I'd start with 10 000 — AlexiMicrowave

Wow, that's a lot more than I was envisaging. It's the size of a small town. With that many you are right that you will need some regulation to control supply and order the resources of production. I imagine that people will be selected based on certain skills they bring to the colony. While I don't think you should impose a government, I think it would be wise to direct the formation of one after the initial set-up phase has been completed.

As to guns, I would leave them on earth unless you want to start killing people without a trial.

If no guns are allowed instead of a set regulation to guns, what would happen if a corporation or syndicate decides to take over a city via invasion?

I for one think that guns should be allowed in the internal and external defence of martian interests. — AlexiMicrowave

If a corporation decided to take over, I don't think a handful of guns will make too much of a difference. Just bomb them from the air. As to internal defense of the fledgling colony where every able body is an asset, a club might be more useful.

What population size are you envisaging for this colony?

That's a good point Wayfarer. Let science be science. They do a pretty good job after all.

I think that scientists are a lot like philosophers, philosophers whose ideas are grounded in the natural, which is why they get into trouble when they cross the boundary. It would be great to debate them.

I think you made a very good point Fishfry.

You remember the story of Gandhi, in which Ben Kingsley drives the British out of India through the simple moral force of the idea of home rule. — fishfry

You also made me spill my coffee.

Certainly self-governance is important. Should we let perhaps direct them on how to set up their government though, and when to vote? When should the captain of the ship resign his commission in favour of someone more suited to the role of Governor of Mars? If we had rules from the beginning we might advert a disaster later on. This might be important especially in the infant stages when they are learning to walk.

I am not an atheist, but I don't really believe in a God. It's a lot more vague than that — Wayfarer

That about sums me up at this point too. A part of me still feels very atheistic, but I am also aware of an awakening within me - a connection to some spiritual current running through things.

Ironically it was watching Richard Dawkins attacking the church in his debates on god with his knowledge of science that so disgusted me I wanted to defend faith in god and that started me slowly down the path some years ago.

But, in today's world, if you express reservations about the scientific consensus, then you are usually categorised as being somehow fundamentalist. A — Wayfarer

You're right, but I am struck by how many people on this forum share our views. I was expecting a huge defense of science, but it's not materialised. Critically thinking people on the main seem to agree with us.

And the more I probe science with the idea of god force, the more I see how weak science's position on insisting that there is none really is. I want to see some solid ideas from the science community to rule out the idea of a god. I want them to fight back on intelligent design with their life from the soup arguments, but their gun is empty.

In the absence of any evidence that a god does not exist, one must assume that the message the scientific community is putting out is unscientific pontification without even applied reasoning.

It would be great to advertise this forum in the universities and get them on here so we can all stir up a storm of debate.

Yeah, I'll have to get into the Daoists. I like Eastern philosophy, and hope it will give me new ways to look at old things.

One observes and finds patterns, not the other way around. — Rich

Sure, I take your point. Sometimes though by applying one observed pattern to a different phenomenon insight can be revealed. It has nothing to do with faith - it is a tool I use to find a workable truth.

Thanks Wayfarer, I will check Thomas Nagel out.
You are right in your observation that some ideas have been crystalised here in this forum. It is very interesting for me to observe myself at this point arguing for a god.

Seeing that you've expressed an interest, I can tell you that during my university days I was a steadfast atheist. There were these two 7th day Adventists that would keep coming to my place with pamphlets containing scientific evidence for God and I would debate them for sometimes an hour at a time. It was great fun, but I was in no way swayed. I was trying to sway them. I wish I could remember their arguments fully - One was the L-isomer, which I might try and find a way to post on at another time.

At one point I had even arranged to meet a group of them in the park to debate the issue at great length, but when I got there a sweet girl pulled out a picture of Jesus and sat it upright on the rug and asked if I knew who it was. It was one thing to debate for fun, but I didn't want to attack her beliefs so I just held my tongue.

Anyway, like I said, I'm as surprised as anyone at the position I've taken in the forum. I've long wrestled with the ideas, and I may yet argue back the other way.

Thanks for your input Wayfarer.

A philosopher has to b find real patterns in life, not just make stuff up — Rich

I think life is incredibly malleable in this regard. I find true insight comes from making up logical patterns and seeing how life fits. Observing the observable without running it against a pattern even a subconscious pattern I would think limiting in what it reveals. But I think its a case of tomarto, tomAto.

Like all types of play though Rich, they are usually preparing you for something much larger in which the skills will be required. Creativity in thought is in line with your own beliefs, yes?

What we're actually discussing here is not semiotics but scientism, — Wayfarer

Interesting. Yes we are discussing scientism by this definition - a scientism whose fallacious belief arises from semiotics.

It is my contention that this fallacy is what has procluded Creative Forces from scientific discussion and rendered it homeless. It is only by backing out of the current semiotic model that we see there are really no substantial answer at all to the 'but why' question.

I would say that visual arts and music are also semiotic, but they embody the more indeterminable dimension of signs. — Janus

I was reading (watching on YouTube) about a philosopher the other day who said the appeal of art to people is the fact that it captures a truth about ourselves or the world and therefore we can relate to the experience. And so it would by reason be semiotic.

The horizon shrinks when the focus is fixated by the determinable. — Janus

Yes, the search for answers comes to a stop and trying to introduce other ideas such as a creative force become superfluous nonsense. It is only by backing out of the semiotic layer we are using that we find a place for such a thing.

But to say that something is 'a symbol or a sign' is NOT 'reductionist' in the sense that physical reductionism is. — Wayfarer

I take your point that semiotics is not boiling down the facts to support some conclusion, but I also agree with Janus that the symbol is a reduction of information - a loss of information about the property of an object. I may have a complex set of wires, transistors and capacitors and then put them all in a box and call it a radio. To my mind, identifying the radio without having to understand the wires is an example of semiotics.

At the level we use the radio it is fine not to understand the workings of it. We can make assumptions and conclusions about the radio. We can say it 'picks up' radio waves that we can 'tune into' by turning this knob. We can claim to understand at this local level all there is to know about the functioning of the radio, but we do not understand the wiring and components.

By assuming a complete knowledge, based on our semiotic understanding, we no longer look for deeper truths.

I think you need to distinguish between semiotics as being the notion that describes all processes of human (and perhaps animal) understanding via signs and manipulation of signs, and the self-conscious valorization of semiotics (as systems or information science) as potentially being 'the answer'. The latter may certainly reflect an anti-theistic and totally anti-mystical, anti-transcendental, stance. — Janus

By semiotics as a human understanding via signs and manipulation of signs, I assume you mean communication? In this case a distinction could be made between communication and using symbols to understand the world around us.

It says that there is "nothing but" what our reductive explanations tell us, and that reality is thus comprehensively explicable in those terms, with no mysterious 'leftovers'. — Janus

Yes. In a nutshell.

It is only by backing out of the local layer we see how limited our knowledge really is - how every conclusion we reached about our system was predicated on much deeper assumptions/semiotics. It is at this point we begin to look for a driver of it all.

But in any case, in this post, you're basically accusing semiotics of the very thing that it supposed to remedy, namely, scientific reductionism. That, I don't think, is characteristic of semiotics, as such, which is consciously anti-reductionist. — Wayfarer

You're right, my reading on so many topics is behind, and I would benefit from further background reading, but I also like to try and rely on what is logical- not just what other people think. When you look at a coiled protein and say that is a channel, then surely you have reduced the configuration of the protein to a symbol.

Scientific reductionism is by definition: Scientific reductionism is the idea of reducing complex interactions and entities to the sum of their constituent parts, in order to make them easier to study.

Whether the definition exactly fits the definition as defined by someone else though is not to the point. When using symbols to describe our landscape, when those symbols form a closed loop - all is explained, there is no need for further invokation of forces. It is only when we back out of the symbology- providing a local level understanding, that we see we really know very little at all.

Why can't one person in time be walking a novel path while another person at the end of time sees the path that he will make through his novel choices?

We lose the driver - it becomes unreachable when we back out of our current layer. The simple question of 'What's causing that to happen?" has no answer. We are strung out on a continuum of infinite regress and egress.

Why can't we have a determined past and probabilistic future? We are the author writing the book.

Ok Jake, enlighten me. What is the GSCFI?

Rich, would you describe your idea of time as duration as analogous to a bubble passing through the time landscape whose path is unchartered and whose wake dissipates with distance?

Alright, I'll whip one up.

There is duration which is exactly what you are experiencing: memories, possibilities of future actions, choices. — Rich

If you're up for a chat about it come across to The First Few Cognitive Steps Required to Believe in Primordial Soup Theory - I've responded to you there.

So duration is a bubble passing through the time landscape whose path is unchartered and whose wake dissipates with distance?

No problem Hachem.
Just let me respond to Rich and I'll drop the subject.

The memories themselves will be constantly changing and will not be the same as the memory of others. — Rich

So you are arguing that there is no universality to something... I'm rushing a bit. What is it that has no universality? Time?

If you want to respond in one of my threads (preferably the one nobody has read that would be fine :) )

So you're arguing the constraint of consciousness. Free will. Let me think about that for a while.

If I placed myself at the end of time and looked back I would see an indisputable deterministic pattern. If I placed myself halfway through time I have determinism behind me and probability in front of me. In terms of the person watching me walk who is at the end of time, the path has already been set. For me it is being created.

Hey, no problem, let me try and be clearer.

When we describe something, anything, there are different ways we may choose to describe it. I may say there is a cup in front of me. I have isolated the object 'cup' with my language.

I could also say there is a yellow patterned fired clay cylinder closed on one end and open on the other, with a curved hollow protuberance (the handle).

In the first instance I summed up that information with one word cup, because that was all that was needed to communicate the idea. There was also information loss. I did not say the cup was yellow, that it had a handle, that it was fired nor that it was patterned.

Local Level 1: Cup - a function
Local Level 2: The description of the cup

I could also look at the arrangement of the atoms. What type of atoms they are, how they are bonded, what conformation they take inside the cup. I could become very specific with my description of the atoms and the angles the bond configurations take as the cup takes form. Lots and lots of information.

At the level of the cup there are other objects about, such as myself and the desk. These also can be described at different local levels. When we say the man picked up the cup off the desk and we describe this in terms of atomic configurations and relative movements through the atoms in the air, the electrostatic bonds with my hand etc it is extremely complicated. It is best to use semiotics (the man lifted the cup off the desk).

It seems almost absurd to describe the action in terms of atoms, and yet, there is nothing else there. It is all atoms. Everything else is semiotic description. (OK even atoms are and we can keep regressing).

When we realise this, a Holy Cow moment comes over us - or me at least. What guided that? How did the atoms coalesce to create this complex phenomenon. In this example I have used things made by man rather than life or natural inanimate object interactions, and so it may seem a bit mundane, but the point I hope is clear:

When we back out of our local level and look at what is truly going on we find the security of semiotic understanding is removed. We begin to search for the fundamental driver of the action.

Isn't determinism and probabilistic outcomes two sides of the same coin? It's just where you want to place yourself in time.

If I am understanding correctly, the closer something is examined, the more global the level is? — antinatalautist

Not necessarily. Global implies not local. It is what we see when we back out of our local knowledge and reconsider everything that is happening beyond our semiotic understanding. It could just as easily be top down as bottom up.

I like the idea that things are bottom up. As life grows more complex emergent phenomenon are assigned symbols. Soon we have an array of such symbols that interact with each other, seemingly independent of what is happening in the symbols on the level below them.

I see emergent patterns due to an excess of something in the system that is breaking constraint. When an isolated system suddenly begins to interact with another system to form a more complex system, the interaction happened because there was a capacity or tolerance in the system that allowed this indulgence. I haven't given it a great deal of thought, but I would probably define consciousness as an emergent phenomenon from an excess in the nervous system. As a crude example, we are able to process sight without actually seeing. Seeing is an emergent phenomenon.

Isn't this assumption about the nature of the world in-itself a local examination (it's you, examining and explaining the world in a particular way or mode) - just another way of talking about the world? — antinatalautist

Yes. I'm not saying semiotic explanations are not good, only restrictive in the way we see the world. Our language uses nouns to define objects. Semiotics is hard to escape.

Now Japanese is something I can deal with.

There is no conflict here that I can see.

Semiotics allows us to understand local phenomenon. Because we have a local understanding the phenomenon become discreet. It is a world of cell membranes and ion channels, not glycoproteins and phospholipid bilayers. There is a different semiotic language.

You are right that my use of the term semiotics is based on the idea that complex molecules etc can be represented simply by describing function. If someone else wants to define it another way, that's okay.

Semiotics as I define it here describes function over design. A biomechanic or exercise physiologist doesn't need to understand chemistry to do their job. On their level, the heart is a pump to circulate blood by creating a pressure system. That is all they need to know about it.

Of course there is a lot of form and function that goes on to create this circulatory system. A physician might look at the body one way and a chemist another.

Each layer is discreet. When we focus strongly on one layer we try to understand that layer completely, in terms of the semiotic variables in that system. To not be able to explain it fully this way seems wrong. This creates a tunnel vision that isolates ones thinking. We easily overlook the massive complexity beneath our simple understanding. We forget we are standing on an emergent layer of a much more complex playground. We don't really understand what we are looking at in its truest form.

Wakarimasu ka?

Sorry TimeLine, my Spanish is a little rusty and Google tells me you said 'What's up.'

The sky?

The properties of atoms are simply being harnessed — Jake Tarragon

By what?

Such fuzziness is not part of the "design" but neither could it be said to add anything specific other than noise. — Jake Tarragon

So how is it that the result is a screaming baby pops out? Fuzzy noise seems to create a whole bunch of interesting stuff and the more we run from a 'design' element the more elaborate the explanations for something that should be quite simple to explain, become.

Thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure of your argument here Jake. Are you saying that because we are able to understand a lot of embryology locally through semiotics there is no need to invoke global references? - Because that falls into line with my argument that it doesn't happen.

Or are you suggesting that because we can understand a lot of embryology through semiotics, there is no continuous world? That the level of embryo is the lowest level from which an explanation be derived?

What about if we re-wrote embryology as a chemist, in terms of atomic interactions and chemical gradients. Is it possible to derive a deeper understanding or appreciation of what is happening? For example I know that gravity has been implicated in the process of embryogenesis. Can such an effect be described equally in terms of semiotics at the cellular level as well as semiotics at the molecular or even atomic level?

To know the truth that a gun can kill or a stone can hurt translates into survival - life and happiness instead of death or pain. It then seems that truth = happiness and survival. Perhaps, therein lies the value of truth. — TheMadFool

I see truth as a mental scaffolding that allows me to redraw the world the way it really is. The greater the truth I can find, the more my conception of the world is fine tuned. It is not designed to make me happy or sad, and while on the crudest level is does absolutely ensure survival, on the next level up from that, it is about competitive advantage.

If truth and morality are man made — Wosret

Hi Wosret, it's an interesting question. I think these days laws have been layered upon laws to such an extent that rather than being a moral guardrail, they are a tangled web. And there are the spiders that run across the web, using it to their own ends - to protect their own interests and prosecute their adversaries.

If we strip it right back though, I think that the fundamental laws are not manufactured for personal gain, but arise from the gut. For example stealing from those that cannot protect themselves is a crime that was made a crime because of our ability to empathize with the victim.

Very expressive Praxis. You are tapping into something pretty deep and powerful there by the looks of it.

I like the top bath house photo. It leads you in. There is a theme of manufactured complexity between the 3 photos- with life trapped inside (2nd photo). A commentary on our society v nature?

I like the second one from the top with the two pairs of legs walking over the reluctant symmetry. It has a commentary about it.

Hi Mad Fool, I think the OP deals with the limits of your imagination rather than the existence of God.
It may be that I can't imagine anything tastier than a hotdog. This implies that a hotdog exists, but not that it is the tastiest thing out there - except in respect to my knowledge and perception of foods.
I like that you are trying to reason it out though.

There are 3 truths you are talking about. Two are local and one is global.
The global truth you are asking about, is whether anti-dumping laws will have a net benefit or loss on the economy.
The two local truths are that given the same input one group will be affected negatively and the other positively.
But there is no conflict here. They are all true statements (with one unknown outcome).
I suggest you are asking about the global truth - the net effect on the economy, in which case, as it is not a moral dilemma, it is a number crunching exercise.