What does he say, and what do you think, minds and experiences are? — Galuchat

Dennett thinks that subjectivity in terms of the Cartesian Theater or the Hard Problem are an illusion. A trick of language or the brain. There's nothing going on inside other than physical and biological processes, and whatever functional or computational roles they carry out. We are the equivalent of philosophical zombies, and he said as much in one talk I watched on Youtube.

I think there's something to subjectivity that is very hard to account for with an objective explanation. That's why Dennett is an eliminativist about qualia instead of trying to provide some sort of reductionistic or emergent account. But I don't see how you can entirely eliminate qualia, or whatever you want to call it. There's something to subjectivity. Something possibly fundamental.

In Dennett's case, no mental experience may be a fact. — Galuchat

In Dennett's case, the mental is redefined to be something objective, such as the functional role it plays. He's never said we don't have minds or experiences, only that they're not what some people (including myself) think they are.

Dennett also considers himself to be a quasi-realist about certain mental content. You can adopt the intentional stance in regards to other people, whereas you adopt the physical stance for rocks, the design stance for chairs.

if you didn't know better, would you expect fish to evolve into something like us? — SophistiCat

Maybe not if the tape was rewound, or another planet.

Second, dinosaurs are not extinct. Look out the window and you'll likely see some. — SophistiCat

I think the meaning of the dinosaurs going extinct where the big ones occupying all the niches that kept mammals to a small size.

The Kardashians came from Planet 9 in Outer Space and descended from crotch lice. — Bitter Crank

Truly a great example of convergent evolution.

This has taken a silly scifi turn, but it is an ongoing debate in biology (not the Kardashian part, I sincerely hope).

Or maybe we'd all look like ET and there'd be flying bicycles. — Hanover

Or have acid for blood.

Two of the biggest adaptations that led humans to evolving the way they did was the brain and the stamina humans have. (our ability to generate a thin layer of sweat) I don't see how these would develop in a world dominated by massive reptiles. — yatagarasu

Also that our ancestors came out of the trees. I don't know that the Velociraptor line would have gone to the trees for long enough to develop the kind of hands we have.

Let me just say that the marsupials would not be able to compete with the placental mammals and would have died out had they not been cut of from the the rest of the world "down under", so they would not be a good canonical example. — Harry Hindu

Kangaroos seem like they would do just fine. But there are other examples from outside Australia. Elephants were mentioned in the book. There's only been a few species of elephants and no example of convergent evolution of elephant-like organisms. They appear to belong to a unique line. Same can be said for Hominids, although we do have closer living relatives in the great apes. The closest living relatives to Elephants are probably Manatees and Dugongs.

Also, this debate has implications for the potential success of SETI. If biological determinism is the case, then it's more likely SETI will detect an alien civilization at some point in the future. This is because we would expect any planet that supports complex life to eventually evolve a similar enough species to ourselves.

However, if evolution is more on the contingent side, then the likelihood is greater we're alone in our region of space (however many light years out SETI could reasonably hope to detect a civilization). This is also brought up in the first chapter. But again, it raises the question of whether it's science or philosophy, and what the boundary is between the two for such matters.

Okay, so it doesn't have to be expensive, because there are completely unrealistic alternative options which you guess were a lot cheaper, — Sapientia

Those options weren't always unrealistic. Do you mean in contemporary society? That we're not just going to take the guilty from the court room to the platform for a quick, speedy and cheap death?

Sure, there is a legal process. I'm saying the legal process is what ends up costing so much, and this could be shortened if the requirement for the death penalty was exceedingly strict so that we weren't worried about them being found innocent later.

I'm not sure the quick & speedy death isn't more humane than drawing it out for years in solitary confinement while giving the prisoner some false hope their case will be overturned or the state won't go through with it.

hey disappear in a puff of shame when watching a mother helplessly holding her infant that is dying a slow painful death from whooping cough. — andrewk

They sure do disappear. The only way around that is to redefine good to mean something else than what it means for humans. But then, that means God isn't all-good. God is something else.

Well it is in reality, and why should I simply take your word for it? You've fully costed a business plan which outdoes all of the competition within that market, have you? — Sapientia

I'm guessing hanging and the guillotine were a lot cheaper, not that I'm advocating that, although I'm not sure giving someone a lethal injection is that much better.

Probably the high cost comes from all the appeals and housing these prisoners in their own wing of the prison while appeals are exhausted and the state gets around to executing them.

But it could be a whole lot cheaper if we skipped most of that. I realize there's a reason for the appeals in not wanting to execute an innocent person. Thus the requirement has to be really high. There are some crimes were there is no way the perp is going to be found innocent. The evidence is overwhelming and they confess while leading police to yet more evidence.

It's expensive. — Sapientia

It doesn't have to be.

it doesn't work as a deterrent, — Sapientia

But it does guarantee that person never re-offends.

it kills innocent people, — Sapientia

This is a problem. The standard should be really high for receiving the death penalty.

and it's barbaric — Sapientia

Is barbaric some kind of moral argument? We shouldn't do things that are barbaric as a society because they're barbaric, because I guess only Barbarians did those things in the past. Unlike say, the Romans.

It would be better not to let them go than to kill them. — Sapientia

Maybe, but I'm not convinced by the moral argument against capital punishment in this case. If you murder a bunch of people in cold blood, why should you continue living?

re you suggesting that he should have been killed instead? Is that what we should do with those deemed criminally insane? — Sapientia

I'm suggesting it would be preferable to kill someone like that than to let them go because of good behavior, given their propensity toward killing, and how adept sociopaths are at fooling people.

There was this guy named Charlie Brandt who shot his mom and dad when he was 13. He spent a year in a psychiatric hospital. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, so he was released back to his family (the father survived the shooting). He seems to go on and have a normal life, getting married. Then, 33 years later he kills his wife and her niece before hanging himself. There's reason to believe he had been an active serial killer during the years he was married.

I don't accept the justice-based arguments because I value compassion over justice, and also because, — andrewk

But compassion for whom? The perpetrator or the victims?

and also because, as Socrates pointed out so long ago, nobody seems to be able to agree on what justice is. — andrewk

There does seem to be a mostly universal desire to punish offenders who break the rules. Studies have been done on people cheating in a game where other players will go out of their way to punish the cheaters, even if it costs them.

Such arguments are based purely on a lust for revenge, and giving in to that lust strips us of all that is good in our humanity. — andrewk

But that's not true, because there is a concept of the victims having justice. That's part of the reason for sentencing perpetrators. It's not just to remove them from society. It's to punish them.

123
I'm not sure what you mean by 'social justice has gotten to the point of ridiculousness'. Do you mean that society is ridiculously unjust? Or ridiculously just? Or that people who think that society is unjust have taken a ridiculously extreme view of its injustice, and it is in fact much more just than they perceive? Or something else? — bert1

There is a movement based on the feeling that social justice is being forced down people's throats in an unnatural way that is something more than making sure everyone gets equal treatment. This could also be viewed as attempts to social engineer society from the top down.

To what extent that perception is real or a product of not wanting to give up one's privileged place in society is debatable (probably both to some extent). Also, humans have a natural tendency to want to rebel against being constantly being told not say or think certain ways, even if there is a good intention behind that. It can even be viewed as an Orwellian attempt to control society by redefining language to try and make the world more just.

An example might be:

Women and men are equal, and to ensure that society treats them that way, we must erase all forms of treating women differently from men. Which comes off as ridiculous and unnatural, since there are gender differences (although of course individuals differ across both genders). But to what extent this is just a sexist reaction and to what extent it's ideology gone to an extreme is the question (again some of both just depending). But I've definitely had people tell me that the only reason girls play with dolls and boys with toy guns is because of society, which I find profoundly silly, having been a child myself where the girls were plenty free to play with the boys (allowing for individual variance).

There was a Columbian serial killer who after being released from a psychiatric hospital disappeared and his whereabouts remain unknown. He was convicted for killing over 100 girls (ages 9 to 11) in South America (having led police to 53 graves).

Maybe he stopped. Maybe not.

So in some cases a person is not responsible for the brutal murder of someone?! — Blue Lux

In some cases the Justice System screws up and convicts the wrong person.

I think death row should be reserved for the worst of the worst where the evidence is overwhelming and they're not criminally insane, which means they know what they did was wrong but don't care. Richard Ramirez and Dennis Rader being too prime examples of that.

or the same reason, abortion and collateral damage are not murder, — Sapientia

LOL! Only because the nations who commit collateral damage control the international courts. Which goes to the point that the legal definition of murder is whatever society decides it is.

Whether justice is miscarried or not, a conviction and even a short term in prison is often an enduring punishment, because having been convicting and having served time is frequently an effective barrier against employment. — Bitter Crank

Agreed, but if you're on death row, it's usually for a crime that you're not getting out of jail to go have a job anyway. These are the kind of crimes where you don't want to see those people back in society, unless they're innocent, of course, which unfortunately happens too often.

Maybe they deserve cruel and unusual punishment, for the criminal took away the rights of an individual by murdering them. — Blue Lux

I draw the line at torture. Putting them to death would be like putting a dog with rabies down. Torturing for revenge degrades us, although I understand the sentiment in the case of certain crimes.

Fear is the only real deterrant. — Blue Lux

Some people aren't deterred by fear. There was one rapist who couldn't understand why rape was wrong because the idea of being raped didn't bother him at all. Also, some people like taking dangerous risks. It makes them feel alive.

There is scant evidence to suggest that the death penalty as a deterrent works.

The obvious retort is that it deters those who are put to death. But it's not about deterrent. It's whether some crimes are so heinous and some individuals so far beyond reform that they deserve to be put to death.

Since the death penalty returned to America in 1976, 162 death sentences have been reversed and 1,480 people have been executed, so roughly one in ten was found innocent.

This is the strong argument against the death penalty. I think only those with overwhelming evidence that will never be overturned should be eligible. Jeffrey Dahmer would never have been found innocent, for example. So the question is whether it's better to put such individuals to death.

A decent argument against that would be that it benefits society more to study and understand them. Fair enough, but then that's what they should be used for if they're not put to death.

The main reason the death penalty is so barbaric, and so dehumanising of the society that conducts it, is that it is done in cold blood, against a helpless, powerless individual. — andrewk

However, there are some individuals I would make an exception for, such as serial killers. I don't care if they are helpless and powerless before the state given their crimes and general lack of remorse or possibility for reform.

But our eyes give us only four (:gasp: ) snap-shots per second, mostly in low-res monochrome, with a higher-res colour area in the middle, the latter occupying the same area in our fields of vision as a full moon viewed from Earth. It takes a great deal more than embellishment to make this seem like full-motion hi-res colour video, and this is part of what our brains and minds do to enable us to perceive the world. It astonishes me that we can see at all. — Pattern-chaser

Yeah, compared to the eyes of a Mantis Shrimp, ours aren't so great. But then again, the Mantis Shrimp wastes it's incredible visual capabilities on a dinky brain.

I thought you were talking about death when you said:

But life is transitory, whereas 'our story', our legacy, or what is left of us after we did, — gloaming

If not, then you're saying those of us who suffer will be better off later on in life then those who caused the suffering (I take it by being mindless consumers)?

Those whose legacy can lay claim to have suffered are going to be much better off in the long run for having endured it or having succumbed to its ravages. — gloaming

And they'll still be just as dead as everyone else. How will they be better off for having suffered? Because someone might write a sympathetic history of their woes? Or because the gods of the afterlife when show them more mercy?

Just one question: Am I God? (Hence my avatar?) Because if I am, shame on me for doing such a mediocre job with das Universum! — rachMiel

Yeah, I have a few complaints. But it could be worse.

Thank God for God ... without whose Godly unbroken observation of ALL, things would keep popping in and out of existence! — rachMiel

Popping implies a process of going from being to non-being (which entails time) when God takes a break on the 7th day of the week. All that observing is tiresome. There can't be a popping if there is not a looking. Now maybe if God is turning her back on creation, the popping can happen at the corner of his eyes, since everyone knows God is a giant cosmic ape.

It is what it is? — aporiap

Depends on what the definition of it is.

I think that would be impossible, for every proposition, there is some other proposition that contradicts it. — aporiap

It is what it isn't.

It is what it is. — Michael

Until the goat eats it.

So it's false here? — Michael

Only in a transcendental sense.

It has to do with what it has to do with. — Michael

I want to believe:

saying that "there's a possible world where that's true" implies that you believe that in the actual world it isn't true. — Michael

Okay, but what does my belief have to do with possibility and truth?

Which is to say that it's possibly true, suggesting that it's actually false. — Michael

P is false if and only if P is possibly true.

New theory of falsity.

I don't think it does, but it probably will. — Michael

I think there's a possible world where that's true.

Except bald kings of France. — Michael

Depends on whether the past exists.