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Everything posted by ydoaPs
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Oh? Really? Try actually reading my posts and get back to me. Based on your limited number of posts, I don't think you're either. It also seems that you may be a sockpuppet which is against forum rules. You've obviously never read my posts. I'm in Ignostic Agnostic Weak Atheist. Now, let's break that down a bit. Atheism is an umbrella term that encompasses a gradient of positions. Atheism is just a response to theism. Theists say "One or more deities exist". And atheism is just people saying "I don't believe you." This can take on varying degrees of forcefulness(ranging from Weak Atheism: "I don't believe deities exist" to Strong Atheism:"I believe that no deities exist.") Weak Atheism(the core of atheism) obviously requires no faith and as such is often blatantly ignored by theists. Strong Atheism, on the other hand, requires just as much faith as theism. All that defines an atheist is that they do not answer "yes" when asked "Do you believe in the existence of one or more deities?". "Agnostic" is a term that is misused as nausium. I suspect that it is mostly due to the social stigma(which is thankfully somewhat receding) of the term Atheist. Agnostic is a modifier of the terms Theist and Atheist, and as such cannot stand on it's own. You either believe in the existence of one or more deities, or you don't; there is no middle ground. Atheism and Theism are the only options. Agnosticism is merely one flavour of the choices. "Agnostic" merely means that one believe that one cannot know whether or not deities exist. Thus, one can be an Agnostic Theist(believe one or more deities exist, but it is impossible to know for a fact that this is the truth) or one can be an Agnostic Atheist(lack a belief in deities, but also believe it is impossible to know whether or not deities exist), but one cannot JUST be an Agnostic. There is no middle ground between belief and disbelief; you either believe or you lack belief. Much of the previous, for me at least, hinges on the Ignostic part. Ignosticism basically means that the question of whether or not deities exist is irrelevant until we can come to an agreement on a coherent concept of what a deity is. How can I know if something exists if I don't know what it is supposed to be? I hold that religious claims need not necessarily be excluded from science. In fact, I want them to be included in science, as I want to be able to know if they're true. The discussion on whether or not deities exist is a discussion about the nature of the universe and should fall into the realm of science. Many religions make claims that can be investigated using science(as it should be). Was there a global flood 4000 years ago? I don't know, let's make predictions and test them. A god whose existence is indistinguishable from nonexistence isn't very godlike at all, imo. Religion has no method of validating its ideas whereas science does. Not in any way. Notice how you didn't actually address my post, but rather made more condescending remarks and blatantly false claims(repeating many). Go read my posts. Until then, you have zero basis for pretending you know me.
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Look into Historical-Criticism.
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Ugh. Learn what science is and what the word 'theory' means. Then get back to us. A 'theory' is far from a baseless guess. Evidence Um, no. Science is taught not because "that's where the money is", but rather, because it is the only known method of obtaining knowledge of the world. It is basically checking your answer. PS1->TT1->EE1->PS2 Given a Problem Situation(PS), we come up with Tentative Theories(TT)[tentative theories can range from hypotheses to actual theories] which we then subject to Error Elimination(EE) via testing predictions. How do we test predictions? We can't do it by proving the positive: If P, then Q Q, therefore P Is a logical fallacy known as affirming the consequent. The reason that it works is that there could be any number of reasons for Q aside from P. If we see Q exemplified, it could be because P is true, but it could also be due to a different reason and P happens to be false. We test our tentative theories by proving the negative. If P, then Q Not Q, therefore not P We perform our Error Elimination testing by setting up situations P, based on predictions produced by our Tentative Theory, and observe to see whether or not Q is exemplified. If Q is not exemplified, then we know our TT is wrong or at least not entirely correct; it needs replaces or refined. How do we know if it it needs replaced or refined? Well, many sciences have the great fortune of having a very precise mathematical underpinning such that we can predict Q accurately(and with a known allowable margin of error for the TT) based on the P from the TT. We can quantitatively see if we are close or orders of magnitude off the mark. This one test alone, however, is not sufficient to provide absolute validity for our TT as there is no viable method of induction; we must continue to test or TT and eliminate options to raise our confidence in our TT. Theories such as Evolution and Relativity have been so accurately and exhaustively tested that it is absurd to think that they are flat out wrong. However, there's always room for refinement. Now let's look at creationism as a TT and we're going to perform EE. If the universe is only 6000 years old, then the farthest we can see out is 6000 light years. We can see mind bogglingly farther than 6000 light years. Therefore, creationism is falsified. Creationism has been falsified extensively. In fact, for it to be true, pretty much every single area of science must be wrong. No, not at all. Evidence > make believe. Again, no. Not at all. You're fractally wrong.
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Starcraft was also made for N64. I had it. I don't see why they wouldn't try to consolize it again.
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How do you solve the famous Nazi Dilemma?
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Quoted For Truth. How did you overcome friction? How did you overcome I2R losses?
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If we divide by a number infintessimally larger than zero, we get infinity(well, technically taking the right handed limit of a/x as x approaches 0); If we divide by a number infitessimally smaller than zero, we get negative infinity(technically taking the left handed limit of a/x as x approaches 0). What should we get for a/0? The function of a/x is obviously not continguous over a domain including 0.
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What kind of physics and math does he wish to learn? What is his current math level?
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facepalm! The .it is still on the end.
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You're both violating the rules of time travel.
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One has to wonder if you even know what it is for which you are arguing. Do you even know the idea behind ID? The possibilites are essential for ID. The whole premise is, 'IF the universe were this way, then life as we know it would not exist.' The possibility field as I have presented it is a VITAL component of the FT hypothesis. Let's say I have a guitar. I want to tune it, but it has no way to change the tension of the strings or their size. In what way can I tune it if there are no other possible notes? Tuning requires possibility. Hence the field of possible universes. However, no proponent I am aware of has done any calculations on variation of multiple constants. You have not provided ANY resources of such; pretending your examples of 'if this ONE constant changes...' is the same is intellectually dishonest. You might as well claim that examining a 2-D sphere consisting of an infinite number of points for topological features is exactly the same as examining a favorable 0-D section consisting of two points and claiming that it proves whatever topological hypothesis to which you subscribe. The fact remains that the field of possible universe exists in an infinite-dimensional space(where each dimension is a constant). In this field X, there necessarily exists a subset, Y, in which life exists(there's life in this universe, right?). If you deny this, you deny FT as well; this is an essential aspect of the FT conjecture. A simple use of logic will let us break the subset Y into three components: Ya, the set of universes in which life is possible but improbable; Yb, the set of universes in which life is possible but not especially likely or unlikely; and Yc, the set of universes in which life is possible and every likely. In Ya, life would be rare. In Yc, life would be quite abundant. In Yb, the amount of life would be somewhere in between. With what aspect of this concept do you disagree? The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of our universe(and even our little haven for life) is absolutely hostile toward life. This fact easily places our universe in Ya. What support do you have for the idea that such a universe is fine tuned? Furthermore, the leap between improbability and design has yet to be made; even if our universe is incredibly improbable(which, based on the above described field of possible universes, I highly doubt), you've yet to show how this in any way implies fine tuning. A roll of the dice is a roll of the dice; Given fair dice, even the most improbable possibilites are exemplified given a sufficient number of rolls. Take, for example, a snowflake. It is formed in an environment extremely hostile to it; the formation of any one snowflake is extremely unlikely(too much wind or too little and the snowflake will not be formed), yet we see them everywhere. Feel free to take some time to figure out what your position actually is. As with the doubt about whether you even know what the FT conjecture entails, I'm also beginning to doubt if you know anything at all about evolution or even science generally. With posts like this and the 'you can\'t prove a negative' post, my doubt grows. Both prediction and 'proving a negative' are vital aspects of science. PS1->TT1->EE1->PS2 Given a Problem Situation(PS), we come up with Tentative Theories(TT) which we then subject to Error Elimination(EE) via testing predictions. How do we test predictions? We can't do it by proving the positive: If P, then Q Q, therefore P Is a logical fallacy known as affirming the consequent. The reason that it works is that there could be any number of reasons for Q aside from P. If we see Q exemplified, it could be because P is true, but it could also be due to a different reason and P happens to be false. We test our tentative theories by proving the negative. If P, then Q Not Q, therefore not P We perform our Error Elimination testing by setting up situations P, based on predictions produced by our Tentative Theory, and observe to see whether or not Q is exemplified. If Q is not exemplified, then we know our TT is wrong or at least not entirely correct; it needs replaces or refined. How do we know if it it needs replaced or refined? Well, many sciences have the great fortune of having a very precise mathematical underpinning such that we can predict Q accurately(and with a known allowable margin of error for the TT) based on the P from the TT. We can quantitatively see if we are close or orders of magnitude off the mark. This one test alone, however, is not sufficient to provide absolute validity for our TT as there is no viable method of induction; we must continue to test or TT and eliminate options to raise our confidence in our TT. Theories such as Evolution and Relativity have been so accurately and exhaustively tested that it is absurd to think that they are flat out wrong. However, there's always room for refinement. As has been pointed our to you previously, Evolution quite exquisitely explains fine tuning of life-it's just that you've got it backward; life is fine tuned for the environment instead of the environment being fine tuned for life. See the puddle-hole analogy used ad nausium. It is a very simple concept and is really the essence of evolution. As for Irreducible complexity(IC), as I stated in the previous post, it is a prediction of evolution. So, we have our P. You appear to already accept the Q. As for your claim that evolution is incapable of producing such things, even Behe(you know, the guy who decided based on personal incredulity that this prediction of evolution is actually somehow a problem for the theory) disagrees with you. He not only admitted that IC features can evolve, he even made an estimate for the time needed! As with improbability, there is no known link between complexity and design. Simple processes produce complexity all the time. Again we look at the snowflake. It is irreducibly complex(it requires two or more parts working together to exist); if any one structural element of a snowflake is removed, the structural integrity is terminally compromised. Yet we know that they are formed by simple processes. Are all snowflakes designed? In the world of evolution, we somewhat recently have the case of an IC feature evolving in a laboratory setting in the case of the Lenski experiment. As for 'information', mutations provide all the genetic information we need. There are various mutations which increase gross genetic matter(such as in Downs Syndrome where a whole chromosome is duplicated) and there are mutations which change around genetic matter. Combining the two quite easily gives any increase in information one could ever wish for.
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How so? Me? YOU'RE claiming fine tuning and providing NO supporting evidence. It's a fact that our universe is absolutely hostile towards life. In the infinite field of possible universes, ours most certainly does not fall into one(Zc) which could legitamately claim fine tuning. It is? Bring the papers; let's see this consensus. I've yet to find ANY paper examining such a field of possible universes. Let's see some papers on this too. You know, for credibility's sake. 1)As I've demonstrated, there are literally an infinite number of possible universes capable of harboring life. Many much more capable than our own. 2)A roll of the dice is a roll of the dice. Even if it was unlikely, which it most assuredly is not, that in no way implies intent. That's great advice. If I fail to do so, you should let me know. Now, what brought this up? Your point? There are brane theorists out there that quite firmly disagree with you on this point. In any case, I'm not aware of anyone porporting a multiverse in this thread. I surely don't know why you're quoting me here, as I most certainly did no such thing. I'm merely talking about the field of POSSIBLE universes. You know, the thing FT requires to discuss to have any credibility? As I said before, it is nonsense to speak of tuning a string when there's only one possible note. No. Being designed implies a mind behind the end product. Wording fail. Also, our universe is incredibly simple. All observed complexity is exquisitely explained by simple processes. In fact, the so called 'Irreducible Complexity' porported by the ID crowd is a prediction of evolution. You're about a hop skip and a jump away from sharing the company of forfues and pioneer on my mental ignore list. IF YOU MISREPRESENT ME AGAIN, I WILL REPORT YOUR POST.
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DOD: Would you feel comfortable showering with gays?
ydoaPs replied to Moontanman's topic in The Lounge
Members of the armed forces already DO shower with gays. -
And on what basis does FT presume any degree of liklihood with regard to numbers of possible universes or workable combinations? You know' date=' we probably shouldn't limit ourself to the 20-dimensional space. In fact, we should include in our consideration all the different constants that happen to be zero in our universe. Now our 20-dimensional field of possible universes is expanded to an infinite-dimensional field of possible universes! Are you denying the possibility that universes other than our own could have been manifest rather than our universe? If so, you're denying FT as FT relies upon the possibility of other universes. If there is only one possible note, the string doesn't need tuning.
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Road to Reality by Penrose Physics of Star Trek whose author escapes me at the moment The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins
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In each post, you can see the reputation that that post recieved. Is there a way to have the member's reputation visible on the thread rather than only on the profile?
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Is this feature to remain? IIRC, on the old version, names had to be changed by the staff. IMO, that's a good idea to help prevent confusion.
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What do you mean by 'real'? Energy isn't a substance; it's a property.
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So, your response is basically 'Nuh uh! LALALALALALALALA!!!!!!'? Could you please provide something more substantiative? Really? You're NOT claiming fine tuning? Please make up your mind. Really' date=' how so? Sounds a bit like you're talking about the fine tuning argument here. If it's so factually incorrect' date=' it should be no problem for you to provide a counterexample. Then perhaps you could link to a few papers doing calculations on the 20-dimensional space X and whether our universe lies withing Za, Zb, or Zc. As it stands, you're going to have to provide a lot more to convince anyone that this extremely hostile universe is fine tuned for life.
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What would you change about the new SFN?
ydoaPs replied to Cap'n Refsmmat's topic in Suggestions, Comments and Support
I'd separate the 'scienceforums.net' from the logo more. And perhaps adjust the size. Also, I'd have the atom thingy be less regular(like the old one was).