• Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    Right, so if everything is the phenomenal, then we don't have access to anything beyond it. — Agustino

    This sort of misbegotten hyperbole is an example of the crazy world of Gusto.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    ↪Agustino
    I think Kant would be as confused at your thinking as others are.
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    ↪tom
    Thanks for the non sequitur.
  • Origins of the English
    How is it that the Celtic language was completely replaced even if the people remained — schopenhauer1

    I've thought about this one for some time.
    France gets its name from the Franks, another Germanic tribe. The consequences for the language were that German words for military ranks and cavalry equipment. They surrendered their language completely
    In Britain there is an assumption that before Caesar the country was fully "Celtic", and that after the Romans fled the entire country in a very short time, changed to Anglo-Saxon with Celtic remaining only in place names.
    Geoffrey of Monmouth talks about only a handful of invading ships!
    I've always entertained the view that Saxon migration started long before the legions left in 401AD. And that Rome purposely invited Saxons to settle in the SE to avoid the problems of raiding along "Saxon Shore". I also made myself unpopular by suggesting that germanic was even spoken in Britain before the Romans invaded. So tribes such as the Belgae and Trinovantes, , Regnenses having Latinised names may well have been Germanic or Celtic speakers. There is simply no evidence as no historical account takes any particular interest in their linguistic origins. The Belgae for example were know to have been recent migrants to Britain and the assumption they spoke Celtic has no basis in evidence.
    Languages have no specific boundaries in any event. English is a melange of influences and we have no direct evidence about what the multitude of ethnic groups' influences were.
    Early history - protohistory is built on assumptions and those assumptions were largely built on an interest in racialism.

    As a side note. Celticism was invented in the 17thC. The Romans never referred to inhabitants of Gaul or Britain as "Celtic". by Contrast early archaeological evidence of so-called "celts" were Germanic. The Halstatt and La Tene cultures were from Germany!
    But the contemporary evidence of "Keltoi" (a Greek word BTW) puts Kelts in Massilia southern France, and they are described as Blonde Haired and Blue Eyed.
    The idea that the entire continent of Europe was "Celtic" is meaningless.
  • We are evil. I can prove it.
    I am very pleased to say that for the first time ever I completely agree with something you've said. — JustSomeGuy

    Take care because the POV that forms this opinion lies behind everything I think. If you agree here you may find yourself succumbing to other ideas I hold that stem from this POV.
  • Migration
    ↪phrzn
    Nah! You can't run a country with a slide-rule. People use their own cultural logic and you ignore it at your peril.
    Your way lies Soyent Green.
  • Do numbers exist?
    ↪bahman
    Ideas do not have instances in reality. Ideas can only attempt to represent reality, or try to describe it.
  • Origins of the English
    If that is right, then it looks like the average is 37% Anglo-Saxon, 22% Celtic, 20% "Western European" (area covered by France and German), 9% Scandinavian, with variations based on region. — schopenhauer1

    None of these categories have any genetic meaning, and all arguments about %age are circular.
    These are mDNA studies and are not genomic.
  • Origins of the English
    I have a degree in ancient history and archaeology and a Masters in Intellectual History.

    This sort of discussion is the scourge of humanity.

    It is of no real importance and only serves to disrupt and sunder humanity into disparate groups based on a myth that there are such things as races and that races somehow determine behaviour.
    It's like we have learned nothing from the second world war and Martin Luther King.
    The primitive urge to shun 'the other' and to form petty human groups has been made into a scientific fetish by people willing to cash in on DNA analysis.
    DNA is not coded for nationality. There is one race - the human race. Phenotypical characteristics are superficial and you can find more in common with a person from the other side of the earth who is a different size, shape or colour that you can with your own brother.
    Culture is extra-somatic. Being "English" is a myth with arbitrary characteristics not carried by eggs or sperm, it is wholly mythical and learned.
  • Moral Responsibility and Alternate Possibilities
    With that said, my issue is centered more on the requirement of alternate possibilities, given that moral responsibility is true. — thecone137

    Sorry I have no idea what you mean here.
    You do not let off a tiger determined to kill you. If the tiger is responsible for killing humans, then you have to do something about it. What ismoral responsibility except some peri-christian nonsense which demands the impossible that we are all free to open the door to the baby Jesus what ever we might think or feel, or reason about the existence of god.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    I know that the concept of individuation will only enter awareness AFTER experience, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist prior to experience as an activity. — Agustino

    Get a life.
    I've no idea what is wrong with your ability to think.
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    Could you please elaborate? — bahman

    You reject compatibilism, but you are actually rejecting the concept of non deterministic free will.

    A compatibilist is a determinist.

    Compatibilists often define an instance of "free will" as one in which the agent had freedom to act according to their own motivation. That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained. Arthur Schopenhauer famously said "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." WIKI

    Compatibilism is a moral stance which accepts that actions are determined, and accepts free will as an instance in which a person acted according to his own (determined) motivation, but was not forced by outside forces to act in that way.

    For example you have become determined by experience to be a thief, and you steal. Had you been coerced by another then you would not have been free to act.
    Compatibilism is a moral stance. Punishment is delivered to the person who is determined to transgress the law. Such a person can enter into consideration mitigating circumstances, and a judge my consider them. But the judge passes sentence upon a man caused to act contrary to law.
    It is not a metaphysical proposition. Compatibilism is a social proposition.
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    Appear? I am arguing against compatibilism. — bahman

    No - you are misconceiving it.
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    You realize that there is zero evidence for either of these statements. Your "fact" it's a belief. — Rich

    Have you any reason to suppose that what we see in nature does not also apply to us?
    The assertion of the idea that necessity; the rule of cause and effect is ubiquitous is an inductive truth that has never been demonstrated to be false.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    Abstraction is something that happens after experience — Agustino

    That's what I have been saying all along, obviously.
    Go back and read your first post.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    And yet, "individuality" cannot come from experience (the senses), but rather experience presupposes it. So where does it come from?
    — Agustino


    There is no "IT". It is just an abstraction you are conceptualizing.     — charleton
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    And yet, "individuality" cannot come from experience (the senses), but rather experience presupposes it. So where does it come from? — Agustino


    There is no "IT". It is just an abstraction you are conceptualizing.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    ↪Agustino
    GOD?
    LOL
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    No. I am saying given a situation which is defined by a set of options an agent can decide and choose one of the option only if he can initiate a chain of causality. — bahman

    You mean that an agent is free from necessity!
    Therefore we are not free given the definition of free will. — bahman

    Yes. we are not free of necessity.

    This is where the perspective of compatibilism comes in. We observe people making apparent acts of will all the time. Since we can never be party to the causal chains in side a person's brain, these acts of will are deterministic, but appear to be freely made.
  • Do numbers exist?
    There are no integers in reality since everything is unique. Whatever we chose to nominate as a thing, there is no other thing that is the same as that thing.
    Two oranges are not the same. Numbering the oranges asserts that those oranges are the same and equal to one another. One orange plus another orange is two oranges is not exact but an approximation.
    The universe is analogue, numbers are digital. PI is irresolvable because of this contradiction.
    There are no straight lines in nature; maths imposes them.
    I think the thread is a no brainer.
  • Conscious decision is impossible
    A conscious decision is one we know we have made.
    I see no problem here at all.
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    Apparent? It is not apparent at all. — bahman

    ??? Are you trying say there are no acts of will? Or that they are not apparent, but real?
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    What causes this?
    Agents follow from causes too.
    — charleton

    That is not correct. What does initiate a chain of causality if even the agent follow causality too?     — bahman

    Are you saying that individual human agents are free from necessity?
    The chains of causality are not initiated except by the big bang, and maybe not even then.
    I do not understand your objection.
  • Moral Responsibility and Alternate Possibilities
    Determinism states that at no single nexus of events a person could have acted otherwise. If we suppose that determinism is true, then where does that leave moral responsibility??
    Answer exactly where it is.     — charleton
    Determinism is true and when we punish for a crime we punishwho the person is, and not just what they did.
    That suggests that the penal system would work more effectively not with vengeance, but by understanding the nature of the person and trying to change the conditions of the person's life, they way they conceive of their place in society and offering them alternative routes to avoid further punishment.
  • Moral Responsibility and Alternate Possibilities
    but hard determinists would not believe that reform is possible because they are not responsible morally for their actions. Determinism here differs from causation. — TimeLine

    I utterly disagree. On the contrary. A determinist knows that all things are the result of causes. If you want to effect a change in a person then you have contribute to that by introducing causal factors and by understanding how that person acts in morally irresponsible ways.

    The real problem is with proponents of free will who assert that a person can act IN SPITE of causal factors. For them locking up a wilful person and throwing away the key is the only sure solution. If a person has ultimate choice then you can never trust them that they will not re-offend.

    I really feel that this is why the US penal system works so poorly, whilst the Scandinavian model works so well
  • The case for a right to State-assisted suicide
    ↪ArguingWAristotleTiff

    I have had cancer and am over it, for the time being.
    Thanks for your kind thoughts but I was talking HYPOTHETICALLY, but from some experience.
  • Compatibilism is impossible
    Free will in another hand is the ability to initiate or terminate a chain of causality — bahman

    What causes this?
    Agents follow from causes too.
    Your conclusion is not warranted. Compatibilism is a deterministic picture which recognises the idea of free-will as caused and causal agency. It does not posit an agent that can act regardless of causality. It's a matter of perspective, and answers the problem of apparent acts of will.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    It means individuation of anything and everything. — Agustino

    This is about conceptualising. All experience is prior.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    we don't get thisconcept from any — Agustino

    As I said we do not need this CONCEPT to have experience.
    You need to take more care with words
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    in order to have more than one experience in the first place, individuation already must be possible. — Agustino
  • Migration
    All nations are comprised of migrants, or descendants of migrants.
    The most successful of nations are those in which migration has been recently encouraged. Countries with walls do so at their peril and there are examples where this can be shown to cause stagnant ways of thinking.
    In the UK there are moves to control and even reverse immigration. This, is, by and large just primitive xenophobia. Immigrants predict high for being employed, for being single, for paying taxes. They predict low for being unemployed and claiming benefits.
    There is a shortage of nurses in the UK, which has markedly accelerated after the vote for Brexit. Employees in the NHS no longer feel welcome, and many suffer from racist abuse, are leaving to return with their new skills to their original homes abroad, or other foreign lands that are attracting them with better conditions rather than staying here and contributing their great work.

    In a time of so-called "austerity" where the government fails to invest in infrastructure, pressure can be directed to immigrants rather than on government policy who are playing the "no alternative" card of economic irresponsibility.
    Hitler came to power in wave of racial hatred, but the solution to Germany's economic crisis was not in expelling and incarcerating jews and slavs (which alone made things worse), it was the rejection of austerity by spending their way out of a hole with careful investment in industry.
    There is a lesson here for us in the UK today.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    ↪Agustino
    You started by saying we could have no experience without the concept of self as individual. Are you now rejecting that position?
    yes/no?
    Now you ask where the concept comes from?
    If you answered yes above, spend some time thinking this through before you quiz me to death with you confrontational approach.
    If you said no. then I have no idea why you are asking where it comes from. I assume you are going to say it has something to do with god, and so I bow out of the conversation with you.
  • The case for a right to State-assisted suicide
    Before we can talk about death with dignity, we need to ensure that all people, regardless of age or disability, can live with dignity.

    This is a complete non sequitur.     — ChrisH
    Fuck that LOL.
    Here I am dying of bowl cancer in great pain with defecting all over my death bed, but before I am allowed to die with some dignity I have to wait for "all people" to live with dignity. How long do I have to wait??
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    ↪Agustino
    Think about child psychology.
    From the womb in the first couple of years is where conceptualising starts to occur.
    But experience predicates it all.
    mpressions of red, yellow, hard, soft, sweet, sour, etc. Where amongst those impressions is there an impression of "individual"? — Agustino
    Why are you asking that?
    Proprioception, is an innate sense with which we experience our own bodies.
  • Exploding Elephants
    Yes, that's along the lines of what I was referring to by "thick legs", although it seems I didn't read carefully enough; I read Agustino as saying that a creature the shape of a hamster, but the size of an elephant could have evolved. An ordinary-sized elephant-thicklegged hamster. Problem? — Janus

    Yes. I don't see the problem with a mini elephant. Or a mouse with thick legs. It would not be very agile but I do not think per se it would be a dangerous impediment to living.
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    ↪Agustino
    Duh.

    Have you thought about the possibility that is might come from experience?
  • Exploding Elephants
    ↪Agustino
    There is no implication in the video that the number of cells or the internal structural architecture necessary for that to occur is in the video.
    As no such machine exists in reality then the field is open for discussion. this is one of the first problems that was chewed over at the top of the thread. You really must pay more attention as you keep making a fool of yourself
  • Where are words?... Continued Discussion
    in order to have more than one experience in the first place, individuation already must be possible. — Agustino
    You have a weird way of thinking.
    We do not need a concept of individuation to have experience. Experience underlies all conceptualising.
    Living things from bacteria, to trees, to elephants big or tiny all experience living. none of them show any evidence of having a concept of "individuality".
  • Exploding Elephants
    ↪Agustino
    It's you who have failed to think of all the possibilities.
    I don't think anyone was talking of this kind of "enlargement". — Agustino

    What kind of enlargement? I posited TWO. Neither of which leads to a living giant mouse.
  • Moral Responsibility and Alternate Possibilities
    In other words, has anyone refuted the idea that someone can be morally accountable for an action without saying that they could have acted otherwise? — thecone137

    Determinism states that at no single nexus of events a person could have acted otherwise. If we suppose that determinism is true, then where does that leave moral responsibility??
    Answer exactly where it is.

    Moral responsibility, crime and punishment and all that goes with it in a deterministic world is not different in outcome than a hypothetical world in which free-will is supposed to reign.
    It just leave us to assess what are the implications of a moral world of deterrence, punishment, shame, and blame in a deterministic world..

    Threats of punishment and social sanctions of all sorts are put in place as causal agents that seek to deter. The hope is that a person knowing they might be sanctioned shall avoid negative actions to avoid those sanctions. Where the threat is incapable of overcoming the innate fear of an individual the punishment is then applied. In a deterministic world this SHOULD suggest that the punishment is "correctional"; that it ought o be able to cause a person to change. You are directing the punishment at the person's innate causalities which led them to transgress. This should indicate assessment followed by further sanctions or rehabilitation.
    I do not see where there is any contradiction here. In fact I would prefer that the prison system did NOT treat people as is they had free will, but were persons capable of change, rehabilitation and reform; that prisons where institutions capable of steering a person to a better legal and moral life, rather than pretend that they were willful recidivists incapable of productive change.
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