The Terrible Sweal

I find all the so called 'sexy stuff' in our media, from Sex in the City, to Talking Sex with Sue, to Maxim magazine jokes, to the double-entendres of Queer Eye, to supposedly titilating documentary-lite programs on female kink on Showcase, and the whole raft of soft-porn cable channels to be, frankly objectionable. But not because they're smutty or immoral. Because they're merely ... tedious. When it comes to sex, I prefer doing to watching. And when it comes to watching I want to WATCH SEX, not watch actors or fools TALK ABOUT sex.

Pre-secondary education is worthless? ... IMR never said anything of the sort! Hugo, what the F... are you talking about?

I don't konw what you mean by should here. People come here or not based on whatever incentives they percieve. Are you saying we should try to improve the incentives for educated immigrants to come? If so, there are probably more effective measures available.

Anybody who leaves Canada with an education before paying at least 5 years of taxes should have to refund their tax-supported free ride.

It is quite sufficient to destroy discussion, when one person behaves the way you do. False attributions, peurile diversions, outright lies. Your record is disgraceful.

On second thought, nah, don't bother ... this byzantine web of diversions you've woven is far from interesting. Cheers.

Stop trying to weasel out of things. You're the weaseller. YOU made an assertion. Now either YOU can defend it, or you can't. AGAIN, please desist from such peurile antics, or I will stop bothering with you. But since that knowledge is not known to you, you cannot fault the conclusions. I can and I do. I don't have to know how to fix a car to know that it won't fly. Now, if you have some way to address the fault's I've pointed out, based on your (alleged) superior knowledge or on some logical basis, please go ahead. Basically, in Iceland you had a number of men whose title is usually translated as "chieftain". These guys made laws and arbitrated disputes in a certain way. Well, that's governmental to me. What if two disputants to an issue chose two different cheiftains? BTW, you ignore my questions earlier: What happened in cases of adultery for example? Again, there's government. Suffice it to say that your inability to conceive of these notions is because you are a statist-by-default, ... No, it is because the concept has no meaning, even in your own terms: How can laws be property? It's makes no sense. Unfortunately, you are unable to refer to a real example or even sensibly describe a hypothetical example of a society without a governmental function. Sure there are. (Unless you're using a yet another private unworkable understanding of what 'common' means.) No, we don't. Some of them rejected coercive government and decided everything by mutual agreement and discussion. Well (AGAIN THEN), who?

According to you the definition of creation is important, so let's hear your definition! You're being ridiculous. You said metaphysica things can't create anything. It's for you, not me, to have some examinable meaning for such an assertion. You may well have an encyclopedic and unparalleled knowledge of medieval Iceland, for all I know (or care). Lie. Since you know absolutely nothing about the subject, I could tell you that the Icelanders worshipped bricks of cheese and you would not be qualified to say "nonsense." You mistake the nature of my criticism. I don't fault yourknowledge of Iceland. I fault the conclusions you draw about society and government based on that knowledge. Your statement was nonsense because your facts are incapable of amounting to valid support for your contention. Utter nonsense. Why is that? In several ways: The concept of self-governing is at best undefined and likely unworkable depending what you mean. Also, the idea of doing anything other than survive (or not) without a society is inconceivable. It means that the people of Iceland chose, on an individual basis, the laws, policing and dispensation of justice they were going to have, ... This resonse is too superficial. What dos it mean, in practice/mechanically, to say individuals chose thir own laws? I am tempted to say "nonsense" again. Instead I'll sa I cannot begin to speculate on what you might mean by 'buying laws'. Well, personally I'd chose 3 as the number but I wanted to admit the possibility of two. But the answers to your question obviously turn on what I mean by government. I mean the function by which a society makes and carries out common choices and intentions. Since any three people in association do make common choices and intentions, however they do this is the governmental function of their society. Aboriginal Americans. You know, "Indians." You can also look at Australian aboriginals, who also had/have a mutualist, anarchistic society. First, let me alert you to the fact that there were and are numrous different aboriginal North American societies. Second, Australian aborigine society did not exist without a govermental function, as I mean it.

So define it. Shurely you knew what you meant by it when you said metaphysical thing can't do it. Just lay off the bs and I won't have to call you on it. You don't know the first thing about it, do you? What possible difference would that make? Good grief! Why do you turn every discussion into a tortuous maze of diversion? Nonsense. Utter nonsense. So you have recited. Why not put some content behind that? What happened in medieval Iceland when someone commited adultery? How about if someone failed to pay a debt? In other words, what does "self-government" mean? 2-3. Explain, please. Who? "further" ?? Obviously I've thought about it. I posted it, didn't I? The contrary is obvious.

No, I don't think I do at all. It's really just what I've come to expect from you. What. Ever. That is a very different thing to saying that Albert Einstein's parents created the Theory of Relativity! That depends on how you define creation. And I never suggested that you did! Yes, you did. You said: "Observability makes something real? So before Roentgen, x-rays weren't real?" Go ahead and argue it, then. I will listen to whatever you have to say on the matter. That might be interesting, but it is an unwarranted digression from the issue. I've given you my opinion, so let's hear yours. What form of government did they have? They had the medieval Icelandic form of government. I never contended that the life of a microbe is created by something metaphysical. The only question about the microbe was whether there was something metaphysical about it. Don't let's be distracted by little things, however. My question is a radical one: How you can purport to ascribe (categorically) physical vs. metaphysical 'causes' to the creation of phenomena?

The Bible is utterly meaningless in international law. It provides no valid claim to any territory anywhere.

You did nothing of the sort. You're just disputing definitions instead of logic. You need to re-read that exchange. Why not? Because it's a non sequitur. If it weren't, then Albert Einstein's parents created the Theory of Relativity, since they created Albert Einstein and he created the Theory. So, what's wrong with that? Absent Einstein's mother, Einstein would not have created the Theory of Relativity. And apparently, one that you are either unwilling or unable to answer. Not at all. But we are discussing YOUR positions here, not mine. Observability makes something real? So before Roentgen, x-rays weren't real? Please refrain from such idiotic and annoying debate-club tactics. I never suggested observability was an exhaustive criteria for reality, so just please show a little respect for your counterparts in discussions. Using your definition of metaphysical, I suggest that many possibly most metaphysical things are observable. Nope! Some societies have arisen without government. I disagree. Medieval Iceland simply had a form of government that you choose do define as not being government. Demonstrate that life is metaphysical. Demonstrate that it's physical.

And what are they? That depends on how one goes about it, I should think.

Well, do you dispute these definitions? I thought I just disputed their utility and relevance for this discussion. Are you suggesting the existence of God? No, I'm positing the logical case against your model of creation-causation. Why not? No, it's actually a separate theorem posited in Discourse 1. I think the Discourses are available online if you want to read them. Well, premuing you have conveyed it correctly, no wonder it's less known, since it's obviously much less rigorously clear than the famous formula. In fact, wrongheaded. Is it? That's a question alright. Do you disagree or not? What difference does that make? What are the other criteria? As to whether something is 'real' or not? Well, observability comes to mind. That only proves correlation, not causation. If you like. But a universal correlation. And what might that be? Life.

There's a lot of that going around!

The lines on the page are real, the word-ness of it is metaphysical.

No, biology and psychology textbooks will do fine. Individuals are biological organisms. Self-awareness is a mental phenomenon. Even if you have them correct, transposing isolated technical definitions and usages from particular disciplines avails nothing in terms of advancing an argument for your philosophic position. Metaphysical things are ideas, thoughts, concepts, arguably even emotions. To create these you need a mind. I think that's open to question. If there was a time before any mind existed, and if there are, now ideas, thoughts, and concepts, arguably they were 'created' by something other than a mind. This recruits descartes through a faulty somewhat incorrect interpretation of Cogito Ergo Sum. More bald assertion. Isn't mind itself metaphysical? A fact according to who? Obviously, mass and energy are not the only relevant criteria. By a "manifestation of society" do you mean a form of society or something created by society? More like the latter, but again, I should try for more precision: a manifestation of in a sort of phenomenological sense, like heat is a phenomenon which is manifest in the phenomenon of light striking matter. So, when individuals form a society, a governmental function of some sort becomes manifest. Well of course there is!

As, indeed, was demonstrated with regard to 'Albertan'.

Do you have a Great Big Book of Bald Assertions that you refer to for these things?

Because anything that has a metaphysical prerequisite for existence also necessarily has a physical prerequisite, which is always demonstrably more important to its existence. Things can have purely physical prerequisites, but never only purely metaphysical prerequisites. Therefore, the physical creates both the physical and the metaphysical, and the metaphysical creates nothing. That simply restates your contention as if it were a conclusion. But, of course it is the very matter in question. Demonstrate that creation is 'physical' rather than 'metaphysical', if you please. Yes, I should acknowledge your quible with my question ... I wrote: Hugo suggested: To be precise then, I should say: Individuals create and propagate societies by interacting in social groups. Governments are a manifestations of societies by which societal purposes are conducted, often through the establishment and enforcement of laws. No, you weren't, because I already demonstrated that what you said did not follow from my theorem at all. Once again, until you refute this point it stands. Silence is not a rebuttal. I still have no need to rebut anything because I was restating YOUR views, albeit, in your view, incorrectly.

You can't prove a negative. If you can prove the converse positive, consider the negative disproven. But I cannot think of, nor have I heard, any example of a metaphysical thing creating something that it was not much more reasonable to attribute to a physical thing. Quite so. I put my concern very badly. To be as precise as possible, I meant: Assuming that things are created, how can you prove that they are created by 'physical' things rather than 'metaphysical' things. So why do you insist self exists but society does not? Are you positing that something can be its own creator? Or are you just being childish and annoying? Let's say I'm being metaphysical. Oh, not MY theorem. I was restating and following through the consequences of your views.

Perhaps it's time to re-examine some of these old chestnuts. Take the 2nd law of thermodynamics for example -- very iffy.

So let me get this straight. The phenomenon which (some say) emerges from electrical activity between brain cells (self) is not metaphysical, but the phenomenon which emerges from activity between individuals (society) is metaphysical. Well, that's clear.

Really? How would you go about demonstrating this?

Therefore anything which does not create anything is metaphysical. Therefore property owners are metaphysical. Therefore property owners don't exist. Therefore property is meaningless.