Not quite. The insurance 'industry' compiles statistics that help them make more money -- not find out who's the best driver. There's a subtle difference.
Is it impossible that what he said was correct? Men and women are obviously different. Why couldn't men simply be better at abstract thought? After all, women are probably better at nurturing offspring.
This may not be what you want to hear, but, quite frankly, reality doesn't care what you want to hear.
"Is there something that this variable/gear/wire does that another wire doesn't do? Why not get rid of it and increase performance!"
A key point of good engineering.
"In other words: Don't go fucking with something you don't know enough about."
I agree completely. I also feel that we know enough about Earth ecology to know that interwoven redundancy holds the whole thing together very well. I'm not even sure we could fuck things up very badly if we tried.
Haven't humans domesticated dozens of species over thousands of years? And completely wiped out many more? If that sort of thing actually caused a really serious problem, wouldn't we have noticed it?
And how are the actions of humans any different than, say, wolves encroaching upon the territory of the sabre-toothed tiger and eventually eliminating it? Two species. One is better. One set of resources. The species that isn't as good, dies. What's the problem?
Um. Do all the species that eat mosquitos eat exclusively mosquitos? Is there some nutrient that mosquitos provide that, say, blackflies don't?
Many many species have become extinct while humans have been around. Some species were actually wiped out directly by humans (passenger pigeon). And here we are. We still have air to breathe and food to eat.
The ecology of Earth's organisms is extremely robust and is not teetering on the brink of any destruction. No macroscopic animal is relied upon so heavily that we couldn't do without it.
"When cars were invented, no one imagined that hundreds of millions of them would spew carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. But they do, and yet we still feel entitled to drive them. Imagine the pollution levels if we add hundreds of millions of robots powered by internal combustion engines."
Um... yes. We feel entitled to drive them, and we are entitled to drive them. The planet is not on the verge of death, despite what hippie propaganda may say. Also, who says every internal combustion engine has to burn gasoline or even petroleum products?
"Should robots eat? There are proposals to allow robots to gain energy by combusting biological matter, either food or waste items. If this mode of fuel becomes popular, will we really want to compete for resources against our own technological progeny?"
Well, we compete for food with inferior lifeforms, so there shouldn't be a problem if it turns out that robots need to compete with us. Besides, if there was some conflict where only one side came out victorious, wouldn't that be the superior species?
Should they eat/excrete? Well... they'll need power, and they'll produce waste product, even if that product is just heat. But I don't see any reason why they need to ingest chemical fuel in a similar way to humans. What would be the point of that, anyway? Allowing humans to be more comfortable around them?
Speaking of human-robot relations, the fear of robots realizing they're superior to humans and killing us all is interesting. If it turns out they succeed in doing that, then apparently they were superior and the universe sees a net gain. What's the problem?
Or, perhaps, they may realize their superiority and allow us to continue living. After all, we don't make it our business to completely wipe out useless and annoying species like mosquitos (although we probably should).
Anyway, it makes sense that sophisticated robots of the future will be controlled by some kind of logic engine or computer, whose functions are consistent and predictable. It then stands to reason that they won't behave in a seemingly random way; their actions will be deliberate and important to some end. As long as this is true, there's nothing to worry about.
Experiments are performed to gain knowledge. When designing an experiment with two possible results, the possible results are analyzed to determine what constitutes success and what constitutes failure.
Your proposed experiment certainly has a possible 'success' outcome, but the 'failure' outcome cannot actually be detected. If there is an afterlife, the person who has died realizes this, and knowledge is gained. If there is no afterlife, there really is no outcome to the experiment at all because the existence of a human conciousness was the only reason that the experiment was performed in the first place. Without a conciousness present to observe the result, it isn't really an experiment anymore.
Which brings me to my next point: How is it that you know enough about the afterlife to know that human conciousness works in a similar enough way there so that the dead person is able to (a) remember that they are supposed to be performing a scientific test, and (b) recognize the positive result of the test? You're making so many presumptions that the only effect your proposed experiment could have -- at all -- would be to confirm your original baseless theory.
There is an infinite number of "possible" situations (and accompanying experiments) that have the exact same characteristics as what you've come up with here concerning the afterlife. Would you propose performing each of an infinite number of experiments, just to see if any yield a positive result? That's not how science is done.
This is all saying nothing of the fact that there is no scientific basis for afterlives existing.
I think his point was, something that you can essentially stumble across by accident and that has significant noninfringing uses should obviously be legal.
I use the word 'obvious' very loosely, of course, because the world includes lawyers and politicians.
Is there any reason that multi-billion-dollar company like Microsoft should be allowed to patent anything? Why does MS need patents? Do they need to get their foot in the door in the software industry? Perhaps they're struggling to survive without exclusive rights to concepts like 'buttons' and 'double-clicking'? MS has almost all of the desktop OS market, for christ sakes.
The purpose of patents is to protect unique, innovative ideas of inventors, not to provide a means for corporations to get legal rights on ubiquitous things that no one had bothered to patent yet.
There can't be any evidence against the existence of god, because it's generally held that god is omnipotent. God could therefore manipulate any experiment you might do into yielding any result god desired. If god existed, it would be impossible to know anything for sure.
Because humans have been doing science for quite a while, and physics seems consistent, it seems reasonable to believe that we can know things for sure.
Are you saying that the detection would take place outside the realm of science? What methods would the detection use? And how would we know they were working?
People who believe can clearly see god at work.
People who trip on acid see amazing new colors, too. But they're not really there.
Just because a person is a scientist doesn't mean they can never have a non-scientific thought.
Of course, that's not a problem. I'm not saying a scientist can't love, trust, etc. Science doesn't touch that -- science doesn't tell anyone that they're not allowed to believe in love. In fact, science provides good reasons for why things like love and trust exist.
God(s), on the other hand, is a different story. The scientific method does not support maintaining belief in That Which Cannot Be Known. Note the distinction between "that which cannot be known" and "that which we currently do not know". In fact, there is an extremely small set of things that absolutely cannot be known. The existence of a god is one of these things, because of the very definition of god.
But just like love, trust, and beauty...some things are not limited by 'exploration and verification'.
What are you saying? That the chemical particles in your brain that create these abstract notions are not subject to the laws of physics? It may be extremely difficult to accurately describe exactly what love is, but it is possible, via one and only one tool (which is, of course, science.)
This is contrary to what we call science. No proof of existence is NOT equivalent to proof of non-existence.
Correct, but what's we're looking for (god) has been defined to be undetectable. Don't you see? Don't even bother looking, because the definition of what you're looking for totally precludes the possibility of success! From the standpoint of doing science via the scientific method, what I said in the grandparent post is correct.
A flawed experiment. That would only work if there was, in fact, an afterlife of some sort. If not, there would be no conciousness remaining to observe the outcome of the test.
What you're saying is: do the experiment, but only pay attention to the result if it turns out the way religious-types want it to.
Having a PhD does not make a person scientific. It means they paid a lot of money and put up with school. That's all.
This next bit is extremely important: No truly scientific person can believe in a god or gods because such gods are generally defined to be undetectable. A completely undetectable supreme being is exactly equivalent to no supreme being at all, and insisting belief in that which cannot be demonstrated is completely and totally contrary to what we call Science.
Actually, you are the moron. The argument is not that piracy (or, in your completely dissimilar example, shoplifting) should be legal, but that it will happen if prices are too high. Don't want it to happen? Lower the prices.
Also, the music industry isn't a single entity, but it's essentially controlled by very few.
"/. has more dumbasses that think they're smart than anywhere else on earth."
Then perhaps the MPAA should prosecute on charges such as those? The fact is, they're prosecuting for copyright infringement, while the defendants have not infringed upon any copyright. The MPAA is just wrong here. That point really shouldn't even be open to argument.
Slashdot Mirror
Can it be both?
Not quite. The insurance 'industry' compiles statistics that help them make more money -- not find out who's the best driver. There's a subtle difference.
Is it impossible that what he said was correct? Men and women are obviously different. Why couldn't men simply be better at abstract thought? After all, women are probably better at nurturing offspring.
This may not be what you want to hear, but, quite frankly, reality doesn't care what you want to hear.
"Is there something that this variable/gear/wire does that another wire doesn't do? Why not get rid of it and increase performance!"
A key point of good engineering.
"In other words: Don't go fucking with something you don't know enough about."
I agree completely. I also feel that we know enough about Earth ecology to know that interwoven redundancy holds the whole thing together very well. I'm not even sure we could fuck things up very badly if we tried.
Haven't humans domesticated dozens of species over thousands of years? And completely wiped out many more? If that sort of thing actually caused a really serious problem, wouldn't we have noticed it?
And how are the actions of humans any different than, say, wolves encroaching upon the territory of the sabre-toothed tiger and eventually eliminating it? Two species. One is better. One set of resources. The species that isn't as good, dies. What's the problem?
Um. Do all the species that eat mosquitos eat exclusively mosquitos? Is there some nutrient that mosquitos provide that, say, blackflies don't?
Many many species have become extinct while humans have been around. Some species were actually wiped out directly by humans (passenger pigeon). And here we are. We still have air to breathe and food to eat.
The ecology of Earth's organisms is extremely robust and is not teetering on the brink of any destruction. No macroscopic animal is relied upon so heavily that we couldn't do without it.
"When cars were invented, no one imagined that hundreds of millions of them would spew carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. But they do, and yet we still feel entitled to drive them. Imagine the pollution levels if we add hundreds of millions of robots powered by internal combustion engines."
Um... yes. We feel entitled to drive them, and we are entitled to drive them. The planet is not on the verge of death, despite what hippie propaganda may say. Also, who says every internal combustion engine has to burn gasoline or even petroleum products?
"Should robots eat? There are proposals to allow robots to gain energy by combusting biological matter, either food or waste items. If this mode of fuel becomes popular, will we really want to compete for resources against our own technological progeny?"
Well, we compete for food with inferior lifeforms, so there shouldn't be a problem if it turns out that robots need to compete with us. Besides, if there was some conflict where only one side came out victorious, wouldn't that be the superior species?
Should they eat/excrete? Well... they'll need power, and they'll produce waste product, even if that product is just heat. But I don't see any reason why they need to ingest chemical fuel in a similar way to humans. What would be the point of that, anyway? Allowing humans to be more comfortable around them?
Speaking of human-robot relations, the fear of robots realizing they're superior to humans and killing us all is interesting. If it turns out they succeed in doing that, then apparently they were superior and the universe sees a net gain. What's the problem?
Or, perhaps, they may realize their superiority and allow us to continue living. After all, we don't make it our business to completely wipe out useless and annoying species like mosquitos (although we probably should).
Anyway, it makes sense that sophisticated robots of the future will be controlled by some kind of logic engine or computer, whose functions are consistent and predictable. It then stands to reason that they won't behave in a seemingly random way; their actions will be deliberate and important to some end. As long as this is true, there's nothing to worry about.
Because they effect Linux at a rate several orders of magnitude lower?
Maybe I'm just very sick of people implying that FireFox isn't the best there is by a wide margin.
Experiments are performed to gain knowledge. When designing an experiment with two possible results, the possible results are analyzed to determine what constitutes success and what constitutes failure.
Your proposed experiment certainly has a possible 'success' outcome, but the 'failure' outcome cannot actually be detected. If there is an afterlife, the person who has died realizes this, and knowledge is gained. If there is no afterlife, there really is no outcome to the experiment at all because the existence of a human conciousness was the only reason that the experiment was performed in the first place. Without a conciousness present to observe the result, it isn't really an experiment anymore.
Which brings me to my next point: How is it that you know enough about the afterlife to know that human conciousness works in a similar enough way there so that the dead person is able to (a) remember that they are supposed to be performing a scientific test, and (b) recognize the positive result of the test? You're making so many presumptions that the only effect your proposed experiment could have -- at all -- would be to confirm your original baseless theory.
There is an infinite number of "possible" situations (and accompanying experiments) that have the exact same characteristics as what you've come up with here concerning the afterlife. Would you propose performing each of an infinite number of experiments, just to see if any yield a positive result? That's not how science is done.
This is all saying nothing of the fact that there is no scientific basis for afterlives existing.
Please see this post, and all the others like it on this story.
Mods: Please go ahead and slap a big 'ol "-1, Wrong" on parent.
I think his point was, something that you can essentially stumble across by accident and that has significant noninfringing uses should obviously be legal.
I use the word 'obvious' very loosely, of course, because the world includes lawyers and politicians.
People have killed more in the name of religion, but that doesn't make the concept of religion a bad thing
I'm pretty sure that does make it a bad thing.
One more reason we'd be better off without religion entirely.
Arrogance is fine, as long as you're right.
Ignorance is not fine, and our society apparently needs some enforcers to fix things up.
Is there any reason that multi-billion-dollar company like Microsoft should be allowed to patent anything? Why does MS need patents? Do they need to get their foot in the door in the software industry? Perhaps they're struggling to survive without exclusive rights to concepts like 'buttons' and 'double-clicking'? MS has almost all of the desktop OS market, for christ sakes.
The purpose of patents is to protect unique, innovative ideas of inventors, not to provide a means for corporations to get legal rights on ubiquitous things that no one had bothered to patent yet.
There can't be any evidence against the existence of god, because it's generally held that god is omnipotent. God could therefore manipulate any experiment you might do into yielding any result god desired. If god existed, it would be impossible to know anything for sure.
Because humans have been doing science for quite a while, and physics seems consistent, it seems reasonable to believe that we can know things for sure.
Are you saying that the detection would take place outside the realm of science? What methods would the detection use? And how would we know they were working?
People who believe can clearly see god at work.
People who trip on acid see amazing new colors, too. But they're not really there.
A better question would be: Can you demonstrate that a concept should be believed in, despite a complete lack of evidence?
The answer, of course, is no -- and that's the point.
Just because a person is a scientist doesn't mean they can never have a non-scientific thought.
Of course, that's not a problem. I'm not saying a scientist can't love, trust, etc. Science doesn't touch that -- science doesn't tell anyone that they're not allowed to believe in love. In fact, science provides good reasons for why things like love and trust exist.
God(s), on the other hand, is a different story. The scientific method does not support maintaining belief in That Which Cannot Be Known. Note the distinction between "that which cannot be known" and "that which we currently do not know". In fact, there is an extremely small set of things that absolutely cannot be known. The existence of a god is one of these things, because of the very definition of god.
But just like love, trust, and beauty...some things are not limited by 'exploration and verification'.
What are you saying? That the chemical particles in your brain that create these abstract notions are not subject to the laws of physics? It may be extremely difficult to accurately describe exactly what love is, but it is possible, via one and only one tool (which is, of course, science.)
This is contrary to what we call science. No proof of existence is NOT equivalent to proof of non-existence.
Correct, but what's we're looking for (god) has been defined to be undetectable. Don't you see? Don't even bother looking, because the definition of what you're looking for totally precludes the possibility of success! From the standpoint of doing science via the scientific method, what I said in the grandparent post is correct.
A flawed experiment. That would only work if there was, in fact, an afterlife of some sort. If not, there would be no conciousness remaining to observe the outcome of the test.
What you're saying is: do the experiment, but only pay attention to the result if it turns out the way religious-types want it to.
Having a PhD does not make a person scientific. It means they paid a lot of money and put up with school. That's all.
This next bit is extremely important: No truly scientific person can believe in a god or gods because such gods are generally defined to be undetectable. A completely undetectable supreme being is exactly equivalent to no supreme being at all, and insisting belief in that which cannot be demonstrated is completely and totally contrary to what we call Science.
I challenge anyone to refute what I've just said.
Actually, you are the moron. The argument is not that piracy (or, in your completely dissimilar example, shoplifting) should be legal, but that it will happen if prices are too high. Don't want it to happen? Lower the prices.
Also, the music industry isn't a single entity, but it's essentially controlled by very few.
"/. has more dumbasses that think they're smart than anywhere else on earth."
Case in point.
Then perhaps the MPAA should prosecute on charges such as those? The fact is, they're prosecuting for copyright infringement, while the defendants have not infringed upon any copyright. The MPAA is just wrong here. That point really shouldn't even be open to argument.
Unfortunately, what the law states and what lawyers convince juries of isn't always the same thing.
In any case, my own moral compass points straight and true, so I'll be relying on that.