Advocatus

That’s a very good point about positive/negative feedback.  In spite of his protests that he doesn’t “feel” anything, Data did admit that would grow accustomed to certain inputs from the people he was acquainted with, and missed them when they were absent.  In fact he grew quite fond of his pet cat.  “The ability to experience subjectively” se…[Read more]

Yes, I’ve been following the news on that governor’s race.  Of course the Republicans on social media are accusing her of being a sore loser, and present Governor Nathan Deal already seems to be helping Kemp move his furniture into his office, but Abrams is perfectly correct to wait until all the votes are in before conceding.  There may not be e…[Read more]

“The only and I mean only reason Republicans are worth a dump in the toilet is that the Democrats are so bad.”

Let me deconstruct this for a second.  You seem to be claiming that Republicans alone are not worth a dump in the toilet, but that the Democrats are worth even less than that, which is the reason you voted Republican.  Voting for the les…[Read more]

Man cannot, under any circumstances, live without religion.
Just as man is social by nature and cannot live alone and be isolated from society, he is also innately devout and cannot live properly without religion. Religiousness is a natural instinct in man.
The clearest proof of this is that man flees to Allah Almighty when facing difficulties and…

[Read more]

Authoritarianism is the enemy of progress?  We KNEW that!  Theoretically that is the reason we have a democracy and three branches of government.  But when someone like Trump gets in and the Senate simply serves as a rubber stamp for him, all bets are off.

I generally find watching You tubes to be a waste of time.  If you really have an argument, post the text here so that we can take time to talk about it.

No need to apologize, CC.  I’ve been following the campaign for governor here in Georgia, between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams.  Every one of Kemp’s attack ads accuses Abrams of being “too Liberal”.  That’s all he feels he has to do here in the South.  And of course half of his attacks are outright lies.

I read the article, but I don’t use social media that much so I had no idea this was going on.   It just goes to show that if there is any way a new technology can be used against you, someone will think of a way to do it.

I received a private message earlier this week, not from this same person, who also wanted to be friends.  He wanted to exchange email addresses so that he could send me his picture.  The first thing I thought was that as soon as I clicked on that link, it would probably upload spyware into my computer, so I just told him that we could get to k…[Read more]

Since I’ve mentioned Star Trek, I think it’s interesting that your definition of “sentient” wouldn’t seem to apply to the android, Data, who appeared in that series. He was intelligent, capable of learning from his experiences, and obviously self-aware, but because he didn’t have emotions, he didn’t seem to “suffer” in either a physical or a…[Read more]

Welcome aboard, John!  We can never have too many professional philosophers.  “Pragmatic Atheist” fits me, as well.  Sometimes I wish there WERE a god around to take some of the heat off of me.  But there doesn’t seem to be, so I make the best I can of things.

It was a very interesting article, and I also enjoyed the reading the comments.  I can certainly imagine someday in the future in a better world (say the 24th century, Star Trek’s time), a society might exist that might apply rights to all animals capable of experiencing suffering.  But in the here and now, I really can’t imagine it happening.  A…[Read more]

I agree with you there. One of the reasons I didn’t give a high priority to watching the hearings in the first place is that I knew from the beginning that none of it was going to make any difference. Whatever happened, the Senate was going to vote straight down party lines anyway. They could have had film of Kavannah actually doing it and it…[Read more]

It’s true that the new format has shortcomings. I think of some of the conversations we used to have that wouldn’t be possible now. In the old format you could quote a person’s entire post and then respond point by point (if you knew how to use quote tags), at the same time editting out excess verbiage. The way it is now, quote tags don’t seem to…[Read more]

Don’t be shy about posting, Portland.  We can really use some fresh blood just now.

Having looked at some of the coverage since I made that post, I see your point.  It’s not a question of nailing him over something his twenty-year-old self did, it’s more about the entire attitude he and the Republicans have about sweeping it under the rug.

What has changed?  Sure there was a big change in the format, and that takes getting used to.  I’ve seen it happen many times before.  But the change hasn’t affected us, the users.  We’re still the same people we were before the change.  The only difference is that some of us are having trouble getting back into it because of the perceived clum…[Read more]

HOAX ALERT: Tiny time traveler’s watch is not real (UPDATED)

The possibly must also not be excluded that the watch was dropped by an earlier explorer, and the conveniently unnamed “archaeologists” who claimed that the site had not been disturbed for 400 years was simply mistaken.

…Or, come to think of it, the possibility that entire story was made up out of whole cloth.  That happens a lot on the Internet.  🙂