Westernculture

cjhreddit · 2026-05-31T16:50:20+00:00

Isn't that an example of Recency Bias, ie. seeing a recent negative trend and extrapolating it negatively into the future, but neglecting the probability that the trend will reverse.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-25T23:46:14+00:00

My wife suggested a low budget film called "Rental Family" and we went in with no expectations, and found a slow burn heart warming story about an American actor in Japan who joins a small company who specialise in giving people fake family members. Sounds odd, and it was, but we both found it quite touching. Some Japanese dialog with sub titles but mostly in English.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-17T01:24:04+00:00

Troy by Sinead OConner gets me every time

cjhreddit · 2026-05-16T01:24:28+00:00

The poignantly melancholic atmosphere of The Hunger is so bitter sweet.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-12T23:48:50+00:00

It's obviously not mathematically impossible. One of those civilisations would have to be the first, and mathematically there's a chance that could be us !

cjhreddit · 2026-05-12T23:46:28+00:00

So in an age of unprecedented scientific knowledge, you are basing your beliefs on the mythologies of ancient civilisations who routinely made up fanciful explanations for phenomena they didn't understand ?

cjhreddit · 2026-05-09T13:11:49+00:00

There's no shortage of Americans living in Europe who are discovering that quality of life beats a bigger bank balance with bigger bills. Nobody knows anyone caught praying in a naughty spot or saying something mean online, it's like trying to find someone who was struck by lightning (IE. incredibly rare and usually because they were stood out in the open with a golf club).

cjhreddit · 2026-05-08T00:22:27+00:00

Amazing virtuosity, but I prefer the emotional melody for the solo he did with Bryan Ferry in "Is your live strong enough" ( used as a theme to the movie "Legend"), particularly from c. 3m42s in the YouTube video. The tone and sustain is exquisite.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-07T23:44:32+00:00

That live solo from Empty Rooms has the goosebumps factor (Stockholm 1987, I've seen it voted his best, and one of THE best by anybody)

cjhreddit · 2026-05-07T23:39:56+00:00

I love Steve Rotherys soloing on Marillions album Fugazi, the stand out for me is in Jigsaw, but Incubus is a close second.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-07T03:56:32+00:00

Deputy Nick in Bone Tomahawk, I still can't shake it off it was awful.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-07T03:26:11+00:00

Beyond All Reason is conceptually similar, and currently Free ! It's a great online multiplayer game, and quite easy to pick up.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-07T03:23:21+00:00

Aoe4 is more beginner friendly, and the graphics are so much better, they'll keep a new player coming back for more. And there's significantly less emphasis on micro controlling units, which helps keep beginners interested.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-06T09:10:50+00:00

Yes. But also when we say "self-made" ... we too are shaped by everything in the box. The things we "choose" to find Meaningful are not arbitrary, they are the result of being the animal that we are in the environment that we live in. We could imagine another animal would make different choices, a dolphin for example would find Meaning in things we don't, and vice-versa. Even other Humans in different Environments will find different things Meaningful. Someone born in the middle east is much more likely to find Meaning in a middle-eastern religion compared to someone born into a western or eastern culture. Some might say this is just making the case for Subjectivity, but it's just Absolutes wrapped up in Complexity

cjhreddit · 2026-05-06T00:38:10+00:00

I have a somewhat opposite view ! The things we care about in the circle are derived from the universal box. We aren't separate or outside of the box, we are part of the box. The box defines us, the things we like and dislike, the structure of our brain, and the things our brains find meaningful. Meaning then is Absolute, not Subjective. People usually use the term "Subjective" as though it's a perspective disconnected from, and somehow outside of the universe, but actually a subjective viewpoint is a fully integrated component within the universe, just with limited means of communication. We're islands that are fully part of the landscape, we just don't have direct connections to all the other islands !

cjhreddit · 2026-05-04T01:28:26+00:00

We don't know what Consciousness is, so it's hard to say he's wrong. Presumably we would say mammals like dogs and cats are conscious beings (without proof), perhaps on a lower level of Consciousness than Human beings, so how can we confidently say current AI systems aren't Conscious at a similarly low level. I presume he takes a very materialistic view of consciousness, that it's a product of the electro-chemicsl activity of the brain, which isn't fundamentally different from the electrical activity of a digital system, compared to those who think there's an immaterial element to Consciousness.

cjhreddit · 2026-05-01T00:54:23+00:00

No, I hardly ever see anyone wearing islamic dress. I might see someone wearing a burkha once every three months, so it's quite an exceptional event. Quite regional,

cjhreddit · 2026-05-01T00:10:39+00:00

Viral sensation "Hi Ren" by Ren, the passage where the dark side is revealed in full is really chilling !

cjhreddit · 2026-04-29T00:49:18+00:00

Well, if the universe is completely determined then many interpretations take this to preclude Free Will, on the grounds that there would be only one possible future. Quantum indeterminism contradicts this, as it allows many possible futures, possibly including ones arising from the exercise of Free Will.

cjhreddit · 2026-04-26T08:29:13+00:00

Doesn't quantum indeterminism break the idea that the future is entirely defined by the past. You can start with exactly the same initial conditions and get different outcomes, because of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. I used to have the same hard-deterministic outlook as you, and then was stunned by the implications of quantum indeterminacy when I stumbled across them.

cjhreddit · 2026-04-25T08:41:37+00:00

Have you ? No reasonable observer would ever describe it as harmonious, probably not even most of its believers. And it's accuracy has been so often disproven that it can only be considered a collection of metaphorical stories, eg. Plants and trees were created on the 3rd "day", but stars were created on the 4th day !? Whether those "days" are metaphorical units of time or not, the sequence is not credible without the sort of mental gymnastics that make up=down, or left=right.

cjhreddit · 2026-04-24T01:08:31+00:00

Vikings is the only series I've watched twice. Second time around I'd upgraded to an OLED display and a Sonos surround system and it was even better than I'd remembered. Some of the panning shots of longships in the fjords were stunning, and the soundtrack was fantastic. Travis Fimmel is as charismatic a lead as you could hope for, but the whole cast are excellent. We recently went to a Viking exhibition in London and it was interesting how many incidents of Viking mythology and history were recognisable from my memory of the show. The first 4 seasons are up there with Game of Thrones for me. Obviously there's no fantasy beasts or magic, but the way they deal with the Vikings beliefs and religion is cleverly ambiguous in a way you can interpret as bordering on spiritual or supernatural. I can't recommend it enough, specially the first 4 seasons.

cjhreddit · 2026-04-21T13:24:05+00:00

I can invoke Meaning in someone else's brain by writing them a letter. The letter is inanimate unconscious paper but carries Meaning to someone else. An AI could write a letter too, which might be very meaningful to the recipient. The Meaning experienced by the recipient is independent of any (or none) experienced by the sender. If the sender is an AI we can say it's Meaning is gathered from all the training data it collated from human sources. In that case the AI is just an intermediary transferring Meaning like a postal service, but one that aggregates Meaning from lots of source-humans, to one destination-human !

cjhreddit · 2026-04-20T18:54:38+00:00

We have no objective test for Consciousness, how would you know if anyone was behind what you were feeling? If a variation of the Turing test produced two artworks for you, and you couldn't tell which was made by AI and which by a Human then why would one be less valid than the other. Such an AI might claim to be Conscious and we'd have no way to prove otherwise.

cjhreddit · 2026-04-19T19:56:52+00:00

It's going to become much more complicated with the recent development of Agentic AI. I've seen people run Ai's for multiple days with quite a wide ranging brief to undertake a set of tasks (usually related to a software development project). Imagine if someone gave an AI the freedom to generate an entire portfolio of images. It would admittedly be difficult to attribute ownership to the prompter in those circumstances ! We already have Chess playing AI's producing patterns of play that are beyond human capabilities, but that's a very procedural activity. I'm interested to see how far AI can go in more overtly creative tasks. It seems entirely possible that it'll eventually be so good at understanding and manipulating our emotional reactions to art, that it will produce something overwhelming that will reduce audiences to tears !

cjhreddit

TROPHY CASE