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@Stephen
And how do they show that? Just because someone wrote it down doesn’t make it true.
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@Greyparrot
lol, the laws of entropy don’t say that and have nothing to do with the kind of change that we’re twlking about. Regardless, even if most change was “badl, it’s still better than no change.
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@Greyparrot
Right, but that’s not the comparison I’m making. No change is worse than allowing change, good and bad.
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@Greyparrot
I'll just help you out and conceded that you can think of thousands of examples of "change" that are harmful. I will still assert that it's all better than no change at all.
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@Stephen
I'm not asking you to make yourself plainer, I'm asking why anyone should consider the midrashic texts in answering this question. What relevance or value do they have?
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@Stephen
Given that you brought up the midrashic text, I was assuming that you could provide a reason as to why we should consider what it has to say on the matter (in terms of answering the question at hand).
Why should I value the words of the midrashic text over, say, random scribblings on a bar napkin? Should I hold them in equal weight?
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@Buddamoose
Let's set aside the legal issue first: depends on the jurisdiction. For example, in my state, solicitation for murder is a misdemeanor and held to a lower standard than the actual murder (though there is a push to make it a felony).
But let's getting into the weeds of the moral analysis. Ultimately, I think the solicitation is less of an immoral act than the murder.
First: The negative result here is the unjustified death of the victim. I would then judge the "seriousness" of the immoral act in relation to its proximity to that negative result.
1. The actual murder itself is the closest in proximity (it directly causes the death of the victim).
2. The solicitation is one step further away (it indirectly causes the death of the victim).
The solicitation is less proximate to the negative result, so it is less immoral.
Second: Now, one could argue that the actual murder wouldn't have happened without the solicitation. At first blush this seems to be true, but I think if we dig down we can see this isn't the case.
The hit man in question is offering himself up to commit murders. At the end of the story he's killing someone. Maybe not this victim, but a murder is happening at some point. Therefore the solicitation doesn't cause a murder inasmuch as it simply decides who the victim is. This is only morally relevant if we decide that the immorality of a murder can change depending on the victim (which is a whole different discussion). If we accept that changing the victim doesn't change the immorality of the act, then the solicitation isn't causing or worsening an immoral act, it is just establishing a value for one of the variables (the victim) that has no impact to the morality of the overall situation.
The solicitation isn't really a causal factor (in a sense that is relative to moral judgements).
Third: We can apply a certain calculus in weighing the morality of an action by how likely it is to succeed. Whatever factors could inhibit directly killing someone, those factors, plus more, could inhibit the solicitation of that murder. Necessarily, solicitation is then less likely to succeed than direct murder. Another way to look at it is that solicitation is less of a threat than murder.
Now, when it comes to punishment and plugging this back into a legal sense, things get a little stickier. Crime and punishment are only so granular. So while I deem solicitation to be less immoral than the murder itself, the question is: is it sufficiently less similar to be deemed a less severe crime? I can see arguments for it being as severe of a crime as murder, especially when it comes to deterrence.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
If you want specificity in answers then you need to provide specificity in the question.Hence my initial issue with a mere quote: it is horrendously vague.
You asked if AI should be granted "rights." This is a generic and open-ended question. Most people would interpret this as the general ability for an AI to be granted any rights at all rather than a question about AI being granted all possible rights, no matter how insane.
Again, I assumed too much of you. I will not do that in the future.
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@triangle.128k
Selflessness is the basis of civilization.
I would counter by saying that mutual self-interest is the basis of civlization (along with the specialization of labor made possible through agriculture.)
We may have personal interests, but our lives and safety were granted to us by broader society.
Except the society they live in is no longer safe. It's a warzone. If their society has failed to ensure safety, then I would consider whatever implicit agreement there is between individual and nation to be null and void.
A healthy and stable country is one with loyal citizens that take care of it whenever it's "sick." If a country's people aren't loyal, then it will be more prone to collapse and instability. To the contrary, a country with loyal patriots will survive times of chaos as its citizens will help restore law and order.
Ok, so what? The country then collapses. Let it collapse! You haven't articulated why it's somehow the duty of a person to ensure the survival of their nation, especially over the survival of themselves or their family.
On the individual level, your country is what provided you with what you know. If it be your friends, neighbors, literacy, education, luxuries, or so on. You should therefore be loyal to your country for the fruits of civiliized society it provided you with.
I would not depict the status of these refugees as one of luxury.
Because they are leaving their countrymen to suffer. I view it as immoral to leave your neighbors to suffer under the brutality of a war, when you have the potential to contribute towards helping them in some sort of way. Selflessness is a virtue.
It's admittedly a hard choice, one without a really clear "right" answer. Stay and join others in suffering (including you and your family, risking their deaths) or make a decision for the betterment of your family. A hard choice, but I don't fault them for seeking a better life for their family.
The Syrian man who embarks on an expedition to Germany could have potentially show down a terrorist controlled tank heading towards a hospital.
Sorry, but I don't view people as nothing more than a nation's cannon fodder.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
Fair enough, but I'll note I had to make the clarification in response to your rather hyperbolic exaggeration of my position. I didn't anticipate that someone would interpret my statement in such a ridiculous fashion. I'll make a note to lower my expectations of you in the future.This is a far better articulation of your position
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@Analgesic.Spectre
What a vacuous comment.
An equally vacuous response.
So a child, demanding the "right" for more icecream, should be given it, regardless of any context? Diabetes? Already consumed 28 soft serves? No one else having any yet, and this is the last serving?
Certainly rights are balanced and weighed and judged among competing rights and potential harms, but the genesis of all rights is a desire for them. While the demand alone isn't sufficient, it is certainly necessary. It's where all rights begin. Your question was about "rights" in general, not specific rights. The only thing all rights have in common is the desire for them.
If you wish to weigh the pros and cons of giving AI specific rights, you'll have to identify which ones.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
Cool. Well, as I see it, the only basis on which rights have ever been granted is in response to mind articulating a demand for them. There is no other basis.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
It's an accurate summation of my beliefs. I don't think we should deny rights to a mind capable of articulating a desire for them!
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"There is no right to deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced enough to grasp theconcept and desire the state."
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@Stephen
In midrashic text
Why should anyone care what midrashic text has to say?
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@DebateArt.com
Not sure if it has been said yet, but the ability to skip to the last post of a thread from the main forum screen is a nice convenience.
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@triangle.128k
Your perspective isn't on lines with nationalism.
Correct.
My main point is that fleeing from a war when you are capable of assisting, whether it be in the government, command, battlefield, or so on, is a selfish pursuit.
Ok. Selfish isn't necessarily bad. We all have to take care of ourselves and our families at some level.
Staying there and helping Syria restore itself is a selfless pursuit where you are honoring loyalty to your countrymen by wanting to help better their condition.
You presume that people owe a country loyalty by default. I do not agree with that assumption.
Therefore, the young men that are "refugees" are pursuing selfish interests. They abandoned their countrymen when they have the potential to help.
And why is that bad and what does that have to do with honor?
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@Smithereens
Of course not! You use it as a base to make gravy then drink it.Just because it's monousaturated doesn't mean I can just drink it
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@1harderthanyouthink
Glad you said it. I wasn't about to delve into the belligerents to determine if any of them were worth fighting for.
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@triangle.128k
When the left advocates for importing numerous amounts of refugees,
Refugees aren't commodities to be "imported."
Most "refugees" are young, fit, and healthy men.
Simply not true. Only about a third could be considered men of fighting age, and that's presuming all of them are "fit and healthy."
By chosing to migrate, they are betraying their honor as treason to their nation. Rather than joining the Syrian army or assisting in the war any way they can to support their country, they chose to escape the conflict. A liberal will not view this as a problem, because they don't hold nationalism to the same extent as others - especially on the right. From a more nationalist and conservative perspective, these people have a nation to defend. If they are capable of assisting in some way, they should do so. It's an insult to their honor and nation to abandon it and their countrymen in times of conflict.Though onto a broader and more philosophical subject, should this be the case? Should young and fit people capable of serving the nation in the army, or some other way, do so in times of conflict? Is it a selfish pursuit to escape their home to simply get away from war?
No. I see no obligation for anyone to fight in any war. Did they take any oath? Make a promise? If not, then they have no obligation to stay, fight, and die for any government.
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@Varrack
I think the "Open Voting" and the "Judicial System" could very well serve that purpose. After all, why would you select specific judges except to ensure a minimal quality of votes? I'm not against the idea of voting standards, but I think DDO was rather insane by how it implemented them. Especially since it was globally and authoritatively enforced.
Because the other side of the issue is getting votes in the first place. Everyone likes to gripe about vote bombing, but the bigger problem was getting people to vote in the first place. High standards necessarily reduce voting turnout. Basically, if you want more votes, you'll have to be more tolerating of lower quality, if you want high quality, you have to risk the fact you won't get very many votes (basically putting the result of the debate in the hands of people who are simply more eloquent or loquacious).
I think the two voting systems here offer both worlds. Do you want more votes, without regard to quality (Open) or do you want less votes of a given level of quality (Judicial)?
Now, if you are familiar with edb8t, I think lars implemented a rather clever system: ranking votes and weighing votes based on the level of feedback. This, simply put, was a stroke of genius. Rather than having secretive voting cabals or ego-stroking voting policies, you simply appeal to basic human psychology. By offering incentive to vote better, people would naturally provide better votes!
Granted that probably took a decent amount of internal programming and I'm not sure how or if that could be implemented here easily.
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@Smithereens
I don't personally think that voting quality is binary. Maybe you think that votes either meet a "gold standard" or are "bad," but I don't and that's not my position.
Voting quality, like most things, would fall on a spectrum. I'm not (nor have I ever) suggested that my vote was the best vote it could possibly be or that it should be used as a reference point for other people. Even if I was claiming that my vote was of some high level quality, that would still be different than claiming it to be a standard of any kind. A standard implies a measure for people to use and I made no such claims.
In fact, I stated - to you - that I could have provided more feedback, but this debate really didn't warrant it. So I'm not sure where you are getting this interpretation that I'm claiming my votes are the best and others should aspire to them. It's simply unwarranted. You don't seem to remember me, but I do remember you and I wouldn't have expected such a response from you, but maybe things change. I wanted to write off your statement as just exaggeration or hyperbole (hence my question) but apparently you think I have presented my vote as not only high quality, but to be a reference point for other people to use.
Laziness? Sure. If you want to call it that. But, you know: you get what you pay for. If this was a closer debate, I would have provided more justification for my position. When one side doesn't even bother formatting their debate, is hurling obvious insults, and uses broken links, I really don't see the need to elaborate on why the points for those things would go to the other side. Like I said, I don't think this debate warranted that level of feedback.
I'm also a little hesitant about this site in general. It's new, so there is a question of whether it will last in the long run. I'm certainly not going to dive in head first and invest time and energy if it's going to fail by next week. Also, I'm not too particularly keen on the influx of DDOers who seem intent on making this a DDO clone.
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@Smithereens
Honest question: do you think this is an accurate portrayal of my position?barren RFD you're parading as the gold standard
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@Smithereens
@David
Not sure what that last line means, but if you're really upset at my vote then you can complain to the Regional Coordinator and they can dock my pay.
FWIW, I'll agree that if you're paying for votes then you can start demanding some minimum level of qualifications.
@Virtuoso, do you want my paypal, or what?
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Yeah, nah, I'm not doing that. Part of the reason DDO went into the crapper was because it got its head so far up its own rear it couldn't tell up from down. Then its ego got so swollen it couldn't remove it. If this site starts making the same mistakes, it'll suffer the same fate.
My vote is what it is. If people want Tolstoy to vote on their debates they can choose the Judicial system and select people that are going to do that. When you choose "open voting" then you get what you get and you don't get upset.
But good job guys on derailing the thread. A+ work.
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@ethang5
Tell me why.
I've been trying to but you seem more interesting in telling me that I am actually agreeing with you when I say I am not. Perhaps I am not explaining myself well, but I that doesn't mean I'm agreeing with you. You seem to fail to recognize the fact that people can have different beliefs and assumptions than you. At this point, I don't have much faith in your willingness to listen to what I'm saying in the manner that I mean.
It cannot be.
Things are not false simply because you disbelieve them.
If A, then BA, therefore BLogical no?
No doubt, for example:
If a person is a bachelor, then that person is unmarried.
That person is a bachelor, therefore they are unmarried.
I agree there is a level of logical implication here that you can apply to the painting -> painter relationship (inb4 "Then your answer is yes") but I think it is trivial and tautological. To declare something a painting is to declare it as having a painter in the same breath. To then separately deduce it has a painter is the equivalent of saying "it has a painter, therefore it has a painter."
To state more firmly:
I believe "has a painter" is a necessary attribute of something being a painting. That is, you cannot declare that something is a painting without establishing that it has that attribute. It is bound up in the definition of what a painting is ("the act, art, or work of a person who paints").
My answer is not "yes" but rather "yes, but..." and you seem intent on chopping off the ", but..." To do so is to mischaracterize my beliefs on the matter.
Now, if you are simply interested in collecting affirmative answers in the manner someone would add notches to their belt, sure. But if you're interested in my full thoughts on the matter, then I'm going to ask again that you stop truncating my answers to make them conform to your wishes.
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@Smithereens
I disagree that the point of votes is to provide "proper feedback." The point of votes is to determine who won the debate. Plenty of actual, real-world debate judging forms don't even require you to provide "feedback" and just ask for a score. None that I'm aware of require extensive feedback, or at least wouldn't invalidate the vote if you didn't provide it.
I think my feedback is sufficient, given how that particular debate panned out. I agree that some debates my warrant more in depth feed back. This one did not.
Again, this isn't DDO and we shouldn't be adopting its trash rules here.
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@ethang5
A painting is NOT to a painter, the way 'not married' is to a 'bachelor.'
Except i believe it is. Are you asking me a question to solicit my thoughts on the manner or just using it as an excuse to dictate to me your thoughts on the manner?
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Please tell me we're not starting this shit again. This ain't DDO with its ridiculous voting rules and voting cabals.
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@ethang5
Well, in response to your question I said "I do not believe this is the case" which you "interpreted" as "yes."
All I'm asking is that you stop doing this. I don't think it is an unreasonable request. I believe the painter/painting relationship to be tautological. You disagree. Fine. But that's my stance on the issue.
As such, to use the existence of a painting to "proof" the existence of a painter is circular, in my opinion.
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@ethang5
I see a distinction, even if you don't. And again, I'd appreciate it if you didn't "interpret" my answers for me, especially when you interpret them to mean the opposite of what I claimed.
If you think I'm saying yes when I am explicitly saying no, then I am going to bow out of this conversation.
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@ethang5
No. If my answer was "yes" then I would have said "yes." I'd appreciate it if you did not answer on my behalf.
To say that one thing is proof of another (to me) is to say you can deduce the existence of the latter from the former.
I do not believe this is the case with the painter and the painting. To me, a painting, definitively requires a painter (or otherwise it isn't a painting). It's like asking: "Does a bachelor itself proof he isn't married?" It's a bit of a weird question. To call him a bachelor is to declare him as unmarried at the same time. Likewise, to call something a painting is to declare the existence of a painter at the same time, rather than using the existence of a painting to then separately conclude there must be a painter.
I don't think this is a trivial thing, either. To say a painting proofs the existence of a painter permits the following syllogism:
1. Paintings proof the existence of painters.
2. This is a painting.
3. Ergo there is a painter.
To mean, the existence of a painter is bound in the definition of what a painting is, which would make the entire thing a tautology, rather than some novel argument.
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@ethang5
But none of them have to be true. Just like 5 eyewitnesses telling what happened at a wedding, each may get something wrong, but there was a wedding.
If they disagree on the venue, the number of participants, the time, date, physical description of the participants, the menu, etc. then I would seriously doubt anything they said, including the fact that there was even a wedding.
Every culture seeing something in nature to come up with a similar god concept, he is creator of the world, more powerful than man, is not subject to time, creator of life, knows the future, knows our thoughts....They may get some small part wrong, but there definitely is a god.
I do not agree that all of those elements you have listed are universal across all cultures at all times. Don't get me wrong. I do believe that what they are ultimately referring to does exist. For example, a culture that posits that a nearby volcano is a god. I don't disbelieve in the existence of the volcano, just that it is a god. The idea of a personal, creator, atemporal, omniscient, omnipotent god is a relatively recent creation that is in the minority, relatively speaking.
On the whole, most god-concepts are little more than humanistic personalities slapped onto forces of nature. We had a flood because the river god is mad. There has been a drought because the sun god is unhappy. Etc. Etc.
Not to mention other things like ancestor worship and animism which don't fit any of the attributes you mention.
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@ethang5
I'm not making an argument, I'm simply iterating my beliefs. I do not find the different god-concepts invented by man to be particularly similar. At least not sufficiently similar to attribute truth to them.
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Not sure how actively people are checking on the (few) debates. I know on DDO we had a thread to advertise debates in the voting period. Would that be appropriate here?
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The indicator is the pencil icon next to the timestamp.
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Well it's certainly better than the opposite.
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@ethang5
You could give us an example of a machine that can detect patterns simply by response to stimuli.
Any computer, for example.
None of them are universal over time and culture the way beliefs about god is. There are whole cultures that have never thought of dragons for example.
I think you are conflating two things. I agree that for any specific belief, these are not necessarily universal. And this is true for specific gods (there is no specific god-concept that is universal) as it is for dragons. But for general beliefs, this applies equally to god-concepts as it does to mythical monsters, for example. Every culture I am aware of has conceived of invisible spirits, or deadly monsters, that don't correspond to anything in reality, even if they differ on the specific nature of those things. Just like gods.
Only god covers all times and all cultures.
No, gods. There is no single god-concept that covers all times and all cultures. The idea of a "god" is just as wide and diverse as the idea of a "demon". And this is presupposing that every culture has invented a god concept. I don't think we have enough data to support that assertion.
You call it superstitution, but why?
Because it is rooted in false attribution of cause-and-effect, like all superstitions.
You are interpreting reality based soley on your prior beliefs.
I fail to see how I can interpret reality based on my future beliefs. My prior beliefs is all I have. It's all you have. You asked a question and I respond in an admittedly casual manner, explaining my beliefs. I did not present it in the form of an iron clad logical syllogism, no. I did not think that was being requested. To summarize:
1. The brain is a pattern recognition machine.
2. It predisposed towards recognizing false patterns.
3. This results in superstitious beliefs.
4. Belief in god-concepts falls into the category of superstitious beliefs.
5. This is why humans have developed god-concepts.
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@ethang5
You did. It's in your comment, I simply responded to it.
You're right, my apologies.
That is the logical error of begging the question. You've pre-relagated the belief to superstition, then deem it superstition. Human are predisposed to belief, some of which prove true, some of which don't.
I don't know what "pre-relagated" means. I deem god beliefs to be superstition. Humans are predisposed to superstition.
You said they were inevitable.
You're right, I meant specific god stories aren't inevitable.
Simple stumili response will not show patterns, much less recognize patterns when they show up. A pattern recognition machine must first be aware of patterns in order to develop the algorithm to recognize them.
This is simply not true. Don't know what to tell you.
Because there is nothing else in the human experience like that. The universal similarity contradicts the claim that the belief is untrue superstition. That is like every culture since time began, randomly picking the SAME wrong answer to a question.
But humans didn't pick the same wrong answer. Human superstitious beliefs differ across cultures, even if there are similarities.
Because nothing else does. Nothing else that is not a part of reality.
There are plenty of things. Elves, goblins, vampires, gremlins, hymphs and dragons. These are things cultures have invented all across the globe at different types that aren't "part of reality."
hen you have fallen to a logical error. You pre-restrict the possible answers to only the non-existent, and then deem it superstition. That is assuming your conclusion within your argument. A logical error
I don't see how. You asked for things we believe that don't exist in reality, and I provided examples. Unless you're saying that all superstitions and abstract thoughts exist in reality then you are conceding that at least some superstitions and abstract thoughts don't exist in reality which answers your question about us believing in things that don't exist in reality.
No. Why would it need be 'all'? Superstition is not static. Things we once believed can become superstition, and vice-versa.Your argument is contradictory, and based on a logical error.
We are using superstition in different senses, then. A superstition is less about whether or not it is 'true' and more about the faulty reasoning leading it to be true. People can, by chance, be right, but that doesn't make their belief not superstition.
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@ethang5
Really? I don't remember where I brought up. But OK.
Here, in post #83: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/12?page=4&post_number=83
So would it be correct to say that humans are genetically predisposed to god stories?
I would say that humans are genetically predisposed to superstitious beliefs, of which god stories are one. That is not to say that god stories are an inevitable product, but perhaps likely.
And what is the pattern we are seeing that we are failing to recognize?
I think you misunderstood my statement. A pattern recognition machine can suffer from two kinds of errors: Thinking it sees a pattern where none actually exists, or failing to see a pattern that actually does exist. Tuning a pattern recognition to compensate against one type of error makes it more prone to the other.
Brains are wired to compensate for the second type of error, making them prone to the first. We don't fail to see patterns, meaning we are prone to the first type of error: seeing patterns that aren't actually there.
For a pattern recognition machine must first be aware of patterns in order to develop the algorithm to recognize them.
Awareness is not a requirement. It just needs to be able to respond to stimuli.
Some beliefs that were originally thought to be superstition turned out not to be. Where do those fall?
You'd have to provide examples.
But that does not explain the similarity of belief spanning human culture and history.
Why wouldn't it? We all have the same brain that works in the same way. Why would it be a surprise that it produces similar results across the globe?
Faster than sound travel was once "abstract". So was man walking on the moon. So was a living, conscious, talking man without a heart.I sense a contradiction in your core argument.
I meant things like, numbers, perfect geometric shapes, abstractions of reality that don't actually exist in physical reality.
Nevertheless, unless you are arguing that all superstitious belief and abstract thought exists in reality, then my answer to your question stands, even if I worded it overly strongly.
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What do you mean by, "in our fundamental nature"? Could you mean genetic? Why is it in our nature?
You brought up the phrase "fundamental nature" to which I interpret to mean in the generic sense of it being a basic and core component of our being. If you mean something else by this phrase, you will have to supply the definition.
I believe it is in our natural because of our psychology, which is rooted in biology, which is rooted in genetics, yes. It exists because evolution favors a mind that is predisposed towards recognizing false patterns over failing to recognize true ones. This is a trade off with any pattern recognition machine.
Do you know of any other generic concept in our fundamental nature, that does not exist in reality?
All superstitious believes ever invented by man. All abstract thoughts.
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Room for one more?
Also, group PMs are a luxury, not a necessity. As long as the mafia knows who they are, they can communicate via individual PMs. One person can be the official "kill" selector and the others can offer their suggestions via PM.
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@ethang5
Come up with exactly the same thing? They didn't.Why would virtually every culture come up with the same thing?
Come up with generally the same thing? Because every culture is made up of humans and all humans are predisposed to this behavior. I would find it remarkable if there was a culture that didn't come up with some form of deistic belief.
Is a God concept in our fundamental nature?
I interpret capital "G" God as the Christian God, to which I say no. If you mean simply any generic god-concept, to include vague spiritualistic concepts as animism and ancestral worship, or a general belief in the supernatural and spiritual, I say yes.
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