Dennis Hackethal’s Blog
My blog about philosophy, coding, and anything else that interests me.
Tweets
An archive of my tweets and retweets through . They may be formatted slightly differently than on Twitter. API access has since gotten prohibitively expensive – I don't know whether or when I'll be able to update this archive.
But in case I will, you can subscribe via RSS – without a Twitter account. Rationale
Yeah but that doesn’t mean we should avoid political theories with reach.
I think you’re confusing something. Just because historicism claims to have reach it doesn’t have doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for universal reach in politics. Universal theories in politics can be about things other than laws of progress.
So why don’t they also vote to force-sell all the stores so the government can lower all other prices too? And maybe they should force-sell all companies period and have the government be everyone’s employer so everyone can be paid more. Maybe they can also legislate cancer away. twitter.com/GeorgeGammon/s…
Clojure Koans are good too: clojurekoans.com
“Clojure for the Brave and True” is a good (and free) resource for learning Clojure. braveclojure.com
Yes I think that's fair.
Well, in that case people wouldn't get very far. We need conjectures with reach, ideally universal reach, to make progress.
Depending on the underlying cause obesity can absolutely be in ppl's control.
There's also astonishing research into how obesity can spread through groups much like smoking, drinking etc.
And nobody's asking for freedom to spread Covid. twitter.com/nntaleb/status…
And businesses are free to not serve people who are unvaccinated or have employees who won’t get vaccinated.
Yes, they are, or at least should be, but if Biden were to have his way, they wouldn't be free to not serve the unvaccinated, they'd be forced to not serve them. twitter.com/SurviveThrive2…
Maybe.
When you speak out against "universal conjectures" in politics you seem to be promoting parochialism. Or am I misunderstanding you?
The complexity of brains resolves itself into a simpler structure on a higher, more relevant level of emergence, where they are computers. By denying this step to the higher level of emergence it's you who's being reductionist.
From what you've said I don't think you understand enough about brains or computers to make that claim.
Brains are computers and then some, yes, eg they have input and output devices that our computers don't. But that doesn't change a thing about computational universality.
It's reductionist because it equates shared function with similarity of design/form.
That's not what reductionism is.
"You've been asymptomatic for a month. [You think] god likes you the most. He gave you the Jesus genes, right? You're special. Your friend down the street got the sniffles, now he can't taste his […] wife's ass when he licks it […] and it makes you feel better about yourself." twitter.com/dchackethal/st…
If you're such a fan of coercion and violence, maybe you should move to Australia or France or China so you can lock people into their homes and beat protesters, breaking their noses and bones so they stay healthy. Or maybe it's like Bill Burr says on his podcast (4-6-20):
... into a 'quarantine camp'. All those are physically violent, all in the name of 'public' health.
How would you persuade them?
I don't know but I'm not the one trying to get people to get the vaccine. You would need to figure that out, not me.
What violence are you referring to?
Have you not seen the bloody response to protests from several governments around the world? Then there's jabbing a needle into someone's arm against his will, which would surely be violent. Or dragging them from a peaceful activity...
Is your freedom to not get vaccinated so important that we risk a variant that is much more deadly […]?
Yes, but you're presenting a false choice. Find a solution that doesn't coerce people and doesn't cause them to die. Create new alternatives instead of comparing only 2
...you can't trade one evil for another. Find a solution that reduces losses and doesn't coerce people.
'Public' health is not an overriding concern that people should be forced to provide. And again, just persuade people. If you fail at persuasion that's no excuse to coerce
do you think losses are acceptable, should we just let it run its course and accept loss of those who don’t want the vaccine?
I don't think losses are acceptable but I also don't think they justify coercing people into preventing those losses. Problems are soluble and...
... or my responsibility to make sure hospitals have availability. You're forcing responsibilities on people they never agreed to, and you are turning people into sacrificial animals, even if you deny that.
Do you think the surges that crippled health care systems in Italy, New York, India were fake?
I don't know. Much of the media seems to have vastly overstated the impact. I've seen reports of many hospitals being underutilized. But whatever the case, again, it's not your...
Because of low vaccination rate, a winter surge that is worse than last year is inevitable. What is your response?
1) that's prophecy, 2) it's nobody's duty to ensure the health of his peers, 3) so persuade ppl to get vaccinated?
They're offered a 'choice' similar to when parents say to their children 'you can do your homework before or after dinner', with the implied threat of punishment.
So because I don't live in Australia what they're doing to their citizens is okay? LOL
And, they are free to leave just not come back?
Many would want to leave temporarily and come back eventually because it's their home. They don't want to abandon their home forever...
But once you take the epistemological implications of 'robotness' vs consciousness seriously, it follows from Dawkins' claim that animals are not conscious (whether he agrees with that is another matter entirely).
Also many people don't see that robot-like execution of algorithms on one hand and consciousness on the other are incompatible, so in that view there's no conflict between viewing people as robots and as conscious.
That said, I'm not sure he just considers the 'organisms are genes' robots' idea a metaphor. Do you have a quote?
When I attributed the idea to Dawkins I didn't mean to imply that he agrees with me about animal sentience – after all, what started this thread is my response to Dawkins' conjecture that animals may suffer more than humans! Just giving credit where it is due.
"clearly did not express"
manifest-truth error again
Communication is hard. You can't expect others always to understand what you intended.
BoI ch. 10 is good on this btw.
Indicative of your style of 'reasoning' again: just insist, don't explain why Dennis wrong. Dennis just doesn't see 'the obvious'?
Maybe we could even program consciousness into an amoeba, arguably are very primitive life form compared to others. Or maybe not.
We could program consciousness into a robot if we knew how (and also into much more primitive hardware as long as it's universal and has enough memory and processing power).
It's not like at some sufficient level of advancement robots suddenly jump to consciousness (which most think is true for animals – like thinking amoebae are not conscious but dogs are).
Are current robots advanced enough to have consciousness?
No, but it has less to do with lacking advancement and more with lacking the 'right' programming. We just don't know how to program consciousness at the moment.
Are biological dogs robots?
Yes, as are all organisms (except humans, and I can explain why). Following Dawkins, organisms are the slaves genes use to propagate themselves. Organisms are programmed to execute their genes' bidding.
You're still engaging in further analysis.
...that your explanation may not be the "obvious" one (since you keep going back to that word). You really don't want to be wrong or change your mind about this. You want to 'see the obvious' and then stop there and preserve 'the obvious' in its current state.
This is another difference in how we argue and why it's easier to change my mind than yours: I've entertained your idea. (I used to hold it myself, even be vegan etc.) I understand your point of view. I don't think you've seriously entertained mine, or ever stopped to think...
You think you see consciousness behind the pain because that's what your existing explanation says. You should criticize your explanation and see if there are other ways to interpret dog behavior.
That includes pain, which you can witness them responding to. Therefore they are conscious.
We can see the response but not the pain. So the 'therefore' doesn't follow. There, another refutation.
I've also explained that robots could be programmed to respond the same way as dogs, so dog behavior cannot be indicative of consciousness.
I just said I had previously pointed out your truth-is-manifest mistake. Now you're making the same mistake again: "[dogs] obviously aren't robots [...]" (the word "obviously")
You're engaging in further analysis which you claimed wasn't necessary.
...Instead you offer something unrelated (and aggressive again because you accuse me of having bad intentions) that I'm now also supposed to refute, in addition. So this very response of yours is in line with my theory that it's harder to change your mind than it is mine and why.
This doesn't address what I said about your (probably tacitly held and very common) methodology. It's switching arguments again: I present a theory for why it's harder to change your mind than mine. You don't refute that theory...
I understand that that's what you think. I don't think it means you didn't switch your argument.
Then you contradict yourself because by your own argument: a robot when lit on fire experiences "immense suffering". You can't now claim it doesn't and explain why because you said yourself that "no analysis is needed".
You also insist your arguments are true when I've already refuted them, no counter-refutation provided: twitter.com/AstralKing7/st…
The "no analysis needed" thing is the manifest-truth error I have pointed out previously.
I, on the other hand, am looking for a single refutation of my general argument, and when that refutation comes, I will change my mind about the entire topic. I don't think you're prepared to do that. So in principle it's much easier to change my mind than yours.
And it doesn't work because you can always think of more things for me to refute, meaning you can always keep your opinion the same.
This is representative of a more general trend I notice in our discussion: you seem to expect a refutation of everything you think is true about animal sentience. That places a huge burden on me that I don't place on you.
You also switched your argument. First you claimed "Pain responses require the ability to feel pain". You focused on pain responses. Now you're talking about the feeling of pain.
That one example does not prove that they are.
I'm not after proof. I'm after good explanations.
Btw videos of dogs yelping in pain or whatever don't prove that they're conscious either. Evidence is ambiguous: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/evidence…
I don't doubt dogs have pain receptors and pain responses. I doubt that they feel it. That they suffer from it. A quite sophisticated ability to interpret pain is needed to translate it into suffering.
Why don't you conclude that robots responding to pain are conscious?
Are you trying to say that I contradicted myself by claiming 1) sophisticated behavior can be pre-programmed and 2) physicists' discoveries cannot be pre-programmed?
Without a mind there's no consciousness, yes? Can we agree on that?
That one example does not prove that they are.
I'm not after proof. I'm after good explanations.
Plus, even if they were, how would you know that consciousness wasn't an essential part of the algorithm?
Because again, something that is executed mindlessly isn't conscious
Doesn't that make anarchism the best alternative since it is the absence of a political system?
Ah yes, 'the realities' and probably also 'lived experiences'. twitter.com/SurviveThrive2…
Or, again, just persuade ppl to get the vaccine. You can get the outcome you desire without resorting to violence.
If you don't like surrounding yourself with unvaccinated ppl, it's quite presumptuous to 'invite' them to leave the country. You're free to stay home. Or better yet: solve the problem in a way that makes both sides happy.
You're again vastly overstating the risks of COVID. And governments are starting to stop people from leaving the country, such as the Australian government setting the bar very high for re-entry.
And because we live in a society, you don't get to coerce others or exile them.
But maybe one day you'll get to start your own society, where you are free to coerce adults and torture children to your heart's desire.
Also note the irony of Hyo lumping all Germans together and attacking a vulnerable minority (children), ascribing the same attribute to all of them based on nationality – which is something racists do.
With ‘socialized’ healthcare, fat people hurt everyone’s wallet.
Some ppl’s answer: ‘force fat ppl to work out’
Others’: ‘make healthcare a personal responsibility instead of a collective one’ twitter.com/nntaleb/status…
RT @angela4LNCChair:
Californians, please call/email your state level representatives and tell them to oppose this bill.
What other countries does this remind you of? twitter.com/disclosetv/sta…
Yea I grew up in Germany and this isn’t normal at all. Nor have people there “internalised” racism. Hyo is grossly overstating things and repeating woke lingo in parrot fashion.
It's also telling that, when they don't do as you want them to, it's them you think should leave, not you.
You're saying they're free to decide because they can either get the vaccine or leave. That's not freedom to decide. They should be able to pursue happiness in their own way without your approval.
Also note that you could still coerce your children even if those who don't want to do that to their children stay in your country.
So I really don't see why you'd need to exile them, other than maybe a desire to coerce adults, too.
Somebody should make a Minecraft version where before you can build any dwelling you need permission from the government.
You won’t last the first night.
You place too much emphasis on the legality of the situation. As if an injustice could become just simply because some people in a parliament building somewhere signed off on it.
You then realized this essentially means 'might makes right'. Which is disgusting, so you couldn't say that. You had to dodge the question and find ways to distract from it.
It wasn't aimed at strawmanning your position, nor was I implying that you were obtuse. Based on how defensive you're getting I think here's what happened: you realized your answer would be 'yes, if the cops entered your home aggressively, as long as it's legal, it would be okay'
That's not a pain response.
Why not? Because pain responses require consciousness?
And there is zero reason to believe that's what's happening when you dog yelps.
See once more the algorithmic nature of dogs, as evidenced by the buggy swimming motion.
I just gave an example of a response: "[The robot] withdraws its hand because the measured temperature is above a pre-set threshold."
@ks445599 @LaurentWada @Neuro_Skeptic
But he put 'force' in quotes! Look how peaceful a person he is!
It's similar to the arguments against animal sentience in the book. They're there, and they also follow from Deutschian epistemology, but they're not laid out explicitly (though more explicitly than any pro-anarchy stance).
It may not contain any explicit refutations. Like my quote above, I think arguments for anarchism are sprinkled throughout and highly implicit. But I do think that (a gradually, slowly achieved) anarchism follows logically from Deutschian epistemology.
And what are you willing to do to those who do not want to go to school or be injected against their will? How far are you willing to go? twitter.com/LaurentWada/st…
You're trying to appear gentle by denying forcing your kids but then contradict yourself in the very next sentence. twitter.com/LaurentWada/st…
You should focus less on the group and more on the individual. You should respect individual's differing preferences more and emphasize persuasion and freedom over group think.
So, since you like 'the group' so much, shouldn't you be in favor of that?
You're subscribing to an evil doctrine, collectivism, which sees individuals as "sacrificial animals" (Auguste Comte). youtube.com/watch?v=7RFlPm…
And as a grown up [...]
You're implying that people who don't want to 'get with the program' are immature. People generally don't want to be perceived as immature, so you're pressuring them into agreement. You're arguing from intimidation: aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/argume…
Agreement requires consent. I have pointed out that Biden promotes force, not consent. (As do you, I think.)
Can you answer my question before asking more questions?
Can doing physics be genetically programmed?
No. Physicists make genuine discoveries. A discovery cannot be pre-programmed or else the program would be the discovery.