Hello, I'm doing a poll for college. Would anybody be comfortable telling me most prominent fear. (either common or more specific/unusual fears)
>>8418389
The effects of our CO2 emissions is definitely my biggest fear.
Skeletons in astronaut suits.
It stems from when I was a kid and I watched the Scooby Doo episode Space Kook, the laugh freaked me out.
Then when I was older the doctor who episode Silence in the library.
I'm fine with each of them on their own. But put the together and I get spooped the fucked out
>>8418389
I have brainlet-phobia
The fear of one day waking up having lost an IQ point. This is why I made a program that generates a new IQ test from a database with more than a million different problems, randomly picking ones in a 'smart' (too complex to get into detail) way and I do it immediately and ask for my score.
It has happened that in a day I score 1 point less and in that moment I just take like 5 sleeping pills to sleep all day and wake up the next day to see if anything is better. My philosophy is that if I do something without that IQ point it is going to be shit compared to my previous works.
But in days where I score a point more I try to keep drinking coffee nonstop so that I can do the most I can with that extra IQ. I usually sleep when I collapse after 3 weeks from caffeine overload and sleep depravation.
http://www.nature.com/news/where-nobel-winners-get-their-start-1.20757
>ecole normale superieure
Just looked this up and saw
>Academic staff 1,400
>Undergraduates 250
wtf?
>>8419909
Your numbers are wrong.
>>8419872
Why is France looking more and more like the future world leader? They lead the world in nuclear energy and now this.
STEM majors often use their chosen field as an excuse to let their bodies and social skills go to waste. Some of them think of it as almost a right of passage, or some odd sort of abstract membership fee requiring that they be a fucking autist. Even worse, many of them think it's the cost of their enormous genius, like some fucked up "heavy lies the crown" bullshit. But then you read about absolute titans like John Urschel and you're quickly made aware of how fucking stupid that kind of talk is. Dude is an NFL player, goes to MIT for his PhD in mathematics, and has solved various open problems in information theory. My guess is he isn't a complete social retard either. Stop making excuses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Urschel
>>8414867
>a nigger is getting his PhD in mathematics
>information theory
Are we actually surprised?
>>8414872
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Urschel
Are you unable to read? He's going to MIT unlike you
>Urschel began a Ph.D. in Mathematics at MIT in 2016,[7] focusing on spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra and machine learning.[8] He earned straight-As in his first semester of the program
RACIST BRAINLETS ABSOLUTELY BTFO!
>Urschel-Zikatanov Theorem
http://math.mit.edu/~urschel/spectralbisection.pdf
Is pic related a legitimate concern or just a meme?
It makes humble water filter merchants a lot of money.
>>8409108
That's the second time I've seen that phrase. Is that the consensus? The fluoride myth was propagated to create a market for filters?
it works by replacing a more soluble OH- in teeth enamel
teeth have less propensity to demineralize with fluoride bonded in
What are you?
All your memories, desires, fears, plans. Your ability to think about a flying lawn mower anytime you want, for any reason. What is 'that'?
If you died and an exact replica was built in the future, down to your entire brain chemistry, would you "wake up" and be alive again? If not, why? Is consciousness itself just an irreplaceable illusion?
This is devouring me
you just played SOMA huh
if you believe in god, something something soul
if you don't, then yes, it would be 'you'. if your next question is why, my response would be to ask what difference there is in the you that falls asleep & loses stream of consciousness & the you that wakes up.
>>8418658
I'd say I'm this consciousness. Everything else, the whole personality aspect is just like clothing, you can strip it away and still be you.
>>8418667
What is it in the brain that would make me "wake up" though? Wouldn't a replica just be a 100% identical clone, while I as an individual never "come back"
A simplistic rephrasing I guess would be this: If I die in 10 seconds and slip into the darkness of nonexistence, will I ever "come back" and enter the light of awareness again, or will my family just get a remake that's indistinguishable?
Who here /dumb as fuck/ but still enjoys /sci/?
Not me!
>>8414366
Pretty much. Years of unreasolved depression and parental negligence/abuse made me into brainlet.
>>8414405
>Years of unreasolved depression and parental negligence/abuse made me into brainlet.
Bullshit.
Time to settle the age old question of who is the most intelligent person on this board.
I'll start.
In 7th grade, I took an SAT test without preparing for it at all, it was spur-of-the-moment, I knew about it about an hour ahead of time and didn't do any research or anything. I scored higher on it than the average person using it to apply for college in my area.
An IQ test has shown me to be in the 99.9th percentile for IQ. This is the highest result the test I was given reaches; anything further and they'd consider it to be within the margin of error for that test.
My mother's boyfriend of 8 years is an aerospace engineer who graduated Virginia Tech. At the age of 15, I understand physics better than him, and I owe very little of it to him, as he would rarely give me a decent explanation of anything, just tell me that my ideas were wrong and become aggravated with me for not quite understanding thermodynamics. He's not particularly successful as an engineer, but I've met lots of other engineers who aren't as good as me at physics, so I'm guessing that's not just a result of him being bad at it.
I'm also pretty good at engineering. I don't have a degree, and other than physics I don't have a better understanding of any aspect of engineering than any actual engineer, but I have lots of ingenuity for inventing new things. For example, I independently invented regenerative brakes before finding out what they were, and I was only seven or eight years old when I started inventing wireless electricity solutions (my first idea being to use a powerful infrared laser to transmit energy; admittedly not the best plan).
I have independently thought of basically every branch of philosophy I've come across. Every question of existentialism which I've seen discussed in SMBC or xkcd or Reddit or anywhere else, the thoughts haven't been new to me. Philosophy has pretty much gotten trivial for me; I've considered taking a philosophy course just to see how easy it is. (cont.)
>>8412882 cont.
Psychology, I actually understand better than people with degrees. Unlike engineering, there's no aspect of psychology which I don't have a very good understanding of. I can debunk many of even Sigmund Freud's theories.
I'm a good enough writer that I'm writing a book and so far everybody who's read any of it has said it was really good and plausible to expect to have published. And that's not just, like, me and family members, that counts strangers on the Internet. I've heard zero negative appraisal of it so far; people have critiqued it, but not insulted it.
I don't know if that will suffice as evidence that I'm intelligent. I'm done with it, though, because I'd rather defend my maturity, since it's what you've spent the most time attacking. The following are some examples of my morals and ethical code.
I believe firmly that everybody deserves a future. If we were to capture Hitler at the end of WWII, I would be against executing him. In fact, if we had any way of rehabilitating him and knowing that he wasn't just faking it, I'd even support the concept of letting him go free. This is essentially because I think that whoever you are in the present is a separate entity from who you were in the past and who you are in the future, and while your present self should take responsibility for your past self's actions, it shouldn't be punished for them simply for the sake of punishment, especially if the present self regrets the actions of the past self and feels genuine guilt about them.
I don't believe in judgement of people based on their personal choices as long as those personal choices aren't harming others.I don't have any issue with any type of sexuality whatsoever (short of physically acting out necrophilia, pedophilia, or other acts which have a harmful affect on others - but I don't care what a person's fantasies consist of, as long as they recognize the difference between reality and fiction and can separate them). (cont)
In 6th grade, I took an SAT test without preparing for it at all, it was spur-of-the-moment, I knew about it about half an hour ahead of time and didn't do any research or anything. I scored higher on it than the average person using it to apply for college in my area.
An IQ test has shown me to be in the 99.99th percentile for IQ. This is the highest result the test I was given reaches; anything further and they'd consider it to be within the margin of error for that test.
My mother's boyfriend of 8 years is an aerospace engineer who graduated Virginia Tech. At the age of 14, I understand physics better than him, and I owe very little of it to him, as he would rarely give me a decent explanation of anything, just tell me that my ideas were wrong and become aggravated with me for not quite understanding thermodynamics. He's not particularly successful as an engineer, but I've met lots of other engineers who aren't as good as me at physics, so I'm guessing that's not just a result of him being bad at it.
I'm also pretty good at engineering. I don't have a degree, and other than physics I don't have a better understanding of any aspect of engineering than any actual engineer, but I have lots of ingenuity for inventing new things. For example, I independently invented regenerative brakes before finding out what they were, and I was only six or seven years old when I started inventing wireless electricity solutions (my first idea being to use a powerful infrared laser to transmit energy; admittedly not the best plan).
I have independently thought of basically every branch of philosophy I've come across. Every question of existentialism which I've seen discussed in SMBC or xkcd or Reddit or anywhere else, the thoughts haven't been new to me. Philosophy has pretty much gotten trivial for me; I've considered taking a philosophy course just to see how easy it is.
I win.
"category theory was a mistake"
>>8409121
Damn fuckin right it was. Categories are dumb. Sets are all we need?
I have a set.
I have a set
Uhh
set of the sets given by the axiom of pairing
There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.
>Be my friend
>Specialize in category theory
>Instantly become an expert since there are like 100 people in the field worldwide
>???
>Profit
Why do materialists say that a clone/remake of your brain wouldn't be "you", if "you" are a result of a physical process?
If someone were to remake your brain, all the way down to the atomic level, in say a few thousand years after your death when technology is exponentially higher than what it is today, why wouldn't it be considered "you"? If this remade brain has the exact same physical structure as your current brain, then your subjective views, memories,sense of self should be there in the new brain, since it is a physical process, right?
I believe it's because the brain isn't just about the structure but the connections between the structures. Plus the fact that if this were the case you would have to wonder, if someone recreated your brain while you were alive - would it still be you?
Consciousness is weird and confusing
>>8406071
A clone or a remake is NOT the original. It's a copy of the original.
No matter what you do, it will always be a copy. Copied memories, copied looks, copied abilities, copied thought process and emotions, all identical to the Original, but because it wasn't first it is not the Original.
A copy will always be inferior to the original due it not being first.
I've got a simple logistical question.
Forget about funding, cosmic rays, Mars terraforming, etc.
Is it really possible at all to build the largest rocket AND the largest spaceship ever made and take them from the drawing board to ready for test flight within six years?
The Saturn V took two years of pre-planning and six years of development, the Space Shuttle took three years of pre-planning and nine more years of development, and this is a rocket much larger than the Saturn hauling a ship much larger than the Shuttle.
Last I had heard they have been working on it for awhile already, and it was test flights in 4 years, full flights within 10.
>>8406105
Red Dragon flights soon, first ITS lift off in 2022.
It's just... there's nothing tangible of the ITS. Literally everything is renderings and blueprints. Like not one sheet of metal from it exists yet.
>>8406108
Don't they already have the fuel tanks? I know I've seen video of them testing the Raptor engine too
Friendly reminder that the Great Barrier Reef is gone.
25 million years of ecological paradise down the shitter.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/721115/Great-Barrier-Reef-dead-2016-after-25million-years-Queensland-Australia-Unesco-obituary
F
Good night sweet prince.
F
May our grandchildren forgive us for this sin
>>8414469
It's not dead. It's 22% dead, you lazy stupid fuck. Do your research next time
Post the best math book you've read.
>>8413165
My Twisted Universe by Neil Degrasse Tyson
>>8413165
What is considered advanced linear algebra? I just finished undergrad linear algebra, mostly focused on orthogonality and matrix factorizations like QR and SVD. We touched on markov processes and the matrix exponential. This is as far as I'll be going with math education as school but I'm curious what I should study on my own that would be relevant to engineering.
>>8413165
Mein Kampfpact Set by Georg Cantor
Does anyone else get study burnouts? I wish I were a machine, I'm being constricted by my psychological limitations. I want to fucking hang myself.
Anyways, here's greentext of my STEM fuckup
>Going ham before major exams
>Study literally 8 hours a day, living on instant ramen
>7 days in my mind just goes blank and can't absorb shit
>My willpower takes a huge deep, then I waste 2 days surfing the internet, shitposting with extreme guilt, questioning why I'm doing what I'm doing.
>Go to the library
>See people working
>Gets even more depressed
>after about 2 days, cycle repeats, my mind goes fresh and I go ham again.
Fucking if I can work through this shit I would've done way better in the exams.
>Inb4 Adderall
Anyways, you can share your fuckups, and perhaps even help each other out.
add structure to your study schedules and frequently review what you've done and where you're headed
>>8413948
Define structure.
I'll usually pack my day with shit, i'll literally work till I sleep, like a month or 2 before my major exams.
I like my field, I like studying, but for some reason I can't sit my ass down and study for 10 hours a day like I should be doing.
I know I'm blowing away my life's most productive years by being lazy, but I just can't snap out of it.
We /fieldofstudy/ now
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.03452v1.pdf
>>8411068
>"final boss of the internet"
ignoring its content, the density of loaded words used in the abstract really makes me question the value of the paper, and the quality of its writing
>We /fieldofstudy/ now
>We
>identifying with /pol/
So if drinking alcohol helps doing creative things while coffee helps while doing perpetual works, what should be consumed more if one were to be an actual scientist?
In fact what is the best diet to help you with what you are doing right now? Not just wether it's coffee or alcohol but also overall nutrition intakes
>>8413935
Exercising is the best thing you can do for your brain
>>8413935
Amphetamine
Cocaine.