EventH-

First, the 'On the contrary...' in the article is not a rebuttal to the specific objection but a quote from an authority (Aristotle) supporting his general position. His specific rebuttal distinguishing the senses of 'natural' is later in that article.

Second, the soul is not, on the Aristotelian-Thomistic thesis, a "supernatural" being, as an angel or God would be since (though not material themselves) they properly belong to the material order.

So these are natural, not supernatural explanations, which nevertheless go beyond the purely material (corporeal) and so are 'above' them. In the quoted article, he means that these characteristic activites of living things are not simply reducible to those of the material parts themselves, since the living thing possesses the principle of its own organization/growth/reproduction etc. that non-living material does not, so something beyond the non-living 'corporeal' order must be operating.

Modern physics and biology really do not conflict with the classical Aristotelian-Thomistic conception of the soul but only describe in further detail the operations of the body.

The immateriality of the intellect is included there. Aquinas would say it is only the intellect that can understand a universal concept, which is itself immaterial. This is a qualitative, not a quantitative difference from the capabilities of AI. It is really the reductionists who are guilty of 'woo' here.

"There is no 'truth' that we can grasp in parts but not entirely."

The value of pi is a simple counterexample.

Sure it does — there is a noisy optimization process, but more importantly an undeniable general trend which is the point.

The fact that instinct's heuristics are not well-adapted to every situation does not change the above point that the various algorithms which nudge may (do) also detract from one's freedom.

And there is an important difference between the two: instinct has been trained over eons to select for what is good for the organism (heuristic trade-offs notwithstanding). The algorithms have not, and often nudge toward choices that someone else would prefer we make.

It isn't a cop out because the creator in the conclusion of this type of argument (e.g. Aquinas' third way) is not just another contingent being like other things, but rather a being whose existence is necessary in itself.

You're right, thanks.

Not sure what the justification is for saying Y functions 'psychologically' as a primary color. It would be a secondary color (R + G) in terms of the light spectrum, and (as you noted) our cones are directly most sensitive to RGB.

To answer the question, as qualia cannot be compared from person to person, there is in principle no way to show that they differ (or are the same) objectively. A sort of relative comparison of qualia within an individual (as you propose) will also not get you there, as it may be that the individual is simply more sensitive to changes along the gradient, not that they are experiencing a new color, and that's assuming we are able to use an objective comparison scale which we aren't.

This deftly misses Theil's point and the supposed fallacy is wholly irrelevant. Alphabet's success came off the back of world-changing innovation; now their best offering is the stagnant status quo, yet they position themselves as creatives building the future.

A few concerns with this story:

1. How big is this 'flat earth movement' really? The video claims it 'caught fire around 2015-16' but gives no specifics. This is unfortunately typical for these sort of 'we need to do something' arguments—no sense of the magnitude of the problem is given.

2. This argument for censorship is often made without a limiting principle, as it is here. "Books are a disturbing platform for conspiracy theories" works just as well.

3. There always have been and will be conspiracy theories, whether 9/11, Moon Landing, JFK, Illuminati or a thousand others. We don't seem to be very concerned with these. Why should we care about flat eartherism, especially as it seems rather benign in comparison?

4. Isn't the obvious response to make a point-by-point refutation to their most convincing claims? The well-argued truth is going to be more convincing than a silly hypothesis.

It would be really nice if the tutorial walked you through creating a sample simple fractal, like the Sierpinski triangle or Koch snowflake.

Totally irrelevant; this isn't a matter of the author being one thing or another. The point Vonnegut makes in the story is a philosophical one, namely that a blind pursuit of equality is wicked and inhuman, which is transparently correct.

Have these people never read Harrison Bergeron? How do they think this is going to end?

Except that they're not.

The middlebrow dismissal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072243

Why does this article emphasize Komodo MCTS and completely ignore LeelaZero which has had much more exciting and interesting results as far as 'alternative method' engines go? This is especially strange given that Leela operates similarly to AlphaZero which the article strongly praises.

On the contrary, this example only /supports/ the classical understanding of free will, in the sense that it shows the will operates only on goods that we perceive, and not on those which the intellect does not know.

We often operate with imperfect knowledge of our situations. That is simply because our intellects are not all-knowing.

A decision can be based on prior information (in the sense of being informed by it) while not being deterministic.

This is how Aristotle and Aquinas handle the relationship between the Intellect and the Will, where the will chooses between goods which are known by the intellect. It is precisely in this choosing between different goods that we are classically understood to have free will.

So, our decisions are determined in the sense that we are only able to choose things that appear good to us, but free in the sense that we can choose between those goods.

That is literally the definition of the word correlation. Claiming 'intellectual dishonesty' is a nice rhetorical move but doesnt actually show anything. The point remains.

A second point above which needs addressing is that it simply does not follow logically that differences in outcome must be a result of 'social inefficiencies and failures.' Culture and biology are some other obvious causative factors, but there are others. There is no reason to adhere to a reductionist view in which everything is caused by social pressures.

First of all, principle and ideology are very different things.

Secondly and more to the point, there is no reason to privilege race over any other of the millions of filters with which to slice up society to find inequalities of outcome. And even if there was, showing a correlation between one of those filters (race) and an inequality does in no way show injustice 'based on race' no matter how emphatic the assertion.

People with different hair colors, or heights, last names, pet types, and sibling orders on average don't have identical outcomes. And these differences in outcome by themselves are not unjust, are mere correlations, and therefore do not require fixing. Just read Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut; it's not long.

This is pure ideology, built with rhetoric on emotional sand instead of argument from principle.

A difference in outcome by itself in no way lays a requirement on society to 'drive that disparity to zero.' This is a baseless, indefensible assertion and leads to utter chaos when applied across society in the myriad ways one may analyze 'inequalities of outcome.'

Have a look at Maze Rats, designed to be simple and easy to pick up: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/197158/Maze-Rats