ruveyn1
-
Posts
351 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
3
Posts posted by ruveyn1
-
-
I am listening to what I always listen to every minute I am awake. I am listening to my tinnitus.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus
ruveyn1
-
This is a tricky question. Purchase of a bond is a loan to the government. Unfortunately the government repays its loans with funds extracted by law or at gunpoint (the same thing really). So anyone who purchases government bonds is in effect counting on repayment by ethically dubious means. If the government were completely honest and raised revenue purely through its function as protector of life/property and manager of the law courts then lending to such an entity would have a lot less ethical doubt attached to it.
ruveyn1
-
So, if the mind is wholly physical, and there is no such thing as free will, by what means does man discover the answer to any problem, much less an identification of the right stuff to ingest?
Conversely, since there is such a thing as free will, are you concluding that the mind is something more (or less) than wholly physical?
Either way, what you call MInd (the name of an object) and I call Minding (the name of a process) is the effect of the brain which is a physical entity right down to the ground floor.
A physical brain can produce non-deterministic effects.
ruveyn1
-
Are they random processes?
Most likely. Attempts to find "hidden variables" which are deterministic causes unable to be observed have led to contradiction. For example the physicist J.S.Bell derived a set of inequalities that would be satisfied by particle which have interacted and become "entangled". If reality is local (interactions with in a time t limited to factors no more than t*c distant, where c is the speed of light) these inequalities would hold. However real live genuine reproduced experiments show that these inequalities are violated and the predictions of quantum mechanics are corroborated by these experiments. quantum mechanics is predicated on probable outcome hence not deterministic.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_inequality_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_uncertainty
ruveyn1
-
I think that only property owners have rightfully earned the privelege of voting.
What about people who earn every cent their receive and do useful and honest labor? Why shouldn't such people have a vote?
ruveyn1
-
,
I'm not afraid because I don't use paper currency as a store of value. However, my choice doesn't prevent you from using Federal Reserve Notes to store yours. What I do does not interfere with your freedom to do whatever you want.
I'm not concerned with short term fluctuations as I'm up way over 100%, which does not reflect the rising value of gold but rather the loss of value of the dollar. And just to repeat as the coment went unnoticed:
I don't regard gold as an investment.
It's just prudent protection against the actions of the Federal Reserve. You put far more trust in the central banks than I do. And that's fine with me, as each of us gets what they deserve as the consequences of our own actions.
Zero sum gambling with borrowed money in a casino has nothing to do with Capitalism.
That's an illusion. In truth they make nothing, because their gain can only come from someone else's loss. This is what I mean by zero sum gambling. Booking bets is different from legitimate businesses which actually produce useful goods and services. That's where wealth is truly created, so that is where I am fully invested.
I have zero investments in the debt based economy, because that's not Capitalism.
When their clients win the Grand Casino, Goldman takes its cuit. Also when their clients loose in the Grand Casino, Goldman takes a cut anyway.
Finance people are like those who run the gambling places in Lost Wages Nevada. They always get a cut so they almost always never lose.
ruveyn
-
There days it is common for new jeans to be sold with the denim deliberately faded in the certain areas and holes ripped all over to make the garmets look worn. Why is this? Is it harmless, or does the desire to make a new garmet look as though it's been destroyed reflect some nihilistic cultural element?
It is a form of slumming.
ruveyn1
-
Lance Armstrong's highest documented VO2max was 82 liters/kg/min (in 1993), nowhere near the highest in the world, or even the cycling world.
http://www.topendspo...ords/vo2max.htm
The record holder is a young Norwegian cyclist, with 97.5 liters/kg/min. Another guy no one ever heard of named Kurt Asle Arvesen recorded 93 in 1997. Greg LeMond peaked at 92.5, Indurain 88, Hushovd 86.
P.S. VO2 max is O2 intake during maximum aerobic exertion.
L.A. VO2 max is in the 99th percentile relative to the public at large. He is a super athlete whether or not he used performance enhancing drugs. Ordinary folks could not match Armstron's VO2 Max no matter what they swallowed. Armstrong is a mutant.
He is (or was) an exceptional athlete. He just made sure he would be likely to win the Tour de France.
ruveyn1
-
If you claim that the mind is wholly physical, then then there is no such thing as free will, and the answer to every problem known to man lies in finding just the right chemicals to ingest.
The most basic processes in the brain take place at the atomic level and are best described by quantum physics which is a non deterministic theory. We have a head full of q-bits.
ruveyn1
-
http://www.washingto...s-far-right-us/
A West Point think tank has issued a paper warning America about “far right” groups such as the “anti-federalist” movement, which supports “civil activism, individual freedoms and self-government.”
I particularly enjoy that the description above could almost have been lifted word for word out of the Federalist Papers.
The Founders were a bunch of Far Right extremists. Yeah, right.
ruveyn1
-
Why would they choose the alternative: to spend their lives living in a world which hates them as much as it needs them, and which takes from them as much as it damns them, and then turn all their energies to the task of lecturing to that world (while it sucks their life out of them) "Let me be free; here's why"? Why choose to live as livestock professors who attempt to educate their farmers, when they can choose to live as free men?
Lecturing rarely changes anyone's mind. Suffering, pain, privation, hazard and death are more likely to change someone's mind.
There is an old saying: As ye sow, so shall reap. The Looters and Moochers sowed the wind; Galt and company enabled them to reap the whirlwind. One of the most satisfying victories is to see one's enemies hoisted on their own petards.
Meaning
Injured by the device that you intended to use to injure others.ruveyn1 -
What I've always wondered is why many of those who approve the use of torture to extract information from enemy combatants and terrorists think that it's wrong to use torture as a punishment against domestic criminals who have committed heinous, violent crimes.
The torture is not punishment. It is a way of extracting information. In the United States there is a constitutional law against cruel and unusual punishment. In a word, it is illegal for the government to use torture as a punishment for crimes. We can kill capital offenders but we cannot turn them on a spit and roast them over a fire.
ruveyn1
-
Sometimes the only way to make actual progress is to go ahead with something if you have the money and the power to do it even when the general public is opposed to it due to their irrational beliefs. But its too bad that no corporation is trying to pursue nuclear rocket propulsion since corporations are not accountable to public opinion so long as they generate a profit.
What if going ahead with something poses an undue threat and hazard to public safety?
ruveyn1
-
I am talking about spacecraft specifically and exclusively, but you're on a birdwalk. This is not about the Russian space program, it's about NASA.
True. But do not expect too much from the Russians.
ruveyn1
-
Some men are artists. These men choose to feel or not to feel. Artists can choose to break up their soul or not. One way of doing this would be by attempting to be a scientist.
Being a scientist and being an artist are not mutually exclusive.
ruveyn1
-
His VO2 was tested medically. It was off the charts. That is a genuine reason why he could perform as he did. And no drug will increase one's VO2 capacity. It is an inborn characteristic. Lance Armstrong was a mutant.It's road bicyclist, not bicyclist. Just like it's baseball or football, not just ball.
And no, there's no evidence to suggest that he was the best in the world. He won because of his doping regimen, which was better than what his competitors had access to.
ruveyn1
-
Precisely. And that is why I am raising the issue on why they choose that, then.
They not only foresaw a collapse, but were waiting for it, eagerly anticipating it, and speeding it up. Galt was trying to get theirkind the hell out of the way for hiskind. Ruin the country/world, not try to change it, then to return to it afterwards.
The government had become evil beyond repair. All the Good Guys could do is withdraw and hide. The withdrawal sped up the downfall after which the Good Guys could return. It said somewhere in Atlas Shrugged that Galt did not know how long it would take for the downfall. It might have taken more than a generation in which case the children of the Good Guys could pick up the pieces.
ruveyn1
-
Oh bother character. In his prime he was still the best bicyclist in the world.
ruveyn1
-
Not true. Russia has produced the cheapest and safest device for putting men into space and brining them back alive and has been doing so on a routine basis for the past 62 years.
Have you ever seen their automobiles?
Russia does not have a tradition of excellence in craftsmanship. Most of their goods are shoddy and sorry.
ruveyn1
-
Russia doesn't have this kind of problem and is already pursuing R&D in nuclear space propulsion. Why the hell should the US do the same thing??? I would go so far as to suggest that the United States withdraw from Partial Test Ban Treaty to completely open the door to nuclear propulsion.
Any thoughts? Any takers?
Russia's reputation for quality and safety is well known (they produce crap). I hope they test and deploy their nuclear powered vehicles in very, very, isolated regions.
ruveyn1
-
The gasoline tax is an indirect way of paying for the maintenance of the roads. It is best thought of as a use tax rather than a redistribution of income.
ruveyn1
-
Ragnar recovered stolen money.
A private individual has the right to recover property or money stolen from him, and then only by legal means.
If we grant there were no legal means available, Ragnar only had the right to take back what was his.
His agenda was to slay Robin Hood, not recover property or money stolen from him.
He was a vigilante.
ruveyn1
-
Try this: the Mind is an -effect- of the brain/nervous system. An epiphenomenon.
Put another way -- the brain/nervous system is a necessary cause of the Mind. No brain, no Mind.
ruveyn1
-
Your secenario is unrealistic. If that many people were dissatisfied with the school system people would abolish them through electoral politics.
Even the, it would be unlikely that state governors would ever allow things to get that bad. They would most likely do mass lay offs abolish teachers unions, and subsidize alternative forms of education before this would happen. This is basically what is starting to happen already.
You are an optimist.
ruveyn1
The illusion of volition(AKA free will)
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Posted
If there is a Mind-Body problem then there is also a Stomach-DIgestion problem. Digestion is what the Stomach does. Mind(ing) is what the Brain does.
ruveyn1