Thoughts & Ideas in the Philosophical World of Doom

[RE]

I am still patiently waiting for my first paranormal experience. No ghosts, no aliens. No anal probe.

Flying on the astral plane sounds good. But I have not really managed to make it happen, as of yet.

The anecdotal evidence I have that does the most to make me want to accept a consciousness that isn't dependent on the meat suit, is what I've read about past lives. I studied hypnosis for a couple of years, and past life regression is an interesting technique that I learned a little bit about as a part of that.

Some excellent books have been written that I put some store in. Brian Weiss.

It also makes for a much nicer religious tradition, if you allow rebirth and karma. Everyone gets there. Everyone becomes enlightened. Everyone becomes fully realized. Eventually.

You do it over until you get it right. People don't get  get condemned to eternal flames, but they can run up some serious karmic debts that might take a long time to work through.

If I have to choose a mythology, I'd rather pick one that's based on using life as a learning experience rather than one that lists a bunch of shalt-nots and prescribes eternal damnation for all but the few True Believers..

My whole life has been a Paranormal Experience.    Even without the anal probes.

Mythology wise, I go for the one where Evil People Burn in Everlasting Damnation in the Fire & Brimstone of HELL    and Good People go to Everlasting Glory in the Kingdom of Heaven.   

You will never get the final answer to these questions until you cross the Great Divide to the Other Side.  It is a good exersize to think about them though while you wear the meat suit and walk the Earth.  Keeps your mind occupied.

When we are neighbors on the Other Side, we can discuss these questions for All Eternity. 

Yes I'll See You, God Knows I'll See You, I'll See You on the Other Side...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-9yYJ6ZAYns" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/-9yYJ6ZAYns</a>

RE

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[JRM]

On one side of my buttered morning pancakes I have have the other side of my oiled breakfast eggs, or rather a hint of them, since they were cooked in the same skillet. I flipped the eggs over easy. So my pancakes will have it easy on the other side.

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[RE]

I could give a shit, or not give a shit, about what happens to my "eternal soul". 

This is a major problem with most of the world population.  They really could give a shit about their souls.

They'll be sorry in Eternity though.  Burning in Hell for all Eternity is a LONG TIME.

RE

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[jdwheeler42]

You've seen a ghost JDW?

I've never seen one.  Ghost are in the realm of possibility but not verified for me, so my mind remains open to the possibility.  It's easy to add the belief in ghosts in with reincarnation.

The problem you have with "seeing" a ghost is without some independent verification, you can't know for sure that you saw it.  Like a Schizophrenic who "hears voices" telling him to do stuff, it could just be your mind playing tricks on you.  To the schizo, the voices seem very real.  However, they only exist inside his own head, nobody else can hear them.

Multiple times, multiple witnesses....

I didn't find the photographic evidence particularly convincing to begin with....

Do alternate explanations exist?  Sure.  But like I said, it's hard not to believe your own eyes, especially when others around you confirm they saw it too.

And she is really good with kids... she can get pretty upset with adults, though.

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[RE]

On one side of my buttered morning pancakes I have have the other side of my oiled breakfast eggs, or rather a hint of them, since they were cooked in the same skillet. I flipped the eggs over easy. So my pancakes will have it easy on the other side.

Both sides of your pancakes exist in the material world.

The "other side" in discussion here is that which is not material, not energy, but demonstrably does exist.

RE

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[Ka]

 If angels and unicorns exist supposedly they cry and pass wind (Damn unicorn methane is causing global warming!). Hence we should be able to find these excretions and emissions as proof of existence.

You suppose wrongly. Angels, if they exist, are non-physical, meaning they have no physical bodies, and so would not leave physical evidence.

I will try and keep religion out of my posts, but it always seems to come up when science, denial, thought experiments and nihilism are themes in a conversation. Yes I do have a huge beef with religion. It is one my 4 horsemen. It kills people. It keeps people ignorant. it is all that is bad with humanity concentrated for ease of use. Organised religions hide behind the few good deeds they do to cover up their true evil nature.  Most religions say they have the answers and you have to suspend observations to fit their models, not the other way around. In short: Good people do good deeps: Look out for their fellow man. Bad people do bad deeds: Harm their fellow man. Religion gets otherwise good people to do bad deeds: Homophobia, hate crimes, sexism, bigotry, suicide bombing, persecutions, banish people from communities, and generally permit atrocities because their god says it is right.. There! Out of my system. No more religion.

Yet there are billions of highly religious people who do not kill or throw bombs and consider those who do, whether in the name of religion or not, to be committing grave sins. Which means that you have some other reason for despising religion than all the bad things done in the name of religion, since these people also despise those bad things.

Ghosts. Hmm. I cant prove they exist or don't exist. I will believe in them when there is scientific proofs.

Ghosts, if they exist, like angels and like God, are not physical entities, but science can only study physical entities. In other words, science is your hammer, and if it doesn't look like a nail you are treating it as non-existent. Meanwhile there is a mountain of evidence for non-physical reality. However, like LD's, it is all anecdotal. This allows the materialist to ignore it, treating it all as lies or delusions. But that treatment comes from a particular metaphysical position (materialism), which science cannot prove or disprove.

The invisible and the non-existent look just the same.

Thoughts are invisible, yet exist.

My brain works on electrical and chemical reactions.

Yes, but that doesn't mean your mind does.

It can be fooled. I have read how Sharmen take magic mushrooms and  all have the same hallucination, hence they believe they all are speaking to similar ghosts or beings not of this plane, as how else would they have a shared experience? They could be. Alternatively, if the same chemicals are put in similar brains, it should produce similar results, hence the similar experiences.  Occams razor.

Here's a question for you. Those who think consciousness emerges from the brain's electro-chemical activity do not, after centuries, have a hint of a clue as to how that can happen. Those who think consciousness in humans correlates with brain activity, but is not caused by brain activity, have various ideas as to how that can happen, and have evidence, albeit anecdotal, of non-physically based consciousness. So which is the better bet?

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[RE]

 If angels and unicorns exist supposedly they cry and pass wind (Damn unicorn methane is causing global warming!). Hence we should be able to find these excretions and emissions as proof of existence.

You suppose wrongly. Angels, if they exist, are non-physical, meaning they have no physical bodies, and so would not leave physical evidence.

ROFLMAOPIMP.  JoW, you awoke the Sleeping Bear.

Don't get in a metaphysical argument with Ka unless you want to have your clock cleaned out.

Fortunately on this one, Ka & I are mostly in agreement and argue the same (or similar) POVs.

You are in the Deep Doo Doo if you go up against both of us.  Ka will yank out the Coleridge & BARField and I will pull up Casper the Friendly Ghost vids on You Tube.  You can't win in a two front war like this.  Give up now before it is too late. LOL.

RE

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[John of Wallan]

I will take on all comers.

What does ROFLMAOPIMP stand for?

Ideas V Thoughts
New ideas can come about by looking at old ideas differently, or combining ideas in a different way to come up with something new. I just watched the Animatrix video above and have seem a few new ideas to me about what Lucid calls the Akashic record. I suppose my best description is Ideas are recorded thoughts that others can access. Ideas may last forever, but thoughts only exist while those thinking them are alive. Back to 1 nil RE.

Consciousness.
If we ever produce a machine that has consciousness, what ever your interpretation of that word means, then the whole mystery will be solved. Yes I think it will happen. Yes I think it is caused by brain activity. I could be wrong. I see no evidence to the contrary at the moment.

Religions.
Name me one religion that does not have a doctrine that harms other or encourages the harm of others and I will modify my thoughts. Individuals who do not follow their religious doctrines are to be praised indeed. If we followed the doctrines of the 3 Abrahamic religions in particular to the letter of the law we would all be killing each other for thought crimes, adultery and arguing with your parents among a dozen other reasons. (I pick on them as they are the most familiar to me). I am an Atheist. I am pretty high up on all their hit lists simply because I exist.... Met me, get to know me, disliking me and then wanting to kill me I have no problem with. Telling me I deserve to die and burn for all eternity simply because i don't think like you I have a problem with.

Ghosts.
Some Australian Aboriginal people seeing white men for the first time they thought they were ghosts of their ancestors. Thus they thought they saw ghosts. They have since changed their beliefs based on further observations and information. To many peoples meeting Europeans for the first time they thought their science was magic or the work of a god. See cargo cults as late as 1940's, that still exist in some remote pacific islands. Advanced technology or black swan events which contradict accepted beliefs are often attributed to supernatural causes until proven otherwise.
My wife believes in ghosts. I am sceptical.

Back to the homestead thread.
I am trying to build a sanctuary for man, plant and beast as I see bad shit on the horizon, and the here and now is all I have. I may well be wrong and when I die end up somewhere else as opposed to ceasing to exist. I will cross that bridge when I come to it. We may all be pessimistic idiots and everything is going to be peachy, but I see ample evidence suggesting this is not the case in the wider world not just on this site. I we are wrong we will have built a healthier, cleaner simpler life for nothing.... I can live with that!
Doomers, for want of a better description or name for those who do not outright deny we have a problem, or who think we have a problem but just ignore it and hope for a savior from man or other, still do not have a sense of urgency as a whole. I would think that this site represents a very small percentage of Doomers who are a small percentage greater Doomhood, who are a small percentage of society as a whole. I think bad stuff is going to happen a lot quicker than people think, and quite frankly quite soon.

Time lines.
No one want to give time lines as they are too scared of being wrong. The end results is inaction. I think we need time lines even if vague or out by a lot. Hindsight is always 20/20. Better to gives a target that can be changed. No time line is 100% wrong all the time. At least an attempt at a time line has a chance of being close.... The naysayers always point to changing time lines and data as a reason to nay say. They will never give a prediction themselves, and don’t understand the scientific method.

1.Finances.
Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey: Money makes the world go around
I think RE has the order pretty right. First we will see finances implode, followed by industrial society grinding to a halt, followed by lots of dead people. Along the way we may see even greater ecosystem destruction. If you interpret the data and analysis as I do a great deal of this will be from climate change. Hopefully we will not start too many wars along the way.
The economic stuff is going down now, starting in Europe and the US , then China and then the rest. I have always said Australia is US  with 10 year lag. I think it may be getting closer now, maybe 5 or 6. Either way I think a major economic collapse followed by industrial society collapsing is certain over the next 10 years.When the world finally loses confidence in US FIAT currency the big unwind will start.
This will be the first wave of death, as the already poor and fragile in society starve first, followed by the rest in the cities and urban areas either through starvation or by having food someone else wants more....
If we are lucky the few remote sanctuaries people set up will work. If we are unlucky, climate change will stuff this as well. I tend to think we are unlucky...

2.Ecosystems.
Lou Reed: Last great American whale.
I live in one of the hottest and the driest habitable continent on Earth. Ancient gums which are used to heatwaves and dry spells are dying when we get a 2 or 3 day spell an extra degree or 2 hotter than usual. We are talking about 2 or 3 days at 45 degrees instead of 43. Both are damn hot, and regularly visited inland where I grew up. The occurrence of slightly hotter for slightly longer is pushing plants past a thresh-hold and they are dying. These are hundreds of years old gums, and we are seeing once in 100 year events happening every other year. We are in trouble when the toughest of plants are dying from stresses. We have no hope of feeding the world on hybrid cereals.I am bewildered with peoples inability to realize that no plants= no animals, and no animals includes humans. The disconnect is scary. The temperatures are getting hotter and more energy is in the atmosphere creating greater storms. The age of consequence is upon us.

3.Extinction
Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction 
The biosphere we depend on is not coping with the speed of change right now. I don't care if you debate the cause; the change is happening now. The whole extinction in 20 years vs 200 years vs 2000 years debate is a little futile. I doubt we will make 2000 and I am struggling to see 200 right now. 20 is a definite possibility if we get 4 or 5 or 6 degrees over base line.
The answer I am told is to pack up and go live in a thawed Antarctica. Yes this may support a couple of hundred people for a short time, but who knows what effect low light and the soils there will have on plant growth. Once again it is a high risk strategy. Building a new habitat in Antarctica will be like setting up a moon base. It will be hard to get to, foreign and new, and completely devoid of any native plant species we can eat in quantity. (There are some small flowers, lichens and mosses)
Its not only that climate change will wipe us out, but that climate change after a financial crash will leave so little resources available to rebuild any sort of society in a new location. I have a running bet with my friends and sons: There will be no Moon or Mars landings or bases in my lifetime. (Since modified to by 2025 so I can collect!) We will have no capital to fix our earthly problems let alone spend on science fiction adventures of little benefit. Everyone talks about another Manhattan project to fix the environment. We don t have the capital.

4.The Fix.
Van Halen: Outer Space
There is no fix. The best we can do is stop burning fossil fuels and hope the ecosystem recovers due to some as yet unknown negative feedback loops. Planting trees will probably help. Cant hurt... Geo engineering is a recipe for disaster. Spend more money,  energy and resources changing the ecosystem even more in the arrogant belief we can tame the tiger. That’s 19th century thinking: taming nature. Making it clean and safe and civilized.
Nope we are screwed.

I hope I am wrong.
Queen: The show must go on.

JOW

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[Ka]

What does ROFLMAOPIMP stand for?

Rolling On Floor Laughing My Ass Off Pissing In My Pants.

Consciousness.
If we ever produce a machine that has consciousness, what ever your interpretation of that word means, then the whole mystery will be solved. Yes I think it will happen. Yes I think it is caused by brain activity. I could be wrong. I see no evidence to the contrary at the moment.

Only a non-spatiotemporal machine could produce consciousness. Consider the basic pieces of a spatiotemporal machine, whatever they may be, say transistors. Wire two of them together. There can be no awareness from them greater than that occurring in one transistor. This is because every event is separated in space and/or time from every other event. There is nothing there to grasp two events as a whole, one in one transistor and the other in the other. Now add a third transistor to the network. Again, one is limited to the awareness of one transistor, for the same reason. And so on, no matter how many transistors one adds. Now machines may be made of something other than transistors, but the argument will be the same. Or say one can pass more than a bit over a wire, or the pieces have multiple connections. That would mean that the piece receiving this information must be more complicated than a transistor, and so the problem shows up again within the piece.

Note that the same argument applies to the brain, if it is considered to operate strictly spatiotemporally.

Over two hundred years ago, Pierre Cabanis famously said “The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.” Since then there has been no better theory of how the brain produces thoughts. It has gotten to the point that philosophers who wish to remain materialists are becoming 'mysterians', who say we will never know how consciousness emerges, like Colin McGinn, or 'eliminative materialists', like Dennett, the Churchlands, and Rosenberg, who simply deny that consciousness is real. Talk about reason being corrupted by dogma, there you have it.

For evidence of non-brain-based consciousness I recommend Robert A Monroe's Journeys Out of the Body.

Religions.
Name me one religion that does not have a doctrine that harms other or encourages the harm of others and I will modify my thoughts. Individuals who do not follow their religious doctrines are to be praised indeed. If we followed the doctrines of the 3 Abrahamic religions in particular to the letter of the law we would all be killing each other for thought crimes, adultery and arguing with your parents among a dozen other reasons. (I pick on them as they are the most familiar to me). I am an Atheist. I am pretty high up on all their hit lists simply because I exist.... Met me, get to know me, disliking me and then wanting to kill me I have no problem with. Telling me I deserve to die and burn for all eternity simply because i don't think like you I have a problem with.

Christianity. Buddhism.
No Christian doctrine in itself harms others. (You are aware, I hope, that orthodox Christian doctrine considers all those Leviticus things, other than the 10 Commandments, to no longer hold.) People will, however, bring other motives into their actions, and twist doctrine to justify the harm they do to others. The same can be said for democracy, marxism, etc. If we followed Christian doctrine to the letter of the law, we would obey the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", and the Golden Rule, and we would forgive, not punish, sinners. Buddhism's five precepts are "Don't kill", "Don't steal", "Don't engage in harmful speech (e.g., lying, gossip), "Don't engage in irresponsible sex", and "Don't take mind-befuddling substances". Now if those were followed to the letter, I see no harm resulting.

On the Hell doctrine. There are still many Christians who believe in it, but they are getting fewer. Those who do, if they are at all theologically aware, will say that Hell is chosen by the individual, in that they would prefer to live without God's Love than with it -- they worship something other than God, e.g., money, or power over others. Even the Catholic Church now accepts the notion if "anonymous Christian", that is, someone who does not believe in Jesus as God and Savior, can still get into Heaven as long as they are not bound to evil, like the money-worshippers.

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[RE]

Ideas V Thoughts
New ideas can come about by looking at old ideas differently, or combining ideas in a different way to come up with something new.

So where did the First Idea come from?  Are all ideas based on other ideas?  Are there ever any new ideas?  If there are no new ideas, where were all the old ideas stored before there were Homo Saps?

RE

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[John of Wallan]

On AI: I see no evidence in your argument that AI cant become conscious. I believe consciousness is real, I just don't think it is supernatural.
Where is the evidence for the statement; "Only a non-spatiotemporal machine could produce consciousness."
If the brain is a spatiotemporal machine then where does consciousness come from?
If it outside the physical realm, show me the evidence.
Might well be a black swan moment if the singularity occurs,so we cant dismiss it without some reasoning.
What is your definition of consciousness and do animals have consciousness?
I am a little light on in this department. I am interested in your explanation now RE has pumped up your credentials!

Christianity and Buddhism?
Nope and nope.

Read the christian holly books. Full of death to blasphemers, adulterers, sodomites and many others. Promotes persecution of the same. Beating disobedient wives. Slavery, rape and forced marriage. After death there is eternal punishment and torment which gives those living reason to torment those they think are going to hell while still alive.
Plenty of people who call themselves Christians, including some clergy don't believe this stuff, problem is their religious doctrine is pretty unambiguous in their need to adhere to it. Thank goodness for religious disobedience!

I am told Buddhism is more a philosophy than a religion, but lets treat it as a religion for this discussion. One of the problems with  reincarnation is the belief that if you are good you come back as a prince say. If you are bad you come back as a cripple or a blind person. Thus it is inferred that the disabled get what they deserve. Karma. Once again plenty of decent folks calling themselves Buddhist who don't adhere to this doctrine, and treat people as they should regardless of their station in life.

Its not just killing. Religions are nearly always Patriarchal and promote sexism and homophobia. Its a power grab, and nothing to do with spirituality as such.

I play the ball not the man. I really do believe people want to be kind to their fellow man. Current pope seems like a decent man compared to his hard line predecessor. He still cant escape church doctrine. Religion makes good people do bad things.

JOW

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[John of Wallan]

New ideas come about all the time through new experiences. A newborn experiences new things every day and comes up with new ideas such as learning to cry for attention or learning to speak.

JOW

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[RE]

3.Extinction
Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction
The biosphere we depend on is not coping with the speed of change right now. I don't care if you debate the cause; the change is happening now. The whole extinction in 20 years vs 200 years vs 2000 years debate is a little futile. I doubt we will make 2000 and I am struggling to see 200 right now. 20 is a definite possibility if we get 4 or 5 or 6 degrees over base line.

20 v 200 v 2000 years to extinction makes a BIG difference to anyone alive at the moment.  Any number past 100 or so though is irrelevant, since extinction will occur at some point in the timeline, but it won't occur in your lifetime.

If you believe extinction or a population knockdown will come in <100 years, by how much changes your behavior.  Do you want to be one of the last left standing?  If you do, then you become a Prepper to one degree or another, depending what you can afford.  If you have gobs of money like Steve Wozniak or Peter Thiel, you buy the whole fucking South Island of New Zealand and build neighboring underground bunkers powered by Hitachi Micro Nuke Reactors.  If you are somewhat less well off than this you buy 40 acres and raise Mangalitsa Piggies.  If you are pretty thin on cash you stock up on rice and beans and beef jerky in your 1 bedroom apartment.

If you do not want to survive as long as you can what you believe to be an oncoming extinction or population knockdown of Homo Saps inside your lifetime, then you don't do jack shit and you become all whiny, nihilistic, misanthropic and depressed about it.  Read that most of the followers of Guy McPherson.

In neither case though can you be 100% certain of outcomes, because nobody is a perfect Nostradamus.  So even if chances of survival are small, you still strive to survive, and strive for your children to survive, and then maybe their children will too.

RE

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[RE]

New ideas come about all the time through new experiences. A newborn experiences new things every day and comes up with new ideas such as learning to cry for attention or learning to speak.

By your own distinction, those things a newborn comes up with are "thoughts" not "ideas".

Where did the "idea" of language to communicate with each other come from?  The newborn doesn't come up with them herself, she listens to sounds made by others.  But somewhere back there in the mists of time, there was no other person communicating this way.  Where did the idea to do it come from for the first person who started talking?  Did it just pop spontaneously into his brain?  Or was language always there and he just had to access it?

RE

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[Eddie]

Back to the homestead thread.
I am trying to build a sanctuary for man, plant and beast as I see bad shit on the horizon, and the here and now is all I have. I may well be wrong and when I die end up somewhere else as opposed to ceasing to exist. I will cross that bridge when I come to it. We may all be pessimistic idiots and everything is going to be peachy, but I see ample evidence suggesting this is not the case in the wider world not just on this site. I we are wrong we will have built a healthier, cleaner simpler life for nothing.... I can live with that!
Doomers, for want of a better description or name for those who do not outright deny we have a problem, or who think we have a problem but just ignore it and hope for a savior from man or other, still do not have a sense of urgency as a whole. I would think that this site represents a very small percentage of Doomers who are a small percentage greater Doomhood, who are a small percentage of society as a whole. I think bad stuff is going to happen a lot quicker than people think, and quite frankly quite soon.


A  man after my own heart. I just hope that I live long enough to get a real sanctuary built, and that TS doesn't HTF before I get  the basics laid out as properly as I can. I also hope things do get bad enough fast enough for the people I care about to wake up and smell the collapse coffee. It'd be a shame if I built a nice doomstead and my kids sold it before they realized they needed it.

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