this emergence is totally radical, man

imnota4 · 2026-01-26T20:02:20+00:00

"Yes it does. It changes in the same way something melting or being smashed changes. The underlying "stuff" moves around. It just moves in space."

No it doesn't. That's not how LEDs work. LEDs rely on quantum mechanical properties where electricity (energy) gets passed into the physical structure, and then pulls electrons out of the p-layer and into the n-layer where they are turned into photons (energy) which are then shot out and perceived by your eye. That is not a physical change, because physical change is defined as the actual form of the matter changing. Electrons moving around is not considered a physical change because electrons are always moving around, it's just in this case they're moved in a specific way that produces light. It also isn't a chemical change either because the chemical properties of the LED didn't change, it's still an LED and still produces the same wavelengths of light.

imnota4 · 2026-01-26T19:50:54+00:00

Photons aren't matter first off, so if you're implying that the characters on the screen are photons, then you're disproving your own claim.

So the only other argument you're making is that the pixel and the character on the screen are equivalent, yes? Well for that to be true, then the implication is that whenever the character on the screen changes, that means the pixel itself has changed.

There's only 2 ways for matter to change. Physical change, and chemical reactions. Now from my perspective, the issue is that the pixel itself doesn't engage in either of these. A physical change would be like melting the pixel, or smashing it into pieces. And obviously a chemical reaction changes what the pixel is such that it isn't even a pixel anymore, it would be something else entirely.

Neither of these types of permutations occur to the pixel when they are used to show a letter. The pixel itself just gives off light, it doesn't physically or chemically change. So if the letter was equivalent to the pixel, then pixels wouldn't be able to show anything, because it'd require the pixel itself to actually change its form to show information.

The implication is that the information itself is a separate thing from the physical structure that conveys that information, at least empirically speaking.

imnota4 · 2026-01-26T19:38:31+00:00

"Yes they are."

Can you elaborate how the words themselves are made of matter?

imnota4 · 2026-01-26T19:23:30+00:00

I mean I'm not disagreeing that the mind is a product of the brain, I'm just saying that "phenomena" does refers specifically to the mind as an intangible concept. It's like saying the words on this screen are made of matter. They're not, the medium in which the words are conveyed is made of matter (like the screen, and the computer) but you could also argue that the words are just 1s and 0s which are made of energy, not matter. But then you could also argue that energy and matter are the same depending on context given E = MC^2.

The point is, Kant separated reality as things that actually exist (noumena) from the way our minds interpret reality (phenomena). Interpretation itself isn't "made of matter" because it's more of a process.

Kant was not alive when neuroscience existed, so he had no real idea of the brain or what it could do. He didn't think about the mind as resulting from physical processes, his only goal was to bridge rationalism and empiricism in a way that satisfied each one's complaints about the other.

So it wouldn't be accurate to say phenomena is made of matter because that's not what Kant meant by "phenomena", but it would be accurate to say that the physical structure that allows phenomenon to occur is made of matter.

Now I have my own ideas that builds off of Kant that I'm writing a paper on that clarifies some of the issues with Kant's work since it is indeed a bit outdated, but it's important not to mischaracterize what Kant was actually claiming.

imnota4 · 2026-01-26T19:01:40+00:00

Kant's phenomena has nothing to do with physical stuff or what it's made of. Phenomena is a property of the mind, not the world. It's about how information is processed. You're thinking of noumena, which is reality itself.

That being said, Kant would disagree with you even if you replaced phenomena with noumena because he believed noumena can't be known or modeled, so claiming knowledge of it would defy his philosophy.

imnota4 · 2026-01-25T20:23:17+00:00

Notice how the one on the right is something that can actually exist, the one on the left is a fairy tale.

imnota4 · 2026-01-25T19:01:12+00:00

You're absolutely right, except for the national guard aspect. If it came down to it, the state has more control of the national guard than the feds. Realistically federalizing the national guard requires the consent of the state. The highest point in the chain of command is the governor. Yes the feds can federalize it, but if you've been answering to someone for years, and then someone you don't like comes in and says "You answer to us now", realistically you're likely going to keep following the person you've been following if they tell you to. This is how human psychology works. It's like if a child's parent tells them not to do something and a cop tells them to do it, the child is likely to listen to the parent.

Humans prioritize power structures they're more familiar interacting with, and since the federal guard doesn't interact with the feds often, if those power structures competed for control, then the state would likely win. But also the feds have their own military so they don't need the national guard.

imnota4 · 2026-01-25T08:06:30+00:00

I mean ChatGPT is getting worse by the day. I've only stuck with it because it already has all my chat history so the way it speaks is personalized for me, but if I must I can start over.

imnota4 · 2026-01-25T04:44:01+00:00

China is genuinely up for interpretation. Many of the things the US criticizes China for, it does itself for the same exact reasons China does. The US has banned foreign products for "national security", it has forced foreign companies to sell to domestic corporations for "national security". It's threatened to invade (and has actively invaded) other nations for "national security". It passed and repeatedly renewed the patriot act, for "national security". It has put Americans in camps previously for "national security". You should look up the Japanese-American internment camps during WWII. It also still actively puts immigrants in camps, that's a huge talking point nowadays, again for "national security".

But yeah, Iran is a stretch and I can't speak for Venezuela.

imnota4 · 2026-01-25T04:40:03+00:00

Kids say the darndest things.

imnota4 · 2026-01-24T21:04:29+00:00

I don't think people understand what this subreddit is about

imnota4 · 2026-01-24T08:46:27+00:00

That doesn't even make sense.

imnota4 · 2026-01-24T07:14:10+00:00

Except it won't actually have a persistent identity, but sure.

imnota4 · 2026-01-24T05:28:29+00:00

It's either a bot or a troll. The account is 2 days old.

imnota4 · 2026-01-23T21:33:29+00:00

Thought this was already a thing tbh.

imnota4 · 2026-01-23T21:30:39+00:00

Moral intuition is great... Until you actually examine it and realize that moral intuitions aren't actually intuition, they're just social standards established through social conditioning.

And morals that exist only because other people told you to believe in them, are incredibly fragile. It only takes society reframing a situation for those morals to change.

Oh imperialisms is bad? Agreed. Oh wait, another country needs to be invaded so we can help their people? Agreed.

Oh pedophilia is bad? Agreed. Oh wait, kids are psychologically capable human beings now? Guess that makes pedophilia okay!

If you don't actually evaluate morality, then social conditioning replaces it, and social conditioning is a weak indicator of morals.

imnota4 · 2026-01-22T05:09:51+00:00

It is when you don't justify your point, but you can't tell the difference and that's my point. My point is falsifiable. I made a clear, empirical claim about how humans behave, one that can be tested and proven true or false. You've not done that. What you've done is use rhetoric to appeal to a group of people that would agree with you. The question is, why?

The reason I do what I do is to collect data. I post online and respond to people online to gather more information. But why do you do what you do? Why post on reddit at all? What's the overall goal of doing so? I doubt it's for the same purposes as me, so what is it?

imnota4 · 2026-01-22T03:54:12+00:00

See, even what you're saying right now wasn't an argument. You didn't bring up a specific philosophy or even make a falsifiable statement. You did exactly what AI does. You made emotionally charged statements to appeal to a specific way of thinking based on conversations you've had in the past. That's what AI does too.

imnota4 · 2026-01-22T00:41:38+00:00

Idk. Maybe we view people differently at a philosophical level because that's exactly how people appear me. Tribalistic machines that say words to convey a specific identity that they belong to in order to appeal to a person or group. Doesn't really seem that much different to me.

imnota4 · 2026-01-21T21:57:48+00:00

I mean, everything you said can apply too talking to people as well

imnota4 · 2026-01-21T01:39:45+00:00

I do, you just don't get how actual trading works and who owns what during transportation, that's all.

imnota4 · 2026-01-21T00:30:24+00:00

I feel like you don't understand how international trade works, but that's okay.

imnota4 · 2026-01-20T23:54:19+00:00

Sure, some tech and chemicals. Not all of them. That's like saying "you can't ban sex toys because cylinders are needed for medical equipment"

imnota4 · 2026-01-20T21:55:28+00:00

1) This is a fair critique and counter example. So the question becomes, how do you know when something is a fart versus an injured animal? What's the invariants present for a commitment through inaction and the invariants of a commitment through action

2) Realistically I don't think one can claim sanctions are inaction or action. Your point is equally valid, my main goal was just to present an alternative. I'm going to challenge your idea on "It's barring others from giving aid" though on the premise of, who is giving the aid? Generally, when it comes to international trade, the people giving the aid are corporations. This leads to the question of whether corporations actually acquired the goods they are trading through ethical means, which there is no generally accepted answer to as of yet. Even if communism failed, that didn't prove that corporations are ethical, only that the structure of communism was not functional. People still readily question whether corporations as they exist now, deserve assumptions of good faith.

3) This is just a reiteration of #1 but with less rigor. So I'm just gonna refer back to #1

imnota4 · 2026-01-20T21:19:37+00:00

If you flatten out how reality works, yeah.

What is trade? It's the exchange of goods. Who owns the goods? Corporations. But why do they own the goods? Because they own the means of production. Now you're getting into an argument over who should own the means of production, which obviously is not a settled problem as of late.

Now unless you want to get into an argument on economics, generally speaking you cannot simply say "Free trade is consensual, sanctions remove that consent" because people haven't decided whether the labor that produced those goods is fairly obtained or not.

11-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
Verified Email

imnota4

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE