huttnedu

Point is, they cannot even begin to determine whether or not a virus is alive without first defining the term life.

According to...? Now you're just making up rules to fit the argument. And you do this throughout the rest of the post. Watch: Here, let me by annoying again: What you wrote is just your opinion. Still, though, you can even disregard this reply, because I'm more interested in my above post. (Defining terms.) A tree either has a shape (see my post on what a shape is) or is does not. The onus is on YOU to present the audience with an object (which you name a tree) or you explain to them the biological concepts of a tree (it's comprised of cells, ect.). But you cannot say that the tree is both the OBJECT of reality, and the concept (relationships) understood by your brain.

Cool. Now, unambiguously define this term "shape". I want to be on the same page as you. SHAPE is not a key word, shape is a concept that a two year old can understand. THIS is what I mean by shape: It's fundamental. It's a "show, don't tell" understanding. Although, I can tell you that a shape is a discontinuity in space, it's the difference, or separation of inside and outside (Syn: finite, entity, boundary)... something from nothing. This takes CRITICAL thinking to understand.

Conversation =/= Science. Dictionaries compile COMMON USAGES of terms. In Science, we define the term strictly and unambiguously so that it is CLEAR whether or not we are using the word consistently. A definition is rational insofar as it is unambiguous and can be used without contradiction.

1. This definition is based on subjective opinion. Does the moon cease to be an existing object just because I can't see it or touch it? Of course not. 2. An object is a thing, person, or matter. This is circular, i.e. you are just repeating synonyms instead of providing a definition. 3. Object = end. Same nonsense as 2. 4. Object = person = thing. Same as 2 & 3. 5. Object = anything. Same as 2,3,4. See, dictionaries are written by English grads for only 1 purpose: to compile the COMMON USAGES of words. In Science, we don't go by common usage... we define terms unambiguously in such a way that it can be used without contradiction. Object: that which has shape.

Before we can start looking at particular objects to tell WHY that one is alive and that one is not... we must first define our key term: to live. If we don't even understand what the word means first, then it has no use. And I'm not trying to be rude but you missed the whole purpose of my response, which was not in regards to a typo. A house is a description? If we were to stand in front of my house, and I pointed to it, it would be ridiculous to suggest that we were standing out in front of a real, existing DESCRIPTION!|| A forest is a concept because it relates two or more objects (trees) to eachother. A tree is not a concept which "relates" multiple cells together, because those cells physically ASSEMBLE to form new shapes, new boundaries. They are no longer separate and distinct by then. No, objects like houses are not descriptions. Objects are that which has shape, we do not define them, we illustrate and then give the shape a name. I may point at my house and say "a house" you may point at it and say "kalamazone". As long as we realize that we are referring to the structure itself, then we are on the same page. This is where you are mistaken. When we illustrate an object composed of bricks that have been physically fused together, then we are NO LONGER referring to a bunch of individual bricks. The object; a house; is not the concept of "a bunch of individual bricks". When we refer to an object, we refer to one shape in particular, not a conceptual grouping of other objects. You are still performing religious mereology http://youstupidrelativist.com/04Exist/01Z2Z7Mereology.html and still focusing on a theory that hasn't been presented. Before we can determine which particular mechanisms allow for certain objects to be living, we have to define the term living. And this is exactly why the subjective sensory system is not invoked in science. Science is objective; i.e. invokes no observers. If I illustrate a shape, and then call it a house, then the matter of whether or not it has it's own shape is not up to interpretation. The bricks LOSE their shape when they join up with other objects. There becomes a NEW shape. I may be able to look at the edge of a house and claim that there are HOLES in it or GROOVES which mark where the bricks were laid, but that doesn't discount the fact that the edge is one continuous edge! If you are "describing interactions" then you are stating a concept. However, if we are hypothesizing "A cell moved across the table." Then we'd better be talking about a real object, something with shape. Abstract concepts such as "interactions" do NOT move in reality! If you are hit in the head with a baseball, it is not the surface of some ABSTRACT MOLECULAR INTERACTIONS which come and smack you in the head, it is an object. But mythness, a carbon atom is merely a fusion of a few hydrogen atoms. How come the product of hydrogens fusing is an object, but the product of carbon atoms fusing (coal) is NOT an object? Agreed, and why is a forest a concept? Because each tree has it's own shape, and they are all being related to each-other. They do not fuse together. A helium balloon is squeezed upwards, against gravity, by the atmosphere. It never moves by itself. An objective statement is one which does not invoke an observer. We do not rely on any sensory system in Science. A BLIND person, for example, will never see any illustration that you ever make, but they have the ability to visualize it within their minds and understand that all objects have a shape. What could possibly interact if not shapes? Nope, just idiotic. The Rational Scientific Method makes no provision for subjective experiences of "seeing" "hearing" "feeling" ect. The rock either has a shape or it doesn't. We aren't out to CONVINCE the idiot Person B that the rock has shape if he tries to deny it. Science is about making rational explanations, we don't care if your extreme devil's advocate won't admit that the rock has shape... because it does or it doesn't independent of our subjective sense system!

Plants do not grow thanks to an "effect". The term capillary effect itself refers to the ACTION of water being squeezed through narrow places. "Electrostatic force" is a concept referring to how those things are being arranged. The term "electrostatic force" itself refers to an action. Actions can only be performed by objects, so "force" is synonymous with "arrangement". The action "to force" cannot perform the action "to arrange". Growth, forcing, arrangement, ect. is due to the STRUCTURE of the cell, not some nebulous "forces" and "actions". Growth is a verb. What is it that grows? The plant. When a tree pushes itself out of the acorn and up toward the sun, NOTHING is responsible for that movement apart from the plant's own structure. I think you're missing my point. My point is that we cannot define ONE distinct concept in terms of other distinct concepts. To live is one action, distinct from "to evolve" or "to reproduce" ect. And this is clear because YOU YOURSELF can recognize when an object is living without first filling out this checklist of criteria.

There's no magic. And you're focused on what structures in particular can possibly be living. I am not attempting to develop a theory as to WHAT objects can be living, just that the term living means "this object has naturally developed the ability to move itself against gravity." You have to recognize that "the house" is NOT a function and we do not define OBJECTS. Not by functions or relations or anything at all! Objects merely have a particular SHAPE which can be illustrated. I don't define "a cell" or "a house" or "a brick". I just point to the object and I give it a name. When refering to an object, we are simply referencing a shape. It is irrational to say that a carbon atom (one shape) should perform all of the functions of a cell (another shape). It does not matter if you can tear that cell apart into individual carbon atoms, because when the carbon atoms stick together in certain shapes... we don't call them carbon atoms anymore! We call them CELLS. I reiterate.. the parts =/= the whole.

How does a mineral deposit move itself against gravity? I've never heard of a mineral deposit moving itself around without any external causation. An accumulation of minerals, such as a Stalagmite may appear as though it grew up out of the ground on it's own, but that is not actually happens. The earth pulls mineralized water from the ceiling and those minerals accumulate. This accumulation and growth is DUE TO gravity, not in spite of it. Self-sustaining is necessary but not sufficient to the definition of life... Stars are self-sustaining systems that are not directed or sustained by any process external to itself, yet, Stars obey gravity like all other inert objects. If replication was the definition of life then you would not be able to classify an organism as "living" until you saw it replicate. Clearly, it is possible to imagine a living organism that does NOT replicate. Some humans die and never replicate... were they never alive? Adaptation is yet another criterion that requires us to run an experiment to determine whether or not a living object adapts. What if the living object does not adapt and instead it dies when you change it's environment. Does that mean it WASN'T alive? Of course not. There are no "loose concepts" in Science. Equivocations and ambiguities are for religion. A rational concept can always resolve to a specific meaning. Biology is the study of living objects... the key word in question here is "living". What do we mean when we utilize this verb? If we hope to make a distinction between living and non-living objects then we need to define our term, plain and simple. Your point about defining objects such as "sand" "food" or "furniture" is a non-sequitor. Concepts are necessarily defined, objects are not. Objects are illustrated, not defined. You cannot "define an object"... only concepts. Concepts are relations between objects, and without specifying the relation, the concept has no meaning.

Really, for a guy who is all about "defining your terms", he should define "cult" before throwing it around so loosely. (Yes, he's used "cult" to describe Stef and FDR multiple times in the past.) A pattern I've noticed with him is that he loves to throw the following words around in his articles and comments. They're almost always used in a negative connotation to describe those who do not accept his arguments: priest, religion, cult, church, absolutist, god / god-like, and so on. I used to follow his articles regularly, but his personality started to bore me, and it began to sound like a broken record after a certain point. I speak with Fatfist regularly on facebook in the Rational Science group and he is actually quite a reasonable fellow. See, we are weary of the jungle called Scientific debate. Some of the big-wig Scientific Establishment celebrities have come out encouraging ridicule, such as Lawrence Krauss, "Nothing is above ridicule." Try questioning Einstein in any physics forum. Ask them what it means for space to be bent or how something could possibly exist without a size or shape and you'll get laughed out of the room! Most of them are far worse than Fatfist, to be sure. They are the "nerdy" atheists. The ones who hate God but wish Star Trek or Star Wars could be possible. And Fatfist calls it a religion because it is. A religion is an irrational explanation, plain and simple. I don't necessarily agree with him about FDR being a cult but Stefan has offered some irrational definitions & explanations in his books and podcasts, mostly surrounding truth and morality. But that's not what this thread concerns.

Volition is more of a synonym for life. Living refers to the process of an object (that which has shape), you're attempted to perform a religious ceremony called "Mereology", implying that the parts = the whole. It is not the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, that mooves when a cell moves, it is the cell. You are attempted to define an object as the list of it's parts instead of realizing that an object is NOT defined, an object simply has a shape and that shape relates with other shapes in definite ways. The way an object relates to others if it is living is resisting gravitation, meaning, no external objects are responsible for it's movement. That is how we can scientifically define life. All objects in the U are subjected to gravity, an object is living if it has naturally developed the ability to resist that pull. Forget the atoms comprising it. Those are one shape and have some properties of their own, a living object like a cell is another shape and has different properties. The parts do not equal the whole.

A cell, if it is alive is necessarily resisting the universal pull of gravity. Gravity pulls everything, even if you are out in orbit. Flames? I understand that in normal usage, we can use flame as a noun, but physically, fire is a process of oxidation. "Flames" do not move in reality, only objects such as oxygen and carbon molecules move. These carbon/oxygen molecules do not suddenly propel themselves against gravity. A physical interaction between the carbon/oxygen which we call oxidation is responsible for the lift of air molecules, these air molecules do not move themselves by any stretch of the imagination. Was your response serious? It seems kind of like a joke to me.

Here's a great article I found which provides an unambiguous, non-contradictory definition of life. From the article: I hope you'll check it out, it's a great paper. http://fatfist.hubpages.com/hub/The-Scientific-Definition-of-LIFE

A Christ man,you are and I am one too And even dear leader, Sir Stef Molyneux for we struggle our lives to find the right words to change the sheeple into free birds And I really don't mean to give disrespect but the masses must wake up before we're all wrecked. thanks for the response, Nathan

Thank you!

This is an original poem of mine, I didn't know where else to post it so I hope it's appropriate for this subforum. I hope you enjoy, please comment with your thoughts if you have any about it. You don't want to talk to me. My ideas are scary and my face is quite hairy so I can see why you'd rather not heed The words that im sayin' or prayers I am prayin, but I beg you to follow no words, only deeds. Now I know there's no god but I come in his name to destroy all the sins of the world For rational science and philosophy are the methods I've bought and the methods I've sold With time and attention, meticulous care you can understand any theory you dare And then they'll come one by one all in a row, earth-shattering epiphanies and all that you know Will be turned upside down and your head starts to spin as the concepts you've built up collapse from within And you realize with anxious delight in your heart that life is construction and today you will start To question and analyze, see and explain, the theories you once took for granted from the geographical place in which you had landed And at first it will seem like you're out at sea, stranded As you cast aside all that you have been handed But then you'll remember just what was demanded Of you as a child, all innocent, candid. "Be honest, be true, and never talk back. Understanding? That's for the Devil. Question your parents or government, you'll be stuck in a prison or Hell's lowest level." What you've taken on faith is fear itself, But now that you're older, put fear on the shelf, Go search your dark basements, in closets, under beds... Textbooks, movies, newspapers you've read Need to be reconsidered with sober mind, But I know that you're terrified of what you might find So I can see why you would rather not heed, but this is exactly what all humans need: A head on their shoulders and esteem for one's soul, and a lifelong desire to keep oneself whole.[/font] ------------------------------------------------ Originally posted: http://www.integratedpost.com/2013/02/you-don-want-to-talk-to-me.html Thank you for reading.

Agreed. I think some people choose to react with humor to avoid the feelings it can generate. It felt like the main characters kept people in their lives for the sole purpose of complaining about them. And then the final question, "How do you think he knew you were molested as a child?" blew it out of the park for me.. I think this kind of art can really get people thinking.

"That if I am indeed a Materialist, that all is matter and energy, then it will one day be theoretically possible to completely experience the mind of another by replicating all sensory input of an individual mind, and also the internal structure of that person's brain." "Experience" is the concept of the brain's motion & structure. If you were to rearrange your brain structure & motion to be identical to another, then you would no longer be "you"...

I was linked this video by a person who just thought it was "funny"... I was completely struck by it.It is a short clip (~6 min) but the power it packs is pretty immense. I have met many men and women who act JUST LIKE the characters in this video and this sort of gives a concrete example of the behaviors most likely to be associated with childhood abuse.I'd love to hear what you think about it. High Maintenence - Olivia :

"eg. the concept of a tree corresponds to a real world object while a forest is an aggregate of trees which we apply that concept to" I understand what you are getting at because I was once in this confusing mentality myself. Confuse: con[/font]tradictory fusion of terms. The issue can be solved easily by actually defining what we mean by particular terms. Many consider these terms so basic that they need not define them, but without definition the door is left open to ambiguity and inadvertant confusion. If we define these terms, then we understand the solutions. Object: that which has shape. Concept: relation between two or more objects Exist: object with location The reason why a TREE exists, while a FOREST does not, is that a tree has a shape of it's own. Many respond, but a TREE is just a collection of cells and cells are collections of atoms. This is irrelevant. The cells may have their own shape, but they combine with others to form larger shapes and when we refer to the tree in reality, we refer only to the properties of the shape we call "tree". With this unambiguous definition of object and concept, we can understand WHY a forest does not exist, but a tree does. What shape is "a" forest? Nobody can draw for you "a" forest. A symbolic object on a map is the closest thing we have to "a" forest, whereas trees have their own shapes in existence.