Beth

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
In other words, Nielsen would agree with Wittgenstein’s skepticism about the internal comparison but lean even harder toward dismissing the worry as philosophically idle — what matters is shared public criteria for use, not metaphysical guarantees of inner sameness.

I think that is essentially the conclusion Wit…[Read more]

Empathy is informed sympathy

Someone has told me they are an Empath. What is an Empath? Is there a Sympath as well?

Try explaining what water is to a fish.

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 not…[Read more]

This new London Tube map is excellent!  Article.

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.

What is it like to be a Bat?

@Unseen you made the exact point that I also thought. Empathy is the feeling when you can relate to an injury or event because you have been through similar events and you  feel knowledgable sympathy. You do not feel anyone else’s experience.

You hear people all the time saying their empathy forces them to feel everything (usually bad things) fr…[Read more]

I read this article this morning. In my head, I can’t trace the route from cell consciousness as described, to the almost non-sequitur of changing reality.

Basically they’re proposing that our cells have a consciousness and actually make decisions – and then somehow that affects reality and we’re reshaping our future.

Opinions would be super…[Read more]

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 ha…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

Thanks Reg!!

Have a great week!

Once MAGA replace all the State Library boards, the mess will be cleaned up. But the range of books will be all under the same section. The Dewey Decimal system will become redundant. They will probably have hundreds of copies of the same book. Any other books will require crayons.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of…[Read more]

@Enco – I make a point of telling Science deniers where all the information they need  can be discovered 🙂

Abiogenesis is the study of how life might have originated from non-living matter, while evolution deals with how existing life changes over time through mechanisms like natural selection and genetic drift.

They’re distinct domains: evolution presupposes life already exists. The fact that we don’t yet fully understand how life began doesn’t und…[Read more]

Yes, If I were starting over, I would upload my genome to a server and get it to start running scenario based tests on it. That would give it time to run millions of tests to find the optimum “CTAG” string to make the best new parts.

Yes, “keep your government hands off my Medicare. Don’t you even think about socializing it”!