Pandora's box? Don't want to open that, not now at least - we have enough on our plate, oui monsieur? The darkness isn't one problem everyone has to tackle together - in my experience it's personalized to each individual and we as individuals face our own couture darkness every day. I applaud that - many don't make it but some do and hats off to both the fallen and the victorious!

historical legacies — 180 Proof

:up: It takes more the one generation for a family to find its niche in society. Any mishaps along the way and it's back to square one. That said it isn't such a good idea to constantly harp on the "historical legacies" of the races - that white folks had it good and the other races didn't. Sapiens qui prospicit (wise is he who looks ahead). That doesn't mean blacks & other races weren't dealt a bad hand - to think so would be akin to denying the holocaust.

Did you lean on the keyboard? — Bartricks

:lol: I wish! I dunno where the other monkeys are? :grin:

Actual things. Crikey. Look, the idea of there being a terrible place is really not hard to grasp.
If death takes you to it, then that would make sense of what our reason tells us about death's harmfulness to us. If, by contrast, you suppose death ceases our existence then you have to account for its harmfulness by citing ante-mortem harms. — Bartricks

Incidit in scyllam cupiens vitare charybdim.

I sort of agree with that, at least insofar as it expands choices. But one can act freely without having any more than two options really. Because that way you could have chosen otherwise. — ToothyMaw

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Wasn't I talking about something else though?

You willl never find a proof for the pattens of relationship that matter most in our lives, since they are designed not to replicate static facts , but as channels for anticipating and organizing dynamically changing aspects of the world — Joshs

Gracias for the warning but as they say "never say never ... "

There's this natural rate at which chemical reactions take place e.g. 10 mg of H₂O per minute₂. Catalysts, the right one, can speed reactions up. Suppose with the aid of a catalyst we now get 30 mg of H₂O per minute₂. A 3-fold increase in water production and what blows my mind is this: 1 minute₂ = 3 minute₁. Time dilation?

"There's no time like the present". — Gnomon

:up: Merci.

Let's discuss the binary yin-yang aspect of your theory if you don't mind. According to skepticism, pragmata (issues, topics, etc.) are adiaphora (logically undifferentiated) and for that reason both thesis & antithesis exist as part of our lives, which is true is anepikrita (undecidable). In other words in the ideaverse at least the yin-yang state of affairs is not because we possess information but because we lack information to help us determine the truth. What sayest thou?

:ok:

don't know. — Yohan

I'm in good company then; I hope you feel the same way!

Nothing isn't harmful. — Bartricks

What is then?

The punchline of this joke of a life we have as in the meaning of life or for our muslim brethren, al-Haqq (the truth)?

That terrible place is nothingness? :chin:

Saltus in demonstrando (leap in explaining).

Definition: A leap in logic, by which a necessary part of an equation is omitted.

I've always had difficulty in distinguishing

1. Isn't true

From

2. I haven't yet found the/a proof

Vide argumentum ad ignorantiam & the divine fallacy (I feel they're relevant somehow).

Can you clarify as to how death leads to postmortem harm? I guess I'm asking why murderers are locked up/sent to the gallows?

I forgot about these $\downarrow$

The near in blood, The nearer bloody. — Donalbain (Macbeth)

Homo homini lupus.

It's ok, all this killing, sacking, raping, etc., it's all in the family!

I saw this TikTok video clip where the voice says "if your brother has never chased you with a knife with murder in his eyes, you've missed an important part of your childhood!"

:snicker:

The desire to be right is stronger (emotionally) than the desire to find & know the truth. In essence ego ante omnia (I before all) [Google translate)

The Boltzmann brain thought experiment suggests that it might be more likely for a single brain to spontaneously form in a void (complete with a memory of having existed in our universe) rather than for the entire universe to come about in the manner cosmologists think it actually did. — Wikipedia

This is all the Boltzmann brain's dream! :snicker:

Shout out to @Wayfarer if you're watching.

Why is that man snickering? — Bitter Crank

Stifled laughter?

In my humble opinion, shamans upgraded themselves to physicists/chemists/doctors/mathematicians/etc. The end is the same (dispense advice/treat illnesses/etc. à la the Delphic oracle) but the means are now different. I already said this on another thread.

:snicker:

Well, I can tell you this: What people applaud/extol - a form of altruism exemplified by a soldier jumping onto a live grenade to save his friends - is a modern, watered down version/milder case of human sacrifice. Intriguing, oui? Altruists, poor chaps!

Now that one could be brain chemistry. It could be something like the depression some women have after giving birth to a child because their hormones get messed up. The news health link explains the possible brain chemical problem — Athena

Indeed, so-called "chemical imbalances" (in the brain) can trigger unusual behavior including but not limited to suicide. However, they, to my reckoning, don't happen spontaneously - there's got to be an (external) cause (depression due to social/financial/romantic/etc. issues).

My interest is solely in suiciders with normal brains.

receive an unsurprising answer. And that itself is suprising. — Yohan

:lol: You're on the right track as far as I can tell. Please report anything that you might find intersting/suprising.

:ok:

Merci beaucoup for the link; I have a feeling I've already bookmarked it on my browser. I'm mostly concerned about so-called unexplained suicides which I define as those suicides that simply don't make sense - no financial issues, no chronic illnesses, no mental disorders, you get the idea. Such people who take their own life do so for no reason at all - someone is at his office, doing his work, and suddenly he says to himself "You know what, I think I'll kill myself; I just feel like it!" and then jumps out the window. These suicides are what I find worthy of further investigation.

Most perceptive of you. Muchas gracias señor, muchas gracias.

P. S. Could we say that things that transform slowly (e.g. words etched in stone, inscriptions you see in archaeology) are in a sense travelling at relativistic speeds (time slows down for them) and a mind-blowing corollary would be the changeless/constant are basically light (timeless)?

So, in principle, an assassin could simply lace a cup of coffee with serotonin and make the victim kill himself? The perfect murder. Let's not go giving killers ideas now, ok?

Interesting puzzle, the Aristotle wheel? What's the solution?

For a mathematician four dimensions simply means one more variable to deal with. A three dimensional cylinder is a circular cylinder extending along the y-axis infinitely in both directions. Its four dimensional counterpart could be written which extends along the mysterious w-axis. Unfortunately, we are unable to see into this fourth dimension, only work with it mathematically. In this example a 3D slice of the 4D figure is a sphere.

Strange things happen when objects are "compressed" down from ND to (N-1)D. Here one sees a series of corrugated "roofs" being squeezed down from wrinkled 3D to a 2D flat square with a bizarre result. — jgill

This is mighty interesting. Algebra can explore other dimensions beyond the 3 we're familiar with and unlike a normal 3D cylinder which we can see in our minds, a n-dimensional (n > 3) is, as of yet, beyond the reach of our imagination. Where it blows my mind is even contradictions (a square circle for example) are inconceivable. Is there something contradictory about dimensions higher than 3?

There are a lot of unexplained suicides. The cops immediately suspect murder but my hunch is that not all of 'em are.

Universeness and I had a discussion on that issue a coupla days ago.

Banned MAYAEL for homophobia. — Jamal

Oddly we don't ban misanthropes; homophobia, misogyny, misandry, etc. are all implied.

being a moderator — Xtrix

Stressful, stressful! Take it easy mods!

Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same. — Buddha (The parable of the poisoned arrow)

This isn't the time to ask silly questions like these, your house (earth) is on fire you idiot!

Death has postmortem harm only to the extent that it deprives the deceased of (pleasurable) experience(s). That said I admit that if it's a case of from the frying pan into the fire death is even more harmful but this is a can of worms which even the OP is unwilling to put up for discussion.

If the OP claims that rationality is a force that negates/limits free will, I'd have to agree but with the proviso that as per some sources it (rationality) also liberates in the sense that if a particular factor that influences our decisions is identified, we can take (logical) steps to counter it (effectively).

Death of Gorbachev at 91


"I don't care to know what happens next." — Olivier5

:up:

Après moi, le déluge. — Louis XV of France

:grin:

Truth is pain(ful). If it were not, we should be happy as happy can be.

:up:

Gimme time to process all that. Ciao!

doxastic voluntarism (the belief you can decide your beliefs) — Hanover

Learned something new today. I owe you one!