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|163 reviews in total
It just doesn't get better than this. Farscape is easily one of the
best series to ever grace the TV screen. Even if you're not a regular
sci-fi fan, it's nearly impossible to not enjoy the intelligence, wit,
superb acting, and sheer beauty of each episode. I used to think that
Joss Whedon had the market on pop-culture fantasy pretty much cornered,
but Farscape raises the bar even higher in terms of its
characterization and integral humanity.
Farscape has it all: adventure, drama, suspense, and a romance unlike any other. It's an unforgettable roller coaster ride, and the DVD box sets are of exceptionally high quality with numerous special features.
I watched about ten minutes of each of a couple of series 1 Farscape
episodes and hated it. Cliched plots, characters blatantly lifted from
other shows, and *muppets*. Might as well watch the Phantom
However, after persistent nagging from a hooked friend, I gritted my teeth, sat down and actually watched a whole show. Oh wow. Oh WOW.
Farscape isn't a plot show, it's not a gadget show, it's not even an effects show. It's primarily a character show, and it's a great one, aimed squarely at adults. The characters are often space operatically heroic, but are also believably flawed. They are petty, affectionate, selfish and giving. They are also commendably consistent, and both bear grudges and remember debts.
I find the acting of *all* the main cast outstanding; expressive, genuine and naturalistic. They give it everything, and fully commit to every scene and every line. I understand that viewers in the USA might find this strange when compared to the mugging, grimacing and ostentatious emotionalism that passes for acting on domestic US shows. It's a matter of taste, and I find the reserved but expressive acting of Farscape far more palatable.
Possibly the biggest strength of Farscape is the chemistry between the cast. The amount of physical, emotional and sexual tension rivals that of gritty TV verite rather than fluff SF. Babylon 5 characters are as well written, but not (sorry Babfans) as well acted or as involving.
Farscape has justifiably been accused of having cliched plots and characters. This it does, but no more so than any Star Trek franchise, and even Babylon 5 occasionally lurched into genre hell. True, you'd be hard pressed to tell Andromeda and Farscape apart from a brief precis of the plot and characters, but this only illustrates that there are certain genre elements that are now classic rather than cliched. Farscape starts from a tried and trusted design and then implements it astonishingly well.
On the other hand, it *does* have muppets...
It took me a short while to get into this show. I find that most people
who don't like it, just don't GET it. Farscape is a deep and intense
show with a lot of small twists and turns in a very complicated plot.
It is NOT a show you could watch one or two episodes of and know what
was going on. They do a great job with the meager budget they work with
and create a very livable "viable" view of the far and distance
universe taking the level up above Star Trek or Star Wars. Probably my
favorite show of all time, and well worth the time it takes to
understand what's happening.
A little something for everyone. Action, adventure, drama, romance, etc.
Bring Farscape Back!!
This show is one of the few out there that has layers upon layers for the viewers to enjoy. Well written and incredibly addictive this show takes you away and keeps you there. The characters draw you in from the begin episode, but also allow you to jump in at anytime. There is never a moment when they are not evolving into more complex beings. The challenge that many shows face is continuing the development of the show while not losing the initial concept. Farscape smashes this theory into pieces as it evolves and provides the viewer with challenging action, and sometimes even killing off well loved characters. This show should have never been canceled. It was a rare gem.
I had heard from other people that Farscape was good, so when I had the
opportunity to watch the two final episodes in the whole series, I took
it, and I haven't regret it since. I only regret, that I took me so
long to discover the BEST SCI-FI Series on EARTH. (It will be difficult
to beat this one). By watching these episodes, it made me want to know
what had happen prior to the final, how it all had started, I just
wanted more of the same.
So I bought all the episodes on DVD, and what a blast, it does not just take you to the edge, but way behind your imagination. It makes you wonder........what if? It plays with your imagination, it's like an adventure, into the unknown for the 45 minutes an episode last.
It is well written, and the characters are really well played by the actors. Yes Farscape covers it all; friendship between species's, love at first sight, hate, sorrow, happiness, loyalty, betrayal e.c.t., you name it.
The red line in this, is that as long you have an open mind, you will accept anything that happens, anything is allowed, because it is Sci-Fi. It only took one episode, to get me hooked forever in the Farscape universe, and I can strongly recommend watching it!.
I am a die hard science fiction fan. I mean really, i read it i watch
it i even listen to the theme songs. The Farscape series and the
finishing mini series is the absolutely best science fiction show i
have ever seen. The show only aired very shortly on cable TV here in
Denmark, so i bought all of the episodes on DVD.
Pay homage to this show, it does almost everything to a degree of perfection. Ben Browder and Claudia Black are a great set of actors with very impressing chemistry. Farscape beats everything, Star Trek, Star Wars... The only other show that is keeping me occupied right now is Battlestar Galactica, which is also god, but not nearly as much.
If you have not wathced this show yet, do it. For me... it never gets old.
This has got to be without a doubt, the best original science fiction show
I've seen in a long time. I had rather high hopes for seaQuest (written by
Rockne S. O'Bannon as well), and was disappointed. My first impressions of
"Farscape" were "Voyager" / "Battlestar Galactica" clone, but that lasted
about five minutes. I think my favorite characters are probably Pilot and
Moya herself, although Aeryn is a close third. I do wonder that everyone
frequently defers to John's leadership since he is brand new to the
situation (not to mention that area of space) and seemingly does not
understand even the basics of Leviathan tech.
I do love the occasional pop-culture reference, such as John's statement "This place looks like Dagobah." Upon being asked where "Dagobah" was, John smiled at his joke and replied that it was a place where great warriors were trained. I half expected the reply to be "Wars not make one great". It's a good, subtle blend that keeps us awake, but doesn't inspire wild "easter egg hunts" for other allusions.
I am very impressed with this show, and I hope the Sci-Fi channel will continue to produce this excellent series.
Saw it and liked it from the first episode on. The German translation is not recommendable but the original is really a great piece of work (art), a fact, which was unfortunately not noticed by the TV-channel SciFi. If you like creative, witty and funny entertainment you will love FARSCAPE! The Jim Henson company brought in all their resources and skills to create a completely strange, alien world on your TV-screen. The overall plot is somehow old-fashioned but the ingredients of this SciFi-opera are superb. Different styles and types of movie-making have been mixed to create a very addictive show. Characters and types of creatures are worked out very carefully. The plot is unforeseeable and very varied, so you never get bored.
Farscape is not the easiest series to get into. You really need to see
it from the beginning which is probably one of the reasons the ratings
were not that great when it aired on the Sci-Fi Channel.
There is a continuing story here and the characters and their relationships to each other are complex. But this is what makes this show so compelling. Once you get into the flow of this series it is impossible to not be totally entertained and involved.
My recommendation is to rent or buy the box set of the first year and try it for yourself. You will not be sorry.
A new Farscape movie will be shown on Sci-Fi this fall. Apparently it will begin where the series left off. Hopefully this will lead to other movies but at this point, who knows?
Not only John Crichton is lost in the distant part ot the Universe.
Watching the movie you feel like you ware there, together. Everything,
the living ship, the aliens are made to look so different, even beyond
the imagination, but somehow they are also realistic and lovely. I have
been grown up with StarWars and Blake's -7. I used to think I will
never enjoy another sci-fi move so much again, but I was wrong.
Farscape is much better than all I have seen before. If you decide to
watch it, please, start from the beginning!
You will never find the "way home" if you miss the first wormhole...
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|Plot summary
|External reviews
|Official site
|Plot keywords
|Main details
|Your user reviews
|Your vote history


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Occupy protestors denied entrance to Senate on opening day
A group of about 50 Occupy Florida protestors from around the state were denied entry to the Florida Senate Tuesday afternoon as the chamber took up its first series of bills on the opening day of the session.
The reason, said Senate Sergeant at Arms Donald Severance: the group had been disruptive earlier in the day before the governor's State of the State speech and he didn't want to risk a disturbance.
"They were singing and chanting on the fourth floor and we talked to them earlier and asked them to keep it quiet,'' said Severance, whose job is to maintain decorum in and around the 40-member chamber. "Then they'd start back up again. I wasn't going to take a chance of them having a disruption."
A volunteer attorney from the ACLU, Richard Benham, arrived later in the afternoon to consult with the group and meet with Severance. He said it appeared the sergant arbitrarily excluded some people but allowed others into the chamber. "People certainly have aright to access public property. People have a right to be in the Senate chamber generally. I don't know what the extent of the Senate Sergeant at Arms to prevent that,'' he said.
"I was guilty by association. They judged me by my appearance,'' said Dana Humphrey of Awake the State of New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County. She said that she was admitted to the Senate chambers last year with her college-aged son but, this year, with her hair dyed pink, she believes she was excluded because of her appearance.
"I think it's profiling,'' said Donna Clifton, of Occupy Panama City, who uses a wheelchair and was allowed in the chamber while the college-aged, t-shirt wearing members of her group were not. "I carried an 'Occupy' sign and I very definitely could be identified as with them.''
Several protestors said it appeared the Senate's rules were arbitrary and inconsistent. Many in the afternoon group were not with the protestors in the morning, they said and several morning protestors said they were never told by the Capitol Police that they were being disruptive.
"I feel like it was unjust,'' said Ralph Wilson of Occupy Tallahassee. "We came this afternoon to watch the Senate and we were denied entry because others were a disruption."
Mike Hankins, a student from Orlando, said he came to Tallahassee expected to have a voice. "This is a public building. People should be allowed to see what their government is doing,'' he said.
Senate President Mike Haridopolos said he had not been aware of the dispute but if the protestors had been disruptive he supported keeping them out of the visitors' gallery.
Photo: Lawyer Richard Benham speaks to Occupy Florida protestors after they were denied entry into the Florida Senate visitors gallery on Tuesday.

subset: commoncrawl


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Noxzema Triple Clean Anti-Blemish Pads Reviews
YuckThis irritated my skin like nothing else. It might my skin shiny and red, very inflamed. I would never use these again. — 6 years, 7 months agoLittleBunny | 545 reviews
This review is: Helpful | Not helpful | Inappropriate | 2 of 7 people said helpful
EWWay too harsh for my skin! They smell disgustingly strong and overpowering.. Never again. — 6 years, 3 months agoeatinglipstick | 145 reviews
This review is: Helpful | Not helpful | Inappropriate | 0 of 1 people said helpful
Noxzemaworks good — 9 years, 2 months agoddagrosa | 259 reviews
This review is: Helpful | Not helpful | Inappropriate | 1 of 6 people said helpful
Noxema Let Me Down With Triple CleanAs much as I loooove Noxema, that entire Triple Clean collection really let me down. And after using it, I have discovered that I have a slight allergy Tricloserin. These pads are extremelly drying, irritating, and left my face very shiny and odd smelling. I immediatly used some Cetaphil on my face because it was sooooo dry. Then I woke up the next morning with little dry patches all over my face,...read more which didn't go away throughout the day...talk about embarassing. The only reason I gave it two stars, was because they are convient and cheap. Won't be repurchasing.... — 6 years, 2 months agolanigaga | 113 reviews
Nice little product!I use these little pads everyday when I come home from school. It takes of my BB Cream and helps with my blemishes as well and it does not dry my skin out, (though I could see that happening to people who already suffer from dry skin.) And I only use this product once a day, for I wash my face at night, and these anti-blemish pads are great when you have zits that you want gone ASAP. The smell is ...read morequite strong, however since it leaves my skin feeling soft, clean, and helps reduce my blemishes, it is well worth it! Its a great deal and definitely one of the better drugstore acne products out there! — 4 years, 6 months agopalomalove | 37 reviews
Hmm..For me it doesn't seem to work. It doesn't sting,make it worse,or do anything other than slightly dry my face. I've used this product for awhile now hoping it would make a difference but i haven't noticed any. I mild acne and i was recommended this. So give a try, It might just be me! — 4 years, 7 months agoHxCookie | 16 reviews
Amazing!I LOVE THESE. They seem to work instantly in clearing my face up. They do have a very strong smell and the pads are a little rough for my face, but the fact that they clear up my skin so well makes all those go away. I repurchase over and over again. LOVE! — 4 years, 9 months agonicolebrittnee | 2 reviews
Great product I've used it for about 2 years and it's great for getting the dirt out of your face while clearing your skin! No other product worked is magic like this one has. It has a never ending supply of pads too, I was surprised it lasted me anywhere between 2-3 months and it sells for a cheap price too! — 5 years, 3 months agolakhenaboo | 2 reviews
Awful!This really dried out my skin! I really can't tell you how much I hate this product! It dries and irritates, and it smells awful! — 5 years, 4 months agoshelby_hamel | 22 reviews
Dried out my skin and didn't get the oil offSo I used to use these all the time.. But then I started to notice then drying out my skin and not getting all of the oil off my face. I used 2 pads each morning and 2 each night. Sad. I really like the noxzema brand! — 5 years, 6 months agoMishashawnea | 47 reviews
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Nice piece, hope it fits what I need it for.
Great! Play it at a camp game.
Thank you for this sound! I used it here:
Merci beaucoup und Dankeschoen
very nice sound experience, thank you
I had my doubts that I'd be able to find a sutible sound effect, but with a litle clipping this will be perfect. Thank You!!!
Holy cow, awesome sound!
I love this sound and have used it in a short dance film called Faraday's Cage (not yet completed). The link to the film's website is here - http://www.faradayscage.com - and the link to the attribution page is here - http://www.faradayscage.com/attribution.html
Thank you!
Thank you
i will add this to radio sensory thanks.
Fantastic sound! I used it to introduce this song : http://thesmalltowns.bandcamp.com/track/try-harder
Fantastic, thanks!
Nicely recorded with a good strong level, without any clipping. Awesome!
will be using this one, thanks! :)
Just awesome. Thankyou so much for the time you take in making these treasures available.
Excellent, Thank you!
This sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing great audio work!!!
in méxico they use it, allso! i will upload one too. but mine is a little low in pitch than this one. very good played.
Great sounding recording. There are a few parts there where you feel that you're right there in the middle on the road as the cars pass by....as the sound is so clear and crisp.
Nice work!
Phantastic recording! I used it in my listening piece for the exhibition 'Wir sind hier nicht zum Spaß' about subcultural structures of the 90s in Berlin. Fits perfectly - thanks!!
Cool one :-) Browsing through orchestra tune I couldn't help but notice how there always somebody coughing, almost in the same spot at every sample ahah humans :)
Super cool! Thanks a lot!
thanks very much
thanks very much
Like it


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Stamp on Carvalho was not deliberate, insists Rooney
England striker Wayne Rooney insists his stamp on Ricardo Carvalho during the World Cup quarter-final defeat to Portugal was not deliberate.
Rooney, 20, was dismissed after the challenge on the Chelsea centre-back and a subsequent confrontation with Manchester United team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo.
England held on to a goalless draw against Portugal but went on to lose on penalties.
In his book serialised in the Mail on Sunday, Rooney said: 'In being forced back, I had trod on the player on the ground.
'It turned out to be Carvalho. And I was aware that my foot had landed between his legs, which, of course, is about the nastiest place to get hurt, but it was an accident.
'I couldn't believe that the ref, who was so near, hadn't realised that. Perhaps he was too near.'
Rooney added: 'I'll go to my grave and still maintain it was a complete accident. I hadn't intended to do it. I had my back to the player. I couldn't see him, or where I was putting my foot.
'If you think about it, if I'd done it deliberately, if it had been a definite stamp meant to harm him, the fella would still be in hospital to this day. But he was up on his feet in minutes, no worse for wear.'
Rooney insists Cristiano Ronaldo did not try to wind him up in the tunnel before England's World Cup quarter-final defeat to Portugal in Gelsenkirchen.
The Manchester United pair were pictured before the game, with suggestions Portugal winger Ronaldo was attempting to provoke Rooney into losing his temper when the match kicked off.
Rooney said: 'First of all, in the tunnel, we wished each other good luck in the game, hoped it went well, which is what you say to a team-mate. Okay, he wasn't in my team that day but you still wish a fellow professional a good game.
'Then he asked me if I'd heard where Quinton Fortune was going. I said no, did he know where he was going? Quinton's a friend and club-mate of both of us and he was reported to be leaving United.
'Neither us knew the latest. So that was it. We said good luck to each other, once more. And then the game began.'
Defeat to Portugal also marked the end of Sven-Goran Eriksson's reign as England manager, and Rooney enjoyed playing for the Swede despite never seeing him 'lose his temper or shout'.
He added: 'I felt a bit sad though that Sven was leaving. I think he was forced out by the press. They backed him into the corner. I always found him a very clever man and a good manager.
'They said he wasn't emotional enough and it's true I never saw him lose his temper or shout. But I think he was emotional, deep down. He did care. With him, it was always inside his body. I always liked his style, his calm manner.
'He did do his homework and prepared well, got his points across clearly. Most of all, he always trusted the players 100 per cent. I like a manager who does that, who doesn't treat us like kids.'


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Discussion in 'Android Devices' started by SamsungVibrant, Aug 2, 2010.
Stock Kernel with lag fix on 2.1:
mine is 891 rooted android eclair. sorry can't upload the pics i have no camera. can't save either the screen from my galaxy.
882 stock first time ran....
will try killing a lot of the stuff running and see what it does..
Here's mine:
Stock rom, rooted, using Chainfire's lag fix. This fix has the option to use an EXT3 partition, which is slower than EXT2 but has the benefit of journaling so there is little or no risk of corruption. The speed boost is still very noticeable in day to day use. Android market navigation is instant. As is opening/using Touchdown Exchange.
where did you get quadrant pro? Cause I would love to prove to my buddy who has a droid x that the galaxy s phones cpu is faster.
SlideME | Android Community and Application Marketplace
I'm using Advanced not the Professional version. $24.99 is pretty steep for a benchmark.
From a computational standpoint, Hummingbird is not vastly superior to Snapdragon. It's the graphic performance that makes the big difference. The integrated GPU is vastly superior to everything out there. Gaming is where this phone really shines. Everyday performance will be similar (with the lag fix). Stock, HTC and Motorola provides snappier performance because of Samsung's suboptimal use of RFS (fat32) for the file system.
Notice the HUGE jump in score on the I/O portion. Everything else remains roughly the same.
JIT will significantly boost the CPU scores for all phones. Notice the blue region on the Nexus One score.
What can't be significantly improved is graphics performance. Galaxy S phones rock in that department.
yea, 25 bucks is a little steep.
you can just show your friend this video and this will put to end the debate. Samsung galaxy s phones are faster than droidX, when using quadrant pro it shows the cpu is infact faster! video below
YouTube - androidandme's Channel
I getting a respectable 2072. Rooted, stock rom and ran lag fix.
Id still like to see them run side by side..
Stock I get 883 and for some reason the very 1st test I did was I believe 918 or something very close to that and thats with PDA net running, not sure if that matters or not. I honestly don't know if this is good or bad as far as the score goes!! I guess Ill let ya guys tell me! The graphics on those tests were awesome, real nice clarity.
that's a good score. there's only a couple phones rated higher than that, and that's the droid x and the nexus one running froyo. they have already proven, that even though the galaxy s out performs the droid x, some reason the droid x shows a higher score, probably some sort of glitch. many people are installing the lag fix on the galaxy s, and getting scores 2000+... i want to root my phone, but not sure on how to do it. don't know what all i need in order to get it to work. as for my vibrant, i scored a 922. can't wait to root and lag fix it.
please look through this thread to the answer to your droidx quadrant glitch. The glitch is I/O
rooted, bloatware removed, with the one-click fix.. 2250.. eat it nexus ;]
2107, rooted, clockwork mod, one click fix. Curious how to over clock cpu tho.
No surprise, now equal to Nexus with Froyo...
So your device is a DroidX with Froyo? Well Samsung Galaxy S phones are faster than DroidX-Froyo. Imagine when Galaxy S with the lag fix gets Froyo, oh my gosh, its going to score like 3000.
I did Ryan's 1 click lag fix posted over on XDA a couple of days ago. Scored a 2175 on quadrant benchmark.
On a side note, how do you guys do a screen capture??
Go to the market and get the app, shootme.
Thanks Vegas Touch. I can't seem to re-create that score. Seems every time I run the benchmark test it goes down a little. I went from an original 2185 to 2035 in 3 tries. Each try was sequentially lower.
Have a look at this site, guys. It has the Quadrant benchmark scores for just about every Android phone I can think of:
Smartphone Benchmarks - Compare and submit performance benchmark speeds of HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and other smartphones
As expected, Galaxy S class phones are totally dominating even without Froyo. Also, I am a bit surprised at the result of Droid X on Froyo - the improvement isn't as much as I expected.
when froyo comes out, will this automatically fix the lag issue?
AFAIK, the lag issue isn't a bug, it's from Samsung using an internal SD card for storage. Froyo won't fix this.
I guess I meant, when froyo comes out, froyo lets you put aps on the external storage sd card, this should effectively get rid of the lag right? Thus froyo will basically get rid of the lag issue if you put the aps on external mem?
I think it's more of an issue of nand flash vs microSD. microSD has slower I/O which causes the lag and low Quadrant score. Moving apps from the internal SD to the external SD won't make a difference, not to mention so many apps don't support the move yet.
Keep in mind, this is my take on it, I'm not 100% sure I'm correct.


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ZAKK WYLDE - On The Road: Bringing Metal To the Children Episode #8 Posted
May 1, 2013, 4 years ago
BLACK LABEL SOCIETY mainman Zakk Wylde's (ex-OZZY OSBOURNE) Bringing Metal To The Children – The Complete Berzerker's Guide To World Tour Domination - originally published as a hardcover book last past April by William Morrow - was issued on paperback earlier this month. In support of the release, Zakk has embarked on a series of West Coast acoustic performances/book readings/Q&A; sessions dubbed the Book Tour Of Doom, running through May 1st in San Juan Capistrano, California.
Episode #8 can be viewed below:
Zakk Wylde recently sat down with Shanda Golden of In The Vault at the Knitting Factory in Reno, NV to talk about the paperback release of his book, Bringing Metal To The Children. The in-depth interview can be seen below:


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Ethnography Is The New Core Competence
By Bruce Nussbaum
Slide Show >>
Ethnography is hot. You'd expect the Nikes and Apples of the world to use it since their products are so directly linked to consumer wants and needs. But it's surprising that Intel Corp., a chipmaker whose products you never see, is into enthnography. In fact, the company is very serious about the science of observing customers to zero in on their needs -- and is way ahead of many other global corporations.
Intel's effort is led by anthropologist Ken Anderson, manager of people and practice research. He's using anthropology and other social science disciplines to "develop a deep understanding of how people live and work." The knowledge is then used by Intel to inform and guide the company's direction for technology and its strategy for product development.
One bit of interesting research posted at Intel's Web site is on transnationals and cosmopolitans -- people who live outside their home countries and who move back and forth between countries. Anderson estimates that as much as one-third of the population of cities such as London are made up of transnationals. How they use information and communication technologies (laptops, cell phones, Web sites, instant messaging, video cameras) is intriguing. Ghanaians living in London use them to "look homeward," to keep connected. They also use information and communications technology (ICT) to connect to the global grid, searching the Net and blogs for jobs, contacts, etc. When Ghanaian transnationals go home, they are the leading vector for introducing ICT to their cities, towns, and villages.
There is a lot more cool stuff on the Intel site. I'd love to see this really cool kind of research done on American cities like Portland, Ore., New York, or San Francisco. Just for fun.
Ethnography or, more seriously, "ethnology," is a field a designer shouldn't ignore. It's like art history or mythology. Ethnology deals with ethnic groups' culture, while ethnography deals with groups' repartition. If you want to design a product that will be accepted by a population, know its uses and habits.
The best-designed product is the one that refers to the user's fundamentals. So ethnography is a field of investigation for designers and not only to develop products. It's also a way to open someone's mind to the wide world.
Intel has the resources to put together these incredible projects to go broad, deep, and far afield. Most of us are working in a shorter timeframe (both the horizon of the research impact and the time spent on it), and with more tactical objectives than Intel's folks.
We are putting together, piece by piece, a grand amount of insight on Portland, Tulsa, San Francisco, and so on. But no one knows about any of it. It's all proprietary. The research is repeated over and over again for different groups with different objectives.
Recent Posts
China's President Hu Jintao Visits Microsoft's Bill Gates -- Who is More Innovative?
Infosys Makes The Top Innovators List for Asia-Pacific
What Senior Execs Really Think of IBM and Innovation
Recent Comments
Google, IBM. and Grain (1)
What Top Execs Really Say About Apple (1)
The Randomness of Corporate Innovation (4)
Innovation Ideas from Davos (1)


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found a new home!
Plenty of my friends are looking
for one too. Find a pet to adopt.
I am already neutered and up to date with shots.
Cole, a Sinking Spring Chihuahua dog was adopted! Here's how you can benefit by looking at adoption as an option to buying a Chihuahua for sale in Sinking Spring, or seeking a Chihuahua dog from a breeder in Sinking Spring.


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What Can I Do With This Major?
There are many resources at GVSU that you can utilize to help research your options. You are not limited to the resources listed below. There are many opportunities that you can explore. However, this will be a good start for you to begin your career exploration.
Visit the Career Center
The GVSU Career Center provides a variety of services, including:
Why should you go to the Career Center?
The struggle of deciding on a career path and choosing a major happens often to students. The Career Center has created helpful information and resources available for you. These resources can assist you with questions on what you can do in the workforce with your particular major.
What are the resources available at the Career Center?
Meet with Your Faculty Advisor
Who is my advisor?
Once you know the name of your assigned faculty advisor, you can find his or her office location, email address and phone number by searching from the GVSU homepage. All faculty members hold open office hours to meet with students. Call or email your faculty advisor directly or contact your major academic department to determine your advisor's office hours. If you are not available during your faculty advisor's office hours, you can often arrange another time to meet with him/her.
Why you should meet with your Faculty Advisor?
Visit the Student Academic Success Center
The Student Academic Success Center (SASC) provides students with the opportunity to explore other majors if you are thinking about changing your current major. SASC understands that deciding on a new major or changing your major can seem like an overwhelming decision and that there are multiple factors that need to be taken into consideration. SASC created these three steps to assist you in the process:
SASC also provides academic advising to Pre-major (undecided) students. The center provides many different resources to help you make the decision that is right for you. The pre-major advisors at SASC are available to assist you through the process of choosing the right major. The advisor can also help you in identifying interests, strengths, and weaknesses as they relate to the majors. They will also help connect you with other campus resources to ensure that you will have a smooth process in deciding on a major that is right for you.
Additional Resources


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This is the website/blog of Philosopher Stephen Law. Stephen is Reader in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, and editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK. He has published several books (see sidebar). For school talks and media email: think-AT-royalinstitutephilosophy.org
Thursday, May 10, 2007
"Atheism a faith position too" - best shot?
Here's an opening suggestion or two from me.
(1) Science is dependent on inductive reasoning. It is based on the assumption that what has happened up till now provides us with a good, if not a fool-proof, indication of what will happen in the future. Unfortunately, as Hume points out, this assumption cannot be justified. But then inductive reasoning cannot be justified. In which case science cannot be justified. It too ultimately rests on "faith" - faith in that background assumption. And if atheism is based on science, then it too rests on a "faith" assumption. So you see, atheism and theism are intellectually on par. Both are ultimately "faith" positions.
(2) Here's another version. The sceptic about the external world shows that our belief that our senses are a reliable guide to reality cannot be justified. But then, as science and indeed all our beliefs about the external world are based on the assumption that our senses are a reliable guide to reality, they too are rooted in "faith". So belief in God is no more a "faith position" than is empirical science.
What, if anything, is wrong with these arguments?
39 comments:
- Joe Otten said...
1. A good (eg Popperian) interpretation of what scientific knowledge is does not rely on inductive reasoning.
2a. Reliance on the reliability of senses is not complete in science - there are some systematic guards against some failures of the senses, such as the requirement that results should be repeatable.
2b. This is true of all beliefs about the external world, not just scientific ones. This argument makes "faith" synonymous with "belief about the external world" and thus robs it of the special meaning it is normally understood to have.
- May 10, 2007 at 9:46 PM
1. Good Popperian methodology DOES rely on a hidden induction (as others have pointed out). We assume over time that if something has not been falsified, it acquires a sort-of privileged status. But nothing could justify this assumption except a principle of induction.
2a. Isn't "repeatability" just induction by a different name?
2b. This is the nub of the issue. 'Faith' is an awfully vague term, which is part of the reason the debate never gets very far. Theists want to define it broadly, as something like St. Paul's 'evidence of things not seen," while atheists want to define it narrowly as something like 'belief beyond what the evidence justifies.' Both are question-begging.
- May 10, 2007 at 10:31 PM
As I pointed out in my comment on your previous post the two positions are not congruent and I'm surprised that McGrath would seek to make them seem so:
"(God's) existence cannot be proved by physical means. However, neither can it be disproved. What does this mean? It means it takes complete and utter faith to believe there is a god (or gods) and complete and utter faith to believe there is not one."
Scientific 'faith' is based around prediction, testing, reliability etc. whilst theological 'faith' is quite another thing. It add nothing to the argument that the fictions of Marx and Freud exceeded their evidential base.
It's not as though Atheism and Theism get into the ring together; the Atheist demurs for he sees no ring and no opponent.
Humean metaphysical scruples and worries about veridicality do not affect Science.
- May 10, 2007 at 10:54 PM
- Martin said...
1) Proving science is a faith position should make no difference to saying that atheism is a faith position; the two are not inextricably linked.
2) Logical arguments do not require any experiential knowledge and arguments that are put forward for or against God based purely on logic would not fail if the external world was entirely false. Of course, it could be argued that the reason we default to a 'No God' position is because in practical terms it is unreasonable to believe in something until disproven. This belief could be attacked as being based on experience rather than the [dis]belief in God's existence.
- May 10, 2007 at 11:02 PM
- Joe Otten said...
1. I don't see any need for hidden induction, unless your interpretation of what knowledge is has a verificationist gloss.
Sort-of priviliged, sure. The unknown, interesting and tested is privileged over the false.
2a. My point was that repeatability is a defence against particular failures of the senses - canals on mars - and that therefore there isn't a "blind faith" in the reliability of the senses.
Sure, you could justify either of these on the grounds of induction, but that doesn't mean they can't be justified more soundly by other means.
2b. Either definition is fine as long as we are consistent. But it would be hard to consistently use the definition of faith that encompasses all beliefs about the world - that the lawnmower is broken - because it is utterly unlike any normal usage of the word faith.
- May 10, 2007 at 11:58 PM
- Timmo said...
The arguments you offered are problematic at least for the reason they rely on philosophically contentious premises. You have to buy into an awful lot for those arguments to have any force. The fact that it is possible that I am dreaming right now does not undercut the fact that my present experience of my computer is prima facie evidence for the existence of my computer. Skeptical scenarios need to have more teeth before they give us a reason to doubt the existence of the external world. I do not believe in the existence of the external world on the basis of faith; I see it, feel it, and live in it.
I think there is a much simpler and more reasonable argument for atheism being a "faith" position: there's not enough evidence in favor of atheism to establish it as correct. So far as I can tell, there is an evidential gridlock between theists and atheists, making the only position wholly warranted by evidence agnosticism. (In this case, I think making a leap of faith is appropriate.)
- May 11, 2007 at 12:08 AM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
(1) depends on an interpretation of science as an endeavor that seeks to create statements of absolute truth. However, there is an alternative, weaker interpretation: Science seeks to create compact explanations of experiments. In this interpretation, the principle of induction is unnecessary, or at least justified by a logically consistent methodology: That the world is really consistent over time is the most compact explanation which explains the consistency of observations and our memories.
(2) assumes that "reality" talk is metaphysically and cognitively prior to experience. However, a benign reinterpretation of "reality" avoids this metaphysical priority: "reality" is again a compact explanation: the existence of a consistent world independent of our senses is the most compact explanation of the consistency of our perceptions, memories, and intersubjective experiences.
That "reality" serves an explanatory theory is supported by the observation that where our senses appear to contradict a consistent, independent reality—i.e. "optical illusions"—the simplest, most compact explanation is that our senses are in those cases unreliable.
Science does rest on two fundamental metaphysical assumptions: Our experiences—especially our perceptual experiences— are important and that compact, predictive explanations are pragmatically useful.
However, even these metaphysical assumptions are held relatively lightly and by choice. If someone—a practitioner of Zen Buddhism, for instance—does not assent that perception is important or that compact explanations are useful, we scientific types charitably hand him a basket of fruit rather than fly an airplane into his temple.
- May 11, 2007 at 12:14 AM
- Timmo said...
...the existence of a consistent world independent of our senses is the most compact explanation of the consistency of our perceptions, memories, and intersubjective experiences.
Not necessarily. One can follow Berkeley down the idealist road and totally eschew physical objects altogether. (Berekely has a mean Master Argument for idealism.) Ockham 's Razor shaves away the material world, for Berkeley.
Moreover, I don't have access to others' experiences, so I can't appeal to "intersubjective" agreement; the entire social world would have to be an explanatory posit as well.
- May 11, 2007 at 4:02 AM
For argument #1:
Science is only dependent on induction so we can make up hypothesizes. Scientists don't just look at a zillion green blades of grass and assume all grass is green. Scientists only consider the POSSIBILITY that all grasses are green. They then try to disprove this hypothesis by finding instances of non-green grass, or work on the hypothesis to fit what they just saw.
And no, this isn't ad hoc. Scientists change their hypothesizes, not add onto them dealing with individual specific purposes like some creationists do. I mean, ad hoc means 'for this purpose,' anyway.
Oh, and by the way, African savannas' grasses look yellowish.
So you see, induction isn't really a prop for science. Induction is just a method to come to hypothesizes. Besides, is induction really that bad itself?
Induction is like doing a SURVEY.
Let's say you want to know what percent of the human population are single. (For whatever perverse reason you have) You obviously can't ask EVERYONE, so you need a sample group picked randomly.
Of course, this isn't perfect. But it's more practical.
Besides, there's the thing about PROBABILITY. There are 50 flies in my soup. For who-knows-why, I randomly examine each fly for signs of life.
-I check one. He's dead.
-I check another. He's also dead.
-I check yet another. Dead.
-Yet another. Dead.
-Yet another. My, WORD, he's ALIVE! BREATHE, FELLA! SOMEONE GIVE HIM CPR!
Remember these flies were randomly picked. In a case of PERFECT THEORETICAL probability, the probability ratio of living flies in soup should be the same as the probability of living flies in MY soup as well as the probability of living flies of the 5 flies I just checked. Therefore, I can make the guess that 1 out of every 5 flies are well and kicking, meaning 10 flies in my soup are alive, meaning that the probability of ANY fly surviving in soup is 1/5.
Of course, induction is kinda loose, I admit, because of probability not really being PERFECT and THEORETICAL as it is in Math class. I'd be surprised if my guess was right: I mean, I only used 5 flies. A guess with 5 flies would work well for maybe 10 flies, less for 50 flies, but I could definitely not use it to guess the universal probability of flies surviving in soup.
If I examined more flies, I would be taking more random cases from the total, giving me a fuller sample group to work with, and getting closer to being a CENSUS rather than a SURVEY.
Bottom line: Science isn't fully dependent on induction. Anyway induction works because of probability. More cases the better. This took a lot of time to write up.
And really, what are the chances of getting 50 dead flies in your soup?
- May 11, 2007 at 5:12 AM
For argument #2:
I believe it's true that you can't be exactly sure that the world you see is real. And you can't be sure Heaven or Hell's real either. Nor can you for Santa Claus. Nor faeries. Nor flying pigs. Nor that demon standing behind you with a bloody knife.
Made you look. Anyway, most people would try to use 'what you sense is what you get' to defeat the skeptic. Fools.
Take my roomate in padded room 374, Jasmine. She thinks she's a teapot. She believes she's a teapot. She sees herself as a teapot. (this is her handle, and this is her stout... and this is her TEA!) For all she knows, she IS a teapot.
Telling her she's wrong would be telling her to reject her reality completely. Of course, the mainstream wants her to acquire the mainstream reality, so that's why she's here, in the asylum.
But the prognosis is that she's incurable. The rest of her life will be as a teapot. But don't pity her for her 'insanity': she LIKES being a teapot. She's learnt to accept it as part of her daily life: telling her otherwise would be like telling your parents rock is better than classic. In fact, she calls NORMAL PEOPLE crazy. You know, those fools who so conceitedly and erroneously say they were made by God, when in 'reality' they were all made in China. Jasmine even thinks she's normal.
But if she isn't, why not? So Stephen Law, is reality subjective?
So really, 'What You Sense is What You Get' won't really work. In a way, it kinda HELPS the skeptic.
I like thinking I'm human. I have already accepted my reality as normal. Tell me otherwise and I'll bite you. Tell me otherwise and YOU'RE CRAZY... to me.
Even if this 'reality' isn't real, or if reality is subjective, I still have to put up with MY reality (wherever it is) for every day of my (subjective) life.
What you SENSE is what you get. (Science and observation)
What you THINK influences HOW you get. (Philosophy)
What you SPECULATE that's beyond life, consciousness, and this 'reality'... ISN'T really what you're going to get. (Religion)
So unless I see a schizophrenic theist who says he's late for tea with God, I'm not going to think anyone truly believes God is real.
Bottom line: If I can't sense God, so what's that matter to me then? If I don't sense the demon with the bloody knife behind me, what's it matter then? What you sense really is what you get.
Bonus: Oh yeah, quantum mechanics abides to the WhatYouSenseIsWhatYouGet rule. If you don't see it, it could be anything. The second you look at it, it reassumes the shape most plausible. Kewl.
P.S: Oh, and the demon with the bloody knife behind me I may consider real only if he affects me EVER, in a (subjective) past, present, or future.
And even if the demon was standing on Mars, he'd still affect me via quantum mechanics.
If there's a flaw in my reasoning, please point it out. I could explain or CHANGE MY HYPOTHESIZES ON REALITY AND INDUCTION. But if my arguments work, swell.
- May 11, 2007 at 6:14 AM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
Timmo: Berkeley, though, makes a case from deductivism, not evidentialism. He's also using Occam's razor in a purely ontological sense, not an information-theoretical sense; the ontological sense is applicable only if reality is metaphysically prior.
And everything in science can be mapped one-to-one to phenomenalism; intersubjectivity in science becomes the personal experience of hearing and parsing language in phenomenalism.
- May 11, 2007 at 12:28 PM
- Tom Freeman said...
OK, let's say scepticism about induction and the external world are logically irrefutable. This would scupper a whole lot more than science - it scuppers anything that involves moving, perceiving or remembering.
If this makes atheism as much of a faith position as belief in god, then it also makes belief that there is a book about god called the Bible as much of a faith position, too.
Every (actually existing) world view assumes a basic level of observation and induction. If we have to take that as faith, then theism requires one leap of faith immediately after another, whereas atheism would just have the one. I'd say the fewer the better.
- May 11, 2007 at 3:55 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
There's also a huge equivocation about what "faith" means. The sort of "faith" that's required of metaphysical naturalism is so qualitatively different from the theists' sort of faith. It's one thing to weakly privilege an explanatory framework on a pragmatic basis. It's quite another thing to literally make up entire libraries full of BS and insist we believe the whole thing because its proponent wears a funny hat.
- May 11, 2007 at 4:39 PM
- Timmo said...
...everything in science can be mapped one-to-one to phenomenalism...
Wait, are you a phenomenalist or not?
- May 11, 2007 at 6:03 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
Wait, are you a phenomenalist or not?
Yes. '-) Depends on what you mean by "phenomenalist". I mostly agree with phenomenalism in principle, with the proviso that I don't necessarily agree with everything anyone's ever said about phenomenalism.
- May 11, 2007 at 6:52 PM
I recently asked the question in (1) in the comments in Pharyngula (very politely) and got flamed. The best answer I have is the ultimately provisional nature of science. Science is not saying "induction is true, therefore science", it is saying "induction is most probably true, therefore all this science that hangs together and does useful stuff like flying planes, but if we wake up one morning and find that the sun hasn't risen and gravity has been switched off, whilst we try to work out why, we will certainly also strongly entertain the possibility that all the rest of science is wrong and unreliable too and certainly won't get in any planes until we understand it a bit better".
- May 11, 2007 at 7:01 PM
I agree with Tom Freeman and Potentilla.
Tom Freeman:
Indeed, everything we think we know is based on observation and induction.
And I agree theists are making a BIGGER leap of faith than atheists- theists have to have faith that the physical universe exists AND that an intangible one too. Atheists; just the physical universe.
And as I argued earlier, reality is at its most SUBJECTIVE, if not non-existent entirely. But I'm sticking with my own reality.
The more stuff you get for a statement's induction, the higher PROBABILITY of the statement being true.
Contemporary science works only under the most probable circumstances. IMprobable circumstances are hard to experiment with.
I hope gravity stays this way for a while, though.
Right now I want to fix a hole in my previous comment for theist argument #1. I said that science works because of induction because of probability, but probability is a part of math, which is a part of science.
So what I just said, really, was 'science works because of science.'
O.O ... not the circular argument!
I want to clarify just because I can describe induction as mathematical doesn't necessarily MEAN it's mathematical. I could describe induction as getting grounds supporting a case, and the more grounds you get, the more backed up the case is.
So, science works because of induction because of probability, period; or that science works because of the gathering of grounds to support it.
"Well, you need FAITH that those grounds EXIST, right?"
What I Sense Is What I Get. What I'll Never Sense I'll Never Get. Easy as cake.
Of course, there is just a smidgen of faith when making inferences. (A way to come up with grounds) Here's a scale of how direct an inference might be:
10(reiteration)-----0(non sequitor)
An 'inference' that falls on 10 isn't really an inference. Like 'the cat is blue because the cat is blue.' It's the same.
An 'inference' on 0 isn't an inference either. Like 'the cat is blue because 74 human heads are swimming in the bathtub.' You may argue there might be a VERY SMALL connection between swimming heads and blue cats, but it's still practically none.
So note 10 and 0 are theoretical. No inference can actually fall on those spots.
So where does faith come in? Because nothing can actually fall on 10 in the scale of directness, inferences always take a little bit of faith to connect two events.
Like if you infer 'the cat is blue because we painted him blue,' you have to have the faith that painting something blue will make it blue. By definition, it SHOULD, but maybe something else would happen like the cat got washed after you painted him or something unlikely like that. Inferring it's blue because I painted it blue is, on the directness scale, a 9, leaving a 1 for faith to connect.
The theists argue like this: both atheism and theism use faith. Therefore both are EQUALLY unreasonable.
There are LEVELS of faith, as I just illustrated in my example above. The painting the cat blue inference has only a 1 on faith. Inferring something like 'Morality is because of God' is about a 0.2 on directness, and a 9.8 on faith.
To say atheism is equal on theism in terms of faith is wrong.
Many atheists admit you can't be ENTIRELY sure that cats become blue when you paint them that way, but it uses less faith than thinking God created the Universe.
There's another popular argument stipulating atheism is as unreasonable as theism because you can neither prove nor disprove God.
Ether was thought to be in outer space so light can go through, but ether was supposedly intangible and invisible. The inference is 'light is a wave and waves need something to wave through: therefore there's something out there for light to wave through.' On the directness scale, it was about a 7. Besides, one of the premises is wrong: light is part-wave, part-particle.
Now, because ether was beyond all physical senses, you couldn't prove nor DISprove it in any way.
But soon there was a more plausible explanation, and Ockham's razor was there to save the day: the Ether hypothesis needed a complicated, superfluous idea, so get rid it.
But note that the directness of inference isn't necessarily tied into it's correctness. The inference that 'I failed the test because I didn't study enough' is a 9 on directness, but it could be that the teacher messed up. Unlikely, but plausible.
Bottom line: Ockham's razor gets rid of theism completely. Done.
- May 11, 2007 at 9:13 PM
- Stephen Law said...
Quick response to Timmo - get round to the others later...
Yep if it were true that the evidence for and against God were evenly balanced, then both could be "faith positions". But it's not. As I pointed out in "The God of Eth". Check it out...
Of course, I realize most theists won't accept this. But then that's the weird thing about religion - it's power to blind people to what really should be blindingly obvious.
- May 12, 2007 at 3:54 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
I don't know that there's an evidential gridlock between theism and atheism. That there's no evidence at all for the existence of a God argues one of two points: Either that no God exists, or the existence of God has no evidentiary consequence. A God with no evidentiary consequence doesn't seem like much of a God at all, indistinguishable from one that does not exist at all.
- May 13, 2007 at 2:05 AM
There isn't no evidence at all for the existence of a god, IMHO. There is the evidence that an awful lot of people think a god exists. So we should want to know why this is the case. A perfectly good answer to this is now well under way (see Breaking the Spell) but it's all quite recent work. The subject worried me more say 20 years ago.
- May 13, 2007 at 5:28 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
I think my usage of "evidence for" is sloppy. I don't think categorizing evidence as for or against is a good idea in the first place; the metaphor of "weighing" the evidence is, I think, misleading.
The evidence is just the evidence. The evidence is not weighed, the competing explanations are weighed.
On this view, we have a relatively simple, direct, straightforward naturalistic account of the evidence, including the existence of widespread belief weighed against bizarre, rococo superstitions, overflowing with exceptions and special cases. The "arguments" for theism depend on the entire panoply of logical fallacies.
- May 14, 2007 at 12:09 PM
BB: Yes, OK; though I wish you'd put a comma between "belief" and "weighed".
Pity, I needed an argument, all this being Ms Reasonable elsewhere is a strain. I nearly just made a different suggestion for the next in Julian's current series. Och, I will go back to execrating Bernard Williams on bodily continuity.
- May 14, 2007 at 6:18 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
I wish you'd put a comma between "belief" and "weighed".
Likewise. Sadly, one cannot edit comments.
- May 14, 2007 at 7:52 PM
I just noticed these arguments are against science. Is atheism really linked with science? Atheism is a subcategory of skeptism, and not believing in God has no connection in believing in science.
Therefore, the two arguments against atheism are irrelevant.
- May 19, 2007 at 6:31 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
Nutcasenightmare: Technically, you're correct, and there are in fact nonscientific nontheists (cough New Age bullshit). However, most scientific atheists see nonscientific atheists being almost as full of BS as theists.
- May 19, 2007 at 11:48 PM
Barefoot Bum:
SCIENTIFIC atheists use science (instead of religion as theists do) to try to explain everything. However, science works only for this universe, assuming it's uniform or even REAL.
NONSCIENTIFIC atheists question the reliability of science using the two agruments Stephen Law brought up. And admittedly, they're quite compelling.
So why vilify the nonscientific atheists? They're just more skeptical, anyway.
P.S: New Agers are sorta theistic, (methinks) for they believe in 'mystical powers' and the supernatural. The reasonableness of believing in those things is on par with the reasonableness of believing in God.
- May 20, 2007 at 4:23 AM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
Nutcasenightmare: The scientific method does not assume that this universe is regular—this universe is, in many aspects, obviously not regular. There are differences and irregularities all over the place. The scientific method hypothesizes particular regularities to account for observed consistencies. There is a big difference between hypotheses and assumptions, which reduces to the difference between deductivism and evidentialism.
The assumption that this universe is "real" is a linguistic or semantic assumption; it fails to rise even to the level of a metaphysical assumption. This argument reduces to: Science is expressed in language; language is an arbitrary construct; therefore science is an arbitrary construct. This way leads only to epistemic nihilism.
Being critical or skeptical of something, even the scientific method, does not entail rejecting it outright. Skepticism (the ordinary variety, not the ancient Greek school of epistemic nihilism) simply means subjecting beliefs to critical scrutiny.
I'm really at a loss to understand why you find the arguments Law describes in his post compelling. They've been soundly rebutted here in at least two different ways.
: New Agers are sorta theistic, (methinks) for they believe in 'mystical powers' and the supernatural.
We appear, at least, to be in agreement on this point. People who believe in mystical powers and supernaturalism, even if they do not believe that suchlike are the exclusive province of "God" (i.e. a particular conscious, sapient entity), have merely given a slightly different spin to the sort of bullshit originally popularized by theism.
It is precisely these sorts of people I explicitly label in my earlier comment as "nonscientific atheists".
- May 20, 2007 at 1:13 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
As your comment that science "only" explains this universe: If you aware of another universe which stand in need of explanation, would you be so kind as to point me to it?
there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go—e. e. cummings
- May 20, 2007 at 1:17 PM
Barefoot Bum:
You have a point on that semantics may be messing up what people mean by 'reality.' But here, I mean reality as in the physical universe. By 'this universe' I meant the universe I sense. The two aren't necessarily the same: I could be a simulated AI program or a brain-in-a-vat where what I thought was real science doesn't apply.
Strictly, science DOES assume there're uniform, regular scientific laws. Take quantum mechanics and general relativity. Astrophysicists all over are trying to unify the two.
And yes, skepticism doesn't mean to REJECT everything. Normal skeptics still go on with their daily lives- abnormal ones end up in a nuthouse.
I've also tried my hand at rebutting these arguments Stephen Law brought up. (If you can find them somewhere) Looking back at these rebuttals, I don't really know how good they are.
For argument 1: Induction is basically using a finite number of confirming instances to make a hypothesis for an infinite instances. As we know, finite/infinity isn't a lot. Therefore, we have to assume there must be uniformity for induction to work. Is there uniformity? It depends on how general you can get to make things seem uniform. Science is all about uniformity, anyway.
For argument 2: Science, admittedly, is only supposed to work for THIS universe if it IS uniform. (However uniform you can get it) But it's more rational to assume 'this universe' is real since I'm living it whether I like it or not. WYSIWYG.
- May 22, 2007 at 4:00 AM
Sorry... I need to clear some stuff up.
By 'THE reality' I mean the true, only physical universe. By 'MY reality' I mean what I can sense.
And in my previous post I focus on the concept of MY reality, since I MAY be a brain in a vat.
- May 22, 2007 at 4:05 AM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
Let me expand a little more on the difference between metaphysical assumptions and scientific hypotheses: Both are—considered in the formal logical sense—premises, not themselved derived, from which we derive complex theorems. For instance "zero is not the successor to any natural number" is a premise of arithmetic; "2+2=4" is a derived theorem.
Metaphysical assumptions and scientific hypothesis differ in that metaphysical assumptions are held to be true by definition, whereas scientific hypotheses are provisional; they are "true" or "false" only insofar as they explain experiments or, in phenomenalism, personal experience.
Science does have metaphysical assumptions, but the existence of physical reality is not one of them; the existence of physical reality, independent of our minds, is a hypothesis (and a darn successful one) to explain our experience.
In a manner of speaking, this hypothesis was "proposed" many hundreds of millions ago by chance mutation, and "tested" (and considerably refined) by natural selection, the differences in reproductive success. It thus appears intuitively to be a fundamental metaphysical assumption because the intuition has been firmly hard-wired in our brains by evolution.
The only truly metaphysical assumptions that science requires are these:
(i) Our experiences stand in need of explanation
(2) A more compact explanation is preferable to a less compact explanation
Everything else—even the requirement of public repeatability in science (as opposed to personal experience in phenomenalism)—fundamentally rests on these two metaphysical assumptions.
- May 22, 2007 at 6:21 PM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
Also, as I noted in Law's latest post, it's really a distinction without a difference whether our ontology describes the "real" physical universe, or those structures in a demon's brain which it uses to construct our experiences.
It doesn't particularly matter to me whether I'm manipulating "real" reality, or "fake" reality to enhance and optimize my experiences. "Fake" pain hurts just as much as "real" pain.
- May 22, 2007 at 6:25 PM
"It doesn't particularly matter to me whether I'm manipulating "real" reality, or "fake" reality to enhance and optimize my experiences. "Fake" pain hurts just as much as "real" pain."
So we agree What You Sense Is What You Get, whether you like it or not. All I'm advoking is What You Sense May Not Be 'Real'.
Using the two metaphysical premises for science you brought up, a hallucinating person can 'scientifically prove' everything he sees is 'real', even though that surely is wrong. When his pet spider tells him he's actually hallucinating, he gets scared and squashes the spider. (Don't worry, the spider resurrects every 5 days)
Of course, this hallucinating guy still has to live in his world of floating monkey heads and spiders whether he likes it or not. WYSIWYG.
Therefore, here are my conclusions:
1) Reality is subjective
2) Science, no matter what 'reality', can only explain THAT 'reality'.
3) Most assume what we see is real just because it's simplest, and thinking otherwise is too nerve-wrecking for most.
- May 23, 2007 at 12:20 AM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
Nutcase: You state the case colorfully and perhaps a bit imprecisely, but in the main, yes, I think you're correct.
The definition of "reality" that follows from the scientific metaphysics I describe above is "that which explains our experience."
I would take issue only with this statement:
Reality is subjective
"Subjective" is very poorly defined even in the philosophical canon. When it is defined at all, the definitions are all over the place.
If we use my own (perhaps idiosyncratic) definitions of "subjective" (minds and properties of minds) and "objective" (everything but minds and their properties), it is the case that reality, by definition, is always justified by an appeal to the subjective. However, for most of us, the most compact explanation for our experiences is the hypothesis that things outside our own minds exist and have properties.
Still and all, I think you're correct: there's nothing at all to say whether reality, that which explains our experience, is the "real" reality.
But so what?
- May 24, 2007 at 12:57 AM
When I think about it, science/logic CAN explain other universes. Just not using information that comes from THIS universe.
Even if the other universe is random, we can still assign probabilities. (Besides, quantum mechanics stipulate that this world IS probabilistic.)
Even if the othe universe is filled with 'brute facts,' humans should be smart enough to generalize ENOUGH to find some kind of connection. The Butterfly Effect is a good example.
So, science IS inter-universal. Hm.
-----Barefoot Bum:
For the reality thing, yeah, you're correct that I used 'subjective' very loosely. And I suppose it wasn't logical of me either to say because I see 'reality' SUBJECTIVELY, 'reality' IS subjective.
The point of philosophy is to find out the TRUTH: to do that you need to first transcend the concept of 'reality.' But since we can't tell if reality's real one way or another, how can you transcend it? We can only assume. Oh well.
- May 26, 2007 at 3:37 AM
- The Barefoot Bum said...
The point of philosophy is to find out the TRUTH: to do that you need to first transcend the concept of 'reality.'
Perhaps, but what is "truth"? Truth is, I think, a much more subtle concept than most people intuitively believe.
There is a strong relationship between truth and reality, and I think the story goes a little like this: On the basis of our experiences, we conclude there is a "reality" which is "objective", i.e. reality has specific properties and universals independent of our subjective experience. When we factor in our own experience of hearing other people's statements, we further conclude that there are specific properties of reality that are shared by all people and are independent of anyone's subjective experience.
Because we conclude that reality is independent, and because we have discovered previously unknown properties of reality, it becomes plausible to conclude that there are as yet unknown properties of reality. Furthermore, it's at least not entirely implausible to conclude that there are unknowable properties of this reality. Kant's speculations about the noumena becomes at least somewhat intelligible.
Keep in mind, though, that all of the above is not metaphysical: It follows directly from scientific metaphysics which does not itself make any statements about any kind of "reality".
I suspect that philosophers are drawn towards these unknowable statements; as a scientifically minded engineer, I must admit I consider this propensity to be an intellectual vice.
- May 26, 2007 at 12:35 PM
"Furthermore, it's at least not entirely implausible to conclude that there are unknowable properties of this reality."
I'd prefer to think it as not-yet-known rather than unknowable, but you're right, that it is only our KNOWLEDGE of reality that changes, and not 'objective' reality itself.
But, even so, an 'illusionary' reality (oxymoron) would STILL BE PART of an objective reality.
I've changed my mind on that an 'illusionary' reality is just as likely as an 'objective' one.
-Just this reality.
-The data of every facet of this universe, including
-The 'real' reality.
I imagine the data of every single movement of every single subatomic particle of the whole timeframe of the universe would be just as complicated as the real McCoy. Therefore, 'this' universe being real is a simpler hypothesis.
"Specific properties of reality that are shared by all people and are independent of anyone's subjective experience."
But what if everyone else was just as illusionary as everything else?
- June 4, 2007 at 1:51 PM
- Don Severs said...
These are good arguments, but are examples of theists fighting to obtain a draw. When fighting science, they consider a tie a win. It's not.
Even if religious faith and scientific faith were on a par, science would still win. Here's why. Every religious person has two religions: their religion and science.
Thus, the religious person has to explain why they have two worldviews. The naturalist operates fine with just one.
Faith, Science, Consistency. Pick two.
- October 31, 2011 at 2:44 PM
- Don Severs said...
In this vein, the fundamentalist poses a special problem. They reject science, live in caves, shun modern medicine, read only their scripture, etc.
If we grant that 'faith is faith' (that scientific and religious faith are equivalent), we have to allow that the fundamentalist is as consistent as we are.
I am content to let this stand. If a person rejects logic and science, then there can be no logical or scientific reasons to refute him. The fundamentalist has simply made a choice and there may be no way to say he is wrong. Some would even praise him for paying such a high price for his faith. I wouldn't, but some might.
But even here, I think science has an edge. Sam Harris would say that this guy isn't maximizing human well-being. By rejecting vaccines, nutritional knowledge, etc, he is favoring his beliefs over people, including himself. The caveman could say "Well, I just don't value human well-being as much as you do". To which Sam Harris would say, "I think you do. You are just deluded into thinking that living this way will maximize your well-being via a circuitous and illusory path which pleases your God.
- October 31, 2011 at 2:52 PM


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Jan. 4, 2008
Box Score | Quotes | Notes | AP Photo Gallery
WACO, Texas (AP) - Rachel Allison had 23 points and 13 rebounds to lead No. 9 Baylor to an 84-57 win over Texas State on Friday night.
Angela Tisdale added 19 points, Jessica Morrow 12 and Jhasmin Player 11 for Baylor (12-1).
Victoria Davis and Tamarra Evans-Sluga each scored 13 for Texas State (6-7) and Joyce Ekworomadu had 10 points.
Tisdale converted a three-point play and made two more free throws and Morrow hit a 3-pointer to stretch Baylor's two-point lead into a 35-25 advantage with 3:10 left in the first half.
Allison scored six during a 10-2 run to open the second half and gave the Bears a 51-33 lead with 15:56 remaining.
Baylor's only other extended run came during the final 6:40 as Allison's two free throws and 3-pointer off an inbounds play spurred a 16-2 series to close out the game.
Baylor scored six of its first nine points from the free-throw line as Texas State committed three fouls before scoring its first point. The Bobcats were whistled for 31 fouls and Baylor made 32 of 41 free throws.


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The 25-year-old returned from injury to net against Blackburn in the FA Cup on Wednesday, and is now looking to rediscover his top form before the Champions League tie next month
The Argentina striker came off the bench to make a goalscoring cameo in City's 5-0 third-round replay victory on Wednesday, as he continues his rehabilitation after a calf injury.
And Aguero was delighted at being back in the squad, and targeted reaching full fitness in plenty of time for the first leg of City's Champions League round of 16 clash with Barcelona on February 16.
"I couldn't wait to come back," he told the club's official website. "It's been a great recovery. I am very happy for the goal and also happy for the warm welcome of my team-mate and fans.
"And also, I'd like to thank the medical staff and the physios who did a great job.
"I trained with the team on Monday for the first time and today (Wednesday) I played some minutes to start bringing myself back on form and find my pace to play in such a fast football game.
"Maybe in a week I'll be on top form. Obviously, the more you play the better you feel. I hope I can play a little bit longer on Saturday and take it step by step.
"Against Barca I'll be ready. We still have time and first we have to think about the next Premier League games which are very important, and then we'll think about Barca."
Aguero's absence has barely been felt at the Etihad Stadium, with Edin Dzeko and Alvaro Negredo stepping up to the goalscoring plate.
But the former Atletico Madrid man wants the team to keep on improving and aim for even more goals.
"I think we are doing very well," he added. "We have improved a lot since the beginning of the season.
"We must keep working like that. We are all playing very well. We are building a great team and need to continue trying to score more goals."


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Gnono is a rewrite for GNOME, under the GPL license, of the Windows card game WUNO. The objective of this classic game is to discard all of one's cards before the opponent does, by matching the value or color of the top discard (or playing a wild card).
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On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Melanie <melanie(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote: > You'd have to think MySql's demise is highly likely which would likely be a > good thing for PostgeSQL, more demand for non-oracle licenses and lower > costs in todays economy means people will look for ways to reduce price with > a good database and PostgreSQL will be a respected solution. I would tend to disagree that it will die. The recent new release of innodb ( http://www.innodb.com/wp/2009/03/11/innodb-plugin-version-103-for-mysql-5130-32-33-released/) suggests that Oracle is not really interested in letting mysql die completely. If I had to guess, I would say that mysql would probably be somewhat revitalized by the acquisition. Sun has typically tended to be where good ideas go to suffer a lengthy death... Oracle moves deceptively yet true to its convictions, and never without a keen eye for the market. My guess? Oracle drops a few dollars on innodb, maybe even a few back into Mysql, and pushes it to new heights in the open source RDBMS world. I see some tough competition for postgres coming up, but hey, competition has been known to drive innovation before. I would say competitive times lay ahead. Just my two pennies :) --Scott
Next: From: Melanie Date: 2009-04-20 14:09:23 Subject: Re: Oracle to buy Sun Previous: From: satoshi.nagayasu Date: 2009-04-20 13:54:18 Subject: Re: Oracle to buy Sun


text: On 30-Sep-09, at 9:51 AM, Travis Oliphant wrote: > Try (with a later version of NumPy --- possibly trunk): > > arr[['foo', 'bar']] > > (i.e. with a list instead of a tuple) Aha! Thanks Travis. I guess tuples for multi-dimensional indexing _and_ multi-field indexing would be semantically awkward, come to think of it. David


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A judged show that expects to draw more than 100 mixed breed and house cats. Awards for best breeds and best of show. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. $6, $5 seniors, $4 children, 5 and younger no fee. Also Sunday. Minnreg Building, 6340 126th Ave. N, Largo. (813) 814-2333.
Dunedin Summer Saturday Market: Produce, cheeses, seafood, plants, herbs, honey, pet products, organics and more. 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free (items individually priced). Pioneer Park, Main Street and Douglas Avenue, Dunedin. (727) 733-4215.
Safety Harbor Summertime Market: Produce, flowers, foods, arts and crafts, eco-friendly products and much more. 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free (items individually priced). John Wilson Park and Gazebo, 401 Main St., Safety Harbor. (727) 461-7674.
Adult Sailing: Hit the water for lessons to learn boat rigging, jibing, tacking, knot tying, boat handling, right-of-way rules and more. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. $110, $95 with rec card. Also Sunday. Dunedin Marina, 51 Main St., Dunedin. (727) 298-3266; dunedingov.com.
Antique Appraisal Fair: Area antique experts can tell you how much your keepsake is worth at the appraisal fair. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. $5 per item, $12 for three items. Heritage Village, 11909 125th St., Largo. (727) 582-2233; pinellascounty.org/heritage.
Greyhound adoptions: Greyhound Rescue and Adoptions of Tampa Bay will hold a meet and greet with greyhounds and their adoptive or foster parents. For details call (813) 971-4732 or visit great-greyhound.org. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Free admission. Petco, 30697 U.S. 19, Palm Harbor.
A Butterfly Garden: Take a tour of the award-winning butterfly garden in front of the library with Dunedin Garden Club members, and learn how to plant a butterfly garden of your own. 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. No charge for admission. Dunedin Public Library, 223 Douglas Ave., Dunedin. (727) 298-3080, ext. 224.
2010 Juneteenth Celebration and Fish Fry: The 2010 Juneteenth Celebration and Fish Fry, sponsored by the Friends of Ridgecrest and Greater Ridgecrest Crime Watch, will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Includes a parade with NFL players. The lineup starts at 8:30 a.m. outside of the YMCA. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. YMCA (Ridgecrest), 1801 119th St. N, Largo. (727) 559-0500.
Tarpon Springs Castle Wine Party: Try wines in the courtyard, paired with different food each month in a wine party. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Food complimentary with glass of wine, starting at $6. Tarpon Springs Castle Winery, 320 E Tarpon Ave., Tarpon Springs. (727) 943-7029; tscwinery.com.
World Refugee Day: On the seventh anniversary of the United Nations-designated World Refugee Day, the Red Cross and thousands of organizations in hundreds of countries will focus on the plight of refugees, and the contributions they make in their host communities. Events will include a citizenship ceremony, awards, free movie and popcorn, prizes, activities for children and teens, and disaster preparedness information. 1 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Free. Largo Public Library, 120 Central Park Drive, Largo.
Cat Olympics and Cat Jeopardy: Adoptable cats strut their stuff on the Cat's Meow Obstacle Course. They crawl through the Tunnel of Tuna, perform Leg Weavers and totter across the Cat Walk Tight Rope. Cat lovers can test their knowledge of feline trivia. Prizes, gift drawings and cat/kitten adoption specials all day. 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Free. SPCA Tampa Bay, 9099 130th Ave. N, Largo. (727) 586-3591; spcatampabay.org.
Hip-Hop for Tweens: Boys and girls ages 8 to 12 will learn the latest age-appropriate hip hop dance moves. Wear comfortable clothing and sneakers. No experience necessary. No groups please. 2 p.m. Free. Clearwater Main Library, 100 N Osceola Ave., Clearwater.
Daddy/Daughter Dance: Girls of all ages can take their fathers out for a spin on the floor. 4 p.m. $20 couple, $5 additional daughter. Arthur Murray Dance Studio (Palm Harbor), 34930 U.S. 19 N, Palm Harbor. (727) 786-2224; arthurmurraypalmharbor.com.
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland: The STEPS School of Dance and Performing Arts presents its spring production. 5:30 p.m. $20. Palm Harbor University High School, 1900 Omaha St., Palm Harbor. (727) 734-7121; phuhs.org.
Murder on the 19th Hole: Interactive murder mystery dinner show presented by Murder She Wrote Inc. 6 p.m. $47.50 dinner and show. Grand Hotel Clearwater, 20967 U.S. 19 N, Clearwater. (813) 727-7012; murdershewrote.com.
Swing Dance Saturdays: Make friends and dance to live sounds by Right Steps Studio. Lessons at 7-8 p.m. 7 p.m.-11 p.m. $5. Largo Community Center, 65 Fourth St. NW, Largo. (727) 518-3131.
Almost, Maine: Romantic comedy with a whimsical approach to the joys and perils of romance. 8 p.m. $15, $13. Also Sunday. Tarpon Springs Cultural Center , 101 S Pinellas Ave., Tarpon Springs. (727) 942-5605; tarponarts.org.
The Boys Next Door: Touching play by Tom Griffin about four mentally challenged men. 8 p.m. $18, $15 seniors/students/military. Also Sunday. West Coast Players Theatre, 21905 U.S. 19 N, Clearwater. (727) 437-2363; wcplayers.com.
6th Annual Tri-If You Dare, Fit Kids Triathlon: Participants ages 5-15 will receive an event T-shirt, finishers medal, and post-race pool party. All triathletes must have their bikes in transition area by 7 a.m. $40 after June 13. Holland G. Magnum Recreation Complex, 9100 113th St. N, Seminole. (727)391-8345; active.com.
North Pinellas Pride Family Picnic: There will be live entertainment at the pavilion with a DJ and performances. Everyone is welcome at this family-friendly event. 12 p.m. Free. Highlander Park, Michigan Boulevard and Culbertson Avenue, Dunedin. (727) 733-6450; dunedingov.com.
Heart and Soul Cinema: Sunday afternoon film series, short introduction precedes the film and discussion follows. This features the 1989 Oscar-winning film The Dead Poets Society, starring Robin Williams. 1:30 p.m. Free. Safety Harbor Library, 101 Second St. N, Safety Harbor. (727) 724-1525.
Wedding Dance Expo: See how painless learning to dance for a wedding can be. For complete details visit dancedesigner.com. 2 p.m.-5 p.m. $5 per person; free for fathers of the bride and groom. Dance America Dance Studio, 4445 E Bay Drive, Clearwater; dancedesigner.com.
Dogedin Dog Mural: During the Dog Days of Summer Pup Crawl and Dogedin dog mural unveiling, local artist Anna Hamilton will show she's been painting. Hot dogs and beer will be on sale, with a portion of the beer sales going to Dunedin Doggie Rescue. 5 p.m. Skip's Bar and Grill, 371 Main St., Dunedin. (727) 204-5515.
Singing is life: The Palm Harbor Crystal-Aires Men's Barbershop four-part harmony chorus invites all male singers to come and see if this hobby might appeal to you. Call Wes at (727) 784-8052. 6:45 p.m.-8:45 p.m. Palm Harbor Community Activity Center, 1500 16th St., Palm Harbor. (727) 784-8052; crystalaires.com.
Dunedin Blue Jays: Belly Buster BBQ Mondays: Fans can purchase an all-you-can-eat wristband at the barbecue tent. Best of all: Kids eat free with purchase of an adult wristband. 7 p.m. $6. Dunedin Stadium, 373 Douglas Ave., Dunedin. (727) 733-9302; dunedin.bluejays.milb.com.
Candidates Forum: Candidates for State House of Representatives District 48, County Commissioner District 4, School Board District 2, and East Lake Fire Commissioner will discuss issues. 7 p.m. Free. Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, 1555 Windmill Pointe Road, Palm Harbor. (727) 560-5586.


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Lloyd Rodal died May 1. He was 90.
Mr. Rodal was born Nov. 20, 1922. He is survived by daughters, Mary Ann, Monica (Neal Naigus); and son, John; and five grandchildren.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 1 p.m., Saturday, May 11, at St. Joseph the Worker Church. Memorial donations can be made to Meals on Wheels or the Franciscan Montessori Earth School.


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John Mayer, the American guitar god from Connecticut, loves the good things in life, at a cheaper cost! When performing on the "Today Show", wearing an chic, oversized Panerai watch, his body was deemed truly a wonderland, by the hundreds of screaming fans, he seemed everything a real pop star should be, down to the designer accessories. But, before his 2003 Grammy for best male pop vocalist, his taste for designer watches extended even to replicas. It is rumoured that before he made it big, the pop star was known to sport replica luxury watches, such as Patek Philippe, Breitling and Panerai. Sources say that when he attended the Berkley College of Music for the short time just before relocating to Atlanta in1998, where he wrote his first two albums and built up a fan base, he was known to have expensive tastes, although his budget was limited. Panerai replica watches were among his favourites back then, although now he can afford the real thing! His good taste is due to his interest in product and industrial design, and he has said in interviews that he as considered quitting music to design guitars. He actually made a limited run of 404 of his own acoustic guitar model. He also has designed T-shirts, and sneakers. Fans and business competition have made many replicas of his designs, alike, but the originals still sell for the highest prices. When asked how he feels about his designs having illegal replicas, sources say that the star acknowledged the craftsmanship that goes into the manufacture of replicas, and cited his own past penchant for Patek Philipe, Breitling and Panerai replica watches as a testament to the reliability of a good knock-off!
Seal and Heidi Klum Love Panerai Marina! Enough to Buy Britney a Replica!
The musician, Seal was spotted with his high profile wife, supermodel Heidi Klum, picking up a few things, including matching Panerai Marina watches for themselves, and a replica for their friend and neighbour, the troubled Britney Spears. Always a romantic and sincere couple, they were asked in an interview why they purchased a replica Panerai Marina for Britney instead of the real thing. Klum answered for the both of them, saying that although she has offered out-of-control Spears a place in her home for a few months, and support from her stable family, she can't give real designer gifts like Panerai, or Patek Philippe that represent true luxury until she can learn to act with a bit of class. The Project Runway star, Klum, 34, said that her family unit would take Spears in with love and open arms if she chooses to get her act together. Seal went on to say that they did not want to embarass the 26 year old star in front of the ever present paparazzi, so a clever replica of a Panerai would let her save Panerai Power Reserve whatever pride she has left, but would still send the message that the singer has a long way to go get back to her previous, high profile status.