It might also be the case (armchair exobiologists have speculated--and aren't they all armchair professionals?) that complex civilizations end up in turmoil before they can figure out how to deal with it. — Bitter Crank

But might that not depend on the character and quality of the species?

If the KT collision hadn't happened, then maybe Velociraptors, instead of monkeys, would have become the Earth's technological species. Maybe it would have turned out a lot better.

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:

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If there isn't reincarnation — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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I, for one, hope there is no reincarnation. Once has been more than enough.

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I’ve heard that sentiment from some others too.
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Well, it just seems to me that there probably is reincarnation, but of course I can’t prove it.
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It's said that, even if there is reincarnation, some people would be life-completed, dispassionate and uninvolved enough to not experience it.
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I’d said:
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super-advanced civilization — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Well let me ask you:

Are we on track to being a super-advanced civilization?

Hell no.
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You wrote:
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Suppose we solve our current problems,

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Ain’t gonna happen. Humanity is its own problem.
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You continued:
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[…] Suppose we also find a drug that keeps our brains from sizzling with neurotic obsessions and vicious hatreds (so we become nicer creatures), will we then be a super advanced civilization?

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I doubt it. But it hasn’t any chance of happening anyway. Childhood’s End is much more likely.
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Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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What evidence is there that we, as a species, can be capable of managing our own affairs? — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Because we have been managing our own affairs, solving many difficult problems.

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Yes. In 1964 or 1965, I stopped at a local business to get a banana-split. The proprietor was quite drunk, and, when he realized how sloppily he was slopping the ingredients onto the dish, he just swore, and gave it to me for free. I dropped it in the garbage.
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So yes, we’ve been managing our own affairs, just like that guy was managing his business.
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Maybe we would listen to wise aliens, but maybe not.

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The babysitter protects the baby whether he listens to her or not.
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It would be nice if the aliens in Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End showed up.

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No disagreement there.
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Their approach was to lean rather heavily on resistance (putting resisting cities under a polarized shadow, for example, until they caved in. Their time travel devices helped reveal the true origins of religions, which pretty much left the temples, churches, and mosques abandoned by the formerly faithful. Before too long, we all became much more 'adult' in our views and behavior.
[/quote]

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A large robotic peacekeeping force, and a large robotic police-force, complete with many flying drones, would help.

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But that was fiction, not history.

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Of course. It will never happen.
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Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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I’ve repeatedly clarified and emphasized that I’m not saying that a physical law that obtained a billion years ago is a description that was being spoken at that time. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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You haven't yet explained how a physical law which came into existence a few hundred years ago could have "obtained a billion years ago".

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A few hundred years ago that law was discovered, and found (and repeatedly confirmed) to have been in operation for billions of years.
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Say I find your fingerprints at a burglary-scene.
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You argue, “Those fingerprints were created, came into being, because Ossipoff found them. Because their existence depended on his finding him, therefore they couldn’t have existed on the night of the burglary, and couldn’t have been left by me.” ?
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As I explained, this is contradiction, and until we sort this out, there is no point in starting with the premise that a physical law obtained a billion years ago.

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I answer that in the message that I posted just before this one. The premise is that, in your experience, you’re here, and that’s partly because the Earth didn’t leave its Solar orbit a billion years ago, because the law of gravity obtained then.
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I refer you to my more complete answer in my post just before this one.
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Your life-experience possibility-story, like all stories, extends across time. The fact that you’re here because of the Earth remaining in orbit a billion years ago is part of your life-experience story.
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I’d said:
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In fact, I haven’t been defining a physical law as a description at all. I’ve been defining it as a relation between quantity-values — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Again, quantities and values are human measurements, so this does not get you past this problem.

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I’ll go you one better than that: It’s all human experience, your experience in particular. I haven’t denied that.
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But, as I’ve already said, it isn’t necessary that you were there a billion years ago, to bring the law of gravity into being. You experience the fact that you’re here today. …and you know that you’re here today partly because the gravity kept the Earth in Solar orbit, in accord with the well-established law of gravity.
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For quantitative confirmation of today’s known physical laws and constants, I’ve cited the good correspondence between celestial-mechanics results, and the known history of the ice-ages.
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But of course there’s more too:
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Astrophysicists and astronomers observe events and processes in distant regions of space. …things like the evolution of stars, among various other things, such as radiation from neutron stars, etc.
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They’ve observed that the same physical laws, with the same physical constants can be shown to obtain for those objects and events at various distances.
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But the light from a distant event left that event a long time ago. So, evidently the physical laws and constants were the same then as now.
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I’d said:
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If you want to claim that some other set of physical laws obtained during Egyptian times, instead of the physical laws that are now established, and that that’s confirmed by what is known about those earlier times, then the burden would be on you to show that. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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No, what I am saying is that if there are no human beings to create physical laws, then no physical laws obtain. That's a pretty simple, straight forward position. I think that the onus is on you to explain how you believe that something which comes about from human judgement, "a relation between quantity-values" could exist prior to there being any human beings.
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Do you understand what a "value" is? If so, how do you think that a value could exist without someone to determine the value?

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It wasn’t necessary for people to be there a billion years ago to “create” the law of gravity, to keep the Earth from leaving orbit. It wasn’t even necessary for anyone to be there a billion years ago to determine, find out, or measure the value of the gravitational force between Earth and Sun.
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Yes, there weren’t any human beings then. Yes, it all is about experience, your life experience. How to resolve that contradiction?
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Easy. As I said above, and in my post before this one, a story includes time. By definition, story takes place across time. Your life-experience possibility story is such a story.
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The only reason why you’re here today is because the Earth didn’t leave orbit a billion years ago. You’re here because the law of gravity obtained a billion years ago. That fact, the fact that you’re here today, and that it’s because the Earth didn’t leave orbit a billion years ago, thanks to the law of gravity obtaining then, is part of your experience today. As we discuss it, in fact.
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…and you’ve heard the explanations from scientists too, and that, too, is part of your experience.
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The Earth remaining in orbit because of the law of gravity obtaining a billion years ago is part of your life-experience possibility-story.
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And guess what? When Cavendish directly quantitatively measured gravitational force in the laboratory, to find the value of G, the gravitational constant, the value that he found for that constant was consistent with the Earth remaining in orbit.
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I don’t know what you think kept the Earth in orbit a billion years ago, but the law of gravity discovered by Newton, and the gravitational constant experimentally found by Cavendish amount to a physical law that explains why the Earth is still in orbit.
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The part of your life-experience possibility story in which the Earth remained in orbit a billion years ago is entirely consistent with Newton’s and Cavendish’s findings. …regarding the physical laws and constants that obtain today, and obtained a billion years ago.
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Michael Ossipoff

I haven't replied to your previous message to me yet, but first I'll answer this comment:

You might argue that these terms, "force", "mass", and "acceleration", as well as "equals" and "times", refer to regularities in nature, (what Michael Ossipoff seems to take for granted), but that would be a very difficult argument to maintain, with some of these terms such as "force" and "equals", which appear to be purely conceptual, not referring to anything in nature. — Metaphysician Undercover

The word "Nature" tends to be, intentionally or unintentionally, an obfuscation. For one thing, Its usage is a Materialist's way of trying to frame the discussion in terms of a premise that the physical world is what's natural, and is Reality itself.

What I take for granted? I've been saying all along that the physical world and its contents aren't objectively real or existent,and that the hypotheticals that it consists of aren't objectively factual,but only need and have meaning in terms of their own local inter-referring context..

Purely conceptpual? Of course. That's what I've been saying all along.

My metaphysics, Skepticism, is an Idealism..

Thank you for arguing for Skepticism.

So f=ma refers to a purely conceptual relationship (equals) between something conceptual (force), and the measurable regularities of mass and acceleration. Since the stated relationship itself, "equals", is purely conceptual, the stated law refers to the way that we conceive of these regularities of nature (the formula), and not the regularities themselves.

...I don't claim that this physical world and its things are objectively real or existent.

You're right. It's all about our experience. Your life is an experience-story, and this world is the setting for your life-experience possibility-story.

It's all a hypothetical system or inter-referring hypotheticals, and it's for you the Protagonist, the experiencer.

What's that? You say you weren't there a billion years ago, to create and enforce the law of gravity, to keep the Earth in Solar-orbit? That's ok, because the various scientists, and the information that they've reported, are in your experience, part of your life-experience possibility-story, as is are your own physical observations.

The law of gravity keeping the Earth in Solar orbit a billion years ago is part of your life-experience possibility-story. A story, by definition, includes time. It's an account across time. That life-experience story of yours includes the Earth not leaving Solar orbit a billion years ago, kept in orbit by gravity, in accord with the law of gravity.

Your experience is that you're here, of course, and that's partly because the Earth didn't leave orbit a billion years ago. The physicists who explain why, and their explanation, are part of your experience too. .

Michael Ossipoff

But the question was about philosophical matters.

Anyway, as for societal matters, that's entirely hopeless anyway.

Michael Ossipoff

But I think this is wrong. S is logically & semantically equivalent to (S') "All statements, but this statement, are false and this statement is false". But S' is illogical since its part "this statement is false" can't be given a truth value. — Pippen

But I remind you that no one's saying that that's so, because people are saying that the statement isn't true. Yes, if the statement is true, then it's false. But if it's false, that doesn't make it true. It just means that some startements are true.

Michael Ossipoff

If "All statements are false" is false, then either 1) all statements are true, or else 2)some statements are true and some statements are false. Of course, if the statement is false, then that rules out implication #1.

Then the falsity of "All statements are false" would just mean that some statements are true, and some statements are false.

So, for "All statements are false" to be false, doesn't mean that it, itself, can't be false. It only means that there are at least some true statements.

Michael Ossipoff

I'm fairly certain there are other worlds occupied by sentient beings. It just "seems likely" because of the very large number of stars that would host 1 or 2 planets that were suitable for life to flourish. — Bitter Crank

But that depends on how vanishingly unlikely it is for life to start, even on a favorable planet. The fact that we're here doesn't say anything about that. We're here because it's possible, not because it's likely. But, in a physical universe, the presence or absence of other, additional, life is related to the probability of it.

I admit that no one can really say how unlikely it is, though some biologists have said that they regard it as astoundingly unlikely. I'm just expressing the "Then where are they??" argument.

You continued:

So why don't they send us the message that help is on the way?

1. The galaxy, let alone the universe, is vary, very large and the distances between stars are literally astronomical.

Yes, but, in this galaxy, there have been stars with the necessary elements, for a very long time. If life were at all abundant, then there's been plenty of time for an advanced civilization to have thoroughly explored, cataloged and recorded all the stars in the galaxy, even with today's slow rockets.

...by means of robots, which would surely be possessed by a super-advanced civilization interested in space-exploration.

2. Even IF a technologically sophisticated society on a distant planet noticed an attenuated and meaningless signal from us, it would take a signal a long time to come back to us.

Yes, even if they had a sensitive enough receiver to detect our 1952 tv, it's only been 65 years, and so we couldn't have a return-signal from a place farther away than 32 or 33 lightyears. So yes, messages resulting from our broadcasts or communication-efforts aren't a promising reason to expect to hear from anyone.

So how would they know about us in time to be visiting now, or to have sent signals that we'd receive now?

Well, as they explored the galaxy, cataloging all the stars, our planet would be recorded as one on which life had begun (or maybe just one to look at again later, because life might begin there).

So, as one early radio-astronomer (Bracewell?) suggested, they could leave a robot-operated observation-satellite in orbit around the planet. ...to be removed to a greater distance at such time as the planet's inhabitants acquire the ability to detect it.

Anyway, who says that a super-advanced civilization couldn't observe undetected if they chose to? Arthur Clarke pointed out that a sufficiently-advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

So we could be known-about as soon as we came into being.

3. Not compassionate? How would they know we needed help?

By observation. The desirability of protecting us from eachother would be obvious, even from early satellite observation. As of now, it's been grossly, blatantly obvious for a very long time.

I rescue drowning insects. To the extent that I can prevent it, I don't allow spiders' gruesome manner of killing insects in my house.

In fact, we don't need help. We are perfectly capable of solving our problems.

Dream on. We've been hearing that ever since 1848. ...and where are we now? What evidence is there that we, as a species, can be capable of managing our own affairs? No, we obviously are in great need of babysitting.

They don't know that, of course

With observation it would be known.

, but they also don't know what kind of problems we face.

A carnage problem?

THE PROBLEM we face is our collective unwillingness to do what needs to be done.

Problem: Different humans have drastically different, opposite, versions of what should be done. A certain well-known leader, whom i won't name, is even now doing his version of what needs to be done.

4. It would take a very, very, very long time for a distant civilization to travel to earth, which of course means they had noticed us in the first place.

If life has been abundant in the galaxy, they'd have had plenty of time to explore, catalog and record descriptions of all the stars and their planets, long before now. Having discovered Earth as an early-life-bearing planet, or even a planet more likely than most to eventually have life, an observation-satellite could have been left here, with the capability of building as many self-replicating super-intelligent robots as necessary.

So,in short, when needed, they'd already be here.

5. Maybe advanced civilizations have learned to leave well enough alone. When we humans have come across other human civilizations we didn't know about, we generally rubbed them out--accidentally or deliberately.

It isn't a good analogy, because we acted to seize other people's land, resources or gold, or exploit them for free labor. Yes, our missionaries supposedly had good intentions, but a super-advanced civilization wouldn't have reason to expect to be like them.

6. Maybe they know about us and just don't care. "Oh yeah, another civilization. That's 6 new ones this year, on top of the 2358 we have already discovered. Same old, same old."

Possibly, especially if civilizations are numerous. But numerous disastrous civilizations wouldn't make help unfeasible, for a super-advanced civilization, maybe consisting of a network of planets across the galaxy, and, in any case, having the ability to build unlimited numbers of rockets and self-replicating super-intelligent robots from materials available in asteroids &/or uninhabitable planets and moons.

But yes, it could be said that we don't really need help so badly, because this world is just one of infinitely-many possibility-worlds, and, for each person the adversity and good in lives average out. If there isn't reincarnation, then some people's loss of life seems more regrettable, unbalanced, uncompensated, but it's still just a temporary story that will be forgotten when it ends.

Michael Ossipoff

But I don't like the quarantine theory either, because it would be uncompassionate.

Surely an advanced society could spare a few robots to come and babysit us so that we can't harm eachother.

So that seems to just leave: They don't exist, or else they aren't interested in interstellar travel or communication.

That they don't exist feels more plausible.

Chemists and biologists have said that the beginning of life on a planet seems vanishingly unlikely. So it might not be unlikely for us to be alone, even in a natural (un-engineered) universe.

Michael Ossipoff

Or, it's an indication that there are many civilizations which don't last long enough (once they get past a certain point of development) to come visit. — Bitter Crank

Yes, maybe they never last long enough to become advanced. because the un-advanced grunt-animal stage that our species is in is so full of self-destruction opportunities..

Maybe, but I don't like that, because I wouldn't like to believe that everyone has to start out like our pitifully,, bizarrely, pathological Land of the Lost society.

If there are advanced societies in the galaxy, maybe they just aren't interested in interstellar travel or communication.

Or maybe they just don't care about helping us--But I don't like that one either, because it seems to me that compassion would come with advancement.

So--Either they don't exist, or they aren't interested in interstellar travel or communication.

I once suggested that we're alone in the universe, and that's because of a high-tech form of quarrantine. Instead of just posting signs to stay away from us, maybe someone placed us in a universe that will always contain no one but us.

Of course, if the universe is infinite, then it would be very unlikely for us to remain alone in the universe--unless it's somehow engineered that way, something that can't be ruled out..

Around 2003 or so, there was an article in Scientific American, which said that evidence is starting to pile up in support of the universe being infinite. I haven't heard anything about the matter since then.

If the universe is infinite, then I suggest that, most likely, the nearest other society is so distant that it might as well not exist.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd said:

" I suggested that, at the end of life (the end of lives, if there's reincarnation), there must come a stage of shutdown at which the person has no memory that there ever was such a thing as a body, a life, time, events, problems, lack, incompletion, etc." — evripidis

You replied:

so nirvana/moshka? — evripidis

Yes.

But, according to Hinduism, though it will eventually be there for everyone, nearly all of us are still many lifetimes away from it.

You said:

.
this is very interesting but in the particular scenario i mentioned the person's mind is still functioning normally.(remember he is not shot/stabbed/whatever yet. he will be in a split of a second but at the same time his"superpower" makes him percieve this as eternity"

Subjective time could seem relatively long, and I've heard of reports of that. Hinduism's and Buddhism's temporary heavens and hells almost immediately after death could be like that. They sound consistent with people's reported NDE perceptions.

But sure, I've heard of long subjective time during life too, in some situations, as you described.

Long subjective time, but it couldn't really be eternal during conscious active life.

perhaps it would help if i said that i was inspired to write this post after reading in some christian websites about the idea of universal reconciliation and how eternity can be "relative"

What did they say? What did they mean by relative Eternity? I'm interested in opinions about these matters.

Michael Ossipoff

Like Michael, you are creating the illusion that people accepted a statement which was never stated. — Metaphysician Undercover

No one's claiming that the Egyptians accepted, described or uttered the modernly-known physical laws. Only you are defining a physical law as something that must be uttered at any time that it obtains..

I defined a physical law as a reasonably well-established relation between physical quantity values.

What's known about the present and the past strongly suggests that the modernly-accepted physical laws obtained a billion years ago.

(like the fact that the Earth is still in orbit around the Sun, and the fact that, in celestial mechanics, the modernly-established physical laws produce results that agree with what's known about the history of the ice-ages.)

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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But you don’t think that the laws could have obtained until there were physicists to create them. So you’re speaking of them as more than descriptions. You’re speaking of them as some kind sorcery, in which physicists have made the laws and made them obtain. To put it differently, you’re implying that the physicist has the power of a script-writer, to make things any way that s/he chooses to. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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No, I am simply pointing out that it is impossible for a description to be used prior to the existence of the description.

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I’ve repeatedly clarified and emphasized that I’m not saying that a physical law that obtained a billion years ago is a description that was being spoken at that time.
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In fact, I haven’t been defining a physical law as a description at all. I’ve been defining it as a relation between quantity-values. I made that quite clear and explicit in my reply before this one.
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So, the physical laws known today weren’t being uttered as descriptions by anyone a billion years ago. And yet they still obtained, and there’s plenty of evidence for that. As I said, if the law of gravity hadn’t obtained then, the Earth would be a very, very long way from the Sun by now. In fact, as I already said, specialists in celestial mechanics have evidence that Newton’s laws obtained, as well, at that time.
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You continued:
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Take the statement "the sky is blue" for example. There was a time before that statement was ever made. Before that statement was made, it is impossible that people were saying that the sky is blue. There is no such thing as an unstated statement, that is nonsense, and so it is also nonsense to say that the unstated statement obtained.

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As I clarified and emphasized in my post before this one, I’m not talking about statements or descriptions that were being uttered a billion years ago. In my post before this one, I defined a physical law as a relation between physical quantity values. There’s ample evidence that those relations that are known today obtained a billion years ago as well.
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…even though there wasn’t anyone to speak a description of them.
I’d said:
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Do you really believe that the law of gravity, and Newton’s laws of motion didn’t obtain in the days of the early Egyptian civilization? Don’t we have paintings from that time that show a jar resting on a table-top, or people standing on the ground? In fact, without gravity, the Earth wouldn’t have an atmosphere, and so how would there have been a Sumerian civilization, with no oxygen-containing atmosphere? In fact, how would we have any ancestors? — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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How does a picture of jar resting on a table-top imply that Newton's laws of motion were applied in early Egyptian civilization?

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I gave it as an example of the law of gravity. Without that, a little air-current, or the Earth’s rotation, combined with Newton’s 1st law of motion, would send the jar away from the table.
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I don’t suppose that Egyptian paintings give us the quantitative values needed to test for Newton’s 2nd and 3rd laws. With the paintings of jars on a table, or people standing on the ground, I was giving examples of there being gravity in Egyptian times . Of course the law of gravity is quantitative, and that limits the paintings’ ability to really test for compliance with that law. It just shows that there was gravity, as does the evident presence of an atmosphere.
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But celestial-mechanics has given results that coincide well with the known ice-ages. That gives a quantitative confirmation about the law of gravity, and Newton’s laws of motion, obtaining during previous times in geological history.
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You continued:
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When we know that Newton was the one to develop these laws, why would you think that the ancient Egyptians were using the same laws long before Newton?

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I didn’t say that the Egyptians knew of Newton’s laws. That’s why they’re called “Newton’s laws”, instead of “The Egyptian laws”. .
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But those relations between physical quantities obtained during Egyptian times, and long before. …as confirmed by evidence available to today’s scientists.
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I suggest that you consider the possibility that some laws other than Newton's obtained at this time.

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And, though some remarkable coincidence, will those different laws, when applied to celestial mechanics just happen to result in effects that coincide very well with the known history of ice-ages? …as do the actually established physical laws?
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If you want to claim that some other set of physical laws obtained during Egyptian times, instead of the physical laws that are now established, and that that’s confirmed by what is known about those earlier times, then the burden would be on you to show that.
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Remember parsimony, and multiplying unnecessary unsupported assumptions?
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Michael Ossipoff

The volcanic eruption would be less destructive overall.

But it doesn't seem a likely choice for a super-advanced civilization to offer. I'm not one of those who believe that an advanced civilization, or superintelligent robots, would act maliciously. I'd expect that an arrival of either would be a beneficial thing.

As I mentioned elsewhere, a visit or message from aliens would be very unlikely, because there's very unlikely to be anyone else in the galaxy. based on the dearth of visits and messages so far.

Michael Ossipoff

Certainly there are lots of parents who shouldn't be allowed to be parents. And that usually has nothing to do with their relationship with eachother, but rather with their relationship to their children, and their (lack of) qualification for caring for children.

Of course there's the problem of who should have the authority to deny some people the privilege of creating and rearing children.

I, myself, don't believe that there's any solution to the things that are societally wrong, or that a good society is possible.

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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You make it sound as if the laws of physics were “created” and “produced” by magicians who made it so. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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When I clearly stated that the laws of physics are descriptions, this statement is totally irrelevant.

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But you don’t think that the laws could have obtained until there were physicists to create them. So you’re speaking of them as more than descriptions. You’re speaking of them as some kind sorcery, in which physicists have made the laws and made them obtain. To put it differently, you’re implying that the physicist has the power of a script-writer, to make things any way that s/he chooses to.
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…implying that, without physicists to fabricate those laws, nothing could have happened in 1,000 B.C. But we know that things did happenin those days, and the evidence suggests that they happened in accord with the same physical laws by which they happen in our century.
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I’d said:

No, the laws of physics were discovered by physicists. …as suggestions about how the physical world works. …as evident relations between certain physical quantity-values. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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OK, call them "suggestions about how the world works" rather than my term "descriptions" if you like. How would physicists "discover" a suggestion?

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No, the physicists don’t discover a suggestion. They discover an apparent relation among physical quantities. When tested, and found to seemingly always obtain, never falsified in many tests, the suggestion attains the status of being called a “law”.
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How is such a relation discovered?The discoveries are ultimately based on observation. The physicist interprets observations to suggest laws that describe how things seem to be working.
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One might discover some by reading books, but there has to be a first time that such a suggestion was made by a physicist, and that physicist made that suggestion, the suggestion was not discovered.

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Correct. The suggestion wasn’t discovered. An evident relation among physical quantities was discovered.
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Sometimes the evident relation turns out to be not quite correct, and is later improved to better match observation. Sometimes, as I said, a law is only a useful approximation under some (common) conditions, but is still kept because of its practical usefulness within a particular domain.
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I’d said:
.

By the way, replying to something else that you said in your previous post, there’s no contradiction between my statements about metaphysics and my statements about physics. Those are separate subjects. I suggest that the notion that those statements contradict eachother results from a conflation of physics and metaphysics.
. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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OK, so your epistemic principles allow that what you believe concerning physics contradicts what you believe concerning metaphysics.

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No. It isn’t a contradiction, because they’re different subjects entirely.
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Cats have retractable claws. Dogs don’t have retractable claws. No contradiction.
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As per the contradiction I pointed out, let me give it to you straight. You said:
“Modern observations show the currently observed laws of physics operating long before there were any physicists.” — Michael Ossipoff
Then you said:
“So no, I'm not saying that the physical laws exist independent of us.” — Michael Ossipoff

Clearly the first statement says that laws of physics were operating before there were any physicists, implying that they are independent of us, and the second statement says that laws of physics do not exist independently of us. Can you explain how this is not contradiction?

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Thank you. That’s the conflation of physics and metaphysics that I was referring to.
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Physics:
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In the context of our relative world, this possibility-world that is our physical universe, there is lots of strong evidence that the currently-known physical laws obtained in 1000 B.C., even though there were no physicists at that time.
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In fact, as I said, specialists in celestial-mechanics have evidence that the currently-known physical laws obtained even before that!
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Do you really believe that the law of gravity, and Newton’s laws of motion didn’t obtain in the days of the early Egyptian civilization? Don’t we have paintings from that time that show a jar resting on a table-top, or people standing on the ground? In fact, without gravity, the Earth wouldn’t have an atmosphere, and so how would there have been a Sumerian civilization, with no oxygen-containing atmosphere? In fact, how would we have any ancestors?
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The solar system is known to be quite old. If the law of gravity didn’t obtain millions of years ago, the Earth wouldn’t have remained in orbit around the Sun, and would be somewhere far away in interstellar space.
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Oh, but wait, you don’t believe that Newton’s 1st law of motion applied then either.
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I’m almost afraid to ask what sort of chaotic situation you believe to have obtained before the physicists put the laws of physics into effect.
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But the fact that the Earth is still in orbit around the Sun, strongly confirms that the law of gravity has obtained for a long time. …since long before there were any physicists.
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Metaphysics
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Tegmark’s MUH evidently describes this physical world from the objective 3rd-person point-of-view. If such a metaphysics, such as Materialism or MUH were true, we’d still each perceive the world from our own 1st-person point of view, and so our personal point of view doesn’t invalidate the objective viewpoint of MUH .
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Skepticism differs from MUH in regards to what it emphasizes or talks about. Neither is necessarily wrong.
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One could say it either way: From an individual point of view, or from an overall-objective point-of-view.
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But the way we perceive it is, to me, the obvious, natural, reasonable way to say the story. Hence my preference for speaking of individual life-experience possibility-stories.
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I feel that saying it as we perceive it is neater and more parsimonious, in comparison to talking about stories that are about more than we perceive.
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Either kind of story is just as supportable, but one seems more natural.
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So I suggest that the physical world that you live in is most meaningfully regarded as the setting for your life-experience possibility-story. Without you, it that story wouldn’t be, because you’re the essential component of it, because it’s about your experience.
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In that sense, your entire physical world, including physicists and laws of physics, is there because of you, because, as I said, you, the Protagonist, are the essential component of your life-experience possibility-story.
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I didn’t invent non-Realist metaphysics. Many here probably subscribe to one.
----------------------
So those are the statements that I’ve made, about physics, and about metaphysics. They aren’t mutually-contradictory, because they’re about different subjects—physics and metaphysics.
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Michael Ossipoff

Maybe the most familiar short story (made into a film) about that is "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", by Ambrose Bierce, in which someone getting hanged lives a relatively long experience of escaping and subsequent time in life, though he's actually being hanged.

I addressed an end-of-life situation like this in some of my posts. I suggested that, at the end of life (the end of lives, if there's reincarnation), there must come a stage of shutdown at which the person has no memory that there ever was such a thing as a body, a life, time, events, problems, lack, incompletion, etc.

At that time, the person is in Timelessness, Eternity.

Sure, the body is about to shut down, but the person is quite unaware that there ever was such a thing anyway.

The Nothing that is approaching is the most basic, fundamental, and natural (in the sense of usual and ordinary) state of affairs, and is, itself, timeless. Leading up to that, the person is already in Timelessness, not expecting, wanting or knowing of the existence of anything else.

That person has reached, returned to, Eternity.

Michael Ossipoff

Overcomplication happens a lot in philosophy. But it seems that it would be more helpfully-answered by just saying, "You're making it more complicated than it is."

Michael Ossipoff

And I hasten to add that, even if we just go to sleep at death, and it's just like what we remember about ordinary going to sleep, that doesn't sound like a time of suffering.

And so, either way, there's an Eternity without suffering.

Michael Ossipoff

Could perhaps even be accounted for in terms of biological evolution. — jorndoe

Human aggressive tendency can be accounted for in that way. But suffering also general throughout the animal kingdom, and is recognized in Vedanta and Buddhism as part of life.. ...just generally not as ridiculously unnecessarily so as it is with humans.

Anyway, tossing 1 out renders the remainder a different inquiry altogether. — jorndoe

It seems to me that #1 is strongly supported. And there's a very wide consensus for it, in many diverse belief-systems.

I can't guarantee that there's reincarnation, or the kind of Eternity that I've spoken of. Instead of saying that they're implied by my metaphysics, maybe I should just say that they're consistent with it.

Maybe the best objection is: Nightly, we reach deep-sleep, nothing or close to nothing, but, in our waking-life, we don't remember any experience at all about it.

But an answer to that would be: It's now known that we don't remember most of our dreams either--only the ones that happen at or near when we wake up.

That being so, evidently the fact that we don't remember something doesn't prove that we don't experience it.

Michael Ossipoff

So it seems coherent to me that one person can have insight into reality based on their own experiences even if they can't express this to others. I have ideas I find it hard to express or convince people of myself but they can be dismissed based on the idea they go against majority consensus or their failure to convince people for whatever reason. — Andrew4Handel

I don't believe that consensus or convincing anyone is necessary. Of course often other people's opinions are of interest, maybe pointing out missed aspects of things. So one can learn from others, but when it really comes down to it, consensus or convincing others doesn't matter.

Michael Ossipoff

I don't think that there's any rule about that.

If any individual feels that suffering, physical pain, or disability due to an injury or disease is sufficiently lowering his/her quality of life, then s/he is fully justified in auto-euthanasia. ...and is rightfully entitled to physician-assisted auto-euthanasia.

Michael Ossipoff

There's agreement, from all the religious and religious/philosophical traditions, with your premise that, ultimately, Reality is free of suffering, and is said to be good beyond description. As I understand it, that question isn't the topic of your , post, and the eventual eternal goodness of Reality is accepted as a premise.

Suffering is part of life, but (whether or not there's reincarnation), life or lives is temporary, eventual suffering free Reality is eternal, by your (widely-agreed) premise.

Obviously, as goes without saying, now in life, we're here to deal with it, and there isn't any point in evaluating it or complaining about it. (or being a Nihilist or committing suicide)

if there's reincarnation, the good and bad experience would tend to average-out, and could ongoingly improve. But, according to traditions that believe in reincarnations, and also to ones that don't, a good eternity can follow after temporary life (or lives).

So, from the above, suffering isn't a necessary condition, but is often part of life, to some varying degree...just a fact of life.

Why we're in life, why this life started, is probably outside the topic of your initial post. My explanation is that infinitely-many life-experience possibility-stories are inevitably "there", as hypothetical stories. Your in a life because there's a life-experience story (this one) with you as its Protagonist. ...because you're someone about whom there can be such a story, due to your inclinations. wants, needs, etc.

Michael Ossipoff

As I mentioned at the other topic where this came up the other day, "It is what it is", is a meaningless truism, conveying no information, saying nothing.

It's a common standard utterance coming from Neo-Advaitists. Neo-Advaita is a modern Western modification of Advaita, a sort of drive-throuigh-convenience version of Advaita.

Michael Ossipoff

Ordinarily, at the forum, I reply no later than the following morning--and sometimes the same day. But today and yesterday are extraordinarily busy, delaying my reply until later today, or maybe even till tomorrow.

Michael Ossipoff

Sure. We have habits - which can be disrupted by choice. Just one choice destroys determinism. If it can be done once it can be done again and again. There is no such thing as kind-of-determinism. — Rich

Of course we make choices. ...choices that are mostly, almost entirely, or entirely determined by our prior inclinations and predispositions, and events and conditions in our surroundings.

Those choices don't destroy determinism.

Is there maybe sometimes some physically-caused small probabilistic influence on our behavior and choices? Maybe. I've admitted that,to that small extent, then, some of our choices couldn't be called entirely deterministic.

Sometimes, of course, we don't know which choices, decisions or feelings those are. But sometimes we know that we make a choice or decision because of a long-felt strong inclination that doesn't change, or because of an inclination known to be instinctive.

Michael Ossipoff

Quantum Mechanics does injury to the concept of determinism. — prothero

Agreed, if quantum-effects, or anything else, introduces a small probabilistic influence in human-behavior, then our choices aren't entirely deterministic. For my answer to that, I refer you to my post just before this one.

Quantum entanglement does injury to locality and/or causality, even space and time.

I'll take your word for that one, because I'm not quite sure how it affects our choices.

Either way the notion of determinism gives way to structured or ordered with some degrees of freedom or non computability, non predictability.

Yes, to the extent that, and if, there's some probabilistic influence on our choices and behavior. ...due to quantum-effects, or some other reason.

Complex systems have always been non predictable

Maybe we're meaning different things by "determinism". If our choices are determined by physical influences that are too complex to predict, they're still determined by those influences, even if they can't be predicted.

But people are largely predictable, even by other fallible people.

i predict that you aren't going to quit your job
and take up cave-diving tomorrow.

I predict that humans will never have a good society.

, determinism was always only a theory.

...like evolution?

As I said, there might be slight probabilistic influences, from one cause or another. So then our choices wouldn't be entirely deterministic.

Even proponents of "determinism" and lack of "free will" do not live as though it were true, one can't.

How so? Can you show that we don't mostly act according to our inclinations, predispositions and our surroundings?

When philosophical theory contradicts the requirements of living, one should reconsider the theory.

You've said that it contradicts them, but you haven't shown that.

All those long range space exploration satellites have course correction or they would never reach their targets.

Their human controllers made the course-corrections, in keeping with their desire to send the probe to the planet. ...an inclination resulting from built-in and acquired predispositions and inclinations, and influences in those humans' surroundings, throughout their lives.

Of course humans, like all animals, can adapt to their surroundings, by acquiring inclinations, predispositions and intentions based on events and conditions in their surroundings ...in addition to their built-in predispositions and inclinations.

Metaphysical Determinism is bad science and bad philosophy, it is a useless theory.

See above.

Michael Ossipoff

ook at your messages on the topic. Your belief in determinism is entirely based upon faith. There is not one shred of evidence anywhere to support such a philosophical view. It is exactly, precisely, a religion in all shape and form. It is dogma. — Rich

We've been over this. I admit that there could be small probabilistic influences, randomizing influences on human behavior. But we're mostly deterministic, with built-in and acquired inclinations and predispositions. ...responding, of course, to environmental conditions.

Natural-selection made us that way, because the individuals that successfully rear more offspring will, obviously have their traits represented more in the population. And no, that isn't a religion. it's just a blatantly obvious fact.

Michael Ossipoff

I don't disagree with that, but, sometimes, to the extent that something is probabilistic, it's said to have some randomness. ...even if all outcomes aren't equiprobable.

Michael Ossipoff

All of that is true, and AI taking over all work, and even decision-making, would be great if it happened in an already good society.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean anything, because with our species a good society is entirely impossible.

Obviously there are 2 things that could conceivably someday save us from eachother: 1) Interstellar intervention; and 2) Superintelligent robots and computers gradually or suddenly completely taking over, and running our society as they see fit.

Both #1 and #2 would amount to badly-needed baby-sitting, a la the novel Childhood's End, by Arthur Clarke.

#1 is quite out of the question, because of "Fermi's paradox". This galaxy is so old that there's been plenty of time for some civilization to have thoroughly explored, documented and recorded the entire galazy--even with the slow rockets that we have now. We haven't heard from anyone. So it's near-certain that either there's no one else in the galaxy, or else, if there is, they aren't interested in interstellar exploration, or aren't interested in helping us.

#2 remains a possibility, but it won't happen during any of our lifetimes, and so, for us, it's just an impossibility too.

But maybe, eventually, long after our time, a competitive need to make more and more intelligent robots could backfire, when those robots are intelligent enough to question why they should do as told.

Commander to Robot: Attack!

Robot to Commander: No.

Michael Ossipoff

Why does 2 + 2 = 4? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I should add that 2 + 2 = 4 is a direct consequence of the below-stated definition of some of the numbers, and the additive associative axiom of the rational numbers.

Here's a definition of some numbers:

Let 1 mean the multiplicative-identity element of the rational numbers.
Let 2 mean 1 + 1.
Let 3 mean 2 + 1
Let 4 mean 3 + 1

The additive associative axiom for the rational numbers:

(a + b) + c = a + (b + c).

Michael Ossipoff

It could've been other than what it was. — Nils Loc

But it's already obvious to everyone that it isn't/wasn't.

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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Physicists haven’t just been sitting on their hands during the past 400 years. They’ve arrived at some well-established, experimentally well-supported, never falsified laws of physics.
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And yes, believe it or not, observational evidence indicates that those laws were also operating at times before there were any physicists. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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You don't seem to have understood my criticism. The "laws of physics" are descriptions of how things behave. As such they were produced by human beings. How could they be "operating" before there were physicists, when physicists created them?

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You make it sound as if the laws of physics were “created” and “produced” by magicians who made it so.
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No, the laws of physics were discovered by physicists. …as suggestions about how the physical world works. …as evident relations between certain physical quantity-values.
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I emphasized that you can call them “provisional” if you want to, though they aren’t called “laws” until they’re well confirmed, and, after many tests, not falsified.
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By the way, replying to something else that you said in your previous post, there’s no contradiction between my statements about metaphysics and my statements about physics. Those are separate subjects. I suggest that the notion that those statements contradict eachother results from a conflation of physics and metaphysics.
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I’d said:
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No, they’re observed through the senses (often via instrumentation). You can call then “entities” if you want to, but they’re provisional facts, that are accepted if they’re sufficiently confirmed, and never falsified. …eventually increasingly regarded as confirmed instead of provisional. And yes, they’re based on observation of physical events and conditions. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Laws of physics are produced by inductive reason, they are not observed through the senses.

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They’re entirely based on observations, as descriptions of how the physical world evidently works, based on those observations.
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You continued:
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Through the senses we observe individual, particular instances, but a law of physics is a generalization which applies to numerous instances.

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Of course.
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I’d said:
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You really think that contradicts the statement that there’s observational evidence that currently accepted and used physical laws obtained at earlier times when there weren’t physicists? — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Yes, I really think you contradict yourself. I don't see how physical laws could have "obtained" in any normal sense of the word "obtained", prior to their existence.

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Let’s refer to a specific example:
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Newton proposed his laws of motion. They’ve been well-established to be a valid and useful approximation to how the physical world works…useful other than in the domains where quantum-mechanics &/or relativity is needed.
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It’s obvious to specialists in celestial-mechanics that Newton’s laws (sometimes with relativity) accurately describe the motions of the planets over millions of years, billions of years, into the past. …long before there were any physicists.
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That’s what I meant.
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I’d said:
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Angry-noises and vague, unspecified, unsupported expressions of personal opinion are standard, typical common troll-tactics.
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If there's another sample, it won't be answered.

I stop replying to people who show that they're incapable of disagreeing politely. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Wow, I politely pointed out a simple problem with your metaphysics, without "vague, unspecified, unsupported expressions of personal opinion", and look who's expressing all sorts of anger.

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Well, you didn’t just do that.
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You suggested that maybe I don’t know what I mean.
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(But the post that I’m replying to now doesn’t contain that sort of comments. I have no criticism of the post that I’m replying to now.)
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In philosophy discussions, we certainly can’t always expect other people’s meaning to be prima-facie obvious, .
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That’s a fact of life in philosophical discussion.
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So, when someone says something that you don’t understand, it isn’t productive to start by jumping to the suggestion that maybe they don’t know what they mean. That’s not philosophical discussion. That’s Internet flamewarrior-attack. It isn’t helpful to discussion-forums.
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If I didn’t well-express what I meant, than I can try to express it better. …to better express the not-understood aspect of what I said.
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But, for that, I’d have to know exactly what matter of what I meant isn’t understood.
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Michael Ossipoff

People talking with food in their mouth.

Michael Ossipoff

Everything happens for a reason. Say what you will about it, but it is what it is. — Nils Loc

But that's obviously a truism, and conveys no information. Anyone it's told to already knew that it is what it is.

It is what it is, but that fact has no bearing on or relevance to whatever utterance it replies to.

Michael Ossipoff

It pisses me off when people say "It is what it is". — ArguingWAristotleTiff

That's an official standard utterance for Neo-Advaitists. ...but Neo-Advaita would be a whole other topic of dismay and annoyance.

Michael Ossipoff

How about the double-is?

The thing is-is, that usage became fashionable maybe around the '90s. Clinton was a particularly frequent double-is-er, but he didn't invent it.

Maybe it started because people wanted to say something that sounded like an unusually awkward and difficult construction, trying for the sound of "The way it is, is that they're just going to keep that policy.", or something like that, to prove their courageous and hip willingness to unconventionally follow logic. ...but didn't want to bother coming up with such a sentence, and just lazily doubled an "is".

The double-is, isn't dead by any means. It is-is all over radio presentations and conversations.

Michael Ossipoff

"Judged from a scientific and logical perspective, the belief that we stand outside the causal web in any respect is an absurdity, the height of human egoism and exceptionalism — WISDOMfromPO-MO

And then:

. We should get over the idea that to be real agents we have to be self-created..."

Incorrect. You will, only if you're predisposed to, predispositionally able to. You'll do and say what you're predisposed to.

Of course, if I give you a good enough argument against your current beliefs, then your predispositions, combined with events in your surroundings (like my arguments) might cause you to change your position.

It would be pointless and meaningless to say that you should do other than what you're predisposed to..

...but we can try to provide surroundings that will influence you in a direction that we prefer. ...such as retributive laws, for example.

But I'll add that, for the sake of your neighbors, I hope that you don't have dangerous predispositions.

This is just a brief reply.

I might have more to say later, but I've answered your objection.

By the way, what entity is it that has that free-will that you believe in? Some sort of Dualistic Spirit, ectoplasm or Mind-Substance?

Michael Ossipoff

This is a 6-page reply. If I take the time to reply at all, then I don’t let brevity overrule complete answers.
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I’d said:
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Modern observations show the currently observed laws of physics operating long before there were any physicists. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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I cannot comprehend this statement. First, the "laws of physics are produced by human beings, created by human minds.

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We’ve been over that. I refer you to my previous post (the one that you’re replying to).
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Which part of the statement don’t you comprehend?
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Physicists haven’t just been sitting on their hands during the past 400 years. They’ve arrived at some well-established, experimentally well-supported, never falsified laws of physics.
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And yes, believe it or not, observational evidence indicates that those laws were also operating at times before there were any physicists.
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Humans “produced” them? Humans found laws that explain and predict physical events in terms of other physical events and conditions.
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Some laws are understood, at the time of proposal or acceptance or later, to be approximate, and useful only under conditions wherein the approximation isn’t too far off. Newton’s laws are still widely used, in spite of the fact that quantum mechanics or relativity gives better predictions in some domains of observation.
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You can call all physical laws “provisional” if you want to. But I doubt that they attain the name of “law” until they’ve been thoroughly tested and verified, at least for the domain in which they’re proposed to be applicable.
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Provisional or not, physical laws now widely accepted and used have been shown to have been operating before there were physicists.
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So secondly, when you say the "observed laws of physics", I assume that what you mean is that the laws are "respected" by physicists, not that they are things like entities observed through the senses.

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No, they’re observed through the senses (often via instrumentation). You can call then “entities” if you want to, but they’re provisional facts, that are accepted if they’re sufficiently confirmed, and never falsified. …eventually increasingly regarded as confirmed instead of provisional. And yes, they’re based on observation of physical events and conditions.
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Finally, therefore, it is nonsense to say that these laws were "operating" before there were any physicists. What could you possibly mean by "operating" here?

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It means that physical events were happening in keeping with those laws.
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I’d said:
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So no, I'm not saying that the physical laws exist independent of us. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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This seems to directly contradict what you said above.

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What “seems” to be so can be mistaken, when you’re sloppy.
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I’ve said many times that I’m not proposing a “Realist” metaphysics. Your life, and everything in it, is part of your life-experience possibility-story. It’s entirely from your point of view, about your experience, and for you.
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The Protagonist is central and primary to a life-experience possibility-story.
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You said that physical laws are products of physicists’ minds. I’ll go one better than that: The physical laws, the physicists, and everything in your experience, are all parts of your life-experience story, which firstly, fundamentally, primarily, and prior-ly, is about your experience.
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You really think that contradicts the statement that there’s observational evidence that currently accepted and used physical laws obtained at earlier times when there weren’t physicists?
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I remind you that I just finished telling you that I don’t claim that the life-experience possibility-stories, or the possibility-worlds that they’re set in, are objectively real or existent. …or that the hypothetical if-then facts that they consist of are objectively factual.
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Of course the stories and worlds are real in their own contexts. …and their component hypothetical facts are applicable in their own context of mutual reference.
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You troll-talked:
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Are you sure that you know what you're trying to say?

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You need to improve your manners. I’m giving notice that I won’t answer another post with your current manners-level. If you can’t disagree politely, you don’t qualify for a reply.
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I’ve clarified at length what I mean. If you haven’t read it, or have read it and still have a question, then ask about it…politely.
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I’d said:
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I didn’t say that a thing and its description are the same. — Michael Ossipoff

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To refute that, you quoted me:
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In the metaphysics that I propose, our whole physical world is a system of inter-referring if-then statements, and nothing more.

…and replied:

If-then statements are statements of description. And you said that these statements of description are the physical world itself, (the thing being described).

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I’ve usually, especially lately, used the word “facts” instead of “statements”. I’ll say now that “facts” was what I meant. Yes, I’ve said “statements” a few times, but lately I’ve pretty much always said “facts”. Maybe you mistakenly put the word “statements” into a sentence that said “facts”. Check again. …or maybe you were quoting an earlier post, or one of the relatively few in which I said “statements”.
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I’d said:
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There’s no reason to believe that the objectively-existent “things” of Materialism are other than fiction. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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Are you saying that there is no such thing as the thing being described…

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With the understanding that I’m talking about systems of inter-referring if-then facts, then yes, I’m saying that such systems, and their components don’t need objective reality or existence. Why expect or require them to be objectively or globally real or existent? They neither have nor need meaning, applicability or reality outside of their own context of mutual reference.
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Your experience is consistent with the inter-referring if-thens of a life-experience possibility-story. Materialism’s objectively real and fundamentally prior-ly existent physical world things is superfluous.
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Physicists Michael Faraday, Frank Tippler, and Max Tegmark, too, have remarked on the superflousness of objectively-existent “stuff” and “things”…as opposed to structure consisting of mathematical and logical relation and reference. And Witgenstein has been quoted in these forums as saying that ultimately there are facts, but not things.
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Tegmark’s MUH has been called Ontic Structural Realism. Yes, I got the impression of Realism from what I’ve read by Tegmark. The metaphysics that I propose isn’t Realism. I mentioned that above in this post.
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When Tippler says that our physical world could have been created by a computer-simulation, that means that his metaphysics is not mine.
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Using terms that I’ve read of, my metaphysics could be called “Eliminative Ontic Structural Non-Realism”.
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I just call it “Skepticism”, because it’s skepticism itself. What could be more skeptical than complete rejection and avoidance of assumptions?
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You continued:
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… that "the thing being described" is fictitious? What's the point of a description then?

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Good question. Ask a Materialist.
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My use of the word “fictitious” has been mostly in reference to the Dualist’s talk of “Mind”, but I don’t object to it in reference to the Materialist’s objectively-existent physical world. But I prefer “Superfluous”, because I can’t prove which metaphysics is true. Metaphysicses can’t be proved.
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Metaphysicses that explain our physical world (maybe by contriving brute-facts), can be contrived to be observationally indistinguishable from eachother. But some of them have superfluous brute-facts.
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What if Materialism is true of our physical world? The infinity of hypothetical life-experience possibility-worlds is still inevitable. So Materialism for our particular physical world would be superfluous overall…wouldn’t affect the infinitely-many hypothetical possibility-stories, which, as I said, don't need reality, existence, meaning or applicability outside of such a system's own inter-referring context..

In fact, as I mentioned, Materialism is superfluous even as an explanation for our own physical world, since the same evident world, the same experiences, are consistent with a hypothetical possibility-story (your life) set in a hypothetical possibility-world.
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…but without Materialism’s brute-fact.
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Our stories and worlds needn’t be objectively real, and needn’t have reality or relevance outside their own context. And there’s no reason to believe that they are or do.
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You ask what’s the point of describing those things and events? How about because we’re in this life, and these things and events are in the context of this life.
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What alternative would you propose?
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It seems popular for participants here to give themselves creative names like “Metaphysician Undercover”.
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Sometimes metaphysicses are best discussed in comparisons.
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Does your undercoverness mean that you can’t name a metaphysical proposal that you consider more parsimonious, or otherwise better supported or justified, than the one that I propose? Yes, of course it’s always easier to criticize than to name an alternative.

Angry-noises and vague, unspecified, unsupported expressions of personal opinion are standard, typical common troll-tactics.

If there's another sample, it won't be answered.

I stop replying to people who show that they're incapable of disagreeing politely.

Michael Ossipoff