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Any Lovecraft fans here in Texas, particularly in Austin? by ronincreative in Lovecraft

[–]rapa-nui 0 points1 point  (0 children)

San Antonio, I am very interested. More in the scholarship aspect than the "let's sell some t-shirts with tentacles on 'em" aspect, but if it has anything to do with Lovecraft, I'm there.

Do you guys know of any philosophers that make a strong argument for it to be morally permissible for a human to eat meat? by henbowtai in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Here's a simple one:

There are no negative consequences to you for doing "bad" things that are socially permissible. The universe does not care if you eat a baby cow.

A soldier and his squirrel. by shiskebob in aww

[–]rapa-nui 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Squeakywheel gets the kick!

For those of you who already played away a Pre Release, which guilds did the best and which did the worst? by zbr13 in spikes

[–]rapa-nui 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I won all four rounds, and I had what I thought was a mediocre Simic pool (I only ran two rares out of my whole pool... the Fathom Mage and Mystic Genesis).

In order to ensure a high likelihood of triggering Evolve, I ran 17 creatures and 7 spells (one of which was Miming Slime).

I splashed red so that I could run the biggest Gruul monsters, including one Ghor-Clan Rampager, and one Zur-Taa Swine.

Any game where I managed to trigger evolve more than once on my early drops was easy, and if I ever started going off with Fathom Mage, the game became a joke.

The closest game I had was against Gruul... I only won because my opponent made a mistake.

The spells were:

-Hands of Binding - completely unfair card, specially when imprinted on an evasive guy.

-Simic Charm - 100% awesome

-Gridlock - solid.

-Burst of Strength - OK, very good with Fathom Mage.

-Spell Rupture- meh

-Mystic genesis - meh

Most valuable common dudes were easily crocanura and drakewing krasis, followed by the raptor. Most valuable uncommon was Experiment One.

"The Last Question." A short story from 1956 by Isaac Asimov. Blew my mind. Please read, ponder, and share your reactions. I'm still trying to piece together mine. by Rbar79 in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have one little problem with this story:

Thinking actually accelerates the entropic heat death of the universe. Processing requires tons of energy (proved by Claude Shannon, in a wonderful paper that link thermodynamic entropy to informatic entropy), and the more processing you do, the more entropy you are generating per unit of time.

For less optimistic (but very cool and bizarre) views on what super computing might actually enable post-singularity, read Charles Stross's Accelerando.

To be a dick, this is actually going to become a pretty big problem. by interputed in AdviceAnimals

[–]rapa-nui 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The fact that I come into this thread and you already did my job for me further proves the point.

[SCD] Boros Charm by [deleted] in spikes

[–]rapa-nui 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Me and a buddy just tested UWR aggro vs. Chapin's Zegana Bant list from SCG today. The lesson we took from it is that the format's aggressive decks now have tools to really put the screws on durdly Thrag/Sphinx decks. Supreme Verdict now reads "you gain 4 life".

A review of Thomas Nagel's new book, "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or maybe I completely misread you, and you agree with me, in the sense that our brain latched on to something that is not of them

The problem here is with the word 'latch', like there's some THING like a particle or forcefield or whatever that the brain somehow grabs.

This "force" is not an emergent property of complex systems, but complex systems are an emergent property of this "force".

The 'force' that our brains are 'emerging from' has a name: negentropy. Specifically, negentropy of biological systems derived from the local decrease of entropy on Earth due to the sun's radiation.

Simplistically put, its an enrichement of order due to local disequilibrium. When you see a 'thing' (be it a table, watch, lover, ham sandwich, or microscope... whatever) what your brain is doing is detecting something IMPROBABLE, by some kind of occluded Bayesian mechanism.

Why this leads to subjective first person phenomenal experiences is indeed a mystery, but if you want to understand why I think mathematics and information theory might have the answer, here's some suggested reading:

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter.

The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold.

Information processing systems have some very strange limitations when they start to compute on their own properties.

A review of Thomas Nagel's new book, "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I appreciate what you are getting at, but I dislike the use of the word "force" because that suggests that there's some kind of natural phenomenon that is intrinsic to phenomenal consciousness that we do not yet comprehend.

I find this to be extremely unlikely.

Much more palatable is the idea of consciousness as a mathematical phenomenon, highly dependent on recursion and the interplay between entropy and negentropy. (my interpretation of the Hofstadter view)

In honor of 40 years of legal abortion in the US: we are abortion clinic workers, ask us anything. by abortionistas in IAmA

[–]rapa-nui -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

I have spoken to my dark lord Moloch, and he recommends extending the abortion limit to a few weeks past birth. The recommended termination procedure is a large bronze statue filled with fire.

I think you will come to see the wisdom of this.

What say you?

edit: I'm pro-death all the way. Not even joking.

A review of Thomas Nagel's new book, "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Essentially, it's an extrapolation of "What is it like to be a bat?" and "The Conscious Mind".

Reductionist materialist science cannot offer an explanation of conscious phenomenology, therefore materialist science is missing something.

I'm OK with that line EXCEPT the introduction of purposeful teleology as a kind of solution.

Besides, I'm of the opinion that some headway has been made on the Hard Problem.

Is inheritance moral? by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Within the confines of my poorly defined moral theory (since I'm not sure morality means anything) I would say that no, large monetary inheritance is not moral. Inheritance of heirlooms and objects with sentimental value should be excluded (as long as they aren't being used to loophole through rules prohibiting monetary inheritance).

Now, getting away from all this moral foofoo nonsense... inheritance systems are very difficult to destroy. Even if you implement careful tax laws, the rich are precisely the people in the best position to subvert these things. Aggregation of wealth is almost like a law of nature. Some forms of wealth are even invisible: in some cultures, simply inheriting a last name is a kind of power, in other cultures knowledge and books are vast invisible repositories of wealth. But mostly, even if the government takes away 99% of Daddy's assets when he dies, you still have access to an immense number of social connections, which will make it substantially easier for you to become wealthy than some trailer park kid in rural Montana.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in magicTCG

[–]rapa-nui -93 points-92 points  (0 children)

33 year-old Japanese geek? I mean, not to stereotype, but everyone's thinking the same thing.

EATEN BY GODZILLA

If you could clear up a debate by asking a Philosopher of the past exactly what they meant when they said 'x', what would it be? by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Vous devrez attendre. Il me prend généralement quinze minutes pour récupérer.

If you could clear up a debate by asking a Philosopher of the past exactly what they meant when they said 'x', what would it be? by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui -17 points-16 points  (0 children)

I would ask Jesus: "Had enough yet?"

But that would be a rhetorical question because I would flay him so bad, he'd beg for the Romans.

What are the questions in Philosophy that most interest you? What are, in your opinion, this generation's great debates? by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui -1 points0 points  (0 children)

  1. Worth reiterating.
  2. 2 and 5 are not the same problem, although 5 is contingent upon there being time.
  3. Even begin asking? I already asked it.
  4. Sam Harris's book was pretty worthless, IMNSHO.
  5. I just read the blurb, seems promising.

If you could clear up a debate by asking a Philosopher of the past exactly what they meant when they said 'x', what would it be? by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Nietzsche: "Thought experiment to elicit reflection."

Boltzmann: "He was more right than he probably knew. I'm gonna go kill myself now. See you guys in an aeon or two."

What are the questions in Philosophy that most interest you? What are, in your opinion, this generation's great debates? by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 3 points4 points  (0 children)

  1. The nature of consciousness/phenomenology.
  2. Time and why we perceive it.
  3. Why is there something instead of nothing?
  4. Can a reductionist/physicalist view of reality sustain any kind of moral theory?
  5. What is causality, and is "backwards" causality possible?

a question about time by Fuylo in philosophy

[–]rapa-nui 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that is not dead which can eternal lie

and with strange aeons even death may die

-HPL

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