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SystemTheory

 Discussion on question by More Anonym…

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SystemTheory
Jun 28 09:26
Jesus says, "God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones!" I recognize at least two rational meanings in the modern context. In the physical domain the mineral in stones transforms into plant and animal matter as products of a life-generating process. In the psychological domain the superego forms as the product of a social learning process giving meaning to Abraham as father-figure and the children of Abraham as persons imitating or related to the father-figure. Humans recognize distinctions arising in our mind, such as physical vs computational, and then map relations in the mind.
 

 Discussion on question by Syed: How i…

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SystemTheory
Jun 16 21:47
Much like the computer scientists might do when constructing an algorithm to solve a problem: we invent solutions (causal stories) and then assign a rank order (arrive at the human recognized proximate cause). In political games we argue over who gets the credit and who gets the blame for social outcomes using such stories and rank efforts in the domain of social psychology. It is drama or storytelling all the way down.
 

 Discussion on question by Speakpigeon…

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SystemTheory
May 22 09:25
We are talking about items of recognition that arise (exist?) in the individual and/or collective imagination but that we do not expect to observe in the fields of external perception based on our own stream of perception and the reports of others.
 

 Discussion on question by BoltStorm: …

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SystemTheory
Jan 19 04:22
Sidhartha was just a person who felt intense suffering via empathy with other persons and animals. This caused him to think, "There must be a remedy for suffering. I will find it or die trying!" Egoism: Sidhartha intends to benefit the self. Altruism: Sidhartha intends to benefit other(s). I agree with you that ethical and moral judgment become meaningless in the absence of self or others. In transcendent states a person who suspends ethical and moral judgment of self and others may also suspend modes of suffering. Judgment of self and others might arise again with less suffering.
 

 Discussion on answer by SystemTheory:…

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SystemTheory
Jan 15 23:53
@BoltStorm Rocks are matter. Materialism is the argument that only rocks (matter) exist. Please go argue with a rock if you refute the assertion that humans argue over mental models of reality. See what the rock has to say about your arguments. No matter what I say, you refute it, and when you do not refute it, you move the goal posts.
SystemTheory
Jan 15 21:56
@BoltStorm Rocks do not experience qualia. Rocks do not argue the concept of qualia, reality, not-reality, self, not-self, non-self, or no-self (pick your terms). Instead of evoking qualia to argue with me: Go hammer a rock!
SystemTheory
Jan 15 20:09
@BoltStorm - If qualia are not real then no self is true because reality is neither the self nor the not-self. Reality exists as it is for what it is independent of what you claim to be true or false or right or wrong concerning attributes of reality!
SystemTheory
Jan 14 22:14
@BoltStorm - Einstein calls Galileo the father of modern science. Modern science is meaningful in the intersubjective context because, in the dramatic context, we automatically recognize the ego-efforts of other humans who perform experiments, make observations, and report their conclusions. If you think Galileo or Einstein did not develop their scientific talents as intersubjective apes I think you are crazy! No credible scientist claims to know how neurons produce qualia in our minds!
SystemTheory
Jan 14 22:09
@BoltStorm - I am not convinced by your moral arguments that you have a superior understanding of scientific assertions (these are intersubjective by nature) nor that you are right and others must be wrong on the topic of non-self as a subjective experience. The idea that brains or body-parts cause thoughts in your mind is called medical materialism by William James. It is a bad theory that does not fit the facts
SystemTheory
Jan 14 22:03
@BoltStorm - I get it. You have to be right on this subject no matter what and therefore what others think or say is wrong! If I say Freud discussed tabula rasa and/or primary narcissism in this context you say either he did not do so, or if he did, he was wrong! In law this is called arguing in the alternative! There is no tactic you can use in the intersubjective context to convince me that you are right on the subject and all other subjects are wrong! Brain scans are not qualia!
SystemTheory
Jan 14 21:20
@BoltStorm - I have only read certain English translations of Freud's writing. Given that experience I doubt that you, or anyone else, could prove to me that Freud never discussed tabula rasa and/or primary narcissism! The fact that such concepts are discussed and disputed by people who can only introspect their own emotions, and cannot read the minds of others, is evidence of intersubjective moral judgment parading as scientific knowledge. Science is intersubjective in origin.
SystemTheory
Jan 14 20:06
@BoltStorm - Have you read anything written by Freud? It does not sound like it to me! The first paragraph of my answer provides an outline of the concepts of self, not-self, and non-self (no self), which goes to the essence of your question. People express ideas related to these concepts in the intersubjective context. Evidence for or against such ideas only arises, for discussion and debate, in the intersubjective context. Freud and The Buddha only intend to treat suffering in that context.
SystemTheory
Jan 14 19:01
@BoltStorm - Calling my expressions wrong, over and over, only causes me to contemplate the benefit or personal payoff you might be getting from experiencing such adverse moral judgment in the intersubjective context. It tells me nothing about non-moral reality or natural sources of cause. Freud develops models of the psyche wherein the newborn or original ego may have attributes of tabula rasa and/or primary narcissism. I doubt you understand intersubjectivity.
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
@BoltStorm - I am not asserting that peoples' subjective reports are right or wrong, or true or false! In my view people report their subjective (mystical) experience and other people interpret the words according to their own subjective (mystical) experience. People like Freud speculate about subjectivity. There are domains where reasonable minds converge toward subjective agreement on what is true or false in context. But subjective reports are always mystical in origin because, as you concede, there is no ultimate entity or process forcing all minds to converge toward mutual agreement!
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
@BoltStorm - I have heard that some people report the Presence of God, or Divine Love, when a magnetic field is generated near their skull. I have not heard reports about non-self induced by magnetic fields. Yet people report such mystical experiences in the presence or absence of such magnetic fields! Mixed evidence is not conclusive. In this context you have only asked a question; you have concluded from some evidence that the Buddha is wrong; and you reject every answer that does not agree with your conclusion. If a person suffers less due to experience of non-self: it is what it is.
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
@BoltStorm - I am not trying to beat a dead horse. My answer makes a distinction between self (my body, my mind) and not-self (your body, your mind), and non-self. What you call not-self, in my lexicon, seems to map to non-self. In Zen there is a story where the old man wants to perform a chore while the Sun shines and the young monk says let someone else do it later. The old man says, "I am not others; others are not myself." Another Zen master contradicts that with this talk, "I and not-I are one." The distinction between I and not-I, self and not-self, arises and exists in my mind!
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
@BoltStorm - So you argue that self is not a trick of the brain (it is the brain); but not-self is a trick of the brain? What ultimate entity or physical process generates and recognizes the distinction between a brain trick and reality?
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
@BoltStorm - In fact we know not self is just a trick of the brain, it’s not a truth of reality. In your own words, it is all just a trick of your brain!
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
@BoltStorm - Yes, your brain generates and recognizes the drama as the desire for vitality - the ability to live.
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
@BoltStorm - If everything is caused by your brain then so is your perception of reality. I am not advocating a remedy for an individual who may have been traumatized by past experiences this is a forum of philosophy. I am stating that all these subjective reports arise in the human experience and form patterns of drama.
SystemTheory
Jan 14 14:00
I have not kept track of sources. But I think Freud did argue that the ego is a tabula rasa or blank slate. He also speculates or argues for primary narcissism in which the ego does not originally feel any sense of separation. I am sure that he wrote that this ego feels pain and begins to distinguish ego from not-ego. Ego psychologists speculate that birth is sort of catastrophe for the ego. Lucifer, in religion, falls from heaven, and the drama is similar to pre-birth pleasure and sudden pain and suffering in the reality of this world. Psychological drama is a mental mixture: hence mangled!
 

 Discussion on answer by Philomath: Is…

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SystemTheory
Jan 7 09:53
I never read Nietzsche first-hand. But I have spent six decades contemplating my own emotions in the context of drama. Nietzsche may have idealized the blonde beast of prey (adult lion) because it appears to act on its drives without the pain of human conscience. Before ever learning about Nietzsche I took this idealization of the powerful adult male human or lion as the meaning of the Lion's Head in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade: youtu.be/xFntFdEGgws. A rational man knows we are weak in early life, we age, and we die. Jesus teaches the ir/rational leap from the lion's head!
 

 Discussion on question by Scott Rowe:…

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SystemTheory
Jan 7 09:42
The God of Hebrew scripture is the Creator of Life and the Doer of Deeds. God, in the book of Job, authorizes Satan (Hebrew: Adversary; Accuser) to afflict Job with natural tragedies. Job refuses to curse God; refuses to concede moral judgment to any human authority; and calls for a hearing! I would speak to the Almighty and argue my case before God! God eventually terrifies Job via the whirlwind, lists the mysteries of creation, and restores Job! Political philosopher Ian Shapiro in Resources, Capacities, and Ownership describes the workmanship ideal wherein God and man express will.
 

 Discussion on question by bahhaar: Ho…

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SystemTheory
Jan 4 00:56
AI Overview - In legal terms, the "Age of Reason" doctrine refers to the age at which a child is considered capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and is therefore legally responsible for their behavior, typically set at seven years old under common law, meaning a child below this age is presumed incapable of committing a crime; this is also sometimes called the "rule of sevens" doctrine. My comment: animals and babies feel emotions. Reason emerges in humans.
SystemTheory
Jan 2 09:47
Newborns are in the process of becoming moral agents. My theory is that animals and humans share primitive emotions in common due to biological structures and functions. Baruch Spinoza describes affect (emotion) as a feeling of desire, pleasure, or pain accompanied by an idea of its cause. In the absence of such feelings and causal ideas humans would not be able to generate and recognize each other as moral agents. Animals probably have an innate sense of justice or injustice in their emotions but cannot form human ideas derived from emotions in common with animals. Thus: human compassion.
 

 Discussion on question by Syed: What …

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SystemTheory
Dec 26, 2024 08:36
I had a mentor who said, "It is not enough to pray. You have to take action!" I had contempt for this mentor, thinking, "Action is prayer! Prayer is action!" Another time a self-styled Zen master (he had claim to lineage but I take that as human politics) asked a group to discuss thoughts on this question: Does prayer exist? I told him my thought above. In Zen training one learns to observe desires arise and pass away but when one acts on a desire it should be with intention to cause an outcome (new perception) and indifference to the outcome. This is because I and not-I are two joint causes.
 

 Discussion on question by Just a phys…

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SystemTheory
Nov 28, 2024 17:48
Study further the thermodynamic concept of a reversible versus an irreversible process. Galileo rolled balls in smooth U-shaped channels with equal height on both sides. You can approximate this experiment with a marble in a large kitchen bowl. He observed the ball would roll from the top of one channel almost to the top of the other channel, and then keep rolling back and forth, but each time the height would decrease until the ball comes to rest. Galileo thought oscillations would be perpetual in the absence of resistance. Today we say energy is dissipated by an irreversible process.
SystemTheory
Nov 28, 2024 17:48
When the bamboo helicopter (BH) begins to fall it accelerates at standard gravity g, and some potential energy converts to the increase in kinetic energy of the falling BH, but the air resistance force increases in proportion to the speed of the falling BH, so there is a force of acceleration downward and a force of deceleration acting upward in opposing directions. Work is performed to accelerate kinetic energy of BH from 0 speed to terminal velocity and to heat the air while overcoming air resistance. When BH hits the ground the remaining energy converts to heat via 100% inelastic impact.
SystemTheory
Nov 28, 2024 17:48
Physics is an applied philosophy that produced The Laws of Thermodynamics. Work is defined as a force acting through a distance. Joule's apparatus demonstrates the equivalence of work, heat, and energy. The falling bamboo helicopter (BH) conforms to the First Law of Thermodynamics. Force acts through distance (work done) to increase gravitational potential energy (GPE) of BH at initial height above Earth. Net force acts through distance as BH accelerates downward against air resistance until terminal velocity where forces are equal and opposite. All initial GPE converts to kinetic heat energy.
 

 Discussion on answer by NotThatGuy: A…

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SystemTheory
Nov 27, 2024 16:00
@NotThatGuy To my knowledge very few experts predicted the recent improvement in Large Language Models even though R&D may have made rational progress. There is no consensus concerning the path of improvement for LLMs even though power-sucking data centers will be built in USA and China. Reports are abundant telling how to jailbreak, attack, and trick LLMs into leaking data that safety engineers try to censor! LLMs hallucinate answers! DAN - Do Anything Now - is name of AI hack. We elected President in USA named DON. Alter ego DAN is not predictable! I predict DAN wipes ass w/Constitution!
SystemTheory
Nov 27, 2024 16:00
Ethical and moral philosophers (humans) are unable to articulate the meaning of foreseeable benefit and harm in every possible human interaction. So, it is not clear to me how ethical engineers would know how to limit machine knowledge, or prohibit specific machine queries, or to prohibit machine responses that might harm humans in foreseeable ways. Humans should know: DO NOT mix bleach with ammonia! But that means humans or AI machines know the ingredients of Mustard gas! Native Americans might say that Elon Musk "Speaks with forked tongue" on the topic of truth in the context of free speech!
 

 Discussion on question by user80226: …

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SystemTheory
Nov 18, 2024 10:04
Lookup hearsay and rules of evidence under law.
 

 Discussion on question by Daniel Mend…

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SystemTheory
Nov 5, 2024 07:46
Solipsism - I only know my own experience. This can be a lonely realization. One model for self-other communication is the Sender-Receiver model. Sender encodes a message using gestures, actions, or modes of language and Receiver must decode the meaning of said gestures, actions, or modes of language. In formal transmission systems the engineers make the encoding and decoding algorithms match-up; and build systems to boost the signal to noise ratio in the communication channels. In human communication there is no central encoding and decoding algorithm. Uncertainty is inherent in language.
 

 Discussion on question by Scott Rowe:…

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SystemTheory
Oct 30, 2024 12:08
One can smite the wicked with the jawbone of an ass or one can pray Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
 

 Discussion on answer by haxor789: To …

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SystemTheory
Oct 17, 2024 16:40
@haxor789 When the ego, the effort to govern action in the sensory context, engages in acts of displaced aggression, this would violate an unconscious appetite or conscious desire of the self to not be the victim of such actions by others. The ego, or conscious self, could become aware of this appetite and desire, and that would be the experience of a moral conscience. In the stories or legends of Christianity a character named Saul persecuted Christians. But then he had a transformation of conscience on the road to Damascus. Saul became Saint Paul the primary advocate of Jesus as Christ.
SystemTheory
Oct 17, 2024 16:40
@haxor789 It seems like you want to have it both ways. Freud argued that the conscious ego, which reduces in the simplest model to our efforts to govern action in the sensory context, arrives in the body of the newborn infant as a blank slate. He argues that the newborn ego is effectively helpless, and it is driven by two superior external forces. The id is an unconscious biological source of inner drives which are impulsive, wild, animalistic, and aggressive. External reality confronts the ego via natural events, peers, and authority figures. I said conscience is an inner drive or appetite.
SystemTheory
Oct 17, 2024 16:40
@haxor789 Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, incorporated the existing philosophical concepts of Tabula Raza (blank slate) and hedonism (pleasure principle) into descriptions of the ego. Freud holds that the ego of a newborn child has no innate conscience. I reject Freud's assumptions of blank slate and lack of conscience. If conscience is an innate biological seed of social appetites within the body then it can grow into an ethos, a system of moral values, similar to the Golden Rule; or it can be distorted during early life drama and unable to counteract the drama triangle roles.
SystemTheory
Oct 17, 2024 16:40
@haxor789 Mind reading, in the context of folk psychology, is subjective which is why we have triers of fact in the context of legal theories. All you have stated in the latest reply is the drama triangle in which we all have subjective, and potentially shifting, identification with the roles of Victim, Rescuer, and Perpetrator. Modern psychology has theories of displaced aggression and rationalization that apply to your idea of subjective morality independent of the fact that morality is subjective. Sons are often punished for the sins of their fathers. Displaced aggression is a mode of evil.
SystemTheory
Oct 17, 2024 16:40
@haxor789 You argue that people are not in it for the "terror". But the means to their end is something very much like the theory of intentional infliction of emotional distress imposed on random members of some hated or despised social group. Actual mind reading is scientifically impossible and falls under the term parapsychology. In law, morality, and folk psychology we read minds to decide whether acts of others are intentional or unintentional. Does the perpetrator intend to inflict emotional distress on random others as the means and/or the end? That would be intentional act of terrorism.
SystemTheory
Oct 17, 2024 16:40
Terrorism is a pattern of drama similar to the theory of law called intentional infliction of emotional distress. The facts in these cases include acts such as killing a family member or family pet in front of the victim(s). The apparent aim or goal of such actions is to inflict emotional distress on the victim(s). In terms of dramatic reenactments the psychological pattern involves concepts of displaced aggression and rationalization. The imaginary ends are used to justify the means. Retaliation enmeshes opponents of terrorism in the drama called Victim, Rescuer, Perpetrator triangle.
 

 Discussion on answer by SystemTheory:…

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SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase My formal education is the origin of my knowledge of the reasoning pattern in which an item of recognition, such as a claim in an issued patent or a law of physics, is held to be valid until it is recognized as invalid. The evaluation of what items of recognition are valid or invalid depends, of course, on the respective scientific or legal context. My intention was to describe in general how scientists evaluate models in an open-ended context of performing ongoing experiments and observations across time to refine the context in which models are valid or not valid.
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase The nature and extent of my actual capacities do not depend in the least on your admiration or disdain. Yet you persist with sarcasm and condescension.
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase Maybe you are not surprised because unconscious moralists are common in society. Moralists mistake their own poor judgment for an accurate assessment of the mental capacities of others. The reason I know that there are folks with such poor judgment is that my teachers and professors, who were not ignorant moralists, often recognized my capacity for comprehension. My fifth and sixth grade reading comprehension teacher told me I had a perfect score on the standard aptitude tests. One professor of electrical engineering told me to ask my questions in class to help educate the others.
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase - You are not the first person to misunderestimate my capacity for comprehension. Einstein relied in part on the prior reasoning efforts of Galileo, Newton, and Maxwell: lithub.com/…. [h]e realized the phenomenon of weightlessness would follow from the observations of Galileo and Eötvös. Einstein called his realization “the happiest thought of my life” and elevated this to a principle: No experiment can distinguish free fall in a gravitational field from motion with uniform acceleration (as in the elevator).
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase Your condescension and distorted interpretation of what I have written is duly noted. Einstein read and understood the theories and experiments of other physicists. He knew how to think like Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, and other scientists. This is why his thought experiments bore such fruit. Do you have a reference where Einstein explains the origin of his theory of General Relativity or is it your assumption that the happy thought alone was the genesis of the theory?
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase Analogy is valid if the pattern of reasoning is similar in both cases. Unless you reserve to right to define the scope of meaning of "analogy". The quote by Albert Einstein, if true, demonstrates that Einstein understood how we use theories in the natural sciences, and how we decide whether a theory is reasonable (valid) or unreasonable (invalid) in context. The beauty of Einstein's theories is that they reduce to Newton's laws of motion in special cases. Physicists love this pattern where the general case is coherent with the special case depending on the context.
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase Humans can change the rule concerning the presumption of validity for a patent claim. But the analogy I described holds in both cases: an issued patent claim or previously established law of physics is presumed valid until it is recognized as invalid in a subsequent context. This presumption of validity frames and/or dodges your question concerning the unreasonable effectiveness of models in the natural sciences. The models are recognized as effective, and valid, until a context is recognized wherein the model is not effective, and not valid. Models must be reasonable in context.
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
In college and law school, respectively, I studied electrical engineering and intellectual property law. In patent law the claims to an invention are examined for validity. When the patent issues the claims are presumed valid. When the patent claim is asserted in an infringement action the Defendant can challenge the validity of the claim. This means a patent claim in an issued patent is presumed valid until proven invalid. The same reasoning applies to the unreasonable effectiveness of physical laws. A law is presumed valid until evidence proves it is not valid in every perceptive context.
SystemTheory
Oct 5, 2024 07:37
@Simon Crase Reprinted from Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 13, No. I (February 1960). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 1960 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. THE UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENSS OF MATHEMATICS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES Eugene Wigner maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf. When the famous experiment showed that the Sun's gravity bends light, Einstein supposedly said that one experiment would be sufficient to invalidate his theory, and that no number of experiments could prove it to be valid; but the theory, as we have it, is correct.
 

 Discussion on question by mudskipper:…

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SystemTheory
Sep 13, 2024 09:43
@ScottRowe - Neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese postulates structure in the brain, including the so-called mirror neurons, which supports our experience of intersubjectivity (structure supports a function). He calls this the Shared Manifold Hypothesis. You and mudskipper should read this paper - the manifold nature of interpersonal relations: the quest for a common mechanism - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1693141/pdf/12689377.pdf. Inside first-person experience we specify geometry and properties of materials (physics, chemistry) or structures and functions (biology, engineering).