Questions you've always wanted answered

[Gavin Chipper]

Is the radiation from a nuclear bomb a bug or a feature?

[Callum Todd]

Is the radiation from a nuclear bomb a bug or a feature?

My understanding of the timeline of the development of nuclear weaponry is that physicists involved in the discovery of nuclear fission recognised the potential for a nuclear chain reaction to produce a hitherto unprecedented amount of energy, and the potential military application of this. So I think the primary logic behind using a nuclear fission chain reaction as the basis for a bomb was because it would be able to produce more energy than any other bomb technology available at the time.

Therefore I think the intention was just to build the 'biggest' bomb they could at the time, rather than explicitly to build a radioactive weapon. But I don't know that any efforts were made in the Manhattan Project or any other military projects to try and reduce the radiation effect of a nuclear weapon while maintaining its explosive power. Probably because I would guess with my layperson's science that such a thing is likely to be theoretically impossible.

I'd say it's not exactly an intended feature if the goal was just to make the biggest boom they could with a bomb. But given that the radiation effect was known from the beginning of development I'd be reluctant to call it a bug. And I'm sure many military strategists/analysts saw/see the radiation effect as a 'bonus' - it certainly increases the destructive power of the weapon. So I'd call it a serendipitous feature, or accepted by-product.

[Marc Meakin]

As a newly paid up.member of the type 2 diabetes club o have been watching my sugar intake and most of my sugar comes from the fruit I eat as part of my 5 a day.
The question I have is the amount of sugar in a ripe or over ripe piece of fruit is surely higher than a firm slightly under ripe ice?
Or is the sugar in, say, a pear the same whether it be under ripe or over ripe ?

[Gavin Chipper]

It's probably less when it's under-ripe I'd say. But I'm not taking responsibility for how your diabetes develops.

Also in terms of 5 a day, vegetables are likely overall better than fruit.

[Matthew Brockwell]

What happened to those buskers on the London underground? There used to be set spots for them. I don't think I've seen one for ages.

I've seen buskers in both Leicester Square and Baker Street in the evening recently.

[Marc Meakin]

What happened to those buskers on the London underground? There used to be set spots for them. I don't think I've seen one for ages.

I've seen buskers in both Leicester Square and Baker Street in the evening recently.

I think the licences go up to midnight so I'm guessing there's more money to be made off late night revellers than commuters who let's face it probably are not in the mood for Wonder wall at 8am

[Mark Deeks]

Tubed last night for the first time in a million years or so and there was a guy banging out blues riffs at Piccadilly Circus. Though I do agree with Gavin Chipper that they do seem to be rarer.

[Gavin Chipper]

If I went back in time a few thousand years, then anything I do might have serious knock-on effects to 2024. But how far back in time would you have to go (and do essentially nothing and disappear again) so that nobody alive in 2024 can reasonably be seen as "the same person" as anyone alive now? Obviously if you go back to e.g. 1910, there are still some of the same people still alive so that wouldn't be enough. But would you only have to go a bit further back in time than the birth (or conception) of the oldest living person, or a long time? Are we talking days, weeks, months, years or what? I'm tempted to say on the shorter end of the timescale, like within the 20th century.

[Marc Meakin]

If I went back in time a few thousand years, then anything I do might have serious knock-on effects to 2024. But how far back in time would you have to go (and do essentially nothing and disappear again) so that nobody alive in 2024 can reasonably be seen as "the same person" as anyone alive now? Obviously if you go back to e.g. 1910, there are still some of the same people still alive so that wouldn't be enough. But would you only have to go a bit further back in time than the birth (or conception) of the oldest living person, or a long time? Are we talking days, weeks, months, years or what? I'm tempted to say on the shorter end of the timescale, like within the 20th century.

If you killed someone or saved a disaster like world war 2 by killing the infant Hitler then there would be untold differences .
But going back in time and doing nothing of note couldn't for sure change much if anything

[Elliott Mellor]

If I went back in time a few thousand years, then anything I do might have serious knock-on effects to 2024. But how far back in time would you have to go (and do essentially nothing and disappear again) so that nobody alive in 2024 can reasonably be seen as "the same person" as anyone alive now? Obviously if you go back to e.g. 1910, there are still some of the same people still alive so that wouldn't be enough. But would you only have to go a bit further back in time than the birth (or conception) of the oldest living person, or a long time? Are we talking days, weeks, months, years or what? I'm tempted to say on the shorter end of the timescale, like within the 20th century.

I'm not sure there's anything you could do that would be so impactful that it would completely change the future of everyone. The world is huge. Even something such as averting WW1 wouldn't be enough because there would still be people (especially in more remote countries that didn't participate) that followed the exact same path, married the same person, had kids who married the same people etc. I don't even think averting WW1 would alter the destiny of everyone in Britain, never mind the world.

If your criterion is that everyone today would be different, even just one strand of lineage remaining the same is classed as a failure. My belief is you'd have to go back rather a long time (at the very least hundreds of years) and do something very radical (such as assassinating every country's leader and causing complete disarray) for it to be effective enough such that it makes it extremely unlikely that one strand of lineage remained the same by chance.

There are still people alive whose parents got married before 1900, so it's safe to assume at least some of those would be unaffected by what you do in the 20th century. If you were to go back to the 17th or 18th century and do something history-altering, you've got more chance that it will affect everyone enough such that at some point every lineage would be different because chance meetings didn't occur, people's circumstances were different etc. Assassinating every country's leader does seem a bit radical though and I'm not sure that's quite within the parameters of the hypothetical or else you might easily just say "well I'll go on a mass purge in 1950 and redistribute the population". If you're talking about a nonchalant event then it's surely much, much, much further back than even a few hundred years.

[Marc Meakin]

I think the only way to impact the whole world would be to go back to the early 20th century with a few dozen vials of covid 19 and book various ocean liners across the continents.
Be sure to avoid buying a ticket for the Titanic though.
Unless you give the crew a heads up about a certain iceberg
Also be sure to give the vaccine to your great great granparents.

The best example of a modern version of this is the plot of Twelve Monkeys

[Callum Todd]

If you go back far enough (say to before everyone alive today was born) you wouldn't even need to do anything to change everyone today. Or even "go back" yourself, just since the clock back and replay history.

Given we're all the product of random mutations if you just rerolled the DNA dice and fast forwarded back to today you wouldn't have any of the same individuals you had before you rewound the clock.

[Ian Volante]

This has reminded me to check that John Tyler, a US president born in the 1790s, still has a living grandson, and he does indeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ruffin_Tyler

[Gavin Chipper]

If you go back far enough (say to before everyone alive today was born) you wouldn't even need to do anything to change everyone today. Or even "go back" yourself, just since the clock back and replay history.

Given we're all the product of random mutations if you just rerolled the DNA dice and fast forwarded back to today you wouldn't have any of the same individuals you had before you rewound the clock.

This is the point. It's not enough for the same parents to get together and have a child that they call "John". For that child to be meaningfully "the same person" the same sperm has to meet the same egg. Personal identity is a complex philosophical area, but even on a generous interpretation, you would expect them to be able to pass some sort of genetic test determining they are at least not ruled out as being the same person. And it would take very little to disturb that,

Consider Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect. It's impossible to accurately predict the weather more than a week or two in advance. Change something small in the initial conditions, and not very long later you've got a massive difference in weather.

So I'm still going with going back to not very long before the oldest person was conceived. Even then, there's no guarantee that the oldest person was going to become the oldest person. Change something small and they might live to a far lesser age. So you might not even have to go back that far.

[Gavin Chipper]

This has reminded me to check that John Tyler, a US president born in the 1790s, still has a living grandson, and he does indeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ruffin_Tyler

This is pretty insane.

[Elliott Mellor]

If you go back far enough (say to before everyone alive today was born) you wouldn't even need to do anything to change everyone today. Or even "go back" yourself, just since the clock back and replay history.

Given we're all the product of random mutations if you just rerolled the DNA dice and fast forwarded back to today you wouldn't have any of the same individuals you had before you rewound the clock.

I'm not sold on this. Consider very remote places where they're virtually unaffected by even large-scale world events. Places where they're even so far removed that they don't have any connection to the outside world. Is it likely that they would be affected enough? Sure the weather might slightly change if there were more emissions, but is that enough to really alter their destiny?

[Elliott Mellor]

If you go back far enough (say to before everyone alive today was born) you wouldn't even need to do anything to change everyone today. Or even "go back" yourself, just since the clock back and replay history.

Given we're all the product of random mutations if you just rerolled the DNA dice and fast forwarded back to today you wouldn't have any of the same individuals you had before you rewound the clock.

This is the point. It's not enough for the same parents to get together and have a child that they call "John". For that child to be meaningfully "the same person" the same sperm has to meet the same egg. Personal identity is a complex philosophical area, but even on a generous interpretation, you would expect them to be able to pass some sort of genetic test determining they are at least not ruled out as being the same person. And it would take very little to disturb that,

Consider Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect. It's impossible to accurately predict the weather more than a week or two in advance. Change something small in the initial conditions, and not very long later you've got a massive difference in weather.

So I'm still going with going back to not very long before the oldest person was conceived. Even then, there's no guarantee that the oldest person was going to become the oldest person. Change something small and they might live to a far lesser age. So you might not even have to go back that far.

This is a fair point, and one I hadn't actually considered when I cobbled together my thoughts early this morning. I'm still not sure how much effect a nonchalant event would have on the entire population though (you'd need a ripple effect that spanned the entire world really). Something minor is unlikely to have a large enough cumulative effect even over several generations.

[Marc Meakin]

This has reminded me to check that John Tyler, a US president born in the 1790s, still has a living grandson, and he does indeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ruffin_Tyler

[Marc Meakin]

If you go back far enough (say to before everyone alive today was born) you wouldn't even need to do anything to change everyone today. Or even "go back" yourself, just since the clock back and replay history.

Given we're all the product of random mutations if you just rerolled the DNA dice and fast forwarded back to today you wouldn't have any of the same individuals you had before you rewound the clock.

This is the point. It's not enough for the same parents to get together and have a child that they call "John". For that child to be meaningfully "the same person" the same sperm has to meet the same egg. Personal identity is a complex philosophical area, but even on a generous interpretation, you would expect them to be able to pass some sort of genetic test determining they are at least not ruled out as being the same person. And it would take very little to disturb that,

Consider Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect. It's impossible to accurately predict the weather more than a week or two in advance. Change something small in the initial conditions, and not very long later you've got a massive difference in weather.

So I'm still going with going back to not very long before the oldest person was conceived. Even then, there's no guarantee that the oldest person was going to become the oldest person. Change something small and they might live to a far lesser age. So you might not even have to go back that far.

This is a fair point, and one I hadn't actually considered when I cobbled together my thoughts early this morning. I'm still not sure how much effect a nonchalant event would have on the entire population though (you'd need a ripple effect that spanned the entire world really). Something minor is unlikely to have a large enough cumulative effect even over several generations.

I guess going back in time far enough with Rona might seem innocuous to you but given that vaccines are mostly post 19th century it could spread quite a way

[Elliott Mellor]

This is the point. It's not enough for the same parents to get together and have a child that they call "John". For that child to be meaningfully "the same person" the same sperm has to meet the same egg. Personal identity is a complex philosophical area, but even on a generous interpretation, you would expect them to be able to pass some sort of genetic test determining they are at least not ruled out as being the same person. And it would take very little to disturb that,

Consider Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect. It's impossible to accurately predict the weather more than a week or two in advance. Change something small in the initial conditions, and not very long later you've got a massive difference in weather.

So I'm still going with going back to not very long before the oldest person was conceived. Even then, there's no guarantee that the oldest person was going to become the oldest person. Change something small and they might live to a far lesser age. So you might not even have to go back that far.

This is a fair point, and one I hadn't actually considered when I cobbled together my thoughts early this morning. I'm still not sure how much effect a nonchalant event would have on the entire population though (you'd need a ripple effect that spanned the entire world really). Something minor is unlikely to have a large enough cumulative effect even over several generations.

I guess going back in time far enough with Rona might seem innocuous to you but given that vaccines are mostly post 19th century it could spread quite a way

I don't really classify infecting people with a virus to be an innocuous event.

[Adam Gillard]

There are still people alive whose parents got married before 1900

Consider very remote places where they're virtually unaffected by even large-scale world events

In some such places it's even possible to have children out of wedlock so you might need to extend your criteria and roll back your timelines even further

[Callum Todd]

If you go back far enough (say to before everyone alive today was born) you wouldn't even need to do anything to change everyone today. Or even "go back" yourself, just since the clock back and replay history.

Given we're all the product of random mutations if you just rerolled the DNA dice and fast forwarded back to today you wouldn't have any of the same individuals you had before you rewound the clock.

This is the point. It's not enough for the same parents to get together and have a child that they call "John". For that child to be meaningfully "the same person" the same sperm has to meet the same egg. Personal identity is a complex philosophical area, but even on a generous interpretation, you would expect them to be able to pass some sort of genetic test determining they are at least not ruled out as being the same person. And it would take very little to disturb that,

Consider Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect. It's impossible to accurately predict the weather more than a week or two in advance. Change something small in the initial conditions, and not very long later you've got a massive difference in weather.

So I'm still going with going back to not very long before the oldest person was conceived. Even then, there's no guarantee that the oldest person was going to become the oldest person. Change something small and they might live to a far lesser age. So you might not even have to go back that far.

Not even same sperm and same egg would produce the same person. The genetic mutations continue after that point.

Consider I use a random number generator now. Because this is a Countdown forum let's say it's CECIL. I used it just 4 times and get 167, 932, 458, 370. Let's call that sequence of numbers our 'person'.

I go back in time to one microsecond before I pressed the CECIL button the first time. Nothing has changed. Not world events that Ell mentioned, not weather conditions, nothing. I press the button again. Do I get the same 4 numbers, and hence the same 'person'?

I guess that depends on how 'true' the randomness is, as if it the randomness of the RNG mechanism in CECIL/the mechanism of genetic mutations in a zygote is based on some factors that are determined already by this point (one microsecond pre- button press/cell division), then maybe you would. But I'd guess not.

[Fiona T]

If you go back far enough (say to before everyone alive today was born) you wouldn't even need to do anything to change everyone today. Or even "go back" yourself, just since the clock back and replay history.

Given we're all the product of random mutations if you just rerolled the DNA dice and fast forwarded back to today you wouldn't have any of the same individuals you had before you rewound the clock.

This is the point. It's not enough for the same parents to get together and have a child that they call "John". For that child to be meaningfully "the same person" the same sperm has to meet the same egg. Personal identity is a complex philosophical area, but even on a generous interpretation, you would expect them to be able to pass some sort of genetic test determining they are at least not ruled out as being the same person. And it would take very little to disturb that,

Consider Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect. It's impossible to accurately predict the weather more than a week or two in advance. Change something small in the initial conditions, and not very long later you've got a massive difference in weather.

So I'm still going with going back to not very long before the oldest person was conceived. Even then, there's no guarantee that the oldest person was going to become the oldest person. Change something small and they might live to a far lesser age. So you might not even have to go back that far.

Not even same sperm and same egg would produce the same person. The genetic mutations continue after that point.

Consider I use a random number generator now. Because this is a Countdown forum let's say it's CECIL. I used it just 4 times and get 167, 932, 458, 370. Let's call that sequence of numbers our 'person'.

I go back in time to one microsecond before I pressed the CECIL button the first time. Nothing has changed. Not world events that Ell mentioned, not weather conditions, nothing. I press the button again. Do I get the same 4 numbers, and hence the same 'person'?

I guess that depends on how 'true' the randomness is, as if it the randomness of the RNG mechanism in CECIL/the mechanism of genetic mutations in a zygote is based on some factors that are determined already by this point (one microsecond pre- button press/cell division), then maybe you would. But I'd guess not.

Identical twins come from the same sperm and the same egg, but I think most would accept they're not the same person.

[Callum Todd]

Identical twins come from the same sperm and the same egg, but I think most would accept they're not the same person.

Yep. And so you don't even have to go back to before everyone was born. Go back to the microsecond of fertilisation. Does the egg even split this time? Not only do we get a different person, we might get a different number of people!

So to answer the original question:

But how far back in time would you have to go (and do essentially nothing and disappear again) so that nobody alive in 2024 can reasonably be seen as "the same person" as anyone alive now? Obviously if you go back to e.g. 1910, there are still some of the same people still alive so that wouldn't be enough. But would you only have to go a bit further back in time than the birth (or conception) of the oldest living person, or a long time? Are we talking days, weeks, months, years or what? I'm tempted to say on the shorter end of the timescale, like within the 20th century.

Not even as far back as days before the conception of the oldest living person. Days after would do it. Probably (much) more than that.

[Gavin Chipper]

I wasn't sure how philosophical we were going to get. I was going for fairly generous (i.e. inclusive) criteria when saying that it wouldn't take much for the entire population to be different. If you are more strict, then it pretty much goes without saying.

Not even same sperm and same egg would produce the same person. The genetic mutations continue after that point.

Mutations continue in your own life, so does this mean we are not the same person as you were before? At that point, is it all about genetics anyway?

There is a view that every time there is a decision (or a non-deterministic quantum event), you get parallel existences, so there would be lots of Callums that made different decisions in their lives. If you could visit one of these other Callums, they would of course not be you. You would not experience their experiences etc. Can either of you (one, both?) lay claim to being the Callum that led to you both before the split?

Identical twins come from the same sperm and the same egg, but I think most would accept they're not the same person.

Indeed and if, with a pair of identical twins, there had been no split in the first place, which of the twins is the one that would still have existed? Does the question even make sense?

But anyway, missing out a few steps, the bottom line for me really is that there is no coherent theory of personal identity that allows for any change that doesn't also allow for all change, because it becomes arbitrary. That is to say, you could have a theory that all consciousness is just one individual, or that every separate conscious experience is its own individual and that you are not the same person as you were a second ago. So the question is meaningless really.

Edit - Callum replied while I was writing this.

[Gavin Chipper]

So to answer the original question:

But how far back in time would you have to go (and do essentially nothing and disappear again) so that nobody alive in 2024 can reasonably be seen as "the same person" as anyone alive now? Obviously if you go back to e.g. 1910, there are still some of the same people still alive so that wouldn't be enough. But would you only have to go a bit further back in time than the birth (or conception) of the oldest living person, or a long time? Are we talking days, weeks, months, years or what? I'm tempted to say on the shorter end of the timescale, like within the 20th century.

Not even as far back as days before the conception of the oldest living person. Days after would do it. Probably (much) more than that.

What's you working definition of personal identity?

[David Williams]

If you're postulating a universe where given identical circumstances you will get identical outcomes, then if you were to go back in time that is already inevitable and always has been. It makes no difference. You were already there.

Isn't the question really whether the consequences of a butterfly doing something marginally different could change everything for ever, or whether the effect is inevitably short term or marginal?

[Gavin Chipper]

There are different models of time travel. Whether you go back in time, waft a bit of air around or get a non-time-travelling butterfly to do it is neither here nor there.

The reason I mentioned time travel was to specify a particular point in time. Anyway if I'd said a butterfly doing something different at a point in time, someone might have objected to that on the same basis as your objection.

[Callum Todd]

So to answer the original question:

But how far back in time would you have to go (and do essentially nothing and disappear again) so that nobody alive in 2024 can reasonably be seen as "the same person" as anyone alive now? Obviously if you go back to e.g. 1910, there are still some of the same people still alive so that wouldn't be enough. But would you only have to go a bit further back in time than the birth (or conception) of the oldest living person, or a long time? Are we talking days, weeks, months, years or what? I'm tempted to say on the shorter end of the timescale, like within the 20th century.

Not even as far back as days before the conception of the oldest living person. Days after would do it. Probably (much) more than that.

What's you working definition of personal identity?

Short and most accurate answer is: I don't know.

But I realise that isn't helpful. So I'll have a stab at answering your question properly. I appreciate the word "working" in your question, as it acknowledges the difficulty in pinning down a concrete definition. tl;dr: see the bolded bit a few paragraphs down.

I'm not convinced that the 'self' really exists, at least not in any traditional form. Hence I'm not really sure exactly what is meant by things like 'you', 'me', and "the same person" from your original question.

The best approximation of personal identity I can come up with is to equate it to an "individual" person. Individual very much being the appropriate word, as I mean a person at the level that their identity cannot be divided (literally "individual") without falling into some category other than "person".

The best I can articulate my view of this is to say that "personal identity" is not a 'real' entity but a label we apply to a huge collection of information which includes physical objects (the person's body) and ideas. Some of those ideas may be physically manifested and localised to the person's body (like their memories) and some may not be (like their relationships and reputation). If you've read any Yuval Noah Harari you may have seen his take on ideologies such as religion, which he demonstrates with an analogy to corporations such as Peugeot:

Peugeot began as a small family business in the village of Valentigney, just 300 kilometres from the Stadel Cave. Today the company employs about 200,000 people worldwide, most of whom are complete strangers to each other. These strangers cooperate so effectively that in 2008 Peugeot produced more than 1.5 million automobiles, earning revenues of about 55 billion euros.

In what sense can we say that Peugeot SA (the company’s official name) exists? There are many Peugeot vehicles, but these are obviously not the company. Even if every Peugeot in the world were simultaneously junked and sold for scrap metal, Peugeot SA would not disappear. It would continue to manufacture new cars and issue its annual report. The company owns factories, machinery and showrooms, and employs mechanics, accountants and secretaries, but all these together do not comprise Peugeot. A disaster might kill every single one of Peugeot’s employees, and go on to destroy all of its assembly lines and executive offices. Even then, the company could borrow money, hire new employees, build new factories and buy new machinery. Peugeot has managers and shareholders, but neither do they constitute the company. All the managers could be dismissed and all its shares sold, but the company itself would remain intact.

It doesn’t mean that Peugeot SA is invulnerable or immortal. If a judge were to mandate the dissolution of the company, its factories would remain standing and its workers, accountants, managers and shareholders would continue to live – but Peugeot SA would immediately vanish. In short, Peugeot SA seems to have no essential connection to the physical world. Does it really exist?

Peugeot is a figment of our collective imagination. Lawyers call this a ‘legal fiction’. It can’t be pointed at; it is not a physical object. But it exists as a legal entity.

I think a person is something like that. As you sort of alluded to a few posts previously with a kind of 'Ship of Theseus' like point:

I wasn't sure how philosophical we were going to get. I was going for fairly generous (i.e. inclusive) criteria when saying that it wouldn't take much for the entire population to be different. If you are more strict, then it pretty much goes without saying.

[...]

Mutations continue in your own life, so does this mean we are not the same person as you were before? At that point, is it all about genetics anyway?

There is a view that every time there is a decision (or a non-deterministic quantum event), you get parallel existences, so there would be lots of Callums that made different decisions in their lives. If you could visit one of these other Callums, they would of course not be you. You would not experience their experiences etc. Can either of you (one, both?) lay claim to being the Callum that led to you both before the split?

[...]

But anyway, missing out a few steps, the bottom line for me really is that there is no coherent theory of personal identity that allows for any change that doesn't also allow for all change, because it becomes arbitrary. That is to say, you could have a theory that all consciousness is just one individual, or that every separate conscious experience is its own individual and that you are not the same person as you were a second ago. So the question is meaningless really.

I've bolded your last paragraph in that because I think your "bottom line" is spot on and I would agree with that.

I was taking the words "the same person" in your original question to mean exactly the same person, i.e. frozen in the same snapshot of time. With all the same physical qualities, all the same memories, and all the same memes in existence both in their own consciousness, and about them in the consciousness of others. I get that that's a very unflexible interpretation of that phrase, but as you suggested in your last paragraph quoted above, I don't think the question really makes sense with any more liberal interpretation.

Sorry if none of what I've written here makes sense. It's a complex topic and I feel a bit out of my depth. If I haven't made sense, please revert to my original short answer to your question: "I don't know".

[Adam Gillard]

Didn't someone write a book on stuff and consciousness? I don't think it was Harari.

[Callum Todd]

Didn't someone write a book on stuff and consciousness? I don't think it was Harari.

Just a few books apart on my shelf.

[Gavin Chipper]

Next to A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking!

[Mark Deeks]

In the era before the ubiquity of internet commerce, where did people buy those giant scissors for cutting ribbons to open new hospitals?

[Gavin Chipper]

Do most people talk absolute nonsense with family and close friends, or do most people just stick to speaking English (or another recognised language) in pretty much all situations?

[Marc Meakin]

Do most people talk absolute nonsense with family and close friends, or do most people just stick to speaking English (or another recognised language) in pretty much all situations?

Talking nonsense is my default setting.
I would invent words to my younger brother , my kids and my wives.
I thought everybody does that and also in-jokes
Less likely to talk nonsense at work and with friends.
Though I'm not averse to creating nicknames

[Gavin Chipper]

Also what about randomly Googling people from your past or present who you might have not even know / have known particularly well? Or bringing them up in conversation? "What is x doing right now?" "What would x make of this?"

[Marc Meakin]

Also what about randomly Googling people from your past or present who you might have not even know / have known particularly well? Or bringing them up in conversation? "What is x doing right now?" "What would x make of this?"

Before Facebook was very popular , Friends Reunited was the place to go to look up old teachers school friends or even work colleagues.

If I have a touch of insomnia I may look at FB or Google checking old friends and exgirlfriends
In fact last year I found out my ex ( those of you who know from my meltdown period in 2010/2011 will know ) girlfriend from Milton Keynes passed away

[Ian Volante]

Do most people talk absolute nonsense with family and close friends, or do most people just stick to speaking English (or another recognised language) in pretty much all situations?

The main difference is I swear more.

[David Williams]

Can anyone explain Turkish barbers to me? They're everywhere. My local used to work on his own, was always busy and talked of little other than Everton FC - and he talked a lot about that. Overnight he disappeared and the premises became a Turkish barbers. Two of them, very little English but I did establish that they are Iranian, which figures. Hardly any customers, and those that do go in are still the same old codgers getting the same old haircuts. It's great. You never have to wait, there's no conversation, they are both meticulous about what they do, and they charge £9.

I just don't see how they even make enough to pay the rent. Google would suggest that it's just a front for money laundering. I can see how this would work. You just claim to have many more customers than you actually do, and it's very hard to prove otherwise. But I daresay the sources of the 'information' might not be people who I would put a great deal of trust in.

Anyone know anything definite?

[Marc Meakin]

Can anyone explain Turkish barbers to me? They're everywhere. My local used to work on his own, was always busy and talked of little other than Everton FC - and he talked a lot about that. Overnight he disappeared and the premises became a Turkish barbers. Two of them, very little English but I did establish that they are Iranian, which figures. Hardly any customers, and those that do go in are still the same old codgers getting the same old haircuts. It's great. You never have to wait, there's no conversation, they are both meticulous about what they do, and they charge £9.

I just don't see how they even make enough to pay the rent. Google would suggest that it's just a front for money laundering. I can see how this would work. You just claim to have many more customers than you actually do, and it's very hard to prove otherwise. But I daresay the sources of the 'information' might not be people who I would put a great deal of trust in.

Anyone know anything definite?

I bought my expensive electric bike from a Turkish barber who had a bike shop ( of sorts ) in the back of his establishment.
He is also the only Turkish barber I know who doesn't smoke.
Btw a Tukish bloke outside smoking a cigarette has replaced the stripey pole as a means of identifying a barbers shop

[Gavin Chipper]

Can anyone explain Turkish barbers to me? They're everywhere. My local used to work on his own, was always busy and talked of little other than Everton FC - and he talked a lot about that. Overnight he disappeared and the premises became a Turkish barbers. Two of them, very little English but I did establish that they are Iranian, which figures. Hardly any customers, and those that do go in are still the same old codgers getting the same old haircuts. It's great. You never have to wait, there's no conversation, they are both meticulous about what they do, and they charge £9.

I just don't see how they even make enough to pay the rent. Google would suggest that it's just a front for money laundering. I can see how this would work. You just claim to have many more customers than you actually do, and it's very hard to prove otherwise. But I daresay the sources of the 'information' might not be people who I would put a great deal of trust in.

Anyone know anything definite?

I often hear about things being a front for money laundering. But does that actually mean happens in practice? So there's some illegal drugs thing going on and they put the money through the barber business to "clean" it?

A friend of mine went to this top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor but it has a suspiciously high number of reviews and he said the food was average. So he thought it might be a money laundering thing.

[David Williams]

Can anyone explain Turkish barbers to me? They're everywhere. My local used to work on his own, was always busy and talked of little other than Everton FC - and he talked a lot about that. Overnight he disappeared and the premises became a Turkish barbers. Two of them, very little English but I did establish that they are Iranian, which figures. Hardly any customers, and those that do go in are still the same old codgers getting the same old haircuts. It's great. You never have to wait, there's no conversation, they are both meticulous about what they do, and they charge £9.

I just don't see how they even make enough to pay the rent. Google would suggest that it's just a front for money laundering. I can see how this would work. You just claim to have many more customers than you actually do, and it's very hard to prove otherwise. But I daresay the sources of the 'information' might not be people who I would put a great deal of trust in.

Anyone know anything definite?

I often hear about things being a front for money laundering. But does that actually mean happens in practice? So there's some illegal drugs thing going on and they put the money through the barber business to "clean" it?

A friend of mine went to this top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor but it has a suspiciously high number of reviews and he said the food was average. So he thought it might be a money laundering thing.

I don't see that. It's a pretty normal thing to post fake reviews to generate business. If you tried to launder money through a restaurant a forensic accountant would be able to see that you hadn't bought enough supplies to make as many meals as you claimed to have served. Same for any business that sells a product. But a barber has virtually no purchases, and it's perfectly normal for all his income to be in cash. Other than keeping the place under surveillance and counting the customers it's virtually impossible to disprove their accounts.

[Mark Deeks]

I know this doesn't help with the stereotype, one born out of jingoism and/or racism that I would hate to help perpetuate, but the Turkish barbers next to where I used to work was totally a dealer. Solid hair cuts too, something for everyone, but it was a known fact. The students would buy from there and the police would collar them, happened all the time.

[Martin Hurst]

Can anyone explain Turkish barbers to me? They're everywhere. My local used to work on his own, was always busy and talked of little other than Everton FC - and he talked a lot about that. Overnight he disappeared and the premises became a Turkish barbers. Two of them, very little English but I did establish that they are Iranian, which figures. Hardly any customers, and those that do go in are still the same old codgers getting the same old haircuts. It's great. You never have to wait, there's no conversation, they are both meticulous about what they do, and they charge £9.

I just don't see how they even make enough to pay the rent. Google would suggest that it's just a front for money laundering. I can see how this would work. You just claim to have many more customers than you actually do, and it's very hard to prove otherwise. But I daresay the sources of the 'information' might not be people who I would put a great deal of trust in.

Anyone know anything definite?

All of the barbers I have been to near where I live only take cash and refuse to take card payments. Very odd.

[Mark Deeks]

When I'm proper laughing - the full beans, the can't-breathe laugh, the Graeme Cole level - I throw myself to the floor. I don't just fall there from lack of breath; I seem to instinctively jump down to it, through some weird impulse. Does anyone else do the same, and perhaps have some idea as to why?

[Callum Todd]

When I'm proper laughing - the full beans, the can't-breathe laugh, the Graeme Cole level - I throw myself to the floor. I don't just fall there from lack of breath; I seem to instinctively jump down to it, through some weird impulse. Does anyone else do the same, and perhaps have some idea as to why?

I'm just speculating here.

I remember seeing an episode of QI with Jimmy Carr where he was talking about a book he'd written on the reason why we laugh and he explained that he thought laughter had evolved as a sort of pattern recognition reward system. Most jokes follow the format of 'unexpected thing in a sentence'. Having a reward system for that is evolutionarily beneficial to us because spotting unexpected things could be useful for, say, noticing there's a lion by that waterhole.

I don't know how thorough the science was in that research but if there's anything too it then I don't think it's too big a stretch to say that an extreme activation of some brain circuitry designed to aid in hazard perception would trigger a motoric response aligned with defense/avoiding detection (throwing oneself to the ground).

[Mark Deeks]

Maybe. Wouldn't the emitting of the loud laughing noise kinda undercut that impulse to avoid detection, though?

[Marc Meakin]

When I'm proper laughing - the full beans, the can't-breathe laugh, the Graeme Cole level - I throw myself to the floor. I don't just fall there from lack of breath; I seem to instinctively jump down to it, through some weird impulse. Does anyone else do the same, and perhaps have some idea as to why?

Yes though not as much nowadays.
Before my heart surgery I would nearly pass out as I would get light headed due to my heart not pumping the blood enough

[Callum Todd]

Maybe. Wouldn't the emitting of the loud laughing noise kinda undercut that impulse to avoid detection, though?

Yeah I suppose. So most likely explanation is that my speculation was a total load of bollocks.

Alternatively, it's not that simple. It's not like we have one pattern-recognition process that activates for humour and lions all the same. Hear a funny joke or stumble upon a lion's den? Make a loud noise and hit the floor. Doesn't really work.

I think it's more that the amusement response is one process that evolved to reward pattern-recognition, which is useful in hazard perception, but true hazard perception has its own neurocircuitry going on. My theory was just that a sufficiently strong activation of the first process might confuse the brain into a partial activation of the second. For the reason you gave, I can't see that working in reverse.

[Marc Meakin]

I'm sure I already posted it already but can anyone explain how my phone Sat nav (ie Google maps) works even when I lose my phone signal and yet if I try to start using it without a signal I can't get on

[Gavin Chipper]

It needs phone signal to load the map but only the satellite connection to get your co-ordinates, which can be placed on the loaded map. I think.

[Marc Meakin]

It needs phone signal to load the map but only the satellite connection to get your co-ordinates, which can be placed on the loaded map. I think.

I figured that but I can't get my head round that it knows what speed you are doing countdown the miles and directs you without a phone signal so I can only assume there is some sort of signal your phone gives for this.
Maybe it explains why 999 calls still work ( I assume that as I'm not going to try it now )

[Graeme Cole]

It needs phone signal to load the map but only the satellite connection to get your co-ordinates, which can be placed on the loaded map. I think.

I figured that but I can't get my head round that it knows what speed you are doing countdown the miles and directs you without a phone signal so I can only assume there is some sort of signal your phone gives for this.
Maybe it explains why 999 calls still work ( I assume that as I'm not going to try it now )

It'll be what Gevin said. The GPS unit in your phone doesn't need an internet connection to do what it does. It establishes your location from the slight timing differences between the signals broadcast by the GPS satellites.

However, Google Maps or whatever navigation app you're using is unlikely to have the whole world map pre-installed, or every possible destination address and business name, so it might need to access the internet to do things like look up destinations that match the text you type, and download the relevant section of the map.

Speed and distance to destination are easy. Once it knows the latitude and longitude of your destination, and it has the relevant section of the map, which includes the details of all the roads, it can easily work out the distance to the destination without asking the internet. All it needs to know is your current latitude and longitude, which the GPS unit happily supplies.

The same goes for your speed. If you know what your precise location was two seconds ago, and what it is now, you don't need internet access to work out your average speed over that time.

Maybe it explains why 999 calls still work ( I assume that as I'm not going to try it now )

No, it's nothing to do with this. The reason 999 calls (sometimes) still work when you don't have signal on your own network is because 999 calls are allowed to use any mobile network. If you have no signal at all, from any network, you can't make a 999 call.

[Gavin Chipper]

When I went on holiday a few years ago I saved the Google maps onto my phone for the general areas I was going to so I wouldn't need internet connection to know where I was.

[Marc Meakin]

When I went on holiday a few years ago I saved the Google maps onto my phone for the general areas I was going to so I wouldn't need internet connection to know where I was.

That would be sensible way to do it though I didn't realise how shocking EE coverage is outside major towns

[Gavin Chipper]

Why do motorways always have those massive elongated hard-to-negotiate roundabout things that you need to drive round to get on and off them? Dual carriageways generally don't and they're the same thing but with green signs.

[Mark Deeks]

Dual carriageways have traffic jams at junctions more frequently. Motorways are supposed to not have them at all. The massive increase in vehicle traffic since the motorway network was designed and built has kind of knackered that a bit, but that was the idea, and big junctions are a part of that traffic flow.

[Callum Todd]

I think it's also partly to make it practically impossible to get on a motorway facing the wrong way. Obviously that would be obscenely dangerous, as we know from the rare occasions where people somehow manage to do so.

[Gavin Chipper]

I see. Thanks for the answers.

[Marc Meakin]

Are you morally bankrupt if you watch Castaway with Phillip Schofield ?