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Miscellaneous => Archives => General Discussion => Topic started by: Haraldur on April 15, 2004, 10:28:14 AM

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Post by: Haraldur on April 15, 2004, 10:28:14 AM
I think it might help DarkElite if all the people here were to have this in their signatures: (http://http://haraldur.mysticsoftware.net/ribbon.png)
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Post by: Spyder on April 15, 2004, 12:20:38 PM
Eh? What's wrong with DarkElite?

n/m, saw his post
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Post by: Haraldur on April 15, 2004, 02:07:18 PM
Aren't you goin to participate Spyder?
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Post by: Cesque on April 15, 2004, 02:08:57 PM
No, thanks.

Symbolism is good, but not required. Putting stupid crossed black streams seems senseless to me.

You see, I never respected symbols. Symbols are earthly creations. To hell with the flag, the cross, whatever! They are what they are, not what the represent. If what they represent is gone, the symbol is useless. That's why mind is over symbol.

Cathars in middle-ages never used any symbols, except the black color for "perfection" and performed a few rituals, because they believed matter is created by Devil, and spirit by God (adaptation of Plato, coming curved way from gnosticism).
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Post by: Haraldur on April 15, 2004, 02:10:39 PM
Fair enough.
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Post by: DarkElite on April 15, 2004, 03:32:39 PM
hmm...hell with the cross?  .....  Sad
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Post by: Spyder on April 15, 2004, 09:21:08 PM
It seems kind of pointless to put it in my sig considering DarkElite isn't exactly dead, so i don't need to "remember" him, since he's still here!  Wink  I don't want DE to kill himself, but I don't see how the image in my sig is going to help that.
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Post by: DarkElite on April 15, 2004, 09:32:19 PM
ill be aiding Haraldur in this cause  B)

if you read the rest of the topic you'll see what he means by helping
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Post by: Cesque on April 16, 2004, 12:58:35 AM
Quote
hell with the cross?


Cross is a memorable about religion and Jesus crucifiction. If you skip the Jesus part, it's just a piece of wood or metal, just like other pieces of wood or metal, except it's crafted into some shape. Beside reminding about God, it doesn't have any special powers like fending off vampires.

The cross is not the only symbol of christianity. In antiquitity, it was a fish (fish means ICHTYOS in greek, the word was also abbrevation for Iesus Christus something-something Salvator). Other ancient symbols were, for example, Phoenix (symbol of rebirth), and first christians prayed not to the direction were cross hangs (as most falks pray publicaly in Poland usually, today) but with their faces to the east, in direction of the rising sun...

(there were 2 theories one, first: Eden was in the east, second: Christ have risen from the dead like a sun rises every morning)

As for the cross, the first praying christians did not usually knee and put hands together (it came with middle-ages, it was symbol of respect of vasal to senior), but they were mostly staying with arms on both sides, like Jesus when he hanged on a cross.

Personally, I think it was looking much better...

It's not that I'm against symbolism... I simply prefer cause over symbol.
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Post by: Dude Man on April 16, 2004, 10:00:19 PM
Quote from: Spyder,Thursday, April 15, 2004 1:20 PM
Eh? What's wrong with DarkElite?

n/m, saw his post
Sad Dreadfull wasn't it....
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Post by: TK Game Boy on April 19, 2004, 10:48:52 AM
Whats the URL for the link?  I want to add it to my generations list?

Also who was he?
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Post by: TK Game Boy on April 19, 2004, 10:50:12 AM
Quote from: Cesque,Thursday, April 15, 2004 11:08 AM
No, thanks.

Symbolism is good, but not required. Putting stupid crossed black streams seems senseless to me.

You see, I never respected symbols. Symbols are earthly creations. To hell with the flag, the cross, whatever! They are what they are, not what the represent. If what they represent is gone, the symbol is useless. That's why mind is over symbol.

Cathars in middle-ages never used any symbols, except the black color for "perfection" and performed a few rituals, because they believed matter is created by Devil, and spirit by God (adaptation of Plato, coming curved way from gnosticism).

YOu don't like symbols?  Hell I love 'em.  They look cool and make good desing's for others.  I mean wouldn't it be cool if you had a gun shaped like the cross.  Or how about a car shaped like the omega?
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Post by: Cesque on April 19, 2004, 10:54:40 AM
I like symbols, they represents lots, but they have no power in themselves. Or maybe they do. But symbols are nothing when you don't know what they represent.

Personally, I would like to be burried in embryonal position, with my face turned to the west. And Satarel's Legacy will have LOTS of symbols  Laughing
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Post by: Dude Man on April 19, 2004, 07:24:07 PM
When I die. I want to cremated and have my ashes place with ether my wife if I have one at the time or some other person who I think is good to have them.
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Post by: Cesque on April 20, 2004, 10:54:31 AM
Cremation sounds cool, too.

(altrough it used to be shunned in Poland, as the nazis cremated jews, now it returns as some trend)

Altrough to prove really useful after death, I'd like to be used as some plant fertilizer... Or maybe thrown to be digested by some animals... Lol.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 11:03:09 AM
I want to be left out somewhere where the ravens can feed on my corpse. Then at least I would have provided some use in death.
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Post by: Spyder on April 20, 2004, 11:10:40 AM
Quote from: Haraldur,Tuesday, April 20, 2004 9:03 AM
I want to be left out somewhere where the ravens can feed on my corpse. Then at least I would have provided some use in death.
That's....touching... Sad
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 11:19:43 AM
Really? I would not know, I would be dead. I just did not want my body to be gone to waste (as in burial or cremation). I am assuming that by that time there will be no need for donated organs, as there will be therapeutic cloning hopefully.
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Post by: Asimir on April 20, 2004, 11:20:52 AM
If I have a family when I'm older, I would want to be buried next to my wife. I wouldn't want to be cremated, because burning a dead body seems disrespectful to me. (I don't really know why i feel like that, maybe I'm just odd Razz)

If I'm all alone when I'm older Sad, I would want to be an organ donor.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 11:22:10 AM
Unless therapeutic cloning is a success, I think organ donation should be compulsory. It would save many lives.
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Post by: Spyder on April 20, 2004, 11:24:11 AM
Quote from: Haraldur,Tuesday, April 20, 2004 9:19 AM
Really? I would not know, I would be dead. I just did not want my body to be gone to waste (as in burial or cremation). I am assuming that by that time there will be no need for donated organs, as there will be therapeutic cloning hopefully.
God I hope so. Organ cloning could extend my life expectancy by probably 20+ years....
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 11:25:18 AM
All these people against cloning, or think scientists are "playing god" are just shortsighted.
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Post by: Asimir on April 20, 2004, 11:28:37 AM
I fully support cloning replacement body parts. Cloning an entire human would be unethical though.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 11:31:08 AM
How is that unethical?
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Post by: Asimir on April 20, 2004, 11:46:39 AM
because it's a copy of another person.
would you like it if you found out that you were just a copy of someone else?

Maybe you would, but I definately wouldn't.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 11:52:18 AM
I might indeed want to make a copy of myself, to prevent death of my brain. I do not think that therapeutic cloning will be able to keep the body maintained for everything for a very long time. After all, the nervous system and the cardio vascular system are very complex, as is that of the lymph system (I think). Exactly how could those be transplanted? For the blood system it would be a nightmare to replace brittle arteries etc..
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Post by: Asimir on April 20, 2004, 12:06:34 PM
I don't see that cloning would prevent the death of your brain. It would make a copy of your brain, but it would have none of your memories and experiences. In my opinion, they make you who you are (mentally) more than anything you're born with.
If your memories could be passed on to the clone, then I wouldn't find it wrong. It would be you in the copy of your body, and you who chose to do it.
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Post by: Spyder on April 20, 2004, 12:13:20 PM
I get what Asimir is saying, and I do sort of agree. However, arn't identical twins merely copies of each other? Their DNA is exactly the same, it's basically natural cloning. Cloning humans could also lead to couples that can't naturally have children, their own child, that would actually be as if they could have children, without using someone elses eggs or sperm. The advantages far outweight the disadvantages as far as I know. In fact, other than "moral" reasons, I don't know of any disadvantages.
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Post by: Cesque on April 20, 2004, 12:23:23 PM
I totally agree with Spyder and Asimir. And yeah, exact twins are sort of biological cloning, that's the example I like, too.  Very Happy

If some mental characteristics and some psychology is determined by genes, someone could clone Hitler. Or, worse! Genghis Khan!!!

Moral reasons? Ethics? Well, it's the same thing as having a child. Don't tell me people shouldn't have children because it's unmoral for the children, which are born and have their lives ruined. Same with clones. You don't choose whenever you want to be born or not, same with the cloned persons.

You say only God has right to create life? Well, we all do, WE procreate, not God. And maybe he is the only one who can engineer life as it is? Well, genetic engineering is propably some form of "breeding" that is nowadays done with dogs or horses, except it's far more predictable (you don't have to wait for a horse with good genes to be born, you simply design it so)

Aaah, and cloning would ruin horse riding, because using DNA from single hair piece of best arabian-blood fastest champion you can clone yourself the same one.

Or, will normal people laugh over the cloned ones? Racism and anticlonitism? Lol.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 12:24:13 PM
Asimir: I did mean that the memories would be passed on etc..
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Post by: Cesque on April 20, 2004, 12:29:32 PM
How? The only way is to implant the brain of the dead person into new body, but that would more likely "ressurect" the person whose brain it was in new body rather than passing memories.

Or you can implant parts of brain. I doubt anyone ever would be able to do so.

Or maybe, you can find a machine - you put empty brain on one scale, full one on the next, and it "transcripts" info from first to second brain.

LOL.
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Post by: Asimir on April 20, 2004, 12:35:42 PM
Quote from: "Spyder"
I get what Asimir is saying, and I do sort of agree. However, arn't identical twins merely copies of each other? Their DNA is exactly the same, it's basically natural cloning. Cloning humans could also lead to couples that can't naturally have children, their own child, that would actually be as if they could have children, without using someone elses eggs or sperm. The advantages far outweight the disadvantages as far as I know. In fact, other than "moral" reasons, I don't know of any disadvantages.

If couples could have a cloned child with DNA from both parents, that's something else I wouldn't have a problem with, because it's just copying what happens in nature. But if the parents can choose which genes they want the child to have, it could cause problems. Lots of people could choose to have children of the same gender (especially in cultures where males are still considered to be better) which would result in there being much more of that gender in the population. In other ways it would be an advantage, because you could prevent the child having hereditary diseases.

And with identical twins, they aren't chosen to be like that, so it's kinda different. My problem with clones is the fact that someone wants to make another person the same as them.
I suppose a clone could feel proud because somebody wanted a child exactly like them, but if I was a clone, I think I would feel like I have to live up to the person I was cloned from. And if I wasn't as successful as them I would feel like a failure.
Then again, I'd probably feel the same if I had an identical twin who was more successful than me.

It just seems wrong to me, and I can't really explain why.
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Post by: Spyder on April 20, 2004, 01:17:43 PM
Your more against genetic engineering then, not cloning. Eventually they could probably change the gender, etc of a kid without having to clone them. And yeah, there is definately ways to abuse it, just like there are ways to abuse everything else, however, I don't imagine that it will ever get to that point, for a few reasons...

A. Not everyone needs to make clones. It's not like your going to be able to buy your own cloning machine at Wal-Mart. There will be specific uses for it. Most people will continue to breed the same way we have for thousands of years, and so the gender will continue to stay 99.999% random.

B. Cloning will be super, super, super expensive. Not just because it'd be an expensive process to begin with, but because people are greedy as hell, and they know that it's something they can charge a huge amount of money for.

As for memories being transferred to a clone, that would be impossible. But I don't think Haraldur and Asimir are on the same page. I think Haraldur is talking about cloning organs, not the entire body, which is what Asimir is talking about.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 20, 2004, 01:27:08 PM
I think cloning organs should definitely happen, but I think I moight quite like a shot of immortality by cloning myself and transferring my consciousness to it, if it is possible in the future.
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Post by: Dude Man on April 20, 2004, 08:37:50 PM
Me 2! I also think that we should be allowed to get extara arms....because I want a 3rd arm.....for some reason...
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Post by: Spyder on April 20, 2004, 10:09:10 PM
Quote from: Haraldur,Tuesday, April 20, 2004 11:27 AM
I think cloning organs should definitely happen, but I think I moight quite like a shot of immortality by cloning myself and transferring my consciousness to it, if it is possible in the future.
The problem with that is that there would be no way to prove it was actually "your" conciousness in the new body. Say they performed the procedure. Just because the new "you" behaves and remembers exactly as you did before, who's to say that it is actually "you" in the new body? You might now be dead, and there's just a 100% identical you still living on the earth with all your memories, etc. The new you would even swear the procedure worked, because to him it would've seemed like it did.
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Post by: Asimir on April 21, 2004, 09:29:13 AM
Quote from: spyder
Your more against genetic engineering then, not cloning.
yeah, good point.

with the memory transferring thing, i think we were just talking hypothetically (i was anyway)
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Post by: Cesque on April 21, 2004, 11:07:45 AM
Quote
I also think that we should be allowed to get extara arms....because I want a 3rd arm.....for some reason...


Yeah, too bad nazism is no more official in german and they no longer make experiemnts on that.

Haraldur - you don't need to clone the body, you can simply extract brain to new one, and you'll live in "other" body. But if you read what I wrote, it's praticaly impossible.

Is it just me... Or do I not want to be immortal? I would personally like to live about 40-50 years, this life is God damn boring! What to do in it if you're some looser with no future? Lol.  Laughing
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Post by: Haraldur on April 21, 2004, 12:00:48 PM
Spyder I know... It is really annoying. I wish there was some way in which you could onsciously travel from body to body, maybe with cybernetical implants.
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Post by: Cesque on April 21, 2004, 01:30:40 PM
Why would you like to live forever, Haraldur? You're rebelling against laws of nature and God.  Laughing

Think - it would eliminate natural justice! Some terrorist, raper, murdered, bandit - they would be able to live forever. In reality, after age of 60-70, they are almost incapacitate of doing what they've done previously.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 21, 2004, 02:20:36 PM
Well, I do not belive in God, and it would not be against nature. Why? The point of nature and life is the replication of DNA. Being immortal would increase the amouint of reproduction I take part in, probably, and would so fulfil the fundamental law of nature.
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Post by: Dude Man on April 21, 2004, 05:55:07 PM
I'm not sure if I'd want to live forever, unless I had someone to live forever with me that was a good friend. But honestly I'd rather die then never die....I'm probally gona die of a hart attack or maybe geting shot....who knows :unsure: ....
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Post by: Cesque on April 22, 2004, 11:29:30 AM
Haraldur, fundamental law of nature is order... And immortality would ruin that order.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 22, 2004, 12:35:24 PM
Really? Where in nature is this "order"?
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Post by: Cesque on April 22, 2004, 02:06:06 PM
Increase weight of sun and we'll all meet feiry death. Decrease it and we'll all fly so far out of universe that we'll die from lack of light along with the plants.

Everything in Cosmos works in order, all the planetar systems. Electrons circulate in streams around atoms in certain order.

A lion pack won't eat all gazelles because later they will starve to death.

Order is everywhere. Don't stray for it.

Let's say your immortal, so hell what? You can still get killed with a gun or starve to death once idea get's popular and people get immortal, procreate and flood earth more than nowadays.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 22, 2004, 02:25:24 PM
The lions thing has nothing to do with it. The only reason that lions do not eat all the gazelles is that some run away, and create more gazelles. Also, there are not so many because there is not enough food for a huge number. In 100 years a pair of cockroaches can have 167 billion/milliard descendants. Why then are wqe not flooded with cockroaches? Because not all of them survive. For a less extreme example, in 100 years an elephant would have 20000 descendants.

Also, compared to the mass of the earth, the mass of a human is tiny. Seondly, the increase in humans has no effect on the mass of the Earth, since all the matter that makes up humans is from the Earth anyway, except for a minute amount from space.

Electrons? Ever heard about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? It is impossible tell where something as small as an electron is and how fast it is going, indeed it is impossiblre to do either. You have to base things on probability. It is not order, it is chaos. In one fraction of a second, an electron might be very close to the nucleus, in the next, it might be hugely further away.

The Universe is expanding, most galaxies are moving away from us. However, the Andromeda galaxy will collide with our in a few billion years. Is that order? No.
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Post by: Cesque on April 23, 2004, 01:01:37 AM
Quote
The lions thing has nothing to do with it. The only reason that lions do not eat all the gazelles is that some run away, and create more gazelles. Also, there are not so many because there is not enough food for a huge number. In 100 years a pair of cockroaches can have 167 billion/milliard descendants. Why then are wqe not flooded with cockroaches? Because not all of them survive. For a less extreme example, in 100 years an elephant would have 20000 descendants.


And that's order. If they wouldn't die off, we would get flooded. If people were immortal, we would get flooded.

The only exception are locust swarms, a tool of God to prevent earth from feeding people with it's grain, lol  Laughing

Heisenberg? I've heard of dualistic electronic theory, where electrons appear in certain pools, with the highest propability of appearing somewhere. Yes, it IS chaos, but chaos is a very complicated order - heard of chaos theory? Every smallest thing in the beginning alters the final change. Still, an electron won't fall out of it's "cloud".

I'm not talking about mass of humans, I'm talking about masses of earth and the sun.

And yes it is order. When a life is born, human life, these are 2 small cells combined. These cells have genetic material, which begins to translate and transcript DNA into every single cell. It works in perfect harmony, some basic totipotential cells become nerves, some others create heart, brain, muscles, bones. It's not random, a cell does not randomly change into "muscle" or "bone". It doesn't create human in a random way, it's all perfected so that in 9 months a new, full organism avaliable to live is created.

Not some randomly-created mutant whose eye is at his ass because it's all chaos.
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Post by: Haraldur on April 23, 2004, 12:40:45 PM
We would not necessarily get flooded, and definitely not the whole world.
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Post by: Dude Man on April 23, 2004, 06:16:57 PM
I agree, that's imposible really! I think probally a nukeular war will kill us!
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Post by: Haraldur on April 24, 2004, 04:37:06 AM
And that would only happen happen when a madman is in charge of a nuclear power! Laughing Wait... the Indian guy, the Pakistani guy, Ariel Sharon, Kim Jong Il, Vladimir Putin, George Bush... Help!
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Post by: Dude Man on April 24, 2004, 09:54:02 AM
Gorge Bush: We have now declared a Nuke-u-lor war!


lol He can't prononce nukular! Laughing
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Post by: AlienDude on May 04, 2004, 12:38:42 PM
Okay guys...the twin thing is very common like 20% of pregnancies.  most of the time one gets absorbed by the other.  Cloning:  parts yes, whole human, no.  Dude man you should chang your name to Zaphod (haraldur knows what i am talking about FYI: Zaphod Beeblebrox).  Whare have i BEEN!!
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Post by: Haraldur on May 05, 2004, 03:08:07 PM
Zaphod Beeblebrox? Surely not the same Zaphod Beeblebrox that stole the Starship Heart Of Gold while galactic president and invented the PanGalacticGargleBlaster? Gosh!
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Post by: AlienDude on May 06, 2004, 02:12:43 PM
NO it's the Zaphod with two heads and three arms  Razz  roflmao
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Post by: Dude Man on May 06, 2004, 04:36:37 PM
Well if it isn't my old friend Mr.McGreg! With a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg! Laughing
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Post by: DarkElite on May 06, 2004, 04:48:12 PM
... what??

Bush did?!? holy crap!! i live right next to washington DC...i dont want to get blown up!!   :blink:
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Post by: Dude Man on May 06, 2004, 05:18:23 PM
Your gonna die???? Oh no! Quick get a transport chopper!