StrictlyLogical
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Posts posted by StrictlyLogical
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8 minutes ago, EC said:
Physics, and I tried getting it out there while doing volunteer work for Skinwalker Ranch via explaining the science behind many things. If you know what the Ranch is you will understand that it is a UAP hotspot and that the government is heavily involved in it behind the scenes for many decades. I quickly spotted many UAP and other anomalies for them on their live feed all witnessed by many and officially recorded before I was recruited for their tech team, and other things I won't discuss here. Then I started explaining the science behind it all and that the "Skinwalker" in the Mesa is likely an AGI and the (related) science behind that. While discussing how it all from an Objectivist perspective and how the physics I discovered fully integrates without contradiction. The "Ranch" (the "sci-fi" aspects of it) was highly in me and activity would increase every time I logged in, not to mention activity where I was 1500ish miles away. I've been leaking my knowledge in bits and pieces everywhere including here. For an easy basic proof that my physics are reality, I was able to use it to predict the existence of the gravitational background radiation that was discovered last year. Given the technology that can be quickly created using my knowledge, you should be able to see why the government is attempting to keep me quiet, discredit, and destroy my life. Not to mention that the technology that could be relatively quickly created is not only world changing and massively life enhancing for every person on the planet but is worth money on a scale that would make trillionaires look like millionaires in comparison. Warp drive, spacetime manipulation, AGI, limitless energy, the list goes on and on.
How is it that they are failing, absolutely and completely failing, to keep you quiet on this forum?
If they can't silence you here, surely you must be able to send all your work, formulas, theorems, simulations, documentation to Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, or Russel Brand, or Alex Jones / Info Wars to ensure it gets public? What is stopping you?
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6 hours ago, EC said:
No, because of the science I solved. Not, sure where Boydstun below you got a bunch of complete nonsense from but this is an exact example of the type of stuff this group does. Makes up complete nonsense and associates it to myself wrongly in a smear campaign. From this point forward I highly suggest people on this forum become highly suspicious of that poster who randomly associated stuff that does not, nor ever has, anything to do with me. But at least now I have a perfect example of how part of this campaign operates via smearing. Literally, nothing he said relates to me, has anything to me, nor ever has. Either that man has serious issues randomly relating things that have never had anything to do with myself to me or again he is a perfect example of how parts of this group operates. You're a seeing it in action via smearing.
So it is about science. But is it ever really just about the science? What kind of discovery was it? In what industry? How lucrative is it? Would BiG Money make a lot of money from the science?
I assume, if you had not really solved it they would not have been interested in you at all. Their noticing you means they would have had to have seen that you did (past tense) actually solve it, not just claimed to have solved it. I assume then that the science was published, otherwise how would they know that you had solved it, so the "solution" is now (and has been since they discovered your solving it), out there.
That said, after discovering that you have let the genie out of the bottle why do they care about you anymore, shouldn't they be chasing the genie? Or implementing it for their own gain or power?
If you have more information they don't want published, why do they let you post here? Perhaps they secretly just want your information.
Why not just upload and post all your work for everyone to see, access, apply, it does not seem that anyone is stopping you from doing that. If it is important people will discover it and find it useful.
I suspect, if you really want it, once you have posted whatever they want, they will leave you alone, they cannot risk being discovered, and will go back into the shadows.
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25 minutes ago, EC said:
I thought reaching out to the government to protect me from this group of terrorists that caused this situation would cause them to protect me, other Americans, and the obvious severe threat to National Security that this type of action from an evil group represents to the destruction of not only myself but of everything and everybody.
While I could definitely use those things I could only ask for that if I was positive that person understood everything happening, that it happened via the actions of this evil terrorist group that the government isn't stopping and through absolutely no fault of my own whatsoever, and that the person is making no sacrifices in any manner while helping me. But if it doesn't happen extremely quickly I will be completely out of all resources because of them, their destruction of everything in my life, and creating a situation where I can't rebuild it. I mean I will die because of their evil within the next two weeks. I'm out of time. I still can't believe my government is allowing a national security threat to exist while allowing it to do this to me. By allowing this it is an implicit action stating the greatest country in the history of the world has already fallen into dictatorship.
Why are the terrorists bothering with you?
Are you rich? Do they want to take your money?
Are you highly powerful or influential over a large group of people or geographical area of interest to them?
Why did they target you in the first place and how is it worth it to them to do so?
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I think many in the world are pivoting away from old conflicts defined in terms of polar opposites which are not at play right now as they once were.
When the world is seen as filled with mostly "good" cultures and societies which generally value peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone... the philosophical quibbles over just what the good is and why, and how best to achieve it can be real and indeed can be very contentious and stark: Atheism versus Religionism, Capitalism versus Socialism, but in the end they are not existentially and urgently crucial.
Christians have been quite harsh on "heretical" or "heathen" thinking for quite some time and the vehemence with which the Atheists "rebelled" against Christianity, religious and mythical thought is quite breathtaking. But over recent times I think many feel that the animosity between generally good people over these issues is rather small potatoes.
For the world is now seen as having a sort of "thing" working in the background, of people whose motive is sheer political and economic power, whether governments and bankers or oligarchs and powerful families etc. or all of them... it possesses an unmistakable "evil" culture which does not value peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone... instead valuing those for some: personal friends and family, and are happy to "pay the price" of consigning everyone else to their antitheses : war, authority, isolation, misery and death.
What point is there to fight over just exactly what good is and how to get there when a faint but clear harbinger of cultural evil.... atheist non-moral anti-human post-modern evil that is arising. Whether or not consciously emerging from the nexi of power, or whether unconsciously emerging in the psychology of culture which has lost the basis of its morality and has not discovered objectivism, the inhuman evil is now at work here.
It makes sense for those that hold humanity, human life, individual life and liberty in high esteem to band together for humankind. It has been happening.
Craig Biddle debated with Denis Prager a few years back putting forth the position that they should not fight... Prager at that time was stuck in the mind set that he must scare people back into religion with the bromide "without religion morality is impossible"... as if membership in the good camps was more important than sheer numbers of good people.
Richard Dawkins has announced that he is an "Atheist Christian"... quite a claim to unpack but nonetheless one which is symbolic of a real spiritual and mental alliance ... good people who still value humanity and life on earth as free individuals with peace, autonomy, family, life, happiness, for everyone, NOT just some people, should and will come together.
Of course the "thing"'s activity in sowing divisions is accelerating, men against women, blacks against whites, left against right, atheism against religion, Christian against Muslim...
Christians citing Objectivism and Objectivists reaching out to good religionists is a good thing and all individual human loving people need to come together.
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Excellent responses by all, not much to add.
My one observation is that the main problem is not so much a conflation of identity and value... sure, these concepts are not to be conflated, but if such an error were made, it should be easily remedied by one familiar enough with each concept, and secondly, such a conflation, even if believed, cannot form the foundation for the "primacy of consciousness view". Even if value can be created in things by sheer subjectivity, the things themselves to which this magical value attaches cannot be created ex nihilo. Neither do we observe the magical consciousnesses (ghosts?) at work absent the physical brains/bodies by which they are manifested. With the conflation they can perhaps get to things "enchanted" or "haunted" by consciousness... but they cannot get to primacy of consciousness.
I think you will find that rather than some small conflation enabling or leading to such a conclusion (which is far out of reach), in fact the "conclusion" is an existing presumption, an entrenched pre-existing premise which motivates the person to try to find evidence or reasons (perhaps even the conflation ... not knowing that it is erroneous) which can be used to support that presumption. Here they are starting at the end (primacy of consciousness) which is not rationally justified by the means to arrive there (no pun intended).
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13 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
What is the difference between knowledge vs. information? Is information the symbolic representation of knowledge? Is information being used to mean "valid information"?
In addition to what I said above here is something to think about:
Old school mailboxes at the end of the driveway are a nice example of the interplay between things, causation, information, and knowledge.
If you have outgoing mail, you ensure the flag is up, the outgoing mail is in there and the mail carrier is supposed to put it down and take your outgoing mail.
If you see the flag down, it should be an indication the carrier took your outgoing mail and dropped off any incoming mail.
BUT that assumes the carrier knows the convention, she could have opened and closed the box without taking your mail (thinking it incoming mail from yesterday). She could have lowered your flag out of spite, and not done anything with your mail.
You can't even be sure if she came, the flag could have failed... a mechanism finally rusting through, a branch from a tree may have fallen on it, or a squirrel or a racoon could have fiddled with your box... or a mischievous neighbor or child in your neighbor hood is playing prank on you... or in some cases (depending on the mechanics) some snooping person may have merely opened the mailbox and closed it again.If you see the flag still up, it should be an indication the carrier did not take your outgoing mail nor dropped off any incoming mail.
BUT again that assumes the carrier knows the convention, she could have opened and closed the box took your outgoing mail and dropped off your incoming mail and put the flag up again.
If the flag is "still" up you can't even be sure nothing happened with the flag since you last put it up, although that is your assumption.So, if you see the flag up, you literally have no certain information, although statistically you can draw inferences... and
If you see the flag down you are certain only about causality, something or someone (including failure) caused the flag to move, although statistically you can draw inferences.
In the end, you behave as though the carrier does what was supposed to be done and generally nothing else interacts with the flag, and statistically speaking you end up use that information as efficiently as possible, even if thing sometimes surprise you.
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8 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
What is the difference between knowledge vs. information? Is information the symbolic representation of knowledge? Is information being used to mean "valid information"?
Pretty much.
In the real world you can gain that knowledge from things by observing the thing directly (in any way through a causal chain without intervening third parties). You can also gain knowledge from information which has been generated by third parties observing the thing and essentially telling you about it. This information is recorded in any symbolic form of communication or record keeping and it represents the referent to which it is directed. We also use the term information to identify the representations conveyed by nonliving causal intermediaries between the thing and our minds... e.g. eyes, provide the information we know... video recording provide information about what the camera was aimed at...the photons travelling from galaxies give us information about the galaxies.Both knowledge and information are about or refer to things, they have referents in reality. Knowledge is in your head, information is encoded in some, any medium, or causal intermediary. You can get knowledge about referents directly or from information. Both knowledge and information is valid when there is both a causal connection to the referent and when they identify the referent or whatever is relevant about it,without contradiction with that reality.
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3 hours ago, Grames said:
Abstraction must occur by some physical means. The products of abstraction are not necessarily error free or true.
Bits are metaphysical, ontological. They exist. Information is an attribute of matter and energy. Manipulation of bits has energy requirement. A given bandwidth has a finite data rate that can be transmitted through it. Studying the potential paradoxes of black hole physics suggests a need for a "conservation of information" law to prevent logical impossibilities.
Our brains use physical means in order abstract and to form abstractions.
Do you contend our physical brains CONSIST of abstractions?
If you contend information exists as a physical part of any physical system, does it exist independently of, over and above , or in addition to, all the other physical characteristics we can observe but traditionally have not identified as "information" as such?
What happens to physical system we observe when the information is removed from the physical system?
What is the distinction between a first universe where we merely identify and perceive information about a physical thing, the information existing only in our minds as and because we create it by thinking of and referring to those things, and a second universe where the information is in the things themselves?
Specifically, what is different about those things themselves which we observe in those two universes?
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25 minutes ago, tadmjones said:
Do you mean that the concept of 'purely physical' now includes abstraction being in the same category as 'physical'?
I think he is saying that we quantify how "purely physical" things act or are arranged in ways more sophisticated and with what we associate with "information".. as such we use concepts like bits, bandwidth, coding and compression theory to characterize what we observe in the physical world, the same way we have used number and classical mathematics to quantify more intuitively observables of the physical world.
Just like numbers, as such, do not exist independent of the things we count with them, so too these concepts only identify characteristics of physical things, but are not themselves physical.
But insofar as things for centuries "possessed" quantifiable attributes, properties, etc. which we describe with numbers, so too in 2023 purely physical things of sufficient complexity "possess" functional capacities and arrangements which we can quantify in terms of "information" and specifically in terms of "bits, bandwidth, coding and compression".
It is another matter entirely, whether consciousness itself can be equated with "computation" or an information processing "algorithm". Although not an objectivist, I like the recent musings of Roger Penrose on the issue. -
I am no philosopher.
I would characterize Rand as finally being wholly unbiased in operational orientation towards deduction or inference, and that certainly post maturation, her structures were girded by both, as the state of all prior knowledge and observation required for the particular bit of construction on the edifice of her philosophy.
It may be that she leaned towards a deductive foundational approach in the early years, but I do not believe she leaned in any particular direction in the mature philosophy...A dichotomy is presented here which may not be necessary.
what has not been provided is a third option... one which leans in neither direction. -
5 hours ago, tadmjones said:
SL
With the furniture example and going from actual past experience and thinking how that process worked , I'd say I do it more by 'dead reckoning'? on the spot?, I'll estimate the length of a sofa , usually with a cue like how many floor boards equate to its length and spot out the equivalent length in a different position in the room for fit.
Thinking about geometric question seems more like an 'inner' visualization, but I'd rather describe coming to understanding the particular arrangement of shape in not necessarily 'tactile' but more an intuitive feeling of what that shape 'would be', but definitely not with words associated with visual imaging.
I suspect some of the distinctions or differences in relating the phenomenon may be semantic, and perhaps there is a limiting aspect in the recall of the process.
OK... so... DID you imagine a drawing of a house, such as what a child might draw? If not.. you are mystery to me, but at least my understanding of your words (which I can't quite fully believe) would be validated.
If you had to draw it before "seeing" it, you win. If you did visualize a house... I'd say you and your wife are not so different.
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1 hour ago, tadmjones said:
Yesterday I heard mention of a phenomenon called aphantasia , the self reported lack of 'innner' imagery. Oddly it seems "I have it", odder still a few weeks ago I was discussing this with my wife! But I thought the fact that what I was trying to explain to my wife and her reporting back of her phenomenal experience of imagination visually, in comparison to what I was describing didn't 'line up' was due to semantic misalignment.
I did not realize that when most people report 'seeing' 'things' in their mind's eye or imagination that they were not speaking metaphorically. I always assumed 'visual imagery' was a collectively agreed upon ambiguous concept to describe an 'inner' understanding or cognition(?) of an imagined 'thing', and not a 'quasi-actual' visual image.
If I were prompted to close my eyes and imagine say a pink elephant, I only 'see' the dark behind the lids, there is nothing 'there' that appears anything akin to visually apprehending a pink elephant, but the 'idea' of a pink elephant is present or experienced, perhaps better described as almost a state of awareness of being predisposed to 'accepting' a nonheretofore 'appearance' of a 'visual experience' of a pink elephant .. actually it is rather hard to describe, especially because I never thought I would have to describe this aspect of experience , going off the assumption that all youse all was just speaking metaphorically!
I do dream 'visually' and I sometimes mistake the experience of having read a novel as having watched a film of the story, but i don't seem to be able to bring up visual imagery 'on demand' , so maybe on the spectrum as it were, lol.
So , yeah AI imagery ain't never gonna live up to my expectation, but only because the bar is too low !
Just a second… how would you visualize a spatial problem? For example imagine placing furniture so that it fits a room but also imagining it in place to determine if there is flow and if it will work functionally long term? Do you not visualize it i.e. see it in your mind’s eye?
If someone described “An isosceles triangle pointing straight up, its horizontal base longer than and resting on a square, a smaller vertically oriented rectangle resting in the square at its base, a small circle inside and to one side of the rectangle” do you see anything in your mind’s eye or would you literally have to draw it first following this description as if they were a set of instructions?
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How could it come to this?
Korean Air Flight 801
"Save face" of (and for) your superiors... don't speak up.
Publish anyway...
crash and burn.
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US Corruption is not partisan... nor should be its opposition.
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On 6/8/2023 at 4:31 PM, Doug Morris said:
Morally, the only right answer is separation of state and education.
Hear hear.
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42 minutes ago, Boydstun said:
The circumstance that the axioms are implicit in any more particular knowledge means only that one is implicitly affirming the axioms when affirming the more particular knowledge; it does not mean that one can deduce the more particular knowledge from the axioms.
Poetry.
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44 minutes ago, Boydstun said:
“Presuppositional foundationalism evaluates the foundational status of knowledge [α’] in terms of being logically most prior, and foundational knowledge is [β’] held in presuppositional axioms, which serve as presuppositions that provide the necessary conditions that make the rest of knowledge possible.”
Why does Tyson call the axioms "presuppositional"? Isn't what is actually presupposed the "possibility of knowledge" as such, and based on that presupposition, the axioms follow ... almost.. dare I say, deductively?
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11 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
Agreed, but is this the gist of the argument regarding abandoning your responsibility in a disorderly way ... that it will cause harm to your neighbor?
Then I would say the question is around the nature of "individual" in this context. Is a child a potential individual or an individual?
Is the child an entity that should have the rights of an adult because it is potentially an adult? If so, one should say, the purpose of government is the protect the rights of individuals and potential individuals. In libertarian though a child is chattel as far as I understand. In objectivism, I have missed it addressed in sufficient detail.
But I will stick to my original argument ... that if children are not protected, it will make you sick, emotionally that is.
You know, all rights come from an understanding of what the right society is for an individual to live and flourish in, and is grounded in an ethics we all know as selfish (but not irrational selfishness).
Generally the idea of living in peace necessary for flourishing with individuals who are restrained from initiation of force (including fraud) gives rise to the concept of individual rights. There are a lot of reason which you know of which support Rand's theory of individual rights, how politics springs from an ethics, a morality of rational selfishness.
Imagine all the reasons for having individual rights in a society, and do not forget we are human beings not meaningless machinations. We are all individuals but we are not all independent and fully rational. We all were children once, dependents starting as pre-rational, who at some time later become independent and rational... and we all to some degree have the potential (if we are lucky enough to live long enough), slip back into a state of physical or mental dependence.. and possibly post-rationality... once more. And the vast majority of us love and value family, old or young. I do not think the society which rests on all those reasons for individual rights, would be able to remain the right kind of society for flourishing, if the society removed rights for all dependents, or all children or adults, all members of society, who are not fully independent and rational. At the very least a right to life is necessary, a right also to bodily integrity, being free from irreparable harm is also a requirement. These rights are not extended to those "others" in a society as something superfluous to the proper society, they are necessary to it.
Try to imagine the kind of society which protected rights for only those who were fully rational and independent, and all the kinds of predation and killing and human suffering which could result... yes, emotional psychological harm is real, but it is not the only harm, not the only aspect inimical to flourishing one would get in such a society.
I think there is a balance to be struck for the kinds of rights to be protected for dependents, a balance which recognizes that they are dependents, and cannot be fully responsible in all ways... possibly being a danger to others or themselves... but who at a minimum should have rights to life, bodily integrity, generally free from unnecessary initiation of force etc. Rights and responsibilities would be rationally considered given the context of the individual. The second amendment, for example, would not enable a 4 year old, or a completely addled old man with severe dementia, to remain in possession of a loaded gun.
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12 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
I agree, but is it simply because children are an end in themselves that justifies the enforcement? What happens when this line of argument is used to justify forced taxation to enforce these protections?
There is a value to such protections for children. The child would appreciate it, in hindsight when he or she understands. But the caretaker, the lover understands ... NOW! And that is my point. Their ability to ultimately enforce such a right exists right now. The child does not have that ability.
All individual rights are protected under a proper government, you are still exploring what rights a child has, and why. This is explored more in another of your posts which I reply to below.
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4 minutes ago, DavidOdden said:
Now we should aim to find the fodder for a proper law, since the spectre of legal enforcement of rights has been lurking at the edges. When you directly cause a financial loss to a person which they did not invite, you should accept that cause-effect relation and you should compensate them for their loss. If necessary, the government should require you to compensate for such a demonstrated loss. We don’t say that the loss only occurs when the customer starts to eat, perhaps it occurs when the meal is delivered, or plated, or when it is cooked – but these specifics are not part of the law, which is only about the general principle of loss, and compensation. The government integrates facts with specialized moral principles, a.k.a. laws, to reach a conclusion (“pay up”). The loss suffered by the business might be incurred at the point of requesting a table (making a reservation, for example).
Turning to repudiation of guardianship, your prior actions show that you have accepted the responsibility to be the custodian of the individual’s rights, which obliges you to do certain things. If you want to shirk that responsibility, you can if you do so in an orderly manner as specified by law. The proper concern of the government is whether there is a successor who accepts the responsibility. This need not directly involve the government, it means that if the question arises, you have to prove that there is a successor who accepted that responsibility in your stead. The gravity of being a custodian of rights is significant enough that I believe that an actual legal process should be required, just as real estate sales require legal formalities.
Yes, indeed this is the sort of thing I agree with.
Case law governing what constitutes propriety is usually enough until real concerns about immediate safety issues are raised... a proper system does not invoke preventative justice (based on speculation or statistics), but it has mechanisms for dealing with real threats of imminent harm, and irreparable damage and the like... and it would apply should someone find out the child is being sold for money or a pedophile is attempting to adopt...
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On 5/25/2023 at 8:39 PM, Easy Truth said:
A form of property can be many things. You can own a house outright, or you can rent it. It is your property in both cases. One is temporary with more restrictions than the other. I am not speaking legally, simply the issue of ownership as in possession, belonging.
Your life belongs to you. A consciousness that can create (a suitable life) and requires certain freedoms to do that. That goes for anyone that wants to live, amongst other humans.
"Can you dispose of it (kill it) as you wish? ", descriptively (as in not morally), yes you can. You are bigger, stronger and you can abandon. But should you?
If you love the child it is not to your benefit. The answer is easily "no".
I can argue that the child's right to live is the right of any human to live. In this case, an eventual adult's right. But it is not an adult. So when does a potential adult gain rights? Indeed, a child should not have the right to drive a car at 4 years old. Why? Because it will likely hurt someone (or itself).
But the desire to protect a child from hurting itself comes from the love and interest of adults around it. A child has some basic understanding of what rights are in the sense that it knows what belongs to it or not. It might be able to respect boundaries. The right to self-governance is given to it by adults ... slowly. But the fact is that children are cute. One feels empathy, compassion, etc. Some objectivists will bring up the "trader principle" as the reason for their value. I can see that as an attempt to ignore the emotional reasons.
But the caretakers are the possessors, the lovers, the protectors... as if protecting their own property—that which is theirs.
I understand your equation of possession with ownership, and your idealization of property with that which you take possession of and value, but they are quite different concepts.
True property over a thing MEANS you have the absolute right to do with it as you wish (without harming others, or violating anyone else's right etc.) this MUST include the absolute right to do anything to or with it, to sell, rent, modify, etc. and/or destroy the thing. A proper government could NOT prevent you from doing anything to your property including destroying it... because THAT is what DEFINES property which is yours. A mere possession, or an ill-gotten thing owned by someone else, or anything subject to anyone else's rights, therefore cannot be your property. This essential aspect of what property IS means no one else has any claim on it, and you do.
Now, of course you can own "bundles of rights" IN a thing, rights under a contract can be enforced.. rental agreements, rights of ways, licenses, etc and in that sense you can "have property" in things... but the things themselves (which you have SOME but not all rights in) are not your property.
In this sense, in the sense of what is at the heart of what differentiates property over a thing from any other type of mere possession, or merely having some rights in, is what makes it impossible for a person of any age to BE property in a proper society.
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On 5/28/2023 at 12:54 PM, DavidOdden said:
I disagree with the premise that this is the base. It is true that discovery of the nature of rights and morality in a social context is what led Rand to create Objectivism, but the resulting logical framework does not put rights at the base of morality. Existence qua man is the base. Questions of ownership, killing and “can” i.e. deontic principles follow from, and do not lead to, the proper moral foundation. Hence I have obstinately focused on that moral foundation, before moving on to the more legalistic question such as what role the government should have in protecting the rights of an individual.
Much closer to the base, IMO, is the concept of responsibility, and the related matter of repudiating responsibility. Of course, we do want to speed ahead to the interesting legal question of the role of proper government in evaluating permissible and impermissible means of repudiating responsibility, and also its role in determining the custodian of the rights of a person who is not fully competent. But before we identify a principle regarding governments, responsibility and rights-custodianship, we should identify a broader principle regarding government and responsibility (because any principle regarding rights-custodianship is controlled by a general principle about responsibility). Therefore, setting aside child education, we also want to know what are the principles governing tort law in a rational society? In the “dine and dash” continuum, when does the “customer” incur an enforceable obligation? What principle says when his responsibility is enforceable, and when is it ignoreable? I argue that it starts when he claims a table, but that’s a concrete example, and not a moral principle.
I did not mean a logical base... I meant a base or starting place for discussion.
Responsibility with regard to an "IT" is of a different kind (not just a different magnitude) from responsibility in respect of a "who". That's why I raised a few silly questions about property and killing.
I agree, we are dealing with a responsibility (to a "who") and I like your example of dining and dashing, the responsibility (or not) to the people running the restaurant. I also agree with the responsibility starting with "claiming the table". Yes, it is a concrete example, but we are capable of abstraction here ... claiming the table is a positive act implying entering to a relationship with the restaurant owner as against all others. It gives rise to expectations which are reasonable in the context and which conveniently allow everyone to dispense with "proclamations" of intent and agreement.
Diner: I am sitting here because I intend to order and pay for food provided by the owner and expect to have possession of it for the duration of the meal.
Others: I understand that you and the owner are exercising a dining-meal providing custom, and I will not try to sit at your table or eat your food, or take your seat if you go to the washroom, i.e. the table is yours because you have claimed it temporarily as part of the exchange...
Owner: I see you sitting there to the exclusion of others who might buy a meal from me and I expect you will order a meal and pay me...
Of course this would be silly. No one has to say anything because in the culture your positive actions speak to others your intent, which is tied up with unspoken agreements and expectations etc. Stay outside the restaurant if you do not wish to send to signals of intent to trade for food...
As regards a "who" which is not an "it", your actions of caring for him/her and not giving him/her up for adoption, (in today's society there are plenty of people looking to adopt) is a "claim" (not of anything like a table...) that you are literally "taking responsibility" for the child. The continual choice of not volunteering the child up to the care and custody of others tells the child and the others that "you got this" and you ARE intending and trying to provide for the child. At some point a child (not being property) could choose to go with someone else if that responsibility were not being met... while at the same time if it were being met, others would best take the kid (if a misbehaving) back home to be properly schooled...etc.
How does one repudiate the unwritten expectation in the restaurant if by accident they sat down in one? Leave ... before eating of course. As for the child, if one does not want to be responsible, literally does not want to provide for a child, (which lack of want goes along with a lack of love) one has only to give it up for someone else to do so.
Leaving the specifics of university education aside.
Selfish Christians Citing Ayn Rand
in Psychology and Self Improvement
Posted
I second that.
"Publish" it here in a new thread, they seem to be unable or not willing to block your access to this site.