Workers' Liberty

I make a note to read everything people write, I only wish that was recipricated. Did the woman whose condom split choose to have sex, protected or not? Yes. Now according to so many books and people what is the only sure fire way of NOT getting pregnant? Not to have sex. She choose to have sex, she choose to accept the consequences that an unguaranteed form of protection offered. The menopausal woman assumed and made that choice by ignorance, if however it threatened her life that would be deemed nessecary. The same with the "first timer". The woman whose "circumstances" changed also accepted the consequence that nothing is forever, or if not made the choice by ignorance.

The only abortions which should be allowed when conception was choosen is through a defected feutus. Enough of this here and now for everyone, all that breeds is more irresponsibility.

M. Daycoi

Any more scenarios?

Someone who is raped does not "choose" to have sex.

And in any case, on the more substantive point, you haven't answered the question as to why you think women shouldn't have the right to choose when to have a child.

www.shirazsocialist.blogspot.com

These rape victims didn't choose to have sex so they should have the choice to abort. What would you say to a woman who refused to use protection yet repeatedly got pregnant and uses OUR health service to pay for the abortions? How long before we do away with protection altogether and soley rely on the Health service for all our child preventing needs? There must be a certian responsibility with our actions and those who choose to ignore these must pay the consequence. The consequence of sex, protected or not is (among others) children. I don't feel sory for the base jumper whoses parachute fails to open, or the Astronaught whose shuttle explodes, the same way I feel no sympathy for the woman who becomes pregnant, risk is called risk only when there is a danger, and as intellegant beings it is our progative to avoid these situations unless nessacery.

Imagine the power of abortion equated to something like the right to own a gun, would you give everybody the right to use a firearm, or only those you felt had full understanding of the implications and who were responsible?

M. Daycoi

Anti abortionist. Argues that the class divide is between bourgeois and proletarian nations. M's socialism is leading her to fascist conclusions, perhaps

Who said anything about anti-abortion? If you read what I said it may help. I am anti-irressponsibilty. As to the fascist conclusions, I am more than happy to argue any point on my philosophy which leads you to think that any conclusion I make is not a soul product of the truth. Your inability to accept anything other than dialectics or marxism has you regurgitating freedom of choice and the like, without really comprehending its meaning or true application to life

M. Daycoi

Its hardly a progressive attitude that you have, judgemental and intolerant, more like.

Also, you have rather hastily judged me and my capacity for understanding, can you point out what exactly I have 'regurgitated' and explain to me, a lesser mortal, what its limitations and inconsistancies are?

Wewell, it seems that Martina would deny medical treatment to anyone who doesn't live up to her moral "standards". A peculiar attitude in a "socialist", to say the least.

The only intolerance I am guilty of is for those people who claim to believe in an idea which they haven't fully grasped the concept of. The simple fact is that dialectical materialism itself cannot bring us any closer to understanding the key issues in metaphysics, therefore giving me no reason to loose my ignorance of idealism within the realm of "morality". Marx himself says, "The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism - that of Feuerbach included - is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively." But of course there is no other means of perception than the individual perception. You wouldn't say what I feel you feel, or viceversa.

Dialectics, although essential to the understanding of the external, only provides us with such methods of determining rules relating to thus, the innconsistent unproven material,(from which the ecconomic ideas of Das Kapital were enabled to be concieved).

Now, even combined, especially using the dialectic methods, there are no persuasive arguments for anybody to loose the indivualistic approach, idealism. And this is my point, nobody has. You haven't, neither has Alan, or have I, nor did Marx or Engels, because the very nature of existance is that of individualism.

Although dialectic materialism addresses the social issues, as it can all issues external, the human mind (as the perceiver perceives it) is an element beyond its reach. It is because of these illogicies of individualism within the mind itself which clouds our vision of true morality, for this can only be achieved when freedom of choice is understood (as you dialectics understand it) to be the unity of action and consequence, and you have yet to give me an example of a woman who does not deserve to live by the consequence of her own actions.

To conclude this philosophical hour with Martina Daycoi, I would like to answer to the "Nasty piece of work" comment by Jannie. Firstly with a quote from somebody I forget who. "All the pain and anguish in the world is nothing compared to a dull ache in your little finger". You call me nasty because of my lack of empathy, but let me ask you a question Jannie, do you react the same to every form of human suffering irrespective of the morality or just those YOU deem worthy of such a reaction? And then ask yourself why

M.Daycoi

you may have solved the NHS funding crisis, since I assume you would have it not provide medical treatments to people whose injuries or illnesses are caused by, say, smoking, drinking, drug-taking, addictions, crossing the road, leaving the kettle too close to the edge of the worktop, DIY accidents, sports, driving vehicles, eating the wrong food, not getting enough exercise, getting hurt at work, not getting enough sleep, worrying too much, going out of the house on fireworks night, ...

As part of their "health reforms", the German government seriously considered doing roughly this. They put out the news during the world cup, so hardly anyone would notice. The previous government (the SPD-Green coalition) considered the same thing in 2003, but abandoned the plans. Those who get their health insurance through the "public" scheme would then be forced ("voluntarily", of course) to take out additional private health insurance. Much of dentistry in Germany has gone down this road already.

It looks like - for the time being at least - as it is difficult to decide what is a "private accident" - the plans have been shelved, if only to protect the government from collapsing. The private health companies are rubbing their hands already and are looking to get involved majorly in the state scheme (seems familiar?).

Strangely, before Schröder resigned and called a snap election, it looked as if health service reform - in patients' interests - would be a central part of the next general election campaign. Even abolishing private health funds was on the cards - or at least, introducing a system funded in a similar way to the NHS where everyone pays, regardless if they "go private" or not (a "citizens' insurance scheme" as suggested by the Greens, sections of the SPD, and the PDS).

Bizarrely, as well as top civil servants, the rich are excluded from using state health insurance in Germany, for the reason that the contributions (so many % of income) would be too high and "unconstituional". They have to insure themselves with a (often much cheaper, if you are healthy) private scheme. This rule applies to all MPs - those who decide the fate of the state health scheme.

So Martina's "suggestion" is, sadly, not as strange as you might think, Janine.

I'll just correct myself: top civil servants (this includes some postal workers, teachers, train drivers, etc.: the word is "Beamten", who cannot get sacked, but cannot strike) do not have to pay for health insurance, but get it without having to pay contributions, unlike everyone else who works. The rich are excluded from the state scheme and have to go private.

I cannot begin to describe the inconsistancies in that answer. But I will. Firstly, any empathy you have is merely the brain "semi-experiancing" the scenario in order to prepare the sub-consious in the event of the same situation occuring to itself (the brain) and to move closer emotionally to the subjectee for primeval social nessecity. What you FEEL I have no problem with, you're only human. How you percieve and understand these emotions and then communicate them with others is where the trouble arises. You failed to answer the first question I asked and confused it with an earlier example of astronaughts, so I will ask again in a simpler way,

Which do you believe more progressive, that of ignorant action or that of truthful action?

Then I will show how you believe in this ("my") philosophy whether you're aware of it or not.

M. Daycoi

Can you point out what exactly I have 'regurgitated' and explain to me, a lesser mortal, what its limitations and inconsistancies are?

If this is your reply to me:

"The only intolerance I am guilty of is for those people who claim to believe in an idea which they haven't fully grasped the concept of. The simple fact is that dialectical materialism itself cannot bring us any closer to understanding the key issues in metaphysics, therefore giving me no reason to loose my ignorance of idealism within the realm of "morality". Marx himself says, "The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism - that of Feuerbach included - is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively." But of course there is no other means of perception than the individual perception. You wouldn't say what I feel you feel, or viceversa.

Dialectics, although essential to the understanding of the external, only provides us with such methods of determining rules relating to thus, the innconsistent unproven material,(from which the ecconomic ideas of Das Kapital were enabled to be concieved).

Now, even combined, especially using the dialectic methods, there are no persuasive arguments for anybody to loose the indivualistic approach, idealism. And this is my point, nobody has. You haven't, neither has Alan, or have I, nor did Marx or Engels, because the very nature of existance is that of individualism.

Although dialectic materialism addresses the social issues, as it can all issues external, the human mind (as the perceiver perceives it) is an element beyond its reach. It is because of these illogicies of individualism within the mind itself which clouds our vision of true morality, for this can only be achieved when freedom of choice is understood (as you dialectics understand it) to be the unity of action and consequence, and you have yet to give me an example of a woman who does not deserve to live by the consequence of her own actions."

I'm at a complete loss to recall ever regurgitating anything even remotely related to anything you write here apart from the intolerance you rebutt in your first sentance. So please can you cite my regurgitations prior to dismantling them in order that I can know what you are referring to?

Only if my meaning to you is unclear, not for the ideas behind them. In relation to your reguritating, "Anti-abortionist" I believe were your debut words to this argument, (reffering to me by the implication of an earlier discussion about the incosistancies of Marxist revolution). Can you can quote me for saying that or even coming close? What you saw was an anti-abortion discussion, and in which somebody who has a view anything less than the traditionaly accepted socialist liberalism is wrong. The fact you drew an anti-abortionist conclusion is proof enough you haven't read what I have said and therefore your views must be that of a generic nature in relation to the argument, (as many of my questions you have yet not answered) and what is regurgatating in the context we have been using but repeating what has already been said with nothing new to add. That is what I mean to say, that you promote an ideal irrespective of new arguments by "regurgatating" the old views which happen to be obsolite to the present discussion. You reach the same conclusion with your discussion about football teams. The rest of the overly stretched quote is in response to your socialist views or rather your delluded reasons for believing in them.

M. Daycoi

I'm not such a great student of Marx as you suppose and perhaps it is true that I don't look deeply enough into an argument, my conclusions may be superficial. However, I stand by my description of your argument as 'anti-abortionist' because the reality of the policy that would logically follow your argument would be very narrow eligibilty to legal abortion. In that sense your position is anti-abortionist. The consequences of reduced availabilty of legal abortion are inequality and suffering for women. If my argument is ideologically unsound then so be it, but it is reasonable unlike your's.

The fact that an ideology is unsound is evidence enough for its unreasonableness. As to admitting little knowledge about socialism in theory, you should think first before you start writting words like facsist.

In a hopefully final response to the anti-abortionist claims I still require an answer from Janine in regards to my last question

M. Daycoi

In the USA, at times of electoral activity, rightist raise something called "partial-birth" abortion. It means third trimester abortion. They bring it up, because it politically raises the issue, without actually threatening the right to abortion.

In reality reactionaries, don't want to stop the right of abortion. Conservative women use that right too. The issue is used to rile up, the base to vote. Liberals use the issue, the same way.

To me the issue of when is a fetus human, is not important to anyone, but the most backward reactionary. The real issue is women's rights.

This discussion is over my head. My brain is exploding.

You see, I think we do have to engage with that debate about "when is a fetus human". It's a question that's in the mind of sections of the public, and if we simply stand aloof from it then we vacate that ground to the right wing.

www.shirazsocialist.blogspot.com

I wasn't "nagging" Janine, just giving my reason to postponing the answer to one of seans questions. Now progressive action is truthful as truth is our understanding of existance. Or put differently progressive action is acting in the right way. Therefore its opposite, action of ignorance, is acting in the wrong way and this alone should be discouraged in the same way as murder or rape, discrimination or slavery. But its not is it. Ignorance runs through our societies like a stick of rock, and this ignorance is the demon everybody is really fighting. It is only when people realise thier individual ignorance and the dillusions they produce that others then see the world how it is and begin to change society, but in order to do this they must adapt psychologicly first and see things how the "revolutionaries" percieve them. Marx, Locke, Hegel, Kant and probably the first martyr to philosophy, Socrates, all proved the destruction and dangerous power of ignorance, but they also proved that knowledge has the power to overcome the greatest of these.

As socialists and Marxists you have dispelled the dillusions of capitalism and realised the potential of a socialist society. Das Kapital focuses mainly on the ecconomic side of society with little refference to the morality of such a society it would inevitably become. Why? Because like you Marx suffered from a dillusion. One which stunts our morality and makes freedom of choice impossible to this day. Do you belive if the capitalist powers were over-thrown tommorrow there would be any less injustice? NO.

People create systems, systems don't create people.

As to this dillusion I'll leave that for you to discuss what it might be.

Back to abortion, let me say this, if getting pregnant was like russian roulette, and the descion to have children was one of no going back, I believe they'd be alot less abortions. The fact is, where life is concerned this is how we should make our descions. As to my supposed opposition to womens choice I disagree very strongly with that statement. Where ignorance is the cause of conception then sympathy for this is the opposite of progression and a destructive dillusion we must see through in order to "progress", the same as capitalism is the dillusion we must see through in order to economicaly progress. And you accuse me of standing in the way of progress? I think the word hypercrit comes to mind.

Finally as to knowing when a human is human. You know when it is human when you feel guilty for ending its existance. Your morals are individual, your mistakes are physically erazable, but the pychological effects are permenant. All I want to achieve is a moral foundation based on the only thing believable, the truth, and in doing so try to ease some of the inevitable fears in life.

M. Daycoi

Martina, having studied philosophy all I can say is that you appear to know the names of a number of philosophers, you have picked up the odd phrase or two here or there, but you seem to have very little understanding of what any of these philosophers actually said.

If ignorant action is reactionary then I suggest that your lack of real understanding of Philosophy, and the of the works of these philosophers means that you are bound to end up proposing action that is reactionary. In everything you have said on this thread and others that has proved to be the case.

Perhaps you might consider what many of those philosophers you quote above said about the thing you say you want to base your morality on, "truth".

Arthur Bough

Engage me in debate then, do not call names without evidence of my errors, sticks and stones my friend. I read much rhetoric of "past" mistakes but nothing which has not then been reproven or conceeded with no change to the idea itself. The fact is, like the mother who has understood responsibility, I anaylize and learn everything I can, right or wrong, because the only way we know the difference is through knowing when to choose the most beneficial action through the choices we're aware of.

The irony is you call the ideas I portray ignorant, yet unless you're a psychic or you have already contemplated this line of philosophy you have judged it before you have seen its conclusion. I think neither of these are true which is why I stand by my belief that you have not understood it or refuse to let yourself, and what is avoiding knowledge but the opposite of progression?

As to your philosophy studies, I am no professor, I'm 24 working in a supermarket, all I have learned is to have an open mind, and truth is self evident. But it was the philosophy which you call ignorant which led to the nessecity of this knowledge.

So if you want to dispute this idea your arguments are always to our benefit, it can only help us in understanding, as the "odd phrase" goes, "You can't do wrong to a good person". But firstly you have to understand the idea (as I have understood yours), and secondly show me my errors so I can confirm or dispute your discrepency, is that not progression?

M. Daycoi

Sorry, Martina no its not progression just more verbiage. I have engaged you in debate on a previous thread. The fact was that in place of truth "absolute", "relative", "gospel", or even "self-evident" (whatever that means) you put forward a series of half-baked ideas based on suppositions which were far from the "truth". In the edn rather than do the "progressive" thing according to your "philosophy" as far as any mortal could make it out from the vagueness of what you say, by accepting that you were wrong, changing your perception of what is "true", you simply abandoned the discussion.

If we look at what you say above there is no clarity of expression in anything you say, so that means that at any point you can say, "I didn't mean that". If you were to set down in clear terms the principles of your "philosophy" then it would be open for debate, but no debate can take place on the basis of a few vague phrases or out of context references to other philosophers - and they have to be out of context whenever you use them because they are never used as part of any coherent argument.

Therefore, when you say that it was your "philosophy" that led you to recognise the necessity of the knowledge you now claim to have all I can say is that on the basis of the incorrect knowledge you have displayed so far it is not a good advertisment for your "philosophy.

If your philosophy as it appears from what you have said is based on the principle that decisions based on ignorance are bad, and decisions based on knowledge are good (though a debate would need to be had on the concepts good or bad) then few people are going to disagree with that. But it is a pretty inadequate philosophy for udnerstanding the world, precisely because it is so vaccuous. After all to refer to one of the Philosophers you refer to Locke, we all act out of ignorance to some extent. As materialists we believe along with Locke that a material world exists outside our own existence, non-dependent upon us, and that consequently we can only try to know the reality, "the truth" of this independent material world. Science can uncover more and more of its nature, but there is always a deeper level to uncover. As individuals, classes, or any other association of human beings we have not only different degrees of ignorance about those things we have to make decisions, but also the nature of how reality is perceived, "the truth" for one is not the same as "the truth" for another. Consequently, basing moral decisions on what is true, or on what can be perceived to be true cannot possibly lead to any rational, comprehensive morality to which every single human being could relate.

It is meaningless and arrogant, therefore, to assume that what you consider to be "true", and consequently the basis of a rational moral decision is to use Kant's term in the application of the Categorical Imperative "universalisable" (See Kant - "The Moral Law"). I have written a Critique of a modern version of this put forward by the Moral Philosopher Hare in his book "Freedom and Reason", which I can post if you wish.

Arthur Bough

1.I exist

2.Senses and ideas can portray false representations of anything and everything

therefore;

3. I know only that I exist

Are these truths not absolute. If you can disprove any or add anything else I would like to see that. When you look further than these premises in search of a "working" philosophy you are bound to end up in paradoxs. To suppose an external world is no different than to suppose there is a god. A useful notion but based on nothing more than a hope that our lives aren't as meaningless as we fear. Your ignorance is nothing more than your mind giving its self false reason to exist. You argue because in admitting this fact you are back to the free falling turmoil of a pointless existance, square one, and that tends to scare the shit out of people. Right and wrong have as much meaning as knowledge when nothing has reason. Why religions, cultures, any type of authority which offers a safety rail to cling to, a reason to live, are so easily accepted. Belief is to the mind what pain is to the body. Meaningless without thier opposites.

So, are the premises 1, 2 and 3 in your opinion/perspective true or false, in the strictest gospel sense of both words? And if truth can there be any others in accordance to premise 3?

M. Daycoi

Martina, thank you for giving us another sample of someone else's philosophy - this time Descartes' "Cogito Ergo Sum". Unfortunately, for the argument you are trying to make here you could not have chosen a worse philosopher. Descartes was a dialectician. As the fundamental aspect of dialectics is the rejection of absolutes, the assertion that everything is relative because it is in a constant state of becoming you have chosen a philosopher whose whole philosophical method challenges your assertion.

Take Descartes further analysis in his Discourse from where this maxim is taken. Descartes goes on to state that there is in fact no way of defining exactly what this "I" is. It is hard to see how much of a claim for any kind of absolute can be claimed for an "I" the nature of which cannot even be determined. Or take the further philosophical problem associated with the identification of existence. Every 7 years the total cellular composition of a human body is renewed. That change does not take place all in one go it is a constant process of change. It is quite clear that you are not the same person that you were when you were born. So when you say "I" exist what is this "I". The reality is that if you take an idealist cocneption of "I" then you reject the conception of "I" as being the sum of all the atoms and molecukles that make up your body, and arrange themselves in various ways to create organs etc. including the mind, and instead define I simply as mind, as some ethereal "thing" existing separate from what we perceive as the material world. But as we can never know what that idealist "I" is, and as such a definition in fact leads to solipsism i.e. the conclusion that no-one and nothing else exists outside your own mind then we cannot definitely say that such an "I" exists, or if it did, what it is, or how quickly it changes. But of course in fact few people now accept such an idealist view of reality. Most people accept that the material world really does exist outside of us and independent of us. In that case "I" is what I have described above a chemical mixture of atoms of different types and in different proportions. But as with every other material thing the composition of such a body is in a constamnt state of flux. So in reality "I" does not and cannot exist as an absolute because as soon as you try to get a grasp on this "I" it has become "I+1" i.e. it has changed into something else.

The postulation of the existence of an objective material world is not at all the same as postulating the existence of God. There are no hypotheses that can be constructed based on the existence of God that can be tested. That is not true of the material world. I can easily construct an hypothesis that says if I bang my head on this wall, the fact that this wall really exists and is hard will result in me hurting my head. That hypothesis can then be tested. If indeed I do hurt my head I can be fairly sure both that the wall and my head exist as material objects, and that the wall is indeed hard. But I am quite happy to accept the possibility that such a material world is a mirage, we might all be avatars in a computer simulation, but until I have evidence to that effect, until the hypotheses based on the existence of a real material world do not hold I will stick with my assumption. And there is nothing that requires me on that basis at least to consider existence pointless.

So the answer to your last point is that they are only relatively true.

Arthur Bough

Existance is something rather than nothing. "I" is our awareness within the realm of this something. I think I exist, so even if only at the thinking level, I exist, (in being able to think as evidence of my existance). If I did not exist these words would not be being typed. The fact you call this "relative" is fact for anything, as individualism is our only perception, everything is "relative".

The concept of I does not change. Whether I am seeing things as they are or not I am still seeing THINGS. My assumptions and beliefs are built on top of this idea and do not change its form. Example;

I (I think I percieve) + 1 (I see the sky is blue) + 1 (I feel the rain)

If I stop understanding the concept I, I have lost my humanity and the feeling of existance, yet the loss of any and all additional factors cannot take away this feeling (as long as I have been able to understand it first). The fact that I am not the same person physically as I was 7 years ago only proves that ideas are unchanging. The idea is constant, it is only WHAT the perciever chooses to believe which changes, then it would become a different idea. The world is still flat if you use the false premises which lead people to believe that it was. What makes the idea of existance unique is that it is based on no false premises.

The philosophy you preach is nothing more than natural science. Far from giving people an inclination to live it merely points out the futile life we are bound for, if all our brain is but an organic machine which serves only the purpose of survival, why care for society? As long as I survive and procreate, avoid pain and seek pleasure, why should I care about anything else? In fact why live atall? If by progressive action you mean evulotion then what I do in life matters little aslong as my children have children and so on. Knowledge means nothing to me If I am destined to loose it at death. You say that Descartes "created" this paticular philosophy, I disagree. The basic premises which he used to try and destroy skeptisism are the very foundations of philosophy, the question, why does something exist instead of nothing, and more than something, myself. The fact he failed to answer this is proof it cannot be answered.

Sorry, Martina but that is even more gibberish than your normal posts. For one thing you contradict things you said previously. Previoulsy you said our senses can decieve us - taken straight from Descartes. Yet now you want to assert that you know that you see "things". You do not know that at all if you accept your previous assertion that your senses can deceive you.

And the fact is that "I" is constantly changing as I demonstrated before so to go back to your original assertion that "I" exists, the answer is no it doesn't other than in relative terms i.e. your assertion of an absoluet was false.

Moreover, your assertion that the perception of "I" does not change is demonstrably false too. My wife's cousin's son was attacked a few motnhs ago. He received brain damage, and does not remember much of who he is, and is incapable of many functions. His perception of "I" has certainly changed, as does all those other people who suffer from amnesia.

In contrast to your assertion of the primacy of individualism in determining humaity it is quite the opposite. It is not the individualist "I" that gives me my humanity but the recognition of the collective "we". It does not matter if I lose my memory tomorow and forget who "I" is. I will still jknow that I am human that I have shared experiences and needs with other human beings, and it is that that would sustain my humanity. And it is precisely the fact that our humanity stems from that awareness of our social nature that does give meaning to life, that does give us reason to be concerned about other human beings ( because I am also they).

Arthur Bough

Well said, Janine.

I think you're particularly right about the need to keep the "climate" (an intangible thing until you know it's against you) in a pro-choice direction.

www.shirazsocialist.blogspot.com

How long is the time before you think abortion is wrong?

M.Daycoi

Nice, kids will be born into guiloutines next. When does it become murder? Before pain receptors, after birth, before cognitive memory? Essentially when does a human earn thier human rights?

M.Daycoi

Martina, under what circumstances would you permit an abortion, and if your answer (as I suspect) is "never", then please tell me what you would say to (for instance) a terrified teenage rape victim who has a condition that means she could die in childbirth?

www.shirazsocialist.blogspot.com

Firstly they do help my case, or should I say our case, Jannie. They get people thinking (not excluding myself). Secondly the question is not when does a woman loose control of her body but when does she loose her right to choose what she does with her body. Let me give an example; A person who takes the life of another is not nessacerily a murderer, a soldier or doctor for instance, manslaughter, self defense ect. Although the act of taking a life has the same result, by itself the action is meaningless, it is the reasoning and ideas what cause the action to be accepted or refuted. World War 2 happened for vastly different reasons than Iraq, the latter is now seen as securing oil supplies where the former (less the ecconomic background)involved stopping an aggressive dictator from taking over the world, yet the act of going to war equated to the same actions and eventual outcome. Accepting this the question then becomes why was one accepted and one disputed? It comes back, yet again, to personal nessecity. One had to be done whereas the other did not. So in the same example we can now include abortion. It is right only when it is individually nessecary. Your teenage rape victim, nessacery or she would die. Pregnant woman who looses her husband, unnessacery, the choice was made to have the child.

I am pro-life including the life of the mother, and as an intellegent self aware being capable of feeling pain, of course it is the mother who chooses insomuch as whether to have children or not. But....If she chooses to have children that is where the choice must end.
Abortions for all? What next, half price coupons for it in the post?

M.Daycoi

So... Martina, you think a child is a human being from the moment of conception?

Also, I agree with Janine. I think all medical treatment should be free, and abortion is no exception to that rule.

www.shirazsocialist.blogspot.com

... what if the patient in question was a teenage rape victim whose life wasn't directly threatened by childbirth?

It seems to me that your position is riddled with inconsistencies, no?

www.shirazsocialist.blogspot.com

Like I said before Alan, If the woman (or man the way science is going) chooses to concieve she cannot un-choose. Rape by it's definition isn't a choice (for the victim at least). Yes free, along with any and all help needed after, but not free to choose on a mere life style change.

There are plenty of scenarios that we could choose that fall between those two instances though aren't there? Like what about a woman who has consensual sex but her contraception fails (a split condom, an interaction with the contraceptive pill and antibiotics, a coil that just doesn't work). Would you consider that woman to have chosen to conceive?
What about a young girl who has little or no sex education and believes the myth that "your first time won't make you pregnant".
What about the forty-five year old woman who thinks she has started the menopause?
What about a woman with a wanted pregnancy whose circumstances change radically - perhaps her partner dies/leaves her, perhaps she discovers that the foetus has a major life altering disability, perhaps another child of hers becomes very ill and will require major care - and she feels that she can no longer cope with a newborn baby?
Who decides in these situations? Myself, I think that the person best placed to make these decisions is the woman at the centre of it, which is why I espouse a woman's right to choose, and why access to abortion must be as early as possible, as late as necessary and free for all who need it.

I do not know for certian if I "see" things that are true, or rather how do I explain the contradiction in premise 3. There is no contradiction as "seeing" is merely perception, and perception in itself I have never argueed, merely whether the objects of my perception can be trusted. The fact that "I" does not or cannot exist is proven to be an ignorant trail of thought by the very people who try to disprove it. Even Bernard Williams cannot conclusively destroy its conclusions (though both him and yourself have made good on attacking its premises). The fact is I cannot prove that you exist, the same way you cannot prove I exist. Both of us (although I can't speak for you, ha ha) are trapped within the first person perspective, and this is what I argue. I can hypothesis about the wall, but the only way for sure of knowing whether it will hurt is to actual smack my face against it. The only way we know anything is to expierance it, truth is an event, is it not. To simply state unexperianced "facts" or take on the belief from somebody else is the highest form of ignorance (and the foundation of religion). You can make hypothesis but without hurting yourself with an impact injury before the event you can never know what one feels like or if indeed it is a right or a wrong action (Putting aside instincts, I'll discuss later).

When does I become something else? I think I picked the wrong word to convey my meaning, that being HUMANITY. This should be changed to something closer to our capacity for intellegance (but if you answered reffering to its literal sense there is a greater paradox to your argument!). "I" is merely the realisation of the individual when they can think of themselves thinking in relation to "their reality", (although whether this reality is true or false does not matter). From sub-conscious to self-aware. "I" does not change, for it is merely the ability to think in this way. If we loose our CAPACITY FOR INTELLIGANCE, ie; the above thought processes, we fall out of existance within the only world we can naturally percieve, the individualist. How can anything exist when nothing can percieve it? (If a tree falls in the woods). Alternatively imagine a world where people did not know that they could think, one with no choice but to rely on instincts.

And that is unfortunetly what happens to people with severe mental disabilities, dreamless sleepers and the dead (possibily not the dead, who knows, I haven't died yet!). Where the "I" slips from existance motor instincts, if still working, will continue to perform the functions of a working body, (the brain is damaged but not the need to survive). The latter two fall from my perception. The person with severe memory loss does not come into this catergory unless, again, he looses the ability to percieve himself within his reality, otherwise he is the lucky one.

So in response to your last posts, a hypothesis is from the Greek to suppose and thats too much assuming for me. The fact that more people are materialists these days is to me a popular phase of philosophy. And the fact is, philosophy is the most important thing in life, the basis of communisism, socialism, capitalism, every type of ism, yet nobody but you has had a word to say past the superficial choice of right and wrong. You have yet to prove of a material world and so the rest of your thinking is supposed and ultimately garbage.

When you go, you go. When I go, everything goes (not to rule out an afterlife of course).

M. Daycoi

To be honest Martina I have to say that it is difficult responding to your posts because they tend to be just garbled. I don't know if that is because English is not your first labguage in which case you have a good reason for that being the case - though it still doesn't help in responding - or just that your thoughts themselves are incoherent. I will try to wade through it.

Firstly, I didn't say that "I" doesn't exist. Descartes gave the proof it does. My point is that the statement "I think therefore I am" or "Cogito Ergo Sum" is only a statement of relative truth, not absolute truth as you argued. It is only relatively true for the reason I have given i.e. the nature of "I" as with every other material thing is constantly changing. The "I" that is responsible for the thoughts that result in me typing the last letter of this sentence is not the same as the "I" which began it, or even that existed the most infinitessimally small period of time before it. The only time that "I" can be considered to exist in an unchanged form is then outside time, but everything exists in time, so nothing can ever exist in an unchanging form, and because it is continually changing it must be a different "I". In short A does not equal A.

The only way we can know anything is to experience it? No, I don't think so. Because I do not beleive in absolute truths I do not believe you can ever know anything absolutely. BUt to go from that to trying to build a basis of practical action on it would be impossible, and the whole point of philosophy for a Marxist is not to reinterpret the world as Marx put it, but to change it. But even on a more mundane level no human being could live their life without going insane if they based themselves on the concept that everything is false or potentially false. So for example if I had never seen a Black Swan, but enought people that I trusted told me that they had seen them, I would be likely to accept thier word for it. Depending upon how important the action might be that I was going to take on the basis of the thing I was being asked to believe in the greater the amount of proof I might require. Similarly there are some things that you can never experience and yet acept exist. No one has seen an atom or felt it, smelled it etc. but we are pretty sure they exist because there are other means of arriving at the conclusion they exist, and it is possible to then establish tests to see if the predictions are proved correct.

Finally, I do not have to prove the existence of a material world at all. In another thread on this site there was a long discussion on this topic. I raised the possibility that in fact everything we perceive is just a large computer simulation, and we are just avatars within it - or maybe I am just a player and everyone else is a computer generated character a bit like Total Recall. But even were that the case, so what. The fact is that were the case everything we beleive and understand about how the material world functions would still apply it would merely be that it applies because that is the way the programme has been set up, everything within the simulation would follow a set of predetermined rules just as we understand the rules of physics etc. So the way anyone in that simulation related to their enviroment would not change at all.

Provided then that I can uncover the rules by which the world around me works both the material world and the social rules I can make predictions and formulate plans of action. It does not matter whether those rules are natural rules arising from the constraints of what is possible given the nature of matter, or whether those rules are rules established by some computer programmer for how each element of the programme should function.

Arthur Bough

Does "I" exist in a dream?

Does "I" exist in a dreamless sleep?

When did I say cogito ergo sum or any sort of translation?

Are the predictions and tests (exp. on atoms) not just events of the truth?

Do ideas change in form or just into different ideas, ie; the original idea remains unchanged in forming the basis of the new?

How do you come to find meaning in other people based on the computer simulation scenario?

Are we all not slightly insane?

M. Daycoi

Does "I" exist in a dream/dreamless sleep. Someone/thing must do the dreaming/dreamless sleeping. "I" then exists as a function of the someone/thing.

When did you say "I think therefore I am". In your post above titled "Existence is somnething". Third sentence. Is your thought now so garbled you can't remember what arguments you have used?

Tests. TRuth is relative. Tests merely help us to arrive at a closer approximation to it, and thereby have some hope of understanding the world we live in.

Do ideas change in form or into just new ideas. Both.

Because I do not start from the assumption that all existence is a computer simulation. I start from the assumption that everything is real in the sense of existing in a material form outside and independent of my own consciousness i.e. the tree really does fall and make a noise when it falls in the forest whether or not anyone witnesses it. That is not true at a Quantum level, however. Quantum events are influenced by observation, but that is because quantum events are based on probability. The reason light appears as both a wave and a flow of photons is because the light wave is actually a probability wave.

That doesn't contradict the materialist analyis though Einstein believed it did, which is why he argued that "God doesn't play dice with the Universe." It merely means that the dialectic of nature is merely a reflection of that underlying fact that existence is based on probability. At the point of tangency of a tangent to the circumference of a circle there is an equal chance that the circle is straight or curved. Meaning that the circle is both straight and curved. If you send out a beam of light it has different probabilities of taking different tracks. In experiemnts done of sending out light and intercepting it through a filter with slots, it is found the light actually passes through all the slots, but has a higher probability of passing through some than others. If you then plot the actual recorded number of frequencies that light passes through each of the slots you obtain a probability graph. This probability graph is in fact the light wave.

This latter fact does tend to give some support to the idea that everything is a computer simulation, because the way most computer simulations work is also based on a degree of probability, and even where its not the very functioning of a computer system like any other modern electrical appliance is based on an application of quantum mechanics, so just in the functioning of teh computer quantum events are occurring all the time.

Are we all not slightly insane. Depends on your definition of sanity like with the definition of normal.

Arthur Bough

The Dreamless Sleep

In a dreamless sleep I exists as the function? Where does the perception of perception go? When some loud noise is made we still hear it and wake up, yet we could not forsee the event which caused the sound nor percieve our place in reality.

Cogito ergo sum

"3. I know only that I exist". Not the same thing. Descartes stops short of dispelling all our acquirred knowledge.

Do Ideas change or not?

You said both. In this materialist world, everything is in a constant state of flux, or to put it your way, A does not equal A. Now if ideas do not change your conclusion is that they exist "outside of time". But nothing can exist out of time?

M. Daycoi