Madelaine McMasters

For the sake of consistency, you should report me as well, Jeffrey. I also explained why your advice was of questionable value. Like Freya, I am not your enemy. I'm simply interested in helping people stay in SL, because if they go away, so does SL.

Theresa Tennyson wrote: This discussion can't really go anywhere unless we decide on a definition of "religious/religion." In these debates I end up on the "religion" side not because I'm an adherent to any particular organized religion but because most of the "non-religious" debaters seem to have a very simplistic view of what "religion" is. Their working definition and concept of "religion" seems to be their perception of the behavior of adherents to modern mass-market Western religions, which would be the equivalent of judging the cooking skills of Ettore Boiardi by a review of a can of modern-day Chef Boyardee ravioli. For instance, they consider religion to be "dogmatic" in which case Martin Luther, Jesus of Nazareth and Siddhartha Gautama wouldn't be "religious" figures because they didn't follow the prevailing dogma. So, what is "religion"? Well, if you think the definition of religious is slippery, Geraci includes "quasi-religious" in his analysis. I think of religion as belief in god(s), supernatural powers or an intentional framework or order to the world. By that definition, I'm not religious. I think there's a framework, but I don't see it as intentional. Quasi-religious probably would include me. I feel a connectedness to something far larger than me, but I don't ascribe that to some mystical power. I think that's just a way of thinking that makes my brain happy. I have empathy, so I'm able to imagine that other creatures, in moments of quiet contemplation looking up into the sky, feel the same thing I do. And my brain likes to think that way because over time, brains that didn't like to think this way were selected out by evolution. It's only been recently that science has offered up evolution and neurochemistry as potential explanations for the way we think (and that we do that in our brains, not our hearts). But, as Pussycat suggests, that's not really Geraci's focus. He's interested in how this kind of thinking manifests itself in virtual worlds. I think any of us who tend to introspection have discovered that SL's a pretty cool place to do it. You an be alone with your thoughts anywhere here and SL can seem as expansive as the universe. Like the worlds we might imagine during meditation, SL is under our control. We can navigate space and time easily, and we connect with each other in an out-of-body way (except for those who mouselook ;-). I've been socializing online since I was a teen, and I find it facilitates introspection, I think because it's devoid of distractions. I don't know if SL is the most effective tool I've used, but it sure works. No other online socialization method has wormed its way into my memories like SL. Am I more mindful than before SL. Maybe. Was SL the cause of that? I don't know. Looking through my telescopes (or more recently sitting on my roof looking at the sky instead of painting the siding) is more efficient, but SL ain't bad. ;-).

Pussycat Catnap wrote: You're all hung up on his opening line, and not looking at the context or remainder of the interview. Robert Geraci: They provide a host of religious and quasi-religious opportunities. In the book, I am interested in the ways in which WoW serves as an “authentic fake” (David Chidester’s term): a secular practice that fulfills genuine religious goals. In WoW, these are associational in that they provide tools for creating meaningful communities and ways of reflecting upon ethical concerns, and they are devotional in that one can have meaningful and even transcendent experiences in the game. . . . Now for SL, i had two separate interests. One was to trace the ways in which certain religious groups shift operation into the world, forming virtual extensions for traditional religions, including the creation of new models for those traditions . . . In a separate chapter, I engaged transhumanist communities and their participation in SL . . . by providing places for the religiously-minded to form groups, build places of worship, and convene and by providing a transhumanist world (and worldview?), SL is also deeply connected to contemporary religion. And a bunch of other stuff... We're all hung up? That's a curious way to redirect the discussion, but I'll take it. I don't think that a desire to belong to a meaningful community (or find personal meaning) or to reflect upon ethical concerns are religious things. They're social things. Our appreciation of ritual isn't religious either, that's also social. I know quite a few people who attend a church, drop a li'l money in the collection basket, yet have no more than a shallow understanding of the religion (or any other religion for that matter), other than it feels good to hang with a gang. And they're not wrong about that. It does feel good to hang with a gang. My Mom is one of those people and she knows it. She'd be happy in almost any church, so long as they were a part of the community, weren't political, and had good pot-luck dinners. She sits though sermons and afterwards says "I've no idea what he was talking about, but he's got a soothing voice. And I like the stained glass windows." I get it, but afterwards I say "Some of what he said was pop psychology, some was nonsense, some was clichéd moralizing, but he's got a soothing voice. And I like the stained glass windows." And transhumanism isn't religious either. Our ability to plan, which requires a conscious awareness of the passage of time, was another selected evolutionary trait. Couple that with our fear of death (and so our fascination with immortality) and you get transhumanism. SL is just another place to play with that idea. But, to get to the meat of Geraci's research, there is something special about SL and other virtual worlds. They afford a contemplative space, devoid of RL's distractions, where we can focus our creativity and connect with each other. It is (if you're doing it right) a low stress environment, because of the control we have over it. I mentioned transcendence in a previous post in this thread, though that was directed at Dillon, who was a part of a shared transcendent SL experience. Many at that event remarked about the experience afterwards. I imagine Geraci witnesses the same in-world social behavior I do, and I doubt I'd argue with him over the significance of it, nor how SL affects it. Mindfulness, connectedness, timelessness. It's all there, and it needn't be religious. What I'd like to know is, does SL enhance or degrade a persons religiosity, and is the demography of religion in SL markedly different than in the general population?

irihapeti wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: ... given the choice between working through thermo problems and sitting around the campfire with a bottle of wine, it's a tough call. i go for the campfire can talk about thermos in between the wines. When not singing and playing the guitars. And can cook chickens and potatoes and corns on the fire. Just need bring lots of tinfoil else way to crispy if not watch all the time. bc singing and wines and beers and playing and solve everything in the whole universe in like only 2 hours after 5 or about drinks makes you pretty hungry not like when go a thermonuclear lab and is all these serious people in white coats and wearing lots of pens. And like say to them: wow! that a pretty big cool oven that thermonuclear thingy you got !! How long do I put the chicken in for ?? then they sometimes get a little bit upset. Dunno why. jejejejeje (: Not all labs are like that...

Nice catch, Daffy!

Charli Infinity wrote: SL is probably more fun when you know how to make things do things It is! So learn to script! There are people all around SL who'd be happy to help you. But, as with anything worthwhile, you've got to make an investment yourself.

irihapeti wrote: i also pick up on this part: "order appears from chaos" order appears when is imposed. We humans typically impose order on chaos is the same as put is no order in chaos. It would not be chaos if was ordered 0.1.2.3 out of all arrangements of 4 elements is only ordered bc this arrangement is imposed/put by the observer to mean order. Like we make it a axiom. And all our further measurements/observations are based on the imposed/put axiom. Change the axiom and the outcomes of and the measurements/observations change as well for the most part which brings us back in a circle to Mr Geraci I think we're agreeing on a lot here, but I want to dig deeper into the second "law" of thermodynamics, requiring increasing entropy (disorder) in closed systems. The religious often trout out entropy as proof that ordered systems must be designed, as science's entropy law precludes that from happening "naturally". But once again scope is important. The closed system we're most familar with Earth. We think it's closed because we can't leave it, it's in a vacuum. So some of the naive expect the Earth to be tending towards disorder and point to the increasing order of life over time as proof that a guiding hand is at work here. But they neglect the Sun, which must also be included in our little closed system. The Sun is increasing it's entropy at a prodigious (compared to human scale) rate, by venting energy into the abyss. A tiny bit of that (122 petawatts) reaches us, and is sufficient to create all the order we see around us with plenty left over to destroy some of it in impressive displays of temper. I'm a hell of a long way from knowing the molecular level thermodynamics of self replication, but lots of people have studied it and we've got well defended explanations for how good parts of it work. We're still missing the chemistry for the first step, from non replicating to replicating, but most biologists expect that mystery to fall eventually, if not in their lifetimes. And here we see why the parochial view leaves one unable to grasp reality. Molecules are too tiny, and the Sun too far away, to be fully comprehended by sitting around a campfire with a bottle of wine in hand, trading spooky stories with friends. Yet, even as a science loving teetotaller, given the choice between working through thermo problems and sitting around the campfire with a bottle of wine, it's a tough call. ETA: With respect to Geraci, as you say, if he's looking for quasi-religion, he'll find it everywhere. We're social creatures, we like ritual, we're pattern matchers, we seek to causes for the effects we see, and some of us have discovered, either on our own or with a li'l help, that mindfulness is satisfying. When I put all that together, I don't get religion. If he does, that doesn't change the facts. And speaking of mindfulness, SL is a great place for it, as we're able to escape many of the distractions that make it harder to do in RL. In another thread, Tari mentioned "bliss". I've felt that here. I was standing on the outside of a Millennium Falcon that was being driven (if you call avoiding crashes "driving") over palm trees.

irihapeti wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Yep, I just said the same thing in more words in a post that was waiting to be sent because I was on the phone explaining the hows of something to someone who was blinded by a miscomprehension of the whys. consider how does gravity in RL work? how does gravity in SL work? why does gravity in SL work differently to how it works in RL? when dont know the why of this then designing the how dont get done Gravity in the RL dont work randomly. Not in SL either + i dont get the universe is random thingy. I dont think I ever will bc every new thing we ever learn about the universe and everything in it reinforces that it operates according to mechanical rules. All physical things (which is what the universe is made of) operate mechanically. If they didnt then they be magical we have chatted about this before tho. So only say that just bc something appears random, we only accept it as random bc we dont know yet what are the rules governing that random appearing thing Ramblers gonna ramble... Prior to Heisenberg/Bohr, the scientific community pretty much followed your reasoning. We were disposed to think that there were underlying rules that, if we could only discover them, would explain everything with certainty. But then experiment disagreed and quantum uncertainty entered our lexicon in 1927. Quantum Theory is now the most tested theory in the history of mankind, and its tent pole of uncertainty stands upright as ever. Yet you're in great company not getting the "universe is random thingy". Einstein believed it was all knowable and calculable and, as a result, we could not have free will. But you can find plenty of QT adherents who embrace uncertainty, yet also think we don't have free will (I'm one of them). But Heisenberg's uncertainty gets applied in places where it simply doesn't belong. When we discuss randomness (or probability, uncertainty, causality or design), we've got to define a scope and a threshold. There are a great many things that appear random but are not. There are a great many things that don't appear random but are. (That's where miracles come from.) If the scope is small enough, we can eliminate all randomness from, and obtain complete certainty about, the description of a thing. But if we start to broaden the scope, certainty is harder to achieve, because things become "practically" unknowable. If the scope is limitless, then it doesn't seem to matter what threshold we apply to the definition of uncertainty, it's there. Multiverse proponents will tell you that our universe and all the laws and definitions in it are the result of an initial stochastic quantum fluctuation, and that there are an infinite number of them. And within that infinity of universes, could we imagine one in which everything runs according to plan, but the physics makes that unknowable? String Theorists are taking heat for positing a theory that puts us in that kind of universe. At almost every turn, we've got to think carefully about whether we're limited in the understanding of a thing by a true underlying uncertainty, or by a complexity that's simply beyond our grasp, either at the moment, or eternally. But the biggest problem with recognizing uncertainty is that our brains don't like it. We're puzzle solvers, we want causes for the effects we see. That served us well for eons, but that doesn't mean we always get it right. And because science doesn't provide the certainty we like (it just gets closer), we have a propensity to manufacture it from thin air. The closer science gets, the less room there is for our happy creations. Some call this "the god of the gaps". Our brains also like order. We're able to create it. So when we see it, we think it was done by something like us. But Evolution posits a process by which order arises from chaos through a "dumb" mechanism (imperfect reproduction, followed by natural selection). It takes a lot longer to test this theory because it's a slow process and nature destroys most of the evidence, so it's survival so far isn't as impressive as QT, but it's still impressive. And while I find the idea that order appears from chaos (whether in QT or evolution) seductive, I'm a long way from understanding it fully. And in that regard, I'm no different than the religious, who are a long way from understanding the imaginings of those who made up our countless religions in the first place. There should be a parallel to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to apply to the interpretation of religious texts. I dare you to fully comprehend, with certainty, the few paragraphs I've just written. If you're able to do it, I'll ask you to explain it to me, because it's difficult for me to convey what I'm thinking, and even more difficult for me to understand what I'm thinking. ;-).

I haunt the forums, as they're accessible from my mobile devices. I can participate in conversations while sitting on my RL roof, waiting for my arm to regain strength after 10 minutes of brushing on new paint, or while waiting in my friend's little room at the care center for her to awake from a drug induced stupor as she, in turn, waits for a new liver. When I do get in-world, I stand on the ottoman in front of my fireplace and IM friends to distract them from whatever they might be doing so they can shower me with attention. ;-).

Hi Little, I don't recommend following Jeffrey's advice until you've tried the much more likely solutions recommended by Lindal and Ohjiro. As you've identifed in your question, your problem is apparently the result of wearing an attachment. The wearing of things is a SL server function, and you must tell the servers not to attach the offending item. Reinstalling the viewer will not make that happen and you risk losing chat history and viewer settings if you do reinstall. So, do as Ohjiro recommends after launching the viewer, but before logging in, then do as Lindal recommends and try to remove everything you're wearing and carefully get dressed again. Good luck!

Hi Wanderlie, There are numerous scripting classes available in Second Life. Here's a short, incomplete, list... Builders Brewery Caledon Oxbridge University Helping Haven NCI Good luck!

When I don heels that change my foot shape, my elevation increases. I imagine this mechanism could be coopted for other uses. Pick the appropriate foot shaper for the desired elevation and attach it.

Rolig Loon wrote: Imagine, for example, how silly it would look if the horse were attached to your nose. I've worked with a few people who seemed to have the boss's ass attached there. ;-).

Rolig Loon wrote: It's not really a scripting problem. The easiest way is probably to create a new pair of walking/standing anims that have a vertical offset for the body. Then go ahead and attach the stilts to fill the air space between your feet and the ground. I'm not an animator, so I don't know how to do that, but I imagine that you can do that in Poser -- or find someone in the Animation forum who can tell you how to do it. Yep, when creating poses in Qavimator or AnyPose, you offset the z-axis of the hips (the avatar's anchor point). If you place that pose in a prim, the offset is added to the height of the prim's center and any sitTarget offset the script supplies. If you run the animation on your avatar via "Play" or an AO, the offset is from the ground. I'm sure Poser has the same ability. Setting Z height is probably the easiest part of making a pose or animation. ;-).

mikka Luik wrote: 'If people weren't seeking some sort of "meaning" (i.e. the underlying cause or significance of something) why would there be science at all?' Because - theres all this stuff! Lets find out how it works! Because its fun! More or less - perhaps it was just the Teachers I was lucky to have. I had two fantastic teachers (I still dine regularly with one of them) who approached life in that way. There's a deep pleasure that comes to me when I dig into a thing of vexing complexity to discover underlying principles that are familiar because I found them while digging elsewhere some time ago. Along the eons, those who were not motivated by this pleasure fell by the wayside because they didn't figure things out. There are two names that come to mind to describe the kind of people who get extraordinary joy from digging... Children Scientists

Hippie Bowman wrote: /me kisses your boo boo! Peace! Mmmm. We have a different name for that body part up here in Wisconsin, you naughty boy. ;-).

Good morning, Hippie. Thanks for rearranging my furniture in the night. It was worth the li'l bump on my noggin when you woke me... Happy Monday, Kids!!! If you miss today's Monday, don't fret. There will be another one next Monday.

Dillon Levenque wrote: Theresa Tennyson wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: He starts the second or third paragraph with: "Robert Geraci: We are, at our core, religious. By this, I mean that I am comfortable naming our desire to claim the world as meaningful — to see the world as magical and as meaningful — religious. We are driven to find value and meaning in the world and we will persistently engage in that effort." I disagree. He may very well be religious at his core, and need to see the world as meaningful. I"m quite comfortable seeing the world as it makes itself known ot me. So are a whole lot of other people. That's what science is about. If people weren't seeking some sort of "meaning" (i.e. the underlying cause or significance of something) why would there be science at all? I think of science more in terms of finding out how stuff works than why stuff works. I realize there's a lot of overlap there. Yep, I just said the same thing in more words in a post that was waiting to be sent because I was on the phone explaining the hows of something to someone who was blinded by a miscomprehension of the whys. I'd never have to do that with this fella...

Theresa Tennyson wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: He starts the second or third paragraph with: "Robert Geraci: We are, at our core, religious. By this, I mean that I am comfortable naming our desire to claim the world as meaningful — to see the world as magical and as meaningful — religious. We are driven to find value and meaning in the world and we will persistently engage in that effort." I disagree. He may very well be religious at his core, and need to see the world as meaningful. I"m quite comfortable seeing the world as it makes itself known ot me. So are a whole lot of other people. That's what science is about. If people weren't seeking some sort of "meaning" (i.e. the underlying cause or significance of something) why would there be science at all? There's a difference between searching for personal meaning (what's my purpose?) and searching for the meaning of it all. And there's a difference between searcing for meaning (significance/why) and searching for knowledge (cause/how). Science is how, religion is why. And science posits the idea that our curiosity about both gives us a competitive advantage over critters who don't ask questions. If you believe that mental stress affects physical health (I do), then it's not hard to imagine that creatures who develop mechanisms for reducing mental stress may have an advantage. And, as evolution just throws everything at the wall to see what sticks, it's not surprising if some of those mechanisms look like they were designed by a lunatic. And the reason random things look like they were designed is that creatures who can associate cause and effect well enough also have an advantage. And because that mechanism also appears to have been designed by a lunatic, it makes fascinating mistakes, like ascribing causes to random effects, giving us the impression of design or intent where there is none. There's probably an entire spectrum of mechanisms creating our curiosity over the hows and whys, so I've no reason to think we'll get to the bottom of it all in this discussion. And that's a good thing!

Yep, I understand this. At the sim I examined, I was unable to determine why the FPS drop occurred. There was no server lag (I was the only person on the sim) and I didn't expect any, the scene had fully rendered, so I didn't expect comm lag and there was none. Packet traffic was low. There were no particles in view and no animations, just static textures. So I didn't expect an FPS drop when looking at the store. Yet when I did, FPS fell off a cliff. So, I had to guess that the sheer number and size of the textures in the store was causing the viewer to thrash through GPU memory to draw the scene. If that was the case, I'd say it was a viewer design error. If that wasn't the case, I simply failed to imagine enough! ;-). And call me Maddy, I can't spell Madelaine.

NOELxoxo wrote: Thanks snugs!, and uh snugs?...quick question...'how do i abandon my land? lol sorry Meems Hi Meems! Snugs is trying to yank the keyboard away from me, but I'm not lettin' go. Here's how you abandon your Linden Home or any land you no longer want... Stand on the land, or in the Linden Home (yes, you have to go back, but just this once ;-). Go to World->About Land. The Land window pops up. In the General Tab, click "Abandon Land". To make sure you've abandoned what you wanted, go to your web dashboard's "Land Manager" page and make sure you no longer see your Linden home or the land you abandoned. Good luck in your new dome!

irihapeti wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: irihapeti wrote: Coby Foden wrote: OMG :smileysurprised: N i p p l e s! Well, I'm not going to remove that. Somebody else's turn to correct that "mistake". Anybody horrified of the sight, go and do your thing. :smileytongue: :smileywink: do they smoke ?? that be horrifying so i havent looked (: I looked for you. They are not literally smoking. hmm! i am still not look just in case is not that i dont trust you. I do. I think (: Is just that some people who came to your place for high tea end up having barbeque. And I wonder what might happen to any girl scouts what came to your house with biscuits q; (: Bring the biscuits unbaked.

irihapeti wrote: i think his Mr Geraci use of the word religious is provocative. Meaning that it gets attention for a writer in a field of many writers if pass over that and look as his basic tenet: "We are driven to find value and meaning in the world and we will persistently engage in that effort." then can see it applies not only to religion (as we most commonly refer to it) but also science and pretty much every other discipline + i think rules, customs, protocols, etc apply in all disciplines. And the practitioners of each tend to follow them in their fields/disciplines while in pursuit of revelation of value and meaning When the adherence to the customs, rules, protocols of the discipline becomes a devotion and becomes more significant to the practitioner than the pursuit of revelation (or actual revelation itself) then can say that this devotion is profoundly religious + eta: i just try clarify what I am hoping to say Mr Geraci seems to say that the pursuit is religious. I am disagree with him. Is the devotion to the rules, etc that makes it religious Science has devotees to rules as well. The difference is that science eventually bows to evidence. Religion bows to no one. How about... Religion cuddles its dogmas while science plays with Schrodinger's cat? Is science driven to find value and meaning in the world? Or does it just try to figure out how the world works? I've heard some pretty compelling ethics discussions that managed never to presume the world had meaning, but only that our evolutionary drive to propagate and our personal pursuit of happiness may be best served by certain kinds of behavior. I'm fascinated when rational analysis of seemingly irrational personal behavior (altruism) reveals that it's actually rational on a societal scale. Evolution is running a massive show and she's got no brain! I too think that pursuit of knowledge is not religious, it's a selected evolutionary trait. And I think that presumption of knowledge is religious, and also a selected evolutionary trait. ;-).

Hi Kasbury, I searched the marketplace "weapons" category, sorting by "Best Selling" and found a few. But it's so hard to say which is #1. If you're referring to the kind of club you visit, that's even harder to determine. I've no idea whether you'd prefer a book reading club with soft environmental music on the stream or a gay furry club that pounds trance all night long. That's the brilliance of SL, you can find anything here. I recommend you try the Destination Guide, or start a thread out in the forums indicating your likes and asking for recommendations, which we're not supposed to give here, and generally don't. Happy Hunting!

Ceka Cianci wrote: you go first hehehe Let's all go together. I think you know this turf.