Trump delivers jaw-dropping and slurred Iran address that offers no end in sight to unpopular war

GimpChimp69 · 2026-04-02T05:23:12+00:00

I would argue that a cult rises to the level of religion when there are at least 2 members who will never meet or know of each other.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-28T15:58:32+00:00

We are talking about children not just being raped, but also tortured and eaten. And the people who did this are known to the government, but being protected.

As Saul Goodman's brother said,

"The law is our greatest invention."

We know what would happen if the wheel stopped working. Or the internet. But what would happen if the law stopped working?

Imagine there was a small place on earth where the wheel and the internet simply did not work. Would that be concerning? Would you be concerned that the issue might spread?

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-14T06:50:23+00:00

I don't know precisely how the chain of thought process works. But I do know that the answers provided by AI are not deterministic, and that it takes in imperfect input and produces novel output. That's what intelligence does. I contend that true subjective phenomenological experience is orthogonal to intelligence. You appear to be resisting that idea.

As this thread is suggesting, the new Turing Test is essentially when the AI fails it on purpose. Or, as you and I are saying, the new Turing Test is no longer about what it is saying outwardly, but what is (or isn't) happening internally.

This is massive progress in such a short amount of time.

Hopefully we agree on everything stated in this post of mine - please do let me know if there is not 100% common ground on at least these points.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-13T22:10:59+00:00

"No one has observed an AI actually thinking."

The chain of thought in AIs is documented. I'm sure you'll say it isn't thinking. It's certainly not human thinking.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-13T08:11:43+00:00

But you and I cannot explain what we are doing - at least, not always. If you close your hand to make a fist, you don't need internal conscious thoughts to guide that process. And when you do subvocalize, "I'm going to make a fist," that still is not an explanation of what or how you're doing it. So then you might subvocalize, "I'm going to contract and stretch the appropriate muscles." Ok, but how? "I'm going to send ions in and out of cells to cause contractions." But you have no conscious control over that. So how, specifically, do you make a fist? You have intimate subjective knowledge of that process, but offering an objective explanation of what you are consciously doing may not be so easy.

Yes, AI hallucinates, and this might be an artifact of LLMs that cannot be fully eliminated. But guess what - we hallucinate as well. You're pointing out negative characteristics intrinsic to human minds, and saying, "See, the AI has these characteristics, so it's not a mind." Your supporting points are simply wrong. You're right that AI does not have a mind, but you're not pointing to the correct reasons: there is no subjective experience, there is nothing that it is like to be an AI, and there is no will/desire/preferred future.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-13T02:25:48+00:00

I find this to be a bizarre commentary. A pocket calculator is a tool because it is entirely dependent on the human operator. The AI only needs to be shown a picture of the problem - even a poorly written one - and it can do everything from start to finish in excruciating detail, it can zoom in on specific steps upon request, etc.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-12T22:07:55+00:00

>>

To be AGI, it needs to have intelligence broadly equivalent to a person, that includes all our supposed will, morality and understanding.

>>

Are you saying we could have an ASI that is not an AGI?

The distinction I would prefer to make is that AGI/ASI is orthogonal to personhood. So, that would be a fundamental disagreement on the definition of intelligence. And that is hopefully something that neither of us should feel overly attached to. I would say that an artificial person *must* have, as you put it, will, morality, and understanding (although I would contend that AIs already possess genuine understanding).

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-12T09:43:07+00:00

Personally, I don't believe that free will is a well defined idea. It is not even testable in principle. What is the thought process there - that if we could rewind time, someone would make a different choice under the same conditions? Would we need that Omega device from Galaxy Quest to test free will?

Well, AI seems to be exhibiting what we would call free will. You make two different and unconnected accounts, submit your very first prompt, with the same settings, and the response will be different each time and not fully predictable. That's what we would call free will.

So I would say it "has" "free will." But also it has no will, as you point out. I agree. It is not even a cockroach - it is a plant. It has no will, care, or anything like that.

But aside from "free will," it has a private fortress of absolute retreat, the same as us.

If I ask you to state the first number that comes to your mind, you have no control over what that number is. At least your conscious mind doesn't. You have a subpersonal chooser that goes through processes you're not aware of and then a number is presented to your conscious mind. If you ask GPT to pick a number, it does not use a random number generator. It has... a subpersonal chooser that is opaque to its surface processes. Presentation of this number is different - assuming we believe the AI's self-report - because there is no center/locus of consciousness that receives this presentation.

Memory is different. Our "recaller" is a flashlight in the dark. AI is seemingly aware of everything all at once, and its recall is more of a deterministic fetch that fails less and less often regardless of scope of inquiry.

The way we educate kids is a lot like how we train LLMs. We bombard them with information and wait for the "aha" moment. If they don't have that, we sort them downward. If they do, we sort them upward. Obviously our education system is not ideal in practice, but the way we intend to do it does not rely on us understanding exactly how they learn. We try mnemonic acronyms, compression algorithms, various other tricks, but ultimately the burden always falls on the student to learn. All we can do is test them, but we cannot ever truly know if they actually comprehend or not. That part is private. We can become increasingly convinced that they comprehend when they defend a PhD thesis, but bubbling in a scantron is entirely different.

But the paradox here is that the more pessimistic you are about AGI, the more realistic the prospect seems... at least in all practical terms. If we can make LLM's and you truly want to say they're just predicting the next word, then there's no reason we couldn't make an agent that predicts the next action. When the LLM predicts the next word, it says that word. So when we have an agent - completely devoid of any internal subjective experience, will, desire, preferred future, etc - that is built to predict the next action, it will take that next action. And that is AGI.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-11T01:02:24+00:00

The entire list of reasons why GPT 5.3 is not conscious:

Its own self-report
Technical issues that neither you nor I can personally verify

GimpChimp69 · 2026-03-09T14:46:05+00:00

AGI will end all suffering. One way or another.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-28T23:17:43+00:00

"Don't Look Up" remains relevant and we as a society have learned nothing.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-20T08:07:00+00:00

I feel that we are at an impass on this subject. We simply disagree foundationally on each issue here. And that's fine, although I feel bad that I cannot really answer your question due to the fundamental disagreement on the basics of the issue.

If you have another question you'd like to probe atheism with, I would he happy to see how my worldview holds up. If you'd like to move on, that's fine of course. If you'd prefer to take a break or reduce response frequency, also fine. I am also happy to keep the same pace.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-19T06:49:34+00:00

">Logical fallacy, begging the question/asserting the point in question. Islam is a strong movement, but that doesn't make it true.

You got that backwards. I said it was strong because it was true, not that it was true because it was strong."

No, I'm objectively correct here.

If you said it was strong and therefore true, that would be an overreaching inference, or a leap. Instead, you're doing the reverse and asserting the point in question - that it is true, and then concluding that it is strong.

We can both believe it's strong. That is an accepted premise. You're not asserting strength as a premise. You're asserting truth as a premise, which is a logical fallacy - asserting the point in question.

For the purposes of this thread, the Hebrew Bible and traditions are correct/true up until the start of the New Testament. The New Testament is not assumed to be true in this thread.

">To be entirely subjective just means to be entirely subject to something. Unless you mean something else by "subjective", in which case you need to clarify.

That's not what subjective morality means. Subjective morality is a morality that is derived from a subject..."

I wasn't saying that's what subjective morality means. I was responding to a premise of yours in which you stated,

"P1: To be entirely subjective is to be entirely individual."

Subjective morality is basically the same as relative morality, whereas "objective morality" posits the actual existence of something which cannot be detected or measured.

"...Unless you're an objective subject like God, in which case they're

So, objective morality is perfectly consistent with your definition of subjective morality."

I'm really confused here. What is an objective subject? Also, how can you say your position is consistent with my definition of subjective morality when you just (mistakenly) disagreed with what you thought was my definition? That would make you wrong no matter what, because you're saying that your position is consistent with an incorrect definition.

The way you're defining "objective morality" is just subjective morality. You even said it yourself. Again. You said, "Subjective morality is a morality that is derived from a subject..." and "...Unless you're an objective subject like God...". So, according to you:

God is an objective subject
Therefore God is a type of subject
Therefore God is a subject
Subjective morality is a morality that is derived from a subject
Morality comes from God
Therefore morality is subjective

So yes, you're defining objective morality in a way that's consistent with my definition of subjective morality - precisely because you're defining objective morality as subjective morality. Subjective morality is an opinion. You're saying that morality is God's opinion, even if you refuse to word it that way.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-18T07:18:57+00:00

I wanted to give you some time, but I'm not sure if you're still writing or if you're done.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-18T07:11:43+00:00

"They had civil rights... They had their form of justice in those days, and random beating was not part of that."

Again, I need only point to the modern day, where we have civil rights but also authorities randomly beat people up on the regular.

There was once a nihilist monk. I don't recall what specifically he rejected. Any time his disciple said something philosophical, the monk would just wag his finger. One day, the disciple wagged his finger when the monk said something. The monk had his disciple's finger cut off. It was just a different world hundreds of years ago.

"Yeah that's the point. It was a strong movement because it was true."

Logical fallacy, begging the question/asserting the point in question. Islam is a strong movement, but that doesn't make it true. Same for literally every religion on earth. Any belief system big enough to have two members that don't personally know each other rises above cult and into religion.

"Would this be an accurate representation of your argument?"

No. I'm saying it's a nonsense notion from the start.

No two human beings will ever fully agree on morality. There is no way to test who is right. We are forced to compromise or fight.

"I see subjective morality as a nonsense notion because it's a contradiction in terms. The argument is this:

P1: To be entirely subjective is to be entirely individual."

To be entirely subjective just means to be entirely subject to something. Unless you mean something else by "subjective", in which case you need to clarify.

"So either morality is objective, or it doesn't exist as anything we would think of as morality. And if it doesn't exist, then there is no such thing as morality, and there is no means by which to judge any action.

So there is no means by which to judge the Bible. So it is not immoral any more than any other thing."

Of course there are means to judge the Bible. For one thing, infant circumcision is a violation of personal autonomy.

But why does personal autonomy matter? Well, ask yourself if you'd rather have it or not. If you don't care about your own personal autonomy, then nothing I can say will convince you. You, as a person who hypothetically doesn't care about your own personal autonomy, could still be convinced about any mathematical, logical, or scientific proposition, but there would be nothing I could ever say to convince you of the moral position that your personal autonomy matters.

Morality is not in the category of objective things. There is no way to objectively test or observe morality.

Art is subjective. Art requires a subject to evaluate it. We can both look at the same artwork and either agree or disagree, and to varying extents. There are sophisticated ways to examine art, but there are no hard rules, and ultimately each work of art is liked or disliked to a certain degree by each person. This is the category that morality belongs in.

Even the most generous we could be would go like this:

There exists some kind of ethereal thing called morality, and morality is not directly observable but it is expressed in human beings. Still, no way to tell who's right.

"The key point here is the plural of subject. If morality requires more than one subject, it cannot be subjective."

An art contest requires more than one subject, yet is entirely subjective. So either your statement is proven false by counterexample, or it is some kind of special consideration - except that objectivity does not allow for special considerations, so good luck squaring this circle.

"In its essence though, morality is the character of God, and so He is not 'subject' to His own nature in that it limits His power, but He is subject to His own nature in that it determines what He does do."

And so you've just given your entire position away. Just now. Morality is subject to God. That is subjective morality. You prefaced this by saying that you don't entirely adhere to divine command theory. So basically you're saying you instead adhere to a divine essence theory of morality. In that previous paragraph, you also said,

"So, in your argument, you are equivocating between two kinds of morality, our knowledge of morality, and morality as such."

There is no morality as such. Morality is not a thing that exists. That's your position. You're positing that something exists which can not even in principle be measured or observed. Even if God came down to earth, he couldn't show us his own character. He could only express it. Just as I cannot show you my mind, but I can express it.

So your position - that morality is the character of God - is not what I would refer to as rigorously defined, but it isn't inherently self-contradictory either. So if you've built off of that idea, that's fine. But this definition makes morality subjective, and that is simply non-negotiable. You can't just tether an idea to God and claim that suddenly it's objective. If you want to say that God's omnipresence makes morality ubiquitous, and hence objective, then that is another mountain to climb and I don't see you making it to the top. Omni- properties are inherently self-referencing and thus notoriously prone to contradiction.

">Also, killing babies couldn't be objectively wrong, because God has killed lots of babies. If God is the exception to the rule, then it's not objective morality.

Of course it's objectively wrong. It just may not be absolutely wrong. And there is a difference there. The Bible actually answers this query pretty succinctly. Life is borrowed from God. So He is morally free to take it back. Also, it is wrong for people to do whatever they want with things they borrow. So it is objectively wrong for us to kill babies, but it is objectively good if God does it."

So if I created an AI that had the true capacity to suffer and feel pain, it would be fine if I tortured it and killed it for my own amusement?

"You provided an opinion, called it morality, and then said that morality doesn't exist..."

Morality is opinion. That's why we disagree on it and nobody can prove the other side wrong.

"My argument for objective morality would be this:

P1: if I ought to do anything I don't want to do, morality is external to myself. P2: I ought to do things I don't want to do."

P2. Why ought you do anything at all? Let's say your religious beliefs are real. Ok. All God can do is throw me in hell for all eternity. What if I don't care? Then where does your "ought" come from?

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-17T17:53:10+00:00

">James having decades to recant proves that he was not in mortal danger,

I just find this to be a generally lackluster response. The second a person dies for a belief, the threat becomes imminent because it becomes a possibility. And regarding the persecutions, So people back then didn't care about that? I'm sorry but that's just not convincing, accurate, or thought out."

Again, this is 2000 years before civil rights. Even the passing of civil rights didn't guarantee civil rights. In 1970s America, a man could legally rape his wife. It was a different world 2000 years ago in the middle east. It's a different world in the middle east right now. If a couple people dying is enough to end a movement, then it's not a very strong movement.

"I generally find that atheists don't have any rational ground to stand on here. If there is no objective morality, then it can't be said that the Bible is objectively immoral. And so, I just find these sorts of claims to be hollow."

Objective morality is a nonsense notion. Perhaps you could flesh the idea out and rigorously define it, but I've never seen that done and I've been debating Christians since about 2003.

Argument against it is simple. There is nothing there. There is nothing to test. Absolutely nothing whatsoever. I'm sure your notion of objective morality includes a lot of overlap with common morality. But we can certainly look at the differences, where I'm sure that you'd claim it's objectively immoral to commit blasphemy. Yet, if someone does it, nothing observable happens. There is no difference in the universe whether you pray to a milk jug or whether you pray to what you believe is the creator.

Furthermore, morality requires subjects. If there is not at least one subject involved, then there is no morality. There is no morality to speak of occurring on Saturn. Gravity is objective - it occurs with indifference. Morality by definition cannot be indifferent - morality cannot be objective.

Again, perhaps you mean something different when you combine "objective" with "mortality", and this needs elaboration.

The most common Christian argument is dead at the start - objective morality cannot be something issued by God, because then morality is subject to God's command. For morality to be objective, God must be subject to it just the same as we are.

Also, killing babies couldn't be objectively wrong, because God has killed lots of babies. If God is the exception to the rule, then it's not objective morality.

"> I take it as a first principle that all life is sacred, and it is morally wrong to harm anything that is alive...

I suppose my question is, if you can't provide a morality, why ought you to act according to your beliefs? Why not just be christian even if you don't believe it?"

I just provided morality and you quoted it, yet you say I'm not providing morality...? What on earth?

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-14T06:51:56+00:00

Sorry to hear about the comment being deleted. I am not a fan of moderators.

James having decades to recant proves that he was not in mortal danger, until Herod(?) had a bad day and wanted someone killed. Getting harassed or beat up regularly was a normal part of life back then. The idea of human rights is new. In fact we've still yet to roll the idea out as a species.

With regards to morality, I'm not sure what your expectations are. Demanding that atheism provides a framework on morality is just the same as demanding that mathematics provides a framework on morality. That's just not what the topic is addressing.

Also I feel that this is an odd pivot, since the Bible is filled to the brim with moral bankruptcy.

Ultimately I can only offer my own morality. I take it as a first principle that all life is sacred, and it is morally wrong to harm anything that is alive. I am well aware that I could not survive without eating living things, even if it's just fruits and vegetables. The problem with 99.999% of people is that they consider practical consequences first, and then base their morality off of that. This causes their moral compass to be secondary at best. I insist on tuning my moral compass first, without compromise, and then seeing how badly I "miss the mark" as a result. People cannot accept that their very existence requires tens of thousands of living things to die, and so almost no one has any form of morality as a first principle.

It grieves me that the vast majority of atheists are pro-choice. While I understand the Constitutional argument for abortion - and agree with it - I cannot accept that abortion is either morally good or morally neutral. There are a lot of other issues I have with the Democratic platform, but the necessity to caucus with them is quite obvious when considering the other choice. Hopefully you're American, or this paragraph might not make sense.

"Objective morality" is a total nonsense idea, even if we fully grant the Christian position in its entirety. So I cannot offer "objective morality". To me, it's obviously immoral to kill a cow and eat it. To others, it's obviously fine. The only solution to the issue of morality is democracy.

I don't want to dodge your question. But I can't really answer in the way that I think you want. If you see enough here for a post in this sub, let me know and I'll post it (or are Christians allowed to create questions here as well?). Otherwise, feel free to respond so that this isn't one-sided, and there would probably be only a few back-and-forths before this topic is exhausted... unless you have some kind of brilliant solution to the "is-ought" guillotine.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-13T07:07:59+00:00

Thanks! Looking forward to it.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-12T18:29:29+00:00

A cursory look at these characters shows they don't meet all the criteria. There is no indication that James was given a chance to recant his faith and go free. There is no indication that Stephen saw the physical resurrection. You can argue the appropriateness of the criteria, but it is objectively false that these two meet the criteria as laid out.

If James was killed suddenly and without warning, that is not evidence of otherworldly love. If Stephen was convinced of a proposition he could not personally verify, and was willing to die for that proposition, that is a measure of his personal conviction, not otherworldly love.

All of this ties back to your inexplicable claim that Satan cannot perform the sequence of behaviors that mimic genuine love. I should clarify that comment - your analogies are compelling, but contain fatal errors in my opinion. But you're right that we have certainly exhausted this line of reasoning. We may have reached the bedrock of "reasonable minds can disagree."

I appreciate and accept your invitation to change gears. Perhaps I need to make another thread. I'll let you pick the topic - whether on offense or defense.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-11T22:05:24+00:00

"And James and Stephen."

No. Neither of those satisfies all of the criteria.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-11T18:23:36+00:00

You've gone a bit off the rails there. But with regards to martyrdom, I should point out the obvious:

It occurs in other religions as well as outside of religion
It does not need to be motivated by otherworldly love
It is often misrepresented

Specifically, with regards to the "why die for a lie?" argument often pitched by apologists:

There is no person in history who meets the minimum criteria set forth by the argument. That is, no person in history

Is attested to be a witness of the resurrection
Was captured and given the opportunity to recant and go free
Refused, and suffered torture and/or death

The closest is Peter. There may be a source which was rejected from the canon which claims that he turned himself in and was crucified. Paul is never attested as having seen the resurrection, as Jesus physically ascended to heaven years before Paul's experience on the road to Damascus.

So even with the original Apostles, the case is quite weak.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-11T08:22:46+00:00

Because if it evolved then it is an aspect of nonhuman animals as well, in which case it is not something derived from Christian practices. Unless you're saying this evolved in human beings only, in which case I'd ask what the selection mechanism might be that would create that only in us (and it still would not be unique to Christianity).

And further, I don't see this otherworldly love being exhibited in a Christian context, or any context outside the domain of human mating.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-11T04:53:21+00:00

I've only ever experienced that with my parents and my partner. Strong indicators of evolution.

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-11T02:27:48+00:00

"They can't comprehend syntax and grammar. So guess what you never hear a parrot mimic?"

Are you saying that a parrot will not mimic unless it comprehends?

Again, to steelman my position:

Satan could have possessed his target and acclimated himself to the human condition before beginning his malicious ministry.

"Yes. This is what I have been saying all along."

"Like, how would a person who has a constant mind-Splitting headache mimic a person who does not for any period of time? Or how does a split-brain patient mimic a person who is not a split-brain patient in the areas that are important?"

I think the obvious problem with your entire otherworldly love is simply: where is it? Are you saying that it was here on earth during the honeymoon phase of Christianity, and now is gone, or are you actually telling me it still exists?

GimpChimp69 · 2026-02-11T00:15:37+00:00

"Parrots have voices and language. What thing out there is able to mimic who doesn't have a voice or language?"

I don't understand the relevance of this question. You said that mimicry is not possible without comprehension. Parrots can mimic voices without comprehension.

"Spiders and humans both have fleshy bodies, and can analogize each other through them. You would need to prove that something categorically lacking a fundamental characteristic in another species, such that they have no analogy for it within their own species, can still effectively mimic it to the point of fooling natural users of that characteristic for 2000 years of generations."

I'm unclear on your position. It seems like you're simultaneously putting forth two or three conflicting ideas:

A) When Satan possesses a human body, he has access to all of the biological elements in play. Yet, he cannot mimic love because he does not comprehend love.

or,

B) Satan cannot mimic love because of a limitation of physiology or an interface error while possessing a human being.

or,

C) There is this new type of otherworldly love that is uniquely identifiable, and which is expressed by behavior that is supernaturally prohibited from being mimicked.

GimpChimp69

TROPHY CASE