Recent content by kldickson

  1. K

    News American Health Care: People are acting like 12-year-olds.

    If someone would disseminate this image around the internets in places I haven't already disseminated it, I would much appreciate it. Which brings me to the subject of this post: why, instead of having a reasoned discussion, are people acting like gorillas on speed when talking about healthcare?
  2. K

    Why do non-smokers often display hostility towards smokers?

    Realistically, if you want to kill yourself, that's your prerogative. I just don't want to have my respiratory system assailed by carcinogenic fumes. Find somewhere to smoke where it won't blow into someone else's face. We shouldn't have to breathe your cancer stick crap.
  3. K

    Medical Are drug induced experiences real?

    Come back to this question when you're in college, Martini. High school has not given you and will not give you the tools and information necessary to discuss this.
  4. K

    Medical Are drug induced experiences real?

    Martini started the thread, madness. I was responding to her. Synesthesia is an altogether different story; that has a biological underpinning. We think that it stems from two sensory regions being more closely wired than usual; 'reality' is not such a good way to express this as in it...
  5. K

    Medical Are drug induced experiences real?

    Looking at your post history, I see you are not quite conversant in basic philosophy, and I can't say whether or not you're conversant in any of the basic sciences. What level of education are you at?
  6. K

    Medical Are drug induced experiences real?

    Have you read scientific studies of schizophrenia?
  7. K

    Medical Are drug induced experiences real?

    My specific area of study is in neuroscience. The question of reality, I find, is often best addressed when undertaken by scientific inquiry - objective, empirical proof replicated in a series of experiments by informed professionals. Hallucinations caused by a mental illness are just as fake...
  8. K

    Medical Are drug induced experiences real?

    Philosophy shouldn't even touch drug-based experiences. These only take place because of pharmacological interference with normal brain function. What you perceive during a hallucination is not, in fact, real; the hallucination does occur in that you are experiencing a hallucination, but for...
  9. K

    Which chemical makes a basic sol'n? (MC)

    Construct chemical equations and react all the chemicals with H2O to see what they produce. Just because a chemical is a Bronsted-Lowry base does not necessarily mean it produces a basic solution. For example, NaCl does not produce a basic solution, but Cl- is a Bronsted-Lowry base.
  10. K

    What Makes Mercury So Harmful to the Body?

    This is messed up. Metals don't affect electrical signals this way. Calcium, sodium, and potassium exist as ions in your neurons and between your synapses. Your chemistry professor needs to read a biology textbook.
  11. K

    What Makes Mercury So Harmful to the Body?

    The problem with dimethylmercury is that it complexes to cysteine and that it is eliminated from the body slowly. Find information on Minamata disease if you want to know what happens to the body. Specifically, it's a neurotoxin.
  12. K

    Medical What is the role of the neocortex in human intelligence and movement?

    Those of you who do computational neuroscience - I have a friend who might be interested in some of it. Can you maybe post a short reading list? (My experience is on the non-computational side of things. Plus I'm still an undergrad.) Artificial neural networks are really only useful as...
  13. K

    Should I Come Out as an Atheist to My Religious Family and Friends?

    Or substitute the name of whatever religion you want to substitute in there - Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Tea-and-Crumpetism, etc.
  14. K

    Should I Come Out as an Atheist to My Religious Family and Friends?

    Hurkyl, there's a considerable distance between saying 'HURF DURF ICKY JOOZ' and saying 'Religion is founded on rather illogical premises and has been shown to be harmful'.
  15. K

    Should I Come Out as an Atheist to My Religious Family and Friends?

    It would be a pity if saying that was a bannable offense.
Back
Top