noz92

Violent video games may make children more aggressive (although, we wouldn't really know, seeing as how they didn't test children with violent video games), but now the question is how much of an affect does this aggression have on their actions? It would appear that it would have no affect (based on the U.S. Department of Justice--although I would criticize that it only gives violent crimes, which does not include legal forms of homicide, such as war). Naturally, violent children are attracted to violent media, but the question is whether or not the violent media makes them violent.

What I mean is that we have a sense for what is alive, but whenever we try to put a definition to it, it excludes things that we considered alive. What is the difference between the first living cell and its parent? Where does life begin? When you get to the beginning of life (or the end of life, as in the case of viruses), you can't draw a definite line separating life from "almost-life".

I collected some data online (it is from 2005) that I think can discredit the fears many parents have about video games inspiring violence: 69.0% of Americans play video games 31.0% of American gamers are less than 18 years old 15.0% of video games sold in the United States were rated M (mature) by the ESRB Video games first widely became a public form of entertainment in 1971 The rate at which violent crimes are committed decreased radically from 1973 (the best date I could effortlessly find) to 2005, when they reached their lowest ever Essentially, the rate at which violent crimes have occurred has decreased despite the growth in the popularity of video and computer games. I doubt that there is a significant correlation between the two, but it shows that video games have not contributed to any violent crimes significantly. Basic logic that shows this is that, since most people only hear about a handful of possibly video game inspired crimes each year, and news media typically only cover stories which are not common, it follows that, since you hear about it, they must not be very common (especially considering the 6 billion people on Earth, with only two or three violent crimes inspired by video games each year, clearly they offer no significant threat to human life). This data is from http://www.theesa.com/archives/files/Essential%20Facts%202006.pdf, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/viortrdtab.htm.

I don't know how young "very young" is, but it's possible that the effects of the video games may not necessarily be from the video games directly. His actions and his gaming history may be caused by the same thing. My theory is that people who show violence (on any level, whether it be your friend or the kid who brings a gun into school) and play violent video games probably have a reason for both, probably similar. It's possible that the reason he talks the way he does is not because of the game, but possibly his upbringing (after all, his parents allowed him to get the game), or, while probably not valid in your friend, but in the case of the murderer, there is probably something else in his life that gives him the violent thoughts (a certain type of stress, maybe), and this is both the reason he buys and enjoys the violent video games and the reason he eventually kills people.

But how does giving a definition to something that, at least as far as nature is concerned, doesn't exist (by this I mean there really is no difference between actual "life" and other "life-like" materials, at least as far as the beginning of life is concerned) important to medicine and biology? After all, we design medicines based on who will be using it (i.e. it is designed for humans), and biologists study more than just "life" (most biologists would not consider a virus alive, but isn't its study still apart of biology?

I think the question of "what is life?" is somewhat irrelevant. We like to think ourselves special, but in reality, we are simply part of a multi-billion year chemical reaction. Where does chemistry end and biology begin? Any definition of life that you can produce was invented recently and retrospectively applied to things that already fit a subconscious definition of life that we already have (i.e. we know life when we see it). Like other concepts which we cannot come up with an exact definition for, it probably isn't real. I don't think life is necessarily different other chemicals on a literal level (it is different on a philosophical level, but philosophy is also man made).

It says it just has to be "capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution." As long as, given the opportunity, it could evolve, I think it meets that criteria. How can life be energy?

Even if you assume "life energy" to exist, it is usually said to be present in nonliving things, such as water.

That's what I thought, but then I got confused by the "life=energy", which sounds more philosophical.

Are we talking about a technical definition of life or a philosophical one?

Why does the definition of life need to be complex. There are plenty of definitions built around life on Earth--stuff that we already know is alive, and any definition we give has to allow them to be considered life--but what about new forms of life, such as any form of life that has evolved independently of us (i.e. it does not share a common ancestor with us; for example alien life). I think the definition of life needs to be very simple, as anything more complex would exclude things that really are "alive" from the definition of life.

The NASA definition of life: "Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution."

Who says the dinosaurs were smart enough not to destroy thier own enviroment. If they did, it would certainly explain the climate change between the mesazoic era and the current ( ) My dad says jokingly that the dinosaurs died from smoking, but I think that would be an example of intelligence killing itself off. Perhaps the dinosaurs went through the same problems that we're going through (such as global warming--or cooling in the case of the dinosaurs) that could have been there fualt. However unlikely this may be, you can't eliminate it as a possibility until you have actual evidence that it's false.

The most massive parts would become the center of gravity. The rest would flow around the massive parts and the most dense parts would sink to the center while the least dense parts would stay at the top. The pressure from the rest of the planet holds the center in the center and keeps the most massive part of the planet in the center. Sorry if I didn't explain my theory well enough.

Most planets begin as a bunch of asteroids that collide and form molten material that is held together by gravity. Because gravity pulls in every direction, the molten planet just forms in a sphere around its center of gravity. At least that's my guess.

So when would animal life have actually moved up on land?

I understand that life is believed to come from the ocean--land life is supposed to have come from a species of fish-like animals that crawled up on land one day probably to escape predators. I have ideas for why certain parts of land creatures would have evolved--for example, arms and legs would have been very useful for maneuvering through plants in the water, useful for hiding from predators--but other parts I don't understand how they could have been useful in the water--for example, the first land creatures obviously were able to breath on land, but what use would that have had in the Carboniferous seas?

Imagining Other Dimensions This is a site I was looking at recently. It talks about us imagining multiple spatial dimensions. It bases it off of the book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott. I know the book sounds kind of dumb (A romance of many dimensions? Come on!), but it describes a square from a 2-D world visiting our 3-D world. He's visited by a sphere who tries to describe his 3-D world by explaining up and down. But the square confuses this concept with back and forward.

My file searches havn't been working for the past few months.

Okay, now there's a problem. The downloads that InovFX gave me. I tried downloading the Visual Basic one, but I can't find it on my computer. Whenever I try to redownoad it, It just says that I've already downloaded the file.

I believe in many different cryptozoological creatures, such as bigfoot. Some creatures' evolutionary history seems strange. For example, the Animal Planet did a show on the existence of dragons. I never actually watched it, but my friend and I were discussing it. During this discussion one of us asked how they would get they're wings. In animals such as birds, the wings come from arms, but with creatures like this already have four legs. We could't name a single vertibate that has six legs. Where would wings come from on creatures like this?

I've learned a little bit of BASIC, but every program I use as a different version of BASIC, and all the tutorials I find on the internet are for Microsofts QBasic. I looked on Microsofts download page for QBasic, but the page doesn't exist anymore. Can I still download QBasic, or do I have to buy it?

I think it's down. Again!

Well, eventually all of the mortals would die out, and all that would be left is immortals. So eventually, everybody would be immortal, unnfortunatly, what if the immortals reproduce. The world would be too crowded. But, then again, planetary exploration would be a lot esier. You would never have to worry about a planet not being habbitable.