Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Free Will

“Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one - that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost. A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty - and, by which definition, a philosopher - dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; his two-fold security. ” Tom Stoppard

So, who should we envy here?

“We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligence knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the universe, would be able to comprehend in one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well as the lightest atoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the future as well as the past would be present to its eyes. The perfection that the human mind has been able to give to astronomy affords but a feeble outline of such an intelligence.” Pierre Simon de Laplace

That again. Unless, of course, it could never have not been?

“Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making.” Sam Harris

Though his will here seems to reflect, what, the best of all possible assessments? As though Mother Nature herself selected him to explain it all to us?

“The choices we’re working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already happened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can’t know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it’s all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway.” Audrey Niffenegger

Let's run this by Atla and FDP...not that we ever really had any choice but to.

“Are we just radio sets? Tuned to a particular frequency? Are our brains simply tapping their potential from an invisible but universal thought cloud? Seriously, what is the source of our thoughts? How do artists create art? How do writers write? What is it that is doing the creating?” Abhaidev

I suspect we'll never really know. Unless, perhaps, you already do?

“It made you wonder: How much of our lives was just luck or good timing, and how much was actually choice? How could it be that tiny serendipitous events could change everything? And if lucky events could change everything, could minor mishaps have the same power?” Aditi Khorana

Oh, yeah.

[Atla]

“The choices we’re working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already happened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can’t know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it’s all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway.” Audrey Niffenegger

Let's run this by Atla and FDP...not that we ever really had any choice but to.

Okay fine: imo the real free will vs determinism debate starts when we combine block universe with circular dimensions (which are arguably the two logical positions). And then free will and determinism can converge in a way that isn't compatibilism at all.

And afaik no major philosopher has done this. They're clueless simpletons in my eyes. One shouldn't read their works.

[iambiguous]

Hypocrisy

“And when I speak, I don't speak as a Democrat. Or a Republican. Nor an American. I speak as a victim of America's so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy - all we've seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism. We see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don't see any American dream. We've experienced only the American nightmare.” Malcolm X

So-called democracy? Someone run this by Louis Farrakhan. Yeah, he's still around. 

“Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.” Christine de Pizan

Let's get started!

“Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.” Dorothy L. Sayers

See, he told us. Whoever he was.

“The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.” William Hazlitt

Yours more or less than mine.

“These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.” Yann Martel

Ah, the Gilded Age!

“Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.” Walter Kirn

Remember back when everyone loved a hanging? A "good hanging" I believe it was called.

[promethean75]

"Hey, Fascist! Catch!"

Written on Captain Kirk's Assassin's bullet casing.

[promethean75]

Therrrrrre's something on my neck! Some..... thing!" - the last words of Captain Kirk

[iambiguous]

Heaven

“Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all the creatures ever made (man) is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one... that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain.” Mark Twain

That'll never happen here though, right?

“If I ever reach heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had expected to see there; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.” Billy Joel

Any day now.

“Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven.” George Bernard Shaw

I'll take my chances.

“Elder Neal A. Maxwell suggests that the prime reason the Savior personally acts as the gatekeeper of the celestial kingdom is not to exclude people, but to personally welcome and embrace those who have made it back home.” Tad R. Callister

Sure, why not.

“Heaven has appointed us dwellers on earth a time for all things.” Homer

Four in particular: birth, school, work. death.

“As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty, and painful treatment if they're convinced that they'll eventually escape to some resort in the sky where lifeguards are superfluous and the pool never closes. Moreover, the faithful are usually willing to risk their skins in whatever military adventure their government may currently be promoting.” Tom Robbins

Some things just never change.

[iambiguous]

Determinism

“We are being inexorably drawn in by a Final cause – the Omega Point – divinity. Divinity = perfect symmetry = the total, flawless alignment of every monad in the Singularity, which equates to the resetting of every monad and the end of a cosmic cycle. This is the moment of Divine Suicide – when all the Gods die. This is Ragnarok. This is Götterdammerung. All the gods must perish. Each cyclical universe must die. Scientists talk of the Heat Death brought about by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There’s simply no way out.” Mike Hockney

Let me guess: you've found one?

“But still, two times two is four is a most obnoxious thing.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And, no, not just underground.

“Every person is a puppet who didn't pick his own strings and those strings reach back to the big bang.” Sam Harris

Theoretically, let's say.

“You have not built your mind. And in moments in which you seem to build it—when you make an effort to change yourself, to acquire knowledge, or to perfect a skill—the only tools at your disposal are those that you have inherited from moments past.” Sam Harris

Theoretically, let's say.

“You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.” Arthur Schopenhauer

On the other hand, for all practical purposes?

“Could the completed life course of such a man turn out in any respect, even the smallest, in any happening, any scene, differently from the way it did? No! is the consistent and correct answer.” Arthur Schopenhauer

On the other hand, for all practical purposes?

[Phil8659]

Determinism

“We are being inexorably drawn in by a Final cause – the Omega Point – divinity. Divinity = perfect symmetry = the total, flawless alignment of every monad in the Singularity, which equates to the resetting of every monad and the end of a cosmic cycle. This is the moment of Divine Suicide – when all the Gods die. This is Ragnarok. This is Götterdammerung. All the gods must perish. Each cyclical universe must die. Scientists talk of the Heat Death brought about by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There’s simply no way out.” Mike Hockney

Let me guess: you've found one?

“But still, two times two is four is a most obnoxious thing.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And, no, not just underground.

“Every person is a puppet who didn't pick his own strings and those strings reach back to the big bang.” Sam Harris

Theoretically, let's say.

“You have not built your mind. And in moments in which you seem to build it—when you make an effort to change yourself, to acquire knowledge, or to perfect a skill—the only tools at your disposal are those that you have inherited from moments past.” Sam Harris

Theoretically, let's say.

“You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.” Arthur Schopenhauer

On the other hand, for all practical purposes?

“Could the completed life course of such a man turn out in any respect, even the smallest, in any happening, any scene, differently from the way it did? No! is the consistent and correct answer.” Arthur Schopenhauer

On the other hand, for all practical purposes?

Wow! what are you trying to arrive at, this is a very simple exercise questioning other author's gibberish, what is it that you are aiming for?

I can sympathize with these episodes as a means of trying to fight your way out of a mental block, so please to inform, Where do you want your ability to make relevant judgments go?

[iambiguous]

Suicide

“People try to say suicide is the most cowardly act a man could ever commit. I don't think that's true at all. What's cowardly is treating a man so badly that he wants to commit suicide.” Tommy Tran

Well, that too.

“If my Valentine you won't be,
I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree.” Ernest Hemingway

Of course, eventually...

“The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain.” William Styron

Been there, done that.

“He was fucking sad. That's it. That's the point. He knows life is never going to get any different for him. That there's no fixing him. It's always going to be the same monotonous depressing bullshit. Boring, sad, boring, sad. He just wants it to be over.” Jasmine Warga

Bummer.

“This is what I want so don't be sad.” Nina LaCour

Works for some, though not for others,

“Chronic anxiety is a state more undesirable than any other, and we will try almost any maneuver to eliminate it. Modern man is living in anxious anticipation of destruction. Such anxiety can be easily eliminated by self-destruction. As a German saying puts it: 'Better an end with terror than a terror without end.” Robert E. Neale

Amen.

[Phil8659]

Suicide

“People try to say suicide is the most cowardly act a man could ever commit. I don't think that's true at all. What's cowardly is treating a man so badly that he wants to commit suicide.” Tommy Tran

Well, that too.

“If my Valentine you won't be,
I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree.” Ernest Hemingway

Of course, eventually...

“The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain.” William Styron

Been there, done that.

“He was fucking sad. That's it. That's the point. He knows life is never going to get any different for him. That there's no fixing him. It's always going to be the same monotonous depressing bullshit. Boring, sad, boring, sad. He just wants it to be over.” Jasmine Warga

Bummer.

“This is what I want so don't be sad.” Nina LaCour

Works for some, though not for others,

“Chronic anxiety is a state more undesirable than any other, and we will try almost any maneuver to eliminate it. Modern man is living in anxious anticipation of destruction. Such anxiety can be easily eliminated by self-destruction. As a German saying puts it: 'Better an end with terror than a terror without end.” Robert E. Neale

Amen.

The mind is like any other life support system. If it can do its job, it is well, if it cannot, it is in pain.

[iambiguous]

Hell

“So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is—other people!” Jean-Paul Sartre

On the other hand...

"If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people in it?” Emily St. John Mandel

Unless, of course, it's still far too close to call.

“Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spent my entire days sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them.” Neil Gaiman

The devil you say!

“A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.” Thomas Fuller

What, even virtually?

“Let this Hell be our Heaven.” Richard Matheson

I'll flip you for it.

“The special quality of Hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail.” Yukio Mishima 

It would have to be that way.

[iambiguous]

Stupidity

"We read novels because we are aware of our loneliness. We read science books because we are aware of our stupidity." Sebastián Wortys

You know, more or less.

“Ignorance is the assumption that you’re not.” Craig D. Lounsbrough

About what you're probably not wondering.

“Stupidity is the regurgitated meal that feeds itself and on which it grows fat.” Stewart Stafford

Or, for some, morbidly obese.

“The frustrating thing is to repeatedly tell people what the destructive consequences of their choices are going to be, only to eventually find these very people standing in the midst of the very destruction that was predicted screaming at the top of their lungs that everything is fine.” Craig D. Lounsbrough

Tell us about it!

“Once you believe a lie to be the truth, you are now in the rather unfavorable position of having to change every truth that you encounter in order to support the lie that you now believe. Craig D. Lounsbrough

Don't you just hate that?

“No matter how fast artificial intelligence spreads, global stupidity will always be ahead of it.” Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

If only so far.

[iambiguous]

Spacetime

“One component of infinity is the complete absence of time.” Attila Pergel

Well, obviously.

“Information, a distinction between phenomenal states, is 'modus operandi' of consciousness. Mass-energy, space-time are epiphenomena of consciousness. It is consciousness that assigns measurement values to entangled quantum states (qubits-to-digits of qualia computing). Particles of matter are pixels (or voxels) on the screen of our perception. Reality is fundamentally experiential. If we assume consciousness is fundamental, most phenomena become much easier to explain.” Alex M. Vikoulov

Well, obviously.

“Body cannot survive in the vacuum of space,
Mind cannot survive in the vacuum of time.
Brain cannot survive in the vacuum of skull,
So it floats about in the fluid of spine.” Abhijit Naskar

Clever enough for you?

“The nonmaterial world is the spaceless "space" and timeless "time." In the nonmaterial world, there is no time and no space. Paradoxically, no time means eternity, and no space means infinity. No boundary proposal is a proposal about an everlasting world and everlasting time. Everlasting means time with a beginning and no end. The concept or idea of eternal implies no beginning and no end. The concept of the everlasting Being, or time, or space, as an ultimate principle is shaky because we cannot use our limitations in thinking to argue against reality as it is and not as we say it is. If we do not understand the idea of time in its totality, we cannot talk about time from the point of superior “knowledge.” Dejan Stojanovic

And you can take that all the way to...you tell me?

“To look is important. We look to immediate things and out of immediate necessities to the future, coloured by the past. Our seeing is very limited and our eyes are accustomed to near things. Our look is as bound by time-space as our brain. We never look, we never see beyond this limitation; we do not know how to look through and beyond these fragmentary frontiers." Jiddu Krishnamurti

See, didn't I tell you?

“'Space-time' - that hideous hybrid whose very hyphen looks phoney.” Nabokov Vladimir

Click, say.

[iambiguous]

Artificial Intelligence

“There is no security...against the ultimate development of mechanical consciousness, in the fact of machines possessing little consciousness now. A mollusk has not much consciousness. Reflect upon the extraordinary advance which machines have made during the last few hundred years, and note how slowly the animal and vegetable kingdoms are advancing.” Samuel Butler

That certainly explains something, I suppose.

“Everything evolves. Humanity's relationship with AI will evolve both AI and humans, and both will move to a higher level of intelligence!” Mehmet Murat ildan

Next up: the punch line.

“The most profound change is not just that AI replaces the mind.
It is that it introduces a new form of labor into the world with a completely different physical basis. This is the Metabolic Rift.” Emad Mostaque

No, really, what would you call it?

“Without feelings, independent thoughts, original ideas, lived experience, or a story of its own, AI is not an author. It is merely a tool—like a pen in the hand of a writer—used to express their thoughts, feelings, voice, and character.” Mouloud Benzadi

Wow, that's certainly good to know.

“We don't need AI in every gadget, we don't need CRISPR in every baby.” Abhijit Naskar

Tell that to Mother Nature. And then to God.

“The first truly alien intelligence we encounter may not arrive in a spaceship, it may already be emerging from our own code.” James S. Coates

Tell that to God. And then to Mother Nature.

[iambiguous]

Free Will

“Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ” Leo Tolstoy

Philosophically, as it were.

“If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, "I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by 'free will.' I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” Kurt Vonnegut

Figures.

“...free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.” Flannery O'Connor

Let alone for all practical purposes.

“A person's looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall.” Tom Robbins

Anyone here know how wimpy?

“Remember your connection with the cosmos. Remember your connection with the infinity and that remembrance will give you the freedom.” Amit Ray

On the other hand, forget about it.

But free will is what it means to be human, and no one can determine the path you take through this universe. Choice is our greatest right, our greatest gift-and our greatest responsibility.” Amie Kaufman

Click, for example.