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oso

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Everything posted by oso

  1. You answered "The law of casualty of course ..." to your question of "why cannot the future be random". The law of causality does not mean that all things are predictable. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, for example, does not violate the law of causality.
  2. You say science has a specific method for dealing with errors. You are presumably defending the scientific method. If you believe in the scientific method (as I do), that is part of your philosophy, in particular your epistomology. You're bringing your philosophy "into it" just as much as anyone else. That is because there can be no science without philosophy. If Objectivism is correct, and at least it's metaphysics certainly is, then yes, reality must agree with it. Other wise, Objectivism wouldn't be correct. If science proves that things can contradict their identities, events can happen without cause, that consciousness is the creator of reality and that consciousness doesn't exist, then Objectivism is wrong. The thing is, the scientific method and it's practise requires that all of those things not be true. Any conclusion that contradicts the axioms of existence can automatically be dismissed since implicit in the practise of science is the acceptance of those basic axioms. The acceptance of the validity of science is philosophy. You can't not bring philosophy into science without pulling the rug out from under it.
  3. "In a properly integrated subconscious, there should be no estimate of "physical beauty" prior to the discovery of the person's character." He's saying that it's wrong to judge someone's physical beauty without knowledge of their character. Is it not obvious that this is ridiculous?
  4. I've really enjoyed this series. I was particularly impressed with the ending. The stark optimism of the final line is something I didn't expect.
  5. If the word is racists, the sentence is fully coherent. It's just not clear who are the racist immigrants that he's referring to. The word "races" in that context doesn't make any sense, because all races have been represented on electoral polls for decades. You can't enlist races onto electoral polls when all races are already enlisted.
  6. What we don't seem to agree upon is that concluding that someone else is conscious and not just a robot is a conclusion about the contents of their mind. I can make that conclusion about the content of their brain through deduction, I don't need to actually see or experience it and it's not axiomatic. This is only the most basic deduction I can make about the contents of the brains of others. As for what your purpose is, it doesn't matter. Eliminating what you call psychobabble may or may not be a worthy goal, but if your arguments against it are flawed, they need to be attacked.
  7. But how can you know that other's minds are conciousness? How do you know they aren't like robots, taking in information, processing or "thinking", and behaving, but without any awareness? My answer that I can see that I and others possess basically the same faculties of thinking (a human brain), and since I experience consciousness and my brain is clearly the faculty that gives rise to that consciousness, others must experience consciousness in a similar way that I do. They aren't just complex robots. I can't make a conclusion that something else is conscious just based upon it's behaviour as demonstrated by the Chinese room thought experiment. There's certainly an entity acting in the Chinese room, but I don't know that it is conscious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
  8. Maybe the way you see red is the way I see green. Of course, that's completely arbitrary, but if it's impossible to know anything about a consciousness you don't experience yourself, why not?
  9. It's not the severity of the error being referred to, it is the severity of the person. I'm not sure, but I take that to mean severe, as in strict and intense, devotion to truth.
  10. I suggest massive nuclear warfare. If we manage to kill everyone, the inequality problem will be solved forever.
  11. Sounds fun. Maybe we can build a religion around it.
  12. Before you get to that, could you please integrate Marxism and National Socialism. It would also be great if you could integrate Newtonian physics and Aristotelian physics. Maybe even all four of those together.
  13. I'm reminded of the American airman who lied to his Japanese captors about America having 100 nukes, thus saving himself from beheading and providing the Japanese with disinformation.
  14. I visited Japan last summer for a vacation and to visit my brother who taught there for two years and I noticed a lot of honesty and benevolence. Retail workers and strangers on the street were incredibly kind and helpful as were the adult students and friends of my brother that I met. Shops often had their merchandise laid out in such a way that wouldn't be possible in North America due to shop lifters. My brother lived in a city that had been devastated by the tsunami and while looking through the destroyed areas, you could see that nothing had been looted and the homes of families that had been killed were left completely alone. I've not seen much Japanese media recently, but there are two that I really enjoyed; Howl's Moving Castle, a film by Miyazaki and the anime, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
  15. Something kind of like this? The thing is, Romney isn't relevant anymore so I don't see why including him is necessary for a higher standard.
  16. I think that it is a matter of degree. Mass murder is pure, stark evil that is on another level than Obamacare or even an evil game that can result in the death of innocent people. You could say the same about Obamacare and knockout, but I think they are comparable for the purposes of comparing the two motives. Someone who thinks Obama isn't evil, but that he's simply a misguided do-gooder could fairly disagree. Keep in mind that the cartoon shows Obama punching Uncle Sam. It would be different if it showed him having beaten a random person to death.
  17. Look at the brass-knuckles. Obama is the nihilist, Obamacare is his method of destruction.
  18. I don't see a racial comparison, I see a philosophical comparison. These teens playing this "game" are driven by a blind desire to destroy for destruction's sake. It's an example of nihilism, of which Obamacare is another example.
  19. I don't think that is what is being discussed in this thread. I'm surprised that during your time on the internet, you've not come across the extremely common phenomenon of foreigners generalizing Americans as ignorant, dumbed-down, warmongers, etc.
  20. Automatic knives are banned in certain states and are banned from being carried in a few more. The thing is, automatic knives are no more deadly than completely legal folding blades which, nowadays, are just as fast (or faster) to open than automatic knives. They were banned because there was a perception that gangsters carried them. It's a completely irrational law that does literally nothing.
  21. Where's the "I understand and disagree" option? I guess it's the "X" button.
  22. The implication, of course, being that most of America's veterans are as you described and therefore deserve only contempt. You site Ayn Rand but if would read her essay "Don't Let it Go" you would know how much you disagree with her on the nature of the American people. If you had read the section of Galt's speech on mind and body you would know that she would consider your ideas a surrender of the world to evil. Your "salute" for Memorial Day is disgusting.
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