donnywithana

I was thinking about the right to privacy in the no search and siezure sense, and I was wondering: If the only things that were illegal were crimes that violate someone's rights, what right should you have to hide things from the authorities? The same thing goes for the right not to incriminate yourself. When you do something that violates someone else's rights, you shouldn't be able to defend yourself. The only defense possible should be in the case of innocence. If they can't prove you did something, it should be because you didn't do it, not because they weren't allowed to gather all the information necessary. That leads to another question. If gathering all of the information necessary to convicting criminals is a proper function of the government, should surveillance rights be absolute? If nothing were illegal that shouldn't be, then what would anyone have to hide? I know it's a creepy idea, but it wouldn't be if it were normal. Now, I understand that this kind of thing can be exploited really easily and get really messy, but I'm talking about the ideal world. Do citizens have the right to keep things secret from a completely benevolent government?

In my opinion, the process by which we acquire knowledge follows a similar process by which courts are governed. We are presented with or discover a piece of information, and we must put it up to trial. Do we consider it to be most likely true beyond a reasonable doubt? For the things that we believe we know, the answer is yes. However, the fallibility of this method is the reason for the existence of subjectivism, and the source of all disagreement between "facts." I would suggest that self evidence is tied directly to one's worldview, and individuals with different worldviews (yes, this is getting subjective, and justifiably so) might disagree on things. What is self evident to one person may conflict with the basic logical framework of another. For this reason, I think that citing self evidence as an argument should be avoided unless discussing more concrete and tangible things. How do we know that we aren't brains in a lab being stimulated to see what happens? We don't. How do we know that we're not in a permenant dream of an individual in a coma? We don't. But these things are false beyond a reasonable doubt. In the case of free will, I don't think that the evidence is strong enough to consider free will to be a concrete. I understand that a lot of you don't agree, but that's why we debate things.

A big cause of inflation is the nature of government spending as well. The government doesn't tend to operate on a for-profit basis, and therefore is simply throwing its money away with no hope of return. The plus side is that the government very sneakily tends to use deflationary operations to raise the value of the dollar right before large expenditure so that they don't actually end up paying as much as they should, but it still doesn't make it right that I should be forced to give my money to someone else for nothing I've hired them to do for me.

Keep in mind, I'm not a lawyer, but I am a Jew (by descent) Did you create the environmental problems on your property? If not, can you sue the previous owner for selling you property without disclosing the issues? Are you sure there's not some sort of grandfather clause for liability for environmental hazards that existed upon purchase of the property? Can you incorporate the land and declare bankrupcy? If you found a new home, rather than abandoning your house, could you sell some of the supplies and scrap to local builders or something? In terms of finding work, you might try marketing your services to smaller businesses that can't afford in house technicians. I know freelance web designers who possess huge market shares of local businesses because the businesses would never need a web designer of their own, but need the product that one would supply. You might also try talking to local advertising companies that might be interested in having a videographer off their payroll so that they wouldn't pay as much tax or need to provide you with benefits. Remember, if you're willing to do someone's job for less than they are, then you have a competitive advantage. Also, if you can handle work from more than one company while still being able to provide companies with the same service as an in house employee would, you represent a win-win situation for all involved. Good luck!

What I meant is that people on this forum say that things are self evident as a way to avoid having to explain them. In many cases, they're wrong about what they're saying. Because they obviously don't think they are wrong, they tend to think that what they're saying is obvious. Felipe, everything that exists is measurable. We may not be able to measure it, but that does not mean that it can not be measured. Things that are not currently measurable are called theories, and are certainly not self evident by nature. The reason I included that rule was this: Let's say I am a paraplegic individual and can not move my body or eyes, and there is a spot in my vision due to brain damage. I could correctly state that according to my perception, there exists a blackbody in my field of view which is absorbing all light. I could go so far as to say that the object was self evident. However, because my view of the matter is operating from flawed information, the self evidence of my proposed blackbody is not in fact valid proof of its existence. The reason it was invoked in the free will discussion was that I wanted to ensure that the argument stating "I perceive choice, therefore it exists" was not used. It's the same as the blackbody example. If we are in fact unable to choose freely, we certainly wouldn't be able to prove it ourselves. A third party could potentially measure all of the mental inputs going into an act to determine whether it was independent of causality, or physical laws could be invoked to explain the phenomenon. Those are valid arguments. Self evidence independent of empirical validation is not.

Another thing that's important to note is that money supply alone doesn't determine interest rates in an unregulated economy. Try this. Draw some first quadrant axis and label the X axis "Q" for Quantity, and the Y axis "i" for Nominal Interest Rate. Draw a diagonal line going from the bottom left to the top right and label this "M" for Money Supply. As (i) increases, banks will be more likely to offer riskier loans, because the return will be higher for them. Therefore, the supply of money will increase as interest rates rise. Draw a diagonal line going from the top left to the bottom right. Label this one "D" for Demand. As (i) increases, consumers will demand less money from banks, because their return will be lower. Therefore the demand for money will decrease as interest rates rise. The point where the demand for money equals the supply of money is the point of equilibrium. Now your question is how the interest rate changes with the supply of money held constant. In an unregulated economy, the interest rate is determined by the equilibrium point of this graph. If we hold (M) constant and shift (D) then we can change the interest rate. How does this happen? Well, for one example let's look at Price Level (or "P" for short). If (P) rises, and (i) stays the same, then "r," the Real Interest Rate, is going to drop. This is because it will cost less, in terms of real value, to take out a loan at the same interest rate. Therefore, if (P) rises, then the entire (D) curve is going to shift right, because at every given (i), people will demand more money. The inverse is also true. When (D) shifts right, and (M) stays the same, the point of equilibrium moves to a higher (i) and (Q). This means that if people demand more money, then more money will be put into the economy, but the price of that money is going to rise in the form of interest rates. There are many other things that can affect the relationship between (D) and (M), but I think you can probably see the basics at this point. Hope that helps!

Joynewyeary, I don't even know what you want to debate anymore. If you want to tell me why one particular thing I said is not true, without debating whether or not free will exists, then you can feel free to explain to me what part of what I said is untrue. I concede in advance. Nimble, do you believe that free will is absolutely free, or is linked irremovably to the physically deterministic nature of the brain? If you believe the former is true, then I will debate that with you.

I'm a fan of foreplay, but this is getting ridiculous. Just make your opening statement as to why free will exists, and we'll debate it. You don't want to clarify your argument, and you're picking mine apart semantically without actually bringing up any reason for it to be essentially untrue. This isn't some sort of assignment, this is a forum for recreational discussion. My grammar is unimportant. I'm saying, "Determinism is the way physics works. If I throw a ball, the ball can not choose where to go. If I stimulate a brain, it can not choose how to respond. You may feel like you have volition, but I watch the sun rotate around the Earth every day. Just because it's 'self evident' doesn't mean it's actually true." Now tell me why I'm wrong in another thread with the appropriate title.

Oh alright, that makes more sense. I assumed that you had written that argument since you didn't quote me. I appologize if my tone was interpreted as accusatory, I only meant that you seemed pretty sure that you could disprove me and you also were providing what my argument was to be. That gets a little suspicious Anyway, that argument sounds pretty darn good, considering its author. Let's get to it! That is, if you don't disagree with my additional rule. I'll leave you to make your opening statement.

You must keep in mind what shifts the supply curve to the right. When technology improves, it becomes cheaper to produce an item, resulting in higher outputs at lower prices. When investments result in better productivity, the same thing occurs. Technological improvement is necessarily limitless, unless you believe in limitations to man's intellect (which you may, but this idea is not supported on this forum), and therefore GDP in terms of yesterday's goods will continually be on the rise. The key to remember is that a computer that costs $1,000 today would have been worth $5,000 a few years ago. So if we can produce 100 times more $1,000 computers today than we could $5,000 computers then, our real GDP has actually increased by 100 times. The same thing happens as I invest in my supply line. As my plant improves, the productivity of my employees rise. Even though I still pay them the same, and I may sell my product for less, the real output has clearly risen. Those are just a couple of reasons that economic growth is as limitless as human achievement.

Plus, if the supermarket was doing this sort of thing to everyone, your mailman would probably be pretty used to it.

Oh yea, my position will be, as said by Joynewyeary in post 35 of the Welcome to the Debate Forum thread, "A brain is a collection of particles. Thus, the brain must operate as physics would dictate that it should. Any cerebral process that involves free will must necessarily allow the brain to make a choice as to a certain physical event within it. Since this violates that acting particle's obligation to function as dictated by its nature and physical surroundings, it is an impossible event." Because Joynewyeary undoubtedly worded this in a way that he can disprove, I reserve the right to alter the wording of "my" position to more accurately reflect my argument. Also, I just want to make sure that we're both operating from the premise that we live in a finite universe. I don't know how that would help him, but having an infinite amount of influences would make it impossible to determine the exact course of physical events. This doesn't really relate to free will, but determinism only works in a closed system. If Joynewyeary doesn't accept this widely accepted astronomical concept (I'm taking Astronomy right now ), and is planning to use it as part of his argument, we might have problems.

Hello, my name is Danny Shahar and I'm here to finish this once and for all. What's "this," you ask? The debate about free will, silly, read the title. The purpose of this thread is to settle on the rules under which this debate will be held. Taking from previous discussion on the Welcome to the Debate Forum thread, here are the rules, as put forth by Joynewyeary in post 35: "Rule #1: No deliberate use of a fallacy. Theoretically, that could be difficult to enforce. However, the honor system will probably be all we need. Rule #2: I will be alone on my side of the debate. My opponent will have the option of allowing up to three people to simultaneously participate on his/her side of the debate. If my opponent wishes to admit defeat, but there are people who want to replace my opponent, then the debate will continue with a new opponent. [i will relinquish my right to have help on my side for now, because I don't really know if anyone is interested. If someone is, and I'm doing a bad job, PM me and we'll try to set something up I guess.] Rule #3: After someone agrees to be my initial opponent, I will make an initial statement within 48 hours. However, my opponent will have up to seven days to respond to my initial statement. I will then have up to seven days to respond to my opponent's response, and so on. The debate ends when one side fails to respond within seven days or when both sides agree to end the debate." I think those are good rules, but I'd like to put forth another: Rule #4: "Self evidence" will not be permissible as a valid argument. Any phenomenon that can not be measured is an anti-concept, and will not be tolerated as proof of anything. If that's acceptable, then I think we can start the debate. Joynewyeary, what do you think?

Well, as you know, Ms. Rand is a very persuasive author. The only things that I fault her for, really, are the things that either I didn't understand, or I haven't heard her address. That's not very fair of me, but here are the basic things I don't agree with: Free will: I don't think that it exists. Environmental Protection: We all share some resources like air. If 100 different people pollute, and I get sick, there isn't really a mechanism by which I can get retribution for it if I can't prove exactly who did what to me. Abortion and Children's Rights: I don't like the idea that abortion is wrong, because someday I might want to use it for my benefit. However, I think that either a) man only has the right to live qua man, and not qua child or qua fetus, or b ) the rights of all of these entities to live in their respective natures must be recognized, so abortion is just as wrong as killing a child. Aside from that, I think she's pretty spot on. Except she said something about Native Americans once that was ridiculous in a lecture at a university, but I don't have a source on that, so whatever.

Rock on Laughlin. My track record: Anthem, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, The Virtue of Selfishness, almost done with Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal I've also taken Introduction to Psychology, for whatever that's worth.

It would seem that he's flamboyantly inviting the forum to give his debate its blessing. I'm perfectly willing to debate him, although it won't be now, because I'm under the influence I'm up for debate, how do we go about making it official? By the way, sorry for the "compound" premise, I'll simplify it: Determinism is a necessary property of all existance, including the mind.

Ok, the single premise that I'm going to stick with is: The mind is a symptom of the physical nature of the brain, and the brain is a physical entity which must behave causally; thus the mind must be tied to the cause/effect nature of reality and can not behave otherwise.

I think it would be best to examine the exact nature of a welfare system in order to continue this discussion. Let's say there are two individuals, John and Sarah. John is a subsistance hunter/gatherer, and Sarah is confined to a wheelchair by a childhood illness. Sarah can not help herself, and her condition is certainly not her own fault. Should John help her? Well, the question doesn't really take into account John's opinion. Let's say John likes Sarah a lot, and feels empathy for her condition. Nothing would stop him from giving Sarah whatever he wants to give her, and this would be a selfish act, as John would give as much to Sarah as it made him feel good to give her, up until it started to make his own life difficult. But let's say John hates Sarah, and truly wouldn't mind if she died. Should John help her? Well, it's not really in his interest, is it? I mean, you could say that John's a jerk, but if John cared in any way about Sarah, it would be worth his while to help her out, to avoid the feeling of guilt that would accompany inaction. The real question is whether it would be acceptable to force John to help Sarah. To that, I say absolutely not.

Hello there. In response to your invitation, I just want to clarify your position and mine, so that we can isolate the parts that we actually don't agree on. Do we agree on: 1) The brain is a bound physical entity which resides inside the skull and nowhere else. 2) Physical entities in a closed system are subject to determinism as dictated by physical laws [The state of a system at time T determines the state of that system at time (T+1)]. 3) A brain (as a physical entity) that must act according to causality does not lack the ability to choose, reason, imagine, etc. but simply lacks the ability to violate the premise put forward in 2, and therefore is deterministic in nature. If so, is your position: The mind is independent of the physical brain and can not be ascribed physical properties, thus allowing it to function outside of the rules of causality (i.e. determinism does not apply to the mind). If so, my position is: The mind is a symptom of the physical nature of the brain, and must be manifested according to the deterministic nature of all physical entities (i.e. the mind is a function of the deterministic brain).

Careful about the way you go about this dude, it's like walking on eggshells here. But just to attempt to clarify your t determines t+1 example, you're saying: 1) In a closed system, the state of entities, which must behave according to physical laws, at time T determines the state of those entities at time (T+1). To alter the state of those entities at time (T+1), an external factor would have to be introduced to the system. 2) Volition is a function of the human brain. 3) If we regard all of the entities which interact with the brain over its lifetime as our closed system, then in order to alter the state of the system, an external factor would have to be introduced, and this we call "volition." 4) If volition is to operate as an external factor upon the brain, then it must be isolated from the closed system but be able to manifest physical influence upon the system. 5) In order to accomplish 4, the state of "volition" at time (T+1) must not be dependent on its state at time T. 6) Because in 1 we agreed that 5 is impossible in a closed system, volition must either a) not be definable in bound (e.g. infinite in nature, absolutely random), or b ) not be bound to physical law, or c) be an improper variable. Is that a pretty good summary of your logical process so far? Just to correct something said earlier by entripon, Actually, that's not true. Your brain does go through physical changes as it performs to operations of memory and imagination, but full understanding of this process is still largely theoretical. Here's an article that'll give you a better understanding of what we're talking about so you don't fall into traps like that (i.e. belief in a soul). Imagining Imagination

This is an excellent point. You are correct in the big picture; there is no such thing as an unfair advantage if no force is being imposed on you. However, people don't really look at the big picture. For example: Let's say George sells cookies and milk, and I'm a milk producer. George can make a killing off of cookies, because they're cheap to produce. His cookies, however, aren't really any better than other cookies, so he doesn't want to spend money trying to market them against the fierce cookie competition. Milk, on the other hand, is a product where people pay more attention to price. George gets the brilliant idea that if he charges less for milk than anyone else, he can attract people to his store, and sell them cookies. In the end, he'll recoup the expenses incurred from the milk sales with the profits from the cookies, and he didn't even have to compete against the other cookie manufacturers, because they weren't represented in his store. This is bad news for me, the milk producer. I can't sell my milk for as little as George can, and it seems like I'm going to be out of a job. If I was a typical world citizen, I would accuse George of having an unfair advantage. In fact, George has simply excersized sound business policy, but I don't care. If I lived in a different country than George, I might push my government to impose a tarriff on George so that I could keep my job selling milk. Who would benefit from this? Me. Who would lose? Everyone in my country, because they would have to pay higher prices for milk than George would have charged them, and George, because he wouldn't have the opportunity to run his successful business operation in my country as well. Alternatively, I could ask for a government subsidy to help me keep my prices as low as George's. Who would benefit from this? Me, and anyone who didn't have to help pay taxes for my subsidy. Who would lose? George would, because I would be taking business and potential profit from him, and all of the taxpayers who have to pay to support my inefficient practice. Or worse still, I could accuse George of monopolistic practices...

I'm sorry, rereading my post, I didn't make it clear at all that I was saying that this is what people are afraid will happen. My final paragraph was a refutation of everything I said before it, but I should be more clear. People fear that predatory pricing will lead to a monopoly that can charge whatever price it wants while simultaneously losing all efficiency. However, monopolies do not simply exist magically, they must function like any other business. A monopoly known to charge high prices would lose consumer support in favor of a competitor entering the market, even if the competitor was not able to compete on a cost basis. Also, predatory price wars assume only one round of competition, whereas in real life there are infinite such rounds. In order to constantly repel competitors, a predatory company would need to keep its prices low enough to remain the only viable company, in which case the monopoly would be deserved and beneficial. There are two ways to profit from business ventures. One is through high prices, and the other is from low costs. Profits generated by high prices are unsustainable, as investment will flock towards the sector, driving prices down. Profits generated by low costs can create monopolies, but these are the types of monopolies that are only beneficial to society, and represent survival of the fittest. Legislating against monopolies is shortsighted and harmful to everyone. For example, Microsoft has been attacked recently for doing everything in its power to succeed. Why? When is the last time that Microsoft forced anything upon you? If it's difficult to not buy from them, then that demonstrates how successful they've been. That's the goal of every business, and shouldn't be legislated against. I'm using Firefox right now because I think it's better than Internet Explorer. My friend Hogan has an Apple computer because he thinks it's better than Windows. That's how the free market works. Remember when everyone had AOL, but now other providers have moved in? The best product will win in a free market. That's the way it works, and that's what we should want. Hope that was a little clearer!

The thing that gets people worried the most is the idea of predatory pricing followed by monopolistic equilibrium. Let's say two companies have the same product, but one has significantly more money than the other to begin with. The big company can "dump" their product, or sell it below cost, and in an efficient market, it will get all of the sales, assuming it can handle the increased capacity. This would be a war of attrition, and the less financially secure company would be eliminated from competion. When this happens, the market will move towards monopolistic equilibrium, where output will be determined by the supplier (where marginal revenue equals marginal cost). The dead weight loss will result in "society" not getting as much of the product as they would have gotten before, when the companies had to compete for sales. In other words, prices will rise, output will go down, and profit will go into the hands of the monopolist. People are afraid of this happening because they don't understand that they don't have the right to the product that the businesses are producing. They think that charging a higher price is wrong because it makes it harder for them to live as well as they want to. From an economic standpoint, monopoly is generally bad. This is because a monopolist doesn't have to maintain the same levels of efficiency as he would if he were competing with an opponent. The monopolist also has less incentive to innovate. This, people point out, makes monopoly undesirable. The thing that they don't realize is that monopolies aren't infallible, and they don't exist by magic. If someone's better suited to do the monopolist's job, then they can gather investors and build up a competitor. Consumers don't have to fall for predatory pricing, they can even boycott. No one has the right to deprive another of their right to their accomplishments because it's more convenient that way.

Why is not being a being important? It seems that you're saying that it has no rights because it's not a being, and for a non-being to have rights would be ridiculous. Why? The egg and the sperm were united by willful action. That's a significant event. They then become a mass of undifferentiated cells, which begins to form into human form. That's not really that significant. Eventually, the fetus leaves the womb, but doesn't really undergo any changes that are significant to that which distinguishes man from animal at this stage. The fact that humans are beings might not matter here as much as you think. Beings don't necessarily have rights. Humans that are on life support have rights. Humans on life support aren't really that different from fetuses, in terms of their being beings. That's just another reason to establish where we draw the line and why.

Because on this forum, it's accepted that fetuses don't have rights, and men do. We've worked toward the idea that being a child is a necessary component to the survival requirements of man. If so, then a child might have the right to live qua child, and this right should be recognized and protected. But being a fetus is also one of the components to survival qua man. Thus, we are debating why the fetus shouldn't have rights, but the child should, especially when both are parasites. It's ok to say that a child can exist qua child if its parent wants it to, because there are no conflicts in rights there. The conflicts seem to arise from the fact that a child requires value from the parent. If the parent doesn't want to give that value, then, if what we believe is true, it would be unethical to force the parent to provide that value. We seem to be progressing toward the idea that it's negligent to have a child and not care for it. If this is the case, then the "infringement" of the parents' "rights" is simply a moral response to the parents failure to recognize the rights of the child. However, a large portion of the board does not accept that a fetus has the right to live qua fetus, and therefore it's important that we can understand why a fetus is different than a child in a way that disposes of its rights. If it's negligent to have a child and not care for it, then why is it not negligent to have sex which results in conception, and kill the result?