Which brings me to one of my favourite beliefs, one which I judge all theories by: A theory that cannot be proven or disproven lacks all relevancy. Prove your theory, or prove it not, else it is a moot point and need no further discussion. Saying that the universe "popped" into existence is pointless. This could certainly be the case, but it can never be proven or disproven, so what is the point of believing in this? This is why I do not believe in God. Until he can be proven or disproven, why believe?
But this would mean that God can't lift it and can lift it. He is therefore both omnipotent and not. Sounds more like your God is a quantum theory more than any real God.
Ok. If God is omnipotent, then he must be able to create a stone so large that he cannot lift it. But if he cannot lift the stone, he cannot be omnipotent.
This is not my proof, but it is the one I use to disprove omnipotence. If there ever is proven to be a God, he will moste certainly not be omnipotent. Thats the only thing we can be sure of.
OMG! (to use a common expletive relevant to this topic). If current systems for dating is so inaccurate, how the hell do you arrive at the number 6,000 or 8,000 for that matter? What are those numbers based on?
Just looking at the expansion of the universe gives is good idea about the age of it. Accellerating or not, it didn't just pop into existence the way it is now (though it did pop into existence, at least that is the best explanation I have heard. But as a result of a quantum flux, not an act of god).
Your timeline, does it include dinosaurs living side by side with Aztecs and Egyptians? I mean, we have other methods of determining the age of these civilizations (such as written records) so did the dinosaurs evolve and die within the timespan of a few years or what?
In Stephen Baxter's book Timelike Infinity he brings up an interesting religion (did he invent it?). They call themselves "The Friends of Shroedinger" (or something similar). Their beliefs are these:
Shroedinger theorised about placing a cat in a box. Inside the box we have a radioactive sample and a machine that will kill the cat if there is a radioactive emission from the sample. Once the box is closed there is no way for us to know if there has been an emission and whether the cat is dead (if we are talking about alpha-radiation). So if we can't observe the cat in the box, the cat is not alive or dead. It exists in a state of both and neither, until we open the box and observe it. It will then appear in a state of dead or alive.
But what about the person observing the cat? Unless he is observed, he and the cat will also only exist in a state of probabilities until they are observed. The logical conclusion of this is that at the end of time and the universe, there has to be a being, looking back through time, observing everything into existence.
but not Teranesia, a book I found quite uninteresting. But these books are probably less relevant to the topic at hand. "Distress" on the other hand, deals with religion, I believe. Very much about physics as a religion at least.
Talking about religion and SF brings me to Stephen Baxter's "Timelike Inifinity" which deals with another religion (one that fascinated the hell out of me) The Friends of Shroedinger.
But the quote isn't "Sufficiently advanced technology is Magic(God)" it is "Sufficiently advanced technology is INDESTINGUISHABLE from Magic(God)". So he never suggested that technology was god. He suggested that it was indistinguishable from god, that is godlike.
Re:p0.00001 means I believe in God?
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Calculating God
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That is why I used the words "I don't think it is a matter..." and not "It isn't a matter...". In the end, it all comes down to what we believe, and what we think.
I can't yet discuss the points of the book, since I haven't read it, I can only discuss what has been brought up in here. Occam's Razor is a viewpoint I also subscribe to. But one more fundamental than this one is "There is no point in a theory that cannot be proven or disproven." So, if someone says "God exists!" I say: "Prove it!" If they say "Prove he doesn't exist." I say: "I didn't put forward the theory that he DOES exist. You did! I didn't say he DIDN'T exist either, I just wanted you to prove your theory."
To answer your question, there are events in history that almost make me believe in a God (or some higher plan). The story of the ship Titanic is one of them (no, I haven't seen the movie, and I never will!!). But still, God does not fit into my equations, and he doesn't seem to be doing much about anything around here, so why believe in him? If the book proves he exists, fine, I'll convert. If it doesn't, at best it can be a very interesting discussion in how he might be proven (or disproven) one day. This is not to slight the book in the least! I intend to read it. When I have, we can have this discussion again.:) (Yeah, as if this topic won't be long forgotten by then).
I haven't read relativity but I think I can make an educated guess. Since there is such a large distance between these points, you have to account this distance not only as a spacial distance but as a time distance since it takes a significant amount of time to notice events going on at them at the same time. Thus it becomes irrelevant to talk about simultaneous occurrences when it takes too long to travel between them or to record the events.
Damn, this isn't exactly what I'm thinking but it is devilishly hard to put in words.
I just had a flash of inspiration. The theory of relativity deals with the fact that time as well as space, weight and so forth, is relative. So, if you have large distances, how do you measure if something occurred at the same time? What is your frame of reference? Since different parts of the galaxy travel at different speeds, I guess these speeds come into play as well (since high speeds slow down the passage of time).
If you do, check out Greg Egan's "Distress". It deals with the Theory Of Everything and the consequences of it's discovery. Extremely well written and thought provoking. He has a brilliant homepage with loads of downloadable stories and Java applets discribing some of the math and physics in his books in a fun way.
Okay, first off, omnipotence is impossible. There is a simple reason for this which I'm not going to go into here.
What he meant by implying that god was interchangable with magic in this quote is this: In a world with primitive technology, a person with sufficiently advanced technology will be godlike. Think about it! What would people in the stone-age say about you if you had a paraglider, a rifle (with ammo, to shoot animals with) and a box of matches? You would be godlike to them, because you can kill things at a distance by pointing at them with a stick and go 'boom' (Sounds a lot like Zeus striking people down with lightning, doesn't it?). You can fly (on a good day:) and you can light fires whenever you want.
Though he misquoted the original, the intent is similar enough to be relevant.
p0.00001 means I believe in God?
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Calculating God
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· Score: 1
I don't think it is a matter of whether something is unlikely enough. I think it is just something you have to make up your mind about taking in all you know about the universe. "Does God fit into my reailty?" In my case the answer is: No. In someone elses it might be "Yes". I doubt a book will change my mind, but I think I'll read it because Hard SF is what I like, and religious discussions as well...
I hadn't noticed. But then again, I'm a casual slash-dotter (I read it every day, but not thoroughly). In the moderators instructions it is explicitly forbidden to do this, but I guess some people don't care.
One cure for this could be to give 1 Indistructible Karma point per day for every 10 karma you have. This point can be given to a story and cannot be moderated down! (This would only work if there is a minimum score for a story, like -2 which I think is the score at which a reply no longer appears in slashdot without special measures).
Hopefully only serious people get 10+ karma and hopefully they use them on serious posts. If the system doesn't work, then just throw it out.:)
Actually, why encrypt the data at all? A publishing system which is extremely distributed, like gnutella for example, is completely impossible to shut down! How could you ever? If you block ports, why not make a distributed server system that runs via HTTP? My idea is this:
Everyone who wants to use the data runs a server (there is no separate client, like gnutella). You publish data on your own server, if you are a publisher. Data leaving the server (being read by another person on the network) recieves a lifespan by the original server. The file will die when this time has passed. But once it has left the original server, it can either be downloaded from that server, or from whomever downloaded the data. This way, data is distributed on many sources but is still updatable (web content for example could be given a lifespan of 24 hours or less, as a book could be given infinite lifespan, since it doesn't need to be updated).
This network would be virtually impossible to shut down (like gnutella is) since no one source can be targetted (there is no need to tag data so that the data knows where it is coming from, it only needs to know how old it is and when it dies).
Ok. I don't think anyone cares if you stop posting, but I get the point. I should have left it at pointing out that you said the same thing as the guy above you. These things happen. Nevertheless I don't think I was rude enough to warrant such an outburst. I'm not going to respond in the same manner, as that kind of behaviour is too rampant on slashdot as it is.
An open forum will always have a lot of "gambits" that turn up all over the place. Check out Usenet and you will find the same kind of thing. You will just have to learn to filter through the crap and try to get out the nuggets (very hard I must admit). The single most helpful thing I did was to set my lowest threshold to 0 to filter out the Anonymous Cowards and from there it's just a matter of ignoring lengthy posts that start out with "Captain Picard! We have a Natalie Portman sighting!".
Well, I never suggested that this wasn't how it begun, even though NASA where a few more people than one, even in the beginning. All I'm saying is that he has a much smaller margin for error. In early space missions if a rocket exploded and a few people died (which happened once or twice I believe) they had a certain redundance (in effect, more willing, though perhaps now a bit apprehensive, astronauts). Something he does not have (if he blows up, he is dead and cannot prepare a new rocket).
If he succeeds, he will have accomplished a great feat, outdoing even the greatest one-person accomplishments in history (such as crossing the atlantic in a dingy and stuff like that). Going into space really is the final frontier. I say: GOGOGOGO!:)
Okay, first off, you said the exact same thing the guy above you did. Read all the posts before replying.
Secondly, I never said this wasn't how manned spaceflight started, or any other form of advanced new communications for that matter. I just hope he documents what he does if something goes wrong. I don't remember NASA's development of manned spaceflight ever being a one-man enterprise.
I just hopes he does proper documentation of his work so we can figure out what went wrong when he blew up. That way his life won't be completely misspent.:)
I too hope he makes it, but this is just about as dangerous as things get, sitting on a pile of volatile rocket fuel and then lighting it on fire.
Actually I don't think anyone is expected to know every law, just the ones that are relevant to what you are doing. I think you will find that no one requires you to know patent laws unless you are intending to file a patent or infringe on one.
That you cannot plead ignorance is not the same thing as being expected to know every law.
What is PETA doing in the.COM domain anyway? Aren't they an organization? Isn't it their own fault that they decided not to register in.ORG in the first place? They could easily have had both, if they thought it would be easier to find their site on the.COM domain. This is not a crappy presedent, as you put it, it is a scary presedent.
Isn't it the job of the lawyers to provide the judge with the relevant knowledge? The judge should have a sound basic knowledge of law, of course, but through the course of the trial it is the job of the lawyers to provide him with the proof that they are right. Am I right?
That's till in the past. "We've gotten money from the government every week since February". Which implies that the money was received in the past. That it still will be received is a irrellevant. The event, getting money, happened in the past.
Now, keep in mind I'm Swedish and have no idea what I'm talking about (but I'm also oppinionated).;)
You should check your submissions for this kind of error before sending them in. I'm also sure I never wrote "it's." anywhere in my post, since "it's." is hardly a good way to end a sentence. See to it that you quote me right next time.
I would also like to point out that I am Swedish, so if I do not discover my errors by myself, I think I can be excused. Why you feel that you have some kind of right to correct me out of nowhere, I'll never know.
Here at the University in Lund, Sweden, they have switched largely from Pascal to Java to teach beginners programming. I think starting out with an object oriented programming language is preferable, since otherwise you have to "unlearn" some things about regular programming. Java is also incredibly well documented and once you learn the structures of it, you can make your own programs pretty quick, without having to buy a book specifically for use with the area you are writing.
Java may not be a language I would write my own MP3 player in, but more than likely that's not going to be an issue when learning programming basics.
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Which brings me to one of my favourite beliefs, one which I judge all theories by: A theory that cannot be proven or disproven lacks all relevancy. Prove your theory, or prove it not, else it is a moot point and need no further discussion. Saying that the universe "popped" into existence is pointless. This could certainly be the case, but it can never be proven or disproven, so what is the point of believing in this? This is why I do not believe in God. Until he can be proven or disproven, why believe?
But this would mean that God can't lift it and can lift it. He is therefore both omnipotent and not. Sounds more like your God is a quantum theory more than any real God.
This is not my proof, but it is the one I use to disprove omnipotence. If there ever is proven to be a God, he will moste certainly not be omnipotent. Thats the only thing we can be sure of.
Just looking at the expansion of the universe gives is good idea about the age of it. Accellerating or not, it didn't just pop into existence the way it is now (though it did pop into existence, at least that is the best explanation I have heard. But as a result of a quantum flux, not an act of god).
Your timeline, does it include dinosaurs living side by side with Aztecs and Egyptians? I mean, we have other methods of determining the age of these civilizations (such as written records) so did the dinosaurs evolve and die within the timespan of a few years or what?
Shroedinger theorised about placing a cat in a box. Inside the box we have a radioactive sample and a machine that will kill the cat if there is a radioactive emission from the sample. Once the box is closed there is no way for us to know if there has been an emission and whether the cat is dead (if we are talking about alpha-radiation). So if we can't observe the cat in the box, the cat is not alive or dead. It exists in a state of both and neither, until we open the box and observe it. It will then appear in a state of dead or alive.
But what about the person observing the cat? Unless he is observed, he and the cat will also only exist in a state of probabilities until they are observed. The logical conclusion of this is that at the end of time and the universe, there has to be a being, looking back through time, observing everything into existence.
Talking about religion and SF brings me to Stephen Baxter's "Timelike Inifinity" which deals with another religion (one that fascinated the hell out of me) The Friends of Shroedinger.
But the quote isn't "Sufficiently advanced technology is Magic(God)" it is "Sufficiently advanced technology is INDESTINGUISHABLE from Magic(God)". So he never suggested that technology was god. He suggested that it was indistinguishable from god, that is godlike.
I can't yet discuss the points of the book, since I haven't read it, I can only discuss what has been brought up in here. Occam's Razor is a viewpoint I also subscribe to. But one more fundamental than this one is "There is no point in a theory that cannot be proven or disproven." So, if someone says "God exists!" I say: "Prove it!" If they say "Prove he doesn't exist." I say: "I didn't put forward the theory that he DOES exist. You did! I didn't say he DIDN'T exist either, I just wanted you to prove your theory."
To answer your question, there are events in history that almost make me believe in a God (or some higher plan). The story of the ship Titanic is one of them (no, I haven't seen the movie, and I never will!!). But still, God does not fit into my equations, and he doesn't seem to be doing much about anything around here, so why believe in him? If the book proves he exists, fine, I'll convert. If it doesn't, at best it can be a very interesting discussion in how he might be proven (or disproven) one day. This is not to slight the book in the least! I intend to read it. When I have, we can have this discussion again. :) (Yeah, as if this topic won't be long forgotten by then).
Damn, this isn't exactly what I'm thinking but it is devilishly hard to put in words.
I just had a flash of inspiration. The theory of relativity deals with the fact that time as well as space, weight and so forth, is relative. So, if you have large distances, how do you measure if something occurred at the same time? What is your frame of reference? Since different parts of the galaxy travel at different speeds, I guess these speeds come into play as well (since high speeds slow down the passage of time).
I'm just guessing here. :)
If you do, check out Greg Egan's "Distress". It deals with the Theory Of Everything and the consequences of it's discovery. Extremely well written and thought provoking. He has a brilliant homepage with loads of downloadable stories and Java applets discribing some of the math and physics in his books in a fun way.
What he meant by implying that god was interchangable with magic in this quote is this: In a world with primitive technology, a person with sufficiently advanced technology will be godlike. Think about it! What would people in the stone-age say about you if you had a paraglider, a rifle (with ammo, to shoot animals with) and a box of matches? You would be godlike to them, because you can kill things at a distance by pointing at them with a stick and go 'boom' (Sounds a lot like Zeus striking people down with lightning, doesn't it?). You can fly (on a good day :) and you can light fires whenever you want.
Though he misquoted the original, the intent is similar enough to be relevant.
I don't think it is a matter of whether something is unlikely enough. I think it is just something you have to make up your mind about taking in all you know about the universe. "Does God fit into my reailty?" In my case the answer is: No. In someone elses it might be "Yes". I doubt a book will change my mind, but I think I'll read it because Hard SF is what I like, and religious discussions as well...
One cure for this could be to give 1 Indistructible Karma point per day for every 10 karma you have. This point can be given to a story and cannot be moderated down! (This would only work if there is a minimum score for a story, like -2 which I think is the score at which a reply no longer appears in slashdot without special measures).
Hopefully only serious people get 10+ karma and hopefully they use them on serious posts. If the system doesn't work, then just throw it out. :)
Everyone who wants to use the data runs a server (there is no separate client, like gnutella). You publish data on your own server, if you are a publisher. Data leaving the server (being read by another person on the network) recieves a lifespan by the original server. The file will die when this time has passed. But once it has left the original server, it can either be downloaded from that server, or from whomever downloaded the data. This way, data is distributed on many sources but is still updatable (web content for example could be given a lifespan of 24 hours or less, as a book could be given infinite lifespan, since it doesn't need to be updated).
This network would be virtually impossible to shut down (like gnutella is) since no one source can be targetted (there is no need to tag data so that the data knows where it is coming from, it only needs to know how old it is and when it dies).
An open forum will always have a lot of "gambits" that turn up all over the place. Check out Usenet and you will find the same kind of thing. You will just have to learn to filter through the crap and try to get out the nuggets (very hard I must admit). The single most helpful thing I did was to set my lowest threshold to 0 to filter out the Anonymous Cowards and from there it's just a matter of ignoring lengthy posts that start out with "Captain Picard! We have a Natalie Portman sighting!".
If he succeeds, he will have accomplished a great feat, outdoing even the greatest one-person accomplishments in history (such as crossing the atlantic in a dingy and stuff like that). Going into space really is the final frontier. I say: GOGOGOGO! :)
Secondly, I never said this wasn't how manned spaceflight started, or any other form of advanced new communications for that matter. I just hope he documents what he does if something goes wrong. I don't remember NASA's development of manned spaceflight ever being a one-man enterprise.
I too hope he makes it, but this is just about as dangerous as things get, sitting on a pile of volatile rocket fuel and then lighting it on fire.
See what a bit of logical reasoning can do? :)
That you cannot plead ignorance is not the same thing as being expected to know every law.
What is PETA doing in the .COM domain anyway? Aren't they an organization? Isn't it their own fault that they decided not to register in .ORG in the first place? They could easily have had both, if they thought it would be easier to find their site on the .COM domain. This is not a crappy presedent, as you put it, it is a scary presedent.
Don't blame me if I'm wrong, I'm Swedish. :)
Now, keep in mind I'm Swedish and have no idea what I'm talking about (but I'm also oppinionated). ;)
You should check your submissions for this kind of error before sending them in. I'm also sure I never wrote "it's." anywhere in my post, since "it's." is hardly a good way to end a sentence. See to it that you quote me right next time.
I would also like to point out that I am Swedish, so if I do not discover my errors by myself, I think I can be excused. Why you feel that you have some kind of right to correct me out of nowhere, I'll never know.
Java may not be a language I would write my own MP3 player in, but more than likely that's not going to be an issue when learning programming basics.