rationalskepticism.org

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?