The Kate Steinle verdict is in: the accused was found guilty only of a weapons charge, and was completely exonerated in causing her death — despite having undisputedly fired the shot that killed her.
Frankly, I am not surprised, given the venue. But this will not sit well.
6 Comments
Disgusting.
There was quite an issue of this killing made was there not?
OT
Been reading some your articles on the rest of the site, very enjoyable. We do read every post you publish, but we have been going through your back cat.
In terms of philosophy, you are interested in some of the same stuff we are.
Couple of things.
1: Thomas Nagel and Consciousness.
We really enjoy Nagel’s work. Even when we disagree with it, it is valuable.
His book Mind and Cosmos was really valuabe
Sorry, our computer mouse mucked up.
No, Nagel is valuable.
You,like Nagel, seem to hold to the view that we do not know why consciousness exists and how it can exist. Nagel is a Mysterian. Though, you do seem to think that C depends, somehow, on the brain.
According to Chomsky, there are problems and there are mysteries.
C is often thought to be a mystery or a “Hard Problem” and not a normal kind of problem.
While we may be misunderstanding Chalmers, and to a lesser extent Nagel, we have never been able to understand what their problem was.
The problem breaks down to two types of questions. There is the “why” question; then there is the “how” question.
While we may not have a full explanation yet, we do think that we have sufficient grounds to claim that we do have a “plausibility proof”of C being a normal problem.
Let’s take the “why” question first.
The answer, we think, is going to come from biology and evolutionary psychology.
The reason why C exists is that C is an adaption. What the Zombie thought experiment tell us (at least) is that Zombies don’t exist because a Zombie would not be able to pass their genes on to the next generation. A zombie would be outcompeted by non-zombies.
Of course, this begs the question. Or does it?
People who suffer from brain damage (blindsight) or have other aspects of C knocked out cannot function as well as those who have a fully functioning C.
C, like arms, legs, hearts and kidneys evolved in order to address a problem: survival.
Given the strength of evolutionary theory, and what we know from neuroscience, at the very least, this should be the “working theory”.
And if you have a “working theory” or a plausible theory of why C exists then it is by no means a mystery or hard problem.
That is all you need for a plausibility proof.
Of course, there has been quite a lot of work done to fill out this theory and much of the heavy lifting was done 20 years ago (see the work of Owen Flanagan for instance).
We wonder how well it is going today?
Now, for the “how” question.
How does C happen? How is C possible?
How C happens is that if your brain is organised in the right way and if the neural elements in your brain are configured in the right pattern, then you have C.
In other words, the question is answered by discovering the neural correlates of consciousness.
Not sure if we have that completely locked down yet – yet.
But again, if this makes sense, and it does, then there is no mystery here, just a problem that can and will be solved shortly.
Putting it in terms of percentages, we are about 80-90 percent there.
No mystery.
What about free will?
Bruce Waller clarified our view considerably on this topic.
Ironically, he is a compatibilist but rejects moral responsibility. But after reading him, we rejected both free will (in all forms) and moral responsibility.
There are three arguments against free will.
1: Logical.
2: Empirical.
3: Phenomenological.
1: The logical regress argument. Trace the causes of your action back and back – and back – and you will come to a point where you will simply give up in darkness.
Logically, this means that you had no control over the causes of your causes of your causes of behavior.
To escape this conclusion, (and the lack of moral agency that it so clearly implies) you would need to posit for yourself the power of God himself: uncaused causation.
You are the first mover, unmoved. You are the first cause, but for every time you think and act.
This is absurd on its face but it also opens you up to the same problem as problem of not knowing what caused your causes: it is not under your control or understanding….
2: The logical regress problem also sets up the empirical argument.
The Libet experiments show that you are going to act seconds before you have the feeling of making a choice.
GAME OVER.
3:Phenomenological argument.
If you pay close enough attention to your thoughts and feelings, perhaps by doing some Zen mediation, then you come to understand that you are not the thinker of your thoughts or the author of your actions.
Buddhism has no free will, it has a fully articulated determinist theory called dependent origination.
In short, the illusion of free will is itself an illusion.
Clearly, this has profound implications for our human self-conception and our practices of reward and punishment.
The vast majority of humanity, with the exception of some naturalistic philosophers and Buddhist practitioners, will never be able to grasp or want to grasp this point, however. Yet it is true nevertheless.
Maybe we can talk about other topics, but that is enough for now. Thoughts?
I hope this “verdict” does not sit well with one President Trump and other right thinking Americans. Given the trial venue and the social sickness run rampant there, I wasn’t surprised. The illegal criminal will be deported….I don’t usually write this on open forum…but this time released back home with a bullet in his head.
Imperial Energy,
“Thoughts”?
Yes, I have a few.
First, I disagree with your opinions — and I choose the word with care — about both consciousness and free will, and I find your arguments unpersuasive. They are hardly new to me, and I will not rebut them here. I believe I have stated my own positions on these questions, and my reasons for holding them, in my posts on these topics.
Second, you suggest that, to grasp the subtlety of your viewpoint, I should pay close attention to my thoughts and feelings, “perhaps by doing some Zen meditation”. Thank you for the suggestion. However, having immersed myself in both Chinese martial arts and esoteric systems of inner work for well over forty years now, I think it’s possible (I don’t know how old you are, as you are commenting anonymously and offer no information about yourself) that I’ve been doing as you suggest since before you were born.
Third, I can’t help noticing that, despite your approving pat on the head (“enjoyable”?), you think highly enough of yourself, and little enough of me, to park yourself in my comment-thread to lecture my readers and me at length about a topic that has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject matter of this post.
Have you no manners? You might easily have approached me by email to discuss all of this, and I would have been glad to.
To cap it all off, you conclude with this patronizing dismissal:
“Maybe we can talk about other topics, but that is enough for now.”
No, that was much more than enough for now. (Your first comment would have been enough, and you ought to have left it there.) Seriously, do you have any idea of what sort of impression you have made of yourself here? You are clearly intelligent, and perhaps we might have had an interesting discussion. But in civilized society — which is something that I had thought neoreactionary types like yourself sought to preserve — this is hardly the way to introduce yourself.
Apologies sir.First impressions cannot be undone and that is unfortunate.
The internet is an anarchy and since there is no commenting policy that we can see, then you can hardly fault us.
We would have delivered our comments on other pages but they are closed.
Nothing we can do about your perception of our “tone” and we were not trying to be condescending.
Sorry we bothered you.
Apology accepted, and I will say also that my own response was, perhaps, overly harsh.
You are obviously intelligent and articulate, and all I will ask if you would like to comment here going forward is that you be as pithy as possible, not condescendingly didactic, and on-topic.