Sorry, too blunt?

(Oops, pun.)

I suppose everyone has gotten off work?

So, I noticed that around 4:20, many people stop posting.

*cough*

Well, I'm not a pothead. Are you?

lmao some of these things are hilarious. I'll be sure to try them if anyone ever comes knocking. The Bible burning one is priceless (too bad you haven't tried it). I mean, normally I wouldn't...but now I'm just too tempted...

That's pretty cool. At least I haven't made the sign of the beast yet...

Let me point out that those were ideas for a different time. Still, I feel they do carry some weight, if not just a thread of hope for armed defiance. When you have a huge conscripted army, intelligence, an air force, and a navy, armed rebellion or revolt is totally uphill...or perhaps just plain massacre, especially for today's American people. Although, rebellion and revolt should always be uphill by definition.

However, I would say that there is hope, and we've seen how people can evade an army in the Middle East. Who knows how it'd go in the US though...

Wow, I didn't think it was possible, but you convinced me. And so quickly too. I'll have to think long and hard about how to store the gun, though...to keep it safe from my kids, should I ever have any. I think I would educate them as hard as I could (haha).

And it may strike you as a bit ironic, but what you said struck a Marxist/Socialist chord in me. Let me just point out that the Socialism of Russia or North Korea is very different from what us ultra-Liberal university students have in mind! And it ain't a bunch of hippy free-love either.

P.S. You're right about the marijuana thing. It was a weak example anyway. ;-(

Wow, I posted this a couple of days ago, saw no responses, and forgot about it. I'm pleased to see it became something nice.

In response to Bushidobillyclub's:


If you told me you saw pink elephants yesterday, I would not believe you. I would argue that this is not because I have faith that things are false until proven to be true, but is perhaps because my mind calculates quickly the Probability of Validity: I have seen or heard that only gray/black/brown elephants exist. I have also seen pink elephants in cartoons, and they are always portrayed as hallucinations.
Thus, I decide that you are probably not telling the truth, so I do not believe you. In this case, the only thing that is taken by faith to be true is our perception of reality that is you and your speech, and the virtual reality that is our memories.

However, if you tell me that pink elephants exist somewhere in the universe for sure, I would neither believe nor disbelieve. Instead, I would acknowledge the possibility because I know the universe is huge and that something might exist that would fit the description of a pink elephant. On the other hand, I would believe that you had not been to many other places in the universe to see this pink elephant (again based on memories), so I would believe that you're talking out of your ass.

Well, that was long winded, but I hope that cleared up some things.

Again, as I understand it, Atheists believe that God does not exist. If this means that they believe that God does not exist quite as many religions describe, than I would venture to say that many Agnostics and even Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. also feel this way. That is to say, there are plenty of people (particularly Agnostics) who don't quite buy the description of God that their religion tries to sell. Do we label all these people Atheist then? I prefer not to do this.

I, then must define Atheist to mean anyone who *believes* that God does not exist. Note that I highlighted "believes," because I do think that Atheism is a slippery slope to defend, and its weapon of defense is not always logic but rhetoric and sometimes, as Nubby noted, based on ridicule.

As for the Problem of Evil, I feel it is somewhat a silly point by which to try to prove God's existence. Why does God have to be omniscient, omnipotent, or beneficent? Maybe God cannot know *everything*, like indicated by the Abrahamic God who, when walking through Eden, asks where Adam and Eve are. Maybe God is not omnipotent, because there is the paradox of whether God can create a boulder too heavy for even Him to lift? If he is not omnipotent, then this paradox disappears. Finally, perhaps God is not beneficent because there is evil in this world, though perhaps God is wise enough to give us free will to decide to do evil, so the beneficence maybe does not factor in here. More to the point of whether God is beneficent, in the Old Testament, God routinely do "ebad" things, so he perhaps is not such a nice guy.

Let me finish with something interesting: A Jewish friend recently asked me if I honestly thought that Jewish people traditionally believed God was "good?" It's only in the New Testament and in Islam where the Abrahamic God is described as beneficent, so it makes sense that this characteristic isn't important for Jewish people.

Makes you wonder...what if the God you worship is evil? Do you still worship him just because he can kick major ass, or even, do you have a moral obligation to *not* worship him?

What's in the Book of Revelations that talks about this sort of things? I don't have a Bible with me and I don't know it well enough... ^_^

All I said is most gun owners don't walk around their houses *constantly armed* like you said you do. I think I should have stuck a "probably" in there (you see what happens when I don't?).

Finally, all I'm assuming about the average gun owner is that he is not constantly armed with a live gun ("live gun" means a gun with bullets inside, right? lol). In that case, he is not ready-at-a-moment's-notice like you are.

And in response to TheRebelSun, I would agree that in some circumstances a gun is very useful, but probably not necessary. Most people in the world make do without a gun. If you were some farmer in the mountains of Afghanistan perhaps, you'd probably need a gun for something...

In America, these days, I don't think it's necessary, at least not for sedentary people. If you're so tough up that you need to hunt for your food, you still have the option of food stamps, whether you're willing to take that option or not. And then, even if you're some sort of outdoorsman, it's arguable that you still don't need a gun to survive. How did the Natives survive, anyways? Still, a gun would be helpful against a bear or wolf maybe, so I'd have no problem with it.

We can always think of extreme cases, though, and nothing is absolute.

Wow, nice one.

What do you mean by a mental or emotional sensational state of perception though?

Mental means something involving the mind, but we cannot perceive without the mind, so perhaps your statement can be simplified to exclude "mental."

Can I be conscious without feeling an emotion such as happiness, fear, contempt, etc? Can I be conscious on a piece of dirt or a piece of paper without having an emotional reaction? Perhaps not, but it's debatable. Emotion...that's very interesting that you mentioned that, I think, because it makes things more complicated, and my example with the computer perhaps does not work. I suppose we'd have to delve deeper and define emotion to get a better handle on that...

I like that you wrote "perception or awareness of an object or concept with respect to one's self." However, my program above perceives, that is, receives input from the person typing "Blue." It checks this input with respect to itself, that is with respect to the different criteria and values it has. Again, is the program conscious on a very basic level?

As for physical: what happens if someone is paralyzed and cannot feel anything part of his body at all. Is this person conscious because he lacks a physical sensation but can still think? I'd say this person is still conscious, so perhaps "physical" can be excluded as well.



Lemme just mention that I had a similar debate with a suite mate of mine, and I'm just trying to work it through with you guys as well. We never really mentioned "emotion" in the definition, though, so I think that's pretty cool. I don't know if I'm ready to define "emotion" yet though...more practice at this philosophy things is needed, I guess. Anyway, maybe I'll tell you guys more about how the talk started later...

Awesome. These are good definitions.



So, is there a difference between your definition of consciousness and lines of code in a computer?

For example, I make write a program that reads like this:

1 Display: What is the color of the sky?
2 Input: Orange.
3 Output: Incorrect. Try again...

OR

2 Input: Blue.
3 Output: Correct.
4 Display: What is the color of the clouds?

My program has reacted to a set of circumstances by checking against its own values, then deciding whether it's "okay to go ahead" with the next question.

Finally, the question is: Is the computer conscious on an absurdly basic level? That is, is the computer conscious only of its questions, your answers, and its values...or can this even be called consciousness?




Are you aware of the bed behind you while you're reading this comment (assuming there's a bed behind you)? Or were you not really conscious or aware of it until I mentioned it? How about the second red blood cell that you created today? Are you aware of that blood cell? And the speck of dust on the floor to your right? What do you define as "everything around you?"

If you define consciousness as being aware of the "big picture," of our species, and you "'feel' how big our universe actually is," then is a small child at birth unconscious? What about a cat, which is aware of its species? What about Man before it knew there was such a thing as a "universe?" If a child and a cat and early Man could be called "unconscious," then what do we call them when they lose consciousness, i.e. are knocked out? Are they unconscious then as well?

Sorry to be picky. ;-) This is just for fun, I suppose, but that shouldn't stop us from getting somewhere interesting.



*notquite00 begins the search for 2KidsMom*

Has anyone ever come up to you and blamed you directly? Maybe some people still blame the White guys around America, but I think most of the people acknowledge that it was people's ancestors who did that ****.

I think we should all wear masks all the time, and purposely go to the doctor and install perhaps several small devices that throw our GPS location somewhere else in case they've already secretly implanted us with such trackers. This would really screw them up!

Whenever meeting up with someone, we'd just momentarily take off our mask to confirm. To call from a distance to someone we'd think is our friend, though, we'd have to develop special bird calls...

It'd be fun and exciting, not to mention confusing as hell for the govt.

Seriously, though...most of us have lives too boring for the government to care about all the time. Unless things got really totalitarian, I'm sure people wouldn't know the difference even if the government secretly increased surveillance 100-fold.

Define: Consciousness
--Do so as precisely as you can.

Try to stay on-topic! (lmao not!)

Uhh...if this is how you're going to talk, I suppose this is no longer a discussion and...well, just you being immature and throwing insults. I've explained myself several times, and I'm just met with ridicule. Lol, you do realize that you've been carrying on a one-way verbal battle on the Internet, right? Grow up, lol.

Nice talking with you guys.

...uhh, so you're telling me that making crack and meth illegal to sell has no effect on how much is sold? If tomorrow, we made selling crack and meth legal, wouldn't the sale of these drugs increase?

It's really not complicated to think that if selling guns became illegal, the sale of guns would go down. I have also admitted several times that guns would *still be sold on the black market* (really, I think you guys just aren't reading my posts very well). However, getting guns on the black market when selling guns can get you thrown in jail would be a little more expensive. This higher price acts as a natural deterrent...I mean, this isn't exactly a complex or fanciful idea, guys, and I've explained it several times...I mean, banning the sale of hard drugs has the same effect.

All this fantasy and vivid imagination business...really? lols

First off, in real life, I don't live with my mom and dad - I'm away from home at college. The situation posed was that a guy walks in and shoots my mom and dad...so of course, I'm playing along. Why do you keep taking cheap shots at me? lols O_o

Second, the fact that I used to do Kendo and have a wooden sword sitting in my room back at my parents' place is nothing to make fun of someone for...
Also, you say I'd mess my pants. Well, I know you as well as you know me, so I can easily say you'd mess your pants too. *shrug* And maybe I would mess my pants. Hopefully, though, I'd get my **** together (no pun intended) and try to defend myself.

Third, again, the question was, what would I do in that situation. That's what I'd do. What would you recommend if you think it'd take to long to remove the screen from a window and make an escape? Or if you think you'd just be shot in the back? I bet you'd grab the closest weapon you'd find too, hide behind a door, and hope the guy got within striking range. Now, I don't know if that would work or not, but honestly, according to the hypothetical situation, I'm going to die if I do nothing, so I might as well try, right?

Insulting someone over the Internet doesn't exactly strengthen your argument at all...so, I don't know why you do it.

Finally, maybe if break-in rates are increasing in the US, and that these criminals are very aggressive and violent, maybe it is a good idea to keep a gun on you. However, if someone was breaking in with a gun, they probably have their gun drawn and are expecting to do some shooting anyway. If that's the case, I'd still recommend that you try a sneakier approach, rather than running up shooting, 'cause they'll have their gun pointed forwards too. And if you're sneaking, you might very well be hiding behind a doorway, in which case my method would also have a chance of working, at least in my mind! lol ;-)

Ah, I'd like to add that most gun owners *don't* walk around their house armed like you. Again, when we talk about whether guns are useful in the breaking and entering sort of situation, it may be better to have the average gun owner in mind, not the...always-at-the-ready gun owner in mind. In other words, you're probably the exception to the rule.

Sure, there are plenty of people who can make their own firearms. It'll just be illegal for them to sell those guns. I still don't see your point. I can make all the heroine I want behind doors and no one would know, lol. I can even sell it on the black market.
If gun use eventually drops because of this hypothetical legislation, then, of course, shooting ranges will slowly lose customers. The blacksmiths will have to have their own shooting ranges in the backyard, but some neighbors may even feel unsafe enough to call the police.

Seeing as I don't have a gun now, and neither does the bulk of America, I don't see why you guys are so paranoid down in the south? Is crime and violence really such a problem down there that you feel like you need to have a gun on your person always? I mean, I live in New York, so I suppose my neighborhood ain't daisies either, but it's no war zone. Seriously, do some martial arts and I have a wooden sword near by bed. Between hiding behind a doorway in wait and that wooden sword, I feel okay "hoping the bad people with the guns" don't come to my house. Plus, most of the bad guys who break and enter probably don't think I'm home or think I'm asleep, plus they're probably hard up for cash to get their drug fix, so they're probably not armed.

Yeah, so seriously, if most of America feels reasonably safe, what makes your hometown such a war zone?

Oh, and let me add that cities generally tend to have more crime, yet the people in the cities also tend to choose not to buy guns, at least more so than in other areas in America. So again, we feel safe enough, so why don't you?