Except that it hasn't done any such thing. 99.9% of the species that have existed on Earth are now extinct and that ratio will at best remain constant although as nature has failed to find a predator to keep the human species which is doing a bang up job of exhausting its food sources that's pretty unlikely. — Barry Etheridge

The most important aspect of life is competition. Without it life would never evolve into the variety of forms and behaviors that we see today. — Harry Hindu — Harry Hindu

Somebody's been drinking a little too heavily at the Dawkins trough. Symbiotic and co-operative relationships between species are far more effective at preserving diversity than competition. Competition, by definition, results in a winner and a lot of losers. Co-operation results in a lot of winners. Evolutionary theory tends to fixate on higher order animals as single organisms when in fact they are a co-operative colonies of thousands of species constantly constantly interacting with thousands of other such colonies. — Barry Etheridge

Maybe you didn't know Dawkins wrote "The Selfish Gene" where he explains how cooperation can evolve as a means of social organisms achieving their own personal goals and where cheaters within a group of intelligent members with long memories won't do so well. Take a look at the part where he talks about the game theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma.

There are many reasons why 99.9% of the species that existed are extinct. When the environment changes those balances are disrupted, but once the environment settles down and becomes stable, those balances re-occur.

I won't disagree that humans have changed the environment, but then so do many other organisms and other processes, like the sun, and the internal forces of the Earth, which have a much larger impact on the environment than humans do presently. Change is the name of the game. Change occurs - sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly - and when it does those balances and cooperative relationships are disrupted.

Competition is the process where an organism becomes acclimated to the new environment - competing for the resources with other species thereby creating an almost perfect balance between organism and environment. When the species becomes so perfectly tuned to it's environment it won't change, like how the shark hasn't changed for millions of years because it has evolved to the point of being an almost perfect killing machine in the water. The reason why it can never be the perfect killing machine is because it would end up killing all it's prey to the point where the species that is the prey will be eaten to extinction and then the shark starve and die. There will always be a competition between prey and predator. As the prey evolves new abilities to evade the predator, the predator will be forced to evolved a counter or die off.

Reality is everything that exists. Awareness is thoughts and memories and sensations. Exactly as it is for the realist. It's just that whereas the realist would say that both awareness and non-awareness things exist, and so that "reality" refers to awareness and non-awareness things, the idealist would say that only awareness exists, and so that "reality" refers only to awareness.

Again compare with "intelligent species" and humanity. That the former refers only to the latter is not that they mean the same thing or that humanity doesn't exist. — Michael

I'm saying that it is redundant to use these terms. If reality is everything that exists and nothing else exists except awareness, then you are simply being redundant. In what instances would you use these terms separately and not be talking about the same thing. How could you use these terms in two different sentences and not be meaning the same thing? You need to define "meaning".

Well maybe that's because I'm thinking of the word "my" in the way a realist does. You need to define "my" if it means something different to you or I will never understand. — Harry Hindu

It means what the realist means. I don't understand what's hard to understand. You can't go from "only bodies exist" to "only my body exists" and so you can't go from "only mental phenomena exists" to "only my mental phenomena exists". — Michael

Exactly. And you also can't go from "only this mental phenomenon exists" to "other mental phenomenon exists". So, "my" is a term that has no meaning for an idealist. So to use terms like "I" and "my" is meaningless and causes confusion. Only mental phenomena exists. There is no "my".

Objects of the mind are not minds themselves. They are components of a mind. So you can't call the objects of the mind other minds. If you did, then that would give them a perspective - which is something that exists outside of your experience of it.

I wouldn't need to go from "only bodies exist" to "only my body exists" because it is clear that other bodies besides mine exist. I can't say that for other minds though because I have never experienced another mind before - only by proxy, like right now reading your posts. I can even distinguish your post from my posts. If I couldn't then how could I be having a conversation at all? If I didn't, then what purpose would be the use of language?

How can any idealist argue for the existence of something that they have never experienced? You have never experienced other minds, only other bodies. You infer the existence of other minds by the behavior of other bodies, just as we infer the existence of atoms through the behavior of matter. What you are saying is that you are sure that something you never experience exists, yet the things you experience don't exist when you don't experience them. You are being contradictory. — Harry Hindu

Except the claim isn't "the things I experience don't exist when I don't experience them". It's "things don't exist when they're not being experienced". It doesn't matter if I experience them, only that they are experienced.

The only idealism you're even considering is a solipsistic kind. But not all idealisms are solipsistic. — Michael

You're being inconsistent again. I can't converse with someone who refuses to be consistent. If your argument is that something exists when another mind besides mine experiences it goes nowhere because you haven't shown why it is you believe other minds exist where things can exist that you don't experience yet they are still experienced. How do you know that they are being experienced outside of your own when you question the existence of things outside of your experience. If you can't provide a meaningful answer without being contradictory then I won't waste my time here. If you have something to teach then I'm all ears, but so far it's been nothing but contradiction and confusion.

Because they weren't capable of doing so. But now humans have entered the stage, and I'm arguing that it's time we put down the mirror of narcissism and start acting more productive and responsible.

In any case it is clear that non-human animals have not been taking care of one another. Look at predation, social rejection from disease/disability, and r-selection. — darthbarracuda

Right. So we start putting down the mirror of narcissism and start acting productive and responsibleby eradicating all other species except human. *<Extreme sarcasm begins> Yep. That sounds so not narcissistic, productive and responsible. <Extreme sarcasm ends>*. Humans are the only ones to cry about these things because some humans have a depleted sense of self-worth. When your parents beat it into your head that you will never get ahead because the system will always hold you down, then you get ideas of sexism and racism and specieism. Even the runts of a litter struggle to survive without any idea of them not being unequal and their demise allows the rest of the litter a better chance at survival.

Animals have been taking care of each other. If they didn't then how is it that they exist at all? Mothers must care for her offspring or else a species would be extinct.

The ability of humans to be rational (and I'd argue that most humans aren't rational - just look at all the humans who can't mesh their political, metaphysical, religious, and ethical ideas into a consistent whole. Dividing things up into separate forums doesn't mean that they aren't linked or don't have an effect on each other. Everyone is a hypocrite. If you don't believe me, then read Robert Kurzban's book, "Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite".) then that is simply a survival strategy that we developed. We use our big brains to survive. Elephants use their big trunks. This doesn't make us better than other animals. It just makes us different. You want to use this difference to commit genocide and to contradict yourself - just like it's explained in Robert Kurzban's book.

There's this other quality of nature that you are forgetting - balance. Nature has achieved a balance among organisms where prey need to have their population limited by predators in order for them to not over populate and eat all their food to extinction and then they become extinct.

The most important aspect of life is competition. Without it life would never evolve into the variety of forms and behaviors that we see today.

That they refer to the same thing is not that they mean the same thing. And that "intelligent species" refers only to humans doesn't mean that there are no humans. So to say that idealism redefines awareness as reality or that if "reality" refers to awareness then there is no awareness is simply false. — Michael

Then you need to define the word "meaning". You also need to define "reality", "awareness" and "I" in such a way that they refer to the same thing but don't mean the same thing, and then you may begin to convince me.

You can't go from "only mental phenomena exists" to "only my mental phenomena exists". It simply doesn't follow. — Michael

Well maybe that's because I'm thinking of the word "my" in the way a realist does. You need to define "my" if it means something different to you or I will never understand.

Sure, but non-solipsist idealists will argue that there are good reasons to believe that other minds exist but not non-mental things. As above, the non-existence of non-mental things does not entail the non-existence of other minds, and so such reasons are not necessarily ruled out.

Again, that's simply false. "I question the existence of non-mental things" doesn't mean "only my mind exists", and neither does the latter follow from the former. — Michael

How can any idealist argue for the existence of something that they have never experienced? You have never experienced other minds, only other bodies. You infer the existence of other minds by the behavior of other bodies, just as we infer the existence of atoms through the behavior of matter. What you are saying is that you are sure that something you never experience exists, yet the things you experience don't exist when you don't experience them. You are being contradictory.

You also can't go from "only mind exists" to "only minds exist".

No, it's not genocide. It's humanitarianism. Animals cannot take care or advocate for themselves in the way humans can. They live more on instinct than rationality - yet they can suffer all the same. All non-agents are free of responsibility - ethically innocent. — darthbarracuda

Animals have been taking care of themselves for billions of years before humans came around and not one ever charged sexism, racism, or specieism against another.

Why say that "what exists in subjective reality I'm aware of"? If to say that what I'm aware of and what exists is the same thing is to redefine awareness as reality, and then there is no awareness - just a reality. — Harry Hindu


I've already gone over this. It doesn't redefine awareness as reality. It simply restricts reality to awareness. That's not the same thing. If I restrict "intelligent species" to humanity (i.e. claim that humanity is the only intelligent species) I'm not redefining "humanity" as "intelligent species".

And besides, if awareness is defined as reality and if there is a reality then ipso facto there is awareness, and so what you say above is a contradiction. Just as if I defined a bachelor as an unmarried man and if there is an unmarried man then there is a bachelor. — Michael

Of course it's the same thing. If humans were the only intelligent species, then by using the term, "intelligent species" I'm automatically referring to humans because they are the only species that is intelligent. They would be the same thing. You don't seem to understand the concept of redundancy.

How do you reconcile the fact that you have a mind yet this isn't a fact from my perspective. Your mind doesn't exist from my perspective - only text on a screen. Your mind exists independently of my subjective experience of it, or you don't have a mind and are simply text on a screen. — Harry Hindu

Firstly, I'm not arguing for or against solipsism, hence why I don't think this relevant. What I'm arguing is that idealism doesn't define subjectivity out of existence, as you claim.

Furthermore, the very question is confused. If I were arguing for solipsism then I wouldn't consider your perspective at all. I'd only consider my perspective. And from my perspective I'm not just words on a screen. You, however, would just be words on a screen to me.

Also, not all idealists are solipsists. One can claim that nothing exists that isn't being aware of without claiming that nothing exists that I'm not aware of. So other minds exist, but not other things. — Michael

Well, that is my point. Idealism logically devolves into solipsism. Once you question the external aspect of your experience as the cause of your internal experience, then you question the existence of all external, un-experienced things, which included other minds. Once you take that step of questioning the existence of just one external thing, you end up questioning all of it, or else you have to come up with a really good explanation as to how you know other minds exist but you know that apples and tables and cars don't exist outside of your experience of them. So you are arguing for solipsism the moment you question the external reality of anything.

If solipsism, then you are actually arguing with yourself.

The fact is that even if you eradicated speciesm from humans you have only made a small dent in specieism as a whole. How are you going to change the minds of all those other animals and if you don't think it is necessary to do so, then you really aren't against specieism - just as Black Lives Matter isn't about all black lives - only about black lives ended by cops. — Harry Hindu


This is a pragmatic argument that does not affect the legitimacy of the OP.

In any case, we would presumably change the minds of predators by eliminating them from the population and restructuring ecosystems so predators cannot exist en masse. A good way of doing this would be to limit the amount of foliage available for herbivores to eat. Thus the population of herbivores would decrease, and the population of carnivores would follow. — darthbarracuda

Now I'm laughing even harder now. Your solution to all the other species committing "specieism" is to commit genocide against them. Do you even think about what you type before you type it?

But this discussion is about Trump. It's called "Latest Trump Is No Worse Than Earlier Trump". Hillary Clinton is not the topic here. If you want to start a new discussion about her, go ahead. I've criticized her very heavily in other discussions and I'm likely to do so again.. — Baden

But that the thing: Context. In order to talk objectively about Trump's behavior, you'd have to take into account other people's behavior that are also running for President. To talk about one without talking about the other doing the same (or worse), is to cause confusion and isn't being objective.

Of course there wouldn't be an awareness of an objective reality. There'd just be an awareness of a subjective reality. The things I'm aware of are things that only exist whilst I'm aware of them rather than things that exist even when I'm not aware of them. Objectivity is not logically necessary. — Michael

But that's not what awareness seems to me. Awareness seems to be the entire reality. Why say that "what exists in subjective reality I'm aware of"? If to say that what I'm aware of and what exists is the same thing is to redefine awareness as reality, and then there is no awareness - just a reality. What is the meaning of "I" in "I am aware"? Where and what is the "I"? Is it also the same as the awareness/reality? If so, then I guess we can just dispense with both terms, "awareness" and "I" and just use "reality". Do you see where I'm going with this? Idealism ends up redefining words out of existence, or into meaninglessness.

You didn't seem to have an argument against you being text on a screen. Are you acknowledging that you aren't a mind - but are simply text on a screen? Because there isn't anything more to you than being text on a screen - then I know you completely (there is nothing I don't know about you) - as all you are is text on a screen. — Harry Hindu

I don't understand the relevance of this. — Michael

How do you reconcile the fact that you have a mind yet this isn't a fact from my perspective. Your mind doesn't exist from my perspective - only text on a screen. Your mind exists independently of my subjective experience of it, or you don't have a mind and are simply text on a screen.

You have that right up until you've slandered someone. It's remarkable that Trump's entire campaign has run on denying facts and truths, in the hope that if Trump denies what is reality, enough stupid people will actually grow to think he's right because they're too lazy and dumb to inform themselves. Alas, this strategy seems to have worked quite well... — Heister Eggcart

So then to be consistent, you must also say the same thing about Hillary. To rail against Trump for being dishonest and not say the same thing about Hillary is to be intellectually dishonest.

There's a great difference between merely talking about sex, and actually discussing how you sexually assault, and in some cases rape, another person. I'm sorry, and perhaps I'm a solitary exception to your rule, but I've never joked about sexually assaulting or raping someone. If you have, and in fact think that everyone else does, then I think this tells me and others quite a bit about your own character, in addition to Trump's. To be honest, it's rather revolting to see how many people use the, "but I do it, too!" card as some perceived defense for reprehensible behavior and attitudes. No, Trump is disgusting, and so are any who defend him. — Heister Eggcart

Again, Hillary and her husband are no different. Bill has assaulted women and Hillary has attacked his accusers. The reason Bill and Hillary stay married isn't simply because of power. It's because of immunity. A husband and wife can't testify against each other. Trump's "victims" never came forward. Bill's have. Trump's groping of willing women never threatened our national security like Hillary's e-mail server. The selective outrage by the left and the inability to prioritize their outrage based on the act is clear evidence that the left is the side made mostly of sheep.

Hillary has even defended a child rapist - accusing the 12-year old victim of encouraging the attack on her and laughing at her clients ability to pass a lie detector test saying that her faith in lie detector test is diminished because she knew he was guilty. Even the DNA said so, but she got him off after "time served" while the girl was beaten within an inch of her life and can't have any children.

To talk about Trump and ignore deplorable acts of Hillary is hypocritical. If both candidates have the same problems then there is no point in bringing up those issues as they cancel each other out. What is the point in talking about qualities and views of candidates that are the same? Shouldn't we be spending our time talking about their differences? If you bring it up and talk about it like you aren't guilty of the same thing - like Hillary and her supporters do - then there is no better term for you than, "hypocrite".

I highly doubt that intrapersona is claiming that "[existence] is only ever an inference at best". Rather it seems that he's saying "[the existence of things not being seen or thought about] is only ever an inference at best". This would be consistent with the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's definition of "objective reality" as "anything that exists as it is independent of any conscious awareness of it (via perception, thought, etc.)." — Michael

If there isn't an objective reality then there isn't any conscious awareness of it. That has been my point the whole time. When you declare that there isn't any objective reality then there cannot be any awareness of it. If you still make the claim that there is an awareness - then what is it aware of? Awareness is about things - like an objective world. If there is no awareness - then there is no aboutness - and that isn't how it seems to me.

You didn't seem to have an argument against you being text on a screen. Are you acknowledging that you aren't a mind - but are simply text on a screen? Because there isn't anything more to you than being text on a screen - then I know you completely (there is nothing I don't know about you) - as all you are is text on a screen.

In other words, speciesism, just like its relatives, is a form of oppression; it is the disregard and domination of the animal kingdom simply because we can, and because it benefits us. Man is the pinnacle of existence - endowed by God himself as the image of himself, or endowed by the universe as the perfect machine of efficiency. In any case, this makes God or the universe particularly sinister in nature.

No, I cannot see any justification for speciesism. The exploitation of animals for profit (slavery) or consumption (murder), under some of the most inhumane conditions (abuse), is disgusting. This is not only an emotional argument, but a rational one - it is, under our modern concepts of equality, disgusting that animals are treated this way. The unnecessary hunting of animals for entertainment (murder), the experimentation of animals for "scientific progress" (torture), the disregard of the plight of wild animals (neglect) from disease, predation, or natural disaster, the ownership of animals for entertainment (slavery), etc - all of these result from an inability to empathize with animals of different species. — darthbarracuda

I couldn't help but laugh when I read this. It's no surprise that the white privilege mentality drives ideas like this. What is labeled as a fight against racism becomes racist itself as it paints a certain majority group with a broad brush - labeling all whites as racist.

Now all humans are speciests. All humans are at fault for being speciests while not acknowledging that all other animals are also speciests. Those damn speciests lions are always hunting down and eating those poor antelopes and those speciests bees won't have anything to do with those spiders. And why won't that armadillo have sex with me - a human? - it only has sex with other armadillos. It must be a speciest.

The fact is that even if you eradicated speciesm from humans you have only made a small dent in specieism as a whole. How are you going to change the minds of all those other animals and if you don't think it is necessary to do so, then you really aren't against specieism - just as Black Lives Matter isn't about all black lives - only about black lives ended by cops.

I don't see why we need objective things to exist for the word "objective" to mean what it does (and so for the word "subjective" to mean what it does). Words can be meaningful even if they don't refer to real things.

If we define an objective thing as a thing that continues to exist even when it's not being seen and a subjective thing as a thing that exists only when it's being seen, and if nothing continues to exist when it's not being seen then nothing is an objective thing.

To say that if nothing continues to exist when it's not being seen then those things that exist only when they're being seen (subjective things) are "really" objective things just doesn't make sense. It's a straightforward contradiction. — Michael

It's not that we need objective things to exist for the word "objective" to mean what it does. Objective is simply what exists. If all that exists is your mind, then your mind becomes reality itself - not some subjective perspective of what is - that doesn't include everything that is. It is the idealists who are misusing terms. They have this emotional investment in the existence of their mind and doubt anything beyond that. If that is the case, then they have defined their mind out of existence because in their view - their mind is reality. They are simply using a different term (mind) for something for which there is already a term (reality).

If there is nothing outside of my mind, then you only exist as text on a computer screen, not as an actual human being with a mind as the cause for their being text on the screen that I read.

You can highlight Clinton's faults all you want and you won't get any arguments from me. I'm not one of her supporters. — Baden

Yet you use the same selective outrage that most liberals are known for. You attack Trump and his supporters over something Trump said as opposed to what Hillary did. Last I checked, everyone had the right to free speech, and Trump exercised his rights. Hillary, on the other hand, engaged in criminal behavior. Which is worse? Obviously what Clinton did yet you aren't consistent in holding both accountable. You are only interested in holding one accountable - the one that didn't do the worse thing - a criminal act. Your bias is obvious.

If using "locker room talk" is a disqualification for being President, then everyone is disqualified as everyone has engaged in it and laughed at it at some point in their life.

It comes down to who would you want as a friend - someone who is brutally honest and may offend you with what they say, but you know that they are just being honest, or the one that will smile and shake your hand yet lie to your face and tell you what you want to hear?

Yes, Trump boasted about sexually assaulting woman. And most Trump supporters apparently think that's normal behaviour, which speaks volumes about their values or lack thereof. In this sense, Trump is actually a boon - not only is he destroying one of America's political hegemonies, he's very effectively highlighting the hypocrisy of so-called social conservatives*. That moral values have never been the driving force for the majority of this group is not something that surprises me. — Baden

Yes, Hillary lied about her emails and destroyed evidence and then was never prosecuted when others are prosecuted for doing less. She also used character assassination to silence her husbands accusers of sexual harassment and takes money from foreign governments who don't allow their women to drive or go to school. And most Hillary supporters apparently think that's normal behavior which speaks volumes about their values or lack thereof. she's effectively highlighting the hypocrisy of the so-called social liberals. That rights for women and a fair justice system have never been the driving force for the majority of this group is not something that surprises me.

How can you really define the distinction between objective and subjective if we only ever are subjective.

The objective world remains only ever an inference at best. — intrapersona

How can you define "subjective" without implying the existence of the objective? If there is no view, or perspective, then there is no subjectivity. If there isn't any more than what exists "subjectively", then what you define as subjective is really the objective because you are saying that what you "experience" is all there is, but then that means "experience" and "you" need to be redefined as well - redefined out of existence.

I don't understand why it comes naturally to babies when they discover through logical inference that their mothers continue to exist even when they don't experience them. They end up discovering object permanence. Yet when they grow up into adults they begin to question the natural conclusion that all babies end up making - that there is more to what they simply experience.

Beyond that it is her word against his. — Cavacava

As it is in every case of sexual harassment. Who do you believe? Hillary is running as promoting herself as being the only candidate that cares about woman's issues yet sets out on campaign to attack her husband's accusers, takes money from countries that reject the idea of women's rights, etc.

If anything, her attacks on Trump for belittling women are hypocritical, and both would cancel each other out in this regard. So, then why vote for either one? It certainly can't be because one is more for women's rights than the other.

One lies about her lack of security with her email server, while the other makes rude comments about women, which many men have said in confidence with each other numerous times - and who knows what women say about men in confidence? Has any of us lowly citizens been at fault for putting our national security at risk as opposed to talking about some group in a half-joking way? Actually some of us have been caught putting our national security at risk and they were punished. Not so for Hillary. Trump was simply speaking honestly from experience. There are women who allow themselves to groped by someone if they are famous as opposed to not being famous.

But regardless of how you were raised or your ability to withstand that kind of treatment, you are on average better off as a minority having more of this capital redistributed in your favour, and political correctness is definitely an element in that equation. That doesn't mean we are not free to say what we think, what it means is that there is a penalty for saying things that are reflective of a less equal distribution of social power. In other words, your reward for stigmatizing or denigrating others is to experience the same sort of thing yourself. — Baden

Why isn't being defined as a "minority" offensive? I would be offended at being defined as a minority which then implies that I need this redistribution of resources. It belittles me and makes me feel more inferior. The fact is everyone has been turned down by a job, has been called a name and has been on the receiving end of racism and sexism. There is also the fact that not all "minorities" are offended by this kind of speech. Only some are - and this difference needs to be accounted for - not discredited - if you actually want to get at the truth of why people are offended.

The real question is "Why are people taking offence in the first place?"

When someone calls you a no-hoper, dope, space-cadet, weirdo, douchebag... They are conveying an emotional state through a single word. It is the emotion that is transferred which makes the person feel inferior. Yet, people who are developing these politically correct restrictions over words are putting the cart before the horse. The root is in peoples emotional state. The problem is the ego, not the words. — intrapersona

It is the person that resorts to name-calling that is the one feeling inferior. I see this all the time in discussions where the person doesn't have a good argument to make and they resort to petty personal attacks. The person being called a name shouldn't feel inferior at that point, but should feel superior as the behavior of name-calling is the behavior of someone feeling inferior.

The real question is why do some people take offense and others don't to the same speech? Why do some gays take offense to gay slurs and some don't. The difference needs to be explained and the explanation is that the gays that don't take offense have a better self-image than the one's that do take offense. They don't allow others to define them - especially others who don't know them. They don't give power to other people's words and they understand that the others' use of "offensive" speech is really a representation of the speaker not the one being spoken about. When we allow others to speak freely we get to know what they really think and what they are really about. Limiting other's speech limits your own freedoms in being able to know what people think.

We know what Trump thinks. He says what he thinks. He's often brutally honest. He may not be right, but he is honest. On the other hand you have Hillary who will smile and shake your hand, yet lie to your face and tell you what you want to hear, and then go and talk behind your back.

I'd much rather live in a society where people are free to say what they think than one where we can't say what we really think. People who are easily offended are the ones who were raised in such a way that they end up having a depleted self-image and any speech that affirms that is offensive.

You can not think about anything at all and still exist, so it is more apt to say 'I am aware, therefor I am' but how can you say you exist because you are aware if at the same time you can't understand how that awareness emerges from consciousness. Unless you know the validity of what self-awareness or consciousness is, you can't use it to infer you exist no matter how apt it feels. It is akin to the blind men and the elephant

In short, you may not exist at all. — intrapersona

Consciousness and awareness are the same thing. Awareness/Consciousness are about things, not the things themselves. When I am aware of my mother, I am not being my mother. There is an aboutness of my Mother that is different than the aboutness of me. My awareness includes certain components that are always present, particularly a perspective - where the visuals, auditory, tactile, gustatory, etc. all appear around a central location - my head. There is also a component we call attention - where certain things are amplified or given more importance over the other things depending on the present goal in the mind. My mother may appear in my visual field but there may be more important things to attend to at the moment and I ignore my Mother for a time until I achieve my present goal. In other words, my mother isn't me because my mother can often time not be important in a particular moment. But my present goal and my awareness that allows me to achieve it is always present.

I already stated that I don't doubt that I have awareness of my experience. Did you miss that?

I am saying that I can't prove that my awareness exists just because it exists. That is circular reasoning. — intrapersona

This doesn't make any sense. First you say you don't doubt that you have awareness but then say that you can't prove that your awareness exists. How do you go about proving anything? What is proof or evidence? Isn't awareness/consciousness a necessary component of proof or evidence? Isn't being aware or conscious how you go about establishing proofs and evidence?

You can't use the term "subjectivity" without implying the existence of the objective. Subjectivity is a limited and/or skewed view of the objective. If there is no objective world that you are perceiving, then your "subjectivity" is actually the objective world. In other words, you're a solipsist.

I think Richard Dawkin's book, The Selfish Gene, addresses many of these issues.

The most fundamental form of altruism is the process of procreation. Females devote a lot of energy to giving birth and raising the offspring. Males devote a lot of energy to attracting mates and in the actual act of sex. If this fundamental process didn't exist, then genes, and life in general, wouldn't exist. Altruism is a fundamental aspect of the behavior of all organisms. In order for the species to continue to exist requires that they interact with other members of the species.

If panpsychism is true then we need a better explanation as to why thoughts about things, like filling a glass with water, are different yet similar to actually doing something, like filling a glass with water. Thinking about filling a glass with water isn't the same experience as actually filling a glass with water. If everything is mental, then both acts would be the same thing and be experienced the same way, but it isn't. Either words mean something, like "thinking" as opposed to "doing", and doing is something that other minds have access to, while what you think other minds don't have access to. Other people won't know you filled a glass with water with your thoughts, but they will know it if you actually do it. If panpsychism is true, then why is there any different at all? Why would thoughts, which are only mental, be private, yet actions, which aren't mental, be public?

Your use of the term "Dogma" seems to neglect that Crick himself admits that he misused the term when labeling his theory.

From Wiki:
In his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit, Crick wrote about his choice of the word dogma and some of the problems it caused him:

"I called this idea the central dogma, for two reasons, I suspect. I had already used the obvious word hypothesis in the sequence hypothesis, and in addition I wanted to suggest that this new assumption was more central and more powerful. ... As it turned out, the use of the word dogma caused almost more trouble than it was worth. Many years later Jacques Monod pointed out to me that I did not appear to understand the correct use of the word dogma, which is a belief that cannot be doubted. I did apprehend this in a vague sort of way but since I thought that all religious beliefs were without foundation, I used the word the way I myself thought about it, not as most of the world does, and simply applied it to a grand hypothesis that, however plausible, had little direct experimental support."

Similarly, Horace Freeland Judson records in The Eighth Day of Creation:

"My mind was, that a dogma was an idea for which there was no reasonable evidence. You see?!" And Crick gave a roar of delight. "I just didn't know what dogma meant. And I could just as well have called it the 'Central Hypothesis,' or — you know. Which is what I meant to say. Dogma was just a catch phrase."

Choices are tied to the amount of resources one has access to and there isn't an infinite amount of it. In order to increase the resources/choices of one individual means you must take resources/choices from another.

Socialists dismiss the consequences of their "solutions". They think that their intentions are all that matter without realizing the consequences of their good intentions. If Socialists had their way, they'd limit the choices and resources of everyone as there isn't enough to go around to every individual. If every citizen on this planet received an equal amount of resources, they'd only get about $16,000 a year, which just brings those making more than that down, while not lifting the poor at all. This will also limit choices. When your resources are limited, so are your choices. In the effort to make everyone equal, you end up limiting everyone's freedoms.

Until the state has complete control of procreation and the raising of children, we will always have inequality.

I've always understood the use of "chance" when talking about evolution as meaning the same thing as "random", as in mutations occur randomly. But "chance" and "random" are simply a reflection of a gap in our knowledge of how the mutations actually occurred. Mutations occur when something happens during the process of copying DNA. Maybe some external force caused the copy "error" - radiation, disease, who knows.

Nature doesn't do things randomly or by chance. There is always a reason why something happens. There is always a cause and when we are able to determine the cause we go from defining the process as "random" to "predictable".

Pluto didn't change. Our understanding of the universe changed as we gathered more information about it, and our language reflects our understanding of the universe, not the way the universe actually is. When we cease to learn more about the universe, only then will our understanding be complete and therefore our language will be complete as well.

They're all hypocrites, so it's easy to point out the inconsistencies both parties take. The problem is getting voters to realize that both parties are whack and we need an alternative - like the Libertarian Party.

Democrats are as much for the wealthy as Republicans. Being for the wealthy isn't a Republican/Democrat stance anyway. It's a political tactic to help you stay in power by receiving money from all the big donors who don't care who wins the election anyway as all politicians can be bought.

Well, marriage shouldn't be something the govt. should be defining or legitimizing. It's personal and private.

Well, the only other option is if you tick off Republicans when talking about economic issues and tick off Democrats when talking about social issues, then you're probably a Nazi.

What isn't appealing about maximizing autonomy and freedom of choice? What issues do you tick off both parties with, anyway?

That depends. If you tick off Republicans when you talk about social issues and tick off Democrats when you talk about economic issues, like me, then you're a libertarian.

Generalized label:Libertarian
Form of government:Civic Lottery. Every citizen is well educated and takes an active part in running their govt. for a period of time. No more elections, therefore no more special interests buying elections.
Form of economy:Pro-Competition, not Pro-Capitalist where monopolies become entities that threaten the liberties of citizens as much as any despotic govt. can. Checks and balance system where consumers have just as much power as the corporations. Arm consumers with the necessary information so boycotts can be more effective and govt. doesn't need to meddle.
Abortion:Parents' choice.
Gay marriage:Unnecessary.
Death penalty:Used in certain, well-deserved cases.
Euthanasia:Individual choice.
Campaign finance:Eliminate through the implementation of a civic lottery system. See above.
Surveillance:I have nothing to hide.
Health care:Needs a complete overhaul.
Immigration:Put the breaks on it. We have enough poverty in this country, we don't have the resources to solve all the worlds problems.
Education:Needs a complete overhaul.
Environmental policy:Point out and hold polluters responsible for their actions.
Gun policy:Prevent the mentally ill and criminals from getting weapons. Everyone else is free to own.
Drug policy:Legalize marijuana, but keep the others illegal.
Foreign policy:Speak softly and carry a big stick.

The American leftists are so silly. They like to talk about gender neutrality, or even omitting gender terms from our language, yet they can't help from using gender terms when a woman is running for president. The woman-card is played continually, with claims that we need a woman president - as if that is the primary reason Clinton should be voted for, with leftists even saying that they are voting for her because she is a woman. The same thing can be said about race, with blacks promoting the race of other blacks when they are president but don't want race mentioned when a criminal is black.

Hollywood doesn't seem to want to give up gender terms either. They think it will help sell movie tickets by casting women in movie roles that were originally cast as men (Ghostbtusters). That is their selling point. The didn't bother trying to make a good movie, as they thought simply replacing men with women would sell tickets. The movie bombed. Hollywood does the same with race - casting blacks in roles that are white characters (The Karate Kid, Annie), when if some white guy was cast in the role of a black character, all hell would break lose. The movies bombed because no one wants to see a rehash of some successful movie in which the only change was the color of the skin of the main character.

The hypocrisy and double standards are blatant and Americans are getting tired of it.

I would describe consciousness as an information architecture - or a model of sensory information for the purpose of modeling one's attention. It is useful to have a real-time model of all the information coming from the senses and how it compares to the information stored in the brain (our memories). This is how we learn - by comparing, in real-time, the information coming from the senses and the information stored in the brain.

Consciousness provides organisms a way of being aware of instinctual behaviors - behaviors that weren't learned but were designed as an inherent part of the system - so that the organism can filter these behaviors, essentially selecting which behaviors benefit them at the moment and which don't.

Gender isn't a social construct. It's an evolutionary construct and is part of the reason organisms engage in particular social behaviors (like courtship, sex and rearing offspring). It is the primary catalyst for the differences in behavior of the different genders, with females bearing a majority of the weight of rearing the children, which can make them more picky about choosing a mate, which makes the male to have to come with unique ways of courting the females (fighting other males, showing off their plummage, etc.)

The rules we apply to different genders are social constructs, not the actual genders of organisms, not the behaviors that naturally evolve from species with different genders. It should also be mentioned that species with different genders provide an evolutionary advantage over those with only one gender.

The need to eliminate gender language from society is based on some inadequate self-perceptions that people have of themselves. Their perception of certain normal words have been warped to offend them. If most people aren't offended and only some are, then where do you think the issue is? Maybe we should be looking at the few who are offended and really try to get at the root of reasons they are offended by such language.

Politeness and gun-ownership has nothing to do with each other.

I have come to the conclusion that most, if not all, of society's problems is a result of bad parenting, or a lack of parenting. Being polite has to do with if you were raised to be polite. Whether you were raised to be polite can effect how you interact with others in the future, whether you own a gun or not. If your parents didn't love you enough to teach you to be polite, and you end up owning a gun, then we have problems like we do here in the U.S. where these particular kinds of people end up being impolite with their gun. Most gun-owners are polite, responsible gun owners, not because they own a gun, but because their parents loved them enough to teach them how to interact with other people in a productive way. Impolite people who don't own guns exhibit their impoliteness in other ways (verbal abuse, selfishness, etc.)

Removing all the guns in a society won't solve the impoliteness in a society. I would argue that raising a child is a much bigger responsibility than owning a gun. If we're going to decide who can own a gun or not, shouldn't we be consistent and also decide who can have kids or not?

I don't see how we couldn't eventually create a machine that is conscious. It simply needs to represent the world with some model and use that model to make decisions to achieve some goal. Since consciousness is a representation of my attending the world, any kind of representation will do. It doesn't matter what form the representation takes, only that the representation is consistent. We could each experience different colors when we observe the world, but as long as each individual experiences the same color from the same effect, then why would it matter? We'd still be able to communicate our experiences and no one would be the wiser as to what forms the representations in our minds take.

So a computer that represents wavelengths of light, vibrations of air molecules, chemical inputs, etc. consistently, and all at once, would in effect be conscious.

Carrying on a intelligible conversation isn't a measuring stick for consciousness. If it were, then children, say below the age of 10, and some adults (just look at Facebook), aren't conscious. Those that speak a different language wouldn't be conscious. Carrying on an intelligible conversation requires learning the language, and we all have made mistakes using our native language and our mistakes is what makes us learn to use the language more intelligibly. Teaching and programming are basically the same thing. We re-program ourselves when we make mistakes. Computers need programmers to update their software and eventually computer and software engineers will design a computer that can re-program itself.

Pen and paper are not information processing devices like brains, calculators and computers. They don't use energy to process information, so we aren't conserving energy by writing things down. It is more likely that we are using pen and paper to expand our limited memory, not to process information, like a calculator does. I could use pen and paper to solve a math problem, but I'd still be using my mental energy to solve the problem. The symbols on the paper simply help me to keep from losing my place in the process. Calculators do all the work for me and are therefore more preferable.

Thanks for the invite, aequilibrium! And thanks to Jamalrob and anyone else who had a hand in creating this site! I like the layout. Looking forward to some great discussions here.

Consciousness is an information architecture. It is a representation of our attention and what we are attending at any given moment.

Consciousness doesn't seem to be always intentional, or possess intention. There are many things that appear in consciousness that weren't preceded by an intention. Intention seems to arise as a response to certain experiences. For instance, my intention to live only arises when my life is threatened. My intention to seek pleasure only arises when I'm feeling down or suffering to some extent. So it seems that the only persistent part of consciousness is it's awareness. When we are conscious, we are aware, and what we are aware of, we can respond to with intent.