It is also the case that Amazon doesn't have many of the books I've purchased. Some I ordered directly from Universities or publishing houses because they were so unpopular. Thomas Metzinger's Being No One was one such book I had to special order and it was almost $100.
Well, I know when I read fiction, and often it isn't modern fiction, rather classical literature like Dante's Divine Comedy, Homer's Odyssey and Kipling's Kim. I know I can read through a story a day easily. It doesn't matter if I miss or misunderstand some of it. But if I am reading Plato's Republic, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Hobbe's De Corpore Politico or even contemporary non-fiction like Metzinger's Being No One, Koch's Quest for Consciousness or Churchland's Engine of Reason, Seat of the Soul, these books take much more time. Each line has to be read deliberately with the intention of total comprehension. And I don't even mean to pass a test, but just to initially understand the author. I know my brother reads primarily fiction and I primarily non-fiction and we buy books with different speed and frequency.
Since Elton John's character in song is apparently fictional I'll give one example of an outcast who hooked up with an abused teen girl and the two of them became one of the most notorious spree-killing couples in American history. The boy was Charles Starkweather and the girl was Caril-Ann Fugate.
Starkweather suffered from myopia and bow legs and was perpetually ridiculed at high-school. Caril-Ann was abused by her father, sexually and otherwise physically. The first two victims of their spree were her parents.
I feel somewhat compelled to defend idealism and provide a critique of World War II. Part of me realizes it won't be appreciated, but then there is the compulsion.
"The idealist affirms the primacy of consciousness along with its subject. This is not to be regarded as merely an arbitrary affirmation nor as a working hypothesis, but as a direct or immediate recognition, something that is beyond all doubt for the thinker personally. This is so fundamental that the idealist finds it confirmed in the very denial by the denier, since the denial itself is an act of consciousness. That which is wholly unconscious simply could not deny anything. So, when the realist opposes the thesis of the idealist, he must invoke, however unwillingly, the very quality that the idealist affirms is. It never occurs to the idealist to charge the realist with being unconscious, so he is perhaps tempermentally incapable of getting the realist's point of view. To convey his argument effectively, the realist should insist more explicitly on his own unconsciousness. In this way he might avoid adding fuel to the idealist's fire." - Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Transformations in Consciousness: The Metaphysics and Epistemology, p.97, Introceptual Idealism
Thanks for the link. I thought about it some more last night too. I have two cats and figured they probably have object permanence based on my experiences with them.
@Miss Cellania
Sorry for being overly critical. My mind is in the books and found I was extraordinarily critical yesterday, though I'm finding I'm fairly critical most of the time. In Philosophy criticism and argument take a different non-hostile form, and I forget that doesn't apply colloquially. The video is cute, but I guess I'm much more interested in the cognition of the cat.
I was referring to 2/3 being an indication of some kind of empirical fact of the cat's intellectual or visual acuity. I'm skeptical the cat even has object permamence, let alone the ability to track the hidden object over multiple transitions.
Teleology is no less solid than it's opposite. The belief that there is no teleological cause is just as much a choice of belief as is the view that there is a teleological cause, at least from the standpoint of standard human reason. But standard human reason unwittingly revolves around itself and is incapable of so-called "extralogical" insight. In truth however, reason is a mere tool which can be employed from any base of reference. Whereas in the naive realist sense reason is employed from a base reference which exalts the human mind (i.e. purpose/intention instead of cause/effect), in the enlightened, extralogical sense, there is no difference between purpose/intention and cause/effect. It is only because men imagine themselves to be something special that teleological explanations appear unbelievably outrageous. If men were no different than rocks, it wouldn't be so difficult to believe because we would have no compulsion to conceive of ourselves and our intentions as anything but cause and effect. And perhaps we would then realize an essential timelessness with respect to cause and effect and identify what some insightful thinkers refer to as "vertical causation" which is not time-dependent but is more akin to a a view of interdependene of form within time slices.
Playing poker can help resolve those kinds of errors in judgement. You find yourself saying "what are the chances?" quite frequently. Thus, professional poker players assert that the only true method of winning is over time. If your chance of winning is greater than 50% you only have to have enough money to keep playing until it pays off. So, if you are going to play poker you play tables that have a buy-in value 1/10th or less than your total bankroll, and you play hands that have a 50% or greater chance to win. That way you shouldn't go broke before you start to see some winnings and over-all you should win more than you lose. But this is assuming you are capable of keeping your ego in check. You simply cannot expect to win because your hand has a 99% probability to win, you'll lose everything playing that way.
Two out of three ain't good either. One of the earliest trials of Zener cards to test for ESP showed a statistically significant result, with one subject scoring almost 100%. By chance anything is possible. If the probability of something is 1:100 then we should expect to see it one out of a hundred times. But instead we assume we should never see it. Never-the-less it is possible for someone to guess correctly on the Zener cards over several trials, enough to give the impression of genuine ESP.
I've always managed to reserve some judgement for Lady Gaga because I suspected behind the veil of outrageous forms there was a point to be had. It occurred to me on several occassions that she is drawing attention to the arbitrariness of human identity. But then, these realizations are not simple and involve a fractal kind of insight. What may seem reasonable accordingly at one level is quite heinous at another. While it might seem relatively enlightened to make a mockery of common ignorance, it more than not backfires and sullies more realistic attempts to deliver the same message. As a consequence of Gaga's style the general public believes she to be the freak of human identity and not the other way around as she may have intended. Furthermore anyone delivering a similar message will be lumped in with her in the same manner she is lumped in with Madonna. So, ultimately I see it as a fairly unsophisticated and naive approach to the issue of human identity. But an individual with just enough insight to see that the most of us are ignorant might react in such a way in attempt to prove a point, but such method is itself not very enlightened.
My father was a manager for Radio Shack for 15 years when I was a kid. Although I had one of these electronic boards I didn't use it. Dad used to bring home boxes of returned electronics that he referred to as "Field Replacement Units" (FRUs) though often a box would contain a Remote Control car and some other gadgets we'd get working. We managed to bag a Golden Arrow RC this way.
My father worked for Radio Shack Canada which now goes by "The Source" since it no longer has the rights to the Radio Shack name. And my father is back working for The Source after having quit several years ago. He didn't quit because it was a bad place to work. When he managed the store back in the 80s and 90s he had staff that were knowledgable. His resident computer tech was also the man who established much of our local community networks and was involved in Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). He had a very good handle on electronics and computer technology especially.
The Source today is nonsense, while my dad may work for them and know quite a lot about electronics and computers. My cousin is also a manager and he is young and knows very little about electronics in theory or in practice. He knows how to brown-nose and that's about it. In addition most of their minor parts are no longer stocked and quality brands have been replaced with Nextech which is crappy. Although their early computers e.g. TRS80 might not have been highly compatible, virtually no computers were at that time. As a child I enjoyed coding in BASIC on our TRS80 and Tandy 1000.
I don't go there much anymore because when I do go looking for a soldering gun or RJ-45 crimp tool they either don't have them or they are poor quality.
Hmm. I studied a bit of criminology in my day and don't remember forensics playing a big role. It was much more about theory or criminal psychology. To a large extent it boiled down to Consequentialist and Retributivist theories of justice. With some minor theories like "Broken-Windows" theory. I started studying criminology out of a genuine concern for the abyssmal state of human affairs. It is unfortunate that this kind of virtue and humanity is no longer the norm, suppplanted by material pursuits.
Starkweather suffered from myopia and bow legs and was perpetually ridiculed at high-school. Caril-Ann was abused by her father, sexually and otherwise physically. The first two victims of their spree were her parents.
"The idealist affirms the primacy of consciousness along with its subject. This is not to be regarded as merely an arbitrary affirmation nor as a working hypothesis, but as a direct or immediate recognition, something that is beyond all doubt for the thinker personally. This is so fundamental that the idealist finds it confirmed in the very denial by the denier, since the denial itself is an act of consciousness. That which is wholly unconscious simply could not deny anything. So, when the realist opposes the thesis of the idealist, he must invoke, however unwillingly, the very quality that the idealist affirms is. It never occurs to the idealist to charge the realist with being unconscious, so he is perhaps tempermentally incapable of getting the realist's point of view. To convey his argument effectively, the realist should insist more explicitly on his own unconsciousness. In this way he might avoid adding fuel to the idealist's fire." - Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Transformations in Consciousness: The Metaphysics and Epistemology, p.97, Introceptual Idealism
Alright, I'll forgo the critique of WW2.
Thanks for the link. I thought about it some more last night too. I have two cats and figured they probably have object permanence based on my experiences with them.
@Miss Cellania
Sorry for being overly critical. My mind is in the books and found I was extraordinarily critical yesterday, though I'm finding I'm fairly critical most of the time. In Philosophy criticism and argument take a different non-hostile form, and I forget that doesn't apply colloquially. The video is cute, but I guess I'm much more interested in the cognition of the cat.
With grace and ease.
I was referring to 2/3 being an indication of some kind of empirical fact of the cat's intellectual or visual acuity. I'm skeptical the cat even has object permamence, let alone the ability to track the hidden object over multiple transitions.
My father worked for Radio Shack Canada which now goes by "The Source" since it no longer has the rights to the Radio Shack name. And my father is back working for The Source after having quit several years ago. He didn't quit because it was a bad place to work. When he managed the store back in the 80s and 90s he had staff that were knowledgable. His resident computer tech was also the man who established much of our local community networks and was involved in Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). He had a very good handle on electronics and computer technology especially.
The Source today is nonsense, while my dad may work for them and know quite a lot about electronics and computers. My cousin is also a manager and he is young and knows very little about electronics in theory or in practice. He knows how to brown-nose and that's about it. In addition most of their minor parts are no longer stocked and quality brands have been replaced with Nextech which is crappy. Although their early computers e.g. TRS80 might not have been highly compatible, virtually no computers were at that time. As a child I enjoyed coding in BASIC on our TRS80 and Tandy 1000.
I don't go there much anymore because when I do go looking for a soldering gun or RJ-45 crimp tool they either don't have them or they are poor quality.