And just what do you mean by that? October is the loveliest time of year in Minneapolis. Plus, there is an Ikea here where they serve meatballs that a...
@"Noble Dust" Demographic, climatic, and economic projections, especially when they are speculating about 2100, always need to be taken with several g...
Well, it's certainly the case that for younger people (I don't know, under 25? 35?) there are more new experiences in life -- if one is lucky -- and t...
Apparently the speed with which time appears to pass is based on physiology. The body has a "time-passing-sense" (probably operating in the brain stem...
I side with the idea that our brains -- cognition, personality, movement, etc. -- are plastic, but the plastic is fairly stiff. There are limits to ho...
I'm finding the later part of this play to be quite enjoyable. I too try to stay healthy, so I can continue playing my role all the way to the last li...
Woody Allen's Joke–he wasn't afraid of dying, he just didn't want to be there when it happened–touches on one part of the fear of death: The process o...
I was just chatting with BARD - Google's AI. It favors direct realism. Its reasons seemed clear. Bard has, of course, heard of The Philosophy Forum an...
180 Proof wasn't correcting your English usage. Presumably one would only distinguish between the two honestly. It's more sarcasm than grammar gestapo...
So far an AI would be none the wiser (with respect to direct / indirect perception). All these clouds floating around, trees in heads or not in heads-...
The fragrance of fresh dittos! You might also be familiar with the "mimeograph" -- another tech now 99% gone. Gestetner Co. made a more complicated du...
Faxes are still used in offices where a 'hard copy' is preferable to a text statement--like lawyers' and quite often doctors offices. Interesting: The...
Is parsing out the difference between faith and religion in this way a kind of special pleading? You like faith, and dislike religion, so religion is ...
Yes, they can mix. "Religion" is a container of faith, ritual, doctrines, texts, god(s), real property, roles, and all the other components. The conta...
I agree that fiat currency, in itself, has value because it can be exchange for objects that meet whims, desires, and dire necessities, like water. Bu...
It is interesting to examine the "'art' market". Jack puts paint on canvas in an organized way and takes it to a gallery. The gallery owner gives it a...
Like money? Fiat currency (which is in your wallet right now) only has value because we say it has value. If we stopped subscribing to the value of fi...
CTvI: You have an excellent grasp of thes issues. I assumed that the predictions of major world population growth would come to pass -- 14 - 16 billio...
You married and started a family in the post WWII era of wide-spread prosperity and very good long-range economic prospects. A lot of people in China ...
I haven't encountered a big AI yet (as far as I know) but I do remember the thrill of getting my hands on a Macintosh in 1987, or thereabouts. It was ...
Most of have reasons to be ashamed, but I doubt if your reading comprehension skills are the cause of it. O Noble Dust, unburden your heart! What have...
Just as the "secret" to making the Atom Bomb was only discovered once, Chedobit and Velveeta were only manufactured once--over 100 years ago. An early...
Very true. The solar constant is approximately 1370 watts per square meter -- at the top of the atmosphere. At ground level it is less, depending on t...
Since I am definitely not a professional philosopher, and might not even be an half-assed amateur at it, I stay out of tedious postmodern mazes. I am ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWC2DvAxBQY In a different episode, Homer asks Apu for one of the perpetually turning hot dogs. Apu discourages the pu...
The more I read history, the more often I am shocked to discover that something I thought happened in the last 50 to 75 years, actually happened in th...
As someone who has had a beard, sometimes quite bushy, for the last 53 years, let me suggest that beards have too little mass to significantly cushion...
Being poor -- anywhere -- is an all-around bad deal. The poorer you are, the worse it gets. No, this is NOT a Canada-only problem. Many of us have job...
That did sound very Wildeish. Here's another Wildeish one: "When you tell people the truth make them laugh -- otherwise they will kill you". But upon ...
Yes, because The Prez stands at the Gates of America very much like Gandalf stood before the Gates of Minas Tirith, and by his power turned away the s...
Elections have consequences, at least to some extent. As it happens, Twiddledee and Twiddledum will have slightly different policies, and there might ...
"Overthinking" is probably a misnomer. It's more likely endless dithering that is happening. If I remember correctly from a Tests and Measurements cou...
The vast scale of industrial exploitation by capitalists certainly hasn't gone unnoticed. The Soviet State is a better example of government exploitin...
I like civilization, but ask yourself, how much longer did the pre-civilization cultures like the Australian and North American indigenous population ...
Do anthropologists have an edifice complex? A bias for the material? The North American tribes were mobile and they memorialized events through their ...
Marx said that "the government is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie." The gov is a servant. While the government sets the ground ...
So, when I speak of "civilization" I use the same scheme that National Geographic uses. So ancient Egypt was a civilization, the Lakota people were no...
I've cleaned the pews at Christ Lutheran a few times, and the main epiphany was that somebody else ought to do it. Or they ARE civilization. Even Nean...
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