Which you aren't? I'm guessing, but if you are a spotted owl, contact me and we'll both be set for life. A spotted owl that can type, we can go straight to profit.
Step 1. Spotted owl that knows english Step 2. SpottedOwl.com and $$$
"A mechanism that plays outside of the laws of physics."
Either you are talking about the laws of physics we know about or you are talking about the laws of physics that the Universe 'obeys'. You state that you are not talking about the former, in which case you are asking that your critics look for unicorns.
"You need to invoke a complete unknown mechanism to keep hard free will in a deterministic universe."
I'll put it another way. If such a mechanism exists, it could only be considered as a law of physics that the Universe 'obeys'. Which would render the claim of a deterministic Universe rather moot and entirely inconsistent.
I'll finish with some puff-puff-pass philosophy. If 'hard free will' doesn't exist, there's no point in arguing with me because we aren't arguing. We're just following a script that was written before the big bang. The thoughts we think we are having are really just the chemical and electrical signals that followed from the moment of our conception. I choose not to believe it, or at least that's what the chemical and electrical signals that the Universe has deigned upon me at this moment believe, because I have observed that choices do make a difference and that bad choices can be deadly.
The Black Sea and the Red Sea deluges have also been proposed as candidates for the source of Noah's flood, although the fundamentalists can tell you why neither is the actual source. Certainly there was much flooding of many regions since the last Ice Age ended.
Personally, I think the real source of Noah's flood is just generational one-ups-manship.
Youngster: "We've been getting a lot of rain this month." Old Geezer: "You think this is rain. I remember when it rained for 40 days and nights. And that's the way we liked it!"
The Universe is a synonym for everything. The laws of the Universe are sacrosanct, that is, they do not bend nor do they budge. To say "Hard free will is all about not falling prey to the laws of the universe", as you have, is ignorant. It is as laughable as saying "Unicorns are all about not falling prey to the laws of the universe".
Maybe what you are trying to say is, "hard free will" can not be explained by our current understanding of Physics, Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics, etc. Which isn't really saying much at all.
The idea that we understand everything is flawed. If life such as ours could have existed during the hot plasma phase of the Universe, their laws of the Universe would have been much different. Maybe they could have predicted the formation of stars and galaxies, planets and moons, and maybe even the development of organic material and intelligent life. If they could, they would be much, much further along then we are.
Still, I wonder if they could predict what I'm having for lunch.
"Hard free will is that ability to make choices without contraints of the physical laws of the universe."
This is like saying only a unicorn is a perfect horse. We all agree there are horses, but the real question is whether there are perfect horses. This sets up anyone arguing with you as believing in unicorns, except in your case its that there are things outside the physical laws of the universe.
"If we can't, then whether the universe is deterministic or not has everything to do with whether we are automatons or not."
Really? Well, an automaton with the ability to choose an action, observe the results and learn from that action, is not an automaton.
At the galactic scale, we have no free will. We are, for all our mobility and freedom of choice, bound to a rock spinning around a star that is spinning around the galaxy. With all of our combined efforts, we can not currently change that.
Now imagine we have advanced and expanded beyond our own galaxy. We are still in a universe that is expanding away from itself. That someday in the future will be so far apart that the lights will go out. At some point, even the closest galaxies will run out of fuel and die a cold death. At the universal scale, we have no free will.
But tell your wife she is fat and it is free will that is slapping you across the face.
Yep, another example of Democrats cheating the system.
Funny how the article makes it look like "the phony, GOP-operative-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission" was somehow involved. We mustn't let a scandal tarnish the image of the Party.
To be fair, if a Republican did this, I would advocate taking them for a long helicopter ride over the desert. Accidents happen, just usually not to the right people.
I'll go out on a limb and guess that more then 1/2 of the posters on this thread are opposed to executing ax murderers.
As bad as these yocals are, someone was paying them and probably not the party that usually wins in that area. They need to figure out who was paying and those people need to be indicted as well.
I just have very little faith in the U.S. Injustice system. Too many deals, too many poor outcomes. I don't understand where local prosecutors derive the right to give indicted criminals immunity, when the right to commute and pardon is reserved exclusively for Presidents and Governors. Lessen sentences, give parole, what have you, but if you do the crime, you should pay in some way and it should go on your permanent record.
No party affiliation was mentioned which usually means one thing.
"As an aside, the US is only two states away from a constitutional convention. I recommend we get two more states on board and try to retake some power from the federal government. It's already far more powerful than intended."
If this is true (big IF), I think nothing would make me happier. Could you please post where you got this information from. I'm usually on top of all things political in the USA and this one has flown under the radar.
It used to be that administrators came from the ranks of the teachers in a school and not uncommon for administrators to also teach. This was changed so that only administrators can rise thru the administration ranks and people with no experience teaching could become low level administrators. The people who got in early get rewarded, new people who are added only serve to provide promotion opportunities to those at the top. That is why the number of teachers per student has been going down and the number of administrators per student has been going up.
That is a classic pyramid scheme and the reason why children in the US get crappy educations. It's a shame that more people can't see it for what it is.
The problem with the US education system is that it is built and run like a pyramid scheme, with administrators at the top and teachers at the bottom. Instead of firing bad teachers or giving good teachers merit raises, we should be stream lining the layers of administration and replacing them with more teachers and teachers aides.
It would be nice to know what percentage of teachers fail the basic science poll before deciding to hand out merit raises.
"minus some of the things that we (supposedly) have that makes us better than them"
The big difference between the west and other areas is that the west has a large middle class. Having a large middle class encourages upward mobility both from poor to middle class and middle class to rich.
China is a contender for sure, but so are India, Brazil, Russia, etc.
"china is the worlds largest military threat"
I'm not sure the world agrees. The Chinese are actually good people. Their leaders have made some bad decisions but whose hasn't.
"...how Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card manipulated a sick and barely lucid Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing on to the program."
Wasn't Ashcroft already signed on to the program? My understanding was that the sideshow in the hospital was just to continue the authorization for the program. Also, I'm pretty sure he refused to sign.
At least you admit you are anti-Christian. The rest of your rantings are pathetic. Somehow you've turned freedom of religion into freedom from religion. As you readily, but carelessly admit several times, if Native American religious practice were more common, you would be against that as well.
I'll reiterate, I am not a Christian. I did go to Catholic school, but it was a good school and they never force their beliefs on anyone. To the contrary, the religion class studied all the major religions. And, and, and not once were those religions portrayed in a negative light.
Science is not as round as you think nor religion as square. History is full of examples of scientists who believed in God who had no problem reconciling the two. Ever hear of Newton? Ever hear of Darwin? Even Galileo and Copernicus were card carrying Catholics.
It's ridiculous to try to argue with someone who has no grasp of history. Religious people, at least in the US, have been ceding power to the secularists since the Salem Witch Trials. If anything, it is the atheists in the US who have become more aggressive, suing to have christmas and easter displays removed from public grounds (public for everyone but christians), suing to remove moments of silence (cause someone might use the time to pray, ooohh).
Being an atheist is not even scientific. A true scientist would be agnostic, like Darwin became later in his life. Most self-defined atheists in the US are really just anti-christian. They don't bring up Islam whenever there is a discussion about science, just the evil Christ followers.
BTW, I am not a Christian, except for the part about making water from wine and hanging out with hookers, cause I do those things all the time.
Taking polls about God is about as useless as taking polls about Science. Yes/no answers don't reveal what people really believe.
As an example, how many people in the evolution/creation poll selected creationism but believe in the big bang? Cause there are people who believe that creation started at the big bang. They have no problem reconciling their imagining of God with science.
Science should be used to advance knowledge and understanding. Dawkins doesn't help much in either regard. It's funny that there were two movies last year that dealt with religion and science and both took the exact opposite stance. I watched both and there are extremes at both end of the debate that will make you laugh.
People who believe God is responsible for everything are not that different from strict materialists who deny free will.
Unexpected is a more apt description. I haven't read TFA yet, cause I like to read the funny on/. first, but it isn't unusual for modern scientists to describe some phenomena as bizarre because the universe did not yield the results they expected. What is interesting is the increase in bizarre phenomena which doesn't fit the current dogma.
A true scientist will admit that they don't have all of the answers. A great scientist will realize that they aren't even asking the right question.
My dad installed Windows 7 on an old Dell laptop that I gave him a year ago. I was actually shocked that he got it to install, but he says it runs better then XP. Of course, he probably turned off all of the eye candy and other cruft.
He's forgotten more about computers then most people will ever know.
I guess no disaster is big enough that people won't use it for political ammunition. BTW, it's GLOBAL warming, not one country in North America warming, you insensitive clod.
AGW must be real, they took a poll. Ignore that the chief spokes-model is busy polluting the planet and setting up shell companies to profit from the coming apocalypse, he won an Oscar, an Emmy and the Nobel Peace prize, you ignorant slob. If he says the arctic will be ice free in 5 years, you can take that to the carbon bank, which he owns.
You just have to trust the scientists cause they are much smarter than you will ever be. Trust them even when they won't acknowledge deficiencies in their data or refuse to publish the models that they are using to forecast our doom. If they don't want to give ammunition to the evil deniers, who are you to blame them. It's not like extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof or that the bedrock of science is transparency and reproducibility of results.
Now get off my lawn, I'm working on a plan to save the polar bear. All we need are solar powered ice makers and some parachutes...
Slashdot Mirror
If he was really smart, he would figure out that getting some questions wrong on the test would actually get him hired.
Which you aren't? I'm guessing, but if you are a spotted owl, contact me and we'll both be set for life. A spotted owl that can type, we can go straight to profit.
Step 1. Spotted owl that knows english
Step 2. SpottedOwl.com and $$$
"A mechanism that plays outside of the laws of physics."
Either you are talking about the laws of physics we know about or you are talking about the laws of physics that the Universe 'obeys'. You state that you are not talking about the former, in which case you are asking that your critics look for unicorns.
"You need to invoke a complete unknown mechanism to keep hard free will in a deterministic universe."
I'll put it another way. If such a mechanism exists, it could only be considered as a law of physics that the Universe 'obeys'. Which would render the claim of a deterministic Universe rather moot and entirely inconsistent.
I'll finish with some puff-puff-pass philosophy. If 'hard free will' doesn't exist, there's no point in arguing with me because we aren't arguing. We're just following a script that was written before the big bang. The thoughts we think we are having are really just the chemical and electrical signals that followed from the moment of our conception. I choose not to believe it, or at least that's what the chemical and electrical signals that the Universe has deigned upon me at this moment believe, because I have observed that choices do make a difference and that bad choices can be deadly.
The Black Sea and the Red Sea deluges have also been proposed as candidates for the source of Noah's flood, although the fundamentalists can tell you why neither is the actual source. Certainly there was much flooding of many regions since the last Ice Age ended.
Personally, I think the real source of Noah's flood is just generational one-ups-manship.
Youngster: "We've been getting a lot of rain this month."
Old Geezer: "You think this is rain. I remember when it rained for 40 days and nights. And that's the way we liked it!"
The Universe is a synonym for everything. The laws of the Universe are sacrosanct, that is, they do not bend nor do they budge. To say "Hard free will is all about not falling prey to the laws of the universe", as you have, is ignorant. It is as laughable as saying "Unicorns are all about not falling prey to the laws of the universe".
Maybe what you are trying to say is, "hard free will" can not be explained by our current understanding of Physics, Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics, etc. Which isn't really saying much at all.
The idea that we understand everything is flawed. If life such as ours could have existed during the hot plasma phase of the Universe, their laws of the Universe would have been much different. Maybe they could have predicted the formation of stars and galaxies, planets and moons, and maybe even the development of organic material and intelligent life. If they could, they would be much, much further along then we are.
Still, I wonder if they could predict what I'm having for lunch.
"Hard free will is that ability to make choices without contraints of the physical laws of the universe."
This is like saying only a unicorn is a perfect horse. We all agree there are horses, but the real question is whether there are perfect horses. This sets up anyone arguing with you as believing in unicorns, except in your case its that there are things outside the physical laws of the universe.
"If we can't, then whether the universe is deterministic or not has everything to do with whether we are automatons or not."
Really? Well, an automaton with the ability to choose an action, observe the results and learn from that action, is not an automaton.
Yellow + Blue != Blue
Unless you are high on drugs...
At the galactic scale, we have no free will. We are, for all our mobility and freedom of choice, bound to a rock spinning around a star that is spinning around the galaxy. With all of our combined efforts, we can not currently change that.
Now imagine we have advanced and expanded beyond our own galaxy. We are still in a universe that is expanding away from itself. That someday in the future will be so far apart that the lights will go out. At some point, even the closest galaxies will run out of fuel and die a cold death. At the universal scale, we have no free will.
But tell your wife she is fat and it is free will that is slapping you across the face.
Yep, another example of Democrats cheating the system.
Funny how the article makes it look like "the phony, GOP-operative-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission" was somehow involved. We mustn't let a scandal tarnish the image of the Party.
To be fair, if a Republican did this, I would advocate taking them for a long helicopter ride over the desert. Accidents happen, just usually not to the right people.
I'll go out on a limb and guess that more then 1/2 of the posters on this thread are opposed to executing ax murderers.
As bad as these yocals are, someone was paying them and probably not the party that usually wins in that area. They need to figure out who was paying and those people need to be indicted as well.
I just have very little faith in the U.S. Injustice system. Too many deals, too many poor outcomes. I don't understand where local prosecutors derive the right to give indicted criminals immunity, when the right to commute and pardon is reserved exclusively for Presidents and Governors. Lessen sentences, give parole, what have you, but if you do the crime, you should pay in some way and it should go on your permanent record.
No party affiliation was mentioned which usually means one thing.
"As an aside, the US is only two states away from a constitutional convention. I recommend we get two more states on board and try to retake some power from the federal government. It's already far more powerful than intended."
If this is true (big IF), I think nothing would make me happier. Could you please post where you got this information from. I'm usually on top of all things political in the USA and this one has flown under the radar.
It used to be that administrators came from the ranks of the teachers in a school and not uncommon for administrators to also teach. This was changed so that only administrators can rise thru the administration ranks and people with no experience teaching could become low level administrators. The people who got in early get rewarded, new people who are added only serve to provide promotion opportunities to those at the top. That is why the number of teachers per student has been going down and the number of administrators per student has been going up.
That is a classic pyramid scheme and the reason why children in the US get crappy educations. It's a shame that more people can't see it for what it is.
Maybe you should start a Ukipedia (or Eukipedia if you are feeling continental).
The problem with the US education system is that it is built and run like a pyramid scheme, with administrators at the top and teachers at the bottom. Instead of firing bad teachers or giving good teachers merit raises, we should be stream lining the layers of administration and replacing them with more teachers and teachers aides.
It would be nice to know what percentage of teachers fail the basic science poll before deciding to hand out merit raises.
That was the first thing I thought of. I'm not sure if paint chips will pick up a charge, as others have pointed out.
Sam Gunn is a great character. Kind of like a cross between Michael Miliken and MacGuyver, but in space.
"minus some of the things that we (supposedly) have that makes us better than them"
The big difference between the west and other areas is that the west has a large middle class. Having a large middle class encourages upward mobility both from poor to middle class and middle class to rich.
China is a contender for sure, but so are India, Brazil, Russia, etc.
"china is the worlds largest military threat"
I'm not sure the world agrees. The Chinese are actually good people. Their leaders have made some bad decisions but whose hasn't.
"...how Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card manipulated a sick and barely lucid Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing on to the program."
Wasn't Ashcroft already signed on to the program? My understanding was that the sideshow in the hospital was just to continue the authorization for the program. Also, I'm pretty sure he refused to sign.
So run msconfig and turn the cruft off. Then install a regmon utility and stop the taskbars before they take over your computer.
At least you admit you are anti-Christian. The rest of your rantings are pathetic. Somehow you've turned freedom of religion into freedom from religion. As you readily, but carelessly admit several times, if Native American religious practice were more common, you would be against that as well.
I'll reiterate, I am not a Christian. I did go to Catholic school, but it was a good school and they never force their beliefs on anyone. To the contrary, the religion class studied all the major religions. And, and, and not once were those religions portrayed in a negative light.
Science is not as round as you think nor religion as square. History is full of examples of scientists who believed in God who had no problem reconciling the two. Ever hear of Newton? Ever hear of Darwin? Even Galileo and Copernicus were card carrying Catholics.
It's ridiculous to try to argue with someone who has no grasp of history. Religious people, at least in the US, have been ceding power to the secularists since the Salem Witch Trials. If anything, it is the atheists in the US who have become more aggressive, suing to have christmas and easter displays removed from public grounds (public for everyone but christians), suing to remove moments of silence (cause someone might use the time to pray, ooohh).
Being an atheist is not even scientific. A true scientist would be agnostic, like Darwin became later in his life. Most self-defined atheists in the US are really just anti-christian. They don't bring up Islam whenever there is a discussion about science, just the evil Christ followers.
BTW, I am not a Christian, except for the part about making water from wine and hanging out with hookers, cause I do those things all the time.
I always wanted to see this one up on the screen. For those that don't know, Death was a recurring figure in Sandman.
Taking polls about God is about as useless as taking polls about Science. Yes/no answers don't reveal what people really believe.
As an example, how many people in the evolution/creation poll selected creationism but believe in the big bang? Cause there are people who believe that creation started at the big bang. They have no problem reconciling their imagining of God with science.
Science should be used to advance knowledge and understanding. Dawkins doesn't help much in either regard. It's funny that there were two movies last year that dealt with religion and science and both took the exact opposite stance. I watched both and there are extremes at both end of the debate that will make you laugh.
People who believe God is responsible for everything are not that different from strict materialists who deny free will.
Unexpected is a more apt description. I haven't read TFA yet, cause I like to read the funny on /. first, but it isn't unusual for modern scientists to describe some phenomena as bizarre because the universe did not yield the results they expected. What is interesting is the increase in bizarre phenomena which doesn't fit the current dogma.
A true scientist will admit that they don't have all of the answers. A great scientist will realize that they aren't even asking the right question.
It's all there in your HHGttG, or Kindle.
My dad installed Windows 7 on an old Dell laptop that I gave him a year ago. I was actually shocked that he got it to install, but he says it runs better then XP. Of course, he probably turned off all of the eye candy and other cruft.
He's forgotten more about computers then most people will ever know.
"we've already wasted eight years"
I guess no disaster is big enough that people won't use it for political ammunition. BTW, it's GLOBAL warming, not one country in North America warming, you insensitive clod.
AGW must be real, they took a poll. Ignore that the chief spokes-model is busy polluting the planet and setting up shell companies to profit from the coming apocalypse, he won an Oscar, an Emmy and the Nobel Peace prize, you ignorant slob. If he says the arctic will be ice free in 5 years, you can take that to the carbon bank, which he owns.
You just have to trust the scientists cause they are much smarter than you will ever be. Trust them even when they won't acknowledge deficiencies in their data or refuse to publish the models that they are using to forecast our doom. If they don't want to give ammunition to the evil deniers, who are you to blame them. It's not like extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof or that the bedrock of science is transparency and reproducibility of results.
Now get off my lawn, I'm working on a plan to save the polar bear. All we need are solar powered ice makers and some parachutes...