I'm an academic and I use my Motorola Xoom to compose most papers that I write. I can't stand the noise of my desktop computer and I like the portability and versatility of my tablet, so I type out rough drafts with some formatting using my tablet. In some cases, I use a laptop, but for most day-to-day work I prefer my tablet. When I finish with the rough draft, I move to my desktop computer and add formatting. I also use the tablet for starting spreadsheets.
That being said, I do rely on a fair amount of basic formatting even for the rough composition I do on my tablet. I even wish that more were supported in the Office-replacement apps I use.
I generally agree with what you are saying, but some clarification can also show why the two discourses (science and religion) cannot *completely* overlap in their theoretical aims. The question of "why" is a question of causes, but there are proximate and remote causes. Science is better fit in general to discover the proximate causes of events within the world, inasmuch as empirical study can determine why one treatment worked and another failed, why a person is driven to act in such a way, etc. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that much of science today has a specifically technological aim. Not everyone studies science simply for the "why," but also to determine ways in which such knowledge can have practical applications for bettering lives (or making money). Hence the proximate causes are only intermediate goals for much scientific research.
Religion does discuss proximate causes and can overlap with science, sometimes overstepping boundaries of assertion. However, religion also makes an attempt to understand the ultimate remote cause(s) of things within the world, which stands beyond the capability of science. Now a person is entitled to argue that religion is not capable of understanding an ultimate remote cause either, but at least here in intention religion differs from science properly. For science functions within a world that is already given in its objective quality as a world: a world with physical laws that are conserved in one way or another and evidenced through empirical observations. But if science asks why such and such laws exist and not others, either it cannot provide an answer based on empirical evidence (because its object of investigation falls beyond the empirical), or it discovers yet another cause, but also another question. It can only discover something 'beyond' that is not really beyond, but only more difficult to observe. Hence science can give the Big Bang as an answer for the proximate "why" of the universe, but it cannot provide a "why" for the Big Bang, unless it reverts merely to yet another prior physical state. In other words, it cannot provide any definitive *meaning* for the origin of the universe, although it can provide clear explanations for its mechanisms. Science might be availed of argue that the meaning that people assert is concocted in the brain and therefore non-real, but demythologizing such posited meanings is not the same as providing an ultimate meaning of its own accord. An argument from silence can claim that everything is ultimately groundless, meaningless, but this has as much *scientific* value as a "God-of-the-gaps"-type argument.
I actually do agree that humans inject meaning into the world, but religion can argue that there is a real capacity for mediating the in-breaking of meaning within the human person (involving, of course, the use of the brain). In other words, meaning is revealed. Of course, if the positivistic notion is accepted that something that cannot be disproven is necessarily false, then the claim of revelation is invalidated--but such a notion is not held by religion, and it is not really proper to science as a simply empirical study, because it makes a truth-claim that itself is unsubstantiated by observation.
The role of belief in science is poorly understood because of positivistic assumptions, but in postmodern society more and more people are becoming aware of how everything that we think or do is involved with preconceptions. Science, in fact, cannot operate without some prior material to begin with, inasmuch as it must begin on some level with a hypothesis. For example: a problematic situation is discovered, so a scientist makes a hypothesis about what causes it in order to solve it. This hypothesis helps to form a test. The test tries the hypothesis, and may find it false or true, or may discover that the entire angle of investigation is insufficient, and may have to begin again with a new hypothesis. Sometimes, then, exceptional scientific skill can be a mere matter of imaginative creativity, b
Agreed--"The Late Philip J Fry" is one of the best, if not the best.
IMHO the new episodes are a mixed bag, some excellent, others just lame. The best part is that the 'romance' between Fry and Leela has finally matured out of the annoying "Doug"-esque episodes of season 4 to something less pathetic and more humorous ("A Farewell to Arms," for example). There's also better use of sci-fi and science references and parodies, but there's also some episodes that try too hard to be relevant or political and just reduce the overall quality of the series.
Agreed. High-tech gadgets alone don't qualify something as sci-fi, when the entire thrust of the story so completely conforms to the common parameters of fantasy fiction. Messianism, magic ("the force"), melodramatic villains-- hence "Legend of the Seeker" is nothing other than Star Wars with metal swords.
Making Starcraft II custom maps can be done with a very friendly GUI, and I believe that it is completely localized. Also, since it's a game, you might be able to spark some interest with it.
More than that--every day of the calendar has at least one potential saint's feast, but which ones were celebrated was mostly decided locally. Hence St. Patrick's day was a huge celebration in Ireland, but not necessarily everywhere. Some feast days had a higher significance and were closer to today's public holidays. I don't know where the poster below gets the idea that people worked 7 days a week, since clearly Judaism and Christianity introduced the concept of the weekend and prohibited working on Saturday or Sunday, respectively. And holidays did *not* have much to do with prohibiting sex; a "day of abstinence," for example, merely means abstaining from meat. That's merely a projection of today's bizarre views on sex onto medieval piety. If medieval people had less sex, then one wonders why it wasn't uncommon for there to be families of over 20 children (e.g. St. Catherine of Siena's family). It's also a misconception that a holiday meant that one had to "spend more time praying," as though they were not expected to pray every other day, and as though religious holidays were not celebrated with fun and enjoyment.
A correlation between what you call "ignorance" and population growth may be demonstrable, but this does not demonstrate a causal or real correlation. Hence it cannot be proven that "as we become more knowledgeable we produce less children" (which, by the way, should be "fewer children"). It would be more fruitful to surmise that some real correlation exists between the present motion of Western culture in its present direction and the decline in births. This culture is not wholly separate from our growth in scientific knowledge, but it cannot be proven by mere statistics that this scientific knowledge itself is the cause of the decline in child bearing. Merely pointing to scientific advances in contraceptive measures does not establish this point, either, because it is still necessary for the culture to desire to use these measures that science has developed. (This is analogous to the fact most often contraceptives do not actually achieve their theoretical efficacy in prevention because of faulty use by impassioned lovers.) In other words, intelligence is not what pushes Western society to thin its growth; culture is.
But this is further complicated by problems in the basic distinction between the Western 'intelligent' world and the 'emerging world.' Our assumptions, based on Eurocentric and U.S.-centric biases and present political and cultural dominance, make us assume that this part of the world is somehow more intelligent as a rule. Yet the possible genetic gap between homo sapiens and neanderthal that may have established a measurable gap in intelligence does not hold between the current varieties of humanity, such that the current scientific dominance of the so-called "first world" is not due to some genetic superiority. The multiplicity of Indian doctors and scholars, who come from a culture marked by a vast population, cast doubt on the claim that intelligence and lack of children correlate causally. On the other hand, much of what we consider 'intelligence,' in fact, is already judged according to Western standards that are designed from the outset to exclude other peoples and other histories, in order to deny their intelligence before they open their mouths. Simply because their thought does not always take the forms cherished by Western rationalism does not mean that they are actually unintelligent.
I don't at all mean to accuse you of racism, but I do think that your theory could benefit from some in-depth analysis and postcolonial thinking.
Even though I agree with the others that kids that young really don't need apps, the best I have found is Dr. Panda's Hospital. It's not really for 6 mos. old--more like 2 years--but it's about as close as you can get. It's a cute game with no real point, but just a bunch of cute animals and sounds, and things that happen when you touch the screen. I let my 18 mo. old play with it once in a great while. The only catch is that you can't stop them from minimizing the app, which happens fairly often in random touching. I got the app free from Amazon a little while ago.
Seriously, though, it's funny that we even spent so much money on Christmas presents. My girl often spends her whole day crinkling paper ads we get in the mail. And her developmental needs are often met by sorting her mom's old business cards into plastic containers.
You're absolutely right. These days people have come to make happiness its own absolute value (see a post above, which makes this very claim). People think, what good does it do me? And they judge religion and lifestyles entirely upon the chemical, emotional sense of contentment that they get. But blissful ignorance is not really as valuable as real engagement with the world that finds happiness despite suffering, precisely by serving others. This is why Christianity has often taught that there is a "dark night of the soul" where God seems most distant, where we cannot feel that immediate happiness, and we question our relationship altogether--but in these times of suffering God is really closest to our hearts. The true search for happiness needs to face the world's suffering and evil in all of its horror, to look into the eye of the beast, and to make the radical decision to love others. Maybe I can feel happy in my brain if I sit and meditate, but it is worth nothing to me if I don't even try to make a difference in the world.
This is not to criticize the Buddhist monk at all, because I have no idea what he does or does not do in the world. But it is a criticism of the idea that happiness can be scientifically quantified merely on the basis of brain activity. Can we really assume that emotional, chemical happiness is what is sought for when human beings desire true fulfillment? If so, then if we can invent a drug that merely makes us feel happy and waste away, then by all means we should take it. But if we don't want to simply feel happy as the result of a drug, then might not there be some deeper kind of happiness that can be found even in the face of immense suffering and service for others?
I agree. They should have bought OfficeSuite instead. I have both on the Android, and QuickOffice is incredibly buggy, slow, very likely not to be able to open files made in other programs (including Microsoft Word), and rarely if ever updated. The only benefit of it is that it shows documents in page view, instead of just reflowed text. Sure it's got a nice interface and some good options, but it just isn't as productive a product.
This is really more an issue of semiotics than mathematics. The study in the article is thus very misleading. It assumes that if the people use a different spatial analogy to represent time (the valley rather than the body's facing), then their concept of time itself is different. But an analogy is not equal to a base concept. The real test would be whether they are able to understand the facing metaphor or not, not whether it is lacking in their own culture. Moreover, the researchers seem to assume that their discussion of past, present, and future, is necessarily a discussion of time itself prior to all application. Their primary analogy may in fact pertain specifically to the past, present, and future of an individual person, and not to these concepts in themselves. A person's life may exhibit the curvature of a valley more than time itself.
Likewise, it is no argument against numbers and lines being innate that children and uneducated adults do not respond to them in the same way as people in the U.S. This issue goes back to Plato. Plato talks about learning as "remembering" and understands the soul to preexist the body in order to explain the fact that people are able to come to geometric knowledge through logic even without it being thoroughly explained to them. Somehow, we are capable of understanding numbers and applying them to space even if we do not know the particular notations and expressions of the discipline of mathematics. In our postmodern age, people want to argue that all mathematics, even beyond its mere expression, is a cultural construction. But this simply is not evident.
It's a contradiction if you read the Bible from a fundamentalist perspective that assumes that (1) all verses of the Bible have one meaning and (2) there is no development of understanding in the Bible. This is not how Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or many Protestants read the Bible. It has never been unrecognized that throughout the Old Testament the afterlife is not understood in the way that it comes to be understood in the New Testament, and there is a development of theology even between the various books (especially, for example, on the role of Satan). The dominant idea of the afterlife in the Old Testament is what is called Sheol, which is essentially like the Hades of Homer (back when Greek religion had no equivalent to heaven). The dead are simply dead, gone, and Sheol is just a name given to the nothingness of oblivion. Between the Old and New Testaments, the Israelite (Jewish) understanding of the afterlife developed so that many started to believe in Hell, Heaven, and in a Resurrection at the end of the world, where either the good would rise back to their bodies or both good and evil will rise back to their bodies, the good to eternal bliss and the evil to eternal suffering. Jesus came at a time when this view was dominant, though not universally accepted, and the New Testament promotes the latter view, that good and evil will rise at the Resurrection. This is still the Catholic and Orthodox (Eastern) Christian view. Traditionally it is also believed that prior to the coming of Christ, the souls of the saints of old were held in a state of in-between-ness (but not suffering) which was Sheol or Hell, and when Christ died he descended into Hell and opened up Heaven for these souls. In short, no priest would consider Ecclesiastes' claim to be contradictory, because the true meaning is not fully revealed until the coming of Christ, when the lack of knowledge comes to be understood as the existential blindness of the damned.
I may just be ignorant, but I don't really understand why this predictive caching is important. Doesn't Google cache popular searches anyway? So can't its software automatically detect trends as they approach and keep cached searches of popular searches as they become popular? I mean, when millions of people are watching a live TV show that mentions some piece of popular culture, which drives many of them to immediately Google it, I would think that Google's basic search software would cache it as soon as the first person searches it, and keep the cache as long as people are frequently searching it.
Good answer. People so easily assume that they have rationally comprehended a why to existence, or they simply don't think about it and believe that the why is not pertinent to their lives. Yet how can it not be? We act on an assumption of purpose every day. Whenever we treat other people, or society, or even ourselves as if they have some kind of dignity, we assume a purpose to them. On the first level, as you said, we irrationally believe that there is a point in thinking about humanity beyond our own lifespan. But even on another level, we assume that our own lifespan has any purpose at all. Certainly I could claim that the purpose of life is enjoyment, to just have to most fun and then die spectacularly. But then I would be assuming that there's any meaning to enjoyment. Sure it makes it feel good, but that's just the sum total response of chemicals in my body. Does that really mean anything? No logical purpose can be deduced for existence. The programmed natural goals of evolution-driven life are not any comfort at all. Life forages, mates, and dies, and the next generation moves on. There is no inherent value to that. So what? The observable course of evolution can make no demonstrable value-claim over my desire to just kill things for no reason whatsoever.
Having said all of that, I am a religious person. And it's not because religion can scientifically demonstrate anything that scientists can't. Nor did I come to the conclusion that nothing had value and then sought value in religion. Rather, the experience of faith made me question previous assumptions of value, until I realized that all value I saw in the world I held by faith. I believe there truly is value in the world, but that it cannot be demonstrated rationally.
To Amon, below: it cannot be logically or factually proven that there is no meaning where no logical or factual proof exists. If someone commits a crime and the police cannot prove it, that does not mean that the person did not commit the crime. As for philosophers: what do they have that religion does not have? Philosophy only presents a way of thinking abstractly that is not completely dependent upon empirical data and does not limit itself to scientific questions. But it ultimately cannot divine any purpose to existence any more than science can, because it can only deal with that which is in the world. Religion locates purpose as revealed to the world, which revelation cannot rationally be proven. The Aztec example is just strange. Religious people aren't generally claiming that every religion is equal, and that Christianity is just as good as the Aztec religion, so no one will be impressed by your example. Democracy also leads to war, so by your logic we should dissolve all government whatsoever...
As for religion being necessary for morality, certainly a non-religious person can act morally. But they cannot do so logically. What is the purpose of acting morally? To make society stable? Sure, but an illogical worth has been assumed about society. Is society just for the people? Then an illogical worth has been assumed for people. Is it just for myself, and I grudgingly enter into a social contract? Then an illogical worth has been assumed for myself.
I agree with you that his use of Ockham's razor is inappropriate, but with some minor adjustments to why it's inappropriate. God is not really infinitely complex, but absolutely simple, because even in ancient Greek philosophy the highest being must have the least differentiation within itself (no organs, no body parts, etc). Yet God is not the simplest answer to anything, otherwise if I asked who made my breakfast this morning, God would have to be the answer to that too because God would still be the simplest answer. So the "God answer" is complex, but God is not by definition complex.
But the key problem is trying to conform God to a scientific answer in the first place. Even if God is a cause, God is not a cause just like any other cause. God does not function to answer our unanswerable questions about nature, as though God were just the end-all limit to speculation. Again, even in ancient philosophy it was said that only a body moves a body. Well God is not a body. And yet the normal system of causes seemingly forever recedes into a chain of hows: this came to be because of that, and that came to be because of this other thing, etc. But it never steps outside of the system and asks why. Ultimately faith cannot furnish an answer to the scientific question of the natural processes by which things came to be. But science cannot, in examining these processes, determine any underlying meaning or purpose in the things that are. When the Bible is rightly recognized not to be a scientific textbook, then it can be understood that to say that God created the world is not to say that it one day *poof* came to exist without any formative processes, or that there is no scientific explanation for its formation. The God who created the laws of science does not need to bypass them. The affirmation of creation, then, is an affirmation of fundamental purposefulness to existence.
Now someone may still contest this, claiming that God is not necessary to prove that existence has purpose. I'd like to see a scientific proof that can claim any purpose to existence. Yet, God is not really a proof for anything, and to say that creation indicates purpose is not to say that purpose is rationally demonstrable. At the same time, what normal human being functions with the skeptical attitude that unless the value of each and every human being is demonstrated he will not believe it? I'm sure someone does, but that is not the usual approach to life.
Not grandstanding, only because the Vatican didn't ban it. This is just a complete misreading of Fr. Lombardi's words. He said it isn't possible to confess by iphone, not that this iphone app purports to allow e-confession and therefore is banned. He was only correcting misconceptions about the app. The app is still allowed, and is not approved by a mere priest but by a bishop, and is not made by priests but by 3 laymen.
Can't really argue with that. Catholicism's best examples were people who gave up everything (for example, St. Francis stripped himself naked and handed all of his clothes to his father, in front of the bishop, in order to renounce his father's wealth, since his father didn't want him to give it all to the poor). Falling short of such courage, Catholics should always be conscious of the poor and continually seeking to live with less. But the Church (which includes not just priests, but every Catholic) is not a collection of the perfect, but of people who strive to become perfect--and perfection will probably not be achieved in this life.
Yes, pride is a sin, but not in the sense of being proud of oneself. Pride as a sin means considering oneself to be better than others. Status symbols certainly encourage this kind of pride.
However, the point of the app is not to encourage people to buy iphones, but to reach people where they are. Whether or not it's the best situation, many Catholics do have iphones, and so the app could enable them to use these phones as more than a status symbol. Besides, even if I myself do not have an excuse for owning an iphone, in order not to judge others it can't be excluded that there might be some situation where owning such a device is warranted (e.g. if truly necessary for work). There's nothing intrinsically wrong about owning an iphone; a person can sin by pride or by wasting money through an iphone, but it's not as though the iphone itself is to blame.
The app was developed by a small group including a friend of mine. It's sanctioned only insofar as Bishop Rhodes (his local bishop) has given it an imprimatur. An imprimatur is usually given to books. It's is not an endorsement or any kind of insistence that anyone should actually buy the product, but only a statement to the effect that nothing harmful to the faith is contained within. Not that an app really needs an imprimatur, but it's a way for the bishop to show support for Catholics utilizing contemporary media for the promotion of faith.
I've thought of this, just as some idle speculation. I don't think that the universe is infinite because the simplest answer is for it to be finite, and an infinite universe would not really make sense, especially considering its contingency. Philosophically, the universe does not have to exist, because nothing within it is capable of determining it as necessary. Only an internal property could make it necessary--that is, there would have to be a *why* to its existence that is completely explainable with its own self. This can hardly be, since the "worth" of the universe can only be determined, in this sense, subjectively. That is, it is useful to us for us to have a universe to exist, but no benefit or beauty alone can necessitate this existence, as if to demand it. Thus an external cause must be the reason for its existence, but if the cause is eternal then the universe cannot be necessary--and if it cannot be necessary, it seems illogical for it to be infinite. Its infinitude would seem to be all-encompassing, and therefore it would not make sense for there to be an external cause, but without an external cause it might as well not exist. (These are just very abbreviated considerations, I apologize if they're confusing and elliptical.)
Now certainly this can be called an assumption, that the universe is finite. I don't deny that. But with something theoretical, the human mind cannot work without an assumption--only the assumption is a hypothesis. We are not truly capable of altogether holding back prior conclusions and then coming to an answer by evidence alone. Rather, we postulate a hypothesis from our assumptions, and we test the hypothesis with evidence. But for this no evidence is sufficient, and therefore the conclusion cannot claim to be independent of the hypothesis.
Now working on the hypothesis that the universe is finite, we run into a problem because, as you said, it is illogical for there to be a wall, and any "doubling back" seems like a silly analogy from the spherical shape of the earth. In fact, if there were a wall then we would not really have reached the end of the universe, because a wall is a thing and all things belong to the universe, and therefore the universe must contain the wall, and after the wall can be said to be more universe. This holds even if it's not a physical wall, like bricks. If there's any kind of interaction with an end, like your spaceship bumps up against it and gets tossed back, then it still must be a thing because only things interact with things.
Here's my thought: we need to reconceptualize how we think of the universe. The universe does not exist for the sake of space, but for the sake of things--matter and energy. Space is only the potential for positioning matter and energy. And matter and energy co-interact, therefore it seems logical that space is really a conceptualization of the co-relation of matter with matter, energy with energy, matter and energy. Thus, if there are only two objects in the universe, then the universe is only large enough to conceptualize their relative position to each other. As they move farther apart, in a certain sense the space expands, but really it is just illogical to talk about space that is not relative to them. There is thus no limitation to the distance which objects can be apart from each other, but it is also not proper to call the universe infinite, because the universe is really the objects within space, and space is only a contingent, dependent construct for conceptualizing the co-relation of these objects. Now I am not saying that space is imaginary, but that the way in which we view objects as co-related in space is not the only possible way of conceptualizing it. Our eyes bring us data in a 3d representation, but they could just as well list data in a different way. What if our eyes could see the curvature of space-time? Thus it is an entirely natural, human, and logical way to view the universe to see it as existing for as long as space can be traversed, but in reality the universe consists only of matt
The only difference between this and two expansion packs is that all the missions for one race are in one pack. Blizzard always priced the expansion packs at full. So there's really nothing to mind about it; in fact, I'm glad that there can be more story depth to each singular race campaign then, especially because I love the Terrans. Plus this means that with each expansion they can add back in units from SC1 that were not included in SC2, which will make for great custom maps.
Something I liked about the original StarCraft was that although at the highest levels it involved a lot of micro, you really could settle at a lower level and still do decent; part of the game was massing large armies, and the armor types did not give damage bonuses. Warcraft III, however, was all about micro, and there were so many spells to coordinate and you had to balance hero and army and resources so you couldn't go without micro. You never massed large armies and the armor types massively influenced the game. SC2 beta so far is in-between. Every unit tends to have some special ability or upgrade that allows you to give it extra attention, but there's still some aspect of massing large armies. The armor types heavily affect the game, though, unlike the original, so a large army won't save you if it's the wrong kind of army.
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I'm an academic and I use my Motorola Xoom to compose most papers that I write. I can't stand the noise of my desktop computer and I like the portability and versatility of my tablet, so I type out rough drafts with some formatting using my tablet. In some cases, I use a laptop, but for most day-to-day work I prefer my tablet. When I finish with the rough draft, I move to my desktop computer and add formatting. I also use the tablet for starting spreadsheets.
That being said, I do rely on a fair amount of basic formatting even for the rough composition I do on my tablet. I even wish that more were supported in the Office-replacement apps I use.
I generally agree with what you are saying, but some clarification can also show why the two discourses (science and religion) cannot *completely* overlap in their theoretical aims. The question of "why" is a question of causes, but there are proximate and remote causes. Science is better fit in general to discover the proximate causes of events within the world, inasmuch as empirical study can determine why one treatment worked and another failed, why a person is driven to act in such a way, etc. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that much of science today has a specifically technological aim. Not everyone studies science simply for the "why," but also to determine ways in which such knowledge can have practical applications for bettering lives (or making money). Hence the proximate causes are only intermediate goals for much scientific research.
Religion does discuss proximate causes and can overlap with science, sometimes overstepping boundaries of assertion. However, religion also makes an attempt to understand the ultimate remote cause(s) of things within the world, which stands beyond the capability of science. Now a person is entitled to argue that religion is not capable of understanding an ultimate remote cause either, but at least here in intention religion differs from science properly. For science functions within a world that is already given in its objective quality as a world: a world with physical laws that are conserved in one way or another and evidenced through empirical observations. But if science asks why such and such laws exist and not others, either it cannot provide an answer based on empirical evidence (because its object of investigation falls beyond the empirical), or it discovers yet another cause, but also another question. It can only discover something 'beyond' that is not really beyond, but only more difficult to observe. Hence science can give the Big Bang as an answer for the proximate "why" of the universe, but it cannot provide a "why" for the Big Bang, unless it reverts merely to yet another prior physical state. In other words, it cannot provide any definitive *meaning* for the origin of the universe, although it can provide clear explanations for its mechanisms. Science might be availed of argue that the meaning that people assert is concocted in the brain and therefore non-real, but demythologizing such posited meanings is not the same as providing an ultimate meaning of its own accord. An argument from silence can claim that everything is ultimately groundless, meaningless, but this has as much *scientific* value as a "God-of-the-gaps"-type argument.
I actually do agree that humans inject meaning into the world, but religion can argue that there is a real capacity for mediating the in-breaking of meaning within the human person (involving, of course, the use of the brain). In other words, meaning is revealed. Of course, if the positivistic notion is accepted that something that cannot be disproven is necessarily false, then the claim of revelation is invalidated--but such a notion is not held by religion, and it is not really proper to science as a simply empirical study, because it makes a truth-claim that itself is unsubstantiated by observation.
The role of belief in science is poorly understood because of positivistic assumptions, but in postmodern society more and more people are becoming aware of how everything that we think or do is involved with preconceptions. Science, in fact, cannot operate without some prior material to begin with, inasmuch as it must begin on some level with a hypothesis. For example: a problematic situation is discovered, so a scientist makes a hypothesis about what causes it in order to solve it. This hypothesis helps to form a test. The test tries the hypothesis, and may find it false or true, or may discover that the entire angle of investigation is insufficient, and may have to begin again with a new hypothesis. Sometimes, then, exceptional scientific skill can be a mere matter of imaginative creativity, b
Also, some vegetarians just don't like meat or have some aversion to it.
Agreed--"The Late Philip J Fry" is one of the best, if not the best.
IMHO the new episodes are a mixed bag, some excellent, others just lame. The best part is that the 'romance' between Fry and Leela has finally matured out of the annoying "Doug"-esque episodes of season 4 to something less pathetic and more humorous ("A Farewell to Arms," for example). There's also better use of sci-fi and science references and parodies, but there's also some episodes that try too hard to be relevant or political and just reduce the overall quality of the series.
Agreed. High-tech gadgets alone don't qualify something as sci-fi, when the entire thrust of the story so completely conforms to the common parameters of fantasy fiction. Messianism, magic ("the force"), melodramatic villains-- hence "Legend of the Seeker" is nothing other than Star Wars with metal swords.
Making Starcraft II custom maps can be done with a very friendly GUI, and I believe that it is completely localized. Also, since it's a game, you might be able to spark some interest with it.
More than that--every day of the calendar has at least one potential saint's feast, but which ones were celebrated was mostly decided locally. Hence St. Patrick's day was a huge celebration in Ireland, but not necessarily everywhere. Some feast days had a higher significance and were closer to today's public holidays. I don't know where the poster below gets the idea that people worked 7 days a week, since clearly Judaism and Christianity introduced the concept of the weekend and prohibited working on Saturday or Sunday, respectively. And holidays did *not* have much to do with prohibiting sex; a "day of abstinence," for example, merely means abstaining from meat. That's merely a projection of today's bizarre views on sex onto medieval piety. If medieval people had less sex, then one wonders why it wasn't uncommon for there to be families of over 20 children (e.g. St. Catherine of Siena's family). It's also a misconception that a holiday meant that one had to "spend more time praying," as though they were not expected to pray every other day, and as though religious holidays were not celebrated with fun and enjoyment.
A correlation between what you call "ignorance" and population growth may be demonstrable, but this does not demonstrate a causal or real correlation. Hence it cannot be proven that "as we become more knowledgeable we produce less children" (which, by the way, should be "fewer children"). It would be more fruitful to surmise that some real correlation exists between the present motion of Western culture in its present direction and the decline in births. This culture is not wholly separate from our growth in scientific knowledge, but it cannot be proven by mere statistics that this scientific knowledge itself is the cause of the decline in child bearing. Merely pointing to scientific advances in contraceptive measures does not establish this point, either, because it is still necessary for the culture to desire to use these measures that science has developed. (This is analogous to the fact most often contraceptives do not actually achieve their theoretical efficacy in prevention because of faulty use by impassioned lovers.) In other words, intelligence is not what pushes Western society to thin its growth; culture is.
But this is further complicated by problems in the basic distinction between the Western 'intelligent' world and the 'emerging world.' Our assumptions, based on Eurocentric and U.S.-centric biases and present political and cultural dominance, make us assume that this part of the world is somehow more intelligent as a rule. Yet the possible genetic gap between homo sapiens and neanderthal that may have established a measurable gap in intelligence does not hold between the current varieties of humanity, such that the current scientific dominance of the so-called "first world" is not due to some genetic superiority. The multiplicity of Indian doctors and scholars, who come from a culture marked by a vast population, cast doubt on the claim that intelligence and lack of children correlate causally. On the other hand, much of what we consider 'intelligence,' in fact, is already judged according to Western standards that are designed from the outset to exclude other peoples and other histories, in order to deny their intelligence before they open their mouths. Simply because their thought does not always take the forms cherished by Western rationalism does not mean that they are actually unintelligent.
I don't at all mean to accuse you of racism, but I do think that your theory could benefit from some in-depth analysis and postcolonial thinking.
...already tested this. Tastes like... despair?
Even though I agree with the others that kids that young really don't need apps, the best I have found is Dr. Panda's Hospital. It's not really for 6 mos. old--more like 2 years--but it's about as close as you can get. It's a cute game with no real point, but just a bunch of cute animals and sounds, and things that happen when you touch the screen. I let my 18 mo. old play with it once in a great while. The only catch is that you can't stop them from minimizing the app, which happens fairly often in random touching. I got the app free from Amazon a little while ago. Seriously, though, it's funny that we even spent so much money on Christmas presents. My girl often spends her whole day crinkling paper ads we get in the mail. And her developmental needs are often met by sorting her mom's old business cards into plastic containers.
This is not to criticize the Buddhist monk at all, because I have no idea what he does or does not do in the world. But it is a criticism of the idea that happiness can be scientifically quantified merely on the basis of brain activity. Can we really assume that emotional, chemical happiness is what is sought for when human beings desire true fulfillment? If so, then if we can invent a drug that merely makes us feel happy and waste away, then by all means we should take it. But if we don't want to simply feel happy as the result of a drug, then might not there be some deeper kind of happiness that can be found even in the face of immense suffering and service for others?
Adult stem cells FTW. Embryonic stem cells are not necessary.
Docs to Go would have been better than QuickOffice, too. All three programs integrate with Google Docs though.
I agree. They should have bought OfficeSuite instead. I have both on the Android, and QuickOffice is incredibly buggy, slow, very likely not to be able to open files made in other programs (including Microsoft Word), and rarely if ever updated. The only benefit of it is that it shows documents in page view, instead of just reflowed text. Sure it's got a nice interface and some good options, but it just isn't as productive a product.
This is really more an issue of semiotics than mathematics. The study in the article is thus very misleading. It assumes that if the people use a different spatial analogy to represent time (the valley rather than the body's facing), then their concept of time itself is different. But an analogy is not equal to a base concept. The real test would be whether they are able to understand the facing metaphor or not, not whether it is lacking in their own culture. Moreover, the researchers seem to assume that their discussion of past, present, and future, is necessarily a discussion of time itself prior to all application. Their primary analogy may in fact pertain specifically to the past, present, and future of an individual person, and not to these concepts in themselves. A person's life may exhibit the curvature of a valley more than time itself. Likewise, it is no argument against numbers and lines being innate that children and uneducated adults do not respond to them in the same way as people in the U.S. This issue goes back to Plato. Plato talks about learning as "remembering" and understands the soul to preexist the body in order to explain the fact that people are able to come to geometric knowledge through logic even without it being thoroughly explained to them. Somehow, we are capable of understanding numbers and applying them to space even if we do not know the particular notations and expressions of the discipline of mathematics. In our postmodern age, people want to argue that all mathematics, even beyond its mere expression, is a cultural construction. But this simply is not evident.
It's a contradiction if you read the Bible from a fundamentalist perspective that assumes that (1) all verses of the Bible have one meaning and (2) there is no development of understanding in the Bible. This is not how Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or many Protestants read the Bible. It has never been unrecognized that throughout the Old Testament the afterlife is not understood in the way that it comes to be understood in the New Testament, and there is a development of theology even between the various books (especially, for example, on the role of Satan). The dominant idea of the afterlife in the Old Testament is what is called Sheol, which is essentially like the Hades of Homer (back when Greek religion had no equivalent to heaven). The dead are simply dead, gone, and Sheol is just a name given to the nothingness of oblivion. Between the Old and New Testaments, the Israelite (Jewish) understanding of the afterlife developed so that many started to believe in Hell, Heaven, and in a Resurrection at the end of the world, where either the good would rise back to their bodies or both good and evil will rise back to their bodies, the good to eternal bliss and the evil to eternal suffering. Jesus came at a time when this view was dominant, though not universally accepted, and the New Testament promotes the latter view, that good and evil will rise at the Resurrection. This is still the Catholic and Orthodox (Eastern) Christian view. Traditionally it is also believed that prior to the coming of Christ, the souls of the saints of old were held in a state of in-between-ness (but not suffering) which was Sheol or Hell, and when Christ died he descended into Hell and opened up Heaven for these souls. In short, no priest would consider Ecclesiastes' claim to be contradictory, because the true meaning is not fully revealed until the coming of Christ, when the lack of knowledge comes to be understood as the existential blindness of the damned.
I may just be ignorant, but I don't really understand why this predictive caching is important. Doesn't Google cache popular searches anyway? So can't its software automatically detect trends as they approach and keep cached searches of popular searches as they become popular? I mean, when millions of people are watching a live TV show that mentions some piece of popular culture, which drives many of them to immediately Google it, I would think that Google's basic search software would cache it as soon as the first person searches it, and keep the cache as long as people are frequently searching it.
Having said all of that, I am a religious person. And it's not because religion can scientifically demonstrate anything that scientists can't. Nor did I come to the conclusion that nothing had value and then sought value in religion. Rather, the experience of faith made me question previous assumptions of value, until I realized that all value I saw in the world I held by faith. I believe there truly is value in the world, but that it cannot be demonstrated rationally.
To Amon, below: it cannot be logically or factually proven that there is no meaning where no logical or factual proof exists. If someone commits a crime and the police cannot prove it, that does not mean that the person did not commit the crime. As for philosophers: what do they have that religion does not have? Philosophy only presents a way of thinking abstractly that is not completely dependent upon empirical data and does not limit itself to scientific questions. But it ultimately cannot divine any purpose to existence any more than science can, because it can only deal with that which is in the world. Religion locates purpose as revealed to the world, which revelation cannot rationally be proven. The Aztec example is just strange. Religious people aren't generally claiming that every religion is equal, and that Christianity is just as good as the Aztec religion, so no one will be impressed by your example. Democracy also leads to war, so by your logic we should dissolve all government whatsoever...
As for religion being necessary for morality, certainly a non-religious person can act morally. But they cannot do so logically. What is the purpose of acting morally? To make society stable? Sure, but an illogical worth has been assumed about society. Is society just for the people? Then an illogical worth has been assumed for people. Is it just for myself, and I grudgingly enter into a social contract? Then an illogical worth has been assumed for myself.
But the key problem is trying to conform God to a scientific answer in the first place. Even if God is a cause, God is not a cause just like any other cause. God does not function to answer our unanswerable questions about nature, as though God were just the end-all limit to speculation. Again, even in ancient philosophy it was said that only a body moves a body. Well God is not a body. And yet the normal system of causes seemingly forever recedes into a chain of hows: this came to be because of that, and that came to be because of this other thing, etc. But it never steps outside of the system and asks why. Ultimately faith cannot furnish an answer to the scientific question of the natural processes by which things came to be. But science cannot, in examining these processes, determine any underlying meaning or purpose in the things that are. When the Bible is rightly recognized not to be a scientific textbook, then it can be understood that to say that God created the world is not to say that it one day *poof* came to exist without any formative processes, or that there is no scientific explanation for its formation. The God who created the laws of science does not need to bypass them. The affirmation of creation, then, is an affirmation of fundamental purposefulness to existence.
Now someone may still contest this, claiming that God is not necessary to prove that existence has purpose. I'd like to see a scientific proof that can claim any purpose to existence. Yet, God is not really a proof for anything, and to say that creation indicates purpose is not to say that purpose is rationally demonstrable. At the same time, what normal human being functions with the skeptical attitude that unless the value of each and every human being is demonstrated he will not believe it? I'm sure someone does, but that is not the usual approach to life.
Not grandstanding, only because the Vatican didn't ban it. This is just a complete misreading of Fr. Lombardi's words. He said it isn't possible to confess by iphone, not that this iphone app purports to allow e-confession and therefore is banned. He was only correcting misconceptions about the app. The app is still allowed, and is not approved by a mere priest but by a bishop, and is not made by priests but by 3 laymen.
Yes, pride is a sin, but not in the sense of being proud of oneself. Pride as a sin means considering oneself to be better than others. Status symbols certainly encourage this kind of pride.
However, the point of the app is not to encourage people to buy iphones, but to reach people where they are. Whether or not it's the best situation, many Catholics do have iphones, and so the app could enable them to use these phones as more than a status symbol. Besides, even if I myself do not have an excuse for owning an iphone, in order not to judge others it can't be excluded that there might be some situation where owning such a device is warranted (e.g. if truly necessary for work). There's nothing intrinsically wrong about owning an iphone; a person can sin by pride or by wasting money through an iphone, but it's not as though the iphone itself is to blame.
The app was developed by a small group including a friend of mine. It's sanctioned only insofar as Bishop Rhodes (his local bishop) has given it an imprimatur. An imprimatur is usually given to books. It's is not an endorsement or any kind of insistence that anyone should actually buy the product, but only a statement to the effect that nothing harmful to the faith is contained within. Not that an app really needs an imprimatur, but it's a way for the bishop to show support for Catholics utilizing contemporary media for the promotion of faith.
Now certainly this can be called an assumption, that the universe is finite. I don't deny that. But with something theoretical, the human mind cannot work without an assumption--only the assumption is a hypothesis. We are not truly capable of altogether holding back prior conclusions and then coming to an answer by evidence alone. Rather, we postulate a hypothesis from our assumptions, and we test the hypothesis with evidence. But for this no evidence is sufficient, and therefore the conclusion cannot claim to be independent of the hypothesis.
Now working on the hypothesis that the universe is finite, we run into a problem because, as you said, it is illogical for there to be a wall, and any "doubling back" seems like a silly analogy from the spherical shape of the earth. In fact, if there were a wall then we would not really have reached the end of the universe, because a wall is a thing and all things belong to the universe, and therefore the universe must contain the wall, and after the wall can be said to be more universe. This holds even if it's not a physical wall, like bricks. If there's any kind of interaction with an end, like your spaceship bumps up against it and gets tossed back, then it still must be a thing because only things interact with things.
Here's my thought: we need to reconceptualize how we think of the universe. The universe does not exist for the sake of space, but for the sake of things--matter and energy. Space is only the potential for positioning matter and energy. And matter and energy co-interact, therefore it seems logical that space is really a conceptualization of the co-relation of matter with matter, energy with energy, matter and energy. Thus, if there are only two objects in the universe, then the universe is only large enough to conceptualize their relative position to each other. As they move farther apart, in a certain sense the space expands, but really it is just illogical to talk about space that is not relative to them. There is thus no limitation to the distance which objects can be apart from each other, but it is also not proper to call the universe infinite, because the universe is really the objects within space, and space is only a contingent, dependent construct for conceptualizing the co-relation of these objects. Now I am not saying that space is imaginary, but that the way in which we view objects as co-related in space is not the only possible way of conceptualizing it. Our eyes bring us data in a 3d representation, but they could just as well list data in a different way. What if our eyes could see the curvature of space-time? Thus it is an entirely natural, human, and logical way to view the universe to see it as existing for as long as space can be traversed, but in reality the universe consists only of matt
The only difference between this and two expansion packs is that all the missions for one race are in one pack. Blizzard always priced the expansion packs at full. So there's really nothing to mind about it; in fact, I'm glad that there can be more story depth to each singular race campaign then, especially because I love the Terrans. Plus this means that with each expansion they can add back in units from SC1 that were not included in SC2, which will make for great custom maps.
Something I liked about the original StarCraft was that although at the highest levels it involved a lot of micro, you really could settle at a lower level and still do decent; part of the game was massing large armies, and the armor types did not give damage bonuses. Warcraft III, however, was all about micro, and there were so many spells to coordinate and you had to balance hero and army and resources so you couldn't go without micro. You never massed large armies and the armor types massively influenced the game. SC2 beta so far is in-between. Every unit tends to have some special ability or upgrade that allows you to give it extra attention, but there's still some aspect of massing large armies. The armor types heavily affect the game, though, unlike the original, so a large army won't save you if it's the wrong kind of army.