Zierro

Well, I just took one today. Before that, I don't remember. Now don't get me wrong, there are times when I can enjoy taking a rinse-off and watching the water by my feet turn dark as I embrace this symbolic achievement of will. It feels good knowing I get to start again, fresh. Only one thought enters my mind after all this. How will it smell this time?

If your sole intention in life is to cause as much misery as you can to humanity, maybe you should be forced into a life of community service if the community is feeding you and all. Under pretty much any other context, no.

Not gonna lie. I picked my name for a reason. If we were in a bus together I would probably offend many of your nostrils, but my female-comrade finds my bird-cage scent attractive so I'm not complaining. I just don't know - it's the one niche in my life where I feel no shame nor empathy towards any of the people I may have hurt. I'm proud of who I am.

Laws definitely need to be more lax and police efforts should focus on actual threats before they spend their time busting teenagers for being teenagers. I do think some compromises should be made - it's probably in society's best interest that the most lethal of drugs (like H and meth) should be highly discouraged. Fully illegal? Maybe, but it's not comforting to hear of sexual and violent offenders getting lighter punishments than some people who put something in their body for recreational purposes and never caused any harm while high. And at the same time, cigarettes, the addicting killer of millions and millions that has been proven thousands of times to be far more detrimental to your health than marijuana, are taxed by our own government. At least set some precedent.

I feel as if we're talking about two different things here since you keep mentioning the word "object". I do recall saying it has relevance to the physical world or something to that extent, but my point is just that a shadow or hole or lie are all things that can objectively exist in a realm without humans, if it can be assumed that anything else could exist without us. I'm not trying to talk about matter or mass, just existence and truth in actuality. Well scratch it because I don't care what you call it anymore. The point is that the concept behind abstract things can exist in actuality. I can think of another example if you'd like. A gust of wind is an abstract concept. But without humans, animals could still feel it and it would still rustle trees. Yeah, there would be no one around to label all this stuff, but there would be nobody around to label rocks and physical existence either. Does this mean that nothing can exist unless humans do, or does it simply mean the concept behind some of the things we've abstracted were here before us? Well that would literally be breaking the rules of mathematics then. If math is arbitrary like you're claiming, why would we even use it? I see your point here. It basically only serves as a description to another object, but nothing in its own accord. Now let me ask this. If we can assume it to be true that a rock can exist without humans, is it true that there could be a box with a "hole" if humans didn't exist? Yes, but no matter what declarative sentence under the sun you wish to assimilate with your lips, you're using labels. What does that matter? We can still always say there are things which are impossible. That's a bit too simple though, don't you think? Going by that logic, what tells us if something has a zero probability of ever happening? Nothing. So... Would it be logical to conclude that "everything is possible until proven impossible" (which can't be done)? Which if you've noticed is the inverse of "nothing exists until proven existent"? I would think if anything an atheist would believe "everything is impossible until proven possible". I like to break it up with the adjectives "absolute" and "nomological". Absolute impossibility - no chance ever, which is a silly concept, but like infinity it's something we must work with. The nonsense of it is what it takes to call something possible. Only one "if" - that's all the word means in its purest (most confusing) form. "It's possible that dogs would take their owners on a walk everyday from Sept. 10 - Dec. 20, 2011, if we were in an alternate universe bla bla bla." Essentially, the word has no point because there's always some ridiculous matrix way to throw everything we know about anything out the window. Nomological impossibility - no chance in regards to the world we know and see. This sounds much more manageable. It is nomologically impossible that President Obama is a cactus. The composition of Obama is far different than the composition of any cactus we know of. But in terms of absolute impossibility, there could be an alternate universe where humans have cacti flesh. You can literally say any sentence you want and nothing could stop you from calling any of it impossible, even ridiculous abstract stuff like "something is burning and freezing simultaneously". But if we were to think of things on that scale, where would we get? If we want an accurate view of the world around us, we need to have some foundation to stand on. We should judge things based on how we understand our world to operate - scientifically, collectively, empirically. What would a good example be? The ones like a "lie" or "hole", I've disagreed on and think both are relevant. A hole is physical because without humans, animals would still have mouths to eat from and sea sponges would still be the same. A hole is abstract because it's not even really there - it is a word to describe the condition of another object. A lie is abstract because it relies heavily on what is considered the truth. A lie is physical because without humans, animals/aliens/whatever could still use sound waves to transmit a false message. Now I might be getting a bit liberal with the definition of "physical" here. I do not mean it as something you can touch and hold. I mean it as something that exists concretely and objectively. Something like "love" or "evil" are some of the only things that pop into mind that are entirely abstract because they require another person since they are so utterly subjective. As for something completely physical, well, I wouldn't be able to talk about it if there were nothing abstract about it. :oops: :oops: :oops: Okay you got one. I still think it's possible to know some things absolutely. For example, I know that I just typed the sentence "I still think it's possible to know some things absolutely." If you couldn't, then that would cause a paradox because then that would be something you could know. But yeah.... :oops: That was bad wording. I'll redo. The difference between a creature with a horn and a creature with a beak is just as "subjective" as the difference between a rock existing and not existing. The question relies on a simple yes/no value. But if you want to argue that this value can never be decided unless humans are present, you just made the argument that there is no existence or non-existence value to things unless humans are around to decide.

^ wat what? EDIT: Just got done reading the whole thread. Good use of a few hours.

Some people must really suck at not getting banned. I have no relations to mods, I am not friends with a single mod, I've been in plenty of arguments with mods, and most importantly I don't give a [cabbage] about their duty. That being said, I straight up reject some of these gestapo stories I'm hearing. I can be as controversial and sharp-tongued as I want and the mods have never had a problem with it, unless I go too far. If you really manage to find yourself on the "mod's bad boy list", it's probably because you were seeking that sort of attention in the first place or it was some sort of temporary mistake - not some gestapo crap that everyone is so quick to believe. And slightly on topic... PLZ BRING BACK BOYZLOVEME SHE IS INNOCENT AND HOT!!

I wholeheartedly disagree with you. This world is not terrible, but there are terrible people like the soldiers above. If we carry with us into war the mindset that these kinds of atrocities are "just going to happen" and should be swept under the rug, we invite a very disturbing style of warfare to return from the not-so-distant-past. Give these soldiers the fate their victims received, not a dishonorable discharge or any lesser punishment. I will admit, these things do happen, but if we pursue justice in a swift and unyielding manner, soldiers can get the message. We may not catch all war-criminals but at the same, we do not catch all of our domestic criminals either. Apathy has no place here. Have to agree here. This stuff is commonplace, but being accepting of it does nothing but spread the mentality that it's okay and that nothing needs to be done about it. And even if the world never does get better, that's not going to stop me from complaining. No, I don't shut up so easily. But wow, you really think the soldiers should get the death penalty? Of course I agree with that, it's just surprising that you think so when our last conversation you were very anti-murder.

Yeah, definitely a turn-off for me. Some more include lipstick, tattoos, most piercings (not nose rings, that looks hot), big earrings, and worst of all, a lack of a butt.

Exactly. I'm all for improving the domestic market, but where do we buy everyday things at? Besides foods and high industrial goods (which the average joe will never buy) what does America produce? A world of entertainment. We even invented this sport called Football.

Right there is where I'm sold. Jail should be reserved to people who are an actual threat to the public, whether it be for violence, sexual assault, theft, etc. I don't see how sitting in your own home, minding your own business smoking some pot deserves to get you in the big house for a few months/years with people who actually are a threat. It wastes tons of resources and most of these people are completely harmless. Another pro is that legalization would eradicate the underground thug market of marijuana trafficking that thrives off of these types of laws. Also, I noticed you're arguing that it would inevitably become a house-hold drug. Lol, isn't it already? I remember hearing somewhere that legalization really doesn't have much of an effect on the amount of usage. It makes sense too. There are far more people smoking now than when it was legal. Also, drug lords know how to make sure their customers' demands are supplied. And about the detrimental effects on one's motor skills after prolonged use... uhhh... then how am I the best Halo player in the world? Answer me that bro.

I'm pretty sure 2-dimensional refers to something which lacks depth but has a width and height. A shadow is also a 2-dimensional thing. Now is it made up of matter? No, of course not, if that's what you thought my point was. My point is that it could exist without humans, if we want to say that rocks could. The "lines" are just differences in hues. If your eye can detect a black bruise on a shiny green apple and you can distinguish that the color blotch is triangular in shape, then it would be true that a triangular pattern exists on that apple in an objective sense, if a rock can exist on its own in an objective sense. Obviously we get the freedom to assign labels and values and such, but, going back to "the concept behind labels", nature dictates that eating an apple from a sack of apples will mean less apples for later. No matter what we call the words, the concept behind those words will always be true in our nature, at least as we know it nomologically. Sounds as if you're trying to convince me that the word shouldn't exist at all. Holes can be detected. So long as there is no matter surrounded by matter of the same object, there is a hole, whether it "should" or "shouldn't" be there. Thank you, that certainly clears up a lot. I was under the impression that when someone says "scientific law" they were talking on an absolute level where there is no room for error. I just never heard it worded that way. Yes, which is at least one instance where something can be physically impossible. I'm pretty much in agreement with this point. It is working off an assumption, but a smart one. I'll expand on this in the next paragraph. Not absolutely impossible (moreso because the definition of absolute impossibility is silly [it COULD happen if [insert any scenario you want]). Nomologically impossible is the word. Impossible going by the rules that we have observed. And going back to my point above, it is technically an assumption to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, but it's a smart assumption because in the world we live in and know of and observe, the sun rises everyday. That wasn't a very good example though because some day the sun really won't rise, but probably nowhere in our lifetimes. A better example would be living fossils. In all of our existence, we have not seen even one case of something return from the dead (and I mean dead-dead, fossil dead, not in-a-coma-dead), and we've learned scientifically what it takes to maintain a life which decomposed bodies do not possess. While believing this is evidence that death = permanent expiration of living/functioning might be a bit of an assumption, it's still by far the most accurate theory we have. I'd argue that it's wiser to believe it's impossible than to believe it's possible, but we will probably disagree here. Not really, because I'm not the one drawing a thick bold line between nature and abstract. I believe they go hand in hand. There might not be "possibility" lying around on the grass in nature, but you won't find "truth" there either. Doesn't mean the only things that can be false are other things we made up. I disagree harder. It is a knowable fact that earth is not the only planet in the universe. It is a knowable fact that Obama is the president of the US. It is a knowable fact that most humans can walk. It is a knowable fact that sex can lead to pregnancy. It is a knowable fact that ice is denser than water. It is a knowable fact that I can type on this forum. At this current point of time, all of these statements are absolutely 100% true. If there is any sort of fallacy to any of them, I'd like to see them challenged. How is it not a natural property? The difference between a creature with a horn and a creature with a beak is just as "subjective" as the difference between a rock being on a log and a rock not being on a log. This has been my most stressed point for quite some time. If you want to say that the rock is objectively there with or without humans, we can say that holes are objectively there with or without humans. No matter what, we'll always need a human mind to talk about stuff like this, and at the same time, we're just trapped in a realm of dictated rules that we can only observe and only have slight manipulation over. This is exactly why the abstract and the physical are both entirely relevant to epistemology - because you can't get around either of them. There is us, and there is the world. Try having one without the other. Non-abstract meaning of one? I never said it wasn't abstract, I just said it wasn't only abstract and that there had to be some sort of inspiration in nature. How else could we have thought of it? Out of the blue randomly? No, we needed an example of one first. ------ As for the FSM and Santa discussion, my complaint was that not everything that lacks evidence can be put into the same category. There is no evidence for lizardmen. There is also no evidence for floating lizardmen geniuses with afros who go around every year and give all the poor teenagers of the world sports cars. Does that make them equally plausible? And for my personal opinion, I would say that Santa has been debunked to a level far greater than god has. The concepts might both be pretty ridiculous, but to say they are equally ridiculous is to assert they are both breaking an equal amount of rules of commonsense.

Yuck! As for your strong stance on remaining a soloer, are you a hermit or something?

We got ourselves a Skiller Killer here! Bigot!

How so? Hypothetically speaking, if those natural disasters occurred in America surely there would be some Japanese people rejoicing because of what we did to them in World War 2 (not that it wasn't warranted). Which would be just as inhumane. Yep, those forty [wagon] are the only thing wrong I see with America. :thumbup: Oh, what's this? A derogatory remark? Now you are putting yourself on the same level as me. How does it feel to be a bad person?

A color scheme pattern, where you are only exposed to the outer layer, isn't two-dimensional? I still don't see how the surface of something cannot have a triangle on it though. We can simply use color contrast to get around the "small rectangles" problem. If it was inspired by something in nature, it has been found in nature. We can't conceptualize things out of the blue - we need some stimuli, physical stimuli, first. Now the concept "label" or "love" are truly abstract ideas in and out, but the concept behind something like a "hole" or a "lie" would still very much so exist without a human definition for them. And what is your definition of "something that can be detected"? A hole cannot be detected? Animals acknowledge these on a daily basis - some even live in them. Yes, it is a lack of an object on an object, which has great relevance to the physical realm. A "hole" would exist without humans just as much as "rock" would exist without humans. We did not invent holes, we just invented the label. What I'm getting from that is this: On a nomological level, they are "laws". On an absolute level, they are "theories". That would make much more sense. We weren't talking about the words. I know when I call something a fossil, I'm calling it dead. This is speaking about the abstract labels of the ideas though. Now, what about the concept behind these labels? An organism that can function biologically is not the same as an organism that expired, this is a truth in nature, not just in the man made realm. In other words, take the labels out and you will still reach the fact that the thing we call a "fossil" cannot do the thing we call "breathing". I don't see how you got any negativity out of that. "Cold hard truth" is just a fancy way of saying "absolute objective fact" not "fact that makes me feel uneasy about life". I also never said this should halt our pursuit of knowledge. In fact, I just mentioned that. I never said that. Read my point again. Nomological ("scientific" works too now that you put it that way) knowledge is what we should be working from, naturally. Absolute knowledge is essentially impossible to obtain because we can only gather information through our limited subjective perception. We don't know a world without us, so we're always making that one universal assumption and so there is always a little asterisk attached to the claim when you say something like "law" or "fact". In a different plane of existence, the laws we know of could be completely backwards and gravity could cause things to rise instead of fall. How...? Or are you still working off that base assumption that anything is possible? If we went back in time and were to label a "cow" a "dog" and a "dog" a "cow", there would be no problem. However, it is still physically impossible for the thing we call a "cow" to be the same thing we call a "dog". Nature dictates and governs this fact. Either way, I think you missed my point about everything being abstract in one way or another. "Possibility" is an abstract concept, so it's quite redundant to say "only abstract concepts can be impossible". Where did math originate from? Do you think that some invisible sentient floating mass of energy existing in purgatory could conceptualize math on its own? Actually, that sounds pretty interesting. Would that floating energy be able to conceptualize anything aside from "I am"? We might not know everything about it, but there are still some things that can be known. The thing that we call a "fossil" cannot be the thing we call a "living breathing creature". Which goes right back to my point that the thing we call "rhino" is not the thing we call "penguin", whether man is around or not... Mathematics might be abstract, but the fact that the thing we represent when we say "one" will always be the same value is not decided by man.

Calling me a troll just for having different beliefs than the norm? Then you call me childish to add insult to injury? Judging by your posts on this thread, you're a prime example of what I was getting at. And you really wonder why I rant about people like you? Just look at the manner of your 1, 2, 3, 4 refutation in this thread. Hell, you felt the strong need to point out how he was wrong about how the word "crying" was used, but at the same time you also felt it was negligible that the word "Wilderness" was spelled wrong. Then you called him pathetic after getting upset that he called someone else pathetic. You probably just saw a numbered list of points, listed the numbers, and then from there found a way to give a condescending response to each of them for the sake of it. You painted a very vivid picture for me. If someone were to respond with something like that, I don't see any problem because that was basically OP's entire point in the first place. OP knows it's just a matter of sucking it up and dealing with it, hence why he ranted in order to get it off his chest. However, what I was more getting at in that point was that the copy-pastes add nothing new to the discussion and are more spam than the discussion we're having right now.

Sounds like an awfully complicated scheme for one such as yourself. I don't think anyone but you is under any illusion that you were using sarcasm. Keep on denying it, though. :thumbup: Just face it Obtaurian, I've been owning you since day one and you're just jealous of my mastermind tactics of ridiculing self-perceived smartasses. I'd even go as far as saying I've changed the way you think about life. Did he now? So did I by saying "lazy mooch" after about ten people didn't get it. The sarcasm in both situations were implied, not announced. Oh shucks, I don't know what to say. :oops: I'd like to give thanks to the Rants forum on behalf of their cooperation. Let's hear it for the people of Rants! Yeahhh! :thumbsup:

Because, Mr. Wishful Thinking, I never misread it. I got that it was sarcasm by the title, and I honestly don't see how so many people missed that, but regardless you guys were having way too much fun laughing at everyone's mistakes and even counting them. Hmmm... Crusty hatched an idea. What if I said something sarcastic, that came off as a response that I didn't get his sarcasm? Oh all the smart asses that would just line themselves up to point at, hehe "my" mistake, when really they would be pointing at their own. Too easy, and it was. But it's no surprise the first thing you jump to, rather than even reasonably considering the possibilities, is go "LIAR LIAR U HAVE TO BE A LIAR OR ELSE THAT WOOD MEAN I WAS WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING!!" You're making things even creamier for me.

When you said I was using an internet defense mechanism after I told you guys my post was sarcasm.

If the gaps were closed, it would be correct to call this a triangle: /\ Why would the pattern on a snake not be considered a triangle? There is a reason I used a pattern of colors found in nature as an example, as opposed to something like a slice of pizza which is triangular, but not a real triangle because it isn't two-dimensional. Hell, call it triangular if it suits you, but you still didn't answer the question. Even if the concept was entirely created or governed by man, it doesn't change the fact that the thing we are trying to represent has been found and inspired by nature somewhere down the line. I don't see how changing the word helps when the same definition is being applied. Your point is that only objects can exist. This is a somewhat fair point, but here's where things get tricky. Gravity is not a physical object, but can it exist without humans? How about magnetism? Sound? Life? Existence shouldn't just be limited to, "it is something I can touch, see, and hear". Let's even take animals into account. Animals can acknowledge the thing that the word "hole" represents - they can even physically live in them. It's not like "holes" appear as "filled up portions of matter" to anything that is not human. What would a doughnut look like to an animal? There would still be a "hole" in it. You're just using a play on words. "A hole doesn't exist because there is nothing there." Yeah, a hole is a hole, but the hole doesn't not exist. A hole "existing" simply means that a void in an object is present. If there is a void present, a hole exists in the physical realm. The lack of a thing is still a thing. Anything can be a thing. Then it's a fallacy to call them laws and it would be scientifically correct to change them all to theories. Yes, I know, that was the point. This is still an epistemological assertion showing that physical impossibility is possible. You asserted that it was impossible to decipher impossibilities in our physical world. I kept throwing examples at you, until finally you realized there are things that literally are impossible (a living fossil, a coin to land on anything besides heads, tails, or sides), then your point was "only man made ideas can be impossible". Uhh, of course only things thought of with language can be impossible, we're using language. The concept of "impossible" is a man made idea in the first place, so of course it's going to be abstract one way or another! I don't see how this changes things. A living breathing fossil is still a physical impossibility in our physical world, regardless of the fact that some of the words I just used in there are man made. I guess we were. Funny how some things can be technically "logical" and technically "illogical" at the same time. If we were wrong about reality, it could follow that everything else we've seen and touched was not actually physical, and just projections from our brains. How can you acknowledge that our perception of reality might possibly be faulty, while simultaneously saying that possibly being wrong about reality is not the cold hard truth? How is that not a contradiction? And this is exactly why I brought up nomological possibility pages ago. We are ultimately making a universal assumption when we observe the physical world, therefore we cannot hold "absolute knowledge". However, when we are talking about the world we know of, and not in the world we don't know of, then things such as that rock really do exist, flying around the whole earth in one day really is impossible, and a fossil really can't breathe - assuming our reality is actual reality. This is absolute nomological knowledge, and this is what you and I try to work off of logically in our everyday lives. We don't take into account, "Well what if this oven is not real," when trying to bake a cake. We "know" that it is, and so we use it as it is. So for debating purposes, I like to assume our reality is actual reality. And even though it is pedantic, I still acknowledge that this is an assumption - you seemed to disagree though when I said we could be wrong about reality altogether. I never said we were wrong. I just said it was a possibility, the same thing you said. Isn't that basically the same thing? That the mere act of observing something has some sort of effect? You're right that I don't fully understand the subject, which is the reason why I brought it up and asked for the thoughts of someone who might be more knowledgeable in that field than I. Patterns can exist, but holes cannot? A pattern isn't a physical object either. No, not really. You were making more sense when you weren't arguing against something I said which was an exact copy of something I literally just saw you say. Of course the system is not "governed by nature"... well, in a way it was because we wouldn't be doing things a certain way if it weren't for nature's building blocks leading us there. It's still an abstract concept, but we didn't do anything completely 100% on our own accord without the help of nature or the physical world, because that's just not how cause and effect works. We need external stimuli in order to conceptualize things, or else what would there be to conceptualize? If you can acknowledge that our abstract ideas were inspired by nature (found in nature), then I don't see what there is left to discuss on the whole abstract vs physical thing. This has been my point all along: They aren't as mutually exclusive as you're making them out to be. Something like a hole is both an abstract idea (now that we made it one), and a thing that can occur in nature (without man). A solo unit standing by itself on one side of a fence would be different from two of the same units standing next to each other on the other side of the fence, as you can see via physical observation. Now whatever we decide to label these values is a redundant point I thought we've already been over. But objectively, without man, there would still physically be a rock on this side and a rock and a rock on the other. It was based off nature because we saw there are differing values in the world around us, and thus felt the need to create a numerical system for labeling purposes. I really don't know what you mean by "there would be things in nature that changed our mind about math if it were found in nature". I don't even know how you reached that premise. Do you think animals are completely oblivious to differing values? Would a monkey see one snake guarding a tree full of fruit just as he'd see ten snakes guarding the tree? No, because objectively there is a value difference. This is even more absurd. That's like saying, "There is nothing we could possibly see to convince us that a rhino can be a penguin, therefore animals are abstract." (And I also see that you're working off the presumption that anything physical is possible.) Yeah, the labels for the animals are abstract, but the animals themselves are quite concrete when it comes to their physical existence. The labels behind the numbers are abstract, but a rock plus a rock plus a rock plus a rock will always exist as that fixed value in the physical world, no matter if humans are around or not. It will never be a different value because nature says so.

I am extremely anal-retentive when it comes to editing my posts. I spend more time editing them than actually typing out my points, and usually just over the fickle details like changing "I was going to go to the store" to "I planned on going to the store". It's just a simple matter of whatever looks aesthetically pleasing to me. Sometimes I will even go back and edit a post from months ago.

Absolutely, one of my biggest driving forces. I've also been noticing an increase in libido when it comes to legs. Boy, I must be growing up! Another thing would be... ahem, the moaning.

Inefficiency has its perks for those who enjoy an extra challenge or just want to mix things up. In fact, it's quite common across other games. Final Fantasy: beat the game at the lowest possible level you can. Zelda: beat the game with only three hearts. The beauty behind video games is that they have such a great potential to be recreational that there is no "right way" to play them. Hell, you can even play Pacman by trying to survive as long as you can while eating as few dots as you can. If it's fun for you, it's fun for you.

No, nerdrage was actually an appropriate terminology to use, because I am indeed ranting about someone's bad integrity with great intellectual prowess. But I do find it admirable how you're actually reading things now, Bladewing. On a more important note, I'm keeping tally of the people who didn't get it and so far I got two whole people. OWNED.