SteveWolfer

Great post, Peter! I've been reading it bit by bit - it is really rich, and it generates a lot of thought. I'll try to come back with some thoughts in a few days.

I think you missed what I was saying. If your thoughts aren't different from the neural activity how can you distinguish one from another. How can you say "my thoughts" and then say "neural activity" and say they are identical. If they are identical why do you have different names, different concepts, and different ways of talking about them exactly as if they are not the same thing. I'm saying that thoughts are thoughts and that they aren't the same as the neural activity that mediates a given thought.

In the late 1700s Americans were mostly Christians or Deists. Darwin hadn't been born and the theory of evolution wasn't an alternative. I read "endowed by their Creator" and I'm comfortable with thinking of evolution as our Creator or even just a fuzzy notion of "nature". But, in any case, what is important was that the rights came before government, not from government, and that government couldn't violate them ("unalienable"). I prefer to think of individual rights as a discovery, rather than an invention.

This must mean that neither you nor anyone, ever, can distinguish between a given thought in a given person, and a specific neural activity. They must - by your assertion - be the same, identical, indistinguishable. Actually, what you say implies that there isn't such a thing as a thought... only that neural activity. Clearly there is, at the least, something physical (like my computer) and a thought about that thing and the neural activity that mediates that thought about that thing. So, there isn't just the physical us.

Everything physical about us, goes according to physical laws. The laws of grammar and logic come into play as we construct sentences that convey the meanings we desire to communicate. The laws of epistemology and psychology are at work as we pursue our purpose. (I freely admit that I'm using the concept "laws" a bit loosely here, but contend my meaning stays clear and the logic isn't impaired. I also admit that each body of knowledge contains rules or principles that differ from other bodies of knowledge.) Personally, I'd feel a bit uncomfortable insisting that all of the other bodies of knowledge, other than physics, had to somehow have everything in them be reducible to physics, that all that I said and wrote and thought was just a product of a chain of quantum uncertainties (something that I could not prove or even find despite them being physical and a part of every human action that was mediated by neuronal activity). I'd feel uncomfortable using words, discussing thoughts, acting as if there could be meaning, asserting something as true, or just feeling that I'm me... if I took the positions you are taking. Physical things are more than the properties and principles attended to by physics. We humans created, and maintain, this body of knowledge called "physics" - it is, in its entirety, an abstraction from the reality. We abstract the physical elements. Neither that abstraction, nor that body of knowledge are physical things.

There is no question but that as I sit here composing this sentence, it is a process that is mediated by neural processes. But, the thoughts are thoughts. If I build a boat from wooden planks, when I sail it far out to sea, it will be much more comforting to think of it as a "boat" and not just a set of planks that happen to be going the same direction at the same time. The "boat" is real. I don't have to keep explaining to anyone that it is just wood planks. No. Physically, all that exists are the discharge of neurons and the migration of Sodium and Potassium ions across protein membranes. Physically that boat was nothing but planks. Physically, this sentence, if written on paper with ink would be nothing but paper and ink - no meaning - no subject - no predicate - no context - etc. I can code a software program that simulates blood flow in a cardiovascular system, and physicians can watch a graphic display of the algorithms output. But physically, it is only electrons moving through conductors and glowing LED elements. If you can't say that there is much, much more than just the physical dimension, then what are we talking about? Because we can conceptualize things, and because those things can be objective even if they are not physical, does NOT mean we are in a world of duality, or spirit-beings, or mysticism. You mentioned "neuron" and you say that is a physical thing. But you had to construct a sentence where you used a name (that once upon a time was made up) to symbolize the actual physical thing... but wait, it is a single physical thing, is it? It is a concept that subsumes an entire category of actual, concrete things. Then with rules of grammar, logic, and purpose, you converted a thought into a sentence where "neuron" - the concept - had something predicated of it. You got a long ways away from just the physical to do all of that. Let me ask, are you saying that we have no volition?

I don't argue with religious zealots.

If you think that only the religious have moral laws, then you are wearing self-made blinders. If you think I've rejected morality or moral law then you haven't read my posts. We are done.

America is unique and exceptional because it was explicitly founded to serve the individual by protecting individual rights. The founding fathers, some of whom were quite religious - others not at all, specifically kept Judeo/Christian views OUT of government and along with the states, ratified as the first amendment that government was to stay out of religion so that religion might remain a completely private matter. There are other governments throughout history and around the globe that have adopted religious values from which to form their laws. They didn't turn out well and to the extent that they pursued religious ends, they became tyrants and harmed their citizens. If you want to discuss religion as a net positive value, you came to the wrong forum and by now you'd know that. So, you must like contention even when it will serve no practical purpose.

I agree. Let's assume I was talking about a kind of cancer that is not preventable (so far as we know these days). That is what was in my mind. Physical law would exclude laws of motivational psychology, and motivational psychology would exclude physical laws. We construct areas of knowledge, but if they don't relate to reality, they are floating abstractions or some other kind of nonsense. Humans are a part of nature. We have a consciousness. There are things that are good for us and things that are bad for us. Nature (if we discuss it from the perspective of being what is not you, and not me, and not another person, might not give a damn about our thoughts on right or wrong, but that is a kind of anthropomorphizing, isn't it? A billiard ball doesn't give a damn, but this or that person might - so why put ourselves in the position of defining nature so as to exclude humans, much less the position of having taken that position, to then say non-humans don't concern themselves with our thoughts on ethics.

There are people who seriously believe that if you get cancer, you deserve it. Sometimes the reasoning is very backwards, as if they were saying, you got cancer, so you must have deserved it... maybe it is religious thing, like, "God only lets things happen to people based upon what they deserve"? I don't know... I just know that it doesn't track logically. If you think of what the meaning of "deserve" is, then you posit an outcome for a person who took no actions at all to cause that outcome, how can you say they deserve it without totally severing choice/values/actions from the meaning of 'deserve'? If I'm hit by a falling satellite, I deserved it? Nonsense.

That still makes no sense. Good, productive, intelligent people can be hosed by a bad government rule. Scumbags can sometimes find a legal loophole that lets them act badly and get away with it. There is an objective, actual government out there and there is a strict limit to the range of one's experiences of that government. Those are facts. They are independent of the liberal's collectivist views. A liberal might be having a good experience relative to ObamaCare - where is the justice in that? Do they deserve to live happily as a parasite? A person who fought hard and did everything they could to oppose ObamaCare might be having a bad experience with it. Do they deserve that?

There is a logical problem with that approach. Physical laws, physics, are a set of understandings and beliefs that make up a segment of our knowledge. A subset of our knowledge. We also have epistemology, another area of thought in which we have a set of boundaries as to what we will consider as belonging to that realm of thought. We have psychology. We have geology. We make these things up, not in a totally arbitrary fashion, but as an attempt to grasp what exists, and to do so in ways that will be useful. People had to make choices between alternatives they held in their imaginations to put these structures together. At some level, we have to say that volition is real and in a way that makes us causal agents. How can we know that? Because to argue otherwise is an attempt to use logic to deny that any logic exists and instead all is just as determined as the path of a billiards ball. There really can't be any soft determinism because we either exert some degree of independent choice, however small or we don't. The Cosmos is physical from top to bottom, but there are relationships between physical entities and their are abstractable physical properties of entities that we can grasp. In that sense, physics has no more validity than the rules of chess - in the sense that those relationships are understood in our minds. The map isn't the territory, yet it has to represent the territory. And without a mind, the words in a physics text would just be marks on paper. What Rand and Objectivism did was to present an objective moral code - to show that 'should' can be derived from 'is'. It isn't an arbitrary judgment to say that some modes of social interaction will be better than others as political environments for humans if pursuit of happiness of the individuals in the society is taken to be a good. If humans have any degree of volition, and if some things will give a better life than others, then moral law is only arbitrary if physics is also arbitrary - only if all things are arbitrary - only if we are incapable of grasping any truth, or only if nothing can be true. if we have any degree of volition, if we can reason, if reason can grasp facts, if reality is not only knowable, but exists as something other than an arbitrary state of flux where nothing stays the same ever, then there exist relationships we can understand that will fit in that area we define as 'moral law.' Physics, as a body of knowledge, isn't something that is intrinsic to the physical entities described. We created this body of knowledge to suit our purposes. But because we created it, and did so for purposes that we created, doesn't make it less than an objective description of the physical entities. Purpose is the key concept here. it is what helps bridge our understanding of how the laws of physics can be objective AND so can moral law. Purpose is a fundamental context.

Yes, I'd still say that government only has the capacity to prohibit, confiscate and direct force. Government starts with nothing but its mandate (which might be just and sensible, or not). From that starting point it can't produce - not in the way free enterprise activity in the private sector can. In the private sector, I could go with nothing but my hat in hand, persuade, borrow money, hire people, produce a product or service, and, hopefully, make a profit - that profit would be like new wealth. Government has to confiscate the money needed to pay the salaries of the government workers, pay the rent or purchase or construction of the buildings that house them, pay whoever publishes the advertising you mention. No matter what government does, if it involves even a penny of money, it will have to borrow that penny which will mean future taxes (confiscation), or tax (direct confiscation), or manufacture the money (which will be a confiscation in the form of reducing the value of existing money held by people due to inflation.) And confiscation always rests upon, and requires, the capacity to direct force. I'm not saying that confiscation, as such, is so wrong that we should never accept government because it must engage in a degree of confiscation. What I would say is that to have a proper government the confiscation is kept to a minimum determined by honest, best efforts at fulfilling the purpose of a government that strives to do nothing but protect individual rights. This keeps the directing of force (excluding self-defense and just retaliatory force by the government) out of the private sector and THAT is what makes for American exceptionalism. When you are free to make your own choices, when people can't use force or the threat of force, or theft, or fraud then you CAN be all you can be.

Greg, That saying about a people getting the government they deserve, it isn't about a different government for each person. It is a mostly true statement about a society over time. If someone dressed you as a priest and parachuted you into ISIS-held territory, the horror you'd face certainly isn't something you'd deserve. --------------- I disagree with the quote of John Adams that you provided. I'd say that the constitution had to be understood and supported by at least a significant minority of the people. ---------------- There are a lot of decent people, all around the world, who are victimized by their government. Their decency doesn't change the reality. Reality is what it is, and we may have some choice in how we experience it, and we each have somewhat different experiences, but those facts don't change reality. Reality exists, and our consciousness is conscious of it, and out of that relationship we form an experience. Our experience isn't capable of going out into reality and changing it in that fashion. ----------------- If by "higher moral law" you are referring to a moral code derived from scripture, or revelation, or any form of mysticism or faith, then we aren't on the same page in a way that is more fundamental than political principle. That makes absolutely no sense when you consider the hundreds of millions of people who throughout history have been killed, unjustly, by their own government. That would be saying that not a one of them was a person who was living decently. I can see that you have a set of beliefs and you are applying them to the world. But unless you are willing to use reason only to find ways to ignore facts, inconsistencies, and contradictions, then you have to be open to looking at those beliefs to see where they don't add up.

No. I was speaking of the nature of government. All government, by their nature have only the capacity to prohibit (backed by threat of force), confiscate (backed by the threat of force) and the capacity to direct force (as with police or military actions). This is an observation based upon the distinct difference between choice (free of the coercive effects of force or the threat of force) and force. Choice and force, like oil and water. But the line between them shouldn't be understood as so distinct that one couldn't choose to violate a law... thinking that way would be dropping context. There are laws that should you "choose" to violate the law you will open yourself to that government force. The government 'controls' society, as best as it can, for better or for worse, by laws which are backed by force. If anyone truly believed that government only controlled those who chose to be controlled, or that those being controlled believed that they were acting in their own best interests will find it hard to explain millions that governments have killed. Or, another argument: If all control were within the individual, then the practical difference between a horrific tyranny and small government that respected individual rights would be nil. A person can choose to violate a given law, but that puts them in the context of government force and that is where their future choices may be severely restricted (controlled). p.s., I'll take this opportunity to shamelessly plug my latest book on Amazon.com since I'm able to explain this position with greater clarity in the book than I can with a post or two: Wolfer's Primer on The Nature of Government

I love that display. I used it on my last sailing trip. It isn't accurate enough for daily planning, because it is based upon a model as opposed to site measurements. So, what you find in a specific area may vary from what is shown. But the patterns were very helpful to me. You can tweak it a lot with right-click menus - especially in that area on the bottom left of the screen - and with a double-click you can zoom in. You can also walk it back in time. I was able to determine that it would be too dangerous to make an early May trip to the bottom of Baja - and, sure enough, if I had gone I'd hit several tropical storms. PredictWind is a subscription service that blends models and very detailed site measurements to be useful for sailing (but it is nowhere as mesmerizing to watch. https://www.predictwind.com/

Hi Jules :-) ---------- I do think they have us "outgunned" but what 'we' are lacking is the understanding of individual rights and a gut level feeling for individualism. The founding fathers understood the proper political principles and most people then had that gut level sense of individualism. They were too close to the history of carving an existence out of a wilderness not too. Then there was the push to move West (as a child I met people who homesteaded, tough old ranchers, a trapper, even a train robber, and shook hands with people who knew Tom Horn - that old west was just a few generations ago when you grew up in Wyoming when I did.) Most of the good and the bad rested upon an informal individualism. Passing generations, a distance from the land, a massive increase in the safety net of national wealth, changes in culture and matching changes in our psychology have stripped away that sense of individualism because it wasn't formally locked down with enough people holding it explicitly. The grasshoppers do know that they are outnumbered by the ants... And there is a reason that they get so passionate about gun control (and it ain't compassion - it's fear). But those who are smart are frightened of the ants learning that they have rights and that the grasshoppers are supposed to work for them. In the antebellum South it was illegal to teach slaves to read. They are much slicker today in keeping the wage-slaves stupid - just make sure that the schools don't teach anything a progressive would find offensive.

Actually, it can control you whether you 'need the government' or not - it has that capacity. It regulates nearly every aspect of our lives. To avoid today's government would require an almost full time job researching how to not run afoul of it and it would require circumscribing your life very severely to, in effect, stay hidden. Who's for living far out in woods, off the grid, fearing the arrival of some authority to tell you what you are doing that is illegal? What people "need" from government is the protection of their individual rights. Beyond that a free market would take care of any needs. BUT, we don't have a very free market, so people end up using things like government-provided roads, schools, etc. It isn't this 'need' that is satisfied by something government does that is the root problem. These government supplied 'needs' grow in proportion to the size of government because that very growth preempted the free market from fulfilling the needs. The needs aren't the root problem. The root problem is ignorance on the part of a significant portion of the population as to what a proper government should be and what individual rights are. First comes ignorance, then comes big government, then comes the 'needs.' If you don't understand that the horse goes in front of the cart, you'll not get them moving. A 'weak dependent unproductive population' is the product of large government and of the political ignorance that let the government grow so large. Yes, the fiscal insanity is driven, ultimately, from the bottom up, but not like you say. It is that ignorance at the bottom that put those at the top in place and allowed them to do what they've done. Ideas (and ignorance of the right ideas) come first. Then come the actions and these have seen the unrelenting, progressive's growth of government.... creating and encouraging dependence as they go. This isn't some quasi-benevolent scheme where a group of people at the top said, "Wow, look at all these people who expect free stuff. Let's immediately grow ourselves a giant government and provide them." You got the "childish" part right. Political ignorance always finds itself stuck in some sort of collectivist paradigm where there will be elites (and/or thugs) to control the subjects/children. It isn't just a certain kind of philosophy leading to a certain kind of politics, but also leading to matching psychological patterns.

So, how does the EU respond to Brexit? Might they do something to punish the UK for leaving and do it in such a way that the UK has another referendum and rejoins and it ends up looking like the EU is a great idea and no one should ever leave it? That's what the EU might like to happen, but can they do it? If they can't get the UK to rejoin, then do they try to make an example of it for leaving, or do they try to move on as quickly as possible and focus on keeping the remaining nation members from leaving? The EU had its problems even before considering the loss of member nations. The British population were the deciders in leaving, whereas the political establishment in Britain and the EU were the opposition. But who are the real power in the EU? I don't know. From what I've heard it isn't their elected representatives, but rather it is a large set of committees that operate behind the scenes. But who, if anyone, do they take their direction from? When you can't locate a nexus of the power, it is hard to even guess at motives. Whoever is trying to steer the EU might be feeling more frightened than angry or they might be focused in a solely pragmatic fashion. It would be nice to know which. Nigel Farage is making a call for the EU behaving in a mature fashion and not go down the road of tariffs. He wouldn't be making that request if he didn't think it was possible that the EU might behave vindictively or stupidly.

Aha! Then if we are all just a part of a matrix it explains how value assignments (you know, cucumbers and such) are so flexible.

There we have the complete divorce of reason from reality. Value without people or production. Michael, your 'hambone' analysis was priceless. :-) And, as a matter of fact, for just a split instance I was transported outside myself and allowed to see the universe from the outside, and you were right. He has found a way to speak for the cosmos as to what the order of importance is for all things.

Michael... "How's that for a tangent?" That's cool. I attended the first really big Internet conference in San Francisco, about 1990. And I fell in love with the promise of what was to come. After that I made a living for many years coding HTML with Notepad, connecting to SQL servers and blowing away the old form-driven business processes. The discussions with Lightyearsaway are really only interesting for how consistently they are as wrong as the intellect could imagine. He presented a view of self-esteem that isn't from the self but a social construct conveyed by some social mechanism. He touts Chomsky for epistemology and politics. He seems fond of socialism which is the height of both immorality and inefficiency. And then a moral construct that puts cockroaches and cucumbers up there on a level with humans. What can someone say after all of that? That the conversation should veer off into the history of the internet was a strange tangent, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that it can veer off into the neuroscience of story-telling. Is that anything like some of the theories in NLP? (Strangely enough NLP is said to owe at least a small debt to Chomsky's transformational grammar.) There are several psychological theories built around the story-telling both as an explanation of human motivations and as therapeutic techniques.

Government can't invest one penny without first taking it away from the people that earned it. Government's lack of efficiency in all that they do says more about the decades than anything else. The portion of DARPA's budget that was devoted to the ARPANET was minor and just one project among a great many (like Star Wars - SDI, space travel, missile defense, etc.) Capitalism is constantly invested at far higher levels, and they take real risks - with their own money, not money confiscated from others. Capitalism without a massive government would have developed the internet sooner. I'm always surprised that there are still people who think that taking massive amounts of money away from productive people, giving it to politicians and bureaucrats will make an improvement over what we would have had without that massive pile of politicians and bureaucrats (and their cronies and special interests). You, who have believe in a cosmic importance of cockroaches and cucumbers over humans, and who seeks the extinction of human beings are in favor of lots and lots of humans... as long as they politicians and bureaucrats. Why am I not surprised.

You are talking about "ARPANET" which is to the Internet what an early bicycle is to a modern passenger car. ARPANET was based upon circuit switching ideas developed in the private sector. The packet switching it did (TCP then TCP/IP) was a brilliant invention but it wasn't "the internet." While government and academia were in charge, it grew slowly and in a very limited number of directions. ARPANET was totally discontinued in 1990. During it's time, the network never grew much beyond a few hundred computers and it was illegal to use for non-government business. I'm not knocking ARPANET because it was the start of something that, once free enterprise got hold of it, has become a stunning human accomplishment. It was the inventiveness of free minds backed by the risk of private capital that caused the resulting technical explosion. From 1995 to 2005 it grew 100 fold! With every keystroke, you are a recipient of the benevolent generosity of capitalism. Be polite. Say, "Thank you."