Where did I say Im the best? Why should I want that? I said I know about it. That's all.

I have done a crude calculation how many paths ion currents on neurons can take. It exceeds the number of particles in the universe by very far. A one with 10exp20 zeros (so not with 20). Parallel runnings. Every object in the universe can be analogous simulated.

I'm very interested in the workings of the brain. Sounds interesting. I will look it up! Thanks.

So what? Why should I teach others an artificial way of looking at things? I'm no slavedriver in the name of science. I'm not a missionary. Call that selfish, if you want.

Ha! Great picture!

Who needs a Nobel prize? I have great knowledge about neurotransmitters, depression, mania and psychosis. Psychosis is just a reaction to a rotten world, like depression and mania. Let me tell you, anti-depressives don't work.

Damn straight skippy — SkyLeach

I had to look up "damn straight skippy". Damn straight skippy!

What counts is what causes the imbalance. That's the real cause of depression. Depression is the accompanying feeling. The imbalance, the depression, is caused by things in the outside world, not by an imbalance of chemicals. That is the depression. You can try to restore the balance with chemicals, but that doesn't take the cause away.

Call it power, electricity, a spark, a magic essence, soul, divine stuff, or whatever. We don't know what it is. We only can feel it.

Yes. But the imbalance seen in depression is a response, an effect. Not the cause. Of course an imbalance causes (or is) the depression, but what counts is that which causes the imbalance. That's the cause of depression. It's not that the imbalance is caused by some internal defect, but more an external defect.

In current society, depression is a naturally reaction to unnatural circumstances. It's not caused by an imbalance of chemicals, neurotransmitters, or whatever. These imbalances are the effect of being pooped into a world in which people have to move and act in straight lines while their nature is neuron-lightning-like.

Indeed. An imagination is a simulation that is seen. With the minds eye?

I meant thin. If all thick people have 135, and I have 159.9, can we logically conclude I'm not thick? Is liking sugar a sign of not being intelligent?

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things.

I look forward to our discussions — Joe Mello

What's the something greater? I think it's the divine spark. Hawking asked himself what bred life into his equations that actually made them work in reality. I think only God has the answer, but we can feel what he spoke or blew into his creation. The fact that stuff follows equations is just a contingency. You gotta move somehow.

People with a 135 IQ are thick. My IQ is 159.9. Is the logical conclusion that I'm thin?

This is more or less what IQ tests do; test our "ability to work things out". — Down The Rabbit Hole

No. They test our ability to work out particular things. Sometimes time pressure is involved. The things to be worked out are abstract and analytical. Abstract problem solving by abstract analysis. It's the question though if problem solving, be it abstract like in math, or practical, is a sign of intelligence in the first place. The assigning of a value to intelligence is already a sign to see the kind of intelligence that is addressed in the IQ test.

Meaning, it's not a thing. Especially as all the cog-sci evidence suggests that consciousness is a function of the brain. — Garrett Travers

Not a function. A property that can't be explained.

Imagine if every time I clap my hands together I claim to have created a new ghost particle — lorenzo sleakes

These are actually hypothesized in science. Bad ghost particles and good ones. Depending on their impact on symmetry. Bad ghosts fields introduce negative kinetic non-virtual particle fields (seriously!). There could even be bad condensates...

Do you mean differentiable manifolds? A cylinder created by moving a circle through space is not curved? A sphere in 3-D is not composed of points? — jgill

When is something curved? If the value of the tangent differs from place to place? A circle seems curved. So does a cylinder. So does a torus. You can move a circle through space so it becomes a torus. Maybe the way you move points, lines, surfaces, etc. through the higher dimensional space determines if they are curved (apart from Ricci or Riemann tensors). If I move a point wildly through space the ensuing line gets curvature. A circle hasn't though. A sphere does. But the value of the derivative on it is the same everywhere (how do you define a derivative on a manifold?). A torus has Gaussian curvature but it can be defined such that it has zero curvature. There's more to it...

Can you built a line with points? You can move it through space. Or stack lines to form a surface? Planes to build a volume? What if we take a point from a line? Can you still move on it continuously? Math addresses these questions, and confirms, but still. A line made of points? How you glue them together? How are strings kept on 3d while the 3d soars in 4d?

If we were in a hand-to-mouth survival situation, that is all we would be consumed with...the means to putting food in our mouth, getting hydrated, and finding comfortable shelter from the elements. — schopenhauer1

That's simply not true. We could take some fruit off a tree and start making paint to color dead tree trunks.

Death and night and blood

Does that mean you are too scared not to love them?
Your parents created you, gave you life, does that mean you must always love them no matter what they do to you or others? — universeness

Good one! Well I don't love them because they make me. Tomorrow I might hate them. Just look at all pain in the world.

As a matter of fact, I don't involve them in my daily life. I just don't have another explanation why it's all there. And who cares actually. I just say science doesn't have all the answers. What's the nature of consciousness or matter? Where it all comes from? I love creation and think we should be careful with it. Not because God made it, but just... well... because... it's a nice creation.

This non-existent god, religious threats, oblivion! — universeness

I'm not afraid of god. I love them! Gave us the gift of live.

Yes. It's their only role. They created the universe. They don't tell us how to handle it. They clapped their hands or whatever and let it go. Without knowing what came to be. Providing the raw material. Which therefore is divine material.

But I think the universe at large is this superintelligence, that everything is one, and, truly, nothing is completely subjective. — theRiddler

Do you see the universe as a superbeing of which we are tiny parts?

So? Even more reason to not be afraid! — universeness

Afraid of what?

Fred would be just as acceptable. — universeness

Haha! Why not? I'm gonna call them Stephen. If we know everything, will we all be Stephen?

The role that science plays is useful, needless to say, and the roll that religion plays is also useful, however they are not useful in the same way, right? Do you agree? — praxis

Yes. Science can't explain that the universe and all in it is there. It only says how stuff inside it behaves without knowing its nature or its origin. You can close all gaps, but that doesn't explain that of which you close the gap.

For me, God is synonymous with the simple idea that there may be vastly higher orders of intelligence. I wouldn't expect It to reveal itself everywhere or subjugate people to its power, either. Nor to erase pain and suffering from existence. — theRiddler

That's nice, though I don't see what God has got to do with intelligence. Maybe they know nothing in the way we do, have no power at all like we do, and are they mean in our metrics (just because they created the universe).

I'm sure that's true, but I wonder if you can experience God while bragging about how wonderful you are and gloating about how much better you are than other people — T Clark

I wonder too, but as the saying goes, God moves...

God is merely of the gaps in our knowledge. — universeness

What if all gaps are closed? Why should God be about gaps. I might know everything to the fundamental level. And where does that fundament come from? It hasn't the intelligence to create itself. No physical theory is self-explanatory.

I hope I have made myself clear that I fear only the 'loss of my current existence and how it will happen,' I do not fear oblivion(non-awareness) or the threat of being judged by a non-existent supernatural F***wit and the threat of suffering forever in hell. — universeness

Not every religion threatens with hell.

It's what I said every time. I'm not sure what you're surprised about. That God doesn't play a role in scientific discoveries?

One can be a singing and writing painting counselor, visiting college in between running around from girl to girl, teach in the evenings, and build body in the weekends. While experiencing God.

When did you start believing in God? I used to ask my mum where God was, looking outside the airplane window. I learned science, shouted against God, and now I see there is nothing but to see they exist.

They present an atheism that rejects science worship. — Joshs

Worship is maybe too big a word. But science has to be learned obligatory at schools. From young age our children are trained in analytical problem solving of which abstract math problems are the ultimate example, like is our appreciation for IQ. The higher IQ, the more intelligent one is. But that's a value, an opinion only.

Science replaced the role that God once played. In politics. God plays a minor role, though most people believe in God.

post-religious views, in contrast, are future and creativity oriented. We are brought intimately in touch with the sources of moral good, because they are right in front of us as our being with others in time. — Joshs

That sounds good. I agree. I don't think God is the source of moral. I don't care for nature or fellow men because God created them. That doesn't mean though that I don't think they created them. I can't see no other source from where it came. Laws of nature just don't have the intelligence to create themselves. Nor does the basic stuff in nature.

Most people in the world believe God exists. But like God once ruled the day, so is science nowadays. It's what you are obliged to learn at school and Dawkins, Harris, Dennet, etc. try to get rid of that idea altogether. I don't think science will replace it, but the powers that rule have abandoned it. Well, of course there are political parties and partisan vwith religious flavors, but that's all it is. A flavor. The world and is managed on the basis of science. But what's so important about it that gives it that right?

Btw, I am a Daniel Dennet fan and a Sam Harris fan. — universeness

Dennet, Harris, Dawkins, Pinker, Hofstadter, Hitchens, they all propagte atheism and science. It's the same as propagating theism, with god replaced by science.

The NATO was set up to confront communist threat. What threat Putin causes to the west? It's a capitalist state. Ukrain will remain capitalist. And capitalism will fuck the world up anyhow.

I still don't see from this why it's repugnant. Why should science legislate and organize society? That's just the same as god doing that.

There's nothing blatantly self-serving or logical about such behavior. — ucarr

The priest just wants to be remembered for his good deed. As he should. By doing so he shows that there exists something non-material, something non-explainable by material processes. Something contained in the matter. Call it love, hate, divine, good, or bad.