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[Bauglir]

From what we know about modern physics, there are 2 possibilities, neither of which is free will. The only difference being a question of whether it is entirely deterministic or has some elements of randomness; but in the end, no free will simply because we are the meat in our heads. Of course, we usually aren't willing to say as much, nor do we really fully grasp it even if we do.

See, it's obvious that nobody has free will in the sense of total autonomy over our actions, which seems to be what people usually mean when they say that physics rules it out. You don't really need physics, you just need to realize that there are choices I literally cannot make - I can't legally purchase a hooker in my home state at the present time, because there's an inherent contradiction there. And that limitation was imposed simply by other people deciding it is so. You can get a lot less concrete with all the little influences people have on the development of others over the course of their lives and how that impacts the decisions they'll find acceptable. I don't think you need absolute freedom in order to qualify for free will, because such a concept of free will is meaningless. It seems easier to redefine it as the autonomy to make meaningful decisions - which is something I obviously do, even if I was always going to.

At any rate, I'm not the meat in my head. I'm a pattern in the meat in my body's head. Big difference.

[kaijyuu]

Hey man, if you wanna do this, I must warn you: my fanboy powers of pulling up canon facts to prove how my preferred character will kick your preferred character's ass are uncanny.


Case and point: Your charizard will bow before the might of Fluttershy

[alway]

I forgot to eat dinner. Giant burrito, activate!

*The giant burrito begins to activate; the core spinning up and dials appearing on the side. A hatch on the underside of the giant burrito opens, revealing a small extruder. It hovers to the nearby plate, extruding a paste which quickly hardens into the form of a sandwich. The hatch closes, and dials begin to fade; the whir of the core slows and finally stops as the giant burrito deactivates once more.*

[MaximumZero]

I forgot to eat dinner. Giant burrito, activate!

*The giant burrito begins to activate; the core spinning up and dials appearing on the side. A hatch on the underside of the giant burrito opens, revealing a small extruder. It hovers to the nearby plate, extruding a paste which quickly hardens into the form of a sandwich. The hatch closes, and dials begin to fade; the whir of the core slows and finally stops as the giant burrito deactivates once more.*

YAAAAY, BURRITOSANDWICH!

[Sirus]

There are shadow pokemon. Fluttershy is afraid of shadows. Therefore, have a doubles match with Charizard plus Gengar.

Having 600+ choices on my side is a considerable advantage

[kaijyuu]

Pinkie > every shadow pokemon ever. Insta kill with incessant laughter.


Bring em all on. Earth pokemon? Unleash the diamond dogs. Fliers get sucked up in tornadoes by regular pegasi. Mewtwo's gonna get turned to stone with a rainbow of light.

[Sirus]

Pinkie > every shadow pokemon ever. Insta kill with incessant laughter.

*raised eyebrow*
Touche.

Bring em all on. Earth pokemon? Unleash the diamond dogs. Fliers get sucked up in tornadoes by regular pegasi. Mewtwo's gonna get turned to stone with a rainbow of light.

Dunno what diamond dogs are, but there are pokemon that eat gemstones for breakfast. Lots of flying pokemon can create, manipulate, and outrun twisters. How would Mewtwo be turned into stone?

[kaijyuu]

Diamond dogs are dogs that can dig through earth about as fast as those worms from Tremors. Regular dogs otherwise... well they're sentient too. So I don't think they'll be very worried by any Earth pokemon.

Fliers... well I'm certain a pegasus would be at least comparable to most of the big shot flying pokemon. Zapdos can create lightning... that's pretty much a basic ability of most pegasi if they can find a cloud. So, even match at least.

Mewtwo's comparable to this guy, and well, that's how he ended.

[alway]

How the hell did I never hear of this before? O_O
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosions

Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes, such as activities related to economic development including the creation of canals. During the 1960s and 1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted a number of PNEs.

The Soviet program, known as Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy, was launched in 1958. The project saw 124 nuclear explosions for such tasks as digging canals and reservoirs, creating underground storage caverns for natural gas and toxic waste, exploiting oil and gas deposits and sealing gas leaks. It was finally mothballed by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989.

One of the first U.S. proposals for peaceful nuclear explosions that came close to being carried out was Project Chariot, which would have used several hydrogen bombs to create an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson, Alaska. It was never carried out due to concerns for the native populations and the fact that there was little potential use for the harbor to justify its risk and expense. There was also talk of using nuclear explosions to excavate a second Panama Canal.

[kaenneth]

Diamond dogs are dogs that can dig through earth about as fast as those worms from Tremors. Regular dogs otherwise... well they're sentient too. So I don't think they'll be very worried by any Earth pokemon.

Fliers... well I'm certain a pegasus would be at least comparable to most of the big shot flying pokemon. Zapdos can create lightning... that's pretty much a basic ability of most pegasi if they can find a cloud. So, even match at least.

Mewtwo's comparable to this guy, and well, that's how he ended.

I here I thought Enterprise vs. Battlestar Galatica vs. the Death Star was silly.

[kaijyuu]

That depends if the Force can penetrate Star Trek's shields.

[Sirus]

I don't really see the resemblance, honestly. If the movie was anything to go by (god, that was ages ago!), Mewtwo wouldn't go down quite so easily or by letting his enemy take a free shot.

Someone needs to write a crossover for this. All-out war between ponies and pokemon, winner take all. Can Celestia (who is basically a god, if my understanding is correct) stand up to the universe-creating power of Arceus? Are diamond dogs faster than Dugtrio?

[alway]

Also, apparently Americans may have launched the first thing into space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#The_first_nuclear-propelled_manmade_object_in_space.3F

During the Pascal-B nuclear test, a heavy (900 kg) steel plate cap (a piece of armor plate) was blasted off the top of a test shaft at a speed of more than 66km./second. Before the test, experimental designer Dr. Brownlee had performed a highly approximate calculation that suggested that the nuclear explosion, combined with the specific design of the shaft, would accelerate the plate to six times escape velocity.[4] The plate was never found, but Dr. Brownlee believes that the plate never left the atmosphere (it may even have been vaporized by compression heating of the atmosphere due to its high speed). The calculated velocity was sufficiently interesting that the crew trained a high-speed camera on the plate, which unfortunately only appeared in one frame, but this nevertheless gave a very high lower bound for the speed. After the event, Dr. Robert R. Brownlee described the best estimate of the cover's speed from the photographic evidence as "going like a bat!"[5][6] The use of a subterranean shaft and nuclear device to propel an object to escape velocity has since been termed a "thunder well".
This incident was reputedly used as part of the technical justification for the Orion project for possible use of nuclear blasts for outer-space propulsion.

[Hanslanda]

That depends if the Force can penetrate Star Trek's shields.

Dibs on THIS argument. I got the Star Wars side, who's going to play Trekkie?

And @Alway: I saw a program on Scifi about how a 'real' war with aliens would go, and the humans ended up using those devices as giant nuclear coin guns. It was kinda epic.

[kaijyuu]

I'm not a big enough trekkie to contribute, so I'll just bring out the popcorn