Izzy

I agree with everything aside from the bolded emphasis on this statement. The alternate states of mind described are just different subjective interpretations of an objective world. Think of this not as a restriction, but a precaution. Two specific examples come to mind, and I think most everyone here can relate at least to the first one. I'm purposely making them less extreme so they're easier to understand. Take alcoholic consumption into consideration. Most people, when intoxicated, behave differently. A lot of people are more sociable. Some of it may be placebo, but alcohol has a very serious effect that enhances parts of a person's personality (or brings to light underlying traits) while motor skills are compromised. The world is seen through the eyes of a more relaxed person, but there's no doubt that the alcohol doesn't actually change this person's personality. Everything this person is doing is something they were capable of doing before. What's the saying? "Drunken actions = sober desires" or something? You can't deny that there is some truth in that. Now, a lot of drunken actions = stupid. So, rather than seeing it as my body restricting my view of the world, I think it's more like my body taking an evolutionarily ingrained precaution to keep me safe. One subjective view is simply better, evolutionarily speaking, than another. ..I forgot my second example, so this one will be harder for people not very familiar with the properties of psychoactive substances to understand, but here goes: DXM. Dextromethorphan. It's a dissociative hallucinogen, which means, bluntly, that it can make you feel like you leave your body and can make you see pretty things (fractals, as opposed to unicorns ). Similiar to the effects of LSD, it can make it feel like parts of your brain merge, and you will hear colors and see music. It's all very cool, and if we weren't accustomed to our current reality of seeing colors and hearing music, it might be an alternative that makes sense. But, both going on at once is ridiculous. If you see and hear sounds and see and hear noises, how can you differentiate the two? (This may be a biased question. Are their differences even notable? I think so.) So, again, this 'restriction' isn't really a 'restriction' at all: all the same things one experiences whilst high are still experienced, just differently. Instead of paintings being music, paintings are paintings. Though, subjective reality or not, I honestly have to question some drug experiences. Normally, my ceiling is a ceiling. I cannot for the life of me imagine how, even in a subjective world, it would make sense that it is instead a particle dragon named Steve. I mean, it could be. I can't see into the objective world and know for sure, but the point is that some time in our evolutionary history, our brains decided that this method of interpretting our world is better than the other possible methods. If this restriction? No, we're still capable of it, aren't we? In fact, it's the same view. If we were used to hearing colors instead of seeing them, everything would seem the same and what we're experiencing right now would be trippy and awesome. We're.. not really missing out on anything substantial. Whether or not a person can see colors doesn't change the objective truth going on or provide any further insight, honestly. It's just fun to mingle your senses every now and then.

Or, alternatively worded, if someone could prove the multi-verse, it would prove free will in this universe.

Unreality introduced me to the philosorapter yesterday. This seems appropriate. Edit: Something I've realized recently is that if the reductionist philosphy is true (which I'm strongly inclined to believe given that everything in this universe is bound by the laws that govern it), then the Multi-verse explanation for the dual-slit trick has to be false because no other realities are possible.

Hmm, **********? Further evidence censorship is annoying, my friends? (That isn't me asking what you said, that's me trying the word and wondering if it'll get bleeped. ) w00t

I'm not doing this again. Look into one of the *at least* twenty threads on this site. Google the dragon in Carl Sagan's garage. Compare you belief (I'm assuming you're refering to the Judeo-Abrahamic God?) to the beliefs of people from different geographical regions. Compare God to Santa Claus. If you know Santa doesn't exist beyond a reasonable doubt, I don't see what aside from emotional ties hinders you from making the same conclusion about your sky fairy. Is this scientifically sound? No. Is it possible to disprove a negative? Not with current logic. Does this mean we should stay agnostic on the stances of these negatives? Hell nah broski. Back to politics. Seriously. I'm sorry I brought it up.

They also rely in a faith in scientific tools. He can be disproven. It just hasn't been shown to the effect the masses desire, yet.

I don't want to push the issue, but are you also agnostic about gravity, the boiling point of water, the existence of mental disorders, the existence of atoms, etc? You can't prove anything. You can't disprove a negative. That's where intuition comes in a bit.

Possibly a strange question, but what about the market? Something about the free market, although appealing, has never quite settled right for me. I don't know why, but the competition doesn't benefit everyone or give people equal chances. Economic communism is too utopian, but capitalism isn't the balance. I'm totally lost on this one.

reboot

...but.. the Russians?! Hah. Joking. They has scary weapons thooo. /spam

My bad. >_> Also, Jake, solute and salute are different words. refute

...The constitution is lovely and all, but, and call me a domestic terrorist, I don't particularly care if we uphold everything in a nearly 300 year old document. We should keep the good bits, which is what we've mostly done, and revise those that no longer fit with how the world works. Estimations are arguably more accurate than a census, while also easier to conduct and more cost effective. If the constitution doesn't ask for that, I don't actually care. @GVG: Nor can you disprove the existence of the dragon in Carl Sagan's garage. With the dragon and with several gods, we can show that both are unreasonable assertions beyond a reasonable doubt. While a God that hides behind every gap there is and completely conceals himself from his creations to ensure that they are faithful is a plausible God, he sure as hell is a God I want nothing to do with. That doesn't even begin to address the inconsistencies about said gawd and the world. Just wait for the mathematical proof. *shrug* Open borders? No such thing as illegals? Getting the homeless off the streets? The surely alleviates the problem. And not at all. It doesn't matter what percentage of the population you sample, it matters how big your sample is. Go back to the bowl of soup example. You want to know if there's enough salt, so you add some, stir, and try. If instead of one person, you're cooking for twenty and want to know the salt content, you don't need a bigger spoon when you taste it, and eating the whole pot would be wasteful.

pollute =/

We always get our English teacher off topic by starting debates in his class loosely related to the material. Monday, we spent the hour debating objectivism vs. subjectivism. Today, someone took something I said on Monday entirely out of context ("Just because you cannot personally see them does not mean they aren't there" in reference to atoms as an explanation of how we see an objective world subjectively, thus creating realities for ourselves) and tried to use it against me to prove the existence of their beloved sky fairy. Obviously I had to fix that. It lead to many atheist giggles and frustrated Christians. My teacher giggles like an adorable school girl. Which is cute because he's a guy<3. >_> Annnnnyway. Economy aside, China keeps vetoing the notion of Darfur being a genocide, meaning we can't technically do anything, because of their oil interests. What Bush did wasn't any better, but that's unacceptable. ...Why doesn't Germany have veto power? We're better than the French. Or, better thought. It's a union. No one should have complete veto power, and if they do, vetoes from the other veto powers should un-veto the veto. Think of it like soup. You don't have to taste the entire bowl to know what's up. Illegals should be counted. We still need to know how many schools, hospitals, etc. we need.

Still no. They'll spend the rest of the day doing nothing. I'm pretty sure construction people get paid by the amount of piping they lay or houses they paint, etc.? When I was.. 12ish, a new neighborhood was being built a few streets down, and some friends and I went exploring (mostly to play inside the pipes and mounds of gravel). The houses didn't have doors or windows, so we went inside one. We expected the walls to be dry when we sat against them, but they weren't. It was this.. thick whiteish stuff. There was a pretty clear human body imprint. Scared, we got the hell out of there. Some construction guy saw us trying to creep offsite, and asked us if we messed up his wall. He went into this rant about having to redo it and it costing him money. To escape the dreaded call to the parents, we ended up running and jumping down this *at least* ten foot bridge thing. The coolest part was that none of us got hurt in that stunt, lol. We didn't even realize wtf we did until we were laying in the grass laughing. >_> *nostalgic moment* Lol, I don't understand why it's being debated either. Ask our lovely leaders. Which raises another question: why the hell does China have veto power in the UN? Eh, they do that here. In this middle school I attended for a semester, they had a daily moment of silence. My English teacher has Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Sagan, and (unrelated by still cool) Chompsky quotes all over the room. The atheist teachers so kindly balance out the stupidity. It's ridiculous, but I'm not particularly bothered.

Well, obviously we're going to count those that are here.

Cool. Someone else can host, though.

Well, with authors, I wouldn't change it from what's going on now. It seems to be a write x books in y years sort of thing. The same people that would oversee that work is getting done in your scenario oversee that people aren't slacking off too much now. ...What's wrong with slacking? (>_>) Bosses have certain expectations. If they aren't being met, they'll know about it and let people go accordingly. If they are, I somehow doubt they care how much work Bob is doing while Bill plays fantasy football and checks Facebook all day. Which, yeah, is a problem. That's where managers come into play. I think that's how construction works already? On an unrelated note: censuses. The decadely censuses are vastly underestimated because they don't account for the people that don't want to be counted (illegal immigrants, homeless people, etc.) Every ten years, this becomes a huge political debate. The left says we should sample and then estimate, the right says to take it as it is so the people they don't care about (namely the people that won't vote for them ) aren't counted. You can guess who I side with, but what's an elegant way to pass that into law?

That's a terrible idea. There's absolutely no way to ensure that someone will be there at all times to do the work. I would hate walking into a restauraunt and being rejected for service because the employees have already met their quota for the day. One of the good things about society now is that you can know what to expect. If I want Chinese food for dinner, I know where to go to get it. With your proposal, I don't, and that's a major inconveinience. Better suggestion: those that go above and beyond the call of duty get bonuses and benefits. Those that slack get fired. Where's the problem? However, your plan isn't that bad for businesses not required to be in contact with people all day. Authors, CEOs, etc. will do fine with this. Actors, restaurants, teachers, policemen, and.. almost everyone else will not. The latter half of every day will feel like Sunday in Europe. It also makes people entirely dependent on other people. What if there just aren't enough customers to order x amount of fries? Or enough people that want haircuts? Or oilchanges? People shouldn't be penalized for situations they have no control over.

Bleh... Never mind. Shroomery doesn't like it when you upload their smilies elsewhere. =/

Social Darwin and I actually formed Team C. It was understood that if either of us won, Team C would win, but no one would know about it. I think Team A ended up winning because the two people on Team B died, lol. Anyway, cool game idea. ...I somehow feel like I'll get voted off. *shivers from a bad Survivor memory*

Maybe the redneck in charge of the drill mispelled "Muslim"? :idk: Above the Influence will have a ball with this. This definitely has the potential for their latest "DRUGS ARE EVIL! The lies I post on my site and out of context statistics prove it!" propaganda. This is absurd and hella offensive. Why do drills even need specifics?

I'm sure you'll look lovely in them.