Well, to take your flying teapot example, if the premise that if the flying teapot exists and we are looking at it then we will detect it is true, then failure to detect it after exhaustively searching the solar system would be sufficient to completely disprove the existence of the teacup in the solar system. The only way the teacup could actually exist within the solar system under such circumstances is if it were, in fact, completely undetectable - which makes the suggestion of its existence quite meaningless.
Actually, you can... by contradiction. If the original premise that is disproven by contradiction can be shown to be necessary and sufficient for some other phenomenon that you are hoping to prove (such as the existence of the Higg's, for example), then you will have disproven the existence of that phenomenon as well.
The GPL does not prohibit anyone's ability to use the work either... my point is that limiting a person's ability to distribute a work they've developed that utilizes or is derived from another package that they did not develop is not unique to the GPL.
It's worth noting that requiring royalties on binary redistribution also blocks a person's ability to distribute a derived work... so this is not a problem unique to the GPL. Regardless of the licensing, open or closed source, a person needs permission to distribute copies of somebody else's copyrighted work, even if they are wanting to bundle their own copyrighted content with it.
Applying the GPL to a work that depends on a non-GPL'd work does not make the non-GPL'd work subject to the GPL. The decision to GPL software is exclusively the prerogative of the person who has the copyright on the software. A person cannot choose to make a derived work of GPL'd work non-GPL because as a derived work, it is subject to the constraints that any derived work under perfectly ordinary copyright law would have to follow anyways. and the creator of any derived work must always obtain permission. The GPL simply happens to state, up front, what the prerequisites are for obtaining that permission (release the source code), and if one abides by its policies, then they need no further consent or approval by the copyright holder. There may be other ways of obtaining such permission too, and those are up to each individual copyright holder.
Technically, downloading something copyrighted isn't copyright infringement either (assuming that private use copying is exempt from infringement, which is often the case), but it's a much harder case to make if (or when) one happens to already realize that what they are copying from is already infringing before they even copied it (because the copy at the other end being made publicly available would void any otherwise claimed notion of private use, and so if the person who is sharing did not otherwise have permission to make that copy for distribution, then they are infringing on the copyright, and by extension, the copy of the work they are sharing is infringing).
They don't... I don't know if you realized this, but Christmas is *incredibly* commercial today. if Christians are trying to monopolize Christmas as an exclusively religious holiday, that effort is failing miserably. Of course, this fact does not diminish the religious significance behind the origins of their celebration on that day.
WWII didn't actually end on November 11th either, you know... but the date is still utilized to remember people who died in that war just at least as much as those who died in WWI.
That's the result of a mistake made in the 6th century, who did not accurately assess the year that Herod died with respect to when Jesus would had to have been born. It has been widely known for quite some time that Jesus was born sometime between 7 and 4BCE, and that the CE calendar is off by a few years with respect to that occurence. The conjunction incident I spoke of before happened in 7BCE.
No, as you stated, Christians assigned their birthday celebration near the solstice so they could co-opt the Roman Saturnalia festivities...
I stated that was one theory. It is not the only one. King Herod was allegedly visited by the wise men at approximately this time of year as well, and one of the appearances of a number of planetary conjunctions that were alleged to have signified to these astrologers that a king had been born would have occurred at around that time.
There are easily half a dozen or more other theories... some of religious significance, some not.
In spite of this, even if the actual date selected has never had anything to do with religion, the celebration itself had plenty to do with religious beliefs. If a person is born in December, for instance, but celebrates their birthday in June to separate the celebration of their birthday from Christmas, their annual party is *STILL* just as much a celebration of their birthday as it would be if it had been on the right day of the year.
Your first and last sentences are mutually contradictory. How could Christmas have turned from a religious myth into a shopping holiday, as you assert in your last sentence, if it never had anything to do with religion in the first place, which is what you asserted in your first?
That the date was chosen independently of anything associated with the event that it celebrates does not diminish that the celebration itself has plenty to do with religion, even if the exact day of the year does not.
Christmas has been a religious holiday since the 4th century. The precise date of the event it celebrates was (and is) unknown, and several theories about why December 25th was selected exist, including, but not limited to, attempting to offset the Roman solstice celebrations that were occurring at around the same time of year. Even so, however, Christmas is definitely a religious holiday, even if the date itself does not have any historical significance tied to the event it celebrates, and its celebration as a religious festival far predates any of what you've described above.
Re:EVERYONE IS SPECIAL! ALL LIFE IS MAGIC!!!!111
on
Is the Earth Special?
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· Score: 1
And we have absolutely zero evidence that intelligent life exists elsewhere. All we have is a mathematical extrapolation which suggests it, and given the variables that we don't really have a clue about yet, is only really meaningful to people who can't bear the thought that we just might actually be alone.
Which is actually not entirely dissimilar to what atheists accuse Christians of doing, actually.
Just because an event occurs that is unlikely does not denote any reason to attach a conclusion to the premise of its occurence.
For example, me winning a contest is a rare occurrence. That it has happened to me in the past doesn't mean that "god willed it" or any such thing... it just means it happened... and I enjoyed the results of it.
The earth being unique, supposing that it were for a minute, would not mean anything either... it would just mean that the earth happened, and we might consider ourselves fortunate for that, and at most it might give us further reason to seriously treasure the time that we are alive, and maybe even give us a greater appreciation for life in general, but it wouldn't mean that there must a god.
Discovering an actual extraterrestrial civilization, however... might be sufficient evidence to the contrary... at least with respect to certain religious views.
Re:It's special the same way every baby is a mirac
on
Is the Earth Special?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"In a sufficiently large (possibly infinite) universe, it really just doesn't matter how uncommon any (non-zero) probability event appears - It will still happen all over the place, over and over and over and over again."
This is based on mathematical extrapolation, and while provably true for an average event. The proof cannot be verified all events without utilizing parallel universes.
But uniqueness would not in *ANY* way constitute any sort of proof of the existence of a god or verifying a creationists point of view, even though some might think that it would.
Suppose for a moment that it were actually possible to discover that we were isolated in the cosmos... that we were "it", and that intelligent life was otherwise non-existent anywhere else. While that might seem to mean something to people, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't mean anything at all... any more than the fact that a lot of people think that the northern lights are pretty means something particularly profound and meaningful about the meaning of life or whatnot. The cosmos can exist entirely without any purpose or meaning to it at all, and our human nature to ask "why" would only be destined to remain perpetually unanswered. This is equally true whether we are unique or not.
Being unique in the cosmos is not, by any stretch, irrefutable indication that there is a creator. Even assuming for a moment that it were verifiably true, at best, some might find it to be a highly compelling argument, and possibly even be convinced by it, but it would not constitute anything resembling a real proof.
The conclusion that there would have to be a god if we were unique, I think, is based on human nature to question our environment... to ask "why?" And any argument that there must be a god as a consequence of the premise of being unique is not founded on logic, but deponds on the emotions and state of mind of the person who hears such an argument.
Re:EVERYONE IS SPECIAL! ALL LIFE IS MAGIC!!!!111
on
Is the Earth Special?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The better answer is to say that we don't know... because the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligence that is typically used is only extrapolated mathematically from the information that we have. But because of the size of the data set that we have relative to the actual size of the cosmos, the probability for error in that regard is, by my understanding, roughly equivalent to anticipating the results of a random coin toss.
Simply put... we just don't know. And that's a *FAR* more truthful answer than "no"... or "yes", for that matter.
As things currently sit, based on our understanding of the universe, we might as well be the only intelligent beings in the whole cosmos, and so the answer might as well be no, even if such an answer turns out to be false. But if that actually were the case, and we were unique, then nothing would have any real reason to change. For some, such uniqueness might even be a compelling reason to believe in a god, but it is hardly irrefutable proof of even that.
The way things currently sit, based on all the evidence that we have accumulated so far, and without any mathematical extrapolation, Earth does, indeed, appear to be special... We have not found any other worlds like it to date. And while our inability to do so might only be because of the limitations on extrasolar planet detection technology, that limitation is hardly remotely conclusive proof that such undetected earth-like planets actually do exist.
The mere existence of alien life doesn't throw a wrench into any biblical interpretations the way that evolution does
Actually, for fundamentalist Christians it does... at least if the alien life is intelligent, and shows signs of self-awareness and the ability to reason. The only reason it would not is if the Christian had not ever analyzed all of the implications of their beliefs (which does certainly happen, but not always).
Consider that if God created man and woman in his own image, giving them a soul, and placed them in charge of all creation. If intelligent life were created elsewhere, then that would mean that mankind was not actually given full charge over creation, which is the whole impetus for God to have created man in the first place, but was intended to share the responsibility with others.
Things get really dicey in that regard when you look at issues related to the fall of man.
The fall of man from God's grace would have given God sufficient cause to simply destroy mankind outright, as he was alleged to very nearly have done in Noah's time, if there were other beings who had not ever fallen. The only reasonable justification for allowing mankind to continue is if we were all that there was.
Jesus was a descendant of the first man and woman, and could therefore pay a penalty on mankind's behalf for their transgression. Owing to who he was and that he was born a man, he would not have been able to die for other races as well... the death he experienced was for mankind's benefit alone. If he were to have to die multiple times on multiple worlds, then the notion of his death being an absolute atonement does not carry the same weight or meaning.
There are other interpretations, some a bit far-fetched, but some a bit more mainstream, such as what I've mentioned, that would ultimately have issues with the existence of intelligent alien life, but there's one of them.
If intelligent life were discovered, it would shake up certain popular world religions in a way unlike any event recorded in human history.
Of course... but people seem to want to bitch about how silent electric cars are... My point is that there are other things that are just as silent that we don't feel any compunction to add noisemakers to, why should we do so for cars, particularly when you actually *CAN* hear one anyways?
Layers have been a standard part of the pdf spec for years, but the only pdf reader that supports them properly, to the best of my knowledge, is Acrobat.
Slashdot Mirror
So talking to a passenger in the car that is legally blind is just as dangerous as using a hands-free cell phone? If not, why not?
They get their driving privileges back because, in the USA, driving is considered essential.
And if they didn't get their driving privileges back, there'd just be a lot more people driving without a valid driver's license.
Driving without seatbelts *IS* illegal, as far as I know.
Not sure how it happened... I started saying the right one, and somehow ended up saying another.
Well, to take your flying teapot example, if the premise that if the flying teapot exists and we are looking at it then we will detect it is true, then failure to detect it after exhaustively searching the solar system would be sufficient to completely disprove the existence of the teacup in the solar system. The only way the teacup could actually exist within the solar system under such circumstances is if it were, in fact, completely undetectable - which makes the suggestion of its existence quite meaningless.
Actually, you can... by contradiction. If the original premise that is disproven by contradiction can be shown to be necessary and sufficient for some other phenomenon that you are hoping to prove (such as the existence of the Higg's, for example), then you will have disproven the existence of that phenomenon as well.
The GPL does not prohibit anyone's ability to use the work either... my point is that limiting a person's ability to distribute a work they've developed that utilizes or is derived from another package that they did not develop is not unique to the GPL.
Sorry... I thought that a comparison was being made to the Apple store, and I was specifically thinking of mobile devices.
By my understanding, only to jailbroken devices.
There are a handful of compelling reasons to not jailbreak, and even more to not expect all of your users to be comfortable with it.
It's worth noting that requiring royalties on binary redistribution also blocks a person's ability to distribute a derived work... so this is not a problem unique to the GPL. Regardless of the licensing, open or closed source, a person needs permission to distribute copies of somebody else's copyrighted work, even if they are wanting to bundle their own copyrighted content with it.
Applying the GPL to a work that depends on a non-GPL'd work does not make the non-GPL'd work subject to the GPL. The decision to GPL software is exclusively the prerogative of the person who has the copyright on the software. A person cannot choose to make a derived work of GPL'd work non-GPL because as a derived work, it is subject to the constraints that any derived work under perfectly ordinary copyright law would have to follow anyways. and the creator of any derived work must always obtain permission. The GPL simply happens to state, up front, what the prerequisites are for obtaining that permission (release the source code), and if one abides by its policies, then they need no further consent or approval by the copyright holder. There may be other ways of obtaining such permission too, and those are up to each individual copyright holder.
Technically, downloading something copyrighted isn't copyright infringement either (assuming that private use copying is exempt from infringement, which is often the case), but it's a much harder case to make if (or when) one happens to already realize that what they are copying from is already infringing before they even copied it (because the copy at the other end being made publicly available would void any otherwise claimed notion of private use, and so if the person who is sharing did not otherwise have permission to make that copy for distribution, then they are infringing on the copyright, and by extension, the copy of the work they are sharing is infringing).
They don't... I don't know if you realized this, but Christmas is *incredibly* commercial today. if Christians are trying to monopolize Christmas as an exclusively religious holiday, that effort is failing miserably. Of course, this fact does not diminish the religious significance behind the origins of their celebration on that day.
WWII didn't actually end on November 11th either, you know... but the date is still utilized to remember people who died in that war just at least as much as those who died in WWI.
That's the result of a mistake made in the 6th century, who did not accurately assess the year that Herod died with respect to when Jesus would had to have been born. It has been widely known for quite some time that Jesus was born sometime between 7 and 4BCE, and that the CE calendar is off by a few years with respect to that occurence. The conjunction incident I spoke of before happened in 7BCE.
I stated that was one theory. It is not the only one. King Herod was allegedly visited by the wise men at approximately this time of year as well, and one of the appearances of a number of planetary conjunctions that were alleged to have signified to these astrologers that a king had been born would have occurred at around that time.
There are easily half a dozen or more other theories... some of religious significance, some not.
In spite of this, even if the actual date selected has never had anything to do with religion, the celebration itself had plenty to do with religious beliefs. If a person is born in December, for instance, but celebrates their birthday in June to separate the celebration of their birthday from Christmas, their annual party is *STILL* just as much a celebration of their birthday as it would be if it had been on the right day of the year.
That the date was chosen independently of anything associated with the event that it celebrates does not diminish that the celebration itself has plenty to do with religion, even if the exact day of the year does not.
Christmas has been a religious holiday since the 4th century. The precise date of the event it celebrates was (and is) unknown, and several theories about why December 25th was selected exist, including, but not limited to, attempting to offset the Roman solstice celebrations that were occurring at around the same time of year. Even so, however, Christmas is definitely a religious holiday, even if the date itself does not have any historical significance tied to the event it celebrates, and its celebration as a religious festival far predates any of what you've described above.
And we have absolutely zero evidence that intelligent life exists elsewhere. All we have is a mathematical extrapolation which suggests it, and given the variables that we don't really have a clue about yet, is only really meaningful to people who can't bear the thought that we just might actually be alone.
Which is actually not entirely dissimilar to what atheists accuse Christians of doing, actually.
Just because an event occurs that is unlikely does not denote any reason to attach a conclusion to the premise of its occurence.
For example, me winning a contest is a rare occurrence. That it has happened to me in the past doesn't mean that "god willed it" or any such thing... it just means it happened... and I enjoyed the results of it.
The earth being unique, supposing that it were for a minute, would not mean anything either... it would just mean that the earth happened, and we might consider ourselves fortunate for that, and at most it might give us further reason to seriously treasure the time that we are alive, and maybe even give us a greater appreciation for life in general, but it wouldn't mean that there must a god.
Discovering an actual extraterrestrial civilization, however... might be sufficient evidence to the contrary... at least with respect to certain religious views.
"In a sufficiently large (possibly infinite) universe, it really just doesn't matter how uncommon any (non-zero) probability event appears - It will still happen all over the place, over and over and over and over again."
This is based on mathematical extrapolation, and while provably true for an average event. The proof cannot be verified all events without utilizing parallel universes.
But uniqueness would not in *ANY* way constitute any sort of proof of the existence of a god or verifying a creationists point of view, even though some might think that it would.
Suppose for a moment that it were actually possible to discover that we were isolated in the cosmos... that we were "it", and that intelligent life was otherwise non-existent anywhere else. While that might seem to mean something to people, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't mean anything at all... any more than the fact that a lot of people think that the northern lights are pretty means something particularly profound and meaningful about the meaning of life or whatnot. The cosmos can exist entirely without any purpose or meaning to it at all, and our human nature to ask "why" would only be destined to remain perpetually unanswered. This is equally true whether we are unique or not.
Being unique in the cosmos is not, by any stretch, irrefutable indication that there is a creator. Even assuming for a moment that it were verifiably true, at best, some might find it to be a highly compelling argument, and possibly even be convinced by it, but it would not constitute anything resembling a real proof.
The conclusion that there would have to be a god if we were unique, I think, is based on human nature to question our environment... to ask "why?" And any argument that there must be a god as a consequence of the premise of being unique is not founded on logic, but deponds on the emotions and state of mind of the person who hears such an argument.
The better answer is to say that we don't know... because the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligence that is typically used is only extrapolated mathematically from the information that we have. But because of the size of the data set that we have relative to the actual size of the cosmos, the probability for error in that regard is, by my understanding, roughly equivalent to anticipating the results of a random coin toss.
Simply put... we just don't know. And that's a *FAR* more truthful answer than "no"... or "yes", for that matter.
As things currently sit, based on our understanding of the universe, we might as well be the only intelligent beings in the whole cosmos, and so the answer might as well be no, even if such an answer turns out to be false. But if that actually were the case, and we were unique, then nothing would have any real reason to change. For some, such uniqueness might even be a compelling reason to believe in a god, but it is hardly irrefutable proof of even that.
The way things currently sit, based on all the evidence that we have accumulated so far, and without any mathematical extrapolation, Earth does, indeed, appear to be special... We have not found any other worlds like it to date. And while our inability to do so might only be because of the limitations on extrasolar planet detection technology, that limitation is hardly remotely conclusive proof that such undetected earth-like planets actually do exist.
Actually, for fundamentalist Christians it does... at least if the alien life is intelligent, and shows signs of self-awareness and the ability to reason. The only reason it would not is if the Christian had not ever analyzed all of the implications of their beliefs (which does certainly happen, but not always).
Consider that if God created man and woman in his own image, giving them a soul, and placed them in charge of all creation. If intelligent life were created elsewhere, then that would mean that mankind was not actually given full charge over creation, which is the whole impetus for God to have created man in the first place, but was intended to share the responsibility with others.
Things get really dicey in that regard when you look at issues related to the fall of man.
The fall of man from God's grace would have given God sufficient cause to simply destroy mankind outright, as he was alleged to very nearly have done in Noah's time, if there were other beings who had not ever fallen. The only reasonable justification for allowing mankind to continue is if we were all that there was.
Jesus was a descendant of the first man and woman, and could therefore pay a penalty on mankind's behalf for their transgression. Owing to who he was and that he was born a man, he would not have been able to die for other races as well... the death he experienced was for mankind's benefit alone. If he were to have to die multiple times on multiple worlds, then the notion of his death being an absolute atonement does not carry the same weight or meaning.
There are other interpretations, some a bit far-fetched, but some a bit more mainstream, such as what I've mentioned, that would ultimately have issues with the existence of intelligent alien life, but there's one of them.
If intelligent life were discovered, it would shake up certain popular world religions in a way unlike any event recorded in human history.
Of course... but people seem to want to bitch about how silent electric cars are... My point is that there are other things that are just as silent that we don't feel any compunction to add noisemakers to, why should we do so for cars, particularly when you actually *CAN* hear one anyways?
Layers have been a standard part of the pdf spec for years, but the only pdf reader that supports them properly, to the best of my knowledge, is Acrobat.