This is a weird one, but Astepro nasal spray for allergies. The name brand is a little unpleasant to blast up my nose because of the smell/taste. But the off brand stuff is absolutely foul and bitter. I would get random whifs and drips of the nastiness in the back of my throat for an hour.

Like I said, humans have had a big impact on Earth. No argument there.

There were also thousands of homo erectus and homo habilis individuals that were clever enough to use tools and adapt to new environments. They’re a part of the process of coevolution between people and technology that we are still experiencing. That’s why we’re special, that process. The process will end at some point, and that’s ok.

There are people in this thread that think their lives are meaningless if they don’t leave some irreversible mark on the fabric of reality. I don’t think that’s a reasonable perspective. I prefer the perspective of an intelligent ape. Intelligent ape is excited about smartphones and antibiotics, even if the Earth is doomed to be swallowed by the sun.

It’s only depressing if you’ve convinced yourself that you’re something more than an intelligent ape.

If you think about it from the perspective of an animal that had no concept of time, space, ethics, or philosophy just a few hundred thousand years ago, then we’re actually pretty impressive.

We probably won’t have any significant effect on the galaxy, but we sure have an effect on Earth.

That was actually a pretty good prediction. They just didn’t account for one genius who revolutionized farming.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

I don’t think that means we must somehow use our current understanding of a thing to arrive at comforting explanations; instead, I think that this question in particular is forcing us to admit We Don’t Know.

Ok, obviously we don’t know the exact mechanism of consciousness and thoughts, no argument there.

You think the belief that my entire self is nothing but a gooey grey organ inside my skull that can be irrevocably damaged by slipping on the floor is comforting?!

Our current understanding of a thing is an interesting way to phrase this. I would argue that our current understanding of a thing is literally the only way we can meaningfully study something. We start with our best current model and go from there. Of course there are sometimes paradigm shifts and big discoveries that seem to come from nowhere, but those are rare, and generally still fit into a wider model for how the universe works. If you don’t understand how some function of the brain works, you shouldn’t jump to the assumption that biology can’t provide an answer. I’m not saying our neurons can’t be the receivers for some extra-dimensional consciousness radio, I’m just saying use Occam’s Razor.

You seem to be looking at the explanation of consciousness the way people looked at the explanation for the inheritance of traits from parents before we knew anything about genetics: a complete mystery. I think the current neuroscience on consciousness is closer to how we were dealing with genetics in the 40s: we knew there was genetic material, we were looking for it, we just didn’t know exactly what it was (DNA). The problem with consciousness is that it isn’t a single thing. It’s a process, so until we nail down every individual step of the process, there will always be people saying that the part we don’t understand yet is the part that can’t be explained by biology.

Have you seen/heard this? https://www.npr.org/2023/08/20/1194905143/how-the-brain-processes-music-with-a-little-help-from-pink-floyd

when you try to find the thing that experiences reality, what do you think you’ll find?

Grey goo, a network of neurons, a brain. You can literally inject chemicals into your body that change your emotions and consciousness. Physical things can interrupt my consciousness, so why would you assume consciousness is not a physical phenomenon?

When I look through a microscope, photons go through the lens of the microscope, then similarly go through the lens of my eye. My retina absorbs those photons and translates them into action potentials a.k.a. chemical/electrical signals. Those action potentials reach my occipital lobe (going through some synapses as purely chemical signals) where they interact with other action potentials from other parts of my brain, and I have the experience of seeing an image.

If my occipital is not the final destination of these signals, then what is? Where does the information go after it’s processed by my brain?

Trying to nail it all down (at this point) to biology+physics+whatever

If the stuff happening inside your body can’t be “nailed down” by biology+physics+whatever, then you’re talking about magic whether or not you call it magic.

“What is the brain the substrate for?” Is not a good question to ask because it assumes there is some unknown invisible force acting on the neurons in our heads. Neurons come from an egg fertilized by a sperm, just like every other cell.

Should we ask what the balls are a substrate for, since they are creating the sperm that will one day have consciousness?

(PS thank you for the discussion. It’s all in fun and I think this is genuinely interesting.)

Ah, but is a pressure wave propagating through air truly a sound if it does not interact with something that can hear? Or is it just the movement of air???

LoL, I’m sorry I couldn’t help myself.

What exactly is the brain the substrate for? All evidence up to this point indicates that the brain is the thing doing the thinking and feeling.

Without some seriously compelling evidence to the contrary, I’m going to assume you’re talking about a soul or some other supernatural idea.

In your example of the guitarist, where would you say musicality actually comes from? I would say the brain, because there is plenty of evidence that brains exist and can be creative.

Is your point that memory, emotions, and sensory input don’t have anything to do with consciousness?

What exactly is consciousness doing without sensory input to process and memory to give those inputs context?

Why do you think “awareness” of sights and sounds is separate from the parts of the brain that process those sights and sounds?

We can’t rule out something as impossible just because we haven’t observed it yet, as it would directly contradict the scientific method

Figuring out what’s possible versus impossible isn’t really part of the scientific method. The scientific method is about collecting and interpreting evidence. Where is the evidence that particles are conscious?

Until there is a testable hypothesis, panpsychism doesn’t have anything to do with science.

Others in this thread have already explained that consciousness doesn’t play any role in the double slit experiment. I definitely understand your confusion there. I believed the same thing at one point. It doesn’t help that some people purposely spread that false interpretation of the experiment because it’s more interesting than reality.

No, it’s not. Next question…

Seriously though, doesn’t basically every experiment in brain surgery and neuroscience disprove this idea? We know how different structures in the brain contribute to consciousness. We can’t explain the mechanism 100%, but that doesn’t mean that every piece of matter secretly has some consciousness embedded in it. It’s God of the Gaps nonsense.

I’m not against posting stuff like this. Obviously serious people take this idea seriously. Just none of the people taking it seriously study brains.

No, the government generally has a plan and definite budget for their money, which includes social programs and infrastructure. You can debate about how good it is, but at least it’s there.

Giving money to a charity directly controlled by them (or their kids, or one of their billionaire friends) might just make that money disappear.

When I first saw this post, I confused this game with Messiah, a different, much funnier, game about an angel.

I played them around the same time and remember having fun with both.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_(video_game)

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“any good cop deciding not to be a cop…”

What the hell makes you think this hasn’t already been happening for years? Any cop that doesn’t fall in line with the coverups is fired or, rarely, murdered.

At this point, I barely consider Andor to be “Star Wars”. It’s so far outside the normal shitty formula. There are like 19 real “Star Wars” shows on Disney+, and Andor just happens to share the same influences.

Yeah, but how often did Bernie himself repeat those conspiracy theories? Did he ever try to violently overturn the Democratic primary results? Every popular person has some shitty supporters, so you can’t just judge people based on their supporters.

Yeah, but how often did Bernie himself repeat those conspiracy theories? Did he ever try to violently overturn the Democratic primary results? Every popular person has some shitty supporters, so you can’t just judge people based on their supporters.

No, you did not bring up a “mens issue”.

You said “historically, shit sucks for men.” That’s such a broad statement that it’s nearly meaningless.

Saying that men could at least vote, historically, is a concrete example where your statement doesn’t apply. Do you have any concrete examples to serve as a counterpoint? I know those examples exist, but you just gave up on the conversation.