Sisyphus

I don't know what you mean by asymmetric.

Ok, if you won't clarify, then I'll have to go with my guess, that you don't actually have a coherent meaning in mind when you use the word "contingent." You seem to be calling it something that is neither predetermined nor not predetermined. I'm just trying to point out that that is literally nonsense. Why certainly not? I see no problem with that whatsoever. Then it is determined. You see? What? Why does it matter what caused the prior circumstances? Take the state of the universe at time X. Based on the totality of information contained therein, including all hidden variables, is there more than one possible state for time X+1, or no? If yes, then there is an element of randomness. If no, it is completely determined. Can I prove which? No. Why should I? I'm saying either one or the other is the case, which is actually a tautology. You're saying neither is the case, which is nonsense. Look. You're a creationist. That's a belief that's contrary to whole realms of science, and I think it's silly. However, that doesn't matter. It's a complete red herring. Suppose the universe was designed. Suppose evolution is a lie, that the universe is geocentric, whatever. Suppose the brain is just a sponge, and thought is really the realm of immortal, immaterial souls. Grant all that. It doesn't change the argument. Was there a reason your soul decided to come troll this forum, or could it have happened differently? Yes or no? Determined or random? Now, just to be extra clear, I'm not denying free will, so stop saying things like "prove there's no intent" or whatever. There is intent. I intend to do things all the time. What I am saying is that intent is necessarily compatible with determined or non-determined processes, out of logical necessity. Events are A or not A. B is an event. B is A or not A. QED.

I would only partially agree with that. Math is necessary to make quantifiable predictions, and to prove why it has to work a certain way, true. But I don't think understanding the concepts themselves underlying, for example, Einstein's special relativity thought experiments requires much math. This book is mostly prose description of thought experiments, with nothing more complex than high school level algebra to aid in the explanation.

Where did I say I didn't understand intent? Why do you keep accusing people of "tricks?" I'll reiterate. Is the choice predictable by prior circumstance (including unknowable hidden variables)? Yes or no? If yes, it is deterministic. If no, it is random, by definition. Take note, either way it's still a choice. Why of course not? I'm convinced it could. Why do you need to eliminate intentional planned activity? My example is the human brain. I obviously don't understand the complexities of its workings, but I don't need to. Unless you can explain how it can be both not deterministic and not not deterministic (i.e. random), then I'm going with it falling into one of those categories. And the human brain obviously is capable of intent. I know how I would use those words, but I don't know how you're using them, because using my definitions you're not making any sense. So rather than guessing what your argument was or throwing accusations around, I was just asking for clarification.

Both. It's the same reason I've voluntarily taken myself out of the running for the Teen Choice Awards.

I know the argument. I had similar reasoning when I decided I was an atheist around age 13 or so. In fact I guessed that's what you were getting at from the first post. I do think you can use similar arguments to show why a particular belief is unlikely, but I don't think it's valid the way you're trying to use it, since I don't think the "equally likely" part is really supportable. For example, I too think that Biblical accounts and personal "revelation" have almost no value as evidence for a Christian god. However, I'm not sure you can say they have zero value, which is what you would need to do to make it equivalent with any other random option you can think of.

In order to say they're all equally likely, you have to be able to quantify their probability in some way and confirm that. Probability of x among n options is not automatically 1/n. Do you, for example, think that the absence of a conscious, monotheistic deity is equally as probable as, say, the tenets of Pastafarianism? I don't. This is, ironically, the same flaw in reasoning that is often used as an argument for the plausibility of a certain religion. "Either it's true or it isn't. You can't know, so it's illogical to discount it." The flaw in reasoning, to repeat, is to imply that the two options presented ("it's true" and "it isn't true") are equally likely. EDIT: Also, how has the thread gotten this far without any Hitchhiker's Guide references?

Convection is a flow of heat by means of a flow of matter.

Interesting typo.

I was under the impression that magma moved through convection, not because it's melting.

I don't think you'd even lose much mass, actually. The temperature would increase, so I guess the radius of the atmosphere would increase a bit. And then what? The combustion products would still be there. You would lose a relatively small amount of mass as the extra heat radiated away, but couldn't that take millions if not billions of years?

One thing to consider is that infinite possibilities does not imply that each possibility is infinitely unlikely. For example: Option 1 has a probability of 1/2. Option 2 has a probability of 1/4, option 3 has 1/8, and so on, such that each successive possibility is 1/2 as likely as the previous one. You still have an infinite number of possibilities, but any particular possibility has a finite probability.

The definition says something that accelerates without reaction mass, i.e. violates Newton's third law. A truck pushes off the ground to move forward, therefore it doesn't qualify. Perhaps the definition as given on Wikipedia is not very clear, because it isn't really a science article. It's an article about a pseudoscientific concept that sometimes pops up in works of fiction. Have you considered the possibility that it was not everyone else, but you who misunderstood something? No, what we do is close flame wars that aren't going anywhere. If you say something that is technically, demonstrably inaccurate and someone corrects it, is that really "restricting thought?" Is it persecution to be contradicted in anything you say?

The reaction mass is the Earth itself. For the sphere to move forwards, the rest of the Earth has to be given an equal and opposite momentum (which is obviously way too small to notice given the mass difference). Though if the sphere were a "reactionless drive," then you wouldn't need the sphere. Just drive the truck.

The truck applies a force to the sphere and vice versa, correct. So far, you've got the sphere spinning in place. Now, in order to get the sphere to go anywhere, it has to apply a force to the ground (and vice versa). It is able to do this because of friction, which is also how the truck and the sphere can interact. There is nothing "reactionless" going on.

The sphere exerts a force on the ground, and the ground exerts an equal and opposite force on the sphere. It is not a closed system.

Reality is not obligated to be easy to grasp, or to conform to arbitrary philosophical restrictions. What you are refusing to accept is something that theory predicts and experiment confirms. And it does not contradict logic.

No. Matter is not going to the center in that experiment. The stuff floating on the surface is going to the center. Matter flows outward while it's spinning. The liquid climbs the edges of the pot (fighting gravity), and a depression develops in the center: a whirlpool. The inertia of the liquid tries to expand it, but the walls of the pot supply the centripetal force keeping it moving in a circle. As friction slows it down, these forces decline. Their magnitude in relation to gravity decreases, and gravity once again evens out the level of the liquid.

And what is your basis for saying those things?

Well first of all, quantum entanglement cannot be used to transmit information faster than light, let alone instantaneously. In fact, there isn't even any such thing as two events at different locations that are simultaneous in any absolute sense. It depends on frame of reference. That said, I'd say that you were just seeing the present in your own rest reference frame. But it's difficult to give any concrete conclusions based physically impossible premises. There is weird cause and effect reversals that happen if you posit anything moving faster than light, for example.

The paths of bodies with net attractive force will always be concave towards one another. The paths of bodies with net repulsive force will always be convex towards one another. (The trivial exception in both cases is the straight line directly towards or away that occurs with zero orthogonal velocity.) In order to make a circuit around a given point, your path has to be concave at some point.

The idea of common ancestry is not based on merely "noting similarities between organism." Multiple methods independently predict and verify. It could have been falsified at any point. That is science. It is indeed "almost certain."

Ok, yes. Energy is always conserved, regardless of the direction of time. I mean that the entropy is always less in the past and greater in the future, i.e. not "symmetrical" around the present. So if you watch a tape in reverse, gravity will act the same, but entropy will decrease, showing bizarre events like an apple getting spontaneously tossed up onto a table by converging shock waves. Note that such an event is not actually impossible, since all the same laws are in play. It is just astronomically improbable. Entropy is all about probability.

Conservation of angular momentum?

Sexual dimorphism of all sorts is an expected result of natural selection. Sexual selection accounts for a lot of it, but not necessarily all. Since the life of a male is necessarily different from the life of a female - in some species much more than others - different selection pressures apply, that are often not immediately obvious. As for giraffes, I know males fight over females by whipping their heads into one another. You can see it on youtube - it's simultaneously ridiculous and kind of terrifying. That alone could account for males' longer necks, I reckon. Though I'm just speculating. As I said, it's often not immediately obvious. Just because you can't see the selective advantage of something doesn't mean there isn't one. Evolution tends to be a lot more subtle and complex than the simplistic narratives we tend to come up with, such as trends that look "planned" (or badly planned, in a lot of cases) in hindsight.