It's not clear to me what my views would be after WWII. It's not like many people in the US, including Roosevelt cared about the Holocaust. In fact, the Holocaust did not become a major issue until the 60's more or less. Maybe I would have supported Israel back then, maybe I wouldn't care.

The US and I suppose a large portion of the population might have been indifferent. There was Japan to worry about after Germany surrendered and then Korea soon came afterwards.

Today settler colonialism is looked at as brutal behavior. It is now recognized as such in the US, Canada and in Australia. Not in Israel. We've also improved quite a bit in terms of racism and sexism, but there's a long way to go. So there is such a thing as moral progress. It's slow but it happens.

I'm simply looking today at Gaza and saying what is evident for everyone to see: it is horrendous. I don't see the issue here being much more complex than one of the largest armies in the world pounding an open air prison to smithereens.

You may wish to find more nuance if you'd like. As there surely was more nuance is Apartheid South Africa too. But that wasn't the point of protesting South Africa.

And it is not the main point in Gaza.

Perhaps. Assuming the other hominin species were peaceful too.



Knee jerk reaction? I'm speaking about settler colonialism.

In any case, Netanyahu is looking for even more blood now. He's speaking about a "clear victory".

:100:

Yes and yes. We can only hope they don't ever go through with it.

Link doesn't work.

Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyHNuVaZJ-k

Well you point to something important. If we go back far enough, everybody's an invader or colonialist of some kind.

Maybe not the Aborigines in Australia. But in many parts of the world this is the case. But now it would be silly for country X to say to country Y "my people lived here 500-2500 years ago, this is rightfully mine." It would be a million wars.

Settler colonialism is ending. Israel might be the last place in which this is practiced from the European lineage. Now we look at Gaza and see monstrosities, which they are. Human history is ugly...



Absolutely. I think if Israel doesn't go back to resolution 242 and help with a "two state solution" of some kind, as a start, they may be leading down a path of destruction.

The Samson Option, mentioned by Handel4 or whatever name he uses is crazy. In effect it would mean Israel would be willing to bring down the whole world if it feels threatened by bombing Europe!

I wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't brought up, because it sounds so insane. But it's a doctrine they have. How seriously they take this, is an open question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

One author's interpretation goes like this:

"...in the "aftermath of a second Holocaust", Israel could "bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)" as well as the "holy places of Islam." He writes that "abandonment of proportionality is the essence" of the Samson Option."

Chomsky corroborates something similar to this, it's called "nishtagea" in Hebrew.

Would you consider yourself a metaphysical monist?

Some other day I'd like to discuss the materialism I associate with, with your idealism. It may come down to semantics at bottom, but if there is some substance it could be beneficial for me.

Mabe in some other thread, to not derail this one. :)

Yes. All settler colonialism is like this. At least the Israeli's didn't kill them all when they created the state. Maybe they would've liked to, less trouble for them today. But they got into the state building affair a couple hundred years late, when it was more complicated to eradicate people willy-nilly and they couldn't conquer the whole Arab world.

Not that what happens today is nice - the contrary, it is most horrific.

How history might have been different if colonialism took place 150 years later. Maybe more indigenous people would be alive.

People now see Gaza and are shocked. How would we see what happened to indigenous people in the whole American continent, parts of Africa, Australia and the like?

I almost entirely agree with that statement. But isn't less confusing to just use the term "scientism"? Materialism is also used in Marxist thought or in the ordinary usage of "buying many things."

Scientism doesn't have those problems.

Exactly.

It's not dissimilar from the US reaction in relation to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Afghanistan isn't even mentioned.

BitconnectCarlos, for example, recognizes that Israel is not perfect and that settlements are a "necessary evil". This would be the equivalent of what a patriot Democrat or a "centrist Republican" would say about US policy in Iraq at the time, in terms of war crimes and all the mess that comes with that.

But putting Carlos aside for the moment, It's very, very hard to step away from your country and look at it neutrally. It's a bit like critiquing your family. But this doesn't take away from the facts you point out.

Once you find out that "terrorism" is not limited to Muslims at all, and that the meaning of the word is essentially violence, then things become clear. And we use this word to refer to all acts of violence on behalf of states.

If someone doesn't accept this fact about terrorism, then one can begin to make these distinctions of an "army" vs. "fanatics" of "defense" vs "terror" and so on. And then you begin looking for justifications for things which lack them.

Like the US got rid of Al Qaeda and The Taliban?

You won't get rid of Hamas by killing it. You could kill its leaders, new ones will come in, probably worse. Look at how ISIS arose.

It's cliché, but it's true: you can't kill an idea. Or even an ideology. You can only change moods and expectations by changing the circumstances that led the people in Gaza to choose Hamas in the first place.

Freedom is an idea. We say that ideas are something that occur to people, usually through some obscure process in the brain.

I don't take anything away from freedom. Freedom is, whatever you think it means. But why isn't freedom physical? I'm not "reducing" the idea of freedom to the brain. I wouldn't even know what that would mean. All I'm saying is that a person lacking a brain cannot conceive of freedom, or anything else. We call parts of what the brain does "mental". An in fact, I think mental aspects of physical reality are the ones we are most acquainted with, because we have these ideas.

But I wouldn't say that the mental conflict with the physical. Why? The physical is just whatever there is.

Physical circles in the real world? I don't think these exist. We see representations of circles, but we never see a circle in the world. We construct them out of sense data. These form part of our innate capacities.

The only distinction I can make sense of for the moment is "mind independent" and "mind dependent". Mind independent things are what we hope our best science captures. Mind dependent things are everything else. But both are physical.

We simply don't know enough about physical stuff to claim that mental stuff cannot be physical, including thoughts. You'd have to tell me why physical stuff would repel or be incompatible with other kind of stuff. The reason I don't say everything is mental is because I don't think the world depends on me for its existence. I cannot exhaust the world by thinking about it. We don't know enough to do this.

:up:

Also true. But you are asking what thoughts are. So we'd at least need to be able to speak about one thought, otherwise we are just left speaking of what goes on in my head that I'm more or less aware of.

Or else, someone can say, whatever thoughts are, are part of what my brain does. But that says very little. Sure, thoughts come from the brain, not my finger.

One thing I can think of, though this may deviate from your question, is to look at some of Oliver Sack's works. He talks about people who have unique experiences, different types of thinking that ordinary people and so on.

As promised, here is the Gideon Levy interview from two days ago. Worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4pPP0wVFnY

Imagine supporting war crimes so some corrupt politician can retain his hold on power, all the while bleating about Hamas while Israel murders children in real time. — StreetlightX

It's not a new tactic.

But it does get progressively worse since Gaza suffers from each "war". Such considerations should automatically impeach any prime minister or president who goes to war prior to an election.

Not unlike the US going to Iraq prior to the 2004 elections.

Nevertheless, one positive aspect out of this carnage is that public opinion has never been as strong as it is now for the Palestinian cause. Took way too many deaths to get to this point. Yet here we are.

But we still don't know when this assault will stop...

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-intercepts-drone-near-jordanian-border-as-gaza-fighting-continues-1.9818178

The IDF added that they it was examining the origins of the drone, and whether it came from Syria or Jordan. It has reported multiple drone launches by Hamas forces over the course of the fighting, including a explosives-laden unit that was downed and “fell on the launch squad” in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing two militants.

180, as to be expected from your contributions, awesome tune. Fun lyrics. Pure style. :cool:

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N4jf6rtyuw

I remember when
I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space
And when you're out there without care
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Possibly

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice
Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you
Who do you think you are
Ha ha ha, bless your soul
You really think you're in control

I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on the limb
And all I remember is thinking I want to be like them
Ever since I was little
Ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done

But maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably

Well, well. I may have cited too soon:

The Israeli army said that a siren had sounded in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, and that they were investigating.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-bombs-home-of-hamas-chief-after-heavy-rocket-barrages-target-tel-aviv-1.9812903

Man, this better not get in the way of the Iran negotiations. That would be to add disaster on top of massacre. A miniscule glimpse of good news would be most welcome...



There's a lot to say about Democrats.

There's nothing to say about Republicans....

but as for the process of thought itself, this is open to question because in some ways it is hard to know when thoughts stop — Jack Cummins

You're right. We can't stop thinking outside very rare circumstances and even here it's questionable.

But now you've introduced, correctly I think, the distinction between particular thoughts and the process of thought.

Which one is it that you want to clear up on? These are different, albeit obviously related, aspects of thought.

Yes. And it is normal to expect a response if provoked.

However as other Israeli sources are saying, because of the potential Iran-US peace deal, they'd want to avoid escalating beyond what happened:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-hezbollah-has-no-interest-in-gaza-fighting-spreading-to-lebanon/

Yes. I think that's right on point.

It's all very confusing if you think about it. :lol:

To be clear, I'm totally making it up here. But I think this "dirty work" has to be cleared up a bit somehow, maybe using a totally different framework or something, but if we don't clear up what "thoughts" may be, we'll not get far.

Having said all this, if it gets interrupted, then it wouldn't be a thought. It would be mental activity. Something like that

What I'm trying to get at is that an awful lot of stuff happens when we are thinking, if we consider them all to be thoughts, then I don't see how we'd make any distinctions.

It's a bit lamentable that consciousness should cause so much controversy in philosophy.

I mean, sure, it has many aspects and you may want to highlight one aspect or another. But I don't see many people arguing about the existence of brains, for example, it's taken as a fact.

But returning to the thread, I suppose that for something to be called a "thought" properly, it should have a beginning and an end point. Otherwise we'll have to consider everything that goes on in our minds thoughts. I don't know if that's helpful...

You're welcome!

Absolutely it's tragic really.

The definition of consciousness I'm using is "non-verbal sentience or awareness of internal and external existence." Oh, no! Then what does it become when I put it into words? — T Clark

How dare you?

Blasphemy I say.

Fair enough :up:

You speak of Hamas as if it existed in a vaccum, it does not.

You don't mention settler violence, which is not only savage but humiliating in the extreme and the cause of the violence. Unless you suppose that those Palestinans in the West Bank aren't deserving of any rights.

As for "self-relfection", I think I'm more than meeting you half-way.

Yet I wonder if the Palestinians are furious with Hamas as opposed to Israel. Apparently not.

You say that no country would willingly take attacks on a civilian population and do nothing about it. That's correct. It's simply much worse in Gaza, by a lot, as you point out.

It's shooting fish in a barrel. Total massacre. Hamas is defending itself too.

But then we are back at the beginning. If Hamas doesn't shoot rockets, Israel wouldn't need to retaliate. But if Hamas doesn't defend itself, it loses all dignity.

If Israel lifts the blockade and allows Gaza some actual relief, as opposed to crumbs, I'm quite confident violence would go down significantly. You'd disagree. I think it's just common sense.

It's just brutal. So brutal.

Live feed of Gaza from Al Jazeera:

https://www.aljazeera.com/

Now they are reporting shortage of medication. Also speaking of a man whose house was bombed and lost all his family...

Yes. I very much agree with that.

I especially agree with the neuroscience angle. There is very interesting work done in the field no doubt about that, but certain philosophers and scientist working in this area claim much more than is warranted from the evidence.

I don't think you can hope to explain mental processes if you leave out psychology and epistemology altogether. We speak and experience beautiful sunsets, horrific massacres, wonderful music and the like, not of the V4 cortex or the amygdala doing something which plays a part in our perception of the world.

These are just two different sets of phenomena, which are linked in a way we don't understand.

It is basically not wanting to deal with a massive portion of reality.

I wonder to what extent the "I' is able to reflect upon it itself? — Jack Cummins

I suspect that this depends on how well we can articulate such a phenomenon of reflection. So perhaps you'd need some kind of phenomenology that may provide a framework on how to think about these things. Or maybe we can't say much about it, which wouldn't be surprising.

What are thoughts comprised of, or composed from, and can they be reduced to matter'? — Jack Cummins

Thoughts are matter. That is, they form part of the most immediate aspect of matter we can recognize to any degree, which is our experience and the thoughts we may have. This idea of "dead and passive" matter is a mistake, when we observe the world, we filter all the things out "there", including "dead matter", through the live process of matter we call experience.

But there's no reduction here, if it's all physical stuff. It can't be framed this way, I don't think.

At least, that's how I view it.

I suppose we are aware to some degree that it "I" that is having thoughts, not thoughts arising out of no one. So I'd think we'd need to have a subject of experience which is distinct and not identical to the experience of having thoughts.

Trivially, it could be said that without conscious experience, we would have no thoughts. But I don't know what these thoughts say about consciousness, aside from the apparent fact that they are part if it.

They do get assistance and funding from the outside and although this conflict likely increases the assistance, naturally the expenses are spiralling in such a conflict too. — ssu

Some weapons - I believe - used to get in via Rafah, but ever since the Muslim Brotherhood was kicked out, the military regime in Egypt has been quite hostile to Gaza.

Yet Hamas isn't funded by Iran anymore, I think. — ssu

I don't know either. I believe Hezbollah may still receive support from Iran, but I doubt Hezbollah would get involved in this matter now.

It plays to the hardliners in the government, which is most of them, Hamas is a gift to them, because they have a "target" to go after. Yet this target is never defeated. But then they continue to bomb them. If Gaza did not have Hamas, Israel would have to make up a new enemy.



World opinion have been moving against Israel for about 10 years or so. An although world opinion is with Palestine, states are not. And if states don't get involved, the massacre will continue. Hamas knows this, but they also wanted to let the people in the West Bank know that they're in the occupation together.

But no, I doubt Hamas has world opinion in mind. They're also going through Covid, and the hospitals in Gaza are on the brink, they can't do more.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/16/netanyahu-says-gaza-bombing-to-continue-in-full-force

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deadly bombing of the Gaza Strip would continue despite an international outcry and efforts to broker a ceasefire.

In a televised address on Sunday, Netanyahu said the Israeli air raids were continuing at “full-force” and would “take time”, adding that his country “wants to levy a heavy price” from Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Israeli air raids on Gaza City flattened three buildings and killed at least 42 people early on Sunday, health authorities in Gaza said."

This is thankfully because of the blockade. — BitconnectCarlos

But if we agreed that prior to settlement expansion Israel was safer, why do you think ending the blockade means they'll destroy Israel? Yes they're furious, with good reason, but they wouldn't want Gaza to disappear off the face of the Earth.

If they don't take precautions to conduct their military activities away from their civilians then they are partly liable in the event of response attacks. Imagine you're a military commander, how would you respond if someone was launching rockets out of an enemy hospital? Are they just safe? — BitconnectCarlos

Again, where do they go? They barely have room to defend themselves, unless they make themselves visible on the beach or in the border. That's suicide.

Or they can just be humilated time and time and time again. I'm sure no Jew would want the same thing done to them and not except a reaction.

Doesn't Israel have snipers and intel on Gaza? I'm sure they could be much less brutal. A large part of this is just nationalism gone nuts.

Yes -- to say nothing of the decades-long brutal occupation. Apologists for Israel are incapable of seeing the reality. Anything Israel does is defensive, there's no power imbalance (and if there is it is somehow irrelevant), it's all about the "right to exist," etc. No sense in wasting time trying to convince them otherwise. — Xtrix

Totally agree. We've learned from the same man a good deal. And others too, including women of course.

Since he's living in the country, I try to reduce as much emotion as possible, to see if we can at least agree on some basic things.

I'm afraid Carlos would be what is "the left" in Israeli, meaning people not like him are much further to the right. That's not good for them, if you include the Samson option, it's literally bad for the whole world.

I don't think we'll change minds. I won't change my posts or tone, but who knows? Others here have said pretty spine chilling things. It's madness.

Well, you live there. It's a small country.

If Hamas is planning to fight, what, they should all line up in the beach, so they could be killed and Gaza loses all defense they have?

So the idea here would be take all the possible humiliation you can get, and be happy we let you live in pile of dirt? There's only so much people can stand after 50 years of occupation, surely you can see that, even if you disagree with them on all else...

They don't have anywhere near the sophisticated weaponry that could shoot at tanks, much less aircraft.

In any case, there is nowhere near any proportionality in the violence committed. It's a total massacre.

As a response to what happened in the Al-Aqsa mosque.

X is stealing food, electricity and water from Y. Preventing food and aid from coming in is akin to stealing.

Ok. Let me try to simplify this, see if we get somewhere.

If somebody, X, comes up to you and steals your wallet or hits you that's an assault. I think it is quite reasonable to fight back against X. Such an act can be called "defense", I think, without much controversy.

Now suppose that X steals your wallet, your watch and other such possessions in a violent manner. This is still an assault. Ok. You fight back maybe you throw a punch or push him back. But then the person comes with a gun shoots your leg and when you hit back, he gets furious and says he is defending himself from you.

Is X justified in saying he is defending himself from you? I think in such a scenario, whatever else X says, he is wrong to say that he is using defense.

How would you modify such a scenario?