balderdash9

balderdash9 , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Bookpilled. If you're into science fiction books, he's a great YouTuber to check out.

edit: Also, he does extra videos on his Patreon. But if you don't like him try Outlaw Bookseller and Media Death Cult.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

The average voter pays zero attention to politics but has very strong opinions about what a politician has or hasn't done.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

I really hate text articles that end up being a podcast. Feels like a bait and switch.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I'm agnostic. If you find the statistical probability argument for the existence of aliens salient, then by the same token you should believe that our reality is a simulation. In which case, the existence of aliens once again becomes questionable; the statistical probabilities of an infinite simulated universe are outside the realm of our current knowledge.

edit: See comment below on Nick Bostrom's Simulation Hypothesis.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

Sorry, I suppose people haven't heard of the "Simulation hypothesis" in philosophy.

Nick Bostrom argued that, statistically, it is more likely that we live in a simulation than not. Assume that an advanced civilization could build a machine with enormous computing power, sufficient to simulate a human mind and a universe "around" it. It follows that the number of such simulated minds/universes could be near infinite. So the probability of our actually being in a simulated universe dwarfs the probability that our reality is not a simulation.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

Yes, this is the idea. Although, as another noted, you can argue back and forth on whether Bostrom's argument holds.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

Well I suppose it depends on your views of consciousness. Some would argue that our consciousness is nothing more than an emergent phenomenon grounded on the electrical impulses of our neurons. Personally, I'm convinced that the phenomenon need not be physical. It should be possible, with enough computing power, to model the same interactions. But I admit that if you reject this possibility, then the simulation hypothesis loses credence.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/a1663a34-5c68-4543-9573-3682080593ed.webp

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

He's not really dead. Made me look though.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

Remember in grammar school when your teacher told you that Wikipedia is not a valid source? I'm sure they're saying the same thing about AI right now.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

If we can pick math, then I choose logic.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

I think they're saying two things. 1) You have to live for a few million years in the past in order to get a billion dollars when you reach the present age. 2) You can't just go to sleep for a long time to get out of the scenario.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

I'm going to say no. Most of human history is nasty, brutish, and short.

balderdash9 , 1 month ago

• Police arrive on the scene
• Shoot suicidal person
• "Problem solved"

balderdash9 , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

can god kill god

It's not a paradox, the words are just incoherent. It's like asking whether God can taste the color blue. The answer isn't yes/no, there is no answer.

edit: a word

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

I agree with the classical interpretation of an infinitely perfect immaterial God outside of time. But the way out of the paradox is to scrutinize the question itself.

To illustrate the point, take three paradoxical questions: 1) Can God kill himself?, 2) Can God create a stone that he can't lift?, 3) Can God create a square circle?

#3 Is obviously a meaningless question. The words individually have meaning, but the "square circle" refers to an impossible object whose properties are self-contradictory. Because we interpret God's power as the ability to do all logically possible things, the inability to create this self-contradictory object is not a limit on his power.

#2 Seems better on the surface because we can posit increasingly larger stones.
But the contradiction here is between the object and the nature of God. Once we accept an infinitely perfect God, there can, by definition, be nothing greater than it. If there was a stone that God couldn't lift, this would contradict the fact of God's existence. Therefore, as we are under the assumption that God exists, the object itself must be impossible.

#1 Is another form of the omnipotence paradox in #2. Can God do something that contradicts his own properties? This would make God immutable/eternal and yet not immutable/eternal. But an infinitely perfect God is, by definition, immutable/eternal! So any action that would contradict himself is a contradiction in terms and thereby logically impossible. Just like in the case of #3, the answer to the question isn't "no". Rather, the question itself is nonsensical.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

The specific example doesn't matter much. Google "category error" or read the comment below where I explain the response in more detail.

You don’t strike me as someone I want to interact with.

It's not like I'm trolling. This stuff is philosophy of religion 101. But, you are, of course, always free to ignore information that contradicts your world view.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

Agreed. And if God can do things outside of logic/reason, then we can't understand him. Then the answer to the paradox would be: it is both impossible and possible. Which doesn't make sense, but now we're supposing God doesn't follow the law of non-contradiction.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

Wait, isn't space and time infinitely divisible? (I'm assuming you're referencing quantum mechanics, which I don't understand, and so I'm genuinely asking.)

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

Given a being exists outside of this reality, the laws of this reality do not apply to it.

When we assume a contradiction is true (e.g., God is immutable and God is not immutable: P ^ -P), then we can derive any proposition and it's negation from that contradiction.

1. P ∧ -P
2. P     (1)
3. -P     (1)
4. P ∨ X     (2)
5. X     (3, 4)
6. P ∨ -X     (2)
7. -X     (3, 6)

---

If God can make a contradiction true, then every other proposition whatsoever can be proven true and false at the same time. We can infer the following: 1) All questions about God are useless because God is now beyond reason/logic and 2) Reason itself would lose all applicability as logic, necessity, mathematics, etc. can no longer be taken for granted. These seem like untenable consequences. We have, however, an alternate conception of God's omnipotence that doesn't force us to abandon reason/logic.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

There are different logics that account for temporality, modality (e.g., necessity), degrees of true, etc. But I doubt there's any logic we could construct that can account for the inconceivable and the impossible being possible. Human reason throws up its hands and sits in the corner.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Can God kill Himself.?" This presumes God is a physical and material being.

I'm afraid I don't see why being non-physical entails being eternal. For example, couldn't God create an angel and then destroy it later? If angels are non-physical beings that can be created and destroyed, then immateriality doesn't entail eternality. Moreover, you're right that God cannot die, but it doesn't follow that the answer to question #1 is "no". If there was something that God couldn't do, then God wouldn't be omnipotent. So the question asks can God commit a logically contradictory action.

God would then be both a non material being, and a material being in which he animates, that has the potential to lift the stone. Now if you belive that every material object has consciousness...

I think our starting assumptions are somewhat far apart.

balderdash9 OP , 2 months ago

OpenDyslexic is a free typeface/font designed to mitigate some of the common reading errors caused by dyslexia. The typeface was created by Abbie Gonzalez, who released it through an open-source license. The design is based on DejaVu Sans, also an open-source font.

TIL there's a dyslexic friendly font!

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

Isn't it funny how any proposal that would harm the interests of seniors is a third rail in US politics, but they can willingly fuck over our children?

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

I'm not a Rogan meathead, but women are absolutely super choosey these days. Dating apps have given women an inflated sense of their own (dating) worth, and they largely want tall, handsome, well-off, slightly older men.

Of course I'm painting with a broad brush here, but this post is talking in generalities anyway.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

If you're going to lock the country down then you need to support small businesses too. Imagine spending long nights building a business only to see it disappear under COVID restrictions. And then you learn that the restrictions weren't necessary.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

Masks are more effective in protecting others if you are sick, rather than protecting yourself if others are sick.

This was 100% not the messaging that was told to the public in the beginning.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

99% of medicine is throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.

Social distancing was an easy way to make it less likely to spread

I'm just going to keep copy and pasting in this thread: This was not communicated to the public in the beginning. Recommendations were stated definitively (i.e., without the qualification that we don't really know what to do yet) and then latter revised. This erodes public trust.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Holy shit, a reasonable comment that doesn't just assume the other half of the country are idiots.

People don't know what to believe and are skeptical for good reason (some historical, some present). Time and time again we've seen our institutions fails us. We see blatant corruption that the elites don't even bother to hide (e.g. corporate capture). And we see freedoms eroded in times of crisis (e.g. Patriot Act). I'm not saying we should be conspiratorial about doctors or science. But reasonable people on both sides of the aisle see what's happening to our institutions and this has knock on effects.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

Okay, what about when there is a lack of consensus? When you have scientists who, for example, argue that the virus came from the Wuhan lab whereas the narrative being told is that that's crazy. This is the problem I have with people in this thread assuming that everyone who isn't immediately on board is dumb, delusional, conspiratorial, etc. We're not talking about flat Earth theory here; it's not that simple.

balderdash9 , 2 months ago

iPad. Has lasted for years and other tablets don't seem competitive. I suppose this is the part where Lemmings try to convince me otherwise.