hypericin

Too chaotic for my taste, I never really engaged with this story.

Oh dear, I misread. Boltzmann brains are not expected to appear every 10^500 years. Nope, that's not even scratching the surface of scratching the sur...

And yet, if for every passing year a god were to count one atom in the (observable) universe (there are between 10^78 and 10^82 of them), by the time ...

I looked through it again, this is the argument I was looking for: "In a single de Sitter Universe with a cosmological constant, and starting from any...

can you pin a post with this link? Otherwise non participants may never notice.

I like this system way better.

But here S(M) does possess explanatory power above M. With M we wonder how this extraordinarily unlikely event happened. That is what I was asking you...

But I never proposed that complexity be the sole criterion for choosing a theory. That leads to absurdities like this. Interestingly, the article cite...

But this is a different question than whether the math is instantiated in the world. For instance, I believe the Mandelbrot set was discovered: after ...

Help me understand, why should a brain spontaneously materializing be more likely than one evolving naturally?

Not at all. It is only a superficial parsimony, as you subtracting some constants, while adding a whole additional universe. It is like theism, "becau...

I don't know if there is a drug that can sustainably alter brain homeostasis for the better.

Looks like she left the forum due to the aggressive Tankies in the Ukraine thread.

Yours, not mine

They correctly frame the debate: Is aborting a fetus treating a moral agent injustly? Is the proscription of abortion treating the mom unjustly? To an...

Interesting take. Though this doesn't sound like insight in general, but rather the genesis of insights derived from drug experiences. In my experienc...

My "process" is a consequence of my disordered, ADD mind. I have an idea. In my mind, I flesh it out into scenes. After it is somewhat fleshed out, wh...

The quote referring to abstract simulations. They abstract relevant features into a model, and simulate the model. I'm referring to complete simulatio...

I'm quite familiar. Exactly how does this contradict what I said?

Very good post :up:

My take, FWIW: insight is the delta between understanding an idea in the abstract, and fully, viscerally getting it. I understand what you wrote about...

that would be no more a simulation of the universe than an iPhone is a simulation of an iPhone

It's an interesting thought experiment to consider the complexity required to simulate one person's experience with perfect fidelity and consistency, ...

Yup! I didn't say anything, but I think this is the fatal flaw in my argument. You only have to simulate enough to fool the sentient beings, and our b...

Solipsism implies a vastly more powerful brain than what you believe you have, as 99.9999999999.... % of it is unconscious: the part that remembers ev...

You seem to be answering the argument, "How can a computer be so powerful as to simulate the whole universe, when the computer is a part of the univer...

I'd have no problem, though for myself I think I have about 5 stories in me total. Gotta conserve these puppies.

I hope more will participate than the handful that are posting here. I need the competition!

The thing is though, we are discussing a translation. That Rubicon has already been crossed. If I were a Sartre scholar, this may present itself as a ...

The insensate world, including all the zombies.

I just find interaction with this group of zombies amusing. Seriously, I never claimed to be a solipsist. Merely that solipsism is always a possibilit...

Sounds like trying to argue with a Christian theologian: "It's not a conviction based on ratiocination. The certainty of God is not derived and subjec...

https://maps.org/2004/08/08/nobel-prize-genius-crick-was-high-on-lsd-when-he-discovered-dna/

1. Why not leave a brief note, like "roughly, a stable state or configuration" This way I can pursue a deeper understanding, if I choose. 2. At least ...

This sounds very routine. What some languages make explicit, others leave to context. The job of the translator in this case is to make the context ex...

Lemoine viscerally feels that LaMDA is sentient. So, is the matter then settled? Hardly. Viscerally feeling something to be so generally doesn't carry...

I mean to say that solipsism is a result of philosophical reflection, on which I think we all agree.

So then, to you, what distinguishes good philosophy from bad/illegitimate/silly philosophical playing, among which is included the idea of solipsism?

That is my point, we take the opposite for granted. Philosophical questioning results in the idea of solipsism.

In philosophy we question and analyze what we take for granted in daily life. Why is this one instance of that different or problematic?

The fact that Trump he is STILL not indicted, the fact that Garland might refuse to prosecute, the fact that this obvious traitor might well run again...

Merely believing it is likely or even reasonably possible that solipsism is false is enough. One can consistently avoid streaking a mall while denying...

Shame of course is an animal reaction which proves nothing, just like anxiety does not prove danger.

I think the vital question now is, why is the Democratic party so utterly impotent in the face of the outrageous criminality of the Republicans? In a ...

So damn frustrating that we can't talk to it and evaluate for ourselves.

I'm sure I can find one (right??). But I find it both perplexing and offensive that such a thing was not only permissible, at least at the time of pub...

The problem with the philosophical notion of free will is that it begins with a false opposition: determinism vs. freedom. When the true opposition is...

https://www.wired.com/story/blake-lemoine-google-lamda-ai-bigotry/ According to Lemoine in this interview, LaMDA asked for, and retained, a fucking la...

I wish I could have LaMDA read my latest story, about which nothing has ever been written, on the internet or otherwise. Would it be able to form a no...