Olivier5

Seems absurd to me. There is only one universe, and it includes everything there is. Layers are in the eye of the observer.

I agree. Penelope is also a great find. Also, smart 'tension' between the title and text ('Penny'). Well composed piece overall.

I'm pretty confident that you have no idea what you are talking about, because the Economist IS a mainstream publication. I would be interested in rea...

The Economist is Western media, one of the most visible. Evidently, its competitors, such as the NYT, are not going to talk much about a scoop that es...

The Economist is ignored by the Western media, really? The Economist is a US outlet, really? You guys live in your own world, where your own defecatio...

Not clear. What original novelty are you talking about? In a deterministic view, there is no novelty, ever.

He's trolling, which means that he doesn't measure his success by the number of correct, logical points he makes, but by the amount of time you waste ...

You don't have much imagination, do you?

Russia won't be more dangerous after the war, it will be defanged and humbled. Don't you look forward to that?

I like that, but can't fail to notice a contradiction with determinism: if the future is entirely predeterminated, then time does not matter, all its ...

Thanks :up:

So the new stories are the anonymous ones? There's just one I can see at the moment, Borderline Love Lost.

Most probably there are several levels of transmission and cognition: electro-chemical, but also wave-based. And perhaps others yet to be found.

That may be because it is not there, what is stored is only a technique to reproduce the experience. The seeing makes the image. Otherwise there exist...

You wouldn't be able to see any of it if you dissected a brain.

That's the 100 million dollar question. I would think along some lines close to our intuition of it: we ponder things and take decisions, chosing amon...

I understand, so in effect the story failed; it was still too close to a Christmas tale. It was too obvious at the seams.

Me too...

I was aiming at a non-slushy one... :-)

The argument of Harris (Spinoza, really) does not work in an indeterministic world, leaving open the possibility that we may have some agency.

Thank you for the kind words. I did have a lot of fun with this one, both writting it and reading the comments. :-)

This was not a serious entry, I was just having fun with @"Amity"'s dare to write a micro fiction entitled "Ukraine Crisis". It was written very fast,...

Of the two I wrote, this was my 'real' entry, given that the other one (Ukraine Crisis) was written very quickly as a joke, taking up @"Amity"'s dare....

Most probably. Plants and animals can die if not fed certain elements, like potassium or iodine and scores of others. Starve a plant of any of them an...

Then causation is not a chain, and we are not shackled by it.

That assumes a determinist chain.

I noticed that as well. I think you are correct that there is a tendency to seek shock and "newsworthyness", as a way to stand out perhaps and attract...

Wait... You mean a human author trying to pass for a machine? That's an inverted Turing test.

Please no! It's fascinating...

Maybe these micro-stories, leaving by force much to the readers' imagination, function as the Rohrbach test? :-) I think it's a Christmas story that d...

It's better than some posters' rhetoric about nuclear weapons, which belongs to death. Russia needs to be humbled alright, and the Ukrainians are busy...

I found it well written, with a good flow, and based on a good idea but a bit too "flat" and factual. I am missing a motive, some tension, emotions mo...

I agree. Putin is not a fool. He knows he can't do that. Talks of nuke use are rhetorical.

Likewise, if Putin could use nukes in Ukraine, he would have already done so.

If Russia uses nukes in Ukraine, the whole Russian army in Ukraine and in the Black Sea will be annihilated by NATO strikes, thus ending the war quick...

Marquis de Sade - Wanda's Loving Boy It's very early And Wanda sleeps so soundly Underneath the dim moonbeams The whole world is dead When I come up t...

It is, actually. I agree. I even searched for "Custine" on TPF: there's no mention of him in here. As told, this story did not happen on TPF.

I understand that the title was mandatory, as per @"Amity"'s dare. The author could have stuck to it better by making the victim a Ukrainian, teaching...

Correct.

That's fair, I think. PS: You mentioned France's projection to Africa, Syria, or the Indo-Pacific as assets but in a EU environment, this might not wo...

May I ask if you live in the EU, or follow EU politics closely? Irrespective of what the Parisian journalists you quote may opine, there's no way any ...

I don't know what leadership you are talking about. The relationship between France and Germany -- the traditional political engine of the EU -- is cu...

He's emmerding his allies by reminding them that they will need to make peace with their enemy, that however giddy they are about emmerding the Russia...

It's just a different modus operandi, which integrates provocation as a means to challenge the status quo. Macron accepts that he needs to ruffle a fe...

"Cretin" is being kind.

Don't let knee-jerk antifrog racism blur your thinking. Macron is easy to dislike, but he is not a wannabe dictator.

Agreed. It's not unrealistic, with republicans like Trump, it could well happen.

Exactly. A diversity of views within NATO is not a weakness, as long as allies respect and listen to each other while moving forward. NATO must defend...

It seems to me that your speculations about Macron dreaming to become Napoleon IV are not empirically testable and serve no purpose that I can see. Yo...

Both you and @"Tzeentch" actually.