Phi for All

To reiterate:

I thought you were all jealous of me because I was the only one who hears the voices.... It's always my voice, but I switch inflections, accents and pitch to match whoever I'm reading. And sometimes I channel Mel Blanc for the really tough ones.

Informed sources report that our beloved Tokyo-stomping monster is alive and well, despite reports to the contrary. In an email interview, Mokele broke his 2-month-long silence:

I should have clarified, this is exactly what I meant. The bank and the police would never expect you to reach out in this manner. If they really suspect you they'll have your photo at the train stations and airports expecting you to run for it. I would call or visit your local police precinct and explain what's happened and tell them you're worried about your credit rating and your good name. Get the policeman's name, asking him if you can mention it to the bank manager. Be completely up front about it, offer to provide any records they may need.

Experimentation is mostly failures. That is it's nature. Success naturally means the experiments can taper off a bit. And the reason oil hasn't been replaced is because it's still a viable, profitable market. Just because you and I hate being dependent on it (and beleive me, we are not alone) doesn't mean it isn't driving the market for some people. I should angrily list all the scientific advancement that's happened since WWII but I absolutely refuse to let myself get crabby over your absurdities. It's the beginning of the weekend, afterall, and why am I working in my comfy welfare state lab if not to enjoy my weekends? I appreciate your fervor in this, I really do. It's passionate people like yourself who will drive politics and science to a better place. But unless you focus your approach and speak to specific points without hasty generalizations, flawed logic and conspiratorial zealotry, you are going to drive away many people who may share your objectives.

There's my missing piece! Thanks, gcol, I'll bet that's it. insane_alien, forget the newspapers, tell them you want the police brought in if they won't unfreeze the account. Someone committing fraud would never want the police involved. You don't have anything to hide from the police, do you?

We all know that, but THEY think you made a £600,000 investment. Why are they freezing your account? You say the bank says you invested in a business but even if it were true, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT?! Investing in a business is no crime, and why would the bank freeze your account unless you were either overdrawn or defaulted on loan payments? Banks don't care about investments unless you borrowed their money to do it and aren't paying them back. That's the only reason to treat such a wealthy financier like yourself shabbily. There's a missing piece to this puzzle and you'd better cough it up, flu-boy (OK, eeww). Otherwise I'll get no sleep this weekend.

Keep us posted, I still want to know why the bank freezes the account of someone who can make an investment like that. They should be kissing your wealthy green butt instead. I guarantee that somewhere along the line they think you owe them money.

Strawman. Please point to where I accepted the end of Humanity. More strawman. I said: I didn't say it was the only factor. Please watch your logical fallacies. My mouth has no room for your words. OK. Quite generalized and oversimplified. "Fifty years of scientific failure" is Misleading Vividness, and so encompassing as to be completely meaningless. Even breaking down individual scientific failures I fail to why I should believe any single thing could be the root cause. The rest of your post is very reactionary, which I don't mind really, but again paints all of science with a very wide brush. Seemingly collective mind sets and conspiracies are easy targets for our outrage but practical application and surgical problem-solving beats a good rant any day. And perhaps the days of small labs making big discoveries has simply passed, and as Bascule points out, the supercolliders may break up enough "Big Science" so the little guys can reclaim their own scientific territory again.

Unfortunately accumulating wealth has always been among the leading motivators of all mankind for quite some time. Big science needs big funding and they are at the mercy of those who would reap the profits of genius. Equally unfortunate are the facts that oil is still a profitable market venture, and war is even more so.

This is the problem I'm having. Why is the bank angry with you for this investment? I know you didn't make it but why is this investment a bad thing? I don't understand why they are freezing accounts unless they feel you owe them money you aren't paying. The only other reason is that Inland Revenue has placed the freeze because of unpaid taxes on the investment returns. But the bank would mention the IRS because they would want you to know it's not being instigated by the bank. Perhaps if you could post some pertinent parts of the letter dealing with why this investment is of concern it would help clarify what steps you need to take.

Is this business in foreclosure or have any liens against it that are making the bank take this action? The 24th? Of last month? Which letters? The bank's or the business'? Paid what money, the initial investment? Have they stated why they've frozen your assets? Are you in arrears for payments on a loan for this investment? I don't get the connection between your bank and this business you supposedly invested in. What is the bank asking you for? Does the phone number you called match the one in the phone book for your bank? I think you need to take them some tax information to show that you have never engaged in this type of investment. Wouldn't it be a hoot if Inland Revenue could get you out of this mess?

What is really fascinating is that these commercialized prescription drugs sell like crazy, despite the fact that they warn you you may start bleeding from the ears or experience homicidal impulses. Granted, maybe only 1 person out of 100 actually experienced homicidal impulses and you could argue that it may not have been the medicine that caused them (I guess they don't ask if they have homicidal impulses without taking the drug), but you would think it would make people more leery. I really thought when the law was passed allowing the drug companies to advertise with the caveat that they list the side affects audibly it would kill the underlying purpose of the advertisements. In reality people have almost stopped listening to that part since they want to believe so badly that it won't happen to them. It's like people pretending the flight attendant doesn't exist when she's explaining how to exit the plane in the event of a water landing. It just goes to show, you think about how dumb the average person is and then remember that half the population is dumber than that.

Don't they require disclosure in India? In the US, all advertisements for prescription drugs must include a list of side affects observed in clinical testing. It's really pretty funny, seeing a television commercial talking about a drug that clears your sinuses for 24 hours that also may cause rectal bleeding, nausea, flatulence, Irritability and short tempers, kidney failure, diarrhea, muscle aching and weakness, tingling or cramping in the legs, impaired muscle formation, erectile dysfunction, nerve damage and mental confusion. They have announcers who can talk really fast list them all before showing you again how clear your sinuses will be.

If you don't attribute omnipotence or omniscience to God, and merely grant It supreme control of the physics of the universe, then in that sense God would be the ultimate Good, the Supremely Competent, the One who can manipulate matter best within the laws as It knows them. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, or something very similar. I can give you no palpable answer.

Plus on weasel, day turns over lemony. To avoid anthropocentrism, I've always envisioned Earth as just one lab in a universe full of labs, and humans as an experiment. Maybe Earth is really a kitchen among a universe of kitchens and God is wearing a pointy black hat and waiting to shove us in the oven. Would it be "good" to shove Him in first? Is that really what He wants us to do, wake up and realize we're being fattened for the kill if we don't shape up and take action?

You mean besides the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule? I boil everything to do with spirituality down to this:If there is a higher power and our consciousness lives on after our body dies, we may exist as pure consciousness. If that's the case, some of the senses we lose when we're released from the body may be replaced with other senses (we may have them now but don't use them in favor of our more 3D oriented senses). One of those senses may well be the ability to sense thoughts. If you can read the thoughts of another consciousness, would you be more apt to want to read those of a good entity or an evil entity?

Cap'n's nailed it. I remember reading something about gravity being dispersed across possible upper dimensions or even multiple universes, and if we could figure a way to "thump it", we might be able to use gravity as a way to communicate. The rest is just applying these hypotheses to what they want to be true. The paper I read didn't speculate as to Who might be listening.

Don't worry. As long as people can keep coming up with differenct ways to look at the world, both seen and unseen, we will keep the Philosophy / Religion forum. We sometimes get people who join just to post their personal Religious or Anti-Religious tirades and that's OK as long as they make SOME attempt to read what's preceded them and attack it from a fresh perspective.

Welcom to all the new members (six so far this week!) and thanks for joining. Be smart, be courteous, be welcome!

My avatar is the Hubble telescope iamge of the Helix Nebula, also known as the Eye of God (no, I don't have delusions of grandeur, well maybe a little). My username is a play on words, but only if you use the Greek pronunciation of the word Phi (FEE). I love the Golden Mean for it's elegance and mystery. More than Teletubbies?

And the headlines read, "PHYSICS DEFIED TO SATISFY STUPID PLOTLINE". Sad story.

Since women will always want to have babies AND careers, what needs to change is the job environment stereotypes that perpetuate the lack-of-productivity myth. Strides are being made to show that workers can be just as productive overall from a home office environment. Not all careers facillitate this option but most can be adapted to fit.

"I ALWAYS appreciate it when people exploit things I've posted in other threads for their own cruel, nefarious purposes. It makes me feel special." "I LOVE salmon! Not to eat, just to play with." "I can't picture that movie star naked." "Stepping in gum is OK, but I wish I could figure out how to get it in my hair more often." "You're too drunk to walk home. Why don't you drive?" "Spit on me again." "I'm almost done showering. Toss me that blow dryer."