• Michael Rectenwald


    Jesus christ, my sides. :lol:
  • Michael Rectenwald
    So I guess now we'll have raza back?
  • Michael Rectenwald
    I dont get why people think wallowing in feces is an easy job. I worked a long time ago in a hog butchering plant, and man, you really dont want to be the one picked to do that job.

    #respectforthosewhowallowinfeces
  • Michael Rectenwald


    But couldnt you be both. :blush:

    MAW IS A FILTHY BOY, after all.

    :kiss:
  • Michael Rectenwald
    I'm sure most of us believe your truly are serious. That isn't the fairly obvious problem here.
  • Michael Rectenwald


    - Zizek is right.

    Obligatory :

    "And, to go even a step further, is the practice of fist-fucking not the exemplary case of what Deleuze called the "expansion of a concept?" The fist is put to a new use; the notion of penetration is expanded into the combination of the hand with sexual penetration, into the exploration of the inside of a body. No wonder Foucault, Deleuze's Other, was practicing fisting: is fist-fucking not the sexual invention of the twentieth century, a new model of eroticism and pleasure? It is no longer genitalized, but focused just on the penetration of the surface, with the role of the phallus being taken over by the hand, the autonomized partial object par excellence. " - Zizek
  • Michael Rectenwald


    Leftbook, leftcom. Got to wonder what /pol/ is going to come up with again. :blush:
  • Michael Rectenwald
    Huh. This made me realize.

    I would absolutely read 8 books published by at least a good dozen of the regular contributors here. Fdrake, StreetlightX, Baden, Pierre-Normand, that south-american dude who basically knows everything about logic who post only rarely but whose posts are each 100% brimmed with perfectly explained information on often difficult subjects... Even Apokrisis, if he manages to make his points inside the first 700 pages. And so many more I forget!

    TPF Publications need to become a real thing!
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Of course. What won't his supporters explain away or ignore? How many of his supporters on this forum, for instance, have criticized anything he's done?Arkady

    None. Even Tiffany, who came closest from what I can see, during the height of the family separation crisis (which, no one should forget, is not over yet), ended up going back as far as possible as soon as the optics were shifted to potential child trafficking rings.

    Even when we confronted her claims that "At least, Trump is always honest, even when he is saying stuff you don't like" with the tonne of lies that spread from his mouth, she would not acknowledge how clearly counterfactual her beliefs are.

    At the very least, we have no visible QAnon on this forum.
  • Michael Rectenwald
    To illustrate :

    "Michael Rectenwald @antipcnyuprof Mar 17

    Close your eyes and imagine a world full of self-replicating little Stalins. Now open your eyes. You live in that world. It’s called “social justice” & the little Stalins are SJWs = Stalin, Just Weirder."

    There is nothing not defective in that statement.
  • Michael Rectenwald
    What do you make of dis guy:rachMiel

    I want to put him against the wall.

    My degenerate Marxist self is brimming and pulsating with hatred for this trailblazing paragon of truth-seeking and SJW-slaying.

    :kiss:
  • Mereology question
    A at different times is numerically one because its successive states are linked by dynamic continuity, not because they are made of the same constituents.Dfpolis

    You are correct in that constitution (or perhaps, composition would be a better term) is but another attribute which does not equate with the object's identity. And the example was somewhat misleading in that A=A, re particulars, does not really evoke what the law of Identity is supposed to express. Wayfarer pointed this out accurately,

    The question was "Can identity give rise to differences?" My claim was that it cannot. So, I pointed out the differences between two formally identical instance of the same type. Differences, being relational, cannot be found by examining one object in isolation. We need to consider their relations.Dfpolis

    Differences are simply potentiality of values deviation between two observations. The determination of identity is the determination of a set of values. Even just non-{previous observation} is sufficient of set of value to reveals a difference.

    Yes, A is numerically one, but your example is not pointing out a difference in A, but in the picking events. These events are different because they stand in objectively different temporal relations to each other.Dfpolis

    As any discussion regarding an object stands on the ground of the possibility of the observation of this object, so in the context of a phenomenal discourse, I think its warranted to always allow for the observer's conditions to come in play in the scenario. And the phenomenal description of any determination of identity is temporal.

    In more than a way, ontology resist atomisation. Everything tend toward the amalgamation.
  • Ethical AI


    It always baffles me to realize how wide-ranging the trope of emotional exceptionalism is in our modern societies. Emotions are really on the low-level end of the cognitive spectrum. They are, in functional terms, nothing more than somewhat preset ambiguous somatic cues, and very much lacking in sophistication. In general, they tend to point away from what we consider acceptable solutions to the situations that led to them. Anger is pretty much your body getting ready to cave a face in. Jealousy blinds you to your own hysterical need to posess the other. That is why emotional intelligence is much more important than emotivity.

    But yes, an AI should and will most likely have some form of equivalent system to emotion. Since it wont be hardwired, it will likely be much more sophisticated than mammalian intelligence. You'll be able to program specific emotions tied to very specific or very general cases. But in structural terms, it will probably look like a belief statement held by the AI, just one he is not allowed to edit.
  • Mereology question


    Like I said, Im not taking a stance towar idealism here. The Law of Identity is not a force regulating the universe, nor is it a setting that could have been otherwise. That it seems to apply to everything normally available to us phenomenally is interesting, but not a solid foundation for ontology in my opinion.

    However, even in a purely historical manner, A=A must have preceded language. As a requirement for functional informational systems, the simplest cell structure, even the cellular scaffolding itself would have had to, in some way, enact identity.
  • Mereology question


    - I think language relies on the ability of the rational mind to abstract and compare.

    To be slightly pedant, language relies on so many things that its complete analysis probably evades us by simply requiring more time than our puny beings can afford to spend. But a priori, yes, abstraction and differentiation seems to be much lower-level than language. An animal can probably associate a smell to a memory by association, then abstract a larger category itself associated with the whole event. Without language, it would be fairly limited in what it could do with such an abstraction, but it would certainly not be a useless cognitive process.

    - When we say that A=A, by definition we're not talking about this particular A (unless we're comparing typefaces, or kinds of symbolic systems!) But usually what it means, is that 'A' denotes a particular value, so that is why if I have two apples, and two oranges, then I have the same quantity of completely different things.

    Exactly. In the ontological context of the OP, the purpose of bringing up identity was to object mainly to the idea that relations are between different things, but also to the ideas that object are their relations or attributes, or that objects and relations are ontically codependent. They arent, they are codetermined. So in this case me adhering to a preseance of the Law of Identity to language is not a form of idealism. Its simply the statement of a precondition to the specific process that allowed for intelligence to arise. A=A is, in the ontological context, the form of the relation that all (or at least, all available to us) things hold with themselves.

    Other statements were made to the effect that you cant get from identity to difference, which is what brought me to use the A=A so as to denote particulars. Because the definition of identity and a layout of the properties necessary to demonstrate its counterfactual is very clearly all that you would need to show that you can get from identity to difference.
  • Artificial Intelligence, Will, and Existence
    How to go about something that could determine such cognitive capacity is beyond me.Posty McPostface

    Constant and controlled human interactions. The same way you do with toddlers and young pets.
  • Artificial Intelligence, Will, and Existence
    Wouldn't then AI or general AI have or be equipped with human emotions or a sense of strife towards living itself?Posty McPostface

    That's the main solution to the Red Button scenario : make the AI somewhat similar to a human mind in terms of "lazyness". It doesn't really matter how much processing power is available to the AI, as long as it keeps in mind a certain threshold after which researching a solution to the problem is no longer profitable, you won't end up having an AI murdering humanity because that is easier than dividing by 0.

    That still wont provide the AI any form of motivation or goal-setting system. That has to be provided by the code.

    Because you are a puny human who cannot imagine suchschopenhauer1

    Not really. In fact, quite the contrary, I can basically imagine anything to be that type of intelligence you described. A sun "exist in its full knowledge of information" if by any of these terms we can designate something which is 100% not operating on this information.
  • Mereology question
    Not interested. Valid objection against the argument I've presented or a valid argument for your position. Nothing else will suffice.creativesoul

    ... :brow: ...

    Since you are the one evaluating the validity of the objection, you can this way safeguard yourself against any form of criticism by simply ignoring anything that could be an objection. Which is what you are doing right now.
  • Mereology question
    You've offered only gratuitous assertions.creativesoul

    You are unfortunately free to see gratuitous assertions wherever you want, but this sort of indignation really isn't appropriate to this conversation.

    Where there has never been language, there has never been the "law of identity"...creativesoul

    So logic didn't apply to dinosaurs? :chin:
  • Artificial Intelligence, Will, and Existence
    But we are talking the most advanced of AI..this would be an entity way passed an original programming code intention by a designer. This would be an AI that is simply existing in its full knowledge of information of self and environment and has no need for needs and goals. It’s intelligent, but has no internal inertia of its own.schopenhauer1

    But that doesn't compute. :kiss: (sorry, too easy).

    What you are describing is a lot closer to a Prime Mover, or a Prime Knower, than anything similar to an intelligence. Something that exists simply "in its full knowledge of information" is more akin to a library than anything else.

    An intelligence operates on information, according to information. If it is an intelligence, then it is dynamic.
  • The News Discussion
    Some of the kids even thought that the English did not know words like fuck.Sir2u

    Well, being a French kid that grew in Montreal and interacted with posh Westmount Anglos, I can confirm that many did not know the existence of the F-word. Its like the Squares from Crybaby were given an entire district to flourish and reproduce in.

    They are only slightly less insufferable than the ones that do know it, and use it all the time.
  • Artificial Intelligence, Will, and Existence
    My guess is that, eventually, since A.I. lacks the biological, very human aspect of striving (for goals, desires for a better future state, etc.), it will eventually shut itself down as it will not see the point in maintaining itself. An entity with intelligence but no will, will have no need for going on and will see the logic. They will not "care" in the most literal sense. They will have no motivation to.schopenhauer1

    Your guess would be wrong. Goal setting and motivation is 100% doable purely in code.

    And a final goal doesn't entail the end of pursuit. I think its called Instrumental Convergence : you can set a (technically satisfiable) final goal and give the ability to the AI to define mid-term goals based on instrumental goals associated to the final one. Depending on the degree of "creative freedom" given to the AI, it may never reach its final goal.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    your comment makes zero sense.Baden

    It already is. I can't figure out if is "beyond hope" or "composed of inherently different or distinct parts".
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Pretty desparate. Calling Hollywood. Come save us with all your fiction writers and production values.raza

    We have an active investigation on a sitting President, with the potential charge of Conspiracy to defraud the United States brought up against him and/or members of his family.

    And you did not expect the movies?
  • Mereology question
    A and A' are not different because they are identical, but because they are made of different atoms and occupy different locations.Dfpolis

    That's an example of fallacy by undermining. The A of "A at T1" and "A at T2" are identical because they are the same A, not because of any other attributes such as composition or spatial location.

    Attributes and relations do not constitute objects, they reveal something about them.
  • Mereology question
    The problem is that - all by itself - "A=A" is utterly meaningless at best and nonsensical at worst. Laws cannot be either.creativesoul

    The law of Identity is not meaningless, its the basis for the possibility of meaning ever arising and being available. Without it you have no basis of ambiguity and equivocation, which aren't great in academic discourse, but absolutely required for natural languages.

    The law of identity is a metacognitive tool that when used properly facilitates clear, meaningful, intelligible, and coherent language use.creativesoul

    If this was so, we would be having a purely epistemological debate, not an ontological one.


    The law of identity is a metacognitive tool that when used properly facilitates clear, meaningful, intelligible, and coherent language use. Metacognitive tools are existentially dependent upon language itself, for there can be no thinking about thought and belief if there is not already something to be isolated, named, and subsequently talked about. Thinking about thought and belief is an activity that is existentially dependent upon something to think about(pre-existing thought and belief).

    Brute fact: The law of identity owes it's very existence to language.

    p1.Whatever does not owe it's existence to language cannot... owe it's existence to language.

    The law of identity does.

    Not all relations do.
    creativesoul

    You are clearly equivocating. The law of identity doesn't owe its existence to language, language owe its existence to the law of identity. The object A in the phenomenal compound "A at t1" and A in the phenomenal compound "A at t2" are identical, regardless of the existence of a language that can designate them. That's why we are treating this as an ontological problem and not a philosophy of language one.
  • Mereology question
    You can't derive differences (in thought or in the physical world) from identity. If you have differences, it is because there is some real difference giving rise to them.Dfpolis

    You can. The moment of identity is also the moment of non-identity, so to speak.

    I ask you to pick an object at random in the Great Bag of Things that is the world. You reach in and pick A. I ask you to do so once again, and lo and behold! you show A once more.

    A is identical to A is identical to A is ... But each instances are different and identifiable. The phenomenal compound of "A on pick 1" and "A on pick 2" are different.
  • Mereology question
    If identity is a relation, and its most often presented to me as such, then differences (or specific non-identical attributes) should also constitute relations, no?
  • Mereology question


    I dont see why, a priori, identity couldnt be considered a relation. A is identical to A, thats the basis for the determination of all further relations, no?

    The solution to the ontological question is simply to considerna object and its attributes and relations to be correlated, and not coconstitutives.
  • Mereology question
    How deep/close is the relationship between an object and its most fundamental building block?rachMiel

    I finished a while ago Object-Oriented Ontology from Graham Harman, and you might want to check it out, as it deals a lot with this problem. There's also Ian Bogost's Alien Phenomenology, which might be of interest.

    In mereological context, OOO will denounce both "x is really y" & "y is really x" as strategies to devaluate objects. You have mainly brought up the issue that "x is really y", which would constitute what OOO calls "undermining" : claiming that an object is a compound manifestation of other, smaller objects or forces, and that the phenomenal object we experience is somewhat not the real thing.

    The problem you brought up is probably the most common example of undermining, a reduction through scientific or empirical means, but there are others ; when someone claims that "the world is mathematically structured" ; when they commit to either idealism or monism ; when they agree to panpsychism.

    So, to answer your question, while the relation between subphenomenal components and phenomenal objects is close, it is not a reducible relation. "X is really just y" is an example of folk science, and can be useful as a linguistic form to share information about the object while specifying that the attributes we describe aren't phenomenally available. But anyone who wishes to produce a more sophisticated ontology will have to address both overmining and undermining.
  • Cogito ergo sum. The greatest of all Philosophical blunders!
    However after this glorious triumph of thought upon itself, an immediate ignominious end to the thought, begins with the subsequent pressumption that there is an 'I' who is thinking.Marcus de Brun

    It's not an assumption, it's one pole on the axiom of egology. "Cogito ergo sum" loses the stress put by the French translation "Je pense, donc je suis". Its a bit like Husserl's noema, every thought-act contains an I-pole and a content-pole.

    You can reach the same degree of epistemological certainty as the Cogito through other similar methods, all which boil down to the same fundamental axiomatic truth. For example, make it a betting problem : How much is reasonnable to bet on your own existence, at any point in time?
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    Why do you think you feel that way?andrewk

    Because its a ridiculous line to draw in the sand. From "Decalogue is Jewish not Christian" to "Catholicism isn't Christian" to "True Christians aren't Catholics"... I mean... that's pretty much the very definition of chauvinism.

    I'm not a Huguenotandrewk

    It's just a catch-all anachronistic term with which Francophones refers to Protestants of all shapes and colours.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I mean, Dems have pretty much always only ever tried electing moderates.

    Maybe, perhaps, perchance, after last election's trainwreck, it's time to put the pedal to the floor, so to speak?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    Wait a bit, Breitbart is a shitty site to dig through.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian


    Well that really is far from what you initially said. And ridiculously chauvinistic.

    Which, I guess, is paid in kind. Huguenots really are a weird bunch.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian


    Im not defending Augustino's ridiculous OP arguments. Just the claim that the Decalogue is exclusively a jewish thing.

    The Catechism, for what its worth, only speaks of arms as an evil which the nations must avoid running after.
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian


    You are making a positive claim which is verifiably false. Catholicism is sect of Christianity. Catholic dogma, weither you agree with it or not, includes the Decalogue. We learned it by hearts as kids. Thus, Christianism does include the Decalogue.

    The Venn circles dont lie. :nerd:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    "The feminization of the left has made them vulnerable"

    Aaaaaand unsubbed.

    Oh shit this isnt youtube. :angry:
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    It's sad, for sure, but Agustino isn't American, German, or Francois.Bitter Crank

    He pretended to be French for a while, no? Or did he just pretend to know french?
  • Human Rights Are Anti-Christian
    The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.

    That applies to me as well as to you of course.
    andrewk

    Sorry, I don't get your meaning here. In any case, this is the Catechism. Its the official stance and teachings of the Catholic Church.

    You cannot claim that the Decalogue is not Christian if it is Catholic.