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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (29977)	9/28/2001 1:22:52 AM
From: Poet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Powerful response. I'll follow along from the sidelines. This stuff makes my eyes roll unnervingly up in their sockets. I'm glad you all are talking about it.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (29977)	9/28/2001 12:07:45 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

And how exactly will you do that when many current theories of consciousness say it might actually be a function of same? But that is another discussion. Are there any current theories of consciousness beside Roger Penrose's that say this? I think the mainstream psychologist/AI types tend to stick to more concrete theories. I'd guess thermal noise would be a more relevant source of randomness than QM at the neurological level.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (29977)	9/28/2001 8:05:52 PM
From: St_Bill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

A running commentary: I left the weird implications of quantum mechanics out of this because they are weird and not helpful at the moment I don't think. It gets even weirder when you argue that reality is a function of consciousness, when consciousness is likewise a product of that same reality. Too confusing. So the Germans once believed in genocide, which, as you said, had (for them) some basis, but merely isn't a system that you support. Glad to hear it? Isn't this praising with faint damns? So whatever's a minority opinion ought to be protected as such? That of course is crap. Some points of view are intolerable, clearly. It's easy to think of examples. People who think blacks are mud people and not truly human. that's intolerable. And don't tell me that so long as they don't hurt anybody they can think what they want. This of course is trivially true. The important point is that ethics isn't about what we keep to ourselves. It's about what we do to and for other people. and what force has any belief, what meaning has it, if it does not show up in our actions? that's why real tolerance is difficult and not just a mindless matter of saying who's to say what's right or wrong, that whatever's true for you is true for you but not necessarily true for me. This sort of mindless, lazy relativism turns ethics into so much mush. Tolerance takes work,as we struggle to make the often difficult decisions about what, in the end, ought to be abhored. We make mistakes. We screw up. But any enterprise so defined as to mistakes impossible is worthless. Open forums are essential, but they mean something only if it remains possible to argue that of the opinions and beliefs that are forthcoming, some are better, more firmly grounded and more closely reasoned than others. Otherwise, what would be the point?