[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

And what words would that be?

: an observation can be either a remark, or it can be something someone observed. The first can be just about anything: I can make the observation to you that I thought yesterdays meatloaf was particularly fine. The second one requires something to observe: they are always observations of physical things.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

That is an impossibility. You can see behaviours, or other physical phenomena. You cannot directly observe conditioning, as it is a psychological phenomenon. You can observe behaviour and then raise the hypothesis that conditioning occurs. You would have to test that hypothesis before you go on, thought.

I never said he observed psychological phenomenon directly, but he did observe the behaviors that lead to certain psychological phenomenon. This was not a hypothesis. You are trying so hard to discount his findings because he didn't test it empirically.

He saw how this conditioning occurs.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

To do this you would quite literally need to be a mind-reader. It cannot be done. What you can do is observe behaviour, especially if in this case you observed a lot of developing infants, and then see if the data you have collected matches your hypothesis that this is what occurs.

He needed to understand how words and language cause this conditioning, and that's what he did.

Descriptors are projected onto people with certain facial structures.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

So the two of you claim. I see no evidence to suggest it is true. Worse: I do not even see any reason to assume it is plausible. All I see is your claim that it is so.

That's because you don't understand his demonstration as to how the brain operates in relation to words. Do you even remember what his observations were? No wonder you don't see it.

A child keeps hearing positive or negative inflections when that person is identified. This process begins at a very early age and it occurs over and over again, so by the time a child is 4 or 5 (or maybe even younger), he can see, with his very eyes, the difference between an "ugly" individual or a "pretty" individual. The truth is people ae not ugly or beautiful, just different, and these words which have hurt so many are going to become obsolete out of necessity. Why would anyone want to use words that not only are inaccurate symbols, but hurt so many of our youth because they don't feel they measure up? In the new world these words will never be used.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

All of this is a repetition of the same claim. All you have done is repeated what it is you believe. I know perfectly well what it is you believe: I just pointed out that I cannot for the life of me spot any reason to believe it is true!

Then you'll have to wait for the empirical testing to prove that it's true. Without hearing these words, children will not be conditioned to seeing one group as beautiful and another as ugly. That doesn't mean there won't be personal preferences, but these preferences won't become a standard for everyone.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

This is the problem with the book. At no point did he feel any need to fact-check, test, prove, or support his ideas. He can either have been ignorant of the fact that in any even remotely scientific work, this is an absolute requirement, or he can have simply felt that there was no need for it, and that his self-proclaimed authority as a genius should be enough.

Oh my god, that is exactly what he was up against; people who thought they were the authorities not because of what they knew but because of their rank.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Tell me - if you were asked to change the entire organisation of your countries society, would you be happy to do so on the say-so of someone, just because that person assures you he is a grade-a brainbox and has spent a lot of time on his system? That would just be silly, right? The guy could be dead wrong.

He isn't telling anyone to change anything other than the need to destroy the weapons of mass destruction and become a citizen of this new world (if they want to), which would allow everyone to be guaranteed that their standard of living would never go down. This transition doesn't hurt a single hair on anyone's head.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

And yet that is exactly what your father expected the US to do. He even tried to sue the president to get this done. Despite the fact that the key part of this book - the assumption that conscience works the way he says it does - is completely unsupported.

Conscience works exactly like he described. What else is conscience for but to determine whether our actions can be justified when it comes to hurting someone. If we can justify it, our conscience will permit the action. If we can't justify it, our conscience won't let us permit the action.