John Cuthber

At the moment the post above this one reads "John Cuthber, on 7 March 2012 - 08:43 PM, said: Which would matter if milk production were morally different from meat production. Cows only give milk because they recently had calves. You can slaughter the calves and eat them or you can slaughter the calves and not eat them. Whether or not you choose to fatten them up before killing them doesn't matter much- they are bred to die. You don't get a lot of milk unless you have a meat industry. I forgot to mention this aspect of food poisoning earlier. http://en.wikipedia....Bacillus_cereus some questions. 1. Surely, at least one of the mosquitoes drawn to this bait would be infected, and might possibly transfer disease to the bait. It would turn into a cesspool, where EVERY pregnant mosquito would be guaranteed to transmit a disease. 2. If the bait is poisoned, then a lot of pregnant mosquitoes would die, dwindling the population very quickly. And how would this affect the ecosystem? 3. If the bait isn't poisoned, then perhaps a lot more mosquitos would survive than now. I'm sure a lot die because they can't find a supplier of blood. This might encourage their survival. There would be a lot more mosquitos flying around, some would surely find humans regardless, and we might just end up infecting more humans anyway. " Is it just me, or does that qualify for the non sequiteur of the week award?

Is this a variation on the idea that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"? Anyway, my point is that theology doesn't have any legitimate authority to do anything. It is generally unwise to let fairy tales influence your decisions.

This sounds like a fairly effective way to overdose on propranolol. Is that the intention?

Stainless steel doesn't amalgamate and it's a lot tougher than glass. However my best advice would be: don't do this anyway.

Lets be clear about things: what we need is for the separation of mind and brain to be shown not "more often" but at all, even once would be a start.

I think it would have been better if we had all waited longer.

As piece of science, rather than mysticism, this "Debate" will start (not finish) when someone blows their brains out with a shotgun, and demonstrates that their mind remains intact. Until then the only evidence is that the mind is a consequence of the brain.

Mine do. " The difficulty of doing this without a third theoretical term, a trinity of primitives, are notorious, insurmountable according to David Chalmers" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority This form is only valid if the authority is recognised as competent. For reasons I have given elsewhere I believe he is simply wrong, and therefore not a valid authority. " If anything is disppointing it would surely be the belief that our mind is the size of our brain. 'Why think thyself a puny being', asks Imam Ali, the first Shia Imam, 'when the entire universe is enfolded within you?' " For a start the number of possible games of chess or Go (any of which can be imagined and is therefore part of the mind) is vastly greater than the number of particles in the observable universe. For an encore, that's another bad appeal to authority. "What sort of nonsense? " the idea that the mind is in some way "outside" the brain is nonsense.

Then he should have done it correctly.

Which is deeply disappointing isn't it I mean the link would have been very clear even to prehistoric society. A bang on the head disrupts your mind. A head wound can change your personality. It's pretty clear that whatever the "mind" is, it's stuck firmly between your ears. In modern times when we can look at the sites of actions of pshychotropic drugs in the brain down to the molecular level there's really no excuse for still believing that sort of nonsense.

No. I won't, however, rather than complaining about how I phrase an argument, you might wish to try to show why it is invalid or, better still, you may wish to accept that it is valid. Oh, BTW re. "you just want to tell readers that God is an unbelievable concept, just say God is an unbelievable concept or invalid concept, " I didn't. I just pointed out that he is neither more nor less believable that the FSM. Nothing flippant about it.

I should probably have mentioned this earlier. The pH will neccesarilly depend on the relative concentrations of ethanolamine and its protonated form and also on the carbonate/ bicarbonate ratio. Adding CO2 will protonate the base (and form bicarbonate) and so the pH really will change. The base uesd to trap the CO2 is actually carbonate. Ethanolamine is quite a strong base. You could use sodium hydroxide- which is an unquestionably strong base. Like the ethanolamine, it would react to form a carbonate, and that carbonate would react reversibly with CO2. However the fact remains that it would make more sense to burn the stuff and transmit power electrically than to waste energy stripping the CO2. One possible exception to that would be if you could find a membrane that was permeable to CO2 but not methane. then the energy consumption of separation would be small and it might just be worthwhile.

Actually a whole lot of selective breeding of dairy cattle led to cows that produce vastly more milk than their calves need. However, that's not the point. The point is what do you do with the calves. Also let's not delude ourselves about stealing the milk "An important part of the dairy industry is the removal of the calves off the mother’s milk after the three days of needed colostrum[25], allowing for the collection of the milk produced. In order for this to take place, the calves are fed milk replacer, a substitute for the whole milk produced by the cow" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_farming#Management_of_the_herd While I'm at it, why do you think "Westerners" wouldn't know about this? It's Easterners who don't keep dairy herds.

Which won't work in this case because the stuff isn't pure hypochlorite. Incidentally, the "6%" might well be "available chlorine" rather than hypochlorite.

This assertion "It is not a pure assumption because it is needed to explain how everything in the universe that has a beginning came about." or the equivalent on "The existence of God is not a pure assumption but a principle of human rational knowledge, otherwise you have no explanation for the origin of everything with a beginning." is just plain wrong, but anyway... There is a Universe. Either it has always been here or it came into being at some time in the past. It might be an un-caused event. We don't know because we were not there at the time. The fact that we see a universe is only evidence that there is a universe to see (and that we aren't blind to it). It's existence tells us nothing of its origin or history. It's possible (but not certain) that it was created by some sort of creator. However there is nothing about the universe that tells us anything of the nature of that creator (or even if one exists). That creator might be something like the Christian God. But there is no reason to favour that suggestion over the idea that the creator might be the flying spaghetti monster or even something like the Christian "Devil". It is, based on a more or less total lack of evidence, just as true to say "the universe is evidence for the existence of the FSM (blessings upon his noodly appendages)" as it is to say "the universe is evidence for the existence of the Christian God". But the two are not the same and the existence of one precludes the existence of the other, because there can only be one creator. Only one of them could be true, yet it is paradoxically asserted that the existence of the universe is evidence for both the existence of God and also for his non-existence (because the universe was created by the FSM).

Ask your doctor.

Which would matter if milk production were morally different from meat production. Cows only give milk because they recently had calves. You can slaughter the calves and eat them or you can slaughter the calves and not eat them. Whether or not you choose to fatten them up before killing them doesn't matter much- they are bred to die. You don't get a lot of milk unless you have a meat industry. I forgot to mention this aspect of food poisoning earlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_cereus

Also please acquaint yourself with the concept of this logical fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Sure about that? "According to the UK Vegan Society, the present consensus is that any B12 present in plant foods is likely to be unavailable to humans " (From WIKI) People need vitamin B12 and it's not present in plants. Also re "Humans don't need meat to survive. Anything from meat can be found in a vegetarian diet." Still the answer is no. "No, cooking takes away nutrients, if anything." It also removes toxic components of some foods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_vulgaris#Toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava#Food_use_processing_and_toxicity

This is pointless. Either start off by explaining carefully what you are talking about. For example there is no use in saying "1.Z÷(10^n)=?,Z-integers" without saying what Z is and what n is. Do the first three characters mean multiply Z by one (which is pointless) or are you numbering the example as being the first of 3. Does "Z-integers" mean subtract the integers from Z? We might be able to do that if you said what Z was. So, if you can sort that out we might understand the first line of the nonsense you have written. Once you have done that for all the stuff you have posted you might get a reply that moves us on.

A proof of the uniqueness of root two would be interesting unless someone has redefined "unique". Last time I looked (-x)^2 was equal to x^2

Which part did you not understand? I will try to explain it more slowly. I was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote that because I had a bus to catch.

"If I am arguing from the point of paradigm shifts of Thomas Kuhn then no, even if you make those observations for hundreds of centuries and say that the predictions of a theory are in agreement with the observations you cannot say that anything which doesn't go by scientific models is utter bollocks because according to Kuhn a theories predictive accuracy as nothing to do with the actual reality which is out there. Scientific models are just models no greater reality should be attributed to them, those were developed to model reality and not to dictate how reality should exist." Fair enough, but the same is true of the other models so we are stuck. The only way to make progress is to assume that reality is, in fact, real and that science models that reality rather well. That policy has done quite well- for example, without it you wouldn't have a computer.

Last time we had a scientist as prime minister I wasn't very impressed with the outcome. Also I'm sure most of our government are actually quite bright- it's their motivation I question, rather than their ability.

A viable hypothesis is that the universe was made by the Devil. That would certainly explain why it's a mess. The existence of the universe is evidence for this hypothesis to exactly the same extent that it is evidence for the existence of the Christian God. However, if the Devil made the universe then- plainly, God didn't. So the existence of the universe, by being evidence of the Devil as a creator is evidence for the non-existence of the Christian God. So, you are claiming evidence of His not existing as being evidence that He exists. Do you have evidence that actually makes sense?