OT: Help me identify the processor on this board...

[Simon]

err i live in a so called modern society thank you although it has all gone to pot i think in the UK.

Shafri, your theory on men and women complementing each other is a religious and cultural excuse for the submission of women in the name of a higher cause or by design of a higher power and is just to let your religious leaders off the hook.

granted men and women are not the same but there is not such a divide that they can only do certain jobs, each excel in certain things yes and each have more of an interest in certain things but it does not mean that they have a preordained role.

It has in fact been pointed out that had we had more women in banking thinking rationally there would not have been the crisis because in effect the men in banking were thinking with their dicks (subconsciously to impress "their" women and have one over other men) which got us in the mess.

[SeanB]

Mecha, the offer to you to visit here is still open.

i'd love too thanks, but i've been limited by budget. if not i'll go everywhere even to Syria today (i heard rumours that the News is telling lies) only to know the truth is to be there by ourself

I hear they even have KFC delivered there, but that it takes a few hours to do the delivery......

[Simon]

Shafri, you need to understand that you have been shown and know only one way of life and that your society is indoctrinated to live in a certain way.

[Simon]

I am not indoctrinated by anyone, I observe my world and react accordingly.

Religions get left behind in progress because religion is run by people who know they need to keep past values to keep control of people and making people reject progress is a way of controlling them and making them feel like sinners that need help.

[smashedProton]

How could an incredibly smart Electrical Engineer be so kooky when it comes to religion?  I suppose we all have our quirks.

[Simon]

It's called brainwashing from birth. I was never indoctrinated and allowed to make my own mind up. God is an extra terrestrial anyway

[c4757p]

You two are just chasing each other's tails in a great big circle. At least it's entertaining...

[Simon]

well better we keep it in one thread.

[rolycat]

How could an incredibly smart Electrical Engineer be so kooky when it comes to religion?  I suppose we all have our quirks.

I don't think its a quirk; it's a necessary part of religious belief. All religions demand 'faith', which effectively means that you are not allowed to question the basic tenets of that religion. To do so is to fall into the clutches of Satan. Once you buy into that, it doesn't matter how intelligent you are.

[Simon]

Quite, religion relies on "conversion" or indoctrination from birth and the prime directive is to not question certain fundamentals on which the whole thing hinges which is why religion does not move with the times because that means changing the fundamentals and if you keep doing that you loose credibility.

Religion relies on making people feel bad about themselves, this is done by frowning on things that are not necessarily bad and also built into our nature like sex, the christian faiths these days have moderate success in underpinning people with guilt over sex and the muslim religion still uses it as a weapon of mass control and destruction (promising to you in death all that you craved and has been denied to you in life can be a powerful tool to a seriously oppressed person)

[Simon]

A doctrine is a religious framework, nothing to do with electronics or lawmaking.

Again you are just following a book without ever meeting the author. If a guy gives me a book he wrote out of his experience i'll believe it, if someone gives me a thousand year old text the author of whom is unknown and it's originality dubious i would doubt it.

our laws are made and perfected based on what is fair not on some age old book. And the only illogical laws are to protect the rich and those who have decided that just because they have their way of doing things they should have exemptions from the law. We often hear of people claiming that rights have been breached in not allowing something, while ignoring that by granting the rights they want they would be allowed to trample on others rights. that is not a right, that is a demand and holding a benign country to ransom.

[rolycat]

to make it easier let me make an analogy in term of ee.... in a company we have 20 years experienced engineer that is so good in circuit noise compliance, so he made a "bylaw book" stating in order to make a low noise circuit you should do this and that, cant do this and that. he wrote everything he know and gained from experience in the book. now there come a newbie engineer assigned to make low noise circuit, the old engineer slam the book on his desk and say, "follow this book!" and the young engineer questions "why? i dont believe it! i will make whatever circuit that i feel like that i think is right from what i learnt in U", the young engineer even question.. "prove it old chap! prove the book!" the old engineer speachless only to say "you need 20 years of experience to believe it". the reality is we dont have another 20 years of time redoing the same thing and errors for the young engineer to accomplish his job to equalize the quality as the old engineer's work. so by following the book, its a shortcut for the success, and if the young engineer implements whatever in the book fully, he will get fully compliance and high quality circuit. but before he do it, he will never be able to see the truth of the book.
 

Seriously flawed analogy, I'm afraid. You will never be a really good engineer unless you understand why a circuit works, rather than following a set of rules without questioning them.

Rules are useful, even essential, but should never be a substitute for critical thought.

As far as your religion is concerned, I am aware that nothing anyone can say will have any effect; not only have you been brainwashed since birth but even if you did begin to question it the penalty for apostasy in Islam is death, so you don't really have any alternative.

What I do find offensive are attempts to proselytize on secular media such as this forum, the "Mathematical proof of intelligent designer" being an annoying example.

[duskglow]

Interestingly enough, I have been on my own journey lately.  Since we've opened this can of worms, dumped it out, fed them to the fish, collected the fish crap, and shaped it into a worm-shaped mass, I'm going to relay a bit of it, because I think it's relevant.  Not that anyone cares, but still.

As I've mentioned, I started out in a vaguely Christian cult.  I will not go into details.  My journey has taken me from that, to mainstream Christianity, to agnosticism, to atheism, to spirituality, to a Christian-like belief system, but there was always a very specific conflict.  This conflict was how to deal with what I know to be true - a spirituality that I know exists, with what I have a very hard time accepting - the dogma of the Christian belief system.  Bear with me, here, I'm going somewhere extremely relevant.

This has begun to resolve itself over the past couple of days, this by listening to a lecturer named John Shelby Spong.  I won't go into the details of what he is teaching.  But what he has shown me is that the Bible is not what it appears to be, and those who take it literally are pretty much barking up the wrong tree.  For example, how many people know that the gospels were written forty to seventy years after the crucifixion, and that as that thirty years moves on, the stories get more and more fanciful?  That there likely was no such person as Judas Iscariot?  That there was likely no such thing as a virgin birth?  (I know the atheists here take this as a given, you're not really the target audience).  This doesn't affect my spirituality at all, but it gives me the ability to move forward while removing this conflict.  But it requires critical thinking and a certain openness to the idea that that which you have always been taught is wrong.  It's a very, very bitter pill to swallow, and it's one I've had to swallow repeatedly over my entire life (considering how many belief systems I've had, and I even left some out), but it must be done, or it's not possible to move forward.

So what I am hearing from people such as Simon is "evaluate your beliefs critically!"  And then from people such as mechatrommer, "no!".  This will never be resolved without a certain open-mindedness from all parties, an open-mindedness which will never show itself in this thread, or any other thread.  And it's taking away from energy which could be used to make some really awesome stuff.

My belief system now is focused on compassion.  There are many people out there I disagree with.  I disagree with atheists, with fundamentalist Christians, with Muslims, with all sorts of people out there who I know are 100% wrong, and there's nothing that will be done to change that opinion.  But just because one is 100% wrong, that doesn't mean that I hate or even dislike them.  I try to understand where they're coming from, why they believe what they do, what pressures made them that way in the first place, and then I try to accept that the influences that made them that way are very powerful and take a very long time to counter.  Wrong?  Yes, very.  But still worthy of respect, and I respect everyone here, even if I disagree fully with how they believe.  I do hope that the discussion here continues to be respectful.

Just my thoughts.

[4to20Milliamps]

Both science and religion are guilty of certain "crimes" both sides require you to be initiated through their own system, pay fees, and pass tests to be indoctrinated.

And neither side can provide positive proof of where this all comes from how it creates form from nothing, and where it all began.


To me the two sides are pretty much the same and both hide things to keep control.



http://books.google.com/books?id=OpwIAAAAIAAJ&dq=the%20sound%20that%20makes%20the%20universe&pg=PA56#v=onepage&q=the%20sound%20that%20makes%20the%20universe&f=false

[rolycat]

What I do find offensive are attempts to proselytize on secular media such as this forum, the "Mathematical proof of intelligent designer" being an annoying example.

well you havent noticed people putting their "politically correct" link in their signature? i consulted dave about this matter before putting such words, and from what i understand his words, its a freedom whatever you put in your signature. and i decorated the word carefully to be the least offensive. i dont think that is too "religious" since we all believe some part based on mathematical fact. it will be more insulting if i put "believe god because he is there! where? dont question it! he is just there!"

Any attempt to claim that 'intelligent design' is mathematically provable is an insult to science and rationality. The term is a cunning piece of propaganda which attempts to subvert genuine scientific inquiry, and I will always find that offensive. Frankly I would find a signature which simply stated your own religious beliefs far less objectionable.

This is not a personal attack -  I respect your knowledge of electronics and admire the generosity of your many contributions to this forum. Promoting "intelligent design" just pushes my mad button, I'm afraid.

[duskglow]

Any attempt to claim that 'intelligent design' is mathematically provable is an insult to science and rationality. The term is a cunning piece of propaganda which attempts to subvert genuine scientific inquiry, and I will always find that offensive. Frankly I would find a signature which simply stated your own religious beliefs far less objectionable.

This is not a personal attack -  I respect your knowledge of electronics and admire the generosity of your many contributions to this forum. Promoting "intelligent design" just pushes my mad button, I'm afraid.

I agree that intelligent design is not provable.  Period.  Full stop.  I don't try, I don't want to convince others, I think any attempt to do so is a complete waste of time.  For fun I might go to his "mathematical proof" (I haven't read it) and try to find the flawed assumption.  I would be astonished if there were not at least one fatal flaw.

But even all that as a given, I still believe it's probably true.

[smashedProton]

As usual, Richard Feynman has something on our topic.  His first statement is of particular relevance. 

[rolycat]

I agree that intelligent design is not provable.  Period.  Full stop.  I don't try, I don't want to convince others, I think any attempt to do so is a complete waste of time.  For fun I might go to his "mathematical proof" (I haven't read it) and try to find the flawed assumption.  I would be astonished if there were not at least one fatal flaw.

I can save you the trouble - I have read it, and it's garbage. The first two propositions of the 'mathematical proof' are that 1400 years ago the Koran correctly 'predicted' that the earth was spherical and that the light from the moon was reflected, and that the probability of this is 1/60.

Quite apart from the arbitrary assignment of probabilities, this conveniently ignores the fact that the Greeks had proved both that the earth was spherical and that the light from the moon was reflected from the sun almost a thousand years earlier, and this was well known by 600 CE.

The 'proof' gets even more ridiculous from there, and how an otherwise intelligent individual such as Mechatrommer can promote such tosh is completely beyond me.

But even all that as a given, I still believe it's probably true.

So Charles Darwin was a complete fruitbat, in your opinion? Well, you are a citizen of the nutty country that dreamed up intelligent design. I'm sticking with Charlie. 

[duskglow]

Oh, no.  I believe evolution is probably true.  I don't think Intelligent Design, and evolution, are mutually exclusive.  that's an AND gate, not XOR.    I think that whatever the intelligent designer is, it can certainly use evolution to accomplish its goals.

[rolycat]

Oh, no.  I believe evolution is probably true.  I don't think Intelligent Design, and evolution, are mutually exclusive.  that's an AND gate, not XOR.    I think that whatever the intelligent designer is, it can certainly use evolution to accomplish its goals.

That's great, then. Belief in a 'designer' who has no perceptible influence on the physical universe is pretty benign, since it doesn't compromise science.

However, this is not the "intelligent design" promulgated by the Discovery Institute in the USA, which is a thinly disguised vehicle for creationism. Nor is it Mecha's Islamic equivalent.

See - my button's been pressed again. 

[duskglow]

i dont think a forum is adequate for this kind of thing

One of the few things you've said that I entirely agree with.

[c4757p]

i will not go through the mathematical prove again. people accepting the theory of evolution through probability as not an insult they embrace it with happiness, but when it comes to religion, its an insult and all of the unacceptability and an offense

Dude, there's a big difference between why people accept evolution and that. That's just not how probability works. Let's say there are a thousand different given names in the world. (Obviously that's not the right number, but 30 isn't the right number of possible Earth shapes either...) When I wake up in the morning, I don't have a 1/1000 chance of guessing that my name is Chris, because I know that.

There were only realistically two choices for the shape of the earth, round and flat. Anybody who looks out their window and guesses that it's triangular needs to lay off the LSD. Guessing right out of 2 choices is not better than random. The chances are actually slightly better than 1/2, actually, because if you actually make the proper observations you can ascertain the shape of the earth. It's been done numerous times before we stuck a poor bastard in orbit to verify it. There's quite a history of navigation and astronomy in the Arab world, so I suspect someone was able to figure this out.

Anyone can see that the moon reflects light. The section that's illuminated always points towards the sun. Just because people didn't have as much technology back then doesn't mean they were morons who didn't notice or observe anything.

Considering that everybody needs to drink water and the human body is full of a vast amount of liquid, the conclusion that the human body is made of water is ridiculously obvious.

And the biggest failure of all is assuming that this means it can be right about anything else. If I roll a die six times and six times I roll a one, the chance of doing it again is still 1/6. Even better, I only see three die rolls in this whole damn thing.

Sorry, I said I'd step out, but as a former math student I couldn't let this retardation continue. That "proof" has more holes than a square mile of window screen.

[c4757p]

The only logical answer to the question as to who could have mentioned all these scientific facts 1400 years ago before they were discovered, is exactly the same answer initially given by the atheist or any person, to the question who will be the first person who will be able to tell the mechanism of the unknown object. It is the ‘CREATOR’, the producer, the Manufacturer of the whole universe and its contents. In the English language He is ‘God’, or more appropriate in the Arabic language, ‘ALLAH’.

Any moron can see that there's one more logical answer: Somebody who knows more than you do.

[IanB]

If I roll a die six times and six times I roll a one, the chance of doing it again is still 1/6.

That's one place where I will have to disagree with you. If I roll a die six times and six times it comes up one, then I would think it highly probable that it will come up one on the seventh roll. I certainly wouldn't bet money on it being a fair die 

[c4757p]

Oh shut up.