Pluto, that rock with a location way out there, has not changed
'Pluto' the sound design has not changed
The only change is how we categorize it, its meaning has changed categorically.

Now we place it in the company of other similarly sized objects out there, which is where it should have been categorized if we had known its size when it was originally classified as a planet.

I think that the discourses of science, of technology are being continually mediated into culture. Its gone on this way since Copernicus. But then again, the sun still rises and sets.

If you go to Las Vegas to try your luck, are you a gambling addict? No, I don't think so, but a small percentage of those that do go there do have a problem.

If you like a draft beer in the evening, does that make you an alcoholic, no but if you can't stop drinking then you have a problem.

Moderation is the key, to enjoyment. Too much of most anything can be harmful or addictive.

The study I cited looks the effect on a society where porn was previously rigorously censored. The Czech Republic and it

"... found in all other countries in which the phenomenon has been studied, rape and other sex crimes did not increase. Of particular note is that this country, like Denmark and Japan, had a prolonged interval during which possession of child pornography was not illegal and, like those other countries, showed a significant decrease in the incidence of child sex abuse."

I am not denying porn's addictive potential, no more than I am saying that drinking, gambling or other potentially addictive behaviors cannot be harmful. What I am suggesting is that such fantasies in normal adults is not harmful, rather they are healthy.

The red or the blue pill?

The internet is radically democratic, and it has taken on the status of almost a birth right. A journalist with the internet can reach people far removed from the paper's local circulation and it gives voice to people who would never be heard otherwise.

Ads are problematic. I installed Ad Blocker, now several sites see that you have Ad Blocker and limit your viewing. There appear to be new ad blockers coming out that claim to be invisible, but I have not tried them yet.

As far as porn goes, I think it is healthy. It enables fantasy, the blue pill. There is a study I have read that suggests that societies which have very liberal attitudes toward porn also have less problems with rape, pedophilia and other real problems, the red pill.

http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-porn-in-czech-republic.html

I looked at the Green Web site...ambitious goals.

I wonder how it will go.

The UK population will rise by almost 10 million over the next 25 years, according to official estimates.

The Guardian 10/29/2015

Economic growth will be necessary, at least under the capitalistic system currently in place and I don't see this changing over the next 25 years.

Government and business can try to control that growth, & they do...I know here in US the FED targets 2% growth, but they are often not successful...the economy has a mind of its own & it is a capitalistic mind.

I think population growth is directly related to improved living situation for all. With more mouths to feed, to house, educate there will be greater pressure on innovations to enable us to grow. (Unlike natural resources, knowledge is sustainable)

Perhaps good example of this type of innovation is the rise in electric vehicles. Oil as APO pointed out, has had a great effect on growth. Solar power is safer, cleaner and far more sustainable than oil. It will grow, and it is in being incorporated into our future.

The projections I have read suggest that around 2022 the number of electric vehicles (pure) being manufactured will
equal the number of gas models produced. The advances in autonomous driving technology suggest, to me that in the not too distant future, major roads will become autonomous driving mode only. The government will operate cars in and around large cities, for us. You punch in the destination, and the government's computer system will get you there.

The continued growth of knowledge for all is essential for us to be able to pass on a reasonable standard of living to subsequent generations.

I think a dog is a being

I think anything that is alive is a being, one that is different in kind from all inert objects. All life reacts in some manner that is not entirely predictable. Life is either an emergent phenomena of matter or the product of some intervention.

I entirely agree about what you said about dogs.

Animals feel and so do people, some animals are more sensitive than others, the same with people. I think there is an emotional aspect to intelligence.

There is a lot of historical data, and many different ways of analyzing that data. Economists question how each others' account of historical changes, so at least to my mind, little reason not to questions any predictions. The crystal ball gets cloudier the further we try to see into the future.

I think we are in a period of structural change in the world economy, which has gone on for decades.

Thoughts:

1) We are now in a world market, which is primarily capitalistic. It's consumer driven and consumers typically choose products that work well based on what they cost. If corporation can mfg cheaper products in Mexico, such as cars, they move their facilities there. Same for vehicle parts...some where close to 50% of the parts in our cars are from some other country. Free trade competition is good.

If an industry can't produce a competitive product, then it ought to be replaced. It means that people will be displaced, I know, I have been. Workers need to be trained to fill jobs that society needs. Many difficult issues here.


2) Corporations have grown in size, to my mind beyond what is reasonable. The 'economies of scale' enable these gorgons to reduce much of the supporting layers needed by multiple companies...extra labor, facilities, are unnecessary.
The problem here, I think, is that these huge companies, hit the wall in terms of these economies of scale after a few years. Their only route for continued growth becomes the acquisition of other smaller companies, which are absorbed, and used to add growth.

There are a couple of major problems with monopolistic companies, that I can think of:
a) There is a cyclic component to monopolistic growth. The AT&Ts of this world watch what Verizon and other competitors are doing. An acquisition by one competitor is viewed as a challenge, and it too makes a similar acquisition and so on...
b) Monopolies are not driven by innovation, they don't have to innovate, they can buy.

3) Our investment in infrastructure is minuscule compared to our historic investment in railroads, transportation, and other basic industries.

Not all industries have had such productivity declines, technology and medical sciences productivity lead all other industry sectors. Frontier industries in general have out performed all other industries. They are currently the most resilient parts of the economy, and they are still vibrant and growing. Plums for gorgons :-|

Future growth...get my crystal ball!

I agree with MOS, we are living a life. While we are not responsible for our own existence that does not entail, that we cannot make value assertions.. " one does not need to have knowledge of everything to field a value assertion"

While all our value assertions are constructed, by history, context, society, experience...for over 2500 years we have asked ourselves the same sorts of questions. Not many definitive answers or answers that have not been challenged, but this inquiry leads (naturally & historically) to similar topics and, feelings. I remember the feeling of moral outrage the first time I read Antigone long ago.

So, then are there salient points about the human species that might explicate which values are integral to living a moral life. We have discussed this for over 2 millennia. I think there are moral criteria that we as humans subscribe to by virtue of being human, otherwise we are wasting our time and we should all become lawyers or politicians, if all we are arguing about are rules of construction in society.

I agree with JR. Women are the real heroes

The song, I like the lyrics.

Isn't the 'Idol' for sheep a goat.


A Judas goat was used to herd sheep, to bring them to slaughter at the slaughter house, where they would take a sledge hammer and crack them in the head stunning them. a fleeting pain, before killing them.

The hero is different in kind from the herd of humanity that follows it, from pasture to pasture, or to the slaughter house. Passion becomes mechanical, following culture's lead regardless of its direction. This is the "easy way out", no thought needed, we are all marching along in life with a " broken head", stunned.

The ugly part is in the following, it is ugly because it is blind/stunned adherence to an Ideal, a Hero, an Idol, which may lead to our own destruction. The lyric suggest that one can stop, escape. It implores us to "Live your own life", beyond the herd of humanity.

Socrates, I think, would deny being anyone's hero, but he certainly did go his own way, with his own followers and he was killed for that. The herd does not like wanderers, it goes against their mechanical " Cosmetic photogenic" values.

I don't think it is about intelligence and the brain. I'm asking if animals are capable of abstract thought (can they think about things they've never seen, for instance), and I'm asking if they are capable of thinking and analyzing their own thoughts? Can they consciously consider different courses of action, for instance?

It's been said that man's brain/thinking has a dual ability. He can sense the world around him... and he has his intellect that enables him to engage in abstract thought. He can think about his own thinking.

Do animals have an intellect (are they capable of abstract thought, and can they think about their own thinking), or are animals only capable of experiencing the world through their senses

Animals similar to humans seem to be driven by the pleasure principle. We-animals like pleasure and try to escape pain.

I think all the physical properties of man & beast are similar, not much difference , elephants and whales have much bigger brains than man.

I think in a lot of ways our perceptions are the same, even inferior to many animals. Perception itself carries structure/information.

I am not certain what you mean by 'abstract' thought, which I'll take here to mean a reduction of experience to some form of thought, and I can think of two forms of thought, analogical and logical. Where analogical reasoning compares similarities between two systems to support the conclusion that some further similarity exists. And, you already know what logical thought is all about

I think man and animals share analogical thought processes, but only man so far, is capable of complex logical thought.

Perception itself is image driven (regardless of sense), it imprints, where we differ is in how we (in contradistinction to animals) are able to assign these imprints to statements which we share with others.

I am interested in the self-awareness aspect of consciousness as it appears in animals as disperse as elephants, apes, corvids & dogs.

It is somewhat surprising that dog's and perhaps some other animal don't appear to have self consciousness, however, this may be due to how we test for self-awareness.

A recent study took dogs pee and posted it up on a wall in an enclosed room, then let each dog who had peed enter the room. The dogs all sniffed and sniffed the other dog's pee, didn't bother with their own pee.

Perhaps a dog's consciousness favors scent over its other senses and it is self-aware, just not how we think about self-awareness.

Also, covids,with a little brain about 20 grams can use tools, & figure out simple analogical puzzles, perhaps suggesting that perception itself contains structural information already embedded.

Proceeding with my casual tour of local pubs...

Little Munich in Lake Worth Florida. casual German Bar & Restaurant. It has a long bar with many shelves of liquor facing it...they remind me of bookcases (holding volumes). Gabby is the owner, nice German lady with a good collection of Germany's great beers. My favorite is Spaten Optimator. They also serve crispy golden fried(or broiled?) Wienerschnitzel , a vinegary potato salad, and cabbage...yum!

Oh, the little guy on the top right is some sort of German fetish item, she told me the name but I don't recall.

I like the idea of understanding the story as a wake up call. The student crassly helping the master, to realize the error of his attachment to the book.

I don't know if his crassness was necessary.

Maybe the student had to defy, to debase his master's legacy, to negate his master's value system, as one which he knows, that he is immersed in, and one that he needs no book to practice. The story as a negation (burning) of traditional values (book). His rebellious action as his first steps in a new direction.

I think guilt is a complex notion in ancient thought. Guilt as a cause, as shame, as a defiance of fate, as complicity with fate (determinism). Free will as reasoned choice versus desire, spontaneity, a break in a series.

Guilt as a response to our failure to live up to our own will. The will as a separate facility of the mind, is I think a discovery which Hanna Arendt attributed it Christianity, specifically Paul The Apostle.

Like many issues in a representational democracy, the problem of gun control is tied in with the need of legislators to be reelected, which takes a ton of cash. Democracies allow persons to have direct redress to the legislative and executive branches of government.

This right of redress, to lobby, is a basic right in US Constitution. But it has morphed in our time into a way for legislators and members of the executive branches of government to have a fall back positions in place in case they are not reelected.

Just two weeks after resigning from the House, Cantor joined the Wall Street investment bank of Moelis & Co., as vice chairman and managing director, starting with a $400,000 base salary, $400,000 initial cash bonus, and $1 million in stock.

(6-9-2015)

The law states that Congressional Lobbyists must wait 1 year prior to formally registering as a lobbyist. I think that should be longer. It is also clear that just because these people can't register, there is nothing to stop them from calling their prior colleagues and giving their informal views, which may have ulterior motives.

The NRA is such a successful lobby because it puts its money not just with legislators who take their viewpoint, but also because it funds people who are running for office and subscribe to their view. The effect of this sort of lobbying is, I think, a form of bribery.

deleted, wrong spot!

Reminds me of:

"the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again "

I disagree...repetition is the condition of knowledge, of sanity. Camus's stone roller was sane.

Along similar lines to what some others have expressed. If the nihilist only values pleasure and pain, then how does he value them (which goes to John's 1st post), if he says pain is bad and pleasure is good, then aren't they assigning ethical categories to what are essentially natural responses.

Perhaps the nihilist would say, I too live in the same world, speak the same language, but I choose to be ruled by the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure...I call these good and bad as experiential categories. As a nihilist I do not accept any non-experiential categories, beyond what is pleasurable or painful. Value for the nihilist seems to be more like instinctive attraction/repulsion, attracted to the pleasant and repulsed from the painful, not essentially a cognitive reaction. The fact that these categories pleasure/good, pain/bad can be applied to more complex behaviors does not detract from their origins.

My question concerns the quantification of pleasure and pain. Are pains and pleasures additive, accumulative in some manner, or is this some sort of temporal bias. Is a life that is 80% pleasurable better (quantitatively) than a life that is 50% pleasurable? Suppose the life that is 80% more pleasurable only lasts 20 years and the one that is 50% pleasurable lasts 80 years. I suppose a similar approach is possible if the nihilist say that pleasures and pains are qualitative.

"No more war" vs "USA."

'No more war' is a cry for moral justice
'USA' is nationalistic declaration

He's saying that the real goal of all political action is to create police to protect us from one another. Otherwise, Augustine saw the state as an endless source of crap in the form of corruption, frustration, disenfranchisement, uprisings, revolutions, invasions (which implies war). In City of God, Augustine explains that if everybody was a true Christian, there would be no states (and so no need for war.)

There are a variety of forces exerted against the state, from within and from without. I think hostile forces from without are one of the main reason why states where initially formed. States act as a safe haven for their citizens. The State also makes possible the exchange of goods, which is where, I think corruption, stealing, and other transgression originate. The State makes laws that regulate the exchange of goods, and which ought to be fair & just, if the purpose of the state beyond protection, is to insure that each citizens has the ability to live & grow in accordance with their own particular desires.

Aquinas partook of Aristotle's view: people are by nature political beings. The state is not a shit show we create to curb our sinfulness. Its the path by which we express our greatest potential. It follows from that that protection of the state is an obligation people should take up with pride.

Therefor I am more closely aligned to Aristotle, I think that he felt that man is a social animal only in the sense that man can't exist alone in nature. The social character, the State is negatively determined, as I outline above.

Its the path by which we express our greatest potential. It follows from that that protection of the state is an obligation people should take up with pride.

If the State's aim is towards the Highest Good for its citizens, then it ought to coincide with man's highest goal. If one of man's highest goals is "No more war" then that goal can be part of the nationalistic goal of a strong, just, State united under common laws..."USA".

If the State is not protecting its citizenry, not treating them fairly, not enabling its citizenry to meet or exceed their needs then its citizenry will rebel against the state, trying to make it change so that they can reach their goals.

The distinction between passive & active nihilism is taken from Nietzsche. He talks about the meaninglessness of our situation as a transitional step, where we find our self in a desert, with a lack of any way past or out of situation. He thought nihilism as a necessary step to be able to transform our concepts of value to move beyond the inherent paradox of life devoid of any absolute meaning.

The passive nihilist comes to point of this transformation and then denies any sense to going any further, it makes no sense for the passive nihilist to affirm any values, they see no truth as they step back from the the world by becoming addicted to a form of alienation, weakness, & radical hedonism.

The active nihilist comes to the same point, but through force of will the active nihilist transforms its value system into one it creates and in doing so is able to embrace the real in a new, un-dogmatic manner, beyond the limits of logic. It is rebellious and destructive of all imposed conventions.

Hi John:

I understand that the "value of life is considered to consist in the overall balance of pleasure and pain" is a very old notion. But, I don't agree that pleasure or pain can be ends in themselves, they are always attached to something...such as the pleasure we take in the act of eating.

It goes to the question of 'what value is'. A judgement, the value of labor, an abstract construction, the measure of exchange. It can be 'real' as it you have it framed, or abstract, objective or subjective. Value as desire perhaps a form of fetishism, where the 'real' becomes idealized...money is happiness.

I am aware of two forms of nihilism active and passive.

But if mere pleasure and pain, simpliciter, are the only rightful criteria from the considerations of which the value of life is to be judged then any claim as to the significance of the purported 'reality' of the sources of pain and pleasure, or the means used to derive pleasure from life and overcome suffering is utterly unjustifiable.

Yes, I think passive nihilism is conceptual, it is not performative.

Yes, I think the force of Eros can be decadent, pornographic, prurient but it can also be ascentive, pushing us emotionally and rationally, the force behind creativity and in this sense inseparable from the aesthetic of beauty.

Let me speculate that both gender bias and racial bias come from the same source, they are implicit in the language we speak. That our attitudes, values we have are based on how language is being used and that cultural differences are implicit in language. The following from a joint study by a Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA & University of California, Merced, CA, USA published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2010. Conclusion:

The results of the present study indicate that attitudes squarely
belong amongst those contents of mind that can be influenced by
language. Language, in this sense, is much more than a medium for
conveying preferences; it is intimately involved in constructing and
shaping their very nature.

I saw the following video and thought about how we converse in somewhat similar manner about gender.

I remember a few years ago going to a pool party and talking with a lady who was learning pole dancing. My only prior experience with pole dancing had been at those some of those dubious venues, which we see on TV. I got the feeling that she was going there somewhat for the comradery of exercising with others, but I also suspected sexual undertones...but towards the enticement of her husband.

I don't see why it can't be an Olympic sport. It appears to require a lot of strength, and a good routine has to be choreographed. So, yes why not. Smashing social barriers with beauty, form, grace and style, in a aesthetic rather than an erotic manner. Although I wonder if complete separation of the aesthetic from the erotic is ever possible or wanted for that matter.

I think to hold a person responsible for his actions that person must have performed those actions. There seems to be a need to identify a moral agent as the same person over time.

These concepts form the basis of the legal system, how we asses blame and why a person can be held liable for their actions. A concept of identity must be integral to a system of law, as a necessary condition for any laws.

Hey Apo/NL

Does entropy explain the arrow of time...its direction.

I read an interesting paper recently, which reduced the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics by information theory to a quantum description, where time is treated as a loss of information. I would cite it but can't seem to find it.

I liked the idea, but a lot of it was over my head.

Hey Mongrel.

I have not seen Synecdoche, New York, but I am watching Awake on Netflix. In Awake a man his wife and their son are involved in a car accident. He awakes to two distinct 'realities', in one his wife dies and he is left with his son, in the other their son dies and he is left with his wife.

He still lives basically the same reality. He is a detective and is forced to under go therapy in both realities. His respective therapists tell him the other reality is unreal, a psychological preservation technique. He apparently likes to still have his wife & son still around.

It gets kinda trippy at times but which one is 'real'...I am on episode 6, I think...and there is no clear winner at this point. I am enjoying it.

Yes & no to numerical identity, rather sameness. Both quantitative and qualitative sameness seem to rely on the notion of numeral identity.

A) You are assuming what needs to be proved.
"In other words, I can remember only my own experiences, but it is not my memory of an experience that makes it mine; rather, I remember it only because it's already mine. So while memory can reveal my identity with some past experiencer, it does not make that experiencer me." (Stanford)

B) Suppose I am a criminal who is close to capture. I find a brilliant neurosurgeon capable of transferring my brain into the body of someone who's brain is dead, at the same time putting the dead brain into my body. Both transfers are successful, then which one is me (legally or logically)

I am coming to the at least partial conclusion that gender is based on the dominant linguist dialogues of the culture. How a language supports a point of view based current narratives which in our culture appear to be male dominated.

Since we can assume any gender we want, even a binary gender, gender's meaning in physical terms seems to be losing ground...with some holdouts, which I think are mainly tied to religious objections.

The identity question has to answered if ethical responsibly is to be asserted. How am I to be held responsible for my actions if I am not the same person today as I was when the action was performed.

My psychology, my history and my body all change over time, yet I am held responsible for what I have done...how is that possible given that I am not what I was.

I think ethical concerns must yield a theory that is logical/metaphysically based if any idea of a moral agent is to make sense. There are logical issues with identity as psychological, biologically, or narratively considered. Derek Parfit's arguments are daunting http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-ethics/

[Verse 2]
When choice became the people's voice
Shout loud
Put your hands up in the crowd
Raise your fist up (fist up)
While I lift up (lift up)
Fucking everything wrong with the system (system)
People hungry and dyin'
They ain't got a home
This is the nature created
From the terrordome (terrordome)
Let's turn the page
Shaman burn the sage
Clear the way for the prophets of rage
Can you kick it like

Justified true belief as knowledge appeals to universals of truth, belief and judgement are all Enlightenment ideals. We live in an age of communication mediums, where these related but separate ideals have given way to how humanity consumes and transmit knowledge. The performative ability of knowledge has become the new ideal.

The student teacher relationship is now based on money, exchange value, not on ability or insight. The ability to successfully transmit useful information takes over the role of justification. The sheer amount of information that is available is astonishing. Truth has become statistically rendered, as most likely. Ya'all can find the answer to almost anything on the internet, this new medium has taken over much of what is transmitted and it is radically democratic.

Anyway some sort of translation has got it going on.

Identity is a logical concept x=y, the relationship between x and y is timeless. Persons exist in time and any attempt to explicate how the consistency of personal identity must be able to show how that consistency can persist over time. How a person at a certain age can possibly be construed to the same same person at a latter point in time.

You suggest that it involves three parts which are related to one another, with each emerging from the other:

There is the impression-identity, the social-parts-identity, and the expressive-identity; where each layer of identity emerges from the one prior.

So, physicality, social or psychological and a synthesis of these two, as the "expressive-identity".

If I've got that right then the question is how this stands up to the consistency of personal identity over time.

Our basic physicality changes over time. A man's body changes over time, how does one identify with what he was at 17 from what he is at 50? Perhaps this is where the social construction comes into play. We become identified by others in a kind of history of narratives we tell and we hear about ourselves from others. Maybe it is by intersections of these narratives that we form our self, which is constantly changing yet the dominant narrative remains the same. How we translate these narratives is based on our physical characteristics, our memory, our desires, our feelings, the characteristics that are given to us by genetics and the environment context where we find our self.

I think that personal identity is not so much identity as it is difference. Our ability to differentiate between one moment and the next, what we were versus what we are now. So the logical basis become that of non-contradiction and not equality.

Or perhaps our personal identity is not ours, but arises solely from what others tell us, their memories, their desires and their feelings. We learn a language, and we learn to associate words with referents and give them meanings, feelings, desires that are normative, but are felt to be particular to our self, even though they originate outside of us, and we construct our self and limit our self in this manner.

I love his spasmastic sense of rhythm...a lot of talking heads this week...

I am in the slow process of touring local pubs, trying to do a little Bar painting. This work is based on Havana Hideaway a little place with a good selection of craft beer, good music on occasion and generally a good place to relax. Kate in the picture served up some home made fireballs...totaled me. :-!

In human terms scarcity is a valuation. We normatively value what is scarce.
Diamonds are scarce and they are considered (generally) more valuable than water, air, food which are all intrinsically necessary for life, but not nearly as scarce and therefore considered much less valuable.

Of course if a huge hoard of diamonds is found, then the value of diamonds falls economically and if there is a drought or a famine then water or food or both may become much more valuable. The value we place on what is scarce versus what exists in profundity is based on utility. The law of diminishing returns suggests that things have a certain utility and the more availability something is the lower its marginal utility.

Money provides the means of valuation of items that have no real connection (water vs diamonds), one of the great benefits of capital. It provides a medium of exchange by which we can measure the utility of what is exchanged.

Identity is violence.

I think "like knows like", and that ' in difference there is violence'

Gender is a social construct, but it is a real social construct, that is you can't just wish it away. It is real, and it changes over time, which is why, I think at least in US, the civil acceptance of Gay marriage was important. Enabling the 'legitimization' of Gay marriage confers legal and social rights, and ultimately societal expectations for Gay couples. It may take decades for these societal expectations to
become 'real', not questioned but assumed in the same way that other societal roles are real, in my opinion.