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 Post subject: Minor dawdling about perception...
PostPosted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 10:23 pm 
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krylex wrote:
My biggest question is: Where did the fuss originate?

****
Angel On Crack wrote:
Hrm. Because I lack the will to go back through seven pages of pedantic nonsense, "googled" information and misquotes, I'm just going to give my own. If you don't like it, then it's because you're unreasonable, irrational, an idiot, or all three.

Or further back,

IcyMonkey wrote:
Descartes was also a wanker.

Neither probably made entirely seriously, but also perhaps not quite within the full spirit of Debate Club. Moving on...
****


Well, I couldn't remember the minor note I wanted to add to this thread, but now I do. Funny, that.

Anyway, demonstration time! (This is old, but I'll get to why I find it useful in a moment):


1. Get a blank sheet of paper.
2. Place two nice big dots on it, spaced about 1¼ inches apart horizontally.
3. Close your left eye and stare at the left dot with your right.
4. Touch the piece of paper to your nose and slowly move it away until the right dot disappears.

That's your optical blind spot (no relation to the "blind spot" not covered by a car's mirrors). It's where the optic nerve interrupts the retina, meaning you can't see anything at all in that spot. It's been there every minute of your waking life. You just don't normally notice it because your brain takes the visual data from the area around the blind spot and fills it in with something it thinks will look natural (in this case, more blank white). If you use two long vertical lines instead of dots, you won't see a gap in teh right line no matter where you move the paper even though the blind spot is still there, because your brain sees a line on both sides and just assumes is continues through the spot, and so draws it in.

By itself, this doesn't disprove objective reality of course, but the fact that ours brains are able to do this so seamlessly is an interesting example of just how much processing our senses go through before reaching our "consciousness". To use another example, images actually come from our retinas upside-down, and our brains have to flip them.

Even if one accepts the idea of an objective reality which informs our senses, there would certainly seem to be a case for our experience of that reality to be at least in part a construct of our own minds. And these examples are just at the basic mechanical level of perception. When you factor in the higher-level issues of interpretation, memory, etc., it's a wonder people are able to agree with each other on anything at all (unless you take into account the normalizing effects of societal factors, in which case it becomes more understandable).

I like the above example more than most "optical illusions", because it sort of smacks you in the face with the nature of your own visual perception more forcefully than simply being fooled into thinking, in an intellectual manner, that one line is longer than another when it's not or something.

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Last edited by Wandering Idiot on Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 3:35 am 
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My general idea on things:

Everything, including this statement, can be proven to be incorrect or false.

This is to say that there's no real truth in the world because we as HU-MONs can't give absolute truths. Or at the very least, I don't think we can give absolute truths.

FEAR MY RELATIVISM. XD

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:27 am 
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Without offering comment specifically on other people's philosophies, I'm going to offer mine.

In all things consent is the dominant factor. Consent can only be given by a legally determined adult of sound mind and faculties. Any person not determined to be be of sound mind or faculties or not above the age of consent shall be assigned a guardian based on kinship, or in the absence of a suitable guardian determined to be a ward of the state and subject to the determination of the state.

Any consenting individual (determined by the above to be an adult of sound mind and faculties) should be entitled to pursue any and all courses of action that they so choose, provided that no other individual is impacted upon, without that individuals express consent.

Consent can be determined to be implicitly implied by certain actions.

Voting should be compulsory. All elligable citizens of the state should be required to vote. Elligability should be determined by a test regarding the impact and implications of your vote on a local, national and global scale. Elligability should confer a significant tax advantage. Remaining a citizen of the state should be considered implicitly implied by remaining a citizen. Citizenship and all associatied rights and responsibilities should be renouncable at any time.

First trimester abortion is birth control. The point at which a collection of cells capable of developing into human life becomes a person is not arbitary. It occurs at the commencement of neural activity. This should be determined to the best of our scientific ability. Prior to the commencement of neural activity, its just a collection of cells.

A civillised society has an obligation to provide a minimum standard of education, medical care and a continuing basic standard of living to all citizens. Food, Shelter and the basic necessities of survival should be provided to all persons. Forced homelessness and starvation among the citizens of any state, suffering when medical care is capable of allieviating said suffering, or ignorance when education is availible among the population of any state is the ultimate sign that the nation has failed to become civilised and dwells in barbarism. Those who choose to remain homeless are free to do, however assistance should be availible at all times should they so desire.

All persons should be organ donors. Once your dead you don't need it any more. Get over it.

No religion is right. In the unlikely and incredibly implausible event that religion is more then a manifestation of human stupidity and/or primitive superstition, no established religion will be right. If any supreme being exists, nobody has worked out his deal yet.

Religious events should be sepperated from legal events. A barmitzvah doesn't mean you can buy beer, drive a car or watch porn. A marriage shouldn't entitle your relationship to any particular privilledges. Relationship related privilledges and obligations should be determined with no assessment of religious events.

Prejudice based on Gender, Age, Skin Pigmentation, Sexual preferences or other arbitary factors is vile and reprehensible and should never be endorsed by law or state officials. Factors free from prejudice but relating to these factors, such as an age of consent, should be tolerated only when evidence suggests that such grounds are warranted. Puberty involves a very clear inability to act in an entirely rational manner. Thats why somebody else gets to make your decisions for you untill you grow up.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 7:39 pm 
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Um, what the hell did that have to do with the debate at hand?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 2:23 am 
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Rusty wrote:
Everything, including this statement, can be proven to be incorrect or false.


That's ridiculous. That's so ridiculous that despite that it is more-or-less syntactically correct, it is not even an English sentence because its semantics are undeterminable. I would wager that you have a hard time keeping a straight face when you utter such noises.

Consequently, it fits admirably with some of the rest of the stuff said here. ;-)

Quote:
This is to say that there's no real truth in the world because we as HU-MONs can't give absolute truths. Or at the very least, I don't think we can give absolute truths.


We poor HU-MONs may or may not be able to "give absolute truths", but whether you think we can or not is immaterial. What you can prove is all that interests. If you maintain that even the concept of proof is flawed, as you seem to state above, then you are by definition a solipsist, and I should be ignoring you as hard as I can. But -- I am weak.

Scootah wrote:
In all things consent is the dominant factor .... Any consenting individual (determined by the above to be an adult of sound mind and faculties) should be entitled to pursue any and all courses of action that they so choose, provided that no other individual is impacted upon, without that individuals express consent.


In other words, "act as though the maxim of your action should become the maxim of all action." The Golden Rule, the Categorical Imperative -- it's hard to avoid, yes. It's a very good ethic.

<grumpy>To "impact" is to hit violently. If I should be concussed by a meteorite, that would be as a consequence of the impact of the meteorite upon my noggin. The word you want is "affect".</grumpy>

But then you go on to say ...

Quote:
Voting should be compulsory.


How is this not a contradiction?

Emy wrote:
Um, what the hell did that have to do with the debate at hand?


It's the Thread That Would Not Die Even After Tamayo Tried To Kill It!

Tamayo the depressed


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 2:46 am 
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Tamayo wrote:

We poor HU-MONs may or may not be able to "give absolute truths", but whether you think we can or not is immaterial. What you can prove is all that interests. If you maintain that even the concept of proof is flawed, as you seem to state above, then you are by definition a solipsist, and I should be ignoring you as hard as I can. But -- I am weak.



How am I a solipsist when I can't even truly prove I exist?

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:06 pm 
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Wait, Tamayo, did you just equate the Golden Rule with Kant's Categorical Imperative? They're quite far far from saying the same thing. One says that you should treat others the way you'd want to be treated, and the other says that all moral laws must apply universally in the same sense, regardless of context.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:20 pm 
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Granted, the Golden Rule is a very specialised sub-rule of the Categorical Imperative. Sorry for being imprecise. *winces*


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:25 pm 
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Tamayo wrote:
Granted, the Golden Rule is a very specialised sub-rule of the Categorical Imperative.


No. You can adhere to the Goldern Rule without adhering to the Categorical Imperative. They're totally seperate.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 4:03 pm 
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IcyMonkey wrote:
Tamayo wrote:
Granted, the Golden Rule is a very specialised sub-rule of the Categorical Imperative.


No. You can adhere to the Goldern Rule without adhering to the Categorical Imperative. They're totally seperate.


He's right, Tamayo. The Golden Rule isn't the same. Do onto other's as you would have them do onto you. That is the Golden Rule. That means, I will treat you nice so you will do the same to me.

Kant, on the other hand, says that if being nice is morally correct, then everyone everywhere has to be nice to be so. If there is any situation where one can be morally correct and not nice, then it deflates the notion that moral correctness equates with niceness.

One of the two is a moral path, the other is a way to test morality. You can test the Golden Rule using the Categorical Imperative, but they are far from one and the same.


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