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Is Star Trek teleportation OK?
As I see it, teleporting works by creating an entity ('B') with the memories of entity A at some other point in space. From the POV of B, it appears as if he or she has simply and conveniently changed location, but what about A? A is completrly destroyed. I suppose that if you are teleported 'You' are 'A'... so is B also you, or a stranger with your memories?
If A has any awareness during the process and the teleport distance was just across the room say, then A could even be aware of B taking shape - would they think B was them as they felt themselves fading away?
It's a given that teleporting is not technologically feasible, but even if it was, would consideration of "identity" mean it could/should not be used?
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@EtrnlVw
Whenever you take the position that others are deluded you have barred yourself from access to something that could be true. You have predetermined that we are all deluded and as a result no matter what we share you will believe it's a delusion even if it is true. In this sense you have severely limited yourself.
That doesn't follow at all.
Currently, I believe god does not exist - ergo i believe theists believe something false, i.e. I believe theists are deluded.
but if i change my stance to believe that god does exist then automatically I will not consider belief in god to be a delusion nor theists to be deluded.
I suppose you don't wish to answer either of
Are you prepared to say that you could discover something tomorrow that will end your faith in god?
If not, who is it whose mind is closed?
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@Castin
You probably right that I am not very good at making psychological analyses and diagnoses of people I have never met based on internet posts.
I should take a leaf from our theist friends who have uncovered that I am hate filled, ignorant and superstitious - all things I never knew about myself.
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In this thread I - as an atheist - have been insulted thus;
a sinner deserve death.
uneducated or superstitious.
douche bag.
Know it all dipshit.
I don't mind, but don't also claim any moral upper ground on the insult/'ad hominem' front!
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@janesix
Unfortunately we can't ask the 9-11 lot whether they thought they were doing good or bad.
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@janesix
Exactly so. We won't get any where if both sides think the other lot are just deluded idiots. As I have said,i think theists are wrong, but I don't thnk they are idiotic and I certainly don't hate them. I do think that theism does lead to very some peculiar ideas, such as blood transfusions are bad and flying planes into skyscrapers is good (errors an atheist would not make!) and religion seems to divide people rather than unite them. IMO. on balance we'd all be better off without theism.
We are making great strdes in understanding the origins of world and of life. It still 'work-in-progress' but we will see artifical cells in outlife time.
If there is a theist who thinks that only uneducated superstitious peons can be atheists, think again.
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@Mopac
I can barely believe what I am seeing in this thread. That is exactly what atheists say about theists!I think the more likely explanation is that most [atheists] are simply uneducated or superstitious.
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"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
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@Polytheist-Witch
The only sentence so far that has any sense at all.Atheist definitely don't think gods exist.
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@EtrnlVw
Now I know what your problem is.
It's not a 'problem'!
Why would you ever close yourself off to such an important factor? do you leave any room at all for something that could be true that you may have not known or considered?
That I my mind is closed in only in your imagination because in the real world my mind is open. I am an atheist because of what i have learned upto today. Hypothetically, i could discover something that changes my mind tomorrow, but that doesn't alter the fact that everything I currently know/believe points to atheism being correct.
Are you prepared to say that you could discover something tomorrow that will end your faith in god? If not, who is it whose mind is closed?
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@EtrnlVw
Lol, if Keith thinks Disgusted is motivated by love I'd hate to see his hate in action.
keith hates too, don't kid yourself.
You mean it pains him we exist.
So that is what theists really think of atheists...
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@ethang5
Ask him if he believes that theists live their lives governed by delusion and superstition,...
Of course I believe that. I fail to see how an atheist can see theism as anything other than a delusion and superstition. However that doesn't mean I consider individual theists to be deluded or superstitious because those terms are loaded with perorative overtones that are not always appropriate and are frequently less than helpful. i think theists are mistaken - I don't think they are idiots.
I don't believe in god, theists do. I also think that makes less differnce than either side cares to admit. Atheists are not amoral monsters and theists are not credulous fools. Most vitriol is spilt against sterotypes that don't exist.
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@EtrnlVw
I'd say Disgused has a huge heart for theists which is his 'motivation for sharing in these forums'. It pains him that theists live their lives governed by delusion and superstition, so perhaps you and he aren't so different; you're just recruiting for opposite sides. What Gus gets wrong is thinking theists can be brought to their senses by insulting them!Well as you might know, I have a huge heart for atheists and that has always been my motivation for sharing in these forums.
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@BrutalTruth
Do I take it you consider killing an enemy in war as not justified? What about executing a convicted killer? Would you say that people's moral judgement of such things is 'universal'?
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@BrutalTruth
Universal: "Affecting all things".... except falling rocks!
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@ethang5
Chamberlain... himself admitted he had been wrong in all that he believed.
What he said was:
"So far as my personal reputation is concerned, I am not in the least disturbed about it. The letters which I am still receiving in such vast quantities so unanimously dwell on the same point, namely without Munich the war would have been lost and the Empire destroyed in 1938 ... I do not feel the opposite view ... has a chance of survival. Even if nothing further were to be published giving the true inside story of the past two years I should not fear the historian's verdict."
He was wrong about the the historians verdict, but given the unprecedented destruction wrought by ww2, perhaps he was not wrong to risk anything to avoid it. But we aren't supposed to be discussing the munich agreement in this thread so I'll say no more about it.
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@BrutalTruth
Does 'true morality' (as, one supposes, opposed to 'false morality'!)need conscious entities to be so?The answer is: True morality is absolutely universal. It just doesn't need an eternal god to be so.
The universe knows nothing of morality. Imagine a rock falling from a cliff onto the sandy beach below. It accelerates at 32ft/s/s/. If there happens to be baby in a pram at the point of impact it falls at..... 32ft/s/s.
If there is a universal morality the universe doesn't seem to bother much with it.
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@PGA2.0
The 500 is the number of forum posts; its 1 formal debate to 500 forum posts.
Oh - best of luck in the debate, but I'm rootin' for skeps.
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@ethang5
Poor Nev gets a bad rap. It can be argued that the alternative to appeasement was for Britain to go to war with a small, under-equipped peacetime military with no guarantee of support from any allies. The British would have lost a war that began in 1937 or 1938. But that is a digression!Or Neville Chamberlain.
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Something either is or it is not. Truth is certain. If you have no absolute reference point for truth then how do you know you have arrived at it? Some other factor could arise that changes the paradigm of what was thought of as true.
Well yes - that is the point. i have a firm opinion on many things based on the information received so far - but I have no idea what I will find out tomorrow. Hypothetically something could come to my attention tomorrow that convinces me that god exists. But I choose to live my life assuming thatwon't happen because I estimate the probability of such a revelation to be negligible. It is more probable will be struck by a meterorite than by a deivine revelation and i make no privision for the former, so I certainly don't plan for the latter!
Could you be wrong? Do you ever consider the possibilty you could be wrong? Do you have a plan B? Are we different or merely on opposite sides?
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@ethang5
The real reason legal abortion exists is that otherwise a) illegal abortion will flourish b) many vulnerable women will have to bear the cost of bearing and rearing child with little assistance.
A woman can give birth to a baby - but obviously she has the right to choose whether to do so or not and does not lose that right to choose by being raped - IMO.
Also IMO is that there is nothing good about abortions - if abortions were good then all pregnancies should be aborted which is clearly absurd. it is not a matter of one side being good and the other bad - it is a matter of choosing the lesser of evils.
I don't think there is a better option than allowing early abortions but not very late ones. I think the proper criterion is the benthamite one:
The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?
We aren't clever enough to know when a foetus can suffer, so we have to make educated guesses and in practice chose a compromise cut-off point that will leave some people unhappy. But the decision should be based on actual suffering and social consequences, not religious or political dogma. IMO, of course.
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@disgusted
I'd hope Cas was using 'religion' in a very broad sense. i don't think religions have to involve gods, but i am not sure what makes something a religion! In one way a religion is no more than a set of principles one lives by, often without a strictly logical basis.There's a reason humanity has been reaching for religion since the dawn of higher consciousness.
Sometimes i call myself a 'humanist' because my personal values are a close match to those of otherpeople who call themselves humanists.
I wish they hadn't called it a 'manifesto' - it makes it sound like they want to take over the world! It's more a like a 'creed', but not binding. The point of linking to it is 'is humanism a religion?'. my view isthat humanism is what it is - whether you call it a religion or not is immaterial unless you are writing a dictionary!
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@Castin
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@Castin
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@Castin
I think the forums are for finding out who has the most 'staying-power'! The tactics are simple - stick to your guns at all costs until the other guy quits.
Unless everyone on DA is a world-class expert on everything from middle-eastern ancient history to relativistic qunatum physics we must get some things wrong...but no-one ever admits being wrong. Not many threads contain 'Good point, I hadn't thought of things that way.Now I see my mistake'.
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@Castin
A typical PC story is that a school doesn't do a nativity play at Christmas because of 'PC'. A great many people then get so say how 'PC has gone top far' but there is rarely a report of anyone who actually objects to the play; it was cancelled because of imaginary complaints from the imaginary 'PC brigade'.
OK - that may not be the whole story in every case, but I am damn sure most 'PC' stuff is way, way overblown; its essentially a form of self-censorship.
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@PGA2.0
I believe certainty is impossible (other than in trivial cases such as tautologes and definitions),but I don't "bounce around on any wind of doctrine"!Are you certain of that belief? What you did was create a self-refuting or self-contradictory statement.
Are the only options faux-certainty or 'bouncing around'? is it as black and white as that?
As a card carrying sceptic I do not claim certain knowlegde of any fact, but there is a spectrum of shades of certainty and uncertainty.
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@PGA2.0
My mistake - the leader board shows you with 0 debates; I guess it doesn't include ongoing debates.
So I expect you will go from 0:500 to 1:500 when you lose!
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@Outplayz
I note that PGA has not yet had a single formal debate on DA. He has, however, made over 500 forum posts.
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@PGA2.0
If you can't put a label on the truth you are a skeptic, bouncing around on the waves of disbelief and uncertainty and any wind of doctrine, never able to believe because of your ignorance and unbelief.
You suggest a false dichotomy of inflexible certainty and rootless disbelief. i am a skeptic; I believe certainty is impossible (other than in trivial cases such as tautologes and definitions),but I don't "bounce around on any wind of doctrine"!
If I am an exception to what you asserted then perhaps its not a very good assertion about anybody - so why make it?
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@BrutalTruth
A good advocate on a false premise will win a formal debate over a bad advocate on a true premise because the way one votes in a formal debate is supposed to be indepedent of the truth of the premise.
Formal debates are for wannabe lawyers and politicos to practice the dark arts... I am not a fan of formal debating!
The ideal of forums is similar to the notion of 'brainstorming' which is based on co-operation rather than competition.
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@Outplayz
This is a debate site.... the forums included. Some people would rather debate on forums and some would rather formally debate. I would say the formal debaters are doing it so other give them brownie points and they could feel good about themselves. The forum debaters have free rain and aren't trying to impress anyone other than get their points across. I would say debating on the forums is much better and will actually finish an issue. Only people that can't handle actually debating their idea will stay away from the forums... or, just a narcissistic itch that they want to win something. The forums are far superior to the formal debate function in getting your topic to its conclusion.
Formal debates are about who is the best advocate - the forums are about who is right.
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@Grugore
How do people choose what to test and what experiments to do?The scientific method involves testing and observation by experiments that produce repeatable results.
Here's a clue:
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@ethang5
I think the 'gods' in ps82 are kings and rulers of the ancient world who claimed divinity. The psalm presents YHWH as instructing earthly rulers how they should rule and judge.
The psalmist seems to accept that at least some such rulers are indeed 'gods', but very much lesser ones;
6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
7 But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
In essence, the psalmist has YHWH telling earthly rulers who is boss.
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@Castin
Is 'PC' a media invention? I've never met anyone who is in favour of PC; the 'PC brigade' are like ghosts - something people worry abut but don't actually exist.
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@Grugore
It would be interesting to know what you think 'science' and 'scientific method' refers to.
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@ethang5
You are right that is what I believe - however, I didn't intend anyone should think I believed anything else.You also believe this is the reason they did not make that claim. That, my anti-christian friend, is dishonest.
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@ethang5
So you believe if Jesus had cured everyone with leprosy in 33 bc, we would not have leprosy today?
I believe if the gospellers had claimed jesus cured all the lepers people of the time would know it wasn't true.
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@janesix
It is widely accepted that originally the hebrew believed in a pantheon of gods, one of which (YHWH) thyhad a special relationship with.
Over time yhwh went from' patron god' to 'best god' to 'only god'.
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@PGA2.0
You have experience of NK?
Let's be clear what we agree and disagree. We agree most normal people consider the NK regime to be odious. My position is that is because most people's brains are wired-up to dislike totalitarian regimes. you think it's because totalitarianism is mixed up with abstract etherial stuff called evil.
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@Mopac
I don't 'know' anything, mo, but I estimate somethings to be overwhelmingly likely.
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@Stephen
No.. the gospels were written for their own times.
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@Stephen
Recent and potential converts to Cristianity.
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@Stephen
If you have a point, make it.
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@Stephen
It's intended audience. But any story about eradicating leprosy won't be credble if there is still leprosy around.
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