That’s exactly what I mean - you have to contort yourself until eventually you are defining living things as whatever you want to define them as. Reducing entropy locally rules out fire, but rules in crystallization. So you create another property - but viruses retain and transfer information but don’t metabolize. And…

They do to me too. One thing I believe to be true, is that when a paradox occurs, it means the underlying assumptions of your model are wrong. Paradoxes like the Ship of Theseus, which is to say that things have an identity that is separate from their components (singular identity is a concept - it has no real…

Well at least you have an idea where memories aren’t stored.

“I’m with Dan Dennett on this.”

As is everyone else who has given it any honest and serious thought. The trouble is you run smack dab into the ego of people who want to believe deeply that they have some existence outside of the sack of meat they happen to be, something more than an internal narrative that suggests…

I’ma just leave this here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/biom…

But it is an illusion. And as such exactly an emergent property of complex systems. It’s what happens when a complex system starts to model itself as if it had a separate existence outside of the physical material it is made of. And its demonstrably wrong - but it’s a pernicious illusion and what are you going to do?…

I’m still confused how this is any different than a Roku player, besides its branding (and price). It has a low power processor and a little motion controlling wand that plays Angry Birds too.

Admittedly, I’ve got a game console, and a PC, and a tablet, and a smartphone, and a blu-ray player that gets netflix and…

Goodreads thinks every book is ‘pretty ok’. Get yourself a 90% rating on this game by judging every book 3.7 stars.

Also: Most books have terrible covers. Most books are also terrible. They are generally not related.

Yeah, people seem to forget the whole point of management is to clear obstacles and empower the people doing the work of the business to do it better - as opposed to beating productivity out of the people who are there apparently solely to hold back the visionary CEO who could do everything himself if he wasn’t forced…

Tony Hsieh. I’m sure there are others. Their names aren’t as recognizable because non-egotists don’t go around self-promoting all the time.

<wrong recipient>

There’s a well-known phenomenon where assholes are rewarded by society throughout their lives - kind of a squeaky wheel - grease thing. You actually can’t separate the ‘becomes a huge success’ from the ‘was a domineering egotistical asshole’ because they are intimately tied together - and what we really should be…

I’m not playing MGS V (yet) and there is no way in hell I am ever reinstalling Destiny no matter if they promise me the new expansion is better than sex (its called respecting your players time and money). But outside of bitterness and salt towards Bungie, I just have no experience with any of the MGS series so I…

Just wait until No Man’s Sky is released, this will be the guy who is going to map every planet.

And what are you here for exactly? To just be combative as points fly over your head?

This is the ONLY salient point in the post: “in one case, a completely different animal” as in *not a mixture*. The false positive rate and limits of their test isn’t exactly addressed either without going to the original study, that…

Then why is anyone seriously worried about any of this?

So what if he DID grind beaver before. A small amount of contamination is a far cry from handing you bag of ground emu that’s labelled chicken, and barring food allergies to beaver (that probably don’t exist) its just protein.

I have a problem with horsemeat of unknown provenance - containing drugs never meant for the…

Because I can. And since its a free country, I don’t need to give a shit about your or PETA’s ethical judgment or even provide you with a logical justification.

Living in the midwest, I actually know the individual farm my meat comes from because its right down the street. There are no ‘exotic animals’ there - just cows, pigs and chickens, and I also know the butcher who prepares the cuts I buy, but thanks for assuming I’m some sort of idiot who didn’t read. And if he fails…

Waterstandup is a waterfall that is time-reversed, where the water in a very organized fashion decides to flow back up a cliff face and form a river. So, while cute, you’ve demonstrated exactly why analogies are no good.