I wouldn't try to tease this one out. Not necessarily a comment about 180, but these types of political discussions are basically snowballs. No one keeps track of their claims, everyone just ends up yelling at each other and nothing is achieved.

I initially expected better of this type of forum, but politics gonna politic i guess. Twitter nonsense is inescapable when its political talk.

I'm happy with that. Couple of hours either side works for me too!

There is absolutely no evidence the fact of life conforms to those criteria (which are a paradigm, and not infallible). NA is trying to work with those facts, best I can tell.

I agree. Pretending that everything will eventually fit a certain, current, descriptive paradigm probably isn't a good idea. THe emergence of Life is inexplicable in terms of what we know about physical systems. That does not mean it wont fit into that framework either. But currently, is not explained by it.

Yes?

I think its possible you're just not being honest here. I'm going to leave it, but suffice to say I'm of the opinion you are defending something no one really takes seriously.

Maybe we'll need to agree to disagree, but Harris has never said anything particularly note-worthy on this front to my mind. O'Connor bites many bullets Harris is clearly afraid of biting due to his political commitments. O'Connor has no such reputation to maintain.

I have seen the entire interview - I follow O'Connor quite closely these days. I think he was the quiet winner here. Harris continues to not address the holes in his theories (i.e what I put forward above) and just runs with them as if he hadn't made those initial leaps. And nothing in this supports his position beyond that, imo.

That definitely sounds like Peterson's kind of leap-frog conclusion. Which sucks - despite probably inviting the Hoardes, I think Peterson is great as a psychologist. The above proposition is a good one. I wasn't knocking either writer.

But I strongly dislike Nietzsche and have grown to really pity Peterson so *shrug*

Does anyone have perspective of it or an alternative theory? I am open to a natural explanation for life's origin, I'm just not sure an account can be given in natural terms without any miraculous occurrences. — NotAristotle

I think this is true. We cannot point at life. We can't point to the button, switch, mechanism etc.. that causes or in which consists, life. We must, given current facts, accept two scenarios:

1. We don't have all the facts, despite our attempts and we will (or not, i suppose) discover an empirical state of affairs that covers one of the two above (cause/consists in); or
2. Life comes from the non-physical - whether than be an emergence-type of thing (clearly, a force such as a life 'arising' from complexity in already-existing physical matter is not further physical matter to be discussed physically).

*shrug*.

Swoooooooning.

Which is what (in my opinion) a lot of Friedrich Nietzsche's writings are ultimately directing the readership to do, grow. — Bret Bernhoft

Sounds like Jordan Peterson.

I think Sam does a typically bad job of grouping his emotional position - that human well-being, on his account, is an objective basis for Morality.

Even in the video above, Alex doesn't push back on the idea that a world whcih has less suffering that the sum optimal suffering of all beings would be better....

But that's literally Sam's position on 'better'. It begs the question. If you give hiim the one free miracle all moralists need, he's away to the races and much faster and more accurate than the vast majority of thinking on the subject. But, it's still just his pet. There's nothing objective about 'assessing' something for a 'yes/no' action matrix. S is the source and the destination.

Are Chet and Kizzy the same guy responding to each other? Constant conjunction and all that...

There seem to be many critiques 2,, 3. and 4.

I've not fully vetted these sources.

Junkies do opt out when they have sufficient reason. I've done so.

And it is the opposite of suicide. You just have to dress up the same for both occasions.

One could easily conclude that the stutterer ought to navigate himself to silent professions or professions that involve minimal speaking. — BitconnectCarlos

I think that's a little far, But i'm, generally, with you.

But such pragmatism is ultimately stifling. — BitconnectCarlos

This seems to be a Universal consideration not derived from, or even best embodied in the Bible. It is probably best embodied in Shamanism. "..From each.." and all that. Your point is not missed, but It is absolutely irrationally bandied imo - but this goes to our 'grey area' elsewhere mentioned.

Think about you would deal with a son who stutters chronically. Should he shy away from speaking roles? Leadership positions? — BitconnectCarlos

I would recommend, unless it was his deep desire to speak publicly, to avoid it, yes. It would be odd to think someone incapable of clear, anxiolytical speech, should be encouraged to endure that suffering because it would make someone else feel a bit better about their moral position (this speaks to the other point about disabilities being preclusive in some cases). Mendable, or flexible, or progressive disabilities are a bit different because across time we need differing approaches to the same individual. But, realistic ones at all points. Stuttering, being one. If you need six weeks of speech therapy, apply for the job in six weeks.

It's not always clear where the line is though. Is the stutterer disabled or differently abled? Yes, natural limits exist but we should test them. Strive for better. That is how we uplift. "On Earth as it is in heaven." — BitconnectCarlos

That much is true, but the person with the disability should be encouraged to be realistic and not strive for something ultimately unattainable. Stuttering being a really bad example of the concept is one reason the story isn't great. It's soft as heck, in that regard. Try someone who is heavily dyslexic wanting to be a public record scribe. If you are not capable of adequately reading large amounts of complex text, you are disabled as regards a job that requires it. Nothing moral about it. Facts. But this should be borne out by hte individual. I would think allowing disabled people to choose their own work was morally good, but it allows for the disappointment above - particularly mental disabilities. You're talking about eccentricities, so far. And no one in Heaven is disabled.

I would recommend reading it with commentary and consider that most public copies are Christian-biased and problematic translations. I don't know which version you've read. You've read the entire thing? — BitconnectCarlos

In multiple versions, multiple times since the age of 7 when I first attended a few Sunday School sessions with friend's families. I tend to take commentaries more seriously - These are the people who claim to use the book. They are the ones I care about hte actions of. Not the fictitious weirdos in the book.

I certainly don't think scripture is trash. Some are better written than others though. You do know that the English translations are just translations. — BitconnectCarlos

Agreed. Do you ream Aramaic, or ancient Greek? Demotic? I've never seen a version, translated by anyone, that wasn't liable to the same criticisms.

Still an amazing work of lit. — BitconnectCarlos

I see.

Or perhaps humans have only ever mistakenly believed that they themselves, or anyone else, has communicated with God. — wonderer1

"Or they're... talking to themselves" - Metatron

Heh. They nearly got it right

Why are you talking to a non-existent audience in a performative act reminiscent of a broody 15 year old?

And further, why have you taken Twitter speak "Oh look, ..." and imported it to a comment where you apparently denigrate Twitter trolls? Bizarre.

I'd have takenthe advice.

I'm with it!

If you guys can throw out a date, I'll set another one up and hang out for longer.

My suggestion is to grow out of being a broody 15 year old. Might be taken seriously.

Ill take that rent now.

In Exodus 4 God deliberately assigns a man with a speech disability the task of talking with the Egyptian head of state and leading a nation. You see, in the Enki and Ninmah account the man with the speech problem would have been assigned a silent profession. But no, not here. God gets infuriated with Moses's insinuation that he should not lead on account of his disability but instead of punishing Moses while burning with anger he helps him by assigning him his brother as an aid. The story not only affirms the dignity of the disabled by affirming that they were created with divine intentionality, but also conveys that those who struggle are not intrinsically barred from certain elite professions like leadership. S tier. Divine revelation. — BitconnectCarlos

I have to say, I find absolutely nothing praise worthy in this story. It seems like weirdo childish moralising about things that don't make a huge amount of sense - and works, only in the infantalising context of a pre-school. The underlined, particularly require a certain type of suspension of other faculties I value, to make a lot of. But, this is a religious commitment. I wont have that avenue open, as you do (though, i comment again on that immediately below haha).

the ending where not even Ninmah can help the very disabled is a little sad. — BitconnectCarlos

It is realistic. Some people are disabled. Not differently-abled. The blind cannot be surveyors (the the typical sense - don't get hair-splitty).

By the way I am not particularly religious (it's been years since I've attended services), just a reader of books. I just call it as I see it. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure. And i appreciate that. I'm actually probably, for a non-religious person, much more toward valuing religious text than most atheists (though, I am necessarily agnostic. Atheism fits perfectly too and reaches wider). But, I would posit that to come to the conclusions you have, there need be a resistance to, at least some of, the objections leveled at the Bible as a piece of literature. As noted before, I see several extremely obvious and pervasive literary problems with the Bible. It isn't a good work of literature unless it's got some Religious reality to it. IN that sense, its chaotic and self-contradictory tense is actually helping me take it more seriously. If there were not these aspects, it would be clearly the writings of a iron age buffoon.

Even if so, God is the cause of the everything, which includes our thoughts and imagination. I'd settle for "divinely inspired." — BitconnectCarlos

So, as noted, the entire basis for your reasoning is avoiding hte possiblity that these facts make the potential reality of God less likely. If the scriptures are trash, why would you continue the belief? But its too hard to lose. So, apparently, the scriptures aren't trash. That seems to be the reasoning. I suppose, I could here ask:

Imagine God is not the source of anything prior to human cognition. It is an invention. THe bible is written by hand of Human, sourced by the Mind of human.

Is it still the perfect piece of Lit?

You're very welcome. I quite enjoy these historical oddities.

I honestly don't see any basis that a Biden administration would likely be better than a Trump administration — boethius

There isn't one.

You could have not made your comment. But you did.

I shall collect the rent next time.

I don't understand how God communicating through dreams "flies in the face" of his nature. — BitconnectCarlos

It doesn't, so that's a reasonable response. But you have (imo, wilfully) misread the point. God communicating in any way that cannot be teased out from an hallucination or dream proper would. God is not taken to be hiding and fucking with us, on any account other than Bill Hicks'. But again, not my main point.

Genesis informs us that it is in his nature to communicate through dreams. — BitconnectCarlos

Given the preceding exchanges, this feels like a cop-out. ITs clearly my position that Genesis doesn't inform us of much, if anything. So you're pushing hte rock uphill with this claim. That you rely on Genesis to support that which, elsewhere, is not supported, speaks to my point.

unless you've had some personal experience you'd like to share — BitconnectCarlos

Plenty. But they are drug, or mental-illness-induced for the most part. Also, to my point.

I'm massively impressed by the sophistication of an account of a phenomena/how to frame it. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure. But the reason to think it has some providence other than a human mind? Your discomfort with the potential that a human mind invented it. Standard. But not reasonable.

Show me a better literary account of disability than the one presented in Exodus — BitconnectCarlos

"better" begs the question, by ignoring it. why? Because you are religious and therefore disposed to this opinion. I personally think Enki and Ninmah is a better story.

I would figure the Bible is the greatest work of literature... at least western literature, that exists. I know of no better ancient account of disability. — BitconnectCarlos

This explains a lot, but gives me no reason to think your opinions relies on anything but discomfort with the counterfactual: It is not. It is inconsistent, Morally reprehensible, the source of untold suffering across thousands of years, stokes and encourages division, hatred and violence (which it does - Lets not pick and choose. It does. ), it is extremely badly written in terms of chronology, grammatical consistency, ideological consistency and form.

So, I am disposed to ignore the Bible in lieu of better writing, in your specific type of example. :)

On the contrary, Scripture (Genesis for sure, possibly Exodus?) does very clearly describe God as communicating through dreams. It is characteristic of the Elohist source (E). — BitconnectCarlos

I don't think you're adequately engaged with this exchange.
This does not say anything, whatever, about the claim quoted. That said, I appreciate what you are saying there and would further that point, to say when it runs into empirical problems, there's no good reason to remain with the Scripture.

I don't need to. If God communicates through dreams he can also communicate through what we'd call hallucinations. I'd wager hallucination is more likely than aliens. Ezekiel surely hallucinated and saw visions. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes. And there's good reason to think Ezekiel was schizophrenic.

This goes directly to my point. There is absolutely no reason to even consider the possibility of 'divine intervention' unless one, arbitrarily, isn't comfortable with the Hebrew Patriarchs being mentally ill, but well-meaning.

Story doesn't mean false. Neither does myth. It may be embellished. I admit this is where my intuition kicks in. The story, imho, is just too sophisticated to have been written by ancient man inventing something. — BitconnectCarlos

Generally, historically speaking, it does. The Bolded is basically what I was trying to tease out. This all boils down to your personal discomfort with something.

It is superior to any modern treatment of the issue in literature or film that I know of. — BitconnectCarlos

Given we have more complex, more morally interesting stories from older periods than the Biblical, I cannot see how its reasonable - which was all I was speaking about/around. Regarding current moral writing, I cannot understand how it's possible this story strikes you with more import than does say Reasons and Persons, or Animal Suffering. Warm fuzzie feelies?

I think it would be a relatively short thread, for my part.

I am fine being in the experience machine.

I think I am pretty much on this same wavelength. None of it matters, ultimately. But its all a lot of fun!

How do we differentiate between hallucination or spontaneous mystical experience and God? Could God not speak through those means? He's described as communicating through dreams. It's silly to ask for "evidence" here because no one knows what that means. What would qualify as evidence? Could you give me some examples? Some criterion? — BitconnectCarlos

I think you're missing the specific point i'm making here, which accepts your criticism of what's being asked.

I agree, if God was termed to speak through dreams, they would be, essentially, indistinguishable phenomena. But then, that flies in the face of the nature of God. I think we can appeal to the traditions/texts themselves to write off certain suggestions. But, this is hte not the point i'm making.

The point i'm making, is that:

Could be aliens. Or we could be hallucinating.
— BitconnectCarlos

There is better evidence for these two, than the Bible story. Delusion and spontaneous mystical experience also. — AmadeusD

The only reason to move on from these suggestions and either propose 1) a totally different explanation, for which we do not have evidence; or
2) Increase the above hypotheses in the way you have done (adding divine sourcing) is unreasonable. THe theories, and their exploration, do not require, invoke or hint at the divinity you're adding to it. This isn't even a point about probability (though, given my initial response around using the text to deduce probabilities still stands strong, it could be an additional one). It's about the sheer unreasonableness of just saying "I don't like that; i'll seek a different truth".

I respond in the proceeding way to elicit response, not to give my view, necessarily:

how do we understand/frame disability? Such content is revealed to Moses and has deep repercussions. — BitconnectCarlos

I do not think it has any repercussions, as I do not believe (and do not believe it reasonable to believe) that it ever happened. How we understand disability is as much an empirical discussion as it is a 'moral' one. What to do about it is another discussion. And here, I would posit, you run into your discomfort and so require a truth other than the following:

"What we do about disabilities and disabled people, such as they are, is something on each individual to find within themselves, and on society to merely represent the former in aggregate".

So, if that's uncomfortable, or looks like it might result in something emotionally difficult for you, you need another 'truth'. That might be one 'revealed to Moses'. But it is a story, like any other. I just don't understand foregoing reason to achieve comfort. I have this aversion to discussion around Psychedelics and their purported effects. May we can come to terms by analogizing..

But for better or for worse, we are made by our relationships with other people -- parents and siblings first, then peers, teachers, neighbors, gangs, acquaintances, partners, lovers, etc. — BC

While it's probably impossible to reject the underlying idea (that relationships are unavoidable, and carry meaning even if we ignore it) I don't think they 'make' us, any more than our biology does. Which is to say, a lot. LMAO.

I wasn't aware the Ten Commandments had changed. What do they say now? — Ciceronianus

Around the end of the second century, apparently.

There are other ways these things have changed over time, also.

Because such truths — BitconnectCarlos

Ah, this sort of begs the question. I'm wondering how you get 'truth', given your motivation is not seeking truth, but avoiding uncomfortable utterances.

an answer must be chosen — BitconnectCarlos

This being clearly false, is motivation for my enquiry, largely. One need not chose and answer to any of these existential questions to properly participate in the world.

Could be aliens. Or we could be hallucinating. — BitconnectCarlos

There is better evidence for these two, than the Bible story. Delusion and spontaneous mystical experience also. Kind of the point. Your motivation for rejecting these (not this specifically, but as a mode of illustrating the short-fall of reason), more reasonable, conclusions, is that they are uncomfortable to you, or you would rather another answer.
That seems to me, to be unreasonable.

I do too. But for me that "afterlife" does not include my ego--the Subject,"I"--nor any of its Narrative. So, admittedly this is that ego taliking: thanks but no thanks. — ENOAH

Yes, that's the part that is 'rub'-y. Harris (Sam) put its well - how is it possible that a decaying mind(dementia) that no longer recognises one's children suddenly departs from the body, in tact as at some random point in the past.
It's not coherent, to me. But again, I'm unsure that identity extends beyond the fact of the vessel. Consciousness doesn't, on it's face, consist in memories, so I see no reason to have them at-base.

I feel you brother! — ENOAH

It's a hard go, this lifetime :D

Despite the evidence? I don't see where evidence factors into it. Did God speak to Moses? Are we to consider the evidence for and against such a claim? — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, we are. But that wasn't quite my point. My point was that the motivational factor seems to stem from merely a discomfort with certain answers, regardless of the supportability of alternate views. This seems so with the majority of historical religiosity - 'I don't like that answer, so I'm looking elsewhere, even if that makes no sense'.

What fascinates me about the book is that it reveals certain things that we wouldn't otherwise know or take for granted. It's just my intuition picking things up. I find some of the dialogues to be fascinating. I find some of the parables to be transformative. — BitconnectCarlos

That's fair. I just don't understand why that would be motivation to reject, or accept, any claims. Or, reject good ones that you don't like. Just trying to see if you can pick up that thread in your mode of thinking..

What a horribly bad existence you must lead.
Take acid. Buy a hooker.

And there's the rub. How then? And I am asking sincerely, not argumentative. — ENOAH

FWIW, I read this as a great question, not any kind of dig or gotcha.

Yeah, that is the question (in this context - i also am making this same claim about the lack of necessity for phenomenal consciousness in another thread). I really am unsure. I have many theories around what consciousness might be, or how it might come about which, if any were seriously plausible on the facts (unsure that's a coherent claim in this lane of enquiry) they would give an account that could extend to this question.
So, disappointingly, I don't know!

Conceptually, though, I see absolutely no issue with Consciousness being some more general concept, and 'a mind' being 'bodily bound consciousness' or some such. This-wise, you could imagine bodily death causing the end of that one mind, but not the consciousness. The image that came to mind was a water balloon. That balloon of water is gone. Done and dusted (once burst) but hte water persists. Idk lol

Hmm. Okay, I appreciate you.

I do not think you addressed what i'm saying though. You've restated it.

I need conclusions. We all need to plant our flag somewhere and our own rationality will only get us so far. — BitconnectCarlos

This speaks the same language as what I was enquiring about. Doesn't it make you uncomfortable that a random desire to not be given multiple responses has you committed to certain cosmological 'truths' despite, perhaps, the evidence?

I do not see how something "computing really hard," ever necessitates the emergence of first person subjective experience. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is the thing. The thing. It simply isn't needed, until we can assess why. At what point what a being need phenomenal consciousness? It's an accident, surely. Emergence, in whatever way, on the current 'facts' we know.

I think panpsychism might fall under the heading of a paradigm shift. — Patterner

I think it might present one, in the Nagel sense. I don't quite think it's anything new, generally. Panpsychism the concept has been around millennia.

Fair enough. I guess I'm plumbing the 'I don't want' part of it, which seems a little more personal.
To me, it seems that this wish has informed a huge amount of religiosity - good and bad - without a shred of rationality to it. I wondered if you saw that, in your view, there is a gaping epistemological hole in that respect (not that it's 'wrong' but that there may need to be more to that in justifying such a search for a mono-theistic answer to those questions).

But when you are looking for meaning in this life, you will find it in your relationships with other people. — BC

You can find it many other places, depending on your dispositions. I think it's reasonable to know this, a head of time, so you don't despair if those relationships are unfulfilling. It took me nearly 30 years to find meaningful relationships - and there is no discernable reason for this. Other things fulfilled me.

I think polytheism is inherently more tolerant than monotheism; but personally I don't want plurality when it comes to the big questions of life. — BitconnectCarlos

Do you see a lot of historical baggage in this view?

Given our shared history and shared experiences, these NDE's could be akin to dreams and the appearance of shared symbols or archetypes. Sure, tge testimonials are cross cultural. But if one wished to research it, they might find striking similarities in the ways we dream of witches or falling. Yet we accept that our common dreams about witches do not translate into witches are real. — ENOAH

I agree, and I actually vaguely recall that this is what the research shows regarding some recurrent elements of dreaming, qua human dream, rather htan individual dreams. I think the most likely scenario is something akin to dreaming, which includes an 'extra' psychological component (perhaps, a type of neural networking that only occurs when S is expecting death).

That said, I think the peculiar shared context of NDEs allows us a bit more leeway in terms of moving away from parsimony. The ideas above might explain this phenomenon. But, equally, another explanation would be as likely, given it's a disparate experience from standard dreaming. It doesn't have to include the survival consciousness, per se, but just something which is not a match for the mechanics of dreaming.

Having been interested in this exact topic for more than 20 years, and having done plenty of 'research' into plenty of theories and ideas around it, it seems to me probably untrue that consciousness dies with the individual mind. But that it survives the body is just as perplexing.

aws of nature are descriptive, not prescriptive, and do not imply a conscious lawgiver. The word 'laws' is a distraction. 'Natural regularities' might be a better term. — Tom Storm

:ok:

This is hte perfect place for Hume's 'constant conjunction'.