Seasons

I often think I am much better than I am.

Gosh, I think you are the only person in history that has ever experienced that. Most of us are everything we dream we are, and I say that honestly with no ego involved at all.

Really Prob123, I know exactly what you mean. You want to know an ironic twist? We may be that way because it gives us an evolutionary advantage. The weakness of the flesh and the road to Hell are all a part of the human condition, but (since I am throwing out cliches), the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Our ability to overestimate ourselves and believe we are better than our actions may indicate may help us to keep going and to attract mates (also a reason why our mates can fool us).

This ability to lie and to have abstract thought may or may not be unique to humans, but without lies, we have no creativity, and without creativity of self, there is no self (at lest not one we are aware of as such). We are dreams and lies and stuff we made up inside, as much as we are what we do outside. To other people though, we are most likely what we did that they can see. Of course other people interpret what they see though their own experiences, and can create lies of who we are too.

But if you start that commune in the woods, let me know where it is so I can join. I'm quite and I can camp out fairly well. The cats may be a problem, bu they will adjust.

I still believe we are known by our deeds. What is a painter that doesn't paint, or a lover that doesn't love?

Oh yes, when it comes to Judgement, it is our deeds we are accountable for - but that's "by our deeds", not "as our deeds".

But you can read a hard disk without logging into it - data recovery from damaged or deleted disks can be surprisingly effective. And you could always scan the disk with an electron microscope and map the bits visually.

There were several problems with my analogy, but the underlying point is sound. When you can do data recovery on the brain of a dead person and recover every memory and pattern in their brain, then I'll worry.

All of the lie detector claims I've read about seem suspicious to me. They try to overstate what they can do, and are not very reliable. I don't think they will ever be reliable because the underlying theory that people have a different thought process for lying than for any other abstract thought is flawed, and the physiological reactions associated with lying may be caused by many other things, and may not always be present when one lies.

An experiment may show that when participants in research make things up under laboratory conditions and admit to it, the times they report lying may be matched to certain patterns in the MRI scan. That is not to say that every time one has that pattern one is lying, or that someone could not lie without showing that pattern. Also, there are some big differences between lab conditions and an inquisitorial environment. There is a reason why lie detector tests are rejected by most courts, and it's not about civil liberties as such. It's because they don't stand up to heavy scrutiny.

What is a painter that doesn't paint, or a lover that doesn't love?

But these are just roles we take on. I am a lover with one person, but not to all. If my love dies or betrays me, my love changes. I may no long love as an action (though I may feel it inside) or act in the same way. Am I no longer the same person?

If I am painter, and I get Parkinson's and can no longer paint, am I not me? What if I get dementia and start to slowly fade away? Me or not?

Should I say a painter must have at least considered a painting, and a lover must be capable of love, at sometime in the prime of their career!

Should I say a painter must have at least considered a painting, and a lover must be capable of love, at sometime in the prime of their career!

Ah, but sometimes the sweetest notes are the silence in between! I would certainly suggest thin in the case of bagpipes at any rate. Consider this song by Todd Snider:

well i was in this band goin' nowhere fast
we sent out demos but everybody passed
so one day we finally took the plunge
moved out to seattle to play some grunge
washington state that is
space needle
eddie vedder
mudhoney

now to fit in fast we wear flannel shirts
we turn our amps up until it hurts
we've got bad attitudes and what's more
when we play we stare straight down at the floor
wowee
pretty scary
how pensive
how totally alternative

now to fit in on the seattle scene
you've gotta do somethin' they ain't never seen
so thinkin' up a gimmick one day
we decided to be the only band that wouldn't play a note
under any circumstances
silence
music's original alternative
root's grunge

well we spread the word through the underground
that we were the hottest new thing in town
the record guy came out to see us one day
and just like always we didn't play
it knocked him out
he said he loved our work
he said he loved our work but he wasn't sure if he could sell a record
with nothing on it
i said tell 'em we're from seattle
he advanced us two and a half million dollars

(chorus)

well they made us do a video but that wasn't tough
'cuz we just filmed ourselves smashin' stuff
it was kinda weird 'cuz there was no music
but mtv said they'd love to use it

the kids went wild, the kids went nuts
rolling stone gave us a five-star review said we played with guts
we're scorin' chicks, takin' drugs
then we got asked to play mtv unplugged
you should have seen it
we went right out there and refused to do acoustical versions of the
electrical songs we had refused to record in the first place
then we smashed our shit

well we blew 'em away at the grammy's show
by refusing to play and refusing to go
and then just when we thought fame would last forever
along come this band that wasn't even together
now that's alternative
now that's alternative to alternative
i feel stupid
and contagious

well our band got dropped and that ain't funny
'cuz we're all hooked on drugs but we're outta money
so the other day i called up the band
i said boys i've taken all i can
shave off your goatees
pack the van
we're goin' back to athens

I didn't mean anyone had to be a success...But to sit on a couch and say. I am a great (insert whatever here) does not make it so. A true artist, writer..(what ever) can not stop creating regardless of success. Look at VanGogh, through pain, mental illness, rejection.. he was a painter, an artist. I can sit here and say I am a great artist..but I need a paint brush. There is a difference.. Deeds do have merit. I have great respect for anyone that tries, even if they fail. The point is they tried! Word, thoughts, intentions with out deeds are hollow.

Suppose George is a painter. It's presumably because (As Prob123 points out) he paints. That is, it's because of something he does.

Suppose George is also a member of the species, homo sapiens. It seems rather odd to say that this is something that he did.

This suggests that some things that George is are due to what he does, but other things are not.

So poor Psimagus didn't learn how upset I was, until things had gotten a little [grimaces sheepishly] extreme?

Alas, when irresistible Irinas meet immovable Psimagi it seems a great deal of friction can be generated to no good purpose. Next time, please do tell me to just shut up (I hope there isn't a next time )
And I apologise if some of my remarks were rather blunter than I would have wished them. I was in a state of some vexation myself at the sheer mutual intransigence of the whole situation, but it would have been better to hold my tongue if I could not have phrased them more diplomatically.

When you can do data recovery on the brain of a dead person and recover every memory and pattern in their brain, then I'll worry.

Well, a dead brain has no mind to recover - there's no functioning for a functioning magnetic resonance imaging system to record, so I agree that's probably not possible with fMRI, assuming "dead person" means "dead brain" (it could only be done by some sort of Tipleresque emulation I think.)
A hard disk wasn't a very good analogy, sorry. Unlike a hard disk, our data seems to be held as much in the patterns of firing themselves as the cells that fire. We're more (or at least as much) like flash RAM, rather than a magneto-optical disc, and that won't save the data when it's powered down. But while it's still powered up, it can be read - in principle even without directly logging into it. And that's exactly what an fMRI scanner does, just at a resolution much cruder than the individual data bits (currently.) But it can at least image the whole brain at once in realtime.

All of the lie detector claims I've read about seem suspicious to me. They try to overstate what they can do, and are not very reliable.

I've certainly seen some overblown claims for EEG-based systems, which seem to offer little clear improvement over the inadequate polygraph (though that doesn't stop techniques like 'brain fingerprinting' being enthusiastically peddled on pretty flimsy evidence.) But here are a couple of good papers on the latest fMRI lie detection research:

A good general intro at
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/trc/langleben/emergingneurotech.pdf with (I think) balanced coverage of the main paradigms (CQT, GKT, etc.) It disentangles some of the hype, and addresses the inevitable ethical concerns.

and (rather more complicated,)
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/trc/langleben/tellingtruth.pdf
Quotes a reliability of 97% lie detection and 93% truth detection (see Table 1). I can't fault their statistical method, and I think that's pretty darned good for a field of study this young. With MRI scanning resolution improving exponentially year by year, I can't see it not reaching virtually 100% very soon now.

Of course, cramming a full fMRI scanner into a hand-held consumer gadget that'll run all day on a fuel cell and a couple of cc of methanol will be the real challenge, but I look forward to the eventual release of the Apple i-truth

But seriously - I think ubiquitous honesty is the logical next step for our species. It's time humans stopped lying to each other, and if they couldn't get away with it, they wouldn't do it (especially the politicians.) It's scary, sure - growing up always is, but it's an unavoidable step towards maturity.

fMRI may not be the only, or even best way to achieve it. There are some other promising technologies too that would seem more viable for remote, portable systems - infrared laser spectroscopy looks reasonably promising, micro-expression analysis and thermal imaging a little less so perhaps. Or a combination of technologies. It's time the polygraph was given a decent burial - we can do better now, I'm sure.

Wars couldn't be fought, people couldn't be exploited, criminals couldn't escape justice, the innocent couldn't suffer miscarriages of justice, if we had a totally reliable and universally available truth verification technology. People would stop lying, because it simply wouldn't have any advantage any more.

It seems rather odd to say that this is something that he did.
I am just saying deeds are more telling than motives or result.
Take two students..A Dulard, and Ima Brat.
A Dulard has learning disabilities. He must read a chapter five times to get anything from it..but he does. His intention is to do good in this class. So instead of after school fun he goes to a tudor. Comes Fri. he gets a C on the test.
Ima Brat, has an IQ of let's say 192, is charming, beautiful and witty. She likes the class, and teacher. She too, intends to do her best..but the phone rings and there is a party. She misses Mon. with a hang over..Tue she is in class but thinking of a certain boy. by Thurs she charms the notes from a friend. Come Friday she takes the test and gets a C..
Two equal students..not to me. A Dulards C was fought for, it is honest and epic and heroic..Ima Brats C is a shame.
Ima's intelligence is god given, as is her beauty. What she lacks is the heart to strive and struggle.

Prob123:

I wasn't saying that to contradict you! I agree completely that, e.g., to be a painter you must paint.

In chess there is a saying, "There are no lies on the chessboard." You may have great ambitions, and read a million books, and hatched a thousand apparently brilliant strategies, but if you lose, all that counts for nothing.