I like your objection. It’s a nice thrust at the inverted spectrum argument, but it would be easier to say the argument itself is conceptually inconceivable, like p-zombies.

Yes agree, we're not evolved enough and are behind tech, the paper however says that it's politics that's behind tech and suggests that improvements in politics should be improved, suggesting world government and policing which is a political matter.

Government is a kind of technology, except it’s an immoral one. It’s premised on monopoly, plunder, and coercion. Not only that but it’s entirely inefficient. Besides, Government has been the greatest progenitor of the threat of mass-extinction since the meteor.

A world government, which would become the largest monopoly ever seen, would be grossly inefficient. The bureaucratic stupidity would be immense, leading to a failure of communication like found at Chernobyl. The people employed in it are just job-holders, including the politicians, each of them possessing the inherent tendency to satisfy their wants through the easiest means available. I think a political solution is ridiculous one, quite frankly.

The study of natural and physical phenomena was once the domain of philosophy, but so was the study of politics and ethics. Over time the one diverged from the other according to modern usage of either terms, especially as the sciences became more specialized. Nonetheless, PhD still stands for Doctor of Philosophy.

Tech has evolved at an astronomical pace while the species itself hasn't. Given this disparity it is quite possible we could destroy ourselves with it. But it is for this same reason that a world government is out of the question.

It might be comforting to distill the terms into some little formula, this word equals that word, but in my mind it’s better to find out what these terms are meant to describe. When it comes to self-reporting, each of them seem to refer to some degree of bodily feeling, like certainty, so in that sense they are radically similar.

I don't think a strict religious adherence could be considered "spiritual", at least insofar as that word means anything. The conscience is often latent. Everyone has a conscience but not all of them are active to the extent that they could be, or they have ossified around this or that practice or teaching or ideology. In my mind the more religious one is, the less spiritual he has become.

The concept of moral development suggests the conscience, that unseen witness to all an individual does, is the individual. It grows, develops, and ages along with him and expresses itself according to what has been learned by his corporeal form as he makes his way through the world and being with others. This includes living and acting through moral dilemmas, or considering morality as our fellows have understood and articulated them.

If one assumes the concept of moral development, I would argue that the lack of progress towards an active moral conscience correlates to the lack of variation in one’s exposure to morality and ethics as practices and principles. In other words, it is the lack of variation in one’s life experience (ie. the trial and error of a moral dilemma, like whether it was right or wrong to lie to your parents), and a lack of variety in the consideration of other moral principles and practices as found in the record of moral literature, that inhibits the growth of the conscience. As a parable, how might the Buddha have come to suggest the middle way or reach enlightenment if he himself hadn't lived through a variety of extremes?

In my mind the development of the conscience requires one to consider all ethical systems, to survey every extreme, maybe even to dabble in practicing them: to sin, to make mistakes, to fail morally, and also to succeed and to do right. It requires one to consider both good and evil, to expose oneself to them, if not to read and learn about them, then to pit them against the armor of one's own conscience.

This sort of trial and error is requisite to spirituality, in my mind, so I consider your own spiritual practice to be superior to that of the religious man. At any rate, if you cannot be wholly good, at the very least be interesting.

It’s a good start to a good argument. My only quibble is the brain/body dualism.

It’s common to situate consciousness in the brain, but because we’re not brains nor are we disembodied, consciousness cannot be reduced to states of the brain. Consciousness would be fundamentally different without bones, for instance, and the phenomena available to those who are standing is markedly different than those who are laying down. Most of the body is required in order to live, let alone be conscious, so all of it needs to be included in a materialist conception of consciousness lest he falls victim to the same dualism he accuses of dualists.

The Republican state in particular has had a profound effect on political divisions. The introduction of a representative government, a constitution, universal suffrage, has given factions an inroad to political power, the monopoly on violence, and the means of exploitation, whatever their ideology. It was no strange wonder that a party, whether liberal, fascist, socialist, or whatever their variants, opt for republican organization, and in that sense are hardly different.

So long as the political apparatus divides a population into two classes, exploiters and exploited, universalism of the kind you described is impossible. The one forever has the power over the other and participating in their project only serves to ossify those divisions.

Personally I wouldn’t imagine such a being. The best way to go about such monitoring is to utilize the senses of others, and maybe some invasive technologies, should they ever become safe enough.

“Mind” is the limited and naive theory of one’s own body from the perspective of someone who is unable to observe what is actually occurring. The hypothesis represents the subjective disconnect between states of feelings and states of affairs.

I am certain that if our senses pointed inwards our so-called inner lives would be less of a mystery. In there is a multiplicity of parts and movements we just aren’t privy to in the present arraignment. All one can do is try to make sense of the odd feeling here and there, maybe the discomfort emanating from an illness or pain, insofar as whatever causes them is able to reach the sensual aspects of the body and make itself known—a niggling fever could be the only evidence of a much greater malady, for example

Since we are unable to observe what is occurring in a majority of the body, the nature of our subjective lives is always one of grasping, the result of trying to understand inward while forever looking out.

I genuinely, given the above making little sense to me, don't know which aspect of the discussion you're referring to. If you're trying to say that I cannot point to an intervening element in the process of perception, the transition of light rays to electrical impulses is one. If you mean I can't point to "a perceiver", then again, you've already done my work for me by noting that 'you' or 'me' fits there- or, more accurately, made it clear that I'm doing nothing wrong by referring 'a perceiver' as you can easily note that this must be a human, in our discussion. It refers to anyone who could be perceiving. This is not ambiguous. and is not hard to determine, as you rightly did so while objecting.

Perhaps I misunderstood. If we can agree that human beings are perceivers then I have no objection and I apologize for making that assumption.

Nothing in this passage has anything to do with any of my claims, besides you pretending that our sensory system is not mediated, heavily, between object and experience. Which it is. Plainly. So, if that's not your claim, you'll need to do a bit better than state something I haven't claimed, and laughing it off.

It is an empirical fact that our sight is mediated by parts of our body. You are not being serious if you rthink the body perceives. A dead body cannot perceive. End of discussion, as far as that goes. So I hope that's not your claim. I would further hope that you've noticed your version of a perceiver flies in the face of the majority of conceptions of identity or personhood. I would also hope you'd have noticed that I've addressed that unfortunate fact about the sum human knowledge - we do not know in what a 'person' or 'perceiver' consists. We simply do not. You don't. No one does. We do our best with what we have, and you seem to be rejecting that attempt on the basis that you have some secret, fool-proof conception of what a perceiver is. Given that you do not, i fail to see how these incredulous objections could go through.

Never mind. At least we’re getting to the root of it.

I do know, actually. I can ask any living human organism if he perceives and the answer is invariably “yes”. I can ask if they are a person and the answer is invariably “yes”. We can put any number of them under empirical investigation and verify all of it. It is no strange coincidence they are embodied, are anatomical, and possess a variety of biological mechanisms, honed through millions of years of evolution, to aid in their perceptual abilities.

I’m willing to hear your arguments and evidence that say otherwise, but to me this is more evidence of an attempt to smuggle dualism and idealism past the customs.

Trump’s Net Worth Hits $6.5 Billion, Making Him One of World’s 500 Richest People

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-25/donald-trump-6-4-billion-net-worth-makes-him-one-of-world-s-richest-people

And here I thought he was going to be broke today. This timeline is just too good.

It takes account of the many, empirically factual, mediations which cause a mental construction of a representation presented to 'the perceiver'. :)

Note that none of the nouns used in this sentence refer to any person, place, or thing, so it isn’t clear what you are speaking about, if anything. Given your empirical facts you ought to be able to at least point to one of them. But we have examined the biology of animals and human beings and have found no such entities, nothing that any of those nouns refer to.

I’m not evoking any homunculus when I say the word “perceiver” because I can point to beings with which the word “perceiver” applies to, such as you or me, neither of which are homunculi. Last I check we are a little more than brains, or some other organ, so I need not pretend the perceiver exists somewhere on the inside. And if your claim is that perception is mediated by our own body, which amounts to saying the perceiver is his own intermediary, I’ll just have to laugh it off. Sorry.

The question of "what perceives" absolutely relates to the discussion because If we don’t know who or what perceives we cannot say whether perception is indirect, direct, or otherwise. If we don’t know, or refuse to say what it is that perceives, then it is impossible to distinguish between the perceiver, the intermediary, and the objects of perception. If we do not know where the perceiver begins and ends we cannot say where it ought to appear on the causal chain. If the perceiver and the intermediary are one and the same, then the proposed causal chain is incoherent.

I'm fine with saying that through the direct perception of light we indirectly perceive the object, just as I am fine with saying that by perceiving an apple in a mirror, I am indirectly perceiving an apple (or directly perceiving a mirror, the light, or what have you). That is still direct perception because it describes a direct relationship between a perceiver and his environment, the perceived. Indirect perception proposes the perception of a host of cognitive mediators, mental constructions, representations, and so on.

I’m a perceiver. You’re a perceiver. Are we not?

Light is of the world. Light is distal. We perceive light. Isn’t that so?

Do perceivers have eyes? Human perceivers do. Light comes into direct contact with the eyes. So how is the perception of light indirect?

What is your "end receiver"? Or is it just another noun without a referent?

In my opinion we just need to recognize our lot in life, stop thinking in their terms, like we did with the crown and the church, and everything will slowly change in a more or less painless way.

We all accept that vision is, literally, an indirect process from object to experience.

Not me. I think the use of the term "experience" is the limited and ignorant explanation of a being who cannot even observe his own ears, let alone the totality of what occurs inside his own body. From this highly-limited viewpoint, which is one of grasping, the result is a product of the fallacy of reification, the use of nouns without any coherent referent, and thus terms which tell of nothing in particular.

The fact is, the process, the connection, the very contact between the perceiver and the rest of the world is direct, and we can use any experiment, observation, and system of measurement to prove this.

In my mind their vote only justifies such an imbalance, and each time they do so they give away their power, delegate those responsibilities, signing on the dotted line. Their dutiful participation in the scheme is what absolves them of their duties to their children, and all of us to each other. But, like you said, doing otherwise is nearly impossible by now. In most places state instruction and training is compulsory. If it wasn't, I wager the imbalance of power might change.

Some parents have the leisure to home-school their children - usually in order to indoctrinate them into a religion of fear, prejudice and punishment. But most people have to make a living, and they are not given the choice of working hours, during which the children would be unsupervised. Most people can't afford a nanny or private tutors; those who can send their children to private schools to make the necessary social contacts and the way into 'good' universities.

In some communities, it would be feasible to set up a learning program conducted by whichever adults have specific knowledge and time to devote. There are initiatives in that general direction

Very true. It’s a vicious cycle many cannot escape from. It’s why most people will absolve themselves of the responsibility of rearing their own children, leave it to the agents of the state, and continue to provide the state with a vector of exploitation, handing over the wealth and means to maintain their level of serfdom at the expense of their own family and livelihood.

All power to them. What concerns me is what type of individual do these conditions create?

No doubt utilitarianism is superficially convincing and comforting, but when it justifies immoral and unjust behavior I want no part of it

But you absolve parents from the responsibility of rearing their own children, institutionalizing them, leading to the very conditions you fear. Not to mention it is immoral to take and raise another’s child without their permission.

I would simply change the nomenclature from education to something like training or instruction as it better characterizes the institution and its product. Finally, I would make it completely voluntary.

The goal of state education is to embed the prevailing ideology, statism, which includes instruction on how to operate and survive in the midsts of their institutions and power—how to find a modicum of satisfaction with our feudal lot in life as it exploits our thought and industry. It is a vested interest. It seeks both to educate the uneducable while hindering the educable, or least keeping everyone within the appropriate boundaries of state ideology.

It looks like the corrupt Tish “Peekaboo” James and Bitch Tits Judge Androgen won’t be stealing anyone’s private property today. Trump still has to pay an unjust bond of $175 million in 10 days in order to appeal the corrupt ruling but the 8th amendment of the constitution is going nowhere, and one can only hope justice will soon prevail.

Recall that fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried stole billions from customers and defrauded investors and his bond was only $250 million, which was the largest such bond ever set in an American criminal proceeding. Trump stole no money and investors were paid in full. Not to mention that the corrupt James’ sense of justice is like a wind-sock, going in the direction of wherever her friends are.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/17/opinion/an-irish-society-an-unpaid-loan-and-the-hypocrisy-of-letitia-james/amp/

Psychological stress in the form of cognitive dissonance.

The only reason the system distinguishes employer from employee is for tax purposes. But really the relationship is a partnership between types of workers, one who is willing to take the necessary risk, to fund both the legal and productive means in order to provide products and services, the other who is willing to help the risk-taker and benefit from the possible dividends.

If the state never meddled in this relationship and profited from it the distinction between the two wouldn’t be so distinct, and one would need the other as much as anyone else in his community. Instead we are left with two competing classes for some reason.

I don’t know how anyone could expect that. Really, only an idiot would think that when he says Jim Jordan is fighting in the house, for example, that he meant Jim was body-slamming Dems on the house floor. Or when he says Rudy is a fighter, Giuliani must be boxing cow carcasses in a walk-in freezer somewhere. Or when Republicans don’t fight, you have to primary the hell out of them? Yet his “fight like hell” remark was somehow literal, and found a home in the Jan 6th show trial as incitement to insurrection. What kind of idiot believes that? Just dupes.

What actual solutions do you have in mind? Didn’t Finland start building a big fence just recently? Why would they do that, I wonder? Why just 200km of fence, and why would it take so long to build?

That's right. But of course the context is different, and that's what's important.

Dupes actually believed Trump meant political violence, and fell for a very simple fallacy as proffered by those who would exploit their gullibility. That’s the important context.

How does it hurt you politically to think of people as individuals?

I don’t get it either. The worst it could do is put in doubt the metaphysics of those who think in crowds.

Biden ended the Trump’s national emergency and the border wall construction on his first day in office. Now he’s dealing with a crisis at the border. Now the crisis is the biggest problem facing America, according to public opinion, costing the tax-payer more than it would have cost to build the wall.

It's trivially true that when a person talks, they talk, and not society, or community etc.

The question is how individual(istic) can a person be, given that they do not live in a vacuum.

It’s only trivially-true until it hurts us politically, then it’s trivially-false.

Any use of "bloodbath", whether literal or metaphorical, implies violent aggression. It's similar to his use of "fight" on Jan 6. You can downplay it as "figurative" all you want, but the implications are clear. And, there is consistency in his way of speaking like that. The 'enemy', is the American political system and the goal is to smash it down.

Then the implications are clear when other politicians, like Biden, use the exact same words.



It was so much of a hoax that Biden resumed doing just that, only it was far too late.

You absolutely did no such thing, in any sense of that word. If this is your conception of a 'right' I'd just say you're wrong and move on.. What you actually did was tell me you would do what you are now claiming you did do, and that was not to 'confer a right'. It was to act according to your moral outlook. That's fine. It is not a right, and you've conferred nothing on me. So, this was predictably lacking in anything establishing a right.

That’s too bad, I did. And though you can refuse it and pretend I didn’t, I’ll still be there granting you the right and defending it.

Start small. Give your neighbor the right to borrow your lawnmower, or something.

Yet, it remains your personal, emotionally-informed opinion. It doesn't do anything but tell me that. I happen to agree on the 'merit' of enforceable rights, too. Says nothing for the disagreement we're having though.

Might makes right. Or was it the best and brightest make rights? I can’t say I’m a big fan of social Darwinism either way, but limiting social power in favor of state power is the going rate, so you’re not entirely in bad company.

That's odd. Almost all modern sets of rights are come to by deliberation among, what are meant to be, the best and brightest of that society.

That is odd. Philosophers have been expounding and conferring rights long before any politician, bureaucrat, or jurist has codified them. Hell, some constitutions weren’t created until the disco era. Perhaps society is just a thief.

I disagree, and see no evidence to the contrary. More than open to it - but I would just be ready for it to be lacking, as this is, in fact, where rights come from presently.

Yet I just granted you the right to free speech, entailing that I temper my own behavior in defense of yours. Should you be met with a censor I will be there defending you and your right to speak, so long as you aren't conflicting with his property rights.

While I totally accept, and find reasonable this take, it is nothing but your personal opinion of the states of affairs previously seen in the world. The 'right to free speech' isn't absolute, anywhere, really. So, what's the "universal" you're talking about? It doesn't seem to obtain. It appears we, at least, value free speech to the same level, if not for hte same reasons.

It is an opinion derived from argument and evidence, all of which attests to the merits of rights. If you have better arguments and better evidence in favor of, say, censorship or theft or kidnapping, I’m willing to change that opinion. Except no argument has been forthcoming—the fact that there is no free speech is certainly no argument against free speech, just as the fact that there are still slaves is no argument against abolition. The “universal” I’m talking about simply means the right ought to apply to everyone.

I'm somewhat surprised, but I suppose given your position in this thread I shouldn't be. I just didn't take you as this type of thinker. Interesting. I'm fine with you feeling that way, as it goes.
Would you say that someone should have the right to call another person (who, aesthetically fits the description) a "Big, fat gay n***a" as a derogatory term intended to harm the person's psyche? This is not a gotcha, I just wanted an example that the answer to would be a clear commitment one way or the other.

Yes, I’m an absolutist. Everyone should have the right to say what they want. Would you censor him?

A new hoax has arisen. This time our credulity implores us to believe Trump threatened the country with a bloodbath should he lose the election. Out of context a clever propagandist could spin it that upon Trump's loss his supporters will break out the ARs and start murdering political opponents. But in context it was blatantly clear that the bloodbath Trump was speaking about was a figurative one, an economic one.

This sort of lying is the sine qua non of the Biden campaign and his gullible followers. These sorts of distortions and misinformations are all they have. Observe the technique used multiple times in his recent X post.

No, there isn’t a need. The varying interpretations and meanings applied to core concepts furthers creativity, exploration, and growth, whereas consensus would only limit it.

Society dictates rights? I’ve only seen men dictate rights. By “society” I assume you mean men in power. But it isn’t true, in any case, that only some men can confer rights. And if you allow only politicians and lawyers the power to grant rights you make of yourself a slave or serf or some other subordinate, at any rate a sorry figure.

The language faculties are universal. The right to free speech itself has been battle-tested in its own arena, put to the grindstone of trial and error over thousands of years, and has proven itself morally right and socially valuable both in argument and in practice. What more does one need? Yes, anyone who doesn’t confer the right to free speech on others and defend everyone’s right to speak is wrong.

That’s right. For instance, I know human beings need to express themselves, so I confer upon on you the right to free speech. In doing so I do not censor you and defend you when others try to do so.