> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Barrin92 brought up American universities where it wasn't necessary. I get it. Let's not dismiss their comment because they brought that up. I looked past that and I am trying to keep this on topic by discussing the point they made.
Does the paper you linked say anything about using the words "light" and "dark"?
How do we determine which definitions of "dark" we should use in a professional context?
I think this topic is important to discuss and I am genuinely curious how you and others would address the points in my previous comment.
Hi anigbrowl, I really enjoy this community. I don't think anyone likes to read things like:
> The sad reality is you tried to
> While you're moaning about
Let's follow the guidelines:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
I spent about 15 minutes looking over that paper you linked and it looks like the researchers are discussing systemic problems and biases in the American legal system. Race is one of the variables they studied in their model. Their results show that Non-Black candidates are treated more favorably than Black candidates in the legal system. Am I understanding the part you wanted to highlight? The paper and results makes sense to me but I don't understand how that directly relates to Barrin92's original point.
I understand that someone could see Black people being discriminated against and connect that to the word "dark" being used to describe a negative trait. I get that using the same word to describe someone's race and describe something as negative can be bad. Is that what's happening here though? How do we determine which of the following examples from marriam-webster.com [0] are OK to use?
- They walked into the dark room, it was devoid of light.
> What does "inseparable" mean? That the sensation occurs at the same time that the neurons fire? That may be true, but it doesn't make them equivalent.
Can a sensation exist without neurons firing? The root of our conversation is the question if a sensation purely exists in the physical world. If it does, then it is possible to measure it. If it doesn't, then that breaks our scientific understanding of the world and would be exciting news.
> They're not the same, for what it's worth. The term "flashlight" conveys a certain intent and structure that "photons traveling away from a light bulb with a battery and a current" does not.
Yes there is no strict definition of a flashlight. Let's use your definition of a flashlight. Is it possible in your mind to separate the concept of a flashlight and your definition? Without "your definition here", the flashlight no longer exists. My point was without firing neurons, the sensation does not exist.
> The fact that two different phenomena are closely coupled via a cause and effect relationship does not make them the same phenomena.
My wording was not the best. My point was that the sensation of red is physically equivalent to neurons firing. How do we measure a sensation? If we cannot measure a sensation, does it exist in the physical world? If it doesn't exist in the physical world, then what does it existence mean to the scientific community?
> If you push two magnets together, the fact that the same force causes them to attract or repel does not mean that the motion of the first is literally equivalent to the motion of the second, or that the force itself is literally equivalent to either motion. They are closely correlated, but ultimately distinct.
I agree that these forces are distinct. We can measure the force of each magnet separately and we can define the motion of one magnet without referencing the motion of the other.
> You just can't avoid the fact that qualitative phenomena do exist in their own right. They can't be explained away using a physical model that assumes from the get go that they don't exist.
What is a qualitative phenomena? I couldn't find information on this term.
If we can't measure a qualitative phenomena in the physical space, what does it mean to exist?
> A sequence of neurons firing is not equivalent to the sensation of red.
Have you seen videos where people perform experiments on people's brains while they're awake? The subjects experience sensations that are inseparable from their neurons firing.
I would say the sensation of red and neurons firing are the exact same thing to the person experiencing it. It's like saying a flashlight that is on is different than photons traveling away from a light bulb with a battery and a current. They're the same thing to the observer. The sensation of red is caused by and is only possible by neurons firing. The neurons firing causes and only results in the sensation of red. The observer does not know the difference.
> It doesn't even tell you anything about the nature of the sensation of colour more broadly
I don't think seeing red tells us about the sensation of color more broadly either. I think that's a concept created through human discussion, not by our senses.
> or why the sensation of red looks the way it does and not like, say, the sensation of blue or yellow instead.
I was talking to your point of "but whether that experience of redness itself is information". I don't know why red looks the way it does, but I imagine the reason exists in the physical world and we could find out if we understood the brain.
I do think in the future we could activate someone's neurons and have them experience red, blue, and yellow in any combination we want. And we could give someone else the same experience (hypothetically we perfectly understand the brain) by activating neurons in their brain. I think that is perfectly communicating color.
This idea boils down to if you believe the human brain exists purely in physical space. Let's assume it does. There is no free will. Every thought, every neuron, every sense can be represented and is controlled solely by energy and matter. We could record the electrical signals between your optic nerve and your brain, and send those same signals to your brain again in the future. We could recreate what you perceive as red by shocking your brain in the right place at the right time. If we perfectly understood the human brain, the sensation of red would be defined as a sequence of neurons that need to be turned on and off at the right time.
As far as I know, the only thing limiting us from perfectly understanding the brain is our limitations with measuring it. I don't know of any scientific studies that claim the brain exists outside of physical space.
Let's assume the brain doesn't exist purely in physical space. Free will exists. There is something immeasurable and outside of matter and energy that experiences the color red. Sensations are impossible to define because they exist only in this immeasurable world.
I heard about a guy that claimed it was obvious that the origin of lightning and earthquakes were from the gods themselves. I try not to think like that guy.
People were discussing bitcoin being used as a digital currency. There was talk of bitcoin being accepted on Overstock.com, TigerDirect, and using bitcoin apps on phones as a digital wallet. I would argue the majority of people in the bitcoin community at the time were genuinely interested in the technology and its use as an everyday currency.
Now let's look at some Reddit /r/bitcoin posts in January 2020. I picked this date because there weren't any recent significant price fluctuations.
There was practically zero discussion on using bitcoin as a currency. People were only interested in the price and treated it as a commodity, just like a digital gold.
> EDIT: downvote me if you want but you are flat wrong
Do people treat bitcoin as a currency or a commodity today?
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Barrin92 brought up American universities where it wasn't necessary. I get it. Let's not dismiss their comment because they brought that up. I looked past that and I am trying to keep this on topic by discussing the point they made.
Does the paper you linked say anything about using the words "light" and "dark"?
How do we determine which definitions of "dark" we should use in a professional context?
I think this topic is important to discuss and I am genuinely curious how you and others would address the points in my previous comment.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html