Yes it is rational to not believe in anything " supernatural". But there are those amongst us who can balance a hope for deeper meaning in our existence whilst we stub our toe on reality. I guess if one looks at the billions upon billions of stars in the sky it is easy to say anything is possible. Anything one can imagine probably exists somewhere in the vast universe. Skepticism is good providing it doesn't kill imagination and faith is good as long as it doesn't kill rational discussion.
Nothing to get worked up about. Our knowledge is expanding and along with it comes all the worrying what ifs. We all know we are going to die sooner or later. This fact we can have complete confidence in. Nothing else deserves such confidence. Kurzweil , all of us, have inner thoughts which can grow into full on notions of what may be in future. The choice of thought we take in absorbing these theories from such obviously talented individuals is between a new kind of worry to live with or of a useful foresight. Anything is possible but it does not make it so. It may rain tomorrow, it may not. It was predicted to rain tomorrow, yesterday. But it didn't. The singularity future may include me or may not in this reality. It may be that it does in an alternative reality. All these things can really keep the mind busy. We have to have something to think about whilst we kill time until we die. It stops us sensing our end.
notwithstanding improvements in technology. The proof is that even having completed it people, myself included, replayed it over and over. Doom 3 once was enough. The fun of Doom 2 lay in the hordes that roamed around the world whereas in Doom 3 the numbers were down to a few toughies at best and the distance of targets at times. And the music- it was so cheapo cheesy in quality (general midi) but so overwhelmingly moody. What I would like to see in the next one is a return to these winning factors plus I would love to see some moments of the player being stalked. The AI development should be there now for this to happen and that is the scariest and most exciting thing I could imagine. Imagine being really stalked by a Death Knight that had strong AI.
The photographs may not be art in themselves but they may be inspirational to some artists for the purpose of making art much the same as a beautiful tree would be in the creation of a landscape painting. A modern artist often uses all images natural and man-made or macro and micro to conceive his art.If the resulting image has the 'artistic quality' brought in by the mind and hand of man then it is truly art. Those who can't differentiate art from image are simply not tuning in to the deeper quality of man's creations. I guess purpose comes into art as well. Art serves no real or useful purpose. It may inspire useful things in terms of design or may trigger a profound new sense of something for useful purpose like science but first up it is art for art's sake.
It is my belief: Never shall religion answer the questions in science and never shall science answer the questions in religion. Faith which is the reason to be for religion is a personal need based on our spirituality which is beyond the mind at this time. Science fills the need to satisfy the intellect and therefore the mind.A person who looks to the bible for answers to the physics of the world will always be disatisfied.
Just imagine that you weren't just a cynic who sits in judgement on all those around you; how else would you gain capital for your Earth changing invention?
For all the current truthsaying and all the negative doomsaying I still believe we will go someday. How smug we sit in our limited knowledge. We are just out of the cave in evolutionary terms and a long way behind the known age of our universe.We smug little creatures sit here in our limited understanding and say we will never go from this single place. It is like a baby who refuses to walk because it doesn't know how. Or an adult who still lives at home through fear. I think solutions to the challenge will come. However probably not from science as we know it today but some new thinking. Perhaps it will be a hybrid of philosophical thinking and science that will yield the answers. Quantum mechanics is very strange at this time and gives interesting results. I think somewhere in that style of human thought there will be the knowledge we need to go far and wide in this universe. If we are to believe Stephen Greer of the Disclosure Project this already happens with extraterrestial civilizations who are here visiting us. He seems to have a lot of very credible (some 400) witnesses to UFO activity.
to those who lost loved ones and friends.I mourn the young lives cut short so tragically. No solution is available for the rogue human. We must all come together as one and comfort the living who have suffered a terrible loss. There is no point in discussing solutions to something that must be considered as surprisingly rare but inevitable. We are all good in the main and we need to accept that we are all one and feel for each other every instant of every day. True compassion in the modern society must be nurtured and embraced. Only by this will these events become more rare. In the broad picture the rogue human is a result of lack of compassion within the society.
Public speaking is a difficult craft. Powerpoint was probably thought of as an aid but it appears it is probably just a distraction. The computer age has degraded many things due to its novelty value. Public speaking and handwriting are two that I have observed.Used to be a time when the spaeaker had to do something really interesting like tap dancing when he forgot his words. So I guess this is why the popularity tap dancing has declined also.
My slant on the universe and God thing is: The unviverse has always been here. God has always been here. It is like God's lungs breathing. Breath in breath out. Expand. Contract. Forever. Endlessly The point of no breath or the point where the breath is changing from breathing in to breathing out is the reference point at this time. God is breathing in at this time and we are in His breath.
I have always had trouble understanding the plural of universe. In the English language I believe universe means the absolute all of everything. In physics we see reference to universes. What word is now used to replace the old meaning of universe? When quantum theory and string theory talk of multiple or alternate universes doesn't it really mean alternative realities within the universe? Physics appears to me to break the laws of English language. Didn't Einstein state something about a man who is misrepresenting small matters is usually doing the same in important ones? I think the search for TOE won't be found by being slack with the tools we have established and language is a key tool.
We have had enough convincing evidence that we have a major climate problem but the global population (if in fact the individuals are doing anything at all)is still in the debating stage. Maybe we will stay in this stage until it is too late. It seems like it. It's like sleeping through a crisis and the sleeping pills administered to keep us in that state are the snippets of disinformation put out by the various vested interests.
If we discussed which hammer to use to drive in a nail as much as the debate Windows vs. Apple, nothing would ever be built. I care not what operating system, I care that the job is done using the tool in my hand at the time. Both operating systems do it and equally well (though improvement via competitive evolution will occur). I'll get on with my work now on XP at this time.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes it is rational to not believe in anything " supernatural". But there are those amongst us who can balance a hope for deeper meaning in our existence whilst we stub our toe on reality. I guess if one looks at the billions upon billions of stars in the sky it is easy to say anything is possible. Anything one can imagine probably exists somewhere in the vast universe. Skepticism is good providing it doesn't kill imagination and faith is good as long as it doesn't kill rational discussion.
Nothing to get worked up about. Our knowledge is expanding and along with it comes all the worrying what ifs. We all know we are going to die sooner or later. This fact we can have complete confidence in. Nothing else deserves such confidence. Kurzweil , all of us, have inner thoughts which can grow into full on notions of what may be in future. The choice of thought we take in absorbing these theories from such obviously talented individuals is between a new kind of worry to live with or of a useful foresight. Anything is possible but it does not make it so. It may rain tomorrow, it may not. It was predicted to rain tomorrow, yesterday. But it didn't. The singularity future may include me or may not in this reality. It may be that it does in an alternative reality. All these things can really keep the mind busy. We have to have something to think about whilst we kill time until we die. It stops us sensing our end.
notwithstanding improvements in technology. The proof is that even having completed it people, myself included, replayed it over and over. Doom 3 once was enough. The fun of Doom 2 lay in the hordes that roamed around the world whereas in Doom 3 the numbers were down to a few toughies at best and the distance of targets at times. And the music- it was so cheapo cheesy in quality (general midi) but so overwhelmingly moody. What I would like to see in the next one is a return to these winning factors plus I would love to see some moments of the player being stalked. The AI development should be there now for this to happen and that is the scariest and most exciting thing I could imagine. Imagine being really stalked by a Death Knight that had strong AI.
The photographs may not be art in themselves but they may be inspirational to some artists for the purpose of making art much the same as a beautiful tree would be in the creation of a landscape painting. A modern artist often uses all images natural and man-made or macro and micro to conceive his art.If the resulting image has the 'artistic quality' brought in by the mind and hand of man then it is truly art. Those who can't differentiate art from image are simply not tuning in to the deeper quality of man's creations. I guess purpose comes into art as well. Art serves no real or useful purpose. It may inspire useful things in terms of design or may trigger a profound new sense of something for useful purpose like science but first up it is art for art's sake.
They might think you've gone mad Stephen. Next you will be saying say God may exist.
It is my belief: Never shall religion answer the questions in science and never shall science answer the questions in religion. Faith which is the reason to be for religion is a personal need based on our spirituality which is beyond the mind at this time. Science fills the need to satisfy the intellect and therefore the mind.A person who looks to the bible for answers to the physics of the world will always be disatisfied.
Just imagine that you weren't just a cynic who sits in judgement on all those around you; how else would you gain capital for your Earth changing invention?
For all the current truthsaying and all the negative doomsaying I still believe we will go someday. How smug we sit in our limited knowledge. We are just out of the cave in evolutionary terms and a long way behind the known age of our universe.We smug little creatures sit here in our limited understanding and say we will never go from this single place. It is like a baby who refuses to walk because it doesn't know how. Or an adult who still lives at home through fear. I think solutions to the challenge will come. However probably not from science as we know it today but some new thinking. Perhaps it will be a hybrid of philosophical thinking and science that will yield the answers. Quantum mechanics is very strange at this time and gives interesting results. I think somewhere in that style of human thought there will be the knowledge we need to go far and wide in this universe. If we are to believe Stephen Greer of the Disclosure Project this already happens with extraterrestial civilizations who are here visiting us. He seems to have a lot of very credible (some 400) witnesses to UFO activity.
to those who lost loved ones and friends.I mourn the young lives cut short so tragically. No solution is available for the rogue human. We must all come together as one and comfort the living who have suffered a terrible loss. There is no point in discussing solutions to something that must be considered as surprisingly rare but inevitable. We are all good in the main and we need to accept that we are all one and feel for each other every instant of every day. True compassion in the modern society must be nurtured and embraced. Only by this will these events become more rare. In the broad picture the rogue human is a result of lack of compassion within the society.
Public speaking is a difficult craft. Powerpoint was probably thought of as an aid but it appears it is probably just a distraction. The computer age has degraded many things due to its novelty value. Public speaking and handwriting are two that I have observed.Used to be a time when the spaeaker had to do something really interesting like tap dancing when he forgot his words. So I guess this is why the popularity tap dancing has declined also.
My slant on the universe and God thing is: The unviverse has always been here. God has always been here. It is like God's lungs breathing. Breath in breath out. Expand. Contract. Forever. Endlessly The point of no breath or the point where the breath is changing from breathing in to breathing out is the reference point at this time. God is breathing in at this time and we are in His breath.
after 24 years of marriage I only had my closest companion for comfort and support. My PC.
I have always had trouble understanding the plural of universe. In the English language I believe universe means the absolute all of everything. In physics we see reference to universes. What word is now used to replace the old meaning of universe? When quantum theory and string theory talk of multiple or alternate universes doesn't it really mean alternative realities within the universe? Physics appears to me to break the laws of English language. Didn't Einstein state something about a man who is misrepresenting small matters is usually doing the same in important ones? I think the search for TOE won't be found by being slack with the tools we have established and language is a key tool.
Whatever.We continue to shit in our nest and still question whether it stinks or not.
We have had enough convincing evidence that we have a major climate problem but the global population (if in fact the individuals are doing anything at all)is still in the debating stage. Maybe we will stay in this stage until it is too late. It seems like it. It's like sleeping through a crisis and the sleeping pills administered to keep us in that state are the snippets of disinformation put out by the various vested interests.
If we discussed which hammer to use to drive in a nail as much as the debate Windows vs. Apple, nothing would ever be built. I care not what operating system, I care that the job is done using the tool in my hand at the time. Both operating systems do it and equally well (though improvement via competitive evolution will occur). I'll get on with my work now on XP at this time.