iNow

Will you please summarize the key points in the article and introduce what about it you wish to discuss with others here? Basically, help readers to follow along here without explicitly clicking the link, while also not treating thread forum as a blog?

You can’t kill hatred by killing the people who hate you, especially if you don’t simultaneously kill every single one of their children, family, friends, and sympathetic onlookers.

God of the gaps. Confused about something? That’s okay, Goddidit! Cant answer a question? That’s okay, Goddidit! Want your version of reality to feel more valid? That’s okay, Goddidit! Science closes more of those gaps everyday, and the spaces where “That’s okay, Goddidit!” remains in any way viable or satisfying continue shrinking toward zero.

Which is why we must focus so fiercely on avoiding them and ending them when for whatever reason we cannot

One of my professors used to say that all roads lead to thalamus. She obviously didn’t have a taste for the powers of the nose to smell out a shortcut.

Find the Speculations section. This is the pinned post at the top of it:

https://acikders.ankara.edu.tr/pluginfile.php/95402/mod_resource/content/1/The_Best_Short_Works_of_Mark_Twain_-_Mark_Twain.pdf

No true Scotsman. The bad faith persists… pun intended

What makes you think there’s any “center” at all? Why couldn’t it be like the universe itself which has no center? You keep claiming that you are compelled by evidence wherever it may lead, but you also appear to make multiple logical leaps and unfounded assumptions regarding spaces where there simply isn’t any. Anyway, why assume there’s a “center” we can point to and call it a mind? Why wouldn’t it be more like highway traffic that involves lots of cars and different movements of them? Have you already dismissed my recommendation of the cerebellum as the mostly likely answer if there is a center?

Unnecessary. Problematic works, too.

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-8/ “CO2 has its strongest heat-trapping band centred at a wavelength of 15 micrometres (millionths of a metre), with wings that spread out a few micrometres on either side. There are also many weaker absorption bands. As CO2 concentrations increase, the absorption at the centre of the strong band is already so intense that it plays little role in causing additional warming. However, more energy is absorbed in the weaker bands and in the wings of the strong band, causing the surface and lower atmosphere to warm further.“

Credit for that belongs with DrmDoc

Enough proselytizing and preaching from yet another gullible fool caught in a god fog.

I reject your framing of the question. Psychological differences are everywhere. They come from many sources. Biology, culture, parents, nutrition even. Since even identical twins have psychological differences, and even males have differences from other males / females have differences from other females, yes. You can also find differences between males and females… but are those just from society? The way parents buy dolls for girls and trucks for boys? The way the math teacher shows a soft bigotry of low expectations to girls in their classroom? Or is it biology… something about having that extra X chromosome or less testosterone that changes psychology… or is it a combination of those things? This isn’t math. Nobody can give you a simple answer and tell you 2+2 = 4. It’s far more complicated than that. If the world doesn’t fit neatly into your mental framework, the problem isn’t with the world. When people identify one way or the other, it’s usually because that’s what the doctor told them and what their parents and family and community have told them all their lives. When they reject that it’s generally because they feel differently from how they’ve been told to feel and they decided to do something about it. Each and every one of us has a slightly different version of what gender means to us. Sometimes 2+2=4, and other times 2+2= banana. Humans are weird.

Differences psychologically can be from, biology, upbringing, social norms and expectations, impact of puberty, etc. Since even two identical twin siblings will from each other, it’s not surprise than differences can be found across populations of males and females. What matters most is what you think and feel. Life becomes a lot less stressful when you stop worrying about what others think of you.

I see it more as an issue of identity. I may identify as a baseball player, or as an artist, or as a father. As I approach the world, I am just being myself as who I am. The world then tries to impose other labels on me. Those labels aren’t always ideal. Gender is more of a spectrum than a binary set of two, and sometimes trying to force ourselves into just one of those two buckets feels like smashing a square peg through a round hole. Likely in part due to how little gender matters when interacting online and how many hours of our existence are now spent online, more and more people are simply being authentic, less concerned about ostracization, and saying “I no longer feel like smashing myself every day to fit your arbitrary outdated shape.” So, maybe being born with a penis isn’t what makes the male, or being born with a vagina isn’t what makes the female. Maybe hormones are weird and not black and white. Maybe we can just start being ourselves as humans and stop giving a shit if someone else fits into MY rigid categories. Apologies if this isn’t the type of answer you’d hoped for. Definitions change all the time. What’s weird is how people seem to get so spun around the axle on this particular one.

I said try harder and you took that to mean I thought you were being too rough? I’m not sure what your problem is, but I bet it’s hard to pronounce.

Like the memories we form in the minds of those around us? The words which will live on in perpetuity on databases like this one? The furniture and similar woodwork I have scattered around my home and in the homes of loved ones received them as gifts? The way our cells will feed other life forms and transform into new life in other ways later? There are lots of ways we live on. Call it a soul or not, of course we’re more than just ourselves. We are the universe expressing itself as a human being for a little while. Recycling. Listen, man. Yours was great. I’m the one who just said recycling is a definition for soul.

You have literally less than zero credibility with me. You’ll need to try slightly harder than that. It’s also just pure wish thinking and refusal to accept the reality of death in our collective lifecycles.

Israel just had an oopsie and killed 3 of their own hostages. Hard to get the rest of the world to give you a mulligan on something like that. Expect heavy negotiations in Qatar over the weekend and amplification of international pressure until operational tactics change.

Amplified by the stunning abilities of AI that has come over the world like a wave this year… and the deep philosophical questions around being, existing, and trusting that’s generating. There are reasons so many people are thinking and talking about it.

I reckon that depends entirely on how one chooses to define soul I would have to agree with you. God is an invented narrative in your head. Sciences suggests you’ve made god in your image, not the other way around.

Why would you ask that flawed claims not be challenged and suggest some desire to learn what is "not right?" That's ridiculous. I feel this deeply right now.

So panpsychism, basically? Easy to do since a definition of mind is so arbitrary and so consistently conflated with self. That's not a definition, at least not one that anyone with any experience on this topic would willingly accept. The "substrate of mind" is a set of cells that behave in specific ways. Sub - Under, beneath, below... Strate - Material, surface, layer... these are useful concepts in construction, but not in definitions of intelligence (which are expressed behaviors and activities viewed from specific perspectives and with an overarching framework. Lol... now try definining living. Most consciousness chats on a science forum just waste time for page after page after page and go absolutely no where useful. --iNow's Law

It is if we're talking about the cause of behavior and actions. I may need you to elaborate here. They don't move backwards, they simply move in the same direction more slowly... in aggregate. Individual cars may temporarily change gears and and go in reverse, but the overall flow doesn't tend to reverse.