padren

Now' date=' I don’t want to mischaracterize Dennett; he’s quite adamant that consciousness cannot be localized to a specific part of the brain, and that the entire brain works for the benefit of conscious processing, therefore indicating that consciousness is an inseperable quality from any part of the brain. I, on the other hand, am going to be a little more brash than Dennett, and say that the most logical seat of consciousness is the part that has diverged so drastically in humans as compared to the rest of our common ancestral heritage. It only makes sense that the “specialists” Dennett talks about are the neocortical columns and that consciousness arises through their collective action.

[/quote']

 

Well, you should be able to localize consciousness to some degree, even if it is just "the area other than were the tumor was removed" in a cancer patient.

 

 

Something I can't help commenting on is the nature of consciousness in the brain: when I was rather young (13ish, so I could have misunderstood) I recall watching a documentary that heavily influenced two elements of my understanding of the mind.

 

The documentry covered observations of people with severe epilepsy, including a patient who had radical surgery surgically seperating the two hemispheres.

In that patient's case, they did a number of experiments, including one where they asked the patient to leave the room, while one side of his head was sensorily deprived.

Then, they switched sides and asked the fellow why he left the room, and his response was he was thirsty, and wanted to get a coke.

 

The impression it left me with is that conciousness can be divided (as both sides of the brain appeared to have and act on different experiences when stimuli to one side was supressed) and secondarily, that at times we mentally try to retroactively understand our actions under the guise of choosing our actions. (Such as emotional states of denial we often make up logical reasons for our behavior).

 

But on the topic of divided conciousness, I found this especially erie.

 

Is it medically considered impossible to have a divided conciousness? I am mostly curious because I want to know if I totally misunderstood that documentry somehow.

 

[edit, I found these two links eye openers that seem to support split conciousness]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain

http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/split-brain.html

[ / edit]

Sorry to go so off topic, on topic regarding the DNI:

 

I can't help but to think one of the most powerful positive technologies we could invent would be anything that allows us to communicate actual feelings, thoughts, and emotions between people.

 

It would make human existance up to that point appear to be dreadfully isolated with absolutely no points of reference other than oneself. It would be the ultimate in lie detection, if a politician actually wanted to convey their sincerity they could do it directly.

 

It would of course have a huge capacity for mis-use and in terms of privacy violations would be unparalled, plus the other risks mentioned above.

 

 

When it comes to the development of run-away superintelligence, I doubt that would run a high risk of human existinction, even if we became obsolete. It took 4 billion years for us to evolve, any intelligence that could decide we were not needed could also decide if a more advanced version of itself wanted to revise that conclusion it would be very costly to reproduce us. IMO cost-of-mistake management is a large factor in intelligence.

No you don't understand what I am saying. No' date=' matter doesn't repel itself.

What I am saying is that space naturally expand. Space doesn't need any original force or energy to expand. Space expand and doesn't stop to expand unless a force going in the opposite direction is applied. I can call it the compressing force by opposition with the universal expansion. I prefer to call it strong gravity.

The space expansion happen in 3 dimensions. Any direction you look, space expand (outside our local group of galaxies ). Gravity is also 3 dimensionnal but in the opposite direction. If there is enought of that force going against the expasion in the 3D, you have mass. Space expansion is stopped, but the time expansion doesn't stop. The units of space instead of expanding, are reused again and again in multiples 3D rotations combinations.

[/quote']

I think I understand what you are saying better. Matter moves apart as if repulsed, but as a side effect of the space it exists in expanding naturally, and the attractive capacity of gravity causes mass to overcome the expansion effect with the net effect of appearing weak.

Yes the inverse square law apply. Yes at some distance the expansion dominate. That distance is called the gravitationnal limit.

For the inverse square follow that analogy:

Figure the space expansion as a foam of soap bubble with air continuously injected. Figure mass as a vacuum cleaner . The effect of the vacuum cleaner is to destroy the bubble around the hole and the the further away from the hole the smaller the effect.

 

Anyway thanks for your interest but I don't feel that these thaught interest many of you.

 

I am not sure if this can work mathatically.

 

Gravity appears to have a consistant strength at any distance according to the inverse square. If the expansion factor would have to be exactly inverse square as well, and neither force would dominate, or it would have to have something other than an inverse square strength of effect so that at a great distance it could be more powerful than gravity.

 

If the latter is the case, I don't think gravity could follow the inverse square law as it is observed to. Unless there is a mathmatical formula that matches inverse squared perfectly for a large portion of the function and then suddenly veers off at a specific value (to account for expansion effect deluting then dominating gravity) or gravity cannot be 1/d^2 based. And if the latter is true in that case, you would still need a formula in which the sum of gravity attraction and spatial expansion is a net 1/d^2 perfectly then veers off to allow expansion to dominate.

 

I don't know complex math, or even what many would consider fairly simple math, but I am suspect if a single formula can appear to be 1/d^2 exactly for a large portion of the function and then veer into the negative (ie where expansion is greater than attraction) to successfully describe the effect you are contemplating.

Well' date=' the subject is my question... my question specifically alludes to a conjecture which claims that time has no beginning and simply continues backward ad infinitum.

 

Such a universe, to me, seems inconsistent with both the concepts of causality and symmetry.

 

Well, anyway, when it really comes down to it I don't have a clue... is there anything that can be inferred about cosmology at this level? Can spacetime have an origin? Does it need to? Is it possible for it to simply continue "backwards" ad infinitum?[/quote']

 

If you do cross any hard science that examines this I would love to hear about it.

 

It appears to be a rather tight paradox: Either there is an original effect that occured without a cause, or there is an infinite chain of cause and effect. Both go against everything we know about cause and effect. The closest thing to a realistic argument to me, is that whatever started time exists outside of time as we know it, and not bound by our understanding of cause and effect over time. This makes more sense to me than our universe containing an infinite reverse chain of causality, which would imply we'd have to reconcile the issue within the causal structure of the universe. Of course when both make so little sense to me my margin for error is far higher than the quanta of difference of which makes more sense.

 

I found the Cosmological Argument (a theological argument based on this which exploits the sherlock holmes fallacy) or more specifically, the subsection of "Critique and Objections" within that page interesting on the topic.

 

Is time currently thought to have began, along with space, at the moment of the big bang? Do we have the math that explores this issue and part of the universe's origin yet at all, or is it still part of the unknown?

 

Edit: Scratch the red, its being discussed in this thread.

Bascule what is the "Singularity" you're talking about?

I believe he is referring to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

I think it would be fair to engage in stopping piracy, there are a few legal issues.

What if hostages go down with a pirate ship? An outraged family could have been getting a random together for their daughter's release, and suddenly she is lost when a Navy gunboat takes potentially suspect aggressive actions.

If the family is another nationality it could be even more difficult of a situation.

I am not saying we shouldn't try to take action, but I think it would be smart to use the UN to determine the legal implications.

It could also lead to the practice of pirates taking on hostages of children as human shields, and again I am not saying we shouldn't try to solve the problem, but we should be prepared for how complicated it could get.

I can't imagine how anyone could consider it a marriage given "Cindy's" incapacity to comprehend the ceremony or its purpose past "the nice lady is giving me more fish."

I especially like "Zilber accepted the challenge and "talked the idea over with the fellow," who apparently consented." which IMO means "Zilber accepted a large check to tell Tendler what she wanted to hear."

I am suspect though, I think she may be marrying him for Israeli citizenship.

Sorry I wasn't clear before. I have no problems showing the human side of one's enemy' date=' but moral equivilancy, matching up good and point points for parties on each side of the conflict is stupid and a waste of time. Each side will have their own opinions and people outside the situation see two different sides. There are so many different "goods" and "bads" about people that picking some of them out so neither side seems morally better then the other doesn't make sense to me.

 

Was that clearer?[/quote']

 

I think I understand - such as the practice of a newspaper, to avoid being accused of taking a "contraversal" stance or bias for one side, presents just enough details about both sides that is not informative or even an accurate represenation of the situation, but gives the appearance of being "thoughtful" and even handed.

 

I definately agree with you on that, especially that is the desired effect of the writer, who has to pick which facts are presented to achieve that result.

 

I'll have to see the film though to evaluate if I personally feel thats the case in it.

I searched and found this thread http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=15918 somewhat helpful, but there is a lot I don't understand so I have a few questions:

Schrodinger's cat:

I've read about this in wikipedia and looked at the Copenhagen interpretation as well as the Everett many-worlds interpretation, and there is some stuff I am having trouble clearing up. I think I may have read too many sources with "journalistic interpretation" throwing things off.

First, in the Copenhagen interpretation, the term "observer" is not nearly defined well enough for me. I believe the principle is that when you deal with anything Really Really Small the only way to observe it is to hit it with something (like a photon) which changes what the subject was up to in the first place.

If this is the case:

Isn't there a risk of naturally occuring photons altering the experiment in the same way, that are not part of any attempt to make an observation?

In the Schrodinger cat experiment, wouldn't the component in the experiment that "triggers the apparatus" imply an automatic observer system within the box?

I know it is observing the radiated particle and not the not-decaying/decaying nucleus, but isn't it effectively observing what state the nucleus was just in if it can detect an emmitted particle?

Is a superposition a literal state, or a way of mathmatically coping with the fact we can not observe the literal state and must deal with the probable range of states something can be in? (This is something I want to understand the most) I know the double slit experiment allows a photon or buckyball to act like its in two places at once, but is that the literal photon particle or the wave effect influence of the photon that is in two places at once?

Did Everett really say something to the effect that "when the box is opened, the universe is split into two separate universes, one containing an observer looking at a box with a dead cat, one containing an observer looking at a box with a live cat" and wouldn't that mean that every time any atom does or does not decays anywhere in the universe at any moment and is observed by impacting something else - that both possibilities would exist in seperate but existing universes?

Is there anything mathmatical on this, because it really sounds like a brain failing to cope and going semi-mystical, but I have trouble assuming Everett would say something like this without being able to back it up.

When people talk about quantum cryptography, is it effectively simular to writing a note on highly sensitive photonically/electron-ically combustable paper, where any reading device would cause the section read to burn and be destroyed as quickly as the text is determined?

Couldn't this be corrupted by any micro-interference that has the same overall effect of an observer, since an observer is not actually "a guy with eyes" in the literal sense?

The process your referring to is called modulation: the superimposition of one signal upon an other. This is how sound waves may be carried great distance riding on electromagnetic waves and reconverted back in to sound at some distant place. Its technical name is - radio.

Yes, but you need a radio transmitter for that - you need special gear at the source.

I am referring to a passive system, involving naturally emmitting light radiation (infrared light due to heat loss) from the source object. I am curious if the sound vibrations from within the source object could induce this condition naturally in the infrared light waves it is emmitting.

Would there be a micro-effect of the vibrations causing alternating red-blue shift in the light waves, that could be deconstructed to reconstitute the original sounds that induced them?

Wait, that's well said, but a movie about the danger of dehumanizing your enemy is excusing terrorism? I'm greatly confused.

To express the dangers of dehumanizing your enemy you have to show your enemy's human side, which induces sympathy, and because many people view the world in a very strong absolute good/evil/right/wrong manner, may loose perspective on the original crimes of terror.

Many contend OJ Simpson got away with murder, because the jury saw racism and potentially planted evidence on the part of the police.

Personally though, I think its important to challenge people to see the shades of gray whenever possible, though I haven't yet seen this film.

what idea seems to YOU to have the most potential for danger?

In God We Trust

Sound will not propagate through a vacuum. Sound is defined as mechanical vibrations propagating through a medium. No medium, no sound.

I am aware of that element.

Infrared heat/light does though, and since sound induces vibrations in the mediums that radiate infrared light, could the disturbance in the stream of photons that are caused by the vibrations sound induces in the medium be detected and used to reconstruct the causative sound waves?

You can "see" a tuning fork vibrate even though its in a vacuum chamber - could the correct detection equipment recontruct the tone from observing the fluxuations in the light bouncing off that tuning fork?

I have no idea if this is ludicrous or not - I don't know anything about the underlying science.

I am curious, about the ability to passively detect sound through a vacuum like space through the aid of specific devices.

In short, if you had a metal module in space, with mechanical elements clanking away within it, and it is radiating infra-red heat, could the disturbances and minute vibrations that the sound waves were causing in the metal structure of the module be detected remotely with correct sensory equipment to detect the fluxuations via the light radiation and reproduce the sounds through speakers?

I think the problem is there are some Israeli military members that believe genocide and indiscrimenant use of force is the only solution, just as some palestinian leaders believe the same against the Israelis is the only solution.

The more the violence escalates, the more people with that line of thinking become influencial, because its easier to dehumanize the opposing side as the violence and brutality escalates.

Getting hung up on which side deserved to be dehumanized more is a route that cannot help to understand the problem better, nor rationally lead towards solutions.

Its a bloody mess in the truest sense of the term, but most people on both sides just want to be able to live their lives without fear of being victimized, and don't know how to achieve that.

I am sure if this was going on in the US, and terrorists were hiding and launching attacks in Connecticut, that citizens would be more than a bit upset if as many accidental civillian deaths were occuring in the process of hunting them down.

That said, the palestinian terrorists are not going out of their way to avoid civilian palestinian deaths - they are often hiding in very densely populated areas, creating a nightmare for the Israelis trying to pursue them without innocent casualties.

Again, I am pretty sure most Israelis including those in the military do not want civilian palestinian deaths as they feel it can only worsen the divide, and some others believe that enough civilian deaths can "bludgeon" and break the palestinians as a whole into submission.

In the end you can't get sucked into the conflict on these terms, the Israelis will never crush the militants militarily nor will the militants ever influence Israeli policy in the manner they want via acts of terrorism. Every bombing is criminal and the Israelis have to deal with it militarily, and as long as there are Palestinians that feel the Israelis won't let them live as people, they will keep attacking.

Until people on both sides believe that progress is hurt by the widescale violence more than they believe the escalators can beat the other side into submission, there will not be advancement towards a resolution.

Padren' date=' asking "why healthcare should not be universal" places a false premise of the position which you oppose. They're not saying healthcare should not be universally available. On the contrary, they believe that it absolutely should be [i']available[/i] to absolutely everyone.

I do think we are limiting it to everyone in this country, not that visitors can wander in from anywhere and get state of the art cancer treatment for free.

Personally I wouldn't use the term "right" myself, but its a matter of symantics, because I do believe healthcare merit should not be tied to personal savings or ability to get into debt, and we should as a nation do our reasonable best to ensure everyone gets medical attention they need regardless of financial position.

You just want to use a different yardstick for determining that availability than they do. They want it based on ability to pay. You want it based on need' date=' and you really don't want to have to think about payment. The coffers are big, and people are suffering, and people who think about things like money are just being heartless and cruel.

 

Funny, that's almost exactly what they say about you.

[/quote']

 

 

I am very aware that many on the right think many on the left are heartless, cruel, elitist vampires. Honestly I don't care much for what they say about me.

 

 

I would like to point out, I don't for one second think it would be more expensive to run a healthcare system that provides healthcare to everyone, than the system we have now. Sick people cost this country even when they are denied service, often they cost more. People go to jail to get their cancer treated, people loose productivity, and people avoid getting checkups until problems become much more expensive, due to the problems with the current system. We can argue which is more expensive, but that is a secondary debate. I am just clarifying I would be surprised if the cost was higher in a universal system, especially with societal costs factored.

 

Nor are we talking about spending a billion dollars per patient just because a billion dollars could so something benefitial for their health.

 

Is national defense a right?

If you have the right to expect a national military to defend your country, does that mean you have the right to have 15 aircraft carriers defend your beachfront home 24/7?

 

Of course not, we are only talking about the right to access of reasonable services as opposed to being denied any service out of convienence to the provider.

 

 

After all' date=' who wants to live in a society where some dictatorial government decides whether you live or die?

[/quote']

Do we get to vote on if the President uses the football?

You want the latest medical treatment? Better meet society's dictated norms. Better be politically correct. Better be in an industry the government approves of. Better not question the wrong people. Better not inquire about the wrong things. Better toe the line. Or else.

My word this sort of thing makes me rather sick. I'd love to debate the whiney spongey easily offended politically correcties and their narrow view of approved industries and social order' date=' but the thin skins of conservatives is not what this thread is about.

 

Do you really think for a second that any healthcare provider will descriminate against you and not provide healthcare?

The point of a federal system would be to streamline the process, not [i']increase[/i] the costs by poking through a patient's work history and voting records.

Could you imagine the lawsuit that would result? Imagine a student being kept out of a University because they are contraversial - there would be a total fiasco, and thats only a government funded institution.

What a horrible thought' date=' this idea that people would actually determine whether they get the latest medical care through their OWN actions and efforts. Gosh, what a horrible thing that is! Such people must be "conservatives" and "libertarians", issuing mere "diatribes"! They can't possibly be saying anything useful or intelligent.

[/quote']

 

Who ever said they can't say anything intelligent?

Seriously, where did you get that idea?

I only stated the quoted OP referenced was a diatribe and did not talk about anything to do with real healthcare costs - and frankly when something has no intellectual value, I can call it as such.

 

Should I do the politically correct thing, and say "oh, its an opposing view, so everything that is must have merit" for fear of offending someone? Am I being too politically incorrect for your taste?

 

If you feel that I dismissed the opening text out of hand without observing the merits it had, please, point out what I missed.

 

Name one thing it says that is intelligent, for bonus points, list more than one thing that lifts it above a meritless diatribe.

 

Secondary thought:

I am all for market driven solutions. I think market pressure to do better, to get a bigger house, live in a better area, see more of the world, are all important things. Market pressures to be able to get regular medical care is not something I feel should fall into that category.

Is a person who works 60 hrs a week, less deserving than a trust fund baby living in an ivory tower when it comes to medical attention? Cleaning motel rooms for instance, is no less vital to the total success of the economy than pressing sheet metal or running global corporations, so why should someone working 60 hrs a week have no health care benefits simply because market pressures allow them to be passed up for such?

Now here's an alternative thought: Is it really so hard to see the "good" in both positions? To find some common ground' date=' instead of demonizing one's enemy, and look for a place where you can build on your common desires and construct a better future?

[/quote']

Thats my general MO, and as I said I respect the opposing positions on the topic, and even mentioned I don't feel they are out of heartlessness. I do think they are flawed arguments - which is a fact I have no control over, and can't appologize for.

Anyway' date=' I happen to share your view, but as I've pointed out here, your position is not the sweetness and light you'd like for it to be. There is a cost to YOUR generosity -- the bill that arrives in MY mailbox that I'm not allowed to refuse. I happen to think that that price is worth it. But I'm not going to pretend that there isn't a price.[/quote']

 

It arrives in my mailbox too, perhaps even more than in your own. I would never contend there is no price, most people do not use the argument "free healthcare" when arguing for such a system. Those that do frankly make me want to smack them. I am not interested in getting anything for "free" I just want to get what I pay for. If you pay your heath insurance provider for ten long years, never using a dime, then you get diabetes, if you happen to be using blue cross, you can never move out of state without loosing your diabetes coverage. Thats because even though they will transfer your policy to a different Blue Cross provider, anything you have is a pre-existing condition according to Blue Cross provider by the state you move to. They will not disclose that fact unless asked, but you'll have to pay for all your diabetes out of pocket when you get settled. Whether diabetes or any condition, you become a serf of the state effectively if you want to get anything out of what you paid in for ten long years.

Do you really think the government would be less fair than that?

I see an awful lot of guilt-by-association and dissection going on in the above post, and not a whole lot of answering the questions raised. I don't think suggesting hidden motives and ignoring valid arguments is the best way to address the healthcare crisis in this country.

The question raised was not about the healthcare crisis or how to address it it was:

Why do some people think others arent entitled to good health when they need it

That is what I wanted to address - there's isn't any guilt by association just an examination of some points of view.

As for the writing by Leonard Peikoff, its a complete diatribe. It lists lots of scarey problems threatening America, without providing any basis for any of their validity or cause, then once it pumps up the emotion it moves on to blame government for inflated health-care costs again without giving basis, and then makes room to demonize the government's means of aquisition.

As for the actual question raised in the OP, the reasons I mentioned are the ones I've heard, and so far I've only heard conservative/libertarian reasons given for why healthcare should not be universal.

That "healthcare is not a right" has very little to do with the topic of healthcare and has a lot more to do with peppering a statement with as many emotional hooks to resonate with a select group of people as much as possible.

[1] we are seeing the rise of principled immorality in this country.[2] We are seeing a total abandonment by the intellectuals and the politicians of the moral principles on which the U.S. was founded.[3] We are seeing the complete destruction of the concept of rights.[4] The original American idea has been virtually wiped out, ignored as if it had never existed.[5] The rule now is for politicians to ignore and violate men's actual rights, while arguing about a whole list of rights never dreamed of in this country's founding documents -- rights which require no earning, no effort, no action at all on the part of the recipient.

1) We are endangered.

2) What was ours first is endangered

3) We are endangered!

4) What was ours first is endangered!!

5) We are endangered, and what was ours first is endangered!!!

If those ideas resonate with your views, you should be worked up enough to buy the BS about healthcare in the second paragraph...

And let me say I am not contending this is a specifically conservative instrument when it is definately used by various people on all sides

I think most people who are against universal healthcare are afraid the abuses would cost society so much that people are better off with free market solutions. That, and the conservative view point seems to hold that those without healthcare now need hardline welfare to work programs to make them productive enough to afford private healthcare.

Though I think the precepts that lead to that conclusion are flawed, I suspect in most cases people believe in them and are not trying to be heartless.

On the bankruptcy note, I recall reading in the paper somewhere, where people do declare bankruptcy due to medical costs, 25% of those had insurance at the time they became ill. I think private healthcare is currently as abhorent as private utilities, where private corporations gain local monopolies on essential services people need to survive.

If I understand what you are saying, matter in the universe "repels" itself by one force, similar to like-charged elements, and we measure gravity as the slim net degree by which it is stronger?

If that is the case, then this lesser expansive force must also have the same x/d^2 factor that gravity has to maintain a constant net difference, or one of the forces would become more dominate at some distance.

That may be totally off, especially if you differeniate that some areas are expanding while others are contracting due to enough matter within a region which implies these two forces are not perfectly syched and balanced.

All the reference frame stuff is over my head.

His account reads "suspended" now so this may be useless but:

1) Take your paper, mail it to yourself by certified mail, do not open it, and place in a safety security box. If it becomes an issue, you can prove in court you wrote the original document by a certian date by having it opened in the presense of a judge overseeing the dispute. At least I think that works in Canada as a "poor man's copyright" and should give you basic protections I'd assume in the US too.

2) The fear of having an idea stolen is often the fear of having it torn apart in disguise. I invented lots of stuff when I was young, but all of which exceptionally basic. I "thought about inventing" many other things from perpetual motion machines to submersibles to rail gun systems etc, around when I was 12 or so I guess. In other words I drafted plans and schematics but never produced functional prototypes, and there is a huge difference between that and inventing stuff.

I assure you, when you say you "invented" a perpetual motion based car, you did no such thing. Either you don't understand the word "invent" or the term "perpetual motion" or you are just lying.

I am not saying brilliance cannot come about in humble ways, Tesla was apparently mocked and told he had dreamed up a perpetual motion machine that could never work by his professor when he designed the basic alternating current motor we still use today.

That said, beware the seduction of "seeing how things click" in your head as a sign of understanding how things simply work dispite a lack of education in a field. Chances are, its an abomnination that would make M.C. Esher pale.

The devil is in the details, and its brutally hard to get anything at all to work in this rather unforgiving physical universe. If you want to see it in practice, build an actual prototype of anything you've designed. Or, if you don't have the economic situation to do so, get into software design. Its free, only costs you time and research, and is a great example of how much the details can bog you down.

That Mail on Sunday article seems to describe the worst case senario pretty well.

If done right, I have no problem with it morally.

If you would ban a service like this, then would you have to arrest a women who has a one-night stand to get pregnant?

IMO, a bad father can be far worse than no father, and there are far greater disadvantages you can impart on a child.

Statistically, poverty is far more likely to be deleterious than being raised by a wealthy single mother. Should we ban the poor, ban alcoholics, or no good dirty liberals from having and messing up kids?

The only way any society can survive is if stability is emergent, not designed. Social engineering schemes always give me chills. (side note rant: I find ulta-conservatives who hate liberals like me are always the ones that seem to think we should encourage marriage to provide type-A family units etc, ban gay marriage due to its lack of such a contribution etc, and are the largest closet socialists I've ever run across. /rant)

Personally, I do think it would be worth government oversight to ensure such businesses do keep full medical records, and have a donor ID number that can allow the child not to track the parent, but ensure the person they may marry does not have the same donor ID number.

It would be fair too to keep the ID number so that if the donor later in life gets various genetic illnesses that could not be detected earlier, that without the identity, that the child could be informed of the medical history which can strongly influence what medical plans will be willing to pay to test for routinely in the child.

Regulations though would limit the financial options for people, but it is a medical situation with long term health implications for both the buying party and a third party not-yet-concieved individual, so I definately think the health angle needs to be covered.

Well, there really is no reason for corporate adoption to even be a factor. Truman could have been Christof's own son for all intesive purposes in the movie, without it making a difference.

You could propose the child is being forced to work, due to being on the TV set 24 hrs a day. If it was filmed in the Caymen Islands or somewhere such things were legal, it would still likely make US TV. We don't let 8 yr olds make our T-shirts here, but we sure do wear the ones made in India without thinking twice.

Also, you can teach your child that the universe was created by monsterous pasta, that foo ball is the work of the devil, and even to hate people with different skin.

In a legal sense, I can't see any reason such a thing could not exist, because we outlaw acts, not intentions, and we allow people to do horrible things to the minds of their children due to twisted yet well intended lies and manipulation.

In a moral sense, I'd say it should never be done, because I honestly don't think a person can gain a meaningful understanding of the world. How messed up would a person be if they spent years taking bad actors at face value? We need to be exposed to honesty and deciect to learn, often the hard way, if someone wants to harm or take advantage of us. Being deprived of that to me, would be as chilling as getting a labotomy.

Some animals will eat until they die, others got successful enough at gaining food sources they had to evolve to survive large quantities of food.

If given the opportunity, most men will not have sex to the point of fatal physical exhaustion, (though I do have friends that I'd wonder about) but we do see narcodic addictions that effectively kill people.

In the end, even if humans underwent mass extinctions from over satisfying the pleasure responses, would the result be better for human kind? Would it require genetic evolution or could some humans already be geared in such a way that they would surivive this well, resulting in a humanity that was not obsessed with pleasure seeking but also not lacking it?

As for its current implications, I'd say slavery is a huge risk factor. Also, constant repetition is never good, carpel tunnel etc proves even the most mundane harmless things when repeated too long can cause injury.

I have a hard time telling people what they can't do, I'd only like to see that if it was allowed, that it not be controlled by mega corps in a highly regulated manner, but was very easily accessible by adults.

The dangers of everyone using it would be far less than the dangers of people jumping through the hoops of a select few for just a controlled taste.

The orphids consume all matter/energy in their particular universe pocket thingy and turn it into consciousness.

I am a bit curious, if you mean that the basis of thermodynamics is overcome in this state? By which I mean, to achieve any effect, energy is expended in some round about way to achieve the outcome, in a less than 100% effecient manner.

Another issue I can't help but to wonder about, is uncertainty in decision making. Lets say the singular conciousness is contemplating how to deal with some regional potential catastrophe. Various solutions are computed and compared, many mutually exclusive, without the time to reconcile them all before the conscious units in that region are destroyed by the impending catastrophe.

Lets say if A is right, solution B would result in destruction, and visa versa. Then, the units that presented A, could consider the units presenting B as a threat themselves, since they would be trying to enact a solution that would lead to destruction.

Basically, I am wondering how vast any consciousness can be, especially when the organism can function as seperate conscious units. We can choose to undergo brain surgery and remove a portion of our own brain, but if we had to achieve a consensus with millions of units that would be aware of their own extermination, it could be more difficult to resolve.

Lastly, (after writing several paragraphs and deleting them because I am up way too late) I at first didn't but now think consciousness may allow for the universe to be destroyed, but it is ultimately a natural process, and either is or is not possible, based on how things have unfolded since the first moments of the big bang.

Its pretty hard to conceptualise the ways the universe may end, but then the fact it ever started to begin at all has always irked me to some degree.

I suspect psychologically it has risks, like many things do, to be an over used crutch. What I mean is, if a person avoids actual social contact and withdraws into porn based personal fantasies, then I could see it as an issue.

Its not unlike people who watch tons of TV to conpensate for a social void.

Also, for most of us, we know exactly how to seperate what is fantasy/unreal vs reality, but if someone had almost no actual personal social sexual experiences, I could see porn potentially having a negative impact there (that could lead to high expectations in very bad pick up lines and confusion with pizza delivery personel.)

But those are generalizations of risks that could occur in some circumstances, not to be confused with actually likely problems.

Another thought, if a person has trouble meeting members of the opposite sex, to the extent they blame them for his own inadequecies and builds general resentment, I could see how porn could agitate or amplify the building cycle of rejection and resentment, but again this is just as an agitating factor in individual that already has problems.

I suspect most people are rather healthy and subseqently would not be harmed by it.

If you want' date=' think of it as just a semantic verbal thing. when I say EXPAND that is what I mean, like the raisinbread dough is rising and the raisins are getting farther apart----and I dont care whether the dough is infinite or finite, I just look at a local bit of it and I see it is expanding.

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That would require interaction out from some source right? I mean, a ripple effect, spreading at some finite speed no larger than c, pushing the raisins farther apart, but taking an Exceptionally Long Time to reach Really Far Away and would never impact anything at Infinity And Beyond...

 

Oi my brain hurts.

 

Ok, I don't know a lot about this topic but I have to ask about infinite space, since there is something that just doesn't sit right with me.

 

If I have a red object and a blue object, there is some sequence of cause and effect that led to the different colorations, and for any two anythings to have distinct characteristics, those objects must have some distinct property that is either red or blue in this case.

Some difference in the energy that created the two objects was required to create the difference between the two.

 

The reason I am mentioning this, is because when you have space, I can hold a hotdog 2 feet from me or 3 feet from me, and to me, that tells me there is a difference in the space at 2 feet and at 3 feet - that the space there has quantifiable differences (like blue or red), and it must have taken energy to create that difference.

To create infinite space, in my mind, would be like something creating enough atoms for infinite mass to exist, which would never make sense in terms of cause and effect, because it would take an infinite amount of energy to make an infinite number of particles with unique attributes and some quanta of mass, and probably an infinite amount of time.

 

If this is the sort of question that I wouldn't ask if I was more well read - can you recommend any good books? I find it somewhat perplexing.