RestoringGuy

Yes there is a school of thought (constructivism) that the "name of a thing" is essentially equivalent to the thing itself. I do not hold this view. A simple plastic coin sorter can "arrange into categories or classes" the coins that are inserted. The fact that the coin sorter did not originally invent and name the categories does not change its ability to carry out the basic "arranging" of matter. I say the categories and the ability for arrangement into categories can take place without words and verbal declaration. Our brains are basically just coin sorters, with the addition of electrochemistry instead of just arranging things by gravity. Words are just a trick to compress communication. I can force you to think of an elephant without demonstrating one. Nature must demonstrate the elephant. There are still categories, which elephants are viable, what foods they can eat, even if no words are invented to describe such things. Numbers are built into the periodic table, and no amount of saying "numbers do not exist" will allow lithium to behave like carbon even though the basic categorical difference is purely based on a numerical counting process.

Of course asserting "categories don't exist" doesn't make it so. Consider that saying such a thing is an act of categorization in itself, relying upon these supposedly nonexistent categories to say what categorization is not. Categorization is, to my thinking, never is an isolated disembodied thing. It's an action. And actions exist. I do not speak here of "concepts" as if the human mind is necessary. That is just a choice of words to load up physical action with a presupposition of mental strategy. What I mean is that any irregular rock formation can categorize raindrops by dividing them into drops that roll down one face or another. Some asteroids will crash into Earth, while others do not. Nature itself makes categories for us, even before we mentally project a word for such distinctions.

It's true things that are composed of matter and/or energy exist. There is some ambiguity in saying what exactly "interacts". It seems there are phenomena such as gravity which exist, and even gravity could be said to be composed of energy (a gravity field contains energy, even though it is generated by matter). To take it a step farther, my calculator interacts with the number 317. The number 317 is now composed of energy after I compute it. There are some who will object to this and say "numbers do not exist". But it seems to be nonsense, because numbers make predictions and often useful ones. Why is that important? Well if they are useful but still did not exist, there should be no guarantee my numbers behave like yours, nor should there be benefit to rely on numbers because we would be relying on dumb luck, since repeatable usefulness ought not continue to persist (ie. exist for later recall). It should be purely a mental game with no external proof by repeated experimentation. I will have my mathematics and you will have yours, and sharing and convincing others by proof should be basically off the table. I personally have no doubt a number such as 317 works the same way even after all energy that represents it is extinguished. But others imagine numbers are a human mental invention or some kind of trick, which I know is true as far as symbolism goes. 3 can be any number, it is convention we use the same symbol. Yet the conclusions that can be drawn from them, which seem to persist completely outside of changing social conventions, those are things that cannot be explained by a simple assertion that things without matter and energy automatically do not exist.

That is a very good explanation. Plato still rocks. Everything in the universe is "an observer" because it is impacted by light and gravity in some small way. Such tiny impact is in response to everything else no matter how far away, and observation is just a physical response to any significant-enough impact. This idea of "detectability" is also applicable to the abstract concepts. Whether or not Fermat's Last Theorem is true, or whether 13 is a prime number, does not seem to become a fact thrust into existence the moment it is proven by a mathematician's mental process. Instead there is a sense in which it was always detectable, but nobody previously bothered to carry out the proper test. Otherwise, if mathematical facts are thrust into existence by a mental process, we have to explain how the universe synchronizes itself whenever two distant mathematicians reach the same conclusion independently. Existence is just a word we use to explain that things are not purely mental.

I do not think people I argue with say they are pro-violence or pro-aggression. Violence and non-aggression are a bit like the term "Patriot Act" which can sometimes confuse and justify by a syllogism whose foundation is ambiguous grammar. We are not against the entire universe of everything anybody might call violence. We are only against what acts the word violence entails by some kind of standard, and things like property and what constitutes aggression always seem to require a discussion of what is a valid boundary.I try to keep my discussion of boundaries objective. If the government can build a fence, I can too and most people seem to grasp that on some basic level. I just do not think a simple principle like NAP can work in general, because we only move the discussion from "who can morally violate boundaries?" (presumably we all say nobody) to "who can establish new boundaries or dismantle old ones?". There is possibly no universal way to answer the latter, because somebody will always be privileged. The recently deceased will be said to have an estate that lives beyond their death. All newborns will have to deal with old boundaries none of which they agreed to, while old people got to establish boundaries of their choosing. Some people who have contracts will perceive it as violence when terms are not fulfilled, while others will say violence is not so amorphous as to be redefined by a piece of paper. We could agree violence is wrong, but it seems like that is just saying "wrong is wrong" because violence is now whatever action is wrong as determined by only the subset of people we find agreeable and non-violent enough to trust.There is potential somebody can say "so what" and who cares if some people have privileged ability to make boundaries? But the first caveman to think of it could declare ownership of the earth and make all of us eternal violators. So I think we only feed the mentality of state legitimacy by allowing for privileged boundary-makers, and I am including here some criticism of the idea that non-violence should be partly based on the type of property rights we have conjured up in our minds.

I should also point out the severe logical flaw in the ownership argument. If a parent owns a child due to proven genetic similarity to the parent, then by symmetry the parent is also genetically similar to the child. On that basis, proving parent-owns-child based on genetics, also proves child-owns-parent. Fortunately I do not care if I own my cells, or my cells own me, the result of moral individuality is the same. The ownership argument assumes somehow asymmetric privilege can be deduced from genetic similarity.

That seems fine. I am not clear on the outcome of that. The idea of ownership usually includes a socially-induced right to buy and sell things and impose sanction on rule-breakers. Are you maintaining that ownership of things is mere possession and control? It would seem to me, a car that can only be driven by me (say with impenetrable, irreversable sensors that block alternate drivers forever) gives me some superficial claim of ownership of the car. But does it morally prevent me from selling the car to somebody else strictly for use as a lawn ornament? Is it wrong for me to drive the car away after I sell it, seeing that I still have exclusive power to do so? I do not disregard it. Quite the contrary, it is an important contribution. But it is only one of many. Psychophysical control is not so useful for paralyzed and unconscious people. Some biological basis has to persist at the individual level. The basis parents have is somewhat weak because they must employ and rely on third-parties to retake their "property", and even then their self-ownership will be in doubt (their being owned by their parents and so on would basically lead to an infinite loop). Individual ownership based on genetic/metabolic/developmental uniqueness has fewer of these kinds of logical flaws. They would be rightful owners indeed. I don't understand why you think that's an argument. People effectively controlling other people is no different that cells controlling other cells. Luckily, as it happens, we do not have that kind of control on each other. An organism that has no exclusive self control is not alive or is "people", and can hardly be a moral agent. Anyone who cares to control and maintain such humanoid does effectively own it. You speak of ownership as an effect. I speak of ownership as a cause. Ownership is what causes you to have a moral right to retake a stolen item, and to be "wrong" when you take something that is owned by others. If you can own something "effectively" by control and that constitutes proof, then stealing can be OK because murdering the owner removes their control (even of their own body). So effectively exclusive control goes to whoever in not yet dead. The only way to escape this dilemma would be to make murder wrong for reasons beyond mere body ownership. I am willing to do that, but whatever principle it is, seems to have to go beyond mere body control. I like the cell analogy. In the case of multi-celled organisms, the cells are not strictly controlled as if they are chained up with guaranteed control of neighboring cells, but they all serve a symbiotic role. Every cell of my kidney can drift away and do its own thing if it wants to. But it gets no benefit, and doing so is against the cell's nature. This favors my genetic/metabolic position because many of our organs behave involuntarily, and what basis would I have for owning them since I can't directly control them?

That's what's meant with "universal" (all times and places, or if you prefer, all intances where the principle can be logically applied).I'm not sure what the rest means. Are you meanig to say that the NAP is consistent, but not derived from undisputable axioms and therefore can't really be proven correct by showing that the negation of the principle would lead to contradictions? Yes that's basically it. Although I think any axiom can be disputed (otherwise why not just derive it when needed), nobody seems to suggest there is any plausible set of purely logical axioms from which NAP is inescapably a conclusion. So if NAP is consistent and that seems to be the basis for its acceptance and universality, then it is done for convenience and speedy estimation of moral value, not necessarily airtight logic and a maximum avoidance of error. That is perhaps why things that go against NAP cannot be, in advance of evaluating them, known to be logically invalid. If somebody denies the consistency of NAP, not just its truth value, then it seems clearer to me that they are logically flawed.

Not being able to drive a car does not disprove you own it or have the potential to drive it. Potential? Nearly all people have the potential to drive my car. This all points in the direction of children being owned by the parents (half ownership by mother and father to be more precise) and being enslaved to similar accidents of birth. Not in the least. Genetics is different than either parent alone, so we are unique. Even identical twins are unique because of mutations. Our metabolism is made more and more independent after birth. They would be rightful owners indeed. I don't understand why you think that's an argument. People effectively controlling other people is no different that cells controlling other cells. Luckily, as it happens, we do not have that kind of control on each other. Why? Is not ownership a moral claim? Whether you can do it is different that whether you should. Does this idea of control causing property necessarily lead to the concept that those who can do evil things are morally right to do so.

"Anything that goes against" seems too broad in order to be fully correct. It is possible a principle and its negation can each be individually consistent so long as they are not both taken at the same time. A system that claims the negation of NAP does not seem provable as logically invalid. A system that claims the inconsistency of NAP is stronger and you can probably show it is logically invalid, because the same inconsistency exists in system that lacks NAP. The arguments I have read on NAP seem to argue it does not lead to logical contradiction, not that it can be derived purely from logic. I could be wrong. I even hope I am wrong. But I have seen the term "universally valid" used interchangeably between a proof of consistency and a proof of logical truth. With consistency we only have a proof that an idea is viable, and not necessarily that things negating it are all proven to be nonviable. It's a weaker concept than universal truth, so rules like the excluded middle (x is true or else not x is true) do not get much traction when you only have a consistency proof in hand.

But why? Transplanted leg or arm gets exclusively controlled by the new person they are connected to. Control seems like a result of connections, much as driving somebody else's car does not prove you own it. The control idea also does not work when somebody is unconscious or paralyzed. Something like genetics, metabolism, and our objective place in nature must contribute to what is owned. Control is just one thing in the mix. I do not grasp why, hypothetically, a government with direct mind control technology should somehow be our rightful owners because they gained exclusive power.

Although there is likely some good ideas connected to bodily action, I have not found the body-control argument very compelling, nor can I say a thing is owned because labor was involved in making it. Animals self-control and yet are owned. To some degree, plants self-control and so can possibly some computerized machines if control is taken at face value. Also, if a new technology enabled direct child control, it seems unlikely that parents' ethical ownership status would or should be changed to an elevated level as a result of their new increased control.Labor involved is just coincidental as to how and when we observe it. As sunlight makes plant energy and so on through the food chain, my parents were just one closer (and temporary) intermediary from sunshine all the way to my hand typing. A guy who assembles the main bits of a computer chip does not own the computer it is later connected to, the software it will handle, or the whole Internet. That guy is only one essential contributor. Only a small percentage of my current body mass originates from parental labor, the rest from water I drink and food I ate by myself.To me the problem is logical, at least if you believe property can be transferred by inheritance. If I do not self-own, my parents do not self-own either (being products of a previous generation). Therefore, whatever principle gave them ownership of me, that should give ownership of me also to some ancient chimpanzee who apparently did not write this crazy plan in their will. So how my parents would have got ownership of themselves (and subsequent capacity to own their children) would be a totally impossible thing to maintain.

You've now stopped reasoning. Yes, as you say, I have a lot to learn. You have nothing to learn. You know everything you need to: useful things, such as no rock can contain water. I am crushed by your infinite wisdom.

The water is not external and properly constitutes the rock itself. Your standard, remember? Ice chunks can crack too when subjected to temperature change. If you can treat liquid and solid bits of H2O inside the same chunk as different "external agent" objects causing ice to move, then why do you not agree my blood and internal oxygen are external agents contacting my leg causing it to move? Indeed, you assumed I meant "always". Modify my sentence to "can sometimes react". Oh, and by the way, I should say "plants can sometimes grow" instead of "plants grow".

It would also seem necessary to discuss why the left much more easily tolerates state and general cultural opposition of prostitution, polygamy, and many other voluntary adult arrangements.

I also did not say they were "equal', but they are necessarily linked. I do not see how to discuss psychology without discussing such boundaries. Do you believe psychology and psychopathology can simply be distinguished by some objective test we will always be able to follow? Is there some clear and scientific way, absent of all human bias and arbitrary judgement, to know exactly what behaviors are called pathological?

I too think it's fair to at least discuss psychological roots and the necessity to make it an issue. In online discussion with restoring men, I have heard some say they feel circumcision made them gay, or at least predisposed them to avoidance and extreme emotional difficulty with women. Really how can it be psychologically easy to be a straight man while knowing most American women prefer to mutilate baby boys? When child abuse is involved, there is tendency to hide it from the discussion. Stef has podcasted before, and roughly seemed to say based on a small sampling of discussions, that child abuse is a possible factor in sexual orientation. My thinking is that we only feel safe when other people have ideas similar to our own.

Spastic, by the conventions you seem to use, atoms (like oxygen) that enter into my leg now must properly constitute my leg itself. I will accept your definition, so long as you hold non-living compositions to the same standard of considering only what happens, as you say, between external entities. At the current point in the discussion, an object is said to be alive because it moves on its own and any internal atom inside counts as part of "it". Now if freeze and thaw cycles over time cause a rock to crack and fall apart, and the rock was not externally impacted by any entity during this process, has the rock not moved on its own? Is this not atomically a bit like sunlight causing a plant to grow and the plant is therefore said to move on its own? My answer to your question is no. I do not believe I ever said living things always react unpredictably. They have only a limited ability to do so, and I accept my definition as imperfect and worthy of improvement.

I would not try to sway who is responded to. But when the error is repeated it becomes a set of examples. I had hoped my idea for "prediction" would be thought of not as "prediction that is actually done by some guy". Rather I meant "prediction that can, in principle, be done by any machine, apparatus, or arbitrary form or shape (real or possibly real) that can statistically correlate one event with another." For example, dark clouds predict rain.

No oxygen is in contact with my legs causing them to move? Oxygen is in my blood delivered by my lungs. My lungs do not do this on their own, but have stored energy from a previous breath. Oxygen will come in contact with my legs and, by a regulated chemical reaction delivers force to my legs to move. Deprived of oxygen my legs go numb and stop moving. Who said anything about will? Plants are alive too and you accept them as moving whenever sunshine causes their growth. I'll weasel. Before I did X, a movement W was done to me which provides me the energy to do X. Before this energetic prior cause W was done (by air pressure, my mother's womb, or who knows what), some movement V was done to cause W to happen. It is not deterministic, but such movement at least has a necessary flow of energy and prior cause. In this pattern of tracing history X,W,V,U,... none of these movements were done purely on their own, except maybe the original letter A (the big bang) if there was such a thing. If you are physically responding on this board on your own, your movements needed to respond are not caused by what you read here. You do your verbs all on your own and it is sheer coincidence we appear to write about the same topic. I however, being non-alive (sarcasm again), I am caused to type this reply as one possible consequence of your typed words. You should have no cause to present further disagreement, because you are not reacting to anything posted here but you're just acting alone.

I admit to not being a literary expert. So why call it fiction? Take for example: "Santiago is hungry". I call that fiction because I just made up the character. Now consider "Santiago is mortal because Santiago is a man and all men are mortal". Here the character "Santiago" is fiction and basically just a place holder for any man. But the main story (ie. the proof) I will say is non-fiction. Or is it that a story must be called fiction in its entirety even it if the story is only partially made up?

Spastic Ink, allow me to feebly attempt to break the tit-for-tat replies and say with a bit of sarcasm that I am not alive by your thinking. You see, I do not move by myself but to move I must absorb nutrients and breathe air. I do not act alone, nor do I have a non-environmental or magical source of internal motion.When you throw a rock, there is a sense that the rock moves "all on its own" after it has been thrown. You will no doubt trace the history of the rock and say something like I would: "the rock moves only as a byproduct of having been thrown". But I argue life does not break any laws of gravity or physics, and lifeforms move only as a byproduct of reproduction, food intake, respiration, etc. -- all of which are subtle exchanges with the environment. When a rock is thrown into the air by a volcano (a natural process), the rock receives energy from the environment. So do I receive energy when food and air are found near my face causing me to consume them. Neither the rock nor I can suddenly, and without environmental input, move totally all on our own. People can trace back their source of motion to some prior environmental exchange, such as eating a hamburger.Now if the rock is not alive because its exchange is so simple, and living motion is complex and unpredictable and involves previously-eaten things like hamburgers, then that idea is going somewhere (pun intended). That's why I believe dynamical systems are involved, and why I make the case for prediction as an objective indicator of life. But my theory makes little sense, if you are alive and can truly move all on your own. If you move on your own, and nothing whatsoever externally moves your legs, then you should not require more oxygen from the environment when you run at full speed. You can just breathe at one constant rate. It is only you doing the moving, and the outside air should have nothing to do with it.

Thank you for explaining. You assume the prediction must be realized and observed. I suggest inclusion of prediction by any physically-possible means, even if the prediction is made by a nonliving entity (a mechanical tool). Indeed if I qualified "living entity" had to do the prediction, my definition is quite circular. But I do not make that assertion. I claim the predictable behavior is one of the behaviors a living being must possess. It is not the full extent of all behaviors it is allowed to possess. That is not all it does. It allows some self-propelled machines to be living, and other machines to be non-living. It holds whether or not gravity is the universal force involved. Perhaps. But I do not think something can move "on its own". If there are 12 lightbulbs, and one bulb lights up on its own, then either I mean "the 11 other bulbs do not light up" (light bulb #1 is the only one that lights), or I mean "the lightbulb has an internal power source" (no external connection exists). So when something moves on its own, what do you mean? That thing moves and nothing else does? Or the thing has no contact whatsoever with other objects and is somehow able to move anyway? Or is it some third definition that I have not yet learned? These questions I think demonstrate the idea is vague. OK then explain this to me please. What about a drone aircraft makes it not alive? That is obvious if you accept cells must be alive. I would argue wood is made of cells, but wood is dead. I only suggest cells do not have to be alive in order for them to be recognizable as cells. Cells are maybe just a really cool pattern of arranging atoms. So if somebody includes cells in their definition of life, the definition is not necessarily circular. Let's say by some mathematical transform, pattern repetition is objectively shown. You could include that in a definition and not cause a contradiction. I don't include it in my definition of life, but it seems to be a viable idea.

I do not think fiction generally qualifies as a logical theory. It cannot be independently reproduced. An equation for gravity, in principle, can be reproduced by a scientist on a planet in the Andromeda galaxy. Fermat's last theorem, or the forty-thousandth digit of pi in base ten could also be reproduced independently. Whether Santiago catches a giant fish, that seems impossible to reproduce without having some indirect contact with Hemingway. Perhaps there are bits and pieces in a fictional novel that can be logically reproduced by a totally independent thinker. But to that extent, those bits are pieces are non-fictional.

Thank you for the voice of rationality. The original premise was that things moving against gravity constitute being alive. I take "moving" to mean the overall center of mass is moving, not just itty bitty subatomic parts (everything has moving parts at small enough scale). This was augmented with the following observations: 1. The living things must move "on their own". 2. The living things must not be artificial constructs. 3. The living things must be made of cells. 4. Living things react unpredictably and environment provides metabolic indicators needed to maintain this reaction. #4 is my advice I humbly submit for critique. To me, #1 is vague and meaningless, #2 is arbitrary and circular (artificial means byproduct of a lifeform, and lifeform means non-artificial), and #3 seems at least easier to prove but only if we restrict life to multicellular. Comments?