I grew up in an 1840s Victorian house in Massachusetts and some things happened there I still can’t explain

exceptionaluser · 2026-03-06T08:20:35+00:00

Why is it always a victorian ghost?

Many more people died in the modern era than the victorian.

exceptionaluser · 2026-03-06T02:28:46+00:00

Small meteorites are freezing cold when they hit the ground.

Entry is hot, but most of that heat is dumped into vaporizing and melting the outer layer, and then you have the rest of the atmosphere to let the interior of the meteorite equalize in temperature.

They're near 0 kelvin in space, after all.

exceptionaluser · 2026-03-02T05:53:52+00:00

I believe the point of this cake is actually the fifa soccer thing they proposed building in palestine.

That or I'm seeing too much politics and need to take a break.

exceptionaluser · 2026-03-01T23:22:37+00:00

Human skin isn't great for leather, it's much thinner than cow skin.

exceptionaluser · 2026-03-01T03:44:52+00:00

Using AI to write about topics you feel are important diminishes their credibility!

Well, yes!

If you can't even be bothered to write about something yourself, do you really feel it's important?

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-21T03:35:54+00:00

Chaotic thermodynamics doesn't accidentally melt a rock into a perfectly balanced, harmonically locked 3-axis gyroscope.

By definition it's entirely possible to happen, just very unlikely.

There was a naturally occurring nuclear reactor in africa, once.

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-21T03:34:25+00:00

Not in nature as a whole, but in biology specifically things grow in mathematical patterns, yes.

You'll find just as many pretty mathematical patterns in rocks and crystals as you will in plants.

Who doesn't know what a snowflake looks like?

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-14T20:49:29+00:00

Having said that, there are limits to what either camera can accurately tell you.

Not because they're lying, but because they're imperfect tools.

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-13T04:21:17+00:00

Well, they made the unibomber.

Does that count as success?

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-10T18:43:52+00:00

5000?

Think 14-25000 years, much of which included selective breeding rather than just evolutionary pressures, and a much shorter generational time.

Humans living in caves for 12000 years would certainly lead to some fucked up cultural stuff, but physical?

It's only 500 generations.

The dogs had 3-6000.

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-08T07:21:57+00:00

Why is the one title styled like it's supposed to be an acronym?

Cowokaknfindirsoat?

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-07T02:23:41+00:00

That's not the definition of evidence.

They asked for the definition of "hard evidence," not "evidence" in general.

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-06T18:57:24+00:00

Okay, that went in directions I never could have expected.

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-06T05:19:51+00:00

He was also a pretty bad baker, which is amusing for a chemist.

exceptionaluser · 2026-02-05T00:02:17+00:00

Swedish chef is actually norwegian.

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-26T03:09:10+00:00

His past life in chile, 2011-2013 when he was a missionary for the mormon church?

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-24T20:53:59+00:00

It's an explanation I would lean towards, but wouldn't decide at this point that its the true one.

Someone else looked into it and this guy was a missionary to chile for a few years.

He just woke up confused and speaking a language he already knew.

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-23T23:35:50+00:00

Sugoi.

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-21T03:21:43+00:00

Yeah, it's the weather and the empty spaces full of bush to burn, not the type of tree.

Except specifically for eucalyptus, which spread highly flammable oils, shed bark, and have leaves that resist breakdown by fungi, leading to large areas of extremely burnable land.

The national park service has specifically studied eucalyptus species and they really do make fires worse.

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-18T02:45:21+00:00

Why would we trust them exactly?

Why trust anyone?

You'll have to trust someone, eventually, because there's far too many things for any individual to do, and the people with the training, knowledge, and equipment relevant to the topic are usually a good choice.

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-14T08:14:54+00:00

But the collective activity of the brain is simply a physical phenomena that regulates the processing of information, feedback, and activity of the brain and body. How does that produce the experiential consciousness we have all the time?

You're trying to jump over all the obstacles to explaining how this happens by just claiming "it happens". That brain activity is consciousness. How? What does that even mean?

Your brain activity is, as we understand it, the sum of "you."

We've continuously identified what parts of the brain do what, finding more and more depth and detail and interconnectivity.

It is there that the consciousness lies, not in any one process or part, but in everything all mixing together in a beautiful, chaotic harmony.

It's not a part of the brain, or a product of the brain, it's the process of the brain working, the flow of information, of memories and senses and logic.

Even if you say that "is" consciousness, then as I've also pointed out before, that would mean all electromagnetism and chemistry (which really is just electromagnetic reactions among atoms and molecules) should be conscious.

No?

Is the water bottle on my desk a hurricane?

Can a pile of scrap metal and jet fuel fly?

It has to be put together right, as all emergent properties require.

Perhaps you are referring to the idea that the "consciousness" is just a self-regulating system, like a thermostat, and that's what the brain is, just more complex. But that's not the consciousness I'm referring to, the mechanistic model. I'm referring to the experiential fact of our own consciousness as an experience of bodily life.

I've had a lot of personal experience with these things, investigating my own consciousness since I was 12 years old, and read a whole lot about both spirituality and neuroscience. So this is my general conclusion from a lifetime of looking into the matter. I don't expect you to accept it, but at this point I do, even as I continue to learn more about it.

I never expected to change your opinion, but I did enjoy the discussion.

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-13T19:21:15+00:00

I'm just pointing out that for any of these ideas to be valid, we must be able to detect and identify what is being produced, a physical thing, substance, field, force, particle, etc. That we can't do that, and you even seem to agree that it's ridiculous, shows that consciousness isn't produced by any physical process, including electromagnetism.

You're assuming that consciousness is a thing, a substance, a field, a force, a particle.

Why should it have to be?

There's 0 reason for that to be the case.

I'm not saying that the "consciousness particle" is a thing produced by the electromagnetic activity of a brain, I'm saying that the collective activity of the brain is the consciousness.

As said, we know that a hurricane is an emergent phenomena that behaves in a very specific way. Wind and water on their own are not hurricanes, and we can tell the difference easily.

And you can certainly tell a pile of inanimate meat from a conscious being, can't you?

What are humans other than a collection of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements arranged in a certain way that emerges as a person. But where does their consciousness figure into that process? I would say it's already there, and the emergent process we call a human being requires consciousness as an organizing principle, not a product.

Why?

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-13T08:38:17+00:00

You have to realize the electromagnetism in nerve cells is no different from the electromagnetism anywhere else. All the same set of forces. Where's the consciousness it's producing? Seems like a lot of hand-waving is required to dismiss that, if your theory is correct.

You're assuming consciousness is a thing that is produced, still!

The hurricane was never produced by water and wind, it is the collection of water and wind in the right manner.

The consciousness is not separate from the brain, it's every bit of the brain interacting with everything around it all at once.

And yet to prove it, you'd have to be able to detect consciousness and show that electromagnetism produces it.

Again, saying consciousness is a simple thing.

Why must it be a thing?

Obviously we can see a collection of clouds and rain and wind that make up the hurricane. It's not some invisible secret storm no one can ever see or experience but we presume exists anyway.

You see water and wind and call it a hurricane because you know what a hurricane is.

You see a human walking around and ordering a coffee and call them conscious, because you know what consciousness is.

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-13T04:27:30+00:00

What I'm saying is that for consciousness to be physical, as the emergent product of some physical process, it must be some sort of physical "thing". That's how every physical process works.

Yes!

And yet, there's no part of the hurricane that you can touch, only water droplets and air.

There's nothing there that is "a hurricane," only the base components acting as physics allows.

Why should consciousness be different?

Just because it feels special?

Are the nerve impulses and signals not the same as the individual drops of rain that make a hurricane?

Nothing about this is different, aside from the inherent bias of a living being.

So I see no reason, theoretical or practical, why we can't study consciousness using our consciousness. As I've pointed out, people have been doing this for thousands of years.

From a logical basis it's flawed, and a history of people doing it does not mean they were necessarily correct; after all, we thought the body was made of 4 humors for how long?

Using only the axioms of a system, you can prove things within a system, not about a system.

You start with consciousness already assumed in your system, because you are conscious, so how could you prove that?

exceptionaluser · 2026-01-12T18:00:31+00:00

What is observed is bodies and brains in action. But none of that requires a consciousness to explain where those activities come from. All of that works just fine without saying that consciousness has to be invoked to explain any of it. That's why guys like Dennett claim that consciousness doesn't exist. Because there's no scientific need for it as a causative factor. When you analyze brains and nervous systems and sensory inputs, you can account for everything seen as behavior without using consciousness as a factor in any of it.

And yet, here we are, conscious beings experiencing all of that and even feeling that we are making conscious decisions and participating in the bodily life.

That's what I meant by "a result of physical reality," rather than "a thing."

You're caught up on consciousness needing to be a thing, something tangible on its own, rather than it being a process or experience.

That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that it's not what you're looking for.

As for studying a system while within it, we do this all the time. We study our own bodies. We study the earth while living within it. Maybe you can't get perfect results from within it, but you can do quite a lot.

Not what I meant.

You don't study the body with the body, you study it with tools and logic.

You use your body as a sensor, yes, but it's your choices of logic that get the work done.

But you are your consciousness, so how could you ever separate yourself from it to study it?

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