Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes • Hacker News Board

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#171

Post by nickpinkston » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 6:11 AM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #146

fleitz wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to get into a flamewar, but potential 'religious truth' generally lacks falsifiability. Certainly there could definitely be true things that the religious say but it doesn't really promote a method of thinking that leads us to knowing things that aren't false about the world. In the method of 'religious truths' everyone is right and everyone is wrong, there is no way to sort out the true from the false.

That's why claiming potential religious truths are "clearly false" is a clear marker of weak thinking.

Saying something is "clearly false" doesn't mean you claim to know everything - you just see there is no evidence for their conclusion. Is Scientology clearly false or should we say they have some good points? If the latter, we might as well explore every fairy tale that comes by - or we could follow real evidence to where it leads us.

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#172

Post by ramki » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 6:16 AM UTC

I know its tough for me, so i opened it and left for coffee...

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#173

Post by sbierwagen » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 7:08 AM UTC

Doesn't work in Chrome 10.0.642.0: timer never starts counting down.

Also, this is the second site I've seen this week that adds background sound via an invisible youtube embed.

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#174

Post by s00pcan » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 7:44 AM UTC

I tried checking the source but it made me fail. So I picked up my ps3 controller and started playing an emulator.

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#175

Post by tunaslut » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 8:03 AM UTC

d3x wrote: post #112

This would be much harder to do if you did not have the timer on the screen.

I was just thinking it would be better if the timer wasn't there :)

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#176

Post by mfukar » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 8:05 AM UTC

nickpinkston wrote: post #171

lukeschlather wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why claiming potential religious truths are "clearly false" is a clear marker of weak thinking.

Saying something is "clearly false" doesn't mean you claim to know everything - you just see there is no evidence for their conclusion. Is Scientology clearly false or should we say they have some good points? If the latter, we might as well explore every fairy tale that comes by - or we could follow real evidence to where it leads us.

Where I come from, if you say "A is clearly false" means there is evidence to support it. I have never heard of any evidence regarding spiritual or religious beliefs; maybe the OP has some. Until he presents some, I'll dismiss his claims as 'clearly false'.

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#177

Post by loewenskind » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 9:37 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #138

kirse wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't logged in to comment for 37 days and this little essay is such utter garbage. The fact that it takes him just 7 paragraphs to completely dismiss all potential religious truth as "clearly false" should set off anyone's dogma-alert flag. Being focused in the present is awesome, but the fact that we have the ability to pay attention on things other than reality is not a problem, but in fact essential to the he…

I don't want to get into a flamewar, but potential 'religious truth' generally lacks falsifiability. Certainly there could definitely be true things that the religious say but it doesn't really promote a method of thinking that leads us to knowing things that aren't false about the world. In the method of 'religious truths' everyone is right and everyone is wrong, there is no way to sort out the true from the false.

Religion is not a scientific subject, but a philosophical one. You can't prove "taste" either but most people know "bad taste" when they see it.

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#178

Post by JamesDB » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 9:55 AM UTC

If you have two monitors just have Tweetdeck open on the other! Easy.

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#179

Post by ThomPete » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 10:04 AM UTC

heretoo wrote: post #156

ThomPete wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I remember Sam Harris does know quite a lot about Neuroscience in fact he is a PhD in that very area. With regards to potential religious truths then the problem of course is that you can't verify religious claims thus the very idea of talking about truth in this context seems rather misguided.

Doesn't science appear to do this as well? It models what it observes, but it certainly doesn't nail everything down. And I wouldn't consider this approach misguided.

Scientific claims are verifiable. That doesn't mean that they are true.

Religious claims are by definition and practical circumstances not verifiable since they are claims about things outside what we can observe.

But they are also claims that there is a metaphysical reality which we cannot access through science but contain truths about the world we can access. And that is where it falls apart IMHO.

Re: Impossible for the HN crowd: Do nothing for 2 minutes

#180

Post by Shihan » Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 11:02 AM UTC

I starred at the page for like 5 minutes and was wondering why it wouldn't start to count down - not realizing that I was always moving the mouse around a bit. Damn you base-nervousness.