Sayonara

Photosynthesis does not "turn photons into mass", so it really doesn't matter how you put together the argument.

No, I mean the poll - not your post.

*cough* The Bonn Agreement *cough*

My post does actually make a very good point, if you think about it until it hurts.

Depends on the build and the configuration. The question is too vague.

Why don't you write a module for the forum that can automatically hide posts by people without intelligence?

Defies Moore's Law? How about "raises the bar" on Moore's Law?

He does not have the right to cripple your development. If he (or your school's faculty) won't listen, a more suitably-qualified adult like your family doctor most certainly will.

Yes it was.

See posts #123-124. Has this thread really given you no food for thought?

I'm going to start KeepEnterpriseDead.com

That made me lol.

If you were intending to say "goodbye", then (a) you really ought to have spelled it correctly, and (b) you might want to think about it a little.

Then let's not use those models. I am about to go to bed so I'm not about to check, but take a look at http://www.solarcentury.com and see if their cells are more efficient than you allowed for (per unit area). I seem to recall they do not suffer much in low light conditions. [edit] Also, don't forget that a lot of the domestic and industrial power requirements (i.e. heating etc) can be accommodated using those solar fluid tubes, which are cheaper, simpler and less technically demanding than PV cells.

It's not terrible, but it sure isn't what we were promising them while we were blowing things up with daisy cutters.

No really - I'm interested to know if people's perceptions of the man lead them to adjust their perceptions of his work.

See post 112. When we reduce the right to life to numerics, we lose.

EEG evidence only tells you that the cow's brain is responding to stimuli. To interpret those results by imposing an interpretation that relates to human psychological conditions is to anthropomorphise the results themselves. This is not evidence of any such thing. It shows that the cow will behave in a particular fashion under a specific set of circumstances, but it does not tell you why. An interesting fact about cows is that they cannot be led down stairs (don't ask me under which conditions that was discovered; I honestly don't know and I'm not sure I want to. Cue farmer Giles jokes.) This is because their legs simply don't work that way. Now, as a biologist I really, really do not want to detract from the wonder of the immense variety and range of animal behaviours, but you have to understand that - with very few exceptions - the overwhelmingly vast majority of them are programmatically derived, and executed either inately or instinctively. How does this relate to our cow? Well, cows that are inclined (another pun) to toddle off the edge of a cliff, or attempt to navigate down a slope that is too steep without tacking, tend to end up dead or with four broken legs. They don't do so well at reproduction after that. The genetic basis for the population's behaviour is therefore selectively moved towards the non-suicidal. Assuming other non-quantifiable mechanisms are at work without any cause to do so is precluded by Occam's Razor, and every principle of reductionism. There may be more to it than we can see under the experimental conditions we have used, but if we don't know then we don't proclaim. What field do you have expertise in? If you acknowledge such a significant doubt margin I am surprised we are not agreeing on more points Regardless, I'm glad you recognise that asynchronous communication allows us more room for liberal interpretation of stances, coupled with implicit requests for clarification. This pretty much guarantees that the discussion will not degenerate, as they so often do. I wouldn't really say I have 'redefined' it - I can only respond to what I am given. The last thing I am going to do is intentionally strawman you or misrepresent your opinions, given my distaste for the practices. By the same stroke of the brush I would prefer it if you saw my enquiries as a[n implied] request for further clarification, rather than dismissiveness. It is true that a little inference can go a long way in arguments such as these, but I would dispute that it is objective for anyone to call such inference scientifically meritable when it is skirting so close to the realm of speculation. Yes. I also acknowledge a margin for error in interpretation. That was me giving you the opportunity to correct me if I was wrong on that point. I take issue with this because what you see as "recognition of other mental states", I see as consistent sources of stimulus. A stumbling block here is the word 'recognition' itself. In your argument it represents the processes underlying "ah, I know you - you're Harry the cow", where I and You are of course critical elements. In my argument recognition is simply a process whereby a learned response (which is something we know to be simple) is associated with a particular set of information. A cow, for instance, does not need to be able to identify a tractor, have a good think about what such a machine might do to it in a collision, experience anxiety at the prospect of never entering the cow olympics, and run away with a steely determination to survive the experience and practice its long jump (excuse the dramatic scenario - sleep deprivation=weirdness.) All it needs is to associate the noise of the machine with the action of moving away and mooing, what with most previous experience of loud and strange noises having a tendency to lead to un-cowlike happenings. The fact that this response can be undone in a Pavlovian fashion is good evidence that it was only a Pavlovian response to begin with, since a cow that is given a stimulus to come near something that causes it anxiety - in an assumed case where the cow has notions of self and mortality - would have no reason to dismiss the perceived threat. When biologists talk about social animals, they don't mean that they are social in the same way we are. The term refers to the fact that they have a communal structure; not to the fact that they recognise (in the political sense) the other elements in the society as being sovereign. Animals acting in a group do display some amazing behaviours, not least of which would be altruism - a truly intriguing effect of social interaction. However the basis for these behaviours is evolutionary processes, working on the population at both the biological and social levels. Animals working in groups are just as much a slave to memetic patterns (which is probably outside the scope of this discussion, but what the hey) as are individuals. It's not a great text by post-grad standards, but one book that gives a good general overview of how individual and group behaviours relate is "From Individual Behaviour to Population Ecology". by William J. Sutherland - ISBN 0-19-854910-5. Not really to do with behaviour as such, but you might get something out of Hastings' "Population Biology: Concepts and Models" - ISBN 0-387-94853-8. This explains in painful detail the processes that drive the emergence of various behaviours, without getting bogged down in the behaviours themselves. It's useful in that it points a big finger at the energy flow control underlying all life processes, and then screams "LOOOOOOK!" Note that where you have pinpointed "inadequately explained conditioning" above, this is not really the case at all. Conditioning occurs in an individual over a period of time. That is not how pan-population behaviours emerge, and it certainly isn't why they change with time. I would agree that some elaborate behaviours may well indicate a non-human mode of awareness, in that an abstract form of processing may be taking place. As you have mentioned this is somewhat evident in several species, especially dolphins and chimpanzees. however this does not mean that we can, by extension, infer the same kind of processing in other animals. We've barely scratched the surface in the species about which we have our suspicions. I realise your interpretation of the behaviour is an interpretation of the behaviour; what I'm asking is why you chose that particular take on affairs. What, in your view, is the perceivable mechanism? The same behaviour in other animals is simply similar effects; it does not necessitate similar causes. A personal bond is something of an elaboration here. The behaviour of the cow may simply become less vigorous because it is not biologically efficient to do otherwise. Virtually all known behaviour is a product of energy cost needing to be less than energy gains, the consequences of which can play out across an individual's day, or multiple generations (which, in many cases, can make for an awkward situation to study.) Consciousness is indeed a good "stay alive" strategy. But we shouldn't therefore conclude that cows are conscious because they are sometimes alive. Then this becomes a discussion as to why it is immoral to kill a cow, surely? To be honest it would probably be less tiring for us both to argue over the ethics of it without a common definition. Not really. Unless I spectacularly missed out on something, you appeared to say that killing a cow is unethical because it is unethical. I really don't see how you can claim it is a red herring, when the discussion has its roots in your original response to my question. You said, in DIRECT response to "why is it unethical to kill a cow": I ruled out sufferance by pointing out it wasn't a provision. Therefore this has become a discussion as to whether or not cows can "want not to die", which is inherently related to consciousness and self-awareness, with the validity of your answer to my question being the stakes of the debate. I do have an unfortunate tendency to elaborate the wrong bits. That doesn't mean anything to the premise you started out on. If you are intending to redefine the terms of your response, then you should say so. I did actually mean the murder of people. I use the term in its legal sense, wherein a non-human victim would be said to have been "killed".

It does raise the interesting question of whether or not the mere existence of medical technologies (for example) creates a moral obligation for us to use them.

I like the ones who explain the obvious gaping flaws in relativity using flash animations that make no sense.

She did it drunk too. Go Ellen.

What's the surface area of all the roofs and sun-facing walls in the USA?

Hitler was trying to advance 'a' race, rather than 'the' race, if that makes any difference. And he had a more active and 'hands-on' approach, whereas Callipygous is proposing a passive (you might even say naturalistic) movement.

What if it's justifiable?

Living on the outside? Building it too close for it to be inhabitable? Wtf?