Kyle's Homework Assignment

Explain your position on whether Causal-Theoretical Functionalism is a realistic perspective for addressing the issue of Qualia (aka "The Hard Problem").

Or, just rant about Canada's performance at the Olympics.




When I first saw Kyle's questions I was going to tackle the first one since I hadn't really been paying attention to the Winter Olympics this year. But, after looking at some websites and the above headline on yahoo.ca, I have to wonder why anyone would want to rant about our performance.

I mean for total medals we were 3rd. And for total gold medals we were 5th. In my mind that's pretty good. We've had much worse standings in past Olympics. See standings here.

Maybe everyone's upset that the men's hockey team didn't get gold. Well, I've always had a problem with professional players joining Olympic teams. I always thought that the Olympics should be for amateur athletes. So if they didn't win I'm not to heart broken. They can go back to the NHL and continue losing there.

So, I will fail this question cause I'm not gonna rant about an Olympic performance that is the best in our Nation's history. Instead, I'm gonna tell all the people who had a problem with our medal count and achievements to take a look at the broader picture and wake up. How can you be upset with third overall in total medals? Honestly!?

And, no I don't think that causal-theoretical functionalism is a realistic perspective for addressing the issue of qualia because we have to take masochism into consideration. If a sense of pain can be defined by electrical impulses and signals and then those definitions read by another person and they are to be able to understand what the sense "feels" like, then how do we know that the person reading about the pain isn't a masochist. They will "feel" the pain differently if it actually happens to them. But if they are simply shown the "feelings" of a non-masochistic person they may not receive the same pleasure. So therefore qualia is not something that can be simply translated and shown to another person for them to be able to fully understand the sensation.

Johari Window

My friend Kelsey had this on her blog and I thought that it was pretty cool. Click here and choose words that you feel best describe me.

Homework Assignments

Well, it's 4 am and I can't seem to sleep. So I decided that maybe it was time that I sat down and wrote something on this oft-ignored blog of mine. The trouble is that I still don't know what I want to write about. Then it came to me. Reader requests.

That's right. I'm asking those of you who read my blog to give me topics. It can be anything. Just give me a comment with what you want me to write about and I will post a response within 7 days. If I do not respond to your assignment within the alloted time I will make a donation towards a charity of my choice. To make my site all that much more appealing to look at I will also try to include a photograoh to match my writing. (thus increasing the difficulty of and interest in my responses).

I hope to hear from you all soon.

Note on previous title

I was at a science museum and they had an exhibition on dogs. They had little panels with questions on them and you opened the panel to see the answer. The question was about why male dogs lift their legs when they pee. The answer went on to explain that dogs know alot about the scent of a dogs urine. They know if the dog is male or female, and they can even tell if a bitch is ovulating. I know that there is contextually nothing wrong with that sentence, but it just sounded so great. Honestly, I'm expecting to hear it in a rap song one day soon.

They Can Even Tell When a Bitch Is Ovulating!

Every once in a while we have to re-evaluate our beliefs.
Every once in a while we have to realize that we don't know everything.
Every once in a while science is only a best guess.
Every once in a while we know nothing.

I know that opinions are rife with rhetoric and we have to take everything with a grain of salt.
If we believed everything that we read then we'd have a tough time making it to work without hiding in fear (David Icke's books) or running off and following our dreams (Self-Help books).
But how can we honestly not take some fictional stories and see a it of truth in them.
Da Vinci Code opened our eyes to what Graham Hancock has been trying to tell us for years.
Tom Clancy must have certain truth in his flawed governments.
Chuck Palahniuk even admits that most of what he writes is from people tell him about their lives.
So when I finished reading State of Fear by Michael Crichton, I was shaken.
I couldn't believe some of what he was telling me in the book.
But, he has documented evidence to back it up.
But, data can be manipulated.
But, if the same data is manipulated to show both sides of an argument how can we be sure of which side is truthfully represented in the data set?
The scariest part of the book wasn't it's central issue (is globa warming a real threat?), what got to me was the theory of populace control through fear.
Michael Moore talked about it in "Bowling for Columbine".
We see fear-mongering on the evening news every night.
But have we ever wondered why it's there?
Do the news shows decide to place that fear in us?
Or is someone else putting it there?

Look at post-9/11 America.
The government uses the fear of a intangible threat to pass laws that allow for monitoring and surveillance of its own citizens.
Of course these laws are only there to keep the citizens safe.
Right?

Google didn't bow to the pressure.
When asked by the United States to provide a list of search terms entered by users of the site, Google refused. At least some organizations aren't Kowtowing to the demands of authoritarian rule.

So, where does this fear take us? When will we say enough is enough?
It's like that argument about not wanting to fight a war until they come to your door and knock it down.

But of course as long as media and scientists are funded by organizations with government interests at their center we must always wonder about the reports we hear and the data we read. We must always question why they are telling us this.

And with regime change comes opinion change. And when we are no longer afraid, then new fears will be created.

New look

Hopefully new posts will soon follow