mrocktor
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Posts posted by mrocktor
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Software is licensed, not sold, right? Could MS revoke the licenses currently in use by citizens, institutions and companies in the EU?
mrocktor
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I give it between ten and twenty years for the first private moon flight.
I think you are optimistic but not unreasonably so. On the other hand to go to the Moon for a purpose (and not showmanship), that I think is a bit further off - unfortunately. When it makes business sense to move off this planet, that is the day humanity has truly conquered space.
mrocktor
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I see no reason why a sentence such as 'banana you me banana' automatically implies a lack of intelligence.
It does not. The point is that it does not imply intelligence, which is the positive claim that needs to be proven. Any set of random data contains "unexplainable coincidences". A set of non-random data, such as the output of apes that are obviously capable of a lot of associations even more so.
The leap from "apes have an incredible capacity for memorization, association, aquired behavior" to "apes can talk" is a leap of faith, there is no evidence to support it. This is mainly due to bad epistemology (like your phrase above), wishful thinking and emotionalism (these researchers love their apes).
There are computer programs that utter a lot more convincing dialogue than any ape, and that just by using keywords and tables of nouns and verbs. If the standard for artificial intelligence is that dialogue with the computer must be indistinguishable from a human (double blind test), "banana you me banana" is a bit shy of the mark.
Do 5 year old children always get word order right?No, but they don't spew random unrelated words during dialogue. Your 5 year old wont say "Mommy me lamp want a candy slipper".
Mrocktor, you apparently either didn't read the paper, or have dismissed it out-of-hand as non-credible without knowing if it is actually credible or not and consequently ignored everything stated within it.I took interest in ape language after a discussion on artificial intelligence that went off that tangent. I studied the history of the research, the critics of it. My conclusions fit the data: chimps are remarkable animals, their trainers are deluded.
mrocktor
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Even with more limited competition fighting (wrestling/sparring), the main difference in difficulty when fighting a person with no previous training is thier mindset.
Specifically the fact that your friends are trying not to hurt you.
mrocktor
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The day someone puts a man on the Moon (asteroid, Mars, whatever) with his own money, and makes money from it - that day will be a great moment.
mrock
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How many repetitions does it take for a human child to learn a word and it's meaning?
Please repeat the word "abajur" (ah bah JOO r) until you learn its meaning, then you tell me.
When does that 'learned behavior' change to 'thinking' or 'rationality'?Do humans have aquired behavior (I only use "learned" in a context of knowlege) at all? Infants seem to go through a sensory stage (before they identify existents), through a perceptual stage (where they identify existents and react to them) and finally a conceptual stage where they form concepts by differentiating and integrating.
Is there a way to tell the difference?There most certainly is. Human children don't string words together in meaningless phrases to see what works.
Kanzi knew that the symbol for 'pear' meant the fruit, and yet used it to represent a similar sound, also connecting it with something else he associated with that sound, in a way he hadn't been taught.But did it know? Or did the reaserchers spend enough time with the ape that in the middle of a sequence of signs they isolated a sequence and interpreted meaning into it? Did the ape sign "pear" "bear" "snare" "chair" "hair" "flair" "dare" and triumphantly follow up with "tree" "knee" "free" clearly indicating it had isolated a sound? No, it probably signed "banana me you banana happy me want sit pear banana" and the avid researcher concluded the ape had intelligently repalced "chair" for "pear" in the phrase "I want to sit on a chair".
Why dismiss a rational capacity in animals out-of-hand without at least exploring the possibility further?Lack of credible evidence.
mrocktor
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I find it a lot more likely that the apes merely memorize signals and repeat them (reusing the combinations that are effective at elicting positive response from their handlers) and that their large capacity for aquired behavior is anthropomorphized by their handles - who want to believe.
You make a gesture and point to the ape saying "Kanzi", you make another gesture and point to a banana saying "banana". When the ape signs back "Kanzi banana" you take that as evidence of language. What the reports of these scientists surely leave out are the thousands of meaningless combinations they extracted their pearls from.
Kanzy toy banana Kanzi house hand food want friend Kanzi happy like banana Kanzi...
(a lot of successful combinations use the sign for the ape's name, the behavior will be repeated)
= My ape is a genius! It said it was happy when I was talking to it and then said it liked bananas.
mrocktor
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But god being conscious of a (external) physical world
If the god's consciousness depends on an external world, it can't have created that world (as in bringing it into existence out of nothing).
or even being conscious of its (internal) thoughtsThe argument is exactly that you can't have any internal thoughts without first having external stimuli.
It doesn't definitively disprove god or prove the existence of a physical worldIt conclusively proves that consciousness cannot exist without existence, and thus further proves that "creation" as an act of god is impossible (further, since the law of identity is sufficient to prove that you can't make something out of nothing).
mrocktor
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If it makes you feel better and more confident then why not believe it?
To be a little more specific than the (correct) responses above:
If your friend is feeling scared or lacks confidence, these are indications that an actual problem exists. Emotions are automatic value judgments, based on our conscious and implicit beliefs. If the world scares her she can choose to understand why and to act to change that, or she can choose to embrace faith and evade the problem. Choosing reason will solve the problem, choosing irrationality might fix the emotional issue, but the emotion was only a symptom not the problem itself.
mrocktor
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If you want to say that people learn from conditioning, I agree.
What she is saying is: people learn.
mrocktor
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If he does have a physical form, I think this argument breaks down.
If he had a physical form, he could hardly be omnipresent. As with every rational analysis of god, he becomes plausible to the exact measure that he is "un-goded".
mrocktor
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I am merely trying to see how people feel.
The people here are not guided by how they feel, but by what they think. If you ask if we value Intelligence or Maturity, you will have to supply the definitions. You might as well ask if we value Grubnik or Hloshtar otherwise.
On to the question itself:
Intelligence versus Maturity is a useless dichotomy. I value Rationality, the virtue of using one's mind to perceive reality as it is and acting based on one's own judgment. Intelligence, by which I mean mental capacity, or the "hardware" of thinking and the basic capacity for logical though, is a requirement for rationality. Every man can be rational, the extent of his vision is limited by his intelligence.
Maturity on the other hand is related to the content of one's mind, not on simple brainpower. Knowing how to think, the limits of ones knowlege and what is required to expand them, knowing what is needed to live and how to achieve it, knowing how to understand others when they are not clear in what they say, how to properly judge others and how to persuade them - all of this is knowlege that has to be aquired.
Rationality, therefore, leads to maturity as one gains knowlege and intelligence is required for rationality and maturity.
There is no such thing as a wise moron.
mrocktor
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Fractional reserve banking is not fraudulent.
When the depositor puts his gold in a fractional reserve account in Bank A, he knows that the bank does not hold 100% in reserve. He is not being defrauded.
When Bank A gives out a part of the deposit as a loan, the loaner also knows that the bank notes he recieved are not a 100% reserve.
When Joe buys bread at Sally's bakery and pays her with a Bank A bank note, Sally knows that that note is not from a 100% reserve bank. She is not being defrauded either.
If Bank A passes off full reserve notes and proceeds not to hold the full value in reserve, that is fraud. This is not inherent to fractional reserve banking.
If Bank A prints out full reserve bank notes for gold it does not have, that is fraud. This is not inherent to fractional reserve banking.
If Joe passes a Bank A note to Sally saying it is a 100% reserve note, he is defrauding her not Bank A.
In reality, it is very possible that Bank A would have both full reserve and fractional reserve accounts. It is possible that the bank would print two (or more) types of bank notes, according to the type of deposit. As was mentioned, fractional notes would trade for full notes at a loss.
Where is the advantage then? Time preference. I put 500 ounces of gold in the bank and get 500 fractional reserve notes, that trade for 495 full reserve notes. Of course I can simply go to the bank and redeem my notes for the 500 gold, trading for the full reserve notes would be stupid. My fractional account earns me 3% yearly, while a full reserve account costs 1% yearly (it is warehousing after all).
I win because my gold is working for me. The bank wins because it keeps part of the profit. The loaner gains because he gets capital to produce.
The key point is that the value of the bank's fractional notes is directly related to how trustworthy the bank is when it comes to redeeming notes. A bank that holds marginal reserves, has few clients or chooses poorly how to loan out money will have its fractional bank notes devalued in the market. A bank with lots of clients, that holds a healthy reserve and has good assets will have it's notes valued almost equal to gold (as in my example).
Why would bank notes from a bank that holds a 50% reserve on average not trade at 50% face value in the market, as some people seem to think would happen? Because anyone could simply take the note to the bank and redeem it for the full value. Some people might do exactly that, which is fine.
Any good bank will work hard to have it's fractional notes trade very close to face value. Any bank can only inflate it's own fractional notes - which is suicidal since it pushes customers away (why would you want to deposit your gold and get junk notes for it?) and increases the risk of a bank run that would mean liquidation of the bank (notice that in this case most likely all the customers get their money back from the bank's assets and capital).
And just to restate an important point that has already been made: a bank note is not a property certificate to a certain bar of gold, it is an IOU. The bank note you get when you put 500 ounces of gold in the bank does not mean you own those 500 ounces in the bank's vault, it means the bank promises to pay you 500 ounces of gold if you turn in that note. Likewise when a bank writes up 300 additional bank notes and gives them to a businessman, on condition that he pay back 350 a year from now and backed by the businessman's assets in effect the bank has 800 outstanding notes, 500 in the vault and a claim to 350 gold or equivalent assets.
mrocktor
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Just to clarify, what do you mean by "initiate force"? Are you talking about a situation where the government searches property of an innocent, etc. Or, are you also speaking of the government (say) imprisoning a convicted criminal?
Not to put words in his mouth but what Libertarians typically mean is:
If I want to set up a militia and hunt down, judge and execute murderers the government will use force against me. They consider this to be the government initiating force.
mrock
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Or any other similar example, if someone insists on ruining my night by negating this example.
I'll really ruin your night
Your example and any other similar example where you are acting to avoid having your rights violated (life, in this case) is not a proper scenario for what is being discussed.
The question is: is it easier to violate someone's rights to achieve some result and then ask forgiveness or to ask the person and have the result depend on their willingness.
The moral is the practical, Groovenstein has it answered. It is easier to ask permission and deal with people by reason. Dealing by force, whether you ask for forgiveness after or not, is immoral and impractical. What if you are not forgiven? You lose someone to trade with, you gain a reputation of violating people's rights, you can get sued, you can even be subjected to revenge - including the retaliatory use of force by the offended party, even if such revenge is as immoral as your crime.
mrocktor
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Ah, the I am forced to vote in every election option is missing! Here in Brazil if you miss 3 straight elections (and don't pay the fines for doing so) you lose you voter registration - which is required for such things as being hired for a job, opening a bank account...
mrock
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And by your definition, phone sex is sex, simply because the phrase contains the word "sex."
Hardly. I did not define the concept based on the word's usage (which would be epistemological folly), I used an example of the word's usage to demonstrate that the definition you proposed does not cover all that the concept "sex" should.
If (forgive me the tasteless example) your girl friend/wife walks up to you and says:
A - I had sex with Joe (using the word as you defined it)
B - I gave Joe a blow job
There is no rational reason why you should respond differently to A or B. In both cases she was physically intimate with another guy - and that is the essential aspect of the thing. That is what the concept should subsume.
You can then create a myriad of sub-concepts and derived concepts, differentiating my means (oral, anal), gender of the participants (homo, hetero), willigness of the participants (rape), number of participants (orgy) and whatever else.
mrocktor
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EC, that is a poor definition.
Oral sex is called oral sex and not oral "fluffing" or something. We have homosexuals and not homofluffuals (since by your definition homosexuality is impossible).
Defining sex as the physical act as it is performed for reproductive purposes is defining by non-essentials. The essential issues are:
1. sex involves the genitals
2. sex involves more than one person
mrocktor
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People can choose to act against their biology and their metaphysical status as male or female because they possess volition.
You assume too much. Is it not likely that some people's biology just works differently from the norm? I see no evidence to support the claim that all people that are attracted to those of the same sex are choosing to go against their nature. On the contrary, I would imagine that someone who chooses such a path when it could mean being killed (as was the case in the not so distant past, and still is if you are under the Sharia for instance) is not going against his nature.
People choose to go against their nature when there is incentive to do so or when they are ignorant of what their nature demands. While now days there may be incentives to become homosexual (join the group, easier to find partners, become a minority deserving special attention etc.) it was not always so - and yet homosexuals have existed for a long time.
It is deeply immoral for a guy attracted to men to find a woman, marry her and have kids.
Back to the original question, I see nothing in reality that demands that our reproductive organs or physical stimuli that give us pleasure have any grand significance associated to them. There are plenty of other things that demand the willing participation of others as well, that is no merit to that argument either.
I have yet to see a single rational argument to the effect that "proper" sex is a "celebration of values".
mrocktor
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Its just not the sort of thing which is ever going to come up in a reasonable conversation.
The only context in which your statement would be true is one in which no one talks about sex or anything remotely related to it (and all the issues that have been identified as potentially related) in a reasonable conversation. We all know this is not true. "Did you have sex with X" is not something only presidents get asked or talk about.
Your assertion hardly removes the need for a proper definition of the term, in fact its a clear sign that it is needed. What you said seems to indicate that anything like what Mr. Clinton did requires no discussing of the details. That shows an implicit definition on your part.
Roughly I'd define sex as physical stimulation of the genitals by another person. This differentiates from masturbation and is independent from the purpose or means used. Forced sex is rape, sex for pleasure or for reproduction is still sex, all forms of intercourse are sex.
mrocktor
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Very nice Burgess.
Since I experienced the contrast between living with and without guilt on a very significant issue, admitting mistakes has become quite easy for me.
mrocktor
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Sorry but I have to question this statements validity. If the Nazi's had suddenly started "accepting" rights after killing millions of people, would they have then somehow have then gained legitimacy?
If they "suddenly" started protecting individual rights for real, I'd move there. Of course they would have identified their previous evil, taken responsibility, made reparations when possible... all the things rational people do when in error.
mrocktor
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Given that the assertion that the primary goal of living organisms is the sustaining of their own lives is clearly false, what does this mean for the way objectivist ethics is justified and explained by Rand and Peikoff?
They are not talking about "an organism", they are talking about a rational volitional being. Preservation of life and consequently of rationality must be such a being's primary goal - it is a decision making entity who's existence is conditioned to making decisions to sustain it's life. No life - no values.
Some of you seem to have come close to addressing this but not quite gotten there, particularly mrocktor and I appreciate what you have written. There is much in your post I would like to reply to but will save it for now as I don't want to muddy the already murky waters. I'll just say, mrocktor, that the content of your post can be extrapolated to get us logically to "life" but it does not get us to "my life" (at least not exclusively) and it does not explain the meaning and the implication of Rand and Peikoff's words."Your life" comes from the fact that there is no collective thought. It is impossible to measure the "total value" existing in a group of people as it is impossible to collectively make choices. Since you must make choices individually, and you must judge values for yourself (and cannot judge the values of others) it is your life that is your standard of value.
mrocktor
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Recognizing the extent of you abilities and acknowledging them isn't (...) irrational (...)
It's not humility either.
humbleness (syn):Marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit; not arrogant or prideful.
Showing deferential or submissive respect: a humble apology.
Low in rank, quality, or station; unpretentious or lowly: a humble cottage.
While not being arrogant (overestimating/overstating yourself) is a virtue, being humble (underestimating/understating yourself) certainly is not.
mrocktor
Animal Cognition: Language is not only for humans?
in Biosciences
Posted
Extensively. The "genius" phrases are always part of long sequences of meaningless getures or a phrase taken out of a larger group of phrases most of which are meaningless. This is one of the main charges against the methods used to assess these ape's capacity for language. The other one is "cueing", where the animal reacts to unintended stimuli provided by the people.
I didn't read your link and I don't know if it is something I have seen before. I'll look at it now.
mrocktor