Quote from: RE on Feb 19, 2024, 11:21 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 19, 2024, 11:10 AMExtinction baby, the Seneca cliff, and you did not think it could happen.

So you are now in the Extinction camp?  How long do you project it to take to get down to ZERO Homo Saps walking the earth?

RE

Not zero.  North Sentinel Island survives.

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 19, 2024, 11:28 AM

Quote from: RE on Feb 19, 2024, 11:21 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 19, 2024, 11:10 AMExtinction baby, the Seneca cliff, and you did not think it could happen.

So you are now in the Extinction camp?  How long do you project it to take to get down to ZERO Homo Saps walking the earth?

RE

Not zero.  North Sentinel Island survives.

Then why did you write "Extinction baby, the Seneca cliff"? As long as there is a population somewhere with enough breeding pairs, rebound is possible.  Simply because this place is more isolated with stone age people than most doesn't make it the only possible location either.   There are numerous isolated stone age tribes sprinkled in remote places around the world, primarily in Africa, Indonesia and the Amazon.

Once all the ammo runs out and it gets down to primitive weapons, you'll end up with pockets of survivors who scavenge and find food sources. I highly doubt the whole of North America could go to ZERO in under a century, probably 2 is minimum.  You are becoming as alarmist as Dr. McStinksion.

RE

Quote"Extinction baby, the Seneca cliff"

From the point of view of someone who died in the middle of the siege of Leningrad humans were going extinct.  No difference.  Humanity as we know it teotwayki -> teohawki.  The End Of Humanity As We Know it.

The house burns down.  Some smoking embers remain, and things will never be the same.  The house still burns down. 

Obsession with absolute extinction is narcissism.

Well, to me the word "extinction" is not a relative term.  It's not "from the POV of the peoople who died off", it's a biological term that means there are no organisms of a species left.  Calling this an extinction is overly dramatic and alarmist.  It's a Population Knockdown, likely a very large one.

Civilizations don't go extinct.  Civilizations COLLAPSE.  That's the accurate term for TEOTWAWKI.

RE

If all humans are extinct there is no concept of being extinct since there are no humans brains left to think about what being extinct is.  Therefore, humans can only ever be in the process of becoming extinct.  Which we are. 

We can not ever be extinct because that would require a human to contemplate the reality of being extinct, which is not possible.  It can only ever be a relative term when extinction is applied to humanity.

Humanity is going extinct.

The definition exists whether people do or not.  Humanity exists as long as humans do.  It may be different humanity than contemporary humanity, just as Indonesian cannibals are different.  They are still humans though.

We can agree to disagree here.

RE

Quote from: RE on Feb 20, 2024, 02:36 PMThe definition exists whether people do or not.  Humanity exists as long as humans do.  It may be different humanity than contemporary humanity, just as Indonesian cannibals are different.  They are still humans though.

We can agree to disagree here.

RE

No the definition does not exist if everyone is dead.  Definitions do not have an independent existence apart from thinking brains.

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 20, 2024, 03:24 PMNo the definition does not exist if everyone is dead.  Definitions do not have an independent existence apart from thinking brains.

Everyone isn't dead, we already agreed on that. Who says there are no thinking brains? Are you saying the people living on North sentinel Island can't think?  Can you read the mind of a Dolphin?  A Bonobo?  A Dog? How about the rest of the universe?  No thinking life anywhere?  What about the soul, reincarnation, other dimensions?  The concepts exist regardless of humans present to think about them.  Raccoon archaeologists may evolve if they don't go extinct, dig up human fossils and say "this species went extinct."



RE

QuoteEveryone isn't dead, we already agreed on that.

The North Sentinel Islands are at extreme risk.  The process of extinction is still at work.  The sea is rising as Antarctica continues to melt.  A fatal wet-bulb heat wave could wipe them out.  A bat flu pandemic could wipe them out if they leave the island.  The human bottleneck is sixth extinction tight.

The process of becoming extinct continues.  And considering the small number of islanders and the limited number of paths through the forests of their intellectual landscape, the notion of extinction might all ready be extinct.

* Thinking raccoons will think the same way we do is projection.  Their concepts will be different.  The probability of having the same concepts humanity had is next to zero. Human concepts do not exist without humans present to think about them.

Of course the PROCESS of extinction is still at work.  Just as a person begins to die as soon as they are born, species begin to become extinct as soon as they evolve.  Nothing lasts forever.  The only question is how LONG before you die or go extinct?  Thus I asked the question of you on how long once you began to equivocate on the concept and said North Sentinel Islanders will survive.  You still haven't answered that question.

I am projecting nothing.  Math concepts are the same no matter what species comes up with them.  The extinction question is just binary math, 1 or 0 are the only choices.  There is no "partially extinct", either you are or are not.  0=Extinct, 1=not extinct.  End of story.

RE

You think concepts have an independent existence apart from humans.  That is classic utopian thinking.  I say we have no free will are no more than the sum total of our personal experiences.  All our ideas are no more than abstractions of experience.  There is no independent universe of ideas, and we have no free will.  Learning is the communication of experience but, without a human to learn there is no learning.
 
Without humans there are no ideas.

It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It.
When the man is a scientist who's salary requires and depends on him studying topics to the best of ability....how can his salary require him to NOT understand it?

Quote from: TDoS on Feb 20, 2024, 08:32 PMIt Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It.
When the man is a scientist who's salary requires and depends on him studying topics to the best of ability....how can his salary require him to NOT understand it?

In that case salary depends on not not understanding.  A negation is introduced but nothing is really changed because salary determines what is understood in both cases.

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 20, 2024, 07:51 PMThere is no independent universe of ideas, and we have no free will.  Learning is the communication of experience but, without a human to learn there is no learning.

Without humans there are no ideas.

That is a very anthropocentric view of existence, that ideas cannot exist without people.  Actually, IMHO, people would not exist without ideas, they wouldn't become sapient.  Sapience is the ability to use your brain to discover the ideas and principles that govern the universe.  From your point of view the law of gravity doesn't exist until humans arrive and figure out what it is.  But that idea, that it's directly proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to their distance apart was true long before Newton came up with the idea.  It's been true since the Big Bang and the beginning of time.

RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 20, 2024, 10:57 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Feb 20, 2024, 08:32 PMIt Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It.
When the man is a scientist who's salary requires and depends on him studying topics to the best of ability....how can his salary require him to NOT understand it?

In that case salary depends on not not understanding.  A negation is introduced but nothing is really changed because salary determines what is understood in both cases.

Wow, that one has some interesting logic.

But if I understand, then a scientist's salary, paying him or her to do the best work possible, delivers the best work possible. No misunderstanding of anything....just high quality, unbiased and objective results.

Sounds reasonable. Sounds like what science is supposed to be.