Concerning Iran and Other Nonsensical Rantings

[ChubbyTeletubby]

So? Don't drink, don't smoke? What do you do?

Was I wrong? Did anyone here even read my old posts (from like eons ago)?

I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, understandably. And of course you didn’t.

It's happening, though. Capitalism is the basic state of man and a democratic republic is just the logical extension of such a system. Freedom, relative at least, is the aspiration of all men. Capitalism has it’s flaws, BUT IT’S THE ONLY SYSTEM THAT WORKS.

And Persia is no exception.
I see a lot of hope in Iran. And Iraq. And Afghanistan.

Three diametrically opposed States. The uniting factor? HUMANITY. Not religion or culture. I hate both. Logical thinking and love are the only common denominators. That simple. Love and Logic. That’s it.

Fuck religion.

Fuck culture.

I see good things coming. If we can unite under a banner of logic we can save this earth and our species. And it’s happening before our very eyes. We should all feel proud to live in such an age. I’m sick of the whining.

SHUT THE FUCK UP OR DO SOMETHING, in other words.

My part? I don’t know. Still trying to find it. I know in my heart though that this is a pivotal period in human history and we are ALL responsible for what is to come.

That means YOU, too.

Oh no! He said culture is wrong!!!

Ya. I did. And it is. Only common human logic and morality is true. Morality based on logic. Logic based on morality.

They are one and the same. Oh...and so is spirituality. There is no seperation. There is only ONE law.

ONE truth.

ONE way.

Love & Logic.

Any ideas? Or is everyone here still too lazy to respond to my arguments?

[Usoki]

So? Don't drink, don't smoke? What do you do?

Was I wrong? Did anyone here even read my old posts (from like eons ago)?

I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, understandably. And of course you didn’t.

It's happening, though. Capitalism is the basic state of man and a democratic republic is just the logical extension of such a system. Freedom, relative at least, is the aspiration of all men. Capitalism has it’s flaws, BUT IT’S THE ONLY SYSTEM THAT WORKS.

And Persia is no exception.
I see a lot of hope in Iran. And Iraq. And Afghanistan.

Three diametrically opposed States. The uniting factor? HUMANITY. Not religion or culture. I hate both. Logical thinking and love are the only common denominators. That simple. Love and Logic. That’s it.

Fuck religion.

Fuck culture.

I see good things coming. If we can unite under a banner of logic we can save this earth and our species. And it’s happening before our very eyes. We should all feel proud to live in such an age. I’m sick of the whining.

SHUT THE FUCK UP OR DO SOMETHING, in other words.

My part? I don’t know. Still trying to find it. I know in my heart though that this is a pivotal period in human history and we are ALL responsible for what is to come.

That means YOU, too.

Oh no! He said culture is wrong!!!

Ya. I did. And it is. Only common human logic and morality is true. Morality based on logic. Logic based on morality.

They are one and the same. Oh...and so is spirituality. There is no seperation. There is only ONE law.

ONE truth.

ONE way.

Love & Logic.

Any ideas? Or is everyone here still too lazy to respond to my arguments?

Quoted for possible editting.

Personally, Chubb, it's not that I'm too lazy to respond to your arguments...I'm usually too lazy to even bother to read them.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

That's what I just said, Usoki.

Thanks, though. I appreciate it.

I really do. Thanks.



















































































































































































































































































































































I really mean it.

[Ryan_DuBois]

I don't know, Chubby. I usually read your posts, and you always say a few things I agree with and a few things that seem a little radical. I'd love to discuss this stuff and take even more time to analyze what you're saying, but alas, I'm a busy man these days.

That's why I usually don't comment on these political posts. The answers are usually more complicated and they require a lot of thinking about.

Still, I don't consider myself super lazy... Just a little.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

And therefore....

Sadly....

You are all bystanders.

So quit complaining. Just take it like a whore and say "thank you".

That's all.























































































































































































































































































































































































Spagett! Got ya!

































































































































































Spooked ya!

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

Love and Logic are concepts that don't run parallel paths all the time. Love is irrational in the extreme. Logic must be rational. Sometimes they cross paths, but when they diverge things get real ugly.

Anyway, I didn't read your old post. What did it say?

[Usoki]

Spagett! Got ya!

Spagett? What the hell is spagett?

[apotheosis]

I'm a big supporter of freedom and am sickened by the treatment of the protesters in Iran. Capitalism also seems to be pretty darn good. The one bone I have to pick with is democracy. It sounds good on paper, but it turns into a mess where you have uninformed voters and those elected are just the people who have the best mass media machine. I'd prefer a logical and just dictator to that.

That being said, I really hope change comes to Iran, but I fear that the protesters will be squashed and the "western world" will talk about how terrible it is and then move on.

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

I agree with most of what Apoth said.

Capitalism has some good points, but puts so much emphasis on wealth. It just doesn't seem contusive to happiness. I hate corporations and the power they wield in America. (I also love-hate some of them like Google.)

I watched this episode of Sliders one day where intelligence was accorded as much respect as most people give sports. I want to live there. It wasn't perfect, but I would have loved to live there. :: sigh ::

Iran's current situation is a crying shame. We probably won't help them though, unless we can get something out of it. Because hey, that's what Capitalism is all about! Otherwise we would have helped Tibet's campaign for freedom.

[apotheosis]

Well Capitalism was originally suppose to be something like applied Utilitarianism. It just went terribly wrong.

I guess the concept was that 1 util = 1 dollar. But then, as some accumulated more wealth than others, it was discovered that it is easier for a wealthy person to stay wealthy and for a poor person to remain poor, so ultimately, to a wealthy person 1000 dollars might equal 1 util for them while to a poor person, 10 cents is their util. In this arrangement, utility is not maximized and the greater happiness is not achieved. Oh well... it is fueled by human greed, and is therefore a system that will never run out of support.

Oh, and I think I saw that episode of Sliders, and I would love to live there as well.

[MikaelL]

Yes, love and logic.

This sounds more like poetry of sorts than politics.

Logic, and mathemathics, which is, essentially, the same thing, if I'm not wrong, aren't 100% dependable.

What you are proposing is something close to logical positivism. Logic should determine how society should be run. What is best for a community, for individuals AND as a the grouping as a whole, regardless of factors that aren't directly in contact with one, that is, personal preferences like sexual orientation, religion, music taste, whatever, is...

Ok, now I got confused. Let's try that again.

Things that are of personal preference, which don't directly have an influence over you, should not be governed or restricted.

If you want to have sex with a person of the same gender (or anything or anyone else that doesn't suffer from you, well, fucking it), it should be legally possible for you to do it. Nobody should tell you to not eat bananas, because most of the population likes apples instead. Simple, right? The foundations of negative liberalism.

Fuck. This is hard. Now I realize that after I've studied for the entrance exams of Helsinki University's theorethical philosophy, which is emphasized on mathemathics and logic, my brain has been switched to "theorethical", it's been alienated from the "practical". It's harder than before to think of this subject, even though I've done it before. Hm. Hm.

What I'm going to say now might be philosophically and/or scientifically completely erroneous, but I'll go for it anyway.

The human mind does not function according to the laws of logic. The world outside, reality, does. Certain physical laws that can be relatively well predicted (thanks to scientific research (and therefore cultural evolution)) rule what is and what is not possible in the world "outside", "out there".

A human being, is, before everything, a combination of different particles. Kvarks, electrons, atoms, molecules, in a certain combination. In essence, a biological, physical agent, which, like everything else, works according to the physical rules of reality. It is essential, in my opinion, that this is understood before any social or moral laws are constructed.

More to follow...

[MikaelL]

Yes, I'm currently writing in a library computer, as I do not own a computer myself. That's why the double post. And for some bizarre and probably a little bit insane reason, I do not wish to edit my previous post.

Anyhow, a human being does not differentiate, at least in terms of physics, from any other construct of different particles. A rock, a mountain, water, electricity. Everything, in the end, is one. The only difference is FORM. Chemical differences that made possible the evolution of organic matter, the reason why there is "life". It is also WHY we are the only creatures, constructs, certain combinations, that have the ability to think at such an advanced level. A level that allows the possibility of abstract thinking, cultural and scientific progress and, unfortunately, human suffering.

Nothing in the world has a reason. Nothing is "meant" or "ordered". People often confuse that evolution is something essential. Something that has a reason, a mission to fullfill. This is incorrect. Yes, all organic matter seems to aim to pass their unique (but irrelevant) genetic material to the next generation. Plants, microbes, animals, humans, they all "live" for it. That, itself, is "life". It's what separates organic from non-organic. It is the most powerful motivation of an organic being. Humans do not, in regard to this, have any "special place" in this. Biological evolution is the product of it's composition. The reason why plants and animals and mushrooms and whatever have specially evolved to pass some of their material beyond their own possible lifecycle is because that is how their construct as a whole functions! It's not a matter of choice. Now, I don't really know about biology that much, so I could be wrong.

Also, maybe there is a reason behind everything, a god, be it the universe or something (someone?) else. But I have no possible way of affirming that. At least none, that would satisfy my logical needs. Because of that, saying that god does not exist is just as much of a "logical illegal move" that saying that god DOES exist. It is "transcendental", over the boundaries of understanding and possible knowledge, as Wittgenstein would have said. This, of course, applies to ethics and morality. They cannot be taken, at least not, if one want's intellectual satisfaction, as "realistic beings", forces that govern reality in some way. There is no good and no bad. One great mathematician once said: "natural numbers were given by god. Everything else, in mathematics, is made by man". This applies to the relation between man, reality and morality. Everything humankind tries to rule out as "morally incorrect" or "sin", is his own work. Not the word of god. What I TRY to do, is to make opinions about the world around me based on what I SEE, not what I WANT to see, which is what 95% of the world population does. Of course, it is not always possible. As I said, the human mind does not work logically. But one must try, as the best way to make a working enviroment for everyone is understanding how things truly ARE, how they FUNCTON. To make a connection between mind and reality. Everyone is biased. It is only that scientists and philosophers are biased in a WAY, that "forces" them (in a way) to think realistically. When you try to understand how a machine works, you do not look in the surface and make a wild guess about it's mechanisms, or suppose that it works the way you think it MIGHT work. You open it up and study it's mechanisms. Only then can you fix or improve it.

Maybe not the best of analogies.

Shit, I'm getting out of boundaries. The walls are coming down. I have to throw a lasso over this like a cowboy with a cigarette between his lips, a bad shave and a 40 inch cock.

Allright, I have to go again. To be continued...

[MikaelL]

Back to the human mind.

So, a human being is an animal, an organic construct. There are no scientific grounds in which to say that he is "something else", something "holy". This does not prove, that it isn't so, but nothing in the perceivable world affirms it. Except religious teachings, which don't really prove anything, only declare it. The fact that humans are intellectually much more advanced than other species is irrelevant. They function with the same basic instincts and needs as any other animal.

However, as evolution has progressed, a higher level of thought was achieved. Abstract thinking doesn't really serve any biological purpose. It is an evolutionary ERROR. Like the tailbone or some other useless feature. Acytually, no, unlike the tailbone, as it is a reminisence of something useless, whereas human intelligence is an OVER-developed quality. Humans do not need it to procreate or defend themselves, which are much more basic instincts, not needing such high levels of intelligence.

Of course, any animal species needs SOME level of intelligence. If you look at humans as an animal species, we do quite suck when compared to pretty much anything else. We're slow, small and weak. A simple dog can kill us. It was quite obvious, that if we were to survive, it would be thanks to our intelligence. The origins of human thinking are, of course, in self-preservation and procreation. Ancestors of humans used instruments in a way much more advanced than other species. This allowed our intelligence to develop like with no no other animal. As a result, millions of years later, we have cultural evolution and all it's bittersweet fruits: art, science, politics, philosophy etc.

Normally animals with useless features of this magnitude die, get extinct. But human intelligence has the quality, apart from being "useless" in an evolutionary sense, in giving us an edge on our enviroment. In fact, it is such a quality, that we can pretty much kick any ass thanks to it. Humans can organise, form groups, plan strategies and tactics, plan ahead. In a phrase: adapt to their enviroment much better than any other animal species. That's the reason why we rule the world even being the physically shitty things that we are.

But intelligence is not NECESSARY. You see, the nonexistent "goal" of biological evolution is that our geneseed survives, not that we are happy. Animals have to have a life only bearable enough so that they don't kill themselves. Which I don't know if it's possible for any other species than humans. But that is exactly what humans aim at, thanks to our intellectual capacity. We aim at PROGRESS. At abstract things like happiness and the "good" style of life. That's what cultural progress aims at. Cultural evolution is the result of something, that has developed to a level, that it serves a purpose other than it's original one.

Humans are, in a way, ALIENATED from reality. Our culture tells us to be happy and make everyone else happy too! It is very probably not possible. There is NO such thing as a perfect political system. The human basic instincts are reflected in any road we take, be it communism or capitalism or whatever. Human nature and the subconcious desire to rule of some and the subconcious desire to be ruled of others is what will always warp a society that has it's leaders making decisions by themselves. Democracy doesn't work (or if it does, badly) exactly because of the reasons apotheosis mentioned. Any ignorant moron can vote without having the slightes idea of how things actually work or are. Also, the candidates which have the most money and the most nice things to say are usually the most likely winners. This can be remedied with good education, but cannot be completely fixed, as in the end, most of mankind is and will always be morons. And not because the majority of people are stupid, but because even the intelligent ones do not either care or don't want to. There's nothing really unnatural with it, it's just how we function. There are biological and evolutionary reasons behind EVERY decision a person makes. However, due to our high intelligence, man can pick a way of act that is not "logical" or "purposeful" in terms of why humans exist (as a biological being, an animal).

FUCK FUCK FUCK.

I refuse to write anything more right now since I've had this SHITTY PIECE OF TRASH library computer crash my browser now THREE TIMES. I'll continue when I have something decent to write with, instead of this SHIT.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Mathematics and logic aren't the same thing. Math always deals with sizes and amounts, while logic isn't necessarily restricted to that area. It's more like a branch of logic.

That being said, I'm not sure of anything (even that I'm not sure of anything). I'm skeptical of it all. That doesn't mean I don't have faith in certain things (I certainly believe that 1 + 1 = 2), but all knowledge seems to be based on empirical evidence at the foundations -- like Euclid's Postulates.

Anyways, nice posts MikaelL. I share a lot of the views included in there.

But yeah... Iran.

[xnull]

Logic, and mathemathics, which is, essentially, the same thing, if I'm not wrong, aren't 100% dependable.

You are correct. Logic and mathematics are the same thing, and are not 100% dependable. We develop logic and mathematics around some key central ideas which are simple formalizations of the ways that human beings can think. The Law of Non-Contradiction is perhaps the most central law, and is a codification of how the human mind can realize its universe. Deductive logic is used to show what naturally occurs as implications if these base statements are considered to be absolute truths. We know that mathematics are not perfect dependable, as even rigorous applications of the Law of Non-Contradiction can lead to contradictions.

Ryan is wrong. Take it from Mark Chu-Carroll, PhD Computer Scientist at Google as he complains about "crossword guy".

I suppose Ryan and I disagree in different contexts? Practically, hard logics are applied differently than hard maths. However, they are principally the same thing in theory.

We apply logic/math to learn new things from the things that we already know (and usually find things that we would never have just observed or guessed). Unlike early mathematicians and scientists, who attributed to their crafts the burden of being perfect and the possibility of unbounded knowledge, modern mathematical study has shown us the limitations of its own system.

Pythagoras, having studied the geometries in nature and the interrelations of rational numbers, began to attract a small occult. The cult dogmatically believed that the interrelations of rational numbers could describe everything there was to know about the universe. These Pythagoreans survived for some time after Pythagoras himself passed away and they became [essentially] religious in their mathematical studies. One member became turned when he produced a proof using sound logic that the square root of the number 2 could not be described as a rational number (a fraction with a rational numerator and rational denominator). When he tried to show his proof to others in the occult, he was assassinated.

This dogmatic faith in the power of mathematics can't be solely attributed to the Pythagoreans. Ibn al-Haytham, the inventor of the scientific method, was so sure of the strength of mathematics that he claimed to his Pharaoh in Egypt that he could control or regulate the flow of the Great Nile. Unable to substantiate his claim, Ibn had to feign insanity and lock himself in his house to avoid public execution. (He stayed in his home until the Pharaoh passed away; this spanned 10 years. He spent the time in private scientific pursuit).

Our beloved Laplace set loose his "demon." Laplace claimed that if one were to know the arrangement and velocities of all molecules in the universe at one given moment in time the entirety of future would lay open to your inspection by means of calculating the state of the universe in a deterministic mathematical fashion. Now we question the accuracy of Laplace's demon with views of nondeterministic models (on a quantum level) and doubts about emergant properties of deterministic systems (David Wolpert's recent cantor diagonalizations).

Since the 1900's we've become mathematical in our approach to disputing the power of mathematics (heh). While Alan Turing showed that finite state machines (theoretical devices we implement in practice with computers) are capable of computing anything that is computable on any other type of device, he also began the practice of defining certain sets of problems as computable or not. Today we have defined a large collection of problems incomputable. We know that there are problems to which we can't compute the answer to. Along that line we have Godel's Incompleteness proof, which shows that for any axiomatic system we ever invent there exist questions that it can never answer (and if we believe our universe to be axiomatic that there are questions that can never be answered by any process).

Between paradoxes, the incompleteness of axiomatic systems and proofs of incomputibility (and many more recent findings) we know that logic/math aren't 100% dependable. However, because we have modeled the systems after the ways that the human mind can think, and because we seed logic/math with basic ideas which we have very good reason to believe, they produce new ideas which we might not have just observed or stumbled upon which we should also have good reason to believe. This lends the credibility that mathematics needs to be adopted by the man who reserves skepticism for his own intelligence.

Things that are of personal preference, which don't directly have an influence over you, should not be governed or restricted.

I will argue that personal preference does have a direct influence over you. Every bit of information that we observe prepares us to expect more of the same, or more of the same philosophy. For example, consuming literature on the government coverup of dragons prepares your mind for the supernatural, and for a distrust in the government. If your mind is malleable to the idea that dragons exist, despite having little good reason to believe it, your mind is prepared to believe other things without good reason (ghosts, gods, nymphs, aliens). I don't mean to be reductionist. I understand that what an individual is like has an affect on his preference as well. This is a circular system. What the individual is like (and is exposed to, and is culturally partial to, whether he wants to have unique taste, etc, etc) defines to some degree what his preferences are and his preferences in turn changes him. I find that this circle is a particularly good reason to seek "good" and "intelligent" preferences.

Take for example the recent plague of vampirism in America. Children and adults alike have been prepared by their own personal preferences to believe that vampires could and do actually exist. Why does this matter? The fine tuning of the mind is important when moral decisions have to be made. In democratic societies, each individual is morally responsible to make an intelligent choice because the outcome of the choice has ethical impacts on his comrades. By reading nothing but fanfiction and emo poetry, the individual helps to decay the superorganism. (This can easily be extended to non-democratic settings - democracy was only used for illustration). Perhaps you want something better than vamparism. How about "The Secret"? Without question "The Secret" implied many moral and ethical implications, which if we were to believe would have to be adopted. I don't have numbers, but I do know that "The Secret" swept from housewife to housewife across America and did untold damage.

Essentially this is the same argument used for making gambling, drugs and suicide illegal, although more its more discreet. When an individual gambles, this is often seen to be a self-penalizing act. The individual takes the risk/profit tradeoff. If they hurt themselves, this is okay. However, typically individuals care for others, be it family or friends. When gambling, the individual includes, without permission, their friends/family in the risk/profit tradeoff. The argument extends to suicide and drugs, assuming that when an individual harms themselves they also implicitly harm those that they have close relations with.

When harming yourself intellectually with personal preference, you implicitly hurt those around you. If you spend your free time complaining "there's nothing on TV!" but watch television regardless and for hours each evening, despite it being your personal preference, you won't have very much to offer someone in need of deep quandary.

Do I think that legal action is warranted to eliminate bad taste? Yes. But not direct legal action. Liking "Fallout Boy" shouldn't be explicitly illegal. However, we should be doing incredible amounts more to push education into helping make an philosophical, intelligent and academic society (I would want this applied beyond just our small corner of the world). An academic, skeptical, intelligent, creative and philosophical nation would not like "Fallout Boy" or "The Secret."