Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
As someone who voted for Al Gore in 2000 (he liked hydrogen cars, what can I say?) I don't believe it was corruption that won Bush jr. his election, but the idiocies of the electoral process. Hanging chads or accusations of Deibold voting machines not withstanding. Democracy, is not a thing most Muslims seem to like, or like the communists and the Nazis, appear to see it as a stepping stone to power and what they wanted in its ultimate form. What most governments today are not Republics-although the voting methods still are, we are corporatist governments. Corporatism is not just corporations, but something else. Please view Wikipedia's corporatism article its splendid because its informative. What is lacking from this forum/thread is the awareness of the perfidies of socialism, as well as capitalism-a one way street. If we want to lambast capitalists for mass murder (and you guys do!) the look no further than Belgium's rubber plantations in central Africa. (sorry Bruno!) where 8 million Africans were worked to death, because of incentives offered by the Belgian government at the time-an incredible history there. Finally, the Nazis couldn't have gained power without the German communists cooperation with the SA, where as they began to stage street battles SA v. the Red Scarves in order to undermine Weimar, as being ineffective to make the streets safe. For an intense look at the Nazi-Soviet ear, please consider reading Tim Snyder's The Bloodlands-Between Stalin and Hitler. Siding with totalitarian Al Qaeda, is also foolish, as their goals are Sharia Law worldwide. Secondly even is Saibal's view is accurate (attack the military only) it wound up have the US push the Taleban from power, and the wars in the middle east gather so many fanatical jihadists there that it was a magnet for their destruction (unintentionally) because the US and Nato forces turned many of them into non-combative corpses-reducing the jihadist troops. Under Obama, with his policies-their fortunes have reversed. I am guessing they are planning some nasty surprises for the US, which will no doubt make Smitra all jolly. -Original Message- From: chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Aug 25, 2013 8:22 pm Subject: RE: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood corruption in politics (US elections 2000) is good in hind sight because it led to democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. or one more up Saibal's street: In hind sight the end of the Raj was a bad thing because it led to the partition of India and Pakistan, wars over Kashmir and nuclear friction. There must be loads of counter-intuitive and flame worthy comments that can be rendered using Saibal's hokey logic. We should give some monkeys typewriters and throw a banana to the ape that generates the best one. all the best. Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 15:01:27 -0700 From: meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood On 8/25/2013 9:36 AM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote: If I think that: With hindsight 9/11 was a good thing to have happened, it ended up exposing the fascist Neo-Cons for what they were. That's sort of like saying it's good that the Nazi's killed all those people in death camps because that exposed what a dangerous philosophy of government Nazism is. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com wrote: I was correcting your mischaracterization of two democratically elected and popular leaders who were overthrown in bloody CIA backed coups and replaced by fascist dictators Yes Chris, the CIA staged those coups, but some countries violently change their brutal 2 bit tin horn dictators with a new brutal 2 bit tin horn dictator more often than I change my underwear, so its a little hard for me to get all weepy about it; particularly when placed in the perspective (as I did in my post) of the tens of millions of there own people that the communists have murdered. As for IRAN I think the CIA probably did a good thing in 1953, yes it placed the country in the hands of a brutal 2 bit dictator, but from 1953 to 1979 it probably prevented the country from falling into the hands of brutal 2 bit dictators who were driven by their imbecilic religion to push their country back into the ninth century. Of course a lot of this is supposition, we'll never know for sure what the world would be like today if the CIA had not been involved in those coups; but I do know that even if what they did wasn't right it was little more than being mischievous compared with the horrors committed by Lenin or Stalin or Mao Zedong or Kim Ll-sung or Mr. Ass's favorite, Hitler. You had mischaracterized these two popularly elected heads of state as 2-bit leaders. I find that to be a strange choice of words to describe a democratically elected head of state. To my mind if something is democratic that does not automatically mean it occupies the moral high ground. Hitler gained power legally, and a recent opinion poll showed that 64% of the Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan think the death penalty should be invoked for anyone who leaves Islam, and in Afghanistan 78% think so. And in Iraq andAfghanistan 60% think that the killing of female family members by men should be legal if the women sully the family honor. Would you really be upset if somebody prevented these democratic practices from being implemented? I wouldn't be. John -- Not interested in placing any more wear and tear on your brain. Thank you, but I'm concerned that you ignored my question. Either we discuss or we don’t. Before we can talk more about moral issues I need you to answer the question I asked you in my last post, because discussing matters of morality with somebody who makes excuses for a creature who says supporting the Nazis was the right thing for the Arabs back then and I believe that 9/11 was a good thing would be like debating with a baboon over the correct way to solve a problem in Calculus. And I have better ways to allocate my time than that. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
And yet the greatest mass murderer of all history remains Genghis Khan. lest we forget. The Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan murdered so many people that there was a corresponding measurable drop in humanities global carbon footprint, because so many people were wiped out that huge areas reverted back to forest because there was no one to farm the land. Human brutality to other humans (and our planet) has a long and bloody history, and the champion genocidalist (if I may coin the word) of all time committed his crimes more than 800 years ago, and without modern technology. -Chris From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 4:29 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood As someone who voted for Al Gore in 2000 (he liked hydrogen cars, what can I say?) I don't believe it was corruption that won Bush jr. his election, but the idiocies of the electoral process. Hanging chads or accusations of Deibold voting machines not withstanding. Democracy, is not a thing most Muslims seem to like, or like the communists and the Nazis, appear to see it as a stepping stone to power and what they wanted in its ultimate form. What most governments today are not Republics-although the voting methods still are, we are corporatist governments. Corporatism is not just corporations, but something else. Please view Wikipedia's corporatism article its splendid because its informative. What is lacking from this forum/thread is the awareness of the perfidies of socialism, as well as capitalism-a one way street. If we want to lambast capitalists for mass murder (and you guys do!) the look no further than Belgium's rubber plantations in central Africa. (sorry Bruno!) where 8 million Africans were worked to death, because of incentives offered by the Belgian government at the time-an incredible history there. Finally, the Nazis couldn't have gained power without the German communists cooperation with the SA, where as they began to stage street battles SA v. the Red Scarves in order to undermine Weimar, as being ineffective to make the streets safe. For an intense look at the Nazi-Soviet ear, please consider reading Tim Snyder's The Bloodlands-Between Stalin and Hitler. Siding with totalitarian Al Qaeda, is also foolish, as their goals are Sharia Law worldwide. Secondly even is Saibal's view is accurate (attack the military only) it wound up have the US push the Taleban from power, and the wars in the middle east gather so many fanatical jihadists there that it was a magnet for their destruction (unintentionally) because the US and Nato forces turned many of them into non-combative corpses-reducing the jihadist troops. Under Obama, with his policies-their fortunes have reversed. I am guessing they are planning some nasty surprises for the US, which will no doubt make Smitra all jolly. -Original Message- From: chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Aug 25, 2013 8:22 pm Subject: RE: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood corruption in politics (US elections 2000) is good in hind sight because it led to democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. or one more up Saibal's street: In hind sight the end of the Raj was a bad thing because it led to the partition of India and Pakistan, wars over Kashmir and nuclear friction. There must be loads of counter-intuitive and flame worthy comments that can be rendered using Saibal's hokey logic. We should give some monkeys typewriters and throw a banana to the ape that generates the best one. all the best. _ Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 15:01:27 -0700 From: meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood On 8/25/2013 9:36 AM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote: If I think that: With hindsight 9/11 was a good thing to have happened, it ended up exposing the fascist Neo-Cons for what they were. That's sort of like saying it's good that the Nazi's killed all those people in death camps because that exposed what a dangerous philosophy of government Nazism is. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this
Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com wrote: you cannot prove that things in the brain happen because of some proximate definable and identifiable cause or otherwise they must therefore result by a completely random process. Bullshit. Axioms don't need proof, and the most fundamental axiom in all of logic is that X is Y or X is not Y. Everything else is built on top of that. And only somebody who was absolutely desperate to prove the innate superiority of humans over computers would try to deny it. In a system as layered, massively parallel and highly noisy as the brain your assumptions of how it works are naïve and border on the comical. The brain is not a based on a simple deterministic algorithm in which the chain of cause and effect is always clear. Although reductionism has recently received a lot of bad press from supermarket tabloids and new age gurus the fact remains that if you want to study something complex you've got to break it into simpler parts and then see how the parts fit together. And in the final analysis things happen for a reason or they don't happen for a reason; and if they did then it's deterministic and if they didn't then it's random. You can copy the symbols on a sheet of paper , but without understanding Hungarian you will never be impacted by the meaning or sensations that poem is seeking to convey. True but irrelevant. I never claimed we would someday understand how to make an AI more intelligent than ourselves, I only said that someday such an AI would get made. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Leibniz's final causation as the Self, the active agent of change
My B in law posited, what moves the cursor, using a pc as an analogy of mind? Of course the cursor can be programmed to move and act, by a program, but then who made the programmer? Leibniz and other thinkers may have asked, who made God? Terrific question. My sense of things is the use of an old fashioned or a new fashioned map. One is paper and you use your eyes and fingers, another map is you punch in the destination, and a women's voice speaks Turn right in 5 miles! Both are maps. Similarly asking who created God is akin to asking your maps, where is the next alien intelligent civilization in the Galaxy? Our little maps cannot tell us, because we're out of range. Having said this, where are the space aliens, or where is God, may not be detectable on our maps, simply because we haven't explored the universe sufficiently. Physicist, Freeman Dyson, has written that to know more things we have to have increasingly better observation, and to do this, we have to have improved tools for better experimentation and observation. The Self may be detectable or comprehendible through better tools, and one of these tools is assuredly mathematics. Mitch -Original Message- From: Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net To: - Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net Sent: Mon, Aug 26, 2013 3:31 am Subject: Leibniz's final causation as the Self, the active agent of change Leibniz's final causation as the Self, the active agent of change So far, materialistic models of the mind, such as Dennett's, are essentially passive. There is no internal active agent of change, which one might call the Self. The internal active agent of change is desire, which we might define as a mismatch between the current state and a goal. In other words, the internal active agent of change is final causation, which has been discussed by Leibniz as typical of life, and also by Aristotle in his four basic causes of change. This desire to achieve a personal goal appears mentally as an intention, which is the active agent of change. This is what we call the Self, and is the missing element of AI as well as current models of the mind. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
Citeren meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net: On 8/25/2013 9:36 AM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote: If I think that: With hindsight 9/11 was a good thing to have happened, it ended up exposing the fascist Neo-Cons for what they were. That's sort of like saying it's good that the Nazi's killed all those people in death camps because that exposed what a dangerous philosophy of government Nazism is. Brent It depends on how the two scenarios one would assume where it happened and did not happen. I believe that 9/11 led the US to commit mistakes that were seen to be mistakes by a large fraction of the US population. Had 9/11 not happened, the US would have evolved more gradually in the Neo-Con direction but then that would have had far greater acceptance from the US public. Saibal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
Morality is an ill defined concept, you can just as well invoke religion. I never appeal to any notion of morality, when I say that something is good, then I have some specific outcome in mind. I think I did explain that. An alien visiting the Earth may well conclude that the right thing to do is to exterminate all humans from the face of the Earth, citing the damage we do to the environment and the fact that we are not going to be persuaded to change our ways. From an animal life conservation point of view that decision can be argued to be the right decision. Citeren John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: A professional ass who goes by the pseudonym smi...@zonnet.nl because he's understandably too embarrassed to give his real name wrote: The modern history of Guatemala was decisively shaped by the U.S.-organized invasion and overthrow of [blah blah] Dear Mr. Ass Once somebody knows that you said supporting the Nazis was the right thing for the Arabs back then and I believe that 9/11 was a good thing, why on earth would anybody who was not drooling and locked inside a rubber room be interested in your opinion of the morality of ANYTHING? John K Clark ** -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
And I have better ways to allocate my time than that. Coming from a cuckoo clock/roulette wheel... LOL. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?
From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 10:08 AM Subject: Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test? On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com wrote: you cannot prove that things in the brain happen because of some proximate definable and identifiable cause or otherwise they must therefore result by a completely random process. Bullshit. Axioms don't need proof, and the most fundamental axiom in all of logic is that X is Y or X is not Y. Everything else is built on top of that. And only somebody who was absolutely desperate to prove the innate superiority of humans over computers would try to deny it. You seem confused... the brain is not an axiom... it is one of the most complex systems we know about in the observed universe. In a system as layered, massively parallel and highly noisy as the brain your assumptions of how it works are naïve and border on the comical. The brain is not a based on a simple deterministic algorithm in which the chain of cause and effect is always clear. Although reductionism has recently received a lot of bad press from supermarket tabloids and new age gurus the fact remains that if you want to study something complex you've got to break it into simpler parts and then see how the parts fit together. And in the final analysis things happen for a reason or they don't happen for a reason; and if they did then it's deterministic and if they didn't then it's random. Perhaps your final analysis is a bit too shallow and self limiting. Why you cling so tenaciously to this need for definitive causality chains (or else it must be complete randomness) is amusing, but is not misguided. You cannot show definitive causality for most of what goes on in most of the universe. You can hypothesize a causal relationship perhaps, but you cannot prove one for all manner of phenomenon arising out of chaotic systems. The brain is a noisy chaotic system and you are attempting to impose your Newtonian order on it. Your approach does not map well onto the problem domain. And what you say has no predictive value; it does not help unravel how the brain works... or how the mind arises within it. You can copy the symbols on a sheet of paper , but without understanding Hungarian you will never be impacted by the meaning or sensations that poem is seeking to convey. True but irrelevant. I never claimed we would someday understand how to make an AI more intelligent than ourselves, I only said that someday such an AI would get made. And how are you sure it has not already been achieved. To go by some of the recent DARPA solicitations they are really hot on the trail of trying to develop/discover smart algorithms modeled on the neocortext's own algorithms -- especially in the area of pattern matching. What I said about needing to understand that which you are studying in order to be able to really be able to manipulate, extend, emulate, simulate etc. is not only true -- as you admit -- but is also relevant. With no understanding of the symbol stream you have no knowledge of what to do with the symbol stream passing across your view; you are unable to operate with it in any kind of meaningful manner. It is like looking at DNA sequences flashing by you... ACTG... with no insight into what they symbols mean, do or control. As I earlier agreed -- black box testing has its place and it is possible to discover some aspects of a system through its external interface, but to really know a system and to be able to describe it one must open it up and actually study it. A white box methodology is required. This applies to understanding the brain as well.. it is and will remain a mystery until we go in and figure out its fine grained workings. -Chris John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
Hi Saibal When you say something is good you have some concept of morality in mind whether you like it or not. Otherwise comments like 'this is good' or 'that is good' are meaningless gibberish. In your case it is very obviously consequentialism you have in mind because you are attempting to balance outcomes in order to quantify the moral quality of an act. Typically the fact an event like 9/11 can, through some specious reasoning, be equated to a 'good' has been regarded as a reason to abandon the kind of reasoning you are fumbling with. But I suspect you are too stubborn to acknowledge a few thousand years of moral philosophy and rather than stand on the shoulders of giants prefer to swill around in the gutter. This is why John is right to call you an ass. Your 'arguments' show no more moral wit than a donkey. --- Original Message --- From: smi...@zonnet.nl Sent: 28 August 2013 6:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood Morality is an ill defined concept, you can just as well invoke religion. I never appeal to any notion of morality, when I say that something is good, then I have some specific outcome in mind. I think I did explain that. An alien visiting the Earth may well conclude that the right thing to do is to exterminate all humans from the face of the Earth, citing the damage we do to the environment and the fact that we are not going to be persuaded to change our ways. From an animal life conservation point of view that decision can be argued to be the right decision. Citeren John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: A professional ass who goes by the pseudonym smi...@zonnet.nl because he's understandably too embarrassed to give his real name wrote: The modern history of Guatemala was decisively shaped by the U.S.-organized invasion and overthrow of [blah blah] Dear Mr. Ass Once somebody knows that you said supporting the Nazis was the right thing for the Arabs back then and I believe that 9/11 was a good thing, why on earth would anybody who was not drooling and locked inside a rubber room be interested in your opinion of the morality of ANYTHING? John K Clark ** -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com wrote: I was correcting your mischaracterization of two democratically elected and popular leaders who were overthrown in bloody CIA backed coups and replaced by fascist dictators Yes Chris, the CIA staged those coups, but some countries violently change their brutal 2 bit tin horn dictators with a new brutal 2 bit tin horn dictator more often than I change my underwear, so its a little hard for me to get all weepy about it; particularly when placed in the perspective (as I did in my post) of the tens of millions of there own people that the communists have murdered. As for IRAN I think the CIA probably did a good thing in 1953, yes it placed the country in the hands of a brutal 2 bit dictator, but from 1953 to 1979 it probably prevented the country from falling into the hands of brutal 2 bit dictators who were driven by their imbecilic religion to push their country back into the ninth century. I truly hope you change your underwear more often than countries change regimes... for all concerned. Did I ask you to get weepy? I am just asking you to acknowledge you were incorrect in characterizing the popular and democratically elected leaders of sovereign states as two bit leaders. You have acknowledged that you were in fact incorrect and that is all I care that you do. Whether you want to get all weepy is your own concern not mine. I am going to have to disagree with your peonage to the fascist regime of the Pavlavi family dynasty; don't think it was a good thing to install that brutal fascist regime and associate our country with all the repression, torture and killing that the Savak - the Sha's secret police -- engaged in. In fact I think you are completely wrong. The 1979 revolution in Iran has roots that can be convincingly traced back to that earlier CIA backed coup (instigated by the way by British Petroleum that had been enjoying 90% take on the sale of Iranian oil until the democratically elected government of Iran of the time nationalized Iranian oil reserves. It was in fact British pressure that involved the US in Iranian affairs in 1953. Of course a lot of this is supposition, we'll never know for sure what the world would be like today if the CIA had not been involved in those coups; but I do know that even if what they did wasn't right it was little more than being mischievous compared with the horrors committed by Lenin or Stalin or Mao Zedong or Kim Ll-sung or Mr. Ass's favorite, Hitler. Correct they are just suppositions. You had mischaracterized these two popularly elected heads of state as 2-bit leaders. I find that to be a strange choice of words to describe a democratically elected head of state. To my mind if something is democratic that does not automatically mean it occupies the moral high ground. Hitler gained power legally, and a recent opinion poll showed that 64% of the Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan think the death penalty should be invoked for anyone who leaves Islam, and in Afghanistan 78% think so. And in Iraq and Afghanistan 60% think that the killing of female family members by men should be legal if the women sully the family honor. Would you really be upset if somebody prevented these democratic practices from being implemented? I wouldn't be. Are you trying to say that it was the correct and moral course of action to overthrow these two democratically elected leaders and then to support the fascist regimes that we installed in their place? John -- Not interested in placing any more wear and tear on your brain. Thank you, but I'm concerned that you ignored my question. As I will continue to do if I think they are rhetorical or just plain silly. Either we discuss or we don’t. Before we can talk more about moral issues I need you to answer the question I asked you in my last post, because discussing matters of morality with somebody who makes excuses for a creature who says supporting the Nazis was the right thing for the Arabs back then and I believe that 9/11 was a good thing would be like debating with a baboon over the correct way to solve a problem in Calculus. And I have better ways to allocate my time than that. I do not respond to your imperative demands very well now do I... amazing how that works (or doesn't work) Allocate your time however you choose to allocate it. Stop dialoging with me if you must -- I am fine with that outcome. It really is no skin off my back. Cheers, -Chris John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test?
On 8/27/2013 3:55 PM, Chris de Morsella wrote: *From:* John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Sent:* Tuesday, August 27, 2013 10:08 AM *Subject:* Re: When will a computer pass the Turing Test? On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com mailto:cdemorse...@yahoo.com wrote: you cannot prove that things in the brain happen because of some proximate definable and identifiable cause or otherwise they must therefore result by a completely random process. Bullshit. Axioms don't need proof, and the most fundamental axiom in all of logic is that X is Y or X is not Y. Everything else is built on top of that. And only somebody who was absolutely desperate to prove the innate superiority of humans over computers would try to deny it. You seem confused... the brain is not an axiom... it is one of the most complex systems we know about in the observed universe. In a system as layered, massively parallel and highly noisy as the brain your assumptions of how it works are naïve and border on the comical. The brain is not a based on a simple deterministic algorithm in which the chain of cause and effect is always clear. Although reductionism has recently received a lot of bad press from supermarket tabloids and new age gurus the fact remains that if you want to study something complex you've got to break it into simpler parts and then see how the parts fit together. And in the final analysis things happen for a reason or they don't happen for a reason; and if they did then it's deterministic and if they didn't then it's random. Perhaps your final analysis is a bit too shallow and self limiting. Why you cling so tenaciously to this need for definitive causality chains (or else it must be complete randomness) is amusing, but is not misguided. You cannot show definitive causality for most of what goes on in most of the universe. You can hypothesize a causal relationship perhaps, but you cannot prove one for all manner of phenomenon arising out of chaotic systems. The brain is a noisy chaotic system and you are attempting to impose your Newtonian order on it. Your approach does not map well onto the problem domain. And what you say has no predictive value; it does not help unravel how the brain works... or how the mind arises within it. It does help. There's no evidence that the brain can't be understood as a parallel computer plus some randomness. The problem with John's formulation is he insists there is either *a* reason or not *a* reason. Hardly anything can be thought of as having *a* reason. In the case of human behavior, each instance almost certainly has many different causes, some in memory, some in the immediate environment, and some which are random and don't have an effective cause. I think of the person, brain/body/etc, plus immediate environment narrow down the probable actions to a few, e.g. 1 to 20, and then some quantum randomness realizes one of those. So it's not deterministic like Laplace's clockwork world, but it's not anything-is-possible either. Brent You can copy the symbols on a sheet of paper , but without understanding Hungarian you will never be impacted by the meaning or sensations that poem is seeking to convey. True but irrelevant. I never claimed we would someday understand how to make an AI more intelligent than ourselves, I only said that someday such an AI would get made. And how are you sure it has not already been achieved. To go by some of the recent DARPA solicitations they are really hot on the trail of trying to develop/discover smart algorithms modeled on the neocortext's own algorithms -- especially in the area of pattern matching. What I said about needing to understand that which you are studying in order to be able to really be able to manipulate, extend, emulate, simulate etc. is not only true -- as you admit -- but is also relevant. With no understanding of the symbol stream you have no knowledge of what to do with the symbol stream passing across your view; you are unable to operate with it in any kind of meaningful manner. It is like looking at DNA sequences flashing by you... ACTG... with no insight into what they symbols mean, do or control. As I earlier agreed -- black box testing has its place and it is possible to discover some aspects of a system through its external interface, but to really know a system and to be able to describe it one must open it up and actually study it. A white box methodology is required. This applies to understanding the brain as well.. it is and will remain a mystery until we go in and figure out its fine grained workings. -Chris John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post
Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
Chris, No I don't need to invoke morality, the price I pay for that is to have to explain explicity what I mean by a good outcome, what measure I choose here to determine this, etc. 9/11 was a good thing to have happened, despite the perpetrators not having good intentions, i.e. the perpetrators of 9/11 wanted to achieve something that I would not have preferred. You are invoking the concept of moral quality of an act, not me. Moral philosophy???. Well, I consider philosophy to be pseudoscience, I already told you what I think about morality, so I don't have to tell you what I think about moral philosophy. Morality in previous centuries has been invoked to justify the burning of people at the Stake for blasphemy, no one at the time argued that this was immoral based on a reading of all those philosophers. So, it's of no use other than to condemn people we don't like. Not invoking morality will force you to use rational arguments. John is a good example, he doesn't read past the first sentence when I wrote hat 9/11 was a good thing to have happend, because he has programmed a concept of morality in his brain to create a mental block in such a case. Whatever explanation I give has to be wrong because his sense of morality (which he can't expand on), tells him so. Saibal Citeren chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com: Hi Saibal When you say something is good you have some concept of morality in mind whether you like it or not. Otherwise comments like 'this is good' or 'that is good' are meaningless gibberish. In your case it is very obviously consequentialism you have in mind because you are attempting to balance outcomes in order to quantify the moral quality of an act. Typically the fact an event like 9/11 can, through some specious reasoning, be equated to a 'good' has been regarded as a reason to abandon the kind of reasoning you are fumbling with. But I suspect you are too stubborn to acknowledge a few thousand years of moral philosophy and rather than stand on the shoulders of giants prefer to swill around in the gutter. This is why John is right to call you an ass. Your 'arguments' show no more moral wit than a donkey. --- Original Message --- From: smi...@zonnet.nl Sent: 28 August 2013 6:14 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood Morality is an ill defined concept, you can just as well invoke religion. I never appeal to any notion of morality, when I say that something is good, then I have some specific outcome in mind. I think I did explain that. An alien visiting the Earth may well conclude that the right thing to do is to exterminate all humans from the face of the Earth, citing the damage we do to the environment and the fact that we are not going to be persuaded to change our ways. From an animal life conservation point of view that decision can be argued to be the right decision. Citeren John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: A professional ass who goes by the pseudonym smi...@zonnet.nl because he's understandably too embarrassed to give his real name wrote: The modern history of Guatemala was decisively shaped by the U.S.-organized invasion and overthrow of [blah blah] Dear Mr. Ass Once somebody knows that you said supporting the Nazis was the right thing for the Arabs back then and I believe that 9/11 was a good thing, why on earth would anybody who was not drooling and locked inside a rubber room be interested in your opinion of the morality of ANYTHING? John K Clark ** -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe
RE: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood
Hi Saibal No I don't need to invoke morality, the price I pay for that is to have to explain explicity what I mean by a good outcome, what measure I choose here to determine this, etc. Saibal, by using the terms 'good'/'bad' and 'right'/'wrong' you can not help but invoke morality because that is the language of morality. And we are able to see what standard of morality you are invoking by examining your justifications. You are a consequentialist. You assess the rightness/wrongness of supporting Nazis by balancing outcomes. You judge 9/11 to have been good or bad because of the outcomes it had for x,y,z. This is consequentialism and it is a moral perspective. You don't escape that fact by also claiming you have no time for morality, all that does is reveal you to be inconsistent. 9/11 was a good thing to have happened, despite the perpetrators not having good intentions, i.e. the perpetrators of 9/11 wanted to achieve something that I would not have preferred. You are invoking the concept of moral quality of an act, not me. No, Saibal you invoke the moral quality of the act by describing it as a good thing. What else do you think your doing by describing something as a 'good'? Having a cup of tea? The fact that the intentions of the perpetrators plays no role in your judgement is paradigmatic of the teleological nature of consequentialism. One of the many reasons so many people find that kind of reasoning unconvincing and shallow. Moral philosophy???. Well, I consider philosophy to be pseudoscience, I already told you what I think about morality, so I don't have to tell you what I think about moral philosophy. I'm assuming that you are using 'pseudoscience' pejoratively here which is silly coming from someone who believes in multiple realities which amount to a bunch of subjectively calculated sums. But the truth is that philosophy isn't even close to being a pseudoscience. Philosophy is all very 'meta' and exists to draw out the flaws in reasoning we all engage in. I'm going to ignore your disdain for philosophy, mate, because it is too embarrassing to watch people who engage in little else besides pseudoscience and metaphysics shoot themselves in the foot. :) Morality in previous centuries has been invoked to justify the burning of people at the Stake for blasphemy, no one at the time argued that this was immoral based on a reading of all those philosophers. Rubbish. Take slavery : for a long time justified by teleological claims that the suffering of the few was outweighed by the benefits for the many it was eventually over thrown by deontological concerns about the sanctity of self determination. And of course people did argue that slavery was immoral. Of course people did argue that burning people at the stake was immoral. And it was precisely because people did engage in moral philosophy and those ideas dissipated into society that we are now at a point where we can argue about the morality of eating a cow and can take it as given that torture is wrong. John is a good example, he doesn't read past the first sentence when I wrote hat 9/11 was a good thing to have happend, Well I did read past the first sentence, but I needn't have. Look, if the gears in your brain are grinding away and delivering up moral statements like '9/11 was a good thing' then its time to visit the brain mechanic for a moral m.o.t. Maybe, if you really fancy yourself as a moral nihilist, then change the gaskets and abandon the use of moral terminology. Compare: Supporting the Nazis was useful for the Arabs way back when with Supporting the Nazis was the right thing to do way back when Do you see the difference? I think having a go at people for taking you at your word is foolish. All the best. Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 03:07:46 +0200 From: smi...@zonnet.nl To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Nazi History of the Muslim Brotherhood Chris, No I don't need to invoke morality, the price I pay for that is to have to explain explicity what I mean by a good outcome, what measure I choose here to determine this, etc. 9/11 was a good thing to have happened, despite the perpetrators not having good intentions, i.e. the perpetrators of 9/11 wanted to achieve something that I would not have preferred. You are invoking the concept of moral quality of an act, not me. Moral philosophy???. Well, I consider philosophy to be pseudoscience, I already told you what I think about morality, so I don't have to tell you what I think about moral philosophy. Morality in previous centuries has been invoked to justify the burning of people at the Stake for blasphemy, no one at the time argued that this was immoral based on a reading of all those philosophers. So, it's of no use other than to condemn people we don't like. Not invoking morality will force you to use rational arguments. John is a good example, he doesn't
