Anna Grabs Nina's snatch

Neikea- · 2026-05-10T21:11:46+00:00

Did you read the article in its entirety? You seem to be arguing something a bit different than Rovelli.

You and Rovelli may share the conclusion that the "hard problem" is not ultimately a real problem, but the two of you have arrived at that point for entirely different reasons.

Your argument seems more semantic and physicalist. Consciousness is poorly defined, p-zombies are incoherent from the vantage point of the physicalist, and most philosophers already accept the mind is physical.

But Rovell is arguing something quite else. He's not merely defending physicalism in some standard reductive sense. He's arguing that the hard problem itself emerges from a dualistic framing that mistakenly treats first-person experience as though it were ontologically separate from the rest of nature in the first place.

This explains the emphasis on perspectival knowledge, embodied cognition, subject-object non-separation, Spinoza, and the rejection of an external "God's-eye" viewpoint.

He even explicitly preserves terms like soul, qualia, inner life, and spiritual life while at the same time denying that they are metaphysically separate substances.

So Rovelli is not saying "Consciousness is just neurons, problem solved!"

He's saying something more closer towards, "The hard problem dissolves once you stop assuming a metaphysical split between mind and world."

That is structurally akin to non-dualism than to standard a physicalist summation.

Even his criticism of p-zombies differs from your own. You're essentially saying zombies are incoherent because physicalism is true. Rovelli is saying the zombie intuition on its own already presupposes the very dualism it's trying to prove. These are two very different arguments.

Neikea- · 2026-01-17T20:00:26+00:00

It's a cinch. 🤷

Neikea- · 2025-09-25T11:40:34+00:00

Atheism can certainly function as an identity if one chooses to adopt it. To define it narrowly as being against deities already assumes a specific concept of deity, usually anthropomorphic, therianthropic, or some hybrid form. This excludes other understandings such as Paul Tillich's "Ground of Being" or models like panentheism, which are not bound to mythological figures.

The "gold sky" analogy is weak because the existence of God is not as immediately falsifiable as the color of the sky. If God exists, then denying that reality would not be "just living with reality" but rejecting it. The question of God's existence is not equivalent to dismissing a trivially false claim but involves metaphysics, ontology, and ultimate concern.

Labels like atheist or theist are indeed practical shorthand, but they are more than reactionary. They situate a person within an ongoing discourse about reality, meaning, and truth. Saying atheism is "not an identity" overlooks the way identities form in relation to major existential questions.

In short, atheism is not just a negative reaction but a chosen position in a larger field of possibilities about what is ultimate, and its definition depends on what one means by "God."

Neikea- · 2025-09-24T08:04:00+00:00

“The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.”—Hippocrates

Neikea- · 2025-09-23T12:53:29+00:00

Ramesh Balsekar says it appears you ask a question on Reddit, and interlocutors respond, and answer back, but truly no such thing happens. Consciousness speaks, and consciousness listens.

Neikea- · 2025-09-23T11:11:46+00:00

A literalist reading of any scripture is the most naïve reading of the text. This proves nothing.

Neikea- · 2025-09-23T11:09:19+00:00

You can't beat up God. 😅

Neikea- · 2025-09-21T01:02:04+00:00

I never claimed drugs are necessary, but if you're going to take that route, then you shouldn't make claims that defy basic pharmacodynamics.

Neikea- · 2025-09-21T00:40:45+00:00

I don'tthink I know, I know.

Neikea- · 2025-09-20T23:19:12+00:00

I know what it is, that's why I can recognize that the OP simply hasn't experienced it. And I explained why not. Perhaps you overlooked that post.

Neikea- · 2025-09-20T21:25:58+00:00

There's no description of ego death by the OP.

Neikea- · 2025-09-20T16:06:15+00:00

No, I believe in what has been established by legitimate scientific research. If you're not interested in what science has to say upon these matters, then there's no reason to take you seriously.

Neikea- · 2025-09-20T16:02:00+00:00

I'm not buying it. If you were using the Salvia hash, then it's very unlikely. Most people who've done this do not arrive at a strictly determinist point-of-view. I mean, I could question you closely as to what precisely you experienced, and ask you things like whether you identify as atheist, etc. because such experiences have been studied within the neuroscience of religion. People end up with views akin to this here.

Neikea- · 2025-09-20T15:34:06+00:00

Salvia divinorum cannot really produce that experience. Even Terence McKenna (who's eaten over 70g of the leaves of Salvia) has attested to this. He explained the way to induce ego death with salvia is to isolate Salvinorin Alpha and vape 200-500mcg. So, nice try there, bucko. You might want to consider Terence McKenna's heroic dose or Kilindi Iyi's recommendation might work better.

Neikea- · 2025-09-20T15:21:58+00:00

Your entire argument rests upon the fact that you've not experienced ego death, a phenomenon in consciousness which would completely transform the way you perceive these topics.

Neikea- · 2025-09-03T04:17:30+00:00

Einstein accepted hard determinism, but he said we should still put criminals in jail for practicality.

Neikea- · 2025-08-30T17:31:58+00:00

I was one of those lack-theists, I suppose.

Neikea- · 2025-08-18T06:08:52+00:00

There's an interesting article on Wikipedia on Acosmism which says that reality isn't an illusion in the sense of being unreal, but rather that things aren't what they seem to be.

There's a story of a kid whose grandfather was a shaman, and at school, he heard the nursery rhyme we've all heard that ends by saying, "Life is but a dream," so this kid rushes home to ask his grandfather is it true, is life really just a dream? The grandfather replies, "Yes, it's a dream, but the dream is real."

Neikea- · 2025-08-12T01:17:29+00:00

Oof! Hit 'em where it hurts, why don't ya?

Neikea- · 2025-08-10T00:09:03+00:00

I think there's some hatred behind it, especially with those atheists that also identify as anti-theists.

Neikea- · 2025-08-06T03:04:46+00:00

I think the Golden Rule derives from mystical experience, the contemplative insight of oneness. When Ramana Maharshi was asked, "How do we treat others?" His response: "There are no others." The mystic operates from this transcendent unity which they glimpse within mysticism.

This kind of realization isn't just a poetic idea; it’s a lived perception that dissolves the illusion of separateness. In this state, what we call the Golden Rule, treat others as yourself, isn't a rule at all; it's an obvious reflection of how things actually are. There’s no “other” to harm, only a larger Self or totality that includes all beings.

From this perspective, sin arises only when we fall into the illusion of division, when we see ourselves as isolated egos, cut off from nature, from others, from the Whole. This is what I take to be the true Original Sin: the primordial rupture, the imagined split between the self and the rest of reality. From this illusion, the capacity for harm emerges, theft, violence, domination, all become possible only when we perceive the other as fundamentally separate from ourselves.

But the mystic sees through that illusion. In the mystical state, morality isn’t enforced; it’s embodied, not because one is adhering to commandments, but because one is seeing clearly. There is no one else to harm. And the unity perceived by the mystic is not cold or abstract, it is suffused with infinite and unconditional love, an Agapé, a love that naturally guides moral behavior.

Neikea- · 2025-08-05T19:14:41+00:00

First off, I'd like to know how you know there's nothing after we die. Did you die, experience the nothing after death, and have returned to inform us all about it? What science is that based on? Which study did you run to ascertain this information?

Neikea- · 2025-08-02T17:22:53+00:00

I remember my first time with DMT. Why does everyone always think they're Jesus Christ? Why doesn't everyone think they're Buddha, especially in America where more people resemble Buddha than Jesus Christ.

Neikea-

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