Kyrisch

Or move at relativistic speeds with respect to the editors... xP

Don't you get it? That's all that's left of the english language in the future! We all knew it was going to happen....

Why is a raven like a writing-desk?

Completely off-topic, but this thread came back due to a bit of necromancy anyway... A meta-question! Why is the view-to-post ratio so inflated for this thread? I understood the "Sex is Fun" phenomenon, by why this one?

I posted this elsewhere in the forum as well, but it has resonance here too. I'd like to point out that the justice system is not punishment, but rather deterrent. Prison and other forms of detention should not be viewed as revenge; they are meant to remove a dangerous individual from society and possibly rehabilitate them. In fact, with current advances in psychology (due largely to the reductionistic and materialistic view in current science), it can be argued that all forms of vengeful punishment are immoral due to the lack of vested responsibility in an individual for their actions. See "Does Free Will Exist?".

Not might, but definitely; quantum mechanics is irrelevant in this context. That is, unless you think there is a mechanism of the mind which can willfully manipulate the outcomes of indeterminate quantum states, and then that affecting such low-level things could emerge into some sort of resolved decision in the way we conceptualize the idea of decision-making...

No, it's still not; just because we don't have the knowledge does not mean that the knowledge is not there to be had. Since we will "certainly never know" the details results in the appearance of free will, but is still not free will proper.

What you have set up is a recursive structure. While your actions do (although minimally) affect your brain, which then in turn affects your actions, what effected (yes, that's a verb, too) those original actions in the first place was the original structure of the brain, which was the result of unconscious epigenesis and nothing else.

Because the ones responsible for propagating the meme, unfortunately, did not.

No, the process is determined by the structure of your brain. You, decidedly, did not dictate the characteristics of that structure.

Let me Google that for you...

The former is more correct; the latter is more colloquial and, truthfully, somewhat lexically clearer.

Hahaha! This is great. I'm pretty sure it is a hoax, too, but regardless it's just funny. "You must sacrifice a portion of the crops to THE SPORES (viz, any sort of elusive spiritual figure) or else we will get diseases! It hearkens right back to the roots of religion.

The main issue with ends and means is not that scientific morality will lead to amorality (the semantic contradiction obfuscates, but does not hinder the meaning), but rather that science relies on relatively indisputable data upon which to function and there is no comprehensive way to evaluate whether or not the ends justify the means. As such, science does not conclude that "the ends always justify the means" but works on a case-by-case basis, and can only pass jurisdiction when there is a formal system by which to assign value to things that everyone agrees upon.

At the risk of going off-topic, I'd like to point out that the justice system is not punishment, but rather deterrent. Prison and other forms of detention should not be viewed as revenge; they are meant to remove a dangerous individual from society and possibly rehabilitate them. In fact, with current advances in psychology (due largely to the reductionistic and materialistic view in current science), it can be argued that all forms of vengeful punishment are immoral due to the lack of vested responsibility in an individual for their actions. If there is a significant response to this, feel free to split it into a new thread, I would like to pursue it.

But this hearkens back to a question of identity. Your repetition works so long as you have a workable definition for "YOU" -- which you do not. Is a person the mental construct which dictates their actions? Or is a person just a bunch of cells? In the former case, an argument can be made for free will, whereas in the latter no such argument is tenable. Further, the mental construct which dictates an individual's actions is an emergent result of the physical and chemical structure of the cells which make up the individual. As such, while YOU (your 'mind', let's say) decide(s) whether or not to direct your body to do an action, if the process which leads to that decision is unconscious then there is no free will. Or would you say that every computer program that encounters and resolves an if-else statement has free will?

In light of my recent reading of The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger (a great read to anyone interested in philosopho-psychology about the concept of 'self'), I must point out that before you attribute anything to "The Human Mind," you must first show that it exists as an entity. One of Meztinger's main points is that no such thing actually exists.

I had a feeling the solution wasn't unique. That's not entirely fair, now is it? I worked for about a half on it last night and I couldn't do it algebraically because the system had multiple solutions and I wasn't about to do guess and check.

Two words. Time travel. ...Bwahahahaha!

Well the whole spinal cord thing sounds pretty specious to me, but I can say from personal experience that, for the most part, cooling down or keeping warm a part of your body can definitely affect the temperature of your whole person. For instance, a lot of people subconsciously stick feet out of the blanket during the spring to regulate body temperature, and when I work outside in the cold I almost always wear shorts but bulk up in layers on my torso and my legs stay fine.

Bleh, broken link in my post... could someone fix?

I thought this was hilarious... If your goal was to piss off everyone...

Let me just point out that these quotes are being misconstrued. Taken separately, they seem to endorse the OP's conclusion, that Jefferson was a deeply Christian man; however, it is clear to me the true message of the last quote is sort of condescending. He is obviously insinuating that most so-called Christians do not actually follow the message of Christ. Here are some more Jefferson quotes for context: -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 181 -Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820 -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819 Source