Friday, May 29, 2015

Knowledge, comment to NY times

Knowledge, like consciousness (See William James) is not a thing, it is a process. The process is simple: we get information into the nervous system from the sense organs, so we can know what is in the  environment and to be able to react to it. This information is merged, if more than one sense receives it: both lightening and thunder; and the full set of time related information is merged and stored in  memory, as an experience. The experience can be recalled later, compared to other experiences, put into the form of words with the words relationships then added to the experience and to our memory. Association of memories and analysis of memories and new information come to conclusions to guide our actions. "Charlie fell into a hole in the rode. I'll avoid it." So knowledge is a result of analysis of information that assembles into experiences from which we draw conclusions. The information is true, it carries the facts of the environment, of the physical world. Knowledge is never true, it is correct or incorrect because it is an inference made for a time and is subject to revision as new information comes and new experiences are put into the dynamic neural processes of conclusion making. The major way this all fails is if we fail to care about the correctness of our current opinions, let someone else tell us the conclusions we should have, like media reporters or critics, religious leaders, or scientists. The scientists get more weight because they put the information on the table, along with the inferences and conclusions and tests. 

Saturday, May 23, 2015

To The New York Times: Aiding the Government

To be trusted a Government must be trust worthy. The media's first responses after 9/11 was 'patriotic' and trusting. So you swallowed the errors of Bush, the lies of Cheney, the ignorance of Rumsfeld, etc. etc. The Times let the blind, and malicious, lead them. The whole Country did. We were treated as herd animals and reacted as herd animals. Our Representatives did their best to manage us faithfully, but on the basis of errors and lies, they were wrong. And, of course, they were wrong to try and manage us, and they are doing more of it today. The Media has signed up to help us be managed. Only when the people can make judgments based on solid information and scrutinized, critiqued, opinions will there be a chance of our acting correctly. Group-thinking, group-analyzing, group-sourcing, all work. They are based on the old idea that 200,000,000 (two hundred million) brains are better than one, or a few. Hamilton won this argument over Jefferson and the Constitution does not establish a democracy: the people don't vote on laws, for executives, or judges. Only the superior, special, better people do. And the Media supports this attitude. To cease being managed, lied to, unrepresented, sold out - for money, prestige, and power - we must cease to be a Representative Republic and become an Actual Democracy. See assocactualdemocracy.com. Support it, work for it, change the government so the people vote directly on the laws, executives, and judges. Then there will be no Media errors.

Friday, May 22, 2015

On the Bush Cheney Iraq War: re Jeb Bush as candidate

The whole 'non-political' nation knew, and certainly knows now, that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and the neocons lied about Saddam Hussein's,  involvement in the 911 attack and his weapons. The war was based on lies and deceit and led to 4,000 deaths and 25,000 wounded, trillions of dollars gone to get them killed, loss of moral integrity before the world community, loss of faith in the good sense and political judgement of the country, which is still growing, and the Republican belief in the infallibility of American judgement and military power. All the while corrupt, incompetent, bible thumping, anti-science, anti-reason, anti-American valued incompetents destroyed everything this country ever stood for before the tragedy of 911. And the Media went along, the Democrats went along, the people 'went along. Herd animals, as Nietzsche called us, wanting to be led, put our values and history aside and invaded on lies, lied about torture, lied about accomplishments, buried the dead in secret, burned up our grandchildren's tax dollars and future, for the greater glory of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the Republican party, The Central Stupidity Agency, the United States military (who have not won a war since WWII), and the future contempt of all thinking, caring, human beings.
 And Obama refused to prosecute these criminals, let them destroy America's ideals and the Constitution with impunity. This is the Generation of Vipers, still consciously working to deceive.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Religion as sterile

Religion has proven itself sterile. It does not contribute to a search for truth. Truth is only to be found in its thousands of year old books that are the presumed word of an omnipotent and loving God. But neither the books not the priests interpretations of books help in solving the problems of life. They don't lead to more food clothing or shelter. They don't address our health care needs, transportation needs, communication needs. 

There are two explanation for our existence: science and religion. Religion gives no explanation as to how our existence works so gives no advice on how we can improve our lives and prepare for our future. That's wht I mean by its being sterile. It's truth cannot grow, it cannot be applied to physical problems, biological problems, or chemical problems. Religion ignores this world for the spiritual world, But we get no information from the spiritual world that can assist us in making cars and planes, in fighting diseases, in making new materials, new fuels, and discovering new applications for what we have previously learned. Praying to have a broken car or broken computer fixed is universally ineffective. 

And omnipotence is logically impossible. An omnipotent being cannot make a brick that he cannot pick up, or a sinner he cannot save, or a saint he cannot corrupt, and on and on. It is a logical contradiction. 

God helps them who help themselves is an admission that god is no help at all. We must look to science to solve problems. We do