The distinction between B and C is Ockham's razor. If there is an element to choice that is outside causality, then it falls upon you to demonstrate existence, as well as its mechanisms for initiating cause without being caused.
Another demonstration of B would be, of course, the design of an equally-complex model of the brain that demonstrated the same complexity of behaviour - for example, a software simulation. In small scales, these exist, although nowhere near human complexity. Yet.
Another old trick is waiting until a thread is effectively past human ken before putting your follow up to it.
I stand by my name calling, as it actually reflects my experience with sophomore-year philosophy majors.
You accepted my "inferior argument," oddly enough.
If you want an exhaustive determinism that is reflected in the language about responsibility, then you end up in a position where the discourse about responsibility is one of the determining elements in human action, and that the determined analysis of the course of human events, filtered through human cognition, creates consequences for certain behaviors. The (determined) choice to create a minimal number of negative consequences is, essentially, the democratic instinct.
I do not believe that human behavior is at the same level of determination as a boulder crashing down a hill, but the activation of a neuron is.
The "indeterminate determinism" is the fact of the practical impossibility of determining all variables - I'm not talking about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, I'm talking about the fact that determining the total state of the brain (a dynamic system) is comparable to determining the state of the world.
If you choose to follow up on this conversation, have the courtesy to send an email.
OK, I don't believe that the above is the case; you can be a determinist or a non-determinist, you can be of any political bent, and neither fact determines the other. (In fact, if you're a determinist and a capitalist, you could say that you had no choice but to be a capitalist, just like we have no choice but to say the things we are saying, but I think that's a ridiculous way of looking at it.)
To say that determinism removes responsibility is a sophomore-year-of-philosophy take on determinism. Essentially, it is the claim that if a man is about to get hit by a car, it's alright to shoot him. I don't buy that claim.
Besides, there's an indeterminate determinism, too.
Yes, I would describe the Czech Republic, East Germany and Poland as exceptions to my claim, especially insofar as they were essentially given satellite governments by the USSR. Also, Russia did enjoy a liberal democracy for a couple years before the October Revolution, but not really enough to create democratic institutions.
"The law, in all its equanimity, prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping in public parks and under bridges." Although if you're rich enough, your lawyer can probably get you out.
If people are going to hold Marxism accountable for the undemocratic aspects of Stalinism and Maoism, I think it only fair to add that this Glorious Jeffersonian Democracy flourished in its first century with the help of a little institution called slavery, under which auspices millions were killed, and millions more lived and died without freedom. And that women were without the basic rights of the constitution until the early part of this century, and that racism thrived in the laws of the land until less than 35 years ago.
Here's another thing to consider: in each country in which some sort of communism was attempted, there never was a real democratic tradition to begin with, and in many cases the communist regime was the fairest and most humane that those lands had ever known.
I don't know if you're still following this thread, but I could be interested; please email me.
It occurs to me that other aspects of "World Domination" include training end-users to work in Free Software environments. Perhaps that would be a good project to coordinate - developing GNU training materials and courseware.
I think that the essence of the complaint against O'Reilly isn't about all his books. It's about the core documentation for a Free Software project, specifically Perl. rms' stance is that the core documentation for free software should also be free (in the same way.) Selling tutorials, cookbooks, and learn-in-24-minutes books under more restrictive models would still be acceptable.
It's not that someone who is over 50 can't learn new technology if they already think technologically; they definitely can. A COBOL programmer can learn C at 50, no problem. However, it is much more difficult to cross disciplines as one gets older. A 30 year-old graphic designer can learn java programming, from a point of not knowing anything about computers, in the space of a year or less; it's very, very rare to find older brains capable of that sort of plasticity.
Jon Katz is a media guy, a word-person, who never had any real motivation to participate in technical disciplines. Things that seem painfully obvious to us - the nature of long-term storage vs. active memory, for example - are difficult ideas to grasp in minds that already have a rich and rather intractable metaphoric vocabulary. At 50+, he is much less likely to be able to suddenly immerse himself in a completely different cognitive landscape.
The movie was "Happiness." Sympathetic is probably not the best term for the portrayal; more like human-scale pathos and pathology, something a bit more complicated and authentic than the typical opaque villainization. It absolutely definitely was neither a defense of nor an apology for pedophilia.
Enlightenment is very pretty. It is nicely configurable.
However, it is not good interface per se. A good interface explains itself to the user and uses visual cues to transmit information quickly and accurately. It has nothing to do with glitz. It gives you maximum information return for the time and cognitve-work investment of interacting with it.
The truth is that he doesn't "trade-trade"; he accumulates property (such as money) on a "it's mine, I keep *or do what I want with it*" basis, yet if I buy software as it is currently sold, I don't have the same sort of rights.
One of the ironies of a laissez-faireist defense of IP is that IP violates most of the rules of property actually used to defend LF.
I have becoming frustrated with plutocratic first-world geeks who have absolutely no clue nor care for the effects of their gimme-gimme attitude on the rest of the planet. Every so often, history convulses, and a good chunk of the 98% merrily starts shooting that 2% you envy and justify so gleefully. I think such a convulsion is impending. I can't say that I'll weep for those that are shot.
If you happen to already have enough wealth. If you happen to live in the first world. If you aren't part of the bottom 60% of the population of the world that can never really gain entry into that class.
Your answer is not unlike that of the Inquisitors who told the jews they were torturing that all they had to do was become baptized.
Somehow, online culture absorded a pseudo-Darwinian blame-the-victim attitude which insists that you have to develop a thick skin and endure any flames and abuse that get hurled at you, or you should just "get out of the kitchen." Too many Internet for Dummies books have communicated the myth that "anything goes" and that you shouldn't expect courtesy or consideration online.
That myth is one of the most insidious pervasive pieces of hokum that has ever infected human discourse. It has to be challenged. People ALWAYS deserve courtesy, verbal abuse is wrong, and one shouldn't need a skin of asbestos to provide services to the people around them. That's true in the private sector (I don't think that a Gap retail clerk deserves or should be expected to endure irrational rage, although increasingly our society says s/he should endure customer hysteria), it should be especially true for people providing a free service.
Slashdot Mirror
The distinction between B and C is Ockham's razor. If there is an element to choice that is outside causality, then it falls upon you to demonstrate existence, as well as its mechanisms for initiating cause without being caused.
Another demonstration of B would be, of course, the design of an equally-complex model of the brain that demonstrated the same complexity of behaviour - for example, a software simulation. In small scales, these exist, although nowhere near human complexity. Yet.
Another old trick is waiting until a thread is effectively past human ken before putting your follow up to it.
I stand by my name calling, as it actually reflects my experience with sophomore-year philosophy majors.
You accepted my "inferior argument," oddly enough.
If you want an exhaustive determinism that is reflected in the language about responsibility, then you end up in a position where the discourse about responsibility is one of the determining elements in human action, and that the determined analysis of the course of human events, filtered through human cognition, creates consequences for certain behaviors. The (determined) choice to create a minimal number of negative consequences is, essentially, the democratic instinct.
I do not believe that human behavior is at the same level of determination as a boulder crashing down a hill, but the activation of a neuron is.
The "indeterminate determinism" is the fact of the practical impossibility of determining all variables - I'm not talking about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, I'm talking about the fact that determining the total state of the brain (a dynamic system) is comparable to determining the state of the world.
If you choose to follow up on this conversation, have the courtesy to send an email.
Heaven:
The Germans are mechanics, the English are bankers, the French are cooks, and the Italians are lovers.
Hell:
The French are mechanics, the Italians are bankers, the English are cooks, and the Germans are lovers.
OK, I don't believe that the above is the case; you can be a determinist or a non-determinist, you can be of any political bent, and neither fact determines the other. (In fact, if you're a determinist and a capitalist, you could say that you had no choice but to be a capitalist, just like we have no choice but to say the things we are saying, but I think that's a ridiculous way of looking at it.)
To say that determinism removes responsibility is a sophomore-year-of-philosophy take on determinism. Essentially, it is the claim that if a man is about to get hit by a car, it's alright to shoot him. I don't buy that claim.
Besides, there's an indeterminate determinism, too.
Yes, I would describe the Czech Republic, East Germany and Poland as exceptions to my claim, especially insofar as they were essentially given satellite governments by the USSR. Also, Russia did enjoy a liberal democracy for a couple years before the October Revolution, but not really enough to create democratic institutions.
"The law, in all its equanimity, prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping in public parks and under bridges." Although if you're rich enough, your lawyer can probably get you out.
If people are going to hold Marxism accountable for the undemocratic aspects of Stalinism and Maoism, I think it only fair to add that this Glorious Jeffersonian Democracy flourished in its first century with the help of a little institution called slavery, under which auspices millions were killed, and millions more lived and died without freedom. And that women were without the basic rights of the constitution until the early part of this century, and that racism thrived in the laws of the land until less than 35 years ago.
Here's another thing to consider: in each country in which some sort of communism was attempted, there never was a real democratic tradition to begin with, and in many cases the communist regime was the fairest and most humane that those lands had ever known.
Talk to any Afghani women lately?
I don't know if you're still following this thread, but I could be interested; please email me.
It occurs to me that other aspects of "World Domination" include training end-users to work in Free Software environments. Perhaps that would be a good project to coordinate - developing GNU training materials and courseware.
I think that the essence of the complaint against O'Reilly isn't about all his books. It's about the core documentation for a Free Software project, specifically Perl. rms' stance is that the core documentation for free software should also be free (in the same way.) Selling tutorials, cookbooks, and learn-in-24-minutes books under more restrictive models would still be acceptable.
It's not that someone who is over 50 can't learn new technology if they already think technologically; they definitely can. A COBOL programmer can learn C at 50, no problem. However, it is much more difficult to cross disciplines as one gets older. A 30 year-old graphic designer can learn java programming, from a point of not knowing anything about computers, in the space of a year or less; it's very, very rare to find older brains capable of that sort of plasticity.
Jon Katz is a media guy, a word-person, who never had any real motivation to participate in technical disciplines. Things that seem painfully obvious to us - the nature of long-term storage vs. active memory, for example - are difficult ideas to grasp in minds that already have a rich and rather intractable metaphoric vocabulary. At 50+, he is much less likely to be able to suddenly immerse himself in a completely different cognitive landscape.
The movie was "Happiness." Sympathetic is probably not the best term for the portrayal; more like human-scale pathos and pathology, something a bit more complicated and authentic than the typical opaque villainization. It absolutely definitely was neither a defense of nor an apology for pedophilia.
Enlightenment is very pretty. It is nicely configurable.
However, it is not good interface per se. A good interface explains itself to the user and uses visual cues to transmit information quickly and accurately. It has nothing to do with glitz. It gives you maximum information return for the time and cognitve-work investment of interacting with it.
The truth is that he doesn't "trade-trade"; he accumulates property (such as money) on a "it's mine, I keep *or do what I want with it*" basis, yet if I buy software as it is currently sold, I don't have the same sort of rights.
One of the ironies of a laissez-faireist defense of IP is that IP violates most of the rules of property actually used to defend LF.
A ridiculous response.
I have becoming frustrated with plutocratic first-world geeks who have absolutely no clue nor care for the effects of their gimme-gimme attitude on the rest of the planet. Every so often, history convulses, and a good chunk of the 98% merrily starts shooting that 2% you envy and justify so gleefully. I think such a convulsion is impending. I can't say that I'll weep for those that are shot.
If you happen to already have enough wealth. If you happen to live in the first world. If you aren't part of the bottom 60% of the population of the world that can never really gain entry into that class.
Your answer is not unlike that of the Inquisitors who told the jews they were torturing that all they had to do was become baptized.
Somehow, online culture absorded a pseudo-Darwinian blame-the-victim attitude which insists that you have to develop a thick skin and endure any flames and abuse that get hurled at you, or you should just "get out of the kitchen." Too many Internet for Dummies books have communicated the myth that "anything goes" and that you shouldn't expect courtesy or consideration online.
That myth is one of the most insidious pervasive pieces of hokum that has ever infected human discourse. It has to be challenged. People ALWAYS deserve courtesy, verbal abuse is wrong, and one shouldn't need a skin of asbestos to provide services to the people around them. That's true in the private sector (I don't think that a Gap retail clerk deserves or should be expected to endure irrational rage, although increasingly our society says s/he should endure customer hysteria), it should be especially true for people providing a free service.