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Thread: Living in a material world

  1. #316
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    Tesla Releases Electric Car Patents To Public

    Wow, this is a really good move. I applaud Telsa Motors CEO Elon Musk for taking a giant leap into the realm of open source.


    http://www.iflscience.com/technology...patents-public

  2. #317
    Is that really open source though?


    I mean, it's great that he did that, but it wasn't an altruistic move IMO.


    The grasshopper seems to be coming along rather nicely though. The falcon program is pretty amazing.


    Last edited by Syn7; 06-13-2014 at 10:41 AM.

  3. #318
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    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    Is that really open source though?
    The patents are open to the public so isn't that open source?

    I'm sure you're right about it not being a completely altruistic move. I'm sure that they are hoping for a faster movement towards electric vehicles which will benefit them in the long run.

  4. #319
    Quote Originally Posted by GoldenBrain View Post
    The patents are open to the public so isn't that open source?

    I'm sure you're right about it not being a completely altruistic move. I'm sure that they are hoping for a faster movement towards electric vehicles which will benefit them in the long run.
    It's just not clear what the conditions are in that article. Open source is defined as free license to the product/idea and any subsequent changes made by anyone. In order to be considered a free license it has to meet the criteria called the "four freedoms" which are as follows:

    1 - Freedom to use product/idea for any purpose
    2 - Freedom to study and change it any way you want
    3 - Freedom to redistribute as you see fit
    4 - Freedom to manipulate/modify the product/idea, release these changes and redistribute as you see fit.


    So is it really open source? A few lines give me pause, but that may be poor or inaccurate relaying of information by the author. They are:

    "Musk vows that Tesla will not sue anyone who uses their technology in good faith."

    and this:

    "There are some minor stipulations for companies who want to use Tesla’s technology. Other auto manufacturers using Supercharger technology must also charge customers for use of the charging stations up front, and granting free access thereafter. It is hoped that other manufacturers will also assume an open source stance, allowing the industry to evolve more quickly."

    What do you think? I'm no patent lawyer, so maybe I'm wrong, but these come across as red flags to me. All that being said, I'm glad they did it.


    Open source IS the future. I said it like a year ago in this thread and I haven't changed my position on that. I know many disagree, but I beg to differ.

  5. #320
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    I see your point and agree, but I am hopeful that it's just a relaying of information by the author issue. Our world badly needs this technology to move forward and open source is one way to accelerate that movement. That along with better batteries and solar collection like those awesome solar roads.

  6. #321

    Free will

    Don't know about this study, but it's an interesting topic.

    http://www.iflscience.com/brain/free...nd-noise-brain

  7. #322
    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    Don't know about this study, but it's an interesting topic.

    http://www.iflscience.com/brain/free...nd-noise-brain
    I could see it benefiting species survival to have individuals who periodically do not do the previous norm. Though that individual might suffer negative consequences as a result, they also might do something that yields new rewards.

    Not sure free will is a good term for this, but I'm not really big on the whole free will/determinism argument. As soon as you have a group of individuals with individual free will, their actions make consequences for themselves and others that are determined. And that's just individuals, natural forces themselves create deterministic chains. Not to mention that most choices are determined from circumstances at hand. Except, perhaps, when your brain is apparently randomly messing with you as in the article cited! Which is also deterministic.

  8. #323
    Yeah, I have no opinion either way. The only deterministic arguments I'm familiar with are from physics. Interesting to think about though.

    All I know is that it's feels like I have free will. Beyond that, I dunno.

  9. #324
    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    Yeah, I have no opinion either way. The only deterministic arguments I'm familiar with are from physics. Interesting to think about though.

    All I know is that it's feels like I have free will. Beyond that, I dunno.
    I just find the either/or approach of some is odd. I make choices, and also have situations hoisted upon me that I have little choice but to deal with, and often little choice on how to deal with it.

  10. #325
    I can see the argument that we have no choice, but do people really believe the other way around?

    How does that work?

  11. #326
    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    I can see the argument that we have no choice, but do people really believe the other way around?

    How does that work?
    I've unfortunately had to sit through a ton of discussions on this very idea, free will versus determinism. (I had a number of friends from the faculty in the philosophy department) It's largely an argument based on Christian theology, but in modern terms, most take it to mean free will in all decisions, even though there is only really one choice that Christian theology claims one always has free will on. Not Christian myself, so the argument gets tiring, especially as it dovetails with what I see as Ayn Rand silliness about self determinism and how you always have choice. The math on that argument is terrible, since any choice can constrain the choices of others, so the greater the level of free will being acted upon by individuals, the more likely you have cause and effect creating determinism in the aftermath.

    As I said, both as absolutes are terrible arguments. Terrible arguments that people like to argue, mostly because some people feel terribly uncomfortable with the idea of determinism, imo. Don't even think about adding the nature of time to the discussion!

  12. #327
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    Quote Originally Posted by Faux Newbie View Post
    I've unfortunately had to sit through a ton of discussions on this very idea, free will versus determinism. (I had a number of friends from the faculty in the philosophy department) It's largely an argument based on Christian theology, but in modern terms, most take it to mean free will in all decisions, even though there is only really one choice that Christian theology claims one always has free will on. Not Christian myself, so the argument gets tiring, especially as it dovetails with what I see as Ayn Rand silliness about self determinism and how you always have choice. The math on that argument is terrible, since any choice can constrain the choices of others, so the greater the level of free will being acted upon by individuals, the more likely you have cause and effect creating determinism in the aftermath.

    As I said, both as absolutes are terrible arguments. Terrible arguments that people like to argue, mostly because some people feel terribly uncomfortable with the idea of determinism, imo. Don't even think about adding the nature of time to the discussion!
    This is the exact point I part ways with philosophy and decided to become a scientist. I see no reason in keeping yourself up at night over these types of thoughts. That said, my opinion. There is no such thing as free will. Everything about your decision making process is ultimately a chemical interaction. Ultimately, we are just giant freaking super macro-molecules interacting with other molecules. All our basic functions, including "choice" are products of that chemical evolution. That in mind, laws of physics constrain us.

    But it doesn't matter. Because we still have to behave as if we have free will.

  13. #328
    Quote Originally Posted by SoCo KungFu View Post
    This is the exact point I part ways with philosophy and decided to become a scientist. I see no reason in keeping yourself up at night over these types of thoughts. That said, my opinion. There is no such thing as free will. Everything about your decision making process is ultimately a chemical interaction. Ultimately, we are just giant freaking super macro-molecules interacting with other molecules. All our basic functions, including "choice" are products of that chemical evolution. That in mind, laws of physics constrain us.

    But it doesn't matter. Because we still have to behave as if we have free will.
    Yeah, I simply don't care enough to study philosophy that much for the same reasons. Too many arguments where the logic is referential to the argument, but not testable against reality, or, conversely, that reality seems to totally not follow.

    Many who argue against determinism argue that it leads to fatalism, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is not actually what individuals do at all, whether or not they believe in determinism. Not to mention that the Christian theology that is the focus of the idea of free will is entirely deterministic in the sense of "God's plan".

    I actually find this to be the interesting distinction between Western and Eastern philosophical systems. Western systems espouse thorough arguments based, at least on some levels, on logic that can hold within the context of the argument, and tends to produce very few people living those philosophies.

    Eastern philosophies tend to sprout from groups that attempt to live those philosophies, later develop texts that are referential to those lifestyles, but not meant as complete arguments in and of themselves, and those philosophies cribbed from each other often, so the approaches actually tended to be quite dynamic. Mind you, not always, as state Confucianism versus Confucianism on the whole demonstrates, where the former became shaped by needs of the state, whereas the latter had feedback from a greater cross section.

    Applying the Western approach to the Eastern tends to fail because the argument on paper, to the Eastern traditions, is meaningless without the reality of it.

    So, in discussing free will, many see Chinese Buddhism as fatalistic, having no reason for action, when, in fact, samsara, the world of cause and effect, is seen as a finger pointing to nirvana and ultimately synonymous with enlightenment. It is only through recognition of the artifice of self as a discrete thing that one can achieve nirvana, but to do this, one must interact with reality and cause and effect, with the caveat that the interaction is informed by the artificial nature of distinctions.

    Taoism is similar in this context. Non-action is not absence of action, but action based entirely on awareness of reality, experience, and the knowledge that what was once true is not always true, what once gave good results does not always do so, etc.

    Some Western philosophers see this as stifling action, the problem with this argument being that they rarely define at what point having parameters on what actions one undertakes is stifling, as though any limit on action is always bad.

    I suppose one could cite Foucault's approach as a similar Western view, in which there is choice, but it is almost always defined by structures in place at the time.

  14. #329
    I agree, it doesn't really matter. I'm far more concerned with questions that can be answered properly. But who knows, maybe we will be able to prove what SoCo said at some point. Not my wheelhouse, I'm just a tourist. Still, I find the topic interesting on the surface, but the deeper it gets, the less I'm interested. Fancy that, lol. I gave up on philosophy a long time ago. I find the lab far more interesting.

  15. #330
    Here we go...

    Supreme Court Rejects Contraceptives Mandate for Some Corporations

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us...tion.html?_r=0


    California just passed a resolution for a constitutional amendment to reform the election process based on Article V of the United States Constitution. They are the second state to do this, behind Vermont. Illinois is next, it's already passed in the upper house and has left committee in the lower house. 2 down, 32 to go.

    The goal is to pass a 28th amendment overturning horrible SCOTUS decisions including Citizens United v. FEC and Buckley v. Valeo. Hopefully they can pull out the foundations underlying so many ridiculous decisions. That's one house of cards I am dying to see come crashing down.

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