By my understanding of the terms, liberty begets self-reliance.

Physics-wise, it does. The physical purpose of evolution is to convert higher forms of energy into heat. This contributes to the ultimate goal of fulfilling the second law of thermodynamics.

Time and space were created out of the Big Bang, likely in proportion to matter and energy. According to the majority of physicists today, there's really no asking about before the Big Bang, because time did not exist.

Since women have traditionally been valued as moral exemplars and innocent creatures that should be protected by men, disagreement with this notion could be interpreted differently depending on the target’s gender. For example, if a woman disagrees with benevolent sexist ideas, then people may think that she views women and men on equal terms, as they may think it unlikely that she has negative feelings about her own gender. However, if a man disagrees with benevolent sexist ideas, then people may misattribute his beliefs to misogyny, since he is not valuing women in the traditional manner that people have been taught to. Based on this line of reasoning, I predicted that both male and female perceivers will assume that men, but not women, have univalent attitudes toward women. If people do assume univalent attitudes in men, then the male target’s level of BS will influence his perceived level of HS, such that low (high) BS men will be rated as more (less) hostile towards women. A female target’s level of BS, however, will have less impact on perceptions of her levels of hostility toward women.

This thesis reports two studies that examine lay people’s perception of the relationship between men’s HS and BS. Similar to previous work (Bohner et al., 2010; Kilianski & Rudman, 1998), participants were presented with target profiles and completed dependent measures about the target. In Study 1, I tested if laypeople misperceive the relationship between men’s HS and BS attitudes by manipulating target information on one component of sexism and directly measuring the target’s predicted score on the other component of sexism. In Study 2, I tested the role of attributional ambiguity in laypeople’s misconceptions of BS in men by manipulating the attribution for the target’s rejection of BS and directly measuring the target’s predicted level of HS.

In both studies, I also measured participants’ inferences about the target’s attitudes and behaviours (e.g., support for female professionals, quality as a spouse and parent, and propensity for abusiveness). If people indeed have misconceptions about the relationship between men’s HS and BS, then they would make more negative inferences about the low BS male target than the high BS male target. Thus, in Study 1, I expected that the low BS male target would be rated as more hostile towards women than the low BS female target and the high BS male target, but level of BS would have less impact on evaluations of the female target. In Study 2, I expected that the low BS male target who endorses egalitarian beliefs would be rated as less hostile toward women than the low BS male target who did not explicitly endorse egalitarian beliefs, but ratings of the low BS female target would be less affected by endorsement of egalitarianism.

Would your consciousness still exist though? Do you think you could still experience things?

Humans aren't the only species that can suffer. I mean, any animal that lives in a group essentially lives by rules to benefit the group a a whole.

Cultural meaning passed down information, not cultural as in Chinese festivals and Italian pizza.

If moral responsibility required free will, you wouldn't see so many morally responsible determinists.

What exactly is so intrinsically valuable about intelligence? If you're not gathering intelligence for hedonistic purposes, why else would you bother with it?

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 15, 2015, 11:40:03 AM

Knowledge comes above all else, and I have no respect for fideism or hedonism.

Why exactly is that?

Its like you liberals like to say. "You can have freedom of speech, but that doesn't protect your from its consequences".