Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Goals and Nature of Government

Hello readers,

Today's post is concerned with responding to comments (both email and posted here) regarding my prior foundational post.

I cannot put up the text now, but I will upload it as soon as time and vivacity permit.

I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to more discussion in the future!

7 comments:

  1. It all makes sense, your words just go along with everything i believe and think about. beautiful...

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  2. Computers and machines, while logical, exist off of preset algorithms, and use the same standard method of approaching a problems unless given guidance by an outside source. Logic is great when the problem is straight forward, but life and progress aren't straight forward. In math, which is highly logical, there are times we most bend our logic to reach a solution. The solution we reached is correct, but if we used pure cold logic it would have remained out of grasp.

    What I fear that giving in to logic will make us loose our adaptability and thus our ability to progress.

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  3. You argue that there is "no need for ambition once the state of logic is achieved". I disagree with you here. Simply because a goal can be described as being a logical goal does NOT inherently drive someone to complete the tast associated with that goal. There has to be something gained, in many cases; ergo a bit of ambition (or anticipation of pleasure at the completion of a task) is often necessary.

    I do agree with your statement of "mechanically augmented humans capable of feats of a machine but with the decision-making capability of a human being" being desirable, and can see your point of having a "core cadre of completely logical beings" being required - this is, I thought, the backbone of the judicial system AND of government (to some extent).

    Your comment about laziness being an emotion ("motivation to do nothing") I think is in error. Laziness is more a habit than an emotion - as there is rarely something that elicits the response of laziness. Again, I hold to the importance of emotions as an essential part of our humanity. Spock (albeit with some human DNA) had emotions but repressed them; granted Star Trek made the showing of Vulcan emotions a sign of weakness, and the permission of emotions (i.e., Romulans) to promulgate hate, envy, greed, and a myriad of other negative emotions. I believe that the majority of our species experience positive emotions much more often than negative ones (there will always be a few bad apples, however), and that again the majority of us would NOT want to live without experiencing emotions. I think that if you were to start treating infants to remove emotional responses they may grow up to lead your emotion-less lives satisfactorily, but those of us who have experienced them (and continue to) would call these individuals less than human. Pure, cold logic is NOT the answer for our species, even if it may be a partial answer for some of today's societal problems.

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  4. "You argue that there is "no need for ambition once the state of logic is achieved". I disagree with you here. Simply because a goal can be described as being a logical goal does NOT inherently drive someone to complete the tast associated with that goal. There has to be something gained, in many cases; ergo a bit of ambition (or anticipation of pleasure at the completion of a task) is often necessary."

    I disagree; if the goal is logical, then by definition it has a positive outcome (or it would be rather illogical!) and therefore it would be logical to pursue it - so a logical being would.

    "I do agree with your statement of "mechanically augmented humans capable of feats of a machine but with the decision-making capability of a human being" being desirable, and can see your point of having a "core cadre of completely logical beings" being required - this is, I thought, the backbone of the judicial system AND of government (to some extent)."

    I agree with you - but without the mechanically enhanced cadre, it isn't working very well, is it?

    "Your comment about laziness being an emotion ("motivation to do nothing") I think is in error. Laziness is more a habit than an emotion - as there is rarely something that elicits the response of laziness."

    I disagree - it is our instinct to choose the easier task. I suppose I did misidentify it as an emotion, but it remains an illogical evolutionary holdover.

    "Again, I hold to the importance of emotions as an essential part of our humanity. Spock (albeit with some human DNA) had emotions but repressed them; granted Star Trek made the showing of Vulcan emotions a sign of weakness, and the permission of emotions (i.e., Romulans) to promulgate hate, envy, greed, and a myriad of other negative emotions. I believe that the majority of our species experience positive emotions much more often than negative ones (there will always be a few bad apples, however),"

    With regards to this - I don't think that the "face value" of an emotion is relevant. Many people do terrible things because of good emotions.

    "and that again the majority of us would NOT want to live without experiencing emotions."

    This is true. Fortunately, the Leviathan is there to force others into compliance.

    "I think that if you were to start treating infants to remove emotional responses they may grow up to lead your emotion-less lives satisfactorily, but those of us who have experienced them (and continue to) would call these individuals less than human."

    And they would be more than human, regardless of what you would call them.

    "Pure, cold logic is NOT the answer for our species, even if it may be a partial answer for some of today's societal problems."

    Why isn't it the answer? I see no negatives to this plan aside from a vague feeling of disagreement.

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  5. OK, Paul, I'll work on my rebuttal argument. Quick question, though - if humans have been emotional beings for time immemorial, WHY would you consider emotion-less [persons] to be "more than human"? They'd almost need to be described as being a new species (irrelevant of genetic similarities).

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  6. They aren't a new species because the very identification of a species is by genetic code.

    To suggest that they are a new species irrespective of their genetic code is to, for example, say that they are bad except for the parts that are good.

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  7. But to go with a Star Trek analogy, Vulcans & Romulans are different species, even though they share a nearly identical (if not identical) genetic code. I am quite sure that the majority of humans would consider humans WITHOUT emotions to be "less than human", not more. Too bad we don't have emotion chips like Data.

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