How may the development of ideas about 'gods' or one God be understood in the history of religion and philosophy?. — Jack Cummins

To understand the development, one has to understand the intuitive rationality of animism, and the counterintuitive nature of the modern, dead world. One has to disabuse oneself of modernity.

Any sailor or fisherman can tell you that the sea is sometimes calm, and sometimes playful, and sometimes angry. Who could not take being struck by lightening personally? Who is not afraid that their local dormant volcano will one day wake up? Even the rocks grow hair; what kind of fool thinks they only are alive and the world is dead?

from this rational position, try and justify modernity.

Climate change causes inflation; inflation causes populations pain; pain produces populist governments. Populists deny problems or blame 'others'; globalised trade is threatened by both climate change and populism, and the reduction of trade leads to inflation.

This video could have been in the Grump thread, or one of the several other unrest threads, but I guess the connection between the political climate and the climate is a bit abstruse for the political mind to encompass.



I think we have reached psychosocial tipping point into a self-destructive politics, that will continue to worsen our prospects until the destruction of our infrastructure and governance becomes complete enough that local community is all that is left, and gardeners rule, ok.

Aliens As Soon As Theoretically Possible.

There is no evidence because the conspiracy covers everything up.
Therefore not believing the conspiracy is compliant with the conspiracy.
If the committee cannot get to any real evidence, it is either because the committee is being duped by the conspiracy, or because the committee is part of the cover up.
There can never be a resolution, because the absence of evidence is evidence of the conspiracy.

The intelligence industry is the natural home of the paranoid, just as philosophy is the home of the gullible. And yes there is an overlap. And just because I'm paranoid, that doesn't mean there's no conspiracy; on the contrary, the paranoid are always conspiring, so nothing to see here.

The question I have for the aliens, not knowing if they are benevolent or malevolent, is why they are cooperating with opposed and secretive governments to hide their presence from folks that would be willing to cooperate with anyone who wasn't the current government of whichever country? It makes them look weak; and surely they are not weak?

I remembered this song, reading this thread. The early days of LSD as recorded by the good old BBC. I am a baker too - the dough is in tins as i write, and I am waiting the hour to put it in the oven.




I'm cluttering up the thread with meaningless stuff, because everything is meaningless, and i am an idiot. Or as I would rather put it, making a performative affirmation.

"Hi there. Why do you imagine any of us gives a flying fuck whether you are kind or not?" He says, unkindly.

OK, you win, I'm an idiot. I'll just point out though that as long as you're judging it on whether or not it 'works', you're still only thinking about yourself and haven't tried it yet.

Suicide makes sense if there is no love, but only self. — unenlightened

Love isn't a reason it's just platitudinous nonsense, same with making meaning. I gave the case at the start why such reasons don't hold water. — Darkneos

Let me see if I can use other words that you can accept more. If one considers only oneself, and only from one's own point of view, then it is clear that satisfaction is only ever transitory, suffering and death are inevitable and the sooner life is over the better.

Therefore, if there is any reason to live, it is not to be found in oneself in any pleasure or satisfaction one might obtain from living.

Therefore, I posit (but offer no proof) a reason for living that is self-overcoming, or self- transcending. This is illustrated in the film Groundhog Day, in which suicide fails utterly to end life but results in a repeating life that goes nowhere. This repetition only ends when everything is put into the day to make it better for everyone.

As long as you think only of yourself, you will keep coming back to the same miserable thoughts again and again. I wish I could be more clear about this for you, but I cannot disprove the platitudinous nonsense of your "platitudinous nonsense". If you want to understand, you will begin to understand, but if you don't want to, then you will have make do with the thin satisfaction of winning the argument, and you will miss all the richness of life.

And here, a quick, small lesson in humility.

If it were just one, or just a few, perhaps you would be right, but it seems like the whole of humanity is bent on ending it all. I wonder if your attempt to shut down the discussion is because you have no answer but repression and oppression.

This is the first and last question that philosophy must answer - 'What's the point?' The answer is "love". If you wonder what love is, I can only tell you that it is what you lack, whenever you ask this question. Suicide makes sense if there is no love, but only self. We are not here to be satisfied, but to become satisfactory.

Poor you! :smile:

Those who have almost nothing are usually thankful for the little they have.
Those who have almost everything usually think they deserve better.

Here is a numbers guy for them as likes numbers. If you don't much like numbers, zip forward to right near the end where our man speaks personally about his priorities and in just a couple of sentences characterises the coming collapse of human society, which has already started, but is still ignorable.

So the lecture is not denying AGW.
— Agree-to-Disagree

Ok. — frank

So the question arises, however, 'Why is this warming period different and more concerning than all them other fluctuations?'

Good for you! Shame you missed the previous piece on the AMOC collapse.

Only in your dreams; Pigs might sooner fly! :rofl:

I am full of sadjoy reading this thread. The postmodern seems entirely appropriate to interiority, projected as superposition/subjectivity.

"I am nihilsum, you are nihilsum they are nihilsum as we are all together;
See how they fly like pigs in the sky See how they run."

To consciousness, whatever is projected as the world is negated as self. Nihilsum is the god of the godless, that always says "Thou shalt(not) ..." and always after the event, because before the event, how could one know? One is, like Winnie-the-Pooh, always being dragged up the hill of awareness by one leg, one's head going 'bump, bump, bump' up the stairs.

The best logic can do for us is to keep our talking and thinking in order. To imagine that this talking and thinking can thereby oblige or constrain the world in any way is to indulge in magic spells.

Sometimes folk can get confused between real and imaginary; an architect imagines a house, and draws plans and images of it. If he has followed the logic of his trade, then a builder can build according to his plans and the real building will not fall down. This is the only way the magic can work - when people think straight and do what they say.

I wish, I wish I wasn’t here
Forever stuck upon the stair
Unloved by neighbours in the hall
I wish i wasn’t here at all

They wake me up at two or three
With never an apology
They do not see me; I am small
And they are all so very tall
So they ignore me night and day,
Except to tell me ”Go away”.

And I have done what they all say,
I’ve gone away and am not there.
And yet they are not satisfied;
I think they wish that I had died.

I was once an observer in a room in which my friend having an intense and sustained conversation with an other who to my eyes and ears was not there. The Friend had taken datura and that becomes my 'objective' 'rational' understanding of a situation that otherwise has (at least) two conflicting subjective views of 'the same' room.

I found the experience disconcerting, my friend rather more so, but the guy who wasn't there for me but was there for my friend is the one I worry about. What was it like for him?

Creativity is the action of the unknown. It is that for which the recipe does not yet exist; it is the unprecedented; that about which nothing can be said, except in retrospect. It is the uniqueness of every moment.

Defining and measuring are not appropriate or even possible at this early stage in your enquiry. But you have an understanding of what 'good' means in various contexts.

A good dog is a dog that obeys its master. So you might be asking what constitutes a good human. Something different, I think, but in saying that, and assuming you agree, we already know that a good human has a relation to other humans that is not characterised by command and obedience, but in a more equal and perhaps mutual way.

But perhaps that isn't your question. Perhaps you want to say simply that a good human is one that performs good acts. Then there is a difficulty that a good plumber performs different acts than a good footballer.

But however it is, the way to proceed is not to make out that being an atheist prevents you from ascribing any meaning to a commonplace word. Atheists and the religious alike have to live in the world somehow, and have to decide what they think it good to do. and when you have decided that you are in that position along with the rest of us, we can start to exchange ideas on what we think it good to do, and see if there is any common ground.

Ad now for something completely different. An actual avowed mechanical mechanism that is a continuously variable geared transmission. I am almost as excited as the guy in the video.




It's not quite the Holy Grail, but it is a really neat gearbox.

As far as politics, the issue of 'others' is central. The nature of projection is its core feature, with the idea of the 'enemy'. There is always an enemy to be attacked, with evil being projected onto Sadam Hussein or some other critical figure. It involves the attempt to destroy 'evil', and Hitler himself saw his own mission as being about this, eliminating the 'inferior', which he identified in Jews, homosexuals etc. Projection of 'evil' onto others is the main dynamic factor in war. — Jack Cummins

You are so right, and this is the psychological analysis of the social system. But it is important to remember that 'projection' is itself something that we project onto the other. And the other is the unemployed, the rich, the foreign, the religious, the heretical, the ethnic-other, the left, the right, gay, trans, female, ... Projection is the inevitable result of identification — only no-one is immune.

I'm not sure how important this is, but it is not something I have seen discussed before, so maybe it needs to be, or maybe it doesn't. Yet another melting permafrost side effect.

Robotic swarm with AI commentary. It will make sense to an artificial observer perhaps?
—————————————————————

So IFF space time is a holographic projection from its boundary, which boundary seems undetectable from within, one might consider consciousness also to be "outside". The observer - thou and I - are outside, but observing from each their own pov within the holographic representation. This makes the universe an educational toy for nascent infinite minds. Or something? Thou and I are like Mario and Luigi, and our triumphs and disasters are just part of a game we are playing to learn together how to live.

Jesus and Hitler and Richard the Lion Heart
Three kings and Moses and Queen Cleopatra
The Cobbler, the maiden
The mender and the maker
The sickener and the twitcher
And the glad undertaker
The shepherd of willows
The harper and the archer
All sat down in one boat together
Troubled voyage in calm weather

Maya Maya
All this world is but a play
Be thou the joyful player — Incredible String Band

https://genius.com/The-incredible-string-band-maya-lyrics

There is a lot of confusion at the moment. Part of that is a deliberate attempt to disempower, which stems from the usual power seeking of politics, exaggerated by the urgency of the times. And of course it is always comfortable to find or concoct some 'other' to take the blame as times get harder and our way of life is disrupted.

But there are a great many people working already to adapt and ameliorate the situation; they don't make the news because a forest burning makes a good picture, but a forest planting looks like nothing happening. It is the way of weakness that will triumph over the way of power, but the power will have to exhaust itself and that will not be pretty.

There is a conflict between the global economy, national identity, and the modern radical individuality. What will an individual sacrifice to save the world? One cannot even ask this question, because the global institutions do not exist to ask it, and the Nationalities are dissolving into mere sovereignties owned by individuals. So there is no leadership at all. Compare that with the crisis of Britain at the outbreak of WW2; Churchill could ask that of the population and convince them to stand together. Not now.

This leads to the question of is it the end of civilisation or is there potential for transformation? — Jack Cummins

It's an interesting question, but to this either or, I have to say 'both'. Economically, we are approaching the end of the game of Monopoly. Once someone owns the whole world, and everyone else is bankrupt, the economic game has to end and be restarted with a new division of the assets.

Environmentally, we are in overshoot, and the human population is going to crash. That's going to be unpleasant.

But those that survive may well preserve something of civilisation and even learn from our mistakes. Certainly, they will learn the value of mutuality, and the cost of individualism.

The inerestingest person above to me was Federico Faggin, so here he is in a one on one conversation. This is where I am particularly interested. There is a short history of associations between spiritual understanding and modern physics, and here is the woo coming back yet again.



I keep being reminded of The Lathe of Heaven.

I'm hoping to post something a bit more substantial on this later if I can get a better sense of it, I think this is the heartland of most of my enquiries ...

More quantum consciousness drama, with horses and their mouths.

A cautionary tale.

NZ is not best placed for solar. They would do better to concentrate on hydro, wind, wave, and tidal. Australia is a bit sunnier tho, I hear.

I would not be surprised if Trump pardons himself at some point during his term. — Relativist

I would be surprised if he doesn't rename it something like "exonerating himself" Pardoning oneself sounds a bit like an admission of guilt.

Based on the argument you made, math and science are magic spells, because they predict how things work by the use of logic symbols. I would be angry that you have written such ignorant nonsense without even bothering to read the OP, but I am used to it by now. — Brendan Golledge

Not so. Science first looks. Science first considers evidence. Argument is the servant of evidence, not the master. I also am used to silliness - including my own.

And, a small correction; I read the thread before commenting, because I like to check that I am not repeating a point that has already been made, without acknowledgment.

File under "classical". Something for the existential angst.

The frontline of planet wars.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/21/canada-arctic-herschel-island-qikiqtaruk-climate-permafrost-tundra-ecology-aoe

Some nice pics and little films and Timelapse's and some words too.

Proofs of freewill and proofs of determinism are as reliable as proofs for and against the existence of God. One may be sure that that they are unreliable without even reading them, because of unenlightened's famous principle: "No arrangement of words, howsoever cunning, can oblige the world to be thus and not so."
Thought experiments can only be useful when one already knows precisely what one is talking about. They are therefore of little value to philosophers, who are only called in when folk discover that they don't quite know what they are talking about after all.
To reject unenlightened's principle is to believe in the efficacy of magic spells.

Dipping a toe hesitantly into mathematical news:

I am earthbound, but not housebound. Freedom has limits and contexts. "Free will" is a philosopher's nonsense that has no place in life, and "determinism" likewise.

"Waiter, don't bother to show me the menu, just bring me the meal I am predetermined to eat."
"Sir, the menu is free although it is also predetermined, but the food is not free and the prices are predetermined. Pay what you are predetermined to pay, and then I will know what I am predetermined to bring."

Human freedom marks the distinction between reacting and responding. When I am reacting to a post, I am not free, but being controlled by my habits and by the post, But when I respond, I am free to accept or reject the meaning conveyed, and move the dialogue on.