Sisyphus

That's really alarming. Public libraries, aside from being ridiculously good bargains as sources of free media, are de facto community centers in a very real sense, and inevitably a headquarters and resource for self-improvement, finding employment, ESL, studying for standardized tests, sanctuary and workplace for kids who want to learn but don't have a suitable home environment, etc. Exactly the kind of thing that does the most good in hard times.

Fixed.

"Useful mistakes" is exactly right. Assuming that the mechanism for DNA itself is subject to natural selection (it would have to be, just not in quite the same way), a mechanism with too few "mistakes" would become static and lose the ability to adapt. I don't see how organisms that can't evolve could possibly compete in the long run with organisms that do.

Do you mind if I ask what it is you don't like about salt water? (It's fine if it's not rational - I have the opposite condition myself, feeling homesick and claustrophobic if I'm far from the ocean for more than a week or so, even though in my everyday life I very rarely see the water.)

Yes, I would say the existence of a priori truth is indeed questionable, as is what degree something like mathematics would fall under that label. However, it's not necessary to answer those questions here, as it's clear that attempts at priori truth have failed many times over in politics and economics. This is evident both empirically, and from the simple fact that different thinkers argue contradictory "self-evident truths," making the reliability of such actually impossible. However, empiricism is not as hopeless as the Austrians apparently believe. Behavioral economics is much more like an empirical science (experiments in microeconomics are no more or less difficult than experiments in psychology), and has demonstrated false many of the assumptions of classical economics, which unfoundedly but axiomatically treats humans as rational, metaphysical beings detached from their very real existence as social animals, direct products of biological evolution, made of meat and hormones. Much like with classical physics, reasoning from a basis of homo economicus will always give you an answer that is usually seductively elegant and simple, but happens to be wrong. The highest authority in any science is always empirical reality.

Mostly I think it's Cold War inertia. The American right successfully associated "socialism" with "communism," and hence with "evil," as the USSR was the "arch-nemesis." Kind of like saying "that's fascism." People can and do think it's wrong for other reasons, but the word itself is taboo mostly just because it represents a generic enemy.

I don't think there's much to talk about. Guy is a jackass, which most people recognize. A vocal minority (get it?) will call him a "hero." I think it's fair to say that it's part of the same sort of atmosphere of the uglier town hall meetings. I predict "you lie" memorabilia for sale on conservative blogs and news sites. Is Joe Wilson racist? Ugh. Yeah, probably. Who cares? "Playing the race card," even if it's accurate, is just going to be seen as squelching dissent with ad hominem.

First of all, they do deal with concepts that are empirical. X will result in Y, where X and Y are actual events. And, yes, I've read a great deal of political philosophy and economics, though I've only read a little of your boy Mises. I've seen utterly contradictory premises and conclusions are stated as a priori truth by different thinkers, and matters of objective reality are "figured out" rather than empirically tested, and then treated as settled fact, as you seem to. But really it's no different than those who "logically" "proved" that the heart is the seat of consciousness, or that the universe is a rotating crystal sphere with Earth at the center. That one set of assertions is readily falsifiable and the other difficult or even impossible, does not excuse the latter from the test of falsifiability, or mean that if it can't be tested then it must be approachable a priori.

What you're saying is that they logically follow from certain premises. However, both the premises and the logic are disputed, and more importantly, they are not empirically supported. Those statements are not fact. They are predictions of fact, which might or might not occur. However, should they be tested, the reasons they would or would not would still be opinion, not even approaching scientific theory (different from fact - what has happened vs. predictive explanation for why it happened) unless they were supported by more diverse data sets.

Why on Earth would you bother with painstaking CGI when you could be launching mannequins through the air?

What book?

Don't pay attention to any perceived hostility. People are just used to idiots going around trying to prove evolution wrong, and so they end up prickly about it. Now, what do you mean by an insider's perspective? Do you mean following human evolution specifically all the way back to life's common ancestor?

abskebabs, what does any of that have to do with equality under the law?

All of this can be explained by the fact that we humans are not, in fact, "more evolved" than our cousins. We have the largest brains in the family, but not by much, and larger brain /= more evolved. Evolution is not some track on which an organism inevitably follows, progressing from squirrel-like thing to monkey-like thing to human-like thing or whatever, and human beings are not the pinnacle of anything. It's a bit like saying, "Why am I the smartest member of my extended family? All my siblings and cousins have had the same number of generations to improve on their parents!" So, monkeys will not become more human-like unless becoming more human-like happens to immediately improve their chances on an individual level of having more offspring (and having their offspring survive), and other possible directions don't accomplish this better. That's what makes evolution work. And that's all it is, not some drive towards a human notion of "more evolved" (which, interestingly, looks an awful lot like a human!).

You could admit that there either is a reason or there isn't. Whether that's practically observable doesn't matter. You say "deterministic or free will." Are you using the term "free will" to just mean "not deterministic?" If so, you seem to just be equating free will with randomness. So your guess is for determinism?

True enough, but it doesn't really matter. The deterministic/random dichotomy I'm talking about doesn't depend on any particular nature of mind. You could apply the same thing to a disembodied, supernatural being as to an emergent phenomenon of materialism. I would agree that the current evidence points towards determinism, if only because the brain appears to be an entirely macroscopic and therefore classical system. It's also too complex to predict with close to 100% accuracy at all times (at least with any technique we have now), but that's neither here nor there. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Ok, so that weighing each part against the others and then arriving at a conclusion: is there a reason it happens the way it does, or is there not?

Ok, what determines the course of that mental juggling (and hence the eventual outcome)? Is there some reason it goes the way it does, or is there not?

But that's just substituting the phrase "personal will" for "human decision." Either there is a reason the "personal will" inclines in the direction it does, or there isn't. Determined, or random.

And what causes the "human's decision?" If it's something, that's "prior occurences." If there is nothing causing it to be one thing or the other, that's random by definition.

How? And keep in mind that "benefit" in the context of evolution just means having more surviving offspring. Well, again, a virus could wipe us out, but there's nothing less "intelligent and strong" than a virus. They aren't even technically alive! Or a natural disaster. Or, for that matter, ourselves. No other animal is capable of wiping itself out like we could with, say, a nuclear war. And yes, we've made lots of species extinct. In fact, we're the impetus of a mass extinction, that may yet include ourselves. How is that superior?

I agree with ydoaps: the latter does not follow. Your decisions control your life. They don't "alter" the future, they make it. But if you think about the meanings of the word "alter" (i.e. being the force behind a difference in something between two points in time) and "future," altering the future doesn't make any sense as a concept.

dr.syntax, they're making light of it, but I hardly think it's as insulting as you are taking it. The point is there's no obvious explanation to those experiences, and nobody here can possibly explain them because we don't have enough information. We can suggest explanations, but it's going to be pretty blind because all we have to go on is what you've said. It reminds me of this video on "open-mindedness" which I like a lot: http://www.reasonproject.org/archive/item/qualia_soup_-_open-mindedness/

Does responding to a thread 3 1/2 years after the next most recent post count as going back in time?

Alright then. Thread closed.

And just talking about humans, big brains are very expensive. They're energy hogs, and they take decades to fully develop. Human beings are still dependent on their parents long after most other animals would have been grown and having offspring of their own. Everything has a cost, and things like intelligence and strength are only net advantages up to the point where they contribute to having more surviving offspring sooner more than they hinder it.