padren

Dating is fine to do, and you can have a great relationship without the expectation (assuming its on neither side) that its the One Perfect Person deal...and you'll probably enjoy life a lot more than if you date no one because no one is absolutely perfect. I recommend going out at meeting people in any sort of group activity you enjoy doing. Rock climbing/kayaking/hiking/chess club/knitting/squash/tennis etc. You'll increase your social circle and likely the chances of running into someone that holds your attention.

The first thing that comes to my mind in determining natural human behavior, is to seperate out localized derivations of human behavior, and try to evalute the common trends across almost all even seperate cultures. I am pretty sure, there are not human social orders based on solitary behavior similar to say a tiger. Hense I'd say that grouping is a very basic element of base human nature. Its very hard to define in this regard because humans pan out to be so highy adaptable, and tend to apply a wide range of social behavioral permutations to adapt to an environment instead of physical ones. To me one of the strangest commonalities is nearly every culture appears to adopt rituals over time, so much so that the rare absense would seem to be more likely an environmental adaption than the opposite. Would it be fair to define "natural" as the behaviors that emerge regardless of localized environmental adaptations?

I think the meters you are using to evaluate good government are not the best milestones. For me, the most important function of a government is to maximize the capacity a person has to execute their own choices in life in peace. You obviously can't let one guy be free to beat on people randomly as it messes with another person's ability to do their own thing, so there are laws and national defense and such. So people organize public utilities, law enforcement, national defense, criminal justice, consumer protections, health care (in an odd way I do consider federalized healthcare a base requirement for maximization, which I know is debatable), and whatnot. The problem with a socialistic system, is people like me don't really fit in - I've chosen to take large risks in hopes I'll get very productive (I really don't care that much about the money) results. The only places I could fit in within a socialist system would be organized crime or underground resistance.

If I was in orbit of Jupiter right now, looking at it with my own eyes, would the brightness be the same as the photos we see from spacecraft, or are those artifically brightened? I half expect it to be a dim, near black dark orange, considering how far it is from the sun. On the other hand, its very bright when seen from Earth, though the dot of light we see is the entire surface reflecting in a single point. So, in terms of brightness, what would Jupiter look like to the naked eye, from the height of an orbiting probe? Would it be hauntingly dark with the odd mega-burst of lightening? Would electrical discharges be visible from that view point? Would it appear as bright as the probes' photos would indicate?

When I was young I had fun trying to prove math was "wrong." I had a great teacher that humored me and help me figure out new concepts when needed, since naturally I was only proving my own ignorance of the subject. I think Hutchinson would benefit from a teacher like that.

I was pointing out it is not an unreasonable position. Then I suppose we don't have much to discuss. I respect your opinion even though I disagree with it.

Just to propose a scenario: Radical anti-abortionists want abortion to be declared capital murder, and be applied retroactively to all persons who have gotten abortions - in other words, a stance that is highly rejected by the majority and will never be accepted. Unfortunately, the radical group persists in acts of terrorism, bombing hospitals, the supreme court, other government buildings, and even restaurants and theatres. The group, appears mostly based in Beverly Hills. The military, blockade all entry and exist to the area, effectively crippling the area's ability to be productive, causing large difficulties for everyone in those areas regardless of association. Various raids are conducted, including air raids with missiles being fired into marketplaces where suspected members are believed to be. Among rumors that people are often executed in no-knock raids regardless of guilt, many families who have no association with the group gather weapons to defend themselves should they be raided. While just over 1000 people are killed by the acts of terrorism by the group, over 3,700 residents of beverly hills are killed (exact number of group members killed are unknown), and nearly 30,000 injured, while the entire population is heavily decimated by a drastic drop in standard of living and personal freedoms. Two questions: 1) How would the nation react to its own people being treated in this fashion? 2) How would the residents of Beverly Hills who previously had no negative experiences with the US military feel about about them during the conflict?

1) From various documentries and interviews it is clear that many Israelis (not sure the exact percent of course) feel that as long as palastinians are living there, there will not be peace, and Israelis will continue to die. Many palastinians of course would rather fight and die than move. The only thing that stops people from genocidally killing each other is the belief they can co-exist eventually (or more rarely the belief its better to die themselves than kill another). 2) The Israeli military is made up of people in the same pool (ie Israelis) as were interviewed and are on record as holding those convictions. Honestly I am not even blaming them for holding this position, I am just pointing out its a position that leads to an escalation of violence and not its resolutoin. I don't believe their actions as a whole are consistent with an attempt to bring about systematic mass murder, nor do I think such plans would be approved. I think proponents of such actions are limited to pushing the boundries only so much within authorized field operations. But, I do believe the results of many actions are consistent with a general disregard for innocent civilian populations that would never be tolorated if carried out in a major US city.

That does not mean those who believe this can persuade everyone else to enact such policies, but you can bet when people do believe it will come to genocide before there is peace, they will enact any orders to attack with extreme aggression and as much disregard as they can get away with. Such disregard may serve to keep as many of their peers alive in an assault, at the expense of potential combatants' lives who are actually civilians, and it really is very hard to make life and death decisions in those sorts of fast situations.

1) Too early to tell. It would outrage many people, and it would require a continuation of conservative overemphasis in politics, which is likely to swing back at some point before such a ruling could be made. 2) I'd say no. I think the issue should be scrutinized scientifically and exhaustively, I am quite certian a fertilized egg cannot be considered a person, but a child that is a week from being born, or born prematurely, are effectively the same. I do think we need to err on the side of protecting the child, but I think we can safely allow the abortion of early pregnancies without fear of aborting a child - where one ends and the other starts needs to be scientifically investigated though, and by those without biases large enough to compromise their professional objectivity. 3) We need to understand what is an is not human life better before we can apply it to abortion. Taking a human life... I don't think anyone has ever claimed that should be a right in terms of abortion. The questions are: i. Can a state interfere with a woman's choice to have an abortion (due to her personal rights) by banning abortions? ii. Can a state interfere with an unborn child's right (or pre-child's right) to protection of its welfare by allowing abortions? The first is the issue of if they can be banned, the second is if they can be allowed. If there is a federal consitutional ruling on one or both, it effects the state's options differently. 4) I would push the need for more research and documentation of a scientific nature to determine when abortion changes from stopping a pregancy to killing a child. I don't even know if this would likely be able to be "settled" by such research, but we should be able to get more people to agree on what is and is not a safe cut off point.

I wasn't sure if this should go in metaphysics, philosophy, or here. I chose here, because I am trying to speculate and understand more, from a scientific/physics friendly standpoint, the nature of consciousness and specifically potentially transference and duplication of an instance of conscious awareness. Some of the ideas that have been kicked around in other threads include the idea of achieving effective immortality by transferring yourself to a machine in a "Ghost in the Shell" fashion. While I think with the right technology you can tranfer a person's personality completely to a synthetic system, I am skeptical that the "consciousness" would be able to transfer too. I am really not sure how to even think about consciousness, other than I am glad to be conscious, and that if I personally experience the motions of death, that will be the last experience that I effectively have. If my body was dying, and I am downloaded to an prostetic body, who experiences dying in that hospital bed while I am out running around in the prostetic? I have to assume the "me" who was there before the prostetic was activated, would be the one that dies in the bed. While I can skeptically accept consciousness as an illusion created by the circumstances of mental data accumulation and thought, I still would never accept sacrificing it (ie, dying prematurely) to extend my personality's existance. I am mostly curious what people think about consciousness, personality, individuality, death, and transference.

I am pretty viscerally repulsed by the risks of a runaway conservative supreme court that ends up hating advocate judges unless they advocate radical departures from roe vs wade and anything non-conservative. With politics the way it is now, I wouldn't trust either side to instill non-partisans to the bench, and either side should have to be seriously grilled and dragged over the coals before entrusting them to impartially hold a lifetime appointment to the highest court.

Well its a pretty small 1 bedroom house. I pay $400 rent, so $200+ to heat it is fairly substatial in comparison. A reporter friend told me that while the average price in my town almost doubled (jumped 80%) that just 50 miles away a nearby town only went up 8-12% for the same type of gas.

I'd suggest via hobbies. If you like hiking, kayaking, racket ball, climbing, chess, drinking heavily, amature astronomy, photography, crashing support groups, bridge, music, dancing, poker, or any other number of personal interests, go out and do these things or find events centering on them within the community, and enjoy doing your own thing there (ie, don't "work the room" but be there just to have fun). That way you are regularily meeting like-minded people, hopefully expanding your horizons in general, and really if you do go out a lot you'll meet interesting people, as a general rule. Don't let divorce rates etc get you down either, chances are like all of us you have your own baggage and don't have to worry about carrying the culture's baggage on your shoulders too.

One consession I have to make is, that if you do see what appears to be a literal UFO, chances are you'll never be able to communicate in words effectively enough to convince others that what you saw was not in fact venus or swamp gas or some other factor. And if you did convince someone you are not mistaken, delusion or dishonesty are still more probable explanations than actually seeing an alien from another world. I do think its worth questioning what the burden of proof would be to prove such events were transpiring. Its entirely reasonable to decide that the requirements are both "too high" (ie, if such events did take place, are they likely to be thought not to be due to the burden of evidence needed?) and "too low" (too much BS is likely to be taken as fact) at the same time, they are not mutually exclusive. These are independant scales, that are both dependant on what you are investigating. Take trying to prove "god" for instance, by definition a God could reasonable ensure no evidence is ever discovered of him, and at the same time any amount of proof could be some super dude that happened not to have created the universe and is just messing with our heads, because once you entertain the possibility of one super being, logically you should entertain the possibility of somewhat lesser super beings. Hence, I'd give the "god question" a para-rating of 10/10 as the ultimate non-provable case, and things like UFOs are high but lesser on the scale. Basically, if you've seen a UFO, I'd say all the power to you in trying to figure it out, but its not a phenomenon that (if valid) lends itself easily to empirical evidence and the scientific method.

Old thread but I thought it was worth pointing out two links: reference to malepregnancy.com: http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/malepreg.htm refernce to bonsai kittens: http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/bonsai.asp I quite like snopes.com.

Not sure if its here or politics that is the best home, but I was thinking - why don't we have tax breaks for being an organ donor? Some countries have an "opt-out" policy, but I am mixed on that solution to the need for more donors. I am dead set against any "free market" solutions but I am curious what other people think.

Then Haines would be in the superconductor business. What if our ancient ancestors paid our gravity bill with a sizeable credit left over, but it was about to run out and be turned off?

From $43 the prev month up to $203 for last month. The actual increase was from $8 per to $14 per. It didn't quite double in cost per unit but it came at the same moment as the cold snap. PS: While your asking what about you?

Sorry, I just meant some-Dimentional, 3D,4D,whateverD since some string theories and all that seems to come up with...11D or something, which gets confusing if they are curled etc, and then for all that to exist in the skin of a sphere that is one dimension higher as a way to describe it...so I just said [n]D instead.

Thanks for the explanation and finding the laser vibrometer, my next question was if you could do it with an active beam, and it does appear an active beam in the infrared spectrum (where in it I am not sure) can suffice. Is the need for an active beam that there are too many ambient fluxuations, or that the frequency is not sufficient in low blackbody radiation? Would ambient visible light and UV radiation reflecting off an object be effective for a passive system?

I just had an interesting thought. Given what you said in this thread: Is there any difference between infinite causal regress, ie, a universe with no start, and a universe with no end... in terms of time and causality? If time is static from an objective perspective outside the frame than progressive direction (the start and end) are subjective, correct? Even if we stop the "turtles all the way down" does "stars all the way up" cause the same dilema?

Thanks for the feedback. In the double slit experiment, if you had the slits cut into a solar panel of sorts, would you find the photon only passed through one of the two slits, or would it also have gotten absorbed by the wall the slits are in too? Even if it is in more than one place at once, it can't, I assume, have more energy than a single photon, or impart less than a single quanta of photon-sized energy into anything that absorbs it. So, if I understand, there is a wave form, which is a spatial range of where the photon particle is. How do you throw a single photon in a straight line at one slot, and have it pass through a slot several degrees off course? Do particle accelerators limit the range of this factor? It seems they are very specific and accurate in how they sling particles around, and if the double slit works with buckyballs how does this get factored in accelerators using smaller particles? Is it possible a particle is a side effect - a way of reacting - when something that is more generally a wave is impacted by a force large enough to observe it, the wave's energy gets particlized at that point of impact? (wild speculation of course, I am trying to figure out if these behaviors in QM are consistent with anything that makes more general sense to me, but naturally I am sure thats a long shot)