Do you have faith in fairies not existing? Or do you just use common sense? You cannot prove that fairies don't exist, so it must be the former obviously.
Self-Organisation could also explain the fine tuning. Basically its the notion that sometimes there is only a few ways that components will fit together (despite the fact that it doesn't look that way), so it reduces the possible combination space drastically. We see this in chemistry and biology all the time. As long as the components can impact one another then they tune themselves to a stable state where they can all coexist at the minimum energy.
He's a neocon communist liberal conservative when it comes to measured commentary. So we cancel out the left and the right-wing terms and conclude you intended to label him as a moderate?
While I agree with most of what you say this line is obviously false:
We already live in a world where most of the organisms we see are the products of design... genetic engineered by US to serve OUR needs While our presence has undoubtedly impacted on nearly every creature on earth one way or another, this does not make them designed by us. One could say that creatures have co-evolved with us, and some creatures (especially farm related things) have been artificially selected by us, but its been only very recently that we have begun to play with proper genetic engineering (i.e. proper design).
For one I hope that we do change our own nature, as I suspect it will be the only way to move on as a species. We could eliminate greed, hate, envy and all the things we dislike about ourselves. Some parts of us have clearly become obsolete with our new circumstances and they need to be improved to better deal with a modern world. I disagree with you however that we have the knowledge to do this to ourselves just yet. We have only begun to play around with GE (inserting a gene here, removing a gene there).
Im not sure where you have gone wrong in your calculation but there are websites that have searchable databases of rainbow tables. I used one for a forensic computing course assignment, and it works way faster then doing brute force attacks.
Yes, yes it is. Military is supposed to be defending the freedoms of the people. If the media is against them, then tough shit. The solution to that is not propaganda.
I don't disagree with you champ, but I'm fairly familiar with the Russian mindset, and I have no trouble believing that that is the reason they are stopping it.
Like you have pointed out - these commercial space tourism joints only get a small taste of space. If you tag along with the Russians you get to experience a complete resupply mission. In my opinion you cannot compare the two.
I suspect its a pride issue rather than anything else. To them having paid seats looks like they have to go around begging to get enough money to take off.
Thanks for being man enough to concede the argument.:)
I understand your offence at things like the FSM and IPU, but these are signs of a healthy society - all beliefs must be available for ridicule, and this means that inevitably some things you feel strongly about will come under fire. What you need to keep in mind is that if you are strong in your belief, other people ridiculing you will just seem petty and irrelevant rather then threatening.
Things might go overboard one day, and religion may be persecuted, but it will not be because of "science" per se (keep in mind that "scientists" are very timid, isolationist people who just want to do their research and be free to share their result with the public - outspoken people like Dawkins are rare and are the result of the scientific community realising it needs to engage the public or risk losing ground to various fundamentalist causes) it will be due to dictators, or (looking at history as precedent) more likely another religion getting a monopoly.
"the world is slowly leaning towards a more tame religious belief and a more dominant scientific basis as a whole"
While in the early part of the 20th century the first part of your statement would be correct, in all areas (perhaps with the exception of western europe) religion has been getting more assertive in public life. Islamism which until the 6-day war was a small group has now massively expanded. The religious right in America has gotten influence in government thru groups such as the moral majority, and other evangelical associations. The "controversy" over evolution in education only goes to demonstrate the power they have. In Africa the catholic church efforts against condoms and sex-education shows the power they have gained in a short time. In Russia after the fall of the USSR, the orthodox church has spread and is now successfully lobbying government for things like banning certain TV stations and changing education standards. Even in England there has been a reversal of a trend away from religions schools.
I asked you to give me an example of a story involving scientists becoming "more persecutory of religious beliefs" as you have put it, as I have done above with religion, - as this is a common claim but is simply not true. I would welcome your response on this, and to change my views if you belive them to be wrong.
As a final point I didn't call you out on a sob story, rather I was inviting you to provide examples to back your arguments up, apologies if you have taken this the wrong way.
Ok but now with your last point you are putting words in my mouth. I _am_ saying that if I was osama I would be laughing, I _am_ not saying that osama is actually laughing. I never said I bet osama is laughing.
I don't agree with you that its irrelevant. Just because osama doesn't care that we are shooting ourselves in the foot, doesn't make it any less painful.
This is a common misunderstanding, while quantum theory and quantum uncertainty are true, their limitations only apply to their scope(at extremely small scales), once you zoom out a bit the uncertainty disappears, and predictability is restored.
Furthermore, other theories such as string theory would eliminate some if not all (my understanding is limited as well so I can't say for sure if it would eliminate all) of the uncertainty.
However, in no way am I saying that we now know for sure if the universe is mechanistic, but simply that once such a fact is established (or rebuked) one way or another with certainty the question would be resolved.
As you pointed out even in a random universe its no more free will then in a predictable universe. The only thing lost is the ability to predict your actions ahead of time. You are still in no more control of your actions, and now have to deal with the insult that you are at the mercy of random factors in the universe:(
When you quoted what you agreed with you forgot to add the "and cares" which was part of the original statement you agreed with.
Now nowhere am I saying that this is what osama actually believes or is trying to achive (that is the "and cares" part), that is why I always say if I was osama. Hence your request for evidence confuses me? What am I trying to prove? That security is expensive?
You are still hung up on the notion of what osama really believes, which in a previous post we have both ruled out as irrelevant. Every time you are delayed at the airport because of security concerns, every civil liberty you lose (and I'm not saying that is is a case of that for reasons I mentioned earlier), every security upgrade that costs the taxpayer is a victory for the terrorists. And unlike the downed buildings these are victories that we are handing to them. We are exaggerating their capability needlessly. If I was osama these are the victories I would be celebrating.
Ok, as I mentioned earlier free will is a testable hypothesis. For free will to exists the universe cannot be mechanistic in nature (ie. imagine a giant clock - its actions are always predictable despite the fact that it might be too complex to understand) - so if one can show that the universe to be mechanistic in eliminated the possibility of free will (because if you actions can be predicted ahead of time, it means all the "choices" you are going to make have already been made and its just a train arriving at its inevitable conclusion).
Now if you combine this with a soul, and say that a soul gives you free will it becomes testable because if there is no free will then for my example definition of a soul it is false as it claims to give something that doesn't exists. Do you see what I'm trying to get at?
Maybe this is true in bizzarro world where you obviously live, but here in the real world its slightly different. If you look in the middle east you will find people being killed for opposing revealed truths, in the US good christians lying to their children about the state of science and the vatican banning condoms, and local priests spreading lies about their effectiveness despite the fact that it prevents the transmission of AIDS.
Tho I'm willing to hear your sob stories at the hands of brutal science.
Sorry if I was rude earlier, you turned out to be more reasonable than I had assumed.
1. I just like calling people champ - champ.
2. Yes and no, naturally he does have specific goals (I doubt anyone thinks he is a terrorist for fun) his way of achieving those is thru terrorism, which is to "inspire terror" in a population so as to achieve their aim - (this is where I get the notion that its a way of messing with your head).
3. I would disagree
4. Indeed, champ.
5. While I am not a native speaker, your wording to me implied the sympathise notion which is what led me to respond as such. This not being the case I apologise for misunderstanding you.
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Do you have faith in fairies not existing? Or do you just use common sense? You cannot prove that fairies don't exist, so it must be the former obviously.
Self-Organisation could also explain the fine tuning. Basically its the notion that sometimes there is only a few ways that components will fit together (despite the fact that it doesn't look that way), so it reduces the possible combination space drastically. We see this in chemistry and biology all the time. As long as the components can impact one another then they tune themselves to a stable state where they can all coexist at the minimum energy.
We already live in a world where most of the organisms we see are the products of design
For one I hope that we do change our own nature, as I suspect it will be the only way to move on as a species. We could eliminate greed, hate, envy and all the things we dislike about ourselves. Some parts of us have clearly become obsolete with our new circumstances and they need to be improved to better deal with a modern world. I disagree with you however that we have the knowledge to do this to ourselves just yet. We have only begun to play around with GE (inserting a gene here, removing a gene there).
Im not sure where you have gone wrong in your calculation but there are websites that have searchable databases of rainbow tables. I used one for a forensic computing course assignment, and it works way faster then doing brute force attacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_tables for more info (personally I was never 100% on how it worked either but I know it works)
Time machine, duh.
Get in comrades, we'll stop the capitalist pigs this time!
I'm very tired of hearing people use the world fundamentalist in any and every context.
You can be an open source fanatic, but you cannot be an open source fundamentalist.
Stop. Think about the meaning of the words you are using. Select correct words. Continue.
Yes, yes it is. Military is supposed to be defending the freedoms of the people. If the media is against them, then tough shit. The solution to that is not propaganda.
Uh.. I don't think you are reading that right.
I don't disagree with you champ, but I'm fairly familiar with the Russian mindset, and I have no trouble believing that that is the reason they are stopping it.
Like you have pointed out - these commercial space tourism joints only get a small taste of space. If you tag along with the Russians you get to experience a complete resupply mission. In my opinion you cannot compare the two.
I suspect its a pride issue rather than anything else. To them having paid seats looks like they have to go around begging to get enough money to take off.
But just because you start doesn't mean it will happen.
Thanks for being man enough to concede the argument. :)
I understand your offence at things like the FSM and IPU, but these are signs of a healthy society - all beliefs must be available for ridicule, and this means that inevitably some things you feel strongly about will come under fire. What you need to keep in mind is that if you are strong in your belief, other people ridiculing you will just seem petty and irrelevant rather then threatening.
Things might go overboard one day, and religion may be persecuted, but it will not be because of "science" per se (keep in mind that "scientists" are very timid, isolationist people who just want to do their research and be free to share their result with the public - outspoken people like Dawkins are rare and are the result of the scientific community realising it needs to engage the public or risk losing ground to various fundamentalist causes) it will be due to dictators, or (looking at history as precedent) more likely another religion getting a monopoly.
I'm pretty sure that UAVs still need a human to authorise fire.
Ok, I think we just disagree on this statement
"the world is slowly leaning towards a more tame religious belief and a more dominant scientific basis as a whole"
While in the early part of the 20th century the first part of your statement would be correct, in all areas (perhaps with the exception of western europe) religion has been getting more assertive in public life. Islamism which until the 6-day war was a small group has now massively expanded. The religious right in America has gotten influence in government thru groups such as the moral majority, and other evangelical associations. The "controversy" over evolution in education only goes to demonstrate the power they have. In Africa the catholic church efforts against condoms and sex-education shows the power they have gained in a short time. In Russia after the fall of the USSR, the orthodox church has spread and is now successfully lobbying government for things like banning certain TV stations and changing education standards. Even in England there has been a reversal of a trend away from religions schools.
I asked you to give me an example of a story involving scientists becoming "more persecutory of religious beliefs" as you have put it, as I have done above with religion, - as this is a common claim but is simply not true. I would welcome your response on this, and to change my views if you belive them to be wrong.
As a final point I didn't call you out on a sob story, rather I was inviting you to provide examples to back your arguments up, apologies if you have taken this the wrong way.
Ok but now with your last point you are putting words in my mouth. I _am_ saying that if I was osama I would be laughing, I _am_ not saying that osama is actually laughing. I never said I bet osama is laughing.
I don't agree with you that its irrelevant. Just because osama doesn't care that we are shooting ourselves in the foot, doesn't make it any less painful.
And thank you as well for a civil conversation.
This is a common misunderstanding, while quantum theory and quantum uncertainty are true, their limitations only apply to their scope(at extremely small scales), once you zoom out a bit the uncertainty disappears, and predictability is restored.
:(
Furthermore, other theories such as string theory would eliminate some if not all (my understanding is limited as well so I can't say for sure if it would eliminate all) of the uncertainty.
However, in no way am I saying that we now know for sure if the universe is mechanistic, but simply that once such a fact is established (or rebuked) one way or another with certainty the question would be resolved.
As you pointed out even in a random universe its no more free will then in a predictable universe. The only thing lost is the ability to predict your actions ahead of time. You are still in no more control of your actions, and now have to deal with the insult that you are at the mercy of random factors in the universe
Yes, its likely we are.
When you quoted what you agreed with you forgot to add the "and cares" which was part of the original statement you agreed with.
Now nowhere am I saying that this is what osama actually believes or is trying to achive (that is the "and cares" part), that is why I always say if I was osama. Hence your request for evidence confuses me? What am I trying to prove? That security is expensive?
You are still hung up on the notion of what osama really believes, which in a previous post we have both ruled out as irrelevant. Every time you are delayed at the airport because of security concerns, every civil liberty you lose (and I'm not saying that is is a case of that for reasons I mentioned earlier), every security upgrade that costs the taxpayer is a victory for the terrorists. And unlike the downed buildings these are victories that we are handing to them. We are exaggerating their capability needlessly. If I was osama these are the victories I would be celebrating.
Ok, as I mentioned earlier free will is a testable hypothesis. For free will to exists the universe cannot be mechanistic in nature (ie. imagine a giant clock - its actions are always predictable despite the fact that it might be too complex to understand) - so if one can show that the universe to be mechanistic in eliminated the possibility of free will (because if you actions can be predicted ahead of time, it means all the "choices" you are going to make have already been made and its just a train arriving at its inevitable conclusion).
Now if you combine this with a soul, and say that a soul gives you free will it becomes testable because if there is no free will then for my example definition of a soul it is false as it claims to give something that doesn't exists. Do you see what I'm trying to get at?
Maybe this is true in bizzarro world where you obviously live, but here in the real world its slightly different. If you look in the middle east you will find people being killed for opposing revealed truths, in the US good christians lying to their children about the state of science and the vatican banning condoms, and local priests spreading lies about their effectiveness despite the fact that it prevents the transmission of AIDS.
Tho I'm willing to hear your sob stories at the hands of brutal science.
If its combined with a time/date then it can, as they can query the ISP logs to see who was assigned that IP at that time.
Sorry if I was rude earlier, you turned out to be more reasonable than I had assumed.
1. I just like calling people champ - champ.
2. Yes and no, naturally he does have specific goals (I doubt anyone thinks he is a terrorist for fun) his way of achieving those is thru terrorism, which is to "inspire terror" in a population so as to achieve their aim - (this is where I get the notion that its a way of messing with your head).
3. I would disagree
4. Indeed, champ.
5. While I am not a native speaker, your wording to me implied the sympathise notion which is what led me to respond as such. This not being the case I apologise for misunderstanding you.