I like the idea of a Time Traveler's convention, but wouldn't a time traveler be far more likely to travel to a milestone such as the creation or destruction of the Earth?
I would, of course, love to meet some time travelers. As we can't very well travel to the creation of Earth, we only have one choice. Good thing Bush is the US president:). No, I'm joking about Bush....but politics aside, does anyone have a few Nukes?
From the perspective of an outside observer, you are correct: There is no free will. However, because we define ourselves (i.e. the very term self) by our reactions to a given series of inputs, then we do indeed have free will from this perspective. And, of course, this is the perspective that really matters.
Your example is actually a little bit misleading, as you only take into account big events. When you go back in time to shoot Hitler, forget about Hitler. You will no doubt kill a few microbes in the process. Those microbes are not going to come back to life, and as such, you have indeed changed the past. Of course, you couldn't have changed the past, because if you had changed it, you would have been travelling from an alternate reality (the reality for which those microbes had died so many years ago). You aren't going to magically miss or have a heart attack, as you would still end up killing microbes.
Of course, as you said, this does not prove that time travel is impossible. It merely shows that some common conceptions regarding time travel are completely paradoxical. Time travel might give the illusion of changing the past, but that "changed" past would not be your past.
Timmy: [Reads] "I am _ _eek, and this is __ __me capsu__"... Mom: What do you have there, little Timmy? Timmy: I don't know, mommy. What does this mean? Mom: He was Eek, and this is Me Capsu. Oh my goodness, little Timmy...you've found the remains of an ancient king, Eek, and his wife, Me Capsu!
Archaeologists around the world are in tears as hundreds of children steal dinosaur fossils from local museums. When interviewed, one child responded, "I wanna see how many licks it takes to get to the center of a dinosaur bone. Duh." What's next for the insides of fossils? Interior decoration?
How much does it cost to send one email, Ryeng? Very, very little. That, however, is negligible. By your argument, software should be essentially free, as it costs almost nothing to produce CD's. With software, you're paying for the usage, rather than the actually item. It would be the same with a pay-per-message system: You're paying for the ability to send, rather than the actual bandwidth.
Personally, I actually wouldn't mind paying about a cent per email. Spammers would lose $2,000 dollars for every message spammed to 200,000 people, and I would lose $20 for a year of messages. The government could use my $20, and I'd be fine with my $20 being treated as tax dollars. It's barely any money for me, but quite a lot gained by the government from the huge amount of people using email.
And, for that $20 of mine, I would also get far less spam. ISP's would get less bandwidth clutter, also, and could perhaps lower costs.
I consider myself to be an extremely ethical person. I've never cheated on anything, stolen anything, pirated anything, and rarely even lie.
If, though, I stumbled across this little hack, what I would have done is not obvious! If the message had said something along the lines of, "Click here to hack into your application! See if you've been admitted!" then I surely would have ignored it. However, if it had said, "I found this link that lets you see your application status!" then I could have clicked, without even realizing that it was unethical at all. Perhaps that makes me stupid, but would that really be a reason to revoke my admission? Because I'm a little bit ditzy at times? Come on.
I'm sick of scrolling through comments, reading things like "Yeah, screw those twerps!", "Those assholes totally deserve it!" and "Thank heavens they were able to rid the business world of thus scum!" If I were one of those students, I might very well have had my admission revoked. Not to be self-promoting, but I am quite confident that I am a more ethical person than many of you, and many other Harvard admits.
I can be sure that at least one of those 119 is going through what I'd be going through, and I feel really bad for that student/those students.
Stop skapegoating, blaming all the world's troubles on these "scum," and realize that some of these students might have stronger moral fiber than any of you.
Yesterday, I had gotten caught trying to steal a few subatomic particles from Radio Shack. After being held at the police station for a few hours, I was finally released on the grounds that a Radio Shack employee had in fact stolen them from another source.
Nevertheless, if I had walked into the store with some of this plasmonic stuff, gotten a friend to cut the power in the store, and walked around holding a microwave (just for the hell of it), I could have stolen my subatomic particles unnoticed.
Bummer. Technology progresses too fast, these days.
Everyone keeps arguing that $750 million for Ol' Bill is equivalent to, say, $90 for someone who makes $50k. That's true, but there are two things that everyone seems to be ignoring...
First of all, while $90 for said person is the equivalent in terms of ratios and kindheartedness, $90 is not $750 million! I could buy 512 MB of quality RAM for $90, whereas I could buy an entire company (including the RAM division) for less than $750 million, or 375,000 powerful notebook computers. $90 would buy one person about twenty McDonald's meals, whereas $750 million would buy one million people about 150 McDonald's meals! Regardless of Bill's net worth, or his intentions, $750 million is a shitload of money, and it will accomplish a hell of a lot more than $90 ever could.
Second, rich people usually like to horde money. Someone who makes 8 figures might only use up 6 figures, but that doesn't mean that they'll give the rest to charity. That's rarely the case. Ratios simply don't tell the whole story: $750 million might be nothing compared to his net worth, but it's still a lot of money, and there's no way that he views it like it's $90: He must be aware of the extra purchasing power he would have with it, regardless of whether or not he would employ that purchasing power. Wealth is usually about hording, and rich people love to feel like they have tons of money that they can spend, even though the chances of them actually spending it are slim to none. He could easily have horded such a huge sum of money, but instead, he gave it away, among many other donations.
It may benefit him for tax reasons, but regardless, the fact that he's not hording it says a lot about him. He's no angel, but he's obviously not the devil, either.
Anyway, I have one final point. Never criticize donations, regardless of what you might think of a person or his/her intentions, as you never want to take away a person's motivation for donating. Donating money is inherently good, regardless of whether or not the person benefits in the long run.
Would you rather millions of children get vaccinated, and Bill benefit in the realm of taxes, or would you want to ignore the children so that Bill could suffer with his taxes? Think about it...
I never said that my decision was based on rankings. My decision was based on the fact that UC Berkeley has an extraordinary engineering program. It's EECS program is recognized by all major employers and graduate schools as top-notch. Students in Berkeley's EECS program don't have it easy like they do at schools like Stanford and such...it's a hardcore education, comparable to that of MIT's, and people come out of it knowing a hell of a lot.
Rankings do mean something, though. If you aren't aware, Cooper Union is ranked #3 in best undergraduate engineering programs at schools without doctoral programs.
You obviously saved even more money by not going to Duke. You get twice as many iPods as I do...160k worth! It's not relevant, though, that you saved 80k by not going to Berkeley. This isn't an argument about the best university. You're forgetting the main point, my friend.
I'll be attending UC Berkeley next fall, for around 20k/year, including room and board. To attend Duke (which would be retarded, as Berkeley is the #2 engineering school in the nation, and Duke doesn't even come close in that field...and hence, I didn't even apply to Duke), I'd have to pay approximately 40k/year, including room and board. Thus, to attend four years at UC Berkeley, it'll cost me 80k, as opposed to 160k for Duke. Going to Berkeley will save me 80k.
Now, how many iPods can you get with 80k? Assuming that we're dealing with 20GB ipods, going to Berkeley gets me approximately 268 iPods (a pure estimation, of course). Going to Duke would get me one. That means that I've essentially been given 267 iPods for going to UC Berkeley...
...not to mention the fact that I'll get an education, too!
If I were a student at Duke, I'd be appalled. Doesn't Duke have something better to do with its money...the money that the students pay? I know that Berkeley actually takes proper care of our cash...
The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois is an incredible book. I'm currently an entering freshman in the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley, and sadly enough, this book may be the reason! I've always had a passion for invention, for creation...and I do believe that this book helped to formulate that passion. It features numerous practical inventions, such as tables that come out of the floor, beds that make themselves...it just goes on and on. It's a brilliant and imaginative book, and because CS is all about creation, I'd definitely recommend it....and I'm not the only person who thinks that this dinky little children's book is incredible. It was the winner of the 1948 Newbery Medal.
It is certainly a nice package that they offer...
Unfortunetely, as others have been saying, the service is as slow as Google is fast...and that's pretty darn slow.
Slashdot Mirror
And if you wash your pants with the extremely small word processor still in the pocket, you'll be better off? :)
Actually, we run Windows. It's why we're not immortal. Highlander, on the other hand, runs Debian.
You'd thing all of those alternate universes would cause a stack overflow!
I like the idea of a Time Traveler's convention, but wouldn't a time traveler be far more likely to travel to a milestone such as the creation or destruction of the Earth?
:). No, I'm joking about Bush. ...but politics aside, does anyone have a few Nukes?
I would, of course, love to meet some time travelers. As we can't very well travel to the creation of Earth, we only have one choice. Good thing Bush is the US president
From the perspective of an outside observer, you are correct: There is no free will. However, because we define ourselves (i.e. the very term self) by our reactions to a given series of inputs, then we do indeed have free will from this perspective. And, of course, this is the perspective that really matters.
After all, I traveled from 11:21 PM PST to 11:22 PM PST as I wrote this reply! It was a real journey, I must say :).
Of course, as you said, this does not prove that time travel is impossible. It merely shows that some common conceptions regarding time travel are completely paradoxical. Time travel might give the illusion of changing the past, but that "changed" past would not be your past.
Our eulogy will actually be, "I am the last human ali-- Oh crap!"
Photoworks! Illustrand! GoWeaver!
Timmy: [Reads] "I am _ _eek, and this is __ __me capsu__"...
Mom: What do you have there, little Timmy?
Timmy: I don't know, mommy. What does this mean?
Mom: He was Eek, and this is Me Capsu. Oh my goodness, little Timmy...you've found the remains of an ancient king, Eek, and his wife, Me Capsu!
Archaeologists around the world are in tears as hundreds of children steal dinosaur fossils from local museums. When interviewed, one child responded, "I wanna see how many licks it takes to get to the center of a dinosaur bone. Duh." What's next for the insides of fossils? Interior decoration?
How much does it cost to send one email, Ryeng? Very, very little. That, however, is negligible. By your argument, software should be essentially free, as it costs almost nothing to produce CD's. With software, you're paying for the usage, rather than the actually item. It would be the same with a pay-per-message system: You're paying for the ability to send, rather than the actual bandwidth.
Personally, I actually wouldn't mind paying about a cent per email. Spammers would lose $2,000 dollars for every message spammed to 200,000 people, and I would lose $20 for a year of messages. The government could use my $20, and I'd be fine with my $20 being treated as tax dollars. It's barely any money for me, but quite a lot gained by the government from the huge amount of people using email.
And, for that $20 of mine, I would also get far less spam. ISP's would get less bandwidth clutter, also, and could perhaps lower costs.
It would work out wonderfully!
I consider myself to be an extremely ethical person. I've never cheated on anything, stolen anything, pirated anything, and rarely even lie.
If, though, I stumbled across this little hack, what I would have done is not obvious! If the message had said something along the lines of, "Click here to hack into your application! See if you've been admitted!" then I surely would have ignored it. However, if it had said, "I found this link that lets you see your application status!" then I could have clicked, without even realizing that it was unethical at all. Perhaps that makes me stupid, but would that really be a reason to revoke my admission? Because I'm a little bit ditzy at times? Come on.
I'm sick of scrolling through comments, reading things like "Yeah, screw those twerps!", "Those assholes totally deserve it!" and "Thank heavens they were able to rid the business world of thus scum!" If I were one of those students, I might very well have had my admission revoked. Not to be self-promoting, but I am quite confident that I am a more ethical person than many of you, and many other Harvard admits.
I can be sure that at least one of those 119 is going through what I'd be going through, and I feel really bad for that student/those students.
Stop skapegoating, blaming all the world's troubles on these "scum," and realize that some of these students might have stronger moral fiber than any of you.
Yesterday, I had gotten caught trying to steal a few subatomic particles from Radio Shack. After being held at the police station for a few hours, I was finally released on the grounds that a Radio Shack employee had in fact stolen them from another source. Nevertheless, if I had walked into the store with some of this plasmonic stuff, gotten a friend to cut the power in the store, and walked around holding a microwave (just for the hell of it), I could have stolen my subatomic particles unnoticed. Bummer. Technology progresses too fast, these days.
Polish Spies: Quick! Turn off the internet! Seriously, though, this must be a horrible predicament to be in for anyone who was once a Polish spy.
Everyone keeps arguing that $750 million for Ol' Bill is equivalent to, say, $90 for someone who makes $50k. That's true, but there are two things that everyone seems to be ignoring... First of all, while $90 for said person is the equivalent in terms of ratios and kindheartedness, $90 is not $750 million! I could buy 512 MB of quality RAM for $90, whereas I could buy an entire company (including the RAM division) for less than $750 million, or 375,000 powerful notebook computers. $90 would buy one person about twenty McDonald's meals, whereas $750 million would buy one million people about 150 McDonald's meals! Regardless of Bill's net worth, or his intentions, $750 million is a shitload of money, and it will accomplish a hell of a lot more than $90 ever could. Second, rich people usually like to horde money. Someone who makes 8 figures might only use up 6 figures, but that doesn't mean that they'll give the rest to charity. That's rarely the case. Ratios simply don't tell the whole story: $750 million might be nothing compared to his net worth, but it's still a lot of money, and there's no way that he views it like it's $90: He must be aware of the extra purchasing power he would have with it, regardless of whether or not he would employ that purchasing power. Wealth is usually about hording, and rich people love to feel like they have tons of money that they can spend, even though the chances of them actually spending it are slim to none. He could easily have horded such a huge sum of money, but instead, he gave it away, among many other donations. It may benefit him for tax reasons, but regardless, the fact that he's not hording it says a lot about him. He's no angel, but he's obviously not the devil, either. Anyway, I have one final point. Never criticize donations, regardless of what you might think of a person or his/her intentions, as you never want to take away a person's motivation for donating. Donating money is inherently good, regardless of whether or not the person benefits in the long run. Would you rather millions of children get vaccinated, and Bill benefit in the realm of taxes, or would you want to ignore the children so that Bill could suffer with his taxes? Think about it...
Stanford only has 6,865,158 books, and the University of Michigan only has 6,973,162. What about schools like Berkeley and Yale?
I never said that my decision was based on rankings. My decision was based on the fact that UC Berkeley has an extraordinary engineering program. It's EECS program is recognized by all major employers and graduate schools as top-notch. Students in Berkeley's EECS program don't have it easy like they do at schools like Stanford and such...it's a hardcore education, comparable to that of MIT's, and people come out of it knowing a hell of a lot. Rankings do mean something, though. If you aren't aware, Cooper Union is ranked #3 in best undergraduate engineering programs at schools without doctoral programs. You obviously saved even more money by not going to Duke. You get twice as many iPods as I do...160k worth! It's not relevant, though, that you saved 80k by not going to Berkeley. This isn't an argument about the best university. You're forgetting the main point, my friend.
Let's do a little math...
...not to mention the fact that I'll get an education, too!
I'll be attending UC Berkeley next fall, for around 20k/year, including room and board. To attend Duke (which would be retarded, as Berkeley is the #2 engineering school in the nation, and Duke doesn't even come close in that field...and hence, I didn't even apply to Duke), I'd have to pay approximately 40k/year, including room and board. Thus, to attend four years at UC Berkeley, it'll cost me 80k, as opposed to 160k for Duke. Going to Berkeley will save me 80k.
Now, how many iPods can you get with 80k? Assuming that we're dealing with 20GB ipods, going to Berkeley gets me approximately 268 iPods (a pure estimation, of course). Going to Duke would get me one. That means that I've essentially been given 267 iPods for going to UC Berkeley...
If I were a student at Duke, I'd be appalled. Doesn't Duke have something better to do with its money...the money that the students pay? I know that Berkeley actually takes proper care of our cash...
*Scratches head*
The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois is an incredible book. I'm currently an entering freshman in the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley, and sadly enough, this book may be the reason! I've always had a passion for invention, for creation...and I do believe that this book helped to formulate that passion. It features numerous practical inventions, such as tables that come out of the floor, beds that make themselves...it just goes on and on. It's a brilliant and imaginative book, and because CS is all about creation, I'd definitely recommend it. ...and I'm not the only person who thinks that this dinky little children's book is incredible. It was the winner of the 1948 Newbery Medal.
It is certainly a nice package that they offer... Unfortunetely, as others have been saying, the service is as slow as Google is fast...and that's pretty darn slow.