Philosophy Wire: Looking inside…

Using properties of light from fluorescent probes is at the heart of a new imaging technique that allows for an unprecedented look inside cell membranes. [1] Looking inside. The main goal from the beginning of time. Looking inside. For the outside is obvious. Transparent. Nothing hidden under the Sun. Fool. Can’t you see? What is out there, is nothing else than what is inside. You are already looking at your precious prize. But you just cannot admit that you do. Because if you did, you should admit that there is no Sun illuminating anything. But only the pale silver Moon… Getting its light from you… With only one wish… To look inside you… But you were too preoccupied to allow it… Close your eyes to the light... Did you ever wonder… Why did you start seeing in the first place?

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Philosophy Wire: Supernova.

Scientists discover supernova that outshines all others. [1] Light is never enough. For it can be overridden by a more intense light. Look. A small shadow. Cast light on it. Make it more intense. The moon will rise now. And you will see clearer. That the most obscure question you ever had was so simple. Is it night? Or is it day?

PS. Inspired by On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy | Jacques Derrida.

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Philosophy Wire: Darkness… Light… Motionless…

Photo by Spiros Kakos @ Pexels

Theoreticians in two different fields defied the common knowledge that planets orbit stars like the Sun. They proposed the possibility of thousands of planets around a supermassive black hole. [1] Moving around light. Moving around darkness. It matters not though. For what is important is that we move. And thus fail to see that there is nothing to move around from. Stop. And see. Everything is moving around you…

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Philosophy Wire: Skin. Time. Darkness. Sun…

A study has now found that a type of opsin (a family of proteins which act as photoreceptors) known as neuropsin is expressed in the hair follicles of mice and synchronize the skin's circadian clock to the light-dark cycle, independent of the eyes or brain. Researchers now want to see if skin heals better if it's exposed to certain types of light. [1] Wrinkles in time. Shuddering to the touch of the cosmos. Yes, you can feel when it is dark. But not an instant before the moment you stop feeling it. You can live. But not an instant before you actually die. Listen to the Sun whispering “I am the only one who can sense the Moon”…

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Philosophy Wire: Light. Dark. Being blind. Seeing everything…

Scientists have used machine learning to train computers to see parts of the cell the human eye cannot easily distinguish. [1] Once upon a time we saw nothing. And we could see everything. Now we have eyes. And yet we need to train a machine without eyes for us to see. Once upon a time we were thrown in a forest. Living in darkness. But then light lured us. And we got lost within its brightness…

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Philosophy Wire: Seeing behind corners… yourself!

Seeing behind corners. By reflecting light. [1] In the beginning there was nothing. And then came light. Bouncing ever since to the boundaries of the cosmos. We now try hard to see. To take a glance at the beginning of time, where everything started. Bouncing light around the corners of the universe. Reaching the very end. Some day we will be able to see. That the end is the beginning. That the only thing lurking around that corner is… us. Watching patiently since the beginning of time. Waiting to tell us the great secret of life. That there is no secret…

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Philosophy Wire: Balance and Sour. Memento mori.

Scientists at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences have discovered an entirely new class of ion channels. These channels let protons (H+ ions) into cells, are important in the inner ear for balance and are present in the taste cells that respond to sour flavors. [1] Life is sweet. But you can never appreciate that if you haven’t experienced the sour. Appreciation of light comes only from the realization that light is made up of darkness as well. Balance comes only from the realization that “lack of balance” is what we must seek. Life is based on the realization that we have to die. Memento mori…

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Philosophy Wire: The birth of a black hole… Death… Light…

A scientific theory describing how the first massive black hole is created from a massive star in the beginning of the universe. [1] Even the darkest object is created from light. Even death must be born somehow...

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Philosophy Wire: Twin stars. Light. Nemesis.

The Sun might have been born with a twin. A twin star called “Nemesis”. [1] [2]

Everything has a dark twin. Hidden deep inside.
A nemesis waiting to conquer your mind.
Constantly banging on the door.
We were born from darkness. It is the light we are afraid of...

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Philosophy Wire: Cold. Darkness…

An article analyzes how the darkness and the cold killed the dinosaurs after a meteorite struck Earth. [1] This is how it is usually. Not in cozy warm places. Not under the light. But in darkness. In the cold. This is where life goes forward. This is where worlds are created…

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Philosophy Wire: Milky Way disappearing. From light. Cosmos disappearing. From thought.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2016-11-14]: The Milky Way, the brilliant river of stars that has dominated the night sky and human imaginations since time immemorial, is but a faded memory to one third of humanity and 80 percent of Americans, according to a new global atlas of light pollution produced by Italian and American scientists. [1] We create light. And make the stars go away. Light needs darkness to appear. The cosmos needs voidness in the mind to arise in existence. Look at the sky. Whatever you see, blocks you from seeing what you ought to…

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Philosophy Wire: Turtles. Eye. Light. Truth.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-10-27]: Each summer, leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) migrate thousands of kilometers from their tropical breeding grounds to feed in cooler waters. Yet how the animals know when to begin their long journey back south at the end of the season has mostly remained a mystery. New findings, to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, suggest that leatherback sea turtles may be able to sense seasonal changes in sunlight by means of an unpigmented spot on the crown of their head—known as the pink spot (pictured). Researchers conducted an examination of the anatomical structures beneath the pink spot and found that the layers of bone and cartilage were remarkably thinner than in other areas of the skull. This thin region of the skull allows the passage of light through to an area of the brain, called the pineal gland, that acts as biological clock, regulating night-day cycles and seasonal patterns of behavior. [1] We have the tendency to believe that light comes from somewhere on the "outside". But light comes from the inside. We think and that is why we "see" light. Let us stare the truth in the eye. We will be dazzled by her brightness...

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Philosophy Wire: Dark.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-09-10]: The darkest material yet. [1] Absorb everything and you will be invisible... Don't keep anything inside you and you will shine... Look inside you. Look at the others. Where lies the darkness? Everything light. Everything dark. Does it matter? Look at me. Close your eyes...

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Philosophy Wire: Assumptions, simulations, light...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-08-27]:

Computer simulations of intergalactic hydrogen in a "dimly lit" universe (left) and a "brightly lit" universe (right) that has five times more of the energetic photons that destroy neutral hydrogen atoms. Hubble Space Telescope observations of hydrogen absorption match the picture on the right, but using only the known astronomical sources of ultraviolet light produces the much thicker structures on the left, and a severe mismatch with the observations. [1]
We are always haunted by the things that SHOULD be there.
We are always defined by the things that SHOULD happen.
Let go of your assumptions.
Do UNSCIENTIFIC science!
It is the only way to truly DO science!

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Philosophy Wire: What has passed... What is still here...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-06-29]: Wormholes, time travels, communication with superluminous speeds. [1] Everything is possible! Everything can be done!  Everything is away and yet everything is near you. Everything is different and yet everything is One. I tell you so! Your future self! Or your past self? It does not matter. What is past has not passed. What is to come may have come already. We are all in a hole. Wandering for the obvious...

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Philosophy Wire: Light, Time, One.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-11-19]: Ancient light. Travelling for billions of years. [1] And yet, for it is looks as though only three years have passed. [2] An eternity in a moment. Parmenides in practice!

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Philosophy Wire: Dark lightnings

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-25]: A dark lightnings appears milliseconds before a "light" lightning we see occurs... [1] Light comes after dark.

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Philosophy Wire: Relativity Theory and Light - The fake "limit"...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-24]:

What is the Relativity Theory? What does it really say?

The major misconceptions are related to the speed of light as a universal speed limit. A limit which... limits us in almost everything - from interspace journeys to information transmission and time travels (yes, Gödel proved they are possible).

But how is that limit derived? And can it be overcome?

Speaking in favor of FTL (Faster than Light) speeds can easily ban you from scientific communities

However...

That "limit" was initially derived from an experiment. And there are other experiments casting a doubt on that experiment... [see experiments of Dayton Miller here]

That "limit" is set to be true due to the fact that c is calculated from Maxwell's equations. But why not believe the "Many Minds Relativity" according to which each observer assumes that light propagates according to Maxwell's equations in a coordinate system, or a vacuum, fixed to the observer? Different observers moving with respect to each other, thus use different coordinate systems or different vacui, but they all use the same Maxwell's equations. [source] No problem with such an explanation. And surely no "limit" there...

That "limit" is not universal. It is actually broken in more than one occasions. And it is simply "not relevant" to many other cases of faster than light information transfer. See the below sources:

• Electricity faster than light
• Opera experiment: Things DO travel faster than light, what’s the big deal?
• Light speed and scientific dogmatism
• Harmonia Philosophica “φως” related posts
• Harmonia Philosophica “light” related posts
• Alternative Physics - Faster than Light

That "limit" is experimentally verified like a self-fulfilling prophecy.


We use Relativity Theory equations (which were built ON THE BASIS of light speed being the ultimate barrier) to calculate the speed of e.g. space particles and we find it to always be less than c. But this happens because these equations do not allow anything to get a speed beyond c simply because THEY ARE CONTRUCTED SO THAT THIS HAPPENS! [source]

Like Alternative Physics suggests...

Replace: "The speed of light is a constant for all observers" with:
The speed of light is a constant relative to its source.
Replace: "No object can exceed the speed of light" with:
No object can exceed the speed of light relative to its launch point.

What is the speed of a thought? Think quickly. And as Bruce Lee said... "Have no limit as limit".

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Philosophy Wire: Electricity: Faster than light!

Philosophy FTL Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-20]:

The experiments of Sir Charles Wheatstone showed that the velocity of electricity is about 288,000 miles per second, much greater than the speed of light. [1, 2, 3, 4]


However in order to interpret this we must understand what “electricity” is. In fact we do not have electrons moving in such speed in a wire, but every new electron which is moving into the wire “pushes” the electron which at that time is at the end of the wire thus creating this result of high speed. [5, 6] One can even think of electricity as the propagation of a wave: given a large enough wave length the peak of the wave can almost “instantly” be sent to the other end of the wire. [see “velocity of propagation” here] (in AC we do not have at all propagation of electrons)



But these notes do not nullify the importance of the abovementioned result. Electricity can transfer INFORMATION with speeds GREATER THAN THAT OF LIGHT, despite what proponents of the Theory of Relativity say (and the objections of New Scientist that the strength of the signal is lost in great distances does not hold – you can have speeds greater than the speed of light in small distances). And in any case, if these “electron-push”/ “wave propagation” mechanisms apply to electricity in a wire, why can’t it be applied analogously to light as well which is propagated in a space where the electromagnetic field in a sense “pre-exists”?

No discussion can go on with absolutes. Every absolute restriction science postulated (e.g. barrier of sound, possibility of flying, imaginary numbers etc) was later on discarded. Why don’t we learn from our mistakes?

PS. It is very interesting and suspicious that it is very hard (much harder than what one might expect) to find clear information regarding the speed of electricity in the otherwise rich with information Internet. It is characteristic that Wikipedia in the respective article writes about everything else (from electromagnetic waves to the drift speed of electrons) than the actual problem at hand [see here] and without referring to the experiment by Wheatstone. It just claims that the speed of electricity is that of light, with an Internet forum as a source. In other sites the confusion is similar [see for example here, here, here and here], with people confusing the speed of electricity with the speed of electrons, the speed of electricity with that of light et cetera, and without anyone referring to the actual experiments conducted to measure electricity speed.

PS2. And no, this is not the only “faster than light” example… See here, here and here for more…

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Philosophy Wire: Science, knowledge, castles on the sand…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-03-25]: Two forthcoming European Physical Journal D papers challenge established wisdom about the nature of vacuum. In one paper, Marcel Urban from the University of Paris-Sud, located in Orsay, France and his colleagues identified a quantum level mechanism for interpreting vacuum as being filled with pairs of virtual particles with fluctuating energy values. As a result, the inherent characteristics of vacuum, like the speed of light, may not be a constant after all, but fluctuate. [source: Science News] Fluctuating spped of light. Fluctuating theories. Fluctuating knowledge. Building castles on the sand…

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