Nils Reinton - Comments

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Anyone know how to write-protect old entries in an access database ?

Would that help? http://office.microsoft.com/en-us... - Paulo Nuin

Thx Paulo, this helps me protect the whole database, but I'd like to write-protect selected individual entries, couldn't find that in there... - Nils Reinton

I don't think Access would allow you item-based security, but I will check some other things for you. - Paulo Nuin

That's very nice of you, thx again :-) - Nils Reinton

Just installed Access on a new VM, will do some testing and I let you know. Which version do you have? - Paulo Nuin

References Wanted: kanagarajadurai

Please send me the following article to kanaks@ncbs.res.in, if you can able to retrieve it. ParDOCK: An All Atom Energy Based Monte Carlo Docking Protocol for Protein-Ligand Complexes. Protein and Peptide Letters, Volume 14, Number 7, July 2007 , pp. 632-646(15)

Sunday - Comment - Like - Share

Sorry, no access. - Björn Brembs

No access, sorry - Nils Reinton

Sent. - JJ

Christopher Harris

having to resist writing a blog post about free will, how ironic

December 6 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Jeunelle Foster, Cliff Gerrish, Amira and 22 other people liked this

As you said the other day, it's not science. Or do you have a philosophy blog? - Alexander Kruel

219 more comments

My blog is a little bit of everything but nevermind, the point is that free will IS entering the scientific language. It's not the free will we're used to (it's not necessarily conscious, it's fully brain based etc) but it's certainly getting in: on the brain science podcast just the other day they embraced it, and a paper I read this weekend is full of intentional concepts despite... more... - Christopher Harris

Yeah, it IS entering the scientific language. But wait, it's not what you think it is. It's really banana juice. Sorry people for the deception. Well, I'm not going to read it. Up next: the reintroduction of evil into the legal system. Again, not what you think, it's just free people doing bad things. Phew... - Alexander Kruel

I think I know why you're so adamant about this. I was raised Christian too and the stress of spending many young years realizing how much of what I'd been told was false and irrational still to this day predisposes me to attack anything that smells like scientifically naive, wishful thinking. Free will used to be a prime target of this anger and frustration as late as a few years ago.... more... - Christopher Harris

Seriously, scientists are also just humans. I've been amazed lately of how dumb educated people can be. Ever heard of Nassim Taleb? What a crank. Anyway, it's really sad to hear this. Free will is the creationism of neuroscience. And if it's true what you're saying, then woo is winning in that field. It's also not ignorance not to read some mathematical musings you may provide underpinning your notion of free will. I don't do it for the same reasons that I don't read papers by Jehovah's Witnesses. - Alexander Kruel

It's not just religious opposition. I'm saying the same when it comes to all the bullshit about consciousness. Or take Roger Penrose, I'd tell him he's making up bs there any time. It's dancing around rainbows end. You don't need expertise for this stuff. It's just flawed reasoning. An oxymoron. Of course, that there is something rather than nothing is a problem that also conflicts with... more... - Alexander Kruel

Well, sometimes there ARE reasons to assume things. For instance we don't know that other people are conscious but the way they talk and act make us assume they are. With recent advances in brain imaging we're starting to be able to distinguish conscious from unconscious brain states which gives us more reason to assume other people are conscious, even though the evidence is not... more... - Christopher Harris

What I meant about bs regarding consciousness is the opinion of some that we cannot tackle this concept with science. The sacrosanct of subjectivity and the first-person perspective. I've written something on topic here: http://friendfeed.com/minds... - Alexander Kruel

"If I cut my throat I may disover that I was dreaming or that I have been playing some advanced virtual reality game all along. Everything is possible. But right now there are safer and more promising options of gaining knowledge. How can I be sure? I can't, but there is evidence which proved to be reliable so far. I have to suspect that it will continue to be reliable based on... more... - Alexander Kruel

Assume free will? No reason. It's a concept that should at best be examined by psychology or the social sciences. It's a cultural idea. - Alexander Kruel

Hey don't despair about free will being studied by scientists, consider this: Even if science truly incorporates free will, such that there are centers for The Neuroscientific Study of Free Will popping up everywhere the way they do around consciousness studies at the moment, then we may still get to a point were we understand the operation of free will in human brains so thoroughly as to be able to predict free decisions. At that point science will truly have killed any traditional notions of free will. - Christopher Harris

I don't despair. I'm just worried about the underlying reasons people have to introduce it in the first place. Suspicious. And it may slow down discovery. It highlights a fundamental error in reasoning in that field. That is bad. At the very least, it will always act as a semantic obfuscation for calling randomness, unpredictability and spontaneous behaviour 'free will' when there obviously exist other, more descriptive terms. - Alexander Kruel

blah..."for calling" not not ;-) - Alexander Kruel

We can't know whether there "obviously exist other, more descriptive terms" until we know more about the phenomenon we're naming. 'Random' doesn't cut it, that was the point of Brembs' 2008 paper. 'Spontaneous' doesn't cut it because behaviour is spontaneous even in disease states where autonomous agency is impaired. This is why I want to write a blog post, to list the similarities and... more... - Christopher Harris

Well, nobody can stake a claim to natural language. If you actually want to create your own definition of 'free will', I'll refer to "'free will' as defined by Harris" (or "Free Harris") thenceforward. But what do you say isn't 'cutting it'? What phenomenon? I know that randomness is poriferous. Spontaneous is fatuitous. I commited the mistake to name those terms for the ease of not... more... - Alexander Kruel

Oh no no, I've gone along with trying to articulate and defend the new free will here but I haven't yet decided what I really think about it and it's certainly not my idea. - Christopher Harris

The phenomenon is the generation of will and behaviour by nervous systems - Christopher Harris

I think you're confusing a naive mind over matter attitude with a dynamical systems attitude where emergent properties are important - Christopher Harris

Just forget what I said. Was maybe all bs. A blog post on emergent properties would be cool. Sorry. Thanks. - Alexander Kruel

I think you should write a blog post about free will after all. I'd like you to unravel the following points: 1. To what does the word 'free' in 'free will' apply? 2. What would be the difference between a being (i.e. fruit fly) which posses free will and one that doesn't? 3. Does free will apply to a certain entity or behavior? 4. Is there a borderline between free and not free? 5. How... more... - Alexander Kruel

well I'll have to so something, just got this comment on my 'What is dopamine?' video: "i love this video. i too think that we're just one big chemical machine with no free will. just the playing out of molecules in a bigger scale." - Christopher Harris

those are good questions though, hope I can address some of them when i'm done reading (still going through the papers Bjorn Brems recommended.. this Vladimir Brezina guy is vicious on the maths, hard to keep up) - Christopher Harris

Well, that's completely obvious to me since I first thought about it when being much younger. That's why I'm commenting here and elsewhere. Out of sheer incredulity that anybody in his right mind could contemplate about free will for long. I don't want to be derogatory here. I could be wrong, I could suffer some neurological deficit. As I said above, I can't wrap my mind around the... more... - Alexander Kruel

And about math, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Alexander Kruel

You can show all kind of stuff with math. Just take string theory. If you want to prove 'free will' with math, simple answer: 'Not even wrong' - Alexander Kruel

On the other hand: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/margina... - That would rock, I'd love that to be the case. - Alexander Kruel

I don't actually care about the philosophical/semantic arguments around free will all that much. what matters to me are the cases where free will most obviously breaks down. how can we learn to control ourselves better? that's my real concern. - Christopher Harris

Where 'free will' breaks down is really when volition breaks down. Anyway, self-control is the enemy of diversity. I'm here, doing this for a lack of control. If I had enough control I'd still be religious today, ignoring everything that might shatter my desire to believe. -- Always reminds of this quote: “If we could deliberately seize control of our pleasure systems, we could... more... - Alexander Kruel

This is just in: When Situations Not Personality Dictate Our Behaviour - http://www.spring.org.uk/2009... "Contrary to our instincts, however, studies such as this one demonstrate that it is frequently the situation that controls our actions more strongly than personality." - Alexander Kruel

Full list of publications by Vladimir Brezina http://146.203.52.26/Neurosc... - Alexander Kruel

That's something for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Alexander Kruel

Just Exactly What Is Determinism? http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog... / Forget free will and get on with empirical psychology. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog... / Free will is not a question for science. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog... - Alexander Kruel

Good question: "The will is thought to be free if a person manages to overcome a short-term temptation for the sake of a greater, but later, value. Self-regulation raises a final asymmetry. Suppose you have a choice between slapping a misbehaving child and patiently discussing her behavior. Will you get free-will credit only for patient self-regulation?" - Alexander Kruel

How would one differentiate between a system with "genuine" free-will, and a deterministic system whose future states can not be predicted/calculated short of running the system? - Christopher A Carr

@Christopher: What's 'genuine' free will? The last serious thinkers to take dualism seriously probably were Popper and Eccles in the 1970s. Since then, dualism has been dead. I don't see any professional neuroscientist claiming that anything other than the brain is everything we are, as people, identities, self. So apart from a ghost in our heads, what's 'genuine' free will? - Björn Brembs

@Christopher You'd better ask him if a fruit fly without spontaneous variations in its behavior would be in any meaningful way different, from one which possess a spontaneous variation generator, regarding the notion of free will. To me it is a laughable resurrection of a obsolete concept by twisting its meaning beyond recognition. In other words, a "free will of the gaps" approach.... more... - Alexander Kruel

By the way, Brembs' paper is very good and important work. Something I admire. I'm just calling bullshit on its interpretation. Just so that is clear, some people are easily upset :-) - Alexander Kruel

The brain as system that 'transforms sensory input into motor output' is a working defintion but has nothing to do with the reality of physical interactions. It cannot be used to call willful action free contrary to deliberate acts that are purely deterministic. In no meaningful way, regarding the concept of free will, are internal interactions within a brain different from interactions... more... - Alexander Kruel

Possibility and Could-ness http://lesswrong.com/lw... - "The statement, "I could jump off the cliff, if I chose to" is entirely compatible with "It is physically impossible that I will jump off that cliff". It need only be physically impossible for you to choose to jump off a cliff - not physically impossible for any simple reason, perhaps, just a complex fact about what your brain will and will not choose." - Alexander Kruel

Didn't know about this: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki... - Alexander Kruel

One of the easiest hard questions, as millennia-old philosophical dilemmas go. Though this impossible question is fully and completely dissolved on Less Wrong... http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki... - Alexander Kruel

@Christopher many chaotic systems in nature (e.g. the weather) are deterministic systems whose future states cannot (as far as we know) be predicted/calculated short of running the system, but we don't think of them as having will; we don't think of them as agents. even a willful agent might not be considered capable of free will however if his/her/its will expresses itself merely as... more... - Christopher Harris

@Alex "The notion of free will has a lot to do with choice and control, neither of which can be used to describe how your brain processes its decisions." This is simply incorrect: choice and control are the subjects of countless rigorous investigations, the terms are used in the neuroscientific litterature every day. Stop saying these things cannot be studied scientifically, they can,... more... - Christopher Harris

OK, Christopher, let me rephrase that: How would one differentiate between a brain with "genuine" free-will, and a deterministic brain whose future states can not be predicted/calculated short of running the system? - Christopher A Carr

Björn: Indeed. So why is the term "free-will" used? - Christopher A Carr

@Christopher (awesome name by the way) I'm not sure what you mean by "genuine", people have always struggled with the definiotion of free will, from Hume's compatibilism to Kant's transcendental freedom. I'm interested in this new intepretation of free will because it may finally give us something more solid to work with, something I can study in the lab and do statistics on. I think... more... - Christopher Harris

I only use the term "genuine" (and in quotes) to note that one can't tell the difference between the two cases I offered, at least as I understand the meaning of "free-will." I guess I'm with Alex in not comprehending why you bother with the term at all. - Christopher A Carr

What is your definition of Free Will, Christopher A. Carr? Apart from any philosopher's interpretation, what do you say it is or rather, what would you like it to be? - Melanie Reed

Melanie: You would be the only one in the thread now to define it as that thing which is beamed into heads by Yahweh, the Semitic mountain deity. Your inclusion in the discussion can only effect a hijacking of the thread. - Christopher A Carr

That is not for you to judge. I asked a question. It is pertinent to the subject matter. It is your choice (free will) to answer it. - Melanie Reed

Christopher, my reason for considering using that term is that most people have an experience of free will, and it may be that the process underlying that experience is very interesting and important. I'd like to understand the workings of that process in a small neural network and maybe one day reproduce it computationally. Also, people stress about free will with regards to the iPlant and dopamine in general, so this re-intepretation may be fruitful to that side of what I do too. - Christopher Harris

Melanie: Actually, I think it would have to be accounted for by some metaphysical woo-woo along those lines, which is why I think it's nonsense. Were we to talk about the subject, it would devolve into the omniscient creator, pre-determination/self-determination paradox, which is not the subject of this thread. - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: How would the subjective experience differ between those two options I offered? - Christopher A Carr

Thou mayest, Christopher. Not a microbe. Not quark. Thou. - Melanie Reed

Christopher Carr: I think you're right, you can't really tell if we actually have free will, or if it's just an illusion due to the underlying mechanisms of consciousness. But, the sensation of free-will--the feeling that we have to make choices--is surely something we've all experienced, and if it's something we experience, then the underlying mechanisms can be elucidated. - Victor Ganata

Victor: I agree. I'm all for the study of neural correlates of the sensation of free-will, or however you might want to phrase that... - Christopher A Carr

Melanie: "Thou" is a second person singular pronoun. So? Appealing to those texts you worship cuts no ice with me. - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: It comes from a very famous quote out of John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden. The main character of the Chinese Housekeeper, Lee, who despite his position is a meticulous researcher of language. He explains to Cal at the end the fruit of his lifetime research which covers the main theme of Steinbeck's novel: Choice: “Don’t you see? . . . The American Standard translation... more... - Melanie Reed

Melanie: Is any of that supposed to constitute evidence of anything? - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: Prove to me that you love someone. Show me some evidence. - Melanie Reed

Yeah, I saw _Contact_ too. - Eph Zero

Melanie: In fact -- and Christopher H could speak to this -- I bet it's possible to recognize romantic love in patterns of activity shown via fMRI. - Christopher A Carr

Ah, I get it now. The discussion regarding the existence of free will is just another insult to you, Melanie. It took me a few minutes to understand your presence in this thread. - Eivind

Christopher: How then did people recognize love before there was MRI? How could they be sure? There was no evidence, if evidence is only obtained from technology. Can you name anything that is self-evident? - Melanie Reed

Not at all, Elvind. I just want to make sure you have been given the opportunity to consider all the evidence. We can become "prisoners of one idea." The concept of Free Will was not originated from the scientific field. - Melanie Reed

Melanie: Having a sense of self doesn't mean that the brain is not a deterministic system. ...as to your reply to Eivind, since when are you concerned with "evidence?" - Christopher A Carr

"We hold these truths to be self-evident..." - Melanie Reed

Melanie: I suggest that if you would like to contribute to this thread, go back through and read it all in order to understand what it is that's being discussed. If you would like to talk about something else, feel free to start your own thread. - Christopher A Carr

Christopher, If you want to study something that did not come from your field, I agree with the originator of this thread that it is helpful to listen to those who espouse what you are trying to gain knowledge about. There is a connective tissue, indeed, a fabric that is essential to your pursuit. - Melanie Reed

If someone said they loved me but didn't show me "evidence" of such (e.g., treating me well, showing affection, etc.), the word itself would be meaningless. In fact, it's a very vague term to begin with. What exactly do you mean by it, anyway? - Eph Zero

Wait, no need to answer that and go further off-topic. - Eph Zero

Determinism in the fundamental sense has ceased to be a viable concept with the discovery of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Determinism in the sense of predictability has ceased to be a viable concept since our understanding of deterministic chaos started happening. Dualism (aka 'genuine' free will, magic-man-done-it, or ghost in my head) has ceased to be a viable concept since... more... - Björn Brembs

Our sense of free will, the personal experience of it - much of this is usually referred to as agency - is an entirely different matter, although there is some tentative evidence that the brain functions subserving both may overlap. - Björn Brembs

@Christopher Harris You are incorrect. You don't control how you think or when you are thinking. I don't know how you understood what I said, but it's a simple fact backed by such rigorous proves as Gödel's incompleteness theorems. - Alexander Kruel

Brembs doesn't get that just by adding complexity and uncertainty you do not verify freedom :-( - Alexander Kruel

As I said above (nobody replied), endogenous processes generating behavioral variability and thus non-linearity are working-definitions. This has nothing to do with the overall physical reality of causal chains. At no point the freedom of a system, in itself or from the environment in which it is embedded, can be derived from any conclusion that was attained in reference to that... more... - Alexander Kruel

I might have to clarify what exactly I mean by 'working definitions'. Every system and its boundaries are arbitrary or biased definitions. You can extent the variables of any open system beyond its defined boundaries. Thus it is just unreasonable to talk about freedom in open systems. Endogenous actions are ultimately depend on outside factors. And talking about the freedom of a closed... more... - Alexander Kruel

Christopher: I don't know how to discuss that difference if by "genuine" free will you mean a dualistic, magical power endowed to the souls of men by God Almighty. Like Bjorn said, no scientist would argue for the kind of dualistic, supracausal free will you and Alex seem to be refering to. If however you're asking about the subjective difference between a person with free will and a... more... - Christopher Harris

As regards abulia, free-will is merely the ability to initiate a behavior? Free-will is that which exist in agents who aren't suffering from particular sorts of DDM? - Christopher A Carr

Aboulia is characterized by a lack of will, not a lack of free will. And it is not an ability to 'initiate' action. This would imply that you perceive your ability to 'initiate' action but not the initiative itself, which would mean that your thoughts are perceived as non-actions. That's where the free in free will collides with reality. We do not perceive freedom of choice, we think about options on an intellectual level and confuse ability with possiblity. - Alexander Kruel

Christopher: Something like that. Patrick Haggardd writes an excellent review of the distinct brain systems that mediate volontary and non-volontary behaviour http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... and then there's the controlled variability, the adaptivity, the intentionality and the relative independence from environmental stimuli. - Christopher Harris

What is it that does possess free will then, the entity or the 'distinct brain systems that mediate volontary and non-volontary behaviour'? That's exactly the point, relative independence from the environment is as good as no independence when it comes to freedom. It ignores the fact that we are part of the environment, an environment that includes other supposedly free agents that are... more... - Alexander Kruel

Alex: no one here argues for a free will that implies that things 'could have been otherwise' or that the causal chain stretching back to the Big Bang can be subverted. the claim here is simply that the processes by which the brain makes different decisions in the same situation can be thought of as free will. - Christopher Harris

Making different decisions in similar situations is the difference between 'mechanical' and intelligent systems. It is the difference between static systems and the flexibility of adaptive systems due to feedback and learning that allows for situational variability. I argue that it is not reasonable to use free will to describe anything physical as long as you are not willing to... more... - Alexander Kruel

Given that the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics is a valid interpretation of reality, I don't think the idea of choice has been completely ruled out. The equations really do allow other events than what have already occurred. But I also realize this doesn't necessarily require free-will either. - Victor Ganata

"This universe is constantly splitting into a stupendous number of branches, all resulting from the measurementlike interactions between its myriads of components. Moreover, every quantum transition taking place on every star, in every galaxy, in every corner of the universe is splitting our local world into myriads of copies of itself." (Bryce De Witt, 1970) - Alexander Kruel

Even if that was the case. "Doing everything", or a Permutation City approach, does not account for free will. Although I guess we'll be a bit closer to something you could call freedom... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Alexander Kruel

@cristophder carr; if we grant for a moment that it is not possible to distinguish between a system with 'genuine' free will and a deterministic system whose future states can not be predicted/calculated short of running the system, why is making the difference important? If suppose that subjectively we cannot conclude either way, that is no proof in support of wither way too. So that... more... - Sandeep Gautam

@Alexender human or animal agents that are believed to have free will are not closed systems. all living beings are open systems and thus by your own admission can be free and have free will. Free will is important when thinking about agents and living things and a whole theory of mind or folk psychology module that is different from mechansistic or folk physics module has evolved in... more... - Sandeep Gautam

"Maybe the sum total of universe is not free or has a free will or a will at all; but a single organism (an open system) definetly has will, moreover will that is not tightly constrained, but relatively free and endowing with choice and control." +++ Sandeep Gautam This is a closer explication of what can be stated from other disciplines, if you will, couched in terms other than scientific ones, yet saying the same thing. In these areas it takes cross-discipline understanding, - Melanie Reed

For example take Sandeep's first posit: "Maybe the sum total of universe is not free or has a free will or a will at all;" keeping in mind the following statement allows for the exception to it "..but a single organism (an open system) definetly has will,.." This is exactly what this statement is referring to: "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose [will] that prevails." Proverbs 19:21 It allows for what Sandeep's possiblity has hit upon: a lesser will within a larger context. - Melanie Reed

@Sandeep Gautam: Huh? When have I said that? I said it doesn't matter, either way there is no free will. - Alexander Kruel

Is there no concept that a greater will can set up deterministic systems (for safety purposes) that allow for the fluidity of lesser free wills in which to act? - Melanie Reed

You're not going to get a hearing here for your "Yahweh did it" hypothesis, Melanie. - Christopher A Carr

Then with all due respect to you Christopher, you're not being very scientific. You cannot disprove it and so you must allow for it. There is a danger in not allowing for thinking and possibilities that are beyond our measure of intelligence. We will go round in circles or continue to arrive at imperfect destinations. A good scientist listens and is open to possibilities. - Melanie Reed

@Melanie Reed: Sandeep Gautam already made that point, sadly it's false. Read up on falsifiability and Occam's razor. Maybe some Wittgenstein would be good too. - Alexander Kruel

To take the analogy with open systems further, everyone knows the second law of thermodynamics that the entropy increases as time flies theorem; but that is applicable to closed systems. One cannot argue that open systems like living beings would not exist that sort of defy the entropy principle (move towards more organization) as long as they live. Living beings , that are open... more... - Sandeep Gautam

"You cannot disprove it and so you must allow for it." That is not at all correct. I can't disprove that free-will derives from an invisible pixie dust-farting homunculus in my head. Supernatural explanations are methodologically excluded... - Christopher A Carr

Alex: In Melanie's case, entertaining contrary beliefs is a slippery slope to a firey pit. ...it's the genius of the memeplex. - Christopher A Carr

@xixidiu @cristopher that is what Melaine is saying that if you cannot prove it , allow it; that is not my position. My position is that given two non-falsifiable/non-provable alternatives, believe in one that is good for everyone. - Sandeep Gautam

One can't (at least I can't) simply choose to believe the more implausible of two explanations. - Christopher A Carr

@crsitopher you are on slippery grounds here...to most of people free will is intuitive and not implausible...of course intuitiveness and folk concepts doesn't count as scientific proof,; but it is pertinent to what is plausible to believe and what is not. - Sandeep Gautam

At any rate, Christopher H's definition of free-will just sounds like "intelligence" to me. I continue to fail to see what's useful about employing a term with so much philosophical baggage. @Sandeep From whence derives this "freedom?" I can't figure that out, hence it seems implausible. - Christopher A Carr

No Christopher. I started not believing. I simply arrived (and I did not get there by one dull and morbid route) at the discovery that there was no other alternative. "I continue to fail to see what's useful about employing a term with so much philosophical baggage", Because Christopher, you are more than what you think you are. Connect the dots. They are there. - Melanie Reed

well freedom from immediate environmental influences or past learning history. room for behavior variability (bot operant behavior and conditioned behavior) - Sandeep Gautam

All interpretations of quantum mechanics describe an indeterministic universe, though. Again, this doesn't prove free-will, but arguing for a deterministic universe defies our current understanding of reality. - Victor Ganata

Victor: You aren't suggesting that the brain taps into that foundational indeterminacy via quantum computing in the microtubules? :-) - Christopher A Carr

Melanie: You're the only one here who is trying to talk about Jesus. And just making vague assertions ("you are more than what you think you are"..."connect the dots...they are there") is not even remotely persuasive. - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: heh, I'll leave that to a certain renowned physicist to argue. But once you remove determinism from the discussion, I think it does become useful to examine the phenomenon of free-will. Sure, it's not the same thing as what we intuit free-will to be, and it doesn't meet the classical philosophical definitions, but there's still something there to study. - Victor Ganata

Christopher, I wasn't hoping that you would make the connection today. ;) First, the anger must go. But I think one day you will. And on that day, the click of machinery will be one of relief. - Melanie Reed

Victor: I can think of one renowned physicist/cosmologist who argues persuasively against the possibility, or perhaps that's what you meant. - Christopher A Carr

Melanie: People with agendas as constant as yours are not pleasant people to interact with, particularly when the agenda is to infect others with a memeplex as nasty as Christianity. You might as well be chasing me around with a syringe full of smallpox. - Christopher A Carr

Melanie: What do you think I'm angry at? - Christopher A Carr

I think the term "free-will" is nothing more than short-hand for an ill-defined phenomenon that we all have some vague intuition about, but which appears distinct from sentience, and perhaps even from consciousness. I think it's unnecessarily confusing to just fold it into other neurological phenomenon. As Christopher H points out, the phenomenon of volition is something that has... more... - Victor Ganata

And what of the evidence for the preparation of decisions prior to one becoming conscious of the decision? - Christopher A Carr

@Christopher yea this new free will isn't necessarily conscious, big change from the traditional version - Christopher Harris

@cristopher I concur, the new free will need not be conscious; it can , and most probably is to a large extent unconscious. - Sandeep Gautam

Christopher, I have no agenda where you (or anyone else) are/is concerned that is in the least bit as violent as your metaphor proposes. :) Quite the opposite. It is and will always be your choice to act upon it or not. I am not a virus nor is what I am telling you a virus or memplex. Indeed, if you want to pursue that thinking, you might as well turn it around and ask yourself if... more... - Melanie Reed

Melanie: Pascal's wager is bullshit. - Christopher A Carr

Consciousness seems to me a necessary condition. Without it, what does the "free" mean in "free-will?" - Christopher A Carr

I don't think the evidence that some decisions are made before your consciousness perceives them necessarily precludes free-will, though. I'd like to see them test other scenarios other than just giving a volunteer an instruction, and watching how the brain processes that instruction. - Victor Ganata

If we're thinking of the same study, it just shows that there's a lot of unconscious activity when an instruction from another person gets processed by your brain. There's no indication that the consciousness can or can't override the unconscious activity. That leaves room for another experiment. - Victor Ganata

@christopher I have already answered that. freedom from immediacy. freedom from histrory - Sandeep Gautam

After all, it at least appears we can temporarily override certain otherwise involuntary functions of the body. - Victor Ganata

Would a p-zombie have free will? - Christopher A Carr

yes, if it (p-zombie) was acting as an agent showing behavioral flexibility and variability, our minds would model it as an agent and grant it free will . It might not be conscious but is both willful and without being sentient free in the sense that its unconscious could still have chosen otherwise - Sandeep Gautam

Sandeep: Wait, one's theory of mind bequeaths to other ostensible agents free-will? - Christopher A Carr

to elaborate on p-zombie, supposing that intoxication (inhaling alcohol) makes you a p-zombie momentarily, you would still be held accountable in thtis real world as the prior decision to take alcohol was perhaps mistaken and lead to the outcome. To use analogy of Jon Haidt, if you train your unconscious (elephant) incorrectly your conscious (the rider/trainer / mahout) is also equally... more... - Sandeep Gautam

People on a black-out drunk have free-will? - Christopher A Carr

not on a black out, but supposing that their conscious is overtaken by unconscious and they cannot remember what they are doing, law and I would still hold them accountable and having free will (as they had freely decided to enter into that state) - Sandeep Gautam

Legality is a separate issue. - Christopher A Carr

to take further the case of drunkenness, a drunken person does not just react, he/.she acts by loosening of inhibitions, free rein of impulses ..and acts freely - Sandeep Gautam

Impulsivity is an increase in free-will? - Christopher A Carr

I guess free will has two parts...impulsivity contributes to freeness...freedom from history or immediacy...wilfulnness comes from ability to keep impulsivity in check. - Sandeep Gautam

ok to better rephrase it ...impulsivity - freedom from immediacy....impluses not driven by stimulus necessarily; willfulness - freedom from history- actions not governed by past operant rewards necessarily. - Sandeep Gautam

Regarding "could have," does Google Voice's speech-to-text algorithm have free-will? ...well, I guess Google Voice uses lots of statistical analysis. Suppose you have a speech-to-text algorithm that attempts to assign phonemes to acoustic data segments. If a section is ambiguous between a /p/ and a /b/, and the algorithm assigns /b/, do we say it "could have" assigned /p/? - Christopher A Carr

"could have" is not my position. counterfactuls do not prove the point of free will in my opinion. I think more of given the same conditions different responses at different times that are goal-directed, spontaneous, exhibit choice of form and timing and procedure; google algo doesn't choose when to substitute /ba/ as /pa/; whether to substitue or not and if so when to substitute and why? It doesn't pass the volition test - Sandeep Gautam

Christopher: Your last emphatic vulgarism answered your own question about anger. I may persuade with my arguments. I may plead with my heart. But getting angry undermines your stand. What is left is that marvel for something that to many appears a standard of intelligence and perception to which they must attain. You want the answer couched only in the terms which you have defined. Your stance would lock out the very thing you claim to pursue. Even Richard Feynman didn't do that. - Melanie Reed

Sandeep: I'm hearing something like Ben Goertzel's definition of intelligence. Is free-will necessary to effect "..the ability to achieve complex goals in complex environments?" - Christopher A Carr

Melanie: Feynman also thought that Pascal's Wager was bullshit. - Christopher A Carr

to take the google voice algo example further, if the algo had hidden urges that would spontaneously and in unambiguous situations too, tweak the translation so as to favor /ba/ over /da/ sometimes and /da/ over /ba/ other times, then I would grant it willfulness or some freedom (it is not constrained by the text, but can decide on its own to translate a given text to sound; if it... more... - Sandeep Gautam

We're talking sound-to-text here. Text-to-speech is becoming trivial, except for things like prosody. - Christopher A Carr

ok whatever, you get the idea... - Sandeep Gautam

basically if after hearing ba correctly, if google algo still mischeveiously decidedtro code it as p or d, I owuld grant it some freedom. - Sandeep Gautam

Melanie: "I may plead with my heart." You would be better off pleading with your information processing organ. - Christopher A Carr

actually our folk notions may be appropriate here...we do attribute intentionality to products like google voice when they consistently f**k up in a particular way...we say what an idiot that application is and grant it sort of agency and purpose. - Sandeep Gautam

Sandeep: Indeed. Humans suffer from hyperactive agency detection, Melanie being a case in point. :-) - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: You're right. I am a very poor example of a robot. I am to the depth, to the last, human. - Melanie Reed

Melanie: High levels of rationality do not make one a "robot," in the sense of the word you're using. - Christopher A Carr

Ben's definition of intelligence (on a cursory read) to me seems wide ranging ...his 'task independent pragmatic understanding of itself and the world' borders on sentience, so not surprised if he takes volition also in its stride. BTW, its 3 am in morning india, time to signoff. will continue discussion tomorrow:-) - Sandeep Gautam

Been lovely conversing with you Sandeep. Good evening. - Christopher A Carr

my pleasure too! - Sandeep Gautam

Christopher: No, they make one increasingly intolerant of the sum of what you are. You are dissatisfied. Your path to satisfaction has one route and it is always to run round in that circle. But do you plan to arrive anywhere? Or is it to find pleasure in the game of the circular? If so, I can understand that. But it still doesn't solve the problem of dissatisfaction. It is just a higher level of pleasurable distraction. - Melanie Reed

Melanie: With what do you suppose I'm dissatisfied? - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: You want to know rather just believe.If you are presented with a situation requiring belief in the gap where knowledge leaves off, that makes you dissatisfied. I can understand that. We all have that. It's what we do with that space that makes all the difference in the world - Melanie Reed

"There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet." <--- Why do you not believe that? - Christopher A Carr

With respect, Mohammed did not come to come to make dead people live. He did not come to die for their sins and make a way out for them so that their relationship with God could be restored to what it was. Only Jesus did this. And I am grateful for what He did. - Melanie Reed

"Only Jesus did this." No he didn't. - Christopher A Carr

Tell me, had you been born in Saudi Arabia, to what religion do you suppose you would adhere? That you are a Christian is an arbitrary matter of having been born in a predominately Christian part of the world. - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: Again, with respect, it is not arbitrary. I have brothers and sisters ( in Christ) who are in Saudi Arabia, indeed, in every part of the world. I have brothers (in Christ) who grew up in SA and later through a chain of events moved elsewhere and then became Christians. - Melanie Reed

Suppose you were born in a small tribe in the Amazon basin which has yet to interact with missionaries. You think you would be Christian? - Christopher A Carr

Christopher: Christ is there, too. Though some of our brothers have given their lives in that mission. Of recent note (in this century) with the Waodani tribe.One tribe member in particular killed 4 missionaries, but later became our brother. - Melanie Reed

You've no ethical qualms with destroying these cultures? None at all? - Christopher A Carr

Of course you avoided the question. - Christopher A Carr

That culture still exists, Christopher. They only difference is that they exist knowing the promise of Christ. - Melanie Reed

These cultures are surely doomed anyway, but it strikes me as a despicable that you're so happy to be the executioner. - Christopher A Carr

I agree with you that as globalization progress (through technology and big business) many cultures and lives will be uprooted. But it is not Christ who is destroying people. It is people and their greed who are doing these things to each other. - Melanie Reed

I also wanted to make clear in case there was confusion: the missionaries were attacked by the tribe and 4 were killed. The missionaries did not fight back. They allowed themselves to be killed. It was this that made an impression on the tribe member and he later became a Christian - Melanie Reed

We should move it over here so Christopher can clean up this thread: http://friendfeed.com/cacarr... - Christopher A Carr

I'd be interested to know how you would describe the reason for your participation in this discussion: 1. "I came across this debate and felt compelled to respond..." 2. "Of several competing actions/options I have deliberately chosen to respond to this thread..." 3. "I never consciously decided to take part in this debate for a special reason, it just happened / I just did..." 4. "Because of / God / made me do it..." - Alexander Kruel

@Sandeep Gautam: If you define free will as freedom from immediacy, how does one achieve this? Every stimulus must be processed immediately. You don't have the option to ignore it. To restrain an urge is as much a response to stimulus as motor output. Influence is always reciprocal. Non-actions do not exist. Besides, how many people would be happy to define free will as the unconscious... more... - Alexander Kruel

Alexander, I made an assumption that you might be addressing me since you invoked God in your question. This thread is in a "public" room. It infers general participation by that alone. The concept of Free Will, regardless of what it has come to mean or might come to mean, within the scientific discipline originated as concept with God and therefore has been the immediate concern of... more... - Melanie Reed

@Melanie Reed: Seen me arguing against your participation in this discussion? I actually agree with you in one point. It's a theological concept. Sadly some people don't get it, or try to sneak it into neuroscience. - Alexander Kruel

@Alexander Kruel My apologies for misunderstanding who your comment was aimed at. I do understand the desire to pursue the concept from the scientific discipline. Strangely, (as it might seem to some of the participants on this thread) others have wanted to look through this lens but from a different direction: this is what we know. Now how does it work from here. Curiosity is only... more... - Melanie Reed

Do you think your god possess free will given its omniscience and thus prior knowledge of its own actions? Just curious :-) - Alexander Kruel

One seemingly innocuous passage declares that "His thinking is higher" meaning that He is not constrained by the same constraints that we experience within our lesser wills of choice. But here is the kicker: He chooses to work within the constraints He asks of us. In short: he "obeys" His own moral laws but allows for a stepping outside the natural (what we perceive as scientific) law... more... - Melanie Reed

Seen that coming. You can't win a theological debate. Never mind, just trying to fathom if it is worth talking about this topic with you any further. I would, but I don't have the time. - Alexander Kruel

I wasn't debating. :) And I don't mind at all appearing foolish. I thank you for listening. - Melanie Reed

I don't mind appearing foolish either. Otherwise I wouldn't comment on such topics at all. But I have nothing to lose, contrary to some educated scientists that should know better. Anyway, if you haven't been debating, what then, preaching? I consider that as spam. - Alexander Kruel

I have told you the truth. Spam, when I began in technology, was defined as repeatedly sending the same email message to a recipients mailbox, flooding it so that nothing else could be sent out or received. Thus, it was incapacitating the recipient's ability to communicate. That hasn't happened here. That definition hasn't changed that I know of and I have been in the tech field for a... more... - Melanie Reed

It was an analogy. Unsolicited advertisement for something I'm not interested in. I wasn't writing a scientific paper and thought a lack of preciseness in my word choice would be permitted. Nevertheless, I grant you a points win on this one. P.S. I'm off for today... - Alexander Kruel

Just to clarify a few points in this meandering thread. Determinism, even macroscopically, is about as antiquated as that of what people in this thread call 'genuine' free will. Of course, anybody is entitled to their opinions, but of course anybody is free to ridicule flat-earthers, too. Free will is composed of two things. If we get too free (e.g. by drugs), we question the will. If... more... - Björn Brembs

I've had Tourette syndrome/impulse control disorder for many years during my childhood. I still suffer from other psychological disorders/problems, such as medical anxiety or having feelings/perceptions of things being venomed. I've never been able to focus myself on certain tasks. I also grew up in a very religious surrounding where people believe into libertarian free will. Thus I'm... more... - Alexander Kruel

@Xixidu not every stimulus is processed ; if that was the case we would get mad; be paralyzed analyzing the incoming stimulations. A lot of the stimulus is ignored and never reaches consciousness, so it is wrong to say every stimulus is attended to. Most are ignored and ignoring a stimulus need not be a conscious decisions; it can be an unconscious decisions. to say that ignoring a stimulus is also responding to it is clearly twisting definitions. . - Sandeep Gautam

A decision is a decision. No need to twist definitions here. If you come up with loaded and loose concepts such as free will, what do you expect? Your volition is the sum of all stimulus, internal and external, conscious and ignored. Where is the freedom? The word surely needs to have some meaning beyond the fuzziness of unpredictability? If not, why do you introduce it, what is its use in science? How does it enrich our comprehension of natural phenomena? - Alexander Kruel

why do you keep harping on unpredictability. Free will is not about unpredictability. Its not about randomness either. It si about freedom (from immediacy, from history). for eg, If I resolve not to reply to your posts in ana acrimonous manner , no matter how acrimonous you become, than though by stating it explicitly, I become highly predictable; I am still exercising my free will,... more... - Sandeep Gautam

Why are we attracted to Andromeda? Because every bit of matter attracts one another. The infinitesimals forces of nature exert their pull infinitely. I'm not arguing against libertarian free will here, although I know you believe into it. I'm arguing against the term in general. If you propose the existence of a will that is free, as implied by the combinatorial term free will, then what is the nature of will? Do people either act deliberately or genuine deliberate? Show me why you need to add free to will. - Alexander Kruel

+++ Sandeep Gautam - Melanie Reed

let me get this straight. you believe that 'will' exists but is not 'free' and we create an oxymoron by adding free; can you define what your 'will' is? - Sandeep Gautam

Because the gravity between people and the gravity between celestial bodies are not the same thing. It seems that there is a blurring between what you are saying (influenced by experience from your condition as a variable) and what Sandeep is saying. Needs sorting out - Melanie Reed

You can express gravity between people as that of emotional attraction or repulsion based on characteristics not the force between galaxies - Melanie Reed

Yes I can: My will is the unfolding of a highly complex process, a sub-system of the universe, as defined by this system itself, into actions perceived to be shaped by itself. I tried to define free will here: http://xixidu.tumblr.com/post... - Just remove free and you got my definition of 'volition'... - Alexander Kruel

ah, the western mind - Gregory Lent

Gregory, I never figured if you believe that something like free will exist or not? - Alexander Kruel

Oh no, Lent joins the thread, expect more spiritual woo woo ;) Alex, let's take a specific example. The feeding system of the snail Lymnaea contains 500 neurons in two connected ganglia, but nevertheless has rudimentary free will under this new definition. The neurons in the two ganglia generate a complicated pattern of thousands of sequential and parallel spikes, which, in the intact... more... - Christopher Harris

Let's just say I can accept free will to be defined as 'nonlinear, endogenous behavior', output over input. I now think it might be adequate after all. -- It's just really hard for me to perceive freedom 'from within'. Much of my perception is actually influenced from within, as for example that I perceive things to be dangerous for no apparent environmental cues. Or that I... more... - Alexander Kruel

no free will ... nice discussion above of what that statement could mean/imply/ ... biggest takeway from this thread is about the limits of english and its close cousin science in being able to get close to understanding subtleties of mind and consciousness. it is lacking so many necessary concepts. - Gregory Lent

Nevertheless, I think there is another problem. Although this problem matters when it comes to the new definition of free will and my definition of volition I held all along. So this is not just a critique of what you, Brembs or others propose but also of my own idea of will. Namely, of what importance is consciousness regarding volition? Can we really talk about deliberate actions without explicit awareness of what we want to do ahead of the action? - Alexander Kruel

Well, sure, even the inflexible behaviours of OCD or addiction emerge from inside the nervous system despite being in some sense un-free. The assumption there is that the normal mechanisms of will and variation have been corrupted, and this too has been studied in the molluscan feeding system http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... - Christopher Harris

Re consciousness: I think important decisions in the healthy human brain will typically be conscious, even if the mechanisms by which the contents and conclusions of consciousness are generated are only vaguely understood. This is important I think, to identify with your ENTIRE brain, not just those processes that are accessible to consciousness. People tend to get this wrong about... more... - Christopher Harris

Do people get it wrong or may they simply have a different idea of what free will is supposed to mean? Even if I agree to this new definition of free will now, being wrong before, I still doubt most people would accept that definition any time soon. - Alexander Kruel

I think people get it wrong in the same way people who reject brain-death as the proper way to determine when a person is dead are wrong. I think brain-based notions of identity will get increasingly prevalent and increasingly useful as we learn more about the brain. This will require however that there is loads of engaging, easy-to-understand-and-interact-with material available that deals with the findings of neuroscience, hence my youtube channel and website :) - Christopher Harris

If you could control your iPlant brain implant using a external computer, or use a time-based job scheduler on a external machine to execute some script, would it cease to be external and integrate with your free will/identity and thus become part of you? - Alexander Kruel

conditional rewarding brain stimulation (the main function iPlants would enable in humans) always requires an external computer to determine when a required task has been performed and deliver the rewarding electrical pulse. the question is who programs it. if the implant is used to reward behaviours that the user has chosen - behaviours he or she wants to be able to perform but which... more... - Christopher Harris

charcoal artists talking about how to draw rainbows :-) - Gregory Lent

Lent has found the way and the light, none of this search for logic and science, truth is found in the humble leaf, and in the morning wind. - Christopher Harris

ah, the qualitative makes an appearance in Mr. Harris words .. nice beginning - Gregory Lent

I try to mix the qualitative and the quantitative in my novel, check it out sometime http://www.iplant.eu/fiction... - Christopher Harris

I'm glad you have a sense of humor, Christopher. Me, not so much. Did you have something to add, Gregory? - Christopher A Carr

hello, mr carr, just drawn to the subject of the original post, enjoyed the thread, my two rupees worth is to imply that there are larger, and perhaps more accurate, understandings of these great questions available in other parts of the world, in other systems of inquiry, in other languanges. the western mind can be amusing. - Gregory Lent

For Christopher: (I'll come back to the Sapir-Whorfian Lent in a moment). This is difficult to express. Where brains generate minds that contain models of themselves that are sort of recursively referenced, the thing referenced is not the *brain*... so I continue to fail to see where there is a thing that could be described as "will" acting in a way that can be described as "free."... more... - Christopher A Carr

Mr. Lent: Are you really a strong linguistic relativist? If so, you are wrong. - Christopher A Carr

I think you might get some kind of abstract freedom once you arbitrarily define a system and can prove that the complexity of transformation by which this system shapes the outside environment, in which it is embedded, does trump the specific effectiveness of the environmental influence on the defined system. In other words, mind over matter. You are able to shape reality more effectively and goal-oriented and thus, in a way, overcome its crude influence it exerts on you. - Alexander Kruel

Alex: That's just intelligence, so far as I understand what you're on about. - Christopher A Carr

When I say "the thing referenced is not the *brain*," I mean that brains didn't evolve to solve problems in brain-habitats -- rather, brains process information in a way that organisms can accomplish procreation in the presence of trees and grass and so forth. We didn't evolve in a brain landscape. "We" don't *decide* to initiate neural activity. Neural activity initiates us... - Christopher A Carr

Yes, as far as I understood, the new definition of free will that Christopher Harris and other people are talking about here, does to a certain extent equalize free will with control and thus, I assume, intelligence. For example, children and some mentally handicapped people are not responsible in same the way as healthy adults. They can not give consent or enter into legally binding... more... - Alexander Kruel

You are right, this new definition of free will only works once you arbitrarily define a system to be an entity within an environment contrary to being the environment. Thus the neural activity, being either consciously aware and controled by the system itself, or not, is no valid argument within this framework. Of course, in a strong philosophical sense this definition fails to address... more... - Alexander Kruel

Alexander: We might be close now to being able to write this whole thread off as a semantic quibble. - Christopher A Carr

It was very interesting, nonetheless... :-) "quibble" might be not a good word as it connotes pettiness. And this discussion wasn't petty. - Christopher A Carr

if you did neuorscience research on "mind" in sanskrit, instead of english, you would do very different experiments .. five very different words for aspects of mind that the single english word clumps together .. is that relativism? dunno. i see it as an obvious limitation of "science" - Gregory Lent

Greenland natives have many, many words for snow. In no sense does that imply that english-speaking research into snow would be limited. Snow is still snow. Your mind betrays you Gregory ;-) - Nils Reinton

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References Wanted: Graham Steel

POLL. As a direct result of this FF thread http://friendfeed.com/science... I've created a one question poll. The question is "Is it appropriate to raise the visibility of the References Wanted room outwith FriendFeed?". The possible answers are "yes", "no", or "unsure". I would be really grateful if subscribers to this room would participate.

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Poll is here:- http://www.micropoll.com/akira... Thank you in advance. - Graham Steel

39 more comments

Just to expand briefly on Graham's intro: I think the RW room is covered by Fair Use (nota bene, ianal). Nonetheless, the likely result of any legal challenge by publishers would be that FF would shut the room down as a precaution, and we'd have to fight to re-open it. I doubt we have the resources for that fight, so as a matter of realpolitik I'm voting to continue to fly under the... more... - Bill Hooker

^^What Bill said. Yes, the world absolutely needs access to the scientific literature, but we need to work to reform the publishing process and the laws. All things considered, this is a very small room, which is why it hasn't attracted the ire of the publishers. If we advertise and it gets large, the industry will start playing the same whack-a-mole lawsuit game that they do with music or movie sites. - Chris Miller

I voted "No" - Pierre Lindenbaum

Please keep voting folks. A dozen in so far, thanks. - Graham Steel

The referenced thread is about a letter to the journal Cell in which we promote FriendFeed. The RW room will be the single most attractive feature for people who have never used social media. I also think it helps to show a large readership what kinds of hoops we will jump through to get access - and the RW has a great record of people not having access. So in the end, all publicity... more... - Björn Brembs

I'd love to read that Cell paper if possible! http://is.gd/5fQ0D I voted 'unsure' on the poll, perhaps not very helpful, but I thought that my 'yes' might not be as strong as the poll's yes might be demanding. I would like more people to be aware of this helpful service, but to hear of it as word of mouth rather than a 'one to many' broadcast in a journal article. I suppose I'm voting for the status quo (of this room), but with gradual increases in numbers. #fencesitting ;) - Jo Brodie

I would be more concerned about publishers cutting off access to individuals known to be supplying papers in the room for breech of TOS. It has happened to one of our researchers but for other reasons. - suelibrarian from iPhone

Here is the draft of the letter: http://etherpad.com/Microbl... Note that we do not need to spell out the name of the room in the letter, as we do now, just the functionality. I can only re-word my argument from above: cowering before the possible reprisals of 'big publishers' is definitely not the best way to change the current publishing model. In fact, anybody who... more... - Björn Brembs

I voted no. As I see it, the role of RW is to provide a service, not to instigate a revolution or provide a soapbox for change in the publishing industry. I don't think it's fair to create the potential for unpleasant repercussions through wider publicity for a "cause", certainly not without the full knowledge and agreement of everyone who has ever used the room. - Neil Saunders

@Bjoern, it's not "no big deal" to open another room -- that simply won't work, corporate copyright lawyers are quite good at whack-a-mole and we cannot expect FriendFeed to fight our Death To Toll Access battle with us. As I said above, the fight you are spoiling for is worth having, but I don't want to pick it and then get my ass kicked. If you really want people to fight, you'll need... more... - Bill Hooker

The purpose of the room is explicitly "to document the harm caused by closed/toll-access publication". What's the purpose of collecting this data if we're not going to publish it? Voted yes, apparently against the consensus, whose arguments I'm sympathetic to, but it seems to me like even if we did mention the RW room in a letter it would still only have visibility to a quite small audience. Perhaps the poll choices should have been "yes, publish the RW room/No, don't publish yet"? - Mr. Gunn

28 votes so far, with "no" currently in the lead. - Bill Hooker

What about mentioning the functionality but not the room? If we include a link to the etherpad in which the letter has been prepared, interested people would find the information. - Daniel Mietchen

A few thoughts. 1) It is possible to vote multiple times, I noticed. 2) @Neil: as Mr. Gunn pointed out, the explicit purpose of the room is to document, not to provide a service. What's the point to document, when the document remains secret? 3) @Bill: point taken. However, the mere fact of multi-billion dollar corporations (who, unlike the RIAA, make their money from tax-dollars!!)... more... - Björn Brembs

Also unlike the music industry, the three major publishers have had increasing profits for at least the last five years, with 2008 (of all years!) being a record year with double-digit growth rates for some and a total of almost 5 billion dollars in profits for the three largest corporations alone - and that when other large publishing businesses seem not to have such a great time... more... - Björn Brembs

Couple things. 1) researchers are not the only people here; publishers have shown no compunction in going after librarians. 2) in the library literature, it's fairly well-established that researchers are asking other researchers for copies of articles, rather than (sometimes in addition to) going through ILL and document-delivery services. - D0r0th34

I don't know if this has been studied, but the reasons for that, D0r0th34, have to do with the overhead. To ask a colleague, all you have to do is send them an email. ILL requires forms and accounts and waiting periods and follow-up and so on. - Mr. Gunn

yes, that's the usual reason given :) - D0r0th34

Procedural suggestion - I don't use the RW room for reasons I can go into elsewhere but I voted I don't know because I didn't. I actually take Bjorn's point though - what is the point if it doesn't change things? Anyway the suggestion - rather than people posting that they've sent stuff I suggest people post when they receive a copy. It would even be possible to set up a dead letter... more... - Cameron Neylon

I am behind Bjørn on this, I voted yes and at the time the yes -side was winning. In my opinion, this is a fight worth taking and if that happens, worth loosing. - Nils Reinton

+1 Neil and +1 Cameron. A simple change in the etiquette of the room would protect those sending papers from liability. To fully protect them, though, you'd also have to scrub the archives, something that isn't easy to do on the internet. - Chris Miller

Changing the etiquette in that way is a tacit admission that we are doing something wrong, OR that we are doing something we don't believe is either wrong or illegal but that we fully expect we could be punished for anyway (because the system is unjust). If we are going to fight the good fight as above, we would be better off not handing our opponents the opportunity to argue for the... more... - Bill Hooker

I'll admit to not following the 'fair use' argument very closely, but I'm under the impression that sharing such articles is a clear violation of an institution's TOS with the publisher. I'll readily agree that something can be just but illegal, but that doesn't change the fact that there could be repercussions against those providing articles. Every movement needs its zealots, but I'm more of a casual supporter, and certainly am not willing to go down for the cause. I suspect there are many others like me. - Chris Miller

Chris, it does appear that our use of References Wanted falls under fair use as I figure it: http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC... - Mr. Gunn

Yes, I also think it is fair use, though I am aware that just the suspicion of this not being the case may be enough to shut down the room. Besides, we have Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig on our sides: http://ff.im/9xiRN . - Daniel Mietchen

Chris's point is a good one - fair use is one thing but its definitely a technical violation of most TOS. On the other hand its not clear that library users sign up to the TOS, the librarians do, which takes us back to Dorothea's point. I take Bill's point though. If you think its a fight worth fighting then it should be done out in the open. The question is both strategic and tactical.... more... - Cameron Neylon

A very kind person sent me a copy of the letter to Cell - unfortunately it was picked up by my mail system's quarantine and instead of rerouteing it safely to my inbox I have to admit I pressed the wrong button and deleted it. Might I trouble them to resend it to me? http://is.gd/5fQ0D <embarassed> - Jo Brodie

http://friendfeed-media.com/50c126f... - Björn Brembs

Given that you can vote multiple times and only 40 votes have been cast, does that mean that about 75% of the subscribers to this room don't care enough to vote? - Björn Brembs

well, you have to figure on some attention attrition, there -- I have a lot of FFeeps who don't seem to actually use the service - D0r0th34

Jo, in case it wasn't clear -- that link from Bjoern goes to the Cell letter. - Bill Hooker

@Björn, that was only the second online poll that I've created and realised shortly after creating it that there _might_ be a potential issue with multiple votes. Can't drill the stats so will have to work on trust. Many of the subscribers to RW don't frequent that often in terms of posting, so I think it's unlikely that the "n" of 40 on the poll is likely to increase much further than as it stands. Moving forward, I guess we'll have to rely on the stats of 57% no 30% yes and 13% unsure. - Graham Steel

Sorry for just posting the link, was in a hurry! - Björn Brembs

@Graham: The question now is, what do we do with the poll? I don't think it really tells us all that much. Moreover, I think none of the arguments for publishing have seen any serious refutation. On the other hand, I don't want to dismiss the counter arguments completely. I suggest we go ahead and describe the functionality without mentioning the room name, even though I think it would be much more effective to mention it explicitly. Any comments/suggestions? - Björn Brembs

I for one agree with that suggestion. What do others think... - Graham Steel

I voted to mention the name but since the majority of votes are against I think Bjorn s suggestion is a good balance. - Pedro Beltrao

+1 Pedro - Nils Reinton

Presumably the letter's authors will give links to their FF accounts, then it's just a matter of scrolling through their posts until, aha!, "Refs Wanted" must be the room they were talking about. So is there really much difference between describing and naming the room? - Bill Hooker

@Bill: You're right, of course, in that it is more a token of appreciation of the other arguments than an effective step towards concealing the room. Alas, it is the only 'middle ground' I could think of. - Björn Brembs

Thank you Björn and Bill :) - Jo Brodie

Andrew Perry

Opps ... I just mentally read the abbreviation "RT" as "retweet" rather than "room temperature".

December 13 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Michael Kuhn, Khader Shameer, Egon Willighagen and 3 other people liked this

The perils of the Bio-IT interface. I remember well when, in my head, PBS stopped being phosphate-buffered saline and became portable batch system. - Neil Saunders

:-) "RT" is particularly confusing - add Reverse Transcription and Real Time - Nils Reinton

Nils Reinton

I am out of audiobooks, would love to listen to a science fiction novel - any recommendations ?

August 18 - Comment - Like - Share

Christopher Harris, tim and Torfinn Nome liked this

Is "The Moon is a harsh mistress" available on audiobook? - Paulo Nuin

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apparently (expensive though !!): http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Ha... got anything that isn't 100 $ ? - Nils Reinton

It's a fantastic book. Pity that it's too expensive. But you earn Euros, right? That amount should be 2.99 for you. - Paulo Nuin

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent... - Paulo Nuin

I enjoyed Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 on audio. - tim

If he hasn't listened/read F451, I'm not talking to him anymore. - Paulo Nuin

got the harsh mistress in local currency (http://cdon.no/b%C3%B8...) approx 25 $ - Nils Reinton

Putting Fahrenheit 451 on the list, will have to stop talking to Paulo for a while ;-) My excuse for not reading it is of course that we do not use fahrenheit, - now if the book was called Celsius 451...... - Nils Reinton

I guess Celsius 451 is too hot. I'm not talking to you anymore. Tsk Tsk Tsk - Paulo Nuin

I read it, then listened to it read by RB himself - a fascinating difference. and Paulo, if you can't convert between F and C even for RB, then I'm not talking to you anymore. ;-) - tim

I can convert, yep, I can, joking I was. I read it so many years ago, and enjoy the movie very much too. - Paulo Nuin

just poking fun, Paulo. I never doubted you, not for an instant. - tim

How's the book? Oh, wait ... - Paulo Nuin

Halfway through (my mom had the pocket book in her bookshelf) - not as hot as I had hoped.....F100 maybe so far... - Nils Reinton

This is one of my top 5 Sci-fi books. Sad that you don't like it. - Paulo Nuin

Just finished F451, and Paulo you were right, It is a very good book. I didn't buy into the concept of how burning books would lead to the death of stories, but turns out that this was one of the main points towards the end. Still not buying into the fear of screens as a communication platform, but that probably reflects the time of writing. Excellent read. Thank you for the recommendation. - Nils Reinton

Favorite quote: ""Listen," said Granger, taking his arm, and walking with him, holding aside the bushes to let him pass. "When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with... more... - Nils Reinton

Started listening to "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" - promising so far. - Nils Reinton

Scenes from "The moon is a harsh mistress" keep coming back to me. Now two months after reading the book. Thank you again for this recommendation - Nils Reinton

Nils Reinton

I need to say this. Shame on #Obama for mocking the peace price by saying war is a necessity. It is not !

December 12 - Comment - Like - Share

Jack (a.k.a. Jeber) liked this

While war may facilitate peace (doh !), invading other countries for retribution will never do this. No matter how just the cause for the invasion, no matter how horrible a regime to overthrow. - Nils Reinton

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Regardless, the peace price does not belong with someone who cannot see beyond the traditional concept of war as an instrument to achieve peace. This is not in the spirit of the price and diminishes it's value. - Nils Reinton

The alternative in this case would be to just take the occasional terrorist incidents on the chin while we try to economically boost them out of the dark ages. People are going to fight and die either way. - Mr. Gunn

I am not saying that the wars aren't just, because I do sympathize. They may even be necessary. But, I am arguing that these wars are about revenge and trying to avoid further attacks, not about creating peace in the offending country. Consequently, these wars should not be used as a justification for getting the peace price. - Nils Reinton

And that is what Obama did. he said that it is ok that I receive this price even though I fight these wars. Because, these wars are about peace. But, they are not. - Nils Reinton

Björn Brembs

Women scientists: biological drive vs. scientific passion - http://bjoern.brembs.net/news...

November 11 from bjoern.brembs.blog : a... - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Mietchen and Ashalynd liked this

I think you're underemphasizing some cultural factors: namely, it is FAR more socially acceptable for men to abandon their children 12h/day than it is for women. Likewise, it is FAR more socially acceptable for women to say "I'm giving up on [career] to have kids" than for men. My personal opinion is that until men step up to a fair share of childcare, nothing changes. - D0r0th34

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I agree with D0r0th34. Plus, it seems to me that there is something wrong with a career/professional culture that requires these work hours. Perhaps if more people were hired to work in the lab, it wouldn't be necessary for others to take on these work loads. - Katy S

also, "biological drive"? puh-LEEZ, says this no-kids-nuh-uh-not-ever woman. - D0r0th34

This is cultural rather than biological. US and UK are very very poor examples for women in science from what I have gathered so far. I would prefer to see statistics from somewhere like Sweden, which appears to have much more civilised maternity/paternity regulations. - Anna Croft

There's plenty statistics on this, no time right now to look it up, but there are norwegian studies. On the post-doc level I believe we are closing in on 50/50 share between men and women. Maternity leave and social benefits when you have small children do make a difference. That said, I believe that the distribution is skewed towards men when it comes to tenured positions also in scandinavian countries. - Nils Reinton

@D: I try not to emphasize neither biology nor culture. As a neurogeneticist, I find the dichotomy to be useless anyway - which I try to allude to in brackets. Social acceptance is certainly part of the mix. - Björn Brembs

@Katy: I think this is at the core of the issue: where do these long hours come from? Personally, every morning I look forward to coming to the lab and in the evening, I've organized events (sports, social) simply to have a deadline by which I MUST leave the lab. A quote from our prof emeritus here springs to mind: "When I married, I lost my Sundays in the lab. When our first child was... more... - Björn Brembs

@Anna: Of course, childcare is an issue in many cases, no doubt. However, I'm asking myself (as the issue will come up next year): how do I fit a 12-13h workday with a child that will be awake for (at least for some years) less than that time. If I have a child, I'd like to raise it and educate it at least for some of the time and not delegate that to 100% to strangers. Why have a child... more... - Björn Brembs

It might be interesting to look at what arguments emerge from looking at career path figures on men in science who do not raise children (or do any other daily care work for others alongside their jobs) compared to women in science who don't, either. - Claudia Koltzenburg

when they had me, my parents both took a year off, first mum then dad, before doing the daycare thing. that's what I plan to do. @Bjorn I think on average mothers probably do want to spend more time with their baby than fathers, but I doubt the effect is substantial or general. as Nils says, Scandinavian countries are closer to 50/50 thanks to a different culture re ma/paternity leave (though it's far from equal, and maybe it never will be, but i doubt there's any harm in trying). - Christopher Harris

@Björn I could make a number of comments to the nature of 'society' response to this, but given they relate to instances in my current job this is probably not the place (not relating to me in terms of childcare btw). My partner otoh, has indicated he is eager to take on any childcare responsibilities when/if the time comes (and thus considers this extremely seriously) - however, I suspect he is in a reasonable minority. Hopefully this will change. - Anna Croft

I am with Katy here. Just cut those crazy working hours and make a life outside of the lab obligatory. Everybody will be happy and I can finally keep up with the papers published in my field. Damn workaholics! - Oliver Schuster

@Katy, @ Oliver: it's not necessarily that people are forced to work these hours (although that is a component), it's more the passion that drives them (which may be potentiated by the competition). - Björn Brembs

A couple of books by Berkeley women address these issues: _Mothers on the Fast Track_ http://www.amazon.com/gp... by Mary Ann Mason and Eve Mason Ekman, includes a section on women in academia (not scientists specifically). Mason notes that women with children are less likely to get... more... - Ruchira S. Datta

Claudia, the _Mothers on the Fast Track_ book answers your question. A rough paraphrase from memory: for men in academia, being married with children is *better* for their careers than not having children. For women in academia, it's the opposite. - Ruchira S. Datta

The competition driving them may be an illusion. This presentation on the Rules of Productivity http://lostgarden.com/Rules%2... is aimed at game developers, but apply to scientists as well. The 40-hour workweek was chosen because it gives the greatest sustained productivity. - Ruchira S. Datta

A salient point is that productivity for knowledge workers declines after 35 hours, not 40. - Ruchira S. Datta

Nils Reinton

Finding the Achilles' heel of cancer | Eureka! Science News - http://esciencenews.com/article...

December 11 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Link to original paper: http://breast-cancer-research.com/content... - Nils Reinton

Quote from abstract: "Phenanthridine-derived PARP inhibitors interfered with cell proliferation by causing G2/M arrest in both normal (human epithelial cells MCF10A and mouse embryonic fibroblasts) and human breast cancer cells MCF-7 and MDA231. However, whereas the normal cells were only transiently arrested, G2/M arrest in the malignant breast cancer cells was permanent and was accompanied by a massive cell death." - Nils Reinton

Attila Csordas

got the advice from my wife that before sleep I should relax w/ other types of literature than programming/biology & w/o backlighted screens

December 8 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Itachi, Khader Shameer, Piaw Na and 5 other people liked this

Reading anything right before going to bed is bad. Give yourself at least 30 minutes to unwind: lie on the sofa, watch mindless TV - anything that requires no brain! - Neil Saunders

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I read Newspaper before sleeping and sometimes those editorials are good for sleep. :) - ashish

sudoku... - Andrew Su

thx guys, were staying up late in the last couple of days due to thinking on coding problems hard instead of sleeping and realized that the iPhones next to my bed are not helping me, probably will move them to another room. - Attila Csordas

Watching TV is a bad way to go to sleep. Reading books is great. - Piaw Na

My 'going to sleep' material is usually science fiction or fantasy. - Michael R. Bernstein

For unwinding I find that if you include a glass or two of red wine, - all of the above works :-) - Nils Reinton

s/red wine/vodka - Bill Hooker

Reading books: history of Science, SF, art, comics - Pierre Lindenbaum

Psychology books or... FriendFeed ;) - Pawel Szczesny

a good novel is my favorite way to relax before sleep - Mike Chelen

another problem: I'm getting a Kindle tomorrow, can I use it in the bed to read fiction, comics, art... all the light things that makes us easy more or less? - Attila Csordas

Not comics. Fiction, absolutely - Deepak Singh

No art or comics, just fiction and non fiction. - Piaw Na

Can you read the H+ magazine on your kindle ? Is it color ? Let me know if you can because I need to find a good way to read this and other pdfs. - Nils Reinton

I could give you a list of selected publications that make me fall asleep whenever I try to read them ;-) - Lars Juhl Jensen

LOL @Lars! - Bill Hooker

Nils Reinton

The peace price acceptance remarks: A Just and Lasting Peace - nyheter - Dagbladet.no - http://www.dagbladet.no/2009...

December 10 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

"But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars." - Nils Reinton

NatureNews

Testosterone link to aggression may be all in the mind - http://www.nature.com/news...

December 8 from NatureNews - Most recent... - Comment - Like - Share

Tanath liked this

Testosterone-testing done on women, sounds like a flaw ;-) - Nils Reinton

you're joking right? we explain why the testing was done in women in the story.... incidentally, you're better off commenting on Twitter @naturenews - that's more active... - NatureNews

I was joking yes. Although, I would have liked to see this study done in men. I always have twitter in mind, but for discussions friendfeed is much much better. - Nils Reinton

Nils Reinton

What you want, god wants - http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009...

December 8 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Religious people tend to think that they know what their god wants, but how do they come by that knowledge? For me, as an atheist, it's a fascinating question. The gods can't be communicating their preferences directly (because there's no such thing), so where do these beliefs come from? - Nils Reinton

Bill Gates is God !?: "Now, what's interesting is that their beliefs about Bill Gates' opinions also mirrored their own. The thing about Bill Gates is that he's generally admired, but nobody really knows what his opinion is on this topic. So they were free to invent it." - Nils Reinton

Nils Reinton

Climate Change Deniers vs The Consensus | Information Is Beautiful - http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visuali...

December 7 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Jim Hardy and tim liked this

link directly to the image from: http://friendfeed.com/nuin... - Nils Reinton

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this is very cool. thanks for sharing, Nils. - tim

I especially like the "Consensus conclusion" at the bottom: "Man made CO2 emissions are driving climate change this time. We don't claim that greenhouse gases are the major cause of the ice ages and warming cycles. What drives climate change has long been believed to be the variation in the earth's orbit around the sun over thousands of years." - Nils Reinton

"In a normal warming cycle, the sun heats the earth, the earth gets hotter. The oceans warm up releasing huge amounts of CO2. This creates a green house effect that makes warming much much more intense" - Nils Reinton

"That's why humanity's release of CO2 is so perilous. We're out of step with the natural cycle.And we haven't even got to the stage where the oceans warm up." - Nils Reinton

Nils Reinton

I'm returning to Oslo today. - http://www.dopplr.com/travell...

December 6 - Comment - Like - Share

See more in my Dopplr profile. - Nils Reinton

Not really, I was in Oslo all along. - Nils Reinton

Nils Reinton

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice? | Brain Blogger - http://brainblogger.com/2009...

November 25 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

winckel liked this

"Much to the delight of Willy Wonka and children everywhere, the researchers do not blame the candy. They believe that the underlying issue is the children’s inability to make good choices. For instance, parents who bribe their children with sweet treats are not teaching the children how to delay gratification. This, in turn, can lead to impulsive and violent behavior." - Nils Reinton from Bookmarklet

Nils Reinton

I'm starting a trip to Rīga today. - http://www.dopplr.com/travell...

December 3 - Comment - Like - Share

I'll be there from December 4th until December 6th. See more in my Dopplr profile. - Nils Reinton

No I'm not. Kids are sick. - Nils Reinton

Paulo Nuin

New Microscope Reveals the Shape of Atoms - Improved field-emission microscope images electron orbitals, confirming their theoretical shapes - http://www.reddit.com/r...

December 1 from Reddit - Comment - Like - Share

Check out the priceless comment at the SciAm article by hhandy. - Neil Saunders

"There appears to be a mysterious quantum nature in the way my momentum lines appear to jump from one daily momentum line point to another." Weird, this keeps happening to me too.... - Nils Reinton

Paulo Nuin

Open Science/Access challenge - http://blindscientist.genedrift.org/2009...

November 30 from Blind.Scientist - Comment - Like - Share

Claudia Koltzenburg, Jean-Claude Bradley, Cameron Neylon and 2 other people liked this

Ok if I comment here ? http://friendfeed.com/sciphu... - Nils Reinton

16 more comments

Yep, sure. Comments here are also valid. - Paulo Nuin

Is there a price for participating in this challenge ? - Nils Reinton

The price is a poem ? ;-) http://blindscientist.genedrift.org/2008... - Pierre Lindenbaum

no price, no reward. Wait, a reward will be a post about Open Science/Access. - Paulo Nuin

Here's my list: http://friendfeed.com/billhoo... - Bill Hooker

I think, to be an OA challenge, you should not have phrased it as "list of publications on PubMed or" but "list of publications freely accessible via PubMedCentral or". Anyway, mine are not all biomedical, so I go for the "or" option: http://dbm.neuro.uni-jena.de/people... . - Daniel Mietchen

NB deleted a comment because I don't know what Paulo is up to here, but I don't want to spoil it inadvertently. - Bill Hooker

My only OA cred here is paying the OA fee for my dissertation, and pushing for that on an upcoming publication. Also doing a lot of repository work behind the scenes. - Mr. Gunn

Mine are here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites... 5 of 6 are OA, but to be honest I wasn't in a position to decide about a journal (or OA option) for most of them. - Pawel Szczesny

http://www.journal.chemistryce... http://www.jcheminf.com/content... http://www.jove.com/index... - Jean-Claude Bradley

So that Paulo doesn't have to post a link to THAT site on his blog, self-archived copies of the PDFs are here: http://www.mendeley.com/profile... - Mr. Gunn

I'm afraid to get a virus on this link you just posted. - Paulo Nuin

Ok I'll bite. Still working to get mine up on a single website but put a list in reverse chronological order on Paulo's blog. Basically of 12 papers since 2008, five are in OA journals, one is a CC-BY chapter in a book, and two others can be put online in final form six months after publication (which I haven't done in one case where I could). The ones that aren't proper OA I wasn't... more... - Cameron Neylon

"if Nature asks you for a piece you don't readily turn them down" - hard to disagree. At the same time, it's probably the best summary of the issues we are facing. Most of the discussion I had about future of science and impact of "2.0" meme onto academia were finished with a sentence along these lines :/ - Pawel Szczesny

Well there's two sides to it - one is the "Nature paper gives you credibility in grant proposals" element, the other is that it remains a more effective way of getting the message out than writing online or in OA journals. - Cameron Neylon

Nature has been pretty accommodating - they agreed to make my book review OA http://www.nature.com/nature... - the other great thing about Nature is that they will publish work appearing on their open Nature Precedings - Jean-Claude Bradley

That's true - I probably should have asked about that - didn't occur to me at the time... - Cameron Neylon

Hsien-Hsien Lei

Sad: Miss Argentina ‘94 dies during gluteoplasty - http://www.inquisitr.com/50186...

December 1 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Canceled my own gluteoplasty appointment after reading this, she may have saved my life ;-) - Nils Reinton

I am totally tweeting your comment. - Hsien-Hsien Lei

Wildcat

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be..." http://wildcat2030.tumblr.com/post...

November 27 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

yes,at all costs, be true to yourself - even though that self does not really exist :-) Who was it said (?) "Be yourself, because everybody else is taken" :) - james reilly

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we agree.. but its a nice say, so.. and if memory serves it was Oscar Wilde - Wildcat

Yes, but, based on the possible number of past, current and future individuals, hardly anyone is taken....and I'm not sure I want to stay myself for long either ;-) - Nils Reinton

@Nils okay, I am with you on this one so how about we rewrite the statement like thus: "I prefer to be true to a possible virtual and indefinite self, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of my other selves, rather than to be one, and to incur my own abhorrence.".. .-) - Wildcat

@Wildcat :-D - Nils Reinton

coming to think of it, it does smell of solipsism.... :-) - Wildcat

Nils Reinton

How Americans spent themselves into ruin... but saved the world - http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2009...

November 26 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

"And so, at risk of belaboring the point, let me reiterate. If the U.S. had done the normal thing, the natural human thing, and imposed mercantilist trade patterns after WWII -- as every single previous "chung kuo" empire ever did before it -- then the U.S. would have no debt today. Our factories would be humming and the country would be swimming in gold..." - Nils Reinton

References Wanted: Berci Mesko, MD

Could someone please send me these two papers? Thank you very much! (e-mail: berci.mesko at gmail.com) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... and http://www.nature.com/nrm...

November 25 - Comment - Like - Share

Sorry, denied access to both of them - Nils Reinton

Thank you for trying, I just received the papers from two different sources. Friendfeed rocks! - Berci Mesko, MD

Nils Reinton

I'm returning to Oslo today. - http://www.dopplr.com/travell...

November 22 - Comment - Like - Share

See more in my Dopplr profile. - Nils Reinton