I'm really sorry that happened in your life. It's rough, I know. There was a person who used to post on these forums some years ago, or at least befor...
My older brother killed himself last March, and in a pretty ugly way. This event devastated our large family. We are all traumatized, his siblings, hi...
Is it even possible to really believe in a claim like the resurrection? Sure, people can say they believe it, they can recite prayers that say it, the...
I would argue that there are no real objects in the world. It is just a matter of how our brains carve things up, some of this determined by our evolu...
It is critically important to understand that there are many different kinds of drugs that do very, very different things. And people use them for man...
I don't understand how "I exist, but I should not exist" is a contradiction. The 'is' and the the 'ought' here are two different things. A contradicti...
The real issue that people should be considering here, and probably the point, is that the other people you relate to would not be real, would not hav...
I've always struggled to understand people who are not at all interested in altering their consciousness. As Tom Waits said, "Reality is for people wh...
Mostly, it is that it seems far away, and not quite real, and people are immersed in their own sets of concerns/pressures, and are themselves just try...
It most certainly is! :smile: I am not sure if you are joking. In case you aren't:Epiphenomenalism One is subjective and the other is objective. Perha...
If you think consciousness (I read subjectivity) is real and is causal, and also that all causes are physical (I read objective), what does this mean?...
It's so much simpler than that. How can anything that doesn't make any difference make a difference to survival? Obviously, for something to be select...
It seems to me that in the case of tornados, these are only different levels of description of the same thing. Or you could say that this is an exampl...
When people normally use the word experience when saying something like "billiard balls experience impacts", I don't think they are implying at all th...
Is this directed at me? This comes across as rather hostile. If I am not misreading your tone, why do feel that way? I am very much aware of the diffe...
Among other things, I wanted to see if anyone here believes in the evolution of epiphenomenal consciousness. I am curious to hear what thoughts such p...
Thanks for the link! When I saw that, I recognized Tse's ideas as something I encountered some years ago but forgot about. I'll have read it again soo...
I am genuinely puzzled about the matter of consciousness and mental causation. I tend to think that it is obvious that I am conscious. I have a hard t...
What is your position that doesn't fit any of the options? It seems to me that these five options should cover all positions. There are only four poss...
As for IIT, I guess you would say we are conscious and consciousness did not evolve. I am not sure whether IIT proponents would argue that consciousne...
I should have written the options differently, but I can't edit them now. For option two, read "all causes are physical" as basically equivalent to "e...
It seems to me that what we tend to mean by free will is not that our actions are not determined (random), but rather that, free from external determi...
It has always seemed to me that when talking about the self, it is important to get clear about the difference between the subject, or that which is e...
How do you make sense of a person resisting their impulses? I don't know about you, but I often find conflict and disagreement and tension in myself, ...
It only seems like a problem if you think of yourself as a perfect, indivisible mereological simple, as a single thing that has no parts. But if you a...
Regarding Hume's argument against miracles (and other claims of non-supernatural but ultra-extraordinary things), I am reminded of this scene from Joa...
That might be right! The fact remains that we don't have any evidence for any life other than this line we are a part of. The discovery of a second li...
The basic probability principle underlying Hume's argument against miracles is just a part of good general epistemological hygiene whether you are dea...
Life is rare, intelligent life rarer, technological civilization rarer still, and interstellar travel is really, really hard. Consider that even on th...
I think Mick West has done a solid job of explaining the UAP videos. His work doesn't get enough attention. I remember smacking myself in the forehead...
Some considerations. First of all, the physical world doesn't seem to be continuous or infinitely divisible. Most physicists these days seem pretty su...
I see what you are saying! But spacetime, and the way things are arranged "in it", even without such distortions, always presents such issues. Why, fo...
I don't pretend to really understand it, but if I am not misinformed, as @"jgill" pointed out, from the standpoint of the ship, as you approach the sp...
I'll stick with Hume on this story for now: One possibility occurred to me. Do you think the US government might be motivated to disinform here in ord...
A couple of books that I read that would be of interest to anyone participating in this thread are Peter Pomerantsev's This Is Not Propaganda, Adventu...
Thank you! Yes! Even in QM, as Rovelli points out, basically what it means to have a property is to be measured, which means to be interacted with, to...
Also, as for appropriation, it is a good and important thing for various entities to learn from and incorporate aspects of one another, no? What if we...
Sometimes we are better able to see others than we are able to clearly see ourselves. It is like a brick on a wall able to see the wall across the str...
I am curious what you all think. Suppose Ukraine, when Russia had its forces on the border threatening, would have committed formally to neutrality an...
Peter Zeihan on NATO provocations: https://youtu.be/gbr3CiOhTO8 I keep hearing that if Ukraine would have just committed to neutrality, or the West wo...
In case you didn't see this interesting prediction by Oleksiy Arestovych from 2019: https://youtu.be/DwcwGSFPqIo Also, I've been finding the comments ...
I don't know if this video has already been linked to in this thread, but just in case it hasn't, here it is. It is a MUST WATCH! It explains better t...
Many of you seem pretty well-informed about what is going on in Europe. What do you think of the future of Slovakia? Any opinions? Is it safe? Is it l...
I've used weed too many times to count, mushrooms on maybe a dozen occasions, once as much as 10 dried grams (don't remember the peak at all and found...
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