Eudaimonic

"Mirror neurons are a type of brain cell that respond equally when we perform an action and when we witness someone else perform the same action." An idea popped into my head around mirror neurons and our understanding of the words and concepts that people communicate to us. To understand a word, we'd have to have experienced it first (or the aspects of it given an imaginary concept.) If I say to you the word "gurodupedarang" you can't understand what I'm talking about unless I connect it to something that actually exists in the real world that you have experienced. Even abstract concepts such as "A is A" is related to something that you experience in the real world (one given thing is never another given thing.) If I say the word "potato" you automatically understand the concept I'm communicating to you. You "understand" it because you can connect the word to some experience (or all the experiences) of actual potatoes. Could it be that the link between me saying "potato" and you understanding it is the act of mirror neurons being "triggered" so to speak, giving you a "mild" experience of a potato based on the experiences you had of them in the past? It would seem to me, if it is true, that mirror neurons are the physical link between experience, language and understanding. As in, I experience, I tie the experience to a audio-visual cue, I communicate audio-visual cue to you, mirror neurons fire, you understand meaning of audio-visual cue. Perhaps this is something's that's already been explored or I'm totally missing something or perhaps there are different parts of the brain involved, just and interesting thought I had. Let me know what you think!

Very cool

One of my favorites is 1006 Late Night ShytsNGiggles "You must pay the rent!" "But I can't pay the rent" "You must pay the rent!" "But I can't pay the rent" ... ... ... "I'll pay the rent!" Best part.

But neither would a man who you've accidentally knocked into a comma, yet it would still be a violation of NAP to both kill him or let him die. I don't understand the difference here.

A part of me wishes it could respond intelligently to this! But yeah, you're probably right, like I said I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to the subject, I read about it in a book on free will once.

Well, it was a bit satirical, but lower testosterone means both less drive to achieve and less drive to defend the tribe. America was at least less willing to be dependent on the government before the Great War, I think.

The question of whether we can measure the quantum realm accurately. The introduction of this PDF explains it better than I probably could. Sort of like, "how can we relate the quantum to the Newtonian with accuracy if our measurements are imperfect." To be clear though, I don't know whole lot about quantum mechanics and generally the topic bores me. FoundPhys1986.pdf

Well, the quote is out of context, but I assume that what he is saying here is that 'anti-abortion laws' are against the NAP because parents don't have a positive obligation to their child. It would be very hard to imagine Rothbard resting his hat on something being illegal or not. I don't agree with the assertion, but he's not saying "because it's legal/illegal, X."

That was a quote from Murray Rothbard, the practical founder of Anarcho-Capitalism, which is why he includes it here. I do understand the feeling however, I get frustrated with that similarly. As if a piece of paper or the person who writes in it has a license to violence.

I almost hate to be picky here, but I don't think postmodernism deserves respect even for that. Postmodernism isn't the first to recognize that there are epistemological problems that need to be solved, postmodernism just looks at them, sighs and says it's impossible to solve. Postmodernism distilled is just: I give up and you should too.

Does the world need another potato or does the world need more spuds?

This is refuted by the fact that the mother voluntarily submits to the possibility of pregnancy in the act of sex. By voluntarily creating human life that necessarily depends on you to keep it alive, you have created a positive obligation to keep the baby alive or you have murdered the child, violating NAP. In a free society there would people those groups of people who would condone abortion and those who don't. These societies would naturally segregate. Some DRO's would provide exclusively for pro-life minded people and some would provide for "pro-choice" (what a phrase) minded. Whatever was morally superior would eventually will out, so you wouldn't need to 'create laws' except for those people would voluntarily agree to in their contracts. Plus, if we assume that a free society involves a post-child abuse society so to speak, there would only be a small fraction of a percent of people who would ever get one, it would be so rare I doubt it would even come up as an issue. There's no positive obligation here except the one that the parents create for themselves, which the NAP recognizes.

An axiom is a true self-evident proposition. A proposition is considered 'self-evident' if in the act of refuting it, you confirm it and it is impossible to do otherwise. This can be done empirically ('Existence Exists' is an axiom because to deny that existence exists would mean deny existence including the existence of the phrase 'existence doesn't exist' which you can empirically verify as having existence) or it can be done logically ('There is such thing as Truth' is an axiom because to deny this is to posit that 'There is no such thing as Truth' is true, which is not logically justifiable because either there is no such thing as truth and the statement 'There is no such thing as truth' is not true or there is such thing as truth in which case the statement 'There is no such thing as truth' is false.) There is no way to deny these axioms without confirming them. Axioms tend to work off of each other (for 'There is such a thing as Truth' to be true 'Existence Exists' must be shown to be true first) and thus Metaphysical axioms generally lead to Epistemological axioms which is where axioms tend to 'die off' as only so much of our experience and therefore the truth can be know axiomatically (due to the problem of our senses, which can be fooled.) Epistemological methods are then used from there to deduce and infer truths among the other various branches of philosophy. The 'mathematical' axiom your friend is talking about is actually a different class of axioms (and defined differently) from a philosophical axiom which one might used to prove that God exists. Mathematical axioms are abstract representations of the imperfect shapes and dimensions of the things we find around us. Much like God, a 'line' as Mathematicians defines it, doesn't exist anywhere. It is a semi-arbitrary figure (based on what appear to be lines around us) which is used for practical purposes. In fact, much of the problem of Quantum Mechanics is due to the fact that the measurements that we have are imperfect measurements of what actually exists (though not by much) and we actually can't get a perfect measurement. They are 'axiomatic' in the sense that they are assumptions which mathematicians use as a 'ledge' so to speak from the world of experience to the world of abstractions which math and geometry deals with and back again. Because it's impossible (or at the very least we haven't been able to do it) to translate our exact experience into abstract measurement, mathematicians accept these assumptions as, essentially, 'close enough.' God is not axiomatic, ultimately, because you can falsify God without confirming His existence.

A fetus is a comma patient that you're responsible for accidentally knocking out.

I would've thought WWI and WWII killed off all the men with any balls (most testosterone) therefore dooming the subsequent generations to gradually becoming women. Worst thing that happened to US culture imo.

Non-Aggression Principle Welcome to the board.

It's difficult to judge from the outside. I would suggest starting with yourself. Look into your childhood for clues as to why you find her attractive (rightly or wrongly.) Perhaps seeks some personal therapy to gain some clarity on your direction or motives with this relationship. You may even try using some Real Time Relationships techniques or Imago tools to express these concerns with your girlfriend and work through them if you really feel there is a future between you two. Most importantly: trust your feelings. Logic and analysis are helpful, but nothing replaces the indication of the relationship you get from what you immediately feel as she walks in the door. There is certainty there you can use to guide your choices. Hope this helps!

I don't know if this has been suggested but I heard learning an instrument can increase your IQ up to 7 points, which is significant.

http://www.highiqpro.com/high-iq-benefits My in depth research.

I agree, these are all important questions that I think would be beneficial as a community to discuss and come to a consensus about. Many of us have become lost and confused as to the answers of these questions and I think the most important thing we can do is to develop some leadership to answer them. Whether that is through a video conference (the most efficient method imo) or a thread or something else, it is best for us to confront the lack of cohesiveness, we either do so or we might as well abandon the boards to intellectual masturbation and move on to more fruitful endeavors.

I won't debate a person who claims I'm a liar so quickly, expressing no curiosity. Again, that's insulting and untrue. If I'm truly a liar, does it make sense to debate me?

As hotly discussed in this thread, the general feeling about the Freedomain Radio board seems to be that it has become duller, less organized and more frustrating to participate in. Various explanations and theories for why this has happened and how it could be remedied were put forward, but a general consensus has not been reached. The user Erwin and I discussed the possibility of setting up a video conference among the donors and major posters on the board in order to more effectively parse out the major issues contributing to this problem and develop more cohesive inter-group guidelines among the major players on the board in order to inject some of the energy, direction and pleasure back into the board and the relationships between board members. I'm posting this here to measure the interest in such a video conference and, if the interest proves strong enough, to set up a date, time, roll call and agenda of said conference. I've set up a poll in order to more easily gage the interest, select 'I'm Interested' if you like the idea and would like to participate, 'Good Idea' if you like the idea but wouldn't/couldn't participate and 'That's Lame' if you think it's not such a great idea. Any feedback, questions or ideas around this are appreciated, thank you.

It doesn't matter, the mother is responsible for the creation of that life. If she kills it she kills it's moral agency and places a value on it life (in the same way a murderer does.) The only difference between her and a murderer is that she did it at two months instead of at twenty-five years. It's like if someone was in a comma and as long as you didn't pull the plug they were going to recover, then you pull the plug and say "oh but he's not a moral agent right now even though he definitely was going to be when he recovered, so it's OK." The assumption is insulting and I'm curious as to your genuineness of the pursuit of truth in this conversation because of it. Government is not the only way to get people to stop doing something wrong, Anarcho-Capitalism is based on that premise. Ostracism works too. The red herring here is that no matter whether it's moral or not, anyone who would be willing to commit it is not a person you would want to have in your life.

Absolutely, thanks for the clarification. This is what video calls help with!

That's interesting, though I would be curious to find out why the first guy felt the need to call it retarded rather than just leave the post alone. I mean, if someone is really retarded, you don't call them that, right? I can agree with that, though I don't think it would make sense to shame 'in-group' members because I'm not sure that would be productive for the group. I would want people in the group to be vulnerable about what they're feeling in their exchanges, whatever they're about. I'm sure, if we do end up doing it, this is all stuff we could all work out. I personally wouldn't mind it being recorded, of course we'd want to make sure everyone involved agreed to it. As well, I am cognizant that this is ultimately Stefan's board, anything that doesn't fly with him concerning how the board operates doesn't fly with me.