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#481 | |
Viggoholic
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,749
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Re: A more general question.
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#482 | |||||
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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You see, there's really no middle ground. Either thought is created by chemistry, or not. If the former, then it is simply a reflection of your brain state, because the if it results from brain chemistry then it is subservient. Quote:
But consider this. If all thoughts are a result of brain chemistry, then the thought that thoughts are a result of brain chemistry is in itself a result of brain chemistry. So, what grounds do we have to think it's true? It's not a rational decision, but a reflection of what's goin on in your brain. Quote:
And, since the brain reacts the same way to both real and illusory experiences, the only reason you have for labeling supernatural phenomenae to one or the other is because of a prior decision. Quote:
You could say that i'm something like a proponent of string theory. I think there's more dimensions to this world than we see, but burned if I can explain anything about them. Quote:
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#483 | ||
Hoplite Nomad
Join Date: Sep 2001
Posts: 3,931
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Quote:
[ Quote:
What did you decide to study whenever you get to school?
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About Eowyn, Does anyone know what her alias Dernhelm means? She was kown as dernhelm because of her exclaimation when she realized that the rider's headgear was heavy and obscured her sight. 'Dern Helm" Culled from Entmoot From Kirinski 57 and Wayfarer. |
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#484 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Darkness
Posts: 1,211
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Quote:
Say- didn't you watch total recall?
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I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness... Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye -- As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy -- here, set still, what's ailin' ye? ... |
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#485 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Darkness
Posts: 1,211
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Re: A more general question.
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However, that doesn't mean that such a state is absolute. For that matter, YVWH may exist literally, but that doesn't mean that he's an absolute either. I wnder if it's not time for some semantic discussion on just what exactly constitutes an "absolute".
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I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness... Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye -- As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy -- here, set still, what's ailin' ye? ... |
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#486 | |
Elf Lord of the Grey Havens
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: somewhere else
Posts: 2,381
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![]() Identity would be not exist without consciousness but not neccessarily the reverse, so that is why I see it as a higher complexity. The same memory would be differently interpreted by different people, if that was even possible. Yes, very basic things such as a red circle would be seen as the same. I would venture that I would interpret the memory of a Nsync concert much differently than a fan. It is impossible to separate the the experience from the conscious process. Different people experience sensory input differently depending on their state of mind.
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There exists a limit to the force even ther most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. -Muad'dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary |
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#487 | ||
Elf Lord of the Grey Havens
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: somewhere else
Posts: 2,381
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Wayfarer posted
Quote:
![]() Quote:
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There exists a limit to the force even ther most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. -Muad'dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary |
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#488 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
Posts: 10,647
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*Smacks Cirdan on the upside*
Hey, I liked Total Recall! ![]() (And this contributes to the discussion, how?)
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
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#489 |
Elf Lord of the Grey Havens
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: somewhere else
Posts: 2,381
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*sniggers*
BoP watching total recall without slicing and dicing it's glaring flaws. hehe
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There exists a limit to the force even ther most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. -Muad'dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary |
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#490 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
Posts: 10,647
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Hey, can I help it if Arnie has all the solutions to the worlds problems? (Er. Big guns, and bad punning?)
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
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#491 | |
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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I'm homing to go into comp-sci, aelf.
Total recall... erm, not one of my favorites. Although, along that vein, I highly reccomend alistair reynold's chasm city if you're interested ina good amnesia/braintwister story. Quote:
But I'd like to clarify my own position. I, unlike you, am not insistant on evidence. I subscribe to inductive, as well as deductive theory. I look for the system which best explains the facts-as I've said before.
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Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned Last edited by Wayfarer : 10-01-2002 at 08:37 PM. |
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#492 | ||||
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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Quote:
Actually, if you will indulge me in a tangent here, Lewis makes an interesting point. If you believe that nothing but nature exists, and that everything is simply part of nature. And if you consider everything to be part of the same system (nature), then you by definition reject anything outside that system (the supernatural). interesting, eh? Now then... I still want to know what evidence you put forth as evidence against the supernatural. If you think you have any. I continue to hold that naturalism and supernaturalism are both metaphysical assumptions. Quote:
Perhaps a better way to explain it is this: if something is relative, then we must ask relative to what? What is it measured against? Because whatever that standard is becomes, in effect, an absolute. Christianity offers the ultimate standard: perfection. Everything is relative to God's absolute goodness, and likewise his plan for the unverse. Also, Christainity holds that God is infinite, and hence absolute in that way. As to the discussion of absolute, I myself was suprised just now to discover that at least one definition of the word closely parallels what I've been saying. Quote:
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I allow for a two-way influence. Thoughts influence your brain, but your brain also influences your thoughts. Humans are composites: half physical and half spiritual. But, if you hold that thought is a result of chemistry, then it is nothing but a result of brain chemistry. It really doesn't exist. I'll give you a small example. If thoughts are a result of brain chemistry, then afro elf's skepticism and my faith are both the result of our brain chemistry, and we are only deluding ourselves by pretending to make rational decisions. Again I say-if the belief that thought arises from the chemicals in the brain is true, then the belief that thought arises from the chemicals in the brain also comes from your brain chemistry. And hence you have no grounds for claiming it as true.
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#493 | |
Elf Lord of the Grey Havens
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: somewhere else
Posts: 2,381
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quote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Only you could link souls and string theory. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are too kind. Thank you. Your welcome. I always enjoy your posts whether or not I agree with them. Things that are absolute: absolute zero the effect of gravity proportional to mass the speed of light the angstrom I have a problem when you start mixing and matching things that don't operate in the same way. The idea of absolute has different meaning in the scientific, physical, metaphysical, and just plain common usage. Language isn't math and words don't necessarily "equate". For example... Quote:
Does the discussion of self awareness, of thought as it relates to environment, genetics, innate personality and the nature of human consciousness exclude the metaphysical suppositions on the meaning of life? Probably not but they aren't they same thing. For the purpose of discussion were can lay aside the metaphysical since it can occur by any physical mechanism. That belief system allows the assumption that what occurs does so for a purpose and by design. Given that, it lends little in the way of analysis as to the mechanics of the process and only tends to cloud the subject by cutting off discussion for tangents. A large part of what we do every day is chemical driven. But all of us are aware of oiur consciousness. We has barely scratched the surface of AI and the idea of a computer responding in the unique and unpredictable way the the human machine does is still in the realm of sci-fi. Yet computers give us a glimpse of how a machine could be designed to respond in a directed, random fashion. Does this mean that we can be reduced to a chemical equation? It is simplistic to view the resultant reaction/response in a vacuum. The effects stretch out in space and time in an indefinte and ever diminishing fashion. The idea the memory, or "storage" is a pure representation of what occurs ignores the effects of the entire physical state at that period of time. Perception can be altered by a coincidence or a state of mind.
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There exists a limit to the force even ther most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. -Muad'dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary |
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#494 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
Posts: 10,647
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I don't know if you could consider the speed of light to be absolute, since there are now some scientists who theorise that it has changed over time.
http://www.spaceref.ca/news/viewpr.html?pid=8991
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords Last edited by BeardofPants : 10-01-2002 at 11:11 PM. |
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#495 |
Elf Lord of the Grey Havens
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: somewhere else
Posts: 2,381
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Interesting article but poorly written. I'd like to find the orginal Nature article. I think much of the new remote sensing data received from today's new powerful telescopes will probably muddle the water for a good while. We are percieving ancient information in a very short period of time without knowing what is now happening in the sources. I would like to know what happens in a theoretical black hole when then the electron charge varies. Maybe both vary proportionally to a absolute product. Some of the Big Bang speculation leaves me a big cold. Things approaching infinite?
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There exists a limit to the force even ther most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. -Muad'dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary |
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#496 | |||
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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Quote:
![]() [QUOTE] Things that are absolute: absolute zero the effect of gravity proportional to mass the speed of light the angstrom[QUOTE] Well... It really does depend on how you define absolute... Absolute zero is the point at which there is no molecular energy present. It's absolute in the sense that you can't really have less than nothing (can you?) The effect of gravity is absolute in that it never changes. It's a constant, and in that sense, absolute. Maybe. The speed of light, it was pointed out to me earlier, can actually be changed. In fact, I recently read that scientists have managed to trap a pulse of light and hold it stationary. The angstrom is quasi-absolute in that it's the smallest measurement we use. But there could conceivably be something smaller than that which would need a smaller measurement. THe only absolute quantities are zero and infinity. Quote:
I.E. If thought exists on its own, apart from brain chemistry, then it is possible that each influences the other to some degree. But, if thought does not exist apart from brain chemistry, then it is impossible for thought to influence brain chemistry. After all, it doesn't exist. Do you understand? Quote:
For example: The standard model predicts that the big bang produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which immediately destroyed each other, and left nothing the universe empty of anything but light. ![]()
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#497 | |
Viggoholic
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,749
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Quote:
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Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. |
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#498 | ||
Elf Lord of the Grey Havens
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: somewhere else
Posts: 2,381
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Quote:
Quote:
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There exists a limit to the force even ther most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. -Muad'dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary |
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#499 |
The Insufferable
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 3,333
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What I'm getting at, my bearded friend, is that the idea of thought from brain chemistry severely limits our ability to claim rational thought.
To illustrate: Have you ever played Everbreast? ... Quest. Everquest. Ever played it? One of the more irritating mistakes the developers made was that, in programming certain npc's, they createdsituations in which the program spits out horrible grammar. Now, the problem is that, since the grammatical structures are only the result of programming, the game itself has no way of knowing whether it's right or wrong. Which is my entire point. If my thoughts are simply a result of my brain activity (the way computer output is determined by programming), how do I really know whether my brain chemistry is correct or not? More specifically, how do i know that what I'm thinking has any real value? I have no problem with the idea of consciousness being linked the the biochemical matrix of the brain. But I do have trouble believing that that same matrix could spontaneously creat consciousness. Computers don't program tehmselves, you know. Anyway, I'm sure that was pretty oblique. Oh well.
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Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned |
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#500 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Darkness
Posts: 1,211
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<I would venture that I would interpret the memory of a Nsync concert much differently than a fan. It is impossible to separate the the experience from the conscious process. Different people experience sensory input differently depending on their state of mind.>
Of course you would, because your memories would be different. If your memories are different, your "concious process" is going to be different, because the process stems from the memories of how to process data and experience. Which means that your identity is going to be different. You will be wiped and rewritten for your heresy!
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I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness... Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye -- As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy -- here, set still, what's ailin' ye? ... |
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I'm writing an essay on relativism in LOTR | IronParrot | Lord of the Rings Books | 152 | 02-11-2005 05:38 PM |