Comments

  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    It's also commonly known as a threesome involving two men and one woman.Benkei

    Ah, as Macron said to Trump and Melania: ménage à trois.
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    "The pawns, man, in the game, they get capped quick. They be out the game early."
    D'Angelo Barksdale.

    “You come at the king, you best not miss.” - Omar Little.

    "We’re building something, here, detective, we’re building it from scratch. All the pieces matter" - Lester Freamon

  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    >>> Roevember180 Proof
    Roevember180 Proof

    I don't get what you mean by 'Roevember' instead of November. I understand the quid has to do with Roe, but I have no idea what you mean, honestly. :sweat:
  • Missing features, bugs, questions about how to do stuff
    Maybe it has something to do with the hexadecimal symbol in the post reference number?Leontiskos

    Or maybe it is an Easter egg that you just discovered. :cool:
  • I do not pray. Therefore God exists.
    (CC: Lionino,Leontiskos

    It seems that Lionino will not sign up ever again, sadly. :sad: I tried to interact with him through PM for the past months, and I hadn't any answer. I wish he could be back.
  • I do not pray. Therefore God exists.
    A correct written form could be—if I am not mistaken—and this is the closer I got using reason with words and not with logic symbols: If I pray and God exists, then my prayers will be answered. Otherwise, if I pray, but God doesn't exist, my prayers will not be answered. 

    Because the 'consequent condition' is applied to my prayers and not to God's existence.
  • I do not pray. Therefore God exists.
    I think that's what ↪javi2541997 says. In reality, there is no necessary relation between God's existence and prayers being answered, in either direction, because "fate" might answer the prayers, instead of God, and God could choose not to answer prayers. That's where freedom of choice throws the curveball at cause/effect relations.Metaphysician Undercover

    Exactly. That's what I tried to say, but, as usual, I expressed myself very puzzled and particularly like a crackpot.
  • I do not pray. Therefore God exists.
    Cool. Very clear and nice explanation. It is somehow what I had in mind, but I don't know how to use the logic tree accordingly. Yes, it is a double negation, indeed. If God doesn't exist, then it is false that my prayers will be answered. The negation of the latter implies the negation of the first premise. Therefore, there is a double negation. OK. Everything it is starting to get clear, whether it is a valid statement or not, is another subject that I am not able to answer. Yet I think it is relevant to understand what comes first. My prayers or God's existence? Since they cause double effect, they are dependent on each other, but the order seems tricky to me.
  • I do not pray. Therefore God exists.
    The relation between "if God does not exist", and "my prayers will not be answered" is a relation of probability.Metaphysician Undercover

    Understood. But to what premise is the probability applied? God's existence or "my prayers will not be answered"? I mean, when the Wikipedia article states that "the probability of A happening given that B has happened," what are A and B here? Given that God needs to exist before a person's prayers, logically. But, in this philosophically tricky game, it is true that we could state that "when my prayers happened, there was a probability for God to exist."
  • I do not pray. Therefore God exists.
    I like your point of 'a tilt at a windmill', but I think it is not only for deities. Political theories can also be put into that rabbit hole. I can't even think of a better example. Politics are literally a tilt at a windmill.
  • I do not pray. Therefore God exists.
    If God does not exist, then it is false that if I pray, then my prayers will be answered. So I do not pray. Therefore God exists.Banno

    Nice stuff.

    God exists if only I do not pray, but my prayers will not be answered then.

    What about this one?

    If God does not exist, then it is false that if I pray, then my prayers will be listened. So I don't pray to stop communicating with God. Therefore God exists.

    A prayer doesn't necessarily need to be answered but listened, I guess.

    G → ((P→A) ∨ G).
  • Banno's Game.
    Plot twist: I am actually the crackpot, not the imaginary sister mentioned in the "new rules post."

    So, the counting of cracked pots starts at zero and not one.
  • Banno's Game.
    Wait... cooking a Greek Salad...?Banno

    OK... OK... sorry, my bad. You are dressing the Greek salad...
  • Banno's Game.
    but 6 or 7 might make all the non-crackpots become pots that can be cracked.Moliere

    That is probably one of the best phrases I read here so far.

    If only the sister wasn't a crackpot, the only pots susceptible to being cracked were the ones on the shelf. Everything here is very complex and tricky. Who is responsible for the cracking? The crackpot sister or the pots on the shelf? I am starting to think that they are opposite poles. Their orbital gravitating force only led them to the destruction. :sad:
  • Banno's Game.
    New rules: A pot is stored on the shelf. To the pot there are other pots as well. All of them have the same size, weight, shape, and colour. Each pot contains the same proportion of whatever thing. They are located in the third step, so if one falls down, it gets broken. You are cooking (edit: dressing) Greek salad in your kitchen, but you notice that there isn't enough honey, so you ask your sister—who is a crackpot—to go to the pots and take some honey for the delicious salad that you are cooking up. When your sister enters the saloon, you hear a clatter sound, and your sister shouts, 'Ouch!'

    How many pots got cracked considering there is already +1 crackpot and the rest of the pots are equivalent?

    Please, elaborate.

    Something closer to this:

    f(x) = 1 + x
    
  • Why Einstein understood time incorrectly
    Hey, Wayfarer, thank you for giving me a new clue, but I'm still lost on the joke. I am very bad at getting jokes, honestly, more if they are even related to philosophy.
    ––
    Good and substantial article, indeed. I can only say that I agree with Bergson, yet I can't find proper words to endorse that effectively we are the ones who measure time, and not the clocks. For this, we also say that a clock is 'cracked' when it doesn't show the correct hours. But, paradoxically, the exact same cracked clock will show the correct hour twice a day.
  • Why Einstein understood time incorrectly
    No clock requires subjectivity to operate. They do just fine when nobody is looking at them.noAxioms

    Although, I see your point, it makes me wonder why we fix clocks that are not in time. I am already aware of the old saying that 'one broken clock says the correct hour twice.' But isn't this sense of 'right time' something subjective? We could accept that time is something that works on its own, but talking about clocks, it seems to me that these objects also have a bit of subjective interference in their way of working.
  • Why Einstein understood time incorrectly
    Why have you become that cryptic?

    Let me guess. The plant pot appears broken in the picture. But it was in a perfect condition previously, when it was moulded and you bought it. That's how time works. I may say the plant pot is broken and I can be correct often, and I also can say it is not broken and also being correct. Because these two features were part of the pot at different times, and both are correct.
  • The (possible) Dangers of of AI Technology
    OK, fair enough, I think we are approaching a bit of agreement. Money is complex and causes problems, true. But my point was not based on a financial context but (again) a trustworthy predicate.

    When you take a note of £10 and it says: I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten punds. Bank of England. You trust the note, the declaration, and an abstract entity like the Bank of England, right? Because it is guaranteed that my note of £10 equals literally ten pounds. This is what I tried to explain. AI lacks these trustworthy sets nowadays. Bitcoin currency tried to do something but ended up failing stunningly.
  • The (possible) Dangers of of AI Technology
    We (the people) always put trust in different abstract things such as money, real estate, or fiduciaries because there were guarantees that those elements were, let's say, trustworthy.

    I am not against AI, and I believe it is a nice tool. Otherwise, trying to avoid its use would be silly and not accepting the reality and how fast change the latter. But I have my doubts on why the AI should be more independent from human control. Building an intelligence more intelligent than ours could be dangerous. Note that, in some cases, the psychopaths are the most intelligent or their IQ is higher than the average. I use this point with the aim of explaining that not always the intelligence is used for good purposes.

    How can we know that the AI will not betray us in the future? All of this will be seen in the future. It is obvious that it is unstoppable. I only hope that it will not be too late for the people. You know there are winners and losers in every game. The same happens to AI. Some will have benefits, others will suffer the consequences. It comes to mind those whose jobs are low paid... Will they be replaced for the AI? What do we do with them? More unemployment for the state?
  • The (possible) Dangers of of AI Technology
    the more we create the conditions for AI to think on its own and the less we can predict what it will be doing.Carlo Roosen

    And 'the less we can predict what it will be doing,'  is something positive or negative according to your views? Because it is pretty scary to me not being aware of how an artificial machine will behave in the future.
  • When can something legitimately be blamed on culture?
    The fact that you would try to make the comparison while simultaneously ignoring much more obvious examples like the Irish IRA and the Basque ETA (which undoubtedly would be much less suited to support your arguments) tells me all I need to know.Tzeentch

    Americans always ignored the regional and political conflicts of Europe. IRA was suffered by the Irish and fortunately solved by their own way. Basque ETA was only suffered by us. Nobody cared in the world how a terrorist organisation still targeted and killed people because of political issues, even under democracy. Basque ETA members were called heroes under Franco's regime, but it was more painful, violent, and toxic later on, in the 1980s and 1990s. This issue still has consequences today. I wish we did the things right as the Irish and moved on, but no, the scars are not healed yet.

    I don't know whether it is comparable or not. Belfast or Bilbao were not oppressed. Some tell the story of resisting a dictatorship. Well, I can accept this point using my country as an example, but Ireland and the UK? They are full democracies. These conflicts started because of nationalism and religion, like Israel-Palestine, yes. But it would be crazy to say that Basque country was oppressed under a democracy because THEY KEPT KILLING EVEN IN MODERN SPAIN, we should forget this.
  • The (possible) Dangers of of AI Technology
    It could very much be faced with a trolley problem and choose to same the pedestrians over the occupants, but it's not supposed to get into any situation where it comes down to that choice.noAxioms

    Although it is a poor example, as you stated before, imagine for a second—please—that the AI car chose occupants or the driver over pedestrians. This would make a great debate about responsibility. First, should we blame the occupants? It appears that no, we shouldn't, because the car is driven by artificial intelligence. Second, should we blame the programmer then? No! Because artificial intelligence learns on its own! Third, how can we blame the AI?

    Imagine that the pedestrian gets killed by the accident. How would the AI be responsible? And if the insurance must be paid, how can the AI assume the fees? Does the AI have income or a budget to face these financial responsibilities? I guess not...

    Not that this has nothing to do with AI since it is still people making these sorts of calls.noAxioms

    So, you agree with me that the main responsables here are the people because AI is basically like a shell corporation.
  • How should I proceed here on the forum?
    Again, I think you are interpreting The Lounge as a punishment for your posts. I don't see any problem with a thread that is located there. There are even cases where the authors posted their discussions in The Lounge directly. Your post didn't get removed, at least. Don't take it personal.
  • How should I proceed here on the forum?
    To the lounge are not moved the threads with not enough room for discussions but the ones that are not substantial in terms of philosophy. Look at the Ukraine Crisis or Donald Trump threads, for instance. They are probably the most active threads so far, yet they are in The Lounge.

    I posted 44 discussions since I joined TPF, and some of them are in The Lounge. It is not a big deal. It is fine to discuss threads that are not philosophically deep enough.
  • The (possible) Dangers of of AI Technology
    This is a responsibility problem. Take self driving cars. If they crash, whose fault is it? Can't punish the AI. Who goes to jail? Driver? Engineer? Token jail-goers employed by Musk? The whole system needs a rethink if machines are to become self-responsible entities.noAxioms

    It will depend upon the legislation of each nation, like always in this complex situation. I don't know where you are from, but in Europe there is a large regulation regarding enterprises and the proxies. Basically, the main person responsible is the administrator. It is true that the stakeholders can get some responsibility as well, but it will be limited to their assets. It is obvious that 'Peugeot' or 'ING Group' will not be locked up in jail because they are abstract entities, but the law focusses on who is the physical person acting and managing in the name of—or by—those entities. Well, this exactly happens to AI. We should establish a line on taken responsibilities until it is too late, or AI will become a heaven for criminals otherwise. By now, AI is very opaque to me, so the points of Benkei are understandable and logic with the aim to avoid a heavy chaos in functionality derived from those programs. I guess those initiatives will only fit in Europe because we still care more about people than merchandise.

    With the only exception of @Carlo Roosen. He showed us a perfect artificial superintelligence in his threads. But he misses the responsibility of bad actions by his machine. Maybe Carlo is ready to be responsible on behalf of his invention. This will be hilarious. Locked in jail due to the actions of a robot created by yourself.
  • Currently Reading
    The Farewell Waltz by Milan Kundera.

    A pure feature of Kundera is his unique ambiguity and unbearable feeling of... everything.
  • AI and pictures
    @praxis

    I typed the following prompts: "cozy,"  "autumn,"  "rainy," and "ideal for writing poems."

    The AI generated houses with candles and lights inside, which I didn't like. I asked to remove them and generate a darker/cloudy ambient. It was impossible for the AI. This machine kept generating houses with lights on inside them. What a waste of money and energy!

    By the way, this is the generated house. Looks good, but it is not what I had in mind...

    Captura-de-pantalla-2024-10-07-204233.jpg
  • AI and pictures
    Cool! I wouldn't mind to work or cohabit there either. Is it me or is it similar to Murakami's 'Killing Commendatore' house? I can see myself drinking tea and writing a haiku in your AI-generated building –or duplex–.

    No Hitler's paintings but Hokusai's!
  • AI and pictures


    Folks, I would not care to live in those buildings generated by artificial intelligence. They look weird and out of perception, like Hitler's paintings but at least they have a ceiling to cover myself in case. I try to use prompts too, and the result is, let's say, unique. I ask for ten stories, but if my maths are not wrong, I only count six:

    Captura-de-pantalla-2024-10-07-074844.jpg[/img]
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Nor do I think you know what a war crime is.BitconnectCarlos

    I assure you that everyone is very aware of what a war crime is, with the only exception of Netanyahu. Although they are constantly threatening us*, we will keep defending the resistance and using diplomacy—not like Israel—we will try to do the best we could in our limitations and possibilities to end this bloody conflict.

    * We are outraged and saddened that Spain has become a paradise to sow hatred and incite to the destruction of Israel.

    Masar Badil, an organization linked to terrorist groups such as the PFLP and Samidoun, has chosen Madrid for its annual international congress and the demonstration, set for today, to celebrate the brutal massacre of October 7th.

    It is unacceptable that a democratic society allows the glorification of terrorism and the celebration of crimes against humanity perpetrated by Hamas.
    - Israel Foreign Ministry. Holy cow :yikes:
  • With philosophy, poetry and politics on my mind...
    The pedantic and passionate arguments about grammar, voting, with null points given to a piece not considered a story. And so on.Amity

    Sorrowfully, it was a discussion with which I am not pleased. We both already discussed this issue through PM and I promised it will never happen again (and it won't!).

    I thought 1 or 2 points meant poor quality and I admit that criticising the use of Jueves as a female name hurt my feelings a bit. Yet this is the past, and the next contest will be even better (I am talking about my behavior). It is obvious that we will read great stories because the level of writing and imagination here is high and top.
  • Assange
    The management of this sensitive situation by the Australian government was—and still is—pretty good. He returned to Camberra, and the government has been respecting his privacy as well as the previous consular assistance. I think that's how a government should act with one of their citizens. I hope he receives the pardon he deserves from the American government. Accusing him of espionage is quite overreacting.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    I hardly believe it is a question about greed but revenge. After assassinating 42K Gaza civilians, I don't think their next generations would like to be diplomatic with Israel. As well as Israel wanting to wipe out Beirut and Teheran, the resistance wants to erase Tel-Aviv. 

    The Middle East is in a perpetual war zone that benefits a big ass weapon industry.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Netanyahu in his arrogance ignored those warnings and he's been trying to make this crisis worse in an attempt to save face ever since.Mr Bee

    He ignored those warnings, or maybe he deliberately didn't listen to them because he, as a clever warman, saw the perfect opportunity to focus on a conflict with the neighbours rather than having Israelis voice out against his business practices and arrogance.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Even if this was prior to the Iranian missiles, it still shows the benefits of being a wartime prime minister. People will rally to the flag and support the leadership of the country.ssu

    It will take time to know all the truth about October 7th. But given the fact that Israeli intelligence is one of the most advanced in the world, it seems strange the great defensive errors during the attacks of Hamas. So, they can trick the beepers of Hezbollah members, but they cannot prevent a bloody attack by Hamas. Hmm... we will see how responsible for all of this is Netanyahu in the future.
  • Cryptocurrency
    Good summary, thanks.

    It is quite blurred all the transfers, and it is not really clear why they asked for personal loans and then the company transferred that amount to Alameda Research. It seems to me that the deposits were not arranged with good faith or intentions. After reading the summary twice, it reminds me a bit of a fiduciary role. Some people put money on FTX or Alamde Research to do some purposes, but it turned out to be a complex, structured relationship where the loans and deposits went to and fro without a clear path to follow. 
     
    I can't say whether this is a criminal felony or not. From a civil perspective, it is clear to me that they arranged the money with opaque and obscure intentions, and this is opposed to the law.
     
    I now understand why "trusts" are forbidden in my country. They create infinite transfers very difficult to follow. It can only apply to inheritance here.
     
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Well, I agree with that. A police officer refusing to do rotas in specific places because of a biassed emotional feeling is not welcomed. You expect police officers (like judges or prosecutors) to be as neutral as possible. Suspicious or not, I bet they are a small part inside the Dutch police, and again they vowed to go on urgency if it is necessary. They will not refuse a call to prevent an attack on a Jewish museum. No way they will do so.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    They are opposed to doing rotas but not to going on duty. They claimed this fact in the newspaper. Maybe a reduced portion of police officers are not in the mood of guarding a Jewish museum, but if they receive a call of duty because someone is assaulting the site, they will respond to the call anyway.