SpeedOfSound wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:

james wrote:
I am sorry but your response here is utterly inappropriate as a response to the OP
For the dummies in the room the OP included a line bolded in red which subsequently stated

So now this creates a space for the idealist to meet the physicalist cordially over a coffee and
create World Peace without any mention of God or physicalism

You propose a ridiculous reason as to why there is no world peace yet my response is deemed utterly inappropriate
World peace has never existed for as long as civilisation has existed but you think you have discovered the answer
Any chance of it being tested in the real world to see how effective it might be otherwise it is just empty rhetoric

James doesn't start from 'the real world'. That in itself doesn't blunt your criticism of his proposal, but it does point to why you and he might end up talking past each other. We will always be talking past anyone else in conversation when we have little or no interest in what somebody else is saying, and stick to reiterating our own views without incorporating any sense of why we might be disagreeing with somebody else. I just want to offer you a sense that you're not alone with the problem of making inappropriate responses to what someone else has said.

That said, "world peace" is a curious concept, when you think about it. You would be wise to ask where we even got the idea in the first place.

Your neighbor may be pissed that the leaves from your tree always end up in his lawn. You have a choice here. Kill him or clean up your leaves. Talking to him turns out to be a good solution if it is followed up by you taking some agreed upon action. It's not rocket science Cito. We get this world peace idea from our interactions with our neighbors.

LucidFlight wrote:Peace talks, we like to call them.

SpeedOfSound wrote:You have a choice here. Kill him or clean up your leaves. Talking to him turns out to be a good solution if it is followed up by you taking some agreed upon action.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car."

I'm thinking that somewhere around the world, I remember after this 9/11 event back home, people didn't feel much like playing, singing, people didn't feel like going out. But then I thought you know, that somewhere in the world, somebody's hiding behind a rock or a tree, or a wall, or something, and somebody else has been shooting at them for quite some time. Somebody's dreaming, somebody's hoping that somewhere, somebody's singing. Somebody's smiling, and laughing, and life is good, and it's fun to be a human being, and it's all right. And I thought man we got to keep that spirit going, you know, and so we got back out on the road. But I think of that every time that we play now. It would be nice to go anywhere in the world to go and do these kind of things and have fun and live right and not be worried about stuff like that. That's my hope, that everywhere in the world that will happen soon.

SpeedOfSound wrote:You get a lot of shit here and sometimes our fellows don't notice when you have come up with something worthy.

Matthew Shute wrote:... Ants themselves might seem a relatively "selfless" bunch, an individual ant not counting for much on its own; but you might also reflect that, if there's a lack of self-identification among ants, this isn't accompanied any lack of brutal ant-conflict, so jamest's "rot" remains. What's the next ontological error, then? Nest identification?

...

Cito di Pense wrote: Alvin Lee is looking more and more like my guru with every passing hour I listen to your vapid plan to make the world a better place.

LucidFlight wrote:Resistance is futile.

Matthew Shute wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:You get a lot of shit here and sometimes our fellows don't notice when you have come up with something worthy.

If only you could have the final say on what's "worthy" around here, eh, SoS? I doubt that a selfless hive-consciousness is ever supposed to work like that, on paper at least. In practice, when it comes to humans, someone usually decides that the proles are less a hive and more a herd or a flock in need of a shepherd. Surreptitious, I guess borrowing from E. O. Wilson, points out: we're not ants, and whenever humans try to act like ants, it's not long before the cracks start to show in the veneer. Ants themselves might seem a relatively "selfless" bunch, an individual ant not counting for much on its own; but you might also reflect that, if there's a lack of self-identification among ants, this isn't accompanied any lack of brutal ant-conflict, so jamest's "rot" remains. What's the next ontological error, then? Nest identification?

You recently got through telling BWE that an unmet demand to delineate the boundaries of trees doesn't abolish trees: you can still identify a tree when you see one. But now you seem to think that jamest has addressed some profound error, or one that was worth addressing, since he's noticed that if you open someone's head you won't find a little homunculus in there, pulling levers. SoS's brain thinking about SoS's brain, and the way it is distinct from, say, jamest's brain: this will necessarily involve a bit of self-identification on the part of SoS's brain, will it not?

DavidMcC wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:... Ants themselves might seem a relatively "selfless" bunch, an individual ant not counting for much on its own; but you might also reflect that, if there's a lack of self-identification among ants, this isn't accompanied any lack of brutal ant-conflict, so jamest's "rot" remains. What's the next ontological error, then? Nest identification?

...

IMO, the ontological error is assuming that ants are conscious of anything -

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:... Ants themselves might seem a relatively "selfless" bunch, an individual ant not counting for much on its own; but you might also reflect that, if there's a lack of self-identification among ants, this isn't accompanied any lack of brutal ant-conflict, so jamest's "rot" remains. What's the next ontological error, then? Nest identification?

...

IMO, the ontological error is assuming that ants are conscious of anything -

Bah! Ants are just as conscious as I am. They just don't think about it as much.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:You get a lot of shit here and sometimes our fellows don't notice when you have come up with something worthy.

If only you could have the final say on what's "worthy" around here, eh, SoS? I doubt that a selfless hive-consciousness is ever supposed to work like that, on paper at least. In practice, when it comes to humans, someone usually decides that the proles are less a hive and more a herd or a flock in need of a shepherd. Surreptitious, I guess borrowing from E. O. Wilson, points out: we're not ants, and whenever humans try to act like ants, it's not long before the cracks start to show in the veneer. Ants themselves might seem a relatively "selfless" bunch, an individual ant not counting for much on its own; but you might also reflect that, if there's a lack of self-identification among ants, this isn't accompanied any lack of brutal ant-conflict, so jamest's "rot" remains. What's the next ontological error, then? Nest identification?

You recently got through telling BWE that an unmet demand to delineate the boundaries of trees doesn't abolish trees: you can still identify a tree when you see one. But now you seem to think that jamest has addressed some profound error, or one that was worth addressing, since he's noticed that if you open someone's head you won't find a little homunculus in there, pulling levers. SoS's brain thinking about SoS's brain, and the way it is distinct from, say, jamest's brain: this will necessarily involve a bit of self-identification on the part of SoS's brain, will it not?

Good point. Though I'm trying to be nice here. That's what you get from yourself when you realize that your self is pretty much a fleeting category. Still, an actual thing nonetheless.

Selfless thinking comes to not clinging to your particular fleeting bag of memories and activities in an occurrent fashion. One of the fucked up things about being human is that we pretty much know how and roughly when all this is going to end. We can take a stance on what we are and what it is that is actually ending. Ending our lives is exactly equivalent to living our lives. Two sides of the same coin.

I have noticed a softening of my views and my actions resulting from an increasingly clear understanding of my place in the vast physical. Also noticed that I no longer give a fuck about dying.

So let's not get ridiculous about how this works. It's a stance and an exercise in daily internal narratives that seems to be making an improvement of some kind.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:You get a lot of shit here and sometimes our fellows don't notice when you have come up with something worthy.

If only you could have the final say on what's "worthy" around here, eh, SoS? I doubt that a selfless hive-consciousness is ever supposed to work like that, on paper at least. In practice, when it comes to humans, someone usually decides that the proles are less a hive and more a herd or a flock in need of a shepherd. Surreptitious, I guess borrowing from E. O. Wilson, points out: we're not ants, and whenever humans try to act like ants, it's not long before the cracks start to show in the veneer. Ants themselves might seem a relatively "selfless" bunch, an individual ant not counting for much on its own; but you might also reflect that, if there's a lack of self-identification among ants, this isn't accompanied any lack of brutal ant-conflict, so jamest's "rot" remains. What's the next ontological error, then? Nest identification?

You recently got through telling BWE that an unmet demand to delineate the boundaries of trees doesn't abolish trees: you can still identify a tree when you see one. But now you seem to think that jamest has addressed some profound error, or one that was worth addressing, since he's noticed that if you open someone's head you won't find a little homunculus in there, pulling levers. SoS's brain thinking about SoS's brain, and the way it is distinct from, say, jamest's brain: this will necessarily involve a bit of self-identification on the part of SoS's brain, will it not?

Good point. Though I'm trying to be nice here. That's what you get from yourself when you realize that your self is pretty much a fleeting category. Still, an actual thing nonetheless.

Selfless thinking comes to not clinging to your particular fleeting bag of memories and activities in an occurrent fashion. One of the fucked up things about being human is that we pretty much know how and roughly when all this is going to end. We can take a stance on what we are and what it is that is actually ending. Ending our lives is exactly equivalent to living our lives. Two sides of the same coin.

I have noticed a softening of my views and my actions resulting from an increasingly clear understanding of my place in the vast physical. Also noticed that I no longer give a fuck about dying.

So let's not get ridiculous about how this works. It's a stance and an exercise in daily internal narratives that seems to be making an improvement of some kind.

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:

If only you could have the final say on what's "worthy" around here, eh, SoS? I doubt that a selfless hive-consciousness is ever supposed to work like that, on paper at least. In practice, when it comes to humans, someone usually decides that the proles are less a hive and more a herd or a flock in need of a shepherd. Surreptitious, I guess borrowing from E. O. Wilson, points out: we're not ants, and whenever humans try to act like ants, it's not long before the cracks start to show in the veneer. Ants themselves might seem a relatively "selfless" bunch, an individual ant not counting for much on its own; but you might also reflect that, if there's a lack of self-identification among ants, this isn't accompanied any lack of brutal ant-conflict, so jamest's "rot" remains. What's the next ontological error, then? Nest identification?

You recently got through telling BWE that an unmet demand to delineate the boundaries of trees doesn't abolish trees: you can still identify a tree when you see one. But now you seem to think that jamest has addressed some profound error, or one that was worth addressing, since he's noticed that if you open someone's head you won't find a little homunculus in there, pulling levers. SoS's brain thinking about SoS's brain, and the way it is distinct from, say, jamest's brain: this will necessarily involve a bit of self-identification on the part of SoS's brain, will it not?

Good point. Though I'm trying to be nice here. That's what you get from yourself when you realize that your self is pretty much a fleeting category. Still, an actual thing nonetheless.

Selfless thinking comes to not clinging to your particular fleeting bag of memories and activities in an occurrent fashion. One of the fucked up things about being human is that we pretty much know how and roughly when all this is going to end. We can take a stance on what we are and what it is that is actually ending. Ending our lives is exactly equivalent to living our lives. Two sides of the same coin.

I have noticed a softening of my views and my actions resulting from an increasingly clear understanding of my place in the vast physical. Also noticed that I no longer give a fuck about dying.

So let's not get ridiculous about how this works. It's a stance and an exercise in daily internal narratives that seems to be making an improvement of some kind.

Speed, are you trying to imply that all you have is a "fleeting bag of memories"?
If so, please define "fleeting" in at least semi-quantitative terms, because it could imply that you don't have fully functional amygdalae.
Are you fearless?
'There may be other explanations for your poat, but the one I have mentioned above is as good as any.

SpeedOfSound wrote:...

To make a measure of 'fleeting'; let's see.

My memories are not completely trustworthy for one. They tend to get edits on viewing. There's that.

Next they are untrustworthy in that they imply a fixed 'me'. Like a solid ship sailing through life. I attach the 'Michael' tag to the hull of the ship. But I just imagine this sort of thing. Not that it don't exist. Just like there are trees in the world there is a singular form called Michael that probabilistically hovers around a bag of proteins and blueprints for about one hundred years. 24463 days thus far.
...

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:...

To make a measure of 'fleeting'; let's see.

My memories are not completely trustworthy for one. They tend to get edits on viewing. There's that.

It depends on whether you mean short term memories or long term, and how long it's been since the event in question.
Thus, a short term memory is completely untrustworthy in the long term, whereas a long term memory is relatively stable (but not competely reliable.

Next they are untrustworthy in that they imply a fixed 'me'. Like a solid ship sailing through life. I attach the 'Michael' tag to the hull of the ship. But I just imagine this sort of thing. Not that it don't exist. Just like there are trees in the world there is a singular form called Michael that probabilistically hovers around a bag of proteins and blueprints for about one hundred years. 24463 days thus far.
...

It doesn't matter that your cells (including brain neurons and their synapses) are constantly dying and being replaced the long term memories usually survive, because long term memories consist of duplicated (paralleled-up) neural connections, that survive the loss of individual ones. f course, they don't survive forever, and you sometimes forget even long-term memories, especially when you're old.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:...

To make a measure of 'fleeting'; let's see.

My memories are not completely trustworthy for one. They tend to get edits on viewing. There's that.

It depends on whether you mean short term memories or long term, and how long it's been since the event in question.
Thus, a short term memory is completely untrustworthy in the long term, whereas a long term memory is relatively stable (but not competely reliable.

Next they are untrustworthy in that they imply a fixed 'me'. Like a solid ship sailing through life. I attach the 'Michael' tag to the hull of the ship. But I just imagine this sort of thing. Not that it don't exist. Just like there are trees in the world there is a singular form called Michael that probabilistically hovers around a bag of proteins and blueprints for about one hundred years. 24463 days thus far.
...

It doesn't matter that your cells (including brain neurons and their synapses) are constantly dying and being replaced the long term memories usually survive, because long term memories consist of duplicated (paralleled-up) neural connections, that survive the loss of individual ones. f course, they don't survive forever, and you sometimes forget even long-term memories, especially when you're old.

Getting distracted by what I said on reliability isn't going to help you here. I probably should have left that out. On Mondays and Wednesdays I usually say memory is very reliable. Somedays I think it's reliable on Sunday too. Do you See? When it comes to making a fat subjective judgement like 'memory is unreliable', it really doesn't matter which way we swing.

The second part. The ship sailing through a life. That's the important part of this selfless business.

But here again it's all about subjective judgements. I can say I have a self or not depending on which way the wind has me swinging. Bottom line? If thy 'self' offends then then pluck it out!

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:...

To make a measure of 'fleeting'; let's see.

My memories are not completely trustworthy for one. They tend to get edits on viewing. There's that.

It depends on whether you mean short term memories or long term, and how long it's been since the event in question.
Thus, a short term memory is completely untrustworthy in the long term, whereas a long term memory is relatively stable (but not competely reliable.

Next they are untrustworthy in that they imply a fixed 'me'. Like a solid ship sailing through life. I attach the 'Michael' tag to the hull of the ship. But I just imagine this sort of thing. Not that it don't exist. Just like there are trees in the world there is a singular form called Michael that probabilistically hovers around a bag of proteins and blueprints for about one hundred years. 24463 days thus far.
...

It doesn't matter that your cells (including brain neurons and their synapses) are constantly dying and being replaced the long term memories usually survive, because long term memories consist of duplicated (paralleled-up) neural connections, that survive the loss of individual ones. f course, they don't survive forever, and you sometimes forget even long-term memories, especially when you're old.

Getting distracted by what I said on reliability isn't going to help you here. I probably should have left that out. On Mondays and Wednesdays I usually say memory is very reliable. Somedays I think it's reliable on Sunday too. Do you See? When it comes to making a fat subjective judgement like 'memory is unreliable', it really doesn't matter which way we swing.

The second part. The ship sailing through a life. That's the important part of this selfless business.

But here again it's all about subjective judgements. I can say I have a self or not depending on which way the wind has me swinging. Bottom line? If thy 'self' offends then then pluck it out!

Surely, the reliability of memory (which is strongly dependent on the time elapsed and the strength of the memory) is open to scientific testing by psychologists and neurologists? It is not a matter of your opinion whether you remember something (at a given time) or not.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:
It depends on whether you mean short term memories or long term, and how long it's been since the event in question.
Thus, a short term memory is completely untrustworthy in the long term, whereas a long term memory is relatively stable (but not competely reliable.

It doesn't matter that your cells (including brain neurons and their synapses) are constantly dying and being replaced the long term memories usually survive, because long term memories consist of duplicated (paralleled-up) neural connections, that survive the loss of individual ones. f course, they don't survive forever, and you sometimes forget even long-term memories, especially when you're old.

Getting distracted by what I said on reliability isn't going to help you here. I probably should have left that out. On Mondays and Wednesdays I usually say memory is very reliable. Somedays I think it's reliable on Sunday too. Do you See? When it comes to making a fat subjective judgement like 'memory is unreliable', it really doesn't matter which way we swing.

The second part. The ship sailing through a life. That's the important part of this selfless business.

But here again it's all about subjective judgements. I can say I have a self or not depending on which way the wind has me swinging. Bottom line? If thy 'self' offends then then pluck it out!

Surely, the reliability of memory (which is strongly dependent on the time elapsed and the strength of the memory) is open to scientific testing by psychologists and neurologists? It is not a matter of your opinion whether you remember something (at a given time) or not.

Sure you can run tests. But what is your metric for 'reliability'? Do you know what 'your' metric is?

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Getting distracted by what I said on reliability isn't going to help you here. I probably should have left that out. On Mondays and Wednesdays I usually say memory is very reliable. Somedays I think it's reliable on Sunday too. Do you See? When it comes to making a fat subjective judgement like 'memory is unreliable', it really doesn't matter which way we swing.

The second part. The ship sailing through a life. That's the important part of this selfless business.

But here again it's all about subjective judgements. I can say I have a self or not depending on which way the wind has me swinging. Bottom line? If thy 'self' offends then then pluck it out!

Surely, the reliability of memory (which is strongly dependent on the time elapsed and the strength of the memory) is open to scientific testing by psychologists and neurologists? It is not a matter of your opinion whether you remember something (at a given time) or not.

Sure you can run tests. But what is your metric for 'reliability'? Do you know what 'your' metric is?

Simple: the details are written down at the time, then kept out of sight of the subject, at least until the test.