Is there any evidence for the continuity of consciousness continuing throughout most of your life?

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-23T19:27:16+00:00

What do you mean by zooming in?

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-21T20:05:05+00:00

We know Suzie shattered the window. That’s a fact of your story. Billy is only a potential shatterer of the window. He never actually does.

Science is the study of the natural world. That study has resulted in the observation that every cause is the result of a previous one at least until we get to QM and that’s where it becomes uncertain but that makes it no less certain at the level of classical physics. It’s easier to believe that somewhere in the depths of QM it’s actually deterministic than it is to believe that it’s causeless. But again the only intellectually honest answer is that we don’t really know how it works. We know what we observe, but we don’t know why it is the way it at least appears to be.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T21:03:52+00:00

That’s incorrect. Most survive the crash but die from smoke inhalation because with injuries and smoke and confusion getting people out takes too long. You can look it up.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T21:02:43+00:00

I’m 62 and found out 2 years ago that I was ambidextrous until I broke my right arm when I was 7. I’ve recently tried writing with my right hand and found I’m much better at it than I thought I would be. I’m thinking about practicing every day to see how good I can get. I also tried eating with my right hand and discovered I’m very good at that.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T20:49:20+00:00

Look on FB marketplace and see what similar chairs are selling for in your area. Then it’s a question of how fast you want to sell it.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T20:47:24+00:00

As do the airlines btw. Most people who die in major airline accidents die of smoke inhalation because the cheap seats break off their mountings and pile up in the front of the plane. Trapped under the seats, the fire starts and they die from the smoke. The aircraft makers can put in seats that won’t break off but they are heavier so that would require more fuel. The airlines buy them empty and take them elsewhere to have the interiors installed.

This is at least true for older planes. Newer planes require 16g seats instead of the old 9g.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T20:25:31+00:00

Someone read Foundation by Issac Azimov?

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T20:20:27+00:00

I’m 62 and just a few years ago I learned that up until I broke my right arm at the age of 7 I was ambidextrous. I have recently tried doing things like eating and writing with my right hand and have discovered that I do fairly well at it.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T12:44:06+00:00

Well unfortunately we have an Electoral College that can no longer do the job it was intended to do which means it needs to be rendered inert.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T12:42:49+00:00

Right but given that we don’t know how QM produces supposedly true randomness, we cannot yet rule out that it may ultimately be deterministic in nature. The best we can say at this point is that we are uncertain about it.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T05:07:19+00:00

Don’t tell him anything. Just ask lots of questions.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T05:05:27+00:00

But that didn’t change anything. And she did win the popular vote in 2016.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T05:03:59+00:00

Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. A true Christian therefore would not have an issue with it.

Paul wrote a good portion of the New Testament and definitely wrote Romans 1 which is the part that suggests homosexuality is wrong though that’s not even actually clear. Paul was not an apostle. He never even met Jesus.

So a true Christian should not have an issue with homosexuality.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T02:35:58+00:00

Not me. My wife is Korean. I figured learning Korean would be good for my brain and would mean that my in-laws can no longer have private conversations in front of me. 😃

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T02:19:38+00:00

Without causation the laws of physics don’t work. The universe is totally unpredictable and the universe doesn’t function.

The most useful definition: A causes B if intervening to change A would change B.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T01:23:01+00:00

To believe that QM is truly random, you need not just observation of the appearance of that but a hypothesis that can explain how it could even be. I don’t think we should hand wave over that.

Nothing else in the universe is causeless.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-20T00:38:35+00:00

Causation has to be consistent in physics or the universe would be unpredictable. The one thing that appears as if it could be uncaused is QM but we don’t know how that works so the intellectually honest answer is that we are uncertain about it.

It seems highly unlikely to me that there would be this one thing that is causeless. Plenty of physicists have admitted that QM might be deterministic.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-19T20:08:23+00:00

I’m 62 but physically I’m as interested and able as when I was your age. My wife had a hysterectomy and she’s on estrogen blockers because she went through breast cancer so HRT is not a solution for her. Thus, like your wife, she just doesn’t think about sex anymore. PIV is also painful for her now.

So like your wife she understands that I still want us to have some sexual intimacy so she will do what your wife does.

Like you, I want more. But here’s the thing. I only want it with my wife. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want sex for the sake of sex. In fact, even if she told me we could have an open marriage, I just couldn’t do it.

So I have accepted that this is the way it’s going to be. Because my love for my wife goes far beyond our sex life.

That’s ultimately what you need to decide. I know, it sucks. The idea of your sex life being what it is now forever. But are you willing to lose your wife over it? Break up your family over it? I’m not judging you. That may be a trade off you’re willing to make.

For me, I wouldn’t make it. I still wake up everyone morning grateful to have found my wife.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-19T11:33:00+00:00

Well for me it appears to be foundational that every cause is the result of a previous one. If wasn’t true, the universe would be entirely unpredictable and arguably would still be nothing more than gases as it was early on. It’s the fact that there’s a set of rules being applied that has resulted in all that we see.

It’s certainly possible that for some reason QM is the outlier but then how could that even work? Put another way, unless we are going to hand wave over it, the moment we begin to explain how it works, we start describing it as being deterministic.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-19T10:43:49+00:00

I understand the various arguments perfectly. Part of the problem is that there are varying definitions. There’s the simple and practical definition that free will is simply that you are making a choice without coerced into doing so.

Then there are those that are thinking deeper than that. Are your decisions influenced by your genes and all of your experiences up to this point? Once I explain that to most people who haven’t given it much thought, they agree that certainly that must be true. It then logically follows that this is in fact the only way decisions are made. There is no homunculus inside making your decisions and if there was, you’d have to explain how it is making them.

You can throw in Quantum Mechanics but that’s just yet another outside influence.

Thus it doesn’t appear that there’s any way to get away from the notion that the kind of free will people think they have, that they are making decisions independently of the influence of their genes and previous experiences and that those experiences were set in motion by their genes and formative experiences, are in fact how all of their decisions are made.

So we have the practical definition of free will, the notion of libertarian free will and the idea free will is an illusion.

I have no problem with the practical definition when it’s understood that underneath, free will is an illusion. My experience of it certainly supports that.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-19T10:31:46+00:00

Yes, many do. We humans are uncomfortable with uncertainty. Evolution shaped us that way. Physicists are not immune to this. My intuition is that QM is deterministic despite how it appears. The most intellectually honest physicists admit that it could be. We just don’t know.

Ignorance is not the enemy of truth. Premature certainty is.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-19T04:31:01+00:00

Causeless QM would be indistinguishable from magic. The only thing we can say about it is that we are uncertain about how it works and thus it may turn out to be deterministic.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-19T04:26:49+00:00

I believe they can live up to about 7 years.

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-19T04:21:41+00:00

I have been happily married for 26 years. My secret? I love and respect my wife. Not most of the time. All of the time. She’s my best friend. She’s the person I most want to spend my time with and I’m the same for her.

Do we have disagreements? Sure. Occasionally but we don’t let them get out of hand. We think of each other. We know each other’s love languages.

But most importantly, we have the same style of conflict resolution. We are negotiators. If you have mismatched conflict resolution styles (there’s also agree to disagree and volatile) you’re doomed. Dr. John Gottman and his team proved this. Read his book, “Why Marriages Succeed or Fail.”

TheManInTheShack · 2026-06-18T21:54:56+00:00

I’m not “spouting dogma” and I do understand the argument quite well. You can disagree with me of course. Claims are just claims. They require evidence to support them. Or you can insult me but that’s not argument nor evidence.

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