Source: Facebook

  • CONSCIOUSNESS —“How far back down the complexity spectrum do you think the fun

    CONSCIOUSNESS

    —“How far back down the complexity spectrum do you think the function/structure of consciousness goes?”— A friend

    I think the variation in ‘how far back down’ is in (a) the scale of memory accessed, (b) the sample time between memory accesses.

    And I think consciousness is simply the experience of continuous change in state across the layers (old, middle, new brain).

    My experience with regaining consciousness is extensive and consistent: as each bit of recall is restored, more ‘you’ is restored, and so is the ‘time horizon’ of change in state that you experience that you and I call ‘consciousness’.

    I mean. from that perspective it’s actually pretty simple.

    I am fairly certain this reductio explanation is so close that further refinement will be in the form of precision not falsification.

    At the very deepest level, the first level of awareness, is simply responds to feelings good and bad, but that is all. I like this I don’t like this. Then layer after layer awakens and that basic feeling simply has access to richer and richer content over longer and longer periods.


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 15:31:00 UTC

  • METAPHYSICS I am pretty sure that there exist no branches of anything in philoso

    METAPHYSICS

    I am pretty sure that there exist no branches of anything in philosophy per se, but simply dimensions of reality, and the methods we invent for testing those dimensions.

    Those methods either succeed in providing means of testing the dimensions of reality or not.


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 15:07:00 UTC

  • ( Love you all but, I don’t ‘get’ a lot of humor, ok? lol – thanks. )

    ( Love you all but, I don’t ‘get’ a lot of humor, ok? lol – thanks. )


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 14:55:00 UTC

  • CURT: WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON CANNABIS AND SHROOMS? —“I greatly enjoy reading y

    CURT: WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON CANNABIS AND SHROOMS?

    —“I greatly enjoy reading your opinions on things and if you ever have the time I’d like to know yours on Cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms.”— A Friend

    Thanks to intolerance for MSG and other preservatives, I have a tenuous enough grip on reality at any given moment that I don’t really need artificial influences to assist me. 😉 I can have a store bought coffee cake and basically have a 3 day mental vacation.

    That said I take ‘vacations’ with scotch, with ‘happy brownies’, and have had a few ‘vacations’ on shrooms (which I enjoyed very much), and a few other joyrides.. My opinion on such things is that they are for holiday vacations not regular use – a justification which I won’t go into.

    But I’ll give you the best advice: I can achieve through through writing what most people achieve through knitting, ritual, meditation, or prayer, or the use of drugs. That is: perfect mindfulness.

    And I would prefer that we educated each other in the achievement of mindfulness by means OTHER than artificial, and that we relied upon hallucinogens for the treatment of traumas – which is their optimum use.

    The reason being that like excesses in meditation or prayer, drugs can become a method of escape from achievement rather than a means of restoring reserves in the process of achievement.

    Prevaricating further, I understand that the effort of disciplining our impulses is far harder for some than others. And that some of us may need greater ‘assistance’ in coping with modernity than others.

    So as long as it is not visible in the commons, what is necessary and sufficient but not unecessary and more than sufficient is a good thing.

    Moderation in all things.


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 14:06:00 UTC

  • Curt Doolittle shared a post

    Curt Doolittle shared a post.


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 13:54:00 UTC

  • “The funny thing is, that we can all be superior in one domain or another.”— M

    —“The funny thing is, that we can all be superior in one domain or another.”— Moritz Bierling

    Well that’s the whole trick now isn’t it? Find one that others want you to be superior in, that no one else is superior in. 😉


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 13:21:00 UTC

  • OBJECTIVISM, LIKE LIBERTARIANISM, IS MERELY MARXISM FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS: PARASI

    OBJECTIVISM, LIKE LIBERTARIANISM, IS MERELY MARXISM FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS: PARASITISM UPON THE COMMONS.

    All, ( h/t: Reece Edward Haynes )

    Um. I will crush a lot of egos and expose a lot of malinvestments if I say that objectivism provides us with moral justification to be skeptical of demands for contributions to the commons. Particularly “positive demands” in payment for “positive freedoms.” In other words “violations of reciprocity, masquerading as demands for reciprocity, by casting preferences or goods as necessities. (You might have to read that a few times before it sinks in.)

    But just like the NAP is a half truth, Objectivism is a half truth. Meaning, how do we demarcate the between productive reciprocity (trades), free riding, parasitism, and theft?

    You see, this is why there are no advanced literatures on Libertarianism, and why libertarianism was intellectually abandoned.

    You can’t control what others will retaliate against you for (the definition of property), and you can’t control when you are free riding on the investments of the commons by others (except to leave the area).

    So it is one thing to say ‘I wish control over my life’ and another to say ‘Here are the limits to the control I have over my life’. Those limits are products of human nature (retaliation against investments in obtaining an interest) or products of consequence (I can no longer remain in this polity without benefitting from the construction of said commons.)

    Crusoe’s Island is, like all of marxism, an elaborate deception. And like the border-regions where states have little influence, or like the ghetto that obtains permission to use its own customary laws internally, Crusoe’s island is surrounded by water that serves as the walls around the ghetto or the borders of neighboring states. Instead, the problem of ethics is not one of choice, but that given an territory normally distributed with other people, how do I cooperate with others so that I have the maximum choice possible given that humans are super-predators, and will only cooperate if it is more beneficial than killing you or enslaving you and taking your things. The answer is total non-parasitism. Not just the parasitism I choose to avoid. But total non parasitism, even if my parasitism is created by my benefit by externality.

    The question is not one of preferential philosophy. It is not one of optimum ethics. It is not something that requires belief. And it isn’t the product of rationalization. It’s a very simple empirical question: what will people not retaliate against me for? What commons do I need to pay for to not force these people to retaliate against me for not paying? How can I create enough economic and social incentives to create an alternative polity if this one is unsuitable? Am I better off in this commons or another?

    Libertarianism was a failed experiment in converting the cult of jewish separatism evolved among pastoral people who never developed the ability to hold territory and the required ethical code of land holders: either a professional warrior caste and the tax structure to fund them, or a universal militia that is self funded and risks personal life and property.

    Just as marxism was a failed experiment in universalizing ingroup equalitarianism, so was Libertarianism. In other words, marxism consists of justifying parasitism upon direct production, and libertarianism consists of justifying parasitism upon the commons – which is, as much as private property, the unique feature of western civilization: we produce high trust as our most valuable common. And that trust is created not only by prohibition on the parasitism upon private production, but by the parasitism upon commons production. So libertarianism is just a middle class application of marxism.

    Objectivism ( skepticism ) as a means of questioning (in the Nietzschean sense) whether moral demands were created in pursuit of positive freedom (parasitism), or demands for dysgenic reproduction (parasitism), or demands for institutionalize rents (parasitism), or malinvestments in a commons that would not produce returns only produce additional rents for some sector (parasitism) – it’s a purely empirical question.

    But like all (“bullshit”) claims that operating by general rules (deontological ethics / rule ethics / black and white decisions so to speak) obviates you from performing the work of investigating whether you are the victim of free riding, rather than a free rider. And I have never, ever, seen any such ethical claim that was other than an attempt to justify free riding under the pretense of moral principle.

    Never.


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 12:49:00 UTC

  • I agree. Californians are a cancer on this earth, and should be forced to stay i

    I agree. Californians are a cancer on this earth, and should be forced to stay in the catastrophe that they have created. At the very least anyone relocating from california should be prohibited from owning property or voting. 😉


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 11:17:00 UTC

  • LEAVING A MARK ON REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY AS A DEFENSE FOR ALL TIME AGAINST THE IN

    LEAVING A MARK ON REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY AS A DEFENSE FOR ALL TIME AGAINST THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF LYING

    by Ely Harman

    —“Don’t forget the burning of actual people. That’s an important detail; lots and lots of people. And then the charred skulls will be piled into great pyramids and preserved as a warning to anyone who would be tempted to industrialize lying for 10,000 years.”— Ely Harman

    (awesome)


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 10:25:00 UTC

  • POSITIVE RECIPROCITY IS JUST AS IMPOSSIBLE AS POSITIVE FREEDOM. Reciprocity: pro

    POSITIVE RECIPROCITY IS JUST AS IMPOSSIBLE AS POSITIVE FREEDOM.

    Reciprocity: productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange, limited to productive externalities.

    What can you think of that you worry about that will survive that test of reciprocity? You see, you can’t force someone into reciprocity by means of ‘gift’ so to speak. They have to willingly accept it. There are things we might create insurance for as an act of reciprocal insurance against risks.

    So, whenever you have doubts, try to imagine cases (operations) rather than general intuitions (ideals).

    Warfare (reciprocal insurance of territorial monopoly and all capital within it) is the means by which we create reciprocity in the first place. So no, there is no escape from fighting.


    Source date (UTC): 2017-07-04 10:21:00 UTC