Only *Blessed and to a certain extent Naxar seemed to directly answer some of my questions, and its quite similar to the dialogue between the android and the Ulema in my story. Let's be honest with ourselves, nobody here knows what a ''soul'' exactly is, it's a complete mystery to both science and theology, hence once can't simply say ''my premise is flawed'', when you clearly don't understand the point. This is an android that is thinking ''independently'' and has absorbed the Quran in its system and every single known hadith. He has said the Shahada and considers himself a muslim, but eventually is rejected by the most prominent scholars of the Islamic world, many of which he defeats in debates because the android with his large storage capacity is more knowledgable than them, and they fail to prove to him that he does not possess a soul. He thinks he has a soul, and he's convinced that this soul already existed before the human engineers build a command-taking android, and that it simply entered his artificial body causing him to acquire independent thought and feel emotions. It's this idea of himself that is driving him onto a quest for more answers. Someone said the secret is in the word ''artificial'', how so? You mean like ''artificial insemination' that creates real human babies? You mean artificial organs that sustain real human beings? Clearly there is no secret to be found there. Another person said that humans are incapable of creating ''life'', is that person aware of the science behind ''cloning'', which is alot more than ''assembling''? I believe Allah swt gave humans a high level of intelligence to perform feats such as cloning, whether they are haraam or not, they are still capable of doing that. However I personally believe that the insertion of the Soul ultimately lies with Allah swt; he can give life and he can take it away just as easy. Therefore, if in my story the android considers himself a being that has been given life not by his human engineers but by Allah swt himself, how would you convince him that he's not a creation of Allah, and that he will never enter the afterlife? Mind you, there is nothing to suggest in theological writing that excludes androids from ever acquiring a Soul.

The brain is an organic computer, the A.I person would simulate that specific computer to create independent thought i.e; a mind of its own, therefore its plausible to say that the brain is the seat of the mind, however emotional feelings can come from various places in the body, including the heart. I would consider the soul to be a combination of mind and body, and sometimes it's used as a synonym to the latter two terms. If the soul is something completely different from the mind and body, then that would mean in the afterlife everyone would be incorporeal and thoughtless.

We might have been given little knowledge on such a complex subject, but it doesn't mean one can't wonder and rationalise!

This should be a pamphlet, mass desseminated!

I know your face Marx, I'm tempted to kidnap you with my crew and place you in a secluded facility where I will boom through the hardest surround sound amplifiers the cheesiest songs of all time until you returned back to sanity. That would be real concious indeed lol.

Narniah;808086 wrote: A person can lose their mind and still have their soul. The mind is always there, subconciously and when unconcious, and nothing suggest a person does not have ''thought'' in the afterlife. A person can lose their car-keys but this doesn't mean the said keys vanished from earth. Insanity is not equal to the disappearance of ''thought''. Maybe instead of writing fiction stories, a brother should get to work in the lab. What happened to the days on SOL when it was a big pool of creativity with amazing feedback? So much latent anger!

Narniah;808081 wrote: No it's not. Soul and mind are two separate things. That's a pretty absolute statement, they clearly overlap. The premise that you base your question on is flawed. Let's worry about that when we have synthetic life forms coming to us with questions on the meaning of life and seeking spirituality. Until then, I'll worry about the ones who are already here, and already asking. I'm constructing an intriguing sci-fi short story, must a brother wait several centuries to get the most plausible answer?

Esteemed *Blessed, isn't the word ''soul'' simply an archaic term for ''mind''? If that A.I person feels, thinks, desires and believes himself a Muslim then is he not another creation of Allah swt that sprung to life on this planet?

What will the ramifications be of a humanoid/android successfully simulating ''human intelligence"? If such a humanoid were to convert to Islam, would their prayers be accepted by Allah swt and considered one of his creations? And would such a 'ArtificialIy intelligent being' ever have a chance of reaching Heaven? If not, are the sins or good deeds of this A.I being collected by the human engineers, or are the latter's souls forfeit to Hell for attempting to mimick Allah swt? Hmmm, I wonder. - Atheists need not answer, thank you!

That is a great plan brother BOB, its crazy how strategic Somalia is located, the beauty and wealth its been blessed with, yet our so-called leaders isku-sheeg struggle to see beyond their little tuulo iyo abtiriiso and fail to grasp the vastness that is their common domain and the greatness that lies within their people, if they lead them the right way. This is not even a dream, but simply a reality that we have been denied.

Carafaat have a look at the type of ''Rebranding' you will see in the distant future when things settle down in Somalia. We will simply purchase space on big time newspapers around the world and advertise a new image, because Somalia has alot going for itself from some of the most beautiful beaches, to a rich historic heritage, to game reserves, to accesible but steep mountains, to exotic sand dunes etc, etc: If we build a few of these type of resorts along our beaches, people will forget the past 20 years in a heart-beat, because humans are fickle creatures:

Kenya has the biggest slums in Africa, this seems like a vanity project, because the likes of Kibera and most of the Northern region could use an upgrade. However this is a private project, so we can't take away the credit from the Kenyans who safeguarded their native superstructure that is the Kenyan Republic which has enabled them to attract such big investments in the first place, we destroyed our own superstructure. I estimate that Somalia has lost atleast $30 billion in Foreign Direct Investment during the last two decades from the Gulf regions, China and Latin America, not to mention atleast $500 billion in Oil revenues, because the 1990s would have been the era of our oil-boom had the war never happened. There was a time when Somalia build more first world infrastructure than our neighbours, even the Tanzanian president once uttered the words "The Somalis are doing in Somalia what we in Tanzania preach!" All in all, we shot ourselves in the foot, basically!

Most shampoos contain sulphate which is an acid. I never use that, instead I apply natural oil based shampoos like olive oil or coconut oil type of shampoos, your hair is automatically conditioned and doesn't dry out. What's your hair-type; curly, wavy, straight or kinky?

^Like I said Archdemos ''in this day and age, you shouldn't accept going bald!'' Science agrees with me: Clue to male baldness discovered By Helen Briggs Health editor, BBC News website A biological clue to male baldness has been discovered, raising the prospect of a treatment to stop or even reverse thinning hair. In studies of bald men and laboratory mice, US scientists pinpointed a protein that triggers hair loss. Drugs that target the pathway are already in development, they report in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The research could lead to a cream to treat baldness. Most men start to go bald in middle age, with about 80% of men having some hair loss by the age of 70. The male sex hormone testosterone plays a key role, as do genetic factors. They cause the hair follicles to shrink, eventually becoming so small that they are invisible, leading to the appearance of baldness. Reverse balding? Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have analysed which genes are switched on when men start to go bald. They found levels of a key protein called prostaglandin D synthase are elevated in the cells of hair follicles located in bald patches on the scalp, but not in hairy areas. Mice bred to have high levels of the protein went completely bald, while transplanted human hairs stopped growing when given the protein. Prof George Cotsarelis, of the department of dermatology, who led the research, said: "Essentially we showed that prostaglandin protein was elevated in the bald scalp of men and that it inhibited hair growth. So we identified a target for treating male-pattern baldness. "The next step would be to screen for compounds that affect this receptor and to also find out whether blocking that receptor would reverse balding or just prevent balding - a question that would take a while to figure out." The inhibition of hair growth is triggered when the protein binds to a receptor on the cells of hair follicles, said Prof Cotsarelis. Several known drugs that target this pathway have already been identified, he added, including some that are in clinical trials. The researchers say there is potential for developing a treatment that can be applied to the scalp to prevent baldness and possibly help hair regrow. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17457098

Timur both pictures were taken somewhere in Somalia, and the tourists named them Kismaayo. After having seen a picture of the massive Kismayo port I have to agree with you on the first image (which city would that be then?), but the second picture is certainly in the vicinity of Kismayo, close to the Bajuni Islands, a good detailed geographic map would show you that the region does have such interesting features. Kismayo port: Somalia has a good foundational infrastructure system on which we could go very far if we expanded it.

NGONGE, I resent that for I'm a realist too! Just because I keep my private life private doesn't mean I don't intend to walk the walk, however there is no point in going back with 30k and do little to nothing. I intend to return with a bigger sum of money and for that I need to stay put for the time being. I'm not a political creature and have no interest of ever entering that landscape, however I think the soft-power that I will unleash in the form of cultural items might get me a greater audience than a politician ever could. These dreamy topics of mine are highly contagious, and in real life they have managed to convert qabiilists, regionalists, seccessionists, and islamists into Pan-Somalists, so don't grudge me my little bandwidth on SOL lol, it's all I have for now until my carefully structured products filled with dreams and ideas can be mass disseminated to the people. Then you going to have alot of dreamers, you've seen nothing yet! Archdemos;807551 wrote: Great post Chimera , as usual you’re emitting positivism. The potential for Somalia to succeed and surpass its neighbours has always been there it’s just that we are severely lacking on the human capital front. For every skilled 'Abdi' that decides to go back and invest there are countless more who will opt for the easier option of staying put. The future success of Somalia will largely depend on being able to convince the large diaspora to uproot. However when peace and a semblance of order returns it will remain to be seen if Somalis will indeed vote with their feet. There is a constant buzz at the moment with a narrative around grandiose restoration ideas, which have unfortunately become banal as they are severely lacking in any kind of foresight and strategy as to how to bring to fruition their ideas. This can be most disheartening, it seems we have a lot of talkers but not many doers. To a certain extent the economic revival of the country is not as crucial as the building of the institutional capacity of a government. For this to work you need a single monopoly over violence and a multi generational investment in education to instill the psychological and physical impression of the state in the psyche of the ordinary currently stateless Somali. This is a monumental task that will overwhelm even the largest of established bureaucracies. There are also questions around how areas like Somaliland can be incentivised back into a union without having to resort to force. With the latter a pragmatic approach must be taken and a working relationship between a SOM gov and the administration in Hargeisa needs to be established. No solutions should be off the table and ideological politics should play second fiddle to the realties of the past two decades. Moreover we may be best served in the immediate by directing our efforts towards coming up with real and tangible solutions to the everyday problems a future Somali government will encounter in the post war space. The relocation of IDP’s, again another herculean effort is needed here and many more problems. The first two decades will be about laying the foundations of a strong government with checks and balances that is built on a social contract with its citizens. We must win back the trust of everyday citizens, and I’m yet to see a detailed manifesto on how this can be achieved. It’s as if all this will materialise once peace returns. To return to your original premise, I don’t doubt Somalia can rebrand itself and who knows maybe in 40 years we will be talking about Somalia as a regional and possibly continental leader. For this to occur we need to put an end to the lethal lack of leadership that has served to maintain the wretched status quo. Excellent reply Arch!

Carafaat;807190 wrote: Chimera, interesting thread. I think this idea is stimulating, realistic and achievable. But for Somali to unite an see the Somali state as the ultimate clan, one needs to formulate a common greater goal. Like clans unite for a bigger goal, power, political domination or conquering cities also Somali's could unite as a clan against the world or Africa. But for this to happen our goal has to be a bigger ambition, bigger vision andwith a Somali message what ever this might be, Truth be told, many Somalis did see the Somali State as the ultimate clan and did unite for a certain period of time to achieve a common goal (five-star agenda) but the lack of rewards in terms of national victories due to superpower interference and corruption by the state itself turned this feeling of unity back into archaic clannism. Pan-Somalism is a very noble concept which has the ability to provide that specific platform that we need to reach a higher plateau in development, but the major powers of the world made it clear several times in the past that they under no circumstance will support Pan-Somalism if it means going against their surrogate African countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, but neo-Pan-Somalism need not be militaristic in nature, for the time being atleast. Somalis need to become a power in their own right like their ancestors were by developing their cities, by creating a bigger trade-network, by having major alliances with rising powers and steadily outperform the entire region. If you placed modern Malaysia with all of its economic weight and military strength in our region, it would be the most powerful country (and its far from being the most powerful country in the world). What does Malaysia have that we don't? They were poorer than us for the majority of their history, their landscape is not riddled with ancient and medieval cities, our country is! Their ancestors weren't mentioned by the Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and Persians as being major traders, but our people were! What happened? Lack of faith in ourselves is what happened. I think we could learn something from Rwanda and its neo pan African message of development by and for Africans. Lol, hell no! Kagame is 70s Siad Barre; an African leader the world is impressed with because of progress in development, but that's not the kind of government Somalia needs, because the administration in Rwanda is a dictatorship and we need to go beyond that.

The choice is simple:

I stumbled upon these Somalia albums of the 1980s, some very lovely images: http://www.dinola.it/album%20somalia%2080/index.htm http://www.dinola.it/album%20somalia%2082/index.html http://www.dinola.it/album%20somalia%2087/index.htm http://www.dinola.it/album%20somalia%2089/index.html Enjoy!

Kismaayo 1980s, HQ of the Somali Navy, the southern most Urban center in Somalia.

LOL still a good idea for the future, and the list has grown significantly too! I miss Ibti's presence, my topics were always a hit when she was still around.

Abtigiis as a boy was once beaten up by another boy called Hassan. He had his payback when he hit Hassan's sister Hamdi and attempted to transgress her, but a defect at Abtigiis' birth, rendering his manhood disfunctional, resulted in Hamdi's maiden status being preserved (though he will proudly claim to anyone that bothers to ask that he took Hamdi's purity, but she knows better and secretly he does too!). Abtigiis fled the city, his dusty feet on the path to nowhere and with the seaside city disappearing in his back, the young Abtigiis had an epiphany that would become his motto in life; to get back at the man one must go through the woman!

The major reason behind the decline of the Japanese clan-system was the social and economic change that was initiated by the Meji government, the average Japanese no longer needed the protection or support of their clans, the state became the ultimate clan. It's too late however to do a 'Meji' today, that should have been done during the Dervish Age, here too the brilliant Sayyid Abdullah Hassan had plenty of western weapons but he lacked the important statemanship needed to unite the entire Somali peninsula by failing to establish the ''Kingdom of Somalia'', and then not kidnapping an Afar prince and princess to become the new monarchs of this kingdom. This is how modern European Kingdoms bypassed their ancient clans and traditional attitudes towards someone from clan A or B becoming ruler, they simply imported a German prince or princess and everybody from the Mccallisters to the Vasojevićis went to bed with a reassured heart. A strong Kingdom of Somalia supported by all Somalis would have extended its reach over all of the Somali peninsula, and the major money draining wars like the O-gaden War would have never occurred because that territory would be in our possession. In today's reality I'm hoping for a major economic boom and social progression that will render the clan-system obsolete and ingrain the Somali State in the people's mind as the ultimate clan.

Naxar Nugaaleed;806904 wrote: will will never get there, what wth? The Japanese represent one end of the development or advancement of the human being and we represent the other. completely crazy to even compare the two. While I'm absolutely furious and saddened by our current situation, I reject your dismissal of our potential to transform ourselves into an African Japan, indeed there was a period in time when that country was mocked for being pirates, for being raiders, for being riddled with Samurai militia's, for suffering famines, yet they managed to rise above that with lesser resources than us. It's all about momentum and having a nation wide mentality wishing to succeed. History has shown that when Somalis did have a rudimentary national wide conscience to succeed and progress, it resulted in amazing achievements, remember that there was a time when: - Somalia was hailed as one of the greatest democratic countries in Africa in the 1960s, and President Aden Abdulle was the first head of state to step down peacefully in an African election year. - Somalia made the greatest advance in literacy history, outshining the much hailed Cuban literacy campaign. - Somalia maintained a military complex considered in the top five militaries of Africa, a continent of 50+ countries. It send troops to Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and trained the South Africans and the Eritreans during their independence struggles. - Somalia was one of the few self-sufficient countries in Africa, and the breadbasket of the Middle East, and even exported food to Europe. A single Somali crop like 'bananas' was the biggest employer of people in East Africa. - Somalia was the first muslim country to grant equal rights to women through the 1975 Family Law, and the participation of women in the work-force was higher in Somalia than the percentages of Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco put together. - Somalia in peace was building more deepsea ports than any country in East Africa. - Somalia was building more highways and roads than its larger neighbour Ethiopia. Even today Somalia's paved road-network remains larger than the road-networks of Uganda and DR Congo put together whose combined territory size is five times larger than Somalia. Somalia's aviation sector maintained Africa's largest runway at the Berbera Airport, whose record was only broken by the 4500m runway expansion at Mogadishu Airport. - Somalia's 1000 year old city of Mogadishu was one of the cleanest and safest cities in Africa, and a major political and cultural capital hosting fashion shows, sport-events, major political conventions and annually presided over two of the four largest African Film Festivals, and had the region's largest Museum. - Somalia was the only country in Africa with whom the Soviet Union signed a friendship-treaty, and the first African country to be visited by a Soviet Head of State. - Somalia in 1974 became the first non-Arab country to join a traditionally exclusive organisation like the Arab League. - Somalia maintained the largest commercial Merchant fleet in the Muslim world; larger than seafaring nations like Turkey, Pakistan and Morocco. - Somalia's national carrier 'Somali Airlines' was the only national airlines in Africa to have in its work-force exclusively 'African pilots and technicians' (all professional Somalis) and had one of the largest networks flying to the Middle-East, Europe and other parts of Africa. - Somalia was in the process of constructing Africa's second largest Dam (after the Aswan dam) in the form of the Bardera dam project. - Somalia constructed the largest Fish production factory in East Africa, the biggest meat processing factory. The SNAI sugar factory was the largest in the region, and Somaltex manufactured more textiles than any country in Africa, with so much produced that one could stretch it from Mogadishu to New York according to an 1980s journalist. Somalis have what it takes to succeed and flourish, to do record breaking engineering projects and social advancement campaigns! There are plenty of historic examples to support that, some of which I have highlighted above. However political blunders, lack of statemanship, myopia, conventional wars and civil-strife has prevented a continued age of forward development that could have cemented the progress that was made by successive Somali governments and the citizens. I was watching rachel madow today and guess what she said, we are a somalia lol. Pop culture references like that are irrelevant, Somalia is in conflict hence there is no point in getting worked up about that. I remember a decade ago Martin Lawrence was yelling "This place looks like Beirut'' in the first Bad Boys movie in reference to a destroyed mansion, yet Beirut today is the financial/fashion capital of the Middle East, so things can easily be turned around through a strong 'branding' campaign once the situation settles back home. can we work on being like kenya and ethiopia before we go and compare ourselves to places like japan Outside of the disintergrated political and security situation Somalia is economically more advanced and inclusive than the majority of East Africa and has far greater potential, remember that: - Somalia is more urbanised than any of its neighbours outside of the city-state that is Djibouti. - Somalia has more deepsea ports than any of its neighbours and the wider East Africa. - Somalia is the most strategic located country in Africa. - Somalia is no longer a city-state country like Nairobi-Kenya or Addis-Ethiopia, but instead multiple regional centers have emerged that with a bit of urban planning put us in a comfortable situation of spread-out and universal development. - Somalia is more attractive to rising powers like China and Turkey. - Somalia has a sizable population that can be uplifted quite easily with a good economic plan. Ethiopia and Kenya are major disasters waiting to happen with their estimated populations of 100+ million people in the future, which only means more mouths to feed. - Somalia's export earnings from livestock alone are greater than the entire export earnings of Ethiopia, a country of 90 million people that's supposed to be in an 'economic boom', yet earns less than a collapsed country like Somalia. If the agricultural and marine industries of Somalia were to be resuscitated, we would be in the 5 to 10 billion annual export earnings category. - Somalia has more universities in the top 100 of the continent than any country in the Horn of Africa. - Somalia teledensity rate is higher than Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti put together. - Somalia's people are highly entrepreneurial, for example, Somalis have a significant foothold in all of the economies of East Africa that no other country can boast, we are the owners of major real-estate companies, major malls, major banks, major construction companies, major truck companies, major factories, and this we achieved in a age of division and war, imagine if this economic dominance was actually carefully nurtured and patronised by an inclusive and forward thinking Somali government? - Somalia is estimated to have the 20th largest or the 7th largest Oil reserves in the world, a quarter of the Uranium reserves in the world, and an unknown quantity of gas reserves along its Indian Ocean coast. This is something neither Kenya or Ethiopia have, but we do! The ingredients are there; the sizable population, the economic infrastructure assets, the vast natural resources, the strategic location, the diaspora network of funds and skills, the educational institutions, and many more. We just need a progressive crop of men and women to take the helm that will unite our people instead of divide in to weak factions, who initiate sound economic policies that does not interfere with the natural Somali entrepreneurial spirit, who are savvy diplomats that know to work the world in Somalia's advantage. It's not even a monumental task, just a simple case of common sense; you want to succeed in life, then you must learn to compromise and work together!