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Hi Hakarmaskannar, I was curious who you studied kempo-ju jutsu with and if it was connected at all with mitose. I studied the same combination for some time, and found it to be a very nice approach.

I don't think evolution is generally taught to 3 year olds because they lack the prerequisite knowledge. I certainly wouldn't recommend it. But, aside from that, what parts of evolution do you have in mind that would be contradictory to a child's senses? Well, he is essentially an arbitrary claim. Without reference to his arbitrary nature, I don't think that you could really prove he doesn't exist. At best you could disprove peripherels, such as the lack of a house at the north pole. But the realization that the arbitrary requires no proof, requires a bit more philosophy then most toddlers possess. He is certainly more tangible then god since he is presented as possessing a current physical form. The similiarities that I had in mind, which I thought were important, were those which prime the child's mind for belief without evidence. I think exceptions should be made for birthdays and the like, but as a general rule, I don't think it wise for parents to buy children whatever they want. Neccessities and educational requirements, yes, but not toys everytime they walk through a store. The poor results of that behaviour by parents is, I believe, fairly obvious.

I do. Approximately 12 years altogether. Moved around a lot, so different things at different times. Primarily Ju Jutsu, brazilian jiu jitsu, muay thai, Arnise, and a little aikido, hapkido, karate, iado and kung fu.

I am assuming, that because you call it silly without explaining the flaw in my reasoning, that you have not read my prior posts, so I will attept to reexplain why they are connected and why your final statement is correct. A young child's brain is not the same as an adult brain with less information. It is in a process of developing his very basic psycho-epistomological framework. During this period from 0-5, they form habits, learn language, develop facial expressions, learn how to walk, develop tendencies to speak loudly or quietly, absorb the basic elements of the culture they live in, learn to trust or not trust others and themselves, and most importantly to the discussion, develop the processes by which the figure things out(reason). They must learn things even as simple as a 3 inch diameter peg will not fit in a 1 inch diameter hole. It is not inherently obvious to them. So when you tell them about santa it conflicts with their first hand knowledge in a number of ways. "last year, it took 8 hours to see grandma on the plain, but santa goes everywhere at once" "My dog doesn't fly, but reindeers do". A 400lb man can fit through a chimney or keyhole" etc. They do not possess the ability to make a reasoned judgement and they do trust their parents. The result is that they decide early that they shouldn't trust their own first hand knowledge. It puts a tiny fracture between them and reality. In addition, the story of santa, once they are old enough to be told it, is identical in every important respect to god. The child is told that"If he is 'good', a mystical being that you cant see will give him free goodies, and he will be happy". So when the kid is 8 and stops believing in santa, they tell him "If he is 'good', a mystical being that you cant see will give you goodies after he dies, and he will be happy". Does it lead directly to jesus? No, but it paves the way by eliminating their trust of their own senses, encouraging trust in authority, and creating the incorrect basis of how hapiness is achieved in their minds. I do not consider it silly at all. Teaching a child that y is correct when it is outside the context of his knowledge is a mistake as well and I it is clever of you to make that connection. When children learn to write, for example, they usually write a number of letters backwards. Parents and teachers employing the more traditional prussian method, are quick to tell the child he is mistaken. What they do not realize, is that the child, literally, cannot see that their is a difference between their backward letter and a correct one. They are not yet able to hold that context. The correct thing to do is let them continue drawing them backwards. Once they fully grasp the actual shape, they will start to explore other elements such as direction and size. Knowledge during that developmental period must be kept within the context of their knowledge or the become frustrated and quickly lose interest. Introspection about one's own experiences is not very useful because of the very different state that your brain is in once you start as compared to a young child.

BINGO! You got it.

Oh man, what a mind-f&%$. The whole doesn't count because it is made up of smaller pieces? Atoms, then also dont matter since they are made up of sub-atominc particles. His primary mistake seems to be that he is either forgetting about or denying freewill, in which case youre in for some trouble. Basically rights are required for man's existence. Man being, a being of volitional conciousness. If you deny volition, rights cannot be supported. There are differences between the nature of men and inanimate matter. He disagrees with this somewhere...I would bet he's a determinist/behaviourist. I am not sure what level he disagrees on, but I bet this will be an uncomfortable experience for you wherever it is. Good luck.

No...I view them as fundementally different. At a birthday, you recieve gifts as a testament of your value to others. Or give them to express the value of someones existence to you. Christmas is different in that, a mystical being magically delivers what you want if you have properly obeyed authority, ostensibly because it was jesus' birthday. Even if you exclude the actual jesusbased meaning of the holiday, it still has that element of the universe giving you what you wish for regardless of causally related effort. Not people who care about you expressing that. Typically, you recieve presents from people but you also give them presents on their birthdays. I'm all for celebrating existence, properly. I have no problem with new years, or thanksgiving. Easter I don't care for, for mainly the same reasons. 4th of July I love. Of course, that might just be a result of my love for all things grilled...but I digress. The 4th I like because of what it represents. Labor day....eh...memmorial day I like. Not sure why it isnt combined with the 4th though.

To clarify, I do not advocate teaching philosophy or its underlying reasons to young children. But I think the impact on their implicit belief structure is something a parent ought to take into consideration. That seems like an interesting study. I look forward to reading it. Thanks for that.

I am pretty certain this is the basis of our disagreement. You believe, as many have, that those first few years are relatively unimportant and have little impact since the child doesn't really "get it" anyways. I believe the exact opposite. I believe the first five years of a childs life are more important then the remaining 68 in the construction of their character and capacities. Seemingly small changes can have incredible impacts on rest of their lives. (incidentally, this view explains konerkos recent question regarding differences in personality between siblings who have, what seems from outside, to be the same experiences. The less obvious details are the ones to look at.) I realize we are not talking about teaching santa to adults(although I guarantee that you are teaching adults about god-in the eventual sense- by teaching children to believe in santa. Think about it with regard to perception of time. Tell a 5 year old, he'll have to wait a year for a new bike and it is hardly indistinguisable from an eternity. Tell a 50 year old the same thing, and he knows that bike will be here and the year will be gone before he blinks an eye. The reason is 1 year is 20% of a 5 year olds life and only 2% of a 50 year old's. I submit that the evaluation of importance of things which occur to an individual happen on that same scale. Well, no he could not. You could have a guy named santa who exists and gives someone a present. He could not do any of those supernatural things which children are led to believe. I actually disagree that he teaches benevolence, unless you mean that in the christian sense of the word. I think he is a symbol of desiring the unearned, believing that good things can only be had in supernatural ways, trust in authority, and distrust of your senses and ability to reason. Though I dislike of his symbiology, it is very secondary to the inherent mysticism in his persona. How are my "unfortunate childhood experience" entierly abnormal?(thanks for the pity by the way-really enjoy that) They seem consistent with what everyone else I have ever known had and are exactly what you seem to be advocating. Correct me if I am mistaken on that account. Our philosophical problems are of the utmost importance to a child. They lack the capicity to understand it explicitly, but they absorb their surrounding philosphy implicitly. Seemingly small details, such as a disconnect between cause and effect, can prove disaterous in the long run. Consider a child who does something the parent considers to be wrong. Sometimes the parent laughs, other times they yell and punish the child(this happens often with alcoholics). What impact would that have on the childs ability to make decisions? It creates a world that is unintelligable. They cannot act long range because the predictability of the world is shot by the seeming lack of causal connections between their behaviour and results. Santa has this same sort of negative impact on a childs implicitly held philosophy Now, admittedly, a child raised with a little bit of mysticism on a backdrop of reason will probably recover, but there would have to be some great good to be had by letting him believe his senses were invalid, in order to justify it. And so far we have that he learns to be "good" and not "bad" which means to the child, that he must obey authority to be a "good boy". And that he can be happy once a year because a non-real person will bring him stuff he didn't earn. Now compare the philosophical effects of paying a child for additional chores to earn something he desires to the "if I wish it, I get it" belief. Which will help the child develop self-efficacy and independence? Which will give him a correct view of the way the world actually functions? Which will allow the long term benevolence and achievement in life and which causes disappointment from a sense of unfulfilled entitlement? The proper end of child-rearing is to prepare the child for existence in this world. I just don't think that believing in santa helps towards that end.

I think it was that poor selfesteem is not derived from a prostitute so long as he can get sex otherwise. I take that to mean, that if he went to a prostitute because he could not otherwise get sex, then this would be indicative of poor selfesteem. So the ability to get sex without paying is the key indicator of self-esteem. I think. Really hard for me to understand. I haven't read the contextual discussion however.

Santa is distinctively different from a movie or a book where animals talk because he is presented as real by the parents by their attempts to fabricate evidence for his actual existence. "Look, he took a bite out of the cookie", etc. My girlfriend in her class, when reading a book to the 3-6 year olds will pause and ask a question like, "Ducks don't really talk, do they?", to guide the children into critical thinking with regard to irrational claims because younger children actually lack the contextual knowledge necessary to make that distinction. Consider all of the prerequisite knowledge necessary for the explination you gave of how movies are made. You are able to suspend reality and have it be enjoyable because of the knowledge you possess. If someone showed you a film in which nuclear explosions were going off in NYC and told you it was a news release rather then a film, then the movie scenario would compare to the way that santa is presented. edit:to answer your question more directly, the key distinction is whether or not you are suspending belief as a visual game or actually believing reality is different then it is.

(italics mine) This is a good example of why deduction without induction is extremely unuseful. The implication here is that proper self-esteem is derived from the ability to get sex without paying for it.

The answer is yes and yes. Of course, your questions presuppose those answers. If the computer is sufficiently powerful and your knowledge of the human brain is sufficiently complete then you could create a human brain which would have freewill. You are essentially asking if we could make a copy of a human brain would it be a human brain? Sure it would. We could theoretically make a molecular scale map of a brain and rebuild it molecule by molecule and it would be indistinguishable from an organically created brain. Perhaps you mean to ask something else?

Speaking for myself, that is partially the case. However, getting away from people is not really the primary goal. More that I am getting to be with myself. What I like about it, is that I do not depend on anyone else in any way for the accompishment of a task-even if the tasks are sort of without purpose. Don't have to worry about incompetent employees, suppliers that don't come through in time on a delivery, etc.

I've done quite a bit of hiking an interestingly have come to the opposite conclusion. That people are far more unpredictable then nature. When hiking or climbing you are really dependent on just your own skills and abilities. For my part, I enjoy the consistency of nature.

You are exactly right. Montessori referred to this delicate period as the "absobent mind". The child from 0-5ish literally sponges information. Which is why second and third languages are so much easier to learn if you get them from the start and why seemingly minor things such as a belief in the mystical can have profound longterm effects. The main problem with external rewards is that they hamper their desire to learn far more then they help it. Productivity needs to be its own reward. For young children, the act of accomplishment, is and ought to be the primary motivation. Money is a great example of this. Money, essentially, is a barometer of the value of your work to other people. If you were to pursue it as an end in itself, happiness would not result. It would be a secondhanded self-esteem. You pursue the virtue of productivity. Money might come with that, but not necessarily. It's the same, but more important for young children. Rather then work for the reward of an increased sense of accomplishment and therefore efficaciousness, a child taught to seek external rewards engenders in him a desire to chase ends without regard to means. The jesus like santa is precisely the one I was raised with. It is a good deal more common then you might expect. It was made clear that my getting presents not only depended on my behaving whilst the omnipotent guy at the north pole watched me, but on my conitued belief in him as well. It was the definition of primacy of conciousness. I agree that santa cannot teach the conceptual; nature of ethics. Good and bad can be taught much more accurately by way of the childs own actions and their consequences then by authority because this keeps it within the context of their own knowledge. There is really no benefit to muddling their mind with labeling things as good or bad because their parents say so. If they understand cause and effect, they will be much more likely to develop a proper ethical system on their own with their parents as guides then learning to behave based on mantra and dictum. "Sharing", "honesty","violence", etc are all context based issues. To tell a child to never tell a lie, or never hit someone else does him a disservice.

I do not understand your purpose in defending religion so strongly? Do you believe in god, yourself? I thought I was pretty clear that people with an irrational base are capable of holding true beliefs. Just not consistently true beliefs. What they lack, beyond any shadow of doubt, is an integrated view of existence. They are misintegrated or disintegrated. The question being discussed is whether santa is good for kids or not. My primrary argument is that he is not because it leads to a lack of trust in their senses. This lack of trust in their senses during very formative years often leads to belief in god or other mistaken ideas, which will not ever be beneficial to their life. Regarding Jefferson, understand that I love the man. He was a hero of mine, far before I ever heard ayn rand's name. Personally, I give him a lot of leeway, being born so long ago. Shoulders of giants and all. The same goes for adams, aristotle, mencken, nietche...they did superb with what they had. I am well acquainted with jefferson's rationale for owning people. It would have been very inconvenient for him to have to work full time and not be able to order $800 worth of macaroni from france. But it's just that, a rationalization. He was mistaken. Heroes are allowed to be imperfect and still be heroes. But he fact remains, he was mistaken and his zeitgeist does not alter that fact. What I hope to understand here, is what is best for a child. To counter my view you have to show me 2 things. 1-That a belief in santa in the way that you mean, does not cause a child to mistrust his senses. And 2- Something about believing in the particualr view of santa(or god) that you advocate is beneficial to human life.

It really does. At best, they are both disintegrated with their use of reason. As much as I love Jefferson, and give him a good deal of leniency for living 200 years ago, he did own people and simultaneously believed that owning other people was wrong. While president, he attempted to enact legislation which made it illegal to speak badly about him. The degree of effect of their irrationality is certainly different, but not essential in determining their character and capacities. Both have a fundemental view about reality that is fundmentally mistaken. One does not accidentally believe in god. It's one of those big questions that people, even non-thinking types put a lot of thought into. Young children do. They believe that a 300lb guy can squeeze through a keyhole and travel as light speed. 4 year olds are not rational persons. If santa was told as a story in the same way charlottes web is, then it would be a good deal less harmful. When reading charlottes web to a child, you can ask by way of leading them to a correct view of reality..."pigs don't really talk, do they?" Which might lead them to develop abilities of discernment. Santa is presented in a fundementally different way, however. Children are led to believe that he does exist and can perform many impossible tasks. What do you mean by properly presented? The problem with the morality santa teaches is that it breaks down into using external rewards and punishments to encourage behaviour in accordance with the dictates of authority rather then an ability to understand right and wrong in a consistent integrated way. It's like a teacher giving candy for a correct answer to a question. Interest in learning is best promoted when a child enjoys the gathering of new information and a better understanding of the world. External rewards confuse the issue for them, and usually cause them to seek ways of efficiently acquiring the reward rather then understanding the material. The two things are not causally related, although they are sometimes made to seem so.

I think I have not explained myself well. First, I do not make a big differentiation between rational and non rational religious people. The very fact that they are able to accept such a rediculous notion as a belief in god, tells me in a word that they are capable of any other sort of irrationality. Whether or not they accept any particular bit of nonsense is not very relevent. Being either mis or disintegrated, any proper view of reality they happen to hold traces back to god as a metaphysical premise. Second, I do not think that believing in santa is a one way ticket to seminary. It's just a step on the road. The primary epistomological damage is that it causes a child to doubt his senses. To doubt, in other words, his primary means of gaining knowledge about the world. Before the age of 4-6ish, children, even very bright ones, do not have the context necessay to distinguish between fantasy and reality-especially when a trusted adult tells them that it is true. Children are not small adults. Their brains are functioning in as very different way then adults. By way of example, my girlfriend teaches 3-6 year old montessori. I come in occasionally to do science projects with them. An assistant(not monetssori trained) at the school had recently performed a slight of hand magic trick and let the children believe it was truely magic. Several of the brighter children came to me(the science guy who explains all of the "why's") very disturbed and wanted to know if you can really make things disappear. It contradicted what they understood about reality and it bothered them. Fortunately, I had a very good friend in high school who was a magician. So I was able to reproduce the trick as well as a number of others and explain the obfuscation and redirection of focus(in 5 year old terms). This put them at ease and kept them as interested as the tricks themselves. What bothered me was the twenty other kids who did not ask about it. They just accepted that their are certain things about the world they don't understand, and that thats ok. Mysticism is dangerous in a general way. By iteslf, santa does not lead to god. But it is an important step on the way. Before you buy into the mystical, you have to doubt your perceptions and your ability to reason. Both of those are damaged by this little game at a very foundational level. You could hobble a child's legs before the race and not worry about it much since the ropes will loosen and fall off after the first lap...but why hobble his legs? Dismuke: I assume by, santa as a benevolent symbol, you mean telling them the original story of the real person, saint nick, and his benevolence toward others, apart from the mysticim? I think I have not explained myself well. First, I do not make a big differentiation between rational and non rational religious people. The very fact that they are able to accept such a rediculous notion as a belief in god, tells me in a word that they are capable of any other sort of irrationality. Whether or not they accept any particular bit of nonsense is not very relevent. Being either mis or disintegrated, any proper view of reality they happen to hold traces back to god as a metaphysical premise. Second, I do not think that believing in santa is a one way ticket to seminary. It's just a step on the road. The primary epistomological damage is that it causes a child to doubt his senses. To doubt, in other words, his primary means of gaining knowledge about the world. Before the age of 4-6ish, children, even very bright ones, do not have the context necessay to distinguish between fantasy and reality-especially when a trusted adult tells them that it is true. Children are not small adults. Their brains are functioning in as very different way then adults. By way of example, my girlfriend teaches 3-6 year old montessori. I come in occasionally to do science projects with them. An assistant(not monetssori trained) at the school had recently performed a slight of hand magic trick and let the children believe it was truely magic. Several of the brighter children came to me(the science guy who explains all of the "why's") very disturbed and wanted to know if you can really make things disappear. It contradicted what they understood about reality and it bothered them. Fortunately, I had a very good friend in high school who was a magician. So I was able to reproduce the trick as well as a number of others and explain the obfuscation and redirection of focus(in 5 year old terms). This put them at ease and kept them as interested as the tricks themselves. What bothered me was the twenty other kids who did not ask about it. They just accepted that their are certain things about the world they don't understand, and that thats ok. Mysticism is dangerous in a general way. By iteslf, santa does not lead to god. But it is an important step on the way. Before you buy into the mystical, you have to doubt your perceptions and your ability to reason. Both of those are damaged by this little game at a very foundational level. You could hobble a child's legs before the race and not worry about it much since the ropes will loosen and fall off after the first lap...but why hobble his legs? Dismuke: I assume by, santa as a benevolent symbol, you mean telling them the original story of the real person, saint nick, and his benevolence toward others, apart from the mysticim?

How are you so certain of that?

This argument doesn't work for me as I can apply it to any irrational belief system. I could raise my children with the belief that communism is a beautiful system and then once they discovered I was wrong, they would be committed capitalists. Or I could beat my children in order to fully drive home the fact that violence is the wrong way to deal with others. The point isn't that being taught about santa clause is always bad. I'm fairly certain a child taught that santa is real and could still grow up to be a fine objectivist. But it is still worse then the alternative, because it is far more likely the child will grow up to be a fine upstanding driver of a ford freestar with a jesus fish on the back.

Here are several that I had looked up in a discussion a few years ago. http://oceania.org/ http://freestateproject.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Atlantis http://www.freedomship.com/ http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/wasdin/wasdin24.html http://www.sealandgov.org/

Absolutely. Before 4-5 I think most of those things are very harmful, but I'm a big fan of montessori so my inclinations on this come from her, primarily. Fiction stories would be ok if they are reality based. Most developmental psychologists are currently in agreement that TV and video games(any two dimensional activity)are bad for young kids generally, but horrible before the age of 2.

Actually, before you close it,one thought I have had that has always bothered me about Mr. Claus, is that he seems to be the perfect primer to a belief in mysticism and god in particular. In essence, you have this old grandfatherly, patriarch guy who will give you special presents made and delivered by impossible means if you behave the way he tells you to and do not research the issue by inspecting your parents closet. And you are injecting this notion into the mind of a child at a point where their context is so limited that the line between reality and fantasy is difficult for them to determine. So I am staunchly opposed to it because I think it makes for a poor metaphysical foundation in the mind of children. Regarding the relationships...Something I have come to realize is that when I am attempting to explain something to someone, and they do not understand, most often it is because I have done a poor job of explaining rather then them being evasive and dishonest or just plain dumb. Especially with regard to other objectivists or people who are generally reason based in their approach to life. The thing which I have the most difficulty with in that regard is that I might explain something in a way which makes perfect sense to me while they are still resistent to it. Something which I am absolutely certain of, even. I used to believe that this was a result of evasion or dishonesty on their part, which was a mistake. What typically causes these impasses, is that I am unable to put it in a context that they understand. Because many things, especially those things gathered inductively and connected to a large number of interconnected existants are difficult if not impossible to see without the predicating knowledge. The fix, which isn't as easy as it might sound, is to try and understand what foundational pices they might be missing in order to come to the belief they do hold. From that perspective I would agree that one ought to be accepting of their lover(maybe not a 100% of the time because sometimes people do need an epitomological slap upside the head) perhaps 99% of the time. Ostensibly if you love the person, you are already certain of their intellectual honesty. So when they argue something which is blatantly wrong, I assume that it is an error of knowledge rather then an error of morality and that the fault of the disagreement is primarily mine for not being able to explain in a way that makes it understandabe to them.

That's what I was getting at with my questions. I meant them in a somewhat rhetorical sense. The philosophy I had in mind was altruism. Specifically that altruism is being merged with, or is replacing heroism in our culture. It just struck me an an indicator of the change in the American sense of life. Fit's in nicely with the tearing down of historical figures by essentializing the nonessential faults or traits they might possess in order to "humanize" them. Jefferson and his slave relationship, Alexander the great's sexual preferences, etc. Even with regard to current celebrities, the most poplular news about them is when they do something dumb. (public drunkness, holding children while driving). Granted, it is deserved a lot of the time, but that fact that it is of such greater interest to most then any actual achievements says a lot.