Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Mon Feb 02, 2015 2:58 am

JimC wrote:
Seth wrote:

But I'm not limiting myself to examining only human society, I'm seeking a more fundamental and organic basis for the very concept of social convention and the normative rules that guides it, which is what "rights" describe.
The normal definition of rights involves sentient consciousness,
Perhaps.
in terms of either granting rights to others (animals may be granted rights by humans, but cannot assert them independently) or claiming rights for oneself.
Well, that's where I disagree with you. Sentience is not, according to my thesis, a necessary requirement for the existence of certain fundamental rights.
The instinctive tendency for self preservation may be a contributing factor in the development of the human concept of individual rights, but it is not a right in itself, just as the vocalisation of early primates may be a vital factor in the evolution of human language, without truly being a language in itself.
Well, that's pretty much what I'm saying. I'm not saying that all rights are fundamental or natural, just some specific rights.

I derive the definition of rights I am defending from natural behavior, which like the early primate vocalizations has a natural origin. And who are you to say that primate vocalization is not a language? If other primates understand the meaning of the vocalization, then it's a language. Hell, birds have languages. Bees have languages. Ants have languages.

That they are not the same as human language doesn't mean they aren't languages.

And the concept of rights I'm proposing is not restricted to human concepts. I'm positing a universal definition that applies to all living creatures from which human interpretations and understandings are formed.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by pErvinalia » Mon Feb 02, 2015 3:30 am

As I said, rights imply an authority/authorisation to do something. So regardless of who's definition of rights you accept, they all still imply this. The natural philosophers back then were all looking for ways to either shoehorn god into the equation, or replace god with some other authority. Remember the age these people came from. Humans were conditioned to think that we needed authority to control us and our immoral thoughts. This notion is antiquated and frankly quaint to modern thinkers. Rights are bestowed and supported from within our own societies, not some external objective being/force/thing/wibble.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by JimC » Mon Feb 02, 2015 4:43 am

Seth wrote:

I derive the definition of rights I am defending from natural behavior, which like the early primate vocalizations has a natural origin. And who are you to say that primate vocalization is not a language? If other primates understand the meaning of the vocalization, then it's a language. Hell, birds have languages. Bees have languages. Ants have languages.

That they are not the same as human language doesn't mean they aren't languages.
I don't think you understand what linguists consider a language to be. It goes way beyond vocalisations, even if some of those have a connection with an outside event (for example, in some monkey species, a particular vocalisation is consistently made when a leopard is seen). A true language has an internal grammatical structure, that allows for words with meanings to be connected in a vast number of different ways, and possesses the ability to use abstract concepts. All human languages have these properties, no animal vocalisations do. An intelligent alien species from another planet would almost certainly have some form of complex language, with at least the same potential as human languages, without being a human language.

Some students of animal behaviour may consider primate vocalisations to be a proto-language, and indeed early hominims must have had something intermediate between them and true language, but we have no access to that stage. When considering rights, I assert they simply do not exist without the existence of abstract concepts in the mind of a sentient entity, with the ability to communicate and discuss them.

I suspect your angst about "natural rights" springs from a quite reasonable concern; if rights are merely to be conferred by a government, for example, then the citizenry is at the mercy of that government, should it decide to reduce them. Partly, this problem is dealt with in your country (and in different ways in others) by enshrining rights in some form of constitution, that makes legislative change to those rights difficult or impossible.

However, at root the rights of an individual in a given society are a reflection of a social contract between all members of the society, and they will be strong and vital when the social contract itself is strong and vital, no matter what legalise is used to describe them.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Mon Feb 02, 2015 4:13 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:As I said, rights imply an authority/authorisation to do something.
Correct.
So regardless of who's definition of rights you accept, they all still imply this.


Correct.
The natural philosophers back then were all looking for ways to either shoehorn god into the equation, or replace god with some other authority.
Well, they were indeed seeking a root authority because they found the notion that rights are a creature of government to be both socially unworkable and prone to abuse, not to mention intellectually, logically, rationally and philosophically baseless and incorrect.
Remember the age these people came from. Humans were conditioned to think that we needed authority to control us and our immoral thoughts.
Quite clearly we do.
This notion is antiquated and frankly quaint to modern thinkers.


This explains a lot with respect to the corrosion and rot in our societies. It doesn't, however, support the notion that human culture can exist without external authority to control behavior. That, my friend, is precisely what government is chartered to do. The only difference between God as the external authority and Obama as the external authority is that Obama's judgement is substantially inferior to what theists claim God's judgments about moral and ethical behavior are. Demonstrably so.

You're not being successful in trying to do away with the idea of natural rights, you're just shooting yourself in your metaphorical foot by exchanging Karl Marx for God in the quite obvious and long-term practice of exercising external authority to control us and our "immoral thoughts."

And Marx has much less going for him than God does insofar as being an effective regulator of human behavior.

Rights are bestowed and supported from within our own societies, not some external objective being/force/thing/wibble.
I didn't say rights don't exist within the society, I said that certain rights are derived from our basic nature as living creatures. If the notion of rights doesn't originate in something tangible and falsifiable the notion becomes nothing more than an abstract philosophical theory that becomes entirely subjective and which then drifts aimlessly in the universe, untethered from anything fixed, and therefore becomes a useless concept. You say rights are this, I say rights are that. Without a foundation for assessing our arguments my notions are exactly equal to yours insofar as making any practical use of the notion in the first place, which makes everything entirely subjective and arbitrary, and therefore useless.

Examining human behavior shows us that there are universal fundamental attributes that apply to both humans and every other living organism, as I have stated. Every culture known to us has some fundamental social behaviors common to all, which include defense of the life of, at a minimum, the individual and members of the family unit or tribe, a common goal of seeking and obtaining the resources necessary for survival of the group, the willingness to defend the exclusive possession and use of those resources by the group, and the urge to procreate.

No human society on earth, ever, has not had these fundamental behavioral characteristics. No living creature in fact lacks these basic characteristics.

It is from those characteristics that I derive the Organic Rights, which apply to interactions between all living organisms, but especially humans, who have evolved complex hierarchies and rules about which rights have precedence under what circumstances. But all can be traced back to fundamental evolved organic behavior and needs.

"Rights" as a concept is about adjudicating conflicts regarding the needs of competing organisms.

But it is the organisms and their needs that come first, with the adjudication of rights coming second, only as a response to a conflict between individual organisms. Therefore, certain Organic Rights cannot be "bestowed," they are evolved, natural and inherent and are therefore superior to rights which may be bestowed by a society and are unalienable because the authority to bestow or remove rights is inferior to the natural Organic Rights.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Mon Feb 02, 2015 4:25 pm

JimC wrote:
Seth wrote:

I derive the definition of rights I am defending from natural behavior, which like the early primate vocalizations has a natural origin. And who are you to say that primate vocalization is not a language? If other primates understand the meaning of the vocalization, then it's a language. Hell, birds have languages. Bees have languages. Ants have languages.

That they are not the same as human language doesn't mean they aren't languages.
I don't think you understand what linguists consider a language to be. It goes way beyond vocalisations, even if some of those have a connection with an outside event (for example, in some monkey species, a particular vocalisation is consistently made when a leopard is seen). A true language has an internal grammatical structure, that allows for words with meanings to be connected in a vast number of different ways, and possesses the ability to use abstract concepts. All human languages have these properties, no animal vocalisations do. An intelligent alien species from another planet would almost certainly have some form of complex language, with at least the same potential as human languages, without being a human language.

Some students of animal behaviour may consider primate vocalisations to be a proto-language, and indeed early hominims must have had something intermediate between them and true language, but we have no access to that stage. When considering rights, I assert they simply do not exist without the existence of abstract concepts in the mind of a sentient entity, with the ability to communicate and discuss them.
Would you like to discuss this with Koko?

Language, in its most distilled essence, is the communication of concepts between one individual and another.

I suspect your angst about "natural rights" springs from a quite reasonable concern; if rights are merely to be conferred by a government, for example, then the citizenry is at the mercy of that government, should it decide to reduce them. Partly, this problem is dealt with in your country (and in different ways in others) by enshrining rights in some form of constitution, that makes legislative change to those rights difficult or impossible.
Yes, this is absolutely correct. And demonstrably the truth, which the Founders recognized and which they guarded against by declaring that certain rights are natural, inherent and unalienable.
However, at root the rights of an individual in a given society are a reflection of a social contract between all members of the society, and they will be strong and vital when the social contract itself is strong and vital, no matter what legalise is used to describe them.
I don't disagree with this at all. What I'm saying is that certain basic aspects of the "social contract" are common not just to humans but are characteristics that are seen in every single living organism that exists or has ever existed, as a function of evolution.

This primitive social contract exists precisely because it is necessary for the survival of the individual and the species.

The basic social contract, stated as a declarative, is "I have a right to survive. I have a right to defend my life against harm by you. I have a right to seek out and obtain for my exclusive use those resources necessary for my survival. I have a right to defend those resources against you expropriating them from me. I have a right to be free to do those things I deem necessary for my survival. I have a right to procreate and to defend my progeny. I acknowledge that you have these same rights. Disputes over conflicts in the exercise of these rights shall be adjudicated and resolved by the use of force, and the stronger of us will prevail."

But this social contract is an expression of the rights of the individual against intrusion by others that is not granted by others, it is natural and inherent to the organism as a function of evolution.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:17 pm

Seth's indulging in a childish philosophy of special pleading.
He has his ''rights'' that he would like to argue for, such as guns and property and minimum government, or none at all, and whatever other loony right wing shit he's in love with.
And then he tries to link them to the needs of lower life forms.
And without saying it, the inference is that, if it applied then, then we should hold to it now.

Where is the logic in that? Who has established that principle? And who decides what it applies to?
Seth of course.

We humans live in colonies. Counties, States, Countries, they are all colonies of individuals.
But if you look at colonies in nature, they are very unSethlike.
The individual means nothing. It's the colony that matters. Even Queen Bees are slaves to the colony.
They do their job of reproduction, and the minute that they fail, they are destroyed and replaced.

So if you want to take lessons and principles from nature, then you should be a communist.
But of course, with special pleading, you can ignore what you don't like, and push what you do.

Just like young Earth creationists do.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:35 pm

mistermack wrote:Seth's indulging in a childish philosophy of special pleading.
He has his ''rights'' that he would like to argue for, such as guns and property and minimum government, or none at all, and whatever other loony right wing shit he's in love with.
And then he tries to link them to the needs of lower life forms.
And without saying it, the inference is that, if it applied then, then we should hold to it now.
This is nonsense. The whole presumption of government is that it is a mechanism for resolving conflicts and supporting an ordered society that functions more smoothly than the law of the jungle. That doesn't mean that the fundamental organic rights cannot be derived from fundamental organic laws.
Where is the logic in that? Who has established that principle? And who decides what it applies to?
Seth of course.
Well, that's my thesis, so why shouldn't it? Your thesis may be different, but you haven't supported it with any sort of rational argument at all.
We humans live in colonies. Counties, States, Countries, they are all colonies of individuals.
But if you look at colonies in nature, they are very unSethlike.
The individual means nothing. It's the colony that matters. Even Queen Bees are slaves to the colony.
They do their job of reproduction, and the minute that they fail, they are destroyed and replaced.
Now who's specially pleading? Even in a coral colony the fundamental natural laws I cite apply. Each polyp struggles to survive as an individual, seeks out and takes control of the necessary resources of survival for that individual polyp, defends the exclusive possession and use of those resources and reproduces.

That groups of polyps form "colonies" is not relevant to the fundamental organic behavior involved. Every coral begins with a single polyp and grows from there. Why do coral polyps form communities? For self-defense primarily. By secreting materials that harden into coral they build secure homes, and the larger the colony of polyps, the better the chances are for both individual and species survival because of the physical construction involved and the law of averages. One polyp alone is at greater risk than a group of polyps in a collective defensive structure. Evolution shows us that coral polyps are better at surviving in colonies. So are humans. But that doesn't change the fundamental organic laws that drive the actions of each individual member of the collective.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:50 pm

Seth wrote: Now who's specially pleading?
You are. Because you are ignoring natural facts that contradict your humbug.

Answer the point. Why should we not take our lessons about rights from ants and bees, which are social animals like us?
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:56 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: Now who's specially pleading?
You are. Because you are ignoring natural facts that contradict your humbug.

Answer the point. Why should we not take our lessons about rights from ants and bees, which are social animals like us?
Perhaps we should, but we choose not to because we are not bees or ants. This doesn't change the fundamentals of natural behavior, nor does it impeach the argument that such universal natural behavior is a sound and rational basis for the derivation of some fundamental rights of human beings.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:02 pm

Seth wrote:
mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: Now who's specially pleading?
You are. Because you are ignoring natural facts that contradict your humbug.

Answer the point. Why should we not take our lessons about rights from ants and bees, which are social animals like us?
Perhaps we should, but we choose not to because we are not bees or ants. This doesn't change the fundamentals of natural behavior, nor does it impeach the argument that such universal natural behavior is a sound and rational basis for the derivation of some fundamental rights of human beings.
Yes, and you choose which ones you like, and which to ignore.
You ignore ants and bees, and yet claim that other natural behaviour is sound and rational.

What't the fucking point? Just do what's sound and rational. Your principle of natural behaviour being something to follow has just been destroyed. You follow what you like and ignore what you don't. That's not a principle. It's special pleading.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:04 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote:
mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: Now who's specially pleading?
You are. Because you are ignoring natural facts that contradict your humbug.

Answer the point. Why should we not take our lessons about rights from ants and bees, which are social animals like us?
Perhaps we should, but we choose not to because we are not bees or ants. This doesn't change the fundamentals of natural behavior, nor does it impeach the argument that such universal natural behavior is a sound and rational basis for the derivation of some fundamental rights of human beings.
Yes, and you choose which ones you like, and which to ignore.
You ignore ants and bees, and yet claim that other natural behaviour is sound and rational.
I don't ignore them at all. Ants and bees have exactly the same basic biological imperatives as any other creature.
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"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:08 pm

Seth wrote: I don't ignore them at all. Ants and bees have exactly the same basic biological imperatives as any other creature.
Why don't you aspire to similar rights as they enjoyed then?
Because it doesn't fit with your own vision, that's why. You're just cherry picking what suits you.
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:15 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: I don't ignore them at all. Ants and bees have exactly the same basic biological imperatives as any other creature.
Why don't you aspire to similar rights as they enjoyed then?
I do. I aspire to the right to life, liberty and property.
Because it doesn't fit with your own vision, that's why. You're just cherry picking what suits you.
Well why not? It's my right to choose life, liberty and property as my fundamental, natural and unalienable rights.

You certainly haven't come up with any sort of rational justification for anything else, particularly socialism.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by mistermack » Wed Feb 04, 2015 7:11 pm

Seth wrote: Well why not? It's my right to choose life, liberty and property as my fundamental, natural and unalienable rights.

You certainly haven't come up with any sort of rational justification for anything else, particularly socialism.
I don't have to. I don't claim any inalienable rights exist. I deny that they do.
Just as I don't have to come up with a new god, I don't have to come up with rights.

If you cut yourself, and are bleeding to death, do you have a right to take my car, if I object? Even if there is no possible alternative for you to get help?
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Re: Cuts to UK Science Research and Student Grants:

Post by Seth » Wed Feb 04, 2015 7:22 pm

mistermack wrote:
Seth wrote: Well why not? It's my right to choose life, liberty and property as my fundamental, natural and unalienable rights.

You certainly haven't come up with any sort of rational justification for anything else, particularly socialism.
I don't have to. I don't claim any inalienable rights exist. I deny that they do.
Take off your clothes, leave everything here, it will be cleaned and disinfected and returned to you. The shower is that way...

You're free not to claim any rights at all, but you're not free to deny my claim.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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