Cerebral Stasis

I'd say that guilt and pity are still instinctual concepts, made so by the teaching of our parents. If a child is not taught to be compassionate and kind as a child, said child will not be, while those who have been taught as such will be kind and compassionate (at least until someone else overwrites that instict, be it themselves or others, with psychological training, be they intending to do so or realizing it as such or not). So, in a sense, those who are not taught to have a conscience do not have one. Doesn't that conflict with the concept of conscience being God whispering to us? If that were the case, we would all feel guilt, not matter what our upbringings contained, but we do not, even though it is very easy (since it is so heavily pushed by society around us, just like other things, such as a love of candy, sexual attraction to breasts, etc. - they may have an underlying instinctual driving force as well, but the majority of it is society and peer-based).

Minimum system requirements for Vista are 1.5Ghz, 512MB RAM, 64MB graphics card, and at leat 15 GB of disk space. For me, that isn't a problem, since I surpass the specs by twofold, sixfold, fourfold, and tenfold, respectively.I know an extremely intelligent computer jock with whom I discussed Vista just last night. He says that he had a bet with a friend of his (for twenty dollars) that he could not crash a Mac. He says that 30 lines of code later, the computer crashed when the resources were eaten up as the program he made calculated Pi to the infinate decimal and dumped the numbers directly into the RAM. He says he tried a similar test with XP, and it took a bit longer to crash because once the RAM was full, it began to dump the numbers into a HDD file. Vista, he says, he could not crash using that technique, since it managed to detect the impending crash and close down the kernel that was running his calculation program before it choked the memory.He says that, like all software, Vista will have bugs, but that it is using a system that is revolutionarily secure. For one, he says, it does not have the user run on admin access be default, as most other operating systems do. Instead, one logs in as a normal user, and the OS will prompt for the user to enter a password when driver, kernal, or system files are being replaced or changed (instead of just allowing it to happen because one is logged in as administrator), although for most applications, games, etc., it won't be necessary. Further, he claims, Vista runs in an enviroment that is made up of multiple kernals running in a simliar platform, so if an application or file causes an error, that single kernel can be shut down without affecting the kernel that the OS itself is running on, thus making crashes extremely unlikely. It also allows kernels to be reset without turning off the computer, cutting down reset requirements by 85% (his words).Since all anyone else can offer are undetailed complaints about the beta, I would much sooner listen to an educated and intelligent individual (in this case, said friend) who knows what he's doing and has extensively tested most mainstream operating systems (and prefers Windows over others, at least for most things). Therefore, I expect to be getting Vista sometime in February, not long after when it is released (January 30th).

So, what it comes down to is that, if there is a God, morals are to be based upon ancient texts. If not, they are a completely uncertain and debatable subject.

It's not even been proven that black holes exist.And whether or not there is extraterrestrial life, there is still the issue of getting somewhere, but even if there wasn't, it would certainly allow for humanity to expand, for better or worse. Imagine - the entire universe colonized by humanity. I can see it now: Universe-wide News Bulletin: Human Population Reaches One Sextillion.

So you'd rather die of failure (to survive) than die trying? For some reason, that sounds amusingly ironic.But yes, I don't think that freezing someone to later be revived is a good (or practical) idea, especially since we're not even sure if it works. It's probably a good way to get the money that certain rich men would otherwise hoarde back into the hands of the public, though.

Depends - civilization is not natural, but small family groups are (animals do it; i.e. herds, packs, flocks, etc.), so the line between civilization and natural grouping is a little thin, although I think that one would realize that civilization was nigh once the line was crossed.As for there being things not explained by instinct, such as mass-murders, it is a combination of reason and instinct. The reason supports the instinct in such a case by making it seem as though killing those people furthers the cause of the murderer (whether it does or not), which fulfills the natural selfishness and thus appeals overall, even though it may not really do so. There are gray areas where both, or neither, apply, but for the most part, human behavior can be categorized as one of those two.For example, one could reach out and slap one's closest relative. They are instinctual driven not to, for procreative and protective reasons, if not just to keep oneself safe from harm, but one can override that, as can trained animals. It's difficult, and unless it has some kind of foreseeable purpose, we usually won't do it, unless driven by instinct of another kind (i.e. if one is on drugs, the sense of purpose for self may seem heightened despite it not being so in reality). Anyway, it would be hard for one to do it, but one could, if they were strong-willed enough to put aside both instinct and reason. Then what is man? One has the ability to determine one's actions aside from instinct and reason, but few people take advantage of such, and those that do usually see, or imagine to see, some purpose or end to it all, but for those who don't see any purpose, they are acting like machines - driven by no guidelines, just performing actions based on commands. That can be most dangerous of all.And no, just because what we consider to be "evil" is instinct doesn't mean that all instinct is evil. If it was, we couldn't do anything to keep ourselves alive. Those instinctual traits that cause harm to those around us are generally labeled as evil, while those that don't are just considered natural (until the tolerance line is crossed, a line which is often set by religion and current moral standards, which, I may add, are simply conflicts of reason versus instinct). For example, homosexuality. Some people have a problem with it, even though it does not concern them. They are trying to act on reason but are unknowingly acting on instinct, trying to destroy or change those who are different from themselves, thus keeping themselves from becoming obsolete (even though that wouldn't be the true result), or even to keep the local gene pool pure (and with worldwide news, the gene pool, at least as we perceive it, is constantly expanding).Even emotions themselves are merely instinct. Instinct can save one at times, but when given too much power, it can destroy not only oneself, but those around as well.

I have no problem with masturbation (I would be a hypocrite if I did), but not washing afterwards is disgusting. I don't think that touching one's penis is the same as touching one's ear, primarily because the skin around the genitals (male, anyway) has much more sweat glands than one's ear and, being in a warm and moist area, it is covered in all kinds of disgusting bacteria.I don't mean to disgust anyone, but personally, unless I shower daily, I'll get to smelling something awful, although I may just have stronger (pheromones) musk than most, and even when it isn't too obvious, I'm sure that I would have to shower at least twice or even thrice a day in order to keep the area truly clean, so to sum it up, oral sex is a very bad idea unless each members of the little "party" are at most an hour after cleanling.

Salamangkero, it's not even just a problem of resources. As far as we know, light travel is impossible, and even if it were possible, there are very limited options for fuel for such a high-energy system, and then again, stars are decades away even moving at the speed of light. Most stars we wouldn't be able to reach within our lifetimes even going many times the speed of light and even those ones, "close" as they may be (relative to us, anyway) don't have any proof of having earth-like planets, and then even if so, there are slim chances that there would be life, and even if there was, the chances of multicellular life, let alone intelligent life, is minuscule. Ridiculously so.

Ah, yes, I will always remember Oregon Trail (for the Macintosh). Great times. Simpler lives. Back when the CD was new technology and Sim City was a cutting-edge game (I still love Sim City 2000, the first of the games I played, although now I can't stand to play it - Sim City 4 should introduce technologies based upon the year, instead of how advanced one's town is, or at least make it an option).

No, it was dark matter.

Personally, I'm not an iTunes fan, so if you're going to make a web series (which I fully support), I recommend you trying to diversify it a bit. Make it available elsewhere (i.e. YouTube or some such, unless you are planning on making it a pay-per-view sort of thing).

Glad to see there are people arguing with logic.The way I see it, "evil" is really just human instinct. Stealing - at one point, it would allow people to take food from others in order to support their own family during short supplies. Promiscuity - increases one's chances to produce offspring, thus keeping one's own family line going; one of the most primordial instincts. Murder - killing those of one's own species in order to promote the survival of one's own family, or one's own self, whether it be for protection or to be used offensively. The list goes on.Good, on the other hand, is an abstract creation of the human mind, an attempt to battle instinct with reason. Through this abstract concept, people consider how others around them feel about their actions, something that is not natural to any instinct-driven creature, unless it serves the needs of said creature (for example, sharing food with it's family in order to keep it's offspring alive and thus continue on it's spread of genes).Civilization is just a fight between what's natural and what's unnatural, what's natural being what's "evil", and what's unnatural being what's "good." They are real concepts, just not in the sense that a religious person would have one believe, and yes, if one considers instinct evil and reason good, then humans are instinctively evil, but yet so are all other creatures. They must be taught, through psychological reinforcement, that being good has it's rewards, else they remain instinct-driven creatures.The conscious, which religious people will have you believe is God whispering in your ear, is merely instinct. I know that at one point, simple and silly things that now mean nothing were taught to me to be "evil" and "wrong", such as calling something stupid. Growing up, whenever I would go against that deeply-driven instinct, I would feel guilty, and my parents would tell me that it was because I went against the whispers of God. In reality, however (and I'm not expert, this is merely my own theorizations), it was merely instinct telling me to do something a certain way, or in this case, not to do something, and then guilt, or at least what I thought it to be, was merely an internal fear of my breaking of instinct possibly causing harm to myself.Guilt and embarrassment, in my opinion, are instinctive fears of certain outcomes based on our actions, whether they be breaking instinct, or merely something that we realize was foolish. The fears may not necessarily be of a deadly nature, but they are still a type of fear, nonetheless, thus is why we wish to run from and avoid them.So to sum up my ramblings, I believe that evil and good are real concepts, just not in the sense that religious folk imagine them to be. Evil is instinct, good is reason, and guilt is merely the feeling of fear when one goes against one's instinct, whether that instinct is selfish or not (thus how some could badly hurt someone and feel bad, while others could do the same and not give it a second thought). Instinct (good and evil) really are relative concepts, but it is what they are in relation to the majority of the human population that should be enforced as law (for example, that murder, or killing in general, at least of humans, is wrong), else we fall into a fully instinct-driven society (also known as anarchy).

No, fate has better taste in script writing than that. And as for there being a second ice age coming on, I thought we were just ending one, and doesn't global warming work by melting the polar ice caps, thus raising the sea level, cooling the Earth, and causing another (real) ice age, or is the earth just falling back into it's normal balance, and we only think that we have something to do with it?

Personally, I think that we may never leave our solar system, at least not directly in this dimension. There is EVIDENCE that other dimensions exist, but not solid proof, and these other dimensions may not be other inverses conveniently hidden beneath a layer of space-time, as we imagine they are, thanks to science fiction. In my mind, the only way we'll be visiting other solar systems is if we either enter another dimension in which time and/or space are different relative to our dimension (i.e., move an inch there and you move a mile relative to here), or some kind of space-time fold (it would be like getting from one side of a piece of fabric to another by folding the sides so they touch one another, then piercing through the fabric from one side to another with a needle). Otherwise, I think we're a bunch of amoebas stuck in a sealed petri dish, trying to get into another sealed petri dish on a different table, across the room. There are many hurtles to cross, and it's a big, cold, empty world out there.

I wouldn't call the writers of the Saw movies mad (they may get you). They're very clever with their script writing, and it's refreshing, since lately we've had nothing but garbage from the horror genre (The Ring, The Grudge, their sequels, etc.), the only exception maybe being Hostel (although it doesn't compare to Saw).Saw is a testament to a good horror movie (or at least a good gore/thriller) - use simple special effects (Saw is made on an unbelievably low budget, using only physical special effects - no CG stuff) - KISS, keep the story closely knit together (some things are amazingly well-related), and make sure the story makes sense. There are far too many insane murderers, evil demons, etc. Having a genius gone judgmental God is an amazing breath of fresh air, and Tobin Bell is a SUPERB actor.Overall, I've never had a problem with a single one of the Saw movies, but then again I'm not professional critic. Maybe there are parts that could have better acting, or could have something done differently, but I'm totally behind the Saw trilogy (although not so sure if I want them to run the series into the ground with yet more sequels, as they are planning [*cough* a la Jaws *cough*]), and I think that all of the movies are great - none of them really surpassing the others. They all hit different points, and do a great job of hitting them. Overall, it's a rock-solid series that makes well-earned money.

What? Video games that TEACH? Wow, what a REVOLUTIONARY and INGENIOUS concept! I learned a lot as a young child, on my old Windows 3.1 computer, thanks to Reader Rabbit, math games, and The Learning Company games, such as Midnight Rescue!, Gizmos & Gadgets, and, later on, Treasure Mountain!, among others.

I agree that it wasn't a smart thing to do considering the controversy at the moment, but I'll admit I'm not surprised - I had actually thought of it myself (not that I would ever do such a thing), and it's very amusing to hear that someone gave it a try, although once again, it wasn't the brightest choice for now.

I would never cite Wikipedia as a source for a thesis or whatnot, but for articles in forums and general information based upon curiosity, I'd certainly post a link thereof and cite my source based on a wiki, since it's usually pretty accurate. For the most part, I trust what I read on Wikipedia, and when something cannot be trusted for-sure, I'll do a Google search and cite a more reputable source.

Yes, but it seems to me that searching for keywords in phone calls would be easier than searching through multiple different kinds of data for important information. If they only searched for textual keywords, people would implement information into small flash files, easily and effectively getting around the issue, forcing them to find yet another way to do more invasive searching.Yeah, it's a bad idea, and really not worth it for the slight chance of catching a sexual predator (but then again, I am not, have never been, and probably never will be a victim).

Sounds like a real accident this time to me. A terrorist wouldn't waste their time on a condo complex, even if it was a valuable one (some rooms cost over 1 million dollars, according to Yahoo News).Funny that this hasn't hit Google News yet (as of the moment I'm writing this).

Because there will always be nukes. Even if every country in the world officially disarmed, there would be some who would see it as a chance to take power by building something no one else has. On one hand, if we hoard nuclear weapons, there will always be tension and fingers poised right over the "launch" button, but if we call let our guard down, there will be others, whom we don't suspect, who will see their chance and take it.There's an equilibrium somewhere, we just haven't found it.

That's because they drained the blood and stuffed the body full of salt. It was a long and complicated process, but I don't really think there's anything mysterious about it. As for your earlier comment on batteries, there were the Baghdad Batteries, and the Egyptian "batteries" have not been proven to be such, since there are no markings or evidence of electrodes (source). Even if they did have batteries, it doens't necessarily mean that they were given to them by aliens. Humans have always been as smart as they are now (if not smarter) - they could have very likely developed a battery, although for what purpose we don't know. I recall seeing a documentary at one point that suggested the Egyptians had light bulbs, since there were certain scenes that seemed to suggest it, and there were no smoke marks in the dark tunnels from torches. Of course, saying that aliens were responsible is a bit of a jump, since it's not even been proven that they had light bulbs, or even batteries. As for the making of the pyramids, I've read theories that they used gigantic kites to help them lift the blocks.

I don't think that should be our main concern at the moment. Right now, North Korea are arming themselves to protect against US instability. They don't know what we're going to do, and having a few nukes in their pocket will give them a bargaining chip. They need those nukes for their own protection (or so they believe, anyway). I doubt they would just sell them like that. It is much more likely that Iran would sell nuclear devices (or at least the supplies needed to construct them) to terrorists, since they are more sympathetic (they have pledged to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, after all, and we are Israel's ally, so when they make good on that promise, we all go to war).

Well, not just hits, but members, more specifically. I'm attempting to put together a forum community for creative users who wish to participate. Most banner exchange sites and such only guarantee raw hits, which means that people come, glance at the website, and leave. How can one reach people with similar opinions/likings in order to gain true members to build a community, aside from simply going from forum to forum, posting links that may or may not attract intelligent and creative members?

I've read in stories that, due to radiation belts and the distance of things outside our universe, we may be forever trapped in our Solar System, or even on Earth (or the near area). For all we know, we could be (as some theories suggest) a holographic simulation or some kind of contained experiment. It's kind of a disturbing thought, but considering all we know (or really, all we know about what all we don't know), it's a possible theory.