Locking
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 19:42
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Explain to me which law of physics currently held by science permits the spontaneous generation of matter within a body? ... I invite you to look at the state of the world which is enthralled at present with dog eat dog competitiveness, and tell me how it's working for us. Your description of the state of the world does not match the actual world. Apparently, you haven't been paying attention to "Reality" TV. -S- [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 19:48: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 20:10
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quote:I was going to say that this was hilarious enough in itself to justify my previous post. Then I read what followed. quote:Your conception of the state of the world is based on reality TV? Priceless, man. Priceless. On a more serious note, it would also be gratifying to me — again, I don't know why — if you stopped making wild generalizations about others' happiness. It's condescending (and worse, illogical). -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 20:48
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quote:Yeah, that's exactly what I mean to convey by using the statement about reality TV—merely the most recent phenomenon indicating what we value. Yes, Kel, you have found out my terrible secret. I fashion my view of the world and all of history based upon Reality Television. Aren't you missing the valid point though? What does the tremendous popularity of mean-spirited competition in Reality Television tell us about ourselves? it would also be gratifying to me — again, I don't know why — if you stopped making wild generalizations about others' happiness. It's condescending (and worse, illogical). If you refer to the fact that I describe Thuryl's disposition as disaffectionate, that is simply an observation. If you refer to my use of the word joyless, I am again commenting on my observation with a resulting opinion what that suggests about a person's state of being. A person's state of being kept to oneself as a concept about oneself and never actually demonstrated in relationship is quite useless, and is functionality non-existent. Please also realize that my function in the world is not to gratify any one person in particular. You're right, though. I can't say whether or not a person is "happy." I can only describe my resulting experience of them and describe them in those terms. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 20:53
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I missed season 1 of Survivor, for various and sundry reasons, but I was excited for season 2. Half way through I realized that the ensemble was coached by the production team to act in certain ways. To be more demonstrative and confrontational. To make it more "exciting." Well, that pretty much ended my interest. It would be one thing if people actually acted like *******s, but it is quite another when they are asked to act that way because the production team thinks it makes better television. And Jeff Probst is a wienie. Fo' sure. -------------------- Synergy, et al - "I don't get it." Argon - "I'm at a loss for words..." Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 20:55
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quote:We? I don't know about you, but I don't have any control over the competition of anyone but myself. (Although actually I think I do know enough about you to believe that you'll suggest I do have such control. The world is what I make of it. Well, different beliefs.) quote:You know religion isn't going to sway anyone here. I don't believe that Jesus broke any laws of physics. And I'm not even an atheist! I'm just not a Christian of any kind. quote:I respect your right to your sacred truth, but it is not objective truth (or my subjective truth, if you prefer) and I will not live my life by it. I'm very much getting a science wars feeling from all this, though. —Alorael, who would like to know when matter spontaneously appeared in your body. He won't believe you, in all honesty, but he's curious about what you think happened. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 21:41
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My point in refering to the man Jesus, who did something so dramatic and notable as to cause us 2,000 years later to discuss him, is that even if someone comes into our midst to show us who and what we really are, and breaks the seeming laws of our universe in demonstrating it, if we are not ready to consider another paradigm, even this will not be proof enough. In fact, there is no proof to anyone of God or the spiritual or the supernatural until one has one's own experience, and is receptive to it. Anything less one can and will explain away, no matter how dramatic or impossible. I will share what I experienced in referring to spontaneous generation, and I do not expect anyone to believe anything based on the account of someone typing in an online forum. Nor would I expect you to believe it if you even saw it happen first hand. Unless you did believe it. I was 8 or so, and had been seeing a chiropractor for some back-related health issues. He took X-rays, etc. He pointed out that my right leg was a half inch shorter than my left, a very common birth "defect" which occurs in some degree in about one in four persons, as I recall. My family was very Christian at the time, but open to exploring a variety of experiences and beliefs within that umbrella. A fairly well-known Christian teacher and writer with a healing ministry came through Seattle. My father and I went to hear this guy talk. At the end of whatever he shared, he asked if there were any present who desired healing. My father all but pushed me onto the stage in encouraging me to go up for my short leg, which was contributing to my back problems. Until this point in my life, my Christian experience had been of a mostly conservative variety. I had never seen anything remotely "miraculous" in my life and scarcely knew what to think about it all. This was all new and weird to me. I had hope that something might actually happen, but I was mostly skeptical and scared that I would be the little boy who didn't have enough "faith" to be healed, and that I was going to make the nice man look bad in front of a couple hundred people. I was seated in a chair on stage in the gymnasium in which we were gathered. The man heard my Dad describe to him my problem, and he held my legs out in front of me. It was plain to both of us that the bottoms of my two tennis shoes were not lining up. He prayed aloud. I sat and was nervous. Within seconds, I felt an incredibly warm, fiery, pleasant, tingling feeling in my shorter leg up around the thigh area. I watched and felt as the man held my two feet and the right leg visibly grew out until it matched the left. I could feel my leg lengthening while this happened. I could scarcely believe this had happened to me. I really hadn't even believed it would be likely to happen. I held one paradigm of belief why and how this "miraculous" experience could happen at that time, and I view it somewhat differently now. But the fact of it happening has never been of the remotest question for me. Subsequent visitation and X-Rays by my chiropractor confirmed that my legs now matched. My chiropractor was an atheist or agnostic. He wasn't for long afterward though. Now, no one here has any need to believe that this account is anything other than a complete contrivance or the collaborative imagination/deception/and delusion of everyone from myself to my Dad, to my chiropractor, and the man on the stage. It proves nothing. It's hearsay. You can decide for yourself whether I am the sort of man to fabricate and promote a lie. You can decide whether it is possible that this experience, medically undeniable to those in its immediate sphere of influence and observation, can be explained as having not actually occurred. Do whatever fits into your paradigm with all such claims. But I share it with you freely, simply because you asked, and I have nothing to hide or prove by it either way. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 21:42
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quote:Well, at least now we all know. :P quote:Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure that it is not particular to this society or time. It's fundamental in human nature, and it's not going to change for you or anyone else any time soon. quote:Yes. That doesn't make it any better. quote:Heh. The funny thing is, this probably means something to you. quote:No kidding. :P -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 21:45
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I guess he has tapped hidden flows of Chi and managed to get a matter/antimatter generation going for some time. After which the antimatter was disposed of using... mh... oh! Unicorn magic! :) -------------------- The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead. Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.' Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 22:28
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quote:Is that a fact or an opinion? I hope it’s not your hope. Let’s all watch and see what has yet to unfold, yes? As for change, I know myself to be changing always. How about you? I am not the same man today I was yesterday or last year. I am an especially different person from the one I was twenty years ago. And right now I find myself in a time of dramatic shift, change, and growth. Change is the nature of life itself, which is ever changing, ever-evolving. And that process is in our time speeding up dramatically. The following are summarized or excerpted from Promise Ahead and Awakening Earth by social scientist Duane Elgin. It took 2.5 million years for our earliest ancestors to move from the first glimmerings of self-recognition to decisive awakening in the initial stage of “reflective consciousness.” It then took about 30,000 years for physically modern humans to move through the stage of awakening hunter-gatherers, approximately 5,000 more years to move through the stage of agrarian-based civilizations, and only about 300 years for a number of nations to move through the stage of industrial civilization. You can measure even more radical recent shifts in social construction on the order of decades when you look at the information age supplanting the industrial age in certain nations. Moreover, the ones which follow the forerunners often do so much more quickly than the pioneers. Some nations can skip entire stages, going from the agrarian to information age. We are already moving into something even faster and more powerful than the information age, but I won’t get into what that is here. More from Duane: “Three times before in human experience our view of reality has been so thoroughly transformed that it created a revolution in our sense of ourselves, our relationship with others, and our view of the universe. “The first transformation...occurred when humanity ‘awakened’ roughly 35,000 years ago...The second time...was roughly 10,000 years ago when humanity shifted from a nomadic life to a more settled existence in villages and on farms.” As part of this second shift, and about 5,000 years ago, we saw the rise of city-states, and the beginnings of civilization as we know it. “The third time that our pereptual paradigm was transformed was roughly 300 years ago, when the stability of agrarian society gave way to the radical dynamism and materialism of the scientific-industrial era. “Each time that humanity’s prevailing paradigm has changed, all aspects of life have changed with it, including the work that people do, the way they live together, how they relate to one another, and how they see their role in society and place in the universe.” ... We are living in a time of radical change and unprecedented shifts and possibilities. We can choose to believe that there is one way we have been and will continue to be. We can also choose to believe, and help create a world that experiences otherwise. I am a big believer in change and the human capacity for change. The nature of life itself is perpetual change. Adaptability, sustainability, survival. So saturated are we with the belief in and practice of and observation of competitiveness, that it sounds automatically wrong or impossible to imagine a world operating otherwise, even while we fail to recognize how much rests upon cooperation in life, rather than competition. All truth begins as heresy. This paradigm shift is not an exception, but I am confident many here will live to see it well underway. Things happen very quickly in our world today. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 22:47
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People's ideas change. Cultures change, which is what you're referring to in your post. (Did you really need to cite evidence of that? I mean, honestly.) But I was referring to human nature, which isn't likely to change unless we seriously alter our own biology (which, I suppose, could happen, not soon, but not too distant, either). -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 23:09
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I cited what I did, because I find it interesting, and wanted to share it in this context of this discussion. Everything is not all about trying to prove a thing to Kel. I'm not interesting in proving anything in this context, because it is impossible. Why is it so hard for us to believe that we behave a certain way as animals and perceive our "nature" a certain way as we enter consciousness, and this lasts only until we become conscious of something higher concerning ourselves? Right now, we continue to make competitiveness our reality, because we believe it is our nature and reality. You contribute to that reality with your own assertion that it is absolutely human nature to kill each other and fight over things, which is just a less nice way to say we compete with each other. The assumption is that human nature and the nature of life is to be fixed by biology in this way. But it is a belief, an assumption that we are biologically determined, rather than biology reflecting what we are being, that because something has happened the same way for a long time, that it must necessarily forever continue to be that way. We are the first beings on this planet to enter our degree of consciousness. If we think we see all animals operating by competitiveness, could it also be that that is only because it requires a certain degree of consciousness to come to an awareness that it is not our true nature or ultimate destiny as living beings? And that it takes an awareness, a determination, and a decision about ourselves to do something differently? The picture of life through the microscope shows tremendous collaboration in order for higher life to exist. We finally have a peek into the true nature and law of life. But many choose to cling to the notion that we thrive best on competition. Thuryl doesn't see life thriving. How's it working for us? For us to improve our human experience and take life up another notch, we have to change our minds about our "nature." I don't continue to share my thoughts for the close-minded skeptic and those who sport in trying to make others wrong or who want to play the role of safeguarding "truth" for others. I bother with one goal in mind: provoking thought and consideration in anyone ready to engage such. What is your motivation to continually engage me, when it's been made clear long ago that we simply disagree on some very basic paradigms? What do you care what sort of "gobbledygook" I profer? What's your motivation to waste your time on me? Seriously, I'm increasingly curious why you, Alorael, and Thuryl continue to be the primary respondents to the sorts of things I like to put out, when we all simply disagree, and by all measure, it would appear you think I'm just a nut with ridiculous, unfounded ideas. Why would someone like you even need to bother to respond to such a person? Do tell. -S- [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 23:18: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 23:27
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quote:Honestly, this is all I'm seeing. And part of me feels bad, because it just logically means that I'm as much of a cold, soulless cynic as Synergy seems to view us as. But here's the thing. The other part of me doesn't care. Because here's the thing. I'm a bit more of a realist. It doesn't mean that I don't believe in love or happiness or cancer-curing hopping bunnies, it just means that I'm a bit less inclined to believe the talk than I am the actions behind the talk. And that's all an internet forum is: talk. Lots of it. And with just talk, it's a little more important to cite your facts. Doesn't mean that we're cold. Doesn't mean that we're soulless. Just means we're interested in discussing things with a set of ground rules, like "empirical proof leads to a strong argument". And this big change, this upcoming paradigm shift you keep talking about. I can't believe a single word of it. 'Cause that kind of thing isn't something we can see. It's not like one day we're going to wake up and know we're in The Future, complete with flying cars and world peace. It's going to happen gradually, if it even happens, and we'll barely notice it. But it'll happen because individual people make small choices that add up to something big, even if it's just people being a little nicer, or a little smarter. It's not going to happen because everyone suddenly agreed on something or believed in something. So I guess all I'm really trying to say here is shut up. Stop demeaning the forum, stop demeaning the people in the forum, and stop fighting battles you know that you're not going to win, because it's getting old. -------------------- TM: "I want BoA to grow. Evolve where the food ladder has rungs to be reached." Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 23:38
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quote:Because you keep promising to shut up and go away, and I'm curious about what it would take for you to make good on your promise. (And then you expect us to trust your word when you testify to miracles, when we can't even trust you when you say you're leaving. Ha.) -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 00:08
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quote:I didn't say that it was human nature to compete. quote:For two reasons. First, I enjoy dissecting arguments and opinions and figuring out what's wrong with them. (I've occasionally mentioned that I'm an LSAT teacher, and that's half of what the LSAT is testing: how well you can figure out what's wrong with the arguments they present.) Second, articulating my own perspective is typically instructive for me. Examining why I think what I think usually is interesting. EDIT: And jeez, people, can we tone down the personal attacks? [ Thursday, January 10, 2008 00:09: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 00:11
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quote:I'm just giving him what he's clearly demonstrated that he wants. Why else would he keep coming back here? -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 00:40
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Ephesos: You can't speak for what "we" at Spiderweb want to talk about and how "we" at Spiderweb might choose to discuss it. There are exceptions that derail your all-inclusive "we." They tend to be less vocal than the ones who might wish to conduct things the way you say "we" do. I am a part of "we" and we are not in agreement that we all want to do things the same way. But might makes right in your world, is that the point? Because the noisiest people here mostly prefer a certain line of discourse, it's the one right way to hold discussion? How elitist of you. And, um, yes, this is an online forum, and all that can happen here is talk. A most brilliant observation on your part. Kel: I respect your reasons. Thank you for sharing them. Thuryl: Use your imagination. It's a wonderful thing. I grant you your fondest wish at last. Feel free to take credit, if it serves you. And by all means, keep exerting all your surly best in an effort to drive away those who think and proceed in dialog differently from you. It speaks so enticingly of you and your view of your fellow man. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 01:34
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Goodbye forever, Synergy. See you next week. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Master
Member # 5977
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 03:29
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Wow. Just wow. When I posted my post in this topic just a few days ago, I thought this topic was going to crash like a bee crashes into a neatly-cleaned window: a giant "splat" with the remains of the bee exiting its body, to form a neat circle of blood and gore around the flat body of a lifeless lump of insect. Now, I look again, and it didn't happen. Instead, i find a strange discussion about evolution it seems, where, as always there seems to be ongoing argument between Synergy, Kel and Thuryl (who else?). I decided to read it, starting at the fourth page, where all still seemed reasonable, but man, this fifth page! And that's how every discussion between you three guys goes, doesn't it. I must agree with Ephesos. Synergy, Eph doesn't really tell you what "we" as a community want to talk about, he tries to tell you in what way "we" want to talk about stuff, and frankly, he is right. However, instead of just giving Synergy the fault, I think Kel and Thuryl also have their part to play and they need to know too: Kel and Thuryl: Every time I see you talking to Synergy, I ask myself "why". You guys are clearly irritated by Synergy and his "arguments based on experience instead of facts". Why do you keep posting then? For god's sake, go home, all of you, take a nap, a crate of beer, whatever, and then come back. The only thing that happens now, is that you're all getting worked because of each other, and the rest of the community hangs around it and sighs, going like "oh no not again". Give it a rest, stop this discussion. Like Ephesos said: It's getting old. -------------------- Play and rate my scenarios: Where the rivers meet View my upcoming scenario: The Nephil Search: Escape. Co-designed with Nikki: El Presidente. Give us your drek! Posts: 3029 | Registered: Saturday, June 18 2005 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 05:44
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quote:Irritated? I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still having fun. It's not like this topic didn't suck before we got to it anyway. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 06:13
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Kelandon did a very nice job articulating the reasons why it is sometimes constructive to participate in these ostensibly useless debates. My tolerance for this particular variety of frustration is lower than his, which is why I don't participate as frequently or (usually) for as long of a stretch. Other people who share my lower tolerance would do well to monitor themselves when they participate in debates and just leave the topic before they get to the breaking point. Personal attacks and invective almost inevitably get pulled out at some point. Thuryl is neither the only nor the worst culprit, although he is particularly good at saying things that appear so ordinary that they slip under the radar. But frankly, even the worst comments here are not particularly scathing. If mild invective on the internet is so troubling, I have to wonder how one would deal with the real world (and I ain't talking about reality TV). -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central "Slartucker is going to have a cow when he hears about this," Synergy said. Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Master
Member # 5977
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 06:24
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quote:You're having fun? For me it doesn't look that way, unless you like telling people to shut up and the like... Slarty: I probably missed that part with Kel saying why he still participates in these doomed threads. Could you point me to the place where he says that, please? I'm interested to know what the answer is to "why?". -------------------- Play and rate my scenarios: Where the rivers meet View my upcoming scenario: The Nephil Search: Escape. Co-designed with Nikki: El Presidente. Give us your drek! Posts: 3029 | Registered: Saturday, June 18 2005 07:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 06:34
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This post, Thralni. Dikiyoba. -------------------- Episode 4: Spiderweb Reloaded Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 7488
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 07:07
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quote:100,000 then. Still, it wouldn't eat me, I'd eat it first. :D quote:At one place where I worked, I called everybody "son," regardless of age or gender. It became kind of an inside joke, probably because I was normally the oldest person on my shift--and I was only 20 at the time! quote:I don't know of any at all, including myself (BTW, I'm 30). quote:Neither am I, since it begs the question: Who's the designer? quote:Agreed, this has gone on far enough, and I say this thread needs to be put out of its misery. -------------------- Either I'm crazy, or everybody else is nuts. And I know I'm not crazy because the little man who lives on my shoulder told me so. If people don't think there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with you. Oh well. Another day, another dementia. Posts: 558 | Registered: Friday, September 15 2006 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7723
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 07:23
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Excalibur, Please elaborate on what I’m doing that makes me look like a hypocrite. And I’m not preaching or trying to persuade anyone. ----- Synergy, I believe you about your leg. Things have come together in such a way that this culture doubts the supernatural – even some of those that claim to believe don’t really believe. In other lands they’d be considered slow. Christendom has insulated us, in some ways to our benefit, but it’s a double edged sword. I also agree with you to some extent about nature. There is competition, but there’s also affection and collaboration. Every once in a while you hear about a big cat raising a calf as her own, dolphins saving a person, or something like that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcrN9adGcP0 There’s certainly good in humanity. I believe the philosophies of Darwinism, which are a natural offshoot of common descent through natural selection, have aided in perverting this though. For what it’s worth, I appreciate you. I don’t agree with all you say, but that’s what makes life interesting. These boards would be worse off without you IMO. ----- SoT, I did exactly what you said. I was teasing with you about your wording, but your question is answered. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say synonyms, but things with specified complexity have information content. I would definitely say “strongly related terms.” Are energy and work synonymous?” To be clear, an identifying mark of things with specified complexity is information content. But I would not say information = specified complexity. ----- quote:I don’t remember you asking, but I don’t know this. Define “random data." Data implies information, which implies meaningful signaling of some sort, which is not random. And I’m not claiming that knowing what’s non-random and is easy or always possible. When we can and the non-random is also aperiodic, it’s always from a mind. And we do pretty well identifying. We discussed arrowheads made from stone before. We know life is not a random collection of proteins, since there’s a code directing their production and organization. quote:If you’re recreating a specific arrangement it’s no longer random, it’s specified. quote:So you randomly pick a shape, randomly make a line in it, randomly divide the length of the shape by the length of the line, but the number you get is not random? How is this any different from my random triangle? I understand the importance of pi, but it’s importance doesn’t take away from it’s arbitrariness. Why use pi and not 2pi or 1/2-pi? quote:A process could be partially random, but not wholly. It could depend on or even harness some randomness, but to be purely random would make a thing unspecified by definition. I don’t see how this question-begs. ----- quote:LOL. OK Kel. Point made. If atheists believe it, it must be correct. Regarding your monkeys, is it also true that if I keep jumping in the air I will eventually jump 50 feet high? 1000 feet? 1,000,000,000,000 feet? Because your theory about how anything is possible given time sounds wonderful. Call the bouncing baby bunnies because it’s fluffy hugging time. ----- quote:1) argumentum ad populum. I’m not trying to quantify specified complexity. You are. 2) No. My argument is that specified complexity is not observed to occur separate from a mind. 3) I don’t know. 4) I didn’t say this. 5) … ----- Synergy, I think the evidence points to multiple creation events. quote:----- quote:Salmon, I think the evidence points to multiple creation events. Happy? Probably not. And I’m guessing you didn’t look at the original thread that I’ve linked to a few times, because I am very explicit. I delineate my logic [something which Kelandon and SoT were unwilling, and I suspect, unable to do after many requests], give multiple reasons why common descent is an inferior and unscientific explanation, give quotes from archeologists on what the record actually shows, etc. I’m just halfway defending one of my points (probably not one of the stronger ones) here. I have the feeling that if I do what I did before this thread will be shut down. Common descent doesn’t predict anything beneficial that knowing that all living things are similar doesn’t. If common descent actually did do something useful that would be a great argument in favor of its superiority. In actual fact life now and in the past gives the appearance of multiple creation events for genetically versatile creatures. Posts: 701 | Registered: Thursday, November 30 2006 08:00 |
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Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
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written Thursday, January 10 2008 09:23
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quote:Perhaps pointless philosophical pontifications are preferable to pathetic posturing. :P Don't know about you, but I prefer to skim through a thread where there is a chance of seeing something interesting or insightful, rather than the standard fare of message board drama that this topic started out as. -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |