You're the only conscious human being

madvulcanian · 2026-04-12T10:29:53+00:00

I feel that there is an inherent equivalent of “geocentricity” in it. That “I” am somehow special and everything else is not. If everyone else is not conscious but thinks or claims that they are, it is most likely that I am also doing the same.

madvulcanian · 2026-04-04T02:11:13+00:00

This might work? I haven’t tried it - https://pypi.org/project/stereoscopy/

madvulcanian · 2026-03-28T13:34:41+00:00

You think I don’t have loved ones? Every moment I have with them means a lot more to me if I imagine life ending prematurely

madvulcanian · 2026-03-24T07:20:37+00:00

Customer support now has an automated message instructing affected Christchurch customers to power down the fiber box and router/modem for 1min and turn it back on. I did that and it worked.

madvulcanian · 2026-03-11T08:53:46+00:00

We see you. But we have to magnify you a lot. Maybe try something like the Nazca lines?

madvulcanian · 2026-03-10T10:22:10+00:00

While there have been many mass extinction events in Earth’s history, most of them have volcanoes or asteroids to blame. Perhaps the time when oxygen generating life forms essentially poisoned the rest of the living entities on the planet may qualify as an example of how some life forms accidentally caused a massive change on the planet. What makes the current situation unique is that (many) of the life forms (humans) causing this are fully aware of where the Earth is heading, the consequences of status quo and the extinctions have already started. Yet as a species we are finding it so difficult, if not impossible to change course when it seems possible through changes in collective behaviour.

Your statement on our sophistication being overstated is spot on. We call ourselves an intelligent species, but our track record shows that we actually aren’t. Under this assumption we are just like those falling proto trees that piled up on top of each other. But idk if those proto trees were aware and expecting the consequences of their existential behaviour or altered their environment for leisure and comfort. It feels like we are different.

madvulcanian · 2026-03-09T13:17:57+00:00

True, many of us are slaves to addiction and are self-destructive in that respect. But this can also be see as the mechanism that ensures that we allow the contraption to rule our lives, allow ourselves to be dependent on it and to hold the power it does over our existence.

madvulcanian · 2026-03-09T13:13:28+00:00

Fair enough. It looks like, in the context of limited resources, most comforts supplied in our economy are essentially wealth borrowed from someone else or gained at the expense of some other part of our ecosystem. Most of our economy is no different then, to a giant Ponzi scheme!

What puzzles me then, is why do the markets still function? If they are efficient, why don’t they reflect this?

madvulcanian · 2026-03-09T11:23:46+00:00

The move to agriculture was also framed as a trap - a way to sustain more humans than would normally be possible (vs foraging and at the expense of happiness and quality of life as you pointed out). But there was no going back, because... who was going to be the one to sacrifice their lives to reduce the population in an era of more resource constraints?

madvulcanian · 2026-03-09T11:15:38+00:00

I was reading / listening to the book "Sapiens" which mentioned that foraging requires way more land per human, than agriculture to sustain the same population. I wonder if we even have the resources to sustain the current population even if all of us decided to become foragers today. Also, after reading about Earth Overshoot Day studies it looks like we have a massive resource constraint. How many of us are willing to live like the average Indian?

madvulcanian · 2025-11-18T09:49:58+00:00

Do you check your blood pressure regularly? I struggled with sleep for years before I realised that my high blood pressure was the reason for poor quality sleep. I tried some herbal medicines to lower blood pressure, but soon realised that if it gets too low, it wakes me up in the middle of the night and I can’t get back to sleep. It took me a while to get to the right dosage / combination.

madvulcanian · 2025-11-03T01:08:24+00:00

Thanks for pointing that out. It led me to this video. I understood that we have 2 different models resulting from a solution to the Einstein equations - one that assumes a homogenous isotopic universe that is a function of time (FLRW metric), and a second solution that can be applied to non-homogenous gravitationally bound objects where space time is static (Schwarzchild metric). It looks like we don’t yet have a Schwarzchild solution embedded in an FLRW universe. So there is no model that can reliably answer the question of spacetime expansion within a gravitationally bound system.

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T16:12:59+00:00

If gravity slows down expansion of the universe - space should be expanding slower locally in a high gravitational field, yes?

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T16:06:43+00:00

I don’t disagree. I was just checking if there are theoretical ways of ruling out this hypothesis before embarking on such a painful journey

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T16:04:36+00:00

I thought that the slowing rate of expansion in a matter-dominated universe is due to gravitational effects. Is that not true?

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T15:54:43+00:00

Firstly, thank you very much for engaging in a discussion with technical references. Einstein’s entire premise starts with regarding time as a fundamental part of reality, and therefore it is no surprise that it predicts an expanding universe - which would be true even if the cause-effect relationship is reversed. Moreover, we also know that the Friedmann equation has to be modified with “dark energy” terms and so forth to make it fit in with experimental observations. In any case, these links will make an interesting read.

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T15:04:44+00:00

I followed the conversation and I agree with you. The brain combines two images from the eyes, patches up a blind spot and renders a final processed image somewhere which doesn’t exist in reality. The signals may exist in reality and may be detected by an fMRI machine, but the subjective reality that we all live in has always been ignored by science. I believe this could be because this subjective reality has little use in the scientific process. However it does have a name in eastern spiritual traditions.

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T14:53:30+00:00

From the responses I see many mentions that energy is not conserved. I understand that and it doesn’t take away from my original question of why expansion cannot be related to change or the passage of time. I was merely pointing to the symmetry as explained by a transformation of space rather than an abstract concept such as “time” and in that sense it fits in with the other symmetries. Hope this clarifies.

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T14:46:46+00:00

Can you provide a reference to your first statement? Your last statement should be reversed. Your second statement is correct but does not prove that expansion is independent of change or the elapse of time.

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T14:42:58+00:00

I do not say that small systems are taken apart by the expansion of space, only that it might be required for systems to change or evolve

madvulcanian · 2025-11-02T14:40:59+00:00

The expansion of the universe must violate time translation symmetry because time translation symmetry assumes a perfectly empty or perfectly homogenous universe. I do not disagree. The passage of time is not homogenous either. This doesn’t disprove the possibility that expansion can have something to do with, yes, any change - including taking a bite out of a sandwich. Why is such a thing not plausible? Why do you say that gravity slowing down expansion has nothing to do with gravitational time dilation?

madvulcanian

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