Bird-Up

As long as a single human experiences suffering that outweighs all their enjoyment of life, then the value of human life has been disproven. At this p...

No I was speaking more of the difference between dreams and realty. Both can share any amount of detail or traits. But reality has the characteristic ...

Does consistency carry any weight? The metaphysical universe is extremely consistent, albeit unproven. Are "unproven" and "inconsistent" the same? Doe...

What a shame. Your own existence demanding explanation. Neural activity can be one and the same without your blessing. What made you ban your subjecti...

But by looking somewhere else for an explanation, you have already disqualified neural activity as one of the candidates. You pointed out that not all...

I think that is a good way to illustrate the problem. Imagine a checklist of all the characteristics that pain has. What if you went down that list, o...

As grass has proven, consciousness isn't strictly necessary for survival. So isn't a larger brain part of the substance and form? Couldn't it be possi...

Why do we need to separate consciousness from neural/biological activities? What characteristic prevents us from grouping them together in the same ca...

It looks like you have misunderstood most of the metaphors I threw out there. I was illustrating a different concept than the one you were thinking ab...

I would like to see a feature where the threads that you have already posted in are highlighted somehow.

Shame the rest of the internet doesn't have a filter. We would be in a much better place. I agree, everyone is an agnostic. Wish I could find a good e...

Fair enough. But which one of us is going down the rabbit-hole of the homunculus fallacy? Both of us?

I'd say the human experience is 0% objective and 100% subjective. We are completely dependent on the information being supplied to us by our brain. Th...

I think the problem is the specificity of the idea of god. It is a very common tradition on Earth and we are acclimated to thinking about the notion. ...

Sure. Just explaining why I could never trust a probability to be completely accurate. Sort of like acknowledging that probability can never give us a...

"Simulated first-person views" sounds like a valid definition of the objective world. I've always thought of objectivity as an abstract model that we ...

To put it another way: humans will never have the ability to see 0% probability in the universe. We would need absolute knowledge of everything in ord...

The worker must personally use the product they are making. If you don't eat hot dogs, then you shouldn't be working in the hot-dog factory. All jobs ...

It's my understanding that vegans don't really care about what happens to animals; they just want to feel like they aren't responsible for what happen...

Or proof that human beliefs do not depend entirely on logic. If someone is feeling intense sensations of anxiety, they will eventually have to rationa...

I would agree that this is the fundamental flaw of modern man. Humans were given a will to survive, but not an explanation of why they needed to survi...

Great answer from Tom Storm. Personally, I think delusions only exist in past-tense, when you are talking about a first-person perspective. After rece...

Interesting thought. I would consider any communication not directed at a human/domesticated-animal to be a generic prayer. I would also imagine early...

“Beware lest there be anyone who robs you by means of his philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the elementary principles of th...

I would say that both objective and subjective experiences are an authentic version of reality. One is an accurate assessment of what it looks like fr...

I'm not aware of any force that is 100% unimpeded by other forces. This would mean that all forces eventually degrade when they hit something. These f...

I assume these short stories should have something to do with philosophy? Nothing more specific than that? (Aside from the general rules.)

I don't mind a cucumber, but I do wonder why people continue to buy certain boring-tasting plants. Would it be off-topic to turn a discussion about an...

I would argue that the experience of consciousness does solve a practical problem. But it's mostly about making the brain more efficient, not about gi...

Here's a test to see if vegans care about the welfare of animals: ask them how often they buy meat products. If the answer is "never", then they are j...

No, you are right, something has to be said for the consistent nature of the objective world. It wouldn't be so reliable if there was nothing really o...

I think subjectivity is everything. We have a special concept called objectivity that lets us reliably connect the dots between each of our own subjec...

The hard problem, if nothing else, is about highlighting a notion that is unexpected. We wouldn't be discussing it if the experience of consciousness ...

Interesting post. Always want to know more about how the universe works, but I don't subscribe to the religious belief that quantum mechanics is magic...

Ha yeah I like the part where he rattles the wall of his cage like a prisoner.

I just mean abstract in the simplest sense of the word: seeing scenarios in its head that aren't actually taking place in the world around it. Grapes ...

Well, if the monkey was just experiencing sympathy (mirroring), then it might feel hunger when it realized another monkey was eating food; and I'm sur...

I would be curious to know what you thought of that video of a monkey getting outraged by unequal pay. Is the monkey just experiencing sympathy? Seems...

A hard cutoff point for "thought" assumes that the definition shouldn't take place on a gradual scale. Instead of "thought" and "not a thought", could...

Thanks, I would agree with everything you said. But isn't there also a valuable continuum of progress between adequate-solution and inadequate-solutio...

Probability is never perfect, since it is based on what has happened historically. So I think the important question is: "How should we act in respons...

Thank you for sharing that terrible experience. That's the kind of thing people desperately need to know about these days; whether they realize it or ...

The hard problem is certainly trying to come from the position of neutrality. But It's impossible not to have preconceived notions about how the human...

Here are some thoughts I would consider: If you look at a cross section of the Earth, the crust is extremely thin. Just a dusty skin around what is ot...

The logic behind questioning the hard problem is something to the effect of: "This has no reason to be here (experiencing consciousness). And yet, it ...

Isn't the hard problem just synonymous with a lack of imagination? Why create a sign post at the point of the hard problem by labeling it as too-unexp...

Yes, that is exactly the problem; and why so much debate will arise. Humans have always been defined as something that exists independently without th...

Now that we've seen a little further into the future, I think we can start making predictions about what the superman will be. It's unlikely to come f...

Americans will always need more guns. Otherwise the gun shops would be out of business. We could prevent some of the shootings years down the road. An...

Evolution doesn't provide the best/only answer to a challenge. It was just the first good answer to come along; whatever that happened to be. Anything...