Peterkin

That's gold!

So it is! Been suggested already.

Neither do I. But if they thought something was there that could be put on a slide, photographed and submitted as an original paper, believe me, they would. Not that I think there are lots of MRI images of frogs and sparrows on file.... rats, maybe.

You didn't say that you personally would do it. But I honestly can't imagine finding structures in brains without somebody looking inside the brains. You don't have to be aware of your endocrine glands in order to need them. Only in that the answer for most people is: I don't know, but we mostly have an opinion anyway. That's why I keep asking for precision in vocabulary. Otherwise, the only accurate answer to every possible question is: 'depends what you mean by --- '

You were talking about the possibility of hunting down some 'structure' - by which I understand a nexus of specialized cells in the brain of an organism - that enables it [that brain which has grown such a structure] to "to take some of its own processes as input"; that is a reflexive, or feedback function, which would perhaps constitute a "mind". Then, having isolated such a structure, you would look for a similar structure in the brains of different organisms, to see whether they are capable of having a mind. The only way I can imagine looking for structures in brains is by dissecting brains. This means killing (I assume that level of compassion, anyway, that you'd kill them before cutting their brains open) a great many organisms suspected of having the potential for minds. I can further imagine that many, if not all of the specimens would either lack the structure you're looking for or use a different brain configuration to achieve a similar result. Therefore, a great many organisms will have been sacrificed in order to discover some, a few or no new animal species with the potential for minds. I wondered what all this carnage yields, and in what way that gain - if any - is to be used.

the attempt to discover whether do that Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to Dory.

That's a lot of gratuitous dissection! What shall be gained?

But only the creature itself knows that happened at all. Most living things don't even know their parents, let alone place themselves on an evolutionary tree. Humans know about evolution. Humans have some concept - however vague - of 'mind'. But can a human tell whether another biological entity has or does not have a mind? If humans determine that a dog does have a mind, and a sea-slug does not, can they then locate the stage of evolution where mindlessness ended? I don't think so. I posited social interaction as - possibly - one of the behaviours reserved for entities with minds. I very much doubt it. Aside from the fact that I think it's invalid for species less vision- and image- dependent than we are. Most animal social groups identify by scent and/or sound. I believe that is the case. I don't know about insects, am extremely skeptical of protozoa, fervently hope plants are not conscious at all, and reject the idea of spirit-infused asteroids and stalagmites.

PGA player of the year is a political appointment? I thought it was elective. I should think, quite a lot, especially given that Supreme Court judges literally hold the power of life, death and the direction of a nation in their hands. Aside from which.... But, hey, that's a good idea! Why don't they make it it really fair and institute a Jurisprudence Tournament? The judge who takes most gold medals gets to sit on the big bench for a year.

Which, of course, leaves open the next big question. What's "a mind"? At what point in the evolutionary time-line of a modern organism that clearly does 'have' a mind (possession is another problematic concept here) - let's say, rather: that clearly does exhibits some or all of the characteristic functions of minds: desire, intention, volition, memory, curiosity, pattern formation, problem solving, purposeful action... not sure there is any consensus on emotion, sociability and communication... At what stage or bifurcation or documented mutation did a mindless awareness become a mindful one? What is the adaptation or modification which shows that Organism X has/had a mind, while its recent forebears, Organisms W(m) and W(f), had none?

No animals synthesize lysine. They all get in their diet, from various plant sources, but the enzyme activity is similar in all species. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1165958/ I don't see why. It's a question of farming style. Industrial-scale farming methods require vast acreage and flat land. Vertical, container, indoor, forest, terraced and other kinds of farming arrangements produce more food in less space, and incidentally require less transporting of food. One example is a food forest.

There are two variables that determine whether quarantine measures are effective: consistency of application and rate of compliance. Many governments, both local and federal, delayed in imposing wide-spread quarantine measures, travel restrictions, venue closures, etc., then did impose those measures for a while, then lifted or relaxed, or relaxed, then reimposed, then lifted, then reimposed a more relaxed version... That kind of inconsistency both reduces the effectiveness of the measures and confuses the population - and, even worse, invites a counter-offensive from the fringe religious, conspiracy nuts, anti-vaxers, libertarians, financial interests and disruptive elements that attack government on any pretext. It would have been far more effective, both in reducing fatalities and in flattening the curve, incidentally relieving the worst stress on the health care system, to lock down fast, hard and long enough for the majority of the population to be vaccinated. And many citizens, including some government officials, failed to comply from the beginning and dropped all pretense of precautions as soon as they could get away with it. Right now, there are some stores I felt safe to enter before the mandate was relaxed that I now avoid. As one who does take precautions, my activities are more constrained now than they were during the first mask, distance and quarantine mandate.

The presidential candidate said: "I will appoint a Black woman." He should have said: "From among the qualified, experienced, ratifiable high court judges willing to take on the task, I will select a Black woman for this appointment." Optically challenged, fallible man that he is, he assumed that the 'qualified, experienced, ratifiable high court judge willing to take on the task' part was a generally assumed set of prerequisites for a Supreme Court appointment. Oh, well, too late now!

All we have to do is give up carnivorous companion animals, and we don't need food animals at all.

In that case, why not give people the supplement instead, bypassing the pig and chicken slaughter? What for? If bacteria can do it fast and cheaply on a large enough scale, why implement a more expensive and complicated procedure?

Simple policy: If it runs, squawks, bites, flaps or growls, it's conscious and self-aware. If it just sits there and lets you kick it, it's a car tyre and used to human stupidity. The less silly version of that: Yes, it's pretty much down to observable behaviour. What looks like purposeful action probably is, and whoever preforms purposeful acts is probably both conscious and self-aware. When in doubt, assume it is.

But then, how will you catch the heffalump? Or weasel?

Isn't5 it more of a locomotion, speech and thought police thing? The teeshirts, flags, hats, machine-guns and torches offer some clues, as well.

What would that mean? Subjective consciousness, we all have, or think we have, and if one is capable of thinking, one may be forgiven the presumption of claiming consciousness, and most of us are willing, in some varying degrees, to share this presumption with [some of] our fellow organisms. I can't imagine a definition, or even a description for 'objective consciousness'. I have no objection, BTW, to sharing the presumption with the two unicellular fellow organisms in the above example. I have a vague notion that the bacterium is more self-aware than the neutrophil, derived from the fact that the bacterium will make a concerted effort to survive and the neutrophil won't... Only, that was the assumption, back when i was learning immunology. I now wonder how true that is.

Mask mandates have very little to do with criminality.

Now Is Not The Time.

Some other amends, OTOH, can become interesting, optically speaking. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-estate/2021/09/20/housing-reparations-black-homeowners-evanston/5622731001/?gnt-cfr=1 Oh, great, you stepped into my merge! really, as absorbing as are many of the issues that surfaced, bobbed along for a while and submerged here, I think The peterson question was laid to rest some time ago, the Biden question will resolve itself and the R/D question will self-immolate on its own schedule. The thread is no longer, TMM, seriously-takeable.

Gasp! You mean Biden is taking $10,000 a year off Kavanaugh's salary and tacking it onto Brown's? I'd actually be okay with that. but I don't think he can

I don't believe this is accurate. For one thing, i don't see where a judge, even a supreme court judge, has the power to enact an entire law. Without a citation, I can only surmise that an unnamed judge in some unspecified court, upheld a law enacted by a misguided government to drop the mask requirement. That's what happened in Ontario. Our Provincial Premier in his Fatheaded Wisdom, ended official mask mandate in public places. I think 'moving on' is code for giving up, and maybe a lot of judges think so, too. But they can't enforce a law that's not on on the books anymore. My personal response was to buy an even better mask and stop frequenting store that have given up trying to regulate customers.

No -- just keep appeasing them, knowing that an inch, a foot, a yard, a mile can never be enough. Because we're L osers. Evil always wins, because it's unhampered by scruples, manners, compassion or shame.