His most recent medical examination report published by the White House.

The substance won't matter, though. Perception is everything, especially in this media-driven landscape. If he's perceived to be senile, then no reassurance from doctors will change that view. And Trump's health or mental stability or lack of it also won't matter. He is going to have to be beaten at the ballot box, there's no credible alternative. And I'm now agreeing with many others, that I don't think Joe Biden is the man who's going to do it.

Given his age and other worrying signs, senility is the most natural and likely explanation. — hypericin

He's never been a fluent speaker and has often been prone to verbal slips. I presume as the President that he's is subject to regular medical examinations, right? And that if he were displaying symptoms of senile dementia, this is something that these examinations would detect? And that, were it detected, the responsible medical officers would report it and not try to conceal it? So, no, I don't believe he's technically senile, that is another slur that is used by his political opponents. But he is clearly affected by (as I said, enfeebled by) age, so it probably doesn't matter as far as the electorate is concerned. Many will regard him as senile, regardless.

Regrettably, Trump seemed vigorous and not affected by age in that debate. Sure, he spouted a fire-hydrant of lies, boasts and hyperbole, as always. It's more that it might become apparent even to Biden and his inner circle that his condition is prohibitive - if he's like this now, how is he going to be at the end of a four-year term? I have the fantasy that the ticket will be declared open at the Democratic National Convention and that Biden/Harris will endorse another pair of candidates. I'm 100% certain the American electorate is crying out for an alternative and that if a credible pair was presented then it might precipitate a landslide for them. But I know it's a fantasy.

I really don't believe Biden is senile, but he is undoubtedly enfeebled by his age. I'm now rather hoping that he is found medically ineligible to continue in the very near future. Of course I am also outraged that Donald Trump is considered eligible to run for office after what he's done. But, we're still six months out, and many things could happen.

He certainly gives them plenty of ammo.

Hey there's a remark in today's Herald story which caught my eye, concerning the allegations of sexual assault in Sweden:

The two women who accused him of assault had both had consensual sex with Assange – one alleged he had been rough with her, and had removed a condom without her knowledge, an act known as “stealthing”, which is criminalised in most Australian jurisdictions, as well as in Sweden.

There are cases like this all the time nowadays, claiming that a condom had been removed without consent. My question is, how the f*** is the judicial system supposed to be able to ascertain the truth or falsity of such allegations beyond reasonable doubt??

Another less-than-complimentary profile in today's Herald.

Andrew O'Hagan was contracted to ghost-write a bio of Assange. The project fell apart due to Assange's lack of co-operation (@Tom Storm mentioned O'Hagan's essay on the matter which is here.) O'Hagan's take: 'He wants to be famous, but not scrutinised.' Ironic, considering that scrutiny of others is his basic stock-in-trade.

A common footing or shared truth is: we, at least in most respects, are physical beings. — Outlander

To which the philosophia perennis would respond, ‘well, there’s your problem! As everything physical is compound and subject to decay, then your identification with it is bound to result in loss and suffering’. But as contemporary culture regards only the physical as the real, then there’s no way to make sense of that. I think that is what underlies the mythology of heaven and higher planes of being, although the symbolic form in which that intuition is clothed is no longer part of today’s cultural lexicon. Or to riff on the song, 'we are spirits in the material world'.

Elsewhere in the Analytic camp were those who became so committed to the idea of science as the "one true paradigm of knowledge," that they began to imagine that, if science couldn't explain conciousness, then conciousness (and thus conscience) must simply be done away with (i.e. eliminative materialism, which gets rid of the Good and the agent who might know it).

From the other side came Continentals who came to define freedom as pure potency and power, and so saw any definiteness as a threat to unlimited human liberty. On such a view, anything that stands outside man must always be a constriction on his freedom. Everything must be generated by the individual. Perhaps we can allow the world to "co-constitute" with us, but only if a sort of freedom and agency, which in the end is really "ours" anyhow, is given to the world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

"nihil extra ego".

If you don’t mind my stepping in: one response that comes to mind is from Arthur Schopenhauer. There’s a section of a book, Schopenhaur’s Philosophy, Bryan Magee called ‘No Object without a Subject’. Magee explicates one of the central tenets of Schopenhauer’s metaphysical and epistemological views: the idea that the existence of objects is intrinsically tied to the presence of a subject that perceives them.

Schopenhauer’s philosophy is built on the premise that our understanding of the world is mediated through perception and cognition. He argues that objects, as we know them, do not exist independently of our perception. This aligns with the broader philosophical stance of idealism.

Schopenhauer was deeply influenced by Immanuel Kant, particularly the notion that the world as we perceive it (phenomena) is shaped by our cognitive faculties. However, Schopenhauer extends this idea, positing that the will is the fundamental reality behind all appearances.

According to Schopenhauer, what we perceive are representations (Vorstellungen), which are dependent on the subject (I would add, as well as the object, as I don’t deny that objects exist). The “thing-in-itself” (noumenon), which Kant suggested lies beyond our perceptual faculties, is, for Schopenhauer, the will.

Schopenhauer asserts that the existence of the objective world is contingent upon a perceiving subject. Without a subject to perceive, there can be no object. This challenges the notion of an independently existing material world - or independently-existing objects, for that matter!

But your paper doesn't seem to be the position held by most self-identified idealists who consider mind to be fundamental, supervening on nothing else. — noAxioms

Thanks for looking at it, I appreciate your feedback. But I’d like to think that the essay is compatible with the canonical idealists, such as Berkeley (with some caveats), Kant, Schopenhauer, and our contemporary, Bernardo Kastrup.

A perspective can collapse a wave function. Can God (with the supposed 'view from nowhere') do that? — noAxioms

Werner Heisenberg might have had an answer to that, in his writings on Physics and Philosophy, as he was both a pioneer of quantum physics, and someone whom I think could be described as a Christian Platonist. But I won’t pursue that here.

Which is why you’re a laughingstock. — Mikie

I did find out that the name ‘Nosferatu’ is Romanian for ‘the insufferable one.’

Excellent profile in today’s SMH https://www.smh.com.au/national/difficult-paranoid-and-polarising-dissecting-the-contradiction-that-is-julian-assange-20240628-p5jpjn.html

I said when the thread was re-opened, that Assange has effectively served his time and that it was good that he has been able to return to Australia. But I also said that I think lionising him as first amendment martyr and returning hero is over the top. That’s about all I have to say on it for now.

The claim that the publishing of personal details of many operatives put them at significant risk is weakened by the fact that apparently none of them suffered on that account. — Janus

That’s what Assange’s supporters say, but the truth can’t be known. Many of those whose names were disclosed were in places like Iraq and Afghanistan where record-keeping is hardly exemplary.

Again it’s a balance of press freedom versus the right of governments to keep secrets, and it will always be a difficult balance. Unless of course the whole world decides to lay down arms, cease all conflict, turn their swords into ploughshares and join hands to sing Kumbaya.

I suspect you're right. I'm no authority, but other people/minds are nothing but ideals themselves to me, and one has to get around that. I don't know how it’s done. — noAxioms

Take a look at The Mind-Created World.

Idealism leads to solipsism. — noAxioms

I think that’s a misrepresentation of idealism. None of the canonical idealist philosophers believe that only my mind is real.

It's worth considering that before the rise of "the view from nowhere" as the gold standard of knowledge the gold standard was "the view from the mind of God." — Count Timothy von Icarus

There’s a book that caught my eye on the pre-Socratic philosophers, called To Think Like God. In the Greek texts there are references to the supposed ‘divinity’ of the philosophers, and Parmenides is said to have ‘received’ his wisdom from ‘the Goddess’. Then there’s ‘The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science’, Peter Harrison, which documents the belief that science was originally conceived as techniques for ameliorating the cognitive damage wrought by human sin. a means of recapturing the knowledge of nature that Adam had once possessed. There’s a sense in which scientific objectivity is supposed to emulate the impersonal detachment of the sage or mystic. But modern science becomes essentially Promethean in nature, based on the conviction that unassisted it could reveal universal truth without any reference to a supposedly religious notion of the absolute.

Can you provide a link to reliable information backing that claim up? — Janus

Biden looks awful. What a stupid decision to let this guy run again. He’s just too old. He may still win, given his opponent is Trump— but so far in this debate he looks frail and borderline incoherent. — Mikie

Unfortunately, I have to agree. Trump undoubtedly makes for better television, which is what counts, now that truth no longer matters. :brow:

There were fantasies some time ago for Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer to run on the Democratic ticket, as Mr and Mrs America.





Oh, I wish.....

(Newsom says he's sitting this one out and is anticipated to run in 2028. Except that, if Trump wins in 2024, there probably won't be an election in 2028, as Trump will have declared himself President for Life.)

I doubt that would happen to a large media organization that published leaked documents. Do you have any evidence to support the claim that it would happen? — Janus

I meant, I don't have evidence of it, because the 'large media organisations' would generally be extremely careful about publishing such materials, if at all. That's what I meant by them not doing it.

As for the general question, it's obviously a delicate balance. I already said:

Of course the crimes which Wikileaks exposed deserve to be exposed, and governments ought not to use secrecy as a shield for wrong-doing, which they inveterately will. It’s a balance of ‘right to know’ vs ‘need for confidentiality’. But then how much ‘transparency’ could be expected from, for example, the CCP, or from Russia? Presumably if one of Assange’s counterparts had hacked and leaked information from the Russian FSB - well, he or she would face a fate much worse than legal threats, and we in the West would probably never even know their name. — Wayfarer

At the time Wikileaks leaked the Democratic National Committee files, there were strong grounds for believing that these had been fed to them by Russia in an attempt to have Trump elected. Indeed, when Assange's release was announced, one of the Putin stooge outlets commended Assange for his 'great service to journalism'. You can bet it would have been vastly different had he leaked, say, top secret information on Russian war planning for the Ukraine invasion. Assange might have expected a dose of novichok instead of congrats.

Only to an idealist. — noAxioms

But you seem to be leaning towards an idealist view yourself. Can you say why you're not?

CNN just lobbed the question to Donald Trump about Jan 6th. First of all he completely ducked it, attacking Biden over the border, and then he tried to pin the blame on Nancy Pelosi for not calling the National Guard, which is another lie. He then follows up by saying that Hunter Biden is a convicted felon, another lie (apparently true, but not relevant). Overall, almost everything Trump is saying in this debacle, um, debate, is a lie. Shame is, half the electorate will believe him.

Trump is very worked up about the story that he called military casualties 'loosers and suckers' and repeatedly said the story has been 'debunked'. But it was presented in The Atlantic on September 3, 2020:

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. — The Atlantic

By way of a coda my sister and I both thought that everything Trump said was a lie, but that Joe Biden looks like he should be in a rocking chair on the front porch with a blanket over his knees.

God help us. :yikes:

You could know the exact make-up and location of every particle in a sheep and this, taken by itself, would not tell you that it is a sheep or what a sheep is. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The atoms of a teacup do not collude together to form a teacup: The object is a teacup because it is constituted that way from a perspective outside of itself. — Mind and the Cosmic Order, Charles Pinter

Do you have any evidence to support the claim that it would happen? — Janus

Maybe the fact that they didn't! Ever see that excellent Speilberg movie with Meryl Streep as Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post, over the publication of the Pentagon papers? The Post. Gave a good overview of the dangers involved.

Assange was obviously playing a dangerous game, and it has cost him. — Leontiskos

More or less 'publish and be damned'. And he was!

I've only read press pieces and profiles, over the years. Liz Lette was on ABC talkback the other day, saying he used to stay with her and Geoffrey Robertson in London prior to his incarceration. She was overall positive, but thinks he's on the autism spectrum and lacks insight into the impact of his actions and words on others. Despite his supporters saying there's no proof that Wikileaks disclosures resulted in deaths, it's indubitable that they disclosed the ID's of many individuals in the middle East because of Assange's refusal to redact those details, and put them in harm's way. Even Ed Snowden criticized that.

Because if they did, the publishers and journalists would like have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets act. Let's not overlook the fact that the condition of Assange's release was his pleading guilty to that. Maybe the reason that Wikileaks has been lauded by media organisations is that it took the fall for the release of a lot of top secret information in a way they never would have dared to do. (Also noticed that the official site has yet to be updated with news of his release, by the way.)

Didn't see that. I said already, I believe Assange has paid the price for what he did, and that it's great to see his ordeal come to an end. But I'm very sceptical about him being lionised as a homecoming hero and champion of press freedom.

Who decides what criteria counts as 'bona fide" in that context? — Janus

That's the question I'm asking. I did comment that the NY Times, Guardian, etc, would probably not have published classified documents stolen from military organisations, although after Wikileaks did so, they were then able to reference them, as they had been put in the public domains.

I agree the citations are impressive, that's why I mentioned the Walkley Award.

This NY Times piece, by independent film-maker Alex Gibney, sums up the kinds of issues many had with Assange, prior to his long incarceration (gift link).

Do you think Wikileaks was a bona fide media organisation?

Refresher prior to the forthcoming debate, on what Trump did after the last election and has done since:

• Continued to spread baseless lies that the election had been stolen from him
• Blocked federal officials from working with Joe Biden’s transition team
• Demanded Georgia’s secretary of state “find” him the exact number of votes he needed to turn his loss their into a win
• Pressured the DOJ to investigate the absurd claim that Italian satellites had changed Trump votes to Biden ones
• Urged state legislators to “decertify” their election results
• Incited a violent riot that left numerous people dead
• Let said violent riot go on for hours before he half-heartedly told people to go home (and also told the mob, “You’re very special” and “we love you” and “Remember this day forever!”)
• Said Mike Pence deserved the chants calling for his hanging
• Continues, nearly four years later, to claim the election was stolen from him
• Won’t commit to accepting the outcome of the 2024 election
• Says there will be further violence if he loses again
• Regularly threatens to  use the government to go after his enemies if he wins
• Said he will be a dictator on “day one” in office

Because of all of the above, and because Joe Biden has notably done none of the above, you might think it would be pretty clear to people that of the two candidates, one of them is good for democracy and one of them is bad, and that the latter is very obviously Trump. But according to the results of a terrifying new poll, that is, somehow, very much not the case.

That poll, conducted by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, reveals that in the six swing states Biden won in 2020, more voters classified as “Deciders”—that is, they are likely to decide the outcome of the election—think Trump is better equipped to handle threats to democracy than Biden. — Vanity Fair

I think it’s safe to say, that whatever the fundamental substratum is, it doesn’t consist of things.

Quite the epistemological definition, but there is no 'intelligible' in physics. — noAxioms

But even though fundamental particles and their properties can’t be envisaged, the equations that describe their interactions are accurate to one part in a trillionth (or something.) The fact that those equations can be taught and learned and put to use means there’s at least something intelligible about them, doesn’t it? There’s a difference between understanding them correctly, and not understanding them. So there must be something that the mind can get hold of through those equations, isn’t there?

But then on the other hand you’ve got Feynmann’s ‘nobody understands quantum physics’, so maybe it’s not intelligible. That has puzzled many more highly-trained minds than my own.

I took a very nonstandard view when crafting my definition of 'to be', which is more along the lines of 'being part of the cause of a given event/state'. — noAxioms

Your ‘non-standard view’ is very much like the definition of being that is offered in this post from one of the protagonists in a Platonic dialogue:

I am saying that anything actually is, once it has acquired some sort of power, either to affect anything else at all, or to be affected, even slightly, by something totally trivial, even if only once. Indeed, I propose to give a definition, defining things that are, as nothing else except power. — ibid. 247d

If the univocalist has a flat ontology with everything being captured by the exact same univocal concept of being, the analogical thinker has an ontology with a depth dimension, where there is a kind of “depth of field” qua being. — Leontiskos

The qualitative dimension, right? The axis against which a ‘higher good’ is meaningful?

This is why it can be startling to realize that when I look around, I'm seeing ideas. It's just Plato back again, right? — frank

I've been puzzling over, and reading up on, the basic dictum of Plato's metaphysics, which is 'to be, is to be intelligible'. From what I've gleaned, it means that to grasp an object's intelligibility is to see what it really is. Perhaps that's why @Count Timothy von Icarus's non-objects are intuitively felt to be 'creepy and disgusting'.

Even animals recognize discrete wholes; the sheep knows "wolf" and knows it from the time it is a lamb. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hence the 'gestalts' in this post.

He looked ok on the news footage - a lot more middle-aged but then he’s 52. I don’t see any reason to expect he’s at risk of imminent death. And I don’t know how much mileage he’ll get out of his life story. We’ll see, I guess. (You know that obnoxious toad Clive Palmer is bringing Tucker Carlson to Australia, right? Although Carlson’s had his day, I would hope.)

Worth noting that the Walkley Foundation recognized Wikileaks and Assange in 2019:

16 April 2019, Sydney

In 2011, Wikileaks, with Julian Assange as its editor, received a Walkley Award in Australia for its outstanding contribution to journalism. Walkley judges said Wikileaks applied new technology to “penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup”. One of those many inconvenient truths was the exposure by video of US helicopter attacks in Baghdad that killed 11 civilians including two Reuters journalists.

Many mainstream journalists worked with Assange’s material to publish their own reports including media outlets such as the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Australia, The Guardian in the United Kingdom, The New York Times in the US, El Pais in Spain, Le Monde in France and Der Spiegel in Germany. There has been no attempt by the US Government to prosecute any of those journalists involved. …

https://www.walkleys.com/board-statement-4-16/

It is highly chaotic. — Tarskian

I think you’re mis-using the word there. If everything were chaotic, nothing would exist, and if everything were perfectly ordered, nothing would change. Existence requires both. Beyond that, I can’t see the point, if there is one.

This OP title would have benefitted from a single-word response:


YES?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if in a couple of years he runs for the Australian Greens. He'd be a shoo-in.

Gift link to Washington Post wrap on his release.

Obviously a vexed question. My elder son was a journalism student ten years ago (although he hasn’t gone into the profession), But at the time he was critical of Assange for appealing to press freedom when he didn’t have to conform to any of the conventions (at least I think that’s what he said.) I’m not against him being released, I agree with the Australian government that Assange has paid the price. But I’m not an admirer.

And beyond whether he’s a journalist, he’s a symbol - a symbol of the struggle against the mendacious corrupt establishment and the lies and coverups of the military-industrial complex. For which reason, criticize him at your peril :yikes:

I could replicate wikileaks' functionality and advertise its existence in the hope of attracting uploads. Would that make me a journalist?