Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Searching for a satisfying alternative to religion? Then why not try Reality?

Atheists are now the largest group in Germany.

How Project 2025 became the blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term.

World of Woo:  Anti-Vaxxers: The dog that caught the car.

Environment:  The dangerous illusion of Climate Resilience.

A “Lab leak” marketing page replaces federal hub for COVID resources. Apparently, Autism is a worse epidemic than Covid which only killed old people. Meanwhile, anti-science ideology is spreading out of control in the HHS.

Why there Is No God: Quick responses to 10 common theist arguments.

Harvard, do you hear yourself?

The JWST may never be able to find evidence of alien life.

Bacteria that can’t live alone hint at early steps to complex life.

Long Reads:

The implications for the U.S. of leaving the WHO.

What makes MAGA anti-Christian?

Earth, a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Science as we know it won’t explain consciousness.

You are not an ape-brained meat sack.

Sunday Book Club: 180 Degrees: Unlearn The Lies You’ve Been Taught To Believe.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: Reality Is not Physical. Sam Harris on Christianity. The biggest misconception in Physics.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!

[StregaModerator]

Thanks Reg!!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Harvard, do you hear yourself?

The Government defunding of Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia is right, but the argument used here is flawed.

When Government defunds Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia, it is not so much exercising speech of it’s own. Rather the Government is forbidding forced speech, which results when taxpayers are forced to support these institutions promoting Antisemitism, as well promoting as the Critical Race Theory/Intersectional Oppression Totem Pole which underlies it.

Also, the core tenet of Civil Rights legislation up to 1964 is if taxpaying Citizens of all conditions of birth are forced to subsidize these institutions, then the institutions should not be able to invidiously discriminate against those Citizens on the basis of conditions of birth.

Other than this finely picked nit, the Government is absolutely correct to defund Ivy League Academia as well as other instutions engaged in Antisemitism or any other ethnic or “Race-Conscious” policy. Ivy League Academia is not suffering for lack of funds, and if it wises up and gives up its present course of self-sabotage, it will come out for the better.

Orange Man speaks truth here in spite of himself.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Correcting a tag

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

What makes MAGA anti-Christian?

Atheists lecturing believers about their own doctrines strikes me as concern-trolling. If they’re making a mistake, let them do so.

[UnseenParticipant]

The article on consciousness gets into an area I’ve always found fascinating.

Consciousness is an illusion in the sense that our perception of the world is given to us by our brain. Is an orange orange in color out there in the world? No, because outside of a nervous system, what we call orange isn’t a color at all, it’s a wave length. In that sense, perception is an illusion presented to the consciousness by the brain.

It’s the same for the other senses. For example, are lemons sour out there in the world or is that the way our mind interprets the sensations presented by our taste buds? Consider a rotting corpse. To me, it gives off a disgusting odor that repels me. Obviously, it’s a different perception for a fly or a vulture.

In Wittgenstein’s famous discussion of pain and private language he points out that there is no way to know what someone else senses. If you and I coincidentally stub our toes at the same time and react simultaneously in a similar fashion, is this sufficient to declare that we both feel the same thing? No, and there’s no way to verify the notion.

We use the same word, pain, but my sensation is mine alone. You can’t feel it. And of course it’s true vice versa. We simply make an assumption of parity based on similar behavior, but when it comes to my perceptions and yours, each of us is on a desert island with no hope of rescue.

This is the sense in which consciousness is an illusion created by the brain.

Two intelligent discussions:

We live in an illusory world because we have to. We could not navigate the world if we could not see, so evolution gave us ways to see things. They are illusions (color exists in the mind, not in the world outside the mind, for example). We have these illusions because we need them.

And, as Annaka Harris points out, we pretty much have to treat these illusions as real because there’s no alternative. Even though there is no free will, we must act as if there is, just as we must live our daily lives as if the Earth is flat, even though we know it to be a sphere.

A bit more on the free will as illusion angle:

[_Robert_Participant]

Instead of the myopic view, how about if we examine the accomplishments of Harvard Medical School alone, and gauge that against the alleviation of guilty conscience by the entitled Harvard students and staff with their flawed but inconsequential support of Palestinians.

https://hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/history-hms/timeline-discovery

Imagine the contribution of Harvard Law to the “rule of law” that is now being undermined as well.

The greatest accomplishments and progress cannot be made by profit seeking companies who must financially support their quarterly shareholder. And the well- developed science that all these companies use for their “innovation” will not be there without academics.

I recall working to develop air collision avoidance equipment for the company. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory worked for years developing the algorithms and technology that we used. There was no way my company could manage losing money for so long.

So, China with its long-term, big picture plans will prevail and the USA circles the “cost savings drain” and goes down the shitter.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

We use the same word, pain, but my sensation is mine alone. You can’t feel it. And of course it’s true vice versa. We simply make an assumption of parity based on similar behavior, but when it comes to my perceptions and yours, each of us is on a desert island with no hope of rescue.

But if I see you stub your toe, and I am at all sympathetic with you, then I will feel your pain by empathy.  We’ve evolved that as part of the human suite of cooperative abilities.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

When Government defunds Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia, it is not so much exercising speech of it’s own. Rather the Government is forbidding forced speech, which results when taxpayers are forced to support these institutions promoting Antisemitism, as well promoting as the Critical Race Theory/Intersectional Oppression Totem Pole which underlies it.

It’s one way of dealing with woke intolerance of opposing ideas.  But I don’t think that pulling Harvard’s funding is the correct way of enforcing free speech.  It’s a political decision, aimed at silencing enemies.

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

TheEncogitationer wrote:

When Government defunds Harvard and the rest of Ivy League Academia, it is not so much exercising speech of it’s own. Rather the Government is forbidding forced speech, which results when taxpayers are forced to support these institutions promoting Antisemitism, as well promoting as the Critical Race Theory/Intersectional Oppression Totem Pole which underlies it.

It’s one way of dealing with woke intolerance of opposing ideas. But I don’t think that pulling Harvard’s funding is the correct way of enforcing free speech. It’s a political decision, aimed at silencing enemies.

Come on now. The billionaires need that money. You think those inflatable lips, tits and tender boats for their mega-yachts are cheap?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Come on now. The billionaires need that money. You think those inflatable lips, tits and tender boats for their mega-yachts are cheap?

You’re right, they are that bad.  There’s a narrative in the UK that Trump’s tariff earnings are going to promote tax breaks for his rich friends.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

But if I see you stub your toe, and I am at all sympathetic with you, then I will feel your pain by empathy.

Not by empathy. You may empathize but you experience no actual pain. Rather memories of pain are brought forth. So, it’s by analogy, not empathy. If I see someone stub their big toe hard, it brings forth a memory of a painful episode I once had, my toe doesn’t hurt.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

Come on now. The billionaires need that money. You think those inflatable lips, tits and tender boats for their mega-yachts are cheap?

You’re right, they are that bad. There’s a narrative in the UK that Trump’s tariff earnings are going to promote tax breaks for his rich friends.

Trump is a sociopath. He has no friends. Almost everyone gets thrown under the Trump Bus. It just happened to Elon and it’s happening to Jeff Bezos who is being forced to raise prices and is about to face supply line problems and the consequential product shortages and lost sales. If it hasn’t happened to Mark Zuckerberg yet, believe me, it will. Trump doesn’t like people talking about what a clown he is on Facebook and will want to put a stop to it either by bringing the app down or forcing Zuck to police it and put a stop to insults aimed at Der Fuhrer.

One only has to look back at his first term to see that almost everyone who accepted his invitation to join his administration was eventually fired or driven out with insults directed at them to boot.

It makes one wonder how all of the voters who elected him felt he could be trusted to serve them rather than himself.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by  Unseen.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

Not by empathy. You may empathize but you experience no actual pain.

OK, I will experience distress and emotional pain, as if I had really stubbed my toe.

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