MonDie

God obviously isn't omnibenevolent if he's willing to punish people for not worshipping him.

dangle balls dangle balls not dangling today they contract to retain the heat so production sees no delay yay!

wasn't thinking about the "don't ask don't tell" stuff when I made that last post. Sorry about that. I'm thinking about things that could be useful for defending a crowd without being useful to somebody that wants to attack a crowd. It can be done. Moontanman brought up the bright laser pointer early in the thread. For crowd defense, we could make it a super bright flashlight. It might temporarily blind the innocent people, but that's fine as long as the attacker is temporarily blinded. I also heard something about a bean bag gun from my brother, which might have been able to knock over Holmes. The root of the problem is that the trait of being useful to an attacker and the trait of being useful as an attacker supressant tend to go together. If we could design things with the latter trait but not the former, we would have true "good guy" weapons. The key to effectiveness would be variety, so an attacker doesn't know what they'll be up against. Even something similar to tear gas, as long as it's not lethal, could be a good guy weapon. Another problem is that it mustn't be easy to alter them into being bad guy weapons, otherwise an altered weapon could confuse people about who the good guys are.

Oh the irony Let's make all guns available in either hot pink or rainbow. It will be easier for security guards to spot them.

I know it's not a science. If such a correlational were to be found, we would have no idea how to interpret it. Nonetheless, claims of correlation are still testable claims. In an ideal world, we would have the time to test each and every claim, no matter how ridiculous.

In light of the 2012 thing going on, I thought this might catch some interest. When I was a kid, I was interested in astrology. In the time I spent learning it, I learned that there are some commonly accepted ideas that are actually quite silly. If you ever need to disuade someone from accepting astrological claims, you can use these sillynesses to your advantage. #1 Zodiac Duality Astrologers almost universally use the ecliptic as the reference plane for their chosen zodiac (i.e. they use ecliptic longitude). However, many of them disagree about whether sidereal zodiac or the tropical zodiac should be used. The sidereal zodiac is roughly aligned with the constellations along the ecliptic, the tropical zodiac is aligned with the equinoxes. Due to precession of the equinoxes, the zodiacs are not aligned with one another. Many astrologers think both zodiacs have some merit, but nonetheless do not reconcile the contradictions. The contradiction is blatant when tropical astrologers talk about the age of Aquarius. This age transition is marked by the spring equinox (which marks the beginning of Aries in the tropical zodiac) precession into the constellation Aquarius. In other words, from a tropical zodiac perspective, the age of Aquarius begins when the constellation Aquarius begins moving into the tropical sign Aries. Here is the contradiction. When tropical astrologers talk about the ages, they often apply the supposed traits of the tropical signs to the sidereal signs (the constellations). For example, suppose a tropical astrologer associates tropical Aquarius with nonconformity and inventiveness, and suppose they assign tropical Aquarius with the rulers Saturn and Uranus. It is likely that they will apply these same traits and rulerships when they are talking about the age of Aquarius even though the age of Aquarius has nothing to do with the tropical sign Aquarius. This makes the picture uneccessarily muddy. Assuming they accept the modern planet rulerships* (most of them do), does that mean each sign actually has 2 to 4 rulers? Does that mean, if a person's sun sign is Pisces tropically and Aquarius sidereally, they can be described with the traits of Pisces or Aquarius. Does it mean their sun sign is ruled by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune? Many astrologers will deny these conclusions even though they are willing to conflate the two zodiacs when they talk about the age of Aquarius. * "Modern planets" most often refers to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. * In astrology, it is thought that each zodiacal sign is ruled by a planet or planets. Before the modern planets were discovered, each zodiacal sign had only one ruler. More recently, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were each assigned rulership over one of the signs. Now, astrologers who accept these modern rulerships think some signs have two rulers. #2 Celestial Bodies That Lack Empirical Evidence Some astrologers use celestial bodies that don't actually exist. One example is Waldemath's moon. Supposedly, this a dust cloud orbiting Earth. When astrologers are talking about "Lilith," they might be talking about this moon, but "Lilith" may refer to one of three things. Another imaginary celestial body they may employ is Nibiru. Supposedly, it is a brown dwarf that Earth is going to collide with. #3 "Science can't test it," but "it works for me." These are two statements astrology believers often use to defend their beliefs, but they are contradictory. Scientists needs something to measure, so they attempt to quantify observations. Nearly anything a human can observe is measurable. Astrology is mostly comprised of communicable claims about what should be observed. The fact that the observations can be communicated means they can be quantified to some degree. For example, double-blind self-reports could be used to measure the occurence of events as percieved through the subjective lens of the observer. Even if a claim has subjective elements (e.g. emotions) that the observer must become aware of through personal experience, we should still expect chance-defying data for any communicable, partially objective claim. This is why the idea "Science can't test it" is incompatible with "It works for me." The latter implies empirical observations made by the believer. If astrology really is an untestable belief, it shouldn't "work" for anyone. The only exception would be if the claim involves some force specifically preventing professional scientists from verifying the claims, but that would be a huge violation of Occam's razor. #4 Retrograde Ignorance This isn't a silly idea that is clinged to. Rather, it's an important idea that is too often lacked. Astrlogy believers often hype up planetary retrogrades. For example, "people should expect inconveniences during mercury retrogrades," "...romantic upsets during Venus retrogrades," "...trouble at work during Mars retrogrades," etc. However, perhaps about half of astrology fanatics don't know why planetary retrogrades happen. They don't realize that a planet's retrograde cycle is actually synchronized with the sun's movements (from a geocentric perspective). Not only are they practicing divination, they have little understanding of the modern heliocentric model. To any astrology believers reading this: I am not against the testing of astrological claims, I am against the acceptance of astrological claims without rigorous testing.

It was sarcasm. I'm sorry.

You don't get to decide this. Take it back!

I think you mean solstice. The sun reaches equinox in March and September.

Well you must know what the obvious explanation is. At the moment Pluto culiminated over Atlantis, God saw everyone going to work or playing videogames like nothing was wrong, and he decided to wait another 5,000 years to transform us into crystal energy.

I hope you don't mind that I used two separate quotes of you to support a point of my own. I don't buy into the vague idea that violent videgames make children more "violent," and I highly doubt that videogames played any role in this recent attack. However, I think it's quite possible that certain media teaches the youth to not take guns seriously... Some idiots are way too careless with their guns. In other words, it's not about having the biggest gun you can have, it's about using it skillfully and respectably. The Japanese have been aware of this for a long time.

My point was that you are just redefining the idea of god to make it more believable. What do you mean when you say "god" is "general vividness"?

You have a point. Gun Owners More Likely To Distruct The Federal Government If that's the case, we can just keep the tracking devices to the cars, making it a choice for the gun-owner. If they don't want their car to be tracked, they can't transport their guns with it. I keep forgetting that the webpage doesn't update every time I edit the post.

How about this? Put the tracking devices in the guns. Make them integral parts of the guns. Of course, this would have to be limited to the new guns produced after the requirement was designated. For older guns, simply require that they be transported along with a tracking device. If you have guns in your car, but your car isn't being tracked, you're breaking the law. Removal of the tracking device should be difficult.

I'm just reading through the first several pages that I skipped. The discussion on security measures can have something added to it. Most public buildings only have pretend security measures to ward off criminals. As has been said, it's porbably the case that such deterents only send the criminals to places without obvious security measures. For this reason, the government should give tax breaks to public places with discrete security measures designed to catch criminals, not ward them off. I hope you realize that I was not one of the people arguing that, I only suggested that a reason for owning the gun should be prerequisite.

I guess your need for the gun is reasonable.

I meant assembled, but mapping is interesting too. I didn't know the difference. What does "determine" refer to, as in: "At the completion of the project, over 99% of the [human] genome had been determined to 99.999% accuracy."—Campbell Essential Biology (Simon et al.) It soulds like you are talking about tandem repeats. From what I understand, the "shotgun approach" to mapping a genome involves mixing the DNA with a restriction enzyme, which cuts the DNA into little peices. Once again, from what I understand, the restriction enzyme will cut the DNA wherever a certain code appears. I can imagine there being problems with tandem repeats that include the code that triggers the restriction enzyme to cut the DNA, because that would result in tons of tiny little fragments that could have come from anywhere. But, the solution to this seems quite simple: do two different batches each with a different restriction enzyme. Would that be too time consuming or expensive?

The amplified blow torch could be used safely when the grass is wet or covered in snow. Nonetheless, my point is that there must be alternatives for scaring off coyotes. Do you also use your gun to open cans, break up old concrete, and rouse the cattle? Most likely, you have alternative things that can perform those same functions, and those alternative things are probably designed for their respective uses. Guns are designed to kill things. Just as natural selection adapts the bird beak to perform the function that is most beneficial to survival, we adapt the tools that benefit our ways of life. The gun is slowly becoming obselete, and it's being made obselete by the inventiveness of man-kind.

I read that <1% of the human genome can't be mapped until we have special technology. What is this unmapped DNA? What do we need to map it? What is (the function of) ribosomal RNA? How did we finally map it? My bad for saying "DNA" instead of "genome" in the title. I have a very basic understand of the "shotgun approach."

Androphilia = love of men The sexually antagonistic selection explanation for male homosexuality is that there are genes for androphilia which appear in both males and females. Even though the men with these androphilia genes produce less offspring, the females with these genes produce more offspring, thus the genes remain in the gene pool. Researchers have found evidence for this in Italian families. If this is the case, the females who are more prolific (producing more offspring) might actually need their male relatives to be homosexual, because that means they have child-rearing helpers. If their male relatives were heterosexuals with children of their own, these prolific women might not have enough resources to support all the children they produce. Albeit, the effectiveness of this hypothetical system would depend on certain cultural variables, i.e. matrilocality, or something similar.

You might have a point. Even if they stop robbing houses because they don't want to get shot, they might just commit a different sort of crime instead. This could be the case if they are someone who can't get/hold a legitimate job, maybe because they have a criminal record, are mentally ill, or are addicted to drugs.

I was considering that burglars probably only rob one house, then stop robbing for the night. The dogs don't really prevent the crimes from occurring, unless everyone's got a dog. On the other hand, even if you let a mugger mug you, they'll probably go on to mug more people, but they will have to spend more time looking for their next victim. Thus deterring a mugging really is one less crime. From this perspective, the dog doesn't do much of anything at all. Actually, it could be argued that the presence of guns does more to prevent house robbings for that very reason, i.e. the robber doesn't know who has a gun and who doesn't.

In that particular instance, the attacker was knifing children. The availability of other victims played a role in both situations (the street thug example and the burglar example). So why do you only attribute the deterence to that factor for the first situation? I had an idea to justify the double standard, and it involved the time spent searching for a victim versus the time spent committing the crime. However, looking back, I don't know why it was supposed to justify the double standard. caffeine deficient tonight, will probably update post tomorrow morning

i dunno I accidentally said that we cannot test for vividness. More specifically, I think we cannot measure vividness, at least not directly. Then again, I have very little formal knowledge of neuroscience. However, I think there might be a way to test for vividness. The empirical evidence is that I am talking to you about it right now. If you were a zombie who lacked this vividness, why would you be entertaining the idea at all? It might be a constituent of physical reality, it might not. Nonetheless, if it's real, it's a constituent of reality. Only if they accept the claim without due consideration. If the right function is to think rationally, then, for all practical purposes, yes. Exceptions are possible, but I don't know of any exceptions. It can also be the case that irrationallity sometimes contributes to, rather than detracts from, functionality. It all depends on what subjective definition of "function" you are using. This claim would be much more plausible than the claim that belief in god is rationally justifiable. Okay. If God is broccoli, his existence is already assured. Besides, this severely limits the idea of what a god can be. Without any method of recording events (a property of the brain), this god can't have perception of the time-line, thus he can't have perception of causal relationships. Without perception of causal relationships, there can't be "will," because will involves contemplation of the effects of certain behaviors. Furthermore, there would be no system to unite various information collected from the physical world. Without such a system, there can't be perception, whether that's internal or external perception. Without perception, there can't be knowledge of anything. This god is the equivalent of a dead guy. This view entails the conclusion that God is dead. Here is a Godly attributes checklist. Omnipotent (The Will of God) Omnibenevolent (The Love of God) Omniscient (The Eye of God) Wise Omnipresent Immutable Eternal

He said it is not "possible to show" that such a machine would be "conscious." I think the distinction between AI and RI is useless because it is not intelligence that we are unable to test for. It's qualia, or, as I put it, "vividness," that we cannot test for. For the rest of this post, "consciousness" is the conflation of intelligence and vividness. I think the conflation of intelligence with vividness encourages belief in an intelligent creator. As long as these two are conflated, people assume that "consciousness" couldn't happen without some conscious (intelligent) creator, because there appears to be no reason consciousness should have emerged from inherently inconscious things. However, when intelligence and vividness are separated, it's apparent that vividness may not require intelligence. It is becoming more and more clear that intelligence is mostly, if not entirely, a material phenomenon. Why this is bad for theists: If intelligence is material and God is immaterial, God obviously isn't intelligent. The creation of our universe involved no wit, no reason, no plan, no abstract blueprint; the reasons are provided by us alone. It's the explanation for "vividness" that will probably be the big problem for empiricists.