...and they are holding prisoners without due process.
Like who? If you don't give me names, I can't help you.
...when laws are passed that allow the government to do things that are Wrong, the people have a responsibility not only to protest, but to disregard those laws.
Protest, they may, but not disregard. Laws are passed in response to identifiable needs. The difference between you and I is that I trust the government to do what is necessary (within reason) to keep the peace. There are consequences to lawlessness. When individuals decide that a law is not valid, it hinders the effectiveness of that law by making it difficult to enforce. You'd better make sure you're in the right before you make such a decision.
As far as your demand for evidence, the existence of the system is evidence enough.
Existence of what system? What laws are you unhappy with? You just can't expect me to accept your position without making yourself clear.
Imagine what this country would be like if we undermined our authorities. Are you prepared to accept the consequences of this? Don't believe in every fact-less, opinion-riddled report you here or read in the media, or in misguided slashdot postings.
During the previous administration I complained, in public forums, about many things, and nobody came knocking on my door. What I say to others, I sometimes write to our officials about as well (for whatever good that does). My father once told me, if you wouldn't want to read about it on the front page of the Sunday paper, don't do it. You'd be surprised at how liberating it feels when you know your actions are righteous.
What happens when they START doing something bad...
Then we have the right -- the responsibility -- to protest, but not until then.
The framers knew that throughout history, governments have accumulated power and then used that power to oppress people.
Certainly true, this is why there were established so many checks and balances within govt., and why the Bill of Rights was necessary. Our government was not established in ignorance of human history. Our nation's forefathers also had the insight to understand that no govt., including our own, would be impervious to corruption. Therefore, you are correct in noting that we have a responsibility to police our own government.
Until you can come up with a convincing argument why THIS government bucks this historical trend, your position is nothing more than sticking your head in the sand.
On the contrary, in this country we are innocent until proven guilty. Historically, it seems to me that such activity is invariably exposed and dealt with. In other words, the government is has been self-policing. I've yet to see evidence of our govt. acting inappropriately. If you know differently, and expect me to believe you, then you'd better come up with something better that some philosophical concern or circumstantial evidence. However, lets get back to what truly was the focus of the discussion. My post was in reference to Echelon as tool for "spying" on people. Do you have evidence to support that this technology has been used for evil purpose by the govt.? Are you reacting to fear that "the man" is out to get you?
Two hundred years ago, we didn't even have telephones let alone the internet. Searches involved someone coming into your house and disrupting your activities. Therefore, it would be important that the authorities to have a very good reason for doing so.
However, the internet is a completely amorphous medium. When a person sends an e-mail message, all they care about is that it gets to it's intended recipients in a timely manner. They only care about the route that mailing takes, or who else may have intercepted that mail, if they experience some dispruption, delay, or any other undesireable effct. As I understand the technology, Echelon is simply a passive monitoring device that serves as a trigger to get human beings involved. This is necessary as the amount of internet traffic is just too overwhelming. My guess is that this type of automated assistance has been of far more value to those who work for justice than it has been the source of inconvenience.
Many people say "but the big bad govt. has done this or that in the past...". Well, that's a pretty unconvincing arguement for restricting something like Echelon. In any human endevor, people are going to make mistakes, even if they are attempting to do what is right. Prove to me that their intentions were corrupt and then you may be justified in your condemnation of the people involved. The technology employed is not a source for evil, it's what people do with it.
My own personal opinion is that Echelon and similar technologies (at least as I understand them), is that they probably help secular authorities to identify threats to society more than they are a cause for concern. Were this not the case, I doubt the govt. would continue to fund them. You and I don't have access to the complete picture. All we get is what is reported in media outlets, and we all know how unbiased and thorough the media are.
That's it, trust the gov't, be good as they define good, and everything will be ok.
Governments do not define goodness, goodness has already been defined for us. The fact that our founding fathers understood this can be derived by examining the words placed on our currency and those found in the most important documents that define us as a nation. Therefore, I believe the original poster has a valid point. Personally, I don't worry about who is watching who because I trust the "ultimate watcher". However, if you place your trust elsewhere, well, then you may have something to worry about.
The only valid argument I've heard so far relates to the blind and partially sighted. Braille on the corners ought to take care of that, though.
I would agree that lots of fancy colors seem like a waste. However, I tend to think that having thin colored stripes along the top and bottom edges would be good. That way I could quickly locate that stray 1 or 5 amoungst the pack of 100's in my wallet without spending alot of time thumbing through them.
Isn't this just the reverse engineering of a natural process? Isn't this how discoveries are made that tell researchers what DNA modifications need to be made to trigger a gene or genes to produce some natural byproduct? It seems to me that these companies may essentially be patenting natural discoveries, not novel inventions. Also, if the proteins produced are indeed natural, how can they be patented? Therefore, I don't understand how someone could patent both the process (modified gene), and the product. I'm assuming here that by this statement:
"...companies patent not only a gene but the protein made by the gene."
that they mean the modified gene since patenting unmodified genes seems ridiculous to me. Am I missing something here?
The maglev train is a good thing for ODU as the school is just to close to downtown Norfolk for comfort. Something like this might have kept me from getting my bike stolen and spared me the "enlightened comments" from the campus police as we drove around the more shady sections looking for it. On the plus side, my renter's insurance paid for a brand new bike, even better than the one that was stolen!
Quite the opposite I would say: it would demonstrate that complexity can and does arise regardless of the prescence of intelligence or not.
I'm not talking about complexity really. To me complexity is a separate from randomness and order. When I proposed the question, in my mind I was thinking about a computer program I wrote in college simulating a simple CA case in a small 2D grid. Squares were filled in on the grid according to a set of simple rules. Distinguishable patterns arose over the course of several iterations. Specifically, I was thinking about a possible similarity to development of say, patterns on the wing of a butterfly during growth. I think one could come up with a number of possibilities that might be worth investigating in nature. The implication of intelligent design would arise from the fact that the patterns evolve according to logical rules as opposed to something completely random. Tracking the evolution of patterns in this way might add more insight than simply observing regularly shaped "final products". I imagine the extent these things are found in nature (and personally, I don't even know if it has been researched) would determine the strength of the proposition. It's just a thought.
Do observed natural patterns evolve in nature in the same way that CA development of patterns does? The implication is that there follows in nature a logical rule based process of development. If this were true, one could say that there was some type of intelligence that went into it's creation, thereby implicating the existence of "God".
Re:So let me get this straight.
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Wolframania
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· Score: 1
I think of computer programming as a means of encoding logical processes, not just a means for computing equations. Therefore, computer programming is much more powerful than mathematics and probably more suited for describing the physical world. Wolfram seems to argue that equations are inadequate for expressing the physical world due to the fact that they often cannot be used to exactly describe the outcome of repeatable events since there is always something unforeseen in the application of equations that affects the outcome. This sounds fair to me, as equations (in physics) are after all, only mankind's attempt to model observable behavior. Given that mankind develops these equations in an evolutionary manner, it's a fair bet to say that that we don't get it completely right. Do we always apply the correct or relevant equations? The question is: Does CA as Wolfram advocates, present a better means of describing the Universe?
Re:Praise, either way...
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Wolframania
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Everywhere you look, almost everyone is saying, well, even if he is wrong, he's written a hell of a book. Which I suppose is true.
1250 pages represents an awful lot of wasted time if he's not right. From what I've read, it seems Wolfram never sought peer review. That seems very curious to me. I think I'll wait for more reviews.
All he said was that such activities are having little or no effect on the publisher's profits, contrary to their claims. This is an important point to make because it negates the primary argument of the MPAA and RIAA when they call for user-hostile and unconstitutional laws (DMCA, SSSCA, et al) that they are losing billions of dollars due to piracy.
In the article Loebowitz states:
...is that it's very hard to get hard data on CD and record sales.
Hard for who? The government? Liebowitz?Certainly this data is being collected by retail outlets. Certainly these retail outlets are collecting this information for a reason. I suspect this information is far more valuable to the RIAA and MPAA than it is to the sales outlets. Therefore, I believe the RIAA and MPAA are getting this information. Also, I suspect that the RIAA and MPAA are far more knowledgeable about what factors affect their sales then anyone else. Therefore they are most qualified to interpret this data. That said, I find it very difficult to believe that "for profit" organizations would act in such a way as to restrict their lifeblood (profits).
...their real goal is to use government power to eliminate the general purpose computer by turning it into a device that views only approved multimedia content (for a fee each time, of course).
I believe what you meant to say was:
"...their real goal is to use government power to restrict the capability of the general purpose computer to viewing only approved multimedia content (for a fee each time, of course)."
What do you mean by "approved media content"? What evidence do you have to support this? This may or may not be immoral. Jumping into the realm of morality requires consideration of many factors. The morality of the RIAA and MPAA's business practices is irrelevant to the consumer however; their actions do not justify theft. If you don't like it, vote with your money.
Somebody made your computer. They put time money and effort into it's creation. You put time and effort into your work; as a result, you earned the money to buy it. It's your money and you can do whatever you want with it. However, the music that serves as the source for the patterns on you hard drive does not belong to you. It was created through somebody else's time, effort, and money. The music isn't transformed into something different that you can call your own just because it goes from a CD to your hard drive.
You can spend your money to buy the music according to the terms of the seller, or you can save it or spend it on something else. That's the way the system works. If you violate the system, how are the artists and content producers/distributors going to recover their costs? The net effect of your lawlessness is to incur penalties for those who abide by the system. These penalties will likely include higher retail prices and lower quality. For all of our sakes, please make the effort to step outside of yourself. Would you be taking the same position if you were trying to make your living in the music industry?
Of the two types of solar eclipses, this is an annular eclipse. This means that the vertex of the umbra never reaches the Earth. The umbra is the cone region extending from the Moon towards the Earth that is the Moon's shadow. So even if we were to be standing at the center point in the path of the shadow, the Moon will not completely block out the Sun in an annular eclipse. Thus, a total eclipse occurs when the umbra at least reaches the Earth.
The frequency of observation of total vs. annular eclipses can be arrived at by examining the following facts about the shadow of the Moon:
Moon's distance from Earth (miles): Max = 252710, Min = 221460, Mean = 238900
Length of Umbra (miles): Max = 236700, Min = 226800, Mean = 231100
It's pretty interesting actually. This means that the Earth, Moon, and Sun are positioned and sized in such a way as to guarantee totality a little less than half the time a solar eclipse occurs.
and not the plus or minus 10 meter kind, the really accurate kind so I can take it out on the golf course. A cell phone and all the other functions you mentioned would be great. Battery life should be about 6 hours with hot swappable battery capability. With voice recognition and swappable antennas, this type of device could be really compact.
"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"
Well, I suppose the client program would have to have some way of recognizing which targets to render, so it could be reverse engineered or picked out of the packet. Nevermind.
...The client must, at minimum, know the precise location of other players that are currently visible. It needs this data in order to correctly render, there just isn't any way around that. Someone can, at least theoretically, alter the client in such a way as to use that information to perform in a super-human fashion.
How about creating a server side function that, when cheating is suspected, generates and transmits false target information to the client. Only the server machine would know what the real position of the clients is. If the server recognizes the suspicious client tracking the false target, then cheaters could be identified and rendered ineffective.
Re:The sad truth about "Cancer Cures'
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Kills Tumors Dead
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· Score: 1, Interesting
If I understood my quick overview of DNA correctly, cancer cells are a very rare but normal consequence of replication, as you seem to point out. However, the body's immune system has the ability to kill off these cells. IANAD, but I suspect it only becomes a problem if some critical threshold is reached where the system can no longer keep up with production. I guess this means that if a person lives long enough, they *will* get cancer. I suppose we all die of something sooner or later, but life doesn't end after death so I wouldn't get too down about it. Besides, from what I hear, and I don't know if this was the case for your relatives or not, they can treat terminal cancer patients with drugs to make them relatively comfortable even through death.
I do see your point though. I too think it would be unfair to give people false expectations about new "cures", especially if the information affects them personally. People should have a right to know as much as they can understand about the possible benefits and side effects. Different people are going to make different choices about how much they want to fight. I imagine that type of information would be an important part of this decision.
Incidentally, I thought this whole starve the cells of blood thing has been around for quite a while. Did your relatives participate in any trials that tested this?
The difference is that there is a great deal of evidence for the Apollo landings.
Well yes, and that's why we are at odds on this point. From a purely logical/scientific perspective, the best arguments either for or against the existence of God are unconvincing. I suppose you could come to believe in God by examining the world from the right perspective, but the evidence "given" to me wouldn't make sense to you or anyone else because it is based on my own life experiences.
This is just horrible. You have converted "Religion" to Judeo-Christianity.
Not really. Would it surprise you to know that the Allah of Islam is the same God that Jews and Christians worship?
...the population of the world is over 6 billion....3 is greater than 2....Hence most of the people in the world don't believe in your god.
When you said that Christianity was a minority religion, the implication was that there is another religion with a larger following, which is not the case. Adopting "the greater than half" definition of "minority" doesn't seem very meaningful since no religion garners half the world population. Given that Islam claims a little less than a million people worldwide, I believe it would be correct to say that at least half the world does believe in God.
...I'm very surprised that you are arguing against me on this point....The point though isn't can you question a given religion's specific teachings, but are you even capable of truly questioning the underlying assumption....I think it is clear that you were predisposed to accept the existence of god by your upbringing.
I'm not arguing the point. In my case, it was more a matter of having difficulty reconciling various specific points of my indoctrination in relation to the nature and power of God that lead me to question the very existence of God and eventually stop going to Church. Certainly I was predisposed to believe, and my early indoctrination largely attempted to expose me to the nature of God as a loving being which I see no problem in. However, I'm not sure I could have come to truly know, or at least fully appreciate God had I not lived both in and out of the state of grace. It was through these experiences that many of my questions and indoctrinational inadequacies could be explained.
...When they ask the sort of question that you would answer in that way, just say, "I don't know and neither does anybody else". What do you think the odds are that they will accept some religious belief rather than evidence.
But I would be doing them a disservice if I were to answer in that way. If I recognize something as good, then I would want to expose my children to it. If I can't explain well to my children what I believe, then I shouldn't be too surprised if they don't understand it. Actually, I'm not sure I could expect my children to understand something that took me half a lifetime to even begin to understand. When I was a child I often took for granted what I was taught in many things, faith and God included. However, Christianity isn't really just a caricature of beliefs or a set of rules, it's more about appreciating love itself -- love is something children often accept more easily than adults, though they may not completely understand love, or it's source.
Why wouldn't you want them to have a solid grounding in the truth, reason and critical thinking
Reason and critical thinking are required for arriving at truth. I would hope secular institutions would adequately bestow my children with these abilities. This type of thought isn't the purpose of religious education though. My experience tells me that religion and reason are not in conflict. You don't think I'm irrational do you Darby?
It sounds like you are marginalizing the truth for communion., "How could I effectively communicate with my children if I did otherwise?".
No matter how thoroughly you indoctrinate someone in any particular belief system, if that system does not hold to reality, then your indoctrination will be uprooted. My point in making that statement was that I could not hope to talk with my children about something I did not believe.
Sure, some members of some religions actually do good things, but the structure as a whole is bad.
I'm willing to accept that there may be a few religions from which more harm than good has come. However, much of the harm done in the name of religion is done by people who profess to be true followers, but they really don't understand what their religion is about. From this, Christianity is not exempt. However, practicing Christians who know their faith are a source for far more good than bad.
As soon as you postulate an absolute power who has no responsibility, you create a situation where any atrocity can be justified.
Part of the problem is that people form opinions about religion (even their own) and generally many topics based on information far removed from the source. If you want to know what Muslims believe, are you going to ask a friend, many friends, your math teacher, a Muslim, a Cleric? Will you turn to the National Enquirer or the Qur'an?
Answer me this Darby, what is more important: any particular persons' view of truth, or love? Until you acquire the proper perspective, you really can't hope to effectively engage someone, even if you are right.
In my opinion, yes it would. You are still stating it as if it were true rather than a belief. This is completely independent of whether or not your belief happens to be true.
Many people in China believe that nobody has stepped foot on the moon before. That does not mean it is not true. I suspect we are at issue on this point because our experiences are different. Fair enough.
a god perhaps, but which one? My point which was, as you indirectly pointed out, very poorly made, was that there are many different gods.
Actually, from a membership percentage standpoint, I believe religions derive their God from the same source -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, etc... I suppose it's a point of technicality if you want to say that these gods are different in so far as their religions differ on certain theological claims.
So I was pointing out that christianity is a minority religion.
According to my version of the 2002 Encyclopedia
Britannica, Christianity accounts for 2 billion people worldwide. This makes it the world's most popular religion. FYI, of these 2 billion, 1 billion are Catholic.
How much do think a six year old could understand?
Very little. Just that their parent who at that age is all knowing to them told them that this is an absolute truth. By the time they are old enough to think for themselves, it is very unlikely that they will be able to truly think completely rationally about this at any age since it has been imprinted at a very impressionable age.
You're right about everything except children not being able to develop rational arguments about topics that they were indoctrinated with at an early age. As for myself, I was raised Catholic. I pretty much accepted everything my religious educators and Dad told me about Catholicism. However, as I grew older I began to perceive what I thought were inconsistencies in my theological indoctrination. So as questions were answered (and often inadequately) still more questions developed in my mind. These questions came to occupy my thoughts and once on my own, I decided to stop going to Church. Secular pursuits pretty much confined my thought on Christianity to be nothing more than a good model upon which a society could prosper. It was about 10 years after I graduated from college before I was hit over the head by the proverbial 2x4. The answers to some of my questions started to come and I realized that my perspective was wrong to begin with -- even though I should have known better. This process is a long story -- and it is still on going.
However, you don't have to be religious to realize that children grow to question even those things that they once blindly accepted. It's a natural process really. Ask the parent of any teenager. Certainly you are not a carbon copy of your parents are you Darby? I suspect most individuals' positions on topics such as politics and religion develop rapidly as they reach their prime years. But the answers won't make sense unless the questions are there. Which brings me to...
So wouldn't god be best discovered?
Can you now guess what my answer to this is? In my experience, the greatest joys in life come from "discovering God". I would not be disposed against my children learning about other religions. However, I would first want them to have a solid grounding in what I believe to be truth. How could I effectively communicate with my children if I did otherwise? My own experience tells me that there are things that even as a parent, I may be wrong on, and more than this, my children would probably one day play a contributory role in our mutual spiritual development.
Open-minded discussion is valuable so long as truth is not marginalized for the sake of communion. So how do you find the truth in anything? Employ a compass proven reliable!
Seriously, if you have or will have children, what are you going to tell them?
What if I told them that God made the world, but most people do not believe this? Would that still make me dishonest Darby?
Actually, I suspect most people do believe that God made the world. Apart from this, it's peoples' concept of what God is that varies.
Sort of screws up the whole free will thing.
How much do think a six year old could understand? How much would a child need to understand? Some things they need to be told, others are best discovered...
Do you see any reconciliation between science and......any sort of Creationism at all?
Absolutely...
Do you see the possibility that science, as it approaches the moment of Creation itself, becomes more in tune with religion?
Has this been the trend throughout even the past millennium? I don't know. I suppose it's possible that scientific advances might enable us to better understand God as Creator. However, God is much more than just the Creator...
...do you see a place for (or proof of) G-d in science?
No. If you consider proof to be knowledge with 100% certainty, proof of things Divine will never happen through science.
Several people have already proposed that religion attempts to answer the question "why?" and science "how?". Generally this is correct. In fact, if you really want to know God, it often starts in contemplating the "why" of creation. I don't mean just asking yourself why certain things happen the way they do, but also considering why these things happen as apposed to any other way in which they could.
In life, we begin our journey through examination. That is to say we are exposed to our world, and we reason about the way things are, through institutions that teach from the perspective of human science and observation. I believe this to be a valid and necessary step towards coming to know God. However, this formation in itself does not grant that which is needed to understand God even in His Creator role. There have been throughout human history, many brilliant scientific minds that recognized we were the product of creation. However, from my experience, coming to know God requires scientific *and* philosophic thought.
It's the philosophical thought that is often most difficult to understand for most. Belief is developed through perspective; it is the product of faith and reason. If your thoughts are amenable to the proper perspective, you can come to this realization. For example, consider the total eclipse phenomenon as evidence of God as Creator, one might chose to agree that such a phenomenon was indeed intended for the purpose of revealing something of God the Creator, or one could simply ascribe the reasons to coincidence or happenstance. I believe there are many examples of natural phenomena when considered together provide fairly convincing testimony to the Creator's glory. However, God is an extremely complex and powerful thing not easily grasped by the human mind alone. This one reason that religious people sometimes say that God reveals Himself to us -- we do not find Him.
God has revealed Himself to me as more than just the Creator in ways that are irrefutable to me. He has done so by showing me how He works throughout time in both a planned fashion and in reactionary manner in response to human events. You can see this type of activity throughout Scripture. However, what is truly amazing to me is that He does this on an individual basis and the processes are different for different people! In my own life, often as I look back, I can see where seeds have been planted but fruition has only come (though it could have come at any time) in response to God's desire to convey to me something important. God never ceases to amaze me really; "He" is quite fascinating!
Slashdot Mirror
...and they are holding prisoners without due process.
...when laws are passed that allow the government to do things that are Wrong, the people have a responsibility not only to protest, but to disregard those laws.
Like who? If you don't give me names, I can't help you.
Protest, they may, but not disregard. Laws are passed in response to identifiable needs. The difference between you and I is that I trust the government to do what is necessary (within reason) to keep the peace. There are consequences to lawlessness. When individuals decide that a law is not valid, it hinders the effectiveness of that law by making it difficult to enforce. You'd better make sure you're in the right before you make such a decision.
As far as your demand for evidence, the existence of the system is evidence enough.
Existence of what system? What laws are you unhappy with? You just can't expect me to accept your position without making yourself clear.
Imagine what this country would be like if we undermined our authorities. Are you prepared to accept the consequences of this? Don't believe in every fact-less, opinion-riddled report you here or read in the media, or in misguided slashdot postings.
During the previous administration I complained, in public forums, about many things, and nobody came knocking on my door. What I say to others, I sometimes write to our officials about as well (for whatever good that does). My father once told me, if you wouldn't want to read about it on the front page of the Sunday paper, don't do it. You'd be surprised at how liberating it feels when you know your actions are righteous.
Exactly how does someone sitting in an office somewhere nobody knows about, reading my e-mail, impose upon my freedom?
What happens when they START doing something bad...
Then we have the right -- the responsibility -- to protest, but not until then.
The framers knew that throughout history, governments have accumulated power and then used that power to oppress people.
Certainly true, this is why there were established so many checks and balances within govt., and why the Bill of Rights was necessary. Our government was not established in ignorance of human history. Our nation's forefathers also had the insight to understand that no govt., including our own, would be impervious to corruption. Therefore, you are correct in noting that we have a responsibility to police our own government.
Until you can come up with a convincing argument why THIS government bucks this historical trend, your position is nothing more than sticking your head in the sand.
On the contrary, in this country we are innocent until proven guilty. Historically, it seems to me that such activity is invariably exposed and dealt with. In other words, the government is has been self-policing. I've yet to see evidence of our govt. acting inappropriately. If you know differently, and expect me to believe you, then you'd better come up with something better that some philosophical concern or circumstantial evidence. However, lets get back to what truly was the focus of the discussion. My post was in reference to Echelon as tool for "spying" on people. Do you have evidence to support that this technology has been used for evil purpose by the govt.? Are you reacting to fear that "the man" is out to get you?
The key word is "unreasonable".
Two hundred years ago, we didn't even have telephones let alone the internet. Searches involved someone coming into your house and disrupting your activities. Therefore, it would be important that the authorities to have a very good reason for doing so.
However, the internet is a completely amorphous medium. When a person sends an e-mail message, all they care about is that it gets to it's intended recipients in a timely manner. They only care about the route that mailing takes, or who else may have intercepted that mail, if they experience some dispruption, delay, or any other undesireable effct. As I understand the technology, Echelon is simply a passive monitoring device that serves as a trigger to get human beings involved. This is necessary as the amount of internet traffic is just too overwhelming. My guess is that this type of automated assistance has been of far more value to those who work for justice than it has been the source of inconvenience.
Many people say "but the big bad govt. has done this or that in the past...". Well, that's a pretty unconvincing arguement for restricting something like Echelon. In any human endevor, people are going to make mistakes, even if they are attempting to do what is right. Prove to me that their intentions were corrupt and then you may be justified in your condemnation of the people involved. The technology employed is not a source for evil, it's what people do with it.
My own personal opinion is that Echelon and similar technologies (at least as I understand them), is that they probably help secular authorities to identify threats to society more than they are a cause for concern. Were this not the case, I doubt the govt. would continue to fund them. You and I don't have access to the complete picture. All we get is what is reported in media outlets, and we all know how unbiased and thorough the media are.
That's it, trust the gov't, be good as they define good, and everything will be ok.
Governments do not define goodness, goodness has already been defined for us. The fact that our founding fathers understood this can be derived by examining the words placed on our currency and those found in the most important documents that define us as a nation. Therefore, I believe the original poster has a valid point. Personally, I don't worry about who is watching who because I trust the "ultimate watcher". However, if you place your trust elsewhere, well, then you may have something to worry about.
The only valid argument I've heard so far relates to the blind and partially sighted. Braille on the corners ought to take care of that, though.
I would agree that lots of fancy colors seem like a waste. However, I tend to think that having thin colored stripes along the top and bottom edges would be good. That way I could quickly locate that stray 1 or 5 amoungst the pack of 100's in my wallet without spending alot of time thumbing through them.
The maglev train is a good thing for ODU as the school is just to close to downtown Norfolk for comfort. Something like this might have kept me from getting my bike stolen and spared me the "enlightened comments" from the campus police as we drove around the more shady sections looking for it. On the plus side, my renter's insurance paid for a brand new bike, even better than the one that was stolen!
Quite the opposite I would say: it would demonstrate that complexity can and does arise regardless of the prescence of intelligence or not.
I'm not talking about complexity really. To me complexity is a separate from randomness and order. When I proposed the question, in my mind I was thinking about a computer program I wrote in college simulating a simple CA case in a small 2D grid. Squares were filled in on the grid according to a set of simple rules. Distinguishable patterns arose over the course of several iterations. Specifically, I was thinking about a possible similarity to development of say, patterns on the wing of a butterfly during growth. I think one could come up with a number of possibilities that might be worth investigating in nature. The implication of intelligent design would arise from the fact that the patterns evolve according to logical rules as opposed to something completely random. Tracking the evolution of patterns in this way might add more insight than simply observing regularly shaped "final products". I imagine the extent these things are found in nature (and personally, I don't even know if it has been researched) would determine the strength of the proposition. It's just a thought.
That got me to thinking...
Do observed natural patterns evolve in nature in the same way that CA development of patterns does? The implication is that there follows in nature a logical rule based process of development. If this were true, one could say that there was some type of intelligence that went into it's creation, thereby implicating the existence of "God".
I think of computer programming as a means of encoding logical processes, not just a means for computing equations. Therefore, computer programming is much more powerful than mathematics and probably more suited for describing the physical world. Wolfram seems to argue that equations are inadequate for expressing the physical world due to the fact that they often cannot be used to exactly describe the outcome of repeatable events since there is always something unforeseen in the application of equations that affects the outcome. This sounds fair to me, as equations (in physics) are after all, only mankind's attempt to model observable behavior. Given that mankind develops these equations in an evolutionary manner, it's a fair bet to say that that we don't get it completely right. Do we always apply the correct or relevant equations? The question is: Does CA as Wolfram advocates, present a better means of describing the Universe?
Everywhere you look, almost everyone is saying, well, even if he is wrong, he's written a hell of a book. Which I suppose is true.
1250 pages represents an awful lot of wasted time if he's not right. From what I've read, it seems Wolfram never sought peer review. That seems very curious to me. I think I'll wait for more reviews.
In the article Loebowitz states: Hard for who? The government? Liebowitz?Certainly this data is being collected by retail outlets. Certainly these retail outlets are collecting this information for a reason. I suspect this information is far more valuable to the RIAA and MPAA than it is to the sales outlets. Therefore, I believe the RIAA and MPAA are getting this information. Also, I suspect that the RIAA and MPAA are far more knowledgeable about what factors affect their sales then anyone else. Therefore they are most qualified to interpret this data. That said, I find it very difficult to believe that "for profit" organizations would act in such a way as to restrict their lifeblood (profits).
I believe what you meant to say was:
"...their real goal is to use government power to restrict the capability of the general purpose computer to viewing only approved multimedia content (for a fee each time, of course)."
What do you mean by "approved media content"? What evidence do you have to support this? This may or may not be immoral. Jumping into the realm of morality requires consideration of many factors. The morality of the RIAA and MPAA's business practices is irrelevant to the consumer however; their actions do not justify theft. If you don't like it, vote with your money.
Somebody made your computer. They put time money and effort into it's creation. You put time and effort into your work; as a result, you earned the money to buy it. It's your money and you can do whatever you want with it. However, the music that serves as the source for the patterns on you hard drive does not belong to you. It was created through somebody else's time, effort, and money. The music isn't transformed into something different that you can call your own just because it goes from a CD to your hard drive.
You can spend your money to buy the music according to the terms of the seller, or you can save it or spend it on something else. That's the way the system works. If you violate the system, how are the artists and content producers/distributors going to recover their costs? The net effect of your lawlessness is to incur penalties for those who abide by the system. These penalties will likely include higher retail prices and lower quality. For all of our sakes, please make the effort to step outside of yourself. Would you be taking the same position if you were trying to make your living in the music industry?
Of the two types of solar eclipses, this is an annular eclipse. This means that the vertex of the umbra never reaches the Earth. The umbra is the cone region extending from the Moon towards the Earth that is the Moon's shadow. So even if we were to be standing at the center point in the path of the shadow, the Moon will not completely block out the Sun in an annular eclipse. Thus, a total eclipse occurs when the umbra at least reaches the Earth.
The frequency of observation of total vs. annular eclipses can be arrived at by examining the following facts about the shadow of the Moon:
Moon's distance from Earth (miles): Max = 252710, Min = 221460, Mean = 238900
Length of Umbra (miles): Max = 236700, Min = 226800, Mean = 231100
It's pretty interesting actually. This means that the Earth, Moon, and Sun are positioned and sized in such a way as to guarantee totality a little less than half the time a solar eclipse occurs.
and not the plus or minus 10 meter kind, the really accurate kind so I can take it out on the golf course. A cell phone and all the other functions you mentioned would be great. Battery life should be about 6 hours with hot swappable battery capability. With voice recognition and swappable antennas, this type of device could be really compact.
"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"
Now that was good!
Well, I suppose the client program would have to have some way of recognizing which targets to render, so it could be reverse engineered or picked out of the packet. Nevermind.
...The client must, at minimum, know the precise location of other players that are currently visible. It needs this data in order to correctly render, there just isn't any way around that. Someone can, at least theoretically, alter the client in such a way as to use that information to perform in a super-human fashion.
How about creating a server side function that, when cheating is suspected, generates and transmits false target information to the client. Only the server machine would know what the real position of the clients is. If the server recognizes the suspicious client tracking the false target, then cheaters could be identified and rendered ineffective.
If I understood my quick overview of DNA correctly, cancer cells are a very rare but normal consequence of replication, as you seem to point out. However, the body's immune system has the ability to kill off these cells. IANAD, but I suspect it only becomes a problem if some critical threshold is reached where the system can no longer keep up with production. I guess this means that if a person lives long enough, they *will* get cancer. I suppose we all die of something sooner or later, but life doesn't end after death so I wouldn't get too down about it. Besides, from what I hear, and I don't know if this was the case for your relatives or not, they can treat terminal cancer patients with drugs to make them relatively comfortable even through death.
I do see your point though. I too think it would be unfair to give people false expectations about new "cures", especially if the information affects them personally. People should have a right to know as much as they can understand about the possible benefits and side effects. Different people are going to make different choices about how much they want to fight. I imagine that type of information would be an important part of this decision.
Incidentally, I thought this whole starve the cells of blood thing has been around for quite a while. Did your relatives participate in any trials that tested this?
The difference is that there is a great deal of evidence for the Apollo landings.
...the population of the world is over 6 billion. ...3 is greater than 2. ...Hence most of the people in the world don't believe in your god.
...I'm very surprised that you are arguing against me on this point. ...The point though isn't can you question a given religion's specific teachings, but are you even capable of truly questioning the underlying assumption. ...I think it is clear that you were predisposed to accept the existence of god by your upbringing.
...When they ask the sort of question that you would answer in that way, just say, "I don't know and neither does anybody else". What do you think the odds are that they will accept some religious belief rather than evidence.
Well yes, and that's why we are at odds on this point. From a purely logical/scientific perspective, the best arguments either for or against the existence of God are unconvincing. I suppose you could come to believe in God by examining the world from the right perspective, but the evidence "given" to me wouldn't make sense to you or anyone else because it is based on my own life experiences.
This is just horrible. You have converted "Religion" to Judeo-Christianity.
Not really. Would it surprise you to know that the Allah of Islam is the same God that Jews and Christians worship?
When you said that Christianity was a minority religion, the implication was that there is another religion with a larger following, which is not the case. Adopting "the greater than half" definition of "minority" doesn't seem very meaningful since no religion garners half the world population. Given that Islam claims a little less than a million people worldwide, I believe it would be correct to say that at least half the world does believe in God.
I'm not arguing the point. In my case, it was more a matter of having difficulty reconciling various specific points of my indoctrination in relation to the nature and power of God that lead me to question the very existence of God and eventually stop going to Church. Certainly I was predisposed to believe, and my early indoctrination largely attempted to expose me to the nature of God as a loving being which I see no problem in. However, I'm not sure I could have come to truly know, or at least fully appreciate God had I not lived both in and out of the state of grace. It was through these experiences that many of my questions and indoctrinational inadequacies could be explained.
But I would be doing them a disservice if I were to answer in that way. If I recognize something as good, then I would want to expose my children to it. If I can't explain well to my children what I believe, then I shouldn't be too surprised if they don't understand it. Actually, I'm not sure I could expect my children to understand something that took me half a lifetime to even begin to understand. When I was a child I often took for granted what I was taught in many things, faith and God included. However, Christianity isn't really just a caricature of beliefs or a set of rules, it's more about appreciating love itself -- love is something children often accept more easily than adults, though they may not completely understand love, or it's source.
Why wouldn't you want them to have a solid grounding in the truth, reason and critical thinking
Reason and critical thinking are required for arriving at truth. I would hope secular institutions would adequately bestow my children with these abilities. This type of thought isn't the purpose of religious education though. My experience tells me that religion and reason are not in conflict. You don't think I'm irrational do you Darby?
It sounds like you are marginalizing the truth for communion., "How could I effectively communicate with my children if I did otherwise?".
No matter how thoroughly you indoctrinate someone in any particular belief system, if that system does not hold to reality, then your indoctrination will be uprooted. My point in making that statement was that I could not hope to talk with my children about something I did not believe.
Sure, some members of some religions actually do good things, but the structure as a whole is bad.
I'm willing to accept that there may be a few religions from which more harm than good has come. However, much of the harm done in the name of religion is done by people who profess to be true followers, but they really don't understand what their religion is about. From this, Christianity is not exempt. However, practicing Christians who know their faith are a source for far more good than bad.
As soon as you postulate an absolute power who has no responsibility, you create a situation where any atrocity can be justified.
Part of the problem is that people form opinions about religion (even their own) and generally many topics based on information far removed from the source. If you want to know what Muslims believe, are you going to ask a friend, many friends, your math teacher, a Muslim, a Cleric? Will you turn to the National Enquirer or the Qur'an?
Answer me this Darby, what is more important: any particular persons' view of truth, or love? Until you acquire the proper perspective, you really can't hope to effectively engage someone, even if you are right.
Many people in China believe that nobody has stepped foot on the moon before. That does not mean it is not true. I suspect we are at issue on this point because our experiences are different. Fair enough.
a god perhaps, but which one? My point which was, as you indirectly pointed out, very poorly made, was that there are many different gods.
Actually, from a membership percentage standpoint, I believe religions derive their God from the same source -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, etc... I suppose it's a point of technicality if you want to say that these gods are different in so far as their religions differ on certain theological claims.
So I was pointing out that christianity is a minority religion.
According to my version of the 2002 Encyclopedia Britannica, Christianity accounts for 2 billion people worldwide. This makes it the world's most popular religion. FYI, of these 2 billion, 1 billion are Catholic.
Very little. Just that their parent who at that age is all knowing to them told them that this is an absolute truth. By the time they are old enough to think for themselves, it is very unlikely that they will be able to truly think completely rationally about this at any age since it has been imprinted at a very impressionable age.
You're right about everything except children not being able to develop rational arguments about topics that they were indoctrinated with at an early age. As for myself, I was raised Catholic. I pretty much accepted everything my religious educators and Dad told me about Catholicism. However, as I grew older I began to perceive what I thought were inconsistencies in my theological indoctrination. So as questions were answered (and often inadequately) still more questions developed in my mind. These questions came to occupy my thoughts and once on my own, I decided to stop going to Church. Secular pursuits pretty much confined my thought on Christianity to be nothing more than a good model upon which a society could prosper. It was about 10 years after I graduated from college before I was hit over the head by the proverbial 2x4. The answers to some of my questions started to come and I realized that my perspective was wrong to begin with -- even though I should have known better. This process is a long story -- and it is still on going.
However, you don't have to be religious to realize that children grow to question even those things that they once blindly accepted. It's a natural process really. Ask the parent of any teenager. Certainly you are not a carbon copy of your parents are you Darby? I suspect most individuals' positions on topics such as politics and religion develop rapidly as they reach their prime years. But the answers won't make sense unless the questions are there. Which brings me to...
So wouldn't god be best discovered?
Can you now guess what my answer to this is? In my experience, the greatest joys in life come from "discovering God". I would not be disposed against my children learning about other religions. However, I would first want them to have a solid grounding in what I believe to be truth. How could I effectively communicate with my children if I did otherwise? My own experience tells me that there are things that even as a parent, I may be wrong on, and more than this, my children would probably one day play a contributory role in our mutual spiritual development.
Open-minded discussion is valuable so long as truth is not marginalized for the sake of communion. So how do you find the truth in anything? Employ a compass proven reliable!
Seriously, if you have or will have children, what are you going to tell them?
What if I told them that God made the world, but most people do not believe this? Would that still make me dishonest Darby?
Actually, I suspect most people do believe that God made the world. Apart from this, it's peoples' concept of what God is that varies.
Sort of screws up the whole free will thing.
How much do think a six year old could understand? How much would a child need to understand? Some things they need to be told, others are best discovered...
Do you see any reconciliation between science and... ...any sort of Creationism at all?
...do you see a place for (or proof of) G-d in science?
Absolutely...
Do you see the possibility that science, as it approaches the moment of Creation itself, becomes more in tune with religion?
Has this been the trend throughout even the past millennium? I don't know. I suppose it's possible that scientific advances might enable us to better understand God as Creator. However, God is much more than just the Creator...
No. If you consider proof to be knowledge with 100% certainty, proof of things Divine will never happen through science.
Several people have already proposed that religion attempts to answer the question "why?" and science "how?". Generally this is correct. In fact, if you really want to know God, it often starts in contemplating the "why" of creation. I don't mean just asking yourself why certain things happen the way they do, but also considering why these things happen as apposed to any other way in which they could.
In life, we begin our journey through examination. That is to say we are exposed to our world, and we reason about the way things are, through institutions that teach from the perspective of human science and observation. I believe this to be a valid and necessary step towards coming to know God. However, this formation in itself does not grant that which is needed to understand God even in His Creator role. There have been throughout human history, many brilliant scientific minds that recognized we were the product of creation. However, from my experience, coming to know God requires scientific *and* philosophic thought.
It's the philosophical thought that is often most difficult to understand for most. Belief is developed through perspective; it is the product of faith and reason. If your thoughts are amenable to the proper perspective, you can come to this realization. For example, consider the total eclipse phenomenon as evidence of God as Creator, one might chose to agree that such a phenomenon was indeed intended for the purpose of revealing something of God the Creator, or one could simply ascribe the reasons to coincidence or happenstance. I believe there are many examples of natural phenomena when considered together provide fairly convincing testimony to the Creator's glory. However, God is an extremely complex and powerful thing not easily grasped by the human mind alone. This one reason that religious people sometimes say that God reveals Himself to us -- we do not find Him.
God has revealed Himself to me as more than just the Creator in ways that are irrefutable to me. He has done so by showing me how He works throughout time in both a planned fashion and in reactionary manner in response to human events. You can see this type of activity throughout Scripture. However, what is truly amazing to me is that He does this on an individual basis and the processes are different for different people! In my own life, often as I look back, I can see where seeds have been planted but fruition has only come (though it could have come at any time) in response to God's desire to convey to me something important. God never ceases to amaze me really; "He" is quite fascinating!