Area54
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Posts posted by Area54
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This is a general observation and, perhaps for some, a reminder.
In the UK there is no such thing as Right of Way. No road user ever has right of way in any situation. What they may have is priority. In that case other road users should respect that priority by giving way. The responsibility remains with the user with priority to ensure it is safe to proceed, not to confidently advance on the basis they have "right of way". Anecdotaly, most people seem unware of this.
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11 hours ago, Intoscience said:
Our focus is on when all else has failed and logic dictates that there could be a small chance that torture would result in a desired outcome.
I realise I must be explaining my postion with a gross level of incompetence. You are considering only the desired outcome for the immediate situation. I am arguing that we must consider the consequences of that action for future situations. Torturing alleged terrorists generates more terrorists who cause further pain in suffering. You are arguing it is OK to cause future pain and suffering in order to prevent present pain and suffering. You are arguing for continuing the cycle of violence. I understand this is not a conscious argument on your part, but it is the essential outcome.
17 hours ago, beecee said:Generating new terrorists? Does it? Conclusively and absolutely? I don't think so.
You are mistaken. Dangerously mistaken. In an effort to be part of the solution you become the root of future problems. Don't bother replying, I shall be unable to see it.
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21 hours ago, beecee said:
Just to reiterate, My sympathies, and moral code lay with the victims of crime or terrorism, rather then the perpetrators of those crimes and terrorism activities, who have set their own moral code bar at sewer level, and see the correct moral stance in the examples given, to exhaust all means and avenues possible to save those innocent lives, whether 100% certain of guilt (as per the thought experiments) or guilt beyond any reasonable doubt.
And to reiterate my position. I find it difficult to understand your entrenched refusal to acknowledge, or - seemingly - even to admit the role of torture and other violent reactions to terrorism, in generating new terrorists. Your approval of torture to, hypothetically, save the lives of potential victims, while ignoring its assured effect of generating more terrorists, is difficult to stomach when proposed by a fool, but it is especially painfull to witness, as in this case, in an intelligent, educated person.
17 hours ago, Intoscience said:All I'll say is, I just hope that if I ever find myself or my family victims in such a situation that some "do gooder" who thinks/believes they can save humanity with a big ball of cotton wool is not making the call.
And I hope,they would have the intellect to consider strategy, not tactics. Naturally, I would like my family and myself to survive, but that means I'm asking that others should die, so I can live. Is selfishness a key aspect fo morality?
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8 hours ago, beecee said:
The following again from the encyclopedia of philosophy Stanford.
Your persistent reference to a portion of the article on torture in the subject encyclopedia suggest that you think it somehow proves the correctness of your argument. It doesn't. It merely notes that some writers have argued the same case as you, just more eloquently - not necessarily more convincingly. If that's all you have - and it seems it is - it is time for you to retire from the field.
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On 3/2/2022 at 8:16 PM, Jalopy said:
Good and evil are arbitrary constants
The evidence is that they are not arbitrary, but rather are loosely expressed cultural reflections of instinctive behaviours. Nothing arbitrary there.
On 3/2/2022 at 8:16 PM, Jalopy said:In the theme of cause and effect, good and evil don't matter.
Contrary to some popular thought, once can compare apples and oranges. However, comparing physics with ethics is less productive.
On 3/2/2022 at 8:16 PM, Jalopy said:The law of the jungle prevails and the winner is the fittest, the smartest.
I sense that you do not understand what fittest means in an evolutionary context.
I see that you are unaware of the importance of cooperation. It is on a par with competition. (Arguably more important.)
I guess you have no idea of the major role played by luck.
Given such weak premises I couldn't see any point in giving the rest of your post much thought, though I would be happy to discuss why you are wrong, if you wish.
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17 hours ago, deepend said:
You know how I can tell you are full of crap? By reading what you type. You brought up Aristotle by mentioning a quote of his. I told you what I thought of Aristotle. You didn't say you wanted an opinion on your quote by Aristotle directly. If you want an answer, ask a question. But I will now answer it as if you were seeking an opinion on his quote. It is a load of BS. Without having a rational mind, he can offer no opinion on what a rational mind is. So he was wrong. He may have tried to do the best he could, but there are aliens from other planets who would be dismayed by what the vast majority of people even today would view as rational. Let alone over 2000 years ago.
Next, only a fool would "entertain" any sort of thought. You can think about any sort of point of view. Making a judgement based on all the pro's and con's of any topic. But to me that isn't the same as "entertaining" any point. To me, entertaining a thought is akin to putting yourself in the shoes of somebody who holds a certain point of view. That to me is getting too personally involved in it. Which isn't a good position to be in to make a dispassionate judgment from.
Don't put words into my mouth. If somebody hits you on the toe with a hammer, it doesn't require any study to know if it hurts. Next, why start another thread about discussing religion. That's what this one was about.
What you speak of has nothing to do with religion. Things like bees, ants and termites have had societies of sorts for over one hundred million years. No sort of religion is involved. And your opinion as to why religions exist is wrong. One of the reasons why they exist is that when the reality you live in can't produce hope, you are likely to seek help from the paranormal. Or in another word, fantasy. I also seem to recall telling somebody around here the main reason why religions exist. It is because if there is a way in which one human can control another, there are many who will try to do so. Especially when it is something that has been done successfully in the past. Which is the case of religion.
Next, I say to hell with "leaders" and what they might inspire their people to do. Because most if not all leadership is corrupt and an ego trip for the leaders. You also speak of going in a direction that make societies strong. If such a direction has ever existed, I've never heard of it. Our society is weak and getting weaker. What most people would call strength I would call filth. In the past 20,000 years, humans have lost an amount of brain that is about equal to the size of a tennis ball. We aren't evolving. We are de-evolving. And it is highly unlikely that any humans will be around to see the year 2050 due to human caused global warming.
Next, you are probably right that humans are incapable of beliefs that are based on rationality. I'm sure the concept has existed. But from what I have seen, most people want to be led. They have enough on their plate in just day to day existence. They would prefer somebody else take on the bigger problems. Also, most don't really give a damn what happens. As long as it happens to someone else.
Religions are crap. The reason why they exist is basically meaningless. They are either crap or outright evil. Evil to the extent that the truth isn't even allowed to be spoken. I know of one forum where it can be done. But because it is a forum where truth can be spoken, it is practically a ghost town. Why? Because the vast majority of people want absolutely nothing to do with the truth. The REAL truth. Is that preaching? No. It's the TRUTH. So don't tell me what I know or don't know. For what I might say, you aren't allowed to hear it, you don't want to hear it and this forum wouldn't allow me to speak it.
"Cult" isn't a crutch. Either something is right or it is wrong. For the vast majority of people, what they think is wrong. So they are cultists to me.
When you mature enough to consider thinking about the comments of others, rather than launching into an automatic, angst ridden, agenda driven, logic free, outburst, you might be able to identify the flaws in your thinking. You might also be a lot happier. I wish you well in that respect. In the meantime I am heading for a sensible thread.
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10 hours ago, Peterkin said:
You could have said what they were, and which of my statements were erroneous. (None were intended to be deceptive.)
I am unable to express my objections concisely enought to warrant further disruption of me by the thread. This was why I proposed taking up the discussion in a seaprate thread.
Regarding deception, I did not intend to suggest you were deliberately lying. Rather, the nice flow of your argument makes it seem more convincing than the evidence warrants. I think you may have misled yourself.
10 hours ago, TheVat said:I remember thinking Jaynes was fascinatingly wrong
Absolutely. Nicely put. Pretty much how it struck me. I would probably also call it seductively deceptive.
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25 minutes ago, TheVat said:
I see a good case for cultural selection, as societies grow in size. Those which deal with, say, crop failures by tossing virgins down volcanoes tend to collapse more rapidly than those which respond by assigning members tasks like meteorological observation, experimenting with mulching materials, methods of water diversion, trying different seed stocks, etc. IOW, societies where a religious hierarchy and metaphysics dominates life intensively may be less likely to thrive. Societies where both faith and reason are allowed some scope will do better and lead to more divisions of labor that allow innovation. Brain architecture doesn't have to change at some deep anatomical level, culture just needs to allow both hemispheres to actively engage.
I don't disagree that one can make a well structured argument. What I am maintaining is that I have not seen such arguments supported by extensive evidence. Where evidence is offered, my impression has been that it was, consciously or unconsciously, cherry picked. This is a field in which my reading has been casual and therefore I may have overlooked many examples of which I am doubting the existence. Nor do I mean to imply that the present absence of such evidence means it isn't out there, waiting to be discovered. It's just that i have seen little examining the possible role of recent brain evolution (last 50k years, say) in the changes. (Which changes, while postulated have not necessarily been adequately demonstrated.) There appears to me, with limited background, that cultural explanation is accepted with a fairly low bar.
In a sense my comments are an appeal to anyone who has a deep knowledge of current thinking of this topic to provide a summary and point me to texts that will address it in depth.
Your last sentence is interesting because it made me think of Julian Jaynes' book from the 70s, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Not sure why you think engagement of both hemispheres would be mediated by culture rather than neurology. Perhaps you were speaking metaphorically?
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14 minutes ago, Peterkin said:
I thought it was an expansion, without going on at the tedious, pedantic length i usually do, of pithier and less inclusive views that had gone before.
I thought it was an expansion rather than an extension. It introduced concepts not explictly stated, nor implicitly obvious from your earlier remarks, with which I was in agreement. Your expansion/extension had, in my view, plausible elements, but also some with such exceptions as to invalidate the generalities. However, it is a side issue and off-topic for this thread. If you ever care to debate/discuss it in another thread I would be game. Just let me know by pm if you start such a one.
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1 minute ago, beecee said:
I've been saying words to that effect for yonks. That's why our ancestors imagined Gods in rivers, mountains, the Sun, Moon etc. It could be termed rational in the face of the lack of scientific knowledge.
Of course now days, science has pushed the rational need for gods/afterlife into near oblivion, although that inbred fear of the finality of death, still holds sway over many.
Yes, it seems a no-brainer, but then that is based upon the evidence we currently have and a particular interpretation of it. Others seem to be able to look at the same evidence and come up with a different interpretation. It makes no sense to me (or to you), but that doesn't mean we are right.
It is speculative, but I wonder if there has been a signifcant change in some aspect of brain architecture or operation in the last few millenia that that encourage the rational approach. I realise the conventional explanation is that it is a cultural evolution, but I've not seen a convincing, evidence based argument for that. (Though I haven't gone out of my way to look for one.)
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20 minutes ago, Peterkin said:
That's how science comes about. You see parts of the puzzle and make guesses as to what's in between: try things out, change some factors and see what changes, imitate how things happen in nature and thus learn to control them....
That's one side of pattern-formation - and it's not exclusive to humans.
Then, there is the narrative side: filling in what may have happened before, to cause the present event and projecting what might happen after, as a result. We make stories, we elaborate, exaggerate, embellish. That's how art comes about.
And then, the most emotional aspect of pattern-formation is wishful thinking, or magical thinking: the desire - so strong that we convince ourselves (not you, obviously; those other people) that we can affect something that is, in fact, beyond our control. That's also a contributing factor in superstition, as it is in gambling, risk-taking behaviours, unused gym memberships and popular self-help books.
Organized religion, like nationalism and ideologies, is simply a way for some clever people to harness all of that potential for belief (the need to see pattern, the narrative and the sense of empowerment) and build it into a hierarchical social structure, with themselves at the top, the most ruthless members of the tribe as facilitators and the most credulous at the bottom.
You have attempted to sum up human character and its causes in half a dozen short paragraphs. I think, in the process, you've formed an over-simple pattern. It reads well, even very well, but I doubt its efficacy for interacting with the world. Put another way, in this instance you've offered a view of reality that is more dangerously askew than that held by @deepend. I say more dangerous, because your view is close enough to the truth to be seductive, but far enough away from it to be deceptive. I try to avoid the seductively decpetive.
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The OP apparently denies that there was anything rational in the foundation of any religion. Yet, as @Peterkin and @Ken Fabian point out, there are perfectly rational reasons to account for the origin of religions.
The OP makes much of the need for evidence to define, or identify reality. (And seems to have reached the questionable conclusion that he has quite a good grasp of reality.) Our early ancestors had minimal evidence; no microscopes, telescopes, chemical analyses, MRIs; no systematic process for investigating nature. Based upon the evidence they did have, it was reasonable and rational to imagine that the movement of the trees in a wind, the changing of the seasons, the blessings of the sun, were the product of agency. To conclude otherwise would, based upon available evidence, have been nonsensical. If the alternative to believing in an afterlife is a life long, paralysing fear of death, perhaps it is rational to believe a religion that offers an alternative. Conclusion - there are rational reasons for founding a religion. (As an aside, Ron Hubbard seemingly did it for the money.)
My conclusion is that the OP knows almost nothing about religion, practically nothiing about how sciences such as anthropology or geology can investigate the reality of the past, and next to nothing about what constitutes reality. Apart from this, his posts are entertaining.
@deependFor the record. I am an agnostic, but atheistic in regard to all the religions I have so far come into contact with. As to cult membership, I am quite engaged by model railways, but - contrary to your apparent expectation - there is a lot of evidence that they really do exist.
I found almost nothing in your posts that was logical, or reflected reality, or revealed an understanding of what your were discussing. I echo the implicit recommendation by @Phi for All: don't assume you know better than everyone else: stop preaching; listen to what others say; reflect on it; engage, rather than tell people how they think and how wrong they are. I look forward to the interesting discussions that could follow your conversion. Damascus, this way!
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On 3/2/2022 at 3:53 PM, TheVat said:
I've wondered if government funds would be better spent buying out people on low lying land than on dealing with disaster remediation, infrastructure repair, berms, etc. I have had forehead slapping moments as I've watched such neighborhoods in the US furiously at work rebuilding neighborhoods that are just going to face the same nightmare all over again in a few years. Both governments and private insurers need to find ways to discourage this idiocy.
An excellent idea, but I would divert some of the funds to charging those who approved and promoted development in such areas for gross negligence and endagering the public wellbeing. You can't legislate against stupidity, but you can penalise it.
Then again, if one buys a property on a flood plain is the problem that one just didn't pay attention in geography class, or that one missed the sginificance of the word flood!
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On 12/28/2021 at 11:59 PM, studiot said:
This project aims to produce 300,000 tonnes annually of hydrogen and derivatives from solar and wind electricity and water
The ambition and imagination of the Namibian President (or of his advisors) is inspiring. I understand that politicians feel the need to focus on the next election, but this one seems to have found how to focus on both the short term and the long term. I hope he and his country succeed.
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The technique used on the Venus intrigued me, as I was unfamiliar with it. Described as micro-computed tommography, it builds up a 3D image of the interior via X-ray examination. Such non-destructive techniques are surely transformational in several fields.
I see an analogy with seismic tomography, which has provided such deep (pun intended) insights into the Earth's interior through examination of earthquake data from multiple stations.
The central message of the paper appears to be that the analysis has been able to identify a source south of the Alps, while the Venus was made north of the Alps, indicating far ranging communication between Europeans 30 millenia ago. The researchers were able to determine that the oolite from which the Venus was carved was not of Miocene age (which could have been sourced neraby) by, but Jurassic. We have the same oolite in the UK, part of the Great Oolite Group. Wikipedia note "It is exposed at the surface as a variably thick belt extending roughly NE-SW from the coast of Dorset up to the Humber." Fellow Britons in these areas may be familiar with it.
Thank you for pointing us towards these interesting items.
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17 hours ago, Genady said:
I'd like to learn what and how this research adds to our understanding of eukaryote evolution.
From the outset in this thread I have had considerable difficulty in discerning what you are saying or asking. The abovequote is a simple and reasonable statement, one with which I can readily agree. However, the sub-text reads (or perhaps I misread it) as "Go on then, tell ne what you think it contributes to our understanding!"
If I have misunderstood you, my apologies. Put it down to my paranoid imagination. If, however, that was your underlying meaning then I have no wish to continue further in a conversation where I have to guess at what is being said.
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On 3/3/2022 at 9:08 PM, Genady said:
I don't see in this research suggestion of a new hypothesis about the emergence of eukaryotic features from prokaryotic ancestors, neither a new support for any existing hypothesis. I see a way of storing DNA in gigantic bacteria.
That is an interesting observation, but it fails to answer my question. I wasn't asking about any novel hypothesis. All can infer from your post is that you do not think this research adds anything to our understanding of eukaryote evolution. From my pesrpective that seems a fauly view, but you are, of course, entitled to hold it.
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On 2/28/2022 at 12:31 AM, Genady said:
Thank you. I'm very glad to hear this, because I don't like the sensationalistic hint in the original report about a possible discovery of a "missing link" between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
Although, I have to clarify, this "missing link" speculation appears only in the pop sci report, NOT in the primary report in bioarxiv.
Am I correct in understanding that you see nothing in this research that can inform our understanding of the emergence of eukaryotic features from prokaryotic anncestors? If not, why the dislike. If so, how odd.
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22 minutes ago, Peterkin said:
For you. Not for me. And therein lies the unbridgeable rift.
I fear you are correct. I am reminded of George Santayana's aphorism: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Being unaware of the past has pretty much the same effect.
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11 minutes ago, beecee said:
Yes it has. I don't have any difficulty answering the question, and perhaps you need to cast your own mind back to when I was asking you questions, and you likewise replied that they have been answered. In my case it is valid. In essence stop being so hypocrticial.
Nonsense to the first statement, as I have shown and explained to you already.
The second statement is another grand dimmy strawman. We are not talking about any judicial system. We are speaking about a kidnapper who we know with absolute certainty, and beyond all reasonable doubt was compliant in kidnapping a child, and/or the capture of a terrorist that has hidden an explosive device somewhere.
I don;t really know. Depending on time, those immediately responsible must act, and I suggest that action successful or otherwise would have the support of society in general.
On your first point, I was not specifically pointing at you. I believe it is pretty obvious what philosophical ideology I have a low opinion of. That was illustrated in the justice/punishment thread.
Your second point, what can I say? I disagree. I don't see how you can say with certainty, is does lead to more victims in the future.
Why do we lose the moral high ground? I suggest if it did get the desired result, (saving the lives of innocents) then it would have the backing of your society. Perhaps I'm not expressing myself fully, I'm trying to see things from a practical point of view, rather the philosophical point of view. Am I emotional? Sure I am, who isn't. It's an emotional type of situation.
The second point, No. I support fully the UN edict regarding banning of torture along with my own country's laws against such actions. That doesn't mean (imo anyway) that in rare circumstances, as detailed, that it must not be considered. If a relevant police authority authorised it and was successful in obtaining the desired result, he would likley still be charged...that charge would take into account the extenuating circumstances, and more then likley it will be dismissed. We had a case a few years ago of an old bloke living alone who heard an intruder in the dead of night. He got up, encountered the intruder and after a struggle, stabbed him to death. He was charged, and rightly and morally had those charges finally dismissed. I don't see it as tacit support.
Your third point, why would it? And even if it did, does that mean we treat terrorists with a slap on the wrist? Most muslims are decent people, who like you and me, also reject the fanaticism of terrorism. We have some equally fanatical ratbags in Australian society. We also have a new law, where extreme crimes by new Australians, whether naturalised or not, will have them immediatley deported to their original birth place. That law was established by our current conservative government who I normally condemn and would never vote for under their present political ideologies. On this though, (as long as it is only for extreme crimes and terorist activities) I support them.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10556601/Australian-ISIS-terrorist-jail-immigration-detention-no-country-wants-him.html
He was stripped of his Australian citizenship and had his passport cancelled on December 21, 2018.
Prakash was known to inspire and encourage terrorist plots in Australia.
He also appeared in IS propaganda videos promoting attacks in Australia and has also been linked by the FBI to a failed plot to attack the Statue of Liberty in New York.
Again, even if what you say was valid, what do you suggest we do with them?
I'm not a philosophical animal, (whatever that means) I try and see things as practically as I can and if having considerations for the victims "in the first instant" is taking too narrow of a view, then I really am at a loss to understand.
Also I have no doubt that even those disgreeing with my point of view, would act just as emotionally with regards to employing all means at their disposal to try and save the lives of those victims.
Your opinions are duly noted.
Your disregard for the last half century or so of history, in regard to what makes terrorists is duly noted.
Your attachment to and defense of emotional acts is duly noted.
Your inability to focus on anything other than immediate threat is reminiscent of the young child who opts for the choclate bar now, rather than two chocolate bars in five minutes time, is duly noted and despaired of.
In light of the foregoing I shall try to restrict my view of your posts to the technical ones, which are often quite good.
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Just now, studiot said:
I agree that indiscriminate use of the word 'chamber' can lead to false impression.
However how big is a chamber ?
For instance how big is a vacuole in an amoeba?
Is that not. technically a chamber ?
And are we not a technical site here ?
Certainly we are technical site, but that makes it appropriate that we use the terminology appropriate to the particular discipline we are discussing. The term chamber is not used in reference to hydrocarbon deposits by reservoir engineers or petroleum geologists. They talk about reservoirs and pore spaces, not chambers. Leave that to a paleontologist who would certainly use it in relation to the chambers of an ammonite.
So, how big a chamber is depends on the context. And whether or not we use the word chamber at all depends, again, on context.
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20 minutes ago, Genady said:
They have had the same billions of years to evolve to what they are today as the eukaryotes. Isn't it just another line of evolution from whatever common ancestor we share?
Yes, but I don't see your point. This does not contradict my observations.
22 minutes ago, Genady said:BTW, the article says that their ribosomes are in the same pouch, with the DNA. This is crucially different from the eukaryotes whose ribosomes are outside the nuclei. This pouch doesn't resemble the eukaryotic nucleus functionally. Looks more like a superficial resemblance to me.
Again, I am not sure what you are driving at. I've offered an explanation of why this was described as a missing link - a shorthand way of noting an interesting, plausible step between prokaryote and eularyote. Researchers have hypothesised the separation of DNA into a separate 'compartment'. Now we have a a living instance of an organism with this feature. It is incidental that the ribosomes are also in the pouch.
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There is a perceptual error in the opening post. Hydrocarbon deposits are not found in underground chambers. Blame a century or so of oversimplified explanatory diagrams for that false idea. Oil and gas are found in the pore spaces of rocks (typically sedimentary rocks as pointed out by others.) These pore spaces are typically small, sometimes microscopic. Calling such pore spaces "chambers" only contributes to sustaining the false impression of large cavern like voids.
Hydrocarbons and volcanism are often found in association. For example, the subduction of the Indian Ocean plate generated the volcanic arc of Indonesia and was responsible for the oil deposits lying in the back arc of the Java Sea. Or take the failed triple junction in the North Sea with its extensive oil deposits formed contemporeaneously with the active volcanism of the adjacent and effective Atlantic opening.
Where magma does come into contact, or proximity to oil bearing deposits these are going to be cooked. They are not going to flow into and be erupted along with the magma.
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3 minutes ago, Genady said:
What do they mean when they call an extant organism a "missing link"?
It contains features that link seperate species, or families, or - as in this case - domains. Bacteria don't have cell nuclei. Their DNA is distrbuted throughout the cell. This example has the DNA restricted to a membrane encase pouch. That is plausibly a step through which life passed in moving from prokaryotes (no nuclei) to eukaryotes (nuclei). i.e. a missing link.
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Exiobiology and Alien life:
in Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology
Posted
(Emphasis added)
Or that we should be paying more attention to the possibility of panspermia.
Until we have established, with a high degree of confidence, one or more plausible paths from pre-biotic to primitive cell, then any alleged estimate of probability for abiogenesis remains a wild-assed guess. I am not saying we shouldn't make wild assed guesses. They are entertaining and can inform future research, but we should remember they are just wild-assed guesses.