quote:
Originally posted by woodelf:
Does this mean there is a Goddess spot now open
for grabs?
Does a goddess lose her powers if we stop worshipping her or does she merely become a minor goddess with limited power?
I think you people has been reading/watching too much Aa! Megamisama! too much this last couple of days…
Well in Dungeons and Dragons if a deity stops being worshipped they would probably lose all divne ranks above Zero, and somebody else would be in control of the no longer worsipped deity’s portfolio.
So who are we going to replace Kumiko with?
[This message has been edited by Doug (edited 08-04-2002).]
[begin geek out]
You know, there’s always been a lot of very thorny philosophical issues with that whole “belief affects reality” thing. Suppose you managed to convince a lot of people that 2+2=5. (If you’re wondering how, go reread 1984.) Would that make reality lose all self-consistency (thereby destroying the universe)? Or suppose you convinced lots of people that what they believe has no effect on reality. What happens then?
[/geek]
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:
So who are we going to replace Kumiko with?[This message has been edited by Doug (edited 08-04-2002).]
...vampire lemons?
quote:Singlebyte vs. multibytes or ASCII vs. Unicode.
Originally posted by Lamuness:
(...)
Fxho, double-byte characters...to me personally (after giving it some thought) I don't think it matters a lot anyways. Bottom line, a english sentence will most likely take up more bytes/spaces than the same sentence in japanese.
First, the coding of the characters doesn't influence in any way the displaying of those characters. It impacts the time for them to be displayed, as each OS are internally coded in either ASCII or Unicode. Typically Win31, Win95/98 and WinME are ASCII while WinNT, Win2K and WinXP are Unicode. Thus the 95/98 OS would convert Unicode into ASCII before displaying them while can display ASCII without conversion (thus faster); and the other way for NT OSes. Also, the text-portion of the source files are twice the size and the source code has to use the widechar functions, but, other than that, there's no consequence on the display.
Oh yeah, besides, you can write English text in Unicode as well...
quote:
Originally posted by ladyphoenix:
ok, wait a minute, does that mean she ceases to be one of the trio of goddesses?
How could that be? I mean, a goddes is a goddess, right? A virtual goddess even matches best the topic around here.
So, if Dave E made up a virtual person and even some people believed, she exists, she was at that time a trusted virtual person, and just before leaving even promoted goddess. Even after her true nature is now revealed, of cause, she remains as a part of our pantheon, although, she never physically existed (something, that no other not-bishoujo-god/-godess, I ever knew of, could claim him-/herself either).
By the way:
If we want to stay true to the cast of Aah! Megami-sama, we have to think of the post of the fourth godess (Peorth) as well as the post of the demon (Mara). (nah, I refuse to take the roles of Tamiya or Otaki! [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] )
(Also, I am not sure, who would have been our "Belldandy" in the first place.)
And YES, I take full responsibility, that this kind of thinking made me suggest to ladyphoenix-sama the thing with the goddess-icon in order to have the opportunity to keep my imagination of a bishoujo-goddess in favor of the real image. So, I am the one to blame for you having to wait for the post of her image at her page.
(Ouch! Don't throw that hard! Has no-one ever heard of the word "patience" at all?) [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/frown.gif[/img]
[This message has been edited by Unicorn (edited 08-05-2002).]
the strange thing is that there is an actual person with the name Kumiko Kamiyama. She is an award winning high school artist in North Carolina. Or at least she was in 1998.
[This message has been edited by ksarchet (edited 08-05-2002).]
quote:
Originally posted by ksarchet:
the strange thing is that there is an actual person with the name Kumiko Kamiyama. She is an award winning high school artist in North Carolina. Or at least she was in 1998.
oh man...please don't freak me out. I am already freaking out with my thesis and I don't think I can take another "freak-out"
“What’s the matter? Real or artificial, a person is a person!”
– Deunan, “Appleseed”.
quote:
Originally posted by Lamuness:
oh man...please don't freak me out. I am already freaking out with my thesis and I don't think I can take another "freak-out"
One of the first things I did when I didn't know if she was a real person was to do a Yahoo search on the name. I didn't mean to freak you out. sorry.
quote:
Originally posted by Nobody:
Oh boy, an existencial debate. The entire basis of the debate is whether reality is objective or subjective. If reality is objective, then personal beliefs do not affect it in the least, however, if reality is subjective, then it is shaped by the views of those who inhabit it. Now, the view that reality, if there was a radical shit in beliefs, under the subjective paradigm, would lose cohesion is only one possibility. There is also the possiblity that reality would warp fairly seemlessly to fit the new beliefs. Also, there is the possiblity of a defense mechanism built into reality. Any paradox created by introducing a new reality, from the new beliefs, would cause reality to "fight back." Also, if there was such a backlash, there are many different views on what causes it. Does reality have a sentience of its own that rebels against being altered? Are there higher beings tasked with maintaining reality? Would it be the collective subconsious of the masses defending their own worldview.*looks around yet again*
I really need to learn when to shut up.
*grabs the flow of conversation*
*brandishes a sacrificial copy of Transfer Student menacingly*
Nobody moves or the Transfer Student disc gets it! I'll just be...borrowing the conversation here!
(switches back to the off-topic at hand)
In any event the big problem is that reality has to ultimately be self-consistent; literal impossibilities are, well, impossible. Which means that if what you believed DID literally affect reality, it would be impossible for you to believe that 2+2=5. (This has interesting consequences for first graders learning how to do arithmetic.)
quote:
Originally posted by ksarchet:
the strange thing is that there is an actual person with the name Kumiko Kamiyama. She is an award winning high school artist in North Carolina. Or at least she was in 1998.[This message has been edited by ksarchet (edited 08-05-2002).]
I think I can see why Lamuness got freaked by that. If one reads that perversely, one could almost be convinced that you were alluding to the fact that she's dead now (which would indeed be a creepy thing to say).
I was trying to say that in 1998 she won the award, and that at this current time I don’t know what she is doing. From what I read I got the impression that it was her real name, not a pen name. The girl in North Carolina that is.
sorry woodelf. Rereading the post, it is quite clear who you mean.
quote:
Originally posted by ksarchet:
One of the first things I did when I didn't know if she was a real person was to do a Yahoo search on the name. I didn't mean to freak you out. sorry.
....now you are freaking me out even more; you did a search for the name out of boredom? ^^
quote:
Originally posted by Nobody:
Who says that math ... , and I believe I have a decent grasp on the subjective arguement.
Wow! You may be nobody, that was really something! [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
And all that only in order to save a CD of TS!
I'm really impressed. Maybe, after this, I would simply look away, when her holyness ladyphoenix really choses to give you ... you know what I'm talking of, right?
quote:
Originally posted by Lamuness:
....now you are freaking me out even more; you did a search for the name out of boredom? ^^
Not boredom, interest. Just like your name. I had never heard of the Anime that your name comes from. So I did a search. I had no idea that this would freak you out. Internet searches are my favorite way to find things out, and learn that little extra about something.
quote:
Originally posted by Nobody:
Who says that math wouldn't work if you convinced people that 2+2=5.
I think I can actually prove this rigorously. (I have a math minor and I studied the foundations of the number system just enough to be able to construct the argument.)
The laws of arithmetic are based on the concept of numbers; this maps to reality almost directly.
Aside from implying that if I take two apples, and put two more apples with them, I would have five of them, this means that I can do the following:
2+2-4 = 5-4 = 1
2+2-4 = 4-4 = 0
So we have just proven that 1 = 0.
In other words, having none of something is exactly like having one of it. Then consider any arbitrary integer n:
n = 1 + 1 + 1 + ... + 1 (n times)
and now by substitution
n = 0 + 0 + 0 + ... + 0 (n times)
and we all know that 0 + 0 + 0 + ... is equal to zero. Thus we see that any arbitrary integer is equal to zero.
Thus, if 2 + 2 = 5, and the normal rules of arithmetic apply, then no matter how many things you have, you also have none of them.
Thus it is perfectly valid to say that the universe contains none of anything and is therefore empty.
Your math doesn’t make any sense.
The problem with proofs (and yes, I just studied proofs, I’m an engineer also with a math minor) is that to prove something is true, you need to prove it for all possible test cases. It is generally easy to show that a proof is not true simply by showing one false case.
We have the assumed implication that
if you take two apples, and add two more apples, you would have five of them.
Or P implies Q.
2 apples + 2 apples will imply 5 apples.
If this statement is true, then it’s contrapositive also needs to be true for the statement to be true:
in other words, ~Q → ~P
That means any other number that is not 5 apples will not be 2 + 2 apples.
However, from 2+2-4 = 4-4 = 0,
I can then show, that if I have 4 apples, it can imply 2+2 apples.
This is a number that is not 5 that DOES imply 2 + 2 apples.
That means the original hypothesis CANNOT be true because the orignal statement’s contrapositive isn’t true.
This means you cannot use the implication that 2 + 2 apples implies 5 in a proof to prove that 1 = 0. So by contradiction, I have shown why your proof doesn’t work.
So nothing you said was valid at all, because you gave an invalid assumption that couldn’t possibly be true.
You yourself contradicted your own math.