I don't own the land I took to work. Does that mean working will be banned also?
Some people do pay to literally own parking spots (that cost as much as a mortgage in some places). If these people rented out their parking spots I'm sure the meme would be that they are exploitative capitalists, but I see it as providing a service such that the people who *really* want the spot get it.
The DMV hordes licenses and dangles them over peoples heads. So does the IRS (depending on which party you vote for). So do a lot of government offices.
The government might "own" that right, but they it hasn't done much to earn those things.
Yes, the infrastructure of a board with hands on it and a big glass is different from the infrastructure of servers with virtual sensor systems. I agree, although I have trouble seeing a meaningful difference there. Any time you start talking about meaning it's open to interpretation though, so fair enough.
In terms of the "absense of a bunch of human minds" scenario there is a lot of room for interpretation. I'm not convinced hearing voices and schizophrenia are entirely biological in their root source (of course you can see the brain making adaptations to cope in a way that distinguishes it from a control brain). I'm not just referring to demons here (although I'll reference the passage in Matthew about the young man near the Decapolis who is visited by "Legion"), but when a person (who appears to be a single person) lives with two seperate sets of values / personal economies, he is going to show comparable traits.
"I find the idea that humans alone have some supernatural element to our existence to be rich in conceit and extremely lacking in evidence."
Ha. We are certainly not lacking in those things! From my own observations I see these things in animals. When I saw "March of the Penguins" (it was so-so) you can really see the penguins "strut their stuff" when they walk. They're not just trying to get from point A to point B. They want to be noticed in a certain way. Some of them looked like some of the professors I've worked with in the past.
But I do agree we're different, and this can be argued on a purely empirical basis. Probably the thing that jumps out at me the most is "learned helplessness" which you can wiki if you are interested. Trusting someone who has not meritted it or loving someone who lived wrongly but repented... that never has its origin in the animal world.
Thanks for the discussion. Some interesting questions I haven't dwelt on much...
If there's no "us" against "them" are you saying we all have the same views/beliefs/agenda?
If you're saying "lefty" is a perjorative term, you are implicitly saying liberalism is bad. Even as a conservative I don't want people implicitly saying liberalism is bad because I want them to own their opinions.
Why is it that when a new medical breakthrough happens people ask about how it will affect people in different classes to determine if it is good or bad?
If rich people can start funding space travel, maybe some entrepreneurs can find a way to make space travel affordable for everyone down the line, right?
Earlier when I had said: "Not that I would care for it myself" I wasn't referring to your theory. I meant living inside a server farm. Apologies.
Your virtual perception system would probably work. The challenge would be getting a soul to "alight" upon the system. The "ghost in the machine". If I were a wandering spirit... well, I think that would be a tough sell. As a system architect trying to do some kind of "luring" I would be very afraid of just who exactly would start interacting with the system.
It's hard to think about doing something like that without invoking the occult. What is the qualitative difference between your proposed experiment and an ouija board? Aside from my personal religious resolutions on that matter, I've heard several friends relay stories on that subject I would try commitedly to steer clear of.
I would refer you to the disagreement between Dr. Freud and Jean Paul Sartre. The Freudian school (e.g. Jung, Skinner, all of which have been largely abandoned by their field) claimed life was a matter of consciousness, in effect: sense perceptions. Frankenstein senses a cold bench, rain, etc. and therefore he is alive. He has sense perceptions, feelings, "life".
But then suppose he decides that in his second chance he is going to do everything differently than the way he did it the first time. In that spontaneousness collision of ideal, commitment, an existence is born. What once was a collection of tissues and interacting neurons as a result of the lightning now has something at the helm over it. Agency. Someone. Or, from my religious perspective, a "born again" moment of clarity. "All decisiveness inheres in subjectivity," as the Dane says.
Running a soul on "bare metal" presupposes an ability to adjust the gates. I suppose it is the same paradox of the relation between motor neurons and sense neurons -and how we understand so little about them. So, I suppose your theory is at least in the realm of possibility. Not that I would care for it myself.
My vague observations imply you are sufficiently capable of making observations and crafting your own opinions. More directly, I think you are.
I wasn't merely pointing out that you are a good cultural fit for this board, which in and of itself doesn't bother me. It's that you did so while saying someone else had his head buried in the sand.
As to your other question I think our military is positioned less and less as a check on tyrannies (consider where we are deployed: South Korea, Japan, S China Seas, Russia's border, Iraq) and more as a way of providing political support to whoever is in the White House at the moment (political activies of NASA, NSA, IRS, etc). I agree with the former agenda, but I think the economics should be more of a driver.
For example, Sadam may have been believed to possess WMD's (whether this was a pretext for invasion or not, I do not have much of a guess), but either way Sadam was causing oil prices to go all over the place by bullying non-aggressor nations like Kuwait. Those oil prices affect common people like you and me, and the government has a constitutionally mandated requirement to provide for the common defense. Peace through strength, etc.
Anyway, I expect you'll probably disagree, which is, of course, your prerogative.
There's something that concerns me about a person posting in an echo chamber exactly what the echo chamber wants to hear, and then accuses them of hiding their head somewhere.
In other words, you need to eat what you are serving.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not let the legislature do the legislating?
I didn't vote for anyone in the FCC.
FACT: Facebook spent LESS money to roll out its first version than Healthcare.gov.
Which one was received to be more reliable? More usable?
The problem is not that Healthcare.gov isn't perfect. The problem is that for an extended period of time it didn't do anything at all!
"all the U.S. wars against brown people"
There has never been a war where the US considered all people with brown skin to be enemy combatants.
If you are intending to say certain wars a lot people in our enemies nations had brown skin, you are looking at a problem very superficially.
I don't own the land I took to work. Does that mean working will be banned also?
Some people do pay to literally own parking spots (that cost as much as a mortgage in some places). If these people rented out their parking spots I'm sure the meme would be that they are exploitative capitalists, but I see it as providing a service such that the people who *really* want the spot get it.
The DMV hordes licenses and dangles them over peoples heads. So does the IRS (depending on which party you vote for). So do a lot of government offices.
The government might "own" that right, but they it hasn't done much to earn those things.
"really civilized"
I think you mean really population dense.
How about elected lawmakers make the laws instead of the DOT?
I don't think these guys can forecast climate/astronomy/species origination enough to cut off debate.
Yes, a lot of questions could be raised in such a scenario. I gather there appears to (thankfully) be some check on these scenarios.
Apologies. I meant to say learned helplessness is an animal trait (that some humans settle for), and in this way flesh wars against spirit.
Scares me to see that the guy you responded to got voted up, but your post didn't.
Your observation is clear as day to me.
Yes, the infrastructure of a board with hands on it and a big glass is different from the infrastructure of servers with virtual sensor systems. I agree, although I have trouble seeing a meaningful difference there. Any time you start talking about meaning it's open to interpretation though, so fair enough.
... that never has its origin in the animal world.
...
In terms of the "absense of a bunch of human minds" scenario there is a lot of room for interpretation. I'm not convinced hearing voices and schizophrenia are entirely biological in their root source (of course you can see the brain making adaptations to cope in a way that distinguishes it from a control brain). I'm not just referring to demons here (although I'll reference the passage in Matthew about the young man near the Decapolis who is visited by "Legion"), but when a person (who appears to be a single person) lives with two seperate sets of values / personal economies, he is going to show comparable traits.
"I find the idea that humans alone have some supernatural element to our existence to be rich in conceit and extremely lacking in evidence."
Ha. We are certainly not lacking in those things! From my own observations I see these things in animals. When I saw "March of the Penguins" (it was so-so) you can really see the penguins "strut their stuff" when they walk. They're not just trying to get from point A to point B. They want to be noticed in a certain way. Some of them looked like some of the professors I've worked with in the past.
But I do agree we're different, and this can be argued on a purely empirical basis. Probably the thing that jumps out at me the most is "learned helplessness" which you can wiki if you are interested. Trusting someone who has not meritted it or loving someone who lived wrongly but repented
Thanks for the discussion. Some interesting questions I haven't dwelt on much
I'm not sure what you're saying.
If there's no "us" against "them" are you saying we all have the same views/beliefs/agenda?
If you're saying "lefty" is a perjorative term, you are implicitly saying liberalism is bad. Even as a conservative I don't want people implicitly saying liberalism is bad because I want them to own their opinions.
Why is it that when a new medical breakthrough happens people ask about how it will affect people in different classes to determine if it is good or bad?
If rich people can start funding space travel, maybe some entrepreneurs can find a way to make space travel affordable for everyone down the line, right?
Transparency after it was leaked doesn't count as transparency at all.
And I'm not convinced we've made it that far.
If they are both on the right, why were they both in favor of expanding government?
Why not put the law-making role in the hands of people who have been elected into office?
Earlier when I had said: "Not that I would care for it myself" I wasn't referring to your theory. I meant living inside a server farm. Apologies.
... well, I think that would be a tough sell. As a system architect trying to do some kind of "luring" I would be very afraid of just who exactly would start interacting with the system.
Your virtual perception system would probably work. The challenge would be getting a soul to "alight" upon the system. The "ghost in the machine". If I were a wandering spirit
It's hard to think about doing something like that without invoking the occult. What is the qualitative difference between your proposed experiment and an ouija board? Aside from my personal religious resolutions on that matter, I've heard several friends relay stories on that subject I would try commitedly to steer clear of.
OK. I see what you are claiming better.
I would refer you to the disagreement between Dr. Freud and Jean Paul Sartre. The Freudian school (e.g. Jung, Skinner, all of which have been largely abandoned by their field) claimed life was a matter of consciousness, in effect: sense perceptions. Frankenstein senses a cold bench, rain, etc. and therefore he is alive. He has sense perceptions, feelings, "life".
But then suppose he decides that in his second chance he is going to do everything differently than the way he did it the first time. In that spontaneousness collision of ideal, commitment, an existence is born. What once was a collection of tissues and interacting neurons as a result of the lightning now has something at the helm over it. Agency. Someone. Or, from my religious perspective, a "born again" moment of clarity. "All decisiveness inheres in subjectivity," as the Dane says.
Running a soul on "bare metal" presupposes an ability to adjust the gates. I suppose it is the same paradox of the relation between motor neurons and sense neurons -and how we understand so little about them. So, I suppose your theory is at least in the realm of possibility. Not that I would care for it myself.
The Jedi Order was all about promoting eugenics?
... who were really into the whole eugenics thing.
Kind of like a for-runner of slashdot and Darwin?
Actually, I heard Lucas modeled the empire officers (i.e. the bad guys) after the SS
The real mistake with the first trilogy is the focus on "society" and "cultural interaction" instead of what is going on inside one guy.
Gene Rodenberry was saying something about morality?
As in how fast he wanted to send it out the window?
"what are the odds that some form of consciousness dwells within it?"
Unless you're a complete naturalist, 0%.
But historically, naturalists aren't held up at all by questions of bioethics.
The US took away the death penalty for a number of years in the 70's.
This correlated highly with a major boost in violent murder rates.
My vague observations imply you are sufficiently capable of making observations and crafting your own opinions. More directly, I think you are.
I wasn't merely pointing out that you are a good cultural fit for this board, which in and of itself doesn't bother me. It's that you did so while saying someone else had his head buried in the sand.
As to your other question I think our military is positioned less and less as a check on tyrannies (consider where we are deployed: South Korea, Japan, S China Seas, Russia's border, Iraq) and more as a way of providing political support to whoever is in the White House at the moment (political activies of NASA, NSA, IRS, etc). I agree with the former agenda, but I think the economics should be more of a driver.
For example, Sadam may have been believed to possess WMD's (whether this was a pretext for invasion or not, I do not have much of a guess), but either way Sadam was causing oil prices to go all over the place by bullying non-aggressor nations like Kuwait. Those oil prices affect common people like you and me, and the government has a constitutionally mandated requirement to provide for the common defense. Peace through strength, etc.
Anyway, I expect you'll probably disagree, which is, of course, your prerogative.
There's something that concerns me about a person posting in an echo chamber exactly what the echo chamber wants to hear, and then accuses them of hiding their head somewhere.
In other words, you need to eat what you are serving.