Bullshit. There are so many layers of, "Totally WRONG" in what you are saying, it's hard to know where to begin.
If you're just spouting out of ignorance, then do a little research. If you know what the truth is, but are simply a greedy asshole who wants to see another nation fall before the march of American Imperialism, (via the CIA), then please do the rest of the world a favor and jump under a truck.
For everybody else, watch: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."
You sound like the rich kids on campuses who have no idea what they are talking about when they fall into line with the general greed and CIA driven attempts to destroy the possibility for a strong Venezuela. (That is, a Venezuela which isn't driven by fueled by slavery and illiteracy, ignorance and foreign-owned resources). --Propaganda works both ways, and if you think the side you are supporting isn't using enormous gobs of it, then you are living with your head in the ground.
Try watching, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", if you want a picture of the truth. --It's an amazing video; while an independent film company was shooting a documentary, a coup attempt took place and they filmed the whole thing in context. Only pathocrats could view such a thing and come away with your broken head-space.
But I'm betting you won't even try looking at this, because it would show you a world view more accurate than the sick little dream you're living in, and which your ego will simply not allow you to assimilate because you are incapable of dealing with the fact that you are an idiot. (Ooooh! Scary!)
Now go tell your lies to yourself about how you're smarter than the rest of us. --It's a lot easier than actually working to look at objective reality and deal with the scary things it reflects back to you about yourself.
I just watched the video where on "The Escapist" which covers the software developers behind Achron.
So cool! --It's one of those charming out of college start-ups in somebody's house with a handful of equipment and a couple of guys developing the game. That brings back some great memories of my own.
I pretty much avoid video games like the great time-plague, but I can see myself actually picking up a copy of Achron just to support these dudes and the development of such a cool idea.
Every now and then I return to the on-going board meeting being held in one of my Day Dream arenas where I'm planning out how to make a game like this one work. It's quite the mental exercise.
The fact that this game exists means that either the makers have overcome some rather huge programming barriers, or they have dodged around them by cheating. Either way, if it feels right, then they've been quite clever.
The version I've been planning in my head, (with no intention of ever actually making since I'm not a programmer or game designer), was more like one of those city-building sims with a war and/or adventure element with lots of specific missions. From what I've been able to work out, essentially, the key to such a game is having a very fast and powerful computer which is capable of generating and keeping track a complete time-line of events before the game even starts. Like mapping out a whole chess game in advance. The computer would map it out from start to finish and maintain the whole thing memory. Whenever the player would take an action, the computer would re-map all the changes forward right to the end of the game so that the player could jump ahead to see what had happened. This would require the AI to guess at what the player would do for future actions, and that would be one hurdle. (There are several ways to get around the clumsiness of this mechanic and make it fit the game). And it would allow for massive changes in the city scape, which is appropriate given the enormous power time travel implies.
On the whole, it seemed rather un-doable, but the more I consider it, the more viable it seems.
A semi-related watershed moment came when that new game, "Scribblenauts" was announced. --It seems that the impossible is becoming possible, and people are being asked to think in ways we never have done before. I think that's probably healthy.
--And the part of me which watches real reality (from another Day Dream board room), is thinking that perhaps these advances are significant for less obvious reasons. . .
Actually, I think it is quite daring for MS to support a South American leader opposed to American industrial interests.
MS obviously knows which side it's betting on winning that little conflict, and what OS they'll be wanting the people to support when they rise through the joys of uncorrupted social reform to become the new super-power of the South. All those newly wealthy folks will need computers, after all.
Leave groggy questions about laptops behind in cubicle-land and become a rugged mountain man, plying the wilderness trails with a sure step, and the unmistakable sparkle and glow of Life in your flinty eyes and ruddy cheeks.
Oscar-Wilde, your faithful mountain lion companion, will leap at your side as you pull hapless vacationers from the icy clutches of the river during spring thaw. Why, you'll have adventures, foil villains and bed glorious Russian heiresses!
Stanford scientists have again proven, that anomalous results can, in fact, be generated by choosing unrepresentative models for a behavior or phenomena under study. A particular key for reaching such results in this study was to replace the simultaneous performance of multiple tasks with performing a single task involving multiple inputs and success criteria.
Yeah, or they simply labeled their subject of study in a way which everybody found confusing.
They used the terms, "Low Multitaskers" and "High Multitaskers", when "Multitasker" is a pop-culture word with no formal definition in terms of psychology. So they basically made up their own definitions and performed some interesting studies, and then published findings which were then poorly reported. --Resulting in people saying, "Hey! I'm a multitasker! What are they talking about?"
It sounds to me as though they might have communicated their findings more effectively to the masses by saying, "Multitasker" instead of "Low Multitasker" and "ADD Sufferer" instead of "High Multitasker". --Though that would have opened up a whole other kettle of smelly fish since ADD isn't clearly understood either and carries its own cultural baggage.
I can see why they chose as they did, and I can certainly relate to their findings. --I consider myself a multitasker; I can have several projects all under steam at the same time, and I can get them all done effectively, --but I also have the ability to focus entirely on one one subject at a time. I only switch when I get run down or stuck, not when something else intrudes into my focus to distract me. It sounds like they were calling that a "Low Multitasker"
Whereas I had this girlfriend once who would carry on a half dozen IM conversations while checking email and trying to edit and upload photographs and make food and plan for her next business day all at the same time. She did all of it very badly and couldn't will herself to focus on any one thing. I didn't consider her a multitasker so much as a bundle of clumsy nerves on the permanent verge of collapse. It was very stressful to be around and it was one of the reasons we eventually broke up. Too bad. She was otherwise a really nice girl.
Effective multitasking requires the ability to choose and focus while also maintaining the agility necessary to jump between thoughts and make intuitive leaps.
Yes - he's obviously dating a supermodel when he's not posting on/.
Oh, settle down now. I've been with some unattractive 'beautiful' girls, and I've been with some beautiful 'unattractive' girls, and I've learned which I like more. It's definitely the soul that counts. --But that doesn't prevent me from being able to comment on Cameron's casting.
But it does illustrate my point -- energy, among many other strange things, once beyond comprehension, can now be clearly quantified.
Okay. That's a fine point.
"Energy" (as I use the term in the context of Qi, or Chi or Auras or what have you), has NOT yet been clearly quantified. We're not there yet. This doesn't mean it cannot be quantified or that we don't need a word to describe in an umbrella sense the set of phenomenon which people experience. I don't, however, see the scientific community reaching any sort of consensus on what Chi is when they are so incredibly hostile towards the possibility of even looking vaguely in its direction. Maybe it'll take another 100 years. Who knows?
That's not a definition, that's a cop-out.
I wasn't trying to give you a definition. A cop-out implies sneakiness. I'm not being sneaky. I honestly don't know how to define it. --I'm just offering some possible reasons why 'Energy' has defied definition thus far.
Not entirely -- we already have an effect which depends on the thought and mental state of the individual. It's called the Placebo effect, and it's well documented and repeatedly measured.
More specifically, the Placebo effect, the healing power of laughter, and other, similar things, all suffer from the same flaws you mention -- that they depend on the mental state of the subject.
None of them depend on the mental state of the examiner, and certainly, they don't depend on the mental state of the individual who later analyzes the resultant data.
The Placebo Effect is an umbrella term which covers a whole lot of ground, thus it is not easily quantified. And it offers a wonderful example of the way in which the sciences are (inappropriately) governed by emotional biases among researchers. When the "Placebo Effect" can make head-aches and body pains go away, (or alternatively appear), then it is clear that intention and belief in the subject do indeed exert a very powerful influence over the state of the subject. Researchers accept this reality and all it well and good.
But if you dare call some aspects of the "Placebo Effect" the result instead of "Energy Manipulation", why suddenly everybody gets terribly upset, refuses to study the phenomenon on grounds that it offends their personal Bullshit-Meter, denies that the phenomenon exists, demands that the term be defined exactly and generally gets all huffy and stubborn. Emotionalism exists in the sciences. It shouldn't be, because I agree, the scientific approach is a marvel, but it is easily as corruptible as any human agency by ego and fear.
This is true, but it also doesn't matter. You see, I can perform reliable and repeatable experiments that will tell me the nature of the universe-that-appears-to-exist. Even if it's an elaborate dream or simulation, the scientific method gives me a greater understanding of how that simulation works, and what I can expect from it.
Of course it does. But if you agree that you and everything around you may merely be elaborate thought patterns, then it is also reasonable to agree that thoughts might carry more influence than you are currently allowing for. People often forget that they are PART of the system they are experimenting within, and that they do not fully understand all the forces at play.
Are you telling me that it tends to work when people really, really want the phenomenon to succeed -- yet are still keeping to protocol?
I'd be happy to attempt an answer here, but I confess I'm not entirely clear what you are asking.
In other words, you're telling me that there's a deeper part of my mind that believes in Qi. Aside from the fact that this seems absurd on its face, can you tell me how you know that?
I don't know that, because you've put it into "other words" which I didn't say, which are deliberately made to sound absurd and which do poor service to my actual meaning, (and which, I might add, is a rather chee
Rude and dismissive, I'll grant you, but not thoughtless.
Well, there are many kinds of thoughts. I was referring to those which were graceful, precise and wise.
And there's a reason for that. It gets your attention, and it's a way of cutting quickly to the point.
You weren't reasoning. You were reacting automatically, that is all. You are now beginning to engage reason. There's no point to any of this without being honest with ourselves, which, granted, is very hard to do. Our automatic selves are in control most of the time and everybody has to fight with it.
For example, you claimed that energy could not be quantified, and I showed that it can. You're now claiming that you weren't talking about the same kind of energy -- but why can't Qi be quantified?
Now claiming? No, you just mis-understood me from the start. --While I am not the clearest of writers at all times, in this case I don't see how it was possible for you to misinterpret my words unless you were reading too quickly with your mind actively repelling reality in favor of your biases. But again, that's fairly normal.
That was pretty much my purpose.
I doubt it. What is more likely is that you're simply trying to lie to yourself retroactively in order to maintain self-respect.
I wonder what the cost of that particular issue is.
The line blurs between computers and print and soon we'll be living in "Minority Report". Oh my!
Or perhaps. . .
It's just another one of those silly floppy square 45's in a magazine.
Whatever. Pepsi is getting the market awareness they wanted with this stunt. The best I can hope for is that the technology gets a boost towards something cool because sheeple drink black fizzy sugar water.
I know Dances with Wolves was not a James Cameron movie. The formula bears some similarities to Avatar, though. I'd say that Avatar is rather like Dances with Wolves, mixed with Aliens, mixed with a bit of Strange Days and all boiled in a broth of Pocahontas.
The second thing is that I spelled "Plain-Jane" incorrectly and was feeling bugged by my not being able to correct it. Perhaps I am getting befuddled by the now ubiquitous auto-correcting spelling feature which seems to have grown like a fungus across my entire OS. . . Doubt I'll turn it off, though!
Having read the (now scrubbed from the web after having floated around for several years) full script treatment penned by Cameron, I can assure you that it's a very solid story.
It IS formula, but then so was Titanic, (and Dances with Wolves for that matter). But Cameron knows how to work a formula impeccably. And the guy has actually gone and found a New Cool technology, which if used effectively and spun right, (think Jurassic Park), can help significantly in the promotion of a film.
The buzz is that the 3D has got the techs in Hollywood really excited about going to work every day.
People are going to see this film in droves and they are going to be blown away by it. I feel safe in predicting that.
Avatar, however, isn't going to be bigger than Titanic in terms of sales. I'll go ahead and predict that as well. --Why not? Because he isn't tapping the same doomed-romance nerve which is crack-cocaine to the average 15 year-old girl.
The casting of Titanic was both cynical and brilliant: Casting the almost beautiful Kate Winslet as the female lead was a sly maneuver which allowed the female audience to fantasize over the notion that even plane-Jane girls like themselves could have their very own Leonardo Decaprio. --And that his character should conveniently die at the end of the film so that he wouldn't put his lover through years of poverty, while in the same action giving her a bitter-sweet memory to polish and secretly wax pathetic over for years and years. . , well, that's just orgasmic! The girl-buttons deep inside girl-machines are placed in some really odd ways, but Cameron found 'em all and pushed every last one he could reach.
Avatar is going to be really cool, but it's not going to press nearly so many girl-buttons. (Though, images of blue amazon elf maidens I suspect will become popular in comic book shops). And who knows? My own understanding of girl-buttons is admittedly rudimentary. Maybe Cameron's onto something that I'm not anticipating. It IS a love story, after all, and maybe that's enough to make the teen girls watch it half a dozen times as they did with Titanic. My guess, however, is that classical material riches, classic questions of marrying for love or for money, combined with the bad boy thing. . , well I suspect this will always out-rank sci-fi mojo amongst the teen girl set.
In any case, this film looks very much like I pictured it from Cameron's prose, with one exception; I thought most of the fauna of Pandora was going to be glowing like a school of lamprey fish, but I guess the screen tests of that just didn't touch the right emotional nerves in viewers. The Audience is human, after all and Cameron knows his human psychology. I'm glad he's a sci-fi film maker and not a propaganda man like Goebbels!
When my first computer, (an Apple II) came on line, I was suddenly able to write things which didn't read like the result of mild brain damage. (Now, now. Settle down.) --So long, that is, as my notes didn't go over 10 pages or so, which would fill up the memory and choke the system.
--The ability to edit a page in a non-linear fashion, inserting words and sentences, re-arranging thoughts, all of that made it feel as though I were lifting myself out of the drudgery of a 2D world to step into a 3D world! It was amazing, and I can only suppose that it is due to the vastly superior brains of other writers working in ye olden times that anything worth reading was even possible. --Either that or the whole phenomenon of second, third and (shudder) fourth drafts written in long-hand. Good lord! And they bled people to reduce fever, too.
For my part, I accept my linguistic limitations and I've never looked back. --And if I did, I doubt I'd be able to make heads or tails of my own gawdawful chicken scratch notes.
I have to retract some of my earlier prognostication. The film was actually pretty good. --While it was still a formula story with some glaring logic holes, the production values made it utterly fascinating. I've never seen anything quite like it before. I'd certainly pay money for this film, and probably will now that I've seen and enjoyed the stolen version.
Oooh boy. It's going to be one of those days. Well, let's jump into it then. ..
I know at least a dozen female friends who carries their Canon/Sony/Samsumg digital camera in their purses at all time. Whenever I go camping, there are at least 2 people in the group who'd bring their digital camera along. And your point is ?
Yes. People have lots of cameras. There is no problem with the availability of cameras. I know this. Everybody here knows this. And clearly, YOU know this. Now, having established that beyond any doubt. . , go and try capturing a video of an airplane flying overhead Right Now. The reason I say Right Now, is in an effort to simulate the un-expectedness of a UFO sighting. You can't plan to sit under a flight path and wait with the correct lenses and tripod set up. You must pull a camera out of your pocket and start shooting with no preparation at all. If you do this, using an airplane as your subject, you will shortly understand why it is so difficult to take pictures which are clear and un-fuzzy of objects which appear without warning in the sky. Get it?
Wow, you must love Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" sketch.
Wow. Allow me to simplify: Professional Astronomers have seen UFO's.
So you've just proved that we do initiate face-to-face contact with other animals even if we can't communicate with them. And your point on why Alien doesn't just show up is?
Uh huh. You honestly cannot see the point behind that analogy? I can assure you, there IS a point there. Try looking again. Maybe take a nap first and have a good meal with some sugars and nutrients and water first, just to make sure your blood sugars and electrolytes exist in sufficient quantity for a fully effective brain.
My point is that alien life HAS shown up, but you are too bovine to recognize the implications or the reality of it. It has no interest in communicating with you because you are too stupid and too limited. Heck, I'm human, and I can barely stand communicating with you. If I could extract resources from crushing you into a mulch, I'd put a number on your ear-lobe and send you off to the rendering plant as well. I certainly can't see much value in you otherwise, unless perhaps as a mindless slave. How much plainer do you want this?
This makes absolutely no sense that I don't even know what to say
It does make sense, you just have trouble with analogies. Try substituting, "Bank" for "Country" and "Loan" for "Taxes". My point was to try to describe an experience which mirrors in some respects the problems a government official who is aware of what UFO's imply might face when deciding to speak to the public about it. --To be fair, this example did require a little more imagination on the part of the reader than the others.
And Alexander Bell produced a functioning phone and became a millionaire.
Phones are non-threatening and useful for managing a population. Broad acceptance of the UFO reality is not. Acceptance or non-acceptance of an idea does not change the fact that Bell's critics were using poor logic to reach false conclusions. You are using the same kind of thinking.
[...]If I have unlimited time, I'd go investigate every claim ever made. But unfortunately I don't. This is why Occam's Razor exist. It doesn't tell you what's real and what's not. Occam's Razor helps you to eliminate outrageous claims and concentrate your limited time and effort on the plausible ones.
You understand then a thing which is not understood by most; that Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb and not a hard and fast law. That's the first intelligent thing you've said. However, you are failing to see the point; that Occam's Razor relies on self-referential knowledge to determine what is likely and unlikely. In closed systems where all the possible behavior mechanics are understood, this is fine, but when speculating about new forces, the question might be better put: "Which is more likely? That I know eve
And you are saying you have not?, with the fervour of your replies?
Well, there's a difference. In the first place, I made up my mind after studying the evidence on both sides in earnest. Most simply never do this because it takes work, choosing instead to sell their minds to the intellectual authorities.
In the second place, I am entirely willing to un-make up my mind should anybody raise a valid point. --Even on Slashdot, this does happen, forcing me to modify and re-build the knowledge structure I carry around. But one can only do this when the ego is under control and when one is being honest with oneself. The poster I was replying to "with such fervor" was being rude, thoughtless and dismissive, so my response, annoyed as it sounded, did fall within the bounds of appropriate behavior. I never know quite how to proceed with such people; in this case a face smack was what I settled on because it seemed he wasn't entirely lost and might simply have needed a kick-start. Chances are he will not likely forgive me for poking at his pride, but in a few years he might actually be able to overcome his ego and take a step outside of his bubble. That's how Slashdot works best; as a kind of crucible. We all choose to come here and participate, so the Free Will issue is partly answered in this manner.
That's the thing with science... if people bitch at you because X wasn't taken into account, you do it with X taken into account and they tend to shut up and accept things when you get repeatable scientific results
That's the difference between science and religion. . . With a religion, people bitch about X not being taken into account when really X WAS taken into account. It's simply easier to make quick, false assumptions and stick one's head back into one's dogma than it is to honestly read and consider the documentation. Most sceptics are about as far from being followers of science as those machine-gun toting 'Christian' soldiers in Iraq are followers of the 10 commandments. --I'm not condoning religion by any means, but the point remains valid.
While you're grabbing the above listed fine, fine film & book you might also want to pickup "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan and "Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, & Hoaxes" by James Randi. My recommendation would be to first watch/read the items listed above, then read these two, then watch/read the ones listed above a second time to see if your interpretation of the "data" they cite changes at all. Good reading...
Uh huh. I'd also study a magician's manual on how to perform a cold reading, which I've also done. Because there are two kinds of skeptic. They even write the word in two different ways!
The first kind is the Skeptic, and this is a rare sort of person! I am one. I'm the guy who has read the books on both sides of the shelf, remained open and performs analysis based on objective reality without caring who laughs or scowls. It takes courage to be a Skeptic.
The other kind is the Sceptic, (note how the spelling is shared with the word relating to sewage and toxicity). Sceptics are a dime a dozen. They will read only the books by Sagan and Randi and having done so will then utterly fail to read anything beyond that in order to put those two esteemed writers to the test.
Which kind are you? Have you followed your own advice?
Oh, bullshit. Real energy can be defined and quantified. It's even a standard unit.
First of all, let me very clear; When I use the word 'Energy' to describe 'chi' or whatever it is, I am not intending to attach the same measures and values as are connected with the term 'energy' as understood by classical physics. The word is used because it embraces some of the perceived characteristics of 'chi'. It's a useful word in this regard and that is all. But you knew that already, so let's move on. ..
I don't think it's a flaw in science that proponents of "energy" or "qi" can't actually define their terms.
Then you are not thinking. I explained it clearly enough the first time. ..
It's hard to test for in the kind of way which would establish things once and for all because our technology and scientific understanding of reality hasn't worked out how to define or measure 'energy', and so it is discounted. It also seems to be tightly linked to awareness; if you don't believe it should be there, then it tends to obey. While quantum theory allows some space for such things, more traditional approaches to science have a lot of difficulty accepting that some aspects of reality exist relative to the state of the observer.
We're talking about a force (or group of forces) which are intimately related to thought. Why is it so difficult to believe that awareness and the intentions of the observer might be a component of its being measurable? If such a force existed, it would pose interesting problems for traditional measurement techniques; you have to grant that much even if we are being purely hypothetical.
Things we can see in the observable world tend to not care whether or not we believe in them. We would like to believe Earth is the center of the Universe, but that doesn't match our observations.
Really? This is actually one of those thousand year-old unprovable philosophical problems. You cannot prove that the world really exists beyond your own mind. Surely you are not suggesting that you have found an answer to this puzzle? But I do, of course, get your point. Reality is squishy, but it's not the sort of thing which can be manipulated whole cloth. It can, though, be manipulated. Energy, as it pertains to, say, sending messages from one mind to another over long distances, tends not to work so well when angry people are scowling and really, really wanting the phenomenon to fail. The real question is WHY they want it to fail so intensely. Perhaps you can answer that.
Furthermore, if it's defined as "life force", as cparker15 does, does this mean that if I stop believing in it, I'll die?
Actually, yes. But as with all people, your mind is an unholy mess of conflicting nonsense and multiple squabbling automatic personalities with competing prerogatives over which you have very little actual control, so I wouldn't worry too much. There are deeper parts of your mind which are in charge of most of your awareness which, luckily for you, your conscious layer has little to do with.
Actually, we know a fair amount about bias, and the placebo effect, and so on.
Nor is it entirely untestable. Get a few dozen people who believe Qi exists, and have them run the experiments, properly recorder. Then have impartial observers interpret the data.
What makes you think this has not been done? It has been, many times. While I hate to invoke the Doug Henning brigade, the Transcendental Meditation people have mountains of work studying their claims. The Washington meditation experiment with over 10,000 participants and the marked reduction in crime thing was an interesting example which springs to mind, and no doubt you will have heard of it. But you'd have to read through the information there yourself, which you won't. The rejection of this kind of research is a very concrete example of energy not working for those who don't want to see it. When presen
Q: With so many high-quality digital cameras out there in every cell phone, why do we only ever get crappy videos and fuzzy images of UFO's? A: Take your cell phone right now and photograph the nearest airplane in the sky. Then come back and ask that question.
Q: Okay, but what about professional astronomers? Why don't they ever see UFO's? A: Who says they haven't?
Q: If alien life is out there, why don't they just talk to us? A: Go to your local factory farm and try opening lines of communication with the livestock. Then come back and ask that question.
Q: Why would the government want to keep alien life a secret from us? A: Go tell your bank manager during your next loan application that you are under the complete domination of a freaky bully who does with you and your family whatever it pleases and that you are utterly powerless to stop it, and that it insists you orchestrate the mass-murder of everybody in the bank and that you fully intend to go along with this plan. Then come back and ask that question.
Q: But Occam's Razor says that the simplest solution is usually the right one. A: Occam didn't take into account that people are conceited to the point where they believe that any idea which hasn't yet occurred to them is less likely to hold validity than those ideas which they have thought of. Example: When Alexander Graham Bell first announced to the world the existence of the Telephone, very smart critics refused to believe it, even going so far as to publish treatises and diagrams in the leading journals of the day, declaring that the physics of sound simply made it impossible that voice could travel any distance through metal tubes (wires) of the diameter described in Bell's experiment; Was it more likely, they asked, that Bell had discovered some New Magical Force or that he was simply lying? --If we only believe in things we already know and understand, then we would never learn anything new.
Q: Okay, but people are very good at seeing patterns where none exist. People have been fooled before! A: Right, and by the same logic, since, "All cows are Animals, all Animals must therefore be Cows."
Q: Show me proof! All you are doing is offering non-falsifiable arguments! Proof, damn it! A: There's tons of it out there. You're simply refusing to look at it. Crop circles are a great place to start because they don't fly away; watch the film, "Crop Circles, Quest for Truth". Also, read Richard Dolan's, "UFO's and the National Security State." After you do some basic research, you won't feel compelled to wave that question around.
If you cannot see the logical flaw with Occam's Razor, then you aren't thinking. Just because Jodi Foster used the term in a M*O*V*I*E doesn't mean you get to stop thinking.
Report back when you find the hole. And if you happen to own a truck, you'll be able to pilot right on through without any fear of scratching the paint.
These things became clear in about twenty minutes of review. . .
1. The Director loved "Appleseed" (the comics) and borrowed heavily from both Shirow's designs and world-building atmosphere.
2. The Director is about as insightful as Shirow in other ways. Has a lot to offer in terms of certain world dynamics, like what a machine soldier might be like in the field, but on the other hand, has the social insights of a mildly brain-damaged 10 year-old.
3. Cliche, cliche, cliche. The short film, "Temp" (featuring a robot working in an office setting) was both beautifully rendered and cleverly shot, but the story was incredibly annoying. See point #2. Watch it and see for yourself. It's about on par with those brain-locked idiots who made Stargate (the movie) and Independence Day. What the hell was he thinking? That it would be cute or something? Jeezuz. You cannot mix "Anime Cute" with Shakey-Camera "Hyper-Reality" work; they occupy different aesthetic realms. The same principal is at work which makes eyeballs popping out of the head in surprise, funny in a Bugs Bunny cartoon but weirdly ghoulish when the same thing takes place with live action. --The sad part is that he probably didn't work this out even after performing the experiment of making an expensive short film.
4. Based on what others have to say about the film, evidently, Neill Blomkamp is also entirely naive when it comes to world politics and larger socio-dynamics, which is too bad. If this guy teamed up with a writer who wasn't a child, then perhaps something amazing could have happened. I think I'll wait for the download on this one. Sorry. I don't go to the movies just to see some clever computer animations and grind my teeth at thundering quantities of "stupid".
What is the real thing? How can it be measured and tested? Couldn't it be used for evil, as well as good?
I just call it 'energy' but nobody I know seems entirely clear on what exactly it is. My guess is that it is simply another variation of the unstable wave forms from which atomic matter is constructed, but that doesn't really help much since the same could be said of anything. It's hard to test for in the kind of way which would establish things once and for all because our technology and scientific understanding of reality hasn't worked out how to define or measure 'energy', and so it is discounted. It also seems to be tightly linked to awareness; if you don't believe it should be there, then it tends to obey. While quantum theory allows some space for such things, more traditional approaches to science have a lot of difficulty accepting that some aspects of reality exist relative to the state of the observer. When concrete examples of such unknown forces which fall into the same category as 'energy' rise, (and they do from time to time; we've had one or two recently), they are often ignored or otherwise awkwardly received and quietly forgotten about. Our public arena scientists simply aren't wise (or free) enough yet to look at these things clearly. Until then, one must test on a person by person basis. Like scientifically proving dreams exist; it can't be done, yet it doesn't make dreams any less a part of the human experience.
Can it be used for Good as well as Evil? Well, since Good and Evil are moving targets, I'd say, "Sure". In fact, I'd suggest that flooding the environment with EM radiation is probably not far from the evil end of the spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum seems to be somewhat related to 'energy' in how it affects certain elements of reality and human awareness.
I'm also not aware of any evidence that this "EM pollution" is harmful, but at least we sort of know what it is, and can measure its effect, so I trust it a hell of a lot more than I'd trust "real" Qi, if you managed to produce any.
No? That tells me a lot about you; Like most taboo knowledge, it's not hidden, it's just not broadcast on prime-time television. You could benefit enormously from doing some rather easy research. I'd start with Robert O. Becker's book, Cross Currents. They have used copies for around five dollars. If you want to know things that the power brokers of the world don't want you to know, then you aren't going to find out by dancing for the little people who are certainly going to laugh at you. You have to put in a little effort and grow a bit of a spine.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be happy to learn more and perhaps get the entire view.
Wow. I pegged you wrong. I apologize.
Anyway, it's the first item on a Google search. The full movie is available for viewing here.
-FL
Bullshit. There are so many layers of, "Totally WRONG" in what you are saying, it's hard to know where to begin.
If you're just spouting out of ignorance, then do a little research. If you know what the truth is, but are simply a greedy asshole who wants to see another nation fall before the march of American Imperialism, (via the CIA), then please do the rest of the world a favor and jump under a truck.
For everybody else, watch: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."
It's on YouTube.
-FL
You sound like the rich kids on campuses who have no idea what they are talking about when they fall into line with the general greed and CIA driven attempts to destroy the possibility for a strong Venezuela. (That is, a Venezuela which isn't driven by fueled by slavery and illiteracy, ignorance and foreign-owned resources). --Propaganda works both ways, and if you think the side you are supporting isn't using enormous gobs of it, then you are living with your head in the ground.
Try watching, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", if you want a picture of the truth. --It's an amazing video; while an independent film company was shooting a documentary, a coup attempt took place and they filmed the whole thing in context. Only pathocrats could view such a thing and come away with your broken head-space.
But I'm betting you won't even try looking at this, because it would show you a world view more accurate than the sick little dream you're living in, and which your ego will simply not allow you to assimilate because you are incapable of dealing with the fact that you are an idiot. (Ooooh! Scary!)
Now go tell your lies to yourself about how you're smarter than the rest of us. --It's a lot easier than actually working to look at objective reality and deal with the scary things it reflects back to you about yourself.
-FL
I just watched the video where on "The Escapist" which covers the software developers behind Achron.
So cool! --It's one of those charming out of college start-ups in somebody's house with a handful of equipment and a couple of guys developing the game. That brings back some great memories of my own.
I pretty much avoid video games like the great time-plague, but I can see myself actually picking up a copy of Achron just to support these dudes and the development of such a cool idea.
I wish 'em the best of luck!
-FL
Every now and then I return to the on-going board meeting being held in one of my Day Dream arenas where I'm planning out how to make a game like this one work. It's quite the mental exercise.
The fact that this game exists means that either the makers have overcome some rather huge programming barriers, or they have dodged around them by cheating. Either way, if it feels right, then they've been quite clever.
The version I've been planning in my head, (with no intention of ever actually making since I'm not a programmer or game designer), was more like one of those city-building sims with a war and/or adventure element with lots of specific missions. From what I've been able to work out, essentially, the key to such a game is having a very fast and powerful computer which is capable of generating and keeping track a complete time-line of events before the game even starts. Like mapping out a whole chess game in advance. The computer would map it out from start to finish and maintain the whole thing memory. Whenever the player would take an action, the computer would re-map all the changes forward right to the end of the game so that the player could jump ahead to see what had happened. This would require the AI to guess at what the player would do for future actions, and that would be one hurdle. (There are several ways to get around the clumsiness of this mechanic and make it fit the game). And it would allow for massive changes in the city scape, which is appropriate given the enormous power time travel implies.
On the whole, it seemed rather un-doable, but the more I consider it, the more viable it seems.
A semi-related watershed moment came when that new game, "Scribblenauts" was announced. --It seems that the impossible is becoming possible, and people are being asked to think in ways we never have done before. I think that's probably healthy.
--And the part of me which watches real reality (from another Day Dream board room), is thinking that perhaps these advances are significant for less obvious reasons. . .
-FL
Actually, I think it is quite daring for MS to support a South American leader opposed to American industrial interests.
MS obviously knows which side it's betting on winning that little conflict, and what OS they'll be wanting the people to support when they rise through the joys of uncorrupted social reform to become the new super-power of the South. All those newly wealthy folks will need computers, after all.
-FL
Leave groggy questions about laptops behind in cubicle-land and become a rugged mountain man, plying the wilderness trails with a sure step, and the unmistakable sparkle and glow of Life in your flinty eyes and ruddy cheeks.
Oscar-Wilde, your faithful mountain lion companion, will leap at your side as you pull hapless vacationers from the icy clutches of the river during spring thaw. Why, you'll have adventures, foil villains and bed glorious Russian heiresses!
Screw the laptop.
-FL
Stanford scientists have again proven, that anomalous results can, in fact, be generated by choosing unrepresentative models for a behavior or phenomena under study. A particular key for reaching such results in this study was to replace the simultaneous performance of multiple tasks with performing a single task involving multiple inputs and success criteria.
Yeah, or they simply labeled their subject of study in a way which everybody found confusing.
They used the terms, "Low Multitaskers" and "High Multitaskers", when "Multitasker" is a pop-culture word with no formal definition in terms of psychology. So they basically made up their own definitions and performed some interesting studies, and then published findings which were then poorly reported. --Resulting in people saying, "Hey! I'm a multitasker! What are they talking about?"
It sounds to me as though they might have communicated their findings more effectively to the masses by saying, "Multitasker" instead of "Low Multitasker" and "ADD Sufferer" instead of "High Multitasker". --Though that would have opened up a whole other kettle of smelly fish since ADD isn't clearly understood either and carries its own cultural baggage.
I can see why they chose as they did, and I can certainly relate to their findings. --I consider myself a multitasker; I can have several projects all under steam at the same time, and I can get them all done effectively, --but I also have the ability to focus entirely on one one subject at a time. I only switch when I get run down or stuck, not when something else intrudes into my focus to distract me. It sounds like they were calling that a "Low Multitasker"
Whereas I had this girlfriend once who would carry on a half dozen IM conversations while checking email and trying to edit and upload photographs and make food and plan for her next business day all at the same time. She did all of it very badly and couldn't will herself to focus on any one thing. I didn't consider her a multitasker so much as a bundle of clumsy nerves on the permanent verge of collapse. It was very stressful to be around and it was one of the reasons we eventually broke up. Too bad. She was otherwise a really nice girl.
Effective multitasking requires the ability to choose and focus while also maintaining the agility necessary to jump between thoughts and make intuitive leaps.
-FL
Yes - he's obviously dating a supermodel when he's not posting on /.
Oh, settle down now. I've been with some unattractive 'beautiful' girls, and I've been with some beautiful 'unattractive' girls, and I've learned which I like more. It's definitely the soul that counts. --But that doesn't prevent me from being able to comment on Cameron's casting.
-FL
But it does illustrate my point -- energy, among many other strange things, once beyond comprehension, can now be clearly quantified.
Okay. That's a fine point.
"Energy" (as I use the term in the context of Qi, or Chi or Auras or what have you), has NOT yet been clearly quantified. We're not there yet. This doesn't mean it cannot be quantified or that we don't need a word to describe in an umbrella sense the set of phenomenon which people experience. I don't, however, see the scientific community reaching any sort of consensus on what Chi is when they are so incredibly hostile towards the possibility of even looking vaguely in its direction. Maybe it'll take another 100 years. Who knows?
That's not a definition, that's a cop-out.
I wasn't trying to give you a definition. A cop-out implies sneakiness. I'm not being sneaky. I honestly don't know how to define it. --I'm just offering some possible reasons why 'Energy' has defied definition thus far.
Not entirely -- we already have an effect which depends on the thought and mental state of the individual. It's called the Placebo effect, and it's well documented and repeatedly measured.
More specifically, the Placebo effect, the healing power of laughter, and other, similar things, all suffer from the same flaws you mention -- that they depend on the mental state of the subject.
None of them depend on the mental state of the examiner, and certainly, they don't depend on the mental state of the individual who later analyzes the resultant data.
The Placebo Effect is an umbrella term which covers a whole lot of ground, thus it is not easily quantified. And it offers a wonderful example of the way in which the sciences are (inappropriately) governed by emotional biases among researchers. When the "Placebo Effect" can make head-aches and body pains go away, (or alternatively appear), then it is clear that intention and belief in the subject do indeed exert a very powerful influence over the state of the subject. Researchers accept this reality and all it well and good.
But if you dare call some aspects of the "Placebo Effect" the result instead of "Energy Manipulation", why suddenly everybody gets terribly upset, refuses to study the phenomenon on grounds that it offends their personal Bullshit-Meter, denies that the phenomenon exists, demands that the term be defined exactly and generally gets all huffy and stubborn. Emotionalism exists in the sciences. It shouldn't be, because I agree, the scientific approach is a marvel, but it is easily as corruptible as any human agency by ego and fear.
This is true, but it also doesn't matter. You see, I can perform reliable and repeatable experiments that will tell me the nature of the universe-that-appears-to-exist. Even if it's an elaborate dream or simulation, the scientific method gives me a greater understanding of how that simulation works, and what I can expect from it.
Of course it does. But if you agree that you and everything around you may merely be elaborate thought patterns, then it is also reasonable to agree that thoughts might carry more influence than you are currently allowing for. People often forget that they are PART of the system they are experimenting within, and that they do not fully understand all the forces at play.
Are you telling me that it tends to work when people really, really want the phenomenon to succeed -- yet are still keeping to protocol?
I'd be happy to attempt an answer here, but I confess I'm not entirely clear what you are asking.
In other words, you're telling me that there's a deeper part of my mind that believes in Qi. Aside from the fact that this seems absurd on its face, can you tell me how you know that?
I don't know that, because you've put it into "other words" which I didn't say, which are deliberately made to sound absurd and which do poor service to my actual meaning, (and which, I might add, is a rather chee
Rude and dismissive, I'll grant you, but not thoughtless.
Well, there are many kinds of thoughts. I was referring to those which were graceful, precise and wise.
And there's a reason for that. It gets your attention, and it's a way of cutting quickly to the point.
You weren't reasoning. You were reacting automatically, that is all. You are now beginning to engage reason. There's no point to any of this without being honest with ourselves, which, granted, is very hard to do. Our automatic selves are in control most of the time and everybody has to fight with it.
For example, you claimed that energy could not be quantified, and I showed that it can. You're now claiming that you weren't talking about the same kind of energy -- but why can't Qi be quantified?
Now claiming? No, you just mis-understood me from the start. --While I am not the clearest of writers at all times, in this case I don't see how it was possible for you to misinterpret my words unless you were reading too quickly with your mind actively repelling reality in favor of your biases. But again, that's fairly normal.
That was pretty much my purpose.
I doubt it. What is more likely is that you're simply trying to lie to yourself retroactively in order to maintain self-respect.
So, now I'll actually reply...
Very good. I will too.
I wonder what the cost of that particular issue is.
The line blurs between computers and print and soon we'll be living in "Minority Report". Oh my!
Or perhaps. . .
It's just another one of those silly floppy square 45's in a magazine.
Whatever. Pepsi is getting the market awareness they wanted with this stunt. The best I can hope for is that the technology gets a boost towards something cool because sheeple drink black fizzy sugar water.
-FL
Two things.
I know Dances with Wolves was not a James Cameron movie. The formula bears some similarities to Avatar, though. I'd say that Avatar is rather like Dances with Wolves, mixed with Aliens, mixed with a bit of Strange Days and all boiled in a broth of Pocahontas.
The second thing is that I spelled "Plain-Jane" incorrectly and was feeling bugged by my not being able to correct it. Perhaps I am getting befuddled by the now ubiquitous auto-correcting spelling feature which seems to have grown like a fungus across my entire OS. . . Doubt I'll turn it off, though!
Cheers!
-FL
Having read the (now scrubbed from the web after having floated around for several years) full script treatment penned by Cameron, I can assure you that it's a very solid story.
It IS formula, but then so was Titanic, (and Dances with Wolves for that matter). But Cameron knows how to work a formula impeccably. And the guy has actually gone and found a New Cool technology, which if used effectively and spun right, (think Jurassic Park), can help significantly in the promotion of a film.
The buzz is that the 3D has got the techs in Hollywood really excited about going to work every day.
People are going to see this film in droves and they are going to be blown away by it. I feel safe in predicting that.
Avatar, however, isn't going to be bigger than Titanic in terms of sales. I'll go ahead and predict that as well. --Why not? Because he isn't tapping the same doomed-romance nerve which is crack-cocaine to the average 15 year-old girl.
The casting of Titanic was both cynical and brilliant: Casting the almost beautiful Kate Winslet as the female lead was a sly maneuver which allowed the female audience to fantasize over the notion that even plane-Jane girls like themselves could have their very own Leonardo Decaprio. --And that his character should conveniently die at the end of the film so that he wouldn't put his lover through years of poverty, while in the same action giving her a bitter-sweet memory to polish and secretly wax pathetic over for years and years. . , well, that's just orgasmic! The girl-buttons deep inside girl-machines are placed in some really odd ways, but Cameron found 'em all and pushed every last one he could reach.
Avatar is going to be really cool, but it's not going to press nearly so many girl-buttons. (Though, images of blue amazon elf maidens I suspect will become popular in comic book shops). And who knows? My own understanding of girl-buttons is admittedly rudimentary. Maybe Cameron's onto something that I'm not anticipating. It IS a love story, after all, and maybe that's enough to make the teen girls watch it half a dozen times as they did with Titanic. My guess, however, is that classical material riches, classic questions of marrying for love or for money, combined with the bad boy thing. . , well I suspect this will always out-rank sci-fi mojo amongst the teen girl set.
In any case, this film looks very much like I pictured it from Cameron's prose, with one exception; I thought most of the fauna of Pandora was going to be glowing like a school of lamprey fish, but I guess the screen tests of that just didn't touch the right emotional nerves in viewers. The Audience is human, after all and Cameron knows his human psychology. I'm glad he's a sci-fi film maker and not a propaganda man like Goebbels!
-FL
I couldn't get into word processing fast enough!
When my first computer, (an Apple II) came on line, I was suddenly able to write things which didn't read like the result of mild brain damage. (Now, now. Settle down.) --So long, that is, as my notes didn't go over 10 pages or so, which would fill up the memory and choke the system.
--The ability to edit a page in a non-linear fashion, inserting words and sentences, re-arranging thoughts, all of that made it feel as though I were lifting myself out of the drudgery of a 2D world to step into a 3D world! It was amazing, and I can only suppose that it is due to the vastly superior brains of other writers working in ye olden times that anything worth reading was even possible. --Either that or the whole phenomenon of second, third and (shudder) fourth drafts written in long-hand. Good lord! And they bled people to reduce fever, too.
For my part, I accept my linguistic limitations and I've never looked back. --And if I did, I doubt I'd be able to make heads or tails of my own gawdawful chicken scratch notes.
-FL
Just watched a cam version of this film.
I have to retract some of my earlier prognostication. The film was actually pretty good. --While it was still a formula story with some glaring logic holes, the production values made it utterly fascinating. I've never seen anything quite like it before. I'd certainly pay money for this film, and probably will now that I've seen and enjoyed the stolen version.
Cheers, all!
-FL
Oooh boy. It's going to be one of those days. Well, let's jump into it then. . .
I know at least a dozen female friends who carries their Canon/Sony/Samsumg digital camera in their purses at all time. Whenever I go camping, there are at least 2 people in the group who'd bring their digital camera along. And your point is ?
Yes. People have lots of cameras. There is no problem with the availability of cameras. I know this. Everybody here knows this. And clearly, YOU know this. Now, having established that beyond any doubt. . , go and try capturing a video of an airplane flying overhead Right Now. The reason I say Right Now, is in an effort to simulate the un-expectedness of a UFO sighting. You can't plan to sit under a flight path and wait with the correct lenses and tripod set up. You must pull a camera out of your pocket and start shooting with no preparation at all. If you do this, using an airplane as your subject, you will shortly understand why it is so difficult to take pictures which are clear and un-fuzzy of objects which appear without warning in the sky. Get it?
Wow, you must love Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" sketch.
Wow. Allow me to simplify: Professional Astronomers have seen UFO's.
So you've just proved that we do initiate face-to-face contact with other animals even if we can't communicate with them. And your point on why Alien doesn't just show up is?
Uh huh. You honestly cannot see the point behind that analogy? I can assure you, there IS a point there. Try looking again. Maybe take a nap first and have a good meal with some sugars and nutrients and water first, just to make sure your blood sugars and electrolytes exist in sufficient quantity for a fully effective brain.
My point is that alien life HAS shown up, but you are too bovine to recognize the implications or the reality of it. It has no interest in communicating with you because you are too stupid and too limited. Heck, I'm human, and I can barely stand communicating with you. If I could extract resources from crushing you into a mulch, I'd put a number on your ear-lobe and send you off to the rendering plant as well. I certainly can't see much value in you otherwise, unless perhaps as a mindless slave. How much plainer do you want this?
This makes absolutely no sense that I don't even know what to say
It does make sense, you just have trouble with analogies. Try substituting, "Bank" for "Country" and "Loan" for "Taxes". My point was to try to describe an experience which mirrors in some respects the problems a government official who is aware of what UFO's imply might face when deciding to speak to the public about it. --To be fair, this example did require a little more imagination on the part of the reader than the others.
And Alexander Bell produced a functioning phone and became a millionaire.
Phones are non-threatening and useful for managing a population. Broad acceptance of the UFO reality is not. Acceptance or non-acceptance of an idea does not change the fact that Bell's critics were using poor logic to reach false conclusions. You are using the same kind of thinking.
[...]If I have unlimited time, I'd go investigate every claim ever made. But unfortunately I don't. This is why Occam's Razor exist. It doesn't tell you what's real and what's not. Occam's Razor helps you to eliminate outrageous claims and concentrate your limited time and effort on the plausible ones.
You understand then a thing which is not understood by most; that Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb and not a hard and fast law. That's the first intelligent thing you've said. However, you are failing to see the point; that Occam's Razor relies on self-referential knowledge to determine what is likely and unlikely. In closed systems where all the possible behavior mechanics are understood, this is fine, but when speculating about new forces, the question might be better put: "Which is more likely? That I know eve
And you are saying you have not?, with the fervour of your replies?
Well, there's a difference. In the first place, I made up my mind after studying the evidence on both sides in earnest. Most simply never do this because it takes work, choosing instead to sell their minds to the intellectual authorities.
In the second place, I am entirely willing to un-make up my mind should anybody raise a valid point. --Even on Slashdot, this does happen, forcing me to modify and re-build the knowledge structure I carry around. But one can only do this when the ego is under control and when one is being honest with oneself. The poster I was replying to "with such fervor" was being rude, thoughtless and dismissive, so my response, annoyed as it sounded, did fall within the bounds of appropriate behavior. I never know quite how to proceed with such people; in this case a face smack was what I settled on because it seemed he wasn't entirely lost and might simply have needed a kick-start. Chances are he will not likely forgive me for poking at his pride, but in a few years he might actually be able to overcome his ego and take a step outside of his bubble. That's how Slashdot works best; as a kind of crucible. We all choose to come here and participate, so the Free Will issue is partly answered in this manner.
That's the thing with science... if people bitch at you because X wasn't taken into account, you do it with X taken into account and they tend to shut up and accept things when you get repeatable scientific results
That's the difference between science and religion. . . With a religion, people bitch about X not being taken into account when really X WAS taken into account. It's simply easier to make quick, false assumptions and stick one's head back into one's dogma than it is to honestly read and consider the documentation. Most sceptics are about as far from being followers of science as those machine-gun toting 'Christian' soldiers in Iraq are followers of the 10 commandments. --I'm not condoning religion by any means, but the point remains valid.
-FL
While you're grabbing the above listed fine, fine film & book you might also want to pickup "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan and "Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, & Hoaxes" by James Randi. My recommendation would be to first watch/read the items listed above, then read these two, then watch/read the ones listed above a second time to see if your interpretation of the "data" they cite changes at all. Good reading...
Uh huh. I'd also study a magician's manual on how to perform a cold reading, which I've also done. Because there are two kinds of skeptic. They even write the word in two different ways!
The first kind is the Skeptic, and this is a rare sort of person! I am one. I'm the guy who has read the books on both sides of the shelf, remained open and performs analysis based on objective reality without caring who laughs or scowls. It takes courage to be a Skeptic.
The other kind is the Sceptic, (note how the spelling is shared with the word relating to sewage and toxicity). Sceptics are a dime a dozen. They will read only the books by Sagan and Randi and having done so will then utterly fail to read anything beyond that in order to put those two esteemed writers to the test.
Which kind are you? Have you followed your own advice?
-FL
Oh, bullshit. Real energy can be defined and quantified. It's even a standard unit.
First of all, let me very clear; When I use the word 'Energy' to describe 'chi' or whatever it is, I am not intending to attach the same measures and values as are connected with the term 'energy' as understood by classical physics. The word is used because it embraces some of the perceived characteristics of 'chi'. It's a useful word in this regard and that is all. But you knew that already, so let's move on. . .
I don't think it's a flaw in science that proponents of "energy" or "qi" can't actually define their terms.
Then you are not thinking. I explained it clearly enough the first time. . .
We're talking about a force (or group of forces) which are intimately related to thought. Why is it so difficult to believe that awareness and the intentions of the observer might be a component of its being measurable? If such a force existed, it would pose interesting problems for traditional measurement techniques; you have to grant that much even if we are being purely hypothetical.
Things we can see in the observable world tend to not care whether or not we believe in them. We would like to believe Earth is the center of the Universe, but that doesn't match our observations.
Really? This is actually one of those thousand year-old unprovable philosophical problems. You cannot prove that the world really exists beyond your own mind. Surely you are not suggesting that you have found an answer to this puzzle? But I do, of course, get your point. Reality is squishy, but it's not the sort of thing which can be manipulated whole cloth. It can, though, be manipulated. Energy, as it pertains to, say, sending messages from one mind to another over long distances, tends not to work so well when angry people are scowling and really, really wanting the phenomenon to fail. The real question is WHY they want it to fail so intensely. Perhaps you can answer that.
Furthermore, if it's defined as "life force", as cparker15 does, does this mean that if I stop believing in it, I'll die?
Actually, yes. But as with all people, your mind is an unholy mess of conflicting nonsense and multiple squabbling automatic personalities with competing prerogatives over which you have very little actual control, so I wouldn't worry too much. There are deeper parts of your mind which are in charge of most of your awareness which, luckily for you, your conscious layer has little to do with.
Actually, we know a fair amount about bias, and the placebo effect, and so on.
Nor is it entirely untestable. Get a few dozen people who believe Qi exists, and have them run the experiments, properly recorder. Then have impartial observers interpret the data.
What makes you think this has not been done? It has been, many times. While I hate to invoke the Doug Henning brigade, the Transcendental Meditation people have mountains of work studying their claims. The Washington meditation experiment with over 10,000 participants and the marked reduction in crime thing was an interesting example which springs to mind, and no doubt you will have heard of it. But you'd have to read through the information there yourself, which you won't. The rejection of this kind of research is a very concrete example of energy not working for those who don't want to see it. When presen
Q: With so many high-quality digital cameras out there in every cell phone, why do we only ever get crappy videos and fuzzy images of UFO's?
A: Take your cell phone right now and photograph the nearest airplane in the sky. Then come back and ask that question.
Q: Okay, but what about professional astronomers? Why don't they ever see UFO's?
A: Who says they haven't?
Q: If alien life is out there, why don't they just talk to us?
A: Go to your local factory farm and try opening lines of communication with the livestock. Then come back and ask that question.
Q: Why would the government want to keep alien life a secret from us?
A: Go tell your bank manager during your next loan application that you are under the complete domination of a freaky bully who does with you and your family whatever it pleases and that you are utterly powerless to stop it, and that it insists you orchestrate the mass-murder of everybody in the bank and that you fully intend to go along with this plan. Then come back and ask that question.
Q: But Occam's Razor says that the simplest solution is usually the right one.
A: Occam didn't take into account that people are conceited to the point where they believe that any idea which hasn't yet occurred to them is less likely to hold validity than those ideas which they have thought of. Example: When Alexander Graham Bell first announced to the world the existence of the Telephone, very smart critics refused to believe it, even going so far as to publish treatises and diagrams in the leading journals of the day, declaring that the physics of sound simply made it impossible that voice could travel any distance through metal tubes (wires) of the diameter described in Bell's experiment; Was it more likely, they asked, that Bell had discovered some New Magical Force or that he was simply lying? --If we only believe in things we already know and understand, then we would never learn anything new.
Q: Okay, but people are very good at seeing patterns where none exist. People have been fooled before!
A: Right, and by the same logic, since, "All cows are Animals, all Animals must therefore be Cows."
Q: Show me proof! All you are doing is offering non-falsifiable arguments! Proof, damn it!
A: There's tons of it out there. You're simply refusing to look at it. Crop circles are a great place to start because they don't fly away; watch the film, "Crop Circles, Quest for Truth". Also, read Richard Dolan's, "UFO's and the National Security State." After you do some basic research, you won't feel compelled to wave that question around.
This concludes the FAQ.
-FL
Don't even go there.
If you cannot see the logical flaw with Occam's Razor, then you aren't thinking. Just because Jodi Foster used the term in a M*O*V*I*E doesn't mean you get to stop thinking.
Report back when you find the hole. And if you happen to own a truck, you'll be able to pilot right on through without any fear of scratching the paint.
-FL
These things became clear in about twenty minutes of review. . .
1. The Director loved "Appleseed" (the comics) and borrowed heavily from both Shirow's designs and world-building atmosphere.
2. The Director is about as insightful as Shirow in other ways. Has a lot to offer in terms of certain world dynamics, like what a machine soldier might be like in the field, but on the other hand, has the social insights of a mildly brain-damaged 10 year-old.
3. Cliche, cliche, cliche. The short film, "Temp" (featuring a robot working in an office setting) was both beautifully rendered and cleverly shot, but the story was incredibly annoying. See point #2. Watch it and see for yourself. It's about on par with those brain-locked idiots who made Stargate (the movie) and Independence Day. What the hell was he thinking? That it would be cute or something? Jeezuz. You cannot mix "Anime Cute" with Shakey-Camera "Hyper-Reality" work; they occupy different aesthetic realms. The same principal is at work which makes eyeballs popping out of the head in surprise, funny in a Bugs Bunny cartoon but weirdly ghoulish when the same thing takes place with live action. --The sad part is that he probably didn't work this out even after performing the experiment of making an expensive short film.
4. Based on what others have to say about the film, evidently, Neill Blomkamp is also entirely naive when it comes to world politics and larger socio-dynamics, which is too bad. If this guy teamed up with a writer who wasn't a child, then perhaps something amazing could have happened. I think I'll wait for the download on this one. Sorry. I don't go to the movies just to see some clever computer animations and grind my teeth at thundering quantities of "stupid".
-FL
And your term for the day is. . ,
argumentum ad ignorantiam.
-FL
What is the real thing? How can it be measured and tested? Couldn't it be used for evil, as well as good?
I just call it 'energy' but nobody I know seems entirely clear on what exactly it is. My guess is that it is simply another variation of the unstable wave forms from which atomic matter is constructed, but that doesn't really help much since the same could be said of anything. It's hard to test for in the kind of way which would establish things once and for all because our technology and scientific understanding of reality hasn't worked out how to define or measure 'energy', and so it is discounted. It also seems to be tightly linked to awareness; if you don't believe it should be there, then it tends to obey. While quantum theory allows some space for such things, more traditional approaches to science have a lot of difficulty accepting that some aspects of reality exist relative to the state of the observer. When concrete examples of such unknown forces which fall into the same category as 'energy' rise, (and they do from time to time; we've had one or two recently), they are often ignored or otherwise awkwardly received and quietly forgotten about. Our public arena scientists simply aren't wise (or free) enough yet to look at these things clearly. Until then, one must test on a person by person basis. Like scientifically proving dreams exist; it can't be done, yet it doesn't make dreams any less a part of the human experience.
Can it be used for Good as well as Evil? Well, since Good and Evil are moving targets, I'd say, "Sure". In fact, I'd suggest that flooding the environment with EM radiation is probably not far from the evil end of the spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum seems to be somewhat related to 'energy' in how it affects certain elements of reality and human awareness.
I'm also not aware of any evidence that this "EM pollution" is harmful, but at least we sort of know what it is, and can measure its effect, so I trust it a hell of a lot more than I'd trust "real" Qi, if you managed to produce any.
No? That tells me a lot about you; Like most taboo knowledge, it's not hidden, it's just not broadcast on prime-time television. You could benefit enormously from doing some rather easy research. I'd start with Robert O. Becker's book, Cross Currents. They have used copies for around five dollars. If you want to know things that the power brokers of the world don't want you to know, then you aren't going to find out by dancing for the little people who are certainly going to laugh at you. You have to put in a little effort and grow a bit of a spine.
Much luck to you!
-FL