Corvus practicing electric guitar

How's the guitar play? :smile: — Hillary

It is good fun. I like practicing it because it is a discipline that I can absorb my mind into it, and aim to improve. I like the tone of the guitars - guitars can have all sort of different voices depending on what genre of music you like to play to, and there is a universe in guitar finger boards - countless combination of melodies, riffs and chords that make up tunes in the little board with the frets.

I will try to put some of my guitar practice video links in the lounge forum. :)

Yes. The clock to capture time with, is a human invention. But time itself, the irreversible natural processes flow from less to more global entropy (with local reduction as on Earth). Aint processes flowing? The question is though, why not from future to past? — Hillary

Why not from future to past? Because it doesn't exist. Time is just illusion. All there is, is just human memory. If every human died today, then tomorrow there would be no time. Just silence and nothing. I
think it is what Kant said too - about time.

Space and time is nothing but a form of human intuition according to Kant. I think he is correct.

So COVID had it's good sides as well! :smile:

I'm not sure why you think time doesn't exist so can't move either. Doesn't the Sun shine longer in the summer (in the northern hemisphere) than in winter? Doesn't the clock show, say, 8 hours in winter and 16 in summer (with or without clouds)? — Hillary

Yeah, every cloud has sliver lining as they say. :)

The Sun shines longer in the summer than in winter, because of the the angle of the Earth changing on its rotation to the Sun. That is not time itself. That is just a phenomenon resulted from the physical structure of the planet Earth's motion and the Sun light.

Human perception notices it, and postulated time from the phenomenon. They even contracted lets say 1 year is the Earth's rotation around the Sun to the exact spot, and they went on diving a year into 12 months, and month to 28 - 31 days, and a day to 24 hours etc. Time is a human invention. It is just a contract on durations and intervals.

To make that statement, one must be already living. Because one is living, the part of the statement saying "to never exist" becomes just a supposition or wishful thinking. The living is reality, and non existence is a supposition. Is reality better or more meaningful than the emotional supposition?

Thank you for remembering me :) These days I have been in the house for working, reading and practice guitar playing etc. So it is now a lot more flexible time thanks to COVID.

I feel the motion of planets around the Sun, and Sun rise and sets are just means to postulate time, but they are not time themselves. Their motions are just intervals - intervals which are regular, hence human perception can rely on it for measuring duration of all other things. But time itself, I feel is an illusion, which does not exist, and it certainly has no direction, therefore no movement at all.

I dont think time is flowing. The hands of the clock move though. So motion is time. Periodic motion is the clock, irreversible motion what it measures and quantifies. — Hillary

I don't think time is flowing either, and it is not motion. Motion is not time. Motion is just motion.

But how then can particles move towards each other or repulse each other. If there is no time they can't move. — Hillary

I don't see any logical connection between time and particles or whatever moving. What is your basis for the postulation on the two? Things used to move without your imagination or postulation of time when you were a child, do you recall that? Now you are postulating time for the movement, because you have read something on time, and imagining that it is flowing or moving forward.

Time doesn't exist. It is just human psychological awareness of intervals on durations and moments in memories. No humans, no time.

Omnipotence means all powerful. There's no dispute about that. — Bartricks

Omnipotence means the quality of having unlimited or very great power. No problem with very great power, but "unlimited power" is associated with God usually, and creates all sorts of paradoxes when used under the definition.

Or could it be that the word "omnipotence" is an invented terminology from human imagination?

My simple answer is: An omnipotent being could just as easily reside in paradoxical states as it can reside in coherent states. The problem here is that human logic is applied. For an omnipotent being, it makes no difference whether something is possible or impossible - in fact it would be the very thing that decides over such things. — Hermeticus

Outwith human logic is the world of imagination, fantasies and conjectures. One can then write poetry, novels, and shoot movies.

All you’re logically entitled to say, in this particular case, is....the thing in front of you is a monitor. Anything else is superfluous, or wrong. Wrong here meaning claims for which the justifications are suspect. — Mww

I feel what Kant wanted was to draw limitation on our capacity of knowing. What we see and know is perfectly doable for our daily life. But to go deeper asking what is behind in the external world, we hit the walls of TII.

It doesn’t, truth being nothing but a human epistemological cognition a priori, whereas the thing as it is in itself, is merely a necessary ontological condition of that thing, a posteriori. — Mww

Not that difficult, really: for any representation of a thing met with in experience, there is that very same thing-in-itself that isn’t. If not, then representation itself is sufficient empirical causality for things, which is catastrophically absurd. — Mww

I was under impression that the Neo Kantians and Phenomenologists had rejected TII (Thing-in-Itself) and the necessary ontological condition saying, we don't need all that abstract shells. When I see the monitor in front of me, it is a monitor itself, and that is all I need to know nothing more or less. Everything perceived is the reality itself. There is no need adding for TII or ontological condition etc in reality.

I wouldn’t agree he had to postulate it; it falls out necessarily from a logical/representational cognitive system, under the assumption, of course, that the human system is that. — Mww

Not sure if thing-in-itself was from a logical cognitive system at all, because when you say "logical", it implies a system dealing with / related to truth and falsity.

It seems hard to imagine, Thing-in-Itself can have anything to do with truth or falsity at all. It is not a logical system, nor something fell out of logical cognitive system, but rather - something that is, mystical and unknowable in nature.

If something is unknowable, how could it fall out from logical system, and what significance representational cognitive system has for understanding what it is?

:up: :100:

In my teens I had been a pupil in the American High School in Jakarta Indonesia, when my father used to work in Indonesia.  It was a really good time and experience for me at the time.  Although my English capability was almost zero the first year when I got in there, then I was able to catch up pretty quickly, and do well.  I think that school is still existent in Jakarta.  It used to be called Joint Embassy School of Jakarta, or just JES.  Now maybe the name seems to have been changed to something else.

I recall my English class studying for Dickens and Shakespeare on my 9th grade classes, and the teacher Mrs Murphy. I understood almost nothing what was going on in the class.
And the Physics teacher (forgot his name), and a few Math teachers who were absolute great, and a Dutch teacher who taught us Special English to non English mother tongue pupils such as Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean and Polish pupils.  

I think the kindness and brilliance of teachings of those American teachers made me to love America and everything about the country at the time.

And the PE class was always about playing baseball, or softball, and sometimes soccer games.
Many pupils there were from different countries, but the majority of pupils were from USA mainland whose parents were working in the oil companies or for the government, and the education system and majority of teachers were the Americans from the USA schools. 

After the USA pupils, the next majority pupils in the school were the Australians because Australia is very near from Indonesia, and they seem to had been a lot of business between the two countries, and many of them were living in Jakarta.

Since that time, I was really fond of American culture, people and the education system, and really everything.  I used to have some really good American friends at the time.

I used to believe and imagine the USA would be a great place to work and live.  And many of my relatives immigrated to the USA too. I really believed that I would be living there too, but with the unexpected world events and recent pandemic times, and the media report, my belief in the USA has changed a lot, to a more negative, remote and just possible world.

I don't know much about the USA politics, so I cannot comment on it. But I do hope that things will improve and get better for the USA and the whole world in the future.

USA to me now is a possible world, i.e. a world of my imagination, beliefs and possibilities. It is no longer a world of reality. :D

Yeah......sorta like that thread asking, “how does a fact establish itself as knowledge”.

(Sigh) — Mww

I kind of can understand why Kant had to postulate Thing-in-Itself.

I applied for an US citizenship to live and work in there on 2001, end of August. The 911 erupted in less than 2 weeks of my application. Due to the tragic event, my application process by the US immigration dept. had been delayed and delayed, and it got through on 2009. By this time I was busy working in Europe and also Korea, and well settled. So my emigration plan to USA was just out of question at the time.

I left the citizenship process, which involved going for interviews and filling some forms via the lawyers to expire as I was no longer interested in working and living in USA.

If there were no 911, then I would have been living in somewhere in USA (very likely in the state of Florida where my relatives reside), as your fellow citizen. :)

A typical case of world events affect individual's life and fate.

An observer is needed in order to make an observation.

Reality doesn't care if you are looking or not. — Banno

It sounds like you are treating reality as a conscious being.

Yes. Very cartesian. — Caldwell

I think I think so.

Before I used to believe the USA is a great nation with exemplary democracy, politics, strong economy and power. However with the recent event of Corona pandemics and the government changes, my beliefs on the USA have changed a lot. Mind you, I am not the right person to say anything about USA issues, as I said earlier, the total amount of time I have visited and stayed in the USA is maybe about a couple of months as a tourist.

Before I used to like the USA so much, I even wanted to emigrate, work and live there. But recently I was so glad that I was not in the USA. So, I must admit the recent news media reports about the USA has changed my views and beliefs on the USA tremendously.

I don't believe that the USA is a safe and good society to live anymore. Maybe they are not as powerful as I used to believe. The society has deep and bitter divisions just like any other societies and nations in modern times. The divide between the rich and poor is utterly severe, and they don't have a good healthcare system for the middle class or poor people. To see a doctor, maybe one needs very expensive private health insurance, and even then if one needs complicated treatment in the hospital it could cost arm and leg for the treatment having to be paid by selling home and all the life savings if one had any.

And then there are many other issues that I can never understand with the country such as gun ownership issues and the acute violence problems in the society. And in military power, it is supposed to be a superpower, but the way they exited from Afghanistan and the other countries once they had stepped in, without any resolutions as if they were retreating after losing the battle as if they were scared, and running away from them.

So, all these recent events contributed to changing my beliefs on the USA I suppose. But again, I don't trust my belief 100% on anything being a sceptic and agnostic most times.

It would be like, I am believing what an elephant is like, without ever having seen one in my life. All I know is, I know nothing as Socrates said, and my beliefs could be just groundless fuzz illusion. One thing for sure is that the beliefs are formed autonomously within me by the media propaganda. I keep telling myself, I should not trust the media reports 100%.

Anyway, I thank you, and I feel privileged having been able to discuss the issues with you, who I guess, is a native American citizen born and bred in the country for all your life.

For example, I could imagine a blue balloon and a red balloon and know for sure that one of the differences in type is color. It would be wrong of me to say I could imagine these two balloons have the same color. So as you can see, you can still draw logical conclusions from even imaginary scenarios. -The very fact that you can imagine it shows that it's concurrent with the concept of a characteristic or type. — Yun Jae Jung

That sounds like epistemic or psychological conclusion based on your perception. Logical conclusion involves premises, arguments. One can say that they are different colour without being illogical because the statement / judgement is based on one's sensory perception rather than analytic reasoning.

Thoughts? Flaws? -Yes, I know where babies come from but maybe physicality alone can't create self-awareness and there's a magical man that puts souls in objects. — Yun Jae Jung

Souls? - isn't it rather ancient religious or mystic tone rather than modern philosophy of mind?

I thought the Trump time had passed, and it is a new era for the USA with the new president and new government. Are you still under the influence of the old government? Perhaps it is a historical issue and difference in beliefs which had been dormant for many years in the past within the society and nation? But then which society or nation is 100% unified with one idea and opinion in modern times?

:100: :up:

Sure. But for the rest of the humanity outside Australia, and the ones who has never been in the country like me, the media reports are the only source of information, and they play major role in forming consensus about the country. :)

I will remain to be a sceptic of course.

This channel is quite left wing and also popular. It was talking about Australia in the same tune as the NC channel. After all what we can have on most of the worldly topics are vague beliefs, not verified true beliefs.

In my case, it has to be inductive reasoning. I have seen hundreds of youtube videos about apocalypse predictions. But none of them were true.

Back in the days when Trump was a US president, there were hundreds videos on North Korea and US engaging in war, giving all possible reasons, scenarios and even with the timings of the war breaking out. None of them were true.

Because none of them had been true in the past, I believe most of the youtube videos are lies and comedies for quick money making scheme of the youtubers.

I should actually only be following and watching Philosophical debates videos.

I hold the similar view. I have my own ground for the belief. What is yours?

You have made clear that even if you have been in Australia for all your life, you don't know it all. So what is the basis for your belief that the current media reports about the country are false?

It does not prove anything for now. But you see, they are contributing in forming the beliefs, not knowledge, but beliefs :)

The source of information is important. I personally would be unlikely to accept anything by Nomad Capitalist. :wink: — Tom Storm

There have been many reports of the similar content about Australia. NC is just one of the hundreds, and is the most conservative view from the rest.

Not sure how accurate these reports are from the media. But we keep seeing the similar reports more often recently than any other time in the past.