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Ten oz

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Posts posted by Ten oz

  1. 7 minutes ago, Eise said:

    You know I do not defend that there is a god (just to avoid false understanding). But there are some elements of rationality that can apply to religion, and surely apply to science: namely, to look for causes of what we observe (be it a track of a mammoth, the supposed harmony of the world, or the track of an electron in a bubble vat).

    I have not stated belief in god can't be rational. 

    8 minutes ago, Eise said:

    I still do not understand why you call this a value judgment. Say more.

    It is how you feel and not something you can empirical prove is true. You cannot prove people are genetically predisposed to specifically believe in god(s). Belief in god(s) can be rational but it also can be irrational. You are loosely linking religion to science and calling it an evolutionary advantage. Implying religion has been an evolutionary advantage, in my opinion, is a rather high value judgement.  

    23 minutes ago, Eise said:

    No, it doesn't make them true. But the rationality is a common ground in science and some aspects of religion

    I don't think this statement really means anything. Saying "some aspects" doesn't describe to what degree you mean. Taken at face value the statement also fails to act as proof humans are hardwired for religion. 

    30 minutes ago, Eise said:

    But to simplify my point: some aspects of religion and science go back to the same 'thinking-scheme': looking for possible causes. And correctly stating causes and sharing them with peers is possibly the biggest evolutionary advantage humans have.

    I don't see how any type of "thinking-scheme" wouldn't. Some aspects of all human attempts to understand life and its origins or the origins of anything at all can be describe as you are describing this way.

  2. Much has been made of Trump's mental health. Many faux mental healthcare experts have attempted to diagnosis Trump via typos in his tweets or errors in his speech. I don't think a person can be accurately diagnosed over the television. I have no idea what ails Trump's mental faculties but something does appear to be off.  In the video below Trump mispronounces the word origin as oranges while discussing the Mueller investigation. It is an innocent enough mistake. Trump appears to be aware of the mistake and describes what he means as the beginning or how it (Mueller investigation) started.  Disturbingly though Trump continues to unsuccessfully try to say the word "origin" but it just keeps coming out as "oranges". Trump seems to be aware of the error and continuing to attempt to say it to correct the error but is unable to. He could have just replaced it with the word beginning or started having previous shown that he is aware either mean the something in context to what he is attempting to say. 

    Perhaps it has nothing to do with his mental health and was just a standard slip up. It just seems to happen a lot with Trump and I find it strange. If there is an underlying medical issue it could ultimately lead the end of his presidency. 

     

  3. Just now, StringJunky said:

    But the focus is on sentience. AI is just an umbrella term for processes that are autonomous.

    ....and my first sentence stated that I think the answer to the questioned posed in the OP is yes. 

  4. 9 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

    I don't think anybody has brought intelligence into it... unless you are being rhetorical. If an AI contains all the operating information of a sentient being, then it is sentient because it contains the necessary information. Sentience emerges from the mechanical processes contained within.

    AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. 

  5. Just now, dimreepr said:

    It is rational to believe a positive action can be repeated.

    Any number of things can be rational. Believing in god can be rational. I am not arguing otherwise. I am arguing that a rational position isn't necessarily a true position. The example I used here earlier was:

    Quote

     If my wife texts me at 1pm that she is heading home for the day and I know her commute is only 15 minutes it would be logical for me to assume come 2pm she is home. However it wouldn't make it true. 

     

  6. 20 hours ago, Prometheus said:

    What's people's opinions on this: can AI become sentient?

    Taking the wikipedia definition:

     Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively

    Can a fundamentally quantitative system really experience subjectivity?

    I think the answer to both questions is yes however I do not think human developed AI is headed in that direction. I do not think intelligence, as understood by humans, is a key component to something being sentient. As such I do not think AI is currently moving towards sentience. I don't believe the ability to feel and perceive existence is correlated with intelligence. Very intelligent people are not more sentient than those with below average levels of intelligence. 

    Creating something sentient and creating something super highly intelligent are separate feats which don't have to be connected to one another. Perhaps they can be but it seems to me like a more complicate way of doing it. 

  7. 6 hours ago, Eise said:

    Really? Is science not the example 'par excelence' of a rational discourse? So I did not broaden, but gave a particular, extreme case of a rational discourse.

    No idea what you mean.

     

    This thread's topic asks why humans have worshiped some from of god for thousands of years and if it is accurate to from that worship a need within humans for god. In response other posters commented that belief/faith in god(s) wasn't based on logic. In response you asserted:

    Quote

     

    I think that we are hardwired for religion, and even that it is rational to believe in God(s). But latter is not rational enough.

    'Rational' means for me that one bases one's opinion on arguments: these arguments can be bad, or not relevant, but everytime somebody honestly defends his position, he is rational. If one would reduce rationality to 'modelled-after-hard-science-only', whole discussions would become irrational: like in politics, ethics or art. It would lead to scientism, the view that only scientific based facts are worth something.

     

    That is the context of our exchange. Please do not broaden this out to a philosophical debate about the purpose of science. That isn't what we are discussing. Lets keep focused on this threads topic. 

     You has stated that it is rational to believe in god and that humans are hardwired to do so. It is a value judgement; "hardwired" and "rational". I have argued that your position is relative. That seemly attempting to be rational or drawing agreement from others that a position is rational doesn't make it correct/true. 

  8. 6 hours ago, Eise said:

    So you do not think that the longer one investigates, argues, gets new information, argues again etc will improve the quality of scientific theories? Why do scientists do this so much? I wonder why scientists even exchange arguments... :wacko:. It doesn't help, according to you.

    I never said anything improving scientific theories. You have broadened your position out significantly in your response. 

    On 4/2/2019 at 1:46 AM, Eise said:

    I do not quite disagree, but my 'antfucking' has an important presupposition: that rationality is broader than logic. 'Rationality' is the underpinning of one's position with arguments. Good arguments are 'true' (accepted by the community in which the discussion takes place), and 'relevant', i.e. they support the position. ('The earth is a sphere' is true, but not very relevant for a discussion about which software a company will use.)

    Above is the first post of yours I quoted in this thread. It is a value judgement of an argument based consensus. That is what I have been posting about. Not ways theories can be improved over time. 

  9. Quote

     

    President Trump on Thursday backed down from his threat to close the southern border immediately, telling reporters at the White House that he is giving Mexico a “one-year warning” before taking action.

    Trump had said he would close the border, or at least large sections of it, this week if Mexico does not halt illegal immigration into the United States.

    But in Thursday’s exchange with reporters, Trump shifted gears, saying that if Mexico does not make progress on stemming the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States within the next year, he will impose tariffs on cars and close the border.

    “We’re going to give them a one-year warning, and if the drugs don’t stop or largely stop, we’re going to put tariffs on Mexico and products, particularly cars. . . . And if that doesn’t stop the drugs, we close the border,” Trump said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-backs-off-threat-to-close-southern-border-immediately-says-hell-give-mexico-one-year-warning-on-drugs-migrants/2019/04/04/5fd35dfa-56f6-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html?utm_term=.87763225367c

     

    Should this situation still be considered a national emergency if we can wait a year to act? 

  10. 43 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

    Why do you think I  wrote 'living fossils'; it's just an expression to describe something that has changed little over a long time. Taken literally, it's an oxymoron.

    Right, my point was that it isn't entirely accurate to say something has changed "little" over time. We don't know. Rather it is more accurate to say that the appearance seems to have changed little overtime.

  11. 17 minutes ago, Eise said:

    Of course there is a correlation between consensus and truth. Science is the best example: there the discourse goes on and on and on. Theories are replaced by other theories, that are better, i.e. have a bigger domain, are preciser, etc. And when scientists agree on it, there is a consensus. But in no way consensus is a guarantee that 'truth is found', I think there we agree.

    Agreement and truth are not the same .Science does the best it can but there has been tremendous trial and error. I am an engineer and have worked on numerous projects where the consensus of many failed repeatedly. Any number of scientific discoveries were born from failure. Discourse and agreement does not produce truth. It certainly can but so too can dumb luck or trial and error.

  12. 1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

    Occasionally, I read about creatures that have remained relatively unchanged for a hundred million years or more. Does this mean they have stable DNA or is it due to some other factor?

    My understand is that Living Fossil is a superficial label. It simple means a species looks nearly the same to what we assume it did in years past per the fossil record. Fossils however are typically just mineral deposits and not material suitable for DNA testing. More over DNA more that a few thousand year old has seldom been recovered and even in the best natural preserved conditions on earth DNA degrades over time. So when we read about living fossils like the Coelacanth said to have remained the same for 400 million years that assessment is not one being made using DNA. We (humans) actually have no idea how similar the DNA is. 

    Quote

    Due to degradation processes (including cross-linking, deamination and fragmentation) ancient DNA is of lower quality in comparison with modern genetic material.[3] The damage characteristics and ability of aDNA to survive through time restricts possible analyses and places an upper limit on the age of successful samples Allentoft et al. (2012). There is a theoretical correlation between time and DNA degradation,[23] although differences in environmental conditions complicates things. Samples subjected to different conditions are unlikely to predictably align to a uniform age-degradation relationship.[24] The environmental effects may even matter after excavation, as DNA decay rates may increase,[25]particularly under fluctuating storage conditions.[26] Even under the best preservation conditions, there is an upper boundary of 0.4–1.5 million years for a sample to contain sufficient DNA for contemporary sequencing technologies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA#Degradation_processes

     

  13. 2 hours ago, Eise said:

    I agree. Which is why I don't see the point in even stating it.

    Because you continued on after the part where we agreed and imply a correlation between consensus and truth despite seeming to realize there isn't one.

    2 hours ago, Eise said:

    I think now you have a subtle shift in the meaning meaning of '(ir)rational'. I assume (and if my assumption is false, please explain more and give an example), that you mean that a viewpoint can be rational, in the sense that arguments are given, the speech community accepts these arguments as correct, but in fact these arguments are wrong? So your 'rationality' in above sentence refers to 'argued viewpoint' and your 'irrational' to 'use of invalid arguments'.

    I see no relationship between being a rational thought or belief and something being accurate or true. A person can come to an objectively wrong conclusion while doing their best to be rational. 

    Quote

     

    Based on or in accordance with reason or logic. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rational

    ‘I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation’

    1.1 Able to think sensibly or logically.

    ‘Ursula's upset—she's not being very rational’

    More example sentences

    Synonyms

    1.2 Endowed with the capacity to reason.

    ‘man is a rational being

     

     

    2 hours ago, Eise said:

    I was referring to 'philosophy' as activity, as 'philosophising'. If people are not interested in underpinning their positions with arguments, and e.g. also exclude (groups of) people from the public discussion, they cannot claim validity of  their viewpoints.

    You see, there is an ideal of rationality, which is in very short terms, the eternal, open and free discourse. It is an ideal, which means it does not really exist, but one can approach it, by being (intellectually) open for the better argument.

    Every group exists in the exclusion of various other groups. The free discourse you reference only exist within individual groups. What you are describing has never existed among humans on earth. 

    2 hours ago, Eise said:

    Ideology is more or less fixed, where philosophy, as philosophising, always develops, similar as science.

    I consider the relation to be intertwine. They (ideology and philosophy) lead 2 and from each other. Sun Tzu was one of the worlds great philosopher after all. The Art of War isn't about free discourse or groups of people being open to better arguments. 

  14. 4 hours ago, Eise said:

    Argumentation can only ever bring some form of consensus when people share a basic background of what they believe is true, morally good, and worthwhile. So I do not say that such consensi guarantee truth: but they should lead to what a community accepts as true. But of course that is relative to their knowledge. (But there is a can of worms behind that remark: who decides, on what grounds, what knowledge is?). Still I hope that clarifies the issue.

    I agree. Which is why I don't seethe point in even stating it. All the definitions are relative. 

    4 hours ago, Eise said:

    Yes and no. Right and wrong are relative to values, however, when we are talking about values we can agree upon, they are not just my values anymore: they are the values of the community I belong to. But of course it happens that such agreements do not exist, even in a community.

    The community one belongs to has a direct relationship with the values one holds. Taking a value home and then back out again doesn't change the relative nature it.

    4 hours ago, Eise said:

    To still keep a rational discourse going, one should 'go meta': work out what the differences in values are, and try to find a possible higher value on which basis we can decide on the correctness of an argument.

    The synonyms for rational like logical, reasonable, prudent, wise, and etc all require a modicum on community value judgement to define but the correctness of an argument remains a choice which generally can not be evaluated til a later date. Its hindsight which is 20/20 after all and not communal agreement. Using what one knows the make the best decision one can to achieve an outlined goal is good as most can ever do. Even still what one knows can be rubbish, their decisions can be bias, and there goals may be destructive.

    It is possible to rationally go about doing irrational things. One can rationally make an irrational argument. In my opinion attempts to weight a position's value or correctness based on agreement is problematic.  

    4 hours ago, Eise said:

    That is a way to see what philosophy is: the discipline that keeps the rational discourse going, even under heavy circumstances.

    Among an individual community perhaps. There are philosophical ideas being considered by other communities which I think are dangerous boarding on evil. We most often replace philosophy with ideology when discussing things we consider negative like racism, sexism,  religious extremism, and etc but it can often be a fine line. Ideology is often born from philosophy.

  15. 8 hours ago, Eise said:

    I do not quite disagree, but my 'antfucking' has an important presupposition: that rationality is broader than logic. 'Rationality' is the underpinning of one's position with arguments. Good arguments are 'true' (accepted by the community in which the discussion takes place), and 'relevant', i.e. they support the position. ('The earth is a sphere' is true, but not very relevant for a discussion about which software a company will use.)

    A position being rational and a position being true are not equal. A position being agreed upon or accepted by a community doesn't make it true either. A position being accepted simply makes it accepted. History is full of communities of people rationally (relative to their knowledge) believing things which were not true. 

    8 hours ago, Eise said:

    Again, good arguments are true and relevant.

    Good arguments are still limited by the knowledge contained among those making the argument. 

    9 hours ago, Eise said:

    Many discussion however cannot be simply based on facts: implicit are values, norms, personal preferences etc. To call such discussions not rational because they are not just based on facts is definitely wrong.

    Isn't right and wrong relative to ones values, norms, personal preferences etc?

  16. 9 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

    However, in total, African Americans makeup just under 14% of the population and commit 50% of the murders, which is where the "black and black" stereotype comes from.

    Only 61% of murders are cleared (considered solved). https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/clearances

    Several hundred thousand people go missing per year. Most missing people are located but 90,000 a year are not. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2017-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf/view

    Many missing persons could be murdered most unsolved missing persons are presumed dead. By contrast there are 19,000 known murders per year with a less than 12,000 considered solved. So that leaves the door open to potentially 95,000 unsolved murders per yer. We do not know the race of those potential murders. Most missing persons are white. 

    So claiming African Americans commit 50% of the murder is not accurate. African American make up 50% of the prosecution. Likewise African Americans make of about 50% of all drug arrests but that doesn't mean African Americans are doing 50% of all the drugs. What you highlighted is merely an example of how much more policed African American communities are. 

  17. 7 hours ago, MigL said:

    Sure J Biden is a more 'traditional' candidate as opposed to the more 'progressive' fresh candidates.
    But everything else being equal, we may end up with people voting along party lines again, and even winning the popular vote, the election will again be lost.
    The strategy has to include stealing votes from the D Trump/Republican base, or else you risk the same outcome as last time.

    I remember after Romney lost in 2012 many people insisting that Republicans had to reach out to latino voters. That demographic shifts in the country were such that Republicans simply could no longer win pandering strictly to white christian voters. Rather than seek broader that support Republicans focused their efforts on voter suppression passing Voter ID laws. 

    Quote

     

    Overall, 25 states have put in place new restrictions since then — 14 states have more restrictive voter ID laws in place (and six states have implemented strict photo ID requirements), 12 have laws making it harder for citizens to register, seven cut back on early voting opportunities, and three made it harder to restore voting rights for people with past criminal convictions.

    In 2016, 14 states had new voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election. Those 14 states were: Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

    https://www.brennancenter.org/new-voting-restrictions-america

     

    We saw how questionable outcomes were during the mid term election just a few months ago. In FL and GA in particular it is likely Republicans stole Senate seats. Their is a Congressional seat in North Carolina that still hasn't been decided since the Nov. election, link. Here in the U.S. their is not a national system for voting. It is handle at the local level across the country. Some locations have multiple days of voting, mail in voting, months of registrations, and etc while other have tightly controlled windows of time and locations where one can vote. The process can take minutes or several hours. 

    I think the idea that democrats winning  the popular vote isn't good enough and they must further compromise their position to be even more popular is a losing mentality. City by city and county by county local Democratic officials need to fight harder to ensure voting booths, coherent ballot instructions, adequate voting hours, and etc. Average voter turnout in Canada  was 68% 2015's election.  Here in the U.S. turnout was 55% for 2016's elections. If the U.S. could achieve turnout numbers closer to Canada's there is no way Trump could be re-elected. Our pitiful turnout numbers exist by design. Voting is made difficult on purpose to suppress turnout. 

    It doesn't matter is it is Biden, Warren, Harris, or whomever on the ballot if the ballot isn't filled out and turned in. Democrats win the popular vote and polls show that they hold the more popular positions across the board on nearly every issue. Stealing away voters isn't what Democrats need to focus. Ensuring people vote, are able to conveniently vote, is what they need to focus on.  

  18. On 1/23/2019 at 7:54 PM, Ten oz said:

    I hope neither run. Biden handled Anita Hill poorly and in the wake of Kavanaugh I think it is best he doesn't run. He had his day. As for Booker I fail to see what he brings to the table not already present among the group already running. His policy positions are already fully represented. I don't want the primary to turn into a circus with a hundred candidates. Harris and Warren are both A+ candidates in my opinion.

     

     

    1 hour ago, MigL said:

    What do you guys make of J Biden's recent issues with his treatment of women in the past ?
    I'm not sure about the appropriateness of applying today's norms to past actions.
    People are allowed to evolve with their thinking.

    I like J Biden, and hope he declares, because he has the advantage of being able to appeal to some of D Trump's base, while still having a 'progressive' outlook; but the accusations against him are coming from other Democrats.

    I hope Democrat 'infighting' doesn't make it easy for D Trump, and you guys end up, again, with a moron for the following 4 yrs.

    I commented a couple months ago that I wasn't interested in Biden running. Current events haven't change my view. 

  19. 37 minutes ago, MigL said:

    Are you suggesting that since there was no law against the slave trade, it should not be taken into consideration ?
    There was no law against owning slaves in the American south either.
    By that flawed logic there is no need for reparations; everything was done according to legalities of the times.

    The fact that it was done legally is relevant to this discussion. Had it been illegal slave traders and owners could have been prosecuted for crimes and forced to pay restitution. During segregation institutions could have been sued for discrimination and forced to pay damages. Because it was legal those who benefited never paid any price for their actions and got to keep 100% of everything they gained through slavery and segregation. The victims simply received a reduction in the victimization they had to endure. 

    49 minutes ago, MigL said:

    If there wasn't a 'demand' or 'market' for slaves in the American south, who would you sell the captured slaves to ?
    The Southern US ( and unfortunately, other parts of the world as well ) provided the monetary incentive for the slave trade.
    It was very lucrative, and traders were willing to expose themselves to dangerous circumstances and disease ( at the time ) for those profits.

    I would think the connections are very clear.

     I don't understand what connection you are making? To my knowledge no one here has stated or implied profit was made off exploiting slaves. This is an honest question. I do not understand what you are attempting to say. Attempting to answer it with more questions of me only makes the matter more confusing. 

    1 hour ago, CharonY said:

    While that is true, at the same time, it changes the overtone. While a lot of folks deny climate change and evolution, the discussion has quite shifted from 20 years ago. And I think that is a good thing. Even if things do not happen fast (or even at all), it is not a good reason not to start.

    I don't think the glut of associated research is behind the slow move towards acknowledging evolution or climate change.

    In the case of evolution less people are religious and religion is the primary source of evolution denial. I think the decline in religious affiliation it mostly rooted in how interconnected the world is today. Religions generally have a tight fixed perspective of the world that haven't evolved quickly enough to meet the philosophical needs of their followers. Evolution research hasn't created disillusionment in Religion. Pedophilia, terrorism of extremists, homophobia, sexism, and etc have created the disillusionment. The information regarding evolution has always been available to those while to review it. 

    I think views on Climate Change are shifting do to the hurricanes and floods reeking havoc across many of the states responsible for electing anti climate politicians. The price individuals are starting to pay is making the propaganda less palatable. 

    I am not against a study. I the govt wants to take a look at it and commission a study I am fine with that. I just don't think it will change anyone's mind. The information is already out there. I am sure most Universities within the HBCU network have any number of research papers on the issue. 

     

     

  20. 7 minutes ago, MigL said:

    Slaves were illegally apprehended

    Illegally per what law? 

    8 minutes ago, MigL said:

    Without the 'market' there would have been no need for the capture/separation.

    I don't understand your market reference. Can you elaborate on what you mean? 

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