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The Universe that Discovered Itself

 
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Originally posted by Rob Ross:
[QB]Since it's hard (even impossible) for us to visualize higher spacial dimensions it's usually easier to use a 2D example.
If you take a piece of paper, and draw a straight line with a pencil, you've created a 2-dimensional object, ie, the line has width and length (discount the fact that the graphite atoms on the paper also have height )


Suppose I become smaller than molecule and
If I see that line now I will see it as a 3d column rather than a 2d line so at any point of time all dimension exist on a same place and time but we have to find the method to see those dimensions.
 
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In my post I specifically said to ignore the fact that the line had "height" so we could focus on a simple 2-dimensional geometry for the purposes of explaining how you could have effectively a 1-dimensional object in that 2-dimensional space, as a way of comparing how 11-dimension space might be "hiding" in our "percieved" 3-dimensional space.
 
Sameer Jamal
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as a way of comparing how 11-dimension space might be "hiding" in our "percieved" 3-dimensional space.


Space and time are itself a dimesion we cannot consider that every dimension should acquire some space
 
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This is for Rob Ross.
-------------------------------------------------
Human consciousness, though seemingly real, is just an illusion created from all our individual cells working together synergistically.
--------------------------------------------------
If that is true , i have a challange for you.
You know what chemicals cells are made of.
Create cells and create make the "cells work together synergistically", and thus ceate "Human conciousness".
That will prove your point that "Human Conciousness is an illusion".
And no "Post Dated checks", i mean that "we will do it in the future" thinge.
I have seen no evidance of "Human Conciousness " coming form a combination of cells which in turn are made of chemicals.
Regards
Suchak Jani
 
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Originally posted by Rob Ross:
Human consciousness, though seemingly real, is just an illusion created from all our individual cells working together synergistically.


Ahhhh that would explain narcolepsy then right? A persons cells might not be feeling very synergistic at that particular moment and WAM they lose consciousness. I wonder if your theory would explain spontaneous human combustion too... and multiple personality disorders... and transvestites.... and ..... wow the possibilities.

[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Dave Vick ]
 
Rob Ross
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Originally posted by Suchak Jani:
This is for Rob Ross.
-------------------------------------------------
Human consciousness, though seemingly real, is just an illusion created from all our individual cells working together synergistically.
--------------------------------------------------
If that is true , i have a challange for you.
You know what chemicals cells are made of.
Create cells and create make the "cells work together synergistically", and thus ceate "Human conciousness".
That will prove your point that "Human Conciousness is an illusion".
And no "Post Dated checks", i mean that "we will do it in the future" thinge.
I have seen no evidance of "Human Conciousness " coming form a combination of cells which in turn are made of chemicals.
Regards
Suchak Jani



I'm not sure how relevant your post is. Every atom in your body was once part of a star that went supernova in the nearby vicinity, so everything on this planet, from a rock to a computer to a killer whale to YOU is made up of the same "ingredients." So your "challenge" has already occured!
[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Rob Ross ]
 
Suchak Jani
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Rob,
I have no question about what ingrediants i am made up of physically.
The question is
"What is Human Conciousness"
If it(Human Conciousness ) is a mere mix of atoms/cells then why do you not recreate it.
that is the challange.
Hope i am clear this time.
Regards
Suchak Jani
 
Rob Ross
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If your premise is, "if you can't create conciousness yourself, right now, that proves it can't be done" I think your logic is faulty.
That's like telling someone in 1950, "If humans can leave the planet then build me a rocket to the moon right now and I don't want you to say 'oh we can do it in the future.', and if you can't do it this proves it can't be done."
That's just silly.


I have seen no evidance of "Human Conciousness " coming form a combination of cells which in turn are made of chemicals.


Have you looked in the mirror lately?
[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Rob Ross ]
 
Sameer Jamal
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Originally posted by Rob Ross:


I'm not sure how relevant your post is. Every atom in your body was once part of a star that went supernova in the nearby vicinity, so everything on this planet, from a rock to a computer to a killer whale to YOU is made up of the same "ingredients." So your "challenge" has already occured!
[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Rob Ross ]


If we all are made of same ingredients then why killer shark have different consioucness than human and why stars have no conciousness at all there must be something else which causes different type of behaviours recent survey shows that all humans are genetically 99.99% similar but each human has different individualty and different behaviour. whys is this so ?
silly question isnt it ?
 
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Must be that .01%
 
Suchak Jani
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Dear Rob Ross.
I am sorry if i offended you in any way. I sure did not mean to.

If your premise is, "if you can't create conciousness yourself, right now, that proves it can't be done" I think your logic is faulty.
That's like telling someone in 1950, "If humans can leave the planet then build me a rocket to the moon right now and I don't want you to say 'oh we can do it in the future.', and if you can't do it this proves it can't be done."
That's just silly.



The only reason i asked you to prove it , is because you said "It is so." instead of "It may or may not be so, but i am not sure and it may be proven in the future".

And thus i repeat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have seen no evidance of "Human Conciousness " coming form a combination of cells which in turn are made of chemicals.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evidance is very scientific , and unless there is evidance nothing should be taken just on face value due to belief and faith.

Have you looked in the mirror lately?


You know, you are right over the years i am getting bald and i do think i do not look as attractive as i used to.
Have a nice Day
Regards
Suchak Jani
[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: Suchak Jani ]
 
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life is the only thing science cant give.
so chemical is chemical till it does not have life... so conciousness can be creted out of chemical..
We know what is blood made of and other parts of body .. can we create a living man ..
But as it is said "Ahm Bramhsmi" (Its Sanskrit).. it means I am Bramha(Createor of Universe) OR in other words I am universe.
THere is one small C&P from http://ompage.net/ChristKrishna/krishna.htm
And the Lord who had become a human child out of sport, without
any loss of His divine powers, now opened His rosebud mouth. She bent forward to peer more closely and lo! she felt herself to be whirling in space, lost in time, for inside the baby mouth was seen the whole universe of moving and unmoving creation, the earth and its mountains and oceans, the moon and the stars, and all the planets and regions. She was wonderstruck to see the land of Vraja and the village of Gokula, herself standing there with the child Krishna beside her with a wide-open mouth, and within that mouth another universe, and so on and on and on.

I dont know how relevent it is for you.. but it simply says that universe is with in you ..
It depends how do you see things ...
I dont believe in God as such but I think something is there which has power to control everything .. Call it Nature .
If science is everything .. can any one explain me need of Two sexes in most of the animal.
I dont know why there should be male and female in this universe. But they are here and not only in human but all other also have.
 
R K Singh
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Sorry for coming back ...
It is for those who believs in Science.
There are two ways of proving any thing, one is theoritcal and other is Mathematical.
Modern science is more towards Mathematical.
So if something can not be proved mathematically then it does not mean that it is not proved.
We come with hypothesis first then make it theory.
Can any one of science can tell me why g is equal to 9.8 only.
You can say it is constant and fits perfectly everywhere you use it .. but why ??
where is our universe ??
answer for everything could be Shunya i.e ZERO
Universe comes from zero.. what is this zero . I have not found any definition for it ??
I just got one moer scientific litrature in search of uni
http://www.mrs.org/publications/bulletin/2001/feb/ranganathan.html
 
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Francis Crick (of DNA fame) discusses a reductionist account of consciousness in Astonishing Hypothesis. It's certainly worth a look.


Can any one of science can tell me why g is equal to 9.8 only. You can say it is constant and fits perfectly everywhere you use it .. but why ??


Strictly speaking the value of g is not constant. It's approximately 9.8 at sea level and decreases thereafter at increasing altitude.
(As a possibly interesting sidelight, when British surveyors first started mapping northern India, they noticed that their precise measurements for g were rendered slightly inaccurate because of the mass of the Himalayan range, which pushed forward the geologic idea of isostacy.)
[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Anthony Villanueva ]
 
R K Singh
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oppss sorry .. .. let us say G = 6.67 X 10*26 (something like that).. is it Universal constant..
from where you get this value ??
It has this value because it fits in our theory ..
 
Stu Glassman
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I'm pretty sure that that value was generated from intensive experimentation. In other words, it has that value because it has that value.
 
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Or you can say it has that value because any other value would have prevented consciousness from evolving anywhere in the (possibly barren) resulting Universe
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Did we just pass GO?


from where you get this value ??


From the Cavendish experiment. Please note that measuring G is not all that smooth-sailing.
And besides, behind that facade of staid orthodoxy, there are some physicists with really wild ideas, as for example, the value of G may not actually be constant but actually varying very slowly, that it may be anisotropic (i.e. depending on your orientation in space), that it may actually be repulsive at large distances blablabla.
There's nothing completely final in physics.
 
R K Singh
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I am not able to recollect the name of theory in Physics which says something like that The things are the way they are because we are here to see them the way they are. If they wont be the way they are we wont be here to see them.
I read this, if I am not wrong then in one of Hawkin's book.
I think this is the best theory
as per constants.. I am not physcist but I think conatnats are nothing but manipulation which somehow can prove your theory to numeric world also.
 
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I am not able to recollect the name of theory in Physics which says something like that The things are the way they are because we are here to see them the way they are. If they wont be the way they are we wont be here to see them.
Sounds like a summary of the anthropic cosmological principle. Which was what inspired Tony to start this thread. Glad you could join us...
 
Anthony Villanueva
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I think conatnats are nothing but manipulation which somehow can prove your theory to numeric world also.


I think "fudging" constants has something to do more with justifying the theory with the physicist's personal philosophical inclinations, as for example, with Einstein's cosmological constant.
 
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I thank God/Allah/Buddha/Whoever/Whatever for the inconceivable chain of events that led to the invention of the Pizza.



And Warcraft III. May God/Allah/Buddha/Whoever/Whatever (if He/She exists) bless those good people at Blizzard. Just keep 'em coming...



It may not be deep or scientific, but Here's my personal take on the meaning of life. I feel that my consciousness was created some way and somehow but the only thing that matters to me is that I am happy in the container that I am in. I'm not sure if I was placed by a supreme being, or some scientific chemical force. But while I'm here, I plan to enjoy life and do the best I can to make life better for me and my offspring.
For you religious people: the only sin I beleive in is not doing something that I want to do because life is just too short. And if religion makes life better for you then why not.
For you science nuts: There are so many things in life that just wasn't meant to be understood. There isn't allways a mathematical formula that can tell you why or how somethings has come about.
In summary, I really don't care why I was put here and how. I just want to stay happy
So I thank God/Allah/Buddha/Whoever/Whatever for the inconceivable chain of events that led to the invention of orgasms
 
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I'm not sure I'm qualified enough to partake in this very scientific discussion. However, my claim to fame is that I've had many of these type of discussions with my roommate who is a phD in physics at Harvard.
I think, after talking with him...I've learned a couple of things:
1.) Science requires faith - i recall the first sentence spoken by my prof in freshman physics was "Does reality exist?" What a weird question, but a very valid one. Keep in mind that science is only a model for measuring reality. Its validity first must presume that a reality indeed exists and is measurable. The philosopher David Hume once said that just because the sun rises today, and rose everyday for a million years, does not mean it will definitely rise again tomorrow. (He meant it in a philosophical sense...not a scientific one - such as the sun imploding). Science requires a strong faith in observed events happening in the future.
2.) "Natural" laws are almost as ambiguous as "religious" laws. Natural laws are a necessary building block for science. For exampl: matter has gravity. No one knows the reason; it is simply so. The reason does not matter so long as we can use its measurement. No one knows the reason for these laws but that does not seem to undermine the entire usefulness of science.
3.) Science is not as ironclad as most people who have a blind faith in it claim. Science has been used for and against racism (anyone ever read about the cranial studies to "prove" black people were inferior? - and by reputable biologists!)...I'm sure there are other examples; I just cannot think of any right now. But to discard religion solely based on human mis-interpretations is akin to rejecting science because of those racist biologists. (also, ever heard of the saying "facts must be interpreted - they do not speak for themselves"? - science may produce facts, but people will still interpret them differently - sorta like religion)
Now, I think science is incredibly important, but it should not shield you from religion (and vice versa). My senior synthesis teacher gave me a really good model: (God is used very generically here). Religion is like God reaching down to us...science/philosophy/logic is like us trying to reach up to him. Using a combination of both would be the most effective approach to connecting with each other.
That could be just an ideal...but it is a model I like very much.
Ok guys thanks for reading,
Chris
 
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Thanx God, I'm an athiest
NOT!!
 
R K Singh
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Originally posted by Anthony Villanueva:

I think "fudging" constants has something to do more with justifying the theory with the physicist's personal philosophical inclinations, as for example, with Einstein's cosmological constant.


And best part at that time everything would have been working as per that Theory.
Sometime I think I should not believe in science as when there was no electron, things were working accordingly.
When there were electronic which were orbiting on fix path around nucleous then also thigns were working.
Now when they have no fix orbit and they are as electron cloud, things are still working.
If tomorrow some one proves that they dont orbit at all, they are still. Things will be working still
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Originally posted by Ronnie Phelps:
For you science nuts: There are so many things in life that just wasn't meant to be understood. There isn't allways a mathematical formula that can tell you why or how somethings has come about.


Actually, I'm a science superfreak. (Quote shamelessly stolen from the "The Rock".)

Originally posted by Ronnie Phelps:
In summary, I really don't care why I was put here and how. I just want to stay happy


Orgasms aside , what do you exactly mean by happy? And aren't you at least interested in the relationship between your happiness and why you are here?
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Originally posted by Christophe Lee:
1.) Science requires faith - i recall the first sentence spoken by my prof in freshman physics was "Does reality exist?" What a weird question, but a very valid one. Keep in mind that science is only a model for measuring reality. Its validity first must presume that a reality indeed exists and is measurable. The philosopher David Hume once said that just because the sun rises today, and rose everyday for a million years, does not mean it will definitely rise again tomorrow. (He meant it in a philosophical sense...not a scientific one - such as the sun imploding). Science requires a strong faith in observed events happening in the future.


Science tacitly assumes that an external universe objectively exists, that it can be understood using reason and that it is actually subject to unvarying causal laws as opposed to being simply perceived to be so. These are philosophical assumptions which now go beyond the usual methodology of science and cannot be proven using scientific methods, only by plausible philosophical arguments. Fundamental assumptions in philosophy are all "acts of faith", if you will.
Hume attacked scientific causality on the grounds that "cause and effect" (which is the basis of what we usually mean by a scientific law) has not been shown to be a property of the external universe, that laws of science do not follow by necessity, unlike, say a tautology like 2 + 2 = 4 which is always true (Shura notwithstanding ).


2.) "Natural" laws are almost as ambiguous as "religious" laws. Natural laws are a necessary building block for science. For exampl: matter has gravity. No one knows the reason; it is simply so. The reason does not matter so long as we can use its measurement. No one knows the reason for these laws but that does not seem to undermine the entire usefulness of science.


Science is (or should be) only concerned with describing reality, not interpreting it. It's satified in saying that if you do A, then B will happen, not in theorizing on what the essence of A or B is, or why they exist.


3.) Science is not as ironclad as most people who have a blind faith in it claim. Science has been used for and against racism (anyone ever read about the cranial studies to "prove" black people were inferior? - and by reputable biologists!)...I'm sure there are other examples; I just cannot think of any right now. But to discard religion solely based on human mis-interpretations is akin to rejecting science because of those racist biologists. (also, ever heard of the saying "facts must be interpreted - they do not speak for themselves"? - science may produce facts, but people will still interpret them differently - sorta like religion)


Science gave us the Bomb, chemical/biological weapons, narcotics, computer viruses and a sh*tload of other really nasty stuff.
On the other hand, science gave us the Pill , antibiotics, the steam engine, the microchip, electricity, Warcaraft III blablabla.
Science is "value-neutral". It does not prescribe anything, that one ought to do this and that. It merely describes what is, and only on the level on phenomena. The joy of science is figuring out how a thing works, whether it's solving the equations of string theory or how a slinky slinks. It's sublimated curiosity. It's getting high on that magical, indescribable moment of epiphany when you jump out of the bathtub yelling "amen!!!" Or something like that.
Science is like a firearm. In the hands of a kid, a criminal or a fanatic it causes harm. In the hands of the police or the army or just your plain responsible citizen, it can save or protect lives and property. Is the gun itself bad or good or the person who wields it?


Now, I think science is incredibly important, but it should not shield you from religion (and vice versa). My senior synthesis teacher gave me a really good model: (God is used very generically here). Religion is like God reaching down to us...science/philosophy/logic is like us trying to reach up to him. Using a combination of both would be the most effective approach to connecting with each other.


Gee, I don't want to give off the impression that by abandoning traditional religion I'm a lust-filled sociopath out to destroy civilization (usually . I'm just like any other joe, with the usual organs, senses, dimension, if-you-prick-us-do-we-not-bleed capacities. There are ethical alternatives that need not posit a Creator and accepts the fact that our existence here is contingent, but neverthelesss, recognizes that being a rational human entails with it certain moral responsibilities. If you like, you just consider these as more "exotic" religions. Finally, I am not advocating that people abandon their religious beliefs. If believing a creed makes you a better person, then that's the point, isn't it?
 
Rob Ross
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Wow Anthony, that was one of the best posts yet in this thread. I really couldn't have said it better, nor can I add anything to it other than to say "I agree completely."
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Originally posted by Ravish Kumar:
Sometime I think I should not believe in science as when there was no electron, things were working accordingly.
When there were electronic which were orbiting on fix path around nucleous then also thigns were working. Now when they have no fix orbit and they are as electron cloud, things are still working.
If tomorrow some one proves that they dont orbit at all, they are still. Things will be working still


You decry the fact that scientific theories aren't final. I understand that. But what you consider as a weakness I embrace as a strength. Science has a healthy respect for human error, and it has a mechanism for gracefully replacing a disproven theory with a new one. It weeds out unclear notions, unreproducible assertions and just plain nonsense. (In the same way MD does, I believe )
Also, scientific theories are approximations that are only valid within a certain range. Newtonian physics was shown to be give incorrect predictions at high velocities, but a high velocities only. Does this "impurity" suggest that we chuck out of the window? In this day and age of curved spacetime, civil engineers still use the physics of Newton and the geometry of Euclid, not Einstein or Riemann. Are the bridges, buildings and planes all the more unsafe from the hands of a misunderstood Nature? (Or should we fear more from misled fanatics? )
These "limitations" you see were never claimed otherwise by science, that theories of today are graven in stone. If by tomorrow a theorist publishes a paper in the Physical Review with a radical new theory on electron orbits that happens to be more accurate, and it brings with it additional new technology like room-temperature superduperconductivity or new processors based on quantum-computing, (that we would be unable to do because of current theory), then we are all the better for it.
(You know, I'm still grappling with the whole thing myself. An electron in the ground state, that is, the lowest energy "orbit", has no orbital angular momentum, which means whatever it's doing, it's not moving around the nucleus. Wierd. But then again, if it can go through both holes at once...)
 
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Originally posted by Anthony Villanueva:
unlike, say a tautology like 2 + 2 = 4 which is always true (Shura notwithstanding).


Um... Is it really a tautology? Looks like a perfect sentence to me. And what do you mean, "Shura notwithstanding"? For "2 + 2 = 4" to have meaning, it must be interpreted. "+", in particular, must be interpreted as an addition operation.
Interpretations are integral parts of every mathematical theory. And a theory/model/formula can have multiple interpretations - sets on which a theory is true.
This example is from Sankappanavar and Burris' "A Course in Universal Algebra":
Definition 1.1. A nonempty set L together with two binary operations V and ^ (read "join" and "meet" respectively) on L is called a lattice if it satisfies the following identities:
[L1 - L4, omitted to improve readability]
Example. Let L be the set of propositions, let v denote the connective "or" and ^ denote the connective "and". Then L1 to L4 are well-known properties from propositional logic.
Example. Let L be the set of natural numbers, let v denote the least common multiple and ^ denote the greatest common divisor. Then properties L1 to L4 are easily verifiable."
Let's give another interpretation to "2", let it be drops of water (It's not my example, I read it somewhere). If 2 drops will join other 2 (addition also!), chances are there will be one big drop of water, not 4 See - now the same statement is wrong, all depending on interpretation.
---------------------
"Firstly, 6 * 9 = 42"
JavaRanch. "A puzzle for trigonometry fans".
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Oh, I was just referring to that free-wheeling MD thread on God and free will where Shura pointed out that 2 + 2 = 5 if you redefine the + binary operator. They were arguing on whether or not God's omnipotence was subject to logical constraints. A fun thread, really.
Hm. Which is really the point. I mean if we agree beforehand on what "+" is, I really don't see how we can have different interpretations of it. Of course, if I bring up something like 2 + 2 = 4 out of a hat I'm tacitly assuming it's the usual arithmetic. Er, was I being reckless?
As for being tautological, if it simply repeats itself, then it is being tautological, yes?
 
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Then 2 + 2 = 2 + 2 is tautological, 2 + 2 = 4 not
Hm... Actually, it could be a good challenge for Shura, to disprove that 2 + 2 = 2 + 2
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Then 2 + 2 = 2 + 2 is tautological, 2 + 2 = 4 not


Yes it is.
[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: Anthony Villanueva ]
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Thanks Rob . There's nothing like praise from the praiseworthy.
 
Mapraputa Is
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Originally posted by Anthony Villanueva:

Yes it is.


Have you read the whole text?
If we believed you, all true statements were tautological. :roll: How about "universally true" instead?
By the way, "free-wheeling thread on God and free will" was good
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Have you read the whole text?


Ooh. Nice left jab.
Ok, so I should have said that I only wanted to point out 1.4.2 Equations and Tautologies, and that I do not necessarily subscribe to the rest of the text.


If we believed you, all true statements were tautological. How about "universally true" instead?


Sure, let's call "every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain [Hume]" to be "universally true", as for example, every mathematical demonstration or definition.
 
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Nice left jab - *now* you confused me!
So what symbolizes jab - or ? From my viewpoint it's but you are on the other side of the screen, so from your perspective it's ? I noticed that you favor so it must be " "
Aren't you by chance an avatar of Jim Yingst? "Touche" is purely his lexicon... On the other hand, he wouldn't miss a chance to use �, hm...
My deep apologies to everybody for hijacking this thread. It will be back to normal by Monday, I am sure.
 
Anthony Villanueva
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Yes, and I thought would stand for the mouthpiece. Speaking of which...
I'm not Jim in any of his manifestations so I guess touch� is hands off.


It will be back to normal by Monday, I am sure.


As normal as it gets in MD, anyway.
 
Jim Yingst
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so I guess touch� is hands off
Excellent! Now if I can just convince the French to stop using the term, I will have exclusive rights. Well, aside from a few fencers and other assorted riffraff... :roll:
 
Mapraputa Is
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It never occurred to me to interpret " " this way!
Now Shura's "Michael, good left hook. :wink: " got whole new meaning! (kinda our Moose )
[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]
 
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