British Royal Family being shapeshifting reptiles in a literal sense — Jack Cummins

:lol: Keep that fire going! Maybe we can cook something!

No disrespect intended to the British Royal family of course.

We do love our analogies don't we? Well doctor, when the patient has his hands round your neck and his foot on your testicles, the treatment I would recommend is a fast improvement in bedside manners. — unenlightened

:lol: Therein lies the rub, monsieur, therein lies the rub. Superb point!

On our wish list, information that's

1. Authentic (citations, peer-review)
2. Safe (ethical)
3. Free (gratis)
4. Unbiased (no hidden agenda)
5. Well-presented (audio-visual aids, animations, interactive, good penmanship)


The question: How to achieve these different targets simultaneously given that the current way things work makes that nigh impossible?

is God a Potato" — GLEN willows

:lol: Did I write that? :snicker: It is a humorous question given the contrast between a vegetable and what we believe is a supreme intelligence.

It's stupid to be smart. — David H. Wolpert

science of philosophy — GLEN willows

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

What meanest thou by this, kind sir/madam?

"Whatever you want ..." :cool: — 180 Proof

Superb!

That's me line monsieur!

Cintamani (wish-fulfilling jewel).

Well, if it comes off as a joke, I'm most pleased with myself. Have a laugh, share it if you want to; you know, spread the joy.

[...]Without laughter there is no Tao. — Laozi

Agreed, vagueness & ambiguity are the defining features of oracular utterances. Like we were discussing Jack, something Rorschach testish about the whole business. A little bit of logic can help you make good guesses; add to that luck, then a creative spark and we have at our disposal a psychic who can hold their own against the most seasoned skeptics.

"But I don't expect we will get anywhere debating the topic." :smile: Don't mind at all. — Yohan

I see. That's fine by me. Good day.

I'm uncertain how good my analysis is, but here it is for what it's worth. I'll present the short version of the argument.

1. Apophatic theology: neti neti (not this, not that). Is God a potato? No! Is God Justin Beiber? No! This exercise in denying every question of the form "is God x?" continues until all possibilities are exhausted.

2. Look up the definition of nothing. Not any thing.

That's how I grok God & nothing - I can't tell 'em apart.

Interesting! Quite obviously you're using a different definition for nothing. We're allowed to do that. Create worlds of our own, with unique rules & objects, and whatnot. I wish I had the time to explore Yohan's universe, but looks like I'll have to do it on another day. Hope you don't mind.

On the topic of sleep (quasi-death) & wakefulness some further points people might find worthwhile ...

A few things that wake a person up

1. Pain
2. Cold
3. Noise

Maybe we can use these same stimuli to awaken the awake!

:chin:

N. B. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way recommending torture when I say this, but the Buddha was, to my reckoning, in a whole lotta pain. Why else would anyone in his right mind hyperfocus on anguish like the Buddha did?

The 1^st Noble Truth: Life is suffering.

Then ... in a span of 3 decades or so ... nirvana

There's gotta be a better way to trigger an Awakening than via dolorosa.

I got your point but twisted it for my own selfish reasons.

As for the rest - I'll take your word for it. Too many words to Google and I have a good true crime series going on Netflix - MY world — GLEN willows

No problemo! It's just that I'd like that question answered; thought you might've studied the matter in more detail than I could.

1. Certum est quia impossibile.

2. Credo quia absurdum — Tertullian

Essentially, I believe it because it is a lie!

seer/fortune-teller/logician — Agent Smith

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Liar/Lunatic/Lord.

Exactly my first experience with Castaneda's Art of Dreaming many years ago. Stephan King describes an alternate reality in one of his books in which an onion is pulled from the ground and someone a mile away smells it. — jgill

Take that <whatever you call these people>!

@GLEN willows

:up:

You missed the point mon ami! Perhaps if you can think of an example of something that is immaterial and try to distinguish that from nothing, you'll see what I'm driving at.

However, the oculus menti is its own kinda eye. I consider it the 3^rd eye of Shiva the destroyer - it's what in the Occident is known as sixth sense which is synonymous in my universe with logos (reason).

Good points! I've always been suspicious of claims of so-called quantum weirdness, an interpretation that can trace it roots to the Schrödinger's cat gedankenexperiment. I only surmise this connection as highly probable.

However, as great a mind as Schrödinger's was of the view that the best translation of his equations was, macroscopically rendered, that a cat is both dead and alive. In other words, given the stature of the man who made the claim, quantum paradoxes should be taken seriously (as true paradoxes).

Anyway, the MWI seems to, whether deliberately or not is up for debate, rather cleverly resolve the Schrödinger's cat contradiction by proposing that the cat is alive in one universe and dead in the other.

From this it follows that any contradiction (p & ~p) can be compared to an observation in a quantum experiment vis-à-vis MWI - essentially causing the universe to divide into two, one in which p and the other in which ~p. As with Schrödinger's cat, the, any, contradiction melts away as the two incompatible propositions are now in two separate, logically independent universes. Picture two inimical men being housed in different rooms (violence, which, being mutually annihilatory, contradictions are, is averted).

How do I use Everett's technique on an actual paradox like the Liar sentence? Well, assume it is true - this is one universe. Then you reason (this is the counterpart of observation in quantum experiments) and conclude it is false - this is another universe. The same logic applies to all subsequent true and false sequences in the chain of reasoning. Either there are only two universes and you go back and forth between them OR it's a branching tree-like universe with every true and false state birthing daughter universes.

I hope NDE researchers also study sleep. Hypnos (sleep) is, as per Greek myth, the twin brother of Thanatos (death). I've had hypnopompic and hypnogogic hallucinations a coupla times. They're quite mind-blowing, probably for the same reason drug-induced highs are - the blurring of the boundary betwixt the real and the unreal (which is which though?) is an experience worth having every once in a while.

:rofl:

Love — Gnomon

The mundane, to survive, must create an illusion of the sublime. I remain ever so grateful mundane! Fool me, fool me all you want for a time will come when a false friend becomes a true friend.

The non-materialist's impossible burden is to explain ... the difference betwixt the immaterial and nothing. Mayhaps that is what non-materialism is all about - a study of nothing!

Its nn interesting contrast to Soc's conscious ignorance. — Yohan

Buddhism, as per Wikipedia, has roots in skepticism, the Indian kind, in line with the Socratic epistemic stance of ignorance. Vide infra for more.

shut up — Nils Loc

The Buddha did shut up; after attaining nirvana, he decided the best course of action was to :zip: . Luckily/unluckily, you decide, Brahma (God to Christians, creator aspect of the divine trinity in Hinduism) appeared before him and entreated him to turn the wheel of the Dharma i.e. to put it bluntly, start talking, teach people Buddhism so that all sentient beings can benefit from his discovery of the secret to happiness. So the legend goes.

Also note Buddha's Noble Silence.

What do you think of Apex Predator- Malus Deus, for a band / album name?
*Looked it up. "Apex Predator' is already taken. Malus Deus is also a band.
I wonder if there is any negative term or word in existence for which there isn't a metal band named after it. Could we coin a law for this phenomenon? — Yohan

Well, I'm not exactly an expert on naming although I'm fascinated by named effect/laws/rules/principles. Perhaps we could call the phenomenon you mentioned (metal bands & their immorally-charged names) Yohan's Law of Metal Band Names, after you the discoverer.

endtroduced is the endonym; outtroduced is the exonym. — Changeling

I'll have to look that up! Gracias.

First let me confess I don't fully understand what you'rr trying to get at.

That outta the way, my understanding of the multiverse, why it was posited, involves the resloution of the contradiction Schrödinger's cat being both dead and alive. An additional universe is necessary so that in one the cat is alive and in the other it is dead. An ingenious solution if you ask me. Philosophers can learn a thing or two from quantum physicists. Imagine this hypothetical solution for the liar's paradox, paradoxes in general: In one universe it's true and in another universe it's false, never is it true and false in one universe. The same applies to all true paradoxes (contradictions) i.e. a new universe is spawned to accommodate them; necessarily so in my humble opinion. Intriguing, oui monsieur?

:up:

"Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ. Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ". - Kierkegaard — Dermot Griffin

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Me: Most unfortunate.

What made kierkegaard suspicious I wonder? He saw something was not quite right in the accounts of Jesus' deeds & words in scriptures. He's, sadly/not, quite dead.

"The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity with a dash of sugar. In every way it has come to this – that what one now calls Christianity is precisely what Christ came to abolish." — Dermot Griffin

:sad:

All fires, no matter how vast or how intense, will go out in due course of time. The Christianity of today maybe the dying embers of a once magnificent flame that lit up the world. A passing fad, that's what everything is - they're all the rage one day and just a has-been the next. Fashion, metaphorically speaking.

Panta rhei. — Heraclitus

Nevertheless, Christianity seems to be going strong, it is the largest religious denomination in the world. Part of the reason why could be that it has adapted to the times and has become "the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity with a dash of sugar." Felix culpa (the fall saves).

God moves in a mysterious way. — William Cowper

I know! Keep screaming till someone hears ya!

endtroduced — Changeling

outtroduced? :chin:

Like always, c'est la vie, we're presented with a dilemma.

If you want it free expect your children to be exposed to all the muck there is in the world.

If you have to pay (taxes), it's an added financial burden which parents wouldn't want to bear. Children could be deprived of the benefits of the information age.

Perhaps via media is a workable solution to the problem - a tax alright but one that 99% of the population would be ok with. We would then be able to ensure quality content at fees that are reasonable.

No such thing as a free lunch, si? Too, I've seen people go :brow: when someone tells 'em "it's FREE OF CHARGE!" Alarm bells ring and for good reason to my reckoning. Scams are usually deals too good to be true and there's nothing gooder than free. Intriguingly, gifts are a part of our lives, no one's suspicious about gifts (pace the Trojans post-Trojan Horse).

Danke Real Gone Cat. I do need to take some good quality math lessons. I've got some books on my reading list, but alas, time is not on my side mon ami, time is not on my side.

I like the patterns you found. They're natural extensions of numerical operations on numbers and they are kinda sorta right. Kudos to you for that.

P. S. Does that mean 0 and $\infty$ aren't numbers like 1, 3, 2938, 10¹⁰⁰?

If we know that p is false then we know that not-p is true. — Michael

:blush: Missed that ... in my haste. However ... if p is known to be false, ~p is true isn't enough in all cases. For example if the theory of relativity is falsified (proven false via some hypothetical observation), what exactly is not Theory of Relativity? :chin:

That said, In the case of propositions like god exists, knowing that it is false indeed means the contradictory, god doesn't exist is true.

So we now have a method of determining truth, oui monsieur?

For any proposition p, assume p and check if it entails a contradiction. If it does, p is false i.e. ~p is true. Interesting to say the least.

We now have a definition of what true means: if ~p entails a contradiction, p is true.

Muchas gracias. is there anything else you wanna add to this?

Choices.

1. God is necessary for ethics

Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là (I had no need for that hypothesis). — Pierre-Simon Laplace

God is unnecessary because God commands what is good (ethics is independent of God)

2. God is desirable for ethics

if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.. — Mikhail Bakunin

God is undesirable because good is what God commands (ethics is arbitrary and good is but a whim and fancy of God)

Siddhartha Gautama's Buddhism makes no mention of gods and if it does only so in not-so-endearing terms, demoting them to lesser beings still subject to the rules/laws/conditions of samsara which is to say even gods experience dukkha.

As regards how contradictions trivialize the meaning of true (re ex contradictione sequitur quodlibet aka the principle of explosion).

True stands in contradistinction to false, the concepts being specifically designed to categorize propositions, perhaps with the intention of separating wheat from chaff. So if every proposition is true, we can no longer do that; in short truth/falsity lose their utility as proposition-classifying properties,

A proposition p is true only if p doesn't entail a contradiction. Conversely, if a proposition p entails a contradiction, p is false. We can only know what is false; truth, on this view, is indeterminable. Falsifiability/testability (re Karl Popper). :chin:

Material Implication (abbrev. Imp)

p $\to$ q :: ~p v q

Commutation (abbrev. Comm)

p & q :: q & p

p v q :: q v p

Distribution (abbrev. Dist)

p & (q v r) :: (p & q) v (p & r)

p v (q & r) :: (p v q) & (p v r)

Association (abbrev. Assoc)

p v (q v r) :: (p v q) v r

p & (q & r) :: p & (q & r)

Double Negation

p :: ~~p

You can keep asking "why" forever. — Yohan

Indeed, that's what I'm working on in my spare time and when I remember to. Nothing to report though.

So nature as AI? — Yohan

Self-organizing entities, I believe it's one of the items on AI engineer's wish list.

A pragmatist vs one who enjoys poking holes in others arguments? — Yohan

What do you know, a Rorschach test of my own! :smile:

True. But then the KEY to wisdom cannot be the same key to foolishness, can it?
Rationality leads to technical truths which can be used for good or ill. Technical truth is not wisdom. — Yohan

Maybe the secret is in the way we use it, whatever it is. There's a reason why one of the greatest philosophies to come out of the East is all about the Tao (translated as "way" by some but not all). Rejecting it can mean the difference between pain and a whole lotta pain. :snicker:

:smile: