I don't think I have displayed this at all — fdrake

Actually you not only displayed it, but you did so repeatedly.

As for Sheldrake, it's a fun watch, especially about his description of science's intellectual phase locking.

That's right, fdrake has to provide evidence of the claim, otherwise it is pure, unadulterated faith and while I am spiritual, I am not religious and I decline all dogma.

It's a fun watch.





This is the whole talk. Also lots of fun.


https://youtu.be/1TerTgDEgUE

No your post is absurd, but I attribute it to your faith. You might as well have popped in with a proof of God, a favorite of those who like to play games. You can't even read for gosh sakes! Talk to your priest. He'll explain it to you. That is why he popped in.

Is it finally over? Really, I know all about the dogmas of science and I'm not converting.

What I object to is faith being shoved down people's throats. You are entitled to yours (and your's is probably the most dogmatic on the forum), I just don't share it. I even objected to it in school despite the threat of not getting As. So what? I did great in life without being a puppet.

BTW, do you have any evidence for your faith or did you just pop in to give the faithful some moral support, as any priest might and should. Mustn't let the flock wonder from the true faith, right?

That the equations that are used now to measure some results are the same results that were observed 5 billion years ago. Preferably the exact same experiment so we can do a reasonable comparison.

1) Obviously not. I'm going to try one more of your statements, but after this first one, things are looking bleak.

2) OK. You're again just laying out the dogma.

3) That does it. Bye, bye. It's been a pleasure. Really.

The observation of the bone was wonderful. Now all you have to show is that this would have been the same observation 50 million years ago. You have too provide evidence that all laws of nature (again I am assuming you are referring to a handful of equations)) don't change over 15 billion years, not over 50 years. I wish you luck and I think that concludes this discussion.

[

but you can't know there was 100 million years ago since there are no written records from that date, thus your entire post is meaningless. — fdrake

Right. And your posts are simply a regurgitation of a dogma of science. So, you have no evidence. You are just repeating something someone told you and you bought it hook, line, and sinker. You are welcome to your faith. Be good. Enjoyed talking with you.

I know what you believe, what I am asking for is evidence.

It's actually very simple. Just give me an observation dating 100 million years ago under the exact same conditions as now, and we can do the comparison together. Restating your belief system really won't get v us anywhere, though I understand your faith in it, since it is a fundamental dogma of science, but as evidence dogma it's a big zero on a scale of 1 to 100.

1) There is no written record that X influences Y before time t.
2) Therefore there is no evidence that X influences Y. — fdrake

I never use logic, because I don't like playing that game. Thus, I have no idea where you got this.

You stated that something called laws (I presume you are referring to some equations) never changes over the history of the universe. Let's take one law, any law. Give me the history and show me all like the evidence over any period of time that supports your statement. It's your choice. Go for it.

BTW, you are similar stating what Sheldrake calls the 4th dogma of science. There is no evidence, just faith. But that's up to you to figure out.

I'm very clear. Thank you for sharing your opinion.

I'm not playing. Given that, due to humans, we're in the midst of the sixth global extinction event, — praxis

As I've explained to others, I am not here to play games or share science fiction stories. Science can't b even predict the course of a quanta let alone the future of humans. I appreciate that scientists have to make a living, and dreaming up stories that people eat up (like all science fiction writers must do) but I'm really not into it. There is so much wonderful things to learn and so much great fiction (I'm reading the Odyssey right now), why would I want to waste my time with the trite story about the death of the universe. It simply lacks any creativity and since it is claiming to be non-fiction, then it is plain silly.

I really think you would find other science fiction buffs much more interesting to talk to than me. Wishing you well.

Everything you stated is an observation of yours or the restatement of someone else's observation.

Now, if you find an some observation made 100 million years ago that was made under the exact same conditions that you or someone else made of the same observations, you have some evidence of some kind immutable law and then we can talk about something particularly the conditions of reach observation. As it stands now, all we can say is that science and it's observations are constantly changing, whatever that might entail.

Until you provide such evidence, you are merely sharing your faith with me, which I appreciate and as a rule, I don't discuss faith because faith is not discussable.

so this can include interpretations of observation /measurement which do not require consciousness. — fdrake

As I said you are blessed with an extraordinary imagination.

You have provided zero evidence (not surprising) but loads of opinions which I already thanked you for. I would suggest you continue your parlor game with someone who enjoys it.

OK. Thanks. I think we are done with your academic parlor game. Save it for someone who can truly appreciate it.

There is absolutely evidence that the laws of physics haven't changed since before animal life emerged. — fdrake

Really? Well, I guess one believes what one wishes to believe. I don't recall any written observations from 100 million years ago to compare with. Can you remind me when the red shift was first observed and recorded? I must have missed something in my readings. I really prefer concrete when discussing specific scientific descriptive equations.

Having the scope of observation include all possible interpretations of it includes interpretations which do not have consciousness as a prerequisite — fdrake

Interpretations require consciousness.

As for the rest of your post, thanks for sharing your opinions and ideas. I find them very creative.
You are blessed with a very imaginative mind. Good for you!

The universe hasn't changed in terms of physical laws since animal life emerged. — fdrake

We have no evidence of this one way or another. What we do know is that our observations and understanding of nature are in constant flux.

This means there are properties or processes that allow the fuzzy quantum soup to produce macroscopic phenomena without animal life.

Again, there is no evidence one way or another. Depending upon one's view of matter and life, it is possible to arrive at different conclusions. I prefer to vote life (mind) as fundamental and matter some sort of debris of life.
— fdrake

Nothing requires consciousness — fdrake

No evidence one way or another. What we can say is if it is not consciously observed it is inaccessible, and I am using consciousness and observation with the widest possible meaning.

If it required consciousness conscious life couldn't've arisen. — fdrake

Consciousness does not arise. It is fundamental. It is the beginning.

Bizarre quantum vitalism is just as vulnerable to arche-fossils as any idealism. — fdrake

Nothing bizarre at all. The subtle wave movements manifesting as quanta is consciousness at work and making choices, even weaving different substantiality of matter. This was known thousands of years ago, though QM does provide some probabilistic equations that describe the habits of consciousness.

Artists embrace life. Unfortunately scientists, because of their own viewpoint, prefer to deny it. They are really missing out on a lot, but it is their life not mine.

Suit yourself. As I said I'm not here to play parlor games.

Experience. A microbe, mosquito, or a tree has never tried to give me a hug. Maybe I'm too standoffish? Anyway, I'm not opposed to granting the illustrious title of "life" to an artificial intelligence of some kind. — praxis

They all (Life) give you Life and be grateful. Life gives life. Remember that the next time you have a choice between a computer and a tree.

I sometimes wonder how many people are truly having trouble making the distinction, and how many are just pretending for the sake of the "game". For sure the are those who are paid well to propagandize the idea. Such type of greed has always been there.

Then why don't we change it? Do we even know how to change it? — praxis

The only way to effect change is upon ourselves.

Considering that most life forms on earth would prefer to consume you in some way rather than give a hug, I don't think that makes a very good distinction for life. — praxis

And where does this belief originate from.

There are 10 times the number of microbes in the human body than there are human cells, all living in harmony.

I am surrounded by an enormous amount of life in harmony.

Some try to steal for survival. A mosquito may take a bite out of me. But to characterize nature as some sort of dog-eat-dog (most dogs don't eat other dogs), just doesn't characterize my life experience in nature. I love sitting amount trees sad well as conversing with friends. And I enjoy their hugs.

Probabilistic is not undetermined. For that matter, determined does not mean determinable. — noAxioms

Probabilistic is not determined. That is why we used different words. There is zero support for determinism. You and the OP late looking for some hidden variables that are deterministic. There aren't any, there never has been, and there never will be because the mind is the agency that chooses.

However, everyone harbors faith. There is no reason that you shouldn't have your own. One can believe in God or Determinism, it doesn't bother matter to me. I never object to faith. It is an aspect of human nature. What I object to are all of the materialists to try to foist their faith on others under the cover of some pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo. I'm not interested in parlor games of who can out linguistic who. I am only interested in the nature of nature.

It's not that humans can assume a higher moral ground here. Look at how we're treating animals and the environment - with total disregard for their welfare. So, my views aren't as bad as you make it out to be.

Anyway, apologies if my views offend you. — TheMadFool

It is one thing to say that we must view life as life and treat it all with appreciation, acknowledging that life requires life to subsist. Different cultures treat this differently.

However, it is an entirely different thing to equate a hunk of metal with life, and ignoring the consequences to life simply because one is infatuated with a hunk of metal. That hunk of metal will not care for you, share its journey with you, embrace you when you need to feel loved.

Tools are merely one of many creations of life but life gives us Life.

I agree, but the indoctrination begins very early in school where children and parents are too scared to challenge what is being promoted. The Grade is the axe being held over everyone's head.

But as adults, we can challenge the game of pretending that we are robots or molecular machinery. We are living, we created this, and we have the choice to change it.

No, that is not how I feel it.

For me it is a feeling of caring, sharing, and wishing to be with as we journey through life together. Actual emotions change, constantly, but the fundamental feeling remains the same. Our journeys transcend multiple physical lives. We are always searching for each other.

It''s an interesting comparison. It is an incredibly integrated neural net of sorts. I don't believe it is alive but it forces to wonder about the difference between that and the human (or any other animals) mind v brain. — MikeL

Humans create networks, networks don't create humans. The ability to create, explore, and learn from creating (evolve) is the essential nature if life. Networks are very simple tools that were create as part of the human activity of creation.

I'm being serious. Is this so difficult to observe? Does anyone look for a network to share their life with?

The really big cultural/societal issue we face is the enormous effort being rolled into education, beginning in elementary school, to dehumanize people. It is no accident what is happening. People have to stop being polite about it and just tell the professors the Emperor Has No Clothes. The more people play along, the more they will become fodder for the rich and powerful. Do you think billionaires go around pretending they are robots?

But my argument allows humans to invent their own meanings if they like - so long as they are intelligent enough to understand the constraints that have formed their nature so far.
— apokrisis

That was a good post. — MikeL

There is always some magic hidden in any materialistic research explanation of life. There has to be, because there is nothing there.

In one breathtaking leap we go from some soup of chemicals to "humans inventing their own meaning". So you have chemicals, which satisfy Big Pharm (which pretty much determined academic curriculum nowadays) and then out of no where you have humans inventing meaning?? to make it digestible for those who are experiencing life as it unfolds. What is missing from the materialist-scientific description of life is one iota of intellectual honesty. It is a game of hide and seek. Where is the mind injected in this paper?

Ultimately it is only a packaged story designed to satisfy the intended readership - usually to raise some money. Always, we are almost there.

In the disgusting OP.

I'm beginning to think you might agree with it. Do you?

What yarn spinners fail to realize and are surprised at is that laypeople find it really funny that chemists fall in love with chemicals and make them into little human beings, and technologists fall in love with computers and make them into little human beings, etc. etc etc. Tell me, in your yarn, what blend of chemicals would you recommend as a marriage partner? Sulphur + Oxygen maybe?

Tell me more about how chemicals share information. Do they have little brains?

Molecular machinary. Computers. Robots. Chemical reactions. Hard-wired. Hardware. Software. It's all over all the threads concerning life, mind, AI etc.

In this thread, the OP claims he was pro technology and didn't care what the consequences were for humans.

It's humans that created slavery. It's humans that commit genocide. And the precursor is always dehumanization. Before the Rwanda genocide (promoted by France and Belgium), the government began to refer to the Tutsi population (a race invented by the Belgiums) as "cockroaches". 136,000 people have been killed in the U.S. by prescription opioids. No one is prosecuted for this mass killing. People have been desensitized by other humans. The motive is always the same.

Automation is literally dehumanization, so I guess you're right. — praxis

Automation are tools. It is the people who peach that humans are not humans, the exact same propaganda used to justify slavery and genocide, that work to dehumanize. It is no accident and had lots of historical precedence.

Trains, planes, and computers are only tools and do not have the creative ability to dehumanize. Only other humans can do this.

Love is a bond between two. To love every one and everything is probably not plausible in a universe of opposites. I love some and I dislike others and that is the nature of nature - at least that is how it appears.

I'm responding to the OP's primary idea. Yes, there are times when we love but then it goes, but other types of love just v survives no matter what. It is just a special feeling and bond.

It exists, it is just rare. Such feelings might be felt between parents and children, between siblings, between partners, and surely other situations. Some feel it with their pets. It's a feeling that simply survives all challenges.

Yes, it's not all that much fun when you are on the wrong side of the molecular machinery. The Nazis exterminated tens of millions of people of all ethnicities and religions in the most grotesque manners on the basis that they were not human. What we have here is a clever repackaging.

Not everyone sleeps so easily. Some are c so dehumanized they become simple fodder for the disgusting machinations of other human beings. The whole basis door slavery and genocide is that the victims are less than human beings. It has morphed into human beings are just chemicals that are too be used without regard to humanity because there is no such thing.

As one obnoxious post put it we are just a "molecular machine."

Life needs life to exist. It needs vegetables, fruit, etc. to continue to survive. Without it, it perishes. Try surviving on a bottle of chemicals. Life was there at the beginning and then it began to create - in some cases some really weird stories. I'm sure you know the one that certain races are less than human.

The primary one that drove Einstein which is relativity of simultaneity. There seems to be no ontological status difference between different times of a given object. — noAxioms

Without getting into the nature of time, there is nothing in Relatively, either Special or General that supports determinism. If it did, it would contradict QM. Relativity is just transformation equations between frames of reference and a way to imagine gravity which may or may not have ontological relevance. Time in Special and General are defined differently. Nothing there about determinism. Einstein spent his whole life trying to bring determinism into QM and failed. Despite this, we have these kind of threads. QM reigns and it is probabilistic. Zero determinism.

Let's quote the whole disgusting post and POV from the beginning including the part that I quoted.

Dehumanization has been around as long as slavery has existed. The OP is nothing new and I find all such POVs really despicable. And this is no chemical machines talking. I am a human who simply finds it quite disgusting.