We're never going to encounter extra terrestrial life face to face — Nils Loc

Ontology - the science of being - is definitely part of philosophy. But other sciences traditionally fit under philosophy as well, such as Ethics - the science of (truly) right conduct. — A Christian Philosophy

I've always viewed science as discovering what is known from definitions. Philosophy questions definitions themselves. — Philosophim

I was joking, actually. Of course metaphysicians can discuss what they want. Just as long as they don't get too carried away. Pesky metaphysicians... — Changeling

I might be the only one, but I don't think a mere metaphysician should be getting involved in matters of science — Changeling

"Well it's simple gay people are nasty plane and simple, sure a few of the woman might not be but I'm talking like 1% of the gay community
And so naturally a bunch of guys that like to get phucked in the azz by other guys and seek this kind of thing out via the night club party seen are going to be the scum that infects the nation — Jamal

Only one small path leads out, but its trailhead can only be seen by casting one's gaze above shoulder height, and none have yet looked that high up. They've heard of this Path of Hope, but never having seen it, they scoff and shrug, looking at the ground, firmly denying it. — Hanover

You’ve already defeated your own argument that we are “at home” like other animals and extolled the existential /absurdist dilemma (of the specifically human condition) in one sentence. — schopenhauer1

Living does not require courage, that's just rationalization to avoid having to reckon with death, same with calling death boring. — Darkneos

That's sort of ignorance about what nature is like. Animals survive because they know nothing else. They aren't brave and I wouldn't call that living. — Darkneos

At current melt rate the northern hemisphere won't have any permanent ice by 2040, 2050 at the latest. — Olivier5

wraps and burritos aren't bread. — Benkei

With this definition in hand, you can soundly conclude that hotdogs, contrary to popular opinion, are in fact sandwiches. — hypericin

I don't see why not. — Olivier5

but my argument is that this is very very bad news, not good news. — unenlightened

The point I get is that natural insolation will not be cancelling the impacts of man-made global warming. Another point is in the tittle: ice age, interrupted. Compare with:

Tate's "ice age" (defined by the presence of ice caps) is ending. Because of us. -- Olivier5

So your article agrees with me, or rather, my take on CC is far closer to current science than Tate's crypto-denialism. — Olivier5

As for metronomes... sometimes they break. Gime a sledgehammer and a metronome, and I'll show you how it might happen. The metronome is our climate, the sledgehammer is greenhouse gases. — Olivier5

In fact, we're in interglacial period. Which means, sooner or later, we're going to enter the ice age. But not yet. — L'éléphant


That is not happening: the ice caps are fast melting. The Artic one will be history soon, by 2040 or so. Then, in the absence of the moderating factor that the artic ice cap represents, summer temperatures in the northern hemisphere will most certainly shoot up.

Antarctica is a bigger piece but all models predict that summer ice there will be gone in a few centuries.

Tate's "ice age" (defined by the presence of ice caps) is ending. Because of us. -- Olivier5

In terms of the ebb and flow of the Earth’s climate over the course of its history, the next Ice Age is starting to look overdue. Periods between recent Ice Ages, or ‘interglacials’, average out to be around 11 thousand years, and it’s currently been 11, 600 since the last multi-millennial winter. Although it is almost impossible to predict exactly when the next Ice Age will occur (if it will at all), it is clear that a global freeze is not on the horizon; the amount of CO2 emitted by human activity and the enhanced greenhouse effect that results all but preclude it. But what if we weren’t around and CO2 was lower?

In a paper published in Nature Geoscience this week, new research proposes that the next Ice Age would have been kick-started sometime in the next thousand years, just round the corner in the context of the Earth’s lifespan, if CO2 was sufficiently low.

By looking at the onset of abrupt flip-flops in the temperature contrast between Greenland and Antarctica (extreme climate behaviour that would have only been possible if vast and expanding ice sheets were disrupting ocean circulation), the researchers believe they have been able to identify the fingerprint of an Ice Age activation, or the ‘glacial inception’.

By applying this fingerprinting method to an interglacial period with nearly identical solar radiation, or ‘insolation’, to our own - some 780 thousand years ago - the researchers have been able to determine that glacial inception would indeed be expected to occur sometime soon.

“The mystery of the Ice Ages, which represent the dominant mode of climate change over the past few million years, is that while we can identify the various ingredients that have contributed to them, it’s the arrangement of these ingredients, and how they march to the beat of subtle changes in seasonality, that we lack an understanding of,” says Dr Luke Skinner from the Department of Earth Sciences, who helped to conduct the research with Professor David Hodell and their colleague Professor Chronis Tzedakis from University College London.

Insolation, the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of solar radiation energy, changes over tens of thousands of years due to the variations in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. It has long been apparent that insolation changes have acted as a pace-maker for the Ice Ages. But, like a metronome paces music, it sets the beat of climate change but not its every movement. The changing concentrations of greenhouse gases, CO2 in particular, are evidently what determine when a shift in insolation will trigger climate change.

“From 8,000 years ago, as human civilization flourished, CO2 reversed its initial downward trend and drifted upwards, accelerating sharply with the industrial revolution,” says Skinner. “Although the contribution of human activities to the pre-industrial drift in CO2 remains debated, our work suggests that natural insolation will not be cancelling the impacts of man-made global warming.”

The topic is a scientific one (albeit the philosophical implications). We ought to expect citation. It's standard practice. We're not interested in what you 'reckon' is the case with regards to climatology. — Isaac

I do think a positive attitude, if not forced, can help make cancer easier to deal with emotionally and it can make it easier for friends and relatives to cope. Whatever that's worth. — Tom Storm

I am surprised about what her doctor said on the absence of correlation between mental attitude and cancer survival. I have heard the opposite said many times by doctors. — Olivier5

The crux of this question is how much value do you place on existing amongst others - of not being entirely alone? — Benj96

I know dead people do not think. So, the mind is gone. — Jackson

Where is the human mind located? I do not know. — Jackson

What is the difference? — Jackson

It is just another kind of 'consciousness,' or thinking. — Jackson

All judicial systems fail sometimes. This is a case study in a UK failure: — Tate

Time for Newton's Flaming Laser Sword aka Alder's razor! — Agent Smith

Is free will (existence/nonexistence) an empirical claim? — Agent Smith

The problems some people have with postmodernism are due to their plebeian mentality. — baker

Because proposition no. 8 and its implications don't seem to be in line with a materialist/physicalist/realist point of view. — baker

René Descartes’ famous quote: “ I think therefore I am”, expresses an idea that is often used to support the idealists’ position: we cannot doubt our existence. — Hello Human