Thread: Re: Girlfriend Post

  1. #46
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    >Obviously the brain knows the difference between TV and someone standing in front of them. What is it that causes the brain to disregard these filters in many circumstances? Obviously the filters are oftentimes engaged, as I do not sit swearing violently at my TV every time I see behavior that is bothersome. (Not all the time anyhow .)

    Yes, but the schizophrenic has a different outlook (and me sometimes), this has gone way off topic and I should get some sleep (else I'll become someone who can't differentiate between TV and reality).

  2. #47
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    We are slaves.
    We have to do what our bodies tell us and there is no way around it. Enjoy the ride. I am not writing this message out of my own free will, I am writing it due to fundemental evolutionary needs, my experiences, and my current state of mind, chemical (i.e. hormone) levels, current stimuli and whatever else. I can't say exactly why I am writing this message (It's like trying to predict a computer-generated random number, the number is dependent on the time, but you still cannot predict it, it is just too complicated) so I will just write it.

    If evolution has worked, eventually I will reproduce and die.

    Fun.


    I saw this program by some street magician guy, [I cannot remember his name but he has the same initials as David Blaine], he took some advertisement guys to a building and made them draw an advert for a pet cemetry and before they started work he put an envelope on the table containing what he thought their ideas would be.

    Once the advertisment guys had finished he opened the envelope and the adverts were remarkably similar.

    Then he explained that on the advertisement guys taxi journey to the building, he had put little messages everywhere outside the window [pictures] and had managed to put these ideas into the advertisement guys minds.

    Its hard to explain but very clever.
    Last edited by Brian; 05-12-2002 at 06:08 AM.

  3. #48
    Registered User DeadArchDown's Avatar
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    Clyde. Obviously your absolutly right. People don't like the computer idea becuase current computers are a billionth of what our brain is...they are a baby step in the direction...and mabye still missing several peices, so a baystep to a subsection of what a brain is. Anyway...what I'm interested in is this...where you able to figure all this out without drugs? I took the drug route, so I can't tell if I could have come to these conclusions without. You?
    -------------------
    "Exception"

  4. #49
    back? dbaryl's Avatar
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    >>where you able to figure all this out without drugs?

    LOL, that's a good one.

    Here is something that goes along with this topic: if all our actions are predetermined and/or a direct reflection of the surroundings and the environment, why do we punish certain behavior?

    ::I know, a responce to this could be something along the lines: "punishing the behavior is also predefined, not our choice either"... yet, I think we do have a choice.
    This is my signature. Remind me to change it.

  5. #50
    >>why do we punish certain behavior?

    See my post on the last page (third from bottom) regarding that exact topic.
    "There's always another way"
    -lightatdawn (lightatdawn.cprogramming.com)

  6. #51
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    Clyde,
    One thing about your silica brain.

    My understanding is that memories are stored as connections in my brain. So my brain must be constantly changing.

    If you 'read' my brain it would be a snap shot.
    Not valid as soon as I create a new memory.

    So as you swap/build the brains you create new memories. You can never catch up to make them identical unless you can stop me thinking or acting (changing/using my brain).

    If you do succeed in creating a copy of me, as soon as it or I create a new memory, we will be different. Even if we experence it togather, the fact I am doing something with my 'twin' will effect my memory.

    There is a lot of difference between my PC's HD after a format and now with all the info on it.

    I'm sorry, but just as I refuse to believe in a god (unless I get some sort of proof), I can not believe that all actions, for all people, from the begining to end of time are predetermined.
    Last edited by novacain; 05-12-2002 at 08:25 PM.
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
    George Best

    "If you are going through hell....keep going."
    Winston Churchill

  7. #52
    bobish
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    Originally posted by novacain
    I can not believe that all actions, for all people, from the begining to end of time are predetermined.
    well really of you take all factors into acount anything and be predicted there for it is predetermined its just no one is capable of knowing everthing thats going at at once. It doesn't really matter one way or the other though as time as we know it is linier so you would never be able to observe to identical scenarios and see wether they end up the same so arguments like this are a bit meaning less. Well im just rambling, i guess i shouldn't try to post when im so tired.

  8. #53
    i dont know Vicious's Avatar
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    I can not believe that all actions, for all people, from the begining to end of time are predetermined.
    If you do not believe in God... what do you believe in?
    How can you not know He exist? Look around you!
    How do you think this world was made? I cant sit here and answer every question or bounce back a reply to all of your denial.
    I just hope you will think about things and begin to realize how stupid it is not to believe before its too late.

    Im not a preacher or anything but I know God exist.
    What is C++?

  9. #54
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    >>If you do not believe in God... what do you believe in?

    That some people need a crutch to make their existance have a meaning, lest it all be for procreation.
    That religion was invented to keep the masses in line by the rich. That is no longer needed as we now have TV / consumerism /drugs to keep us from questioning the status quo (and baby sit our children).

    That now most religions do more harm than good.

    I believe that when you die it is all over.


    I would ask you to show me some proof that god exists but this is not the threads topic (and there have been so many about that).

    (Raised as a strict Methodist, follower of John Wesley, I spent 1 hour a day, 6 days a week in church, plus religious education classes two hours a week as a teenager so I know where you are. I am just a lot further down the road)
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
    George Best

    "If you are going through hell....keep going."
    Winston Churchill

  10. #55
    i dont know Vicious's Avatar
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    Well I cant keep talkin bout this cause it is not the thread topic but...

    I feel sorry for you that you have nothing to balieve in. That your life will end in spiritual lonliness. May God have mercy on your soul.
    What is C++?

  11. #56
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    I really know that I shouldn't get involved here. I can see exactly which way this discussion is going but.....

    I feel sorry for you that you have nothing to balieve in. That your life will end in spiritual lonliness. May God have mercy on your soul.
    Oh please. Give us some reasoned argument. Shout at us. Scream at us. Whatever. What I really dislike about god-botherers is the old "I'm right, and I have to convert you at all costs" line.

    This is going to upset people, and get me flamed. Tough. There is more evil done in the name of "religion" than for any other reason in the world.

    Take Northern Ireland as an example. Most religions state that murder is wrong. So why do Protestants kill Catholics. Why do Catholics kill Protestants.

    I give up.
    Visit entropysink.com - It's what your PC is made for!

  12. #57
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    Tries to resist but sees red flag and enters china shop.

    >>I feel sorry for you that you have nothing to balieve in. That your life will end in spiritual lonliness. May God have mercy on your soul.

    I have plenty to believe in, look forward to and take joy in. From my 4 day old nephew to a stupid thread on this forum.

    I just have realised, as I hope you do too, that mankind is fundamentally flawed. As is then god, as he made us (in his image). Which of course is a contradiction to the perfect being we are presented as god. Besides all the differnt religions can't be right, though they all can be wrong....

    We are not SPECIAL enough to be the creation of the devine being. All your hopes, without a shred of proof, will not make it so.
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
    George Best

    "If you are going through hell....keep going."
    Winston Churchill

  13. #58
    The Earth is not flat. Clyde's Avatar
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    "where you able to figure all this out without drugs?"

    Yup, i was not on any mind inducing substances when i thought about all this stuff

    "So as you swap/build the brains you create new memories. You can never catch up to make them identical unless you can stop me thinking or acting (changing/using my brain). "

    An interesting point Novocain, one that can be sidestepped either by stopping the person's brain by freezing them, or by making the new silica brain instantaneously (yea I know, but it's a thought experiment we're allowed to do crazy stuff ).

    But lets say there is a gap, lets say the silica brain was the "you" from 15 seconds ago, the paradox still stands. It's just a little more complex, and it is still resolved by the anihilation of self, there is no problem if the "you" 15 seconds ago, and the "you" now are infact completely different "you"s anyway, or if the "you"s don't really exist at all.

    - I hate the English language it makes this whole topic so much more complicated than neccesary!

    "I'm sorry, but just as I refuse to believe in a god (unless I get some sort of proof), I can not believe that all actions, for all people, from the begining to end of time are predetermined."

    Depends on what you mean by predetermined. All actions are governed by physical laws, so in that sense i suppose you could think of them as "pre-determined" but not all actions are predictable, chaos theory screws prediction up totally in many cases. (we will NEVER be able to predict the weather long term... which sucks!)

    MY take on life: we're going to die, when we do we cease to exist (life after death == life before birth == nothing), I know that the ultimate fate of the universe is written in the laws of physics and nothing will ever change that, I know that "meaning" is not a real concept and that morality is a human construct.

    And to be honest i found the above pretty damn depressing, (especially the loss of meaning) for several years of my life, but I came around and now subscribe to a Dawkin-esc philosophy;

    Against huge improbability we as individuals exist, we happen to be a certain combination of our parents genes, any other combination and it would be someone else in place of us, in fact any other combination of genes in any one of our thousands of ancestors and we would not exist, in fact even given the right combination of genes in a given one of our ancestors, any slight twist of the events in history would have totally changed the present in such way that in all likelyhood you and I would simply not be.

    We get to experience life! In all its greatness; we get to see the beauty of a sunset, hear the wonders of music, we get to feel wind brushing against our skin, we get to run, to dance, to breathe, to in-short live.

    On a cosmic scale of things our life-time in truly puny, but for a minute fraction of cosmic time our eyes open and we see the universe in all it's splendor.

    I like that, I also find comfort in the fact that I will have existed, come what may, whatever happens in the future, whatever becomes of me, the human race, etc. I know catagorically that at X time in X place, I was there, and I will always have been there. I have a little place etched out in time, that will always belong to me.
    Last edited by Clyde; 05-13-2002 at 06:15 AM.

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