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Mikee

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Everything posted by Mikee

  1. On the question of how to define privilege, I regard it as a motte-and-bailey doctrine: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/09/motte-and-bailey-doctrines/ OTOH, I think the 'modern' concept of privilege is a little bit like relativity. It works well at the macro level where it provides a convenient shorthand for looking at the collective experience of entire populations or large subsets of populations. However it breaks down at the quantum level.
  2. I do see conscious measurements as a reality, but what matters for measurements conscious or not, is not variability but accuracy. The best way to explain what I am drawing from would be to measure the length of the top of your computer monitor with a standard measuring tape. The potentials are present on the tape, far beyond what you would actually need for measuring the length of your monitor. And the potentials aren't relevant, because we don't measure with potentials in and of themselves, in mind. Potentials really lose value once they appear to lead to worse measurements of the length of the monitor. Potentials that lead to a possibly better measurement of your monitor length still may have value though. That is an example of the point of "ends being mistaken for means", accuracy the end and variability being the means. I just don't see the freeness in the potentials as legitimate. I don't consider freeness, when I use a measuring device of any kind, with that not being the focus. The potentials just account for the unknown range of outcomes that can't be ascertained pre-measurement, rather than an enabling of freeness.
  3. My feeling about it is we are driven to obscure data because of bad data we got that makes us see obscuring as the action to take. It simply boils down to every chance for a choice creates a singular measurment, not mutliple. Just like every other type of measurement leads to a single measurement in regard to the focus. Everytime there is an option for anything, the way I see this, there is a chance that there will be a misperception that will lead to a miscalculation. Alcoholism for example, evidences that kind of measurement even against what we would imagine is a will. In other words the only way to obscure measurement that is happening, is to measure and identify value in doing that, and then taking that course of action. And the more you know you are just measuring the less prone you will be to using your own system in such a backwards way. That is more of the principle of CBT, in enhancing your rationality and self-awareness, and thus increasing your ability to make better choices and have both better relationships and mental health. Though cognitive behaviorists usually still believe in free will. But I see it as mistaking a means for an end.
  4. I'd like to play devil's advocate for this one so here goes: It simply boils down to choice being nothing more than the outcome of mere measurement. The point of measurement is to get closer to right or accuracy. Therefore if we are measuring, then we are just trying to be as accurate as we can be and that is what actually matters. The point is not to have options. Options are as irrelevant is the ability to have a ton of other less accurate measurements. I contend the problem that keeps people from seeing it clearly is all the assumptions that get in the way because people are still looking at it wrong for the most part. And the questions that arise as a result of how that doesn't fit with how we conceptualize and experience reality are many, because we built our conceptual framework to assimilate (Piaget assimilation vs accomodation) our notion of free will. By and large, I see it as choice is seen as valuable and important for its ability to give the best chance at getting things right, because the person most affected by the choice can often see possibilities and risks that others would not, and we could describe that the same way that we do for people who are "out of touch" with a social class, ect. So we value our ability to make choices, because the alternative is of high risk to not only our safety, but also our chance at getting the best. And safety isn't always part of that. We value what is right over what keeps us safe. That is why we can socially shame people into not being cowards in battle, and socially reward people into dying for their comrades, or for their faith.
  5. what do you think of this: http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hrolston/Intrinsic-Value-Iceland.pdf
  6. Ok here is one of the papers. I appreciate all the critiques it can get https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7n17lxa8o9gqg1/Lammerts-OrganicPlantBreed-CropSci-2003.pdf?dl=0
  7. I just want to improve my understanding of the concept better.
  8. well my question is: how does the integrity approach demonstrate the presence of intrinsic value? It seems to talk about some intrinsic attributes/qualities but how would you demonstrate a value from such existent attributes? "The intrinsic value of plants is a reflection of their integrity at different levels" pg 92.
  9. anyone want to have a stab at the article i uploaded
  10. I'd like to ask for the member's opinions or more accurately critiques of this attached paper that discusses the framework for organic agriculture. Particularly the section on the integrity approach. 80.pdf
  11. needless cruelty for useless information.
  12. well even those were thought to be problematic by Popper, no?
  13. Do you still ascribe to this hypothesis? My view is the same as the one Hobbes mentioned in his 1651 book, that intuition is normal thought speeded up rather than abnormal or distinctly different alien thought of some distinct sort. It is merely faster, that is all. As any Chess player knows, the more time we have to think, the less likely we are to err. That is why we play Chess by the clock. Almost anyone will play way better if allowed to take as much time as they need over making a move in Chess. But we do not thereby use a different sort of thought when we think things over slowly.
  14. except that justification doesn't fit anywhere among logic, conceptualization and meaning. it introduces a subjective element and we can do without it.
  15. It seems to me that 'induction' or inductive reasoning comes in different types 1- observing and adding up particular instances which is simple enumeration. Many philosophers have pointed out the errors with this approach. (Popper called it "observationalism" and erroneously tied it to Bacon, Francis Bacon called it 'puerile') 2- Justifying propositional inferences. This is problematic as Hume pointed out because it involves circular reasoning ("must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question.") and Popper thought it would lead to an infinite regress. It also seems to treat induction like some sort of deductive argument. I am not sure how or when this justificationist approach started or came from but I guess it probably stems from John Locke and an attempt to answer intrinsicism. Come to think about it, the whole Platonic and Aristotelian traditions seem to have misleadingly been woven together with demands for justification. I think Popper's non-justificationist approach may have merit in this particular case after all. What do you think? 3- Forming good concepts and definitions i.e. induction as concept-formation (this article).This is I think the best tradition out of the three although I don't think it is all there is to Baconian Induction. More importantly, how does this tie-in with causality which I think is what induction is all about? and how does it relate to abstraction which is also necessary for induction? Also, what about the nominalist theory of concepts?
  16. Yes the answer is pretty clear. The extent to which humans use concepts is far greater than what non-human animals can achieve and that can be seen when contrasting measurement omission and abstractions from other obstractions with first order level concepts or perceptual generalizations which non human animals are capable of. What would be interesting to see is how Orcas or chimpanzees fair agsinst marginal humans.
  17. An article tackling concepts in animals can be found below: http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/2008/vol3_zentall_wasserman_lazareva_thompson_rattermann/ I also found some very clear conclusions succinctly stated, such as the following in Sec. 1.3: "The research reviewed in this section strongly suggests that nonhuman animals very ably master perceptual or basic level concepts[*]. Such mastery appears to rely on the familiar behavioral principles of discrimination and primary stimulus generalization. The roots of conceptualization thus appear to lie deep in the perceived similarity of external stimuli. Differential similarity influences the responses of nonhuman animals in much the same way as it influences the speaking of humans. Although it may not always be the case that humans and nonhuman animals categorize stimuli in the same way (see Roberts & Mazmanian, 1988; Yoshikubo, 1985; Fujita, 1987), based on the results presented here, one can conclude that both conceptual[*] behavior and its underlying cognitive processes are generally similar in humans and nonhuman animals. substitute "perceptual generalization" in place of "concept,". The authors of the study use the term "concept" entirely too loosely.
  18. Do animal cognition researchers claim that animals can form at least some rudimentary concepts just as man does? If so, how can animals do that without language, either spoken language or audible sounds or sign language of some kind? (True language, not just approximate communication of percepts or states of agitation or contentment ) Do animal cognition researchers use the term "concept" in the same way that Objectivism uses it? How does their understanding and usage of "concept" compare and contrast with the Objectivist understanding of it? Do animal cognition researchers understand the phenomena of "perceptual association" and "perceptual generalization," and how those processes differ from concept formation? "Never underestimate the power of the perceptual level of cognition in animals that are constituted to live on that level in a correspondingly conducive habitat. The perceptual level is more effective for those animals than man may have hitherto assumed. Both the recent experiments and the vast array of past observations of animals historically have amply demonstrated this. Those observations do not demonstrate, however, that animals are using human concepts, or functioning on a conceptual level at all, as that form of cognition is understood by man."
  19. conceptual thought is a uniquely human thing, or more specifically counter-factual reasoning or the ability to reason abstractly. animals are very good at perceptual level stuff, better than humans i would say which shouldn't come as a surprise. I think people like David Hume can explain how humans with partial rationality think.
  20. Isnt the part about giving sex to someone making sure that that someone is not a bad person
  21. “A man is equipped with a certain kind of physical mechanism and certain needs, but without any knowledge of how to fulfill them. For instance, man needs food. He experiences hunger. But, unless he learns first to identify this hunger, then to know that he needs food and how to obtain it, he will starve. The need, the hunger, will not tell him how to satisfy it. Man is born with certain physical and psychological needs, but he can neither discover them nor satisfy them without the use of his mind. Man has to discover what is right or wrong for him as a rational being. His so-called urges will not tell him what to do.” Ayn Rand This has always bothered me. I agree with the general thrust of it, but people know that hunger = need of food long before the development of reason, and the same is true of some of our other needs as well. What reason does is help us find the best ways to satisfy our hungers (first by defining what the proper purpose of food and the rest are) and putting them in an appropriate hierarchy.
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