Thinking oneself into existence

April 16, 2019

Cogito, ergo sum is a philosophical proposition by René Descartes usually translated into English as “I think, therefore I am”.

In no philosophy is thinking a prerequisite for existence. Of course, Descartes’ formulation is just tautology since it presupposes the “I” and the “think” and the “am”. Thinking is taken here as proof of existence, but is nothing more than an assertion of existence.

But what could prove existence?

That question in itself requires what constitutes “proof” to be defined and requires criteria specifying “existence”. An that leads only to circular arguments.

  • Existence refers to the ontological property of being.
  • “To be” does not require the capability of being observed or an observer with a consciousness.
  • “To exist” does not require proof of existence.
  • However “proof” of existence requires an observer and therefore no “proof” can be anything other than subjective to the observer.
  • Existence is not caused by an observers perception of proof.

I always end up with the case of the tree falling in the forest, creating a pressure wave and whether or not there is a brain to detect the pressure wave and perceive sound. A perception of existence is not the same as existence. The perception may be true or false. The perception requires an observer and a consciousness.

The real conundrum is the existence, not of a bunch of atoms which look like me but, of the “I” of me.

  • The “I” exists as long as – and only when – I think I think.
  • The existence of other things is not dependent upon my perception of proof of existence.

But I still cannot quite come to grips with what “thinking” is.

 

 

Tags:
Posted in Philosophy | Comments Off on Thinking oneself into existence

“Some people did something”

April 11, 2019

Some are tone-deaf, but some others are just stupid.

Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar “… after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something ….”

Some people

 

Tags:
Posted in Behaviour | Comments Off on “Some people did something”

Actually, Netanyahu has just had his best ever election result

April 10, 2019

I am no great student of Israeli domestic politics and my perceptions/knowledge of the Israeli elections are only what I have gleaned from media reports. However, I do try to also read reports from the Israeli media and not just from the western mainstream media. Over the last few weeks the “liberal” mainstream media have been supporting an anti-Netanyahu position and most of their reporting has been critical of Netanyahu and his chances in the 2019 general election.

Last night, just before I went to bed, the exit polls were showing a close race between Likud and Blue & White. The “liberal” press had started putting out headlines about a “setback for Netanyahu”. The New York Times – among others – has been hoping for a Netanyahu defeat.

NYT dislikes Netanyahu – and it shows

This morning, as exit polls are replaced by vote counts, I find that Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party narrowly won the Israeli election. With 97% of the votes counted former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Benny Gantz, led the opposition Blue & White party to a strong showing. Both parties will receive 35 seats (out of 120) in the next Knesset. Likud received 26.3% of the vote and only just exceeded Blue and White’s 25.95%. No single party has ever won an overall majority on its own. The right parties are expected to have 65 seats and the left parties 55. It is virtually certain that Netanyahu will form the next coalition government.

But the reality is that Likud have won more seats this time than they ever have under Netanyahu. Likud has won 5 more seats than in the outgoing Knesset.

Netanyahu’s record

The only time Likud have done better in an election was in 2003 with Ariel Sharon when they received 29.39% of the votes and 38 seats in the Knesset.

The “liberal” media have become peddlers of opinions and cannot be relied upon to be purveyors of facts. The Fake News phenomenon starts with their increasing presentation of opinion and wishful thinking as fact.

 

 

Tags: , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Israel, Media, Politics | Comments Off on Actually, Netanyahu has just had his best ever election result

All the Democrats vying to lose to Trump in 2020

April 9, 2019

It seems that every new day brings a new Democrat into the race (or who says that he or she might enter the race) to be chosen as the Democratic candidate for President in 2020 to stand against Donald Trump (if he does indeed seek reelection).

Many of them are only doing so in a desperate attempt just to get themselves some free publicity. The media can no longer afford to ignore any one who might conceivably stand. They are still smarting from the ridicule they still enjoy for their gross miscalculation with Trump. They are too scared now to ignore or trivialise anybody.

At the latest count there are 25 potential Democratic candidates. The Rolling Stone ranking puts Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris at the top of the list. Hillary Clinton is not on the list (yet).

With ISIS almost eradicated, the N Korea threat apparently neutralised, the challenge to China on trade, the increasing isolation of Iran and with booming jobs and a strong economy at home, the indications are that Trump will return for another term.

as of April 2019

 

 

Tags: , ,
Posted in Politics, US | Comments Off on All the Democrats vying to lose to Trump in 2020

Time lines are relative

April 6, 2019

History is pre-me and is the diffuse period before I was born.

Ancient history is the misty past before my father was born.

The good old days lasted all the time I was dependent upon someone else.

Modern times covers my working life.

And the devolution of mankind started when I “retired” and the world has been going downhill ever since.

 

Posted in History, Trivia | Comments Off on Time lines are relative

Doomed pilots had no chance against Boeing’s deadly software

April 6, 2019

Bad software from Boeing has killed 346 people on Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. What is now becoming clear is that the pilots were doomed. It was not possible for the pilots to circumvent or override the software once it had been engaged in its malicious mode (whether due to a faulty signal or not). 

The preliminary report on the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 has now been released. Ethiopian Airlines released a statement about the preliminary report

Despite [the pilots’ hard work and full compliance with the emergency procedures, it was very unfortunate that they could not recover the airplane from the persistence (of) nose diving,

The President and CEO of Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg, also released a statement:

We at Boeing are sorry for the lives lost in the recent 737 MAX accidents. These tragedies continue to weigh heavily on our hearts and minds, and we extend our sympathies to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. All of us feel the immense gravity of these events across our company and recognize the devastation of the families and friends of the loved ones who perished.

The full details of what happened in the two accidents will be issued by the government authorities in the final reports, but, with the release of the preliminary report of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accident investigation, it’s apparent that in both flights the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, known as MCAS, activated in response to erroneous angle of attack information. ……..

Today it is reported that the B737 Max has other software problems as well.

A day after Ethiopian Airlines released its preliminary report, Boeing has confirmed that the 737 Max 8 has an additional problem in its flight control software that will require more time to fix. These issues are reportedly separate from the anti-stall system failures believed to have caused the loss of Flight 302. The additional issues affect software controlling flaps and other flight-control surfaces. It is not clear if these additional flaws contributed to the loss of Lion Air 610 or Flight 302.

That Boeing has liability for the 346 deaths is apparent. Whether it is to some extent criminal liability remains to be seen. That the US FAA has some liability as well is also evident. If the FAA colluded with Boeing to allow less than fully tested software to go into service then it would surely be criminal liability on both their parts.

In both cases the gut reaction was to imply (if not blame) pilot error. But the pilots had no chance against the killer software.

 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Aviation | Comments Off on Doomed pilots had no chance against Boeing’s deadly software

The Facebook strategy: From Fake News to Paid “News” and to Paid Fake News

April 5, 2019

It is nothing new.

Many newspapers carry advertising which looks like a “news article” or as editorial comment. In the last decade even the once most “reputable” outlets (NYT, The Times, WaPo, Der Spiegel, El Pais, The Guardian……..) have indulged in “Fake News”, both by omission and by commission. Some have become little more than lobbying outfits where the actual news content is always secondary to promoting a particular political line. In India, the idea of paying for “news articles” is an old tradition. It is the life-blood for the print media especially at election time.

(On a personal note, when I was heading an engineering company in India I found it remarkably easy, and quite inexpensive, to place favourable articles in local and national newspapers when we were bidding for important projects. Of course, our competitors did the same. “Journalists” were quite ready to repeat our press releases with no changes, provided of course they were given some special dinner or a free night or two at one of our guest houses.)

The more competent newspapers (I hesitate to say “better”) manage not only to get paid by both sides of opposing arguments, but more importantly, they manage to get paid for presenting themselves as “balanced” and objective.

So now The Telegraph will be publishing a series of paid articles for Facebook, identified as being advertising but still looking like editorial content.

From Fake News to Paid News and now to Fake, Paid News.

Business Insider:

  • Facebook is paying The Daily Telegraph to run a series of positive sponsored stories about it.
  • The British newspaper is running dozens of stories that defend Facebook on controversial subjects like terrorism, hate speech, and cyber-bullying.
  • It shows how Facebook is attempting to sidestep the often-critical media by buying positive coverage of itself.
  • A spokesperson said it is part of a UK marketing campaign to drive “awareness” of Facebook’s investments “that have a positive impact on people’s lives.”

 

Facebook has found a novel solution to the never-ending deluge of negative headlines and news articles criticizing the company: Simply paying a British newspaper to run laudatory stories about it.

Facebook has partnered with The Daily Telegraph, a broadsheet British newspaper, to run a series of features about the company, Business Insider has found – including stories that defend it on hot-button issues it has been criticised over like terrorist content, online safety, cyberbullying, fake accounts, and hate speech.

The series – called “Being human in the information age” – has published 26 stories over the last month, to run in print and online, and is produced by Telegraph Spark, the newspaper’s sponsored content unit.

“Fake news, cyberbullying, artificial intelligence – it seems like life in the internet age can be a scary place,” the articles say. “That’s why Telegraph Spark and Facebook have teamed up to show how Facebook and other social media platforms are harnessing the power of the internet to protect your personal data.”

Sponsored native content, in which companies pay for media organizations to produce positive articles that appear similar to traditional news stories, are an increasingly popular method of monetization for many publications, including Business Insider. Some studies have been critical of the ad format, arguing they can mislead news consumers. ….

The stories dismiss ‘technofears’ about the impact of technology on society. …….

Facebook’s go-to talking points are all here. ………

…….. Facebook has paid for sponsored content with British newspapers before – but on far less politically charged issues. In 2016 and 2017, before its current wave of scandals, it ran a number of stories in left-leaning The Guardian on subjects like growing your business with video, understanding customers, and case studies of succesful companies. The Guardian articles are now offline, but remain accessible via the Internet Archive.

 

Tags: , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Media | Comments Off on The Facebook strategy: From Fake News to Paid “News” and to Paid Fake News

Middle class demographics will cause Indian stock market capitalisation to grow by a factor of 20 till 2050

April 4, 2019

The underlying Indian stock market growth is fueled by a burgeoning middle class with a voracious appetite for owning stocks.

The BSE Sensex is India¨s primary stock index. The Bombay Stock Market has been going for some 140 years (formed 1875) but the Sensex Index of 30 shares was established in 1986 and set its reference value of 100 on a base date chosen to be 1st April 1979.  It is now 40 years since the base date and the index stands at over 39,000. For stock investors this represents an annual rate of growth over the 40 years of over 17%.

Rather than a measure of – except indirectly – of the economy or industrialisation, I see the BSE Sensex as primarily a measure of the appetite for investing in stocks. As such, it is a phenomenon of, and by, and for, the “middle class”. Much of the growth of the index is thus due to new owners of stocks entering the market.

It is thought that India has around 25 million owners of stocks. There are many definitions of the “middle-class”. I find defining the middle-class by the number of households with a disposable, annual income of over $10,000 is probably the best indicator of the number of stock investors. By this measure the number of stock investors is about half the number of such households. Currently – 2019 – the number of such households is about 50 million and covers 120 – 150 million of the total population of 1,300 million.

The Indian population will probably reach around 1,500 million and start declining after 2050. It can be expected that the growth of the stock-owning middle-class will keep increasing till then and even for a decade or two after population decline begins. A not-unreasonable projection would be that the underlying growth of the stock index will follow the appetite for owning stocks.

The total number of shares available, the number of investors available and the price of the shares are inextricably linked with the state of the economy. An increasing appetite for a fixed number of available shares will follow the number of investors available. This would increase both share price and market capitalisation. However the number of shares available will, given even a modest growth in the economy, probably track the growth in total population.  However, the underlying growth over the next 30 years is unlikely to reach the heights of the last 40 years. A saturation law applies and my expectation would be a growth in the index of between 2 and 3 times the current value. Since the number of investors would have grown by a factor of 8 this implies that the total capitalisation of Indian companies on the stock market could be closer to 20 times higher than now.

 

Tags:
Posted in Demographics, Economics, India | Comments Off on Middle class demographics will cause Indian stock market capitalisation to grow by a factor of 20 till 2050

Without ignorance there are no questions (or knowledge is always finite in an infinity of ignorance)

April 2, 2019

The natural laws are not amenable to change.

Our minds and our thoughts and our actions may distinguish us from inert rocks and lifeless blobs of matter, but they are just as impotent in effecting any change to the laws we perceive applying in the universe around us.

And because we have minds and thoughts, questions arise. It is an empirical observation that minds are finite and a reasonable conjecture that omniscience – and therefore determinism – cannot exist. If we were omniscient we would have no questions. Without questions the human condition would be one of stasis. Without questions there would be no room for philosophy. If we had no questions the process of science would be meaningless. Ignorance by itself does not give rise to questions. Ignorance together with an awareness of being ignorant is necessary, but even that is not sufficient. Questions will not arise in an ignorant mind, aware of its own ignorance, unless there is also a desire to reduce the level of prevailing ignorance. A rational motivation for such a desire would be the belief that reducing ignorance would lead to an “improved” state of existence for the desirous mind.

All of philosophy and all of language and mathematics and art and all of science then proceed from non-omniscient minds formulating questions. Ignorance it would seem is the primary driving force for human endeavor.

Ignorance is infinite. Ignorance begets questions. Questions – through the application of philosophy and art and science – beget answers. Answers increase knowledge which is finite. But answers also beget further questions and so on, ad infinitum.

When we get to the correct formulation of the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything for which the answer is 42, we shall reach omniscience. Then, the stars will go out and the universe will cease to exist.

 

Tags:
Posted in Philosophy | Comments Off on Without ignorance there are no questions (or knowledge is always finite in an infinity of ignorance)

US Democrats have just lost the 2020 election

March 25, 2019

The entire Trump/Russia conspiracy theory was always a little far-fetched. But now as a major part of what turns out to have been a “spoiling exercise” has run out of fuel, the emphasis will shift to how the formal investigation into a nonsense theory first began. It certainly dates back to the campaign and long before Trump was elected. I suspect it was the Clinton e-mail flap which started it all. I am not convinced that the Clinton campaign was itself clever enough to have thought this up. “Deep State” Clinton supporters at the FBI probably started the whole thing as a way of both diverting from Clinton’s criminal incompetence (in which they succeeded) and of attacking their most hated candidate.

Of course they were aided and abetted by other Trump-haters (John McCain was a willing accomplice in spreading the fake dossier). The pro-Clinton media with CNN in the forefront and followed by WaPo and the NYT took Fake News to new heights.

It is unlikely that anybody will be held accountable for starting the Fake News conspiracy theory.

The Democrats are too heavily invested in the conspiracy theory to give it up easily. I suspect that continuing to beat this horse will only make it more likely that the investigation will turn to who started the fake collusion theory and make it more difficult for the Democrats to dig themselves out of their ever deepening hole. They already have the debilitating baggage of taking over the mantle of being the socialist, anti-Semitic, soft-on-crime, Big Government party.

Trump may not have won yet, but the Democrats could well have lost the 2020 election with the Mueller Report. Of course it doesn’t hurt Trump that

  • ISIS were beaten on his watch,
  • N Korea are a much reduced threat,
  • the Chinese tsunami is being contained,
  • that unemployment is low,
  • that the economy is booming,
  • that black and Latino employment has never been higher and
  • that legal immigrants don’t much care for illegal immigrants

 

Tags: ,
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, US | Comments Off on US Democrats have just lost the 2020 election

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »