Nils Loc

What kind of empathy/sympathy for a tragic criminal is then not naive? And if there were justified occasions were it wasn't naive could it serve as a ...

It likely has to do with the desirable and associative aspects of autonomic sympathetic arousal. It's like asking why folks enjoy watching scary, susp...

:100: If anything, watching BB tells us that we wouldn't want to be like Walter White, even if we didn't care about the misery of producing a drug tha...

I don't understand the wisdom (?) behind the Daoist useless tree parable. We all have to live in the conventional way, which provides a measure of cer...

This is an interesting but complicated/difficult topic to think about. Supposedly when humans learned to cook foods, they gained an advantage by being...

I don't think those who use an appeal to tradition really take that appeal to be a serious justification. More honest/nuanced justifications are just ...

But you can't grow the economy immaterially. While AI and other kinds of software might help to make many kinds of energy consumption more efficient t...

@"Copernicus" Does the relationship between whatever a "self" ought to reference and the "body" (of that self) have any relevance to the opinion that ...

That mistake is probably due to the opinion that they're acting in their self interest, whether they know it or not.

For my purposes you don't need to read Moby Dick but just contemplate when a crew shares a body (function/vessel) and coordinates action for mutual su...

If Copernicus every ends up in a authority position on the Pequod, hopefully he facilitates mutiny for the sake of preservation of the group over tole...

What if our "self" is not really unified in its wants/desires. Say it wants two contradictory things, like a composite being composed of conflicting d...

The instinct for sex is as strong as the instinct to eat at times. Eating is inherently violent. Animals consume other beings to sustain life. Sex is ...

Care to expand? Between the man who has long turned to dust and the posthumous reception of his works, where is this being that is Kafka? Kafka is jus...

But we don't need and can't use private dream content for the proof of any existence as it stands in contrast with what really confers that proof: the...

It's impossible to experience anything twice with exactitude. With respect to a person's perceptual habits/expectations much of what is potentially ne...

Dream Michael is an incarnation of Zeus... He is sporting a gilded purple himation right now in a aural sphere on planet Jupiter in the eye of the red...

You've used the phrase "dreaming with" several times, whereas "dreaming of" sounds more apt. It's kind of odd because in order to dream with someone y...

The "guided" version of any evolutionary process is always susceptible to returning to the "unguided" version in time due to unforeseen accidents/cont...

Count yourself lucky to absorb the cosmic essence and life sustaining power of a dogwood species once or twice in your life. One other common Cornus e...

The cherry genus is Prunus. Cornus is a dogwood genus. Were you right?

@"Jamal" How about Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas), ????? ?????. Some photos show tapered necks and the gloss level and color matches. Matching the pit ...

I think I care and am reminded that all my phone photos have GPS data by default. Not that I should care, since I guess it doesn't really matter, unle...

Undergraduate degree was tropical plant soil science. I always want to to know what mystery plants/fruit are and am upset we don't know yet.

Your picture has geographic metadata, fyi. Reddit has a good crowd sourcing means of plant identification, r/whatisthisplant. Might help to see inside...

This forum is just another version of HBO/Reddit/Youtube. You'll love it. I promise.

Let's give you the seat of that monotheistic god, architect of the universe, at his control panel. To seed the universe with extra life, trillions upo...

For the purpose of the hypothetical, let's say no direct overriding. We seed only lifeless planets that could maintain life, with the kind of early li...

Supernatural explanations are plural (every culture has its own gods and mythologies). The gods/Gods resemble projected variations of ourselves or oth...

Let's say you are the alien/god who can seed life but you don't get to guide the process in such a way to produce something specific relative to you, ...

Hard to believe Kimmel was canceled just for these comments. The FCC chair is a Trump appointed lickspittle, threatening to pull ABC's broadcast licen...

Should theistic evolution be taken seriously because life could move from planet to planet within a solar system by accident? Just because life could ...

Wouldn't go so far to say there is no basis to consume them but it is generally accepted that phenolic compounds are not very bio available. Much of t...

Hate speech is deviously meant to activate your amygdala, the threat detection system in your brain, in appreciation of the "if it bleeds it leads" th...

Polyphenol oxidase is trending in the health crazed US. Fruits that brown when exposed to oxygen, like apples and bananas, can destroy the antioxidant...

That ideas are irreducible mental events sounds somewhat mysterious. Phenomenally, there is no more or less to an idea than what it is to the thinker ...

It's Nike's (shoe company) famous trade marked advertising motto. Thought the brand synergy might compliment/complement Nietzsche and his exhortations...

Is Nietzsche peddling his terrible influence in the forums again... From beyond the grave, crossed-eyed syphilitic mummy with a bushy mustache, speaks...

It is possibly wrong to say that thoughts are properties about the world they represent, but they provide the means of knowing what is out there. In t...

Ideas are just intelligible parts/properties of the universe as represented in the mind (as everything is). What is the nature purpose of having intel...

And what else is pretty good about them? Hope All Is Well

There is always time to change your mind. I am working on it. :wink:

Not much of a difference in the grand scheme. We were thrown into existence by a kind non-voluntary lottery and if this is true, we could've been anyo...

This is the modern malaise most young people also understand, given the roulette wheels of fleeting pleasures available at our finger tips. If AI can ...

Maybe we could also introduce inter-subjectivity to this scheme, insofar that people can share a consensus about what things are beautiful or what thi...

There are a lot of threads that seem to die out pretty quickly. It isn't so much that people don't care as they mayn not have the competence, knowledg...

I can see someone now putting a block of Velvetta in a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and regretting it.

Mental training can go a long way but who helped you to help yourself in this way? Why aren't you a meth addict now, half dead in gutter, or a neuroti...

In materialistic terms this is likely true but in psychological terms, possibly not. We're facing a loneliness/despair epidemic in the US. A lot of pe...

I can't get the guy I work with to wear closed toed shoes or come in at a specific time, even though he lives across the street. He actually almost di...