51. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #209541 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 2:54 pm

8teist, Allan,

I am truly shamed by your thoughtful and concerned posts.

My post was merely a callous feed for 8teist to reply-

No he's fucked.

*gets cloak*

52. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #209534 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 2:31 pm

GO JOE, KEEP THE DELUSION ALIVE.

Not altogether kind to say about someone so clearly badly damaged.

8teist, would you not consider Joe capable of some form of repair, at least?

53. Interview with Dan Dennett on Danish TV

Comment #209523 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Bum!

Nothing works.

Any other links to try?

54. France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam

Comment #209521 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 1:55 pm

Bonzai.

Thanks. I suspect, on reflection, you are correct.

It is still quite a smack in the teeth to have it implied that your wife, because of your own actions, is too sub-standard to be a French women.

Substandard how?

She has no idea about the secular state or the right to vote.

How can she fulfill her duties as a citizen? Her rights (such as her husband allows, that is) come with obligations. Her ignorance of these obligations must be repaired, before those concomitant rights are conferred.

55. France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam

Comment #209503 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 12:57 pm

Cartomancer

Is her husband orchestrating all this for his own ends?

Yep. (Just a guess)

Is the Council of State's response an acknowledgment of this fact? Their complaint is squarely directed at his behaviour, not his wife's. Do his children lose any rights because of this?

Anybody?

56. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #209478 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 11:55 am

Fanusi

A 10 to 1 population ratio makes something as singular as a Nobel prize award a poor measure of your argument.

FYI

"The Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system went online in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in 1981.[56] NMT was the first mobile phone system that enabled international use of the phone, or "roaming" on other networks in other countries. This was followed by a boom in mobile phone usage, particularly in Northern Europe.[citation needed]

In 1983, Motorola DynaTAC was the first approved mobile phone by FCC in the United States."

"Initially (circa 1996-1997) the technology later known as Bluetooth was an Ericsson-internal project named multi-communicator link or short MC link. Cooperation with Intel was initiated in 1997"


Is your argument about science or technology?

Note, once again, that in an attempt to argue against capitalism you cannot cite the achievements of non-capitalist societies, because these are non-existant. The defence rests.

As an unapologetic capitalist, I'm not arguing against capitalism. Its just not the only game in town for every single societal requirement.

57. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #209474 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 11:43 am

epeeist

Thanks, saved me the trouble on the debt issue.

Fanusi,

I have come to depend on you and Al for real FACTS about Islam and middle eastern politics. Don't make me doubt your rigor in these matters.

58. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #209469 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 11:07 am

Fanusi.

where's the contribution of these countries? Where did things like software, MRI scanners, silicon chips etc. come from? Uh-huh. They're just hitching a ride.

Ignorant bollocks!

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_tec_ach-economy-technological-achievement

59. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #209453 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 10:05 am

Quine

Catholics need to know that the whole idea that makes this act desecration was made up centuries after the start of their religion

Is this actually sustainable?

St Ignatius the third Bishop after Peter and Evodious, coiner of the term Catholic, in AD100 (or so) said of the Eucharist

Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes. �" Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2�"7:1

One would imagine that he would see the the bread of the Eucharist spat out as sacrilegious.

Can you flesh-out the nice distinction of desecration that you are making? Or perhaps point me to your source for the idea.

As a general comment-

I view churches as private clubs. What goes on in there is none of my business with only 2 caveats-

1) Nothing of whats in there comes outside.
2) Kids are not taken inside until they can choose for themselves.

This, of course, makes them fair game 90% of the time.

Cook's behaviour was mildly questionable. The reaction of certain of the congregation inappropriately physical. Cook's subsequent handling of the situation made perfect amends. Case closed.

Donohue deserves all the shit we can possibly manage to pile on him.

email sent in support of PZ.

Its just a cracker for Christ's Sake (sic), a metaphor that got a little above its station, whilst Dr Johnathan Miller's breakfast egg has literally become Dr Johnathan Miller by supper-time. Now there's real transubstantiation for you.

60. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #209260 by phil rimmer on July 12, 2008 at 1:39 am

Should have fixed the italics...

Bum. No. Uh?

61. IT'S A GODDAMNED CRACKER!

Comment #208013 by phil rimmer on July 10, 2008 at 1:34 pm

And the

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord" jokes

Though it would be premature for any to mention-

"He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword"

62. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #207989 by phil rimmer on July 10, 2008 at 11:59 am

Fanusi #207932

Yes, yes, yes!

This is exactly why I bother to come here.

Thank you.

EDIT Al has been just stonkingly good too. Cheers

63. Susskind Quashes Hawking in Quarrel Over Quantum Quandary

Comment #207471 by phil rimmer on July 9, 2008 at 10:53 pm

black holes are not information-erasers but information-scramblers.

But is the scrambling a coding process or a random process? If the latter, the the information is erased. Or am I missing something?

64. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207324 by phil rimmer on July 9, 2008 at 2:03 pm

I'd like Fighting Falcon to come here and tell us again why this is a blip, and it'll all be OK.

The rich poor divide is getting shamefully worse in the UK. It can't afford to get any worse in the US without the risk of instability........Hang on...

The Answer is of course for California and the other intelligent states to secede from the Union, then let 'em sink under the weight of their own stupidity.

65. An Original Confession

Comment #207287 by phil rimmer on July 9, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Darwin was indeed a gentle man. As was his grandfather Erasmus. Suitably, Erasmus might be thought of as grandfather to Charles' interest in the origin of species having written in his great (and popular!) poem Zoonomia-

Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament....

This big man (one of the Lunar Men) was a medical doctor, botanist, inventor, business man, poet and perhaps best of all, a father of quite the newest-fangled sort. One who adored his children, loved them dearly, lavishing time and education on them. There are delightful little sketches of home life with the kids in this Darwin's household. You can see something very special happening in this environment, a delightful, playfulness coupled with the idea that old boundaries are gone, something quite new for the age.

Reading accounts of Charles' home life, the same feeling comes across. A man sufficiently grounded in the love of his home life and the sufficient delight of the the world-as-it-is, that he can bring himself, (perhaps out of kindness) to unmake God, a process, at least, started by his grandfather, who concludes the quoted thought in Zoonomia above-

...which the great First Cause embued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!

A nice step in the right direction that "First Cause".

EDIT "Origin" is a delight to read. I have a lovely 100 year old copy, which somehow makes its clarity and easy but thorough manner all the more surprising. In fact it puts you in mind of books by another more recent evolutionary theorist.

66. Conversation between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #206665 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Corylus

The Johnathan Miller you posted nicely compensated for the Lennox interview. I loved his "miracle of the scrambled egg turning into him", being more astonishing than the resurrection. Wonderful.

Double thanks then. (Just started the book. Its looking good.)

67. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #206530 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 12:49 pm

locri

I'm afraid you've confused me with someone else.

Sincere apologies. So I have.....Please read Dane's links to refute your points.

68. McDonald's Makes Jesus Cry

Comment #206476 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 11:54 am

Spinoza

Heterosodomophiles beware?

Nominal determinism being what it is, I should beware also. Being a HETEROanilinguist is surely no defence.

This whole business leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, much like the contents of Ronald McDonald's sad little buns, in fact.

69. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #206275 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 8:08 am

My coffee breaks have been a washout with all this mindless cut'n'paste drivel clogging up the interweb.

Now I have to log on to call Troll. Tedious.

yours,

Himmler RIP.

70. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #206045 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 3:45 am

Silly Gitt.

71. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #206004 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 2:48 am

Comment #205964 by hungarianelephant

Absolutely spot on. Enough solutions are known now (no new technology needed) to make a huge difference to fossil fuel usage.

New business structures can unlock a lot of the changes.

If say, light were sold, rather than just the electricity to produce it, there would be an automatic move to long-life high-efficiency lighting solutions because "total cost" becomes the dominant factor in the business. The added value of light over electricity increases the service value. Businesses want to move to services because of the stability of the (contract based) cash streams.

Another new business structure is to create modular cars. Weight is the key to efficiency. Superb lightweight and very strong vehicles can be made with a carbon fibre chassis. (Sadly they cost an arm and a leg, but wait.) Electric powertrains coupled with drive by wire technology allow complete modularity of parts. All electric vehicles, hybrids with some battery storage and versions with no storage at all are possible. Vehicles can have more battery storage added as you change jobs and have 40 mile round trip requirements rather than 20 mile. New power plant, HCCI engines or Fuel Cells can be added as more efficient devices become available. New body panels? Extra seats?

High costs are offset by long useful lives of the parts which can be re-manufactured and re-sold. Local business activity is ensured. Innovation potential is enhanced and GM becomes the bank its always wanted to be, providing the mortgage to buy the vehicle in the first place.

Vehicle efficiencies will climb to 150mpg levels, depending on configuration. And much, much less stuff is made and then thrown away because some small part has become obsolete. (The embodied energy in manufactured goods is frightening.)

Yipee!

EDITED

72. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205966 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 1:37 am

Comment #205867 by locri

Oh, and the other planets in the solar system have been warming up... I kinda don't think that our CO2 production has been screwing with them, so there is something else going on.

NO THEY HAVEN'T. Read your own bloomin' links.

Even if not, but still taking natural varience into account the impact being caused by CO2 very little unless you assume we would naturally be decreasing in temp.

Ah, like the inevitable result of the global dimming phenomenon, f'rinstance?

Your first four paragraphs are very persuasive, however.

73. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205937 by phil rimmer on July 8, 2008 at 12:17 am

Locri

And if you are worried about hidden data, you should look up information on the Mann hockey stick graph.

The man (Mann) didn't hide data. He was a credulous idiot who didn't know how to use EXCEL. (He made basic mistakes, substituting absent data with a zero rather than an interpolated figure.) At the time the results overstated the available data. By chance, it seems, more recent data better backs up the original conclusion.

Funny, is that why the only area that CO2 covers that Water Vapor doesn't cover is in one of those colder bits?

Are you suggesting the absorption spectrums (which predate the GW debate and are lab based data) have been rigged?

CO2 has its effect in the hotter end of earth re-radiation, not cooler as you state.

I suppose it doesn't help that water vapor composes nearly 90% or so of the greenhouse gases.

Correct. It doesn't. It depends where the water vapour is at any given time. It tends not to be in the areas of maximum re-radiation flux (the hot dry bits.)

This bit is good though....

but some people don't even bother with the basic foundations of the theory which I think is why we get in the trouble we do.

74. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205678 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 4:13 pm

Doc

Funny how that weather channel guy turns up in a lot of global warming discussions.

When you've slipped off the TV screens and fallen into AM radio, you gotta do something to keep your profile up.....


PM BTW

75. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205671 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Brian,

I think s/he thinks its real on the smoke 'n' fire principle. Sadly, headlines are all that s/he bothered to read or was capable of reading.

76. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205667 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Simonw

Oh the irony

Tee Hee. It doesn't look good does it? Actually, I wasn't flying. I was going to nearby Bishop Stortford, but the name escaped me for a minute.....honest.

77. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205663 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 3:41 pm

Dane, did you even read your own links? Did you understand them???

Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled over the past 14 years, indicating a stark temperature rise, the researchers said. The change is likely a seasonal event, much as seasons on Earth change as the hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun during the planet's annual orbit.

the moon is approaching an unusually warm summer season that only happens once every few hundred years. Elliot and his colleagues believe that Triton's warming trend could be driven by seasonal changes in the absorption of solar energy by its polar ice caps.

This growth signals a temperature increase in that region [of Jupiter], she said.

Why are you expending so much effort on irrelevant stuff?? You haven't got a novel to promote have you?

78. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205632 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 2:41 pm

locri

Your website link was pants. Water vapour may absorb em radiation across a wider range of wavelengths than CO2 but it is perfectly obvious that CO2 is will positioned to have the most significant effect.

Steffan's law shows that the amount of energy radiated from a blackbody (which the earth closely approximates) increases with the fourth power of its absolute temperature, hence the hot bits (at 310K) radiate a substantially more than the cold bits (at 210K). Water vapour is good at blocking this un-energetic longer wavelength (cooler) radiation, whilst CO2 is good at blocking the higher energy radiation. The fact that the water vapour carries on absorbing at yet shorter wavelengths is irrelevant as the earth is not the temperature of Venus and does not radiate et these wavelengths.

The curves shown on the site illustrate this point perfectly. I saw this rubbish ages ago, but then they hid some of the data to hide the error in the theory. The hidden data was what made me suspicious of it in the first place.

I'd give them 3 out of 10 for good illustrations.

79. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205616 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Given that CO2 (and other gasses) have a well proven greenhouse effect and that NO substantial anti-greenhouse mechanism has yet been demonstrated, we have to assume that in a period of Global Warming, whether anthropogenic or otherwise, excess production of these gases in an accelerating fashion is a BAD THING.

Fortunately, we can all do the SAME right thing, giving up fossil fuels, for our differing reasons-

1) To be kind to Gaia
2) To save mankind from sunstroke
3) To deny the politically ugly regimes their power (sic) over us. (Not you Canada)
4) To not choke to death in Beijing and LA.
5) To control our cost of living
6) To allow Teratornis to die happy, though his fingers be worn to stumps.

80. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205598 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 1:48 pm

locri

Therefore, in the past CO2 has decidedly NOT caused warming.

....immediately.

Given that a simple lab experiment shows Arrhenius was correct about the heat trapping properties of CO2 and that a simple model of the earth (with a fixed albedo and an oxygen / nitrogen atmosphere) will heat up more when insolated (sic) with more CO2 present, the onus is on you to hypothesise why in a complex world this might not be the case.

Considering early CO2 release was substantially from volcanic activity and such activity would also emit particles and particulates that would also cause global dimming, probably depressing temperatures significantly at first, a delay in the apparent global warming effects of the CO2 seems highly likely. There might well be other such mechanisms at play in other CO2 release situations.

81. Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

Comment #205549 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 12:45 pm

Quine,

What riches you have round at your place!

My evening's edification is sorted.

Thanks.

82. Religion's role in the climate debate

Comment #205493 by phil rimmer on July 7, 2008 at 11:16 am

Steve

I haven't a clue what will work.

The winning solution on every conceivable account is to use less energy. It ameliorates all problems quickly and cost effectively, whilst allowing alternative energy technologies to mature.

My Swedish friend's kit built 4 bedroom, detached house requires 1kW to heat in its entirety at -4 Celsius outside. Colleagues of mine have started a business providing 300m geothermal boreholes and heat-pumps(for 15,000 Euros) that will heat (and cool!) his home forevermore AND provide all his hot water, come rain or shine. If you think this is a bit costly, think what value this permanent resource has added to his property.

hungarian

Sadly, compact fluorescent lamps have got good just as their image has reached an all time low. Many manufacturers now produce dimmable versions. Dual amalgam technology produces near full brightness at turn-on. and mercury dosing levels have fallen by nearly two orders of magnitude in the last few decades (now 5 mg). Life spans have doubled making these products last 15 times that of a conventional bulb, further reducing the waste stream content. Fully implemented recycling programs throughout Europe manages the now tiny mercury issue. (Please be aware the LED lighting industry [my own, sadly!] are the probable perpetrators of this latest mercury scare.)

Standby power in the average US home is 135W. This constitutes a significant fraction of energy used. In the UK it is 35W. The technology to curb this already exists, in the form of a switch.

Simple, proven, money-saving solutions already exist to cut residential power loss in half. The hurdles to adoption are the high initial cost and the lack of honest (this product is better than that product) advice. Commercial buildings tend to be more energy efficient but still a 30% saving is immediately possible.

My five seater car is now achieving 62 mpg on a semi-urban route. I managed over 70 on a round trip to the airport recently. I feel safer in it than the Ford Explorer I once worked on.

Energy efficiency is a no-brainer, whether you're concerned about AGW, GW, or energy security. Whatever happens energy costs will rise. Use less and save money (and possibly a lot more...who knows) indefinitely.

*cheery music fades away as does the image of the "Government Information Film" graphic.*

83. The Boundaries of Belief

Comment #205143 by phil rimmer on July 6, 2008 at 4:44 pm

manic

think I should mention that Dr. Sue Blackmore claims, in her intriguing book "The Meme Machine", that she lives without freewill.

Not one of my favourite books for precisely that reason. She wishes us less self-centred and more "eastern" and diffuse in our sense of our selves. I think there are great risks to the creative responses to danger with what she has in mind.

It all smacks of a mindset left over from her hippy, new-age-credulous days.....

EDIT I use money and freewill on a daily basis.

84. Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

Comment #205132 by phil rimmer on July 6, 2008 at 4:24 pm

Radesq

Its in-

1 Corinthians 15:6 (New International Version)


6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

Mind you, this is from Christianity's chief PR guy Paul of Tarsus. Its his job to talk it up.


And no thousands of sitings of Bigfoot doesn't cut it for me either. If George Washington had claimed to see it or Ben Franklin my interest would have been a little piqued, however.

85. The Boundaries of Belief

Comment #205124 by phil rimmer on July 6, 2008 at 4:06 pm

manic-depressive

the fiction of freewill

Some fictions are genuinely useful, like money. I have argued elsewhere that the fiction of freewill is useful. It encourages us to act, which is a big problem for creatures with big brains and a lot of conflicting impulses. The fiction that we act willfully encourages us to model ourselves as such. We become far more likely to guess (to rehearse) what we may do in some anticipated future situation, rather than just wait to see what happens. With various scenarios rehearsed, when we do act, it will be less of a surprise to us and more effective, reinforcing the virtuous fiction and its utility.

86. Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

Comment #205117 by phil rimmer on July 6, 2008 at 3:37 pm

Of course, SupportsChrist, has no rational explanation for the resurrection of a dead Messiah, nor would he welcome one. The event is the very lynch-pin of Christianity. Death and Resurrection. A miracle and no less is needed here to get the idea to fly.

What intrigues me is the appalling stage management of and inadequate PR surrounding the event. Was it just lucky that 500(???) witnessed a resurrected Christ? Enough to win over some converts, at least., but not enough of a no-brainer to win over those of other faiths. Might it have gone unnoticed altogether had those 500(!!!) not been around? (God not stooping to vulgar showmanship to personally lay on a witnessing throng?) If the whole inevitable "filial sacrifice" had been God's contrived conceit, however, why wasn't Pontius Pilate carefully positioned to be a witness to the resurrection, for instance? A reliable high ranking Roman witness and a bunch of literate Roman troops could have made all the difference on the conversion front in the immediate aftermath.

Would you send your "Son" on a "suicide" mission with the risk that , in the end, it could all go unnoticed?

87. Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

Comment #205050 by phil rimmer on July 6, 2008 at 12:41 pm

decius,

Thanks. Domestic duties and playing with lenses, y'know the sort of thing.

Pity to see a good thread about music hijacked by such "penny plain" religious word-wooze. I suspect our baseball lover (who I'm sure is a nice man), doesn't realize the flood gates he has opened with-

My faith is based on a revelation from God (if I may Steve), not on a tradition handed down to me. I'd like to say its more of a euphoric epiphany that has never subsided.

Such unfamiliarity with the workings of the human mind is sad. And-

The same inability for you to explain why you are here in the here and now is my reason for being unable to factually account and provide to you a provable answer.

The fact that a huge and growing amount can be explained is the point here. Increasingly, I'm coming to see the religious as simply being IMPATIENT. A bit like my kids, in fact. "But, I want answers now!"

88. Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

Comment #205032 by phil rimmer on July 6, 2008 at 12:15 pm

SupportsChrist

The Jewish religion seems to want a different type/kind of savior then the one that God delivered to them and the whole world.

Christ! What a fuck up! (His Chosen People too.)

89. Saving Us from Darwin

Comment #202339 by phil rimmer on July 1, 2008 at 10:47 am

I'm currently working on a bit of kit for use in schools to demonstrate how evolution can turn a little patch of light sensitive cells into an image forming "biological camera" like our own eyes, with each elemental, evolutionary change yielding an advantage in utility of some form or another.

Of course the task is delightfully simple and superbly illustrated at every step by currently living organisms. My problem has been finding "copy" that engenders enough wonder at the current stage that evolution has reached in ourselves.

Hats off to Wooter for finding the perfect material for me in his post 202126. This shall take pride of place in my promotional material for the kit. (Don't worry I'll double check it for accuracy first.) I will of course attribute it to an "Educationalist" and describe his attempted use of it and thereby illustrate the sheer laziness and poverty of thought that afflicts so many.

I presume 8000 lenses is a reference to compound eyes. (Don't worry the kit caters for those too.)

Many Thanks, Clearedmind.

EDITED to repair an attack of clearlymindless bad grammar.

90. Saving Us from Darwin

Comment #201674 by phil rimmer on June 30, 2008 at 3:26 am

fizhburn

trolltastic

Ha!

My new favourite word. Love it!

91. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #201620 by phil rimmer on June 30, 2008 at 12:15 am

theIdiot

My thanks for your last post. I'm not going to be able to post for 2 days or so. I will respond as soon as possible when I'm back in town.

92. The Flea Delusion

Comment #201264 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 2:11 pm

epeeist

Candidates for such counter examples are radio active decay or the creation and annihilation of particles due to quantum vacuum fluctuations.

Those pesky Casimir forces are now causing big problems with our nano-machines. These forces resulting from quantum vacuum fluctuations are causing "stiction" between closely spaced parts and gumming up the works. Scientists are now trying to fix the problem by replacing the mischievous nothing with a less causational something.

93. The Flea Delusion

Comment #201251 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 1:37 pm

Life O'Brien

Drange is a low-watt bulb

You're so right. It doesn't take much, does it?

Thanks for the link to that other guys blog. (Nasty piece of work isn't he? All that hatred.)

Sadly the argument failed because the notional compatibility of maximally ordered and disordered states cannot repair the damage done by finding even a single pair of non-compatible properties.

94. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #201159 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 8:33 am

OK, I think we can take any further discussion on Meaning off-line. I think we have thoroughly driven people away here with all this metaphorical hand-waving. Set up quite a draught. I'll PM you later, but feel free to carry on with others.

I am at a loss to see your religious half as having any of the main characteristics of the kind of religion that gets attacked here. It seems pretty much pick 'n' mix and dogma free if a little too fetishistic for my tastes. Dawkins is very clear at the outset of TGD to exclude from his sights the non-evangelizing, essentially Deist, tolerant, love and niceness type of religion we see some of in the UK and in Europe.

Moving on and back. There is a caveat to the above. Don't defend other peoples religious dogma by seeking to deny us the right to attack it. Dogma, particularly religious dogma (because tradition confers it respect) locks in behaviours for long periods of time. Yes this can mean some good behaviours as well (I phrased it this way from the outset). But locked in behaviour cannot respond to new evidence and that makes it dangerous. It makes it dangerous for me and my kids, because some of these people want to interfere in my life on the strength of their un-evidenced beliefs. Better still, join the battle against the politically intrusive, evidence free nutters who KNOW whats good for us.

Ikiru. I may have caught the end of this on TV one night and was transfixed. I will certainly find it and check it out.

EDIT added stuff

95. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #201149 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 7:18 am

theIdiot

I'm Phil not fizh. (you can re-edit your post with the edit button top right.) It might help to avoid confusion for others.

Sorry only briefly for the mo, but..

I'm not interested in the specifics of our differing "Meanings" at all. I'm asking, if you think meaning is a found thing, and if you have found yours and I claim I made mine, surely you must think yours the better? Even if I agreed that mine was found also, could we decide on which was better?


EDIT
Re Kurosawa
No. Just read IMDB. I must see it clearly. I am a great Kurosawa fan, though I've only seen a few,
Rashomon, Kumonoso jo, Kagemusha and of course the Seven Samurai.

96. Dawkins on Darwin

Comment #201143 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 6:50 am

Roger Stanyard......BCSE

Gosh I'm a dunce. I'll ask this question in public in case anyone else can help too.

I've been working on the idea for some cheap educational kit that can be used to show the evolution of the eye. Using a webcam as a reconfigurable sensor, various adapting enclosures and a white board, the continual improvement in utility (and even a branching into compound eyes) from a single light sensitive patch can be demonstrated
for single aspect changes to the structure.

The help I need is in identifying how this may integrate with the National Curiculum and then promoting the equipment to schools. I also need help with some simple PC based software to offer the webcam image as a single pixel (and growing multiples) and indicating averaged light levels.

(I have access to an educational equipment manufacturer, distributer.)

Any thoughts? Roger? Anyone?

97. Dawkins on Darwin

Comment #201137 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 6:27 am

Just caught it. Splendid work.

I though Paula's framing of the issues was elegantly done. It helped make the thing flow in a very satisfying way. Well done indeed!

98. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #201135 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 6:16 am

theIdiot

Your responses to my earlier questions seem strangely neutral and defensive given your original explosive assertions.

The tasty food metaphor seems strangely incomplete also. We may indeed discover pre-existing ingredients for taste/meaning. Whilst in isolation these ingredients (e.g.salt) have taste, separately they are unsatisfying. Just as elemental facts about the world per se have no meaning. We are our own chefs selecting ingredients from anywhere we may. Satisfying taste and meaning may be synthesised (sic, man made)in a myriad differing ways.

Well, I should just tell you that I'm not the best spokesperson for the cosmos. And it seems as silly to me to say meaning was gifted to us by God at the moment of the sacrifice of his son, as it would be for me to say that Kit Kits became tasty when a Jew was nailed to a piece of wood.

This is disingenuous. Where does meaning reside if it is discoverable by the likes of you and me?

I don't know. I haven't died yet.

Disingenuous. (EDIT No, sorry, I was imprecise.) Does your sense of meaning not encompass your own death?

99. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #201132 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 5:46 am

theIdiot

Questions, questions. (These may be the last few.)

Your Christian "Meaning" (of sin and redemption??) and my "Meaning" (of, say, collective creativity) are hugely different. Is yours in any absolute sense better (i.e.independent of you and me)?

This in the light of-

It needs as much of an explanation as why do some people find peanut butter to be the best stuff on earth, while others would rather eat shit

which was not rendered as-

It needs as much of an explanation as why do some people find peanut butter to be the best stuff on earth, while others would rather eat jelly.

Does your sense of "Meaning" inform your morality and your behaviour?

Does your sense of "Meaning" demand public action other that the simple relief of harm? (E.g. My sense of "Meaning" deserves wider acceptance or, deserves not to be attacked.)

100. The Flea Delusion

Comment #201118 by phil rimmer on June 29, 2008 at 5:00 am

Just for everyones amusement lets get these arguments for God up here and watch Robert O'Brien take us through them-

Mortimer Adler

1. The existence of an effect requiring the concurrent existence and action of an efficient cause implies the existence and action of that cause.
2. The Cosmos as a whole exists.
3. The existence of the Cosmos as a whole is radically contingent (meaning that it needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence to preserve it in being, and prevent it from being annihilated, or reduced to nothing).
4. If the Cosmos needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence, then that cause must be a supernatural being, supernatural in its action, and one the existence of which is uncaused, in other words, the Supreme Being, or God.


Now Craig

Premise 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2: The universe began to exist.

Conclusion 1: Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

Craig asserts that the first premise is "relatively uncontroversial". He defines "begins to exist" as "comes into being," and argues that we know from metaphysical intuition that things don't just pop into being uncaused. According to Craig, this establishes premise 1.

The second premise is usually supported by the following argument:

1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
2. A beginningless series of events is an actual infinite.
3. Therefore, the universe cannot have existed infinitely in the past, as that would be a beginningless series of events.

Godel is a trick that works only if non-real or limited properties are ascribed to God

Section 10 here dispatches Godel

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/incompatible.html

(The Adler and Craig are cut'n' paste wikipedia)

Robert?