Rational_One

Since this forum is almost dead and most of the others aren't ran and/or populated by true Objectivists who would like to create a new forum with me? I hope Betsy doesn't take this thread as being disrespectful because that is not my intent and I don't wish it to appear that way. I'll check in regularly and we can discuss the details here or elsewhere. Best, Eric

Hi Sophia, the influence of religion here isn't as bad as it may seem to an outside observer. Most people might consider themselves Christians here but few go to church or take it very seriously. It's mostly just the politicians blabbing on about it. By the way, I'm EC over at OO.net.

I haven't been to this Forum in quite a while for various reasons, and have just learned of this horrible news. My deepest condolences go to Betsy for her loss even though I'm a year late. I greatly admired Stephen's knowledge of physics.

Thank you Stephen!

Late.... because I haven't been here in a few months. Happy Belated to the guy who made my favorite CD-ROM.

About a year or two ago, I was thinking to myself not that everything that could be invented was, but that we could at least predict what will be invented. For instance, artificial intelligence or a holographic television, etc. That night as if to refute my own foolish thought I had a dream where I walked in to a kitchen and grabbed a special metal bowl and what looked like pourable pancake mix in an oversized plastic container with a large top from a nearby cupboard. I then proceeded to a tiny bit of the container's contents into the bowl. The second it touched it underwent a lightning quick chemical reaction that turned it into a freshly "baked" loaf of homemade bread. Trust me "pourable" bread is not something I had considered within the realm of possibility till I had that dream to correct my mistaken premise.

Thank you. I noticed on my first "birthday" of the month that something wasn't right. So I went and corrected my birthdate in my profile. Today's the real deal. I had a pretty decent day to.

Yeah, and I'm sure Kant would be "comfortable" calling himself an Objectivist too.

In the recent Wendy's case involving the finger in the chili, the women who made the claim lied. This defamation clearly cost Wendy's a lot of money and even still does since some people (like my Grandpa) still won't eat there. I think it is totally proper for Wendy's to sue this lady for defamation, and that it is also totally proper for the government to prosecute her for filing a false police report. Even in a rational society not everyone is always rational and people will be emotionally swayed in a negative direction at times that can unfairly effect a person or company. The people who purposely lied, especially when their purpose was to loot the company, should be fully prosecuted and held responcible for the unfair negative effects their lies caused.

Typically when I see these, and I've been using them since about 2000 when they first started putting them in at various stores, the machines will be placed in groups of four, two to a side. There will still be a single cashier with a register at the front center to both "supervise" and help the customers if they have problems with their self-service machines. Being that I first started noticing these things around the turn of the century, I thought they were more or less a novelty to say, "Hey, welcome to the 21st century!", but they are actually pretty usefull, quicker, and have the all important coolness factor.

When forming the concept "godless" as in "Objectivists are godless capitalists," what is the omitted measurement? Is it not simply the acceptence of the existence of an arbitrary god? With the definition being something along the lines of godless is an adjective describing a person or group who does not accept the existence of an arbitrary god? If not can someone point out my error and help me form a correct definition?

Let's make it explicit up front: NO WELLFARE CLAUSE! Alright, just had to get that out of my system.

I had totally forgotten about this movie until just now. But as a kid it was also one of my favorites. I had a very active imagination and used to pretend that I was somehow in the movie's world after I would watch it. I can't believe I forgot about I can say this now though, thinking about it now brings a big smile to my face. I guess there was a time when I believed in "magic" to a certain extent. Weird.

Thank you for your reply Mr. Speicher. I think I am going to read through Dr. Little's paper again soon so that I can "chew" some of these finer points of his theory that I may have missed on my first go through.

(Bold mine.) It was my understanding that a particle becomes coherent with just a single elementary wave not a "full complex of polarized waves". Was my understanding wrong? And if so why and how?

I also agree with Sarah, and personally think this is one of the best movie's that I have ever seen. There are many levels a person could watch this movie on I suppose, but if you look at it as the ultimate self-made man story it is actually quite moving, and you (from personal experience) might just tear up at the ending.

I've always loved the Fourth of July, Independence Day. It's always been my favorite day of the year, and what a holiday should be about.

A place where everyone knows your name. You make it sound like the Cheers of Objectivism.

I just watched the second season on DVD and it is highly, highly recommended. I have a new favorite show. There are some things they say that aren't "pure" from an Objectivist standard, but a show that is probably 90% in tune with your values is way better than about anything else offered. Besides the general no-nonsense rationality of the show, there's also a LOT of funny stuff mixed in. I still can't get out of my head how funny it was when Penn was yelling at a Chiwuwua (or however you spell it) in one of the episodes. It was the funniest thing I've ever saw. I had to play it back a few times

Why would the subconcious, a thing you're explicitly not conscious of, be important for creative thinking? To think creatively is still to think and this requires concious thought, does it not? I don't solve problems in my sleep that I know of.

What is "the simplest notion" though, maybe you explained it earlier? I know consciousness is consciousness, the faculty that is aware, and it is not the brain, but it does require the brain to exist. In that way is what I mean it is "emergent" from the brain. Kind of like the brain is the hardware and consciousness is the software (and processor?), even though that is inexact because a computer program is deterministic while a consciousness is not. Maybe I will just leave this conversation before I get the thread too confused with my wondering.

So do you mean that consiousness is an emergent property of the brain, but not the brain, like you can have a forest, but a forest is not the individual trees? Or a computer or t.v. screen is made of pixels that contain information, but to correctly interpret the content of that information one must "step back" to really see the conveyed picture?

Like myself at times.

I would like to submit Ray (2004) and The Aviator (2004) for review.

Yes, I see I'm describing commentary and not specifically reporting as such. So it seems it could be proper, though, for a reporter to flip back and forth between reporting and commentary as long as he makes it explicit that he is providing commentary and not just reporting on an incident. Assuming of course that the guy who pays his check doesn't mind.