Is the method of pretending others say things they didn’t say a bad habit or a tried and true method of deceiving fellow travellers?

Isn’t the mind, too, an abstract object? An idea? How do we experience abstract objects with other abstract objects, ideas with other ideas?

As usual, misrepresentations, made up logic, and other absurdities. The statist knows he can start a corporation and compete with the very corporations he despises, but won’t, because risk is best left to other people and other people’s money.

If you experience the world through the five senses, what being and with what kind of senses do you experience abstract objects?

One wonders why, since corporations control the United States, one doesn’t just start one. It’s relatively easy and inexpensive to do. Once done he could let it loose on the battlefield and immediately possess the power and influence he claims they have.

But all that would involve effort. Much better to fall back on the hope that he may one day control social activity, capital, and most importantly the lives of other people with the monopoly on violence, so long as he can elect a body of benevolent angles with the swing of his vote.

Tickets are worth things because people work—I’m not so sure what that means. As far as I know currency is usually valued according to what, if any, commodity backs it, or on the faith in the issuer of it, in many cases governments and their central banks.

Watch the faithful statist reserve a special code of ethics for his government that he refuses to hold to any other group of men and women. Wealth should taken away from those who earn it but we shall let it forever coalesce, without work or effort, in the politician’s coffers. Hundreds of millions of people cannot work together, but the faction we put in power can do it all. The private man should never earn and save too much wealth, god forbid, but our officials should take it and hoard it for their own uses. They, and only they, know how to spend it. This we know because we voted for them.

The paternal politics of the servile.

I like the idea of no force threatened against peaceful people, but it doesn't feel right in this context.

Tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths v making the rich pay a little bit more.

Obviously those in poverty aren't being helped by other means. Do you have any suggestions?

Taxes are quite an old concept and they haven’t helped much yet. I’m not sure a little more will do. And they might even have a worse effect, which is indifference. If the state takes a man’s quarter and promises it will help the poor with it, the man no longer has the quarter to give and less responsibility towards the poor. He has already done his part.

It is also an unjust mechanism for helping the poor. It is unable to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving, those who want and do no want help, and it operates through the theft and extortion of other people’s money.

My suggestion is we need more concerned people such as yourself to cooperate and help.

Yes, I accept the former, but not the latter. I don’t think taking people’s money or property is the right thing to do. I don’t think advocating to take other people’s money and property is the right thing to do either. The right thing to do would be to help those in need.

You can do no more than to try to belittle me, whether to pad your weak theories or to make yourself feel better, but the fact remains that your oligarchs have not nor cannot shaft me. They do not have the power over me that you claim they do. I respect that you want to advocate for their employees and feel you know better how they should run their businesses, but the power I speak of is real and affects millions residing in particular jurisdictions.

So yes, maybe stick to fiction.

You said these oligarchs will shaft me yet you cannot say how. Odd, that.

I don’t own a Tesla, use Facebook, and am largely unaware of Koch industries. If they ever strip me or anyone of our human rights I will stand in opposition. Until then, I guess the gubberment is the problem after all.

Uh oh, those those scary oligarchs. Can you name one and how he’ll hurt me?

I said “public health”, not “universal healthcare”. I also never said public health is fascism. Maybe pick up some glasses.

A quasi-fascism already revealed itself among most western nations under the guise of public health. Entire populations were stripped of their human rights, subject to state dictate and lost a significant degree of their power, freedoms, and the right to control their own lives during those times. So all this jibber-jabber about “our democracy” and the threat of a future fascism rings hollow in the wake of this period. We’ve already lived it and are still experiencing it.

In contrast to other federal, state, and provincial governments, the US government didn’t quite go down the path of other western nations.

If everyone would agree, that would be the end and things would move on. But they don't. There's a lot of people like NOS4A2 that think this all is a huge democratic conspiracy ...and Trump won.

Dems and republicans of the establishment variety, to be clear. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy because that would entail some cunning and foresight. I think they’re deranged.

He’s Jason Bourne.

Dopes falling for a show trial…again.

I’m one thing, the cup is another.

Yes, in every case it’s me that exists. No cartwheel, no backflip, and no model of a tea cup. We need not insert other, invisible things into the formula in order to understand what I am doing when I perceive another thing.

I wasn't trying to separate dream from dreamer. I was pointing out that if you can talk about it must exist. The manner in which it exists is irrelevant. You, as the doer, are dependent upon other things for your existence just as your dreams' existence are dependent upon your existence. The Earth is the doer and you are the deed.

Your body and mind are just as much a deed as a doer. One might even say that the deed of living and the doer (your body/mind) are one and the same.

The manner in which it exists is wholly relevant. It doesn’t exist at all. You cannot take a string attached to the word “dream” and attach the other end to its referent. Philosophy ought to avoid these figments if we are to ever understand what it really is we are talking about.

Does a walk exist? Does a cartwheel exist? Does a backflip exist?

Our language no doubt attempts to abstract actions from the extant being that performs them. But at no point should we take this to mean there is an actual, existing distinction between doer and deed. They are like the morning and evening star, one and the same.

I exist. I experience. But it doesn’t follow that something called “experience” exists.

Yes. But your experienced tea cup (the one you act on, talk about, point to, describe, remember, locate, plan about, name, reach for... The one you just referred to with the words "tea cup") does not cause the responses in your epidermis. Something else does. If this weren't the case it would be impossible to be wrong. It's not impossible to be wrong, therefore your construction (no matter how generally accurate) cannot actually be one and the same as the causes of the data from which it is constructed.

Therefore there are, by necessity, at least two nodes to consider. The tea cup of your experience (and mine, and the rest of the world - we construct these things together), and the hidden states which such a construction is an attempt to model, predict and modify.

I don’t think it would be impossible to be wrong. There are other things in the environment, including ourselves, that can prohibit or impede our understanding, like narcotics or physical disabilities. We can experience those in tandem with the tea cup. It raises a good point, though, that we do not just experience isolated objects like teacups, but the environment in general.

I don’t yet see the necessity in evoking construction or representation until a construction or representation can be found. Construction implies something is constructed, that this something is visible, and that there is something or someone to view it. Maybe they have some sort of explanatory power, but don’t you think it would be better to eliminate these figments in favor of trying to understand the extant features of the world?

The shame of technocracy and one of the downfalls of the current system is that the Supreme Court ought to stay out of such decisions. This is why Roe was a mistake to begin with. A handful of judges chose to make abortion something like a federal right, so a handful of judges can take it away. Congress, the so-called representatives of the people, now get to walk around as if all of this isn’t their fault, and use the politics of it all to further their careers. They all know that such decisions ought to be made democratically, constitutionally amended, with long public debate and the involvement of many voters and legislators.

So your experience doesn't exist? Or are you saying it does have a position?

I’m saying if it exists it has a position. You told me it exists but where it is doesn’t matter.

Markov blankets are not necessarily spatially extensive membranes; they are just a set of states that separates internal and external states.

The epidermis, then. The epidermis is in direct contact with the tea cup.

The previous pandemic and the response of governments, left and right, proves there is little difference between the two in terms of their statism and their quickness to abuse power. Communists, liberals, conservatives, progressives—all of them seized control of their economies, restricted movement with police force, engaged in censorship, and violated other fundamental rights when the going got tough. We find that all State systems tend about equally towards the same end of state slavery.

Of course “the left” stands a chance, and like all political careerists, they’ll leave us with the same mess they left the last time. As Paine said, “the trade of governing has always been a monopoly of the most ignorant and the most vicious of mankind”.

No. Just a thing that exists. It doesn't matter where it is. the network analysis is the same, it's based on data flows, not location. The estimation of hidden states by nodes inside a Markov Blanket excluding those states is just a mathematical expression. It's irrelevant where anything is in the physical world.

If it exists it has a position. We ought to be able to point to it.

I’m afraid I’m terrible at math. What would the Markov blanket be in biological terms?

Your claims treat experience as a thing that exists somewhere within the human body, with other things (“nodes”) between it and the tea cup. Yet the only two objects in your scenario are the person and the tea cup. This poses a problem for me that I cannot get past. No amount of neuroscience can force these objects into existence, put distance between them, and pretend other objects interfere in their interacting.

What the latter shows is that direct connection is necessary to experience a thing. It does not then follow that all things we experience are external world objects, nor that we experience all external world objects.

For your argument to hold it is necessary to show that the causes of our sensations match the objects we experience since the 'direct connection' you theorise is between an external world and a sensory receptor. But I do not experience 200,000 firing neurons when I lift my tea cup. I experience the lifting of my teacup. So the object of my experience is the teacup. You've yet to show that this teacup is also the thing in contact with my nerve endings.

The direct connection I theorize, and can observe, is the skin touching the tea cup, the hand grasping it, the arm lifting the hand, the light hitting the eye, and so on.

For me, the object we experience and the cause of our sensations is the same thing. This can be observed. So I think it is you who needs to show that there are in fact two different objects, because it isn’t immediately apparent that this is so.

I'm not asking about the TV. I'm asking about the rock. When I see a rock on a TV screen, am I seeing the rock directly?

You’re seeing everything in your periphery directly. A picture or video of a rock is a rock seen indirectly.

That doesn't make it direct. There are real, physical connections when a rock is seen in the reflection of a mirror, but I'm not seeing the rock directly. There are real, physical connections when a rock is seen on TV, but I'm not seeing the rock directly.

I wouldn’t say you’re seeing the rock directly.

I mean to say we can only experience that with which we are in direct connection, not that that which with we are in direct connection is that which we experience, if that makes any sense.

I don’t think I need to show it because it is observable. If someone is to experience a doorknob he must see it, touch it, turn it, etc.

That shows only that we contact the world directly. To show that we 'experience' the world directly, using that argument, you'd have to also show that what we call 'experience' is the sum total of all processes from the sensory receptors onward.

I’m not sure I understand. When I observe people interacting with the world, I assume they are experiencing it. Do you mean to say that only a part of them are experiencing?

I'm saying that it doesn't follow from "the painting is of a woman" that there is a direct connection between the painting and the woman, and similarly that it doesn't follow from "the experience is of an external world object" that there is a direct connection between the experience and the external world object.

It does follow that we experience the world directly and that there is a connection between oneself and the object for the same reasons I stated earlier. Real, physical connections, for instance light touching the eyes, hands touching the object etc. occur in these interactions.

You need to do more than just say "we experience external world objects" to make a case for direct realism. If I see a rock through a TV screen then I'm seeing a rock, but I'm seeing it indirectly. So it can be that we experience external world objects and that indirect realism is the case.

You’ll need to figure out a better argument because you’re still viewing the TV screen directly.

So if I see a rock in the next room through a TV screen and a camera feed then I am not seeing that rock indirectly? Then it's not entirely clear to me what you even mean by seeing something either directly or indirectly. Because that seems to me to be a prime example of seeing something indirectly.

My distinction between direct and indirect pertains to viewing the world. The TV screen, being in the world, is viewed directly, as is anything else in the periphery, like the TV stand. An indirect view would be representationalism, the assumption that we are viewing a representation of a TV.

Yes, and we paint people and write about history. But it doesn't then follow that there is a direct connection between the painting and the woman or the writing and the war. So it doesn't follow from us perceiving external world objects that there is a direct connection between perception and those external world objects. The grammar of how we describe the intensional object of perception says nothing about the (meta)physics of perception.

I don’t understand. The only direct connection I am speaking of is the viewing of the painting (along with everything else in the periphery), not that there is any connection between a painting of a woman and a woman. The connections and contacts are real, not figurative, for instance light hitting the eyes.

I'm saying what I said above: that experience is a mental phenomena, that there is no direct connection between mental phenomena and external world objects, and that the qualities of mental phenomena are not properties of external world objects.

To me, the phenomena of the brain are the biological movements of the brain. These are observable with certain scans, and therefor phenomena in the sense that they can be witnessed to occur, but I suspect more evasive means could provide more detail. I’m not sure what mental phenomena are, to be honest.

Then what do you think consciousness is? Some etherial entity that extends beyond the body and somehow "contains" or "touches" the external world object that is said to be the object of perception?

Adjectives describe or modify nouns. Though it is certainly unavoidable, I believe turning descriptions or modifications of nouns into nouns only confuses things when it comes to these matters, so I don’t think “consciousness” is the right term. Nonetheless, we can turn the word back into an adjective, see which noun it modifies, and remind ourselves what it is we are actually speaking about here.

This doesn't say anything of relevance. The painting is of a woman, not of paint, but the painting is still paint, not a woman. There's no "direct connection" between the paint and the woman. So even if the experience is of an external world object (and you still haven't explained what it even means for an external world object to be the object of perception) it doesn't then follow that there is a "direct connection" between the experience and the external world object.

Note that I'm not saying that we "experience an experience" or "perceive a perception" (anymore than I'd say that the painting is of paint); I'm saying that experience is a mental phenomena, that there is no direct connection between mental phenomena and external world objects, and that the qualities of mental phenomena are not properties of external world objects.

None of this entails the kind of red-herring grammar ("we experience an experience") that you're trying to argue against. After all, when I dream I don't dream about dreams; I dream about eating an apple - and it's all just mental phenomena with no direct connection to external world objects.

Do we not experience mental phenomena then? Because to me it still sounds like you’re saying that instead of a painting you are experiencing mental phenomena, which is an experience. If you’re not experiencing an experience, then how is it you are able to view, observe, see, feel, sense mental phenomena? Upon what do mental phenomena appear and to whom do they appear to?

I don’t know what it means “for an external world object to be the object of perception”. This is one of the issues with turning verbs into nouns, when actions performed by things become things themselves. We start to shift our focus to figments and lose all semblance of reality. All I know is we perceive external world objects. External world objects do not turn into objects of perception.

See my post here about glasses, microscopes, telescopes, mirrors, and camera feeds.

None of which we experience indirectly.

I don’t think we’re brains. So I don’t see how it is possible that an experience is in the head, and more, that we can experience such an experience. Our eyes point outwards, away from the brain, therefor what we see is beyond the brain.

The reason eyes, ears, and other senses point outwards is because that’s where the rest of the world is. We are conscious of the world, not of consciousness. We experience the world, not experience. We perceive the world, not perception. All evidence points to there being no such veil between the boundary of the self and the rest of the world. Where the body ends the rest of the world begins. There is nothing between them. The contact is direct.

They hired a big producer from ABC and aimed to show it all on prime time. It’s an obvious show trial and campaign ad for establishment candidates.

Never forget that their security executed an unarmed veteran. This sort of propaganda only justifies their evil.

I didn’t say that. Those are direct quotes of other people. When Hitler and Mussolini agree with you, it should elicit the desire to do the opposite.

We are fighting to impose a higher social justice. The others are fighting to maintain the privileges of caste and class. We are proletarian nations that rise up against the plutocrats.

- Mussolini

It is already war history how the German Armies defeated the legions of capitalism and plutocracy. After forty-five days this campaign in the West was equally and emphatically terminated.

- Hitler

This combat between proletariat and plutocracy is, after all, itself a civil war. Two inferiorities struggle for the privilege of polluting the world.

- HL Mencken

Sorry, but your "solutions" sound like pipe dreams.
What you're suggesting would all need to happen from the top down. It's clear that those at the top are not going to do anything that would in any way endanger their position of power.

The solutions, if we can call them that, would require despotism to enact and enforce, exploitation to fund, and the expansion of state power and bureaucracy to govern. We have ample historical evidence to know know how all that works out.