Why do you believe that there must be a religious explanation for a "soul"?
Why do you believe there must not be a religious explanation for a soul?
I don't believe either way. It's not a binary choice, you (should) know.
Ot goes both ways based on current evidence. There is evidence that the soul is a quantum phenomenon that can not be simply created (for varying definitions of simply) and this possibly explains so many things.
Actual evidence? I was under the impression there were only theories, and if I believe anything, it's that scientific evidence proving the existence (or non-existence) of souls should be front-page news. Okay, maybe page two or three, depending on what else happened that day. But major news nonetheless.
I acknowledge its only a possibility and the theory has only a small amount of evidence but you have exactly none to back your statements.
Which statements would those be? I made two. The first was that the previous poster had made a claim that relied on an unsupported assumption; you demanding I provide evidence for someone else's unsubstantiated claim being wrong is a tu quoque fallacy. The second was that it would be no less a major discovery if we found scientific proof that we did have souls (than if we found we didn't); I took it to be self-evident, but feel free to ask a journalist (or priest) their view.
You know what's really weird? That so many people without a PhD in climatology think they need to look at the research to know whether the scientists are right or wrong.
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that efforts to address climate change should focus on engineering methods to adapt to shifting weather patterns and rising sea levels rather than trying to eliminate use of fossil fuels.
Tillerson said humans have long adapted to change, and governments should create policies to cope with the Earth's rising temperatures.
"Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around -- we'll adapt to that. It's an engineering problem and it has engineering solutions," Tillerson said in a presentation to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Why do you believe that consciousness must not emerge from brain activity for there to be a "soul"? Why do you believe that there must be a religious explanation for a "soul"?
Whether or not there actually is a "soul", your provided definition of it doesn't require either of those to be true.
And it would be no less a major discovery if we found that we did have souls. Or that only some of us did. Or that we only got them at a certain age. Or only under certain conditions. Or that we could create them. Or destroy them.
Well, the 13th Amendment of the United States constitution reserves the power to make and keep slaves to the government; combine the latter's oligarchic aspects with the "revolving door" and it's obvious the poor little executives are just confused and forgetting which side of the curtain they're currently on;p.
Heh. All that the "only four other countries exempt" means is that those four countries already have agreements with the US to share stuff their own spies learn.
Me? Spies are going to spy. What matters is the oversight, the checks and balances - or lack thereof.
Look at the Wikipedia entry for Hobson's choice: "The phrase is said to originate with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England. To rotate the use of his horses, he offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or taking none at all."
If it were solely a matter of the risks, the customer obviously also had the choice of stealing a horse. But the desirability of that happening and the likelihood of that working out for the customer is so low that we go ahead and call it a Hobson's choice. Ditto Snowden: the desirability of the remaining alternatives and the likelihood of that working out for him is so low - now that the revocation of his passport has caught up with him and that other countries are demonstrably willing to interfere with even presidential aircraft if they think he's on board - that I'm going to call it in the ballpark. YMMV, and apparently does.
While true that any country can grant asylum regardless of the lack of a passport, the person still needs to be able to reach that country. Thus the second half of my original comment:
(perhaps he could still have got himself smuggled out in a diplomatic bag or some other James Bond shenanigans, but considering the Evo Morales grounding incident, that might not have worked out so well)
Fair enough. I'll amend: By the fact that the revocation of his passport caught up with him while transiting Russia, Snowden's choice went from "which country do I seek asylum in" to "do I seek asylum in Russia or not at all?"
By the fact that his passport was revoked while transiting Russia, Snowden's choice went from "which country do I seek asylum in" to "do I seek asylum in Russia or not at all?"
(perhaps he could still have got himself smuggled out in a diplomatic bag or some other James Bond shenanigans, but considering the Evo Morales grounding incident, that might not have worked out so well)
The whole premise of "don't talk to the cops" is one of risk management. Don't be confrontational, don't try to outwit them in an argument, don't show off how smart (you think) you are, etc. Be nice, be meek, be quiet. You lose nothing if the cop is a good cop and you reduce the risk of losing everything if the cop is a bad cop. Leave the lion-handling to the experts, i.e. your laywer, who isn't you, who can say things you can't, and who hopefully has many years of experience in knowing how to negotiate with the police.
Obviously (well, hopefully) your kid running away or your house getting burgled are situations where "call the cops" trumps "don't talk to the cops". YMMV.
I've a couple of friends who are cops. It's not (generally) that dangerous physically, compared to some jobs, but it is dangerous mentally - a few years of being a cop and the world starts getting divided into "perp", "vic", "witness", "suspect", etc. And it starts creeping into their social life. It's a monochrome perspective that no amount of increased pay can solve, and I'm very much in favor of giving cops generous leave entitlements instead - indeed, mandating an amount of leave every so often - as much for society's benefit as their own.
Your linked table shows an extremely strong correlation between income and SAT test performance _regardless of race_, so it fails to disprove the GP's hypothesis that "in achieving and maintaining qualification and motivation"... "basic nutrition, healthcare, education, credit, role-models and many other factors and their interplay might be a factor".... did you mean to show something else, perhaps?
He's not arguing they didn't have a warrant, he's arguing they didn't have the "probable cause" you bolded and they performed the "unreasonable searches and seizures" you didn't bold: in other words, that they didn't follow due process to obtain the warrant they used against him.
Those whistleblower channels? He did know about them - and what had happened to those who tried to utilize them (Drake, Binney, et al). Don't sit back and wait for "reports" to be handed to you, do your own research (unless you enjoy the smell of soap-scented paper).
As for the GP's suggestion that he should just suck it up and serve some prison time - what? Really, what? The US government tortured Manning with solitary for almost a year - before Manning was even convicted - and Manning had less on their dirty laundry compared to Snowden:
The detention conditions prompted national and international concern. Juan E. Mendez, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, published a report saying the detention conditions had been "cruel, inhuman and degrading."[100] In January 2011 Amnesty International asked the British government to intervene because of Manning's status as a British citizen by descent, although Manning's lawyer said Manning did not regard herself as a British citizen.[101] The controversy claimed a casualty in March that year when State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley criticized Manning's treatment and resigned two days later.[102] In early April, 295 academics (most of them American legal scholars) signed a letter arguing that the treatment was a violation of the United States Constitution.
When constitutional violations are known to be institutional, when the known reactions of your government are to persecute those who follow channels and torture those who don't, what would you do?
I read your post, and it's moot because he wouldn't _get_ the fair trial you say you want him to have. That was the whole point of Ellsberg's statement: a fair trial requires fair laws, which don't currently exist.
No type of glass that we have access to could ever stand up to long term road wear.
No type of asphalt, bitumen or concrete that I've ever seen used stands up to long term road wear either - although you and I might not be using the same definitions of "stands up to" and "long term".
It's just not possible with today's tech. I really think that this is a grant scam
Are you making this claim as a materials scientist or engineer with glass as an area of expertise?
This is a testable hypothesis, and there is no evidence whatsoever that it is true. If (bad parents + games) is worse that (bad parents without games) then the games themselves would be negatively correlated with morality (unless the games somehow cause parents to be better). Yet they aren't.
Hey. I did NOT suggest that hypothesis, that (bad parents + games) are worse than (bad parents without games). What part of "that don't provide a moral framework" did you miss following the word "games", and what part of "providing a moral frame work" did you miss following the word "parenting", in my post?
You might as well have suggested a claim that I go flying on weekends is stupid, on account of it being impossible to flap my hands fast enough, because you ignored the claim specifically stating that I possess a pilot's license and own an aircraft. As for your own claim, is there any evidence whatsoever that it is NOT true either? Has your hypothesis actually been tested (and to be flippant, how did you get it past the ethics committee)?
If the only moral framework someone bothers to provide to their child is a bunch of activities that reward violent behaviour, I'm not going to be particularly optimistic about the outcome.
I would be far more concerned about people basing their opinions on wild conjecture rather than actual data. As video games have become more popular, crime, and violent crime in particular, has fallen dramatically.
Me too. After all, I'd no more blindly accept the proposal that video games (compared to other recreational activities) reduce crime than I would that they increase it. Even if it did waggle its brows suggestively, correlation is still not causation.
Er, what? Re-read the post you replied to - they're not saying games cause immoral behaviour, they're saying games (that don't provide a moral framework) _used as a substitute for proper parenting_ (providing a moral framework) cause immoral behaviour.
Most children internalise the morality of their social environment. Raised by X? More likely to identify with and share traits of X. Doesn't matter whether X is pacifists or militants, theists or atheists, etc. If the only moral framework someone bothers to provide to their child is a bunch of activities that reward violent behaviour, I'm not going to be particularly optimistic about the outcome.
Given the stakes that would be required to just get to the point where you're making that argument in front of a federal judge, I'd hope that judge would have more intelligence than to respond in the manner you suggest.
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) included the Third in its majority decision as implying a belief that a home should be free from agents of the state, so precedent does exist. And in this modern age where agents of the state can be "present" in your homes 24/7 via electronic means, what exactly does "quartered" now encompass?
That depends. Do your child-killler robots wait to start shooting until they've reached my country? You didn't teach them morals, after all, and your country's children might grow up to be rebels....
So while your amoral robots are shooting children (in whichever country), my moral robots are shooting your amoral robots. Meanwhile, your populace - along with the rest of the world - is turning against you due to my widely distributing the HD videos my robots took of your atrocities.
Unless of course your amoral robots have already gone Skynet, exterminated you and yours, and the rest of the world is now desperately trying to prevent the same thing happening to them.
Country A makes robots with morals, Country B makes robots without morals - all else being equal the robots without morals would win.
Except, will all else be equal? What are morals, from a robotic point of view? Higher-order thinking? Greater awareness of consequences? Whatever way you slice it, robots with morals by definition will need to be smarter than robots without morals - and that intelligence may well be applicable to the art of war.
I'm reminded of the Bolos, fictional military AIs which developed sentience and morals due to the simple military necessity of having to keep making them smarter - not only to effectively counter the increasingly advanced weapon technologies the enemy deployed, but also to prevent them going rogue or being subverted by the enemy.
A key factor in Bolo psychotronic design is the need to address public and military concern over the potential catastrophe which could be unleashed in the event of a Bolo disobeying orders or being suborned. To mitigate this, a number of safeguards were included in the psychotronic design - specifically a focus on loyalty, honour and a strong sense of duty, as well as a restriction on the level of awareness and processing power made available to the Bolo outside of combat.
The problem isn't intelligence gathering, it's how it's being done: illegally.
Spy breaks the law, to make his job (life) easier (at least in the short term). The spies who know about it, make the mistake of letting it slide. People being people, start losing respect for all spies when they find out. With more spies feeling no respect, the rules start breaking down. Loop.
Spies, police, any other grouping of humans you like, it works exactly the same.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't believe either way. It's not a binary choice, you (should) know.
Actual evidence? I was under the impression there were only theories, and if I believe anything, it's that scientific evidence proving the existence (or non-existence) of souls should be front-page news. Okay, maybe page two or three, depending on what else happened that day. But major news nonetheless.
Which statements would those be? I made two. The first was that the previous poster had made a claim that relied on an unsupported assumption; you demanding I provide evidence for someone else's unsubstantiated claim being wrong is a tu quoque fallacy. The second was that it would be no less a major discovery if we found scientific proof that we did have souls (than if we found we didn't); I took it to be self-evident, but feel free to ask a journalist (or priest) their view.
You know what's really weird? That so many people without a PhD in climatology think they need to look at the research to know whether the scientists are right or wrong.
http://in.reuters.com/article/...
It's so much easier to just follow the money.
Why do you believe that consciousness must not emerge from brain activity for there to be a "soul"?
Why do you believe that there must be a religious explanation for a "soul"?
Whether or not there actually is a "soul", your provided definition of it doesn't require either of those to be true.
And it would be no less a major discovery if we found that we did have souls. Or that only some of us did. Or that we only got them at a certain age. Or only under certain conditions. Or that we could create them. Or destroy them.
Well, the 13th Amendment of the United States constitution reserves the power to make and keep slaves to the government; combine the latter's oligarchic aspects with the "revolving door" and it's obvious the poor little executives are just confused and forgetting which side of the curtain they're currently on ;p.
Yes, exactly my point.
Heh. All that the "only four other countries exempt" means is that those four countries already have agreements with the US to share stuff their own spies learn.
Me? Spies are going to spy. What matters is the oversight, the checks and balances - or lack thereof.
Oh, it's a matter of the risks?
Look at the Wikipedia entry for Hobson's choice: "The phrase is said to originate with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England. To rotate the use of his horses, he offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or taking none at all."
If it were solely a matter of the risks, the customer obviously also had the choice of stealing a horse. But the desirability of that happening and the likelihood of that working out for the customer is so low that we go ahead and call it a Hobson's choice. Ditto Snowden: the desirability of the remaining alternatives and the likelihood of that working out for him is so low - now that the revocation of his passport has caught up with him and that other countries are demonstrably willing to interfere with even presidential aircraft if they think he's on board - that I'm going to call it in the ballpark. YMMV, and apparently does.
While true that any country can grant asylum regardless of the lack of a passport, the person still needs to be able to reach that country. Thus the second half of my original comment:
Fair enough. I'll amend: By the fact that the revocation of his passport caught up with him while transiting Russia, Snowden's choice went from "which country do I seek asylum in" to "do I seek asylum in Russia or not at all?"
See Hobson's Choice.
By the fact that his passport was revoked while transiting Russia, Snowden's choice went from "which country do I seek asylum in" to "do I seek asylum in Russia or not at all?"
(perhaps he could still have got himself smuggled out in a diplomatic bag or some other James Bond shenanigans, but considering the Evo Morales grounding incident, that might not have worked out so well)
Ah yes, "customer rights", we have dismissed that claim.
The whole premise of "don't talk to the cops" is one of risk management. Don't be confrontational, don't try to outwit them in an argument, don't show off how smart (you think) you are, etc. Be nice, be meek, be quiet. You lose nothing if the cop is a good cop and you reduce the risk of losing everything if the cop is a bad cop. Leave the lion-handling to the experts, i.e. your laywer, who isn't you, who can say things you can't, and who hopefully has many years of experience in knowing how to negotiate with the police.
Obviously (well, hopefully) your kid running away or your house getting burgled are situations where "call the cops" trumps "don't talk to the cops". YMMV.
I've a couple of friends who are cops. It's not (generally) that dangerous physically, compared to some jobs, but it is dangerous mentally - a few years of being a cop and the world starts getting divided into "perp", "vic", "witness", "suspect", etc. And it starts creeping into their social life. It's a monochrome perspective that no amount of increased pay can solve, and I'm very much in favor of giving cops generous leave entitlements instead - indeed, mandating an amount of leave every so often - as much for society's benefit as their own.
That sounds like a scenario in which you better make extremely sure of your UPS arrangements.
"Mwuahahaha! Now my criminal empire is secured against all possible government interference!"
*gets jostled by minion, drops IC, watches in horror as the little battery powering it springs loose and bounces across the floor*
"FFFFFFFFFU-"
Your linked table shows an extremely strong correlation between income and SAT test performance _regardless of race_, so it fails to disprove the GP's hypothesis that "in achieving and maintaining qualification and motivation" ... "basic nutrition, healthcare, education, credit, role-models and many other factors and their interplay might be a factor". ... did you mean to show something else, perhaps?
He's not arguing they didn't have a warrant, he's arguing they didn't have the "probable cause" you bolded and they performed the "unreasonable searches and seizures" you didn't bold: in other words, that they didn't follow due process to obtain the warrant they used against him.
Australia?
Those whistleblower channels? He did know about them - and what had happened to those who tried to utilize them (Drake, Binney, et al). Don't sit back and wait for "reports" to be handed to you, do your own research (unless you enjoy the smell of soap-scented paper).
As for the GP's suggestion that he should just suck it up and serve some prison time - what? Really, what? The US government tortured Manning with solitary for almost a year - before Manning was even convicted - and Manning had less on their dirty laundry compared to Snowden:
When constitutional violations are known to be institutional, when the known reactions of your government are to persecute those who follow channels and torture those who don't, what would you do?
I read your post, and it's moot because he wouldn't _get_ the fair trial you say you want him to have. That was the whole point of Ellsberg's statement: a fair trial requires fair laws, which don't currently exist.
No type of asphalt, bitumen or concrete that I've ever seen used stands up to long term road wear either - although you and I might not be using the same definitions of "stands up to" and "long term".
Are you making this claim as a materials scientist or engineer with glass as an area of expertise?
Hey. I did NOT suggest that hypothesis, that (bad parents + games) are worse than (bad parents without games). What part of "that don't provide a moral framework" did you miss following the word "games", and what part of "providing a moral frame work" did you miss following the word "parenting", in my post?
You might as well have suggested a claim that I go flying on weekends is stupid, on account of it being impossible to flap my hands fast enough, because you ignored the claim specifically stating that I possess a pilot's license and own an aircraft. As for your own claim, is there any evidence whatsoever that it is NOT true either? Has your hypothesis actually been tested (and to be flippant, how did you get it past the ethics committee)?
Me too. After all, I'd no more blindly accept the proposal that video games (compared to other recreational activities) reduce crime than I would that they increase it. Even if it did waggle its brows suggestively, correlation is still not causation.
Er, what? Re-read the post you replied to - they're not saying games cause immoral behaviour, they're saying games (that don't provide a moral framework) _used as a substitute for proper parenting_ (providing a moral framework) cause immoral behaviour.
Most children internalise the morality of their social environment. Raised by X? More likely to identify with and share traits of X. Doesn't matter whether X is pacifists or militants, theists or atheists, etc. If the only moral framework someone bothers to provide to their child is a bunch of activities that reward violent behaviour, I'm not going to be particularly optimistic about the outcome.
Given the stakes that would be required to just get to the point where you're making that argument in front of a federal judge, I'd hope that judge would have more intelligence than to respond in the manner you suggest.
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) included the Third in its majority decision as implying a belief that a home should be free from agents of the state, so precedent does exist. And in this modern age where agents of the state can be "present" in your homes 24/7 via electronic means, what exactly does "quartered" now encompass?
That depends. Do your child-killler robots wait to start shooting until they've reached my country? You didn't teach them morals, after all, and your country's children might grow up to be rebels....
So while your amoral robots are shooting children (in whichever country), my moral robots are shooting your amoral robots. Meanwhile, your populace - along with the rest of the world - is turning against you due to my widely distributing the HD videos my robots took of your atrocities.
Unless of course your amoral robots have already gone Skynet, exterminated you and yours, and the rest of the world is now desperately trying to prevent the same thing happening to them.
Country A makes robots with morals, Country B makes robots without morals - all else being equal the robots without morals would win.
Except, will all else be equal? What are morals, from a robotic point of view? Higher-order thinking? Greater awareness of consequences? Whatever way you slice it, robots with morals by definition will need to be smarter than robots without morals - and that intelligence may well be applicable to the art of war.
I'm reminded of the Bolos, fictional military AIs which developed sentience and morals due to the simple military necessity of having to keep making them smarter - not only to effectively counter the increasingly advanced weapon technologies the enemy deployed, but also to prevent them going rogue or being subverted by the enemy.
The problem isn't intelligence gathering, it's how it's being done: illegally.
Spy breaks the law, to make his job (life) easier (at least in the short term).
The spies who know about it, make the mistake of letting it slide.
People being people, start losing respect for all spies when they find out.
With more spies feeling no respect, the rules start breaking down.
Loop.
Spies, police, any other grouping of humans you like, it works exactly the same.