That trial restarts in April, by which time the SCOundrels will have probably burned through as much money as possible just for spite.
The trial will not restart in April because the SCOundrels will file for Chapter 7 protection the day before it starts. But you're right that they will give as much of the remaining cash as possible to their cronies before that date, because they will lose control of the company after it.
Probably around six months old. But I'm not an expert on cognitive development.
But if you think you're horrified now, wait until you try to figure out a logical refutation of supporting early-term abortion and eating meet without supporting my 'modest proposal'.
because before 3 months, what i was inside my mother was not me, and was not alive in any human sense
Instead of an arbitrary period of time, you could use a definition of 'alive' that is used by medical profession every day and which the churches don't appear to have any big problem with—brain waves. If you are brought into an emergency room at a hospital and they hook up the EEG and find you have no brain waves, the doctors pronounce you dead and you are sent to the morgue.
There don't seem to be many religious nuts standing around barking at the doctors to keep zapping you, so they have effectively accepted that a lack of brain waves means that you are no longer a person. Correspondingly, they are also accepting that before a fetus develops brain waves, it is also not a person. Personally, I think the line should be drawn where the child demonstrates higher mental function than an animal, since many religious nuts also eat meat.
I'd say religious leaders are no more moral than ordinary people
What percentage of ordinary people pass the time by fucking little boys up the ass? What percentage of religious leaders? I'd say the church has less moral authority than ordinary people.
At one point he asked who in the room was using Vista. Out of 20 people, 12 haven't even tried it, 7 installed and used it for a while before going back to XP, and one was still using it and liked it.
Microsoft could use this in their advertising — "Are the one in twenty IT people who will like Windows Vista? Find out today! Vista, for those with distinctive tastes."
Anyone who thinks that critical thinking happens in the absence of unprovable postulates has never done any critical thinking. Everything from "I exist" to "Time flows" to "Cause and effect exists" to "The information my senses provide me is accurate and true" is just as much an unprovable (and impossible to disprove) assumption as "The universe has a first cause" or "We persist after death" or "All of this has meaning."
You're mixing rational with non-rational positions. "Time flows" and "Cause and effect exists" are scientific fact in that they have always been observed to be true. "I exist" can be viewed the same way, though there can be argument about exactly what "exist" means. "The information my senses provide me is accurate and true" is known by science to be false in some cases, as with optical illusions and schizophrenics.
"The universe has a first cause" is beyond our experience, so we can't rationally say much about it. It is outside of "time" as well, so the notions of "first" and "cause" are also beyond our experience. Rationally, "We persist after death" is most likely false, and "All of this has meaning" does not need to be true, is beyond our experience, and we have no credible way to know.
After all, the guy who studies the book every week at his mosque is obviously the one arguing from a position of dogmatic ignorance here.
Religious beliefs have no credibility. There are an infinite number of explanations for things that are beyond our experience, so there is no rational reason to believe any specific one. Anyone who understands human nature, history, and the evolution of religious beliefs knows that religion is just made-up stories. Sometimes they are exaggerations of real people and events, sometimes not. There is some reason to doubt that Christ was more real than Hercules. Muhammad had trouble reading the same sections of the divine scriptures in his mind the same way twice. The Amazing Randi's prize remains unclaimed.
A few years back they faced a lot of criticism from shareholders because they had to large of a cash reserve.... Once they have lowered their cash reserves to a level deemed appropriate by their shareholders, they will change their strategy.
Before 2000, the MSFT share price had a phenomenal growth rate, so shareholders didn't complain about the huge cash reserve. Since then, MSFT has been essentially flat, which is what caused the commotion. MSFT was forced to start paying hefty dividends to offer shareholders value in keeping their stocks. But, at the current burn rate, MSFT will run out of cash reserves to pay the hefty dividends in a couple of years, so what then? Flat stock, low dividends — SELL!
But being right the first time is the glory of religion.
No, pretending to be right the first time and then backpedaling for thousands of years as the divine revelations are increasingly demonstrated to be absurd is the glory of religion.
Religion reveals the truth of divine revelation. Which means that it is true by axiom, not proof. If the "revealed truth" isn't actually true, then it isn't of divine origin.
I can agree with the axiom part, but are all the mutually-conflicting divine revelations of the millions of religions around the world all actually true, or only the ones of your personal religion?
I have to play it off in realtime and I can't watch anything else while I'm doing it
My Scientific Atlanta DVR has a "copy-to-VCR" function that plays a recording on S-Video/Composite output #2 and allows me to simultaneously surf channels on the main output. In total, I can simultaneously record two different shows (analog, DTV, HDTV), copy a third recorded/recording show to VCR, and watch a fourth recorded/ing show.
defines consciousness? Atom? Molecule? Cell? The anatomy of neuron connections?
The last one. The brain is a computer. Your consciousness is most likely computational processing running a program that fools you into protecting your own existence. It's also a handy executive abstraction for high-level strategies unencumbered by the massive low-level processing of vision, memory, language, etc. A digital computer would do the same thing if it had hardware and software as sophisticated as and of a similar form to the brain.
The issue is a lot like religion and science. Science is able to explain the development of the universe and living creatures, but religious people insist that the real answer is science *PLUS* "magic", where the "magic" part is completely superfluous and extraneous to all of existence. Similarly, the circuitry of the brain is entirely able to explain our capacities and experiences, but most people will insist that the real answer is the brain *PLUS* some kind of supernatural "magic" which is completely superfluous and extraneous to the functioning of the brain.
The "magic" part is also more complicated than the object being explained; with the brain, it is a homunculus argument. Imagine that you press the square-root button on a calculator. To give you the answer, it doesn't press the square-root button on another, smaller calculator inside of itself; it computes the answer using its circuitry. This power might seem miraculous to someone who doesn't understand how software and logic gates work.
You can witness the lack of a "soul" in the way that drugs and brain damage can completely change a person's personality. If it was your "soul" that is in charge, how can this happen? Your soul is, coincidentally, exactly of the form of the consciousness that you are experiencing now, so how can it change? If you suffer brain damage, will your "soul" be restored in the after life to what it was before the brain damage? Will you take all of your memories with you to the afterlife? Your memories will be "left behind" in a rotting lump of meat. If the "soul" is what many people seem to think it is, why do we need all of the neural circuitry found in the brain? Our brain should be a bag full of blue smoke.
The above is a scientific hypothesis that we will one day be able to test if our technological capability keeps increasing. We will be able to map every neuron and synapse of a person's brain and recreate it in a digital-computer simulation. Then we fire it up and see if we get a "person" who thinks he is "conscious".
I'm always curious about this kind of perspective. Don't get me wrong, I admire it. I just can't get past the pointlessness of it all.
It seems to me that the "point" is that you are here now, so enjoy it. Of course, I am a little perplexed about why people seem to have a need for there to be a "point". Most people are comfortable with the self delusion resulting from inventing a purpose, but an invented purpose seems kind of pointless to me. I am unable to fool myself, anyway.
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The trial will not restart in April because the SCOundrels will file for Chapter 7 protection the day before it starts. But you're right that they will give as much of the remaining cash as possible to their cronies before that date, because they will lose control of the company after it.
Probably around six months old. But I'm not an expert on cognitive development.
But if you think you're horrified now, wait until you try to figure out a logical refutation of supporting early-term abortion and eating meet without supporting my 'modest proposal'.
This was my point.
"How come God gets credit whenever something good happens? Where was he when her heart stopped?" — Dr. Gregory House
I will only take you seriously if you swear to forsake any and all medical treatment for the rest of your life, however short that may be.
Which sentence in the Bible says this? Bonus points for posting the original Hebrew.
Instead of an arbitrary period of time, you could use a definition of 'alive' that is used by medical profession every day and which the churches don't appear to have any big problem with—brain waves. If you are brought into an emergency room at a hospital and they hook up the EEG and find you have no brain waves, the doctors pronounce you dead and you are sent to the morgue.
There don't seem to be many religious nuts standing around barking at the doctors to keep zapping you, so they have effectively accepted that a lack of brain waves means that you are no longer a person. Correspondingly, they are also accepting that before a fetus develops brain waves, it is also not a person. Personally, I think the line should be drawn where the child demonstrates higher mental function than an animal, since many religious nuts also eat meat.
What percentage of ordinary people pass the time by fucking little boys up the ass? What percentage of religious leaders? I'd say the church has less moral authority than ordinary people.
I will only listen to him if his papal-infallibility mode was activated when he made this speech.
Yes, it was the biggest rip-off in history. The telecoms took the money, didn't produce anything useful, and were never held to account.
Microsoft could use this in their advertising — "Are the one in twenty IT people who will like Windows Vista? Find out today! Vista, for those with distinctive tastes."
... such as thinking about it.
You're mixing rational with non-rational positions. "Time flows" and "Cause and effect exists" are scientific fact in that they have always been observed to be true. "I exist" can be viewed the same way, though there can be argument about exactly what "exist" means. "The information my senses provide me is accurate and true" is known by science to be false in some cases, as with optical illusions and schizophrenics.
"The universe has a first cause" is beyond our experience, so we can't rationally say much about it. It is outside of "time" as well, so the notions of "first" and "cause" are also beyond our experience. Rationally, "We persist after death" is most likely false, and "All of this has meaning" does not need to be true, is beyond our experience, and we have no credible way to know.
Religious beliefs have no credibility. There are an infinite number of explanations for things that are beyond our experience, so there is no rational reason to believe any specific one. Anyone who understands human nature, history, and the evolution of religious beliefs knows that religion is just made-up stories. Sometimes they are exaggerations of real people and events, sometimes not. There is some reason to doubt that Christ was more real than Hercules. Muhammad had trouble reading the same sections of the divine scriptures in his mind the same way twice. The Amazing Randi's prize remains unclaimed.
It's all about a colluding oligopoly fixing the price at whatever it wants. Similar to music CDs and gasoline.
Not today. The Canadian dollar closed at $0.9958 US, so CA$5.00 would be US$4.979.
If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!
Before 2000, the MSFT share price had a phenomenal growth rate, so shareholders didn't complain about the huge cash reserve. Since then, MSFT has been essentially flat, which is what caused the commotion. MSFT was forced to start paying hefty dividends to offer shareholders value in keeping their stocks. But, at the current burn rate, MSFT will run out of cash reserves to pay the hefty dividends in a couple of years, so what then? Flat stock, low dividends — SELL!
No, pretending to be right the first time and then backpedaling for thousands of years as the divine revelations are increasingly demonstrated to be absurd is the glory of religion.
I can agree with the axiom part, but are all the mutually-conflicting divine revelations of the millions of religions around the world all actually true, or only the ones of your personal religion?
This isn't a circle; it's a straight line... well, a line segment.
With the disintegration of the nuclear family, the 'circle' of life is now more pretzel-shaped.
Invented, no — evolved, yes.
What happens when one infallible Pope contradicts a previous infallible Pope? Does the fabric of space and time rip itself open? "Well, we're boned!"
My Scientific Atlanta DVR has a "copy-to-VCR" function that plays a recording on S-Video/Composite output #2 and allows me to simultaneously surf channels on the main output. In total, I can simultaneously record two different shows (analog, DTV, HDTV), copy a third recorded/recording show to VCR, and watch a fourth recorded/ing show.
I think you also need a healthy dose of Computer Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Theory Of Computing, and Software Design.
The last one. The brain is a computer. Your consciousness is most likely computational processing running a program that fools you into protecting your own existence. It's also a handy executive abstraction for high-level strategies unencumbered by the massive low-level processing of vision, memory, language, etc. A digital computer would do the same thing if it had hardware and software as sophisticated as and of a similar form to the brain.
The issue is a lot like religion and science. Science is able to explain the development of the universe and living creatures, but religious people insist that the real answer is science *PLUS* "magic", where the "magic" part is completely superfluous and extraneous to all of existence. Similarly, the circuitry of the brain is entirely able to explain our capacities and experiences, but most people will insist that the real answer is the brain *PLUS* some kind of supernatural "magic" which is completely superfluous and extraneous to the functioning of the brain.
The "magic" part is also more complicated than the object being explained; with the brain, it is a homunculus argument. Imagine that you press the square-root button on a calculator. To give you the answer, it doesn't press the square-root button on another, smaller calculator inside of itself; it computes the answer using its circuitry. This power might seem miraculous to someone who doesn't understand how software and logic gates work.
You can witness the lack of a "soul" in the way that drugs and brain damage can completely change a person's personality. If it was your "soul" that is in charge, how can this happen? Your soul is, coincidentally, exactly of the form of the consciousness that you are experiencing now, so how can it change? If you suffer brain damage, will your "soul" be restored in the after life to what it was before the brain damage? Will you take all of your memories with you to the afterlife? Your memories will be "left behind" in a rotting lump of meat. If the "soul" is what many people seem to think it is, why do we need all of the neural circuitry found in the brain? Our brain should be a bag full of blue smoke.
The above is a scientific hypothesis that we will one day be able to test if our technological capability keeps increasing. We will be able to map every neuron and synapse of a person's brain and recreate it in a digital-computer simulation. Then we fire it up and see if we get a "person" who thinks he is "conscious".
It seems to me that the "point" is that you are here now, so enjoy it. Of course, I am a little perplexed about why people seem to have a need for there to be a "point". Most people are comfortable with the self delusion resulting from inventing a purpose, but an invented purpose seems kind of pointless to me. I am unable to fool myself, anyway.