A revolution in thought

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

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).

Are you seriously this dense?

All the test givers try to get them to do is look at pictures and choose one. A lever was one of several types of indicators of choice I came up with, but it may mean nothing more than putting the different pictures on two difference screens apart from each other, and training the dog to sit in front of one or the other. If the dog sits somewhere other than in front of one the screens they do not get a treat. If they choose a screen they get a treat.

That's it. They have to choose a picture. That's all they're trained to do.

The indication of recognition is in the dogs choices of their handlers picture over other humans pictures. If the dog were simply choosing a screen at random without understanding the pictures, they would choose their handlers approx 50% of the time. They chose their handler 88% of the time. It demonstrates the dog has a strong preference for its handlers picture. How can they prefer their handlers picture over a strangers picture if they can't recognize the face?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Adam

Peacegirl, these are actually the only requirements for this puzzle?

35 triplets composed of the letters A-O, none of which contains any pair of letters that also appears in another triplet?

You're missing one small part. Here it is again:

The author asks that you arrange 105 alphabetical blocks divided equally between A and O in groups of 3 and in 7 lines, so that no letter is ever twice with the same letter.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Editor

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.

Look what happened to Gregor Mendel.

If you recall, in the 19th century Gregor Mendel made a discovery
in the field of heredity. He was unable to present his findings because
there was an established theory already being taught as true. The
professors he contacted had their own theories and they concluded
that it was impossible for him to have discovered anything new since
he was nothing in comparison to them. If these professors had taken
the time to scientifically investigate his claims they would have found
that he was correct and they were mistaken, but this would have made
them the laughingstock of the entire student world. In the end it was
Nageli, the leading authority of his time, whose pride refused to let
him investigate Mendel whom he judged a semi-amateur because he
regarded as impossible the very core of Mendel’s discovery. He was
wrong as history recorded and though Mendel received posthumous
recognition for the law he discovered, he is now considered the father
of modern genetics and Nageli, a footnote.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

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.

I really don't think he meant all living things, or asexual reproduction, when he referred to babies being born. I think he gave this number as a very rough estimate. He was just trying to get the reader to think about the coincidence of being alive at this infinitesimal fraction of time.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

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?

I'm saying I'm not talking to you for 24 hours. I forgot this morning and answered you, so I have to add a couple more hours.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

__________________

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

What makes the others incorrect? You are aware that there might be multiple combinations that are equally correct? That's why we are hounding you to clarify the rules

The author asks that you arrange 105 alphabetical blocks divided equally between A and O in groups of 3 and in 7 lines, so that no letter is ever twice with the same letter.

Cannot be twice with any other letter in the groups of 3, or twice with any other letter on a line, or both?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I'm saying I'm not talking to you for 24 hours. I forgot this morning and answered you, so I have to add a couple more hours.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I'm saying I'm not talking to you for 24 hours. I forgot this morning and answered you, so I have to add a couple more hours.

Fine, I'll ask. Are you admitting that light reaches the optic nerve?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

He was just trying to get the reader to think about the coincidence of being alive at this infinitesimal fraction of time.

And what, pray, is this astonishing coincidence that he was trying to make a reader aware of?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

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.

Everyone can laugh at your Lessantology counterpart of an e-meter and Lessantology Celebrity Center, but one day the laugh will be on YOU.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

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

Like I said, he was making a point about us being conscious at this tiny fraction of time. I don't think the number of babies born, even if his calculations were slightly off, changed the point he was making.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You're missing one small part. Here it is again:

The author asks that you arrange 105 alphabetical blocks divided equally between A and O in groups of 3 and in 7 lines, so that no letter is ever twice with the same letter.

Leaving aside the sad fact that I can't solve the puzzle because I don't possess any alphabetical blocks to arrange, this still isn't clear. Can you answer erimir's question? Do all 15 letters have to appear once, and only once, on each line?

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Look what happened to Gregor Mendel.

If you recall, in the 19th century Gregor Mendel made a discovery
in the field of heredity. He was unable to present his findings because
there was an established theory already being taught as true. The
professors he contacted had their own theories and they concluded
that it was impossible for him to have discovered anything new since
he was nothing in comparison to them. If these professors had taken
the time to scientifically investigate his claims they would have found
that he was correct and they were mistaken, but this would have made
them the laughingstock of the entire student world. In the end it was
Nageli, the leading authority of his time, whose pride refused to let
him investigate Mendel whom he judged a semi-amateur because he
regarded as impossible the very core of Mendel’s discovery. He was
wrong as history recorded and though Mendel received posthumous
recognition for the law he discovered, he is now considered the father
of modern genetics and Nageli, a footnote.

Unsurprisingly, that's not an accurate account of Mendel's discoveries, and how they came to be appreciated.

Mendel prepared one paper on his findings regarding the inheritance of characters in plants, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden (Experiments on Plant Hybridization), which he read at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia, in 1865. It was received well, but he made little effort to do anything else with it, except to get it published in Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins Brünn.

Part of the reason that the paper made so little impact (other than that it was published in an obscure journal, and that hardly anyone was aware of it at the time) was that not even Mendel was apparently aware of the significance of what he'd discovered. His paper was cited a few times in the scientific literature, but mostly forgotten. Why should anyone have paid any attention to a paper about hybridization in pea plants published in some obscure journal that hardly anyone reads, particularly given that even the author wasn't making much of an effort to suggest that there was anything revolutionary about it?

It's certainly true that the dominant theory of inheritance of the time (Blending Inheritance) contradicted Mendel's findings. But again, even Mendel didn't seem to truly realize this, and made no serious effort to bring his findings to the attention of the greater scientific community. It's a shame that he didn't, because if Darwin had ever read Mendel's paper, he'd almost-certainly have understood the significance of Mendel's findings, and the science of evolutionary biology would be 60 years or so more advanced than it is today.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Like I said, he was making a point about us being conscious at this tiny fraction of time. I don't think the number of babies born, even if his calculations were slightly off, changed the point he was making.

They aren't slightly off, they are orders of magnitude off.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Like I said, he was making a point about us being conscious at this tiny fraction of time.

Which point was?

Someone else ask her what his point was; she isn't speaking to me. Although this issue came up many pages ago. I guess she doesn't recall.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

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.

That's interesting.

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.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

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?

No, I'm saying to take what he is saying and apply it first to yourself. Be your own guinea pig. Read the first three chapters, and at the end of Chapter Three, I believe you will see how conscience is made stronger, not weaker, when there is no blame or punishment. It's just a beginning though, so please don't tell me that's not proof of anything because there's not enough sampling.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

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.

He was probably including those babies who did not survive the birth process, even though they lived a few seconds. But I will say again so as not to defend what I can't, he could have been off in his calculations, but this had nothing to do with the point he was making.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

But I will say again so as not to defend what I can't, he could have been off in his calculations, but this had nothing to do with the point he was making.

Which was?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by erimir

Is each line supposed to use all of the letters?

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

Yes, but it's not easy when you have to do this for 35 different combinations.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Everyone can laugh at your Lessantology counterpart of an e-meter and Lessantology Celebrity Center, but one day the laugh will be on YOU.

You mean on THEM. I'm now officially down with the clown program!

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

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

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

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?

Yes, it shows that there is activity going on, but it doesn't show what the brain is actually doing or how it is actually seeing.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

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.

That may be true, but to mis-identify an important other like a master or a spouse would be most unusual. When people have lived together for a long time, they can even recognize their spouse from the back because of this familiarity. The small details that allow them to differentiate their spouse from anyone else is no surprise. What would be a surprise is if they couldn't distinguish their spouses from others after living together for so many years.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Adam

Leaving aside the sad fact that I can't solve the puzzle because I don't possess any alphabetical blocks to arrange, ...

Take heart, Adam. The term Lessans actually used was "alphabetical squares." Do you have any of those?

[davidm]

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

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).

Your failure to understand how the experiment was conducted is duly noted. Your failure to understand does not constitute evidence against the validity of the experiment. It is of anecdotal value only and, while it reveals a lot about you, it says nothing about the validity of the experiment.

I think that it is about time to point out that even if Lessans was correct about the inability of dogs to recognize their masters by their facial features alone (and he was not correct about that) that inability would tell us nothing about how human vision works. It is utterly irrelevant.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Mendel prepared one paper on his findings regarding the inheritance of characters in plants, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden (Experiments on Plant Hybridization), which he read at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia, in 1865. It was received well, but he made little effort to do anything else with it, except to get it published in Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins Brünn.

Part of the reason that the paper made so little impact (other than that it was published in an obscure journal, and that hardly anyone was aware of it at the time) was that not even Mendel was apparently aware of the significance of what he'd discovered. His paper was cited a few times in the scientific literature, but mostly forgotten. Why should anyone have paid any attention to a paper about hybridization in pea plants published in some obscure journal that hardly anyone reads, particularly given that even the author wasn't making much of an effort to suggest that there was anything revolutionary about it?

It's certainly true that the dominant theory of inheritance of the time (Blending Inheritance) contradicted Mendel's findings. But again, even Mendel didn't seem to truly realize this, and made no serious effort to bring his findings to the attention of the greater scientific community. It's a shame that he didn't, because if Darwin had ever read Mendel's paper, he'd almost-certainly have understood the significance of Mendel's findings, and the science of evolutionary biology would be 60 years or so more advanced than it is today.

That account can't possibly be correct as it makes no mention of professional jealousy on the part of the scientific establishment.