non-contradictor

Starblade: Have you read Little's Theory of Elementary Waves? I looked that up after my Mod Phys class today, which gave me a headache because the teacher spent the whole time discussing the theory of relativity and how two lights flashing at the same time flashed both simultaneously and non-simultaneously, depending on where you observed them from. Me: Well, what you see is different, sure. But what's the point? Teacher: No, the lights themselves flash both simultaneously and non-simultaneously Me: ... Heh, and then there's Schroedinger's Cat. I don't like Mod Phys very much. I did enjoy reading the paper on TEW though. Here's a link to the paper on TEW: http://www.yankee.us.com/TEW/TEW96paper.html

Hehe, maybe it wasn't the best choice of thread title... Thanks for the welcomes guys!

Thank you! I'm entering The Fountainhead contest this year. The essay is due Tuesday. I had to re-read the book, it's been a while. Then, of course, I had to re-read Atlas Shrugged too.

I read Anthem in the 7th grade. My dad's an Ayn Rand fan so I was eager to grab an Ayn Rand book as soon as I could to see what it was all about. I think I bought my copy of Atlas Shrugged around the same time, but I admit my 7th grade self had a little trouble getting into it. So I read Anthem and We the Living first. Since I grew up in an Objectivist friendly house, I never really saw anything that strange about the books. My reaction was pretty much: "Cool, that makes sense." So, I never really asked the question: Is this the philosophy for me? Of course it is.

Hello Everyone! I can't remember when I posted here last. I recognize some of you, but some names are new so I figure I'd better introduce myself again. I was pretty active here... I guess it must be nearly a year ago now. Then school got a lot crazier than I was used to, I developed an interest in Photoshop, and suddenly I didn't have as much time as I'd have liked. Then yesterday I was reading Atlas Shrugged and I discovered how much I missed this place and the people here. So, I'll be stepping up my activity a bit. I can't promise too much, because the SAT I and II are coming up, along with my Chem AP, but I'll certainly be around more. In any case, for those who don't know me: My name is Tea. I'm 16 and I've been reading Ayn Rand since the 7th grade (Anthem). I read We The Living in 8th grade, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead freshman year, and (in an order I can't remember) The Virtue of Selfishness, The Return of the Primitive, Philosophy: Who Needs It, and The Ayn Rand Lexicon sometime after that. I was a semifinalist in last year's ARI essay contest on Anthem. Not bad for writing the thing in three hours and editing the night before, I suppose. As for general interests, I'm a math/science nerd with a particular liking for chemistry and biology. I'm planning on majoring in Biochemistry in college. Makes sense, right? I'm hoping to go to Caltech or Harvey Mudd in California. I also enjoy choir. I sing soprano in my school's a cappella group. Oh, and I'm unaturally obsessed with Harry Potter. I have been since I was 11. Well, that should be good for now I think. Please ask some questions or tell me a bit about yourselves. Tea

I hardly ever post on introductions anymore, but yours amused me, so welcome! I like your style of introduction, it reminds me of a LJ quiz. A lot of information in a short space. I also like your name. Welcome to the forum!

Yeah, the law of gravity only says what happens. Newton's Law of Gravity: "Each object in the universe attracts each other body." Source There are also Newton's laws, which can all be expressed as equations, so I do think they only describe what happens. Let's see... There's also the gas laws, that translate into the equation PV=nRT. That also only describes what happens.

The question in the title contains a fallacy, and a very common one at that. It assumes that the theory of evolution can ever be anything other than a theory. It can't. Evolution is not called a theory because it does not have enough evidence to be a law. Theories do not become laws and laws were never theories. This is how my science teacher explained it: A theory explains what happens and how or why it happens. A law describes what happens. An example of a theory is evolution. What~ Animals evolved from common ancestors Why/How~ Natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, etc. An example of a law is the law of gravity. What~ If you throw something up, it will come back down. Why/How~ ... Obviously I've oversimplified this, but anyway... Now, this is what I learned in science last year. If you want to take issue with it, go ahead. But as far as I know, law and theory are just two terms used to describe different forms of scientific data.

Hello there! Welcome to the forum! I remember you from last year when I was more active. I haven't been keeping up with the goings on here much at all. But anyway, a belated welcome!

Okay, even if I were to disregard the actual content of this paragraph then it still would not have earned a very high grade. What happened to engaging openings? My history teacher hates it when you start with dictionary definitions. What happened to simple, declarative sentences? There are way too many commas for my taste. *sigh* I feel for you. I'd love to say it's just your teacher, or just your class or something, but it's not. Since I'm in 11th grade this year as well, and getting ready to take the SAT it's becoming more apparent that what the U.S. education system thinks is important in writing is not what you write, or even really how you write it, but rather, whether or not it follows their cookie-cutter definition of good writing. Most of the "good" essay examples I've seen are boring, shallow, and catered to what the SAT graders will be able to notice in two minutes of grading. Oh dear. She's pushed you into a corner. That's awful. You could always write it on Sweden and subtly mock her... You know, like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Though, that might not improve your chances of a high grade. It'd probably be lost on her, but that's what I'd try to do anyway. But then, I'm kind-of insolent when it comes to teachers that annoy me.

That's true, but I was trying to contrast this remark to the one below it, which is worse, in my opinion. Plus, I've heard this type of statement enough for it to just be annoying. It was poor word choice on my part. It's not "just" touching a nerve, as in that's the only reason it's bad. What I meant was that even if there wasn't actually anything philosophically wrong with the post (which there is) then I would still be annoyed because calling Objectivism a "belief system" is ignorant and I don't have the patience to listen to it. Anyway, bad word choice, my fault. Remove the "just" and I think it works better. I think I have a habit of overusing that word anyway...

Since no one else seems to be answering this, I'll have a go at it. It's too interesting of an idea to just leave hanging. More than the others, this appears to be an honest question. The person is asking for clarification, and not pretending to know something that they don't. I would hope that a person asking this question would get an honest answer. This one has a little bit more behind it that A. The person makes a statement "I just have to take it on belief." Without anything to back it up. I think people here, after having heard similar statements many times before, would probably get irritated at least a little. The difference between A and B is that A is asking a question, where B is asks a question and then answers it with an unsubstatiated claim. I think this statement is just touching a nerve. It's only natural that Objectivists, being champions of reason, would not like being called a "belief system." This person may have an honest intent, but his post may be perceived as an insult, whether he knows it or not. Okay, this one would probably earn some snarkiness from me. The poster is insulting Objectivists and calling himself one in one go. Plus, he seems to already know what he's talking about. Why waste his time posting this if "there's no real way to validate reality." Basically, I think that the way a poster presents his question has a lot to do with how the other members will respond. Also, I think it is justified. It'd be the same thing if we were all chatting in a coffee shop. An honest question gets an honest answer. A bundled insult gets... well, insults. I also think a lot of it has to do with how much patience you have with people. I have very little. I am also not used to people caring what I say about them. What I mean is, if I think my friends are being stupid, I will tell them. They will either ignore me, or listen. No hard feelings either way. That becomes tricky on the internet when you don't necessarily know a person's personality or whether they are going to take criticism the wrong way. Your only option is to interpret a person's intent as best you can and then act accordingly. People shouldn't let one snarky comment turn them off something anyway. The thing I think some people forget is that this forum is geared towards a specific purpose and a specfic audience. If you don't like that purpose or that audience, you don't have to stay. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to improve what members think needs to be improved. What I mean is that saying that you're not allowed to post whatever you want here is irrelevant, because as far as I know you're not supposed to be able to post whatever you want here. Just my 2 cents, for what it's worth...

I've been posting here for over a year. I like it here. Lately I haven't been very active, but that's because my schoolwork has been taking pretty much all of my time lately. Anyway... I am semi-comfortable posting here. I don't just post anything. If I don't feel I can contribute something important to the discussion, I'm not going to post. I think over the course of the year I've been here, I've gotten a bit more cautious about what I say. But that's not a bad thing. It's not like I have to "hide anything." It's just that here, you need to really think an idea through before you post it, or you're going to get called on it. In conclusion: I <3 OO.net. EDIT: Weird, I got a flood control message, and when I re-posted, it entered the text twice.

Oh, I hate it when they do that. It's one thing to make you work in groups, but then they have to pick the groups as well... Usually, when I complained about that, I got a line how "you won't be able to choose who you work with in real life." To which I say, I will if I'm the boss. However... That seems odd to me. In my expreience, teacher's usually have some sort of "system" to deal with slackers. Types of things I have encountered: 1. The teacher would reassign any reported "slackers" into a group by themselves. 2. Each person would receive a group grade and an individual grade to balance it out. 3. Each person would receive a group grade and an individual grade which was determined by evaluations from the other members of the group. (Personally I like this method, because then you have a chance to make sure a person who doesn't do anything loses points because of it.) I would talk to the teacher and see if she is willing to change the way she grades these projects. If not, then you will probably end up doing all the work if you're stuck with idiots again. I've found that it is usually more work to try and get people who don't care to do the work than it is to just do it yourself.

I use a Powebook G4 that runs Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) for pretty much everything. I've been a mac user for 5 years, ever since my dad bought me an iBook. So i've stuck with it becuase I've never had a compelling reason to want to switch. I love my little Powerbook. It's great for making home movies, because iDVD and iMovie are wonderfully integrated. Plus, on my school's network, PC's have a lot more security measures they need to follow. For example, if a PC user unplugs their computer for a few days, it will get taken off the network because the network can't check it for viruses. I've never had that problem.

Welcome to the forum! What type of engineer are you?

Hello. I'm 16 as well. I'm sure you'll learn a lot here, as well as talk to some very interesting and intelligent people. Have fun and welcome to the forum.

I read the bluish edition and I probably only thought of it as a children's book because that was when I read it.

Hello! I'm Tea. I'm 16. I was 15 when I joined this board. I wouldn't worry too much about fitting into this board. If you are a rational valuer, you should do fine. You don't have to like politics to fit in. Really though, I've been noticing that a lot in our generation. All the smartest kids I know don't want anything to do with politics.

Some random stuff that I've been thinking of: At first I didn't like the end scene with Harry and Ginny, where they part. It seemed much to Spiderman-ish and I didn't like the idea of Harry giving her up. However, it has occured to me that he really didn't have any choice. Ginny can't leave school and go with him. She's not of age. So he had to leave her behind. There's nothing else for it. I wouldn't be surprised to see her again though, her birthday may be early in the year. Lily was the potions teacher. I'm really into this theory. Snape started teaching at Hogwarts in 1981. Lily went into hiding somethime between July 31, 1980 and October 31, 1981. Sluhorn says Lily was great at potions, perhaps better than Snape. Hermione, who is almost always right, thinks the handwriting in Snape's book looks female. That is waay to big of a coincidence for me to ignore. JKR has said that some of the Hogwarts teaachers have spouses, and that they are keys to the plot. Well, yeah, Harry's father would be key to the plot. *cough* Here's what I think happened. Snape and Dumbledore heard the prophecy. Snape tells Voldy. Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter are born. Voldy decides Harry is the threat. Snape finds this out and for some reason, does not like it. (I think he had a crush/liked/loved Lily, but anyway) Snape goes to Dumbledore and tells him his story. Dumbledore believes him. Dumbledore tells the Potters to go into hiding. They do. Hogwarts is then without a Potions master and a DADA teacher (like always). Snape applies for DADA but Dumbledore won't give it to him because he knows it's cursed. He hires Snape to teach potions. Snape becomes a double-agent. The Potters become more worried. They perform the Fidelius. Wormtail betrays them. Voldemort goes to kill them with... some other people. JKR refuses to comment on whether there was anyone else there. *cough* Snape *cough*

That is known as the wand order "mistake" and has everyone so confused that most fans have given up trying to figure out who died first. Or they simply accept JKR's explanation: This seems pretty straightforward at first, except that I would bet money that that was not what it said when she first answered the question. I read it when she first put it up, and it said James first, then Lily. I have a first-edition copy of GoF. (I got it delievered from Amazon on the release date.) It has the "mistake" in it. But if you go back and read through the scene in a copy where the mistake was "corrected" it doesn't make nearly as much sense. Harry says the person who comes out of the wand first was the person he had been thinking about more than an other that night. All the references in the graveyard scene are to James, not Lily. Anyway, I think I'll just go with JKR's current answer, and accept that it was a mistake in the original printing and it just wasn't fixed properly. Gah.

I'll just jump in here. I have a very hard time regarding Kira as guilty of the crimes of Soviet Russia. She had absolutely no say in what they did. However, I think it's different for us in the US. We do get to vote, even if it doesn't seem like it means all that much. We're MUCH, MUCH freer to do as we please than Kira, anyway. So it's kind-of like Dagny in Atlas Shrugged, isn't it? Where she says something about not being able to defend herself to Ellis Wyatt because even though she fought with James over the bad stuff, he went ahead anyway, and since she still works for the railroad, she is responsible too. Though she was also in a leadership position so... I think I get what you're saying though. Kira understood that it was in her self-interest to try to get out, even if she risked being killed, because she could not live inside. Soo... for an Objectivist in a slave state, it's really not much of a contest, is it? You'd try to leave. And if you didn't, it wouldn't matter if you were guilty or not really, becuase you wouldn't survive long like that anyway. I think there are innocents in a country that is at war. The civilians who die in a war can blame the immoral people who initiated force and started the war. By the way~ Just my two cents. No insults, please. This thread is a little heated.

That was on Mugglenet the other day. It makes sense though. I mean, they are popular. Maybe a bookstore donated them because they had 1000 extra copies. Have you seen the stacks of them everywhere? It's so funny, because those books are in such high demand for the first day, and then the stores just have piles and piles of them.

True, but we've only just learned really that people can invent their own spells. She never tells you the whole story right away. So I'm waiting until after the books are all out before criticizing the lack of magical principles. Personally, I want to know the limitations of wandless and nonverbal spells. It would clear up a lot of speculation about Dumbledore. But that's probably why she hasn't told us.

Nice screen name. I assume it stands for Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore? As for the principles, I would guess that questions like that will be answered on her website eventually, as opposed to in the final book. I mean, she has to cram a whole lot of stuff into book 7. Book 6 didn't really answer anything except why Voldy didn't die. But every other main question is still open. Also, she haas already answered a few questions about magical "properties." I remember her saying that conjured items, for instance, only last for a short time, which explains why the Weasleys can't just conjure themselves a new house or robes.