GBH was a masterpiece.

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 15, 2015, 03:35:44 PM

Though to me, free will is a misnomer; call it sapient uncertainty.

You've essentially reduced a fundamental, metaphysical concept to "we don't know". I don't see how the existence of 'free will', so-called, is dependent upon our ignorance.

If you were to flip it round, you could say water wasn't H2O until we determined that it was.

I'm definitely not saying we don't know whether reality is determinant. I'm saying that, just like the apparent randomness of a gambling event, we can't know the causes of our decisions, and when we are able to know or control the conditions that go into that decision process, it loses its "freedom". The world, at least the macroscopic world, is determined and bound by causality. Everything I'm typing right now is the direct result of some inexplicable combination of neurons firing, whose creation was formed through various experiences in some other inexplicable way. How we weigh decisions, how that physically works, is simply unknown. We're not even close to understanding how that sort of behavior came to be or how it functions. I really don't see any value in the discussion of free will vs determinism; we know everything is causal. We are not free from the initial conditions of our existence, and when I say I want a piece of cake, it's because of some chain of events that happened in the past, not because my consciousness is removed from reality to the point that I can freely decide what I want. And even if it were, how could that be? I would still admit my choices are based on conditions; am I hungry? Do I want something sweet? Can I afford the calories? Etc.

There's really interesting avenues to discuss, far beyond some untenable notion of freedom of will. Consciousness is where the discussion should be. Consciousness is physical metaphysics. It's real, but ethereal. Even ideas are causal; the firing of a group of neurons affects the surrounding ones and influence how we think. Even more substantial, the physical expression of our ideas into actions has measurable impact on the world.

Please go read I Am a Strange Loop. Then we can have even more absurd conversations.

I don't think they're mutually exclusive. When I make a decision, I subconsciously use my experiences to determine what I want. At the end of the day, everything I do is causally linked. The ability to recognize the impossibility of prediction is what I consider free will. Until the human mind can be accurately modeled to predict our actions, and can include the feedback loop of bias caused by knowing those things, free will is a reality. Though to me, free will is a misnomer; call it sapient uncertainty.

I got a 2014 Mazda3 i Grand Touring and love it. It's a hatchback so you've got more room, and it has black leather with red stitching. Great interior design with gunmetal-style accents. If you drive stick I've heard it's one of the smoothest sticks on the market. Tons of awards for style, performance, and safety. They start under $20k, and they hold value. Don't expect major maintenance for over 100k miles. Looks stylish without having a tryhard muscle car body.

Do your research and learn what you need. By the time you sign a deal you should be able to talk about any other car in its class, their prices, pros/cons, etc. If you don't know what you need, then I doubt you need a soccor mom's SUV.

I thought this was a thread about terrorism, based on the title.

I've been reading Douglas Hofstadter's book, I Am a Strange Loop, lately, and wanted to take an idea of his off on a tangent. Dr. Hoftsadter is a Professor of Cognitive Science and writes about complex ideas in ways that laymen can understand, or at least get the gist of, by using analogies and contrived narratives. His books are great, and if I was stranded on a deserted island, given one book, I'd probably request his most famous work, Gödel, Escher, Bach.

And if you happen to be Meta, Goji, SexyPiranha, or anyone else that likes stuff they post about, please do yourself a favor and purchase I Am a Strange Loop or GEB right now.

So anyways, Hofstadter cites a music critic that describes a piece of music as so complex that some people are just incapable of performing it, regardless of practice, because they lack a "large enough" soul. This guy's from the early 1900s so just play along. Hofstadter rolls with this idea, and expounds on it by describing people as having varying levels of "souledness", on some sort of scale, maybe from 0-100%, or maybe on a scale like an IQ. And by the way, we're not talking about the flimsy religious concept of the soul, we're talking about a legitimate aspect of humans that is often conflated with consciousness, personhood, humanity, etc. He is, after all, a cognitive scientist attempting to root out the workings of the human mind.

He talks about how at conception a human embryo has effective zero soul, and a grown, learned adult would have a level of souledness approaching the high end of averages for humans. But then you can lose souledness as you change, and goes on to say that the elderly or infirm, near the end of their life in a largely vegetative or dying state could be effectively at zero, too. Someone in the late stages of Alzheimer's would fall into this category. Once someone reaches a peak, around the end of their development (the human brain stops developing around age 28), it's not likely for their souledness to go much higher.

This might imply that he sees a person of high 'souledness' as being of a higher utility than a lower one, but he discusses the potential for a person of lower souledness to develop a high level than that other person. To clear it up, we'll use a two-year-old and a 22 year-old. The 22-year-old clearly has more of a soul than the two-year-old, but if I forced you to choose one to kill, you wouldn't immediately choose the two-year-old, or choose it at all. You may recognize the ability of a two-year-old to grow into a much better person than the 22-year-old, and that may give it a higher level of utility than the 22-year-old. We tend to think of utility as existing only in the present, when it should be viewed like a financial investment which fluctuates over time.

This thread isn't meant to ask a question (and frankly, I don't know what to ask). Just respond to what the previous paragraph gets you thinking about. If this sounds like a load of garbage, that's fine. This isn't a veiled discussion of abortion, though you can bring it up.

I don't know but if a "game" is point and click then it isn't really a game

Runescape?

>trilogy
>5 options

Hitchhiker's Guide, bro.

Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Mostly Harmless was pretty dark but got retconned by And Another Thing... so it's all good.

If any of you say So Long and Thanks for all the Fish I will murder you.

Everything else was already spoiled for me. 

This is why we didn't get a story mode, faggots. THIS IS WHY.

Spoiler

Indifferent about Rayman. There appears to be two more spaces left for characters. Still praying for Roy.

No story mode is bullshit. I really liked even the simple platforming levels of Melee.

I'm a devout Crustacean. I worship the Lord of Toasts, Jesus Crust.

Nobody gives a shit if you're a virgin except for high schoolers, and their opinion literally means nothing.

I'm a pet guy, and I want to get a cat and dog(s) sometime down the road, but my wife is very allergic to them (not to any major health issue, but lots of minor reaction type stuff, enough to preclude her from getting pets. I want her to get the shots, but she's hesitant because of how long it takes and whether it's effective.

So, if you've gotten them or have a friend that has, let me know how they've worked. I'll let her know the flood gave the greenlight, and she'll go along with it.

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 14, 2015, 03:47:51 PM

Quote

What separates them from adults? Because children don't pay taxes? Newsflash, they do pay taxes.

This always rubbed me wrong. I know in the grand scheme of things my vote doesn't really affect anything, but wasn't America's independence sparked by the outrage of being taxed without representation in the legislature? Why should 16-year-old me shell out a chunk of my paycheck if I can't participate in a citizen's civic duties?

You fucking pay taxes while you're a minor?

Oh, in saying that, the government did tax the interest on my savings a few years back.

Yeah, you pay taxes on any income. To be fair, since I didn't make much I was in the lowest tax bracket and I got a lot of it back in refunds.

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 14, 2015, 12:37:37 PM

Quote from: Voro 'Cinotai on February 14, 2015, 12:35:08 PM

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 14, 2015, 12:32:39 PM

Quote from: Voro 'Cinotai on February 14, 2015, 12:30:53 PM

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on February 14, 2015, 12:25:11 PM

This show is 90% slow-motion sex and gratuitous blood effects.

Spoiler

8/10

So basically 10+ Hours of 300 once a year?

Yeah, they definitely ripped off a ton of style from 300.

Well, can't be any worse than the ass-cancer that is 300: Rise of an Empire.  I'll give it a shot.

Bruh, Rise of an Empire was awesome.

lolno It was really really bad.

Muted.




Goddamn the effects on this show suck ass. I'm only sticking around big of all the TNA and because Deathstroke's in it.