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Welcome!

Hello, JMSwtlk, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! P.S. Could you log in when editing your userpage. feydey 00:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

AI Winter

Thank you so much for writing that article- that was (along with Russell Noftsker) one of the most pervasive and annoying red links in the general Lisp area of Wikipedia. I was quite afraid I was going to have to write it, a problem since in most respects I wasn't even around when it happened! :) That isn't to say it doesn't need work (like for instance, who coined it?) but it's pretty good. --Maru (talk) Contribs 18:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the mania associated with the current wave crest of AI shows imminent crash (unknown timeframe). At which point, perhaps, we can improve for the next go-around. Not that what's being demonstrated isn't remarkable. After all, it is 2022. Computing is 50 years old or so. The mathematics has been on the shelf for a long time. What is missing is the overarching framework. Well, truth engineering can be proposed. jmswtlk (talk) 16:33, 7 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Commercial players

Hi JMSwtlk. In reference to the Product Lifecycle Management page, I appreciate that you are interested in working on a useful commercial players section. My intention in removal of the section was not to exclude mention of any commercial players as it may have seemed to you, but to prevent the spam that had been growing rapidly on that page and many others.

To give you a bit of history, I have been monitoring many project management pages for quite some time, because they are a magnet for spam from (often equally useless) software companies. In some cases, other editors and I have come to the agreement that getting rid of a "Vendors" or "External links" section altogether would be the best idea. Usually it would be too difficult to decide who needs mentioning and who doesn't, since every company that finds the page feels for some reason or another that they deserve to be mentioned. In other cases some work has actually been done to maintain an appropriate list.

I arrived at the Product Lifecycle Management page by checking the contributions of a spam IP address (that was adding www.workflow-saperion.com to many pages). While in a list of companies or products with no other information, such as was on the page, is sure to contain some valid items, the number of pointless additions is too great and explanations too little for any of the items to be useful. I don't feel such lists should exist anywhere on Wikipedia, as Wikipedia is definitely not a Web directory. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't oppose an intelligent list of relevant commercial players in the field. I just wanted to prevent spammers such as the workflow-saperion.com people from having any place to put their links.

Sorry for the long-winded reply. Just wanted you to know where I was coming from. -- Renesis13 05:50, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Duck

See Talk:Duck#Duck test for computers Anthony Appleyard 15:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on User:JMSwtlk/FaithAndIndependentInvestigationOfTheTruth, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. If you plan to expand the article, you can request that administrators wait a while for you to add contextual material. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the page and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Calton | Talk 06:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Baha'i Faith and evolution

I wanted to step over here from Talk:Bahá'í Faith and science#Evolution because that discussion seems to be spinning into another directions. I've copied your comments here so as to continue the discussion uninterupted.

Yes, but, ... Actually, that was a wonderful response. However, one thing skirted around is the whole 'blind watchmaker' issue. I would think that a proper view would allow teleology (why else - or should I say how else -- would we have a Manifestation?). Frankly, it gets me that the staunch scientists are now relying greatly on the computational (a gift from God which we have only begun to explore) yet miss the whole issue of the quasi-empirical. So, 'what is science and how ought it to work' has not been resolved; that current 'science' tramples the soul makes it very suspect to me. By the way, Lamark took a bunch of grief. Yet, his concept has some credence in some evolutionary computational schemes (essentially, using the computer to expand generations while evaluating members according to stated criteria). This is one of many examples. One step would be to get an agreement on Creation (that statement opens me up to ridicule unbounded). jmswtlk 14:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the delay getting back to you. Press of time and desire to adequated consider your points conspired together in that delay.

If I'm reading this right the "Blind Watchmaker" thesis posits that natural selection works just fine all by itself, so we don't need a creator. Dawkins is quoted in the [The Blind Watchmaker|WP article] thus: "a deity capable of engineering all the organised complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, … must already have been vastly complex in the first place …" This is quintessential Materialism á lá Druyan and Sagan. Unfortunately, materialism's fundamental strength with respect to the physical and science (reliance upon observable phenomena) is its Achilles heel with respect to the metaphysical and spiritual.

Such a mind-set relies on deductive reasoning to the exclusion of inductive reasoning and to me is fundamentally flawed. One can not assert, as some so in arrogance frankly, that one is standing on logic and reason, and then pick and choose which school of logic to use.

This is where telology is of use. `Abdul-Baha basically reproduces variations of Aristotle's first cause theorem in Some Answered Questions (pp. 5-6).

However, for Baha'is there is a definite limit to inductive reasoning and teleology. That is that God is categorically and fundamentally unknowable by his creatures.

So perfect and comprehensive is His creation that no mind nor heart, however keen or pure, can ever grasp the nature of the most insignificant of His creatures; much less fathom the mystery of Him Who is the Day Star of Truth, Who is the invisible and unknowable Essence. (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 62)

That is to say that human beings are not, in and of themselves, capable of genuinely understanding their creator. Consider some models where we are creators:

One of Monet's paintings would be hard pressed to know for sure if Monet himself was tall or short, overweight or not, or even which hand he preferred. But it could tell you right off whether he preferred oil to pastel, favored brush techniques, whether he sketched beforhand or worked on blank canvas, etc.
This text file doesn't understand much about me beyond my frequent use of the <backspace> key, my use of American spelling, my verbose style, etc. It may induce my absolute refusal to use "txt msg splng"; but it won't know for sure. And it can't tell if I'm tall, short, and/or overweight.

So when people use teleology, at times, to try to ascribe personality or motivation to the creator, to Baha'is, this is an exercise as likely to lead wide of the mark as denying the creator from a materialistic standpoint is.

That "unknowability of God" is where the Manifestations of God come into play. It is from them, and them directly, that the creator makes himself known to us. (i.e.: If I tell this text file that I'm tall and overweight then, and only then, will it know.)

And when Thou didst purpose to make Thyself known unto men, Thou didst successively reveal the Manifestations of Thy Cause, and ordained each to be a sign of Thy Revelation among Thy people, and the Day-Spring of Thine invisible Self amidst Thy creatures, until the time when, as decreed by Thee, all Thy previous Revelations culminated in Him Whom Thou hast appointed as the Lord of all who are in the heaven of revelation and the kingdom of creation, Him Whom Thou hast established as the Sovereign Lord of all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth. (Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 128)

So, to this Baha'i at least, genuine understanding must rely on our observation, reason, and reliance on the genuine revelation from the creator. This is why `Abdul-Baha states emphatically that science and religion are complimentary and should be in harmony.

The Papal See has constantly opposed knowledge; even in Europe it is admitted that religion is the opponent of science, and that science is the destroyer of the foundations of religion. While the religion of God is the promoter of truth, the founder of science and knowledge, it is full of goodwill for learned men; it is the civilizer of mankind, the discoverer of the secrets of nature, and the enlightener of the horizons of the world. Consequently, how can it be said to oppose knowledge? God forbid! Nay, for God, knowledge is the most glorious gift of man and the most noble of human perfections. To oppose knowledge is ignorant, and he who detests knowledge and science is not a man, but rather an animal without intelligence. For knowledge is light, life, felicity, perfection, beauty and the means of approaching the Threshold of Unity. It is the honor and glory of the world of humanity, and the greatest bounty of God. Knowledge is identical with guidance, and ignorance is real error. (`Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 136)

And to answer Dawkins from the beginning of this: You're looking in the wrong place. Positing that the creator of a system must exist within that system is non-sequitur. Does he exist within his book?

These exercises exploring the complexity of systems subject to natural selection are very interesting. However, both scientists and religionists must bear in mind the inherent limitations of their approach and appreciate the unique strengths of the other's approach. Thanks for the interest. Cheers, MARussellPESE 00:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

----

Appreciate the response. I mentioned Lamark in that he suggested that the environment influenced evolution (we ought to ask how this might be, that is, the play of the Kingdom on the physical). As well, those taking the extreme materialistic bent and arguing from what we might see with a computer model need to, among other things, explain the hardware and the operating system (taking that the model is an application making use of and being influenced by system constraints including the ontologies behind the system). I understand about the unknowability of God, etc. (see 4th through 7th and the 4th [7V4V] as being above language), yet we do not know our operational limits (and I would argue that the limit is far beyond what we can imagine at this time). We push these all the time. One role that will be crucial for the Faith, IMHO, is helping establish a framework for 'ethical/moral' evaluation of inductive/abductive expansions. jmswtlk 14:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, some insightful comments above. Perhaps one of the handicaps of atheistic scientists is that they believe there is only one world of existence (i.e. the physical universe). Consequently, they believe God must be a part of that universe (a being composed either or matter or energy) and therefore subject to the the laws of nature. As a result of this, they can come up with arguments against the existence of God. Baha'is however, believe that there are many worlds of existence, and the physical is just one of them. Also, Baha'is believe that other worlds of existence, such as the spiritual world (hence the frequently mentioned "spiritual forces at work" in the Writings), can influence the physical world, something which science can neither prove nor deny. God, in His reality, exists in a world of His own, inaccessible to His creation. He is thus beyond time, causality and the laws of nature. In this sense, it is impossible for any argument to be raised against the existence of God.

Coming onto the theme of evolution, I believe that science's knowledge of this matter is still in its infancy. I believe that scientists do not approach their field with necessary humility. Whenever a number of facts are discovered, theories are created which are set in stone. All opposition to the new theories is labelled as blind fundamentalism. The current theories may explain the evidence in a manner which is satisfactory to most scientists and indeed, many Baha'is may find the explanations reasonable. But is it not still possible that these theories are wrong? The basis of many proofs is the idea that humans and animals are similar. Genetically speaking, our dna is quite close to chimpanzees and other primates. Consequently, the argument is made that humans and chimpanzees must be related. How else could they resemble one another in their genetic structure? Okay, that is the current scientific explanation. But the Baha'i Teachings offer another perspective. In the Baha'i Teachings, there are several spiritual levels of existence: plants, animals, humans, the Spirit of Faith and the Holy Spirit. There are also several kingdoms: mineral, plant, animal and human. According to 'Abdu'l-Baha, creatures within these kingdoms can progress through many levels until they reach the highest degrees possible within that kingdom. However, they can never cross over to another kingdom and continue their progression. They can only progress endlessly within their own kingdom. Each of these kingdoms is a higher level than the previous. So, plants incorporate minerals into their plant bodies, but they are not "descended" from minerals, nor are the minerals contained within them evolving into plants.

Animals possess many similarities with plants, but are not descended from plants. They have a genetic structure, which is coded into all life-forms, just like plants. But that does not mean that animals derive from plants. Nevertheless, there are plants with higher sensibilities than other plants and are closer to the animal kingdom relative to other plants. Likewise, within the animal kingdom there are animals which are very simple, such as slugs, and animals with higher degrees of intelligence, such as primates. Primates are the perhaps the highest level of existence within the animal kingdom, but it is impossible for primates to step out of that kingdom and evolve into human beings. They simply represent the highest forms within their kingdom, and are thus closer to humans in their physical nature than to slugs. But both slugs and primates are members of one kingdom. Because humans are the highest forms of physical existence, and all forms of existence are striving towards greater levels of perfection, it is not surprising that primates should resemble humans in certain respects, because they have reached some of the highest levels of existence within the animal kingdom.

My point is, all beings are mirroring forth God's attributes, and the more a creature develops within its own kingdom, the more it will mirror forth those attributes. Within the physical world, humans are the highest level of existence, so animals within their own kingdom, who have reached the greater levels of perfection and are mirroring forth more of God's attributes than their fellow creatures, will resemble humans more than others. Despite this similarity, according to 'Abdu'l-Baha, there is no biological relationship between human beings and the great apes. It is not possible for creatures from one kingdom to evolve into creatures from another kingdom.

The question that probably bothers some Baha'is is that this destroys the whole explanation which science gives for the origin of life on earth. If creatures from one kingdom cannot cross over into another kingdom, then life cannot have evolved from a single random mixing in the primordial pool. I resolve this thusly: First of all, we must be prepared to accept with all humility that we do not have absolute explanations for the origin of life on earth at this stage. There are many possibilities, but these are all possibilities, not absolute answers. The Baha'i teachings say that the origin of life is one, but they also say the origin of "everything" is one, in other words God. Contextually speaking, I don't think the Writings say everything is biologically related. I believe there is more scriptural evidence to the contrary.

One possible explanation, if we want to accept the concept of a primordial pool, is that life evolved several times in those ancient pools, producing proto-plants, proto-animals and proto-humans, each separately existing. Because evolution is a guided process and not a random one, it is not surprising that each of these developed a genetic structure and had similirities resulting from a directed evolutionary plan of God. Science does not accept this kind of idea because it believes evolution is random, so it is very unlikely that a random process would produce separate lines of evolution, all of which had similar genetic codes. If evolution ISN'T random, as the Baha'i Teachings confirm, then it is quite possible for this kind of so-called "coincidence" to occur.

Another explanation, accepted by many scientific theorists, is panspermia. Life originated somewhere else in the universe, and was carried by interstellar objects to earth and other planets. The Baha'i Writings neither confirm nor deny this, but they DO point out that life does exist elsewhere in the universe. The existence of extraterrestrial life is a Baha'i teaching. In that case, many possibilites arise. One for instance, is that animal life developed natively on earth, and proto-human microbes were introduced at another time from an interstellar object, such as an asteroid. All of this remains within the realms of possibility.

A third explanation, is this: The Baha'i Faith teaches that there have always been human beings, somewhere at some time. There are sentient beings on other planets somewhere, and the universe is infinite both in age and size. This raises several possibilities. A sentient race of extraterrestrial humans could have come to earth in the past and "seeded" earth with the various levels of proto-lifeforms: proto-plants, proto-animals and proto-humans, each of which are unrelated. Another explanation is that sentient extraterrestrial humans introduced an early form of earth human, adapted from their own genetic material and suited to the conditions of earth life. Another explanation, is that early forms of humans developed on earth, either as a result of separate evolution from a separate primordial microbe, as already mentioned, or from panspermia, and at a certain stage of our evolution, alien humans created an a terran-extraterrestrial hybrid species. This is an "Annunaki"-type explanation, favoured by some people, but regarded as a crank explanation by most scientists.

Also, there may be many things related to evolution of which we are not currently aware, and may not be aware of for ages to come. My point is, we know so little, yet we assume so much. The current scientific theory is set in stone by theorists lacking in the humility to realize that other and greater explanations may exist. However, most of the above explanations require a belief in God and, in particular, the Baha'i Writings. This is why I believe that a new type of science will emerge when Baha'i scientists become numerous. They will break the paradigms of previous scientists and offer explanations based on Baha'i teachings and evidence, rather than just blindly relying on their own human intellect, which can be flawed.NicholasJB 16:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Writings, Evolution, Teleology (incomplete)

Nicholas asks the question of what changes would we see with an accumulation of a 'critical' mix of those working in the sciences from a Baha'i perspective. For one, mechanisms for 'meta' influence would need to be comprehended by the insight for engineering (the obvious question [related to the pearl/swine issue] would be how to keep misuse in bounds - not unlike the troubles with the internet).

There may be a more proper forum for this discussion, however here are a few quotes related to the topics. There are so many. Perhaps one task would be to collect, categorize, and sort. Has this done?

Hidden Words, Persian #29 "Out of the wastes of nothingness, with the clay of My command I made thee to appear, and have ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things ..."

PUP "If we try to conceive of a time when creation was nonexistent, when there were no subjects or creatures under divine dominion and control, Divinity itself would disappear ..."

PUP "The purpose of the creation of man is the attainment of the supreme virtues of humanity through descent of the heavenly bestowals ..."

IQAN "With every fleeting breath they cover the immensity of space, and at every moment traverse the kingdoms of the visible and the invisible ..."

Báb "The newly born babe of that Day excels the wisest and the most venerable men of this time, and the lowliest and most unlearned of that period shall surpass in understanding the most erudite and accomplished divines of this age."

Gems of Divine Mysteries (Javáhiru’l-Asrár) Para 51, "... that perchance thou mayest gain into all things an insight born of Him Who is the Almighty, the Incomparable ..."

...

Always another go-around, not unlike our planetary system's formulation of recurrences.

...

A note on images

Please upload images such as Image:Data from National Vital Statistics Report tPx.png to Commons. It only takes a moment to create an account there. Richard001 (talk) 09:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned non-free image File:Thomas Gardner signature.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Thomas Gardner signature.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Armbrust ^Talk _Contribs 13:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No longer orphaned (actually, never was). Editors work in 'people' time (albeit, partly subjective, by definition). So, going from step one to step two is never to be considered a micro-second deal. One would think that a reasonable delay (in other than computer time) would expire before a warning like this was propagated (even if done by a 'bot'). jmswtlk (talk) 16:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited! New England Wikimedia General Meeting

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You're invited: Ada Lovelace, STEM women edit-a-thon at Harvard

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New England Wikipedia Day @ MIT: Saturday Jan 18

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New England Wikimedians summer events!

Upcoming events hosted by New England Wikimedians!

After many months of doubt, nature has finally warmed up and summer is almost here! The New England Wikimedians user group have planned some upcoming events. This includes some unique and interesting events to those who are interested:

Cape Cod Wiknic and Photography Blitz on June 14th in Barnstable County, with complete travel reimbursements available for those who participate
Adrianne Wadewitz Memorial Edit-a-thon on June 25th at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (exact location TBA), where we will also be hosting a "how to conduct an edit-a-thon" session beforehand
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July 2014

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Europe 10,000 Challenge invite

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries, Iberian Peninsula, Romania, Slovenia etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. If you would like to see masses of articles being improved for Europe and your specialist country like Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon, sign up today and once the challenge starts a contest can be organized. This is a way we can target every country of Europe, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant and also sign under any country sub challenge on the page that you might contribute to! Thank you. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 09:09, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/The 50,000 Challenge

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Operational definition

Hi there,

I just tagged up a section of operational definition (specifically, "In computing") as unclear and lacking in any citations. I traced back the edits and found that you first inserted them 11 years ago(!) into a different article operational, which you later merged into operational definition. I don't wish to offend, but I would cite as supporting evidence for my belief that they are unclear, that it seems no other editor has made substantive changes to them in the last 11 years - I suspect that no-one else understood what you were trying to say!

Please could you rewrite those paragraphs to be more clear and add a suitable reference or two?--greenrd (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I agree that the section could be beefed up. Let me list material that discusses the situation. These are in order by importance, rather than date. -- Computational Thinking in Science - very recent overview of the issues; Peter Wegner (1994) on computable functions (and Turing's tarpit); K-12 Interest (Operational definition of Computational Thinking); Theory and Operational Definitions of Computational Memory Models ...; ... jmswtlk (talk) 21:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is that list ordered from most important to least important, or from least important to most important? Also, I can't really beef it up myself (other than by adding completely separate paragraphs about new material) because I really don't understand what you were trying to say in the existing text.--greenrd (talk) 08:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I'll get on it. jmswtlk (talk) 21:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Sunday July 16: New England Wiknic @ Cambridge, MA

Sunday July 16, 1-5pm: New England Wiknic

You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" at John F. Kennedy Park, near Harvard Square, Cambridge, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck.

Sunday July 16 New England Wiknic (also on Facebook)

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We hope to see you there! --Phoebe (talk) 16:33, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Women in Red World Contest

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Opinion request

Hello colleague,

I am interested in the Middle Ages too.

I created Category:Medieval civilizations which is part of Category:Civilizations by time. The former is nominated for deletion and at the moment the vote is 2:0 in favor of deletion. I am used to deletions, but this time I am stunned. I do not believe there is no place for such a category. I believe that most people with interest in history would agree that civilizations existed in the Middle Ages. I ask people to contribute their opinion to the discussion. Regards,--Maxaxa (talk) 02:46, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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