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Rich

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One can analogize life and death to a painting that one doesn't like and wishes to do over. One covers the old painting with a layer of white paint an...
July 04, 2017 at 12:46
Yes, one cannot rely on a consciousness in order to deny it.
July 04, 2017 at 12:31
I think it is fair to say that no model is off the "beginning" is definitive. You can say the beginning is God (all powerful external intelligence), t...
July 04, 2017 at 12:24
Life=>evolution of consciousness=>creativity+exploration+learning Death=>opportunity for conscious rebirth=>new canvas for consciousness
July 04, 2017 at 11:55
As far as compatibilism it's concerned, in the article you linked to, if there is but a singular choice made anywhere at any time, determinism is brok...
July 04, 2017 at 05:30
Science is all about approximations that are practical for all purposes (an idea proposed by John Bell). It is not exact. Never was. Never will bless....
July 04, 2017 at 05:25
Exactly, precisely what is a "deterministic being"? I view humans as intelligence. This intelligence makes choices. It is responsible for its choices ...
July 04, 2017 at 05:12
Buddhism suggests the Middle Way-moderation. Nothing more or less. Enlightenment, or any such thing is a marketing gimmick for those who wish to turn ...
July 04, 2017 at 02:14
There has been much evolution in understanding the nature of human existence, just not in the mainstream. It takes exploration outside of the common p...
July 03, 2017 at 13:38
Not at all. The universe is filled with habits or repetitive memory that is constantly being refashioned by choices. I may get up around 8 o'clock eve...
July 03, 2017 at 13:17
Precisely what would be taking responsibility for anything in a deterministic world? The inanimate quanta? In other words, how does the concept of res...
July 03, 2017 at 13:04
What goes on in academia lies somewhere at the intersection of pathetically sad, hysterically funny, and dreadfully disgusting. To obsrve what people ...
July 03, 2017 at 03:36
Are you seeking an academic study on how academia bends over backwards to please whoever gives it give it money? I'll give it a look and see. Maybe, I...
July 03, 2017 at 03:19
Of course you will as well most others. That is why banks and corporations fund these institutions-to ensure their interests are well represented. It'...
July 03, 2017 at 02:44
Academic research is all about tenure and keeping the bosses happy. I can't remember the last time I found anything interesting coming out academia. I...
July 03, 2017 at 00:20
Minimum wage probably has some effect on overall standard of living under certain circumstances, but its overall effect is minor in comparison to mone...
July 02, 2017 at 21:02
I don't think there was any group identity motivating the Belgium and French arming of the Rwandans nor of the neo-conservative desire to invade Iraq....
July 02, 2017 at 20:52
Stalin and Mao didn't seem to be motivated by religion not were their underlings who carried out their mass murders. If you are looking for a common t...
July 02, 2017 at 20:20
Yes, it would be a gross simplification to argue that the Nazis were just very anti-Semitic. They were just thugs with ownership of a massive war mach...
July 02, 2017 at 20:08
To truly have nothing, one must extinguish consciousness sensing. Actually I was once unconscious for a few minutes and there truly was nothing. And t...
July 02, 2017 at 18:39
The Nazis were pretty indiscriminate in their genocide. 35 million Russians were killed. Why? The Nazis, like the Mongols, were super-large-scale murd...
July 02, 2017 at 18:32
Does this discussion presume that one has free choice and can act on their beliefs? If so there is ample evidence that the Nazi's believed that they w...
July 02, 2017 at 18:25
Words and sentences are strictly a string of symbols that may communicate an interesting new idea or not. A paradox of words does not necessarily comm...
July 02, 2017 at 14:04
Best current evidence is that everything is composed of quanta (non-material) and there is no reason to suppose that mind/body is anything but a conti...
July 01, 2017 at 18:35
As far as we know, there is no distinction between immaterial and material other than the way the mind perceives it (substantially). It is like trying...
July 01, 2017 at 16:27
One can care about faceless and have a connection via empathy, which would be an extrapolation of caring. A good question would be (and highly metaphy...
July 01, 2017 at 14:31
Your thesis rests on the proposition that "caring" is an emotion. If you can show this you have a paper.
July 01, 2017 at 13:05
To answer your question, once must first dispose of scientific time which is merely synchronizing movements of physical clocks for measurement purpose...
July 01, 2017 at 00:27
This depends upon one's concept of the mind, which I perceive as memory embedded in a holographic universe. The brain within this access scenario is j...
July 01, 2017 at 00:03
What it's particularly interesting about dreams is that the mind switches from a state of qualitatively perceived space and a psychologically felt tim...
June 30, 2017 at 22:30
And this is precisely what is happening in life. We have habits and skills and senses. We continually observe and make judgements of possible modes of...
June 30, 2017 at 16:13
Yes, the illusion of free will is often used to explain the experience humanity by both Buddhism (some branches that is) and science. Once we go down ...
June 30, 2017 at 16:07
There are relevant historical social, political, and moral contexts for all of these strange descriptions of human existence. They don't spin out of t...
June 30, 2017 at 15:58
It gets complicated since God has already decided and has the final say. But not too worry, it's better than determinism that has us all killing each ...
June 30, 2017 at 05:15
Indeed, this it's how religious people think of responsibility, God, and life. Heaven is their destination picked for them by God and it matters naugh...
June 30, 2017 at 04:38
You're welcome. Hoping your talk goes well.
June 29, 2017 at 22:26
There certainly is much symmetry and duality in nature and therefore physics. The primary insight of Daoism was that the fundamental stuff off the uni...
June 29, 2017 at 17:39
An observed regularity (or habitual behavior) had practical application but there is nothing that is 100%, precisely predictable. So there is the spec...
June 29, 2017 at 17:32
One gathers such insights via observation (which early Daoists excelled at because they were all about observing nature), personal experiences, and if...
June 29, 2017 at 17:15
From my own studies, Lao Tze probably did not exist as a single person but probably more of a composite, like Aesop. The Dao de Jing itself appears to...
June 29, 2017 at 15:45
This is the essential problem. The term is bandied about as is the term God, but any discussion about it v is without end because it is the omnipresen...
June 29, 2017 at 15:32
The definition presented it's as ambiguous as the term. What is true and undeniable and constant? What is gravity (where is it in the microscopic worl...
June 29, 2017 at 14:42
I have seen this question before. First you have to define what you believe (and I emphasize the word believe) to be the laws of nature. Until they ar...
June 29, 2017 at 14:15
Choice (I hesitate to use the concept of Free Will) is an attempt to move in a particular direction that is constrained. Constrained by what? Memories...
June 29, 2017 at 12:30
You could try to imagine such a situation but it is your consciousness that is doing so. One cannot disentangle consciousness from any discussion or e...
June 29, 2017 at 05:23
The paper is muddy with it's descriptions of concepts, but with some background of the deBroglie-Bohm real wave interpretation (the electron is a pert...
June 29, 2017 at 05:14
You say that there is no need to imagine a universe without humans but then you try to imagine one. It is compatible to discuss anything without the c...
June 29, 2017 at 04:49
Everything is essentially memory. The difference lies in the substantially of that which created the memory. To try to draw a demarcation line it's im...
June 28, 2017 at 14:04
One does not have to wear shoes to exist. Right now I I'm not wearing shoes. Everything is energy and everything that we perceive is in the form of so...
June 28, 2017 at 13:17
Schrodinger's equation and the Heisenberg Principle is about a measurement and a measurement requires an observer. What happens outside of the measure...
June 28, 2017 at 12:58