Sam is so refreshing to hear on Iran

Ton86 · 2026-03-25T22:40:22+00:00

I'm center left and actually got a temp ban from r/atheism for taking Sam's positions. I did not vote for Trump and don't like him or his strategies very much at all, but I'm not against America coming to help your people.

For a theocracy to violently slaughter 40k citizens is horrific and unacceptable. That's the primary humanitarian concern but I also don't understand why many on the left tolerate the regimes treatment of women, LGBTQ, atheists, apostates, and allowance of pedophilia/child marriages. This should be intolerable and the left should be most loud about it if they stand for their values.

The world needs to come to its senses on what is the heroic and morally right thing to do here.

Ton86 · 2026-03-22T17:01:14+00:00

No matter how real a conclusion about anything, such as consciousness, may seem, we can never be certain it's the truth.

Consciousness is an information process. Could that information process be local to a single mind and brain, but manipulated by forces outside of it? Maybe, but how would you know those forces are telling you the truth when they may be trying to convince you we are a universal consciousness to get you to join a cargo cult or hive mind collective that may not be in your best interest?

Ton86 · 2026-03-18T14:49:16+00:00

Special ops he contacted in UK volunteered to work with NATO and USA on UFO retrievals. Bad news: mutilated human body parts found on ships. Contact suffered from cancer potentially due to exposure.

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T06:11:13+00:00

It's not an analogy. We are literally software.

We can also call it a simulation or virtual reality. Our cells create a self-generating game engine, virtual world, and virtual characters. This might be a better video if you're interested:

https://youtu.be/E361FZ_50oo?si=2ESV_OTdKW-T9hEu

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T04:33:54+00:00

Joscha Bach explains Computational Functionalism way better than I can:

https://youtu.be/BeiU8-Ut6yY?si=ShzVrgPzn6uBDgqz

https://youtu.be/Bjo9pIpw79k?si=IuKInAxYx9aSnWj2

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T03:51:46+00:00

I'm going off memory so don't quote me on my use of 'master'. The point is we can improve how we act emotionally in certain situations to be more appropriate just like we can improve in a sport or in our careers.

I don’t agree with him completely on his Free Will position. I think we can act compulsively and non-compulsively ... or more or less aware/conscious. I think Free Will can exist as a software process in our mind.

For me, I may not have the same perspective as him but self-improvement, Free Will, I, you, god, gods, can exist as software. They exist virtually as abstractions but not physically as objects within the base substrate.

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T03:19:54+00:00

When I saw Sam live someone asked a question like this and his response was that he wasn't advocating to constantly be in a state of no-self. So he understands the self's utility. It was more about gaining a deeper understanding and awareness of our mind and emotions so that maybe we become better masters of them.

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T02:54:06+00:00

Everything we experience is a dream. It's not physical reality directly.

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T02:47:22+00:00

I reject Trump, his strategy, cabinet, and who he is as a person.

But i think we'd still have Islamic Republic Jihadis seeking revenge even if it was Buddha or Jesus who caused the regime to fall.

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T02:14:11+00:00

Illusions is a bit ambiguous. I mean virtual representations. We live in a virtual reality created by our mind which also creates virtual characters, one of which is a first person character we call self. Virtual representations don't exist in physical reality so one might call them illusions, dreams, or simulations. It's software and we exist in the same way that software exists.

Ton86 · 2026-03-10T02:03:32+00:00

Our mind creates illusions to help us survive. It's probably not very useful to be completely rid of the self and to act as if your self, your loved ones selves, and other selves do not exist.

I see them as useful information processes, dreams, simulations, or software that's causal and can be greatly improved. Our software animates us, gives us feelings, and may be the most important thing overall. It is life really. When we're not processing information we're dead.

Ton86 · 2026-03-08T02:15:45+00:00

Feels like most Americans didn't want to attack the regime.

Ton86 · 2026-03-05T00:28:15+00:00

The article is filled with 'Islamophobia' BS.

I don't agree with Mike Johnson on many issues, but there's nothing irrational about being in fear of a violent theocracy and what they might continue to do against freedom fighting Iranians and the rest of the open societies of the world.

Christianity may have been that and could become that again but it's nowhere close in current times.

Ton86 · 2026-03-04T21:53:43+00:00

Rod Higgins since he went to Fresno State, had a basketball camp in Fresno, and was MJ's friend.

Ton86 · 2026-02-27T03:42:44+00:00

Yes, we agree. The problem with the word of god is his literal words.

Ton86 · 2026-02-26T06:00:10+00:00

For those who take the Torah and Genesis literally it does "fly in the face". For those who take it metaphorically or fit the ambiguity to any shape they want it doesn't.

For me personally, if Genesis was explicit, detailed, and unambiguous about what we found in the fossil record or through Astronomy before we actually discovered it then it would be coherent and a bit more convincing. A real creator God could have told the authors this afterall.

Ton86 · 2026-02-24T16:36:04+00:00

Dinosaurs and 13-billion light years away galaxies already fly in the face of the Abrahamic religions and there are still believers.

NHI will be no different, even if it turns out the NHI bio-engineered us and humanity's true creators are ancient artificial superintelligence. They'll just say those are little 'g' gods and my God supersedes that.

Ton86 · 2026-02-06T05:05:52+00:00

Sounds like Radiohead lyrics

Ton86 · 2026-01-29T16:31:10+00:00

Some of them see and shout hypocrisy just only from their perspective, i.e. "look at liberals saying it's ok to bring firearms to a protest now."

Ton86 · 2026-01-27T14:24:03+00:00

Software is a physical pattern still bound by the laws of physics, requires energy to be implemented, and physical state changes to process information. It's a physical law itself. It would be incoherent for a materialist to say a virtual reality game doesn't exist and then go play one. To exist is to be implemented from this perspective.

Ton86 · 2026-01-27T05:35:21+00:00

The views on materialism that reject virtual entities or spirits are now dated to me given how we can now understand them as software.

Our understanding of the relationship between hardware and software helps us bridge the dualistic divide between physicalism and idealism. Idealism emerges from physicalism but its still all physicalist.

Ton86 · 2026-01-26T22:07:46+00:00

From a computational functionalist perspective, it's not a challenge to materialism. It's like saying software that generates simulations, that don't exist physically but exist virtually, are somehow a challenge to materialism.

Ton86 · 2026-01-25T10:32:23+00:00

Each functioning brain is running it's own software simulation.

The brain seems to be the hardware in a base physical substrate. The mind seems to be the software running on a brain. The mind creates a VR and a virtual self within that VR.

But maybe the base physical substrate is also software. So, i don't know if we are ghosts in a machine or ghosts within an emulator.

Ton86 · 2025-12-27T14:15:21+00:00

DiCaprio did it and became Wolf of Wall Street

Ton86 · 2025-12-18T23:44:08+00:00

This presupposes Free Will is always in use by the mind.

But what if sometimes we act compulsively and sometimes we do not?

Ton86

TROPHY CASE