Mr Skeptic

Well, since then calculators have gotten better! Now you can use a calculator to solve integration. For example, the integrator. Some actual calculators can do it too.

The scientist: a scientific experiment showing the power of science at finding scientific truth. The philosopher: pointing out that philosophy is the discipline dealing with finding absolute truth, as opposed to scientific truth which depends on some assumptions and yet is still probabilistic. (But they epic fail at finding any of these absolute truths.) But there really isn't any conflict between the two: the philosophers are more anal about proof, the scientists get more done, both use the other in their regular doings. Usually what is more interesting is for people to use a different discipline other than their own, to argue in favor of their own. This would actually convince others rather than show your own system self-consistent. For science and philosophy this would not be any problem. The more noisy one is the conflict between religion and science. Quite often we have religious people using religious arguments to try to convince amused scientists, and scientists using scientific arguments to try to convince the religious who for some reason just don't accept those arguments.

Well, it does seem to do something. However it won't allow you to mind-control people like it does in the movies.

I don't think an alien would randomly decide to land in Times Square. That could be seen as a violation of our airspace and land, and with the potential for starting a conflict (with the ship outnumbered one planet to one ship). I think that the alien would try to communicate from space and ask permission to land or wait for an indication of where to land. Alternately, it could sneak around, both in space and on Earth. If it wanted to attack I suspect it would be via meteoric bombardment. I'd agree with Ophiolite that the governments actions would essentially be random. There's very good reasons both to try to capture the alien and to make peaceful contact with them, and that choice will probably be made by the president. Capture: The alien's biology and technology become available to us immediately, with no need to negotiate. These are exclusive to us and need not be shared nor even acknowledged to other countries, which would be a huge tactical advantage. More can be learned about the alien's true intentions. However, without the alien's cooperation, the technology would have to be very slowly and carefully reverse engineered with risk of damage or self-destruct, with only the one sample. It would also damage our relations with the alien race and perhaps even provoke a war. Worse, perhaps there is no computer on the ship and it's controlled by the alien and all the data that we expected doesn't exist in a form we could access. And though we could almost certainly defeat the alien, this might provoke it into releasing a bioweapon (if it had one; it would probably be the weapon of choice to use vs a planet). This is a hugely risky choice; we could easily end up with angry aliens and nothing to show for it. Peaceful contact: Positive relations with the aliens, if they want it, but the same goes for all countries. Possibility of diplomatic relations with a planetfull of advanced aliens, and the trade (in information, properly explained technology, etc) that could go with it. There's a risk that other countries get a bunch of technology which might mess with the current balance of power, which is currently very favorable for the US. Also the alien could provoke a war if it wanted to, either by bribing countries or simply by "graciously" giving technology that shifts the balance of power. Also more chance for the alien to design a more effective bioweapon or gather intel. I think this option would have less risk, but risks of a different sort.

Oh, and another thing: Why is it you are saying that machines have souls (and presumably by contrast living things don't)? And that science is promoting this view? I think you'd better go look up animism as well. Anyhow, I haven't seen any souls, not in humans and not in animals. But that's not the same as saying animals have souls. As for copies of genes, genes are just chemicals and identical chemicals can be made (in theory, in practice there are some slight differences in isotopes for such large chemicals). More to the point, the information in the genes is what is important, and that gets copied (with occasional mutation). The information is not lost until all copies are lost, thus copying can ensure the survival of the information even if the individual copies are lost. This is by no means unique to biology. For example, the books of the Bible have been copied many times. Even if the original gets destroyed, people won't suddenly go saying each different copy is a different book, even if technically it is, because it is the information and not the physical book they are talking about.

So how many rallies have you seen where there is a website to vet the signs for sanity? So you're saying that the Republicans and Democrats haven't accomplished anything other than spending money, haven't passed any legislation? For good or ill, they are handling the details. The Tea Party isn't willing or able to, but they will have to if they want to actually get anything done other than changing a vote. Challenges that no one can answer is pretty much meaningless drivel, or, if you prefer, empty rhetoric. What point is there to raising an unsolvable issue and not even trying to solve it, other than to complain about how someone you don't like isn't solving it? All that could accomplish is switching the votes without resolving the issues.

1) What survives when something is copied and the original destroyed is the copy, not the original. You as a person are both your genes and life experiences (simplifying). When you reproduce sexually a random half of your genes will be passed on each time. When you die, the remainder of your genes that were not passed on are lost if there were no other copies elsewhere, and your life experiences are also lost. Your offspring will not have your memories. If you want to copy yourself you'd have to find a way to copy your memories and all the details of your body not determined by genetics. If you want something that "lives forever" you could go with bacteria (or human cancer cells). These have no significant memory and their reproduction is asexual so they make (almost) genetically identical copies of themselves, usually of the same size and pretty much indistinguishable. If one of these then dies, was it the copy or the original? 2) Machines are not only made by humans. The simplest machine is a lever, and levers exist in the natural world (eg a good stick). Anything can be treated as a machine, for example the weather could be treated as a machine for cycling water. Its just a way of understanding how things work, by breaking it down into individual pieces with a specific function, when the whole is too complicated to study.

Because things can be used for the purpose of one of their many effects, and all the rest are side-effects. Not sure why you're limiting this to medicine; it applies to pretty much anything. Eg: a side-effect of exercise is a temporary increase in blood pressure, and you are more likely to get a heart attack while exercising than while not. Therefore, a temporarily increased risk of heart attack is a side-effect of exercise. However, exercise decreases your resting blood pressure for an overall reduction in risk of heart attack (plus increased fitness which is yet another side-effect if you were exercising for your heart).

The robot will have a computer on it. It's the same as any other computer program, except that some of the inputs might be sensory data and such, and some of the outputs will be for the robot's motors and such.

http://www.saneornot.com/ Well, it would go directly against the theme of the rally, to have crazy signs in it. Sure, some crazies might tag along but even so I'd expect the other people at the rally will ensure they get escorted elsewhere. Agreed. But, if one group says "I want to fly" and the other group is drawing up blueprints for an airplane, which group would you invest in? Wanting things won't get them done, we all want less taxes, less spending, less deficit, and more goodies. It just can't be done like that, we have to choose some and discard others. The details are the hard part. It's not spin, it's putting things in perspective. The author lumps 6 things with over half the signs for one of those and says that's the point of the rally. That's nice, but on average, that goes to only about 10% each, although some could be more significant than others. You asked why there was so much focus on their being angry or even crazy, I explained why. It could be that was just the author's spin trying to make the rally look focused, by lumping as many signs as he can into "the point of the rally". I just went with what he said.

I said a piece of paper towel, rolled or folded into a thin strip.

The way I understand it is that there is nothing you can do that will make you deserve heaven... and you can't do everything required by the Law anyways. Thus entry into heaven is a gracious gift, but that does not mean that who gets let in won't still depend on the person's behavior. And anyways the whole Law has some ugly and obsolete bits that we don't want, so might as well get rid of those since we aren't going to follow it anyways. In any case, Jesus did say that all the Law and the Prophets were summed up by the Golden Rule, which is certainly much more reasonable than forbidding shrimp and whatnot. Also, there was the promise to Abraham that through him all nations would be blessed, and that would have been the last bit of the promise to be fulfilled. Also Jesus talks of making a new covenant. However, there is no indication that the old covenant ends, and from the Old Testament it would seem not: But it certainly would be convenient! PS: I think the "infinity words" in the Bible aren't really infinity ones, just "very" ones. But that's probably for a different thread.

That would make your assertion false, if it doesn't apply to God. Are you going to abandon that claim or restate it in a way that you think is true? Sure. The proof is in the very quote you question (proof by example). So I proved it and you couldn't find any objection to it, do you give up? Which part, the one where I explain the basics of biology to you, or the part where we talk about what "most people" would accept? Either way, that would have to be in a different thread. So your statement is that your statement is not what I suggested, and that you don't want to clarify it for some reason? And I don't see how God could either. At least society will eventually be able to alter our biology. In any case, I was not saying that society makes our intrinsic biologically based morals, but rather the opposite, that our society is based more or less on them. Sure it is. And you seem to have no reason to believe otherwise. --- In fact, your whole post is "I disagree with you but I don't have any reason to do so." Which is fine, but you could have just said it all in one sentence. --- Oh, and in case you wanted an example of how god-based morals are not invariant, here's an example: Good bye old rules, hello new rules.

Pretty much everything has side effects and will kill you in large enough doses. Including water.

It is necessarily true that God has no morals if what you said was true (and also if there is no higher authority than God). It is really a simple deduction of the form, If A then B Not A. Therefore not B. So unless one of those assertions is false, then you have claimed that either God has no morals or there is an authority higher than God. So which is it, or do you wish to retract your claim that there can be no morality without a higher authority? I went with the dictionary definition, not something that you say shows up somewhere in some online document. Morality is a system to tell right from wrong, according to the dictionaries, with no mention of eternal anythings. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Amorality&btnG=Search&lr= Some people get their morals from social norms, others from really really old social norms which they say belong to some god they believe in, others try to deduce their own moral principles. Whichever way it is done is entirely arbitrary, even if the process is subsequently assigned to a god. And with a god there also cannot be intrinsic morals. There aren't intrinsic morals, and neither believing in nor actually having a god can change that. Invariant morals can be made without a god -- all that needs be done is not change them, eg base them off a book. Nevertheless, we humans have some hardwired aspects related to morality, such as empathy and vengeance. But there is no reason we must base our morality off of that either; they are intrinsic to most human bodies but that does not make it a logical necessity that would be true for all. Well, via game theory and various modeling systems it can be shown to be an advantageous adaptation (but only if the target of the vengeance can understand it). Natural selection would then have a tenancy to spread this adaptation. For most people that would be good enough, but for actual proof you'd have to study the evolution of anger which happened a really long time ago, and how it switches to the more long-term vengeance in species able to understand long-term effects. Anger is intrinsic to all humans, and the impulse is to do or wish harm on the target of the anger. Vengeance is simply the delaying of this retribution for a more convenient time, rather than lashing out right then and there like a dumb animal. Now that we have a legal system that can address wrongs more or less fairly, personal vengeance is looked down upon by society, at least for the most part, in favor of socially mediated vengeance. Though to my knowledge all people feel anger and might desire vengeance, many of us are taught that these are bad things and we should not succumb to this impulse. For example, the Bible teaches against taking vengeance, which would only be necessary to teach against if people took vengeance (like they do). With training we can for the most part overcome these impulses, but if you look at young kids you can see it much more clearly. It doesn't even matter who has the right definition, that would just make it that we are saying different things. I am saying there is no logically necessary way to choose morality, such that morality must be arbitrarily chosen, where by morality I mean "a system for telling right from wrong". What are you saying? That there can be no eternal things god said are right and wrong without an eternal god to say they are? Ok, but our society/legal system is a higher authority than an individual, so are you saying that we can have morals without god (who doesn't have any anyways) by having our higher authority be society? And like god, our society (our highest authority) can make their own morals? What we have are some biologically based morals. However, logically that does not make them any better. If we had different biology we would have different biologically intrinsic morals, but could still choose any other moral system. No choice of morals is a logical necessity, and god cannot be a part of such a system if there were (unless said god were also logically necessary). This is because logical necessity is not based on reality, but will be true in all realities.

You can keep going back a few thousand years, it's still human, and always alive. My hair is human but not alive. My kidneys are human and alive. Again you are equating different things; life, human, and person each mean different things. Try "making life" with a dead egg. You might be able to do it with a dead sperm, but I'm not sure. Sure they do, just not in our species. In ants an unfertilized egg becomes a male. Note that this is closer to my suggestion of gametogenesis as being more significant than fertilization, which as I pointed out was where the greatest reduction in possible outcomes happens (for genetics at least). For humans, an unfertilized egg would be fatally missing half its genes.

Well, they all look like postulates to me. Maybe you should show how to deduce a few of them from your main postulate. For example, explain how you deduced "Fundamentally, there is only one type of effort (commonly known as force) and it is of push nature. 'Natural forces' are different manifestations of this effort." from your postulate.

Did you even bother to do the experiment I suggested? For better grades, I think you should use a more accurate sap imitation. According to this, sap is about 2% sugar, and that's for sugar maples. It's a different story if you're talking about pines, but those are resins and not syrup. http://www.mi-maples...es_homemade.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapse

I'm betting another difference will be a very very very small percentage of "crazy" signs, if any. What's lack of focus is the 6 different topics that the guy had to group together to be over half the signs. On average, "being angry at Obama" was twice as important as one of these subjects. As for the grouping together I did, that was the grouping into the "crazies" category, not into the "angry at Obama" category which the author did. I assumed the "crazies" was a subset of these, and did not add the "crazies" to that group for my calculations. Yes, diversity of opinions is a lack of focus. At least they can agree that they don't like Obama. Sure, and the author grouped 6 different topics together as being the point of the rally, and said it was more than half. So if it was about 60%, then on average these subjects would be 10% each, with "angry at Obama" beating the average of them by over double and the "crazies" being about half as important. Another aspect is that as I understand it, these rallies are poorly controlled, which would make them one of the few places the crazies could go and not get kicked out.

Ah, so you still stick with the claim that God has no morals. Interesting, I thought you would have changed your mind since you said (the equivalent of) that the first time. Then maybe you should use the definition of morals used by the rest of us instead of trying to weasel out of the argument by making your own personal definition. Yet some people's morals are impractical, especially when considering specific circumstances. Not an absolute. Many people consider intentional killing of an innocent without a (legal) cause to sometimes be the morally correct choice. See for example the Trolley problem. A similar situation occurred on a sinking ship, when someone froze with fear on the escape ladder and one of the passengers killed him so they could escape. He was found innocent in a court of law. Yet another example, some people would consider murder justified and even a moral obligation were they to be horribly wronged (even if the wrong was done by legal means). This last one is a manifestation of our evolutionary history: vengeance is often harmful to the person who seeks it, yet it protects the group because others know that they had better not harm someone from the group. Vengeance is an intrinsic moral principle held by all people that I know of and also the more clever animals, yet many also consider it immoral. So that is an example of a social norm overcoming an intrinsic moral principle. Morals do exist even though they are not absolute. Morality is a necessity of anything that can be self-aware: they have to have a way to choose the good/beneficial and reject the bad/harmful. Some of these are hardwired, which can be problematic for when the conditions change (for example our taste for food, which is part of our hard-wired moral system that we ought to take care of our bodies, but is not somewhat obsolte). There is however no way to logically justify any morals without making the assumption of the morals you wish to justify, or something equivalent. Fortunately many of us share some of the same basic hardwired morality, and so we can deduce morals compatible with that. But if you have a psychopath, who does not share our hardwired empathy, you can convince him not by logic but by threat of force. And yet how can we get morals from God if you have said (twice already) that God has no morals (since he can't get them from a higher authority as you said was necessary for Him to have any morals)? No, that wouldn't be absolute then. Absolutes apply to everyone, bias or no, 100%, not majority vote.

Death is irreparable damage to an entity that causes the permanent cessation of its activity. At least that seems to be the general idea. Once upon a time, cessation of breathing and heartbeat was considered death. Now we have CPR. The point at which something is considered dead thus depends upon our technology.

If I understand what you are saying, then we also consider animals to be people due to animal cruelty laws. Not true, corporations are persons but not human beings. A person would be an entity that we grant rights similar to the ones we grant to ourselves (as a practical definition). Sort of. We give them the benefit of the doubt for quite a while before declaring them dead. Once the person is declared dead (even if his body isn't) then his body might be unplugged from life support or his organs donated, which you could not do to the living person. So the person is the mind, not the body. The environment does permanently affect your genetics, so I'd have to disagree there. Wow. Great analogy.

No, that is what you concluded I did. All I did was show that "hating Obama" was one of the major points of the rally, on average over twice as major as any one of the other points lumped together as being related to the purpose of the rally, and perhaps the major point of the rally. And the "crazy anti-Obama" were on average half as prevalent as any of their major points. What I'm saying is that (from that description) the rally was very unfocused which makes even the few crazies they had comparable to one of their main points. They're unfocused, and they have crazies. The media always has so much more fun showing the crazies, and since they neither have a clear message nor have gotten rid of their crazies, that's who the media is going to focus on. I don't think this is so much to do with the population, I think this is largely the doings of the media. That they can't deal with how our media is doesn't really help their case though. By kicking the Republicans out of office. Electing Libertarians would also help, if that were possible. Everyone speaks out against the deficit, and many people against the stimulus. The more politically aligned will only speak out against them when the party they oppose are in office. Taxes isn't the problem, spending is. Cut spending and eventually there will be no need for high taxes. Cut taxes but not spending, and we borrow the difference. Works the same way at the personal level, with "earning income" (instead of taxes) and spending.

Which would make it no different than a religion-based moral code. If you do something immoral, you can always change your religion to one where that action is moral. (people who go against their personal moral code usually feel guilty about it, and usually they rationalize it rather than change their moral code. Some people do change their moral code to match their actions, but then some people also change their religion to one that considers their actions moral.)