tadmjones

What did you mean to convey with the coffee example? If everyone would see the caramel colored liquid , how is their perception different from yours , how does knowing the identity of the contents of the liquid change what everyone can ‘see’?

Stephen Is it that the question about the Babylonians is based on archaeology only, or is there an argument based on math theory, so to speak , that given the rigor of their computational output suggests a lack of the concept of ‘infinite numbers’? It reminded me of Wolfram’s computational irreducibility. That idea would imply that prior to electronic computation making the calculations humanly feasible , no one can know prior to the completion of the operation the ‘places’ or ‘amount of digits’ of the ‘answer’. But it may be I am misapplying the concept to this particular operation. The thought struck me as interesting anyway.

I suspect Howard's criticism of method stems from an apprehension of substituting the map for the territory.

There are times when using 'following to its logical conclusion'- type reasoning drops its own context and falls into reductio ad absurdum and misapplies conclusions.

The rights violation doesn't stem from government generating tax revenue, the violation is the principle of withholding which is federally mandated.

All 50 states have written constitutions and presumably have been instituted on the premises of protecting individual rights and the federal powers were theoretically instituted to 'make sure' the individual states did work to protect their citizens from rights violations. Given the jurisdiction of the federal govt it poses a greater overall threat to individual rights. Eg all employers no matter the state are required to withhold wage earner property before receipt.

Basically in the vein of what DO had to say. Facts and knowledge about specific facts can be certain, certainty is a relationship between facts and understanding (knowledge + integration) not an attribute of a person.

Well that’s not something that can be avoided, lol. Maybe do consider ‘meditating’ on any impact negative emotional responses to the idea of uncertainty could have on focusing your intellect toward becoming certain , contextually, about any specific ‘knowledge’.

Perhaps we are not using ‘know’ and ‘knowing’ in the same sense. I would say not being able to recall a past known thing a function/ problem of memory.

I think in the sense of Penrose's idea that consciousness doesn't collapse 'the wave function', but that the collapse 'of the wave function' is the genesis of consciousness and that calculation of 10 m c/s is the average 'load' of the microtubulars. But that really only raises other problems of combination and or multiplicity. If every collapse produces 'consciousness' and all the neurons are the sites of the collapses, are all the collapses separate instances of 'consciousness' that somehow combine to produce an integrated 'self' that is conscious, or does each collapse produce atomized 'consciousnesses' that do not interact with the 'one' felt 'self' which is a particular collapse but separate from the 'others'.

As far as what it means to 'know something' , maybe it isn't really a question , or that it isn't the kind of question that has a truly universally communicable explicit definition or discursive explanation. As an example , look at your keyboard , you see the keyboard yes? You 'know' you see the keyboard, yes ? Now explain to me 'how' you know that you know it. Language is objective but meaning is subjective, it's okay to feel you know it. Lacking the ability to formalize a meaning isn't necessarily a lacking of meaning.

Philosophically, isn't it more correct to say that the toddler knows what 'self-evident' means, but cannot use the term to formulate a syllogism in English.

Speaking for the bottom third, I am working class and supported Trump in 16 because I saw him as anti-establishment, the establishment being the environment of rot in all the 'institutions' produced and apologized for by the intelligentsia. I despise the the two party 'tradition' and was glad to see Trump manipulate the system to garner support, he bulled(politically) his way into the Republicans. I'm anti-DC, anti-further encroachment of federal power. I was 'agnostic' toward Trump as a personality prior to his announced candidacy for 2016, I was aware of who he was but for the most part my impression was that of blowhard publicity hound. But his rhetoric sounded like if he got in , he'd be a push back against the 'real' 'proto' fascism of the ever burgeoning federal monster that was destroying the Republic. When he popularity increased I started to become aware of his past public statements about his views on US government and policy from as far back as the 1980's and was surprised at how his then current views were stilled aligned, to my surprise whether or not you agreed with his views he at least was consistent, he wasn't 'joking' or pandering he was expressing his positions. How ignorant is it for some to actually give credence to some convoluted idea , right out of the gate, that Trump was a puppet of Putin? It is laughable on it's face , the idea that the number two or three 'guy' in the 'world' orchestrated for another 'guy' to be seated as the indisputable number ONE 'guy' and somehow the new number one would be beholden and controlled by the other is ridiculous and not a very studied understanding of power. It's been an ever increasing shit show since and yeah because of Trump ,lol.

Some arguments for collective ownership schemes are sustained by an appeal to the 'common good'. Some claim that the reasons to limit private, individual ownership is to protect against some supposed abuse that may result from the economic 'power' accrued by capital accumulation. It is an example of of a big no no in Oism ie psychologizing "Armed with a smattering, not of knowledge, but of undigested slogans, they rush, unsolicited, to diagnose the problems of their friends and acquaintances. Pretentiousness and presumptuousness are the psychologizer’s invariable characteristics: he not merely invades the privacy of his victims’ minds, he claims to understand their minds better than they do, to know more than they do about their own motives. With reckless irresponsibility, which an old-fashioned mystic oracle would hesitate to match, he ascribes to his victims any motivation that suits his purpose, ignoring their denials. " , to assume a blanket denial of the attempt at persuasion.

More in the vein of there being a lot of things on earth than are not dreamt of in philosophy, there was a video recently posted purporting to show one plant using pheromone production and transfer to 'warn' a neighboring plant of an advancing threat. Also I've seen discussion of the interplay between trees and the subterranean fungi that seem to show nutrient distribution actions related to seedlings and their proximity to the 'mother', some species moving nutrients toward to 'help' and others seeming to move nutrients away if the seeds develop too closely to the mom. I haven't read any studies , but the chatter is certainly interesting. While actions of these types could be 'more' mechanistic than not, the carrying out of the specific actions of the specific organisms would demonstrate some 'type' of awareness/consciousness or even memory in starting and continuing discrete processes , no ?