Comments by "MC116" (@angelmendez-rivera351) on "Rationality Rules"
channel.
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Is time more like the naturals or the rationals?
If we go by our current understanding of the physics, it is definitely more like the rational numbers, but a reliable answer to this question requires that we develop a quantum theory of gravity. A quantum relativity, if you will.
The answer has significant philosophical implications that you won't be able to detect by just considering cardinality.
You are correct. This is why we consider the order types of sets, rather than just their cardinality. (N, <•) is a poset, and so is (Q, <••), and there exists an order-embedding from N to Q. However, there is no order-embedding from Q to N. Therefore, the order type of (Q, <••) is larger than the order type of (N, <•). To be precise, the order type of the latter is the ordinal ω, while the order type of the former is ω^2. Time in our instantiation of spacetime probably operates with a set with order type ω(1) or larger, but ω^2 is closer to ω(1) than ω is, which is why I said time is more like the set of rational numbers. Though, if Wolfram's program is accurate, then time is actually of order type ω.
1
-
1
-
@nobodyspecial9 Let's transpose your question to the point of transgender identity. So, how exactly is claiming they have a certain gender when they factually do not, not "lying"? It's not as if they do not know what their actual gender is. That would be impossible, except for the case in which they were extremely cognitively deficient, which is not clinically or legally the case for them.
This makes the assumption that it is actually possible to know what someone's gender is without being told by the person what it is to begin with.
Do you see the problem with that flavour of argument?
I do not, partially because you are strawmanning me here. My claim about Rachel lying is not merely in her claim about her racial identity, but in her claim about what her heritage is. I know I did not make it clear in my comment, but I thought we were discussing common knowledge here. I supoose we are not.
Identity refers to how you perceive yourself, not to what is apparent externally.
This is wrong. Identity has many facets and is significantly more complicated than a matter or self-perception. Of course, self-perception plays a mjor role, but it is by no means the sole defining factor.
You can look, dress and act as a member of a certain gender and still perceive yourself as belonging to another.
Yes, because how you dress and look is much more an issue of gender roles and not a matter of gender identity. Even a person who denies the validity of transgender identity would tell you this much. But the picture that people are missing is that the concept of gender identity is incoherent without gender roles and a cultural context to talk about it. Functionally, how one's gender is perceived, self-declarations aside, is via those gender roles. And gender roles are very much not about self-perception, but societal perception. Think about this: what does it even mean to "dress according to a gender"? This is an incoherent notion if gender truly is just another name for biological sex. One cannot dress according to a biological sex. This is nonsensical, as biological sex does not have a form of clothing intrinsically tied to it. There is nothing inherently female about skirts. The only reason they are "female" clothing is because society said so. And so, if one sees someone on the street with a skirt, they would assume the skirt-wearing person is a woman, and they would be ready to die on the hill of that assumption, regardless of what the truth is.
With race, this is even worse, as race inherently does carry external components to it, and in particular, a very historical context that cannot be changed by one's self-perception. But the difference is, that outside certain specific contexts in the medical field, and outside the specific context of having chidren, one's biological sex is functionally irrelevant, and so is one's gender. Race is not.
As such it makes no sense rationally to exclude racial perception while lauding gender perception, because they both depend on what your perception of yourself is.
But that is the thing: racial perception does not determine racial identity. Because as I said, real, tangible, external component to this exists. Meanwhile, how society perceives gender is almost solely a function of how one chooses to present oneself.
I'm not saying Dolezal wasn't "lying", but to dismiss their claim outright based on your perception of their condition smacks of the same type of disingenuity that many people in the comments accuse Dawkins of having.
Again, I thought we were discussing common knowledge. The reason Rachel has been accused of lying is because anytime she has been asked to explain herself, she has literally lied, regarding how she justifies her claim of being transracial. Lying about your own family still counts as lying. And besides, this objection ignores the fact that race and gender are functionally different in how they relate to one's identity. And gender dysphoria functions very differently from any other kind of dysphoria, which is why the DSM and scientific organizations classify gender dysphoria as an entirely different kind of mental condition altogether. You are not even comparing apples to oranges. You are comparing apples to vegetables.
1
-
@nobodyspecial9 Gender roles and gender identity are two parts of the same coin, wherein one is the internal perception and the other is the external perception. And they are both arguably based but not necessarily in alignment with the tangible and physical component of gender, which is sex. Sex, in the absence of self-declaration to the contrary, is considered to be the basis of gender identity precisely because gender is often derived from and is compatible with sex, however because they are not mutually assured they do not necessarily follow.
This fails to present a full picture of the situation. The reality is more complicated than this. Gender identity, traditionally, has been devoid of self-perception, and has been based entirely on the biological sex of an individual. However, there are major problems with this.
One problem is that our understanding of biological sex today is much more refined than the understanding we had 80 years ago, and we realize that biological sex in humans is not a simple discrete binary, and not uniquely determined by chromosomes either. This also means that while, in the past, the understanding was that biological sex had functional relevance societally, which is what motivated gender roles in the first place, it turns out that we know today that biological sex has no functional relevance societally, and as for an individual, it only has relevance for the purposes of medical necessities, and for the purposes of sexual interaction, both of which are completely private matters. If gender identity is based on biological sex, then it too has no functional relevance. This makes gender as a classification very much arbitrary and meaningless. Effectively, we say gender exists only because we have traditionally believed it exists, not because it has any objective existence to it.
And on that note, another problem is that this makes the traditionally held connection between gender identity and gender roles fallacious and fictitious. If what determines an individual's gender is which reproductive organs the individual has, then masculinity and feminity are equally arbitrary and meaningless distinctions. There is no intrinsic relationship between how one dresses, how one talks, or how one does the vast majority of things in social interactions that do not directly involve having sexual intercourse, and one's reproductive organs. Masculinity and feminity are perceived to be real only by virtue of societal fiat.
But how one interacts socially is functionally relevant and does carry non-arbitrary, meaningful distinctions. So if gender roles were real, in other words, if how one manifested social interactions actually did have an intrinsic relationship to one's reproductive organ, then biological sex-based gender identity would have functional relevance. Gender identity has functional relevance only if gender roles do. The coin with two sides that you describe metaphorically in your paragraph is thus not a symmetric coin, or to say, not truly a coin. That being said, while gender roles are fictitious, they still carry subcultures with them, those being types of masculinity and feminity, which are themselves dependent on the broader context of one's national culture, religion, politics, ethnicity, and yes, race, among other things. This is where self-perception becomes relevant. Self-perception operates on one's sense of belonging which is based entirely on this arbitrary, meaningless distinction between masculinity and feminity as subcultures, and unlike the distinctions themselves, self-perception is not arbitrary nor meaningless, and has functional relevance. Gender identity acquires some level of functional relevance, albeit still artifical, only as a function of how one's self-perception interacts with these gender subcultures. And otherwise, it is completely devoid of objective existence. In fact, hypothetically speaking, if society were to realize that gender is objectively unreal, then it may get rid of the distinction altogether, yet choose to keep the gender subcultures as part of one's identity, albeit choosing to disconnect the notion of those subcultures from any notions of biologica sex, which is the sane thing to do, and would simply treat them as precisely that: subcultures. This is why it is nonsensical to consider gender as anything but a function of self-perception.
Similarly, race has an external perception and an internal perception, based on a tangible and physical component of genetic race. Racial perception can also differ from its genetic roots as it is also based on identity and, to borrow your phrase, "how one chooses to present oneself", and as such distinct from their genetic race.
No. This is demonstrably not the case. Race functions very differently from how gender functions. The distinctions between races are based on external features that, unlike with gender, are very much functionally relevant in society, and are intrinsically tied to socioecionomic history and ethnicity. Race, unlike gender, is hereditary. The existence of race is also very closely tied to colorism. And unlike one's reproductive organs, which very few people know what they are unless they are explicitly peeping on you, or they have had sexual intercourse with you, or unless they are your parents, or unless they are your medic, and thus have no functional relevance aside from an arbitrarily assigned and fictitious importance, one's color of skin is very much visible to everyone, and can singlehandedly affect your life in drastic ways, for the better or for the worse, even if this is not necessarily true for every single person out there.
Race is also inextricably linked to one's geographic location, and to one's cultural history. These are aspects that race does not share with gender. And this means that, unlike gender, race is defined and determined by things that have an objective, unarbitrary, meaningful reality of their own. This much is true, despite the fact that race is not a legitimate biological distinction, contrary to what racist people many centuries ago used to claim. Also, for what is worth, unlike with gender, there is no historical-sociological precedent for transracial identity or race dysphoria that can legitimize self-perception as not only being a genuine component of one's race, but also one which decisively overrides all of the above.
The very fact the Dolezal chose and existed for years as a "black" person before being outed as "white" is proof that racial identity both internal and external can be distinct from genetic race.
This is a very uninformed and ignorant opinion to have on the subject matter. Dolezal was not "outed" as white after many years of having existed as black. It has always been known by everyone who has known her that she is white. And she was merely black-passing, which is not the same as being black. People knew she was white. For context, she was born in 1977, and she only began her charade in 2009. By the time, she was not particularly well-known, but the people who did know of her did criticize her. Yes, the controversy only exploded in 2015, but that does not mean that plenty of critiques of her behavior did not exist from years prior. And the reason the controversy began was not because she was "outed", but because a major article was written about her in which her past hate crime allegations and on her lying, and this was enough to draw attention from the news media, and naturally, the news media exacerbated the issue to the point of irritation, because that is what they do. The reality is, she had already been outed even before this, as her parents had already made public statements as early as 2011. But the news media brought this to the attention of people who were completely unaware of her existence previously, hence why controversy began. Portraying it as "we only found about her being white after she was outed" is not only ignorant, but disingenuous. So, no. This does not prove your thesis about how race functions.
In my opinion the point of contention between us is in that you seem to adhere to a kind of special pleading fallacy wherein gender identity is allowed to be solely determined by internal perception while racial identity has to be determined by external perception, or worse a tangentially related physical characteristic.
This is far from special pleading, as both of these claims have actual justification. If anything, I would say your argument is a false equivalence: pretending that race and gender function the same without any good reason to treat them as such, and even when one should expect them, even outside this context, to function differently.
So she lied about her genetic links to the race of her identity. So what? What could that possibly have to do with her identity?
Everything, as I explained above.
That's like outing that a trans person has sex organs that are not in line with their identified gender and then accusing them of lying when they refute it. It might be true, it might not, but more to the point it doesn't matter.
And again, this is a false equivalence, as explained above.
1
-
@nobodyspecial9 I dislike your tendency to cut up my arguments into random sections,... ...so I will simply refer to them in the order your rebuttals appear. -Paragraph 0
I am not dissecting your arguments into random sections. I am dissecting your arguments according to how you yourself separated them on your paragraph structure, each paragraph being its own claim. I acknowledge that you are trying to build a narrative, which is precisely why I make sure to address every single individual claim you make, rather than only focusing on one claim and then pretending that your stance has been fully debunked. I also acknowledge precisely the nnarrative in question at the end of each segment of my reply, after explaining why a particular claim being made is inaccurate. Hence the length of my previous reply. This is also the reason why I copypaste your arguments and quote them in boldface: it makes sure that both you and I know which of my claims addresses which of your claims, and it ensures that in me addressing your claims, I am addressing exactly what you said, and not some strawman of the claim. I put as much effort into being intellectually honest as I expect my opponents to be, even though I am aware that most people I will have discussions with are not intelectually honest, as is the nature of humanity. This is because I care about it. So, despite your qualms, I am not going to stop using this format. If it is a dealbreaker for you, then feel free to stop replying to me. No one is forcing you to jave a conversation you do not wish to have, and if you did, it would only be a waste of my time, not to mention of your time. Besides, contrary to your claim, the topic of my reply is precisely the subject of discussion. To be clear, your thesis here is that race and gender have an equivalence, in such a way that you think transgender identity is valid if and only if transracial identity is. The very topic of my reply is in explaining why that is not the case.
Part 1. I completely agree that biological sex exists on a spectrum, and I have never claimed otherwise... ...as gender roles are an external construct that has its foundations in societal norms and perceptions, an ever changing paradigm. -Paragraph 1
I never said you claimed anything about biological sex. My explanation was there to provide further context for my argument, and without that context, the claims made in the argument would have appeared to any reader simply as complete baseless assertions. I am not conflating anything. Everything I said in that particular section is specifically reliant on the distinction between the three, and I even explained in painful detail how the three are related. However, I never said they are the same thing. The reason I assert gender identity was historically and traditionally solely determined by one's reproductive organs is because this precisely what was considered correct in the majority of developing societies. In the language of SJWs, the traditional view on gender identity is the trans/phobic view (the things one has to do get around censor bots these days), not the modern view we have access to today. The existence of transgender identity is by no means recent, but it certainly has never been societally recognized until modern times, hence why it is not the traditional view. This has absolutely nothing to do with me conflating gender identity with gender roles. It has to do with the historical fact that it has been traditionally inaccurate and even absurd to say that one's gender identity is determined by one's self-perception of it, outside of some minority ethnicities, especially in the West-European values, which are the values that eventually were forced on most of the world many centuries ago.
Traditionally, gender roles are determined by gender identity. But this is not what my reply is contesting or objecting to. The determination of gender roles from gender identity is fallacious for the reasons I explained. Since the only thing that even has the potential to have functional relevance is gender roles, it should be the case that gender identity should instead be determined by gender roles. As I explained, this is where self-perception comes in, and this explains phenomenologically why self-perception must be the determining factor in gender identity for it to be a coherent and meaningful distinction between individuals in society.
It may be unrealized, but it is fallacious to claim... So when you base your argument on that foundation, your entire argument falls flat. -Paragraph 1
No. The claim "traditionally, gender identity was devoid of self-perpcetion, and so was based solely on one's biological sex (which was traditionally understood to just be one's reproductive organs)" does not imply that I believe that gender is a choice or that gender dysphoria is a novel phenomenon. This is not even a syllogism, so it is impossible for this to be a material implication. When one speaks of past tradition, one speaks about what was held to be true on a societal level, regardless of the actual accuracy of the belief in question. Talking about traditions is not fallacious. I know the distinction between traditional beliefs and what is understood in modernity.
Your claim that biological sex has no functional relevance is proven wrong... They do not cease to exist just because certain individuals do not experience them. -Paragraph 2
This is disingenuous, and a complete misrepresentation of what I said. I never stated, nor implied, that sex drive is non-existent. Many individuals do indeed experience sex drive. Sex drive is the reason why the industry of p**nography exists. It is also one of a few reasons why sexual crimes occur, though not by any means the primary reason. I never denied any of this, and nothing that I said regarding functional relevance of categorization of individuals in-context is in opposition to this. The fact that you are stating this, and then proceeding to assume my motivations for making the claims I never made but you said I made, is just a complete misrepresentation of the concept, and it is also intellectually dishonest.
1
-
@nobodyspecial9 You also argue that gender identity only gains function due to... As such my point about them being two sides of the same coin stands. -Paragraph 3
No. The gender identity of someone else is not determined by how you perceive them. Self-perception is the perception of oneself, not the perception of others. Regardless of your perception of them, their self-perception as it interacts with the gender norms of society determines their own gender identity. Gender norms are also not determined by your perception of them either, since the perception of any one individual person is incapable of dictating gender norms: gender norms are necessarily a sum of perceptions, as they are a societal phenomenon. But besides, as I already explained, gender norms are completely fictitious, since the pre-established norms one's self-perception interacts with for gender identity to occur to begin with are themselves completely arbitrary, meaningless, and based on a tradition we now know to be false. The masculinity and femininity subcultures historically emerged from how society traditionally connected gender roles with one's gender identity. However, as I pointed out, these can conceivably exist independetly of the existence of gender, given that what their existence is also determined by several other major factors I mentioned in my reply. And these subcultures are themselves entirely subjective anyway: their existence is contingent on several factors independent of gender, but their determination for any given individual is not, as there is not even an objective metric that is capable of distinguishing the two. Society is able to dictate that masculinity and femininity exist, but it is unable to dictate how or where one fits in that distinction.
Part 2 Despite your claims to the contrary, race is not based solely on external features. Race is also a social construct that has gained relevance due to subcultures in the same way that gender has. -Paragraph 4
Race is indeed a social construct, because race has no basis in the laws of nature, it is a completely made up form of categorization of individuals that is arbitrary and meaningless in origin, and made up solely for the purpose of justifying oppression against one group of people or another. I never disputed this. This does not imply that determination of one's race is not societal and that there is no objective metric by which one determines how one fits into the social construct. I already mentioned that race is indeed tied to culture in more than way, but how it is tied to culture is very different from how gender is tied to culture.
You are conflating colorism, and racism based on color,... This statement smacks of ignorance. -Paragraph 4
The statement does indeed smack of ignorance. Thankfully, I never actually made this claim. You are twisting my words, presenting them to mean something completely different from what I actually said. So much for representing my argument fairly. I am not conflated race with colorism. The fact that I used the language that the two are inextricably connected implies that I acknowledge a distinction between them in the first place, and I furthermore explicitly stated that race is also inextricably linked to one's cultural history, geographic location, heritage, ethnicity, among other things. You are completely ignoring this. I am not so dishonest to assume whether this is due to a lapse of judgment on your part, or out of malicious intent, but you can stop pretending you present my arguments more fairly than you think I represent yours, at any rate.
If one’s racial identity is not... ...into classifications similar to gender identity. -Paragraph 4
No, such reasons do exist. I provided them in my reply, and rather than addressing them head on, you decided to ignore them, and pretend that the only factor I considered when discussing racial identity was colorism. This is dishonest on your part.
And if race exists... ...unarbitrary and meaningful reality of race fails to hold. -Paragraph 4
Yes,... if.
Part 3 I believe that I have already answered this claim. Your biased language aside, you have yet to prove that she didn’t truly believe her claim. You have also failed to prove why her supposed lack of black ancestors matters. -Paragraph 5
I never claimed that she did not truly believe her claim. This is completely tangential to the point I actually made. I have no obligation to prove to you a claim I never made. I have briefly overviewed why ancestry matters in the segment of my reply on race. You completely have misrepresented that segment of my reply, and pretended I did not connect race to anything else besides colorism. So, no, you have not answered anything.
Parts 4, 5, and 6... ...which is the very definition of special pleading. -Paragraph 6
The only thing you did was misrepresent my arguments more than once and twist my words to conclude that I made claims I never made, and then address those claims, rather than addressing the claims I actually did make. So, no, your thesis does not stand.
1
-
1
-
@BlarglemanTheSkeptic2 From a fraction of a second, until 370 kya, the entire universe was like the inside of a star: super hot, super high pressure, composed of nuclei and electrons that were FAR too hot to stick together, and photons EVERYWHERE, being emitted and absorbed and electrically charged matter.
The universe was very hot, dense, and pressurized, yes, but it was nothing like the inside of stars. Nuclei did not exist: quarks were actually free, as the temperature of the universe was above the Hagedorn temperature, 10^12 K. Stars do not achieve these temperature in their interiors.
Then, as the expansion continued, it's like travelling outwards from the center of the star...
No, the cosmic expansion was nothing like this at all. The cosmic expansion is an expansion of spacetime itself: the actual matter embedded in the spacetime is not experiencing any motion.
1
-
@BlarglemanTheSkeptic2 You are beating a dead horse, as I already acknowledged that the hadron epoch started 10^(–6) seconds after the initial moment. However, you continue to be wrong with regards to the existence of matter in the form of plasma, which did not occur until the photon epoch, 10 seconds after the initial moment. I was pretty clear about this in my previous comment. I guess reading comprehension is difficult for most people, though.
An atom is defined as nuclei comprised of baryons (nucleons, to be more precise) with electrons in a state bound to said nuclei. Lone protons do not meet this definition. They do meet the definition of an ion, though, but protons bound to antiprotons, which is what would have existed in the hadron era, are not lone protons, nor are they atoms.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@dieSpinnt I wouldn't bother. The dude is a troll. He keeps insisting that that I have not admitted to a (minor and careless) mistake I acknowledged I made. He continues to be unnecessarily hostile, utilizing a lot of CAPS LOCK, in the style of what a teenager would do. Also, anyone who tries to cite Wikipedia as a scholarly source of discussion is not worth their salary. He also fails to address the rest of my arguments, while consistently strawmanning my claim. I have a degree in physics, and while I did get a timeframe mixed up, I think it is clear he does not have an actual grasp of what he is talking about. By the way, I have also seen him comment in other threads in this video, as well as other videos I have been watching these past two days. He always does this: antagonizes people over minor details, while being wrong about them, always being rude in the process. I have saved screenshots and sent them to some friends, to laugh over at them. He is not worth it. Your energy would be better spent on someone with intellectual honesty.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@user-fb2jb3gz1d you keep using indefinites to say it's a fact.
I am not using indefinites.
Close to 0 is not 0. Could is not is. Mostly likely is not is.
These are not indefinites. The reality is that, in the scientific method, there is no such a thing as probability 0 or probability 1. You yourself acknowledged this in your previous reply, by noting that science is ever-changing.
Were you there? NO Was human there? NO
True, but irrelevant. A human does not need to be there in order for us to verify that it happened. Were you there when the colonization of the Americas happened? No. So, according to your logic, we should actually be rejecting the idea that such colonization happened, since according to you, it is not a fact. Is that what you want? Okay, then. That is great, actually, because now, I can hit you with "were you there to experience the resurrection of Jesus?" And I know the answer is "no," because I know you are not 2000 years old. As such, by your own logic, you have an epistemic duty to not accept the resurrection as factual.
See? Your argument only works against your worldview, not against science.
In all those times the experiment was done, how many times were the variables changed?
Plenty.
Now if new findings bring new variables, there is no possible way you can tell me that you know it won't change drastically.
I know it beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt. There. I said it.
That's just stupidity.
No, it is not. Just because you are scientifically illiterate and you have no understanding of how the scientific method or how scientific linguistics work, it does not mean that experts who have studied physics for at least 3 decades more than you have are being stupid. In fact, you are the one who said in the other thread that simply criticizing someone's purposeful actions when they are vastly more knowledgeable than oneself is stupid. Well, that is literally what you are doing right now.
I'm pointing out that we don't know for a fact that there are no other variables because we don't know exactly what happened.
No, we do not know exactly what happened, but we know more than sufficient information to know that it did happen.
To say it's a fact is BS. To say it's most likely or most probable..........that's correct.
You contradicted yourself in the same sentence. After all, a fact is nothing more than a statement whose probability of being false is so small that it is unreasonable to take seriously. There are no statements whose probability is exactly 0. No such a thing exists.
1
-
@user-fb2jb3gz1d I mean, I do have a degree in physics, but this is not about me. The scientific method is a collective, even global effort. There are millions of physicists around the world that have been contributing to our knowledge of the Big Bang theory for almost a century. It is laughable that you think that all several million of them are utterly stupid, just because you have no understanding of basic science and epistemology.
I agree that 99.999% is not equal to 100%. This is irrelevant. In science, there are no statements which have a 100% probability of being true. It is impossible for such statements to exist, due to the unfalsifiability problem. For example, solipsism is unfalsifiable. There is no method by which you, or anyone else, can prove that solipsism is false. Another example is the gargantuan reincarnation conjecture. What is that, you may ask? It is a conjecture that I literally just made up right now, and here is what it claims: it claims that every 1 second, the universe flashes out of existence, and then comes back into existence an infinitesimal amount of time later, such that the discontinuities in the timeline are unmeasurable. This is unfalsifiable, as well: there exists no method by which you can ever establish that the probability of it being false is 100%, because any objection you throw at it can be addressed trivially, simply by appealing to flashing out and into existence.
None of the statements you consider "facts" have a 100% probability of being true. The Earth being round? That does not have a 100% probability of being true. That the rotation of the Earth takes 24 hours? That does not have a 100% probability of being true. That plant leafs are green dureng springtime? That does not have a 100% probability of being true. That your phone will not crash right now, as you are reading this comment? This does not have a 100% probability of being true. Absolute epistemic certainty is impossible, and the scenarios presented demonstrate this pretty convincgly.
This is why, rather than adopting a dumb definition of "fact," which you propose we should do, which would result in facts not existing at all, scientists opt to not work with the concept of epistemic certainty, and instead use Bayesian epistemology supplemented by empiricist methods. This has always worked fine for us, and it is how the technology you are using to type these comments have been working so well.
I read that we can't see past the cosmic dark ages, a period that lasted from 370 000 to 1 billion years after the Big Bang.
Uh, no. It would be about 150 million years, and no, it is false to say we could not see past that. What is true is that there were no stars during those dark ages, but light still definitely traveled around the universe. That is how see the cosmic microwave background.
So because of this, we can't see when the first stars were born, 100 to 500 millions years after the big bang.
The numbeds you gave now literally contradict the ones you gave in your previous sentence. Are you so bad at this that you cannot paraphrase a number correctly from a website without contradicting yourself?
Read that on phys.org
I have read articles from them before. I guarantee you, they are nowhere near so badly informed that they would make mistakes this dumb. So, I have no idea where you actually got it from.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@lukeriely4468 This is stupid and unreasonable. Human beings are not mind readers. If you say a sentence, then I have no reason to expect you intended to say something different than what you actually said. When I try to have conversations with people, then I expect them to have the extremely basic communication skill of knowing how to say exactly what they mean to say. This is something 8-year olds learn how to do in grade school. If you failed to communicate the point you wanted to communicate because you made the choice to use a sentence which does not mean said point, then this is your fault, not anyone else's.
Saying, please, before nailing someone to a wall is still nailing someone to a wall.
This is completely irrelevant to what we are talking about here. In fact, there is nothing analogous between this conversation we are having, and this scenario you are describing. However, let me add this: in an scenario like this, literally no one in their sane mind would care about the intentions of the person doing the nailing. No, they would care about what their actions. Communication is no different, as I explained above.
Simple, really.
Calling it "simple" when you are the one failing to understand requires a certain type of graceless audacity.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Some sentences are grammatically correct, but completely meaningless and incoherent. "Why does the Sun smell like the number 5?" is a sentence that is grammatically correct and mechanically correct in the English language. Is the question meaningful or coherent? No, it is a nonsensical question. Someone naive may think that we have an obligation to answer this question, and may even choose to call it a primordial question, and will he left unsatisfied at the fact that the question has not been answered. But the truth is that, it does not matter how much the asker protests, the question itself is nonsensical and meaningless, and so there is nothing to answer: ultimately, the question is not really asking anything, hence the question is not answerable. It is unanswerable, not because there is some fundamental flaw in the way humans reason philosophically, but rather, because the person who asked the question lacks an understanding of how meaningful questions work.
I would very much argue that "why is there something rather than nothing?" is another example of a question that is nonsensical. The question seems reasonable if you are not thinking about it at all: it is grammatically correct in the English language, and it appeals to our very flawed intuitions, so it seems like the question deserves an answer. But upon careful inspection, this question is just as nonsensical as my constructed example. How so? Because "something" and "nothing" are not well-defined metaphysical or ontological concepts. These words are merely consequences of our flawed intuition, and of the fact that abstraction is something that we have to train ourselves to do with imperfect crutches, rather than do naturally, since our brains did not really evolve to be good at abstraction. The words "something" and "nothing" can help us to transition from relying on intuition alone to relying on critical thought and abstraction, but ultimately, they serve no other purpose in the grand scheme of philosophy. And this is not for lack of trying. We have been trying to define what "something" is for millennia, and have failed so miserably, that we are not any close to solving that problem than the Ancient Greeks were. But at least now we know that maybe it just is not possible to solve the problem, because "something" does not embody any particular concept at all to begin with. Also, "why" questions tend to, very typically, be meaningless on their own right. "Who" is a question predicate that wants an individual for an answer. "Where" is a question predicate that wants a location for an answer. "Why" is a predicate that wants... some answer. But it does not tell you what kind of answer it allows. It is, in a rigorous sense, not actually a question predicate at all, which is how so many "why" questions end up being just incoherent. You can, of course, counterargue that "why" does ask for a specific type of answer: an explanation. But on its face, this is stupid, since all answers are explanations, by definition. The craftier among you will be more careful and instead counterargue that "why" asks specifically for justification. But this does still render most "why" questions meaningless, which proves my point. How does it render them meaningless? Because justification is an very specific category of answer that is only applicable if the question is being asked about the action of a sentient individual. For example, asking "Why did you cheat on me?" is very sensible, since you are demanding for a justification for an action. "Why did he cry so much last night?" is also sensible question, since again, it is asking about an action. But "why is the sun red?" is not a sensible question, because it assumes that 0) "being red" is an actuon (it is not), 1) the sun chose to be red (it did not). Of course, we do often use "why" and "how" interchangeably, but this only proves my point further: if you want to have a chance that your question is actually coherent, you should instead ask "how is it that there is something rather than nothing?". But even then, the question is still nonsense, due to the problem aforementioned concerning "something" and "nothing" not being well-defined.
So, being that the question is plainly absurd and incoherent, I am not particularly bugged by the question or interested in trying to answer it, and the fact that we still have such a primal urge to insist that the question needs an answer in spite of all the aforementioned things tells me that we have to not truly reached the age of reason. We are still in the age of instinct and intuition.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Language is a layer on top of signaling, that both sender and receiver should understand. It works as a coder/decoder, coded from the sender, decoded from the receiver, and this language is carried on top of a materialistic medium. So "language" is not the medium itself, nor is it the signals, but it is the coded signals that we call "superimposed."
What you provided here is a description of how language physically propagates. It is not a definition of what language is, and it is certainly not how a linguist would describe language. A language is just a system of signs with an assigned meaning that can be extracted by the interpreter, together with rules or a structure that indicate how distinct signs interact together. Given that language is a tool, a sender is often required for this tool to actually be useful, but as far as what a language is, a sender doing an encoding at all is not necessary. In any case, you only need an interpreter decoding the assigned meaning, whose corresponding signs may or may noy have been put there by a sender.
So in the examples of flowers and insects, that flowers develop shiny or colorful or attractive appearance, these are signals to insects to trigger them for feedback, that's a communication system for sure.
No one disputes this, but this discussion is not about flowers signaling to insects. This discussion is about the relationship between the DNA molecule family, and language.
However, we can't say it's purely language here, as there's no coder/decoder, or superimposed messages (or there could be a basic one, I am not a biologist to identify the meaning of animals signals).
I find it absolutely hilarious whenever you theists do this. You guys love doing this thing where you acknowledge that you are completely unqualified to speak on a subject, decide to make a bunch of bold, factually incorrect statements on that subject, and then close it with "...buuuuuuut, I am just an untrained layperson in this subject, what do I know?," as if this somehow strengthens your argument at all. It is truly comical. I always find myself wondering why you guys even bother with the disclaimers anyway, when you still present your statements with all the seriousness in the world, and with all the expectation that we are supposed to accept them as true, and that it supports whatever point you are trying to make. Should you not be taking more of a humble approach, trying to learn more about the topic, before making the decision to present these arguments? I always wondered why most people fail to do this. If you know you are unqualified to make these claims, then you should not be making them at all. This is not to say you are not allowed to have opinions, but you probably should refrain from deductively coming to conclusions you are not willing to budge on without doing some very thorough self-fact-checking.
But "language" as superimpised signals on top, can't emerge.
Sure it can. Pareidolia exists.
C++, Java, etc., have never evolved by their own, but an intelligent IT developer designed them, either directly, or indirectly, and they can sure develop (mostly not on their own).
You are talking about computer languages here. Computer languages are a subclass of artificial languages. Obviously, artificial languages cannot emerge on their own, that is literally what the adjective "artificial" means. But, I hate to break to you, not all languages are artificial, and not all languages work the way computer languages specifically work.
...and accordingly, I see no reason to expect that human language just emerged as well out of nothing, if not built-in already or pre-designed with.
You mean that all of the evidence that we have for the theory of linguistic evolution (which is just a special case of the theory fo biological evolution) is not sufficient for you, somehow? You mean to say that because artificial languages cannot emerge on their own, non-artificial ones cannot do so either, despite the fact that you have absolutely no valid justification to make this strange, bold extrapolation to all languages from what is only a tiny subclass of languages?
If you rejected that last point, then we have another problem with "the coevolution between evolving entities." Here, you then assumed that these evolving entities are not intelligent, or are lifeless.
What is wrong with you? You are not even going to wait and listen for my explanation for why I disagree, and instead, you are going to decide I disagree for X reason, even if you have no way of proving it? You are so arrogant. I am sorry, but this behavior so many of you theists exhibit is the reason why many atheists have given up on trying to have reasonable conversations with you: because with this kind of dishonest, rude behavior, you are communicating to us the fact that you are NOT interested in having an open conversation, you are not interested in learning anything new, you are not willing to correct your beliefs on the basis of any information presented to you, you are not even willing to listen to what we have to say on a given subject. You have decided that we are going to say something before we even actually say it, and if we fail to meet that expectation, you are going to ignore that and move on anyway, following your script, which is why nothing we say to you actually matters. You guys do not know how to have a conversation, you only know how to evangelize and listen to yourselves talk.
So, I do apologize, but I have a difficult time taking you seriously whenever you pull rude dishonest nonsense such as this. It is a conversation-breaker. I would like to only address the actual arguments presented and not have to comment on you as a person, but that is not a reasonable stance when you behave so poorly that you are not even allowing us to say our part. I point out these behaviors so that you guys can stop doing them. And if it bothers you that I have spent this much time commenting on your character and not so much on your actual argument, then it is on you to ask yourself "why? What did I do? What should I be changing?" Reflect more upon yourself.
1
-
In all of the levels of mentioned interaction in the video, between different cells or organisms or animals, they are all living things, with certain intelligence.
The assertion that all living things have certain intelligence is a complete baseless assertion. Here you are, again, a non-biologist, trying to pretend you know more about the topic than biologists, making a claim so bold that virtually no biologist would agree with it with as much confidence as you have asserted it. And despite your confidence, you do not make even a semblance of an effort to try to support your claim.
As IT engineers, we categorize things in layers,...
Yes, whenever it concerns something in IT, you can do that. We are not discussing something that concerns IT. We are discussing biology. IT engineers should keep quiet when it comes to discussing biology, unless you are actually going to provide all the scholarly sources to back your claims up (which I know you will not do, given your attitude thus far).
Even if we go with the hypothesis that layer 1 & 2 (till the signaling) emerged on its own, we have never observed any on-top layer being developed on its own, really never.
This is a completely baseless assertion, once again. This is you, an engineer who lacks an understanding of biology, making speculations on how biology should work based on your perspective as an engineer, and then deciding that certain ideas are facts based on these speculations. You are using what little you do know, and using that to interpret a list of hypotheses you could not possibly know is factual, and coming to a conclusion from there. To be fair, I am not insulting you. I am not a biologist either, I am just as unqualified as you are when it comes to this (though I do know many reliable sources I can consult if I wish). The difference is: I am not the one jumping to conclusions. You are.
So, it's not God of the Gaps here,...
It absolutely is. You, a competent IT engineer, are not a biologist, so you have very limited knowledge and understanding of facts and concepts from biology, as am I. We are both ignorant, when it comes to biology, but you are using this ignorance as an argument that God must be the source of intelligence and language, because you lack the sufficient understanding to make a conclusion as to how it could have happened on its own. This is, categorically, a textbook example of what the God of the Gaps fallacy us. And I am qualified to say that.
...assuming languages and coding is a self-made product is not scientific by any means, as it has never been observed, nor does the current evidence point to be self-created language.
Pareidolia is a phenomenon that has been observed repeatedly, and it is one of several ways in which language can develop without a sender intending for it to exist. Also, the gradual evolution of human languages is natural: no one programmed a piece of technology for these languages to evolve. Also, as a non-linguist, you really should stop speaking so confidently on matters of linguistics as well.
All observations leads to the same [conclusion], that any design needs a designer...
Citation needed. Also, this is a red herring, because it distracts from the fact that you have not proven that DNA (and the universe in general) is a design. If it is not a design, then it does not need a designer. You calling it a design is a completely baseless assertion.
...we have never managed to observe a self-designed system,...
Self-catalytic chemical systems would like to have a talk with you.
...but it's unproven, non-observable hypothesis.
The existence of self-catalytic systems is a fact. We have observed them repeatedly. You can do a basic Google search. I would provide sources, but I have no incentive to, seeing that you have none to provide yourself.
The problem is that this "layered" vision is missing in many biologists,...
Yes, it is missing, because it is woefully inaccurate. It is inapplicable to biological systems. It is only applicable when the concepts in IT engineering are relevant, which they are not here. What is with engineers trying to pretend that all other disciplines of scientific study have to borrow their methods to be valid? I have met way too many of you who pull this nonsense.
However, life, mind, or intelligence, are not phenomena, these are facts that we can't even agree on their proper definition...
Us not agreeing on their definition does not make them not phenomena. Your argument is not remotely close to being valid.
While, for materialistic science...
Materialistic science? This is nonsense. There is no such a thing as non-materialistic science.
material is the medium to carry data on, and material can largely impact the quality of data for sure, but it isn't data...
This is false, and we know this is false because of quantum thermodynamics and quantum information theory. Information. All physical systems, material and non-material, have an inherent data content to them, that cannot be separated from the system itself, because it is a property of the system, much like energy is.
God, and that definition can be really enough for religions...
No, it cannot be, because not all religions agree with this definition. Shinto and Daoism categorically disagree with this definition, for example, and so do some sects of Neo-Confucianism.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@EskChan19 Slavery, for example, could be seen as morally just, in a society based on maximizing happiness, making the majority as happy as possible, even to the detriment of a few.
There are many problems with this:
0. You are conflating "just" with "moral," and treating them as synonymous. They are not synonymous. They often align, yes, but that which is just is not necessarily that which is moral. Besides, the comment you are responding to is using the word "optimal," so neither word applies here.
1. You are conflating "society believes that slavery maximizes happiness" with "slavery actually maximizes happiness (regardless of what people believe)." Only the latter would contribute towards slavery being moral. Societal beliefs can be wrong. When society used to believe that blood-letting was medically effectively and scientifically supported, their belief was wrong.
2. You are ignoring that, the way the definition is presented, an action has to both maximize happiness AND minimize suffering. Since your example does not accomplish both, it is not optimal. Now, you pointed out that accomplishing both may be impossible, but you have not actually demonstrated that the scenario being discussed is an example of an scenario with such an impossibility. There could very well exist an alternative to slavery that maintains equal levels of happiness, but reduces suffering further.
3. Even if it turns out that in a given scenario, there is no way to both maximize happiness and minimize suffering, that does not suddenly make slavery acceptable. What it does mean is that in that scenario, there simply is no optimal course or action. Dealing with a scenario with no optimal course of action is uncomfortable, but that lack of comfort does not make it a valid objection.
A society built on minimizing suffering would forbid slavery, but might allow human sacrifices.
No, probably not, since human sacrifices cause, almost assuredly, suffering comparable to that induced by slavery.
If you have enough resources to sustain 99 people, then if the 100th is born, what to do? Keep them and cause 100 people to suffer because no one gets enough? Or cast someone out who will likely just suffer for a while alone in the woods, until they get mauled by a hungry bear? Or just sacrifice them in a quick, as painless as possible way, and thus, allow 99 people to continue with enough resources, and preventing the 1 from suffering needlessly as well?
There is so much information missing from this scenario, the only rational answer is "No one knows." No real-world scenario will require you to take action with this little, tiny amount of information. In a real world scenario, you would actually know what exactly these resources are (is it food? Housing? Clothes?); you would know exactly the reasons behind why we only have enough resources for 99 people; you would figure out the circumstances behind how 1 extra person was born, even when we agreed to not have this happen; you would know the people personally, and you would be able to figure out what course of action would cause the other 99 people the most amount of happiness, and the least amount of suffering, and you would be able to map out the relationship between happiness and suffering in this case, in order to try to figure out what to do; etc. Even in that case, the answer would still not be easy to think about, which is why being a leader in a political setting is always a difficult task. This is why education became a thing.
You have essentially created a scenario with so little information, that making a determination of what action is optimal is categorically impossible due to a lack of information and a lack of realism, and then used this impossibility to... what, argue that OP is wrong about optimal actions being defined as maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering? This is essentially a God of the Gaps fallacy, except you are not actually arguing that a god exists. I am not even sure what your point is. If your point is merely that "determining what is moral is difficult in practice," then, yes, everyone agrees, and I think OP knows this. If your point is that "whether an action is optimal or not depends on many, many variables," then, again, OP probably already knows this.
1
-
1