Profile for *i
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | *i |
| Member number | 6 |
| Title | The Establishment |
| Postcount | 3726 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, April 12 2005 12:19
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quote:I am happy you do not feel the need to question and analyze your belief systems in any way. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| is there a way to make it possable to Edit your other accounts posts in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, April 12 2005 09:54
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No. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Monday, April 11 2005 16:48
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quote:As I have said before, medical tests have an error rate associated with them. What is the success/failure rate of the diagnostic procedures used? What was the nature and extent of the "heart blockage"? The term in and of itself is very vague: was it a clot, foreign object, arterial buildup? These are very important as it determines the actual chance that a "miracle" occurred. If the success rate of the test was 80% and the "heart blockage" itself was transient having a 10% chance of self-removal in 24 hours, the fact that it didn't exist later on is not that surprising. The point is Ben, you need to be very quantitative when describing events. If there is a very significant probability for no explanation other than a miracle, then we would be more inclined to believe. But until you give some measure, we cannot determine. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Sunday, April 10 2005 16:47
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quote:I think it's rather arrogant to presume you could even comprehend the workings of the diety. If a diety was all powerful and all knowing, why did it not already set into place the miraculous workings from the beginning of time? The truth is, you make an assertion based merely on what you've been told. In fact, the logic of a diety that interferes contradicts with the logic of an omniscient one. Of course, this is my own analysis of logic and in no way can I be certain of said actions of a diety. So I ask you, what evidence/argument do you have for your assertion that prayer matters? Or does it stem from a dogmatic worldview? quote:You have totally missed the point. Did you even read my post? If you did, read it again, and again. I'm NOT trying to disprove the existence of a diety. My point was that miracles do NOT follow the four fundamental forces and we could detect the interference of a diety if we traced back to a "source term" or a place where there was some unexplainable creation/destruction of some force. quote:Well, I'm glad you don't feel the need to analyze your beliefs in any way... Care to explain on the molecular level how "everything just falls into place"? From the first part of your post, you appear to have some inside insight into the working of a diety. Please, I want to know. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| The Universe in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Sunday, April 10 2005 14:10
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Another problem with small black holes is the Hawking Radiation which causes a black hole to lose its energy. This is proportional to the surface to volume ratio of the black hole, so a small black hole fades away faster than a big one. As far as antimatter, the problem with it as a conventional electricity source is there is no way period to get net energy out. Space propulsion might have some hope. This pesky first law of thermodynamics prevents us from producing copious amounts of antimatter. In other words, because of the second law, we must spend more energy to make it than we could ever get back. The reason nuclear fission works for power plants and warships so well is that there is plenty of 235U lying around. A majority of the energy is deposited by fission products as well, helping it. Nuclear fusion has the fact that there is tons of deuterium in the form of D2O in the worlds oceans making it viable. The energy conversion comes from the heating by neutron interactions with the walls or direct conversion into electricity from charged particle products from advanced fuels. Antimatter does not have that luxury. On antimatter power cycles: one would never use positron to gamma decay for energy source. Antiproton-proton pairs become high energy pions upon annihilation . These are what would be harvested, not the gamma rays. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Sunday, April 10 2005 08:57
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Here is what I would consider the difference between natural and supernatural and whether or not a miracle has occurred. All physical or natural event must have been due to one of the four fundamental forces and can be explained as such. Any supernatural event would not depend on these four forces. You might ask, well, what if the diety used one or more of the forces to cause said miracle? I would reply that the fundamental forces are self-consistent. In other words, everything traced back to infinity or the big bang can be explained by them. If we trace back any miracle or supernatural event, there would have to be some inexplicable "source term" or point where things were influenced by an external force of some sort. However, what if the omniscient diety put the miracle in place back at the beginning of the universe? Well, then there is no way to substantiate the claim that a miracle occurred. In such case, prayer can have no effect on said miracles because they were already in effect prior to any intervention. Unfortunately, I will freely admit a few caveats to this positon: 1) Many events are based upon probability and, although they obey the four fundamental forces, a trigger within the limits of the uncertainty principle would be impossible to measure. 2) If the diety was truly not constrained by time, then at any point it could make an event starting back at infinity and propegate it to the present. In both cases, the miracle would be entirely physical as it had a physical, albeit extraordinary, explanation. However, if we define miracle as extraordinary, then we can make some philosophical assertions as to the nature of these events. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:55
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Unfortunately, there have been very few reliable tests on the power of prayer. The ones that have been carried out, for the most part, had severe methodological problems associated with it. That's a pity too, because it would be nice to have reliable data on this. But does one need to pray for a miracle to occur? Is prayer any more likely to lead to the intercession by the diety? Should it, if the diety is already omniscient and would therefore already have anticipated doing the miracle before hand? -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:39
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quote:A comparison to mechanics is invalid, I can test mechanics over and over again to the point where I would be a complete idiot to disbelieve it. As far as ball lightning, there is some theoretical belief that it could work, although it is quite crude. The answer to your question is that ball lightning can be tested (in principle) whereas a diety cannot unless it lends itself to it or other evidence is found. The theory of God is short, but not simple. If you think about it, it is very complex because it creates a lot of questions as to the nature of its existence and the mechanisms by which it works. It is a theory that is untestable and creates a lot of questions that hence cannot be answered. This is all digression. My point was that I was making a comparison to something in science that is considered a bit fringe at this moment. I was merely giving examples for "experiments" or "observations" that could support that "miracles" occur, which was the issue in doubt. At which point, you would have to study said miracle and then rule out all known natural causes. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Geneforge 3 > Khyryk > Greta training in Geneforge Series | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:30
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I figure I'll move this to GF 3 so it gets a little more attention. At any rate, you should probably e-mail Jeff and send him a save file. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Can we...? (possible spoilers) in Geneforge Series | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:22
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If it's any consolation, he's the most powerful Drakon ever made. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Lair of the creator in Geneforge Series | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:20
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I believe the Creator he is referring to is the one on Dhonal isle. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Can we...? (possible spoilers) in Geneforge Series | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:12
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No. Yes. No. Maybe longer. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Quick demo Q: Can you reason with Warped Creator with high enough Leadership? in Geneforge Series | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:11
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I believe you need a Leadership of 10. You can, however, I believe negotiate with the commander of Fort Kentia once you find it. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
|
The Establishment
Member # 6
|
written Saturday, April 9 2005 18:08
Profile
quote:The only difference in world view is the laws of physics, and the most solid and basic ones at that, namely classical mechanics. If a person refuses to accept classical mechanics despite every experiment and everyday examples otherwise, then I would have serious doubts as to the person's intellect or sanity. Let us say there is a person who doubts space flight: Once I write down F = dp/dt, I have essentially made space travel possible. Well, how do I know the second law of mechanics is right you might ask? Well, I could do numerous experiments. They do these in introductory physics labs all the time. I can give empirical proof, or as close as one can come, to it. If this cannot suffice, like I said above, the person is beyond any intellectual reason or discussion. Of course through this I assumed a heliocentric model of the solar system and all that, but I don't see any moon hoaxers question that, so unless we really want to get into that, I will leave that out. That said, the Moon Hoaxers have never doubted classical mechanics, they just say the moon landings was is a conspiracy. That is why I have to bring up additional evidence. At no time do they doubt space flight in and of itself. Now, the problem with miracles through supernatural intervention is that I cannot physically sit a person down and show him/her the mechanisms by which it would work. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
|
The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 17:44
Profile
quote:If said event did occur, then it could be studied. I think it is a bit tentative to say that science could not conjure an answer. I would not underestimate our analytical tools once there is something concrete to analyze. There is no rule that says gods cannot be part of the universe. If there was good evidence for it, then they could be incorporated. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
|
The Establishment
Member # 6
|
written Saturday, April 9 2005 17:30
Profile
quote:Very much different. Going to the moon is entirely possible based upon the known laws of physics. Once can calculate exactly what trajectories would be required, the speed at which one would have to go through the Van Allen belts to avoid a harmful radiation exposure, and all sorts of other parameters. In fact, this could theoretically be done (well, aside from the radiation exposure calcualtions) at the time of Isaac Newton. Now that I have made the case that a moon landing is plausible based upon known laws of physics, the fact of doing it becomes less extraordinary. We have these now: 1) We can look at moon rocks returned and the exact isotopic compositions, grain micrometeorite impact surfaces, helium-3 isotope abundances, hydrogen deposition from solar wind volatiles. 2) Artifacts placed on the moon such as can theoretically be photographed with sattelites. We might even be able to detect gamma ray emission from the Plutonium-238 decay in RTGs placed on the moon during the Apollo era. 3) We have countless photographs from the surface of the Moon. As of yet, all attempts to show that the photographs have been faked have been discredited. 4) We can actually talk to people who were either or the moon or involved with the program. While testimony in and of itself is not adequate, the credibility of these individuals overall is quite high; one of them was even a US senator (as I side note, I do know this person personally). That and no one actually involved with the program has recanted, no death bed confessions, etc. With all this, the burden of proof shifts now to the negative to refute the claims of the affirmative. So far, such refutations, have themselves, been refuted to any reasonably scientifically inclined person's satisfaction. We could apply similar arguments to the holocaust, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the existence of the Roman Empire, or the occurrence of Magellan's circumnavigation of the Earth. There is plenty of historical evidence for these things. Now, back to the subject of miracles. The problem is that they do not fit into the known laws of the universe. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. Radioactive decay didn't prior to 1896, but PET scans are quite commonplace today. However, it does require a bit more proof than something that is plausible under current scientific understanding. Anyway, right now all we have are testimonials. They are evidence, but not really enough for such an extraordinary claim. Take the case of the tumor. MRI (or similar) photographs of a tumor existing corroborated with testimony of medical professionals who took the photograph followed by an MRI (or similar) taken after showing a complete disappearance without treatment would be excellent evidence. The problem with the drug abuse example is that although there is a physical dependece, a lot of the feelings can be overriden by emotional will in some cases. If a person truly, honestly believed that a miracle occurred, they could plausibly beat it with their own emotional fortitude. What would be interesting and more powerful would be blood and tissue tests prior to and after the miracle to determine if their was a miraculous change in cellular chemistry. If there was, this would be stronger evidence for the case. The problem is not the miracles cannot be proven or disproven, nothing in science can. This is a lot like ball lightning in a lot of ways. Self-confining plasmas don't really exist under our current understanding of plasma physics and the claims of its occurrence is only anecdotal. However, such things are being pursued seriously and there is plenty of effort to formulate theories on how such things could occur. The problem with miracles is we have yet to capture anything which goes beyond testimony or urban legend on something that would indicate so. Right now the evidence for the existence of miracles is very speculative. However, I have given two of many examples of how one might provide evidence for it. In a lot of ways it's like capturing ball lightning, but there are ways to do it. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 15:01
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quote:The testimonies are irrelevant because they do not offer any evidence I can evaluate, also they are not even under a legal oath so they could lie/fabricate anyting they want. I do not even know who they are or even if they exist, in no way can I evaluate the person's credibilty. I merely have some stranger's (who may or may not exist even) word. If I say I say a purple dragon appeared before me the other day (a miracle if you ask me) but do not offer pictures, evidence of dragon footprints, etc. it is merely an unverifyable claim. I need a lot more information before I can evaluate this. As far as a human error/machine error argument, I bring up a very disturbing study which unfortunately I do not have reference to but could find out if I asked the correct people if you insist. It states that the benefit from hospitals is actually mitigated by the medical mistakes such that in the long view going to hospitals really does not increase your chance of survival. The medical error rate is alarmingly high. There are what, 19 testimonials on that site out of how many hospital visits overall? The chance of misdiagnosing a serious terminal illness is quite high due to messing up equipment, careless practices, etc. That and the machines and doctors do have some finite error rate. The sample size of these "miracles" are well within that rate, so arguments of "there is no way that medical malpractice could account for these" is a bit suspect. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Geneforge 3 cheat script (yes now it is out) (not able to choose though) in Geneforge Series | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 10:26
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I think Editor is an improper word for this as it implies a lot more freedom than one actually gets. How about Cheat Script? -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, April 9 2005 10:22
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quote:Perhaps, but the burden of proof is always on the affirmative. It is your responsibility to provide evidence for a certain phenomena. quote:FYI: This is what we call a false dichotemy. The first law of thermodynamics only necessarily applies to the natural universe i.e. observable phenomena. Anything that is not observable, such as those things outside the limits of the uncertainty principle, do not have to follow this. This would also apply to gods, goddesses, pink dragons, and anything else which nature has yet to observe. quote:I think we can say with almost certainty that some of these are fake because it depends on anectdotal evidence, which is quite weak. quote:This is, unfortunately, a testimonial. I have no way to base the credibility of the witness, or even if this is a real person. What makes me doubt this is that a simple x-ray test is one of the most innacurrate ways to diagnose a brain tumor. It can show evidence of one, but more advanced techniques such as CT scans or MRI is necessary to diagnose a brain tumor. Why should anyone believe this point in its current state of presentation other than a naive want to? quote:An x-ray is not the best way to do this, how can they know the tumor was there to begin with? Do you have a picture of the before and after x-ray photograph to substantiate this claim? If you did, it would go a lot farther even though it would be difficult to detect the tumor outright, some comparisons can be made. quote:As of yet, evidence for the existence of anything outside of 4-space has not been experimentally detected. This may change when CERN gets its upgrade. However, right now we have a lot of elegant mathematics in the physics community that a lot of equally intelligent people think are just plain wrong. We need to collect more data on this before I will buy your assertion. [quote]It's easy enough as long as you're willing to add an additional timelike dimension...[quote] Seems like an unnecessary complexity to me to justify the existence of a phenomena which there is no reproducible evidence for. quote:Evidence for these assertions please? quote:How dare you presume the will of God. Don't you think its rather arrogant to conjecture on the wants and desires of an almighty Creator that no one can truly understand? quote:We do have people that claim to hear God talking to them directly today. We call them skittzophrenic or dellusional and CT brain scans generally bare this out. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| if you ended as a loyalist what town did you end in in Geneforge Series | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Friday, April 8 2005 11:20
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The last town will be in west of Dohnal's Keep. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| science, philosophy or religion? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Friday, April 8 2005 11:10
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Well, philosophy incorporates the other two as they are both schools of thought. Science starts at postulates, collects evidence to verify them, and draws conclusions based on that. Relgion tends to start with the conclusions and deals more with the consequences of them. These, more generally, are value statements which do not require evidence. [ Friday, April 08, 2005 11:11: Message edited by: *i ] -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Do you think there is a Hell? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Wednesday, April 6 2005 13:52
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quote:Nothing can be scientfically proven, per se, because science does not claim to have a final authority on anything. Everything is open to question. Science only finds evidence to support a hypothesis. The correct question is this: What evidence is there that there is a God? -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| A4 wants in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, April 5 2005 18:50
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FYI, Jeff has stated that A4 will borrow many aspects from the Geneforge engine. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Are there any plans for multiplayer games? in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, April 5 2005 18:49
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quote:Will not happen from Spiderweb. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
| Le pape est mort. in General | |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, April 5 2005 18:46
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Topics are only locked because of irrelevance or if the discussion becomes out of hand. This applies to neither. - : Please respect other people here. Just because you find a certain topic boring does not mean that someone else on these boards is not interested. Believe it or not, the world does not adhere to your tastes. [ Tuesday, April 05, 2005 18:48: Message edited by: *i ] -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |