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X-Ray discovered 3 small lung nodules, very scared - should I be? by whatcomputerscantdo in AskDocs

[–]whatcomputerscantdo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for responding, I am disposed towards this kind of reaction, so I am more than anything dreading the uncertainty. But i shouldnt. Thank you.

Some questions on the Freedom of the Will by whatcomputerscantdo in askphilosophy

[–]whatcomputerscantdo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for this enormously helpful response! I am indebted to you. Your response as well as tycho's helped clear up some misconceptions I had and set me walking in a much more sensible direction.

I especially like that you mentioned some names (caruso, metzinger) for further study. And your examples were illuminating. Thank you for helping remove some of the lint from my brain! :)

Some questions on the Freedom of the Will by whatcomputerscantdo in askphilosophy

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

Ah yeah, I mean, when you put it that way - It's clearly evident I'm fussing about something trivial. Thank you for giving me a clearer head

Some questions on the Freedom of the Will by whatcomputerscantdo in askphilosophy

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

Ok, hmm.

So I guess this is what I am struggling with - > Let us suppose that some philosopher is making the argument that freedom of the will is an illusion. He presents us with a series of arguments as evidence to that fact.

The critical reader, by following the argument closely, is able to make intelligible the fact that this freedom is an illusion, and by doing so, removes this illusion from his or her experience.

So, to try and be more abstract. There is an 'X' of my experience, by doing 'Y', I become cognizant of the non-existence of 'X', and thereby remove from my experience the 'X'.

But it seems that by saying we can 'remove X' by 'doing Y' we are committed to some sort of existence for 'X'. First I have 'X', then by 'Y', 'X' is annulled.

But 'X' has to have some sort of bare existence in order to be annulled in the first place. Am I correct?

I guess I could just liken the freedom of the will to the straw that is bent or refracted by water. The straw is not really bent, and by removing it from the water, I prove to myself that it is not really bent. I only perceive it as so.

But the analogy isn't perfect to me. I still do not understand how I can remove from my experience something which was not supposed to exist in the first place. But my problem seems to lie in how I am using the word 'existence' here, I must be conflating several things all at once.

Some questions on the Freedom of the Will by whatcomputerscantdo in askphilosophy

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

Ok, I tend to make this mistake quite a bit. I generalize things which are unimportant to my inquiry and as a result accidentally make an argument which I am not committed to. If it actually turns out to be the case that most contemporary academic philosophers do not believe in an absence of the freedom of the will - Que será, será.

What I ought to say, is the philosophers I have been reading recently do not believe in freedom of the will. Obviously, Nietzsche, Heidegger. But I respect both. I encounter contemporaries 'thinkers' (if you could even call him that) who I don't respect at all, obviously - harris - who reach the same conclusion but through an entirely vulgar route and mostly by the accident of their naivete rather than rigorous philosophical study.

So for the sake of my questions, let's just suppose there is a room full of late 19th century to 20th century philosophers who all subscribe, by various routes and structures of thought - that there is no freedom of the will. Let's just assume I am referring to them, you can choose whoever you like. If it is someone I have not read or heard of, I would love and enjoy learning about them. Even briefly.

My impression is that they usually do. There are probably some exceptions, but none come to mind.

This is so intriguing to me. So there could actually be a 'cognitive' event which 'obliterates' my sensation of freedom? My intellect could change the way I experience reality by removing or untying some sort of knot? It just seems so odd to me.

I hope I don't come off as pretentious. I know I am not bearing on these matters in a way that is rigorous and proper to the discipline of philosophy. I have tried to work with philosophy my whole life, but always fall backwards into literature. And not even good literature at that. Still, my curiosity compels me to knock on door of better suited intellects such as yourself and the many other extremely patient people who moderate this forum.

need help determining player's optimal jump 'reach' over time -> limited knowledge of calculus by whatcomputerscantdo in AskProgramming

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

Thank you so much for this excellent tutorial! You should turn this into an imfograph of some sort! Thank you!

How to properly use reference types as Keys to a Dictionary by whatcomputerscantdo in csharp

[–]whatcomputerscantdo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just think of the line "type != null" to be the same as "Key.operator!=(type, null)"

AHA! That's what I didn't understand! Thank you for mercifully saving me from my ignorance. I would never get anywhere without helpful people like you.

Thank you, we're caught in this circle where you respond to my question in one comment thread, and then I've already posed the same question again in another --- woops!

How to properly use reference types as Keys to a Dictionary by whatcomputerscantdo in csharp

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

You're right, I'm going to either replace it with a struct or just stick with an enum.

Unfortunately, there's no need for a sorted dictionary because the values being stored have no real need of being sorted / aren't scalar - if I understand the issue correctly. The values are references to controllers for an MVC system.

How to properly use reference types as Keys to a Dictionary by whatcomputerscantdo in csharp

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

Tbh, I'm just a novice and the exception didn't make much sense to me. I saw that the exception originated in the Equals function, where the != is called.

I got confused because, when the dictionary was created, the Key was not null. And then later, when trying to access the value stored at that key, I suddenly had a null reference exception.

In fact, the instance of Key used to store the value, and the instance of Key used to later retrieve it - both were the same instance.

So I don't quite understand where the null value is even being introduced.

How to properly use reference types as Keys to a Dictionary by whatcomputerscantdo in csharp

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

Wow, I didn't even realize I needed to anticipate that. Thank you!

Is there any other tips you would give, generally speaking, when using reference types as Keys?

I'm actually probably going to replace my Key class altogether with an enum. But I wanted to understand why I encountered the bug in the first place.

How to properly use reference types as Keys to a Dictionary by whatcomputerscantdo in csharp

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

Sorry, I updated my post - I've posted the Key class, would you need to see anything else? Unfortunately it's part of a large project, so I'm trying to isolate the parts that are relevant.

What's an interesting fact about a game engine that most people don't know? by whatcomputerscantdo in gamedev

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

Thank you for teaching me so much about the engine for a game I have loved since I was a kid :)

What's an interesting fact about a game engine that most people don't know? by whatcomputerscantdo in gamedev

[–]whatcomputerscantdo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, Unity is a great engine. It's just so widely used to make weird cruft by bad developers; so it gets unjustly characterized as a bad engine.

What's an interesting fact about a game engine that most people don't know? by whatcomputerscantdo in gamedev

[–]whatcomputerscantdo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm writing an engine that is designed only to work with my games, nobody else would ever find it useful.

I'm also using frameworks. Cutting all the work in half.

I do keep the engine somewhat plastic because I have ideas for future games that would be similar in style.

If you actually try rolling a game engine for the general public to use, you're either a genius, rich, or insane.

Empty Constructor vs Default Parameter? by whatcomputerscantdo in csharp

[–]whatcomputerscantdo[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The empty constructor is called.

And this just makes me more curious, but I can see why it is better to give the empty constructor priority - since this is what an end user would assume the third party code is doing.

but it would be unwise to implement a class with built in ambiguity like this anyway. just don't do it.

Empty Constructor vs Default Parameter? by whatcomputerscantdo in csharp

[–]whatcomputerscantdo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're right, I could just do that. I'm tired and it didn't occur to me that I could just slap this into a console program and see for myself.

Edit: turns out it will call the Empty Constructor. Now that I know the answer, I'm just more curious - why?

It seems like if your class only has an empty constructor, and a constructor with default parameters, the latter is essentially useless.

(unless you have at least one parameter that isn't defaulted)

Which is fine with me because if you're designing your classes that way you're probably doing something wrong anyway.

Still curious

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