Comments

  • Kant's Notions of Space and Time
    Kantian space and time are not experiences.Mww
    :up:
  • The Argument from Reason
    ↪180 Proof in a post above, responded to my question : "Is human intelligence merely an accidental pattern of a hypothetical "universal cellular automaton"?", with : "Define 'human intelligence' ". Of course, he was not really interested in my opinion on the subject ...Gnomon
    And, of course, once again, you project by impugning my motives for requesting clarification in order to deflect from the conspicuous fact that you have no idea, Gnomon, what the hell you're gibber-jabbering about. :yawn:
  • Is Intercessory Prayer Egotistical?
    180 Proof, Carlin was a better theologian than some professional theologians.Art48
    :up:
  • Is Intercessory Prayer Egotistical?
    In Ambrose Bierce’s “The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary,” we have: “Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.”Art48
    :fire: :pray:

    Here's more on the learned placebo-narcissism of prayer from a fellow Bronx street sage (wiseass) ...
    So, I worship the sun. But, I don't pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn't presume on our friendship. It's not polite.
    I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday His day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend.

    But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you'd really like to fuck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you'd have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?

    Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice.
    And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?

    And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It's all very confusing.

    So to get around a lot of this, I decided to worship the sun. But, as I said, I don't pray to the sun.
    — George Carlin
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    FWIW, my two bits – political democracy without economy democracy is, in effect, 'democracy in name only' (DINO). The United States, I think, much more so than other G7/Western European welfare-states is now – has always been – a DINO wherein the broader stakeholder population is substantially disenfranchised by structural as well as partisan machinations of the shareholder (i.e. investor) class.
  • Change versus the unchanging
    Space-Time is not an objective thing...Gnomon
    :lol:
  • Nice little roundup of the state of consciousness studies
    A theory of “consciousness” is just the pursuit of a ghostly spirit stuff. Or can you frame the task in a way that is scientific rather than a search for immaterial being?apokrisis
    :smirk:
  • Enthalpy vs. Entropy
    Human facticity / adaptivity – insofar as misery needs ("loves") company, miserable bastards are homeostatically hardwired to breed more miserable bastards ad nauseam. 'Reduce misery' (how?) in order to voluntarily reduce breeding. 'Eliminate misery' (how?) in order to voluntarily eliminate breeding. On the other hand, antinatalism puts the proverbial cart before the horse by, in effect, absurdly attempting to 'destroy the species in order to save the species'. :eyes: :mask:
  • Nice little roundup of the state of consciousness studies
    What part of 'it's a "hard problem" only for philosophers of mind and not for neuroscientists' don't you understand?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I think Trump would be seen by Nietzsche as an exemplar of the last man. The uberman is first and foremost not a matter of dominance over others but of self-dominance, self-mastery, self-overcoming. The uberman is a higher man, a superior man, a man of a higher order. The creator of new higher values not someone who disregards values.Fooloso4
    :100: :fire:
  • Nice little roundup of the state of consciousness studies
    I don't think the so-called "hard problem" is the main, or even a significant, focus of neuroscience. It's mostly the philosophers who worry about it.Janus
    :100:
  • The Argument from Reason
    Would you (180) also accuse Fredkin ... of "hasty generalization" and "unparsimonious and the pseudo-speculative equivalent of (neo-Aristotlean / neo-Thomistic / neo-Hegelian) intelligent design"?Gnomon
    Yes and no.

    Yes, Fredkin's "computer universe" proposal/conjecture is, in fact, an unparsimonious hasty generalization. Read Seth Lloyd, David Deutsch & Stephen Wolfram.

    No, I only "accuse" you, Gnomon, of pseudo-speculations, etc: "enformationism" = "intelligent design" = "pan-en-deism" = "first cause/unmoved mover" (i.e. WOO-of-the-gaps). :smirk:

    Is his "law enforcement agent" a god-of-the-gaps posit to cover our ignorance of ultimate answers?
    I'll drink to that. :up:

    Is his "computer" a self-programmed natural intelligence, or an artificial intelligence created by an even more intelligent Programmer?
    This "computer" metaphor amounts to an infinite regress – it's "enformers" all the way down. :lol:

    Is human intelligence merely an accidental pattern of a hypothetical "universal cellular automaton"?
    Define "human intelligence". :sparkle:
  • The Argument from Reason
    And when it comes to taking literally the claim that “reality is a computer program”, you have to scratch your head at how it can in any sense run without material hardware or a handy power socket.apokrisis
    :up:
  • The Argument from Reason
    Read Seth Lloyd, David Deutsch and Stephen Wolfram – 'computation' has been operationally defined quite rigorously for decades.
  • The Argument from Reason
    FYI: One of the pioneers of digital philosophy (re: pancomputationalism/digital physics) died a couple of weeks ago, Edward Fredkin. If you are not familiar with him, here's a wiki article with a summary of view on the fundamental nature of information ...

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics#Pancomputationalism

    I became aware of Fredkin through references to him in the writings / interviews of
    David Deutsch,
    Seth Lloyd,
    Max Tegmark,
    Stephen Wolfram,
    Richard Feynman,
    John Wheeler,
    Frank Tipler,
    Eric Drexler,
    Douglas Hofstadter,
    Nick Bostrom et al.
    In the history of Western philosophy, speculations as divergent as Peirce's semiosis-tychism (pragmaticist), Leibniz's monadology (rationalist) and Democritus-Epicurus' atomism (materialist) are the closest analogues to digital philosophy I've yet found.

    I'm not convinced (it does not seem to me to follow), however, 'that if physical events-regularities are computable (which they are), then physical reality must be a "computer" executing a nonphysical program (and, in your case, Gnomon, that's written by a "nonphysical programmer")' – at best, this hasty generalization is too unparsimonious and the pseudo-speculative equivalent of (neo-Aristotlean / neo-Thomistic / neo-Hegelian) "intelligent design". :eyes:

    @Wayfarer @universeness @apokrisis @Janus
  • US Supreme Court (General Discussion)
    What do you think?

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/03/us/harvard-college-legacy-admissions-lawsuit/index.html

    As a non-lawyer I suspect that if this lawsuit rises to the level of SCOTUS review, the Supremes will vote 6-3 in favor of pro-"legacy preference", etc.
  • US Supreme Court (General Discussion)
    IMO, in an egalitarian merit-based – color-blind, race-neutral & gender-neutral – society, (A) legacy preferences for scarce social goods like higher (elite) education would be prohibited by law; also, at minimum, (B) admissions hiring & promotions at all public institutions and nonprofit firms would be regularly conducted by monitored lotteries of eligible candidates from well-regulated pools of qualified applicants; and lastly, (C1) inheritance of over e.g. $1 million (USD) would be taxed at 100% (minus $1 million) and/or (C2) payroll taxes (targetted for funding social security & other social welfare programs) on income would not be capped – or excluded from capital gains (collect via e.g. Tobin Tax) – as they always have been, AFAIK, in the US.

    All feasible reforms applicable within the current American legal and fiscal system which, no doubt, would be violently opposed by (both Dems & GOP) plutocrats/oligarchs, their managerial class flunkies and the 24/7 media-triggered reactionary populist (e.g. patriarchal white supremacist) rabble. :brow:
  • James Webb Telescope
    Recently observed 'time-dilation in the early universe' might account for JWST's anomalous "six galaxies" ...

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/03/astronomers-observe-time-dilation-in-early-universe
  • Avi Loeb Claims to have found evidence of alien technology
    Smart people are as capable of believing their own bullshit as anybody else is.BC
    :up:

    e.g. Newton was an alchemist, etc
  • Change versus the unchanging
    ... because physical things cannot reach these limits, does that mean these limits don't exist? What is the nature of their existence?Benj96
    Horizons "exist" as properties of facts (not things). They are both ever approachable and unreachable; encompassing, yet never encompassed. It doesnt makes sense to me to leap to the groundless supposition that 'more (faster) than everything else' and/or 'less (slower) than everything else' might not "exist".
  • Enthalpy vs. Entropy
    A systems view speaks to the balance of flow states and habits that integrate selves and their worlds.apokrisis
    :cool: :up:
  • Enthalpy vs. Entropy
    More precisely: denials of complexity, uncertainty, contingency ...
  • Enthalpy vs. Entropy
    What is enthalpy's relationship to entropy? I am asking for a broader ethical point.schopenhauer1
    Maybe this: right conduct's unintended, or unforeseeable, consequences á la local ordering that increases global disorder.
  • What's the implications of this E.M. Cioran quote?
    So why make this choice for someone else?schopenhauer1
    Obviously, because they can't make it for themselves before hand.
  • Change versus the unchanging
    On the other end we have that which never changed in its entire existence.Benj96
    I don't know what you mean, Benj. Cite an unchangeable – impossible to change, or necessary (i.e. unconditional) – extant state of affairs (i.e. fact). :chin:
  • The 'Self' as Subject and Object: How Important is This In Understanding Identity and 'Reality'?
    ... the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object?Jack Cummins
    A parallax (or strange loop) e.g. mine or my corresponds to "self as subject" and yours or his/her corresponds to "self as object", no?

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/819465
  • The 'Self' as Subject and Object: How Important is This In Understanding Identity and 'Reality'?
    So, I am asking, how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object?Jack Cummins
    "Self" is a confabulated, continuously sensory-updated, virtual model of this-body-moving-within-its-world.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_model

    As an index of 'emotional identity' (subject?), "self" supervenes on 'physical continuity (object?)'; and that we cannot directly perceive the subpersonal processes which generate "self" seemingly renders it ghostly, disembodied, or free-floating aka "soul" (i.e. spectre of libertarian metaphysics, or idealism).

    "Self" is to symphony as embodiment is to orchestra; disband the orchestra (death), silence the symphony (oblivion). :fire:
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe. I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.

    "I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.

    "I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.

    "This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable.
    — William Shatner, actor

    *

    Man cannot endure his littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level. — Ernest Becker
  • Deep Songs
    Brilliant! Thank you. :hearts: :flower:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    Ah, I see. You drank the DNC koolaid. Facts be damned. Gotcha. Have a good one, Rogue.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    If Gore had won his home state of Tennessee and Clinton's home state of Arkansas, the Bush machine stealing Florida wouldn't have mattered.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    I remember when Ralph Nader, who I admire, cost Gore the election ...RogueAI
    I don't remember this. What I do remember is that an incumbent vice-president during a time of (domestic) 'peace & prosperity' lost both the popular incumbent president's home state AND his own home state, which put in play Florida which was controlled at the time by the Bush family. Maybe – as a Green Party activist from the late 80s throughout the 90s and supporter of Nader three times for president – my recall is biased, but nonetheless Gore lost both Arkansas & Tennessee (and had refused to let Bill Clinton – unquestionably the best retail politician of his generation – campaign for him in the weeks before election day) contributed significantly more to him losing the election than a very marginal third party candidacy (IIRC, even Pat Buchanan, the far right Reform party candidate, received more votes than Gore had in some Dem precincts according to Florida election officials ... which even got chuckles from Buchanan on cable news). Blaming Gore's loss in 2000 on Nader is, it seems to me, as deluded and/or disingenuous as blaming HRC's loss in 2016 on "Bernie Bros". In both cases – losing the electors for states which, but for the Dems, wouldn't have been in play while also winning the popular vote (a feat which hadn't happened since the late 19th century) – poorly run campaigns of unlikeable candidates, aided and abetted by the DNC no less, threw away those elections.