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JDoe

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Everything posted by JDoe

  1. a-the-ist a- negation, absence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privative_a the, from Greek θεός god -ist person http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ist No-god-person The "literal" meaning thus does not exclude either. Signed an atheist (your term)
  2. "It" does not mean anything, it is the person that uses the word that means something with his or her use of a word.
  3. Equivocation happens when you use the word atheist in one sense, and I used the word in another sense. Thus we are talking about to different terms. In YOUR use of the word you require nothing but a knowledge of yourselves. Of course the problem with your rejection of my statements is that I never have said anything about you, or any other persons that consider themselves as atheists (your term), as persons anywhere.
  4. Classic case of equivocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism I have used the word Atheist clearly in the narrow sense of the word, whereas your rejection of my point is based on the broad sense of the word.
  5. Your hidden premise seem to be that nature is deterministic, and throwing any indeterministic spanner into the works would upset the applecart it seems.
  6. Ah, yes the predictive power, however that is also being watered down with probabilities is it not? Physics provide mostly 100% predictive power, while medical sciences provides a "well it seems to work a little more often than a placebo" predictive power. This we can have a medical science that say predict this medicine X will cure disease Y in 1% (+- margin of error of 0.95%) of the cases, which seems slightly lower than this weeks horoscope getting something right :) I can also naturally reformulate the logical tautology as a probabilistic prediction: The chance of rain tomorrow is 50% with 50% margin of error, which I than can explain with whatever other "causes" I feel inclined to use. :)
  7. Just throwing a torch out there to see what catches fire. Given the status of the "science" label it seems to be that there is an increasingly blurring line between science and non-science, as we now often have political science, social science, economics (the dismal science), climate science, etc Now separate the wheat from the chaff, how does one determine what is science and what is not? (Further, than mere claim of use of scientific method, which conceptually I could use for construction of horoscopes if I wanted to). Some are obvious such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience, but it is often not that obvious.
  8. That is not actually quite correct, in order to be an atheist you must believe the statement "No god exist" to be true. Given the obvious lack of evidence to prove the statement, a certain amount of "faith" is required. Now however, most folks that refer to themselves as atheists are actually very sceptical agnostics, that basically are saying "Given the (lack of) evidence, I find the probability of the existence of any god to be extremely small, however it is not quite 0%. Now, could both those that maintain "God exist" and those that maintain "No god exist" please lay out their evidence?". Admittedly, they often only request proof from those that maintain that some god do exist, but this is in conformity to Russel's teapot (as well as their personal inclinations) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot It should also be noted that many/most religious folks fall into the same agnostic category, but on the other end of the spectrum, that is the credulous agnostics, that basically are saying "Given the evidence, I find the probability of the existence of my God to be extremely high, however it is not quite 100%.
  9. Tough choice. I believe Spanish is A. Easier to learn B. Better resources MAY be available C. More useful (more people speak it) Italian may: A. Be more motivating family connection B. Be more valuable (given fewer people speak it) In any case, Spanish and Italian is so close that a jump either way would be easy (Estimate 3-6 months immersion from fluency in one language to fluency in the other)
  10. Thank you for pointing out my sad lack of a decent geometry education, and thus improving upon my little knowledge. To RaptorDad I extend my sincerest apologies for my mistake. Illustration of Standard definition as per Regentrude's comment My nonstandard definition would add 180 degrees to the external angle. A little more on the confusion: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ExteriorAngle.html
  11. Put a small circle in each corner of your triangle, each circle will then be the sum of interior and exterior angles of that corner. That is sum of interior and exterior angles of each corner will be 360 degrees. Triangle has three corners (3x360) and we know sum of the interior angles are 180 (regentrude's proof or teacher say so), thus sum of exterior angles MUST be 900 degrees in any triangle.
  12. Seems like the above would prove the general case also of the n-gon. Addition of an extra corner will always add 180 to both inside and outside angles, which may be seen simplest by starting with the simples plane figure the bilateral. Combination of two lines AB and BA. (Sum of inside angles =0, Outside angles =720) Addition of point C instantly causes both inside and outside angles to increase by 180, consideration of the above, and fact that only angles next to newly introduced point can be affected proves the general case. As a plus, this could be illustrated using a rubber band and a pencil with Regentrude's proof.
  13. Elaborated PS, that any triangle can be constructed via parallelograms can be demonstrated by going the other way and showing how any triangle can be converted into a parallelogram by rotating around a baseline midpoint.
  14. Hmm with the danger of causing more "problems" I believe you can go on adding more corners, increasing by 180 for each additional corner. Thus Shape Sum of angles Triangle 180 Square 360 Pentagon 540 Hexagon 720 Heptagon 900 Octagon 1080 Nonagon 1260 Decagon 1440 .... Of course we are here looking at the inside angles only, but the sum of the outside angles will always be 360 + 180 x Number of corners. The difference between (sum of) inside and outside angles seem however to stay constant at exactly 720 degrees, no matter how many corners we add. :) Merely a conjecture on my part, but maybe some geometry buff can either prove it wrong, or provide proof. :) PS. Proof for the square (or more generally parallelogram) is of course in line with Regentrude's above, just way simpler. Coincidentally, it seems one could then move from that proof to proving the 180 of the triangle.
  15. Workbooks I have used, and believe useful, albeit not outstanding: http://www.amazon.com/Outlining-Gr-5-8/dp/B000QCBC2M/ http://www.amazon.com/REMEDIA-PUBLICATIONS-REM1134A-Outlining-Gr/dp/B000QCDGOO/ http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Lessons-Outlining-Level-1/dp/0891873708/ http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Lessons-Outlining-Advanced-Level/dp/0891873716/[Ordered, not yet used] Best one on subject I have come across is free (not workbook, but overview) https://archive.org/details/principlesofoutl00ballrich Other resources I have not used, but may be useful: http://www.amazon.com/Study-Skills-Strategies-Mary-Mueller/dp/0825146054/ http://www.amazon.com/Outlining-Eleanor-Villalpando/dp/1561750565 https://archive.org/details/exercisestodevel00swee Once a fairly good understanding of outlining has been developed I would suggest replacing workbooks with requesting outlines of whatever material is being studied in other subjects as a integral part of reading, just as Sunnybuddymom is doing: Use of outlining functions in word, powerpoint or other such programmes you may use should be encouraged at least, if not required. There IS a part of Logic that also would fit in very well with this writing programme I believe, but very difficult to find any good textbooks that only cover the more conceptual part of logic. Maybe there might be some books on semantics out there that could fit in, but I have not found one (probably because I have not searched much).
  16. Currently working through same. I think that maybe first doing some pure outlining work may be helpful, since the outlining seem to be an integral part of the process (as far as we have come).
  17. Maybe a silly question, but should not the last year(s) of Latin (and Greek) consist of reading latin? Ovid, Vergil, Horace, Terence, Livi, Seneca, Taciti, etc?
  18. Follow historical method, use only source documents and make sure you get sources from both sides of an issue. No textbooks. :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method
  19. No hay recreadores por ningún lado que yo sepa. :) Músicos e malabaristas sin embargo se pueden encontrar en todos lados. Ayer estaban aquí, y después se fueron a otro lado.
  20. Hmm, I then have your kind of symmetrical, but not Regentrude's kind of symmetrical This is also my case, and I believe it does not detract from my fluency in my native language, except as to have an awareness of gaps that a single-language native speaker would not even be aware of.
  21. I am such a person, but alas no symmetry :crying:
  22. Just a little note for those struggling to balance schoolwork and internet access. One option is obviously no Internet at all, which I believe to be a fairly good option and certainly way better than the "all you can eat" alternative. OpenDNS (https://www.opendns.com/) is a middle of the road alternative has worked fairly well for me in that you may block any and all unwanted sites, or only allow access to whitelist sites, etc. I originally bought into the OpenDNS as I was struggling with severe cases of the procrastination syndrome (aka schoolwork is not a priority). I started out basically shutting down all internet access that was not directly related to any schoolwork. That resulted in them starting to read in their free time, and Harry Potter is a big hit (extra prize is to see the movie after finishing each book). Started series at Xmas and looks like it will be finished in another month or two. Still suffered from procrastination about schoolwork, but less than before. Moved to opening internet on weekends after all schoolwork of the week was completed. Still had procrastination during the week, and then a mad rush to finish in the weekend. Now just started to try a daily routine, that is opening up "the tap" once all schoolwork (plus some reading) is finished and wonders, no procrastination at all. Only concern is quality control of the work performed, need to be extra careful for some time I think. In the end OpenDNS allows me a solution somewhere between the extremes of "no access" and "free access", while at the same time turning the internet access into an incentive tool to get them to want to finish their schoolwork. This may work, or backfire, for others. Experiment on own risk, I take no responsibility for actual results. PS Belong to story that I disconnected TV also at same time (and that is not back). Also my own computer circumvents the OpenDNS thus my work is not negatively affected. (Of course it is only a question of time before they figure out how to circumvent it also, but I think I may have a couple of years still, with luck).
  23. Second the Galore park suggestion as a stepping stone for Athenaze.
  24. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/348864-my-evaluation-of-numerous-writing-curricula/
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