mererdog

Different people have used the words to differentiate between different things, but, for the most part, the words are interchangeable.

Well, no. Thus far, I have had three separate arguments. "That is not proven." "That cannot be proven." and "That is wrong." Which is different than saying "Indeed, the vast majority of choices we ourselves make do not even register in our consciousness" in the same way "I like pie" is not the same as "You like pie". You defined a verb by citing the definition of a noun. It does not fit. Of course it can. I can say it every bit as easily as you can say what you did. It is the proving that is difficult. That was what is known in scientific circles as a "joke". Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn't. At this stage, to assume that what you have measured is all that there is would be as much a prejudice as assuming that there must be more. The same incorrect reasons? Ok. Considering that the word "consciousness" was invented by a philosopher, the term is and always has been the bailiwick of philosophy. For neuroscientists to ignore the philosophical ramifications is to only do half the job. Which is, of course, the whole point of the essay. That which is inherently subjective cannot be objectively observed.

And you believe the work is so conclusive that there is no room for disagreement over the findings? Or you simply agree with the findings and don't like it when others don't? That would be a reversal of the burden of proof, no? That statemente is patently impossible to prove empirically. The definition you cite does not fit your original usage. Equivocation. The same could be said of personhood. Consciousness is not a physical phenomenon. Note that you cannot touch it. It is a conceptualization used to explain the purely subjective phenomenon of awareness. So it was well-poisoning. I thought so. Well-poisoning is the attempt to preemptively disprove an argument by attacking it's originator. To say that someone's view on a subject is meaningless, merely because of qualities of the person (in this case, the fact that he is a philosopher) is classic well-poisoning.

Nope. The simple fact remains that you cannot choose if you are not conscious. Equivocation. When you speak of you experiencing something, you are speaking of the interaction of your consciousness with your environment. A person who is truly unconscious experiences nothing, not even dreams or the passage of time... If you wish to suggest that a philosopher has nothing to add on this subject, I will be curious as to why you posted all of this in the philosophy section of the forum. Otherwise, I'll have to take that as a fairly lame attempt at well-poisoning.

No, it doesn't. Just so you know, that statement is really just an admission of a bias on your part. And without consciousness, you would be unable to "choose" and incapable of "Experiencing". I like pie.

The difference between "feeling" and "responding to stimuli" is consciousness. If a machine is incapable of consciousness it can only mimic the outward appearances of emotion. Proving (or disproving) something as inherently subjective as consciousness is a tricky proposition, at best....

The same amount of time it takes to be considered a "Christian"..

If you're still standing strong when you read this, you're probably through the worst of it....

My wife and I tried quitting at the same time. Both of us being super-cranky at the same time was just way more stress than we were ready for. So she quit one week and I quit the next...

Aye, aye, cap'n! Um, why did the "Aye, aye" come out in italics? All I did was type it in normally....

The funding is specifically for social welfare projects like food banks and drug abuse assistance programs. But, yes, there are a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of competition. YOu would probably have better luck doing grassroots fundraising in your community.

No offense, but if the topic title didn't give you enough context to know the answer, I think whatever answer you give would be guesswork at best. I'm looking for the voice of experience...

I may be being obtuse here, but what does it mean to "make a certificate thereof on the license"?

I'm more than a little concerned about this. If your doctor does not know what caused it, how can he know it is gone? "I can't find anything wrong with you" is not the same as "There is nothing wrong with you". Any doctor worth his salt should make that clear to his patients...It is worth remembering that Bob Marley died of cancer at the age of 36, and that this could have been averted if his religious beliefs had not prevented him from allowing the amputation of his toe. Perhaps he is not the best voice to listen to about medical matters... I'm glad you are feeling better, though...

Thor hates straights.

There are people who are able to explain highly complex subjects in an accessible way, but it takes the fairly rare combination of a thorough grounding in the subject, a connection with the audience, and excellent communication skills. It's something all doctors need to be able to do, but which most can't...

Which is, of course, the whole point. If a man were not seen as being something other than a man, simply because he is a priest, it would be harder for priests to get away with molesting children. If the advice of a priest were not seen as something other than the advice of a man, it would be harder to start a religious war or an inquisition. Hierarchical systems lead almost inevitably to abuses of power, and egalitarianism is the only proof against that. That presupposes that there is a specific walk to be walked, doesn't it? And, more importantly, perhaps, they will see how other ministers measure up compared to me. The needs of a ceremony are dependent on the needs of the individuals involved. That often has less to do with what the minister can do than with who the minister is. It's ancient contract law, whereby individuals declare their intentions before witnesses and enter into a binding agreement, with a community leader voicing the community's approval of the arrangement. Weddings don't create families. They create legal and social obligations. It is the feelings people have for each other that create the family. You can have the marriage without the family, and you can have the family without the marriage.

If it is only a legal thing, legal recognition is all that matters. If it is purely a religious thing, it's validity can only be measured in terms that would vary by religion. If it is simply a social thing, it's all about what your community thinks. I think it's sort of a mixture of all three. We are all free to make our own judgments about what qualifies as a "real minister", and that means that if someone says I'm not one, they might not really be wrong, but simply using one of the many narrow definitions for which I don't qualify. And that's cool. The reason I accepted ordination is because I believe that religious equality is a worthy goal. The ULC ordains anyone and everyone, so being a ULC minister is not about giving myself special religious authority, but about saying that everyone deserves to have religious authority. That's an extremely broad definition, and I completely understand if someone doesn't want to embrace it...

I don't.

Cutting and pasting from the link...Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process C0432091 05/02/1962 ACTIVE UNIVERSAL LIFE CHURCH, INC. ANDRE HENSLEY

I neither said that, nor implied it. And I quite honestly don't see where you got the idea that I did.

Perhaps. But perhaps not. There are limits to our ability to figure things out... There are currently multiple theories being argued, and while some have garnered more acceptance than others, none seem to have been conclusively proven. My point is that I don't see how there can be. Coming up with possible answers is easy. Being comfortable with the answers we come up with is also easy. Conclusive proof is hard. Which means that knowing is much harder than thinking we know. That depends on whether we are considering the facts, or are going beyond the facts to consider the theories invented to explain the facts. If we are considering theories, how well (or poorly) they are proven is going to come up eventually. Of course, since the world still existed, we were able to test the theory. If all we had to go on were left-over fragments and historical references, it would be a whole nother kettle of fish...

How would we know what tell tale signs to look for, if we had never seen them before? If someone living some time in a forgotten past had a unique deformity, and they lived a long and otherwise healthy life, leaving behind only their bones for us to examine... I suspect many of us would be convinced the remains were those of an abnormal human, and many of us would be equally convinced the remains were those of something not quite human (alien, monster, or missing-link?). And I honestly see no way to prove the point either way short of a full genetic workup- and, even then, my knowledge of genetics is too poor to really be certain the results would be conclusive....If our forgotten deformity had been passed down for a number of generations before dying out, examples to study would be more prevalent, but I don't see how they'd make the truth more obvious, so much as just give people on all sides more evidence to build their shaky conclusions on...

How do you test for an unknown illness or unheard of deformity?

We'll just keep on trying...