Another interesting aspect of the argument comes from experiential knowledge that people find difficult to think about or express in language. An example would be the experience some people have after emptiness meditation.

Emptiness meditation involves stopping all conscious thought, as best you can. It could entail either shutting down the language centers of the brain, or shutting down the frontal cortex, I'm not sure, but after doing so what people often report is described as "understanding". A thought process that is outside of language, and in that way, outside of reality from the perspective of the subject. (This is why these experiences are often described as "transcendent").

What I find interesting is that the process involves a method of thinking purely without language, but is described as "not thinking" or "stopping thought". So tied language is to our thoughts.

One possibility I've heard before is that through essentially shutting down the frontal cortex, or at least having a different region of the brain "lead", the subconscious (not in the Freudian sense, but the non-thinking brain that is talked about in books like "The Power of Now" or "Blink") is allowed to both direct and utilize areas of the brain that it commonly does not. This experience could be perceived as either "true self", as some people report, or "conversation with God", as others do, as the process would be perceived differently depending on the person involved.

So it appears that what they're proposing in that article you linked is that the third dimension (depth) is actually the same as time, and since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, nothing your universe (i.e. the reality you experience during the entirety of your existence no matter what happens to you or where you go) interacts with could correctly represent the totality of that dimension to you due the the limit of the speed of information. Which would in other words mean that the subjective experience of any particular portion of reality has a completely different experience of the "third" dimension. (Which is the "hologram" effect.)

That's very interesting. I actually know someone that is almost finished writing a high-level book about the metaphysics of this sort of physics. The subjectivity of the third dimension combined with a wave-only view of the universe would mean a lot more about the inherent interconnectedness of everything, in the sense that we would all be unique expressions of the same wave of energy rippling across what we describe as space-time.

Also strange is the title... there is $1,000,000 saying the Tesla CEO is NOT wrong about his timeline. There is $1,000 saying he is.

How dare they make a bet to donate to a charitable organization that brings health care to the poor and underprivileged all around the world! The rich bastards!

I decided a long time ago that if I couldn't pay the "new" price for the physical game, I probably didn't want it enough. And in that sense, I figured I'd rather support my local game development company than my local screw-you-completely retailer.

I was very careful to explain that I wasn't claiming anything. I was observing something. As an observation, it actually doesn't matter if you agree, because I was providing my own subjective experience and asking about others'.

Fortunately, you did just that. I find it fascinating that our subjective experiences on this are so far apart. It simply cannot be directly related to the technology, as I have to assume that we both understand it well enough to make it a non-issue. It is, in my opinion, somehow related to common psychological archetypes. In which case we might have just discovered through cell phones that you and I differ psychologically on a very base level.

Which I find intensely interesting completely outside of mobile devices. :)

But this is only half of the intellectual conversation on the topic. This position only holds as a moral position if people are informed BEFORE they ever visit a website what information their browser and computer will provide to that site, because by the time you click and see a like button, it's done. You did not get to make an informed choice.

Your position would only solve the moral conundrum if it was instead legally forced for every website to somehow convey their collection levels before ever collected.

Facebook not only doesn't do this, they actively provide disinformation on the subject. As Facebook is not subject to German law in THAT sense, the most consistently just thing the government can do in this case is prevent the websites within their country from participating in a foreign company that will never comply with the law you have written regarding the freedom of self-determination.

If websites warned users before actually being served a webpage that there was a Facebook like button, and that button would lead to a violation of their Constitutional rights as citizens of that government, it might be acceptable.

But even then, you are capitulating within your own rights as citizens for the sake of "private property". Or rather, you are allowing the idea of closed ownership of something to supercede what you believe as a society is inherently true about being human.

I've had both Android and iPhone devices. The biggest difference I see in the user-experience is that the Android solutions feel more like I'm getting whatever the hell Company X decided I should have. The iPhone does not. The Android devices seem more cobbled together.

I haven't been able to figure out why it seems this way. I know this to be the opposite in many ways of what actually happens. I can't easily modify an iPhone if I find it lacking, but doing so on many Android devices is easier. I also have the chance to start with a device that more exactly fits what I want. Yet it seems while using them that the iPhone is asking me the question "what do you want me to do" and the Android is telling me "this is how you do that".

Like I said, I have no idea why they come off this way to me. Perhaps it's related to UI design, or maybe it's related to responsiveness.

If Slashdot had its collective way, I'd need a PhD in any field I decided to have an opinion about, not matter how well studied I was.

Sad, and illogical.

I'm actually surprised. You got pulled into discussing faith, again, as a scientific matter.

Why bother? Science cannot tell us if God exists and could have flooded the entire earth, science can only tell us if the person that recorded an account of something like that made mistakes in their transcription of the idea. (A thought admittedly rejected by most religious people.)

Why people who hate religion so very much try to pick examples from the Bible, or Qaran, or any other document of spiritual belief, and then assess the factual accuracy of the tangential claims, is so far beyond me. I had imagined when I was a child and learning about how the world works that anyone capable of that level of thought would be immune to the insular and self-perpetuating willfulness of stupidity. But instead I see hordes of knowledgeable people that attempt to use their knowledge as a justification for rejecting wisdom.

The point is not so much that this AC is trying to disprove your faith, he is trying to prove to himself that through factual inaccuracies (perceived or real) of the personal accounts given, the spiritual wisdom being imparted can be rejected as well, which is a logical fallacy of composition. As the premise of this mind set is itself a logical fallacy, (which is repeated in reverse by the "wise" as justification to reject knowledge), it is pointless to argue through any structured presentation of ideas to convey differing points.

If I were trying to explain why I think this is important to Mr. AC here, it would not be to provide evidence for or against sedimentation in support of a flood, it would be to ask why he needs to justify a flood to consider the concept of objective morality. In reality, I think most human beings figure out how to rely on either their "left brain" or "right brain", and make the choice to resist any further cognitive development. It is sad, unproductive, and the source of most of the world's discord and disharmony.

And perhaps most ironically, it prevents either the wise or the knowledgeable from refining their field and bringing it to people in more and more presentable ways. One does not have to use their knowledge to prove their wisdom, or visa versa. One day humanity will understand this, but it simply is not our time yet. It often makes me sad that this is the starting point I was born into, but there is little use in dwelling. We can only do what we choose. If people choose to live incompletely you cannot force them to change. They must want to.

When religious people reject science, they cannot be forced to engage in formal logical processes to validate their reality. And when scientific people reject religion or spirituality, they cannot be forced to receive wisdom. The simple and perhaps tragic reality is that we are simply a species that has not properly reconciled the fact that we are self-aware yet. Certainly some have, but most have not. One day we will, but we are not there now.

I suppose it's all on scales at this point... You're correct about the NASA contracts, I just can't concern myself with that level of vote buying when the default position of our government is orders of magnitude more corrupt.

Taxes should theoretically be used for collective good. DARPA and NASA are from the Libertarian perspective (which I can only assume you lean towards) the best possible places to throw money. There is no real politics or vote buying involved in funding these agencies... it is just tax money you are investing in the collective understanding and capability of our citizenry.

So I have another crazy idea: how about people stop demanding the government stops funding any program they don't directly use. Not only is that not going to happen, and thus is a waste of time, it creates an intellectual dishonesty around the debate of debt and government finance, which is why the issue is not seriously addressed.

The bottom line is that if you are willing to point out our government is not living within its means, then be willing to yourself be without things you want. It doesn't make sense for any government to remove all of the parts that one group of people find irrelevant, if for no other reason than that the representation our government is supposedly dependent on requires us to not give in to the tyranny of the majority. Further, while the call for action is important, it is the call for free information upon which we can make decisions that should be most heeded. You have certainly identified a problem, but supposing you have identified solution is silly. You don't have the information to do that... neither do I. That's part of the game that our government plays. How are we supposed to express dissatisfaction if we don't have the information to demand alternatives?

Assuming that the statistics themselves create police patterns that are repeatable.

Yeah, if you're powerful enough to have an informant in the department. Of course at that point you're fairly immune to the local cops anyway and will likely only really be nailed once the Feds get involved.

And this is why protesting the US never made it past the "I want to be heard!" stage in the 70s. Active protesters in the US don't even see their goal as changing anything, they see their goal as protesting.

Protesting doesn't actually accomplish anything productive. It is a means to an end. That end never comes if you don't effectively convey your actual message to people in a way that asks them to consider if they agree.

In other words, I am not saying you are wrong, I am saying you are missing the point. If your goal is to protest, then by all means, your logic is sound. If your goal is to change something, your logic may be sound or unsound. It is entirely up to the people receiving the message if your logic is sound. If you are comfortable leaving it up to them, then fine. But keep in mind that it you, the protester, who has the message that is trying to be disseminated. You are the one with the passion and the information. You must accept that it is then your responsibility to communicate that in a way that others can effectively receive.

Protesting for the sake of protesting hasn't been effective at any kind of institutional or long-term change for decades. Why people continue to think it is productive is beyond me. If you are truly passionate about your message, actually go out on a limb and put in real effort. Any idiot with a sign can protest, but not any protester can be a Gandhi. You have to choose to commit yourself to your goal to do that, and speaking frankly, most protesters (like most people in general) are not willing to invest that much of themselves in committing to something that doesn't directly benefit them.