Dekstop Linux hasn't taken off because people don't want a powerful OS that does what they tell it to. They want trinkets that keep them entertained. It's the same reason why McDonalds sells billions of hamburgers a year, why Home Ec is the chief focus of The Learning Channel, and why Kurtzmann and Orci keep getting work. People are stupid, end of story.
If you're not actually removing water (e.g. for a city water supply) or blocking enough to form a lake (e.g. a dam), you're not going to have a noticeable impact downstream.
Bullshit. You ever see how a river creates oxbows? Flowing water is a chaotic system, and chaotic systems express sensitive dependence on initial conditions. A small change in a river bed can increase local erosion, which can change the flow characteristics in the local area, which can cause more erosion, amplifying the effects. Over the course of decades, a small obstacle could very well affect the way the river oxbows.
You would have to describe what you are suggesting here more.
During EEG flatline, you can't interview the subject to determine what/if he is experiencing. When you can interview the subject, he has to reconstruct it from memory. Memory is largely confabulation anyway, and when the inputs are so far out of the usual ranges you're not going to get useful data. The experience is as subjectively real as any experience because *all* your experiences are just patterns of neural activity, not because it corresponds to any objective reality.
Okay, what does "your observation" refer to here? You appear to be using it in a generalized fashion
No, I specifically meant your observation that there are no FSM related NDEs, while Jesus presumably makes appearances. I would suggest that NDEs in predominantly christian countries will be interpreted in predominantly christian terms, and NDEs in predominantly buddhist countries will be interpreted in buddhist terms, and so on. I haven't done the research, but it's a testable hypothesis.
But that's not really the point. Your mind is your brain. When your brain malfunctions, you can expect the mind to malfunction. NDEs are really interesting from a perspective of understanding the mind, but that's really all they can tell you about.
You hold in your mind certain premises to be true.
I hold in my mind certain ideas that have been confirmed to the extent that it would be absurd to withhold provisional consent. If that's what you mean by "belief" then I will cop to holding "beliefs".
However, such a definition would mean that no one actually believes in God, because there is no confirmatory evidence.
These experiences are often during EEG flatline, for which any previous "suggestion" is directly inapplicable for explanatory power
But they are related from memory during ordinary waking consciousness. When reconstructing the event as a narrative in order to communicate it, people fall back on the experiences they were taught.
You should probably try applying your analysis to your own psychic claim here, that your observations contain everyone on Earth's observations
I have never made any such claim. If you disagree, please provide a quote. Otherwise, you are being dishonest.
Yeah, the situation, whether you are a citizen of a Western country, and how suspicious you seem to be.
Being a US citizen never stopped Obama from killing someone. Why should it stop him from detaining someone indefinitely? And what comprises being "suspicious"? Is that the same as having brown skin and expressing dissent?
And? What exaxtly does that detail, and why should it be lauded?
The details that occured are probably something that i dont agree with, but the signing up to serve the country, and do what your told by superiors during this deployment are things that, even if you or I dont see it directly, have an effect on our daily lives.
Yes, it has an effect on our daily lives. You assume that it's a positive one.
The people that are out there doing this actually are doing a great thing for the rest of us that are sitting comfortably in our air conditioned cubes
No, they are not. They are risking their lives in a pointless imperialistic endeavor that benefits no one except the masters of industry.
please, with all the heart felt sincerity that you dont believe possible from my first thanks to the soldier, take all of your judgement and cynicism, and shove them deep up your ass while shutting the fuck up! and have a nice day
Please, with all the heart felt sincerity you refer to above take your naive credulous militarism and shove them deep up your ass while shutting the fuck up. And don't have a nice day, military apologists like you have the blood of innocents on your hands.
There's a tendency for people to interpret politics as "D = good, R = bad" or vice versa depending on your political affiliation. It is never that simple.
It's even simpler. D or R = bad. If you don't vote third party, you're throwing your vote away.
Modern American Politicans already endorse the use of force to suppress non-violent political demonstrations. They already use the power they have to harass political dissidents. What makes you think that indefinite detention for political reasons is so far fetched?
If Obama wanted to send me to a Siberian salt mine, what legal obstacles would he face? There are men imprisoned today who will be imprisoned for the rest of their lives without ever receiving due process. If it can happen to them, why can't it happen to me? Is there anything stopping it besides Obama's good will? How long will that last?
Whether Obama wants to exercise his indefinite authority is irrelevant. The fact that he has it indicates that we've moved from the rule of law to the rule of man. That's vastly more dangerous than most people seem to understand.
a quick fact check on whether you'd prefer to live in an area where the main religion is one of the groups I've mentioned versus one where it was, say, strongly pro-Pope Catholics, Islamists or the Bible Belt might provide a clue as to whether they're on the right track or not.
But the though that there was a beginning to the universe would mean that there was a cause or a force for it to happen. This would lead back to the question about the existence of a god.
But then, what caused or forced God to exist? If God can exist without any cause, why can't the universe?
They just don't agree with you over what comprises evidence and how to interpret it.
The scientific standards for evidence have yielded advances in knowledge that have allowed us to make technology that has improved the lives of billions of people.
The religious standards for evidence have yielded innumerable incompatible religions that all claim to be true.
Truthful or delusional, billions of people find the story of the Christian God compelling and true; nobody finds the FSM compelling or true.
They are clearly not comparable propositions.
I'd argue that viewed separately from their particular history, the ideas are very comparable. The fact that one is believed by billions and the other is not is an artifact of that history, not due to any inherent merit of one idea over the other.
If you disagree, then please explain to me what distinguishes the ideas without relying on historical context.
I'd like you to go back to my original 3 buckets in my original mail. Do you think that taxonomy is sufficient, or are there other possibilities I should include?
I think you could have stopped at #1. It's consistent with everything we know, and it's the most parsimonious with assumptions. There's no reason to consider more elaborate explanations when this one suffices.
For instance, do you have any rational basis for expecting the force of gravity to continue to operate 5 seconds after reading this? Certainly you have the belief that it will based on past knowledge, but thats not a guarentee, and even if it were that itself would be based on beliefs about the past.
That's a theory, not a belief. I expect based on past evidence that gravity will continue to operate. I could be wrong, and if you have some evidence that I'm wrong I'd be interested in it. Although the evidence for gravity is so weighty (har har) at this point that it would have to be extraordinary evidence to disprove it.
you cannot PROVE that you exist or that your perception of reality is accurate, nevertheless you believe it (if you are sane).
No, I don't. I am quite sure that my perception of reality is inaccurate in many ways. Otherwise optical illusions would not exist. Believing that your perception is objectively true is a mark of insanity. We are constantly affected by confirmation bias, and other sources of bias. Any honest person should be constantly second guessing themselves.
This is why I'm so active in these threads. I've checked, and double checked what I think about religion, but that's not good enough. I can't see around my own biases. So I need other people to attack my ideas. Maybe one of them will come up with something I haven't thought of yet. Hasn't happened yet, but it's fun trying.
I suggest you do some reading on Occam's Razor as well, since you are using it incorrectly. Occam's Razor neither does nor ever has said anything about truth-status or plausibility, but rather practical preference of the simpler of otherwise-equal models for conceptual economy.
Here, you are absolutely correct.
And no, they aren't equally plausible. If you'd like a link to a peer-reviewed study of NDE experiences quite lacking in FSM-related attributes, or would like to compare relative predictive success regarding future events, or the number of people claiming to be have witnessed or experienced supernatural effects attributable to the FSM, let me know.
You can still apply Occam's Razor. If, instead of supposing there is a supernatural being, you can explain this observation without a supernatural being, Occam's Razor implies that that explanation is more practically useful.
And we can. We know from empirical observation that people are extremely suggestible. e.g. after an alien abduction movie comes out, reports of alien abductions increase. So we'd expect that the apperance of the FSM or Jesus in a near death experience would correlate with the prevalence of those memes in our society.
Since many more people believe in the Christian God than the FSM, we'd expect the Christian God to make many more appearances in NDEs than the FSM does. This is what we observe.
Since we can explain your observation without the use of any gods, your observation cannot be used as evidence that there are any gods or that one is more likely to exist than another.
FSM may very well exist, but he/she/it/them/us hasn't convinced (fooled?) a bunch of people that he/she/it/them/us does.
Fifty million frenchmen can't be wrong, right? Or rather they can. If you think the fact that lots of people believe something has any bearing on whether it's true or not, you're one of those people not actually thinking analytically. People believe lots of things that aren't true for all sorts of reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
I know why I switched back to Windows - I couldn't figure out into what directory I should install new programs.
Linux doesn't tell you what you should do. You tell Linux what it should do.
Dekstop Linux hasn't taken off because people don't want a powerful OS that does what they tell it to. They want trinkets that keep them entertained. It's the same reason why McDonalds sells billions of hamburgers a year, why Home Ec is the chief focus of The Learning Channel, and why Kurtzmann and Orci keep getting work. People are stupid, end of story.
If you're not actually removing water (e.g. for a city water supply) or blocking enough to form a lake (e.g. a dam), you're not going to have a noticeable impact downstream.
Bullshit. You ever see how a river creates oxbows? Flowing water is a chaotic system, and chaotic systems express sensitive dependence on initial conditions. A small change in a river bed can increase local erosion, which can change the flow characteristics in the local area, which can cause more erosion, amplifying the effects. Over the course of decades, a small obstacle could very well affect the way the river oxbows.
Sounds kinda gay.
You know what, you're absolutely right.
You would have to describe what you are suggesting here more.
During EEG flatline, you can't interview the subject to determine what/if he is experiencing. When you can interview the subject, he has to reconstruct it from memory. Memory is largely confabulation anyway, and when the inputs are so far out of the usual ranges you're not going to get useful data. The experience is as subjectively real as any experience because *all* your experiences are just patterns of neural activity, not because it corresponds to any objective reality.
Okay, what does "your observation" refer to here? You appear to be using it in a generalized fashion
No, I specifically meant your observation that there are no FSM related NDEs, while Jesus presumably makes appearances. I would suggest that NDEs in predominantly christian countries will be interpreted in predominantly christian terms, and NDEs in predominantly buddhist countries will be interpreted in buddhist terms, and so on. I haven't done the research, but it's a testable hypothesis.
But that's not really the point. Your mind is your brain. When your brain malfunctions, you can expect the mind to malfunction. NDEs are really interesting from a perspective of understanding the mind, but that's really all they can tell you about.
You hold in your mind certain premises to be true.
I hold in my mind certain ideas that have been confirmed to the extent that it would be absurd to withhold provisional consent. If that's what you mean by "belief" then I will cop to holding "beliefs".
However, such a definition would mean that no one actually believes in God, because there is no confirmatory evidence.
Which means that we democratically elect politicians to act and make laws withing the confines of power delegated to them by a constitution.
Really? We do that?
You want them to make games much more complex--with completely destructible environments, near limitless borders, better AI, more complex NPC's, etc.
But you also want them to be CHEAPER? Okay.
No problem. Just play NetHack.
These experiences are often during EEG flatline, for which any previous "suggestion" is directly inapplicable for explanatory power
But they are related from memory during ordinary waking consciousness. When reconstructing the event as a narrative in order to communicate it, people fall back on the experiences they were taught.
You should probably try applying your analysis to your own psychic claim here, that your observations contain everyone on Earth's observations
I have never made any such claim. If you disagree, please provide a quote. Otherwise, you are being dishonest.
Yeah, the situation, whether you are a citizen of a Western country, and how suspicious you seem to be.
Being a US citizen never stopped Obama from killing someone. Why should it stop him from detaining someone indefinitely?
And what comprises being "suspicious"? Is that the same as having brown skin and expressing dissent?
they served in fucking afghanistan!
And? What exaxtly does that detail, and why should it be lauded?
The details that occured are probably something that i dont agree with, but the signing up to serve the country, and do what your told by superiors during this deployment are things that, even if you or I dont see it directly, have an effect on our daily lives.
Yes, it has an effect on our daily lives. You assume that it's a positive one.
The people that are out there doing this actually are doing a great thing for the rest of us that are sitting comfortably in our air conditioned cubes
No, they are not. They are risking their lives in a pointless imperialistic endeavor that benefits no one except the masters of industry.
please, with all the heart felt sincerity that you dont believe possible from my first thanks to the soldier, take all of your judgement and cynicism, and shove them deep up your ass while shutting the fuck up! and have a nice day
Please, with all the heart felt sincerity you refer to above take your naive credulous militarism and shove them deep up your ass while shutting the fuck up. And don't have a nice day, military apologists like you have the blood of innocents on your hands.
There's a tendency for people to interpret politics as "D = good, R = bad" or vice versa depending on your political affiliation. It is never that simple.
It's even simpler. D or R = bad. If you don't vote third party, you're throwing your vote away.
Modern American Politicans already endorse the use of force to suppress non-violent political demonstrations. They already use the power they have to harass political dissidents. What makes you think that indefinite detention for political reasons is so far fetched?
If Obama wanted to send me to a Siberian salt mine, what legal obstacles would he face? There are men imprisoned today who will be imprisoned for the rest of their lives without ever receiving due process. If it can happen to them, why can't it happen to me? Is there anything stopping it besides Obama's good will? How long will that last?
Whether Obama wants to exercise his indefinite authority is irrelevant. The fact that he has it indicates that we've moved from the rule of law to the rule of man. That's vastly more dangerous than most people seem to understand.
a quick fact check on whether you'd prefer to live in an area where the main religion is one of the groups I've mentioned versus one where it was, say, strongly pro-Pope Catholics, Islamists or the Bible Belt might provide a clue as to whether they're on the right track or not.
None of the above please.
But the though that there was a beginning to the universe would mean that there was a cause or a force for it to happen. This would lead back to the question about the existence of a god.
But then, what caused or forced God to exist? If God can exist without any cause, why can't the universe?
You're not applying enough analytical thinking.
If you require an imaginary friend to make your life worthwhile, then your life is a lot emptier than mine, mcgrew.
They just don't agree with you over what comprises evidence and how to interpret it.
The scientific standards for evidence have yielded advances in knowledge that have allowed us to make technology that has improved the lives of billions of people.
The religious standards for evidence have yielded innumerable incompatible religions that all claim to be true.
Who has the most useful standard for evidence?
Anecdotes aren't data. If you used some analytical thinking, you would realize that.
Truthful or delusional, billions of people find the story of the Christian God compelling and true; nobody finds the FSM compelling or true.
They are clearly not comparable propositions.
I'd argue that viewed separately from their particular history, the ideas are very comparable. The fact that one is believed by billions and the other is not is an artifact of that history, not due to any inherent merit of one idea over the other.
If you disagree, then please explain to me what distinguishes the ideas without relying on historical context.
I'd like you to go back to my original 3 buckets in my original mail. Do you think that taxonomy is sufficient, or are there other possibilities I should include?
I think you could have stopped at #1. It's consistent with everything we know, and it's the most parsimonious with assumptions. There's no reason to consider more elaborate explanations when this one suffices.
For instance, do you have any rational basis for expecting the force of gravity to continue to operate 5 seconds after reading this? Certainly you have the belief that it will based on past knowledge, but thats not a guarentee, and even if it were that itself would be based on beliefs about the past.
That's a theory, not a belief. I expect based on past evidence that gravity will continue to operate. I could be wrong, and if you have some evidence that I'm wrong I'd be interested in it. Although the evidence for gravity is so weighty (har har) at this point that it would have to be extraordinary evidence to disprove it.
you cannot PROVE that you exist or that your perception of reality is accurate, nevertheless you believe it (if you are sane).
No, I don't. I am quite sure that my perception of reality is inaccurate in many ways. Otherwise optical illusions would not exist. Believing that your perception is objectively true is a mark of insanity. We are constantly affected by confirmation bias, and other sources of bias. Any honest person should be constantly second guessing themselves.
This is why I'm so active in these threads. I've checked, and double checked what I think about religion, but that's not good enough. I can't see around my own biases. So I need other people to attack my ideas. Maybe one of them will come up with something I haven't thought of yet. Hasn't happened yet, but it's fun trying.
e.g. Rick Santorum.
I suggest you do some reading on Occam's Razor as well, since you are using it incorrectly. Occam's Razor neither does nor ever has said anything about truth-status or plausibility, but rather practical preference of the simpler of otherwise-equal models for conceptual economy.
Here, you are absolutely correct.
And no, they aren't equally plausible. If you'd like a link to a peer-reviewed study of NDE experiences quite lacking in FSM-related attributes, or would like to compare relative predictive success regarding future events, or the number of people claiming to be have witnessed or experienced supernatural effects attributable to the FSM, let me know.
You can still apply Occam's Razor. If, instead of supposing there is a supernatural being, you can explain this observation without a supernatural being, Occam's Razor implies that that explanation is more practically useful.
And we can. We know from empirical observation that people are extremely suggestible. e.g. after an alien abduction movie comes out, reports of alien abductions increase. So we'd expect that the apperance of the FSM or Jesus in a near death experience would correlate with the prevalence of those memes in our society.
Since many more people believe in the Christian God than the FSM, we'd expect the Christian God to make many more appearances in NDEs than the FSM does. This is what we observe.
Since we can explain your observation without the use of any gods, your observation cannot be used as evidence that there are any gods or that one is more likely to exist than another.
FSM may very well exist, but he/she/it/them/us hasn't convinced (fooled?) a bunch of people that he/she/it/them/us does.
Fifty million frenchmen can't be wrong, right? Or rather they can. If you think the fact that lots of people believe something has any bearing on whether it's true or not, you're one of those people not actually thinking analytically. People believe lots of things that aren't true for all sorts of reasons.