Des

So, how will we know if emergent properties cannot be explained, or merely have not yet been explained?

This is different from your earlier statement that emergent properties arise in a way that is inexplicable, not merely unexplained. I can interpret your meaning as "the inexplicable is impossible, therefore emergent properties are impossible and don't exist" Whatever your meaning, I'm interested in understanding how we can arrive at the conclusion. This is different from your earlier statement that emergent properties arise in a way that is inexplicable, not merely unexplained. I can interpret your meaning as "the inexplicable is impossible, therefore emergent properties are impossible and don't exist" Whatever your meaning, I'm interested in understanding how we can arrive at the conclusion. This is different from your earlier statement that emergent properties arise in a way that is inexplicable, not merely unexplained. I can interpret your meaning as "the inexplicable is impossible, therefore emergent properties are impossible and don't exist" Whatever your meaning, I'm interested in understanding how we can arrive at the conclusion.

Mmm, here in South Africa, people tried the experiment of escaping taxation, only to mess that up by thinking their "own" government could tax them without becoming as corrupt as the British government they escaped. Then there was the experiment of not being a multicultural society, messed up by centrally-planning the non-multiculture and imposing the master plan by force. Can I get South Africa to pioneer voluntarism? I feel a mood here against being the one different society. Any suggestions on how to work with this situation?

Hello, I saw your other post and came to this topic to welcome you. I hope you find interesting and valuable perspectives here, and contribute some.

I don't have Stefan's style, I learn from it and adapt my own style. I will interpret your meaning as "emergent properties are an inexplicable observation", and I counter that with an enquiry as to how we would detect whether emergent properties are inexplicable or merely unexplained. There, I started addressing what may be my own misinterpretation of your words, and will promptly stop right here for obvious reasons.

You are doing well in English, Andi. By making reference to a proposition fundamentally different from the proposition in the often quoted bible verse, Ayn Rand did set up a strawman. It is as if I said that addiction to alcohol is the root of many evils - and you just skip over the primary noun in my proposition and also the relevant part where I say "root of" and launch into an argument as to why alcohol is not evil. I would then of course respond by saying: no, no - I didn't say alcohol is evil, I said addiction to it is like a root from which evil gets nourishment. If we view the use of the word love in the context of a bible in which the children of God are commanded to love God and their neighbors, in which Jesus emphasized these two love commandments above the others, in which there is another poetic line "and the greatest of these is love" - then you get that this verse about love of mammon is referring to a sacred act of loving being performed for base motive such as the increase of personal status - misdirected to objects. Not being a Christian myself, I don't do sacrements, but it makes sense in Christian context that performing a sacrament to material objects is idolatry. I think Ayn Rand was off track commenting on poetry of particular significance to Christian believers. Yes, the remarks she wrote about money are valid, but if a few billion humans were aware of a poem I wrote about addiction to alcohol, and then you mischaractise the poem as "alcohol is evil" and explain how alcohol is great for removing permanent marker from the face of your child (sigh- the stuff that's handy to know when there are children around). That's not philosophy.

Andi - did you just blow right past my observation that Ayn Rand debunked a strawman? Please either concede on that, or present a counterpoint. I will assume your word "owing" is a typo for owning (correct me if...). The verse did not theorise that owning mammon (wealth) is a sin. It theorized that the love of wealth is at the root of all sin. It is poetry, and addiction to heroin could give root to sin as easily as could addiction to status provided by wealth. I rate it mediocre as poetry, and it's not philosophy at all, but focusing love on people and not focusing love on our internal endorphin production, is a suggestion we can glean from this poetry. My dad drilled me on this verse because it is commonly strawmanned, not because it's full of internal merit - I surmise (he's dead).

Yes, I entertained myself with an atheist being more silly about Trump than the silliest theist is about god. https://twitter.com/how2bnamed/status/821209889255133186 He blocked me after I tweeted this: https://twitter.com/how2bnamed/status/821425477487304704 I have recently reflected on Stefan's words to and about leftists, spanking/tenured libertarians, atheists, feminists: It is an act of love to show a brother or sister the evil wrestling to gain control over his subconscious mind. Pursuant to brotherly love, the conscience should be shamed into correction of the moral error.

UPB mentions the preference for being alive, and it is my refinement of UPB, to regard that as the primary preference. An example of how Justice is like a crosswind on the road to fulfilling my preference for life: there is no just way to protect a woman from Oscar Pistorius. Disagree? Okay, tell me how you at this point provide both justice and protection.

Did Ayn Rand really leave out the "love of " words from a rebuttal of a biblical text? Strawman. Bad objectivist. Also, my dad repeatedly reminded me the word "mammon" was used, and applied to all wealth. It may be a helpful interpretation of the text, to observe that if I developed an unhealthy obsession with my angle-grinder (hey, it's a really cool tool when I need it), that could create life-problems for me. Some level of obsession with wealth and it's "power" to corrupt - must be past the point of reasonable emotional response to a handy tool. Are some of us / all of us tempted into sin by obsessive responses to wealth? Neither the Bible verse nor the Tolkien work offers us evidence or reasoning to support that theory. The "all" in the phrase "root of all evil" seems incorrect. Obsession with other paths to increased levels of happy-chemicals in the brain must provide a root for some of the observed evil. My overall criticism of the verse is that it does not rise to the level of philosophy, and as poetry, it is too misdirecting.

Alternatively, consciousness and free will are emergent properties of the accumulated matter of human brains. Something existed, unobserved until the capacity to observe existence - emerged from the existing something.

Thanks, I am genuinely inspired to re-evaluate my virtue, by those words. I "love" my angle-grinder on those rare occasions when it is useful to me. It has both power and danger. Money is useful to me everyday. Interestingly, I am a non-accumulator of wealth. This does not protect me from corruption. Gollum sans ring a still corrupt. There could be avarice in a pope, in whom wealth and power are not personal. Thanks again, still reflecting on your words.

If the sentient animals in B realize that they are close to developing the medical panacea, and only accidents and murder threaten their lives, than they have a real, rational reward approximating "eternal life". This is enough to motivate a keen interest in "not being murdered", and the establishment of a no-murder society. A no-murder society is valueless, and a no-initiation-of-force society will be formed to get the value of not being shot dead, robbed to death or slapped on the ear to death. The society then designed by B will have morality which is more conducive to the survival of the individual sentient animals of B, than is the morality of A to the survival of the individual sentient animals of A. "A" will at times and in ways put god's will above my life.

Hi, in short, it would have taken extra effort for me to stay active on this forum, and I chose to wait until now that the required effort seems less to me, and the possibility of bringing value seems more by my estimate. I am using a mobile phone to make my contribution, so I may not type the longer posts I typed before.

Unborn humans is a term that is not incorrect. Unborn child would be incorrect. I think if I wanted subconsciously to unfairly influence my readers, I might have typed unborn children (I'm not saying this to block off reflection on your feedback, I am chewing on your response, and will see what I find). Sure, I also hope for a future where people plan well, and create new humans in a planned way. I also want to recognise that when someone chooses to disregard my hopes and wishes, that's fine, and if I respond (with a bunch of neighbours) by creating a border and keeping those people away from where we care about this particular preference, that's also fine (isn't it?). I'm not sure if a set of preferences creates a nation, if people with a preference for being really scantily clad on hot days, whether outdoors or in shopping malls, or at work, congregate in a geographic region: does that make them a nation? Will people with that preference separate into those who also have a preference for having some chemically-induced altered state, and those who don't? I can imagine travelling to get-high-land, or get-drunk-land, as a visitor, and going home at some time, to where my grandchildren don't have to observe or interact with high or drunk people. Nationalism? well, not for me in this social order, where I have more in common with a USA citizen who wants to end taxation than with a South African citizen who wants to extract taxation. No, I can't love dirt. I can (and do) love people, and I can have a special fondness for people who would move with me to somewhere we can all achieve our preferences without annoying those who have incompatible preferences.

I'd like a geographical alliance with people who do not kill unborn humans unless it is to save the life of the mother, and who also do not go over their border to interfere with people who kill unborn humans for less important reasons. This are two elements of my preference in neighbours. Even if we disregard all my less important preferences, I expect there will be some borders in a free society, just for the permutations of those two preferences. Oh, and hi again. I know we converse a lot, I hope it is still a good conversation for you. Is it?

Hi Nina Have any of these men ever asked about your childhood?

No. I accept ethics because there is a personal benefit to accepting ethics. Having accepted ethics, I adhere to the principles of ethics (principled decision-making), because whatever I would gain from deviation, I would lose more** from the collapse of the ethical standards (or from people allowing themselves to treat me as an exception [in response to my acting as an exception]). This is only leaving the realm of ethics in the sense that it is going to the realm around ethics. I bother with ethics at all, because it serves my interest to bother with it. ** more, because dying (early) is more loss than any other loss.

Because it's fun. You type and read words here because you get enjoyment from doing that. Same applies to most of what you choose to do. Stay alive because you can reasonably expect some enjoyment or fun tomorrow. Try to make the world better so that it keeps you alive longer, for more days of enjoyment. Supposing you knew that some day in the future you would be alive, but unable to enjoy chocolate. Would you stop enjoying chocolate today in advance of that day? If so, why?

[using institution(1) for association meaning of the word, and institution(2) for an established concept]: There is an institution(2) that people may and do associate and call themselves a club or a nation. There is an institution(2) of democratic social order. There is an institution(2) of moral rules which do not discriminate on extraneous facts. It is inconsistent to accept both the institution(2) of democratic social order and the institution(2) of moral rules which do not discriminate on extraneous facts. I'd modify your statement to say that the presidency is recognised and accepted, and the moral rules also recognised and accepted, but, given the inconsistency, only one can be valid. Either the institution(1) of the US, based on the institution(2) of democratic social order, or the institution(2) of moral rules which do not discriminate on extraneous facts, is invalid. "Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." (a witty way in which a mathematician once pointed out that the impossibility does not prevent acceptance of both propositions, by people inclined to accept the impossible).

As an intro to answering the above, let me state: People have instituted morality (or discovered it, by reason). Morality is a conflict-resolving institution. Without this conflict-resolving institution, conflicts escalate, people die, I may die. Dying is the one thing that is certainly not to my benefit (does not advance my interests). Morality, instituted (or discovered), by people who can reason, is a set of principles. With these principles, I can choose to guide my action by the principles, not by calculation of the odds of benefit to me, of each decision I make, in an unprincipled manner. We compute morality from predicted consequences, then we get to principles, then I don't compute the consequences of each decision in cases where the principles restrict my actions (unless the the obvious consequence of restricted action is my immediate death, in which case I do the immoral to survive). Principled decision making, based on principles which are derived with reference to the one consequence which is of key importance to me. That consequences are relevant to the discovery of moral principles, does not mean that subsequent adherence to the principles is consequentialism.

Sure, it can be unmasked as such, I will wait and see if a communist idealogue happens across this topic and gives a different answer. The answer you give here, would imply we should wait for other intelligent life in the universe to come tell us if we are authorised to have a semi-autonomous collective of earthlings, or not. We ought not to overstep the authority assigned by the collective of the milky way.

Let's split this question into two: Why support the institution of a code of morals? and Why adhere to the code of morals? The second, you do in order to support the institution. The first, you do so that you have a reasonable way to resolve conflicts. You want a reasonable way to resolve conflicts so that you don't die in a conflict which is resolved by force. https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/47550-is-the-argument-from-morality-just-an-instance-of-the-argument-from-effect/?p=434823

If it is morally (by communist ethics) acceptable for the collective of East Germany to make a treaty with the collective of Poland, defining a border, and each limiting their use of the territory beyond such border, why is it not as acceptable for the East German provinces of Sachsen and Sachsen-Anhalt to make treaty with each other in like fashion, and so on down to the collectives of nuclear families? What principle distinguishes between the one collective and the other?

The purpose of the institution of ethics/morality is to allow for reasonable resolution of conflicts (so that I do not die in a physical conflict which could have been reasonably resolved by application of the ethic/morality). If you plan out in detail how to murder me, with full intention of doing it, but all the planning is in your mind and none of it on paper or shared with anyone in any way: then what does it matter to the purpose of the institution of morality, that you have done all that thinking? Until your thought is transcribed onto the internet, or paper, or (by speech?) into another mind, there is no conflict to be resolved, so it is not necessary (to the purpose of morality) to determine whether or not that action (of thinking) is immoral. https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/46328-why-be-moral/?p=434830