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Isaac

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Same way as we 'know' anything - we assume it, act as if it were the case, and see if we're surprised by the results of doing so. Acting as if we all ...
March 15, 2021 at 07:58
Only that when I say 'like' the properties I'm describing as similar do not include the property of 'taking place in conscious processing'. That would...
March 15, 2021 at 07:58
Seems a self-immunised definition of 'talk about' to go with. The very sentence "One cannot talk about it" would be self contradictory by that approac...
March 15, 2021 at 07:58
Your reason. Not our reason. That you still haven't grasped the difference between you thinking something is the case and something's actually being t...
March 14, 2021 at 08:40
Yes, indeed. A common objection it seems. I remain unconvinced by this idea that since the science is only 'modelling' models it's somehow open season...
March 14, 2021 at 08:26
As with Luke, if you invoke physiology to support privacy you need to have an accurate model of the way on which physiology causes experience. If you ...
March 14, 2021 at 08:08
Whereas... ...is not?
March 14, 2021 at 08:08
Billions would be of no use to you in the case of the collapse of the economy, would they? A gun and the skill to use it would reverse the acquisition...
March 14, 2021 at 07:58
Pragmatism. Yes, of course. If you lived and died a hermit you would have experiences that weren't publicly known. That's not the same as saying they'...
March 14, 2021 at 07:53
Only you're not. That's the point. Despite seemingly wide opinion to the contrary, I don't think neuroscience or cognitive psychology has the answer h...
March 14, 2021 at 07:51
Evolution. Why do we 'need' to have camera eyes and not compound eyes? Why do we 'need' to have legs and not wheels? We just do predict the causes of ...
March 13, 2021 at 07:53
No, sensations are biological, 'Pain' is a concept created by a socially communicating group collecting some of those sensations and naming them. No-o...
March 13, 2021 at 07:27
I felt like I already had. Perhaps you could try highlighting the parts you didn't understand. If you're naming the various neural clusters responsibl...
March 13, 2021 at 07:23
Yep. Beetles are private. That was the point of Wittgenstein's argument, I think. It is. Unless you have some study to the contrary, I don't see the a...
March 13, 2021 at 07:14
Exactly. As has been said over and over (even though my own exposition of it is probably excessively computational), the hidden states themselves with...
March 12, 2021 at 08:32
What kind of answer are you looking for then? What would be an answer to the question "Where does pain come from?". The answer 'pain is a word we use ...
March 12, 2021 at 08:01
Yeah, they seem somewhat at odds with the more personal passages, but I appreciate your thoughts, both.
March 12, 2021 at 07:55
In: Taxes  — view comment
So? Explain exactly what any of that has to do with the fact that part of your wage packet is the property of the government? Note, I've never claimed...
March 12, 2021 at 07:51
In: Taxes  — view comment
By what mechanism? No. The greatest atrocity of our history in terms of deaths was perpetrated by the board of British American tobacco. In terms of P...
March 12, 2021 at 07:28
Oh, no need to derail your thread (I'm fond of the Tao Te Ching myself so have been enjoying the exegesis). It was more just a testy jab at Wayfarer's...
March 11, 2021 at 17:08
Completely off topic I know, but... The failure rate for electronic items is huge, well over 3%, sometimes as high as 15%. So buying new only gives yo...
March 11, 2021 at 10:16
In: Taxes  — view comment
Really? You think it's a structural issue that governments show "corruption, propaganda, shameless disregard for individual (and sometimes human) righ...
March 11, 2021 at 09:54
Not all all. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2017.0792
March 11, 2021 at 07:54
The field is immaterial, the point is that if the way things seem to you is a sacrosanct model of the way things actually are then there's there's not...
March 11, 2021 at 07:28
In: Taxes  — view comment
I don't think we have. In some ways, that's the point I'm trying to draw out. That you criticise government structures simply because you don't like s...
March 11, 2021 at 07:25
In: Taxes  — view comment
I haven't avoided it, you never asked what I thought a fair payment in return for labour would be. It's incoherent for you to berate determining owner...
March 11, 2021 at 07:13
In: Taxes  — view comment
For fuck sake. It's not your earnings, we've been through this. You can't just make things the case by ignoring all contradiction. Your earnings do no...
March 10, 2021 at 18:54
In: Taxes  — view comment
You can not vote for them. Begging government is taking on the task. If you want a hammer do you attempt to make one yourself, or do you ask the black...
March 10, 2021 at 18:39
In: Taxes  — view comment
Then by what means do you restrain them?
March 10, 2021 at 18:37
In: Taxes  — view comment
So if someone were attacking you, you wouldn't fight back, you'd just let them kill you because if you cannot convince them and they win, let them "wi...
March 10, 2021 at 17:58
In: Taxes  — view comment
Right. So unless you're a hermit, you will have undertaken hundreds of such decisions which then entail moral responsibilities, so I don't see how you...
March 10, 2021 at 16:53
In: Taxes  — view comment
These are all just meaningless platitudes without any alternatives. Let's take a simple case. I believe that excessive carbon emission is immoral (exc...
March 10, 2021 at 16:31
In: Taxes  — view comment
Just to underline this with regards to the misunderstandings above. I think most people agree with the principle that we should allow people the maxim...
March 10, 2021 at 14:45
In: Taxes  — view comment
How so? Really? So you've no moral responsibility for anything then, since all of life is something you've been involuntarily thrown into with rules t...
March 10, 2021 at 14:19
In: Taxes  — view comment
They are your actions. You take actions which affect others and which use common resources. What you think is reasonable in that regard may not be wha...
March 10, 2021 at 11:40
In: Taxes  — view comment
That's "might makes right" by negligence. You don't get to absolve yourself of moral responsibility for the consequences of your actions by saying "I ...
March 10, 2021 at 09:05
Whatever.
March 10, 2021 at 07:46
We're going round in circles here. You seem to want to insist on only using a language which makes mental functions as they seem to you the same as me...
March 10, 2021 at 07:46
In: Taxes  — view comment
You haven't said anything about ethics. You've just lied about it being theft, because you know full well it's not your property that's being taken. N...
March 09, 2021 at 22:57
In: Taxes  — view comment
That's not what I asked you. I said that a proportion of the money you earn from a contract is not your property. Both contractees knew this when they...
March 09, 2021 at 21:11
You seem to be arguing against your own point here as you clearly consider our modern ideas of the sanctity of life better, that the Roman idea should...
March 09, 2021 at 19:09
In: Taxes  — view comment
Why on earth would you expect that. The other contractee knows full well what tax is and fully expects the appropriate percentage of whatever they agr...
March 09, 2021 at 19:04
The first option as written was ...you missed the option that some might not be even improvable (ie be irredeemable nonsense). I suppose you could str...
March 09, 2021 at 18:34
I can actually hear your teeth grinding!
March 09, 2021 at 18:27
No, the question was whether scientists with Kant-like ideas were influenced by Kant. My point was that scientists are just as capable of arriving at ...
March 09, 2021 at 18:26
In: Taxes  — view comment
It's not your property. Flat out and simple. It is the property of the government, by law. The same law by which anything is the property of anyone. Y...
March 09, 2021 at 18:07
Not true at all. It's only true if it determines mental models to be illusory because they're mental models. It can quite coherently determine them to...
March 09, 2021 at 13:51
Why must those be the only two options? By far the majority of work is in deciding which models are useful, coherent and which aren't. Indeed, but "al...
March 09, 2021 at 13:48
I know. That's why I'm accusing you of historicism and not of pointing out historical facts. You've just repeated more historical facts, none of which...
March 09, 2021 at 13:39
In: Taxes  — view comment
The solution was to moral conflicts where the parties cannot reach a mutually agreed solution - so voluntary interaction and association doesn't answe...
March 09, 2021 at 13:33