What do you mean "especially one like the US"? — frank

Well, you have the largest security apparatus in the West. And strongest Armed Forces.

The USA was originally envisioned as a loose association of states with common interests. — frank

Originally envisioned, as you say. I would encourage you to focus more on actuality too.

Yet I presume that as the anti-gun lobby has also raised similar questions about the amendment phrasing (and I think was central in the supreme court minority thinking), I think you don't get my point.

One might make the case of owning firearms for self-defence against crime, although people will have various views about it. Yet the idea that the Republic is your potential enemy and that you would get protection from having guns against the government, especially on like the US, is in my view not "healthy sceptism", but paranoia.

So I'll try to play devil's advocate in the comments just to see if I can get a really good response (these are not my actual opinions) — khaled

With that note, "these are not my actual opinions", I think you made the refutation yourself.

Well, above you did say that the original intention of the 2nd amendment was for the citizens to stop the government, here meaning their own government, from getting tyrannical. And this of course is a very popular view in the US.

However here the reference to the 'well trained militia' part is also important as otherwise you can have mob rule. One only has to note the much different path that the American revolution took from the French revolution or from many other revolutions. Once the first "populist" was elected later, many institutions of the republic had already settled down.

Basically the issue is that while a citizen of a republic ought to be critical and sceptical about the government, this shouldn't grow into total distrust and paranoia. If you have to start fighting with a rifle in your hand your own Republic, in my view that republic has gone astray and died a long time ago.

Frank, you just promote the (cartoon?) image of Americans that think the biggest threat to them is the US government, but having guns solves the problem.

Basically a free market system leads to oligopoly competition. This is a fact, just look at any industry or sector and the ten biggest companies dominate the market. And do notice that free market doesn't mean the same thing as the economic term "Perfect Market", which is a theoretical market in which buyers and sellers are so numerous and well informed that monopoly is absent and market prices cannot be manipulated.

When the OP asks "Is the free market the best democratic system?" the first impression to many is to think about the current economic market and compare it to a democratic system. And the current global economy is dominated by those oligopolies. Of course, if the term free market is taken on a more theoretical view as like a 'free market of ideas' and what is meant is that you can enter the market with new ideas and ideologies, that there's a lot political freedom, then it's a bit different. But likely the question is seen as if plutocracy is the better choice than democracy. Hardly anyone will choose plutocracy.

Its not an argument. It's a fact. I wouldn't ask you to read a history of the U.S., but there's a wikipedia article on the 2nd amendment that would help you understand the original intention. Ok? — frank

Then the question, which is obvious even from the Wikipedia article, was the fear against a standing professional army, which btw you have now as the last remnants of that idea of an armed militia, the selective draft, has been ended and only about 1% of the people serve in the military. But what you do have are many incorrect memes putting words into the mouth of George Washington as if he was warning to be armed against the republic he was founding.

Yeah, ton of literature especially pushed out by the gun lobby. Yet the argument is simply nuts if you would stop and think about it.

Because if you have to rise up in arms against your own government that ought to be defined by the Constitution, you've already lost any trace of democracy and a justice state in the first place. Everything in the Constitution starting from the independence of the three branches of government is designed to prevent autocratic rule. Preventing tyranny from the inside comes from an informed citizenry who will not vote for autocratic people who want to wreck the whole system. And any autocrat will easily deal with the "2nd Amendment people" just by allowing them to keep their guns. If the citizenry desperately wants to ruin their own republic, owning a rifle won't prevent it.

In fact thinking that you need a rifle against your own government could be intrepreted in that you simply don't believe the whole system works in the first place. So what are you going to do? Shoot the mailman because he is a government employee? That solves all the problems, really?

That was the original intention of the 2nd amendment. — frank

Which then goes against the "well regulated militia part" intended for the protection of the state, if you haven't noticed.

Or, wait a minute, does it mean that the well regulated militia takes care about the whole system?

The continuation of the species? Or is that too classical?

I've noticed that this antinatalism idea creates a lot of debate here.

I think it's just a feelgood response to counter the negative aspects that people have with the issue and gives them a honourable sounding reason for intentionally not reproducing. Like "I'm not selfish, I really think about pain and suffering of others". Because let's face it, however permissive our society has become, not to have children especially when living male-female relationship and especially if it was possible (to have children), is still somewhat of a stigma. The fact is that children do bring happiness. You will have a family around you when you die. And your genes don't die with you. Sure, there's a lot that can go awry, but still the vast majority are happy to have children. And that happiness of others creates this burden to some. Of course it shouldn't, one should allways enjoy the positive aspects of one's life and living single or living without kids has the positive sides to it. But antinatalism as a reason for it? Give me a break.

To state the absurdity of the lunatic fantasies of some gunowners in the US has nothing to do with the case of District of Columbia vs Heller, actually.

The District of Columbia wanted among other things a ban on handguns so strict that even a policeman, the famous Heller in that case, wouldn't get one.

Even in Europe a total ban on handguns would stir up a debate about basic rights of the citizenry. The UK is more of an exception here (with it's handgun ban) and typically the most strict gun laws you find in Asian countries. Hence when the US Supreme Court decided, not uninamously, but by a majority decision, that the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 was unconstitutional, it has nothing to do with my point: that the Free State referred in the 2nd Amendment is the US, which is represented by it's government and the whole idea is about defending the state. It doesn't say "Any man or woman has the right to bear a firearm to counter the threat of the government becoming tyrannical (or liberal), if he or she feels so." That simply is crazy, yet it is a perfect way for some to be have this delusional idea (or hubris) that they are somehow so free and independent, because they own firearms. As if that would be the guarantee that the US cannot fall under authoritarian rule. The safety valves for that are totally somewhere else.

"Hume's Abject Failure," by John Earman, argues that Hume's arguments against the belief in miracles are mistaken, but even if we grant that Hume's arguments are not convincing why should we believe that supernatural events ever occurred if the only reason for doing so is that there are claims that many eye-witnesses saw the event occur? — Walter Pound

If eye-witnesses claim something and we cannot immediately explain it, why should we in the first place assume it's supernatural?

There are still a lot of unexplained phenomenon, but that doesn't mean they are supernatural, somehow violations of the laws of nature. Rather the issue is that we don't know the laws of nature well enough and especially extremely rare phenomena are very difficult for science to handle.

What's so difficult in understanding matrices and linear transformations?

(Ok, they may be difficult, but still...)

Naturally emotional reasoning is quite logical if the issue at hand is about emotions. Hence the relationship with your spouse is about feelings towards another person. If you don't feel happy yet cannot reason why you feel so based on evidence, in this case I think it is totally logical to follow your emotions. There obviously is a problem in your relationship.

I'm wondering if anyone else falls into this trap of reasoning emotionally? In trying to pinpoint a singular cause for our distress, I attempt to highlight this cognitive distortion as one which stands out from all the others in contributing to distress, depression, and a whole host of other negative affective moods. — Posty McPostface

The problem of emotional reasoning seems to surface in a situation that one ought to look at the facts, ought to reason and not let your feelings be the judge. Let's say that one is making a financial investment and one feels the financial advisor promoting the investment feels nice and honest, yet one doesn't focus on what actually he or she is selling to you. When people have to make a choice and cannot get to the decision by reasoning, then they'll go by emotional reasoning. The famous "gut-feeling" as it's called.

Perhaps when people are depressed and in huge emotional distress, they cannot reason logically their decisions, but go with emotional reasoning as their emotions play such a huge role already. (I'm not a psychologist and I don't know if this is any use to you Posty, but my 2 cents.)

Seems you like trolling

The 2nd Amendment was instituted to facilitate the Body Politic in defending the Constitution and the Nation from tyrants. However it has mostly seen its main application in self defense against crime on the streets such as robbery and murder. — hks

I think the amendment is quite clear, but a lot of people suffer from dyslexia when it comes to the 2nd Amendment.

Sure, people understand the " the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed", but the trouble seems to understand the A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State part of the amendment at all.

What is the problem to understand what a 'well regulated militia' means and that the militia it is intended for the protection of the State called the United States, the goddam government?

What is the difficulty to understand that when written this kind of national defence was totally logical and rational? (And btw. would be if the US wasn't a superpower protected by two large oceans.)

Nope, the thinking has transformed to this whimsical loonie idea that any moron, that has enough money to buy a semi-automatic version of an assault rifle, somehow belongs then to this mythical "well regulated militia" and the free State isn't the US government, as that is the bogeyman for these idiots who fear their own government taking their guns away. As if having an arsenal of guns is somehow a deterrence to the sole superpower that has the biggest security apparatus in the West. As if the actual way of preventing your own government of falling into tyranny wouldn't to be an informed active citizen that takes part in the democratic political process.

Look at that. Another democracy left in the dust. : / — yatagarasu

Actually, that chart shows precisely when China started it's economic reforms, which happened in 1978. Then it started (and succeeded) to throw away the socialist economic model and well, basically turned to market oriented fascism.

India btw believed in the socialist extremely regulated economy until 1991 called the Licence Raj. The reforms had been started in the 1980's, but after 1991 the reforms were substantial. It adopted also the free market system, ended monopolies and open up various sectors for foreign investment. You can see this from the graph above too.

What do we learn from this? Planned economy sucks. Central planning itself isn't a disaster, only if everything is regulated and nothing is left to be decided by the market mechanism.

I have an assault rifle with high cap mags that helps me defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies both foreign or domestic. — hks

I think protection against your own government is the only valid reason for owning a weapon. — Devans99

Ah, the love that Americans have for the defence from their Constitution.

So Trump's new fight is with Chief Justice John Roberts and the "total & complete disaster 9th Circuit".

Of course Trump has a history of attacking the justice system, yet Roberts argument of there not being "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges" does sound little bit funny especially after the last SCOTUS appointment. Unfortunately the faith of Americans in the independence of judicial branch has for long been eroding and not only because of Trump.

You obviously are a romantic philosopher.

The question is do these sorts of behaviors not occur in other economic systems? — Marchesk

Exactly.

Especially when you think about the historical alternative to capitalism, the autocratic central planned economies of socialism. If something structurally lacked empathy or basically ways to take into account the wants of the consumer, it has to be that universally failed system. But as the Soviet system exists just on the pages of history, it is totally unknown to many now.

I would suggest, in response to your very sane observation, that what we cannot speak of together, as real (non-virtual) human beings, existing in the real world, in a single time and place, we should not speak of at all. (For awhile at least; say 1,000 years or so.) It's too much, too soon. — Brian Jones

I didn't mean that we shouldn't talk if our togethereness is only virtual. It was much more of a remark on the value choices that we make how we spend our time, especially when you have close people to you who are only for a brief time dependent of you and for whom you are so important, until they grow up and start living their own independent lives.

Talking with strangers or in this case, foreigners, is a positive experience when one notices how similar people are. It would be perhaps a scary experience if one would come to such site and one would notice that you have absolutely nothing in common with the people. Your values, morals and preferences or interests would be totally different and you wouldn't understand their reasoning.

The internet is like a great cultural centrifuge, and we're hurtling outward with it. — Brian Jones

Haven't the human race been in that centrifuge for quite a while now? From the personal car to the telephone to mass media to cheap contraception, we have dramatically changed the way we live through the technological inventions we have made. The easy life perhaps makes us more lazy and short sighted, yet it's a very old way of thinking that we have lost something on the way and become decadent.

Is there any irony in that this debate we are having is all thanks to the internet?

No other possible media would have brought total strangers to talk about these issues with the ease it has now. You see I do remember the time before the internet and how difficult it was to study something new in philosophy. You would have to find the physical articles in scientific journals and from books, follow the references, and if they journal didn't have the journal in the library or in other ones in your city, tough luck. And of course if you didn't find the correct "thread" in the articles, the correct debate, you would be totally ignorant about that one professor on the other side of the World has written exactly on the issue that interests you.

Of course there are the negative aspects mentioned in the OP. Heck, every time I am writing here and discussing philosophical issues with people I have typically no idea who they are, I'm not playing with my children or doing something else. But have we become worse people? I'm not so sure about that.

Yes, after I posted that, I realized that I overreached a bit. There are indeed "regular" systems that nevertheless cannot be simulated to arbitrary precision (indeed, if we sample from all mathematically possible systems, then almost all of them are uncomputable in this sense). However, most of our physical models are "nice" like that; the question then is whether that is due to modelers' preference or whether it is a metaphysical fact. Proponents of the simulation hypothesis bet on the latter, that is that the hypothetical "theory of everything" (or a good enough approximation) will be computable. — SophistiCat

Seems to me that we are finding some kind of common ground here. Cool.

So the point here is that you just remember that if there is one black swan, not all swans are white. But anyway, assuming they're all white doesn't lead to everything going astray as the vast majority of them are indeed white. And this is the important point: understanding the limits of the models we use gives us a better understanding of the issue at hand.

I have found it to be very useful especially in economics because people often make the disasterous mistake of believing that the (economic) models portray reality as well as the laws of Physics do explain moving billiard balls. Believe me, I had in the late 1990's an assistant yelling at me that the whole idea of there existing or happening speculative bubbles in the modern financial markets was a totally ludicrous idea and hence not worth studying, because the financial markets work so well. The professor had to calm him down and say that this is something we don't know yet. But the assistant was great in math!

It is difficult to understand what you are trying to say here, but my best guess is that you imagine a simulation of our entire universe - the actual universe that includes the simulation engine itself. That would, of course, pose a problem of self-reference and infinite regress, but I don't think anyone is proposing that. A simulation would simulate a (part of) the universe like ours - with the same laws and typical conditions. — SophistiCat

I think you've got it now. But it can also be far more limited in scope, not just the entire universe, just where and when the computers actions have effects that result in this kind of loop.

I think that Preussia was first (or one of the first) nations to have a modern education system with things like having grades starting education from kindergarten. Yet as the name (Preussia) implies, this had influence in the 19th Century and perhaps early 20th century.

Time was the different in the 19th Century: Americans went to study the STEM-fields to Germany back then. As historical foundations obviously do have an influence at the present, it should be noted that the trends of post-war educational policy are the ones we have now. Also one shouldn't forget John Dewey and the Progressive Education movement, so education policy hasn't been one sided in the US.

Coming to the post-WW2 era I think that America itself wasn't anymore looking at other countries, but being the model itself. And at least in higher education, nowhere you find universities like the Ivy League ones and US universities dominate the Global higher education. As I worked once in the Academy of Finland and handled these question, I understood the size and dominance of the US quite staggering. If you put all the universities together here in Finland (all 14 of them) plus add all the major government research centers into one university, you basically would have a university spewing out papers, making academic research equivalent to MIT in volume (but not with as high impact factor). And MIT is just one university on a rather specific area giving higher education and not even the biggest university around the US. Basically three of the largest universities in Florida have equivalent number of university level students as my country.

Just like the American military might have learned things in the past from Preussians/Germans, it has been for a while been at the cutting edge of military doctrine since WW2. Hence it's far better to talk about an American school.

To be vague or in other ways to leave their space for interpretation can be useful sometimes. Especially in diplomacy, a multilateral agreement might intentionally be left open for interpretation in order to get all the parties, be they more adamant or more flexible, to sign the agreement.

I remember a classic story from Imperial Russia. An Intellectual had been detained by the police in a remote city in Russia and the police chief had inquired from St. Petersburg instructions on what to do with the detainee. The telegram answer came back and it said: "mercy no siberia". Seeing this the chief said: "The instructions are clear: Mercy no, Siberia!". The detainee politely responded: "I beg your pardon sir, but the telegram obviously states: "Mercy. No Siberia."

Last greats?

a) Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber from 1936.

b) While have drawn cartoons once for the university paper, here's my pick
for the last greatest cartoon, even if it hasn't the pun that Bitter Crank has, is
Gary Larson's "Car!" with four cows on the field. A masterpiece in it's simplicity.

I agree with this but would also point out how it still doesn't break with the reductionist presumption that this fact is a bug rather than a feature of physicalist ontology.

So it is a problem that observers would introduce uncertainty or instability into the world being modelled and measured. And being a problem, Michael and @SophistiCat will feel correct in shrugging their shoulders and replying coarse-graining can ignore the fact - for all practical purposes. The problem might well be fundamental and ontic. But also, it seems containable. We just have to find ways to minimise the observer effect and get on with our building of machines. — apokrisis

You nailed it Apokrisis, this is exactly what has been done.

It's been the assumption that with better models and in time things like this can be avoided or even solved. It simply doesn't sink in that this is a fundamental and an inherent problem. The only area where it has been confronted is in Quantum Mechanics, where nobody tells that Quantum Mechanics and relativity are totally reducible to Newtonian mechanics and that the problematic issues of QM can simply be avoided and hence we can use Newtonian mechanics.

It really might seem containable, until you notice that since the 1970's the Computer scientists have predicted an immediate breakthrough in AI. Of course, we still don't have true AI. We just have advanced programs than can trick us from a limited point of view to think they have AI.

I am taking the more radical position of saying both biology and physics are fundamentally semiotic. The uncertainty and instability is the ontic feature which makes informational regulation even a material possibility. It is not a flaw to be contained by some clever trick like coarse graining. It is the resource that makes anything materially organised even possible. — apokrisis

That's the basic argument in this case on the mathematical side that when something is uncomputable, you really cannot compute it. It's an ontic feature that cannot be contained with some clever trick.

Self-reference doesn't intrude into our attempts to measure nature. Nature simply is self-referential at root. In quantum terms, it is contextual, entangled, holistic. And from there, informational constraints - as supplied for instance by a cooling/expanding vacuum - can start to fragment this deep connectedness into an atomism of discrete objects. A classical world of medium-sized dry goods. — apokrisis

And hence mathematical models don't work so well as in some other field. That's the outcome. Does there exist a mathematical model for evolution? Can Darwinism be explained by an algorithm, By a computable model? Some quotes about this question:

Biological evolution is a very complex process. Using mathematical modeling, one can try to clarify its features. But to what extent can that be done? For the case of evolution, it seems unrealistic to develop a detailed and fundamental description of phenomena as it is done in theoretical physics. Nevertheless, what can we do?

Evolution is a highly complex multilevel process and mathematical modeling of evolutionary phenomenon requires proper abstraction and radical reduction to essential features.

Basically mathematical modeling is used in various ways, but there isn't the mathematical model for evolution. Now this should tell people something.

In these other paths, the United States is traditionally stronger than Western Europe; freedom of speech, economic enterprise, judicial system... — DiegoT

Is it? At least the US is more corrupt than many European countries.

By the Corruption Perception Index, the least corrupt states are in order (with European countries in bold):

1. Denmark
1. New Zealand
3. Finland
4. Sweden
5. Switzerland
6. Norway
7. Singapore
8. Netherlands
9. Canada
10. Germany
10. Luxembourg
13. Australia
14. Iceland
.
.
.
18. the USA

Then there's the Democracy Index. That goes the following (again European countries in bold):

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Sweden
4. New Zealand
5. Denmark
6. Ireland
6. Canada
8. Australia
9. Finland
9. Switzerland
11. Netherlands
12. Luxembourg
.
.
.
21. the USA

Now what is 1st or 4th on that list doesn't actually matter much, but what countries are in single digits and what is 18th or 21st the differences do start to show. And do notice that it's the same countries on top of both charts as corruption simply means that the country isn't a democratic justice state. (The only exception here is Singapore: doesn't have much corruption, but cannot be said to be very democratic.)

Then you have a bi-party system. Is that truly democratic when you have the political parties that can be able to be in power one centrist-leftist leaning party and a far-right party (by European standards)? Is it real democracy that Americans don't even believe in third parties being able to make it to the Congress and act as a viable alternative as the two parties have made it so difficult? And how do you argue that freedom of speach is so different in the US from Western Europe?

And if you do it with Lego blocks it will be less accurate still (funnier though). But I am not sure what your point is. — SophistiCat

Ok, I'll try to explain again, thanks for having the interest and hopefully you'll get through this long answer and understand it. Let's look at the basic argument, the one that you explain the following way:

the idea behind the simulation hypothesis is that (a) there is a general, all-encompassing order of things, (b) any orderly system can be simulated on a computer, and possibly (c) the way to do it is to simulate it at its most fundamental level, the "theory of everything" - then everything else, from atoms to trade wars, will automatically fall into place. All of these premises can be challenged, but not simply by pointing out the obvious: that computers only follow instructions. — SophistiCat

Ok, the question is about premiss (b) any orderly system can be simulated on a Computer.

Because from the definition what you yourself just said there above, it means that premiss (b) can be written as (b) any orderly system can be simulated only following instructions. And with "following instructions" we mean using algorithms, computing.

And the following here is, and don't get carried away to other things, is plain mathematics. Yet there exists non-computable, but true mathematical objects. You can call these orderly systems etc. The math is correct, they do have a correct model of them, they aren't mystical, the only thing is that they are simply uncomputable. Now if a Computer has to compute these, it obviously cannot do it.

So how do we ask a Computer something to what there exists a correct model, but it cannot compute it? Well, simply by a situation where the correct answer is depended on what the computer doesn't do, in other words, negative self-reference. You get this with Turing's Halting Problem. Now you might argue that this is quite far fetched, but actually it isn't when the computer has to interact with the outside World, when it has to take into account the effects of it's own actions. Now, in the vast majority of cases this isn't a problem (taking it's own effects into account on the system to be modelled). Yes, you can deal with it with "Computer learning" or basically a cybernetic system, a feedback loop.

With negative self reference you cannot do it. And notice, you don't have to have here consciousness or anything mystical of that sort (so please stop saying that I'm implying this). What the basic problem is that as the Computer has an effect on what it is modelling, it's actions make it a subject while the mathematical model, ought to be objective. Sometimes it's possible stll to give the correct model and the problem of subjectivity can be avoided, but not with negative self reference.

I'll give you an example of the problem of negative self reference: try to say or write down a sentence in English that you never in your life have or will say or write. Question: do these kinds of sentences exist? Yes, surely as your life as mine is finite. The thing is that you cannot say them, me or others here can do it. Computation has simple logical limits to self-reference. I can give other examples of this for example with a problem with forcasting the correct outcome when there obviously is one, but it cannot be computed.

When you think about it, this is the problem of the instruction "do something else than what is in the instructions" for a computer. If there isn't a simple instruction on what to do when confronted with this kind of instruction, the Computer cannot do it. Because do something else is not in the instructions. Do something else means negative self reference to the instructions the Computer is following.

Why is this important? Because interaction with the world is filled with these kinds of problems and to assume that one can mathematically compute them hence solve them by computation, follow simple instructions, is difficult when the problems start from mathematical logic itself. It's simply like trying to argue that everything is captured by Newtonian physics when it isn't so.

Do we? How? — SophistiCat

Are you serious? Well, to give an easy example: if you would model reality with just Newtonian physics, your GPS-system wouldn't be so accurate as the present GPS system we now have, that takes into account relativity. And there's a multitude of other example where the idea of reality being this clock-work mechanical system doesn't add up.

If you believe that conscious beings are outside any general order of things, then obviously you will reject the simulation conjecture for that reason alone. So there is nothing to talk about. — SophistiCat

That has to be the strawman argument of the month. Where did I say "conscious beings are outside any general order of things"?

Definitions do matter. If we talk about Computers, then the definition of how they work, that they follow algorithms, matters too. Apokrisis explains this very well on the previous page:

Computation is nothing more than rule-based pattern making. Relays of switches clicking off and on. And the switches themselves don't care whether they are turned on or off. The physics is all the same. As long as no one trips over the power cord, the machine will blindly make its patterns. What the software is programmed to do with the inputs it gets fed will - by design - have no impact on the life the hardware lives.

Now from there, you can start to build biologically-inspired machines - like neural networks - that have some active relation with the world. There can be consequences and so the machine is starting to be like an organism.

But the point is, the relationship is superficial, not fundamental. At a basic level, this artificial "organism" is still - in principle - founded on material stability and not material instability. You can't just wave your hands, extrapolate, and say the difference doesn't count. — apokrisis

I heard a programme about the poetry of Afghanistan last night - lots of flowers and orchards and sadness amongst the death and suffering, like the poppies of Flanders. It's very popular there apparently. — unenlightened

Poetry that touches people tells something about their lives and their feelings. Hence poetry from the WW1 era is from an age we have problems to relate to. It doesn't reflect our personal experiences and the reality we live in. Naturally poetry can be timeless also, but still.

(Poppies are indeed very popular in Afghanistan, but perhaps that's another issue)

People who think forests must be entirely left alone are not ecologists, their knowledge of ecology is poor. — DiegoT

Yep. Here the ecological succession of a forest takes roughly about 100-200 years. And if you ever have been in a forest that has been left to it's natural state, it's extremely difficult to move in with all the fallen down trees.

Do they rake a lot in Finland? — frank

Um, outside your home lawn I don't think Finns do that. Of course except for particular nature reserves, the forests are from time to time cut down and managed.

Environmentalists didnt block controlled burns. They blocked the creation of deforested corridors that would have limited wildfires. That's not a rightist meme. That actually happened. — frank

Frank, rightist (just as leftist) discussion points or memes can be fact based. Not everything is make believe. Best propaganda is based on facts: you just pick what facts you want to use.

Depends on how one defines miracles. If we assume the popular Humean view of miracles as violations of the laws of nature - which already implies that nature mostly behaves in law-like ("mechanical") fashion - then yes, that is what you are implying. — SophistiCat

Yet we know that the reality cannot be at all times accurately modelled with the idea of a clock-work mechanical universe. Quantum Physics and relativity do have their merits in making better models of reality.

Only an idealised computer will follow its instructions and only those instructions.

A real computer will respond to input data according to its physical characteristics which may not follow the specified instructions (algorithms) perfectly. There can be problems with the hardware, problems with the software , intrinsic logical problems such as stack overflow all of which conspire to produce output that is not intended by the programmer. — A Seagull

Sure, we get that "syntax error" from time to time. But it's not intentional (or who knows, perhaps it's a clever marketing scheme that computers stop working after enough time).

Yet if the idealised Computer is basically a Turing Machine, then these problems exist. That's my basic point.

I believe it was the Prussians who militarized Germany and that the US has adopted the Prussian models of bureaucracy and education and is now what the US defended its democracy against. — Athena

Well, Preussia unified Germany and had a long military tradition, however just to put this to be a Preussian issue doesn't tell the truth of pre-WW1 Europe. France and other countries were also far more militaristic or jingoist as simply the horrors of the Great War hadn't yet happened.

Perhaps in some way this post-WW2 guilt that German identity has is closest to that Americans have with the issue of slavery and the discrimination of blacks. The difference is of course that the Germans lost the war, were occupied and everything collapsed. For example the Soviet totalitarian dictatorship killed masses of Russians and the system collapsed in the end, however the Soviet Union didn't fall with American tanks on the Red Square in Moscow. Hence there isn't an unavoidable need to confront the past and make a separation from the past, which can be seen starting from the views of the present ruler of Russia Vladimir Putin. Russians can allways be proud of the Soviet Union defeating Hitler and putting the first man into space.

Where did you get your information? — Athena

About Germans? Reading a lot, studying hisotry in the university, following the German media discourse and talking to Germans themselves. Have been there a couple of times.

I do not know the world from the point of view of those outside the US. — Athena

Never underestimate the effects of globalization, modern media (including the social media) and the Western lifestyle we share. Viewpoints are quite similar in Europe as in the States. The differences are actually small.

I am still trying to understand where (if anywhere) you are leading with these requirements for programs that spring into existence fully formed out of the blue. — SophistiCat

No. I'm just explaining the limitations of computation and using algorithms.

Are you trying to say that consciousness is a miracle? — SophistiCat

Again no. Look, if I were to say that not everything is purely mechanical and can be modelled to work as clock-work, would that mean that I'm implying that there are miracles?

Ah, Trump has mentioned my puny little country!

In a press conference Saturday afternoon in Northern California President Donald Trump did not blame climate change for the deadliest wildfire the nation has seen in a century, but said instead that Finland doesn’t have the same problem because “they spend a lot of time on raking” leaves.

"You’ve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important. You look at other countries where they do it differently and it’s a whole different story,” Trump said standing next to California Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom.

“I was with the president of Finland and he said, ‘We have a much different—we're a forest nation.’ He called it a forest nation, and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things,” Trump said, making a moving motion with his hand. “And they don't have any problem.”

Perhaps California is a little bit different from Finland with things like the climate.

.................................................California...............Finland
Average mean temperature.....16,1 celsius...........5,5 celsius
Yearly precipitation rate...........544mm..................600-700mm (half of it as snow)

Of course what Trump is referring to is one popular critique cherished especially on the right. Forests in climates where they turn into tinderboxes because of the warm, dry climate, raking the forest floor is a sound procedure, just like having some distance between forests and urban areas. Yet this way you can blame the environmentalists about it, who obviously want everything to be left in intact in it's natural state, and hence are the culprits if wildfires become really bad.

Bitter Crank, gorilla or guerilla?

I think that guerillas are far more dangerous than gorillas, even if there actually are quite few of them also. Yet usually you don't eradicate them by trying to kill them all, that likely just creates more of them. :wink:

(What has the OP to do with patriotism?)

Yes, that's what evolutionary algorithms do: they modify part of their own code — SophistiCat

With the way the algorithm instructs them to do.

Notice the part "which wasn't at all described in the first program to be done". That part you see means that it's not following the instructions, it's not modifying it's code how it was instructed to do.

I’m saying that human brains are not in principle impossible to manufacture and that unless there really is some magic involved then if we reproduce the material and the behaviour then consciousness will result. We can then manipulate this artificial brain’s experiences by stimulating the relevant neurons, just as we can to a limited extent in real people already. — Michael

Fair enough. I'm not implying that there is any magic either, only that our current Turing Machines called computers have severe limitations in being accurate models on how we function. Of course in many ways they can model us, that's for sure.

Whether or not you want to call this artificial brain a biological computer or its experiences a simulation is an irrelevant semantic matter — Michael

I wouldn't call it an irrelevant semantic matter as a computer does have a specific definition. Now, if you use the term AI, you aren't implying something specific on how the AI operates, but calling it a computer you do that, because (as I've said now many times) a computer has a definition. Just like in earlier historical times people just assumed humans to be just advanced mechanical devices.