<p>Such an explanation assumes a sort of God. I am saying that we can already explain right and wrong given what we already know about the universe/our world/human evolution/science in general that is not only consistent but non-contradictory. To try to pull God into that arena causes a multitude of problems that you can’t solve by simply ignoring the contradictions (which is what many people indeed do). The only other explanation is that God exists and put into place a system that is identical to one that didn’t need him in the first place. </p>
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<p>Correct – there really isn’t any such example, which is why I found silence’s position to be, by definition, nonsensical.</p>
<p>An atheist, btw, does not operate under the assumption that God doesn’t exist. An atheist might say a God is extremely improbable and that there are much more plausible explanations for things. It is not the same as basing your belief system off misinterpretations/misattributed concepts or utility.</p>
<p>I don’t think that it’s silly. In order to identify a measurement as being irrational, roughly speaking, you need infinite precision. This can’t be obtained if things that you have on hand are discrete. </p>
<p>You are asking the question: Is, for example, the distance between atoms in a silicon wafer, an irrational number of some length unit? Well, you have to ask: what length unit? </p>
<p>I’m kind of getting into uncomfortable territory here: i may be saying things that aren’t what a physicist would say.</p>
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<p>I’m no math whiz, and i really don’t want to have to look this up, but I’m pretty sure that numbers don’t switch between being rational and irrational depending on how they are represented. The def’n of rationality that i know is that a number is rational if it is equal to a ratio of integers.</p>
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<p>I’ll be direct: the idea that the thing that is good is that which brings the most benefit. This isn’t strictly derived from the real world. There is some interpretation here . . .</p>
<p>Axioms in a particular system are by definition true. The reason why we resort to them is because we can’t show that things are true without having true things on hand. </p>
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<p>You don’t verify axioms. When building a logical system, you choose whether or not to accept them.</p>
<p>Well, if you’re going to say “Well, I don’t really understand this or that concept, but…” then I advise you to look into those subjects more deeply if you’re going to try to argue against them.</p>
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<li><p>What’s so wrong about infinite precision? Even the simple number “1” is infinitely precise (1.000…). And, yes, same goes for even 0.999…</p></li>
<li><p>Well, for one thing, our computers use binary and hexadecimal for a variety of things, including the text you are reading this very instant. Regardless, the point is that you say “a number is rational if it’s a ratio of integers” – what is an integer? 4 is an integer in base 10, but is it still an integer is base-pi, even though it represents the exact same quantity/thing? What do you think 32/4=8 would look like in base-pi? Why do you think we chose base 10 for our counting system? Do you think it is somehow not arbitrary?</p></li>
<li><p>“Benefit” is a real-world concept. What you’re saying is not an example of a concept that has no real-world derivation.</p></li>
<li><p>Again, you’re assuming axioms are blind. They’re true because the axioms are consistent with what we observe and interpret in the real world. </p></li>
<li><p>Again, you don’t blindly accept an axiom. Axioms themselves are not “provable” within the system because they are starting points for that system to begin with. But we use math to describe relationships we interpret in our real world and therefore the axioms have to make sense even though they are defined as self-evident truths. Again, mathematics wouldn’t help us much if we tried to define something like “a does not equal a” or “1+1=3” because in our world, that makes no sense.</p></li>
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<p>Please don’t lecture me on this topic. You earlier said that 1/3 is an irrational number . . .</p>
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<li><p>If you want to measure the length of something, you need to have something to compare it to. How can you precisely measure something within a fraction of the smallest thing you have? </p></li>
<li><p>integers = {. . ., -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 …}. These numbers are represented in the decimal system where 123 = (one) * (one hundred) + (two) * (twenty) + (three) * (one).</p></li>
<li><p>Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you are saying. I thought you were claiming that ‘the good action is the one that provides the most benefit’ is something that can be derived from experience. I strongly disagree.</p></li>
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<p>4 & 5. Not true. You can reason about things that are divorced from experience. Example: math. You misunderstand math if you think that mathematicians establish their results purely by doing experiments in the real world. You don’t necessarily need to pick axioms that are natural either. The canonical example of this in math: non-euclidean geometry.</p>
<p>1 & 2: Excuse me – but if you’re going to quote me, at least quote what I said. I never said 1/3 was an irrational number. I used 1/3 to illustrate the concept of infinity and decimal expansion, which you seemed to be confused about with respect to length/distance and discrete space.</p>
<p>And technically 123 = 10^2<em>1 + 10^1</em>2 + 10^0<em>3
But that’s in base 10. We can easily describe that same number in base 2 (binary):
1111011
(2^6)</em>1 + (2^5)<em>1 + (2^4)</em>1 + (2^3)<em>1 + (2^2)</em>0 + (2^1)<em>1 + (2^0)</em>1</p>
<p>3: You are misunderstanding what I mean when I say “Everything is derived from the real-world regarding ethics/utility/morality/etc.”</p>
<p>4 & 5: I am not going to bother replying to your posts after this because you are frequently skewing the facts and misunderstanding the arguments to the point where I honestly want to start smashing my face into the wall (which is why I typically avoid these kinds of debates). Math is not the result of “experiment” – nobody has said this and you are attacking a strawman. Math’s axioms are true by definition, but nobody is going to accept axioms that don’t make any sort of sense. Exact same thing goes for non-Euclidean geometry.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry</a>
I highly suggest you actually look up how it works before you start implying that it has roots in something that isn’t natural.</p>
<p>They are liberal because they don’t have to pay taxes, their parents are supporting them, and they just believe everything Obama will tell them because all young people want ‘change’ and for the world to be happy. Then they get into the real world and realize that nothing is free, the government sucks, and socialism is bad.</p>
<p>Thanks for the lesson, but I’m aware of this.</p>
<p>Sorry, I misunderstood your point, but I don’t see how it is related to my argument that we can’t measure irrational numbers. If the best we can do is measure things in numbers of some (smallest unit), then we can always represent that measurement as n * (smallest unit). We can’t resolve stuff radically smaller than that. Because we can’t be as precise as we want, the measurement will be a rational number.</p>
<p>Still though, please don’t lecture me on that subject. You are having trouble divorcing the concept of number from its representation. I may be not good enough at mathematics to show why you are wrong, but I know enough to say that pi is always an irrational number, no matter how you represent it.</p>
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<li><p>What are you saying then?</p></li>
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<p>I will add this, though: “I may be not good enough at mathematics to show why you are wrong, but I know enough to say that pi is always an irrational number, no matter how you represent it” is 100% false. Irrationality is a definition. A number is irrational if it can’t be described by p/q where p and q are both integers and q is nonzero – but this all assumes that the numbers are of the same base. Pi is irrational in base 10, but it is rational in other bases.</p>
<p>You are free to say this because an apple is made of up small, discrete parts that we can measure.</p>
<p>If apples were non-divisible and nature were made up of particles the size of an apple, then yes, we wouldn’t be able to measure half of an apple with much precision.</p>
<p>After this, you really have no right to lecture me on misrepresenting arguments.</p>
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<p>I don’t know enough particle physics, to say the hip new thing but I don’t know: a quark?</p>
<p>I don’t think that representing a number in a different manner changes the nature of the number. This is like saying that the concept of ‘two’ changes if we represent it with ‘II’ versus ‘2’. Rationality is a property of the number, I think.</p>
<p>sorry, i didn’t see this before. pi can’t be represented as such. sure, 3 (base pi) could be represented as 3(base pi)/1(base pi), but 3(base pi) isn’t an integer. or 1(base pi) isn’t an integer. just because you can write down a number without a decimal point doesn’t make it an integer.</p>
<p>Conservatism, for many people, is a compromise of the highest ideals in favour of self-interest. They themselves will admit it as much, when they accuse liberals of being too idealistic. </p>
<p>The younger a person is, the less need that person has to “look out for #1”. They don’t pay many, if any, taxes. They don’t have families and children to look after. They don’t have careers or a solid sense of social class. In other words, young people and college students have the luxury of retaining onto ideals that conservatives themselves seem to acknowledge are good.</p>
<p>As one gets older though, the benefits of being selfish can start to outweigh the benefits of holding onto abstract ideals.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that the real value of pi can’t be expressed as a rational number in any base. Rationality is a property of the number, not of its representation.</p>
<p>@del – I really love the whole “if you don’t respond, then you agree with me” thing… if I didn’t respond it’s because there was nothing in your post worth responding to.</p>
<p>“Obama was a complete failure in every way” I vehemently disagree, bring forth your reasoning while I ask you a follow-up question: “Do you believe Obama was born in the United States?”</p>
<p>Now let me explain to you there’s a difference between “Profiling” and “Racial Profiling” in a sense. The distinction is that just making a profile of a suspect is done with as much information as possible, racial profiling is just “ooop, that black/asian/arab/not-white guy/woman/person did it.” Once again, getting a description of the suspect is NOT RACIALLY PROFILING A PERSON!! It’s only racially profiling when they start tracking down every single person of the same race as the suspect on the off-chance they might be the culprit!! THAT’S WHEN IT BECOMES WRONG!! Jesus, is that REALLY complex to you? </p>
<p>“Talking with Iran and negotiation with terrorists” Okay, you think I would concur on this point, I don’t. You “American Exceptionalist” types seem to think as soon as America comes to the table everybody else is just supposed to bend to our will without making their own demands, that’s arrogance, I’m not for “preconditions” because they break down the talks. Of COURSE your negotiations aren’t going to make progress if you set preconditions just to negotiate, that’s LOGIC. Why is it bad, trying to talk with people? You know how hostage situations work? Well do you? How you talk the guy holding them down through negotations, you try to understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Even if you arrest them at the end, the idea is to try to understand their point of view and more often than not, they’re doing this out of some necessity that you can then suggest a compromise for. For Iran my guess is that a good place to start would be for Iran and Israel to be sat down and accept one another’s right to exist. That’s a great negotiation. Again, I thought I mentioned why “appeasement” didn’t and couldn’t work with Hitler because of how the rest of the world abused Germany at the Treaty of Versallies. You really are one of those “shoot first, ask questions later” types right Del?</p>
<p>Bush spent a total of about $21 trillion dollars over 8 years.</p>
<p>Thus far, Obama has spent about 2-3 billion dollars, a budget has not yet been passed (the bailouts were actually enacted and signed by Bush before he left office).</p>
<p>In case you are not good with number bush has spent about 10,000 times as much as Obama, granted in a period a little over 4x what Obama has currently served.</p>
<p>I wish we could form two countries - one for liberals, one for conservatives. When the United States of America (liberals) surpassed Dingusville on every measure of wealth and quality of life, the conservatives will probably blame our country for their failures.</p>
<h2>For Iran my guess is that a good place to start would be for Iran and Israel to be sat down and accept one another’s right to exist. ~Itachurimon</h2>
<p>lol - yep, that simple. Problem solved, what’s for lunch?</p>