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Amira .

What is it like to be a bat by Thomas Nagel | Athenaeum Library of Philosophy - 0 views

evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/nagel.htm

Consciousness philosophy cognitive science

shared by Amira . on 15 Jan 11 - Cached
  • the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism. There may be further implications about the form of the experience; there may even (though I doubt it) be implications about the behavior of the organism. But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism. We may call this the subjective character of experience. It is not captured by any of the familiar, recently devised reductive analyses of the mental, for all of them are logically compatible with its absence. It is not analyzable in terms of any explanatory system of functional states, or intentional states, since these could be ascribed to robots or automata that behaved like people though they experienced nothing.
  • I assume we all believe that bats have experience. After all, they are mammals, and there is no more doubt that they have experience than that mice or pigeons or whales have experience. I have chosen bats instead of wasps or flounders because if one travels too far down the phylogenetic tree, people gradually shed their faith that there is experience there at all. Bats, although more closely related to us than those other species, nevertheless present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus so different from ours that the problem I want to pose is exceptionally vivid (though it certainly could be raised with other species). Even without the benefit of philosophical reflection, anyone who has spent some time in an enclosed space with an excited bat knows what it is to encounter a fundamentally alien form of life.
  • My realism about the subjective domain in all its forms implies a belief in the existence of facts beyond the reach of human concepts. Certainly it is possible for a human being to believe that there are facts which humans never will possess the requisite concepts to represent or comprehend. Indeed, it would be foolish to doubt this, given the finiteness of humanity's expectations. After all there would have been transfinite numbers even if everyone had been wiped out by the Black Death before Cantor discovered them. But one might also believe that there are facts which could not ever be represented or comprehended by human beings, even if the species lasted for ever—simply because our structure does not permit us to operate with concepts of the requisite type. This impossibility might even be observed by other beings, but it is not clear that the existence of such beings, or the possibility of their existence, is a precondition of the significance of the hypothesis that there are humanly inaccessible facts. (After all, the nature of beings with access to humanly inaccessible facts is presumably itself a humanly inaccessible fact.) Reflection on what it is like to be a bat seems to lead us, therefore, to the conclusion that there are facts that do not consist in the truth of propositions expressible in a human language. We can be compelled to recognize the existence of such facts without being able to state or comprehend them.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • I have said that the essence of the belief that bats have experience is that there is something that it is like to be a bat. Now we know that most bats (the microchiroptera, to be precise) perceive the external world primarily by sonar, or echolocation, detecting the reflections, from objects within range, of their own rapid, subtly modulated, high-frequency shrieks. Their brains are designed to correlate the outgoing impulses with the subsequent echoes, and the information thus acquired enables bats to make precise discriminations of distance, size, shape, motion, and texture comparable to those we make by vision. But bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception, is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. This appears to create difficulties for the notion of what it is like to be a bat. We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case, 5 and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion.
  • This bears directly on the mind-body problem. For if the facts of experience—facts about what it is like for the experiencing organism—are accessible only from one point of view, then it is a mystery how the true character of experiences could be revealed in the physical operation of that organism. The latter is a domain of objective facts par excellence—the kind that can be observed and understood from many points of view and by individuals with differing perceptual systems. There are no comparable imaginative obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge about bat neurophysiology by human scientists, and intelligent bats or Martians might learn more about the human brain than we ever will.
  • Martian scientist with no understanding of visual perception could understand the rainbow, or lightning, or clouds as physical phenomena, though he would never be able to understand the human concepts of rainbow, lightning, or cloud, or the place these things occupy in our phenomenal world. The objective nature of the things picked out by these concepts could be apprehended by him because, although the concepts themselves are connected with a particular point of view and a particular visual phenomenology, the things apprehended from that point of view are not: they are observable-from the point of view but external to it; hence they can be comprehended from other points of view also, either by the same organisms or by others. Lightning has an objective character that is not exhausted by its visual appearance, and this can be investigated by a Martian without vision.
  • To be precise, it has a more objective character than is revealed in its visual appearance. In speaking of the move from subjective to objective characterization, I wish to remain noncommittal about the existence of an end point, the completely objective intrinsic nature of the thing, which one might or might not be able to reach. It may be more accurate to think of objectivity as a direction in which the understanding can travel. And in understanding a phenomenon like lightning, it is legitimate to go as far away as one can from a strictly human viewpoint.
  • We appear to be faced with a general difficulty about psychophysical reduction. In other areas the process of reduction is a move in the direction of greater objectivity, toward a more, accurate view of the real nature of things. This is accomplished by reducing our dependence on individual or species-specific points of view toward the object of investigation. We describe it not in terms of the impressions it makes on our senses, but in terms of its more general effects and of properties detectable by means other than the human senses. The less it depends on a specifically human viewpoint, the more objective is our description. It is possible to follow this path because although the concepts and ideas we employ in thinking about the external world are initially applied from a point of view that involves our perceptual apparatus, they are used by us to refer to things beyond themselves—toward which we have the phenomenal point of view. Therefore we can abandon it in favor of another, and still be thinking about the same things.
  • Experience itself however, does not seem to fit the pattern. The idea of moving from appearance to reality seems to make no sense here. What is the analogue in this case to pursuing a more objective understanding of the same phenomena by abandoning the initial subjective viewpoint toward them in favour of another that is more objective but concerns the same thing? Certainly it appears unlikely that we will get closer to the real nature of human experience by leaving behind the particularity of our human point of view and striving for a description in terms accessible to beings that could not imagine what it was like to be us. If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from one point of view, then any shift to greater objectivity—that is, less attachment to a specific viewpoint—does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it.
  • In a sense, the seeds of this objection to the reducibility of experience are already detectable in successful cases of reduction; for in discovering sound to be, in reality, a wave phenomenon in air or other media, we leave behind one viewpoint to take up another, and the auditory, human or animal viewpoint that we leave behind remains unreduced. Members of radically different species may both understand the same physical events in objective terms, and this does not require that they understand the phenomenal forms in which those events appear to the senses of members of the other species. Thus it is a condition of their referring to a common reality that their more particular viewpoints are not part of the common reality that they both apprehend. The reduction can succeed only if the species-specific viewpoint is omitted from what is to be reduced.
  • But while we are right to leave this point of view aside in seeking a fuller understanding of the external world, we cannot ignore it permanently, since it is the essence of the internal world, and not merely a point of view on it. Most of the neobehaviorism of recent philosophical psychology results from the effort to substitute an objective concept of mind for the real thing, in order to have nothing left over which cannot be reduced. If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done. The problem is unique. If mental processes are indeed physical processes, then there is something it is like, intrinsically, 11 to undergo certain physical processes. What it is for such a thing to be the case remains a mystery.
  • What could be clearer than the words 'is' and 'are'? But I believe it is precisely this apparent clarity of the word 'is' that is deceptive. Usually, when we are told that X is Y we know how it is supposed to be true, but that depends on a conceptual or theoretical background and is not conveyed by the 'is' alone. We know how both "X" and "Y " refer, and the kinds of things to which they refer, and we have a rough idea how the two referential paths might converge on a single thing, be it an object, a person, a process, an event or whatever. But when the two terms of the identification are very disparate it may not be so clear how it could be true. We may not have even a rough idea of how the two referential paths could converge, or what kind of things they might converge on, and a theoretical framework may have to be supplied to enable us to understand this. Without the framework, an air of mysticism surrounds the identification.
  • Setting aside temporarily the relation between the mind and the brain, we can pursue a more objective understanding of the mental in its own right. At present we are completely unequipped to think about the subjective character of experience without relying on the imagination—without taking up the point of view of the experiential subject. This should be regarded as a challenge to form new concepts and devise a new method—an objective phenomenology not dependent on empathy or the imagination. Though presumably it would not capture everything, its goal would be to describe, at least in part, the subjective character of experiences in a form comprehensible to beings incapable of having those experiences.
  • it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective. Otherwise we cannot even pose the mind-body problem without sidestepping it.
  • Amira . on 15 Jan 11
     
    From The Philosophical Review LXXXIII, 4 (October 1974): 435-50
thinkahol *

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons' - Times Online - 0 views

www.timesonline.co.uk/...article6973994.ece

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons' - Times Online

shared by thinkahol * on 14 Jan 11 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 14 Jan 11
     
    Dolphins have been declared the world's second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as "non-human persons".
thinkahol *

Do ant colonies have something in common with the human body? - Telegraph Blogs - 0 views

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/...-in-common-with-the-human-body

colonies cells animals humans

shared by thinkahol * on 26 May 10 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 26 May 10
     
    Humans are hive enthusiasts. We love social insects like ants and bees, and we pay extra attention to Star Trek episodes when the you-will-be-assimilated Borg are featured. But what exactly is so interesting about hives? They're interesting to us because, en masse, they amount to a superorganism, with analogs to organisms at the genetic level, reproductive level, and the behaviour level. Also, just as larger, more complex, organisms tend to have a greater number of specialized cell types, larger ant colonies tend to have a greater number of "ant types"
Amira .

The Science of Right and Wrong. Can data determine moral values? | Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

Ethics Morality science mind & brain philosophy Human being

shared by Amira . on 15 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • All moral values must ultimately be grounded in human nature, and in my book The Science of Good and Evil (Times Books, 2004), I build a scientific case for the evolutionary origins of the moral sentiments and for the ways in which science can inform moral decisions. As a species of social primates, we have evolved a deep sense of right and wrong to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. On the constitution of human nature are built the constitutions of human societies.
  • rafted onto this evolutionary ethics is a new field called neuroethics, whose latest champion is the steely-eyed skeptic and cogent writer Sam Harris, a neuroscientist who in his book The Moral Landscape (Free Press, 2010) wields a sledgehammer to the is-ought wall. Harris’s is a first-principle argument, backed by copious empirical evidence woven through a tightly reasoned narrative. The first principle is the well-being of conscious creatures, from which we can build a science-based system of moral values by quantifying whether or not X increases or decreases well-being.
  • Harris’s program of a science-based morality is a courageous one that I wholeheartedly endorse, but how do we resolve conflicts over such hotly contested issues as taxes? Harris’s moral landscape allows the possibility of many peaks and valleys—more than one right or wrong answer to moral dilemmas—so perhaps liberals, conservatives, libertarians, Tea partiers, Green partiers and others can coexist on different peaks. Live and let live I say, but what happens when the majority of residents on multiple moral peaks pass laws that force those in the minority on other peaks to help pay for their programs of social well-being for everyone? More scientific data are unlikely to eliminate the conflict. I asked Harris about this potential problem. “‘Live and let live’ is often a wise strategy for minimizing human conflict,” he agreed. “But it only applies when the stakes are not very high or when the likely consequences of our behavior are unclear. To say that ‘more scientific data are unlikely to eliminate the conflict’ is simply to say that nothing will: because the only alternative is to argue without recourse to facts. I agree that we find ourselves in this situation from time to time, often on economic questions, but this says nothing about whether right answers to such questions exist.”
thinkahol *

Technology: Necessary but Insufficient for Human Survival | Thinkahol's Blog - 1 views

thinkahol.wordpress.com/...nsufficient-for-human-survival

Technology: Necessary but Insufficient for Human Survival | Thinkahol's Blog

shared by thinkahol * on 29 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 29 May 11
     
    In the context of technology the only way out is through. Global society is dependent on artificially inflated energy resources-i.e. oil-that are directly leading us toward total collapse. Technology is being used to most efficiently maximize wealth of the largest corporate conglomerates at the expense of the social fabric and a living environment. The biosphere is in fact collapsing. The technology exists to solve our technical problems but the solutions do not seem like they will be effectively put to use. The power structures concentrating money off the status quo are too entrenched. Each human is called on to become more aware.
thinkahol *

The Uses of Philosophy in Today's World - 0 views

www.garlikov.com/...uses.htm

The Uses of Philosophy in Today's World

shared by thinkahol * on 15 May 11 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 15 May 11
     
     the tools of philosophy can be important to everyone because it potentially helps one think better, more clearly, and with greater perspective about almost everything.  There are numerous specific topic areas in academic philosophy, many of interest only to a few, even among philosophers, but there are features and techniques common to all of them, and it is those features and techniques which also can apply to almost anything in life.  These features have to do with reasoning and with understanding concepts, and, to some small extent, with creativity.  Normally, all other things being equal, the better one understands anything and can think clearly and logically about it, the better off one will be, and the better one will be able to act on that understanding and reasoning. (It is my view, for example, that better conceptual understanding by NCAA and NFL administrators would lead to a far more workable and acceptable "instant replay review" policy.) Furthermore, philosophy in many cases is about deciding which goals and values are worthy to pursue -- what ends are important.  One can be scientific or pragmatic about pursuing one's goals in the most efficient manner, but it is important to have the right or most reasonable goals in the first place.  Philosophy is a way of scrutinizing ideas about which goals are the most worthy one.  A healthy philosophical debate about what is ideal or which ideals ought to be sought and pursued, is important.  Efficiency in the pursuit of the wrong values or ends is not a virtue. President John F. Kennedy, in speaking at Amherst College on a day honoring poet Robert Frost, said: "The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us."  And "When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limi
thinkahol *

Education is Ignorance, by Noam Chomsky (Excerpted from Class Warfare) - 0 views

www.chomsky.info/...warfare02.htm

Education is Ignorance by Noam Chomsky (Excerpted from Class Warfare)

shared by thinkahol * on 27 Apr 11 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 27 Apr 11
     
    I didn't do any research at all on Smith. I just read him. There's no research. Just read it. He's pre-capitalist, a figure of the Enlightenment. What we would call capitalism he despised. People read snippets of Adam Smith, the few phrases they teach in school. Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundreds of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be. And therefore in any civilized society the government is going to have to take some measures to prevent division of labor from proceeding to its limits.
thinkahol *

Sam Harris - The Great Debate: Can Science Tell us Right From Wrong? (1) - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

Sam Harris - The Great Debate: Can Science Tell us Right From Wrong? (1) YouTube

shared by thinkahol * on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 19 Oct 11
     
    The Great Debate On November 6th, 2010 a panel of renowned scientists, philosophers, and public intellectuals gathered to discuss what impact evolutionary theory and advances in neuroscience might have on traditional concepts of morality. If human morality is an evolutionary adaptation and if neuroscientists can identify specific brain circuitry governing moral judgment, can scientists determine what is, in fact, right and wrong? The panelists were psychologist Steven Pinker, author Sam Harris, philosopher Patricia Churchland, physicist Lawrence Krauss, philosopher Simon Blackburn, bioethicist Peter Singer and The Science Network's Roger Bingham.  Recorded live at the Arizona State University Gammage auditorium.  "The Great Debate" was sponsored by the ASU Origins Project in collaboration with the ASU Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Center for Law, Science and Innovation; the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge; and The Science Network. ------ Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values," "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation." "The End of Faith" won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. Harris has a doctorate in neuroscience from UCLA and a degree in philosophy from Stanford University. He is a co-founder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society.
thinkahol *

Contrary Brin: The Cato Hypocrisy - 0 views

davidbrin.blogspot.com/...cato-hypocrisy.html

Contrary Brin: The Cato Hypocrisy

shared by thinkahol * on 16 Dec 10 - Cached
  • I have long held that the greatest tragedy, among countless misfortunes that recur in the long and agonizing human story, is not when evil triumphs over good, or when oppression overcomes freedom, or even the wretched loss of ten billion potential might-have-beens. No, the most devastating defect in our character -- a trait that held us down ever since the caves -- is the very same twist in our natures that makes us such fine storytellers. I am talking about our incredible penchant for -- and creativity at -- self delusion and rationalization. The lengths that we all go to, in order to convince ourselves that we are the smart ones, virtuous and right... often in complete denial of blatant evidence to the contrary. It is the one magical act that all of us can easily perform, at near genius level.
  • thinkahol * on 16 Dec 10
     
    I have long held that the greatest tragedy, among countless misfortunes that recur in the long and agonizing human story, is not when evil triumphs over good, or when oppression overcomes freedom, or even the wretched loss of ten billion potential might-h
thinkahol *

I, Consumer? | Truthout - 0 views

www.truthout.org/...1304184750

Where have all the people gone? Not to mention citizenry human beings neighbors inhabitants individuals men women adults children workers employees employers? Suddenly everywhere gone of them. Their places taken by consumers.

shared by thinkahol * on 01 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 01 May 11
     
    Where have all the people gone? Not to mention the citizenry, human beings, neighbors, inhabitants, individuals, men, women, adults, children, workers, employees, employers? Suddenly, everywhere, gone, all of them. Their places taken by consumers.
Laurent P

Meaning of life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Meaning_of_life

wikipedia philosophy

shared by Laurent P on 07 May 15 - No Cached
  • Life's purpose in Christianity is to seek divine salvation through the grace of God and intercession of Christ. (cf. John 11:26) The New Testament speaks of God wanting to have a relationship with humans both in this life and the life to come, which can happen only if one's sins are forgiven (John 3:16–21; 2 Peter 3:9).
  • In the Christian view, humankind was made in the Image of God and perfect, but the Fall of Man caused the progeny of the first Parents to inherit Original Sin. The sacrifice of Christ's passion, death and resurrection provide the means for transcending that impure state (Romans 6:23).
  • Faith in God is found in Ephesians 2:8–9 – "[8]For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; [9]not as a result of works, that no one should boast."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A recent alternative Christian theological discourse interprets Jesus as revealing that the purpose of life is to elevate our compassionate response to human suffering.
  • The Gospel maintains that through this belief, the barrier that sin has created between man and God is destroyed, and allows God to change people and instill in them a new heart after his own will, and the ability to do it. This is what the terms "reborn" or "saved" almost always refer to.
Laurent P

Truth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Truth

wikipedia philosophy

shared by Laurent P on 07 May 15 - No Cached
  • When Søren Kierkegaard, as his character Johannes Climacus, ends his writings: My thesis was, subjectivity, heartfelt is the truth, he does not advocate for subjectivism in its extreme form (the theory that something is true simply because one believes it to be so), but rather that the objective approach to matters of personal truth cannot shed any light upon that which is most essential to a person's life. Objective truths are concerned with the facts of a person's being, while subjective truths are concerned with a person's way of being. Kierkegaard agrees that objective truths for the study of subjects like mathematics, science, and history are relevant and necessary, but argues that objective truths do not shed any light on a person's inner relationship to existence. At best, these truths can only provide a severely narrowed perspective that has little to do with one's actual experience of life.[69] While objective truths are final and static, subjective truths are continuing and dynamic. The truth of one's existence is a living, inward, and subjective experience that is always in the process of becoming.
  • Thus, Kierkegaard criticizes all systematic philosophies which attempt to know life or the truth of existence via theories and objective knowledge about reality. As Kierkegaard claims, human truth is something that is continually occurring, and a human being cannot find truth separate from the subjective experience of one's own existing, defined by the values and fundamental essence that consist of one's way of life.
thinkahol *

Sam Harris - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 10/4/2010 - Video Clip | Comedy Central - 0 views

www.thedailyshow.com/...sam-harris

Sam Harris - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 10_4_2010 Video Clip | Comedy Central

shared by thinkahol * on 06 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 06 Oct 10
     
    Sam Harris says we have to begin giving similar answers to the most important questions in human life.  Airdate - 10/4/2010
thinkahol *

YouTube - Sam Harris SALT - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

YouTube - Sam Harris SALT

shared by thinkahol * on 02 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 02 Jan 11
     
    December 9th, 02005 - Sam Harris"The View From The End Of The World"This is an audio only presentation. This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco. Quote: With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS. "This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics. In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely. The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future." Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaningthe quest gives them." "I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or
thinkahol *

Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, & the Commons - 1 views

www.dennisfox.net/...commons.html

Psychology Ideology Utopia & the Commons Dennis Fox

shared by thinkahol * on 10 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 10 Feb 11
     
    The failure of social scientists to seriously question their own ideological and methodological assumptions contributes to the complex interrelationship between global ecological and individual psychological problems. Much of the literature on the tragedy of the commons focuses on saving the global commons through increased centralization and regulation, at the expense of the individual's autonomy and psychological sense of community. "Utopian" speculation in general and anarchist political analysis in particular are necessary correctives to misplaced attempts to merely rearrange the elements of the status quo rather than to radically alter it in a direction more in keeping with both survival and human dignity.
thinkahol *

GRITtv » Blog Archive » Chris Hedges: The World As it Is - 0 views

grittv.org/...hris-hedges-the-world-as-it-is

GRITtv » Blog Archive Chris Hedges: The World As it Is

shared by thinkahol * on 16 May 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 16 May 11
     
    "You can't sustain a democracy in an oligarchic state. The writers on Athenian democracy understood that 2000 years ago," says Chris Hedges, whose new book The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress explores the problems of a crumbling empire, inside and out. Chris joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the death of Bin Laden and the continuing concern over terrorism, the end of empathy in the U.S., and what avenues are left for progressives to fight back.  "The elites are not going to help us," he warns, "We're going to have to help ourselves."
thinkahol *

Introduction to Philosophy: Defining, Studying, Doing Philosophy is Important - Why Do ... - 0 views

atheism.about.com/...philosophyintro.htm

Introduction to Philosophy: Defining Studying Doing Philosophy is Important - Why Do Atheists Need Philosophy? We Reason Well About Life

shared by thinkahol * on 15 May 11 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 15 May 11
     
    Defining and explaining philosophy is no easy task - the very nature of the subject seems to defy description. The problem is that philosophy, in one way or another, ends up touching upon nearly every aspect of human life. Philosophy has something to say when it comes to science, art, religion, politics, medicine, and a host of other topics. This is also why a basic grounding in philosophy can be so important for irreligious atheists. The more you know about philosophy, and even just the basics of philosophy, the more likely you'll be able to reason clearly, consistently, and with more reliable conclusions.
thinkahol *

October 2011 | Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed - 0 views

october2011.org

October 2011 | Human Needs Not Corporate Greed

shared by thinkahol * on 14 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 14 Sep 11
     
    "We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence, or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight." Martin Luther King Jr. delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City
thinkahol *

Why We Must Ration Health Care - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...19healthcare-t.html

Health Insurance and Managed Care Medicine Reform Reorganization

shared by thinkahol * on 07 Jul 11 - Cached
  • thinkahol * on 07 Jul 11
     
    A utilitarian philosopher's argument for placing a dollar value on human life.
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