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StrictlyLogical

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  1. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to Easy Truth in Theory of Mind   
    Sounds like this means that: out of a deterministic universe/existence, a non deterministic entity emerges.
    As if some areas of the universe are deterministic and some areas are not. Well, how do they intersect? They seem to be in the same universe but contradicting each other (they coexist?). How?
  2. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to tadmjones in Theory of Mind   
    I get caught or stuck on the phrase ‘the universe is deterministic’  and especially when that conclusion is then used as a qualifier for whatever comes next, which is obviously , usually a statement about free will .
    I think it’s because I can never be quite sure what is meant by ‘universe’. For me the concept denotes ‘all of existence ‘ , but when determinism is applied as a qualifier I infer a concept closer to something that describes cosmology, and for that I understand the materialistic ‘laws of physics’ , all of existence minus minds and their products.
    Another stumble is encountering ‘emergence’ . It seems to be invoked when one needs to name a casual force but at the same time trying to imply an uncaused  force. 
    Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I heard it , but recently heard a conversation about the differences between complicated and complex systems. It was pretty interesting and the basic idea was that complicated systems could be broken down to it constituents, the parts explained as to cause and effect and reassembled and its predictable functions would resume. Complex systems on the other hand could be disassembled and the constituents examined but the interactions of the parts and their arrangements make predictions of their functions impossible.
    I suppose that is the idea of emergence and that complexity is a necessary condition or a casual property of emergence qua force ?
    Perhaps the determinism of the universe is emergent , too ?
    Sorry for the rambling post ,it’s late , but interesting thread.
  3. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from tadmjones in Is it moral to use FMLA?   
    I agree with tadmjones.
    Your wages and time away are automatically considered when they suggest and or allow you to use FMLA.  This indicates agreement, and as such in complete accord with the trader principle.
    As for the government paying for it, if you compare how much in taxes you should pay in a proper society versus what you (and your parents) have paid, and account for what kinds of goods and services you would have gotten in a free society versus the mixed economy one you actually got....  unless you and your parents had been truly needy through all your lives,  you will find that the State owes you big time, that you paid far too much for far too little in return... and if anything FMLA helps to balance the ledger a little bit.
  4. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to tadmjones in Is it moral to use FMLA?   
    You are not acting against contractual agreement with your employer as they recommend this specific course of action , the benefits or renumeration you receive do not come by any effort on your part to defraud or gain through dishonesty.
    Perhaps use those opportunities for personal growth instead of ‘slothfulness’.
  5. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Boydstun in What is the explanation for why some people live according to reason, and others don't?   
    Perhaps it is as basic an issue as the following.
     
    Observe the ability to "think" rather than merely "feel" or "intuit" or impulsively "decide" requires a particular mode of mental function which, is similar to any physical muscle or capability, in that:
    1.  it requires some training and discipline to strengthen and develop, current capacity being dependent upon of past practice or exercise, and
    2.  when used, is subjectively felt as effort (and correctly so).
    Choosing to think is like choosing to act (also, mental labor is an analogue for physical labor) and if the activity is beyond a person's current capacity and even if it only requires a substantial portion thereof it will be "difficult" to do.
     
    The answer to:
    Why don't some unfit people exercise? 
    is arguably the same as
    Why don't some habitually unthinking people, avoid rational thought?
  6. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to Boydstun in Always respecting the rights of others, as found in Objectivism, is a form of altruism or socialism?   
    SL in the preceding post draws attention to consideration of strategic self-interest in social interactions such as not violating rights. This has been developed in terms of game theory. Rights have been supported by game-theoretic self-interested strategy. See. They tell how the couple of things Rand said about rights—subjugation of collectives to moral law and the social-coordination function of rights—can come about. (These are professional academics; they do not mention Rand; one has to make the connection to Rand's system for oneself.)
    The strategic considerations SL brings to decision of respecting rights are also pertinent to decision in truth-telling, another issue raised by LB in this thread. Listeners to one's reports on happenings in reality know that reality all fits together self-consistently. So to tell lies, one has put one's memory to work overtime: one has to remember what all one has said before and not undermine the lie by inconsistencies. Just routinely telling the truth is a lot easier because one can just keep looking back to reality (which one is continually doing for oneself anyway) and reporting it, and leave it to reality to take care of consistency. Being found out in lies can be a great handicap in opportunities for further satisfactions from social interactions, due to reconfiguration of people's attitude toward you, and this is the point at which SL's line of thought concerning rights is a consideration also concerning honesty. 
  7. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Boydstun in Always respecting the rights of others, as found in Objectivism, is a form of altruism or socialism?   
    Here is a succinct and slightly different take for newbies (meta-paraphrased from various sources):
     
    An individual has a nature, and his flourishing requires among other things the ability/freedom to act in accordance with those ethical principles which are consistent with, and both necessary and sufficient for that flourishing.
    A like-minded group of individuals who wish to flourish, recognizing those freedoms/abilities to act are necessary for flourishing and what actions would constitute their violation, undertake to uphold the protection of those freedoms as against actions which are to their detriment, undertaken in kind (as an agreement... and as a trade) with those like-minded others. 
    Each realizes that any breach of the above, violates not only the agreement, but must stem from a violation of the very freedoms of action which were so recognized as necessary for flourishing.  A person who chooses  to violate the freedoms of action (rights) of any other has chosen to be no longer trusted as recognizing the freedoms of action (rights) of all others, and must understand that in accordance with sound judgment all others are now no longer bound by agreement to recognize his rights...(unless shown sufficient reason to forgive and re-enter an accord, i.e. payment of restitution, proof of remorse and rehabilitation)
    when one picks up one end of the stick one picks up the other end also... one's choosing not to act reciprocally in favor of individual rights, asks quite frankly, for war.
    a person who chooses war risks far more death, injury, and hardship, and is therefore far more "selfless", than one who chooses merely to recognize (in a reciprocal fashion) for others, what oneself should be free to do.
     
    Recognizing individual rights, for everyone, is decidedly selfish.
  8. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from dream_weaver in Always respecting the rights of others, as found in Objectivism, is a form of altruism or socialism?   
    Here is a succinct and slightly different take for newbies (meta-paraphrased from various sources):
     
    An individual has a nature, and his flourishing requires among other things the ability/freedom to act in accordance with those ethical principles which are consistent with, and both necessary and sufficient for that flourishing.
    A like-minded group of individuals who wish to flourish, recognizing those freedoms/abilities to act are necessary for flourishing and what actions would constitute their violation, undertake to uphold the protection of those freedoms as against actions which are to their detriment, undertaken in kind (as an agreement... and as a trade) with those like-minded others. 
    Each realizes that any breach of the above, violates not only the agreement, but must stem from a violation of the very freedoms of action which were so recognized as necessary for flourishing.  A person who chooses  to violate the freedoms of action (rights) of any other has chosen to be no longer trusted as recognizing the freedoms of action (rights) of all others, and must understand that in accordance with sound judgment all others are now no longer bound by agreement to recognize his rights...(unless shown sufficient reason to forgive and re-enter an accord, i.e. payment of restitution, proof of remorse and rehabilitation)
    when one picks up one end of the stick one picks up the other end also... one's choosing not to act reciprocally in favor of individual rights, asks quite frankly, for war.
    a person who chooses war risks far more death, injury, and hardship, and is therefore far more "selfless", than one who chooses merely to recognize (in a reciprocal fashion) for others, what oneself should be free to do.
     
    Recognizing individual rights, for everyone, is decidedly selfish.
  9. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to Boydstun in There Is No "Thing-In-Itself"   
    It was correct, from the standpoint of her philosophy, for Rand to counter Kant’s notion that our minds cannot grasp things as they are apart from contributions from our minds. But there is a deeper criticism of Kant, based in Rand’s philosophy, that we should observe, one she never expressly stated: there is no such thing as a thing-in-itself in Kant’s most fundamental sense. From Rand’s metaphysics, fully grown, it is not only that Existence is identity and consciousness is identification. It is, additionally, that every existent has measures—they bear magnitude relations—and cognitions engage measurements, discernments of magnitude relations. “If anything were actually ‘immeasureable’, it would bear no relationships of any kind to the rest of the universe, it would not affect nor be affected by anything else in any manner whatever, it would enact no causes and bear no consequences—in short, it would not exist” (ITOE 39; Baumgarten §53– “whatever is entirely undetermined is nothing.” ). Then there is no such thing as Kant’s thing-in-itself. It is not only “as nothing to us,” it is nothing (and not because it would be as nothing to any kind of intelligence whatever, even an omniscient one, contra Rand’s thought in ITOE App. 194). With respect to relations, Rand’s dicta “Existence is identity” should be cashed as “No existents are without relations to other existents.” Among relations to things not itself would be possible real relations of any real thing to human consciousness. Kant’s distinction between things as perceivable or knowable and things in themselves is in reality a distinction between things as perceivable or knowable and things that do not exist. Inability to know things that do not exist is no shortcoming; said thing-in-itself is not something at which our perceptions and conceptions aim. Then too, it is not a thing-in-itself that brings us sensations; from nothing, nothing is supported or arises. Never “is the thing in itself . . . at issue in experience” (A30 B45) is so for the Kant-missed reason that there are no such things as things in themselves. However, although Kant was wrong to characterize things as they are independently of our discernment of them as things as they are “in themselves,” and we have exposed that misidentification of the two notions, it remains to complain against Kant that he should have the human mind, led by the senses, incapable of any discernment of things as they are apart from the human mind. 
  10. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from The Laws of Biology in Objectivists are working to save the world from tyranny--isn't that altruism?   
    Considering the OP
     
    An important meditation of all Objectivists is "What does human flourishing consist of?"
    Now, consider the entire "Sense of life" surrounding non initiation of force, the trader principle, the dire admonition of systems turning individuals simultaneously into Robbers and Victims on some horrid ladder, the strong sense that no one is to be sacrificed, neither oneself to others nor others to oneself.  And recall the comment Rand made about the leash having loops at both ends... And consider the virtues of rationality, justice, independence, and honesty.
     
    Even if one were to surmount the extreme adds against its success, becoming a tyrant relies on the vices of others, as well as the vice in oneself, depends on injustice, dependence, dishonesty, irrationality.  It requires the repudiation of all that is admirable, and central to the ethics of Objectivism and its sense of life, which I mentioned above... it entails a direct dependence upon unreality, irrationality, and the worst in humanity... it embraces the essentials of what Rand would have identified as evil.
    Is this what human flourishing consists of?
     
    Show that, and perhaps you will sway some Objectivists to the merits of the predatory parasitism which tyranny is...  but I suspect it will be a difficult row to hoe with most.
  11. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from dream_weaver in Objectivists are working to save the world from tyranny--isn't that altruism?   
    Identifying and discouraging insanity or insane ideas might be acceptable activity.
  12. Thanks
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from The Laws of Biology in Was Auguste Comte the real nemesis or antagonist of Ayn Rand?   
    A straw straw man.   I love it.
    Thank you.
  13. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Grames in [W]hat is the objective basis of politics?   
    A few things to keep in mind as pertinent to the discussion, either as limiting or informing factors to consider:
     
    1.  Metaphysical status of the "individual" versus metaphysical status of a "society" or "collective" (just a group of those individuals).
    2.  The distinction between the metaphysically given and the manmade, more precisely, "free-will" of the individual (the way things are in current or past societies are manmade in the sense that they were/are chosen).
    3.  Natural philosophy or special sciences (e.g. economics, social sciences) properly deal with what IS, i.e. description, Ethics and insofar as Politics derives from it, and as a branch of Philosophy, is an investigation into "prescription", what  should one do (Ethics), or what kind of society (its nature, attributes and properties) one should try to bring about to live in (Politics), given the nature of Man, the metaphysical significance of the individual, and in consequence of free-will and Ethics (objective morality).  Politics as a branch of philosophy and not special sciences, although informed with descrive knowledges, is itself prescriptive.
  14. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to Easy Truth in [W]hat is the objective basis of politics?   
    True, "not necessarily". The problem I have seen is that people push the idea that "science" can determine ethics while it's really the domain of philosophy. And in that sense I would argue that Objectivist Ethics is NOT scientific but rather philosophical as it should be.
    Keep in mind was was simply observing descriptively/objectively how the current thought process I see in discussion groups outside Objectivist circles. I am not advocating utilitarianism but I see it as been the predominant attack on Objectivism in general.
    You'd be surprised at some of the arguments I have heard. Primarily by people who say that without safety, there are no "rights". As in it's empirically demonstrable and then the conclusion is that authoritarianism is in fact necessary.

     
  15. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Boydstun in [W]hat is the objective basis of politics?   
    A few things to keep in mind as pertinent to the discussion, either as limiting or informing factors to consider:
     
    1.  Metaphysical status of the "individual" versus metaphysical status of a "society" or "collective" (just a group of those individuals).
    2.  The distinction between the metaphysically given and the manmade, more precisely, "free-will" of the individual (the way things are in current or past societies are manmade in the sense that they were/are chosen).
    3.  Natural philosophy or special sciences (e.g. economics, social sciences) properly deal with what IS, i.e. description, Ethics and insofar as Politics derives from it, and as a branch of Philosophy, is an investigation into "prescription", what  should one do (Ethics), or what kind of society (its nature, attributes and properties) one should try to bring about to live in (Politics), given the nature of Man, the metaphysical significance of the individual, and in consequence of free-will and Ethics (objective morality).  Politics as a branch of philosophy and not special sciences, although informed with descrive knowledges, is itself prescriptive.
  16. Thanks
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Harrison Danneskjold in "Is Capitalism NECESSARILY Racist?"   
    There is so much which is conspicuously wrong with Fraser's address that it is almost a waste of text here to try to address the flaws we all can see and which Rand has specifically refuted throughout her work.

    As for addressing "specifics advanced" in the paper... what stands out to me is actually what is NOT specifically advanced in the paper.
    Although I feel a sense akin to the futility of disproving an arbitrary claim and the impossibility at pointing at traces left by that which does not exist, I realize that pointing out what should have been investigated, presented, and argued and was not, is possible and shall suffice.
     

    First, I note that her approach does not critically distinguish between the system, capitalism, and the people participating in that system, nor the causal interrelationships therebetween.
    If she were serious about determining whether "capitalism is racist", or necessarily so, wouldn't she be concerned with controlling variables... i.e. serious about determining whether the people themselves are racist and how can one tease apart racism on the part of the people and purported "racism" of the system or caused by the system?  In this vein, would a population of non-racists, in a non-racist culture, (let's say individuals of multiple races kidnapped from a perfect Marxist Utopia of Fraser's making), if "made" (or allowed) to run (or participate) in a capitalist system, become racist?  Or would the people remain devoid of any racism, and the system itself exhibit racism, quite independently of the lack of racism of any of its individuals?
    Moreover, what constitutes "racism" BY a system?  Any system or organization or activity including people who are racist has "racism" occurring in proximity to it, but if one's concepts of "racism by people" and "racism by systems" are distinguishable according to any rational standard, such kinds of racism must not to be attributed to the system as such.  Whatever the system under investigation, some interaction between the racism of individuals and the system must be investigated in order to determine whether or not the system itself is "racist".  For example, does the system tend to decrease racism, increase it, or tends to leave it at the same level?  How does the system interact with the psychology of its participants such that it does give rise to this tendency?  But all this depends on a valid concept of race and racism.
     
    Fraser's concept of "racism" is just as problematic than her concept of capitalism. 
    Her implicit definition and characterization of racism is severely lacking and quite frankly IS racist.  She focuses on one particular form of racism, namely, white or European racism against people of color in the recent historical context caused in part by the slave trade in Africa.  Such a concrete is not racism as such but only an example of it.  A psychological remnant of exploitation (which slavery was) which survives in a uniquely historical culture and context, and exists.  To assume racism only takes that form, no matter where or when capitalism is instituted, is to attribute an intrinsic hierarchy of domination (implicitly, an intrinsic imbalance of capability, intellect, merit) of whites over blacks which is a highly racist idea.  If her thesis is about capitalism as such, and racism as such, it cannot be focused only on historical and geographical happenstance.  Accordingly, it would seem her ability to distinguish between concepts in the abstract versus concrete examples thereof is lacking.  Would the capitalism in Japan, for example,  refute or corroborate her theory about the relationship between race and capitalism?  Are whites in Japan extorted in the same way and for similar reasons blacks are in the US?  Are whites in Japan extorted at all?  What happens (or would happen) in African capitalist systems? Are whites extorted, how and why?  And once again is it the system which is racist or is it the people and what is the relationship? 
    Is her so called racial extortion simply an echo of the technological extortion (conquest and slavery), causally linked and persistent in the minds of each population generations later merely because race is easily visible and distinguishes people as descendants of that technological extortion?  If so, then rather than tending to show any particular system is racist,  her ideas should lead her to the conclusion that the remnants of technological extortion and conquest persist psychologically in populations and arguably any system, where people can be identified as uniquely descendant from those groups, the conquered and the conquerors.  But such would require original investigation into psychology, tribalism, historical conquest, and how systems in general work, which do not necessarily fit well with her already determined outcome, and would take her far afield from her desired narrative.

    Fraser makes no serious inquiry.  She makes no attempt to investigate the ideas of racism and capitalism and their actual causal interrelationships on a fundamental level.
    She assumes her premises about exploitation and power, observes the historical accident of race correlating with technological advancement at around the time of the African slave trade (Europeans who happened to be white were more advanced technologically than those inhabiting Africa who happened to be black) in particular (while ignoring slavery crosses all racial boundaries and has existed for millennia and possibly since the dawn of man), and observes outcomes for certain populations compared with others as supporting her already held beleifs about capitalism (an incredibly new and never fully realized system), and asserts (essentially in a vacuum) moreover that capitalism is itself racist and implicitly magnifies and/or causes racism.
     
    Perhaps Fraser's has unintentionally discovered that her implicit belief that white people or people of European descent (I single them out because she does) are or tend to be racist against people of color due to history, combined with her implicit knowledge that capitalism is the system which provides freedom (whether admits she knows it or not), leads, at first analysis, to the conclusion that the system does not serve to attenuate or directly stamp out that racism, but on the surface only leaves people to be free to commit the same errors.
    In the grand scheme of things, even this is wrong, certainly for any actual capitalist who wants to succeed, and knows that doing so requires judging people on merit and not by skin color.  A laissez faire government does not stamp out gross errors of judgment, it allows  reality to do so and reality does so, even if only at a rate much slower than those who would rather force things to resolve themselves more quickly.  And as always, for those who see no problem with force, the relative timelines serve as a strong justification for its use. 
     
    Finally, I must state I get the very strong sense that the paper is not, by any stretch, an impartial investigation into causal links or relationships between her concepts of "capitalism" and "racism", so much as it is a juxtaposition of language meant to fit or resemble a narrative, and ring true to her long ago ossified world view.  Such an approach and goal cannot abide serious, dare I say "critical", and open inquiry.  She decided on the "answers" before she set out to "find" them, and found the answers she wanted to find by "finding" the connections and congruencies she needed in various "sacred texts" of her ideology, not unlike how a prophet motivated to influence his village might "find" and reveal a prophecy of imminent disaster which had always been hidden in the old books of wisdom.
    There really is nothing new to see here.  Nothing at all.
     
  17. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to Boydstun in Guyau and Rand   
    SL,
    To be self-directed is enough for independence and individualism. Self-direction is itself egoistic and part of full egoism. Guyau praises that much and even praises much action that is from a motive of personal self-benefit. But if he does not go further and maintain that the only praiseworthy actions are those that are (self-directed and) from a motive of self-benefit, then he is not advocating ethical egoism.
    One might argue against a position such as Guyau's, with its mix of self and others as beneficiary aimed for, that unless uniform self-benefit is your motivation in your choices, you cannot remain stable in your self-direction. But before getting to back and forth on some sort of proposal as that, back closer to common parlance, there is nothing on the surface connecting individualism with ethical egoism, meaning an ethical system purely egoistic. Emerson and the America widely in step with self-direction could easily nod when Rand glorified self-direction, but would raise an eyebrow at her or anyone's embrace of full ethical egoism.
  18. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Frank in Is direct realism tenable? Has it been successfully defended?   
    Frank:  Perhaps, all crows are black
    2046:   Everyone knows coal is black.  Idiot.
  19. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Boydstun in Is the afterlife arbitrary?   
    As a rebuttal to the claimed arbitrariness of an afterlife/reincarnation you make a very big assumption, namely: that consciousness is in the nature of an "essence" which may be "contained" by an entity.
    You then hypothesize the possibility that such a container may again be formed and the result is that it "gives you a life as a living being again".
     
    There seems to be no evidence from any direct or indirect perceptual data nor any rigorous scientific thought applied to such data, which would imply something as complex as consciousness is an "essence".  In fact almost all of our experience in reality leads in the opposite direction.  All things act and interact as they do in accordance with their natures, i.e. their attributes, properties.  The more complex the structures and configurations of a thing more more complex behaviour and function result from those attributes and properties.  But those complexities of interactions are not essences of the entity, and in no way are contained by it.  They are an inexorable manifestation of identity, the complex structure, the attributes and properties, and causation.  By necessity the entity exhibits the complex functioning which is consciousness.
    The concept of an "essence", which may be contained, attempts to sneak into the concept of Identity a little taste of "duality"... essence, not a thing in itself, attempts to becomes a sort of rogue property or attribute.  After all, a container can be empty of some essence... and a disembodied essence can be awaiting a container to occupy.  But this is nonsensical, there are no disembodied attributes and properties.  No attributes devoid of those things being which exhibit them (and no things without attributes for that matter).  Things are their attributes.
    All evidence suggests that consciousness is a manifestation (not a separate semi-disembodied essence) of a sufficiently complex brain in full operation doing what the brain does... all evidence shows that nature is identity, and that to act, live, and to think, is to BE.
    Hence, the only way to live again, is literally to BE again, in all the complexity and nature of you as you are now, with all your structures and chemicals and functioning, all your capacities and limits, all your strengths and flaws, all your memories, all the quirks, growths, and scars of the mind which are what you are and not what someone else, anyone else in the world is, or any one else has ever been.
     
    You, not just anyone, not your son or your doppelganger, and not your twin, but YOU, are the only you and utterly unique in the universe.
    As surely as there will be "life after you", it cannot BE you.
     
     
  20. Thanks
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from tadmjones in What if Socialism is the only way for any humans to survive--would Socialism then be ethical?   
    As you claim... and yes, this I believe is an error. 
     
    Explain conceptually why it is conceivable?  What criteria do you have for "overcome it" and "only way"?
    If the world had a problem, how many inventive minds, far greater in creativity and ingenuity than the average person, could be brought to bear on it?  How many people like Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Edison, the Wright brothers?  Even if only 1 percent of the population were such creative geniuses, there would be over a million of them.
    And you have the confidence to say you can conceive of problems for which the only way to overcome it is socialism?  You think the kinds of people who rise to power in socialist systems have the creativity and benevolence of mind so many of these inventive geniuses had?  You think a socialist society is the kind to raise people to be more like people who discovered new medicines or more like goosestepping weasels and sheeple? You think a society is best able to meet a challenge when headed by a Stalin or a Reagan?
    And you, could you advise all the greats of the past of your doubt there is any solution to flying, artificial light, or an electric motor?  What other problems would you erroneously deem unsolvable?  How many countless situations would the likes of you or some thoughtless leader impose the "only" solution you or they can conceive of?  
     
    I hope to God that if and when an actual threat rears its head, a flourishing, free, and capitalist society is there with individuals ready to meet it with free and willing minds of great creativity, genius ,and objective virtue, rather than the dull-witted, fear ridden ,"obedient" souls, produced by some spirit crushing Socialist society... 
    I for one fully unshakably believe the highest probability of success against any threat is with the former rather than the latter.
     
    You had a question.  THAT, is my answer.
     
  21. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Boydstun in Anthem   
    Boydstun, I think in the spirit of your personally being “not purely egoist”, you might consider it important to sketch, if only in broad strokes, the bones or main structure of your ethics (which you deem are on a solid footing) in a sort of “introduction” which you might be able to expand upon if the finitude of life’s span permits, but which nonetheless represents the unwavering unshakeable base you have already formed, and upon which any remaining  more detailed formulations and expositions are to be made.  I propose a sort of ITBE (Introduction to Boystun’s Ethics) even if only in essay form, but possibly of any length or of any title, again in the spirit of how crucial the philosophy of ethics is and your being “not purely egoist”.  
  22. Thanks
    StrictlyLogical reacted to Boydstun in Existence and Similarity   
    William and Doug,
    Electromagnetic waves are not composed of electrons, but of photons. The former are fermions (which cannot be in the same state as another fermion, including particle location), whereas the latter are bosons (which can be in the same state with another boson, including particle location). E-M waves, including radio waves, are quantum waves. They can interfere which each other, as waves, and thereby degrade the ability of the carrier wave of radio broadcast to carry information. (Also, if I remember correctly, in cases of waves in matter, such as ripples on the surface of otherwise still water, interference of waves with each other [cancellation or other alteration of each other] is not essentially due to the impenetrability of molecules [fermions].)
    Of related interest: Energy Wave Theory
  23. Like
    StrictlyLogical reacted to Harrison Danneskjold in The Value of Colonizing Mars   
    "You can't take the sky from me"
    Damn straight. That's one of the things nobody can take from you without your consent.
  24. Thanks
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from Harrison Danneskjold in The Value of Colonizing Mars   
    To my mind, this is the most compelling argument for off Earth colonization.
  25. Like
    StrictlyLogical got a reaction from MisterSwig in Existence and Similarity   
    Yes.
    Space is a relationship between things, defined thereby and it is relative. Those things exist in space and at points in space.  Space cannot exist "in space" or "at points in space" it IS the space.
    Anything whatever that can exist at or in space or exhibit any property, attribute, is something other than space. 
    Particles, fields, potentials, probabilities, are all things or aspects of things at or in space, not properties OF space, on the contrary... the positional parameters of those things, i.e. the spatial coordinates or those things, are properties or attributes of those things, in relation to other things.
     
    No thing is a property or attribute of space. Space, position, location, extension, area, volume... these are all properties of things in relation to themselves and each other.
     
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