The Existentialist Coffee House of Pau Gasol

Clever with excellent footwork, Pau is a great scorer around the basket, a clever cutter and passer, and a decent mid-range shooter. He's a solid rebounder due to smarts more than physicality, and a strong team defender. He's also a better rim protector than usually given credit for.

He'll probably put up a lot of great lines (like 16/9/3/1/2 on 50% shooting) and help the 2016-17 Spurs to another 55+ wins.

I always thought he'd make a great Spur, and even though IMO he's not exactly what the team needs, I'm sure he'll make a great contribution...

...so, welcome Pau Gasol!

Count me in......................

GOAT thread name, OP
Now let's be the second best team in the league!

Sartre and pa amb tomàquet all around :)

--Paul

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Originally Posted by TheMulletMan3000

GOAT thread name, OP
Now let's be the second best team in the league!

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:tu
Kudos to Oz. He made me join the coffee house just cause of the cool name. You made me laugh Mullet as we contemplate the existential aspect of the thread... or something. I wanted to be clever but it didn't come out funny.

Looking forward to Pau. As sad as the news about Timmy retiring were going to be anyways I am glad we got Pau.
:flag:

I'm in

:bobo

give us the Eurobasket 2015 Gasol tbh

Sacrificed 5-7M next season to be a Spur, MVPau :worthy:

Love the name. Let's all raise a latte with Pau to Spus success. :bobo (Have to use the "Boris Toast" while we still can).

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Originally Posted by Fireball

give us the Eurobasket 2015 Gasol tbh

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That would be awesome.

A front court of Pau Gasol, Lamarcus Aldridge, Kawhi Leonard.... :wow

If Golden State's best rim protector is Zaza fucking Pachulia (0.3bpg) next season, Parker and Manu will torch them too.

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Originally Posted by TheGreatYacht

A front court of Pau Gasol, Lamarcus Aldridge, Kawhi Leonard.... :wow

If Golden State's best rim protector is Zaza fucking Pachulia (0.3bpg) next season, Parker and Manu will torch them too.

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Lets hope this is the end of your ungratefulness and unfair Kahwi hate.

I'm in

MVPau!!!

:wakeup

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Originally Posted by TheGreatYacht

Sacrificed 5-7M next season to be a Spur, MVPau :worthy:

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:toastPau wants to win. Only 1 or 2 teams to worry about in the league. The Post-Tim years certainly could have started off more dire.

:bobo

I mean we now have the second and third best Euro players ever on our roster (Tony and Pau) even if they're a little past their primes. Come on Dirk, sign for the minimum so we can complete the set. :lol

Happy to have him on board but I'd like to keep Boris too.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzxFJa6rfsg

Gasoft should've signed two years ago instead of jacking off in Chicago. Now, both he and the Spurs are down two rings on their legacies; and he's merely nice consolation this time around.

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Originally Posted by lefty

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzxFJa6rfsg

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Offensive foul on both plays; WWE Basketball.

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Originally Posted by BillMc

:toastPau wants to win. Only 1 or 2 teams to worry about in the league. The Post-Tim years certainly could have started off more dire.

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I like your optimism. Pau is 35 and change though. I just think Durant swung the pendulum too far. Though, I'm hopeful their lessened state at center leaves GS beatable.

Lol

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Originally Posted by SAGirl

:tu
Kudos to Oz. He made me join the coffee house just cause of the cool name. You made me laugh Mullet as we contemplate the existential aspect of the thread... or something. I wanted to be clever but it didn't come out funny.

Looking forward to Pau. As sad as the news about Timmy retiring were going to be anyways I am glad we got Pau.
:flag:

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:toast I'm also glad Pau is here. Excited to see what Pau-LMA combo can do. GSG

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Originally Posted by Fireball

give us the Eurobasket 2015 Gasol tbh

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That was amazing. He single-handedly won the Eurobasket. Everyone else shit the bed hard that year.

Pau Pau Pau Pau Pau

Not only will he fit into the scheme of things but he will also charm the locker room with his tales of taking Kobe by the hand and walking him through 2 more titles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JCUa4lmB30

[tweet]750136877093625861[/tweet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlFzYF73F3A

:lol wtf my tweet embed is not working

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Originally Posted by TheGoldStandard

Not only will he fit into the scheme of things but he will also charm the locker room with his tales of taking Kobe by the hand and walking him through 2 more titles.

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:lol

:tu

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Originally Posted by TheMulletMan3000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JCUa4lmB30

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That guy is jizzing all over himself. It's like, "Calm down, dude. Those are wide open dunks. It's not a big deal."

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Originally Posted by NikosChelsea7

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Your in Amurica, man. Lern the langauge or go bak too Mexico!

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/m...jpg?1436463831

He's some ugly mother. I'm in.

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Originally Posted by NikosChelsea7

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Days after thinking bout mah future on da downstrole, I've decided to take mah talents to da 210. Fired up bout dis new chapter in mah career and we gon rang dis mofocka!

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Originally Posted by Keepin' it real

Your in Amurica, man. Lern the langauge or go bak too Mexico!

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:lol I guess Pau saw this.

I'm not a huge fan of existentialism, tbh. There's too much evidence from physics and neuroscience in favor of hard determinism.

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Originally Posted by NikosChelsea7

:lol I guess Pau saw this.

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:rollin

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Originally Posted by Uriel

I'm not a huge fan of existentialism, tbh. There's too much evidence from physics and neuroscience in favor of hard determinism.

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You're not getting Pau's autograph then.

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Originally Posted by Uriel

I'm not a huge fan of existentialism, tbh. There's too much evidence from physics and neuroscience in favor of hard determinism.

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:lol "no."

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Originally Posted by Chinook

That guy is jizzing all over himself. It's like, "Calm down, dude. Those are wide open dunks. It's not a big deal."

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Yeah he was howling because it was his first basket of the first quarter in a meaningless game where he did absolutely nothing.

Aldridge and Gasol are going to punish that midget lineup that GSW has put together.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

You're not getting Pau's autograph then.

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And even if he did, how would he know that the autograph even exists?

:wakeup

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Originally Posted by Uriel

I'm not a huge fan of existentialism, tbh. There's too much evidence from physics and neuroscience in favor of hard determinism.

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>reads signature

wat

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl4zGY4WgAAxvGa.jpg:large

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Originally Posted by TheMulletMan3000

GOAT thread name, OP
Now let's be the second best team in the league!

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Originally Posted by SAGirl

:tu
Kudos to Oz. He made me join the coffee house just cause of the cool name. You made me laugh Mullet as we contemplate the existential aspect of the thread... or something. I wanted to be clever but it didn't come out funny.

Looking forward to Pau. As sad as the news about Timmy retiring were going to be anyways I am glad we got Pau.
:flag:

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Thanks. :)

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Originally Posted by Kawhi 5-0

Sartre and pa amb tomàquet all around :)

--Paul

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Mais oui!

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Originally Posted by benefactor

:wakeup

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Definitely the emoji for this thread.

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Originally Posted by Uriel

I'm not a huge fan of existentialism, tbh. There's too much evidence from physics and neuroscience in favor of hard determinism.

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If anywhere on Spurstalk, I guess this is the place for that discussion!

I studied existentialism at uni many years ago and the main thing I got from it was that there is no intrinsic meaning to anything, including your life, but that realisation gives us the freedom to choose our own meanings. ;)

Glad to have Gasol here. Hoping he, Kawhi and Aldridge can do some serious damage.

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Originally Posted by RuffnReadyOzStyle

Thanks. :)



Mais oui!



Definitely the emoji for this thread.



If anywhere on Spurstalk, I guess this is the place for that discussion!

I studied existentialism at uni many years ago and the main thing I got from it was that there is no intrinsic meaning to anything, including your life, but that realisation gives us the freedom to choose our own meanings. ;)

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His claim about there being "too much evidence in favor of hard determinism" is also very wrong. Hard determinism is an antiquated idea that should've died out in antiquity.

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

His claim about there being "too much evidence in favor of hard determinism" is also very wrong. Hard determinism is an antiquated idea that should've died out in antiquity.

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Don't discuss it with me! It's his claim and this is the coffee house - discuss it with him! ;)

I don't accept hard determinism either, although soft determinism makes some sense.

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Originally Posted by RuffnReadyOzStyle

Don't discuss it with me! It's his claim and this is the coffee house - discuss it with him! ;)

I don't accept hard determinism either, although soft determinism makes some sense.

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Indeed. But he's not on, and I, as you Aussies wold say, "felt like taking the piss" on the horrible and easily debunked idea of hard determinism.

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

Indeed. But he's not on, and I, as you Aussies wold say, "felt like taking the piss" on the horrible and easily debunked idea of hard determinism.

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All good. ;)

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Originally Posted by Spurtacular

Gasoft should've signed two years ago instead of jacking off in Chicago. Now, both he and the Spurs are down two rings on their legacies; and he's merely nice consolation this time around.

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

completely agree with you man, this is also my sentiment.....

we beat the Clippers and repeat, and then GS does not ascend to its present arrogance....

the landscape of the NBA would have been different....

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Originally Posted by RuffnReadyOzStyle

If anywhere on Spurstalk, I guess this is the place for that discussion!

I studied existentialism at uni many years ago and the main thing I got from it was that there is no intrinsic meaning to anything, including your life, but that realisation gives us the freedom to choose our own meanings. ;)

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There are many variants of existentialism, and that is one variant. But the one thing they all have in common is an underlying belief that existence precedes essence. As such, man has absolute freedom to make of himself what he desires.

Hence the dichotomy being set up between existentialism and determinism.

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

His claim about there being "too much evidence in favor of hard determinism" is also very wrong. Hard determinism is an antiquated idea that should've died out in antiquity.

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Then prove it.

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Originally Posted by Uriel

Then prove it.

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The burden of proof is actually on you since you're making the claim. And much like the existence of God is an un-falsifiable hypothesis, so is the existence of hard determinism (i.e. the claim that this conversation we're having now was already determined at the moment of the Big Bang, and there was nothing we could've done to change it, because physical laws are immutable.)

So all we can do is take apart hard determinism logically. The hard determinist thinks it a logical idea because since physical laws and the interaction between matter that is governed by physical law is essentially "causally closed," therefore we humans, being matter just like an atom, are beholden to this process. The hard determinist will cite a thought experiment like Laplace's demon ("if a demon knew the movement of every atom in the universe, he could predict with certainty the future.")

Sounds logically solid, right?

Nope. Let's say I invented a Laplace Machine. I ran my calculation and it told me Uriel is going to die in a car accident tomorrow morning. I can easily relate this information to you, and you can freely choose through conscious will to not step into your car that morning. But if I were to tell a domino that its fate is to be knocked down by the domino behind, it couldn't do anything about it because it isn't conscious. Hard determinism assumes that the behavior of physical objects stays consistent from atoms to chemicals to animals to people. Emergence has shown this to be wrong.

Consciousness allows us to step outside of the hard causal chain of cause-and-effect. You can generate multiple (to infinite, if you had the time) possibilities through conscious deliberation for any action you plan on doing (i.e. if I do this, this, this, this, and this may happen). An atom has no such ability.

Even notable physicists don't buy hard determinism.

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/...l-as-baseball/

The only hard determinist advocates are hacks like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne (citing the long debunked Libet experiments) who think that disproving free will somehow puts the final nail in the coffin of religion, never mind the fact that determinism is a feature of most of the world's religions.

Now I don't believe in casua sui free will, that you can make yourself into anything you want, but I do believe a healthy mind has power over their decision making. I also think free will is something of a skill that is learned through acquiring more experiences and practicing something like mindfulness.

More reading for when Uriel gets back:

The foremost Naturalists in the US had a round-table discussing various philosophical and scientific topics, and most of them agreed with the idea of (compatiblist) free will. The only one making a stand was Jerry Coyne, who is more motivated by his new atheist agenda (for him, the verification of hard determinism once and for all disproves the idea of an immaterial soul, which he thinks will lead into the dissolution of religion). And you'll see they were basically shaking their heads at his arguments. I don't cite this as some appeal to authority, but to illustrate that hard determinism is a fringe idea in the scientific and philosophical community. Just like scientists are 85% atheist/15% religious, I would assume about the same ratio for compatiblists/hard determinists.

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Free will, for Dennett, is as real as time or, say, colors, but it’s not what some people think it is. And indeed, some views of free will are downright incoherent. He suggested that nothing we have learned from neuroscience shows that we haven’t been wired (by evolution) for free will, which means that we also get to keep the concept of moral responsibility.

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Jerry then plunged into his standard worry, the same that motivates authors like Sam Harris: we don’t want to give ground to theologically-informed views of morality, and incompatibilism about free will (“we are the puppets of our genes and our environments”) is the best way to do it. Dennett was visibly shaking his head throughout (so was I, inwardly...).

In the midst of all of this, Jerry mentioned the (in)famous Libbett experiments, even though they have been taken apart both philosophically and, more recently, scientifically, which Dennett, Flanagan, and Goldstein immediately pointed out.

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Sean Carroll also objected to Coyne, using an interesting analogy: if Jerry applied his argument about incompatibilism to fundamental physics, he would have to conclude for an incompatibility between statistical mechanics and the second law of thermodynamics. But, Sean suggested, that would be a result of confusing language that is appropriate for one level of analysis with language that is appropriate for another level. (Though he didn’t say that, I would go even further, following up on the previous day’s discussion, and suggest that free will is an emergent property of the brain in a similar sense to which the second law is an emergent property of statistical mechanics — and on the latter even Steven Weinberg agreed!)

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http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.c...p-part-ii.html

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

The only hard determinist advocates are hacks like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne (citing the long debunked Libet experiments) who think that disproving free will somehow puts the final nail in the coffin of religion, never mind the fact that determinism is a feature of most of the world's religions.

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How could you so summarily dismiss Sam Harris as a "hack?" Did you even bother to read his work? Or did you just read what other people who happen to advocate your viewpoint have already written about him?

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Originally Posted by Uriel

How could you so summarily dismiss Sam Harris as a "hack?" Did you even bother to read his work? Or did you just read what other people who happen to advocate your viewpoint have already written about him?

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I've read enough reviews of his work (as well as excerpts) by philosophers and scientists much more respected than he to know all I need to know. I mean, his book How Science Can Determine Human Values is fundamentally flawed from the outset, since the premise is anchored in the naturalistic fallacy. No need to waste my time reading it.

You might considered that close-minded. I just consider it reasonable. I'd rather spend my time reading the work of people who know what they're talking about, like Owen Flanagan, Daniel Dennett, etc. Harris is a Johnny-Come-Lately "thinker" who defined himself more by his criticism of religion (yeah, totally not going after the low hanging fruit there) than any worthwhile ideas.

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Originally Posted by Kawhi m8

Lets hope this is the end of your ungratefulness and unfair Kahwi hate.

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He never hated Kawhi. His schtick was almost anti Manu bit he hoped on the bandwagon of countering the the hottest poster at that time Apalisoc..His quote under his avi when he first started posting was Kawhi-Embiid-Parker :lol

This is highly appropriate for the coffee house! I'm sure Pau would approve. :tu

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

I've read enough reviews of his work (as well as excerpts) by philosophers and scientists much more respected than he to know all I need to know. I mean, his book How Science Can Determine Human Values is fundamentally flawed from the outset, since the premise is anchored in the naturalistic fallacy. No need to waste my time reading it.

You might considered that close-minded. I just consider it reasonable. I'd rather spend my time reading the work of people who know what they're talking about, like Owen Flanagan, Daniel Dennett, etc. Harris is a Johnny-Come-Lately "thinker" who defined himself more by his criticism of religion (yeah, totally not going after the low hanging fruit there) than any worthwhile ideas.

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Brah..Talk basketball bro. Dis aint the place for dat dere religion...

How do you think Aldridge's going to adjust with another talentd post player and a mich mpre talented shot creator? I honestly would rather see Kawhi run pick and rolls and pops with Gasol now.

Gasol can pass and is a much better screener. Way more diversifies offensovely.

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Originally Posted by apalisoc_9

Brah..Talk basketball bro. Dis aint the place for dat dere religion...

How do you think Aldridge's going to adjust with another talentd post player and a mich mpre talented shot creator? I honestly would rather see Kawhi run pick and rolls and pops with Gasol now.

Gasol can pass and is a much better screener. Way more diversifies offensovely.

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Yes. Kawhi will work better with Pau in pick-and-pop/roll situations. While Tony will continue to work well with LMA in that regard. If Fat Head has a breakout year (looking good in Summer League), Patty returns to form, and Murray plays above par, we have a shot. Just need a back-up big. Hopefully Tim gives it one more shot off the bench.

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

More reading for when Uriel gets back:

The foremost Naturalists in the US had a round-table discussing various philosophical and scientific topics, and most of them agreed with the idea of (compatiblist) free will. The only one making a stand was Jerry Coyne, who is more motivated by his new atheist agenda (for him, the verification of hard determinism once and for all disproves the idea of an immaterial soul, which he thinks will lead into the dissolution of religion). And you'll see they were basically shaking their heads at his arguments. I don't cite this as some appeal to authority, but to illustrate that hard determinism is a fringe idea in the scientific and philosophical community. Just like scientists are 85% atheist/15% religious, I would assume about the same ratio for compatiblists/hard determinists.

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.c...p-part-ii.html

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I also take issue with this notion that "hard determinism is a frindge idea in the scientific and philosophical community." Here's an excerpt from an article by The Atlantic on free will released a couple of months ago:

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In recent decades, research on the inner workings of the brain has helped to resolve the nature-nurture debate—and has dealt a further blow to the idea of free will. Brain scanners have enabled us to peer inside a living person’s skull, revealing intricate networks of neurons and allowing scientists to reach broad agreement that these networks are shaped by both genes and environment. But there is also agreement in the scientific community that the firing of neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, hopes, memories, and dreams.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...e-will/480750/

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Originally Posted by apalisoc_9

He never hated Kawhi.

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Yeah. That pathetic shiteater calls Kawhi retarded because he loves him. You're being so naive....An embarrassment to our Krew.

:claw :claw :claw

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Originally Posted by YGWHI

Yeah. That pathetic shiteater calls Kawhi retarded because he loves him. You're being so naive....An embarrassment to our Krew.

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Hes trolling bro. Its his schtick..Harlem can attest to it to..his initial schtick was anti manu :lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3ZGkViM2w

Interesting man...And a true Point Center. Not bad.

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Originally Posted by apalisoc_9

Hes trolling bro.

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Nah. You can piss people off, troll them without insulting a player. He never insulted Parker for some reason.

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Harlem can attest to it to..his initial schtick was anti manu :lol

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Harlem can what? Of course...

Since this is Pau's thread I won't add anything more to my original post.

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Originally Posted by Uriel

I also take issue with this notion that "hard determinism is a frindge idea in the scientific and philosophical community." Here's an excerpt from an article by The Atlantic on free will released a couple of months ago:


http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...e-will/480750/

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Hard determinism is defined as the idea that everything was decided at the moment of the Big Bang. That there's nothing you can do to step outside the hard causal chain set in motion 14 billion years ago. A simple thought experiment proves that idea false.

Also, the Atlantic made quite a hand-waving gesture with that comment and went no further. Most of the "evidence" that free-will deniers cite in support of the idea that "my neurons made me do it," are the long debunked Libet experiments or other such experiments that only test the brain's role in deciding highly intuitive, "autopilot" actions like when to decide to press a button at a certain time. Until an FMRI machine (which can only measure brain activity at the level of gross anatomy) can predict actual deliberative actions, like deciding what college to go to or whom to marry, then I'll continue to dismiss them as an incomplete experiment.

That comment also assumes neurons are hard-wired, and we know this to be completely false.

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Behavior, environmental stimuli, thought, and emotions may also cause neuroplastic change,

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While the phenomenon of neuroplasticity is not a recent discovery and has been known since the first half of the 20th century, current neuroscientific and neurobiological research into this topic continues to chip away at oversimplified notions of hard genetic determination of cognitive capacities and behavioral traits, which has been dubbed "neurogenetic determinism."[20]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

You can actually downwardly cause your brain states to change through, for lack of a better term, conscious will. Monks do it all the time, to the point of where they don't even feel pain. And as far as science reaching a consensus. No.

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“A person’s decisions are not at the mercy of unconscious and early brain waves,” the lead researcher, Dr. John-Dylan Haynes of Charité - Universitätsmedizin in Berlin, said in the study’s press release. “They are able to actively intervene in the decision-making process and interrupt a movement. Previously people have used the preparatory brain signals to argue against free will. Our study now shows that the freedom is much less limited than previously thought.”

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The father of cognitive neuroscience and author of Human offers a provocative argument against the common belief that our lives are wholly determined by physical processes and we are therefore not responsible for our actions

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https://www.amazon.com/Whos-Charge-F...oding=UTF8&me=

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I deliberately decided that it is sensible, and perfectly rational, to believe in a libertarian conception of free will (more on this in the book I'm currently writing).

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http://www.klab.caltech.edu/koch/ (<one of the most respected neuroscientists in the field) And I have an idea how Koch might reconcile the seemingly nonsensical concept of libertarian free-will with "rationality."

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In an essay in the May 14 2009 issue of Nature entitled "Is Free Will an Illusion" (the illusion reference is to Daniel Wegner) Heisenberg says that the debate on free will has focused on humans and ‘conscious free will’. Yet when it comes to understanding how we initiate behaviour, we can learn a lot by looking at animals. Although we do not credit animals with anything like the consciousness in humans, researchers have found that animal behaviour is not as involuntary as it may appear. The idea that animals act only in response to external stimuli has long been abandoned, and it is well established that they initiate behaviour on the basis of their internal states, as we do.
(Nature, vol. 459, 2009, p.164)

Heisenberg argues for some randomness even in unicellular bacteria, followed by more lawful behaviors such as moving toward food.

Evidence of randomly generated action — action that is distinct from reaction because it does not depend upon external stimuli — can be found in unicellular organisms. Take the way the bacterium Escherichia coli moves. It has a flagellum that can rotate around its longitudinal axis in either direction: one way drives the bacterium forward, the other causes it to tumble at random so that it ends up facing in a new direction ready for the next phase of forward motion. This ‘random walk’ can be modulated by sensory receptors, enabling the bacterium to find food and the right temperature.

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http://www.informationphilosopher.co...s/heisenbergm/

If causation in this case was always "bottom up" it would be impossible to learn a new skill, since the neural pathways that allow for the proliferation of said skill haven't even been created yet. It would be impossible to coordinate an action with an external command (e.g. "I want you to raise your arm when I say when.") Brain activity is pretty much isomorphic to the activity in this case, meaning there's no subconscious "action potential" that precedes the action by 1-5 seconds and can tip someone who is looking at your brain with an FMRI at what is coming.

From an actual white paper:

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Data from experimental animals provided crucial information on plausible cellular and molecular substrates contributing to large-scale reorganization underlying skill acquisition in humans. Here, we review findings demonstrating functional and structural plasticity across different spatial and temporal scales that mediate motor skill learning

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In addition to reorganization of functional brain networks, slow learning is associated with structural plasticity in gray matter (for review see, Draganski and May, 2008; May and Gaser, 2006). The introduction of new imaging technologies led to remarkable demonstrations of structural plasticity in the human brain. MRI-based morphometric imaging methods, mainly voxel-based morphometry (VBM; Ashburner and Friston, 2000) were used to evaluate gray matter changes linked with experience and learning.

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Every article like the Atlantic article always winds up citing the Libet experiments and the few thinkers like Harris, etc who are on the side of the determinism debate because they think it'll lead to the dissolution of religion.

Also, a follow up article from that Atlantic writer:

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But neither quantum indeterminacy nor chaos theory give us free will in the sense of a special power to transcend the laws of nature.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/201...urable/486551/

I would argue that human beings do have a certain ability to transcend physical law (or those laws as they are currently interpreted), which gives a version of free will that is near-libertarian. (I think Koch will come from the same perspective in his new book).

I'll elaborate when you return.

hmmmmm, interesting thread.......

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Originally Posted by YGWHI

Yeah. That pathetic shiteater calls Kawhi retarded because he loves him. You're being so naive....An embarrassment to our Krew.

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The whole krew is an embarrassment tbh

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

The only hard determinist advocates are hacks like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne (citing the long debunked Libet experiments) who think that disproving free will somehow puts the final nail in the coffin of religion, never mind the fact that determinism is a feature of most of the world's religions.

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damn mid, didn't know you were that dumb.

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Originally Posted by gambit1990

damn mid, didn't know you were that dumb.

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Sam Harris isn't all that respected as a thinker outside of his New Atheist fanboys.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/...rt-sam-harris/

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.c...ience-can.html

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Yesterday, I brought on the wrath of the defenders of Slippery Sam. Sam Harris has an amazing talent: he can say the most awful things, and a horde of helpful apologists will rise up in righteous fury and simultaneously insist that he didn’t really say that, and yeah, he said that, but it only makes sense.

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http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngu...-slippery-sam/

This is one of the more interesting player threads I've seen. Well done, guys.

Sigh, mid is creating a bunch of straw man arguments rather than accepting evidence in both sides.

He's right that Sam Harris is a hack, but not persuasive to say Harris isn't at least 70% right in free will.

The problem is that in the year 2016 no body defined free will before science decided to look at human decision-making and reporting the findings.


Here's where the debate impacts you.. Punishment is based on the rejection of hard determinism. Legal scholars debate the effect of punishment all the time. They understand it's a poor tool.

When mid references leplace understand he created a dumb premise where the machine didn't know it existed. That's kind of big deal. Pretty dishonest here.

When mid says deliberation is proof of free well he doesn't say why. It feels right though doesn't it? But what deliberation is is your brain trying to eliminate stress to get a calm pattern recognition process. The decision whether to react or think Is but another determined variable.

When mid suggests fmri machines prove thinking he's saying a specialist machine can detect patterns of nueron behaviors. This is a truism. The machine is built to see that. The fact that something happens in the brain does not suggest that that activity is meaningful. All machines have parts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by K...

Sigh, mid is creating a bunch of straw man arguments rather than accepting evidence in both sides.

He's right that Sam Harris is a hack, but not persuasive to say Harris isn't at least 70% right in free will.

The problem is that in the year 2016 no body defined free will before science decided to look at human decision-making and reporting the findings.


Here's where the debate impacts you.. Punishment is based on the rejection of hard determinism. Legal scholars debate the effect of punishment all the time. They understand it's a poor tool.

When mid references leplace understand he created a dumb premise where the machine didn't know it existed. That's kind of big deal. Pretty dishonest here.

When mid says deliberation is proof of free well he doesn't say why. It feels right though doesn't it? But what deliberation is is your brain trying to eliminate stress to get a calm pattern recognition process. The decision whether to react or think Is but another determined variable.

When mid suggests fmri machines prove thinking he's saying a specialist machine can detect patterns of nueron behaviors. This is a truism. The machine is built to see that. The fact that something happens in the brain does not suggest that that activity is meaningful. All machines have parts.

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What "straw man" arguments?

Every experiment that tries prove the "neurons made me do it" concept relies on a similar methodology of asking participants to press a button or choose a color when they feel like it. These experiments are flawed for the simple reason that the kind of actions they are examining are actions a person will do thousands of times, meaning the readyness potential of pressing a button will have already been wired into the subconscious a long time ago. And furthermore, we have experiments proving that a person can veto an action in this case.

These experiments also don't have a control in pretty much every case.

Quote:

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Alfred Mele has criticized the interpretation of the Libet results on two grounds. First, the mere appearance of the RP a half-second or more before the action in no way makes the RP the cause of the action. It may simply mark the beginning of forming an intention to act. In the two-stage model, it is the considering of possible options.

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I would've liked to see a control subject that was instructed to sit there for 5 minutes without pressing a button. I bet the brain would be constantly forming readyness potentials, but yet it wouldn't have led to an actual action.

Also, the Libet experiment would be easy to beat in theory. You would merely have to set up for yourself a sort of random trigger that you act upon. Perhaps in the control room, the moment you hear a bird sing or car pass by, you would press the button. In that case, as I said, the action would be isomorphic to the brain activity. A researcher would not see a 1 second build up of an intention to act.

And there's nothing wrong with my Laplace example. I don't understand why you believe the machine not knowing that it exists changes anything? I know it exists as its inventor. I'm the demon here. And if hard determinism is true, there would be NOTHING you could do to change your future, despite any information about your future you receive.

The fact you can easily just choose not to get in the car if Laplace's demon informs you that you will die when you drive to work on Tuesday definitively proves the idea of hard determinism as incoherent.

"Well, the fact you don't know what's coming means your future is probably still determined."

That's why you have to use what I call a "weaK" form of the Laplace demon to govern some future decision. We can't perfectly predict the future obviously, but we can make informed decisions using probability about the future. You know driving to work is a relatively safe event a great majority of the time, so the odds are in your favor to not die that day. If you get information that a Tornado is headed inbound to the road you take, you'll make the necessary change.

http://www.poundingtherock.com/2016/...adow-pau-gasol

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Pau Gasol's tenure with the Spurs begins in Tim Duncan's shadow

Tim Duncan has rewired the way we think as fans.
Through his longevity, financial sacrifices and enduring dedication to a city and its fanbase, he didn't just preclude the need for a rebuild in San Antonio; he ripped the word out of the Spurs fan dictionary.

Thanks in large part to him, the franchise isn't hitting the reset button as many do when faced with the end of an era. Its front office is still harvesting the overseas prospects it was able to stash away while Tim and Co. chased rings. Its core is still good enough to push for a top-two seed, even after a total rejig of their frontcourt and the biggest roster turnover of recent memory. The revered culture remains, drawing and facilitating the arrival of new talent.
There are few things more sacred to the city of San Antonio than number 21. Watching him over the past two decades has been about more than reveling in wins, accolades and championships, and more than basketball itself: it's been to bask in the banality of greatness. In the wake of Duncan's impending decision, excellence should continue to be the organization's perennial benchmark.
Those expectations will carry into next season---not only because we Spurs fans are spoiled, but because next year's Spurs should still be really good. Forgetting Golden State for a second (try it, it's nice), there are at least 28 teams in the league that should dread playing San Antonio, and Pau Gasol plays a big role in that.
Gasol won't fully take over Duncan's role in the defense, but he will inherit some lofty analogues to last year's historically-great team. When he's late on rotations or botches a pick and roll, people will notice. If his rebounding is notably lacking, people will scrutinize. And if he's unable to negate those shortcomings with his offense, his $30 million contract will be a target of criticism from every egg with an internet connection.
Timmy was on a very team-friendly deal, one that was always going to skew how the Spurs replaced him (and affect how that value would be appraised). When he re-signed for $10.8 million for two years last year, it was rightfully seen as a hometown discount. But as Jeff McDonald has pointed out, it was also an understanding between the two sides that ensured that, if Duncan decided to retire, he'd have a little extra with him on the way out just by opting in to year two. Either way, $6 million in cap space was never going to replace Duncan, especially in this wild and crazy NBA summer.


That Pau's signing came with the added cost of bidding adieu to Boris Diaw -- and seemed to seal the departures of David West and Boban Marjanovic -- won't go overlooked. But their losses may also be overstated: West proved unreliable against the Thunder's big men; Diaw's exit, one that seemed all the more likely following his benching during the playoffs, could signal more minutes for Kyle Anderson as a Boris Light, and there's still time for the team to shore up the rest of its depth chart.
If Duncan retires, he will leave an indelible void, but the center position should be no phantom limb. Even at 36, Gasol brings a handful of elite talents to the offensive side of the ball, elevating an attack that may have improved anyway with Kawhi Leonard andLaMarcus Aldridge jelling in year two. If Dewayne Dedmon can learn to keep his fouling down and the front office finds one more serviceable big (Bourosis?!), the frontcourt rotation should be fine -- and potentially more versatile than last year.
Tim Duncan raised the bar for Spurs basketball in ways that can't be duplicated. In his waning years, his presence became so intangibly venerated that his value seemed to exist in the aether, as a specter of greatness. As such it's understandable for fans to lament the arrival of a familiar face that comes with some well-defined downside. Next season's team may take a step back and it may not, but part of Duncan's legacy is that such a possibility endures, even after he steps away from the game.

Is Pau officially signed? I wonder if he knew that Tim was going to retire which is one of the reasons he signed, he will have a bigger role on the team now.

Is Pau shopping for a house?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzD-5CX3qY4

i just realized that Pau Gasol...............is the closest I have ever seen to the playing skills and talents of Ramon Fernandez of the Philippines!

Now that Gasol is with the Spurs, i think he will become my favorite player, hmmmmm.......

Quote:

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

Sam Harris isn't all that respected as a thinker outside of his New Atheist fanboys.

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proves this by citing random ass blogs:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/...rt-sam-harris/

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.c...ience-can.html



http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngu...-slippery-sam/

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:lol

citing a blog that says greenwald takes apart sam harris :lmao

shows how little you know tbh.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gambit1990

proves this by citing random ass blogs:


:lol

citing a blog that says greenwald takes apart sam harris :lmao

shows how little you know tbh.

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The writers of those blogs are respected scientists and philosophers in their fields, tenured professors with published papers. Sam Harris never got beyond his BA in philosophy and got his PHD in neuroscience basically to study the effect of religion on the human brain. He's done zero work in the neuroscience field and has a non-existent publication record.

He's a zealot who operates from a singular point-of-view (dislike of religion). He's totally irrelevant as a thinker and scientist in actual academic circles.

I know he gets his New Atheist fanboys going because he appeals to their warped sense of superiority they have over Bible Belters (just like Hitchens and Dawkins), but you'd do better to read Sagan, or any atheist thinker who doesn't lazily define himself in relation to the "other" (believers).

He's a hack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by midnightpulp

The writers of those blogs are respected scientists and philosophers in their fields, tenured professors with published papers. Sam Harris never got beyond his BA in philosophy and got his PHD in neuroscience basically to study the effect of religion on the human brain.

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trying to discredit him by saying he has PHD in a field he talks/writes about :lol

i'm sure a lot of people on here don't know who sam harris is, what he stands for. how about we hear what he has to say?

people who call sam harris hacks, people like mid are ben affleck in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gambit1990

trying to discredit him by saying he has PHD in a field he talks/writes about :lol

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Just because a person is stamped with a PHD doesn't automatically make them a relevant, accurate, or interesting thinker.

Plenty of those Creationist hacks that Harris loves targeting have PHDs in astrophysics/theoretical physics from respected universities. Is their thinking suddenly sound because "they have PHDs in the fields they talk about?"

Harris has published nothing. Has done nothing in the field. He simply writes polemical diatribes for his pulpit (New Atheists) to eat up and pat themselves on the back whilst reading.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gambit1990

i'm sure a lot of people on here don't know who sam harris is, what he stands for. how about we hear what he has to say?

people who call sam harris hacks, people like mid are ben affleck in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60

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Yeah, he stands for Imperialism, while passing himself off as the torch bearer for "reason."

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Worse, even in its early stages, Harris casually dismissed the US attack on Iraq as a "red herring"; that war, he said, was simply one in which "civilized human beings [westerners] are now attempting, at considerable cost to themselves, to improve life for the Iraqi people."

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Harris's reasoning here was so sound, he didn't see how the power vacuum that would be created by Saddam's removal give rise to even more militant and dangerous radical Islamic groups (ISIS).

He's a hack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btYIRmSsrno

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...qj2_bigger.png Eurohoops.net ‏@Eurohoopsnet

Lithuania makes it 2/2 against Spain in Pau Gasol's summer debut with the NT: http://www.eurohoops.net/featured/285613/lithuania-makes-it-22-vs-spain …

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn6wbTmW8AAi6Wr.jpg

Really wish Manu, Parker and Gasol would have just taken this summer off. Old tired legs gonna be ruin us in April/May.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Emperor

Really wish Manu, Parker and Gasol would have just taken this summer off. Old tired legs gonna be ruin us in April/May.

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At least Kawhi, Lamarcus rested............

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cutewizard

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At least Kawhi, Lamarcus rested............

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Yes, that's definitely a good thing. Only thing Kawhi has to worry about now is his lack of sleep due to his newborn but that is obviously normal and who knows, with his new found fatherly skills he may use some of that with the Spurs this season and we shall hopefully see some newfound leadership skills from him. Would like to see him more vocal if he has it in him.

If pau wins FMVP will he be the 2nd best spur of all time?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tholdren

If pau wins FMVP will he be the 2nd best spur of all time?

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That will depend on who he plays against.

If it's against some stiff, then it will be like Porker vs Boobie all over again.