or murder any of its past inhabitants. — Luke

:lol: I like your faith in humanity, Luke.

does forward time travel necessitate a branch in timelines? — noAxioms

Surely, this is now talking about a "possible future" that you've gone in to - it may not be the actual future of your OG time-line. You being in the future isn't a contradiction here, though, as you're not in the OG timeframe. You just disappeared for a while in the OG one and reappeared at your 'destination' moment in time.
Then, the 'branch' would happen, I would suppose at a point in the OG timeframe that contradicted the future branch you've travelled to. This might create an alternate past, pro-actively (as far back as your moment of travel in the OG timeline) and I haven't considered if that's an issue. It seems unavoidable that there would be a branch, but not logically necessary. Very much happy to have this ripped apart though as i'ts taken me 10 minutes between settlements at work.

Can I, having just made the machine, branch a new line off some other timeline where I never existed in the first place, say some version of 1980 where my parents didn't survive WWII? — noAxioms

Surely this would just create a branch into which you've traveled regardless, leaving the OG timeline without you, or your parents, in it? A timeline into which you traveled and now exist rather than existing prior to the travel.

This doesn't appear to me as an argument against anything but aesthetic implication (it would be weird, no?).

It doesn't seem to address the fact that the Hard Problem and P-zombies are exactly meant to invoke the gap science is trying to fill.
Unless you can fully understand consciousness in physical terms (I do not believe this is hte case, but even if not, we don't ahve that understanding yet) then p-zombies are coherent until we do (and it excludes that possibility). 180 Proof made a similar error earlier in the thread (though, it was years ago). "identical" to a 'conscious being' would be a conscious being. Being "physically identical" is the actual case in the TE.

But i agree with Seth - it's a very weak argument against Physicalism, for sure. It's just that he assumes he's right:

is to consider the capabilities and limitations of a vast network of many billions of neurons and gazillions of synapses (the connections between neurons), not to mention glial cells and neurotransmitter gradients and other neurobiological goodies, all wrapped into a body interacting with a world which includes other brains in other bodies. Can I do this? Can anyone do this? I doubt it. — Seth

This precludes anything but a physicalist account for it to be a decent objection, i think. I also think Seth (among others) overblows the correlation we find between certain parts of hte brain and fairly imprecise conscious experience. If the brain is a receiver, nothing here has any really weight on the question/s. But it would certainly rule out an emergent (from neural activity) account of consciousness

Perhaps the real question of the OP is will America become an authoritarian state, a right wing dictatorship? — Tom Storm

I think this is a far more realistic position to consider. And, while I personally think its super-unlikely, it's way more possible that Fascism coming into play.

Of course for my friends in the Left, America has been an authoritarian state for many years, so even this will evoke a range of interpretations and definitional games. — Tom Storm

And herein lies the problem, right? From any standpoint of intrenched ideology, its almost impossible not to see yourself as the victim of 'the other side' - otherwise your ideology is 'in power' and defeats the point.

Perhaps communication with the general populations is a pipe dream of humble members of the elite who believe they are closer to the average person than the average person is close to an orangutang — and I don't say this as an insult, more as a bitter and unfortunate realisation. — Lionino

My wife and I recently came to this conclusion reluctantly. Most people are either not capable, or lack any inherent interest, in 'thinking further'. Makes life kind of hard when you're aware of it, but it instills a certain sympathy for a huge swathe of previously-irking behaviour. Part of my motivation to find this forum, in fact, was the abject failure to find people who want to discuss these things (or at least, are capable of doing so). Facebook seems to be a great aggregator of Dunning-Kruger effects, to the degree that that's an actual thing.

Orangutan* btw ;)

Again, you're not groking even the arena in which I made my comment.

There is an observable fact that we, by and large, disagree on what that threshold is. You cannot point to the law. It is transgressed every day, and there are entire movements (even out of Universities - point here being its institutional in nature) to upend the legal restrictions on 'annoyance' and 'loudness'.

The limits of protest, are one prime example where your type of sentiments just aren't palatable to most, and at the extremely worst are entirely unenforceable.

Some laws require arrest at the notion of 'causing offense' (Harmful Digital Communications Act here in NZ and a similar analogue in the UK as examples). But the concept of 'causing offence' is so wildly variable im not understanding how you can rely on the law, other than to discuss hte law.

My sentiment comes down to "What you consider offensive is not a good benchmark" and that all-too-often people think someone being offended is evidence of someone wronging them/whomever is offended.

I understand you may be stipulating that the behaviour youre talking about transgresses those legal benchmarks. I don't not appreciate that. It's just that's not what I was attempting to approach.

Your claim that the external world is caused by your internal world is wrong then — Corvus

I think the point, and I completely missed this with Mww, is that what you are capable or conceiving, is a result of your perceptions in aggregate. Therefore, you are actually entirely unable to access anything about hte 'external' world at all - so all conceptions of it are in fact, internal representations. Maybe that's not the case - but this solves the issue for me.

Gaiman's Norse Myths

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic.

Oh, so you're talking about crimes. Okay. Different discussion.

Oh, you're talking about physical assault. Nice. You missed my point, or I missed yours (both, it seems) and im bored now. I think your point is weak and doesn't address the problem that there is no broad agreement about annoyance or offense under a certain legal threshold. Whatever man..

I've been listening to Bernardo Kastrup's lectures, he's all in on analytic idealism — Wayfarer

Indeed i took a spot of advice and listened to five hours of Kastrup late last week. Id say my attitude is the same.

I mean, that's one thing which would come under that banner, imo.

Unsure what you're intimating though, so will refrain from comment beyond that.

a majority and largely agreed upon standard of social morals — Outlander

No idea why you've felt the need to say im 'playing dumb'. I think you've made a dumb point.

There is no 'largely agreed upon' standard for annoyance or loudness, particularly when it comes to issues that, to different people in different directionss, allows for some annoyance and loudness.

I have no idea what your attitude even is, let alone can i make sense of you. You made a silly point that speaks to your biases. I just pointed it out.

It seems you're relying on my disagreeing with you as an indication that im wrong. Wow.

"oh you just need thicker thin, there's something wrong you". No, there is not. You are simply an annoying dickhead and burden to enlightened, civil society the world would be much better off without. End of discussion. — Outlander

I'm unsure this is reasonable in any sense.

Your subjective assessment of 'being annoyed' or offended means literally nothing helpful here. Even collective versions mean almost nothing. We are well aware of plenty of collective social claims that are either entire untrue, or in fact ARE people overreacting. There isn't such a simple way to deal with this.

Weirdly apt - currently listening to this exact discussion between Josh Rasmussen and Alex O'Connor right now. Material from mind.

You may find it so. But I don't know enough to make a call. The current situation seems fine, but i have no basis for comparison.

A preference is very different from who should have won, by the way. I'd be happy to give a preferential call based on what I know, but i couldn't in good conscience say that's who should have won.

I'm sure as white, European male i'd have done alright had it gone another way; I just plum dont knoiw

"One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words [slur for an African-American that begins with “n”] and [slur for a Jewish person that begins with “k”] will once again be heard in the workplace. — Gnomon

This plain and simple will not happen. Happy to 'suck it and see' on this one. More a prediction

Cool story? I don't mean to be dismissive, but this seems to just be an observation. I am neither of the things outlined, so doesn't seem to... relate. Your discussion of 'queer' isn't meaningful to me. I dont' care how homophobes use the word. I didn't mention the word.

I have many similar outlines of different conceptions of words that get used by various groups. Unsure what the point here was.

Is the issue with my use of 'appear'? I got through a passage this morning around A193 "Possibility of Causality through Freedom, in Harmony with the Universal Law of Natural Necessity" that made it quite clear my use of 'appear' is both incorrect and misleading in terms of what i'm trying to get across - and this section of CPR outlines it in a few ways..

Kant makes it clear here that we are free to infer, with some certainty, that objects in themselves exist and exert some 'causal lineage' with out phenomena insofar as, as in themselves, they cause something to undergo appearing to our senses.

Ok, that's quite clear - thank you!

A proportionate response.

Do with that what you will. I am also, extremely tired of people who think they have the answers to geopolitical issues like this :)

It's not my fault if you require an answer I am unable to give.

An atheist is simply not a theologian, atheists can still have faith in other things. "God" is just too clumsy of an answer for me. Gods were always created by man as a means to not have to explain things, but rather enforce. To justify actions taken to one's self. — Vaskane

That's fair; I should have restricted my use of the term. Thank you.

You're doing the opposite. Atheism has always meant denial of God's existence and it's only recently that new atheists began to popularise the "lack of belief and nothing else" definition. — Hallucinogen

I'm not. And that fact (though, I deny the truth of it) wouldn't change what i've suggested im trying to do.

Selecting any definition is selecting one that fits your point. If anything, this reveals that your original basis "Just look at the bloody words lol" was poorly-informed. — Hallucinogen

Hmm. I have a feeling this is going to go nowhere. I asked you to look at the word. Its structure, its etymology, its meaning. Not its (according to you, anyhow) use. You ahve done the latter, and ignored the former. Disagree with the method, sure, but don't pretend you're doing something you're not (and in turn. impugning my method, falsely). I'm more than happy to just get a 'yep, well that's dumb' but being wrong about what I've suggested pushes me to respond this way.

And you say this right after complaining I'm taking a definition that fits my point. It shows you're not sticking to your original basis, which you claimed was "just looking at words". Now it has to be from a specifically atheist source, all of a sudden. — Hallucinogen

False. As explained above, you're being dishonest about htis. The fact that I (on your method) invoked a more authoratative definition is not an indication i've ceased using the etymological basis. This is now the type of sophistical weirdness talking with apologists gets me. May need to duck out.

It doesn't, because as pointed out in the OP, defining atheism as lack of belief doesn't distinguish it from agnosticism, since agnostics also lack belief in God. — Hallucinogen

I've dealt with this, in detail, over two possible propositions. I am now ducking it. It's been.. interesting :)

es, you did. See the bolded statement, above. — Relativist

There are three examples of my expounding, and explaining this quote. The bad faith in this response is beyond my ability to parse. If you did not read my treatment of this issue (three times) between that bolded quote, and this use of it, I cannot bring myself to delve into such an out-of-sorts use of conversation.

Immoral only insofar as it is a non-normative moral violation. I can say “you did something (morally) bad, but I cannot thereby affirm you did something you shouldn’t have”. — Bob Ross

Ah ok, this is bringing a bit of focus for me - I supppose i would still, prima facie, reject the distinction - but this is much clearer for where you're intending to go. Onward..

Sure, I was not trying to imply that a psychopath will always acknowledge nor recognize the categories. — Bob Ross

I suppose what i'm pointing out here, is that each set of 'categorised acts' for want of a better term, would be peculiar to each person. There is no 'shared' Good or Bad ..Which lands me at 8billion individual 'moralities'. I'm unsure this is workable? But I could be missing a trick, as usual.

Technically speaking, under this theory there is a gap between normative and non-normative moral judgments, which can only be bridged by affirming a subjective moral judgment that implicates one to the other (e.g., “one ought to be good”). — Bob Ross

Right right. Yep, as with my first response here getting clearer what you mean by delineating between the two - but I am still unsure this move is open. I understand the categories are non-normative, but I still cannot see any gap between what is good, and how one should act. If an act is objectively a Good act, I understand this doesn't mean "one should be Good" but I can't understand how it doesn't imply this, without much wiggle room. Again, metaethics - noted - But i can't see the disjunction between an objective Good and an objective normative theory relying on that. I suppose we could say "Fuck the Good!!" but this seems, on it's face, an immoral proclamation. I note the different - But i see the transfer of valence from fact to intent unavoidable and essentially only semantic distinction obtains here.

I was talking about semantics there, not moral facticity. It is a moral fact that “torturing babies for fun is bad” because this action can be objectively categorized as under ‘being bad’. — Bob Ross

I just don't see how. Per the psychopath example above. Perhaps i get the concept, but reject that it's workable?

They are facts because the categorization is objective, insofar as the said action is either promoting depravity, disunity, and disharmony or sovereignty, unity, and harmony (or perhaps neither) and this is not subject to our opinions. — Bob Ross

Fair enough. But that does seem to be picking an arbitrary set of conditions to relate metaethical categories to.

I don’t think the way reality is entails how it ought to be; so I am going to deny the existence of normative facts. — Bob Ross

Ok. That's fair. I don't understand why you would want moral facts, if they don't inform normative expressions.

Jiu jitsu!!

I was stupidly imprecise, and was meant to impugn "the war on terror" such as it was.

Fantastic; thanks very much for the rec!

Superficially related, the "D" in my name stands for Diamond :)

Why would I consider that? I haven't given any opinion on it whatsoever, and it isn't relevant.

Equivocating between several completely disparate retaliatory military actions sin't very helpful.

But for what it's worth I was at the time, and continue to be convinced the war in Iraq was a moral mistake.

I don't see anything outlandish about Israel's response here when compared with the US. — BitconnectCarlos

What does this matter?? It simply doesn't matter. It is an entirely different topic with almost nothing to be read across.

It sounds as if you're saying the USA sets the benchmark and we should work from that as 'correct'. I reject that entirely, so you're not asking questions that make any sense to me.

Thus Spake Zarathustra I believe, but @Vaskane is your man.

Fair enough. I've only seen takes on Sentience that include affective, subjectively "positive or negative valence"-type consciousness so that was my start point.

If you showed something resembling a reasonability to the subject, you might be getting answers.

Currently you're behaving like a derranged Twitter user that thinks a kafka-trap is an argument.

I don't know who should have won WWII, because I don't have the requisite information to answer the question. It's also 100% irrelevant and an indication that you mildly deranged by this topic

If an admission of a gap in knowledge sufficient to answer a glib, stupid question is a problem for you please feel free to continue that utterly indefensible nonsense you call an argument on your own.

That tells you everything about their position. — RogueAI

Sorry, this is a great indicator you have absolutely no interest in anything but finding enemies to be pissed off at. Not my circus.

That's not a reasonable question to ask. And, I didn't indicate i approved of the Hiroshima./Nagasaki bombings anyway. The level of assumptions you're making to even ask these question is bizarre. Calm down.

I don't care. It was seventy years ago, and I wasn't there, nor do i have accurate understanding of the circumstances beyond the macro, and in the macro, it doesn't matter. The allies won.

I think many do, but I am going off what I understand is used in the field..

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/sentience#:~:text=Sentience%20is%20the%20capacity%20to,From%3A%20Neuroscience%2C%202022

"Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations, to have affective consciousness, subjective states that have a positive or negative valence (Chandroo et al., 2004)"

To my mind, this indicates something more than merely awareness, or 'thinking' which consciousness entails. A crab would be conscious, but has no subjective sense of desire or aversion, merely a drive to a biologically necessary outcome (toward survival).

(also, i've heard the term Sapience to refer to 'rationality' or whatever it is we're discussing as a 'higher' form of whichever of the above two is, in fact, the more peculiar).

If you truly think they are comparable, you are out of your mind.

Not at all. I just think you're clearly wrong. Something must be presented to our sense organs to even perceive that something has happened (viz a viz being bitten by a mosquito). It need not be anything we ahve any knowledge of - in fact, cannot be. But it is presented to the sense organs.
RussellA seems to have 'caught the philosophical drift' i'm on.

Again, denying this is to deny that impressions come from anywhere but ourselves. Either, you think impressions arise from nowhere and no-thing, or you understand that some object must be presented to the sense organs to facilitate any intuition whatsoever.
This isn't even a problem for Kant, it's a problem for you.

If you can quote where i've said that, I'd be happy to answer.

As it is, I'm not a strawfan.

I most sincerely hope we are not heading for any kind of Krystallnacht but some equivalent at some point isn't inconceivable. — BC

I agree. But to my mind, taking it seriously as an actual imminent (lets say, within Trump's impending term) possibility is very much misguided. I hope i'm right, but am ready to be wrong and will be sorry if i am.

The January 6 Insurrection was an engineered event. "Volunteers" showed up and performed the desired signs of "resistance to the deep state". Manufacturing an event takes very little away from its effectiveness as propaganda of the deed for the receptive public at large. — BC

I don't deny the fact of this, but i do deny that it instills any real commitment in the population at alrge. Most people wont even vote.

From what I understand from cognitive science, the hierarchy is Consciousness->Sentience->whatever you want to call higher-level functions of sentient beings such as higher primates.

Consciousness only entails awareness.
Sentience requires feelings about that awareness.
Higher-level functions require something more. Rationality?

...So proportionality applies only to Israel and not the US in 1941? Why do you apply this principle so selectively? — BitconnectCarlos

How much straw can a straw man straw.

Hamas aims to eliminate Israel/Jews; Israel aims to eliminate Hamas. Perfectly proportional. In the long run it works out better for the Palestinians who will no longer be oppressed by Hamas. Call it liberation. — BitconnectCarlos

You must be out of your mind.

That's another strawman, and an unrelated example. No one, at all, has even mentioned teh American involvement in WWII.

1200
23,000

Don't pretend this is somehow 'going easy' on Hamas. This is way beyond Hamas now. No one in their right mind defends them (and the only ones i've ever seen do it can't even articulate who they are)

For sure, I'm not aligned with either so no issues putting that on the table... IMO both parties have a huge amount to answer for (though, i don't think that's actually the best way to frame a discussion of those problems)

I assume it's clear, but just so it's on record: I think Trump is an incompetent child, ill-fitted to working the desk at a Hotel let alone owning one. So the idea that he was President hits me as a joke. I can't grasp it fully. It is insane that someone of his nature (and stature, socially speaking) could have been elected. So, your concern doesn't miss me - a further Trump term makes certain outcomes very much more likely, and they are undesirable outcomes. I don't think Fascism is one.

The effects of Jan 6 are noted, although, I allow far less weight to them than you do.

However, it seems to me that the exponentially worse results of the BLM riots don't cause the same concern in you, so we're talking different languages I think. The ability for DEI and CRT-driven programs and systems to 'other' people based on a merely perceived political affiliation is absolutely abhorrent and has torn families and communities apart. The current Israel/Hamas thing seems a perfect microcosm of that. I think it is maybe a little misguided to consider those issues not as much a risk as the overt peddling of crap Trump and his mates are up to. I'm assuming they are just more-closely aligned to your vision for the USA. Whcih is fine. Plenty of Repubs who aren't psychopaths probably think that about Trump's vision.