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questionposter

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  1. LOL. You are just going by the existing evidence. I mean by calculation?

     

    Astronomers cannot observe a boundary to the universe and therefore have no choice but to scientifically accept it as not having a boundary until proven otherwise.

  2. OK. I'll bite.

    Do you how much time that would take?

     

    In an infinitely large universe that possibly didn't have a real beginning or end, it doesn't really matter. Though based on our knowledge, I would say it takes 13.7 billion years if that is in fact about how long ago the matter we see around us was created.

  3. What ever you do, don't feed the gator, that is very dangerous, the gator will start to associate humans with food and will eventually attack.... When that happens here they have to be put down before they become dangerous.

     

    I thought about that too, for a long while, but still took that risk since it seemed kind of more improbable that things would actually play out so specifically to how I happen to imagine them being, and I always carry a rather sharp knife with me in the wilderness anyway and a pocket knife in looser places, but the knife is bought and made from obsidian, 500 times sharper than surgical steel (though not as durable), and I have a special type of case just for it, it's what Native Americans used, which is who I bought it from, but it seems many animals aren't actually aggressive or impulsive like that, they are just trying to get by, enjoy life, avoid major conflict, etc. I don't know if that's the reason it returned later at times even though it had occasionally come around prior to that, I hadn't given it anything since or I would be increasing the risk of what you had said. With that though, I actually don't see much of a difference with that and with other animals, because my dogs aren't trying to eat me, the cats aren't trying to eat me, the dolphin I fed didn't try to eat me. But, I guess those are all mammals, so perhaps there is that type of a difference with reptiles, but it doesn't seem like based on what I've seen with other reptiles.

    Actually my grandparents use to own like 65 animals, literally, including iguanas, but I guess iguanas are a bit more passive than alligators.

  4. The universe exits. It exists with billions of galaxies in it with billions of solar systems and untold number of planets. Stars had to go supernova billions of years ago for the elements that created you to exist. You just so happen to live on one planet that is perfectly tuned for life. And you are part of a species that has evolved to a level to put satellites into orbit and create satellite broadcasts.

     

    And you are looking for miracles?

     

    But that's just probability. Given enough time, anything can happen. There are soooooooooooo many galaxies and so much matter that there was bound to someday be a planet that could support life, and then eventually have it. In fact, it's possible the universe itself is infinite in size and contains matter, which practically assures life will exist.

  5. Proof denies faith, and without faith, god is nothing. He needs to keep people believing in him so he can exist, so he occasionally performs miracles upon request!

    There actually was one guy stupid enough to go out on a lake "which is relatively flat" during a thunderstorm, and said something like "Give it your best shot God!" while standing straight up, and sure enough, he got struck by lightning and died. Though, that can still be explained scientifically, but it's like the stupidest thing I could ever think of because not only are you challenging nature, your challenging god, both at the same time, and when there's no where to run to.

  6. Oh, you would think that cats and basset hounds wouldn't mix well but one cat I had always smacked the crap out of the dogs when they were puppies and from then on they would walk around a room to keep from passing near the cat. The cat would sleep curled up with the dogs, they were terrified to get up until the cat did, lol

    I actually haven't seem a conflict with cats and dogs throughout much of my life, I've mostly seen cats and dogs get along. Perhaps at first there's a fight, but then both don't actually bother each other when they come near after they get use to each other. The dogs I take care of I think notice that I'm not really aggressive towards other animals on my property too.

     

     

     

     

    You said dogs but dogs tend to bark at alligators and since the alligator doesn't move they get closer and closer and bark louder and louder until they get close enough and the dog stops barking and the alligator eats... I doubt a cat would mess with an alligator, cats are either smarter or not as flamboyant as dogs....

    I have two dogs, but they aren't stray, the cats are, and both the cats and dogs know to stay away from the alligator, and again another thing that's different to me, because as far as I've seen dogs are pretty smart too, and it's often cats I considered not as smart even if they are more cunning.

    If I did see the dogs or cats getting closer I'd probably just throw a piece of meat in the opposite direction behind the alligator, and it's not very often that it visits either, if it was a real problem I would build a wooden fence or just move.

  7. Alligators usually take care of the stray dog problem around here, they are like dog magnets....

     

    They do? Did you even see that youtube video of a cat staring down an alligator?

     

    No, it seems that despite how fast they can react that many reptiles are slow moving and don't want to expend energy unnecessarily unless it's actually necessarily to get food. It's not that many alligators either, just a stray one from I guess a swamp about a mile away for some reason, and actually it's a couple stray cats that visit, not dogs, and it didn't seem particularly aggressive but I wouldn't really mess with it. But there's a lot of wilderness around so I guess the alligator doesn't actually have to worry about that much about getting run over or anything. Perhaps it smells something, though I don't know how good it's sense of smell is. It's actually quite odd to just one day find it on the property.

  8. While I do have dogs that were passed down to me from previous owners, I also have a different type of relation with local animals, where they seem to rely on me occasionally for food and can come into my house without much trouble being caused, but are not a pet to anyone. Although, the alligator hasn't actually come into my house, but has been on my property, but it's more of a passive type, which is good. It's sort of fun having a bunch of animals around, there's often something different to see every two days.

  9. I understand. God's time vs our time, parable vs poetry vs exactly as it happened, etc is a toughie.

     

    That's why it is important to read the whole thing. Without skipping around at least one time.

    I know that it takes a LOT of time and effort, unless you are Phi for All :blink: .

    And if you are not a Christian, you're saying to yourself, why bother.

     

    Well, there's two people who have read the whole thing, yet they have disagreement on it, even about whether or not the events in them are real. Obviously, not everything makes sense in it if there is such disagreement.

  10. Inow,

     

    I suppose any point that attempts to explain faith in God as a "natural" "social" endeavor, would tend to be moot, if one has already decided that faith in an "unreal" thing is already a sign that your personhood is flawed in some manner (broken). But this is a discussion as to whether or not faith in a supernatural being is to be considered broken, so points leading in the direction of explaining such in a real, actual, verifyable understandable way might be moot for the prosecution, but quite required for the defense.

     

    For instance. I have already decided that there is nothing that exists in this universe, this reality, that is supernatural. For me, saying something exists that is supernatural in nature, is a statement initially flawed in its construction. Because you CAN'T have something real that is not real. The only place you can have a supernatural thing, (like an Easter Bunny) is in your imagination. If it existed other than in your imagination, it would not be supernatural, it would be natural, it would be real, it would exist as a real entity that had to fit with everything else, that is real. If this supernatural thing did not have an effect on, and was not affected by, reality, then it would have no claim on any existence in this reality. So to me, the statement that a religious person makes, that God is supernatural, is an admission that God does not "really" exist in the universe, but exists only in the one place supernatural things can actually reside. Our imaginations.

     

    With this initial assumption on my part, I take for granted that any explanation of the nature of God, for real, an explanation that would be factual, and true, would be an explanation that parsed the idea into those things that exist outside the head and those things that exist inside the head. Unfortunately I have no way of thinking anything, that is not inside my head. So I have to give the status of my predicament to some other mind, so I can talk the situation over.

     

    But we had this communication between minds, way before the scientific method was established as "a better way" to determine fact. We have had language for quite a while. We have had words that express mutual ideas. And one of those words is God. It is not required that the meaning behind the word have an actual body, but it is a handy analogy. The hand of god, the mind of god, god is angry, its up to god and so forth, have meanings that can be mutually understood between two humans...until you actually ask whether or not the hand is manicured, or how many fingers it has, or whether it is attached to an arm, and ask what color the sleeve is and what material its made of. If it is to be an actual term that is understood between two people, the understanding has to be either of a figurative nature, reflecting an actual real condition, or a mutualy agreed upon "supernatural" thing that you will together take as a literal fact. Problem with the second way, is it is only understandable to someone else with the same notion, which makes it very difficult word to use in the presence of someone else, who does not know your lingo. Who is not schooled in your particular agreements as to the nature of this "supernatural" thing.

     

    But I do not think having a private language, and private agreements is all that broken or unnatural. Like the border between Canada and the United States, that can be very real to every human on the planet, but COMPLETELY SUPERNATURAL to a fish that swims across the line.

     

    Regards, TAR2

     

    Supernatural I think means "above" nature, as in something supernatural doesn't follow evolution or can't be explained by our current knowledge or doesn't have normal things that you would often find in nature, and faith in god isn't illogical, there's just not a lot of actual evidence to support the existence of god.

    For instance, lightning was considered super-natural before people started seeing patterns in it and eventually discovered it was plasma. But, I don't think we will be able to ever conclude any discoveries about god.

  11. The effects of CO2 are local. one local gas fire, one local car, one local lorry, but they all add up.

     

    The wind farms in the study are not the only wind farms in the world you know.

     

    What about the local effect of the other 100,000 wind farms, and more planned?

     

    I am not familiar with wind farms causing global warming, do you have any good links? The first article wasn't very good, it simply stated "that" wind farms were being built, not how much CO2 they release or how many joules of energy it takes to power them.

     

    And let's' face it wind farms do not produce a lot of energy.

     

     

     

    In the USA for example wind power makes less than 3% of the electricity used.

     

    By that logic though I could argue nuclear reactors don't release a lot of energy simply because a majority of the country relies on coal instead, even though Japan recently almost had a meltdown. With wind farms, the issue isn't necessarily efficiency, it's coal and gas companies lobbying. It's not good to be too dependent on any one source.

  12. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense read randomly.

    I used to do that.

    But reading it in such a manner makes it difficult, change that to impossible, to distinguish the parables from the poetry and stories that meant to be taken directly (perhaps what you call "rational").

    It also makes it impossible to see, for example, how Genesis ties in with Exodus, Daniel and Isiah and the whole New Testament, etc.

    I didn't read it out of order, I read parts of stories I felt I had time for, then moved to the next story the next day, and while I find the stories entertaining, some of it was just too entertaining, that kind of amazing stuff just doesn't happen in reality.

     

    We also can't verify if the stories in the bible are true, so I don't see how it counts as evidence, unless someone associated with it's makings has been alive all this time and could share what had happened.

    It's the same type of thing with other religions. Other religions like those of Native American tribes claim evidence that the knowledge has been passed down without altercation from generation to generation, yet predict things like giant turtles giving birth to the Earth.

    It's a similar thing with the Aborigines in Australia who claim they are not descended from ancestors in Africa, even though based on current evidence there's no other way they could have gotten there.

  13. Just read this completely and get back to me in a year or so.

    Holy Bible

    Then perhaps we can discuss your doubts intelligently.

    You can't poo poo it if you don't know it.

    I have not read the complete bible, but I have read many parts of it. There are rational stories and rational events, some of which are even based on real events, but that's where I draw the line. There wasn't a boat big enough to house every species at the time, but the Black Sea has only very recently formed in geological time, less than a geological second maybe 12,000 years ago or so. People could have easily drawn "inspiration" from it, as it's existence was rather sudden over the course of a short period of time, but not the rest of the oceans and seas. That big of a boat? Not enough forest in that region for one. Talking snake? They don't possess oral commutative abilities. Sodom being destroyed in some way? Believable and it doesn't take a god to do that. But, how did Jonah not get digested by the whale's stomach acid?

    Even though I think some stories have rational morals, these events don't occur very often, I would say life has a greater chance of forming on a particular planet than some of the events in the bible. There aren't logical reasons for these things to happen other than "some kind of somehow omnipotent being made it happen", which isn't illogical, but there is little physical evidence to support this notion and the results cannot be duplicated it seems.

     

    It amazes me how scientists and pseudo-scientists love to argue about things they know nothing about, yet they immediately try to guard science from non-scientists and non-pseudo-scientists like it is the Holy Grail (pardon the pun...seriously not intended).

    Scientists and psuedo scientists are different, furthermore there is a difference between a "hypothesis" and a "theory". Not only that, but religious scientists exist.

     

     

     

     

    You seem to be implying that we were all made perfectly and that the world (our parents, teachers, siblings, relatives, neighbors, religion, governments, "the man"....etc...) messed us all up?

    Hardly, we are far from perfect in any way (and perfect is a relative term anyway), and that's what you get from randomly mutating DNA.

  14. In the context of this discussion though I suspect a great many of the broken people were not born that way, just broken by someone's hand me down beliefs in their upbringing.

     

    The original aspects of religion aren't "broken", and it's not illogical to like them, because despite all the bad rep by less than a 4th of the population of the planet, religions still have some good values. Without religion, humanity may have never formed a structured society in the first place, no one would see a reason to support each other. With religion, it's not so much about the stories as it is about what the founders of the religions meant. Jesus was most probably a reason person, but I don't think he wanted all gay people to be killed, he was a nice person, and he merely advocated being nice. What's so wrong about that?

    Besides, the things that make someone religious are present in atheists, such as consciousness, emotions, experiences, etc.

  15. I know that over time the concept of IQ has proven to be flawed but it is still popular on television and it has made me intrigued about the highest results ever achieved... Maybe I could profundize on their biographies... I already saw that the person with the highest IQ ever measured achieved great things but not as great as people that have not had their IQ measured... Any psychologist out there knows the 5, 10 or 50 highest results ever and who got them and how high these were? and at which age which they were measured?

     

    I can't point you to anything specific, but the person with the highest IQ in the world I still think is that janitor, and there's also this

    http://www.jeremyperson.com/chris-langan-the-worlds-smartest-man/

     

    I wouldn't be too discouraged by IQ though, I've been on both sides, and IQ isn't useful if you don't have much to do with it, and anything that a person with an extremely higih IQ can do can be done by another person but with more conscious work and/or time put into the process.

  16. If we brought dinosaurs back in a controlled environment for a limited time, and then wiped them out, they would have little to no interaction with the natural environment and the consequences would be commensurate with that interaction. The same principles do not apply to mosquitoes or the malaria they carry. It is, in fact, possible that malaria would evolve into a far more virulent strain in order to find a new way to propagate and far more people wold die per year than if we had just left the situation alone.

     

    What if the mosquitoes seem bad to everyone, because anything that eats them may get infected with malaria if their stomach acid doesn't destroy it fast, and the mosquitoes can transfer it to really any animal, and there seems to be many other bugs to continue the food chain, perhaps enough that if the mosquitoes were gone another species could rise of to take its place but not be so annoying.

    This is for a different topic anyway, this thread as about the ethical/logical question, it doesn't matter if it's a 10-20% false premise, it's about analyzing the ethical course of actions the human race takes.

  17. If we brought dinosaurs back in a controlled environment for a limited time, and then wiped them out, they would have little to no interaction with the natural environment and the consequences would be commensurate with that interaction. The same principles do not apply to mosquitoes or the malaria they carry. It is, in fact, possible that malaria would evolve into a far more virulent strain in order to find a new way to propagate and far more people wold die per year than if we had just left the situation alone.

     

    What if the mosquitoes seem bad to everyone, because anything that eats them may get infected with malaria if their stomach acid doesn't destroy it fast, and the mosquitoes can transfer it to really any animal, and there seems to be many other bugs to continue the food chain, perhaps enough that if the mosquitoes were gone another species could rise of to take its place but not be so annoying.

  18. Questionposter,

     

    post #Why do they deserve a certain standard of living? Just because they are alive? Capitalism presents an opportunity to gain a standard of living based on a persons willingness to succeed. Whereas communism or socialism, you just have to settle for what's given. Who's to say what's recieved will be equal to one's contribution?

    It doesn't really matter really, we can decide whatever system we want to live in, but there's just no concise logical reason to not have high standards of equality other than some rick people would have to lose some money.

     

     

    This was you're reply to Anvars equal living and normal distribution comment in post #4Even if it does happen, how long would it stay that way? Nothing about the current poverty rates says that socialism or communism is better than capitalism. Or that capitalism causes more poverty. http://www.nationmas...ow-poverty-line

    It would stay that way for however long people would like it to or tolerated it. The things wrong with socialism and communism aren't the mathematical systems themselves (as ants show), but rather that they can be taken advantage of by a dictator.

     

     

    In post #9 Jeskill said this:Then in post #12 you said thisWhich wasn't in reply, but the part that I bolded seemed to me to be relevant to what Jeskill had commented on, in that it always seemed to me that it was a self-destructive behavior for someone not striving to utilize the opportunity that is equal to them through capitalism. It is just the feeling sorry for people that don't use this opportunity that most people scream "equality" about. Did that make any sense, or did I bungle it up with the mismatching quotes?

    Over all of your posts I've seen it doesn't surprise me how ignorant (not stupid) you are about the world. Most people don'y say "I want equality" because they are slacking off, they say "I want equality" and are being severely taken advantage of. Do you honestly think thousands of people in Syria happened to not take advantage of some opportunity and at the exact same time? Or do you think it's more logical that they fight every day just to survive and that a dictator is shooting down anyone who opposes? With the US, it use to be something like that during the great depression. People worked hard every day, and got paid less than a dollar a day. How about you try working in a steel factory and seeing how much pay you demand. And this type of thing is still even going on in China with sweatshop workers and it's even worse in Africa where there's literally kids who pick through garbage to make a living because their country is so impoverished. And then there's that whole Rwanda thing where kids are forced into a vicious military and and hooked on crack to disorient them somewhat but keep staying them with the army. And when I said "self destructive" genes, I meant physically self destructive, as in you just happen to be born inside out or born with failed organs or etc. Considering free-will and the variety of thoughts and environments as well as learning capacity, there aren't many "self-destructive" metal genes that would make you not strive for something. And there's no reason to not pity something like that anyway.

     

    You also seem to fail to understand the principals of capitalism itself. Logically, everyone cannot be rich in capitalism. It is mathematically impossible in a capitalistic system. This means there is eventually a point to which even if you work, you will not make it because those slots have already been taken.

  19. The idea of god is slippery to say the least but could our entire biosphere be likened to a colonial organism that is self aware in the way that ants and or termites colonies are aware?

     

    Would such a super organism qualify as being a god?

     

    The Earths biosphere could be alive and even aware in it's own way and trying to control the environment much like our bodies mechanisms control the conditions inside our bodies.

     

    Quite possibly we are the brain of the organism but we are unaware of the over mind which only seeks to live and doesn't care who dies or suffers individually. It could communicate and control it's various parts through viruses and or feed back loops it controls but has no more conscious thoughts than our liver does...

     

    Or maybe we are a cancer that developed in this organism and we are detrimental to it's existence..

     

    While I suppose it is theoretically possible to have a single organism as big as a biosphere, I'd think it would be kind of in-cohesive due to the tremendous reaction time delay at large distances.

    The idea about control seems a little too abstract. Wouldn't we constantly have an immune response? Wouldn't we eventually evolve to develop a resistance to it? How is this organism actually communicating? And why would it control the environment yet allow us to nuke it and have the capability to destroy the entire world a few times over (which we also came close to doing)?

     

    While it is possible individual ant and termites have consciousness, I don't see a way they could be physically connected to act as one organism seeing as how they are always moving around and away from each other.

  20. If you want the thread to follow the OP more closely, please ask more relevant questions. My first reply contains my thoughts on the subject, I realise the OP asks a specific question "Assuming we can wipe out mosquitoes and have no consequences, should we do it?" I couldn't properly answer the question as it's based on a false premise (in reality "no consequences" is improbable in the extreme) and I felt I had to point this out because, if the action is truly without consequences then it would render the question moot.

     

     

     

    It's not nessecerily based on a false premise. Let's say we brought dinosaurs back for a day, then killed them all. Any negative consequences? I'm sure it's possible to encounter circumstances where wiping out a species would have little to no impact upon the global environment.

  21. I understand that the Observable Universe has a radius but the whole universe, not necessarily so...if it has the topology of a Torus , for example, it doesn't have one. Even the example I first gave doesn't have one because only the surface should be considered.

     

    But logically there would be a specific point at which three-dimensional space "loops around". I should be able to say "travel x distance from location A at angle theta before seeing location A and negative angle theta".

    Or at the very least there should be a specific point at which you can be equidistant from the Earths on either side of the loop, and if I shot a photon and it kept going in a straight line, it should travel finite distance before hitting the back of my head.

  22. I ask again, what principle do you think is being violated by a change in the wavelength?

     

    Change? No, it's the lack of change.

    If a photon get's emitted from a source, is the probability of detecting it the same from all frames of reference since energy can only be known after measurement?

    Does relativity just not apply to things when they exist in an unmeasured state?

  23. I guess 1997 isn't terribly out of date, there were particle colliers at that time and even string theory and multiple-worlds theory.

     

    THat article says that the description of a "field" for everything should be banned, not a wave.

     

     

    "the idea came along that in fact one could use quantum field

    theory for everything"

     

    then a couple lines down

     

    "I would like to urge that this

    description should be banned from physics, because a quantum field is not

    a quantized wave function"

     

    It almost sounds like he is saying we shouldn't say things are fields because they don't consider wave-like properties.

     

    Your defending quantum field theory yet the person you support doesn't seem to like it, it just goes to show my point that there are multiple ways to interpret what electrons and protons are, and all those views have their owns strengths and weaknesses. I just particularly like wave mechanics because it gives a better visual for "why" things actually are the way they are, and in many cases quantum wave mechanics can achieve similar results to other theories, at least experimental results, which is what really matters.

  24. The point is that as you are restricting flow through the pipes the boiler will get hotter and hotter.

    The boiler is the earth's surface being heated by the sun, you can't turn it down to stop it over heating

    because of the restricted flow of air/water.

     

    There's more efficient ways to heat water, which is coal and wind and pre-formed waterfalls.

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