GorunNova

... more like, if he destroyed her when she wasn't supposed to be destroyed, he'd have to deal with more of those critters like from Father's Day... a rather violent solution to serious paradoxes, methinks ^^'

... that's why we HAVE to study this stuff, so we can examine as many possible benefits and problems it could have/cause, and deal with them. Instead of trying to ban cloning, analyze it... study it... discover the good and the bad about it, and deal with the bad. If you bury something, someone else will always dig it up again. Scary or not, we have to face these things down, look at them closely, learn where the problems lie, and solve them before someone else abuses them.

Hmmmm... supreme power? Odds are, I'd rarely use it, and if I did it would be subtle. You don't break eggs with a sledgehammer, after all... or hunt ducks with a rocket launcher ^^ One of my projects would probably be to find a habitable world, and tag along as it evolves life to understand the process completely, making sure no other sentient races come along to screw it up. ... I'd also be sure to mantain a few bonsai mountains while I'm at it, too, and have a home away from all sentient life where I could unwind and be my all powerful self ^^

I'm of the point of view that humans, in general, are irrational and emotional things that see patterns all the time where there aren't any patterns to be seen, or misread patterns that are there. Science is a process of sifting through information, and through systematic study and reproducable experimentation one can discover what patterns are real ones. All ideas are doubtful, but science can help verify ideas, refine them, eliminate ideas that don't work or don't describe the evidence properly, and come up with a basis for exploring new ideas that have more chance of also work. Ideas without verification or basis are opinions, and opinions are suspect. Also, ideas backed by desire, emotion, or wishful thinking are also suspect. A good example of this is the idea of an afterlife. None of us want to die, and so therefore we invent an afterlife we can go to after death. It's common to all cultures, because everyone fears death to some degree until they've inventend one, whether it's heaven, nirvana, another lifespan through reincarnation, or even unification with the Universe (yes, that's technically an 'afterlife' concept...) The thing is, we ALL want that very badly, so therefore the idea is VERY suspect because we are so vulnerable to blind acceptance of it. As far as age and experience are concerned... yes, experience can lead to wisdom, but there's also a saying... "There's no fool like an old fool." Experience can be good, but it can also reinforce the bad if misinterpreted... and people in general are really, really good at misinterpreting. I stick to science because it's the only thing we have that has reproduceable, verifiable results backing it... and the scientific process is the best and harshest way to test ideas that we have in order to discover and eliminate flaws. *ahem* Somewhat off topic... well, linguists and sociologists have been studying different cultures and their languages for a long time... and they would seem have much evidence supporting the idea that language and culture are coupled very tightly. If a word for a concept is absent from a language, odds are that culture doesn't have that concept, and the people in that culture can't comprehend that concept without adapting a word for it from another culture. I wonder if the fact that English feminine pronouns are virtually always extensions or derivatives of masculine ones explains sexism in english societies, or is simply a symptom of it? Even though it involves magical martians, I recommond reading 'Stranger in a Strange Land' by Robert A. Heinlein. If anything, it demonstrates this idea fairly clearly... Edit: I can read body language, too... very handy skill to have ^^

The thing about evolution is it's not an end... it's a process, and it can go in an infinite number of different ways depending on the situation. One set of species evolved into us, another into trees, yet another into iguanas... depending on your standards, each one could be superior to all others... but the only criteria given by evolution is selection by fitness in a given aspect of an environment. Trees evolved to get as much sunlight as possible, and grow as high as possible to overshadow competing trees. We evolved the capacity to reason and outthink other creatures in many environments... as our high population demonstrates, we -are- the current top of the line on Earth when we talk about evolution, but if things change, we'll be replaced by better adapted creatures... assuming evolution continues as it has before us. Evolution is a process of optimization, not a road to the 'ultimate form'... whatever that is. ... it seems that evolution in us has taken a different form. We are capable of mental evolution within a lifetime, changing behaviors to adapt to different environments, and eventually we'll probably be able to control our own evolution, first by bioengineering our offspring, and then by being able to rebuild our bodies without losing our minds entirely... or maybe just build bodies to suit our environments, given that article about mind transferrence to electronic formats. As far as 'rewriting' people stored in a computer, there are always issues when new technologies come up. The wrong thing to do is to try and ban them... someone will always use new scientific discoveries, legally or illegally. The best thing to do is take every new discovery, examine it, and try to come up with ways to make it safer. Worried about tampering with digital people backups? Instead of banning it outright, come up with ways to protect those backups from tampering, because SOMEONE will back up human minds regardless of ethical concerns. I always try to listen to everyone's point of view, but there are some points of view that I have seen over and over again, and they are either not self consistant, not based on or do not effectively explain any evidence from our world in a reproducable manner, or describe things that some other idea explains better and with more depth and accuracy. I tend to dismiss those instead of reiterating for the thousanth time the many, many reasons I have for not believing that point of view. Even then, though, I will remember the viewpoint for reference, in case something changes, and inconsistencies vanish with a new point of view. If you disagree with any of this, give me some good reasons to change my mind and I probably will :D Edit: *sigh* I guess I covered ideas from different topics here, but in general it's an attempt to shine light on my particular way of looking at things ^^ Edit 2: I could give my reasoning for being an atheist at some point, but I don't want to bore people more than I probably already have ^^

... combine that language with self-modification in mind with self assembling robots, and chips that can dynamically rewrite their components (yes, this technology exists... the first one was made years ago ^^), and you have some VERY interesting possibilities...

I figure nine out of ten graffiti artists get overlooked... why else is there so much damned (and pretty, sometimes) graffiti?

i.e. The New Series is good... very good.

He does seem rather... opportunistic.

Heh... I'm amazed the most common question, "Mind if I tag along?" or some variation thereof, wasn't one of the questions in the poll. I figure MOST Dr. Who fans would ask THAT (as probably represented by the massive 'Other' result in this poll)

... at least, not until AFTER he rules the world ^^

Just finished 'Whispers of Terror'... both corny and creepy! ^^ On to 'Land of the Dead'...

Ainley's Master had his high points, but Delgado's was always great ^^... and no, I won't make a poll about 'Which Master did you like best'! ;)

NEWS! "Hawking's Book Can Kill" :D

Good idea! Maybe more should do it... maybe it'll get into the news ^^ *gets his sharpie ready...*

Actually, haven't read any of the more recent Doctor Who books, just novelizations of episodes back when the classic series was still running... I plan to fix that lack sometime, probably after listening to all the Big Finish audio plays ^^

I think that formula scared everyone off ... :o

Y'know... I'm starting to think they're just playing with all the fan conjecture about Bad Wolf now... -_-'

Maybe Adam simply managed to retain some of the wonderful info that had been flowing through his head, and went from there? Heh... y'know, maybe he COULD be the original Davros... they never were clear about where Davros came from in Genesis of the Daleks, way back when, never specifying whether he was just a clever Kaled scientist or a mutant (i.e. he didn't look anything like either)... and there WAS the matter of that eye located specifically where the trap door on Adam's head was... and after enough tinkering on one's self to prolong life indefinately, you're bound to look VERY different from original. Also, given time, he may have forgotten the Doctor by the time he reached Skaro... Of course, it all falls down in the details (i.e. the big one is even Davros didn't know about alien life even if he suspected it, meaning he was Kaled or he forgot ever being somewhere other than Skaro) They could be coming up, years and years later, with an origin of Davros! ... or not. It's cute to think about, though. ... which brings up a question... if Skaro was destroyed during Sylvester McCoy's doctor, how could the Master be executed by the Daleks on Skaro in the movie, and why would the Daleks help the Time Lords at all? But I digress... it would be interesting if Davros (or a more advanced and vengeful Adam) were the Bad Wolf, assuming he didn't just vanish into enforced obscurity or was dissected.

I dunno... people keep calling him the Doctor's nemesis... but even the cybermen have been around longer than the Master, who was introduced during Jon Pertwee's time... (and THAT was a master to beat all later masters, I'm sorry to say. That whole 'I am the master' mind dominating hypnotic spiel that he somehow lost later on was great ^^ Clerk: What would you like, sir? Master: Oh, some fries, a carbonated beverage, and you... will obey... me! You... will obey me! Clerk: I ... will obey... ^^... just like that. No weird devices or anything. I guess when his body got fried (i.e. the original actor died) he lost that trick.) Edit: Whoo! Dr. Who has it's own forum section!

Translated: I'm sorry you didn't like it, and YES, it's based on a little bit of conjecture from individual officers and considerable input from my butt, but someone's looking to replace my butt as the credible source of info... not that it makes this article at all useful in the meantime. Edit: Haven't they considered that pedophiles are loners, much of the time, and being a loner leaves more time and opportunity to get hooked on excellent Sci-Fi stories as well as... far less wholesome things? Edit 2: Oh, wait... I just kicked dirt on the loner lifestyle, didn't I -_-' Edit 3 (too many of these things...): Anyways, what I meant to say that pedophiles may fixate on things... and one of those things may be easily visible and interesting stories (i.e. Star Trek and Star Wars).

... although that topic got a little hijacked... go there, and you'll see what I mean :rolleyes: Edit: ... or maybe not? Either way, go see! ^^

Judd stole his starness from him! ~NOOOOOOO! (heh, right... I don't have to SAY I'm kidding in that case, do I? The guy playing Wesley Crusher had little starness in the first place. I saw him on a B style sci-fi series (Outer Limits, I think), but afterwards? Nothing... but correct me if I'm wrong ^^)

I think it died a miserable, quiet death... just like many almost-released MMOs over the last two years ^^'

Oh, would I LOVE to RPG my next door neigbor... Oh, you're not talking about rocket-propelled grenade launchers? Darn... (just kidding, of course ^_^) The only RPGs I play are computer ones, console ones, or paper and pencil ones with a bunch of friends. I find the online ones too unstructured for my tastes...