like a koan

Surely this will be resolved before 100 pages. — Marchesk

I know you're not creativesoul but was that an example? (:razz:)

I guess for me it's not science, it's people, often not scientists, who stray into philosophy not fully understanding either the science they are weilding and the philosophy they think they are beheading. Some of them are scientists, but many of them, for example in online forums, are lay people in both fields. You'll get assertions like 'Now we know all metaphysics is just nonsense,' not realizing, for example, that physics deal with metaphysical issues, physicists even find it useful to speculate in metaphysics, and that physics gets a lot of milage working with models that have metaphysical axioms. And also found other axioms also generative. Another way to put this is that philosophy and science are overlapping fields/activities.

Can you give us an example?

Which also wouldn't make my advice wrong. But here's the thing: I am not a Buddhist and don't share some of the core goals with Buddhism. I don't mind interfering with what Buddhist practice is intended to lead to. So, I'm not being inconsistant. If you're really interested in achieving Buddhist goals, avoid the discussion.

That's quite a condescending remark. — Wayfarer

Not if it's good advice. Then it would be good advice.

I have endeavoured to present, and to stay true to, Buddhist sources throughout this discussion. Insofar as it's 'a discussion', then no, it's not meditation, nor is it living in a Zen monastery, but then, this is an Internet philosophy forum. — Wayfarer

One can point just as well in an internet forum.

Well, I guess if you want to define the word 'creative' in such a way that it doesn't mean what most people mean, you can then say it doesn't happen (in art). Especially if you move the goalposts by adding in 'truly'. But for those use the word in the more common way, we will still find creativity in art and artists and in other places as well.

I understand the urge, but this is a bit like people here discussing whether quarks do X, without studying physics and math. I mean, sure, some people here have meditated for a long time, I guess. But there is a discussion of what a story from a quite different culture means, meant to help people who have been meditating for decades. So, it's doubly culturally removed or perhaps trebly culturally removed. If you have been meditating, well get back to it. If not, start. I mean, if you are interested. If Buddhism is for you, then avoiding this dicussion is then also for you.

Though it doesn't really imitate it, even if the artist is trying to and many don't. It is inspired by something that already exists. I am not sure where the idea came from that to create entails making something with no connection to what has gone before. To create every facet of it. Would this entail shapes never before found, colors?

How do you duplicate it? with a 3d printer? Do your duplicates look like other people's duplicates and those from other cultures?

By this I take it you mean someone may draw a face or figure from memory, not a model. — Brett

Yes, memory, though it need not be a specific face, it could be memory supported imagined people or things. A landscape that is not a rendering of any particular landscape, viewpoint over a landscape, the artist has seen.

To represent the jug in a painting, in what we might call a realistic style, we’re relying on the same laws that manage the way we see things with our own eyes: perspective, depth of field, form, etc. Applied to a painting these are what you might call “tricks” to imitate how we see. Picasso and Braque tore that idea apart. In their cubist paintings they created a way of perceiving that might be considered more truthful because when we look at a jug we know there is a reverse side to it and we have thoughts about jugs and so on. More importantly they did away with the tricks of perspective and depth of field. — Brett

I would say this supports the position I am arguming, in fact I nearly mentioned the cubists, because yes, part of what they are doing is showing that what the realist painters are doing is not copying, but is itself also a style and perhaps not one as real as theirs.

So a style can make use of the “tricks” or it can discard them totally. So I don’t think style is a door into understanding creativity or originality. — Brett

I'm not saying it is a door to understanding creativity, I am saying there is no neutral copying that is not creative. Even what someone might call copying - rendering what I think would naively be called a realist rendition of a thing or person's image - is actually creative. You are making stuff up that that is not 'out there'.

I don’t think that quite works as a sentence. If it’s representative then it relies on the “tricks”. No matter what you do, if it’s structured on those “tricks”, it remains a copy of the object. Otherwise you would not recognise it. — Brett

Yes, all painting relies on tricks. It is all creative. I am arguing against the OPs idea that a realist painter or drawer is not creative, cause it's just copying. They are making a new thing. They are creative.

There's the surface of mundane reality and then there's all the undercurrents and secrets and desires and emotions and dynamics and attractions and repulsions underneath the surface. David Lynch has characters who directly express what is underneath, or events that symbolically show them, or the mood of a scene (through music and colors and facial expressions) conveys what we actually feel like in many situations (though many don't like to notice those deeper layers. He's heightening the unexpressed, the unconscious, the unspoken stuff. So, it feels very real, if you are willing to notice that in your own life also, at least to some extent. For many people I am sure somethng like Mulholland DRive makes no sense and seems unrealistic. You have be aware of these other levels. Obviously enough are to appreciate this films, though some who appreciate his films may just enjoy the weirdness without really recognizingit or themselves in it.

Lynch is also mocking things that are real but you generally don't get to mock them. So, he is showing how ridiculous some things are, going around the taboos.

Call if representative if you want. — Brett

Representative might be better, though this usually includes works of art that look like things we encounter (or can't encounter like unicorns) but which the artist did not work with a model to create. But I think his point was that if one is merely copying, it isn't creative. The creation was all in the thing itself. But the thing itself is generally very different from representative art based on it or representing it. It is creative to manage to represent and how one represents is generally a style, which is creative. I am sure there are some works of art that are direct copies, but they are rare.

If we look at what you quoted....

Wouldn't that just be copying things then and not being original or creative?

Representative art based on studying the real thing is not copying. If its a study of a bowl of fruit, copying would be putting the bowl of fruit in some futuristic 3d printer and making a direct atomic level copy. The originality of representative art is in how the original thing is conveyed/used/represented. What facets are focused, what ignored, the style. Even 'trying to be realistic' means using tricks of perspective and shading and also choosing amongst possible facets. And it will include a philosophical/aesthetic take on what the thing 'really' looks like. Pointillists and Impressionists could argue they are more realistic than people who use so called realistic ways of conveying what is represented.

It's not a copy. Not even photorealist paintings are copies. They are two dimensional (pretty much) representations of one three dimensional things. You've selected the perspective on the thing and used all sorts of stylistic tricks to make it look like the thing, but only in a certain sense. You can't walk behind it, for example.

I think in concepts. — god must be atheist

To me the word concept refers to abstractions in language. I can imagine thinking in images (taken in a broad sense, not just visual images, iow some kind of sensory collections), but the moment the word 'concept' comes in, to me that includes words at the very least.

What does "physical" mean in that sentence? What is the metaphysical claim that (I presume you mean) empiricism isn't caring about there? — Pfhorrest

It's claiming something about everything that is real, rather than a particular thing. If it if real, then it will be like X. But it need no not be like x. The physical (which I would prefer to call the real) is an expanding set in science, as I said earlier, not just in terms of new members, but in terms of what qualities the thing need have or doesn't have.)

[quote

I can't think of what "physical" might even mean besides "empirically real", — Pfhorrest

exactly my point, but it sure sounds like it is saying more. Because it did mean more, openly for a long time, whether used by dualists or monists disagreeing with them. It included claims about substance. And since there is no reason not to just use real or empirically real (though the latter sounds like it is leaving the door open for other types of real) I think it should be dropped.

other than absurd guesses that don't even track natural usage of the word like "solid". (E.g. is air non-physical unless it turns out to be made of tiny solid billiard ball atoms bouncing around? If all atoms turn out to be fuzzy local excitations of omnipresent fields does that mean even rocks aren't physical?)

As far as air, as far as I know that was always included in the physical.

As far as the rocks, notice how you are giving me a kind of have you stopped beating your wife version of the question.

It puts me in the position to deny something about substance. I am focused on the word.. I think physical is a poor word choice since the set of the physical now includes things like you describe there. It is as if a particular metaphysical stand is being taken, when it is not. The word has unnecessary baggage and that baggage has been ignored (quite rightly) when new real things were not at all like stuff in the set earlier, and it sure looks like this will continue. Whatever is determined to be real, even particles in superposition, and even if less 'physical' stuff is found, it will be considered real. We lose nothing by calling it simple real or verified or something similar.

To my mind real and physical are as natural synonyms as moral and ethical. — Pfhorrest

Real has no implicit substance claim. Of course for a physicalist they will be synonyms (not assuming you are) but i think at this point 'physical' looks like a metaphysical claim when used in physicalism, but it's not. Or if it is, it has problems since the epistemology that generates it is not making that metaphysical claim. It just offers a route to deciding if things are real without a care whether they are physical or not. And hence things are now considered real without mass or extension, for example.

Sure, and applies to everything. Everything behaves in this way: it couples to physical properties and is directly or indirectly observable. And since this meets the criteria of the physical, everything is physical, and nothing is non-physical. That is why the postulate of a non-physical thing or property is absurd. — Kenosha Kid

Physical has been an expanding category for a long time. The things that are considered physical are really just the members of what is considered real, regardless of properties. The best case, it seems to me, is the one you are making where if it affects something physical than it is physical. Which ends up, it seems to me replacing properties with relations. That's fine, but then we are using a word with metaphysical property baggage when we are really referring to relations. And it's not just the exotic things like quarks that are exotic since everything is made up of exotic stuff that is not physical in the way we used the word about things like rocks and chairs and as opposed to spiritual or ideal. The problem I have with the word physical it is looks like it is taking a metaphysical stand when it isn't. Further we must assume that all that matters is the impingement on things that we already consider physical (despite whatever we my have found out about their make-up). Which ends up for me circular. Stuff impinges on other stuff. Fine. But real seems more appropriate. If we decide something is real it impinges or affects something else real. Calling this physical sounds like we are taking a stand against other substances. We're not. We are really taking a stand against Rationalism or some other epistemology. Or the idea of knowing purely transcendent stuff.

What do we lose if we use a term without the metphysical baggage of physical in the name. Call it verificationism. Or justificationism. The category of what can be considered physical has been shifting in not only members by the qualities of members. If something is considered real by science then it is called physical even if it is not like anything else that was considered physical before. We could just eliminate what is at best now a metaphor and a misleading one. And then work with the same epistemology. I don't think the word has helped, but the methodologies have been very productive.

The same can be said about eyeballs. Connect eyeballs to a brain, or a camera to a computer, and then you have interpretations of images. — Harry Hindu

Where is and what is the image that the brain interprets? Does it make another image of the original image? is that the interpretation?

Natural selection is, fundamentally, a competitive mechanism based on only two outcomes; success and failure.

The mechanism is not competitive. This is fussy, but I think there are some slidings or context in the OP. One could argue that the different individual life forms and potentially species or groups may compete for resources or may die and be resources for others. But the mechanism is not competitive. It's not competing against anything.

Natural selection is, fundamentally, a competitive mechanism based on only two outcomes; success and failure. — Benj96

Though most organisms must have other organisms to survive. So the competition is not binary, there is inherent intra and extra species and individual collaboration, even between prey and predator..

Also the title of the thread 'life being 'all about competition.' It's not all about it. And I think we need to be clear about what is being referred to. Are we including the intentions and goals of organisms? These are clearly not all about competition, most clearly in social mammals, but including things like like lichens where collaboration is inherent in its identity.

However natural selection is not usurped by these observations. In fact the same selective forces can demonstrate how seemingly cooperative behaviour can develop from selfish individualistic desire to survive. — Benj96

This is conflating the make of, for example, animal motivations with why those motivations might have continued. IOW the animals may cooperate because its ancesters benefitted from cooperative behavior, but nowhere in this process need the collaborative behavior be driven by selfish desire. Some animals who cooperated or had empathy or urges to collaborate survived. They were not driven by selfish desire, but rather..... natural selection did not eliminate them.

Another way to put all this is to say that natural selection selected for, amongst other things, love, cooperation, collabortation. empathy even across species. Those things are not REALLY selfish. They are what they are. At some point they were beneficial, but that does not amount to them being selfish, which is a description of inner states and attitudes. Beneficial does not equal selfish and sometimes, for the individual, they lead to death.
IOW

It still benefits the doer. — Benj96

is not correct. It may benfit similar genes in kin, or it may not even one saves a member of another species or a complete stranger at the loss of your own life. IOW you cannot reduce our motives to selfish ones, nor can you say that they benfit the
individual (not in evolutionary terms) in all cases. There's an ontological confusion going on.

Why is it that psychopaths disproportionately hold high level CEO positions. — Benj96

And if later they are not in those positions or if in some cultures those with power tend not to be psychopaths.....? And in fact tribal leaders have no been, in general, psychopaths.

We are born into a world where we are expected to strive for success : which to most is to have the best of everything; the best wealth, the best recognition, the best popularity and influence. — Benj96

Are we? That's certainly how some people define success.

OK, that was quite clear, thank you.
It's been a long time since I read Dennett on this. I just took a quick glance at an outline of his argument and I remember more of the issues I have with his position (one right off is his metaphors are extremely poor I think). But that's another thread, or perhaps this one as it develops.

I'll admit to the same sophmoric reaction myself.

illusion
/ɪˈluːʒ(ə)n/
noun
an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.

The word itself seems to presume consciousness. I can imagine specific conclusions about consciousness being incorrect or about 'human nature' or ontology coming out of our everyday experience and sense of what consciousness is. But that it is an illusion makes no sense to me just on a semantic level. An illusion is one type of experience. I'd also wonder how they are getting their information such that their words have meaning if not via having been conscious of things, arguments....etc. iow it seems problematic for an empiricist to make that blanket statement, not that a rationalist has it easy either

It's been a long time since I read LW but this is certainly not all I got from him. I reread your OP and I think I get what you are saying there. That the point was not to make a statement about the problem of other minds when it comes to animals, but to just use the lion statement as a contrast. But with a human in pain we have to add more assumptions to avoid feeling empathy. My paraphrase obviously. But then, of course, if in the course of an argument you use a statement for some purpose and that statement has problems, people are going to justifiably focus on that. And oddly I think he cut off his nose to spite his face. Reinforcing that non-humanness of animals and the non-animalness of humans actually, in the long run, I think does damage to the very goals you are attributing LW with. We've had a long hallucination that we are radically different from animals (and then also even other races of humans) - though there have always been groups who did not add in these kinds of assumptions - tribal groups, pagans, animists, some pantheists, and many people who worked with animals and nature in general. Empathy even with humans, if that is the goal, is in not assuming differences and distance. Not adding in assumptions - which can be class based also, for example.

If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me. — Antony Nickles

In a sense it was the positivists (and in this case their odd bedfellowing with monotheists) and similar thinkers who made it take so long to acknowledge within science that animals had intentions, goals, emotions, desires and the like. That they were experiencers like us and active ones cognitively. Placing a lion in the above quote, one writhin in pain, say with a spear in its gut to me offers no contrast. If we want to make an ethical appeal or an argument with an ethical goal, I think it is problematic to not realize that the animal us is what is being denied when we assume our way away from empathy with other humans and animals. IOW you may be right about his intent and what that sentence about lions is 'doing', but it's still a problem for me.

or it wasn't so binary. More like we'd have to be even more careful about our assumptions than anthropologists.

I am having a hard time figuring out if the OP does deal with the issue your cartoon humorously took up. But since the cartoon does, I'll drop in. Lions already have a very simple speech and not only can lay people understand some of these 'words' (when watching them interact with each other for example) there are people well versed in lion language. And that's because our lives overlap with lion lives. Perhaps if a lichen could talk I'd never understand, but jeez, lions are social mammals, of course we'd understand many things they said. Back off would probably one of the first things we'd learn and natural selection would weed out those social with lions who couldn't figure out what the lion meant.

If the Kardashian's could talk, I wouldn't understand them. Because they do and I don't.

Yes, but also...we enter cultures. And we come without culture. And some cultures probably suit us better than others, each having strengths and weaknesses. Culture is the mixed batch compromise of people who have gone before us, filtered through POWER. That is the goals and ideas that the powerful want most people to have. And that also may cause us problems.

Click on the word Five in
Banno's post two posts up. I'm not sure you don't realize that's a link, but it seems possible.

I'll do my best. — Isaac

I appreciate the effort.

1. Beliefs are not propositions. Beliefs are states of mind equivalent to a tendency to act as if... — Isaac

Would this mean then that animals have beliefs?

a) not possible to have a belief which is contrary to the evidence of your senses (beliefs are formed by a neurological process of response to stimuli), and — Isaac

Does this mean that one cannot come to believe things that are counterintuitive: relativity, for example, or that the earth actually revolves around the sun. If we take the latter case that we can find empirical evidence that this is the case, very few people actually do that. Or that color exist outside us.

people's stated propositions are not necessarily reflective of their beliefs and it is a category error to develop an understanding of one based on experience of the other (just because people say their 'belief' is based on foundations, doesn't mean it is; just because people say they doubt everything, doesn't mean they do) — Isaac

I agree with this. I do think that people can be mistaken about their beliefs. though I think that their other beliefs are propositional, just dissonent with what they want to belief or they have contradictory beliefs (just as one can have contradictory tendencies to act as if.

-- this leads to the more general criticism that there is no target of the normative claim, it's like telling people that they ought to breathe. — Isaac

What was his normative claim?

Given my definition in (1), above, I contend that no-one would hold their beliefs were impossible to change even in the light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, — Isaac

If you belief in the Christian model of faith, you might well do that. At least one is encouraged to by some versions of that faith. Though one might be better off putting on that end of the spectrum 'beliefs that are not supported at and do not seem to fit current models in science, say, or perhaps in general' It could be without the latter part of that. IOW one could try to believe only those things that you can demonstrate or have been demonstrated by experts to be justified OR you could accept things without justification (at least conscious justification one has access to) and ignore counterarguments. i would say most people do this about something.

I'll start there.

At what age does it become a choice? How much of you makes the choice?

I find that people generally tend to follow that as well, but only until it becomes inconvenient for them, and they often switch to the alternatives when it comes to what standards they hold other people to. — Pfhorrest

*Exactly. Often I find that it can seem like a person arrives at their beliefs only via science and deduction (from scientific models), when in fact they have a wide range of beliefs arrived at via intuition, authority, unconscious processes. They then expect others to live up to to standards they do not. Now sometimes the belief they are criticizing is some larger concept like God, but in fact they themselves act in the world based on intuition, unconscious process and authority in ways that do directly affect other people.

It's the 'as if' people live up to mono-epistemologies that I think creates a great deal more strife. And ironically, it create a kind of holier than thou immaculateness in people who are presenting themselves as disliking such metaphors.

Great. I would go so far as to say that whatever people's official epsitemology is, I have never met anyone who did not, in practice, follow my paraphrase of your position. I find people often confuse their official positions with what they actually do irl.

YOU should have supported a war to free them, as I did. What stopped YOU from trying to help the Iraqis? Is it because they are brown? — Paul Edwards

Seriously, is that the most charitable interpretation you can come up with. If you actually read my posts with humanitarian care you would see that 1) I never expressed the slightest bit of racism. 2) My concerns were humanitarian and I was critical of the motives of the people involved is making those decisions. So, stop asking me that question. See if you can imagine good motives for having the position I had and have on the war, and you can continue to disagree about what policies and actions would be best.

Billions of people the world over should have supported the liberation of Iraq to free them from state-slavery. — Paul Edwards

I really don't see how you could know that billions of people supported the war. And now much did those who supported the war, support the war based on false intelligence and lies by the Bush administration.

And let's start with you, as a member of the public, who likely expects his own human rights to be protected to the nth degree. — Paul Edwards

You want to focus on me and judge me and not focus on what I wrote, for the most part. The people around Bush, as I said before, were perfectly content with Saddam H.'s behavior toward the Kurds and his own people when it was in their interests to do that. These people lied to the American public and the world and whatever support they had was in large part due to those lies.

You choose to take an uncharitable ad hom approach to this discussion. You do not, for the most part, respond to points I make. It's rude and you make for a poor discussion partner.

I'll leave you to your moral superiority, assumptions and poor posting. I am sure you can find others to go ad hom about, and not really respond to, and they will likely treat you in a similar manner. There are plenty of people on both sides who post like you do. May you enjoy each other and confirm your biases.

No. Far from it. I believe everyone has the right to live in freedom, including Iraqis, and VERY much supported the 2003 war to free them. — Paul Edwards

It wasn't a war to free them. The justification for the war was because they supposedly had WOMD's or Hussein did. But this was made up intelligence and manipulation. When it was obvious that there were no WOMD's, THEN the goal of the war was for the Iraqi people. Not for oil. Not for military presence in the Middle East, not for no bid billion dollar contracts to Cheney's old companies he still had connections with. Not for enormous money transferred to the private sector in the new more privitized military. The same neo cons, I mean, some of them were exactly the same people, who under Reagan had been quite friendly with Saddam Hussein, even when he used gas on the Kurds - who presumably also deserve sympathy - now demonized Saddam Hussein for the reasons above. He wasn't nice to his people back when they were pro-Hussein, but they used him for their ends at that time and even helped his military and intelligence services. When it became convenient for their ends, they demonized him. And he was easy to demonize, of course.

One can care about Iraquis and be for the war or against the war. One can recognize people's good intentions, some people's, on both sides of the argument. I think it is hard to know what actions were for the best and what side effects of the actions taking are in their completeness. Cynical selfish people can end up doing good things for the wrong reasons. I am not sure they managed even that. Soldiers on the ground can have all sorts of motives, obviously including good ones, though I don't think one should romanticize those motivations in a general way.

I really don't know what elicited this question. I'll aks you: Are you one of those people who did not care about Iraquis?

Could you give a short presentation of what your criticism of Phfforest's position is. His position, not so much how he has presented it. I can't quite get what is going on in your dialogue though I get the feeling I would be interested. What is wrong with his version of critical liberal epistemology?

Yes, because the strategy at that time was to let the competing psychopaths fight each other instead of fighting us. — Hippyhead

We didn't let, we encouraged and certain corporations made money off of it. Arming both sides is not justifiable morally. Given Sadaam, as part of that, high tech computers that could be used in nuclear programs also does not fit.

Yes, IS was a threat, and so the Islamic State was then effectively crushed. — Hippyhead

After intelligence agency warnings that it would happen were ignored. Only after they had done a great deal of damage to at least thousands of people (and they are not finished yet). And only after the Russian took a real aggressive stance in relation to them and also Trump. IOW the regular neocons, including people like Hilary, were not that interested in crushing them. (and I am no Trump fan by the way)

Iraq war critics showed no interest in the Iraqi people before the war, and now that American involvement in Iraq has wound down they again show no interest. — Hippyhead

Most people on both sides did not give a shit about them. One side created a mass of bs that this was (after no womd were found) the reason they were there and cared. Thus giving them the hypocrisy. But further on the left there was a significant minority who had been concerned about the embargo and the first war and had also long before that been critical of neo-con support for Hussein and other policies harming people in the Middle East.

the dynamics I find odd
— Coben

Me too. — Pfhorrest

OK, though you do seem to understand their objections. But then you clearly understand your position better than I do, so perhaps that makes the difference.

I’m not sure I know what you’re asking, but maybe a picture will clarify my answer anyway: — Pfhorrest

The picture made it more clear, and I generally understood.

Where would you see beliefs based on intuition?

Fideism demands faith, rather than merely accepting it. Or better put denigrates other methodologies. But there are various non-rational processes that lead to choices, actions and beliefs. Liberalism would seem to allow for these. Critical liberalism would, it seems, be critical of them, but allow them until, if I have interpreted you correctly, such time as they fail repeatedly or are disproved. Is that a fair take?

That is impossible. The man who chooses to submit to the will of another is doing so freely and weighing the advantages of doing so. — David Mo

In some way they are doing this, sure. I am saying this in response to what I thought was your assertion that people never do this. They do. People prefer not to have to make choices. They vary in the degree of how much they avoid this and how they avoid this. They vary wildly in this. But people give away power all the time in a diverse set of ways. I am not saying this is right or good or bad or wrong. I am saying people do this. How lovely to not have to figure out WHICH expert is right for example. For example. a family member was sick. She went the normal medicine route at first but after a bit, given their treatment options and prognosis, she went alternative. Most people will not do this. Now she chose an alternative treatment with scientific support and she survived - using the regular doctors to moniter the changes which they did not understand. This took extreme bravery on her part. She decided to trust her abililty to determine which expert to believe. Most people will choose whatever the dominant expert is. Most people do not want to put themselves in a position to be actively responsible: this can be anything from clothes, to how one is supposed to view the opposite sex in one's subculture, to parenting, to health, issues where one can choose between experts or follow the experts of one's team and not think about it much exept to justify after the fact why the choice is the right one.

But beyond all this it seems obvious to me that many people prefer even more radical losses of freedom. Being attracted to a Hitler or Stalin or even quite nice versions (a guru who is gentle and nice but does give out the rules). This is a preference. It is a prefence many people have. It is not illogical or logical. It is something they desire. They want someone to make choices for them. Given that want it is logical to find someone. It seems to me you are mixed is and ought. Or really is and value. They have different values from you and from me for that matter. But what one wants one's life to be like in this general way is not illogical. Ants are not less logical than bull elephants because the latter are more individualistic and less collective in their behaviors. And humans vary in their tasts wildly.

There's an excellent chance that with Saddam's regime still in power we'd now be witnessing a nuclear arms race exploding across the Middle East. — Hippyhead

Truly doubtful. The US only allows Israel to have a nuclear arsenal.

See? You haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about, which is why I'm not taking you seriously. A million people were killed in the Iran/Iraq war alone. — Hippyhead

which was a war that the US gave weapons to both sides in. Hussein was a leader that the US armed before that war. Those deaths are included in US foreign policy to some degree.

The US neo cons glossed over and downplayed SHs use of WOMD on the Kurds when he gassed them. And SH is not the only leader the US propped up and supported despite knowing what he did. Noreiga, the Taliban as a couple of other examples, only to turn on them and Satanize them when it was convenient for the Wall St. and the military int. complex to do so.
Saddam and his sons and their effects are partly the responsibility of the US (and England). And included technology IN SUPPORT of Iraqs potential nuclear program.

Instead, today's Iraqi government presents no threat to any of it's neighbors. — Hippyhead

Though the invasion led to the creation of Isis and this was certainly a threat to the neighbors. Further this seems to come in some historical void. The US wanted Iraq to be a threat to its neighbors and encouraged it to fight Iran and gave it the means to do it better or worse really.

Part of the reason it poses no threat is because it was left in a mess after a poorly carried out intervention that was based on a conspiracy of lies around 'WOMD then changed to fighting an evil regime for the people of Iraq and then didn't give a shit about them in the long run.