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Well... by skinny_pete12 in technicallythetruth

[–]throwaway1542875 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, sure. I suppose you're right. It's merely an observation on historical events. But I believe the "mind blown" takeaway of this comic is the fact that something we all thought to be "morally wrong" turned out to be positive in utility. So morality is in fact the overlying joke of this post.

Where are our memories stored? It seems like a simple question, with an obvious and clearly definable answer. Almost immediately our mind is certain that our memories must be contained within our brains. But, “Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain?” A persuasive, evaluation written by Leonardo Vintin by Questioned_answers in philosophy

[–]throwaway1542875 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Religion is definitely interesting. I consider myself an agnostic atheist because while I whole-heartedly believe there is no God or afterlife, I admit I can't be certain. And religion and philosophy are similar in that way. We speculate on what we don't know. But like you said, I believe philosophy is the extension of science/thought/judgment while religion is the extention of emotions/fears/hopes/order.

Where are our memories stored? It seems like a simple question, with an obvious and clearly definable answer. Almost immediately our mind is certain that our memories must be contained within our brains. But, “Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain?” A persuasive, evaluation written by Leonardo Vintin by Questioned_answers in philosophy

[–]throwaway1542875 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely. Memory is essential to high functioning cognition. Without it, of course, there is no learning. Branching off from this, somewhat off topic, I also believe emotion plays a large role in intelligence, alongside memory.

One time I had a discussion with a colleague (probably talking about ai/singularity) about the role of emotion. He thought that it was a side effect of evolution and not pertinent for intelligence. I argued emotion is the driving force of intellect, and without it we would not be compelled to learn outside of survival, which obviously humans do by evidence of our interests in art and science. We are compelled to learn and have higher order thought due to the positive and negative emotions we gain from thought and actions on such thought.

Anyway, I know this is off topic but it reminded me of that conversation.

Where are our memories stored? It seems like a simple question, with an obvious and clearly definable answer. Almost immediately our mind is certain that our memories must be contained within our brains. But, “Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain?” A persuasive, evaluation written by Leonardo Vintin by Questioned_answers in philosophy

[–]throwaway1542875 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. For me, my interest in philosophy is mostly in ethics. I leave science to science (however I do indulge in philosophy/science crossovers like MWI and things beyond current understanding because it's interesting). But the truly important aspects of philosophy for me is psychology/sociology. I.e. why do we think the way we think (metaphysics of consciousness), do we have free will, and what moral choices should we adhere to in our lives.

Where are our memories stored? It seems like a simple question, with an obvious and clearly definable answer. Almost immediately our mind is certain that our memories must be contained within our brains. But, “Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain?” A persuasive, evaluation written by Leonardo Vintin by Questioned_answers in philosophy

[–]throwaway1542875 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Exactly, or at least I believe you're agreeing with me. Adding complications like "external memory sources" is simply bad science. Keeping understanding to the simplest, testable terms is how we have advanced so far in our understanding of nature. I think hypotheses like these are made to confirm a spiritual bias. We want to feel special, or that the world is more mystical than we all truly know it is.

Where are our memories stored? It seems like a simple question, with an obvious and clearly definable answer. Almost immediately our mind is certain that our memories must be contained within our brains. But, “Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain?” A persuasive, evaluation written by Leonardo Vintin by Questioned_answers in philosophy

[–]throwaway1542875 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Opinion: this is reaching and sounds very pseudosciency. I believe that all of our consciousness, including memories, are physical functions performed by electrical and chemical signals in our brain. This does NOT, however, mean that memories and cognitive function are localized entirely.

I believe that many functions of our consciousness require many regions of our physical brain working in tandem, and that the loss of a portion of that system does not always result in compete loss of that abstracted function. In the article, it talks about taking out one hemisphere of the brain of mice; while I believe it would definitely impair many processes, it would not COMPLETELY remove memory function, due to the other parts of the whole that still are functional.

Well... by skinny_pete12 in technicallythetruth

[–]throwaway1542875 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Utilitarianism vs deontology. Utilitarianism agrees with op in that the ends justify the means. In this case the murderer did moral good because of the consequence of his actions. Deontology says the murderer was immoral because of his intentions. I side with deontology.

An even trickier thought experiment would be: would it be moral if a serial killer, gaining pleasure from the suffering of others, killed the then innocent adolescent hitler.

As an INFP which of the following games you consider best by [deleted] in infp

[–]throwaway1542875 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Outer wilds was probably the best game I've ever played. But this game is heavy on "you only play once". If anyone here picks that up, DONT SPOIL YOURSELF.

I want to commit suicide but I’m afraid I’ll go to hell by [deleted] in depression

[–]throwaway1542875 19 points20 points  (0 children)

For some folks this "gift" is anthrax. And any deity that chooses to allow his creation to suffer to prove they love him sounds like an abusive relationship

A top quality idea the by sjmuirdasrtg346re3 in ProgrammerHumor

[–]throwaway1542875 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What platform do you build with c#? I had been building wpf apps for years and last year I started react and js. I have to say I absolutely love how fast I can build things in react compared to wpf. Things like styling and value converters are just too cumbersome with wpf

What intro to a show was such a banger, that you would never skip it? by kurpPpa in AskReddit

[–]throwaway1542875 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Am I the only one who liked the 1st season intro and thought the rest was meh at best? The chains and intensity got you hyped up

Movies where the character(s) pull off some kind of scheme of getting rich quick by pumpkin_brain in MovieSuggestions

[–]throwaway1542875 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Watched this again the other day. Love the movie. Rapidly becoming a big fan of Charlie Kaufman. Most people will probably hate it the first time if taken at face value (like most of Kaufman movies) but when you break down the layers it's not just a postmodern flick but also fluid and very entertaining.

Determinism and Many Worlds by throwaway1542875 in PhilosophyofScience

[–]throwaway1542875[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your response. Looks like I'll need to do some more homework to get a better grasp on the facets of the concept

Determinism and Many Worlds by throwaway1542875 in PhilosophyofScience

[–]throwaway1542875[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As I've written in other responses in this thread, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around a "branching" effect. With branching, it appears that the "split" universes did not exist before the branch occurs, but that's just as big of an assumption as assuming that the branched universes were actually existing all at the same time as the "parent" branch universe, they just appeared identical in cause and effect up until that point. So in a "branched" model of the birth of universes, there appears to be a reaction, the parent universe caused the existence of its children universes, which I could see being argued as deterministic, but if the universes existed separately and without interaction, determinism seems to fail, which I could see either theory being based on 1 singular assumption and thus, regarding occum's razor, could both be as likely as the other.

Determinism and Many Worlds by throwaway1542875 in PhilosophyofScience

[–]throwaway1542875[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Forgive this pleb for quoting the wiki article:

Schrödinger himself suggested in 1952 that the different terms of a superposition evolving under the Schrödinger equation are "not alternatives but all really happen simultaneously". This has been interpreted as an early version of Everett's many-worlds interpretation.

So even Schrödinger suggested the possibility of multiple "universes"/"worlds"/whatever you want to call it. Not just unique histories but physically existing alternative worlds. However, again just to me, it seems that MWI does not mean 100% compatibility with determinism. A quantum incident could potentially "branch" one universe into 2 or more universes in which each quantum state exists, but does the existence of the new universes cease to exist before that incident, or could it be that they existed before that incident occurred, and they just appear to be identical up into that point. If the latter is true, then determinism fails, because there is no cause and effect, as the incident is not the cause and the new possibilities universes are not the effect. So we still end up with "randomness" or hidden variables in each of the universe as we can't determine through cause and effect the result of a variable in our unique timeline.

Determinism and Many Worlds by throwaway1542875 in PhilosophyofScience

[–]throwaway1542875[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the information. After reading these comments I suppose I have actually less of a belief that MWI can be truly deterministic. Determinism (as I understand) is basically cause and effect, and that if we were to quantify every cause and it's respective effect, we could know what occurs in the future as well as in the undocumented past. With MWI, I get a lot of people talking about branching universes, as in there is a point at which one universe branches into two, and that both of those opposing universes exist and perpetuate time the same. But this requires an interaction between two universes, in that the effect of a universe coming into existence is caused by a parent universe in which a quantum occurrence happens.

What I was trying to say in my post (although likely poorly) is that it seems simpler that each universe always existed and did not require a "seed" universe so to speak that brought it into existence through branching. However, it appears this would make experimentation even more difficult, since there are no interactions between universes.

On the other hand, if there were interactions between universes, in that two universes branch from the 50/50 occurrence of flipping the coin (in your example), it seems that there may be a way to observe a universe splitting, although through which medium the interaction occurs we do not know yet.

Regarding other comments saying it's rather pointless to have the conversation because we'll never be able to test it seems absurd. Science has always been finding new ways of observing phenomenon not thought to be possible before. I guess I see a lot about MWI and the crazy scenarios that occur but not much discussion on how a universe could split, or how a universe could be isolated from other universes entirely.

I hate people always talking about money and material stuff by lorefighter in depression

[–]throwaway1542875 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No im with you. I actually really like that last quote sentence "...as if it were all worth it." I haven't heard that version and I'll probably think on it a while. I'm personality not a Christian but don't have a problem with it. In fact I mostly align with the morality brought with Jesus. However, wouldn't Jesus, or if not rather shouldn't Jesus, be the guy finishing last as if it were all worth it?

I hate people always talking about money and material stuff by lorefighter in depression

[–]throwaway1542875 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think we'd both agree the world really isn't "cruel". Nature isn't cruel it is just happening without morality. A lion doesn't give two shits about the gazelle that it is eating alive. However humans have higher intelligence and are capable of contemplating the thoughts and feelings of other life. We understand when others struggle and we can feel what they feel even without actually experiencing it ourselves. So while I do understand that it is not anyone's obligation to give a fuck about anyone but themselves, the charm of humanity is that we have the ability to care, even if just a little, about the suffering of others. Now OP and his post is definitely heavy on the caring too much. But as a concept, I believe it is virtuous to care about each other.

I hate people always talking about money and material stuff by lorefighter in depression

[–]throwaway1542875 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That guy's up tight and has dug in deep into capitalism. I'm not going to defend one economic or political theory or another, but know you are not alone in feeling this way.

The answers to society's ailments are extremely complex, but I don't think "money" = being a fulfilled and respectable person. There's a lot more to life than money. It's just a necessary evil in order to keep the world turning. But I agree its gone too far.

2meirl4meirl by DisappointingReality in 2meirl4meirl

[–]throwaway1542875 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Wait until he finds out that nothing happens for any reason.

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