Balthamael

German lawyer seeks state compensation for alien abduction victims. I think that nobody has laughed is because they've been too stupified to comment at all. I was, for sure.

Joutsenlaulu (Swansong) by Y

If the next winter went by with the temperature never going below the freezing point, I'd be happy. Yeah, snow is nice to look at, for a day or two. Then it just begins to remind me of cold and death. By March I'll be ready to sell my soul just to have it all be gone. When you have to live with it six months a year, snow isn't something you look forward to.

Ice caps on Antarctica and Greenland are melting. That alone is a bad thing, given that it means we will eventually lose all our coastal cities. If it happens over decades or centuries there will be plenty of time to accommodate, though. Bigger problem is if, once those glaciers have lost enough of their mass, they will break free and slide into the sea. That would be bad, like end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it bad. It also may well happen within our lifetime. I don't fret over it, though. I don't think the meltdown is possible to stop at this point, so if it happens, it happens.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5365728.stm Yeah, the topic description is virtually dripping of sarcasm. Although, I guess a lawsuit is a standard response to any problem at this point.

I vehemently disagree. Not with whatever point you may have, for I don't have a clue as to what it is. I disagree with your practice of making posts consisting of emoticons and nothing else. That is pointless waste of time, yours and everyone elses. Whatever you have to say that isn't worth writing couple of words, isn't worth of saying at all. Thank you.

Do not try to understand. It is better that way. Trust me.

Lost and confused is not a bad state to be in. You can get used to it. I should know, I've had a lifetime to learn.

Personally, I believe that the twin towers were brought down by a group of underground mole people who were burrowing under the foundations at the time.

Even this conspiracy theory, claiming so much less than the grand claims of man never having been on the Moon, is absurd on its face. To stage something that big, too many people would have to know about it. There is no way that it could have been done without someone talking to the media.

I have a feeling that this thread will be a good way to identify the people who reply to threads without reading the links.

Tell me, you aren't afraid to go to sleep at night, aret you? Yet you lose consciousness for a while. How do you know that the "you" that awakes is the same "you" that went to sleep? Maybe "you" die each night, to be born anew every morning. Does this question bother you? It should. Or, to take more extreme example, during a bypass surgery the patient is technically dead for a short while. The consciousness that awakes after the surgery, is it the same consciousness that existed before the surgery? If your answer to this is "yes", then answer me this. If, during the short period while the bypass surgery patient is dead, his body is scanned, disintegrated, and re-assembled, would he still be the same patient? And, if instead of using the same matter to re-assemble his body, we used some other atoms? Would he still be the same patient? My answer to all those questions is yes. Nothing else seems to make sense to me. We don't think that someone who has lost their consciousness is a different person when they wake up. For a dead patient on the surgery table, it makes no difference if their body is disintegrated and re-assembled in between. They would still be just as dead, and they would still be soon revived. The problem you have with all this, I understand where it comes from. We think self as a separate entity of our thoughts, and memories, something that "controls our consciousness", to borrow your own term. But it isn't, really. It is a product of those thoughts and memories.

^I wouldn't. But then, that replica wouldn't be me anymore. Our experiences diverged in quite a radical manner. Now we have two different people, and I would expect neither to give up their existence without a fight. Disintegration of the original is an essential part of the process. Without it, no teleportation is happening. It must be done there and then. No delays.

Yes, I am fine with that. Matter replacement hasn't bothered me during all my life, so it shouldn't bother me now when it is proposed that all the particles I consist of should be replaced at once. That, essentially is what is proposed. I can see from whence the problem arises. It is the illusion of subject, that there is something there that thinks our thoughts and remembers our memories that is apart of those thoughts and memories. But there is nothing like that, is there? I can't point it, I can't observe it, I can't define it, it doesn't exist. Consciousness is the object of thinking, not the subject doing the thinking. Thoughts and memories do survive, and therefore, so do I.

I would use this. I understand why many of you say that the user is killed in this process, but I don't think such a position is even coherent. You see, it all comes down to how 'self' should be defined. If 'self' is the sum of the particular particles that make our bodies, and none other, then indeed the user is killed and someone else is created to take his place. But such a claim would be utterly nonsensical. It is not possible to tell one proton apart of another. They all look the same. And even if it somehow made a difference that we used different particles to create the replica, there still remains the problem that a human body constantly changes material with its environment. It is estimated that it takes seven years for each and every atom of human body to be changed. It is gradual process as opposed to instantaneous, but the principle is the same. If it matters what atoms are used to re-assemble your body, then you didn't survive past your seventh birthday. Those of you who would use the Star Trek teleporter, but not mine, should also consider this question. What if, instead of turning your body into energy and transmitting it into destination, I disintegrated you, collected each and every atom and particleinto a cardboard box, and carried it wherever you wanted to go. This is the same thing, right? I mean, you are just as dead while you are transmitted as energy wave, right? Okay, I have you now in the destination and I find out that I have misplaced one carbon atom. Is it okay that I simply replace it with whatever carbon atom I can find. What about two atoms? Three? How many atoms can I change before you begin to consider yourself dead? Clearly, all attempts to define onself to the sum of particles that make us are hopeless. We are more akin to symphonies than bricks. Then, I can only say that what makes me myself are my thoughts and memories. There is nothing else that is me, is there? And because my thoughts and memories do remain, so do I. So, yes, I do think that the person who comes out in the destination is the same who went in in the source location. For those who question whether person's soul, whatever that is, survives the process, I have no good answer to give. I am a materialist. For me, nothing exists that I cannot observe. But since the soul, if it exists, is supposedly something immaterial, I see no reason why it wouldn't be transmitted along with the blueprint of your body. Someone made the point that because the original and replica must co-exist for a short while, their experiences diverge at that point and they essentially are two different people. That is true, I guess, but I do not think few seconds spent into a dark, silent chamber matter much. If it does, I guess we can render the user unconscious, or something. All of this is, naturally, pure speculation. This kind of machine is, as Metadigital pointed out, quite impossible to build, no matter how advanced technology we have in the future.

But surely the teleporter is the most convenient way of traveling. You will simply appear wherever you wanted to be. In fact, given that the machine works without error you are in greater risk of dying in an accident when you use more conventional methods. Why, then, wouldn't you prefer the teleporter? Yes, there is a point to this question, but I'll write my own thoughts on the subject later. Better let everyone to form their own opinions first.

Wherever you want to. This method allows you to reach your destination immediately so it is more convenient way to travel to the other side of the world than, say, flying. Of course, if you don't want or need to travel you will stay at home. But presumably you will want to travel somewhere at least once in your life. Do note the point of this question. You will have to decide whether this process in fact kills the user.

The concept of teleportation is rather simple. The teleportee steps into a machine in the source location, whereupon his body is scanned on sub-atomic level. This blueprint of the user's body is then transmitted into the target location, where similar machine uses that information to create an exact replica of the user. Both the original and the replica are scanned again, to make sure that they indeed are identical, after which the replica is released and the original is disintegrated. The destruction of the original is necessary because it is undesirable to have several versions of the same person running free causing who knows what havoc in the world, and most importantly because for the original no teleportation took place. He would still be in the source location and think that the machine didn't work. Only if this point of view disappears from the world can the rest of us point at the replica and say that he was succesfully teleported. For the sake of the argument, we assume that the teleporter is perfectly reliable and does indeed create a replica of the user which is identical with the original to the smallest sub-atomic particle. For all intents and purposes such replica is the same as the original; it will do, say and think exactly the same things the original would. Oh, and we also assume, rather against common sense, that the scanning process does not harm the user. Knowing all this, would you allow yourself to be teleported?

This seems akin to suicide to me, in that you are trading away your ability to experience the reality for the sake of relief from pain. I would not do this, not ever.

^You are misunderstanding. I didn't take offense on my own behalf, I have been called much worse things than a jerk, and probably deservedly so. I took offense on behalf of all jerks everywhere from your use of phrase 'just a jerk', thus implying that jerks are somehow less worthy than other people. That is disrespectful, damnit!

^That's no reason to go disrespecting them, few of us are all that fantastic. Your prejudices are clearly showing, almost as if you were a jerk yourself. Welcome to the club!

^I concede to being a jerk, but take exception to your use of word 'just'. Jerks are people too, damnit!

I am fairly certain that changing the name of another person without their consent, or indeed knowledge, is not legally possible, so I believe the only one able to do what you suggest has been done would be myself. However, since your question seems to imply that it would be necessary for someone to die to be able to change anyone's name into that, it follows logically that I possibly could not have done it and still be replying to your post. As such, the answer to your question is 'nobody'. Does this satisfy you? I am no one important. This is the best answer you will get to your question.

Microtext is bloody annoying. Please immediately give yourself a warning and do not repeat the offense. Also, do not attempt to tell any kind of joke in public ever again. Your idea of humour is severely out of sync with the rest of the humanity.

1. 24 is a good age to be. That has been my age for a couple of years, now. 2. Grey. 3. 2,4%; 5,8%, 7,0%; 10,8%.... Am I supposed to take this seriously? Very well then. The standard interests: reading, writing, gaming, football(the real kind), science, stuff. 4. I have all kinds of music on my playlist. Not hip-hop, though. 5. Again, a negative answer is more informative. I don't like comedies. They just bore me. 6. RPG, adventure, turn-based strategy. 7. Flexibility of thought, ability to quickly cope with shifted paradigms, ability to improvise as needed. 8. Indecisiveness. 9. I refuse to accept any standard but my own. Thus I am by definition a positive person.