Paul Rumelhart wrote:<br><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> Readings like that would go a long way towards answering the skeptics (which I'm sure you're lumping me in with).</blockquote>
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<div>Stating you are sure I am lumping you in with "the skeptics" is not very skeptical. I might be making an error in lumping you in with the skeptics, if I was carefully following your comments on Vision2020, given the statement above demonstrates you are not a skeptic. </div>
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<div>In fact, you sometimes express on Vision2020 very definite opinions that do not demonstrate thoroughgoing skepticism. It seems to depend on the subject. You may be a "true believer" in Al Gore's warning that anthropogenic climate change is the greatest crisis facing humanity; and chose to play devils advocate for educational purposes by posing as a skeptic of human induced climate change.</div>
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<div>Why should you make such an absolute statement regarding my mind's view of your mind?</div>
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<div>By the way, do you exist? I am not absolutely certain of this fact, given the philosophical problem of the existence of other minds, etc. You may be a clever artificial intelligence program, being tested on the Vision2020 list, a variation of the Turing Test, if you will. Or a figment of my imagination; Descartes powerful evil deceiver may be at work:</div>
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<div><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/</a></div>
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<div>I have never verified with my own senses, or even via the method of trusting other minds, that you exist as a separate "mind" or "person." And the evidence of the senses, and trusting other minds, is of course subject to various powerful methods of criticism, that can undermine trust in these common methods of establishing fact.</div>
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<div>I only know you via words on a computer screen... You could be the greatest true believer or the greatest skeptic, or both, in different ways, the world has ever known, in your "real" life.</div>
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<div>We may not with certainty know anything... </div>
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<div>Life is fundamentally based on trust and faith, in the final analysis.</div>
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<div>Of course, I am not certain those last two statements are true.</div>
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Ted Moffett wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div><span class="e" id="q_119209b3f7e143a6_1">As our recent cooler than normal weather on the Palouse led some local residents to rejoice that indeed anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, let's hope they are correct! Because down under they have been experiencing a record breaking heat wave, at the beginning of what is their Fall season in March. Read these temperature data carefully, because this is a way serious heat wave, over a large area, over a period of weeks. Of course, this does not prove, any more than our local cold weather recently disproved, the theory of long term global warming from human sourced CO2 emissions. It does, however, perhaps put into perspective that it is the global average temperature over decades that reveals or refutes climate change, not local seasonal variations, some of which are predicted to potentially be cooler than in the past, even in a warming global climate. This March, 2008 heat wave in Australia to some extent cancels out the cool weather locally, and some of the cooler global average temperatures during January and February 2008 (NOAA ranks climatological winter (Dec. Jan. Feb.) 2007-8 as the 16th warmest globally, land and sea combined, since record keeping started in the 1800s), in the yearly global average temperature that will be figured for 2008:<br>
<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20080320.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20080320.shtml</a><br>
<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080313_coolest.html" target="_blank">http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080313_coolest.html</a><br> Adelaide had 15 consecutive days above 35 °C and 13 consecutive days above 37.8 °C (100°F), breaking the previous records of 8 and 7 days respectively. These represent new records for any Australian capital city. Also breaking consecutive day records were Ceduna which had 12 days over 35°C, Mildura which had 14 days over 35 °C, and Kyancutta which had 13 days over 40°C.<br>
<br>In addition to the prolonged heat wave conditions, a number of record high temperatures for March were set, both for daily maximum and overnight minimums.<br><br>In Tasmania, Hobart reached 37.3 °C on 14 March which matched the record March high temperature from 13 March in 1940. At nearby Campania, the temperature reached 38.0 °C – the highest March temperature ever recorded in Tasmania.<br>
<br>In Western Australia, Eyre set a new all-time Australian record for the range of temperatures observed in one day. The overnight minimum of 6.8°C warmed to a maximum of a 44.2°C on 5 March, setting a new record single-day temperature range of 37.4 C.<br>
<br>Not only were the days hot, but warm nights also made sleep uncomfortable for many. Records for the hottest March nights were set in both Adelaide (30.2°C overnight on 13/14 March) and Melbourne (26.9°C overnight on 17/18 March.)<br>
<br>Mean maximum temperatures for the period 1 – 17 March are running far above average, with some locations in South Australia 12°C or more above their normal March value.<br><br>-----------------------------------------<br>
<br>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br><br></span></div>------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>=======================================================<br> List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.fsr.net/" target="_blank">http://www.fsr.net</a> mailto:<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
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