From: grandmother's email address
To: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
I'm glad to hear you received it, buy something frivolous with it!We are back in a deep freeze again,how about Windsor?We are in the minus 30 degree range I doubt it would be that cold there.Oh well January is nearly over & I can see the days are getting longer now.All for now~~ Ta Ta.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
i don't really want to get moral on the guy. i mean, i share the revolted reaction. but his real problem is that he doesn't understand what drives people. he'd rather base his concepts of human behaviour on what some philosopher deduced than on any kind of actual study. it's a bigger problem than this guy.
they've done studies that have determined that the only people that think like economists are economists. that is to say that homo economicus is a pretty good description of economists, but a terrible description of everybody else. which demonstrates that their concept of "human nature" is something that economists *learn* in their academic training, rather than a universal constant.
most people don't care about working hard and building empires and being rich (forget the plausibility...), they care about being able to spend time with family and friends and engage in however they define recreation.
so, we need to take power away from the economists. we need to stop pretending that economists understand human behaviour. this guy is just a symptom of a false worldview.
http://www.thealbatross.ca/27691/kevin-o-leary-fantastic-news
i mean, we need to shift to behaviourist economics, yeah, but the focus of that shift is taking economics out of the center of human decision making. this entire type of thought, from mill through to marx and hayek and beyond, is just not reflective of what we are as creatures. we're about the theatre, and the academy, and not the agora...
they've done studies that have determined that the only people that think like economists are economists. that is to say that homo economicus is a pretty good description of economists, but a terrible description of everybody else. which demonstrates that their concept of "human nature" is something that economists *learn* in their academic training, rather than a universal constant.
most people don't care about working hard and building empires and being rich (forget the plausibility...), they care about being able to spend time with family and friends and engage in however they define recreation.
so, we need to take power away from the economists. we need to stop pretending that economists understand human behaviour. this guy is just a symptom of a false worldview.
http://www.thealbatross.ca/27691/kevin-o-leary-fantastic-news
i mean, we need to shift to behaviourist economics, yeah, but the focus of that shift is taking economics out of the center of human decision making. this entire type of thought, from mill through to marx and hayek and beyond, is just not reflective of what we are as creatures. we're about the theatre, and the academy, and not the agora...
at
04:09
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
"In 1956 the American Medical Association voted to define alcoholism as a medically treatable disease so that such treatment by physicians would become eligible for payment from third parties (insurance companies). The decision was not made on the basis of any analysis of the scientific evidence -- it was made on self-serving economic grounds."
https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/is-alcoholism-a-disease-heres-the-evidence-and-logic/
https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/is-alcoholism-a-disease-heres-the-evidence-and-logic/
at
03:38
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
perceptronium, huh?
i don't think it's as complicated as philosophers would have you believe. they've just been stumbling around in the dark all these years, looking for a light switch. i hardly think somebody that lived before the age of computers could possibly have a single worthwhile thing to say about consciousness. i'm not really interested in hard or soft problems. i'm convinced it's just electricity running through circuits, and we just have to understood the physical properties of the circuits. while we understand that quantum mechanics governs the behaviour of matter, i don't see any reason why it's at all fundamental to understanding consciousness. the classical approximation is probably good enough.
a dozen philosophers will object, but what they have to say isn't based on empirical studies and is not worth seriously contemplating.
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/5e7ed624986d
so, no. this is crazy talk.
i mean, you could say something about a system working holistically. but you could apply the same reasoning to a paperclip factory. you take out a component, the whole thing falls apart. that doesn't mean you can't understand how it works by examining the components, and deduce that the functioning is a result of the components working together.
clearly, it's a complicated thing. but i reject the idea that it transcends mechanical explanations.
if you're really convinced that there has to be something deeper, the answer is going to lie somewhere in studying dna. which seems like i'm putting off the question. but i reject the idea that there's something more to it than that.
as mentioned: i'm not really interested in this (i'm suspecting this appeared in my feed as a reaction to some recent rambling and feel obligated to respond, but i have problems with solipsism), but a quick run through wiki suggests i roughly agree with daniel dennett. there isn't really a hard problem. well, it certainly *was* a hard problem to somebody living in even the not so distant past. but lots of hard problems turn out to have unremarkable solutions...
regarding qualia, i'll never forget the way i watched a philosophy prof take down a stoner in a class on german idealism.
"how do we know that what's red to me is red to you?"
"because we understand the theory of wavelengths."
"but..."
"no. it's a wavelength. it's not subjective at all."
i smiled. it was nice to hear.
i don't think it's as complicated as philosophers would have you believe. they've just been stumbling around in the dark all these years, looking for a light switch. i hardly think somebody that lived before the age of computers could possibly have a single worthwhile thing to say about consciousness. i'm not really interested in hard or soft problems. i'm convinced it's just electricity running through circuits, and we just have to understood the physical properties of the circuits. while we understand that quantum mechanics governs the behaviour of matter, i don't see any reason why it's at all fundamental to understanding consciousness. the classical approximation is probably good enough.
a dozen philosophers will object, but what they have to say isn't based on empirical studies and is not worth seriously contemplating.
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/5e7ed624986d
so, no. this is crazy talk.
i mean, you could say something about a system working holistically. but you could apply the same reasoning to a paperclip factory. you take out a component, the whole thing falls apart. that doesn't mean you can't understand how it works by examining the components, and deduce that the functioning is a result of the components working together.
clearly, it's a complicated thing. but i reject the idea that it transcends mechanical explanations.
if you're really convinced that there has to be something deeper, the answer is going to lie somewhere in studying dna. which seems like i'm putting off the question. but i reject the idea that there's something more to it than that.
as mentioned: i'm not really interested in this (i'm suspecting this appeared in my feed as a reaction to some recent rambling and feel obligated to respond, but i have problems with solipsism), but a quick run through wiki suggests i roughly agree with daniel dennett. there isn't really a hard problem. well, it certainly *was* a hard problem to somebody living in even the not so distant past. but lots of hard problems turn out to have unremarkable solutions...
regarding qualia, i'll never forget the way i watched a philosophy prof take down a stoner in a class on german idealism.
"how do we know that what's red to me is red to you?"
"because we understand the theory of wavelengths."
"but..."
"no. it's a wavelength. it's not subjective at all."
i smiled. it was nice to hear.
at
03:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
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