TheVat

The brain is not a computational machine, if we are speaking of a Turing machine. A TM cannot decide whether or not to perform a computation. A brain can. However, if we broaden the meaning of computational machine to include AI neural nets, which can learn and grow and change the rules and even self-program more in the manner of a biological brain, then maybe the brain could be equated to one. While I don't subscribe to Penrose's quantum microtubule theory, I think he does argue convincingly that some cognitive functions of a brain are non algorithmic. There are approximations and holistic insights from a brain that do not seem reducible to algorithms. While the human brain can perform algorithms, it is an adaptive entity that resides in a biosphere which is not algorithmic. Novel adaptations and inventions do not proceed algorithmically. If you want to dig deeper, look at the formal concept of affordances in object-oriented programming. And why some cognitive scientists do not believe formal affordances can succeed in object representation. Worth a google - out of time here. Back later.

The stamp graphic is doubly clever in that it also has the colors of the composition roughly in the same motif as the country's flag.

Cacao beans are the seed of a cacao fruit. Which makes them a nut. Since it is part of a tree and contains the template for another tree, and a tree is a plant, one could say loosely that it's a vegetable. Nutritional guilt problem solved! There is the further question of whether or not chocolate rabbits count as meat.

Chocolate contains water. It will sweat if moved quickly to a warm environment.

Well, Russia has a lot of tactical nukes, the lower yield bombs that some in Russia seem to think are less morally reprehensible and could be used on a battlefield or to take out a hardened military target. Putin and others have made some thinly veiled threats that such nukes might be used if they perceive a threat to Russia, say anything poised to cross its borders or flyovers by hostile aircraft or, for all I can tell, switching the dinner fork and the salad fork at Vlad's table setting. As @MSC suggests, not much reason to be fazed by the latest bit of nuclear bluster directed at Finland, given that tactical nukes move around easily and there are already a couple thousand that can be lobbed most anyplace in Europe. It's not clear to me what was on the Moskva from media reports.

From a CNN report: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/13/world/interstellar-meteor-discovery-scn/index.html "Dr. Joel Mozer, the Chief Scientist of Space Operations Command, the United States Space Force service component of U.S. Space Command, reviewed analysis of additional data available to the Department of Defense related to this finding. Dr. Mozer confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory," wrote Shaw in the letter. Siraj had moved onto other research and almost forgotten about his discovery, so the document came as a shock. "I thought that we would never learn the true nature of this meteor, that it was just blocked somewhere in the government after our many tries, and so actually seeing that letter from the Department of Defense with my eyes was a really incredible moment," Siraj said. A second chance Since receiving the confirmation, Siraj said his team is working to resubmit their findings for publication in a scientific journal. Siraj would also like to put a team together to try and retrieve part of the meteor that landed in the Pacific Ocean but admitted it would be an unlikely possibility due to the sheer size of the project...

Yeah, I have trouble picturing the French parliament signing off on a NATO exit. Even with a LePutin admin. The sanctions - someone said they are "piecemeal," - I would say slow and uphill is more descriptive. You have to herd cats, basically, to really turn off the Russian oil/gas spigot. But if we can get there, with good cooperation between all the allies, then it will be game over for Russia. The crumble may be too slow for some, but it will happen.

There does seem a lot of argument generated by the vagueness of the word religion. As someone who leans toward the nontheistic spiritual life, I would say religion is just a formalized system to attain spiritual calm and contentment through some form of existential awareness. That awareness can be directed towards a postulated deity (and one's relation to it) or it can be directed towards enhancing consciousness and understanding of one's own mental structure and how it interacts with reality. Some forms of religion are directed towards developing particular virtues, whereas others are directed towards a general enlightenment (from which, it is presumed, a virtuous life follows). Marxism seems more to be a political philosophy with a great deal to say about social class and economics and how wealth is distributed, how labor is valued, and how capital is concentrated. I would have to ask if Marx would have ever wanted to see "ism" following his last name. He did not seem to be much for religion, at least the forms of religion he saw around him in 19th century Europe.

Krishnamurthi, the Indian philosopher (sometimes considered a "scientific guru") developed the idea that there could be a scientific sort of spirituality, based on introspective observation and mental experiments. He was somewhat exceptional, among spiritual teachers, in his scrutiny of what constituted belief. Here's an article about him. Some of his ideas remind me of Unitarians a bit. http://www.journal.kfionline.org/issue-1/krishnamurti-and-the-scientific-mind#:~:text=Krishnamurti's approach to religious questions,and recommend experimentation and investigation.

BTW, a question: are Ukrainian and Russian best described as dialects or as two distinct languages? I know a tiny bit of Russian and will hear a Ukrainian say something that I recognize and which sounds pretty much like Russian. Ne znayu...

Please stop, guys.

I was misled by Titanic on Kate Winslet's hair. She looked absolutely stunning as a redhead, but is in fact a natural blonde. And I sense that we have departed from evolutionary biology and quietly moved on to the hotties section of the forum. 😛

The mayor has added a homeless man to his city's Homelessness Task Force. Does he have a prejudicial sentiment towards domiciled people by making this selection? Or did he just want a particular perspective and life experience to fill that vacancy?

A common experience here (bolded comment of yours). I, too, earlier in the thread mentioned her unique PD experience, questioned the pejorative implication attached to "virtue signaling" and pointed out the nature of political appointments. Comments in such a busy thread often get lost in the shuffle, so I was glad you brought some of those matters up, too. BTW, I liked your earlier observations about the falseness of "color-blindness." Some insight I had on such pretense was from a Black woman who told a friend, I don't want you to be color-blind, I want you to see me. See who I am, where I come from, how being Black is part of that. Not verbatim but that was the gist. On a side note - A while back here, someone used the term Social Justice Warrior pejoratively, as is now common on the Right. And I had to wonder what on earth is wrong with fighting for social justice?? Similar situation to "virtue signaling." Just using a term pejoratively is not an adequate substitute for real thought.

Yes. Allele frequency changes in northern Europe have likely been mostly due to genetic drift. I don't think the attractiveness factors are significant enough to affect those frequencies. No intersexual preferences on hair would be significant because tastes are so varied and many phenotypic traits besides hair color attract the attention to the opposite sex. From a selective intrasexual competition perspective, the UV sensitivity and skin damage doesn't reduce fertility rates because most of the harm, like carcinomas, comes after people have passed reproductive age. And it certainly wouldn't nowadays, where sunblock is readily available.

@J.C.MacSwell So why aren't you also saying he genderized the process more than necessary? Is it okay to appoint on the basis of life experiences as a woman, but it's racializing if the sought-after life experiences are being Black? I still don't see why that's worse than, say, "Catholicizing" the selection of Amy Barrett. (Given the Constitution's stated view on religion and law, I would think Catholicizing would provoke more objections from those taking a stance on a pure process). Barrett was picked for her Catholic moral views on a woman's right to reproductive choices. It wasn't exactly a state secret. Think of all those jurists who think the Constitution protects a woman's reproductive rights and medical privacy who were excluded!

Well, he said the quiet part out loud. I guess he could have said, I will makes choices that promote the greatest possible diversity on the Supreme Court. And given no specifics. But wouldn't that draw the same charges and overheated rhetoric, that somehow diversity appointments are "racializing" the process? In America, race happens to be a strong marker for diversity, so how can it be avoided or shushed when mentioned? This isn't Belgium, where diversity might be found in appointment of both Walloons and Flemings, people who are not visually distinct.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. I think the confusion here is in viewing the individual appointment rather than the whole body of the Court. The goal of appointment is to keep political promises and, for presidents who believe in the genuine virtue of diverse backgrounds, to keep and to further a broad demographic. If the body of the Court is largely white, then that demographic is well covered. Done. And if people who interact heavily with the American legal system, like Blacks (a category that is both an ethnicity and an experience), see someone who looks like them on the highest court, that adds to its credibility as representing the whole nation. Appointing KJB is to assign value to her experience of being Black in America - driving while black, shopping while black, buying housing while black, interacting with law enforcers while black, etc. Appointment simply recognizes being Black as a particular qualifying experience. (See my analogy of the mayor putting a homeless person on a task force to help the homeless - the mayor isn't being "anti-domiciled")

Just for clarity here, why are we calling the unidentified Black woman in Koti's video "Jordan Petersen"? And where is the quote from the pale Canadian guy named Jordan Peterson which apparently promoted Koti to start this thread?? I see no quote or link to him.

And you have the intellectual integrity to acknowledge things you didn't know. A rare quality on online forums. I gather a lot of people didn't know about the South Carolina deal. Even if Biden hadn't made that promise, I am having trouble with the term virtue signaling. If a politician sees a course of action as the virtuous one, isn't it part of being a public figure and providing leadership to promote that course of action and its virtues? This term strikes me as putting a pejorative twist on a positive thing without really revealing any new information. (like Social Justice Warrior)

Plus one, and a belly laugh. Admittedly, I was already chuckling over Sergei's use of the phrase "decisive proof."

I am not sure what the confusion here is. Biden needed South Carolina in the primaries. While campaigning there, he courted the Black vote and promised he would select a Black woman for SCOTUS (per the NON-HIRING process described here half a dozen times, would our Polish member please acquaint themselves with the appointment concept) for the purpose of adding a new demographic to the high court. He wasn't virtue signalling, he was making a political deal in order to gain votes and win a key primary state (which then turned the tide of a race where he had been trailing). It wasn't a sly signal, it was saying the intent with a bullhorn, in advance of taking office so voters would understand what they were getting. Then he won by 7 million votes.

Red hair is more correlated with very low melanin than other shades. Redheads are most prone to melanoma and other kinds of skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, squamous, etc.) and sunburn very easily. The only way I can see values of attractiveness attached to this would be in cultures where people favor men looking outdoorsy and tanned and thus where more melanin would help to having that look. There was more tolerance for women having pale skin and culturally embedded steps for them to avoid sun - divisions of labor, sun bonnets and other protective hat fashions, parasols, etc. So a redheaded female would fare better, than a male who due to his very pale skin would spend a lot of time looking parboiled and peeling. At higher latitudes, however, this UV tolerance factor could flip over, as redheads can better absorb vitamin D from the weak sunlight and would be less likely to burn or have cancers. Also, redheads have a slightly higher pain tolerance, which might be of more use to men in traditional cultures. Here's a clip from wiki on that interesting link... The unexpected relationship of hair color to pain tolerance appears to exist because redheads have a mutation in a hormone receptor that can apparently respond to at least two types of hormones: the pigmentation-driving melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH), and the pain-relieving endorphins. (Both derive from the same precursor molecule, POMC, and are structurally similar.) Specifically, redheads have a mutated melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene that produces an altered receptor for MSH.[64] Melanocytes, the cells that produce pigment in skin and hair, use the MC1R to recognize and respond to MSH from the anterior pituitary gland. Melanocyte-stimulating hormone normally stimulates melanocytes to make black eumelanin, but if the melanocytes have a mutated receptor, they will make reddish pheomelanin instead. MC1R also occurs in the brain, where it is one of a large set of POMC-related receptors that are apparently involved not only in responding to MSH, but also in responses to endorphins and possibly other POMC-derived hormones.[64] Though the details are not clearly understood, it appears that there is some crosstalk between the POMC hormones; this may explain the link between red hair and pain tolerance.

In any case, choosing race as a criterion for a SCOTUS justice is not racist for the simple reason that race, in this context, is also a particular perspective on American jurisprudence and how it has been differentially applied. Nor would it be sexist to select a woman for her legal perspective on jurisprudence and women. (RBG) Or a conservative Catholic (Alioto, Barrett) for their insights into how devout religion and legal issues can collide. And one of Inow's examples was Scalia, who Reagan favored for his being Italian, yet another ethnic group that experienced legal and social discrimination. It is no different than a city council specifically appointing a homeless person to a task force on reducing homelessness. We don't tear our hair and cry that it's virtue signaling when we understand the common sense reasons driving it. We know there will also be people with comfy homes on the task force, too, and this new appointee is bringing some further balance and unique perspectives.