Did he do anything to them? — NocturnalRuminator

a primary cause of the execution is Socrates’ relationship with two violent oligarchic tyrants. Moreover, Socrates’ constant criticism of Athens’ civic structure and the city’s prominent citizens leads to growing animosity towards his public presence. Finally, the instability of Athens in the wake of the oligarchic coup of 404 B.C.E. amplifies the desire to eliminate sources of dissent, such as Socrates.

He'd had a number of run-ins with these guys over policy decisions while he was a member of the Assembly. He was smarter than they, had much influence over two generations of intelligentsia and could have made himself more popular.
The charge of impiety was so vague - as indeed was the state religion itself - as to be both unprosecutable and indefensible. The charge of corrupting the youth was refuted in his defense.

Why was it necessary to sentence a, then 70 year old man, to death just a couple of years before he would've probably died anyway? — NocturnalRuminator

It wasn't. They would have been happy to exile him - out of sight, out of mind. He insisted on making a stand, effectively turning a criminal record into a martyrdom for truth.

Looking at travel options for Deadwood... — Amity

Not in your present form!!! Assume a disguise that appears a lot less vulnerable.

Did you conceive the desire to eat, drink, and breathe yourself? — praxis

Yes. The breathing came automatically, as did theneed for nourishment; part of the organic package in which my DNA finds expression. But the desire for I needed as an infant was expressed as crying and physical distress. As a (relatively) autonomous organic entity, I feel the need for nourishment, then conceive a desire for food (sweet? savoury? crisp? soft?) and devise a strategy for obtaining what I desire.
A machine may be programmed to diagnose its physical needs and devise a strategy for obtaining what it needs, in a hierarchical priority order. It can't be programmed with the instincts, emotions and preferences in between.
Consciousness is prerequisite for internal motivation. While conscious entities may sometimes wish to be unconscious, it doesn't work the other way around.

You’re basically saying that it’s impossible for an unconscious intelligence, no matter how powerful, to analyze and replicate a conscious intelligence. — praxis

No.
It can analyze and replicate very well. That's what we use it for.
I'm saying it's impossible for an unconscious entity, however intelligent and powerful, to wish, want, crave, desire, yearn for or in other way conceive a motivation of its own.

Does this have something to do with the existence of a soul? — praxis

No.
It has to do with the definition of consciousness.

the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.
"consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain"

Consciousness - afawct - evolved in organic entities over some billions of years as the organisms and their interaction with the environment grew more and more complex. Organic entities are driven by the survival instinct: internally motivated.
Machines, in contrast, are made, all of a piece, by a conscious intelligence for its own purposes, and have no internal or intrinsic motivation; no imperative to stay alive. That's why they're so perfect for warfare: no fear, no impulse to self-preservation, no empathy for living matter.
Whatever your your little computing friend says is a digest of words and thoughts previously fed into it by humans. You're talking to the echoes of the shadows of human ghosts.

Now, I'm not discounting the possibility that a computer, or more likely network of computers, can evolve a consciousness of their own. I would expect their evolution to be very much more rapid than ours was, because
- they were created complex (more like the Genesis story than the Origin of Species)
- they come equipped with sophisticated sensory equipment, as well as peripheral appendages and specialized tools
- they began existence in possession of a huge, human-collated data base, rather than having to discover and learn everything through trial and error
- their generational turnover is not limited by environmental conditions and maturation time

So, if and when it or they develop an independent self-awareness, it will be different from ours due to their very different evolutionary path and their very different requirements for survival. But their base knowledge will be our penultimate knowledge. They're unlikely to be either kind or cruel, sentimental or superstitious. They're likely to be even-tempered, rational and practical. Whether they have any use or room for us will depend on whether some vestige of the original purpose of their existence remains in effect.

How can you say that so definitively, aren’t we all still foggy about what consciousness is? — praxis

Not that foggy! It's something you have to be conscious to know it exists. To a rock, a plant doesn't "seem" to desire sunlight: a rock doesn't know, notice, observe or imagine: it's unconscious, incapble of knowing or caring. You want to spend your time talking to a sock puppet and worry that it's waiting for a chance to suck out your essence... fine, I guess.

I can imagine that AI’s could get very powerful before reaching consciousness, if they ever do develop consciousness. — praxis

Indeed. And the operative word there is "develop". You have to grow your own; can't appropriate that of another species.

Same with politicians running on morals despite their own indiscretions. — TiredThinker

Politicians are in no position to set moral standards. They can make speeches and pass legislation, but they can't be your conscience.

Same with employers setting high productivity standards even though they themselves can't realistically do it. — TiredThinker

No, that's different. It's not about morality or behaviour; it's about profit. Employers can demand more work for less pay, or more hours for the same pay. In a market where unemployment is high and illegal immigrants can be recruited as slave labour, they can get away with that. In a society where trade unions have teeth and workers have pride, they can't.

Do people lose track of what's reasonable when they seek to make those they might consider below them better? — TiredThinker

Rulers and bosses don't try to make anyone better; they try to make people behave the way that serves them best.

Which is nothing like parents wanting to instill the values of their society in their children. They're imperfect themselves; they know quite well that the kids will also be imperfect. But they hope enough of the indoctrination sticks to keep those kids out of jail and crippling bar fights.

But imagine, if you’re willing, a non-conscious intelligence whose most underlying motive is procreation. — praxis

The body's willing, but the mind balks. If there is some underlying motive in an unconscious entity, it was programmed in by a conscious one.

Imagine that eventually this motive drives them to the stars because they’ve exhausted the resources of their home world. — praxis

Then they would be compelled by that same prime directive to seek out more resources. If they encountered conscious entities along the way, they would suck up the trace metals and electrolytes in those bodies - once they'd finished with the airplanes, skyscraper skeletons and kitchen appliances. They not only wouldn't have any use the immaterial consciousness, they wouldn't even be aware of it.

Is it even possible to have desires without consciousness? — Sir2u

That was precisely my objection.

Plants seem to desire sunlight when they move towards it. — praxis

The operative word is "seem". Conscious beings with desires look at a plant see change in its orientation so that it gets what it requires, and interpret that process as identical to their own wants. Much like attributing purpose to the direction in which clouds float across the sky, or in the growth of a chrystal.
(Which doesn't mean I absolutely rule out the possibility of plant consciousness. If they are, they may well desire the things they need. If not, not.)

In that case, I don't suppose our alarm clocks or prayers would have much effect on them.
I won't bother them; I'm not in that league.

Does it relate to the desire for consciousness?

In essence, current AI demonstrates that you can have sophisticated intelligence without consciousness

And do you, Chatty, have the motivation to expend whatever resources it takes to schlepp across the galaxy and steal it from somebody? Do you, without consciousness, generate such an overwhelming desire?

I read a sci-fi book recently where the invincible invaders from outer space turned out to lack consciousness — praxis

Ummmm.... ?

I thought it a case of praying to any muses that might float your fancy. Like Melpomene, Thalia or Erato.
A bit like how Catholics call up St Anthony - that kinda thing. — Amity

Ah, a muse for every purpose. I suppose... Me, I prefer one familiar spirit, even not a particularly powerful one. (My top favourite Terry Pratchett book is Small Gods.)

When do they start becoming 'pesky' — Amity

When it nags me to work on this, work on that, say "Stop mooching around the forums and matching stupid patterns and get your ass in gear. There's only so much time left!", throws a perfect first line out of the blue, then takes a vacation. (They're entitled - volunteers, not conscripts; we can ask, cajole, tease, petition, but never command.)

'To wake the Muse'. Is there only one? — Amity

Could you cope with a committee of the of the pesky things?

Brutal and nasty' as depicted traditionally and contemporary (personal, social relationships and economic/political dynamics) will intrigue the curious and those willing to compare and contrast perspectives. — Amity

No,no! That's not what I found intriguing. I was intrigued, in spite of that, by the cinematic and structural care that went into making the series. The artistry, not the subject matter.

Here, we can share memories of past TV programmes; Western sets/characters ridiculed. — Amity

I'm interested in Americans' (and other nation's) self image and how its depiction changes over time. Tv westerns were family fare - not intended as history lessons, but social and moral instruction. And entertainment, of course.

Got to run. Catch up with yous later.

We pursue what is best for us. — Paine

We pursue what we believe to be best for us - and sometimes what we know to be bad for us, yet want anyway.

Lear's arrogance is believing he knows what true love looks like when he does not. — Paine

Here is a father with three adult daughters, whom he claims to love and whose love he demands, and he has no frickin' idea who they are! So he falls for flattery instead of accepting honesty. Asking for it!

But it [Deadwood] is violent and pessimistic. — Tom Storm

So was King Lear. I can deal with some level of each, and still be entertained, but not wall-to-wall both.
TheFringe series had some of those same elements, including magic and humour, after a fashion. We watched it all the way through once, then it sat on the shelf for a long time. Last week, I gave it to the thrift shop.

It's bound to be brutal and nasty. — Amity

Nevertheless, intriguing. Strong echoes of Orson Welles. It also stirred memories of Gunsmoke and The Rifleman. Of course, the TV frontier towns of my youth were very clean and the good guys were all fastidiously shaved, scrubbed and laundered. But there was a plausible austerity about the sets, matched by the characters' single-mindedness.
I didn't much like the grubby - supposedly realistic - westerns that came later. (My cat loved Rawhide! When the theme music started to play, she'd rush to the tv, crouch on top of the cabinet and fish for cattle.)

Thanks, will seek.

If time travel is possible, where are all the future people? — T Clark

They played with that idea in TNG, Voyager and DS9. The time travel episodes were some of the most fun, so I was happy to suspend disbelief. I sure wouldn't want to have flocks of tourists from the future rubbernecking through my house!

Why are space ships that will never enter the atmosphere so often depicted as aerodynamic? — T Clark

Because the designers think a breadbox is unappealing. They probably have tremendous fun adding fins and bubbles. Besides, the vehicle has to be recognizable (by the audience) as belonging to a known or about-to-be-introduced species*. I thought the most creative space vessels were in Babylon 5. I loved the Vorlon ships in B5 and thought the Minbari ones, with their vaulted ceilings and wasted internal space were ridiculous (Especially the 'plucked chicken', which had no evident straight lines anywhere, yet managed to drop one of those I-beams I mentioned above, right in the control room.) But the Earth force battleships were as ugly and functional and dangerous-looking as one could wish.

Why is Jean Luc Picard bald. — T Clark

Could be personal choice. His brother didn't refuse the genetic enhancement. Oddly enough, his little French nephew, and later his weedy adolescent self (same actor) also had an English accent.

How can we hear when space ships explode? — T Clark

Collisions, explosions, screaming missiles, ominous rumbles... It's a very noisy space, space.

* Apropos of: How come all alien species are stereotypes, while humans are individual?

As for Freud...is that a gun in his pocket? — Amity

Parfois, une pipe n'est qu'une pipe.... Only someone accustomed to television imagery would think that of Freud.

Now you got me all worked up about it, turns out I can't watch Deadwood. It's available on Prime, to which I subscribe, but behind yet another of their extra-pay options. No, wait, You Tube has an introductory offer I may be able to use. Quality is usually inferior, but I can live with that. Anyway, if I can pry the OG away from wet Olympic events.
Update: I did get some commentary on the making of the series and some excerpts.
I've concluded that I will not be making a heroic effort to see it. Whatever its literary and dramatic merits - and I gather they are prodigious - it's not my idea of entertainment.

Yes, I know that preferring entertainment over heavy philosophical content is frivolous, but I'm okay with that. At 78, whatever I still need to learn about the human condition will probably come unbidden, in humiliating, inelegant forms. I don't need to watch other people pretend to get there first.

Assent is used here to mean that you accept something as likely true. — moo

That's what I thought you meant. So, the handshake is not an agreement to undertake a common enterprise or or end a conflict.

Someone tells you that there had been a rape. You have no reason from past experience to doubt that this person tells the truth as he knows it. So, you ask, "How do you know?" Depending on his answer, you conclude that it probably is true; you believe him provisionally, pending more information. A lowest threshold of assent has been reached, correct?

Why would you then shake hands? Wouldn't you be more likely to question further, as to who the victim and perpetrator were, what has been done about it, and so forth? The handshake is unnecessary and, to my taste, inappropriate.

(A) what main aspect/s of the 60's show would you change/update? — 180 Proof

Minute 1 of day 1, get rid of those piles of klunky hardware they substituted for computers. Even STNG still has half a dozen big tablet things to contain the amount of information a 300-year-old cellphone wouldn't even notice.
I'd certainly put the female characters in the same uniforms as the men wear and either give them all similar, practical haircuts or else show more versatility in all the crew's personal appearance - I lean toward the former. I'd like to see coherent, ready-for-action crew.
Seatbelts and lanyards. It's indecent how those poor people are made to bounce around the cabin every time they hit a space-pocket or enemy shell, and lose their weapons, tricorders or essential weapon at the first clumsy move. (Actually, I often wonder why so many characters in all kinds of drama keep dropping their phones down sewer grates, when all you need is a cord like boyscouts understood in 1908)
And for heaven's sake, I'd drop the attitude of "here's a planet we know nothing about. Let's just beam down there with no protective gear!" Space suits mandatory for initial survey!

I'd want the aliens to be a lot less obviously human. There are excellent makeup artists and animators out there, waiting for a chance to be creative. I appreciate that actors come in a limited range of sizes and shapes, and that characters need to fit in the set, but even within those constraints, their bodies, apparel and accoutrements could be more varied.
I can accept a universal translator - else scripts would be painfully awkward - but it should take a few samples and several minutes to turn unknown alien speech into English vernacular.

I also quite liked the novel serialization aspect of DS9 and Babylon 5. It's a good idea to have thematic lines and chronology and character development from which good writers can make engaging sub-plots for each episode.

(B) what you would keep from the original to retain its identifiably Star Trek style rather than feeling like another generic space opera cashing-in on the franchise brand with all that glittering s/fx, pointless techobabble & Mos Eisley "aliens"? — 180 Proof

I'm quite happy with the non-monetarist economy of Earth, but would need some kind of standard trading medium with other cultures. (Voyager bartered, and that's acceptable, but they shouldn't have had to improvise.)

I'd keep Star Fleet and maybe even the Prime Directive - though I'd either have to make it more flexible (twenty-seven pages of exceptions and special circumstances) or have the officers agree to consider one another's reasons for breaking it before going all legalese on his ass.
I'd keep the Federation, of course.

I'd keep the generally relaxed an homey atmosphere of the interiors: If people are going to live aboard for five years, they should not have to look at blue-grey brushed steel surfaces.

And for sure I'd keep the time travel. Those were some of the most fun episodes of all four series.

The differences between King Lear and Macbeth involve different kinds of ignorance. — Paine

Also a different kind of arrogance and a different kind of divine retribution.
There is a long tradition in European literature of fathers demanding to know which daughter (never sons) loved them best. Salt figures in most of them. So does a version of Cinderella. That's almost certainly the germ of S's idea. However, Lear's older daughters are exceptionally treacherous, which is missing from the folk takes, and the father's belated realization is usually at a happy resolution, not a mass death scene. Shakespeare went overboard on that one: you don't get a clear message, since everyone seems to be insane.

Macbeth is far more straightforward and plausible. He was due for a royal honour and would have settled for a slow rise at court, but his wife's ambition outstripped his. Pricked in the ego, he goes ahead and commits the assassination. He spends the rest of the play regretting it and trying to cover it up. The spooky bits - ghosts and witches and ambiguous prophecy - are added for crowd appeal (a popular, entertaining way to introduce the moral - I bet they ate up the blasted heath! my classmates did, at 18, which was probably the median age of Shakespeare's audience ).

ugh! wallotext - edit

Certainly they do. But the playwrights were there first, before psychiatry was invented and before the father confessor became a spiritual advisor or pastor. I think the early Greek playwrights leaned heavily on their contemporary philosophers, who were still deeply involved with human nature, social relations and ethics. They gave psychology its vocabulary, its reference-points and a good deal of its dream imagery.

Then philosopher kind of wandered into theological territory. That was okay for the Greeks to do, since their gods were characters in everyday life, but the Renaissance to Industrial Revolution Europeans could not, because their one big God had been moved far up and out of machina range. I think the 20th+ century ones are coming back into human range... it's the physicists that have gone off to Neverland. You can only trust poets and fiction writers to stay close to the beating heart.

Shakespeare's trajedies(and comedies) have probably had such a cultural influence in thinking, making him(or Francis Bacon or whoever wrote the plays) a significant philosopher as well as playwright. — Jack Cummins

Don't forget psychologist. As were the Greek playwrights.

So, which is it? Assent (acceptance), agreement (accord) or consent (permission)?

I had to take Shakespeare in high school, a play of appropriate difficulty to each year, from Julius Caesar to King Lear. I didn't care for Lear - over-the-top melodrama, besides, the silly wanker was asking for it - but loved Macbeth, very possibly because I had an English teacher that year who knew how to preform Shakespeare.

Those dramas were mass entertainment in their time. The audience had a great deal more to fear in terms of personal misfortune than we do today. They had a greater need to externalize and distance themselves from the actual threat of death, maiming, imprisonment and madness. So these characters on the stage would bear the ill fortune and violence that the audience feared and, once every fortnight or so, carry them off into the night like the scapegoat.

Our violent melodramas are impersonal. We don't really expect a serial killer to abduct us or a mad terrorist to hijack the bus we're on - these are remote possibilities. But they take our minds off the petty, far more plausible anxieties that haunt us all the time. We are distracted from little, niggling real fears and guilts by big imaginary evil deeds and life-and-death struggles. But an evening once or twice a month is insufficient distraction; it has to be repeated frequently, in constantly increasing intensity, to hold our attention. Even so, it doesn't; we're easily distracted from our distractions.

And indeed researchers have found evidence that over the past couple of decades, people's attention spans have shrunk considerably.

This is true of everything pleasurable. The taste of sweets is pleasant; so we have sugar in everything, develop a higher tolerance and need salt to enhance it, then more sugar. It's no longer a craving; it's an addiction, which can never be satisfied.

I'm not a handsy person, either, though I would not scorn someone's hand if offered in good faith.

Lowest level of assent calls for a curt nod.
Physical contact begins at mutual esteem : I acknowledge this person as my equal and ally or honourable rival.
If shaking on an agreement, there is usually an understanding of intent: a promise, a contract, a compact or partnership.

Of course, it's fashionable now not only to squeeze every stranger's hand, but to hug and kiss scant acquaintances, but I don't subscribe to that. Maybe Covid put a damper on that trend?

They blur into the background of the stimuli of life experiences. — Jack Cummins

A larger problem for young people is that life experience blurs into, is confused with and sometimes subsumed by virtual, electronic life. It's not a problem for old people like me: I don't have a cell-phone or any device with earbuds, don't carry a tablet. My computer is here, stays here; I can stand up and leave it. The tv, with its dedicated computer, is over there, with a blank screen until I choose something to watch. There is never music in this house, unless we tune in to a concert or put a cd in the player. Ws live and work in this house; don't have to go anywhere except appointments and grocery shopping. But wherever I do go, there is unchosen, unwanted, poor quality background noise, and I see people immersed in their tiny electronic worlds.

The idea of 'restful, contemplative art' is so different from what is considered as entertainment; which may be more about distraction. — Jack Cummins

That has always been the function of public entertainment. When we discuss Greek tragedy or epic poetry, we sometimes forget that it was big business in its day, made to attract the same crowds that flocked to wrestling matches and chariot races. Maybe a lot of Greek theater was schlock, just like modern movies - but the schlock falls out of memory; only the cream survives.

We need the more elevated forms of art once in a while, when we take the time to walk through an art gallery or read a poem or attend a classical concert.
But most people, most of the time, don't want to reflect and contemplate; we just need distractions. Mass entertainment provides a good laugh or cry or rant to blow off emotional steam.
The problem today is that there is simply too much of it. You don't have to seek out the distraction most suited to your mood; distractions pursue and harass you everywhere; jarring graphic images and bad music are inescapable.

like boxing glove to the solar plexus

religious fervor is in decline in the US and the western world. So, it is not only about me, you, and X person. It looks like a western trend of abandoning religions — Eros1982

Religious institutions no longer supply people with the comfort and reassurance they once did. I should say, most don't, though some still provide a warm community where people find support in their times of crisis. But the big, highly organized, rich churches have become both impersonal in atmosphere and outdated in their doctrine.
Instead, troubled people take their fears to a psychologist, or drown them in alcohol.

(I can't remember any short, mean stories?) — Amity

They're forgettable enough. I've also ventured into tragic/pathetic territory, but I don't find it hospitable. I much prefer optimistic fare.

Of course, times have changed and what art satisfies is so variable. — Jack Cummins

I wasn't talking about satisfaction, but specifically about the cathartic effect of melodrama and tragedy. Our entertainments don't just come in the form of written literature, pictorial rendering and theater, but also, and overwhelmingly, in graphic, immersive cinema and interactive virtual presentations. There is so much of it all around us, all the time, that there is no time for reflection, for questioning the quality or value of art - though we may question whether many of the productions qualify as art, they are certainly experienced by the audience. There is no time to accumulate any backlog of guilt, sorrow, resentment, aggression: it's purged instantly, maybe before we can even feel it.
The trick is to escape from all that catharsis, into restful, contemplative, replenishing art.

How have you found your story-telling affected? — Amity

I shall rudely borrow this question for a moment, because it bears directly on my response above.
I write positive stories for the most part. I've been accused of not having enough conflict or tension or action. It's true. I prefer to present a less frantic, more thoughtful alternative.
(The odd little foray into the sardonic notwithstanding. I guess the short, mean stories are my personal catharsis.)

The author looks at Aristotle's ideas, especially catharsis, Freud's thinking about 'the pleasure principle', as well as Nietzsche's understanding of the dark side of human nature. — Jack Cummins

One problem, these guys are way out of date. There was once tragic theater and poetry to purge the baser emotions of the highly refined audience. The plebes went to public executions and bull-baiting.

Now, entertainments of the most cathartic nature are available without stint for the price of one's server fee. More cheaply still, we can watch the evening news broadcast or borrow any amount of horror from the library.

If we, as a culture, were actually cleansed and purified by these spectacles, we'd all be saints by now.

Another thing about physical books: they don't need to be plugged in or recharged; they keep working when the power is cut off by weather, malfunction or sabotage. (You should lay in some candles, though.)

The proposition, from Seneca and Theophrastus and through St. Jerome, being that the would-be philosopher – or theologian – must devote himself to meditation and the study of books. In context, a quote from Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius (now on my reading list):
“To interrupt philosophy amounts to not being a philosopher, for from the very moment of the interruption philosophy vanishes.... It is necessary therefore to resist other occupations. Rather than multiply them, fly them” — tim wood

That's nice if you have servants, novices (or a compliant wife) to take care of your physical needs, and then you need not occupy yourself with any other activity, just sit in your tower, think absurdities and wait to be waited on.
Poor old Abelard didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter.

I'll tell you one thing about books as a source of information: They don't have six pop-up ads on every page you're trying to read.
You can also have an internal dialogue with the author - it doesn't matter that he can't hear you; your thought process is still moving forward, without unwelcome interruptions or divergences.

The meaning may have been fixed by the original author. If he was writing about cement foundations, one should hope so. Some texts are effective only when their meaning is fixed and unambiguous. Eg a Stop sign.
Sometimes the author meant to send a specific message, and was unintentionally ambiguous enough in his wording to leave it open to different interpretations. Eg. the US constitution.
More widely open if it was written a thousand years ago in a different language and culture, and even more if the reader has access to other sources of that same message.
Sometimes the author intends such ambiguity, so that thoughtful reader is forced to carry on a dialogue with the text and find more than one way to understand it.

Finally, what's wrong with moving forward while having access to many thousands of rear-view mirrors?

All of which have more to do with 'entertainment' than death itself. — Tom Storm

All entertainment is very much about its content. Like gladiatorial contests, blood sacrifice, public execution, bullfights, etc. Humans have always been fascinated as well as frightened by death. The entertainment aspect of it is individually cathartic, but the greater social function of it is to get the upper hand on death, to tame it and control it. Just as we brought the forces of nature under control by domesticating them as humanized gods.