Never the "freezing" of it?

I think the world could benefit from a sound articulation of the experience/mindset, that is approachable by (and non-offensive to) various ideologies.

Have you experienced detachment from Time?

>You seem to care in every thread with your riddles...

It's good exercise for the mind!

>And STEMlord idiot balls aren't the whole there is about science.

The quality, self-confidence, and "ambitiousness" of the fan base annoys me, perhaps similar to how atheists are bothered by fundamentalist (or all) theists.

They can be incapacitating at times!

Where do you fall on the "are (or can be) realer than reality" question - yea or nay? I'm a solid yea.

> 1. The Fallacy Fallacy, which I contend is like a distracted dog chasing a squirrel of irrelevance.

To me, the fallacy fallacy is a lot like "good/bad faith" - excellent rhetorical tools, and those who use them typically have little to negative interest in whether they are using them correctly. Occam's Razor would be another good candidate, as would "no evidence" and several other popular internet memes/heuristics.

> 2. Truthiness? Even Science approximates accuracy with reference to the most accurate of knowledge we have, rather than revealing absolute boolean truths about the Universe.

I agree, although that would get you in hot water with most Redditors, in my experience anyways. Peeople love love love their science!

> I doubt we can reliably achieve such lofty goals with regularity.

Mountains don't climb themselves, that's for sure!

I have some experience yes, although not with the absurdity part (other than realizing that "normal" consciousness/culture is undoubtedly and massively absurd, but that's not what you're getting at I don't think).

Are you a fan of them or a critic?

> We had a discussion about the fallacy fallacy, which I will adamantly contend is stupid till my deathbed.

Depending on which side of it you fall on, I will totally agree, or argue to the death!! 😂🙏

> I agree with you that it's obviously terrible for someone to claim something is false based on faulty argument. I'm also saying that's a red herring, because if the only thing substantiating said claim was the fallacious argument, then there is no longer support to believe such a thing. It's not that I am saying "That's a fallacy, therefore your conclusion is false" I am saying your premise is wrong so I'm agnostic to the claim till it's substantiated, important difference.

I think you may have missed my point: there is a level of "reality" where "absolute truth" (at least on some matters) exists, but since we do not have access to this level, we seem to have decided to ~pretend that it doesn't exist, or have decided on educational curriculum that does not cover it (causing it to appear to not exist, unless one learns about it elsewhere).

This is the distinction I tried to get at with"This of course overlooks the "justified" part..." - you were talking about Knowledge (JTB), but the "T" is typically/often completely independent from humans - our ability to measure it (empirically or otherwise) has no bearing on the actual underlying truth. But the way we describe reality is often other than this, and thus many people seem to believe it is this way.

The point is: this very popular claim that ~"the exercise of strict epistemology" would render people immobile is demonstrably false. And while this may seem "trivially true", whether it actually is is a very different matter.

> You hit the bull's eye. "other forms of knowing" is just a blanket term with nothing defined....

Maybe this is something different than what you're talking about, and it's likely not the best resource on it, but...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology > > > > Nearly all debates in epistemology are in some way related to knowledge. Most generally, "knowledge" is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, which might include facts (propositional knowledge), skills (procedural knowledge), or objects (acquaintance knowledge). Philosophers tend to draw an important distinction between three different senses of "knowing" something: "knowing that" (knowing the truth of propositions), "knowing how" (understanding how to perform certain actions), and "knowing by acquaintance" (directly perceiving an object, being familiar with it, or otherwise coming into contact with it).[16] Epistemology is primarily concerned with the first of these forms of knowledge, propositional knowledge. All three senses of "knowing" can be seen in our ordinary use of the word. In mathematics, you can know that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person (e.g., knowing other persons,[17] or knowing oneself), place (e.g., one's hometown), thing (e.g., cars), or activity (e.g., addition). While these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are explicitly made in other languages, including French, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, German and Dutch (although some languages closely related to English have been said to retain these verbs, such as Scots).[note 1] The theoretical interpretation and significance of these linguistic issues remains controversial. > > > > In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell brought a great deal of attention to the distinction between "knowledge by description" and "knowledge by acquaintance". Gilbert Ryle is similarly credited with bringing more attention to the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind. In Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi argues for the epistemological relevance of knowledge how and knowledge that; using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a bicycle, he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining a state of balance cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride, and that it is important to understand how both are established and grounded. This position is essentially Ryle's, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between "knowledge that" and "knowledge how" leads to infinite regress.

> ... because there is no other form of actually reliably knowing without empiricism.

I think you may have overlooked a fundamental problem: empiricism may be able to confirm that a proposition is true, but a lack of confirmation does not cause something that is true in fact to be false - it can certainly cause it to appear that way, but that's a different issue. This of course overlooks the "justified" part, but that is on a different level of reality than pure truth.

>It's just absolute contrived bullshit for (from?) people trying to fuel the anti-scientific circlejerk.

A bit of a counterbalance to the pro-science circlejerk might be good for the memeplex we live in. Or, it may not...who knows, who cares.

>I am not claiming that all knowledge must have absolute empirical evidence prior to acceptance. That premise would be so inefficient for anyone involved that they would be frozen in a recursive cycle of defining definitions before they can make a single decision.

Luckily, evolution found a solution: belief.

Italics not sufficient I see...

> The man was a nazi sympathiser and if your anecdote regarding his mentor is true then the man has no redeeming quality whatsoever.

Show your work please.

>Natives are people, and people are the same, everywhere and everywhen.

Have you done much travelling?

>The man was a nazi sympathiser and if your anecdote regarding his mentor is true then the man has no redeeming quality whatsoever.

Show your work please.

Do you think the level of broad discussion of "utopian" ideas/goals/etc is too little, too much, or just about right?

https://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/illustrated_man_bradbury/Illustrated_Man_Study_Guide15.html

> On a rocket hurtling through outer space, Hitchcock and Clemens discuss Earth. Hitchcock no longer believes there is such thing as an Earth, and whatever evidence Clemens cites - dreams, memories, the sun - are dismissed as not being good enough. Hitchcock has determined to be practical and rely only on the evidence immediately available to him. Clemens ignores him and basks in his memories. Hitchcock warns that wallowing in memories will only hurt and he won't be hungry for lunch; later, he is correct and reminds Clemens of his prediction. Hitchcock then questions whether or not the stars are real, since no one has ever touched one.

Not to be pedantic, but both of these characters are shitty at logic & epistemology.

Humans seem unable to reliably distinguish between belief and knowledge, often including philosophers who have substantial academic knowledge (I know this from going to tons of philosophy meetups). It is a sad state of affairs....but then also: an extremely beneficial point to be starting from!

> Have we done any analysis on our process for determining who is an expert on epistemology? Have we done analysis on that analysis?

Not that I know of!

See how bad of a spot we're in? And yet: no one does anything.

> > > > It's epistemics all the way down!

True...but this does not mean the problem is intractible, or the state of affairs cannot be improved upon immensely. On an absolute scale, we have no idea where we currently sit - in fact, what knowledge we do have indicates that things are very, very bad.

> > > > (You might enjoy the short story No Particular Night or Morning by Ray Bradbury.)

Ah, thank you , will check it out!

> Sorry I'm talking about after it's been born and raised. I think we should definitely assume that a grown adult born from an artificial womb has feelings. Though whether the zygote feels is definitely an interesting question too!

Ya I know, I was just teasing pro-choicers (no offence intended if you are one). :)

> Curious if you have any examples here. I have a pretty wide/open metaphysical view--I'm not even particularly committed to realism or physicalism.

As luck would have it, here's one:

> But a world with a hard wall against artificial consciousness would be especially weird

The world is as it is - you are referring to your perception/perspective upon it. If it so happens to be that there is, in fact, a "hard wall against artificial consciousness", that is normal, not weird - it only seems weird.

A common saying for this phenomenon is: "It's turtles all the way down!", but I propose this is also (slightly) incorrect - I would say: "There are turtles throughout the stack" - "is" implies something different, and introduces ambiguity that may not be noticed (people often conflate "is" and "equals").

> You'd need something along the lines of a divine decree to stop it...

That is only if it is in the state you think it is and wanted to change it to a different state. But you do not know if the state you think it is in is the state that it is in. Strangely, it may also be impossible for you to know this! But if you're the guy that writes the blog, I have a feeling you can pull it off! 😋

> ...because you would somehow need to differentiate between brains grown in a human womb and brains grown in a laboratory. The lab can get arbitrarily close to recreating the human womb, up to and including cloning.

Technically, it is not known how close they can get to anything in particular, particularly when it comes to (comprehensive) consciousness (which tends to not allow itself to be seen in a non-distorted manner - now that's weird, imho).

> This seems like a very nihilistic view of truth.

Epistemic strictness does seem to have that appearance, I hear it regularly (but not as often as solipsism).

> You could use the same argument to deny pretty much any line of reasoning.

Close, but not quite. You could use it to question the epistemic soundness of any line of reasoning, but if one was to use it to deny a claim (for which the truth is not known(!)), you would then be committing the very same error, except from the other side.

> It's pretty clear the the earth is not flat, but there's plenty of disagreement there too. Should that stop us from discussing geophysics?

I don't see why it should, and I certainly made no such recommendation.

> Same with Jan 6.

When you say "same", are you using the dictionary meaning ("identical; not different"), or the colloquial meaning ("it seems the same, according to my methodology: sub-perceptual heuristics")?

> There are a lot of facts on the table, and conclusions that can be drawn from them.

Are the conclusions epistemically sound?

Has a competent epistemic analysis of the various claims even been done? [As an aside: does it not seem more than a little strange to you that among all The Experts that guide us, nowhere are (genuine) philosophers to be found, particularly those who specialize in logic and epistemology?]

> Some people--even a majority--might loudly disagree with those conclusions, but that doesn't make them false or "unknowable".

Right: it is the fundamental falsehood (if that is the case) and unknowableness that makes it unknowable. And to make it even harder: consciousness often does not allow access to "it is unknown", presumably due to evolution (but I suspect culture and school curriculum might have more than a little to do with it).

> (Note that I'm not including political narratives, like who deserves punishment or blame, as these are statements based on values, not facts....

Mostly agree, except: your list is non-exhaustive, but you've made no explicit acknowledgement of that.

> ...value statements are indeed unknowable).

Perhaps, but I doubt as unknowable as it may seem!

>> A plausibly even bigger question: to what degree is it optimal that we are even pursuing this [particular goal in the first place, all things considered? Or maybe an even more important question: have we even stopped to consider that question? Just how is it that "humanity" "decides" what it is that we should be doing, and what we should not be doing, anyways? I don't recall that topic being covered.

> I sympathize with this. But I tend much more towards descriptivism over prescriptivism.

Me too, hence my lack of prescription (innuendo is in the perceptual layer 😋).

> IMO these are things that will happen, no matter what you and I think should happen.

We shall see about that.

> Very sympathetic to this feeling. We never vote on the Authority, but it does seem to be consensus-driven.

I have no issues with (actual) democracy, but when it proceeds beyond that to redefining the nature of reality itself, as a "fact", with or without doing it under the guide of using the supreme methodology for truth discovery (doing it this way seems to be the choice...and strategically, it's a shrewd move)....well, this is where my patience runs out. (Actually: j/k - Luke 23:34 and all that).

> Science is at least better than the Catholic Church, in that it doesn't physically torture dissenters. It just publicly ridicules them.

I would say that depends on how one practices epistemology, and how deep one analyzes causality (if one is even aware of that phenomenon - once again: culture and school curriculum, a big part of the causality that underlies me being a conspiracy theorist).

> I'm hopeful a new Authority will emerge over the next century or so. One informed by science but not driven by it.

I am far more ambitious: a new methodology or norm emerges, but:

a) not based on authority

b) using whatever works, rather than artificially constraining oneself to a known (by some) to be incredibly flawed, and not even designed for the problem space in the first place methodology like "science" (and what we'd "probably" get IRL is not science, but The Science, like during COVID).

Also: I think hope is insufficient - someone has to make it happen.

It's certainly plausible that I am biased or have some error in my thinking, so I welcome and encourage you to point out any errors you see in my statements (while doing so: please distinguish between the statements themselves and your interpretation of them).

I think its possible that when Sartre is discussing freedom, he is referring to object level freedom as it is (the degree to which it is possible, in fact, which is unknown), whereas Camus is coming at it from a more abstract, analytical perspective, acknowledging that while we have some freedom, it is not completely unconstrained (which Sartre may simply take for granted, without acknowledging it explicitly).

Someone smarter than me would have to weigh in on the plausibility of this based on their comprehensive writings though.

> We are born into a world of choices such that we have sole control over what we choose.

I think this could be considered similarly: what does the word being used to point to the underlying phenomenon (freedom/choice) actually mean?

> Wait, you're saying racism has ended?

I'm more so getting at the quantity and type of racism, over time.

> Even if you're talking about some small enlightened enclave somwhere.. you're really comparing the invention of the aircraft to racism?

Not really, I am more so using them two examples of humans making incorrect predictions about the future.

I could compare the invention of the aircraft to racism, but that is not what I'm doing.

> SMH.

Why?

> "the end of racism", that's quite a nice little bubble you've constructed for yourself.

Was it I who constructed that bubble, or you?

Here is a technique for checking: try to identify the portion of my text that contains that idea.

edit: voting on Reddit is often very counter-intuitive.

> It's certainly not happening in the USA.

I don't disagree - things do not happen, until they happen.

But, for certain things to happen, certain conditions must first exist, and this can be a lot harder to discern than the end product, in no small part because the necessary conditions cannot necessarily be known....even in materialistic science, which is relatively easy.

> Both parties are only interested in fighting each other rather than getting anything useful done.

This is an excellent meme, but how true is it?

> > > > Who knows about Europe....

I suspect the same as with the US: nobody (from a technical perspective).

Similar claims have been made about things like heavier than air flying machines, racism, etc.

> Each brand of crazy has their own pejoratives they like to employ to identify themselves. "Conspiracy theory" and "election denier" are left wing terms. Given that we are currently living through a time where the left has total control of their side of the corporate media to the point where it's unsettling how in lock step they are and there are so few right wing news sources, the terms are nearly meaningless.

The shit quality of right wing sources is amazing - as dumb as leftist takes on it are, it's also kinda hard to blame them for their conclusions, all things considered.

> The difference between news and conspiracy theory seems to be about 6 months.

~True, and interesting.

> > > > A key element to the leftist news center is to push for this "one Earth" globalism. Certainly, at some point in the future, we need to have a winner in this culture war, but I doubt that will ever completely unite humanity. It is in our nature to be diverse, and in diversity there is conflict and competition. This is why I said "THIS" version of humanity.

The insistence on and denial of diversity (while simultaneously celebrating, that "which doesn't exist") is.....weird. But then, it perhaps shouldn't be too surprising either.

Some form of unity is possible, but figuring out the optimal parameters could be tricky. But if no one ever tries, it seems unlikely to succeed.

> We currently have only our subjective experiences and a great deal of skepticism as to the capacity of others to accurately report their subjective experiences of reality.

Not trying to improve on a situation doesn't help things.

> Political ideology often replaces individual morals, creating a situation where key indicators of the success or failure of society are tailor made to the strengths of that political ideology, instead of more universally accepted standards. This is why that one post of yours caused such great concern....

Mission accomplished then!

> ...because this disconnect with reality grows over time, more often than not, leading to a point where individuals feel that they must do something to "take back the power" from what the perceive are bad faith actors operating as a force of evil in the world.

Do you think these individuals have formed an incorrect belief?

> > > > Humanity takes a long time to evolve....

In some ways yes, in other ways no.

Consider how quickly beliefs can be normalized (to the degree that they are, in respective camps (usually two)) - COVID and the Ukraine war are fine examples.

> ...and it is our very nature that rallies against success, causing each great empire to rot from within in this ever divisive madness we create for ourselves.

Might the excess of bad prevent one from seeing the good though?

> The only way forward that I can see is to take the clear, concise arguments put forth by those who represent each side and have open, honest conversations about our motivations and goals.

It seems like a no brainer. Funny no one tries it eh?

(Note the PM I sent you.)

> Unfortunately, I see no clear, concise representatives from the far right or far left. I only see clowns and shills and actors exploiting the conflict for personal gain.

I see "good" candidates on a daily basis - I propose that we are surrounded by them, but cannot see.

> If you're subtly hinting that I'm a Russian bot, either for pure amusement or some kind of probing, I can tell you that I am definitely not. And that's правда I mean, TRUTH! Truth is what I meant.

Ah, Truth. Glad that's all settled then - we shan't speak another word if it.

> I have had several individuals develop an obsession with me and follow me around Reddit with alts harassing me personally, so I can tell you it wasn't because of leftist censorship, which has become rampant on Reddit.

Oh, don't get me started on Redditors - I know the type.

> I think people don't "do" anything because they're efficiently divided and apathetic. The problem is that the ruling class has kept trying to squeeze every last drop of wealth for themselves and the Marxist have stepped up their game which includes disruption of the basic services of the masses which is far more quickly going to push people to conflict than abortion rights or arguments over people's naughty bits.

Efficiently divided? Ruling class? Squeeze every last drop of wealth for themselves? Disruption of the basic services of the masses? Push people to conflict?

Sir: are you a conspiracy theorist? I ask because advisories have also indicated that we should be On The Lookout for these types of people as well. We've settled the Russian Troll possibility, if it isn't too much trouble, I'd also like to ensure I'm dealing with someone who is speaking In Good Faith (which all Conspiracy Theorists are not, as I assume you well know).

Again: not pointing any fingers, just being On Guard, according to standard protocol.

> You were speaking about how the west optimizes for itself over the world. I was just commenting that yes, of course it does.

What do you mean here by "of course it does"?

> It's competing with the rest of the world.

I thought we were All One People - different races and creeds, of course, but ultimately the same. Is this not True?

> We're not one global entity. We're individual countries.

Are the two mutually exclusive?

> Cooperation is useful but problematic in the long run as a countries needs and leadership change.

Is this a comprehensive list of the underlying reasons, or something more like the top two items from a list sorted by objective causal importance?

> The morality of man is, of course, as subjective as the experience of men. This is why we often attempt to lash it to the observable truth we can agree on.

Observable truth? Is this something like when people say "X is True, because it is clear that it is True"?

> More and more we're seeing a greater amount of fog and shadow being artificially pumped into the world's optics by those who benefit from the obfuscation of morality, making it just as morally deplorable to prevent someone from killing a child as to kill the child yourself.

Now that you point it out, people do seem to behave in a logically inconsistent manner, at least "now and then" anyways. I wonder: could there be more to this theory?

> Which is why appeals to emotion, false dichotomies, and false premises are more common than grounded argument, because they're cheap and effective on the masses who feel themselves more intelligent due to their programming in university. The same people who can't answer basic questions about geography or history or even why they're calling someone racist or voting for someone are the ones gorilla glued to the notion that they're intellectually superior.

Despite sounding a bit conspiratorial, this simultaneously does seem rather true. I feel conflicted on what to believe.

> > > > So when we measure success in terms of government, we once again attempt to bolt it to the observable reality that we share.

When you say "measure", are you speaking literally, or colloquially? (See also: "success", and "government")

> Unfortunately we have 10K resolution on this reality now, where before we were 8 bits on a good day.

Resolution: "the number of pixels contained in each frame".

Hmmmmm....I wonder how well this two-dimensional analogy maps to the ontological nature of reality.

> So there were far fewer metrics to compare and winners were more easily decided.

Speaking of comparing metrics: who decides which metrics make the cut, and which....do not?

And, who is it who is doing the "deciding"?

> I'm not certain the high res view is helping, unless people are going to uncharacteristically shift to being more clear about what exactly they mean, which I severely doubt.

I can't really disagree (much) with your anecdotes, reasoning, or conclusion. It makes me wonder: could it be that we are "doing it wrong", or at least: far from optimally? But then, I haven't really heard any of The Experts mention the notion, so clearly my suspicions are likely to be unsound. But still, something seems.....off.

> No it's a reference to babies :) I realize calling a baby a "machine" is a little...odd. But I'm trying to point out that the line between artificial and natural life is a blurry one.

Aaaaahhhhlol, true dat.

Although, is "making babies" not a bit of a colloquialism? I mean, humans do play a crucially important role in the process, but is it objectively and precisely true that we actually make these babies, at least in the same way that we make a cake, a skyscraper, a B-52 bomber, etc? Sometimes I wonder if the language we use (out of necessity, *or so they say) might cast an illusion of sorts over that which lies underneath.

> Are you saying that a baby created in an artificial womb wouldn't feel or be conscious?

Sir, please use proper terminology: zygote.

As for the question itself: it's a good question! Unfortunately, I have no idea about what the truth of the matter is.

> I'm saying there are some very specific metaphysical scenarios (like a God who actively ensouls every new child) where my assumptions would break down.

Oh, I suspect the scenarios where your assumptions (or, metaphysical framework) break down are far less specific than it may seem.

> But under any kind of physicalist scenario (even weakly physicalist), there's a pretty clear (but long!) path to building an artificial brain.

True. But then: is what is "Clear" necessarily what is True? Take that whole January 6 coup attempt as an example - "both sides" are "clear" on what happened there that day (and what lead up to it, from a causality perspective), despite it being objectively unknown, and unknowable.

I am very wary of predictions (of the future, or otherwise) based on clarity.

> The big question is, how will we know when we've done it? How will we be able to tell if that brain truly feels, even if it's functionally identical to a human brain? Can we rule out the possibility that God chose not to ensoul our artificial brain? Or that we haven't missed some crucial detail?

A plausibly even bigger question: to what degree is it optimal that we are even pursuing this [particular goal in the first place, all things considered? Or maybe an even more important question: have we even stopped to consider that question? Just how is it that "humanity" "decides" what it is that we should be doing, and what we should not be doing, anyways? I don't recall that topic being covered.

> I agree. Most science-oriented people seem to think we'll have concrete answers to my questions above. I think we'll have concrete theories, but they'll rely on some big assumptions.

Considering that, it kinda makes me wonder: how did it come about in the first place that The Science has seemingly ascended to The Throne of Authority (state-sanctioned, no less) on planet Earth? Was a vote of some sort held? Did I miss a news release? Because it sure seems to me that this is now considered A Fundamental Truth.

So many questions, so few answers.