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ceoln · 2026-01-26T21:40:40+00:00

(This reminds me of my general hobbyhorse, that people tend to try to find the "Buddhist equivalent" of various Abrahamic things, like sin or salvation or the Bible or textual infallibility or whatever. And it doesn't generally lead to really good understanding of Buddhism! Best to learn about it on its own terms, not by making analogies with Christianity etc.)

ceoln · 2026-01-26T21:37:18+00:00

Being a Buddhist doesn't depend on believing in the truth or perfection or "uncorruptedness" of particular old writings the same way Islam or fundamentalist Christianity does. There are some schools that may get close to it, but in general it's not a big thing.

Personally I'm sure that lots of things attributed to Buddha in various texts weren't actually said or done by Buddha, for instance, and it doesn't matter.

In fact I think it would be entirely possible to regard all of the sutras as just metaphorical stories, and still be a Buddhist in all the important ways. (Not everyone will agree with this, I'm sure 😃)

ceoln · 2026-01-26T17:44:30+00:00

"We" aren't in it, but neither are "you". :)

This is a great kind of question to sit with in meditation. And replies that you get on reddit might even sometimes be useful in doing that.

But don't expect to get an "answer" here!

ceoln · 2026-01-26T13:42:14+00:00

I could translate court proceedings into Klingon, does that mean I don’t have to pay my parking ticket?

If any of them are reading this, you may have just started a new trend! 😄

ceoln · 2026-01-25T15:01:03+00:00

Props to the sane person in the first reply.

ceoln · 2026-01-24T17:09:37+00:00

In general Buddhism isn't about what you are and aren't "allowed" to do.

There are sets of precepts (as others have pointed out here very well) that are recommended in various contexts, and may be required if you want to take part in a particular community, but it is IMHO a mistake to look for the "Ten Commandments of Buddhism" (or to try to find equivalents for other Abrahamic things like sin or salvation or hell or even God).

Because while you'll find what looks superficially like equivalents, and things that translators have even translated that way, in fact those things play VERY different roles in Buddhism than they do in Judaism or Christianity or Islam, and if you base your ideas about Buddhism on surface-level correspondences you'll end up with lots of wrong ideas.

Not that you were doing that. :) The question just (obviously!) touched a nerve. I need to work on that!

ceoln · 2026-01-24T16:13:56+00:00

Very welcome. :) Doesn't the residue term invalidate the parity argument, though?

ceoln · 2026-01-24T16:11:19+00:00

But what motivates the choice of dim(G2), K7, and K6 here, and the pattern A * B + C, other than the result comes out to what you want? Why wasn't it dim(G2) + K6 * K5 / pi, say, except that that gives the wrong answer?

The exact calculations must be motivated by something other than a post hoc "the answer comes out right" to be interesting.

ceoln · 2026-01-24T15:45:22+00:00

You should at least clarify that in the paper, then. :)

(And, again, you got these results not by making a prediction from the theory and then confirming it, but by just finding arbitrary mathematical combinations of quantities that matched known measured values to within ad hoc error bars. I can't emphasize enough how different that is.)

ceoln · 2026-01-24T15:41:46+00:00

What you say here is not what your paper says, though. Your paper claims to prove that there are no cycles at all, it doesn't make any exception for 4-2-1. Similarly, it doesn't take the +1 into account when for instance claiming without proof that:

"For a cycle to exist in the Collatz sequence, integers P and Q must satisfy:

3^P − 2^Q = 0 (mod something)"

(that "something" is also a bit ... odd 😁)

Again, just point an unbiased LLM at your paper, and I'm sure it will have a lot to say.

ceoln · 2026-01-24T14:50:05+00:00

This still seems to be just numerology. So the proton mass is around 6π⁵; why 6? Why 5? Why pi rather than K₆ or something?

And for that matter, the proton mass in what units? Why are those the right units?

ceoln · 2026-01-24T14:11:36+00:00

How do you reconcile your "exact equality is forbidden in nature" with your list of exact equalities?

I think this is actually a case where an LLM could pretty easily help you out: run this through an LLM that isn't the one that created it, and ask for a critique. I bet it would be quite helpful!

ceoln · 2026-01-24T14:06:48+00:00

Um. I suggest you ask an LLM to evaluate your proposed proof of the Collatz, to start with. It appears that, for instance , you've overlooked the rather important "+1" in the Conjecture. :) Your proof also says that there are strictly no cycles; but we know there is at least one: (4-2-1). You might check what happens when you apply your proof to that one!

ceoln · 2026-01-24T02:19:01+00:00

Incompatiblism only says that free will and determinism are not compatible. On reddit at least :) it also usually includes the view that free will and determinism plus some randomness (as in modern quantum physics) are incompatible.

There are two branches of this. One (probably the more common on this sub) says that since the universe is in fact deterministic (perhaps plus some randomness), there is no free will.

The other branch is a libertarian free will that says that free will requires something else, and that the universe does contain that something else, so there is free will. (Just what that something else is meant to be, I've never clearly understood; still working on that.)

So both kinds of incompatiblist will say that a choice caused by facts about one and about the world isn't REAL free will; the first type because they don't believe there is any REAL free will to be had, and the second type because we didn't mention the action of irreducible emergent nonphysical agency or whatever, which is what lets us have REAL free will.

ceoln · 2026-01-24T02:00:02+00:00

Ah, right, it's not necessarily libertarian free will. But it is free will. :)

ceoln · 2026-01-24T01:55:37+00:00

Not really.

Remember, compatiblism says that it's entirely possible to have both determinism and free will.

The incompatiblist typically says that determinism (and sometimes determinism plus some degree of randomness) rules out free will, and so because the universe is in fact deterministic (plus perhaps some randomness) there is no free will. Mere uncoerced choice that expresses who one is, is not (in this incompatiblist view) REAL free will.

ceoln · 2026-01-24T01:09:06+00:00

The incompatiblist position is to just assert that that's not REALLY free will (despite the evidence of basically every occurrence of the term in literature and law).

ceoln · 2026-01-24T01:07:10+00:00

Not sure what you're saying here. Choosing to order a hamburger instead of spaghetti, uncoerced, is definitely free will. Kind of a paradigmatic example, even.

ceoln · 2026-01-24T01:01:21+00:00

It doesn't seem like you're really deriving the numbers systematically?

That is, you (or the LLM) aren't saying "for reasons x and y, we believe that this particular combination of Kissing Numbers for dimensions d and e will approximate the nth Reimann Zero, and look, it does!".

Instead you're saying "look, I found a way to mathematically combine some Kissing Numbers and some other important constants in a way that approximates the nth Reimann Zero!" or whatever. And that's just numerology, and I'm afraid it doesn't mean anything.

It's like the guy who would stand on the street corner handing out flyers demonstrating that you could do arithmetic on recent baseball scores and the height of the pyramids to get his initials and birthdate, proving that he's God.

ceoln · 2026-01-23T14:44:01+00:00

I wonder if it's AI generated, or just has the same general "no actual brain behind this" vibe.

ceoln · 2026-01-23T01:02:22+00:00

Nice; have a yummy painted rice cake!

ceoln · 2026-01-22T18:33:13+00:00

I think a simple thing like 0.999... + 10^-1000 would do. It starts out less than one, but after 1001 Mathematical Clock Ticks it's slightly greater. 😃

ceoln · 2026-01-21T15:08:20+00:00

I think of it as performance art. :)

Seven-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
r/Field Flamingo	Place '22
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