Is "neutral" even the correct term? I don't know how you would say either/neither/or/nor.

Nice poem, by the way.

I'm glad that you like it, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about it now. I had just thought that nothing can't exist.

Presentism is difficult to understand because we conceptualize things through differentiation from past modalities. One exists only in the present, but understands only what has passed.

I would suggest that there is no needle. There are just waves, although, I don't think waves adequately describe what I mean by "'energy'". 'Energy' can be understood as a field in time, but I reject that anything other than the present exists. It all collapses upon the wave function in every given moment. There is only the moment, though.

"Being" is a term that I would use, but I have no qualms with "experience".

That everything can be reduced to physicality does not necessarily mean that it always should be. Consciousness occurs through the complex organization of physical existents, but there is no reason to prefer physicality when attempting to understand consciousness.

Edit: It is somewhat difficult to precisely describe what I mean by this because I don't think that there is a causal relationship between physicality and consciousness. That consciousness occurs is the preliminary aspect of experience. Physicality delimits the 'Metaphysical' conditions of experience. Consciousness is physical, but it is not useful to reduce it to physicality. There is no reason to draw a distinction between physical and mental states as they occur simultaneously and are resultant of a complex modality. Neither of them accurately describe the totality of experience. My assumption is that such a line of thought is some form of syncretic neutral monism.

Mass is like the whatever being manifest into a measurable something. Energy, I feel like differs too much from what we understand as mass to be considered to be equivalent to it. Einstein's theory is relevant to Physics, but not necessarily my speculative Metaphysics.

'Energy' is currently an unfathomable force. We don't yet know enough about particles to adequately understand energy. All that I can describe energy as is a force of some kind. I have realized by doing this that I don't at all know what energy is.

I was getting to it, but then I got sidetracked Terrapin Station.

That's kind of what I figured, though I wouldn't say that energy is equivalent to mass. Matter, perhaps.

I may be a Presentist. I've honestly only really given this this speculative thought.

What do you think of my theory that space doesn't exist? I just cooked that up, but now I think that I might be onto something.

That'd take a radical reconceptualization of the concept of information. I don't know that I would agree, but would be curious to see what they come up with.

I disagree. I see neutral monism as a rejection of the distinction between the physical and the mental. It's a neither/nor position and not a middle ground.

That it may be boring does not necessarily mean that it is incorrect. Nothing is necessarily boring, anyways. It's all just a matter of how anyone puts anything.

I would tend to be inclined towards non-cognitivism/emotivism, but don't necessarily agree with the distinction. Ethical arguments are colored by emotional appeals, but the attempt to parcel out an ethic can be concerned with abstract truths. I would reject that such truths exist, but do not think that the parties who put forth such an argument are necessarily making an emotional appeal.

Ethics is an experiment in how to live well collectively. Whether or not an action can be considered to be right or wrong is particular to each and every given situation.

Writing is just a means to cover-up whatever havoc a person has created in the world. If the havoc was worth creating, then they are worth reading. Everything else is a form of intellectual repression.

As in Presentism, that the universe is wholly born anew at every 'now'? — PoeticUniverse

Yes, each and every moment is like a different universe, however, there only exists what exists now.

I don't know that I would say that Dennett necessarily rejects subjectivity, but, then again, I honestly haven't read too much Dennett, and, so, couldn't tell you too much about him either way.

Nagel makes a good point about physical sciences. I had always associated the hard problem of consciousness as being a critique of AI, but may have just conflated a set of theories at the time.

I don't think that Dennett's critique is necessarily on point, but do sort of agree that qualia does not necessarily refute physicalism. Qualia can just describe aspects of physical states.

Cool.

I feel like you're right, but that the sum total of energy always is manifest as something particular. Each and every moment is a different singularity.

The advancement of technology outpaces its social avail. The alienated experience is resultant of that technocratic regimes exploit the rate of technological progress and not necessarily of the advancement of technology itself. It's not unnatural to live in the modern world. Civilization has just resulted in an alienated social relationship.

Interesting. Do you make these videos?

Personally, I think that it's kind of a lot of talking into air, but, like I said in previous threads, I haven't really hashed this out well enough to level a decent argument.

Metaphysics substitutes abstraction for the realm of the divine. There are plenty of things to glean from all kinds of studies in the field, and, so, to discuss Metaphysics is still "meaningful", but the methodology will ultimately be supplanted by some other branch of Philosophy.

I sort of agree with Dennett's postulation. The "persuasive illusion", however, just simply is consciousness. There's nothing illusory about it.

I don't think that he adequately supplants Chalmers's objections, though.

Has anyone in the Philosophy of Mind taken up Merleau-Ponty? I think that the problem will begin to disappear as embodied cognition becomes more prevelant.

Edit: To avoid starting another thread, I just wanted to bring up that bivalves can feel pain and therefore have consciousness. This, for me, had partially resulted in a crisis of faith as a vegetarian, but I think may posit something useful for anyone concerned with Philosophy of Mind. That a decentralized network can still be conscious has interesting implications for the field.

Is that written in iambic pentameter?

Okay, I found that interesting. Thanks for going on about it i like sushi.

This is egg salad.

I think that the phenomenon of race is relatively new. Race is a social construct which only came into being during whatever you want to call the era of civilization.

As far as "white privilege" is concerned. It is the case that 'Western civilization' has resulted in a global situation to where being "white" offers you an unfair advantage. White people, or even people who, like myself, for all intensive purposes, pass as white (I'm a quarter Columbian, which, according to most racists, makes me "not white" (I think that the consensus is something like 12%.(You know that you're giving the other party too much credit when you ask whether they round up or down, but I think that it might be 12 so that you'd have to be four generations apart.))), should consider that in some regard. Perhaps the notion of "white privilege" doesn't need to stick around as it is means of getting a certain point accross that is only so effective, but the idea doesn't need to be wholeheartedly disbanded. You are, through the magic of chaosmosis, somehow partially responsbile for whatever situation it is that you find yourself in.

I mean, I'm just saying that in spite of that I don't technically have it, I do check my "white privilege" and that, if you are a white person, you should too.

Well, yeah, but, like, what I mean is that the term "white privilege" didn't really appear until 1989. It just takes a while for things like that to be phased through the left-wing sloganeering that occurs in overly eager activist camps so that they can be rendered meaningful. Personally, I think that "white privilege" is a rather meek euphemism, and that a better term ought to be adopted.

It's not a wave. We can just perform Physics experiments by identifying light as waves. The field is the ideterminable potentiality. It's not really a field either. We can just conceptualize potentiality as there being a field. Everything is just stardust. It's all interconnected energy and the energy is just fire. Everything is made of fire and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you have free will.

Edit: Spinoza was right and there is only one substance which is energy. There is only energy and the void. Mostly everything is the void, but it's like the void doesn't exist at all because all of the energy effects all of the rest of all of the energy indefinitely. What is energy? I don't really know. Calling it "fire" was the best that I could come up with on the spot. It's sort of like What the **** Do We Know?, but ultimately much more scientific.

Edit 2: Energy is too complex for human beings to understand in their lifetime. Calling it all fire is like calling it all rocks. Energy is a way of describing what is existent. In a sense, there is no such thing as empty space, there is only what is existent, or rather that what is existent creates what we understand as "space" which only seems to exist.

Edit 3: There is no void. Epicurus was only half-right. There is only the 'endless' 'field' of energy.

Edit 4: The void seems to exist enough to speak of it as existent. It can still be meaningful to discuss the void in spite of that it ultimately does not exist.

Edit 5: Particles that approach 'true' Absolute Zero phase out of existence and become what is like the void. A particle can only approach 'true' Absolute Zero.

Edit 6: There is an actual 'true' Absolute Zero, but to discover this is impossible. We can only understand existent energy. The void is unknowable.

Edit 7: The Void does not exist. Because it does not exist, there is no reason to attempt to study it. Energy is what exists. The purpose of Science should then become to study energy.

Postcript: Like, there is only the pure presence of energy and space only seems to exist. Time also only seems to exist. Every pure presence is an eternity. The eternal return is a physical reality. There is only that the potentiality of the energy is made manifest in every single moment.

Postrcript cont.: There is only one universe. We just can't conceptualize the infinite modality of of our own universe. String theory, however, is really onto something by replacing point-like particles with one-dimensional objects called strings. Everything exists as a singularity.

Final edit: That's all that I have to say about this if anyone was just waiting for me to quit rambling.

I don't at all know what to do about that Trump is president. That it's like having a New Jersey mob boss as the acting head of the United States of America is precisely inciteful campaign that the American Right has promoted. You can't say anything negative about the guy because you're just right and that is exactly what the American Right is ready, willing, and able to ostensibly defend. Activist campaigns need to become non-compliant. By virtue of that they can always make an appeal to being further reactionary, there is nothing to gain by just simply being against them anymore. The best that anyone can do with politics as such is to actively withdraw. I stopped reading the news during Trump's presidential campaign. Their strategy is something like sensationalism as a form of entrapment. Apathy has ceased to be consentual and has become a sought-after repreive from a generalized disgust and anger. The most commonly criticized attitudes on the Left now bear the dint of being virtues. Active disengagement is much more effective than inapt righteous revolt. When Poe's law becomes an excuse, all that a person can do is to refuse to engage in politics as such.

Note: I don't really think that it's fair to dis New Jersey like that. I'm just not quite sure how else to put what it is that I think about Trump. Tidus Andronicus, after all, is from New Jersey. So is Bruce Springsteen. Jersey can't be all that bad. I'm sure that that place just gets a lot of guff because it's outside New York City.

I feel like identity politics is just annoying because it's relatively new and hasn't quite figured out how not to be annoying yet. "White privilige" will become a relevant concept and not a thought-terminating cliché as the "invisible knapsack" gets unpacked.

What is meant by "allowed"? I, for instance, think that Death in June has a 'right' to utilize Fascist symbolism in their art, but no 'right' to purpose their shows for the organization of neo-Fascists who intend to 'do harm'. As far as that kind of art goes, I think that neo-Folk got a lot better after Sol Invictus decided to drop the act and do the split with Of the Wand and the Moon. The cult aspect of "Sunspot" is a lot more interesting than banal Fascist goading.

I think that The Damned is a transgressive film that can only be interpreted as being subversive. There is nothing intrinsically subversive about it. You can't censor The Damned, though. Doing so will violate the more privileged 'right' of free speech. It's all just a matter of what effectively makes for a better society. I don't think that banning hate speech will do so.

You, of course, do want to counter that Fascists organize at events. There are lot of different tactics to this, some of which are more effective than others.

Edit: To clarify my point about The Damned: The Damned is a celebration of Nazi decadence that is only marginally intentionally trenchant. Visconti should only be given so much credit as a director. If anyone hasn't seen The Damned, I would highly recommend watching it. In spite of that it is only so subversive, it is one of the best films ever made. I would recommend watching that, and nothing else by the same director. The only reason that Death in Venice was not the longest two hours of my life is because Ludwig goes on for two hours longer.

Thanks fresco. I guess I'll have to reread The Gay Science then. I spent too much time analyzing Nietzsche's decision to amply utilize aphorisms and emphasis when I decided to get into him.

Nothing is in our control StreetlightX. You give someone who is running late 5 dollars to catch the train and they trip, fall, and land smack dab in the middle of the M. Maybe you should have noticed. Ethics is like the Lacanian interpretation of God. You will never be free of the anxiety that it inspires.

What I meant, though, is that you have assumed that we do, in point of fact, have responsibility. I agree, but I haven't quite gotten it out of my head that because you ultimately can't know what the right thing to do is that there is nothing to be responsible for.

Suicides, of course, occur. What I mean is that it is impossible for someone to actually flip the switch. You can create 99.9% of the circumstances that result in your own death, but you can't create 100% of them.

This is ultimately just a suspicion of mine. I don't have much to back it up with other than a rather strange argument concerning human nature.

In a negative sense, the human confrontation with death results in denial. This has catastrophic consequences. The denial of death can be resultant in gross abuses of power. Everything that has been deigned from Western civilization is colored by an ideology that ostensibly posits that whatever ruling order there is that there was could live and rule eternally. The ruling order have always offered the pretense of being immortal. Death, quite poetically, refutes such things.

I don't know that I would necessarily, however, agree with a refutation of the "'faith'" in life. Camus wanted to live "without appeal" to the Absurd. I would argue that the conditions of the Absurd are resultant of that people die. Death is what lies behind the philosophical problem. Heidegger only teaches people how to die well. I think that in order to adequately cope with the Absurd, people ought to attempt to discover how to live well in spite of that the human experience could ultimately be negative. Active flight from death should affirm life. To argue in favor of such an axiom is somewhat superflous as I would argue that this is what people already naturally do all of the time.

I do, honestly, think that a person can not consciously choose to die. They can create the circumstances which death a potentiality, but they can not actually consciously choose to die. I think that the will to live is one of the only essential facets of human nature.

I don't mean to be so contrary, but, while I do think that we do understand each other, I don't think that we actually agree. "Suicide is a mortal sin." One can not actually commit a "mortal sin" against oneself.

Well, the status of "'facts'" and negotiations of what is agreed "'to be the case'" is kind of the same thing. I would argue that "'things-in-themselves'" can not be meaningfully separated from "'observers'".

Where does Nietzsche bring this up? I've read a number of texts by Nietzsche, but am unsure as to where it is that he makes this point about "'descriptions'".

Someday, it will be an actual reality. The future is so strange to think about even though it has already arrived.


I think that a suicide actually requires an extraordinary event. All suicides must be accidents. A person can not consciously choose to commit suicide. There's that the person creates the situation that makes for suicide possible, but that it ever actually happens is simply by chance. I just think that people unremittingly desire to live. It's sort of the case that it is impossible to go against what could be regarded as human nature in this regard.

Neurophenomenology sounds pretty far-out! I'll have to remember to look back into this if I ever take another class on Philosophy of Mind.

I feel like it's sort of strange to think of the military as just any old career path. That it's treated as such is so that people will have less reservations about enlisting. I really do think that the military experience radically differs from that of other civillians. It's a very particular facet of society.

Isn't the command over the military, like, a role of the executive branch? A war is a grave thing to omit from any succession of public addresses. You very obviously can just decide, because no one is any longer content with the general direction of the war, not to bring it up, but it doesn't seem like you should do that.

I found the last bit about Sweden and Finland to be quite interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Well, I just picked up Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscripts. Are you saying that I won't find what I'm looking for in those texts? Drat! Concluding Unscientific Postscripts was kind of expensive, too. I'll still read them anyways, I guess.


That is not necessarily what my objection is. I am suggesting that what we understand as "objective truths" are merely shared assumptions. I reject that "truth" can be discovered and question whether the attempt to do so can at all result in anything either meaningful or relevent. I'm not necessarily making a "'reality debate'". That "there is no truth" can easily be reduced to the absurd. A person who makes such claims can easily be dismissed as either a proposterous Skeptic or Nihilist. I am neither, but, as I've only recently developed this theory, I doubt that I can effectively prove otherwise.

I honestly suspect that people naturally desire to live indefinitely. For me, there is no question as to whether or not anyone wants to live longer. They just simply do. No amount of reason can change this.

We all incessantly avoid death. Human beings are incapable of acting otherwise.

I don't agree with Hollywood, but I think that people in the military have a radically different relationship to whatever country it is that they serve than ordinary civillians. It's a totally different experience. I feel like a lot of people in the military feel quite alienated, which is rather sad. I'm an Anarcho-Pacifist, though, and, so, am not without critique of the military in general.

Do you think that the absence of the war in the media is dilliberate or that it is just simply resultant of that people don't care to pay attention any longer? Do you think that it could be part and parcel to American policy to downplay the conflict?