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Harrison Danneskjold

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Everything posted by Harrison Danneskjold

  1. Fletch: you're right; death was too good for that monster. Jake: i especially like your idea about a double trial, just to be sure. Its elegant.
  2. Yes, capital punishment is moral- either in retribution (convicted murderers) or preemptive action (violent psychopaths; jihadis). Retributively, murder is the ultimate violation of individual rights and MUST be answered with death, out of respect for the victim. Ie: ALL OF THE REASONS WHICH MAKE MURDER AN ATROCITY, MAKE THE DEATH PENALTY MANDATORY (so long as their guilt is proven). Preemptively, a will-be murderer (ESPECIALLY the insane) is no different from a man-eating lion, except for the fact that lions lack opposable thumbs. So in those cases, WHEN there's no reasonable doubt, the death penalty is absolutely moral and completely necessary. --- However, i don't think any other crime should carry such a penalty; not even rape. With regards to rapists, if one wished to prevent a man-eating lion from ever mauling anyone ever again, one need only remove its claws. . .
  3. http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=23342#entry291304
  4. Syria is a little threat. What we should be doing is taking out Iran and north Korea; to hell with anyone who backs them!
  5. Nicky: i think not. In the globalized age, tyranny against anyone in the world is ultimately a threat to us. But don't let anyone else hear that. The left would demand a global, communist regime and the right would demand to invade someone. --- Any injustice, anywhere in the modern world, basically affects us. But we only have finite ressources; we still have to prioritize.
  6. What's selfish about human life, in general? Does it benefit me? If someone were trying to choose which car to drive or where to live, how should the interests of humanity in general affect that? The space treaty was written specifically for humanity in general and i consider that the most evil law i have ever had inflicted on me, bar none. I think that line of reasoning leads to bad places.
  7. For example: psychics. If people applied this context keeping to any number of superstitions they'd drop them all overnight. A gambler who attempts to replicate his past success by replicating various coinciding conditions, specifically, has forgotten how he formed various beliefs. So there's a broader point here Im driving at.
  8. Alright; "reify" was the wrong word then. Thank you dreamweaver. Im trying to say that while electrons exist they do so conditionally, dependent on the observations which allowed us to realize them. Accordingly we should remember what conditions made their existence the logical conclusion because they may not always remain so. Context changes and so can electrons. And to be crystal clear, i don't expect this to ever actually happen; it's more a technical point. Entire lifetimes have been wasted and physical absurdities concocted when people have failed to remember why they originally reached a certain conclusion.
  9. Polygraph tests aren't all that accurate, anyway; they're based on certain assumptions about human nature which we know aren't universally true. The trainer is simply exploiting a preexisting flaw in the system. It's the flawed methodology which needs adjustment; not the people able to see that.
  10. Polygraph tests aren't all that accurate, anyway; they're based on certain assumptions about human nature which we know aren't universally true. The trainer is simply exploiting a preexisting flaw in the system. It's the methodology which
  11. Killing a random stranger is not morally equivalent to suicide; it doesn't necessarily make you worse off than you had been. It is analogous to taking a huge mound of money [hypothetical value; future value] and burning it. To declare that another persons happiness has nothing to do with your own is autistic metaphysics. Furthermore the ultimate value isn't measured by a static baseline; this isn't congressional spending. To improve is good. To sustain is contemptible.
  12. Thank you, strictly logical. :-) For the record Im probably sending my kid to public school, but that's trivial; i intend to give him most of his education at home, in my spare time. I just find the bald demand to sacrifice his mind to the common good, frankly, nauseating.
  13. I don't mean to deny that they exist; only to remember HOW WE KNOW IT. This does merit another thread; directly relates to "objectivist ontology".
  14. But that's what im saying; "the activity we attribute to electrons". You can't directly sense an electron; their existence is inferred. They aren't perceptual concretes like a phone or a car or a house. In a way they're conceptual concretes which must be discovered through abstract thought; derivative of electricity and magnetism. And i just think they should stay derivative rather than taken out of context and reified.
  15. Yes mercury works thusly. Are we reducing consciousness? One doesn't gain knowledge of external reality from hypotheticals but one can gain incalculable knowledge of oneself; including the examination and reorganization of present knowledge. There is no evidence thus far that computers could ever become conscious; you're right about that. But if neurons are necessary for self awareness then someday, someone like me will build AI out of them.
  16. Plasmatic: A strange woman's ass is part of her body and not yours- unless you're cojoined twins. Borderline cases don't invalidate these distinctions but they do demonstrate their epistemological nature. Magicians earn their livings by cutting people in half and pulling rabbits out of hats. If these things were metaphysically defined then their magick would be real. The very concept of "trick" proves my point. --- These distinctions do have metaphysical bases but none are universal (such as locality); we have to acknowledge the epistemological nature of context. Speed of light aside, nothing in the entire universe is truly distinct or isolated.
  17. Dreamweaver: this is all true and Im not advocating disembodied minds. And biology may well be necessary for consciousness. But we don't know that yet, either. We know they've always coincided before but not why one would cause the other.
  18. No attempted AI thus far, to the best of my knowledge, has had the slightest concept of "self". That may not be enough for true consciousness; i don't know yet. But i do know that's one of the requirements. --- Since this thread died long ago anyway: i also think aasimovs three laws are incompatible with consciousness; they're basically a hardwired altruism instinct.
  19. Dreamweaver: don't motion sensors react to and influence their environment conditionally? Don't roombas already surpass the behavioral complexity of insects? Here's my pet theory: what would happen if you attached a supercomputer to such a robot, wired to sense its cpu the way it senses its environment? I think the human brain is like dozens of simple [nonconscious] brains all watching each other; literally layers upon layers of awareness.
  20. Strictly logical: I think that considering the issue in terms of "when" we create AI isn't entirely realistic. I feel the same way; it's almost impossible that it won't be done someday. But still, to talk about it as if it were in the past tense, requires many assumptions to be made. Modern computers might not even be sufficient; what if different hardware is required? What if part of the computer must be living brain tissue? There are so many unknown variables that should not be assumed at this point. And who knows? Perhaps WHEN we discover the requirements for AI the question of whether it's alive will be a moot point. We simply don't know yet.
  21. Plasmatic: There is a difference between one object and another, but these differences are epistemological (ironically the same point New Buddha is making). I got a kick out of the example given. --- New Buddha: i agree. No two events are perfectly identical OR perfectly different; their exact relation has to be measured according to a certain standard. I don't think this conflicts with my attempt at objectivisms ontology.
  22. "your children and grandchildren might get mediocre education, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good." "you want what's best for your child, but your child doesn't need it. . . She may not learn as much or be as challenged, but take a deep breath and LIVE WITH THAT." [obnoxious caps mine] "Im saying that i survived it, and so will your child, who must endure having no AP calculus so that in 25 years there will be AP calculus for all." [final few paragraphs] I reiterate: the twisted little creature which defecated that article is not human.
  23. The bird can't possibly accept something as concrete until it IS concrete to him and that's all im saying. Electrons almost certainly exist but don't reify them; our knowledge of them is completely secondhanded and, if it were to change, so would they. Nobody can think that they don't exist or that the concretes constantly around them don't exist, no matter what happens. Electrons probably exist but could be refuted if the context changed. Let's not reify any trees until we can actually see them for ourselves. --- Rational agents can disagree but not for long.
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