Prometheus

I don't know. You would need to look into historical and societal pressures to answer that one

No one is sure about its health affects but that is just the nature of dietetic research.

Been a while since i've looked at an ABG so might be a bit rusty, but since no-one else is biting i'll have a look.

1.) Yeah, a bit iffy. I would go with metabolic alkalosis with respiratory compensation as the pH is 7.45. The important thing (in real life at least) is to know what information you need to decide between the possibilities. For instance time from onset of symptoms could help in determining which it is as metabolic compensation takes longer the respiratory compensation. The are also clinical tests which could help determine which.

2.) Agree. It is weird though that the CO2 has risen so quickly. Think there is something else going on here, not a typical asthma picture. Sick boy.

3.) Agree.

4.) Agree.

Hope that helps a bit. What are you studying?

Depends exactly what you mean by bad - the studies people usually refer to which show small alcohol consumption can be beneficial are only for coronary heart disease. However, for cancers and other cardiovascular disease the risk is linear; increasing risk with increasing consumption.

Don't take our word for it though, here's some evidence:

This is the only meta-analysis including different forms of cardiovascular disease i could find. There might be more comprehensive reviews around though, i'm not sure.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743503003384

This is the most comprehensive review in the world of the risks of cancer related to diet/exercise. You can find alcohol in chapter 4.

http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/expert_report/report_contents/index.php

I'll throw this one in just for fun. Here someone has tried to quantify harm in a number of ways (e.g. harm to self and harm to others) It shows overall alcohol is the most harmful drug (in the UK at least). Not everyone agrees on the criteria for classifying harm though so this one is controversial.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961462-6/fulltext

If you do train in medicine you will primarily be taught clinical skills with enough science to properly execute those skills. You would not be trained in the scientific method itself; you would more likely be doing the data collection than the study design. At least in the UK, not sure about elsewhere. Also studying medicine will mean you have to study most systems of the body, which may or may not be a good thing for you, and loads of clinical work before specialising. You will get more money as a doctor though.

UCL has a good reputation in neuroscience and with the Francis Crick centre soon to open should be an interesting place to study. http://www.crick.ac.uk/about-us/

Might also be worth checking out the Institute of Physics website. They do accredit OU degrees, but apparently not the the maths and physics degree linked above. It seems you'd have to pick an open degree and take all the modules the Institute of Physics stipulate to gain accreditation.

You can see the details here: http://www.iop.org/education/higher_education/accreditation/file_51839.pdf

I've just started down this path myself; the only thing i worry about is that the content is not as thorough as traditional universities.

How does the OU stand up against bricks and mortar universities in terms of curriculum?

The sad news for me is that I'm completely powerless to change anything about my stinky life. I'll probably be long dead from starvation or commit suicide before I'll manage to change anything about my stinky life.

 

Western Capitalism is not for people like me and I'm feeling trapped, chained and imprisoned by this cut-throat socio-economic system.

 

Maybe death is really the only option left for me since this world really has nothing to offer for me anymore.

 

I think this song describes my feelings towards my life perfectly:

 

You are not alone...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAMssuZsXv4

Fair enough. I have no problem with your position - might change if you had the power to implement it though.

Incidentally i agree with your idea you about death. Its not even nothing, since by saying nothing it leaves us with an impression. I'll come to my non-existence soon enough, no need for you to rush it, but thanks for caring. I am nothing but what the universe happens to be doing at this particular time and space. The conditions that cause me will rise then fall, and what i call I will cease. I think that is what some others are alluding to - there was never a fixed, permanent I in existence.

Time for bed before i start talking utter rubbish.

Are you trying to cleverly ignore the point I was trying to make on purpose?

 

My point is that your post was pointless. Despite the fact that criminals don't want to be incarcerated, society does incarcerate them anyway. Despite the fact that the majority of humans probably don't want to cease to exist, I would decide to destroy the universe and make them cease to exist.

 

In the same way society doesn't care about a criminals interests, I don't care about that majority that wants to carry on existing. If your post was supposed to be a counter argument, then it would have presented as a double standard (why am I wrong? but society isn't?).

I thought i addressed your point. I'll try again.

Regarding the OP: One person is saying she wants to end existence for all people because of suffering without giving them a choice. I do not think this fair.

Regarding the criminal: Many people (society) are saying they want to limit the existence (i.e. jail) of one person because of the suffering they are causing. I think this is fair.

To say this is double standards is to say the first statement is equal to the second. Do i need to explain why they are not?

The point of saying:

So you acknowledge people prefer existence despite their suffering, but you would benevolently decide it is in their best interests not to have existed.

was for me to confirm that i have understood the OP's position which he confirmed i had, albeit an oversimplification. A further point, implied, is that most of us would rather have our own choice about our existence rather than it be up to one person. This is not a similar situation to a criminal wanting a choice in his incarceration, as mentioned above.

... the Matrix is based on Buddhist ideas ...

What? I thought fight club was a Buddhist film.

I think we have significant differences in the interpretation of Buddhist scripture (and maybe the validity of some Buddhist scriptures). Perhaps it would be best for us to split our discussion into two: one addressing our scriptural differences, the other regarding the OP. It may be more beneficial for us, and less burdensome for others reading this thread, if we take the scriptural differences to a Buddhist forum?

Regarding the OP: mystics may have guessed at the nature of the universe and it's origin. With so many guesses floating around, someone may even have guessed right. But we won't know, unless science is able to verify this (i.e. evidence is consistent with the guess). There's nothing wrong with guessing - it's where science begins. But, in my opinion, it should be where religion, spirituality or whatever you want to call it, should end. It should end here because its sole domain should be to improve the mental condition of mankind. Guessing at the nature of the universe is not needed for this end. In fact, i would argue that such speculations are damaging because they turn away rational minded people from something they may benefit from.

Anyway, i'm happy to address your particular points above, i just think a Buddhist forum would be better suited.

Pulse.

What rhymes with oranges?

Prometheus, what is your point?

 

Do you acknowledge that criminals might prefer not to be incarcerated, but you benevolently decide it is in their best interests to be incarcerated or subjected to the death penalty etc.?

Double standards.

 

If you want to critize the arguments then criticize the justification.

To be a double standard i must be applying different principles to similar situations. Let's have a look:

I acknowledge that criminals generally prefer not to be incarcerated.

I believe it is in the best interests of society for them to be incarcerated.

I acknowledge that people generally prefer to exist despite their suffering.

I believe it is in the best interests of all for them to continue to exist.

I do not think these are similar situations.

It was less a point anyway, although there is one between the lines, just my attempt to understand the OP's position.

Please provide scriptural evidence. Just link to somewhere where it expounds some of these ideas.

The claim is expllcit and no secret. Buddhism and Taoism are all about knowing how the world begins.

I don't know enough about Taoism to discuss it.

As for Buddhism how do you link your statement:

'The claim is expllcit and no secret. Buddhism... [is] all about knowing how the world begins',

with the Buddha's statement:

"There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about...Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about..."

How can you say that someone really wants to live when they have been programmed by evolution to fear death irrationally? Do they truly enjoy their life, or do they just want to cling to it because it is a sure thing and all they have? The fear of death, the sex drive and the desire to have offspring make it impossible for the human species to voluntarily go extinct, so it means nothing that we haven't decided to stop reproducing or commit mass suicide.

 

Also, it is not worth it for John Smith to have a swell life if millions of other people have miserable lives. Humanity is not a collective organism. The woman in Fritzl's basement does not benefit from Smith's fun activities and high-paying job. John Smith's opinion is worth nothing to me.

 

So I should I should try to concern myself with every living being that will ever exist? If all of this that you speak of is inevitable, it is futile for me to factor it into my decision. If you cannot permanently fix a problem, that does not mean that you should never try to temporarily fix it. I might as well not bother to mow my yard because it will just grow back. Anything less than a perfect solution is not worth doing, apparently.

I make the decision that doesn't involve hundreds of billions of people needlessly suffering?

So you acknowledge people prefer existence despite their suffering, but you would benevolently decide it is in their best interests not to have existed.

My objection

What is your objection to the answer to this question that is given in Buddhism and Taoism?

My objection is that the Buddha didn't give an answer. You seem to think otherwise - please provide scriptural evidence.

I do not know much of Taoism, but the first line from it's first book seems to suggest seeking an understanding of some ultimate truth is not possible.

You fail to understand that, if I was given this opportunity to exterminate our species, and I turned it down, I would be making a decision for hundreds of billions of future people anyway. How is it any more wrong for me to make a decision for seven billion? You act as though the instant cessation of consciousness for seven billion people is as bad as misery for hundreds of billions of people.

 

No one ever chooses to be born. This is a choice that someone else makes. And if I did not cause extinction, I would be allowing hundreds of billions of people to have a choice made for them. I would be doing this with the knowledge that many of them will be mistreated and abused, suffer from mental anguish, live in destitution, be born with severe defects, etc.

You seem to think we all would prefer non-existence. Have you actually gone out to get a representative sample of people's opinions on this matter? Most people seem happy to exist even if we do suffer. If we all agreed with you we could very easily terminate the human species within a generation, by not reproducing. But we apparently deem it worthwhile to bring another being into existence knowing full well that the being will suffer.

At the end of the day, the universe doesn't care what we think. End the universe, and it'll probably just pop back into existence again from nothing (like it apparently did this time), sentience will probably arise again with it's suffering (no more surprising to find it twice than once, surely?), and we'll be back at the same place. Find a better solution. Or just learn to live with your suffering.

But yes, from my view as a human, I would destroy the universe or at least the human race without a second thought if I had the option.

Would you consult with any of your 6 billion fellow humans in this first?

Of course, everything the Buddha supposedly said is iffy.

Thanks. You might like this site then.

That's more interesting. It has a better, less masochistic ring to it.

I spent over a year of my childhood studying Buddhism. Did I never learn this, or did I simply find it uninteresting?

It's a common misunderstanding. Buddhism is not nihilism, nor masochism: suicide is certainly not recommended. There is though the extinction of the illusion of a permenant self, a ghost in the machine, which is given as the source of dukkha - but i think that's largely uncontroversial here.

The "desires" that I speak of are the psychological driving force behind every action that someone does, either to gain pleasure or avoid pain.

 

Were I talked of how many will

you somehow interpreted this as me saying that "I want existence to be like X." I never said what I "want" existence to be like. I spoke of the objective nature of existence. And the desires that people have are indeed part of the objective nature of existence (even if they are just chemical and electrical events inside a brain).

 

This is the point I am trying to make about desires: Before we are born, we have no desires, so we are less unhappy than the most happy man on earth, who will eventually grow old and die in physical and mental pain and be forced to lose his beloved memories and wisdom.

 

I am saying that it is better not to be born even if you live the best life possible. As I said, there is no problem that being born fixes for you, but it creates many.

So are you saying that it is our desires that lead us to an unsatisfactory life - regardless how many of those desires may be realised? And are you saying a state of desirelessness, achieved through not existing, is preferable to living?

What you are saying is basically what the Buddha said. Life is suffering because desire leads to suffering, extinction (nirvana) is better.

The Buddha was wrong.

Um, could you point out where the Buddha said this?

 

1. After birth, humans begins to have desires...

 

...I think that the bottom line about mass extinction is that it would solve all of our problems of suffering and all of our problems of desire.

This has nothing to do with what we "want."

You speak of desires quite a lot. But then you say this is not about what we want. Is a desire not something we want?

Maybe there are 2 separate ideas here? Something about desires which i don't understand. And then that if one measures all the 'good' experiences in one's life against all the 'bad' experiences, then if the bad outweigh the good, one would have been better off not born.

I haven't commented on anything else because there is no point going on to a second point until i understand the first point.

This thread is about how the universe began. If Buddhism is not relevant to this then it's not relevant to anything.

 

I'm sorry if you see this answer to the OP's question as bogging down the thread. It's the only answer that makes sense to me, so I have nothing else to add.

"There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about...Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about..."

From AN 4.77. The Buddha didn't think it relevant to his teachings, so i guess Buddhism is not relevant to anything.

Let science answer this question if it can, there is nothing wrong with Buddhism remaining silent on a topic it cares not to conjecture about.

So the basic idea is: I want existence to be like X. Existence is not like X. Therefore I will kill myself.

I think there might be other options.

It is the doctrine of 'dependent origination' or 'emptiness'. If things existed as we usually think they do then Buddhism, more generally mysticism, would have to be nonsense.

Thanks. Maybe i misunderstand your interpretation, but do you mean to say the the teaching of dependent arising argues that nothing really exists? That is not my understanding of this teaching, which i understand to mean that things arise in accordance to causes. Maybe we could agree that particular things we come across are empty of inherent meaning, being that they are linked to other things by of chain of causes, and so cannot be fully understood in isolation?

Where best to find it would depend on where your interests lie .

How about the pali canon?

Anyway, how come this talk of Buddhism? The Buddha specifically refused to address such issues such as 'how did the world begin' as they weren't relevant to his message. To that end its probably best to discuss our interpretations of doctrine by PM rather than bog down this thread.

This leads to the idea that perhaps the Buddhist idea of existence is more useful. This would say that nothing really exists, thus solving the problem of how existence is possible.

Where can i find this teaching?

I thought you were a Buddhist?