Re: Science and Ideals.
Why? What is inherent in higher level ethics which doesn't depend on our perceptions of the world around us? What are the odds of it being like mathematics or not like mathematics? 50% given the measure of the tautology based in the logic of yes/no Say it is something more than mathematic logic, which drives the ability to comprehend altruistic ideals which drive human awareness Say it is innate potentials with development and growth curves Say that the innate potentials are hard wired but mixed based upon The helix or energy contained in the structure of the human genes This is either incredibly deep, beyond my ability to grasp, or its pure gibberish. The sentences don't even make sense to me. Olin - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussionmailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 8:04 PM Subject: Re: Science and Ideals. Andrew C wrote 9-4-08 Yes, but where does the ability to do so come from? I'd argue that only Humans and a few other animals have the ability to comprehend altruistic ideals - and here we touch on self-awareness: Understanding of the self as an individual is key to accepting others as individuals and enables true altruistic actions. (And yes, I am saying that very young children will only behave in a selfish way). And if it's like mathematics it raises the question would aliens Develop the same ethics as us? At least part of our ethics comes from our perceptive organs and our social and biological interaction mechanics. I think it's fair to assume that aliens would differ in these at least slightly and the ethical systems may vary. I was thinking that despite the differences in the underlying mechanisms our hypothetical aliens might begin to reach similar conclusions once they applied more advanced thinking to the subject. Why? What is inherent in higher level ethics which doesn't depend on our perceptions of the world around us? What are the odds of it being like mathematics or not like mathematics? 50% given the measure of the tautology based in the logic of yes/no Say it is something more than mathematic logic, which drives the ability to comprehend altruistic ideals which drive human awareness Say it is innate potentials with development and growth curves Say that the innate potentials are hard wired but mixed based upon The helix or energy contained in the structure of the human genes Say the innate potentials are constantly seeking some evaluated formula Some rational to measure its measure of reason and only ideas serve the Conscience but attachment to these ideals leads to domestication i.e. Draw in the creature like the process of domesticating the wild animal The constant luring with food or any other act which the wild attach pleasure Or completion serve to bring basic drives of the innate potentials into Harmony with the environment---thus cause the engine to afford a new motion Say that ethics or any other thesis is only the written records of man’s Beliefs or directions recording the new motions which men tribes followed Willing acceptance of himself i.e. the ideas of others of himself Then you have simply a truth as revealed of him as he wishes other To see him an willingly become the domesticate of the visual commune seeker This become the more than mathematical evaluation of 50% beast and 50% human with reason as a purely mathematical system would yield Such a human machine would provide something more than an alien who is hard wired to a binary computer or some tautology based in yes / no Ethics is then termed more than good and bad; right and wrong; ect. It may be akin to those ideas, which seek itself in others and find peace knowing Of the shared existence which begins with the human’s first pull on this mothers Breast this is beyond the binary codes and bars on the spectrometer which that same Mind repels as alien communication across the galaxies. -- Original message from Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: -- ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-lhttp://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-lhttp://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Science and Ideals.
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Doug Pensinger Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 10:59 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: Science and Ideals. Dan M wrote: No, actually, I believe that there exists truth apart from us. Which, with the absence of any evidence, is akin to magic, but you missed my point entirely. Well, I guess it depends on what you base your understanding of evidence on, and to what degree you accept science when it counters common sense. I would hope that, if I give the results of extremely well verified theories of science (e.g. theories that give precise results over many orders of magnitude (IIRC the range is 10^20) that you will accept such theories as valid, and common sense understandings that contradict them as limited. That, if there is a conflict between the two, you would side with science vs. common sense. An example of this is the fact that evolution shows that the order in nature does not prove the existence of a creator, That we have There is no constant, absolute right or wrong. Its the one that works best in the given situation with the caveat that in five years or five months or even five minutes the circumstances that made it work well might change. How quickly and completely did American attitudes and indeed, their ethics change on Dec. 7, 1941 or on 911? The question of whether a particular action is right or wrong is dependent on the circumstances involved. But, look at what you said Its the one that works best in the given situation This, as with Charlie, simply moves the question slightly. What I have stated repeatedly is the question of how one defines things like best, worst, good, bad, etc. Self referential statements don't address the question, they are mere tautologies. If in one hand and... But if either of them had won, how long do you think that they could have kept their conquests under their thumb? Do you think that their social constructs would have been successful? Well, leaning on a former list member who is a PhD candidate in international relations, and who believes that a proper study of history is important to this, the answer is that the evidence is strong that totalitarian regimes are internally stable. The USSR failed after 60 years or so, but that was in a situation where it was competing with the US militarily and ended up spending 40%+ of its GDP in that competition. Historically, empires can last a long time. The eastern part of the Roman Empire, which was split by Constantine in the 300s, lasted roughly 1500 years, and was defeated by another empire. IIRC, the Chinese empire lasted about the same length until it was overtook by the Ghengas Kahn...who's rule ended up merging into that empire. There were two Republics that came from the Enlightenment and one failed and fell into a tyranny that had more absolute state power than the previous King, and the other clung to existence by the skin of its teeth. Historians have often remarked how fortunate the US was to have such remarkable people found it; and to have Lincoln when it needed him. You could talk about the liberalization in England, but you have to remember, after the experience of France, democracy and republics were associated by the ruling elite in England with mob rule. Goldstone specifically stated that the success of Lincoln in maintaining the Union was influential in his reforms. And, it is clear that England could not have stood against the Soviet Union. Would they have stood the test of time? I have serious doubts that they would have, Well, then you stand against most students of the field. In a long term competition, countries with representative governments have advantages over totalitarian governments. But, the 19th and 20th centuries demonstrated that freer societies have long term advantages in productivity, but it took a long time for those advantages to take hold. And, in times of war, the US required a president who went outside the law to defend the country and then stepped back inside it. Some of what FDR did was unneeded: e.g. the internment of the Japanese. But, the pushing of the boundaries of lend-lease, the use of US destroyers against Germany before war was declared, etc. was necessary. In the case of the Civil war, the illegal arrest of the Maryland legislators on their way to a vote on secession from the Union was absolutely essential to maintaining the Union. The fact that Lincoln could violate the constitution to save it is amazing. But, it also shows the weakness republics have; if it were someone like Nixon instead of Lincoln doing that, would he then release the power? but if they did, if their constructs _worked_ you'd have to say that their ethics were superior. OK, so a totalitarian state would be right, and individual freedoms would be wrong, all on a chance. Evolution
Re: Cryonics
On 9/4/08, Jon Louis Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i wasn't serious about building my own, or having a cybernetic link with other corpsicles. Corpsicles cybernetically linked together... that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase cold fusion. -- Mauro Diotallevi The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science and Ideals.
Dan M said: Historically, empires can last a long time. The eastern part of the Roman Empire, which was split by Constantine in the 300s, lasted roughly 1500 years, and was defeated by another empire. IIRC, the Chinese empire lasted about the same length until it was overtook by the Ghengas Kahn...who's rule ended up merging into that empire. It may be an aside, but both of those statements are misleading. To begin with, Constantine reunified rather than splitting the administration of the Roman state. The history of the separation between West and East bears closer examination. Under the Republic, the Romans had a long history of the division of the supreme magistracy, first between two consuls and later into first an ad-hoc and later a formalised triumvirate. This tendency briefly re-emerged during the second century with the co-imperium of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Verus, which enabled the presence of emperors at several trouble-spots concurrently. During the troubled third century this need for divided absolute authority became even more pressing and was formalised by the emperor Diocletian's institution of the tetrarchy, in which there were two senior emperors (Augusti) and two junior emperors (Caesars). It was Diocletian's intention that the Augusti should periodically abdicate in favour of their junior colleagues who would in turn appoint two new Caesars from the best men of the state. The succession of the emperors would thus be regularised, putting an end to the cycle of rebellion and civil war that had plagued the empire for fifty years. Unfortunately, it didn't work like that, as sons of the Augusti who had been passed over in favour of new, unrelated emperors, asserted their supposed hereditary rights, alternative centres of power crystallised and a new phase of civil wars began. The ultimate victor was Constantine, who became sole ruler of the Roman empire in 324. Before Constantine, there had been many temporary Roman capitals - for many decades the capital had effectively not been Rome but wherever the emperor was. Under the tetrarchy, for example, the capitals of the Augusti had been Nicomedia in Asia Minor, Mediolanum in northern Italy, Sirmium in what's now Serbia and Augusta Treverorum (modern Trier). One of Constantine's several innovations was the establishment of a permanent new capital at Constantinople. Rather than this city being the capital of an Eastern Roman Empire, it was the capital of the whole empire. Even during periods of division of the imperial authority, the empire itself was seen as a unitary whole and the usual procedure was for edicts to be issued in the name of all the current emperors and to be enforced across the Roman world. It's commonly held that the final division of the Roman empire occurred in 395 at the death of Theodosius I, at which Honorius became emperor in the west and Arcadius in the East. From then until the extinction of the western dynasty in 476 there was always an emperor in Constantinople and another usually in Ravenna. However, even as these two centres of power solidified, the Roman world formally remained whole. The two emperors provided each other with military assistance even as late as a major joint naval expedition against the Vandals in 468. Even the man sometimes seen as the last fully legitimate western emperor, Julius Nepos, was appointed by the eastern emperor Leo I. Furthermore, following the overthrow of the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, many of the Germanic successor rulers claimed to be ruling not as independent kings but as representatives of the emperor at Constantinople. As for when the Eastern remnant of the Roman empire fell, I think there were two very clear periods during which large swathes of territory were lost and the character of the empire deeply changed. The first was during the lightning conquests of the Muslim armies in the seventh century, which cut away from the empire the ancient Roman provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa. Augustus might well have recognised the sixth century empire of Justinian as a successor, however much transformed by the passage of centuries, to his own; but the Byzantine empire of Heraclius and his successors was a different world. The second major collapse occurred with the defeat of Romanus Diogenes by the Seljuk Turkish sultan Alp Arslan at Manzikert in 1054. (The Seljuk sultanate was a successor to the Arab Caliphates that had inflicted the earlier defeats on the Byzantines.) In any case, much of this is a distraction from the central questions: what endured for those 1500 or more years, and was it totalitarian. In my view the main continuity was that of the administrative bureaucracy created by the Romans, despite the changes at the highest levels of power, the shifts of culture and
RE: Science and Ideals.
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Baker Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 5:25 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: Science and Ideals. Dan M said: Historically, empires can last a long time. The eastern part of the Roman Empire, which was split by Constantine in the 300s, lasted roughly 1500 years, and was defeated by another empire. IIRC, the Chinese empire lasted about the same length until it was overtook by the Ghengas Kahn...who's rule ended up merging into that empire. It may be an aside, but both of those statements are misleading. I stand corrected by your detailed knowledge of that history, Richard. I will accept that my quick recollection of history was all too facile, and I honestly appreciate your history lesson. I'm snipping it, because I do think it is an aside to the main thrust of my argument. But, if you find historical errors in what I am about to say, do not hesitate to shout out. Empires can last a long time. They do reformulate, different dynasties do exist. But, I think it is fair to say that regimes that do not place a great deal of value on individual human rights can last centuries, and when they are replaced it is often/usually not be a group that emphasized human rights. You also rightly said that these empires were not totalitarian. I agree, and never intended to imply that. Indeed, I used the example of restraints on the French King that did not apply to Napoleon because I had some awareness of that fact. Totalitarian governments are fairly modern. The tools needed for them probably didn't exist 300 years ago. My argument is that they have proven to be fairly resilient, falling only when faced with strong outside challenges. Indeed, the requirement for such challenges was planned as part of the final post I was going to write in the series I started a bit ago. In a sense, I've been building up to that point. But, that's for later. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science and Ideals.
On 6 Sep 2008, at 01:18, Dan M wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:brin-l- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Baker Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 5:25 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: Science and Ideals. Dan M said: Historically, empires can last a long time. The eastern part of the Roman Empire, which was split by Constantine in the 300s, lasted roughly 1500 years, and was defeated by another empire. IIRC, the Chinese empire lasted about the same length until it was overtook by the Ghengas Kahn...who's rule ended up merging into that empire. It may be an aside, but both of those statements are misleading. I stand corrected by your detailed knowledge of that history, Richard. I will accept that my quick recollection of history was all too facile, and I honestly appreciate your history lesson. I'm snipping it, because I do think it is an aside to the main thrust of my argument. But, if you find historical errors in what I am about to say, do not hesitate to shout out. Dan - why is it when one of your repetitively egregious errors is called out it never seems to matter to the main thrust of your argument, which you persist in tediously and hectoringly presenting, despite its only apparent basis being fabrication, logical fallacies and hand waving? What Argument Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Theists cannot be trusted as they believe that right and wrong are the arbitrary proclamations of invisible demons. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
