I know I presented a reductionist argument, I'm not certain Nessus or anyone else did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
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I know I presented a reductionist argument, I'm not certain Nessus or anyone else did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Sure she did. She said that society as a whole would refrain from certain activities if we simply got rid of certain individual-level traits.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism#In_scienceQuote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
Simply asking in a polite manner ought to be enough reason for anyone concerned about courtesy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Illusions
There is nothing here to resolve, I was just attempting to agree with you but you insist. :|Quote:
Thinking something is a wonderful thing until it is shown to be wrong by history. How would you resolve past occurrences where a number of angry people rose up to change what was making them angry, and other people joined them in their endeavor out of empathy?
Yes there is that practical value. I think there's a different quality to fear of doing something dangerous vs. paranoid fear of the other. Presumably if we're making majical cures for things we could tailor our treatment to the latter. But I don't actually care that much about it.Quote:
Fear is also the thing that keeps certain people from running into dark caves without checking if its safe, speeding down highways at 120 mph, or doing other incredibly stupid and dangerous things. Emotions are only negative because you let them be, or want them to be.
Nothing. I was quesitoning whether anger by gays is really what underlays the softening of anti-gay feelings in our culture. I don't think it is but who knows. It doesn't matter though. Probably comes down to hair splitting and stuff. Nonsense really.Quote:
They were already angry...I'm not sure you're understanding the situation
I don't know how we can separate the individual from society, since social circles ARE made up of individuals. The littler parts may be different than the larger parts in how they function (nuclear unit vs village; hermits can be rural or urban...) but the individual is the one being treated/medicated.
The paradox is outlined in that essay pretty well IMO. More and more people are being medicated, from children to elderly, as our society changes its views on mental "illness or health" and how science/medicine intervenes.
Used to be that tribes took care of their members who hallucinated or heard voices, until they started penning them in asylums (even epileptics). Our modern systems value individual freedoms so much that even profoundly mentally ill are now left to fend on the streets. And take their meds, without supervision. Ditto for elderly who are isolated and lonely--give them a pill and a tv or cell phone--the illusion of social connectedness without the hassle of having to act like neighbors.
I don't know. Taking an angry pill every morning so I don't get road rage or try to throttle my boss seems sensible enough. Like I've said, anything I do in anger almost inevitably leads to regret. So what would I lose with my morning anger pill? Regret? Not sure I'd miss that so much. But anger is a part of being human. In healthy people, its situational and perhaps the proper response is getting mad. Not sure. But I do feel there would be something missing from me if I couldn't get angry anymore. So while rationally you could say a weakness is gone, very Vulcanesque I guess, on the other I like being me. You know?Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
I don't care how unchecked your ego gets, I am not referring to you as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Well, there's an unfortunate coincidence. :picard:Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
That'sQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
But we didn't even
And then you
Ugh
I'm sorry I tried posting in the serious forum
Unless you're being incredibly meta about this all, and having a lark at me. Which I doubt.
You still haven't answered my actual question, all you've done is posted reductionist, reductionist at me. That is why I made the buttsex crack, see? Introducing the idea that buttsex is sodomy to an argument about buttsex's merits does not actually bring anything to the discussion per se, it just confuses the issue by opening up a debate about labels instead of the ideas. Similarly, though not identically, reductionism reductionism doesn't really add any knowledge to the conversation at hand, just an opinion. I have no problem with the idea of human beings themselves or the societies they form as holistic systems, but that in and of itself doesn't make it implausible that we may ponder their workings. You, in your usual style, waltzed in incredulously high and mighty, seemingly without understanding what was going on. Or, at least, construing the discussion as something entirely different from what I thought I was doing with Chambalayadaladadadalayabahbayalabambadabadiidouja bala. As is your wont. So I asked you for a proof, some argument that self-determined holistic systems must act this way or that, that you have the sacred knowledge of the ancients. You show me a wiki page saying Kant was a bit of a cunt. As if I didn't already know that.
Kant was a cunt. Heh heh.
Kant can count.
Khan is confusing me tho, what with his stuff here and in the war vet thread.
Free Will is also about learning new things, challenging what was once previously considered conventional wisdom. People who have anger problems don't have to take a pill, but they do probably need Anger Management classes. Or something along those lines.
Our Take-a-pill philosophy started backfiring a long time ago. They even make movies about it now FFS, art imitating life.
(Bob Fosse even has his own slang dance move that made it into movies :haha: )
Sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
doesn't existQuote:
Free Will
They need more fear.Quote:
is also about learning new things, challenging what was once previously considered conventional wisdom. People who have anger problems don't have to take a pill, but they do probably need Anger Management classes. Or something along those lines.
Its stronger than ever, good or bad.Quote:
Our Take-a-pill philosophy started backfiring a long time ago. They even make movies about it now FFS, art imitating life.
Wait, you want MORE fear to achieve goals? :confused:
Human Will exists; it may not be entirely "free", but it exists.
That's why we teach discipline to our children, after all. Or do you let your kids run around the house like banchees, eating Cheerios off the floor or other peoples' plates?
come on EyeKhan, being influenced by your history and body chemistry does not automatically exempt the existence of free will.
Funny until you consider that you can just not turn to page 72... :noob:
Would the real-life analogy be suicide? The only winning move is not to play?Quote:
Originally Posted by Illusions
War Games is a great movie. :)
I'm not sure. Unlike a choose your own adventure book you can't quite skip around at a whim...Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
You have to add in current circumstance. Everything anyone does is a response to outside stimuli, past experience, and genetic make up.Quote:
Originally Posted by rumrunner
But that would be pre-determined too. How unfair is that? :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
I saw it in the theatre way back when. Fun stuff. However, I serisously doubt anyone would ever put a computer in charge of the nukes with no fail safe, no way to verify what the computer is saying matches reality, no secondary check on anything. That premise is ridiculous. Ever see:Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
It's basically the same premise as Wargames but the computer isn't like an idiot child. And it's not going to accidentally start a nuclear war. On the other hand, the computer does have control of all the nukes, unlike in Wargames. But it's a fun film. Very outdated today, of course, but what old scifi film isn't?Quote:
Colossus: The Forbin Project(1970) NR
A U.S. Department of Defense supercomputer known as Colossus develops its own intelligence independent of the machine's programmers, starts sharing classified information with Guardian, its Soviet counterpart, and launches a plan for global domination. A frighteningly believable thriller that was ahead of its time in 1970, the movie stars Susan Clark, Eric Braeden, William Schallert and Georg Stanford Brown.
Interesting that several people here constantly bash political science for being "unscientific", and yet spend half your time engaging in debates in something that can't be proven or disproven.
More specifics would be appreciated. :shifty:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Not really referring to you. I don't recall what your position on that issue was. But Nessus constantly harps on poli sci having trouble proving things (true to an extent), but yet constantly engages in fights over philosophy, which is totally unfalsifiable. Surely engaging in research of something that can be shown to occur with some pattern, albeit probabilistically, is better than engaging in fights over something that can't in any way be proven or disproven. :bored:Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Oh, ok. Well, part of the dynamic is that its always in vogue to bash the study and practice of politics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
That it is, especially in physics and chem, where the people need to put others down to feel better about themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Or we can engage and disagree in discussion, and not refer to them as fights.
The point is that there is absolutely no evidence that can be presented to prove or disprove a philosophical proposition. If I say that that we should be striving for freedom and you say we should be striving for equality, how exactly can one us convince the other other than through rhetoric?
Rhetorical discussion is fine, it's fluid and dynamic. Debate may be to prove or disprove, in order to 'win'. That's the difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
You seem to want to convince others only thru debate, to move them to your side and 'win', instead of discussing things without a fight-to-win approach.
Then the end result is based on our rhetorical skill, and that's not a standard I'm willing to accept.
We're probably talking about different things now, Loki.
The "end result" I mean is here on the forum, where we end up learning just as much about our own opinions and how we made them, as we do about others'. It's not about winning or convincing others, but the discussion process over time---interaction matters there as much as any scientific study.
Well, lets not get nasty. Sheesh. Anyone schooled in the hard sciences is going to look down on the social sciences. Its not just poly sci, but phsych and sociology too... Poly sci takes the worst of it because politics is so ugly as practiced.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
There can't be freedom for everyone without equaity first? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki