Vapymid

I think that there are certain fundamental morals which are determined by the physical laws of nature. This means that people must adopt and abide by them whether or not they believe in God, if their society is to survive. The religions and ideologies are, basically, attempts to formulate these fundamental moral principles, but they can easily go off on a tangent and accumulate a lot of self-serving fluff or expedient things that outlive their useful shelf-life, which then obscures the main message... Regards

What I am trying to say is that from the perspective of a conscious person existing in a universe like ours, a fully deterministic universe can be indistinguishable from purely probabilistic one and so can free will be, comparing to a pseudo-free will. Determinism by itself does not have to fundamentally change the way such universe will work. Simplistically speaking, in a fully deterministic universe an interaction of two particles with certain quantum numbers and momentum will have a specific result with probability 1, in a non-deterministic universe the result may or may not be exactly the same. The same macro laws (e.g. thermodynamics) may be equally valid in either of the universes. If these laws lead to origination and evolution of life and intelligence in one of them, they would equally do so in the other. I, personally, am sympathetic to such argument. I do not in any way consider that it might have been disproven by our attempts at AI because the state of the art today in the area of AI is very primitive and inefficient, comparing with living conscious organisms. I think that consciousness (or self-awareness) may be a function of complexity of an information processing system, but it may, in addition, be dependent on specific architecture as well (so it's not just complexity for complexity's sake but it has to be complex in a certain way, which we are yet to find). And, whenever we try to imagine a computer confronting a conscious human we invariably find a scenario where it is defeated by the human. Now, this maybe anthropocertrically biased, but it probably is true. And it should hold true regardless of determinism or lack of it in the Universe. What do you think? Regards

Somewhat Kansasey... 6D6lIw1CUH0 I've heard that too. A very interesting section at 2'46". Oh, hold on a second... Regards

Some good BBC photos here: It almost looks like some of the troops sent by Kiev to stop the rebellion in the South-East have switched sides... Regards

6HSPFpXW5WI Delightfully weird... "You'll need this firm crowbar Whilst I implore you to utilise no sense of smell" Regards

The latest coverage of the events in Ukraine today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27050531 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27045534 Make your own conclusions.... Regards

That's no flu - just a measly cold Regards

If you don't treat flu, it will normally last seven days, if you do - it will be over in a week. Regards

Probably from the Metrocop Volunteer Service - they really have a low budget these days... Regards

I don't think so. Let's assume that there is a world which is superdeterministic and where every new event is the only possible result of the combination of all previous events. Suppose also, there is a conscious and self-aware entity existing in such world. As an external observer (from outside of this world) we know that all decisions that the entity will ever make during its existence are determined strictly and irreversibly by all that has happened before and therefore all such decisions can be calculated and predicted (by us but not by the entity) with 100% accuracy. The entity however, is travelling along the arrow of time in its world and has to encounter each choice and make these decisions one by one, sequentially. Even though we know all the choices it will make, it itself doesn't and has to make them as it goes along. In making these decisions the entity will be guided strictly by the sum of all previous events and interactions but it will still "feel" as if it is making those evaluations and makes a logical choice depending on the prevailing circumstances (which are of course the consequence of all events, as well) and its future expectations (which are the result of the process in its brain, which is the consequence of all events too). So the entity feels like it has free will but all its choices are in-fact predetermined. If we were to stop and restart such world from some arbitrary point in its past, the entity will again make the same decisions all over again but still feel that it has made the choices freely. If there are more than one such entity they fell feel that they are competing with each other and those making "better" decisions (say thermodynamically optimal for that state of the world at that point in time) win and others lose. But for us, from outside, the outcome of this competition will be known in advance. Regards

@Xalder: yes, something like that, but what I am also trying to say is that you can believe in God and not be part of any religion or, conversely, you can believe there is no God and still be religious (like Dawkins). Humanism is OK as long as this is synonymous with philanthropy but I don't think that it is a complete ideology by itself. I dislike the notion of humans existing for our own sake without any greater purpose, just like I dislike the Gaianists for whom the planet is a purpose onto itself and humans are a (somewhat undesirable) byproduct. I prefer to think that the self-organisation of matter in the Universe is the logical precursor to evolution of life, which itself then inevitably leads to sentience and further exponential development of universal intelligence until some kind of transcendence will allow the continuation of these beings beyond the life-span of this Universe... @Doom Shepherd: he is one angry fella Regards

How about now? "Protection team alert, evidence of anticivil activity in this community. Code: assemble, plan, contain." Regards

No, Berkut was the police. The fighters are still there on the square, by the way, only they are not shown on the Western TV anymore. They claim they are monitoring the interim government and threaten to take them down if they show any signs of trying to negotiate with Russia. Somehow, when those people were storming the then Government's buildings they were "freedom fighters", when pro-Russian rebels do the same in the South - they are "the agents of Russian expansionism". As I said earlier, I am not a fan of Putin's actions but the Western hypocrisy disgusts me. As for that guy in the Forbes blog - I heard about him. I personally think he is just a harmless loony from the tin-foil-hat brigade. The Russian state-controlled media being manipulated by the state? - I don't need Paul R Gregory to tell me that. I almost never watch any of that myself unless there already is some independent corroboration... However, what Dr Gregory writes here: "They must stage scenes of massive and violent demonstrations in East and South Ukraine. They must patch together actual demonstration footage with images of exploding grenades, intermittent automatic weapon fire, wounded pro-Russian civilians, and menacing Ukrainian extremists, organized, paid for, and directed by sinister outside forces. They must show valiant local civilians opposing the Neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist juggernaut from Kiev." - is a reasonable description of some recent BBC coverage... Regards

Clearly, either the BBC correspondent or some of the Ukrainian protesters have a good sense of humour... Regards

On the question of free will - to me actually it's one of the least important philosophical questions because it is just a consequence of the resolution of more general questions. Even if the Universe is super-deterministic and every decision we will ever make in our lives is predetermined from before the Big Bang, we still have to live as if we are free to decide. Subjectively, it feels as if we have free will and so we should exercise it. It would be a fallacy to say "I don't think free will exist and therefore I will act as if my decisions are not real and do not matter" - this would be fatalism. Whether or not free will exist - if you step in front of a moving bus, you will be run over. In a random world that would be your decision that made you the casualty statistics, in a determinist world it would be the solely possible consequence of all events preceding the bus-body collision. You prove nothing. Only if the Universe can be re-wound and re-run more than once through the same chain of events will the question of free will have any meaning. Since it is not going to happen (I think), whether the free will is real or simulated is irrelevant. I am not a quantum physicist - that's a disclaimer, so I may be wrong on any or all of this, but... 1) Quantum Mechanics is an abstraction of reality, not the reality itself. As any abstraction it is a simplification and a generalisation of our understanding of reality. The quantum uncertainty is "universally" misunderstood. The wave function is a function of distribution of probabilities of our finding a quantum value of a particle in a particular range, if we were to measure it. It does not mean that the real particle itself does not have a specific value at any particular moment, we just can't predict it better than that using the current mathematical state of the art. The "collapse of the wavefunction" is also just a mathematical concept used to describe interaction of quantum systems and its actual meaning in reality is still open to interpretations. The QM theory is supported by observations and it can explain and mathematically describe properties of reality which could not be explained by "classical" theories (e.g. entanglement). However, it is not the ultimate truth and it is possible that a refined theory will be developed in the future which will allow more precise handling of these properties. There will always be the "hardware" limitations of the Universe though, which will make absolute precision impossible. 2) The process of "measurement" in QM is also the source of confusion and misconceptions. It is popularly believed that "measurement" requires a conscious and intelligent "observer" to perform the measurements *and* interpret the results and that the reality only arises out of its undetermined superposition of all states after that conscious interpretation has been made. This is definitely not so. "Measurement" is any interaction of one quantum system with another resulting in the transfer of information to the "classical" system. The "Observer" for a particle can be any other particle which happened to pass-by and interact with it, even if that "Observer" particle itself will never reach the eye of a scholar with a PhD in physics. So, these "measurements" happen all around us all the time and so, the processes that for now can only be described by QM, aggregate into processes that can be expressed and understood in classical terms and give us the picture of "reality" we can perceive. Regards

To me the question of belief in God and religions are totally different, even if related, matters. The former is a philosophical issue and the latter is ideological. Very little in any religion deals with the question of God, beyond postulating that He is the ultimate authority and the priests are His agents (and therefore the carriers of that authority and their edicts must not be questioned). Beyond that, the religions deal mostly with prescribing or proscribing certain types of behaviour which the priests want to promote or suppress. Some of those prescriptions deal with the issues of general morality and lay down certain norms and rules which are for the benefit of the society as a whole. However, others are there for the purpose of maintaining the clergy's position of power and so are self-serving to an extent. It is an apparent fact, though, that humans cannot effectively co-exist without an ideology. It acts like a back-up government, operating more on instinctive than on the rational basis. In times of crises or disasters, when communications fail and the secular government cannot exercise its power, the ideology helps to preserve some social integrity until the government is restored. The problem is the possibility of abuse (as with any power) - it's tempting to use the power of the Ultimate Boss to slip in a rule or two that would benefit you personally, and that can be seen in any religion (or non-theistic ideology). The other problem is inflexibility - when you claim that certain things are absolute because they came directly from the Ultimate Boss, it is difficult to explain why they may need to be reinterpreted or modified, when they become obsolete... Regards

I believe this would be considered an outrageous heresy. In some circles. On the more serious note - the last 2 - 3 pages in this thread is what happens when you have an infallible point of faith, are confronted with observations which do not fit well with it and feel compelled to defend your position through rational arguments. Because the believed source is a priori taken as absolute, your only solution is to question the empirical evidence and come up with a kludge, which would apparently reconcile specific observations with the points of faith. Very quickly that leads to these kludges breaking with other observed evidence, whereupon you have to devise kludges for kludges etc, until the picture of reality becomes completely distorted and the only way to resolve it is to forget logic and revert to the original point of faith, based on the premise of its infallibility. Which is OK, as far as the freedom of conscience is concerned, but why not just short-circuit the whole lengthy process and just say "I believe this is so and so and I will not accept any alternative explanations, no matter how empirically supported they are, and my faith does not require me to prove it in any objective format"? This way a lot of fruitless arguments and emotions could be avoided (and probably tons of CO2 emissions as well)... Regards

The whole thing has turned into a circus, but it's far from being over... Regards

Wiki pages on nuclear physics and power are usually quite good - here is the one for Thorium-based power generation. For the last few years the price of Thorium was negative (as it is a by-product of other rare earths production and needs to be rid of safely). Several months ago, however, it went positive again, which suggests that people are buying Thorium and the only reason for anyone to do that, really, is if they were experimenting with Thorium power, which is a good sign, I think. Regards

I can easily believe that. However, Mr Carney has forgotten to say that he must have even stronger evidence that the "Maidan" fighters were also paid and most of them were not from Kiev either. He only needs to look somewhere, probably in the CIA budget. Entries under "R", probably - "revolutions, riots, rendition" Oh, my... you should have listened to Yoda! Now turned to the Dark Side you have... Regards

I'm afraid you chose a wrong example as German energy policy is the laughing stock of the world - here is a recent article from the FT (hardly a bastion of right-wing conservatism): Germany’s energy policy is expensive, harmful and short-sighted Some quotes: "Germany’s energiewende, the country’s move away from nuclear and fossil fuels towards renewable energies has been regarded by some commentators as an example for the rest of the world. But now Germany shows the globe how not to make green policy. It is failing the poor, while protecting neither energy security nor the climate. .... Green energy cannot meet Germany’s need for reliable electricity. That is why Germany still needs copious amounts of fossil fuels; German CO2-emissions have risen since the nuclear power phase-out of 2011, despite the incredible subsidies for renewables." But of course, the energy companies refuse to invest in any new nuclear or fossil plants and are actually closing the existing ones because conventional energy cannot compete with the subsidised (but non-sufficient!) "green" power... Unfortunately, the renewable policies in other countries do not seem to be any smarter. It all comes down to - pleasing the greens by denouncing nuclear and fossil fuels, bribing the greens by buying as much as possible of obsolete and useless "renewable" hardware, finally, by squandering taxpayer's money by giving out sweetheart feed-in tariffs deals to those same very greens. This cannot last. I agree with BTG - ultimately there is no way forward for us without nuclear... Regards

I agree it often feels overused but it appears to have evolved naturally from the early folk music and it has recently been suggested that it, apparently, conforms to pink noise spectrum which, in turn, is how human attention cycle works. This all has put me in a rather contemplative mood... RLCrTMHZVmE 7WDkdZ6QvXY FP0KB3jlXos jdozMILc1h0 Regards

That's the Pascal's Wager! It is better to believe that God exists, then if you win you win a place in Paradise and if you lose - it doesn't matter, however, if you don't believe in God and lose - you go to Hell for a very long time... The trouble is what if you chose to believe on the basis of that rational argument and God really exists and he sees your mental calculations and disqualifies you for the opportunism? From Wiki: "Anatomically modern humans appear from about 200,000 years ago and after 70,000 years ago (see Toba catastrophe theory) gradually marginalize the "archaic" varieties. Non-modern varieties of Homo are certain to have survived until after 30,000 years ago, and perhaps until as recent as 10,000 years ago. Which of these, if any, are included under the term "archaic human" is a matter of definition and varies among authors. Nonetheless, according to recent genetic studies, modern humans may have bred with "at least two groups" of ancient humans: Neanderthals and Denisovans.[3] Other studies have cast doubt on admixture being the source of the shared genetic markers between archaic and modern humans, pointing to an ancestral origin of the traits originating 500,000 to 800,000 years ago." But, of course, if the Universe is only 6 or 7 thousand years old this is all an illusion. That's why I qualified my earlier post(s) on that... After all, RE was not the most prominent part of the Soviet school curriculum and, quite frankly, I never bothered to investigate the subject in more details as I just don't see the need. Also, I live in the UK now and people here generally did nothing to correct my misconceptions. However, seeing as they historically view the Papists with some suspicions and disapproval, there may be a bias here as well Isn't that the only logical conclusion? If the source seen as absolutely and infallibly true says "A" and your observations say "B", there follows that "B" is an illusion. Regards

Ah, a global warming debate! Alright... Global warming is probably happening, it is probably caused (or at least seriously contributed to) by humans but most of the people in the world today won't accept either of these propositions. Why? 1) The so-called "scientific" debate has long since turned into a politicised alarmist hysteria. No science in it whatsoever - only political and economic vested interests from all sides. The general public may not know their cyclones from their ozone layer but they can tell political BS when they see it, so they will choose status quo as the safest neutral option. 2) The "solutions" pushed by the "green" side of the fight are totally ludicrous and often corrupt - from banning population from taking showers (an example of just stupid) to switching all power generation to "renewables" (a perfect combination of corrupt and stupid). In this situation, it is easier to dismiss the AGW altogether, thereby blunting the instrument of corruption, than to reason against each "bright" idea separately. Regards

Actually, incest is always the last resort, even in the animal world. First humans did inbreed to a certain extent but they also continued to interbreed with other proto-humans, like Neanderthals, which helped to diversify and strengthen the genome. There is evidence that aversion to incest is instinctive in humans (as in other mammals) as long as they can recognise genetic closeness in a potential partner. It is wrong to think that the mutations which happen due to inbreeding have only appeared recently. The way it works is *any* inbreeding may result in significant problems already in the first generation. I may be wrong, but I think Catholics think it's sinful because it is accompanied by desire and anyway they are all sinners when born and their babies, if they die young, go to Hell's kindergarten and they just have to live with the guilt of having to further sin if they were to procreate (and to not procreate is probably a sin in itself and they are screwed one way or another) But that is interpreting an interpretation = interpretation^2, so the chances that the end result would be correct are very slim... That is beside the things, which if true in the Book, must necessarily mean that what we see around us is an illusion. Regards