Just use sublime text (anti-vim rant)
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One day, I tried to make a thought experiment of throwing away any axioms or ideologies and try to derive moral rules by using only rational thinking.
You don't need to go full Descartes. If you look at what Descartes was working from, the reason he had to invent Cartesian mind-body dualism was that according to Cartesian physics, the mind could not exist. Physics of the time was very much high-school rigid-body stuff. Newton hadn't supplied a working theory of action at a distance yet. Descartes believed that all physics could be explained as bodies bouncing off other bodies; all he had to go on about his own mind's existence was that he knew it existed, he still needed to convince himself that he could actually observe anything at all.
Anyway, all I'm saying is, you don't need to be super parsimonious about axioms: any time you observe something, you can take that observation as an axiom1. And if you're observant, I think you'll notice that humans are much more important to you than bugs are. You'll notice that human beings (yourself included) are inherently selfish, and that your primary desire is to make yourself happy. And if you're particularly observant, I think you'll realize that trying to live a moral life is more likely to make you happy in the long run than any other strategy.
I used to categorize the moralities by the goal
But goal for whom though? Here's another way to categorize moralities: ones that are intended to apply to other people, and ones that are intended to apply to oneself. Or moralities that are intended to judge or justify certain actions, versus ones that are used to weigh up future decisions.
1While I'm on the subject, here's some anti-lisp rankling: this is an example of your typical lisper, Gregory Chaitin, who thinks that lisp is powerful enough language to brute-force-solve the halting problem with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitin's_constant
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If you look at what Descartes was working from, the reason he had to invent Cartesian mind-body dualism was that according to Cartesian physics, the mind could not exist.
I'm tempted to read that as a failing of Cartesian physics. Not that Descartes solved the whole dualism issue particularly satisfactorily anyway...
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Cartesian_Theater.svg/300px-Cartesian_Theater.svg.png" width=250">
Filed under: if you find yourself trying to explain away your assumption that something that exists cannot exist, maybe you need to revisit your axioms..., what happens inside the little guy's head?
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I'm tempted to read that as a failing of Cartesian physics.
Absolutely. But the problem was that a better system hadn't been invented yet. The poor guy did his best, cut him some slack would you ;)
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Wider than what?
Wider than the sensible range of key combinations (or key+mouse combinations) that a user might memorise? The more complicated the software, the more users might be prepared to learn eventually, but the more different actions there are. It's not a competition that it's good to get into. That's why menus are a good thing, even more so than toolbars. They're discoverable and expandable. (Well, up until someone goes crazy and puts everything on them…)
I remember old-style WordPerfect from the bad old DOS days. It liked function keys. It liked function keys a lot, especially with modifiers. I have no idea what Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F11 did, but I bet it did something. Users used to play hunt-and-peck with the help of complicated guides that were stuck to their keyboards, listing everything that would happen in about a 6-pt font with difficult-to-read colour coding too. The usability curve was awful; I learned LaTeX instead as being easier to understand (and it produced nicer output too). MS Word destroyed WordPerfect at about the time when the world switched to doing things on Windows, and good riddance…
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any time you observe something, you can take that observation as an axiom1
Only if you first accept the axiom that what you observe is true.
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Only if you first accept the axiom that what you observe is true.
The problem with rejecting that is that it leaves very little for discussion, and robs any argument you might make of any relevance, because others can then legitimately just not believe the message you're giving them, and that would be entirely legitimate within the axiom system you're using as applied by them. Deny the relevance of communication and you might as well hide in a corner and cover your eyes and ears while whistling the collected works of Miley Cyrus.
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The problem with rejecting that is that it leaves very little for discussion
My point exactly. You need some axioms to make any logical conclusions.
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My point exactly. You need some axioms to make any logical conclusions.
Not just that. Some axioms are stupid because they deny the possibility of anything much at all. Hasn't stopped them from being considered by people from time to time, but that doesn't prove very much other than that even philosophers can be dumbasses.
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AXIOM: Axioms are stupid.
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I remember old-style WordPerfect from the bad old DOS days. It liked function keys. It liked function keys a lot, especially with modifiers. I have no idea what Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F11 did, but I bet it did something.
It really only used the function keys up to F10 due to 101 keyboards being too modern. And it only used one of the Ctrl/Shift/Alt modifiers at a time. F11 and F12 were duplicated on lower F keys with modifiers.
I do remember an option in 5.1+ that would move ESC, F1 and F3 around to match later keyboard shortcut standards. Repeat, Cancel and Help respectively.
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I do remember an option in 5.1+ that would move ESC, F1 and F3 around to match later keyboard shortcut standards. Repeat, Cancel and Help respectively.
Hang on, Esc was Repeat?
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windows-style shortcuts like Ctrl-AFZXCV
Aren't those Mac shortcuts? (Replace Ctrl with Command) Windows used to use Ctrl-Insert, Shift-Insert and Shift-Delete for clipboard operations.
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When I need diacritics they are just a quick ShiftCaps Lock away (switch layout, I think it's AltShift on Windows?)
I installed WinCompose to get those sorts of characters, mapping Compose to the otherwise useless caps lock key. Easier than accidentally switching keyboard layouts or permanent dead keys. But then I only need a handful of characters not on a US keyboard, and only rarely. I just got sick of copypasta from charmap and my memory for alt-codes isn't what it used to be.
CBF doing HTML on this phone for the buttons etc.
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Hang on, Esc was Repeat?
ESC is a relatively obscure key. I guess. Up thread I mentioned a workstation I used at uni lacked this key.
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But then I only need a handful of characters not on a US keyboard, and only rarely.
I sometimes have to send an email where it would be preferable to use "proper" characters.
Mostly to people who don't know how to use them anyway, so that's a bonus. I won't deny that I get a slight ego boost every time I respond to some high level manager using the same words he does, but spelled correctly.
Filed under: Urge to use FTFY rising...
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Compose is good
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Only if you first accept the axiom that what you observe is true.
You don't have to assume that. Just that what you have observed, you have observed. Particularly if you are at-risk for schizophrenia, you're better off not assuming the infallibility of your senses.
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you're better off not assuming the infallibility of your senses
Are you suggesting that there are, in fact, no gryphons in Western Canada?
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Yes, but I wouldn't go so far as to take that as an axiom.
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Yes, but I wouldn't go so far as to take that as an axiom.
I've not observed gryphons in Western Canada (despite having spent some small amount of time there), and I trust my senses enough to not reject that as basic information. By itself, that doesn't mean that nobody has seen them. However, it does fit an overall pattern where nobody's seen them and I'm perfectly happy to have the hypothesis that there are indeed no gryphons in Western Canada, itself a corollary of the more general one that there are no gryphons anywhere.
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@boomzilla said:
Today is definitely an up
tdick in flag activity.
Is that a homosexual euphemism?Now it is.
Eurasian griffon vulture - Wikipedia
