mbohu

Here are some inside perspectives from belly group and coaching jumps and one freefly jump, showing the camera perspective. You can see how it's ok sometimes but can get low, if you're flying with your head down or are a bit low on the formation. But then again: Inside video on belly jumps is always of dubious quality, no matter the camera or mount:

I love the convenience of it. My head mount got ripped off by some excited jumper yelling "dooooor" and slamming the door open--so at least this won't happen with this one. Videos are good when POV filming on a freefly jump, as well as when flying above a group as video flyer, but at least for my flying style, on a belly group jump, filmed from the inside perspective, you get a different view than top of the head. Even with the camera pointed as far up as it goes on my G3, I get a viewpoint that is a bit too low, showing more bellies than faces--but that may be a good thing, because it's teaching me to fly more with my chin up on belly formation, improving my view on the formation in general. Funny, about them being banned. In terms of safety they seem much better than the standard top of the helmet mounts--especially the default GoPro ones with the big thumb-screw. They pull straight off. I also like that they can be mounted without drilling any holes or sticking any tape on the helmet and I can use my helmet for head-down tunnel training, because I can keep the black tape on top of it, so it doesn't get eaten up by the net.

I think that's what the original post is more about. It seems to be geared towards first time tandem students. The potential liability problems for a business that provides services to pregnant women that could potentially be later seen as the cause for any problems to the unborn child (no matter if the skydive actually had anything to do with it), make it understandable that they would simply say it isn't safe or recommended--even without much evidence. Why take the risk? (to the business?) For a licensed skydiver, it's different. They are not as likely to be able to sue the DZ, if they made the choice themselves, and especially if they checked with their doctor. It's the same as the age limitation: There is no reason a 16 year old couldn't safely do a tandem jump...but why take the risk as a business, given the possibility of lawsuits?

This month's Parachutist has something on that--related to repeated hypoxia. Given that I jump in Colorado and we are above 17-18k MSL on almost every jump, the article makes it seem like we should be suffering serious cumulative long-term effects.

From my own experience as a big flyer, I would add one more thing: I would not overdo it with the "slowing down". The problem is, that if you get used to constantly flying near the minimum fall rate you are capable of, you will develop a style that you will later have to unlearn, because it is not the most efficient and flexible style of flying, especially if you get into more competitive formation skydiving, such as 4-way or 8-way. Now, some of that may be unavoidable, and there will probably be multiple times, when you have to unlearn some things and update your flying style. Nevertheless I think it's best if you mostly try to fly somewhere near the middle of your range and, if anything, try to increase your range in BOTH directions--which, as others have pointed out, is best achieved in a tunnel: For example, if you are currently most comfortable flying at 74% speed in the tunnel, but can fly between 72% and 76%: Don't just try to get to 64%. Instead try to increase your range to be able to fly between 68% and 80%, etc. That way, when you DO fly with really slow fallers, you can match them, but you'll be aware that you are flying on the low end of your speed--rather than just unconsciously adopting an extra-slow flying style. Ultimately, in teams, the slower fallers will wear weights. The only way the faster fallers should probably adjust to the slower ones is by loosing weight! ...but for beginners, wearing weights is not a good idea, because of canopy loading--so don't ask them to do it...yet! Suits will definitely help. A little bit of extra fabric between the upper arms and body can greatly help. I got my first RW suit, by talking to Bev from BEV Suits, and 400 jumps later it still works great. tony suits is a bit more expensive and takes much longer to get, but everyone says they are absolutely excellent. Anyway, just wanted to add that.

So, then what about all the Wingsuit proximity jumps that start out of a helicopter above a mountain range? Are they all illegal? There are tons of promotional RedBull videos of them. I cannot imagine that a large international company would associate themselves with patently illegal stuff? I assume therefore, that all of them are from outside the USA? If so, why would it be illegal in the USA but perfectly legal in most European countries? Given that Americans are constantly screaming that their country is the only one where real freedom exists, and how deplorable the "European nanny state" is, how could this be? Seriously though, does anyone know what went wrong historically or politically, that the US is so hostile to base jumping, while Europe is not? It seems to go against what the US claims to stand for. (Not that I want to jump out of an airplane with a BASE rig, but still)

Well, I mean, I hate to say it, but the quote from the document (if correctly quoted) is a little bit problematic AND I think Wendy actually recognized this, which is why she changed it (to "many things"--indicating that it does not apply to everything, which the original quote somewhat seems to suggest) I do think there are some things that--if not having one single correct way--have certainly vastly MORE correct ways of doing things than other ways. Otherwise we are definitely back to teaching Noah's Ark side by side with evolution and consider them both as simply two different, but equally valid, ways of doing (or thinking about) things. This really cuts both political ways, as it enables the "post-truth" way of news reporting and political discourse (which is really more of a "pre-truth" way, in most cases) that has been so endemic on the right (but has its mirror in the extreme post-modern and "critical theory" thinking of the left) Just sayin...

Yeah. It's kinda funny how Giuliani, Trump and all the other morons claim 'voter fraud' in front of the cameras. That they have proof and evidence that the election was fraudulent. Then, in front of a judge, where lying is a crime, they have no evidence. Old game: All the crazy right-wing "news" shows pretend that they are providing real news and every single time they get sued, they claim in court, that "it's just entertainment" and "no reasonable person would take us at our word". Shows what they really think about their intended audiences.

Yes, I think that may be true and I would actually like this to be true, because wouldn't that leave the possibility open that something other than deterministic materialistic events, is having an influence on the physical world. This would at least leave the door open for how the realm of consciousness (or choice, if you will) CAN affect the physical world. I am just saying that generally deterministic materialistic atheists do NOT believe this is the case. Nor do most Physicists believe it has anything to do with consciousness or free will. (Although I recently talked to one in the field, who does think the two may be related) Even I am somewhat agnostic about this, and do not think that this feature of quantum mechanics necessarily has anything to do with consciousness or choice (nor does it need to in order to allow for consciousness to be a reality that is not completely determined by physical matter) It's also a matter of the definition of "real world". It used to be that most theoretical physicists were very interested in the philosophical implications of what they found. Physics was really meant to not only give us practical results but also help us understand our world and our place in it. Einstein was a prime example, and even Heisenberg was interested in this. However, modern Quantum Physics has gone away from this (it may have something to do with the difficulties of understanding their own theories, that eventually led to the Copenhagen Interpretation). Most modern quantum physicists like the saying: "shut up and calculate", meaning: don't worry about what this means and simply use the calculations to get extremely accurate and useful results that you can use to predict events and build machines, etc. So to them, the mathematical formulas are the "real world", our perceptions and even measurements to some extent, have become secondary (because they are indeterminate and "troublesome") I think that's a loss--but that's a different issue.

But you can't know them, so you 100% can't. Yes. you can. completely. The wave function is known and describes the particles completely. It just doesn't give you simple location. That's not a problem though--except for our expectations. I haven't mentioned my worldview--at least not in any completeness--so yes, and no. I do not have any fixed worldview on this. I like some parts of the "Atheist" view, but I find inconsistencies with it. That's all I am pointing out. I probably find it a bit presumptuous to have a fixed worldview on this particular issue. So I am looking for parts of philosophies/worldviews that make sense, but trying to eliminate the parts that are not consistent. That's what this thread is about. I do lean towards certain ideas and I find others untenable (for example: a God imbued with human-like qualities that controls everything, or a world entirely devoid of anything but mechanistic externalities)--but beyond that, I think it makes no sense to have (and defend) a fixed view on something that clearly we have a very limited set of knowledge about. My personal experience led me through the study of physics (although again, to be honest: I did not complete my degree in it) as well as a period of 10 years of intense meditation and monk-like existence. Both explorations gave me some insights that I feel are relevant--yet none of it gave me a fixed worldview...if anything it made me drop much of what I had in that respect.

Right, not physicists. I am talking about what I originally called "Atheists"--but since everyone is giving me crap about it, then called "reductionist materialists"--most of those--whatever you want to call them.

I don't think it does contradict what I wrote: The Copenhagen Interpretation has three primary parts: The wave function is a complete description of a wave/particle. Any information that cannot be derived from the wave function does not exist. For example, a wave is spread over a broad region, therefore does not have a specific location. When a measurement of the wave/particle is made, its wave function collapses. In the case of momentum, a wave packet is made of many waves each with its own momentum value. Measurement reduced the wave packet to a single wave and a single momentum. If two properties are related by an uncertainty relation, no measurement can simultaneously determine both properties to a precision greater than the uncertainty relation allows. So, if we measure a wave/particles position, its momentum becomes uncertain. (source: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec15.html ) So, the very first sentence is "The wave function is a complete description...." and "Any information that cannot be derived from the wave function does not exist" So: The wave function is describing the "real world", even if it does not give us simple location, as we are used to. Also: even though it is the most commonly cited interpretation of quantum mechanics, the Copenhagen interpretation is just that, an interpretation. For example: (source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/ ) Anyway, that stuff is fascinating, but I am not sure it is clear in which way this affects questions of determinism and consciousness--and in any way I do not believe that most reductionist materialists base their ideas on these concepts. Most still base their ideas on a traditional interpretation of classical physics, which they do believe to be deterministic.

Well, that is only one interpretation and you interpret it that way, because to you, the "real world" is the world of particles and "things" you can observe. That's because this is what you are used to as a human observing physical objects. So to you the particle does not "exist" while it is in the indeterminate state of the wave function--but that is just an interpretation. Your perception of the particle is also just a map--NOT the real world. It is a map in the sense that it is a representation of a phenomena that is neither a particle NOR a wave, but something that we simply do not understand and that may be beyond the theoretical capacity of humans to understand--which is why we have to represent it using two partial concepts. I would argue that to most physicists the wave function state is the "real world". It describes the complete state of the particle and it is predictable and the calculations can tell them EVERYTHING about what that particle will do and how it affects the "real world". The collapsed state of the measurement is more like an artifact--very important to our every day human perception (we like things to be in ONE place at a time) but almost irrelevant in terms of its effects on the "real, real world." In regards to Schrödinger's cat: The same woman in the video I shared, has a video on that as well, and it seems that the current interpretation of the standard model of quantum physics actually interprets this thought experiment in a way that the cat is always either alive or dead (even though we don't know which, until we open the box)--as I understand it: because the apparatus that connects the decaying atom to the vile of poison, is in itself a measurement system that already collapses the wave function.

No, I thought the same--but as she explained in the video, and as I did verify to my best ability with some people in the field, this seems to be not entirely the case: Both, the Schroedinger's Cat example and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle refer to the problem of measurement. The problem of measurement is the only place where that uncertainty exists--at least according to how it seems to be understood at present. What that means is that the wave function calculations of quantum mechanics are 100% predictable and are also time reversible in the same sense that the functions of classical physics are. So, if you know the wave functions of a set of particles at one time, you can 100% calculate the wave functions of that set of particles at a future time (and you can reverse this to calculate the original wave functions from the future state) It is only when you introduce specific measurements that you cannot say which way the specific measurement is going to go in an individual case. HOWEVER: The ways it CAN go and how likely the specific measurements are going to be, is still COMPLETELY determined by the wave functions, which are deterministic. So yes, and to Jakee's previous point, this is actually ONE place where there could be an interaction from something OTHER than these deterministic functions. The question is how meaningful it is, and if there is something more to it than "chance" that can determine the specific outcome of a measurement. So to your point, the wave functions are knowable and deterministic. When you make specific measurements of one property (location, for example) you cannot at the same time also make specific measurements of another property (the vector of movement, for example)--so at that moment the 2nd property is unknowable--but only insofar as specific measurement is concerned. You can still know that its value is determined by the parameters of the wave function. That is, what to my understanding, the Heisenberg principle says. Does this explain Pee Wee Herman? Well.......

So, then the question is, do you actually agree with me, or: Are you saying that even though we cannot explain it--you know for certain that the eventual explanation is only an expansion on existing principles of science. Nothing more. If you are saying this, then it would have been good to watch the video, because in it she points out one of the existing principles of material science and that is that the "evolution equations" are time reversible. This means that every specific state of matter can ONLY result in one specific future state of matter, and you can reverse this to find that from every current state of matter you can calculate back, from what unique, previous state of matter it resulted. It doesn't mean that we can do this in practice, because our calculations can only be exact, if we have ALL the data that is part of the state of matter, which we almost never have (we do not know the location and vector of every atom in the brain--or in quantum mechanical terms: we do not have the wave function of all particles comprising the brain) But IN PRINCIPLE, if we had them, the next state of the brain (and all the states into eternity) would be completely determined.

But seriously. If you believe in a reductionist materialist world it does. Every single thing that happens is explained by the simple progression of the evolution equations. I am not saying that we can currently calculate them out--or that we can write an explanation of HOW exactly it happens, but we know that it is explained by it. There is nothing else that makes Pee Wee Herman popular, but a simple progression of physical events, ultimately explained by the equations. @wolfriverjoe misunderstands me there too. I am not saying that reductionist materialists say they can specifically explain or calculate out how everything happens (i.e. how consciousness is exactly created, etc.) BUT I am saying that they clearly think that it is simply explained by those same physical laws and equations (even if we may have to refine the equations to explain it)

No one says "God Did it". Did you watch the video?

This is covered here: I agree that, from all we know right now, the space for an interaction of these domains is VERY LIMITED (if you are asking where that interaction can occur in current scientific knowledge, then one possible place would be the measurement domain, which she points out is not time reversible--but this is something where more CAN still be found out) The main thing is that it is possible for other domains to exist, even if they do not interact, so the problem of interaction is a separate one. In any case, I think the gist of my point is probably as well expressed as it can be in the post about the 3 Assumptions and why I find that they are not consistent with each other.

But I am not saying that. Did you read my post? Did you study logic? This is a completely valid process. No one cares about believes when exploring logical fallacies (not even mine!...which I find very rude!)

No. I am using a generally accepted method of finding logical fallacies. It does not matter at all what I believe in regards to science. I simply start with a set of assumptions. I then deduct from these assumptions and if there is a contradiction in the results that are deducted from these assumptions, we can conclude that not all the assumptions can be true. This is standard procedure and my believing or disbelieving any of the assumptions has no part in it. Assumptions: 1. (Material) Science is true 2. (Material) Science describes the TOTAL of everything that exists 3. Morality exists Now, we find that in the reality that science describes, Morality cannot exist (or the meaning of the word has to be redefined in a way that makes it not a useful concept) Therefore: Not all 3 initial statements can be true. The ONLY place that my own belief comes into play is that I now believe that statement 2) is the one that is incorrect. One may as well choose any other of the 3 statements or all of them as false. But I do have some good reasons why I think it is most reasonable to assume 2) is the one that is incorrect. Edit: And I am also saying that "Reductionist Materialists" by definition consider statements 1. and 2. to be correct, and should therefore, to be logically consistent, consider statement 3) to be the incorrect one.

Not quite what I am saying. I am saying that the "domain of science" is limited. That it is perfectly accurate in its domain. However, that domain does not encompass EVERYTHING that is part of our reality. I personally would like to believe that there is an amount of interaction between the domain that science encompasses and the "other domain" in which I believe (at least aspects of) consciousness to reside--but I do admit that current science makes that space where this interaction can occur very limited...so I am not sure about that. So I am saying: You seem to think that "Morality" is something REAL. It EXISTS. Beyond that: It is important --I fully agree I am then saying that in the domain of reductionist materialism it does not and CANNOT exist. Therefore, we have to allow for some other domain where it can exist. Clear? Edit: The other 2 logically consistent positions I can see is: 1. Morality does not exist and is irrelevant 2. Science is wrong (in some seriously essential ways, not just in the specifics of some current theories that may be updated) --I do not subscribe to either of these

So: That seems to indicate that you may have a different interpretation of this science, so let's explore what that interpretation is. Here is "mine" (I don't really think that is an interpretation, but let's go with it.) 1) When you say "brain" equals consciousness (consciesness including all such things a s decisions, thoughts, beliefs, etc), this should mean: 1.1) The exact state of the brain at any given time determines completely the thoughts, beliefs, choices a person holds at that time. 1.2) It follows therefore that we can replace the terms "thoughts", "beliefs", "choices" with the term "state of the brain" (by "brain" we mean the physical particles making up said structure) 2) Now, as explained in the video (and apart from the part about quantum physics that was my understanding from when I studied physics at the Technical University in Vienna--but did not complete--this is not her opinion, but accepted truth: "All evolution equations are time reversible" 2.1) That means that from any unique state of brain matter at time t there is an exact and unique state of brain matter at time t minus x that the current state emerged from, in other words: 2.2) Your current "moral decision" (=state of brain matter) is uniquely determined by the previous state of your brain matter at a previous time, let's say "your birth"--and in fact, since the state of your brain matter at birth is determined by states of matter in your parents, etc. it was determined long before (sometime after the Big Bang, I assume as maybe the physical laws don't quite apply during the early stages of the big bang). 3) So there is simply not a way that "YOU" (or I or anyone else) can make a moral decision. 4) To be clear: I DO NOT believe this personally, but I therefore DO believe that there is a separate independent reality to internal consciousness (and that the question is more about how--if at all--it interacts with the material reality or, if that dichotomy is even valid in the first place.) So: How do YOU interpret the scientific knowledge about time reversibility, that is different from my interpretation? Is there a specific point where it digresses from mine?

No. I am saying Atheists are believing that. Again, maybe I should say "Reductionist Materialists" instead of "Atheists". Maybe that will clear it up better. But the fact is, that if you go through the thread, you will see that quite a few posted "There is no consciousness except what is in the brain" (or something to that point.) So, if you are not believing in "Reductionist Materialism" but are an "Atheist" by some other definition, then: my apologies. This does not apply to you. I am simply saying: In order to make a concept like "Morality" useful, you HAVE to allow for something that has an effect on (at least) internal perceptions, that is NOT based on material reality. (And to be able to make your morality "powerful", i.e. able to effect material reality, you have to even believe that that OTHER thing can have an effect on material reality--something I am not personally sure of, but open to). And no: The "God of the gaps" analogy does not apply here. In fact it is the other way around: If you say that we just haven't found the part of material reality yet that can make a concept like "morality" useful, you are a) going against what current science says is pretty clearly true and b) are also looking for something that science pretty much excludes from material reality "a priori" and not just as a result of current theories. Again, apparently the "atheist" definition seems to be a real problem for people. The reason I conflated "Atheist" with "Reductionist Materialist" is that most public figures in the "New Atheist" movement are clearly both (Matt Dilhaunty, Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais, even Sam Harris when he talks about this part of his philosophy--although he has no problem talking about other things, including morality, as if he hadn't just stated his believe about materialism, which somewhat invalidates the rest of what he says)--and don't get me wrong: I listen to all of them and love their intelligence and many other points they make...but they really are inconsistent in that particular way. So, if you are not a "Reductionist Materialist" then I did not include you in the term "Atheist".

Hi mbohu, How about the crazy concept that one's moral values are unique to every person who has ever lived? Sorry, just had to: This video explains best what I mean. Since brains are not black holes and other than for black holes all evolution equations are time reversible (even quantum equations, which I previously wasn't sure about), there is simply nothing that could be called "moral choice" if your view of the world makes consciousness only a phenomenon of brain activity. To make sure, @JerryBaumchen and others: I am NOT saying that YOU cannot be moral if you are an Atheist (in the sense of "material reality alone exists"), but that, if your view is entirely correct, NO ONE can be moral. (or otherwise the definition of the word "moral" would be entirely meaningless) Here is the video:

I see. And that was enough time to halt the counting? I know, it was a re-count, but that seems like a lot of time, even for a re-count. I remember it being fast enough to stop the counting before it could reach a conclusion.