tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post3785024747576862314..comments2024-03-28T02:54:46.537-04:00Comments on The TOF Spot: Odd 'n' EndsTheOFloinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-12667911440479022732014-04-30T11:27:31.245-04:002014-04-30T11:27:31.245-04:00The Deuce,
You seem to say there is something mor...<i>The Deuce,<br /><br />You seem to say there is something more to intention than what computers do. Can you be more specific?</i><br /><br />Hmm, if you really somehow don't know the difference between doing something intentionally and doing something unintentionally, and can't understand why there is no such difference for computers, I'm afraid I can't help you and have better things to waste time on.<br /><br />Or, as is usually the case, perhaps you're determined not to know, in which case I *really* have better things to waste time on.The Deucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09664665914768916965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-49069515120768482102014-04-23T16:29:10.024-04:002014-04-23T16:29:10.024-04:00jimhenry,
I thank you for your explanation, but I...jimhenry,<br /><br />I thank you for your explanation, but I am at a loss to put it into an application. How does it translate into evidence for free will?One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-19972910521224793592014-04-23T16:26:49.274-04:002014-04-23T16:26:49.274-04:00thefederalist,
Putting one's left sock on fir...thefederalist,<br /><br /><i>Putting one's left sock on first, or the right one, can't both be preferred, reasonable and predictable? </i><br /><br />Not at the same time, in the exact same instance on sock-putting-on.<br /><br />Surely you are not claiming that making different decisions in different circumstances is a sign of free will?<br /><br /><i>I (and theOFloinn, I bet) think it means that you can predict that I will put on my left sock first, my right sock first, or not put any socks on at all. You may choose to assign probabilities to each outcome, but they are all loosely predictable. </i><br /><br />You can assign probabilities to the output of a random number generator from a computer, as well, but we know that does not indicate the computer could have behaved other than it did. Rather, it reflects our insufficient knowledge of the computer's internal workings.<br /><br /><i>If it happens to me, it means that my body is not able to carry out the decisions of my will, not that I have no will.</i><br /><br />What is your evidence you have a free will, as opposed to a will determined by your circumstances and preferences?One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-30139876324841940002014-04-23T16:18:49.812-04:002014-04-23T16:18:49.812-04:00Sophia's Favorite,
Again, thank you for your ...Sophia's Favorite,<br /><br />Again, thank you for your renewed determination to not respond further.<br /><br />If one does not want people to assume one does not share in society's desire, the usual approach is to say something like "society is not cheated". When one says "we are not cheated", one is implying one's support for this felling of being cheated. That's aside from the very use of "cheated" to begin with, as opposed constructions using "sated" or "required". Your words betray you.<br /><br />As for my supposedly calling you a hypocrite, you must be referring to my mentioning that if you opposed abortions as the RCC does, then it is inescapable some women will die. Calling you a hypocrite would have been a rush to judgment. You might of been unaware that such deaths were inevitable. You might not have considered the positions in juxtaposition to each other. I don't know you well enough to assume hypocrisy. I do know the facts well enough to know that a refusal to perform abortions for medical reasons means that some women will die, and I hope you are a person of reason enough to accept that <br />A implies B, and therefore either accept B or reject A.<br /><br />I hold to my morals because I feel they best meet the ethical considerations of life, and other morals are less optimal. If that means I feel I have the "moral high ground", the phrase becomes universal in scope and meaningless in conversation.<br /><br />I request to be taken solely on my position, and I am happy to re-word what I say to better clarify my position. Mis-communication is very common on the internet, I don't see why you need to assume bad faith is a cause for it.<br /><br /><i> I explicitly told you the principle in question: "nobody shall be killed without due process of law save in direct defense of life and limb".</i><br /><br />Is a uterus less important than a limb? Abortion is a defense against what, for the women who does not wish a pregnancy, is a bodily attack.<br /><br />TheOFloinn,<br /><br />I will make a stronger effort to keep a polite tone. Thank you for your tolerance.<br />One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-24320666523875995642014-04-21T17:42:02.746-04:002014-04-21T17:42:02.746-04:00Firstly: That the quotation in question requires s...Firstly: That the quotation in question requires several hundred words of context to be correctly understood would seem to indicate that its irony is not readily apparent when taken by itself.<br /><br />Secondly: The context makes it less clear how the quotation applies to the matter under discussion, which does not, in any way, involve "the poor sustaining and preserving the wealthy in their power and laziness."<br /><br />Thirdly: Much of Chouette's complaint is irrelevant to this country at this time. Do we have conscription? No. Are those who love the poor considered traitors to society? No (well, maybe by some hard-core Ayn Rand fans). Is anyone called dangerous who says there are wretched people? No. Are there laws against indignation and pity? No.<br /><br />Still, I would be happy to discuss the matter with M. France should the opportunity occur - although, since a healthy fear of the demonic precludes me from using a Ouija board, the opportunity may not come for some time yet.<br /><br />And one more thing - I am well aware that human laws are imperfect. How could they be otherwise when such sinners as we make and enforce them? But how can we know that they were imperfect unless there is some absolute standard against which to measure them? That is part of what I mean by the Law.Bob the Apehttp://trousered-ape.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-11063308357205286722014-04-21T10:20:21.847-04:002014-04-21T10:20:21.847-04:00You might like this one:
HGL's F.B. writings ...You might like this one:<br /><br /><a href="http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.fr/2014/04/a-number-of-real-baddies-for-schwarzi.html" rel="nofollow">HGL's F.B. writings : A Number of Real Baddies for Schwarzi to Judge! <br />http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.fr/2014/04/a-number-of-real-baddies-for-schwarzi.html</a>Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-22995740656171143062014-04-19T15:49:07.698-04:002014-04-19T15:49:07.698-04:00Guys, play nice. Guys, play nice. TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-74806209133593856552014-04-19T06:47:50.175-04:002014-04-19T06:47:50.175-04:00I knew I shouldn't have ever gone back to this...I knew I shouldn't have ever gone back to this comment thread—your impenetrable pachycephalicism is well-established—but if you're going to misrepresent the situation like that I kinda have to respond. <br /><br />First off, where did I say <i>I</i> felt <i>anything</i> about <i>anyone</i> being executed, or not? "We", as in society, only watch death-row inmates to keep them from committing suicide, solely because society reserves their deaths to its own authority. Nobody reasonably disputes that. I am sorry you interpreted remarks about society as being about my own emotional states; perhaps there is a remedial literacy class you can take somewhere?<br /><br />Second, you find me where I claimed to be pro-life. You can't, because I am not. I am only anti-murder; I do not make life, as such, into an idol or a fetish, nor do I consider its mere cessation always a moral evil (it is always an "ill", in being the privation of a good, but many if not <i>most</i> such privations are morally neutral). I explicitly told you the principle in question: "nobody shall be killed without due process of law save in direct defense of life and limb". You implication that I am a hypocrite (why don't you ever just once <i>make</i> your accusations, honestly and in plain words, rather than all this simpering implication?) is founded on your own assumptions, not on anything I said.<br /><br />Speaking of hypocrisy, though, you object to anyone interpreting your moral grandstanding as what it obviously is (mostly, I assume, you quibble that you did not actually write the words "I have the moral high ground", though absolutely nobody reading your posturing and preening could interpret it any other way). Yet you presume to (completely erroneously) interpret the meaning behind the things that I said, or more to the point, did not.<br /><br />That you demand to be judged solely on your specific wording, rather than on the obvious implications of your remarks, while presuming to read meanings into others' remarks that they do not in fact contain, is a whole other level of bad-faith—and then you accuse other people of hypocrisy, which is compounding bad faith with jaw-dropping effrontery. More generally, however, it would behoove you to respond to what people <i>actually</i> say, not your assumptions, misunderstandings, or outright hallucinations/lies, about what they <i>probably meant</i>. I close with two suggestions: "remedial literacy" and "how to argue in good faith".<br /><br />Now I'm seriously done talking to you.Sophia's Favoritehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871625814389904112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-54716037329789340922014-04-19T06:20:42.185-04:002014-04-19T06:20:42.185-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Sophia's Favoritehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871625814389904112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-35384922861564120722014-04-18T06:00:45.085-04:002014-04-18T06:00:45.085-04:00I would contend that it is not Bob the Ape who nee...I would contend that it is not Bob the Ape who needs to apologize, but the legions of fools who have torn M. France’s line entirely out of its proper context and converted it into a slogan to promote antinomianism as an aid to revolution. <i>They</i> are entirely serious, and if M. France was ironic, it is despite his irony, and not because of it, that they quote him.Tom Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16067031472666752839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-30533626206066950932014-04-16T09:24:21.866-04:002014-04-16T09:24:21.866-04:00The poor must work for this, in presence of the ma...<i>The poor must work for this, in presence of the majestic equality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread. That is one of the good effects of the Revolution. As this Revolution was made by fools and idiots for the benefit of those who acquired national lands, and resulted in nothing but making the fortune of crafty peasants and financiering bourgeois, the Revolution only made stronger, under the pretence of making all men equal, the empire of wealth. It has betrayed France into the hands of the men of wealth. They are masters and lords. The apparent government, composed of poor devils, is in the pay of the financiers. For one hundred years, in this poisoned country, whoever has loved the poor has been considered a traitor to society. A man is called dangerous when he says that there are wretched people. There are laws against indignation and pity, and what I say here could not go into print."<br /><br />Choulette became excited and waved his knife, while under the wintry sunlight passed fields of brown earth, trees despoiled by winter, and curtains of poplars beside silvery rivers.<br /><br />He looked with tenderness at the figure carved on his stick.<br /><br />"Here you are," he said, "poor humanity, thin and weeping, stupid with shame and misery, as you were made by your masters—soldiers and men of wealth."<br /><br />The good Madame Marmet, whose nephew was a captain in the artillery, was shocked at the violence with which Choulette attacked the army. Madame Martin saw in this only an amusing fantasy. Choulette's ideas did not frighten her. She was afraid of nothing. But she thought they were a little absurd. She did not think that the past had ever been better than the present.<br /><br />"I believe, Monsieur Choulette, that men were always as they are to-day, selfish, avaricious, and pitiless. I believe that laws and manners were always harsh and cruel to the unfortunate."<br /><br />Between La Roche and Dijon they took breakfast in the dining-car, and left Choulette in it, alone with his pipe, his glass of benedictine, and his irritation.</i><br /><br />Mortal law is a construct of humanity and reflects mankind's nature -- virtue and vice; striving for justice and falling short. It is a tool, nothing more.<br /><br />JJBAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-15280677184880712014-04-16T09:22:44.745-04:002014-04-16T09:22:44.745-04:00Then you need to apologize to Monsieur France for ...Then you need to apologize to Monsieur France for your tone deafness to his irony:<br /><br /><i> He took the letter and put it back in his book. Then, arming himself with a horn-handled knife, he began, with its point, to finish a figure sketched in the handle of his stick. He complimented himself on it:<br /><br />"I am skilful in all the arts of beggars and vagabonds. I know how to open locks with a nail, and how to carve wood with a bad knife."<br /><br />The head began to appear. It was the head of a thin woman, weeping.<br /><br />Choulette wished to express in it human misery, not simple and touching, such as men of other times may have felt it in a world of mingled harshness and kindness; but hideous, and reflecting the state of ugliness created by the free-thinking bourgeois and the military patriots of the French Revolution. According to him the present regime embodied only hypocrisy and brutality.<br /><br />"Their barracks are a hideous invention of modern times. They date from the seventeenth century. Before that time there were only guard-houses where the soldiers played cards and told tales. Louis XIV was a precursor of Bonaparte. But the evil has attained its plenitude since the monstrous institution of the obligatory enlistment. The shame of emperors and of republics is to have made it an obligation for men to kill. In the ages called barbarous, cities and princes entrusted their defence to mercenaries, who fought prudently. In a great battle only five or six men were killed. And when knights went to the wars, at least they were not forced to do it; they died for their pleasure. They were good for nothing else. Nobody in the time of Saint Louis would have thought of sending to battle a man of learning. And the laborer was not torn from the soil to be killed. Nowadays it is a duty for a poor peasant to be a soldier. He is exiled from his house, the roof of which smokes in the silence of night; from the fat prairies where the oxen graze; from the fields and the paternal woods. He is taught how to kill men; he is threatened, insulted, put in prison and told that it is an honor; and, if he does not care for that sort of honor, he is fusilladed. He obeys because he is terrorized, and is of all domestic animals the gentlest and most docile. We are warlike in France, and we are citizens. Another reason to be proud, this being a citizen! For the poor it consists in sustaining and preserving the wealthy in their power and their laziness.</i><br /><br />Continued...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-82361183581209105722014-04-14T18:53:06.581-04:002014-04-14T18:53:06.581-04:00One person assures me a free will makes the prefer...<i>One person assures me a free will makes the preferred, reasoned, predictable choice, and another says that a free willed person can choose to make the non-preferred, unreasoned, and/or unpredictable choice. It's almost like I'm trying to address very different notions of free will in the same conversation.</i><br /><br />Free will does not require that the will makes choices that are unpreferred, unreasoned, or unpredictable -- only that they are <i>undetermined.</i><br /><br />As for myself, my claim actually goes much deeper: a computer does not have a will at all, free or otherwise. As Flynn said, will is the intellective appetite. A computer does not have an intellect and neither does it have appetites.<br /><br />Just because a computer does things that sorta seem like reason and having preferences, that does not mean they actually reason or have preferences. That's like saying Michelangelo's David is an actual person because it sorta looks like one. No, it's sculpted marble.<br /><br />Reason is our ability to logically relate our thoughts. Computers cannot do this because <i>computers do not have thoughts.</i> A computer does not think about what it is doing any more than my clock is "thinking about" striking six right now.jmhenryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10108615537455993311noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-8603266732573187252014-04-13T13:50:22.193-04:002014-04-13T13:50:22.193-04:00Contrarian, but with regard to Anatole France. I&...Contrarian, but with regard to Anatole France. I've come across this quotation before and its anarchist <i>cum</i> class-warfare vibe has always bugged me - this was the first chance I've had to respond. It's one thing to knock lawyers and judges, or particular laws, but quite another to knock the Law.<br /><br />And so I'm not sure that M. France's words are really applicable. Both cases cited certainly appear to be instances of gross injustice, but not because of the Law. The first is due to the extraordinary folly of the judge; there's not as much information regarding the second, but callous indifference is a plausible explanation. Taken together, they are not an example of the "majestic equality" of the Law, but a mockery of it.Bob the Apehttp://trousered-ape.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-71116888493588327992014-04-12T03:03:54.590-04:002014-04-12T03:03:54.590-04:00And this is apropos to...?
I cannot tell if you i...And this is apropos to...?<br /><br />I cannot tell if you intend this in a contrarian or supportive fashion to my sentiment regarding the DuPont case.<br /><br />JJBAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-28849802172196278682014-04-11T11:56:37.163-04:002014-04-11T11:56:37.163-04:00Putting one's left sock on first, or the right...Putting one's left sock on first, or the right one, can't both be preferred, reasonable and predictable? Ok, I would dispute that 'predictable', rigidly understood, is consistent with free will. I presume, however, that you imported 'predicable' from theOFloinn's mantra, "a free will does not make unpredictable choices." You probably think "not unpredictable" means "strictly predictable". I (and theOFloinn, I bet) think it means that you can predict that I will put on my left sock first, my right sock first, or not put any socks on at all. You may choose to assign probabilities to each outcome, but they are all loosely predictable. <br /><br />When the robot gets a bug in its software, it will either not put the sock on at all, or apply too much force and rip it to shreds on its articulated titanium toes. A hacker is just a different programmer, though, and if the wiring get re-jiggered by a solar flare or a knock on the head, that's what happens to material things in response to material forces. If it happens to me, it means that my body is not able to carry out the decisions of my will, not that I have no will.thefederalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17514099991587503764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-75035628949322317992014-04-10T13:04:42.313-04:002014-04-10T13:04:42.313-04:00thefederalist,
One person assures me a free will ...thefederalist,<br /><br />One person assures me a free will makes the preferred, reasoned, predictable choice, and another says that a free willed person can choose to make the non-preferred, unreasoned, and/or unpredictable choice. It's almost like I'm trying to address very different notions of free will in the same conversation.<br /><br />Again, I don't see much evidence that a free will can choose to "do something else", as I understand what you mean by that phrase.<br /><br />As for your sock example, I would expect that robots, like any other computer, would develop bugs in their software that caused them to change behavior from time to time, and would be vulnerable to changes in behavior derived from various bits of code that have been received, sometime by hacking and sometimes accidentally. So, I don't see how your example of changing your behavior after receiving new input is so remarkable that no computer could accomplish it.One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-11063287117234550092014-04-10T12:56:20.507-04:002014-04-10T12:56:20.507-04:00Sophia's Favorite
No, she agreed to loan out h...Sophia's Favorite<br /><i>No, she agreed to loan out her body by having sex. </i><br /><br />To whom? At the time of sex, there is no fetus, no embryo, not even a zygote. You can't form a contract with a non-existent entity. Are you saying that she agreed to lend out her body to the man she is having sex with? Therefore, if the man agrees to the abortion, there is no wronged party? I don't believe that is your position, so your argument does not support your position.<br /><br /><i>There are not, actually, such things as medically necessary abortions. </i><br /><br />Right, there are just women who die as a result of not having an abortion. That's no reason to consider the abortion necessary, after all, it's only a woman that dies. Please don't deny this happens. One recent example is Savita Halappanavar. If you are really committed to your position, you accept that the occasional woman will die from not having an abortion. It is inescapable.<br /><br /><i>The only reason death-row inmates are "not currently endangering anyone" is they are the most closely watched of all inmates, almost exclusively so we are not cheated of the chance to execute them by them committing suicide</i><br /><br />I always chuckle when a supposed pro-life person feels cheated by the loss of a chance to execute someone. Personally, I'm not anti-death-penalty per se, but would like to see strong reforms to the process; we know people have been executed for crimes they did not commit.<br /><br /><i>I am through dignifying your screeds with responses.</i><br /><br />Thank you. <br /><br /><i>... when you advocate killing people without even a claim of justice. </i><br /><br />Actually, I have specifically said that I would be in favor of removing every viable fetus alive, rather than having it aborted. Perhaps you think I should support removing the non-viable fetuses alive in order to be consistent in that regard, but that does seem cruel. At any rate, lying about my stated position does not enhance your credibility.<br /><br /><i> you do actually claim, with enough pomposity to choke a buzzard, that you have the moral high ground.</i><br /><br />Regardless of what I think, I made no such claim. <br /><br />Again, thank you for not responding further. Everyone will be happier for it.One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-15925176246848782362014-04-10T09:58:19.641-04:002014-04-10T09:58:19.641-04:00Because a free will can always decide to do someth...Because a free will can always decide to do something else. Computers don't weigh different inputs, their internal switching mechanisms respond as programmed to the inputs they are designed to 'notice' and ignore inputs they aren't programmed to notice. It may be similar to reason, but it's not the same thing as reason. The reason is in the programmer, not the programmed.<br /><br />A couple of years ago, I read an article that mentioned in passing that Orthodox Jews - some sects of them, anyways - put on their right socks first as a mark of reverence toward God; most people put their left socks on first. Intrigued, I first began to pay attention to how I put my socks on, and indeed, I tended to put my left sock on first. So I started to form the habit of putting my right sock on first (not as an act of prayer, more as a science experiment). Now I tend to put my right sock on first. I'm pretty sure that newspaper-reading, sock-wearing robots would never be able to do that.thefederalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17514099991587503764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-64802253484075598872014-04-09T23:11:25.365-04:002014-04-09T23:11:25.365-04:00Actually, one final point: you don't get to po...Actually, one final point: you don't get to posture self-righteously about "the killing of people who are taking nothing but government resources, and not currently endangering anyone", when you advocate killing people without even a claim of justice. Executions are, at least, punishments for actual actions that were taken by those they are inflicted on. Abortion is inflicted on a person who did not even exist at the time of the action to which abortion is relevant—it is executing a person for the crime of at least one other person, if not two, of creating them. And yet despite advocating that monstrosity, you <i>do</i> actually claim, with enough pomposity to choke a buzzard, that you have the moral high ground.Sophia's Favoritehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871625814389904112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-43346524282932705732014-04-09T19:21:47.188-04:002014-04-09T19:21:47.188-04:00No, she agreed to loan out her body by having sex....No, she <i>agreed</i> to loan out her body <i>by</i> having sex. If you consent to sex, you ipso facto consent to the success of the sex act (sex-acts that do not result in conception are called "unsuccessful mating" in biology—I'm sorry you believe that your faith-based beliefs should trump science). I consider the same principle to hold in paternity cases.<br /><br />Try that argument in any other context: "when we signed the contract, we never expected the business to succeed". See how far it gets you in a court of law.<br /><br />This is your signed affidavit that you <i>really don't</i> know where babies come from.<br /><br />There are not, actually, such things as medically necessary abortions. There are medically necessary procedures that result in miscarriages (which is called "abortion" in medicine—it's not "induced" but it still is abortion), but there is never a medical need to induce abortion. Are you familiar with "electivity" in medical ethics? Some procedures become marginally safer if a miscarriage is induced first; but there is never a medical <i>need</i> to induce one.<br /><br />For the rest, you have no case so you introduce illegitimate question-begging arguments that deliberately or negligently ignore a key fact. The only reason death-row inmates are "not currently endangering anyone" is they are the most closely watched of all inmates, almost exclusively so we are not cheated of the chance to execute them by them committing suicide—if they were not on death row, they would be as likely to commit murder, assault, and rape as the other inhabitants of our prison system, and, well, 23% of maximum security inmates have been raped, just for one facet of whether <i>they're</i> "currently endangering anyone".<br /><br />You combine self-serving disingenuousness with self-righteous posturing in the most distasteful manner. I am through dignifying your screeds with responses.Sophia's Favoritehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871625814389904112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-60260825532410172312014-04-09T15:38:08.206-04:002014-04-09T15:38:08.206-04:00TheOFloinn,
If the choices of a free will are not...TheOFloinn,<br /><br />If the choices of a free will are not random, but preferred, reasoned, and predictable, in what demonstrable way are these different from the choices a computer can make? Computers can weigh differing inputs (something similar to reason), evaluate consequences to see what is best/least bad (have a preference), and will follow a set course (be predictable). They are worse at two of these than humans, and more predictable,, but I don't see why that is a matter of kind, as opposed to degree.One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-24326264124434713302014-04-09T15:32:35.298-04:002014-04-09T15:32:35.298-04:00Sophia's Favorite,
The woman's bodily aut...Sophia's Favorite,<br /><br /><i>The woman's bodily autonomy ends where the fetus' body begins. </i><br /><br />Yes, that's what I said. The fetus should be pulled out alive, if it can survive.<br /><br /><i>If she didn't want to get pregnant, she shouldn't have had sex. (Honestly, do you people not know where babies come from? It's like living among the Tiwi.) </i><br /><br />So, carrying a child you don't want is the punishment for having sex you shouldn't have? We don't even force death row inmates to donate organs in this country, yet you think a woman needs to loan out her body for having sex. <br /><br /><i>Nobody's bodily autonomy ever includes a right to kill a person except in direct defense of life and limb, or as a judicial execution—and abortion meets neither criterion.</i><br /><br />1) There are such things as medically necessary abortions.<br />2) In any jurisdiction in the USA, I can defend myself with lethal force to prevent/repel non-lethal battery, as long as my defense stops when the battery no longer is a threat. By contrast, you support the killing of people who are taking nothing but government resources, and not currently endangering anyone.<br /><br />You probably think you have moral high ground.One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-2456164848075241782014-04-08T14:22:17.325-04:002014-04-08T14:22:17.325-04:00The woman's bodily autonomy ends where the fet...The woman's bodily autonomy ends where the fetus' body begins. If she didn't want to get pregnant, she shouldn't have had sex. (Honestly, do you people not know where babies come from? It's like living among the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwi_people" rel="nofollow">Tiwi</a>.) And if she was raped, her grievance is against the rapist, not his child. Nobody's bodily autonomy <i>ever</i> includes a right to kill a person except in direct defense of life and limb, or as a judicial execution—and abortion meets neither criterion.Sophia's Favoritehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02871625814389904112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-84986345863431817032014-04-08T13:32:24.852-04:002014-04-08T13:32:24.852-04:00The will is the intellective appetite; that is, a ...The will is the intellective appetite; that is, a hunger for (or contrary to) some concept. <br />You cannot desire what you do not know.<br />The intellect does not know most things completely. <br />Therefore, the will is not determined to this or that. <br /><br />Now, when something is known completely -- say, that 1+1=2 in normal notation -- then the will cannot withhold consent. But when knowledge is incomplete -- what is "world peace"? Is it a good? Of what does it consist? What are the steps required to achieve it? -- then to that extent the will is undetermined. It has "degrees of freedom" or "play" in the engineering sense. <br /><br />A free will does not make random choices. <br />A free will does not make random choices. <br />A free will does not make random choices. <br />A free will does not make unpreferred choices. <br />A free will does not make unreasoned choices. <br />A free will does not make unpredictable choices. <br />etc. <br /><br /><br />TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.com