The reason I ignore people who choose to believe the unprovable is simple. When it comes to the unprovable, a logical person can only say "I don't know." Someone who believes something unprovable is just believing the universe works the way they want it to work. People don't decide how the universe works, we figure out how it works. If you think that the universe works the way you want it to, you've got another thing coming. See our ancestors who believed in things that were unprovable at the time and were later pwn3d by science. God in the margins and all that.
Just because you can explain why you are a nut doesn't make you not a nut. I only believe in this invisible dragon because I was terrorized by Godzilla movies as a child. Still believe in the dragon, still crazy.
Damn you Pastafarians! Wait'll the Ramenites fly their noodle bowls into your meatballs. That'll learn you.
Japan has serial killers? Is there a deck of playing cards I can get to learn about all of them?
I completely agree that "I don't know" is the answer to give to those things that are unprovable, so long as you remember that "I don't know" means just that and nothing more. A lot of people in the geek crowd seem to like to say "I don't know now," rather than a simple "I don't know." There's no guarantee that you can ever know something (aside from the fact that you exist, etc., solipsism, blah blah blah), so don't make an implication that you will know something either.
However, I still contend that arbitrary is arbitrary. If a person chooses to make an arbitrary choice about an unprovable thing, recognizes that it's unprovable, recognizes that it's arbitrary, and doesn't hold other people to that same belief, then what's the big deal? If they live their life in accordance to some arbitrary belief, it's effectively a living speculation, and nothing more. I judge a person not on the speculations themselves (unless said speculation is a direct contradiction of something known), but rather the methodology by which they have arrived at said speculation. The process matters, not the answer, at least in arbitrary unprovable matters.
So, hence, someone who can provide some sort of substance to a particular arbitrary belief is better off than someone who simply blindly believes. Explaining your craziness means you're aware of it, think about it, and keep tabs on it; that's the first step in being not crazy. I think people who aren't aware of their own faults, flaws, and so forth, are the most delusional and schizophrenic folks out there.
I think "I don't know now" is a good answer. In science you often look at trends and statistics in data. If you have something that has been growing at a constant exponential rate for X years you can accurately predict how much it will grow over the next 1 year. If you look at how much science has grown over the past few millenia and how much it is growing now you can be pretty sure that we will answer a lot more of those "I don't know" problems as time goes on.
For any single question you may not know if it will be answered tomorrow or never. But probability-wise "I don't know now" is a good answer. It's at least as good an answer as "it will take about X seconds for the ball to hit the ground after I drop it from a height of Y meters". Not perfect, but good enough to make a very reasonable and useful assumption.
I'm willing to accept 99.9% sure as true. I'm also willing to reject .00001% sure as false. Religious people seem to do the opposite. They try to accept .00001% sure as true and reject 99.9% sure as false. I can't accept that.
Ok I think it's truce time. None of you (Scott, Kami, etc.) can prove or disprove your points, and we aren't getting anywhere anyway. This is just unnecesary.
Just a quick note, the generally accepted confidence level in the sciences is 95%. Anything higher than that is unrealistically restrictive; hell, DNA replication isn't anywhere near 99% accurate. That is the level of confidence with which a conclusion can be considered to be valid. Less than that is probably unacceptable.
So you're more stringent than good science, and I'm not sure that's exactly the best thing, but c'est la vie.
Also, again, "I don't know now" carries an implication that you can't back up directly, and thus isn't scientifically valid. Remember that confidence level; just because it's happened historically doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen. Yeah, you can often predict things, but not always. In other words, in the sciences, don't believe it until you see it.
I'm just saying that when something is highly probable I'll often treat it as if it were 100% true, even if there is a small chance it is false. On the other hand, if something is highly unlikely I will treat it as essentially impossible, even if there is a small chance of it being true.
Faith turns this on its head. People with "faith" often will insist that something is true because there is an infintessimally small probability that it could be. You must admit that while there is a possibility of a god existing, the odds of one existing are ludicrously small. On the same token religious people often deny true things because of a small chance that they are false. See creation vs. evolution for your example of that.
Faith is by no means a bad thing, not even in the sciences. A poor application of faith creates the Creationism vs. Evolution crap, but if one has faith and has a good understanding of it, it can become a powerful tool. It's all about believing in something despite all evidence to the contrary; while the resultant belief is often silly, it is occasionally useful to be able to perservere while the odds are stacked against you. If scientists couldn't do that, we woudn't have many of the discoveries that formed the foundations of science.
Also, someone with good faith will not base their faith on the tiny chance that something could be true; that's Pascal's wager and that ain't real faith. Real faith is the acceptance that a given belief has no supporting evidence whatsoever, but believing it anyhow. Small difference there.
Most of the religious folk denying true things because of the small chance of being wrong often has more to do with insecurity in their faith and a misunderstanding of the true thing. Faith is not at fault; many of its practitioners are.
Death is natural and necessary. Also, knowing there is an end to all of this makes me want to live life all the more. Every single day is an opportunity. If I thought there was an after life it would make life feel meaningless in comparison. After all, what is a century on earth when you can live forever after you die? If I held that view it would be so much easier to not want to make the world better, because, what would be the point? Thankfully I will live, grow, change, and die.
It would be nice for there to be some sort of afterlife. But if there was an afterlife, then that removes all meaning and purpose from the present life. I prefer to believe there is no afterlife because that allows me to get the most meaning and value from the present life, which I know for sure exists. Also, there is no evidence whatsoever that an afterlife or a soul do indeed exist. Therefore I must, by default, not believe in it until sufficient evidence is presented.
As for funerals, they are a nice ceremony to help people deal with death emotionally. Other than that, whatever.
Frankly, I don't understand how this person was more annoying than Jen. I also don't understand how the decision that he was more annoying than Jen could have been made so soon.
Sure, he would write that "God of dead threads" stuff, but then he would make a somewhat reasonable comment, or a comment at least as reasonable as anything Jen said during her reign of terror.
Frankly, I don't understand how this person was more annoying than Jen.
It was the raising of numerous threads with a copy-paste message and little else that prompted it, coupled with the fact that he was nowhere near finished. He was banned in the middle of his spamming just to prevent further "damage." It was the spamminess more than the content that prompted the ban. He will swiftly be unbanned should he repent.
Also, I note that Scott banned him on his own. You can direct further arguments to him on the subject.
Jen used good grammar at least, and wasn't nearly as personally annoying.
Maybe I'm saying this too soon, since I'm not about to spend time comparing their posts, but I don't think Mr. X's grammar was significantly worse than Jen's.
More importantly, the people Jen trolled would probably disagree regarding the level of personal annoyance. I think I remember that many people were pleading for Jen's banishment.
Jen used good grammar at least, and wasn't nearly as personally annoying.
I think the key word in that sentence is personally. While a lot of us found Jen annoying, Scott and Rym didn't. It is there forum. Regardless, Jen is gone (for good I hope) and this new doinkus is banned. All is well.
Jen used good grammar at least, and wasn't nearly as personally annoying.
I think the key word in that sentence ispersonally. While a lot of us found Jen annoying, Scott and Rym didn't. It is there forum. Regardless, Jen is gone (for good I hope) and this new doinkus is banned. All is well.
Oh, I see. The difference is that Jen wasn't personally annoying to Rym and Scott.
Oh, I see. The difference is that Jen wasn't personally annoying to Rym and Scott.
She wasn't spamming, her grammar and spelling was above board, and she was not doing anything they considered to be against the rules. They also said they found "her" funny.
It's not very fun talking about the hereafter with people who don't believe in a hereafter. Could we talk instead about your views on cheating death? I'm a little more interested in that. It would be nice to hear what the biology people and the computer people have to say about life span extension and the old "uploading your consciousness into a computer" trick.
I know some people who are not particularly religious who say that they wouldn't want life extension of any sort. I really have a difficult time understanding that. Sure, life can suck even at the best of times, and I've sometimes wished I could just have a heart attack or get shot at a subway station so that I could just be done with it, but in reality I want to live at least another couple of hundred years.
I'd also like to hear from both biology people and computer people about simple enhancements that are not necessarily geared toward life extension. Is it possible, or on the horizon that there could be some genetic treatment or hardware add-on that could make people smarter? Could such things make them more rational? How about treatments or hardware to make people stronger or just more fit?
I'd love to be there to tell someone like Captain Kirk that his war plans remind me of Vietnam so that when he says, "Viet-what?", I can say, "Sit down sonny, and let me tell you about that old time war we called Vietnam." BTW, there are nowhere near enough Vietnam references on this forum.
I think that if you could upload your consciousness to a computer, it wouldn't benefit you. You would still be dead but there would be a copy of you which you have no control of.
What if you could replace the neurons in your head, one by one, with artificial ones? Would you "die" when the first neuron was replaced? The last one? Somewhere in between?
I think that if you could upload your consciousness to a computer, it wouldn't benefit you. You would still be dead but there would be a copy of you which you have no control of.
It wouldn't be a copy, necessarily, would it? If it worked right, wouldn't the computer be you?
What if you could replace the neurons in your head, one by one, with artificial ones? Would you "die" when the first neuron was replaced? The last one? Somewhere in between?
I think you'd die sometime during the lengthy wait in queue with all the other geeks in the world waiting to have that done.
Seeing this thread reminded me of a joke: A Zen student walks up to a Zen master one day. Student- Master, is there life after death? Master- Why are you asking me? Student- Well, you are a Zen master. Master- Yes, but I'm still alive...
Comments
Just because you can explain why you are a nut doesn't make you not a nut. I only believe in this invisible dragon because I was terrorized by Godzilla movies as a child. Still believe in the dragon, still crazy.
Damn you Pastafarians! Wait'll the Ramenites fly their noodle bowls into your meatballs. That'll learn you.
Japan has serial killers? Is there a deck of playing cards I can get to learn about all of them?
However, I still contend that arbitrary is arbitrary. If a person chooses to make an arbitrary choice about an unprovable thing, recognizes that it's unprovable, recognizes that it's arbitrary, and doesn't hold other people to that same belief, then what's the big deal? If they live their life in accordance to some arbitrary belief, it's effectively a living speculation, and nothing more. I judge a person not on the speculations themselves (unless said speculation is a direct contradiction of something known), but rather the methodology by which they have arrived at said speculation. The process matters, not the answer, at least in arbitrary unprovable matters.
So, hence, someone who can provide some sort of substance to a particular arbitrary belief is better off than someone who simply blindly believes. Explaining your craziness means you're aware of it, think about it, and keep tabs on it; that's the first step in being not crazy. I think people who aren't aware of their own faults, flaws, and so forth, are the most delusional and schizophrenic folks out there.
For any single question you may not know if it will be answered tomorrow or never. But probability-wise "I don't know now" is a good answer. It's at least as good an answer as "it will take about X seconds for the ball to hit the ground after I drop it from a height of Y meters". Not perfect, but good enough to make a very reasonable and useful assumption.
I'm willing to accept 99.9% sure as true. I'm also willing to reject .00001% sure as false. Religious people seem to do the opposite. They try to accept .00001% sure as true and reject 99.9% sure as false. I can't accept that.
/me east spagghetti
So you're more stringent than good science, and I'm not sure that's exactly the best thing, but c'est la vie.
Also, again, "I don't know now" carries an implication that you can't back up directly, and thus isn't scientifically valid. Remember that confidence level; just because it's happened historically doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen. Yeah, you can often predict things, but not always. In other words, in the sciences, don't believe it until you see it.
Faith turns this on its head. People with "faith" often will insist that something is true because there is an infintessimally small probability that it could be. You must admit that while there is a possibility of a god existing, the odds of one existing are ludicrously small. On the same token religious people often deny true things because of a small chance that they are false. See creation vs. evolution for your example of that.
Also, someone with good faith will not base their faith on the tiny chance that something could be true; that's Pascal's wager and that ain't real faith. Real faith is the acceptance that a given belief has no supporting evidence whatsoever, but believing it anyhow. Small difference there.
Most of the religious folk denying true things because of the small chance of being wrong often has more to do with insecurity in their faith and a misunderstanding of the true thing. Faith is not at fault; many of its practitioners are.
Death is natural and necessary. Also, knowing there is an end to all of this makes me want to live life all the more. Every single day is an opportunity. If I thought there was an after life it would make life feel meaningless in comparison. After all, what is a century on earth when you can live forever after you die? If I held that view it would be so much easier to not want to make the world better, because, what would be the point? Thankfully I will live, grow, change, and die.
Immortality blows!
Sure, he would write that "God of dead threads" stuff, but then he would make a somewhat reasonable comment, or a comment at least as reasonable as anything Jen said during her reign of terror.
Also, I note that Scott banned him on his own. You can direct further arguments to him on the subject.
More importantly, the people Jen trolled would probably disagree regarding the level of personal annoyance. I think I remember that many people were pleading for Jen's banishment.
More specifically, this folder.
More specifically, this exact picture.
Yes, I'm talking about www.apreche.net
What do you have to say for yourself, Scott?
I know some people who are not particularly religious who say that they wouldn't want life extension of any sort. I really have a difficult time understanding that. Sure, life can suck even at the best of times, and I've sometimes wished I could just have a heart attack or get shot at a subway station so that I could just be done with it, but in reality I want to live at least another couple of hundred years.
I'd also like to hear from both biology people and computer people about simple enhancements that are not necessarily geared toward life extension. Is it possible, or on the horizon that there could be some genetic treatment or hardware add-on that could make people smarter? Could such things make them more rational? How about treatments or hardware to make people stronger or just more fit?
I'd love to be there to tell someone like Captain Kirk that his war plans remind me of Vietnam so that when he says, "Viet-what?", I can say, "Sit down sonny, and let me tell you about that old time war we called Vietnam." BTW, there are nowhere near enough Vietnam references on this forum.
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Student- Master, is there life after death?
Master- Why are you asking me?
Student- Well, you are a Zen master.
Master- Yes, but I'm still alive...