Correct, Science != Public Policy.... Science == Private Policy.
Step 1. Parents must get much more involved with their children and their education. Step 2. Parents must stop relying on anybody else to educate their children and take control of their education. (See also step 1). Step 3. Parents must emphasize all areas of education, including math and science, showing interest, themselves. (See step 1). Step 4. Parents need to appropriately remove distractions to education, such as TV, Internet, Games, Disruptive Friendships, and teach a work ethic. (See step 1, once again). Step 5. Parents may want to look at alternatives to where/how their kids get educated, such as private schooling, charter schooling, homeschooling, private tutoring, or supplemental education. (Again, see step 1). Step 6. Parents should learn the subjects with their children (if they don't know the subject) and tutor them, if possible. (Really, see step 1). Step 7. Parents should be sure their children have unconditional love by the parents. (Most important and saved for last).
If one family does this, their children excel. If millions do, a country excels.
The status quo of relying on the public school system to do all the education, discipline, and raising of children does not and never will work. We keep throwing more dollars at the problem and it keeps getting worse (at a rate faster than inflation).
Take a look at John Taylor Gatto's books, such as Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling and The Underground History of American Education or here. While this is not a 100% solution, it should spur parents to do the steps, above.
> That's just in the rack consumption. I would imagine these probably run cooler, too, which will help with HVAC costs.
I understand that for every "power watt," it takes 1-2 additional "cooling watts" additional power, in a server room.
So, if a rack takes 10KW, expect an additional 10-20KW of electricity to cool the server room.
I'd, then, estimate 30KW total for a 10KW rack, just to be safe.
So, an 18% savings on 10KW (1.8KW saved), is really saving you on the order of 3.6KW to 5.4KW, when you include cooling!
At $0.10/KWH, you save a bunch of money in electricity.... Just an 18% savings on 10KW (20KW to 30KW total with cooling), means a total savings of $259.20 to $388.80 a month!
I saw this quote: "the researchers studied brain images of 94 people in their 70s who had participated in an earlier study looking at cardiovascular health and cognition."
At that point, I said, "Stop. What a useless study." Look at the sample size again... 94?!?!? That has a roughly 10% margin of error built in to the sample size (at a 95% confidence interval). At least they included the sample size!...and then there's the operative word "study...." That, word (in the singular, no less), gives me all sorts of warm fuzzies.
So, is that 8% (+/- 10%) less brain mass for obese elderly people or a range from 7.2% to 8.8% for obese elderly people, based on this sample and a 95% confidence interval? I'm thinking the former.
In statistics class, this was called by the name "statistical deception." Just because a single study of 94 people says so, don't believe it. It has a roughly 50% chance of being right -- or wrong (at a 100% confidence interval) but so do psychics, horoscopes, and fortune cookies.
Junk science prevails in the popular press. Anything sensational gets front-page headlines -- it gets grant money and sells news. It doesn't matter that the next study contradicts it, the next supports it, the next contradicts that one, and on and on the tennis match goes....
Once this has been peer reviewed numerous times with tens of thousands of people per study, call me. I'll be getting a snack, in the mean time.
Then there's the powers of ten cost of fixing problems...
Design = $1
Development = $10
Debugging = $100
Deployment = $1000
- Frederick P. Brooks
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software
Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
Think of it this way....
So, anything you catch in design costs you a "buck" for your effort. If you catch it during development, it *still* only costs you "10 bucks."
If you wait until debugging ("100 bucks") or deployment ("1000 bucks"), you're hosed.
You can be more or less effective during a code review, but as long as it catches stuff, it's still far easier, cheaper, faster, better to catch it there, than later... Yes, it may be 10x harder to catch during a code review than a design review. Well, you're just proving the Mythical Man Month to be true. Your boss knows it, too, and he's trying to stop the vicious debug -> deploy problem.
Do you want screaming customers at 4:00a, calling you about some obscure error in a program you wrote, when it might be avoidable? Does your boss want to earn blame for a team of "bad coders?"
I'd say that it's good that your boss wants this bit of extra discipline -- for your sake, his, the customers', and the company's....
Sure it was the prevailing opinion of the day. Look at Darwin's own racist views: here and here, too
By the way, if you look at Wikipedia on Darwin, whomever wrote this takes a biased, opposing view. However, it is well known (and well documented) that Darwin was a racist who believed that these were lower species of humans that must be exterminated! Today's spin doctors, however, want this issue of Darwin's racism to go away.
How many know today that Darwin's original title to Origin of the Species was On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life?You can read it, here.
His views were even clearer in The Descent of Man.
On the other hand, he didn't believe in slavery, which is good.
It has also been said that Adolf Hitler used Social Darwinism to exterminate millions of people in WWII. While that's not Darwin's fault, Hitler was being consistent to Darwin's viewpoints.
So, it sounds like (pardon the pun) we have just departed the Golden Age of sound quality.
I was looking forward to high-quality 192KHz, 24-bit surround-sound audio becoming the norm -- compressed or not.
However, if the commercial music guys read reports like this, they'll degrade the sound either for cost or for effect. That's bad.:-(
It's also supposed to be bad for your ears (as are the ear buds most people use).
Most of the time, I can tell the difference right away for 128Kbit (or less) compressed audio.
When I was in high school/college, uncompressed 44.1KHz, 16-bit stereo (CD quality) was the norm and sounded nice, whether recorded as AAD, DAD, or DDD. (People debated the merits of each).
Today, here's your $1.00 MP3, and with better/faster/cheaper technology, we're getting worse audio and paying more!
1:// Code Submission by 2:// Our first "open source" code contribution to this thing called "an Apache project" 3:// 4:// 5:// Copyright (c) 2008-2009 by 6:// 7:// 8:// Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. 9:// Use at your own risk. 10:// Read the EULA. You have been warned!!! 11:// All Rights Reserved 12: System.out.writeln("All your base are belong to us.\n"); 13: System.out.writeln("Have a nice day.");
Where do you even get a small geothermal generator (1 KW in your example)?
So far, I find nothing on Google about said machines, except whitepapers for experimental models.
Are there companies that specialize in this, and if so, what kind of costs are involved, provided you have the land, zoning, geothermal conditions, etc.?
...and you didn't answer the objection at all, but I see that you love ad hominem attack...
And you haven't begun to scientifically prove that experience is an illusion of a purely biological process, which you cannot do. This research, if you are humble enough to admit it, is in its infancy. It's not yet to the place where you can make conclusions that are as concrete as you do.
No, I am not arguing against the brain's involvement. I have categorically stated that there is definitely a very important physical/biological piece to the puzzle.
The brain/body are processors and are very actively involved with the mind/soul/whatever. I never stated otherwise. But there is more. Philosophically, it's the difference between monism (your view) and dualism (my view).
The experience you see, feel, etc., is experienced. It's known as awareness. That isn't 100% biological, although biology is a very important part.
You are actually *aware* of your surroundings. No matter how the physical process is involved, there is an *aware* part of you -- the mind/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.
A computer program is not aware. A plant is not aware. A machine is not aware. You are aware, however. It's something so simple, so basic, but completely unexplainable.
You are not merely an intelligent but mindless automaton. You have intelligence plus an aware mind.
Why sit there and not contemplate the experience you are having? The thoughts, sights, smells, etc., that you have register somewhere beyond the brain into the conscious realm.
The brain is physical (neuons, synapses, etc.) Something else actually experiences what the brain and body processes. That experience is the mind/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.
An MRI cannot see this, even as it sees neurons ready to fire and firing. It merely sees the processing of the brain (biochemical reactions). This part is admittedly important but not everything done in the mind.
Scientists, philosophers, and theologians have all struggled to figure out what the mind/soul/whatever is. Open-minded scientists in this realm frequently admit that the mind and its awareness are a mystery that cannot be probed.
A cursory glance at articles like this one from Wikipedia shows that even scientists don't agree on this most complex topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind.
If they cannot agree, then why are you so quick to dismiss anything that disturbs your Atheist world view? (If there is a part of the brain/mind that cannot be explained by purely physical means, it is dismissed, since it calls into question your unproven belief in Naturalism, since it suggests the possibility of the supernatural).
At this point, your assertion is unprovable. However, the idea that the mind is merely an illusion is ludicrous and is empirically invalid.
So, if there is some part of the mind that is not purely physical, Atheism truly is in crisis.
Have you considered that consciousness is an illusion of a human brain that has become powerful enough to reflect on its own existence? That's why you won't find it in the body or the brain, anymore that you'll find a tummy ache if you look inside your stomach.
First, no, I have never considered that my consciousness is an illusion of a human brain.... I can empirically rule that out. The fact that I can actually feel (senses and emotions) and see and think and smell and taste and that I can observe, test, and repeat means that I can scientifically determine that I have a real consciousness, not merely some illusion. "Cogito ergo sum" -- I think, therefore I am. This is no mere illusion. A one year old can figure that out.
Second, reflection on your own existence is not the only test of sentience, but a very important one. Actually perceiving your world and truly experiencing thoughts, feelings, and senses (as pointed out, above) is yet another.
Take 15 minutes a day for a week and just think about/feel/truly experience your 5 senses, plus emotions. Actually take time to experience them (good or bad, different or indifferent). Reflect on what the experiences are actually like, how did they impact you, how do they make you emotionally feel, what is pain or pleasure really like, how do love and hate feel (physically/emotionally), how does hunger and contentedness feel physically, etc. Eat something really sweet, followed by something really sour. Watch a comedy you like, then poke yourself with a pin. Grab an ice cube for as long as you can. Skip a meal or two, and afterward, eat your favorite meal and savor it. Knock yourself out (don't take that literally).
The fact that you even suggest that it's an illusion makes me wonder if you get out much and experience things beyond your cube walls. Unless you have sensory issues and a severe lack of serotonin, you will have to see that consciousness (experience and reflection) is no mere illusion of emergence.
Extra credit: rinse, repeat, find a way to scientifically capture your data and log it.
You also gotta admit something -- if the experiences of the mind are an illusion of emergence, you're still experiencing thoughts/feelings/senses (again, take the empirical test, above). You are not just a complex system of neurons and reflexes, which wouldn't experience these things. It's almost like the difference between a disembodied frog leg + electricity = movement and a live frog with a moving leg.
Third, your tummy ache analogy is flawed: the tummy ache requires biology (a stomach); it requires consciousness to be perceived (circular argument imminent); it is generally caused by something physical and identifiable; and you are comparing a sensation to something physical caused by a physical ailment to prove an analogy about consciousness which might or might not be purely physical (non sequitur reasoning).
So, I know what your analogy was trying to do and the point being made (emergence), but it's severely flawed and does not make the point in any rational way.
You are implying that consciousness is purely physical (neurons, synapses, mapping, etc.) and emergent.
The problem is that science cannot explain consciousness purely in a physical way.
I posit that consciousness is physical/brain plus something else (mind/soul) and that science will not be able to ever empirically uncover what consciousness really is. There is a blending of the physical and metaphysical happening here that science cannot empirically uncover, no matter the effort. The physical side may be mapped in intricate detail (as it has) but there can be little progress beyond this "final frontier," since it cannot be observed and tested.
That I/you/they have a real consciousness (not an illusion) is not debatable and is 100% empirically verified. How we have a consciousness and how it exists is.
This is why this particular scientific endeavor is in a crisis. Also, if consciousness is "something more" than what is merely physical, then Atheism is also in a crisis. No wonder all the knee-jerk emotionalism from this camp.
OK, there *are* 2 major places (and probably a few minor places) where I goofed, in my rant -
1.) Threaded tabs (would be a FF "code guts" issue, but still somewhere Google could have helped FF out.)
2.) "Everything could have been an add-on, written in JavaScript". Again, many things aren't "easy as an add-on."
I still contend that contributing to FF, instead of starting over, would have been a good move. This is even to the possibility of forking FF or Gecko to do it.
...oh, and by contributing to the open source Firefox browser, Google could advance Firefox's market share against two of Google's Biggest Information Competitors(r) -- Microsoft(tm) and Apple(tm).
If they had instead advanced Firefox and captured the hearts of Adoring Firefox Fans, Inc., with their Awesome Addons of Goodness(r) -- did I mention that they would be available exclusively on Firefox -- they'd have simultaneously sucker-punched doppelgangers Microsoft(tm) and Apple(tm), as well as boosting open source against this Axis of Information Evil(r).
Did I also mention that Firefox stands at roughly 20% of market share (and growing) -- according to blogs, spin doctors, and uncle Lloyd's anecdotes(c)?
What if Operation Firefox Revamp(r) had boosted its numbers by even 5% of total market share? Do you think that software developers, Pointy-Haired Bosses, and CIO Magazine(c) would take it more seriously? Hmmm?:-)
What about advancing that thingy -- you know, that vaporware product? Duke Nukem something(r)? No, wait... Oh, yeah, a Google Operating System, perhaps based on Linux?
OK, you're right -- this screed is getting lame. I'm just saying...
This just in... Google should have contributed to Firefox, instead of reinventing the wheel. Following a wave of hype, market share is now declining... News at 11, 10 Central.
...cue commercial...
Speaking of FreeBSD/Linux/Solaris/AIX/BeOS/whatever OS you can name, chances are there is a Firefox to suit you.
Unlike any other browser in the history of the planet, there are also approximately 1.2 gazillion plugins for Firefox. The vast majority are cross platform, due to Firefox's Gecko/XUL/Chrome (note the name).
Firefox has momentum. I.e., it's growing on IE (pardon the pun) as well as Safari/Opera. (Was that an estimated 300 million FF users, out of 1.5 billion on the Internet?)
In addition to this, the future Firefox 3.1 is supposed to have a really, really fast JavaScript engine that rival's JS in Google's Chrome browser.
But wait, there's more. Wasn't it Google Gears that was supposed to create disconnected (on- or off-line) desktop apps on Firefox. Why throw in the towel?
There's even more! Google could have wrapped this all up neatly in a "plugin framework," and written it with less effort, and made themselves a defacto-must-have-it part of Firefox, and have impacted more users in less time.
People could have even written themes and other plugins that bolt on to their "plugin framework," the same way Firebug has its own add-ons (like YSlow).
So, why, why, why did they move away from Firefox and reinvent the wheel, instead? I saw no features that couldn't have been done as a Firefox Add-On.
...back to your regularly scheduled program...
Maybe I'm wrong, here, so feel free to flame away and moderate me out of my miserable existence!
Weather here (in Kansas) is fine, and we do have a lot of former astronauts and astronomers from Kansas.
We also have a must-see, while you're on the topic -- the Cosmosphere! It's got a *lot* more space artifacts than the Air and Space Museum.... Too bad it's in Hutchinson, KS, though: http://www.cosmo.org/
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Correct, Science != Public Policy.... Science == Private Policy.
Step 1. Parents must get much more involved with their children and their education.
Step 2. Parents must stop relying on anybody else to educate their children and take control of their education. (See also step 1).
Step 3. Parents must emphasize all areas of education, including math and science, showing interest, themselves. (See step 1).
Step 4. Parents need to appropriately remove distractions to education, such as TV, Internet, Games, Disruptive Friendships, and teach a work ethic. (See step 1, once again).
Step 5. Parents may want to look at alternatives to where/how their kids get educated, such as private schooling, charter schooling, homeschooling, private tutoring, or supplemental education. (Again, see step 1).
Step 6. Parents should learn the subjects with their children (if they don't know the subject) and tutor them, if possible. (Really, see step 1).
Step 7. Parents should be sure their children have unconditional love by the parents. (Most important and saved for last).
If one family does this, their children excel. If millions do, a country excels.
The status quo of relying on the public school system to do all the education, discipline, and raising of children does not and never will work. We keep throwing more dollars at the problem and it keeps getting worse (at a rate faster than inflation).
Take a look at John Taylor Gatto's books, such as Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling and The Underground History of American Education or here. While this is not a 100% solution, it should spur parents to do the steps, above.
> That's just in the rack consumption. I would imagine these probably run cooler, too, which will help with HVAC costs.
I understand that for every "power watt," it takes 1-2 additional "cooling watts" additional power, in a server room.
So, if a rack takes 10KW, expect an additional 10-20KW of electricity to cool the server room.
I'd, then, estimate 30KW total for a 10KW rack, just to be safe.
So, an 18% savings on 10KW (1.8KW saved), is really saving you on the order of 3.6KW to 5.4KW, when you include cooling!
At $0.10/KWH, you save a bunch of money in electricity.... Just an 18% savings on 10KW (20KW to 30KW total with cooling), means a total savings of $259.20 to $388.80 a month!
I forgot to mention this quote: "They were followed for five years, and any volunteers who developed cognitive symptoms were excluded from the study."
Does anybody see a problem with that in a *controlled* experiment?
Can you draw any conclusion at all from this study? Really?
What's fascinating is that this kind of "scientific reporting" (and I use that term very loosely) is so typical.
Is there any possibility of truth? Certainly. Is there any trend they can see, in this study? Absolutely none at all.
Pure. Unadulterated. Tripe.
I saw this quote: "the researchers studied brain images of 94 people in their 70s who had participated in an earlier study looking at cardiovascular health and cognition."
At that point, I said, "Stop. What a useless study." Look at the sample size again... 94?!?!? That has a roughly 10% margin of error built in to the sample size (at a 95% confidence interval). At least they included the sample size! ...and then there's the operative word "study...." That, word (in the singular, no less), gives me all sorts of warm fuzzies.
So, is that 8% (+/- 10%) less brain mass for obese elderly people or a range from 7.2% to 8.8% for obese elderly people, based on this sample and a 95% confidence interval? I'm thinking the former.
In statistics class, this was called by the name "statistical deception." Just because a single study of 94 people says so, don't believe it. It has a roughly 50% chance of being right -- or wrong (at a 100% confidence interval) but so do psychics, horoscopes, and fortune cookies.
Junk science prevails in the popular press. Anything sensational gets front-page headlines -- it gets grant money and sells news. It doesn't matter that the next study contradicts it, the next supports it, the next contradicts that one, and on and on the tennis match goes....
Once this has been peer reviewed numerous times with tens of thousands of people per study, call me. I'll be getting a snack, in the mean time.
Here's a couple of links to refresh people with the term "margin of error:"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error
http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c040607a.asp
I thought about the same thing.
So, use Stabil, but only fill your tank up 1/4 of the way, until you go on a long trip.
Rolls eyes. As a Kansas Citian (Kansas side), I've also looked at earthquake maps.... KC (KS/MO) is one of the least earthquake prone areas in the US.
So, underground in Kansas is good.
Oh yeah, what about that "remote" place on Long Island? Huh? How is anywhere on Long Island remote, compared to most of the US?
Yes, the TRS-80 Model 1 with Level 1 basic included a manual that was vaguely similar to this.
In fact, David Lien's manual is considered among the best ever made.
Yes and no.
Since this app is open source, there should be no issue, or else a fork will promptly be created.
Munich's now a State! Way to go, Linux!!!
DC? Absolutely.
Especially since they're ignoring the 10th Amendment on this one....
Then there's the powers of ten cost of fixing problems...
Design = $1
Development = $10
Debugging = $100
Deployment = $1000
- Frederick P. Brooks
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software
Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
Think of it this way....
So, anything you catch in design costs you a "buck" for your effort. If you catch it during development, it *still* only costs you "10 bucks."
If you wait until debugging ("100 bucks") or deployment ("1000 bucks"), you're hosed.
You can be more or less effective during a code review, but as long as it catches stuff, it's still far easier, cheaper, faster, better to catch it there, than later... Yes, it may be 10x harder to catch during a code review than a design review. Well, you're just proving the Mythical Man Month to be true. Your boss knows it, too, and he's trying to stop the vicious debug -> deploy problem.
Do you want screaming customers at 4:00a, calling you about some obscure error in a program you wrote, when it might be avoidable? Does your boss want to earn blame for a team of "bad coders?"
I'd say that it's good that your boss wants this bit of extra discipline -- for your sake, his, the customers', and the company's....
Sure it was the prevailing opinion of the day. Look at Darwin's own racist views:
here and here, too
By the way, if you look at Wikipedia on Darwin, whomever wrote this takes a biased, opposing view. However, it is well known (and well documented) that Darwin was a racist who believed that these were lower species of humans that must be exterminated! Today's spin doctors, however, want this issue of Darwin's racism to go away.
How many know today that Darwin's original title to Origin of the Species was On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life? You can read it, here.
His views were even clearer in The Descent of Man.
On the other hand, he didn't believe in slavery, which is good.
It has also been said that Adolf Hitler used Social Darwinism to exterminate millions of people in WWII. While that's not Darwin's fault, Hitler was being consistent to Darwin's viewpoints.
I did floppy installs, but before that, in 1992 or 1993 a friend and I installed SLS from QIC tape (Linux 0.9x).
He had a COMPAQ with a hard drive measured in megabytes.
He worked on a C program to demonstrate multitasking, which he couldn't as easily do on DOS.
If only we knew that we could have written a few line shell script to do the same.
So, it sounds like (pardon the pun) we have just departed the Golden Age of sound quality.
I was looking forward to high-quality 192KHz, 24-bit surround-sound audio becoming the norm -- compressed or not.
However, if the commercial music guys read reports like this, they'll degrade the sound either for cost or for effect. That's bad. :-(
It's also supposed to be bad for your ears (as are the ear buds most people use).
Most of the time, I can tell the difference right away for 128Kbit (or less) compressed audio.
When I was in high school/college, uncompressed 44.1KHz, 16-bit stereo (CD quality) was the norm and sounded nice, whether recorded as AAD, DAD, or DDD. (People debated the merits of each).
Today, here's your $1.00 MP3, and with better/faster/cheaper technology, we're getting worse audio and paying more!
Ergo, it was the Golden Age that was... :-(
1: // Code Submission by // Our first "open source" code contribution to this thing called "an Apache project" // // // Copyright (c) 2008-2009 by // // // Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. // Use at your own risk. // Read the EULA. You have been warned!!! // All Rights Reserved
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12: System.out.writeln("All your base are belong to us.\n");
13: System.out.writeln("Have a nice day.");
Where do you even get a small geothermal generator (1 KW in your example)?
So far, I find nothing on Google about said machines, except whitepapers for experimental models.
Are there companies that specialize in this, and if so, what kind of costs are involved, provided you have the land, zoning, geothermal conditions, etc.?
I, for one, am interested.
(Plus, with projects like Scala and Clojure it's looking increasingly like the JVM isn't going anywhere any time soon, regardless of Java's fate)
...and you didn't answer the objection at all, but I see that you love ad hominem attack...
And you haven't begun to scientifically prove that experience is an illusion of a purely biological process, which you cannot do. This research, if you are humble enough to admit it, is in its infancy. It's not yet to the place where you can make conclusions that are as concrete as you do.
No, I am not arguing against the brain's involvement. I have categorically stated that there is definitely a very important physical/biological piece to the puzzle.
The brain/body are processors and are very actively involved with the mind/soul/whatever. I never stated otherwise. But there is more. Philosophically, it's the difference between monism (your view) and dualism (my view).
The experience you see, feel, etc., is experienced. It's known as awareness. That isn't 100% biological, although biology is a very important part.
You are actually *aware* of your surroundings. No matter how the physical process is involved, there is an *aware* part of you -- the mind/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.
A computer program is not aware. A plant is not aware. A machine is not aware. You are aware, however. It's something so simple, so basic, but completely unexplainable.
You are not merely an intelligent but mindless automaton. You have intelligence plus an aware mind.
Why sit there and not contemplate the experience you are having? The thoughts, sights, smells, etc., that you have register somewhere beyond the brain into the conscious realm.
The brain is physical (neuons, synapses, etc.) Something else actually experiences what the brain and body processes. That experience is the mind/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.
An MRI cannot see this, even as it sees neurons ready to fire and firing. It merely sees the processing of the brain (biochemical reactions). This part is admittedly important but not everything done in the mind.
Scientists, philosophers, and theologians have all struggled to figure out what the mind/soul/whatever is. Open-minded scientists in this realm frequently admit that the mind and its awareness are a mystery that cannot be probed.
A cursory glance at articles like this one from Wikipedia shows that even scientists don't agree on this most complex topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind.
If they cannot agree, then why are you so quick to dismiss anything that disturbs your Atheist world view? (If there is a part of the brain/mind that cannot be explained by purely physical means, it is dismissed, since it calls into question your unproven belief in Naturalism, since it suggests the possibility of the supernatural).
At this point, your assertion is unprovable. However, the idea that the mind is merely an illusion is ludicrous and is empirically invalid.
So, if there is some part of the mind that is not purely physical, Atheism truly is in crisis.
Have you considered that consciousness is an illusion of a human brain that has become powerful enough to reflect on its own existence? That's why you won't find it in the body or the brain, anymore that you'll find a tummy ache if you look inside your stomach.
First, no, I have never considered that my consciousness is an illusion of a human brain.... I can empirically rule that out. The fact that I can actually feel (senses and emotions) and see and think and smell and taste and that I can observe, test, and repeat means that I can scientifically determine that I have a real consciousness, not merely some illusion. "Cogito ergo sum" -- I think, therefore I am. This is no mere illusion. A one year old can figure that out.
Second, reflection on your own existence is not the only test of sentience, but a very important one. Actually perceiving your world and truly experiencing thoughts, feelings, and senses (as pointed out, above) is yet another.
Take 15 minutes a day for a week and just think about/feel/truly experience your 5 senses, plus emotions. Actually take time to experience them (good or bad, different or indifferent). Reflect on what the experiences are actually like, how did they impact you, how do they make you emotionally feel, what is pain or pleasure really like, how do love and hate feel (physically/emotionally), how does hunger and contentedness feel physically, etc. Eat something really sweet, followed by something really sour. Watch a comedy you like, then poke yourself with a pin. Grab an ice cube for as long as you can. Skip a meal or two, and afterward, eat your favorite meal and savor it. Knock yourself out (don't take that literally).
The fact that you even suggest that it's an illusion makes me wonder if you get out much and experience things beyond your cube walls. Unless you have sensory issues and a severe lack of serotonin, you will have to see that consciousness (experience and reflection) is no mere illusion of emergence.
Extra credit: rinse, repeat, find a way to scientifically capture your data and log it.
You also gotta admit something -- if the experiences of the mind are an illusion of emergence, you're still experiencing thoughts/feelings/senses (again, take the empirical test, above). You are not just a complex system of neurons and reflexes, which wouldn't experience these things. It's almost like the difference between a disembodied frog leg + electricity = movement and a live frog with a moving leg.
Third, your tummy ache analogy is flawed: the tummy ache requires biology (a stomach); it requires consciousness to be perceived (circular argument imminent); it is generally caused by something physical and identifiable; and you are comparing a sensation to something physical caused by a physical ailment to prove an analogy about consciousness which might or might not be purely physical (non sequitur reasoning).
So, I know what your analogy was trying to do and the point being made (emergence), but it's severely flawed and does not make the point in any rational way.
You are implying that consciousness is purely physical (neurons, synapses, mapping, etc.) and emergent.
The problem is that science cannot explain consciousness purely in a physical way.
I posit that consciousness is physical/brain plus something else (mind/soul) and that science will not be able to ever empirically uncover what consciousness really is. There is a blending of the physical and metaphysical happening here that science cannot empirically uncover, no matter the effort. The physical side may be mapped in intricate detail (as it has) but there can be little progress beyond this "final frontier," since it cannot be observed and tested.
That I/you/they have a real consciousness (not an illusion) is not debatable and is 100% empirically verified. How we have a consciousness and how it exists is.
This is why this particular scientific endeavor is in a crisis. Also, if consciousness is "something more" than what is merely physical, then Atheism is also in a crisis. No wonder all the knee-jerk emotionalism from this camp.
OK, there *are* 2 major places (and probably a few minor places) where I goofed, in my rant -
1.) Threaded tabs (would be a FF "code guts" issue, but still somewhere Google could have helped FF out.)
2.) "Everything could have been an add-on, written in JavaScript". Again, many things aren't "easy as an add-on."
I still contend that contributing to FF, instead of starting over, would have been a good move. This is even to the possibility of forking FF or Gecko to do it.
...oh, and by contributing to the open source Firefox browser, Google could advance Firefox's market share against two of Google's Biggest Information Competitors(r) -- Microsoft(tm) and Apple(tm).
If they had instead advanced Firefox and captured the hearts of Adoring Firefox Fans, Inc., with their Awesome Addons of Goodness(r) -- did I mention that they would be available exclusively on Firefox -- they'd have simultaneously sucker-punched doppelgangers Microsoft(tm) and Apple(tm), as well as boosting open source against this Axis of Information Evil(r).
Did I also mention that Firefox stands at roughly 20% of market share (and growing) -- according to blogs, spin doctors, and uncle Lloyd's anecdotes(c)?
What if Operation Firefox Revamp(r) had boosted its numbers by even 5% of total market share? Do you think that software developers, Pointy-Haired Bosses, and CIO Magazine(c) would take it more seriously? Hmmm? :-)
What about advancing that thingy -- you know, that vaporware product? Duke Nukem something(r)? No, wait... Oh, yeah, a Google Operating System, perhaps based on Linux?
OK, you're right -- this screed is getting lame. I'm just saying...
...stop the presses...
This just in... Google should have contributed to Firefox, instead of reinventing the wheel. Following a wave of hype, market share is now declining... News at 11, 10 Central.
Speaking of FreeBSD/Linux/Solaris/AIX/BeOS/whatever OS you can name, chances are there is a Firefox to suit you.
Unlike any other browser in the history of the planet, there are also approximately 1.2 gazillion plugins for Firefox. The vast majority are cross platform, due to Firefox's Gecko/XUL/Chrome (note the name).
Firefox has momentum. I.e., it's growing on IE (pardon the pun) as well as Safari/Opera. (Was that an estimated 300 million FF users, out of 1.5 billion on the Internet?)
In addition to this, the future Firefox 3.1 is supposed to have a really, really fast JavaScript engine that rival's JS in Google's Chrome browser.
But wait, there's more. Wasn't it Google Gears that was supposed to create disconnected (on- or off-line) desktop apps on Firefox. Why throw in the towel?
There's even more! Google could have wrapped this all up neatly in a "plugin framework," and written it with less effort, and made themselves a defacto-must-have-it part of Firefox, and have impacted more users in less time.
People could have even written themes and other plugins that bolt on to their "plugin framework," the same way Firebug has its own add-ons (like YSlow).
So, why, why, why did they move away from Firefox and reinvent the wheel, instead? I saw no features that couldn't have been done as a Firefox Add-On.
Maybe I'm wrong, here, so feel free to flame away and moderate me out of my miserable existence!
Dear Slashdot:
I am trying to talk with my PHB^H^H^H^H fourth grader about IT.
Can you help?
Signed,
Frustrated at Work
Weather here (in Kansas) is fine, and we do have a lot of former astronauts and astronomers from Kansas.
We also have a must-see, while you're on the topic -- the Cosmosphere! It's got a *lot* more space artifacts than the Air and Space Museum.... Too bad it's in Hutchinson, KS, though:
http://www.cosmo.org/
Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent....
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