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Delta1212

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Posts posted by Delta1212

  1. 7 minutes ago, MigL said:

    Maybe war hero was the wrong choice of words, but he was an integral, if not major, part of US history.
    You can't take down a statue and 'remove' him from that history.
    Just like you can't ban/censor previously produced works of literature because they offend modern sensibilities.

    And geordief, are you suggesting that anyone who disagrees with a certain ideology should have his rights removed ?
    How very Nazi of you.
    ( no, I don't downvote for opposing viewpoints, nor do I call people dumb )

     

    You can teach history without erecting monuments to people who should not be celebrated.

     

    Stick it in a museum. Maybe a historical battlefield. There are places to teach history and places to celebrate history. And some history belongs exclusively in the "teaching" circle of that particular Venn diagram.

  2. Do the people interviewed in this documentary sound like their primary motivation was defending a Southern War Hero's statue: 

     

     

    What "Southern heritage" apparently looks like:

    nazis.jpg

    It's all equivocation meant to provide cover for Nazis. Full stop.

  3. 1 hour ago, tar said:

    Not that we don't sacrifice for those we don't know, but the drive, the emotional reaction, the rational decision is to protect yourself and those you include in your feeling of self.

    So there is my coping with death strategy.  It is OK if I die if my daughter lives.  Or my second cousin...or my 4th cousin thrice removed, or anyone of my race, or anyone of my species, or anyone of my phylum, or anyone of my kingdom...because then a little of the pattern I spent my life protecting, will still be surviving.

    What makes that the rational decision?

  4. 5 hours ago, Ten oz said:

    Early in Trump's Presidency he directed followers to tune into a specific night Jeanine Pirro's show and she opened that show by calling on Paul Ryan to stepdown due to the initial healthcare vote failures.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/politics/jeanine-pirro-paul-ryan-trump.html

     

    Whether by random happen stance or collusion it seems Russia cyber attacks continue to align with Trump. I do not preted to know what the long term play is for Russia but it seems bothRussia and Trump would like to see Paul Ryan replaced as speaker of house.

    Whether it is collusion or not, I doubt it is random happenstance. Trump is an enraged bull in a china shop. Undermining anyone who could potentially corral him or ruling up and fostering paranoia amongst those he works with in some capacity is a pretty straightforward way of keeping the trainwreck going.

     

    He doesn't need to be actively cooperating if you can just slap a "kick me" sign on someone's back knowing that he won't be able to help himself.

  5. How does that mesh with, say, involuntary reflexes to painful stimuli that don't even reach the brain before inducing a response as in, e.g. jerking your hand away from a hot stove. You can get a reflex action that never enters the conscious mind.

     

    Given that, consciousness can't simply be "the survival instinct" as the two exist separately and independently.

  6.  

    I wonder if the story lines will merge in the end. After all, the Azor Ahai prophecy is undoubtedly foreshadowed in many events during the previous seasons and throughout the books.

     

    There's still plenty of questions which appear to be red herrings, but I'm sure they'll have an impact on the finale.

     

    For example:

     

    What's with the sorcerer in the box? Varys promised Tyrion's revenge would be his because of it. Varys admits hearing a voice in the flames. Kinvara reminded him, alluding she knows what was said.

     

    Did Cerio Forel pick up a sword from a fallen Lannister guard? Ned foresaw Arya fighting during her training with clashing steel in the audio. When Arya fled their confrontation with Meryn Trant, there was also audio of clashing steel, even though his wooden practice sword was in fragments? He is from Braavos, as is Jacn H'gar. One in the same? Jac'n was in Kings Landing at the time and a captive to the Night's Watch on her escort to Winterfell.

     

    Why did Joffrey threaten to bed Sansa on her wedding night with Tyrion, merely because the Mad King did so? In the books, Aerys had a thing for Joanna Targareyn. Likewise, one of the first things Cersei said to Ned Stark was the Targareyns married brothers and sisters to keep bloodlines pure. Jamie and Cersei are incestuous lovers and parents, born within a year of Joanna's marriage to Tywin. Could they be Targaryens? Widow's Wail (Valerian sword forged from Ice, Ned Starks longsword) and (Mad) Queen/Lover slayer? Jamie Azor Ahai?

     

    Bran has greensight and is a powerful warg. John Snow wargs Ghost. Arya warg'd birds at Ned's execution in the Sept of Baylor She also alluded to seeing Ned die to Yoren at the Crossroads, even though he covered her eyes. Rikkon said he saw Ned die from his bed in Winterfell. Sansa has not warg'd. Sansa and Jon never saw eye to eye, as children or after the Battle of the Bastards. Why?

     

    Why does Gendry not have a bastard surname, when clearly every other bastard does? Is he Cersei's "black of hair" son that she alluded to in Bran's room in Season 1, yet Maggie the Frog's prophecy claims she would have three children, but the king twenty? She never returned to the crypt and even morbidly pondered Myrcella decomposing after internment.

     

    In an interview, GRRM was asked if Dany and Jon Snow were the same age. He replied she's "about nine months younger". After the Howland Reed killed Arthur Dayne, Ned Stark returned his sword to it's rightful house in Starfall. Ashara Dayne (Quaithe?) purportedly cast herself from the tower after miscarrying her child. Dany is Ned Stark's daughter? The Daynes have Targaryn blood. Did she also flee to Essos after Roberts Rebellion knowing he marked Targareyns for death? Though honor bound and loyal to the king, Ned openly defied Robert assassinating Dany. Quaithe certainly has an interest (albeit riddled) in Dany's well being.

     

    John Arryn's quote, "the seed is strong" has not borne out. Sweet Robin is neither strong, nor blond of hair. Littlefinger's son, perhaps?

     

    Gilly's baby? Born of salt and smoke, under a bleeding star? A prince promised to the Night's King?

     

    Stannis still alive? Melissandra might have been right all along. Before Brienne swung her sword, Stannis said "Do your duty". Her duty is to Starks, not Renly, yet she failed both.

     

    Why is Beric Dondarian resurrectable, six times? Thoros of Myr and Melissandra have no idea why. No other red priests/esses mention him either. He was loyal to Ned Stark.

     

    Why is Bron's house mentioned but not named? Every other noble house is introduced and identified as such. He sang the Rains of Castamere before the Battle of the Blackwater. House Reyne, perhaps?

     

    What did Podrick do to those whores, that he was refunded? :wub:

     

    Two things: "The seed is strong" was about Robert's children, not Jon Arryn's. All of his bastards had black hair no matter what their mother's hair color, but all of "his" children with Cersei had blond hair. Robin doesn't really enter into it.

     

    Also, Bronn's House never gets brought up because he doesn't have one, as far as we know. He was just a mercenary Tyrion hired, not a member of the nobility.

  7.  

     

    They do when the distinction needs to be made.

     

    For example, there was some recent research that suggested that there was no singularity (not surprising) and so the universe is infinitely old. This was softened headlined in the press as "No Big Bang". One very good article describing the research drew a clear distinction between the big bang meaning some "initial event" (for which we have zero evidence) and the big bang model that explains the ongoing expansion from an early hot dense state (for which we have a ton of evidence).

     

     

    Most physicists disagree.

     

     

    There is no physical mechanism for that. That is why the discovery of the CMB was the end of the various steady-state models.

     

     

    Stop posting meaningless nonsense and stick to asking questions.

     

    "Space coming into existence expands space" That is completely tautological. Space increasing/expanding between things means exactly the same as "space coming into existence". So you are saying that expanding space causes expanding space.

     

    And galaxies do not free fall away from each other. And the speed of separation is only 3c at one specific distance.

     

     

    Making up stuff is not the same as coming to a scientific conclusion based on all the evidence. If you did that, you would end up with a model like the big bang model.

     

     

    Alfven was wrong about several things including this and the nature of quasars.

     

     

    Although Hoyle never acknowledged it, this model was destroyed by the existence of the CMB. No one has come up with an alternative explanation for a perfect black body spectrum with that temperature.

     

     

     

    The odd thing is, I have seen very few religious people embrace the big bang model as proof of their creation story. Some seem to accept it as good science, some don't care either way, and a few reject it as some sort of atheist plot. I'm not sure I follow the logic of the latter view.

    You know, it's actually kind of weird that more deeply religious don't embrace The Big Bang as part of their creation story. The surface of last scattering practically represents a literal "Let there be light!" moment.

  8. I posted that machines do not and cannot. I mean that as a reference to the here and now. I am not implying they never will. The camparison made was a fly to laptop and not theoretical AI tech. I personnally do believe conscious machines will eventual exist.

     

    Ok, it sounded like you were making a blanket statement about anything that could be made by man rather than anything that man has already created. In which case, I agree.

  9. What does the treatment of the soldier's family have to do with the treatment of this guy? Which of their rights do you think the government violated?

     

    I mean, yeah, I'm more sympathetic to that family than his family, but so what? Civil rights aren't a popularity contest.

     

    So I agree, he should have been arrested and extradited for murder and then tried on the evidence.

     

    But that's not what happened. And because it's not what happened, it fundamentally undermined the ability to bring justice in this case. The fuck-up is not giving restitution to the person whose rights were violated. The fuck up that robbed the family of the slain soldier of a just and fair resolution was the decision by our governments to chuck the rule book that we have created for achieving that outcome when in came to this person in the first place.

  10. If rights don't apply to despicable people then they aren't really rights.

     

    I'm of the opinion that if you establish that a government is allowed to violate the rights of citizens who are obviously guilty, or who are guilty of particularly heinous crimes, that you have effectively eliminated the protections they are supposed to provide for everyone.

     

    As such, I would hold that restitution for a violation of rights needs to come before and regardless of whatever else the person has done or been accused of doing. This can sometimes lead to outcomes I don't particularly like or benefit people I do not like, but I suspect I would like rather less living under a government that was allowed to develop for any significant period without being forced to treat that as a red line that it should not cross.

  11. I agree with th elast part of your post but not the highlighted portion. A fly is a product of natural biology. Every individual fly must survive independently and be successful enough to reproduce. A fly grows to be and lives 100% autonomously. They have been doing so for millions of generations. Your laptap is not autonomous and does nothing independently. Even machines we (humans) build to mimic autonomous behavior do not have the ability to grow, develop, adapt, change, and etc as a fly does.

     

    People absolutely project magical properties on to consciousness in my opinion. One error is separating the mind from the body. The two are one in the same in that both are required for awareness of any kind. As such an man made device, even one designed to be autonomous, cannot oversee their own physical changes, reproduction, and adaptation.

    Why couldn't they?

  12. As I just said, strange loops are a necessary but not sufficient condition for consciousness, so no.

     

    Also as I said, you will have to read Hofstadter's I Am A Strange Loop (and Gödel, Escher, Bach) to make your own determination of whether or not his model is up to your snuff. What have you got to lose? :)

    I am, in fact, familiar with it, and I don't think that it offers an actual explanation as to what consciousness is, where exactly it comes from or why it exists at all, and it certainly doesn't do so in a scientific way, which requires a testable model of consciousness in order to qualify.

  13. Are all self-referential systems conscious then?

     

    I'm asking not for the mathematics of self-referential systems (i.e. Strange loops) but for a mathematical model of consciousness based on the math of strange loops that gives testable and accurate predictions about consciousness.

     

    Without that, we don't "know" consciousness is a strange loop, nor does consciousness being "a strange loop" tell us anything particularly useful about what consciousness is. It's just one neat idea among many.

  14. Hofstadter points out that there are levels of consciousness and that we humans acknowledge and adjudge them according to personal perceptions. Most folks don't hesitate to stick a worm on a hook whereas sticking a dolphin on a hook would be verboten. Perceptions being what they are, there is a wide latitude in our judgments, but they are based on the idea of a continuum of consciousness.

     

    Hofstadter defines the experience of consciousness as a 'strange loop'. While you may not know that or disagree with it, it is not true to say that the definition does not exist.

    Empirical evidence that consciousness is a strange loop?

     

    Can you use the definition of a strange loop to tell whether something definitely is or isn't conscious? Can you even use it to give an accurate probability of whether something is conscious? Is there a mathematical model that describes the process by which consciousness arises based on it being a strange loop?

  15. And what if you chose to do this over and over and over? At what point is it your own fault for continuing to chose me to represent you?

    If you keep doing it, and I keep picking you to be my representative then it's my own fault that I'm being ripped off, but it's still a rip-off.

  16. If freely elected officials make these deals is it still a rip-off? While I hating seeing govt money exploited by wealthy contractors other people hate seeing food stamps given to families in need. There are tens of millions of voters which would rather see govt money be spent on bloated arms deals than healthcare. Sadly enough people support the military industrial complex and our criminal justice industrial complex that their advocates successfully win elections. So popular are those institutions that no successful politician I can think of here in the U.S. campaigns outright on cutting either. The lanuage is a little different on each end of the spectrum but the common message is always bigger, stronger, and privatization will or could help accomplish X, Y, and Z.

     

    We have the govt we elect. It is that simply. Trump bragged that not paying taxes makes him smart and that he planned to significantly increase military spending and wants to privatize many more prisons and schools. Not just Trump but Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and etc. There is a segment of our (USA) population, a large segment, that simply doesn't care. They rather see contractors get rich than see a single person exploit a social program. Better to give billions to Academi (formerly known as Black Water) than see a single person exploit food stamps by using them to buy cigarettes or whatever. It is voters who must change. It is voters who are currently to blame for the govt they have.

    If I give you my cow to sell at market and you read it for a handful of beans that turn out to be decidedly not magical, the fact that I freely chose you to be my representative in the transaction doesn't make it not a rip-off.

     

    And if the buy slipped you $50 on the side, I'm still getting ripped off.

  17. We don't know. Full stop. We even truly know what in the world is or isn't conscious. We don't know what the requirements for consciousness actually are.

     

    We are only really pretty sure other humans are conscious by extrapolation from our personal experience.

     

    The question of why we have subjective experience instead of just being highly complex but "perspectiveless" automatons has no currently defined answer.

  18.  

    Do you know anyone that would pay taxes to police the world, when public services cant be funded and innocent people who could have lived there lives die as collateral damage.

    Pretty sure I've encountered at least a few, yes.

  19.  

    It is generally not commented on, but no one knowingly elects governments that want to go to war or destabilise other countries, governments are generally elected on domestic issues. If politicians were to ask for more tax money to be raised to police or destabilise a region to grab a countries resources the average person including professors and drug addicts would most likely not vote for those politicians

     

    Tony Blair is still under investigation for the Iraq war, he is guilty of treason, ie waging a war not in the interests of his electorate. Hopefully the next attempt to prosecute him will result in him doing time in prison.

     

    For a country on the opposite side of the world to alienate a country on the opposite side, and to try and dictate another countries policies is treason, ie it is not in the interests of any electorate to go to war or change a political or religious situation in a country.

     

    For Governments to raise taxes to wage illegal wars has to be treason. Many of the worlds governments or religious groups mess about with other countries policies to gain control of resources. Would it be of interest to anyone to be able in a democratic country to indicate what percentage of taxes is allocated for domestic issues and what should be allocated for external issues.

    I disagree that no one would vote for a politician on a platform of going to war and/or interfering with other countries. Many a political figure has risen to prominence on just such promises throughout history.

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