PartSkeptic’s Thread for Predictions and Other Matters of Interest

[abaddon]

I do not doubt that the algorithm has a predisposed and inherent repetitive pattern built into it, and that the pattern will eventually form.

Please show us this exactly.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I can recognize a false god.

How?

 

[Mojo]

How?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13099491#post13099491

 

[PartSkeptic]

This will help. The tinfoil not so much.

Your high blood pressure is probably caused by poor diet and lack of exercise. You only think it's 'electrosmog' because you can see the towers and theorized a cause that doesn't actually exist, and confirmation bias did the rest. There is no evidence for 'electrosmog' from cellphone towers causing high blood pressure, and no mechanism for it. But there are well-known diet-related causes, and exercise will make you feel better as well as improving general health.

Don't just talk about it, do it. 5 years ago my doctor told me I had to lose weight to get my blood pressure and cholesterol level down. I cut out fat and sugar, halved the meat and increased the vegetable content of my meals, drink only water and stick to a strict regime of 30~40 minutes exercise per day. I now feel 10 years younger!

Hi Roger.Good to see you again. Was it Bitcoin that we agreed on - and yet it keeps going?

I agree with the regime. It helps a lot.

Can you explain why my blood pressure goes to nearly normal if I go the country side where the electrosmog is almost zero? It takes about 4 days.

I have a blood pressure monitor and do checks. Nothing had really changed in the last 8 weeks but when the 6 week lock-down eased and I went to the factory and to shops then I started getting really bad headaches which I could feel were pressure related. The electrosmog acts as a catalyst to amplify any medical problem.

Example 1. My knee replacement started failing with 2 days of high radiation in the old house lounge. It only started after I got out of bed to watch TV. When I realized the worker had not foil-lined the lounge ceiling I wrapped my leg in foil. The relief was almost immediate but took about 2-3 days to get back to the normal healing curve.

Example 2. I started getting a burning sensation on my right upper thigh when visiting our old home next to the cell tower. It took about 45 minutes to manifest and about 4 hours to dissipate. This was quite repeatable. Then I started to get burning even when away from the tower. I did some research. It is a nerve that is not happy. It took about a week for me to realize that if I wore my normal size underwear the pain would happen. If I wore a larger size it would not happen. The elastic was pressing on the nerve. If I went to the house after a week of wearing the larger underwear I would not get the pain. Conclusion. The nerve was in the early stages of being stressed. The emf made it worse. When the nerve healed, the emf did not have an effect.

This "making a condition worse" is what was happening with my blood pressure. It happens with other conditions also.

Lessons from God.

Believe it or not!

 

[turingtest]

...
Can you explain why my blood pressure goes to nearly normal if I go the country side where the electrosmog is almost zero? It takes about 4 days.
...

From The Beverly Hillbillies, 1965-

Jane Hathaway: Your cold cure really works?

Daisy Moses: Positively if you follow directions

Booth: By the way, what are the directions?

Daisy Moses: Take one spoonful of cold cure, eat sensible, get lots of rest and drink plenty of water.

Jed Clampett: And in a week or ten days, your cold'll be gone.

Lessons from Granny.

Believe it or not!

 

[PartSkeptic]

Please show us this exactly.

I have to thank you also.

Your persistence made me look for a programming IDE that was simple and could do Langton's Ant. I found Processing, also known as P5. Easy to learn. Got it in a couple of hours. Then I got the Langton Ant code and will modify it to to see if my strategy works. The ant tends to overfill any pattern on the grid, so it will not be easy. So give me a few days. I will only be able to work in the evening. I will only know it works when it works.

All this while helping my wife get the last few orders out, and strategize selling/renting her factory, and disposing of stock/material/scrap. I have to learn MIG and TIG welding tomorrow so as to get the last orders done, and cleanup the equipment for a potential Monday buyer and do a final fix on the guillotine which occasionally overshoots. We could get some workers to help because we are providing essential equipment, but then they would be taking taxis and coming from overcrowded areas. It is not easy to wear masks while working the whole day. Not easy to keep sanitizing. Which is why I feel that the USA will experience a Brazilian surge.

Monday I have to work with an electrician to get the old house up to electrical compliance, and fill my Jacuzzi pool after connecting up the piping. To say I am busy is an understatement.

Although the housing property market is down there are people searching for factory space. Storage for example - the guy next door put 50 cars into his factory in which he stores perfumes. So selling now might just get my wife a good price.

 

[PartSkeptic]

From The Beverly Hillbillies, 1965-



Lessons from Granny.

Believe it or not!

Nice one. I learned early on that many psychiatrists know that depression will often go away by itself in 6 months. The fact is that a "time cure" is one possibility. But I have been trained quite well to know what to take into account and again I say - repeatability and consistency.

 

[Pixel42]

Of course going from an urban location, where you're constantly concerned about an imaginary electrosmog, to the peaceful countryside, where you have no such concern, lowers your blood pressure. How can anybody possibly be surprised by that?

 

[catsmate]

What’s going on in this thread?

God is using Covid-19 to inefficiently kill off a few old people.

 

[PartSkeptic]

The point of this example is that a set of very simple rules, with no purpose built into them, will eventually produce complex behaviour which looks purposeful.

Here's an excellent piece, derived from an interactive exhibit, which takes you by the hand and guides you through it.

https://serendipstudio.org/complexity/models/langtonsant/index.html

Thanks for the link. I will go through it tomorrow.

Before I do, I would comment:

What complexity? If I watched the behavior it would quite quick to derive the simple rules. Very easy. I would have to watch to see if there was not another conditional line or loop that took a while to get to. But that would be a matter of writing the code and comparing the results.

And what is complex about a repetitive pattern? One cannot see from the rules that it might take many iterations to "fall into" the pattern.

Such behavior happens all the time. A system all of a sudden goes into a feedback loop. A sound system produces a whistle and whine if the conditions are right.

I will see if I change my mind after reading the link.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Of course going from an urban location, where you're constantly concerned about an imaginary electrosmog, to the peaceful countryside, where you have no such concern, lowers your blood pressure. How can anybody possibly be surprised by that?

It was the first thing I considered. Obvious to all of us. I considered not mentioning the setting so as to avoid the obvious, but I know it is a factor and I wanted transparency and honesty.

When I moved out of the house to an apartment for 6 months there was an improvement. The cause and effect is fairly consistent.

 

[PartSkeptic]

God is using Covid-19 to inefficiently kill off a few old people.

Step 1. Get people to down-play the threat
Step 2. Spread the infection
Step 3. Create more panic
Step 4. Ruin economies
Step 5. Start wars and famines
Step 6. Mutate to a deadlier strain without immunity for the first one

Rinse and repeat.

 

[Pixel42]

Yes, it's consistent. Move from somewhere you expect to feel unwell to somewhere else where you have less, or no, such expectation and you feel better. Quelle surprise.

 

[Mojo]

Yes, it's consistent. Move from somewhere you expect to feel unwell to somewhere else where you have less, or no, such expectation and you feel better. Quelle surprise.

Blood pressure in particular appears to be susceptible to the placebo (and presumably also nocebo) effect.

 

[Mojo]

Step 1. Get people to down-play the threat
Step 2. Spread the infection
Step 3. Create more panic
Step 4. Ruin economies
Step 5. Start wars and famines
Step 6. Mutate to a deadlier strain without immunity for the first one

Rinse and repeat.

Nice chap, this god of yours.

 

[Pixel42]

Nice chap, this god of yours.

Not that any of that needs a god's intercedence, of course. Indeed it's hard to see how a god could, for example, "Get people to down-play the threat" without interfering with that much vaunted free will of ours.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Blood pressure in particular appears to be susceptible to the placebo (and presumably also nocebo) effect.

Yes, I will agree. I have brought it down quite a bit in a few hours by my state of mind. But there is a limit to how much one can do that. To bring it to almost normal in 4 days seems beyond mental state.

If mental state is so powerful why is it not used by the medical profession instead of medication (pills)?

 

[PartSkeptic]

Nice chap, this god of yours.

He is what he is. Until recently I blamed all evil on Satan while God allowed him to do so. Now I think God can "punish" in the sort term to achieve long term good for the bulk of mankind.

Question. Can humankind regulate over-population and climate change?

If there is no God then "Nature" and natural evolutionary trends may destroy the planet. Which would you rather have - limited God inflicted population control or extinction?

 

[PartSkeptic]

Not that any of that needs a god's intercedence, of course. Indeed it's hard to see how a god could, for example, "Get people to down-play the threat" without interfering with that much vaunted free will of ours.

Timing. Introduce some pandemics which die out so humankind thinks they are invincible. Allow the 2008 crisis to make the economic system precarious. Elect Trump. Then make Covid-19 sneaky and unpredictable.

Humankind still has free will. Free will does not imply complete control over nature and society. Humankind has the free will to recognize the dangers and do something about it. God is "nudging" humankind to do so. Your free will cannot be total without impacting on my free will - ie there are constraints.

 

[Pixel42]

Which would you rather have - limited God inflicted population control or extinction?

One of those options is unavailable, but fortunately there are others.

If it turns out we we can't solve the problems we've caused ourselves then the world will be better off without us. Maybe the next creature to evolve intelligence will do better.