DrBaltar

LOL that is not our objective this time around. We are doing much more than planting flags.

It's like a priest who uses the the lord's name in vein or doesn't love his neighbor, etc. Whether I am an atheist or not, I would consider him a hypocrite because his actions do not match his beliefs. We are finally in agreement.

What do my beliefs have to do with whether you're a hypocrit or not? It's what you believe that counts there. I agree with you that policing is a proper function of government, as is the military. But you still believe you're a policeman who's paid with stolen money: Space exploration is a proper function of the government. It started because the Russians launched Sputnik - demonstrating that if they wanted to, they could lob a nuclear bomb anywhere on earth. Should the US wait until private industry decides that there may be some profit in space and wait until technologies developed by the private sector are good enough to top with a nuke? That might take a while. That compromises our military strength. So Nasa was formed to take on the threat of the Russians. If Eisenhower told the military to develop rocketry, then it would have resulted in a showdown like with the atomic age. Instead he made it a civilian program that was completely open to lessen criticisms that we were upping the ante militarily. But the technologies developed for manned space flight could be used to launch nukes, and were developed into weapons. Because of our space program, the Russians knew they couldn't launch nukes at us without being attacked as well. No problem there... good luck with that.

Name a company in the 60s who had expertise in rocketry similar to the German rocket scientists and could have funded the research and and development and a mission to the moon. Not only did they not do it. I doubt they could do it on thier own. If you see the sarcasm, the argument should be obvious. Certainly you must see the hypocracy of working for the government, getting paid stolen money so you can catch theives. Not to mention harping on 'might makes right' when you are part of that 'might'.

Do you tell them that on pay day?

Great! Now back to discussion of the manned Mars mission plans proposed by Bush...

Ok... just for this post, I'll go off topic for you and discuss rolls of governments, taxes, and democracies. I know the US isn't exactly a democracy, but I do support democracies. So yes, if the majority votes for a tax, then it is morally justified. If elected representatives determine that a program is in the best interest of the country for it's long term survival and competitiveness, then yes, it is morally justified. I do not, however, support any form of welfare. I do support a strong defense. Our defense is 18% of the budget. The government will have to impose a tax to receive that. Social Security is 22%. That can go. Medicare is 12%. That can go. Education is 4%, and in the best interest in the country, that can stay. Transportation is 3%. That funds the maintenance of a necessary infrastructure that most everyone uses, so it stays. Everything else is in the 1% range. Anything that is welfare related can go. General Science, Space and Technology is 1.04% and is required to stay competitive, and/or bolster our defence capabilities, and/or ensure the long term survival of our country. That's my answer. I know you don't agree with it. Consider it noted. Classify it as one of your 'fallicies' if you will. That's enough of this off-topic discussion (I believe that makes 2 more mentions of "off-topic"... make that 3). While you may not agree with me, at least follow forum etiquette and stay on topic, which is the discussion of the manned Mars mission plans proposed by Bush.

If you'd like to continue with your off-topic hypothetical scenario, that's up to you. The degree to which you care about public support does nothing to my argument. Since the issue of manned space flight is supported by the majority of the public I will not lend anymore credibility to your argument other than to say you are off topic.

Actually the company United Space Alliance was put together from parts of Lockheed, and Boeing to manage the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle is operated by a private company. Granted their money comes from the government though.

Was I talking about government programs that the public did not support? No. You're bringing up unrealistic scenarios that have no bearing on this discussion.

No, no and no. I do not consider the money stolen. Yes the government is supposed to protect us, and arguments could be made that controlling space does protect us, but the government can do more than that - especially if the general population endorses it. As I had said before, manned spaceflight is supported by 73% of the American population. Based on those numbers, funding for Nasa should be much higher than it is now. Economically, private industry could not support the number of people in the government run space organization. And scientific purposes do not pay the bills. Private industry will not be ready to send anyone to Mars in my lifetime. No one is going to cancel manned spaceflight in the US. It is now a part of our national image. By the time the next president comes into office, the retirement of the shuttle in 2010 will be unavoidable (one or two shuttles will have already been retired by then), and the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle) will have already flown or be very close to flying demonstration flights. It would be much more expensive, and insane, to cancel the CEV and do the upgrades that the shuttle needs to fly for another 20 years. Even before Bush announced that we are going to the Moon and Mars I wouldn't have said Paul Allen could have made it happen first. Trust me, the general public has no idea what an undertaking the trip would be. Oh really? I looked into that, and I found that he wrote "The meek shall inherit the earth, a 6 foot plot above them" in Time Enough for Love. But if you have the book and that's what it says, let me know.

Have you considered how long it would take for private industry to start a space business without the focused research that Nasa provided? In the 60s, private industry did not have access to the German scientists like Von Braun who helped us get started. They did not have access to the captured V-2 German rockets. In the 60s, what would the business plan be for private industry? There are currently 14,000 civil servants employed directly for Nasa, and almost 100,000 (I think) contractors. Maybe in the future private space industry can support this number of people, but certainly not for a long time. And BTW... I don't care if I work for a government space program, or a private space program. If they're doing manned exploration, I'm there. The private space industry is in its infancy though, and they haven't even orbited a human yet. Daedalus, what are your thoughts on going to the Moon before going to Mars? Do you support that as well? Just curious.

50% of Americans support a MMM. 73% support sending humans to space. So the majority of Americans do at least support manned spaceflight. The majority of those who support manned spaceflight support a MMM. Even if there was little support for it, I do not see that Nasa's budget keeps anything they are interested in from happening. And I do feel that exploration is in the best interest of the country. Also it becomes hard to listen to the objections of those who don't support the space program when their reasoning is flawed (i.e. "no resources in space", "no benefits to exploration", "not possible" etc).

Actually it was necessary. The alternative was to send robotic sample return missions to the moon. Russia did this, and their robots returned a few hundred grams of random moon dust and rocks. Little was learned from that. Apollo astronauts learned geology (especially from Apollo 15-17, and on 17 a full fledged geologist went) and were able to land in places that were too rugged for robotic landers to land in (like Hadley's Rill) and brought back a piece of the original crust of the moon. That is not easy to do, and was impossible for robotic explorers to do at the time. Based on what astronauts found, and not what robotic explorers found, they did in fact find where the moon came from. The purpose for going to the moon was not to create spinoffs. But you cannot deny that there were spinoffs, notably in the field of medicine, and computing. I didn't say 'computers' were an offshoot of the space program. I said 'personal computers'. IBM recieved a large contract from Nasa for the computers and new computational technology used in the Apollo program. That money enabled IBM to do the research required to go from mainframes to PCs.

So you want either a government program which allows access for all to space, and/or welfare? Both these concepts are pretty socialistic. If someone wants to get into space, they can do it. Either by paying their own way, or by putting in the effort to get into the astronaut program. Even if your country does not have a space program, if you are motivated enough, you can get into space. I'm pretty sure that's an Objectivist concept which most people here should be able to identify with. There was a benefit to scientists in finding out where the moon came from. There were all the technological spinoffs (like that computer you're using) that were generated. Money went to highly educated people who worked hard to get where they were for a change. It provided inspiration for other forward looking people to make something of themselves.

If there were a government program I did not support, I suppose I would feel robbed if I were taxed to support it. But I do support space exploration. And as an egoist I am glad to see tax money going towards space exploration, and I consider many other government programs a waste and robbing Nasa. If Nasa has had failures in the past, it almost always can be attributed to lack of funding. About half the country is also glad to see tax money spent on a MMM. I fully support the military, and would also like to see the military do more. But I don't believe that money going to Nasa is preventing any attacks on Islamist regimes. A country must not just protect itself, and its interests. It must ensure its long term survivability. I'm not saying that the answer to our long term survivability is in space, but it might be. No need to rehash the benefits of exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries. Nasa is not a threat to meaningful space exploration. No one is stopping private industry from exploring. If Bill Gates wanted to launch a MMM, he can do so at any time. Paul Allen, previously of Microsoft, has funded Rutan to build Spaceship One. That's great, but it's not exploration. The commercial satellite business is content to have payloads endlessly circling the Earth. If private industry has not gone into the exploration business, it's not because they are not allowed to. They just don't see the return on investment. From what I see, the average public's objection to Nasa stems from a lack of understanding. Like "why go back to the moon? We've already been there." They don't understand the untapped potential of the Moon. Or: So you wouldn't consider enough He3 on the Moon to power the world for the next 1000 years a resource? All the raw materials in the asteroid belt is not a resource? Only the Earth has been "blessed" with resources? That probably explains why Nasa or the military hasn't been beating on your door for answers on how to send a crew to Mars or to militarize space.

True. Somehow Nasa needs to be funded like the military. You don't see Congress reconsidering year after year if they should cut military programs. Well, to some extent, but not like you see with Nasa. Nasa's problem has always been that it competes with money for HUD and veterans. No congressman wants to be seen as taking money away from those things. So Nasa has been in a bad position. I think Tom DeLay changed that though, which would be great if that's true. And Sen. Huchinson passed some bills for sustained Nasa funding for several years. Yeah, but it's the right thing to do. A maglev launcher could hurl a craft to Mars. But you could also harvest rocket fuel from the minerals on the Moon. I went to a talk, and there's a lot of other things you can get from the moon too. There's a lot of calcium there. It turns out calcium makes better wires than copper. And you can make solar cells from lunar regolith. There may also be ice deposits on the lunar south pole. Plus the deuterium for fusion that everyone talks about. Aircraft are considered experimental until they have flown hundreds of test flights. It would take forever to gain that kind of experience with the shuttle. And to build one, see how it does, then build others would be very difficult and expensive. You'd have to create an industry to build shuttles that would stay in place for decades if you build one at a time. Before 2004, the space station essentially had no real purpose other than PR. Now it is used to learn how to live in space for long durations, such as would be required for crews on their way to Mars. They have made a lot of progress. After spending 6-9 months on the space station, crews are actually stronger than when they arrived on the station. I'm a longtime fan too. His design for re-entry is ingenious. No matter what orientation it re-enters, it automatically rights itself to the optimal orientation for re-entry. However, it won't work for re-entry from orbit. At 18000 mph, those wings will rip off. He'll have to come up with another method if he wants to do more than go up and down. And perhaps he will. That would be great. More power to them. Nasa is working on that. It's called VASIMR. Unfortunately, it's not funded like it should be. But it would cut the transit time to Mars down to 3 months. But for that kind of thrust it would require a 100 megawatt power source on the spacecraft. That's not doable yet. VASIMR has other potential benefits. The magnetic field it creates could shield the crew from radiation.

Don't be so quick to blame Nasa. Nasa had some great plans to utilize the resources on the Moon (including huge cost saving measures like living off the land) after Apollo. It wasn't Nasa who cancelled these plans, it was the president and/or congress. Nasa had plans to go beyond the Moon. What happened to them? They were never approved. Nasa proposed a manned Mars mission after Apollo to Nixon. The plan would involve a space station to study long duration missions in space, and to assemble the Mars rocket. The space station required cheap, frequent heavy lift capability to build - the Space Shuttle. Nixon said 'No' to a manned Mars mission, and 'No' to a space station, and 'Yes' to the Space Shuttle. This was just crazy. So a space shuttle was built without a destination or purpose. Why is the Space Shuttle so expensive? Because of budget cuts by congress. Efforts to design the shuttle so that it was truly reusable, and easily maintained were halted because the development costs were rising. So it was just built based on an unfinished design. Because of the Shuttle's bad design, it was not completely reusable, and required a standing army of workers to maintain it. Some of these design compromises were responsible for the lives of 14 astronauts. Eventually Regan approved the 2nd part of Nasa's plan for a manned Mars mission, again without the Mars mission. He approved the development of the space station. Congress aproved it... then, as always, they started to change their mind. They lowered funding for the space station, which required Nasa to go back and redesign it. This costs money, and Nasa was again over budget, which caused Congress to lower the budget again, etc... Congress almost cancelled the space station, but Clinton's administration got the Russians involved as some kind of a good-will effort so Congress gave it another chance. Working with the Russians caused more delays and funding problems that were outside our control. At least the shuttle had a purpose, but without a MMM, the space station was useless. Finally, with Bush's direction in 2004, there is a long-term exploration strategy in place. This greatly cuts down on the waste because now there's an overall goal. Actually they were predicable. The loss of purchasing power meant that Nasa had to live with less flexibility, and not doing as many safety inspections and studies as needed. Yes, there are these new industries. They seem to regard Nasa as the enemy. We follow their accomplishments very closely and want to celebrate with them. When I saw Space Ship-One take off and get the X-Prize I thought that was incredible, and felt like this was like Charles Lindberg all over again, who was the precursor for regular trans-atlantic flights for the average citizen. Nasa wants people like Ruttan to succeed. But there are endevours, like going to the Moon or Mars, that are too expensive, and too big of a project for private industry to take on without hope of profit somewhere on the horizon. That's where Nasa comes in. Nasa has been waiting over 30 years for the chance to do this again. What we can do is limited not by our imaginations, but by Congress. Nasa hired a small contractor called International Business Machines to develop computers to be used for the moon program. Affordable personal computers resulted from the investment that Nasa made to IBM. That's just one of many benefitial spinoffs. If you're interested in more, you can use one of those personal computers to Google some more spinoffs.

As someone in the biz, I am definately in favor of it. I've been waiting for the day that a president would announce (and mean it) a manned mission to Mars since the early 70s when the president and congress pulled the plug on the greatest endeavour in the history of man, just when we were getting good at it. At first I wasn't too excited about going back to the Moon to get to Mars. I wanted Mars to be a stepping stone to Europa But I understand the reasoning now. A manned Mars mission is orders of magnitude beyond anything we've ever done. It's over 500 days in space and on Mars. The light travel time will be 20-40 minutes. There will be almost a 2 week period, when Mars is on the opposite side of the Sun where communication will not be possible. The crew will have to take on many of the roles of mission control. Plus there will be many technical challenges. And yes there will be many spin-offs from this. So we have a lot of learning to do, and the Moon is the place to do it. We have to learn to live off the land, and not try and take everything with us. That will vastly extend our reach in space and lower the cost. It's more than a PR stunt. We're not going to spend 500 days on Mars just to plant a flag. There is a lot of science that can be done there, and a lot of capability that we can develop. There could have been some type of life there that we can study. Or Mars can become humanity's 2nd planet. I see this as an evolutionary step in the big picture of mankind. And you're right about funding GC. I hope Nasa has learned not to expect much support from Congress. It's hard enough prying that .7% of the US's budget from their fingers (yeah Nasa's share is really that small). Some of the plans being discussed when we go to the Moon are to develop a small payload of tools and machinery to take to the Moon, which can be used to make other tools and machinery on the Moon, which can be used to make more and more infrastructure on the Moon. The number of things produced like this will be small at first, but then, like compound interest, its returns grow at a geometric rate. I just hope enough infrastructure will be in place so that when congress cuts our budget (not if, but when) we will be able to continue without their tenuous support.... or at least with as little as possible. The Moon landings were almost entirely for political reasons. Yes many technical hurdles were overcome, there were many very valuable spinoffs, and important science was gained. But the reason at the time for going to the Moon was to show the world we could beat the Russians.

Because what you said about axioms demonstrates that you did not read and comprehend what I said about axioms and to respond to what you said would be a waste of time. So you have no official role in this debate thread then?

Not empirical evidence... subjective evidence. There is a huge difference. The underline under "has been refuted" means that is a hypertext link. If you click on it, it takes you to a post where I have refuted the claim that "science cannot give us any answers about consciousness or free-will." If you haven't found out by now that I am usually pretty explicit about what I mean it's because you still haven't been reading what it is I actually write! No, they are theories formulated by peer-reviewed researchers. The experiments they did were duplicated by other researchers, such as Libet and his team (1983), and Keller & Heckhausen (1990). It doesn't take 2 seconds to weigh the merits of moving ones finger or not. Look into the experiments, rather than my 4 sentence paraphrasing of the experiment. They were recording EEGs while the subjects made whatever movements they wanted to. For the experiment, they measured the activity before and during moving a finger. The subjects were not told that moving a finger was part of the experiment. This is typical when studying human thought processes. The subject shouldn't be aware of the nature of the experiment. And the subject should certainly not be the same as the experimenter.... if you know what I mean. So I take it by responding to my points, you have volunteered to be my opponent in the debate? My suggestion would be to start with lower animals. Do we agree that they are deterministic? Once we reach a consensus on that, move on to early hominids, such as homo-erectus and neanderthals. At what stage did the mind or consciousness arise? I think it would help if we can at least establish some common ground by starting off earlier in the evolutionary chain. Then, hopefully, when there's a discrepancy in our thinking, it will only be one thing being debated at a time. If you are to be my opponent, you may of course negotiate this.

Yeah you better back out of that claim unless you'd like to show some quotes from any of my PMs to you. I never said to you anything about choice. I asked you for your reasons. Actions result from either logical thinking, in which we are conscious of the reasons, or emotional, in which we are not. You reacted to your emotions rather than act as an impartial moderator. If I am pissed it's because an incompetent person such as yourself was given the task as moderator, allowing this debate section turn into a circus rather than a way of getting both sides of an issue heard. So let me get this straight.... the MODERATOR has entered the debate? LMAO He may want to throw all decorum out the window, but I will not debate the fracking moderator. Before this turned into a circus, this debate has identified two camps. The philosophical camp (who seeks answers through thought), and the scientific camp (who seeks answers from observation and thought). The methods used by each side to find their truth are not recognized by the other side because they are not compatible with the other side's methods. So it's a stalemate. Both sides have aired their arguments. My main arguments were listed on the 2nd post of "Is the Mind Deterministic". The other side contends that for the forseable future, science cannot give us any answers about consciousness or free-will. This has been refuted though, and apparently no one can, or wishes to dispute its implications. The findings are hard to dispute though, and may perhaps fly in the face of some peoples pre-concieved notions. That is why we do experiments, because we do not always know what will happen. Unfortunately, rather than having an open discussion, some people take the stance of the dark ages and want it to simply go away. If you cannot refute it, then shut it up. I think that is probably the real reason for softwareNerd's sudden lapse in reason. (Take note future debaters - only choose topics that objectivists agree with you about. I know this makes no sense, but it is the only way for a debate here to run its full course.) Well... it's your philosophy. It can take you as far as you allow it to. I leave you with this: The brain is a physical object operating deterministically in the sense that each state determines the next state. The consciousness (which resides in the thalamus) and volition (a function of the thalamic reticular nucleus TRN) are of flesh, and are part of the deterministic brain. A doctor stimulates the TRN in a particular spot, and the subject's conscious focuses on a particular thought. And be careful when using axioms. Axioms are correct by definition. 'A is A' is always correct. If A is a chair, then it is true that: a chair is a chair. But if A is a unicorn, it is still true that: a unicorn is a unicorn. Does that mean there are really unicorns? No. The iron clad part about 'A is A' is the operator 'is' when relating something to itself. Axioms only relate to reality if their terms relate to reality. So if an interpretation of an experiment violates an axiom, then the interpretation and/or the terms in the axiom need to be re-evaluated. Like you, my life is my standard of value so I will waste no more of it in trying to convince those who are apparently predetermined to disagree with me, and are unable to change their will. If steps are taken to end the bullying practices of the moderator, I will still consider a debate, but only with those who are not prone to emotional outbursts.

The determinism of that statement positively reaks with irony.

Uh ok..... lol this isn't a free-will debate. But thanks for playing. Your objection to a debate that we are not even having is also non-sense. What you said in another thread is actually more relavant to our topic: For answers to those questions, read my post from 2/11/06 on consciousness in this thread.

I went ahead and refreshed myself on some neuroscience and am much clearer about the details of consciousness (interesting how reading some papers on neuroscience can clear up a whole mess of things...) The mind refers to both the conscious and unconscious processes of the brain. After reading some neuroscience I can speak more intelligently on consciousness. Forget my other definition. The cerebral cortex is mainly the unconscious part of the brain. It has many functions and is divided up between numerous separate processors. It's most important function is to process inputs from senses and to create models. These models are most easily experienced when sensory input is dampened like during sleep (we see the models as dreams), or when we concentrate (in the form of imaginary speech, or thought). During ordinary waking life, the modelling process creates a model of the world around us which is continuously updated by our senses. The conscious experience consists of the output of the cortical modelling processes. Humans benefit from much more cortical processing than other animals because of our large cerebral cortexes, but this is not the area of conscious experience. Our consciousness resides in (drumroll please) the thalamus. If the thalamus is damaged, patients suffer death, coma, aknetic mutism, hypersomnia, dementia, and other equally serious impairments of consciousness that depend upon the size and placement of lesions. Patients in which the thalamo-cortico-thalamic activity was interrupted were in a 'persistent vegetative state' (wakefulness without awareness). All that consiousness does is perceive. Even our voluntary actions do not originate in the consciousness. Kornhuber and Deecke performed a series of experiments using EEG. They averaged EEGs from many subject who were about to move a finger and discovered that there is an increase in potential up to 2 seconds before the movement, and even before the subjects became aware of their intent to move it. The non-conscious brain is preparing to move the finger, and then our conscious becomes aware of our intent to do so. And now for volition. (Another drumroll please) Volition is most probably the function of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), which is a thin sheet of neurons that covers the thalamus. It is also known as the "attention gate". This concept is reinforced by the way that point stimulation of the TRN causes focal activity in the overlying cortex and the way the TRN is organised topagraphically. Ok I'm sorry, he didn't say conscious, but he did say: which is equally ludicrous. Ok, that's fine. Any animal with a thalamus has a consciousness. It does appear that others here do not believe that animals have volition. Actually any animal with a thalamic reticular nucleus has volition. And this makes sense. Otherwise, if they did not have an "attention gate" then they would simultaneously be aware of everything their cerebral cortex was working on at once. You need the thalamic reticular nucleus to cut out the noise and focus on what is most important at the moment. I do not assume that. But since I unfortunately do not have the time to read Ayn Rand's writings (which I admit puts me at a real disadvantage) I usually assume that if the ridiculous things people say here are backed up by others here, it is part of Objectivism.