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Author Topic:   Found: The First Mechanical Gear in a Living Creature
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 24 (706505)
09-12-2013 7:08 PM


Of course the real question is how to get something like this installed on my own legs.
Does the Designer know how long before He figures out how to port this technology into his more appreciative creations?
I have a strong feeling that that little piss bug is taking his gears for granted.

Love your enemies!

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 24 (706512)
09-13-2013 12:25 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by New Cat's Eye
09-12-2013 11:52 PM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
I remember seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about the familiar old "why do we breath through the same tube we eat through?" question (the problem being it leads to choking),
Well, it does make speech a whole lot easier.
and he had a great point: 'its not like its asking too much, dolphins already have it'
Not only dolphins. Many other animals have separate breathing and eating tubes.
They also can't talk.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-12-2013 11:52 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by NoNukes, posted 09-13-2013 8:27 AM Jon has not replied
 Message 9 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-13-2013 9:46 AM Jon has replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 24 (706522)
09-13-2013 10:01 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by New Cat's Eye
09-13-2013 9:46 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
I understand the workings of the anatomy, but what are you comparing against to determine which has more ease?
Artificial mechanisms have been constructed to compare the efficiency and utility of various setups for speech systems. The findings are always the same: The 90 positioning of the pharynx against the oral cavity allows for the most robust (=complex) system of sound production. This positioning is only achieved through, among other things, lowering of the breathing tube below the entrance to the combined tube (with the side effect that food must always pass by the breathing tube).
'Cause he was just speaking to an audience and making some light humor, we wouldn't expect him to be very thorough.
Well, I was just speaking to some strangers on a forum replying to some light humor. So there's no need to expect me to be very specific.
They also can't talk.
But dolphins can. And they're really smart. So its not that big of a stretch, which was his point.
We've had other threads on this, but I can say here that no evidence of a communication system with complexities even slightly like those of human language has ever been found in non-human creatures.
Now I expect about a dozen or so shoddy videos of chimps farting cleverly and playing guitar; but those videos are anecdotal and produced by highly biased 'researchers' (=animal trainers).

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-13-2013 9:46 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-13-2013 10:11 AM Jon has replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 24 (706529)
09-13-2013 11:10 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by New Cat's Eye
09-13-2013 10:11 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
But your nasal passages could just go around all that and connect directly to the lungs. Now you can breath and eat at the same time.
Huh?
Where the hell would all the air come from that we use to speak?
I expect you to intend to be understood.
And I was understood. Where's the problem?
That's beside the point that its not that big of a stretch for an intelligent designer to give us a breathing tube separate from the eating one.
But the eating tube and breathing tube have to connect to get the air from the lungs to pass through the oral cavityan essential process in the production of human speech sounds.
But let's talk about this mechanical gear instead.
It's pretty cool. I wish I had one, or even several. But I imagine it would turn to mush in an instant trying to move any of my large and heavy body parts.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-13-2013 10:11 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-13-2013 11:22 AM Jon has replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 24 (706636)
09-15-2013 11:22 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by New Cat's Eye
09-13-2013 11:22 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
The same way it does now. You'd have an additional tube for nose-breathing.
We eat through the same hole we speak out of. Without changing that, there isn't any way to get the lungs to supply the speaking apparatuses with air unless we cross tubes somewhere.
I still don't know what animals you were talking about.
It was just a general point that it is rather common for creatures to have separate breathing and eating tubes. I think we can rest that there.
Jon writes:
But the eating tube and breathing tube have to connect to get the air from the lungs to pass through the oral cavityan essential process in the production of human speech sounds.
We could have two breathing tubes.
But so long as the eating hole is the same as the speaking hole, at least one tube from the lungs will have to somewhere cross paths with the digestive tract.
You can't get around it. You could maybe make it safer, but even then it would be difficult to do so without seriously altering the utility of human speech.
But you could employ it much slower and be okay. It'd prolly be helpful for lifting a lot of weight.
It seems that to 'wind up' the system would take as much energy as the system would give off (probably more). I think the advantages really come from the gear's ability to store a large amount of energy and release it rapidly in a higher concentration.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-13-2013 11:22 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by caffeine, posted 09-16-2013 5:17 AM Jon has replied
 Message 23 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-16-2013 6:18 PM Jon has not replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 17 of 24 (706657)
09-16-2013 8:20 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by caffeine
09-16-2013 5:17 AM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
His whole suggestion was to change that - we can have one hole for eating, and another for breathing and speaking.
So... two oral cavities? Two tongues? Four sets of teeth?
Is that really CS's point? If so, it's more ridiculous than the point I thought he was making.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by caffeine, posted 09-16-2013 5:17 AM caffeine has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by onifre, posted 09-16-2013 11:59 AM Jon has not replied
 Message 19 by caffeine, posted 09-16-2013 12:02 PM Jon has replied
 Message 20 by ringo, posted 09-16-2013 1:35 PM Jon has not replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 24 (706700)
09-16-2013 5:03 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by caffeine
09-16-2013 12:02 PM


Re: The designer is pretty piss poor
It'd need some way of fiddling around with the air flow to make different sounds, but there's all manner of ways of accomplishing that.
Correct. My point was that the teeth, the tongue, the lips, etc. are all perfectly fine articulators. Two separate systems would require two separate articulatorshowever different they may look, with one set of articulators being used only for eating.
I'm not sure what's so stupid about the whole idea.
It asks for a lot of extra hardware. What's the real need for it, though?
How many people die from choking to death? Is it really that many?

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by caffeine, posted 09-16-2013 12:02 PM caffeine has not replied

Replies to this message:
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