I expect the people in the U.S. are surprised at this turn of events, — Punshhh

They shouldn't have been surprised. In his debate with Kamala Harris, he was asked if he wanted Ukraine to win the war. He refused to answer yes/no; he said he just wanted the war to be over.

It appears he will get his wish- Ukraine is likely to surrender much of the territory Russia has seized. A loss for Ukraine is a "win" for the Trump-Putin coalition.

It looks interesting. I'll read it when I get a chance. The bibliography also lists some references that may also be helpful.

What does happen at the neural level when the infant realizes the object, and distinguishes it from the background? — MoK

I imagine it entails pattern recognition: seeing the same image pattern against a relatively constant background. Artificial neural networks learn patterns, and they are considerably simpler that biological neural networks because they lack neuroplasticity (the growing of new neurons and synapses).

So I am wondering how can deterministic processes lead to the realization of options. — MoK

Options that are before us lead us to mentally deliberate to develop a choice. If we could wind the clock back, could we actually have made a different choice? Clearly, if determinism is true, then we could not. But if determinism is false- why think our deliberation would have led to a different outcome? The same mental factors would have been in place.

Do you condone Trump's blatant assault on free speech?

ICE Arrests Columbia Student Who Helped Lead Pro-Palestinian Protests

Trump seems to be conflating "pro-Palestinian" with anti-Semitic. The person in question is Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder, who's pregnant wife is a American citizen.

DHS spokesman, Tricia McLaughlin, alleged he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization” . I suspect the "tie to Hamas" is no more than being pro-Palestinian.

“Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union told CNN’s Boris Sanchez 'there is not a hint of a claim” that Khalil ever worked with Hamas.
The claim is that his opposition to the activities of Israel with regard to the Palestinians are grounds for him to be deported. And that is simply illegal,' Lieberman said. “It’s wrong. And it reeks of McCarthyism.” -- source

It's counter productive to attack CHIPS, because it's purpose was to wean the US of its dependency on China for semiconductor chips. As you said, the only thing "wrong" with it is that it passed under Biden.

Unprecedented political retribution.

In short, if you maintain that if you were to set the entire world state back to what it was before a decision (including every aspect of your mental being, your will, your agency), and then something different might happen... well, maybe something different might happen, but you can't attribute that difference to your will. — flannel jesus

If you set the world back to just before the decision point, all the factors that led to the decision would still be present - even mental factors that may operate independently of the deterministic universe. I don't see how a different decission could ensue- unless it's due to some randomness. Randomness doesn't seem a reasonable basis for libertarian free will.

But all these "laws of physics" are a consequence of the fundamental laws of strings. — Relativist

Correct. — MoK

Great! You at last agree that reductive physicalism is possible.

A stationary electron is a vibrating string, let's call this vibration V1. The string related to a moving electron has another vibration mode due to the motion of the electron, let's call this mode of vibration V2. The Mind experiences both vibrations of the string, V1 and V2, at time t0 and as a result, causes another string at time t1 at a position that is dictated by V2 while keeping V1 the same. The history of the string is held in the subjective time. Its future depends on V2 and the position of the string in the future. So the process of motion of the string is continuous. — MoK

Rewrite this while Incorporating the mind's "vertical causality.

Electrons are distinguishable to the Mind since each electron has a specific location in space. — MoK

OK, that gives a continuity for electrons consistent with a form of perdurantism. But that's a particle, a simple object. Now consider a complex organism, like MoK. There's not a fixed set of particles that comprise comprise you, so you can't base it on particle continuity. I suggest you accept perdurantism for this, instead of essentialism - it would be more consistent.

Within string theory, a string has infinite modes of vibration available. Each mode is related to specific particles and forces, in other words, to specific laws of nature. — MoK

This treats strings as fundamental, consistent with reductive physicalism.

In string theory, any specific vibration of the string is related to a specific particle and force, hence specific laws of physics. — MoK

But all these "laws of physics" are a consequence of the fundamental laws of strings.

The act of causation is such that the new particle is created at time t1 in the vicinity of the former particle that exists at time t0 so continuity is preserved. — MoK

There is no particle-particle continuity. Each particle is brand new, with no history and no future.

The duplication is such that the intrinsic properties of a particle are held. — MoK

Duplication is not the same thing as preservation.
— Relativist
The duplication is such that the intrinsic properties of a particle are held. — MoK

Makes no sense. The particle at t0 has properties; this particle (with its properties) is annihilated a t1. A new particle exists at t1 that has the same properties, but it's not the same particle.

Every electron in the universe has the same intrinsic properties. So when a specific electron at t0 is replaced by a "duplicate" at t1, what maked this particular electron the same identity? See my second picture and description, below.

I discussed this in depth. You can find my explanation here and here. The brain is not identical in the different instant of time since the relational properties of its parts are changing all the time. — MoK

Neither of those posts define what constitutes an identity over time. For example, you said:, "I think that we are not the same person to some extent as yesterday since a part of us is subject to change."

This does not define what IS the same- what aspects of yesterday's person make it the same person today? You referred to genetics, but your genes mutate over time. You are not geneticall identical to infant MoK.

All you claims are just vague allusions. The most common bases are: 1) essentialism - which associates an identity with an essence (a subset of properties that are necessary and sufficient for constituting an individual identity); 2) perdurance: an identity consisting of a connected series of temporal parts.

Because you embrace identity of the indiscernibles, you don't have the essentialist option. So you need some form of perdurantism, but you need to define what connects the temporal parts. The problem is that you have no direct causal connection between temporal parts. Here's a depiction of what you seem to be claiming with your "vertical causation":

The mind is creating electron/brain/body at each instant of time, with no direct connection between the "temporal parts". There's an indirect connection through mind, but the mind is simultaneously recreating every electron/brain/body. Let's focus on electrons: there's a universe full of electrons coming into existence at each instant of time. Here's a depiction of 3 electrons (electX,electY, electZ):


ElectX@t0->mind->ElectX@t1 is indistinquishable from
ElectX@t0->mind->ElectY@t1

What does reductive physicalism have to do with string theory? — MoK

As I discussed above, string theory is consistent with reductive physicalism

As I said, same old tired crap. I've discussed all this with you before and showed how wrong you are.

"During her Jan. 15 Senate confirmation hearing, [attorney general Pam] Bondi denied that she would engage in a politically motivated purge of the Justice Department..."Politics will not play a part".

But when interviewed by Sean Hannity this week, she said:

"Well, first and foremost, we got rid of the Jack Smith team. Gone. Those people are gone...We're still trying to find … a lot of people in the FBI and also in the Department of Justice who despise Donald Trump, despise us, don't want to be there....You have to do the right thing and right now we're going to root them out...We will find them, and they will no longer be employed.”
-- 'Everything is on the table' on DOJ purge of Trump haters, AG Pam Bondi says

Loyalty to Donald is now a condition of employment in the DOJ.

Meanwhile:

Jan. 6 prosecutors demoted by Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington
"The lead prosecutors on both the Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case and the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case, among the highest-profile Jan. 6 prosecutions, were demoted to work cases in D.C. Superior Court"

I would not be surprised if Trump were to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and (of course) pardoned by Trump.

Same old tired crap. ssu was discussing Mueller, and you bring up a distorted view of the predecessor investigation - omitting the fact that it was most certainly warranted (even Durham acknowledged that).

Rachel Maddow, fact-checking the liar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GanWPYhUq04 — tim wood

For those who prefer to read rather than watch, here's NPR's fact-check:
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/04/g-s1-50488/trump-congress-joint-address-fact-check

You ask "what is faith?"

There's no objectively correct answer. It would make more sense to ask what someone means when they use the term. Here's an article on a Christian Apologist website. That guy provides 3 definitions:

Leap of Faith

The first usage is summarized quite nicely by Mark Twain. He said that faith is “believing what you know ain’t true”. This is where we get the phrase “leap of faith”; it really means something like a leap in the dark. A mother might have faith that her son is still alive even though all of the evidence suggests otherwise. She certainly believes that her son is alive, yet she can’t be said to know he is. The mother lacks evidence and knowledge, nevertheless has faith – or strongly believes – he is still alive. She takes a leap of faith.

Faith as Trust

The second usage is also very common. Here faith would be something like “trust”. One can have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. That isn’t a leap in the dark, one can have good reason to believe it will rise (given past experience). So faith in this sense is being used as synonymous with trust or confidence. It should be noted here that the first two senses can be had by Christians and non-Christians. An atheist could have faith that science will eventually reveal all there is to know. Now, I don’t believe science could possibly do such a thing [1], but the point is that anyone can have faith in the first two senses.

Christian Faith

The third usage, by contrast, is exclusive to Christianity. One can have faith in this sense if and only if Christianity is true. On this account, faith is knowledge of the Gospel produced in us by the work of the Holy Spirit. Modern thinkers will want to reject the idea that faith is actually knowledge. However, if Christianity is true and the Holy Spirit does instigate belief in the Gospel, then what we would have is knowledge, not merely a confidence or trust. Also notice it wouldn’t be anything like a blind leap of faith. It would be more akin to beliefs produced through memory or sensory organs. These beliefs aren’t blind leaps in the dark. They are produced by some sort of mechanism.

His third definition is contingent upon Christianity being true. If it's not true, then it would imply that Christian faith is delusion. More generously, I'd say that faith (to a believer) is an attitude of certainty toward a belief.

there are an infinite number of the laws of nature. — MoK

What accounts for this being possible? IMO, something must exist to account for non-actual possibilities. The alternative is to assume everything that is logically possible, is actually (metaphysically) possible.

I have already explained this twice. The string's specific vibration mode defines the related particle's intrinsic properties. The Mind experiences this mode of vibration and, as a result, creates another copy of the string with the same mode of vibration at another point in space. Therefore, the intrinsic properties of the particle are preserved. — MoK

And I've explained multiple times that this entails an absence of continuity. Duplication is not the same thing as preservation.

You have still not accounted for identity over time. Even if we pretend duplication = preservation, you haven't identified what makes brain at t1 the same as the brain at t0. Per your account, they are not identical. The same is true for MoK's body as a whole: it's constantly changing, so it's properties are changing - so it's not strictly identical from one instant to the next.

You assume a mind is choosing among the "choices".
— Relativist
I just said that the Mind experiences and causes. How did we end up with such a universe with these specific laws of physics? — MoK

Either the Mind is making a choice, or it is random. Why call this object a "mind" if it isn't making choices?

string theory is only one theory among many other possible theories since in string theory one assumes that the fundamental entity is a string but that fundamental entity could have any geometrical form. — MoK

Not if reductive physicalism is true. You deny this, but you still need to account for the contingency: what makes those other possibilities possible?

I struggling to see a difference between Trump and dictators. There seems to be no impediments to what he chooses to do.

does that accurately describe all people who believe anything that hasn’t been empirically/experientially verified yet? Are all such believers refusing to be reasonable? — Fire Ologist

We all believe things that haven't been verified, so I don't think it's necessarily unreasonable to do so.

Philosophers convince themselves of all sorts of things that aren't verifiable or falsifiable. Their beliefs tend to be pretty tenacious.

no, he would assume he was being deceived because he "knows" Jesus was resurrected.
— Relativist

Oh my God. Faith sounds terrible!
Those people must be insufferable, just real douchers. — Fire Ologist

Weird reaction. I was just describing the nature of faith: it's is incorrigible belief. Additional context is also relevant:
1) God's existence is logically possible
2) Personal experience plays a role: many people believe they feel God's presence. This belief is itself incorrigible.
3) For many, it's an integral part of their world-view, not just a simple proposition that they affirm.

Some who cannot change their belief, no matter what, is a problem for cognitive science to delve into, but I would say:

The belief is an emotional position, and emotions have a direct path into consciousness, sometimes firm and lasting, and at other times less so, bypassing rational logic. — PoeticUniverse

Some beliefs have emotional components, others don't. Most of us have no emotional attachment to the 4-color theorem or Goldbach's conjecture, and this makes us perfectly willing to reject such beliefs.

Most of us who believe gods don't exist can willingly entertain their existence, because we have no emotional connection to its truth or falsity. But theists have that connection, and that makes the belief incorrigible.

I distinguished between the laws of nature (which are ontological) and laws of physics (epistemological; best guesses based on available data). Newton's law of gravity (which implied instantaneous action at a distance) is (or was) a law of physics - and was never a law of nature.
— Relativist
I don't understand your distinction between the laws of nature and the laws of physics here. — MoK

"Law of nature" = an aspect of physical reality; an aspect of the way the world actually is (whether we know it or not)
"Law of physics" = a theory (developed by physicists). It corresponds to a law of nature if it is true.

F=G*(m1*m2)/r^2 is a law of physics. It was assumed to be true for many years. Strictly speaking, it is not exactly true, so it is not a law of nature.

General relativity is a law of physics that seems to be true; if so then it is a law of nature.

That universal mind is remembering the properties and creating them afresh. That is not an ontological preservation; it is a duplication.
— Relativist
Yes, it is a duplication. That is what I mean by causation/creation. — MoK

Therefore, as I said, properties are not "preserved", as you had said. Instead, they are duplicated. So you were wrong when you said: "The intrinsic properties are preserved by time"

What am I? I am a person with a body and at least two minds — MoK

You just now came into existence, having been vertically caused by the Mind. There's a "you" that came into existence 1 minute ago, 5 days ago, and even one nanosecond ago. Nothing is preserved from one moment to the next

Nothing connects all these "you's". Nothing accounts for a preserved identity, since there just a continuous series of MoKs who come into existence ex nihilo with no causal relation between them.

The current you is analogous to the projected image of a single frame of a film. One frame doesn't cause the next; there's just an illusion of motion.

What I am trying to say here is that the laws of physics are not universal because there are an infinite number of different candidates available. — MoK

You assume a mind is choosing among the "choices".

A reductive physicalist believes the observed laws of physics are manifestations of more fundamental law. Consider string theory: it can account for 10^500 3-dimensional "brane universes", each with a different "physics", but all are accounted for by the string theory.

Faith is more that just holding that something is true. Faith requires that one believe even in the face of adversity. Greater faith is had by those who believe despite the arguments and the evidence.

So those with the greatest faith would be the ones convinced by logical arguments that god does not exist, and yet who believe despite this. — Banno

No. Rather, their faith would lead them to believe there's something wrong with the logical argument.

Example: William Lane Craig was asked a hypothetical: if he were taken back in time to the first century, and seen Jesus' body crucified, watched it rot for weeks on the cross and eaten as carrion, would he renounce his faith in the resurection. His response: no, he would assume he was being deceived because he "knows" Jesus was resurrected.

This is what faith looks like.

“Nyet means Nyet. Russia’s NATO enlargement Red Lines”. — NOS4A2

That is a recent "red line" of Putin's, that Trump uncritically accepts. Go back a few years, and Putin expressed indifference to former USSR states joining NATO, including Ukraine.

"In May 2002, when asked for his views on the future of Ukraine’s relations with NATO, Putin dispassionately replied, 'I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day, the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners'" (source)

Putin raised no complaints when Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined NATO in 2004.

The article I cited above suggests that Putin's main driver is opposition to democratic reforms:

"Russian president Vladimir Putin wants you to believe that NATO is responsible for his February 24 invasion of Ukraine—that rounds of NATO enlargement made Russia insecure, forcing Putin to lash out. This argument has two key flaws. First, NATO has been a variable and not a constant source of tension between Russia and the West. Moscow has in the past acknowledged Ukraine’s right to join NATO; the Kremlin’s complaints about the alliance spike in a clear pattern after democratic breakthroughs in the post-Soviet space. This highlights a second flaw: Since Putin fears democracy and the threat that it poses to his regime, and not expanded NATO membership, taking the latter off the table will not quell his insecurity. His declared goal of the invasion, the “denazification” of Ukraine, is a code for his real aim: antidemocratic regime change."

I can understand Trump liking his ego stroked by Putin. But Russia seems an unlikely ally for any of the factions that make up Trumps power base (or pull his strings). It seems to me that Russia has little to offer to any political faction in the US. — Echarmion

"Traditional" Republicans are anti-Russia, but they're pro-personal power. Trump's presence as President gives them power, but only if they support everything he does.

The relationship between body and mind is primarily a methodological and not an ontological problem — Wolfgang

methodology is the most important discipline in the philosophy of mind. The focus is not on the ontological questions about the "essence" of the spirit or consciousness, but on the critical reflection of our methods of cognition and descriptions. A methodologically reflected philosophy of mind does not primarily investigate what consciousness "is", but how we grasp it, describe it and examine it. — Wolfgang

That's a perfectly fine approach, but ontology of mind will continue to be of interest to many philosophers.

If you accept there are possible alternative laws of physics then it follows that our universe could be different therefore the laws of physics are not universal. — MoK

I distinguished between the laws of nature (which are ontological) and laws of physics (epistemological; best guesses based on available data). Newton's law of gravity (which implied instantaneous action at a distance) is (or was) a law of physics - and was never a law of nature.

So there may be different laws of physics (what we would have guessed at) but they would be due to the same, fundamental laws of nature - assuming reductionism (as I do).

On this semantical account, you would apparently deny there are laws of nature, because all causation is "vertical"- a consequence of the universal mind. You could accept "laws" of physics as instrumentalist descriptions of observed behavior, but you have to be open to the universal mind choosing to operate differently

You're contradicting yourself again: perpetual creation of everything ex nihilo entails no preservation of properties.
— Relativist
It does since the act of causation is supported by experience. — MoK

That universal mind is remembering the properties and creating them afresh. That is not an ontological preservation; it is a duplication.

Each morning that I wake up, I, my conscious mind, am feeded by several types of information from my subconscious mind. — MoK

This is inconsistent with your claim that the universal mind recreates your brain ex nihilo at every instant.

You still haven't explained what YOU are. You just began to exist, ex nihilo.

‘Putin Is on the Inside’: Shock as U.S. Caves to Russia in Cybersecurity Fight

The White House is reportedly dropping Russia from its list of threats to cybersecurity and is instead honing in on China, part of the Trump administration’s apparent broader effort to curry favor with the Kremlin and push for a peace deal that would end the country’s ongoing war in Ukraine....
...According to The Guardian, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has received a new list of directives that largely omit Russia as a threat to monitor. ...
...A source familiar with the matter who spoke to the outlet on the condition of anonymity said agency analysts were verbally told to not follow or report on Russian threats, adding that a “Russian-related” project was consequently “nixed.”

If you asked Anselm "why do you believe God exists?" he should say, "I don't believe God exists, I know God exists and I can prove it to you." He should say this, because he was trying to convince others of, in his estimation, a logical conclusion based on evidence.

So, hopefully recognizing my general spirit of agreement with the basic point of the OP, I think you guys are throwing the baby of belief out with the bathwater of faith, or at least Banno is more expressly. And to all of our detriment. — Fire Ologist

Anselm, and everyone else who believes they can prove God's existence, "prove" only a generic sort of deity (in Anselm's case, based on "greatness"). None "prove" the Triune God of Christianity, which is the object of their faith. Still, I agree it's more rational than groundless faith (William Lane Craig coined the phrase "reasonable faith"). Where I think amateurs (i.e. people on forums like this one, but more so on apologetic forums) go wrong is to treat their arguments as unarguably sound, and are resistant to understanding why those arguments are unpersuasive.

I've often found that theists place faith in arguments that "prove" God, instead of directly in God. When I've challenged their premises, they reverse the burden of proof- implying the premises should be considered true, unless proven false.

proselytizing on this platform by "believers" runs rampant in the constant defense of fallacious arguments. — DifferentiatingEgg

In many cases, the arguments aren't fallacious, per se. They are usually possibly sound, but as I pointed out to someone recently- God's existence is possible (not provably impossible) even without an argument. A possibly sound argument doesn't make it any more plausible, or epistemically probable.

, I think that we are not the same person to some extent as yesterday since a part of us is subject to change — MoK

You're sidestepping the issue. You need to explain to what extent you are the same person, and how you account for this, given that MoK begins to exist ex nihilo at every instant of time.

The TOE would be the fundamental law.
— Relativist
No, as I explained there is no such thing as universal/fundamental laws. — MoK

You believe in ontological emergence, which I deny. Ontological emergence is contrary to the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The PSR entails reductive physicalism. Reductive physicalism entails a fundamental basis for the laws of physics, and all possible alternative laws of physics.

Let's consider an electron, for example. An electron has some intrinsic properties, such as mass, spin, and charge, and some extrinsic properties, such as location. The intrinsic properties are preserved by time — MoK

You're contradicting yourself again: perpetual creation of everything ex nihilo entails no preservation of properties.

he theory of everything is not universal though since we know from string theory that the laws of physics are one instance among many many other instances. Our universe could be a different universe in the sense that there could be different forces and particles. — MoK

Under a theory of everything (TOE), the hypothetical different forces and particles would be local manifestations of that TOE. The TOE would be the fundamental law.

I think you are talking about personality here. — MoK

No, I'm talking about personal identity over time. It appears you deny that you are the same person you were yesterday.

Your claims about different parts of the brain relating to personality, and the role of genetics are inconsistent with your claim that the brain at t1 was created ex nihilo.

Potentially, one of the many unintended consequences of the willy-nilly staff reductions:

US intel shows Russia and China are attempting to recruit disgruntled federal employees, sources say

He appears to genuinely believe Putin respects him as some kind of great leader, hence he's willing to take Putin's side — Echarmion

Over the years, Putin has showered Trump with complements (e.g. "an intelligent and experienced politician", "He behaved, in my opinion, in a very correct way, courageously, like a real man"), and in January said, "“I couldn't disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn't stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided."

With such insight into Trump's manly brilliance, how could Trump not think highly of Putin?
;

After today's meeting, Trump's approval ratings skyrocketed...in Russia:
"As expected, the Russian government seemed thrilled over the public spat between Trump and Zelensky.

“The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office. And [Donald Trump] is right: The Kiev regime is ‘gambling with WWIII’” wrote Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia. "

-Rolling Stone

I discussed my view (perdurance) earlier. Here's an article in the Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy.
— Relativist
Accepting that the the brain is made of parts then we say that brain A is identical to brain B IFF their parts have the same intrinsical and relational properties. In this sense, the brain at t0 is not identical to the brain at t1 since the relational properties of the parts of the brain are subject to change all the time. — MoK

Correct, it's not identical, but there is a causal relation between consecutive temporal parts. No other object in spacetime has this unique series of temporal parts.

You agree that object identity does not endure in time, so you need to somehow account for the intuition that are the same person you were yesterday. Perdurance seems the best option, but you lack a causal relation between temporal parts, since you attribute causation to a universal "Mind".

The laws of physics to the best of our understanding are not universal. — MoK

Laws of physics do not necessarily correspond to the actual laws of nature. They can be localized instances of actual law - compare Newton's law of gravity to general relativity.
They may also be approximations (compare standard chemistry to the more fundamental quantum chemistry).

We still don't know, the proper theory that explains our world — MoK

Not knowing what the actual laws of nature ARE, does not imply there aren't actual, immutable laws of nature underlying everything. The sought-after "theory of everything" depends on it.

you need to tell me what you mean by identity — MoK

I discussed my view (perdurance) earlier. Here's an article in the Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Could you answer why the physical obeys the laws of nature? — MoK

Because they instantiate universals. Laws are relations among universals. (See: this).

Consider a change in the state of something, X to Y, where X and Y are two states that define the change. X and Y cannot lay on the same point since otherwise these states occur simultaneously and there cannot be any change. Therefore, X and Y must lay on different points of a variable, let's call these points tx and ty. ty, however, comes after tx to allow X to come after Y. This variable is called subjective time. — MoK

This seems to be saying time entails an order, but it doesn't answer my question. Is time an existent? Is it a relation? Is it a property?

Why do you call it "subjective? Is it not objectively real? Is this just reference to special relativity?

My view is that time is fundamentally a relation between states of affairs. An event is a state of affairs (a point of time).

Sounds like a typical conspiracy theorist, who constructs an entire scenario in his mind, often in collaboration with others of a like mind. Facts are interpreted through the lens of his conspiracy: if consistent with the theory, it confirms it and may extend it.

Or..."AA" is an alcoholic (former member of AA) who fell off the wagon.

In one of his recent efforts to undermine rule of law, Trump has suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Trade Practices Act.

Americans and American companies are now free to bribe officials in foreign countries. This encourages extortion - representatives of US companies could previously reject demands for bribes by virtue of the fact that they would be breaking US law.

In regards to the OP, I don't need to discuss how the intrinsic properties of the physical are preserved. — MoK

I didn't ask about intrinsic properties being preserved, I asked about how identity is preserved. It's relevant to your first premise:

P1) Physical and experience exist and they are subject to change

You said a brain at t1 has been caused to exist ex nihilo, so nothing has changed, and it appears that NOTHING is actually subject to change in your view. Change is what occurs to an object that persists over time.

I also don't need to discuss the laws of nature here. — MoK

I'm a law-realist: I believe laws of nature exist, and these account for causation. You have not suggested the brain is unique, so I infer that all causation is of the same nature: the mind creates all objects anew at each instant of time. If so, then there are no laws of nature - there's just the practices of this mind. If I'm right, that you deny the existence of actual laws of nature, then that is yet another reason for me to reject your claims.

Now consider your next "P1":

P1) The subjective time exists and changes since there is a change in physical — MoK

This depends on a specific ontology of time. My view is that time is a relation between events; it is not an existent. Only existents change, and they can only change if there's some object that persists across time that CAN change.

So it seems that your arguments depend on some specific assumptions. It fails as a proof because I don't accept your assumptions. So you don't really have a "proof" of anything. The question remains as to whether or not you even have a coherent framework. Since you haven't been able to explain it without contradicting yourself, it appears to me that you do not.

- how you account for identity over time: what makes you the same person your were yesterday. — Relativist

Off-topic. I will however answer that later when we agree on the OP. — MoK

It's relevant to the contradiction you demonstrated in this thread and the other:" the brain (or electron) goes from one state at time t0 to another state at time t1"

You treated the brain/electron as a persisting object, but you also indicate it's not the same brain/electron. If an electron and brain lacks a persistent identity, then how can YOU have one? I presume you believe yourself to continue existing day to day, but I doubt you can make sense of that. If you can, it seems that it should apply to electrons and brains.

- how the mind fits into your general account of causation. — Relativist

I already explained that in the case of the Mind. — MoK

You seem to be suggesting that all causation is accounted for by the mind. There are no laws of nature, just the action of an unchanging mind. I wonder how an unchanging (inert) entity experiences anything - it can't learn, it can't react. This is more consistent with a B-theory of time (block time), but you say you're a presentist.

These are the reasons I brought up those "off-topic" issues. If you have these big-picture issues in mind when making your statements, you could avoid contradicting yourself.

No, because it leaves too much to the imagination. You need to describe:
- how you account for identity over time: what makes you the same person your were yesterday.
- what are particulars/existents/objects, in terms consistent with the above.
- how you account for causation, in general.
- how the mind fits into your general account of causation.
- the ontological nature of time.

Your descriptions of all these should not entail any contradictions.