There was a great article in Rolling Stone today that lays out exactly what has happened at AIG in terms most people can understand. It makes my blood boil!
Instead of a cat, let's say it's a person in the box, and you are outside. At the specified time, the poison is released inside the box (or it isn't), and the person in there either experiences death or he doesn't, based on some quantum event. For you, he is in both states until you open the box. So my question is, did the wave function really collapse, or did you just join the guy in the box in an either/or state as far as the rest of the world is concerned?
Well, the wave function in that case isn't exactly what most people would think of as deterministic. It would contain all of the possible outcomes of the universe, from start to finish. So yes, it would determine anything that could happen in the universe, but not necessarily what would happen.
>That still doesn't leave any room for free will however. Your actions are completely dependent on an utterly random function, "will" never enters into it.
I don't know if that's true. Even if your brain is influenced by the randomness of particle physics, it still does generally follow the rules of the macroscopic world. If 'free will' if a function of the brain, small quantum effects could bubble up and lead to different choices, while not making you either totally random or totally determined.
No, at the bottom, the universe is non-deterministic. Quantum events adhere to statistical measurements, but any given event is truly random. You can say that half of the uranium in a given sample will decay in a certain amount of time, but you cannot predict when any single particle will decay, and it's not just because you don't have enough information. It's because the event is truly random.
Did you bother to read the article you posted? Here's the second paragraph:
"Now President Obama's White House has tightened the cloak of government secrecy still further, saying in a letter this week that a discussion draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." "
Oops. I was wrong. There are some cases where copyright can still be in effect for earlier works. Here is an interesting list of all the different combinations:
>I believe posting instructions on removing a catalytic converter has been tried and resulted in consequences for the distributor of said information.
I seriously doubt this. I mean, the government can't even keep people from posting instructions on how to make methamphetamine and you think they can stop you from telling people how to modify their car? The first amendment does apply to automotive instructions.
Actually, I don't think we resolve the entanglement so much as we join it. If, in the famous cat in the box experiment, you replace the cat with a human being, the situation is exactly the same for someone outside the box. The person inside the box is both dead and alive until the outside world measures it. Of course, if you're the one inside, you only experience one or the other.
>What a privilege ! How can citizens allow WILLING EMPLOYERS and WILLING EMPLOYEES to contract, between the 49th parallel and the Rio Grande. What an outrage.
Hey, it's our country and we get to make the rules. One of the minimum functions of a government is keeping control of your own territory,and if that means that a company located within the country cannot hire someone from outside, well tough shit.
You can have authoritarianism on both the far right and far left, and having the word 'socialism' in the name doesn't make it socialist any more than North Korea having the word 'democratic' in their name makes them a democracy.
I leave my emule client running 24/7, sharing an obscene amount of movies and music, and have yet to hear a thing from my isp. I do use the blocklist I mentioned above.
You use a bittorrent (or whatever) client that supports automatically downloading a blocklist, like PeerGuardian, and then the RIAA jackasses can't download from you. Plus, the encrypted connection keeps your isp from knowing what you're sharing.
Slashdot Mirror
There was a great article in Rolling Stone today that lays out exactly what has happened at AIG in terms most people can understand. It makes my blood boil!
>"Free will" implies non-deterministic behavior, but it also implies non-random behavior. There's no room for this in our understanding of physics.
Isn't that kind of like saying that a rock cannot both be sitting perfectly still in one place while all of its particles are whizzing around madly?
Instead of a cat, let's say it's a person in the box, and you are outside. At the specified time, the poison is released inside the box (or it isn't), and the person in there either experiences death or he doesn't, based on some quantum event. For you, he is in both states until you open the box. So my question is, did the wave function really collapse, or did you just join the guy in the box in an either/or state as far as the rest of the world is concerned?
Well, the wave function in that case isn't exactly what most people would think of as deterministic. It would contain all of the possible outcomes of the universe, from start to finish. So yes, it would determine anything that could happen in the universe, but not necessarily what would happen.
>That still doesn't leave any room for free will however. Your actions are completely dependent on an utterly random function, "will" never enters into it.
I don't know if that's true. Even if your brain is influenced by the randomness of particle physics, it still does generally follow the rules of the macroscopic world. If 'free will' if a function of the brain, small quantum effects could bubble up and lead to different choices, while not making you either totally random or totally determined.
An observer does not decide the outcome. If anything, he discovers it, or maybe even "joins" it.
>All it says is If the observers have free will then teh particles must have free will. ...for some values of 'free will'.
No, at the bottom, the universe is non-deterministic. Quantum events adhere to statistical measurements, but any given event is truly random. You can say that half of the uranium in a given sample will decay in a certain amount of time, but you cannot predict when any single particle will decay, and it's not just because you don't have enough information. It's because the event is truly random.
>That's as maybe ... but in those billions of years previously, young Mr Twain wasn't aware of what he was missing.
And he isn't now, either.
Did you bother to read the article you posted? Here's the second paragraph:
"Now President Obama's White House has tightened the cloak of government secrecy still further, saying in a letter this week that a discussion draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." "
Oops. I was wrong. There are some cases where copyright can still be in effect for earlier works. Here is an interesting list of all the different combinations:
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/
You own the Kindle. You are not breaking Amazon DRM to put anything on the Kindle. Amazon can sit and spin.
>I believe posting instructions on removing a catalytic converter has been tried and resulted in consequences for the distributor of said information.
I seriously doubt this. I mean, the government can't even keep people from posting instructions on how to make methamphetamine and you think they can stop you from telling people how to modify their car? The first amendment does apply to automotive instructions.
Seriously, this application isn't removing copy protection from anything, so how is it a DMCA violation?
You put butter on your peanut butter sandwich?
All works created in 1900 are now in the public domain.
>As I understand it, you don't have much choice: they can confiscate it summarily, if they so choose.
Still a much better choice than letting them see the kiddie porn.
>First off hate speech is not protected speech so your example falls on it's ass
Actually, no. Hate speech is every bit as protected as any other speech, so long as you aren't making threats.
Actually, I don't think we resolve the entanglement so much as we join it. If, in the famous cat in the box experiment, you replace the cat with a human being, the situation is exactly the same for someone outside the box. The person inside the box is both dead and alive until the outside world measures it. Of course, if you're the one inside, you only experience one or the other.
This will give you some idea how large a nuclear blast is:
Ground Zero simulator
So let them filibuster. Let them hold everything else up and yell loudly to the media that the republicans are against saving America!
>What a privilege ! How can citizens allow WILLING EMPLOYERS and WILLING EMPLOYEES to contract, between the 49th parallel and the Rio Grande. What an outrage.
Hey, it's our country and we get to make the rules. One of the minimum functions of a government is keeping control of your own territory,and if that means that a company located within the country cannot hire someone from outside, well tough shit.
You can have authoritarianism on both the far right and far left, and having the word 'socialism' in the name doesn't make it socialist any more than North Korea having the word 'democratic' in their name makes them a democracy.
I leave my emule client running 24/7, sharing an obscene amount of movies and music, and have yet to hear a thing from my isp. I do use the blocklist I mentioned above.
You use a bittorrent (or whatever) client that supports automatically downloading a blocklist, like PeerGuardian, and then the RIAA jackasses can't download from you. Plus, the encrypted connection keeps your isp from knowing what you're sharing.