Because meaningful relations between the constituency and its representatives are otherwise reduced to voting and 2 minutes addresses before the Parliement. We live in a time of professional politicians. We therefore needs professionnals to engage them meaningfully to express our interests. — Akanthinos

Different discussion but that appears a bit defeatist; we have a sucky system so we need sucky lobbyism to engage politicians and make everything worse for those who cannot organise themselves to lobby or don't have the resources to do so.

lobbyism is indispensible — Akanthinos

Why?

America is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation and culture. — Agustino

It's multi-ethnic for sure but I doubt the various ethnic cultural values have been subsumed in the larger "American" cultural framework. It's more like different cultural island within the boundaries of the USA. You can meet people from different cultures in the USA without sharing important aspects of each other cultures.

Well, a bit too monolithic approach to culture for my liking as they certainly interact and influence each other but I hope you get this gist of what I'm getting at.

Neither the lady with the injured...pussycat nor I would be injured in any way, shape, manner, or form by going along with jokes like this -- or even more raucous, guffaw-inducing jokes.

My guess is that leaking radiation from the warehouse probably fried her sense of humor. — Bitter Crank

Part of the context could be she had to deal with comments like that everyday combined with an undercurrent of unwanted attention. It gets old really fast and could've come across as creepy instead of funny. On its own it seems harmless enough but we don't really know.

I don't think Benkei should have been reprimanded for that. But it's a far cry from any of the examples we've been discussing so far. — Baden

I lied about lying by the way but I just wanted to illustrate that the rules, and as a result probably the expectations of employees too, are different in different countries. As to the exact compliment, I said: "That's a really pretty dress and the colours suit you." I don't think that's sexual harassment by any stretch of the imagination in the USA but it is telling people (a well paid manager who isn't stupid) think it could be.

Too many men that are too oblivious about basic etiquette? Men and women aren't really talking to each other beyond superficial "how you doin'?" so they don't know what each other's boundaries are? I don't know.

Boys will be boys. — Hanover

I read your other post about the stringent rules in the USA as well. I worked for a US company for awhile with a US manager and once complimented his secretary (Dutch) on her dress. He called me over and said I couldn't say that to a woman. Since I was one of the three in-house attorneys I naturally lied about the standards in the Netherlands being medieval with regard to sexual harassment and avoided getting fired.

That rifles are much more accurate than handguns.I suppose a handgun with a dot sight might be equally accurate at short range, though. — Thorongil

We are in agreement then because I said that handguns are the most accurate after rifles. In any case, I'm not an expert. There's an article in this in the NYT today stating that the sheer amount of guns is the problem. If that's the case, 1 gun per person seems to make sense.

It already is, lol. — Thorongil

Shotguns, assault rifles are allowed too right? By rifle I mean a typical hunting rifle. One shot, reload, sort of thing.

No, it's precisely the opposite. — Thorongil

What is?

EDIT:

The key word here is "regularly." They obviously do hit bystanders occasionally, but to elevate that adverb to "regularly" would require citing some statistics. — Thorongil

I'll remind you that I'm from the Netherlands and what you call "occassionally" is "regularly" from my perspective. :D

Except that I was responding to CTW's claim that such misses will involve accidentally killing innocent bystanders. I don't know what kind of scenarios he's imagining take place, but I doubt most people, whether private citizens or policemen, would try to take down a perp who's fleeing in the midst of a crowd or some such situation. — Thorongil

Maybe you're thinking about CTW but the below was not a reply to CTW but to me.

I'm not exactly guessing, because he was talking about the NRA, and the NRA offers and encourages training. And I think this is true of most vocal second amendment proponents. I dare you to find one who didn't know how to properly handle a gun safely or fire it with accuracy. — Thorongil

emphasis mine

I take it though that we're in agreement guns are generally not used accurately even within a distance of 6 feet? So if a person misses that bullet is still going to travel far. Even the police regularly hits innocent bystanders as a result (google it). And that's people we expect to handle guns and protect us. If you look at innocent bystanders hurt due to gun violence in general the picture gets a lot worse.

And when we're talking about the police we're talking about handguns mostly, which I imagine are the most accurate after rifles. The accuracy of semi-automatics and automatics probably drops significantly in comparison. But I'm guessing since I'm not familiar with anything else than air-pressurised rifles.

So that said, why not limit gun ownership to handguns and rifles? The former for personal protection and the latter for hunting or protection against wild animals. I can see how a handgun can be a deterrent in a dark alley even if you can't aim properly if your life depended on it.

Most gun violence incidents do not involve lawful gun owners, such as members of the NRA, so this has no bearing on my assertion. — Thorongil

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/weekinreview/09baker.html

"In all shootings — including those against people, animals and in suicides and other situations — New York City officers achieved a 34 percent accuracy rate (182 out of 540), and a 43 percent accuracy rate when the target ranged from zero to six feet away. Nearly half the shots they fired last year were within that distance."

The most likely outcome of a police officer firing their gun is that they'll miss. Private individuals are not going to do better. More than half of shots by police miss at a distance I can throw a baseball in someone's face 75% of the time which would be an argument to arm police with balls.

Guns cannot be accurately handled in stress situations. That's reserved for only a very few, highly trained individuals.

Based on the ratio of bullets fired in most gun violence incidents and bullets actually hitting someone, I believe the term "accuracy" is a bit of a misnomer where it concerns guns.

I think a majority of them. — Thorongil

So neither you nor cicerone know and are just guessing. Let's make it 50-50 then, ok?

Thank you for helping me understand your question. Your idea would be apply if we had to have a reason to own a firearm but we don't because owning a firearm is a right. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Rights are granted and taken away all the time. It's a bit more difficult with constitutional rights such as, say women's suffrage, but it can be done. The right to bear arms was granted initially for a reason and doesn't exist in a vacuum. If that reason is no longer valid or supervening reasons against that right come to the fore, it seems reasonable to withdraw the right or to introduce limitations on it.

I understand from various discussions that originally it was to prevent oppression from the government and there's some division among constitutional lawyers as to what a "well-regulated militia" means. It doesn't follow from there that limitations aren't possible. Although I personally think doing away with guns entirely is even better, at least some form of gun control could be applied.

I also like Chris Rock's solution. Make each bullet cost 100 USD. That way, before you're going to shoot someone you better make sure it's worth it.

I suggest we all stop here and let this post be the last one in this thread.

It may be possible at some point in the future to establish causation between levels of abstraction, but third person observation/measurement of subjective experience is not possible (as others have already noted). — Galuchat

But doesn't that impossibility result if you insist experience is something more than (a pattern of) neurons firing? A map isn't the terrain either. Chemical equations aren't the reactions either. So I'm not sure how this is an argument against. Can you elaborate?

Theoretically it's possible to record a brain pattern and activate it by stimulating another brain with the same pattern, allowing that other person to experience the same thing in the same way (assuming 2 different brains are sufficiently similar). There have also been test to project the images people dream on screen. I'm not sure what else should be observed or measured.

It would but the absence of such proof isn't proof that physicalism can't be true. As I already said: ... even if such explanations aren't possible, why can't there be other explanations as to why science cannot explain such things other than "obviously physicalism doesn't work"? The state of the start also says rather little about whether it will be possible at some point so it isn't relevant to whether physicalism is absurd or not.

Finally, there is some work on memory and learning and the biochemistry and neurobiology involved. It isn't my field of expertise though but this is interesting:

https://www.ted.com/talks/ed_boyden

and there's the work of David Freedman as well.

Thanks by the way. Not sure I really understand it yet but it's food for thought.

Feel free to explain why it's relevant.

Being reducible is not the same as being explained.

No no, it's your turn to answer some of my questions. There needs to be some kind of reciprocity in this conversation or we can stop here. Your choice.

And the success of philosophy is found in exposing this intuition as nonsense. As for assumptions, I'm sure every scientist knows what they say about you and me. — Galuchat

Never mind the rest of my post, eh? Where has philosophy definitely relegated physicalism to the nonsense bin? I'm not aware of it.

Also, not sure what you think scientists are doing but if scientists don't assume science can say something about the mind they wouldn't be pursuing research in those fields. So far all you're doing is putting a burden of proof on people who think physicalism could work, without really having made a coherent point yourself. It's only assertions so far.

You said: "If materialism is true, human learning should also be explained in the literature of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics."

I more or less replied that it should read: if physicalism is true, human learning could also be explained in the literature of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

Do you agree? If not, why not? Why are such explanations fundamental to the truth of physicalism according to you? And even if such explanations aren't possible, why can't there be other explanations as to why science cannot explain it than "obviously physicalism doesn't work"?

After all, an explanation is what is required (not bits and pieces of research which may be relevant, accompanied with a vague psychological explanation of long term memory somehow being involved in learning). — Galuchat

I'm not sure that's fair. Shouldn't the point be that an explanation should be possible instead of an explanation being complete for the idea of physicalism to at least not be absurd? Also, I'm not sure explanations and proof have much to do with a metaphysical theory. The success of science has increased the intuition that physicalism is true and a lot of research into biochemistry and neurobiology is pursued assuming these things can be quantified. Regardless of that success, there could be more reasons why that endeavour could fail than "obviously physicalism isn't true".

Thanks, I read the Stanford entry on this which I had trouble with understanding. As I understand experiences, they are about something. So an experience that does not causally interact with the world seems a contradiction in terms to me.

http://scholar.google.nl/scholar_url?url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hasker_Davis/publication/17089213_Davis_HP_Squire_LR_Protein_synthesis_and_memory_a_review_Psychol_Bull_96_518-559/links/5667246f08ae34c89a022c37/Davis-HP-Squire-LR-Protein-synthesis-and-memory-a-review-Psychol-Bull-96-518-559.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm1_whEH6HFzk5VU8bZpuBhBw-vGcQ&nossl=1&oi=scholarr&ved=0ahUKEwijr8q36qHXAhUH1xoKHZooDlEQgAMIJygCMAA

This might be a start. Protein synthesis is a requirement for long term memory, which is involved in learning.

Can someone explain the epiphenomenal ectoplasm problem to me? A pure experience that does not interact causally with anything else in the world. My first thought was, "experience of what?" which implies a causal interaction.

This doesn't work, because we have experiences of things which aren't out there, and the things out there can't fully explain the things in here. — Marchesk

Let's go with this and go a bit deeper. Can you give a specific example of something that cannot be explained in this respect? Is it your position that the lack of explanation is a problem to a materialist interpretation? If so, can you explain why that lack of explanation is so fundamental in your view that a materialist interpretation is no longer possible (instead of, for instance, not yet possible)? Thanks.

facepalm

I'll leave others to interpret this exchange but we certainly didn't come any closer to understanding each other and in that sense it isn't going anywhere. Here's some well intended advice from the other side of the divide: try to apply the principles of charity more. I'll look into this thread in a week's time whether I failed there as well.

Interesting. It just so happens I'm typing on a phone so I'm trying to be economical with what I write. I edited it to clarify for you. I'm sorry to see you seem to interpret what I say in a negative light and disagree with your assessments in that area. What can I do to avoid that?

I think it's self-evident. Words change how we feel. A sentence I thought was neutrally stated is received as condescending.

what made you decide it wasn't? And if I told you it was would you believe me? If not, why not?

Well, this shows your lovely character of compassion and forbearance, right, by being condescending. No, condescension is an attitude of patronizing superiority, what you exemplify above. — TimeLine

Have you considered it was a straightforward question?

Quite obviously this is going nowhere. I ask you to refrain from judging my character as you don't know me. We can talk about my actions but not this.

Where to start...

No, I don't need an adversary, you made a statement and I responded. That is three times now you have pretended I - me, the personal me - is doing something that she is not, falsely attributing emotions to me, which is nothing more than an ad hominem and your way to justify a non-argument. — TimeLine

Notwithstanding the condescension you show towards me and other long time forum members. Your words not mine. Or is condescension not emotion in your vocabulary?

What else could we be possibly talking about? — TimeLine

In regular English "this" refers to something that came before and the word philosophy wasn't in your comment whereas the contents of the thread were. You'd expect you'd be talking about what is in this thread not "philosophy" at large. You were being unclear, in my view. I was happy to accept it was about philosophy it just didn't change much about my point. Instead I get a value laden rhetorical question back, which is once again emotional. There is no speaking without emotion unless we're conversing in algebra.

Your etiquette? Your decorum? Like starting a forum post and writing this?

On suicidal thoughts. "Don't have them."
Fuck normal people. "Fuck you too."
— Benkei — TimeLine

What's the title of that thread? Context matters. And in that context it fits perfectly in what I've been saying here.

Right. So, it's ok for you to start a thread and say that, but we - us little people - must show, what, you forbearance and compassion? — TimeLine

Where did I speak with condescension towards you that warrants the label "little people"? I'm not in this conversation to put anyone down, I've given particular advice to Sapientia as he has repeatedly indicated he thinks form doesn't matter. I think it does and have tried to argue why and how that's a win-win for everyone involved. Did that come across as an attack in your view that we're having this conversation? If so, I think that would be for Sapientia to take up.

More generally, I think the forum could do with more forebearance and compassion as these combative attitudes make most conversations here just go round and round (talk about the futility of philosophy indeed). This one is heading towards it as well. You don't have to agree, you don't have to implement it. I personally can take whatever people throw at me so this issue isn't even about people being forebearing and compassionate to me.

Finally, I've never claimed consistency myself and even said I can be blunt even when recognising I can do better. Even so, my personal actions have no bearing on my argument here. Assuming you just committed a fallacy, which one would that be?

Quite obviously? Ok, wait, I said:

This is about content, not about emotion
— TimeLine

And you said:

Quite obviously it isn't
— Benkei

Gracious, so now philosophy is not about content, but about emotion? Whilst at this stage the only emotion I am conveying is laughter, if it is obvious, then why is stating the obvious so difficult for you? — TimeLine

Since the word philosophy didn't appear in your previous post "this" didn't seem to refer to it but to the discussion. Even so, the point stands, you're the one getting emotional, not me, so you're undermining your point through action. The fact that I say it is emotional doesn't preclude content, so you're attributing a position to me that isn't mine. Apparently you need an adversary but I'm not him.

As to the standards, I've already said forbearance and compassion. If that's too vague for you I can't help you.

[Exactly, Praxis. And nowadays there's a lot of research on how to communicate effectively. Sapientia and TimeLine seem to prefer to ignore it even if it would help them (and others) in being effective communicators.]

This is about content, not about emotion. — TimeLine

Quite obviously it isn't despite your repeated attempts to try to make it so. If it was, your condescension would be absent and emotions wouldn't be rising to a boiling point when all I'm suggesting is a bit of forbearance on the one hand and compassion in the other.

There's also a difference between defending a person's right to being a dick and having a preference that he doesn't act like one. I might have the right to call you a cunt, but let's not pretend that it's preferable.

I'd rather get my way than have a say.

If Sapientia had said that, he may very well have caught flak for it. Maybe my point is only that we all have a bit of Kevin in us that we need to be aware of. — Baden

I totally agree I can be blunt. I also don't have an issue with Sapientia on a personal level as the way we communicate tends to be similar so there is no static on the line between him and me. But as a consequence I think I recognise quite easily the areas of improvement and I've been very active in the past two years trying to improve my influence in the work environment through communication skills. It's more difficult for people who think facts and veracity are by far the most important (like me) and I (and I think Sapienta as well) need to be reminded regularly that not everybody thinks the same and reaching those people require other "stylistic" approaches. It's a bit of tact, part inspiration and a lot of shifting gears in how we talk to others.

If someone says, "wow, that's way too blunt" I can defend myself or I can say "Oh, sorry about that. what part did you take offence with?" The first tends to be our automatic reaction (Westerners tend to be argumentative) the second is probably much more conducive to a reasonable conversation. So really I just want to urge Sapientia to try different approaches because in my experience it does pay off.

If the rules state "don't pick your nose" but you continually belch, you've met the decorum required by regulation but it's not a very high standard. I suggest we should aim higher even if we won't enforce that higher standard. In this particular instance I think giving more due to how others receive your words would be better and would lead to a more effective communication. I've tried to illustrate this before with how Martin Luther King would communicate if he'd been "frank" and not take how people receive his words into account: "racism should stop." Instead he started with "I have a dream..." and painted a picture of the future that resonated with others on an emotional level. That's effective communication.

I usually contribute the blood in sports, it's true.

I admit that I can come across as condescending. I have admitted as much in the past. Sometimes I think to myself, "This is something I should work on", and other times I think, "I may express myself as strongly as I like, so long as it is in accordance with the guidelines, so take it or leave it". — Sapientia

The guidelines and rules are to enforce a minimum level of decorum. Certainly you can do better than that?

I personally don't think you're a very effective communicator and it stems from the fact that you think you don't need to take other people's feelings into account when expressing yourself but expect them to accept the way you express yourself. Or consider "being frank" important but how you do that a "stylistic irrelevance". There's a lot of ways to get your ideas across; being frank and not caring about how you come across to others is not very effective and you will indeed end up in a "bloodsport" with a lot of people where most of the time it isn't necessary.

I thought we were going with the "won’t happen, but we can always wish". — Michael

A day later and in a fluke accident at an NRA rally, every rabid gun-toting redneck dies horribly of self-inflicted gun wounds.