Yes, it is a lot like having children. Or having a twin that knows everything you know. And no, consciousness transfer is not the same as immortality, although it has some similarities.
Of course, if you die after transferring your consciousness, the original (being dead) will not feel bad about it. If it dies believing that it will wake up
in a new body, maybe that's enough.
Your not real bright if you couldn't figure out that the people who argue against vaccines are saying that the mercury based preservatives are causing autism, and while MMR is the biggest culprit, one can also get the same results with less dangerous vaccines by taking a bunch of them.
Unfortunately, this is total bullshit.
Mercury-based preservatives do not lead to autism, MMR has no documented negative effect, and the number of vaccines taken together has no connection to a child's health.
This has been proved in dozens of studies involving hundreds of thousands of children around the world.
The author, John Horgan, is a writer with a degree in Journalism, and has no background in Physics or any other science.
He recently wrote a book called "The End of Science", where he claims to know that there will be no more fundamental discoveries in science, just refinements of existing ones.
If Greene's ideas do pan out, Horgan will look like a fool.
There is a simple rule that has been used since science became science to deal with divergent hypotheses that explain observed facts. It is called Occam's razor. That is, until such a time as a means of testing comes along, the simplest theory that explains known facts is accepted as correct.
No, that is not Occam's razor. It's just a convenient rule of thumb.
Occam's razor actually says this:
Given two explanations of a given phenomenon, e1 and e2, then:
1. if Q(e1) = Q(e2), where Q is an accepted measurement of the the quality of an explanation, and
2. e2 = e1 + s, that is, e2 can be formed by taking e1 and adding extraneous "stuff" to it, then
e1 is the superior explanation.
Although this is related to simplicity, it's more precise, since "simpler" is a vague concept.
No evolutionary theory says that there is or is not a god. That is theology, not biology.
As to "used to be monkeys", no, we did not evolve from what we current think of as monkeys. Humans evolved from something much more primitive than that, and so did monkeys. This is no more a theory than gravitation or heliocentricity. Evolutionary theory is an attempt to explain how and why this happened.
What I don't understand is why spent fuel is stored in its original, concentrated form.
Why not try this:
1. grind up the stuff into fine powder, and mix 1000:1 with sand.
2. melt the result into a glass block
3. check the radioactivity.If low enough, bury the block somewhere. Otherwise, grind the result up as the new "stuff" and goto 1.
I don't think home users of 3D fab machines will ever be a major focus of copyright enforcement efforts. But, companies like Shapeways, who do 3D printing to order, will likely come under fire for reproducing objects that are trademarked or copyrighted.
Do we abandon CA, because it has earthquakes, fires, and mudslides? Do we abandon the cities in the midwest that flood from the Mississippi river? Do we abandon the panhandle states due to all the tornadoes? Do we abandon NYC because it is a target for terrorists (not to mention, they are WAY overdue for a hurricane situation that makes the one in NOLA look like a puddle jump)?
The players that you see on your set have free will only if the show is live. If it has been recorded, there are no beings to have (or not have) free will - just a bunch of bits on the TIVO's hard drive. There is no analogy between knowing the future and having a disk drive spitting out bits.
It is an analogy. If someone can exist outside of time and observe all points along the continuum, this does not imply a lack of free will.
Using an analogy in an argument is completely dependent on the the supposedly analogous situation being correct and making sense.
Your TIVO example doesn't meet either requirement, and as such is not an analogy.
A being can't know the future unless there is a predictable future to know. If there is such a predictable future, there can not be free will.
I simply wanted to point out that "knowing the outcome" doesn't imply a lack of free-will.
And what you are pointing out is trivially untrue. Pixels recorded in the TIVO's memory are not sentient beings and, as such, have nothing to do with free will.
Slashdot Mirror
I did turn off the 3D effect and then turned it back on. like 15% of the population or so I can't see steoroscopy 3D effects EVER.
Sucks to be you.
let me know when the movie studios and game studios care about the 45 million people in the USA that can't watch their Fake3D
85% market share is plenty.
I am uncertain as to how you arrived at that conclusion.
Yes, it is a lot like having children. Or having a twin that knows everything you know. And no, consciousness transfer is not the same as immortality, although it has some similarities.
Of course, if you die after transferring your consciousness, the original (being dead) will not feel bad about it. If it dies believing that it will wake up in a new body, maybe that's enough.
If anybody, I blame the clowns who edit the Lancet, for publishing Wakefield's lies without proper fact checking.
That was sarcasm, wasn't it?
Your not real bright if you couldn't figure out that the people who argue against vaccines are saying that the mercury based preservatives are causing autism, and while MMR is the biggest culprit, one can also get the same results with less dangerous vaccines by taking a bunch of them.
Unfortunately, this is total bullshit.
Mercury-based preservatives do not lead to autism, MMR has no documented negative effect, and the number of vaccines taken together has no connection to a child's health.
This has been proved in dozens of studies involving hundreds of thousands of children around the world.
He recently wrote a book called "The End of Science", where he claims to know that there will be no more fundamental discoveries in science, just refinements of existing ones.
If Greene's ideas do pan out, Horgan will look like a fool.
Not that he doesn't already.
There is a simple rule that has been used since science became science to deal with divergent hypotheses that explain observed facts. It is called Occam's razor. That is, until such a time as a means of testing comes along, the simplest theory that explains known facts is accepted as correct.
No, that is not Occam's razor. It's just a convenient rule of thumb.
Occam's razor actually says this:
Given two explanations of a given phenomenon, e1 and e2, then:
1. if Q(e1) = Q(e2), where Q is an accepted measurement of the the quality of an explanation, and
2. e2 = e1 + s, that is, e2 can be formed by taking e1 and adding extraneous "stuff" to it, then
e1 is the superior explanation.
Although this is related to simplicity, it's more precise, since "simpler" is a vague concept.
Woosh!
As to "used to be monkeys", no, we did not evolve from what we current think of as monkeys. Humans evolved from something much more primitive than that, and so did monkeys. This is no more a theory than gravitation or heliocentricity. Evolutionary theory is an attempt to explain how and why this happened.
What I don't understand is why spent fuel is stored in its original, concentrated form. Why not try this:
1. grind up the stuff into fine powder, and mix 1000:1 with sand.
2. melt the result into a glass block
3. check the radioactivity.If low enough, bury the block somewhere. Otherwise, grind the result up as the new "stuff" and goto 1.
I call this the "Homepathic Dilution Method"©, patent pending.
Besides, you would also have to have a girlfriend.
Never mind, it doesn't matter.
Damn she's gorgeous! I would have given anything to have seen that "live".
They are the ones that need to worry.
Do we abandon CA, because it has earthquakes, fires, and mudslides? Do we abandon the cities in the midwest that flood from the Mississippi river? Do we abandon the panhandle states due to all the tornadoes? Do we abandon NYC because it is a target for terrorists (not to mention, they are WAY overdue for a hurricane situation that makes the one in NOLA look like a puddle jump)?
Yes,yes,yes and yes.
All we know is that at the time of measurement (which we call "now"), the photons emitted by the galaxy long ago still exist.
We know nothing about the galaxy other than that.
But at least they, unlike us, get laid.
Although to be fair, this model does seem to work for medicine, dentistry, law, and accounting.
I find it very hard to believe that a multi-million dollar robot is cheaper to run than a soldier on a motorcycle.
Just because you feel like you have free will, doesn't mean that your actions are not pre-determinable.
Yes it does. "Pre-determinable" is just another way of saying "fixed" and thus not free.
Incorrect. Knowing what someone will do doesn't mean they didn't have free will to do it. I know my son is going to want to stay up past his bed time.
No, you don't .
You may believe that it is likely that he will want to stay up late, but that has nothing to do with knowing that he will.
The players that you see on your set have free will only if the show is live. If it has been recorded, there are no beings to have (or not have) free will - just a bunch of bits on the TIVO's hard drive. There is no analogy between knowing the future and having a disk drive spitting out bits.
It is an analogy. If someone can exist outside of time and observe all points along the continuum, this does not imply a lack of free will.
Using an analogy in an argument is completely dependent on the the supposedly analogous situation being correct and making sense. Your TIVO example doesn't meet either requirement, and as such is not an analogy.
A being can't know the future unless there is a predictable future to know. If there is such a predictable future, there can not be free will.
I simply wanted to point out that "knowing the outcome" doesn't imply a lack of free-will.
And what you are pointing out is trivially untrue. Pixels recorded in the TIVO's memory are not sentient beings and, as such, have nothing to do with free will.