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Talk:Sauna

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I will remove Czech republic from Eastern Europe. Czech republic IS NOT Eastern Europe. We Czechs have never, never anything like Russian banya! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:1028:96CA:4526:59DE:DEB1:1B3A:B601 (talk) 20:22, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Trivia
Maybe it could be mentioned that sauna is the only finnish word that is in common use in the entire world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.243.142.182 (talk • contribs) 11:24, September 29, 2005

 * What about "Nokia" ? :-) Atlant 12:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, even in Finland most people aren't thinking about furry little animals when they hear the word Nokia. --Tragos 09:31, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

 * What about "Sisu"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.76.20.153 (talk • contribs) 06:54, February 12, 2006

 * "Sisu"?? The national anthem of Eritreia?? I know what you mean, but no other than finnish people seem to use it naturally, in the contrary of Sauna. Nokia is a brand, as Toyota for instance. This doesn't mean it is a word with a "meaning" for the world... If it is true that sauna is the only finnish word worldwide used (I am portuguese, for instance, and we do use it), it is a nice trivia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.23.224.156 (talk • contribs) 02:10, October 4, 2006

 * There's a slight difference between Nokia the brand and Toyota the brand. Nokia is the name of a town where Nokia, the company, began operations (making rubber products like cable and boots, I believe), Toyota is a shortening of several words that escape me this second. This may or may not be significant in this context.Aki Korhonen 15:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Maybe we should compare Nokia and Kawasaki? Even when the brand Kawasaki is not named after the city of Kawasaki. --Tirkka (talk) 23:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

 * I know another word!! Rapakivi... and in english i think it is the rapakivistone. and in german das rapakivi. it is a kind of stone that exists only in finnland and in sweden. it is remains of (dunno the english word) svekofennidit. se on muuttunut kivilaji, joka rapautuu helposti.. please if someone knows more about them, write an article!!Kangaskauppias 06:55, May 25, 2007 (UTC)

 * Like this: Rapakivi granite? Langrel 05:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

 * There's a lot of Finnish words in use, but most of them aren't thought of as Finnish. Even some words like "Mammoth" have Finnic origins. 88.112.61.122 (talk) 22:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You can't compare Nokia to Toyota. While Nokia is the town of its orgin, but Toyota (豐田)just sounds like a Japanese surname. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.29.80.8 (talk) 15:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Steam bath, Dry Sauna, and Wet Sauna
It is my understanding that a steam bath or vapor room heats water directly and has a humidity aproaching 100%. In contrast saunas heat the air and have relativly no humidity. A wet sauna and dry sauna is solely a matter of weather water is poured over the rocks or not (thus temporarly increasing the humidity). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.41.80.74 (talk • contribs) 14:12, October 26, 2005

 * So when you go into a sauna it's a dry sauna, and then when you put the water on the rocks it becomes a wet one? :-) -- Smjg 09:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

 * In the case of Finnish public saunas, a dry sauna means that throwing water on the rocks is not allowed. For obvious reasons, public saunas over 100 °C (212 °F) are dry saunas by default. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.221.220.31 (talk • contribs) 11:28, December 11, 2005

 * I've never seen a sauna where you're not allowed to throw water on the rocks in Finland. However, I've been told that such saunas exist at least in Sweden. I must add that I've never been in a sauna which is constantly held in over 100 °C and they may have different rules but in general I don't think a sauna where you're not supposed to throw water on stones is truly a Finnish sauna. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.50.133.23 (talk) 10:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

 * In a steam bath or vapor room humidity excedes 100%, hence the visible vapor. It's one of three (?) ways to heat the body in (Dutch) public saunas; by radiation in the sauna, by condensation in the steam room or by conduction in the jacuzzi. Sander--81.205.148.151 09:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Expansion and clarification requests
I've added some fact tags where some citations to reliable sources would be helpful. -- Beland 09:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Some additional discussion on the science of toxin-elimination (which is a nice thought, but probably mostly bogus) and immune system response would be nice. Someone mentioned to me that the hot-sweat-cold cycle was supposed to clear pores, which sounds plausible, but it would be nice to know if this is actually true.
 * Isn't wood smoke carcinogenic and otherwise unhealthy to breathe? That should probably be mentioned in the part on smoke saunas.
 * I assume the curing of diseases in days gone by is meant somewhat tongue in cheek, but it would be nice to have a citation to additional reading on this topic.
 * What hygiene rationale could there be for disallowing swimsuits in a sauna, other than the chlorine? This paragraph may need to be cleaned up, or at least clarified.

 * Saunas are powerful detoxifiers, in fact, if you "used" recently, don't sauna if you are about to start a new job! There is quite a bit of research on detoxing "fat soluable" drug residue in a sauna, especially when combined with exercise and vitamin B3- Niacin as recommended at many Narcotics Anonymous web sites.  Some of us are now addicted to sauna -  any research on that?Reevasso 14:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC

 * There are at least two hygiene rationales:
 * The first is be more to do with going from the sauna to the pool. A sweaty swimsuit in a pool is not a good thing. I guess "if you must wear a swimsuit, don't wear the same one as you do in the pool and be sure to shower naked between sauna and pool" would be a clearer rule, but "No Swimsuits" is easier.
 * Secondly, retaining personal sweat within a swimsuit is not good for personal hygiene. However in the UK and elsewhere, "hygiene" is cited as the reason for making swimwear compulsory; I have even seen this horrific misunderstanding introduced to single-sex saunas.
 * I agree the paragraph needs cleaning up, but I think the wider issue of whether the page merges with Finnish Sauna needs to be resolved, which will have an impact on the general structure of the article. For example, the paragraph in question is in the Finnish section, and should thus cite Finnish rationale, but other worldwide thought should feature somewhere. There is potential for a Saunas and Swimwear section listing the global reasons for and against swimwear in saunas (both hygiene and etiquette). This subject is referred to more often than heat in the current article, and bringing the references together would aid clarity on the subject. Given that the article itself says that this is a source of confusion for tourists, that's probably a good thing. I'm happy to do the expansion but would appreciate additional thoughts. - PaulGregory 12:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

 * There are citation requests for things everyone (in Finland) knows are true; for example, of course women have given births in saunas. Every Finn can confirm that, and they did that long before anyone could even read or write anything to cite. It is almost like requesting a citation to prove that people "live in their homes" or "eat food". Maybe a citation is required also to verify that the women who gave births in saunas had had sex (with men) nine months earlier? How can we verify that, if there is no citation? If you need citations, cite me. I hereby confirm that women have given births in saunas in Finland, for example my grandmother was born that way. So, please remove citation requests for obvious common facts, or cite me, or call me a liar. There is not a word about blood-letting (Finnish: "kuppaaminen"), which is a Finnish strongly sauna-related tradition. Sakaal 21:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Health Benefits
It seems as though the part about Health Benefits is copied from this webpage. Saunafin is a company that sells "Saunas, Sauna Kits, Pre-Fab Saunas, Sauna Heaters, Infrared Saunas and Steambath Generators" - hardly an objective source. Shouldn't this part be removed unless we find some trustworthy scientific source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.203.21.164 (talk • contribs) 06:46, June 1, 2006

 * With chronically ill people the amount of exercise that they can initially tolerate in recuperation may be insufficient to burn off excess stress hormones, so another way is needed to achieve this. The temperature changes of therapeutic sauna can help and this has other benefits as well. When first used gradual increases in heating and cooling are recommended. Therapeutic sauna reduces stress hormones and the cardiac workload is considered about half that of a walk, so initial exposure time is important also. The hypothalamus in our brain controls the balance homeostasis of the autonomic nervous system between the ACTION sympathetic and the RELAXATION parasympathetic nervous tone. The well known ‘fight or flight’ stress response produces hormones intended to be burnt off by action, but in a modern lifestyle such hormones may remain in the system
 * Hormones are not a form of fuel that is "burned off." There may be actual health benefits of saunas, but the above explanation is vague and smells of pseudoscience. BAW (talk) 13:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

 * “Pseudoscience is reserved to describe theories which are either untestable in practice or in principle, or which are maintained even when tests appear to have refuted them.” If you read the text and references you will find that tests on reduction of stress hormones have been successfully carried out with sauna use. Therefore it can hardly be pseudoscience. The use of the term in a prejorative manner would not comply with WP:NPOV unless you can cite WP:RS evidences to the contrary! ‘Burn up’ is a colloquial term for ‘metabollically utilise’ and probably better understood by encyclopaedia readers, but ‘knock yourself out’ if you want and suggest an expanded less vague description, readily understood by readers. By the way, the normal practice in Wiki is to place new comments last on the talk page not in earlier text, unless recent and ongoing! Jagra (talk) 06:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

 * "Sauna has also been found to increase your body's ability to improve its immune system" is referenced to Aliveberry.com, "the online health and wellness magazine". If that counts as a "reliable source" then I hereby give up on Wikipedia. 81.101.197.228 (talk) 22:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

"enhanced anaerobic threshold in chronic conditions"
I know of no chronic conditions that are in any way 'limited' by an anaerobic threshold. This statement isn't clear whether it's refering to either chronic conditions or anaerobics. And it's unsourced, so no clarification there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.127.213.188 (talk) 22:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Pouring water on hot stones
I'm not a native speaker but as far as I remember this procedure is called infusion. If I´m right this should be incorporated into the article. 84.173.202.53 17:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

More on Health benefits
This section is devoid of any decent sourcing...Some of the claims seem ridiculous. "30% of body wastes are passed through the skin"?! This is very likely off by at least a factor of ten. In short, this unsourced and seemingly biased section (was it written by a sauna manufacturer?) is litter with fact tags and should be essentially eliminated unless reliable sources are presented to verify the claims. I'll give it a couple of days before I start rewriting & deleting... — Scientizzle 01:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree completely. I came here after seeing the refdesk discussion.  I don't even think we need to give it the usual couple of days; it's pretty obvious that these claims do not reflect medical consensus.  It's a nice courtesy, though.  --Allen 02:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Heh... this article even advertises that saunas produce hyperthermia, which according to that article is "a serious medical emergency". --Allen 02:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Umm, I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but hyperthermia just means potentially-fatal overheating. And that is only when used for extreme periods of time. It isn't an even slightly dubious claim, consider the ease with which the opposite condition (hypothermia) occurs. If you want I'll include a reference to a news article I recently read (if I can remember where to look) about a woman who fainted in the sauna of her health club and escaped with only second-degree burns; the hospital said she was lucky to be alive. VanTucky 02:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Sorry... I do believe that a sauna can produce hyperthermia, and also that (as the hyperthermia article also says), hyperthermia can in some cases be beneficial. I wrote the above comment because I found it ironic that the "health benefits" section of this article treats the induction of hyperthermia as an unqualifiedly good thing, when usually it isn't.  But I shouldn't have tried to poke fun; if you wrote the text or are sympathetic to that viewpoint, I can understand why you might feel insulted by me, and I apologize.  As this is an encyclopedia, I should have been more dispassionate.  --Allen 03:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

 * As, perhaps, I should be as well...VanTucky 20:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

This section saw no improvement so I have made the entire thing into a hidden comment. It's ridiculous to have a "health benefits" section that reads like a sauna brochure that is littered with fact tags due to its almost complete lack of citations...it's potentially dangerous, too. — Scientizzle 15:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

 * There are also some health risks which can be linked with sauna but they're common with all very hot places or places with hot equipment. I've heard some horrific stories about people who have had a fit in a sauna and they've been cooked to death. Some may slip with very serious consequences like hitting their head and never getting out alive - some have been fallen against the sauna stove and have got very serious burns. When you're in sauna you should have something to drink nearby because sauna can cause serious dehydration. On the other hand, excessive use of alcohol may cause you to pass out which can be lethal. Cases like this are rare but may happen. So, not everything that happens in sauna is necessary healthy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.50.133.23 (talk • contribs) 02:26, July 29, 2007

 * Hi in the near future I intend to add a new section to the Article that I am working on now, called Therapeutic Sauna, as the use of sauna for treatment is becoming more widely accepted. I am aware of many medical science references that I will cite, that should silence the critics and enable the flags to be removed. Anyone any objections or comments? Jagra 07:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

 * More sources, especially to back up the scientific claims, would be great. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 16:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Have today added therapuetic sauna, some may think sex comes before therapy! have included around 100 references. for some reason the internal links are not working, will correct later Jagra 23:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you please change it so that it is clear which reference is supporting which claim, instead of just placing all the references at the end of the paragraph. Currently it seems like many of the references in the article are irrelevant to the topic. I cannot delete these references without knowing what claims they are supporting. I also cannot evaluate the validity of the health benefits of saunass without knowing what evidence there is to support whatJamesStewart7 (talk) 01:15, 7 December 2007 (UTC).
 * See comments belowJagra (talk) 05:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

In Germany, doctors specifically recommend saunas for those with high blood pressure, but say you shouldn't cool down rapidly afterwards. As in every sphere, there are national fashions in medicine.Escoville (talk) 17:17, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone agree that "Health risks and benefits" could be broken out into separate sub headings? For example: "Health Risks" and "Health Benefits" I think this would be a bit more useful when researching the topic. I am working on some information to add to the health benefits sections as well if you guys agree. Atsmith227 (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Formating
I would request that someone have a look at the formating of this page - there are sections that are over a page long without paragraphs, breaks, or anything to help guide the eye. Reading it is near impossible in my current state. I would format it myself, but I'm currently as drunk as a skunk, arguing over the benifits of a sauna. My appologies. 24.67.68.118 09:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Ok it's been a while since I've studied some of these things but some of these claims look rather dodgy.
 * "Therapeutic sauna adaptation improves neuroendocrine and immune function with increases in cortisol, DHEAS, and lower cytokines"
 * Cortisol has a negative effect on immune system functioning so there is no way an increase in cortisol represents better immune functioning. Also what does "improved neuroendocrine function" mean? I can't think of an appropriate way to decide if neuroendocrine functioning has improved. Looking at the way the term was used in the article, it seems like an increase in a certain neurotransmitter/hormone is supposed to signal improved function but these changes aren't necessarily positive ones.
 * "Women show higher neuroendocrine response than men." Similarly problematic. Which hormones/neurotranismmiter? What changes? Saying that women show a higher neuroendocrine response is like saying women have more hormones. Even if it is true, it is completely uninformative. These sentences have been removed from the article for these reasons.
 * "Indicated in reducing symptoms in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis, and indicated for anorexia nervosa ." Fact tags have been added because the evidence I can see is simply insufficient to support these claims. The only anorexia nervosa evidence I can see is a case study of a couple of cases. Fairly worthless in scientific terms.
 * "Sauna has also been found to reduce sympathetic activity, stress hormones adrenalin and noradrenalin and to trigger a well defined neuro-endocrine reaction which includes raising the hormones found low in CFS and some other chronic conditions (ACTH, cortisol and beta endorphin), interestingly cortisol remained elevated after other hormones had returned to prior levels." Which conditions? How strong a marker are these hormone levels of said conditions? If these hormones do not strongly indicate with both high sensitivity and specificity these conditions then the comment shouldn't be included. It's akin to me saying that most people who have died have drank water at some time... A true but highly misleading statement. For a well defined neuro-endocrine response, the hormonal changes seem pretty contradictory. Cortisol and andrenalin are both hormones in the HPA axis. A decrease in adrenalin should really be met with a decrease in cortisol and acth, at least eventually (there are feedback loops) so I can think of a few possibilities; saunas have different effects on different people (relaxing vs invigorating - so not well defined at allthat result in different stress responses) or these hormone results come from different research measured at different times or these hormones were measured at one point where this profile exists, instead of over an extended duration or someone has misinterpreted the research or someone stuffed up the research or my biology is just wrong. This comment "interestingly cortisol remained elevated after other hormones had returned to prior levels" leads me towards "someone misinterpreted the data". Cortisol is almost always elevated for some time after adrenalin, noradrenalin etc return to normal so it's not interesting at all. This comment also suggests that the data was taken over an extended period and whoever wrote this just took a snapshot.
 * Even the last point (my biology is wrong) is problematic as this is an encyclopedia article. Currently non-biologists probably cannot understand this section which is why I think many dubious claims have remained in here.
 * "It has shown that regular saunas combined with exercise therapy can efficiently clear organic chemicals, solvents, drugs, pharmaceuticals even PCBs and heavy metals from the body" I'm not entirely sure which reference this claim is based on but this one seems relevant "Components of practical clinical detox programs--sauna as a therapeutic tool." It's an article from the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and the article does not appear to be original research. Given the lack of credentials or supporting research, this article cannot be used as support for these claims.
 * "A sauna followed by a cold shower has been shown to reduce pain in rheumatoid arthritis where pain is mediated by sensitised c-fibre sympathetics, pain in other chronic conditions such as CFS and fibromyalgia may be similar." This seems like the supporting article "Effect of exposure to sauna heat on neuropathic and rheumatoid pain." The article is an examination of how pain is mediated. It appears that some patients actually reported excacerbation of their symptoms during the sauna. Furthermore, the study lacks the appropriate controls to infer that sauna use reduces pain (not surprising as this was not their aim).
 * "It also stimulated the production of hormones such as testosterone, the hormone that regulates sexual drive and potency in men, and boosted the women's production of oestrogen, a hormone regulating fertility and involved in other medical conditions" This is somewhat of a gross oversimplification of the roles of testoerone and oestrogen. It may be fair to say that oestrogen is involved in the ovulatory cycle or that testosterone is involved in libido but it is not fair to say an increase in oestrogen or testosterone resulting from sauna use will result in a corresponding increase in libido or fertility as is implied here. For example, administering oestrogen to women, as in the case of the combined oral contraceptive pill may even reduce fertility through negative feedback loops. As such the implications in the article have been removed.
 * "They found this treatment alone considerably improved many chronic conditions." Removed as it is far too broad and it is highly unlikely that the study accurately assessed "many chronic conditions". Please specify the conditions before reinclusion (and move the reference so I can check it).
 * "The therapeutic sauna with hot cycle followed by a cold cycle brings the benefits of both and in fact induces the body to switch from sympathetic to parasympathetic mode." The body doesn't have parasympathetic and sympathetic modes. There are parasympathetic and sympathetic systems which interact and are almost always interactive. Removed due to innaccuracy.
 * "This effect helps break down one of the nastier aspects of chronic illness; imbalance of blood supply due to vasoconstriction." Also removed. There is just no way that all chronic illnesses share this one feature.
 * "It has been shown with drugs such as caffeine, that delayed metabolic clearance was offset by a sizeable elimination in sweat by sauna. Sweat tests have shown pharmaceutical drugs are eliminated in sweat, narcotics, alkaloids and barbiturates are eliminated in sweat, and elimination increased with heat. Sweat analysis is also used for diagnosis of some disease, toxic metal excretion in sweat is used in diagnosis of chronic disease the result of contamination, and sweating used to eliminate toxic metals." If this is the source "Drug residues store in the body following cessation of use: Impacts on neuroendocrine balance and behavior – Use of the Hubbard sauna regimen to remove toxins and restore health" I'm just going to point out that it was published in Med hypotheses and doesn't contain any actual research. If this is the source "The significance of drug analysis of sweat in respect to rapid screening for drug abuse", I'm going to point out that it is fallicious to assume that just because drug residue appears in sweat, that you can increase drug clearance by sweating more.JamesStewart7 (talk) 02:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

 * I just readded fact tags that were removed. I am inclined to assume there is no reference unless I can see a clear reference for it as some of the information that was in this paragraph was a little questionable (see directly above). It is so hard to tell though as there is 40 possible references that could correspond to that citation. So if anyone notices that a particular citation corresponds to a particular statement please move it. JamesStewart7 (talk) 14:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

 * It seems to me that a lot of the comments and criticisms made above are in fact your own point of view and/or origonal research and contrary to WP:NPOV and WP:OR as no references have been given for your assertations why should we beleive you when you provide no referencing, and admit poor memory, as against the Article text quoting directly from studies by others?
 * With regard to the request for inline citing this is not a hard requirement of Wikipedia, in fact several options are given, viz; Referencing This says requires only “For journal articles, include volume number, issue number and page numbers”. “If you're relying on text that is not in the abstract, you might still want to link by typing (for example) abstract at, which Wikipedia will display as: abstract at .  “ /Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style
 * ‘Wikipedia policy WP:V states that if an editor requests that a particular statement be sourced, that request should be fulfilled. In this case, it may be advisable to add an in-line citation if this would prevent future confusion. However, if the statement is easily found in the principal references already given in the article, a citation may instead be provided on the article's associated talk page.” Scientific_citation_guidelines
 * I choose to follow this guideline, and give the references for each of the queries in the Article here on the talk page. I will use the PMID number as Article reference numbers can change over time. These are all in the Article citing or have been added. The In-line citation requests and banner are now removed.
 * In regard to;
 * Appetite loss, the following numbers are relevant.
 * Anorexia,
 * CFS,     ,
 * Vasoconstriction,
 * Drug and chemical toxin clearance; heavy metals and chemicals, , drugs and pharmaceuticals , solvents , organic chemicals, , PCB , pesticide exposure  drugs are eliminated in sweat , narcotics alkaloids and barbiturates are eliminated in sweat  and elimination increased with heat.  sweat analysis is also used for diagnostic purposes of disease  toxic metal excretion in sweat is used in diagnosis of chronic disease the result of contamination   sweating used to eliminate toxic metals , ,
 * Neuro-endocrine and the immune systems women show higher neuroendocrine response
 * Of course other references cited in the Article are also relevant to these conditions apart from the direct studies, for instance in CFS, vasoconstriction, temperature sensitivity, cortisol, sympathetic nervous tone, prostaglandins, cytokine profiles etc are also relevant to the findings in these conditions. If one was to attempt to list every possible reference against every listed condition then we would have multiple citings for the same references. Apart from the complexity involved and the length of increase to the Article, such in line references would interrupt the flow of the text, therefore as end of paragraph citing is a legitimate option, and as this has already been chosen, it can remain. However if someone wants to undertake that task they can.
 * “The verifiability criteria require that such statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements. “ “These inline citations are often inserted either after the first sentence of a paragraph or after the last sentence of the paragraph; a single convention should be chosen for each article.” It has been. here - Jagra (talk) 03:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Safe use
Someone has since, irresponsibly in my view, removed the Therapeutic sauna proceedure from the Article? In veiw of a number of querries now like the one above concerning safe use of sauna's the proceedure can be accessed for now here Safe-use. I think something similar (if not so prescriptive) needs to be included back in the Article. Can I get comments and hopefully a consensus for this. Jagra (talk) 05:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

 * Dangers, the text just added is not supported by a reliable source citation, whilst in the right spirit, wikipedia does not accept opinion and all statements must be supported by citations WP:RS so please add such citations or text will be removed. The same applies to text just added to Benefits, these will also be removed unless you add additional citations for the statements or provide them here for verification if relying upon an existing citation already referenced in that section. Jagra (talk) 23:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC) Combined text added references. Jagra (talk) 04:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Any comments on whether the safe use revised section in the Article now constitutes 'Howto' and even if it does is there not some obligation to describe risks? Jagra (talk) 07:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

 * We have no obligation to describe the risks. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia: we have no moral responsibility beyond that. Moreschi (talk) 17:36, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Deleted material
I've moved the stuff I've cut to Talk:Sauna/Dumping ground for future reference. The "safe use" section had to go - Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, and the "therapeutic sauna" section was just silly. As a frequent user of the sauna myself, I know how wonderful the sauna is and how good it is for you, but it's not quite that good for you (I loved that both anorexia and obesity were listed in the diseases a sauna can fix). However, we can definitely bring back a short "impact on health" section, listing the plausible health benefits, along with a couple of sentences about the risks if used irresponsibly. Moreschi (talk) 17:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately your homolies on how good you feel in a sauna is just not a reliable source and some might say WP:OR as opposed to WP:RS material and citations that you removed without valid reason except your own peculiar POV and therefore it is restated. Jagra (talk) 09:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

 * By your own formatting you've made it virtually impossible to check your sources. Each cite that references a specific claim should go immediately after that claim, not at the end of the (overlong) paragraphs. Please fix this. You're the one making WP:REDFLAG claims here. Moreschi (talk) 09:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

 * I think you will find discussion on that point several sections above, have you read? Jagra (talk) 09:57, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

 * (grits teeth) - no, what you quoted above only applies when a single source is being used for all the claims in the paragraph. It is completely contrary to normal usage to list a whole bunch of different sources for different claims at the end of the para. Particularly when we are in redflag territory. Please fix. Moreschi (talk) 10:01, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Reverting large slabs of an Article with POV comments is either vandalism or declares your intention for you to make changes. Regarding the verifiability criteria what it actually says is “The verifiability criteria require that such statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements. “clearly a single source does not constitute dense referencing. You seem also to have ignored that a consensus exists on the page for that form of referencing. I will presume your intention is to improve the article and if you wish to change the form of referencing I would not object, even assist you. Your stated difficulting in understanding how sauna can benefit both Anorexia  and Obesity,  put as simply as I can sauna modulates many homeostatic pathways at the same time, Jagra (talk) 07:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

 * This would be so much easier if we were discussing this while sitting in a sauna! This material (moved to Talk:Sauna/Draft) has several problems, all of them solvable. The "Safe use" section is written as instructions and gives advice, which are not the Wikipedia mandate (that's handled by Wikibooks, a sister project). Here we just describe. Sometimes it that can be fixed quite easily through copyediting. Instead of recomending, "You can sit on a lower bench to be cooler" we can say that "Users sit on ..." That way we're describing behavior rather than suggesting it.
 * As Moreschi says, it'd be more helpful to place the citations after each sentence rather than altogether at the end of the paragraphs. In some cases the title of the work is clear enough ("Dermal excretion of iron in intensely training athletes"), but it's less confusing and more consistent with Wikipedia standards to place the citation directly after the assertion.
 * I don't see anything that's a red flag. The main assertions seem to be that 1) the hot/cold cycle stimulates blood flow and 2) the high temperature and sweating increases the metabolism and excretion of various compounds. Neither of those appears to me to be exceptional or implausible. Further, the sources all appear to be scholarly. I wish more of the article we this well sourced. The article is quite long and it may be best to spin off part. Perhaps the therepeutic benefits material would be a good start. We'd keep a short summary in this article with a link. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 08:10, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the constructive comments, for a start the copyediting of safe use is a good suggestion, are there editors that specialise in this, that might be approached? The situation I was trying to avoid in this 'popular' type of Article was  this sort of dense editing, which does tend to break up the flow of text. In the example i discussed in the More health benefits section above there are 10 or so references that can be added everytime the condition CFS is mentioned, that might be an extreme case but I am not sure that everyone fully understands what is being requested. The reference material may be closer to hand but i doubt that the understanding would be improved? Anyway the consensus is that a change of format is needed, so lets see what might be acheived. I agree that there are a lot (40 k/B's) in the Theraputic sauna and safe use section, although much of that is in the references and probably less than half is readable prose. The suggestion of spinning off material is a worthy one, and I have a suggestion along that line. I would be prepared to write a seperate Article titled Therapeutic sauna, using the above material, provided all agree to this and agree to sponsor it. It will take time, probably months, and there would need to be agreement of what was to be the status in the transition, over to you. Jagra (talk) 07:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Regarding the "safe use" material, we can fix it in situ. More sources there would help. Regarding citation style, Wikipedia has unusual standards that are unique in some respects. The article you link to is, for good or bad, more consistent with the usual norms here. Could you try to make this material more like it? As for splitting, let's develop this material more and then decide. There may be better ways of dividing up the article. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 23:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Agreed, I will initially look for further ref's for safe use. Jagra (talk) 07:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Safe Use is ready for a copy edit check, additional sources added. Jagra (talk) 07:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

 * That looks good. The "Safe use" material no longer reads like a "how-to" and is now more descriptive. It also has extensive sourcing. I'll post it to the article on Jagra's behalf. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 22:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Layout
I'd like to propose some significant changes to the layout. Right now the flow seems jumbled going back and forth between historic and modern saunas. I think it should start with an explanation of what a sauna is, then go back to the historic roots. For that it could go all the way back to the origins of perspiration bathing that originated in ancient Greece. My understanding is that the sauna went out of use in Europe during the middle ages, but was continued in Finland. Then possibly its introduction to the Americas (Delaware in the 1630s). After that it would seem logical to to jump to the different types (along with the current "use" section), then possibly benefits, and end the article with cultural customs. How does that sound? Any other ideas? Cacophony (talk) 06:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I might add that the article talks mainly about finnish saunas, when it is supposed to be about saunas in general. ABC101090 (talk) 19:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Repetition
While reading this article from top to bottom, I noticed a lot of repetition. Things like vihta, giving birth in the sauna, smoke sauna etc seem to be introduced as new information several times. The redundant mentions should be removed, but I don't feel competent to make such broad edits myself :-) --82.130.38.44 (talk) 02:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Article length
This article also seems to be quite long for a Wikipedia article. Perhaps the longest section, "Modern sauna culture around the world", should be split into a separate article? --82.130.38.44 (talk) 02:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Another comment from The Straight Dope
From http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2896/does-a-sauna-or-steam-room-do-you-any-good ...

"Numerous Web sites, among them Wikipedia, claim research by the University of Munich's Institute of Medical Balneology and Climatology shows that saunas and steam rooms confer benefits ranging from improved sleep to softer skin. But good luck finding a citation to back this up. Despite determined effort, including correspondence with actual Germans, my assistant Una could confirm only that the Institute of MB&C exists but is now called the Institute for Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. Beyond that, zilch."

Not in the article, of course, probably removed before I read it.

My point is, can somebody please hit Cecil Adams in he head with a clue-by-four and tell him that it is far easier to simply correct Wikipedia than it is to complain about Wikipedia and have one of his readers correct it within moments of his publishing the complaint? Just a thought... 4.231.169.56 (talk) 02:54, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe he has better uses of his time than editing Wikipedia. Because it is the product of unguided amateurs Wikipedia will always be mediocre.--137.99.94.182 (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Typical temperature
"... over 80 °C". No way, Jose. My guess is that a typical Finnish sauna is more like 70, in particular those small ones with an electric oven (or whatever kiuas is in English). Thus, if you warm up a small electric sauna up to 80°C and don't like it, well, in my humble opinion that's normal. Even if the temperature is lower but you let the structures get hot by warming for hours the experience may be uncomfortable. In such cases I let the temperature get even below 70, somewhere between 60 and 65. But then you have to throw lots of water on kiuas. Public saunas, tend to have lower temperatures than 80, too. In traditional and thus more humid and usually larger saunas the temperature can be higher. There are people who get their kicks out of very high temperatures -- and apparently the dialectics between pain and pleasure (after escaping the pain preferably in a lake or sea). So, there is no right way to saunoa but there is a way that most people like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.27.67.160 (talk) 17:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes way, Jose. Why to make claims if you have to guess? I came from a finnish sauna just an hour ago and the temperature was somewhere between 80C and 90C and I'd be surprised if anyone thought that as unpleasant. Eariler this week the same sauna was heated to around 70C and everyone agreed that it should be heated warmer. The "feel" depends more about air circulation and humidity rather than simply about the temperature. "over 80C" statement looks perfect to me. 80.186.85.160 (talk) 00:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The dry sauna usually has 90~95C, but then it is not permitted to throw water onto the oven. In wet saunas the temperature is lower, and you get a heat rush when throwing water, mixed with herbs, onto the oven. In a steam room, you can't get a very high temperature. I'd say 60-70C is very hot, while 70C in a dry sauna feels rather cold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.197.127.200 (talk) 10:56, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

 * "Studies on the properties and pleasant effects of the Finnish sauna reveal certain conditions necessary for its proper use. . . . In most cases the recommended temperature at the level of the bather's head is from 70 to 100 degrees Centigrade and humidity should be from 40 to 70 grammes of water per kilogram of dry air. . . . [T]here is no reason to lower the temperature below 70–75°C, in which case undue humidity would result from producing a feeling of warmth. This in turn is physiologically unsuitable and will easily lead to problems of hygiene." (Finnish Sauna: Design, Construction and Maintenance, Rakennustietosäätiö Oy (5th ed. 2003), pgs. 35–36.) An accompanying chart shows 70–88°C to be "mild" (depending upon humidity), 78–98°C to be "moderate," and 88–105°C to be "strong" and observes that the "mild" range is "best suited to children and the elderly." The reference to "... over 80°C," therefore seems accurate as a general introductory statement regarding the average sauna experience. Langrel (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

 * If you don't believe they, believe me. I'm Finn, and go to sauna with my family every saturday, and if temperature is under than 80C, it's cold--Ateria (talk) 10:29, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

 * The sauna I go to normally runs at 110°C and about 10-12% humidity. This is what the internal thermometer and humidity sensor say. The outer control panel is usually set to 120°C (oven temperature, I guess), but obviously some of that is lost due to people opening/closing the door. So yeah, I was really surprised to see figures below 80°C. I've never been to a sauna below 80°C, no matter the humidity, and usually they are 100+. I live in Central-Eastern Europe. 213.178.101.161 (talk) 14:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm just curious, how do you not die by sitting in 100°C heat? Wouldn't sweat be boiling off your skin, burning you? Wouldn't you get burns from contact with the floor/seats? Is this actually pleasant at all? How long do people typically sit in a 100 or 110ºC sauana - 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.143.118 (talk) 09:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

 * Because air has low thermal conductivity. Also the interior materials have been chosen with low heat conductivity in mind, for example the seats and walls are made of wood. Sweat evaporates before it gets in boiling temperature and that actually cools you down. That's the purpose of perspiration. Tragos (talk) 02:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Looking at this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sauna_Championships, it seems that temperatures over 100ºC are actually quite dangerous (and considered 'extreme'), and the times given indicate that they can't be withstood for very long. So are saunas of 100ºC or hotter actually very common, or is 80-95 more likely? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.138.133 (talk) 09:49, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

 * Temperatures below 100°C are common. Note that the thermometer is usally mounted in the upper region of the sauna, where the termperature is significantly higher. Saune users can choose their preferred temperature level by taking a higher or lower seat. Also note that there is little air movement inside the sauna at most times. Close to the skin, the air temperatue is much lower. However, if this layer of colder air gets blown away (for example, when the Saunameister twirls his or her towel), the body receives more heat (and reacts with more sweat - just sitting around in 80°C still air apparently leaves quiate a large safetly margin for the body's teamperature regulation). --Klaws (talk) 10:08, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Plural
English tends to follow the plural rules of loan words' languages of origin. For example, the French word château becomes châteaux, haiku stays haiku following the Japanese plural, and the Latin quotum has quota as its plural form. For this reason, shouldn't the plural of sauna be saunat instead of saunas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.181.211.11 (talk) 12:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You'd have a better chance of changing the singular to saunum — and about as much rationale. As a general rule, English tends to naturalize loan words and pluralize them with a simple -s (or -es). And sauna has become so thoroughly naturalized in English that its Finnish pronunciation is virtually unknown, let alone its plural. All to the better, of course, as saunat is that much more useful as an affectation. Langrel (talk) 19:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There's the problem that it doesn't work grammatically: English always uses a simple plural, but Finnish doesn't use a simple plural in all of the same contexts. For instance 1 sauna is "1 sauna" in English, but 5 saunaa, saunat pestään, saunoja pestään are in partitive singular, nominative plural, partitive plural, respectively; in English, all three would be simple plurals ("saunas"). (The reason for this is the partitive or part-whole contrast and the telicity contrast.) --vuo (talk) 23:38, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Environmental effects
Claim that saunas contribute significantly to global warming seems weakly argumented / greatly exaggerated. First, it claims that there are 2 to 3.2 million saunas in Finland, yet there are about 5.5 million inhabitants in Finland and not every house has sauna and not every Finn is living alone in his house. Actually, apartment houses typically don't have sauna in every flat, or they have common saunas for something like sauna per twenty to thirty flats. Environmental effects section also contains claims about "energy consumption" yet it uses units of power ("gigawatts"). Mixing energy and power units basically proves, that writer doesn't understand anything about subject he/she is writing about.

If we assume producing 1 kWh of electricity produces about 0.30kg CO2 (from coal, non combined process; in Finland, most coal plants are combined plants, so energy efficiency is better). Using article values for energy consumption, additional CO2 release would 406,8kg per year and household (and remember, there are significantly less saunas than households!). However, in Finland, percentage of renewable energy is 37% in 2018, nuclear 17%, fossil fuels 35% so much lower value could be used for CO2 emissions. Even if you make assumption there are million households with sauna (there aren't), it would mean only 406 800 000 kg CO2 annually, that is, 406 800t or 0.4068 Mt. For comparison, emissions from traffic in year 2017 in Finland were 11,5 Mt (CO2-equivalent, according to Finnish Statistical Administration). Of course CO2 equivalent contains certain other emissions, but it's close enough. 11,5 Mt = 11 500 000 t. All the CO2 and green house gas emissions from Finland were 56,5 Mt CO2 equivalent in 2018. Emissions from saunas would be 3,5% from traffic emissions and 0,7% from total emissions. That's hardly significant amount even at national level, even less globally! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:470:6D:10E:9532:9251:5954:8221 (talk) 20:02, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Unused cites
Moved from article:

Benefits
THESE REFERENCES NEED TO BE CONVERTED TO INLINE CITATIONS

Section 2
THESE REFERENCES NEED TO BE CONVERTED TO INLINE CITATIONS

Refs
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rich Farmbrough (talk • contribs) 15:42, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Nudity *strictly enforced* in german-speaking countries?
No, not that I know of. Nudity is very common, even expected. Some people seriously dislike the idea that perople sitting around in sweaty clothes (no matter how minimal this clothing might be...), so it's probably polite to wear no clothing in the saune is these countries. However, there are a few people who feel very unfortable without clothing, and so far I've seen noone complaining if someone enters a sauna in swimwear.

In public saunas, the Saunemeister usually wears some sort of clothing - sometimes swimwear, or even shorts and a polo shirt. Of course, he or she only enters tha saune for an Aufguss or maintenance (like putting fresh wood on the fire). --Klaws (talk) 10:16, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

 * One can search for the term "textilfrei" which shows that some sauna areas do have a rule but in general it takes the form of a 'recommendation' to wear no clothes. One can deduce it because one likes to have sauna to be ubiquitous so that many of them are small. So there is no strict separation by gender or nudity - everyone may take advantage of the single installation for example in a hotel. The only rule being "enforced" in small saunas is to use a towel at all times.
 * It is somewhat different for the larger public saunas where it is common to have some days per week being reserved for women or designated for strict nudity - or to have a separate area reserved for them (separation by time or space). If one goes to to check the websites of those public saunas (often called "therme") one can easily see that mixed-gender nudity is the standard around.
 * I think however there is a different question behind it for those inquiring about the nudity rules: people might expect a peeping tom problem. Actually, if one has been exposed to nudity for all your life then you get another mindset about it. In general, it is not connected to sexuality and people in Germany do commonly assert that the vast majority of sauna guests look plain ugly. That's what you have in mind as a general concept - so, sure, one might have a look around but there's nothing exciting about it. really. Guidod (talk) 21:32, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

 * It is usually strictly enforced by the users, as they do not want to be subject to ogling. "Spanner" (Voyeurs) are not welcome and they are told to get naked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.197.127.200 (talk) 10:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Mythology of Sauna
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saunatonttu

Citation needed for the sauna spirits. I can anecdotally confirm it, since my dad always said that there is a saunatonttu behind the kiuas (I suppose to watch you to behave in sauna), and wiktionary has an entry for it too. The asexuality of sauna is true, probably evolved from the need for cleanliness in the first place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.76.160.244 (talk) 13:25, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Is there some reason this can't be merged with Finnish sauna? Kortoso (talk) 20:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Health benefits again
Some of the claims in this section need much better sourcing, and overall the section is on the wrong side of WP:MEDRS insofar as it relies on individual studies, not reviews. I've commented out the claims that I see as most in need of hefty sourcing, including something another editor had previously marked as contradictory.

 * References commented out because they are used only in sentences I have commented out: "pmid15090706", "pmid14610268".
 * Removed entirely:

Yngvadottir (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

 * Perhaps framed as "Alleged health benefits"? Even Snake Oil can be part of the story, with the proper disclaimers. Kortoso (talk) 21:00, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I left a list of newer secondary reviews in the "Further reading" section. This one: has lots of good info, but it's very old (1989). Sandy Georgia (Talk) 21:48, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

99% of Finns
I don't believe that 99% of Finns take at least one sauna a week. Many people do, and so do I, but 99%? Seems completely implausible to me. Some Finns have a medical condition that prevents or discourages them, and some just don't like saunas. They probably add up to more than 1%? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.3.250 (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

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Introduction is too Finnish-centric
Right now the introduction is way too Finnish-centric as it makes it look like the traditional sauna culture is endemic to Finland, hile it is equally common for Estonia and other Finnic peoples and many other neighbouring nations like Latvians and Russians have similar concepts. H2ppyme (talk) 20:13, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced(?) sentence in a section
This sentence can be moved to the health effects section: "Therapeutic sauna has been shown to aid adaptation, reduce stress hormones, lower blood pressure and improve cardiovascular conditions." It is currently in the Use section, which seems out of place. I'll tweak and move it if no one objects. Wretchskull (talk) 10:17, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Page focuses too much on Finland
Page should note that Estonia and other finnic people have saunas. The sauna was created by the common ancestors of finnic people. Page needs to mention more about Estonia and the other finnic people 82.131.34.168 (talk) 14:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

 * I agree. This notion that Western saunas originated in Finland is not correct. Sauna tradition has long history before Finland came into existence. Similar dwellings (oldest known saunas were made from pits dug in a slope in the ground and primarily used as dwellings in winter) were used by natives on landmass now called Estonia, in Pulli settlement ~9000 BC. On the landmass now called Finnland, earliest settlement was suomusjärvi, dated ~7000 BC i.e. around 2000 years later. So if anything - based on this - the western saunas originated in Estonia. 217.199.122.3 (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Reference to, and comparison with, the "Turkish bath"
Though a sauna bather from my teenage years I am not specially knowlegeable about sauna, but I think that the reference made in the second paragraph of the section Modern Saunas needs looking at (a) in the light of the Turkish bath (disambiguation) page and (b) that for the past couple of years information about these hot-air baths have been entered either on the 'Hammam' page, or on the 'Victorian Turkish bath' page.

So the two sentences "Steam baths, such as the Turkish bath, where the humidity approaches 100%, will be set to a much lower temperature of around 50 °C (122 °F) to compensate. The "wet heat" would cause scalding if the temperature were set much higher." would seem to refer to the (Islamic) hammam.

The Victorian Turkish bath page is about to undergo some revision (see its Talk page) but even the present page makes clear that the while the hammam is often humid and steamy, the air in the Victorian Turkish bath is hot dry air.

Would anyone object if I changed this from 'Turkish bath' to 'hammam'? Ishpoloni (talk) 22:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

How Sauna is pronounced
I hear alot of people mispronounce Sauna as "Sonna". I wonder if it would be worth noting that Sau-na is the correct way of saying it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:36, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Long tradition in Czechia and Slovakia
Can the author of this claim please elaborate or reference? I am a Czech and I have never heard of any long tradition of saunas (or more accurately something similar as sauna proper is just Finnic) and only what I am aware of is that an average sauna and sauna user in Czechia is absolutely lame and way too often does not even steam (how even dry sauna is a sauna is a riddle for me anyways) and its history mainly dates back to about the, in my opinion, more or less correctly mentioned time around 2000. I understand that it all falls to who just accidentally feels like to contribute to Wikipedia about a topic he/she just knows or wants to write about and that is in a way really fine and a cornerstone of the very platform, on the other hand this special paragraph about sauna culture in Czechia and Slovakia fails to have any other reason to exist in this article really. If the author doesn´t like the inclusion of these countries into Eastern Europe, he/she may be better of with correcting the term into something more accurate like eastern half of Europe, east of Iron curtain etc. I don´t know the perfect term but I, as a Czech, always use to include us in to eastern Europe as a simplified matter of dividing Europe into west/east as opposed to west/north/south/central/east. The problem is that apart of Cold War division we also have a Slavic culture/herritage in common but calling the whole eastern half of Europe Slavic is also very incorrect even if the rest is so strongly Slavic influenced that it is factually a lot less incorrect than theoretically and rightfully. Or even better, the notes of V4 countries can be excluded altogether as there is nothing noteworthy in my opinion. 31.30.167.10 (talk) 08:38, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sauna


text:
Talk:Artificial consciousness/Archive 2

Pistols at dawn
I searched the Google for consciousness and predict and found easily an article where is said that the ability to predict is necessary to consciousness, not "influenced by me", the one I didn't know at all. But I don't say it to you Paul because I don't talk to you before you apologize, this is an unfortunate obstacle you made. If you like, I can say it to Matt Stan or anybody of your choose. tkorrovi

Apologise for what? Paul Beardsell 15:15, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC) Guessing: "involuntary knee reflex" was not an insult. Everyone has one. I was using it only in its literal sense and I believe this is understandable from the context. Paul Beardsell 15:22, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

> Guessing: "involuntary knee reflex" was not an insult.

This was one more insult from you.

tkorrovi

Thank you, but it was still not an apology from you. Links what I quickly found what also argue that ability to predict is the ability of consciousness were submitted to artificial consciousness forum at: http://tkorrovi.proboards16.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&num=1079195799

tkorrovi

It seems you have several complaints about me which (typically) you refuse to state clearly but I essentially only have one about you: You are unable to argue by the accepted rules of argument. There are 5 points as to why the ability to anticipate is not a necessary component of consciousness yet you let those stand unchallenged. You response is "I am not the only one who thinks so." My response to that is, "So what! Address yourself to the argument." Paul Beardsell 16:24, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I said that I don't discuss anything with you before you apologize. And now also provide papers what support *your* arguments, remember you were the one who demanded them. tkorrovi

I have done better than that: I have provided arguments. But it seems there is no need as you destroy your own case. See below. Paul Beardsell 16:43, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Predictability not necessary
I do not have Powerpoint on my computer so I cannot look at the first link mentioned at your AC forum article (link above). But I have followed the second link and I quote from it

 * So can we create a situation/experiment/test, such that when the thing passes this test, we can assume it is conscious? (Not passing the test thus does not say it is NOT conscious!) Most of us agree that the test should check the ability to learn, to predict and to generalize previous experiences.

This makes exactly my point not yours: Three examples of tests are suggested one of which is the ability to predict and "Not passing the test thus does not say it is NOT conscious!" Precisely! None of the three examples of desirable qualities of the conscious being need NECESSARILY be there. That is what your own reference says!

Paul Beardsell 16:41, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Depends on test. You still *didn't* apologize. tkorrovi

That isn't what your reference says. I apologise that your own reference makes my point. Paul Beardsell 16:53, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

First - Apologize!!! This is what my reference says that to predict is said to be ability of consciousness. This is why you asked tha reference, now you want to claim that you are right when you in fact were wrong. tkorrovi

Apologize!!! tkorrovi

Apologize!!! tkorrovi

Your interpretation of the argument is not correct. I said telling the future was not an ability of consciousness. Matt Stan then reinterpretated your point for you. I then readily allowed predictability meaning anticipation as a desirable feature but disagreed when your phrasing made predicatability a NECESSARY feature of consciousness. I have argued that were one desirable property of consciousness missing the device could still be conscious. Your recent edits insisted that predictability was a necessary property of consciousness. You quoted a reference in support which supports not your views but both my views (i) predictability not necessary and (ii) not all tests need be passed. The edit log is clear. Seems to me that the apology should be the other way around. But that isn't the point. The point is what is the correct views to have in our encyclopedia. Progress is being made, slowly. Paul Beardsell 17:35, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Apologize!!! tkorrovi

Apologize!!! tkorrovi

For exposing you as a dishonest arguer? Paul Beardsell 17:47, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your next offence/insult. Apologize!!! Stop insulting me, I have the whole right in the world to demand it. tkorrovi

OK, I apologise for getting you upset. Paul Beardsell 17:58, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK, thank you Paul. But unfortunately you did it too late, so that I already wrote about your behaviour in peer review page. I was planning to go further. So now it is that when we manage to solve the dispute, I shall try to delete my comment from there. tkorrovi

Please do not remove from peer review. I am confident that my efforts here will be seen to be constructive but combative. At every point I was prepared to make my view known and to argue it. You have not argued logically and when your argument is shown to be flawed you yell "insult". I am sorry you are upset but I think your input has not been positive. Now I have made an attempt to come up with a new version which has a chance of avoiding controversy and you insist on reverting that. No. Complain away. Paul Beardsell 18:40, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, if I say that you insulted me then it was insult what others also consider an insult, *not* constructive criticism, don't pretend. And I consider that you took back your apology. Apologize! tkorrovi

Edit war
I want a new version as an attempt to get past the impasse.

tkorrovi was not happy with that and reverted back to a much earlier version. Back to before I showed that the reference he quotes does not say what he thought it said.

I suggest that a third party pick one of the recent versions and freeze that for the time being pending comments here. Hopefully there are lots of them.

Paul Beardsell 19:04, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This was done already, the version freezed by me was mostly written by you, Matt Stan and others. Not the version how I would like it to be, but a version where everything what could be considered constructive, what didn't make any statement wrong, and with what one may at least in some way agree with, was included. I had reasons to revert several changes, but I didn't, I find inportant for different people to put it as they see it. But including all your (recent) changes, you try to remove everything so that this article would only be written by you, this is not fear towards me and others who edited this article. Please understand that I only try to be objective in that respect. tkorrovi

We have had contributions about the fly, we have had sci-fi contribs "because the article is broken anyway", we have *you* insisting that there is *one* attribute of consciousness which is defining (or only one which you want to have mentioned). Yet there is a comparitively learned article about consciousness which makes an attempt to give the definition of consciousness in an academic way. Certainly my proposed new version loses your pet sentence but to characterise it as something only I have written is rubbish but typically misrepresentative. If we have a better start perhaps we will attract other contributors. But while we squabble about every little thing? You seem to claim that we had an article that everyone was happy with???? Well, I refer you to the "broken" remark. You claim an attempt to be objective. Well, I claim the same. Let it be judged by results, not intentions. Paul Beardsell 19:31, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I didn't say that there is only one defining attribute of consciousness, I wanted to say that artificial consciousness must be theoretically capable of achieving all known and objective abilities of consciousness what average human has, but this "all" is not even included in the version I froze now, because it was first edited out by you. In spite of that, we cannot call it artificial consciousness, if this condition is not met. Out of specific context we should determine consciousness in the widest sense, ie "the totality of a person's thoughts and feelings" (Oxford Dictionary), this totality is then the only aspect what determines consciousness, we have no defining ability of consciousness and we cannot consider consciousness something what is capable of achieving only half of the abilities of the average person. Similarily we cannot call artificial consciousness something what we know is incapable of achieving half of the abilities of average person. I hope that this explanation was enough to explain that I indeed don't think that there must be a defining ability of consciousness, though I also don't think that this possibility is excluded. tkorrovi

Yes, but this is *your* POV not the Wikipedia standard of a NPOV (neutral point of view). I hesitate to ask for more references. Paul Beardsell 19:51, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Buy the glasses, I said that "all" was removed *by you* and I didn't revert it, though more fear solution would been to include both versions of the description. So at present (in my frozen version) there is nothing what reflects in text of what I said above. tkorrovi

The "this" to which I refer is your long para above. Paul Beardsell 20:00, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

New Merged Version
You first revert because content is lost. Now, I add content to your favorite version, none of the new content you care to object to here, and you revert. Essentially you prevent me now from adding non-controversial text to the version of the article you like. This is not the action of a reasonable person, by saying so doubtless I insult you again. Paul Beardsell 20:00, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have no time for tricks, sorry. There would not be a another new version by you, the frozen version remains. tkorrovi

If I understand what you say it is this: "There would not be a another new version by you". I.e. *You* say *I* cannot edit here any longer. Paul Beardsell 20:14, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you exceeded your limits. Now give a possibility to others also. But because of Paul, who wants to make changes, better post them here first because otherwise it's difficult for me to incorporate them into version to be reverted, and I may make mistakes. tkorrovi

But who gave you that privilege. There are those who do have the authority to ban me from editing this article. But not you. But now it isn't only my edits you revert. I won't be posting my proposed changes here on the Talk page. You can review what I want to do by examining what my last version is. There you can see that what I have done can only be considered good. I doubt your ability to criticise it and I see you are not trying to. We don't need censors of the type you are currently being here. It seems to me that if your actions are to be seen by others as fair you had better not be excluding any constructive changes from me or anyone. Time to re-read the dispute resolution procedure. I suggest you do the same. Paul Beardsell 20:30, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I didn't ever delete anything from this talk page and even didn't move anything, what you did. And I never will. All this can be checked in the history of this talk page. But I shall not incorporate your changes until the decision of the administrators. I will incorporate the constructive changes of the others, especially the new issues to be added as I think that this article must incorporate different opinions/views/approaches. tkorrovi

Oh sorry, I still deleted one thing, and this was my answer to your offensive remark, after you deleted your remark, never to be repeated again. tkorrovi

I never deleted your text. When I moved something to a better location you more or less accused me of murder. If I were you I would have claimed to have been insulted.

What if, when somebody comes along and has a look and they say that these changes proposed by me, Paul Beardsell, especially the last ones where I merged everything in, that they are good changes and they recommend that it is my latest version we all go with, what will you say then? What if they ban you for a period for being so unreasonable? Will you accept those judgements in good faith? Will you apologise?

Having a look around I notice you have contributed to nothing at Wikipedia except this article. Why is that? Paul Beardsell 20:55, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is it reasonable to define the term artificial consciousness in terms of consciousness. And if not, why not? 203.221.246.35 21:16, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I would incorporate constructive changes of yours then. But this somebody must be logged in and identifiable user. tkorrovi

Normally I do not login. It does seem you are being somewhat heavy handed. I find myself in some sympathy with Paul Beardsell. This behaviour (yours) is non-wikipedia behaviour, his (Paul's) is robust but you are too sensitive. Ataturk 21:38, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, thanks, I think. I note you seem to have got most of my text included. Paul Beardsell 21:42, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

artefact
From what I see this is a pointless variant spelling. What is the purpose of it? Is it a U.K. spelling, or what? Sam Spade 21:25, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

203.221.246.35, there is no other way to describe AC as through consciousness for it to be related to consciousness (to be artificial *consciousness*). BTW, see above that defining AC through consciousness is not circular. And *please* register, 203.221.246.35 is even hard to write. Sam, from Concise Oxford Dictionary "artefact" -- 1. a product of human art and workmanship. This was written by Matt, I suggested "artificial system" first, as "artificial" means just "formed in imitation of something natural" (Concise Oxford Dictionary) therefore leaving the possibility suggested by some that AC can be made by another AC. tkorovi

"Artifact" is the more usual spelling.
 * I think this is a UK/US thing. My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives: artifact n. var. of ARTEFACT. Your reference gives: Variant of artifact. I'm not really fussed either was, though it was I changed it not realising the American spelling. Are there conventions in Wikipedia for this? Matt Stan 21:50, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And "artificial fibre" is to "natural fibre" what "artificial consciousness" is to "natural consciousness". "Artificial" is an adjective, "consciousness" is a noun. Ataturk 21:49, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Don't know that there are conventions, one convention I know is that some international agreements must only include words from Concise Oxford Dictionary, this is the one I'm used to. My dictionary (1990s edition) says "also artifact", but nevertheless "artifact" is correct also, I shall incorporate it. Ataturk, may well be so, the terms "artificial consciousness" and "consciousness" are not identical. Another question is whether they result in the same thing, ie similarly maybe it's possible to make artificial fibre what is identical to natural fibre, though it's not very likely, and of course the difference is still that it was made artificially. tkorrovi

Blue fibre is fibre, red fibre is fibre. Natural fibre is fibre, artificial fibre is fibre. Natural consciousness is consciousness, artificial consciousness is consciousness. Sometimes artificial fibre is better than natural fibre. Sometimes artificial consciousness is better than natural consciousness. Ataturk 22:09, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, "consciousness" only means "natural consciousness" as it means human abilities -- "the totality of a person's thoughts and feelings" (Concise Oxford Dictionary). It's reasonable to assume that average (ordinary) person is considered, not a person with extraordinary mental powers etc. tkorrovi

Artificial consciousness does not yet exist. Before artificial fibre, "fibre" meant natuaral fibre. Once we have artificial consciousness then the word consciousness will require qualificiation. So it is an accident of history: Artificial consciousness has not yet been assembled. And that is why consciousness now means natural consciousness only. There is no other type. Yet. It is as nonsensical to state that consciousness means natural consciousness as it to state that fibre means natural fibre. Ataturk 22:32, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am sorry but I am not going to have each and every one of my changes vetted this way. I made a perfectly comprehensible change yet it needs "approval". This is Wikipedia! Ataturk 22:56, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * By "this way" and by "approval" I mean that there is some "Master Editor". I have asked a question about "Master Editor" at the Village pump.  Ataturk 02:23, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ataturk, we must go with what we have by now if we would like to talk about or develop AC, nobody knows exactly how things would be redefined in the future. tkorrovi

> I am sorry but I am not going to have each and every one of my changes vetted this way. I made a perfectly comprehensible change yet it needs "approval". This is Wikipedia!

Exactly, and therefore I as everyone have the same right to edit as you do. I left in several of your changes, but because Wikipedia is edited by many people, you cannot want that your changes remain exactly as you entered them. I understand that your last change was just moving parts of text to other places, I cannot see the purpose of it, or then please explain what you exactly wanted to say with that.

tkorrovi

We are all editors equally. My change is one you do not like. Well, I like it. So far equal. I have these reasons for making the change - that I believe it works better like this, the text flows better and reads better and ideas from the "AC is always artificial never proper consciousness" school of thought are kept together, mutually re-inforcing yet are not stated as fact which would thus obscure the "artificial consciousness is (or one day will be) proper consciousness" school of thought. You have a POV, I have a POV. I have stated the reason for my change - your reason for reversion requires you to do more than say "I don't see why" or "I cannot agree with you" or "you are wrong". You have to _argue_ your POV. To do otherwise is RUDE. Ataturk 23:51, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ataturk, this is what you believe, I don't find it a good solution, though I agree that during so much changes the text became less organized, inevitable in such case, but *very* hard to change in agreement. I don't know what the solution must be, maybe discussing it in my forum part by part, if there is stamina for such hard work.

And then, as I see that Paul, and *maybe* not only Paul, wants to remove almost all content of this article or then water the conditions what try make artificial consciousness strong or then reasonable by removing these statements instead of adding his point of view as one point of view to other points of view. I don't know, I cannot deny one possible conjecture that he simply don't like artificial consciousness in general, don't consider it reasonable, necessary etc. Such doubts are also in the article now, and it's good but if this is the case, then why one comes to edit the page what he ignores, isn't it better then to left it to people who are interested in it (including these who doubt in it), both editing or just reading. Isn't it similar to as if you don't like mathematics, you erase all equations from blackboard? tkorrovi

Well, my view, for what it is worth, is that tkorrovi is not prepared to tolerate any view other than his own. He will let people tinker at the edges, he will not recognise the side swipes taken by others, but as soon as someone (usually me) inserts a "some" or a "maybe" into one of his sentences then he fails to argue his points cogently, takes umbrage, calls "insult", and starts throwing his weight around on the revert button. Some of my edits have been of the nature that he describes but mostly I have been adding views, not replacing them, and the majority of reverts have by tkorrovi have been of perfectly good edits which he has ket stand when made by someone else. It really is a question of fairness and balance. Paul Beardsell 00:08, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

FREEZE
I have protected this page until the two involved in reverting each other concile their differences. ugen64 00:12, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. Ataturk 00:17, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Ugen64, to protect this article was a reasonable decision. I didn't want to do this as I wanted to give others a possibility to add changes, but this was a trial to me as this article was on the verge of removing all the content. I feel better now, released from a hard obligation, thank you again. I would like to reconcile with Paul Beardsell, most and foremost I want peace here. But unfortunately Paul didn't so far do almost anything towards reconciling, not to speak that he apologize, if there is something I could reasonably do to move him in that direction, please say. Tkorrovi

Well I am not party to that battle. All I want to do is to be able to edit text which other people do not stamp on unless it is not NPOV. I will not tolerate a situation where one party sets themselves up above the others as some sort of uber-censor. Ataturk 00:42, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And, if I may complete the thought, where one is able to edit other peoples points of view where they are not NPOV. Paul Beardsell 00:44, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And was Paul NPOV for just trying to remove most of the content instead of adding your views, for it really to be NPOV? I didn't want to be above others, just to protect myself because I was attacked, and also others because Paul tried to remove that ebtered by others as well. This is what put me in such situation where I never wanted to be. And in spite of that I didn't protect this page, let others edit it and didn't remove their changes, as you see the article now is *mostly* not written by me. I want to be just, I want to be tolerant. I started this article after it did stay empty for a long time after only one initial edit. I thought it was a good thing to do. I tried it from all my heart, but if you look a little above in this talk page, you see how I was treated, though did I once insult antbody or was injust to anyone? I tried not to allow myself anything more than what is allowed for editor, it was peaceful place before with many people editing this article, but the mess what Paul caused after coming here was unimaginable. And after that he asked peer review, did he think who possibly would like to peer review this article after such mess? Tkorrovi

Why do you think I am here? And I was getting annoyed too. Ataturk 01:26, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I suggest you recognise that the POV that Artificial Consciousness can be real consciousness is a valid point of view. You write a section where you argue it is not real and I will write one where I argue it is real. Ataturk 01:29, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ataturk, thank you indeed, now you finally said your point of view clearly, I couldn't exactly catch it from your previous explanations. This point of view *must* be added because it's better that there are as much point of views as possible for reader to be able to choose what he prefers, as far as they are not *obviously* wrong, and I don't think that your point of view is obviously wrong. What I think is that it is very questionnable that someone ever succeeds to make AC equivalent to real consciousness, but this doesn't mean that I anyhow oppose adding it in article. Sorry for inconveniences I caused to you, see my talk page. And thank you for being here even amidst of all this mess, sorry again for everything what might been unpleasant for you. Tkorrovi

Where do we write our respective sections? Possible Talk:Artificial consciousness/real and Talk:Artificial consciousness/notreal? Is that how sub-pages work? testing, testing Ataturk 02:04, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ataturk, I'm not exactly expert either in editing methods of Wikipedia. But sections in page are certainly not as web pages what are addressed as server_name/web_page, in fact when you edit section, only a section number appears in the web address. As I understand to start a section, you must "post a comment" (a tag to the left of the page) once, and write the section title in the subject box. The section appears in the text beginning with something like =section=. Next time you want to write in the section, one must bot use the "post a comment" feature, but click on "edit" in the beginning of that section left side of the page. then just write the text to the end. Well, all I can say about that by now, possibly there may still be something in particular what I yet don't know. Tkorrovi

Err, sorry, I wrote it too hastidly, edit tag is in right side of the page. Tkorrovi

You misunderstand. I am suggesting the two sections are written on sub-pages of this page. The links to the two sub-pages which can be found three paras above. More help can be found here How to edit a page. Ataturk 01:37, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, you suggest to write an article either entirely based on one point of view or entirely based on other point of view ("real" or "not real"), this is not NPOV ("no point of view") principle of Wikipedia. As there are different points of view, then the article can be NPOV only when all these points of view are incorporated in one article. Tkorrovi

Now you have me confused as only a few paras above you seem to be in favour of the idea. Ataturk 02:35, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

All I am suggesting is that there are two edit areas while a consensus is being determined. Ataturk 02:38, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you want please change your mind: You will see that I have commented that I could not do a version which only does Strong AC, I have had to incorporate what I understand to be the Weak AC view:  Essentially these are your views as I have understood them from your writings here. I would be very happy for you to contribute to the version I have started. I want everybody to contribute. Then, at some point, we will announce a consensus and the page can be unfrozen without a flurry of reverts then occurring. Ataturk 03:39, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Artificial consciousness/Archive 2