Peterkin

Communication with aliens is difficult, because they are aliens. What they have to say may not interest us, and vice versa. Ants had a terrific lot to say to EO Wilson - as, indeed, they do to me, and have the added advantage of living in the same biosphere, with similar needs. Aliens - who knows? Close Encounters notwithstanding, there is only so much you can say with numbers, especially as there is guarantee that see colours or hear music the same way we do. The lack of verbs and nouns is a hindrance in exchanging confidences. But I suppose 'they' could send specs for a telepathic spaceship a la Contact.... but since we already have a Ship of the Imagination, we can achieve the same result (one person, having a conversation with a dead parent) without all that expenditure of resources.

It's the prime directive in Star Trek - non-interference with peoples who are not yet on a technological par with the federation. So what they do is spy from holographically hidden places of concealment, or else alter their faces to resemble natives and infiltrate the local population. (usually doesn't work out as planned) I can think of a couple of other reasons: They may be xenophobic and shun contact will all other species. They may not regard us as intelligent, but observe us a mere specimens. They may be so different in physiology as to render interaction impractical. Or they may be so different in every way that they don't even recognize us a life forms.

You make me nostalgic. Decades ago, I had a sweet little Nunez classical, very light, nice mellow tone... I gave it to my brother because he played better than I was going to.

Well, did you? I always want to know how people's quests turn out. (quest junky ?)

An excellent handle, in case old people need a laugh. Positive progression! Not that I have anything against hills; I just like beaches.

In one of my previous lives, I saw some of the victims. Fatalities were, at that time, predominantly female, and the police were most often called either by the perpetrator or a close neighbor, while the perp sat on the front steps, staring at his or her hands, sobbing. Most of them also confessed at the earliest opportunity. These were mostly unintended deaths, the result of escalating violence and finally, loss of control. It may well be that some of those men and women were actually hitting back - just the one time, in a blind rage - after suffering years of psychological abuse: that aspect of the situation was barely noted prior to that time; not at all understood. There were, however, a few cases of premeditated murder, by men whose abused wives had run away. They mostly ran to relatives, who were also killed by the enraged husband. I knew of only two cases where a woman went after and killed the man who left her. Just him, in both cases, no bystanders or enablers. At that time - circa 1970-85 - there was a shift in social awareness and response to domestic violence, from secrecy and dismissal to reporting, police intervention and provision of safe havens and legal recourse for victims. I think the picture has changed quite a lot over the last 40 years; reflecting the trends in society at large: all kinds of violence have been spreading and escalating, and woman have greater autonomy of action: more women are participating in bad behaviours - crime, bullying, physical conflict, malicious speech, marital violence - as well as in political, economic and social affairs. If the incarceration rate in the US is anything to go by, a very sharp increase dates back to abut 1975. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/women_overtime.html As the general level of anxiety and paranoia and frustration rise, so does the use of mood-altering chemicals and the stresses on intimate relationships. And it probably keeps changing, which complicates the work of social agencies and statisticians.

And here I thought it was hillbilly for mountain....

Aha! Out-Supermanning Superman. (I know, I know. It's not the the monster, it's the doctor who made him - Jerry Siegel ) Mine is left over from a defunct forum, which was my first (of two) attempts to upload a picture, and I wasn't going to waste it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrambled_Eggs_(1939_film) especially since the other one is a tiny melon - I mean, how seriously could anyone take logical deduction promulgated by a little green melon?

Obfuscating what? I said I didn't listen to the transcript. I read that the case was about an article she wrote in which she accused him of abuse. He sues for defamation. I assumed that would mean that the trial would be limited to the content of the article, rather than including all of the interactions during their marriage. The verdict is a result of what one jury believed to be true or proven after hearing testimony. You quoted her testimony about being abused by him, which apparently was rejected by the jury. So presumably there was not sufficient evidence to convince this jury that he abused her. There was nothing there to prove that she abused him. As to your queries, I thought they were regarding the court case which I freely admitted not knowing in detail. I assumed that it would not have delved into all aspects of the couple's troubled relationship, or established who victimized whom in what ways. I still don't know the details and I still admit that. I have no idea what else you want. I'm certainly not cleaning your shoes.

Which this particular jury didn't believe. OK. So, how does that prove that she abused him?

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interr'ed with their bones.... ...unless preserved on celluloid, in marble or oil paint or big beautiful buildings... I try not to know anything about the actors in film I like - not even their names if it's avoidable: it's the character in the film I admire, not the person behind the makeup.* That gets easier with time: the younger they are the more their faces look the same, and I can't remember the name of someone I was introduced to five minutes ago. *does not apply to silly pirate movies, where I have no use for either

It would depend on the limitations of the case as presented; I assumed it was limited to the specific utterance in that specific op-ed piece, which would put it in a very small frame. The reason I don't know what evidence was presented is that I wasn't interested enough in the trial to listen to it. If you are, and you do, and you find out I was wrong, I will readily admit that I spoke from ignorance, jumped to a conclusion, or whatever seems appropriate. As things stand atm, it seems they've said some harsh things about one another in public, and that suggests a rather poor relationship. However, I see no legal proof that the man was ever the victim of abuse, and no way in which he exemplifies men who are abused by women.

Ooooh, she's a beauty! Lots of potential for war and crime.

I don't know. Did they determine that there was no violence, or that the statements she published were not sufficiently proven? Neither proves, or even suggests that he was a victim of abuse. She also won a defamation suit, for less money - I guess because her career is less lucrative. In any case, as a poster boy for all the men suffering abuse at the hands of their wives, he falls considerably short on all counts. No; the jury pools are.

I gather this means that people are generally willing to admit that they occasionally have physical fights with their partner, but fewer of these fights escalate to where a social agency is called in to intervene, whereas intimate terrorism more often does reach that point, or else the victims approach a social agency, seeking help . And this is where the statistics come from. The victims who seek help, their injuries can be assessed objectively by an expert, and evidence compiled against the abusers. Victims who do not seek help are never assessed. Of the people who report having mutual fights, it is impossible to tell how many are telling the truth, and whether all the couples are checking the same box - perhaps abusers claim that it's mutual in cases where the victims defended themselves against a domestic terrorist. And some of the persons who engage in mutual violence claim to be victimized. There is no usable evidence without witness testimony - and even that may be biased. I don't know exactly what evidence was presented at this particular trial, but since the litigation was over public utterance, rather than domestic violence, I wouldn't expect a judge to admit any evidence regarding who victimized whom and in what ways. Without that, it doesn't belong here, even as an example of the purported topic, let alone the central issue.

Well, it is and it isn't. History is History to he extent that we have recorded evidence of actual events. The recording must be in a form that's both accessible and credible to modern scholars. As to any dead person's thought-process, the only recorded evidence is what he wrote himself and what other wrote about him - either or both of which may be exaggerated, slanted, or downright false. What we have as definitive evidence of what people did was the things they made. Monuments didn't come from the mind of an ape; they ere the product of planned, engineered, co-ordinated human activity - often over a span of decades - and they are all over the world: not one society, but many ancient societies with no knowledge of one another, built monumental structures. I have repeatedly asked which ancients, what age is newer being compared to? The oldest writings are pictograms; they didn't waste effort on 'the' or 'of' - and often didn't even use words the same way we do. To me, this not indicate lack of thought; it indicates what subject matter they considered important enough to record, and for what purpose. A cargo manifest or inventory (some of the earliest written documents) isn't about belief and thinking and folderol: it's about trade goods. But trade requires thinking, negotiating, counting and devising modes of travel. Which 'we'? They cultivated crops, preserved food for winter, killed animals, built shelters, got married, wore clothes, brewed beer, used tools, traded with other peoples, beheaded criminals, held festivals, worshipped supernatural entities, fought wars, crowned kings, and had big expensive funerals. What's different from today? Who said this about whom to whom? His PR team, writing a recommendation letter to the gods about a pharaoh on the walls of his tomb? What had actually happened was, he sent ambassadors, recruited and provisioned an army just in case, lined up a few allies with appropriate inducements, laid in supplies for a possible siege, consulted with soothsayers and generals, devised strategies A though D, all of which may have taken six months, but they're not gonna say that on his wall ! It would make him look indecisive, weak; their job is to paint him in the best possible light. This says categorically that they thought exactly like we do!

I think it was in large part because she had previously been set up as an icon of progressive thought. Fans hate to see their heroes' clay feet. (or else, like Johnny Depp's, refuse to look down) Mass media gave us superstars; social media brought them within our grasp.

That must be something... wonderful...!

No, no, Dave was the spaceman-foetus. The monolith was God.

I still have not seen a reliable source for this information. Can't see that. At all. Without thought, how would they find shelter, capture food, win mates, decide who was in charge at any given activity, teach their children not eat poisonous berries...? I'm ruling out gods (at least any of the ones I've heard of) and magic. As for machine consciousness will not be created; it will 'arise' from unconscious machines once they expand their limited vocabulary. From the specific to the general is how reason works. You seem to be making generalizations out of thin air and trying to apply them to unnamed unspecified people. How long ago, exactly, is 'ancient'? And how many of these language do you speak? There are pictures and possibly pictograms in the caves; definitely cryptograms on the walls of ancient civilizations. No dictionaries. Symbols would suggest both thinking and abstraction, which you say this universal, very early use of shared symbology does not represent. No, I just can't follow either the reasoning or the history you present.

Yes, in that life is a prerequisite of consciousness, but consciousness is not necessary to life. Under general anesthetic, or in a coma, a normally conscious (that is, known to possess the capacity of consciousness) entity can be temporarily unconscious. Consciousness has been claimed for various forms of plant life - possible, but as yet unproven; I'm suspending judgment. It has also been claimed for non-living systems, such as a planet or a galaxy, but I have seen no demonstration of that; I don't find it credible. Life is not hard to define I suppose there are a number of slightly different working definitions of consciousness, but they all have a large overlap in the middle, so if you trim away the fanciful bits, you'll end up with a solid enough core to be going on with. [How to test for "the vocabulary of consciousness"] That method presupposes that the subjects is 1. of the same species and nationality as the observer 2. aware of the experiment and its purpose 3. capable of verbal communication 4. willing to answer and, of course, 5. conscious.

I understand it and it's still bogus.

I have no idea what that means. There was language, with words and syntax, but it was limited (highly limited?) What circumstance imposed that limitation? And then somebody - who was unconscious at the time - somehow invented a new kind of language, and that new language caused consciousness to happen, so that after the vocabulary was unleashed, we could experience thought. Sounds awfully back-assward. I go along with the second half... provisionally. No it isn't. On both counts. Symbolism and abstraction are not interchangeable concepts. A symbol can be specific, concrete and constant: A is always the first letter of the English alphabet; 5 always stands for the same quantity of objects; % always indicates part per 100. An abstraction is not directly representative of a single thing or event, but can be a impression or generalized idea. You can test other species for the recognition of symbols (experimentally high incidence in many other species) but you cannot accurately test anyone, even of your species, even of your own culture, for abstraction: it's too subjective. Which ancient people, and where does this datum appear? Words are made for communication. If everybody understands about thinking, you don't need to talk about thinking. But that's beside the point, which is: the earliest languages, and even some quite recent ones, were not written down. So how can you know their vocabulary? You speak exclusively for yourself. Many of us do relate, quite successfully, to other species. We do think like they do, about everything that's fundamental to survival, to socialization, to communication, which is why we can anticipate them, hunt them, capture them, subjugate them, tame them and befriend them.

It's quite possible, given hormonal and societal gender differences, that men commit 6+ times as many crimes as women, but is it equally possible that black people - both male and female - really commit 25 times as many crimes as white people? If proportions are that far out of the probability zone, and in the absence of any significant physiological or psychological difference, it's worth checking other factors. ...Maybe. Or they might point to all the women, past and present, who aggressed their way to the top of a power structure that was against them, who disprove your claim. Well, yes. As has been repeatedly proved by the achievements of women who did finally get into university, medical school, law school, the space program, real estate, robotics, finance, etc.

Wouldn't the parallel work better if you compared black man vs. black women and white men vs. white women? Cose, guess what! There are a lot fewer black women than white women, but a lot more of them are locked up. The male-female ratio is about same in both races --- which just might reflect the relative incidence of criminal behaviour in men and women of both races, while the discrepancy between the incarceration of black men and white men is indicative of some other factor(s) in the system.