Yes it can. Information isn't "shared"- it's "copied". Just as these
posts can be read by many hundreds of people. Probably won't, but can.
Without them changing anything.

Dangit, that was clever, and I ruined it with a typo.

Today, I have been enlightene. Tomorrow, I might do something about it.

Hmm. So we translate our perception of their translation and how it's
different from our translation.... you know, this could be the start of
a really nice headache.


Can we just call this a "mirrors reflecting mirrors" paradox and walk
away with our sanity intact?


Although our view of how other species operate isn't completely lacking
in empirical facts. Mostly gleaned by disecting their brains. I have a
favorite "flawed understanding" of other species.

Which is that "multi-fascet" eyes that insects possess. (Run with me,
this is a great study on human brain function, too). Now, the "cartoon"
view is that insects see millions of tiny pictures. Which, although
(kinda) true, is also completely flawed. The fasceted insects will view
the world much as a human does (in the context of a three-dimensional
field around them with perspective lines like our own).

Humans (kinda) see two pictures at the same time. The best way for
anyone to experiment with this is by holding their left hand in front of
the left eye, close enough that the hand dominates the view, but not so
close to block out the light. Now part your fingers a bit, so you can
see this screen through them. If you close your left eye, you'll view
the screen as normal. If you close your right, you'll see the hand and
bits of the screen. But if you open both eyes, you'll see the image of
your hand "ghosting"- you can "see through it". If you focus on the
image of the hand, you'll see all the details of it. If you focus on the
screen, you'll see that instead.


It's really fascinating. Our method of vision, like all visual
creatures, is to overlap the two images, which is how three dimensional
vision works.

Got a very nice group of mexicans living in the neighborhood. Polite,
friendly, hard working, even if only like three of them can speak
english. I'm absolutely certain *some* are illegal, at the very least.
We yap about the immigration politics all the time- they never mentioned
anything about this sorta thing. I'll have to remember to bring it up to
them, next I see.

Never heard of that offer, before. And if I haven't heard it, it's
pretty much for certain that immigrants who don't have the advantage of
my native status and liberal education wouldn't have.


You run that offer over the spanish-speaking radio and TV stations, and
I'm willing to bet the recruitment rates will go up considerably.

But the ladies have a point- you're the one with the "dating", or at
least "dateable", profile. Sounds like she's not the only one straying.
But again, could be wrong.

Get over it, and then dump her. That's what I'd do. Part of my life
philosophy is to never take an action in anger. So a lot of things, I
decide ahead of time. "What would piss me off, and what should I do if
it happens"- that way my decissions are made whilst completely cool and
unemotional


And if anyone cheats on me it's over, right then and there.


But, of course, it's your choice. That's just me.

I just ate. And now I think I'm gonna make room to do it again.

I hear the voice of reason. I pay attention, I absorb that which is
said to me, and I draw my own conclusions. Just because those
conclusions aren't what you're trying to get me to believe, that doesn't
make me closed minded in the slightest. Just means you'll have to do
better than the same old cookie-cutter arguments I've listened to for
years.

Germany supposedly tried to get mexico to engage a war against the US.


But, regardless, the war would have been a lot uglier- but the allies
would have won no matter how it was sliced. Germany and Japan were the
only two strong fighters. Germany betrayed Russia, and would no doubt
have betrayed their other allies. In fact, Germany's attack on Russia
was the direct reason why Communism got a foothold their.


Regardless, we would have got the Nuke, and we would have used it.
Perhaps on Mexico City and Berlin, instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki....
but that'd be the end of things.

You, abra, are the one who said religions promoted "ignorance". Which
is a dead-on falsehood. Every truly great thinker in human history was
religious. Aristotle (for all intents, the inventer of science)....
Newton, Einstein, Da Vinci, the list goes on.

There's really never been a decisively non religious person that's
advanced any science in any appreciable degree. You call people
"brainwashed"- and yet you reject things that disagree with your dogma
as readily as the worst of them. Except the real nuts.


Do pay attention, when I spoke of atheism, I first said *oppresion*-
which includes the oppressions of free speech, free thought, and
"progress". I went into the tangent of warfare, admittedly, but warefare
was a tangent (or logical progression, whichever you choose). The point
was in oppression and suppression.

You say this like you're telling me something I didn't already know
and, for the most part, agree with. I wasn't being argumentative. I was
stating there's a difference between "illusion" and "translation". A
bee's perception of a flower, of course, comes with their censory data.
A human's comes with human perceptions.


Don't think I'm arguing or disagreeing just because I put a different
interpretation on things.

That's what happens when people run out of good arguments. They insult
the opposing side and then give up.

That woulda been an interesting mix together. Probably wise we didn't
try and absorb them back then. Could only imagine how the Civil War
would have played out, if nothing else.

You may even be right. Who cares? Our Republic is doing pretty good as
far as elected governments go. We have the record of being the longest
lasting, at least. AND the most stable. Only one serious rebellion, and
three periods of real civil unrest in the course of over 200 years. Not
bad at all.


"America has the worst government in the world.... except all the
others...."- I forget who came up with that quote.

You know, abra- more oppression has been done in the name of atheistic
removal of religion than in the total of all religions on earth.
Examples include every communist nation on earth. If you can blame
religion for the death tolls done in "religious" wars.... I can blame
athiesm for Stalin's reign. And "red" china.


But of course, every fool knows that atheism isn't responsible for
those events. Just like religions aren't responsible for the crimes
sometimes committed in the guise of religion. It's just the way the
cards play. Either both count, or neither.

Irreducibly complex isn't necessarily an "intelligent design" argument.
It isn't even a *typically* ID theory. A great many expert biologists
have acknowleged the existence of irreducibly complex traits. Eyes,
ears, and the circulatory system are the three big ones in humans. There
are many "rapid evolution" theories that state the possibility of a
species making massive evolutionary leaps in a single generation.

And, even if in birds (and those are painfully weak arguments- perhaps
possible, but still grasping at a barely existent straw), what of the
afformentioned flying squirrels- and my personal favorite- bats? Neither
of those examples use their "wings" for mating dances. And anyone who
knows anything about physics could tell you a flying squirrel's
membranes are *barely* good enough. Any smaller, and you've got a
falling squirrel.


Plus, again, the all-time favorite example- EYES. You're using them to
read this information, presumably. Human eyes, admittedly, are
reducible. We can drop a copied nerve pattern and become black-and-white
vision. But therein lies the crux.

We have the light receptors- those are well and good- and we have
(extremely special) nerves to bring this information to the brain. And
then we have the brain receptors, themselves. Remove any of these, and
vision doesn't work. Irreducibly complex. Unless you want to try to
claim three otherwise useless traits all spontaneously evolved at the
same time.


And that's entirely without going into the monocellular stage. Even the
bio-scientists freely admit that cells are irreducibly complex. In fact,
even the most simplistic cell has a "9 point" irreducible featuring.
Including cell membranes, organelle placement, osmosis functions,
metabolic regulators, RNA assembly, DNA itself, protien sorting
functions.... and a few other things. Remove a single one of those
things- and the cell dies, period. There's no possible way that the
first cells that appeared (however in the hell that occured) without all
of those things- if missing even one, it'd die before doing anything.
Much less reproducing.

No rational person could consider all of that occuring at once to be
POSSIBLE. And even if it did- it's even less likely that those traits
would be "attuned" to each other enough to successfully interact. Me
inventing a time machine, then going back and cranking it into the
primordial ooze is a more rational theory of cellular origins.

What "links"? I didn't get this information off the internet. Have you
ever actually READ "The Origins of Species"? Do you even know what
"Irreducibly complex" means? The laws of natural selection states that
useless traits tend to vanish. So unless wings have an evolutionary
benefit *LONG* before they become flight (or even glide) capable- they
can't come into existence.


This isn't source necessary. It's biology 101 and having intelligence
and free will exceeding that of a lemming. Stop following your dogma and
actually look at the question.

It's not just on this forum, Mike. Check out the "real world", so to
speak. That fiasco about the pledge of allegience- although, to be fair,
that's one where the anti-religious sort has a remote argument.

Not long ago, there was a big fuss to remove an artistic sculpture of
the 10 commandments from a courthouse. Not to mention, every holiday
that rolls around, some sad little group or another throws a fit.

They seem to like to think that since they're not a "religion", that
they can get away with doing everything they claim religions do- force
their beliefs on others, belittle those who disagree, and ignore every
reason why people disagree with their beliefs and actions.


I don't know why they choose to do this, but since it happens in the
world of flesh and blood, should it come as any surprise that it visits
upon the world of cyberspace?