Comments

  • Intuition
    Then I must be "mind-mindbogglingly arrogant". If I had to choose between a book that contains knowledge and a book that contains somebody's intuitions, I would choose the former. Simply put: it's better to know.Wheatley

    But we don't have to choose between those two, we can use both and use both well. In fact we all rely on intuition all the time. Some of better, some worse at specific areas of being intuitive and many experts have excellent intuition. We don't have the luxury of using only knowledge. If we waited for everything to be verified in that way, we could not live. Further in applying knowledge, interpreting knowledge steps in doing this would involve intuition. Or do involve it, I should have said.
  • Buddhism is just realism.
    Well, Buddhism does separate emotion from expression Instead of a natural feeling----> expression with sound, facial expression, posture we have a witnessing process. A disidentification. Expression of emotion is a part of life. Now, of course, Buddhists do express emotions, but in practical terms it is frowned upon more than in many other subcultures (judgements of emotions and their expression is pretty common) and at the practice level one is disconnection emotion from expression. So, there's a facet of life that is cut off.
  • New Consciousness & Changing Responsibility
    That is not how either understands their act of abuse unless they are aware of being angry and wanting to hurt the other personAthena
    Could you rephrase this. I said
    I can't see a problem with someone who is sexually abused blaming someone who abused them.Bylaw
    I think some people do frame their sexual interaction with an adult when they were a child as sexual abuse. I think they would also say they blame the person in some way or other. So, I am not sure what you mean by it not being 'how either understands their act of abuse...'
    I am including females as sexual predators, because of news stories of female teachers lusting for a young male student and acting on it.Athena
    And some of them have blame, the young men and the adults they become, especially if they were very young.

    I don't see how 'blame' is inappropriate as a rule.
    How many men fake a climax to make the woman feel good and to stop the action that is not appealing because the hormone level is not where it needs to be to enjoy sex?Athena
    I have no idea how you got here or what this has to do with what I wrote.
    If we think of nature we might be a little less hysterical about the behavior and behave according to nature's rules, instead of flaunting the rules and then crying about the man's act of nature. :monkey:Athena
    I don't think I was hysterical. I don't think your response makes much sense as a response to my post A young man who rapes someone in the way you describe is a very dangerous person but I guess I kinda hope he watches the guy who wants to be killed and eaten by that German guy before he meets you. You won't have any blame for him or complaints if he kills and eats you. He will have thought you wanted it. It would be hysterical of you to think his behavior was blameworthy even if he starts eating first before the kill.
  • Only nature exists
    if someone goes to a doctor, and say he has a liver problem, so they both are looking on liver, but he has a heart problem, nothing usefull will be done.Nothing
    If you have a pathologist who finds scar tissue in the heart of a deceased person and considers this natural until he also find very high amounts, unnaturally high amounts of PCBs in the body, beyond even pollution caused levels, she may decide that this was an unnatural death.

    Perfectly useful human language use. And it does not lead to any problems.

    Premise is there is not such a thing as unnatural, all is nature, space, car, tree, human..
    Yes, I understand your position. But what happened here is you restated your original position, but didn't really interact with the ideas in my post.
  • New Consciousness & Changing Responsibility
    Both of them take responsibility for their own lives. Neither blames the people who abused them, although they do hold them responsible.T Clark
    What do you see as the difference between blame and holding someone responsible.

    I can't see a problem with someone who is sexually abused blaming someone who abused them.


    Meaning of blame in English
    blame
    verb [ T ]
    to say or think that someone or something did something wrong or is responsible for something bad happening:


    From Cambridge dictionary. Notice how responsible is in the definition of blame.
  • New Consciousness & Changing Responsibility
    The essence of adulthood is that you don't blame other people for your misfortune.T Clark
    That doesn't hold for me as a generalization. If someone shot me in the spine, I would blame them for that and certainly some of my misfortune. One can blame others AND then make the best of the situation. I don't think serfs being wiped out by Mao or Stalin would have been wrong to blame their misfortune on those guys. Of if society were to move towards a dictorship and speaking up gets you killed. I can blame justifiably those who are pulling stuff AND also do the best I can given the effects of the work of evil people.

    And sometimes there are group patterns. Generally not always that the entire group of one side abuses the entire group the other side. But there can be tendencies and imbalances in who should get the blame. Their can be cultural practices that benefit one group and harm the other.

    I know Iranian women, for example, who blame men more than women for the current way women are viewed and treated in that society. They certainly see women participating and perpetrating also. But the greater blame they aim at the men, while feeling that they have male allies also.

    Physical strength has allowed political strength and then created cultural patterns that are abusive more to one side, though, I think ALWAYS abusive to both. It doesn't make you a child to notice this.

    Just as an African slave (a more extreme example) is not a child if they had blame for the way the whites treated them.
  • Only nature exists
    Question: why people say, man made things are unnatural ?Nothing

    It's a useful distinction. The artificial and the natural. If unnatural is meant in the pejorative, I would have a problem if every human-made object is considered unnatural AND unnatural is negative, then I think there is a problem. But if unnatural is either non-pejorative or unnnatural is a subset of artificial - more or less 'artificial and problematic' then I am find with it. Often we replace what is natural with something artificial and the result is worse. Often cosmetic surgery is like this. Lips that are flexible and human looking (but perhaps not a model ideal) are replaced/enhanced using an artificial process and we end up with a person who looks less human and who can feel their own emotions less well. We experience our emotions through our facial muscles in part. Make the face more rigid, the less we are aware of our emotions. Many artificial things are not a problem for me. I would use unnatural for that subset that I consider stupid, negative, dangerous, destructive to things that I value.
  • The compatibility between science and spirituality
    If you are a pure physicalist, saying you have a spirituality, it seems to me, would be strange. You could have an ethics, you could have a philosophy. But spirituality points towards a dualism or at least a spectrum that includes things not now verified by science.. Yes, originally the word comes from 'the breath', but it came to mean to do with the non-corporeal. And to say you have a breath attitude would be more or less meaningless. I would think physicalists would be more consistant saying they have a philosophy or view of life. Of course, some scientists are not physicalists, and there the term might be accurate or consistant.
  • The compatibility between science and spirituality
    I really can't see why a sexist put down of human experts enjoying what they study is the position to have. Yes, we could eliminate the word impressive from our vocabulary, but it seems to me their passion and cooing is informative. Many other humans will react similarly when they too experience the subtlties and patterns that experts notice and find.
    Informative about what many of us will experience, that is.

    If they put it in a peer-reviewed article as some central thesis or conclusion, well it won't pass muster.

    I don't see why scientists need to cut out their own limbic systems or pretend they are not in awe when they are.
  • Coronavirus
    A lab that was doing gain of function research on bat corona viruses funded by the NIH via FAuci who lied about it being gain of function research in front of Congress, not once, but twice. This felony has not led to any prosecution.

    https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/
  • When is a theory regarded as a conspiracy?
    I mean, seriously. Have you ever interacted with, say, the better arguers in Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc? These discussions generally strike me as so facile. Go out and find the better proponents of what gets called a conspiracy theory and argue your case that you present here. IOW tell them that really it is based on ad hoc, cherry picking and other fallacies. Point out to them where, see how it goes. The people who end up in a philosophy forum have no skin in the game and have done less research, generally, than people who are groups of scientists or other experts, who are right now engaged in lawsuits or other organized approached to making their case. It's easy sniping generally and vaguely.
  • When is a theory regarded as a conspiracy?
    So, Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction that the Bush Admin knew about.
  • When is a theory regarded as a conspiracy?
    Some conspiracy theories will turn out to be true, others false. Somehow it has come to be identified as applicable to only irrational theories.bert1
    Yes, it's an absurd term in current usage. Obviously there are conspiracies, some involving governments in collusion with other major players. There are also all sorts of conspiracy to committ type laws. So, everyone believes in conspiracies. Everyone has their theories or what in science might be called hypotheses. 9/11 was not pilot error. It was some kind of conspiracy. So, to label one group's theory ridiculous because it is a conspiracy theory, when one believes it was a conspiracy of some kind, is silly.

    Then the discussion often stays at an abstract level, with both sides psychoanalyzing the other side's reasons for believing. Which would be an ad hom in a philosophy discussion, at least in a discussion of the theory itself.

    Those who like to lump all of what get called conspiracy theorists into one group (with one level of sophistication and evidence and rationality) often refer to the psychology of the entire group, not realizing that this, while not being a conspiracy theory, is just broadstroke speculation that anyone with a little respect for the problem of other minds should be hesitantly to flatly state as if it was a fact.

    It's even more embarrassing when, as it often is, it is used by someone openly or implicitly identifying themselves as being on team reason.
  • Anti-Vaxxers, Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Climate Deniers, Flat-Earthers
    I suppose this is supposed to be mocking Joe Rogen and would be funny if it made sense. But Ivermectin is also a human medication. He got a prescription from a doctor (not a vet) and he got medicine manufactured for human use. Ivermectin has an excellent very side effect free history and has been used in many human studies on Covid with good results, which is likely why the CDC despite incredible bullshit and pressure from the pharmaceutical industry is going to begin studies on humans. CNN and the fact checkers had their heads up their asses. If the idea was that Ivermectin, in this case, would be being used off-label, well it would be off-label for horses - since it's a dewormer for horses - so the whole mockery makes no sense. And, of course, off-label use is very common amongst doctors. And sure, this can be abused, but focus on the pharmaceutical companies who try to stretch the off label uses into the danger zones more than any other party.

    CNN had their head medical person on Joe Rogen's show and this doctor admitted it was incorrect of CNN to call it horse medicine. Though, man, he was very evasive until finally admitting the obvious. It's in the PDR for god's sake. It's really amazing what can be repeated over and over as if it's true by people claiming to represent science and rationality. They'll call this the Irony Age in the future.
  • IQ vs EQ: Does Emotional Intelligence has any place in Epistemology?
    Research has shown that people with a high EQ tend to be more successful than compare to others who have a high IQ. So if a high EQ is the key to success why focus on Epistemology?TheQuestion
    I thought you might be arguing from, in a sense, a pragmatic viewpoint. It's not so important if you are smart, in the traditional IQ sense, but very important that you are successful. Success reflects an ability to make effective practical effects on reality. So, in instrumental terms, it is more important to have a high EQ.

    It seems to me, it is more useful to know how to navigate the emotional spectrum than understanding the purpose of thought.
    That last bit which I highlighted is epistemology, which is about what is knowledge, how do we get it, how do we know we have it and so on.

    Which EQ can help with. If we can introspect well, notice our own emotions, this will give us a better handle on our evaluations of our own methodologies, the methodologies of those we disagree with, how thorough we have been, our willingness and ability to deal with anomolies and counterexamples and more.
  • Can we live in doubt
    Probably not just doubt. You'd get into all these recursions and never do anything. But one can certainly doubt, amongt other reactions/actions/processes and live. One can even doubt everything, for some period of time. Then you'll need a meal and probably some confidence it's in the fridge or can be ordered by phone.
    It's tricky to mount a skeptical argument about everything, since you won't be doubting certain things when you mount that argument.
    But one could sort of sit in a stunned doubting state, without making arguments and doubt away at everything. But this would tend to reduce your chances of survival (and would likely lead to depression) if done too often/too much
  • The Decay of Science
    I am not sure that we can successfully challenge the regularity or longevity of natural mechanism and properties.Nickolasgaspar
    Well, if we find evidence that natural mechanism change over time - constants and laws - then they are challenged.
    https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/fundamental-physics-constants-not-constant/
    https://physicsworld.com/a/are-the-laws-of-nature-changing-with-time/
    -Well that is a misconception. After all QM is science's most successive formulations offering predictions with up to 99,999...up to 14 decimal places....accuracy.Nickolasgaspar
    I think the complaint is that qm is ontologically probablisitic, for example. Also that 'things' can be in different potential states at the same time. Of course the evidence is unbelievably strong or they never would have accepted QM and initial resistance was strong. It's that it points, as does relativity theory, to ontological ideas that went not only against common sense but against assumptions in science in general. I have no problem with this, but some do.
    We shouldn't maintain the same expectations from matter at such an energetic state and we should take in to account the way we make observations at that scale!Nickolasgaspar
    Sure, though aren't they getting qm effects at larger scales.
    https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/quantum-human-scale-ligo-mit-nature-a9596056.html
    https://physicsworld.com/a/seeing-quantum-effects-on-a-big-scale/
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi_g-64_NjzAhWNn4sKHRtHCE8QFnoECA0QAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.livescience.com%2Fphysicists-entangle-15-trillion-hot-atoms.html&usg=AOvVaw08b78zA0eeFtLEXzLWupAY
    And since organisms as large as birds use qm effects this means that large things are visibly affected by small scale processes....
    https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2646
    The only point I don't really get is your position on QM. What observation in QM do you think creates the biggest trouble for our current paradigm?Nickolasgaspar
    I am not sure what 'our current paradigm would refer to' but it was Caldwell who I think has a problem with QM. I think, but I am not sure, he sees it as having concluded (a little anthropomorphism tossed in) that classical causation does not hold (at least in some processes or at a certain scale

    so (important jump here)

    it represents a decay in Science.

    Since classical causation must apply, then at least the conclusions in qm must be wrong. Not the data, but any conclusions and any new ontology.

    I disagree with him. Or with my hallucinated version of him.
  • The Decay of Science
    All scientific laws are descriptive...this means that if they stop describing our observations accurately they are challenged by default.Nickolasgaspar
    Sure, but the idea that laws are timeless and universal can be challenged. Which means they weren't necessarily wrong before, but the conclusion that they were built permanently into the fabric of the whole universe could be incorrect.


    IOW what you write here is not relevant to the issue I was raising.
    Our frameworks were never considered as "absolute truths", again science doesn't play the "absolute truth" game.Nickolasgaspar

    Science produces data and offers descriptive law like generalizations based on Naturalistic principles...not because of a philosophical bias but due to Pragmatic Necessity since they are the only testable and objectively falsifiable.Nickolasgaspar
    What you just presented here is a position that some scientists have (only humans can have biases and positions) but others do not. I'd say I am a kind of Pragmatist so I don't have a problem with your position here, in fact, I would say I agree with it. More than that I think that was what I was saying to Caldwell, though I am not sure exactly what his position is. But it seems to be that QM includes theories (or hypotheses that he considers unjustly accepted) that go against things like clearcut causal laws, so this is decay.

    Well, to me, it might be a problem if the conclusions are wrong, but that's true for conclusions that support what he or anyone else might consider ontologically correct.
    I understand that absolute knowledge or truth as Science's goals are popular beliefs,but they couldn't be further from the truth.Nickolasgaspar
    I'll just say you seem to be assuming things about my beliefs or the position I presented which are not the case. And again, Science can't have goals. Only living organisms can. (with a proviso that future evidence might alter my position on this:joke:)
    The above remarks are not necessary in conflict with what you stated, I only included them as additional information in the discussion.Nickolasgaspar
    Ah, OK, I hadn't gotten this far yet. Thanks for the clarification.
    -Well to be fair towards Newton, he never included any ontology in his mathematical formulations. To be more precise he never published a theory, his Theory of Gravity is not a theory! Its a law in the form of a mathematical description!. There is even an anecdote informing people to call the phenomenon whatever they want (energy, force etc)...
    Others rushed in to ad their narrative on what his equations implied.
    Nickolasgaspar
    I claim no expertise about Newton, but it has been presented to me from hundreds of (perhaps weak) sources that he did in fact believe in absolute time and space.
    Newtonian Time

    According to its most famous proponent, Sir Isaac Newton, for example, absolute time (which is also sometimes known as “Newtonian time”) exists independently of any perceiver, progresses at a consistent pace throughout the universe, is measurable but imperceptible, and can only be truly understood mathematically. For Newton, absolute time and space were independent and separate aspects of objective reality, and not dependent on physical events or on each other.

    Time, in this conception, was external to the universe, and so must be measured independently of the universe. It would continue even if the universe were completely empty of all matter and objects, and essentially represented a kind of container or stage setting within which physical phenomena occur in a completely deterministic way. In Newton’s own words: “absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external”.

    Newton’s ideas about absolute time were largely borrowed from Isaac Barrow, his predecessor at Cambridge. Barrow himself described time as a mathematical concept, analogous to a line in that it has length, is similar in all its parts, and can be looked on either as a simple addition of continuous instants, or alternatively as the continuous flow on one instant.
    Some going so far, as here, arguing where he got his ideas from and then quoting Newton.

    So the default position is to accept the ontology we know it is possible and withhold belief to any unfounded claim.Nickolasgaspar
    Great. I have to add that I really wish this was the way scientists, in general, acted. You are talking about 'the default position' Science can't have a default position, people have them. And the people I see and interact with do not withold beliefs to unfounded (or even partially founded or even merely mentioned) claims. In fact ironically Caldwell's reaction (which I may be misinterpreting) to QM seems like what I experience in my interaction with the majority of scientists I've met: they don't withhold beliefs. They evaluate intuitively or deductively beliefs that contradict or seem to contradict or might contradict or just seem weird based on their sene of current models, ontologies and theories. And they often rapidly dismiss things that, were your sense of the default in praxis accurate IRL, they should not given what science is. And they do this with peers also. To bring back Newton, there is a lot of inertia when encountering new and 'strange' ideas. Bodies at rest and in motion and all that....

    But that's nothing new and not a sign of decay unless someone can show it has gotten worse.

    Of course one could then ask if it is science that has decayed or scientists who have deteriorated.

    But I can't fully separate out a Platonic form science from the in situ mediated form I encounter, much as I try to point at the Ideal form when encountering some scientists and more commonly their groupies (not a dig at you, you know way too much to be categorized that way. In fact the people who annoy me would likely in practice go against your defaults with regularly and thus have problems with you also.)
  • The Decay of Science
    Me, I don't think that changes in metaphysics necessarily are a decay in science, at all. Natural laws were consider sacrosanct for a long time, but they are coming into question due to the evidence. That's ok. Conclusions that seem to challenge traditional ontologies are not decaying science. If the research, data collection, protocols and so on were unsound, that's a problem, which might or might not decay science if endemic. Science is a set of methodologies. They lead us where they will. And they may lead away from some folk theories that seemed obvious to the consensus of scientists for a long time. Or we could call some of these ontological assumptions/conclusions 'heuristics' that are not useful in certain contexts. I mean, we know from Einstein that some of Newton's ontology was incorrect. We have repeatedly shown this via what seem like sound protocols. That's just fine. We can still use Newton's formula's in many contexts, but let go of the ontology, not that most people do.
  • Epistemic Responsibility
    This is the covid issue in a nutshell. The fanatics say "you must believe X because look at what's at stake", but the evidence for what's at stake invariably comes from aforementioned X, so it's a nonsense argument.Isaac
    I appreciate the points you are making here and elsewhere similar to this one.
  • The Decay of Science

    You said
    Does that mean that they can introduce their "epistemology" as science,, no they can not.
    And yes, I was referring to economic and then political practices allowing them to present, for example, poor methodolgies and research practices as science. And then effectively paint critics, including scientists, as against science through media that they have much more contol over as a mouthpiece. The specific epistemologies they present are often highlighted by critics and part of their criticisms, but since these are hard for the general public to follow, and even other scientists conflate corporate sponsered research as following The Set of Methodologies and Standards of Theoretical evaluations AND who assume that 'of course' regulatory bodies including scientists would not allow terrible epistemologies (demonstrated in specific examples of poorly done research that supports positions corporations want) to be approved
    stuff that is not sound
    gets past off as the conclusions of sound scientific methologies.
    They don't say 'hey, we have a new epistemology or epistemological viewpoint.' But their unsound and then approved as sound practices are examples of practices that should fall outside The Set of Methodologies and Standards of Theoretical evaluations.
  • Do you dislike it when people purposely step on bugs?
    I'd venture to say they are incapable of using tit-for-tat strategy. My actions toward bugs I encounter probably won't ever come back to bite me, as I think you are saying.IanBlain
    It might, however, be a sign of something that will cause you problems. You may or may not notice those problems. Even if, let's assume for argument, empathy for insects is misplaced, you might have a more general empathy deficit which will after your other relationships.

    And of course people disliking your stepping on bugs, probably will not get bitten either.
  • The Decay of Science
    Does that mean that they can introduce their "epistemology" as science,Nickolasgaspar
    They manage to rather well. I get your point: scientific methodologies/epistemology cannot decay. But here on earth what gets called science can decay, and money is effectively doing that. Given the increase in wealth at the top and decrease in the number of media companies (that reach significant numbers), I am not seeing an easy way for us to break free from this.
  • True or False logic.
    But to say some statements are neither true or false, therefore they are both seems to express a bland superfluity.Tom Storm
    I think statements can be ambiguous and therefore cannot be neatly categorizes as true or false. I think some statements can be nonsense and again true and false are off the table. But then I think there are many sentences that are not, for example, 100% true, that it would be false to say they were false.
  • True or False logic.
    If any of these is the case then they are true. If they are not the case they are false. 'Look before you leap' is a saying and does not have this kind of truth value. I don't know what 'trusting people is a problem' means.Tom Storm
    A saying is an assertion. Can you explain what assertions are not under the purview of true and false? As far as 'being the case' they are somewhat true, somewhat false. And an assertion, at least according to many, such as 'a virus is a lifeform' is neither true nor false. It has within it a category 'lifeform' that has been treated for a long term as part of a binary pair, but it may not be a binary pair, there may be combinations or a spectrum.

    One should trust people.
    [a better formulation, perhaps]

    I think a good case can be made that this is not a nonsense statement, but also is neither true nor false.

    An electron is a particle.

    Some might say so. Others might say that is a useful sentence but not entirely true. Others would say that it is partly false.

    I don't see why every statement has to be either true or false, when statements could include some truth and some falsehood. And also given that language is, obviously, human made and may have categories that are confused or openended or seem part of binary pairs but are not.
  • True or False logic.
    Or the final judgment is not a binary yes, no, true false. IOW we could decide that viruses are something in between a lifeform and not a lifeform. That it would be wrong to categorize it as one and not the other.
  • True or False logic.
    So a claim can never be true or not true at the same time because it is a judgment based on facts at that specific moment.Nickolasgaspar
    Here also:
    Viruses are lifeforms.
    Facts and expert opinion currently are mixed.
  • True or False logic.

    People are angry.
    Trusting people is a problem.

    Are those binarily True or False?

    Look before you leap is a good heuristic.
    He who hesitates is lost is a good heuristic.

    Are those simply true or false?

    Viruses are not life forms.
    True or false?
  • The Decay of Science
    If you notice in your reading that the physicists are mostly the culprit of the tradi tional science-decline sentiments, though they're not the only target of the critics. Quantum theory, relativity theory, reductionist physics, and oh, alternative knowing.Caldwell
    I have seen criticism of QM mainly and relativity perhaps a bit and then that physics is reductionistic (though the reductionism charge I have tended to see aimed more at the biological sciences). But I am not sure how that relates to empirical critiques. Relativity has had many types of empirical confirmation, as has QM. In general. Specific interpretations of qm phenomena are seen as unjustified, but the data does not support seeing particles as tiny balls. IOW common sense metaphysics and the traditional sense of matter are contradicted by QM empirical data.
    So, the decay in science is coming from people who believe science is slighting (the existence of) things outside our perception? Can you give me a recent example of this?Bylaw
    I am still stuck here. If my first summation of part of your position is off, please let me know.
    Yet squabbles about what's science and what's pseudo science in testing vaccines and efficacy of drugs and pandemic hardly become permanent inhabitants of scholarly books that get attacked by the likes of Hilary PutnamCaldwell
    Right, or so I would guess, not having read much of Putnam, but philosophy often focuses on what's on paper, the ideal science, say epistemology. Not real world application of science where politics and money influence every stage from what gets investigated, by whom, how it is investigated, who confirms results, what results are found, how this is applied in the world and nowadays who in the scientific community even gets to talk. Peer review can be silenced. Counterevidence can be eliminated from public view not because it is false, but because it might cause someone to doubt. Well, that's what counter or new evidence ought to do. That is an incredibly complicated set of phenomena and a lot of academic philosophers want to focus on one topic at a time. And they very well may lack the training to evaluate
    a lot of the factors. Those factors are studied is some ways in political philosophy, but that may not be their discipline. Further, only partially. They need media studies, economics, sociology, propaganda studies, and specific research into the relevent regulatory bodies/organizations/companies involved in the process, which should entail some expertise in financial forensics. A nice interdisciplinary panet (who can pass some kind of audit themselves) is probably necessary.
  • Are emotions unnecessary now?
    And take away his corporate charter while we're at it. Corporate charters were seen as priviledged relations with the government and society and misbehavior, if problematic enough (breaking laws, say, avoiding taxes, say) could lead to losing that charter.

    as a random spotcheck...
    Jeff Bezos, whose net worth is currently estimated at over $190bn, didn’t pay any federal income taxes in 2007. The stock value for his company, Amazon, more than doubled that same year.

    Bezos also didn’t pay federal income taxes in 2011.

    That same year, he apparently claimed a $4,000 tax credit for his kids.
    from the Guardian
  • Are emotions unnecessary now?
    I believe that emotions have become unnecessary in this modern world, and that the future doesn't need it anymore.Kinglord1090
    Necessary to whom and what does that person or those people have as values?
    When were they necessary and to whom and for what purpose and according to what values?
  • The Decay of Science
    I couldn't get this sentence, though I am glad you think we agree. Could you rephrase it?
  • The Decay of Science
    Empirical science which puts sensation and observation on a pedestal. Which, according to critics, is done to the detriment of things outside of our perception -- thing in itself.Caldwell
    So, the decay in science is coming from people who believe science is slighting (the existence of) things outside our perception? Can you give me a recent example of this? (and I am not saying this is not a significant phenomenon or that you are incorrect, I just find it hard to know exactly what is meant at this level of abstraction.)
  • Are only animals likely conscious?
    People say somebody is a vegetable, or in a vegetative state, when they have no conscious awareness, generally because of injury or disease.Daemon

    That's hardly evidence about plant conscoiusness. It could simply be bias, just as we used to, in science for exmaple, have a bias against animal consciousness.
    It's produced by highly specific and exceptionally complex mechanisms and processes in the brain (and body). We know an astonishing amount about those mechanisms and processes.Daemon
    Actually we don't. We don't know the mechanism that causes conssciousness. We know a lot of about mechanisms that cause various cognitive functions, but we know little about awareness itself. About why some matter experiences, that we know nothing about?

    YOu examples of affecting mice memories is precisely humans affecting memory. Which is a cognitive function. It may or may not have anything at all to do with being aware. That some (or all) matter is aware. That it experiences.
    The phototropic response occurs because greater quantities of auxin are distributed to the side away from the light than to the side toward it, causing the shaded side to elongate more strongly and thus curve the stem toward the light. — https://www.britannica.com/science/auxin#ref1279053


    So a plant doesn't need to be able to see light in order to respond to it. And it doesn't have the kind of mechanisms and processes you have, the ones that make you conscious. So there isn't any good reason to think that plants are conscious.
    This debunking would work on humans also. The only reason it doesn't is because each of us experiences. It would work on debunking animal consciousness, since one could reduce an animals seeing to a mechanistic process and throw in chemical names. But we no longer assume that animals are not conscious. You have demonstrated nothing with this reduction.
  • Are only animals likely conscious?
    Can you link to the research? That would be odd given that dogs have about 300 million scent receptors and we have around 6. But perhaps there was some other kind of search, one not involving smell.
  • The Decay of Science
    I don't think he did. I am asking someone else. I think he has been saying that science way decaying because of what Bohr asserted, assumed or did? I could be wrong but I think that is what

    HE

    is asserting and I am asking him about it. I am trying to find out about hisposition.


    As I tried to indicate here....
    ↪Thunderballs
    I was asking questions about decay. I am not sure if you are seconding my questions or disagreeing with something or.....
  • Are only animals likely conscious?
    The planning and introspective type behaviour is evidence of consciousness, especially in light of the fact non-human animals have brains which are used for thinking, just-like-us. It doesn't make sense to say these non-human animals are by default not conscious, and we certainly shouldn't wait until we are overwhelmed by evidence to treat them as such.Down The Rabbit Hole
    I agree, though strangely it was scientific practice to do precisely that until the 70s within science. Not doing it could cause you problems professionally.
  • The Decay of Science
    So, what's an example from another discipline in science? What is the general rule broken or mispractice of Bohr?