Peterkin

Computation itself has a straightforward meaning. "the action of mathematical calculation." - and by extension, the use of machines originally called computation machines. Modern computers are quite a lot more than that; they have evolved. But then, so has the brain. Human brains are only the most recent iteration, not the only version, just as AI is not very like Babbage's Analytical Engine. I'm sure analogies can be drawn at each level of complexity, but I doubt they would be useful.

The question itself relies on a false assumption: that an organ can be considered independently of the body. You can regard the entire body as an organic machine and organs as its components, then consider each organ in terms of its functional contribution to the machine as a whole. A carburetor can be described as a kind of heart-lung machine, but that term is meaningless without 1. the internal combustion engine to which it belongs and 2.the flesh machine to which it is being compared. The correlation of body parts to mechanical parts is merely analogy; they are never literally alike. The brain has a whole lot of functions, of which mathematical computation is a very small, and symbolically derived part. It started as a sensory device and developed into a communication device, a regulating device, a recording device, etc. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128311-800-a-brief-history-of-the-brain/ Eventually, it invented arithmetic to tally objects and measure distances. Vice-versa, the computer did arithmetic first, and all the other things it does now are derived from arithmetic. And, while a computer can be adapted to and integrated with other machines, such as vehicles, weapons and production lines, a particular kind of brain can only grow in and with and for a specific organism. So, that would be a NO, plus: such a simplistic analogy can't shed light on either of its subjects. No. The question and terms have to input by the operator. The adding machine doesn't know, and doesn't need to know whether the numbers it's adding are cows, dollars or stars.

Yes, there are not many situations wherein the viewer is motionless and the the screen is moving. That's the affect of the rain. An unmoving screen (the window) is covered by a moving sheet of water, which converts it it into a moving lens, even though it is motionless relative to the viewer. Funny things happen to vision when transparent objects are superimposed.

It's quite common to conflate with forward motion of one object with the backward motion of another. Much like the landscape rushing backward alongside the a moving train. In this case, it's the lens that is moving downward, so what you see through the lens moves upward.

They try to. That's why the post is for life: the next party coming in can't remove them; the idea being continuity and balance. The upside is, the president who appointed them is gone and they're free off obligation from then on; the downside is the risk of feeble, outdated and senile judges. The current crop looks good for a long haul. It's not about expediency - they're at the secure top of judicial achievement; nothing to gain or lose. It's about long-standing convictions, prejudices and legal stances. So, when the constitution is outdated and the relevant amendment is ambiguous, they interpret according to their religious or political leanings. When the president chooses a supreme court nominee, he's looking at their decision record - how many people they've sent to death row, how many times times they've ruled for restricting reproductive rights, withholding social assistance, election rigging practices and other state legislations, corporate and human rights challenges, reform attempts, etc. Precedent is everything... except when an appointee fools you.

It was never a good idea to politicize jurisprudence. It was never a good idea to have different methods of appointment/election for judgeships in each state, and different again federally. It was never a good idea for jurists, from DA to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court compete for their successive posts with a party label next to their name. https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_selection_in_the_states The framers of the constitution never envisaged such an immense, diverse and divided country (though they should have, given the rifts they built into the foundation); they assumed governance and law would always be in the hands a ruling elite just like them, who all spoke the same language.

It helps that the people who most firmly believe don't understand either.

When did age come into it? If he had promised an enthusiastic rally of seniors, that might make campaign sense in the moment, even though men are still not underrepresented on the supreme court, and they're all expected to grow old and die in their robes. Of course. The available pool of candidates would have been larger, so I'd expect the process to take longer - unless he was determined to find a combat veteran of Ukrainian background - only he'd've had to be prescient, which would be spooky in an old white man. I have no reason to taste Biden's decisions. Or, he could have told a lie, or he could have said nothing - which is what that platitude amounts to. There is precedent for all of those statement, as well as for announcing the demographic a presidential candidate intends to aim for, and also for the unquestioned assumption that it has to be an old white man. This, I would not swear by. He gives his audience what it pays for.

In that frame, her constituency is even larger. There are more adult women than men to begin with; more women are registered to vote and the voter turnout in the last election was higher among women, plus you have to add the whole Black population old enough to vote, including men. That's a pretty big majority. Inclusianry vs. exclusionary BS. OK Republican senators can be led away from their prejudices? There was a time when I hoped they might be driven away by the most perfidious, monstrously stupid travesty ever perpetrated on the oval office. Not anymore.

I didn't mean that their difference were based on colour. I meant that they were all different - though now you menetion it, there are areas of overlap in the experience of women within each ethnic group. You don't need different species to be for or against reproductive freedom, for or against prayers in school, for or against universal health care, for or against gun contol, for or against fossil fuel. There are groups of voters with a common stand on the issues, and groups of voters who have unaddressed needs, and groups of voters with grievances and groups of voters with common agendas. Those groups may also have ethnicity or gender in common, but neither ethnicity nor gender guarantees that a voter falls into one group or another on those issues. No one woman, of any colour, can represent all women, just as no one person of African descent, whatever gender, can represent all dark-skinned people. Voter blocs differ by more than ethnicity and/or sex. If you set up an image: "Woman" to represent half the voters, you're setting up a false image. But those who are preoccupied with the 'optics', will see her that way. Representation in the highest level of government entails a whole lot more than image. Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you? And yet.... If that's what you're seeing in the world, can I have the name of your optician? That's what everybody wants to him or herself. The trick is persuading them to want it for everybody else.

Not clarify. Reject. It looks as if you mean that you have considered alternatives and made a decision. Since you can't have a red/blue/silver/green Ford Acura Evoqe, you have to pick one car that comes in the combination of characteristics you desire. (That it's a road-licensable passenger vehicle was a given, thus limiting the pool of available choices.) That's how rational decisions are usually made, so most rational people who believe you to be rational would assume that your decision is just what it looks like. It looks as if he considered available alternatives, including to which voter block he owes the most, and made a decision based on all of those factors. Not "according to colour and gender" - as you put these two factors in isolation, to make them look bad - but according to qualifications, experience, decision record, character, popularity with voters, ratifiability, sex and colour. Just like you put the colour selection last in your criteria for buying a car. So-bloody-what? That's how selections are made. One may be sorry afterward and think differently next time. It opticizes exactly like what it is: a political appointment by a politician. That's what's wrong with 'optics'. In some observers' limited vision, a woman represents all women, including the white, Hispanic and Asian ones, who ll have different requirements and demands, just as an African American represents 12% of the population, including the opposite sex, and none of the Hispanic or Asian or white men. Except that's not in any sense true, is it? And that Jordan Peterson, as usual, is wrong.

That's not exactly a mystery. Yes, it was predetermined. To fulfill a promise to his most loyal voters. (You know, like how how Reagan promised to restore prayers in school, He tried, but it wasn't ratified. Obama's promised health care reform plans were smashed on even rockier shores, and Trump swore he would defund Planned Parenthood, which he did.) What I don't understand is why keeping a promise - with due ratification - should be at all problematic.

'Optics' is still a silly word and a poorly defined concept. How things look is very often how things are, so if you're doing something other than what it looks like you're doing, you're doing something sneaky, which, if discovered, would look very much worse than the obvious thing you're doing, which is exactly what it looks like.

Then we must resign ourselves to disappointment. Saner than Trump is doable - just about, given the general fuckedupedness of the communication media and electoral procedure. Saner, let alone better, than all previous presidents is a pretty tall order, even for somebody who won by a landslide and had a majority in both houses. That's not going to happen.

Have, too many times. Final comment: Repetition is not my #1 choice for COD.

Yes.

Who's we? The criticism largely comes from quarters that favoured Trump's decisions and style of leadership. The gist of the objection is not "He's not enough better than Trump." but that "He's doing what all presidents do."

Stop using the Supreme Court as a political arena. I'm not averse to throwing this lot (though I quite like a couple of them) out (Not on asses, or even assets: there is graceful retirement, emeritus professorships, consultation or stepping back to a lower court vacancy.) and starting fresh with a Supreme court selected by jurists in good standing. The Canadian and Danish systems are examples of the advice-and-consent process, though quite different in their composition. The French one is very different again and more complicated. In all cases, jurisprudence is not so insanely political as in the United States - and (?coincidentally?) works better. Bernie Sanders. I'd've been happy with Jack Layton, but he went and died on us, so I have to trust Trudeau the Younger. As the falling man said at the 17th floor, "Okay so far!" Can't be done as long as mad, bad legislation is adjudicated by political appointees.

Laws are not based on science; they are based on morality, and the morality of a society is largely dictated by its dominant religion. And, of course, the state of science changes from day to day, as witness the bases for determination of death in 1900 CE as compared to 2000 CE, while the law lags decades behind and rarely on the same track.

Not that Affirmative Action has much - or, really, anything - to do with Jackson's appointment, but so long as you're in selective favour of it, this bit's interesting: Toward, always moving, ever so slowly, toward. Why not just have equal opportunity now, stop bitching about it, and move on to fix the police, the infrastructure, the health care system and the slums?

Not to mention, there is a football field between near death and after death.

Same misconceptions, misinterpretations, misrepresentations and fallacious deductions, all packaged up with bolded headings. I particularly appreciated the sheer mass of bogus math.

Ethics is about what is right or wrong in a social context: it's a guide for interactions among people. Whether it's in work, politics, sport, commercial transactions or demeanour in public places. Morals are another aspect of 'right' and 'wrong'. Morality is a set of convictions that people have regarding their personal relationship to the world and other living things. Morals may be imposed by an established authority, such as a religion or ideology, or they may be personal to an individual. The world-view of a group of people provides the moral tenets of a shared belief, which in turn becomes the foundation of their ethical precepts, which is the central pillar of their legal code. The question posed there is too vague to answer, but if the specifics were filled in, every society would have an answer according to their moral, ethical and legal rules. So could every individual. But you would get a wide range of answers. If we're 'supposed' to discuss whether ethics is an intuitive and/or emotional (No way do I accept that mashed-up word!) impulse, as distinguished from a rational answer to a rational problem, then I think I'm in the right place, on the right page, and have the right answer, even if it's not the most simplistic one. I don't know. Chemical and mathematical formulae can penetrate pretty deep into physical processes, and I have no proof that humans behaviour is something other than physical processes. I believe it's more, but I don't know that. But what have love, compassion, art or tragedy to do with ethics?

For the very same reason nobody should bother looking for an answer to your question about Biden. The fact that they've also made social justice synonymous with class warfare. Apparently both are unAmerican concepts. There is a lovely scene in Babylon 5 (S3 E5 Voices of Authority) where the political envoy from Earth explains that they no longer have problems like homelessness and unemployment; all those problems had been solved. Sheridan asks "When did all this happen?" The reply "When we rewrote the dictionary."

Can you provide a link to any candidate, ever, clearly stating who was in their mind before the election for all the appointments they might have the power to make after the election?