Actually, if you're implying there's just the one, you're mistaken -- as Spelljammers know, that one creature on your little world is from another world where they are native, and hundreds of them roam the surface. The sentient inhabitants of this world, quite sensibly, live well underground.:)
The Wachowski's (sp I'm sure) have said many times that they always envisioned The Matrix as a trilogy, so it's not like they did a good movie, and then went into hack-mode to capitalize on unexpected success.
That doesn't follow. Your conclusion "so it's not like..." might follow if your first statement had been "The Wachowski's always envisioned The Matrix as a trilogy", but that's not what you said (nor should you -- how would you know? All you know is what they said, not what they thought...) Your conclusion doesn't follow from the fact that the Wachowski's said what they said.
As the old saying goes, one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tolens.:) I suspect what your argument actually proves is that the reality differs from what the Wachowski's said in order to try to promote their movies...
I still have my "apple peek and poke chart"
Mine fell apart and was taped back together multiple times. Possibly the single most useful piece of paper I've ever owned. I've have books that have less useful information in them than that one poster...
Dual boot. Yes, I know, then you have to pay the Microsoft tax. But heck, there are a lot more and a lot better games for Windows than X-box (or any other console). The price of a copy of Windows is in the ballpark (actually on the cheap side) for a gaming platform, thus I have Windows on my machine. Oh, the horror. Anyhow, since I already dual boot for gaming purposes, iTunes for Windows will work just fine for me...
Maybe someday the WINE project will produce something useable, and then you won't have to do even that... (but I'm not holding my breath)
any discussion of origins is not scientific in nature. Science deals with the observable and falsifiable. Example: "archaeopteryx is the transitional form between reptiles and birds". That is a completely unscientific statement - there is no way to test it or falsify it. Now that doesn't mean it's invalid - but you utilise philosophical methods to prove or disprove the statement. But the statement has nothing to do with science
This is false, and a rather naive view of science to boot. There are plenty of ways to test the statement in question. Yes, there is no way to prove that it is true, and it isn't falsifiable either, no scientific theory ever is. (cf. the Duhem-Quine Thesis) If this is the definition of "scientific" you wish to use, you're asserting that not only is that statement not a scientific one, but you're asserting that no scientific statements exist, as no statement ever uttered by any scientist has met your criteria...
Actually, I guess you're not ruling out "formal sciences" (e.g. mathematics). But if what you were saying were true, there would be no such thing as empirical science.
Imagine a balloon covered with ants. The ants cannot move faster than 10mm/s. Now you blow up the balloon over a period of 10 seconds so that the ants are 2 meters apart. No ant has broken the 10mm/s speed limit, but they've managed to get 2000mm apart in only 10 seconds without breaking 10mm/s.
The answer is an expanding universe. If the universe was not expanding, and it was only 14 billion years old, nothing could be more than 14 billion light years from anything else. But because the universe IS expanding, things can be and in fact some things we can see are more than 14 billion light years from one another.
AS I've argued elsewhere, being finite requires being bounded.
And this is absolutely false statement is the source of your confusion. It is entirely possible for something to be finite and unbounded, or alternately, infinite but bounded. You're treating unrelated concepts as if they meant the same thing.
This is why I hate it when people tell me they're going to give me 110%. What this means is they've actually only been giving me ~91% until now while claiming they were doing their best...
This argument is essentially like arguing the existence of God. No matter that you do, you will never, ever prove that there is or isn't "something" beyond what you previously thought was the border of the "universe".
You clearly don't understand the argument you're trying to analyze. There is no border, even in the finite model, so it doesn't make sense to ask whether there or isn't something beyond it, any more than it makes sense to ask whether there is or isn't a cat in my solid gold box when I don't have a solid gold box. No one is asking this question.
So saying that the universe is infinite is exactly as plausible as saying it's some fancy finite topology.
Um, no. There is a difference between the two, and the difference is observable if we look carefully enough. The plausibility of each view rises or falls based on the observed evidence. Granted, the evidence we have now is inconclusive. But that doesn't make this the same order of question. I may not have a solid gold box, but I do have a refrigerator. There may or may not be a ladybug in it right now (they're all over the bloody place where I live right now, and several have snuck into my home and been found in odd locations). Based on the evidence I have right now, I couldn't tell you whether there is or isn't. But I could go look. Likewise, if we want to know the finiteness and topology of the universe, we may not have the evidence we need to answer the question right now -- but we can go get it if we want it bad enough...
Technically, it wasn't an argument, it was an explanation by analogy.
explaining that the universe folds in on itself in such a way that it is "inescapable", is at the same time saying that there is something bigger than the universe...
Actually, that's the opposite of what the theory is. You're trying to take the analogy too far. The actually theory is that the universe has the same kind of topology as described, but there is no "outside" place.
But what happens if everyone did get enough food, water and whatnot required for them to live. Our population would grow beyond imagination...
Um, this flies in the face of the evidence. The better fed and cared for people are, the lower their population growth rate. Check into the figures yourself. It appears that the biggest danger to a society where few are poor, and even then it's a relative sense of poor, as pretty much everyone gets all the food and whatnot they need, the biggest danger is at that point, population growth tends to bottom out and start going negative. The US would already be shrinking if we weren't getting better and better and keeping people alive longer and longer, and we still have immigration. This tends to be true in any richer nation. If the would could be brought to the US median standard of living, evidence suggests there would be no worries about overpopulation, rather we'd have to start worrying about whether our lifestyle is going to lead to our eventual extinction due to our failing to have two children each.
We are already too many on this earth.
Why do you say that? We grow enough food today to feed over 12 billion people, and throw half of it away every year. And we could easily grow many times what we do with the land we have available. We have plenty of fresh water available, even if we aren't always the best at distributing it. We really have no problems with overpopulation, what we have are problems with population density in certain areas (while other areas, sometimes even more habitable ones, are completely unused), and these could be easily solved if we had the will to do so. We have political problems masquerading as population problems. We have precisely zero actual population problems.
Science is no different from any other belief system!
All belief systems are different. If there was some other belief system that wasn't at all different from Science, it would BE Science...
Understanding that all belief systems are different, one can then compare and contrast them, and decide which one works best for the task at hand.
Some would say there is one that works best for all situations. There are also those who say one programming language works best for any task and all repair work should be done with a hammer. I tend to ignore these people...
I'm paraphrasing here, but when talking about horoscopes, Carl Sagan summarised them like this:
The idea behind horoscopes is that the way the planets were aligned when you were born affects you. The only way this could actually be true is if it was their respective pulls of gravity against your body while being born.
This, unfortunately, shows what a poor student of the history of ideas Carl was.
The idea behind astrology is *not* that the planets have *any effect at all whatsoever* on you. It's based on the idea that the sky is our clock, and the motions of the objects in it are like hands on a clock: they are designed to tell us something. Upon looking at a clock around 6am and saying "look, the sun is going to rise soon", I am not asserting that the motions of the hands on the clock have any effect on the sun.
Astrology is based on the fundamental assumption that the universe was constructed by and intelligent designer, and that the purpose of the sky was to help us tell when things were going to happen. We can tell when it's a good time to plant our crops or harvest them by noting the motions of particular things in it. We know this, then we notice *other* things moving around, and naturally we ask, "What is *that* supposed to be telling us?" Today we say the answer is nothing, but at the time, it was a logical question to ask, and a sensible action to attempt to discern the answer.
Now we can question whether there was an intelligence design behind the solar system, or whether, even if there was, the whole point of planets was to serve as a kind of calendar/clock for people to conveniently see in the sky. Both of these assumptions are indeed highly questionable. But to make up nonsensible "reasons" for astrology and then debunk them is just ridiculous straw-man tactics that ought to have been beneath a man as brilliant and Mr. Sagan...
Heh. The original poster is dating himself I suspect... at least, it's been a long time since I've heard that old BK jingle... "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce / special orders don't upset us. / All we ask is that you let us / serve it your way. / Have it your way, at Burger King..."
Where does the "art" enter into this? Are you we to assume that the DJs who are varnishing, scratching, and otherwise farking up the media actually know what they will get when they do this...
No. They do it, then only use results that are aestheticly pleasing. Is there some reason why this particular application of a millenia old artistic process would not be considered art?
A joke, I know, but it should be noted Mars is not opposing us -- when a planet is at "opposition", it's "opposing" the Sun, i.e. it's at 180 degrees from the Sun in the sky. From the Sun's point of view, it's an Earth-Mars conjunction -- Mars is on our side!:) Mars opposes us when it's at conjunction with the Sun.
Note: the above is incorrect in that it implies you'd have to take very precise measurements AND take them over a few days to detect retrograde motion. Retrograde motion is easily noticeable to the casual, naked eye observer with a memory over the space of a few days. You only need "to take very precise measurements" if you wanted to detect it in the space of a few hours.
One assumes then they aren't capitalists, otherwise they'd be falling over themselves to open trade with a planet where there's a sucker born every minute. (That saying it old -- with today's population and birth rates, there's one born every 8 seconds.)
So from the lack of contact, we can deduce that the aliens are (a) intelligent and (b) commie bastards.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if you're implying there's just the one, you're mistaken -- as Spelljammers know, that one creature on your little world is from another world where they are native, and hundreds of them roam the surface. The sentient inhabitants of this world, quite sensibly, live well underground. :)
That doesn't follow. Your conclusion "so it's not like..." might follow if your first statement had been "The Wachowski's always envisioned The Matrix as a trilogy", but that's not what you said (nor should you -- how would you know? All you know is what they said, not what they thought...) Your conclusion doesn't follow from the fact that the Wachowski's said what they said.
As the old saying goes, one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tolens. :) I suspect what your argument actually proves is that the reality differs from what the Wachowski's said in order to try to promote their movies...
I don't believe he actually gains this ability until Neo jumps into him at the end of the first movie...
Last time I saw a unit describe as "astronomical", it meant 93 million or thereabouts... ;)
I still have my "apple peek and poke chart" Mine fell apart and was taped back together multiple times. Possibly the single most useful piece of paper I've ever owned. I've have books that have less useful information in them than that one poster...
Dual boot. Yes, I know, then you have to pay the Microsoft tax. But heck, there are a lot more and a lot better games for Windows than X-box (or any other console). The price of a copy of Windows is in the ballpark (actually on the cheap side) for a gaming platform, thus I have Windows on my machine. Oh, the horror. Anyhow, since I already dual boot for gaming purposes, iTunes for Windows will work just fine for me...
Maybe someday the WINE project will produce something useable, and then you won't have to do even that... (but I'm not holding my breath)
This is false, and a rather naive view of science to boot. There are plenty of ways to test the statement in question. Yes, there is no way to prove that it is true, and it isn't falsifiable either, no scientific theory ever is. (cf. the Duhem-Quine Thesis) If this is the definition of "scientific" you wish to use, you're asserting that not only is that statement not a scientific one, but you're asserting that no scientific statements exist, as no statement ever uttered by any scientist has met your criteria...
Actually, I guess you're not ruling out "formal sciences" (e.g. mathematics). But if what you were saying were true, there would be no such thing as empirical science.
The answer is an expanding universe. If the universe was not expanding, and it was only 14 billion years old, nothing could be more than 14 billion light years from anything else. But because the universe IS expanding, things can be and in fact some things we can see are more than 14 billion light years from one another.
And this is absolutely false statement is the source of your confusion. It is entirely possible for something to be finite and unbounded, or alternately, infinite but bounded. You're treating unrelated concepts as if they meant the same thing.
This is why I hate it when people tell me they're going to give me 110%. What this means is they've actually only been giving me ~91% until now while claiming they were doing their best...
You clearly don't understand the argument you're trying to analyze. There is no border, even in the finite model, so it doesn't make sense to ask whether there or isn't something beyond it, any more than it makes sense to ask whether there is or isn't a cat in my solid gold box when I don't have a solid gold box. No one is asking this question.
So saying that the universe is infinite is exactly as plausible as saying it's some fancy finite topology.
Um, no. There is a difference between the two, and the difference is observable if we look carefully enough. The plausibility of each view rises or falls based on the observed evidence. Granted, the evidence we have now is inconclusive. But that doesn't make this the same order of question. I may not have a solid gold box, but I do have a refrigerator. There may or may not be a ladybug in it right now (they're all over the bloody place where I live right now, and several have snuck into my home and been found in odd locations). Based on the evidence I have right now, I couldn't tell you whether there is or isn't. But I could go look. Likewise, if we want to know the finiteness and topology of the universe, we may not have the evidence we need to answer the question right now -- but we can go get it if we want it bad enough...
Technically, it wasn't an argument, it was an explanation by analogy.
explaining that the universe folds in on itself in such a way that it is "inescapable", is at the same time saying that there is something bigger than the universe...
Actually, that's the opposite of what the theory is. You're trying to take the analogy too far. The actually theory is that the universe has the same kind of topology as described, but there is no "outside" place.
Um, this flies in the face of the evidence. The better fed and cared for people are, the lower their population growth rate. Check into the figures yourself. It appears that the biggest danger to a society where few are poor, and even then it's a relative sense of poor, as pretty much everyone gets all the food and whatnot they need, the biggest danger is at that point, population growth tends to bottom out and start going negative. The US would already be shrinking if we weren't getting better and better and keeping people alive longer and longer, and we still have immigration. This tends to be true in any richer nation. If the would could be brought to the US median standard of living, evidence suggests there would be no worries about overpopulation, rather we'd have to start worrying about whether our lifestyle is going to lead to our eventual extinction due to our failing to have two children each.
We are already too many on this earth.
Why do you say that? We grow enough food today to feed over 12 billion people, and throw half of it away every year. And we could easily grow many times what we do with the land we have available. We have plenty of fresh water available, even if we aren't always the best at distributing it. We really have no problems with overpopulation, what we have are problems with population density in certain areas (while other areas, sometimes even more habitable ones, are completely unused), and these could be easily solved if we had the will to do so. We have political problems masquerading as population problems. We have precisely zero actual population problems.
I always prefered, "Be excellent to each other."
Party on, dudes...
All belief systems are different. If there was some other belief system that wasn't at all different from Science, it would BE Science...
Understanding that all belief systems are different, one can then compare and contrast them, and decide which one works best for the task at hand.
Some would say there is one that works best for all situations. There are also those who say one programming language works best for any task and all repair work should be done with a hammer. I tend to ignore these people...
The idea behind horoscopes is that the way the planets were aligned when you were born affects you. The only way this could actually be true is if it was their respective pulls of gravity against your body while being born.
This, unfortunately, shows what a poor student of the history of ideas Carl was.
The idea behind astrology is *not* that the planets have *any effect at all whatsoever* on you. It's based on the idea that the sky is our clock, and the motions of the objects in it are like hands on a clock: they are designed to tell us something. Upon looking at a clock around 6am and saying "look, the sun is going to rise soon", I am not asserting that the motions of the hands on the clock have any effect on the sun.
Astrology is based on the fundamental assumption that the universe was constructed by and intelligent designer, and that the purpose of the sky was to help us tell when things were going to happen. We can tell when it's a good time to plant our crops or harvest them by noting the motions of particular things in it. We know this, then we notice *other* things moving around, and naturally we ask, "What is *that* supposed to be telling us?" Today we say the answer is nothing, but at the time, it was a logical question to ask, and a sensible action to attempt to discern the answer.
Now we can question whether there was an intelligence design behind the solar system, or whether, even if there was, the whole point of planets was to serve as a kind of calendar/clock for people to conveniently see in the sky. Both of these assumptions are indeed highly questionable. But to make up nonsensible "reasons" for astrology and then debunk them is just ridiculous straw-man tactics that ought to have been beneath a man as brilliant and Mr. Sagan...
Heh. The original poster is dating himself I suspect... at least, it's been a long time since I've heard that old BK jingle... "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce / special orders don't upset us. / All we ask is that you let us / serve it your way. / Have it your way, at Burger King..."
No. I think the point here is that this is done by a non-random process.
Of course, the result may be no more impressive. Or perhaps it may be. Give me a $10 million research grant and I'll see...
No. They do it, then only use results that are aestheticly pleasing. Is there some reason why this particular application of a millenia old artistic process would not be considered art?
Heretic! Burn him!
A joke, I know, but it should be noted Mars is not opposing us -- when a planet is at "opposition", it's "opposing" the Sun, i.e. it's at 180 degrees from the Sun in the sky. From the Sun's point of view, it's an Earth-Mars conjunction -- Mars is on our side! :) Mars opposes us when it's at conjunction with the Sun.
Actually, they aren't guaranteed to happen, they just happen 9 times out of 10.
Note: the above is incorrect in that it implies you'd have to take very precise measurements AND take them over a few days to detect retrograde motion. Retrograde motion is easily noticeable to the casual, naked eye observer with a memory over the space of a few days. You only need "to take very precise measurements" if you wanted to detect it in the space of a few hours.
So from the lack of contact, we can deduce that the aliens are (a) intelligent and (b) commie bastards. :)
The STS's SRBs are just Estes model rockets built on a large scale... :)