Sisyphus

That closely mirrors my own thoughts on the subject. The last sentence is especially important (though I would use a different word than "metaphysical" - "immaterial" or "supernatural," maybe). Even an immaterial soul either does what it does for a reason, or not. The difference between you and me, however, is that I do think we have "free will," just of a sort that is compatible with either determinism or randomness. Namely, it is the experience itself of considering options and making choices, and willing a particular result, whatever the various causes (or lack thereof) of that experience might be. To me, this is actually the only definition of "free will" that has any coherence, and it's good enough for me. People spend far too much time twisting logic around to arrive at a desired result (in this case, some vague notion of free will), instead of coming to terms with reality. It's analogous to people who feel they need to rationalize Young Earth Creationism in order to be good Christians.

Sure, makes sense. A-list genes guy has his choice of mates, and can maximize reproductive success by being promiscuous and not getting too attached. B-list genes guy has to offer potential mates more to even the odds, like helping to care for the littluns'. Sly woman can get the best of both worlds and maximize her own offspring's success by sneaking around with A-list guy and getting B-list guy to help raise the result. Isn't evolution fun?

How are you defining "free will?" That is, do you have a coherent, non-tautological, non-negative definition? Why is true randomness more compatible with "free will" than causality? What evidence is there that conscious decisions are random as opposed to caused? These are the sorts of leaps that cause problems, not discrepancies between micro and macro.

Edtharan, that's an extremely long-winded explanation, which though correct (as far as I can see, I just skimmed), might lead to some problems. I have a *hunch* that despite the small velocities, this is actually somehow a relativity question, meaning you shouldn't be adding vectors like that. As it happens, there are really only two reference frames in the problem (tracks and train, the ball stated explicitly as belonging to the track frame), so it happens to work out the same.

It's not so much that I "give a damn about" her (but I'm not gloating either). I do think it's disappointing, because she is an extremely rare talent, and her career is probably over, quite soon after it began. She doesn't get special treatment, but it is a particular shame as far as I'm concerned. At least a lot more of a shame to me than most of the other people I've never met who destroy themselves.

Yup, 20m/s. Well, what's the catch?

So am I the only fan?

You mean like bombs?

If you see marriage as a convenient legal agreement, then there's no problem. If you see marriage in the religious sense as a sacred bond of love and trust, then sure, if you have a prenup then you're not really married.

Yeah, that scene is one of the things I was thinking of. (Nice analysis, BTW.)

Yeah, I'd say he's in the wrong on this one, and it does look like politics overcoming good sense, but I don't think it's about donors and lobbyists. It's about making a serious bid in rural states that are wary of his brand but for whom ethanol has been a huge boon to their economies. If he's going to seriously compete there (and he plans to - his campaign is a 50-state strategy), he's going to have to offer them significantly more than a meat and potatoes Republican would for the same result. As for the position itself, it seems to me the only real problem is that he isn't making it clear enough that he'd like to see a shift from corn to other, more efficient forms of ethanol, which actually do show quite a bit of promise. But, of course, that's not what farmers want to hear, because it's easier and more profitable (for now) for them to maintain the status quo. I'll be very interested to see how he handles this.

I was a bit obsessed with Carlin as a teenager, and he's still probably my favorite comedian. His brand of unapologetic, gleeful rage has been widely imitated but never equaled.

What about intentionally increasing our own diversity?

It occurs to me that there already exists a similar phenomenon in sexual selection. True, it's just picking from existing genes instead of willfully altering them directly, but the principle is almost the same. When picking a mate, you are already essentially picking and choosing what genes you want in your children, and those genes are not necessarily helpful to survival, only to finding a mate.

Why don't you explain your own reasoning, because I'm having a little trouble grasping what you're talking about. How would you account for such a change, and how do you think that will make length discontinuous?

Well you believe incorrectly, then. They're closer than ever.

Mathematics is applied metaphysics...

I'd say anyone alert enough to be familiar with his platform knows the "scandal" isn't a scandal. But that's probably a minority, and he could probably benefit from familiarizing himself to voters on his own terms. Hell, "Obama antichrist" brings back 950,000 results on Google.

What I find amusing are all the things which apparently aren't considered "medicine."

Depends on your criteria. I do have a soft-spot for La Marseillaise (France), though. It's probably not the best of them musically, but it's also probably the most fun, and very versatile: you can belt it out in solemn protest as easily as you can in drunken celebration (just pick up the tempo), and the lyrics are hilariously jingoistic, violent, and generally over-the-top. Classic France. As far as pure musical value is concerned - even though it's not technically a "national" anthem - I'd say the European Union wins with Ode to Joy.

Well, no. I'm not really up string theory, but I'm pretty sure it would be the fundamental components of all things (including us) that are 11-dimensional. If the universe is 11-dimensional, then so are we. We're part of the universe.

Probably, but it's also worth making a distinction here between blowing up some nuclear power plant, and suggestively rehearsing for something like that. Maybe they're both bad ideas, but I think it's still a separable issue. Indeed. Israel is not nearly as self-sufficient in it's defense (and hence, by some standards, not nearly as sovereign) as they would have everyone believe. I can respect their vigilance and their desire for independence, but seeing as how we are footing the bill for much of this, you'd think they would at least consult us before using those American defense dollars for large-scale, aggressive stunts. Especially since we're then held responsible for their actions in the eyes of their neighbors.

You wake up in a spaceship. You have no idea how you got there. Looking out your windows, you see nothing whatsoever. As far as you can tell, you are in an infinitely large space with nothing in it except you and your spaceship.

I think he just means that when you you're dealing with macroscopic stuff, all the quantum uncertainty averages out such that the statistical patterns become so probable as to be virtually deterministic. e.g., there is, technically, a finite probability that all the electrons in the floor beneath me will decide to be elsewhere at the same moment and I'll just fall through. But it's such a ridiculously small probability that it's just never going to happen. Agreed. I'm pretty sure I've had this argument with lucaspa before, and we both got annoyed and nobody got anywhere. But for what it's worth, it's definitely opinion, not fact, and my opinion is that the notion that "free will" has anything to do with QM is ridiculous from both a philosophical and a scientific perspective.

Sounds like just sabre-rattling to me. Israel wants everyone to know they're able and, potentially, willing to use force on a large scale. At the same time, they haven't explicitly stated their purposes, and so it's all deniable, and they're not actually forcing Iran to respond. It's definitely unsettling, but I doubt much will come of it.