The hard problem

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There is some very interesting research on why we believe in God as well.

Andy Thomson - American Atheists 09

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I’m just waiting for some evidence of a god. That’s it. Do you have some? If not, then I don’t have reason to believe in a god.

Period. What’s so difficult to understand?

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Have you seen the trees?

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Yes! The trees are evidence of Quob! Didn’t you know?

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As he, she, it, created the universe and all contained within it… just like all the other omnipotent and omnipresent all powerful creator gods of the universe who all go down better with a dash of parmesan, I certainly agree.

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What, you think everything came from nothing?

Edit for nothing

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If we even mention or discuss “nothing”, then it is something. Even if it is an abstract concept, it now has properties.

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I’ve always wondered where in the hell this idea came from. Look. I have a pencil in my hand. It exists. The pencil is. How does the pencil become nothing? How do you get from something to nothing? We know for all intent and purpose existence is. Now, how in the hell do you get to ‘nothing’ from here? It’s just not possible.

I’ve already had someone try the ole anti-mater routine. It does not work. Antimatter exists. “When matter and antimatter collide, the particles destroy each other, with a huge energy release. Depending on the colliding particles, not only is there a great energy release, but new, different particles may also be produced (such as neutrinos and various flavours of quark – see figure below). These new particles will have a lower mass than those in the original collision, due to the law of conservation of energy and Einstein’s very famous equation E=mc2 – some of the energy goes into heat and light, some into forming the new particles.”

The only people I have ever seen arguing for ex nihilo, ‘from or out of nothing creation,’ are the theists, and even they have to insert their god in the blank to make things work out. How in the hell do you get to nothing?

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You don’t. I just feel overly rhetorical from time to time and cannot resist poking the bear…
I have never seen “nothing” demonstrated to exist. The concept is largely figurative, to illustrate a numerical non-existence of a known
thing, idea, person, whatever.
It is a grasping at straws by theists. By even suggesting the possibility of nothing, magic is smuggled in and we all know what comes next.
So be careful the next time you are inclined to say that you have nothing to say…

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Yes, of course. Nothing cannot exist because existence is the definition of “that which is not nothing”…

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Haha. Xtians can’t comprehend that Atheists believe in a lot of things. Just not their god and their hereafter.

Edit: hemorrhoids

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Sure, why not? I mean I don’t know what happened, but I’m not ruling that out.

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Because you have not shown it to even be a candidate explanation.

Not ruling it out is not the same as ruling it in.
Not to beat a dead horse here, but not being convinced of the existence of any gods is not the same as being convinced of the non- existences of gods.

Edit contraindications

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The probability for a state of a system to spontaneously tunnel to a different state, IF the conserved quantities are the same, is non-zero. A universe from nothing is possible within the current physic regime (violates no known laws of physics). Of course it doesn’t mean it actually happened that way; but serious papers are written on the subject.

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How the hell do you know THAT? For all you know, nothing could be standing right in front of you this very moment, and you would never see it. I know better, though. I see nothing all the time. For instance, my wife might hear a strange noise in our basement and ask me to go check it. So I carefully make my way downstairs to investigate. After checking everything, I go back upstairs and tell her, “It was nothing.” And how do I know it was nothing? Because as I looked around, there was nothing there to make the strange noise. I saw nothing. So, if nothing doesn’t exist, explain how I saw nothing in my basement. :triumph:

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You have a fucking weird basement if there is nothing there. How in the hell do you even know there is a basement, and where do you go if you step inside and if you are inside, how in the hell do you justify saying there is nothing there? You just aren’t making any sense.

At the bare minimum, you go to the door, you open the door, what’s on the other side of the basement door you just opened?

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I think the value of the “nothing” exercise lies in the profound absurdity of there being anything. Why not “nothing”? Why “something” instead of nothing? The moment you think you’ve wrapped your head around this question you dive into the profound weirdness of existence.

A vast, silent, unassuming ocean of nothing. Seems less complicated than “material existence”. But NOOOOOOOOO! Existence just had to stick its dick in the pudding and ruin it all for the rest of us.

Sartre would assert that “being-in-itself” is that very unassuming nothingness which we might expect from Mother Nature. And that “being-for-itself” was the “upsurge” of the in-itself attempting to establish “being-in-itself-for-itself”. Sartre explains that this attempt was a failure and that it only created a being which was not what it was and being which was what it was not.

consciousness, according to Sartre, is an empty nothingnesses on the face of a unknowable plethora. That we “know” existence is a freedom thrust upon us, such that we are forever destined unto death to peer upon this “reality” without ever actually understanding it. And that “reality” (one might say) has the similar predicament of not “being-FOR-itself” but being a being such that our being is mistaken.

Sartre also had a big penis which he would show off to the other men at the bathhouses in France. A POW in World War Two, Jean Paul Sartre was famous for “rallying the troops” with “jerk-tales” - seedy stories of lacidiousness aimed at helping the other men in the prison wank off from time to time. Sartre’s penis was so famous during his day that a golden cast was made of it. And it can still be seen today in the Louvre.

I comprehended nothingness and the absurdity of existence at a tender young age. Puberty is when my questions into existence started. I was also graced with similar thoughts of profundity. Why, on one occasion I comprehended the infinity of space. The hard problem is a “soft” one to me. It takes quite a lot of master debating to arouse my “intellectual” interests. These days, quite frankly, I’d rather spend my time and money on hookers and blow :snowman:.

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One assertion is as good as another when you are leaping to higher and higher abstractions to explain the already abstract. I once had a completely useless philosophy teacher that did the same shit. He had no ability at all to communicate anything in simple terms and every time one of the brighter students asked him a question, off he would go into deeper and more obtuse abstraction.

You have no idea at all what Sartre meant by ‘empty nothingness on the face of unknowable plethora.’ It’s an oxymoronic hunk of bullshit. The simple fact that it is unknowable demonstrates that he should not have used the idea in the first place.

A is A - Consciousness is consciousness. A is not B. Consciousness is not empty nothingness on the face of unknowable plethora until he can demonstrate an empty nothingness on the face of an unknowable plethora exists. It’s not even an option. So, one of you is wrong. You for misquoting Sartre or him for being a dumbass.

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Well, here we go off on a fucking wild-assed tangent. You’re welcome.
Yes, in your absurdly and narrowly defined terms, there is the hypothesis of possibility.
And in the most obtuse and extremely generous definition, some weak and fragile acceptance of such unproven nonsense may exist as well. How-fucking-ever, In my superior perspective, based in reality rather than “I just pulled this out of my ass and I am qualified by my many degrees pasted on my wall”, a candidate explanation for anything needs to be at least marginally demonstrable. Of course, as you belligerently and reluctantly would likely admit, this is not the case in this instance.
When that changes and can be clearly seen to be the case, I will be overjoyed to celebrate this literally earth shattering revelation. Until that time I will resume my personal practice of manifesting various material items through the exercise of muttering “abra-ca-fucking-dabra”…WOW, I just made an apple strudel for my breakfast! :grinning: (this violates no known laws of physics)…

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Well, being the kind, generous, magnanimous character that I am, it is with a heavy heart and great reluctance that I have to inform you of the facts of your own distorted view(s) of reality. What you perceive is is no way the “gold standard” of that which is observable.
Your obsequiousness for your wife has obviously distorted your ability to discern the difference between inobvious and non-existent. Your obsession of assuaging your mate’s trepidations regarding your lower residential spaces has allowed you to completely ignore the plethora of worthless items occupying the dark and dank interior, with the resultant declarations of “it’s nothing dear”…that old pile of mechanical items in the corner might in fact be a potential rival for your position as master of your domain…:robot:

Edit nuts and bolts

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