Valley Forge

Anyone ever tell you are a fucking idiot? Well if ...

2010-09-22T12:25:46.369+01:00

Anyone ever tell you are a fucking idiot? Well if not than your a fucking idiot all raindoids are fucking leeches on society who in no way actually have jobs.

Anthropogenic climate change is real and happening...

2010-08-08T11:50:15.631+01:00

Anthropogenic climate change is real and happening now, beyond any reasonable doubt (which may be as far as science can prove anything).

People who still refuse to believe in climate change are not sceptics, they are deniers, like deniers of evolution or the Holocaust.

It's possible to construct a personal narrative where these things are not real, but it's not scepticism, it's simple denial.

Well that global warming happens is pretty certain...

2010-01-04T00:31:38.051Z

Well that global warming happens is pretty certain.

That's arbitrary. The above is a good example ...

2009-09-06T13:00:21.433+01:00

That's arbitrary. The above is a good example of what I was talking about in the original post. What is confusing you about it?

Can you give an example not related with TCS?

2009-09-05T18:07:26.663+01:00

Can you give an example not related with TCS?

Rihatsu: "TCS advocates respecting your child...

2009-09-05T15:27:18.895+01:00

Rihatsu: "TCS advocates respecting your child and not imposing your way on them out of authority, but only with their consent."

Justificationist: "Don't listen to her, her way will just result in dirty, illiterate children with rotten teeth!"

Fallibilist: "That /is/ consistent with the rest of our knowledge about why freedom is good... could you perhaps give some further explanations and examples of why TCS is better than conventional parenting?"

Can you give an example of what you mean?

2009-09-02T14:47:52.897+01:00

Can you give an example of what you mean?

Ubermammal, perhaps one wouldn't think, "...

2009-08-28T16:36:05.391+01:00

Ubermammal, perhaps one wouldn't think, "my boss would be fine with that". But might people not often be content with giving that excuse to themselves? (Perhaps not.)

"the demand must exist before the addiction i...

2009-08-26T22:57:14.280+01:00

"the demand must exist before the addiction is created."

*The* demand? I'd say part of the demand, or rather one *kind* of demand.

A person who has never smoked a cigarette, or who hasn't done so in a long time (long enough to no longer be considered addicted) may feel a speculative desire to try doing so. Some of these people will act on that desire by buying some cigarettes and smoking one or more of them. That represents a demand. Let's call it the speculative demand. It might have been motivated by advertising, or by seeing somebody else smoke, or by peer pressure, or by curiosity, or by some combination of these (or perhaps other) factors.

A different kind of demand exists among smokers. They know how smoking feels, and crave - for whatever reason - to do more of it. They may or may not know that smoking could seriously harm their health. Since these people are numerous and buy far more cigarettes per head than the speculative smokers mentioned above, it is plausible that they provide the bulk of cigarette companies' income.

Now, *if* they do indeed provide the bulk of cigarette companies' income, *and if* smokers crave and buy cigarettes primarily because they are addicted to them, then your father would appear to be right to contend (and this is a minor modification of his original assertion as you quoted it) that cigarette companies make most of their money off the backs of the addicted.

To determine the truth of those conditionals would require research beyond the scope of a blog comment, but perhaps you will feel inclined to pursue it?

(Hm, could have sworn I already replied to this.) ...

2009-08-25T04:01:09.541+01:00

(Hm, could have sworn I already replied to this.)

"do you not think that Sod's Law contains implications that the universe is inherently unpleasant"

I think it contains implications that the universe is inherently inconvenient. I think that's true; we can create knowledge of how to mitigate those inconveniences or render them moot, but the universe itself is most definitely very inconvenient for us. Particles don't move the way we want them to, the sun doesn't shine on the right parts of the earth at the right times, and so on.

"and also that there are some problems that we shouldn't/can't take responsibility for solving?"

No, I don't think the usual use of Sod's Law implies that at all. Just because the problem is inconvenient, does not mean it does not still have to be solved like any other problem. Nobody really thinks, "I don't have to fix this; if my boss complains, I can blame it on Sod's law and he'll be fine with that."

It wasn't real before it was created. For the ...

2009-08-23T10:49:00.368+01:00

It wasn't real before it was created. For the person who died before the solution was created, the problem was insoluble. There is no "we" as you know.

So when pleasantness is created, it is not actuall...

2009-08-19T15:31:30.169+01:00

So when pleasantness is created, it is not actually real?

The cancer would be incurable for the person who l...

2009-08-11T15:53:03.986+01:00

The cancer would be incurable for the person who lived before the cure was invented.

Reality is inherently unplesant. Pleasantness is something people have to create for themselves.

Lulie, I believe it is justificationist because it...

2009-08-07T19:19:40.372+01:00

Lulie, I believe it is justificationist because it requires the moral assertions to be justified by a 100% true theory of metaphysics first.

It's the myth of the framework too, though.

ubermammal, do you not think that Sod's Law co...

2009-08-07T19:18:00.806+01:00

ubermammal, do you not think that Sod's Law contains implications that reality is inherently unpleasant, and also that there are some problems that we shouldn't/can't take responsibility for solving? I mean, implications in the way it's usually used.

Having and solving a problem is not the same thing...

2009-08-07T04:10:30.695+01:00

Having and solving a problem is not the same thing as not having a problem.

Sod's Law is true: sometimes problems *do* occur when not convenient. It says nothing of the solubility of these problems; merely that they occur. As such, it is neither insightful or useful. It's about as pessimistic as observing that sometimes food tastes better with salt added.

The social practice of observing an event to be an instance of Sod's Law serves only as a shorthand for indicating that the new problem has occurred at an inconvenient time.

Hmm, is this justificationism, or just the myth of...

2009-08-07T02:20:35.071+01:00

Hmm, is this justificationism, or just the myth of the framework? Can you explain how it's justificationism?

Anon, I confess I have read very few popular physi...

2009-08-04T15:17:20.429+01:00

Anon, I confess I have read very few popular physics books, and I am certainly not a physicist of any description. As a result, I do not consider my own knowledge remotely adequate for answering such a question.

Curious about your assertion that quantum mechanics would be a better term to use, I checked my terminology with David Deutsch (http://www.qubit.org/people/david/), who explained the difference between the various terms and provided me with the information I gave to you. Much as I dislike argument by authority, I am willing in the absence of any better theory of my own to accept David's explanation.

I am, however, told that the terms "quantum physics" and "quantum mechanics" are also used informally to mean "quantum theory". Though since my initial usage was more formally accurate, I don't see that there would have been any particular merit in using "quantum mechanics" instead, even if informally it may mean something similar to what I intended.

Leo, I believe we do already have a good enough un...

2009-08-04T15:03:58.891+01:00

Leo, I believe we do already have a good enough understanding of what a person is for the statement "it's bad to leech off other people" to be meaningful. Trying to define "people" further, for this purpose, seems to me to be on the same level of asking "how do I know that there is really a chair in this room?".

But perhaps I have misunderstood what you are suggesting I do?

There is no such thing as incurable cancer. All ca...

2009-08-04T14:55:21.669+01:00

There is no such thing as incurable cancer. All cancer is curable; we simply lack the knowledge of how to cure it. But cancer is not /an insoluble problem/. And there exist lots of problems we haven't solved yet, such as how to live without religion (before you say that you're an atheist, you still have a lot of detailed knowledge of religion; I do not believe there is anybody who exists with no knowledge of religion). Even in the case of incurable cancer, reality is not /inherently harmful/. Man shapes reality to his own specifications, within the laws of physics, through creating knowledge and solving problems.

I think that in light of the above points, even cancer is not an excuse to lapse into negative interpretations and pessimism.

I point to Feynman as a good example of what to do when you have cancer.

Wouldn't incurable cancer be a situation reali...

2009-08-04T12:48:48.888+01:00

Wouldn't incurable cancer be a situation reality imposed on you and you couldn't be responsible for?

"No, we already know what people are, for tha...

2009-08-04T12:29:10.147+01:00

"No, we already know what people are, for that purpose."

Doesn't that knowledge of what people fall under metaphysics? What is the knowledge we already have about people that make that moral statement good?

(Not sure if we are understanding ourselves)

I have to give you credit for a good response, it ...

2009-08-03T23:32:33.026+01:00

I have to give you credit for a good response, it would fool most amateurs. But no, there is no meaningful distinction between 'quantum physics' and 'quantum mechanics'. Physicists use the two terms interchangeably. If you were to adopt, say, commutation relations (which are equivalent to the uncertainty principle) and unitarity, Schrodinger's equation would naturally follow. Also, any other quantum theory like QCD or GWS still obeys all the laws of 'quantum mechanics' at some level, not just the 'principles of quantum physics'.

I am genuinely curious, which popular physics book did you get this distinction from? Or is it the result of your own reasoning? This is why I called you a poseur, because you presume to understand subtleties in a field which is far beyond your current understanding.

No, we already know what people are, for that purp...

2009-08-02T00:27:10.357+01:00

No, we already know what people are, for that purpose.

AFAIK goods have a value relative to each other and to the amount that a person wants them. An apple, on its own, is not intrinsically worth 42 pence. It's only worth that if someone is willing to pay 42 pence for it. If nobody is, but someone is willing to pay 30 pence, then the apple is now worth 30 pence.

"it is better to live responsible for yoursel...

2009-08-01T21:56:24.507+01:00

"it is better to live responsible for yourself rather than leeching off other people and allowing them to leech of you"

Doesn't such a moral statement need to be grounded in a metaphysical understanding of what the nature of people is?

"There were other things that she said that were false, such as: all goods have an objective value. That being a metaphysical statement which is, to the best of my understanding, false."

Why is it false, if you care to explain?