Mad people are those who go blindly through life, working 40 hours a week in some menial job, fully invested into this 'life' of materiality. So much so, that no question of enigma remains, no hint of awe. These great swathes of dull, anaesthetised people who live as if they are already dead. That is mad. It is not knowledge they possess, but a dangerous forbidding of knowledge. — emancipate

Is it somehow more noble to work 20 or 60 hours per week?

Perhaps Putin and Pence have a joint custody agreement concerning their toddler.

Trump has agreed to a deal to at least temporarily end the government shutdown, and he's already being blasted for this decision by Ann Coulter. Coulter has heretofore had Trump's back, and I presume that he's enjoyed her support, but he is an extremely thin-skinned person, and doesn't react well at all to criticism. Can you imagine a Trump/Coulter Twitter war? That would reach levels of crazy not yet seen on planet Earth.

Declare victory and withdraw...I'd agree with that suggestion, except that then we'd have President Pence, which I fear would be worse. Trump is a largely incompetent blowhard who lurches from one ill-conceived idea to the next. Pence, on the other hand, is an experienced statesman who knows how to work the levers of power, and he is an extremist theocrat who would likely pursue that ideology legislatively.

Trump's die-hard supporters are so credulous they would likely believe that flowers were a wall. A columnist recently suggested that, since Trump lies incessantly anyway, and his supporters simply lap up the lies, in order to get out of the government shutdown stalemate prompted by Congress not funding his wall, Trump should simply lie and say the wall was funded, is being built, or even is already built. His supporters will believe it, Trump will save face, and the shutdown can end.

Scientists hate him, see this one trick that makes reactionaries apologise! — fdrake

Your post also melts away belly fat.

We can agree on a problem, yet we have a difficult time to agree on the solution. — ssu

Merely agreeing on the problem can be problematic. Witness the debate over anthropogenic global warming, which probably pretty cleanly, though not perfectly, splits across left/right lines: many on the right don't even think AGW is happening, and so talk of solutions to this nonexistent problem is therefore moot.

Or regard growing global wealth inequality: some on the left may view this as an outrage of justice, and some on the right may view it as the spoils of victory in a capitalistic economy. That is, the right, while perhaps not disputing that it's happening in this example, nevertheless doesn't regard it as a problem which needs solving.

China, and perhaps large swaths of the Middle East likely have no vigorous public political discourse and debate because the state or attendant monarchy has outlawed it. China in particular is extremely censorious with regard to internet discourse. You will recall that not long ago, Saudi Arabia strangled and dismembered an ex-pat columnist because he had the temerity to criticize the royal family (I recall reading a quote from a Saudi citizen who said that they've traded freedom for movie theaters).

True, however, the situation for one country doesn't necessarily smoothly translate to another. For one thing, the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution grants Congress powers to regulate commerce between the US and foreign nations. The Treaty Clause also places the power of negotiating and ratifying treaties with foreign powers in the hands of the President and Congress, respectively.

If the states start doing something that the federal government doesn't like, the President and Congress have a certain amount of latitude in reigning them in. (California for instance, being an especially large state and large economy, has a lot of economic muscle to throw around, and has butted heads with the federal government on certain issues, e.g. emission standards for autos.)

It would be great to see the response by Americans and in the media. Because as the Russians routinely check the response times of the USAF, if the aircraft remain grounded, the Russians will surely violate US airspace — ssu

It's times like this that I wish Sarah Palin were back running the show in Alaska. It was only her steely resolve, diplomatic finesse, and deep knowledge of the intricacies of geopolitics which kept Russia at bay (did you know you can see Russia from Alaska? Really see it!).

No, there really isn't, actually. As your own Judicial Watch article indicates, most of the abnormally high registration is due to people having moved or died. Again, in-person voter fraud rarely ever happens, and is certainly not swaying any national elections.

As for your Broward County claim, it's just another false meme.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/broward-county-fraud-voters-votes/

I'm all for cleaning up voter rolls, but this has little to do with voter fraud per se. These outdated, bloated rolls are mostly due to people having moved or died, not people inventing identifies in order to vote twice or whatever. In-person voter fraud is virtually a non-existent problem. Even more non-existent is evidence for the widespread voting irregularities which Trump said tipped the popular vote in Clinton's favor.

The only redemptive aspect of our national encounter with this vicious and cruel manipulator and liar is that we did it to ourselves. — tim wood

We more or less did it to ourselves, but the majority of voters did not vote for Trump, as Clinton won the popular vote. Recall how Trump was fulminating about voter fraud and how quickly his baseless allegations were dropped. He lies so often, and pushes so many conspiracy theories, baseless assertions and half-truths, that each one in turn is so quickly forgotten, and then it's on the next piece of bullshit. That that we had a sitting American president asserting without evidence widespread voter fraud which tipped the balance of the popular vote - which would be a big deal if true, to put it mildly - would once have struck at the heart of our democracy, but is now a distant memory. It's a new normal, and the new normal isn't good.

Mattis and Powell I know of no bad news about. — tim wood

Well, re: Powell, there was the whole "making a case for Iraqi WMDs in front of the UN" thing.

Yea, Palin sucks, but nobody's perfect. It doesn't mean that he was so debased, crass, and opportunistic that one ought not to consider him a "real American," or anything. For one thing, no matter Trump's efforts to smear him, McCain was a genuine war hero.

I cannot think of even a single Republican that I can feel right in thinking of as an American. Can you? Can you name one? — tim wood

Well, there's John McA...ah, never mind.

Actually, I've seen Lysenko discussed in a number of sources. Carl Sagan, arguably one of the most prominent advocates for scientific reason in the latter 20th century, has written about Lysenko as a paradigm example of ideology prevailing over dispassionate analysis of scientific data, and the oft-catastrophic consequences of unreason run amok (especially when it's backed by a powerful, autocratic state).

One of my favorite quotes is Feynman's "nature cannot be fooled," and, though he was talking about the Challenger space shuttle disaster, it could apply equally well to Lysenko's crackpot genetic ideas.

Well, both the Church of England and the Catholic Church have declared evolution and big-bang to be compatible with their beliefs.

Also it is instructive to note that according to Catholic doctrine, faith is unnecessary. The truth may be achieved through reason. — Inis

Even if this somewhat sanitized picture of the relationship between Catholicism and evolution is true, it does not tell the whole story. For one thing, even just restricting our view to Christianity alone, evangelical Christians and their Protestant cohorts generally are much less hospitable towards evolution than are Catholics.

But of course, I am conveniently ignoring the persecution of Galileo, as atheists must ignore the many cases of corrupt atheist science.

I don't impugn your posts for their omission of Galileo. Not every discussion of science and religion must mention him.

Let's not forget that Newton was deeply religious and according to the French, Lamarck discovered evolution, and was religious. — Inis

Yes, and the theory of evolution and religion have lived happily ever after since then... :smirk:

(BTW, saying that Lamarck "discovered evolution," is a gross simplification of the history, at best. No one person "discovered" evolution, including Darwin.)

Having said that, I do think that the relationship between science (and reason generally) and religion may be a bit more nuanced than Hitchens proposes. While I enjoyed his work (including God is Not Great), such sweeping statements as "religion poisons everything," are IMO hyperbolic. Words such as "all," "always," and "everything" are of little value in intellectual discourse: very little is absolute, and there are almost always exceptions or borderline cases.

The scientific method deals with universal statements — Inis

Does it always, though? Science does sometimes seem to concern itself with particular events, the conditions for which may not have been replicated at any other time or place (consider its studies of particular geological epochs, or particular events in geological history, such as the Permian-Triassic extinction).

Ugh. It's even worse than I thought.

The ineptness of Trump to handle anything is present here as other persons would have understood that these right-wing talking heads need far more his approval than the other way around. — ssu

I'm not so sure about that. You should hear some of the Republican politicians grovel before Rush Limbaugh, for instance. Having right-wing media turn on you can likely damage your popularity among conservative voters.

It's interesting/amusing/depressing how Trump supporters' proclamations about Trump's wall have changed. When Trump talked about building a wall encompassing the US/Mexico border during the campaign, and the myriad problems with such a plan were pointed out (everything from the cost to the efficacy and issues raised by private land ownership and eminent domain), supporters retorted that he wasn't serious about a building an actual wall, it was just sort of symbolic talk about securing our borders. (Why this bizarre form of symbolic communication - as opposed to actual ideas - about policy issues should be acceptable to Trump supporters is beyond me, but it's of a piece with the logical contortions that his supporters went through to endorse him despite his obvious flaws.)

Then this view shifted toward acknowledging that Trump was indeed talking about an actual wall, but that Mexico would pay for it. After Mexico basically told Trump in no uncertain terms that this wasn't going to happen, their view has shifted yet again to "let's build an actual wall, and we'll pay for it: no price is too high to secure America from the brown hordes threatening this great land."

I don't know. It seems to me that only a defeasible statement can be meaningfully tested. How do you test a tautology (or a contradiction)? — SophistiCat

I agree. It would be a peculiar situation, to say the least, if a logical truth could be put to an empirical test (as Aristotelian physics can be).

There seem to be quite a lot of references to the thought experiment in the literature — SophistiCat

Oh, I know...I was referring specifically to the one object/two object dispute, and how the nature of the tether (e.g. rigid vs. slack) affects the parameters of the thought experiment.

Unlike in Galileo's thought experiment, there is no logical reductio here. — SophistiCat

In thinking about this topic recently, an ill-formed thought has been niggling in the back of my mind that there is something logically suspect about being able to disprove a supposedly contradictory statement (or a statement which implies a contradiction) through empirical means. Even if one holds the view that Artistotelian physics can be disproven a priori through thought experimentation, I doubt anyone would object that it can also be experimentally disconfirmed. So, empiricism and pure rationality would each be sufficient, but unnecessary, for such a disproof.

Prima facie, this seems an unseemly mixing of the logically necessary (which would pertain to contradictions) and the logically contingent (which would pertain to empiricism). Are there any other logically necessary statements which are subject to empirical testing?

Oh, to be in the presence of those with bigger brains than Galileo! — Inis

Not something I ever claimed. But the mere fact that we're discussing the wrongness of Aristotelian physics means that very smart people can sometimes go wrong. And I'll say one last time: just because someone disagrees, it doesn't mean they don't comprehend. You can stamp your feet all you want, but all you're doing is coming across as looking very juvenile. So, I'm done with you.

I didn't "command" anything, and I never called you stupid. However, your repeatedly mistaking disagreement for lack of understanding perhaps indicates some projection on your part. (Notice your parting shot of "I'll leave, but I'm right and you're dumb.")

You are only insistently repeating things you've already said, while passing them off as indubitable conclusions. I get that you are very convinced of your beliefs, but perhaps the rest of us don't necessarily share them. If you have nothing new to add, perhaps seek a different thread.

Consider Galileo's setup: two bodies of unequal weight tied by a light string and dropped from a height. If at first the string is loose, the two bodies behave as separate bodies (notice how we are already importing our physical intuitions into the thought experiment!) — SophistiCat

I largely agree with your treatment of this question, Sophisticat. However, the above assumption (i.e. that the falling bodies behave as if they're separate bodies until the string is taut) seems debatable to me: as the weights were connected by the tether prior to their being dropped, they've always been "one body," and thus it could be argued that the composite body comprising the two weights plus tether would always fall faster than either body alone, given that they've always been one object for the purposes of this experiment. (I am familiar with this thought experiment, but not well-versed in its detailed treatment in the literature. I wonder how much of a point of contention this particular issue is.)

An interesting side note to all of this is that, if Aristotelian physics (or, at least the part of the theory which posits that heavier objects fall faster than light ones) really does imply a contradiction, one must reach the modal conclusion that there are no possible worlds in which heavier objects accelerate faster than light ones under the force of gravity alone! Intuitively speaking (for my intuition, anyway), it seems odd to put such a seemingly contingent physical fact on par with blatant contradictions such as square circles, or objects which are both red all over and green all over, etc.

Quite right. Theology is intellectual tennis without a net. When it comes to "my religion vs. yours," contradictions for thee, but not for me. Torture a text long enough, and it will confess to anything; that doesn't mean that the Bible isn't internally inconsistent in a number of ways.

Being a doctor is a great job, and a very rewarding profession. — andrewk

This is painting with a very broad brush. Doctors' professional lives and compensation vary greatly depending upon where they work, which field of medicine they work in, their patient population, and myriad other factors (never mind the usual stressors which go along with nearly any job). And practicing medicine comes with wrangling with insurance companies, and paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork, which is hardly a gratifying task for most people.

I've never understood how Aristotelian physics (specifically, the claim that heavier bodies fall faster than light ones) is supposedly disproven a priori from the paradox about falling bodies which is ascribed to it.

It is perfectly reasonable to assume that, when a lighter mass is yoked to a heavier mass, they thereby become one object, which is heavier than either alone (and therefore would fall faster than the heavier object alone). Therefore, the theory does not imply that the composite object would somehow both fall faster and slower than the heavier object alone.

Aristotelian physics has been thoroughly empirically falsified, of course, in part by experiments that Galileo himself performed, but this is a different matter from claiming that its tenets lead to a contradiction, and thus that it can be disproven a priori.

I'd just as soon generals stayed on base. Civilians are supposed to be in charge of the government. — Bitter Crank

There is some precedent for ex-generals becoming President, and pretty good ones at that. I can in fact think of 3 off the top of my head (viz. Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower). Presumably, one must resign one's military commission (or already be out of the service) before becoming President, so they are technically civilians when elected.

Suppose a murderer is at your door and asks you where your friend is. Your friend is hiding in your house, but the murderer is going to kill him. Should you tell the truth?

Kant argues that you should tell the truth because the maxim of lying can't be universalized. — Happiness

Even if I accepted the logical force of Kant's argument, it would have little effect on my practical reasoning. I would still lie, and accept that I was thereby doing something unethical in order to save my friend or loved one. Even if I accepted a similar maxim such as "stealing is always wrong," it wouldn't stop me from, for instance, stealing bread to save a starving family.

Then perhaps your thread should have been titled "Why Science (and theology, and testimony, and mathematics, and philosophy, and personal reflection, and revelation, and meditation[...]) Can't Bring Certainty." Again, I don't know what reputable thinker believes that scientific theories are certain. Indeed, the degree of uncertainty is very often quantified by means of p values, confidence intervals and the like.

Which methods of obtaining knowledge, if any, would you say do bring certainty? That science doesn't bring certainty is true, but only trivially so, it would seem, as virtually nothing about our beliefs are certain. Even the most homely and humble beliefs about our existence are subject to doubt, at least in principle. (By the way, any scientist worth his salt will the first to tell you that scientific theories are forever uncertain and subject to constant revision and updating, so you seem to be tilting at windmills a bit.)

The first line of your post was "One problem with your theory is proving that mental states exist at all," which I took to be your questioning the existence of mental states. Perhaps I misunderstood, then.

You make a valid point that some preliminary research on motivation and decision-making does indicate that our brain makes at least some decisions prior to our becoming consciously aware of it, as demonstrated by, for instance, Benjamin Libet's experiments. There have also been experiments with split-brain patients which apparently demonstrate that at least some of our explanations for why we acted in a certain manner are post hoc confabulations.

However, it would seem to be a non sequitur to move from these experimental results to inferring that there are no such things as mental states. Even if my desire for peanuts (and subsequent motor functions aimed at obtaining peanuts) was preceded by neurological activity of which I was not consciously aware, that does not impugn the reality of my mental state <desires peanuts>. Whatever the causal or neurobiological origin of said desire, there is no reason to doubt it exists, unless one holds the rather idiosyncratic view that mental states can only be genuine if they have no causal precedents whatsoever.

If anyone wishes to demonstrate that "mental phenomena have physical effects," one needn't appeal to such arcana as experiments purporting to demonstrate telekinesis: anyone who has had a desire for some peanuts and gotten up to kitchen to get some has ably demonstrated that mental states can have physical effects.

Believe me, I had in the late 1990's an assistant yelling at me that the whole idea of there existing or happening speculative bubbles in the modern financial markets was a totally ludicrous idea and hence not worth studying, because the financial markets work so well. — ssu

Wow. And the late 1990s were the time of the dot-com bubble, so he was really missing the forest for the trees...