LucidDreamer

Ya, if God is all knowing then he would know whether you were coming back. So He would know whether to keep your soul in your body or when to send it back.

The theist uses the concept of the mind to assert that there is a component of man’s intelligence that exists outside the physical, that the soul is in ultimate control of his actions and thoughts. The philosopher uses the concept of the mind to describe how he is greater than the sum of his parts. For the philosopher the mind is used to describe the synergistic result of the different parts of his intellect. The scientist uses the concept of the mind in a similar way. The mind is used to describe the result of all of the mechanisms of the brain and how they create intelligence. When you look at all the parts that make up the brain and its sensory mechanisms like all of the connections of the neurons, all of the glial cells, the two hemispheres, the different sections of the brain, the many kinds of neurotransmitters, the way an electrical impulse is created and transmitted you find that they create an intellect that cannot be fully understood. The mechanisms of the brain are hard to grasp. The ability to put all of the mechanisms of the brain together in your thoughts and then understand how these mechanisms work to establish those thoughts is even harder. When you try to put the complexity of the brain together you find that its complexity prevents you from understanding more than a small part of it at once. Since your brain is limited to holding more than 7-12 components at once it has to focus its attention on one aspect of the brains functioning or drastically reduce the brain’s functioning to understand it as a whole (like any other complex system). The mind is used to describe the end result of the brain’s functioning. Whether you are a theist, a philosopher, or a scientist it is difficult to adequately separate the end result of the mind from the physical organ called the brain. Is it the mind that controls the brain or the other way around? The mind is an abstract concept and its definition is not concrete. It means different things to different people.

I wouldn't be surprised if there really was a link between long life and a high IQ. After all people with high IQs are more educated. If they are more educated then they might have a better job with better health Insurance. Also IQ is linked to class to come extent so richer people have better means to keep themselves healthy. The average IQ is always 100 regardless of age. If you are only 14 it just means that you have to answer fewer questions correctly to get an IQ of 100. Molecularman14, since you are on a science forum discussing complex science issues at the age of 14 you obviously precocious. Precocious children have a natural advantage on IQ test and anything academic.

I would first ask him why he has made it past the age of twelve. If this really did preclude life then he would have died long ago when his nucleotide building blocks fell apart in the warm environment of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. In reality he has really made a point for the natural formation of life. This is demonstrated by La Chatleirs rule, which states that a reaction will reach equilibrium in the form of a ratio. So here is reaction 1: unbroken nucleotide block <--->Broken nucleotide block. In reaction 1 the reaction in going both ways and there is an equilibrium that is reached in the amount of unbroken blocks to broken blocks, lets say its broken/unbroken=10/1. Now since we know that nucleotide blocks can form more stable molecules in the form of DNA or RNA (I'm not sure how long DNA or RNA will last in an invitro environment, I think this principle will hold regardless) then we have another equation to add. Here is reaction 2: Unbroken Nucleotide blocks<---->DNA. This too will form an equilibrium ratio; lets pretend UNB/DNA = 10/1. So since both reaction 1 and 2 establish a ratio and because both reactions share one reactant in the form of unbroken nucleotide blocks then every time a nucleotide is added to a DNA Molecule the first reaction must make another one to replace the one lost and keep a 10/1 ratio. So basically the nucleotides are being remade as they are being destroyed. Also, the first material of replication is believed to be RNA, which is made of Nucleosides not Nucleotides.

I think regardless of what you think of time you have to admit there is something that separates the locations of matter besides just space and other matter: there is some reason why people get older; there is something that must be changing with speed; there is something in the denominator of the speed equation, some reason that two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space, some reason why an atom can only be in one place. I don't think the question should really be does time exist; but rather, what is time?

There maybe some point at which records are not being broken very often, but I believe we will continue to improve. Genetic engineering and designer children are just around the corner.

I wouldn't say evolution, exactly. Some of the things I think contribute are improved knowledge of training, improved knowledge of nutrition, and improved knowledge of drugs and supplements. Since the population of the earth is increasing the amount of people to select from to be athletes increases. Like one of the reasons that big high schools have better teams is because they have more people to choose from. Some athletes even plan to have children that are athletes. So they marry an athletic spouse and train them from birth. Since every year the bar is raised just a bit higher the expectations get higher (psychological). Also since countries become more productive each year they can afford to spend more resources on Olympic athletes.

I think blike is right when he says that no one wants to join an empty forum. The first things I look for in a forum are lots of members and recent posts. I think if I were starting a new forum I would create 30 aliases and carry on conversations with myself. Sad, but its a way to get it started.

Putting aside the interesting philosophical questions that brings up, there is a good method to know whether you are dreaming or not. Try reading something in a dream; it doesn't work. You mind can create almost any visual image but it doesn't create written words very well. So if you are ever wondering whether you are in a dream just pick up a book.

I think we will accomplish it; well, at least we will be able to live for extraordinary lengths of time. Nothing lasts forever (or does it). I don't know what alot people have against living for really long periods of time. It seems that quality of life would come along with long life. All of your friends and family get it too and if you really want to end it then you could do that as well.

Lol.

I don't think that either one of you really tried to understand my posts. .(Actually I suspect that severian might be joking a little?) I am not making any moral judgements on anyone. I am simply referring to state-recognized marriage. If I were referring simply to same sex marriage then I would most likely be making moral judgements. I am referring to marriages, that might include heterosexual same sex marriages, between people who have no real interest in forming a loving union but who are looking to get benefits through the explotaion of marriage If you reread my post you will see that I make no mention of moral judgement and it should not be interpreted that way. You have misinterpreted my argument. I have several friends and have had several roommates and I don't feel that I should be allowed to marry them so that we might in some way exploit the system. There is any number of silly circumstances that could arise by a whole town marrying. In Texas there is a law that prevents debtors from taking away your house, land, and automobiles. This amount gets bigger when you get married. If this got bigger by the same amount per person for a whole town you could have a real problem situation. If you allowed a town to get married it could just stack up millions in debt to other towns and then declare bankruptcy. No one could take anything back because of the laws and they could just drive around in their town-owned sports cars, play golf on their town-owned golf course. You could make Jim’s house into a nice country club. Etc. There is a difference between the two. I am single but I am willing to pay extra taxes to allow a married couple to form a loving union. I am not willing to pay extra taxes to allow two real-estate tycoons to get married so that they can each have a second yacht.

I think the real problem with being anti-somebody is that you are destabilizing the community. A community of people relies upon a certain an amount of harmony. By being anti-somebody you are contributing to intolerance, strife, and anger. These things lead to problems in the community. You may argue that this doesn't matter as long as they don't discriminate but someone who is anti-somebody can't help but to discriminate when they think they can get away with it. It's human nature to discriminate amongst those you do and do not like. A situation where intolerance taken to the extreme is the Middle East. The Jews are very intolerant of the Muslims and the Muslims are very intolerant of the Jews. This leads to violence and bloodshed. People are quick to speak out against intolerance because they know that if it gets out of hand things will become unpleasant. I think that it is inherent in man to seek to accept someone after they have become part of your community. It's a survival instinct of species that live in communities and it’s a behavior learned by seeing what happens when intolerance is taken to the extreme. Communities of people regulate intolerance because intolerance is bad for the community. Intolerance, discrimination, and greed are all branches of the same tree of discontent. These are the things that lead to slavery, war, and general unhappiness. I will defend the rights of someone who wants to baselessly say or think negatively about someone because freedom of speech and freedom of thought are an important part of a democracy or a free society. However, I believe that a world where intolerance is restrained is the kind of world I want my children to inherit.

Get a book called Lucid Dreaming by Stephen Laberge. Then you can do it more often Dreamlord.

I disagree. If you are just talking about people and their happiness then they are free to make any kind of relationship. If you wanted to make a religion or just have your own ceremony then you are free to set your own rules. However when you are talking about something that is state-recognized then you are involving the government. Then it is up to other people who make up the state to decide. After all would you want to allow an entire town to marry itself or real-estate business parners to receive some kind of benefit intended for another purpose? Then you would have to make up the difference in money that they avoided with your own taxes.

I'd vote: 1)X files 2)farscape 3)Sg1 4) Star trek original/New generation 5) Buck Rogers 6) Battle star Galactica

I think that heterosexual same-sex marriage is a bad idea. I don't know all of the tax laws but I do know some real-estate laws give certain benefits to a married couple. So if we allow this then I can see roommates or business partners getting married to receive benefits and then getting a divorce when someone moves out or the partnership outlives its usefulness. I think if this becomes common then marriage will loose all significance. And do we really need to have state-recognized friendship?

I played lineage 2 for a bit. It's fun for a bit until you realize that you are doing the same thing over and over and over and over. But if you like EQ then you might like it. I think Doom 3 is a great overall game. With both an interesting single player game and the multiplayer arenas its like 2 games in one. Cities of Heros seems like a cool game too. I bet you can have hours of fun designing new characters and trying out their powers.

Has anyone told those people who were clinically dead for minutes or even hours (cold death) and then revived that they don't have a soul? How long of a period of time do you have to be dead for your soul to refuse to come back? If you have a soul that stays with you when you’re dead for 2 minutes why wouldn't it do the same thing after 200 years? In order to bring people back after they have been cryogenically frozen they just have to figure out how to do it so that it causes very little cellular damage and figure out how to repair all the cellular damage that was done after they died. Plus know how to fix what was wrong with them in the first place. Which is no easy task.

I totally agree with everything you said. What idiot thought it would be a good idea to go into Iraq-oh wait I know what idiot.

I think we should have a poll about whether or not we should have a poll about the circle.

You're right. But what I mean is if we did nothing now we would still be in trouble and we were doing less to anger them before and we got 9/11.

I have a better idea. We should invite those who actually believe in pseudo-science to come to forum to defend their beliefs. I bet if we looked we could find some people that could make decent arguments (or at least humorous ones) that would make the debate really interesting.

America is currently between a rock and a hard place. If we use military force to fight terror you get situation like Iraq. If you do nothing or not enough you get 911. You are describing just the problems of one side and acting as if the other side did not exist. I wasn't saying that it’s ok to kill civilians. It's wrong to kill civilians. But by doing nothing or just beefing up security we would be essentially killing civilians. If we don't proactively fight terrorism then we are responsible for any civilians that are killed because we didn't act. I don't know that exact number of people killed in 911 but I think it was tens of thousands of people. That's no small amount of civilian loss. I live on the other side of the country and I knew someone who died that day. We are responsible for those civilians who die because of the war on terror and we are responsible for the civilians that die because we don't fight the war on terror enough. I did support the action in Afghanistan even though I knew some innocent people would die. If I had been alive I would have also supported America's participation in WW2. We killed thousands of civilians in both Germany and Japan, which cannot be avoided during a war. If we had not joined the war all of Europe and eventually the whole world might have come under the control of Hitler. So joining the war meant that we were going to kill young soldiers, who are usually not responsible for the war, and civilians. But it was better then the alternative. Afghanistan was a country filled with terrorist training camps and we did a decent job of cleaning out those camps. You cannot attribute all of the carnage of Iraq to my argument because I do not support it. But know that we are there it would be irresponsible to leave it without setting up some form of stable government. If we don't then violent extremist will overtake Iraq and create a state that is impoverished, shaky, and violent, while establishing stronghold for terrorism. The who started it argument never solves anything. What you end up with when you start a who started it argument is an endless amount of "I didn't start it you started it. No I didn't start it you started it. Do you think Israel believes it started the violence? Do you think Palestine believes it started the violence? The who started it thing just encourages more violence. If you say that we started it with the Iraqi war I could just respond by saying; no Iraq started the war by going into Kuwait. If you say that we started it with our other policies I could just say, no, Muslim terrorists were hijacking planes before that. Just making a point in that its futile to do the who started it argument. No one can change the past anyway so it doesn't matter who did what because we are where we are regardless. That paragraph can also be interpreted as we got what we deserve with 911. I am going to assume you did not mean that.