If you're talking about me, I was attempting to clarify the discussion, which has been muddy right from the start and is now only getting muddier. — Daemon

No, I wasn't finding fault with you at all. My initial post was written before you had made any response. Your initial post did exactly what I was suggesting that @charles ferraro should do - you were specific about what you meant when you said "consciousness." It was clear from other responses that "consciousness" meant something different to other responders. That could have been avoided with clear definitions in the OP. Which was my point.

Did you miss 2020? "Science" is a political word used to silence legitimate dissent and the actual scientific method. — fishfry

The response to the pandemic is the first time I've seen government use science in public to develop policy to address an urgent problem on a short-term basis. Since it was in public, and since it had a serious impact on our way of life, it was subject to political decision making. That's the way things are supposed to work. Politics is often confusing, misleading, and subject to special interests, especially these days. That certainly was the case this time.

As ugly as it got, I have been impressed with how well science-based policy making worked in the US.

so it does seem that science might have something to do with population increase. — Banno

I was wrong about population increase being caused by civilization, but that was not the comment I was responding to. You wrote:

the advent of science has had an extraordinarily, overwhelmingly positive impact on how we live. — Banno

I responded:

Historically, advances in human well-being are primarily due to improvements in nutrition. — T Clark

As I noted, that doesn't necessarily contradict what you wrote, but it gives a different perspective.

What's your definition of consciousness? — charles ferraro

As I noted, "consciousness" has many meanings. Since you started the discussion, it's your job to establish which one you are using. What point are you trying to make? People using different meanings are already muddying the discussion and causing misunderstanding.

The info I can access has exponential growth starting not earlier than around 1200CE. Before that the curve looks pretty straight. — Banno

I found information here:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151221193940.htm#:~:text=While%20the%20world's%20human%20population,was%20just%200.04%20percent%20annually.

that supports your position. It says:

Prehistoric human populations of hunter-gatherers in a region of North America grew at the same rate as farming societies in Europe, according to a new radiocarbon analysis involving researchers from the University of Wyoming and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The findings challenge the commonly held view that the advent of agriculture 10,000-12,000 years ago accelerated human population growth. The research is reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Our analysis shows that transitioning farming societies experienced the same rate of growth as contemporaneous foraging societies," says Robert Kelly, University of Wyoming professor of anthropology and co-author of the PNAS paper. "The same rate of growth measured for populations dwelling in a range of environments, and practicing a variety of subsistence strategies, suggests that the global climate and/or other biological factors -- not adaptability to local environment or subsistence practices -- regulated long-term growth of the human population for most of the past 12,000 years."

Thanks.

I use it fairly sporadically, but will say that it was better when Wallows and Terrapin Station were still here. Having contributed to its decline, I will say that it will just get better now, more or less necessarily. — thewonder

Maybe he will come back and tell us. — Valentinus

I was thinking about Terrapin Station the other day. I remember some good conversations. I looked him up to see if he was still around. He's banned.

I love the place except for ungrateful cunts. — Benkei

What about us grateful cunts?

That is, must consciousness always only occur, or exist, in a first person, present tense mode? — charles ferraro

"Consciousness" means many things. You should specify which one you are referring to. Failure to do that has lead and will continue to lead to many misunderstandings and fruitless discussions.

I blame Covid and the lockdowns. It's sucked the energy out of me. — Michael

I hadn't thought of that. That may be true.

there is no reason to suppose that technology will increase linearly forever, or that there is not a point at which a society would conclude that more technology does more harm than good. — Echarmion

Given my understanding of human nature, I doubt this is possible.

the amount of suffering that can plausibly be alleviated by technology in the near future, not least the suffering related to aging and death by disease and old age, easily justifies continued progress. — Echarmion

I think there are technological processes that may end human life in the "near future." If we put a value on human life, which we both do, that puts your justification in question. It is unlikely I will be here to see what happens next, but my children may.

Will mention though that gravity is not a force — Tiberiusmoon

F = ma. A force is any phenomenon that causes a massive object to accelerate. Gravity causes massive objects to accelerate. Gravity is a force.

've put the Shoutbox back on the main page, in a new category (currently closed to new discussions) called "Symposium", and pinned at the top. — jamalrob

This is great. Thank you.

Thoughts? — Tiberiusmoon

Here's a link to Wikipedia's article on the arrow of time. I think it is a good one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time

Your apparent attempt to unify human perception of time, relativistic time dilation, and time measuring devices under "observer effects," makes as much sense as identifying gravity as an apple-related force because Newton was hit by an apple and we can calculate gravity's effects using an Apple computer.

Science is a good thing, — Banno

We are in a period when technology has approached the capability to cause the extermination of all humans life. Possible self-inflicted technological mechanisms of our destruction have increased and continue to increase. They include nuclear weapons, environmental decay, genetic manipulations, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, using computers to write down the 9 billion names of God, and, of course, Facebook. I think there is a significant possibility that humanity will end within the next 100 years. I have no way to quantify that likelihood.

So, if it turns out that humans are exterminated by our own technological inventiveness, I think that will definitively answer to your question "no."

For all that time there was little change in human culture. But over the last three or four hundred years - much less than one percent of the time we have been around - change has been extraordinary. — Banno

Civilization and agriculture started 7,000ish years ago. That started an exponential increase in human population, which is now slowing and expected to slow more. Writing started 3,500ish years ago, which also started history. Historically, advances in human well-being are primarily due to improvements in nutrition.

None of that contradicts the value of science, but I think it indicates that giving science the credit for improvements is over-simplification. Seems to me that science is one of the things that comes along with population growth and population density growth. That traces back to agriculture.

The threads were held together with the glue of a community and that is not present as of late. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I agree. I miss it.

wasting my time arguing with someone if they are under 23 years old — Maw

Ha! So, It’s OK wasting your time arguing with someone if they’re over 23 years old. You are so cute, I just want to pinch your cheek.

reserve the forum for those who have graduated from the agōgē. — Banno

My goodness, don’t you flatter yourself.

Titling this discussion "FDrake" makes it seem like you are making a direct personal attack on @fdrake. I think it's inappropriate. It also doesn't accurately describe the contents of your OP as is required by the Site Guidelines.

what did you think of the idea of a trans league? — DingoJones

Why would anyone possibly watch? Why watch former "mediocre male league fighters?"

The data just doesn’t support that research, it’s politically driven research. — DingoJones

It came from women athletes supportive of women's sports trying to find a compromise. I don't see a political agenda beyond trying to figure out the best thing to do. As for the scientific answer to the question, I don't know and I don't intend to spend more time figuring it out. It appears that there is a possible compromise, whether or not this is exactly the one.

So, asking questions is "provocative" around here, after all. — Apollodorus

Asking provocative questions is provocative.

If you think biological males do not have a tremendous physical advantage that compromises a women’s sport and any integrity or honour of the women in that sport then I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve lost your fucking mind. — DingoJones

My initial response to this issue was to agree with you, but I was surprised to see that the issue was contested even within the Republican Party. To me, that means it isn't necessarily a knee-jerk issue. This is from a recent Washington Post article:

Before 2010, few college or high school athletic associations had policies on transgender athletes, according to a report published that year by the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Noting that “an increasing number of high school and college-aged young people are identifying as transgender,” the report proposed a set of policies: In college sports, transgender women should undergo one year of hormone therapy before competing against other women, a rule rooted in scientific research that suggested such an approach would mitigate any athletic benefits. The NCAA quickly adopted the policy.

For high schools, the report recommended letting transgender girls compete in sports as soon as they transition socially and begin dressing and acting in accordance with their gender identity. Requiring hormone therapy for adolescents is potentially harmful

This makes a lot of sense to me.

Caitlyn is a gold medalist olympian, And a trans woman who went all the way and had surgery. Regardless, cancel culture rears its ugly head and seeks to end Caitlyn. — Edy

I remember the 1976 Olympic Games vividly, how much I admired Jenner. I always saw her, he then, as the epitome of what a good athlete should be. My beef with her is not her transition, it's that she has commodified it, celebritized it, and used it as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. She's a fucking Kardashian for God's sake.

You mean accountable for asking a question? And what exactly did I ask in your opinion that makes it imperative for me "to be held accountable"? — Apollodorus

I didn't say it was imperative, I said I wanted to. You asked provocative questions intended to raise a ruckus among us loony lefties. I'm just joining in the ruckus.

My sentiments as well. Has there ever been an occassion, in the everyday course of your private rational machinations generally, you ever said to and for yourself alone, “I think.....”?

I’m guessing.....never. — Mww

Once I remember saying to myself "I tawt I taw a puddytat."

But I forgot we aren't allowed to ask questions on this forum. Especially not in the Questions section. So, you're probably right. — Apollodorus

Of course you're allowed to ask questions. And of course I'm allowed to respond. I don't want you to stop commenting, I only want to hold you accountable for what you say.

1. No justice no peace. — Apollodorus

Stop beating around the bush. If you want those nasty colored people to shut up and stop causing trouble, just say so.

2. If you are not with us, you are against us. — Apollodorus

Wikipedia says this is from the Bible. That violent revolutionary Jesus said it.

Ah, so this whole spiel about Gandhi and whether or not truely "peaceful" protest is possible was just some cover for you soapboxing about how BLM is bad and not actually interested in equality. — Echarmion

I agree. Sometimes the questions someone asks tell us more than the statements they make or the answers they give.

I think I heard the song. And it was famous. — Sir2u

I remember it vividly. Driving down the lane to my grandfather's farm on a dirt road with the windows down in the summer of 1965. Listening on WCAO from Baltimore - Top 20 radio. It was very short. I loved it. I heard it so many times in the first two weeks after it came out that I couldn't listen again for 20 years. Those were the days before FM radio and album rock format.

Yep. What we really need is a real, separate shoutbox in a little box at the side, as in the old forum and a few alternative forum platforms. We can't implement that here and my feeling is we just wait till the time comes to make the move to Discourse or whatever. — jamalrob

As I said, I understand why you did it, but it hurt. It would be great if you could figure out a way to bring it back.

Popul Vuh — thewonder

Are you native American or just romantic visionary.

In no unclear or uncertain terms, Meta-Anarchism is a nonviolent gradualist political philosophy that advocates for the eventual creation of a loosely affiliated set of freely associated communes effectuated by a syncretic participatory and representative democracy through a diverse set of tactics. There are no required readings and it is open to all. — thewonder

I believe Pol Pot wrote something similar after a night of drinking in a Paris cafe in the 1940s.

While I do recognize that, in order to secure their place in the sun, people assume that they should only ever so slightly consign themselves to the project of evil, is not really the source of evil itself, that it is what does continue the facilitation of every cult of personality or totalitarian project, there is a way of seeing things to where it is just the whole problem. Your only so complicit Anarchist or manipulative hipster didn't create the political project of Neo-Fascism, but that it just simply is they who are why it still exists is grounds for that the rest of us have become completely fixated upon how to render their various machinations inoperative. — thewonder

So. What's the plan then?

I just wanted to hear people's opinion on the ongoing trend of tech becoming more and more difficult to repair and also the whole topic of planned obsolescence. I feel like now more than ever, we need to be very informed consumers, however, in some instances it feels like choosing between bad and worse. I'm against many things, but I also enjoy the convenience of having things like a smartphone. Anyone have a proposition to shopping more responsibly and also efficiently because it shouldn't be something that takes up a whole lot of time and research. — journeytoknowledge

The instances where I've heard "right to repair," are in relation to an expensive piece of equipment e.g. a car or tractor. The manufacturer won't allow the purchaser to make changes in the software running the machine in order to fix glitches or change the way it works.

I've heard "planned obsolescence" in relation to equipment that is expected to be out-of-date within a relatively brief period after purchase either because it is not made to last or supporting technology and infrastructure will change. We had a refrigerator for 35 years before we had to replace it. Now we've had two in the past 15 years. The guy at the appliance store says that's just the way things are now. We recently replaced an old clothes dryer. We were going to repair it, but it cost less to replace it.

When I was a kid, if our TV broke, a guy would come and test the glass vacuum tubes inside and replace any that weren't working correctly. That usually did the trick. Now, if there are problems and the device is out of warrantee, you just buy a new one.

What do I think of it? Seems wasteful, but then TV sets and other electronic equipment are incredibly cheap these days. Cheap to build, cheap to buy, impossible to fix.

My question is why is Lacan a post- structuralist (especially according to the purloined letter analysis)? My linguistic professor said, he definitely is one and i need to find out why by reading this text. i just don´t get it. i know he is a psychoanalyst and he says the subconscious structured like language. also are the letter AND the characters all signifiers? (is the letter a character aswell?) can anyone help me on why this whole analysis is proof for lacan being post- structuralist and not structuralist? MANY thanks, i´m so confused! greetings — besserlernen

I had never read either "The Purloined Letter" or any analysis of it. I just read the writeup in Wikipedia, including a plot summary and discussion of disagreements related to Lacun's interpretation. To summarize - Someone steals a letter from the Queen which came from one of her lovers and is blackmailing her. The letter clearly signifies cutting off the King's penis. (No, I'm not kidding.) The hero gets the letter back and they live happily ever after. Not the guy who stole the letter.

Besserlernen - Did you read the story before you read the interpretation? What did you think of it? What was your experience of it? Did you like it? Was it interesting? Were you moved? How did that change after you read the interpretation? What value did the interpretation give you? Did you need to be told what Poe really meant? Wasn't your experience enough?

I'm not sure if what I'm writing is what you want to talk about.

For the whiches of which there is no possible understanding. Instead it's a game - and under criticism shrinks have been known to make up the rules as they go along, for their own benefit. And it sounds like your professor may be playing his own game too, maybe his excuse being pedantic purpose. — tim wood

Come on Tim. Answer the question he asked instead of jumping on your own little bete noir.

@besserlernen

Welcome to the forum. Sorry I don't have anything substantive to add.

we understand what thoughts are, but it is ... the language that gets in the way. — No One

Hey. No fair. You didn't like that answer when I gave it for the question "what is our true nature."

Lesser known Star Trek quotes

• “Oy, vey, it’s the Romulans.” – from Star Trek the Next Generation (STNG) Season 5, Episode 4 – “Data Converts to Judaism.”
  
• “Tribble stew, that is a very logical solution.” – from original Star Trek (OST) Season 2, Episode 5 – “The Trouble with Tribbles.”
  
• “Q, you asshole, it’s been 350 years. No, Trump didn’t win.” – from Star Trek Deep Space 9 (DS9), Season 1, Episode 5 – “Q-less.”
  
• “No, Captain, are ye daft? We can’t go ‘warp bazillion.’” – from OST Season 3, Episode 4 – “Kirk Goes to Rehab.”
  
• “Shit, I can never remember. Am I Six or Seven of Nine?” – Star Trek Voyager (STV), Season 6, Episode 4 – “Borg, Schmorg.”
  
• “Since 1775 there have been 24 valiant ships with the ‘Enterprise’ name, not counting the one fucking Kirk lost to the fucking Klingons in a fucking card game.” – from STNG, Season 5, Episode 22 – “Imaginary Friend.”
  
• “God damn it, of course you ‘sense great pain, great anger.’ I just got my dick caught in my zipper.” – from STNG, Season 3, Episode 19 – “Captain’s Holiday.”