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While I see your point, relating to how people focus on a specific social cause, I think there is one flaw there. If I crusade to save tigers, I will also likely want to support having nature preserves where they can have a life. Kind of a package. The tiger savers are not in it to save tigers then stick them in little cages where children can try to get a rise out of them and throw trash in the cage. Similarly, if I save a fetus, then what happens to it after birth is a consequence of its being saved. I'm not sure it's morally defensible to make sure the baby goes full term, be delivered, and then walk away saying "Yep, forced Mom to birth you, now she's facing more dire poverty and lack of support, but hey, you're on your own, kid!" Your own example on the DP is also subject to the same problem. Most people who march against the DP, do in fact also support better prison conditions. And they do so, again, because the years of prison life is a consequence of not being executed. In all my examples there is the common thread of: quality of life is part of valuing life. You just can't separate them without unfortunate consequences. (I thank @MSC for also underscoring this)

I still haven't heard, in plain English, why ARTIFICIAL consciousness is impossible. Take out artificial, and that only leaves evolved. If consciousness can evolve with only natural selection "guiding" the process, then what, given enough time, is the absolute barrier to making it happen, using electronics? And answer, if possible, in unambiguous everyday language. Is that asking too much?

Perhaps you feel otherwise, but when others direct questions to me and ask me personally to respond to their very narrow point, it doesn’t strike me as unreasonable to remind them of where my own position is focused. YMMV

I think you are misplacing your criticism. You seem to be saying it is valid to criticize someone for doing good, if by some arbitrary standard it is not deemed good enough. To the best of my knowledge no one on this site, or anyone mentioned here, has ever been criticized for not supporting juvenile dental care. But as soon as I mention someone who actually helps some portion of the population with dental care, they are now open to potential criticism for not doing enough. I don't believe that is the best path forward wrt solving problems through participation. We need to press the people who are doing nothing, rather than the people who are doing something. My wife and I used to get along with everyone at my kid's grade school. Then we started volunteering for fund raisers, Homecoming, etc. Suddenly there were a lot of parents who no longer cared for us and criticized us to no end because we did not do enough, or the right thing, or what it was that they thought we should be doing. Do nothing and you can be everyone's friend. But a sure way to make enemies is to attempt to help people.

Which affects the path of the light.

Even with the occasional moment of frustration for some, this is getting interesting, in terms of defining moral obligations versus moral guidelines. My guess is that the person donating to adult dentistry in a developing country will assume that, as he pulls on that one rope, others are pulling on the other rope of child dentistry. So he is not obligated to also fund child dentistry because there is a good faith assumption that collective social action is also at work on that. Sometimes that assumption is okay. Sometimes it is not so okay, as when people donate heavily to save baby seals because gosh they're cute while other species more crucial to our ecosystems perish because they are less photogenic and get neglected by charities. We might do okay without baby seals, but a massive collapse of bee populations or soil nematodes would be catastrophic.

Completely agree. No question at all. I am just saying you are not required to get involved in Part B (improved access to contraception, etc.) if you choose to get involved in Part A (anti-abortion). If you think life begins at conception, then being active in stopping abortion and through your actions allowing, say, 100 additional babies to be born, is a great accomplishment and something to be proud of. It is not as if there are not other people who are active in improved access to contraception, ease of adoption, maternity leave and all the others. I know someone who runs a dental charity for adults. Pragmatically this person is going to have better outcomes if they get behind providing dental care for kids. But you can only take on so many responsibilities in life. Are you going to criticize them for their charitable work because it did not go far enough? Yeah, that seems like a major flaw in their reasoning. But of course many versions of "making abortion rare" are anathema just like abortion. Ouch. That's rather harsh. And rather hypocritical. By choosing to bike rather than drive you are just choosing an arbitrary line in the sand and saying "anything on my side is virtuous and anything on your side is not." Surely not manufacturing a bike and walking instead is better for the environment. Surely only eating fruit that fell from the trees is better for the environment than eating anything that has to be transported to the grocery store. In fact, unless you are going to remove yourself from the earth to remove your impact 100%, you are only taking the partial steps that YOU have decided are 'virtuous'. And how is that working out for you? Have you solved the environment crisis yet? Okay, I'm done here. I don't need this crap.

Let's say I agree with you in principle, but reserve the right to carve out exceptions where there is a strong practical reason to bundle causes. Pragmatically, the anti-abortion person is going to save more infant lives (and reduce the cycle of poverty that leads to more abortions in the first place), if they get behind social policy that allows improved access to contraception, prenatal care and education, ease of adoption options, maternity leave, etc. Sometimes a "package" is the truly effective way to advance your cause. So I find it bizarre when anti abortion people actively OPPOSE such policy packages that would help to save many babies and make abortion rare. It just defies common sense.

It’s changes in gravity that one would discuss. Gravitational waves propagate at c, as MigL notes above.

You are free to present an analysis showing the folly of the position. I have asked others to do so, and have found no takers.

You sound a bit like Lord Kelvin, challenging the viability of Darwin's evolutionary theory on the basis that the Earth was not old enough. He was comfortable that it would take no more than a hundred million years or so to cool from a molten state to its present temperature. Ignorance of radioactivity led to a flawed conclusion, despite his genius. Donald Rumsfeld was mocked for speaking of unknown unknowns, but I think he had a point.

Just to reinforce @studiot's correction of your understanding of what constitutes a machine, a wedge is most assuredly a machine. Levers are another. Pick up any stout fallen branch in the forest and use it as an undesigned lever to move a rock. Dictionary definitions are excellent for the purpose they were designed for: capturing current usage of words in general communications. They are less effective, sometimes misleading, and occassionally seriously incorrect when defining terms within science and engineering. The consequence of this - you cannot refute studiot's argument by attacking a strawman definition of machine.

I heard cattle playing baseball against chickens was finally segregated by sex because the cows kept hitting fowl balls.

I guess it depends on how you define "pro-choice" and "pro-life". If they simply refer to whether or not abortion should outlawed 100% of the time, then 'no', I don't think they can be compatible. On the other hand, a person can be pro-life and also support the right of others to choose.

I heard that in Central Asia it is popular to race chickens against cattle, but it turned out to be cock and bull story.

It’s a congressional hearing. That’s sorta how they go, but y’all are tuning in thinking it’s another episode of America’s Got Treason.

He didn't use a bad example. He made no mention of a lever in his example that you quoted. He specified a wedge only and identified it, correctly, as a machime. I don't see the discussion revolving around a single-piece tool. You seem to be raising a strawman. Not a tactically sound move on a forum with several astute members. My interest was in correcting your uninformed understanding of what constituted a machine. Up to you if you take advantage of it.

Since I'm not advocating for making abortions illegal, 'no'. No. A sperm is a male reproductive cell, a zygote is not a male reproductive cell. So much for you not minding if I am critical of you... Then you may as well quit riding your bike as it has not solved the problem with our environment. Or perhaps we should keep trying after all. Things do take time. Calling our efforts unsuccessful just because they haven't worked yet, or are only contributing to the overall effort, may be a bit premature.

Thank you for wasting my time. I tried to have a civilised non vindictive conversation, but now I'm done here.

No offense but you've been crossing over between criticizing my arguments and criticizing me. My arguments are fair game, but you don't know me well enough to suggest I'm lazy, not doing enough, virtue signaling, not pro-life enough, or what my intentions are. I'm not telling anyone which rope to pull on, or whether or not to fight against abortion without fighting for increased adoptions. What I've been doing is suggesting that it is not up to others to judge the acceptability of how people choose to make the world a better place. There is no accepted baseline of how much is enough, or what the acceptable issues to support are. We have to leave it up to the individual.

I don't pretend to understand the motivations of an alien mind. Your statement suggests that you do. While you ask it as a question, the implication is that there would be no point in commisioning such voyages. I've followed your posts for years. I have very little doubt that,if you think about it for a ew minutes, you can come up with at least three reasons why they might. We seem to be talking past each other. If any of the assumptions implicit in excehmist's position are invalid, his position is refuted. And I invite you to stop dodging the question and specify what you consider to be insurmountable or impossible in any of the handful of alternatives I have suggested. More to the point, are you denying that the points I made have been assumed to be false by exchemist and by yourself. If so, what is your rationale for making the assumption that these are false. At present it looks like a casual, lazy rejection

Thank you for this short post, it encapsulates beautifully what I am saying is wrong with your discussion style. I don't know why other members seem to have given up trying to hold a discussion with you, but this may be part of their reason. Firstly a classic attempt to wriggle out of another member's point by trying to change the subject and not answer directly. Secondly further demonstration of your continued use of too general (all embracing or absolute) statements. Science/Maths has found over the years that, even if there are a limited number counterexamples, such situations are best handled by 'weak and strong' laws or 'nearly all' laws. You will be unable to make progress with your ideas (which may have some value) if you flatly refuse to modify them in the light of comments by other thinking souls. In respect of artificial consciousness, personally I am unable to show that it can't arise by accident, rather than design. Of the comparable situations I know about, I have 3 particular cases in mind. Firstly what Science knows about chemical reaction kinetics. Secondly the recent revelations about Pluto and why it is bright red. Thirdly an SF short story about the 'Corps of Unorthodox Engineers' and the accidental generation of intelligable radio signals. In all these cases design is not needed, so the artificial in your 'artificial' consciousness is not needed. For if consciousness can arise from random natural causes, then some entity (including us) could choose to use these same processes to intentionally reproduces these effects.

Then you simply haven't studied any science whatsoever. This is a Science website. Simple simple class machines, including the wedge, are studied by 12 ans 13 year olds in school. Here is a pdf of a class experiment. https://cdn.images.fecom-media.com/FE00015525/documents/Simple+Machine+wedge.pdf If you want to lay down the law on technical matters, please come properly equipped.

My point was that there'd be no women ranked in the top 200 should the sport of tennis not be segregated. How is that in any way conducive to anything? Why don't you get it? How is having no women ranked in the top 200 be conducive to the sport of tennis at all? Did the point regarding the Williams Sister completely flew over your head?