NoodleFood - Latest Comments

Re: The Closure of Philosophy in Action

Chuff — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 10:45:40 -0000

It appears the archive of episodes is gone. Is there anywhere to listen to them now?

Re: Preview: Sunday Radio: The Future of America, Vulnerability, Cheating, and More

andra perdana — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:14:16 -0000

Perlu disadari bahwa bertaruh judi slot gacor sangat menyenangkan, terutama ketika kita berhasil memenangi dan mencapai jackpot pada hari itu

Re: A Review of The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics

HanksAdmirer AynRandisMyFavori — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 09:30:57 -0000

Oh amen. I'm no Objectivist (I'm too religious) but I do admire her, and I cannot stand liars. Branden portrayed himself as if he were a naive teenager. He was actually in his 20s and he was the one who lied to her, not the reverse.

Re: Mighty Mule Gate Openers: My Experience

Tom Herron — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 15:30:21 -0000

I would love to know what the end result was for you with MM/GTO as I have replaced 3-4 of these boards in my GTO.

Re: Preview: Sunday Radio: The Future of America, Vulnerability, Cheating, and More

Azuri Lovely — Sat, 05 Dec 2020 13:56:16 -0000

Join our discusion at http://www.senatordanwolf.com/

Re: Fractional Reserve Banking: Fraud or Not?

Ralph Musgrave — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 07:30:24 -0000

Strikes me the reason fractional reserve is fraudulent is simple. Banks, 1, accept deposits, 2, make loans, and 3, then tell depositors their money is safe, which it cannot possibly be, because if a bank makes enough silly loans it then cannot repay depositors!! And that’s happened over and over again thru history. I expanded on that point here:

https://fractionalreserveis...

Re: Unnecessary Evidence

HanksAdmirer AynRandisMyFavori — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 12:54:46 -0000

He did not just lie to you. He lied to Ayn Rand too. The Passions of Ayn Rand's Critics is a good read, and Ayn Rand is presented as she truly is in it. She did not do anything to Nathaniel. She was the victim, not the perpetraitor.

Re: On Some Recent Controversies

Scott Webster Wood — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 17:08:37 -0000

The four main 'actors' behind that website made my facebook ignore list (first on said list) long before this whole sh'bang even occurred. I don't miss any of them one bit. Don't let petty people like them bother you. Have fun at their expense - all they deserve is mockery.

Re: Conrad: Licking and Swallowing Fits

Samantha — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:52:42 -0000

Probiotics, digestive enzymes, getting off of kibble especially and onto a holistic diet can make a world of a difference! Just make sure the air gulping and excessive licking aren't "complex partial seizures". Dogs get misdiagnosed often.

Re: Libertarianism versus libertarianism

Chris Cathcart — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 03:02:01 -0000

I don't take issue with the "libertarian" label per se, but Rand's intellectual acumen is on display in her choice of label: radical for capitalism.

Re: Murray Rothbard Versus Children’s Rights

Judy Petraroi — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 01:41:26 -0000

Rather disingenuous characterization of what Rothbard advocated.

Everything you said, about them being dependent in that are the legal responsibility of the parents until the age of majority, is peripheral to libertarian qua libertarian philosophy and contrary to everything else I’ve ever read by Rothbard...and that’s almost everything he’s published. Failing to acknowledge the centrality of familial and community bonds in libertarian philosophy takes studious ignorance of the subject.

Libertarianism isn’t prescriptive for how others live. Austrian economics only provides a framework for understanding the economic consequences of Human Action.

Insinuating that libertarians would ever leave children to starve, or that any community would allow such people to continue to participate in that community, is insulting.

Re: Podcast #363: The Future of America, Vulnerability, Cheating, and More

Larry Howard — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 03:12:32 -0000

Great! Thanks for sharing this.

Re: Thomas Sowell on Marxism

Rickie Paradise — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 01:32:56 -0000

Helpful article ! BTW , if someone has been searching for a IRS 706 , my wife came across a blank document here

http://goo.gl/7LG2GL

Re: Mighty Mule Gate Openers: My Experience

worldsgonemad — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 14:40:43 -0000

I'd just like to add another side of the service issue. I installed, by myself no technician needed, the basic GTO Model purchased from Sportsmanship Guide when I first bought my property in 2003. I dug the trench and ran the electric to the gate, again by myself, hooked up worked like a charm. It worked perfectly without issue for 13 years. When it finally did breakdown, I called service and she walked me through the entire testing process, was exceedingly patient with my ignorance of using a volt meter for the first time but nothing we tried worked. So after 13 years I wasn't terribly concerned that it may need to be replaced. I felt I got my money's worth. I was offered a replacement product. Not a GTO, some other brand I think it may have been a refurbished GTO under another name. I got an incredible deal on it such that I could also get a solar panel, pole mounted remote as well as two key chain remotes. I received it in less than 5 days. Again, I installed it myself, including the pole mounted remote AND the Solar panel. It worked like a charm at the first click and has done so flawlessly ever since. I was very pleased by the support I received even offering me a personal cell phone number should I have any trouble with the install. I would not hesitate to call them again. Sorry that everyone here seems to have had bad experiences. Mine have been glowing. Oh, did I mention I'm a 62 year old woman with no experience with such things. yeah.

Re: Iodine and Bromine: My Test Results

Kaiti Glazier — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 14:57:03 -0000

It isn't "super sketchy" at all to assume bromine builds up in adipose tissue. I am a clinical laboratory scientist, and also a Mt Dew junky. I've never had any issue with TSH or any other thyroid hormones in the various tests I've run and had run on myself over the years. My mother does have a benign tumor on her thyroid (that she will not treat) and her mother had an all-out goiter in the 50's.
Life working in medicine is stressful. I consume mass quantities of soda, and usually Mt Dew, because while I care deeply about health, my own health...meh. Two weeks ago, I developed a rash. It would spread and itch like...omg over the next two weeks. It is all over my entire body now. To be fair, I consume more calories in Mt Dew than food. Of the probably 800 calories a day I DO eat, probably 500+ are Mt Dew. I know, reckless. I put bromine and the rash together finally last night (bromoderma!) and because I have fairly extensive knowledge regarding iodine, I have everything I need to reverse the effects, if I'm correct. The rash is on the fattiest areas of my body. I am not overweight at all, but the rash is mostly on my thighs, love handles of my back, my tummy pouch where I have leftover skin from having four children. The rash was flaming red and itching last night. It expands every day. I took 1000mg of sea kelp last night (my iodine source,) 1000mg VitC, and magnesium. Pounded water. And of course, no more Mt Dew. Woke up this morning, the rash isn't red red...it's faded somewhat, slightly brownish now. And doesn't really itch. Ohhhh. I'll stop by my GP this afternoon and get his input, but I'm already pretty solid that this is bromoderma. I'm sure he won't suggest that until I mention it to him, and he'll probably even be skeptical (he usually is, but we have a good working relationship. :P ). Bromoderma. Who would think it? Oops.

Re: Nathaniel Branden’s Campaign Against Objective Moral Judgment

San Clemente Moose — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 12:39:09 -0000

The one who first said "A is A" (Leibniz, not Aristotle) also claimed Locke's notion of "tabula rasa" was naive. See Leibniz's New Essays. But since that time, a mountain of evidence has stacked up against the notion. Chomsky's Theory of Generative Grammar for example. But one needn't get that complicated to realize "tabula rasa" (in Locke's formulation, not Aristotle's which is something entirely different, because Aristotle claimed that the notion applied only to a small part of the mind--- the part we can "change" or the part that we use to do arithmetic in our heads) is really a silly notion. Why? For one simple reason. Because "blank slates" have no structure. Thus if the human mind really did begin life as such a blank slate, it would never get organized. One could never learn a language or any other kind of structure, because "pure sensations" are chaotic until the mind organizes them. Without an inherent structure of some sort, the mind would never be able to organize anything. This was basically Leibniz's criticism. A block of uncut marble, Leibniz said, in the New Essays would be a far better metaphor. But why bother even with that? Today we have modern psychology and linguistics, just for starters. Metaphors such as "blank slate" or "block of marble" seem almost childish in comparison.. Worth talking about historically, of course. But this can't possibly be "the way it really is.". . ..

Re: Thomas Sowell on Marxism

styopa — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 12:42:51 -0000

If you'd actually read the book, or even the essay above, Sowell was quite clear in distancing Marx/Engels from their 'ideological descendants'. In fact, Sowell points to most of the "Socialist" regimes today and "Marxist" dogma as being firmly rooted in more or less complete misreadings of what Marx was ACTUALLY trying to convey. This doesn't mean that Sowell exonerates Marx; far from it. Marx's prescriptions for revolution - without then explaining what was the actual, practical result that was the goal - was like writing a blank check to his intellectual following, allowing them to justify heinous barbarities in pursuit of utopianist nonsense that wasn't even based on sound ECONOMIC principles. He didn't tell them to do horrible things, he merely gave them a nice big justificatory blanket excuse.

Re: The Closure of Philosophy in Action

Tom Burroughes — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 07:03:27 -0000

Thanks for keeping up all the archives of the material. I have listened regularly to these productions but haven't had the chance to hear all of them, so it is great that they remain here.

I have been greatly nourished, intellectually, by your work here. In particular, I enjoy the very grounded, fresh and upbeat way you describe particularly subjects and discuss them with Greg to reach a set of conclusions. The general tenor of PIA has been bright, focused and positive. This stands apart in many ways.

Whatever you do in future, I wish you and your loved ones the best.

Regards from the UK.

Re: Epiphenomenalist Nonsense

The Thinker — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 17:52:50 -0000

So what are the arguments and evidence in favor of this position, one might ask?

Strictly speaking, there are none.

That is not at all true. We have plenty of evidence, including a lot that has come out since this post was written (which I cannot fault the author for of course)

Here is some of the evidence that the brain causes the mind which is the epiphenominalist view:

Internally generated preactivation of single neurons in human medial frontal cortex predicts volition.

Highlights:

-Recording the activity of 1019 neurons while twelve subjects performed self-initiated finger movement, this study shows progressive neuronal recruitment over ∼1500 ms before subjects report making the decision to move.
-A population of 256 SMA (supplementary motor area) neurons is sufficient to predict in single trials the impending decision to move with accuracy greater than 80% already 700 ms prior to subjects' awareness. Furthermore, they predict, with a precision of a few hundred ms, the actual time point of this voluntary decision to move.
-Using an SVM classifier to predict the time point at which the subject reported making the decision to move, the algorithm detected the occurrence of the decision in 98% of the trials and only missed W in 2% of the trials.

Reading My Mind

Highlights:

-CBS 60 minutes report from 2009 showing how fMRI imaging can recognize with a high degree of accuracy the contents of thoughts about objects like a hammer, a window, an apartment etc.
-Report reveals there are enough similarities between different people such that once enough people's brains are measured when thinking about an object, a person who never scanned can have their thoughts predicted with 100 percent accuracy when thinking about those objects.

Predicting free choices for abstract intentions

Highlights:

-Researchers are able to show that the outcome of a free decision to either add or subtract numbers can already be decoded from neural activity in medial prefrontal and parietal cortex 4 s before the participant reports they are consciously making their choice.
-Previous findings have been mostly restricted to simple motor choices.
-In the current study, participants were not cued to make decisions at specific points in time but were allowed to make decisions spontaneously. By asking participants to report when they first consciously decided, we could investigate what happened in the brain before the decisions were consciously made. We found that both medial frontopolar cortex and posterior cingulate/precuneus started to encode the specific outcome of the abstract decisions even before they entered conscious awareness. Our results suggest that, in addition to the representation of conscious abstract decisions, the medial frontopolar cortex was also involved in the unconscious preparation of abstract decisions.

Tracking the Unconscious Generation of Free Decisions Using UItra-High Field fMRI

Highlights:

-Researchers show that it was possible to decode the decision outcomes of such free motor decisions from the pole of anterior medial prefrontal cortex (BA 10) and the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), up to 7 s before subjects were aware of their intention.
-Taking into account the temporal delay of the BOLD signal (which is in the order of a few seconds), it is possible that these signals reflect processes up to 10 seconds before the actual decision.

Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

Highlights:

-Taken together, two specific regions in the frontal and parietal cortex of the human brain had considerable information that predicted the outcome of a motor decision the subject had not yet consciously made. This suggests that when the subject’s decision reached awareness it had been influenced by unconscious brain activity for up to 10 seconds.
-The temporal ordering of information suggests a tentative causal model of information flow, where the earliest unconscious precursors of the motor decision originated in frontopolar cortex, from where they influenced the buildup of decision-related information in the precuneus and later in SMA, where it remained unconscious for up to a few seconds.

There Is No Free Won’t: Antecedent Brain Activity Predicts Decisions to Inhibit

Highlights:

-Our main argument is as follows: Libet et al, (1983) had suggested that decisions to inhibit action have an important role in freedom of will, because, he argued, they do not have any obvious unconscious neural precursors. In Libet’s view, this makes decisions to inhibit crucially different from decisions to act, for which, he claimed, there is a clear unconscious precursor. Libet’s dualistic notion of “free won’t” has been criticised on theoretical grounds. However, in our view, a stronger rejection of “free won’t” could come from actually showing that a decision to act or not can be driven by a preceding, presumably unconscious neural activity. Our results identify, for the first time, a candidate unconscious precursor of the decision to inhibit action. These results count as evidence against Libet’s view that the decision to inhibit action may involve a form of uncaused conscious causation.
-The dualistic view that decisions to inhibit reflect a special “conscious veto” or “free won’t” mechanism is scientifically unwarranted.

Further evidence that the brain causes the mind:

1)The evolution of species demonstrates that development of brain correlates to mental development
eg “We find that the greater the size of the brain and its cerebral cortex in relation to the animal body and the greater their complexity, the higher and more versatile the form of life” (Lamont 63). Lamont, Corliss. The Illusion of Immortality. 5th ed. New York: Unger/Continuum, 1990.

2) Brain growth in individual organisms:
“Secondly, the developmental evidence for mind-brain dependence is that mental abilities emerge with the development of the brain; failure in brain development prevents mental development (Beyerstein 45). Beyerstein, Barry L. "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena." In The Hundredth Monkey. Edited Kendrick Frazier. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991: 43-53.

3) Brain damage destroys mental capacities:
“Third, clinical evidence consists of cases of brain damage that result from accidents, toxins, diseases, and malnutrition that often result in irreversible losses of mental functioning (45). If the mind could exist independently of the brain, why couldn’t the mind compensate for lost faculties when brain cells die after brain damage? (46).” Ibid

4) EEG and similar mechanisms used in experiments and measurements on the brain indicate a correspondence between brain activity and mental activity:
“Fourth, the strongest empirical evidence for mind-brain dependence is derived from experiments in neuroscience. Mental states are correlated with brain states; electrical or chemical stimulation of the human brain invokes perceptions, memories, desires, and other mental states (45).”

5) The effects of drugs have clear physical >>> mental causation
Daniel Dennett superbly opines:

It continues to amaze me how attractive this position still is to many people. I would have thought a historical perspective alone would make this view seem ludicrous: over the centuries, every other phenomenon of initially "supernatural" mysteriousness has succumbed to an uncontroversial explanation within the commodious folds of physical science... The "miracles" of life itself, and of reproduction, are now analyzed into the well-known intricacies of molecular biology. Why should consciousness be any exception? Why should the brain be the only complex physical object in the universe to have an interface with another realm of being? Besides, the notorious problems with the supposed transactions at that dualistic interface are as good as a reductio ad absurdum of the view. The phenomena of consciousness are an admittedly dazzling lot, but I suspect that dualism would never be seriously considered if there weren't such a strong undercurrent of desire to protect the mind from science, by supposing it composed of a stuff that is in principle uninvestigatable by the methods of the physical sciences.

Daniel C. Dennett, "Consciousness in Human and Robot Minds,"

Again, as the great Michael Tooley puts it:
(1) When an individual's brain is directly stimulated and put into a certain physical state, this causes the person to have a corresponding experience.
(2) Certain injuries to the brain make it impossible for a person to have any mental states at all.
(3) Other injuries to the brain destroy various mental capacities. Which capacity is destroyed is tied directly to the particular region of the brain that was damaged.
(4) When we examine the mental capacities of animals, they become more complex as their brains become more complex.
(5) Within any given species, the development of mental capacities is correlated with the development of neurons in the brain
Michael Tooley, "Opening Statement" in William Lane Craig and Michael Tooley debate, "Does God Exist?"

Seriously, The Laws Underlying The Physics of Everyday Life Really Are Completely Understood:

In this case, one hypothesis says that the operation of the brain is affected in a rather ill-defined way by influences that are not described by the known laws of physics, and that these effects will ultimately help us make sense of human consciousness; the other says that brains are complicated, so it’s no surprise that we don’t understand everything, but that an ultimate explanation will fit comfortably within the framework of known fundamental physics. This is not really a close call; by conventional scientific measures, the idea that known physics will be able to account for the brain is enormously far in the lead. To persuade anyone otherwise, you would have to point to something the brain does that is in apparent conflict with the Standard Model or general relativity. (Bending spoons across large distances would qualify.) Until then, the fact that something is complicated isn’t evidence that the particular collection of atoms we call the brain obeys different rules than other collections of atoms.

So, we have plenty of lines of evidence in support of epiphenomenalsm, and plenty of lines of evidence against interactionism, which is the view that mental properties with no direct physical.

For arguments against interactionism and dualism, see here:

Objections to Dualism Motivated by Scientific Considerations

Including:

-Arguments from Human Development

-The Conservation of Energy Argument

-Problems of Interaction

-The Correlation and Dependence Arguments

Re: Readings: Immanuel Kant on Sex, Marriage, and Masturbation

Hannes — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 09:37:27 -0000

We should be careful about "education-racism".
The basics of life is life itself, not education or gender difference.
Life is the basic for feeling peace... in sexual activities too.

Re: Ayn Rand on Total War

PigManFan — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 23:07:38 -0000

The two sides (US vs state Islam) are not morally equivalent. You are implying that the jihadists are in the right and that you want their goals (i.e. an Islamic theocracy & the abolition of individual rights) to be achieved. Yes, this is what the jihadists want. Read for yourself what they write--not what the mainstream news interprets via a PC filter that they want. http://www.c-span.org/video...

Re: The Closure of Philosophy in Action

Ryan Babcock — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 14:55:47 -0000

Ya that's too bad, but It was really refreshing to get a philosopher who's personality was "modern" for lack of a better term in Objectivism. Aesthetically, Objectivists philosophers traditionally seem kind of cold, stoic and angry, which of coarse isn't true of the actual philosophy, but you really conveyed a flowing sense of life in your style. Like an tree... I hope you keep writing at least. You've certainly helped me live a better life. Oh and the way your website is set up, is sooo easy to use. Peikoff and Brooke could totally use some tips to make theirs more user friendly. I mean its by topic and right in the open how much easier can you get. Anyway good luck.

Re: The Closure of Philosophy in Action

Diana Brickell — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 16:53:31 -0000

That's wonderful to hear. Thank you!

Re: The Closure of Philosophy in Action

Diana Brickell — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 16:53:20 -0000

Thank you, Eric!

Re: The Closure of Philosophy in Action

Eric Gmutza — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 11:15:22 -0000

NOOOOOoooooooo! So many of the great conversations I've had with my wife have begun with the words, "So I was listening to Diana Hsieh's podcast, and she was talking about..."

What will we talk about now? ;)

Tough to put my finger on just one or two things that I learned from your show. I will say you've definitely helped me identify a bit of a rationalistic streak I have. Your discussion of personality theory helped me get over a fingernails-on-chalkboard aversion to a high-I coworker, who it turns out was not being deliberately annoying. I also found the episodes covering fixed vs. growth mindsets to be extremely helpful. They've helped me step outside my comfort zone in several fun and life-affirming ways just recently.

Anyway, I hate to see you go, but it sounds like it's time. Best of luck, wherever your journey takes you!