On a semi-related thought...
What is the test for 'free will'?
What is the test for who (or what) has moral responsibility?
-Rob
INFORMATION
This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.
For further information, see our Privacy Policy.
Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.
We are not accepting any new registrations.
This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.
For further information, see our Privacy Policy.
Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.
We are not accepting any new registrations.
Search found 58 matches
- June 2nd, 2011, 10:57 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Free will
- Replies: 683
- Views: 81601
- June 2nd, 2011, 7:28 pm
- Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
- Topic: Is it a boy or a girl?
- Replies: 18
- Views: 2523
Re: Is it a boy or a girl?
Even two-year-olds are influenced by television ( and can become aware of brands, for example ) The nursery do an interesting exercise with the 3 year old kids and parents and get the kids to identify as many brands as possible. We were shocked how many brands they can name from the logo alone. The...
- June 2nd, 2011, 6:45 pm
- Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
- Topic: Is it a boy or a girl?
- Replies: 18
- Views: 2523
Re: Is it a boy or a girl?
But what I find unconvincing is the idea that girls have some inbuilt preference for pink frilly things, flowers, butterflies, hearts, kittens, dolls and dressing up, and boys have an inbuilt preference for cars, lorries, tractors, trains, ships, spaceships, robots, dinosaurs and fighting. There ma...
- June 1st, 2011, 9:39 pm
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: Facts and Theories
- Replies: 21
- Views: 2999
Re: Facts and Theories
anddasha wrote:Confidence that arises out of ignorance [...] is hard to shake
I like those.dasha wrote:Confidence [...] arises out of ignorance
- June 1st, 2011, 9:26 pm
- Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
- Topic: Is it a boy or a girl?
- Replies: 18
- Views: 2523
Re: Is it a boy or a girl?
Another thought: it sort of bugged both of us that first question you are asked when you are pregnant is usually not 'How far along are you?' or 'Are you feeling ok?' but 'What are you having?'. Like Fia, our answer was 'a baby'. The next question was, "haha, no really ... do you know yet?'. Then wh...
- June 1st, 2011, 8:56 pm
- Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
- Topic: Is it a boy or a girl?
- Replies: 18
- Views: 2523
Re: Is it a boy or a girl?
I get the impression society norms are only the part of the story. Warning: anecdote coming up :-) We dressed our daughter in more 'male' type clothes and we both played with a selection of balanced toys with her. She still likes to play cars with her brother, loves any games on computers, Wii, PS2,...
- February 11th, 2011, 10:10 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Free will
- Replies: 683
- Views: 81601
Re: Free will
What evidence so we have that the world is deterministic? It seems a reasonable amount, but it doesn't necessarily mean we have a correct view of the physical world.
If we don't really know if the world is deterministic does this mean we can't decide about responsibility?
If we don't really know if the world is deterministic does this mean we can't decide about responsibility?
- February 10th, 2011, 9:28 pm
- Forum: Social Club
- Topic: Where were you in the 1960s ?
- Replies: 38
- Views: 8617
Re: Where were you in the 1960s ?
Exactly.Alan H wrote:You were a man trapped in a woman's body...
- February 10th, 2011, 9:28 pm
- Forum: Social Club
- Topic: Where were you in the 1960s ?
- Replies: 38
- Views: 8617
Re: Where were you in the 1960s ?
I'm not sure where I was either. I remember the late 60's was sort of dark but warm. Lots of swimming. But the start of the 1970s was a bit of a pain. You were a man trapped in a woman's body... Bu don't most . . . Oh, see what you mean! "And man cometh from the womb of woman and spendeth the rest ...
- February 9th, 2011, 8:58 pm
- Forum: Social Club
- Topic: Where were you in the 1960s ?
- Replies: 38
- Views: 8617
Re: Where were you in the 1960s ?
I'm not sure where I was either. I remember the late 60's was sort of dark but warm. Lots of swimming. But the start of the 1970s was a bit of a pain.Nick wrote:Can't remember.....
- February 9th, 2011, 8:55 pm
- Forum: Culture Club
- Topic: What's the use of libraries?
- Replies: 34
- Views: 6375
Re: What's the use of libraries?
Just for what it's worth... Books are a brilliant local resource but there are several others things that our library does I know about and have had contact with... * Place for students - somewhere to study. Lots of laptops that people bring, of course. Reference books help, even in the libraries th...
- February 9th, 2011, 8:30 pm
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: How much electricity would I use...
- Replies: 57
- Views: 9145
Re: How much electricity would I use...
robzed if man doesn't cut down all the trees, I'm not even going to try and get my head around the main topic of this thread, but I do think (IMHO) deforestation is causing much more damage to the planet than anything else we humans are doing. I think we are off-topics, strictly speaking. This is w...
- February 9th, 2011, 7:59 pm
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: How much electricity would I use...
- Replies: 57
- Views: 9145
Re: How much electricity would I use...
That is to say, human heating is 0.00862% of the energy we receive from the sun. Fascinating! I suspected that what man produces would be tiny in comparison, but hadn't looked at the numbers. If you think about it, all we manage to do is warm our buildings a bit; the sun warns everything around us ...
- February 9th, 2011, 7:10 am
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: How much electricity would I use...
- Replies: 57
- Views: 9145
Re: How much electricity would I use...
What I don't know is whether the vast amounts of energy we use is in any way comparable to the heating effect of greenhouse gasses - any ideas? This is not a full answer, but I suppose all heat generated is radiated away into space pretty soon, whereas the greenhouse gases persist for longer and tr...
- February 9th, 2011, 6:48 am
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: How much electricity would I use...
- Replies: 57
- Views: 9145
Re: How much electricity would I use...
Hi Alan, Obviously I was being argumentative just because it's more interesting. In terms of cost, I notice 3 Philips 14W CFLs are 30p. Good grief! This made me laugh :-) I'm saying that (virtually) all power you use in your home is dissipated as heat, thereby heating the planet, regardless of what ...
- February 7th, 2011, 9:33 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Free will
- Replies: 683
- Views: 81601
Re: Free will
The behaviour of certain non-human animals, like dogs, responds very well to operant conditioning. One can use positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment to control a dog's behaviour to an extraordinary degree. (Actually, one doesn't really need the positive punishment...
- February 7th, 2011, 9:01 pm
- Forum: Social Club
- Topic: Weather - or not!
- Replies: 1122
- Views: 117532
Re: Weather - or not!
I can't find the original story about the one that blew over but it's mentioned in this article. Read it for a laugh. CAMPAIGNERS against plans for one of Europe’s largest wind farms being built on Shetland have raised concerns after a test mast was discovered to be damaged in the past few days. A ...
- February 7th, 2011, 8:52 pm
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: How much electricity would I use...
- Replies: 57
- Views: 9145
Re: How much electricity would I use...
But it's not that simple! The heat generated by equipment on standby is dissipated into the room (so, if a device takes, say, 5 W, on standby, all of that 5 W will be dissipated into the room. If you have a thermostat on your central heating, it will switch on your CH less because of that 5 W and y...
- February 6th, 2011, 10:31 pm
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: How much electricity would I use...
- Replies: 57
- Views: 9145
Re: How much electricity would I use...
Your sums look ok (late at night) - but 1.2W ... you should able to feel that as hot...Dave B wrote: = 1.2W(ish)
- February 6th, 2011, 3:24 pm
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: How much electricity would I use...
- Replies: 57
- Views: 9145
Re: How much electricity would I use...
*Kettle small but still 2kW, low wattage kettles actually waste electricity; the extra time taken to heat the water also means proportionately more losses due to radiation & convection. Yeah, I agree with this, and it might also be worth saying (I didn't see anyone else say) - only boil what you ne...