AuthorTopic: Official Off-Topic Thread  (Read 1004749 times)

Offline The B.O.B.

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #370 on: January 28, 2009, 05:38:29 am
You say that the Science and Religion Battle is pointless and will go on forever without conclusion, if I'm understanding you right (Tell me if I'm not).

I agree with you, Bob, but I don't think it's pointless.  Whenever I'm able to have a civilized discussion with someone over it, both of us know it will be to know end and neither of us is trying to convince the other.  That makes for a deeply satisfying discussion, and since I've made my own beliefs about life it helps me to really critically think about what I believe, and sooth out the kinks in logic, and both of us think it's good, deep, fun, and useful.

Errm...exactly where did I say it was "pointless"? Your reply pretty much echoes my first paragraph; ie, just speaking about it for the sake of a conversation:

   In this case, I always feel that discussing the battle between  Science and Religion is masturbatory. Everybody knows that the opposing sides go no where with it, and it's an endless battle. Conversing over it, I guess, just seems like something to do when you're bored, and never truly serves an endpoint, other than "we'll never agree with each other, but lets just keep on debating till we die." Just more questions, doubt in the other side, and in the worst case scenario(but a small percentage), anger and hostility. Granted, anger and hostility comes from religious FANATICS majority of the time, but it's never right to assume all religious people would do the same.

   In any case, it seems most of us are heavily set in our ways right now, so I don't expect opinions to change. I'm just wondering what state the world will be in, when our generation begins to take over companies, economy, and countries. Will we still be in the same place we are today, arguing over deities we've never seen, conversing over theories that will never come to light in our age, combating opinions over things that human eyes will most likely NEVER see until our species has completely died out? Hard to say right now, though, as I'm speaking in terms of a U.S. citizen, where as other children of the world in lesser developed countries are brought up so strictly in their ways(education, religion) that I can't speak for the majority, in that our generation is any better than the previous. But I can HOPE. And I have FAITH that we can come to the conclusion to politely disagree, and go about our business smiling, even though it may never happen. And Having hope and faith is a concrete enough idea for me to put 100% into, which is good enough for me, without the security blanket of another human's supposed theory.

But seriously, after all this heated debate, I think it's time that we all just put our differences aside, and have some good ole' fashion angry sex... :P
my back hurts...

Offline Rydin

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #371 on: January 28, 2009, 05:58:00 am
*zip*
Man cannot remake himself without suffering for he is both the marble and the sculptor.

Offline SolidIdea

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #372 on: January 28, 2009, 07:09:41 am
Always use protection :)

I stumbled with this pretty news that left me dumbfounded.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4357829/Immortal-jellyfish-swarming-across-the-world.html

Who would have thunk that there would be a animal that goes against the system live / breed / die.
Smarty pants this jellyfish.

Offline Dusty

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #373 on: January 28, 2009, 07:35:42 am
Weren't they saying the same thing about the Red Devil Squid?
« Last Edit: January 28, 2009, 07:37:24 am by Dusty »

Offline huZba

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #374 on: January 28, 2009, 04:31:01 pm
...religious indent in your superego...
If you think about god as a personification of the superego(which is a law and order giving presence), then a lot of religious claims and accusations make a whole lot of sense, kinda.
Like how someone might think that an atheist could not have morals, which seemed completely absurd to me. But if you replace the big-G with the over-I in the accusation, it seems more valid.
Maybe that's also why some feel so strongly about the god person. Some danger exists in a cascading effect if/when god doesn't oppose the ID and leaves the jolly ego out of the loop. It's not exclusive to religion though, anything that resembles an authority can shape your morals, even to extremes like demonstrated by the milgram experiment. Pixelation too has some strong influence on people by having it's authority enforce certain ideas which stick to peoples thinking and continue to spill over to other places.

What i would like to know is if you can have morals if there is nothing that imposes them on you, like your parents, society or whatever. How does the over-I function in a feral child? Makes you get along with the social regulations of the animals around you? What if you raised a human in a sensory deprivation room with only controlled information fed into it?
I just have to dig into more literature on the subject..... too much stagnation these days cause i just work, play videogames and sleep.

BUT on the case of jellyfish! Those wonderful varied creatures. Some have survived unchanged like forever, some can clone themselves, some have multiple neural clusters in a single body with a set of primitive eyes and now we have one that's immortal!

Offline NaCl

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #375 on: January 28, 2009, 06:27:56 pm
Quote
What i would like to know is if you can have morals if there is nothing that imposes them on you, like your parents, society or whatever.

I don't believe so. If you look at Genie, she has no morals or anything like that. If you also look at children of violent parents, the fact that they are often violent too when they get older is a good indication that morals only exist as they are passed on through demonstration to a child. There are also almost definitely genetic factors, but to fulfill them you still need socializing. A feral child will be without morals (or even the ability to empathize, which is key to morals), no matter what their genes say.

An interesting case to look at for your question would be a child raised normally, except never punished for doing something we consider morally wrong, and never rewarded for doing something we consider right (and never observing others getting rewarded/punished). Obviously it's not possible to test this, though. My guess is that if you do that, you have someone who could commit horrible acts with no remorse, like a sociopath. Perhaps looking into famous sociopaths childhood would be interesting.

Offline Emtch

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #376 on: January 28, 2009, 06:29:10 pm
BUT on the case of jellyfish! Those wonderful varied creatures. Some have survived unchanged like forever, some can clone themselves, some have multiple neural clusters in a single body with a set of primitive eyes and now we have one that's immortal!

The creatures of the ocean are weird, wonderful monsters. Why do people want to search for life in space when they haven't even explored their own planet first? Many of the underwater lifeforms look like aliens from movies. The life on terra firma is very uniform and boring in comparison.

Offline JJ Naas

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #377 on: January 28, 2009, 06:51:44 pm
I don't believe so. If you look at Genie, she has no morals or anything like that.

But she was raised under an influence from parents, teaching her distorted and violent morals (raising your voice leads to being punished physically).

Animals have something resembling morals too. Many of them look after their offspring, which is pre-programmed on their DNA, but which then extrapolates from that and leads to building up ones set of morals. Cats or dogs that have been separated from their mom too early are often much more easily freaked out and are much less sociable that kittens or puppies that have had a secure upbringing close to their parents. So the nurturing instinct is programmed in the DNA, and nurturing generally leads to a more balanced behaviour later on (although there's surely more to morals than that as well, but it's a start). But as always there are of course exceptions to the rule.

If you were raised in a vacuum, in a white room, then since there'd be nothing to reflect your preprogrammed behaviour on.. you wouldn't have anything to build the morals on either. It's a process. But then again that sort of situation IS unnatural, so it wouldn't tell much more about the issue of morals beyond that, since after all the default situation is that everyone lives in a holistic world.

Offline NaCl

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #378 on: January 28, 2009, 07:03:29 pm
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Cats or dogs that have been separated from their mom too early are often much more easily freaked out and are much less sociable that kittens or puppies that have had a secure upbringing close to their parents. So the nurturing instinct is programmed in the DNA

I don't see how you made that conclusion from that statement. The statement seems to suggest the opposite of your conclusion.

Not that I disagree with the conclusion, I think a lot more then we realize is in our genes. Studies of separated identical twins shows this to be oddly true. However, my point with Genie was the same as you said, there is nothing to build the morals on. The morals only exist when you can empathize, and that comes from being socialized. Then, as part of the socialization, you learn morals. Genie had some amount of influence from her father, but very very little, the littlest of any person almost, so she is probably the best place to look on these subjects.

Offline huZba

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #379 on: January 28, 2009, 07:07:46 pm
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Cats or dogs that have been separated from their mom too early are often much more easily freaked out and are much less sociable that kittens or puppies that have had a secure upbringing close to their parents. So the nurturing instinct is programmed in the DNA

I don't see how you made that conclusion from that statement. The statement seems to suggest the opposite of your conclusion.
As in the bare minimum of the instinct that is required to start the snowball rolling.