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Mongrel

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In: Identity  — view comment
:D
July 30, 2016 at 10:01
Cool. Thanks!
July 29, 2016 at 14:42
Whatever we do must come out of our nature, right? If it's in our nature to curb our own nature.... we have a conflicted nature.... right?
July 29, 2016 at 14:39
Right. The "No more war" chanting was coming from Sanders supporters and it was directed at Leon Panetta. My guess is that we'd probably get a slightl...
July 29, 2016 at 14:38
In: Identity  — view comment
Existence without essence is something one can point to... obviously it can't be described. So most speech we encounter about identity is about essenc...
July 29, 2016 at 14:20
There's a bunch of food for thought there... I need to percolate on it.
July 29, 2016 at 01:11
Interesting. On the one hand, it seems that revenge comes from a desire for justice. The state's justice... is it a stand-in for divine justice?
July 29, 2016 at 01:10
So you also agree that the state is something we construct to counter our own nature. Does that mean we have a conflicted nature?
July 28, 2016 at 18:29
Folklore says it's heavy drinking during hot summers that results in a high incidence of violence in places like Louisiana. But the most violent state...
July 28, 2016 at 18:28
Cycles of revenge aren't fueled by religion. They're driven by the bloody mindedness that follows the funeral of the murdered, right? Does the state h...
July 28, 2016 at 15:30
Chris Stringer says there is evidence in our collective genes of prehistoric warfare. I'm glad I don't live in world where violent death is always nea...
July 28, 2016 at 15:28
A necessary evil. This is along the lines of Augustine's view (and perhaps Chomsky's). What I like about the Augustinian view is not it's conclusion, ...
July 28, 2016 at 15:18
In: Identity  — view comment
I saw that a while back. I remember it being weird and poignant.
July 25, 2016 at 21:21
In: Identity  — view comment
They're kind of child-like because we have to feed them. Violently insane people seem more like wild animals... but again, like adults do with childre...
July 25, 2016 at 20:49
A Columbine-style mass killing is a side-effect of the existence of firearms. As one of our lawyer buddies explained, it takes less aggression to kill...
July 24, 2016 at 02:24
Hmm. So a more vague sense (if there is one).
July 24, 2016 at 01:01
They kill autistic people in Miami?
July 23, 2016 at 23:47
A meme (as Dawkins envisioned it) is a sort of cultural unit that survives by virtue of being selected. At first glance, it looks like the mass-killin...
July 23, 2016 at 23:44
I don't quite understand what you're saying. In what way do you live in the future?
July 23, 2016 at 00:20
That fear is supposed to have been a factor in the development of the Civil War (per Stephen Oates), but it was localized in the Southeast as an apoca...
July 22, 2016 at 01:08
In: Identity  — view comment
There's food for wonder there.... the notion that perception, memory, and desire are more fundamental than identity. Do you mean that a creature could...
July 21, 2016 at 20:45
A biological system may support a capacity.... I wouldn't equate a capacity with a system... would you?
July 21, 2016 at 19:16
Is knowledge a complex biological system? Or just a byproduct of one?
July 21, 2016 at 19:14
Are you thinking that knowledge necessarily has some use? If so, why do you assume that?
July 21, 2016 at 16:24
Ivan the Terrible became convinced that the only way to save his country was to reanimate Russian fears of Mongol warlords. Ivan was crazy, but maybe ...
July 20, 2016 at 22:21
You can't work for yourself unless you split in two. Like an amoeba.
July 19, 2016 at 15:47
Pacifism. Yep. I'm familiar with the concept.
July 18, 2016 at 00:39
Vinay Lal says watch out for the hidden imperialism there. If you are responsible for my terrorist actions, then you have the qualities of an adult (r...
July 17, 2016 at 20:00
Nobody bombed Saudi Arabia. I say each person is responsible for his or her own actions. Reject that and the dominos fall back to the Original Sin and...
July 17, 2016 at 00:25
S was a determinist. Determinists don't advocate anything. They recognize that shit happens.
July 14, 2016 at 21:36
My most recently favorite follow the leader story: Elizabeth Holmes. Endlessly entertaining to me for some reason. Recently banned by CMS from operati...
July 12, 2016 at 23:45
Depends on the climate. I think human life oscillates... ups and downs. Growth and recession. It's during extended periods of growth and development t...
July 01, 2016 at 15:45
I was on the way to pointing out that we don't know the nature of either consciousness or the universe. The conversation was not able to adapt, mutate...
January 17, 2016 at 01:33
Soames is the man. His history of AP is excellent.
January 16, 2016 at 03:23
I earlier advised you to read Scott Soames' book Understanding Truth. I make that same recommendation again. :)
January 16, 2016 at 02:24
Cool. Thanks!
January 16, 2016 at 01:40
I'm definitely complex. All sorts of things are emergent, constrained, and complex. Are they all conscious?
January 16, 2016 at 01:37
Why am I conscious?
January 16, 2016 at 01:28
What more am I?
January 16, 2016 at 01:24
I'm a bunch of atoms. I'm conscious. I assume the same is true of you.
January 16, 2016 at 01:20
Right. Frege did point out that there's a problem with picturing how a statement might correspond with the world. The real defeat of Correspondence Th...
January 16, 2016 at 01:18
Atoms are obviously capable of consciousness, so how does the conclusion follow?
January 16, 2016 at 01:08
No. Frege's argument that truth is unanalyzable rules out Correspondence as a definition. It rules out any definition. Period. The fact that there is ...
January 16, 2016 at 00:27
This thread didn't end up being about the Correspondence Theory of Truth or about realism. The OP had something else in mind.
January 15, 2016 at 22:14
I agree.
January 15, 2016 at 21:52
Let us please attempt to be precise in phrasing these questions with the proper attention being paid to the meaning which must be revealed on closer i...
January 15, 2016 at 01:03
Didn't you say that utterances correspond to experience? Five people look at an apple. The biologist sees a phase in the reproduction of apple trees. ...
January 15, 2016 at 00:21
Five people look at an apple. Each has a different experience. It's the same apple. Either the apple is experience-independent or solipsism.
January 14, 2016 at 02:09
We usually distinguish the apple from the experience of the apple for obvious reasons. Speech can be useful for conveying experience. It's notorious f...
January 14, 2016 at 01:45
Probably. ?
January 14, 2016 at 01:17