Or at least provide a proof of your assertion that molecules such as cellular proteins have no conscious — Pop

I didn't give an opinion on Homolgous Recombination. I did say my instinct suggests chemical valances and electron transport are at work - rather than consciousness, but that was in the context of admitting I don't know - and suggesting that the idea of molecules with consciousness seems wackadoodle. It does. It's a surprising idea. It's not your run of the mill causal explanation.

All this, in turn, was in the context of suggesting Finopsicle's pseudonym makes it impossible to judge his scientific credentials; on this subject... or his work in quantum mechanics!

Quite the jack of all trades - is his not? A Renaissance man...or possibly a hack writer making money duping the rubes with "I Want to Believe" misinterpretations of the real work of actual scientists.

What proof do you have that cellular proteins are not conscious? — Pop

I just ate a beef sandwich and it didn't run away!

And yet, astonishingly, your computer works - to send that pseudo academic, subjectivist horseshit - from your keyboard strokes, along trillions of tiny Boolean logic circuits, through the air to your router, along wires and fibre optic cables, up to a satellite, down to an antenna, along more fibre optic cables, to a server somewhere, all in the blink of an eye, that I access from where I am - so you can tell me we don't know anything. Maybe you don't - but why drag others down to your level?

If the scientist is one who imagines himself accumulating nuggets of ultimate truth he will place his primary research emphasis on the unassailability of his fragmentary findings. If he supports something at the .05 level of confidence he is encouraged; if he pushes it to the .01 level he is gratified; if it turns out at the .001 level he is ecstatic; and if it reaches the .0001 level he wonders how one writes an application for the Nobel prize. — Joshs

That's just plain wrong, and quite unpleasant. Firstly, all scientists understand perfectly well that scientific conclusions are held to be provisional - in lieu of further data. Even principles they can know with sufficient certainty to build an internet from. Who knows? Maybe one day, someone will open up their computer and catch the magic pixies at work. Until then, Boolean logic circuits will have to suffice as a understanding.

Secondly, things do work. We can apply scientific principles to create technologies that work, and they work better the closer they approximate the underlying scientific principles. So those principles must be true of reality.

I have a suggestion. Why don't you come clean - and explain your real reasons for not wanting science to be true. Is it the lefty thing? Or the Bible thing? Maybe you're a climate change denier, or an anti vaxxer or something. Anyway, you're not being honest - because suggesting:

Every scientific fact that you think is certain now who’ll likely be understood in a qualitatively different way 100 years from now. — Joshs

...is myopic. It relies on the actual ignorance of ages past, and the progress toward more and better knowledge over time, to suggest that progression must continue forever. The idea of plate tectonics, or the bacterial theory of disease will not be understood a different way 100 years from now. Those are facts - held to be provisional as a matter of scientific method - that always allows there could be other factors at play - but utterly unlikely to continue to change over time, because now we know.

I haven't researched the topic. I said it seems wackadoodle - and it does.

"Powerful! Elegant! Simple! In a style that is as accessible as it is meaningful, Dr. Bruce Lipton offers nothing less that the long sought-after “missing link” between life and consciousness. In doing so, he answers the oldest questions, and solves the deepest mysteries, of our past. I have no doubt that The Biology of Belief will become a cornerstone for the science of the new millennium."

First I've heard of it, and we're 21 years into the new millenium! One might have imagined someone answering "the deepest mysteries and oldest questions" would be more well known! But okay then, let's do some research. Lipton begins:

"Though a human is comprised of over fifty trillion cells"

Over 50 trillion????

Bing! How many cells are in the human body?

ANSWER FROM 2 SOURCES

Humans are complex organisms made up of trillions of cells, each with their own structure and function. Scientists have come a long way in estimating the number of cells in the average human body. Most recent estimates put the number of cells at around 30 trillion. Written out, that’s 30,000,000,000,000!
How Many Cells Are in the Human Body? Types, Produ…
healthline.com

Scientists are still debating the exact number, which currently remains a conundrum. Cells are the building blocks of the human body. But what is the total number of cells in a typical human? The short answer is that the body of an average man contains around 30 to 40 trillion cells.
How many cells are in the human body?
medicalnewstoday.com

If he opens with a radical over-estimation of the number of cells in the human body, do I need to go on? He's only over-estimated it by 30-40%. As a measure of accuracy, I think there's no point. I'd be wasting my time with something that's over 40% wrong.

What do we know with certainty? — Joshs

The bacterial theory of disease, plate tectonics, evolution, the nitrogen cycle, heliocentrism, the electromagnetic spectrum, photosynthesis, thermodynamics... need I go on?

Now add them all together and you get a scientific understanding of reality. Yes?

Is that the same as the religious, political and economic ideological understanding of reality from which you draw your identity and purposes? No! It's very different.

And which understanding of reality do we use when making decisions about which technologies to deploy, and which to withhold? I'll give you a clue:

70,000 nuclear weapons!

Tell me more about this. — synthesis

Okay, but let us go back to your OP. You say:

The moment after Reality is perception-altered but before our critical thinking begins would seem to be the closest we can get to actual Reality. Although it has already become our personal reality (due to processing by our senses), it's must be considerably purer than what happens once the full monte of our intellect transforms it into some convoluted dystopia. — synthesis

The natural implication from this is the impossibility of anything we can reasonably call truth. That's something various people want for political purposes - religious people, the politically correct/subjectivist left, the capitalist right. Truth is beset on all sides. But to my mind, science now constitutes a highly valid and coherent understanding of the middle ground reality we occupy - and that matters!

It doesn't matter how the universe began, or if matter is composed of tiny strings. That's racing off to the absolutes to deny the truth value of things we can reasonably know enough about to know - and that matters to our continued existence.

Your facts and your causality and all the rest are here today and gone tomorrow. Consider transcending such a mundane way of looking at things and see them as being fluid. — synthesis

Oh, go drown yourself! What kind of fucking nonsense is that. Try that shit in traffic court - when you run a red light. Well your honour, subjectively - it was perceived as green!

cp, relax. Why all the hostility? — synthesis

Because you're the one who gets to come over as reasonable - and I'm ranting and raving, but I'm right, and you are very, very wrong on something that really matters.

You have no clue what I am about because you refuse to listen to what I am telling you. Instead, you have already figured it out ahead of time. And what is it that you think I believe? — synthesis

I read the OP. I said - I disagree, and explained why. I don't know why you want to crap all over the idea of truth. I suspect it's a lefty, post modernist, subjectivist, moral and epistemic relativism underlying political correctness thing, but you could as easily be a Bible basher!

cp, you're one of the more interesting folks here, but you need to calm down. — synthesis

I sometimes dream about humankind's future.

Think about it this way. There are two different ways to consider things, one knowledge-based that is constantly changing due to the idea that all things knowable are changing, the other being Absolute in nature, unchanging but unknowable (intellectually). — synthesis

No. That's a false dichotomy. In fact; ceteris paribus, knowledge proceeds from "less and worse" toward "more and better" over time. We now know more things with more certainty than we ever have done before. We are threatened with extinction because of people like you, who would undermine truth for political advantage. It needs to stop. We need to act on the basis of what's true or our species is going to die, horribly!

but I am myself, a straight white male, with interests I refuse to put second to the interests of others just because they're black, gay, women or like to pop on a frock at weekends and call themselves Veronica! — counterpunch

Oh dear. I see why you feel people don't want to engage with you. — Uglydelicious

We were discussing how political correctness discriminates against straight white males, because the left have gone a long way past their initial demand, that society not discriminate on the basis of arbitrary characteristics, unto positive discrimination on the basis of arbitrary characteristics. I have no problem whatsoever with someone who is black, gay or female - being ahead of me on merit, but not just because they've got an 'ism' card to play to bias the contest - and so discriminate against me, because I'm a straight white male with no 'isms' to play on. I have every right to compete, a right to an opinion, and a right to political representation.

Capitalism is necessary to a sustainable future? How do you figure that? Doesn't capitalism rely on consumerism and necessarily foster an objectification and commodification of natural resources, and unnatural resources? This seems incongruent to me and I thought I'd say so, but admittedly I'm still catching up on this thread. — Uglydelicious

Firstly, capitalism has won the contest of economic ideologies. Communism has failed, and failed every country that ever adopted it. It creates dictatorial government, corruption, poverty, and frequently runs to genocide. It doesn't work.

Secondly, capitalism has the knowledge, skills, resources and industrial capacity to secure a high energy, prosperous and sustainable future. It will not work out any other way. We cannot have less and pay more, carbon tax this and stop that, cycle to work and eat grass - for several reasons:

a) consuming less puts people out of work - and poor people breed more.
b) raising prices and imposing taxes on energy and consumption would unequally burden the poor, in society and in the world, because poor people spend a greater proportion of their incomes on energy, food, transport etc. And, poor people breed more!
c) a pay more have less approach to sustainability presumes failure - because the idea of government imposing poverty on people to remain within some supposed environmental carrying capacity is incompatible with democracy, and inconceivable more generally.

Doesn't capitalism rely on consumerism and necessarily foster an objectification and commodification of natural resources, — Uglydelicious

Those are somewhat loaded terms. Have you read Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons? It justifies private property by describing the rationale of farmers in relation to common grazing land. Basically, each farmers natural economic motive is to exploit this freely available resource to death by adding another cow, and another cow, and another - until the resource is destroyed. Whereas, when privately owned, the resource is conserved.

As a matter of scientific fact, resources are a consequence of the energy available to create them - and this is what is meant by a high energy, prosperous and sustainable future. I propose it is in the interests of capitalism and humankind - to exploit the freely available energy in the interior of the earth, in a very, very big way. The earth is a big ball of molten rock - 4000 miles deep and 26000 miles around. For all practical purposes - it's a limitless source of high grade clean energy, we need to tap into, to meet all our energy needs, extract carbon from the air, desalinate sea water to irrigate land, recycle, farm fish - and there's no good reason we can't carry on very much as we are now - warm and well fed, into the long distant future.

Evolution doesn't explain a lot of things and the senses are very poorly understood (if at all). — synthesis

Ah. It's all coming back to me. Haven't we done this before? Me, killing myself to explain - and you steadfastly refusing to understand, and yet responding - nonetheless. You could just not respond y'know!

Everything is wrong, so I can definitely agree with you there. Even if you possessed the skills necessary to be right (which nobody has), you would only be right one moment (and then everything changes). — synthesis

Well, you are for sure! And subjectivists generally. You must understand that recognising science as an increasingly valid and coherent understanding of reality; recognising that facts have a causal and functional truth value is important to the continued survival of the human species.

Objective reality explaining this is analogous to guaranteeing the completion of a 70 yard hail Mary pass on the last play of a football game. — synthesis

I thought you were just stupid. But turns out you're kind of a dick! Some sort of lefty, subjectivist, dumb act - that in fact is a piss take. You're mocking me. But I'm serious; humankind's relationship to science is mistaken, and that's why we're in trouble. We use science, but don't observe a scientific understanding of reality. We apply the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons - because what we believe is wrong. Well, what you believe is wrong!

Think about what life would be like if man really understood what was going on! — synthesis

I don't claim to know what's really going on. I mean, is Australia still on fire? Or has it burst into flames again? You don't want to help develop a rationale that would allow for the application of technology on the basis of scientific merit - rather than primarily for profit, okay! Who am I to puncture your happy, clappy bubble of epistemic relativism? But you could at least have the decency not to waste my time!

I know I'm not the center of the universe. — Scott South

You are at the centre of the universe. I'm so glad to meet you at last. The rest of us are circling around you. You are in the middle of everything with a clear view. For everyone but you, reality is skewed off to one side depending on where we are in relation to you. Everything you do is a sign. Everything you say is analysed for its hidden meaning. Every moral choice you make determines the fates of millions. You are what the entire universe is all about!

I think you've made a rod for your own back - responding to every post on the thread, and now you're stressed out - and get bent out of shape when people want to discuss the question you posed among themselves. It's inhibiting the thread, and so you're getting some stick. Why not chill - step back, see what evolves, and chip in when you've something to add?

I was just trying to interest you in epistemology!

The Dunning Kruger paradox:

...those who raise the Dunning Kruger effect are those most likely suffering from the Dunning Kruger effect!

Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I prefer intellectual honesty. I prefer to have good reasons for my views, and so be able to stand by them, rather than opine wildly - and then add "I could be wrong" and think myself wise for admitting it.

I suppose you didn't know that Socrates never said, "the only thing I know is that I know nothing." It's somewhat mistranslated from Plato's account of Socrates, but it wasn't Socrates that said it. The popularisation of the misquote is from Tolstoy's - War and Peace.

Of course, I could be wrong. We could all be brains in jars being fed a simulation of reality. Hence the significance of the questions:

What can we know? and,
How can we know it?

A solution in what sense?

You are making a claim to know - that we know nothing!

You are claiming you have mountains of evidence - so presume an answer to question number two, about how we know what we know.

Which in your case, really is nothing!

You can't bypass the problem that easily.

What can we know?
Nothing!
Job done. Wanna grab a pizza!
What's a pizza?

I agree to some extent. There is a philosophical tendency to want to decorate the existential Christmas tree with esoteric tinsel and metaphysical fairy lights, but there are genuine philosophical problems - that for my money, begin with epistemology. Two seemingly simple questions:

What can we know? and,
How can we know it?

Open the door on a vast and complex series of interrelated problems. Because I understand the depth of these problems, it's somewhat amusing to see you skating over the surface, yelling "look how easy it is!" - blissfully unaware that the ice gets real thin in places, and that there are fathomless frigid depths beneath!

I disagree with all that. The senses are crafted by evolution in relation to reality, and must convey an accurate picture of reality - else the organism would die out. A monkey swinging through the trees that saw the next branch further or nearer than it actually was - would plummet to its death, and take its species with it.

Human beings crate art - and discuss art in terms that make it inconceivable they 'see' different things. Human being create traffic lights, and wire plugs, and play video games - all of which would be impossible if reality were subjectively constructed.

The subjective nature of perception and apperception is wildly exaggerated in order to support subjectivist philosophy; favoured over objectivism since Galileo, because an objective reality had troubling implications for the Church. The Church arrested Galileo, and tried him for heresy - while his contemporary, Descartes became pet philosopher in the court of Queen Christina of Sweden.

A Cartesian, subjectivist bias can be identified through hundreds of years of Western philosophy, to the modern day. Now, it's the left that are heavily into promoting subjectivism; in support of postmodern moral and epistemic relativism. But it's wrong.

The organism is evolved in relation to reality and has to be right to survive. We cross the road together, look in a shop window together, see some TV's, and laugh at the same time when someone gets hit with a custard pie. Our perceptions are the same, and our psychological understandings are fundamentally similar because they are true to an objective reality. If they weren't, we could not survive!

If you look to your left - third box down, 7th entry down - philosophy of art!

Sure, no rush! I did find your post interesting as it is so very well written, and well informed. It's like you're building a castle, the way you construct the argument - slamming each piece into place with the weight of two thousand years of Christian theistic thought and reason. What's interesting; and I was reading a little Spinoza on Modal Collapse, is that the tradition of theistic thought understand the nature of God with reference to the implications for human existence and morality - whereas, others have advanced theories of God that would certainly lead to the giant in the middle of town, crushing all the little people - just to assert his ability to produce 4 sided triangles or whatever. What possibility of reason would there be for us - with a deity who somehow reaches beyond himself to contradict the laws of non-contradiction inherent to, and following from his being? How could an omnipotent contradiction even exist? It makes no sense! But as I say, I'm in no hurry.

I'm not going to solve the problem of solipsism. I can't. Everything could be my imagination, creating the world around me. Actually, that makes a lot of sense. I don't have to consider other people because they're not real. It takes a load off - while flattering my ego. I like it. Besides, how horrifying would it be to have to imagine myself as a passer-by in someone else's solipsistic view of reality - a nothing to them, as they are to me, because they're not real? No. It has to be me imagining them. They can't be solipsistic. I am.

I don't doubt the facts. I doubt the interpretation of the facts. There's an old adage - Occam's Razor, that suggests, the simplest adequate explanation is the best. Instinct tells me Homologous Recombination has something to do with chemical valances and electron transport. I'd be looking to explanations of that sort, before reading consciousness into molecule scale processes. I don't wish to pursue the question, because - rather like quantum mechanics, I can't and nor can you. We have absolutely no way of knowing what junk DNA Finopsicle is inserting into the script to prop up his thesis. That's the point I'm making regarding Finopsicle as a reference. He writes science books for people with an amateur interest - under a pseudonym. He won't stand by his own work. He completely bypasses any sort of peer review - and you quote him as if those indicators of scientific authority were in place. I have no more reason to consider his scribblings something I need to answer to, than your opinion. And if you said, I think molecules are conscious - I'd be fitting you for a long sleeved jacket with buckles up the back!

Kant's hypothetical imperative — Philguy

...is a fine guide for moral order in the course of scientific truth and sustainability, as an objective, universal value.

Morality is fundamentally a sense - not a set of axioms; it's like humour or aesthetics. There are identifiable regularities and broad agreement about what is funny or beautiful, but there's no recipe for what is funny or beautiful, and no absolute definition.

It's the same with morality. It's a sense fostered in the human animal by evolution. It was an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and to the tribe composed of moral individuals who would share food and defend each other etc. Morality only became explicit later, with civilisation.

Thus, the hypothetical imperative is perfectly fine. We act morally for reward. I use my natural abilities to know what is scientifically true, and on the basis of what's true, act morally with regard to sustainability, and thereby serve my own interests by securing the future, and so on, in an ongoing manner.

Where the 'is' is scientific truth - and the 'ought' is the moral sense, sustainability is the bridge between the two; and the self interest is served as a consequence of a general betterment of the human condition.

Yeah, but Nick Carraway was reading out loud to Daisy Buchannan from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

The opening line of "A Tale of Two Cities" is:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

That's Relativity and QM. They're contradictory.

So saying that they are both the best descriptions of reality we have is incoherent.

I'm sorry, but I've done my best to answer what is - something of an incoherent question. As I said, pragmatic consequences and philosophical implications are entirely different. I explained why with examples. Also, why are you asking about QM and relativity in the same question? Ask about one or the other - but both? What is the supposed relationship between the two? Last I heard, they are incompatible approaches. Have you got some Theory of Everything up your sleeve???

Fair enough, but there's a trade off between adopting a pseudonym - and granting the layman a sense of authority in support of arguments they are not capable of judging on merit. I'm not going to sugar-coat this, but the idea of awareness in molecules seems wackadoodle to me. I'm not taking that as gospel from a Mr Pseudonym. Now, if it were a paper, written by Oxford Professor of Molecular Biology, Professor Belabours the Point - and submitted for peer review, I'd be more inclined to entertain the same thesis, because it's from someone putting his professional reputation on the line.

I think you were talking about physical constants as a framework of existence. Quantum physics has added to the list - and now there are supposed to be 19. It rather complicates things for me, because it's basically impossible to know if these are real physical constants, like the speed of light, plank length, gravitation - intelligible concepts; or mere consequences of the math. I mean, what in Roddenberry's name are:

9 Yukawa couplings for the quarks and leptons
2 parameters of the Higgs field potential,
4 parameters for the quark mixing matrix,
3 coupling constants for the gauge groups SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1)

Align the phase coils and engage the inertial dampeners! Anyhow, I should apologise for giving your previous post short shrift, but I really was just sitting down to dinner - and thank you for entertaining my little theory, but I don't see how we can productively pursue this any further - if you can't give me a definite reason why I'm wrong, we're both kinda batting in the dark!

considering their pragmatic consequences — Raul

I'm led to believe that when launching rockets - Newton's laws of motion are used, because they are simpler that Einstein's relativity; and there's a trade off between accuracy and simplicity. Those are pragmatic consequences. Philosophical implications are something else entirely. Relativity and quantum mechanics are conceived in pursuit of truth. But it's entirely possible, in my view, that QM is looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

I think it's simply assumed that if you keep taking something apart, you'll discover what it's made of. That could be mistaken. It could be that anything we can define as existence, being or reality - is focused at the atomic plus scale - as a consequence of a nexus of forces that confer existential properties, and that the quantum scale just fades into nothing. So, because QM is quite possibly wrong, and because relativity is too complicated for practical use, I vote no.

Many thanks for the pleasant comment. Those were quite rare in the forum I used to post on, so it is a very welcome change. — Questio

Enjoy it while it lasts! I like to start from a place of good will and fine manners - but have found that as a discussion becomes an argument, it becomes a matter of battling ego monsters - and the gloves come off, good Sir! I'm new to theological logic chopping, but not new to logical implication. It would help if you could define terms - like modal collapse, divine simplicity or actus purus as they come up.

Instead, as a Thomistic Aristotlean, I instead affirm classical theisms definition of God as being *actus purus* or pure actuality itself, being ultimately simple, ultimately powerful, and ultimately necessary. — Questio

So we're using your concept of God, and not the one set out in the opening post on page one? Probably for the best. At least I might learn something from using your definition! It will be interesting to see how my argument does against your definition - my argument being, basically, that God is like a giant in the middle of town and if He moves, He stomps on the little people.

Second, as I've claimed in my last post, to be omnipotent is not to have the power to do anything (which I hope to have demonstrated was absurd) but rather to do whatever is intelligible. — Questio

I entirely accept logical intelligibility as not imposing a limit on God's omnipotence. Round triangles are a contradiction in terms, and the contradiction would be mine, not God's. You'll get no demands for rocks too big to lift from me!

Now, within God there is no real divisions; as such God's omnipotence IS his omnibenevolence which IS his omnipresence which IS his intellect which finally IS his will, which IS pure actuality. — Questio

Is actus purus the same as the doctrine of divine simplicity? Because, from what little I've read - that idea of God suffers from the Modal Collapse argument you mentioned earlier - wherein, from the necessity of His existence - and the uniformity of His being with the act of Creation, everything becomes absolutely necessary. I assume this is problematic because it denies the existence of free will and moral choice?

Now, because what is perfect in every manner, such as pure actuality, cannot, without being marked with unintelligiblility, move or act in accordance with imperfection, he thus cannot do a lot of what men can do. — Questio

Fine! Can't scratch an itch you ain't got!

However, this is not out of any lack of ability, but rather because any imperfection or wrong or anything of the sort (such as wrong reasoning) is always (in Thomistic thought) a deprivation of what is perfect, good, and so forth; to be doing such things isn't a positive gain but a negative loss. But it follows that there is, from this deprivation, the possibility of having such a thing. Thus, to do what is imperfect aligns with potential being, while to have is in alignment with actual being. — Questio

Okay, you've done much to define the terms of discussion - for which you have my thanks, but it doesn't address my argument. My argument is that God can't do anything - at all, because he is both omniscient and benevolent. I'll try to illustrate. In Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder" - a time traveller goes back in time, to the Pleistocene, steps on a butterfly, and the future is dramatically changed on his return. It's where the term "butterfly effect" comes from.

Now imagine an omnipotent God considering intervening in His Creation. He would intervene for the good - because He is good, but there would be a butterfly effect of implication that rolls down the years and must, necessarily, eventually entail a moral evil that would not have occurred but for His intervention. God would know this because He is omniscient. Thus, an omniscient and benevolent God cannot act - at all!

You're not wrong. Bartrick's reasoning is flawed and his conclusions incorrect. I would go further still, but shall refrain - and instead thank you for your post. It was a pleasure to read. In its own terms, the logic seems irrefutable:

Omnipotence entails that what ever is intelligibly possible may be willed to occur. — Questio

Yet I disagree, because the omnibenevolence of God is not considered.

Presumably, by the term "God" we are speaking of the Creator of the Heaven and the earth, and not just some random omnipient hanging out in no-space. Indeed, there needs to be a Creation for Him to be benevolent toward. One cannot be good or bad alone.

All that so, God's omnipotence is hampered by his omniscience and benevolence. Any intervention in the Creation must necessarily have consequences, that at some remove are inconsistent with His perfect benevolence - and He would know any action would lead to consequences, that lead to consequences, that lead to consequences that are bad, because he's omniscient. Thus, God is impotent as a consequence of His own nature.

I say look reality square in the eye and suffer. Shine your light into the dark corner, and you'll see that small objects cast big shadows. Only a fool would have his way blocked by shadows!

That's not exactly the right answer though! The Republic begins, a just state under the rule of a wise philosopher King, and then falls apart because people suck. It degrades toward tyranny - passing through timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and then tyranny! But what's wrong in Plato's Republic is the people - which is why I ask the question. Basically, what Banno said is that Megolomania sucks! Not that his ideas are bad - but that his best laid plans will be undone, because people are ....unwise, and slaves to their passions. So I am seeking clarification on exactly what banno meant.

Finipolscie is apparently a pseudonym, and that makes it impossible to judge his scientific credentials. Also, he's floating the idea of awareness in molecules. See here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10007/awareness-in-molecules/p1

This all seems very Teilhard Du Chardin to me; an interesting writer to read, but wildly speculative, and not to be taken entirely seriously. ...say I, while nonetheless advancing my own amateur hour crackpot theory.

No worries. I'll keep looking. Dinner time. Logging off!

You're perfectly entitled to your opinion, and I can't argue because I'm stuck at the hypothesis stage, but at least you seem to have understood it, and that ain't nothin!

Just to clarify though, do you believe it's been investigated and found to be unpersuasive? And if so, could you point me in the right direction?

Because I thought, in my infinite ignorance - that the confusion was the consequence of a false assumption carried into QM unexamined, that if you keep taking something apart - you find out what it's made of - which wouldn't be the case if the fundamental seat of reality is here, at the macroscopic level - and QM is the frayed edge and just bleeds into the void.

Even if the generality were correct, I don't see how you could partially affect causality, even at the sub-atomic level. — Gary Enfield

Nor do I, really, to be honest - but I'm trying to explain EPR, double slit, quantum tunnelling and so on - these weird quantum behaviours, in terms of a causal reality. And to be fair, on the surface of things - the idea that quantum objects are too small to be effected by gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, or only partially effected, doesn't seem any madder than supposing spooky action at a distance!

You are more accommodating to the interests of employers than I am. — Bitter Crank

I think it fair minded. Your average employee turns up, and contributes his labour - takes his wages and goes home. The employer rents buildings, buys resources, tools, and finds customers for the products produced. If there's an unequal power dynamic it's because there's an unequal burden of responsibilities. The behaviour of the employee may bear directly on the ability of the employer to discharge his responsibilities. Thus, it's fair to require employees refrain from untoward behaviour on company time.
The problem for me is when employers interfere in their employees personal lives. I'm thinking mostly about opinions expressed online, or photos on instagram, coming back to haunt people. The employer is overstepping the mark. Outside of company time, it's no business of the company what a person says or does.

Because you are not a bat!

Pff. When you understand what is wrong in Plato's Republic, you will understand what is wrong in your proposal. — Banno

What is your understanding of what is wrong in Plato’s republic? — Megolomania

Good question Megolomania! Could you point me to Banno's answer! I can't seem to find it!!

Chekhov's gun is a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. Elements should not appear to make "false promises" by never coming into play. The statement is recorded in letters by Anton Chekhov several times, with some variation:

• Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle...

Okay!

I'll toss a coin. Heads - there's such a thing as luck. Tails - there's no such thing as luck!

Oh no, the coin hit the fish tank, cracked the glass, the water shorted the electrics and blundering about in the dark I squished flippy!

Your low effort, non-responses bore me. How about we end this now?

there is no such thing as the right to free speech at work. — Bitter Crank

That's different. You're getting paid. You represent the company - and they have a right to project an image, and protect that image from the expression of opinions that might damage business.

You asked “What are BLM saying then - when protesting outside city halls” and I posted a video of BLM protesters saying things outside of a city hall in California. Maybe a tad facetious but eminently practical and honest. — praxis

I confess, I didn't really watch the promo video of sanitized scenes we'd like to see - instead of the rioting burning and looting that actually took place. The location wasn't really the operative factor, bur rather - the lists drawn in blood, of black people killed by police.

Again, for the record - there are 10 million arrests per year. 0.01% end with the death of the suspect. Approximately 1000 people per year die in custody. 32% of those are black people. So there's around 320 black people die in custody every year.

A long list painted in blood is intended to create a false impression; one might reasonably describe as the impression that:

“there’s a racist killing spree being conducted by the police” — praxis

There isn't. It's a false narrative.

you’re saying that deadly force is justified against citizens if they’re merely associated with crime and regardless if they pose a threat? — praxis

No I'm not. How on earth did you get that impression? Black people are 13% of the population. They make up 32% of those killed by police. I anticipated you might argue this shows police bias. But it's actually a consequence of the fact that black people commit more crime. Perhaps, also, given that black people commit more violent crime, they are also more likely to resist arrest.