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Perfection is everything the way it is. It becomes subjective when we are trying to look at things through our own lens of perception — Ugesh

Yes :D

"Evil" for me is "that which threatens the state of existence /stability of being of something which has been attributed a positive value. Evil is not inherent but applied."

If I see what I believe is a beautiful masterpiece and someone comes along and alters it a little and I suddenly no longer see the beauty, I could argue that they have destroyed a wonderful work. It should have been left as it was and the act was evil or malicious or idiotic. But if someone else saw the same masterpiece being altered and they said "Wow you've just improved it so much! And they now see more beauty. They would see the act as good and my reaction as harsh, critical or negative.

The social norm of a society dictates what is evil and what is not. Slavery used to be the norm now it is considered evil. Unrestricted plundering of our planets resources is still somewhat the norm now but I suspect in the next few decades it will be reflected on as a great evil against mother nature.

That being so, I find it almost impossible to imagine how one could hallucinate a concept? — TheMadFool

A ghost is a concept. It hasn't been proven to be an objective thing and therefore resides as a recurrent idea or theme in the minds of people who claim to believe in or have experienced ghosts. You could argue that anyone who sees a ghost merely hallucinated its presence.

But according to your reasoning it is impossible to hallucinate a concept. So either they hallucinated they were encountering something that does indeed actually exist... or they did not hallucinate because a ghost is a concept. At the end of the day, their conscious awareness experienced a version of reality that is not shared by you or the collective. Does this mean it must be a hallicination? Could it not be reasoned as a rare and singular unrepeatable experience?

If two people argue about the concept of a God for example. And one says it is just an idea in the mind, a concept while the other says no, God is real and right beside me at this very moment. The one who argued it as a concept would have to believe they are hallucinating. But then it cannot be a concept because you said it is impossible to hallucinate a concept. So which is it?

Shared experience doenst entail shared location so yes a live video feed would be the equivalent of a photograph or bringing ther person to the place. They have witnessed the same event/phenomenon.

As for the 40 words for snow. I have no use for that and wouldnt do it. It was merely an example to demonstrate what is possible. I do however have a dozen nicknames for my dog that only I use. I could use one. But I prefer the situational diversity of many.

Words can have meaning to the user themselves of course. I could invent 40 words for snow that no one else uses. Many a child spends some time making their own language for fun. But meaning to the one who applies meaning is internal communication which I would argue if we consider the mind as self aware is hardly communicating to or from anything at all. It is intrinsic. I simply meant in order to "bridge the gap" so to speak between to separate individuals regarding the same topic, one requires agreement on symbols. If I communicate "the ball is blue" to you in Morse code whilst you return the same sentiment to me in aramaic, while neither of us understand the meaning of the other we are still in agreement. The problem is we cannot be aware of our mutual agreement. There is no meaning in our interaction despite the fact that to both of us individually there is. However when we agree on a common symbol to represent the same observations only then do you have a language - something you can effectively use to impart information to another.

In the OP - a case of imparting knowledge of something another has not experienced yet, if the experience cannot be approximated by any previous experiences due to the novelty... then such an experience requires a "see it to believe it" method in order to get this person to understand what you're talking about.

The colour Philiblex is dislocated from other colours in that you cannot describe it as a mixture of the rest and get an effective portrayal. In this case no level of language imparts experience. It is something that you must show and then a word can be used to denote the event. Just as you could not convince someone that the spectrum if rotated fast enough onna wheel becomes white. It is not at all intuitive until someone does it and observes just that. Then when you say "I am thinking of the colour made from a blend of all colours" one would know from the experience that you are referring to is "white".

An extraterrestrial comes to investigate how our societies run. They say "give me the best object to explain how you organise your peoples on this planet. I would like to examine its qualities." The person thinks for a moment...hmm... he takes out a dollar bill and hands it to the alien. "This is called money. Virtually everyone in conventional society subscribes to it. It has value and power which we use to get things done."

The alien takes out a detector. He detects all the aspects of the note, the colour, the form, the inscriptions and images, the weight, chemical composition. He senses everything there is to sense about the physical object. "How does it work? Where is the value stored in the object? I cannot detect its presence. The only value I find is the few calories of paper in it. Do you burn it for energy?" The person laughs. "The value is I guess in our mind. We trust eachother that it has value." "So the value is make believe? Imaginary? It exists only because you all use it symbolically? You exchange a symbol of value that doesnt inherently exist?" "Yes." The person replies.

What exists can be a metaphysical construct. The value of money exists and has actionable effects on our lives, it can destroy lives or sustain them yet you cannot directly measure or appreciate its value in a singular note without the pre-conceived notions of numbers, a federal reserve, mints, central banks, supply and demand, economics, inflation and deflation, stock markets, Legalities surrounding finance and social behaviour. There is a lot of rules and regulation that goes into maintaining a fantasy that works. But it does work.

Consider a man that just invents money. He holds a coin and says look it has value! I can exchange it for this bread you have. The Baker laughs and says get lost you're hallucinating. That chunk of metal is not worth the same as this delicious edible bread. The man is hallucinating if he and only he believes it has value which it doesnt.

Until he suggests that the Baker can use the coin in exchange for something he wants. Now the Baker is interested. Okay I will take the coin and give you this bread. But in a week when your fruits are ripe I want to exchange it for some of those. "Done!" the man says. Is he still hallucinating the value of his newly created money? Because now the Baker trusts its value too. It has value to two people. Are they collectively hallucinating or does money now exist?

Despite the fact that my analogy is fictional I could have easily used an example which is clearly the case in the real world. The Himba tribe in Namibia has no word for blue and no distinction between the word blue and green. They call the sky and the leaf of a tree the same colour despite the fact that conventionally we identify them as two different colours. Now imagine a tribe member travels to the west and is asked to define the colour they use collectively for blue and green. He points to the sky and we say yes blue. And he points to a tree and we go wait no . .green. which is it? I'm confused.

The tribe member is equally as confused. To us A = A and B = B they are separate but to the tribal man A = A and B is also = A. My point was that the shared experience of something is what gives the language between those two individuals a valid united meaning just as in the case of my alien object. For two himba tribesmen (or astronauts) there is no debate but outside their community our differing experience of colour or absence if information hinders us from understanding the "intonation" (excuse the pun) of their colour meanings.

Therefore my conclusion holds true.

exactly.

That was very poetic. I like your personal take on it.

How does defining Good and evil remove your culpability? Or generate an us and them? I never said you didnt have a choice nor did I ever say good people dont do bad things on occasion. We are flawed. You have a choice how to define good. Which means you have the choice to define bad things for others as good things for you. My God is not an excuse for doing bad things it is an object of speculation with a basic tenet- it is fundamentally good. How? Why? That is our challenge. An ideal that demands definition in order to satisfy a universal good, a good that unites people on a moral and just basis.

Just because we make errors or manipulate the term God, just because it is a heavily loaded term or one that triggers angst or anger in people, doesnt negate the fact that my God is simply good because I have experienced it. As most people have when ever they experience desirable sensations.

The conservative fear of change? — Banno

This for me is nonsense, change is absolutely necessary for progress, evolution, adaptation, for the exchange of information, interactions. Energy is capacity to change. There is not a single balance, no equilibrium established in nature that isnt dynamic - constantly changing in order to stay in a steady state. Chemical reactions, natural selection, orbit of planets, everything regardless of whether its motion or state can be predicted or is more chaotic, demands change. What on earth is there to fear? Equilibriums are conservative in the sense that these states of change are confined to certain parameters and often reciprocally self regulate to stay within those confines. Life is built on them. Homeostasis.

Somehow you manage to string out several assumptions from my argument that were never there. Your interpretation is far removed from my current understanding of the topic I brought forth.

You seem to have an issue with the use of the word "God" despite me having already told you why I like to use it. Fundamentally, because it is my choice what vocabulary I use and that is already enough justification. Just as it is your choice what vocabulary you use to articulate yourself.

But I'll put it this way... if you can indicate what exactly it is I'm referring to when I use the term "God" I'll stop using the term. When I use the term "pencil" it's likely you know exaclty what I'm referring to. But when I use the term God it is subject to my personal experience of the concept and that is why I use that term... it is the only one flexible and dynamic enough to encompass my usage of it in various contexts.

Why the need to worship? Because if you dont worship the Good, then you worship the bad. I choose the option I prefer. Everyone worships some quality, goal or state of being; be it money, recognition, power, fame, knowledge, travel, whatever the case may be there is always something or a collection of things people hinge their lifes ambitions on and mine is " Good." Good being the objective. God being the subjective equivalent of Good - for me. My aim, to define accurately the greatest good I can and reevaluate it continuously with experience so that by the time I expire I can say I lived the way I wanted to and that it was a pretty good life.

Let's see, it takes a message from the Mars Rover about twenty minutes to reach Earth. So, nothing happens here while we are waiting. Sounds about right. — jgill

If you put a clock on that message (which you cant because of the mass of a clock) and it was sent at the speed of light from Mars to earth, and you had another clock here, the clock on earth would have elapsed 20 minutes while the clock returning at the speed of light would have barely ticked a second due to time dilation. From the perspective of the message the interval was instantaneous but to us it was 20 minutes. So yes nothing happened here while the message travelled (from the perspective of the message). No? Or am I getting relativity completely wrong

the baggage attached to "God" is your baggage. Or anothers baggage. I dont claim to know what your understanding of that seemingly loaded term is but I just gave you mine. I know my perception of the word -it holds only what is necessary to me no extras.

so as to confuse the issue — Banno

My intentions arent to confuse anyone simply to discuss. I try to articulate to the best of my ability something very difficult to define for anyone. Its interesting that you phrased my intentions as something "deceptive" with the purpose to "confuse" or "bring in baggage" rather than a more positive slant. This really speaks more about you than it does about me. I use the term "God" because I feel it is appropriate and sits comfortably with the philosophies and investigations I have done surrounding it. You can choose your own words even create a new word if you're not satisfied it makes zero impact on me.

You will find that in the pursuit of defining ultimate good .ie the most accurate and all encompassing definition of that sensation we are all familiar with but cannot agree on, you will find many contradictions depending on "whom"/ "the point of reference" or the "self" from which the good is being perceived. The boundaries of the "self" are of course flexible and constructed from assumptions, the perspectives interchangeable and open to redefinition and thus the reframing of a sense of what is good or bad in the same scenario.

For example if death was not feared nor negative but rather a point of great change and transformation, then how is the lambs death qualitatively bad? We were not suffering before we were born. Birth and death are natural, inevitable processes necessary to permit life. If balance and equilibrium is a good thing then surely death is a good thing as it prevents over abundance and underpins natural selection. The taoist philosophy sees life as a flow and we merely inflict upon it these concrete ideas of an "end" and "beginning" when really all there is, is change and points of ignorance or unknowing.

Sacrifice as in your lamb analogy, is interestingly an integral part of many religious perceptions of God, generally seen as something imperative for the "greater good" of all. And in many senses the lambs death is the prevention of another lambs death or the saving of precious resources for others. A life of collective suffering in my opinion is worse then a quick singular and purposeful death. But of course this always contentious.

There is good for me, then there is good for my family, good for my community, my nation, good for my species, good for my planet and so on and many of those levels may conflict with eachother. The ultimate good is thus as much about the person who considers it as it is about the definition of said good. A selfish person may consider his sacrifice for his species as a terrible and stupid thing whilst a good person may consider his sacrifice for his species protection as the ultimate good and noble selfless act. The outcome is the same, the peoples perspectives are different.

If you want my honest opinion about what the ultimate good may be, it has less to do with notions of death or pain or suffering as all of these are required to give life, pleasure and peace any meaning at all by contrast, and has more to do with stability, equilibrium and opposites.

I suppose "God" would be the personified equivalent of good and true things - the ideal self. The ideal state of awareness. Or perhaps just an umbrella term for something exceptionally good to the point that it is near impossible to ever even conceive of. In essence it doesnt matter what you call it. As that is part of the definition -the collection of things that are good and go by many numerous names

In my opinion a reason to live is "uniqueness", "rarity" and the "static moment of living."

You have this life that no one else will ever have. You have an experience, a set of insights, thought patterns, behaviour, a quality to your personality that no one else can ever replicate because they will never be you. You occupy this finite space with your body, a space that - though ever changing in relativity to all other spaces as you move around in the world, can never be occupied by another in its entirety, can never be claimed or possessed by another. It is you. Your DNA, your systems of function, your biology and organisation of matter will never again be in this exact configuration that makes a "you".

Being alive is a stasis in a sense. Like the solidification of self in a sea of non-living. Homeostasis keeps you organised and fit to live. The amount of information and organised systematic exchange and interaction it takes to keep you from dying, to keep you from falling apart into a soup of trillions of disorganised molecules is unfathomable.

Life in this sense is a Rock and death is a fluid. Statistically for the duration of the universe you are going to spend a long long time, a lot more, as a fluid of matter and energy aimlessly being passed around possibly unaware and devoid of conscious sense at all that you were once a "you"...but for this blink in time, this brief lifespan moment in everything, you are a rock that is in dynamic equilibrium maintaining its object and the phenomena associated to that object.

So for the sake of diversity of being, this is the moment where you can do all the things living things do. And when you are dead you will do all the things dead things do. Both are states of being and existence in the universe it's just that this current one is seemingly the only in which you can discuss that fact.

This is my trippy and long winded take on how Gods ideas could manifest.

What if "God" was a panpsychic spectrum between matter and energy. On one side (s)he is particulate/defined/specific and material and experiences the passage of time/change and motion. And on the other of relativity, (s)he is potential/non-specific/immaterial/ omnipotent/ the capacity to do work/willpower and does not experience time (at the speed of light).

In this way (s)he could be the subject (matter) being subjected to the object (surrounding universe/change/fluctuation etc. with consciousness being some kind of connector whereby one only has the power to manipulate the "self" but the assumptions and understandings used to formulate the ego can be redefined to encompass the whole universe.

Then what if (s)he somehow contemplated their assumptions and bridged the gap in conscious awareness between these two states and synchronised his/her personal mental reality with that of the true fundamental universe. Then the only thing dividing what occurs in their mind and what they observe around them would be a certain timeframe.

Perhaps (s)he predicts something will happen and then after a certain timeframe (s)he observes the universe mirroring theor intent. Such as how prophets seem to bear foresight. In this respect the energy one uses to perpetuate their own conscious awareness is so qualitatively in synch with the laws of nature that their reality and actual reality are one and the same.

This is my analogy for whether philosophy progresses anything or not;


If I decide to go on a hike; I start at point A one day and walk for several hours, I see a lot of things from a lot of different places. Sometimes i see the same thing from a difference vantage point, perhaps the opposite side of the valley. Maybe I prefer the look of that tree from above on the cliffs or maybe i like it more up close or from the riverside. Perhaps I forget about what I saw because I am focused on newer things or other scenery. Maybe I stop looking altogether and simply focus on getting back to my starting point.

In the end, even if all walks lead back to starting point A, have I learned anything? Have I made progress? Is my sense of my location better now that I understand its relationship to everywhere else? Is that even useful? Do I feel more at ease now that I have explored other places that I could have stayed or ended the hike? Satisfied a curiosity? Or maybe became more rounded on my navigating ability, more stamina. Or was it not worth it at all?

Progress is determined by the destination you've defined. Philosophy spends a lot of it's time defining in the first place. Focusing on how to ask a question rather than what is the answer. It may not be useful to some people or incredibly insightful to another. It may provide an answer for you or just another question.

Ethics is probably the most practical side to philosophy so in that respect yes philopshy progresses many other disciplines such as law, medicine , scientific method and psychology. And the well trained arguments will certainly be used in future to tackle difficult questions about genetic modification AI etc. Because doing without thinking is dangerous. You must look before you leap, that is how you have a safe hike!

Well I guess it would depend on the life purpose of the individual. Sure, some life purposes are very restricted and limit ones behaviour so as to not digress from the path for example "I want to win a gold medal in swimming in the Olympics." Obviously you would have to dedicate the large majority of your time to training and competitions etc to get to that level. If theres one thing we can be sure of is that our time and energy for achieving a purpose in life is limited (by the fact that our lifespan is).

But what about someone who's life purpose is to speculate, to question everything? What if one were to dedicate their life to the pursuit of knowledge or to simply defining a purpose worth achieving in the first place? Then the boundaries to which path they take is essentially limitless as theres always more knowledge to attain -Philosophy being an inherent and unending quest to argue reason and which seemingly has many answers.

Purpose can be plural of course. And in that case your life purposes can be added and subtracted from your current state of ambition as you see fit.
Consider the purpose "I want to create a masterpiece of art". Firstly how many ways are there to do this? Secondly when is the masterpiece completed? And thirdly who determines when or if it is a masterpiece? In purpose there is an element of ones own perception of success as well as others perception of their success. I may have achieved my purpose without anyone else agreeing with me or they may believe I have achieved numerous things and I may be overwhelming dissatisfied. In that case where is the restriction.


In my opinion it comes down to this; a decision "defines". When you direct or focus your energy and willpower in a certain direction you have defined it as a directed motive has parameters. The minute a purpose is defined there will naturally be actions and behaviours that negate , supress or hinder it which you must overcome and similarly those which will perpetuate encourage and amplify it. Limits are useful for concentration of effort but as you said...provide a means to restrict. The key is to know where to place them and when to revise them.

I'm mean fair haha :)

why would you believe objects are the only things that exist in specific locations (reside/are positioned)? Energy resides (as matter) yet also is an actionable force (that supposedly doesnt reside but influences). Anything that exists in the universe resides in the universe at the very least even if it is something that is part of the basic fabric. Perhaps my question could have been phrased better but as far as I'm concerned my question is not wrong... simply you disagree with the assumptions I used to make it. Others have happily answered it with their views without telling me my questioning is invalid.

well I feel bad for women then

Do you think alternate me cares as much about me as I care about him?

So hard determinism and everyday life..hmm...perhaps these traits or perspectives are useful.
1). Organisation: organising, categorizing and planning are all to enhance control and order. But they are time consuming. Seeing as you believe in not having control or free will, it would make sense to spend less time doing these activities and more time addressing issues and errands immediately and spontaneously when they arise.

2) Anticipate the future less; A lot of people get anxiety and stress over possibilities, simulating different outcomes before they happen, trying to steer their life around potential obstacles on the horizon and looking ahead. As a hard determinist be present. What is happening now is where you are and what you are doing. It should be where your focus of attention is. The future will happen only exactly one way for you.

3). Learn from the past. The past has happened. It is determined. Learn from the power of hindsight. In a hard deterministic world there is qualitatively little difference in hindsight as there is in foresight. Use the past to navigate what is to come as it likely indicates the direction you are going in terms of successes, goals, relationships etc.

4). Study "Time". If the course of time is totally pre-written then possibilities and probability are illusions masking what is definitely and always was going to be. How then does the present differ from the past and future? What are the determined 'rules' of development for this pre written story? What laws have stayed consistent to allow for complex change and evolution when the mechanism is finite and determined. In essence what determined substance or quality "writes" for everything that seems more uncertain but is not and how can you incorporate these rules into your life.

5). Establish your purpose. You were always planned. Always going to happen. And then influence the universe and environment around you before you die (also planned). Contemplate not how to achieve your purpose (you already are in the process) but rather define it. What exactly is it and why is it already happening and how is it likely to progress?

6). Read about the "Tao". Taoist philosophy delves into what can only be poorly described as a force or flow of existence. It is indescribable by human means but anyways. ...familiarise with this flow as you cannot change the currents or fight them but only integrate. How do you make your life seamless with the changing happenstance around you. Be aware of the state of non-resistance to your planned route.

7). Life happens to you not through you. You dont impact the environment it impacts you. That isnt to say be reckless or irresponsible but rather ...resist reacting badly to negative situations as they are necessary to progress. They were going to happen for 13.8 billion years so why bother get emotional about it.

I did this for fun but hope its useful

I found your links really interesting thank you

I didnt assume the universe isnt sentient I said I struggle to grapple with sentience in a universe.... which appears when one observes it to be but rocks floating around. I didnt qualigy whether said rock's were sentient or not it was open ended and clearly an option within the poll "consciousness is fundamental to the universe" was one option.

Secondly I already highlighted my awareness of not being the same from day to day. Your reasoning that my memories and experiences are the only things that provide a sense of self is also just an assumption. That would mean someone with severe alzheimers or dementia doesnt have a sense of self or a conscious awareness because their memories or experiences are muddled up or disintegrating yet they still interpret the world around them. Perhaps awareness is more intrinsic then merely experience. Does a rock have a memory? Or experience? The poll is just for fun I cant provide an option for everyones view.

Very nice points.

Cats do not become kittens. — prothero

Of course in the typical sense of a cat there is no reversability of its existence, it cannot age backwards into a kitten. However it may be interesting to note that its existence genetically speaking is theoretically reversibly. The Gene's necessary to make the cat are concentrating by factors of 2 with each approaching generation of ancestors until the individual cat is born where it equals one whole, and then dilutes by factors of 2 with each generation of offspring thereafter. In this way we see the cat manifests at a rate equal to that with which it is disappears back into the gene pool but only "lives" when it is at 1.

When the cats grandparents are alive it is portions of quarters and then it parents - as halves and then when it is born the Gene's that make it up sum to 1 and then dilute in reverse fashion through its offspring; 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and so on. Cats may not become kittens but the instructions for the Cat come into form and out of form at an equal rate and the direction has no particular bearing as far as genetics go.

Time directionality is not necessary for genes to make a cat. Just probability of all being lumped together as one particular individual.

What then is you're take on the proposition that conscious beings exist in the universe? If we exist in the universe and our so being requires that we are aware of time, then wouldn't time necessarily also exist in the universe? — javra

Sorry I should have clarified I dont believe time exists in the universe independently of the function of consciousness to be aware/living things to survive effectively. I think it is an intrinsic quality of mind that develops with the continuing improvement of cognition and memory and serves as a metaphysical platform by which we can categorise events in order of linear immediacy and potential/possibility.

I sometimes like to think of imagination as a fluid or plasma of thoughts and ideas that can be manipulated by some executive functions of the brain. It can be self-creating by allowing it pure random wandering freedom or it can be contained within a box of parameters, goals and objectives to guide the fluid along and give it some moulded structure.

Philosophy in my opinion is boundless as it is the art of trained thought/ questioning. So can thoughts, ideas and perspectives be harmful? Absolutely. Someone who philosophically settles on the opinion that life is meaningless could be extremely harmed or liberated by that thought.

What you seem to describe is a "copernican revolution of sorts" - a revelation or discovery that swings completely the status quo to a completely knew path of understanding and has already happened as you probably well know when scientific method was established around Galileo's time after copernicus realised the earth revolves around the sun and isnt the center stage if cosmological religious happenings. These are paradigm shifts of large magnitude and it is actually entirely possible that science may come to a point again where a large shift is realised or where it can reversibly explain consciousness and spirituality unifying the two separate factions of worldly understanding. I think your hypothetical example shows something more human - the ongoing divide between the conservative and the adaptable: those that resist change and cling to older concepts that used to satisfy general opinion and those that adapt quickly to the latest rational explanation.

I believe it doesnt actually matter what way one rationalises the universe and the bizarre experience of existing. Each mode has qualities that lead to personal development and an opportunity for comfort, meaning and utility/practicality in dealing with our environment and how life operates. The main issue has always been respect and the ability to entertain ideas that you dont necessarily agree with simply out of intellect.

Excellent question. I love these ones.
In "my" experience (lol), the concept of "I" is a construction created by interactions with others and the environment around us which gives us an awareness of what we influence and what we do not. For example consider possession. I can possess a pen. This pen is "mine." If I were a dictator I could possess a whole country. The country would be "mine" - my territory and the people within it "my" subjects. It has a lot to do with the selfs sphere of influence or the ego. One would say an egotistical person is one who has an over inflated sense of self. Controlling people feel they have authority over other egos and that they should obey their personal ego as if by extension of the self.

Thirdly... consider an environment where a child "A" is born and is told their whole life that they are worth nothing and mean nothing and dont have the same rights as everyone else meanwhile another child "B" is born and told they are everything and everyone manifested in one person. They are the whole universe, powerful and the creator of all things and selves and is considered as such by everyone they meet. Child A will feel like they dont exist or have minimal impact and existence in the world. A tiny sense of self, constantly oppressed. Meanwhile child B will feel they are the only thing that exists and that everything and everyone they meet is just another facet of themselves giving them a ridiculously large ego (Not necessarily a bad thing but unusual). The sense of self is relative to that selves beliefs about what they can and cannot do and how they define themselves.

People who are in love regard the other person as their "better half" or the that they "complete me" meaning they are so alike that they are unified together as one. That they are in essence the same self. So again it depends on core beliefs and values and how one relates the environment to their conscious awareness.

Lastly.. imagine two identical selves, twins. Assume they are exactly the same in every way; they eat the same things at the same times, same friends, same dreams and ambitions, same everything. Except they must occupy a different point in space (unless they are absorbed/conjoined twins). So... even if all other factors remain constant, they must - by reason of not ever being in the same point in space - have a different perspective in their environment and eachother/ others around them. Even if one twin tried to repeat exactly what the other did in the space they occupied they would be actions done at two separate times and so wouldnt be the same. This means they are irrevocably two different selves. You are unique in yourself in that no one else can ever follow the same space-time path that you do through life and so cannot be "hit by the same football simultaneously" or hugged by the same person in the same spot simultaneously. The space you occupy as a singular living unit is yours until you die.

Well, in order to understand the coronavirus' likelihood of mutation it's important to understand how it replicates. The coronavirus is particular amongst many other viruses in that it has a correction or "proof reading system" built into its genetic instructions. The reason viruses are highly mutable is most do not have this capacity which allows large degrees of error to accumulate over time changing its genetic profile. This is why there is no vaccine for the common cold (rhinovirus) because it constantly mutates as well as influenza which mutates into different strains each year meaning vaccine mixtures have to be carefully selected each flu season. Thus it is not as likely that coronavirus will become several different strains very quickly or at all. However it is a pandemic and that amount of virus circulating the globe does have an impact on the probability of a mutation.

Secondly... most mutations result in failure to thrive. It is unlikely that a mutation anywhere in the sequence will actually give benefit to the virus. Most cause it to have a weaker capacity to to something be it connect with a receptor on the host cell or manipulate the cellular machinery needed to reproduce itself. It's only rarely that the mutation happens just right to make it more virulent or increase the mortality rate.

The biggest risk posed by what you described is the establishment of viral reservoirs in certain countries whereby it can trickle into other populations via air travel repeatedly throughout the coming years. It may lead to flight restrictions to endemic areas and that could heighten political and economic tensions.