The objective subjective trap is something I have noticed occurring for quite some time now. People talk about being objective or subjective; but, what does that even mean? How does one know one is being objective or subjective. Fundamentally, it seems that the claim that one is being either objective or subjective is the Sorites paradox.


Furthermore, when we talk about being objective as opposed to being subjective, we are really talking about criteria for evaluating knowledge. I have raised this thorny issue already in a fairly recent thread, here.

Thoughts or criticisms welcome.

Maybe it's better to think of objectivity as invariance. Invariance can still be relative to some situation and/or some set of transformations. A clear sky is blue during the day - this is an observation that is independent of where you look from the surface of the earth facing the sun, what shape or color you are, what the surrounding circumstance is like. It's objective relative to humans that can perceive blue. But when you expand the group of observers or include observers with traits that don't have the ability to perceive blue then the fact is no longer objective relative to this new group of observers- its now subjective or dependent on a subgroup of observers.

People think of objectivity as if it's synonymous with invariance to all observers and all conditions. I think that leads to confusion and unnecessarily limits the applicability of the term. Not saying absolute invariance is

If the issue is value based then try and pinpoint the value differences underlying the disagreement. Then lay out your arguments for your value system and why you think your value grounding is better than the other. Dont dismiss the other other person's points or point validity irregardless of how far fetched they sounds. I definitely think discussion ettiquette matters because it helps foster the discussion and repel defensiveness, ad hominem, thought rigidity and reactivity, things that maintain an impasse.

If the issue is empirically based or scientific, lay out the evidence. Make sure to question contradictions in the opposing interpretation of the evidence, keeping in mind the discussion ettiquette. And that's it really I think

I dont think anything will come of it other than further vocal condemnation and maybe an uptick in extremist sympathizers.

↪La Cuentista One of the common memes or tropes or zeitgeisty thing you see floating around a lot (one which I think has a lot of truth to it) is that the quintessential 'nice guy', who caters to what he believes a woman wants and appears soft and emotional and understanding - that this sort of guy is often sitting atop a volcano of misogynistic rage. The idea is that the 'nice guy' isn't really 'nice', but has this idea that if you do the right things, then you deserve sex and affection. When their routine fails, and they don't get what they think they've earned, the true self emerges. (See also: the moral valence of the term 'Friendzoning')
The way this plays out on social media is that examples of this kind of behavior in texts, on tinder, etc are posted and so a character emerges: The Evil "nice" guy. The story makes implicit use of this cultural awareness in order to communicate to its knowing readership what sort of thing Robert actually is. I think its true what Robert does in the end is good evidence he's a pretty shitty dude, and the reader should lose any lingering sympathy they might have. But I also feel like the author is 'sealing' off the story in a certain way, by making Robert fit into this stereotypical figure. There's so much going on in the story, it seems like the end basically gives license to not think too much about what's going on.

They both made a mistake in not expressing their emotions at the appropriate time. Her friend rushed the closure process and left him in a predicament which he predictably responded to-- yielding to her feelings, politely giving her space. Of course that left him with unprocessed emotions, uncertainty/confusion and unmet longing directed at her. His world was shuddered by that encounter, clearly and then she practically ghosts him, suddenly the dynamic completely changes and he's left trying to pick up the pieces. So it's completely understandable he responded like that, in fact I feel like it was tame if anything. So I don't think he was a closet misygynist, I think he just wanted straight forward discussion to figure out what parts he did wrong, what parts he did right.

I wanted to highlight another element -- images/mental depictions of the other 'that cat person' 'concession stand girl' 'lumber jack aura' 'the witty person she knew through his texts' .. They're all shit.. I'd love a world in which people were aware that these are all just fancy snipets with no real existence outside of very narrow circumstantial confines and expectations were formed in full awareness and acceptance of how variable personas and momentary behaviors can be (in social context of course, professional setting expectations are set apart and defined narrowly).

lol. Honestly, I'm asking sincerely since it seems like a straight forward observation - what makes you say no one can reliably recognize an experience as one of a certain kind or not?

no one is in the business of issuing certificates of authenticity.

There are definitely key, identifiable features of that experience that are missing in his description. Not at all to diminish or delegitimize the impact, but clearly it isn't the same

That is the buddhist sense

Oh okay :) Can you explain to me why you think that? I'd like to understand what the difference is between ego-death and the feeling I tried to describe.

I'll try my best. Ego dissolution involves the complete loss of ability to identify oneself introspectively. There’s a sense of disorientation and ‘groundlessness’ as you iteratively realize none of the mental objects, ‘thought stream’, ‘sensation of your buttock’ ‘sensation of your back leaning against a chair’ are actually, really ‘you’ and that there is no underlying stable, singular feeling you can concretely identify as yourself, just an expansive void.

While that sounds like a beautiful, selfless, noble desire to feel, it wasn't an experience of ego dissolution.

^^ Its functionally similar to theism in a god of gaps sense. Reality was created by a supra-natural (ante this reality) being. The being has omnipotency and omniscience relative to us. Whether theist or nontheist the same additional, nonfalsifiable claim of something beyond universe results. It makes all sorts of assumptions about the supra-world and ultimately just moves all of the problems of our universal origins up one level. It's a more complicated system than even theism.... so not sure why it has so much appeal.

To OP, if you think the meta universe wasn't created supernaturally, then you can reconcile the two.

Are neurons evolved to exchange signals or potentials?

Let’s stop mucking about.

My point was just meant to highlight that quantum level mechanics isn't needed to model or characterize the physical aspects involved in neural signal generation, exchange, and population level interpretation; classical mechanics (which is what I should have said, not newtonian) is sufficient for that. Quantum indeterminacy, which (as far as I know) is inability to fully characterize the state of an isolated quantum system, doesn't impact, in any meaningful way, the behavior of systems describable by classical mechanics which includes brains and neurons. The semiotic discussion is separate from this and I just wanted to make it clear.

Going to the semiotic point, you are saying that information processing laws are independent of material substrate and they are needed in addition to biophysical and chemical constraints to make sense of neural processing. I agree on this but then it seems like there is another point you make - that all questions or most every question in neuroscience has to do with neural semantics and natural mechanisms don't play any meaningful explanatory role in how or why a given neuro phenomenon or function is the way it is. My point is that mechanisms matter for explaining how brains work.

No.

Well you can analyse them that way and discover nothing about what makes them tick.

To my knowledge, the physics involved in modeling neural circuit doesn't go past basic EM and thermo. Wave mechanics of course for characterizing field potential fluctuation and action potential but not for modeling any properties or behavior of biological objects (macromolecules, neurons, neuronal populations).

So no, not just newtons 3 laws but nothing 'special', spooky, nothing traditionally connoted with the colloquial understanding of quantum mechanics.

But if you are a neuroscientist, you might hope to decode what the patterns of activation mean by the way they correlate with observable behaviour. Which is analysing them semiotically.

You can probe a basic sensory system, layer by layer in something like drosophila and attempt to determine how stimulus information is represented within each layer. There are bottom up approaches that don't have the same inferential limitations as behavioral research.

If by semiotic analysis you mean analysis of 'meaning' or what spatiotemporal patterns of activity within a set of cells represents then, of course that is the form of analysis or study that's commonly used. But the system is instantiated in a physical substrate so the 'symbols' of the referents are biophysical and biophysical principles need to be assumed in order to make sense of how those symbols relate to objective stimulus features

It is just the same as understanding some ancient writing system. Knowing everything there could be to know about how the marks came to be impressed on a clay tablet or scratched on a rock will tell you zero about what the marks meant to their makers. The physics of marks isn't the semantics of marks.

Understanding neural representation/semantics - isn't the only substantive project, it's just a fundamental requesite for any other kind of neural study. Biological mechanisms are what constrain and determine (1) the kinds of representation that can be had (2) decision-making process (3) valuation/value binding process (4) higher order brain process - decision-making, valuation/value binding process, attentional control, reasoning/inference making. You will need biophysical (and chemical) principles and design constraints to make sense of both semantic and mechanistic questions.

Hell no. Even the most reductionist of neuroscientists believes that you would need some kind of laws of information processing.

As a machinery, populations of neurons may be ruled by some kind of standard syntax. And you might even use physical analogies as the inspiration for the kind of syntax that could work - like the "simulated annealing" popular as the kind of algorithmic constraint used in neural network modelling.

But Newtonian mechanics has zip to do with it. The whole bleeding point of information processing systems is that those kinds of physical constraints don't have anything to do with it. You can't run a computer program on hardware that is flipping all its gates for merely physical reasons, like they are feeling too hot or too cold. Information processing works only to the degree the vagaries of the real world material processes have been shut out.

So it is the other way round. For information processing to be predictable and deterministic, it must have the material world completely controlled.

There would be additional information processing laws but my point was that, within the biological context, 'initial conditions' - developmental precursor state + existing natural laws constrain the evolution in a way that the outcome is an adaptive, information processing system. CNS comes out of a self-guided natural process, ie deterministic play out of the precursor cells.

The levels of analysis that are relevant for making sense of CNS are neuronal, neuronal-population, and molecular. These can be mechanistically analyzed using newtonian mechanics no? I don't know why we'd need to use wave functions to model or describe a neuron or its macromolecular parts ...

Ultimately we can say decision-making is mediated by neuronal population interactions, which are governed by laws of classical mechanics + some derivative chemical laws. All of those laws + knowing structure and functions of types of neurons and their parts within the networks they form allow for predictable and deterministic dynamics.

All you have to do is say that this is possible, and you're an optimist.

By your definition I could be, it depends on how you define 'these things'. I wasn't saying 'disintegrations' are never inevitable. It's just they can be made less frequent in a more equitable world.

Like what online platform?

Like this one, like reddit, like youtube, like facebook, like online news outlets where regular people can come into contact with and converse others that hold those values and operate under them

Ah ha! An optimist! Or almost-optimist?

I'm sorry it looks like many people were focusing their posts specifically on the syrian crisis and consequences of interventionist policy more broadly.

I was responding to this aspect of your post:

For the most part, the world's response to the crisis in Syria was to make it worse. I continue to wonder what it means that we weren't able to come together as a species and create the healthiest outcome.

I'd like to try out arguing that these things are inevitable and we'll never have the wisdom to avoid tragedies like the Syrian disintegration. Anybody want to argue that we actually can take that creative power?

'These things' being crises, human problems more generally - humanitarian tragedy, health crises, extreme socioeconomic inequality, sectarian or ethnic violence, rights violation etc.

I definitely don't consider myself an optimist, I just feel like it's too early to tell how things will swing and in what domain, for what isses those swings will happen. I think it's inevitable there will be instability and strife in one form or another but I think it can be minimized to some degree and it definitely helps that certain civil-liberty demanding, political power disseminating, corruption and groupthink stigmatizing values are being made available via online platforms. It's certainly not itself a cause but it allows a diffusion of ideas from more influential, economically and culturally powerful centers (aka US, UK in anglophone world; France in francophone world) to other parts of the world where they can be picked up and hopefully resonate with local internet using reformists and catalyze rapid change in the socio-political sphere. I think from there and coupled with internal, domestic leftist (or at least non-right wing) populist movements within western world, we can start to see more tangible move toward a strengthened global, cosmopolitan identity and an accompanying change in progress on human-general problems and inefficiencies - maybe a more strengthened UN judicial system? An actually functioning international criminal court and sanctioning system? Idk this could also just be my wet dream fantasy..

For the most part, the world's response to the crisis in Syria was to make it worse. I continue to wonder what it means that we weren't able to come together as a species and create the healthiest outcome.

I'd like to try out arguing that these things are inevitable and we'll never have the wisdom to avoid tragedies like the Syrian disintegration. Anybody want to argue that we actually can take that creative power?

Promulgation of enlightenment ideals is a relatively recent phenomenon. Establishment of mass communication highways that enable dissemination of ideas, western values and alternative living styles is completely new and alien to our previous 50000+ years of small community, ethnocentric thinking. I don't think we can really predict how this sort of massive cultural exposure (with its western-ideal conformity-demanding bend) and the merging/syncing of economic markets will impact our evolution.

What I'm saying is our present day situation is quite different than what it has been, and we are sort of still in transition to a more globally integrated, value integrated world stage. So past folly and short sighted thinking may not be a good predictor of future trends. I guess we'll see

Interesting, I don't know about free will itself but I can tell you that at a certain level of reality there is strong evidence to suggest determinism is not a tenable assumption - look up bell's theorum. I dont know the implications of that for the macroscopic world but it would be interesting to see what sort of speculation (within academic physics community) has gone on for that topic.

This result arises from a need for more products and efficient production. Failure to adhere to these principles means perhaps more fulfilling work conditions but fewer goods and services.

This conflict of efficiency vs well-being has been somewhat addressed in private industry with certain progressive companies - google, venmo, tesla- designing their employment positions to include more worker freedom and project autonomy. This could quell the well being issue without unduly hampering efficient production, it just needs to be more widespread. Or, automating the algorithmic steps and creating new jobs that require critical input. I'm not sure the latter can do the same as the former but it's a start.

Forget the heart for the moment.

We're drawn to mystery and the unknown. Does the proclivity for paradoxes originate in our minds? Why does the mind, seat of rationality, like an unsolvable riddle?

Is it because we want to find the fallacies within them or is it another part of our brains, a non/i-llogicaly dimension, that finds these paradoxes interesting and worth visiting.

Note, some of these paradoxes are literally unsolvable.

I think we have an innate drive to resolve kinks or contradictions in our knowledge. Feeling of dissonance and/or confusion, or feelings of knowledge incompleteness I think fuel the drive. Fixation on paradox is an extension of this I think.

I completely agree it's good to be skeptical and questioning of orthodox thought. But I think the underlying circuitry of basic perceptual processes is so well known and characterized that it would be extremely unlikely for a nervous sytem without that circuit organization to have perception involving capacities like thinking .

The heart's nerves aren't wired to extract or process information. They're just wired to set a rhythmic pace of heart contraction. The gut's N.S. just helps to mediate reflex - peristalsis coordination. I dont think it's capable of awareness or experience.. there are special brain specific networks that mediate those processes

I saw this and thought of your thread-
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1018363788315773&id=574719552680201&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&_rdr

What do you think? Is this the sort of way of life you'd prefer people to live by?

Also I disagree with the equalizing and trivializing of the personal value and meaning of different forms of work you have to give me an argument for why they have the same meaning and end in despair for the individual

@
Apologies, this is the version of the video. What do you think? Is this the kind of connection to products you mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVCjb_9aj7M

Greetings, I am new here.

So I have a hunch that many animals on earth are conscious to some degree, it got me pondering how different it would feel to be one of those animals. In comparison to being a human I imagine quite different. Often consciousness is considered to be complete and independent, where the brains of the individual beings differ and that is what creates differences in subjective experience?

I was drawing an analogy to computer protocols of sending and receiving data. When data is sent from one program to another, it usually adheres to a specific protocol, and the receiving program would use that protocol to deal with what it has received in a correct fashion. I was wondering if the brain and 'consciousness' also have a similar problem and I started to think how it would solve it. The human body's shape and form is stored within its dna. Now that same dna defines the brain too, so input data from the external world enters the brain of the experiencer and it must be uploaded to the 'consciousness'. This is where I believe a 'protocol' as described above is required for each individual creature. And that the sender program(the dna) must use similar protocol as the receiver program ( consciousness dna?). Here is the question, do you think its reasonable to think that consciousness also has a storage and that it too is passed on during reproduction? And thus be under the influence of evolution over millions of years too. #foodforthought

Welcome and thanks for starting this topic!

I think it's important to differentiate consciousness and brain a bit more. It's true that brains and consciousness are related but the relationship is more complicated than 1 to 1. This important to understand so the send-receive analogy's inapplicability to consciousness makes sense.

Consciousness is something like an emergent property that results from some specific set of coordinated neural activities. Not all parts of the brain are involved in generating consciousness. You can take out an entire cerebellum or even an entire half of the brain and still have conscious experiences. Even more relevant, it's the connections between brain elements that are most important in the generation of consciousness and (my guess) the sense of individuality (individuality means sense of one's particularity, awareness and perception as a distinct self). Most of these connections are not the result of hard wiring or genetic determination, they result from a constructive process, through learning and environmental interaction.

So while there is a general framework of organization encoded by genetic material -- how proteins are arranged to form cells, how cells should interact and arrange themselves to form neural tissue; there is a large, consciousness determining portion that is left 'undifferentiated' and further 'differentiates' or organizes via learning. This portion - which includes memories, self concept, etc. can't be passed on since it isn't encoded. What can pass on is some sort of general organization framework for neural elements and neurons which allows for basic perceptual abilities, learning, and self differentiation to take place.

Else things would get really weird because children would or should have the same 'consciousness' or 'parts of consciousness' as their parents; they should share a sense of first person consciousness or have some collective sense of consciousness but that doesn't happen.. it's particular and exclusive to a given individual.

How about these questions:
What if everyone in the world decided not to work?
What is it we are trying to get out of life in the first place?

1. Do you mean if everyone decided not to work officially? I.e. they 'work' at home - cleaning their kitchens, flowering the garden, making food; but they refuse to work at their work places? I think if you mean that then probably we'd diverge into small working communities. Progress would slow, life expectancy would likely shorten.

If you mean stop work completely, including house work, then probably we'd all not last more than a few decades.

2. That's such a complex question and you will get different answers from different people. I think it's some kind of stability of mind and sense of life contentment.

[quoteThe absurdity of both work and the silence of what we are getting out of life in the first place is telling.

Edit: You see, there is an ethos here that is implicit in this situation.

You want the STUFF (i.e. all the complex technologically created goods). > YOU must contribute now (since most people aren't technological pioneers through circumstance or lack of aptitude this means lever pushing for many). > You are beholden to the forces of technology because if you want the STUFF you need to contribute your bean counting and lever pushing > there is no way out except perhaps antinatalism

It's not always so rote. There are so many job and career options, there are so many ways to feel connected to a given job or career. You might teach or do therapy because you love to work with people or mentor others. You might prefer a family oriented, balanced, low competition life - so you prefer to work in blue collar sector. Sometimes there are barriers to carving a career, some of those barriers are unjust and should not be there -- but I think if we lived in a society where career opportunity was freely accessible and without significant barriers, I don't think people would be so limited by their work options.

No, in a way, I do mean just that about product's production. Consumers don't know much about the very technology they use. Most people praise this as a good thing as it shows that the industrial market economy creates such specialization and labor division, that we can be thousands of steps removed from the process of production/distribution.

I don't think many people think much into the goods they've bought. And there are different kinds of products and different levels of value or connection given to products. There are ones simply used for convenience and practical relevance, there are ones we feel express or reflect aspects of ourselves or groups of which we feel apart or drawn to- clothes, merchandise, music. There are ones we feel connection to or have other personal significance - trinket from grandma, dad's old mustang. I don't think removal from production process removes these feelings. What do you think is lost by this lack of knowledge of a product's origin?

There are almost an infinite amount of factors that go into making any individual product or utility. Everything we touch and experience in society has some story that didn't involve us, yet we utilize it. We are aliens from the world we inhabit.

So what is the consequence of this? We are simply pushed along by the innovations of others. Empty vessels with no real connection to our own artificial environment.

Again, I don't understand the jump from understanding of a product's origin to lack of connection to the product or the greater environment. Isn't that a prerequisite to purchasing a product - it having some significance or meaning to us? And that value can shift or change, grow or dissipate in time.

No one person can ever in their lifetime know the mind bogglingly large number of factors that go into all the products that they encounter and use. This alienation from factors of production is a problem as we are atomized from the sources of production- reduced to a tiny infinitesimal fraction of the larger pie. Without grandiose notions of free-fettered capitalism's amazing invisible hand or the overblown notions of alienation from labor in Marx rhetoric, is this a problem for modern humans?

I don't think the consumer's knowledge of a product's production method and sources is the issue.

I believe you mean the manufacturer's or worker's alienation from the product and the fact that they only participate in a figurative segment or link in a much larger, sometimes transnational chain of production. I think this stems from the centralization of private market power into large, multifaceted entities consisting of divided labor segments, each of which is manned by a large number of dedicated specialists of those segments, and thus confining and minimalizing the impact and power-reach of individual workers within those segments.

I think a big part of what makes work life satisfying is increased autonomy, sense of attachment to the business entity, intimacy with coworkers, and a sense of tangible impact and ownership. Those things are more available in small business settings and lost in larger, corporate ones. Even though it seems we're increasingly moving in that direction, I don't think it's going to end at some worst case worker-dystopia scenario. You must be a believer in the power of collective frustrations and volatility. Clearly there is suspicion of power concentration just see all these populist movements popping up and the political support they are garnering. I think we will have a push toward more regulatory policies that can help influence market structure in a healthy way -- promoting diverse and competitive market place with smaller business entities. And I think we will find ways to more efficiently organize workers to advocate for workplace autonomy and reshaping of workplace. There are many social platforms and major online communication highways, with enough frustration there will be some kind of push for positive changes. Let it evolve

Basically, on this forum, as on almost every social media platform, there is an enormous amount of anti-Semitism. It is basic for the left to be anti-Semitic, and it's not just in the USA, but throughout the western world

This is an incredibly far reaching claim. The first author of the UN report was himself Jewish; Noam Chomsky is Jewish; there are numerous other, less prominent Jewish critics of Israel. Are you claiming they are self-hating? How can it be basic for the left to be anti-semitic? That contradicts foundational principles which ground and influence leftist thinking. Zionism, Jewish nationalism, is a completely separate issue from Jewishness. And the present day issues are a matter completely separate from both. Basically I think if you got rid of the extreme right wing leadership and its UN pooping policies, many people would have less issue with the place.

How could anyone be neutral? Unbiased? Not racist? To take a position places one in somebody's negative category box. ↪frank? ↪Ciceronianus the White? ↪ssu? ↪LD Saunders? ↪Hanover? ↪Πετροκότσυφας? ↪Andrew4Handel? ↪SophistiCat? ↪René Descartes? ↪Benkei? ↪aporiap? ↪charleton? ↪unenlightened? ↪Londoner? ↪CuddlyHedgehog?

How does making a judgement on an issue make someone bias? Assuming common agreement on a set of shared human rights, there is a correct assessment of the situation which holds regardless of sentiment. Condemnations are not disproportionately dolled out. Europeans committed atrocities to local populations throughout the colonial period and [to my knowledge] no western state denies this was a dark period. Since this thread is about Israel, that is what we are focusing on.

Israel is suppressing the development of an acknowledged nation state - Palestine - through neglect of its internationally determined duty to condemn and sanction fanatic Jews who think they have a title to west bank land. It committed atrocities during the campaign for its own establishment and still denies legitimate property rights to natives. It displaced, what could have been, a people that developed into an otherwise multicultural, multi-religious diverse state that would've had no pretext for maintaining the dominance of a given component ethnic or religious group unlike Israel which was established under the pretext of maintaining Jewish cultural and ethnic dominance within the state itself. Considering most of this colonization has happened post UN establishment, after the our attempt at holding high enlightenment ideals, it is like almost a slap in the face.

Hitler supported Israel? That's absolutely false.

His administration supported and co-drafted the Haavara agreement and supported a variety of emigration ''solutions'' to the ''jewish question''. I think if repatriation was an option during early nazi period they would have been supportive of it.

Israel is a racist state? False.

This report was published last year. There have been numerous attempts to discredit it, mostly by -of course- Israeli and US govt. To my knowledge, there are no real counterarguments to arguments made in the report itself, just accusation of anti Israel bias and antisemitism. The first and second authors; you can read about them and their educational background.

Israel gives its Arab-Muslim citizens free education, free medical care and greater rights than they would have if living in any Islamic nation, or even any European nation. Yet, the world obsesses over Israel 24/7.

I believe most of the discrimination is with respect to property rights and building permits. I believe there is also segregation of educational facilities/schooling and discrimination in education funding practices (and possibly other sectors, but I'm not sure).

Also there is plenty of condemnation against and accusation of rights violations by the typical critics - UN, amnesty international. So I've never quite understood this point about Israel being disproportionately targeted.

There are Muslim people in other locations, including Iran, who are fighting for state hood, and no one even knows who they are. In fact, there are presently 350 active groups of people trying for independent statehood, and yet, other than the so-called Palestinian Arabs, how many such groups can people name? Not to mention that when Egypt bombs Gaza, no one says a word. When Lebanon mistreats Palestinians, no one says a word. When the King of Jordan violated international law and claimed the land for Jordan, through military action, no one said a word. Not even the so-called Palestinian Arabs said anything.

None of those groups are recognized as having states or being subjugated or oppressed within their own, internationally recognized boundaries.

Also, I don't see why the bold can't be recognized as in need of international attention while simultaneously recognizing israeli to palestinian rights violations as well.

If one makes a list of countries with human rights records, from the best to the worst, Israel would be near the top. Yet, Israel gets more than half of the UN sanctions? And that's not anti-Semitism? So, Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc., etc., combined have fewer sanctions than Israel? Israel is a nation where an Arab headed the country during an interim period. It's a nation where Arab Muslim judges sentence Jewish Israelis to prison. It is a country where it's fairly well integrated among various "races," and religious groups, and extends greater rights for women, gays, atheists, and other minorities than any country in the Middle East, while its neighbors routinely commit crimes against humanity, deny freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and cleanse all non-Muslims from their states.

Israel has had no economic sanction placed on it, only condemnation. US and its pro-israeli interest has too much influence for anything more than that. Anti semitism is discrimination or prejudice against the Jewish people. Jewish people are distinct from the Jewish state. Anti zionism is distinct from anti semitism and is also distinct from anti human rights violations. I don't think the international community would have any real issue with Israel if it stopped acting on, what are effectively, paranoid-schizophrenic delusions. Just working to economically discourage settlement construction and reduce building demolition in west bank would be a huge plus for their public image.

I can't say I watched the whole video, but I did watch the opening lines, which had a woman declaring that Israel's right to exist was rooted in God's decree alone, which was intended to delegitimize Israel's right to exist and it then said Palestinian children were being rounded up in an effort to control the population, placing Israel as monsters who enjoy injuring children.

Questions like what gives our Australian announcer the right to live on Aboriginal lands are not discussed, nor is the question of what has instigated the martial law tactics of the Israelis addressed (although maybe later in the film they offer a balanced explanation of both sides, but it seems not).

There is a difference between systematic, institutionalized discrimination and sanctioning of rights violations in a double standard manner and individual acts of discrimination. Any form of institutionalized sanctioning of rights violation should be criticized and stigmatized. I see no reason why not, and I see an especial need to pipe it down on a group who's very existence was threatened by the same elitist, God-endowed form of discrimination being enacting now. This documentary should be taken as a case study of discrimination and oppression in a modern state, not a wholesale condemnation of a people group.

And just because colonial communities of the past committed terrible acts does not legitimize nor should it relax condemnation of it in the present.

Adorno used to say , if you are paying attention then you can never be happy. He responded to the idiotic American "Have a nice Day". The world is full of horrors. Sometimes the only response is humour. And so to Camus and the absurd.

Should we?

Ah darn! But yea he's had some interesting ideas, give him a read if you can.

@Baden
That's correct!

Close, more hints: his first name begins with M and is a lesser known existentialist.

What is oral, anal, phalic, latent, and genital?

@Caldwell
What is schopenhaur? (unsure if spelling is correct)

A 20th century jewish philosopher who distinguished between two ways of relating to an object - 'I it' vs 'I thou'.

Aporiap: I wouldn't use another system besides a democratic one, and I do understand that in the USA we are a Constitutional Republic, but still, ultimately, we are governed by democratic policies. I would push more for education, including teaching people that one of the main ideas behind democracy is that an individual citizen needs to be able to articulate a logical argument to support their political position, which helps to build better citizens as they go through formulating arguments and using logic to address competing arguments. Democracy is also based on the idea that the citizen should not just base his political decisions on self-interest, but for the good of the country as a whole. I think those two aspects of democracy, and what the system is supposed to be about have been long forgotten. We certainly don't get rational, logical debates from most politicians and most political pundits.

Interesting. Do you feel education and advocacy are enough? I think people will still be susceptible to non-logical rhetoric, emotional factors, image and reputation of candidates. I mean take ben carson or even donald trump - both hold professional degrees, both went to prestigious schools and yet they still hold opinions and make decisions that are blatantly harmful and against the long term interests of their society. I think it would be interesting if there was a way to reform the election process and campaign process-- perhaps structure it in a way that minimizes influence of non-logical factors.. somehow make it blind? No televised debates, no revealing candidate names -- some central election committee assigns candidates a number or code letter and detail out their positions on a variety of issues; let them debate via audio or perhaps video where candidates are in a booth or somehow away from view with their voices distorted so people can just focus on the content of the argument and issues involved. Maybe that with education and strong advocacy for critical dissection of candidate positions. That alone will filter the voter pool to people that are willing to dissect the arguments or look at the content of the positions at least somewhat. That sort of strict voting process could work maybe? Idk

It's better to think that one knows what's best for them, even if they don't, than to think that someone else knows what's best for them, as the latter is a dangerous way of relinquishing control over one's life to somebody else and ultimately denying responsibility for one's own actions.

I don't think it entails that. You can acknowledge someone doesn't know what is best for him without dictating his life actions; it can allow for healthy, constructive discussion. If a person's convinced taking cocaine every few days is okay despite you knowing he has an addictive personality, I think it helps to assume he doesn't know and bring that up to him, challenge the belief in a non threatening or condescending way so you can have a constructive discussion about his drug use and his beliefs regarding his drug use. Maybe it can get him to reflect a bit and entertain other perspectives.

And there are cases where relinquishing control in certain decision domains is a good thing. Relinquishing your control over health related decisions to a field-expert in a hospital is an example of that. And the caregiver isn't actually suppose to provide treatment according to his/her own conception of what's ideal, they take your values or interests (desire to live; desire to maximize life quality; whatever it may be) into account in the treatment process- they just identify the most research informed way to go about getting there.

Just curious - what would be your alternative to a democratic system?

I think it's intrinsic to the security-ensuring function of government to maintain the well being of citizens and the society more generally (or at least provide access to avenues that allow them to secure it). When I say this I don't mean in a 'prescriptive sense'. I don't think any legislation which forces individuals or organizations to live or function a certain way is ethical; basic freedoms and autonomy are still fundamental ideals that should be given weight but I think it should be deprioritized in cases where that freedom results in collective or individual harm or gets in the way of promoting societal or individual well being (defining 'harm' in a proper way that can't be taken advantage of will admittedly be difficult to do but I don't think it's impossible and I don't think that's a proper argument against it). I do think restrictive forms (regulatory) of legislation coupled by forcible public funding for research determined determinates of well-being and social cohesion, health should be prioritized and enacted even if that legislation restricts freedom of some groups (I highly doubt any secular majority would be against this sort of process... not to name any names but I think most on a political spectrum would be okay with laying some freedoms down in the interest of collective and individual good). Democracies, in general, let the interests and desires of the entire constituency run amock and just like you can't trust a child to know what's best for them I don't really think you can do the same of most individuals, generally -- I mean, less than 50% of individuals hold a college degree. Not at all to sound condescending, I just think there are some things that are objectively recognizable as fundamental to well being and it's the job of a nation state to secure them for its citizens. A democracy is limited by its emphasis on interest-representation over rational, educated determination of fundamental social issues - socially 'unhealthy' disparities in healthcare access, education access, capital distribution; non-rehabilitative prison systems; neglect of globally relevant issues - climate change. But representing citizen interests is also important for the harmony of a society. So I think something like an informed, elected set of governing 'task forces' or committees dedicated to (among managing the typical functions of government) identifying social issues, affordable modes of well being, enacting regulatory legislation to address unhealthy social conditions (conditions that disadvantage large swaths of the population; conditions that will harm in the long term or present day a vast majority of population etc) and implementing them in the most optimal way possible might be better.

Perhaps it doesn't need to be radical like this.. maybe a representative democracy that includes a research informed legislative process that parameterizes well being (not just in terms of tangible material rewards) and seeks to maximize it could work.

Idk just shooting ideas out but ultimately I just don't think democracies as they are now are optimal forms of governance

I don't think what most people believe happiness to be is zero sum. As people were mentioning --
it's more a way of living-- acting in ways consistent with your values, not being deprived of basic resources (food, water, shelter, emotional support), having a sense of autonomy, having satisfactorily organized your career or life around a personally valued higher purpose or principle (a cause, a faith).

Dynamic is important and I included it as a property of parts.

This idea is problematic, relations are not intrinsic properties of parts.

As a quick example, the words 'Dog' and 'God' are composed of the same letters but form different words. The difference is in the relative position of each letter. If you decompose these words into letters, you don't conserve the relations between the parts and so you loose the properties intrinsic to the whole word (that it sounds like 'dog' vs 'god'; that it means 'dog' and not 'god'). You can make the same point with molecular systems -- e.g. constitutional isomers. These are compounds that are formed of the same atoms but with a different bonding pattern [e.g. 2OH vs H2O2; 1-propanol vs 2-propanol]. It's the bonding pattern in combination with the properties of the constituent atoms that determine the properties of the whole compound.

Since the relations are unique to the whole and determine the whole's properties, you can make a case for a kind of 'soft' emergence:

1) The properties of wholes are determined by the parts of a whole and their unique relations with each other [e.g. [behind(x, y); in front of(x, y)]:

2) A system is reducible if it can be equated to and is determined by its parts

3) Relations are not proper parts

Therefore by (1), (2), (3) wholes are not reducible.