Zoot's Philosophical Musings

On the negrosaurus and its 'music'


https://vocaroo.com/i/s1fSrOVOVSWk

not sure if i understand you, but if you are suggesting that arab slave keepers castrated negro slaves because they had big dongs, i'd probably disagree. i would imagine that this was a policy to prevent the negroes from being able to mate with the arab women. this theory sounds much more plausible than your own.

We all need our myths....and a partial hurtful truth is better than the entire one.
The mystique...the forbidden truth....the dumb horse to be ridden.
The Negro had a reputation as virile.
What female would not want to have a taste for herself?

It's all part of the psychological soup.

Inferior females preferred the mind over the body....inferior females he reverse.
The body is intoxicating and honest.
The mind can be charming and duplicitous.

https://vocaroo.com/i/s0h4yvGGW2lI

Some critique of the criminal justice system

https://vocaroo.com/i/s1j8A3E5IwFy

On Trump

https://vocaroo.com/i/s1FDENFvUtHO

Why I always get the iced mocha.

@Zoot
https://vocaroo.com/i/s0o4whzfRIZl

https://vocaroo.com/delete/s1ovs14MBHl7/e8ecd31689d4d483

Retake: Uranus scene

https://vocaroo.com/i/s0KK98szjPtw

For bonus points, construct your own gettier problem and post it here.

My god what mind games we play....

Truth is an approximation of reality based on data.
Knowledge is data.
Understanding is finding patterns in the data you have. This is why knowledge and memory are important but not decisive.

How do we justify our convictions, if we are sane?
Precedent.
Precedent does not mean your judgment, your belief is certain....is absolute.
Precedent only increases probability.
Nobody is omniscient, so there is always the unknown factor.
We make educated guesses, approximations, based on precedent, not on belief.
We use memory.
Some memory is not lucid, but expresses itself in feeling, in intuition.

Our belief is justified based on the amount of data (knowledge) we possess, increasing the probability that we are correct.
Understanding can use less knowledge to come up with higher probabilities.

In an either/or scenario you can be accidentally correct or incorrect based on the data you are unaware of.
That you can be correct, despite your ignorance, increases in probability the fewer the variables are...in other words if there are only 2 candidates the possibility of you being correct despite your ignorance is higher than if there were 3 candidates.

Like a coin toss has a 50/50 chance of landing either heads or tails, and your judgment increases in accuracy the more you can calculate the variables involved or when and if there are fewer variables are present.
So you can be accidentally correct the more variables are involved.

Precedent cuts through the calculations and bases the justification on actual events.
A variable is if the variables themselves are conscious or unconscious, if they are living beings or lifeless coins.
In the case of the lifeless coin toss the more variables you can near perfectly approximate the higher your probability of getting the coin toss correct.
In the case of living beings, the more you know of the behaviours, based on past, the higher your odds are of getting it correct.

The cointoss is harder to predict because there is no wilful agency and chaos comes into play.

Using ignorance as a variable is staking the odds towards the unforeseeable, from the perspective of the ignorant one.
All judgments are probability approximations.

There are minds that have accumulated precedent, and can display understanding, and there are minds that make intuitive guesses, and rely on conviction, or a mystical power of will affecting the outcome.
'Justifiable' means how much precedent or data you use to support your judgment.
Since this data can never be complete, whole, absolute, a judgment can never be absolutely certain that it is correct....application always trumps conviction.

If you do not believe in free-will it does not matter what judgment you make since it is fated to turn out in the way it turns out and you can claim that it was destined after-the-fact.
If you do believe in free-will then your attitude can affect the outcome despite ignorance, when dealing with living beings.
This affect can be positive or negative, depending on the other psychology - the relationship between you and him determining the outcome.
If the other is infected or admires your certainty, coming across as confidence, then it will be positive; if the other judges it as being cockiness then it will be negative.

A judgment can never be absolutely correct....it can only be more or less probably correct.
The outcome juxtaposed against the judgment reveals the judgment's quality....but if one wishes to preempt the consequences one can only judge a judgment based on empirical data (awareness), and data stored in memory (precedent).

In the scenario you offered you did not account for reliability.
On what grounds did one accept a judgment when he is unable to validate it himself using his own senses?
One party assumed the one with ten coins in his pocket is the other and did not bother to check his won pockets...so idiocy, or lack of confidence, or carelessness are also variables.

These either/or scenarios depend on binary logic, and usually do not account for human nature.
Neat little mind games proving what?
That no beliefs are justifiable?

How nihilistic.

Judgment evolved to increase survivabilty.
The unknown factor accounts for genetic drift.

This is why I laugh at these internet 'philosophers' with a theory that claims to understand everything, the theoretical whole...and never account for chaos, the unforeseeable, the forever unknowable.
They usually hide their ignorance by being certain, confident, using presuppositions to build intricate theories, such as 1/0, or God/Satan, or whole, perfect, order....or they use vagueness, mysticism, the occult to hide their ignorance beneath feigned knowledge; knowledge they can never prove nor justify but claim as being part of their secret knowledge the initiated must feel.

https://vocaroo.com/i/s139tQCU8rel

Now don't throw a fit and post a five thousand word essay. We're still pals man. I'm happy to have met you. In fact...

https://vocaroo.com/i/s1hLuh6PVHMD

Smith had no complete knowledge but stopped judging, reached a conclusion, when he realized the other has 10 coins and that the one who has ten coins would get the job.
So he was accidentally correct because he did not bother to explore further.
He assumed once the criteria were met.
He did not have complete knowledge....and he failed to explore what was nearest, most accessible...his own pockets.

But the premise is a mind-game.
How and why would the boss know or care how many coins the job applicants had in their pockets?
What possible factor would that play in his judgment?
So the prediction of the boss' choice was based on data that had no relevance, but by using it it implied relevance.
The boss's criteria implied trickery, and should have made Smith more skeptical.  

The applicant, Smith, was a pessimist.
Once he discovered the criteria for getting the job in another he failed to account for what was readily available to him....in his own pockets.
He stopped thinking, and passed judgment.
If someone told you that the lottery ticket had been one by someone in your area, and you had purchased a lottery ticket...what would be the first instinct?
To check the ticket, no?

Smith failed to question his own judgment, once he was told Jones met the criteria....and so was accidentally correct.
He stopped at the knowledge and went no further.
Of course he had reason to believe he or many others have 10 coins in their pocket.
Why did he assume that Jones was the only one?

I hear the depth of Buddhism in a howler monkey's call.



Chimpanzee vocalizations...

...connect me to a deep European tradition...




We project into what is base our own psychology, when our criteria is subjective and self-referential.
Everything and anything can be beautiful.
Everything and anything can be rationalized, justified, using feelings, occult mysticism, alluding to depths and secret forces.
The ignoramus becomes a genius.
The ugly proclaims himself beautiful.
The nonsensical can indicate an abyss of profound sensibility, sensuality.

With no empirical standard all we are left with is subjective self-expression, esoteric justifications, feelings, seducing, alluding to vague powers, to irrational rationality ripe with power....waiting to be picked.

Good criticism of modern art but he's clearly one of those conservative types who deny that contemporary art (not modern art) has far surpassed anything ever created.

Perhaps Zoot is in a bit of trouble.
Few days ago i saw 37 guest....which I found strange.
It lasted a while...and the guest reduced to 15....then 8.

Then Zoot was absent.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
I found it odd that 37 guests would be on.
That's a high number even for larger forums, and and those that have been active for a while...like the shit-box ILP.
Strange.
Wonder where they came from.

Ha!!!