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Cameron
Too Many Words
Registered: 10/31/07
Posts: 4,437
Loc: Canada
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Ahimsa] 1
#8763153 - 08/12/08 02:47 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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You've got to go see Steve in accounting. He'll know.
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,024
Loc: the sky
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Terrapin78]
#8763168 - 08/12/08 02:51 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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Ahimsa
µdose
Registered: 01/11/07
Posts: 1,827
Last seen: 4 years, 3 months
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Terrapin78]
#8763170 - 08/12/08 02:52 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Ok. How do i get in contact with the man?
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WhiskeyClone
Not here
Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Shroomism]
#8763205 - 08/12/08 02:59 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I guess I am a Shroomist too
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Azen
Legalize ALL!
Registered: 10/04/05
Posts: 309
Loc: Seattle, Wa
Last seen: 10 years, 6 months
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Terrapin78]
#8763214 - 08/12/08 03:02 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Agnostic. Religious people scare me, believers don't.
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Ahimsa
µdose
Registered: 01/11/07
Posts: 1,827
Last seen: 4 years, 3 months
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Terrapin78]
#8763235 - 08/12/08 03:06 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Isn't your agnosticism a religion too? You have your believes, maybe you scare believers of religion! Maybe you'd scare yourself one day... lol. Then you go walking around saying i don't believe believing that i don't believe believing... crazy. I don't think that what we truly are is either believer nor non-believer. We made that. It wasn't there since the beginning. Was it? Damn.
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 11,529
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Ahimsa]
#8763369 - 08/12/08 03:41 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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-------------------- Discuss Politics
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Quarryman
Stranger
Registered: 07/29/07
Posts: 806
Loc: Tennessee
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: JRichter420]
#8763403 - 08/12/08 03:55 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
JRichter420 said:
Quote:
what religion do you associate with
none because they are all bullshit. did you ever wonder why so many different gods share the exact same characteristics? just a mighty coincendece eh?
That's why I like them all.
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sam420
CertifiedReptilianOverlord
Registered: 01/14/05
Posts: 3,144
Loc: Scotland
Last seen: 8 years, 6 months
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Cameron]
#8763491 - 08/12/08 04:17 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Cameron said:
Quote:
I believe that free will is ultimately an illusion.
After reading that, I suddenly felt obliged to stand, yank my pantaloons to my ankles, and do a little jig. I can't believe this is what fate had in store for me.
You're oversimplifying or not understanding the issue here. I believe that the illusion of free will is real to us but i said ultimately because TRUE free will is a concept without any proof whatsoever.
If you will allow me to explain myself by stating some facts, then you could attempt to dispute any one of these...
Fact 1) We are physical beings, made up of atoms and atoms alone.
Fact 2) Molecules behave according to simple physical laws. Each and every single interaction between 2 molecules has a pre-defined result. Chemicals do not 'think'.
Fact 3) The exception to this is of course quantum unpredictability, but here instead of certain results of atomic interaction, you have probabalistic results.
Fact 4) Our conciousness is the result and some would say by-product of billions of years of evolution. We are vast chemical machines. There are no words to describe how complex our brains are.
Fact 5) Our personalities can be drastically altered through physical means such as chemical, magnetism, brain surgury, and changing environmental stimuli.
Attributing any magical essence or soul to ourselves is a massive UNDER-APPRECIATION of the ridiculous level of complexity of all life and the sheer drive and power of evolution.
Free-will has troubled philosophers and scientists for generations and so far nobody has found an adequate explanation for free will. In fact there are experiments that claim to 'proove' the opposite.
I wonder if you realise that when you have a 'single thought', this is the result of a probabalistic wave-collapse of many competing thoughts that simultaneously fire across your brain. It is like a rapid 'war of neurons'. Your conciousness competes with itself. You ever see somebody tricked through subconcious suggestion? You can make somebody make a completely 'free' choice to do something if you plant the seed in their subconcious without them even realising it. It seeps through and you make the choice because it 'feels right'.
Your brain grows based on it's outside stimulus, ie, perception, which includes living and non-living things all obeying the same laws deep down.
HOWEVER, you did a jig, and you chose to do it. While I hope to have explained why I believe this was ultimately a result of unconcious forces, at the same time the illusion is completely real to us as human beings. Which perhaps makes it real. But not really :P
Now that I've presented my side of the coin, care to discuss?
-------------------- i'm a spy huntin rap dinosaur from the future
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Cameron
Too Many Words
Registered: 10/31/07
Posts: 4,437
Loc: Canada
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: sam420]
#8764173 - 08/12/08 06:10 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I was just being silly. I agree with your logic, though I doubt our current understanding of human consciousness adequately explains the intricacies of thought process. Our decisions are definitely dependent on previous stimuli, which were determined by further previous stimuli, and all the way back to conception. At this moment I have an almost endless array of choices from dancing naked in my living room to leaping in front of a speeding train. I can traverse any path I choose, and although my decision may ultimately rely on subconscious factors beyond 'my' conscious control, as long as I have the freedom to choose, I say: what's the difference?
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DieCommie
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Terrapin78]
#8764247 - 08/12/08 06:21 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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.
Edited by DieCommie (01/27/14 07:02 PM)
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Prisoner#1
Even Dumber ThanAdvertized!
Registered: 01/22/03
Posts: 193,665
Loc: Pvt. Pubfag NutSuck
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Terrapin78]
#8764306 - 08/12/08 06:34 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Terrapin78 said: i am pagan. what are you?
I dont believe in religion, it's the bane of mans existence while they believe it's their salvation, if I were to label my beliefs I'd have to say Hedonist with a heavy Dobbsian influence
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Quarryman
Stranger
Registered: 07/29/07
Posts: 806
Loc: Tennessee
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Prisoner#1]
#8764313 - 08/12/08 06:35 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I got my slack back!
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sam420
CertifiedReptilianOverlord
Registered: 01/14/05
Posts: 3,144
Loc: Scotland
Last seen: 8 years, 6 months
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: DieCommie]
#8766246 - 08/13/08 01:16 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said: I made a post about free will here [url=/forums/showflat.php/Number/8670135#Post8670135 ]http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/8670135#Post8670135 [/url]; Its a little thick, but I think its real good stuff!
"I wont consider humans here, only free will in general. Consider emergent properties…
Emergent properties arise in complex systems when the complexity of the system reaches a point where properties emerge out that are completely different than the properties of the individual constituents. This happens in many disciplines. Art for example, a painting is just a bunch of paint molecules and parchment, but when arranged in a particular complex configuration ‘new’ properties emerge out of the painting. Feelings, emotions, lust all can emerge out of a complex arrangement of atoms. These properties cannot be determined at all by studying the individual atoms.
Emergent properties exist in science as well. There are however two different kinds of emergence, strong and weak. Weak emergence occurs when the properties that emerge out of a complex system can be had by studying the individual components. Heat is an example. For an individual atom the concept of heat has no meaning, but when you have a complex system of atoms the property of heat emerges out. Now if we knew the velocity and mass of every particle in the system we could, theoretically, determine the temperature of the system (but its easier to just use a thermometer). Strong emergence is when the properties that emerge out of a system cannot be determined from the basic constituents. Now it could be that this is a fundamental barrier that humans cant cross, we can never tie properties that emerge out of some complex systems to the basic constituent. Or perhaps we simply don’t have the theory and means to connect the emergent properties to basic interactions, but theoretically we could. One of these must be true, and there is no concrete evidence to discount either of them. Physicists, for the most part, are reductionists. They tend to think that all properties can be tied to the basic interactions of the systems constituents. Explanations of physical phenomenon tend to point downward. This is a compelling argument because huge amounts of day to day phenomenon have been explained by looking ‘downward’ and studying individual constituents.
Life however has resisted this reductionism. You cannot explain all the properties of life by looking at atoms, elementary particles, etc. Life/Biology must be studied with an ad hoc point of view. Biologists shy away from reductionism and embrace studying emergent properties at a high level without appealing to basic constituents. Maybe life can never be explained by knowing all the basic constituents; maybe the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If that is the case then strong emergence does in fact exist.
So what if strong emergence exists? What does that have to do with free will? Well assume properties can emerge out of complex systems, then you cannot reduce the phenomenon of life or consciousness to the sum of individual constituents. So can properties that emerge out of complex systems (of which consciousness is an example) have an effect on the basic constituents? This is a radical idea. Normally one thinks that causation comes from the ‘bottom up’. That is, elementary particles make atoms, which make molecules, then on to cells, organs, organisms, communities, societies and so forth. The normal logic is that actions that occur within a society depend 100% on the elementary particles that make up the society (the basic constituents). Can a society, or any member in that chain act ‘downward’? That is, can the actions of the society or person (the strong emergent property) have a causal effect on elementary particles? The assumption is no. But that is just an assumption, there is no evidence that all causes happen at the ‘bottom’ and all effects happen at the ‘top’. Top down causality is highly non-intuitive and almost magical. Somehow properties arise from complex systems which are so strongly emergent they not only cannot be explained by their basic constituents, they can have a causal effect on their basic constituents!
There is plenty of evidence that basic constituents can have a causal effect on the system, however the jury is still out on the contrary. The universe behaves in a highly non-intuitive way, so it would be erroneous to use our intuition to try to explain the nature of causation.
If you believe in free will however, you must in turn believe in strong emergent properties with downward causation. Otherwise you are a reductionist and the evidence of upward causation implies that free will cannot exist.
I am on the fence on the issue and await more evidence. I think it is premature to claim that all causation comes from the bottom up, we just dont know."
"
Interesting stuff man. I've never thought about that before. I'll have to brood on it for a while :P. Great post, thanks
-------------------- i'm a spy huntin rap dinosaur from the future
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sam420
CertifiedReptilianOverlord
Registered: 01/14/05
Posts: 3,144
Loc: Scotland
Last seen: 8 years, 6 months
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Cameron]
#8766249 - 08/13/08 01:16 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Cameron said: I was just being silly. I agree with your logic, though I doubt our current understanding of human consciousness adequately explains the intricacies of thought process. Our decisions are definitely dependent on previous stimuli, which were determined by further previous stimuli, and all the way back to conception. At this moment I have an almost endless array of choices from dancing naked in my living room to leaping in front of a speeding train. I can traverse any path I choose, and although my decision may ultimately rely on subconscious factors beyond 'my' conscious control, as long as I have the freedom to choose, I say: what's the difference?
lol, there is no difference
-------------------- i'm a spy huntin rap dinosaur from the future
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Ima Trooper
Chilldog Extraordinaire
Registered: 02/21/08
Posts: 13,535
Loc: United States
Last seen: 2 days, 14 hours
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: blkjkrabbit] 1
#8766261 - 08/13/08 01:21 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'm a frisbeeterian. We believe when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and you can't get it down.
-------------------- "Its moving of its own accord...and I like that in a shirt!" - Me, tripping. deCypher said: Schizophrenia beats dining alone, you know.
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PsilocybinLuvin
PsilocybinLuvin
Registered: 08/10/08
Posts: 258
Loc: marijuanaville
Last seen: 15 years, 3 months
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Re: what religion do you associate with [Re: Ima Trooper]
#8767547 - 08/13/08 11:20 AM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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-------------------- Today young men on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.
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