Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

A county government in Maryland is to stop praying at the start of official meetings.

The AAI helps to better ensure equality before the Law in Greek courtrooms.

Religious ideology drove recent Senate abortion pill hearing.

Yes, a Jewish preacher named Yeshua/Jesus existed but a spacetime-creating super-entity incarnating as a carpenter is delusional.

A federal appeals court heard arguments in lawsuits seeking to block Texas and Louisiana from requiring classroom displays of the Ten Commandments.

Surveys by the Pew Research find the Catholic population in Latin American countries has shrunk over the last decade.

This is what a doctorate in theology does to your brain.

World of Woo: ‘Wild Measles’ does not cure cancer.

Environment: Can AI help sustainability campaigns?

Why is rejecting religion so hard?

RFK Jr. on the Food Pyramid and Tylenol.

One country is trying to outlaw political lying, without curbing free speech.

Is Panpsychism just Snake Oil?

Does Cellular Cosmic Isolation “solve” the Fermi paradox?

Richard Feynamn would reject the idea that impressive AI outputs alone prove understanding but people can allow a religious fervor to surround their relationship with technology, so do we need to have the “Three Commandments of AI” put in place?

How kids play to cope with crisis.

Sunday Book Club: Purpose: On Evolution, Human Nature and Meaning.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos:  Coming out as an Atheist to Christians. The logic of Atheism. Louis C.K’s 40-Minute takedown of Christianity. Would immortality offer a curse of boredom or endless novelty?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week everyone!

It only took one monkey to create the entire works of Shakespeare. His first name was William. (rtff)

[StregaModerator]

Thanks Reg!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

Is Panpsychism just Snake Oil?

The article didn’t fully define what Panpsychism was, (fundamental property of what?) so already there is at least one entity in the Natural Universe that isn’t fully conscious, and certainly not Omniscient.

Wikipedia as usual is more specific, precise, and elaborative:

Panpsychism–Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

RFK Jr. on the Food Pyramid and Tylenol.

Will everybody stop with the talk about Ultra-Processed Foods!

Nobody has yet given a coherent, sensible definition of what Ultra-Processed Food is, and as is the case with our favorite Omnific Being, if you can’t say what it is, you can’t say that it is.

And where in the U.S. Constitution is there even a place for government-determined food pyramids anyway? Did ancient aliens make that a function of government?👽🛸🤪

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Panpsychism is an attempt to avoid “consciousness from nothing” by baking mind-like properties into the foundations of physics. That is almost like an argument for Creationism. For me, consciousness is an emergent property, not a fundamental physical property. It is not present in parts that can be assembled.  In the same way that water molecules do not contain “proto wetness”. Wetness is emergent but not a property of water molecules.

I think Panpsychism is trying to solve the mystery of consciousness by putting the mind everywhere. Adding consciousness to particles explains nothing. Digestion is what the stomach does. Weather is what the atmosphere does. The mind is what the brain does. The mind is the name we give to the brain’s integrated information-processing activity.

The so-called Hard Problem arises from treating consciousness as something over and above physical processes rather than as a high-level description of what certain physical systems do. There is nothing to suggest that consciousness is fundamental or floats free of brains. Brains, when organized in certain ways, generate experience. Asking “Why does experience exist in the universe at all?” is like asking “Why does existence exist?”

I will tell everyone what is like to be a bat when I evolve my own echolocation hardware. In the meantime, I will continue to experience my own subjectivity as that is what my brain does. My perspective is tied to my brain structure. It is not metaphysically special (even if I am sometimes my thinking is a little batty). The mind is what the brain does.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Just some heart-warming news to be aware or not…

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-884443

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-884437

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

Panpsychism is an attempt to avoid “consciousness from nothing” by baking mind-like properties into the foundations of physics. That is almost like an argument for Creationism. For me, consciousness is an emergent property, not a fundamental physical property. It is not present in parts that can be assembled. In the same way that water molecules do not contain “proto wetness”. Wetness is emergent but not a property of water molecules.

The so-called Hard Problem arises from treating consciousness as something over and above physical processes rather than as a high-level description of what certain physical systems do. There is nothing to suggest that consciousness is fundamental or floats free of brains. Brains, when organized in certain ways, generate experience. Asking “Why does experience exist in the universe at all?” is like asking “Why does existence exist?”

I’m with you here. Consciousness arose whenever living things that have conscious faculties arose. Panpsychism strikes me as a Strawman answer to a Strawman issue.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

Another thing about food recommendations:

The committee saw a number of papers in Hispanic, Black, and Asian communities where dairy wasn’t a prevalent part of the diet, whether due to lactose intolerance or cultural food preferences. DGAC suggested changing the language to make dairy an optional, not integral, part of a good dietary pattern for cardiovascular disease prevention. Gardner said this seemed like common sense.

Where would Dairy be optional in any mammalian species that nurses it’s young, including all humans, regardless of “race”? And why would cultural preferences be relevant to what is healthy to eat? And isn’t lactose intolerance in humans of all backgrounds? (Mark Levin often talked about his own lactose intolerance on his talk show, in between shouting “big dopes” off of his phone.)

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake:

Just some heart-warming news to be aware or not…

More like blood-curdling than heart-warming. The Islamic Republic is a human slaughterhouse.

Never mind Panpsychism. Is there UN-psychism, Woke-psychism, Peacenik-psychism, MAGA-psychism, Trump-psychism, Media-psychism, Academia-psychism…

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco,

Can you even construct the degree of fake sympathy for the innocents in Iran if it were Jews who were doing it?

The protests, riots, propaganda, attacks, violence against Jews would be WW2 like.

It is a sick fucking world. Humans can’t think with a few exceptions and their norms and morality are dealt to them like a dealer with his cards.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake:

There’s some of that fake sympathy for the Iranian people already, even without blaming the Jews. Starting with Trump. Not only did he posture and hem and haw while Iranians were being slaughtered, but now he’s feeding more in to the meat-grinder:

Trump Is Deporting Iranians to a Country That Will Kill Them

And of course, countless Israel-Bashers are desperately trying to find an anti-Israel angle to the uprising by saying that the Mossad is at fault, even though Iranians have 47 years of just grievances against the Mullahs and welcome any help they can get.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Trump’s inner Vlad the Impaler is coming out. He has hand-picked others who want to please him by executing terroristic policies. American human beings can be officially demoted to untrainable-dog level value. Vermin. Will SCOTUS also keep supporting him?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco,

I was not aware of that. It is so obvious that ideology robs ideologues of their compassion. If one is not part of the in-group then fuck em. Let em fucking die a miserable death.

Don’t forgot Trump also abandoned the Kurds. And i think it was Trump who got US out of Afghanistan which enabled the Taliban to be purely Islamic and the consequent suffering and misery to follow. Would not surprise me if he is an atheist though. His god is the one who appears in the mirror. Imagine the absurdity of domestic and foreign policy being inexorably entwined with how it makes him feel?

Ice has drippings of the Gestapo. When are these fundamental constitutional issues going to be decided by the Supremes? They have the power under writ of certiorari to take cases without the need to exhaust appeals. If we aint got civil rights largely protected we are on the way to the dust bin.

[jakelafortParticipant]

When i read about the following it made me think about the issues of discrimination against trans people and even whether it is real.

‘researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Canada have discovered a specific group of neurons in the brain that acts as an “on/off” switch, showing profound differences between male and female brain function.’

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-884493

There was also news some two years ago in nonblock universe that AI reading an MRI can distinguish male and female.

So wouldn’t it be prudent to conduct experiments in which people identifying as trans pass those tests? Seems like validation would have multiple benefits. Where is Autumn to rip me a new asshole for a stupid query?

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