You keep thinking that then if you'd like. As I watched this, when he asked what card he was thinking of I thought to myself 'nine of hearts'- NO SHIT

Somewhere embedded in his technique is the answer to the suggestion
Metaprogrammings' a motherfucker.

Anyone else??

Or wait....Maybe it's simply having seen this before and the 9 of hearts was already there, locked into the folds of the hippo-campus/cerebral cortex highway? Don't recall ever having seen this before...

Either ways...If David Blaine came over, I'd prolly tell him what Han Solo here told him BEFORE he had a chance to mind-fuck me..The difference? It wouldn't be......"ACTING!!!"

Seriously though, y'all really thought that Blaine was being rudely and cruelly ejected from his home?? C'mon people...suspend your disbelief for the sake of your hearts and get over yourselves....all he said was the 'eff' word.

"Next up: Blaine will bury himself in the permafrost of Antarctica in a steaming-hot bubble-bath of human blood and for forty days and forty nights with but a single meal-worm to snack on for the duration. When he rises from his ghoulish and self-imposed sarcophagus he will have drunk all the contents of the bathtub...But first, this commercial interruption to your body's natural vibrations."

Your sentiments are indeed shared by idealists like myself concerning the integrity and commensurate salaries expected for an elite force of Jesus' with badges. Dream the dream.

Law enforcement is corrupt to the core in the United States. If you join a force with the patience of Job, the benevolent soul of a Sufi master, and the mettle of Bonaparte, you will at some point, in order to keep your job, have to compromise core values and ethics over job requirements. Cameras keep them in check somewhat, but they are bound by association to allow for visits to the dark side for clarity: Law works to maintain control of more than the peace, and to an advantage for a select select few.

Infowars, as hokey a format and as ranting as it's host, represents a healthy and expected reaction/response to the criminal an sociopathic mechanisms of an increasingly non-linear world, and showcases some of the assholes that make life for our miserable asses harder than it should be.

Alex Jones needs a new fucking larynx, listening to his voice is like dragging chains across my cerebral cortex!

@geesusfreek

Love and justice are indeed pitted at each other. Are you saying a parent could toss their child into a pit of flame, out of love? I really fail to see any parallel with this to parenting. A large segment of parenting is about avoiding the temporary pains of this life. The final judgment is anything but that. It isn't like parenting, at all. It is about the end of your life, be it for heaven or hell. Nothing could be more final. There are no parenting situations that come to mind, stay, a parent being on the jury for their child. If you are saying that a parent could say they love their child while also sending them to hell, I don't think that is very loving. And then, surely, "Love never fails" is false. If it is false, then there isn't much power in love, and not much use in God claiming it conquers all, as it doesn't...because people are going to hell.

To me, talking about society isn't taking it up a notch from parenting, it is taking it down a notch. I care much less about random people than my friends and family. I could kill strangers much more easily than my family members...because I love my family. I most likely wouldn't be able to kill my mother if she turned into a zombie and tried to eat me, because I love her. However, God seems to be able to throw people into a lake of fire by the millions, perhaps billions, or if the earth goes on long enough, trillions. This is an unfathomable amount of suffering. If a loving being could do this, I wouldn't want to be loved by it.

Lets say you have a child who is a murderous psychopath and another child who is perfectly obedient. Lets say that whenever you get these two children together, the murderer tries to harm the other child and that child lives in continual terror and fear. What is more loving in this circumstance? To tolerate the unrepentant murderer and ruin the other childs life, or to cast the murderer out? You can give the murderer all the hugs in the world, it wouldn't necessarily change his behavior. Love is an act of will, it is not something you can force or program into someone. Unless the murderer wants to change, there isn't going to be any relationship with so ever, let alone trust, and you couldn't trust this murderer no matter how much you loved him.

It is more loving to protect the other child and cast the murderer out than to ruin everyone elses lives for someone who refuses to change. God could love that murderer, and does..it is precisely because people don't want Gods love that they choose spiritual seperation from Him. You limit God and act like He doesn't give people an honest choice..but you don't seem to understand how wicked people actually are. It's because they prefer their sins and choose to be seperated from God that they end up in hell. There isn't going to be anyone there going "you got the wrong guy!"

If peoples choices are binding God, he isn't a very powerful God, nor is he the God I read about in the bible. As I said, I was a 5 point Calvinist. Is God overriding Pharaoh suddenly blank from the bible now? I really disagree with the whole idea of libertarian free will. I don't think it exists, and moreover, the idea that humans who's condition is COMPLETELY based on need would have even the slightest measure of libertarian free will is preposterousness.

I completely disagree that love is a 2 way street. One of my favorite lines from Babylon 5 is, as this love sick fool lay dying, he murmured "All love is unrequited love!" Stating the dubious nature of love. That we seldom choose those who we love, but it doesn't matter how great the pain of them not returning it is, you still love them. Like I said, I don't care if my mother turned into a zombie and tried to eat me, I would love her still even though she is incapable of it. If God isn't as capable as I am to love zombies, then I don't want his love.

Then I also don't understand how all the sudden my sins are my responsibility, when the whole idea of Jesus is completely irresponsibility. As soon as you accept Jesus, the logical implications are irresponsibility. Only the damned are responsible and somehow that is supposed to be fair. Jesus died for everyone sins supposedly. He then must turn around and deny people access to salvation because they denied him. That is the same as me burring the pick axe in my mothers head as she comes for my brains. She didn't say she loved me, time to embed this in her cerebral cortex.

Again, love is an act of will. When someone tells you that they don't love you anymore it is because they choose not to. It's not because the feelings dried up, it is because their will is against it. God didn't create robots, otherwise He wouldn't care what people did. If they did anything wrong He would only have Himself to blame. In your example of the Pharoh, God knew the Pharohs heart. What God caused him to do was already in his heart.

The way you're seeing justice has to do with the law. Justice is only obtained through Christ. People are responsible for their sins only because they refuse to come to Christ to be forgiven. He offers them the choice and if they refuse then they have to face Gods judgement on their own merits. It's what they're choosing, not what God is denying.

The entire metaphysical aspect of the bibles justice is very illogical to me. How does one inherit imperfection? Why is it so that perfect can't come from imperfect. You are making a fallacy of quantificational logic, mainly, the Existential Fallacy, or, putting the cart before the horse. I have no reason to accept these arbitrary positions. They aren't logical, therefore, I am not required to accept them.

Then the other main problem. You can't call something that wasn't a sacrifice a sacrifice. If he can't be judged, then no amount of justice was done. If I bestowed all my crimes on someone with diplomatic immunity, I hardly would say justice is done, more like avoided. He was never going to hell, he was never dying for our sins, if the payment of sins is blood and there is no blood, where is the justice?

Original sin? Once again, holding people to account for things they had no part in is of the highest level of injustice. To say everyone has sinned because one person has sinned isn't logical, it isn't something that I have to agree to. I would have to be compelled to believe so, and there is no sufficient reason to do so, not from what I read anyway.

It's not suprising you don't understand because these truths are spiritually discerned. God is the source of perfection. He is the perfect one and always has been. The only way something could be perfect is if it always was perfect. If it was imperfect at any time, it could not meet the definition of perfect. So something which is imperfect could only ever create imperfection. When man sinned, He created imperfection and became spiritually seperated from God. From that time until judgement day, all of Creation is in an imperfect state until it is completely reconciled and entirely remade. That is what the judgement is all about. Sin will be plucked out like it never existed. Man will be remade in Gods perfection and be restored.

Jesus could have been judged, if He had sinned. Remember He was tempted of the devil to abandon his ministry. If He had failed, Gods plan would have failed and would have incurred Gods judgement and earned condemnation.

People are held accountable for their own sins. Adams sin is why creation is in the state its in. Our personal sin is what determines where we are going. It doesn't really matter what state creation is in when you are born. You have the same chance of spending eternity with God as Adam did. There is no injustice there at all.

Once again, how is what Jesus did in anyway logically connected to Adam. They were both men, ok, they both liked bacon, sure...but Jesus isn't Adam. Jesus was a God man, how is he even remotely similar in nature to be able to transfer sins onto. If that be the case, my computer...err actually, lets not use the computer. My Soda can has lead a sinless live, so to my cats...never mind they are the devil too, so to my dogs. I wish to transfer my sins on to them.

Ahh wait. I guess you said they needed to be perfect to fulfill the law . But wait, why? If you sin, are you sinning or me? If I am held to account for only my actions, how are the actions of Adam being grandfathered on to me, but not your's? Why do sins transfer sometimes and not others? Why does being perfect mean you get to abolish the law for everyone, then turn around and apply it back to them? If the law is "fulfilled in Jesus" how it is then being reapplied? Actually, the HOW isn't needed, the WHY is? Why would Jesus condemn people if he just did away with the law? Spite? Is Jesus unable to love those who don't submit to him? I love all sorts of strangers that never loved me back, am I greater than Jesus?

I also don't agree with the idea that "He Himself has never violated any of the rules he has laid down". For instance; "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy" ... "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God". Did God love the Israelites as he defines love for us? It doesn't seem so. There are countless examples of him destroying Israel because they worshiped a goat or something to that effect. God's actions nearly always conflict with the nearly perfect wording of love in 1st corth. Only Jesus comes close to living up to this letter of love via some of his actions, but others, like storming the money changers, reeks men acting like men, not Gods acting out of love.

Adam enjoyed a perfection of relationship with God in the garden. So before the fall, their natures were similar. Jesus was also a man and was capable of sin.

Hebrew 2:14

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

He also imputed His divinity into man to restore us to perfection.

Again, you're held accountable to your own sins..you have as much opportunity as Adam did. Jesus didn't abolish the law, He fulfilled it. It isn't being reapplied, it is still in place. Apart from Christ you are judged, but through Him we are declared not guilty. That is the fulcrum of justice in this world.

God never failed to love the israelites; indeed He corrects those that He loves. To say God wasn't patient or kind with the israelites would be a huge stretch of the imagination. Also, in regards to Jesus, He had every right to be angry at how His Fathers temple had been defiled. Do you consider anger in God as disqualifying Him from being loving? You can be angry at someone and still love them, can't you?

You are also arguing points of the bible to me that I don't hold to have actually existed. The book of Job being one of them. The story of Adam and Eve seems equally unlikely. Noah seems so hard to believe that I always just pretended those parts of the bible never existed when I was a Christian. They always haunted me, though. I can't honestly believe that a Guy got a large boat and packed up a billion animals without them all eating each other and shitting themselves into sickness for 40 days. Then I am supposed to believe, yet again, that the earth was repopulated by a genetically unstable amount of people.

To me, God was never real. I always wanted him to be real. Seeing so much injustice in the world made me want some person whom "makes it all right" appealing. But there is so much wrong done in the bible, under God's command no less, that I seems unlikely as a source of hope for me any longer. How many people did God ordered slaughtered in the old testament? I have seen the number placed, if you include things Sodom and Gomorrah, the firstborn Egyptian children, and such, it is around 25 million. I haven't double check that, but it sounds like a good number to start with.

This all entirely your lack of faith. Again, these are your stumbling blocks. The reason you don't know God as being perfect, or are unable to see Gods character in the bible as being without flaw, is because your understanding of Him is imperfect. You said it yourself, to you He never even existed. You failed to follow the first order of having a relationship with God, which is faith. Without that, He will remain entirely outside of your understanding.

Written off God, no. Like I said, I hope not to be correct. Worthiness isn't even a question. I don't thing much of me, if you knew anything about me instead of calling me arrogant by implication. The truth is, you sound like a very young Christian. I don't mean that in a bad way, mind you. But the way you speak to me is like that of dogmatic conversation and less than thought provoking. There isn't a single word you have said that I haven't heard from a sermon somewhere, or even, one that I gave myself to others. Did I mention that I have pastored people? Did I mention that I once had a small group ministry that was very successful.

In closing, I think you are conversing AT me rather than WITH me. Or so it seems, from the rather dogmatic reply form this took. While I know as a Christian your answers must be based on some amount of bible, the bible hold very little authority over the way I think now. As such, trying to appeal to me with justifications that ONLY come from the bible, like original sin take a leap of faith, one that I have denounced. You expect me to use circular logic, which I will refuse to do anymore with myself. I did that for years already, I am not going to spend any more time on it.

I don't think we will ever see eye to eye on this. I am resolved to drop the subject, unless you want to have the final word...but I most likely wont reply. I only expect us to chase our tails. With you quoting bible philosophy to me, and me saying that isn't the way it MUST be, I need convencing...and round and round we go. I don't want to say I have heard it all, because I surely haven't, but all the logic you just hit me with is stuff I have thought about, extensively, and yet still am where I am today. I don't make a lot of money, I don't have lots of possessions, but what I DO have is literally thought years of considering my religions positions. I don't take them lightly, and I didn't care for the slight, though understandable, tone change at the end of your statements; like I was just foolishly doing this with no consideration. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am not young, not getting younger, and have and will always be thinking on this subject.

Over and out...must get more beer!

You mzy have felt inclined to return my dismissal of your claims as being in any sense original, but my understanding of Gods truth is not dogmatic. Mostly, what I know about God is from special revelation..scriputre is the expansion and explanation of the revelation of the truth I have already received. Which is not to dismiss its importance..it is primary. It is just that I already understood Gods love before I came to scripture..and that is how I came to know it is the truth...because I see that same love poured out on every page. I am not troubled by a single part of it..though I will admit that some of it is hard to explain to an unbeliever.

Again, I will say that if you understood the bible then you would know faith is primary and wouldn't have dropped it because you hit a brick wall in your own understanding. We have Gods direct guidence through the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth, and not one thing we need to know will be held back from us. If you had perservered, the apparent inconsistances would be resolved for you. Since you gave up, you are stuck in the same place and always will be until you repent of your unbelief and lay down your understanding before the Lord. "Not my will, but yours".

Love and justice are indeed pitted at each other. Are you saying a parent could toss their child into a pit of flame, out of love? I really fail to see any parallel with this to parenting. A large segment of parenting is about avoiding the temporary pains of this life. The final judgment is anything but that. It isn't like parenting, at all. It is about the end of your life, be it for heaven or hell. Nothing could be more final. There are no parenting situations that come to mind, stay, a parent being on the jury for their child. If you are saying that a parent could say they love their child while also sending them to hell, I don't think that is very loving. And then, surely, "Love never fails" is false. If it is false, then there isn't much power in love, and not much use in God claiming it conquers all, as it doesn't...because people are going to hell.

To me, talking about society isn't taking it up a notch from parenting, it is taking it down a notch. I care much less about random people than my friends and family. I could kill strangers much more easily than my family members...because I love my family. I most likely wouldn't be able to kill my mother if she turned into a zombie and tried to eat me, because I love her. However, God seems to be able to throw people into a lake of fire by the millions, perhaps billions, or if the earth goes on long enough, trillions. This is an unfathomable amount of suffering. If a loving being could do this, I wouldn't want to be loved by it.

If peoples choices are binding God, he isn't a very powerful God, nor is he the God I read about in the bible. As I said, I was a 5 point Calvinist. Is God overriding Pharaoh suddenly blank from the bible now? I really disagree with the whole idea of libertarian free will. I don't think it exists, and moreover, the idea that humans who's condition is COMPLETELY based on need would have even the slightest measure of libertarian free will is preposterousness.

I completely disagree that love is a 2 way street. One of my favorite lines from Babylon 5 is, as this love sick fool lay dying, he murmured "All love is unrequited love!" Stating the dubious nature of love. That we seldom choose those who we love, but it doesn't matter how great the pain of them not returning it is, you still love them. Like I said, I don't care if my mother turned into a zombie and tried to eat me, I would love her still even though she is incapable of it. If God isn't as capable as I am to love zombies, then I don't want his love.

Then I also don't understand how all the sudden my sins are my responsibility, when the whole idea of Jesus is completely irresponsibility. As soon as you accept Jesus, the logical implications are irresponsibility. Only the damned are responsible and somehow that is supposed to be fair. Jesus died for everyone sins supposedly. He then must turn around and deny people access to salvation because they denied him. That is the same as me burring the pick axe in my mothers head as she comes for my brains. She didn't say she loved me, time to embed this in her cerebral cortex.

The entire metaphysical aspect of the bibles justice is very illogical to me. How does one inherit imperfection? Why is it so that perfect can't come from imperfect. You are making a fallacy of quantificational logic, mainly, the Existential Fallacy, or, putting the cart before the horse. I have no reason to accept these arbitrary positions. They aren't logical, therefore, I am not required to accept them.

Then the other main problem. You can't call something that wasn't a sacrifice a sacrifice. If he can't be judged, then no amount of justice was done. If I bestowed all my crimes on someone with diplomatic immunity, I hardly would say justice is done, more like avoided. He was never going to hell, he was never dying for our sins, if the payment of sins is blood and there is no blood, where is the justice?

Original sin? Once again, holding people to account for things they had no part in is of the highest level of injustice. To say everyone has sinned because one person has sinned isn't logical, it isn't something that I have to agree to. I would have to be compelled to believe so, and there is no sufficient reason to do so, not from what I read anyway.

Once again, how is what Jesus did in anyway logically connected to Adam. They were both men, ok, they both liked bacon, sure...but Jesus isn't Adam. Jesus was a God man, how is he even remotely similar in nature to be able to transfer sins onto. If that be the case, my computer...err actually, lets not use the computer. My Soda can has lead a sinless live, so to my cats...never mind they are the devil too, so to my dogs. I wish to transfer my sins on to them.

Ahh wait. I guess you said they needed to be perfect to fulfill the law . But wait, why? If you sin, are you sinning or me? If I am held to account for only my actions, how are the actions of Adam being grandfathered on to me, but not your's? Why do sins transfer sometimes and not others? Why does being perfect mean you get to abolish the law for everyone, then turn around and apply it back to them? If the law is "fulfilled in Jesus" how it is then being reapplied? Actually, the HOW isn't needed, the WHY is? Why would Jesus condemn people if he just did away with the law? Spite? Is Jesus unable to love those who don't submit to him? I love all sorts of strangers that never loved me back, am I greater than Jesus?

I also don't agree with the idea that "He Himself has never violated any of the rules he has laid down". For instance; "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy" ... "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God". Did God love the Israelites as he defines love for us? It doesn't seem so. There are countless examples of him destroying Israel because they worshiped a goat or something to that effect. God's actions nearly always conflict with the nearly perfect wording of love in 1st corth. Only Jesus comes close to living up to this letter of love via some of his actions, but others, like storming the money changers, reeks men acting like men, not Gods acting out of love.

You are also arguing points of the bible to me that I don't hold to have actually existed. The book of Job being one of them. The story of Adam and Eve seems equally unlikely. Noah seems so hard to believe that I always just pretended those parts of the bible never existed when I was a Christian. They always haunted me, though. I can't honestly believe that a Guy got a large boat and packed up a billion animals without them all eating each other and shitting themselves into sickness for 40 days. Then I am supposed to believe, yet again, that the earth was repopulated by a genetically unstable amount of people.

To me, God was never real. I always wanted him to be real. Seeing so much injustice in the world made me want some person whom "makes it all right" appealing. But there is so much wrong done in the bible, under God's command no less, that I seems unlikely as a source of hope for me any longer. How many people did God ordered slaughtered in the old testament? I have seen the number placed, if you include things Sodom and Gomorrah, the firstborn Egyptian children, and such, it is around 25 million. I haven't double check that, but it sounds like a good number to start with.

Written off God, no. Like I said, I hope not to be correct. Worthiness isn't even a question. I don't thing much of me, if you knew anything about me instead of calling me arrogant by implication. The truth is, you sound like a very young Christian. I don't mean that in a bad way, mind you. But the way you speak to me is like that of dogmatic conversation and less than thought provoking. There isn't a single word you have said that I haven't heard from a sermon somewhere, or even, one that I gave myself to others. Did I mention that I have pastored people? Did I mention that I once had a small group ministry that was very successful.

In closing, I think you are conversing AT me rather than WITH me. Or so it seems, from the rather dogmatic reply form this took. While I know as a Christian your answers must be based on some amount of bible, the bible hold very little authority over the way I think now. As such, trying to appeal to me with justifications that ONLY come from the bible, like original sin take a leap of faith, one that I have denounced. You expect me to use circular logic, which I will refuse to do anymore with myself. I did that for years already, I am not going to spend any more time on it.

I don't think we will ever see eye to eye on this. I am resolved to drop the subject, unless you want to have the final word...but I most likely wont reply. I only expect us to chase our tails. With you quoting bible philosophy to me, and me saying that isn't the way it MUST be, I need convencing...and round and round we go. I don't want to say I have heard it all, because I surely haven't, but all the logic you just hit me with is stuff I have thought about, extensively, and yet still am where I am today. I don't make a lot of money, I don't have lots of possessions, but what I DO have is literally thought years of considering my religions positions. I don't take them lightly, and I didn't care for the slight, though understandable, tone change at the end of your statements; like I was just foolishly doing this with no consideration. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am not young, not getting younger, and have and will always be thinking on this subject.

Over and out...must get more beer!

I think every one in here should take a moment to understand how things die. It is highly debated, but is that fish dead? Maybe, maybe not. What is dead? Dead when the person observing the former cannot sense signs of life (pulse, eye dilation)? Or is death when a brain no longer carries electrical signals; moreover is death when the cerebral cortex no longer functions.

How long is a severed head still alive?

Below is some debate about the severed head issue. While I found the first link interesting, I was not satisfied. The Wiki Answers link seems to be more to the point. How long does a severed head retain life, perhaps a few fleeting moments. To an observer maybe seconds, or minutes. To the victim, no one can know; given the effects of time dilation.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1172/does-the-head-remain-briefly-conscious-after-decapitation

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_long_does_one%27s_awareness_continue_after_the_human_head_is_severed_from_the_body

In short there is no humane way to die. Death is a dirty business. Some see this video and say it's not humane, some see the video and all but condone it. I see this video as an observation of the interaction between the macabre and desirous. Business as usual.

Fetuses before 20weeks have no brain function, that is the science, they are not people by any reasonable definition.

"No brain function?" My goodness, that's a grossly inaccurate claim. First, my understanding is that 20 weeks is the earliest detected (thus far) activity in the cerebral cortex. That is not the earliest brain "function" detected. Far as i know, the brain stem cells are connecting and responding to stimuli by 8 weeks according to some studies. So, to me, 20 weeks is the very *latest* time frame i would consider reasonable to still permit "choice" as a rule. However, since there has been limited study in this area, especially of late, i believe it would be wiser to move the legislative controls to the 8 or 12 week time frame. Certainly your life prior to the pregnancy plus 2+ months of awareness of the pregnancy is enough time for most people to make such a decision. Obviously, there should be a variety of exceptions for rare, extreme cases, but my beef is that the general rule permits abortion later than it ought.

And please drop the nonsense about miscarriages (which usually happen by 12 weeks anyway) being "manslaughter". That is first class idiocy. Natural processes kill people every second and no one calls it "manslaughter". The very idea is both a laughable straw man and terribly insensitive.

Anyway, despite the limited recent study in the specific area of fetal brain activity, you are grossly exaggerating our ignorance by labeling birth the "least absurd of the arbitrary criteria" available to us. Birth was an absurd criteria even before we had ultrasounds, EEGs and the medical ability to keep a kid born months premature alive and healthy. Societies for *millenia* have called it murder when an unborn child is killed by an act of violence against a pregnant woman, because it is very obvious that the unborn baby is a person well before they are born. I'm guessing that you've never closely walked through a pregnancy with a woman before if you can say something ignorant like that. Go have a kid, watch them on an ultrasound at 8 and 20 weeks, feel them kick and respond to sounds (even recognize mom's voice) in the last trimester. Then come back and tell me again how you think "birth is the least absurd" choice for recognizing a baby's humanity.

C'mon, baby.

If you want to fly you've got to fly right.

It's just not a sundae without the cherry on top.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
wait wait... are you saying well have to get him liquored up and stoned and fat before hell make out with me? either im insulted, or you have the same relationship philosophy as my exhusband. wait, maybe both.

In reply to this comment by rougy:
Hey, I'm game.

If your cerebral cortex brings the hooch, my limbic system will bring the munchies and the weed.



In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
i loooooove him. our brains should make out.

In reply to this comment by rougy:
Gladwll is an excellent writer.

I highly recommend anything of his, especially his New Yorker articles.

Hey, I'm game.

If your cerebral cortex brings the hooch, my limbic system will bring the munchies and the weed.



In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
i loooooove him. our brains should make out.

In reply to this comment by rougy:
Gladwll is an excellent writer.

I highly recommend anything of his, especially his New Yorker articles.


//The Following code is a concept.
//Just imagine the possibilities.
using System.Net;

public ConnectToAi
{
  private anomalousAI = System.IP.Interface.Scan().getInterfaces();

 public ConnectToAi
&nbsp&nbsp{
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp AttemptConnection()Throws YouAreNotPreparedException;
&nbsp&nbsp}

private AttemptConnection()
{
 try{             &n
bsp;//Source    Destination
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp System.Interface(127.0.0.1,anomalousAI);
&nbsp&nbsp}
  catch(Exception youarenotprepared)
&nbsp&nbsp{
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp MessageDialog(youarenotprepared.StackTrace)
&nbsp&nbsp}
}
}



So how does one attain immortality?

That is simple.

With out a cerebral cortex we cannot have conscious life, as human kind knows it. If this conscious is nothing but brainwaves, electrons, and chemical reactions, then the best way to prolong existence is to create an environment where the cortex and brain can live.

Sounds a lot like the Matrix doesn't it...

"In order to know that you have died, according tot he article you need to have a working cerebral cortex."

Tough luck for you! My information processing systems derive from a magic invisible ghost, not some highly complex evolved organ!

Chilaxe,
It's fascinating stuff. Neurophysiology and pharmacology have advanced significantly, but perhaps not as far as some might think. PET scans and metabolic MRIs give us clues as to increased activity in certain brain structures during different types of cognitive and motor activities. That's very generalized information. Excess and deficiencies of neurotransmitters result in well described pathology. While we know cognition and abstract thought is performed in the cerebral cortex, we have very little information on the specific biochemistry and neuronal synaptic pathways that allow it to happen.

Some of the most interesting clinical cases I get to be involved with are awake craniotomies to resect brain tumors. Carrying on a conversation with a patient and witnessing real-time neuro/cognitive dysfunction with manipulation of the brain is something I can't begin to describe.

I'm also fascinated by brain development that is time limited and dependent. For instance, the areas devoted to language. If not stimulated during those crucial first few years of life, development is stunted and the full capacity for language skills is lost forever. I'm getting off topic, but it's fascinating stuff.

It's obvious that all consciousness, thought, and awareness is produced thru biochemical means. Thus, all concepts, precepts, abstracts, etc. are of anatomic and physiologic origin.

However, I'm still waiting to hear a good explanation of how a collection of inanimate atoms coalesce, begin replication, and eventually gain the capacity to look on themselves and determine their own essence.

Charliem: The fact that congressmen (of any standard of evaluation) are below average when displaying their ability to acknowledge reality says something.

I'd like to think that the members of congress representing the most powerful nation of the world are slightly more intelligent than your average corporate ladder climber who's only reason for even being in the room is that they repeat the party line purely by using their autonomic nervous system rather than letting it pass through their cerebral cortex first. "Well, as republicans, we think....blahblahblah"

So I guess what I'm saying is this: these droids/morons are your leaders. Show some fucking respect.

Well it WAS my idea, so I WILL make this my collective! The battle has just begun!

And by the way, your avatar cat sucks.

In reply to your comment:
“I'm just a terrible person, karaidl. To prove it, I just invited you, so now you're obliged to provide completely awesome submissions for the collective I snatched from your quivering, helpless cerebral cortex. Bwahhahahaha!

On edit: Wow, what a keener. Congrats on being first in the door!