The NASA tests have not been submitted for peer review because nobody at NASA is confident that the results are directly attributable to the 'drive' and are repeatable. In any case the effect, if real, is so tiny as to cast considerable doubt as to whether it could ever be useful as an alternative to standard fuel systems for manned missions or interplanetary. Its one advantage, if it does work, is that it provides constant acceleration so that over time it builds up to previously unheard of speeds but all that advantage is lost if you have to decelerate for any reason. It would be ideal for missions such as intergalactic probes like Voyager but totally unsuited to shuttling people around the solar system.

Fortunately for the human race moral and legal codes concern themselves much more with the consequences of actions than the cause of them. Determinism may provide all the excuses you could ever need but it doesn't get you out of trouble with those you have harmed.

This is why I was saying rebellious existentialism is sort of incoherent, since it takes a preference (that of being an individual) and forgets where this preference came from (not from the individual!). — darthbarracuda

But that's an entirely false dichotomy. Preferences are an expression of the individual. They are not somebody else's preferences, nor are they community 'property'. They are, by definition, what makes me me! No matter how they came to be what they are, their source is always me. They were not transferred to me from any external source.

I am seeking an explanation of the meaning of 'comfortable' in the key statement ...

I believe that many people labeled as "sick" have just found a comfortable reality they can belong to — Jimi

To me it implies both voluntary acceptance and a contentedness with the condition by which they are judged 'sick' societally. Does that mean that there is an underlying belief that mentally ill people are 'happy' with their lot and have no desire to change it? If so then I would be in profound disagreement but it's not an argument I want to start if I've merely misinterpreted.

Evidence? What evidence? Evidence of what? And what has any of this to do with quantum mechanics? I'm really getting fed up with people saying 'quantum mechanics' as though it were the clincher to every argument that ever existed!

the tree blocking the light has no meaning outside of the context of the shadow it casts anymore than the shadow has any meaning outside of the context of the light — wuliheron

I have literally no idea what you are talking about!

As for colonizing Mars, NASA already has a reactionless drive straight out of Star Trek — wuliheron

No, they don't. Not even close! The physicists are still very much at the stage of arguing about whether it works.

Theoretically, you could equip a spaceship with a nuclear engine used for a submarine and reach the moon in four hours, — wuliheron

In a perfect Universe in which materials were resistant to collisions with particles at high speeds and astronauts were able to cope with G-Forces off the charts, perhaps. In any case you'd still need standard fuel rockets to get parts up there to build the ship and transfer the astronauts to it and then to transfer them from the ship to the moon at the other end.

Really? Try conducting this thread in body language and see how far you get!

Correct but not really an objection to my point as far as I can see.

How on Earth do you not notice that I put 'happy' in italics to indicate that its meaning was intentionally open to interpretation and conclude that two propositions which I clearly stated as parallel are in a consequential relationship?

For example, the shade of a tree can save someone's life in the desert and, therefore, can be described as acausally becoming greater than any mere sum of its parts because the shade has no demonstrable identity independent from the light — wuliheron

Quite apart from the small fact that there aren't a lot of trees in the desert and the degree of change of temperature which the shadow of a tree in the desert causes is extremely unlikely to save anybody as it's dehydration that kills you, this is little more than romanticism. The fact that something proves to be convenient for a human doesn't suddenly transform its standing in the Universe. It was just a tree blocking part of the light before anyone crawled into the area. It's just a tree blocking part of the light afterward.

to treat every word as a variable, with no intrinsic meaning or value — wuliheron

You'll forgive me if I find the idea of writing a book with such parameters as both absurd and futile.

What about it? Everybody knows it's happening and is an accident not an act of aggression. The chances are that it will pass off without incident anyway given that the chances of anything big enough to cause damage first surviving the re-entry and then hitting occupied land are minimal.

Indeed, most prose, if not language, deploys itself as a sort of see-sawing between the literal and the metaphorical, sometimes extending into the unintelligible in the case of some poetry. — StreetlightX

So where does irony, the use of literal language to express the literally opposite meaning, fit in this analysis? It is neither literal nor metaphorical. And can we really call fiction literal when it is literally a history of things which never actually took place? What about the contents of this forum which is filled with abstract terms like mind, thought, belief, and a thousand others that are not literal because they have no concrete reality to refer to but are not metaphors either?

We like things not because we chose to like them but because these preferences were forced on us. — darthbarracuda

But the alternative is incoherent. What would it mean to be able to like something this morning and then not like it this afternoon because we want to? Life would be near impossible if we didn't have stable preferences. Imagine shopping at a supermarket for the week's groceries if you couldn't be sure that you will not find the breakfast cereal you like today repulsive next Monday! There is in fact a condition which renders choice all but impossible in such a situation leaving people standing for hours in front of the same shelf literally unable to make up their mind between two brands for example.

Preferences are, by definition, predispositional. They may develop and change over time as we acquire tastes and are exposed to new experiences but but we can't flip between liking something and not liking something and we should be jolly glad of it!

I believe that many people labeled as "sick" have just found a comfortable reality they can belong to, — Jimi

So you think the mentally ill are happy with their 'illness', that they've made the best bargain with life that they can? :-$

Exactly. The human race has no future if it doesn't stop being human!

How is this planet from which every star is getting further away due to the expansion of the Universe on an interstellar mission?

1. Panpsychism is true. — Weeknd

No it isn't. I guess that'\s the end of that then!

How is it not? The entire Arab world had to be rearranged ad hoc to establish Israel.in 1948 in what was already an area destabilised by previous attempts mostly by Britain to carve it into states with little or no regard for tribal and ethnic histories. Syria's reaction was to immediately invade Palestine on a crusade to eliminate Zionism. None of the upheavals and coups and wars that have followed has ever been free of the issue of how to respond to Israel's continued existence whatever the headline excuse may be.

What decision made in the 40's influenced the present situation? — Mongrel

Heard of a country called Israel at all?

A note about your text: Be sure to have someone carefully proofread your text before submission. "Home", for instance, is not a verb. It's a noun. We do not "home people". One must use the verb "house" (the verbal form is pronounced 'howze" ). — Bitter Crank

See, the thing about being a grammar nazi pedant is that it's a really bad idea to be wrong. The OED has ...

home v.

1. trans. To provide with a home; to find a home for. Freq. in pass

.. with a first citation from 1802.

And it's an especially bad idea to be wrong when pride precedes a fall!

In order for your state to effectively insure that citizens are actually free, — Bitter Crank

Insure in this sense is obsolete usage. The word ensure is greatly preferred to maintain the distinction with what it is that insurance policies do (itself to be distinguished from what assurance policies do). Sorry!

If the set both had 3 members, and not 3 members, then the law of identity (or the law of non-contradiction) would be violated, and something similar could be said of each of the 3 cows individually. — jorndoe

But the concept of 'set' is just another product of the logic system. That's precisely the point. Within the logical system we know as mathematics the cardinality of the set 'cows in the field' is indeed 3 and necessarily so. But this is an abstract reduction of the real world to concepts which are coherent within mathematics. The reality is that there are not three 'cows' because the logic system demands that all cows are equal and clearly they are not. To give the set 'cows in the field' the cardinality of 3 it is necessary to idealise or average 'cow', to turn it from a living, breathing, unique individual into a cipher.

That this is a problem becomes clear the moment you start to do arithmetic with these cows. Say a will calls for these cows to be divided equally among three beneficiaries. Easy for the logic system. That's a cow each. But the chances are that in real life that's actually a huge inequality. A cow that's 10 years old is not the equal of a cow 2 years old. A cow that produces 10 gallons of milk a day is not the equal of one that produces 6 gallons. A cow that spontaneously aborted its last two calves is not the equivalent of one that's produced 5 perfect calves in a row. And so on.

Moreover, what if the farmers who keep these animals count only pairs as 'a cow' (it was good enough for Noah) and all trade is conducted with that system. This is easily encompassed within a logical system for calculating prices, yields and everything else but now there are only one and a half cows in the field. Immediately the necessity of this sets cardinality being 3 disappears in a puff of logic.

Number is something imposed on reality by the observer in accordance with the logical system under which the numbers are defined (and the demands of the purpose in counting in the first place). It is not a description of reality nor an inherent property of reality.

Actually I don't this clashes with Platonism at all. Platonist Forms surely imply all divisions which might be numbered are by definition illusory. There are not many cows in reality. That's simply a product of our imperfect 'vision'. There is only Cowness. So numbers should not be seen as Forms in themselves because there is no counting in the realm of the real.

What about, say, is 1+2=3 in all possible worlds? — jorndoe

As it is not always true in this world I would have thought it perfectly obvious that it is not. Dealing with numbers as things in themselves is the door to madness. Numbers exist only within the logical system that we call counting, which is a subset of arithmetic which is in turn a subset of mathematics. And as Kant pointed out in responding to the ontological argument any necessity pertaining to numbers is therefore entirely dependent upon the logical system. The cardinality of numbers is not, as we so fondly imagine, derived from the real world at all.

Threeness is not an inherent property of triplets. It is a synthetic property imposed by the observer and entirely mutable. We can just as easily identify triplets as one set, two sets (divided by gender, or handedness, or any other quality) or biliions of cells containing identical DNA or trillions of molecules formed in the crucible of a single womb. How many colours are there in a rainbow? Six? The seven that Newton conveniently saw? As many as you can count? More than you can count? When you add one lump of plasticine to two other lumps of plasticine do you have three lumps of plasticine or one? When you walk one mile south and then one mile north have you travelled 2 miles or none?

Absolute certainty is impossible. I'm absolutely certain of it!

Using words, probably, though I cannot entirely rule out the possibility of interpretative dance!

So if I give my billion dollars to a charity and the charity treasurer then embezzles or straight out steals a chunk of it am I not responsible for that? Did I not allow it to happen? Indeed didn't the very size of my donation precipitate it by providing the temptation? And if said treasurer uses the money to fund arms deals for the terrorist organisation of his choice, am I also responsible for that? And if the terrorist organisation then blows up an aeroplane in which I am flying am I now responsible for my own death?

Now let's add another dimension, one which more truly reflects reality. If, say, I am walking down the street and there are 27 (don't know why 27 - just like the number, I guess) muggings happening one of which I successfully intervene in, am I still responsible for the other 26 not being prevented? What if it's 127 and I am so overwhelmed by the number that I simply cannot move. Or 1027 all of which involve muggers with a knife pointing at their victims and a gun pointing at me and fear for my own safety prevents my intervention (although why this should suddenly become a concern now .... !)

As righteous (and advantageous to charity fundraisers) as it is to make commission and omission equal 'in the eyes of the law' it simply won't wash. Pure altruism is ultimately ineffective (donating a billion dollars to a billion charities does nothing of any value to any of them), costly (give away the whole billion dollars and there's nothing for tea tonight), and dangerous. It simply doesn't make sense to equate doing and allowing. That's why it is not illegal to run away from a mugging. Why you won't be charged for letting robbers open your safe at gunpoint. And why there is no law that says you must give to every charity or volunteer for every humanitarian mission that approaches you.

But, the problem for me is so do my dreams. — saw038

Neuroscientists have discovered that brain activity is identical (or as near identical as makes no difference) for both conscious and unconscious (ie. dreaming) experiences, If you fall in a dream, for example, body and brain actually 'feel' you falling.

No it isn't. The whole of Ryle's argument is predicated on the ability to distinguish between counterfeit and real but that's patently absurd. Counterfeits only work when you do not and preferably cannot know they are counterfeits. If I was to take a new born baby into a Star Trek holodeck, for example, and let it grow up there it would be living an entirely 'counterfeit' existence. Nothing in the child's whole environment would be real though, of course, entirely real to the child.

In any event Ryle's argument need not apply at all in the case of the dreamworld for it is not necessary to even posit that it is a counterfeit of anything. It could be entirely different to the actual existence into which you finally wake (or not). The dreamer could, as I already suggested in the comment about figment's of God's imagination, be a timeless, non-physical being whose dream is complete fantasy.

As Ryle's counterfeit argument has pretty much been blown out of the water by any number of critics I can only conclude that you are either attempting to pull the wool over my eyes or that you are too easily impressed.

Compare this with "Christ is the end of the law." — Hoo

Convince me that what you and Paul mean by 'telos' in this sentence are identical and I might be able to!

So you're just not going to bother with the very clear distinction that I made and you're just going to go on playing semantics? Whoopee! Well I suppose it keeps you from having to engage with the actual issues under discussion! Would it be better for you if I replaced 'criminal' with 'illegal' then? Or shall I just make something up. Speeding is "kersplutzabubble' whereas adultery is "fluddlepuddle", perhaps?

I think the point I was making is absolutely clear as was the intent of the reply to enmire me in obscurantism to avoid addressing it. If neither of you have anything to contribute on the actual matter in hand, I'll take my leave and wish you a very good afternoon from the splendidly well defined UK to your legally impenetrable countries.

You cannot possibly be certain of that. Just because you haven't yet 'woken up' doesn't mean you won't and certainly doesn't mean you can't. Maybe that's exactly what what we perceive as death is; your exit from this dreamworld to become conscious that it was a dream after all (although of course you couldn't be certain that that itself wasn't just another dream from which you may or may not wake!)

I mean fine, for all practical purposes we have to conduct ourselves as though it's all real (well, not a dream anyway) but you cannot state as incontrovertible fact that it is any more than you can prove that we're not all just a figment of God's imagination.

Again, this would be a lot easier to argue if you actually identified the country so that I can pinpoint the relevant law. I am a little mystified at how something for which there is a penalty is not part of a penal code. But maybe I'm just not being clear as to my definitions (though it seemed pretty obvious to me) so ...

I am simply using the gross legal distinction between crime, that which is prohibited by law (be that national statute, local by-law, local authority order, or court injunction) and punishable by imprisonment, fine or other privation (in accordance with the provisions of the law), and tort, damage or injury to a person or corporation by neglect, default or intention under an actual or implied contract (duty of care, for example) for which upon application by the plaintiff the defendant may be required to make restitution and/or pay compensatory. The niceties of whether it's called a crime, or a (civil) offence, or a misdemeanour are irrelevant. If you're charged then it's criminal, if you're sued then it's civil. Speeding, no matter what words are used to describe it or what the title of the particular law or order under which it is prohibited is therefore criminal. The police or the relevant traffic authority do not sue you for compensation. They fine you. If you do not pay the fine they will go on to prosecute you in a criminal court.

Adultery is in the vast majority of countries a tort (civil) not an offence (criminal). It is not prohibited by any legal instrument. It may be grounds for divorce which, though rarely these days actually coming to the attention of a court, is a law suit seeking the dissolution of the contract of marriage and equitable division of assets.

Indeed nobody has the right. That's why it's a contract requiring the agreement of both parties. And in the vast majority of cases these days that contract is devoid of 'clauses' regarding obeisance, ownership and the other stuff you seem to object to. So unless you're advocating that all contracts freely entered into by both parties and sealed with the requisite consideration should be banned, which would make life infinitely more complicated and chaotic, I'm really not sure that your argument has any merit at all!

Well, as you are apparently unwilling to reveal the identity of this strange 'plase' I suppose I'll have to take your word for it while retaining my right to extreme skepticism!

Laughter is multi-faceted. Einstein clearly uses it in the sense of mocking laughter while Lanyon is clearly describing the laughter of delight. They are gods, after all. I think they're capable of a full range of laughters!

As we're on the subject, here's one for your collection.

God, we believe, accepts us, accepts all men unconditionally, warts and all. Laughter is the purest form of our response to God's acceptance of us. For when I laugh at myself I accept myself and when I laugh at other people in genuine mirth I accept them. Self-acceptance in laughter is the very opposite of self-satisfaction or pride. For in laughter I accept myself not because I am some sort of super-person but precisely because I'm not. There is nothing funny about a super-person. There is everything funny about a man who thinks he is. In laughing at my own claims to importance or regard I receive myself in a sort of loving forgiveness which is an echo of God's forgiveness of me.

Harry Williams, Tensions

Well, probably never, but it wasn't long ago that nobody had the means of broadcasting their opinions or forming interest groups. — Wayfarer

Really? Moses seems to have managed pretty well in fomenting a religious revolution 6000 years ago and Paul some 2000 years ago.

I'm just not sure living a life of near-constant anxiety is something practical, — Erik

I'm really not sure that that's what Heidegger is advocating. Constant anxiety does not strike me as in the least bit compatible with an 'authentic' life. Like the whispering of 'memento mori' contemplation of one's ultimate destination is surely intended to keep you on the path to authenticity not turn you into a quivering wreck by the side!

Of course it's a crime! Speeding is an offence under statute (the Road Traffic Act here in UK). You can't be fined for a civil offence, you'd have to be sued!

Successful families need:

to live within modest material budgets so that their resources can be directed toward good parenting.
to receive enough income that between them, parents can provide 1 FTE parent. Maybe families need to be subsidized to make that possible. Both mother and father should have time to interact with children.
education in good, traditional child-rearing practices. Many adults have not benefitted from being raised in a healthy large family and they simply do not know what healthy family life looks like. They need training to achieve it. And on-going support.
Families need good pre-natal health care, good delivery service, and post-natal followup health monitoring.
Families need functioning communities in which to live.

Single parenthood (as a starting plan) should be strongly discouraged. — Bitter Crank

Balderdash, stuff and nonsense, propaganda and codswallop! You may find these things desirable but that is a very distant thing from what others need and this moral censorious charter is absolutely not a guarantee of success (if that term is even meaningful in the context!)

What the heck is 'traditional child-rearing practice' for a start? Whose tradition from what part of history? There are as many 'child-rearing practices' as there are stars in the sky (well visible ones anyway) and almost all of them somehow manage to produce pretty much the same balance of good and bad people. And 'functioning community'? What's that when it's at home?