Personally I think the invention that changed the world was the magnetron. I can't see living without my microwave (oven)
It certainly helped the allies win WW2 by enabling the construction of very short wavelength (ths accurate and discriminating) radar.
Kitchen microwave ovens were invented to heat hamsters.
This guy is fantastic, I discovered his video about human communication. We should all watch and rewatch this video to communicate better.
In fact I found him before, but as a professional about the ONOSECOND the "The Worst Typo I ever Made" (I don't link it, it could shock any IT professional suffering from ONOSECOND PTSD)
The camera is focussed on much less than 10 W, that’s for sure…
Wilfried:
Now we are not focused on units with less than 10 W power. We’ll see later for further miniaturization.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
I'm not sure what to make of this. I have the equivalent of several hundred yards of bookshelves and a large gallery full of images in this computer, but I ain't got no rings.
Exotic particles in a quantum computer
An interlocked ring pattern of virtual exotic particles called non-Abelian anyons — or nonabelions for short — has been created in a quantum computer for the first time. The particles’ paths form Borromean rings, three interlocking rings that can’t be pulled apart but don’t contain any linked pairs. The rings exist only as information inside a quantum computer. They could make the machines more robust to perturbations that create errors in their calculations.
Reference: arXiv preprint (not peer reviewed)
I'm not sure what to make of this
PLEEEZE don't let Axil see this article. He will go off the deep end.
At 9:06 in the following video
Breakthrough Superconductor Experiment Fails to Replicate
It must be a problem here in the US because now we have a new name for it...tipflation! Gald I am not the only one who has noticed. Anyway, off topic but fun read:
Just the sight of an iPad screen at a coffee shop counter is enough to make most Americans grumble.
In recent years the Apple devices have become synonymous with the country's 'tipflation' problem which has seen tipping culture spill out from bars and restaurants and into stores, takeout chains and even self-service machines.
But there is one man who is surely not complaining. Billionaire Jack Dorsey's tech firm Square - which sells the software that powers many of these iPad payments - made an eye-watering $3 billion profit last year alone.
It marks a three-fold increase on what the company netted four years ago in 2018 when it was earning around $1 billion a year. In the first quarter of 2023, it made $770 million, up 16 percent on the same period last year.
The figures lay bare just how quickly such digital Point-of-Sale (POS) systems have taken over the nation's retailers and hospitality venues.
Square was founded in 2009 by former Twitter CEO Dorsey - who famously implemented a 'tip jar' feature on the microblogging site - and Jim McKelvey. The men have a net worth of $4billion and $1.4 billion respectively, according to Forbes.
In 2021 the company was rebranded as Block - but the arm which controls its POS systems has maintained its original name.
Shoppers might recognize its blue-and-white screens on iPad and iPhone checkouts which asks them how much they would like to tip, with options generally beginning at 18 percent.
Its company accounts claim it processed $46.22 billion worth of transactions in the quarter of the year - the equivalent of $513 million a day.
The firm - which works with merchants in all 50 US states and Australia, Ireland, Canada and Japan - facilitates the card payments and takes a small slice of each transaction amount.
According to its website it takes 2.6 percent and 10 cents on a contactless or 'swipe' transaction.
For a keyed-in transaction - when a customer manually enters their card information - it will charge a 3.5 percent fee plus 15 cents.
If an employee receives a tip, it adds to the transaction value - meaning Square claws back a bigger share of the money.
Square said it would be 'inaccurate' to say that increased tipping is the reason for its explosion in profits, claiming the money it makes from gratuity on a transaction amounts to 'mere cents.'
Even so, the company's profits expose just how reliant retailers have become on these interfaces that customers have come to loathe.
Historically tips were only expected at restaurants and bars - or other venues where people were waited on by servers.
But recently more and more stores and coffee shops have started to implement iPad POS machines which ask customers if they wish to add gratuity before they complete the transaction.
The trend was in part sparked by the pandemic which saw stores reluctant to accept cash and in need of a quick and easy digital alternative.
While they can say no, shoppers have often complained they feel 'guilt-tripped' into agreeing to the surcharge.
Earlier this year Square told NBC news that the frequency of tipping in quick-service restaurants - including coffee shops and fast-food chains - rose 16 percent in the last quarter of 2022 compared to the same period a year earlier.
Recently shoppers raged that even self-service machines were even asking for tips - despite them having zero interaction with an employee.
And the topic hit headlines again when it emerged Apple workers at a store in Maryland were lobbying to allow customers to tip its workers.
Experts say that the transition from physical tip jars to screens had sparked a change in customer attitudes.
Professor Michael Lynn, a consumer behavior professor at Cornell University, told Dailymail.com: 'iPad screens make it harder for customers to say no.
'Before customers would just see a tip jar and could ignore it if they wanted to. But now they have to actively say 'no.'
'Many are standing in line at a coffee shop and are worried about what the guy behind them is thinking.'
He added that the minimum amount set by the retailer for gratuity also has an impact.
Square says that its merchants can opt-out of including the tipping option in their check-out system.
And they can also set their own minimum amount at where tips start.
Shoppers on Twitter have complained that some vendors set their minimum tip option as high as 30 percent.
'The higher you set that amount the more likely customers are going to click it and the more money the worker is going to get,' Lynn said.
Square is not solely responsible for all iPad transactions as it has several rivals in the field.
A similar firm called Toast raked in a gross profit of $511 million last year - a 63 percent year-on-year increase from 2021.
In the first three months of the year, the firm netted a gross profit of $174 million - a 96 percent year-on-year increase.
Toast is exclusively used in restaurants. Both Square and Toast were contacted for comment.
The trend was in part sparked by the pandemic which saw stores reluctant to accept cash and in need of a quick and easy digital alternative.
While they can say no, shoppers have often complained they feel 'guilt-tripped' into agreeing to the surcharge.
Earlier this year Square told NBC news that the frequency of tipping in quick-service restaurants - including coffee shops and fast-food chains - rose 16 percent in the last quarter of 2022 compared to the same period a year earlier.
Recently shoppers raged that even self-service machines were even asking for tips - despite them having zero interaction with an employee.
And the topic hit headlines again when it emerged Apple workers at a store in Maryland were lobbying to allow customers to tip its workers.
Experts say that the transition from physical tip jars to screens had sparked a change in customer attitudes.
Professor Michael Lynn, a consumer behavior professor at Cornell University, told Dailymail.com: 'iPad screens make it harder for customers to say no.
'Before customers would just see a tip jar and could ignore it if they wanted to. But now they have to actively say 'no.'
'Many are standing in line at a coffee shop and are worried about what the guy behind them is thinking.'
He added that the minimum amount set by the retailer for gratuity also has an impact.
Square says that its merchants can opt-out of including the tipping option in their check-out system.
And they can also set their own minimum amount at where tips start.
Shoppers on Twitter have complained that some vendors set their minimum tip option as high as 30 percent.
'The higher you set that amount the more likely customers are going to click it and the more money the worker is going to get,' Lynn said.
Square is not solely responsible for all iPad transactions as it has several rivals in the field.
A similar firm called Toast raked in a gross profit of $511 million last year - a 63 percent year-on-year increase from 2021.
In the first three months of the year, the firm netted a gross profit of $174 million - a 96 percent year-on-year increase.
Toast is exclusively used in restaurants. Both Square and Toast were contacted for comment.
"Prof" posts stats and while we're at it, why not let "Hugh" speak?
"Prof" posts stats and while we're at it, why not let "Hugh" speak?
..spookily, Il Dottore just happened to be sitting at his laboratory computer at 09:45+ when those 2 messages were posted
What are the chances?!? 😉
Just interesting
I will post this here because an important point is made and it could serve to some here in different ways.
In particular, the speakers were disparaging to religion and "new age" spirituality. From time to time, they would mention telepathy, homeopathy, or other types of "pseudoscience" (or "woo," as the speakers referred to it). The audience would respond by applauding their criticisms or murmuring with hostility.
yes, many self-proclaimed atheists have a personal and negative edge to their belief in rationality. Which makes it irrational...
But as the science festival illustrated, for many people, science has become associated with a particular worldview, which is often maintained and defended in a similar way to a religion.
This is the worldview of materialism, which holds that matter is the primary thing in the universe, and that anything that appears to be non-physical—such as the mind, our thoughts, consciousness, or even life itself—is physical in origin, or can be explained in physical terms.
This is a bit confused: I am not actually sure what it means? I think it is confusing two things: what is our scientific explanation for phenomena, and is there anything other than science that is important? The vast majority of scientists would say that although there is no evidence for anything other than the physical world - many things: religion, spirituality, love, etc that lie outside the domain of science are every bit as important (or perhaps more important) than science.
Materialism holds that human beings are just biological machines and that the only purpose of our lives is to survive and reproduce.
That is a worldview that very few people have ever held.
But materialism is not in fact that:
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist. This concept directly contrasts with idealism, where mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is dependent while material interactions are secondary.
(From wikipedia)
We can believe that consciousness, love, spirituality, faith all are important without any belief in things outside of the physical and biological world we inhabit and are part of. It is like somone saying that because everything in a gas is explained by the kinetics of ideal collisions of gas molecules, temperature and pressure are unimportant. Or that because all life comes down to organic chemistry, zoologists are unimportant.
An alternative term for this belief system is scientism since it is a paradigm that has been derived from some of the findings of modern science. As the psychologist Imants Baruss has described it, "Science is an open-ended exploration of reality based on logical thinking about empirical observations. Scientism is the adherence to a materialist version of reality that confines investigation to those sorts of things that are permitted by materialism."
This guy (writing this article) has an agenda (and he is a psychologist - beware!)
Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.[1][2]
While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientists", some scholars have also adopted it as a pejorative term with the meaning "an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)".[3]
Most scientists (and non-scientists) would make an important distinction between scientific truth, and other forms of truth: religious, artistic, emotional.
There is no competition between scientific truth and these others because they describe different things.
One of the characteristics of dogmatic belief systems is that their adherents accept assumptions as proven facts. This is certainly true of scientism. For example, it is a fact that consciousness exists, and that it is associated with neurological activity. But the assumption that consciousness is produced by neurological activity is questionable. (See this article of mine for further discussion.)
It is not a scientific fact that consciousness exists. Consciousness is one of these things that philosophers (e..g Daniel Dennett - one of the better ones on this topic) like to debate as a concept. But exists? I think a psychologist might say it exists in the fact that humans tend to think there is something called consciousness that they have, and which maybe dogs have, but certainly ants don't have. So perhaps a psychological fact - for what that is worth.
But the assumption that consciousness is produced by neurological activity is questionable. (See this article of mine for further discussion.)
Any statement about consciousness is questionable until it can be defined precisely.
It is a fact that evolution has taken place. But it is also a questionable assumption that evolution can be explained wholly in terms of random mutations and natural selection. As illustrated by the contemporary "Third Way in Evolution" movement, there is growing evidence against this assumption, as Neo-Darwinists believe. In fact, as I show in my book Spiritual Science, there is a dearth of evidence to support many of the assumptions of materialism, and a good deal of evidence against them.
Neo-darwinism is a development from darwinism which recognises that speciation and other (genetic) processes mean that evolution proceeds not just by random mutation and selection of the fittest organism, but by selection of the fittest genes, epigenetic content, cultural attributes, and therefore will have sudden changes from one selection of "fit" genes to another. So neo-darwinism is darwinism tweaked in whatever way is appropriate given modern molecular biology as an underlying mechanism. And it is an umbrella word that encompasses many different strands - since the interactions between genes and phenotypes is infinitely complex.
Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of Darwin's and August Weismann's theories of evolution) or 1942 ("modern synthesis"), but it can mean any new Darwinian- and Mendelian-based theory, such as the current evolutionary theory.
(wikipedia)
Now the bit that is most contentious...
Last year (2018), the journal published an article by Professor Etzel Cardeña of Lund University, in which he carefully and systemically reviewed the evidence for psi phenomena—examining over 750 discrete studies—and concluded that there was a very good case for their existence.
As a commentary on the article from the British Psychological Society reported, “on this basis, it is arguable that, as much as any other field of psychology, there is at least something meriting investigation.”
However, in June of this year, the journal published an online rebuttal of Cardeña’s article by Arthur Reber and James Alcock. The authors take an unusual approach, based on theory rather than evidence. Rather than engaging carefully with the evidence presented by Cardeña, they put forward a theoretical argument for the non-existence of psi.
As they write, “Claims made by parapsychologists cannot be true… Hence, data that suggest that they can are necessarily flawed and result from weak methodology or improper data analyses or are Type I errors.”
Their attitude appears to be that since psi is impossible, no amount or type of evidence would be sufficient to support it. Therefore it is unnecessary to deal with any specific pieces of evidence.
It is difficult to see the scientific logic of this approach. Surely a truly scientific approach would entail engaging with the evidence and examining it on its own terms, accepting the possibility that—if the evidence is convincing—theories may have to be revised.
The authors’ approach is clearly more similar to the kind of dogmatism that is usually associated with fundamentalist religion. It is akin to a judge declaring that since we have already decided that a person is guilty, there is no need to look at any further evidence.
In more detail, Reber and Alcock argue that psi phenomena, in general, cannot exist, because there is no causal mechanism to account for them, and because they contravene a number of the tenets of physics.
However, the idea that psi contravenes the laws of science is very questionable. Specifically, Reber and Alcock argue that psi phenomena violate the laws of causality, of linear time, of thermodynamics, and the inverse-square law. However, many other scientists have put forward theories that would allow for the possibility of psi.
In fact, in modern physics—following on from Einstein’s theories and the theories and findings of quantum physics—the concept of causality is much more complex than Reber and Alcock presume.
Modern physics includes concepts such as retrocausation and the transactional theory of quantum physics, which are compatible with precognition. Telepathy is also compatible with the concept of entanglement. (Although note that I am saying compatible with, as I wouldn’t go so far as to say telepathy and precognition can be explained in these terms. The important point is that their existence is allowed for in terms of these concepts.)
This psychologist does not understand J. Cramer's work, or quantum mechanics. The transactional interpretation does not allow precognition any more that causality allows precognition. Entanglement does specifically not allow the possibility of telepathy, in any observable sense. Systems can be entangled across spacelike intervals, but this does not allow spacelike (FTL) information transfer.
I'd have no problem with his statements if he was arguing "beliefs in spirituality, telepathy, etc are all important, and widespread, we need to respect them".
But he is instead arguing "scientific theories that view telepathy as scientifically very unlikely are narrow-minded and unrealistic".
Being a psychologist - I suspect he does not understand the difference between those two things.
Another issue is that Reber and Alcock seem to assume that the laws of science as they exist now are immutable, which is surely not the case. To assume that our present understanding of the universe is complete is hubris. (In fact, Reber and Alcock's claim that psi phenomena cannot exist because they violate the inverse-square law is undermined by recent research showing that the law doesn’t apply to gravitational waves.)
I can see why Curbina and others here might like this. And I don't like Reber and Alcock if they use the word impossible.
But the argument that telepathy of any direct type (rather than being very good at predicting what somone else will think, and hearing such a prediction is a voice in one's head - which of course is possible) is highly unlikely is real. And not to accept that is brains fall out not open mind.
And gravitational waves also obey inverse square law, but also are not practically usable for telepathic communication by suhc a large amount the word impossible does not seem unreasonable...
And the point about "fixed theory" is not that any scientist thinks current theories are correct - but new theories must predict equally well all those experiments which show inverse square law and other things, and make direct telepathy effectively almost impossible.
you can't just invent random theories and have them be correct. To be correct they have to be consistent with existing theories over a very very wide range of phenomena.
Belief systems form a distorting filter through which their adherents view the world. This is usually surreptitious, in the sense that adherents don’t usually even realize that they have adopted a belief system. They interpret the world through the prism of their beliefs without being consciously aware of any filtering or distorting.
This is particularly evident with psi phenomena. Materialists sometimes dismiss the possibility of psi by referring to the "Occam's razor" principle that the simplest and least speculative explanation is usually the right one. But the question of what constitutes simple or speculative is determined by one's perspective, through the lens of expectations and assumptions.
Materialism's explanations only seem simple and economical if you have already decided that materialism is true. Many materialist explanations—such as for altruism or near-death experiences—are tortuous and convoluted, rather than simple and economical. (Again, see my book Spiritual Science for further details.)
With regard to psi, skeptics—including Reber and Alcock in their recent article—sometimes also refer to the argument that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." But again, psi phenomena only seem extraordinary through the lens of materialism. From a cultural point of view, psi is not extraordinary. Research has shown that most people believe they have experienced psi phenomena at least once. Psi is also arguably less than extraordinary in relation to the bizarre and counter-intuitive goings-on of the quantum world.
It is understandable that Steve Taylor, being a psychologist, interprets the word "extraordinary" in terms of human non-scientific beliefs rather than probability of scientific hypotheses. But it is a bit surprising. Psychologists have long known that on a wide variety of phenomena, human estimates of probabilities are very wrong. Perhaps Taylor here does not have any idea that probability can be assigned to physical hypotheses in some way more consistent than arbitrary initial belief - but it can. https://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf. Of course belief systems still enter into scientiifc judgements - scientists are human. QM in particular was famously resisted because the microscopic world behaves so very differently than our intuition based on the macroscopic world we inhabit.
In a similar way, materialists sometimes talk about the need to avoid "magical thinking." But again, the question of what constitutes magical thinking is determined by one's perspective. Outside the materialist belief system, it is surely magical to presume that consciousness can emerge from physical stuff and that human beings' mental and psychological functioning is purely generated by neural activity. (Strikingly, the philosopher Colin McGinn has suggested that the idea that the brain could generate consciousness is analogous to water turning miraculously into wine.) As the "third-way" theorists point out, it is also arguably magical to believe that natural selection working on random mutations could approximate to a creative principle responsible for all of the complexity and variation of life on earth.
and.... here we go. Both these cases are things that we all - and most especially those who like science - view with wonder and awe. They might even use the word magical (loosely). But both these cases have exquisitely possible and understandable materialist mechanisms. (For consciousness, read Daniel Dennett and post-Dennett views). Evolution has the wonderful neo-darwinist explanations (backed by genetic data) for things that seem marvellous and extraordinary but are actually pretty easy in evolutionary terms like the human eye.
I would hope that this psychologist's views do not align well with those of the LENR community!
An important difference
Note the distinction:
1. Scientific reductionism - thinking that science explains all life, or that scientific thinking is the only type of thing that is important
Great scientists tend not to be scientific reductionists. Their study of science is motivated by a spiritual (sometimes religious) sense of wonder and awe which ha nothing to do with scientific thinking. And they don't think science is the only thing that matters for humans, nor that scientists should be in charge of the direction of society.
2. Scientific mysticism - thinking that because spirituality is important, science with mysticism added in is better than science without mysticism added in.
That is a profound misunderstanding of science, not at all the opposite of reductionism. Good scientists will know clearly how scientific thinking is different from normal ways of human thought, and often counter-intuitive. Scientific truth is hard-argued and based on proper induction - not to be swayed by intuition or prejudice or experience - all of which can lead us astray.
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.
Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture and very much to our credit.
T. H. Huxley
I would hope that this psychologist's views do not align well with those of the LENR community!
You are overthinking again. I posted this as an interesting point of view in general, not from the LENR perspective.
You are overthinking again. I posted this as an interesting point of view in general, not from the LENR perspective.
This is the worldview of materialism, which holds that matter is the primary thing in the universe, and that anything that appears to be non-physical—such as the mind, our thoughts, consciousness, or even life itself—is physical in origin, or can be explained in physical terms.
That seems manifestly true to me. If a phenomenon cannot be explained in physical terms, according to the laws of physics, what terms can it be explained in? What other terms are there?
The vast majority of scientists would say that although there is no evidence for anything other than the physical world - many things: religion, spirituality, love, etc that lie outside the domain of science are every bit as important (or perhaps more important) than science.
Religion, spirituality and those things are all in the domain of science. I have done lots of anthropology. It is the study of these things from a scientific point of view. Also as literature and art.
Materialism holds that human beings are just biological machines and that the only purpose of our lives is to survive and reproduce.
That is a worldview that very few people have ever held.
I hold that view. But it does not mean much. It is not profound. It is not even controversial from my point of view. It is like saying that a computer program is a long list of instructions recorded magnetically that are executed by the CPU. That does not tell you the purpose of the program, or whether it was written by someone with an evil intention. It just tells you what the program is in physical terms. That is all it is, on one level. A person or other living creature has only one fundamental purpose at the level of DNA -- to survive and reproduce. This causes all kinds of interesting meta-phenomena such as birdsongs, romantic poetry, and people making thermonuclear weapons. But at the atomic level, it is all DNA driven. DNA all the way down. (Of course life also involves metabolism, brain function, etc., but every aspect of living things is controlled by DNA.)
As I said, describing a computer as a machine that executes op codes is not wrong. It just does not tell you enough about higher level functions and purposes to be useful, such as how structured programming works, or why Adobe software is so annoying. Everything on the higher level can be reduced to op codes. There is nothing else.
A person or other living creature has only only fundamental purpose at the level of DNA
But cultural evolution is not DNA driven...
Humans are remarkably similar genetically..99.9% common DNA
but culturally very different
humans are not just a bunch of 37 trillion cells and humanity is more than a bunch of humans
6,500 different languages
e.g John1.1
Koine Greek Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
PNG-Inoke "Aꞌkeꞌainaka Anumaya Kotiꞌa ma mopa alo ohuꞌnea afina Yisasiꞌa mako akiꞌa Kemoꞌa maiꞌneno Anumaya Kotiꞌae loꞌkaꞌana maiꞌnaꞌane.
The article says:
Materialism holds that human beings are just biological machines and that the only purpose of our lives is to survive and reproduce. It holds that anomalous phenomena, such as spiritual experiences, near-death experiences, or psi phenomena, are brain-generated illusions or can be explained in terms of fraud or coincidence. Materialists are particularly opposed to psi phenomena—like telepathy or precognition—which they see as anathema to science, a throwback to a pre-enlightenment world of magic.
Those two statements are non sequiturs. One does not follow from the other. They have no relationship to one another. Psi phenomena might be brain-generated illusions, or they might be real phenomena. Either way they are the product of physical events, and government by the laws of physics. As far as I know, either way they only occur in brain tissue.
The ability of birds to navigate comes largely from their brains ability to sense magnetic north. This is caused by magnetoreception in the eye. It is a quantum effect. This would have seemed impossible or inexplicable a few years ago. If psi phenomena are real, I suppose they are something similar.
But cultural evolution is not DNA driven...
Humans are remarkably similar genetically..99.9% common DNA
but culturally very different
Every single event in every cell, including brain cells, is governed by DNA. Every event is an outcome of some function of DNA. But that does not mean all events are the same. It is like saying that every printed book is made of paper and ink only, or that every program is a collection of magnetically recorded op codes. The number of potential cultures and the number of paths of human evolution made possible by DNA probably exceed the number of electrons in the universe.
Natural clones such as identical twins growing up in different circumstances can come out with completely different cultures, even thought their DNA is identical. DNA responds to the environment and to events, including drastic events such as starvation or war. It is not an invariant or rigid single set of rules. Not like a computer program. It is more like a gigantic set of programs that are activated as needed in response to the environment and to stimuli.
Every single event in every cell, including brain cells, is governed by DNA. Every event is an outcome of some function of DNA. But that does not mean all events are the same. It is like saying that every printed book is made of paper and ink only, or that every program is a collection of magnetically recorded op codes. The number of potential cultures and the number of paths of human evolution made possible by DNA probably exceed the number of electrons in the universe.
Natural clones such as identical twins growing up in different circumstances can come out with completely different cultures, even thought their DNA is identical. DNA responds to the environment and to events, including drastic events such as starvation or war. It is not an invariant or rigid single set of rules. Not like a computer program. It is more like a gigantic set of programs that are activated as needed in response to the environment and to stimuli.
I was really behind that idea until I watched this video...
