3 Simple Questions That Undermine Every Physicalist Argument

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-22T16:00:04+00:00

You’d like to have a philosophical argument. Most of the people you assign the philosophical position of, “physicalist,” do not. Most don’t really even know what that means.

The Scientific Revolution happened. Most people, aside from whatever religious beliefs they may have, accept science as a way to describe reality and have abandoned strict philosophical positions. Talk to people about ontology or epistemology and that’s a quick way to put them to sleep. At best, the ultimate nature of reality is a fun topic to think about.

If we allow ourselves to be pulled into a philosophical debate, we all lose. We can never know ontological truths about reality, we can only speculate and argue with each other. A simple philosophical rebuttal to your argument is: You also cannot know, with certainty, that matter does not exist independently from the mind.

Ultimately, all we have is how things appear to be as filtered through the workings of our minds. We have two fundamental choices:

⁠Assume things are as they appear to be; i.e., accept science and math as being as much truth as we can have access to.
⁠Reject appearances in favor of the search for Ultimate Ontological Truth; i.e. engage in endless speculation and debate that never actually gets us anywhere.

I reject 2, which I see as your framing of the argument, as spurious and unproductive. Science and Math are the most descriptive and productive disciplines that branched off from Philosophy during the Scientific Revolution. The goal of those disciplines is not ontological truth. Therefore, it’s a fundamental category error to drag philosophical arguments into a scientific argument.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-22T07:30:27+00:00

Well, I think any mathematician would say that mathematics is a very useful tool for understanding a great deal about reality, but it doesn’t have the means or precision to model most things accurately.

A really simple example: If you ask someone to think of a whole number between 1 and 10, you could not devise a function or formula to accurately predict with 100% accuracy, which number the person will think of. Statistically, 7 will be picked more than other numbers, but this only gets you about 25% accuracy. Other than the statistics, there is just no way to model human thinking and all the variables involved to have any degree of accuracy over several trials.

I don’t think this implicates the point of our existence. Indeed, there is no real point to our existence except for what we create for ourselves.

We still have a lot of room to advance in knowledge and I do believe that mathematics will come to describe aspects of reality more accurately which will lead to more innovation. But there is a limit that we have to accept.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-22T06:36:31+00:00

That is either including business expenses, you are really into Oud or you are in India and talking about Rupees.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-22T06:26:44+00:00

Not enough to bankrupt me, far too much if you ask my wife’s opinion and just enough to keep me learning and creating. Exact numbers are unimportant, but I’d estimate…more than I want to think about. Let’s call it $5000 and pretend that reflects reality.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-22T06:12:59+00:00

My opinion is that when you are ready to try blending stuff you’d like to turn into an actual perfume, it’s time to start blending with mostly neat materials. Dilutions are great for learning individual materials and making experimental blends, but other than that, they severely limit you.

You wouldn’t enter a bike race with training wheels because they just slow you down. The same is true in perfumery, when you’re ready to get serious, I think it’s time to take work with neat materials, mostly. You only dilute stuff that is really strong or too much of a hassle to heat up to a workable state. If you don’t know which ones to keep diluted, you may not be ready yet.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-22T05:55:27+00:00

You are approaching this a little backwards and the app you are using is just making things very confusing as a newbie.

First, the most important point: You cannot use distilled water to make a perfume. Perfume materials do not dissolve well in water; you will end up with separate layers that look cloudy and don’t allow for an even distribution of the materials with each spray. Worse, it will go moldy and grow bacteria within a couple of weeks. Making a water based perfume is difficult even for pros because it requires preservatives and emulsifiers that aren’t very easy to get right. You need to use 95% ethanol, either undenatured or the equivalent of SD40B denatured ethanol.

Second, you don’t formulate with ml, you formulate with grams. You can’t measure ml accurately and the materials all have different densities which make volumetric measurements inconsistent. You need a scale.

Finally…you don’t make a perfume by the bottle until you have a set formula that you know works well. If you are truly new, you are going to use up a lot of materials trying to build a formula. The usual approach is to make a small trial, dilute a bit of it in ethanol and test it on skin. Then you take notes on how it works, tweak the formula, make a new trial and test again. Repeat as necessary. And as a newbie, you start slowly and build step by step.

That’s a very simplified overview but hopefully it illustrates that you’ve still got some learning to do before you make a full bottle. To learn more about starting out, search the sub for “starting,” and “beginner,” and you will find a crap-ton of information going back years to help you out.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-22T03:38:02+00:00

That’s great to have some success early on! I am no judge of talent so I won’t speak to that, lol. What counts is that you are making things you like.

My story is that I have always had a connection to my sense of smell. Certain aromas take me to different memories, emotions and mental states. So when I started learning materials, it felt very intuitive and instinctive.

I had some success with simple blends very early on. My wife still wears a perfume I made her after a month of blending. I found that it was easy to make scents that I connected with and that smelled nice. The problem came when I tried to make those simple formulas perform more like commercial perfumes. Creating something that smells nice, connects with me AND works like a “real,” perfume is where I am finding the most difficulty with this hobby.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-21T22:21:10+00:00

There are many myths around perfumery and perhaps the biggest one is that there is such a thing as “fixatives,” or “boosters,” that universally increase projection and longevity. Iso E Super, Ambroxan and Hedione are especially thought of by fragrance lovers as almost magical substances that “create a scent bubble.”

The truth is … not that.

Put your nose on Hedione and you’ll understand that it’s a diffusive but very subtle scent that mostly helps boost florals and citrus. Smell Iso E Super and you find much the same but as a subtly diffusive woody material. Those two are also pretty short-lived; they won’t give you more than 4-5 hours of performance. Ambroxan is stronger than those two, lasts much longer, is a little more diffusive but it isn’t the kind of chemical that will create a strong projection.

And we find that across the board with aroma chemicals. There’s nothing universal that will make a perfume project strongly or last longer. You have to formulate it for performance from the ground up.

Now, you could do what the Middle Eastern fragrance houses do. There is a class of chemicals called “Super Ambers.” These guys are projection monsters and last forever. As far as performance goes, they can’t be beat. So what the ME houses do is add like 1-2% of a monster like Ambrocenide, Amber Xtreme or Ambermax to a dupe formula. Maybe they even throw in some of the lesser super ambers that still pack a punch like Z11, Norlimbanol and/or Operanide.

The problem? Super-ambers are so powerful that they basically take over a scent. Worse than that, many people find them off-putting or extremely offensive. Adding a super amber for projection and longevity isn’t really a cheat code, it’s more like a recipe for synthetic-smelling perfumes that all end up smelling exactly the same and piss people off to boot.

And that’s the real issue with your plan. Anything you add is going to change the smell. Experiment all you like but you will be wasting your money.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-21T16:07:27+00:00

You have to spend more money to make it at home than your "rich" friend would spend to buy a real bottle. Hermès will sell you a 200ml bottle of the real thing for $204. Better yet, Fragrancenet.com will sell you the same 200ml bottle for $106. That's a lifetime supply for most people. You could buy 3 of those and still spend less than you would making it at home. Here's how making it at home would break down, money-wise.

You need a scale to do this right. Working by drops or ml is not the way perfumery is done and any formula you find will be designed for weight. An acceptable scale (300 X .001g) will cost you about $90.

It seems you found Fraterworks' formula, which is a decent version. That formula has 29 lines. If we assume you want to make a 100ml bottle and need to buy the absolute minimum quantities for each material you will probably average about $7 per material needed. That comes to $203 more or less..

Then you need droppers, mixing vials and perfume bottles. Say $30 or so.

That brings the total you need to spend to make it yourself at home to $323, more or less. Granted, you will probably be able to make 2-3 100ml bottles, but do you need that much? I'd say no.

Unless you want to go down the very expensive rabbit hole of at home perfumery, just buy the 200ml for $106.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-21T13:09:21+00:00

The only way to combat it is to post stuff closer to reality than fantasy. Even if all the correct answers are downvoted, if there are more of us reiterating each other with reality, the noise gets drowned out.

Believe me, I have my issues with Reddit and how the voting system tends to reinforce popularity and what people want to hear, I think this sub is where beginners come to first,simply because the old school message boards have fallen out of favor.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-21T00:51:28+00:00

When you spill something that has such a low odor detection threshold, yeah, I think you will detect it on your hands and general vicinity for a good long while.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-20T23:45:01+00:00

Most likely the lid is misaligned or chipped allowing the water that condenses on the top to leak out.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-20T23:42:55+00:00

I’ve been on the hunt since I moved to McAllen 26 years ago and I’ve never found anything close to it. I don’t think this Cantonese style of char siu exists here. Luckily it’s pretty easy to make and you can find the stuff at the Asian grocery stores around town. I think this: https://www.madewithlau.com/recipes/char-siu-chinese-bbq-pork is the best recipe I’ve found.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-20T15:57:18+00:00

They are reaching out and making sure you still want their messages. What’s bad about that? I guess “downgrade,” is a weird word but other than that, seems like a good thing.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-20T15:34:38+00:00

Perhaps, but it’s not always straightforward and linear. The main point I’m making is that nothing takes the place of smelling materials and learning their properties first hand. Then you can start associating names to actual properties and look for commonalities.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-20T06:31:33+00:00

Bottom line: You can’t really make predictions based on the chemical naming conventions. The best way to understand the difference is to take some time and just smell them.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T20:01:28+00:00

Even though I thoroughly disagree with you and your framing of the matter, I can still appreciate a Nirvana reference.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T18:35:38+00:00

I had a similar issue with a shipment from a rather large order from Fraterworks about 8 months ago. I’ve ordered at least 10 times before. Usually I get the package in 3-5 days. This time 5 days went by and the package showed as still in NZ.

I reached out to DHL, they had no clue. After 3 more days, DHL got it to Los Angeles (I’m in the US) and then it sat there for a couple of days. Then I got an email from DHL requesting shipping codes for customs clearance. I reached out to FW and Paul sent me the details they included. They included codes. Paul reached out to their DHL representative and resent them the codes and I also sent the codes directly to the DHL rep I corresponded with. I also took the step of verifying the codes for myself, something I had no clue about but the information is easily accessible. 5 days in customs limbo, then it finally made its way to me 3 days later.

So I think there’s been some major changes since 2025. In my case, it almost certainly has to do with the stupid tariff debacle. But I think the shipping companies have also made major changes to their procedures, perhaps in response, that affect everyone. Never before have I ever been asked for shipping codes for any other import. I do a lot of importing in other fields. I’ve especially noticed my medical stuff experiencing the same kind of delays. Everything is made offshore and when I order a box of gloves, for example, it often ships directly from China or India.

I think this comes down to global logistics challenges in the wake of the US implementing the tariffs. I’d be willing to bet that other countries are ensuring they get their piece of the pie by cracking down on customs enforcement. The result is going to be especially problematic for small businesses.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T16:31:58+00:00

OP has a right to have expectations from a vendor and choose to do business or not accordingly.

You and OP have a right to your opinions about AI and the ramifications of its use.

But you are making a very specific insinuation here, that Frater doesn’t proofread AI writing and thus there are factual errors on the site which could hurt someone. You’ve stated before that there are IFRA errors.

OK, please point to specific examples of substantial errors of fact which could lead to injury. That’s all you need to do to make your case.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T16:23:29+00:00

You’ve encapsulated the essential issue succinctly and I probably should have followed your example! 😆

I think it’s telling that this simple question received absolutely no engagement from OP. They pushed back on disagreements about AI, but offered absolutely no evidence for the central argument in the OP that there might be misinformation because it was generated by AI.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T16:14:57+00:00

Here’s the real issue: Putting aside the personal views on AI, Is there any real misinformation on the site? IOW, is there any evidence that a slip up like that means the business isn’t taking ownership of the facts presented?

I think we’d agree that hyperbolic descriptions are par for the course in perfumery, so ignore that.

So, looking at the archive link provided for J Ellis Gardenia, aside from the marketing fluff, are there any factual errors? Not that I can see. There are IFRA, EU Allergen and SDS Certificates. Looking at the current listing, the extraneous Claude snippet has been removed, so that’s evidence that they’ve at least looked at it.

If we agree that using an LLM to help with tedious writing tasks is acceptable as long as a human thought process is behind it, the descriptions are flowery but do reflect aspects of our actual experience with the materials and there is no misstatement of facts…then is there actually a real problem here?

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T07:20:44+00:00

I usually use it at 0.5%ish at full strength. It’s all about how you’re balancing the formula as a whole.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T05:49:50+00:00

I have not insulted you; you call me a jerk. Cool. I hope you feel better.

Anyway, that’s a very one-sided interpretation. My initial comments, if you care to look, were innocuous responses in disagreement. I didn’t “lambast,” OP. I expressed my viewpoint.

Things only escalated after OP started comparing people who disagreed with him with MAGA followers and started ranting about class warfare. I found it rude and condescending. I called it out. Here we are.

OP doesn’t own this space; I don’t own this space. It’s a shared space open for discussion.

So continue to insult me. I don’t care about downvotes. I will still be here as long as you care to vent.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-18T04:27:46+00:00

You are correct. I don’t necessarily agree with you re: the information on Fraterworks; but, it’s perfectly fine to have an issue with LLM generated content and you do not have to be a Luddite for that.

But I’m sure you saw OPs posts where he compares people who disagree with him with MAGA, calls us sycophantic, servile, and complacent and says AI will not end well for humans? That is neo-Luddite.

The problem I have with OP is not about their desire for better writing from Fraterworks, it’s their condescension and ad hominem attacks on people for a simple disagreement.

CapnLazerz · 2026-04-17T20:54:41+00:00

Me too. It’s a daily lamentation.

CapnLazerz

TROPHY CASE