-archimedes-

While I, myself, fail to see any correlation, I find it very interesting that you could interpret my comments so, please explain..."?"

I do not foresee an ability that allows anyone to regulate the thoughts of others (other than the immoral/unethical process of brain washing/psychological conditioning), nor would I endorse such practice...one's thoughts are, and should remain, one's own. With you on this account I agree as it is often in a case of this degree of nihilistic fervor that such terminal action is required...One must fight fire with fire, extremist with extremism, and though this method of absolution entails it's own consequences for our consciousness, our sense of propriety, they are deemed collateral, necessary evil. With that said and the topic of idealism aside, I fell that it should be obvious that a prospective terrorist cannot put their thoughts into action without the proper finances available...financial neutering curtails all manner of activist idealism. While I understand the distinction between my use of the terms/phrases: "mankind as a whole" & "society", vs. Rand's usage of "personal interests" & "private fortunes", I fail to see any conflict with the understanding that the disruption and dissolution of such terroristic practices are as beneficial to the "personal interests" of the individual in their pursuit of "private fortunes" as they are to "society"/"mankind" as a whole...disruption of economic flow is as fatal for one as it is for all. Plus, I fail to see an issue with a "society" of enterprising entrepreneurs, albeit, mankind as a whole, and see that as a desired/logical progression of Rand's capitalistic ideology...perhaps you could point one or two out to me?

I think that we need to proceed in Iraq in much the same way that has been the time-proven method for imminent war abatement, i.e., sever the head of the snake that is the Al Qaeda/terrorist financial backbone...their drug trade. I propose that we accomplish this by invading Afghanistan (the terrorist's financial backers), remove their drug trade infrastructure by trashing their bumper crop, and seizing any and all munitions/finances/holdings, etc., of the crime lords there and establish a military front to curtail any potential future redevelopment of a drug-based cartel. Without Afghanistan supplying them with the finances to continue their campaigns, their "movement" will soon come to a definitive halt, neutered from lack of financial backing. This will have a two-prong effect as it will also force those of the innermost circles of the cartels and terrorist hierarchy into the open out of the need of cultivating other sources of backing. It worked with Hitler as it has in several other similar situations (this isn't rocket science or anything, it's always been the same methods and schemas time and time again all throughout history) and it worked most recently with Kim Jong Il in North Korea...we really need to stop beating our political heads against the stone of absurdity and set action to word and put a definitive end to all of the B.S. in this world so that we can more so focus on the progression of mankind as a whole without all of these needless, futile distractions that are only delaying the inevitable capitalist progression of society...all society. "America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way."--Ayn Rand

A little something from the corporate bigwigs behind the Tesla: September 2007 Range Report Our performance and range testing is nearly finished and we have some great news to share. The Tesla Roadster's range came in at 245 miles per charge, based on the EPA's combined city/highway testing cycle. The highway cycle was 235 and the city cycle was 255. (In EVs city mileage is generally higher thanks to regenerative braking.) Range measures the average distance the car can drive on a single charge and is rated by the EPA in the same way that gasoline cars display a per-gallon mileage estimate on their window sticker. Car manufacturers are able to report comparable numbers by using standardized test patterns set up by the EPA. As noted above, there are three main test cycles a car manufacturer must complete: combined city/highway driving, city driving, and highway driving. Testing is run on machines called dynamometers and includes periods of operation when the air conditioning and heat are in use. Our most recent tests were observed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and we are in the final stages of certifying our numbers with the EPA, a requirement for selling the cars in the United States. Another important performance number got confirmed during our testing. We've verified that the Roadster can do 0 to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds – an impressive number that rivals the fastest of the exotic super cars on the road today. Tests were conducted in a real-word setting at the NASA Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale, Calif. Getting Behind the Wheel While our engineers have been out completing performance tests, the marketing department has been conducting some research of its own. They have been giving customers who have already reserved a Tesla Roadster a chance drive one of our second-generation prototype cars and then provide some real-world feedback. We've been publishing their accounts on our blog, and will continue to do so as long as they keep writing. Program Update Tesla Motors CEO announced plans to start building the first Tesla Roadsters in January 2008. Nearly 600 customers have already reserved cars. Read his letter to customers for a full update. © 2007 Tesla Motors, Inc. All rights reserved. Tesla Motors and Tesla Roadster are trademarks of Tesla Motors, Inc. Tesla Motors 1050 Bing Street San Carlos, California 94070

It does indeed make a sound, whether or not a human ear is available to note it, an often loud and engulfing sound in the vast solitude of a forest, but a sound nonetheless. First off, I did not say that that was Rand's interpretation of what construes "existence", rather what she interpreted as "...other philosophers" concept of it. Be that as it may, I submit a possible example of the inherent contradiction in this aspect of your rationale of Rand's philosophy...while a blind person is "conscious", yet devoid of vision...does this mean that color does not "exist" for the rest of us merely because they are unable to view/are "conscious" of it? As such, it appears that you've forwarded a counter-intuitive proposition, one that does not seem likely to be true when assessed using intuition or gut feelings or rationale even, though it does. Scientifically discovered, objective truths are often called counter-intuitive when intuition, emotions, and other cognitive processes outside of deductive rationality interpret them to be wrong. However, the subjective nature of intuition limits the objectivity of what to call counter-intuitive because what is counter-intuitive for one may be intuitive for another, i.e., the blind man and the actual existence of color...but then, I did cover all of this already in my previous post. I meant that I consider it to be an actual state of affairs and that it is merely our task to find it as the evidence for such is overwhelming that it exists.

With all of that said, I'll have to admit that I originally wondered in to this thread with the expectation of finding a discussion on the "Moller Sky Car"; http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/...=7&cxcat=2/, I'm leaning more so towards the ever evolving electric powered vehicle industry, e.g., http://www.teslamotors.com/ ...or... http://www.eliica.com/, I really like the idea of sportiness combined with performance combined with practicality combined with zero emissions.

Interesting...what all that suggests is that an air tank's charge be depleted before storage/that tanks not be stored "charged", and should only be charged when intended for immediate use, in addition to the routine inspections. Not storing a "charged" tank makes an immense amount of sense/is the only a logical safeguard in that the charged air would be subjected to varying degrees of climatic change through atmospheric pressure and temperature gradients from routine day to night to day phasing, causing numerous intervals of expansion and contraction of the stored CO2/air. While this may pose some degree of inconvenience for the owners, be it of an air tank or one of the air driven autos, i.e., having to completely discharge and recharge the tank after every use (posing more so of an issue of actual real world practicality for this type of technology), it would be the most prudent course of action, one that would/should require enforcement, though gags does an excellent job of providing an analogy demonstrative of the efficacy and safety of one possibility for high psi "fuel" storage, i.e., a "paint ball" guns' charge tank (duly noted).

Yes. Actually, I was disagreeing with your observation and was attempting to point out the benefits of conical inversion in our retinas as opposed to other mammals, i.e., our ability to not only perceive color, but also the various shades thereof, a faculty that lower-based mammals are incapable of due to environmental necessity on their evolutionary development...it's all relative. Interesting...and just where would you have located our balancing organs in our skulls other than their centrally situated locations, had you the opportunity to create man? After all, your ear also plays a contributory role with the organ for your body-balance. The balance-organ in the inner ear controls every muscle of your body. The muscles communicate with the nerve of the balance-organ via the spinal chord. The nerve of the balance-organ collaborates with the nerve of the hearing-organ. Your body-consciousness is based in the ear: Tension and relaxation, too much effort or too little with the muscles, posture, movements - all are controlled by the ear as the control-organ. It is a cybernetic circle: Brain (command) - muscle (action) - ear (control) - brain (correction of the command). When you break it (the inner ear/balancing organs) down to it's individual components, the genius of it's placement is readily apparent. As you know, balance, or one' s sense of equilibrium, is controlled through the what is referred to as the "vestibular system" that is contained in the inner ear and shares the temporal bone space with the cochlea. These organs also share the same fluid that is in the cochlea (which is very important to the system's functionality, as I'll cover below). The functioning of the vestibular system depends on information from many systems, hearing as well as vision and muscle feedback. The vestibular system consists of three semicircular canals , the utricle , and the saccule . Each of the semicircular canals lies anatomically in a different plane, each plane at a right angle to each other. Thus, each deals with different movement: up and down, side to side, and tilting from one side to the other. All contain sensory hair cells that are activated by movement of inner ear fluid (endolymph). As the head moves, hair cells in the semicircular canals send nerve impulses to the brain by way of the vestibular portion of the acoustic nerve (cranial nerve). These nerve impulses are processed in the stem of the brain and in the brain's cerebellum. The ends of the semicircular canals connect with the utricle, and the utricle connects with the saccule. While the semicircular canals provide information about movement of the head, the sensory hair cells of the utricle and saccule provide information to the brain (again through the vestibular portion of the acoustic nerve) about head position when it is not moving. After ingesting this information, I'm certain you'll be able to realize the necessity of our balancing organ's location (location, location, location) within our craniums, due to it's sensory input requirements and it's proximity to the nervous systems' processing station, the cerebellum, and perhaps clue you in to the reason why extra fluid buildup in the canal throws everything, well, off balance.

Now that I've humbly offered my own perspective on the matter, along with some supportive rational with links to accommodating resources, I offer my best answer for your initial and current inquiry with a question: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it...does it still make a sound? Another way of stating this concept is to ask: Is 'a' not 'a'? This line of intuitive reasoning falls right in step with Rand's philosophical discourse outlined in her work, "For The New Intellectual", wherein she delves into a lengthy discourse on the history of philosophy and how her particular brand either corresponds or detracts from the conventional wisdom of others, discussing at length the distinction between "existence" and "consciousness". When Rand distinguishes 'existence' from 'consciousness', she mainly means by "existence" what other philosophers call "the external world" -- thus, the distinction is between states of one's own mind and external phenomena. According to Objectivism, existence has primacy over consciousness in two senses. First, epistemologically: human knowledge begins with (sensory) awareness of the external world. It does not begin with awareness of one's own ideas. The reason is that ideas or states of consciousness are necessarily ideas about something, and that something is what one is aware of. One could not become aware of one's own consciousness, unless one first had some states of consciousness to be aware of; and one could not have states of consciousness, unless one first had something else that one was conscious of. Rand's most fundamental premise is epitomized in the words of John Galt (a character from the novel "Atlas Shrugged"), "The axiom that existence exists" . Then a corollary premise is that man is a conscious being who perceives this existing reality. These two, existence and consciousness, are fundamental, inescapable axioms in any action we undertake: "Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the axioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it" . Implied in these two axioms is the law of identity and the law of non-contradiction. A is A, a stone is a stone and not a flower, a thing is what it is and not something else, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. That is the law of identity. Existence is not wishy-washy but is a firm base for epistemology. The law of non-contradiction then is the epistemological form of the law of identity: you cannot know A to be A and at the same time know A to be not-A. Two mutually exclusive assertions cannot both be known to be true at the same time. "A contradiction does not exist . . . To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality" The basic ethical commitment of Ayn Rand is to be rational. That is, she seeks a life that accords with the fact that A is A, and no contradiction in one's thinking or acting is to be tolerated. Thus in designating her standard of ethics as "rational self-interest," the emphasis must fall on the word "rational." It begins with the axiom that existence exists, which means that an objective reality exists independent of any perceiver or of the perceiver's emotions, feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. Objectivism holds that reason is man's only means of perceiving reality and his only guide to action. By reason, I mean the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Ergo, I forward the conclusion that alien life does, indeed, "exist" and that it is but for us/mankind to become "conscious" of it.

I'm not a hundred percent sure of the Objectivistic stance, but speaking for myself from a purely realistic perspective, I'm given to the belief that there does exist "...the possibility of extra-terrestrial life somewhere else in the Universe..." and that to conclude otherwise is as irrational and arbitrary as it is presumptuous. I base my rationale on the scientific fact that our Solar System is but a minuscule part of a much larger spacial construct known as a Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, composed of our Solar System together with at least 200 billion other stars (though more recent estimates have given numbers around 400 billion) and their planets, and thousands of clusters and nebulae...That every point of light that we are able to see in the night sky is representative of either other Suns, or their reflections on neighboring planetary surfaces... Not to mention the scientific fact that, in the early nineties, scientists at NASA pointed the Hubble telescope at but one, minute piece of sky that's about as big as a grain of sand held at arm's length and revealed about 4,000 other Galaxies.... Conversely, on our planet alone we have both marveled at and reveled in the discovery of various forms of life, both "as we know it" and others that have forced us to completely re-evaluate our conventional concepts of both what qualifies as life, as well as the environs conducive to life and it's proliferation. Based on these demonstrable evinces themselves that we are capable of actually seeing for ourselves, capable of putting hand to object and not merely mind to concept/theory/philosophy, I do contend that it is quite pretentious, albeit even egotistical, to assume that no life beyond that which exists on this planet is to be found in our Galaxy, let alone the Universe itself...quite conceited indeed. To help those interested in attempting (I say "attempt" because it can be quite an unfathomable concept to get one's mind around) to gain a perspective of the immense vastness of the Universe, and hence the likelihood of life other than our own, try having a look at Google Sky (accessible by clicking on the little icon at the top of the Google Earth program page), which you can download for free at http://earth.google.com/. Then, for the more so inquisitive amongst the Objectivist community here, try checking out http://www.sky-map.org/ (also viewable for free) for a more so defined/refined look at those spots of the Galaxy/Universe that are of an interest to you. After you've taken the time to peruse the information found in the links, I'd love to hear back from everyone here to see just what sort of impact this bit of disclosure has had on your perspectives. Happy surfing....

I'm going to go with the Duke researchers' conclusion of it being but a vestigial remnant of some previous organ or structure (also called the vermiform appendix because it resembles a worm...tequila anyone), having a digestive function, and write it off as part of the evolutionary progress that became unnecessary to people over time, though I feel that more research should be conducted to determine whether or not it still plays an active role in the digestive processes of our infancy/child/ pre-pubescent/teen years before we write it off entirely and our obstetricians begin removing it as part and parcel of our births...just in case. As such, everyone appears to be correct in their perception of it's (once) necessity and I'm also finding it hard to perceive how you could launch a persuasive argument against the lumbar area of the spine (care to enlighten me?), but then, I'm also missing Mr. D'Ippolito's inability of differentiating between the superiority of our eyes' composition, as compared to that of animals, based on the rod and conical configuration of the retina...obviously, the more that one can see, the more that can be seen...limiting the induction of light limits the ability to distinguish between the shades, tones and colors of our various environs, likewise, the balancing organ of our bodies being both centrally located and in close proximity of our main processing unit (the brain) is just as reasonable in the design of human physiology...that it is sometimes plagued by the ailments of it's shared area of control with that of another of our sensory organs (the ears) is a necessary inconvenience as it's all relative to location, location, location with the head retaining the prime real estate.

http://www.fnal.gov/ http://www.uslhc.us/ http://www.fusion.org.uk/ These first few links should provide you with all of the information you could ever dream of wanting to know about "controlled nuclear fusion" (CNF), complete with associative links to ever more so in-depth information, then, once you feel you've attained a decent grasp of the concept, application and processes involved in CNF, here's another link that will let you have a little fun at it by applying what you've learned to running a "virtual" fusion reactor: http://w3.pppl.gov/~dstotler/SSFD/ Have fun. learn and enjoy.

Admittedly, the auto manufacturer may have gone about the entire process with technology drawn from conventional wisdom on the matter, essentially over-engineering it in the process, when it is actually a quite simple process called "electrolysis". http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/split_h2o.html/ (a simple overview) A more in-depth review of the subject matter as it relates to the current topic: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase...o/electrol.html The point here is that the entire problem with this technology's practical implementation may merely be the individual's inability to conceive of it as something actually that simple to induce, after all, it was once believed that it took some 32 or more moving parts in order to operate a handgun/gun and now there's MetalStorm (http://www.metalstorm.com/) with but one (1) moving part, the bullet itself. The point here is that the designers my be merely over-engineering a relatively simple process of but one form of an alternative, renewable fuel source in their enthusiasm over their ingenuity.

If this is indeed the case, then the best argument for this process' implementation is it's application towards the dissolution of our current nuclear waste stores before it is applied to any current/future nuclear waste production...if it is demonstrated as a viable method of actual nuclear waste disposal, and not merely a way of reducing the wastes' longevity/potency (as even low-rated nuclear waste still poses a problem of lethality over long-term exposure), then it's implementation in future nuclear material production would prove worthwhile, otherwise, it's just another meaningless band-aid in the war of nuclear waste proliferation and I'm long tired of having smoke blown up my arse, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for the opportunity to conduct a more thorough review of this article.

I've often heard similar gruff about realistic/practical hydrogen powered applications (as has been the case with similarly, "allegedly" impossible power generation sources), only to have someone come along after all of the nay sayers have had their, uh, say... and do exactly what everyone else has been running around claiming couldn't be done, e.g., http://cars.uk.msn.com/Reviews/article.asp...umentid=1284786

You know...the "NorthStar" navigation/engine systems monitoring devices are receiving an ever wider distribution, in one form or another, in the automotive markets, from one marque to the next, so...one wonders just how difficult it would actually be for enforcement agencies to lobby for such a legal provision and how simple it would be to adapt the pre-existing technology to meet the requirements"?"

In the instance of a "logical fallacy", the "fallacy" lies in the "logistics" upon which an argument is presupposed...for someone to pursue a contention premised upon that which they either know to be fallacious at it's inception, or which is uncovered during the discourse of the discussion, trapping the debaters in an endless, mindless, loop of baseless supposition and conjecture amounting to little more than "trolling", albeit for for some misguided sense of accomplishment, is a waste of both intellect and time for all parties thereto, i.e., self-defeatist.

Yes because it is often that we find, once we've achieved our pre-set goals, that we didn't set the bar quite high enough to start with, forcing us to re-evaluate just whom we are/have become at that point in our lives and consider just whom it is that we actually hope to eventually be in this life...positive introspection is a good thing and is merely a part of the growth process, be it in mind, spirit, or body.

Other members' contributions notwithstanding, I am prodded to ask a couple questions myself inasmuch as your inquiry seems to be posed in more so a self-centric context, as opposed to general curiosity, tell me what could be more so egotistical to a mere mortal than the opportunity to play God? I ask because children allow us the opportunity to do just that, providing us with a being that is a "clean slate" that we could chose to template after our own designs, ideas, concepts, perceptions, etc., etc...or...to instill the morality, values, concepts and ideology that we, ourselves, wish we would have gotten as children, either way molding them into our own concept of what a person should be because we are all gods to our children as we are all of the world that there is to them during their developmental years. So then, is it a matter of selfishness/"Egoism" that you post these inquiries, or is this merely a facade you don to disguise a deeper disposition for insecurity in handling the magnitude of such responsibility is the question that you should not be asking of us, but rather of yourself...after all, introspection is the utmost compliment of egotism, is it not?

IMHO, I feel that it would be reasonable to conclude that "life" on other planets would, indeed, differ from that which we've accustomed ourselves to here.... The logic behind this presumption is based on our observations of both what constitutes life here, as well as the various environments in which we have discovered it. What I mean is, here on our little planet alone we've learned that life is not limited/preempted by the environmental extremes in which we've found it, instead, it's development and longevity is regulated by said environmental extremes, be they thousands of feet beneath the surface of our oceans clustered around a hydrothermal vent, or at the farthest reaches of our Arctic Circle in sub-sub-zero temperatures, sequestered away in some ice chip. But it's there, in some form or another, it's development dictated by it's environmental surroundings much the same as a youth brought up in the slums of, say, the Bronx, would be socially inclined to petty crime as compared to a youth brought up in the suburbs would be inclined to scholastic achievement, both due to their individual social environments (though I add the disclaimer that an individual's outcome in life is ultimately dependent on the individual themselves and the choices in this life that they make...but that's fodder for a different discussion). Inasmuch as this is the demonstrative case, I'm inclined to the persuasion that life on another planet would be defined, tempered, and regulated by the environmental/social schema in which it found itself, though it would exist if for no other reason than individual persistence, drive, and determination...but then, such is the pre-dispostion of "life"...all life.

While not intending to offend anyone, allow me to say that my "thoughts about racism" is that it is the by-product of a shallow, superficial, egocentric society. That there actually isn't (or at least shouldn't be) any racism as there exists but one race on this planet, and that is humanity. We all need to come to grips with the fact that the people of the world do not consist of a box of Crayola crayons wherein one is easily defined by their particular pigment and what it/they may have to contribute/offer to the picture of life that is being drawn for us, or rather, that we draw for ourselves. We are, instead, all one people that have each been subjected to, and are a result of, the various environments on this particular planet which we inhabit and their effects upon us, yet still we are the same..., human, no more and no less than the next person, our potential limited only by the extent to which we hinder ourselves/allow ourselves to be hindered by such frivolous perceptions as the pigment of someone's skin. Intellect isn't presupposed on coloration, despite what I've seen some here contend, rather access to cultural, scholastic, or scholarly influences, and humanity needs to put these ignominious contexts of superiority based solely on skin tone/pigmentation behind it and move forward as a people, as a whole, in order for it to insure any form of realizable longevity in this universe, in this life span of the species known as humanity.

First off, I'll submit that I am more so in favor of the concept of brain replacement (i.e., replacing one's own brain with that of a petri-dished/test-tubed brain cultured from healthy cells and what have you, and grown to an appreciable age/state of development and inter-lobal structural complexity capable of retaining the amount of information in the subject individual's mind [which wouldn't take all that long at all]) with that of a lab-cultured brain..., technology which we have readily at hand..., as opposed to that of the use of an "artificial" apparatus, given their apparently/proven inherent problems and difficulties with integration with the human physiology, e.g., the artificial heart. With that said, I would have to say that the "point where you (were) no longer you..." would come into play at the point wherein it was time to replace the component of an individual's mind that consisted of their sense of self/the aspect of the human mind that was/were made up of what amounts to the pre-perceived, Freudian, three-part psyche, i.e., the id, ego, and superego. In other words, you would stop being you the moment this aspect of your mind were removed and would remain as such up until the point of time that this aspect were re-synchronized with the other "artificial" components, likely through the process of neural imprinting.

Could you elaborate on the intent of your question, please? That is, are you inquiring "what makes life possible"...to us, as humans, or are you inquiring as to "what makes life possible", relatively speaking ? I ask for this clarification to point out an often overlooked aspect of our world around us/the imposition of our will on it as it relates to us, instead of as we relate to it, as is the proper reference, which all ties into man's perception of what quantifies intelligence. So please elaborate a bit, oh, and good question.

Unlike your friend, I employ quotation marks for their intended purpose, i.e., to quote a word, sentence/some excerpt from either a link I've posted, or something that I read/heard elsewhere..., I use itallics to lend emphasis, a practice which I'm given to believe is their ("itallics") intended purpose. And I assure you, I am quite adamant about this method of locutionary expression.

The second link that I've provided in my initial post goes into some detail as to the commonly accepted perception of just how Mars' fragments may have not only formed, but also found their way to Earth/answers all of your questions..., please click and read.