Sisyphus

Yes, I would regard it as love, in a positive sense. It's not the usual view of love, but I don't think it's contradictory either, since the usual view of love doesn't have much to say on how it actually "works." It's a difference between regarding the objective mechanism, and the subjective experience.

Isn't that just lense flare?

How would knowing how something works make it illusory? And if it was, why couldn't an illusion be a source of all "rules?"

The latter. If the moon is new, that means it's near the sun in the sky, and therefore is only in the sky when the sun is, i.e. during the day.

Case closed? So your position is that private entities should always do whatever the majority wants them to do, case closed?

It's been explained in several different ways why that dichotomy is insufficient, including in the post you are quoting. I'll try another. You are talking about final cause, the purpose for which something happens. Specifically, whether or not it has one. Everyone else is talking about efficient cause - why something happens the way it does in the more usual sense of causality. Why did you go to the store? To get some eggs. vs. Why did you go to the store? Because of a whole chain of causality, involving hunger in your body, processing in your brain, the action of your muscles, the mechanical working of your car. OR Why did the apple fall from the tree? In order to reproduce. vs. Why did the apple fall from the tree? Because an evolved chemical reaction caused the stem to weaken to the point where the force of gravity on the apple exceeded its tensile strength, and it fell in accordance with the law of gravity. OR Why did our galaxy form the way it did? No purpose. (i.e. your conception of random) vs. Why did our galaxy form the way it did? It's shape was determined by the prior distribution of matter and the uniform laws of physics. Do you see that we're talking about different things? "Random" in the sense of efficient causes means that there is no reason it happens on way and not the other. Right, you said "not intended" was your definition. But then we were also talking about life coming about "at random," in which the word is used differently. No, I am not. Flip 1 million coins, and the probability that you will get approximately 500000 heads is extremely high. But for each individual flip, the probability that it will be heads or tails is 1/2, regardless of previous results. I don't know why you're yelling at me about this. Nature is not a "who." But in a sense, yes, determined by natural laws. I don't know. I think nobody does, but you'd have to ask a cosmologist on the current state of thought. But generally, describing the falling of an apple does not involve also describing the origins of the universe. And numerous such examples have been provided. Stop requesting them over and over again.

I don't know anything about O Seculo's editorial stance or why they were there that day, but I found the article in question, and the relevant description: So a crowd of people is standing around looking directly at the sun, probably behind some cloud cover (a dull silver disk that you can look directly at without intense pain). People are crying out that they see a miracle, and a state of religious ecstasy is prevalent. "The great majority" see the image shimmer and "dance," as you would expect from staring at a bright light source. Others, "asking each other what they had seen" (which, especially combined with the religious fervor, is a great way to corrupt eyewitness accounts beyond recognition), report all sorts of other things. There is nothing about clothes drying instantly (it seems that was something people only thought they remembered after the fact). Now, let me be clear. I don't pretend to know what happened there. I'm just not at all impressed with the idea that it was a miracle. Jumping to that conclusion, especially when other, frankly much more plausible, hypotheses suggest themselves, seems extremely close-minded. As for examples from the Bible, I have to ask: why are you not a Muslim? Why are you not a Mormon? Those holy books also contain accounts of miraculous events. If the fact that it says so in one book is good enough, why not others? Those are "eyewitness accounts" also, of obvious great importance to the thousands who are said to have witnessed them. Surely that makes the accounts more reliable, no?

That is what a Catholic does, also. It's just that the something that he says is true is the doctrine of the church. We all follow our own convictions - we don't have a choice. The difference is just how we arrive at those convictions (our own reasoning, trust in some else's, etc.) and how certain we are of their infallibility.

No, it really isn't. I don't know. Perhaps because he's moderate? That isn't sarcastic, because I really don't know, but I can definitely see the argument for how it could be a symbol that is both pro-American and pro-Islam, and hence especially aggravating to Al Qaeda types. Why where? It's not at ground zero, it's two blocks away. Where would be acceptable, if that close is SO offensive? And on what grounds is that decided, especially by a bunch of non-New Yorkers who have never even been there and have no idea what "two blocks" even means? Huh? Well, just like with Christianity, what it's "about" seems to vary enormously depending on whom you ask. The "war on terror," in fact, is an ideological war largely about that very question. It's weird that so many people seem determined to shit on the good guys. It would be like getting bombed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and declaring war on Asia and Europe instead of Japan and Germany. What?

To the contrary, I find it very easy to imagine cheating test subjects and selection bias in results.

And in a way they're right. Sometimes I think of us all as each being the god of our own universe of thought and perception. Even if external reality is, in fact, reality (and I think it is), we don't really live in it. And certainly, we're the gods of our own dreams, even if we only occasionally realize it. ...just thought I'd go ahead and sidetrack us.

Yes, afterwards I tried an online test for comparison. The online IQ test was similar to some of the sections of the WAIS, but obviously not in a controlled setting, and much less comprehensive. Which of course makes sense, since several parts could only be scored by a human. Things like explaining metaphors, etc. The test included interaction with the tester that had no equivalent online. There were also parts that were entirely spoken, while the online test was nothing but written - and mostly multiple choice! The "real" test has decades of research about it, and the score, besides the single IQ number, was a whole series of spreadsheets that gave a detailed picture in many different dimensions - two tests resulting in the same IQ could definitely look very different. The online test, as far as I can tell, was just based entirely on simple percentile score on that particular test, of unknown sample size and composition (people who chose to take that test?), on tasks with no apparent justification. And that's assuming they didn't just inflate the score for no legitimate reason. I'm undecided on exactly how much credence to give the "real" test, but I would definitely give it far more than the online version I tried.

Who is?

The shape of the universe remains unknown, so no, nothing is confirmed. There are many possibilities being considered, and such a "spherical geometry" is in fact one of them, being the simplest case of negative average curvature on the largest scales. There are also several possibilities in which it is infinite in extent. They aren't simply mathematical constructs - that space is not simply Euclidian on all scales is very much observed and confirmed. Though, obviously, the universe only has one shape, so most possibilities are necessarily wrong. I suppose the closest you could come to a "literal example" would be inside the Schwarzchild radius of a black hole, in which any straight line in any direction points "inwards." A true example would be impossible in our universe, as it would literally be its own universe.

I'm pretty certain no online IQ test is going to be reliable. Real IQ tests are in highly controlled settings and include observation by a trained psychologist. I recently took one as a favor, as my friend is a psychology PhD student and needed a subject. It took a couple hours, and apparently longer to grade, with consultation from her advisor.

Simply repeating this over and over as if it is self-explanatory is not getting you anywhere, because nobody else even agrees with you, let alone finds it self-explanatory. If I may perhaps help a bit, it seems that by "intent" and "random" you just mean whether or not somebody specifically wanted an event to occur, or not. And in that sense, yes, of course it's true. However, the source of the disagreement seems to be about whether life came about "randomly," in which the word means something quite different. Using one word in two different senses without distinguishing the two is called equivocation, and it is a logical fallacy. To explain why there are such objections to use of the word "random," think of it this way. Suppose you have a system of objects, and you know absolutely everything there is to know about them at time X. Given all that information, can you predict all that same information for time X + 1? If you can, based on cause and effect, then it the system is deterministic. Given a falling apple's position and velocity, it must follow a specific path, based on the laws of physics. If you cannot, and there is no reason one outcome occurs instead of another, then at least some part of it must be random. If one outcome is not completely predictable but still highly likely, it is probabilistic. Flip a million coins, and it is nearly guaranteed that you will get close to 500000 heads and 500000 tails, even though it is technically possible to get 1 million heads in a row. So, to say that "life arose at random" implies that all possible outcomes (e.g. all possible arrangements of matter) are equally likely, and the arrangement that just happened to occur was life. Nobody believes this. Rather, the rise of life would have been the result of deterministic and probabilistic causes. Life occurred not by the roll of some dice, but by the laws of physics and chemistry. Please confirm or deny that you understand how everyone else is using the word "random" in this thread.

So why are we talking about it? But then: So it is what you're asking for, because you think that's what evolutionary theory predicts, and you're demanding examples of it. My point with this is to explain why what you're claiming is necessary for evolution is not necessary at all, and to explain "where diversity comes from." Population A splits into populations B and C. D is descended from B, and E is descended from C. Like this: time....A |......../.\ |......./...\ |......B....C |......|.....| |......|.....| V.....D....E A and B are not different species. A and C are not different species. B and C are not different species. B and D are not different species. C and E are not different species. D and E are different species. A and D, and A and E, may or may not be different species. At no point is the immediate ancestor a different species.

No, it's not just because you said "one day." At no point does the offspring have to be a different species from the parents. Ever. That's what you're asking for, right? Species are convenient for classifying organisms, but they're ultimately just arbitrary. There is no single boundary. It's just that as the difference increases, it becomes less and less able to be classified as the same. A could be the same species as B and B as C, but not A as C. This happens over time, where C is a more distant ancestor of A than B, or even contemporaneously, as in ring species. So your distant ancestor could be a different species, or your distant cousin (what is meant by speciation - one lineage splitting into two species), but nowhere along the line are anyone's parents a different species. You see the difference?

I suppose by "in a real sense" you mean in the sense of 3D Euclidian space. That's true, as a literal sphere is an analogy for a 2D universe using 3 dimensions, so as to make it easier to grasp. It is not a perfect analogy, nor is it meant to be literal. However, it is very much true that nature is not simple Euclidian space, so the intuitive notions of what does and does not exist in nature are wrong. This is what general relativity is all about.

Why are you sure of that? If somebody does well, don't you think the most likely explanation will be that they cheated, since it is so easy to do so?

No, it is not. You are mistaken. What you are doing is arguing against a position that nobody holds. That is called a straw man argument, and it is a logical fallacy as well as being against our rules. If you want to know how it is wrong, I suggest abandoning this sprawling mess of a thread and starting a new one with a narrower focus. I would also suggest doing some reading on your own, so you're not starting from scratch going into the discussion. Here is an introduction to evolution on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution

That is not how evolution is said to have occurred in nature, as has already been explained a number of times. If that's what you're demanding, then you're not going to get it, because it doesn't exist and nobody is saying it does.

It's the first thing I would try. You should probably start over and find some way to timestamp them that isn't easily searchable. If you want, you can private message me a new sequence. What kind of random number generator are you using, if you don't mind me asking?

By even asking what a belief "offers," the implication is that there are other reasons to believe something besides it being most likely to be true. That is intellectual dishonesty. Hence, rejecting all those reasons is "not denying truth."