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Laws (against murder and other crimes) don’t reduce to physical property.

Libertarians often think that the purpose of the law is ONLY to define and enforce property rights. In reality, the purpose of the law is to prevent and address the arbitrary in social life.

It’s true that it would be arbitrary if anyone could just take your property against your will, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only kind of arbitrariness the law should prevent/address.

One can steal value without stealing physical property (as happens when you transfer someone’s digital money without their consent).

‘Lawbreakers get away with it all the time so it’s fine.’ How is that an argument?

‘To stop someone from murdering you you have to infringe on his private property by claiming an exclusive right on prohibiting his use of his privately owned gun to shoot you’ How is that different?

Copyright encourages creativity because the most creative work is done by the original work’s creator, and copyright protects that creation. Without that incentive, many original creators wouldn’t publish their creations in the first place.

Another way copyright promotes creativity is that it doesn’t allow creations that aren’t sufficiently creative.

Copyright encourages creativity because the most creative work is done by the original work’s creator, and copyright protects that creation.

People can still publish fan fiction as long as they get the copyright holder’s permission.

Copyright is stifling to creativity, as now people are not incentivised to write fan-fictions.

This idea isn’t marked as a criticism but presumably should be. (Though it need not be marked as a criticism anymore if it’s going to split up into multiple separate submissions as per #1324.)

This isn’t marked as a criticism but presumably should be. (Though it need not be marked as a criticism anymore if it’s going to be followed up by multiple separate submissions as per #1324.)

This idea contains at least two claims and one question:

1. Copyright stifles creativity.
2. Fan fiction does not damage creators.
3. “Where is copyright good?”

It’s unwise to submit multiple ideas at once as they each become susceptible to ‘bulk criticism’. That can unduly weaken your own position.

Try submitting the ideas again, separately.

Not a lawyer but I believe such fan fiction would be considered a derivative work.

Copyright protects original creators’ exclusive right to create derivative works. So, selling your Star Wars fan fiction without permission from the copyright holders would be copyright infringement.

See this article.

I know.

I’m not quite sure, but it sounds like you are reverting your stance on having misread #696. Does that mean #1192 should be marked as a criticism after all?

But we don’t don't know if consciousness can emerge as a byproduct of computation […]

We do know that. From the laws of physics. From BoI ch. 6:

[E]xpecting a computer to be able to do whatever neurons can is not a metaphor: it is a known and proven property of the laws of physics as best we know them.

@knut-sondre-saebo, you write in the explanation for this revision:

I think the the law of excluded middle is more a property or constraint of existence, rather than a cause. Since we can treat universe as being something as a given, the reason it can't be something else is because the law of excluded middle constrains it to be what it is.

Revision explanations are meant to be short, eg ‘Fixed typo’ or ‘Clarified x’. Since the quote above contradicts #521, it might be worth submitting it as a criticism of #521, or as a separate idea. It doesn’t really work as a revision because revisions are for incremental changes, not for introducing contradictions.

There is a similar (identical?) theory put forward by Marc Lewis in The Biology of Desire. He explains addiction as the process of "reciprocal narrowing". The process of reciprocal narrowing does not remove conflicting desires, but instead reinforces a pattern of dealing with conflict through a progressively narrower, habitual response (substance, action, mental dissociation). Addiction, therefore, as you suggested, is a process of managing the "conflict between two or more preferences within the mind."

💯

I do think the whole mind is a program (or programs).

When you make a revision to address a criticism, be sure to uncheck the corresponding criticism in the revision form, section “Do the comments still apply?”. That way, #1134 won’t show up anymore.

In #1189, yes, but then you reverted it in #1192.

I agree that nothingness as an object makes no sense.

Regarding nothingness as a quantifier: if you removed all objects except for the universe itself, then the universe remains as an object. So then the set of all objects wouldn’t be empty. So even as a quantifier, nothingness doesn’t seem to work. At least when it refers to all of existence.

Or am I missing something?

I agree that nothingness as an object makes no sense.

Regarding nothingness as a quantifier: if you removed all objects except for the universe itself, then the universe remains as an object. So then the set of all objects wouldn’t be empty. So even as a quantifier, nothingness doesn’t seem to work.

Or am I missing something?

[…] it’s the fact that the law of the excluded middle that constrains the universe to exist.

That isn’t a sentence.

Knut has fixed the typo. @knut-sondre-saebo, be sure to check off addressed criticisms when you revise an idea. Underneath the revision form, there’s a list of criticisms that you can check and uncheck.