Existentialism the non-philosophy

So, existentialism... is bunk

Walter Kaufmann: "The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life."

This is merely an appropriate microcosm for the idiocy that is existentialism.

Is it a crime?

I am not quite sure I can see an analogue for the behavior explicated in the linked article below that would depict it as a crime... Hoaxes have been going on since the beginning of man... is there really a difference? If I made a fake lottery ticket so that a friend of mine thinks he wins 200 million dollars, and then when I tell him it was a joke, he blows his brains out because he does not want to go back to the despair of living paycheck to paycheck, is it really my fault?

Was this woman and her associates truly human scum that should be ostracized socially? Absolutely, have they contravened law? I think not.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081125/D94M60QG1.html

Will machines ever have souls?

Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil takes on several questions about the advance of machines in our society. Proviso: I disagree with the word "futurist" but I will use it where others do. In this article Kurzweil takes on a few questions about machines and their progress in history and how they may evolve over the next few decades. Specifically, I wish to address his response to the question:
"Will super intelligent machines ever have souls?"

Kurzweil's response:

Will super intelligent machines ever have souls?
The soul is a synonym for consciousness… and if we were to consider where consciousness comes from we would have to consider it an emerging property. Brain science is instructive there as we look inside the brain, and we've now looked at it in exquisite detail, you don't see anything that can be identified as a soul - there's just a lot of neurons and they're complicated but there's no consciousness to be seen. Therefore it's an emerging property of a very complex system that can reflect on itself. And if you were to create a system that had similar properties, similar level of complexity it would therefore have the same emerging property and this would be more than an abstraction because these future entities… will be convincing.

It also won't be clear - you won't be able to walk into a room and say, 'OK, humans on the left, machines on the right', because it's going to be all mixed up. You'll have biological humans but they'll have machine processes in their brain, there may be a lot more complexity in the machine intelligence in their brain than the biological portion of their brain. It's not going to be a clear distinction of where humans or biological intelligence stops and machine intelligence starts… [So] we will attribute consciousness to entities even if they have no biology, even if they're fully machine entities: they will seem human, they will seem consciousness, we will attribute souls to them but that's not a scientific statement.

First I question the assertion that the soul is a synonym for consciousness. At the very least this is not unanimously held yet it is stated by Kurzweil as if it were. I understand the inductive logic he applies to attain this conclusion, however, it has several assumptions which are too weak to be relied upon in the fashion he does.

Consciousness as an emerging property.
If this is a description to fill in the obvious blanks we have run into, then it is passable; if this is suggested to be a "how to" as in how to create a consciousness, it is severely lackluster.

An inductive argument with one evidential case is very weak.

Another one of my inventions... Made before I could make it...

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/19/video-rise-and-shine-alarm-hack-is-sheers-genius/

I had this idea about a year ago... I'm pissed off I was unable to make it quickly enough. Good idea Anupam Patahak, may it bring you riches.

My Favorite Sheriff

A couple days ago, a group of people in Louisiana attempted to put together a KKK rite and ended up killing and disposing the body of a woman they lured to a campsite. This is not what I want to talk about. What I found absolutely priceless was the Sheriff's remarks about these members.

"'The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind," St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said Tuesday."

This guy is my hero, it is not every day that you get a Sheriff to say something so true and so blunt.

Bradley or Wilder effect

I made a post a while ago in which I expressed my misanthropically generated theory that there was just no way that American's would elect a black president and furthermore, that the Bradley effect would indeed be demonstrated as true and would be augmented by the nature of a presidential election. Gleefully, I was wrong.

This effect goes by various names, Bradley effect, Wilder effect, Shy Tory Factor and Spiral of Silence. Under any name, it demonstrates that for some reason or another, pre-election pollsters will get inaccurate data because a percentage of those polled will either lie or will not admit a certain affiliation. In my misanthropy, I thought for sure this would show itself greatly in this election. I happily admit that I misjudged Americans.

Here is an article reviewing the '08 presidential election.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081107/D94A2F300.html

President-Elect Obama, my response

I first want to quote and respond to an elderly gentleman. He posted the following: (note, I have no contact with this man, nor do I know what his name is, I just wanted to respond to it)

I know that what I have to say won't make many readers happy but......I am appalled by the outcome of this election. I am 76 years old and I have watched this nation grow. I was born during the Big Depression and lived through World War II when the Greatest Generation sacrificed themselves for our safety and freedom.

I myself served in the Korean War and was proud and honored to do so. I have been called a war monger by idiots who have no idea what war is all about. Veterans don't love war.

I watched a great man lose an election to a nobody who promised the Horn of Plenty to them and like hungry fish they took the bait. When a man like John McCain can't be elected this country is lost.

Here were the problems. The people did not vote FOR someone - they voted AGAINST Bush. Not very sound reasoning. The childrens vote carried the day for Obama. Young people who know little or nothing about this nations history or the perils we will face in the future. It was mob mentality that ruled over reason.

Blacks and whites who wanted to be part of a movement to elect a black man President. How noble. It didn't matter who he was or what he stood for. Just that he was black and sounded good. Date rape?

Where is John F. Kennedy today? He said, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country". The economy played a major role among the "me first" attitudes of many voters.

I have lived too long it seems. Patriotism is dead. Country First is dead. The selfish and uninformed led by the inept rule. It is true and I wish it wasn't. - If you feel like a winner you aren't

I warned you that what I had to say wouldn't make you happy and it doesn't make me happy either. The TRUTH often hurts.

Good Luck to all of you - you will need it until you grow up.

To this Korean War Veteran, preface: I don't completely disagree with everything you said, however, I am taken aback when people use the phrase: "Greatest Generation" and actually mean it. If you are simply referring to people born within 20 years after the dawn of the twentieth century, and it is a reference divorced from the implications, then it is fine; however, if you do mean that those 20 years bore the greatest men and women this country has ever or will ever see, then I take a great objection to everything you said. If you use bigotry as a lens through which you view anyone or anything, you will never see clearly.

Despite the fact that I voted for McCain, as a political scientist, I can look at the results of the election and say that even if we had a normal turnout of youth voters, Obama still would have won. Even as a republican, you must acknowledge that the last 8 years have been a time of unprecedented unilateral action, locally, nationally and internationally. The determined divisiveness of Bush led to the defeat of McCain as much as the promises of the "Horn of Plenty".

When you split a people through various fiats, and you then ignore the disempowered majority, you must face the consequences; now the Republicans must sit back and watch as the Democrats use the system that their rivals have warped over the last 8 years; a diminute legislature, a hyper-active, hyper-influential Executive who can make laws, a Vice Presidential office who is more powerful than the legislature and the future officials that will be born from the 20-year-old men and women that spontaneously marched around their towns and cities throughout the country in celebration of Obama's victory.

Oh and any Republican senator who attempts to filibuster should be laughed off his or her pulpit, remember when the democrats wanted to filibuster and the Republicans basically said it was un-American to do so?

I'm glad I'm a centrist with no party ties as the next 8 years are going to be tumultuous.

Hexapodmeisterschaft

So, is it bad of me to say that this little guy is adorable and I want one? so badly I'm considering shelling out the 150 for the base kit and the 500 plus for the servos? This is Hexapodmeisterschaft, adorably cute 6 footed (hence hexapod) little guy dancing to Mambo Number 5