Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Alchemy...possible?

Alchemy's goals are

1. The transmutation of metals

2. The creation of an elixir that would prolong life indefinitely

3. The transmutation of human life

I was wondering, with modern science, would it be possible to transmutate metals by switching up atoms and stuff? And the transmutation of human life, isn't that like cloning?

http://www.crystalinks.com/alchemy2.html

By modern chemistry no. By modern fission and fusion techniques ... it now an everyday event.

That is how we make the radionucleides used in modern medicine.

ye, i searched up more about it about found this,

"Matter transmutation, the old goal of alchemy, enjoyed a moment in the sun in the 20th century when physicists were able to convert lead atoms into gold atoms via a nuclear reaction. However, the new gold atoms, being unstable isotopes, lasted for under five seconds before they broke apart. More recently, reports of table-top element transmutation?by means of electrolysis or sonic cavitation?were the pivot of the cold fusion controversy of 1989. None of those claims have yet been reliably duplicated."

pretty cool i must say, it came from wikipedia tho tahts why i didnt give a link

Sir Isaac Newton was an interested person in Alchemy.

The knowlwedge of that fact alone would convince me that there has to be merit to the persuit.

Depending on your age group you goals may be varied.
if you are seeking a better erection then Viagra is yuour source of Alchemy perfection. I think our concepts at the highest levels of our society are so banal that a video thing like Star Trec is wonderous to us even thouh it is belitteling. Any body can corfirm the efducational merits of Alchemy. Making gold is not in the forefront.

jjw wrote:
"Sir Isaac Newton was an interested person in Alchemy.

The knowlwedge of that fact alone would convince me that there has to be merit to the persuit."

And if he had been interested in invisible purple rhinoceri would you consider that to merit pursuit too? The fact that someone is a genius in one endeavour doesn't make them competent in another.

The history of astronony, most obviously, contains individuals who demonstrated genius in the field while being totally out to lunch in others.

Newton was brilliant, no doubt. But Newton lived before Bohr, before the Curies, before Becquerel, before Dalton, or Mendeleev.
He could not distinguish nuclear reactions involving protons and neutrons from chemical reactions involving electrons. He couldn't make that distinction because he was unaware of it.

Now we know better. There are actually people alive today - many of them - who know with great certainty things that Newton did not. That doesn't mean that they are smarter than Newton. It is unlikely there are more than a dozen people alive today who could remotely be called his peer. The recognition that we know things today that he did not doesn't diminish Newton's accomplishments in any way. Genius is genius.

However, as Newton himself stood on the soldiers of giants, so today any of us can do the same, if we are of a mind to do it, and are not too disuaded by vertigo and our own sweat from making the journey. We can stand on the shoulders of M. Curie, and M. Planck, of A. Einstein, and even of I. Newton himself. From that lofty height we can see clearly that that particular path he had previously followed is a dead-end. I'm pretty sure he would know it and acknowledge it himself were he alive today.

Hi DA and TFF:

DA:
Your low opinion of Alchemy may possibly be due to stories that tell us the practitioners were seeking to make gold from base metals or possibly seeking the philosers stone for everlating life. I think of it simply as searching for knowledge which I view as a worthy effort. For I. Newton to indulge seems quite right to me when we view his many accomplisments.

TFF:
Your point is well taken. He was before them. He paved new territorial avenues. To do so it is well to expand your mind and search for as yet undiscovered answers.

I agree with both of you. However, it is my long standing opinion that current society, all segments of it, tend to underestimate yesterdays society. If we know anything at all we owe to our predessors. Maybe not?

jjw

I don't have a low opinion of the alchemists of the time. I think they were doing the best they could with what they had.

I have an extraordinarily low opinion, however, of anyone in the current century that can't see them for what they were.

jjw wrote:

"However, it is my long standing opinion that current society, all segments of it, tend to underestimate yesterdays society. If we know anything at all we owe to our predessors."

Totally agree. What's more we very definitely under-rate the contribution of our Muslim friends during the Middle Ages. The West hasn't actually invented everything in spite of what many people seem to believe. And many Muslims were alchemists at the time. We even owe a lot to the person who fitted a sharpened stone to a stick during the Gravettian.

why not? what isn't possible today...imagine what will be like tomorow.

very nicely said.

(1) The future - climate, population, resources, pollution, wars, famine and disease etc. notwithstanding - is a long time. Given that time, and the continuing progress of science and technology, I think the required manipulation of electrons and quarks (or whatever they turn out be in actuality) will be possible. Today's synthesis of the heavy and unstable elements will, by comparison, be like the work and artefacts of the Neolithic Age.

(2) I would think that maybe ?indefinitely? might be stretching it, although not necessarily if we survive long enough to colonise the galaxy. We are, however, on the brink of an age of genetic engineering. I think it will bring the potential to:

(a) Eliminate inherited diseases (autosomal recessive diseases)
(b) Strengthen resistance to, or provide immunity to, other disease.
(c) Retard the aging process.
(d) Significantly delay, or prevent, dementia.

While that kind of thing could affect the whole species, I think other kinds of bio-engineering might also enhance individual human capabilities and/or longevity. Brain implants for example.

Having said that, I?d also say that the last thing we need right now is to work on longevity.

(3) Not sure what that means.

When we leave this planet to explore the galaxy ... we will not be doing it in our bodies.

We will go in the form of machines.

What percentage of those machines will be biological and what percentage mechanical we don't know as we are not ready yet.

If I didn't know better, Dan, I'd think you were suggesting a separation of body and soul and the habitation of machines by the soul...

w

You know better.

An artificial hip made of titanium will last the rigors of space travel far better than the one you were born with.

Our eyes on Mars are not our own.

More RAM and faster CPUs and they may just be smart enough to refuse to talk to us. <g>

I know I know better. That's why I gave the caveat of "If I didn't know better". But you are closer to saying it than you think...

What if a technique is found to upload the contents of the brain to a piece of hardware which still allows us to think and function in our thoughts as we do now? What happens then? We load ourselves into a quantum computer and head for the stars without a single vestige of our former physical selves. What's running in the computer?

You say a program simulating our thoughts, others would say a soul. I say, "What's the difference?"

w

well, you can't deny that we know more then those before us considering chemistry, biology, physics, nanotechnology, DNA, and generally all the branches of science. i'm not saying that our knowledge (or better said neglect) won't destroy us eventually - i'm saying that a lot of things were discovered and still will be so i'm not rejecting the idea of alchemy as the elongation of life, turning metals into gold and... whatever.

radioactivity is the key to today's alchemy. i'm sure of that. also, metals were turned to gold! problem is stability of such isotopes and, of course, radioactivity of such gold.

"A possible route to gold would be from mercury. If mercury of its various naturally occuring isotopes could be made to capture neutrons, the resulting nuclear decay chains would eventually yield gold-197, the most common naturally occuring gold isotope, and perfectly stable.
The neutrons used in this process would need to have an energy of at least 9 MeV in order for a complete transmutation of the mercury to occur. These energies are well within the capabilities of nuclear reactors
however the gold is likely to be contamiated with other radioisotopes. Particle accelerators could therefore be the alternative..." - university of bristol school of chemistry

it is clear that the future of alchemy, as far as transmutation of elements goes, lies in physics. indeed the nuclear industry could be considered to be a form of alchemy, as it utilises elemental transmutations on a daily basis.
but also, let's do not forget, alchemy isn't just about the transmutation of metals, it is also the form of philosophy, symbolism and human urge for existence and can't be considered only as a pure science.

DA Morgan wrote:
The history of astronony, most obviously, contains individuals who demonstrated genius in the field while being totally out to lunch in others.

how very true! not to mention that most of the genius minds were obsessively-compulsive, had all kinds of serious disorders and were not able to function in normal life. but i guess that's what makes a true genius and the scientific revolutionary - courage and a complete devotion to something that only they understand entirely.

Wayne wrote:
"What if a technique is found to upload the contents of the brain to a piece of hardware which still allows us to think and function in our thoughts as we do now? What happens then? We load ourselves into a quantum computer and head for the stars without a single vestige of our former physical selves. What's running in the computer?

You say a program simulating our thoughts, others would say a soul. I say, "What's the difference?"


The difference is murder: Seriously!

If I transfer my being to a machine I must murder my original body. If I copy my being to a machine I have a clone that might decide to it should have equal access my checking account and my wife.

Interesting thoughts.

Reminds me of Donald Davidson's 'Swampman' thought experiment.

Worth a read if you have never come across it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_man

Blacknad.

What if you copied your self to a machine and the machine decided it didn't want to have anything to do with you and your wife? What if it fell in love with another machine and they ran off to Tahiti together? Or to Mars, or Jupiter? Could it demand child support payments from you until it reaches 18 years of age? Could a copy of yourself enter into legal contract for you or on your behalf, or would it exist as a completely free and independent entity? If you saved yourself every 5 years or so, would the earlier copies have to be destroyed, or would they continue to live and grow on their own?

Sounds like a good premise for a sci-fi story.

Okay, stop already, you're making my brain hurt

Blacknad.

Surely a system that could read the signals in the brain with the exactitude necessary to recreate those signals in another system would have to be so invasive as to destroy the original tissue.

But is it murder? You find yourself in the machine. You have lots of sensors hooked up to you, you have plenty of interesting reading material on your harddrive, and you have the ability to explore places you could never have gone before. You're happy as a clam. (A digitized computerized clam, but a clam nonetheless.) Are you dead? I wouldn't think so: You have the same drives and emotions as before the transfer. So where's the murder?

And what's running on the machine? The same program that was running in wetware is now running in hardware. Just because you port a video game from PC to Mac doesn't mean that the program itself must be fundamentally different. So now that you've ported from wetware to hardware, aren't you still you? The same program on a different machine?

Sounds like a soul, to me. And like a program. And I'm not sure there's a difference.

w

Maybe not. Already we see Nuclear Magnetic Resonance equipment producing incredibly detailed images of internal anatomy, quite harmlessly.

"You find yourself in the machine."

I wonder. Do you? Is it you, or have you ceased to exist, and someone else is in the machine with your memories?

are you sure that the brain and thoughts are the same? are you really sure that brain or DNA or whatever is what makes us who we are?
i know that may sound not scientific enough and that most of you wont agree with this, but can anyone actually dispute it?
besides, no mater how sofisticated machine you are, will the touch, the smell, the music, the feeling be the same as you remember it?

"are you sure that the brain and thoughts are the same?"

'Mind and brain seem to be separate' says professor
http://thepsychictimes.com/articles/fenwick.htm

redewenur - quote from the article you told me to look:
Now, you can't say these are transcendent experiences because the people are unconsciousness. You can't say they are psychological because the brain isn't working. You can look at physiological models as to what state the brain is in, and if the brain function won't support the experience you have to argue that mind and brain are separate.
"So, let's look at the physiological state of the brain and body at the time of reported NDEs. No detectable cardiac output, no respiratory output - they certainly weren't breathing. Neither did they have any brain stem reflexes - in other words they was no activity whatsoever in the brain.
"The NDE experiencers say that they didn't have the experience before the heart attack occurred. We know that it couldn't have occurred during the recovery of consciousness because in such cases the mind is very confused and the reported experiences are very lucid and clear.
"So we are left with a real scientific problem. It looks as if what the NDE experiencers are saying is probably correct. Now, if that's true then you have to say some very fundamental things about brain and mind. That carries a huge cost and consequence for science. So research in this area has to be done properly. But it looks as if mind and brain - if the data is correct - are separate."

now, i cant safely speek about this with knowledge i have, but the fact is that there were certain experiments and events that confirm this and are not likely to be explained. also, there are certain informations about free forms of energy that people like to call ghosts and which can be related to this phenomena.
NDE could be, but doesn't have to be connected to God or spiritual world, could be some chemical reaction that occurs in millisecond (or less), a protein, a hormon...they say it can't be, but how can they be sure? the brain is not yet explained!

The brain, the mind, consciousness, are very much a mystery. I try hard to keep my ideas consistent with scientifically derived knowledge. On the other hand, I once had one of those infamous precognitive dreams. Not only did it turn the standard idea of consciousness on its head, it did the same for time and space. It concerned about 20 minutes of time from a place 5000 miles away and 18 months in the future. So you see, I'm compelled adopt a non-standard view.

redewenur: I try hard to keep my ideas consistent with scientifically derived knowledge. On the other hand, I once had one of those infamous precognitive dreams.

that's my problem too! but it didn't happen once.
sometimes a dream, sometimes a thought (you know, when the phone is ringing and you think on someone and it turns up to be him calling). even worst things than that. but as you said I try hard to keep my ideas consistent with scientifically derived knowledge.
who knows, maybe that can be explained scientifically but it's way out of our time?

Redewenur wrote:
"So you see, I'm compelled adopt a non-standard view."

Alternatively, of course, you might just consider how many dreams you have that were not worthy of remembering and no precognitive and consider that the one or handful of exceptions are merely coincidental.

and what if precognitive dreams hapen more than "normal dreams"?
can they be considered coincidental then?

few days ago there was some show on Discovery and it was about parapsychology. they mentioned those cards used in tests (not sure what their name is - they show a star, a circle, curved lines, square...), anyway, they said that if you guess more then 9 cards of 25 that it is not the coincidence and you have some kind of "abilities".
what's your opinion about that?

Show me somebody who can prove that they have precog dreams more frequently than normal dreams and then we can talk about that. Until such a person appears, you might as well ask, "What if a person could fly like Superman? Then would you believe people could fly that way?"

As for the cards, every week in lotteries around the world, people pick far more correct numbers than are statistically likely. We call them lottery winners, not psychics.

You show me a person that can pick more than 9 out of the 25, and do it every time without fail 50 times in a row and then maybe we'll talk. But even then, it is not statistically impossible - it's still attributable to amazing luck. (But at least I'd be forced to admit something was probably up.) Doing it once, twice, even three times in a row is just very, very lucky.

I love the Discovery Channel. They show some great shows and can be very educational. They also show some shows that are out to make ratings by appealing to the gullible. The big problem is that many of the latter are disguised as the former. I wish there was a good, hard science channel. The closest thing I know of is the NASA Channel, but so much of their schedule is filled with watching paint dry that I rarely even look for it any more.

(How incredibly cool it would be to have the "Peer Reviewed Channel"!!! Make the shows interesting and exciting like many of the Discovery Channels good science shows, but only allow content that has been vetted by appropriate scientists. Now THAT would be a popcorn and Coke channel to watch!)

w

Wayne: Show me somebody who can prove that they have precog dreams more frequently than normal dreams and then we can talk about that.

making notes about dreams every time you wake up and tracking them isn't impossible. by doing that for a year, two, you'll see are they consistent. if the outcome of precog dreams is amazingly high, you'll repeat the test. and again, and again... but you can't keep repeating them forever (even if you don't like the idea that precognitions are possible).

i'm not saying they are!
just that experiments are possible. and experimenting to disprove something are part of the science, right?

Wayne: I wish there was a good, hard science channel.

i know...
apsolutely agree!!

But quantum, the experiments ARE being done. For decades people have been doing experiments to find evidence of things like precog dreams. People HAVE been writing down their dreams and comparing them to reality. It isn't that the experiments aren't being done, it's that they have had nothing but negative results. The few times where a positive seemed to exist, it quickly evaporated. Some people got lucky, but luck never lasts. (I love Penn Jillette's take on luck: "Luck is statistics taken personally.")

Princeton University has even had a dedicated laboratory called PEAR, for Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research. They studied the paranormal for 28 years, involving millions of trials. They are now shutting down because of finances. If they had positive results I seriously doubt they'd have any financial woes - the government would be throwing money at them hand over fist.

w

This is one of the fundamental problems with trying to understand something as fiendishly complex as the mind. You say 'Wetware' as if it is a direct couterpart to 'Hardware'. Before computers, people thought of the mind as some sort of system similar to valves & transistors. It has always been seen in terms of the prevailing technology.

The minds ability to compute seemingly has little in common with current hardware, and our ability to upload it is absolutely zilch.

We may never be able to 'upload' it to anything else until we are in a position to actually grow our own organic brains. I suspect 'Hardware' will never do it.

See:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070227105247.htm

I have posted it on the science board. Brains are more chaotic than we previously thought.

And I'm sure we still don't have half the story.

Hardware will find it difficult to simulate the plasticity of the brain.

A blow to the hard materialist's view of the brain is emerging from Neuroscience:

"Collectively, the findings of the neuroimaging studies reviewed here strongly support the view that the subjective nature and the intentional content (what they are ?about? from a first-person perspective) of mental processes (e.g., thoughts, feelings, beliefs, volition) significantly influence the various levels of brain functioning (e.g., molecular, cellular, neural circuit) and brain plasticity. Furthermore, these findings indicate that mentalistic variables have to be seriously taken into account to reach a correct understanding of the neural bases of behavior in humans."

It seems that mental events are themselves somehow distinct from physical events and actually have the ability to alter the physical makeup of the brain.

How does hardware emulate that?

Blacknad.

I was merely using "hardware" to mean whatever machine we can come up with with better longevity or better resistance to the elements than our own brain.

Whether that's silicone (doubtful) or a "string net liquid" (maybe) or some material we have yet to discover/develop (most likely), the question remains - what is the entity in the contruct?

My point is that our minds seem to be programs running in a natural quantum computer right now. Porting that to another platform begs the question: What are we porting?

Whether or not it is or ever will be possible to port it is beside the point. DA Morgan suggested that we'll leave our bodies behind to explore the universe. That's great. What part of us will we be at that point? If we still exist after being ported into a piece of hardware, then an atheist would theorize that we are the same piece of software running on a new computer. A theist might say our souls have inhabited the computer. I say, "What's the difference."

This is a the kind of question that illuminates that area between science and religion. They aren't mutually exclusive. When faced with a question like this, the atheist becomes unccomfortable and dismisses it with a joke about his wife cheating on him with his digital clone. The theist gets upset that you could talk about a soul like a program and dismisses it as science fiction. But it could be a real thing in our future, and it becomes a question that must be faced by anybody not deluding themselves into thinking that they have the corner on truth.

Is science or religion right?
Is homosexuality nature or nurture?
Is killing in the name of patriotism right or wrong?
... I could go on ad infinitum, but all these questions have the same answer: "Yes!"

Too often we blind ourselves to the other side of the argument because we want a black & white world. Rarely does a complex question have a binary answer. Until we learn to see the commonalities, we'll be cursed with only half an understanding.

w

The reality of human interaction with and understanding of dreaming is that it has been pseudoscience going back to the dawn of time.

Don't dream and you will be psychotic in a matter of days. That has been established. But dreams have no known value in a scientific in the context of using them to in the way that people often try.

To ascribe value to dreams is no different from ascribing values to getting stoned on acid. The relationship between what one experiences and reality is the stuff from which UFOs and Easter Bunnies are made.

Hey, man, don't knock the Easter Bunny. He's agreed to pilot my ship back to the motherplanet next year.

DA.

"Alternatively, of course, you might just consider how many dreams you have that were not worthy of remembering and no precognitive and consider that the one or handful of exceptions are merely coincidental."

- I have no problem with that, as a matter of good sense and logic. With one exception.

"The reality of human interaction with and understanding of dreaming is that it has been pseudoscience going back to the dawn of time."

- Agreed.

"Don't dream and you will be psychotic in a matter of days. That has been established. But dreams have no known value in a scientific in the context of using them to in the way that people often try."

- Agreed

"To ascribe value to dreams is no different from ascribing values to getting stoned on acid."

- as a generalisation, probably true.

"The relationship between what one experiences and reality is the stuff from which UFOs and Easter Bunnies are made."

- I wouldn't go that far. We've evolved, survived and over-populated quite well using our experiential interpretation of reality; but not without applying reason, of course.

It was in springtime of 1973. This was the dream:

I was wandering among crowds of people. To my left, at some distance, was the sea. To my right were low hills. Among the hills, people were climbing over and around the remains of walls. The clothing of these people was light, suitable for summer. I left them and walked toward the sea. When I arrived there, I saw, on the beach, a structure resembling a stepped pyramid. Standing in front of this was a dark-skinned soldier in khaki uniform and pith helmet. He stood to attention and held a rifle. I looked out to sea, and as I did so, regiments of black specks appeared on the horizon. These black objects were terrifyingly sinister - an embodiment of ultimate nastiness. Row after row appeared. They were moving quickly, directly toward the coast. They were all of identical menacing shape. The people nearby began running from the beach. - End of dream.

About a year later, my wife and I went to a travel agent in Great Russell Street, London, to book a flight to Malaysia. It was to be a three month holiday. As we reached the agent?s shop, and I had my hand on the door, about to enter, my wife said something like, ?Wouldn?t it be great if we could go by car!? We never entered the shop. I stopped and said that maybe we could, let?s go and think about it. So we walked toward Trafalgar Square, excitedly discussing how we might go about the adventure. With hindsight, the ideas I had for modifying my car were very unrealistic. Furthermore, I was hardly a motor mechanic. Eventually we found an advertisement in Time Out magazine for bus trips to India. That, we decided, was the way to go. On 19 October 1974, we were sitting in a coach, awaiting departure to Dover. Five adventure-filled weeks later, we reach New Delhi. We stayed in India for three weeks while waiting for our ship to Malaysia. In Madras, we visited a tourist office and were given the usual sort of information about places of interest. One of these was on the coast ? a town called Mahabalipuram. We arrived at Mahabalipuram by bus. Leaving the bus, we joined many other people who were meandering toward some nearby low hills, to our right. My wife and I were, no doubt, a little tired and irritable, possibly through so much journeying, camping, sleeping on buses, and not infrequent stomach upsets. For whatever excuse, we began to argue, she insisting that we follow a particular group with their courier, who was giving an interesting account of the archeological site (with it's remains of walls etc.), and I that we should take a look at the beach. Finally, I left her with them, and walked to the beach. There, on the beach, was a temple, in the shape of a stepped pyramid. I was suddenly gripped by remorse and I hurried away from the beach to find my wife. As I approached the road, before the hills, I saw a bus departing. It had only one passenger ? my wife.

A few details: There was no soldier at the temple; there were no black clouds; people didn't run from the beach. These 'symbols' were consistent with the emotions experienced in the actual event.

OK, there was a happy ending to the story, but there?s no need to go on.

Those are the facts. Make of them what you will. I have no axe to grind - other than to establish scientific 'truth' which, as any scientist knows, is always limited.

I was expecting better than that. Seems like the coincidence is essentially insignificant. I suspect it only sticks in your mind as both the dream and the reality had a similar emotional content.

DA.

"I was expecting better than that."

- What do you want? A miracle? <g>

"Seems like the coincidence is essentially insignificant."

- An understandable and duly scientific assumption, since the data to which you have access is limited to the words that I typed. You don't have access to the experiential data, i.e, the highly detailed contents of the dream, with the geographic features of the land, locations of buildings - the temple, for example, the only one of its kind on a beach. Also, the angle of view of all these things - the same in the dream and in the reality. Think on it if you like - or not.

I would be stretching reason way too far to fool myself that it was coincidence. That would definitely be Purple Rhino territory.

Can I prove it? No. Can I do the trick again? Well, it never happened before, nor since. Is it a testable, repeatable phenomanon? Very unlikely. So why do I accept it as 'precognition'? Because I witnessed it.

It's of no practical consequence. It doesn't earn me a better quality of life. As my mother would have said "It doesn't get the baby bathed". It doesn't appeal to any need for mystery or religious experience. It just happened. It therefore has implications for my considerations of space, time and mind.

Conclusions:

(1) I don't discount the possibility of Wayne's 'atemporal universe'.
(2) It may be possible that mind is confined neither by space nor time.

To wayne:
NO, i didn't said it is definitely possible, i didn't said people didn't tried it, i just wanted to say that science is about proving or disproving a theory and so far science wasn't able to accurately confute the possibility of having precognitions (and could't confirm - true).
also, it is sure that people are not the same and if there are such things as precog dreams or thoughts, they wouldn't appear at the same extent amoung everybody.

redewenur:
I would be stretching reason way too far to fool myself that it was coincidence. Can I prove it? No. Can I do the trick again? Well, it never happened before, nor since. Is it a testable, repeatable phenomanon? Very unlikely. So why do I accept it as 'precognition'? Because I witnessed it.

as i said, happend to me more than once and since you just said this i believe you know what i mean.
i want to think completely scientificaly but concerning this phenomena i simply can't.

redewenur wrote:
"You don't have access to the experiential data, i.e, the highly detailed contents of the dream, with the geographic features of the land, locations of buildings - the temple, for example, the only one of its kind on a beach."

True, very true, but neither do you now nor did you then. You had no photograph to hold up to make that comparison. And as you well know from numerous double-blind studies the mind is more then capable of filling in the blanks. In fact we now have substantial data showing that what the brain records from the eyes is a far cry from photographic. And isn't it convenient how you discount those parts of the picture that weren't there while adding weight to those that were. A classical case of painting the target after firing the arrow.

Not that you did it intentionally ... it is just that this is precisely how the human mind words. Sorry to say ... you're only human. <g>

Your argument is rational. Your conclusion is, in this case incorrect; but you're right, in the scientific sense, not to take my word for it. No further comment <g>

Xcuse me for bargin in (so late) gentlemen, but how can you discuss alchemy if you apparently know so little about it?

Allow me to enlighten you. The following is a very brief description.

Alchemy, first of all, was about transmutation of a human and all that metal talk was a code for initiated. The uninitiated evolved into chemists. The initiated alchemist sought personal evolution. The stuff the legends are made of.

Much of the European tradition has been lost. The best preserved and now revived with scientific exploration etc. is Chinese alchemy, which nowadays is called qigong. There are literarly thousands of schools, most of which deal with simple health matters or martial arts. But the knowledge is there for those who seek it.

Hi, reasonable.
You appear to presume that, because Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism and so on haven't been discussed here, that we must all be ignorant of it. Not so.

RECONMAN started this thread with the following post. Note point 3. Also note, below it, his last sentence.


The thread was not intended to be a discussion of the scope of alchemy. It was specifically about the possibility of applying modern science to the transmutation of metals.

RECONMAN's question was addressed in the earlier posts. Admittedly there have since been various digressions, but that's par for the course

reasonable wrote:
"Alchemy, first of all, was about transmutation of a human and all that metal talk was a code for initiated"

Source please. Name, author, publisher, page.

We're not in the habit of taking such statements as having value without being able to verify the source.

Thank you.

hey ive been reading this forum for some time now and i think that mankind has already hit these 3 points on the head. we have changed metals with science, doctors have created new medicene 2 increase the life time of dieing people, and well i dont have a lot of research done cause im only 17 and i dont have the best grades...i just wanted my opinion out there
thanks 4 reading

...sorry i forgot to ask if u guys could explain to me what the purple rinos are and tell me about alchemy
i might be young but i want to know more and ive been goin crazy and i cant find trustworthy sites to tell me...

TG, if you're interested in the history of alchemy, or fascinated by its mysticism, there are many websites about it. Here's one:
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/

- but note the first words on the subject in the Encyclopedia Britannica:

"alchemy [:] a form of speculative thought that, among other aims, tried to transform base metals such as lead or copper into silver or gold and to discover a cure for disease and a way of extending life."

If your real interest is in science, you won't want to waste too much time on speculative thought from centuries past.

(For a definition of a 'invisible purple rhino', ask DA Morgan )

P.S. - to avoid double-posts, use the 'Edit' button

Truly-Grim. Rede is correct. DA Morgan is the resident expert on purple rhinos. Others of us imagine pink elephants when we have consumed too much alcohol, seems you see black beasts, Dan imagines invisible purple rhinos. To be truthful he doubts their existence but others of us know better.