Author: harpertom888

Burgeoning scientist (biochemistry), armchair philosopher, and author of the novel "Incarnate: Existence."

What Does the Mind Tell Us About Mind-Independent Reality?

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Immanuel Kant famously turned the empiricism-rationalism debate on its head by proposing that, instead of our mental representations of reality having to conform to objective reality, it is objective reality that must conform to our mental representations (if such objects are to be represented at all). Kant, of course, was steeped in ideas that the categories of understanding, which shape our experience of the external world, issue from some transcendental apperception – essentially a soul, or unique human rationality.

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COVID Vaccine: What does it do? Does it do anything? Let’s find out.

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I made a video going over some of the basic biochemistry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and how the Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2 RNA vaccine is supposed to work.

Resources and References:

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Nutrition and Metabolism Videos on Youtube

Posted on by harpertom888

I’ve recorded and uploaded some videos covering the biochemistry of nutrition and metabolism. I will be continuing to add more videos on the subject, covering many areas related to nutrition and metabolism.

My pedagogical strategy is to start with a quick overview of general chemistry concepts that will be helpful for the biochemistry to come. I then introduce the various nutrients of interest – carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and proteins, vitamins, and minerals – before then following these molecules through digestion, absorption, and metabolism.

You can find the playlist here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoGNazL8lN4BUdBeRhZR7OlAsC46kokmF

My Youtube channel is here:
https://youtube.com/channel/UCEMOrInHlJ8Isl4uti-S13A

Here is the first video:

Why I Voted Third Party

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During these declining days of the U.S. Empire, everything has become politicized. People demand political participation, if not full on activism (for their preferred positions, of course), from celebrities, corporations, and family members alike. The politicization of everything is, of course, a prelude to totalitarianism: your every action has political implications, and therefore you must always be virtue signaling, demonstrating your loyalty to the cause. My own deep-seated cynicism about politics has been a blessing and a curse. And it’s also why I voted third party.

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Why do Humans Care About Fame?

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Humans seem to be evolutionarily predisposed towards interest in what other people are doing, since this has allowed for the social cohesion that’s been instrumental to our survival. There is also an element that, the more other people there are who care what a particular person says and does, the more people will care what that particular person says and does, creating a positive feedback loop. Social status in the form of notability must have developed as a way of attaining reproductive access.

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Life on Venus: Proposed Biochemistry of Venusian Life

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The possible detection of phosphines in the atmosphere of the planet Venus has sparked interest in possible biogenesis of the compound. In other words, there may be microscopic extraterrestrial organisms living up in the Venusian clouds. This would be an amazing discovery. But, it also raises the question about what sort of biochemistry such organisms (if they exist) utilize in their Venusian flavor of metabolism. Here I will make some speculations about this.

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Incarnate: Schism Available for Pre-Order

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The third book in my Incarnate series is now available for e-book pre-order. Both the e-book and paperback book will be live for purchase on Friday, October 9. At that time, I will make books 1 and 2 available for free e-book download, so even if you don’t have those yet, you can pre-order book 3 without worrying about paying for the first two.

Buy, read, and leave a review on Amazon!

Amy Coney Barrett, Mitch McConnell, The Supreme Court, The Senate, The 2020 Election: The End of the United States?

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COVID-19 is yesterdays news. The number 200,000 is too large, it becomes abstract: those aren’t people, they’re just a number – a statistic rather than a tragedy. Now we can enjoy the bread and circuses of (national) politics while the tent collapses around us: the election is less than 6 weeks away and a liberal judge inconveniently died. Amidst the politically-motivated hagiography being heaped onto the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Trump has put forth his own candidate: Amy Coney Barrett. For many, this is beyond the pale.

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Quantized Spacetime and a Possible QFT Regularization Cutoff

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Using the Young’s Modulus of spacetime itself calculated from the recent detection of gravitational waves, I’ve done some rough calculations to come up with a potential quantization of spacetime and a regularization cutoff for quantum field theory scattering calculations.

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