The Precipice Of Prescience

[Gordon Freeman]

I need you guys to help tear me a new ******* and point out intrinsic flaws in this paper before I go around yelling it like Paul Revere. Also, before you read the actual paper, yes, it is is all original content, and original idea, advocated by dream-states and prescient experiences. I would like to hear what you agreed with and disagreed with; for every disagreement, please state empirical evidence as to why it's wrong.

 

NOTE: There is only one main question I am proposing with this paper, which is- Is This Plausible?

 

Thank you in advance, and enjoy the read.

 

_______________________________________________________________

 

 

Matthew Garon - The Precipice of Prescience

 

 

Logical thought may abide in more organisms than we humans have previously assumed. This paper will discuss the theory of a moving consciousness within clouds. Yes, the existentialist ideology that clouds are sentient.

 

We know for a fact that clouds are environments that sustain life, as discovered through the findings of specific bacteria that can only be found in rain water. Since these bacteria grow and thrive within clouds, they could show to represent a mutualistic relationship to a human-esque system, like how bacteria in the stomach and intestines live and help break down other chemicals. In the same way other organisms facilitate processes in our bodies, the rain bacteria might facilitate other unknown processes within the cloud. This theory proposes that they might perform an action similar to mylenation within the cloud.

 

But all that is useless if the cloud isn’t sentient. To help prove this theory, I will provide factual evidence and then proceed to logically reason out its close similarity to our own human factors that create “sentient thought”.

 

Clouds are large groupings of HOH vapor, as you already know. They are held together by electrostatic charges that run and jump between particles much like a running circuit or synapse within our own brains. As clouds build, more static electricity builds and runs through the cloud. Our own brains grow and develop in a similar fashion. Clouds are affected by outside factors that also simulate thought patterns like our own, for example, when wind breaks apart clouds or puts them together. This action may be similar to forgetting information or combining two whole brain masses into one singular intellect. Nonetheless, the whole of the environmental system of a “cloud” develops and functions almost exactly like a human brain, minus our five senses (that's not to say they don't have their own set of senses though). So, what’s not to say they are not capable of thought? It might be argued that a human brain takes years to truly begin to articulate complex, sentient thought, and that the life expectancy of a cloud (if it is a life form) is much shorter, but you should also take into consideration that, proportionally, clouds have much greater brain mass and most likely process and equivocate thought within themselves much faster than our human brains do. Mass is not equivalent to intellect, but the speed of development is. So, in theory, they could reach our mental level, or higher, in a much shorter time.

 

None of this can be proved unless there was a legitimate way to communicate and accurately extrapolate information from a cloud. But quite possibly, the clouds might be trying to communicate with us already.

 

Lightning is a large build of electrostatic energy. It gives off different frequencies, levels of heat, and different levels of static energy for each strike. Between clouds, this might be an exchange of information. When lightning strikes the grounds, it may be trying to perform the same action. However, no other organism can build enough charge to fire back. And since we still do not fully understand every factor that plays into how lightning is formed by clouds, it’s not easy to say exactly when it’ll happen. Most commonly, lightning strikes when there has been enough build up of cloud mass that there’s a large enough electrical difference between the top and bottom of the cloud (thunderhead) to create a field in which the lightning will pass. When the cloud builds up, this thunderhead function might serve as its conscious reach out to communicate.

 

After bouncing this idea off a couple of friends, they questioned it, asking things like, “But clouds don’t have neurons, so how can they think?” To which I have already explained that they are structured in a similar fashion and that the energy flows through the particles much like an open circuit between the neurons of our brain. It’s hard to say whether or not this could be possible, but clouds are made up of organic compounds, so if they were “life forms” then they would accurately fall into our scientific description of what “life” is.

 

There are many stories of people being struck by lightning and being entirely fine after it, even more than fine. A lot of times, you’ll hear stories of people being struck by lightning and soon after, they’ll be gifted with some form of unnatural intuition that let them know something very important that was life-altering. If clouds have senses, they’re certainly different than ours. Maybe a sense a cloud has is observation of its surrounding environment by way of information sent through small static electric fields in the air, like the normal static electricity that builds before a big storm. This idea is supported by many stories of unnatural intuition gifted through lightning. A specific story interested me the most. A man had been at home all day during the build up to a storm, only to walk outside and be struck by lightning. Entirely scratch free (aside from a bad headache), he suddenly knew his wife had been cheating on him that exact day during the time of the build up of the storm. They soon after got divorced. It just seems like more than a coincidence.

 

Any questions or ideas you’d like to tell me, I’d be glad to listen. My ideas grow through discussion.

 

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That's the basics of what I have so far. I'm also going to add a topic discussing the use of the fact that clouds are lined with silver, which can semi-conduct energy and help channel it.

 

If this topic gains any popularity, I have highly detailed and annotated artistic renderings of some aspects of this topic and will gladly upload it as further evidence and logical descriptive backing. However, I feel this will be moved to the "strange claims" forum before it reaches any state of popularity.

 

I personally do not want to believe clouds are sentient, because that would bring about ethical problems with planes and airspace, as well as communication issues. However, it seems harder to me to disprove than to prove that clouds are sentient.

 

Please help further develop this idea, positively or negatively, any feedback is good, thank you.

 

Lastly- My name really is Matthew Garon, the reason I chose the user-name of "Gordon Freeman" is because he is a fictional Theoretical Physicist and one of my idols, but I am the author of this paper, please give me credit if you show other people this content :P Thanks again.

[Gordon Freeman]

I would also like to add that I am aware I write like a fifth-grader and I did not cite the source for the story about the divorce.

 

I no longer have the source, and you may be allowed to discredit that argument if you wish, but I would like you to still consider its principle and debate that.

 

Any other item you question, like the structure of clouds, or the pattern the flow of energy makes, and it's similarity to the patterned flow of thought our own brains make, google is your friend. There are literally thousands of sources backing those individual points up.

 

Anything else, please discuss. =D

[CraigD]

Thinking clouds, self-aware or not, are an intriguing SF idea, at least, reminding me of the “sun-ghosts” in David Brin’s 1980 first novel Sundiver.

 

As science non-fiction, it’s a hard hypothesis to support, an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. You approach, Matthew, seems to be to draw similarities between animal nervous systems and structures and materials in clouds. I think you should reconsider this approach, instead focusing on how a cloud could perform a simple, elementary computing operation, such as region of a cloud accumulating inputs up to a threshold before produce an output, or how a cloud could store retrievable data, in terms of the physics of cloud-stuff and phenomena – water, air, various particles of other materials, charge, ionization, convention, etc.

 

Some of your speculation lead me to suspect you don’t yet have a sound introduction to animal neuronatomy and physiology. A few points:

• You use the phrase “running circuit or synapse within our own brains”. Neurons don’t carry signals by conduction, but by a process known as depolarization, producing a moving action potential. In detail, this rather resembles a “Chinese fire drill” of sodium and potassium ions.
  
• The most important synapses (that is, those that process, rather than simply pass, signals) in a nervous system don’t accumulate charges like electrical capacitors, but release via complicated biomechanical mechanisms neurotransmitters that cross the synaptic gap to trigger a response in special receptor sites.
  
• You suggest that bacteria in clouds could perform a function similar to myelin in nerves. Myline is not, however, a chemical that functions like a conductive electrolyte, but fatty cells that form sheaths around the axons of neurons. I don’t think bacteria forms sheaths in clouds.
  
• Like all biological cells, the critical parts of a neuron are its membrane and the interior it encloses. Although lightening appears to follow tubular “chanels” of ionized air, suggesting clouds contain tube-like structures vaguely similar to neuron axions, they are constantly moving, merging, appearing and disappearing. An important feature of neurons is that they connect to one another in a persistent, only slowly-changing manner.
  

Recapping, IMHO you should revise you approach to developing you “thinking clouds” idea to not rely on so many analogies with animal nervous systems, Matthew. Rather than trying to describe cloud “neurology” as similar to human, focus on the extreme differences in the underlying media – biological cells vs air and water. As Brin did a lauded job of explaining (by way of various physicist characters) how intelligent life could exist in the plasma of the Sun’s chromosphere, you might find inspiration in reading or rereading Sundiver, so I recommend it (even for people who aren’t looking for inspiration).

 

I don’t know if your so inclined, but if you like writing SF, you might consider exploring your idea fictionally - a short story or novella - because it affords more freedom to speculate. If you plan to write about cloud-human communication via lightning strikes, I think you'll need it! :)

 

Of course, if, as I suspect, you lack a good foundation in neurology, get one! Alas, I don't have any good textbook recommendations, but do recommend a good textbook. :)

[Gordon Freeman]

Of course, if, as I suspect, you lack a good foundation in neurology, get one! Alas, I don't have any good textbook recommendations, but do recommend a good textbook.

 

My book recommendation would have to be any modern AP/IB HL Biology book. And yes, I was well aware of all those things and most of them are covered in the annotated diagrams, specifically that channeled one you mentioned.

 

 

You use the phrase “running circuit or synapse within our own brains”. Neurons don’t carry signals by conduction, but by a process known as depolarization, producing a moving action potential. In detail, this rather resembles a “Chinese fire drill” of sodium and potassium ions.

 

You forgot Calcium ions. Calcium is what allows the jump between synapses, arguably the most important part.

 

But the fact that they are 'ions' is self-explanatory for how their electrical properties work. "Depolarization" is due to the difference in electrical charge, so the action potential itself is technically a 'conducting' signal, which is also why living humans get an electrical current reading on an electric meter, because neurons carry electrical signals ffs.

 

I talk about the flow of static electricity as a "circuit" pattern because it is a closed-loop pattern like thoughts are in brains, they can go from one point and back to specific molecules, or like a signal between two neurons can be looped back and forth to each other.

 

"Chinese fire drill" is a bad way of describing it, because the molecules do not simply scatter and regroup, they are pushed down the axon in a very finite fashion, jumping over sheaths to other accepting nodes, rarely jumping back, rarely being dissociated.

 

 

The most important synapses (that is, those that process, rather than simply pass, signals) in a nervous system don’t accumulate charges like electrical capacitors, but release via complicated biomechanical mechanisms neurotransmitters that cross the synaptic gap to trigger a response in special receptor sites.

 

It's not complicated. It's only as difficult to grasp as any other chemical signaling system in the body, like hormones (which are also fairly easy to understand and manipulate).

 

And to specify, the synapses don't process anything, synapses are space... The causation of "processing" is defined as the patterns made through active communication between many different cells, not the individual cells alone or their synapses.

 

 

You suggest that bacteria in clouds could perform a function similar to myelin in nerves. Myline is not, however, a chemical that functions like a conductive electrolyte, but fatty cells that form sheaths around the axons of neurons. I don’t think bacteria forms sheaths in clouds.

 

You are right, Myline is not a chemical that functions like a conductive electrolyte, nor was my comparison. They are not fatty cells either, mylination does not occur do to a bad diet.

 

The comparison I was trying to make with the bacteria, which is annotated in some of the schematics, is that they may help facilitate "channel-openings" in which can define specific areas for electrical current to flow, and may even be the causation of a thunderhead build-up. That was all. Just as the nodes between sheaths on an axon direct the jump of a signal, the bacteria may be arranged in such a manner (the arrangement propagated by electrostatic attraction and pushing) that they, like the Nodes of Ranvier, help the signal jump to specific points or simply travel faster.

 

"Circuit" descriptions were not supposed to be linked with the synaptic metaphor, and I am changing that in my paper because human semantics of language force a linkage in that context... A "synaptic" similarity can be shown on the molecular level when a strong current passes through vapor; as the current travels, the direction of HOH molecules closest to the next continuer molecule of water holding the charge turns towards the charge carrier, and all adjacent particles turn likewise due to laws of positive and negative attraction. If enough of these reactions occur within a cloud, you start to get delineated channels or paths for current to flow, paths that separate from each other due to positive/negative charge push.

 

-----

 

Please continue discussion. I want to know what's wrong with it intrinsically, not how you disagree with my grammar, especially since you seemed to know what I meant.

 

As a side note, you seem to mention my name a few times more than necessary. I just wanted to authenticate the paper was all, rather than have people think I blatantly stole an idea. I detained my screen name simply because it had led to confusion several times before... But my name's Matt... Google Dr. Freeman for laughs if you want, he's from a Valve game XP

[Gordon Freeman]

And keep in mind, that even though it's hard to test at the given time, with standard methods, it's not impossible to test, it's only impossible for ME to test, because I am 17, unemployed, and do not posses the proper testing apparatus needed for such an experiment. Other people do however, and can possibly carry out such a design in experimentation.

 

The main thing I, myself, was trying to get across (or really get 'out') of this was weather or not it is plausible for clouds to be sentient, nonetheless with the theory and data I have presented.

 

Hopefully that clarifies it quite a bit more...

[coreygilbert]

Hey, interesting subject. A little sidenote to this topic : I spent the past 15 years photographing clouds and lightning. Meteorologists are somewhat perplexed about certain features of mega-lightning. At least 10 times more powerful than conventionally charged negative lightning, these positively charged super lightning bolts can form helix pattterns with each other. They also can cause a little understood discharge into space. Here's a photo of mine of a triple-helix mega-lightning strike, the white light is refracting red through the lower atmosphere.

.......... In the words of the great philosopher Gilbert Ryle : The dogma of the Ghost in the machine. ......... Peace.

[CraigD]

The main thing I, myself, was trying to get across (or really get 'out') of this was weather or not it is plausible for clouds to be sentient, nonetheless with the theory and data I have presented.

 

Hopefully that clarifies it quite a bit more...

It’s an intriguing idea. I’m fairly sure clouds aren’t sentient, though the exercise of considering how they might be is worth the effort, even if only to conclude in the end that they’re not.

 

I still think you’d do well – and have fun – exploring the idea fictionally, Matt – take its truth as given, and write a few stories exploring the consequences, without being constrained by the requirements of scientific rigor.

 

That said, here are some more reasons I don’t think clouds think:

• Evolutionary Biology. One of the key concepts of evolutionary biology is a given trait in an organism exists because populations of the organisms with the trait are more successful than those without. The ability to think and plan in general, and sentience – loosely defined as “knowing you exist” – in particular, was of great evolutionary benefit to humans and other animals, so that now our ecological niches are dominate by populations that think, plan, and know they exist.
   
  How does thinking, planning, and knowing they exist benefit a population of clouds in a way that results in clouds with this trait evolutionarily winning over clouds that don’t have it?
   
  Clouds form because of evaporated water, and dissipate due to condensation. They appear to have no power of autolocomotion – they drift with the wind at an altitude determined by atmospheric conditions. They can’t eat, excrete, or reproduce.
   
  In short, they have no need for the thinking trait
  
• Computing. Every organism of which we know that can unambiguously think – humans, housecats, etc. – has the ability to compute – store information in a persistent way, and process this information reliably to create and store other information. In the case of animals like humans and housecats, this information storage appears to involve the potentiation – making more or less likely to fire given the same input – and physical arrangement of neurons, a scheme that works because neurons are protected from constant stirring and scrambling.
   
  The molecules and structures of clouds are constantly stirred and scrambled. I can’t imagine any plausible way that stored information could remain retrievable under these conditions.
  

 

Some comments on your previous post:

Calcium is what allows the jump between synapses, arguably the most important part.

You’re correct that calcium plays a critical – I’d agree, the most important – role in synapses. The process in which they play this role – Exocytosis – is complicated: calcium ions facilitate the “docking” of neurotransmitter molecule-containing vesicles (“bubbles”) inside the synapse’s “incoming” neuron (axon terminal), where other proteins (known collectively by the very convoluted acronym SNARE – Solubile N-ethelene sensitive factor Attachment protein REceptor) essentially squeeze the vesicle like a pimple to release its neurotransmitter “payload” out of the neuron into the synapse.

 

My mind never ceases to be boggled by the complexity and speed of biological processes like these.

 

"Chinese fire drill" is a bad way of describing it [the molecular activity involved in a signal traveling along an axon], because the molecules do not simply scatter and regroup, they are pushed down the axon in a very finite fashion, jumping over sheaths to other accepting nodes, rarely jumping back, rarely being dissociated.

I apologize – I’m grasping for ready metaphors to convey important qualities of complicated microscopic phenomena, a hit-or-miss activity perhaps better suited to face-to-face communication than internet forums.

 

The important point I’m trying to convey here is that an axon is not a simple conductor – it’s not even very electrically conductive, compared to a typical metal wire, or even the water in the tissues surrounding it.

 

In an ordinary conductor electrons are introduced to one end (the negative), causing electrons to move to adjacent atom, until electrons – not the same ones that were introduced - are released from the other end (the positive). The electrons move, on average, longitudinally, in the direction of the length of the wire. Eventually, electrons from the negative end of the wire appear at the positive end.

 

Axons don’t work like this. In them, Na and K, (primarily) and Cl, and Ca (near the ends, and in some specialized axons such as in the heart) ions pass laterally through special channels the axon’s cell membrane, signaling the channels in adjacent sections of the membrane to allow ions to pass, propagating the signal from the axon’s dendrite to terminal end. Using another metaphor, this is similar to a stadium wave, where adjacent people in an audience rise then sit in response to their neighbor rising.

 

As the ions involved move on average laterally, they don’t tend to move toward one or the other end of the axion. So, unlike with ordinary electrical wiring, nervous systems don’t need or have return paths. Axions do produce both a “forward” and a “back” signal, but the back signal each time they fire, but this is not due to the need to return electrons along a circuit.

 

In short, electric circuits are relatively simple, neurons much more complicated. Though we say both “carry electrical signals”, because they do so in very different ways, we need to be careful not to think of them as too similar. Neurons are not wires!

 

PS: Unless you've an aversion to reading old(er) SF, read Sundiver! I think you'll like it.

[Gordon Freeman]

I still think you’d do well – and have fun – exploring the idea fictionally, Matt – take its truth as given, and write a few stories exploring the consequences, without being constrained by the requirements of scientific rigor.

 

I have, over RP forums like Resistanceblog and other things, but even then, there is almost an active, play-by-play scrutiny similar to the one experienced at any other time, not to say it's always negative or bad scrutiny, but I point it out because even in a purely fictional environment you can still (and commonly) run into people resisting ideas they simply don't want to accept.

 

 

How does thinking, planning, and knowing they exist benefit a population of clouds in a way that results in clouds with this trait evolutionarily winning over clouds that don’t have it?

 

The way a sentience would have to be structured in them (if it is) would not force an "evolutionary" jump into it, rather they would start with it, and later develop other parts of existence. Knowing you exist benefits any population, and always wins over any population that doesn't. I see your point, because from an evolutionary standpoint it's not necessary, but it also doesn't seem necessary to have religion after our society has evolved to be able to test things physically, rather than only be able question them and analyze them mentally. Religion is still left over, and arguably for a good reason, which would be a similar case for clouds. You might say, that it's still evolutionarily unlikely to only have sentience for millions of years. The genus 'Homo' has had sentience for millions of years, and society has only barely evolved to the sophistication of the tools we have today. It took literally 2 million years before a species variant could get communication on the level we have now. Clouds have obviously existed longer than 2 million years, but I believe (and could later test, with enough support and interest) that they have evolved past basic sentience into a purely "Prescient" state of thought.

 

Prescience would also help facilitate other aspects I'm going to mention in a bit...

 

 

Clouds form because of evaporated water, and dissipate due to condensation. They appear to have no power of autolocomotion – they drift with the wind at an altitude determined by atmospheric conditions. They can’t eat, excrete, or reproduce.

 

Humans have the capability of existing and currently being able to form due to left over remains of dead stars. We are formed and die, arguably in a more sophisticated fashion than clouds, but it is a similar process nonetheless.

 

As for locomotion, that is also something I have added into my paper since I wrote it a year and a half ago, but failed to find the archive for, and was thus left to post the original transcript. In the more thought-out, recent paper, I describe how cloud movement is dictated by "heat fields" or rather, waves of heat generated in the atmosphere. If clouds posses sentient, more-likely prescient, thought, then it would make sense that static electrical currents on that scale would be necessary for the production of heat and even micro-climate heat fields. This can be argued as an evolutionary prospect because prescience would allow the control of where heat is generated and forced out of the system, possibly inducing areas in the atmosphere that are more or less preferable for movement (thus locomotion by way of self-producing heat distortions, which may also lead to smaller, more local, air currents).

 

They can eat, excrete, and reproduce; another aspect of which had been added to the updated paper. When clouds electrostaticaly add mass, what happens is their electrostatic field actively searches out and grabs HOH vapor. That process is the single defining process for the original production of clouds. It's how clouds are made. When a smaller bit is already in formation, it becomes the static 'hub' if you will, and becomes the main source for the rest of the development of any clouds around it, arguably an 'active' seek for matter to add to its collective. Excretion occurs when it drops mass in a similar fashion due to disconnection of static flow or a negative field being induced (all of these things could happen through evolutionary traits being picked up through prescience). Reproducing becomes an abiotic thing, which is probably where most of your intellectual resistance comes from on this topic, because so far every sentient organism we know of reproduces sexually, unlike clouds. But it is plausible that not only traits are passed on (like DNA heredity) but entire consciousnesses through the preservation of patterned memory, a trait also available in purer forms of prescience. And that alone, being able to pass memory or consciousness would give it a DEFINITE evolutionary reason to have sentience, it would be very useful (rather than the hindrance you make it seem like) at that point to have a higher form of thought, because it would make it much easier to facilitate the preservation of it's life/memories. In fact, that's the same reason any organism granted with sentience has, because sentience makes it much easier to continue certain ideas from one generation to the next, even whole memories.

 

When an entire cloud formation dissipates, it has ceased to think. A new formation coming about within the same electrical field would be it's reproduction, abiotically, like a phoenix from the ashes.

 

 

This information storage appears to involve the potentiation – making more or less likely to fire given the same input – and physical arrangement of neurons, a scheme that works because neurons are protected from constant stirring and scrambling.

 

The molecules and structures of clouds are constantly stirred and scrambled. I can’t imagine any plausible way that stored information could remain retrievable under these conditions.

 

The physical setting of matter in brains gives good lee-way for your argument, having defined cells for computing really solidifies a path for thought to flow. That argument is sound, but it's a little closed because you seem to be thinking of clouds computing the same way humans or other brain-based animals would. This is obviously not true... you have seen clouds, right? They're very expansive and are made of consistent material all throughout them, whereas human brains have many different kinds of cells, white and gray matter varying between the sexes, but still delineated in the actual brain structure. That would indeed make it hard for us to think correctly if our different cells kept switching places, but clouds are not limited in this way. All the 'computational' bits of clouds are the individual HOH molecules, held up there by the static field. Each molecule may interchange with no noticeable difference due to the near-perfect identical-ness (sorry for making up words btw) of each molecule, rather than many distinct neurons which are incapable of moving greatly. This solid-structure basis for our brains may be the reason why most humans and beings capable of sentience are incapable of prescience, because their computational aspects are only capable of small changes in computation.

 

And like I said, when a static channel starts in a cloud, the channel becomes delineated and stays open until a stronger one re-routes it, due to the properties of electromagnetic attraction between particles. This was mentioned in my previous posts by the way, with a little more detail. And like I also said, consciousness isn't measured by the individual parts that create it, but as the whole pattern created by the flow of energy through matter that reciprocates in a form that can give a logical output (lightning? Hard to test right now). Clouds have the capability to do this, if they have not yet done it before, or do not currently do it in a form we do not fully understand. And that is fact, which is why I came up with the idea originally, because seemingly everything that has had the option to create consciousness has done so. And clouds most certainly have the option based on the way they are structured.

 

Something else I would like to note, just as a psychological factor that seems to inhibit people's perception on this concept is that- If quantum computing is widely accepted as a possible form of actual computation, in something that small, then what's to say it's not possible on a mass-scale, say something the size of a cloud? It seems silly to me that people can easily (not necessarily you Craig, because there is debate about quantum mechanics on this forum, but for the most part, general population) accept quantum mechanics and computing but not so easily accept something easier to understand like cloud computing (bad pun?).

 

 

My mind never ceases to be boggled by the complexity and speed of biological processes like these.

 

I am the same, I love biology and physics for this reason, because it helps define things to the utmost obsessive-compulsive detail.

 

I have always thought there might have been a form of life that takes use of easier processes for the formation of thought, and clouds hold basic enough properties to be able to do so, it seems...

 

 

I apologize – I’m grasping for ready metaphors to convey important qualities of complicated microscopic phenomena, a hit-or-miss activity perhaps better suited to face-to-face communication than internet forums.

 

I understand haha, I do the same, but since this is a forum and people are given an undefinable amount of time to respond, I tried to retort your arguments best I could, and that seemed like something I should bring up.

 

I also understand that this is a radical idea, and inducing it to a society ready to deny radical and under-supported ideas was probably a bad idea in itself, but I want to know that after the OP and everything I've said up to now: does it seem more plausible than you previously thought? Even outside the realm of science fiction, do you think you could agree with this besides the things you commonly hold bias to the idea? You make it sound that you would not accept the theory even if it was proven 100%, which makes me unsure if your arguments hold unwavering bias that cannot be undone. A big assumption on my part, sorry if that is not the case, but you make it sound like it's an idea you simply wish not to believe due to emotional perception of the way you are used to thinking of it, rather than the way you should think of it.

 

Again, if that's too far off, my apologies, as it most likely is. On the most part, it is the main reason people deny the theory though, simply because they "feel" or "think" clouds can't be sentient. I asked why not, and that's why this theory is here now. Maybe I should apologize if the theory (note I never say hypothesis) itself is intrinsically false and has zero percent truth behind it, because many-a-people's time will have been wasted on it, but so far there is nothing to say it is intrinsically flawed, so I persist...

 

 

The important point I’m trying to convey here is that an axon is not a simple conductor – it’s not even very electrically conductive, compared to a typical metal wire, or even the water in the tissues surrounding it.

 

Of course ^_^

 

Apparently my metaphors are just as bad as yours =P

 

 

In an ordinary conductor electrons are introduced to one end (the negative), causing electrons to move to adjacent atom, until electrons – not the same ones that were introduced - are released from the other end (the positive). The electrons move, on average, longitudinally, in the direction of the length of the wire. Eventually, electrons from the negative end of the wire appear at the positive end.

 

Axons don’t work like this. In them, Na and K, (primarily) and Cl, and Ca (near the ends, and in some specialized axons such as in the heart) ions pass laterally through special channels the axon’s cell membrane, signaling the channels in adjacent sections of the membrane to allow ions to pass, propagating the signal from the axon’s dendrite to terminal end. Using another metaphor, this is similar to a stadium wave, where adjacent people in an audience rise then sit in response to their neighbor rising.

 

Why are you telling me this again? We've already gone over this. Also, Traveling from point A to point B is what creates computing power, whether biologically or mechanically, as that is what the comparison I was making shows. I know all these things, so maybe I made a horrible comparison? But they work in similar fashions, even if you think one is more sophisticated than the other, so I personally view them as similar concepts. Maybe that's my fault, but the fact that they carry out the same task, makes them the same thing to me, even if one is more or less efficient.

 

 

As the ions involved move on average laterally, they don’t tend to move toward one or the other end of the axion. So, unlike with ordinary electrical wiring, nervous systems don’t need or have return paths. Axions do produce both a “forward” and a “back” signal, but the back signal each time they fire, but this is not due to the need to return electrons along a circuit.

 

No, but it's damn near the same. Whether it be electrons or ionic molecules, they do need to go back in order for another signal to be sent. And you can have a signal go both ways for either case, it's just not supposed to happen in an axon, but it does, and it's called a 'misfire'.

 

 

In short, electric circuits are relatively simple, neurons much more complicated. Though we say both “carry electrical signals”, because they do so in very different ways, we need to be careful not to think of them as too similar.

 

If we got into the quantum physics behind circuits and electromagnetic properties that allow them to function properly, I'm sure we could make circuits seem just as complicated, maybe even more complicated than a simple chemical signaling system.

 

 

Neurons are not wires!

 

Of course they aren't, who told you that silly statement?

 

 

PS: Unless you've an aversion to reading old(er) SF, read Sundiver! I think you'll like it.

 

If it's anything like Dune, Ender's Game, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, and I am looking for it next time I hit Borders. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

One last time, please tell me if you honestly think that this theory is in no way plausible, or if it does hold plausibility. That's what I was mainly going for, but our discussions have helped me add content and idea significantly, so I am grateful for that much.

 

[/wall of text] =D

[Moontanman]

Possibly relevant information

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud

 

Then there is this

 

http://www.1-script.com/forums/intelligent-LIFE-ON-VENUS-EXISTS-article2263--20.htm

 

I remember reading something about the clouds on Jupiter being alive, not life in the clouds but the clouds themselves but I can't find it

[Gordon Freeman]

http://www.1-script.com/forums/intelligent-LIFE-ON-VENUS-EXISTS-article2263--20.htm

 

I was interested until the last post- "Go back to the day job. Writing comedy is much harder than you seem to think it is."

 

It's a false positive as far as conspiracy theories go...

 

 

I remember reading something about the clouds on Jupiter being alive, not life in the clouds but the clouds themselves but I can't find it

 

It would be awesome if you did, and I'd love to hear something like that pulling through because it'd definitely help my theory as well as other sentient-life theories. Not to mention it sounds cool to have confirmed life on other planets. Although, I'm not sure Jupiter can sustain life, it's considerably colder than Earth... either way, look for it if you can, I'd appreciate it. =P

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

 

On a side note, is my theory still considered a strange claim, or does it make more sense now? I want feedback >=|

 

Here's a crappy drawing I made a while back when I first came up with the idea:

[Moontanman]

 

 

 

It would be awesome if you did, and I'd love to hear something like that pulling through because it'd definitely help my theory as well as other sentient-life theories. Not to mention it sounds cool to have confirmed life on other planets. Although, I'm not sure Jupiter can sustain life, it's considerably colder than Earth... either way, look for it if you can, I'd appreciate it. =P

 

You misunderstand, the idea was just speculation, nothing more. The idea was that clouds on Jupiter last so long and interact with each other and "might" be capable of evolving, not that they were. and Jupiter is much hotter than the earth, just the cloud tops are cold inside Jupiter is very hot, it's what drives the clouds formation and movements...

 

 

On a side note, is my theory still considered a strange claim, or does it make more sense now? I want feedback >=|

 

Here's a crappy drawing I made a while back when I first came up with the idea:

 

Very strange claim no doubt, sorry Gordon...

[coreygilbert]

Re: clouds of jupiter. - http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/J/Jupiterlife.html

[Moontanman]

Living clouds-------> http://www.gpb.org/news/2010/12/03/arsenic-life-is-nice-living-clouds-are-nicer

[Gordon Freeman]

Living clouds-------> http://www.gpb.org/news/2010/12/03/arsenic-life-is-nice-living-clouds-are-nicer

 

That along with the other link make me feel better, haha.

 

Better in the sense that instead of telling a friend my theory at school and getting laughed at and made fun of for being, "goddamn insane", I can at least say that Carl Mother****ing Sagan shares a similar idea if not basically the same idea verbatim.

 

Not that my friends think I'm insane, but this idea tends to throw people off for whatever reason. You're article, Moontanman, also says at the end that our understanding of this topic may simply be limited to our imaginations (which it is for most things), and I think that reason is the entire causation of people's instant reaction to reject such an idea; they simply have not imagined such a thing before, whereas I have imagined it my whole life.

 

Interesting articles nonetheless.

 

As a side note: I think it's sad that the players that make it to the super bowl gets so much attention, but astrophysicists don't... =(

[joekgamer]

However, it refreshes the argument like what the quantum physicists says about consciousness of every living and inanimate being

 

I have never heard this before. Can anyone provide a source/link?

 

[spamlink removed]

 

This is spam.

[JMJones0424]

This is spam.

 

It certainly is. I don't frequent a lot of forums, so I'm not up to date with all the spam methods, but lately we've had a rash of people registering and posting bs replies in order to get their spamlink out. This account, however, has a whole assortment of "friends" that appear to be a poor attempt to create bona fides.

 

In the future, rather than cluttering a thread, if you use the "report" button at the bottom left of any spam replies in order to report them as such, the powers that be a generally good at cleaning the mess up relatively quickly.

 

As far as the assertion that "quantum physicists" claim every living and inanimate thing is conscious sounds like new age pseudo-scientific psychobabble. The rest of that paragraph appears to be an incomprehensible string of double negatives and "sciency" words. I'm not sure what, if anything, the serial spammer intended to get across.

[Turtle]

I need you guys to help tear me a new ******* and point out intrinsic flaws in this paper before I go around yelling it like Paul Revere.

...

NOTE: There is only one main question I am proposing with this paper, which is- Is This Plausible?

 

Clouds are affected by outside factors that also simulate thought patterns like our own, for example, when wind breaks apart clouds or puts them together.

...

Please help further develop this idea, positively or negatively, any feedback is good, thank you.

 

 

wind breaks... i think charles fort put forward the idea of floating cities in the clouds & inhabited by inteligences other than we terrestrians. the very idea is all so fartean.

 

but seriously, i suggest if you want to study the movement of clouds that you experiment with a SUCTON unit. better yet, try many SUCTON units at once! it's never been done to my knowledge.