Shower Philosophy

[Beardy]

A thread for this random thoughts about the life, universe and everything that you have when your mind is freewheeling while you stand under the shower. You know, t house that you then ruminate on while still in the shower and develop into a cod philosophical debate.

Anyone who says 42 or oh know, not this again will be asked to collect their coat and towel!

[CommuteTooFar]

I wish I was having a bath.

[Beardy]

This morning’s entry; is time a dimension.

I know that it’s a popular SF trope to consider time the 4th dimension, but for the three we can see we can travel back and forth in. Not so time¹. Then there’s the mathematicians dimensions, of which they have many and time isn’t, as far as I can tell, one of them. They’ve also got i, but that’s not even a dimension. Does physics have more then three dimensions? I know there’s multi-universe theory, but that’s not multidimensional is it?

1. If time trave were possible, would that make time a 4th dimension. Or would a proof that time is indeed a fourth dimension make time travel,possible. It’s a chicken and egg situation.

[Pingu]

Time is an illusion.

[pcolbeck]

This morning’s entry; is time a dimension.

I know that it’s a popular SF trope to consider time the 4th dimension, but for the three we can see we can travel back and forth in. Not so time¹. Then there’s the mathematicians dimensions, of which they have many and time isn’t, as far as I can tell, one of them. They’ve also got i, but that’s not even a dimension. Does physics have more then three dimensions? I know there’s multi-universe theory, but that’s not multidimensional is it?

1. If time trave were possible, would that make time a 4th dimension. Or would a proof that time is indeed a fourth dimension make time travel,possible. It’s a chicken and egg situation.

Time travel is possible. At least into the future every time you climb a hill or travel on an aeroplane you do it relative to anyone at sea level. Into the past might be possible at the quantum scale.

[Mr Larrington]

Time is an illusion.

Lunchtime doubly so.

[T42]

Time is an illusion.

Aye but the electricity bill isn't, so stop wasting the hot water thinking about it.

[Jaded]

I have enough trouble remembering if I have shampooed my hair.

[Polar Bear]

I have enough trouble remembering if I have shampooed my hair.

I wouldn't waste your life on that one Sir.  😉

[Wowbagger]

I have enough trouble remembering if I have shampooed my hair.

First, catch find your hare hair...

[Wombat]

I know where mine is....... 1988.

[Beardy]

I’ve been thinking again. I know, it really is a curse.

The human body. I think we can all agree that if it was designed by <deity> than a refund is in order. From an engineering perspective there[] are more than a few poor choices. But that’s not todays insight, oh no.

Redundancy. That’s what I’ve been thinking today. The human body, at least from an external perspective, is superficially symmetrical. But internally that’s less of the case, with your heart over to the left and somewhat lob sided and your liver over to the right and a lot lob sided. But it’s not he lack of symmetry that exercised my little grey cells in the shower this morning. No. It’s the lack of redundancy. Apart from the testes and the ovaries, the only organ I can think of with any redundancy is the kidneys¹.
I can see why redundancy of the reproductive organs would be a good evolutionary selection, but the kidneys? Why the kidneys and why not a second heart a la the galafrayans. Or two livers? It makes you think, though I’m not sure what.

1. Anatomists will be along shortly to correct me I’m sure. 

Ps. I’ve just thought of the lungs, but that’s not really redundancy because you’re pretty much stuffed if you lose one to injury of disease. And yes and ears don’t count because they work as a pair.

[ian]

You do have two livers and hearts, they're just anatomically connected.

Bilateral symmetry goes a long way back in evolutionary history (the alternative is radial symmetry, such as in starfish). One of the main theories for its evolutionary success is actually the fact it enables the ability to move forward in a straight line.

[mrcharly-YHT]

You do have two livers and hearts, they're just anatomically connected.

Bilateral symmetry goes a long way back in evolutionary history (the alternative is radial symmetry, such as in starfish). One of the main theories for its evolutionary success is actually the fact it enables the ability to move forward in a straight line.

Where do octopi fit in this symmetry business?

[rogerzilla]

Is the Calcutta Rinse a reference to the eponymous Black Hole?

[ian]

You do have two livers and hearts, they're just anatomically connected.

Bilateral symmetry goes a long way back in evolutionary history (the alternative is radial symmetry, such as in starfish). One of the main theories for its evolutionary success is actually the fact it enables the ability to move forward in a straight line.

Where do octopi fit in this symmetry business?

They're bilateral too, if you care to slice one down the middle (it also means they have an top and bottom and front and back). All vertebrates are bilateria (which I think is still referred to as a sub-kingdom of animalia). This evolved at least half a billion years ago and is a fundamental evolutionary division. It also determines the way we develop (we are all essentially a three layered tube, with ectoderm on the surface, endoderm on the inside, and mesoderm in between). The exit and entry to that tube is the anus and mouth (and there's a big evolutionary division around which becomes which). There are a fascinating set of genes which determine how these axes are formed (look up homeobox genes). Bilaterial symmetry is controlled by something called the Nodal pathway. It's also very important for determining how our nervous system developed to coordinate a body with two halves to manage that forward propulsion, which required the two sides of the brain to coordinate, which opened the door to further development, rather than relying a number of small independent ganglia.

In fact, all animals with the exception of sponges, placozoa, cniderians, and ctenophora (I know, they sound Lovecraftian) belong to the bilateria.

[Wowbagger]

From a functional point of view, you only have one heart. You can't survive without one half or the other.

In other news, I've got brains I haven't used yet.

[ian]

That's down to the physical fact that one heart pumps blood to the lungs to get oxygenated and the other to push that oxygenated blood around the body. That enables us to support a larger, more active body, and incidentally allows us to develop larger brains because brains need a prodigious amount of oxygen. So without two hearts we wouldn't have a two-phase circulation system and we wouldn't have been able to grow a big brain and do exciting stuff like global warming. Birds on the other hand, got quite smart with small brains (because once you start flying around you don't have spare oxygen for a big brain, so there's not always a single evolutionary route). People always talk about evolution like it's purposeful, of course, and it isn't. Things happen because they can, and if they're useful in a given circumstance, they stick around.

The combined heart comes about through a bit of developmental origami, the initial heart begins as two identical tubular structures in the embryonic mesoderm that come together and are twisted into a knot (ok, more of a tight fold around one another).

Liver is actually not really two livers, it more complicated than that. I don't remember. It involves budding and features a guest appearance by the gall bladder. Pancreases are weird too, but you knew that. Basically specific cells in an embryo scoot around, following signalling gradients created by the carefully orchestrated expression of genes and transcription factors, seasoned with a dash of feedback. It's amazing and the essential parts of these processes evolved hundreds of millions of years ago, everything thereafter is tinkering.

There are people who have combined kidneys, that have wrapped around one another akin to the heart. If you're a pregnant woman, you're carrying the ova that will be your grandchildren. Primordial germ cells, as they like to be known, go on quite a trek around the embryo, so we're all basically cellular hobos.

[Beardy]

I still ami Tain that there’s no redundancy in the hear, no matter how you count it. Same with the eyes and ears, no redundancy. It’s interesting about a single kidney though.

I had a friend way back when who had three functional kidneys. She had kidney failure which was addressed with a transplant. Her own kidneys then, presumably due to lack of stress or some such, started to work again. Apparently it wasn’t uncommon with kidney transplants 30 odd years ago.

[Wowbagger]

Dez tells me that, since he's had his transplanted kidney over 15 years now, that his body has absorbed his non-functioning old ones and that they won't be there any more. I've no idea if this is true.

[Mrs Pingu]

Ps. I’ve just thought of the lungs, but that’s not really redundancy because you’re pretty much stuffed if you lose one to injury of disease.

Not really. My Dad had 2/3rds of one lung removed (it was only supposed to be a third but the little wall between the bottom and middle third that many/most people have didn't exist) and lived quite happily like that for about 20 years. Admittedly he was never much of an athlete but it didn't stop him walking everywhere at a brisk pace. The remaining third of the lung (and I assume the good lung) inflated/stretched to fill the space left.

[rr]

Ps. I’ve just thought of the lungs, but that’s not really redundancy because you’re pretty much stuffed if you lose one to injury of disease.

Not really. My Dad had 2/3rds of one lung removed (it was only supposed to be a third but the little wall between the bottom and middle third that many/most people have didn't exist) and lived quite happily like that for about 20 years. Admittedly he was never much of an athlete but it didn't stop him walking everywhere at a brisk pace. The remaining third of the lung inflated/stretched to fill the space left.

My grandfather was shot in his chest and lost a lung at Christmas 1918 while in the army in France, he survived on one lung until 1968.

Sent from my motorola edge 20 using Tapatalk

[ian]

You can also get by with half a brain (and still come out a couple of dozen points better than the current cabinet's summed IQs).