A piss poor vehicle for the black community, and media whores like Al Sharpton, to glom onto.
Think about your average bully. Huge bully. Pushing people around. He even thinks he can push cops around, apparently.
Steals a $48 box of cigars, using his huge mass. Then interacts with Mr. Wilson the way he does. Ok, he didn't deserve to die, yes that's true, but he sure a F acted damn stupid!
Do massive bullies who fight with cops, punch them, and grab for their guns "deserve" to be shot? No. But they may well be anyway.
Very poor vehicle for "change." Change in the opposite direction...
Thugs
across America (to the tune of Hands Across America). Thugs across this
land I love. Thugs everywhere, especially in and near Ferguson, Thugs
across America...
Commentary on recent events:
Don't dress like a gansta and get all in the face of the self appointed Latino private community security.
Don't remove the orange end from a fake gun and then wave the now even more real looking fake gun around in a park.
My
view: I agree with Bill Maher that Mr. Brown Jr. was a thug. A
strong-arm robber (as per convenience store video) who was well on his
way to trouble with the police. The officer involved probably reasonably
felt threatened, after tussling with Mr. Brown Jr. in his car.
The
incident with Mr. Brown Jr. is a piss poor vehicle for the black
community to latch onto for "justice" or much of anything else.
The
strong arm robbery (meaning a robbery done using just mass &
strength, being a HUGE guy who pushes people around such as the store
clerk shown in the video) that happened just before Mr. Brown's
interaction with the officer involved:
A
piss poor vehicle for justice or anything. Yes it was sad that the huge
thieving bully thug involved got killed, but he was a huge thieving
bully thug who struggled with a police officer & so on.
I agree that Harris's general views on the brain, free will, and the self may well all be warped by and clouded by his exposure to Buddhism.
Listen to the *whole tone* of Harris's work on free self, consciousness, and the self, and one general path emerges: toward Buddhism masturbatory obsession with getting *all things* out of your head, to find some sort of "peace."
But Harris's views on free will & the self are in my view myopic & simplistic.
When the "software" of the brain is running, the "self" does exist. We feel it does. Is that an illusion? No. Simply because the software or wetware or whatever can be turned off partially doesn't mean that when it is up and running it's an "illusion." No, it's not an illusion. It's quite real, and quite physical.
"...Much more dubious is Buddhism's claim that perceiving yourself as in some sense unreal will make you happier and more compassionate..."
"...Even if you achieve a blissful acceptance of the illusory nature of your self, this perspective may not transform you into a saintly bodhisattva, brimming with love and compassion for all other creatures..."
Ha ha!!! So this is Harris's problem! Even someone like Harris can have his views warped by a religion - one he likes very much, apparently.
I like a lot of what Harris has done in debates, but talk of free will & the self being illusions, well, smells a bit too much of Buddhism, AKA a religion.
Two admins on the group, one named Mark Wittgruber (the apparent group founder), and a Sean Michael Carter took particular special exception to my presence on the group, when I had the audacity to do the following:
As an atheist, challenge the general leftist stance of atheists.
The two men were essentially a tag team engaging in an admin enabled pile on.
Threatening to kick if one refuses to kow tow to the cherished views of the leaders.
Not really engaging in a debate or discussion.
Instead engaging in abusive attacks - when they find your views particularly inconvenient.
Hey, when admins do it, it's ok right?
Not really an atmosphere for an honest & open discussion, to say the least!
This is not new.
Actually this type of activity by admins on facebook is very common.
But it's also a sad commentary on human nature.
Religion is so damn natural (ref Daniel Dennett) that even atheists cannot help (!) but form one when they gather together in groups. Very hard for them to avoid!
The apparent founder of the group appears to be an atheist. But he has no problem with engaging in personal attacks when it suits his apparent needs to have a playground centered around HIS questions, and HIS thoughts, ensuring that HIS beliefs are not questioned or challenged, and that's it.
Here's some of the supposed rules of the group in question:
1. No preaching. 2. No personal attacks. 3. No politics. 4. Do not ban the admins 5. Enjoy the discussion!
The admins of the group are free to break rules two and five.
And so, onward.
Atheists in general don't value free speech any more than anyone else.
And in fact, if they're on the cultural left they usually value it LESS than the cultural right does. A lot less.
Liberals often cannot wrap their heads around problems with their own culture.
I'm generally speaking an economic liberal and a social moderate. A 9/11 liberal. A Christopher Hitchens liberal.
But I have no use for fools, even liberal ones, who can't handle deeper discussions about ALL issues, without restriction (other than, perhaps, a banning of commercialized spam).
Things are related. There's synergies between views. Not everything is one way or the other. Politics and religion are joined, even for the liberal.
When the Unitarian Universalist uses his religion to back his actions, he doesn't see a problem with that. But he gets very upset with a right wing person refers to his religion as something of value.
Apologetics, Philosophy, Reason and Logic - not a debate group nor a regular discussion group. A group where the admins have no concept of what the word "debate" actually means. Actively telling participants what they are allowed to say in their replies. Using threats against those who refuse to comply (threats to ban & kick). Using petty expletives to refer to posts they don't agree with. And so on.
It's par for the course, a course I've seen several times on Facebook.
Atheists don't like their beliefs challenged, by fellow atheists. They get just as upset as any right wing religious person - and they will happily engage in heresy trials & excommunication against those who challenge their beliefs in any meaningful way.
Should an 11 year old American Indian with leukemia be condemned to death, because of the new age raw food eating modern medical science denying "aboriginal" beliefs of her parents? When self hating leftist hipsters in Florida and Canada do it it's not child abuse, right?
Is this a triumph for "native" "aboriginal" rights?
In my view Canada has become oh so very politically correct, and enmeshed in liberal self hate, that they cannot help but let this 11 year old "noble savage" die of leukemia.
Leaders in the Amerindian community are furthering past abuse by whitey by such actions. Taking the sword from the whites of the past, holding it in their own hands, and using it themselves on their own children.
I'm a fan of Harris, but I rather think that the sense of self is no more of an illusion than color is an illusion.
Do colors exist? Yes. It's true that our range of detection depends fully on our evolutionary history. But we do detect them accurately, within the scope of our built in detection equipment.
So to say that free will & "the self" are illusions is not really accurate. It's deceptive
When the "software" of the brain is running, the "self" does exist. We feel it does. Is that an illusion? No. Simply because the software or wetware or whatever can be turned off partially doesn't mean that when it is up and running it's an "illusion." No, it's not an illusion. It's quite real, and quite physical.
"...A more direct test of the relationship between the readiness potential and the "awareness of the intention to move" was conducted by Banks and Isham (2009). In their study, participants performed a variant of the Libet's paradigm in which a delayed tone followed the button press. Subsequently, research participants reported the time of their intention to act (e.g., Libet's "W"). If W were time-locked to the readiness potential, W would remain uninfluenced by any post-action information. However, findings from this study show that W in fact shifts systematically with the time of the tone presentation, implicating that W is, at least in part, retrospectively reconstructed rather than pre-determined by the readiness potential..."
Sam Harris has apparently been *completely* persuaded by the Libet experiment.
From Dennett:
"...Here, then, are my conclusions: determinism is a red herring, neuroscience has ominous implications only for closet Cartesians, Mr. Puppet is a defective intuition pump, and there is a consequentialist, compatibilist justification of the just deserts clause. Thank you for your attention..."
But one can reasonably criticize Dennett's view of theaters as well:
There may not be a Cartesian theater, but that doesn't mean there isn't a theater at all.
When the software is "up," it's running, we're conscious. That's it.
Doesn't mean the "self" is an illusion.
Doesn't mean that free will is an illusion.
Colors are real.
Perceptions are real.
Just because there's interpretation going on doesn't mean that nothing is going on, or that everything is just so spooky that we are just slaves to chance or whatever the hell the root causes are of thoughts.
Sam Harris has sadly been derailed by a faulty interpretation of Libet's work.
What do I think is the REAL problem with all this?
Buddhism. Harris's exposure to Buddhism has in my view slanted his. Another religion screwing up people's views.
"Meditate until you feel the center dropping away."
...my interpretation of what Harris is advocating for.
Oooh! Spooky! A ham fisted poorly designed poorly interpreted experiment by Libet is glommed onto by Harris & others.
Sad. So sad. Inappropriately applied reductionism and dogmatically restrictive eliminativism.
A new "god of the gaps," where god = "the illusion of free will and of 'the self'."
Still religion and denialism, just under a new name.
We don't deny there's software or wetware in operation. The fact that timing exists doesn't in any way whatsoever mean that the software doesn't exist in the first place, or that it's not running in the first place.
We have more free will than a carrot, or in other words more ability to choose & decide & calculate.
When a highly complex robot says that he or she has a sense of "self," why not take them at their word? That "self" may be the fact that their software or wetware is "up" - and that's fine. It may not mean they have a soul in the traditional sense. But so what! The "self" is an expression of a currently-operational highly complex self-aware biological system. And secular apology for spooky Buddhism doesn't detract from that fact.
Little robots can derail the thinking of intelligent robots.
I am a robot.
We are the robots.
...therefore "we're an illusion?" "Free will is an illusion?" Our "sense of self" is an illusion?
I don't think so. We're alive, or we're not. The software or wetware is up, or it's not. The loop is running, or it's not.
Harris's view seems to de facto advocate for throwing up our hands and giving up. "Thoughts just arise," as he might say. Spooky. Ok, let's throw up our hands and say our new god of the gaps did it. Timing exists in thought processes, as Libet may have found. Oooh. Spooky. Therefore we don't have free will.
Sorry. Lame conclusions.
We are just beginning to learn. But these people who quickly jump to these conclusions about free will (Harris) or even a sense of self (Dennett), are in my view jumping too quickly to their conclusions, or are being too simplistic with them.
Doesn't mean the universe is spooky like Deepak Chopra advocates for with his woo. Doesn't mean there's a god. Doesn't mean that consciousness is "beyond" the realm of understanding.
But the robotic roots of biology have unfortunately derailed some otherwise pretty smart thinkers (Harris, Dennett, and others).
We have more free will than a carrot.
We have more sense of self than a carrot.
Harris should make note of the first fact.
Dennett should make note of the second.
Both free will and the sense of self come as a direct result of evolution by natural selection. The ability to choose (to varying degrees), and the perception that we have a sense of self, all come from evolution and the fact that we've evolved to become more complex biological creatures. Creatures made of tiny robots. But the fact that these two things are processes at all (eg: software or wetware "running") seems to trip up both Harris & Dennett, depending on what you are asking them about (free will, or a sense of self). Dennett seems a bit less susceptible to being tripped up perhaps. But I have the impression that a complete dismissal of the Cartesian theater goes too far.
Maybe the impression of the theater is simply how the wetware works & functions. Does that mean the theater doesn't exist? It exists no less than any other piece of software exists. And even claiming that may be too simplistic.
"...By separating the 'we' who can rebel against our genes and our brain, this avowed materialist becomes a Cartesian dualist in the laudable interest of preserving human agency... I find this abdication unsatisfactory, and instead want to insist that our sense of freedom to act, of possessing agency, emerges inevitably from our biological nature..."
How about instead of Cartesian dualism we have Cartesian singularism - or perhaps the "sense of dualism" is simply how the system works. Doesn't mean it's an "illusion" though!
Terms like "G-spot" & "vaginal orgasm" are apparently misnomers or a identification of what are actually other structures, such as the internal bulbs of the clitoris itself and so on.
My response: Maybe the terms are inaccurate (eg: g-spot vs urethral sponge). And I bet one still can get some additional response from finding what some call the g-spot. Saying "it doesn't exist" is just plain wrong. Maybe the anatomical labeling is incorrect, or the embryological roots have been misidentified - but that doesn't mean the structure doesn't exist.
