Armitage

If the ethical stuff for 5-year-olds (in age or mentality) was taken care of, I'd have a plenty to do. Besides the ethics from Stefan, I learned philosophy of language, science and metaphysics. I could do a lot of good in research, piecing together information from various areas into a greater picture of what remains to be discovered as the next breakthrough in science. If I had a reputation of any kind, I could point at a promising research on behalf of investors or recommend that some investment be taken away from bad ideas. If there was a research of meditation, I could serve as a specimen myself. It's because I meditate Laya Yoga regularly and I would make a case that meditation is more than just relaxation. In my experience, it is more like electrolysis or internal massage, if you do it right In the area of language, I would run experiments with students, learning to think in the most general way possible and then applying it. I would read up on Bertalanffy and Korzybski. According to these guys, there is such a thing as a general behavior of systems. If you master that "language" of systems, then you can learn any actual system more easily by learning exceptions from the general language of systems. For example, physics is a very general language of processes and I find myself often using metaphors for physics in economical or social thought. I would look into it, if this can be systematized into a real discipline of its own. So far I have thought of applying it to easy learning of scientific fields. But I have read a book by George Adamski (yes, the UFO guy from the 50's, he wrote a book on philosophy that I helped to translate for a friend) and he mentioned an idea that there is also such a way to learn common languages rather quickly. If he meant the same thing. It is by no means certain, but it would be worth a try, if the world weren't burning right now. If I was really feeling bored and had nothing better to do, I'd go and learn music. I would analyze all the music pieces that give me chills and I'd find out what makes them tick. I would form a repertoire of these techniques that produce the finest emotions in me personally. I'd use an alphabet of sorts that links chords and emotions, but I'd try to master those that appeal to me and add the psychedelic techniques to it. I would then use this language-like understanding of music as a method in composing through an attempt at melodic storytelling. I have no idea whatsoever if this is a viable composing technique. But I know that my taste in music is good, most of music is shit and it's worth looking into if composers should create more than several memorable tracks in their lives. At the very least I'd discover why that can't be done. If the free society was now and I had enough money, I might even finish that RPG videogame that I have as a half-finished engine and design documents. Some quests and bestiary from that are totally hilarious. If you get the references. See, if the world wasn't going to shit and I wasn't busy with school, finishing my therapy and earning a living in jobs that I suck at, I would be very productive indeed.

I know the type of a guy. It's a hypertrophy of reason and spirituality. Imagine an above-average IQ as a nerve electric energy, or fluid that can not be compressed. In healthy families, people first develop more or less physically, then emotionally and then intellectually (overlapping of course). In dysfunctional families, the "nerve energy" is not allowed to play out in social and emotional areas, and physical or sports interests are often pretty weak too, since they require a lot of cooperation with people. These brain areas are overloaded, associated with fear and pain, shut down and abandoned. The nerve energy must play itself out elsewhere, it builds a lot of new synapses of its own. And that is a deliberate, conscious process, not healthy instinctive stuff like with relationships. So it is all thrown into developing simulatory capacities - intellect and spirituality. It's like when people with bound feet develop abnormally strong hands to move around on a wheelchair. It just happens so that reality is built in an equivalent way - through simulatory capacities. There is actually no other, simpler way to define reality, not according to Occam's razor, not without many theoretical loose ends and infinite regressions. (of course the computer stuff is more of a metaphor or a special case of what reality is like) So people who have this hypertrophy are naturally inclined to understand that deep, non-obvious aspect of reality. It's the concrete basics that they are lacking, the logic of love and relationships. There is an even more sad case of this hypertrophy, when the IQ was not too high to begin with and so the person doesn't rub off the veneer of reality, but instead becomes fossilized in academic science and concrete evidence. Where do I come in? Well, the intellectual and spiritual hypertrophy can not go on forever. I trained myself in philosophy, discovered things that I could (stuff like Tom Campbell pretty much) and then took on Stefan's challenge. Stef basically says, one who wants to say weird things should go through therapy first or Stef won't believe a weird word that he says. Stef implies, be like Caesar of the self, after conquering the far-off Gallia with all its strange customs, turn back, cross the Rubicon and conquer the home base of Rome as well.

Thank you. The truth is, I've stumbled upon an extremely difficult philosophical problem that is sure to cause heated arguments even in very intelligent and educated people. Or specially because they are such. There's no point in even talking about it until I finish my Master's thesis. It's such a difficult problem that I learned most of what I know by cracking it. It's a part of rather obscure philosophy of science and language that isn't bullshit like most of my govt curriculum, but few people ever bothered to learn it. Trust me, I have to rewrite some chapters like 3 times, because the argument is not clear enough and it's digressing. So far I've met just one person on FB who agreed with me. And some people on this forum chose to express their disagreement by downvoting the post, on average -5 votes per my post. I'd like to have a debate even deeper than this problem some time in the future. I think that Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions might be based on academic science. I have an idea that the scientific revolutions (such as in physics) are an equivalent of economic boom and bust, due to inflexibility of tenured academic positions and government funding of science. But that's just a small byproduct idea of the problem that I'm working on. Do you mean the video "Facts don't matter?" I don't remember "Argument's don't matter": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw78QZF3chg So far, I think I might almost reasonably say in introduction: "I'm someone who obeys evidence and consistency of claims. I seek out opposite beliefs to see if they have better evidence than me. That's what I do. Are you into that too?" No, you don't. Allow me to take the Boromir pose, "One does not simply disbelieve in the idea that state has a control over these factors." It's a fine conclusion to have, I have it too. But would you try to introduce yourself as someone who does the rational things that inevitably lead to the state-atheism? Try it and see how it sounds. Try to think how your friends (and enemies) would react to you if you introduced yourself as I did just above. This actually reminds me of one of David Zindell's books and its "Fravashi language" - a language which is extremely philosophically clear, because it only contains verbs and no nouns at all. So it doesn't have any labels

The problem with UPB is not, that unwanted is unwanted. The problem is that unwanted is non-universal. Non-universal things can still be moral, but we need an ad-hoc, empirical evidence to prove that is the case. And it won't apply in other cases. Usually, the ad-hoc empirical circumstance simply is that we have consent of the other person. It's called voluntarism. Sometimes there is a scientific circumstance. For example, cutting people is generally evil, but if you are a doctor and have x-ray of the patient with a tumor on it, then you can cut him quite a great deal in a certain way and still be moral. But it won't do for other people or even other patients. Why are immoral things immoral? An involuntary behavior that is not UPB (let's call it evil) divides individuals with the same philosophical identity (individuals) onto two completely arbitrary categories, the evil-doers and evil-victims. There is no rational (or scientific) way to objectively determine who should be an evil-doer and who evil-victim, when, where, for how long, in what way, shape and form. UPB does not need these details, because it is universal and negative. Surgical medicine gets these details scientifically case by case. But evil is not backed up by any evidence or equation. It is decided by the evil-doer. And yet the evil-doer chooses to use universally accepted mathematics and laws of grammar and physics, it is only in the small area of evil-doing that he acts non-universally and non-consensually. That is the reason, not the non-consensuality itself. Hence evil is fundamentally inconsistent and irrational, i.e. immoral. As for unwanted-looking, a case could be made for that too. Creepy peeping Toms are not unknown. Unwanted disagreement? Can you reverse that? If I can't disagree with you, then you can't disagree with me about my disagreement with what you call "unwanted disagreement". The book UPB covers that too, even before the actual test of universality. I've seen very similar points from a person who agreed with conclusions of UPB, but not with the logic. After a thorough debate I discovered that this person lacked basic abilities to think logically. He'd require me to define most of basic epistemology or ontology on spot, or he wouldn't accept an argument. I had to remind him of what I already defined. And then I discovered he doesn't understand the difference between a set and a subset, or a principle and a specific limited instance of it. And he is a holder of a prestigious degree in mathematics. I kid you not.

My thoughts exactly. That's why I wrote quote unquote "believe". I don't like that word either. I thought it was obvious. But the content of the post is about other people and how can we introduce ourselves to them so that they understand how we go about our thinking, not our conclusions. Sometimes I tell them that I have a dose of healthy masochism that makes me seek out the opposite evidence to what I "believe" in. Sorry, that -107 was pre-therapy me. And I suspect quite a few pre-therapy others who took advantage of the anonymous downvoting. This is the most irresponsible, non-free, byrocratized web mechanics I've ever seen. If I could, I'd copy the app from The Thinking Atheist forums, they have a very transparent reputation system, so it doesn't get abused. I've had many conflicts over there, many even more vicious, but a very positive reputation nonetheless. Anonymous downvoting is a disgrace to a free society. Ditto what I wrote to Shirgall. I see. My post was about how to avoid using labels. Or failing that, if it is possible to have a label as someone who obeys evidence and justified arguments and who investigates those who oppose him. The problem isn't just that people aren't rational, they don't even know what does it mean to be rational and how does it look like. It's just another positive label that people try to score for themselves due to one-upmanship. What you said is useful for sorting people out who already are rational. What I mean is showing to everyone what is rational and what is not. There are intelligent people out there who will not register on your rational radar, because they do not have the tools to think. There are times when we know there probably is no intelligent life around, so it's a lost time. We can use that time to describe our "healthy masochism" of a rational investigator and how it causes that we get things right more often (refraining from attacking or criticizing).

People say "I'm a social democrat" or "I'm a libertarian". This creates an unnecessary difference where both may be just mindless robots... But seriously, that says nothing about their quality of reasoning or method of getting to our position. For us, any mental position is secondary to reasoning things carefully and comparing them to evidence. Also, many of us have a long history of learning, refining or rejecting our previous beliefs, so that it has become almost a habit. Some of us even have a dose of healthy masochism that drives us to examine exactly opposite "beliefs" to what we "believe" in. That is what defines us, not our momentary position. Please note that this is very different to Stef's benevolent turn of mind towards Christians, the sources of social stability and not killing unbelievers. His newfound tolerance is based on similarity of conclusions and has its merits. But I wonder if there is also merit to identifying ourselves as seasoned, methodical developers of our worldviews. Because there sure seems little benefit to identifying ourselves by the labels of positions. But there are downsides to this as well. This kind of defining ourselves seems extremely boastful, over-intellectualized, and even though it's true, it may put people to shame unnecessarily. I don't know how people feel about this. It's true that I used to have resistance to certain ideas - I come from the leftist/transhumanist/ anarchist side after all. It took me a few years to understand what libertarianism is about. I've seen that Ayn Rand's philosophy is valid, obviously taken from Aristotle, but I didn't see how it jibes with her other ideas and I succumbed to many popular prejudices against her. But I've also reasoned my position on woo woo & metaphysics well enough to defend them in front of scientific skeptics & atheists. I've learned a lot and rejected what wasn't true (not everything, I've had some valid reasons for my position). Very few people would ever do that. So far, I've usually tried to say that I understand people's position, that I used to hold it as well, but it was long ago. I don't remember so well how it was like to be a democratic socialist and I'd like to remind myself what was it like. Knowing things as end conclusions isn't very useful. What is useful is being able to put ourselves into the old mindset and have empathy with misinformed and propagandized people, who truly believe that we really would occupy the stereotypical straw man anarchist/libertarian position of selfishness.

That's what I thought too. Government or any kind of power at best provides some stability. It is wrong and will eventually collapse under its own contradictions, but it buys some time for people like us to do some spreading the word and raising children. We have to remember that in a free society there won't be no institutions, but possibly more, thanks to the market and individual ownership. Anarchism is an incredibly advanced stuff. I worked through a lot of bullshit to get to it. The only defining characteristic of a philosophical man is the ability to get to the truth, but it takes years. I too worry about the deceptive stepping stones to anarchism or atheism, but it seems to be the person's IQ that is responsible for progress or stagnation. And the quality of teachers, who need to be both nice and strict. I know a thing or two about social philosophy from an outside study and it seems to be pretty much all this evolution from very wrong ideas like feudalism to less wrong, like nationalism and democracy until one reaches the idea of sovereignity as an individual at least in some areas (following the 6 months of minarchism to anarchism). It's a work with masses, with relative concepts, and it's messy. The only alternative to this is choosing the best candidates to fix themselves and peaceful parenting.

It's simpler to say that you are not a sociopath, but accustomed to living and surviving around them. The evidence is, that you are not comfortable and content. Not at all, even though you were not allowed to show it. You can bet that sociopaths display a lot of discontent and complaints whenever there are weaker people and children around. Children are all about survival. Not adapting to conditions means death. Adaptations only have power over us because they are unconscious. But if you want to get conscious of these adaptations, you will have to face the fear of imminent death. Now you are not anxious, but as you poke around your subconsciousness for the unconscious adaptations, you will get progressively more anxious up to the point of a child's mortal terror. That needs to be released and consciously processed. You will have likely to face the mortal terror multiple times, or the other similarly strong negative emotions, the dark triad of Mad, Sad and Scared (exempting Glad). This means to you that you need therapy to even realize what is friendship, or what it means not to be alone. I would not be surprised if for you the only alternative to not being alone was with sociopathic parents. If this is how you operate, truly not being alone will make you anxious. Most people like that end a relationship long before they realize something in them is getting anxious. Friendships and relationships are one of the things that make sense logically. Moral philosophy makes sense logically, so you are attracted to it, but you will need to recover the fundamental logic of relationships. You will need a good therapist who can do exactly what I described. No psychobabble Freudian bullshit, no halfway defeatist measures of accepting your fate, and no head pills or anti-depressants. You need a fast and true advice to get you quickly to the problem. You will go in the way of the greatest resistance and so you need someone who knows the simplest rules of what is healthy and what is not. You will need to hear very simple truths like "We want to be around people who are nice to us and do not want to be around people who are nasty to us. If we are threatened into not choosing between people, we shut down all borders, all wanting and rejection, all preference for people." "Exchanging gifts and help makes a relationship grow closer. But we do not want to grow closer with evil people. But if we can't get away, the only thing we can do is to stop feeling relationships." "If we are threatened and powerless, we need to get a lot of power, fast. Some kids choose lying, some are attracted to fire or weapons. Some choose the defense of being the smartest or most grandiose. But no matter what, you can never be smart enough to stop parents from attacking you."

I hope you will return to this thread and read this. (after all, philosophical conversations ignore millenia and deaths of the authors) Congratulations on getting to such degree of comprehension in such a young age. You're very close and on a good way. Close to what, I don't know, I'm not done yet and far from being happy and satisfied, but meanwhile I can tell a good idea from a bad one. I generally tell people that I'm doing well without drugs, without religion and with a shitload of strenuous meditation. The metaphors that you look for, I suggest you look more in physics and less in theology. You sense some magnificent concept and God is the best label for it, but it's still just a meaningless label, not connected to any other knowledge that we have. I have come to a conclusion that what you call "God" is simply a singularity of absolute energy and no other discernible parameter. All other physical are convertible or traceable to energy, so there's that. So how is the diverse, existing world created? Well, it isn't created, as much as projected as a shadow play. If you imagine this "God" or singularity as a standing wave of sorts, then the objective complexity is made through an elaborate partial self-cancellation and partial self-projection within that standing wave, in a very repetitive, fractal or holographic way. So in a sense, the limited universe is an illusion, every manifested particle is traceable to the singularity of infinite energy. Our matter is carved into the great standing wave of energy like empty space fills carvings in a solid wood. It is quite a different way compared to how people view the universe - they think matter is the most solid and energetic thing around, but cosmic rays pass through it like it's a shadow. In that sense, it is a shadow. Or foam on the quantum ocean of untold depths and increasing densities. I'd suggest, If we could only realize it, there is no absolute quantum difference between "real" and "virtual" particles, both are real, but our instruments can only detect particles within a certain range of... particle-ness that is close to their own.

You ask a very interesting question. Shortly said, there are a few such concepts, mostly in metaphysics. Know that the universe is mostly plasma physics and mathematics. As long as our ideas are too distant from that, there are bound to be big surprises. However, I assure you, you can know these fundamental concepts and still feel basically poor, ignorant and unsatisfied. They make life more interesting, but not easier at all (sort of like leftist critical theory he he ). As Donnadogsoth correctly says, when you work with principles, you can understand everything, the question is how and when, not if. I wonder myself, if I knew all important facts about reality and was able to put them forward, what would it be good for? People would benefit a great deal from basic knowledge of rationality and science. What would they make of anything transcendental, when that seems to be utterly foreign to any use, control or mental apprehension? There is a limit to foresight, because applied, lived knowledge changes what we are and this changes the kind of things we appreciate. There is a somewhat wrong way to look at knowledge or ideas as fixed things, this is a very subtle kind of error, which for most would be a great improvement in rigorous thought. But ultimately we know that the universe is energy and energy is motion, a process. All that concepts give us is cyclical development, as we abandon old concepts, stand impoverished for a time and then develop new concepts. I do wonder if we ever gather it all back up and stand in full control and profit of all of our faculties and assets. Or is life this makeshift philosophical pursuit where one is learning alone at breakneck pace without any close support and community? All in all, I believe Stefan has reached a true philosophical nirvana on personal scale. He's like a planet with sustainable civilization on it - not perfect, but pretty good and improving. His life does not suck, he's healthy, wise, has a lot of friends, great wife, great daughter, does a very useful work, continues to grow and gather influence. Do I realize some obscure and exotic concepts that he doesn't? Sure. But I'm young and my life still sucks and probably will until I carve out a place for myself in the world. The Stefanic idea of living a good life that doesn't suck is almost as obscure to me as the Logos, Demiurge and antahkarana, and these are some pretty obscure concepts.

No. Why should it? The identity of two computers is two computers But if you want a smarter answer, for starters, two identical computers occupying different spaces are not identical. They are subject to different qualities of space, i.e. different relative position in Earth's or sun's fields, different space radiation impacting them, or even different virtual particles emerging in them. Also, their mass/energy is not somehow deductible or reducible from each other.

This is a good philosophical start, but you need to make the logic jibe with physics a bit more. Physics can convert all universe's variables to energy or to each other, such as matter, space, time, information, etc. For example, the expansion of space is powered by "dark energy". Hence space is convertible to energy. There is a budget to universe's energy, a lower universe can't contain more energy than the higher. So when you talk about the greater sub-universes, you actually talk about universes which are more energetic. As we regress back, the physical variables change in a way that permits them to contain more energy. There is no infinite regression, because infinity is a very simple thing, it is infinity of energy only, all other variables get converted to energy. It is the only singularity, a point of no space, no time, only energy. The greater mystery is, how does an infinite singularity transit into a finite universe? Firstly, it is the only thing that a singularity can do - collapse into Big Bang. Secondly, I think fractal mathematics describes transition from infinity to finity. Felix Hausdorff would know. Or maybe holography knows that. There are more details to this, but I've made my point.

Very narrow view on life? Tell them that life is like a coloring book. It's supposed to be not black and white, but every coloring book needs the black lines, otherwise it's a mess. But you can make it easier on people, if you think they're worth it. The basic trick of evil people is to take an evil thing and give it a new name and say that it's good. So we absolutely, desperately need definitions, or evil people will sell us evil or worthless ideas. When I was very young, I was puzzled by definitions. Why define anything? Don't people just know what I mean, what things mean? The truth is, they don't. Most words have just two components, a word and a feeling, nice or not nice, put together. They have no shared idea behind them and no real thing out there to point to. These are the buzzwords. Most people live in a great delusion of buzzwords. Buzzwords aren't absolutely interchangeable, but they are very fluid and vague historically and politically. Bad definitions are the reason why we can't have nice things. Without definitions, there is no peace, no productivity and so on.

When you really get down to it, money is information, a statement. The price system at any given moment is a language and a number of money has a meaning within it according to its purchasing power. The price system changes as much in a year as a language changes in the century. In the language of money, context, or situation on the market, is everything.

No unchosen positive obligations If these people were your property, then your position would be justified. But you are not a slave owner, they own themselves. Stupidity is not a reason to give up on people, because you do not have a positive moral obligation to save them, so you don't need to look for a moral way out of it. In fact, I think Stefan advocates to exercise triage, take only those best of the best worth saving. I'd say the rest are just an average gene pool - if you can get to their children or persuade them towards peaceful parenting, all the better. There are some business activists who do that completely unrelated to anarchism and I consider them superior to most libertarians. Remember, as long as you are not dealing with children and parents, most of what you do is just managing consequences. There is very little choice, very little morality.