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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

pjfocke - 05:57am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15061 of 15067)

The last message was a little harsh. Here is some things to back up your ideas. You aren't the only one working on this aspect of things, and I personally find it striking, I just HATE this crap thread.

Johnjoe McFadden Synchronous Firing and Its Influence on the Brain’s Electromagnetic Field Evidence for an Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness Abstract: The human brain consists of approximately 100 billion electrically active neurones that generate an endogenous electromagnetic (em) field, whose role in neuronal computing has not been fully examined. The source, magnitude and likely influence of the brain’s endogenous em field are here considered. An estimate of the strength and magnitude of the brain’s em field is gained from theoretical considerations, brain scanning and microelectrode data. An estimate of the likely influence of the brain’s em field is gained from theoretical principles and considerations of the experimental effects of external em fields on neurone firing both in vitro and in vivo. Synchronous firing of distributed neurones phase-locks induced em field fluctuations to increase their magnitude and influence. Synchronous firing has previously been demonstrated to correlate with awareness and perception, indicating that perturbations to the brain’s em field also correlate with awareness. The brain’s emfield represents an integrated electromagnetic field representation of distributed neuronal information and has dynamics that closely map to those expected for a correlate of consciousness. I propose that the brain’s em information field is the physical substrate of conscious awareness—the cemi field —and make a number of predictions that follow from this proposal. Experimental evidence pertinent to these predictions is examined and shown to be entirely consistent with the cemi field theory. This theory provides solutions to many of the intractable problems of consciousness—such as the binding problem—and provides new insights into the role of consciousness, the meaning of free will and the nature of qualia. It thus places consciousness within a secure physical framework and provides a route towards constructing an artificial consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9, No. 4, 2002, pp. 23–50 Correspondence: Johnjoe McFadden, School of Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 5XH, UK. Email: j.mcfadden@surrey.ac.uk

lchic - 07:10am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15062 of 15067)
TRUTH outs ultimately : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Google Johnjoe McFadden brain

http://unisci.com/stories/20022/0516026.htm

http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs_9_4.html#pockett (2nd & 3rd abstracts)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology/message/20406

http://www.geneticengineering.org/evolution/mcfaddenc13.html

lchic - 07:15am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15063 of 15067)
TRUTH outs ultimately : TRUTH has to be morally forcing : build on TRUTH it's a strong foundation

Google | brain binding problem brain

http://amlap.psy.gla.ac.uk/programme/node25.html

gisterme - 07:21am Oct 15, 2003 EST (# 15064 of 15067)

wrcooper - 10:57am Oct 13, 2003 EST (# 14868 of ...) http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.UsrvbnVpODi.2598837@.f28e622/16579

"...The problem is that the real threat isn't from crows. It's from rabbits and deer skirting the scarecrow and attacking from the ground, not the air..."

I think the crows and the rabbits and deer are separate threats. That's why I hope the Department of Homeland Defense is about more than doing better screening of airline passengers. That's a separate issue from the BM threat.

Once again I'll ask: if you're worried about burgelars, why bar the doors and leave the windows open?

"...The way to handle North Korea is to beef up intelligence, use diplomatic and economic incentives to curb their behavior, and, as a last resort, interdiction to destroy any possible real threat--an actual functioning, nuclear-tipped N. Korean ICBM..."

Agreed about the first part of the statement...but how will we know when the "actual" threat comes into existance? Are we so sure we could do anything about it if it did?...and if we tried and didn't succeed??? Then what?

"...But such a threat is far from becoming reality. Building a working ICBM is not at all easy..."

Good. Building a reliable missile defense isn't all that easy either. Let's hope we can get the MD done before they can do their thing.

It might be close.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense