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! Moderator Note Those sites aren't this one. Here, we don't bother to discuss speculative science unless you can show something worthwhile, or at least more than your ridicule and waving hands. We require more rigor here. So get off your high horse and follow the rules we've developed to make science discussions meaningful. We attack ideas here, not people. So far, your ideas lack rigor. Show us, persuade us with your evidence and reasoning, because acting like an asshole is failing miserably. If you care to come back tomorrow when the five post spam limit is removed for new joiners, please do so civilly. And try not to label everyone who questions you a troll. It doesn't help you learn anything.

But the book won't be able to tell how it becomes water, or that it can predicted, only that it does. You can't reverse-engineer an emergent property. It is not amenable to a reductionist approach. You'll always get this it-just-happens part... it's just the way Nature is or we are ignorant. As someone already implied: one relates to an unknown but naturalistic process and the other relates to metaphysics.

The 'clockwork' reality I'm considering, means that the elementary particles that make us up have determined paths once the initial conditions are specified, and at any time thereafter, their positions can be computed, like clockwork. If you want to consider the particles making up your brain, then specifying initial conditions, one would be able to calculate ( with an extremely powerful computer ) every future position, interaction and path, and from that, every thought that you may have. Even the thought that you should change your mind. So when you say that you have the 'free' will to choose differently, although circumstances favor a specific decision, that is already pre-ordained by the initial conditions. IE it is not free will at all. What QM does, more specifically the HUP, is destroy the 'clockwork'. You can no longer compute the future position, interactions and paths of the elementary building blocks of your brain. Any decision made is not necessarily based on previous conditions, and information. Now, you could say this is just the appearance of free will, as we still have no control over the decision we ultimately make. But that's probably as close as we're gonna get.

We are not using it to explain how molecules form, we are using it as a word to that avoids us having to use several words. It's how language works. It's a classifier. Saying that an elephant is an animal, tells us nothing if we choose to ignore (as you are doing for emergence) to that this places elephants in a specific group. Emergent properties are a specific group of properties. That's all there is to it. It's a convenient way of facilitating discussion, however it only works if the all the participants understand the language. You've decided that calling something an animal tells us nothing.

A typical fifth columnist position desgined to lull us into a false sense of security until the invasion fleet arrives!

Losing $8,999/minute is a small price to pay to own the libs. Not to worry though, they'll recoup it from evil socialist entitlements like our grandmother's medicine and child's school and call it a win for capitalism and democracy.

I studied it for years. I accept there is wisdom in it for contentment and peace and ways to love others and forgive. A lot of good things. But having to ditch most of it does not make it good evidence for the existence of god, which, is what this thread is about. I stopped believing there was a god (the Christian one or any of the world religion ones) a while back and the lack of consistency in the books was a contributing factor (one of many). Other things that influenced my 'conversion' from believer to atheist: Compelling evidence for evolution over creation. Statistical analysis of pray answers (if something is possible, however likely, it will happen eventually)... co-incidences DO happen. The realisation I was lying to myself as well as others. The bombing of abortion clinics by 'Christians'. Prayers neglected that made no sense. 'ask and you shall receive' / 'why would a father give a son a rock when he asks for bread' / 'taste and see that the lord is good'. The discovery of mental states that cause the 'feeling' of presences that are mental tricks not supernatural encounters. Some of the evil deeds accredited to god in the OT. You don't question it as a Christian because - 'who knows the mind of the lord' and 'do not test the lord' and 'who are you to question the ways of god' are common cop outs quoted from the bible whenever these issues crop up. There are many others and each point could be debated in depth or have an essay written about it on it's own. The evidence against the existence of deities described in the books from any of the worlds religions is overwhelming and pretty much incontestable.

Extremist capitalism encourages avoiding taxes by any means. They like it when corruption is considered part and parcel of the process. I disagree, both with your conclusion and your style of chopping up replies.

No, he did not. They were obtained, not released.

I guess it depends on the context. It's like saying evolution is the reason human ears are shaped as they are. Absolutely true - but doesn't tell you anything about them. Doesn't mean evolution isn't an extremely powerful framework in other contexts though. If nothing else the concept of emergence allows us to talk about consciousness within a naturalistic framework, without recourse to a ghost in the machine. I think that's what Eise said, but all posh like.

The report post function is for bringing rules violations to the attention of the staff. It's the preferred method for doing so (rather than PMs or complaints posted in the thread), as it reaches the widest audience of staff members. It is not for kvetching about somebody disagreeing with you in a thread. Not only is that not against the rules, it's expected behavior when incorrect information is posted.

I checked the referenced page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe and I find a picture representing some properties* of the universe. The picture is has the form of a disk or ellipse: Is this the source of your confusion? The picture is a Mollweide** projection. Have you been mislead by this and similar pictures and therefore developed incorrect understandings and drawn wrong conclusions about current models and cosmology? It seems unlikely but possible? As @Strange already said: *) map of the CMB **) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollweide_projection

Incoherent? Explain, I see nothing incoherent in it. It is the beginning of an answer. Somebody who declares that consciousness is emergent, is in fact saying he does not believe that we must use some independent ontological entity or substance to explain consciousness. What the word 'emergent' means is clear: that a system has properties that its parts do not have. So he declares that the brain processes somehow are the basis of consciousness, no soul or 'thinking substance' ('res cogitans' according to Descartes). But as long as one cannot explain the emergent properties from the workings of the system, I agree, it is not (yet) an explanation.

Yeah, that's true it works rather like this:- In elementary electromagnetism we learn that the flux density vector B is proportional to the field strength vector H by the magnetic permeability μ, which is taken as a constant. So B = μH This is simply the multiplication of a vector by a scalar so the vector B points in the same direction as H. However the medium may not be isotropic so the permeability may vary with orientation or direction. So now we have three quantities which possess directional characterisitcs. The effect of this is that μ has to be regarded as an object which maintains the above equation. This cannot be a vector since the defined vector product of two vectors produces a vector perpendicular to their plane. The object that is needed is a rank 2 tensor and so the permeability becomes a rank 2 tensor. We can now regard μ aas a tensor of rank zero when taken as just a constant. Now you get a vector into the black multiplication box and the correct vector out.

I never believed in God in the first place. My parents are both atheists and so am I. And when you see all the cruelty, the hardship, the greed and the other terrible things which happen in this world then I think this is enough evidence to question Gods existence.

That question did, thanks.

lol...I shouldn't have looked back here...but did! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe the above link was at top of list of google search with 5 more pages so go look yourself. You should already know the the Universe is disk shaped as was discovered years ago. I never said black holes caused the Universe to expand (reading comprehension again?!?!?). I said they were caused by the expanding universe and are necessary. You my friend are obviously the one that hasn't a clue and suspect my writing way over your head and obviously beyond your undersatnding! edit: won't let me post anymore today. You guys hate Americans huh! click link above and go down to #2 on shape: this it what you see; Flat (no curvature), open (negative curvature), or closed (positive curvature) that is a disk...lol! There are 5 freakin pages of links beside the one I gave you (which was at top of list) so can't understand simple English or too lazy to research yourself or just like being a troll Mod. I've been a member of many sites and have never expeienced a mod like you...maybe you just a kid!

I know that everything traveling faster than the speed of light since the big bang is not part of the model. You said speed of light was!?!? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe I googled and found 5 pages!?!!? You obviously are not even reading my posts or your reading comprehension is really bad! Obviously you didn't google, "shape of the Universe," which makes you a troll and a waste of my time! Later...or not!