Comments

  2. opposablethumbs says

    quints 499

    Ogvorbis @ 494

    When late-term abortions are banned, or restricted, women die when things go wrong during a pregnancy.

    This is key. Even if you believe that there is a moral obligation to protect the life of a fetus at some stage of development, you should trust women to decide. Attempts to legislate morality interfere with medical care when doctors and hospitals refuse to preserve life saving care. Doctors should not have to worry that an anti-choice prosecutor might decide a woman wasn’t in enough danger to warrant protecting her health.

    In addition, legal and extralegal restrictions on late-term abortions dramatically decrease the quality and availability of the ones that remain available. Monsters like Gosnell are able to exist because women don’t have better options.

    QFT in its entirety. This cannot be said too many times. These laws don’t “save” foetuses, they kill women.

  3. Amphiox says

    I can perceive certain things are objectively wrong just like you can .

    Still lying, I see.

    No you CANNOT perceive certain things to be OBJECTIVELY wrong, and neither can any of the rest of us.

    You have merely, dishonestly, PRESUPPOSED the things you SUBJECTIVELY perceive to be accurate reflections of objection reality, without even making the effort to determine if such an objective reality even exists.

    It is bleedingly OBVIOUS that your moral perceptions having no special insight on any kind of “objective” morality, since you continually fail to perceive that lying, dishonest dissembling on a discussion forum is morally wrong.

  5. Pteryxx says

    following up re Tony back at 489:

    But a great many of those so-called “pro lifers” aren’t opposed to the death penalty. For people who supposedly value human life, that respect goes out the window when the discussion turns away from fetuses.

    correction – when the discussion turns away from woman-blaming. Pro-lifers don’t advocate for free prenatal care. They don’t call for mandating that employers provide maternity leave. They don’t care about legal protections for pregnant women to sit down more at work, or not lift heavy loads, or to not be exposed to toxic chemicals, or even to get away from abusive partners; and all of those potentially cause miscarriages, low birth weight and fetal defects. (caveat – firing pregnant women, or not hiring women at all, that’s considered “protecting” them.) Generally pro-lifers don’t even care about getting pregnant women access to food.

  7. Pteryxx says

    oh, and one I forgot – pro-lifers generally are against comprehensive sex ed, which includes discussing barrier methods and prevention of STDs. Some STDs can also infect fetuses and cause miscarriage.

  8. alwayscurious says

    Easiest way to lower abortion rates:

    http://medschool.wustl.edu/news/patient_care/Contraceptive_Choice

    But contraceptive research gets menaced by the same shrieking anti-choice bots. KC, have you ever considered the morality of denying a woman the right to make moral choices? Perhaps its because your universal morality isn’t truly as universal as you claim it is? OR perhaps its that you have no clue what you’re talking about! Hypothetical situations with no connection to reality disconnect you from everyone else living in reality.

  9. says

    Pteryxx:
    The big one that I was warned about (and tested for multiple times) is herpes. Genital herpes can cause huge problems for a baby– including blindness.

    But we can’t encourage condom use and regular STI testing for teenagers, oh no. That will turn all high school kids into unrepentant sex fiends.

  11. alwayscurious says

    Contraceptive research should be more broadly contraceptive availability and usage.

    I follow & advocate for the research–it’s continuously working to improve functionality and reduce unintended consequences–but really it’s useless if no one can access the finished product.

  12. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    People are misrepresenting me here.
    I never claimed anything about objective morality wrt abortion.
    The only thing I pointed out was that human beings have intrinsic value and it would be wrong to kill them and children would require appropriate care according to their stage in development and they don’t deserve to die.
    I affirm equal rights for women.
    Every pro-lifer I’ve ever read has said they allow exceptions when the life of the woman is in danger. I’m not in favor of anything that will let women die.

    @Derek
    Btw here’s an interesting link on what reasons women gave for seeking late-term abortions

    [T]he survey undermines another claim sometimes made by abortion-rights groups, at least with regard to the D&X issue: that late abortions are usually done for medical reasons, particularly to protect the life and/or health of the mother. Only 9.4 percent of late abortions at clinics that responded to the U.S. News survey were done for medical reasons, either to protect the mother’s health (a rare situation) or, more commonly, because of fetal defects such as spina bifida and Down’s syndrome. For the handful of very late abortions, those after 26 weeks, medical reasons do predominate. But for post-20-week abortions generally, about 90 percent were classified by the clinics as “nonmedical.”

    Here, here

    Here’s an interesting link with a more personal perspective.

  13. says

    Well Devin, if you don’t like “abuse” that much then maybe you should have acknowledged that other people have entirely different things that trigger their gut to go “ooh this is icky.” For instance, the idea that a doctor might hold back from giving me needed treatment because she wasn’t certain that my medical condition rose to the legal threshold of “threat to the woman’s life” and thus was worried about being prosecuted or sued if she followed what she and I thought was the best medical course icks me the FUCK out.

    I mentioned that earlier, but you ignored it because I called you a douchebag. Ooh lawdy! Lives are on the line, fuckface–just not yours. And your posturing about donating to NARAL is just making you look like an asshole. Yeah, I donate to PP. I have also organized and joined rallies like the one you mentioned in DC.

    The only tenable position that preserves women’s rights and lives and health is abortion on demand with no restrictions. You mentioned earlier that you thought this was the case nowhere in the world, and I informed you that it is indeed the case in Canada. And that really upset you for some reason. Like I said already, you need to fucking deal with it. That, and cuss words. Jebus. Grow up.

  14. Louis says

    I’ve always enjoyed those pro-“life” folk who don’t provide for the ~4 billion folk globally living in abject poverty. It would seem to my hideously naive eyes that those people that are already here and, you know, ALIVE might take some precedent over a red blob of goo.

    But then what do I know? I’m just feeling sarcastic.

    Louis

  16. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I never claimed anything about objective morality wrt abortion.

    But you are. Liar and bullshitter. Otherwise, terms like unborn child would be absent from your vocabulary.

    The only thing I pointed out was that human beings have intrinsic value and it would be wrong to kill them and children would require appropriate care according to their stage in development and they don’t deserve to die.

    Religious, not secular statement. More bullshit.

    I affirm equal rights for women.

    But then, if they are pregnant, they are lower humans than the fetus inside of them. Bullshit.

    Every pro-lifer I’ve ever read has said they allow exceptions when the life of the woman is in danger.

    Then you aren’t reading newspapers, or the true RCC position that the woman must sacrifice for the fetus, even if she dies…. BULLSHIT.
    Non-sequitur link

  17. Louis says

    SallyStrange,

    I said fuck once.

    Two nuns and some white folks died. Swearing is SRS BSNS. Not like the lives of bitches females.*

    Louis

    * To you and I these people would be referred to as “women” or “girls”, but I’m all objective and shit so I used a biological word to sound sciency.

  18. Louis says

    SallyStrange,

    I said fuck once.

    Two nuns and some white folks died. Swearing is SRS BSNS. Not like the lives of sluts females.*

    Louis

    * To you and I these people would be referred to as “women” or “girls”, but I’m all objective and shit so I used a biological word to sound sciency.

  19. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    http://www.propublica.org/article/stillborn-child-charge-of-murder-and-disputed-case-law-on-fetal-harm

    Excerpts:

    Rennie Gibbs’s daughter, Samiya, was a month premature when she simultaneously entered the world and left it, never taking a breath. To experts who later examined the medical record, the stillborn infant’s most likely cause of death was also the most obvious: the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

    But within days of Samiya’s delivery in November 2006, Steven Hayne, Mississippi’s de facto medical examiner at the time, came to a different conclusion. Autopsy tests had turned up traces of a cocaine byproduct in Samiya’s blood, and Hayne declared her death a homicide, caused by “cocaine toxicity.”

    In early 2007, a Lowndes County grand jury indicted Gibbs, a 16-year-old black teen, for “depraved heart murder” — defined under Mississippi law as an act “eminently dangerous to others…regardless of human life.” By smoking crack during her pregnancy, the indictment said, Gibbs had “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously” caused the death of her baby. The maximum sentence: life in prison.

    Those who share such worries point to a report last year by the New York­–based National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) that documented hundreds of cases around the country in which women have been detained, arrested and sometimes convicted — on charges as serious as murder — for doing things while pregnant that authorities viewed as dangerous or harmful to their unborn child.

    The definition of fetal harm in such cases has been broad: An Indiana woman who attempted suicide while pregnant spent a year in jail before murder charges were dropped last year; an Iowa woman was arrested and jailed after falling down the stairs and suffering a miscarriage; a New Jersey woman who refused to sign a preauthorization for a cesarean section didn’t end up needing the operation, yet was charged with child endangerment and lost custody of her baby.

    Enjoy, Kroos!

  20. Pteryxx says

    Kroos, do you even read your own cites?

    For the handful of very late abortions, those after 26 weeks, medical reasons do predominate. But for post-20-week abortions generally, about 90 percent were classified by the clinics as “nonmedical.”

    That means most of abortions between 20 and 26 weeks were classified by the clinics as nonmedical. In the US, that will include cases where the woman was lied to by a crisis pregnancy center about how far advanced the pregnancy was, cases where women needed extra weeks to scrounge the money for an abortion, to make arrangements for one or more overnight trips, to get mandatory ultrasounds, sit through waiting periods, etc.

    Now, as to that “by the clinics” clause. Most abortions done by abortion clinics at all are nonmedical. Why? Because medically indicated abortions, meaning the pregnant person has gone to their doctor about a serious problem, mostly get performed by non-clinic doctors and in hospitals. Women’s health clinics that provide abortions already specialize in early, elective, and straightforward procedures because of sheer demand and local hostility. Mississippi’s one remaining clinic, for example, only performs abortions up to 16 weeks.

  21. Jacob Schmidt says

    For the handful of very late abortions, those after 26 weeks, medical reasons do predominate. But for post-20-week abortions generally, about 90 percent were classified by the clinics as “nonmedical.”

    Interesting. I don’t consider 20 weeks “late.” I assumed “late” meant the third trimester, which doesn’t start until week 27.

    Also interesting are the reasons for non-medical “late term” abortions:

    These nonmedical abortions fell into several categories. “Our biggest group is 10-to-18-year-olds in total denial,” says an official at one Southern clinic, making a common observation. Another category consists of women who find out late that they are pregnant: very young teens with irregular menstrual periods and women in their late 40s who mistakenly thought they had entered menopause. In interviews with 1,000 abortion patients, University of Alabama sociologist Michele Wilson found that compared with women who had abortions in the first trimester, those getting later abortions were more likely to be young, to live with their parents, and to have conferred with them on this decision. She concluded that some of the abortions were performed later because the women had to take more time to build family consensus for the choice.

    Generally, a non-medical “late” abortion is done because its a pregnant teen and she isn’t sure what she is doing; women or young teens who didn’t know they were pregnant; and teens who are held back because they need to convince their family .

  22. Pteryxx says

    Here, have an article that’s more recent than 1998.

    The researchers looked at data from 272 women who received an abortion at or after 20 weeks’ gestation and 169 women who had abortions in their first trimesters from 2008 to 2010. The women were part of the Turnaway Study, a project at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) that looks at the consequences of receiving or being denied a wanted abortion.

    The researchers found that women in general delayed getting abortions if they are unsure they are pregnant, aren’t sure they want an abortion, and are disagreeing with the baby’s father.

    Still, there were some differences in the two groups: The women seeking late-term abortions were more likely to be younger — ages 20-24 — than women who got earlier abortions, and the later-term patients waited far longer to confirm they were pregnant — they were often about 12 weeks gestation vs. five weeks gestation in the early-abortion group.

    Thus, “most women in the later-abortion group were already in the second trimester by the time they had decided to have an abortion,” wrote Ms. Foster and Ms. Kimport, both of whom are professors at UCSF.

    Late-abortion women were also less likely to be employed (50 percent vs. 66 percent) or have private insurance (23 percent vs. 33 percent) than early-abortion women, but were far more likely to have to drive more than three hours to get to the abortion clinic (21 percent vs. 5 percent).

    Abortion costs were also a major hurdle: Average prices for study participants were $519 for a first-trimester abortion and $2,014 for a later abortion.

    One woman, 28, who got an abortion at 21 weeks, told the researchers, “I couldn’t afford it.”

    “They told me it was going to be $650, [but] by the time I was able to raise the $650, they had to do a different procedure, and so the price went up. The price jumped to $1,850 … and they don’t take insurance,” the Kentucky woman said.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/10/study-ids-reasons-for-late-term-abortions/?page=all

  23. maddog1129 says

    @ Kroos Control #126

    Hypothetically lets say a woman took [some substance] against the advisement of her doctor and her baby was born [with some defect or injury or disability]. Would this be a valid exercise of her bodily autonomy? Or should there be some restrictions when it can affect the life of the []born child?

    The woman taking a substance during pregnancy IS an exercise of bodily autonomy. I’m not sure what you mean by a “valid” exercise of bodily autonomy. What makes a particular exercise of bodily autonomy “valid” or “invalid” in your view? i.e., please define “valid” and what it adds, if anything, to your question.

    Further:
    What “restrictions” do you think should be put in place?

    And:
    What is it that you envision should happen, to the woman and to the baby born with some injury/disability/defect? N.B., in your hypothetical, birth has happened and there are, after the birth, two separate persons. There is no longer a fetus. What do you think should happen to each of these born persons?

    Note the bolded parts: you seem think there should be some restrictions, some consequences, but you won’t say what they are. THEN you say,

    Kroos Control # 397

    @Alexandra
    I answered. I said I didn’t know [i.e., didn’t know what should happen to someone in Alexandra’s position, who ingests something during pregnancy].

    So, your only answer is that you DON’T KNOW what restrictions or regulations or penalties or consequences should be applied; you also don’t seem to have access, in this case to what “objective” morality is in this situation:

    Kroos Control # 457

    @Alexandra

    Why won’t you answer any of my questions, Kroos? I answered yours and this a quid pro quo type of deal you demanded. “I don’t know” isn’t good enough for someone who has spent multiple threads arguing about “objective morality”.

    Also, just because there’s an objective standard , it doesn’t mean I know everything. I’m honest when I don’t know something

    You are admitting that you don’t know what’s “objectively” right in this case; in this situation, your “intuitive” “perception” of “objective” morality has failed you. Therefore, you have no basis to say that anything should be legislated.

    So that means you won’t be advocating, arguing for, or justifying any regulation, restriction, penalty, or any other legislation w/r/t such situations, right?

    Remember, this is YOUR OWN hypothetical that you cannot answer questions about.

  24. maddog1129 says

    @ Louis #517

    * To you and I these people would be referred to as “women” or “girls”, but I’m all objective and shit so I used a biological word to sound sciency.

    If you were really being “objective,” you’d have recognized the “objective case,” and said, “To you and me ….”

    [/ winky grammar joke]

  25. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @Alexandra:

    DarkToddler has moved on to a stuffed sloth.

    Woohoo! Megatheriidae FTW!

  26. says

    Kroos Control:

    People are misrepresenting me here.
    I never claimed anything about objective morality wrt abortion.

    Ah, so these objective morals you have been blathering on about do not apply to abortion. Thus far, the only thing you’ve discussed with regard to your completely unevidenced “objective moral values” has been killing babies for fun (which your god does in the bible). So can we get a list of when your “objective moral values” applies and when they don’t? Also can we get a list of what these “objective moral values” are? You keep claiming to perceive them, so you must have some idea what they are. Surely these beliefs are more than “don’t kill babies for fun, but you can kill them for other reasons, like god did in the bible”.

    The only thing I pointed out was that human beings have intrinsic value

    Yet another assertion that you fail to provide an argument for.
    You’ve droned on and on about how fetuses are special bc reasons, as well as arguing against women’s rights. The end result of your beliefs on abortion would be the deaths of more women, as well as relegating women to second class status (after all, you support giving fetuses more rights than pregnant women, or any born or dead human).

    and it would be wrong to kill them and children would require appropriate care according to their stage in development and they don’t deserve to die.
    I affirm equal rights for women.

    Yet the bolded words (my emphasis)-that you typed- demonstrate that you don’t support equal rights for women. You support removing a woman’s right to choose at some point in her pregnancy bc fetii are special. I’ve asked you before and I guess I’ll do it again: do you understand the concept of bodily autonomy and why it is an essential right of all humans?

    Every pro-lifer I’ve ever read has said they allow exceptions when the life of the woman is in danger. I’m not in favor of anything that will let women die.

    How magnanimous of you and them.
    “Look women, I don’t like you having abortions. Fetuses are special because reasons. I support efforts to end legalized abortion except when your pregnancy poses life threatening risks to your health. I’m an asshole who doesn’t realize that pregnancy itself is a risk to a woman’s health. I’m an ignorant fuckwit who hasn’t bothered to educate myself on the various health problems related to normal pregnancy, but I’m going to grant you your right to bodily autonomy only if it looks like you’re going to die. Be thankful.”

  27. maddog1129 says

    @ Nerd #516

    [Kroos Control]

    Every pro-lifer I’ve ever read has said they allow exceptions when the life of the woman is in danger.

    Then you aren’t reading newspapers, or the true RCC position that the woman must sacrifice for the fetus, even if she dies…

    … or, even if BOTH the woman AND the fetus die (i.e., a “sacrifice” for nothing).

  28. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    What about health of a pregnant woman?

  29. says

    Kroos Control #512

    People are misrepresenting me here.
    I never claimed anything about objective morality wrt abortion.

    How odd. I’m damn sure if I thought foetuses were little-diddy people who needed protection, I would class killing them with killing babies. But then, that’s just me applying moral standards consistently.

  30. Pteryxx says

    Every pro-lifer I’ve ever read has said they allow exceptions when the life of the woman is in danger.

    And you believed them.

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/11/abortion-never-saves-a-womans-life-savita.html

    (emphasis mine)

    Note that the argument is not that it is rare for abortion to be needed to save a woman’s life. Rather, the argument is that an abortion is never necessary to save a woman’s life.

    Tell that to the pregnant teenage girl who died in the Dominican Republic last summer. Tell that to Savita Hallapanavar. Tell that to Edyta. Tell that to Martha Solay. Tell that to Olga Reyes. (For more on the idea that abortion is never necessary to save a woman’s life, where it came from and where it is now, see this post on RH Reality Check.)

    One thing I have found as I have read about this issue is that those arguing that abortion is never necessary to save a woman’s life state that women should be allowed to have things like cancer treatment, even if it harms the fetus, but that aborting a fetus so that the woman can have cancer treatment is not permissible. Aborting a fetus, an intentional taking of a life, is not permissible. Damaging a fetus through radiation administered to a pregnant woman with cancer is, in contrast, permissible because it is not the intentional taking of a life. Of course, some of the women mentioned in the previous paragraph died because they lived in countries that would not even permit them the treatment for their conditions for fear it would harm the fetus.

    Plenty more citations at the link.

    I’m not in favor of anything that will let women die.

    Actually, you are. You just refuse to realize and/or admit it.

  31. says

    or the true RCC position that the woman must sacrifice for the fetus, even if she dies…

    There no words to describe how loathsome I find this. This notion that fetuses have greater (or equal) value than living, breathing women who have hopes, dreams, and goals is absolutely disgusting.

  32. Amphiox says

    … or, even if BOTH the woman AND the fetus die (i.e., a “sacrifice” for nothing).

    Per my understanding of Catholic dogma, by making that effort and be willing to sacrifice, both woman and fetus get to go the heaven. If the woman is not willing to make that sacrifice, of course, she goes to hell. I’m not sure what the dogma about the fetus would be in that case (since it was never baptised and is still stained with original sin from conception, it could also be going to hell…). One has to wonder whether, regardless of the destination of heaven or hell, would the soul of the fetus remain attached, eternally, to the soul of the woman, in a kind of spiritual pregnancy that lasts to the final judgment and beyond, or will it be separate….

    One also wonders why Catholics don’t just have the pope shoot every believer immediately after baptism, so that they all go straight to heaven (it has to be the Pope. Any other shooter would go the hell, but the Pope, being the infallible represented of God on earth, can not, by definition, sin so long as they declare the shooting to be an ecclesiastical duty, and thus within the purview of papal infallibility….)

  33. Amphiox says

    People are misrepresenting me here.
    I never claimed anything about objective morality wrt abortion.

    So, what you subjectively WANT to claim as objective morality, you can. But when you find it subjectively inconvenient to claim objective morality, you don’t.

    How hypocritical. How dishonest. How disgusting.

  34. says

    beatrice

    What about health of a pregnant woman?

    Oh come on, you’re acting as if she were a person. Life threatening situations late in pregnancy? Life threatening situations that happen during birth? Long term effects like auto-immune disseases? Well, they would matter if we were talking about people. Since we aren’t, who cares?
    *this comment was brought to you by bitter sarcasm*

    +++
    Well, I’m glad* that I’m not the only woman who wakes at night drenched in sweat because she dreams she’s pregnant and past the cut-off line (12 weeks in Germany).

    *and by glad I actually mean “this is completely fucked up”

  35. says

    I still really want to know what consequences I should face for drinking and smoking while pregnant. I mean, if I gave DarkToddler a beer now, surely I’d be risking a visit from Social Services &/or the police. If it is my duty to provide an “appropriate level of care” to a fetus, surely something must be done.

  36. chigau (違う) says

    Alexandra
    I really liked beer when I was a toddler.
    Don’t turn your back.

  37. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Alexandra,

    See #518. I wonder what Kroos has to say about those cases.

  38. consciousness razor says

    Catholics don’t have an official answer about fetuses or unbaptized infants. Could be heaven, hell, limbo, purgatory, some “special” version of any of them, none of the above…. As far as they’re concerned, it really isn’t that important. This doesn’t concern potential donors to the Church, after all. What really matters is making sure women feel guilty and are punished for their sins.

  39. Louis says

    Madddog1129, #523,

    BUGGERATION.

    You are, of course, right. I’m going to go and give myself paper cuts with a copy of Strunk and White, right now.

    Louis

  40. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @Alexandra, #534:

    “Unfortunately,” she typed before pausing to wipe up the excess sarcasm dripping from her keyboard, “the Roundheads seem unwilling to to come up with an appropriate punishment regime for you. For that, I am truly sorry, and, sensitive to your plight, volunteer my disciplinary services.”

  43. Pteryxx says

    What about health of a pregnant woman?

    Related to the abortions-are-never-necessary myth, not incidentally.

    http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/10/23/no-life-saving-abortions-lie-and-why-it-persists/

    Most exceptions are being written only to include cases where not aborting could “result in her death or in substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” As a result, doctors are being asked to decide at what point they must allow a woman to put her life at risk before they can justify performing an abortion without a potential arrest.

    One Wisconsin provider discussed the attempt to decide when exactly an abortion can be performed as a decision of exactly how endangered her life had to be. Was a 20 percent likelihood of the patient dying enough, or did he have to wait until actual organs began to fail before he could guarantee a “justified” abortion? In both cases, a fetus prior to viability would still die, but in the former case the patient could be saved and regain her health, while in the latter her recovery may be more drawn out or even impossible.

    That’s in the US, in case the latest contender thinks it’s only a problem in Ireland/Rome/Nicaragua/El Salvador/insert furrin country here. Abortion bans are still abortion bans, whether at 20 weeks or 18 weeks or 6 weeks (not a hypothetical) and all the medical exceptions are just fig leafs.

  44. omnicrom says

    I see Kroos has yet to consider any of the factoids I laid out for them. Let’s remember Kroos: We do not accept as self-evident your religion or your philosophy and we demand clear and specific claims and examples.

    Here Kroos, let me ask you about a subject I’m sure you enjoy talking about: Yourself. What is your vision of Abortion? If you had absolute power to enact laws how would you write the abortion laws? If you had your own little kingdom what would you decree to the peasantswomen? You have been maddeningly vague for weeks now, cut it out and just say what you mean.

  45. says

    Tony:

    She didn’t gain a significant amount of weight during her pregnancy and she also continued to have her period.

    Continuing to have your period the first couple of months of pregnancy happened to me, I found out it ran in my family. I did have a test done, came up negative. I was suspicious, because my period was ultra-light, but accepted the verdict. In the meantime, I was smoking prodigious amounts of weed. I didn’t drink much, a glass of wine now and then, but weed…yeah.

    The next pregnancy test I took came up negative as well, but I was told by the technician that something looked off, so they wanted to repeat it. (This was long before home pregnancy tests). I peed for them again, and yep, came up positive that time. I was scheduled for a termination two days later.

  46. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @Kroos Control

    Pruss allows for the idea that some necessary facts can be explained by their own necessity.

    Ah, so you’re not taking the axiomtic option of the Münchhausen trilemma; you’re taking the circular justification option. I reject circular justifications out-of-hand.

    But things that are necessary are things that cannot fail to exist.
    If you hold the laws of logic are necessary , they cannot stop being true and there is no state of affairs where they aren’t true and don’t exist.

    I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to read. Our dispute can be described as:
    KC: X is a necessary thing.
    EL: I do not accept your claim.
    KC: Well, we know X is necessary because it can be explained by its own necessity.
    EL: Sorry, I reject circular justifications out of hand. I am still unconvinced that X is a necessary thing.

    for example its obvious my perceptual states are contingent , because there are states of affairs in the actual world where I have different perceptual states. There are metaphysically possible states of affairs where certain perceptual states don’t exist.

    How do you know that it wasn’t necessary that you experience that particular state at that particular time? How do you distinguish between necessary and contingent facts? You cannot escape the Münchhausen trilemma. Thus, any coherent identification of necessary facts is by fiat, naked, and unjustified and unjustifiable. (Or it’s circular, which I’ll reject out of hand, or it’s based on an endless regress of justifications, which I’ll reject out of hand.)

    If you take your model , at t=0 , there was a state of affairs with no universe and there was a timeless state of affairs with no universe as well. So the universe is contingent and needs an explanation.

    Sorry, I do not accept your implicit assertion. Your implicit assertion is that things within time which do not exist to past infinity and future infinity are contingent. I do not accept that premise.

    Equivalently, we can reformulate your claim to: Everything which exists in time and which does not extend into an infinite past and an infinite future has an explanation / cause / “sufficient reason”. Again, I do not accept that naked assertion. We’re been going round and round in circles on this point for ages now. All you do is keep asserting it in different guises. Then I come along, disentangle your obfuscation, and then I simply repeat “I do not accept that premise.”

    You need to step it up. As I said to consciousness razor, it is impossible to convince me to not use reason, or to not use science, or to not use logic, or to not be a humanist. I’m pretty sure I can form a logically consistent framework of belief with those starting positions. To make headway on me on other points – such as “objective morality”, gods, Principle Of Sufficient Reason, etc., you’re going to have to show how the assertion follows from my axioms, or you’re going to have to show that my axioms are logically inconsistent (because I value logical consistency above all else). Can you do that? Or are you just going to keep rephrasing your silly fiat assertion which I do not accept?

    …

    As for the whole t>0 thing, I looked pretty hard, but I couldn’t find whatever reply you’re talking about. In a universe where time is accurately modeled with the the subset of the continuous Real number line, t>0, then there is no first time. I don’t think “began to exist” is proper terminology, because: There is no first time in this model. I think that the word “beginning” must refer to a first time, or minimum, but there is no minimum, and thus there is no beginning, and thus it did not “begin to exist”. In more precise terms, on this model, time is bounded in the past but does not have a minimum value.

  47. Amphiox says

    If you hold the laws of logic are necessary , they cannot stop being true and there is no state of affairs where they aren’t true and don’t exist.

    The laws of logic can only exist within the intelligent logical brains that contemplate them. In the absence of such brains engaging in such logical thinking, the laws of logic would not in fact exist, and indeed it would be meaningless to even talk about the question of their existence.

  48. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @consciousness razor
    I’m not utterly confused about a topic. I’m still waiting for you to present an argument that Nazis are evil which bridges the is-ought gap, or whatever other example floats your boat. All you have done is claim that there exists such an argument, and most people know it. That is not the same thing as actually presenting the argument. I am expecting a formal argument with specified premises, conclusions, possibly with syllogistic form, or at the very least some English prose which is easily formalizable into a formal form. You have not done this yet. Again, I want you to identify your “is (descriptive)” premises (ex: Nazis wear clothes), identify your “ought (proscriptive)” conclusion (ex: Nazis are evil), and explicitly spell out any necessary stuff in the middle to make a valid argument.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity#Validity_of_arguments

    You said you can do this. I’m waiting.

  49. says

    Tony, JAL, Inaji,
    I suppose this means that in order to provide ‘an adequate level of care’ to all fetuses, all fertile women should give up all potentially risky behaviors.

    *raises eyebrow* *sips wine*

  50. Amphiox says

    If you take your model , at t=0 , there was a state of affairs with no universe

    False. Since time itself began with the universe, the universe would also have been in existence at t=0. There is no moment of time wherein time existed and the universe did not.

  51. Amphiox says

    I suppose this means that in order to provide ‘an adequate level of care’ to all fetuses, all fertile women should give up all potentially risky behaviors.

    Have to stop breathing oxygen then. The free radicals produced by oxidative metabolism are probably the primary cause of aging and eventual death for the fetus….

  53. says

    Alexandra:

    I suppose this means that in order to provide ‘an adequate level of care’ to all fetuses, all fertile women should give up all potentially risky behaviors.

    Yeah, no. Don’t think so. I’ll join you in a glass of wine. As it stands, way back when I was pregnant, I was scarily close to ending up having no choice but to carry. Not only were my periods continuing and tests coming up negative, a tendency to carry toward the spine runs in my family, so chances were good, if I accepted that first negative, by the time I figured out I was pregnant, it would have been too late to terminate. People tend to forget that women aren’t xerox copies, and our bodies can get damn weird, especially when it comes to reproduction.

  54. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    @Enlightenement liberal
    I’ll quote it again

    To make our intuitions regarding this clearer , change the function so it starts by t >2 (and it describes the existence of some other object).We can’t pinpoint teh beginning , but would you say it began?
    If we were standing around watching the thing at t=1 it would be not there one second and there the other. Couldn’t we plausibly say it began to exist since there is a first finite interval.

    I think you don’t understand necessity. For something to exist necessarily it would have to exist in every possible world. In every possible state of affairs. I don’t know your views on abstract objects but Some philosophers hold the laws of logic are necessary , because they would not fail to obtain in any possible state of affairs.
    Same with 2+2=4 , which would be true in every possible state of affairs.

    Maybe I should rejig Pruss’ argument
    If things could come into being from nothing and uncaused and unexplained (FNU), then it is possible all your perceptual states could be coming into being from nothing and uncaused (FNUP). Probabilities come from explanations (see previous). If FNU does occur , then it has no probabilities , so FNUP is not improbable. If FNUP is not improbable , it would be impossible to know empirical truths. However we do know empirical truths , so FNU is false.

    FNU- refers to things coming into being from nothing and uncaused.

  55. says

    Tony:
    No box? *tsk!*

    Inaji:
    Our bodies are damned weird. I “showed” really early (by the fourth month), despite the fact that I lost weight during my first trimester*, but my older sister (who was pregnant at the same time I was) didn’t have a bump until her 3rd trimester.

    Anyway, I’ll be damned if I ever accept the “but you could get pregnant!!!!” argument. I’m more than my uterus and the contents thereof.

    *Another no no! I was such a bad pregnant person.

  56. says

    Kroos:
    Come on, stop being a coward. I’m having a glass of wine right now– if I find out that I’m pregnant* tomorrow, what should happen to me?

    *Not bloody likely, pun intended.

  57. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    @Amphiox

    False. Since time itself began with the universe, the universe would also have been in existence at t=0. There is no moment of time wherein time existed and the universe did not.

    I was addressing the peculiarities of Englightenedliberal’s little graph. You can draw it up and see.

  58. Jacob Schmidt says

    Same with 2+2=4 , which would be true in every possible state of affairs.

    Well, not quite. For instance, mixing 2 litres of water with 2 litres of ethanol will not produce 4 litres of fluid. Determining the final volume is a mite complicated. Arithmetic is contingent on some assumptions, and breaks down once those assumptions are no longer valid.

  59. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    @EnlightenedLiberal
    We’re using necessarily in a possible worlds sense it that makes sense.
    Given in your graph there’s a state of affairs where the universe does not exist at t=0, you can’t claim its necessary.

  60. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    ::pulls out a bottle of wine to offer Alexandra when she finishes her glass::

    Hey , don’t be a Shermer! Nobody likes that guy.

  61. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    For something to exist necessarily it would have to exist in every possible world.

    What do you mean by “possible”? Epistemically possible? Ok. Then the Principle Of Necessary Reason is not identical to a mere axiomatic scheme. I also do not accept that premise. You need to start arguing for it.

    Maybe I should rejig Pruss’ argument

    Good plan.

    If things could come into being from nothing and uncaused and unexplained (FNU), then it is possible all your perceptual states could be coming into being from nothing and uncaused (FNUP). Probabilities come from explanations (see previous). If FNU does occur , then it has no probabilities , so FNUP is not improbable. If FNUP is not improbable , it would be impossible to know empirical truths. However we do know empirical truths , so FNU is false.

    The problem is in the first sentence, as I explained earlier. “If things could come into being from nothing and uncaused and unexplained (FNU), then it is possible all your perceptual states could be coming into being from nothing and uncaused (FNUP).” Your argument is what Dan Dennett calls a deepity. It relies on two distinct meanings of a word (here “possible”). On one reading, it’s true, but trivial. On the other reading, it would be profound if true, but it’s simply false.

    The true but trivial reading is: “If it’s epistemically possible that some things are uncaused, then it’s epistemically possible that some of your perceptions are uncaused”. In the trivial but true reading, the conclusion is always true, and thus the sentence is trivially true. Without some principle to deny that epistemic possibility, it’s epistemically possible.

    The profound but false reading is: “If the universe is uncaused, then some fraction of your perceptions are uncaused.” It would be profound if true, but it’s simply false. My mind and my perceptions are the results of chemistry and physics going on in my brain, and to the extent that we can say classical physics and quantum physics has causation, we can conclude that my perceptions are caused. This has nothing to do with whether the big bang had a cause.

    Again, it’s a problem of confusion over the word “possible”. One such meaning is “epistemically possible” – e.g. can I imagine a coherent, logically consistent way that the world might be. One such way that the world might be is that some fraction of my perceptions are uncaused. Another meaning of “possible” is “sometimes happens”. This is the usual Frequentist meaning of “probability”, as in the possible set of results of a random variable. As in, it’s possible to roll a 6 on a six-sided die (d6). It is very well epistemically possible that some of my perceptions are uncaused, but it is not possible that any of my perceptions are uncaused because we have lots of evidence which constrains our understanding of the world which excluded that possibility.

    Put another way, the mere epistemic possibility that science does not work is not sufficient. This is Plantinga’s argument against evolution producing rational minds. It really is. Exact same argument but with different window dressing. Just like with Plantinga, you have to go above mere epistemic possibility. Furthermore, you have to go above mere plausibility in face of existing physical evidence. The mere plausibility in face of existing physical evidence is not enough to cause me problems. This relates to another flaw of the religious mindset – needing absolute certainty. I don’t need absolute certainty that science works. I don’t need absolute unassailable justifications. I am going to use science absent absolute certainty and absent any and all justifications. In order for this line of argument to work – you need to show more than the mere plausibility in face of known physical evidence that some of my perceptions are uncaused. You need to show the extreme likelihood in face of known physical evidence that some of my perceptions are uncaused, or some other contradiction of my beliefs. I’ve been saying this in many different ways, and it’s not sinking in for you.

  63. Jacob Schmidt says

    I’ve gone over this before, but it appears that I need to walk you through it.

    However we do know empirical truths , so FNU is false.

    What empirical truths? Empirical knowledge is based upon accurate perception. According to this clause, “If things could come into being from nothing and uncaused and unexplained (FNU), then it is possible all your perceptual states could be coming into being from nothing and uncaused (FNUP),” we don’t know if our perceptions are accurate. The only way out of this is to assume our assumptions are accurate; to assume our assumptions are accurate is to assume things cannot come into being uncaused. Your argument rests upon assuming it’s own conclusion.

  64. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    Put another way, I can imagine a world where some of my perceptions are uncaused. It is epistemically possible. Doesn’t mean that it is. The world that is, is a world where the first moment (if any) may be uncaused (epistemically possible), and my perceptions are caused (according to the known evidence). It’s epistemically possible that my perceptions are uncaused, but they are not uncaused, because evidence.

    Of course, this line of argument is almost circular. I’m concluding that (most of) my perceptions are caused by using evidence and science, which in some sense depends on (most of) my perceptions being caused. So, to that extent, “my perceptions are caused” is part of my starting axiom / value that I am going to use science. I’ll take the axiomatic formulation over the circular justification.

    So, I start with the axiom that (most of) my perceptions are caused. It remains epistemically undecided whether the universe is caused, and whether any other detail of the outside physical world is caused. By using science, I can discover which things in the outside world have causes. Maybe some things don’t. Doesn’t stop me from using science.

  65. Jacob Schmidt says

    The only way out of this is to assume our assumptions perceptions are accurate; to assume our assumptions perceptions are accurate is to assume things cannot come into being uncaused. Your argument rests upon assuming it’s own conclusion.

    (My bad)

  68. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    I explained Pruss and I were using necessary in a possible world sense. It seems you did not get that

    My mind and my perceptions are the results of chemistry and physics going on in my brain, and to the extent that we can say classical physics and quantum physics has causation, we can conclude that my perceptions are caused. This has nothing to do with whether the big bang had a cause.

    No no youre missing the point./ IF FNU can really happen , it just happens. Its has no preconditions to rely on and no probabilities to say it happens infrequently. You’re just saying it can’t happen in your mind. It would make sense if FNU required certain preconditions to do this (and those preconditions were not present in your mind) , but it doesn’t have preconditions. It would make sense if as you said , the laws of chemistry and physics precluded it , but FNU doesn’t follow any laws. It could be happening now and particles coming into being from nothing could be messing with your perception. You can’t say its improbable..

    The point is that FNU has no frequency , no regularity. Why would it ? it doesn’t follow any physical laws? It could happen a dozen times today and once tomorrow.

    And of course , you beg the question whne you assume that you do know empirical truth. I do agree we know , empirical truths. That’s why we should reject FNU.

    I’d love to defend Plantinga’s EAAN , but its conceptually distinct from this and my plate’s kind of full.

  69. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    548
    Alexandra (née Audley)

    Tony, JAL, Inaji,
    I suppose this means that in order to provide ‘an adequate level of care’ to all fetuses, all fertile women should give up all potentially risky behaviors.

    *raises eyebrow* *sips wine*

    Pffffffft. I’d rather die. No, really. With my MS that I can’t get treatment for doing *ahem* risky or illegal behaviors are what I need to get through the pain. Dear lord, just walking my child to and from school causes painful numb pins and needles from my hips down.

    I got “lucky” when find outing about my pregnancy. I felt sick right away. I missed my first period and just knew something was off. I went to the hospital and they just kept saying it was too soon to tell. You’re just a couple of days late, they said. Piss test was negative but that blood test was positive.

    Que the worst morning sickness ever. I was throwing up so much, I couldn’t keep water down. I had to take medication it was so bad. The doctor, who was extremely pro-choice and whose wife ran a pro-life women’s pregnancy center, was not happy about it. But even HE had to prescribe it after constantly throwing up in his office for hours. I didn’t show at all and the pregnant teen shelter I was staying at actually made me show them my stomach. They already knew I was going to the doctors and showed them my ultrasounds. But no, they had to touch my stomach. *shudder*

    Forget passing the wine, can I have a bottle? lol

    The Horde is the only group I know that actually treat women and pregnant people as, you know, people.

  70. Jacob Schmidt says

    And of course , you beg the question whne you assume that you do know empirical truth.

    Ahahahahaha

  71. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    @Daz
    I was more pointing out how sleazy his line sounded , but point taken

  72. Jacob Schmidt says

    I had to take medication it was so bad. The doctor, who was extremely pro-choice and whose wife ran a pro-life women’s pregnancy center, was not happy about it. But even HE had to prescribe it after constantly throwing up in his office for hours.

    Did you mean the doctor was pro-life?

  73. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    Meh… I meant to keep it short, but I keep seeing better ways to put it. Last time – I swear.

    In essence, you’re trying to construct a reductio ad absurdum. The false (absurd) conclusion is that some fraction of my perceptions is uncaused. You attempt to make this reduction ad absurdum argument with: “If things could come into being from nothing and uncaused and unexplained (FNU), then it is possible all your perceptual states could be coming into being from nothing and uncaused (FNUP).”

    This is a deepity. The trivial but true reading is “If you allow for the epistemic possibility that rarely phenomena of any kind are uncaused, then some of your perceptions are uncaused.” This is true. It’s trivially true.

    One of the false readings is: “If you allow for the epistemic possibility that phenomena of specific kinds are uncaused, then some of your perceptions are uncaused.” Notice the bait-and-switch. Of course, if I allow for things sometimes being uncaused according to the first reading, then this universal rule applies to my perceptions. (Universal instantiation.) However, that’s not what I’m advocating. That doesn’t get you to your reductio ad absurdum. I’m advocating the second reading, which is that one particular phenomenon of a particular kind – the creation of the universe – may be uncaused. This is not a universal statement across all things that exist, and thus you cannot apply it to my perceptions (no universal instantiation).

    You seem to have a particular kind of binary thinking, where either all phenomena of all kinds are at least sometimes uncaused, or all phenomena of all kinds are always caused. I’m advocating a third option: some phenomena of certain specific kinds may be sometimes uncaused, while other phenomena of other kinds are always caused. It’s entirely logically consistent. There is no problem.

  74. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    559
    Kroos Control , persona non grata

    Hey , don’t be a Shermer! Nobody likes that guy.

    That has to be the second bingo from him by now, right?

    Crispy fried Christ. When I asked what the fuck is wrong with you, it wasn’t a challenge to see how far you could sink.

  75. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    571
    Jacob Schmidt

    Did you mean the doctor was pro-life?

    Yes, him and his wife.

  76. Amphiox says

    “If things could come into being from nothing and uncaused and unexplained (FNU), then it is possible all your perceptual states could be coming into being from nothing and uncaused (FNUP),”

    To have any perceptual state, you first must have a universe.

    All the so-called “causes” of perceptual states are proximal and contingent on their already existing a universe.

    Thus, if the universe is FNU, then all perceptual states are indeed, ultimately, FNU.

    To claim that because perceptual states have PROXIMATE causes (all contingent on the pre-existence of the universe) this means that the universe must have had an ULTIMATE cause, is an invalid argument based on a fundamental category error.

  77. says

    JAL:

    With my MS that I can’t get treatment for doing *ahem* risky or illegal behaviors are what I need to get through the pain. Dear lord, just walking my child to and from school causes painful numb pins and needles from my hips down.

    Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. I am so sorry you’ve found yourself dealing with MS, and can’t get treatment for, on top of it all. If there’s anything I can do, just holler at me. (Formerly Caine here.)

  78. Amphiox says

    Hey , don’t be a Shermer! Nobody likes that guy.

    What a vile, vile, wretch you are, KC….

  79. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    I’m advocating a third option: some phenomena of certain specific kinds may be sometimes uncaused, while other phenomena of other kinds are always caused. It’s entirely logically consistent. There is no problem.

    The point is that you don’t really undertsand what happened when you posit FNU.
    What laws or preconditons would apply , such that FNU would be contrained to only certain phenomena?
    The point of it there are no laws or preconditions , so there’s no restriction.

    We can say that a piece of wood can become a chair , and not become a steel barre’ , be3cause it has certain properties and follows certain laws. Same with raduioactive decay. There are some things a nucleus can and can’t produce and certain laws it follows. The laws of physics preclude it from doing certain things .However ,if there are no preconditions , no restrictions and no laws , anything can happen.

  80. says

    KC:

    Hey , don’t be a Shermer! Nobody likes that guy.

    Tsk, tsk – you let your persona slip there, letting everyone know you’re nothing but a troll, positing nonsense just to bait people.

  81. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    To be clear, I condemn Shermer and he’s a terrible person who did terrible things.

  83. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    I guess I’ll apologize. I meant to show Tony’s line was kind of inappropriate and a referenced something a very bad man did. It wasn’t a good idea in retrospect.

  85. Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm says

    @580 Kroos

    Right. Terrible things which you’re not above making snide, smug jokes about. *vomit*

  86. Jacob Schmidt says

    The point of it there are no laws or preconditions , so there’s no restriction.

    “FNU- refers to things coming into being from nothing and uncaused.”

    Anyone else spot the difference?

  87. says

    Kroos Control:

    Hey , don’t be a Shermer! Nobody likes that guy.

    FUCK YOU.
    How fucking dare you make light of sexual harassment and rape.
    How fucking dare you insinuate that my comment was at all synonymous with Shermer continuously filling up Jane Doe’s glass of wine. I’m not a goddamned predator. I don’t do that kind of shit, and I seriously don’t appreciate you insinuating as such.

    You’re a disgusting, filthy, lying asshole.

    I can’t shout FUCK YOU loud enough.

    I hope you get banned fast you sleazy little shartstain.

  88. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    To be clear, I condemn Shermer and he’s a terrible person who did terrible things.

    What did he do that you really think was so bad, and this doesn’t mean a copypasta from a thread about him. What is your real opinion, not the opinion you wish us to perceive? We will perceive your real opinion anyway, so you shouldn’t even try to hide your real prejudices.

  90. says

    Kroos:
    I think Tony! nailed it, but jesus fucking christ. Tony is a friend, you snivelling asshole. Fuck you for making light of rape and fuck you for implying that Tony!, who is one of rare good people, is a sexual predator.

  91. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Bye I guess then.

    10 e-ducats says he doesn’t stick the flounce….

  92. says

    Here’s a hint, Kroos: When you’re the outsider coming into an established community and you’re already not that well-liked, that’s not the time to try to get cute and crack jokes.

  93. Louis says

    Jacob Schmidt, #557,

    …mixing 2 litres of water with 2 litres of ethanol will not produce 4 litres of fluid…

    It will however produce a mighty slap from me because the person doing this will have either:

    A) Diluted and massively rehydrated the anhydrous ethanol I has spent ages distilling for use in the lab.

    OR

    B) Diluted my fucking drink!

    Neither is acceptable.

    ;-)

    Louis

  94. says

    Kroos Control:

    To be clear, I condemn Shermer and he’s a terrible person who did terrible things.

    But you have no problem pretending as if this:

    ::pulls out a bottle of wine to offer Alexandra when she finishes her glass:

    is anything like what Shermer did.
    My comment is nothing like what Shermer did. Leaving aside the fact that it was a whimsical, lighthearted comment, while Shermer sexually assaulted Jane Doe, did you miss the part where I *offered* the wine?

    I meant to show Tony’s line was kind of inappropriate and a referenced something a very bad man did. It wasn’t a good idea in retrospect.

    You fucking wretched assmaggott. There’s nothing inappropriate about OFFERING SOMEONE A GLASS OF WINE. I’m a fucking bartender you unmitigated fuckwad. I offer people alcohol all the time. I have never, EVER, engaged in any type of predatory behavior. I don’t joke about that shit either, bc real people are affected by assholes who prey upon them.

    And “referencing something Shermer did”?
    The fuck is that about?
    You do realize Alexandra said this:

    I suppose this means that in order to provide ‘an adequate level of care’ to all fetuses, all fertile women should give up all potentially risky behaviors.

    *raises eyebrow* *sips wine*

    My comment was in direct reference to this comment. Making a comment about refilling someone’s wine =/= referring to Sleazy Shermer.
    I’m shaking right now.
    I haven’t been this fucking mad in a goddamned long time.
    I’m not a violent person, but you’ve pushed a button that almost makes me wish I was.

  95. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Kroos Control:

    You have made the claim that all people have intrinsic value. How did you arrive at this? Not only that, how do you account for people, like me, who, when depressed (which is too much of the time), feel that they have completely and totally failed and see myself as having no, or negative, value?

  97. omnicrom says

    I’m not sure which is the more obnoxious outcome.

    Option A is that Kroos does not stick the flounce and comes back in to continue babbling and being a horrible person and continues to say and do things to denigrate women and make light of their suffering.

    Option B is that Kroos only notices they aren’t wanted after they make light of rape and get blowback: Suggesting that Kroos is only NOW paying attention to what those silly feminists think and how they feel.

    Option A shows that Kroos is an obnoxious pissant. Option B underscores exactly how much of an obnoxious pissant Kroos actually is. I have no reason to believe that Kroos will in any way improve if they come back from their flounce, but it’s an absolute given if they land that nothing that was said to Kroos has sunk in except for how shrill and crazee ‘dem feminists are donchaknow.

    To be fair though I’d much prefer Kroos to talk about them CURAZEE Womenfolk on another forum than keep spewing here. So stick the landing Kroos.

  98. says

    LykeX:

    Here’s a hint, Kroos: When you’re the outsider coming into an established community and you’re already not that well-liked, that’s not the time to try to get cute and crack jokes

    A comment like that would probably piss me off no matter who made it. I do not like joking about or making light of sexual assault.

  99. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Holy fucking shit, Kroos Control — you have, with your Shermer comment, sputter, sputter FUCK YOU! I have no words for how low this is. Asshole.

  100. Louis says

    I see Kroos Control has upped his level of charm with an invidious Shermer joke. Harr Harr! Sexual assault and manipulation of people when vulnerable (drunk and getting drunker)! It is to laugh. Many are the yucks. Oh look, I am making with the laughing.

    Or, you know, not.

    Jokes: do not attempt to make them unless you can.

    Louis

  101. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    @LykeX
    Yeah I regretted it after I hit post. Wish I could delete it.
    I feel like the ban hammer is immanent, so I might as well quit

    I guess I’ll apologize. I meant to show Tony’s line was kind of inappropriate and a referenced something a very bad man did. It wasn’t a good idea in retrospect.

  102. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I feel like the ban hammer is immanent, so I might as well quit

    Perhaps, perhaps not. That is PZ’s decision. But if you do stay, quit trying to bullshit us, and be direct and evidence based, not vague illogical idiocy that is your objective morals, which don’t exist since your deity is imaginary.

    If you have to push objective morals, you have to prove your deity exists, and here are the requirements again: physical evidence that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. Until then, it won’t exist at this blog, and anything you base upon that presupposition, like your objective morals, is automatically dismissed.

  104. says

    KC:

    I feel like the ban hammer is immanent, so I might as well quit

    Good. Here’s a protip for you: LEAVE. I’m about *this* close to sending an alert about you, so toddle off, asswipe. Don’t keep posting about how you’re going to leave, just do it.

  105. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Dang, everybody bet the flounce wouldn’t stick. *Grumbles about troll predictability*

  106. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @Kroos Control , persona non grata

    What laws or preconditons would apply , such that FNU would be contrained to only certain phenomena?
    The point of it there are no laws or preconditions , so there’s no restriction.

    How about the law that things inside the universe have causes, but the universe doesn’t? Equivalently, the law that the first moment does not have a cause, but every moment after has a cause. I fail to see why having some thing without a cause must be contagious and cannot be contained.

  107. Amphiox says

    I feel like the ban hammer is immanent, so I might as well quit

    One notes the level conceit in this, as if he thinks he’s important enough to warrant that level of attention from the blog owner. AFAIK, except in the most egregious cases PZ always gives at least one red-lettered warning before lowering the boom.

  108. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    *hugs* Tony.

    ==========
    576 Inaji

    JAL:

    Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. I am so sorry you’ve found yourself dealing with MS, and can’t get treatment for, on top of it all. If there’s anything I can do, just holler at me. (Formerly Caine here.)

    Thanks. :) The Horde just got done pulling us out of hole (Roomie lost his job, just got a new one) so we’re surviving. It’s rather funny, in a non-haha-way, how I don’t even have the energy to think on it with everything else going it. It just is. A way of life. *shrug*

    I swear I can’t wait for more weed. (After we pay everything up and all that.) My back is killing me! With a large chest, among my other problems, I’m quite ready for scooter lol.

    What I wouldn’t give for actual health care that includes women, as people. A breast reduction and tubal ligation would be heavenly.

  109. Louis says

    (Inaji, formerly Caine, I did not know and am v happy to see you back. This comment is in brackets to make it surreptitious.

    Louis)

  110. Amphiox says

    What laws or preconditons would apply , such that FNU would be contrained to only certain phenomena?
    The point of it there are no laws or preconditions , so there’s no restriction.

    Apply the same to god or any other intelligent creator entity. If it is valid to demand from FNU, it is valid to demand of God. You cannot apply it to one but not the other.

  111. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    I guess I’ll apologize. I meant to show Tony’s line was kind of inappropriate and a referenced something a very bad man did. It wasn’t a good idea in retrospect.

    That’s not an apology. That’s not even a notpology. That’s a fucking sneer “Oh, well fine then. Have it your way.”

  112. Amphiox says

    How about the law that things inside the universe have causes, but the universe doesn’t? Equivalently, the law that the first moment does not have a cause, but every moment after has a cause. I fail to see why having some thing without a cause must be contagious and cannot be contained.

    I mean this is just so basic, isn’t it? The universe is the cause of everything in it. It is therefore a separate category of phenomenon from everything in it. That which applies to the category of things inside universes does not have to apply to the universe itself, which is not a thing inside a universe.

    All life comes from life. But the first life does not have to, and indeed, by definition, can’t.

  113. Jacob Schmidt says

    Yeah I regretted it after I hit post. Wish I could delete it.
    I feel like the ban hammer is immanent, so I might as well quit

    Not necessarily. You seem at least somewhat contrite.

  114. Amphiox says

    Holy crap! Inaji is Caine?

    How did I not notice that from the nature and style of the posts?!

  115. says

    Tony! #597
    Fair enough. I’ll happily agree that as far as jokes go, this one probably wouldn’t have been funny, no matter who it came from. My point was that regulars might get accorded a bit of charity that outsiders won’t. Perhaps the difference between “dude, not funny” and “fuck off, shit-for-brains”.

    If a person isn’t part of the group, trying to appear very congenial often ends up seeming strained and artificial, producing the opposite effect. It’s like the difference between a hug from a friend and a hug from a complete stranger. Same action, but one feels nice and cozy, while the other is uncomfortable.

  116. says

    Amphiox:

    How did I not notice that from the nature and style of the posts?!

    Easily, I expect, as I haven’t been posting much.

  117. says

    Kroos:

    I meant to show Tony’s line was kind of inappropriate and a referenced something a very bad man did

    Except it didn’t. Offering to fill someone’s glass isn’t inherently problematic. It’s only problematic when it’s used as a way to pressure a person to drink more than they really want, in order to weaken their judgment. What matters is whether you respect them saying no (perhaps using your status as leverage) and what your motivation is (being courteous vs. getting them drunk so you can make a pass at them).

    Tony’s comment referenced Shermer to the same degree that two people having consensual sex references rape; i.e. not at all. You’re the one who brought Shermer into the picture.

  118. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Easily, I expect, as I haven’t been posting much.

    From your first posts, I was the equivalent of “who is that actor/actress as they look/sound familiar”. Then came a quiet revelation from you, followed by “DOH” *double facepalm*.

  120. says

    Nerd:

    Then came a quiet revelation from you, followed by “DOH” *double facepalm*.

    Heh, no need for that. I have been vewwy, vewwy quiet. :)

  121. says

    I feel like the ban hammer is immanent, so I might as well quit

    Good. My library book’s due back tomorrow and I’m barely halfway through.

    (One would think that after all this time, I’d know better than to get into it with someone who views me as less than human, but old habits die hard.)

  123. says

    Tony:

    Are you hunting wabbits or ducks?

    Neither. I’ve been stalking adorable rats with my camera. :D

    Do any of them apply to your nym?

    Yes – it means arise.

  124. says

    #560, Kroos Control:

    I let a lot of stuff slide in Thunderdome, but joking about rape will get you banned. Knock it off.

  125. ChasCPeterson says

    8 March 2014 at 7:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

    Incidentally, Chas, I am eternally amused by how any frivolity or humour is dismissed by you as not serious. You really are pathetically shallow aren’t you? Wake me when you can think yourself out of a lukewarm cup of piss. Found those oh so valid and unjustly ridiculed arguments against abortion yet? Or are you still piss and vinegar and nothing else?

    Your snipe on the Thunderdome wasn’t unnoticed, I guess most people think you’re not worth bothering with. Personally, I just find it funny to mock you and watch you have a tantrum. You are hilariously up yourself and really quite unintelligent. The fact you don’t even realise it is the best bit for me.

    Louis

    Dear Louis:
    I was surprised to find this comment of yours quoted elsewhere on the web (I was bored and slumming and avoiding this place). Wow. It’s difficult to parse this in any way other than intended cruelty: you are saying mean things that you hope will hurt my feelings. It reminds me of 7th-grade bullying, and frankly I think it kind of tarnishes the I’m-a-good-person badge you like to flash around here.
    I’m just logging in to let you know that it didn’t work. I have enough real-world evidence of my intelligence and ability to think that I don’t have to care what Louis-on-the-internet says about it.
    And I doubt you can link to a comment of mine that anybody would recognize as a “tantrum”; you, on the other hand, I’ve seen go right off the hook at least twice (I suspect you know what I’m talking about) and so I’m going to put that part down to projection.
    And I don’t even know what your first sentence means. Imagine, not taking frivolity seriously!
    Anyway. The fellow who posted your comment elsewhere concluded that you were “a sad, vindictive little man” and I would just add ‘immature’ to that. In other words, my opinion of you hasn’t changed.

    Charles

  135. consciousness razor says

    EnlightenmentLiberal, #548:

    I’m not utterly confused about a topic. I’m still waiting for you to present an argument that Nazis are evil which bridges the is-ought gap, or whatever other example floats your boat.

    You’re expecting a syllogism to produce facts for you? Have fun with that. You might as well be waiting for someone to present an argument that the sky is blue.

    All you have done is claim that there exists such an argument, and most people know it.

    No, I claimed there exists such facts. I also claimed it’s not the case that most people need to know them. But this has so little relation to what I said, that linking to my earlier comments is probably best, since apparently you either lost the ability to quote me or to represent what I said honestly.

    That is not the same thing as actually presenting the argument.

    Nor is it the same as gathering and presenting evidence about the world.

    I am expecting a formal argument with specified premises, conclusions, possibly with syllogistic form, or at the very least some English prose which is easily formalizable into a formal form.

    Again, the form of an argument simply isn’t going to do the work for us here. You think it’s axioms all the way down, well that isn’t true. The real world exists, and we can do other things in it than sit in armchairs and pick at irrelevant little bits of language.

  136. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Chigau,
    Hey, I haven’t been around a lot. I think an alergy is kicking in. head hurts and I can feel my sinuses gathering pitchforks and planing a revolt.
    Got any rum?

  137. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    anyone have experience playing the mandolin?

    Would you have any recommendations for a person who already plays stringed instruments, but is looking to branch out into mandolin for the first time? Brands, models, things to watch out for, anything like that is helpful. Thanks.

  138. consciousness razor says

    I have very little experience with mandolins personally (some friends play it), but I know the type of music you’re playing could probably make a big difference in the type of mandolin you want to get. That would be the first thing I would think about, because the tone quality and how you intend to play it will differ. Much like guitars, if you’re familiar with those. I would definitely find a few to test in a shop before you buy one (even if you eventually buy the same model from another source), because like any other instrument, you want to be happy with the sound and how it plays.

    (There are some other shopping tips and such at that link, but I don’t know how useful it is to you, especially if you’re an experienced musician.)

  139. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    First, thanks consciousness razor, for the link. It is helpful as I’m not very knowledgeable about mandolins.

    Second, since consciousness razor helpfully brought it up, I’m a lapsed musician returning to playing guitar after 20+ years of not. My left hand technique is much better than my right. In some senses I’m intermediate, in some I’m beginner. In short, I’m an advanced beginner that has idiosyncratically advanced more in some areas than others.

    But in this case, the mando is a gift for Partner. So I’m doing some of the decision making, but I’m also mindful of where Partner is, not where I am, in relationship to stringed instruments. She has little and long-ago exp with guitar, but lately has decided to play the ukelele as it fits her small hands much better and friends of hers play it. She’s an advanced beginner and is working diligently to become better.

    We have regular days where all the people we know are generally invited to come over for potluck and playing whatever songs anyone decides would be interesting (we take turns in suggesting/picking songs). These are mostly uke-dominated, but with a consistent guitar minority. Part of the reason for branching out into mando is that Partner has always loved the sound of the instrument, but part of it is the practical consequences of having greater instrument diversity in friendly jams.

    There is no pretension to professional musicianship: that’s not even a regular fantasy for either of us.

  140. Louis says

    Chas,

    I suspect you’ll get over it. Sad and vindictive? Ha! Whatever gets you through the night. I’ll definitely admit to mean though. I do have a tendency to be mean to people I think are beneath my contempt when they repeatedly get in my face for no good reason (yes I too have a memory) and when they repeatedly assert a self appointed superiority very much not in evidence as you do.

    As for 7th grade bullying, what do you think your sniping, nit-picking and utter failure to deliver on things you claim exist is? The behaviour of a saint? Physician heal thyself. It does help, when accusing others of projection, to not, deary me I hate to say this, project quite so much.

    Hateful little man you are, Chas.

    Louis

    P.S. BTW I’ve never claimed I don’t or haven’t lost my temper. I have. I’ve also never claimed I’ve never been wrong. I have. Guess what, Chas? I had the intellect and humility to learn from it. You? Not so much.

  141. Louis says

    Oh and FYI, I have never claimed to be, nor am, a “good person” of almost any kidney. Flawed, fucked up, failed and fabulous just like everyone else. Sorry, swing and a miss, Chas.

    Enjoy your hair.

    Louis

  142. consciousness razor says

    This may not be a very helpful generalization, but some have a twangier, crisper, rougher, more piercing sound. That can be good for rhythm/supporting work, or even melodic work in some folk music in which that sort of timbre might be desirable. It’s a bit like Bob Dylan’s singing: he doesn’t have an operatic voice, to say the least, and that’s one thing that makes it fit his style of music well. You (probably) would not want Placido Domingo or Barry Manilow singing his songs, unless maybe you’re feeling adventurous and think that’s worth trying out. :)

    Others have a less piercing and sweeter sound that can be more suitable to lyrical melodic lines, or providing a somewhat smoother timbre as harmonic/rhythmic support. Those sound more like a violin (or a ukelele, for that matter) and are better at blending with a variety of other sounds in the group, not so much with sticking out or providing a contrast to these other sounds (what instrumentation your group might have, and how those players perform, I don’t know). But even so, these are pretty subtle differences: mandolins are all fairly small and delicate instruments, so it’s hard to make them sound too rough or overpowering in a group, and things like the type of strings and how you play it also affect the sound, not just the body of the instrument.

    But that’s me, looking at the choice from basically a composer’s/orchestrator’s point of view. As far as brands and prices and the mechanics of playing different models, I’m no help at all.

  143. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @consciousness razor
    I have confused you for brianpansky. I just rechecked the previous posts, and I cannot find anywhere where you said the is-ought gap can be bridged. Thus, we have been speaking past each other, and it’s mostly my fault. I’m not sure if we actually have a disagreement – well besides whether it’s proper to formalize your beliefs and justifications into a directed graph (which it is), and whether you hold to some beliefs / values beyond doubt (which we all do).

    So, sorry for more or less strawmanning you.

  144. consciousness razor says

    I have confused you for brianpansky. I just rechecked the previous posts, and I cannot find anywhere where you said the is-ought gap can be bridged.

    I might be mistaken, but I think we do basically agree with each other on that point, concerning realism. At least some moral truths are empirical in nature, as opposed to being (say) logical or mathematical or definitional. These are moral facts. If you bother to look for them somewhere in the real world, you will not find a “bridge,” nor should you bother looking for one, because there doesn’t need to be a bridge. They are on the same bank of the river, so to speak. How we might decide to put those facts to different uses doesn’t change what they are. So the distinction you’re making here (i.e., it’s an “ought” but not an “is”) doesn’t refer to any actual distinction in the real world about the facts themselves. You try explaining to me exactly what an “ought” is, as well as how you know that’s true, and let’s see how far you get.

    I’m not sure if we actually have a disagreement – well besides whether it’s proper to formalize your beliefs and justifications into a directed graph (which it is), and whether you hold to some beliefs / values beyond doubt (which we all do).

    What do I need to hold “beyond doubt”? It isn’t relevant that I hold something like the law of non-contradiction beyond doubt, so give me something here which is actually relevant.

  145. Louis says

    Last one! I googled, for fuck’s sake why did I google? Silly Louis. Unfortunately I was wrong, the suspicion I had was in error. Ah well, happens. It turned out to be funnier than I thought though.

    Chas,

    My comment is quoted at the Slymepit ({waves} hello obsessive Hogglers, I’ll be having coffee in a minute, any details you need be sure to ask). Seriously. THAT is your standard? Haha! Nice one! I am sure of three things:

    1) Many of the Slymepit people are just plain ol’ folks. Nothing evil, nothing good. Regular people. They give their mums flowers, help old ladies across roads, and are generally not utter arseholes. I think they’re wrong about something, hell if I could be bothered (and I am 94.326% beyond being bothered believe that or not) prove that with a bit of paper and a pen. Unfortunately, like arguing with creationists gets old, arguing with intransigent misogynists gets old. My time is mine to fritter away, I’ll do that how I please. Of course not everyone at the Slymepit is an intransigent misogynist, like I said, I’m sure a group that large contains a sufficient variety of people. What I am sure of is this unbelievably petty inter blog drama is beyond reason and is a total distraction. I’m also sure that the majority of the crap that spews forth over the rim of that place is fact-less drivel, and, to borrow a Nerdism, can be dismissed as such. The strongest emotions I can muster are pity and contempt, blending beautifully into relative indifference. (I expect the usual bullshit)

    2) As a general rule of thumb, having someone at the Slymepit say something negative about you is the equivalent of one tiny drop of rain landing on a duck’s back. First, it’s pretty negligible, they typically know fuck all. Second, consider the source. Seriously. They’re hardly likely to be well disposed towards someone that sees the existence of the place as being only a haven for people too socially and intellectually inept to consider their biases. The fact that you think raising any comment or criticism from that poisoned source will disturb or even enlighten is simply amazing to me. I’d be as perturbed by that as I would be by knowing a Stormfront member hated me for the colour of my skin. In other words, I already know, and the source is, to be blunt, a fucking stupid one. (And again, I predict the obvious bullshit)

    3) I don’t hate you and want you to die, as claimed by your Slymey friend, and sorry to disappoint yourself and the Slymepit chappies and chappesses, I’ve been at least tolerably kind to animals my whole life. I say it in that qualified manner because I eat meat and work in pharma. Never actually tortured an animal, far too much of a softie for that, never really had he inclination. I didn’t wet the bed either, or set fire to lots of things, if we’re going for the triad. Mind you, I do like a good fire….you can take the chemist out of the pyromaniac…

    Anyway, please don’t die, Chas. Seriously. Have a long life and much happiness instead. At least sufficient happiness to cheer you up a bit, because holy shit do you come across as one miserable bastard.

    So it’s come to this, eh Chas? You think that quoting the words of some Slymepit member as insult is actually a palpable hit of any kind? Deluded. Simply deluded. I do find it funny for a number of reasons, not least of which is the age old saw of the “ally” who cries “if you’re not nice to me, I’ll join the other side!”, or words to that effect. Is that you? As you vanish from here, a consummation devoutly to be wished, will you be seen in the company of some of the most egregious women hating pond life of the Internet? Or will we, you know, be treated to you braying about who pro-choice you are whilst you still insinuate that there are valid arguments for restricting a woman’s right to choose endlessly? Let me know.

    Oh and by the way, have you ever considered you get what you give? You do spew out a rather large amount of unpleasantness. I wonder why you’re surprised when you get it in return.

    Louis

  146. Louis says

    Cat Herder,

    I suppose I can try, with little expectation of success or hope of reasoned response, do you think there are any mockable propositions/positions?

    I ask this for a few reasons. First, you’re mocking other people’s’ propositions/positions, so I presume this means you do think these exist and are mockable. Second, I actually agree that things like the Gumby quote and Jason’s Ferengi MRA quote can have the effect of simply reinforcing group dynamics and shared views in an uncritical manner. Can =\= doing so in all circumstances. Third, mockery (either by word, or in this case a tool that sets things up as foolish) are tools that can be used with care, and IMO should be used with some care, I know I don’t always get it right for example. Last, is your objection derived solely from the fact that it is views you have that are being mocked? As you demonstrate, you have no problem with mockery, after all you think it’s clever to use a mocking tool to mock the mockers, presumably because you believe them to be hypocritical in some fashion.

    So the question is do you actually disagree with mockery as both a rhetorical and intellectual tool (because it can illuminate as well as deride)? Which based on your actions would make you a hypocrite (it’s okay, we all are to greater or lesser extents). Or is your objection simply pique? Are you objecting because you identify with what’s being mocked?

    You could take this opportunity to surprise, well, at least me.

    Louis

  149. brianpansky says

    @644

    i think i agree…

    but i really don’t want to get into some kind of word game about what “bridging” the “gap” really means, or if that metaphor is accurate enough. :P

    but saying they are on “the same side” as the chasm sounds right i guess, because it **is** true that you ought to do something…

  152. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Beatrice:

    I still have half a bottle of Kraken, would that help?

    (I fail at heavy drinking. I have been drunk three times in my life. A bottle of rum lasts over a year. A twelve-pack of beer lasts a month or two. What am I doing wrong?)

  154. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Luckily, there’s a pharmacy in the same building, so I bought some antihistamines and the uprising was suppressed.

    Rum is always welcome, though.

  155. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Hekuni Cat:

    Regarding your question about German and Austrian railroad stations: contact one of the German companies (Faller, Heller, Marklin, Heljan, Vollmer) that produce models of railroad stations for model railroaders and ask if they would be willing to tell you what resources they used or any possible contacts. Make sure you tell them it is for a novel, not for a model railroading product. (that is from Son).

    Also, there are railroad history groups in just about every nation, but none of us here have any contacts or can even think of the name (they insist on having a name that makes no sense in English, so, being parochial Americans, we just ignore them).

  156. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    Man I thought I wa perma-banned for sure. And I probably deserved it tbh.

    I feel like you’re dropping points
    I’ll number them

    1) I made an analogy with a similar graph that started at t>2 in the previous thunderdome thread. We were standing around in our lab at t=1 with no object , saw it shortly after t=2. Did it begin to exist? You’re merely assuming that beginning could not have been a first finite interval. There is no first instant , but its clearly finite in the past.
    Have you heard of any of the sorite paradoxes? Especially the ones dealing with motion. I think they show how something to begin to exist or begin to move without necessarily having a first instant of motion. The processes are similar where the beginning point would be infinitesimally close to the origin , but not actually at the origin.
    2)Pruss is using a possible/modal worlds account of necessary , and the universe does not meet a possible worlds account of necessity for reasons given at #329 and 554

    If you take your model , at t=0 , there was a state of affairs with no universe and there was a timeless state of affairs with no universe as well. So the universe is contingent and needs an explanation.

    3)My reformulation of Pruss’ argument

    How about the law that things inside the universe have causes, but the universe doesn’t? Equivalently, the law that the first moment does not have a cause, but every moment after has a cause. I fail to see why having some thing without a cause must be contagious and cannot be contained.

    It is. Saying those things would make sense if you were appealing to say , some law , or some state of affairs that existed without (or causally prior to) the universe. But FNU has no laws. It would make sense if you were appealing to a state or law that existed at the first moment , but again , you don’t have any state of affiars to appeal to.
    The idea that something can arise from nothing and uncaused (ie with nopreconditions or laws) has no inputs and no process , just an output. There’s nowhere it doesn’t apply , nothing it needs to happen so it can happen.
    I think Craig says its difficult to argue for the causal principle because its so obvious that any argument you give in support would be less obvious. If you assume its not true it can royally fuck up science and reasoning.In principle there isn’t even a reason why nothing produced this universe , and not say a different universe with different laws and elementary particles , or a universe at all. Why didn’t it bring forth horses and bicycles and rocketships?

  157. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    Kroos Control:

    You claim that you want to help women, to protect them. The laws that you support, the laws that you wish to expand, laws that restrict late-term abortions, kill women. How do you explain this?

    You claim that all humans (even useless ones like me) have ‘intrinsic value.’ Where does this value come from?

  158. says

    KC @ 656:

    Man I thought I wa perma-banned for sure. And I probably deserved it tbh.

    Yes, that’s terribly obvious, given the actual, sincere apology you wrote to Tony.
     
    Here’s a hint, you dense piece of shit: you have no business wandering back here as if nothing happened, without giving an actual, sincere apology to Tony, and to everyone else who was subjected to your idiot, foul remark.

  162. says

    Ah, fuck it. I wasn’t going to finish my book by the end of today, anyway*.

    So, Kroos. Should a woman who drinks a beer during pregnancy face the same criminal charges (providing alcohol to minors, endangering the welfare of a child) as a parent who gives a beer to a toddler? Why or why not?

    Note: I refuse to accept “I don’t know” as a valid answer.

    *Took a sleeping pill last night, holla!

  163. consciousness razor says

    KC:
    Word salad. Barely understood a word of it, and what I did get didn’t make sense.

    Why didn’t it bring forth horses and bicycles and rocketships?

    There evidently are horses and bicycles and rocketships. So are you asking why there are horses, etc., or why it’s not the case that there are horses, etc.?

    Do you have anything to say about whether “nothing” includes logically necessary truths, mathematical truths, and possibly other abstract laws like those found in quantum mechanics? You’ve had a couple days to respond about your views on nothing, and still …. nothing.

    And do you think there’s something from with the big bang and inflationary theories? If so, what exactly is wrong with them and how do you know this?

  164. Louis says

    No no Chas, I’ve made my own point.

    Anyway, what point are you making? That you, a shithead, thinks similarly to other shitheads (some Slymepit denizen)? Big whoop. That I am a meanie and a terribad person who is not good and lovely and perfect? I know this already! Not only do I know this, I admit it, I’m happy to admit it. You made no point. You have no point. You are utterly and eternally pointless in this regard.

    By the way, the last line of your previous post. Why bother telling me your opinion hasn’t changed? Why on EARTH do you think I was trying to change your opinion of me? I’m really not. You’re opinion of me is utterly immaterial. I’ve known you think poorly of me for ages, I didn’t care then (just like you don’t care what I think) and I don’t care now. You have never made a secret of your opinion and have made frequent snipes and whines over the years. Again, why on earth you think people should fall over in the face of your permanent unpleasantness eludes me. You seriously don’t get just how odious you are do you? Why do you think when you get up on your hind legs and bark that anyone should take a backwards step? You’re joke, Chas. A puffed up twit that thinks his shit doesn’t stink and that, were it to have any aroma, it would be far superior to that of others.

    A case in point is your evidence free, illogical, self-contradictory claims about anti-woman abortion arguments. You can’t even produce these things. I say “can’t” not “won’t” because you know as well as anyone here they would be torn apart as such arguments have been in the past. Instead you’ve relied on crying “echo chamber!” and making snide assertions of “political correctness” (although of course, you’re just about smart enough not to use the actual term, as if that has fooled a single person). If you had what you claimed, you’d have demonstrated it. You don’t and you know it, hence the sound and fury signifying nothing.

    Oh and guess what, it’s been a pleasure to mock you for this. You’ve never made, as I said, any secret of your dislike for me, why should I pretend to like you when I don’t, or pretend to be cowed or fooled by your bullshit when I’m not? Hint: I shouldn’t.

    As for not taking frivolity seriously and immaturity etc, as I noted previously, whatever your inane, unperceptive and evidence free take on things you are one of the more spectacularly humourless wankers I’ve encountered. Humour, used well, enlightens. I don’t claim to always (or even often) get it right, but really, your shallow thought and obvious difficulty perceiving the utility of humour, however constructed, never fails to amaze me. I wouldn’t trust your perception if a shaving of something spectacularly worthless depended on it.

    Luckily, I don’t have to rely on support from obvious fuckwits to shore up my opinion of you, nor the utility of comedy, even frivolous comedy. Here’s a thing or two to (hopefully) spark the firing of a neuron in your dull brain:

    “By calling him humourless I mean to impugn his seriousness, categorically: such a man must rig up his probity ex nihilo.”

    Martin Amis, Experience (2000), Part I: “Failures of Tolerance

    (That one REALLY applies here, Chas. I really am calling you humourless. You’re a dog that laughs through bared teeth, not someone who appreciates humour. Not that I expect you to get the reference.)

    “A joke’s a very serious thing.”

    Charles Churchill, The Ghost (1763), book iv, line 1386

    “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”

    Ludwig Wittgenstein, as quoted in “A View from the Asylum” in Philosophical Investigations from the Sanctity of the Press (2004), by Henry Dribble, p. 87

    “Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.”

    Peter Ustinov, as quoted in Morrow’s International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green

    And lastly, because it is possible to have too much of a good thing:

    “Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it.”

    George Saintsbury, in A Last Vintage, p. 172

    That one you should really pay attention to. Your savage hostility has always been palpable.

    Anyway, as I said, you’re not as bright as you think, as perceptive as you think, or really worth the bother. In fact, you’re a bit of an energy vampire. A rather pathetic and pointless distraction. Back in the plonk pot you go. Let’s do each other a favour and ignore the hell out of each other from this point hence.

    Oh sorry, was that too many words for you? Pissant.

    Louis

  165. chigau (違う) says

    Sooooo, Alexandra (if that’s even your real name).
    Are you still *nursing* that poor, innocent child?
    Are you passing on the booze and pills in your *blush* milk?

  166. consciousness razor says

    Sorry…. do you think there’s something wrong with BB and inflation?

  168. chigau (違う) says

    Alexandra
    So you would have to provide actual beer.
    Yes, that could be MoralDilemma™.

  171. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I didn’t mean I was quitting permanently.

    You really should. Your presup theological sophistry is dismissed on sight, as is your religiously based arguments against abortion. Your word simply isn’t anything other than something to be laughed at, and we have nothing whatsoever to learn from you, other than the limits of your delusions. While we laugh at those delusions.

  173. Amphiox says

    Why didn’t it bring forth horses and bicycles and rocketships?

    In the bigger context of what “it” might be, it DID. It simply did so through the process of creating a universe first.

    If you want to build a rocketship, you must first create the universe.

  174. Amphiox says

    I didn’t mean I was quitting permanently.

    In a statement made IMMEDIATELY after reference to being banhammered?

    Right, you “didn’t mean” that.

    And you have the nerve to complain about interpretative charity, you dishonest hack.

  176. Rob Grigjanis says

    Kroos Control @656:

    The idea that something can arise from nothing and uncaused (ie with nopreconditions or laws) has no inputs and no process , just an output. There’s nowhere it doesn’t apply , nothing it needs to happen so it can happen.

    As Amphiox pointed out, your problem (OK, one of them) is category error. We live in a 3+1 (3 space, 1 time) hypersurface in which we parametrize points with coordinates (t,x,y,z). We describe the physical laws we observe in this hypersurface via this (or some equivalent) parametrization. What you are trying to do, whether you realize it or not, is to extend both the parametrization (t<0!!!), and the principles we observe inside the hypersurface (causality!), to a (possibly fictitious) embedding (4+1?, 5+1?, 7+2?) space, with zero justification. It really is magnificently naive.

  178. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @consciousness razor
    To answer your question: You cannot convince me with reason to not use reason. Similarly, you cannot use evidence and science to convince me to not use evidence and science. If you are at all sane, you agree. (And if you bring up The Matrix or similar as an example where you can be convinced to not use evidence, I will be annoyed at your seeming willful misunderstanding.)

    …

    @Kroos Control
    Whatever about the idea of a first time. I don’t think it’s interesting compared to this other point.

    The idea that something can arise from nothing and uncaused (ie with nopreconditions or laws) has no inputs and no process , just an output. There’s nowhere it doesn’t apply , nothing it needs to happen so it can happen.

    Again, sorry, but I do not accept your naked assertion. You say if there is something uncaused, it must be explosively so, without constraint. Why can’t there be something uncaused with constraints? I see nothing wrong with this idea.

    If you assume its not true it can royally fuck up science and reasoning.

    Simply not true. Example: I see nothing wrong with the idea that there is this black box here with a light on it, which randomly cycles back and forth between off and on. It’s magic, but it’s constrained. It affects the rest of our universe only by turning on and off that light. If the universe was deterministic without that box, the box makes it indeterministic, but the affect of the box is so small that I can still talk about causation as an approximation of the real world, a very useful and accurate and precise approximation, and that’s all I need. I only need useful.

    Quantum mechanics may be like that black box. Every individual particle of our universe may be uncaused like magic, like that black box. However, it’s constrained even further to follow a certain probabilistic distribution. (I do not constrain the above black box like this.) However again, the randomness cancels each other out almost, and at the macro classical scales, classical rules and classical understandings of reality do quite well. I think that your idea of causation has been bunk for about 100 years now, ever since the discover of quantum mechanics.

    Why didn’t it bring forth horses and bicycles and rocketships?

    I understand this question to be “why don’t we have a universe where horses are spontaneously created?”. Münchhausen trilemma. I do not know why. I do know that it does not, because I have an overwhelming amount of evidence that it does not.

    Related: Feynman answers the perenial question: Fucking magnets, how do they work?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM
    Feynman is making a very deep point, one which is basically saying that the Münchhausen trilemma is true, and the axiomatic approach is the right approach. In order to even talk about truth and falseness, you must already be in a framework where truth is defined, and where you allow some thing to be true by fiat.

    Paraphrase of Feynman: I can answer your question of why horses do not randomly appear in terms of quantum field theory. Quantum field theory does not allow the creation of horses out of a vacuum field (or if it does, astronomically rarely). Of course, you could just ask why is quantum field theory true. I do not know why quantum field field is true. I cannot explain quantum field theory to you in terms of something which you’re more familiar with, because I do not understand it in terms of something which you’re more familiar with. I can tell you that it is, and that it’s one of the parts of this universe, and with it we can explain a great many other facts which you might think are unrelated, such as horses don’t appear spontaneously.

  180. Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive] says

    Alexandra:

    But is giving her one as bad or worse than drinking while pregnant?

    Back when she was the DarkFetus, her brain was growing at a faster clip than it is now, and her mass was lower. The former meant for more neurons that could potentially divide wrongly, and the latter meant that the effective dose was less.
    Which is to say, that giving DarkToddler a beer now is (1) not the best idea, but (2) not as bad as giving her beer interplacentally.

    If you were actually curious about that answer.

    Myself, I have just diagnosed myself with anxiety r/t school aeb making a differential for a cold. So I have a treatment: 1 U EtOH q6h PO PRN.

    :D :D

  182. Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive] says

    Why should he apologize to peons like ourselves? We’re supposed to apologize to him for not immediately recognizing his superior arguments.

  184. Amphiox says

    The idea that something can arise from nothing and uncaused (ie with nopreconditions or laws) has no inputs and no process , just an output.

    So what?

    Input -> process -> output is a law that only needs to apply WITHIN this, pre-existing universe. There is no logical reason that it must apply outside of this universe.

  185. says

    Data!

    So, considering that giving DarkFetus a beer is way worse (health and development wise) than giving one to DarkToddler, doesn’t it stand to reason that the consequences should be more severe for drinking while pregnant?

    I mean, if our only concern is providing the “appropriate level of care” and all.

  189. Louis says

    Chigau,

    Shit! Don’t say things like that. They can cause huge intergalactic wars.

    Louis

  190. Nick Gotts says

    In order to even talk about truth and falseness, you must already be in a framework where truth is defined, and where you allow some thing to be true by fiat. – Enlightenment Liberal@678

    That’s not true. Children as young as 3 can talk about truth and falseness, but are not in a framework where truth is defined (because even if you take this to be their social context rather than a framework they have defined for themselves, truth does not have a clear or consistent social definition). I don’t allow anything to be “true by fiat”, because that’s just fuckwitted drivel: declaring something “true by fiat” has, in general, not the slightest influence on whether it is, in fact, true.

  191. chigau (違う) says

    Louis
    Your problem with Thursday us that today is Friday.
    As long as there are small dogs, we are safe.
    Probably.

  192. Ogvorbis: Still failing at being human. says

    No. Thursday is not Friday. Thursday is Tuesday. Saturday is Thursday.

    Where the hell is my towel?

  193. Dhorvath, OM says

    Life.

    Don’t talk to me about life.

    Here I am, brain the size of a planet…

  194. opposablethumbs says

    Why am I reminded of white mice?
    and fjords?

    Oh, I was thinking of completely the wrong white mice and fjords – the ones associated with musical mallets, and parrots.
    I think that means I’m a blasphemer and should be excommunicated?
    .
    KC, why are you still here? You’ve already established your callous disdain for women twice over – you don’t care that the actual result of abortion restrictions is dead women and their bereaved families, and woo-hoo, you think rape “jokes” are funny. And yet you still think it’s perfectly decent behaviour on your part to come back and witter on about Craig, as if your depraved indifference weren’t blazoned all over the thread?
    You are repulsive.

  195. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @Nick Gotts

    Children as young as 3 can talk about truth and falseness, but are not in a framework where truth is defined (because even if you take this to be their social context rather than a framework they have defined for themselves, truth does not have a clear or consistent social definition).

    As a separate matter, the ability to reason, and to a more limited extent the ability to do science, is instinctual. As you say, beliefs in the brain form a complex web. Even then, what I’m talking about may not be a “belief” located in the brain. Instead, it may well relate to the organizational structure of the brain. If we adopt a hardware / software analogy, it may be that the ability to do basic logic and the ability to do basic science may be hardwired in the brain, with particular beliefs being software. Of course, even this is a gross approximation, and lots of interesting things are going on.

    But again, as I mentioned earlier, you are being an asshole. I am talking about a proper formalization of knowledge and epistemology. I want to talk about whether our beliefs are justifiable, and how we ought to justify our beliefs, and what constitutes a proper justification of beliefs. This has almost nothing to do with how people think. That’s just an appeal to nature fallacy (frequently called the naturalistic fallacy). Your argument that: this is the way people think, and thus that’s how we ought to think, is fallacious.

    Your willful refusal to distinguish between 1- the study of the brain and how people think, and 2- the study of what constitutes a proper justification, makes you an asshat.

  196. says

    Ogvorbis:

    Where the hell is my towel?

    Mine’s in the bathroom. Has lovely red letters on it, which read “Don’t Panic”.

  197. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    Funny. My towel has this written on it.

    When in trouble
    When in doubt
    Run in circles
    Scream and shout

    (Hello stranger.)

  200. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    What happened to m is to be expected if you buy a cheap knock off of the real guide. Some of the sections have not been updated in millions of years. Some of the planets I have visit have already had a couple of extinction events since they were last written up.

    Talk about embarrassing.

  201. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Only 1 day left to listen to the second episode and I almost forgot. Thanks for the reminder!

    (and many thanks to whoever mentioned this in the first place, sorry I forgot who it was)

  206. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    Apology
    In a previous post here I compared a certian post by a user to an action made by a very bad man. For reasons explicated in #617 such a comparison was a false one, and quite unfair to the user. I was being an internet dickwad and I apologize to the user and those I offended.

  208. says

    KC:

    I apologize to the user

    Jesus Fucked A Duck, you’re a persistent doucheweasel. Try something like this, asswipe:

    Tony, I apologize for making a comment which implied you were a rapist. It was a stupid, thoughtless thing to do. To everyone else, I apologize for saying such a stupid, thoughtless thing to your friend, and I do understand that rape is not a laughing matter, and that it is never appropriate to make jokes about rape and sexual assault. In the future, I will think before I post. I’m sorry.

    We are not “users” here.* We are a tight knit community, and we know each other very well. It’s incredibly shitty of you to dehumanize Tony even further with this example of yet another notpology. How about you just stop posting until such time that you yank your head out of your ass, and stop thinking your shit is ever so sweet?
     
    *Yeah, yeah, technically, all that. I know.

  209. Louis says

    I’ve often made the comment that the Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh is not merely accidentally a massive bigot in some of his commentary, he combines a huge natural talent with an excellent work ethic. The man tries to be bigoted.

    Kroos Control, be flattered by the comparison. That apology was so utterly terrible that it has to be the product of the intersection of effort and natural gifts. Bravo! Truly a classic of the art.

    Louis

  210. ChasCPeterson says

    Louis, I don;t think you’ve still yet managed to make it clear how little you care for or about me.
    Perhaps another 8 or 9 hundred more words on the subject would help?

    Charles

  213. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    I apologize to the user

    This is a test to see if the MRA Ferengi blockquote works here.

  214. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    @Enlightenedliberal
    I think 2) is really devastating to your case against Pruss’ argument since your whole argument hinges on the universe being necessary and your mis-definition of necessity
    3) As I tried to explain . When you speak of the universe arising from nothing , you are saying the universe arose without reference to any antecedent conditions or laws. Nothing by definition has no properties. It does not have the potentiality to do anything. A block of wood has certain properties. A block of wood has the potentiality to do certain things or become certain things.
    When I ask you a question and you respond, well nothing has X properties and as such it can only pbring forth universes in certain time periods or under certain conditions . Or when you say nothing only spawns universes because it only has the potentiality to spawn universe and does not have the potentiality to spawn tigers or rocketships. You’re not talking about nothing. Nothing can’t discriminate. You’re talking about something that has properties and potentiality to create the universe. Which gets us back to the point about how the universe had to come from something.
    The box situation you described is an indeterministic process that occurs with reference to some physical states in the box. If you say , no it does not reference and is not caused by any states in the box , then you have to ask why it is occuring in the box and not elsewhere. Quantum mechanics has probabilistic processes that reference certain physical states. This is why physicists can predict and understand the processes probabilistically.
    In radioactive decay , the radiation doesn’t come from nothing, It comes from the unstable nucleus. the radiation would not have come about if not for the unstable nucleus.
    None of these support the idea that something can come from nothing , which is why no seriosu metaphysicians take the idea seriosuly
    @CR
    I actually like Craig’s description

    To be uncaused in the relevant sense of an absolute beginning, an existent must lack any non-logical necessary or sufficient conditions whatsoever. Now at this juncture, someone might protest that such a requirement is too stringent: “For how could anything come into existence without any non-logical necessary or sufficient conditions?” But this is my point exactly; if absolutely nothing existed prior to the Big Bang–no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no deity–, then it seems impossible that anything should begin to exist.

    We mean coming to be without any logically necessary condition.
    I wasn’t saying there were problems with the big bang or inflation. I was saying the models implied a beginning of the universe.

  216. chigau (違う) says

    Yes, Janine.
    Sadly, we have only MrGumby

    Kroos Control says something stupid

  217. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    Why is it that some people insist that the way to explain a universe coming from nothing is to insist on an intelligence that crafted the rules. Did that intelligence come from nothing?

  218. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    I didn’t know my apology would be so poorly received. Everyone knows who Sheremer and Tony! were so I did not see the need to mention their names. Isn’t that how formal apologies go?

    Apology
    In a previous post here I compared a certian post by a Tony! to an action made by Shermer. For reasons explicated in #617 such a comparison was a false one, and quite unfair to Tony!. I was being an internet dickwad and I apologize to Tony! and those in this thread I offended.

  219. chigau (違う) says

    And why is there always only One.
    The most superficial glance at TheUniverse™ shows it was Designed® by a Committee.

  220. says

    Why is it that some people insist that the way to explain a universe coming from nothing is to insist on an intelligence that crafted the rules. Did that intelligence come from nothing?

    I suspect the creation order was as follow

    Nothing->Kaos->Primal Stupidity->Primal Intelligence->Creation

  221. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    And yet you felt that need to say that in the first place.

    Was it said out of ignorance or out of malice. Or was it both.

    Even without that, you are a tedious bore.

  222. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    Sadly, we have only MrGumby
    I was wondering who this was.

  223. ChasCPeterson says

    Oh, hi, Ing! What a pleasure to get sniped at by you again.
    But I don’t know what you mean by the pot/kettle cliche; if I’ve ever typed 800 words in a row on here, about anything, I’ll eat Louis’s hat.
    I see you still haven’t figured out the difference between a typo and not being able to spell (hint: examine the QWERTY keyboard in front of you).

    And while I’m at it, Louis, I am sincerely puzzled by your charge of humo(u)rlessness. Hell, I enjoy funny stuff as much as the next guy, and I’ve made even Ing laugh in the past.
    It’s just that I don’t think you‘re very funny. (Certainly not half as funny as you seem to think you are, anyway.) It’s probably just a style thing.

  224. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    Why is it that some people insist that the way to explain a universe coming from nothing is to insist on an intelligence that crafted the rules. Did that intelligence come from nothing?

    You’re a little ahead of where we are. There’s an answer. I’m trying to get him to admit something can’t come from nothing.

  225. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    Was it said out of ignorance or out of malice. Or was it both.

    I guess ignorance and having an extremely inapropriate sense of humor. I’m a internet dickwad. I admit it.

  226. says

    @Chas

    Oh wow you mean you haven’t constantly shared how little you think of this place and how bad it is and how you wish you could just stop showing up?

    No Chas I can’t think of a time you’ve made me laugh, at most I was offering some sort of olive branch in a misguided attempt to try to find some common ground. This was a serious error on my part and I fully withdraw the attempt.

    I really like how you feel free hammering away at my spelling and bashing dyslexia again and again (and how you oddly seem to get a pass on it from the PC police you claim are so harsh on you hmmmm) and have a thin for your “typos”. Maybe it’s because you seem to think you’re the only one who ever makes little errors, everyone else’s mistakes are innate signs of stupidity right? you’re the ONLY rational one.

    You’ve also displayed a retrograde sense of racism and sexism in the name of science and a petty tendency to lash out in anyway you think will hurt people.

    I’ve constantly been amazed at the level of nastiness you get away with due to familiarity around here and by the nerve you have to whine anytime that privilege fails you.

  227. says

    Oh and just FYI Chas, please don’t take this little heart to heart off site and send little love letters or comments like you’ve done in the past. Such behavior has in the past worried my family who feared you might be the type to net stalk/harass. Can’t imagine why they thought that.

  228. anteprepro says

    chigau:

    The most superficial glance at TheUniverse™ shows it was Designed® by a Committee.

    *coffee snort*

    Ing: I’ve constantly been amazed at the level of nastiness you get away with due to familiarity around here and by the nerve you have to whine anytime that privilege fails you.

    Actually, when you put it like that, starts to sound like a StevoR scenario….

  229. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    You’re a little ahead of where we are. There’s an answer. I’m trying to get him to admit something can’t come from nothing.

    I see you think of yourself as an educator. And you are trying to lead him to an answer that you already know.

    Quite the arrogant little assclam.

    (So sorry that most of the people here do not hold William Lane Craig in the same esteem you do. Do you pity the soldier who commits mass murder because god commands it?)

  230. chigau (違う) says

    I’m trying to get him to admit presuppose something can’t come from nothing.

    FIFY

  231. Rob Grigjanis says

    KC @:

    if absolutely nothing existed prior to the Big Bang–no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no deity–, then it seems impossible that anything should begin to exist.

    It’s turtle-shaped category errors, all the way down.

  232. Kroos Control , persona non grata says

    @Rob G
    We’re not making any kind of category error.We don’t assume anything you do there. The only thing we really assume is that something can’t come from nothing , which is a basic metaphysical principle that is well confirmed.

  234. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    …basic metaphysical principle…

    Pull that one out and let linger for a while.

  235. Lofty says

    Kroos

    The only thing we really assume is that something can’t come from nothing , which is a basic metaphysical principle that is well confirmed.

    Theories have it that the total energy of the universe is zero, on average there is nothing to be created.
    .
    There is still an awful lot of nearly nothing separating your home planet from the rest of the universe.
    .
    The Casimir effect shows that so long as energy is conserved, particles can indeed appear from “nothing”.
    .
    The atoms that your head and that brick wall you’re hitting with it are virtually all empty space. “Something” is simply an illusion of your limited senses, evolved to work on a human scale.
    .
    Time is not the linear creature you imagine it to be, the concept of “a time before the beginning of space-time” is meaningless. Time as you know it only exists since the Big Bang.
    .
    “Nothing” needs no creator.

  236. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I’m trying to get him to admit something can’t come from nothing.

    Sorry fuckwit, the burden of evidence is upon you to provide conclusive PHYSICAL evidence that something existed. Your imaginary deity is utterly philosophical, meaning it is meaningless other than to convince you.

  237. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Metaphysical = hold on to your mind and wallet, as here comes the bullshit.

  238. Rob Grigjanis says

    @KC: If all possible timelike paths in the universe have finite proper lengths going backwards, à la BGV, then “prior to the beginning” is meaningless. I don’t know why you don’t get this. This is where rational folk stop and wonder about quantum gravity, and idiots tell tales full of sound and fury metaphysics and Gaad. My apologies to serious metaphysicians.

  239. anteprepro says

    You’re a little ahead of where we are. There’s an answer. I’m trying to get him to admit something can’t come from nothing.

    Kroos, your unwarranted self-importance is galling. You do not get to play Socratic Method with us. You are not smart enough to justify the presumption that you are the teacher here, and you are not honest enough to deserve the time and effort that will inevitably wasted by humoring you. Stop with the scripts, stop with the pretense and arrogance, stop with the fucking games.

  240. says

    I see the Thunderdome is functioning smoothly as intended, providing bloody entertainment for the masses as the prisoners go after each other with jagged, nasty weapons. I’m going to start belting out “We don’t need another hero” in a minute.

  243. Rob Grigjanis says

    Shit, I forgot the “signifying nothing”. Particularly apt in this discussion.

  244. Al Dente says

    Kroos Control claims something can’t come from nothing, except his god. Why KC can’t extend the same special pleading to the universe, which unlike his deity can be shown to exist, is something that only William Lane Craig could guess.

  245. brianpansky says

    @744
    Al Dente

    indeed, kroos already posted a youtube video of craig trying to explain it. and i already pointed out how laughable the attempt was.

    @743
    Rob Grigjanis

    that’s what i thought when i read your post.

  246. says

    There are so many things wrong with the statement, “Something can’t come from nothing.” First, as I pointed out in the last incarnation of the thread, it’s a very useful mathematical fact that -1 + 1 = 0 demonstrates that’s just not true. Hell, -100 + 100 = 0. So you can have a lot of something come from nothing. It’s a mathematical fact that KC just ignores.

    Second, there’s is mounting evidence that the universe is just one of an infinite (or at least, a number much larger than 1) number of universes in a greater metaverse. So, this whole “Something can’t come from nothing” line that he’s always banging on about is a strawman, and his argument amounts to an argument from ignorance. “I can’t see how the universe came into being, so God. Ignore that metaverse behind the curtain.”

    This applies doubly to the “eternal cause” that WLC ginned up as a method of smuggling God into his cosmological argument (which is, of course, begging the question). If there is an eternal metaverse, it is the eternal cause WLC and KC are whingingly going on about.

    Third, we have just as much assurance that a mind can’t create anything material out of nothing, whether that mind is all amazingly vasty and not connected to anything material (which is probably more impossible than something from nothing) or not.

    WLC is a two-bit philosopher with a single trick: hiding the various bits of God in his argument until his *gasp* surprise reveal. Which is never a surprise, since he starts with God in the first place. He’s like an amateur magician who brings various boxes on stage, opens them to reveal nobody in them, spins the box around a couple of times, and holy cow! There’s God! How did he do that?!?

  247. says

    Not that I think the metaverse is the only solution to the problem. But, as it answers both Kalam and the anthropic principle, it’s pretty hard to ignore as far more explanation for the universe than God.

  250. Hekuni Cat, MQG says

    Ogvorbis – Thank you very much for the suggestions. I’m sure they’ll be of help to us.

  251. consciousness razor says

    EnlightenmentLiberal, #678:

    You cannot convince me with reason to not use reason. Similarly, you cannot use evidence and science to convince me to not use evidence and science.

    I’m not interested in convincing you to not use reason or evidence or science. What the hell is your point?

    If you are at all sane, you agree.

    I could perhaps do it with a quick blow to the head, while maintaining my “sanity.” But I don’t want to, nor would it matter to anything I’ve said here, so what the hell is your point?

    (And if you bring up The Matrix or similar as an example where you can be convinced to not use evidence, I will be annoyed at your seeming willful misunderstanding.)

    Even in the Matrix, I suppose evidence would be more helpful than a lack of evidence. I’m still failing to see the relevance of any of this, to whether moral realism is true and consistent with naturalism (which is also true).

    I want to talk about whether our beliefs are justifiable, and how we ought to justify our beliefs, and what constitutes a proper justification of beliefs.

    And what you’ve been saying is effectively “I just have a bunch of axioms, which I hold ‘beyond doubt’ and for which I’ll give no further justification.” That’s not proper justification. And if I don’t agree with them, there’s this weird insinuation that I’m trying to get you to not use reason and evidence and science….

    This all does look like “truth by fiat,” just as Nick Gotts described it.

    ——
    ——
    KC:

    I actually like Craig’s description

    To be uncaused in the relevant sense of an absolute beginning, an existent must lack any non-logical necessary or sufficient conditions whatsoever. Now at this juncture, someone might protest that such a requirement is too stringent: “For how could anything come into existence without any non-logical necessary or sufficient conditions?” But this is my point exactly; if absolutely nothing existed prior to the Big Bang–no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no deity–, then it seems impossible that anything should begin to exist.

    We mean coming to be without any logically necessary condition.

    I’m not asking about what “existents” lack if they are “uncaused.” I’m asking about what must exist, period. Assume there are no “caused, existent, contingent” things (as you’re describing them), such as any physical objects or the entire physical universe itself. None of that is around. We are not talking about it. Now, in that state, in which there’s absolutely none of that stuff, what must exist? Your claim there is a “god,” otherwise it isn’t a logically or metaphysically necessary being. But you’re also going to have to say all sorts of necessarily true laws of logic are valid and operating as usual in this scheme, along with other necessarily true abstract principles (no matter which domain besides logic we might categorize them in). You’re also claiming things like the principle of sufficient reason (which isn’t relevant, but we could come to that later) is both valid and true, even while there is nothing “contingent” which exists.

    But now notice that this “nothing” you’ve been ranting about, which supposedly has no properties and no potential, does have all sorts of properties and potential according to your own premises. It can’t be nearly as featureless and anarchic as you’ve been falsely claiming it is. What’s more, you haven’t shown that no physical law can be necessarily true. That is exactly the sort of thing you ought to be demonstrating, if someone’s claiming that we must have come from nothing (which isn’t in fact the only option consistent with what know). Instead, all you’ve been doing is railing on a whole bunch of strawmen.

    I wasn’t saying there were problems with the big bang or inflation. I was saying the models implied a beginning of the universe.

    But they don’t. The models don’t imply a beginning. None of them can imply that, because physics simply hasn’t resolved that question yet. Neither has anything in metaphysics. We don’t know. So you apparently do have a problem with them, if you’re going to modify them in some way, such that they imply a beginning.

    You do believe there’s a beginning, and because we don’t know at this time whether or not there’s a beginning, you rely on your own ignorance to support that assertion. Or maybe you really do have a better physical theory than actual cosmologists do, along with evidence to back that up, so you’ve modified it accordingly to support your argument. But you don’t appear to have done anything like that.

  252. ChasCPeterson says

    great googly-moogly, you’re a dipshit, Ing.
    Here, I’m going to pay attention to you, is that what you want? (Because if not, don’t talk to me.)

    I can’t think of a time you’ve made me laugh

    I can. At least you said you did, twice at least. But it’s fine, you can retcon it and withdraw your alleged olive branch; I don’t care.

    you feel free hammering away at my spelling and bashing dyslexia

    “Bashing dyslexia”? What does that even mean? Yes, I’ve on occasion (“hammering away again and again” is hyperbolic) mocked your mangled prose and your inability to spell and concomitant refusal to use the preview button and a spellchecker. Because you think there’s nothing wrong with it and you’re being boo-hoo persecuted for being expected to write in the language in which you are writing, like everybody else is. The recent “the word you’re looking for” thing was an example of you not making any sense at all because you used an entirely wrong word. Not dyslexia. And yes, there really is a difference between crappy spelling (for whatever reason) and a typo graphical error like, say, hitting the semicolon instead of the adjacent apostrophe. Really.

    the PC police you claim are so harsh on you

    You’re making shit up. If you can’t quote of me using a phrase anything like “PC police” or even complaining about harsh treatment, you’re a liar.
    What I complain about is all the people–take you for example–who habitually give me shit for stuff I never said, because they can’t read and just jump to the easy usual conclusion instead. You’re the freakin king of such bullshit. On the other hand, people with decent reading comprehension can be as harsh to me as they see fit. I’ll cite strange gods and SC as examples. I’ve taken more angry bullshit in stride than anyone else around here, bar none, and it’s because I know the difference between legitimate criticism of ideas and opinions on the one hand and the barking of half-learned slogans on the other.

    and have a thin for your “typos”. Maybe it’s because you seem to think you’re the only one who ever makes little errors, everyone else’s mistakes are innate signs of stupidity right?

    The fuck are you even talking about. There are various errors, some small (like leaving the ‘g’ off the end of ‘thing’ for example), and some not so small, and some downright mockworthy. You can’t even tell the difference, can you? Hence the scare-quotes on “typos”? It’s pitiful.

    You’ve also displayed a retrograde sense of racism and sexism in the name of science

    Fuck you, sincerely. You don’t have a clue.

    and a petty tendency to lash out in anyway you think will hurt people. I’ve constantly been amazed at the level of nastiness you get away with due to familiarity around here

    tu quoque, buddy. You’re one of the nastiest pricks around to people who disagree with you (I’m not even talking about me); always have been. Pro-jec-tion.

    and by the nerve you have to whine anytime that privilege fails you.

    Go ahead, Ing, link to just one “whine” of mine. One.
    You projecting little crybaby liar.

    please don’t take this little heart to heart off site and send little love letters or comments like you’ve done in the past. Such behavior has in the past worried my family who feared you might be the type to net stalk/harass.

    FFS.
    You’re a paranoid idiot.
    For anybody reading along who gives enough of a shit to be puzzled at this point, here’s what Ing is talking about. One time I got fed up enough to flounce; I said I was taking a break or leaving the site or whatever. And so Highroad Ing here naturally decided it was a fine chance to get in one of his snide little non-sequitur last words, because he knew I wouldn’t reply, having just said I wouldn’t and all. It’s cowardly, it’s weaselly, it’s Ing. But so anyway I saw it, it was stupid, and I wanted him to know I’d seen it and thought it was stupid. So I left a comment–one–on the most recent post at his BloggIng Project. How did I manage to find him off-site? What was my nefarious netstalking technique?
    I clicked on his nice blue nym (try it, maybe leave him a nice comment; he doesn’t get many).

    Can’t imagine why they thought that.

    I’m going to guess it was because you lied to them?
    (btw, does your family have any clue what a pestilent spouter of aggressive invective you are, tough guy?)

  253. Amphiox says

    if absolutely nothing existed prior to the Big Bang–no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no deity–, then it seems impossible that anything should begin to exist.

    Why should it “seem impossible”. It simply does not logically follow that it would have to be.

    Just because something “seems” impossible to your puny and limited brain (exceptionally so even by the non-stringent standards of all the other puny, limited human brains) does not make it so.

    It is the very height of unsupportable arrogance to presume that just because YOU can’t conceive of something, that it must be impossible. It is like a goldfish insisting that rain must be divinely created because it is “impossible” for something like water to come out of something like air.

  254. Amphiox says

    Apology
    In a previous post here I compared a certian post by a user to an action made by a very bad man. For reasons explicated in #617 such a comparison was a false one, and quite unfair to the user.

    “Certain post”?! Distancing from the issue does not a legitimate apology make.

    “A user”?! Using a label instead of a name, (and a label with all the baggage that the word “user” carries no less) is dehumanizing and does not a legitimate apology make.

    “A very bad man”?! What, is this a JOKE? The use of deliberately juvenile language minimizes the offense and does not a legitimate apology make.

    “Reasons explicated”?! The juxtaposition of sophisticated language immediately after juvenile language once more serves to highlight the minimization of the offense and does not a legitimate apology make.

    “quite unfair”?! “UNFAIR”?! That’s it? That’s all you think the problem was?

    You are digusting, KC.

    No more responses of any sort of substance until a REAL and SINCERE apology is issued.

  255. says

    So, I read the newspaper yesterday and there was an article about a car crash.
    A woman had passed out because she was pregnant and drove into a lamppost.
    How pro-choicers see it: Pregnancy is risky and therefore nobody has the right to decide about taking the risks but the woman.
    How pro-lifers see it: She obviously endangered the “unborn baby”, failed to provide adequate levels of care for the fetus and should be prosecuted.

  256. A. Noyd says

    *sends alert*
    *yawns in pathetic, attention-seeking troll’s face*
    *killfiles troll*

  257. says

    I really don’t know what the guy is getting out of it.
    It’s like putting on an obviously fake moustache in order to get into a club you’ve been kicked out, where the other guests hate you and where you neither like the music or the drinks

  258. Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm says

    I really don’t know what the guy is getting out of it.
    It’s like putting on an obviously fake moustache in order to get into a club you’ve been kicked out, where the other guests hate you and where you neither like the music or the drinks

    But…the guests hate you because you’re everything they’re not and, when you don’t like things, it’s because they’re objectively bad which reminds everyone there how wasted their lives are so their objections to your presence help you maintain the illusion that these things are true…or something.

  259. Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm says

    @764 alphamale

    I give no shits what you nominally agree with me about. Your behavior belies your words.

  260. Louis says

    PZ,

    I’m going to start belting out “We don’t need another hero” in a minute.

    Ooooh! Can we make requests? I’d like “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” followed by “Baby Elephant Walk” and for something with lyrics, “Send in the Clowns”.

    Louis

  261. Louis says

    Ing,

    I’ve constantly been amazed at the level of nastiness you get away with due to familiarity around here and by the nerve you have to whine anytime that privilege fails you.

    Gotta be honest, that’s the bit that’s always surprised me too.

    Louis