The Democrat Party Hates America

[Immanuel Can]

Clearly you don't know what facile means.

I know what the term "ad hominem fallacy" and the words "aimless vituperation" mean. You should maybe look both up.

Well look, I apologise for being rude, but I'm not sure you realise how condescending you are.

Tone is often impossible to detect in an email. I'm giving you the respect of responding seriously to your objections. That's something.

I know more about the history and philosophy of science than you do,

That would be an assumption, and I think, unproven by the present conversation. Where we've arrived is at the realization that there are real phenomena that physics, as a discipline, neither accounts for nor attempts to account for. And on that, I think, we now agree.

...just as you know more about the history and philosophy of Christianity than I do.

If you say so, I accept your assessment.

[henry quirk]

Henry I hope you are okay.

Oh, I'm good, I'm just, as I say, time-press'd. Things are slackin' up so those responses are comin'.

[Will Bouwman]

Tone is often impossible to detect in an email.

It really isn't. I know perfectly well what tone I am projecting. If I come across as condescending or rude, it's because I mean to.

I'm giving you the respect of responding seriously to your objections. That's something.

Oh?

I know more about the history and philosophy of science than you do,

That would be an assumption, and I think, unproven by the present conversation.

That's because you don't know as much about the history and philosophy of science as I do.

Where we've arrived is at the realization that there are real phenomena that physics, as a discipline, neither accounts for nor attempts to account for. And on that, I think, we now agree.

No we don't. I stand by what I said here:

As it happens, all competent scientists know full well that for many disciplines you can by-pass physics and deal with phenomena at a different level, chemistry and biology being two obvious examples, but they are enhanced by interdisciplinary association with physics. Even the fields you listed have benefited from the input of physics, just as physicists benefit from other disciplines. There's no MRI or PET scans without physics, for example. So no, I do not admit that there are phenomena that don’t lend themselves to those methods...

And since then I posted a link to a piece titled Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time - It was thought to be impossible:
https://youtu.be/NCD2A_bhDTI?si=78dSDibVvp5Z7TOR
Did you take that seriously? I don't know that it proves anything other than that scientists are quite prepared to use the methods of physics to look into how the human brain works. If qualia can be mapped, who is to say that all the phenomena on your list can't be? My point is that nobody knows, not even you. If you can't take that seriously, you don't deserve to be taken seriously.

...just as you know more about the history and philosophy of Christianity than I do.

If you say so, I accept your assessment.

Yes, I thought you might find that easier to digest.

[Belinda]

Will Bouwman wrote:

And since then I posted a link to a piece titled Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time - It was thought to be impossible:
https://youtu.be/NCD2A_bhDTI?si=78dSDibVvp5Z7TOR
Did you take that seriously? I don't know that it proves anything other than that scientists are quite prepared to use the methods of physics to look into how the human brain works. If qualia can be mapped, who is to say that all the phenomena on your list can't be? My point is that nobody knows, not even you. If you can't take that seriously, you don't deserve to be taken seriously.

I can't do youtube , Can you please direct me to a text ? Otherwise I will resort to ChatGPT.

Anyway I am so intrigued I have already jumped the gun and would like to venture that the mapping of qualia is possible because no man is an island is so true that each man and his environment is a unity.

Maybe Cartesian Dualism leads inevitably to Immanuel Canism

[Walker]

The Inevitable

If eight thousand illegals are deported every single day, from the USA,

It will require four years to remove twelve million.

Likely, there are more than twelve million.

It just don’t add up.

Won’t happen. Fait accompli.

Mission accomplished. Invasion complete. Fundamentally changed.

Who told Biden to open the border?

[Will Bouwman]

I can't do youtube , Can you please direct me to a text ? Otherwise I will resort to ChatGPT.

Don't do it! Here's the article the video refers to:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-04511-0

Anyway I am so intrigued I have already jumped the gun and would like to venture that the mapping of qualia is possible because no man is an island is so true that each man and his environment is a unity.

I think you might be interested in Bernardo Kastrup's ideas: https://www.bernardokastrup.com/

Maybe Cartesian Dualism leads inevitably to Immanuel Canism

Well, it didn't in Descartes's case.

[Belinda]

I can't do youtube , Can you please direct me to a text ? Otherwise I will resort to ChatGPT.

Don't do it! Here's the article the video refers to:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-04511-0

Anyway I am so intrigued I have already jumped the gun and would like to venture that the mapping of qualia is possible because no man is an island is so true that each man and his environment is a unity.

I think you might be interested in Bernardo Kastrup's ideas: https://www.bernardokastrup.com/

Maybe Cartesian Dualism leads inevitably to Immanuel Canism

Well, it didn't in Descartes's case.

But Descartes was a Roman Catholic so did not have to bother about the timid Biblical literalism that was the less pleasant effect of the Reformation, the other, nicer, effect leading to curiosity, scepticism, and scientific enlightenment.

When I say IC is timid I refer to his inability to be happy without some authority in IC's case the authority of the written word in a holy book. In the case of Descartes , D was bold enough to be heretical against established RC dogma. Descartes is a candidate for the personality type of Nietzsche's Uberman. RC is a good man but a follower not a leader.

[Walker]

It’s like that everywhere. The bottom 10% of employees will run a company into the ground, and they’re the first to go during an overhaul, after their track record has been established. They overburden the process and require management clean-up crews, sort of like the southern border of USA.

*


Trump is taking a hard line with Iran on enrichment.
No more enrichment. Nada. Not a bit, for any purpose.
If they need energy, burn oil. They have plenty of it.

So, all Iran needs to do is wait awhile.
In a few years no more Trump in power, and who knows about Vance.
Just wait until Democrats are back in power.
Then Iran can develop The Bomb and terrorize any country within reach with blackmail.
Enrichment for all! Iran is a sovereign nation and the West meddles too much.
It's only fair that they get to blow things up, too.
Just like before, when the Obama and Biden Democrats were in power.

[Immanuel Can]

Tone is often impossible to detect in an email.

It really isn't. I know perfectly well what tone I am projecting. If I come across as condescending or rude, it's because I mean to.

Well, I can't judge your tone from that. And you can't judge mine. I could be intending this very same line as rude, or merely as factual. But yes, if one were to employ certain vituperative expressions, insults, or personal remarks, then yes, it could be possible to discern tone fairly accurately. So it depends.

I'm giving you the respect of responding seriously to your objections. That's something.

Oh?

Is that unclear? Then point made about tone.

I know more about the history and philosophy of science than you do,

That would be an assumption, and I think, unproven by the present conversation.

That's because you don't know as much about the history and philosophy of science as I do.

I don't know how much you know, and you don't know how much I know. What you do know is that you disagree with some of my claims. But whether those claims are actually grounded in a better or worse view of things is yet to be determined.

Where we've arrived is at the realization that there are real phenomena that physics, as a discipline, neither accounts for nor attempts to account for. And on that, I think, we now agree.

No we don't. I stand by what I said here:

Point made, again. We disagree about that, and your apparent concession that there are things science cannot deal with that are real phenomena is now retracted.

Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time - It was thought to be impossible:
https://youtu.be/NCD2A_bhDTI?si=78dSDibVvp5Z7TOR

Science is always expanding its competencies in regard to physical phenomena. Colour is a physical phenomenon. There isn't really anything new here, with respect to the properties I listed, of which "colour" and other such "qualia" were not included.

Did you take that seriously?

For what it offers? Yes. But it doesn't offer much. It admits we can't still even measure qualia, but says we can "compare" them, particularly through comparing what the brain is doing. Nothing is really new here. Brain is physical. It's mind that turns out to be the serious problem. To say, "We can measure that different brains perceive the same object through different physical processes" is not at all to say, "We are measuring the objective realities of colour," or "We are measuring the nature of minds."

If qualia can be mapped, who is to say that all the phenomena on your list can't be?

That's not a great argument. It's the old "eliminativist" optimism again. It runs, "If science can do X, then surely it can also do Y, Z, and A in future." But there's no reason at all to believe it's true, and no evidence in the present that Y, Z or A are going to succumb to scientific analysis simply because X did. It's not logical. It's assumptive.

...just as you know more about the history and philosophy of Christianity than I do.

If you say so, I accept your assessment.

Yes, I thought you might find that easier to digest.

No insult implied. It's possible for me to "digest" it because I have your own offering of it. If not, how would I know for certain whether or not you were a theologian or philosopher of religion? I've never met you, and can only take your word for how you characterize your situation.

[FlashDangerpants]

Tone is often impossible to detect in an email.

It really isn't.

It sort of is for him tbh. We mock him for his failures to read accurately, but we don't take into account how much more effort it takes to read properly if you need to use cognitive methods to uncover social cues that other people pick up without issue.

[seeds]

Tone is often impossible to detect in an email.

It really isn't. I know perfectly well what tone I am projecting. If I come across as condescending or rude, it's because I mean to.

I'm giving you the respect of responding seriously to your objections. That's something.

Oh?

I know more about the history and philosophy of science than you do,

That would be an assumption, and I think, unproven by the present conversation.

That's because you don't know as much about the history and philosophy of science as I do.

Will, me old bean, I know you like to toy with your victims, but you do realize, don't you, that you are attempting to reason with someone whose "Logic-O-Meter" is a bit off?

In other words, as I like to periodically remind everyone, you are debating with a person who believes that even if a two-year-old toddler meets an untimely death,...

...it is nevertheless justifiable for the Christian God to torture the soul of that child for an eternity in Hell because God (Jesus) omnisciently knew that that child was rotten to the core, primarily because she (had she lived) was never going to believe in the existence of the Christian God, neither at two years of age, nor after reaching the age of accountability.

And just in case anyone thinks I am making that up, just read the following excerpt from one of IC's posts...

...here's an interesting thought: what if God knows not merely which child is or is not believing in Him, but also knows which child would or would not believe in Him, given enough time and having come of age of responsibility? Since the Bible says God does know all possible futures, this isn't even speculation. So how could you even reasonably suppose God doesn't know what the destiny of a baby should and would be?

See https://iep.utm.edu/middlekn/

As for the toddler, the case may be more simple. And judging by your smugness, I'm certain you don't have one, and have never seen one for five minutes, if you think they can't sin and do it very consciously. Wait five minutes and she'll slap her brother in the face or burst out in rage. They don't call it "the terrible twos" for nothing. That, if nothing else, should show you the truth that "original sin" exists in everyone.

The point is that you (Will) are dealing with a person who actually believes that a two-year-old little girl who has been brutalized by a drunken parent for her entire two years of life, and is finally beaten to death for not picking up her toys,...

...is, again, justifiably condemned (by Jesus) to writhe in agony for eternity in the depths of Hell because Jesus omnisciently knew that she wasn't going to accept him as her personal savior had she made it past the age of accountability.

Man, life sure would suck under those conditions, no? Especially for the billions of humans on earth who, due to the circumstances of where they were born on this planet, were indoctrinated into something other than Christianity.

Now I am not suggesting that a person who can be so wildly irrational in one area cannot be rational in other areas, however, it sure does call into question one's "core source" of rationality.

But, again, I know that your "inner catness" likes to play with your prey.

Where we've arrived is at the realization that there are real phenomena that physics, as a discipline, neither accounts for nor attempts to account for. And on that, I think, we now agree.

No we don't. I stand by what I said here:

As it happens, all competent scientists know full well that for many disciplines you can by-pass physics and deal with phenomena at a different level, chemistry and biology being two obvious examples, but they are enhanced by interdisciplinary association with physics. Even the fields you listed have benefited from the input of physics, just as physicists benefit from other disciplines. There's no MRI or PET scans without physics, for example. So no, I do not admit that there are phenomena that don’t lend themselves to those methods...

And since then I posted a link to a piece titled Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time - It was thought to be impossible:
https://youtu.be/NCD2A_bhDTI?si=78dSDibVvp5Z7TOR
Did you take that seriously?

I, for one, most definitely did not take that seriously.

As I stated in the comment section of that Sabine Hossenfelder video...

Physicists can no more measure the actual contents of the human mind than they can measure the contents of a parallel universe that may have "branched" off of this universe, as is proposed in the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

_______

[Will Bouwman]

But Descartes was a Roman Catholic so did not have to bother about the timid Biblical literalism that was the less pleasant effect of the Reformation, the other, nicer, effect leading to curiosity, scepticism, and scientific enlightenment.

When I say IC is timid I refer to his inability to be happy without some authority in IC's case the authority of the written word in a holy book.

Well, that goes back to Xenophanes:
But mortals suppose gods are born,
Wear their own clothes and have a voice and body.
The Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each of their own kind.
It is far less likely that god made us in its image than that people who make gods make them in their image. In Mr Can's case his "Supreme Being" is omniscient because Mr Can is batshit enough to believe he knows everything.

In the case of Descartes , D was bold enough to be heretical against established RC dogma.

I happen to think the point of Catholicism is in the name; catholic means all embracing. So while it was, and is dogmatic, there is enough wiggle room that everyone from the most deranged psychopath to the hippiest flower child could find their sweet spot in the bible, the words of which were carefully chosen by the Roman Emperor Constantine and his lackeys at the council of Nicaea for precisely that purpose. The Reformation, again in my view, was special interest groups co-opting the Roman bible, I don't think there is anyone who takes all of the bible literally.

Descartes is a candidate for the personality type of Nietzsche's Uberman.

I'm not an expert on Nietzsche, but it seems to me he applied Darwin's theory to humans and predicted a more evolved species that we would all be subservient to in the way horses did the heavy lifting in his era.

RC is a good man but a follower not a leader.

And you are a good person for believing that, but are you familiar with his political views? See also seeds's observation.

[Will Bouwman]

Is that unclear? Then point made about tone.

Clearly tone means different things to you and I.

I don't know how much you know, and you don't know how much I know.

What I know is how much I know. I also know much of what you know from what you have written, and from that I know that I know more than you know.

What you do know is that you disagree with some of my claims.

It is less that I disagree with your claims than that I disagree with your assertion of knowledge. As I said, there are things you claim to know that I know you don't know.

But whether those claims are actually grounded in a better or worse view of things is yet to be determined.

That ship sailed long ago, you're just not on board.

If qualia can be mapped, who is to say that all the phenomena on your list can't be?

That's not a great argument. It's the old "eliminativist" optimism again.

No it isn't. It is me being comfortable admitting the limits of what I can know in contrast to your terror of not knowing.

[Will Bouwman]

Tone is often impossible to detect in an email.

It really isn't.

It sort of is for him tbh. We mock him for his failures to read accurately, but we don't take into account how much more effort it takes to read properly if you need to use cognitive methods to uncover social cues that other people pick up without issue.

Well yeah, I do feel I should feel more pity, but shit on a stick, he makes it hard.

[Will Bouwman]

Will, me old bean, I know you like to toy with your victims...

Oh man, now I feel like a sadist.

...but you do realize, don't you, that you are attempting to reason with someone whose "Logic-O-Meter" is a bit off?

Ya think?