There is already experimental evidence that meta-physical*1 (immaterial) Information can be converted into physical Energy*2. — Gnomon

At this point this is the only claim that I'd like to know more about but I'm not sure I could ever understand what is going on in the experiment to believe you are conceptually correct. Information can never be non-physically represented. Where does the energy really come from?

"Any logical operation with fewer output states than input states must produce heat to keep overall entropy from decreasing." But what exactly is producing the heat of the Laundauer limit in a non-reversible logic gate?

Why Pure Information Gives of Heat (Youtube)

A declaration without supporting explanation is hardly philosophical at all is it. — Benj96

Sorry for the rudeness, just a bit annoyed at your responses.

Because you cannot have any individual one component of the 4 (energy, time, matter or space) without the other 3. — Benj96

You admitted it was mistake to pose the initial question and you didn't directly answer my question whether you were thinking about substance dualism. If you can't have matter without energy as you say here, why did you ask whether consciousness could be a form of matter or energy? You set up the dichotomy as if it is significant/correct then drop it suddenly.

Photons in a vacuum are massless particles/waves. So that would be an example of a form of energy(?) without matter, but I'm sure you are talking about the bigger picture of dependent origination. If photons never act with matter we'd never be able to tell whether they exist, though all light is emitted from matter.

Potential energy doesn't require matter, space or time. It's just potential. The moment that potential is converted to something "actionable" it requires time, space and matter to "act." — Benj96

This is a non-sequitur weird response to what you quoted. Sounds like you have the big bang in mind.

A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter. In other words, stored information has mass and can be converted into energy, and a full hard drive is marginally heavier than an empty one. — Gnomon

Melvin Vopson could've made a mistake in his interpretation and conjecture deriving from Laundauer's principle.

Is Information Physical and Does it Have Mass?

As it is possible to see from the discussion above, information is not physical by itself but has a physical representation and, naturally, this physical representation complies with physical laws. This is in good agreement with what Landauer actually wrote and not with his more far-reaching claims. Thus, the physical properties that Landauer and other researchers conjectured, ascribing them to information [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19], are actually the properties of the physical representation of information. — url=https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/13/11/540

One wonders if it light waves in a vaccum would count as a non-material medium for the storage of information. So if information has mass from nowhere, how could it travel at the speed of light? Only massless particles can travel at the speed of light.

Move over Einstein.

:monkey:

@Benj96

Sounds like a lot of BS, Ben. :monkey:

If in the story, there are a lot of birches (presented as regular birches) growing underground without any light, it's illogical if the author never explains how they do photosynthesis. Similarly, if a character is presented as a healthy human being, then later in the story is completely distorted, if that distortion is never explained, it's illogical given the premises. But if the premises are that the character is completely crazy (or not a human being), then, even if the reader can't make sense of their behavior, it can be considered logical. — Skalidris

@L'éléphant gave a thoughtful answer to this concern, which I agree with.

Have you seen David Lynch's Mulholland Drive by chance? Despite a lot of surreal disjunction of scenes and characters, we are still able to piece together a explanation of what might be going on that makes the film deeply satisfying, meaningful. This explanation may radically change if we start listening to David Lynch himself provide contextual clues.

Some viewers might be completely turned off by the non-sequitur character jumps and inexplicable improbable events, such that they have no desire conjure up a logic that justifies such a strange experience.

I've got to admit though, aside from Mulholland Drive, I find Lynch's other films less compelling because I cannot really account for the chaos of what is going on in a way that would sustain my interest. The will to do the work of achieving coherence is lost.

@Benj96

Do you have the idea of energy as a substance which would constitute one half of a dualism (the old classic of spirit/energy and matter)?

So either energy carries an inherent conscious currency/property, or matter does. Or they do when they interact in complex or specific ways. — Benj96

I'm trying to imagine energy (the ability to do work) in the complete absence of matter, which I'm not sure makes much sense. This would imply a completely non-material world where whatever constitutes a form of energy is sufficient in-itself for a kind of existence. Though if matter is really just a form of energy, it's all energy dude (and this is not profound). Our ability to understand energy requires everything that informs the understanding (energy as properties of organized matter).

The kinetic energy of a water wheel requires a lot of organized material in action. It is an example of just transferring motion of materials to do work, which is relative to an intentional observer's frame of reference. In such a scenario, how could your ever have whatever constitutes the forms of energy apart from the forms of matter?

@believenothing

I hope you're satisfied with the answers you got.

You might find the following article about global aphasia interesting. It is possible to lose the ability to understand or produce spoken or written language. These folks retain various cognitive capacities. They can still contemplate/imagine without the ability to talk to themselves. However, language may still play an important role in helping to develop these cognitive capacities in the first place.

Can we think without language?

In the end, when people read stories, do they want to be comforted in their opinions or do they want to learn something through a story that makes sense? — Skalidris

Haven't read any of Ken Liu's stories but am currently reading Dostoevsky's novella,Notes from Underground, and find that the narrator is somewhat ridiculous and unbelievable. The exaggerated madness/neurosis of the character is there for Dostoevsky to illustrate his pessimism/doubt/mock enlightenment ideals of his contemporaries.

Another oddity in Dostoevsky's dialogues which wholly breaks from realism is the length of speech/monologues of his characters. No one in history likely holds a dialogue this way. They go on for pages and pages sometimes, you'd think the people being spoken to would have left the room ages ago.

Perhaps Ken Liu's poetic license of inconsistent/implausible character is justified in a similar way, as a means to some other end.

Just as CGI replaced a lot of practical effects in film AI innovation may end up eliminating real cinematic photography altogether (if it is cheaper). This prospect is terrifying. Films will become more structured like video games, where actors perform the movement and voice work, and AI tools enhance the aesthetic skin/style/rendering. There still will be a lot of work to be done for any creative enterprise that isn't just a basic prompt image generation.

From the standpoint of having an original vision as an artist, you still can't really achieve it from AI prompts at all. Heck, I'm sure even many artists have trouble translating their vision to whatever medium. Prompt generation also leaves out the sometimes fun/therapeutic process of doing art -- it sometimes being as much about the journey as the end product.

The youtube channel Corridor (a crew of CGI enthusiasts) made an animated film using AI in the style of the gothic Vampire Hunter D films (which were painstakingly hand drawn). While it doesn't meet the aesthetic quality of the hand drawn films, and acting/writing is pretty garbage, it is still really impressive.

But what of hedonism and uncontrolled self indulgent pleasures of the senses would this, if it went unchecked have a negative effect on a higher cultured society, would it bring it down say or have these two always co-existed ? — simplyG

Maybe wealth could be a proxy for a kind of capacity for pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. The Gulf petrostates always come to mind when I think of dissolute hedonism. These countries/states are theocratic, conservative, Muslim, which contrasts absurdly with the most extreme kind of luxury eyes can behold, for privileged classes of course.

According to civil service minister Khaled Alaraj, many Saudi government employees are really only working for an hour each day.

Almost 70% of employed Saudi nationals -- more than 3 million -- hold jobs in the public sector, according to McKinsey. The cushy positions are highly coveted because they offer ironclad job security and lucrative salarie. — https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/20/news/saudi-government-workers-productivity/index.html

One wonders how civil society functions within Saudi Arabia if a majority of its public sector only work a few hours a day. There must be a considerable underclass/immigrants holding things together. Some folks in a subreddit were commenting on this CNN article, sharing stories of how working with Saudi public sector was frustrating because they won't do what they consider "slave" work and instead have recourse to outsourcing tasks they don't want to do. This sounds so absurd and is probably awful for the stability of the nation in the face of possible economic downturns.

Neither a year nor a kilometer exists as such, i.e. physically. You cannot perceive them with any sense. They are concepts. They are conventions. — Alkis Piskas

Yes and to be consistent you apply this also to the notions of space and time, infinite and continuous. They are concepts. They are conventions. With this in mind, what supports the belief that space and time are really infinite and continuous rather than finite and discrete?

Because there is no start or end in either of them. Neither any point in the middle. At least we cannot define any of them, therefore we cannot assume that they exist. — Alkis Piskas

There is no start or end to time and space. I'm just saying that this attribution is as imaginary/arbitrary as any contrary claim, that there is a start or end to time and space. Not a bid deal, just a silly quibble. It just occurred to me as a possible inconsistency on your part, but maybe I don't understand you.

Neither a year nor a kilometer exists as such, i.e. physically. You cannot perceive them with any sense. They are concepts. They are conventions. — Alkis Piskas

It's odd to assume time and space are really infinite and discontinuous on one hand, then deny the existence of a kilometer. If we're to be consistent here, time and space don't exist either. Personally I find units of measurements far more tangible and intuitive than any applied notion of infinity.

My quibble is pointless though. Thank you for your responses.

I believe that ancient people, the lives of whom were much simpler and without such a multitude and amount of measurements, had a better notion of time and space! — Alkis Piskas

Here I would assume any ancient people's notion of time and space was conditioned first by everyday discrete objects and relevant measurements that became standard to help them in their everyday lives. Zeno's preoccupation with infinity wouldn't be ordinary in any sense, and therefore wouldn't be suggestive of a common people's notion of time and space. But I don't really know.

Zeno assumes falsely --but I believe for us only, not for himself-- that time and space are finite and have a discrete (discontinuous) form, and so they are divisible. But this is a fallacy. They are not; they are infinite and continuous, so they are indivisible. — Alkis Piskas

Why is it right to conclude that time and space are really infinite and continuous rather than discrete and discontinuous? Either of these abstract properties are just mathematical inventions/conventions which prove to be useful. Time and space can obviously be divided (measured in units), or treated as infinite and continuous.

If time is infinite, it's still divisible by seconds in relation the diurnal or lunar cycle.
If space is infinite, it's still divisible by length of feet in relation to how much horse food, water or minutes it takes to get to town.

Through ordinary material/spatial divisions,we see that are practical/natural limits to the notion of infinity.

So what am I missing?

Is that a Socratic tendency? — Vera Mont

Sorry, there were four too many of those questions. :sweat:

Guess I merely stating my belief in psychological hedonism, that a pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain is the primary source of human motivation.

Find why Zeno's Achilles and the Tortoise is such a pseudo paradox ... — Alkis Piskas

What passes as a rigorous explanation for why Zeno's paradox isn't a paradox? One can race a man against a turtle and see that men and turtles traverse finite distances over time.

The length of every half distance to reach the finish line infinitely diminish within the finite distance because it is imagined so. This is the dream of some mathematician, who introduces infinity as a problem to a real world scenario. If a finite distance is infinitely divisible in the realm of maths, so be it, but it doesn't apply in a way that makes motion in time impossible.

Most decisions, whether toward short or long term gratification, involve the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

Imagine the classic scenario of the marshmallow test for very young children. They're told if they can delay gratification for a bit they'll be rewarded with more marshmallows. If they didn't have an expectation of a any enjoyment, or the avoidance of pain, there would be no incentive to do anything.

Is the preference to avoid pain at the expense of transient moments of high pleasure, considered hedonistic?

Consider possible outcomes of a more sadistic version of the marshmallow test. The children are told that they will be harshly beaten if they eat the marshmallows that sit on table in their room. Those that make the mistake get beaten. Would there be any children, who having lived through the experience of being beaten for eating the marshmallows, continue to choose to eat the marshmallows again and again because the pleasure of the eating outweighs the pain of the beating?

Even an ultimate pursuit of ascetic self-denial must have an incentive. The subject that demands such self-control must know the anticipation for reward/relief, even if it never comes.

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The dark facilitates the light? — chiknsld

More so, you can't meaningfully have the concept of one without the other, and how we value either is dependent upon a variety of contexts in which both (stimuli and its absence) play potentially good and bad roles in relationship to what we are.

I might ask, is it possible that darkness could ever be considered good? — chiknsld

This thread seems rhetorical/poetic and maybe plain silly. You might upset the neighbors.

Toward the question, sure, like anything else, it's just a question of moderation and balance. Darkness is fine, insofar as one always has means/access to light, given how vital our vision is for navigating the world. It's too much or little of anything, or stimuli in the wrong proportions, which threaten well being or life.

Some folks buy black out curtains with a desire to help themselves ease into sleep by shutting out the light. That kind of sweet darkness before bed is bliss.

How could the good exist without darkness, if one is necessarily conditioned by the other?

We all understand what may compel a person to say that life has no meaning. It all boils down to what seems to be pointless and gratuitous suffering. A life form must sustain costly and improbable structures of all kinds against the flow of entropy. No wonder folks get lost (and drown) in the sauce. So many things can go wrong and if we feel we can't adapt, we freak out.

Reality goes on for those who aren't asleep. They might look at your unconscious body and count the hours.

And so we'd expect, when the earth loses its last sleeper, that the universe is deaf, dumb and blind to itself -- like one asleep.

A canid is a chien is a koira is dog. Whether each is real or imaginary doesn't depend on labelling laws but on whether they can bite. — Vera Mont

Just being a bit silly over here, so don't mind me. But we agree, by your criteria, a dead dog is not a real dog.

There is a tiny country in Europe, sandwiched between the border of Andorra and France, which has stringent labeling laws for canned goods. They believe it a crime to equate the material identity of fresh fruit with processed fruit. Canned peaches are not real peaches in this country. This also extends to deceased humans. No dead body shall bear any resemblance in memory to its former person and that is why it is perfectly fine to eat and can the dead.

You'll find the canned smeaches right next to corned schmeef, and though these may have been derived from peaches and people, they are not real peaches and people.

So I'm guessing what is real, depends on your criteria of what is real as it might concern the borders of identities.

Arguably some cases of media coverage of public mourning are beneficial, insofar as it encourages more meaningful kinds of charitable support for those affected by the loss. Though this wouldn't seem to apply to celebrities and heads of state much of the time.

This maybe a stretch, but maybe some of the outpouring of emotion over Diana's death was related to having some good reason to love her character. She was a humanitarian, or at least played one on television. What else can one affiliated with the monarchy do to serve (or to appear to serve) the public? This kind of virtue signaling has tangible benefits in the promotion of charity.

Just saw some ultra nationalist folks mourning the loss of Prigozhin. Imagine if he was as beloved by the public as Diana, and not in the way North Koreans mourned the loss of their former head of state, Kim Jong-il (as if it were one's civil duty to do so).

I call it maudlin commercial sentimentality. People seem to have rejected reason, perspective, any sense of proportion in favour of raw, undisciplined emotionalism. — Vera Mont

Does this same assessment apply to folks that go to musical concerts or sports games? How much of culture then can be judged so? Few might call a PGA golf tournament an example of undisciplined emotionalism, but it is arguably as absurd if not more so than a pop up memorial.

People, hundreds of people who had no personal acquaintance with any of the casualties, leave heaps of flowers, candles, greeting cards, stuffed toys and balloons at the site of the lethal incident. — Vera Mont

Most sites of typical mourning that I've encountered are not that big and if they are big it relates to the notoriety of the deceased, or what their passing represents or evokes in strangers. When a community loses a beloved hero, there is a show of great mourning. Sometimes the tragedy of the case and subsequent news coverage can bring various communities together. Urban mourning site might be quite different in this respect, with more contributions.

A local case that spring to mind was about a mother rental cleaner who was randomly beaten to death in front of her child by some meth addicts. It was so sad and I could see why strangers could be moved to contribute to a street memorial. Another involved a missing child presumed dead at the hands of her foster parents. Both of these cases were extensively televised, which no doubt generates a chain effect of gossip/discussion/participation.

Am not likely to ever leave something at a pop up memorial. Would be more interested in visiting the graves of famous authors/scientists to see what is left there.

"Can you really contemplate without having a conversation with yourself?" — believenothing

Your thread is possibly in the Lounge because the answer is straightforward and obvious, unless you want us to equivocate around your terms toward a contradiction or a new question.

If all/any contemplation amounts to a kind of conversation of the self with the self (reflectivity), correlations between internal private phenomena and external public phenomena, can we converse with ourselves without ever contemplating within ourselves?

Imagine a hypothetical simulacra of a person who has no sense of interiority at all. From the outside you might conclude they are fully capable of conversing with themselves... but would they also be contemplating? Can there be thought without interiority? If so, why does interiority exist at all?

Can a computer capable of some "thought" have zero sense of interiority?

Since when is perfection and omniscience necessary for knowledge??? — creativesoul

Yes, why make any criteria for absolute knowledge impossible. Instead we could just rely on ordinary language as when someone says "I know with absolutely certainty at this time that..." and said knowledge also can't reasonably be doubted, Is accepted as universal fact.

I'm absolutely certain at this time that if we remove your head from your body by whatever method you will die. No one can dispute this without an appeal to some extreme contingency or medical miracle that doesn't currently exist. That I know there could be hypothetical exceptions just further informs the perfection of such knowledge.

Maybe the next Black Swan will be a Talking Bodiless Head... Then we will just get used to the fact that some people don't die by absolute decapitation.

If we can dispense with the doubt that everything is possibly an illusion and therefore an epiphenomenon of an underlying truth, there are many indisputable facts. Why wouldn't these facts count as a provisional kinds of absolute knowledge.

I need to absorb water to survive as a large mammal currently. This doesn't eliminate the possibility that I could survive without water in some unknown future by some novel physiology but many would agree the fact is indisputable.

• Being held responsible/reprimanded for an outcome that isn't my fault.
• Not being able to contact a service representative for poor/absent service as a customer.
• Managing passwords
• Folks in stores who are looking at their phone while blocking isles with their cart/bodies.
• The gratuitous concrete features/surfaces at my job which are functionally useless and have to be pressure washed multiple times a year.
• Pressure washers ( one of mankind's worst inventions, as they are pieces of fucking shit!)
• Discontinued or unavailable manufacturing parts or planned obsolescence (should be laws against this bullshit)

No, they are proof that we can build things. — Sir2u

Actually, button pressing and channel changing à la the metaphor is about ending one's life.

A more direct, sober, offensive question is under what circumstances should suicide be condoned?

Since the state of death is not an experience, the only experiential alternative to death is a kind of life. Might this make the prospect of death less psychologically severe for us if we believe it.

There will only ever be life after death but it won't be my or your life. Possibly it is like something to be a turtle with a straw stuck up its nose.

I keep asking ChatGPT at what ambient temperature it is impossible to eat pizza in and this it what it gives me:

"there is no specific ambient temperature at which it becomes impossible to eat pizza."

Surely there is an ambient temperature in which it is impossible to eat pizza, right?

Then it tries to correct itself:

"Apologies for any confusion. Yes, there is indeed an ambient temperature at which it becomes physically impossible for a human being to eat pizza. That temperature is absolute zero, which is approximately -273.15 degrees Celsius or -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit."

Can I eat pizza on the Sun?

"No, it is not possible to eat pizza on the Sun. The Sun's surface temperature is estimated to be around 5,500 degrees Celsius (9,932 degrees Fahrenheit), which is incredibly hot and would instantly incinerate any object, including pizza."

Is the best weather to eat pizza in any possible weather to eat pizza in, if eating pizza at any time is the best time?

"Yes, if you enjoy eating pizza at any time, then any weather can be a suitable time to enjoy pizza. "

How do you know you're being objectively correct in attributing the change in taste to your appendectomy?

It's not a matter of negative symptoms from eating fatty foods but purely down to taste?

Edit: They say there is a connection between taste and your microbiome and so it stands to reason if you were given a broad spectrum antibiotic for your surgery, maybe your change in taste is a result of a change in your GI flora. But that was 15 years ago, so what has sustained your opinion that you dislike fatty foods?

Sounds like you are talking about something more than the television.
But no, there is no remote to the channels of life. — Sir2u

But to serve this cringey metaphor my way, there are plenty of button-like events that can turn off the television, which amounts to changing the channel. :chin:

This is the age of remotes. The buttons are everywhere, illumined on glassy surfaces. They are the proof of our free will.

No one is responsible for tire dust. — Nils Loc


I’m responsible for the tire dust that my tires and I produce. — praxis

Well we've encountered the obvious implicit yet again: the problem of a diffusion of responsibility and its relationship to the tragedy of commons.

Thoughts and prayers :pray: for a livable future.

Where I live, society entitles me to do a lot of messed up shit with things I may own. I’m responsible for all of it. — praxis

Tire dust is supposedly an environmental/health catastrophe that no one ever mentions. No one is responsible for tire dust.

@NOS4A2

Would be interested in NOS's response to the OP. :naughty:

No. There are already plenty of laws that determine what you can and can't do with what is owned, depending on what that thing is.

Neither ought we have the entitlement depending on external costs to others. We own nothing in perpetuity, so to destroy something that might have many generations of utility (like a sustainable output of land) is wrong.

But the devil is in the details concerning what we ought to be allowed to do with what things.

The annoying guru, Sadhguru, performs an age old ritual of supposedly turning mercury into a solid by mind alone. This is purely chemistry however, where a different metal is introduced into the mercury at room temperature to create an amalgam. He's a liar!