Sin 2 :)

[Domarius]

Wow... I totally didn't expect this. I finally caved in and said "Fine - just what is so exciting about Sin 2 that it's gone up to 6 pages" and read the thread for the first time.

 

Now that I've seen the new subject matter I'm not surprised it's six pages long, and I don't expect it to stop any time soon either

[sparhawk]

Quite surprising, inst't it?

[oDDity]

So your cavemen can of course identify Chief Dig Dag as his enemy because of the logical relationship to the enemytribe, but that doesn't mean that he is using this inference that you connect to it in your statement. Making these rules formal and proving that they are REALLY like this all the time is what logic is all about, and philosophy is the basement for this, because it thinks about abstract concepts like this. This is why you logic and philosophy are always tied together. One wouldn't work without the other.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

What philosopers did with drawing up concrete rules of logic was great, I'm not arguing with that, and these rules have been taken and embellished and used wisely in other areas like maths, but what philosophy itself actually does with logic, how they use it, and what they use it for, is the complete waste of time.

That's what I've been getting at.

[sparhawk]

How do you know this? Many discoveries were just because somebody was curious, not because he hoped to gain something from it. As a matter of fact this is quite dangerious for current science, because science is no longer funded on what is interesting, but wether it gains any revenue in the foreseeable future. Because somebody decideds that this or that is a waste of time.

[Maximius]

What philosopers did with drawing up concrete rules of logic was great, I'm not arguing with that, and these rules have been taken and embellished and used wisely in other areas like maths, but what philosophy itself actually does with logic, how they use it, and what they use it for, is the complete waste of time.

That's what I've been getting at.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So what your saying is that philosophers drew up these great concrete laws of logic, with lots of important applications such as math and science and ethics, but then what philosophy actually does with logic is a waste of time. Lets collapes this little delirium into one logical statement. What philosophers did was useful, but it was a waste of time. Hmmmmmm.

 

Oh and the philosophers didnt DRAW up anything, they isolated logical truths, the handful that exist, and then began to draw logical inferences from them.

 

 

How do you know this? Many discoveries were just because somebody was curious, not because he hoped to gain something from it. As a matter of fact this is quite dangerious for current science, because science is no longer funded on what is interesting, but wether it gains any revenue in the foreseeable future. Because somebody decideds that this or that is a waste of time.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Right on the money. In the U.S.A. science is in deep trouble. Leave aside the stick worshipers for a minute and their campaign to bring back the Dark Ages. Science is used as a means to generate wealth, and other considerations fall by the wayside. Private corporations used public funds to bribe universities to do the research they want them to, for the next big $$$ pharmecuticals that may or may not work or for some new carcinogenic additive to make you cars engine run smoother. The government, a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporation Inc., gives away billions in tax breaks, research grants, you name it, to these parasites. We pay out the nose for bad science done with greed as its ultimate goal, not meeting human needs.

 

At some universities, the corporations hold entire departments hostage, if you want funding you had better be working on something the suits can sell or forget it. One school was shocked to discover that when its researchers produced test results that demonstrated the ill effects of a new drug, the corporation threatened to pull the $$$ if the report was not suppressed. School administrators are as likely to be hired for their connections to the pharmecutical or chemical industries as for their academic experiences.

 

Your point about what is "wasted time" is important. The cult of the practical is an artifact of our profit driven, materialistic age. If it aint turning a buck, what the hell you doing it for! is the slogan of a slave culture, one that sees no value in its own leisure time but only in working to (hopefully) make ends meet or crawl up to the next rung on the ladder. According to such standards, reworking a video game like D3 into a much better game, with all the loving tweaks and input from the community, hell playing video games in general is a cardinal sin. As for me, I like sinning.

[sparhawk]

Actually there was an article in Scientific America quite some time ago, complaining about this already. It showed that there seems to be an increase of faked results from scientists, because they need to get funding money.

[Maximius]

Just look at the number of recalls of drugs in the last two years. Sure, some new drugs will be recalled but there have been like six or seven alone in the last year. Clinical testing is slovenly, the FDA is a rubberstamping stooge of the pharmecuticals, and the public is ensorcelled by the notion of a cure all pill that will make their bored and over-sugared offspring sit quietly in the corner for a few hours. Oh, lets not forget Prozac, the anti-depression drug that sends some teenage patients into a suicidel depression when they come off of it.

[Ishtvan]

I wouldn't say it's 100% like how you're describing. Companies do invest some in basic research (vs applied). Take Bell Labs of the past for example. We wouldn't have transistors today without their basic research. The early transistors didn't make them any money, but they still looked into the semiconductor physics behind it, instead of focusing 100% of their effort on making better vacuum tubes. I've read some articles about economic reasons for companies to invest in basic research, and they are there.

 

On the other hand, I agree with you guys that the corporate sponsors should not have any control over what results get published, and that right now there is not enough focus on basic research. In my department we have some huge groups that are 90% corporate funded, and it pretty much turns the group into a corporate R&D facility. Some professors no longer care about whether grad students learn anything, they just see a student as an employee to test out variation 3A of device #114 for HP, or something like that.

 

The group I'm in is more science-oriented, but we have funding troubles because of it. We still have to try and market our stuff too, like instead of saying "we want to make novel optical materials for phase modulation applications" we have to say "we'll make a device to go in your radar so you can shoot people better."

[obscurus]

The number of major scientific advances that have come about because some scientist, acting out of his or her own curiosity (rather than a directive from the person funding him or her) is quite staggering really. All kinds of highly practical inventions have occured because someone said "i wonder what happens if I....". Television. Computers. Cars. They all have major components that were discovered in an entirely ad hoc way with no original commercial intent, and if the scientists had been forced to focus solely on what people thought were practical ideas, a great many useful things might not have been invented...

 

Often the best way to discover something new is to start with the simple question "I wonder..." rather than "How do I keep my finacial backers filling my pockets". The usefulness of music or art or poetry or philosophy cannot be measured directly, but they have an indirect affect on how you perform useful tasks - I am more productive at work if I have some music I enjoy in the background, or if there are aesthetically pleasing objects or images scattered about. It just puts me in a better mood, which makes me more useful to my employer. Playing a computer game when I get home relaxes me, and keeps me from going nuts. So indirectly, music and art are useful,l even though their utility is not obvious.

[Bhruic]

A good way of defining usefulness is by comparison.

 

Er, a good way of defining something is by using completely subjective comparisons? I'm not sure that's a really useful statement. I mean, I compared it to mine, and I thought mine was much better.

 

Bh

[oDDity]

Er, a good way of defining something is by using completely subjective comparisons?  I'm not sure that's a really useful statement.  I mean, I compared it to mine, and I thought mine was much better. 

 

Bh

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

THe word 'Usefulness' is subjective, so the way to define it is with subjective comparison. The defintion of most words is subjective. Language is constantly evolving. If you look at the same word in different dictionaries, the definitions will not always be identical.

I think the perfect way to define the usefulness of something is to work out how high up the list of things most people wouldn't want to live without it is.

[sparhawk]

This reminds me at a fairy tale that I heard in my childhood. The plot was basically like this:

A king was asking his three daughters how strong they love him, and the first responded saying "I love you more than all my clothes." The second one responded with: "I love you more than all the jewelry in the world.". He was quite pleased at this answers and asked also his youngest daughters, which responded "I love you more than salt." He was really pissed off about this answer thinking that his daughter didn't love him at all, so he kicked her out of the court and sentenced her to a live in poverty.

A few weeks later his daughter applied for a job in the kitchen, and since there was a big feast coming up she got the job. When she prepared the foot, she put no salt in it, and when the king and his guests realized this, they were quite pissed off about the food not tasting well. So he called up the cook and asked him whats up with the food. At this point she told him that she was his daughter and that he thought that salt is so useless that he had kicker her out.

 

So the point is: Even if you would ask people wether they would live without something, thus defining usefullness, it doesn't mean that the answer would be correct, because often you will know the usefulness of something only when you miss it.

 

I used to drive Mercedes cars and this was also the first car that I bought. The very first time I used another car, a Nissan from a friend of mine, I realized how cramped this car really was, and only then I really appreciated how much space I had on my own car. Before this was normal to me and I wouldn't even have realized this.

[oDDity]

No problem, simply refine the definition to 'what most people could do without after a test period to see if the REALLY missed it in practice'

[Maximius]

I wouldn't say it's 100% like how you're describing.  Companies do invest some in basic research (vs applied).  Take Bell Labs of the past for example.  We wouldn't have transistors today without their basic research.  The early transistors didn't make them any money, but they still looked into the semiconductor physics behind it, instead of focusing 100% of their effort on making better vacuum tubes.  I've read some articles about economic reasons for companies to invest in basic research, and they are there.

 

On the other hand, I agree with you guys that the corporate sponsors should not have any control over what results get published, and that right now there is not enough focus on basic research.  In my department we have some huge groups that are 90% corporate funded, and it pretty much turns the group into a corporate R&D facility.  Some professors no longer care about whether grad students learn anything, they just see a student as an employee to test out variation 3A of device #114 for HP, or something like that.

 

The group I'm in is more science-oriented, but we have funding troubles because of it.  We still have to try and market our stuff too, like instead of saying "we want to make novel optical materials for phase modulation applications" we have to say "we'll make a device to go in your radar so you can shoot people better."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I agree that it used to be less so, but today a MASSIVE amount of corporate research funding can trace its way back to the public till. I think it was the beginning of the Cold War that saw the greatest surge of government support for scientific research. Companies received free land grants from the government and public monies for engaging in research that would support the struggle with the Soviet Union. This is the infamous military/industrial/academic complex. This continues today, but you may have to dig a little to see the linkages.

 

Consider this: You have Company X, it does biomedical research, its only has a staff of 100. Are they funding their own stuff? Well, they pay the bills so it must be so. But take a closer look. Look at that sweet contract they hold with Uncle Sam, the one that promise to pay them back for funding lost due to research failures. Oh, and they get a pretty choice tax rebate too for their work. The company has a liason program with the local university, hiring researchers and providing internships for students. But in return, they get not only first pick of the best personnel but they also enjoy direct access to the fruits of the university's research. And where do universities get their money, a least a huge chunk of it? The public dole, baby, the taxpayers sweat and blood.

 

Ist, Im not saying every place is like this, but I believe the majority are. I know of some links to interesting online articles which I will attempt to find:

 

heres one

 

http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive...05_02_17_16.mp3

 

and another

 

http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive...04_12_23_16.mp3

 

These articles arent the final word but they have lots of good info about the topic.

[Pyrian]

Time is a dimension which may only exist in this universe.

Of course. But, if that's so (and I have no reason to think otherwise) that renders creation an artifact of this universe alone. If it's not true, than other universes can "create", perhaps even creating this one, but the original paradox is just as valid for them as it is for this one in the simple case.

 

The fact that your brain can't grasp the idea of a place with no time, doesn't mean a place with no time is impossible.

My brain has no difficulty whatsoever in grasping a place with no time. Yours, however, is repeatedly proving to be incapable of the concept. To elaborate, a place with no time has no change, no creation, and no destruction; complete stasis. This isn't a profound observation, it follows directly from definition.

 

You could get around this by positing a "something" that is non-static and non-time. Thing is, this doesn't change the paradox in any way - this "something" still requires itself as a prerequisite for its own creation.

 

What your saying is 'it takes time to create a universe, and that universe is temporary, so therefore time must have existed wherever that universe was created'

Err... No. I'm simply saying that time itself - the framework as a whole, rather than portions thereof - cannot be (or have been) created, since creation is itself a function of time. Put another way, the creation of time requires time.

 

1. You don't know what the entity is that might have created the universe, and therefore whether it requres time to perform a creation.

You're not getting it. Creation requires time. Period. By definition, of all things. You're literally arguing with the definition of a word.

 

Anyway, to address your point, the only way an entity can "create" without an external time is by having its own internal time, since creation requires time. Thus, a "time-bearing" entity that exists without having been created which then "went on" (in an entirely internal sense) to create an external universe is, of course, completely in accordance with everything I've said, and therefore isn't an objection to it at all. In fact, we could go on and posit that this mysterious entity creates the universe internally to itself (thus not requiring multiple times). From there we can suggest that this entity IS the universe, whereupon we arrive at my original point.

 

In short, you're trying to use circular logic.

 

2. You don't know where this entity exists, or whether it is bound by the rules of time the way us simple mortals are in ths universe.

Morphing time doesn't change the terms - they're too simple. You can rearrange the meaning, function, or rules of time in any way you please - but action/change/creation must be able to occur for action/change/creation to be able to occur.

 

That's all I'm positing, BTW. My argument is A=A. That's what you're arguing against, and it makes you look pretty silly, frankly.

 

3. It's unwise to assume anything about an entity capable of creating a universe, it is even more unwise to think of it as being bound by simple rules like time the laws of phyiscs like we are. For all you know, the laws of physics and time or linear time may have been concieved of and created by the entity that created this universe, and they may be unique.

Conception and creation are temporal concepts. There's no way around that - if you remove time from creation, it's no longer creation at all, it's something else.

 

Since we are in possesion of such a tiny percentage of the facts, only a moron would make up their mind as to what did or didn't definftely happen, and what that moron would be doing is making a wild guess.

Happening is a temporal concept, by definition, and I am 100% comfortable in asserting that nothing happens without time. That's not profound; that's what time means.

 

You might as well try to prove that black equals white and get run over at the next zebra crossing.

[sparhawk]

Happening is a temporal concept, by definition, and I am 100% comfortable in asserting that nothing happens without time.  That's not profound; that's what time means.

 

Time is change. If there is change it means that time had to be there as well, otherwise how would something change? If there is change you have a state before and a state after the change, and this is what time means. So if we assume that our universe didn't exist at one point, it means it had to come into existence, which IMO also means that time was there before the universe.

Since scientists claim that time has no meaningfull concept before the universe existed, I wonder how the universe came into place in the first time. Spontanous quantum effects? But they also need time to occur. There had to be a before the effect and a after the effect, otherwise it would mean that our universe must exists infinitley long.

[oDDity]

My brain has no difficulty whatsoever in grasping a place with no time.  Yours, however, is repeatedly proving to be incapable of the concept.  To elaborate, a place with no time has no change, no creation, and no destruction; complete stasis.

Wrong. It could also be a place where things do not require time to happen, they simply happen wthout any time having to pass. IN this universe, time is just the result if a photon tavels from point A to point B, but in another universe that photon could travel from one point to any other point instantaniously, and therefore time would not be necessary. IT could also be a universe where time happens in random pockets, or loops back on itself so there is no begining or end.

 

Anyway, to address your point, the only way an entity can "create" without an external time is by having its own internal time, since creation requires time.  Thus, a "time-bearing" entity that exists without having been created which then "went on" (in an entirely internal sense) to create an external universe is, of course, completely in accordance with everything I've said, and therefore isn't an objection to it at all.  In fact, we could go on and posit that this mysterious entity creates the universe internally to itself (thus not requiring multiple times).  From there we can suggest that this entity IS the universe, whereupon we arrive at my original point.

Your original point is that there cannot have been a creator, but there could easily have been a creator of this universe.

Say that the enitity that created this universe could have evolved in a different place - so it didn''t start off as a being capable of creating universes, but developed the ability - maybe it was an entire race of people in a different universe who developed this ability.

This doesn't solve the question of 'where it all originally came from', where did the universe these creator/s live in come from (maybe it eternally existed (circular time)) but it would still make them/it gods, given that they/it are the creator/s of our universe and ultimately, us.

So, there may not have been an initial creation of whatever exists before/outside of this universe, but there could easily have been a deliberate and planned creation event for this universe.

It's quite feasable that humans could evolve to the point where we are capable of creation ourselves.

[sparhawk]

It's quite feasable that humans could evolve to the point where we are capable of creation ourselves.

 

I always think of virtual world inside computers are like this. Of course not with current technology, but this is just a question of time, not a principle problem.

[Maximius]

There was a science fiction story I read years ago that talked about a human civilization who would create worlds in super computers as a hobby. Turns out our world was a simulcrum too. Kinda like the Matrix, but written better. And no "Dead Fish School of Acting" performances by Keanu Reeves.

 

BTW its dangerous to use the word "evolve" when one is implying a sense of progression towards a better, or higher, or whatever, purpose or end. Evolution has no goal, no purpose, rather it is the process of a species/being accomodating itself to its environment through natural selection pressures. (obscurus i await your judgement!)

 

Moderns like to see our intelligence as a positive, progressive development, and we often cast this in terms of being "evolved" versus less complex creatures. This is inaccurate at best, human intelligence is only one kind of adaptation that a particular family of proto-apes developed. In fact, this adaptation may be a dead end, if it proves that our intelligence and its artifacts (science, technology, styrofoam burger containers) prove to be our undoing. At the same time, our intelligence is the only thing that can save us from any dangers our intelligence presents to us. Go figure.

[oDDity]

Of course we are better than all other species on the planett, and for one very simple reason - we can choose our own fate, where every other species has its fate choosen by nature.

We are no longer fully part of natural evolution, since we're now tampering with our own genes and using our intelligence and logic to make deliberate decision about our own future, so for us evolution is no longer random, and we very much have goals and purpose of our own.

 

And don't say 'but we're a product of evolution, so it's still working through us and anything we do still conforms to the wishes of evolution'

We are not the physical enbodiment of nature, and we are not here to carry out its work. We happily contradict natural laws and go against nature, we can truly choose to do anything that's possible to do, and if it's impossible we'll set up computer simulations of it or dream about it while asleep and experience it that way.

We're the result of one or more freak mutations, and as you say yourself, nature has no way of predicting what evolution will throw up, and so we are an entirely unexpected phenomenon and could well be unique in the universe, depending on how small the probability of intelligent life evolving is.

It could be so staggeringly small for such a series of random events to happen in the correct order, that it's only happened this once.

On the other hand, it could be the inevitable outcome of almost any ecosystem on any planet that has one.

So far, we know of one planet with life, and that planet evolved intelligent life, but we can't draw any conclusions from that, other than 'intelligent life is a possible'.

[Gildoran]

Of course we are better than all other species on the planett, and for one very simple reason - we can choose our own fate, where every other species has its fate choosen by nature.

I beg to differ - clearly amoebas are superior to all other species on the planet. All it takes is one little nuclear winter or meteor impact or global warming or what-not, and humans could easily perish... but would something like that kill off amoebas? Probably not. There are few things a human can survive that an amoeba can't. On the other hand there are so many things that an amoeba can survive that a human can't. As long as there are humans, there will always be amoebas, but the opposite isn't true.

 

Bow down before the mighty amoeba!

 

Edit: PS, I'm sure amoebas can do anything they want... It's just that only want to sit around eating stuff. But hey, can't blame 'em.

[oDDity]

I beg to differ - clearly amoebas are superior to all other species on the planet. All it takes is one little nuclear winter or meteor impact or global warming or what-not, and humans could easily perish... but would something like that kill off amoebas? Probably not. There are few things a human can survive that an amoeba can't. On the other hand there are so many things that an amoeba can survive that a human can't. As long as there are humans, there will always be amoebas, but the opposite isn't true.

 

Bow down before the mighty amoeba!

 

Edit: PS, I'm sure amoebas can do anything they want... It's just that only want to sit around eating stuff. But hey, can't blame 'em.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't be ridiculous, they have absolutely no control of anything, all it takes is one metor impact that destroys the Earth and they're all dead, whereas we could stop that meteor before it hits*, when the sun runs out of hydogen, they're all dead, we'll be off out in space long before that setting up new homes, or we'll have discovered away to keep the sun alive for longer.

All other species will die along with the Earth, but we are not limited in that way, in fact, the only other creatures that survive will be the ones that we decide should live.

We have choice to control our own destiny (and the destiny of every other species), while they squrm around oblivious to anything.

 

Don't tell me we aren't superior. Animals are food for us, nothing more. We are at the top of the food chain.

 

 

*maybe not today if it was a huge one, but certinly wothin the few hundred years we will be able to.

[Gildoran]

Just out of curiousity... did I come off as being completely serious?

[oDDity]

THe last three lines were obviosuly flippant, but you meant the first paragraph, and don't try to squirm out of it now that you've been made to look foolish in front of everyone.

Just make a public apology for your level of idiocy,and you'll be forgiven.

[Gildoran]

Hey, the "bow down before the mighty ameoba" line was in the original post, and that's obviously flippant too.

 

If you want to argue about it, I could say that intelligence only makes you superior if you're smart enough not to use it to shoot yourself in the foot... The extent of global warming and over-use of pollution and such doesn't exactly make a strong case for human intelligence. Even puppies know not to crap in their own food. In any case, I hope you're right, though. I just like to see if I can argue for the least expected/popular side.