Cogito

I've been having trouble with this one How? If the actions of the particles are completely determined, how can they give rise to something volitional? Couldn't one in theory apply all the relevant physical laws to the system and figure out exactly where the determined particles will be at a certain point in the future, thus making any of their actions as a whole completely deterministic?

So far, it's going... Admittedly slowly, but it's working.

Yes... I've seen the musical, but something tells me the book will be vastly different (as it is so far).

If we use your definition of intuition(which I'm not sure is the correct one), the difference between intuition and emotion is that intuition is a subconscious metaphysical judgment while emotion is a subconscious value judgment.

I'm embarking on a little project that aims to kill three birds with one stone, and I thought you guys might be interested. I've decided to read Les Misérables in the original French, even though I don't know French. I'm doing this for three reasons: 1. I want to read the book, and the book as Hugo wrote it is probably better than the book as a translator thinks Hugo wrote it, 2. I want to learn French, and 3. I want to test my theory that a language can be understood, if not spoken, by sitting down with a book in that language and a good dictionary. This will be slightly easier for me than it might be for others since I know Latin and Spanish and have studied so many languages that I've learned how to learn a language really well.

Man. That's a helluva lot of psychoanalysis for a simple question.

Hey, that woods of Labrador place sounds real nice

If your friend is a reasonable person, he will understand that not everyone has the same taste in friends, if he isn't why do you care what he thinks of you? Also, couldn't you just say "I'd rather not come."? It seems like you are trying to let your friend get away with faking reality, for by saying "I have a prior engagement" you allow him to believe that you would have gone otherwise, which allows him to believe that you like him, his friends, and his parties enough to want to spend your time there, even though this obviously isn't the case.

Can you give an example? Couldn't you just say "I will not answer"?

How can value ever come out of a white lie? I've never understood how that works, so I've never told them...

Over the past few weeks and after some intense introspection, I have found that my explicit philosophy is not fully integrated with that which I hold implicitly, that my sense of life and some of my actions are not fully consonant with that which I know should be my values, and that I hold many of my ideas as floating abstractions with little or no connection to reality. My goal is to re-integrate myself, to have all of my judgments based in reality and to have my subconscious mind fully integrated with my conscious mind. To do so, I need to lay out an explicit plan of action, which is my goal here. Though I am doing this for myself, I imagine this problem applies to many people here. I imagine the actions I will have to take fall into three categories: 1. Books to be read/Lectures to be listened to 2. Induction from my own perceptions of reality 3. Forcing myself to perform certain actions in order to automate them So, does anybody have any suggestion as to the order or content of the categories? Or any criticism of my layout of the project, or the project in general?

I'm not sure, but I think (or rather, hope) what you mean to say is that whatever q may be, whenever the premise p and the conclusion are true, then q is also going to be true every time, according to the truth table. [edit: and also, according to reality]

And here we see the problem with using symbolic logic without knowing the real meaning of the symbols. The meaning of the symbol P-->Q means: when I have P, I necessarily have Q. If you accept that and you accept that you have P, you accept that you necessarily have Q. If you accept that you necessarily have Q and deny that you have Q, you have a contradiction.

Ok, so then that is how we get Q... If you assert P and deny Q, you deny P-->Q I have another way to put it... Using your "logic", if I know P is true I would not be justified in saying that P is true. I guess I could say that P-->P & P, but I still couldn't write P.

That all depends on the reasoning you use to get P --> Q.

Man. Ninja Turtles is amazing. I still have my Ninja Turtles blanket. And my Sesame Street blanket. Good times.

I'm thinking the problem lies in a misunderstanding of meaning... P --> Q means that if you have P, you have Q. That is the definition of -->. Where is the problem?

If we have P ^ P --> Q, then Q will be true no matter how many fools claim it isn't. If someone attempts to deny it, you cannot reason with him. You can, however, show him reality. (You are made of matter. All things made of matter are affected by gravity. You can deny that you are affected by gravity, yet you still cannot jump to the moon).

Wow... It's people like that who keep me from losing all hope in people.

Thanks for the advice everyone... So far I've visited the University of Maryland, Princeton, Stanford, and Harvey Mudd. Harvey Mudd looked like it just might be a dream come true... I think I'll keep you all updated.

Hey! Not quite an Israeli, but I'll soon have an Israeli brother and am one of probably now three people who speak Hebrew here... !ברוך הבא

16 and proud of it, Rommel... Welcome.

The source of all knowledge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster And the initial article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...av=most_emailed [Edit below] I have the original newspaper clipping, it's much better than the online version. It has a graph! [Last edit, I swear] http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/ Thats the initial letter. Gah.

I don't think the new Mr. Thompson is held up to this same standard... His looks don't match the character nearly as well as his character does.

I agree with you Lazlo, but not your argument... Perhaps this matrix has provided a valid enough view of reality to think up the idea of itself, but not to perceive it.