LastThursday

Taking your example of 52!, that's a big number. How is it even possible to sort a deck of cards in order, ace to king in each suit? Shouldn't it take the age of the universe? Of course not. You would use a procedure to sort the cards, something basic like if I see two cards out of order I swap them. Indeed it's possible to instruct a dumb computer on how to do this, it doesn't even take intelligence. What's happening is that with each step in the process, you're chopping away all the arrangements of cards that don't you don't care about. This reduces the probabilities with each step. And in the end you are certain to get to a sorted deck. Evolution uses a procedure but it's not a directed one. By directed I mean goal-oriented, evolution doesn't go to a destination. Evolution's procedure is simple: some organisms are more likely to re-produce than others. That's it. It relies on huge numbers to evolve organisms. You're talking potentially trillions of organisms over many millions or billions of years. That's a lot of chances to apply that simple procedure: those are the steps taking you to the top of Everest. Evolution doesn't care about complexity. The only organsims that stick around are the ones that reproduce (by applying the procedure). If organism A survives and organism B doesn't, it's because A was more suited to its environment. The differences in survival rate between A and B don't even have to be very different, over many generations organism A will outsurvive organism B. If organism A happens to be slightly more complex than organism B, then that complexity will carry on over into the next generation and stick around. In general, because surviving in an environment is super complex, the organisms that evolve also tend to be super complex. The complexity of organisms is just a reflection of the complexity of environments. The process of evolution (survival of the fittest), works on the whole organism not just on parts of it. It doesn't work on a flagellum in isolation from everything else, it works on the entire thing at once. That's why everything just works as part of a unified whole. It's a holistic process.

I'd start by asking the converse: does anyone have any evidence that Solipsism is true? In either case, you're not going to get the proof from someone else, especially if you believe in Solipsism.

Without time nothing gets done.

Ah, so you do find meaning in something. You're not an absolute nihilist yet. From a broad enough perspective, leaning on meaning to live your life is fraught. You can still chop wood and carry water even if it's meaningless.

Lot's of interesting and useful information about stress in this interview: The idea that stress can be catching is an eye-opener.

I feel kind of listless today. It's some combination of cabin fever (I work from home), not wanting to work (I haven't and the morning's nearly over), mildly sleep deprived (my sleep pattern has been drifting ever later), wanting to be anywhere but here and now, wanting to be someone else. It's making me feel combative and unable to put up with bullshit. It'll pass. I have a fantasy sometimes of being washed up on a desert island. The surroundings are beautiful, the sand soft, the weather clement. I learn to be self-sufficient, use my hands and body and wits to survive. There's plenty enough food. Sometimes the fantasy is to be alone, sometimes to share it with one other in some sort of adventurous beautiful union. I'd probably be the sort to go insane without realising it if I were by myself, I like solitude, but it doesn't like me. Part of the appeal is the shedding of all the weight of "stuff" in my life. So much stuff is needed to just stay alive, and to be some semblance of happy. I've always had a minimalist perspective on life, enthralled by the small but useful; the simple things. The problem with stuff is that it requires keeping track of, curating, thinking about, emotional investment and all that attachment. And so it is with people I find also. The introvert in me finds it all very tiresome. Yet I yearn for connection, and for intimacy, something sorely lacking in my life. The extravert in me is excited by people of all kinds, wanting to be part of a collective for a shared cause, sharing ideas and gratitude. I hear my being calling, but I choose to be deaf to it, for fear of all that it entails: the letting go of certainty, the potential of obligated commitment and the spectre of poverty in all its forms. I want to stop living inside my mind for just a month or a year or more, and just let reality take me over and to be fully connected with it. Another fantasy I have, is to live in a stone cottage on a dusty hillside, surrounded by orchards. Somewhere mediterranean. I want the smell of the herbs to fill the air, and to stroll out in the warm comforting mornings and suck in the beauty of my surroundings. Again, there's an air of solitude and quietude. And when needed I can call upon friends to gather and celebrate each other, and them me. Not just celebration however, working together, solving problems together, living together. I can sit and weep, thinking about where my life took wrong turns, and why my life is so disconnected from my fantasies or the vision of what I really want. I do, and I have. I'm listless because of it. I've tasted my collectivist fantasies, been part of a circle of intimate friends, sat on golden beaches all to myself, holidayed in stone cottages, been to orchards and olive groves. Those are all the places my fantasies came from. But I do know that this period of dessication and disconnection, has moulded me into someone more resilient, self-sufficient and wise. It was tough medicine to swallow, but it's made me nearly well enough to start another phase in my life. I'm listless because I should feel excited that I'm well, but all I feel is apprehension for abandoning the castle of comfort I've built up around me. I know within me, it's not time yet to leave. There's yet more medicine to take before I can do that. I thankful, I'm grateful.

Meaning is completely separate from the idea of dreaming. Labelling your life as a dream doesn't affect its meaning in any way. The whole point of the dream metaphor for life is to point to the idea that you could metaphorically "wake up". It's not to pretend that nothing matters or that your happiness is contingent on meaning - it doesn't have to be. Even if you did "wake up" you would still call it just a dream. Or as I prefer to call it: reality.

Occam's razor is very sharp, ouch. These two thoughts spring to mind: How often do you think of doing something, but your body doesn't do it? And yet the times when your body does do it, we "know" that we made it happen? How are the probabilities calculated so that we can prove confirmation bias? To do that you would need a large enough sample. Easy with cars, hard with random messages.

Many people are in your position. If you're an adult then you have to learn to support yourself eventually, that's part of being an adult. If you know your parents are unsupportive, then stop expecting it and give up on it. Of course you can. It's just paper. The university will most probably charge a fee for a replacement. You can try and contact their admin department on their website.

There seems to be two misconceptions about evolution that confuse people. One is tiny changes over time, the other is how much time is needed. The analogy is like climbing Mount Everest. It can seem incomprehensible how someone could get to the top, but all they do is put one foot in front of the other and take their time. What's lost to us is how those steps were taken, so a flagellum seems like a miracle. Sometimes evolution walks down the hill and organisms become simpler. Evolution doesn't have a destination. Intelligent Design makes it seem as if the destination has been reached and nothing more happens. But pandemics and flu viruses prove different. If there is a designer, then they sure are busy. But so what? As you say the real question is, what is all this and how did it get here or why? Evolution can't explain everything! Intelligent Design requires an intelligent designer, and then you have to explain how they were created and if they weren't, why are they there?.

My idea is different but the same: certain states of mind (consciousness) allow you to bend reality. In your case tripping may put you in that state. In my case it's a kind of "absentminded" state of being alert but not focused on anything. This is when the brain produces alpha waves. It's nearly like I can't force it because when I do, it breaks the state and it doesn't work.

It happens to me all the time. I'll find myself absentmindedly thinking about someone all day, and then bam! Before I realise, they contact me. It's so bad sometimes, that I force myself not to think too much about anyone in particular. Sometimes I like my peace.

Sure, PM me and let's discuss further.

You love doing nothing, and soon you'll love not doing nothing. At some point the scales will tip.

Da Vinci might be the archetype for polymathy, yes, but there are other ways to be a polymath. I just don't see that there has to be an a priori connection between IQ or talent and polymathy. We can all practise it if we want to, it's not an elitist activity. Like I said, people who are polymaths tend to be more intelligent precisely because they practise polymathy.

That's the real question. Reading faster won't get you there. What will get you there is contemplating death regularly, and using that to instill a focus and urgency about what you do want to spend your finite time reading and doing. Ask yourself, if I had one month to live, what would I be doing? If I had one week, then what? One day? And then go do those things, because those are the things you actually care about.

I wrote about it here, take from it what you will: TLDR: living a happy life is like good art, and you have to tap into your humanity. Happiness always starts with a choice.

Your message of understanding and accepting how others see the world is a great one to take on. My only quibble is that to know: you would have to step outside the dream. Until that happens, calling it all "a dream" has no practical or philosophical value (it isn't Truth) - other than to prime the mind into thinking it may be possible to step outside the dream. Calling reality a hallucination or delusion is disingenuous at best, and delusional itself at worst. This sort of talk may even encourage wreckless behaviour or a kind of mistrust of reality. This is everything, and that is absolute truth.

To sharpen my wits. As a source for ideas and things to think about. To stop myself going back to sleep. To gain insight about myself and others. To improve my writing skills. To connect, albeit in a very low effort way. To impart whatever wisdom I might have. To offload, open up and be brutally honest with myself. Distraction, stop boredom, nosiness etc. To make lists. What I try not to do: Get angry at the dickheads in the dating section. Get involved in meaningless to and fro. Virtue signal. Troll. Make lists.

That's good. You have to go beyond though. Resistance is not a thing, it's a process. For example in my case procrastination comes about because of rejection (i.e. the process of rejecting). I remember sitting in a chair probably less that two years old and my mum feeding me rice from a spoon. I remember becoming agited. My thought was: "Yes Mum I get it. Now I want to feed myself." But she kept on feeding me. Then I wanted get away, but I was trapped in my high chair. Most of the things I procrastinate about feel exactly like this. They are all things that other people impose on me - and I automatically want to reject it - and my only way of doing that is to do nothing. The above is just an example of the my process for procrastination. Your resistence is also a process and also probably tied to your past in different ways.

The world is heaven, hell and everything in between. There's physical hell, like poverty and hunger. There's mental hell like reliving past trauma or taking your thoughts as reality. When it comes to mental hell, there's a lot of things you can do to work towards heaven. If you live in mental heaven, then it becomes a lot easier to create physical heaven. But it works both ways, the physical and mental are strongly linked.

With defeatist thinking like that, you'll never be a polymath either. It's the other way round. Practising polymathy makes you more intelligent.

Interestingly, the Aquitani were situated where the Basque regions in Gallia and Hispania, sorry I mean France and Spain, are now. Thanks, I can't stop thinking about the Roman Empire now.

@DonaldJ welcome. You'll fit right in here.

Very good. But for a scientist that would explain nothing. Indeed if you're looking for any sort of answer, consciousness explains nothing at all.