MonDie

Of course, this image I made begs the question of what would be evidence for a god. IMO, if something really whacky happened, like the stars moved to form the message, "This is God, stop emitting carbon dioxide," that might be evidence for a god or some other kind of powerful, intelligent being(s).

69 pages and this still hasn't been worked out. I've been answering as if it's a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact.

Okay, I forgot about this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient The mouse EQ is 0.5. I'm looking for the cow EQ. The mouse has the same brain-to-body mass ratio as we, but EQ is a more refined measure, apparently.

by what definition?

Nope. If somebody wants to live in willful ignorance, that's totally up to them. Likewise, it's up to us whether we will punish them for it, oughts or no oughts. If there are 'rules' in any sense of the word, they are rules on determining what's good and what's bad, but such rules are incomplete at best. We know that the nervous system is the key to sentience for humans, and we can extrapolate from that. As humans, we can empathize with other humans, and we can empathize with non-human animals that resemble us anatomically. We couldn't empathize with trees, for example, because trees bear little resemblance to us. Maybe the trees enjoy being cut down. Note: The importance of a species of tree to an ecosystem is another issue.

I cannot get an ought from an is. In my viewpoint, there are no oughts, but there are beneficial actions and maleficent actions. Thus there is no set of rules you can point to proclaiming, "Aha! You don't follow the rules, neither will I!" Size of nervous system and/or brain is the only metric I could think of. What we're discussing.

In the case of livestock, we protect the animals until we kill them ourselves, and the livestock wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the demand for their meat. Following from this point, one can ask a better question. Are livestock cattle better off than wild animals? Many vegans are specifically against the commodification of animals. Actually, I think that's what veganism literally is, opposition toward the commodification of animals. One potential justification is that animals are mistreated the most when they are owned by large industries that are only concerned with efficiency and profit.

I forgot to add that the wheat most people eat isn't actually healthy. It's hard to find totally unprocessed wheat. Soy, on the other hand, is a major staple of a vegan diet. The damage done is what ultimately matters, not the character of the person doing the damage. The murderer who only kills ten is probably doing less damage. I just kind of assumed because a cow is bigger. It's reasonable to assume that a bigger (or more complex) nervous system correlates with a higher degree of sentience. A mouse might be more sentient, but I don't see how song complexity is a good measure of sentience, as suggested in the article. Nope, there's something more to it. Bang! You're dead! Oh well, he was going to die sooner or later.

Is that how the introduced chemicals alter sexuality? By making epigenetic changes? Such is the only pathway for alterations to sexuality that I can think of, but I don't want to commit the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses. Easier said than done. I'm afraid the burden of proof is on you, Split.

Suppose God is omnipotent by definition. If God makes something that he has no power over, then he is no longer God, by definition. Voila!

They focused on grains. A vegan doesn't have to eat grains either. Talk to a vegan that's also gluten intolerant. I even found a site about it (note: despite providing a link, I cannot say I trust this site). http://www.theglutenfreevegan.com/ For now, I'll set aside their argument for the sentience of mice, which used song complexity as a measure of sentience. There was a clearer error in their ratio of lives lost to protein obtained. First of all, the ratio was derived solely from grains as if grains are some sort of alternative to meat. How about they compare meat production to bean production or kale production? Second of all, it's based on the amount of protein obtained, but a better guage would be the overall effect the food has on our health according to the latest statistics. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/pyramid/ Anyway, it isn't enough to argue that the ideal system involves both forms of food production. As long as there is more meat production than what's ideal, the vegan can argue that they're actions are beneficial. Regarding this issue, it's relevant that U.S.A. ≠ Australia Finally, they didn't mention the treatment of livestock. Is Australia less cruel to its livestock or something?

I think we can reconcile these points of view. The government provides us with goods, and security is one of those goods. However, the government makes us work for those goods as the incentives. In other words, the government doesn't necessarily provide a person with these goods, but it does provide that person with the (illusory or real) possibility of attaining these goods. "As for comforting people, the point is prevention of grief rather than alleviation of grief." But providing a sense of security (comfort) promotes order. If government officials went around killing citizens, the citizens would grow anxious and rebel. Likewise if government officials went around aborting foeti. I think we need to distinguish between happiness and pleasure. These terms overlap, but they aren't identical. Much of the time, being happy means being okay with the way things turned out. In that sense, happiness is a statement of opinion regarding one's life in the abstract, i.e. one's life as they look back on it. "Pleasure" typically refers to an affective state. The affective state changes frequently, so pleasure doesn't have the same regularity as happiness. You may have a good case for pessimism. Maybe we can convince people that "pretending to be happy" is actually a counterproductive delusion that changes a person's behaviors and ultimately lowers their quality of life.

I guess it depends on who your god is. The point was that certain verbs imply something about the subject, so they just don't make sense for certain subjects. A god probably won't be able to dance, just like a cat cannot wilt and a flower cannot purr. To make a cat wilt, you must first turn it into a flower, at which point it's no longer a cat. Another set of problems, which is perhaps a superset of the above set of problems, is that an omnipotent being should be able to bring about contradictory states of affairs. For example, it should be able to make quiet noises that are loud. Of course, a "quiet noise", by definition, is not loud. The problem has nothing to do with the abilities of the being, it has to do with the structure of our language. To fix these issues, I would exchange "The ability to do anything" for "The ability to bring about any linguistically reconcilable state of affairs."

Can God dance? An omnipotent being should be able to dance.

But we must know what the word energy refers to before we can determine whether the referent is a "thing" or "substance."

Greylorn, would your question be more accurately stated as "What does the word 'energy' refer to?" I am unsuccessfully trying to answer this. My first thought was that energy refers to a variety of states, but I'm not sure what the difference between a state function and a process function is. Internal energy (E) is apparently a state function, though.

How do I know you are telling the truth? Well, there is no definitive test for my claims because my hypothesis doesn't make highly specific predictions. However, there is a large accumulation of little pieces of evidence, and these little pieces of evidence add up. What is the evidence? The evidence is too complicated for me to describe in a short discussion. You have to read this book to really understand. How long is the book? It's very long. Where do I get the book? You have to buy it from my publisher. He starts talking about conspiracies, then he uses the NWO word at 16:20. I can't watch any more.

EDIT: Oops, I didn't notice there was a page 2. First, law enforcement isn't the only means for inducing ethical behavior. Merely by discussing the ethics, we can change people's attitudes toward this sort of abortion. Law enforcement presents a host of other problems, and the following three points highlight potential problems with enforcing limitations on reproduction. (1) A function of law is to maintain order by giving a sense of security. The proposal seems to go against that general guideline by threatening the right to reproduce. On the other hand, the law doesn't bring comfort to anyone. For those of us who have already been born (i.e. all of us), there is nothing to worry about. (2) Once regulations on reproduction are used, they can be misused. In the U.S., politicians like to write up laws that serve their own ends under the guise of serving other functions. When the other politicians look over the law, everything looks fine to them. They don't realize that, let us say, a broad funding cut will incidentally make it more difficult for college students to get affordable birth control. (3) Other nations might follow suite, but with less compassionate intentions. Governments may be more reluctant to put a stop to it if they already have similar laws in place. jp255 proposed that the offspring sue their parents for their suffering. This is more interesting. First, it does serve to comfort someone, it comforts the diseased person. Suppose the diseased person has medical bills to worry about if they are to sustain a satisfactory life (or life at all). However, if the parents aren't helping to pay such expenses, it's probably because they don't have the money for it. What do you do then, throw them in jail? That doesn't help anybody. What would be the standard definition of a satisfactory life? We could say that an unsatisfactory life is a life that's not worth living. That's not a clear definition, but it does seem reasonable. After all, from a strict utilitarian standpoint, a life not worth living is the only thing worse than not living at all, and the mother wasn't under any obligation to pop out a child in the first place. Also, we shouldn't automatically link an unsatisfactory life with suicide. There are other reasons for choosing to continue life. Maybe the person hopes things will improve; doesn't want to let anyone down; wants to do good things while they're here; fears eternal hellfire; etc. Plus, there are other contributory causes for suicide: lapse of judgement, anger, etc.

Not if he can back it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_units_of_temperature Will ΔTK = ΔT°C always be true? Hint: It wouldn't work for farenheit. ΔT°F = ΔTK × 1.8 Am I using subscript right?

If this god were omniscient, it would would never be so silly as to change its mind about something. God earlier: "I just need to stop intervening on Earth. I always make things worse. I will put the key underneath this unliftable rock, and I will never be able to intervene again." God later: "Holy crap! I need to kill Hitler, but I cannot lift this effing rock! Why did my earlier self do that!?" In other words, a god wouldn't need both omniscience and omnipotence as long as it was omnipotent when it created the world. However, this doesn't necessarily work out if you believe in free will. Also problematic for theism is that, when your deity's mind does not fluctuate over time, it's less anthropomorphic. You are making it more or less dead; dead in the sense that a lifeless, inanimate rock is dead. That's a step toward atheism. I don't believe there necessarily is a first cause or external cause, let alone one with sufficient intellect to hold an interest in what happens.

joule is a unit of energy gram is a unit of mass °C and K are units of temperature Certain things need to absorb more or less heat to have an equal temperature change. Specific heat capacity is the joules per gram required to raise the temperature by 1°C. "Per gram" because the amount of substance matters (e.g. twice as much substance means twice as much heat for the same ΔT).

Would anyone care to explain why they dislike metaphysics? ... "Did I just hear something?"

Yeah, the smaller intervals in the the 14TET solo sound identical to normal 12TET half-steps. It's that recursive, high-pitched melody that intrigues me. Whatever temperament it's in, 7TET or 14TET, it doesn't approximate 12TET well, but that's what I like about it. I listened to the youtube link. I admire your ability and willingness to analyze and compose music. I don't care much for ground-level composition because there's barely any wiggle room, especially when someone else gives you the melodic line. At this stage, it's still a skeleton IMO. I would at least need to hear it in a different voice besides snyth guitar. But I really don't know how you do it. I hated music theory.

Response to PeterJ, To "define" is to set forth some criteria for determining what is or isn't an instance of the thing defined. A fact is an accurate description of what is. The adjective "factual" merely associates the noun with the category: facts. How can I know what you mean if it's not clear that you mean anything at all? Wittgenstein thought it was impossible for one to define a word without referencing public phenomena. Explicit definition inevitably reduces, for example, 'red' to something like 'the way our eyes and brains process 400-500 THz light'. Thereafter, qualities, relationships, comparisons, etc. for 'red' only need to be logically consistent with that definition of 'red'. Back on point, what is meant by 'consciousness'? You statement seemed to imply that 'consciousness' isn't something that has been shown to arise from matter. Can you define it in such a way that is consistent with that claim about it? Of course, there's always option two. If you do not know how to define it, how are we to speculate about it at all?