Wuzzums

Can you have science without logic?

Science is a byproduct of logic. Whenever you're doing science the existence of logic is inferred, same way the existence of a dictionary (or a collection of words with definitions) is inferred when reading a book. Or how a printing press is inferred by the existence of a printed book. I see no fault in the phrasing "logic is within science" even if it may sound confusing, but by no means do I see it as a contradiction. It's a distinction that has no importance because science cannot exist without logic. When Sam Harris says it should "fall within the purview of science" it implies it should fall in the purview of logic and reasoning, which you agree with.

@dsayers I think we're in disagreement because of different definitions of terms. I completely agree with the first part, I misspoke in the last post. Second part for me is a tautology, I see "objective" and "truth" as interchangeable.

Why not? Isn't this what FDR is all about, applying objective standards to reality so it doesn't get skewed by beliefs and culture?

Now you've got to define property. The way I see it you do not own land just because you stuck some stick into it. You own it because you invested in it. You own anything which you have control over and which exists only as a result of your work. So when someone comes and takes some of your land they in fact take some of your work. And because your work is a result of your body's dynamics then in fact they took away part of your body. I assume you agree that you own yourself fully, so given that what would you call someone that takes away part of yourself? And how can they take away that part of yourself by not using force?

The only way this holds true is if theft does not violate the non-aggression principle. Which it does. Thus the argument falls apart. NEXT!

If someone, ANYONE, could explain to me, how a non-anarchist free market philosophy, will solve [enter issue here], i will officially declare myself one of you.

I'm Romanian and a med student. The system here is socialist as well... on paper. What you don't see is the whole bribe culture embedded deeply in the system which has free market traits (like for example the "bribe" cost for an operation here is 10% of the legal costs in places like US or Canada). So I wouldn't be so fast to divvy up a medical system into capitalist/socialist. The politics are far too complex and covert to be seen from an outside view. There are places for example that refuse to treat individuals that are older than a certain age, or in the US where they refuse to treat you if you don't have any insurance. Another factor that needs to be taken in account is how much of the life expectancy is due to medical services. For instance, knowing that the medical system is abysmal, citizens will take better care of their health which in turn will lead to a higher life expectancy. In contrast to people that can afford to be reckless because they have insurance on everything. Or maybe some medical systems put a larger emphasis on preventive medicine, which will lower the incidence of life threatening diseases and in turn raise life expectancy.

Yes. I remember this clip of Stewart accusing some news outlet of having an agenda, and they retorted by using the same argument against him to which he said that he has no agenda and The Daily Show is nothing more than entertainment. This really bothered me because it was a clear lie, and it wouldn't have hurt him at all if he admitted it. It's reporting without a spine. They offer the news to their viewers and when things might get serious they hide behind the "it's just a show, it's not meant to be serious" motto.

My theory is that they paid a lot of money beforehand but didn't offer too many details as to what they wanted. And the makers of the clip just went for shock value. Doubt it was meant to have some message, just meant to stick. Another one of their commercials to prove my point:

I stopped watching television about 10 years ago. Sometimes though I happen to walk into a room and the TV is on by chance. I remember during the tsunami disaster in Japan the news coverage for added effect put an Enya style soundtrack and did that slowmotion/fastmotion Zack Snyder gimmick whenever they showed the waves destroying houses. It was surreal, am I watching the news or some Hollywood summer flick? It's all showbiz. Nothing seems real anymore, it's all theater. It's at the point where you need to play music in order to hint to the audience what emotion they are required to feel. The Daily Show's mission statement is not to inform, it's to entertain. Nothing wrong with entertainment per se but it's always used when news don't sell, and they'll seek it out wherever they may find it.

You got a part wrong. While in fact cognitive dissonance arises from holding two opposing ideas in the mind, it is by no means a nice experience. The term is used to point to the discomfort, not the logical fallacy. Because the mind constantly tries to make sense of the world and it will integrate any new information into its model of reality. And if the two pieces of information contradict each other and the mind tries to integrate them both, it will create all sorts of discomfort. Which will disappear of the problem is solved. The term I found to be strongly related to Orwell's "doublethink" idea. When two opposing facts create cognitive dissonance in a normal person, doublethink is described as the ability to feel no such discomfort at the contradiction of facts. Can't really point you to a specific podcast unfortunately but I'm almost certain it exists. I know Stefan addresses doublethink in earlier podcasts, and cognitive dissonance is just one step away.

When you say change what are you referring to? Because if just the sex changes then everything stays the same in the personal life save peeing upright. In the social life I guess you're gonna have to deal with all the stuff the average female has to deal with.

But you still don't know that. They just pointed out a difference and just assumed that's what makes us human. They say it's a region that's unique to humans. That's a flat out lie. They just studied Rhesus monkeys, of course they were gonna find something one species had and the other didn't. It's a scientific certainty.

There are several divisions of the human brain. The easiest one is the lobes one, then there's Broadman's division which constitutes of about 52 areas... and then there are all the other subdivisions constituted of hundreds of areas. Nobody ever bothered with the other theories because 52 was way too much as it is (even though they're as valid as the rest). My point is these "areas" are a step above arbitrary division. They don't really mean anything. If I name each an every one of the ants in my ant colony, it doesn't mean I now know how ants work. This sort of science really bothers me. There's no point to it. They did that study, pointed out there's a difference (and why wouldn't there be a difference seeing how humans and monkeys don't even belong in the same genus!) and then they start with the bullshit: "which past studies have tied to higher thinking", "tied to psychiatric disorders", "was more connected to auditory nerves perhaps to facilitate language processing", "has been identified with strategic planning and decision making, as well as multi-tasking". What the hell. So what they're saying is that this new area does and/or is related to the following: higher thinking, decision making, multi-tasking, cause psychiatric disorders, language processing and strategic planning. Doesn't leave out much, does it? I can boil down this whole study in one phrase: "Scientists discover than non-human animal is different from human animal."

I still don't think they're dates because you don't know what her view of you is. Asking someone to go out translates to "I'm interested, are you interested too?" If she says no, it's a pretty clear answer that no romantic relationship can come of it. You could probably still be friends, though. I could go on more but I don't wanna be too prophetic, such experiences are better lived first hand, of course. You've got all your FDR tools so don't worry too much, your safest bet is to trust your instincts.

Yep, I think you hit the nail on its head. But it also applies to women. Guys cannot say they're interested whilst women cannot say they're not interested. If the intentions aren't stated at the beginning both parties enter a cat and mouse game. Can't really speak what it's like for women, but for a guy that has no idea what's up with the relationship and keeps getting messages like "meet a guy like you", "why can't all men be like you", "you're such a nice guy" and so on, it's no wonder he's gonna tread lightly and keep to himself his true feelings.

Ah, the friendzone, the subject of much hilarity. Skip to 2:04

I'm gonna rain on your parade a little and underline that it's only been a week. That's not nearly enough time to know someone let alone be concerned about what route the relationship should take. My theory is that you feel it's a weird honest relationship only because you two are still basically strangers. It's far easier to open up to stranger than a long time acquaintance, and opening up to a stranger that's expressing genuine curiosity is probably easier than breathing. I'm assuming you reciprocated the curiosity and if not I highly suggest you do. It's quite a pleasurable experience as you know so enjoy it as it goes. Don't constrain what you two have to some predetermined path, see where it takes you both and learn from the experience. Oh, and for the love of Zeus, ask her out on a date! You pointed out you have some mixed feelings about what the relationship was and asking for a date is the quickest easiest way to finding out the answer to that conundrum that I know of.

My strategy would be to put them on the defense rather than me. They might retort back to their previous argument and no progress was made. Or they might defend themselves saying something to the effect that they're a good parent and whatnot. In which case you say "I didn't know (X) was necessary in order to raise a child, tell me more". But regardless I don't think I've ever seen a person change their stance when they're on the defensive, saving face is like oxygen to some people. Or I thought of another one: "No, but I do have a pet dog which I never hit whenever he did something I didn't like as a pup, and now he's my best friend". They might point out that a child is not a dog, to which you can say "but why are you treating them like one?". Frankly I can't think of any reply that doesn't make them look as if they're treating their child like or less than a dog. And I also wouldn't rule out getting punched in the face.

"You don't have kids so..." "Yes, and apparently I know more about raising kids than you do. So where does that leave you?" I hope I'll have the cojones to say it if I'm ever in such a situation. I'm curious how it will pan out.

From youtube, guy got +38 votes: I can't tell if he's joking or not but then I went to his page: http://www.youtube.com/user/freeradiorevolution Internet, never a dull moment.

I stopped reading after these two strawman arguments. Force is justified in self defense, we weren't talking about self defense. We were talking about "attack". Your nazi analogy is quite ironic seeing how your US Military is the invading nazi force and the defending Catholics are the talibn, but whatever. And I like your heavy undertone at how the nazis had to be stopped because of the holocaust. Mate, people found out about what they did AFTER the war. A lot of people died trying to get the word out, a nazi officer was never heard from again after he tried to get the Pope to tell the rest of the world about the atrocities. And if you were a civilian in Europe and your village got invaded, you were probably praying really hard for it to be a nazi invasion, russians were far, far worse. I heard first hand stories about villagers welcoming nazis, because they would protect them from the crazy russians. So no, your automatic-like appeal to emotion argument is far from the truth. I would also love for you to point out a person here or anywhere else that said the taliban are noble freedom fighters. I myself hate all military organizations equally. I'll repeat myself just to be clear, what I said here applies to all sides equally because there's no tangible difference between them. Assholes with guns and schoolboy mentalities trying to rule the playground. Now I don't know you, I don't know what you did, and I don't know what your intentions were, but empathize with me here a little. Imagine what it's like for me, or us, when you hold your troops at high regard. Imagine some guy you don't know about coming to you to explain how great the taliban forces are and he knows because he's one of them. How he's a necessary evil. How he doesn't make the mess, he just cleans it up. How he doesn't want to hurt people but he has to because the world is not full of fluffy bunnies and happy puppies. How he's moral in his actions because he'll do whatever it takes for the bad people not to get to his family. How would you react to such a man? Would you go "oh, I didn't see it that way, fuck yeah, taliban forces!" ?

I wasn't pretending anything. I never said the US was the only bad actor, I assumed you're from the US by the way you speak so that's why I pointed a finger at US specifically. 1)You yourself said that harming innocents is wrong, therefore any military intervention is wrong by that standard. I fully support this too. Unless of course the military intervention happens in a desert somewhere far from civilization in a spot where both parties agreed to and with none of its combatants placed there by force, and all of its combatants guilty of a violent crime. 2)Then you say that neither Iraq or Syria are threats therefore no need to intervene militarily. So with these two pieces of information you gave me I can only assume you think there's a need for military action against an actual threat, i.e. there's a need for harming innocents against a threat. I'm at a loss now. How would harming innocents, which by definition aren't part of the threat, stop said threat exactly? I think I speak for everyone here when I say none of us think there's ever a need for "military intervention" (which is just a fancy schmancy wording for "attack" anyway).

Granted we cannot possibly predict the future, how can you justify defending through attack against someone that hasn't done you and your loved ones any harm yet? I could post a gruesome picture of trucks hauling dead bodies of babies and children, courtesy of the US Military, but if I start googling that I'll be more passive aggressive towards you than I already am. Stop defending evil.