K_Kinnison Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 In a bit of good news, going to see the Blue angels perform in LaCrosse, WI Saturday. My Dad is coming up to join my wife and I. Since my work is at the Airport I saw one of the Jets parked near the private terminal. And my workplace got buzzed by one sometime around 5pm. Quite awesome. Too bad most of my co-workers were clueless as to what that was Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edlib Posted May 29, 2014 Author Share Posted May 29, 2014 No, you'd have to be spinning in the opposite direction to the Earth's rotation for that to happen.It feels that way... and has for a couple of weeks. I'm going to try sleeping in my bed facing the opposite way tonight, and sit on the toilet backwards to see if I can't get things back on track. Actually, my horoscopes (and I checked several dozen different ones just to make sure I got the full low down...) said, on average, yesterday was supposed to go pretty peachy for me. But seeing as I share my birthsign with roughly 1/12th of the human population, I guess there were several hundred million Cancers out there having a great day. Though, if you check a horoscope after the day it predicts has already happened, is that like a form of temporal anomaly? Changing the past? Opening a time rift and causing an alternate timeline to occur? Or is it the way of seeing exactly how much bull is spewed out by the average astrologer when nothing that they predicted would happen to you even came close to coming true... though I've noticed most of them deal with such vague and sweeping generalities that it would be difficult not to find some event in the day that couldn't be related to their predictions in some way by someone far, far less skeptical than myself. I want specifics, dammit! "Cancer: Today you will have an uncomfortably obscene confrontation with a cross-dressing dwarf on the subway. Later, you will be disappointed with the burrito you order for lunch. Stay away from escalators today, what ever you do! You may want to stock up now on eye patches and burn cream. You'll be happier if you find something different to watch tonight than that re-run of Top Gear you've already seen 17 times..." Y'know... stuff that applies to my life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue15 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 when i lived in jacksonville, fl i used to see the blue angels train all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue15 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 today i start back at the gym...both gyms. going straight to hard mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K_Kinnison Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Ed. the whole reason it isn't specific is because it is a sham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom Rabbit Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 My dad studied astrology when I was a kid, so I do know a little bit about this. The twelve months horoscope is bullstein, obviously. Only twelve fates for the entire human race? A newspaper horoscope is for entertainment only. If they do get it right, it's pretty much by chance. Real astrologers agree on this. A real astrologer will want to draw up your personal horoscope. They will want to know exactly when and where you were born, so as to get your birth time down to the minute, if possible. This information gives them your rising sign, which they can plot against the other mechanations of the heavens to see how your fate, so to speak, plays out within that greater context. A personal horoscope is very detailed in how it shows the basic trends that the world should be throwing at you at a given time. The whole thing supposedly works because of the basic fact that everything is interconnected. It's a bit of a stretch for me, suggesting that the movements of human society down here can somehow match the movements of the stars above...but one thing this rabbit has learned in 46 years is not to discount big ideas so readily. When my dad was studying astrology, he had a teacher. She was an older woman with health issues. One day, she was showing him how to draw a chart into the future with herself as the subject...and her own death came up. Neither of them said anything, but it was there on the chart, as plain as day. She died soon after, about the time the chart had predicted. Coincidence? I really don't know. Food for thought, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edlib Posted May 30, 2014 Author Share Posted May 30, 2014 Yeah... I put the whole issue into the category of things that I'm agnostic about... meaning I don't really put belief in it, simply because it seems completely non-scientific, but I'm not 100% certain that the universe couldn't work in a non-logical way I don't understand. I'd like to believe there's a purpose, or at least a reason, for the crazy stuff we all go through. I wouldn't go so far as believe there's a plan of any sort, however. All evidence kinda points away from that. But yeah... I occasionally read the newspaper ones as either a cynical joke the next morning after having a crappy day... or occasionally as a way of attempting to inspire positive reinforcement and self-fulfilling-prophesy type actions in myself. If I go out into the world thinking something cool might happen to me today, maybe my mood will actually help actually make something positive happen. Problem is I don't really believe it, so it rarely happens. It's about the percentage you'd expect with random chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 The whole thing supposedly works because of the basic fact that everything is interconnected. It's a bit of a stretch for me, suggesting that the movements of human society down here can somehow match the movements of the stars above...but one thing this rabbit has learned in 46 years is not to discount big ideas so readily. Everything may very well be interconnected (even physically), but the question would then be how specifically the astrologer makes use of this information. In other words, why does what the astrologer does work? If we can't answer that question, we might still take an extremely high rate of successful specific predictions as enough to trust it, even if we do not know the reason. But if actual results bore that out, I think we would find their services in considerably higher demand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K_Kinnison Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 another problem is we always remember when it works, yet forgot all the times it doesn't. thus it is rather unfair to be able to take a few anecdotes to prove that it works. She was old, and it predicted she was going to die? Really? you REALLY need astrology to figure that out? did it give a specific day? hour? minute? Or did she believe in astrology so much she made sure it came true I think things are predetermined, but knowing what they are is nearly impossible to figure out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 And if it DID somehow give you knowledge of the future precise and accurate enough to be useful, it seems like you could then take another path to avoid a bad future. But if that happens, how do you know what really would have happened if you acted without that knowledge? So you really don't know if the prediction was right. Another possibility is that the prediction takes into account the knowledge of what you will do with it, which makes it useless for avoiding a bad future. Yet another possibility is that the prediction is vague enough that you cannot use it avoid a bad future, which also makes it pretty useless. So either it works but you can never prove it, or it doesn't work in a precise or accurate enough way to be useful. This has all of the problems of time travel, except it can't cause a universe-ending paradox. OR CAN IT!? Also, I ran 12 miles this morning. Like a 7:55 pace, which is pretty crap, but a disproportionate amount of that time was spent on the last two miles. So I'm feeling like a 1:15 10 miler is possible in two weeks, if the weather cooperates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edlib Posted May 30, 2014 Author Share Posted May 30, 2014 Yet another possibility is that the prediction is vague enough that you cannot use it avoid a bad future, which also makes it pretty useless. So either it works but you can never prove it, or it doesn't work in a precise or accurate enough way to be useful. It's kinda like how we always learn about how accurate and precise Nostradamus' predictions were.... years after the cataclysmic events they were predicting have passed. If they were really that good, you'd think we could have used them to stop 9/11 or the rise of Hitler before those things came to pass. Unless all future history is already written, and we can do nothing but sit back and be bystanders to it all, and freewill is just an illusion... (Hmmm... better play a rock video before this degenerates into a deep philosophical discussion about the nature of predestination...) (This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.) I was preordained to do that... maybe... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom Rabbit Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 Wally the Space Dolphin says that anything us three-dimensional creatures think of as a fate or destiny could be thought of as a spaghetti noodle, for purposes of discussion, in a giant pot of other spaghetti noodles all touching each other and interconnected into a solid mass which can fit into that shape based on the pot and the force of gravity holding the noodles into it, but which can be dumped out onto the counter and seen as individual lengths of pasta with a clear beginning and end, each one separate from the others. Does a meatball then represent a wormhole? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 Interestingly, at the scale where quantum mechanical effects are important, even physics is not deterministic. Most physicists think this is a fundamental feature of the material world. The only major physicist that I know of who seems to be working on an alternative is Gerard ′t Hooft, pursuing something called superdeterminism, which basically leads to the conclusion that there is no free will at all. But scientists these days are poor philosophers, and materialism seems to be an underlying assumption in all their work. There is a fairly simple proof that there is a non-material aspect to human thought, which I will spare you for now, since I have nerded out on all my favorite subjects enough here for one day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue15 Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 think i'll try to quit drinking again... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cmdr. Cracken Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 My gf's grandfather is slowly passing from this world. So your discussion is interesting, and reflective for me at least. Also, reminds me to update my living will within the next month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K_Kinnison Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 I quit drinking every day when I go to bed, and I start again when I get home from work. So I blame all my drinking on work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom Rabbit Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 I think that we do have free will, but only from our point of view. The entire time/space continuum is big and complex enough that it can incorporate our daily choices into its workings, while the whole grand thing itself arrives at whatever destiny it was going to anyway. Like a video game. One can make choices, change outcomes...but there is only so much programming, and all possible outcomes have been accounted for. Take, for example, this yummy beer I earned by working hard tonight. I could sip it refreshingly, or I could spill it; I could give it away to a homeless person, but either way, that beer will meet its fate. Turn left, turn right...it doesn't matter because the world is round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom Rabbit Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 My gf's grandfather is slowly passing from this world. So your discussion is interesting, and reflective for me at least. Also, reminds me to update my living will within the next month. Sorry to hear of his passing. I hope he goes comfortably. Say, will you leave me your anime collection? I would leave you mine, but I plan to download into a robot body before the ticket expires on this meat model, so I'm just gonna keep everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Sorry to hear that, Cracken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edlib Posted June 1, 2014 Author Share Posted June 1, 2014 Condolences buddy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildstar Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Sorry Cracken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Dang I suck at leaving phone messages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edlib Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 So far June has been a better month than May... though I have two 9am-midnight shifts back-to-back next week... with a bunch of my least favorite people to work with, so I don't want to speak too soon. But the weather has been nice, I've spent a bit of time outside the last couple of days, got a couple of decent walks in, and nothing catastrophic has happened to me in the last 48 hours. Let's hope it lasts... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Time to party with my company's international distributors. And let me tell you - those cats can party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoom Rabbit Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 *(Beams into Keyan's party with Kid Rock, the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot and a beer truck.)* Wooo-0oo! Where y'all keep the fire extinguisher? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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