Carl-Richard

And some New Agers prefer distracting themselves with ideas like "community doesn't matter".

You became New Age, is what happened 😆 And I'm being serious.

Schizo poster

These are super famous people that appeal to the lowest common denominator of young people. It's like super famous sports stars meeting the president. Not surprising.

So I play Oldschool RuneScape sometimes, and today I lost a lot of money in a highly unexpected way (I was in Bounty Hunter and got killed by poison in the "safe zone" just after removing my Protect Item prayer). My first response was to buy back the lost money using the bond system (for real life money), because I thought that wasn't supposed to be possible (I thought it was a safe zone; turns out it wasn't). I have in good conscience bought bonds one time before when I died because my game client froze, but then it was due to a bug. Now it was due to a lack of game knowledge or skill, which doesn't seem like a good reason. I've decided over the years that buying bonds generally ruins the sense of purpose of the game, and doing it for bugs seems like the only exception. So I decided to spend the money on a good old-fashioned drop party (dropping items for people to pick up, generally in competition with other people). But of course, this begs the question: does a drop party ruin the sense of purpose for the people involved? This thought sat in my mind, and I decided to have the drop party in a place where I saw mainly decently wealthy people just hanging out. Maybe picking up the items won't change much for them. What I was mainly concerned about was having a new player 100x their bank and completely warp their experience of the game. So maybe if the gains are minimal, like in the 0.01-0.10x range, maybe that's less problematic. Maybe it could even enhance their sense of purpose, motivating them to pursue the next micro-step in their natural progression of the game. Besides, drop parties are exciting and an integral part of the OSRS experience, which itself gives meaning and purpose. So maybe the most ethical way to do drop parties would be to scale the gains relative to the people attending, in a way that pushes their progression just a tiny step forward and in a way that doesn't invalidate the preceding or future progression. So that means a drop party for example in W301 Lumbridge should include at most high-end bronze or low-end iron items as an example. Anyways, I partly regret the drop party because it had one item that was much more valuable than the others, and there was a chance that a noob would get it. That didn't turn out to be the case; it was a bot that that sits at Grand Exchange picking up items that got it (gratz on 10m bud); but there was a non-zero chance for a noob to get it, so it was not ethically optimal, but hey, it's only a game (which is what life is anyway ).

My guy, Trump has never and will probably never know who Leo is, ever.

The guitar solo played by the horns is it.

Haha, I've actually planned to create some YouTube videos going forward, spending parts of my sundays on that. It will involve probably some OSRS but mainly psychology, spirituality, science, philosophy, music covers and original music. When I was 10 or so, I asked my dad to buy me a license for an editing software that he used professionally to make videos, and he promised to give me it but never gave it (same for when I asked for double-bass pedals for my drum set, but that's a different story). Ever since that age, I wanted to make videos, and it has stuck with me as a shadow desire until this day. A few days ago, I revisited a video I made when I was 11 (over 15 years ago): It's simple and to the point, as you would expect from a 11 year old, but the potential was definitely there. When I looked at the date and realized I was only 11 when I made it, I was stunned for a good 5 minutes. The "what if" questions that popped into my head about where I would be in an alternate timeline, boggle my mind. Same with my passion for music and 15 year long guitar habit; the uncountable number of small audio recordings and the desire to create my own songs; the "what ifs" have kept bothering me for years. Also, my more left-brain zany side needs an outlet for more creative writing that I don't fully get in academia (and I already have pages upon pages of such writing from bookmarked forum posts and threads ready to be packaged into video format). This part is not just about mere self-expression either: it's to share what has been most impactful in my life and what I believe is of value to other people and is most meaningful (and a different angle on the same project that I want my academic work to be). So I thought where can I give all of that an outlet? And the answer is obviously developing my YouTube channel on my free time. And I've finally become principled enough to allow myself one free day where I am completely free to pursue whatever I want, so even if it moves slower than the continents, I will put something out there on that channel. And what better time to get started with this than in the age of AI-powered content? I will also revamp the stylistic design along the lines of my profile design on this forum. @integral It might be counting butterflies to explain the storm, but I think your albeit ironic but incessant suggestions over the times has helped steer me in this direction, and I thank you for that.

@Nilsi I have sort of a viral infection which makes music sounds funky to me, so I would have to come back to that on a later date. But it does sound like something I could probably appreciate.

Not really. You gave a different definition of truth, steering the conversation away from the original topic.

@Mafortu I've watched some MrGirl content over the years, and while he is definitely intellectually interesting, his personality and the way he chooses to conduct himself could be described as predatory.

I do think materialism has quite a few negative side effects, but I see this more having to do with the confusion around consciousness rather than life. What do we gain by redefining life that we don't gain by redefining consciousness?

Then why is your petition about plants and not humans?

How can you seriously suggest that? 😵‍💫

It certainly doesn't hurt to understand the character from a Tier 2 perspective, but unless the director wants to explicitly communicate that understanding, it's not necessary.

I don't see how that is relevant. The act of naming things or drawing distinctions is not scientific. It can be inspired by scientific observations, but the decision to assign a name to something is not scientific. Likewise, naming something life vs. non-life is not scientific. I wasn't talking about causality. I used the word "associated", which is compatible with "correlation". And I don't think you're mad: I actually agree with you. But again, I don't see how that is relevant. Well, like I said above, "life" is also a construct of language. I don't see how that is relevant. If life is beyond language and all forms in the universe, then why are you drawing firm linguistic distinctions between which forms in the universe count as life and which don't (some animals = life; plants ≠ life)? Sure, but how is that relevant to the discussion about naming plants as non-life? I don't consider you crazy, but I don't think you are particularly good at saying things that are relevant to the discussion, but that is also just my limited experience talking to you.

Green 90s Technical Death Metal 🤭

In that case, you'll notice that your experience doesn't merely consist of single sense perceptions arising independently but rather a cohesive experience of being an organism; of seeking certain things and avoiding others, of maintaining your bodily boundary; of generally pursuing survival. This sense of being an organism probably goes way deeper than merely having a few seemingly complex sense organs (eyes with a lens, nose with nostrils, ears, etc.). You could probably stretch it as far down as unicellular organisms. Complex sense organs might produce "richer" experiences, but simpler ones might still produce experiences nonetheless. Also, some of our sense organs are arguably not that complex. For example, the sense of taste is merely chemicals binding to receptors. It's simple and "mechanical" like photoreceptors in plants (or mechanoreceptors in the skin and musclefibres). They are still associated with specific experiences. "But they're linked to a complex nervous system". Maybe, but that complex nervous system is also linked to a complex body. Which one is more complex? Obviousy the body is already extremely complex, with or without a nervous system (even a single cell is). While it's true that some of our (gross) experiences seem to correlate strongly with our nervous system, the nervous system obviously interacts with and is integrated with various other systems in the body (hormonal systems, the digestive system, various organ systems). When these systems change, our experience changes accordingly. Thus, in a very real sense, the systems themselves are our senses (or their own form of sense organs), as reflected in our experience. For example, you can feel the difference in your experience after eating an apple vs. eating a steak, as subtle as it might be. So which is more likely to come first: experiences associated with changes in bodily systems, or experiences associated with changes in very specific bodily systems? So in summary, I think to single out specific components like specific configurations of sense organs or specific bodily systems like neuronal systems misses the bigger picture of the unitary organism working with processes like homeostasis and metabolism to produce an unitary experience of being an organism.

How similar must the sense organs be? For example, plants have photoreceptors. What about unicellular lifeforms? After all, plants evolved from them.

Life is a very vague word. I asked a sincere question: why is your petition not about fungi?

What about fungi? Metabolism is a good definition of life.

Usually with prog rock songs, even if they're sonically varied, you can feel a sense a cohesion throughout the song. This song is just straight up 10 genres/styles in the same song. It's so interesting, I've never heard it being taken to this extreme before. It like turns into its own thing. And somehow it's still quintessentially Haken. It goes from some kind of classical/proggy intro, to Gentle Giant, to Avenged Sevenfold, to some industrial sound, to Queen?! And on and on... Just listen :

My guy, that was 2 months ago. Is that also the Mandela effect?

You took LSD while going to sleep again?

Wtf