Ten oz

No, I actually have considerable experience with this. Also at no point have I implied the answer to the question should have been no. Every military branch has public affairs personnel and every branch has vetted information and best practices for those who go before the press. That the Admiral is not the Commander in Cheif and must follow orders is a given. It is redundant to argue that. POTUS has nuclear authority, POTUS has the nuclear football with him, we all understand that fact. It was a hypothetical question about using nuclear weapons against a country which we aren't even currently at conflict with. A hypothetical order a reporter was making up and not an actual order from the President. Lets not conflate the two. Military members do not have to follow make believe orders. Public affairs personnel and most public representatives and or speakers are trained to identify pointless hypothetical questions and not fall into the rabbit holes they create. Especially when they are redundant or rhetorical. All of which is why official spokesman for The U.S.Navy's Pacific Fleet came out and did some damage control because it wasn't a question he should have entertained: The fleet spokesman later said the question was asked as an "outrageous hypothetical" "Frankly, the premise of the question was ridiculous," he said. "It was posed as an outrageous hypothetical, but the admiral simply took it as an opportunity to say the fact is that we have civilian control of the military and we abide by that principle." http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN1AC1TU

1 - It has peaked?No, it continues to worsen. According to the UN, 83,650 people have reached Italy by sea since the beginning of the year - a 20% increase on the same period in 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40470102 "The flow of refugees is steadily increasing, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR). As of mid-2016, there were 16.5 million refugees globally, 5 million more than in mid-2013. More than 30 percent of all refugees as of mid-2016 came from Syria, the largest source of global refugees." http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/03/27/518217052/chart-where-the-worlds-refugees-are 2 - Again, we are abandoning containment. Those stateless rebels won't just sit in place and wait tobe detained or killed by Assad. Where they go next matters. 3 - POTUS is the one tweeting and giving interviews saying he want to get along with Russia. Meanwhile Putin is decrying U.S. policy regarding sanctions and strongly defending Assad. Perhap you feel that it should be Russia who reaches out to the U.S. but that is not what is currently happening. 4 - We (U.S.) just bombed Assad facilities in April following gas attacks which Assad and Russia deny Assad was responsible for. Our policy is currently mottled and unclear. We have gone from hot to cold a couple times over in just a matter of several months.

There are such things as best pratices. No one here is has posted that the answer should have been no.

People in govt refuse to answer a variety of questions and or point out the silliness of them all the time. He should have just said " I am not going to hypothetically discuss using Nuclear weapons". Saying yes to a question about hypothetically incinerating an unimaginable number of people is in poor taste. Addressing the question as absurd would have been more appropriate. The use of nuclear weapons on a population isn't something one casually spitballs about. I have no doubt had the reporter asked if he'd drone strike his own children if ordered his answer would have been something more akin to my recommendation above. perhaps it was a bad question but it was also a terrible answer.

1 - Whether via an emotions, unconscious, subconscious, or etc it is all still a function of the mind. We do not have empirical definitions for an unconscious vs subconscious vs emotional process. Ultimately it all occurs in one mind (brain) and being aware that it occurred is a conscious recognition. Additionally memory is not reliable. People misrecall events or can't remember events they were involved in all of the time. The story involving to dog and the fence, said to have happened over a decade ago, it is not a good example for this discussion as there is no way to know what happened. It counts on the accuracy of a childhood memory that was charged by a fight or flight response. 2 - You are referencing a U.S. behavior. Police in the U.S. kill more people a week that than U.K. police kill per decade. The prevalence of police shootings in the U.S. vs other Western Countries supports the notion that training and education impacts response in fight or flight situations. 3 - Referring back to #1 do we have a clear definition for instrinct and a remote operator for action? You are asking why can't instinct learn yet some in this thread are arguing that there is no such thing as instinct. I personnally am not sure if it exists. How many drives does a person have and do we all have the same ones: emotional drives, instinctive drives, unconscious drives, subconscious drives, conscious drives, and etc.I think it overly compartmentalizing the mind to imply instinct vs something else is learning x, y, or z. Considering the fact whole portions of the brain is devoted to things like eyesight and hearing; I thing we've isolating process too much.

The definition I used is the actual definition: thought1 THôt/ noun noun: thought; plural noun: thoughts 1. an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind. https://www.google.com/search?q=termendous+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=thought+

From memory foam to GPS both the middle class and upper middle class have a lot to be thankful for with regards to the space race. Smartphones to LEDs technologies created by our space race have pumped trillions of dollars into our economy. It is myopic vision to demand knowing where research and development, discovery, will lead in advance. Columbus sought out looking for a short cut and on that front was a failure that lost Spain money. Initially all the Spanish and Italians cared about with regards to the Americas was gold but eventually realized the termondous profit values of Coca, Tobacco, Tomatos, Corn, Peanuts, and etc, etc, etc. It is impossible to know where colonization technology will lead. History has already proved our space program to be an huge success responsible for trillions of dollars worth or new technological growth and innovation.

Do people with body dysmorphia improve themselves or the world around them. What about people who suffer from depression and commit suicide?

Improving something is relevant concept. Humans believe we are improving our lives through industrialism and technology yet our actions are causing nurmerous species to go extinct. Additionally we are (to our knowledge) the first animal on earth with the ability and at times the inclination to whip ourselves out.

Thought is defined as an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind. With your story about the dog were you truly without thought; I do not believe so. A rush of adrenaline sped up your thought process and greatly narrowed your focus. Ultimately everything you did was still controlled by your mind and as such still falls under the purview of thought. That is why even when panicked Police, Pilots, Soldiers, Doctors, Fire Fighters, and etc are still accountable to do the right thing. Because fear induced instinctive reaction is not a medically or legally accepted thing. A police officer can't shoot and kill people then write in his report instinct took over and he or she doesn't know what happened. As for animals surviving on instinct alone I don't think we have a clear definition of what instinct is to make a clear statement regarding the extent it is used. If you take a healthy adult human who has no survival training and an average dog which has been raised as a standard family pet, abandon each in the wild alone with nothing I think the dog would fair better. Not because of instinct though. A dog's superior sense of smell and hearing would increase its chances of successfully scavenging for food and locating water. A dogs fur is better at regulating body temperature. The also see better in the dark. Using superior adaptations is not equal to instinct. If a dog knowingly uses its sense of smell to locate food than, in my opinion, it isn't instinct anymore than when we humans use our smell to see if milk has gone bad or the gas has been left on. Animals are not "perfectly attuned" to nature. The overwhelming majority of every species which has ever lived has gone extinct and the mortality rate of nearly all mamals is 50% or greater. Humans came together and built communities to shelter ourselves from nature because of how brutal and hard it actually is. Animals use the adaptations they have to survive. I believe using those adaptations require a learning curve and as such require thought. Wolves, tigers, killer whales, bears, and etc fail to catch prey countless times before they suceed. A learning curve is involved. Deer antlers do not evolve to be smaller so to deter humans and fish do not shrink so to wiggle through nets. That is not how evolution works. Rather it is the smaller fish and deer with smaller antlers which are able to reproduce are healthier numbers on the account of not being killed which results in the changes.

The word meaning is defined as what is intended by a concept or action. I don't think the natural world has meaningas there is no overall intention. For life specifically the meaning seems to be, in my opinion, to reproduce. It is the single most common drive all life seems to share. Beyond that on an individual level everyone must answer the question for themselves. Our minds are singular.

Evolution works via variables. If we were all perfect clones we'd never evolve. If aspergers provided a reproduction advantage than in the future it would eventually become the majority. I think it is a mistake to assume there is a specific way (mentally or physically) to be a normal or average human. From pigment pigment in our skin to the way we see color humans are all a bit. Which amongst us will be the Eve to some future common adaptation isn't something which can be appreciated in real time because society broadly views different( physiologically) as bad and that humans are some time of perfect and complete thing which won't continue to evolve.

Yes but is asking the question instinct vs consciousness does the value of the action produced matter or just the fact that an action was produced? I am thinking the later.

I think you are adding degrees. How well someone does something doesn't mean they have more or less of a mind being g that the word mind just describes the process and not the result. A terrible mind is still a mind.

How do we define the difference between brain and mind? Per standard defines the mind is just a process of the brain. There are no degrees or minimum levels of a brains ability to process or inherent instincts used to define mind.

Children born with disabilities like the various ranges of Asperger's syndrome may never how to manipulate others. Are they born without this instinct your describing?

I think imagination is the wrong word. If I was asking to imagine a car that could fly or a house that could be submerged underwater I would do so using knowledge I already have to a great extent. Desire or an urge is required to get people thinking beyond the limits of what they know. Imagination is just a tool heavily associated with knowledge. Urges can be without knowledge. Surely humans initially scavenged the body of a bison realizing they provided ample food. Then later when there was none to scavenged the urge for food drove humans to imagine a way to kill a bison. The urge had to come first though. The drive to accumulate the required knowledge to accomplish what until that point hadn't been accomplishable.

What is a "functional mind"? Babies can breathe, their hearts beat, they have sleeping and waking states, and etc. Those are processes controlled by the brain. Is there a difference between having a functional brain and having a functional mind?

Are you referencing the thread I created on the illusion of choice? Your respond would be perfect for that discussion. As for instinct and the idea of consciousness training a subconsciousness there are simply too many things one must do to survive prior to having training. A new born must know to up it's eyes, how to cry (vocalize), how to suckle, and etc.

This is a terrific question which unfortunately may not have an answer. For starters who are the legit Syrian population; anyone raised in Syria, only those with official citizenship, nationality (by law defined by the male paternity line), those who have already been displaced, or something else? It would be awesome if there was some magical singular group in Syria with which the world community could just consult. I would 100% support whatever majority position they took provided it didn't include violence towards their neighbors or elsewhere in the world.

I you read the post again you'll so I clear said considering this is a philosophy thread it doesn't bother me. So I concede this is just brainstorming. That is one of the reasons why no one in here has been hit with negative rep points. This is all just casual spit balling. I don't think life is needed for consciousness. If we define life in the traditional sense of something which reproduces, autonomously moves, consumer, exchanges gases, has a circulatory system, dies, and etc. One day artificial intelligence (AI) may become conscious without meeting any of the other various standards which Generally define life. I think in the OP I should have replaced the animal with mammal. I don't believe all animals are conscious but rather all mammals. Perhaps certain fish or reptiles but I am not sure. I used animal as a catch all but probably shouldn't have.

tar, I think what iNow is referring to is the way you present quickly refuted concepts as facts or fleshed out ideas only to modify and move the goal posts once confronted. Many times you seem to be attemoting to shift discussion to fit your thoughts rather than to shift your thoughts to meet the realities of the discussion. Considering this is a thread in philosophy it doesn't bother me. As a style of thinking you seem to be the sort which prefers to just exhaust ideas, starting with the ones you like, until something fits. It is normal unusual. However it can become problematic when one become disinterested in solutions once their own fails. Attempting all ideas until something works is only effective when one has the integrity, patience, and humblleness to follow through and attempt all options rather than walking away once their own are failed.

1 - It will worsen the refugee crisis as Assad with Russia's backing push for a climax to end the war. I think many anti Assad force probably just move bacck down into Iraq and escalate fighting there. 2 - We are abandoning containment on the false premise that stateless rebels can be beaten by singular actions on traditional battlefields. 3 - Trump has already indicated his interest is to find ways to get along with Russia. Congress won't allow the sanctions tobe lifted so Trump is attempt to hand over Syria as a token of friendship. 4 - It is a quasi civil war designed to remove Assad. The The U.K., France, Turkey, Russia, U.S. and others are all involved at various levels. It isn't a matter of The U.S. independently failing or succeeding. Ultimately this will not end matters in Syria. Thesystemic issues which have perpetuated conflict in the region have not changed and are not addressed by this.

True but is that conditioning or because those things we squash are not conscious and we inherently know that? People raised killing cows think nothing of killing cows. Fishermen who are accustom to killing whale do so without a second thought. I think it has more to do with what a person is conditioned to. I think regardless of intelligence the majority of people in the U.S. would kill anything which was a habitual nuisance. People kill people when being inconvienced muchless a mosquito which we can all agree is habitual a nuisance.

I didn't say life and consciousness were bound together. Rather I was just using life as an example of something which required a complicated process to arrive at yet is still binary in existing or not. Forward from conscious all minds are different. Turn the light on in individual living rooms and each room will be different. I am only attempting to go far as the light. Is the light on in animals; yes or no. The room which that light illiminates is a different conversation.