Personally, I don’t think brains are conscious. But I do think organisms are. Organisms are conscious (or unconscious) because that’s what their physiology entails. The reason we cannot know what it’s like to be a bat is because we’re not bats. Closer than that, I believe consciousness and the organism are one-and-the-same. It is the object under observation in both cases, after all.

My understanding of the hard problem of consciousness is that it is a problem for a physicalist. Why is it a problem? Because the physicalist has not forwarded a physical account of why any physical system is conscious. Even if, as you suggest, some waveform of energy is responsible for consciousness, a natural question arises: why does that energy produce consciousness, while some other energy does not produce consciousness?

All the physicalist needs to do is point to the physiology and say: “that’s why”. The answer covers every question from “why is it alive” to “why is it hungry”. The answers are inherently and necessarily physical because the adjective “conscious” describes the physical system itself and nothing besides.

It appears to me that the problem for the dualist is much more fundamental: distinguishing between “consciousness” on the one hand, and biology on the other. What is the difference?

Pretty much everything and for its own sake. For example, I don’t need to posit spirits in a thing in order to find value in it.

You can start by valuing the things that are there instead of the things that aren't.

Well, we've looked and there is nothing of the sort. Where does that lead you?

Start from what is there and see where it leads you.

I’m aware of what he is being charged with, most of which has been brought by people who have campaigned on putting him in jail. I just want to know what he did that was illegal.

Advocates for consciousness have built a theory from the top down and then wonder why it is without grounding. Conscious experience, mind, the soul…it’s just there. But what is actually there, the physiology, cannot serve to explain it.

[There are legal and illegal ways to contest an election. Trump's way was illegal.

What did he do that was illegal?

It’s a good thing contesting an election is part and parcel of democracy. At least they didn’t furiously change election laws in the lead up to the election underneath the noses of voters.

None of those are dictatorial, authoritarian, or anything of the type. In each case it’s a weird leap from one premise to the other. Unfortunately they resemble better the fever dreams of his enemies.

Submission to political power and the party is the domain of the establishment. The activities of the uniparty, from trying to frame the president for treason to the current persecution, is the reactionary force at work here. That’s your version of democracy and nobody really wants it.

One cannot be both his own slave and his own master.

There are too many fallacies of definition to rely on dictionaries. For instance, they sometimes use in the definition itself the word to be defined or a close synonym of it. Definitions are tautological, circular, either too broad or too narrow, the argumentum ad dictionarium, and so on.

Dictionaries are descriptive. The authors of dictionaries only attempt to record accepted usage of terms at any given time, at least according to them, so there is the inevitable difference in definitions between dictionaries, between editions, all of which is subject to the biases and faults of their authors. As such, it only has benefit as a reference, not as some definitive account of definition or meaning.

I said he was convicted of sedition.

He did get on Twitter and told them to be peaceful and go home, to respect law enforcement, etc.

Surely it does matter because you’re trying to conflate two different crimes and laws.

Seditious conspiracy is insurrection and rebellion? Then why didn’t they get charged for insurrection and rebellion?

Those cases also don’t show that it is self-executing, especially since that section has rarely (if ever) been litigated. What has been litigated and has been shown to be self-executing, thus nullifying state power, are the rights entailed within those amendments, one of which has been violated in the case of Trump according to dissenting opinions.

Look again

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

No sedition.

Trump has been found guilty of offering aid and comfort to people who are guilty of sedition. That disqualifies him from holding public office.

He has not been found guilty of any such thing.

Well, no, the constitution doesn’t mention sedition nor seditious conspiracy.

Like Eugene Debs. He was convicted of sedition but was nonetheless able to run for president from prison.

It doesn’t. The section speaks of insurrection and rebellion, not for some witness tampering crime.

How many were charged and convicted of insurrection?

The cases you cited were clearly about slavery, and the violation of voting rights, not about section 3. The “self-executing” as it is described in both your cases is about nullifying the power of the states to violate those rights. The disqualification section is not about a state violating rights, and therefor it cannot be said that that particular section is self-executing and immediately bars someone from the holding office should some state court decide they are guilty of insurrection.

What is clearly self-executing is the due process sections of the 14th, which, according to dissenting opinions in the case, occurred in the ruling, thus nullifying the state court’s authority.

Either way I assume the Supreme Court will clarify the matter.

First they would need an insurrection and insurrectionists to give comfort to. But no one has been charged with insurrection, so it’s kind of moot.

It was my understanding that Congress can repeal an amendment with another amendment, which it has done before.

The judge doesn't matter at this point.

If they were guilty, by whatever means you find acceptable, what sense would it make for them to have the sole exclusive power to enforce the article?

They wouldn’t have the power because they would be barred from being in Congress.

The notion that there must also be a federal law that grants citizens the right to vote is a false one. Section 1 is enough, and if someone is denied the vote then they may petition the courts to enforce their right. Congress doesn't need to get involved.

Yes it invalidates state voting qualifications or procedures which are discriminatory on their face or in practice. It doesn’t invalidate Congress’ power to enforce the provisions of the article. Congress could repeal the entire amendment if they wanted to. That’s because only Congress has the power to enforce them.

It’s the same with the 13th and 14th. The cases you cited were clearly about slavery, and the violation of voting rights, not about section 3. The “self-executing” as it is described in both your cases is about nullifying the power of the states to violate those rights. The disqualification section is not about a state violating rights, and therefor it cannot be said that that particular section is self-executing and immediately bars someone from the holding office should some state court decide they are guilty of insurrection. Either way I assume the Supreme Court will clarify the matter.

Guilty according to who?

On the other hand, the 14th amendment does confer the power to enforce the provisions to Congress, so one can assume correctly that that power belongs with Congress and no one else.

Section 5 entails that Congress has the power to enforce the provisions of the article. It doesn’t confer that power to anyone else. So why assume someone else can have that power?

I’m talking about the 14th amendment, section 5.

It doesn’t say that any court has the power to enforce the provisions of the article. It says there in plain English that those powers are left to Congress.

I suppose yes because the 13th amendment also grants “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation”.

No state or federal court has authority in either matter.

Yes, and courts determine what the law means. There is no law that defines what constitutes a rebellion or insurrection. Colorado violated neither the law nor constitution in their interpretation. It's possible SCOTUS will create a definition that has the effect of overturning the Colorado ruling, thus creating new law. If they do, it's game over. Is that what you're hoping for? SCOTUS creating law like this?

Most of us acknowledged Trump's legal rights to challenge the 2020 election in courts, so why can't you support the rights of states to challenge his eligibility using the same justice system?

Think about Reconstruction. If state courts were to decide what constituted an insurrection, and who was guilty of it, the southern states could say those who fought for the confederacy were not insurrectionists, and thus could hold office.

It’s probably why section 5 of the fourteenth amendment says “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” In regards to enforcing these provisions It doesn’t mention states or state courts. An originalist would need to consider this as a glaring problem with the state’s ruling. The fact that the president is not mentioned in the list of people who would be unable to hold office might give the originalist some more ammo against the ruling.

It was his war on drugs and crime bills which put them in jail in the first place. What a nice guy.

The majority opinion is so stupid and unjust, and the dissenting opinions are more originalist (some of which call out the majority’s misreading of the constitution), that I would be very surprised if they ruled in favor of the court. But hey, stranger things have happened.

In a dictionary words are used to define the meaning of other words. You might need a dictionary to define some of the words used to define the word in question, but it is not an endless cycle. Some may rely on a dictionary more than others but no one can use a dictionary who does not understand the meaning of any of the words.

Right, you need to be able to understand the language before being to read a dictionary. This is possible because you are already in possession of the meaning, which you are able to supply to the text in order to make sense of it. If meaning was in the words, learning the language would be unnecessary.

That is not what I believe words do. It does, however, seem to be a picture of your own making that you have either struggled against or set up to knock down.

It was my understanding that you believed words transport meaning from A to B, that meaning is conveyed by the words, that words are in possession of meaning. If I’ve been wrong this whole time I apologize.

but the fact that I speak English and not Chinese is not determined by my biology.

Your biology is ever-present and determines your acquisition of language, no matter what language you acquire. It cannot be excluded from any scenario.

And thus contradict your claims about words. Words have meaning and the words used in the dictionary inform us of the meaning of the word in question. They are then not arbitrary.

They do what you say you cannot believe they do:

If words had meaning you wouldn’t need a definition. You’d just hear the word or say the word, and the meaning would float through the air in the sound-waves, from one mind to the other. Except they don’t do what you believe they do, so you refer to a dictionary, contradicting your own claims.

My biology did not determine whether I grew up learning English and not Chinese. If I was adopted and grew up in a Chinese family my biology would remain the same, but I would speak Chinese rather than English.

Your biology allows for language acquisition, and determines the faculty of language in general. It’s why placing a chimp in your same scenario doesn’t lead it to speak Chinese, or any other language. The biology is different.