John Dub

Sunday mornings are good for YouTubes while I’m making breakfast or whatever. I especially likes ones this where two opposite viewpoints sit down for a respectful chat. Sam describes the Buddhist idea that life is suffering, but we can find happiness and peace in succinct way here, and without jargon. The last line really nails it. You use…[Read more]

Science cannot and will never be able to answer questions that don’t yield to its methods and techniques and the question of God or spirit is foremost among them.

In basic terms of the philosophy of science, you are talking about unfalsifiable questions. But science is starting to move beyond that basic test, and I don’t think we non…[Read more]

And when they mention stuff like suffering isn’t real, me arguing against that makes it sound like I am choosing to suffer or being afflicted by something imaginary

When you say that you have to choose between being happy and accepting what’s real, yep, you’re choosing suffering. Buddhism does not exclude emotions from reality. That’s something y…[Read more]

Agreed Tim. And much better stuff will be employed over the next couple years. Better hidden too.

It’s how you define your words that makes it circular.

You can call mine circular if you want. I’ve already admitted I am trapped in the trilemma.

Because they require a material system of some form to explain the presence of the material system

I think that would be “infinite regress”, z because y, y because of x, x because of w, and on back, but we don’t even know what letter we are at with the Big Bang and quantum bubbles because we don’t know if there is something else that caused those…[Read more]

So we have similar arguments. Dawkins, and I agree with what he says about ID here, that if we humans and this universe were intelligently designed, then whatever did that would most likely have arisen from the processes that we have already discovered, quantum bubbles and then biological evolution. Much less likely would be that these designers…[Read more]

Only an explanation that does not rely in material quantities will work and then that explanation would by definition not be a scientific explanation but a supernatural one.

Therefore the explanation for the presence of the universe has to supernatural, this is unavoidable, why all the fuss?

This is the most succinct statement I’ve seen from S…[Read more]

Democrats need to focus on the folks doing all this brainwashing.

You might want to check out the latest Frontline on AI or maybe the documentary The Great Hack. We know how the brainwashing happens. We shut down Cambridge Analytics, but we haven’t stopped the science behind. It’s like Dark Money, if you don’t use it, you don’t win elections.

@michaelmckinney1951

Responding to

The article was open minded and made the arguments for universal consciousness well, but the way I read it, he was showing that he was listening, but in the end, not agreeing. So I didn’t repeat that part but I don’t think it’s fair to say I dismissed it. But, no, I don’t have anything to add to it. I don’t t…[Read more]

Because I keep falling for the same things over and over.

That part, does not cohere with this part:

that to argue otherwise would mean I am deluded

If you are “falling for” something, that implies there isn’t a good argument for it

Sure, but you say stuff about hitting them below the belt, so that’s not “engaging”. –Me

Right and it’s trying to connect.  Sometimes that takes a good cold slap across the face.  It’s just how the real world is. — CC

Well, we live in different worlds then.

You don’t stop talking about issues when you talk about economics. — Me

But no on…

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The article in Psychoogy Today starts with:

The prevailing consensus in neuroscience is that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain and its metabolism.

Then it has some interesting speculation and analogies, but clearly states,

Obviously, despite his impressive body of research into this subject, there is no current way to em…

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Genus;

I did not mean to displace the Big Bang at all. When I said “bubble” I was talking about the same thing. The Big Bang begins with the expansion of the universe, but it didn’t have anything to say about what came “before” it, until recently. So, I’m not questioning the singularity at all, just talking about what could have led to it.

I’m…[Read more]

These are valid points. If this was my personal forum, I would act much differently and have many more comments on these behaviors. But then, it would be a very different forum. I participated in a StackExchange experiment about religion, and they shut it down after a few months, declaring it is not possible to tightly moderate that discussion.…[Read more]

Eric Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist, made a good point on his podcast. There are biological survival reasons for same sex pairings. We see it in nature, when two male penguins adopt and raise a child. Penguin parenting is done in a harsh environment, requiring two parents. But when we do it, it’s weird.

I have worked in the same office for 12 years. I pee with the same people who identify as men all the time. I know some of them can do it standing up, but I’ve never seen, or been interested to see, what’s between their legs.

Okay, thanks for the corrections. I did use some different words than you. I hope I wasn’t too far off in getting your meaning. I’m not understanding where you are saying consciousness came from. What do you mean by “universal”.

We have different ideas on what proof is, that’s going to cause problems for us. Many things are “possible…[Read more]

Oh, dudes, don’t fight. What each of you said and meant was understandable to me.

I was hoping someone would step in here and be the adult. Figured it might be Tee.

I blame Jonathan Haidt. I should probably not read books (kidding).

He was saying that if we are deterministic like “classical” science says then our emotions don’t matter.

This conversation is devolving into “did so/did not” and “na-na-na-na-boo-boo”. If you aren’t going to back up what you say with references and show me what you think is evidence for your opinion, there’s not much point in continuing.