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I'm being dismissive because much of what you are saying makes little sense, and is simply an effort by you to reword some aspect, in the hope that no one sees your not so deft sidestep of the issue at hand. Let me respond again...Your faith, by definition is a belief in a supernatural/paranormal concept, that is unscientific. As science has continued to explain the universe around us scientifically, it has gradually pushed any reason for any such unscientific belief/faith/delusion into near oblivion. In actual fact you are still applying your faith/belief/delusion in a "god of the gaps" scenario, albeit in different words [ eg: a higher power] simply because science does not know everything. Let me remind you that many people still put their faith/belief/delusion in the literal meaning of the bible, yet the Catholic church now recognise the theory of evolution and the BB. The counter arguments put against your intransigent position now covers around 12 pages.. Nothing I or anyone else would say does matter. That has been your position since you started posting your questionable qualities on this form. But I'm a stubborn old bastard so let me spell it out for you....The link explains that what you count as reasoning, is contaminated by your incalcitrant position, due to your beliefs and confirmation bias, probably due to a childhood of brainwashing, the desire for comfort and solace or a combination of both. Again, I can understand that position and the reasons for it, what I fail to understand is why you chose to come to a science forum and your crusade of questionable qualities? Is this simply to gain some reassurance in your faith/belief system, and its sandy foundations?

But ignoring the answers, so what's the point? If you want to learn you have to listen.

They just need to believe in it. Some people belief (in some particular worldview of gods) and some people don't. This is not based on reason or rational choice. It seems to be an inherent part of human nature. Some people are "believers" and others aren't. I don't think choice comes into it. I can't choose to believe in a god (whether Thor or Allah) and you can't choose not to believe in your "higher power". Even if you could choose your beliefs, it still doesn't make believing in an abstract "higher power" any different from believing in "things" (e.g. that the world is run by Lizard Overlords or that the Great Pyramid is an alien communication device).

This is pretty much exactly what I said many pages ago in one of my first answers to you: Faith based on imaginary premisses can be internally consistent. So faith is an internally consistent set of delusions, rather than a stand-alone delusion.

You are getting somewhere: is essentially the basis of the induction proof. You have shown that the inequality is true when n is equal to 2. This is important. However, is not part of the proof by induction. It shows that the inequality is true when \( n \) is equal to 3. The increase in the difference between LHS and RHS is irrelevant. How would you argue that the statement is also true for \( n = 4, \) except by calculating both sides of the inequality for that case as well? You do not know whether the difference between LHS and RHS will suddenly drop enough to make the inequality false for that value of \( n, \) or for some larger value. Did you read the Wikipedia page, or anything else, on how to prove something by induction? Do you know how to prove that \( 2^n \geq n^2 \) holds for every \( n > 3 \) by induction? You should be familiar with this baby example if you want to prove anything as complicated as the problem that you posted. I am puzzled if you are asked to prove anything complicated like that without having seen the simplest examples. Where did you get your problem from? Is there anything to suggest that you should actually try to solve it using Taylor series?

Faith seems to support or fills the void in that someone's understanding of reality where reason, evidence, or comprehension is insufficient or where same doesn't sufficiently satisfy his or her expectations. Faith appears to evolves from a conclusion by believers that aspects of their reality are too exact or miraculous to be random or the result of some definable process within the scope of their understanding. They'd rather exist in the mystical or believe in the magical rather than accept the ordinary or consider the mundane. Because they are so taken by the magic, they can't or won't envision or consider anything less than the magical.

If I may comment on this previous post, the legitimacy of faith resides in its psychological effect, which isn't dissimilar to the effect of delusion. Faith is a quality of mind that isn't based on anything considered scientifically legitimate or tangible. It emerges, IMO, as a stopgap for lack of knowledge, insight, or understanding most often amid exigent circumstances. Delusion, conversely, is distinguishable by its established association with mental illness. I don't think it's fair to suggest that all people of faith are all mentally ill and, frankly, I don't believe they are. They are, I feel, mostly misguided or unwilling to investigate beyond their Eden of ignorance that so comforts them or to which they've grown so accustomed.

I’m convinced it’s a bot. This actually works on many levels

It is possible to use Taylor series to get a proof even in the more general case when n is any real number greater than or equal to 2. But it looks like it will be complicated. Do you know the Taylor expansion of the RHS of your inequality, that is, the expansion of 7x as a function of x? It looks more like you are supposed to apply induction on n: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction The easiest might be to first show that the result holds when n = 2, and then prove with simple calculus that the difference LHS - RHS is always increasing for larger n (again assuming the variable is real-valued). This would be kind of "induction on real numbers".

No not ignored...Read and judged them on their logical worth which is zero. Silly repeated, unsupported, unscientific rhetoric on what you term as faith/belief in a "higher power" which you have been rather careful to not disclose the nature of, so as not to draw more logical dismissivness by most that require some evidence. .......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason#Evolution_of_reason Evolution of reason: " A species could benefit greatly from better abilities to reason about, predict and understand the world. French social and cognitive scientists Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier argue that there could have been other forces driving the evolution of reason. They point out that reasoning is very difficult for humans to do effectively, and that it is hard for individuals to doubt their own beliefs (confirmation bias). Reasoning is most effective when it is done as a collective – as demonstrated by the success of projects like science.They suggest that there are not just individual, but group selection pressures at play. Any group that managed to find ways of reasoning effectively would reap benefits for all its members, increasing their fitness. This could also help explain why humans, according to Sperber, are not optimized to reason effectively alone. Their argumentative theory of reasoning claims that reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with the search for the truth."

Faith is nothing more than wishful thinking, in your case, and there's nothing you can say that's going to persuade anyone on this site otherwise. That much must be obvious to you so why do you keep trying?

I'll just do the headlines. (Probably a few minor errors though) Pic One: ニッポン人は生保が好き？Do Japanese like life insurance? (They spelt this Nippon, not Nihon, because Nippon has a more nationalistic tone to it, eg: We Japanese) １世帯２千万円越す。Each household is covered by more than 20,000,000 yen 石油製品輸入拡大をガソリン含め９月に increase in petroleum products including gasoline in September 関税下げ更に further decease in tarrifs ボンネットバンに本田が再進出 Honda reintroduces the Bonnet Van Pic Two: 米ベトナム関係 Vietnam related 一括解決方式 One Swoop Solution policy. (About US-Vietnamese relations, US soldiers, Cambodia) Pic Three: ９０日間保存できます It can be kept for 90 days (food preservation) 液晶テレビがついてます With attached liquid crystal television (Matsushita's intercom with TV) Pic Four 精神汚染批判主導 The first word is missing from this sentence but I think its about "criticizing the mentally ill leadership" 鄧宣伝部長を解任 Deng is dismissed from the CCPPD (I think this isn't Deng Xiaoping but probably Deng Liqun) 中国共産党 Chinese Communist Party オーストラリアのワイン。スキャンダル Australian Wine scandel.

You keep repeating this. I keep asking you why. Do you EVER plan to answer? I suspect not. I suspect you’re not unlike any other of the countless theists whom I’ve engaged who chose to do little more than evade the difficult questions, but I’m trying hard to give you the benefit of the doubt and respect your stance. You’re not making it easy.

Great!!! At last, some progress. In other words just as realistic as pink unicorns and/or magical spaghetti monsters. I had faith in Santa Claus when I was a kid. Of course they can! and will remain equated until you show me evidence that your faith is not a delusion...which as you have said twice you cannot do. I was raised on this path of faith/delusions, until I reached adulthood and saw the awesome wonder of science, the scientific method, and how it explained without any need for mythical stories.

If belief about reality itself is what they share in common, then why do their beliefs differ so much?

The belief in any higher power is unscientific and simply based on faith with no evidence, as is common in any variety of this higher power. It is a faulty belief based on a fanatical faith/belief/delusion in something that we have no evidence for. Our existence and the existence of any life is scientifically answered by the only scientific answer available...Universal Abiogenesis. Delusional beliefs actually have no relevance in any aspect of knowledge.

So, if I understand you correctly, faith (in your opinion) is more legitimate because it’s a delusion many people happen to share, as opposed to a lone delusion held just by one individual. Is that correct? If so, the obvious next question is why your faith is any more legitimate than the faith of someone else who happens to believe in something different... Something nearly as common and just as popular. For example, Christianity versus Islam. Both are rather popular, extremely common, and are beliefs held by many millions of humans, but I suspect you don’t accept faith in Islam as legitimate. This suggests your reasoning is fallacious and your central claim untrue Both Christianity and Islam claim to represent an absolute truth. Either one or both of them must be wrong since both make contradictory claims and so both cannot, by definition, be true in parallel. One doesn’t need to be an expert in statistics and probability to recognize the likelihood that both are just equally silly and worthy of dismissal. Why is the faith of a Muslim less legitimate than the faith of a Christian, or Jew, or Buddhist, or tribal shaman? Why is your presonally preferred brand of woo supposed to receive undue deference and be treated as any more legitimate than the delusion of a lone individual? You keep claiming that your faith is rooted in reason. What are those reasons?

Despite my skills good or bad lol,,,,, I always enjoy reading any of your posts on the topic of relativity. Another excellent post. I particularly like to highlight relativity relies upon an invariant finite speed,c then anything massless is required to travel at this speed" I am often seen defending understanding terminology in physics. So for readers, under physics mass is resistance to inertia change the massless feature shows no resistance to inertia change ie no restrictions to reaching a maximal in information exchange. c being that maximal via any experimental observation being the limit. Light simply matches

Hi beecee, You might find the village of Al-Sayyid kind of interesting. YouTube link.

If you hope to catch someone in an old post, it's best to quote that post, so that they may get a message that someone has replied. Done it for you this time.

That was a very good example of why cars won't be fully autonomous for a while yet. Assuming the car could do anything it was told, I find it hard to specify what to do in that situation. The car needs to be far more aware of it's situation, e.g. how many lanes there are, which lanes are safe etc. I think the first real use of fully autonomous cars will be a dedicated lane on motorways where cars travel fast and in convoy with only automated vehicles permitted, probably in communication with each other acting more like a train. There would be a significant speed/efficiency advantage, very safe travelling and a gain of public trust and acceptance.

If you take this in context along with the second part using sound waves, it is apparent he is trying to make the same basic argument in both cases. Later he claims that if you use sound to make your measurements you would measure relativistic effects based on the speed of sound rather than c. He is assuming that it is light that causes Relativistic effects. As to the phrased in bold. Relativity rests on the concept that there is an invariant finite speed, c. If such a invariant speed exists, then anything massless is required to travel at this speed. Put another way, light travels at c because it is has no rest mass, and thus is required to by the rules of Relativity. The speed at which light travels is a consequence of Relativity. The fact that light travels at c is not the [/i]cause[/i] of Relativity. Now it just so happens that we are constituted of matter that interacts with light and this makes light a useful tool for measuring the universe around us. This, along with the fact that light travels at the invariant speed of the universe, makes its a good choice when framing examples dealing with Relativity. But this not mean if we were to remove light from a scenario that Relativistic effects would not manifest themselves. You don't need light or even electromagnetic interaction for Relativistic effects to occur. They are built into the very reality of the universe. The invariant speed of light highlights and helped us discover the rules governing space and time, but is not responsible for them.

OK, I believe I have my question answered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sign_languages There are perhaps three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and de novo (and occasionally through language planning). In some countries, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, each school for the deaf may have a separate language, known only to its students and sometimes denied by the school; on the other hand, countries may share sign languages, though sometimes under different names (Croatian and Serbian, Indian and Pakistani). Deaf sign languages also arise outside educational institutions, especially in village communities with high levels of congenital deafness, but there are significant sign languages developed for the hearing as well, such as the speech-taboo languages used in aboriginal Australia. Scholars are doing field surveys to identify the world's sign languages. LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL So, probably both. Hmmm, not sure how logical or sensible that is, when we think of the braille concept for the blind...although that aint perfect either, but slightly more logical I suggest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille Under international consensus, most braille alphabets follow the French sorting order for the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, and there have been attempts at unifying the letters beyond these 26 (see international braille), though differences remain, for example in German Braille and the contractions of English Braille. This unification avoids the chaos of each nation reordering the braille code to match the sorting order of its print alphabet, as happened in Algerian Braille, where braille codes were numerically reassigned to match the order of the Arabic alphabet and bear little relation to the values used in other countries (compare modern Arabic Braille, which uses the French sorting order), and as happened in an early American version of English Braille, where the letters w, x, y, z were reassigned to match English alphabetical order. A convention sometimes seen for letters beyond the basic 26 is to exploit the physical symmetry of braille patterns iconically, for example, by assigning a reversed n to ñ or an inverted s to sh. (See Hungarian Braille and Bharati Braille, which do this to some extent.)

It is Japanese. The first headline is "Do the Japanese like life insurance?"

Today I learned that the Japanese word ‘ken’ for dog, which comes from Chinese ‘quan’, shares the same root as Latin ‘canis’ (and hound etc). It was a Bronze Age borrowing from an early Indo-European language.

Faith conveniently enables you to think you know everything about everything by subscribing to „God did it” rhetoric. Science and reason is not afraid to say „I don’t know” The former prevents you from acquiring further knowledge, the latter enables you to want to acquire further knowledge. In this sense, faith is not only intrinsically delusional but it also plants seeds for further delusions.

Logic is either a branch of mathematics or a methodology of reasoning which establishes a causal correlation between assumptions and conclusions. Since such a correlation can be established only by evidence and faith/religion has exactly zero evidence in its corner therefore there is as much correlation between logic and faith as in Mother Teresa being a noble individual. I can’t disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns just as I can’t disprove the existence of gods. Frankly I do not care whether there are debates over „issues” like this, if someones understanding of the world leads him/her to faith it simply means that this person doesn’t understand the world very well. It is well established that the less general knowledge you have, the more prone you will be to religious beliefs. Faith is in fact many things - fear of being alone in this world being a significant factor or fear of being excluded from your environment. And yes, hundreds of billions of people being stuck in a delusion for thousands of years is a probable scenario. Is it more or less probable than god/gods creating and ruling the universe is up to you.

No. The more you understand about reality the more you understand that gods are not needed to explain it. That is if you use reason ofcourse. Harsh - I can agree with that. Hatred - not exactly, more like pity towards wasting time on delusional thinking. I think this is the crux of the matter, I do expect that from humans and I don’t see it as a problem.

I agree. Glad you brought this up. All religious faith is by definition based on lack of evidence. I agree that it is questionable if we can use a medical term to describe faith, I’m leaning towards a position that we could. When you look at it from a scientific point of view, there isn’t much difference between a psychotic disorder and faith - they are both routed in the same evidence-less delusion. After all, how can we quantify that talking and seeing invisible people (schizophrenia) is different from seeing and talking to invisible gods?

Reasoning is not designed to support delusion. The only instance where I see justification is empathy towards people who are terminally ill and chose to live their last moments in delusion. I don’t see a reason to attempt to break their belief by reasoning in their last moments if thats what they chose. You don’t seem terminally ill to me Endercreeper01 so don’t worry, we’ll keep on adressing your delusions, fallacies and lack of coherence and lack of reasoning.

So you don't like my use of the term "transitive". I can live with being wrong aboutthat. Let's move on to the really interesting stuff, closer to the spirit of he OP (remember it?) The connectedness property mandates that, every [math]m \in M[/math] there exist at least 2 overlapping coordinate neighbourhoods containing [math]m[/math]. I write [math] m \in U \cap U'[/math]. So suppose the coordinates (functions) in [math]U[/math] are [math]\{x^1,x^2,....,x^n\}[/math] and those in [math]U'[/math] are [math]\{x'^1,x'^2,....,x'^n\}[/math] and since these are equally valid coordinates for our point, we must assume functional relation between these 2 sets of coordinates. For full generality I write [math]f^1(x^1,x^2,....,x^n)= x'^1[/math] [math]f^2(x^1,x^2,....,x^n) = x'^2[/math] .............................. [math]f^n(x^1,x^2,....,x^n)= x'^n[/math] Or compactly [math]f^j(x^k)=x'^j[/math]. But since the numerical value of each [math]x'^j[/math] is completely determined by the [math]f^j[/math], it is customary to write rhis as [math]x'^j= x'^j(x^k)[/math], as ugly as it seems at fist sight*. This is the coordinate transformation [math]U \to U'[/math]. And assuming an inverse, we will have quite simply [math]x^k=x^k(x'^h)[/math] for [math]U' \to U[/math] Notice I have been careful up to this point to talk in the most general terms (with the 2 exceptions above). Later I will restrict my comments to a particular class of manifolds * Ugly it may be, but it simplifies notation in the calculus.

It seems we only count direct deaths, and I'm not sure exactly how they define that. If a person is pinned beneath a falling tree but dies of exposure, is it a direct death related to the storm? Does it only count if the tree causes fatal internal bleeding? We know for fact they don't count when someone's kidneys fail because the electricity for their dialysis machine was knocked out by the storm. These deaths aren't counted as having the storm as a direct cause, even though they wouldn't have happened otherwise. According to this report, Hurricane Sandy had 147 direct deaths. Puerto Rico's governor put the damages from the double hurricanes at US$95B, making it twice as costly for less than half the death toll of hurricane Sandy. It seems pretty clear that the lack of response from the US is being downplayed heavily, the same way it was during Katrina.

I'm not sure it matters a lot. The people died. In one sense, indirect is more important, because many of these are preventable. As would direct deaths that could have been prevented by good evacuation procedures and proper infrastructure for getting them out or protecting them. And of course the big picture is that way too many people died because of the flaccid response of the US Government.

No, you're reporting me in a cowardly attempt to impact someone that you disagree with... Such behavior can only be described as cowardice. It's rather amusing that you would describe it as straw-man (you hardly seem to know what a straw-man is). It becomes laughable when you proceed to call me a "disgrace" as a result of my non-using logical fallacies on an argument in an internet forum...

There is one significant difference between a medical psychotic state and the delusion of faith, the former has no choice and the latter willingly chooses to engage in the delusion. I adressed the inaccuarcy above.

This thread is not the place to discuss consciousness, it is about faith. Faith can arise based on someone's understanding of reality and existence that leads them to such beliefs. Such a harsh view of faith only sounds of hatred towards faith. It's not fair at all to call faith a delusion.

This thread is not about my alleged contempt and alleged hatred, its about what the concept of faith is. I don’t care how it sounds to you, I stated very clearly in my previous post how I feel, if you have difficulties in distinguishing between pity and hatred then you need to adress that issue - preferably outside of this thread in your own time. As for faith being a delusion, we can discuss the figurative meaning of the word „delusion” if you’d like. I already adressed the minor differences between a medical psychotic state and the state of a mind believing in god/gods. Sure they’re not - they’re delusional.