But Ler

Hypothetically, if you were suddenly able to know if you actually had free will or discovered that you don’t have it, would that significantly change the way you live your life? Even if you knew what a “reasonable” definition of it is?

My conclusion is no, I don’t care any more, so I’ll just keep acting as if it’s really me choosing how to…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
I’d love to hear any definition of free will that makes sense.

It’s a mythical construct. But it feels like there’s more to it than that. Depending on who’s defining it, it can be a gift from God that usurps determinism. But according to me, believing in determinism, the illusion of free will is a gift, too, and I’m happy with f…[Read more]

Yeah, 23 gets me every time, too.

I like Don’s analyses, when I have time, like right now.

He happened to (unintentionally) stop the video in a spot that looked nice to me, so I took a partial screen shot:

Whoops, Don saw it too! See your post. After I clipped it to post here, I continued the video, and that’s when he clipped his thumbnail…[Read more]

They recorded Teatro over two sold out concerts, and spliced them into one video. They released each song singly, then a whole concert, over a year or so. Thanks, I’ll pay more attention to the picks now, and proximate edits. As you mentioned, they play so consistently, I’ll bet that splicing the best camera angles took the most work. I’m thinking…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Dany, as a matter of fact doesn’t take solos. Her guitar breaks are played as written. She is not inventing them on the fly. Compare several performances of the same song and you’ll realize her “solo” is the same every single time. This is why I call them “guitar breaks” and not “guitar solos.”

Watching always-epic performance rec…[Read more]

I have a youtube playlist now to save reactions where a reactor had a “conversion” moment, i.e. they suddenly changed their opinion about a musical artist. For TW reactors who have very skeptical personalities, it’s often the second or third song that converts them into lovers of TW. Some of them are so skeptical at first, I never see them smile,…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
She’s a favorite of mine.

I’m still enjoying her, too. She’s interesting partly because of the way she grew up, so unaware of so many popular artists. (I got tired of popular music easily, hearing it played over and over again.)

I finally learned that she IS an actor, although almost all of her work was in commercials. She wants t…[Read more]

I consider J6 to have been an insurrection, and Trump is complicit. But doesn’t it require a party with legal standing to bring the case to a court of law which tries the case? I don’t see how just one branch of state government can have sole power to decide how to enforce a US constitutional amendment.

Unseen wrote:
You still haven’t, despite about three requests now, given us the definition of free will or told me whether my cat has free will.

For me too, that’s the elephant in the kitchen. Or maybe the bathroom. Or homunculus. (jk, see?) One of the believed-in implications is that there is a soul or other supernatural force that magically e…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
If one argues others have no choice to have done but what they have done, have no agency, it is absurd to then, in the same book, go on to try and influence their future choices/agency.

Free will or not, it’s a given that Harris’ readers can be influenced by his advice. Sapolski’s too, or anyone’s here.

I’m realizing that it doesn’t…[Read more]

@Unseen What difference does it make, whether or not Free Will actually exists? Recently I’m thinking that all that matters in terms of how we think and behave is whether or not we believe in it. (And yes, I’m good with saying that what we believe in is also determined… just as are the external, environmental effects on our internal state. While…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
[…] We will go on holding people to account because we have to, in the sense that this is how we respond to acts that displease or enrage us. We respond in this way because we have to. Literally. We have no real choice but respond that way.

Increasingly often, I’m wondering how important it is to answer this question with…[Read more]

NEWS FLASH!! Person A DESTROYS Person B. The REAL TRUTH about Blah Blah. These days, those are headlines I skip over. But when it comes to tons of new reactions to The Warning still coming out from people who haven’t heard of them, Pope Beanie finds new favorites. In this case, four guys happened to pick a great song/official video for their first…[Read more]

I’ve liked Don Music for a while, he’s above others in the experience and reporting department. Thanks for the reminder, I’ll watch these later.

(Relatively) new eyes on classic rock. This reactor says she was an actor, once. I think she enjoys putting people on,  reminding me a bit of Philomena Cunk. (She is smarter than she acts.)

This old man reactor first struck me as a blowhard, but he soon showed me how good he is at correctly predicting what this video was about. He also pointed out a couple things in it I hadn’t noticed before. XXI Century Blood is one of my favorite produced videos from any band. It still boggles my mind that teens came up with this, and I wonder who…[Read more]

Saw these quite a while ago. They’re brilliant! And fun.

I’ve found myself having more fun recently, away from world events, and such. I’ve written some responses here in other topics, but just haven’t finished them yet. Think I’ve lost a few of them… meh. Lot’s of good stuff in the world to see, still, whenever anyone’s interested.

I’ve been…[Read more]

The next song works well, as reacted to by Anna, a favorite of mine now. I love the first, beautiful style of the singer, but not the second style. Anna’s reaction to it smoothed out the experience for me, and I got to learn something in spite of my dislike of it. The instrumentalists are also highly skilled and make the song great, too. This is…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Here, one of the masters, Rick Beato, analyzes what he says is the most complex pop song of all time.

When I heard that song many years ago, I had no idea there were so many chords, as I assumed they were the same bunch of chords repeated throughout. Rick put up another video about this song maybe a year or two ago, in teacher mode,…[Read more]