unreality

I am interested, actually. More specifically, are there any observable effects that a nonbeliever can observe and test before deciding to cross the precipice in belief? If the fairies were reasonable, it seems that this would be a good idea. If you have to first be irrational to except an irrational premise, then it's a flawed plan - so that's my offer. Provide us a way in which we can rationally test your beliefs without first having to presuppose the existence of anything

lol Keep your nympho fairies to yourselves ;D

I was assuming it was a joke the whole time I went back and analyzed your posts, including the one I quoted, and it's highly likely that you're joking. If you're not I'd be astounded... but I'm not so sure about Atlantis...

actually, no. In the Kelvin scale, 0 is the impossible temperature in that its absolute zero and cannot be reached according to physical laws (not for our lack of trying). This has a certain beauty to it because Kelvin is used for all the important equations, and dividing by Kelvin in this case can never be indeterminate because the temperature on the Kelvin scale could never be 0 that's the basic rule, yes, but it has one exception. I don't know how old you are or if you've taken Function Algebra yet but two functions can be equal but not equivalent. For example, take these two functions: f(x) = x2 / x g(x) = x f(x) equals g(x), right? That's true, but the functions are not equivalent because the DOMAIN of f(x) is different than that of g(x). Domain(f(x)) = all real numbers EXCEPT ZERO, while any real number can be plugged into g(x) that's the same case with your rule. The domain rejects 0 if you try to plug it into x. What is 02/02?? It's commonly agreed that 0/0 cannot be determined by itself. Your own rule says that 02/02 reduces to 00.... same with 01/01, 05/05. I'm not sure if multiple zero-by-zero divisions stack up in different ways (cuz it seems to lose communitivity) but essentially you're saying that x/x = x^0 = 1. Well think of those three things as f(x), g(x), h(x). Are they equal? Yes! Are they equivalent? No! The domain is different in x/x, but laws lead that to x^0 without reduction of domain if I'm not mistaken. But dividing out the x's in the secodn one to reach 1 does change the domain edit ~ I've been looking around and a lot of mathematical rules depend on 0^0 = 1 for the special cases of their functions, like factorial and combinatorics and things. So can a thing be indeterminate (ie, i've always thought that 0^0 = CANNOT BE DETERMINED) but assumed to be a set value for the use of a function?

"unreal"ity at your service If you believe in a higher power, believe in nature, the universe, life, beauty, order and chaos, balance and cyclity, axioms and randomosity, fractals and math, reason and imagination, love and motivation, and again chaos and beauty and order and balance... if all that is a "higher power", then I most definitely believe in a higher power I believe that any noncontradicting universe that can exist, does exist in a logical sense because it's consistent and thus, well, it exists. What I mean by that is, say you imagine a world like Flatland, not from the original book but the logically consistent and scientific vision composed by AK Dewedney. Because this universe is imaginable with consistent and sensible laws of physics, it exists, even if its lifetime passes from conception to dissolution in milliseconds as the artifact of someone's mind... time is relative, so why not?

who doesn't believe in fairies? when you open your inner heart to the winds from the north, you can see their twinkling eyes in the sunset of a thousand lilipads... my fairy guardian is of course Cheezit the Eponymous, conquerer of the Seven Flower Kingdoms plz don't mock, this is the first time I've outed my beliefs edit: now that I think about it, I take offense to naming this topic "Mythical Creatures". Why would you name it Mythical creatures if you believed they existed?

very well said

There's nothing to tear apart You didn't contradict anything I said, or provide why you believe in god(s) - maybe you should PM me and try to put it into words or something

Argument from Design *sigh* I have many opinions and rejections to this argument, and I will bring out my own responses to it if you've read this article and still don't see why the Argument from Design is fundamentally flawed http://skepdic.com/design.html

thanks by the 95% I meant the crazy bullsh*t like leprechauns, unicorns, dragons, ghosts, goblins, etc. I didn't mean to insult your beliefs if they include any of the above ooh if the proof is lookupable then I've heard of it. There are a number of fallacious proofs that people try to justify their belief in god with, and all of them have some sort of catch, loophole or fallacy that not only makes the assertion illogical but also shows that the true intended meaning of it is also faulty. But that's expected, because they're justifications for true belief - if you have to look up on the internet why you believe in god, then you don't believe in god. Your personal reasons should be your own worldview, you know what I mean? This is a good question, and a very intelligent one. Believe me - I've grappled with it. While I think technically I'm an atheist, I see agnostic and atheists as essentially the same thing since they both live their lives assuming no gods swooping down to fix their problems or bring them to eternally boring paradise ;D For me the difference between the two is only strength of belief, and that fluctuates day by day, even a stalwart religious person or stalwart atheist (ADParker for example I miss his brutally logical posts) has his or her doubts. So I would label myself as a "freethinker" perhaps replace with God in your above statement with "unicorns" or "flying spaghetti monster" or "invisible dragon that lives in my garage that only I can detect" awesome I think that's out of the scope of this topic, but I've discussed it elsewhere and wouldn't mind talking about it in PMs. I'm not really an expert though... maybe a biologist like dawh or supersmart scientist like ADParker would be more informative and confident about what they were saying

same as RainThinker. Ixnay on all the spirits, ghosts, banshees, leprechauns, unicorns, gods and other mythical creatures ;D

cavalry is here First of all, there is NO evidence at all (even nonconcrete evidence) other than human ideas that suggest there is any sort of spiritual soul somehow entangled with our body. Besides some of the philosophical impossibilities it represents that most people ignore, there's just no evidence of it, and in fact evidence to the contrary (I'm not saying we understand the brain but there are breakthroughs everyday by scientists showing that this emotion, that form of memory, this motivation, etc, comes from this area of the brain when these neurotransmitter chemicals release or those synapses fire). Trust me... if anything pops up that supports "ghosts" (I'm not even going to go into all the contradictions with ghosts) and other spiritual stuff, I'd be the first to know (okay maybe not the first but you get my point I have a very good idea of how much evidence is out there of certain phenomena). I don't really care if you want to believe in that stuff, but I'm just telling you that it's certainly not fact. Actually, the good majority (95% ;D) makes no sense at all And spirits occupying us is even more out there. Intellect? Conscious thought? Free will? Those are most likely built upon our phyiscal brain, as I said earlier. It's easy to see how... though I suspect you don't want an in-depth description on how the brain works For me, my own philosophy on this subject is too complex to post here... it involves my observation of balance in the universe (kind of Easternish when you think about it) and about how things are more than the sum of their parts in nature, by metastuff built upon stuff (example: your atoms don't know that physics essay is due on Friday... you do. It's a concept that doesn't exist in the absolute physical world of particles, but still exists, somehow, somewhere, on some higher level of metaknowledge. Another example: each cell in your body thinks it's doing its own thing for its own survival with free will - and it is. But then the cells as a whole make up our bodies. It is very possible that we are just like the cells, but for a gaialike living ecosystem)

wrong move, buddy That alone will get you hell on this forum - I don't have time right now but ohh, I'll be on tomorrow

As an interesting sidenote, the formula for any value p (in this case, p = 0.1) is: p / ( 1 - (1-p)2 ) which simplifies to: 1 / (2 - p) thus, for p=.1, it is 1/1.9

here I am! hehe Yeah #1 can be solved by turning an infinite convergence into a geometric series

yeah, but (hopefully) not for a long time Although it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if someone nuked it on 2012

hey guys I've missed you all ~~~ Two aliens, Aphid and Bronk, have a single 10-sided dice. If you haven't seen one, they look like this: They have ten sides, labeled 0-9. They take turns throwing the die, Aphid-Bronk-Aphid-Bronk-etc. The first person to get a 0 wins. (1) What is the probability that Aphid will win? (2) Is it possible to arrange the dice order (ie, ABABAB... or ABBAABBAA..., etc) so that Aphid and Bronk have equal chances of winning? If possible, what is such an arrangement?

I've always hated this one

all awesome fixes, especially #1 and #6 As for #2, it doesn't seem to work for me, but it's not a big deal edit ~ nvm I see now! It's IPB if it's unread, but once read it switches to BD. Cool

I just want to acknowledge that this topic has gotten over a quarter of a million views - that's impressive SirRonnie123: the problem is that this only saves 10/20 for sure, 15/20 on average. There are more life-efficient methods, as seen over these 28 pages

so which ones are left? Have we decided for or against limits & repeating decimals?

so which ones are left? Have we decided for or against limits or repeating decimals?

yeah I redefined both print and do in this post: so we've got a quine and an alternator... I was thinking a program that started with x words ('word' being do, print or a number input of do) where x is a fibonacci number, and each iteration furthers the fibonacci sequence. It's tougher than the alternator and I think the fibonacci properites will have to be utilized... hmmm..

cmon man... there's no way you can be on this forum so long and be blind to the massive atheist population here Sure the pledge of allegiance doesn't kill anyone, nor is that big of a deal, but it's still annoying, anti-constitutional and pointless