If we're in a simulation, and we make airplanes within the confines of this simulation, then it seems to me that we don't actually possess the technology. We at most possess a simulation of that technology. If we're in a simulation, what does "actually" flying mean? We're merely simulating the flying experience, making it simply a hyper-advanced flight sim. Pilots in flight sims aren't actually flying, after all.Take airplanes. If the simulation initial state was set in the 20th century, then it includes airplane technology. It is 'given' so to speak. If the initial state is started before that, then airplanes are our own invention.. Either way, we possess the technology. It isn't illusory. We actually can make airplanes that fly. If you crash in one, you really die, as opposed to say a video game where if you 'die', you simply exit the game. Getting shot in a video game is indeed an illusion. — noAxioms
Well, it's a truism that only beings who know about humans would want to simulate them, as in order to simulate something you must have knowledge of it, else how do you construct a verisimilitudinous simulation of it? However, that truism needn't limit the simulators to our descendants: perhaps they're advanced aliens which at some point in cosmic history made contact with humans, perhaps they're advanced AI like in the Matrix, and so forth.@RogueAI correctly pointed out that only somebody who knows about humans would want to simulate them, so it is presumably our decedents, be they human anymore or not. — noAxioms
Then seems like a bad time for Trump to be cutting taxes, wouldn't you say?The coffers are empty — ArguingWAristotleTiff
The fallacy here is a bit like saying that we should doubt that the Black Death occurred because no single skeleton we ever found from 14th century Western Europe shows signs of a drastic population decline. Evolution is a phenomenon which occurs in populations, not individuals. No one fossil (whether or not from a "transitional organism") tells the full story of evolution. The picture only emerges when we put the accumulated fossils into a proper context.2. When you look at the about 50 million fossils we have not one has evidence of evolution. So why should we believe that getting more fossils well prove otherwise.(this is 80% of his presentation) — hachit
I think it's still widely accepted, though, that the vapors are the primary cause of swooning and of female hysteria.The miasma theory of disease, for instance, remained stuck in the brains of medical doctors for decades after it was obvious that something other than vapors caused disease — Bitter Crank
Indeed. Even when examining individual cells which are genetically identical, there can be marked differences in their behaviors and fates, never mind entire multicellular organisms.Genetics aren't the only determinant of an organism. Not only environment plays a factor, too, but genetics are not expressed in some exact, clockwork manner. There are countless ways in which genetic expression varies--and after all, if that weren't possible, genetic mutation wouldn't be possible, and evolution couldn't work. — Terrapin Station
Except that it's not as if, for instance, the Chinese do not perform science as we know it in the West. When they launch a space probe, they presumably rely upon the same equations as does NASA. There is no "Chinese physics," any more than there is a "Jewish physics," as someone once fulminated. The fact that the modern scientific method arose relatively recently in the West (let us semi-arbitrarily say in the 16th century), it doesn't follow that there's something essentially Eurocentric about the entire affair.The argument of science or the scientific method being Eurocentric becomes very odd. — ssu
Fair enough, then.if you were to ask me if science proves anything, I'd emphatically say "No." — Terrapin Station
So, the rightness or wrongness does seem to be rather salient, wouldn't you say?It is per the widespread consensus in the sciences for well over a century. — Terrapin Station
I know that it's not the primary focus of this thread, but a consequence of this view of causation is that there could be no first cause/first event, because, by definition of "first," it could not have been preceded by any antecedent causes. And this would imply that the universe is infinitely old.An intuitive belief about causation is that for every event that occurs, there is a cause for that event's existence — Walter Pound
I still hear claims that organisms reproduce "for the good of the species" or similar utterances, which is pretty amazingly wrong. Organisms reproduce for the sake of their genes, a selection process which sometimes even bumps up against the genetic interests of of their own offspring (and siblings, to say nothing of their unrelated conspecifics).It sure is. One of the more disturbing instances of antagonistic evolution is the struggle between the mother and the offspring. The (future) offspring wants to suck in as many nutrients as it can, grow as big as it can, but the mother wants to ration her considerable investment of resources more prudently, so that she has more chances to reproduce (starting with surviving the childbirth). It's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that this struggle takes place inside one and the same organism! — SophistiCat
Would you consider, say, quantum computing to be "new" enough to constitute a genuine novelty, and not merely a refinement of something which came before?Yes.I'm glad you agree. Not the end of the increase in knowledge, but past the peak. The internal combustion engine dates from just before 1800, 220 years later, we have improved on it a good deal; likewise the electric motor, 1830s. Jet engine and rocket engine, 1940s and since then - improvements, but no new engines. — unenlightened
No. I assumed that the linebacker in question was a biological male, as virtually all high school football programs are exclusively male.Are you imagining gender-neutralized football? — frank
Why not? There are 300 lb women, are there not? Why couldn't a 300 lb linebacker suffer from gender dysmorphia?Consider a high school senior who is a 300 lb linebacker. I don't think anyone wonders what this student's gender is. — frank
Oh, sweet baby Jesus. Please condemn this unholy abomination to the pits of Hell.it must of been created — Devans99