I don't think we need more science graduates in government, I think we need less politicians in government. (by which I mean that more people should be well versed in leading scientific and sociological theories to negate the unfortunate results of democracy)
It's not like the research isn't there, but myriad proven solutions (even if they only result in marginal benefits) are disregarded if a focus group determines that a political group may gain political capital as a result.
[editline]2nd July 2011[/editline]
I agree with Stlungle - each field is of utmost importance, and our potential is best reached through a concerted interdisciplinary effort.
In any case, most of the disparaging talk of humanities is unwarranted, as most fields have taken on the scientific method. It is certainly not as easy to achieve results, and even more difficult to determine the causative factors leading to those results, but that does not diminish their importance.
[editline]2nd July 2011[/editline]
Of course, I sympathize with those studying the harder sciences with regard to cultural fields, such as art and english literature. Often they can seem pointless, but they still serve as indicators of our society, and can show how society should be improved, and illuminate our own bias, albeit in a rather murky fashion.
What we do need is a more diffuse political system. Anyone that thinks a law is wrong should be allowed to voice himself and have his voice stand as tall as anyone else's. Logic dictates whether we should do something or not, not one's name.
[QUOTE=MountainWatcher;30847997]What we do need is a more diffuse political system. Anyone that thinks a law is wrong should be allowed to voice himself and have his voice stand as tall as anyone else's. Logic dictates whether we should do something or not, not one's name.[/QUOTE]
I don't really care for laws as such. I, and indeed friends of mine have broken a few minor laws before because, to be fair, the laws put people we cared about at risk.
There's this retarded rule here in Australia whereby you can only carry ONE passenger who's not a family member in a car that you're driving while you're on your red P plates. Of course when it's pouring down with rain, there's a lightning storm, it's the dead of night, and everyone is leaving a friends house several kilometres from home friends of mine were like, "fuck that, you're not walking! In the car."
In my opinion you do what is right... you ALWAYS do what you believe to be right. If somebody tells you otherwise then they are both a bad person and an utter imbecile. If you believe in something, no matter how small it is, you fucking stick by it.
I'm sorry, but that is really dumb. By that logic, Hitler, Stalin and everyone who has ever done anything had any right and responsibility to do as they did it because they were their beliefs.
There is only one set of beliefs to be had, and our job is to find that set of beliefs.
I don't believe there is some kind of objective set of beliefs, as well, it's plainly untrue. If you mean set of beliefs that have optimal results, that depends on your parameters. A society geared towards maximum agricultural production may have a significantly different belief system to that geared towards maximum scientific output (and obviously there are far more factors than that, making the whole matter rather complex).
I do think that, within specified parameters, the 'optimal' society is possible.
[quote]In my opinion you do what is right... you ALWAYS do what you believe to be right. If somebody tells you otherwise then they are both a bad person and an utter imbecile. If you believe in something, no matter how small it is, you fucking stick by it.[/quote]
I was about to disagree with you, but I suppose if you believe achieving the best results is the most 'right' course of action, then there's no contentious issue.
Even then, one shouldn't guard their views so well. Keeping an open mind is paramount, because it is possible to be wrong.
First of all, people aren't moral or immoral, because, as you said, there is no free will, which morality depends on.
Your actions then are decided on some kind of programming.
Now, what the body does is what the body wants, no matter what influences it. The body can experience 3 things: feelings, perceptions and thoughts, perceptions and thoughts are two faces of knowledge, so you have knowledge (data from the senses and from the mind) and emotions (the trademark of the consciousness, what defines consciousness, it is impossible to know without feeling (even if that feeling is indifference, which is different from not being able to feel about it) but not the other way around). Knowledge is nothing but replication of the world on your mind; therefore it can’t possibly propel you, just like the real world doesn’t, which leaves feelings. Now every feeling can be split into combination of happiness and unhappiness (each referring to different things), and happiness is good, while unhappiness is bad. Therefore, every single last thing we do is propelled by happiness.
Happiness is this programming. You do whatever you think will make you happier, you and you alone, because you are incapable of feeling other people's emotions, and you evaluate situations and their level of happiness using ideals, or tastes.
These ideals are the ones that can be judged, and all you need to do to do it objectively is assume that happiness is objectively good, which it is, because worth (what makes something good) comes from consciousnesses only, and if happiness that propels us, then it is the only thing considered worthy of having, good, possessing worth.
And if your happiness is objectively good, then it is a characteristic of the universe and applies to everyone, same for all other consciousnesses.
With this follows (if you assume that happiness is the ONLY thing that is good, which it is, all human experiences eventually come down to a balance between happiness and unhappiness) that the sole rule for human conduct is maximization of happiness.
This is all premise. Now, tastes are divided into two mechanisms. The happiness, which comes from the realization of a taste, which is entirely subject and molded, and the consequences which are the natural consequences of the action, which depend on the nature of the action and are strictly objective, as they depend on the laws of physics and logic.
This is where the grading starts. The better ideals, the more efficient ones, are the ones whose consequences allow for you to perform more actions from which you will receive happiness, the happiness you get from the realization of the ideal does not come into the equation because you can mold to have any ideal whatsoever, you can't mold the laws of physics.
Medicine allows for one to live longer and better, sadism and violence do the opposite.
I mentioned how the one rule is to maximize happiness, but how should we?
There are rules, laws to the mechanics of happiness.
Firstly, we'll assume that happiness, as something that can rise and decrease can be measured in a numerical fashion. What is very hard is to find a scale, but that is not needed for the argument.
The first rule, which I already mentioned, is:
Every unit of happiness felt by any consciousness, in itself, is of the same value
The second one is in regards to happiness distribution.
Assuming person 1 has X U.H (units of happiness) and the other one also X/2 U.H., and we have an object which will, on a determined standard person, produce 50 U.H. and assuming that no other difference between them exists other than level of happiness (and that the object will produce happiness and not unhappiness on the people), who should we give the object to?
The sad person, merely because the less you have, the more of a happiness boost you will receive. Inversely for unhappiness, the unhappier you are, less importance you will give to bad things.
The second rule then is:
The same stimulus will not provoke the same variation in happiness of two equal people, disregarding their happiness levels.
Now, we know what is “moral” (i.e. efficient), and we (sort of) know how to figure out which situation is better when presented to us, now we need to see how we can predict situations.
Let’s imagine we have this situation.
A man must choose between taking or not taking a 5 dollar bill from someone, all other effects are neglectable.
First, we need to find all possible consequences for each outcome and attribute them a happiness value. For the sake of argument, let’s assume money’s happiness value is equal to its monetary worth.
You get Situation A (he does) where we have Hpv = 5-5 (+5 for the man and -5 for the man he took the bill from) while situation B has an Hpv = 0+0 (nothing changed)
So both situations are equally valid, but what if we can’t (and we can’t, thanks quantum physics!) predict the future with a 100% rate of success, then we need to factor in probabilities.
Let’s think of a bet, would you bet your entire money for a chance at getting 5 dollars? It’s not ver y wise, but how do we calculate that one. Easy:
Situation A(he does) you get an Hpv= 5(dollars) x 0.5 (chance of winning) – 10000(his money) x 0.5 (chance of losing) while you invert the happiness values of each stimulus for situation B. Situation A is then the preferable choice.
BUT there’s a possibility the man running the wager shoots you if you win, you must also factor that, there’s a chance he’ll shoot and miss and the man ends up killing him because of it. There is a chance the man who just died were a future Hitler, or maybe that he would be future Hitler’s murderer.
A nigh infinite amount of probabilities that must be factored in, but ones we can ignore since the probabilities of the guy being/killing the future Hitler are near identical in both situation so, when putting one against the other, we can ignore them.
And it's not that it can't be measured. It can, we have been doing so ever since we were born. If happiness levels fluctuate and we know something makes us happier than something else, then we've been using numbers (estimations) all the time. What's VERY hard is using a standard unit. That depends on the brain; I'm thinking maybe concentration of happiness hormones or number of neurons fired. I don't know enough about the brain to talk about this.
Copypasta on my thoughts on the subject, sorry if it deviates from the subject.
[QUOTE=MountainWatcher;30850393]I'm sorry, but that is really dumb. By that logic, Hitler, Stalin and everyone who has ever done anything had any right and responsibility to do as they did it because they were their beliefs.
There is only one set of beliefs to be had, and our job is to find that set of beliefs.[/QUOTE]
I'm not saying laws shouldn't exist, or law enforces shouldn't exist, but if there are laws that you disagree with then you should by all means fight them. Hopefully if I was in an overloaded car at midnight in a thunderstorm a cop would see reason and be like, "okay, yeah, you make a good point: that law can be pretty stupid sometimes."
[b]Most[/b] people aren't insane lunatics like Hitler or Stalin so it doesn't really matter too much. Those people are huge statistical rarities when you consider how many people have ever existed, and either way (laws or no laws) they'd still do what they did. And because [b]most[/b] people aren't genocidal morons like that the people who are will eventually fail and pay for their crimes.
Which doesn't matter. What you said was that someone's beliefs, no matter what they are, are always what should be strived for, regardless of who (or, much more importantly, how they do so) tells you it's wrong and shouldn't be done.
By that way of thinking, any action whatsoever is justified. If I throw myself of a cliff because it's my belief that there is no gravity, then I should let no one stop me.
[quote]And it's not that it can't be measured. It can, we have been doing so ever since we were born. If happiness levels fluctuate and we know something makes us happier than something else, then we've been using numbers (estimations) all the time. What's VERY hard is using a standard unit. That depends on the brain; I'm thinking maybe concentration of happiness hormones or number of neurons fired. I don't know enough about the brain to talk about this.[/quote]
We're unable to quantify happiness at the moment. We can't do it via serotonin concentration (or SSRIs would be far more effective than they are), and neuron firing isn't feasible or accurate. Which sucks.
You seem to be knowledgeable in this area, any ideas on how we could quantify happiness in the future?
[QUOTE=MountainWatcher;30861997]Which doesn't matter. What you said was that someone's beliefs, no matter what they are, are always what should be strived for, regardless of who (or, much more importantly, how they do so) tells you it's wrong and shouldn't be done.
By that way of thinking, any action whatsoever is justified. If I throw myself of a cliff because it's my belief that there is no gravity, then I should let no one stop me.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the terms used were fairly vague. If stlungle said 'violating the law is legitimate and reasonable in certain circumstances, and some laws are ridiculous enough that it should be legitimate to violate that at any point', then I would agree with that.
Well, I wouldn't call breaking the law legitimate unless you want Gottlob Frege to come around and slap your shit, mang. :v:
[QUOTE=MountainWatcher;30862325]Well, I wouldn't call breaking the law legitimate unless you want Gottlob Frege to come around and slap your shit, mang. :v:[/QUOTE]
Which is a problem of rigid logic - reality is never as neat.
Simply being a law does not make something legitimate, and the matter is confounded as legitimacy is a contested subject anyhow.
[editline]3rd July 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=MountainWatcher;30862156]You seem to be knowledgeable in this area, any ideas on how we could quantify happiness in the future?[/QUOTE]
Well, we'd need to separate the various components of happiness (which has been done, to an extent, but not heavily researched from what I can tell), and then attempt to quantify each of those.
Actually, it is, since the definition of legitimate is "according to the law", formal logic is the shit, man, it perfectly conveys our thought.
[QUOTE=MountainWatcher;30868808]Actually, it is, since the definition of legitimate is "according to the law", formal logic is the shit, man, it perfectly conveys our thought.[/QUOTE]
And that is the problem using dictionary definitions - most things have a significantly wider scope than what can be put in a dictionary. Why does law have to be legitimate? That assumes that the mechanism which creates those laws is legitimate, and that the state has the authority to coerce you to obey, or punish you if you do not. Depending on you talk to, the state's coercive authority can never be legitimate.
[url]http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/authority/[/url]
for various viewpoint on legitimacy
You are using a different definition that the one given by the language, the dictionary. And you CAN put it in a dictionary, you already did: according to law, but you're going with a different definition.
Well, in your favor, there ARE multiple meanings for legitimacy, but they both mean "according to some kind of law, formal or informal". I guess you can squeeze moral laws in there.
[QUOTE=MountainWatcher;30883633]You are using a different definition that the one given by the language, the dictionary. And you CAN put it in a dictionary, you already did: according to law, but you're going with a different definition.
Well, in your favor, there ARE multiple meanings for legitimacy, but they both mean "according to some kind of law, formal or informal". I guess you can squeeze moral laws in there.[/QUOTE]
My point was that you can't explain it fully in a dictionary - you can't put in a rawlsian account of legitimacy, or Woolf's assertions regarding the impossibility of legitimacy. When I speak of legitimate, I'm not speaking of codified laws, be they moral or otherwise, because I draw a distinction between philosophical (ie justifiable) legitimacy, and legitimacy that lends itself to the use of coercive force (aka 'right to rule/authority'.
You don't need to explain it fully on a dictionary. Whether it exists or not, its characteristics or its nature don't matter. You merely need to explain what the concept is. That's why a dictionary on morality does not need to mention Kant or Miller, it merely needs to state that morality is what is good.
What I'm saying is that the definition of the word "legitimacy" refers to laws of state only. Apparently, I'm wrong.
What the fuck are we going to do when we reach the point where developing new technologies is faster than implementing them?
that will never happen.
people would stop developing if nobody was implementing it.
I like the cleavage stage in cell reproduction because it reminds me of boobs. That's how I remembered it. That's how I remembered it, I knew the cells pulled a part, and it was called something to do with tits. Then I would go oh yeah cleavage furrow.
"We used to think of black holes as the great guzzlers of the universe, that they actually, um, started to suck in everything around it. What we're finding now is that black holes are in the center of every single galaxy, and they come in all sizes. [...] We're realizing that black holes have something to do with creating matter in the galaxy."
Kill me now. How can people not understand orbit?
[editline]7th July 2011[/editline]
Fucking Doctor Who as well, season 2 of the new series, they fucking claim it's impossible to orbit a black hole. Grrrrrrrrrgh.
The two statements are probably not connected, he probably means Hawking radiation, not extra matter to balance to one the black holes supposedly eat up.
She. And she is a new age faith healer. So I think you are being too optimistic.
Oh, probably intentional then. New age faith healers aren't known for being good at science.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;30970062]Fucking Doctor Who as well, season 2 of the new series, they fucking claim it's impossible to orbit a black hole. Grrrrrrrrrgh.[/QUOTE]
Honestly, Doctor Who has truly B-grade technobabble. The show is wonderful, but some of the shit that happens in it ruins the immersion.
Also, there's no consistency in the way time travel works, at all. AT ALL.
[editline]8th July 2011[/editline]
And I used to watch it religiously.
I don't mind when shows are wrong when it comes to science, but I hate how a lot of doctor who fans will claim that they are huge science nerds when they really just watch a TV show.
As a joke I shut one of my friends in a cool-room at uni when we were doing a prac (only for like 10 seconds) and later on we went for a drink at the pub.
I remember we discussed the cool-room prank and how sometimes in horror movies and such people get locked in cool rooms and I brought up the point that a refrigeration device needs to use a heat pump to move warm air from one location to another, thus cooling one area down, while heating the other up.
Wouldn't the heat pump be somewhere close by (as in through the wall), if not partially IN the cool-room itself? And if so, couldn't you just break the damn thing by hitting it with something repeatedly until it wouldn't work? The room would probably be pretty well insulated, so I'm guessing it'd take a while to warm up, but it would get there eventually.
[QUOTE=sltungle;31024423]As a joke I shut one of my friends in a cool-room at uni when we were doing a prac (only for like 10 seconds) and later on we went for a drink at the pub.
I remember we discussed the cool-room prank and how sometimes in horror movies and such people get locked in cool rooms and I brought up the point that a refrigeration device needs to use a heat pump to move warm air from one location to another, thus cooling one area down, while heating the other up.
Wouldn't the heat pump be somewhere close by (as in through the wall), if not partially IN the cool-room itself? And if so, couldn't you just break the damn thing by hitting it with something repeatedly until it wouldn't work? The room would probably be pretty well insulated, so I'm guessing it'd take a while to warm up, but it would get there eventually.[/QUOTE]
usually there'll just be exposed piping in a fridge or similar device which runs out through the insulation to a heat pump.
i'd imagine for something as large as a walk in that it would actually be on the outside of the building
[QUOTE=mike;31106988]usually there'll just be exposed piping in a fridge or similar device which runs out through the insulation to a heat pump.
i'd imagine for something as large as a walk in that it would actually be on the outside of the building[/QUOTE]
Right, but a heat pump moves warm air out of the fridge/cool-room to cool it down. So the pipes HAVE to lead from somewhere in the cool room to somewhere external to the cool room. So, if you can find said pipes and break them, or even just clog them up, shouldn't you be able to stop the room from cooling down anymore?
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