Sisyphus

Ha, ecoli, I just noticed. Are you seriously linking to the Conservative Voice?

Why don't we just make it easier to immigrate legally? I mean, it's not like these people are actually causing significant problems. The only problem is the embarrassment of impotent laws.

I know very little about criminal psychology, but I do know the entire science is based on (guess what?) studying criminals. Like all of psychology, it's still very much evolving. But better psychological profiles do lead to catching criminals more quickly, and thus do save lives, even if they rarely (so far) prevent the original crime in the first place.

The bulk of the earth is molten rock, and so would have very weak cohesion. The core is solid, but only from extreme pressure. Take away gravity, and you take away the force holding it together, and all you're left with is something very very hot and very very compressed, which would explode with unfathomable force and vaporize itself from the heat and sudden absence of pressure.

What country would that be? And how would that have anything to do with developing an immunity?

Actually, they are.

It amounts to the same thing. The laws of physics are violated in either case, since there must be action that has no physical cause but instead is actually but a side effect of some magical being from nowhere. Alternatively, he could think that all thoughts could be traced out as physical actions obeying physical laws, but they couldn't be considered experiences without some magical being to experience them. Presumably, a functioning body that lacked this magical being would be completely indistinguishable in all its actions from one that had it, being just an absolutely perfection automoton. I wonder if he thinks all humans have this being, or if some are automotons, or if he's the only actual person, or what. Or maybe he's just read Descartes and not given it any further thought.

It's the rotation that opposes gravity. Or rather, the inertia of each part of the Earth. If gravity "turned off" suddenly, the Earth would fly apart tangentially, with each individual part of the Earth continuuing in a straight line. I do appreciate the rolleyes though.

That's exactly what you're claiming. That our thoughts don't arise from physical mechanisms. Sodium chloride. The computer you're reading this on. A paramecium. A fish. A human being.

Jim, your argument has become: Criminals must be punished in order to satisfy those who would seek revenge, thus preventing vigilante justice. Is that more or less what you're saying?

The question here can really be rephrased as, "What is the purpose of law?" I say it's to benefit society, by protecting us from those would do us harm, encouraging beneficial behavior, and making it not worth it for an individual to commit acts that harm society. You might ask the question, then, "Why not just use the death penalty for all offenses?" Why not use torture, for that matter? I mean, nobody would speed, right? Why are punishments prescribed in proportion to the seriousness of the offense? You seem to think it's because the offender "deserves" more punishment for more serious offenses. But what a person deserves is inevitably an emotional judgement, and has nothing to do with what is actually good for society. However, such a gradation in punishment can also be explained rationally. If we tortured and executed everyone who got a speeding ticket, we would be removing otherwise beneficial and useful members of society. The point is that deterrance must be balanced with the need to improve the behavior of those who are not perfect (i.e., all of us) to act more in accordance with law. Destroying someone's life is usually not worth the deterrant, and prisoners are a drain on society. Hence, some speeding is an acceptable price to pay for not wiping out half the population. This is why repeat offenses carry more punishment, because the original deterrant proved ineffective in that particular person. With murder, the damage to society is very great, and the punishment is necessarily much greater. It is absolutely necessary that people not fear for their lives from the intentions of one another in order for a society to function, and so we are willing to pay a very high price to ensure that.

You're just making it up as you go, aren't you?

I don't see what getting all bloodthirsty is going to solve. If he's a human, then you're an irrational murderer. If he's not, then hating him makes no more sense than hating an animal. The law exists for the benefit of society, which I don't think includes revenge. What it does include is removing the person from society because he is a danger, attempting to rehabilitate him, and inflicting harm ONLY for the purpose of a deterrent, as knowledge of terrible consequences can prevent crime. This last one would be the only justification for capital punishment, NOT emotional gratification. There's a reason juries don't consist of victims' families.

So what should have been done differently?

I don't see how you could prove such a thing, especially since a simulation could very well be programmed not to notice. However, I might ask, what would it matter if you were?

Current understanding has it that intelligence is determined by both genetics and environment. Some people are naturally smarter than others, it's true, and this accounts for a large variation. However, there is also a large environmental component, wherein proper stimulation (especially in the early years) actually makes you smarter. Most really smart people don't just have "better brains." They've "learned" how to think better, and had more exposure to complex thought and creative problem solving.

But our ancestors were climbers, meaning they could make good use of prehensile hands without ever having the intelligence necessary for, say, tool use.

Oh. Well, that's easier. You have x moves. Each move needs a transition to every other, so for each move, you need 1 + (x-1) animations, i.e. x animations. Thus the total you need is just x^2.

Well, let's see. Say you have 100 items, and you need groups of four. For the first group, first item, you have 100 choices. For the next item, you have 99 choices. Then 98 and 97 for the next two. For the next group, 96, 95, 94, 93, and so on. So there are 100! possibilities for order. Except the order in each group doesn't matter, and there are 4! ordering possibilities in each group (4 choices for first, 3 for second, etc.), so we should divide by 4! for each group, i.e. 25 times. Hence, I think an equation would look like... P = n!/(s!^g) where P= the number of possibilites n= the total number of items s = the size of each group g = the number of groups Or, since n = s*g, we can simplify to two variables. P = (sg)!/s!^g

Luckily medical science knows you're wrong, otherwise there wouldn't be such a thing as neuroscience.

Not only that, but the whole planet is a sphere! Obviously it took intelligent life to form it into such a regular shape. The chances of a planet being spherical by chance are 1:456,753,235,235,321!!!!!!! ---Answersingenesis.com