Would you consider taking a 100% fatal slow acting poison that has no antidote and takes 20 years to kill to be murder instead of suicide? The point is I have a definition for 'myself', and it doesn't include clones or children.
Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying. - Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic
As nice as it would be to leave some sort of a lasting legacy behind, I would greatly prefer to be there myself. Even if Prestige-like technology existed to make an identical clone, memories and all, it would not be enough. Obviously if living becomes too much of a burden, there's always suicide. Anyway, I have a feeling we'll have a cure for alzheimer's long before we have a cure for aging.
Hahaha, now there's an example of Darwinism in action!
Personally, I never plan on having children myself, but it's for completely selfish reasons, and if I find an acceptable means to prolong my life, whether it's genetics or cybernetics or whatnot, you can bet I'm gonna take it.
Re:This is (now) a famous number-theory integer!
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Censoring a Number
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· Score: 1
Re:What about the brain though.
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Treating the Dead
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· Score: 2, Funny
Stop relying on your brain so much and start thinking with your GUT. I have it on the best authority that there are more nerve endings in the gut than in the head.
Re:Traditional Chinese Medicine Recognizes This
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Treating the Dead
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· Score: 1
They might have been right on this one, but when it comes my time for an ED treatment, I'm not going to be poaching parts from tigers or rhinos.
Well obviously! The human horn is the best treatment.
I'm guessing that businesses will be able to use this passcode when authenticating a card that a user has attached to an account. Afterwards, the passcode need not be used to authorize and charge for purchases. At least that's the only way that it would make sense to me.
It's kind of like the 3-4 digit security number (CVV2) on most cards - merchants don't need to pass it to the processor/bank, and if they do they can charge the card even when the number doesn't match. It's just not in their best interests because they'll be hit by chargebacks when fraud occurs.
I have PCs and Macs. One one of the Macs I can also boot Windows and have also run Linux. The same physical computer behaves very different in each case. Is it not the software the "soul" or "mind" of the computer that gives it a distinct personality? Even a totally different physical architecture, such as the older PPC Mac can run Windows and its programs. One of the concepts taught in the Bible is that the real you, the real me, is immaterial and lives in a physical body.
With computers both the hardware and the software are very physical things. It's the same with people - we have the hardware brains, and the software/userinput stored in the brains.
However, consider the possibility that this ultimate power allows free will, as a subset under His will, to operate in a limited domain. We experience this every day with our own children.
As far as I'm concerned, free will is a logical impossibility. Think about how you make any rational decision utilizing your free will. You weigh the alternatives, and decide between them. There are preexisting pros and cons for each alternative, and based on your nature (or personality, or whatever you wanna call it) you decide which alternatives to go on.
The point is, there are reasons you make the decision you do. Being hungry is a reason to eat. A previous decision to go on a diet is a reason not to, and so forth. Your nature determines which reasons go into your decisions, but at which point is the cause-effect chain interrupted by "free will"? You can't choose your own nature, not ultimately. You can make a decision to better your nature, but that decision is based on your current nature. I forget who said "Man can act on what he wants but man can't will what he wants", but that's the absolute truth.
Now some people will throw quantum theory into the mix and shout about probability and randomness, but even with them there is no room for true free will. Whether a decision is based on pure deterministic cause-effect, a cosmic throw of the dice, or some combination, free will is still left out of the picture.
And I also believe that even if God, if He/She/It exists, cannot have true free will because logically it's as impossible as making 1+1=3 without redefining any of the term. If that goes against the definition of omnipotence, then despite being agnostic I believe that an omnipotent God cannot exist.
The question then is: Do we believe what God tells us about our origins, purpose and destiny and then make choices accordingly? As we get more mature and really believe what God tells us, will we not also be given the opportunity to explore realms and places far beyond the wildest imaginations of our fiction writers?
You forgot a rather important question: Do we believe the people who relay what they claim to be God's words to us? There are too many different versions of the divine message, and I figure that the probability that any of them got it exactly right is vanishingly small.
The Apostle Paul tell us in 1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard," nor has it entered into the heart of man, "the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."
Even if those words are the exact truth, all it means is that we have no idea what's coming, and that includes the Apostle Paul.
I was not talking necessarily about the "supernatural", but the "normal" processes of thought, the world of ideas, imagination. These are activities of mind. You say you don't believe in (fill in the blank here) yet belief, a non-physical attribute of mind, shapes your life (and mine) more than you would likely admit.
It is by our minds as humans, that we are able to shape the physical world, more than any other living thing on this planet. Everything we do, every motion we make, every act of creativity first comes as an act of our will to and through our mind. All human laws, rules and regulations arise in human minds. Could you not conceive (in your mind) the possibility that the laws of science first arose in a mind, which itself is not subject to these laws, but outside (transcendent) and beyond them?
The common scientific thought is that everything that goes on in the mind, actually goes on in the brain - neural impulses, chemical reactions, and all that other neat stuff. Even if there's something beyond that (soul, etc), I'm sure that whatever it is is still governed by laws even if it is laws that today's science is not aware of. When I speak of physical laws, I mean the total set of laws of the Universe (or Multiverse if you want), not just relativity or quantum mechanics or whatever else we have discovered, or think we've discovered, so far. Even if there is an Ultimate Power (i.e. God), It would still be governed by whatever laws exist at that level.
Sure, it's possible that everything Jesus says exists, but even if it does it still obeys universal laws. Think Star Trek's Q - he could easily do just about everything that God is supposed to be able to, but it is accepted that he exists within Star Trek's realm of physics.
And just to get it out of the way, I'm also a determinist. I believe that free will is an illusion, though a good enough that for all intents and purposes it might as well be the real thing. Whatever decisions we (as well as any other sentient being, including God if It exists) make, whether they happen in the brain or the soul on some other plane of existence, are governed by physical laws just like everything else. That means the creation and procession of thoughts and ideas are as well.
Wrong. Information is a message from a sender which which allows you or whatever entity the information is received by to act upon it. Nothing can react to random bits because there is no way to tell what message these bits carry. The bits themselves are not the message, but their arrangement is. The letters of the alphabet in and of themselves carry no message. It is only their arrangement into the words and sentences of a mutually understood language between the sender and receiver which constitutes information.
Information is in the eye of the beholder. The message could easily be an implied or prearranged "hey, look what neat random bits are on my hard drive"! The random bits could also be key to a cypher. Random sequences are generated all the time for various purposes. Whether or not its "information" depends strictly on the use, not on the contents.
ou can buy a new disk and the result of the experiment will be the same. Information is NOT subject to gravity or inertia. That's why it can be modulated onto a carrier and travel at the speed of light. Matter, which IS subject to gravity and inertia cannot go that fast.
Have you done the experiments? And I hope you realize that electrons and photons are subject to gravity. That's why they can't escape black holes. In fact, I would really be surprised if it turned out that a hard drive with all bets set to 0 weighs exactly as much as a hard drive with all bits set to 1. It may be a difference equivalent to the mass of a few electrons, in which case your home scale would hardly be able to measure it.
It is only by faith, in itself a non-phsical construct, through religion that we attempt to deal with non-phsical concepts. God, soul, spirit, devil & demon, angel, life and death belong into the area that science is not equipped to deal with. When we dream of traveling to other universes through wormholes or whatever we understand the physical limitations to a degree. However we have essentially zero understanding through science of the non-physical dimensions of life.
Here we come to the crux. You shouldve stated right away that all your arguments are based on philosophy and religion, and have nothing to do with science.
For the record, I'm an agnostic, but I believe that there is no such thing as the "supernatural." If God(s), souls, spirits, devils, demons, and angels exist, then they follow the same laws of physics as everything else. It would merely mean that the laws of physics are way more complicated than most scientists give them credit for.
The only way anyone will ever prefer to deal with the copyright holders rather than SoundExchange is if the copyright holders 1) offer a better deal, 2) have far lower transactional costs so that it's worthwhile to take them up on it, and 3) publicize this effectively. I doubt it'll happen, honestly.
You doubt some copyright holders just want their work to be played for free on internet radio?
I am disturbed by your post criticizing the actions of this All-American teacher and our fine boys in blue. You are obviously an anarchist emboldening the disturbed, and police are on their way to arrest you for disorderly conduct.
'm pretty sure there are at least a space-shuttleful of people willing to have a go at one of these black holes, but how far is the nearest black hole?
If these wormholes are indistinguishable from black holes to outside observers, then they have enourmous gravity as you get closer to the center, right? At the very least this means you'd have to find a black hole so massive the space-shuttlful of people isn't ripped apart by tidal forces before entering the event horizon.
Slashdot Mirror
Your house is not a public education facility, is it?
So would the smokers admit to committing murder? And should contributing to a 401k account be thought of a charity?
So then, why post as Anonymous Coward?
Would you consider taking a 100% fatal slow acting poison that has no antidote and takes 20 years to kill to be murder instead of suicide? The point is I have a definition for 'myself', and it doesn't include clones or children.
Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying. - Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic
As nice as it would be to leave some sort of a lasting legacy behind, I would greatly prefer to be there myself. Even if Prestige-like technology existed to make an identical clone, memories and all, it would not be enough. Obviously if living becomes too much of a burden, there's always suicide. Anyway, I have a feeling we'll have a cure for alzheimer's long before we have a cure for aging.
So if a soldier writes an email to his gay lover, would he get kicked out of the army after the review?
Hahaha, now there's an example of Darwinism in action!
Personally, I never plan on having children myself, but it's for completely selfish reasons, and if I find an acceptable means to prolong my life, whether it's genetics or cybernetics or whatnot, you can bet I'm gonna take it.
Have so many people forgotten that we've had illegal prime numbers for years now?
Stop relying on your brain so much and start thinking with your GUT. I have it on the best authority that there are more nerve endings in the gut than in the head.
They might have been right on this one, but when it comes my time for an ED treatment, I'm not going to be poaching parts from tigers or rhinos. Well obviously! The human horn is the best treatment.
Can you imagine if all religious texts were copyrighted?
I'm guessing that businesses will be able to use this passcode when authenticating a card that a user has attached to an account. Afterwards, the passcode need not be used to authorize and charge for purchases. At least that's the only way that it would make sense to me.
It's kind of like the 3-4 digit security number (CVV2) on most cards - merchants don't need to pass it to the processor/bank, and if they do they can charge the card even when the number doesn't match. It's just not in their best interests because they'll be hit by chargebacks when fraud occurs.
I have PCs and Macs. One one of the Macs I can also boot Windows and have also run Linux. The same physical computer behaves very different in each case. Is it not the software the "soul" or "mind" of the computer that gives it a distinct personality? Even a totally different physical architecture, such as the older PPC Mac can run Windows and its programs. One of the concepts taught in the Bible is that the real you, the real me, is immaterial and lives in a physical body.
With computers both the hardware and the software are very physical things. It's the same with people - we have the hardware brains, and the software/userinput stored in the brains.
However, consider the possibility that this ultimate power allows free will, as a subset under His will, to operate in a limited domain. We experience this every day with our own children.
As far as I'm concerned, free will is a logical impossibility. Think about how you make any rational decision utilizing your free will. You weigh the alternatives, and decide between them. There are preexisting pros and cons for each alternative, and based on your nature (or personality, or whatever you wanna call it) you decide which alternatives to go on.
The point is, there are reasons you make the decision you do. Being hungry is a reason to eat. A previous decision to go on a diet is a reason not to, and so forth. Your nature determines which reasons go into your decisions, but at which point is the cause-effect chain interrupted by "free will"? You can't choose your own nature, not ultimately. You can make a decision to better your nature, but that decision is based on your current nature. I forget who said "Man can act on what he wants but man can't will what he wants", but that's the absolute truth.
Now some people will throw quantum theory into the mix and shout about probability and randomness, but even with them there is no room for true free will. Whether a decision is based on pure deterministic cause-effect, a cosmic throw of the dice, or some combination, free will is still left out of the picture.
And I also believe that even if God, if He/She/It exists, cannot have true free will because logically it's as impossible as making 1+1=3 without redefining any of the term. If that goes against the definition of omnipotence, then despite being agnostic I believe that an omnipotent God cannot exist.
The question then is: Do we believe what God tells us about our origins, purpose and destiny and then make choices accordingly? As we get more mature and really believe what God tells us, will we not also be given the opportunity to explore realms and places far beyond the wildest imaginations of our fiction writers?
You forgot a rather important question: Do we believe the people who relay what they claim to be God's words to us? There are too many different versions of the divine message, and I figure that the probability that any of them got it exactly right is vanishingly small.
The Apostle Paul tell us in 1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard," nor has it entered into the heart of man, "the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."
Even if those words are the exact truth, all it means is that we have no idea what's coming, and that includes the Apostle Paul.
Calm down, calm down. The Hare Club for Men will get him.
I wonder if actually buying keywords/pay-per-click ads from google would help getting out of Google Hell....
I was not talking necessarily about the "supernatural", but the "normal" processes of thought, the world of ideas, imagination. These are activities of mind. You say you don't believe in (fill in the blank here) yet belief, a non-physical attribute of mind, shapes your life (and mine) more than you would likely admit.
It is by our minds as humans, that we are able to shape the physical world, more than any other living thing on this planet. Everything we do, every motion we make, every act of creativity first comes as an act of our will to and through our mind. All human laws, rules and regulations arise in human minds. Could you not conceive (in your mind) the possibility that the laws of science first arose in a mind, which itself is not subject to these laws, but outside (transcendent) and beyond them?
The common scientific thought is that everything that goes on in the mind, actually goes on in the brain - neural impulses, chemical reactions, and all that other neat stuff. Even if there's something beyond that (soul, etc), I'm sure that whatever it is is still governed by laws even if it is laws that today's science is not aware of. When I speak of physical laws, I mean the total set of laws of the Universe (or Multiverse if you want), not just relativity or quantum mechanics or whatever else we have discovered, or think we've discovered, so far. Even if there is an Ultimate Power (i.e. God), It would still be governed by whatever laws exist at that level.
Sure, it's possible that everything Jesus says exists, but even if it does it still obeys universal laws. Think Star Trek's Q - he could easily do just about everything that God is supposed to be able to, but it is accepted that he exists within Star Trek's realm of physics.
And just to get it out of the way, I'm also a determinist. I believe that free will is an illusion, though a good enough that for all intents and purposes it might as well be the real thing. Whatever decisions we (as well as any other sentient being, including God if It exists) make, whether they happen in the brain or the soul on some other plane of existence, are governed by physical laws just like everything else. That means the creation and procession of thoughts and ideas are as well.
Wrong. Information is a message from a sender which which allows you or whatever entity the information is received by to act upon it. Nothing can react to random bits because there is no way to tell what message these bits carry. The bits themselves are not the message, but their arrangement is. The letters of the alphabet in and of themselves carry no message. It is only their arrangement into the words and sentences of a mutually understood language between the sender and receiver which constitutes information.
Information is in the eye of the beholder. The message could easily be an implied or prearranged "hey, look what neat random bits are on my hard drive"! The random bits could also be key to a cypher. Random sequences are generated all the time for various purposes. Whether or not its "information" depends strictly on the use, not on the contents.
ou can buy a new disk and the result of the experiment will be the same. Information is NOT subject to gravity or inertia. That's why it can be modulated onto a carrier and travel at the speed of light. Matter, which IS subject to gravity and inertia cannot go that fast.
Have you done the experiments? And I hope you realize that electrons and photons are subject to gravity. That's why they can't escape black holes. In fact, I would really be surprised if it turned out that a hard drive with all bets set to 0 weighs exactly as much as a hard drive with all bits set to 1. It may be a difference equivalent to the mass of a few electrons, in which case your home scale would hardly be able to measure it.
It is only by faith, in itself a non-phsical construct, through religion that we attempt to deal with non-phsical concepts. God, soul, spirit, devil & demon, angel, life and death belong into the area that science is not equipped to deal with. When we dream of traveling to other universes through wormholes or whatever we understand the physical limitations to a degree. However we have essentially zero understanding through science of the non-physical dimensions of life.
Here we come to the crux. You shouldve stated right away that all your arguments are based on philosophy and religion, and have nothing to do with science.
For the record, I'm an agnostic, but I believe that there is no such thing as the "supernatural." If God(s), souls, spirits, devils, demons, and angels exist, then they follow the same laws of physics as everything else. It would merely mean that the laws of physics are way more complicated than most scientists give them credit for.
I am officially calling the next Prime Minister election for Stephen Colbert.
The only way anyone will ever prefer to deal with the copyright holders rather than SoundExchange is if the copyright holders 1) offer a better deal, 2) have far lower transactional costs so that it's worthwhile to take them up on it, and 3) publicize this effectively. I doubt it'll happen, honestly.
You doubt some copyright holders just want their work to be played for free on internet radio?
Hint: random bits are still information that tells you exactly which of the random bits are 0 and which are 1.
I don't know about Lovecraft, but Gaiman is a damn good read no matter what clique you belong to.
I am disturbed by your post criticizing the actions of this All-American teacher and our fine boys in blue. You are obviously an anarchist emboldening the disturbed, and police are on their way to arrest you for disorderly conduct.
We know that mind, thought, information, whatever you want to call it is not subject to gravity
Um, how do we know that?
'm pretty sure there are at least a space-shuttleful of people willing to have a go at one of these black holes, but how far is the nearest black hole?
If these wormholes are indistinguishable from black holes to outside observers, then they have enourmous gravity as you get closer to the center, right? At the very least this means you'd have to find a black hole so massive the space-shuttlful of people isn't ripped apart by tidal forces before entering the event horizon.
peer? I'd think he was kickbanned by the superuser.