair of glasses. I hope you're kidding.

You've never seen someone, thought it was a friend or loved-one, and then realized a moment later that you'd made a mistake and that it was only someone with a similar hairstyle or who was wearing similar clothing, or whatever? Bull.

There's no one over the age of 10 who hasn't occasionally mis-identified someone. Heck, just the other day, I was walking into a store when an older man addressed me as "Jim" and asked me how I was doing since we'd last met. When I expressed confusion and told him that my name isn't Jim, he was immediately embarrassed. It turned out that I looked enough like his friend Jim that he'd mistaken me for that person. While this is a more extreme example, I daresay there isn't a single adult alive who has never mis-identified someone.