Baby Food

Why does baby food come in jars rather than tubes like caulk does?

Art Museums

I like looking at art in art museums. But I really like looking at girls looking at art in art museums.

Starbucks Lids

When I get a coffee at Starbucks, I always make sure the glue seam of the cup is at the opposite end of the mouth hole in the lid. Otherwise, coffee drips through the small gap in the glue seam. It is so obviously necessary, yet nobody ever mentions it. My inclination is to feel that the coffee server is passive-aggressively trying to spite me when the glue seam and the mouth hole are within 30 degrees of each other. Or am I just imagining it?

"And I Would Have Gotten Away With It If It Weren't For These Meddling Kids"

If I were the bad guy who got caught at the end of Scooby-Doo, I wouldn't confess. I'd lawyer up.

The Fly, The A-Team, & Deep Questions

I found this link 2 hops from the Star Trek Transporter wiki page.

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/identity.htm

Though I found it on the Star Trek page, I am actually more interested in the ramifications of the technology in The Fly which actually deconstructs your body in one pod and rebuilds it in the other pod.

First, let's say that there are 2 technologies--one that transfers the atoms and replaces the atoms at the identical spot, and one that just transfers information about the atom, but then uses different atoms for the reconstruction.

So, would you use these technologies to transport yourself? I might for the first and probably would not for the second. The first one seems to simply move you from one pod to the other pod. You are the same person. What the second does is kill you at one end and creates a copy of you at the other end. The copy thinks it's you, but it isn't--you're dead. You entered that machine thinking you were going to eat a yummy dinner tonight--but it's the copy who will eat that yummy dinner.

But then there is the interesting issue of the spectrum between the two technologies. What if the one that sent the atoms over used the same atoms, but didn't guarantee that the individual atoms would go to the same molecules? It perhaps guarantees that each atom is no more than a few microns from its original place, but not necessarily in the exact original place. What if it guaranteed the same atoms, but no place locations at all? All your atoms just go into a pool and atoms are taken from that pool at the other end, but no attempt is made to replace the individual atom location with the exact atom that was there before? What if the machine guarantees that your brain--i.e. the seat of your consciousness--will replaced with the exact atoms, but the rest of your body would be replaced with from a pool of atoms. Does that make a difference?

Now let me throw in another wrinkle--I call it the "B. A. Baracus Conundrum". Anyone who has seen one episode of The A Team, has essentially seen them all because they reuse all the same devices. One of those recurring elements of The A Team plot formula is that B. A. Baracus refuses to fly, so they have to drug him to knock him out after which they transport him while he's asleep.

So if I think that my continuity of consciousness is necessary, why don't fear going to sleep? I am totally unconscious for long stretches of time when asleep. What if the technologies waited until I was deep asleep, and then transported me. Would that make a difference? I have a difficult time with that one as well. I just don't know if it would make a difference. If I regard the machine as one that kills me at one end and makes a copy of me at the other end who thinks it's me, does that mean I'd be going to sleep for the last time in my life? Or is sleep a form of "death" in that I lose my continuity of consciousness? So I would effectively be "killed" while I am already "dead".

The Gold Law

Every CD collection has a copy of ABBA: Gold.

Chocolate Cereal

How important is it that your chocolate cereal turn your milk into chocolate milk as well? Pretty damn important if you ask me!