He asserts explicitly that human beings are simply thinking (biological) machines.
Yeah, but how does the human mind get from being a formal system subject to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, to being an informal system capable of formulating--and contemplating!--Godel's Incompleteness Theorem?
Machines don't like infinite recursion, especially when they're recursing specfically into spaces denied them by the Incompleteness Theorem. Humans, on the other hand, don't seem to mind it so much. Technically, this wouldn't be possible if human "intelligence" were a purely mechanical phenomenon.
Overall, or proportionally? Any country with an industrial footprint as big as the U.S. would probably be one of the biggest overall polluters no matter how strict its environmental-protection laws are.
Given that very few countries have achieved anything close to "perfect" environmental protection, and those that approach it have much smaller populations with fewer conflicting interests among their voting and lobbying blocs, it's kinda silly to expect the U.S. to be anything other than one of the biggest polluters.
Not to mention that environmentally-safe industrial technology is still in its infancy, and most of the current solutions are economically unfeasible. Even if the U.S. were thoroughly devoted to environmental protection, it's still decades away from implementing all of the even marginally plausible solutions, without destabilizing the nation's entire economy.
The U.S. is one of the world's biggest polluters? No shit. I'd be curious to know where the U.S. ranks among nations who are proposing, developing, and implementing environmentally-friendly alternatives. I'll bet it's near the top of that list, too, but I could be wrong. As an idea worth thinking about, it's much better than yours, though.
Unfortunately, what I want to know is the most shopped for items of customers who don't wear clothes - especially attactive female college students who don't wear clothes.
Dildos, of course!
Which you would already know if you actually read your spam like a good consumer.
Naturally, but the nonexistence of God wasn't actually what we were trying to prove. Unless you meant "QED" to represent "Quantum Electrodynamics", in which case I'm totally lost:
Anyway, paradoxes in logic do not map to paradoxes in reality. That's one of the ways in which logic is useful: it helps us identify instances where our reasoning doesn't reflect the truth. Since, if God does "exist" (which the argument assumes), then he does not "not exist". Therefore, there is no paradox in reality, only in the argument. Either our assumptions about God, or our assumptions about the Bablefish, or both, are incorrect.
We all know light gets filtered rather rapidly by water. Wouldn't sound be a better choice?
[nitpick]
Actually, a wide range of squid and cuttlefish species use rapid color changes to communicate with each other. Visit any aquarium of decent size, or camp the science channels on TV. You're bound to see quite a bit of impressive footage, complete with smarty-man voiceover. Sound may be a better choice, but boy do these squid sure love the color-changing method!
[/nitpick]
Okay, I've tried it. I still don't see why I should support the Palestinian's solution any more than I should support the U.S./Israeli problem that allegedly necessitates it.
If you support the Palestinian solution, and you're convinced that all other means of resolving the conflict have been exhausted, then why aren't you over there yourself, strapping a bomb to your own chest?
Clearly, there are people in Palestine who are convinced that the freedom of their compatriots is more important than their own individual lives--and more important than the lives of civilian noncombatants in the enemy state. Since you're posting on Slashdot, I can only assume that you feel your own life is worth more than Palestinian freedom. Or could it be that, for all your rhetoric, you balk at the thought of actually walking into an ice cream parlor, or onto a city bus, and personally killing the women and children of the enemy in a suicidal explosion?
Not that you have to go that far, of course. You could always pick up a high-powered hunting rifle and take up the hobby of sniping at Israeli soldiers... if, that is, you don't find the U.S.-armed Israeli army too intimidating an opponent.
Our justice system allows for the possibility of "temporary insanity"--that someone may perform reprehensible acts out of frustration or despair, that they would not otherwise contemplate. But while we may understand their motivation, and even excuse their behavior, we do not condone it, or approve of it.
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the U.S. and Israeli policies regarding Palestine have been consistently and wilfully unethical and immoral. This seems like a reasonable supposition to me. But even if we suppose this, and that as a result the Palestinians are at their wit's end, despairing, frustrated... even if they are "faced out of all compass", I still do not support the use of suicide attacks against civilians. It's cowardice, and murder.
I hope this burden is never laid on my shoulders, but if it is, I should like to think that I would either fight and die as a soldier against their soldiers, or else live under the tyranny of my conquerors, preserving life as best I can, and striving to be humane where my oppressors are not. And if I fail in courage to choose these things, then may I be cursed forever as a terrorist.
But you still have to account for that particular passage in some sort of rational way, don't you?
I mean, if Jesus said some of his audience would not die before he returned, then either he was lying, or there must be some plausible alternative interpretation (that is at least internally consistent with what is stated elsewhere in the text).
I support the Palestinians. So would you if you cared to open your eyes> [electronicintifada.net]
Interesting. But the last time I opened my eyes, the Palestinians were sending children armed with suicide bombs to kill civilians. The more clear-sighted I get, the less I support things like that.
You are, of course, free to interpret my position as an endorsement of the U.S./Israeli policies, but I wouldn't recommend it.
If we were good at (or even capable of) responsible contact/colonization, why the fuck haven't we demonstrated that ability already? It's not like we haven't had thousands of opportunities right here on Earth.
Pop quiz, hotshot: you're gonna send a probe. Based on your remotely observed phenomena, where are you going to send the probe to? The most likely place, right?
All we're seeing here is the scientific community "thinking out loud"--brainstorming, in a sense--about what the most likely places might be, given the limited (but growing!) body of information currently available.
Cute. But if the Bible contains no errors, than there is no excuse at all for Jesus not returning in the apostle's lifetime.
Therefore, the Bible must contain errors, since the evidence of at least one of them (the failure of Jesus to return during the specified period) is blatantly obvious.
The only other possibility is that there is a distinction between physical death and spiritual death. Other passages in the Bible seem to suggest that this distinction is valid. Thus, the quoted passage might be interpreted to mean that some of those present would not "die" spiritually, though all those present might experience the failure and decay of their physical bodies.
It's also possible that "present" in that context meant not only those physically present, but all those throughout history who were exposed to the scriptures.
I know, I know: this interpretation doesn't work without a considerable amount of "poetic" license. I have no idea if this interpretation is even in keeping with the generally accepted scholarly standards of interpretation. But it does seem obvious that some Biblical passages were meant literally, and others figuratively, and still others appear to have an occult meaning that cannot be understood until the events they describe have already come to pass.
Deciding kind of meaning this particular passage has is, of course, an exercise for each individual reader. As is deciding whether the Bible, in whole or in part, is lying or telling the truth, come to think of it.
Depends what the aliens had to say... what if they affirm the truth of one of our religions?
The Raelians might say "I told you so".
The Catholics would no doubt denounce them as the work of the Devil, as you proposed.
I imagine the Atheists would give their own version of the Catholic response: accuse the aliens of manipulating gullible earthlings with obvious lies for their own inscrutable but surely exploitative purposes.
And none of these prejudices would get us any closer to proving the (non)existence of "god", or establishing the trustworthiness of the aliens.
Please. A million years from now, nobody will remember or care what happened to one little planet orbiting one uninteresting star in the backwater of yet another generic spiral galaxy.
So what if we turn this place into a deadly wasteland of death? There are far worse environments by the billions. By the time the history of the human race actually gets properly started, nothing that happened here will matter at all.
Not really. The Matrix, while visually exciting and stylistically "hip", was conceptually ass. Any one of Gibson's stories showcases concepts and characters several orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the Matrix.
The Matrix was a two-dimensional superhero fantasy/messiah metaphor, held together with technobabble and bubblegum.
Gibson's stories are in-depth studies of how technological advancement is intertwined with the evolution of society, and how these two trends might affect real people, of which he provides compelling, well-developed examples.
Neuromancer and The Matrix might seem superficially similar, but that's where the similarity--and The Matrix itself--ends: on the surface.
Well, Windows is a two-dimensional interface masquerading as a three-dimensional UI.
The logical next step is three/four-dimensional interfaces masquerading as four/five-dimensional UIs.
In the future, we'll all be scrambling to upgrade to Microsoft HyperspaceNT SP6 to avoid being haxored by all the superstring-kiddies, or else face the prospect of losing our data forever in the 8th dimension (which which will be accessible via a quantum buffer paradox overflow exploit).
...if we wait until the technology is perfected and we know all the impacts, you'll never see the benefits of it.
Weather control will be implemented 50 years after people stop laughing about it?
Why doesn't anybody ever take the long view, anyway? We have the whole universe and all of eternity to play with. This short-sighted obsession with Earth is stupid. All we've got here is an early prototype--a testbed for developing the technologies to survive beyond its gravity well. Weather control, terraforming... these things are only the first stepping stones of our development.
If we survive, in a million years this whole galaxy will be our "homeworld". Who then will care what happened to one little planet orbiting one unininteresting star? So what if we turn this planet into a stinking cesspit of death, in the process of getting our species truly started as an enduring entity in this universe? There are far worse places, uninhabitable worlds by the billions. I say exploit the earth for all it's worth! There's plenty more resources where these came from. And if constantly putting ourselves on the brink of extinction is what drives us to greater heights of technology and expansion, then so be it. The sooner we test weather control and terraforming and all the rest here on Earth, the sooner we'll be able to do a good job of it on Mars--and the sooner we'll have to. And all that won't even be the prologue of our story.
Not only does David Eddings recycle his own ideas shamelessly in every "new" book he writes, but in this case he's also recycled Ursula LeGuin's ideas.
Bad writing is excuseable, if the plotting and character development show signs of originality and insight beneath the cliches and awkwardness.
Of all the writers I've read, Eddings is second only to Robert Jordan in his failure to show signs of either positive quality.
Even Piers Anthony is a better author, for crying out loud!
Thanks! Sometimes I think the best solution really would be for spooky monoliths to come down and say "STFU about copyright extension already, before we decide your species is too stupid to live," right before they detonate Jupiter for great justice, or whatever.
Doubtful. I figure the Internet is just another arena in which the nation-states can do battle for world dominance. They're all hungry for their own virtual dominions, with their own virtual customs offices, export controls, and INS agencies. Far from abolishing the nation-state, the Internet will usher in the cyber-state. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Close, but wrong. "Xerox" and "Kleenex" were diluted because people began to use them to refer to photocopies (mimeographs?) and nose-tissues that were not produced by these companies.
Since the conventinal usage of "Google" seems to refer specifically and exclusively to Google's own services, there's no dilution here.
To "Google" something doesn't mean "to search for it using an arbitrary search engine". It means "to use Google's search engine".
Nobody in their right mind would think of using "Google" to mean "Lycos", or "Alta Vista".
I think the dilution of Xerox and Kleenex came about because the competing products were of similar appearance, quality, function, and availability. Xerox photocopies were conceptually interchangeable with Ricoh's, and Canon's, &c. On the other hand, I don't think anybody's going to confuse Google with Inktomi.
Rather than diluting the brand, the verbing of "Google" indicates increasing mindshare--the more their brand becomes a part of everyday conversation, the better off they are. So long as their product remains distinctly superior to the competition, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but how does the human mind get from being a formal system subject to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, to being an informal system capable of formulating--and contemplating!--Godel's Incompleteness Theorem?
Machines don't like infinite recursion, especially when they're recursing specfically into spaces denied them by the Incompleteness Theorem. Humans, on the other hand, don't seem to mind it so much. Technically, this wouldn't be possible if human "intelligence" were a purely mechanical phenomenon.
Overall, or proportionally? Any country with an industrial footprint as big as the U.S. would probably be one of the biggest overall polluters no matter how strict its environmental-protection laws are.
Given that very few countries have achieved anything close to "perfect" environmental protection, and those that approach it have much smaller populations with fewer conflicting interests among their voting and lobbying blocs, it's kinda silly to expect the U.S. to be anything other than one of the biggest polluters.
Not to mention that environmentally-safe industrial technology is still in its infancy, and most of the current solutions are economically unfeasible. Even if the U.S. were thoroughly devoted to environmental protection, it's still decades away from implementing all of the even marginally plausible solutions, without destabilizing the nation's entire economy.
The U.S. is one of the world's biggest polluters? No shit. I'd be curious to know where the U.S. ranks among nations who are proposing, developing, and implementing environmentally-friendly alternatives. I'll bet it's near the top of that list, too, but I could be wrong. As an idea worth thinking about, it's much better than yours, though.
Your insightful brainwaves don't seem to be manifesting in your post. Please take off your tinfoil hat and try again.
Thanks!
Dildos, of course!
Which you would already know if you actually read your spam like a good consumer.
Naturally, but the nonexistence of God wasn't actually what we were trying to prove. Unless you meant "QED" to represent "Quantum Electrodynamics", in which case I'm totally lost :
Anyway, paradoxes in logic do not map to paradoxes in reality. That's one of the ways in which logic is useful: it helps us identify instances where our reasoning doesn't reflect the truth. Since, if God does "exist" (which the argument assumes), then he does not "not exist". Therefore, there is no paradox in reality, only in the argument. Either our assumptions about God, or our assumptions about the Bablefish, or both, are incorrect.
[nitpick]
Actually, a wide range of squid and cuttlefish species use rapid color changes to communicate with each other. Visit any aquarium of decent size, or camp the science channels on TV. You're bound to see quite a bit of impressive footage, complete with smarty-man voiceover. Sound may be a better choice, but boy do these squid sure love the color-changing method!
[/nitpick]
Okay, I've tried it. I still don't see why I should support the Palestinian's solution any more than I should support the U.S./Israeli problem that allegedly necessitates it.
If you support the Palestinian solution, and you're convinced that all other means of resolving the conflict have been exhausted, then why aren't you over there yourself, strapping a bomb to your own chest?
Clearly, there are people in Palestine who are convinced that the freedom of their compatriots is more important than their own individual lives--and more important than the lives of civilian noncombatants in the enemy state. Since you're posting on Slashdot, I can only assume that you feel your own life is worth more than Palestinian freedom. Or could it be that, for all your rhetoric, you balk at the thought of actually walking into an ice cream parlor, or onto a city bus, and personally killing the women and children of the enemy in a suicidal explosion?
Not that you have to go that far, of course. You could always pick up a high-powered hunting rifle and take up the hobby of sniping at Israeli soldiers... if, that is, you don't find the U.S.-armed Israeli army too intimidating an opponent.
Our justice system allows for the possibility of "temporary insanity"--that someone may perform reprehensible acts out of frustration or despair, that they would not otherwise contemplate. But while we may understand their motivation, and even excuse their behavior, we do not condone it, or approve of it.
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the U.S. and Israeli policies regarding Palestine have been consistently and wilfully unethical and immoral. This seems like a reasonable supposition to me. But even if we suppose this, and that as a result the Palestinians are at their wit's end, despairing, frustrated... even if they are "faced out of all compass", I still do not support the use of suicide attacks against civilians. It's cowardice, and murder.
I hope this burden is never laid on my shoulders, but if it is, I should like to think that I would either fight and die as a soldier against their soldiers, or else live under the tyranny of my conquerors, preserving life as best I can, and striving to be humane where my oppressors are not. And if I fail in courage to choose these things, then may I be cursed forever as a terrorist.
But you still have to account for that particular passage in some sort of rational way, don't you?
I mean, if Jesus said some of his audience would not die before he returned, then either he was lying, or there must be some plausible alternative interpretation (that is at least internally consistent with what is stated elsewhere in the text).
Interesting. But the last time I opened my eyes, the Palestinians were sending children armed with suicide bombs to kill civilians. The more clear-sighted I get, the less I support things like that.
You are, of course, free to interpret my position as an endorsement of the U.S./Israeli policies, but I wouldn't recommend it.
If we were good at (or even capable of) responsible contact/colonization, why the fuck haven't we demonstrated that ability already? It's not like we haven't had thousands of opportunities right here on Earth.
Pop quiz, hotshot: you're gonna send a probe. Based on your remotely observed phenomena, where are you going to send the probe to? The most likely place, right?
All we're seeing here is the scientific community "thinking out loud"--brainstorming, in a sense--about what the most likely places might be, given the limited (but growing!) body of information currently available.
(end of counter-rant)
Cute. But if the Bible contains no errors, than there is no excuse at all for Jesus not returning in the apostle's lifetime.
Therefore, the Bible must contain errors, since the evidence of at least one of them (the failure of Jesus to return during the specified period) is blatantly obvious.
The only other possibility is that there is a distinction between physical death and spiritual death. Other passages in the Bible seem to suggest that this distinction is valid. Thus, the quoted passage might be interpreted to mean that some of those present would not "die" spiritually, though all those present might experience the failure and decay of their physical bodies.
It's also possible that "present" in that context meant not only those physically present, but all those throughout history who were exposed to the scriptures.
I know, I know: this interpretation doesn't work without a considerable amount of "poetic" license. I have no idea if this interpretation is even in keeping with the generally accepted scholarly standards of interpretation. But it does seem obvious that some Biblical passages were meant literally, and others figuratively, and still others appear to have an occult meaning that cannot be understood until the events they describe have already come to pass.
Deciding kind of meaning this particular passage has is, of course, an exercise for each individual reader. As is deciding whether the Bible, in whole or in part, is lying or telling the truth, come to think of it.
Anyway, an amusingly silly parent post.
Depends what the aliens had to say... what if they affirm the truth of one of our religions?
The Raelians might say "I told you so".
The Catholics would no doubt denounce them as the work of the Devil, as you proposed.
I imagine the Atheists would give their own version of the Catholic response: accuse the aliens of manipulating gullible earthlings with obvious lies for their own inscrutable but surely exploitative purposes.
And none of these prejudices would get us any closer to proving the (non)existence of "god", or establishing the trustworthiness of the aliens.
Please. A million years from now, nobody will remember or care what happened to one little planet orbiting one uninteresting star in the backwater of yet another generic spiral galaxy.
So what if we turn this place into a deadly wasteland of death? There are far worse environments by the billions. By the time the history of the human race actually gets properly started, nothing that happened here will matter at all.
Not really. The Matrix, while visually exciting and stylistically "hip", was conceptually ass. Any one of Gibson's stories showcases concepts and characters several orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the Matrix.
The Matrix was a two-dimensional superhero fantasy/messiah metaphor, held together with technobabble and bubblegum.
Gibson's stories are in-depth studies of how technological advancement is intertwined with the evolution of society, and how these two trends might affect real people, of which he provides compelling, well-developed examples.
Neuromancer and The Matrix might seem superficially similar, but that's where the similarity--and The Matrix itself--ends: on the surface.
In Coffee Talk, Soviet Russia is neither Soviet, nor Russian. Discuss.
My wish list includes an Iain M. Banks-style anything, starting with an Elencher GSV named Stock Options Not Salaries.
Well, Windows is a two-dimensional interface masquerading as a three-dimensional UI.
The logical next step is three/four-dimensional interfaces masquerading as four/five-dimensional UIs.
In the future, we'll all be scrambling to upgrade to Microsoft HyperspaceNT SP6 to avoid being haxored by all the superstring-kiddies, or else face the prospect of losing our data forever in the 8th dimension (which which will be accessible via a quantum buffer paradox overflow exploit).
That too.
Don't blame me if your friends are drooling idiots :)
But I thought we were talking about trademark dilution, not the industry-standard Manual of Style.
Weather control will be implemented 50 years after people stop laughing about it?
Why doesn't anybody ever take the long view, anyway? We have the whole universe and all of eternity to play with. This short-sighted obsession with Earth is stupid. All we've got here is an early prototype--a testbed for developing the technologies to survive beyond its gravity well. Weather control, terraforming... these things are only the first stepping stones of our development.
If we survive, in a million years this whole galaxy will be our "homeworld". Who then will care what happened to one little planet orbiting one unininteresting star? So what if we turn this planet into a stinking cesspit of death, in the process of getting our species truly started as an enduring entity in this universe? There are far worse places, uninhabitable worlds by the billions. I say exploit the earth for all it's worth! There's plenty more resources where these came from. And if constantly putting ourselves on the brink of extinction is what drives us to greater heights of technology and expansion, then so be it. The sooner we test weather control and terraforming and all the rest here on Earth, the sooner we'll be able to do a good job of it on Mars--and the sooner we'll have to. And all that won't even be the prologue of our story.
Not only does David Eddings recycle his own ideas shamelessly in every "new" book he writes, but in this case he's also recycled Ursula LeGuin's ideas.
Bad writing is excuseable, if the plotting and character development show signs of originality and insight beneath the cliches and awkwardness.
Of all the writers I've read, Eddings is second only to Robert Jordan in his failure to show signs of either positive quality.
Even Piers Anthony is a better author, for crying out loud!
Thanks! Sometimes I think the best solution really would be for spooky monoliths to come down and say "STFU about copyright extension already, before we decide your species is too stupid to live," right before they detonate Jupiter for great justice, or whatever.
Doubtful. I figure the Internet is just another arena in which the nation-states can do battle for world dominance. They're all hungry for their own virtual dominions, with their own virtual customs offices, export controls, and INS agencies. Far from abolishing the nation-state, the Internet will usher in the cyber-state. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Close, but wrong. "Xerox" and "Kleenex" were diluted because people began to use them to refer to photocopies (mimeographs?) and nose-tissues that were not produced by these companies.
Since the conventinal usage of "Google" seems to refer specifically and exclusively to Google's own services, there's no dilution here.
To "Google" something doesn't mean "to search for it using an arbitrary search engine". It means "to use Google's search engine".
Nobody in their right mind would think of using "Google" to mean "Lycos", or "Alta Vista".
I think the dilution of Xerox and Kleenex came about because the competing products were of similar appearance, quality, function, and availability. Xerox photocopies were conceptually interchangeable with Ricoh's, and Canon's, &c. On the other hand, I don't think anybody's going to confuse Google with Inktomi.
Rather than diluting the brand, the verbing of "Google" indicates increasing mindshare--the more their brand becomes a part of everyday conversation, the better off they are. So long as their product remains distinctly superior to the competition, of course.