Bender

I know Muslims who take the Quran literally in extreme exactitude that disagree with you.

Angular momentum can be mathematically derived from linear momentum. Are you aware of that fact, and as a result, do you also claim that linear momentum is not conserved and Newton's laws of motion are false?

Then why do you think ISIS in any way represents all Muslims?

Define "philosophical". I also don't see how this relates to free will.

Are you referring to these experiments, published in the Journal of Propulsion and Power by NASA-affiliated scientists? You might be referring to earlier experiments, since these were made in a vacuum. They also have a theoretical basis, but I cannot judge the validity myself. I would be interested in your insights.

Not that new-age nonsense again. Have you perhaps watched "What the bleep do we know" or nonsense like that? These guys think their leader is a reincarnation of an Atlantis Warlock, to give you an idea of what kind of people spread such nonsense. Quantum uncertainty in no way explains anything like "consciousness", "free will" or "love". For the sake of how our brain operates, it might as well be completely deterministic, since we have no way to influence how wave functions collapse (if they collapse).

Have you ever actually spoken to a Muslim?

Eise's last post does an excellent job addressing this. I adhere to his definition of free will, which is essentially the same as mine: "free will is making the decisions you want to make". What illusion of control? A controller is a unit that has inputs and varies its output based on these inputs and a desired output. e.g. my thermostat measures the room temperature and switches the heating on and off based on the difference between measurement and desired temperature. Clearly, my thermostat is in control, and it is not an illusion, since it does a fine job controlling the temperature. About the question: "why does it matter?". I guess I have fun spreading disillusion by pointing out to people that we are, in fact, not special.

Then please clarify your point rather than posting two quotes that don't contradict each other.

I do not see the contradiction. I also think my toaster has some degree of free will, as it can freely decide to spit out the toast based on the electronic processes in its control unit. There is nothing special about humans, we are just more complex.

Lots. Conservation of momentum has never been observed to be violated.

It would indeed alter the response if the difference was along the North-South axis. I would be surprised if it is that large, because I would think only the crust can cause such a difference and the influence of the crust is rather limited. I could be wrong.

To me it rises above the usual crackpot theories for several reasons: - they do not violate any conservation laws. As far as I understand the explanation, the drive obeys conservation of momentum by pushing off virtual particles. - the results are confirmed in a carefully executed and controlled experiment by reputable scientists at NASA - they actually have a theory about how it works that seems to make some sense, although I must admit that's not my area of expertise and I don't fully understand it. All this warants further research, but I still won't put too much money on it actually working. The results were really tiny, and the setup was not accurate enough to be conclusive. Thermal influences were quite large, even if they were compensated for. The setup was also insufficiently damped.

In what way is assuming that all our decisions arrise from chemical reactions "not very scientific"? Personally, I have no problem with the idea that we aren't more unique than some random statistical variations.

The answer is "yes" to all of those. I defined fear quite randomly, but in a way that was not vague. If you care to define "rational or irrational response" and "feeling of fear" less vaguely, I'll explain how to program a computer with that behaviour. A "humanoid robot" is a robot with roughly the shape of a human and has nothing to do with this discussion . That is even easier, just put in a timer and a light sensor and program it to exhibit "fear" (which you will have to define less vaguely) when the light sensor output is low for a certain amount of time. They already have a history of self: they know their name and IP-address and have log files. All of this applies equally for humans. (where "people who program them" are e.g. educators or parents)

Don't judge all Muslims by the dogma of some. There are many different flavours of Islam and a lot of them do speak out against the atrocities of others. Also note that of the people killed by Islamist terrorist, most are Muslim. As I understand Christianity, there is in most flavours absolutely no reason to behave any particular way during your life. The only thing you have to do is repent when you die and acknowledge the sacrifice Christ supposedly did to abolish your sins. That said, people belief all kind of silly things; their belief in being rewarded/punished in the afterlife is far from the worst or silliest. I don't know who's quote it is, but I like it: "If religions didn't want me to laugh at them, then they shouldn't have such silly beliefs".

About 50% of cancer patients are cured at the moment, so we are making great progress. Apart from curing cancer, we'll have to cure ageing, i.e. give our bodies the ability to keep replacing tissue with new, young tissue. That and Alzheimer: not much point in keeping the body young when the brain is gone.

I assume it was.

Sure, our brains do some preprocessing. I guess it is a matter of definition whether a bunch of chemical reactions can be described as emotions even if they never manifest. Even so, the free will is not an illusion, because I conditioned my brain to do the preprocessing how I want it to.

Depending on the joint, a bit of oil could do the trick. When static, the clamping might still be large enough to keep it in place, especially if it is the type where you can change the clamping to lock/unlock the joint. While moving, the oil could result in enough lubrication to avoid stick-slip.

Alludes to what? Not sure what you mean. Did you make a typo? If you refer to being startled when something unexpected happened: it is a reaction, not an emotion. Back to topic: at least some emotions can be controlled by some people, so the general statement "we cannot control our emotions" is not correct.

correct correct

My Crookes tube broke (no sign of damage, but it stopped working), and I need a new one. I have a 6000 V source, but the distributors of educational setups I can find have tubes that either need a higher voltage or don't mention the required voltage. Does anyone know a good distributor of such equipment? Preferably Europe, but oversees is fine too. I know it is possible to make one myself, but I don't have an abundance of time right now. This is what it looks like:

Not if you exclude air and friction

I'm not talking about suppression. I do not suppress anger. I really do not feel anger. Unless I want to raise my heart rate, in which case deciding to get angry is quite effective in raising my adrenaline level. About my fear of heights: I used to suppress it, but now I no longer feel any anxiety at heights, at least when I'm secure. In case of the cliffs in Ireland, I'd still have anxiety if there is no fence, but that is no irrational fear and useful to avoid risk. Controlling which emotion turns up next is easy, just vividly imagine something joyful or sad. Thinking about playing with my children certainly helped getting through two hours of drilling in my dental nerves after several failed attempts to anaesthetise them. It's a petty I cannot be of more help to others.