As I explain a few things...

As I was reading the fantastic book, The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch, the third book in a special series of Discworld Books (of which there are more than 40) written by the amazing Terry Pratchett with help from Jack Cohen and Ian Stuart, I decided to post this. Every other chapter of the Science of Discworld books explains actual science behind whatever is happening in the storyline.

Onto more interesting stuff:

Schrodinger's cat is nonsense. At least, the way that many people think of it is - they may take the idea quite literally and reject it as nonsense. It's simply a thought experiment demonstrating how quantum physics works. If it was Schrodinger's Electron, it would be a perfect explanation (provided it involved motion and not death) but of course that wouldn't help people understand because most people seem to need comparisons and real world analogs to understand this stuff. It turns out that this was mentioned in the book, although I had come to this conclusion independently. As Stuart and Cohen brilliantly explained, mathematical concepts are just methods of thinking.

A tree falling in the forest when no one is around makes sound, provided it is possible for it to make sound. The whole idea of it is ridiculous - if true, then nothing would happen without an observer, meaning that not only would a tree falling in the forest would not actually exist (for if it didn't make a sound, the only sensible resolution would be that it didn't even exist), and more so, the forest would not exist except where it was being observed, and to extrapolate even further, pre-human history would not exist. QED, it's ridiculous.

One hand cannot clap. Simple as that. A clap requires two hands, or, if you really want to call what a clapper does clapping, then that works as well - but it still requires at least two surfaces in motion.

Anything can catch up to the tortoise. This much is obvious in real life. The idea is that every time the object has caught up, the tortoise has moved forward. However, this distance which the tortoise moves is much smaller than the distance which Achille moves in the same time. Both reality and actual thought renders this "paradox" or null.

Same goes for the one where movement is impossible because you can divide any space up infinitely and thus you have to keep moving forward through a seemingly infinite number of spaces to have moved a finite distance. First, at quantum level, many things are about as small and basic as they get. Second, even with the subdivision of a finite space into infinite spaces the distance remains the same. Lastly, you have to take real life into account - just because the idea of doing this hurts your head, doesn't mean that you don't do this every day - you move through these infinitely subdivided spaces whenever you move in any way, shape or form.

When I hear people talking about "The World", I often get annoyed because I have no idea what they are talking about. Generally, it means this:
* The Earth
* Human Civilization
* The Universe (rarely)

Like some sensible people, I don't like this. It means that I have to make an assumption which could very easily be wrong.

I also hear about "The End of the World" and find it to be a really stupid phrase. It often is used to mean the end of Humans in general, often in religious contexts, which is ridiculous, because the Earth would still exist, as would the Universe. If it were to mean "The End of the Earth", than the Universe would still exist. And the end of the Universe is ridiculous.

As for the Universe, I would like to point out that it means the sum of all matter and space. Note the "uni"-one. One world. On one hand, it could mean one world of many, but the way I see it, it's ridiculous that the term multiverse could exist - simply because the term Universe can't possibly capture everything doesn't mean that when a new group of matter is discovered/postulated/hypothesized, we have to describe them as a multiverse, when in fact they are still part of the sum of all matter and space. It's all one universe.

Artificial means man-made, but so does natural. Humans are still part of nature. Building is not some sort of abomination or unnatural thing, and we do what we do because of the way we are. It's all natural. Nuclear reactors are quite natural. So are video games. You can distinguish between the two but there's no reason to say that humans are no longer constrained by nature.

The term American means people living in both Americas, North and South. Mexicans are as American as United States Citizens. So are Cubans. And Venezuelans. I don't call myself an American Citizen, because the term is so flawed, I call myself a Citizen of the United States of America. Note the of. I talk about this in a previous post.

United States Politics is ridiculous. It is based on brainwashing the ignorant masses with propaganda. There's a reason they're called masses - it's the largest voter base. They tend to vote for whatever appeals to them superficially, without understanding the consequences. That's why poor people will vote against a Democrat, a party whose ideology is to help the poor, in favor of a Republican, whose party ideology is that of extremely limited support and unfair taxation, simply because their church leader told them to. In addition, the ability to deny any group rights is, in fact, unconstitutional.

Religion is so inherently ridiculous that an outside viewer should laugh at it. It's mass belief in some unproved principles which make no sense in real life and don't hold up to any tests. However, most people lack the intelligence to reconsider what they believe or to even consider why they believe in the first place. Hint: The answer is: "Because their parents taught them to". I've also talked about this at length. In addition, the farce that is "Intelligent Design" is a bunch of bullshit - it's all based on proving that we don't know enough and then assuming that because of that, "God" is real, which is a ridiculous assumption that only works if you actually believe.