StrictlyLogical

If Observed lensing around galaxies is due to plasma... (untold trillions of tons extending light years) would that constitute discovery of the so called missing dark matter?

Perhaps what is meta-ethical is the "adoption" of life as the moral standard. After which point all decisions regarding neglecting necessaries for life (choosing to do nothing and die... not choosing to live) are thus moral. So the "choice to do things resulting in living or dying" are moral choices once the standard of life is chosen? Can a third person evaluate the choices of another person in connection with "adopting" a morality from the get go? I.e. Could you, who are not beneficiary or proxy or subject of the candidate moralities an individual, say "Kermit" may adopt, say to Kermit prior to said adoption, "You should adopt morality Y". Can the decision by Kermit be seen both as "pre-moral" in his context but POST-moral in the context of your evaluation of his choices? After all, YOU have a moral standard even though HE does not.

No. I merely ask others to define it for you because I know others will be better at defining it for you.

"Morality", "right" and "wrong" are treated by Objectivism as knowable to Man, as a form of correctness that has its basis in reality and is neither arbitrary (subjective) nor intrinsic. It is adopted by the individual for his or her own benefit. This CONCEPT of Morality is wholly foreign from the concepts of morality, right and wrong you have been taught your entire life, which are some combination of unknowable to man, arbitrary, subjective, supernatural, mystical (religious commandments), intrinsic, irrational (having no basis in reality or reason, but edicts that simply ARE). It is no wonder you cannot see how "correctness" is related to morality (i.e. the morality of the only kind you have ever known). Someone here needs to define for you: what morality according to Objectivism IS (not just what it is like... ). The question of specific application becomes less of an issue once you have that foundation.

tjfields, on 30 Aug 2013 - 10:57 AM, said: tjfields, on 30 Aug 2013 - 12:24 PM, said: tjfields I am referring to the above. Do not evade this issue. It is centrally important to your understanding our answers. If you truly want to understand you need to confront this and get at the heart of it. Why do you feel you can deal with questions of correctness and facts but you cannot deal with questions re moral action (even re. a poison ivy or sumack!) Your words clearly show you DO treat these types of questions differently. Why?

Interesting... perhaps I will look at it in more detail later. These fringe theories don't strike me as particularly sophisticated. What I have noticed, is that certain individuals who dispute relativity, end up with a concept of an absolute ether or some such filling all of space... I find it hard to distinguish in causal or consequential terms the difference between someone asserting existence of "absolute space": a thing filling the universe, and someone asserting "space" itself is relational BUT there is this other thing called "ether" filling the universe...

Your questions and answers reveal a certain way of thinking which... if we identify as revealing of the way you think actually can help us to help you to understand... which is your goal. I realize you aren't trying to make a point or tell us your opinion... we are eliciting it in order to figure out how best to ensure you understand the answers you seek. As for your question re #261, I am seeing a clear pattern that you accept as possible knowledge of certain kinds, your ability to reason in regards to certain things and your ability to decide, determine answers to things... e.g. facts, and things you deem as falling within the category of correctness. I'm also seeing that you are stating some "kinds" of things you cannot answer, or do not (read cannot?) know answers to i.e. questions of morality and "right" and "wrong". These two types of things must differ in a fundamental way for you to treat them so differently, I will guess it is as though there is a gulf between them. Understanding what it is you think causes you to treat them as fundamentally different, why there seems to be a gulf, is an important step in answering your question. So what is it about these two types of things which makes them different for your ability to know and analyse?

Um speed... it is a conspiracy of coincidence but it looks like you just said all things accelerate due to gravity.... sorry I had to bring it up ... I know you didn't mean that because that would be irrelevant. Its a little funny tho... As to the experiments re. clocks or observations of Muons and time "as measured" by them ... when they are travelling at different speeds relative to another (the standard) physical process "measuring time"... do you accept those observations?

Plasmatic I am curious to hear your answer, I'll try to be patient...

The Hypothetical person states: You have stated that many things and people (including yourself) tell you how you should live your life i.e. what actions you should take in life and I take this to mean only something in reality (as against the Nothing, i.e. that which does not exist) can be a source for determining how to live your life. From all the suggestions/choices (some intrinsic/dogmatic, some subjective, others something else...) how do you decide how to live your life? i.e. Assuming you do act how do you decide what to do?

I don't recall ever referring to integrated circuits... however, I do not rule out the possibility that a "functional isomorph" of a human brain could be created with them. I would assume a different paradigm technology more closely replicating the structure and function of neurons and their interconnectedness, etc. would be the first candidate for the first manmade non-human consciousness. Note: Consider technology of 2000 years ago compare that with 200 years ago, compare with 20 years ago, and compare that with 2 years ago. Now in terms of even modern human existence, 2000yrs is a pittance. Modern Homo sapiens emerged/evolved (no bright line dividing point but its a good estimate) biologically distinct at about 50k to 70k years ago. Try to imagine the advances in science and technology in the next 10, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 years... care to speculate when we can create an existent which replicates all of the natural functioning (the kind that matters) in its entirety, of a human brain and nervous system (including senses)? Consciousness is natural and is exhibited in an arrangement and functioning of matter. In the case of YOU, it was VERY difficult and slow to FORM that arrangement and functioning of matter: consider the transformation from egg and sperm... utilization and incorporation of matter, cell division, feeding, infant learning etc. until the arrangement and functioning is one sufficient for consciousness, your consciousness at somewhere between what 6 months and 2 years? That consciousness can be destroyed upon a sufficient disturbance of the arrangement or functioning of the of the matter. The ease with which we can destroy consciousness and the difficulty by which it is created should not be taken as an indication that that consciousness is supernatural or has any supernatural form. functioning, or constituents. What went into to it, are matter and possibly information from learning (by that all I mean are patterns which set into play functioning and structure), and nothing else, but it is OK we are made of reality and real stuff... we are no less conscious for it... it is what is it. Honestly, given the multiplicative effects of science and technology (and in particular the advances in nanotechnology and biotechnology... not necessarily integrated chip technology), man-made (other than the slow - sperm egg kind) consciousness will likely be possible within 100 years, 500 would be my pessimistic limit, and I would bet my life on it being done in less than 1000 years (if I lived greater than 1000 years I'd still make that bet!).

Good. Assume time "as measured" here is simply a relationship between actions or events occurring naturally (uninterrupted not interfered with) in a physical process, and a standard is chosen based on an arbitrarily chosen physical process. The first swings of a pendulum, decays of atoms, orbits of a planet, the first vibration of a particular spring with a mass on its end, etc. each can be related to each other based on number or fraction of swings, decays, orbits, or vibrations and hence can be defined completely as a relationship between events or actions. Is it safe to say that time "as measured" by atomic clocks and Muons, i.e. non-interfered with physical process from state to state, varies based on where the atomic clock or Muon are in a gravitational field, and also varies based on the relative velocity of the atomic clock or Muon, to some standard process (as discussed above) used to "measure" time.

I think the answers to help you understand lie in the difference (perceived) you have between the questions you feel you can answer (correctness) and those which you feel you cannot answer (morality, right and wrong). If a hypothetical person told you "literally Nothing i.e. that which does not exist" in fact tells you how you should live your life. How would you respond?

Do you disbelieve in the experimental evidence collected in connection with one or both of special and general relativity or only disbelieve the "interpretation" of experimental results regarding one or both.

Let me rephrase my original question: Insofar as Dowdey referred to space and time in his presentation, and you did not deem it necessary to investigate the true nature of time or space from epistemological consideration at the time you posted his video, I merely ask does he disbelieve observations of space and time as experimentally measured by atomic clocks and the decay of muons.

So scientists cannot measure seconds and meters in the context of observation without a philosophic foundation of what "space" and "time" "REALLY" is? Were men of all levels of intellect who used concepts of time and space in every day speech, in solving problems, in designing the wheel or the first steam engine morally corrupt for not first having an epistemological agreed definition of what time and space were... and in fact should have delayed all such speech and discovery before any progress were made? I do not quite agree with that...

Well then... this at least is not a blemish on a mixed economic mob-rule altruistic wealth distributing system we have today...

As we must first rely on perception to understand reality I merely raise the experimental observations of "time dilation" ... simple things like a muon travelling fast decays slower, while a muon travelling slow decays faster. I assume you allow yourself to refer to "time" in at least some sense. So irrespective of the technical epistemic considerations, quite simply we observe motion of an existent is correlated with passage of time (again whatever time is or whatever the concept "time" means) associated with the existent.

Perhaps it should only be illegal if the trainer has been told by the criminal that he wants to pass the test in order to commit and continually to commit other crimes. That said... I wonder if according to Objectivist principles forcing someone to submit to such a thing is moral... search warrants are one thing... "mind reading" machines and such ... seems a bit invasive to an individual's rights to their body/mind/personal space...

Updated links. Does Dowdy also disbelieve evidence of time measurements of atomic clocks at different altitudes which have been used to verify general relativity? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment Does Dowdy also disbelieve time dilation confirmed by direct measurement in many contexts including muon particle decay? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation_of_moving_particles

http://phys.org/news/2013-05-space-time-magnifying-glass.html http://www.google.ca/search?q=hubble+gravitational+lensing&tbm=isch http://www.scienceinthebible.net/ "Dr. Dowdye is an independent researcher and is Founder of Pure Classical Physics Research where he focuses in depth on the Truth and the Profound Fundamentals and Pure Laws of Nature, all first set in motion by the Devine Creator, the Almighty Lord God. Dr. Dowdye is a recognized and leading expert on the theories of both General and Special Relativity, Electromagnetism and Gravitation. He is a member of the American Physics Society and a member of several other nationally and internationally recognized Physical Science organizations. He frequently gives lectures and seminars at conferences, university Physics Deportments, churches, schools and at on-line video web-broadcast physical science conferences. Dr. Dowdye is the author of a book, Discourses and Mathematical Illustrations Pertaining to the Extinction Shift Principle..., a challenge to Einstein’s Relativity, as well as a number of other important papers published in some renown refereed journals. Dr. Dowdye's book and theory on the Extinction Shift Principle was recently chosen at an elite status university in Germany, Universität Karlsruhe, as a seminar project assigned to the bright young graduate students in Mathematics and Physics."

They are not. I don't consider stones to be conscious either but that is wholly irrelevant... I am certain you appreciate that.

tjfields I notice from these responses that: A. There are questions of "correctness" which you can and do answer: "if you are trying to accomplish living for another day, then eating the poisonous fruit or mushroom would not be the correct action to take because eating the poisonous fruit or mushroom will kill you and you will not live for another day. If you are trying to accomplish your death then eating the poisonous fruit or mushroom would be the correct action because eating the poisonous fruit or mushroom will kill you and you will not be alive. " "If you are asking is killing, or removing, the poison ivy or sumack the correct action to take, then the answer would depend on what you were trying to accomplish given the fact that the poison ivy or sumack causes you to contract a case of poison ivy or sumack ." Also from your answers you are comfortable in your ability to know facts of reality, such as "All I know is the fact that the poisonous fruit or mushroom, if eaten, will kill me." B. There are questions regarding moral action and morality as such which you believe you cannot answer. "If you are asking is eating the poisonous fruit or mushroom the moral action to take, then I cannot answer your question because I do not know." "If you are asking is killing, or removing, the poison ivy or sumack the moral action to take, then I cannot answer your question because I do not know." Do you think that Morality is somehow unknowable? What is it about about your concept of Morality that makes it unknowable? What is the existential status of something which is "unknowable"? Do you think that Morality is unrelated to facts of reality? What is the existential status of something which is unrelated to facts of reality? Do you think Morality is unrelated to correctness? Of what possible use or relevancy to anything in your life could something completely divorced of correctness possibly have?

Oh my. If we ever encounter a conscious artificial probe from a belligerent extra-terrestrial civilization... or if we eventually learn to master reality and nature so as to construct an artificial intelligence only the least intelligent of the existing mystics would approach such a thing as God. Unlike God, these things will be finite in existing knowledge (not omniscient), finite in processing power (rate of thinking), and dependent upon input (sense perception), to produce output and act. Neither you nor I would likely be one of the people bowing down to the this conscious thing, which by the nature and identity of its composition is conscious, but which happens to be the first to have such a nature and identity of composition which simply did not emerge over millions of years of evolution. Am I correct? ( I here assume conscious is Natural)

I love it when someone gets riled up like this... These issues are real, they are morally important... Rand was of the view (and I may be paraphrasing) "think first and then you shall feel". HD you've done your thinking... and yeah you get it.. your lightning calculators are working!