If consciousness is physical and if we are conscious then anything that is physically identical to us is conscious and anything that isn’t conscious is physically different. — Michael

There are two different senses of consciousness. One is functional consciousness, such as the ability to sense and react to stimulus. The p-zombie has this kind of consciousness. What it lacks is phenomenal consciousness. There is no experience that accompanies its interactions.

If I want to make the argument that phenomenal consciousness is fully addressed by an explanation of functional consciousness, my argument is vulnerable to the p-zombie argument. Since it's conceivable that a person could have the functions without the phenomenal, I have the burden of proving that functionality explains phenomenality. That would require that I have a working theory of consciousness, which doesn't exist at this time.

The outcome is that the "hardness" of the hard problem is affirmed. You could cast it as a threat to physicalism, but if we more fully understand phenomenal consciousness, we'll probably just add that to the realm of the physical. That's what's happened with other discoveries that upended previous conceptions of physicality. So the p-zombie argument just ends up saying that there's a giant gap in our understanding.

Yes, he 100% is. He requires me to be defective, if not immoral, to hold my position. That is absolutely a judgement on right and wrong, moral or immoral. And by his lights, its inarguable. Ha...ha? — AmadeusD

Some people just need to scream abusively at someone else. It doesn't really matter why. I guess that could be analyzed out as having to do with self-righteousness, but it's more likely that they received that kind of abuse in childhood and it's now cycling. The drama is hidden. All you see is the screaming.

Is that your favorite card to play?

And it's navigating the world and doing its job effectively, and it's doing all this without knowing anything??? How does that work, exactly? — RogueAI

It depends on how you want to define knowledge. If it's just a matter of having access to justification for an assertion, or being able to demonstrate some proficiency, then a p-zombie can have knowledge. If you want knowledge to have some extra phenomenal aspect, then obviously p-zombies wouldn't have it.

He's being more overtly fascist than he was the first time around. He knows he'll take Florida no matter what he says about Latinos. People are stupid.

However, what would something metaphysically impossible but logically possible be? — Lionino

I don't think there is anything. They're basically the same thing.

Not a niqab, predecessor to the Covid mask? — Merkwurdichliebe

You see? It's all one global culture.

Getting ornery there, that is a typical veiled antisemitic response that I wouldn't expect from you. Easy big feller. — Merkwurdichliebe

You know me, they guy with the swastika tattooed on my forehead. I usually wear a veil.

You're handing me a bucket of bullshit to sort through. No thanks.

The real question is: which part does not represent everything that is condemned by Western standards? — Merkwurdichliebe

Westerners attack shit all the time. In fact, it's just something humans do.

Just showing how the values of Hamas differ from the values of Israel, and that the values of Israel fall closer in line with Western Liberal values than the values of Hamas do. How in the everfucking love could you disagree with that? — Merkwurdichliebe

Which part of Hamas' attack represents something Westerners never do?

It is a living example of non-Western values clashing with Western values. — Merkwurdichliebe

What the everloving fuck are you talking about?

I do wish to clarify that I don't think Westerners are more intelligent than non-Westerners, but I limit my comments to Western values in the sense I do in fact hold them superior to others, but not superior to all. — Hanover

The Israel/Hamas conflict is not west vs non-west.

That has always seemed a more reasonable approach to me, so fair enough lol. — AmadeusD

:up:

and yet do not feel any real moral reason to take massive, global action. — AmadeusD

It's a moot point. China is presently in the process of building about 50 coal burning power plants, so there really isn't any global action to take. Most interested parties have moved on to considering the challenges of adaptation.

I'm saying we back Israel because they have the right to defend their land that was invaded and we need not be so foolish to think that the outcome of this war won't have greater implications for all involved, which includes who gets to control the area politically. — Hanover

Israel has a right to defend their land. That's a given.

The second part of your statement reads as a thinly veiled condemnation of Islam. This is why I say that:

It just isn't in the realm of possibility that Hamas/Gaza could take over or govern Israel. It would have to be their Iranian backers who would take over. The whole middle east would fall apart in the wake of a nuclear attack by Israel before that could happen. I'm not really sure who would go in and try to establish stability in the region after that, but both Israel and Iran would basically be gone at this point.

In other words, you aren't addressing anything real when you conjure Hamas taking over Israel. It looks like you're just expressing your sentiments about Islam? I say Islam, because Hamas isn't a fully fledged culture. It's an organization that is a side effect of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.

In other words, what you're saying just sounds like bigotry.

The basis for the war is that Israel was invaded by a group of people who were morally inferior to it and the consequences of not protecting itself goes beyond just A now occupying where B used to be. The consequences are that A being in B's place will have far more significant consequences that have to be considered when one is thinking about who to back in this war. — Hanover

So you're saying that we should back Israel, not only because Israel needs to defend itself, but because the Israeli way of life is superior to the Hamas/Palestinian way of life, and if the latter is allowed to take over Israel, Israel would be a worse place. Is that what you're saying?

What's hard to believe is that you don't think you can say it out loud that your society is better than others. — Hanover

We could take a deep dive into this question, but can you see how bringing this up in a thread about a Israel and Gaza makes it sound like you think Israel's attack is justified based on Israel's moral superiority? Do you really believe that?

I think that means we probably need to bomb the hell out of Montreal.

Where else have two former allies turned to be in the Axis-of-evil after revolutions? Where has the US fought it's longest wars post-1945? And where even today the US military is basically still fighting a low intensity war and is under attack?

In Europe?
In Asia?
In Latin America? — ssu

So now it's a trainwreck because of extended involvement in the region most of the US's oil comes from? I give up.

I would rather have the U.S. run the show than China, wouldn't you? — RogueAI

I don't care.

But if your view is that there are good guys and bad guys and that's that, I cannot help you. — ssu

No, I thought you were saying American foreign policy is a trainwreck because the US is in decline in terms of global politics. That would amount to saying that the US should be globally influential. I guess I just misunderstood your point, but I still don't understand what you're trying to say.

I mean, the US is in decline. No political analyst disagrees with that. The US has a strong isolationist streak. No historian disagrees with that. Those two facts together add up to: the US isn't going to be the lone superpower going forward.

Ok. I don't really understand what you're saying at all. I did try, though. :smile:

So first, there's commitment. If you want to be a Superpower, then you have to be one. If you don't want to be a Superpower, well, the US president will be listened to as much as the comments of the Canadian Prime Minister is. — ssu

I think we have directly opposing viewpoints on what's best for the world. You think it's best for the US to be a global leader. I think it's best for the world to recognize the US as a heavily armed psychopath. In short, the difference between us is that you think the US is the good guys. I'm pretty sure they aren't.

You've got me wondering how many other non-Americans see things the way you do. Is it common?

I don't look at 'internal discourse' as an excess of an activity. — Paine

I don't either. I just don't have it all the time. It's not a judgement, it's just the way my consciousness is. I wasn't aware of it until I met someone who had an internal voice all the time. It's through contrast that things come into awareness.

You think having troops in a country that has it's Parliament asking you to leave shows great diplomacy, fine foreign policy? — ssu

I was looking for a more objective analysis. What American foreign policy would not have resulted in a trainwreck? But to answer your question, I think the fact that there is an Iraqi parliament that is able to ask US forces to evacuate is fucking brilliant. That's the optimum outcome to an invasion: the existence of a body that represents the people. I have no idea what you were looking for.

Foreign policy decisions matter — ssu

American foreign policy decisions do, yes. The primary aim of those decisions is to serve the interests of the American people. Does the US government always get that right? No, they really don't.

Not having peace and not having cordial if not friendly relations isn't a show of success — ssu

I think it mainly indicates that the US government doesn't have a magic wand.

think they are either confused by the unwarranted emphasis on sub-monologue to the exclusion of sub-dialogue (far more typical in my own case at least) or they are reacting consciously or otherwise to the unwarranted inference of actual internal speech. — bongo fury

Everybody seems to think we're all the same. It's really hard to grasp that we aren't.

There are people who don't use language to think by themselves? — Paine

I think there's a spectrum. NOS seems to be so far on the side of not thinking in words that he doesn't quite understand what's going on with people who have it. He's mystified.

I'm more in the middle of the spectrum because I can do it at will, but at baseline, there's no internal voice. I experience things, but those experiences can't be fully captured by words. It's like words are a net and some of my experience falls through the holes. My memory of it is in feelings. A metaphor I use is the feelings are like music. There are base notes, treble, harmonies, and recurring themes. But it's not music. It's emotional tones.

I've known people who have an internal voice constantly, from the time they wake up till they go to sleep. I couldn't grasp that when I first discovered some people like that. I thought I would shoot myself if I had an internal voice all the time.

I agree.

As the Iraqi Parliament asked the US and other foreign forces to leave three years ago, this is a train wreck, no matter how you want to make it US policy in the Middle East something successful and meaningful. — ssu

The US never intended to occupy Iraq long term. Why does Iraq asking the US to leave make the situation a train wreck? By the way, in healthcare, a "train wreck" is a person who isn't going to survive the assault they've experienced, whether it was a physical assault or an assault by a disease. It might be that I don't know how you're using the term. If you're saying Iraq can't survive what it's been through, I'd say you're clearly wrong.

Do you mean there are people who don't? — Wayfarer

We talked about this on a different thread. Only some people have it.

The basic question is this: are words more than their word-form? — NOS4A2

"Word" can have a couple of meanings. It can be actual sounds or marks, or it can be an abstract object expressed by these physical events.

We know the two are logically distinct because a variety of utterances (the sounds or marks) can all express the same word.

My perspective is that the concept of a word is part of an analysis of communication. We dismantle it and put the pieces out on a table. Don't worry over abstractness. It's a result of this analysis.

A cool fact about words: in Vietnamese, the word expressed by a sequence of sounds is selected by the melody of the utterance. So you can say "mah" one way and it means ghost. Say it another way and it means iron. Or something like that.

How about not invading Iraq for weapons and a weapons program that didn't exist anymore in the first place? — ssu

You're judging the justification for getting rid of Saddam, not the benefits of getting rid of a torturing tyrant on health of middle-eastern culture.

And how about not invading Afghanistan and fighting your longest war lived there because a financier of a tiny terrorist group that was successful in one strike? He btw. escaped to the sanctuary of Pakistan, but you didn't invade Pakistan. — ssu

Again, you're taking cheap, meaningless pot-shots instead of undertaking a serious assessment.

Americans craved for revenge and blood after 9/11 and they had this wonderful hammer of the armed forces of a Superpower, — ssu

More superficial sound bites. The point of the Iraqi invasion was to democratize the Middle East. It was bold gesture. Unfortunately, the population of the middle east didn't welcome the intervention.

Eh. It used to be worthwhile to discuss world events with you. Not so much anymore.

Everybody inhales microplastics. We need to do some research on the effects of that.

Besides, US Middle East policy is and has been since the Gulf War a slow train wreck. — ssu

Really? What sort of policy changes would have made things better?

but is refused on the smaller scale and with real, living, flesh-and-blood human beings? — NOS4A2

That's mainly because letting them "eat cake" led to revolutions. It's necessary to throw them a bone.

In this case, the basis itself might change; if cultural evolution was the basis for most of history, there comes a modern time when it is no longer wise to ignore the environmental consequences of 'cultural evolution'. Again, it is a practical matter, and something that has only recently become a dominant moral issue. Anyway, the correct morals are the ones that lead to flourishing, aka 'the good'. — unenlightened

There are two competing outlooks in our world: (1) is that nature is always smarter than we are. By this perspective it's a mistake for us to try to re-engineer our own culture to meet an environmental crisis. Nature will handle it more efficiently that we ever could. Nature is brutal, but it doesn't waste time on misconceived solutions. It goes straight to what will work in the long run.

The alternative (2) is that we do have the ability to change who and what we are, and we may face conditions in which this is the only road to survival. A case of this was when western nations became multi-racial in the wake of the end of slavery. The only way forward was to force change. This can be extremely stressful, but it does work.

I think the coming years will be a test of these two approaches. I won't live to see who won. :groan:

"Unlike other kinds of beliefs, our moral beliefs being right or wrong has no practical consequences." — Michael

You could have it that rule-based morality represents wisdom about what worked best for our forebears. Since cultures evolve, what works changes over time. In one era, greed is destructive, in another, it's constructive. In this way, you could have a kind of moral realism, it's just that the rules are in flux. The basis for the rules is always the same, though: cultural evolution.

Nietzsche could be seen as complaining about moral rules that have become destructive, so what was good has become bad. He saw the practical consequences of this as a dulling of the spirit and a failure to make the most of life.

:lol:

The nonconcientious objector would deeply oppose the fact that they were untied, but refuse to do anything to rectify it. I would trip — Merkwurdichliebe

Don't do that. Leave your hair uncoiffed.