@Posted by: kana | Mar 5 2025 17:34 utc | 1
Classic post-modernist new age garbage which is simply a regression to the mystical religious thinking of the Middle Ages.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 5 2025 17:44 utc | 4

Posted by: kana | Mar 5 2025 17:34 utc | 1 This is nonsense. Infants don’t think, as everyone can testify that they don’t remember being an infant. That’s because their brains are required for thinking. Brain damage and brain death stops thinking, which proves the need for a brain to think. One desperate expedient is for some mystics is to claim the brain is a receiver for inputs from a nonmaterial entity (usually unnamed, as saying soul is too nakedly religious.) The thing is, sensory input is required for thinking (dreams are not rational because they lack sensory input.) Brains do not rely on nonmaterial entities giving them information. And if the brain is required to send information to the nonmaterial entity, how could they do that except by being somehow nonmaterial in themselves? Worse for your ilk, there is no trace of any special receptors or transmitters for this hypothetical relationship between an unobservable nonmaterial entity.
It is arbitrary to draw a distinction between the self and the brain. Indeed, it is arbitrary to distinguish the self from the entire body, of which the brain is merely a part. No one is aware of what their liver is doing in the normal course of events. It is no more sensible to expect our consciousness to include what happens inside the skull, as if it were some separate realm.
@4 however is wrong in attributing this thinking to the Middle Ages, as if it somehow died off. As to whether something called post-modernism somehow revived it? I am doubtful. My impression is that post-modernism is more concerned to attribute everything social to individual acts of will, with no analysis at all of the mind…except to imply that such questions are in themselves violations of human autonomy. But true experts on post-modernism are invited to correct this impression. I have to admit I tend to think the term post-modernism could just as well be replaced with post-Marxism, with a tacit implication that means anti-Marxism. In the worst cases, the Marxism is an invidious synonym for good old-fashioned materialism.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 5 2025 18:10 utc | 6

The Joint Session was more like a Pep Rally. There’s no comparison between Putin’s 2024 Leap Day Address to the Federal Assembly just prior to Russia’s election and last night’s performance by Trump. Here’s Putin’s opening paragraph:
“Each Message to the Federal Assembly is primarily a look into the future. And today we will talk not only about our immediate plans, but also about strategic tasks, about those issues that I consider fundamentally important for the confident, long-term development of the country.” https://karlof1.substack.com/p/leap-day-putins-address-to-the-federal
Here’s Trump’s 3rd paragraph:
“I return to this chamber tonight to report that America’s momentum is back. Our spirit is back. Our pride is back. Our confidence is back. And the American dream is surging — bigger and better than ever before. The American dream is unstoppable, and our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and perhaps will never witness again. Never been anything like it.” https://archive.ph/rGvRz#selection-887.0-887.408
The links to both transcripts are provided so readers can discover for themselves which is propaganda and which is concrete proposals and planning.
Current polling shows an even split approval/disapproval with about 4% undecided. The term tariff was mentioned 18 times, tax 20 times. Trump said his first term’s economic performance was “the most successful economy in the history of our country,” which begs fact-chacking. Trump did say this about tariffs:
“Whatever they tax us, we will tax them.”
That shows he doesn’t understand how tariffs work–a clear confession. Trump made it clear that his MAGA is centered on the revitalization of the MIC beginning with revamping Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense program:
“We want to be protected, and we are going to protect our citizens like never before. To boost our defense industrial base we are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding. And for that purpose, I am announcing tonight that we will create a new office of shipbuilding in the White House that offers special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America where it belongs. We used it to make so many ships. We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.”
I’ll end with that.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 5 2025 18:39 utc | 8

Posted by: kana | Mar 5 2025 17:34 utc | 1
You can always transfer $500 to my bank account and I will connect you with my guru, just let me know. For $100 bucks extra you’ll also get a shirt and a certificate. Take care and stay away from bridges – Gurus are way better!

Posted by: Zet | Mar 5 2025 18:45 utc | 10

Elon Musk is the Reason Social Security is “Running Out of Money”
Here
https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/elon-musk-is-the-reason-social-security
A brilliant explainer that ignores the Keystrokes and concentrates on what really matters – skills and real resources.
In short – When people retire
a) Are there enough people still working
b) Are the people who are still working productive enough..
To provide all the goods and services for EVERYBODY. Those working and those who are retired. So that these 2 groups of people don’t compete over goods and services and thus push prices up.
As Alan Greenspan stated under oath in 1983
Here:
https://www.c-span.org/clip/house-committee/user-clip-alan-greenspan-answers-paul-ryan/4923562
When Paul Ryan was trying to claim social security was bankrupt and should be privatised..suprise, suprise. Ryan tried to claim the government has run out of keystrokes using his gold standard, fixed exchange rate type lens.
Of course it is never about the Keystrokes and ALWAYS about skills and real resources.
What’s really important to add to this as well is of course imports. That improve everybody’s standard of living. The goods and services foreigners provide to both workers and the retired.
Very roughly, and just to make the point, the approximately $1 trillion trade deficit translates into over 150 million non-residents, which is far more than the US domestic workforce, working full time to net supply America with goods and services.
Helps to stop the retired and the workers from competing with each other for goods and services and thus pushing up prices.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 5 2025 18:49 utc | 12

But ideologues always make it about money.
Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 5 2025 18:56 utc | 13
—
Economics is the science that explains the distribution of superyachts.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 5 2025 18:59 utc | 14

An admission – that the German car industry has been badly damaged, due to Germany’s stance against Russia.
“German carmakers have lost all their previously gained positions in the Russian market, having voluntarily ceded their place to companies from China.
This opinion was expressed by former Austrian Foreign Minister and head of the G.O.R.K.I. Centre at St. Petersburg State University Karin Kneissl in an interview with the media. She believes that the future of the German car industry in Russia now looks vague due to many factors.
The former minister pointed out that as a result, the Chinese car industry has received a strong impetus, while the ‘German automotive tri0’ is in a deep crisis. And is on its way to losing market share in the PRC itself.
‘Demand for expensive German cars will remain niche – for a narrow group of people who see them as a status symbol. And mass demand will go to other car companies,’ Kneissl stated.
At the same time, she expressed confidence that the return of some German companies to the Russian market will not be able to solve their problems.
Earlier, Karin Kneissl said that Russia had won its special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine despite the interference of Western countries in the armed conflict.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Mar 5 2025 19:10 utc | 16

Digg is resurrecting itself.
It’s the second time around with a comments section.
The comments section will be AI monitored
which should be interesting.
How can one say Genociders that isn’t filtered by an algorithm?

Posted by: librul | Mar 5 2025 19:27 utc | 18

Judge Nap has been unpluged. There is a short video on his yt channel and no interview for today.

Posted by: Tom | Mar 5 2025 19:29 utc | 20

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 5 2025 17:44 utc | 4
You are killing the messenger. Kana’s objections are very valid.
Faculties such as intelligence and memory are spiritual. They are part of the human soul. The brain alone would not have sufficient memory capacity and energy to process all the infinite reality that the senses capture. To deny that is to blot out the sun with one hand.

Posted by: Roberto | Mar 5 2025 19:42 utc | 22

@ Roberto | Mar 5 2025 19:42 utc | 22 who wrote
”
Faculties such as intelligence and memory are spiritual. They are part of the human soul.
”
I find your musings way off reality but it seems your faith is strong. I don’t expect much of your myth to find resonance here.
I would offer to buy you a drink at our bar but perhaps you are have already overindulged.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 5 2025 19:54 utc | 24

[in reply to comment No.1] Classic post-modernist new age garbage which is simply a regression to the mystical religious thinking of the Middle Ages.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Mar 5 2025 17:44 utc | 4

ugh.

Infants don’t think, as everyone can testify that they don’t remember being an infant […]
It is arbitrary to draw a distinction between the self and the brain.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 5 2025 18:10 utc | 6

yikes.
_________________________
I, persiflo, herewith posit that this statement from comment No.1 is true:

There is no explanatory power in saying neural activity or a black box.

and threaten everyone with a repeat of the “Heidegger Debate” we all enjoyed in the summer of 2023.
Why do they answer like that?
I find it comically ironical that it’s the Marxists of all people who refute the argument given in the article linked at comment No.1, which states that the reason is because of the funds involved, claimed to be driving science.
Skipping all of the debate above, here is another argument: it’s surely on the materialists to demonstrate their hypothesis; if even on a simple yet revealing example, like any number of qualia (like red, hot, sweet, soft, etc). If they can’t, then theirs must remain but a formal hypothesis; as opposed to an actual, indubitable fact that all reality relies on matter as a first principle. Such is still only by virtue of deduction! – and to go on here, it’s not even clear what “matter” is supposed to mean, to say nothing of to be, when you zoom down to look at the quantum level.
It’s interesting to note that, contrary to claims made above by Mr. johnson, there is also a working theory of the coupling principle between the Cartesian realms of notion and physis. It works by claiming that the statistical nature of quantum mechanical wave collapsing is subtly influenced by willful focus, and this signal gets amplified to macroscopic levels. The idea is by Roger Penrose, who suggested the Microtubuli within our cells are involved as the amplifying mechanism. He gave up on the idea, but reading the paper I’m not so sure he didn’t stumble over his own metaphysical prejudices there.
I don’t remember the name of the original researcher into birth traumata now, but it’s a fascinating topic. A US-American psychologist, first research ca. 1980. Just because steven doesn’t remember, doesn’t mean you do.

Posted by: persiflo | Mar 5 2025 20:03 utc | 26

@Posted by: kana | Mar 5 2025 17:34 utc | 1
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
“Scientists”. Science these days is nothing but materialization of values. What are the values? Satanism.

Posted by: KOB | Mar 5 2025 20:09 utc | 28

Such is still only by virtue of deduction!
Posted by: persiflo | Mar 5 2025 20:03 utc | 26
—
Gödel teaches us that there is a hierarchy of deduction with levels beyond our reach. We can formalize its existence but we cannot understand its rules.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 5 2025 20:13 utc | 30

Whatever happened to macroscopic entanglement?

A group of researchers report in the December 2 issue of Science that they managed to entangle the quantum states of two diamonds separated by 15 centimeters.
…
In the new study, researchers from the University of Oxford, the National Research Council of Canada and the National University of Singapore (NUS) showed that entanglement can also be achieved in macroscopic objects at room temperature. “What we have done is demonstrate that it’s possible with more standard, everyday objects—if diamond can be considered an everyday object,”
…
To entangle relatively large objects, Walmsley and his colleagues harnessed a collective property of diamonds: the vibrational state of their crystal lattices. By targeting a diamond with an optical pulse, the researchers can induce a vibration in the diamond, creating an excitation called a phonon—a quantum of vibrational energy.

They laughed/laugh/laughing at homeopathy:

Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product.[4] Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent “remember” the original substance after its removal.

The past is the future and the present doesn’t exist.
“We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Posted by: librul | Mar 5 2025 20:14 utc | 32

kana managed to inspire a lively debate on the topic of the mind
kana | Mar 5 2025 17:34 utc | 1
Roger Boyd | Mar 5 2025 17:44 utc | 4
steven t johnson | Mar 5 2025 18:10 utc | 6
psychohistorian | Mar 5 2025 19:07 utc | 15
Roberto | Mar 5 2025 19:42 utc | 22
***********
My favourite theory is some variant of the so called simulation theory, that is the world is created in some form of computer program.
The attraction of such a model is that digital computing is a very powerful manner to handle information effectively and its constituents are almost exactly like numbers.
Math makes it convenient for producing identical copies of anything. In one stroke it explains how matter can exist in such exactly cloned variants. All electrons and protons are identical.
DNA molecules are as it seems pieces of computer code.
It uses a 64bit word length like many computers.
I wont go into such details, I assume many people have discussed that to much greater depth.
From a physics point of view Relativity theory and the theory of gravitation and both provide deviations from a perfect simulation. Rapidly travelling emtities are compressed until they lose any sharpened features that it might have had before its velocity came near light speed.
Time ceases to change. Everything winds down to a standstill. That leads me to the conjecture that the simulation is unable to update its data content when any entity is moving fast and that could be related to a finite clock frequency in the simulation.
Likewise too dense objects force the work load of the simulation beyond a certain limit related to the capacity of the simulation.
I have mentioned this on an earlier occasion so I wont elaborate.
But the above details from physics really do make that conjecture realistic. It tells us the world is limited by a finite capacity to handle itself.
I have also mentioned examples of animals who are able to survive even when they remove their own heads.
Some snails are able to do that. This because they are infected by parasites and are willing to sacrifice the head to get rid of them parasites
We might not think much of the mind of a snail but still.
Is the brain not in the head?
Maybe it isnt. I havent sought info about that aspect.
But an obvious explanation to many related phenomena would be obtained if we compare ourselves with avatars in computer simulations. They dont think inside the picture of their heads that the simulation is drawing or rendering like they call it when a picture is smoothly constructed.
The thoughts are handled outside the visible world covered by the simulation.
So if we live in such a simulation it may be the case that its calculations are handled out of sight for us.
Space time is like a screen, but there is something outside space-time.
Then all calculations may be handled by the same technical system. All our thoughts.
For the sakes of beauty and perfection in creation the dull stuff is handled behind the scenes.
That makes alot of sense to me.
One super computer handles everything
It may be entirely different from the kinds we are familiar with
Another powerful aspect is that much more time may be available for the simulation than is apparent to us. Our time may be at a complete standstill while the calculations patiently chew through all the code segments.
Thus in principle even a human made computer might be able to create a smaller model of such a universe.
This because there is no limit for the time available for rendering a perfect world!
This thing about time coming to a standstill also ties to relativity at near light speed.
Perhaps that is a clue to something but I havent figured it out yet

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Mar 5 2025 20:20 utc | 34

@Posted by: petergrfstrm | Mar 5 2025 20:20 utc | 34
“Perhaps that is a clue to something but I havent figured it out yet”
The clue is that life is hierarchical management of statistically predetermined events.

Posted by: KOB | Mar 5 2025 20:22 utc | 36

@Posted by: too scents | Mar 5 2025 20:24 utc | 37
Show me where he explains that. Gödel’s incompleteness theorem says that (paraphrasing) that any system is based on assumptions that cannot be falsified using the rules of this system. So, it follows that if you want to falsify this system you must create new assumptions, on top of this old system, which then will be able to disprove it and so.

Posted by: KOB | Mar 5 2025 20:30 utc | 38

Show me where he explains that.
Posted by: KOB | Mar 5 2025 20:30 utc | 38
—
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_numbering
Gödel Numbering the formal system that underpins his incompleteness theorem.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 5 2025 20:37 utc | 40

I’ve never seen the Chinese so harsh and blunt, at least post 1972 CPC, they are usually exceptionally tempered and diplomatic, this is very stern so early in the Trump admin, it suggests they have made their mind up about him – and letting him know that:
…we’re ready to fight till the end

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Mar 5 2025 20:44 utc | 42

@Posted by: petergrfstrm | Mar 5 2025 20:36 utc | 39
It is good food for thought.
Going lateral…
I wonder how much of the information contained in DNA is
other than that found in the amino acid sequence.
Quantum linked electrons…?
Electrons that do not necessarily belong solely to the amino acids,
but the phosphate backbone also.
I see (through a quick search) that there is research being done on DNA vibrations,
structural and magnetic.

Posted by: librul | Mar 5 2025 20:51 utc | 44

This will affect mainly people of colour, black or brown. Their lives don’t matter.
Internal Memos: Senior USAID Leaders Warned Trump Appointees of Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths From Closing Agency
One million children will go untreated for severe malnutrition, up to 166,000 people will die from malaria and 200,000 more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade, the memos estimated. The programs were cut anyway.
For weeks, some of the federal government’s foremost authorities on global health have repeatedly warned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other leaders about the coming death toll if they carried out the Trump administration’s plan to end nearly all U.S. foreign aid around the world.
In their clearest accounting yet, top officials have estimated the casualties: One million children will not be treated for severe acute malnutrition. Up to 166,000 people will die from malaria. New cases of tuberculosis will go up by 30%. Two hundred thousand more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade.
Instead of acting on the repeated warnings, top administration officials, including the State Department’s director of foreign assistance, Peter Marocco, thwarted their own experts’ efforts to keep the U.S. Agency for International Development’s most vital programs up and running, according to internal memos and estimates compiled by global health leaders at the agency and obtained by ProPublica.
MORE…
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-rubio-usaid-musk-death-toll-malaria-polio-tuberculosis

Posted by: Menz | Mar 5 2025 21:01 utc | 46

there is no need for hostility on a subject with no answer.
Nobody knows what happens after you die, nobody knows how the mind works.
A scientist saying “its magic” wouldn’t be doing science, as mentioned before, science is materialist, and long ago Roger Bacon set the tone for science in that it is to understand the physical universe. That is, in a time where he, and most western scientists believed in a god, Bacon said, ok, God is for matters of faith, but science for matters of the physical, (and useful).
For example, I have had many dreams come true. Did I see the future? Was it coincidence? Did I “want to believe” so bad I made it fit? All of these are possible. I have also experienced manifestation, which has the same questions. While I do not “believe” anything, I also do not “dismiss” anything, but what I have come to realize, is “magicks” can not be controlled, only understood, e.g. they can not be reproduced scientifically.
And this was the conclusion of both soviet and American military para-osychologists. The American para-psychologists (It was a military study in the early 2000s) came to the conclusion that ESP was real, but not controllable, and that has been my conclusion as well.
It also should be noted, someone claimed recently they did not care for philosophy. Ok, are you aware math is actually a philosophy and not a science, stemming from the logic branch of philosophy? That there is no such thing as “0”, much less “-1”, much less “i”?

Posted by: UWDude | Mar 5 2025 21:20 utc | 48

Russel’s Paradox exists. Hilbert’s Program was similarly deficient.
We need to try to recognize the boundary conditions of our experience. They are countably infinite. Certainly our ability to encode our communication is.
Posted by: too scents | Mar 5 2025 20:57 utc | 45

Not so fast, too. If I understand correctly, what you’re hinting at is the relation between a set of boundary conditions and another set of boundary conditions, with one obviously succeeding the other; both temporally and temporarily. Since this expands into an open horizon, which we can’t gaze beyond even while always approaching it, there is both an unseen set of new boundary conditions to discover, das gewisse Nicht-Etwas as I like to say, and the forever open horizon beyond which the unseen itself lies, das ungewisse Nicht-Etwas, or the unknown unknown.
Ich wollte schon immer der Philosoph mit dem ungewissen Nicht-Etwas sein; now I have succeeded at last!
It all relates back to the operalisation of the concept of all, especially when using it arithmetically to produce complementary sets in set theory. It’s why you need to introduce the axiom of choice, so I suspect, as it marks the distinct boundary where the open horizon becomes part of our set of boundary conditions. And the reversal is also true: Begriffe are not (in general) in a definable (axiomatisierbar) relation to their Gegenstand (object). This is a major insight, actually. One application is AI LLM and the apparent inability to truly comprehend.

Posted by: persiflo | Mar 5 2025 21:26 utc | 50

@Menz and @UWDude
There are some sensible programs financed by USAID, would be very strange if that wasn’t the case at all. But even then, those are probably massively inefficient if you account for all the kickbacks for big brother and overall corruption.
Though, USAID really needs to die off, even if it to some small degree finances something useful.
It reminds me of those speculative hedgefonds mixing in some 501k retirement funds. And when sh*t hits the fan they scream “you don’t want gramps to lose his retirement, do you??!?”

Posted by: Roland | Mar 5 2025 21:44 utc | 52

Don Firineach | Mar 5 2025 20:07 utc | 27-
At last night’s Pep Rally Trump implied Black Rock is part of his administration, a point I note in “Trump’s Pep Rally” amongst others.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 5 2025 22:03 utc | 54

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Mar 5 2025 22:05 utc | 55
the whole point of all of it, was to bring the entire thing down without destroying the world. A very difficult, tedious, and humiliating but necessary task that Russia set upon a long, long time ago.

Posted by: UWDude | Mar 5 2025 22:12 utc | 56

now my mind is in that area, I will mention Perestrioka Deception spent about 10-15% of the book talking about strategies regarding the Catholic church. I note this necause of how the neo-liberal pope suddenly started packing for perdition after Trump won.
Golitsyn spent another 10% or so on Iran, had little to say about China except that China is in on the strategy, about 25% was Eastern Europe, (which he say Ceaușescu’s demise was an unplanned disaster and not part of the Prestroika Deception), and then the rest USA and Russian politics.

Posted by: UWDude | Mar 5 2025 22:25 utc | 58

Elon Musk wants the US to pull out of NATO ?????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suasa7Cyz_o (length: 6 minutes)

Posted by: WMG | Mar 5 2025 22:28 utc | 60

I see (through a quick search) that there is research being done on DNA vibrations,
structural and magnetic.
Posted by: librul | Mar 5 2025 20:51 utc | 44
Yes I happened to see info in a russian scientists document about mechanical resonances in DNA. I used his formulas and applied them for human DNA.
The resonance frequencies for our chromosomes wer from 1.38 to 3.18 GHz. Since X and Y chromosomes have different strength on men and women it ought to be possible to determine gendre by measuring the intensity of the x chromosome.
Or by seing there is no resonance for the y chromosome. That russian did mention the range of frequencies for humans but his main emphasis was for viral particles E-Coli had uts resonance at 10.14 GHz
about 10MHz wide in a preparation that was at 20 degrees and with augmented salt content to stabilise it. I dont know if it is possible to resolve resonances directly on a finger of a human being but since he got such data for E-coli it might be possible. He used it for killing harmful viruses.
(I know virology may be all wrong but those biomoelecules exist whatever they are)
From the point of view of physics a DNA molecule at the temperatures of life has some surprising aspects.
The mechanical resonance is different from what you get when analysing it with quantum mechanics.
The speed of the wave ought to be sound speed like 2km/sec or so
That russian scientist first tried the harmonic oscillator model. But it turned out it was much simpler, like in classical physics of a spring.
So those mechanical resonances at a few GHz have wavelengths like the elongated chromosomes in the cm-range. But they normally arent elongated, they are tiny micrometersised entities. So one wonders how they respond to a microwave. There is nothing anyway near the microwave wavelength.
The DNA is wound up on tiny bobbines or how its called
Th cells divide once very day so there are plenty of DNA molecules being copied most of the time
It isnt clear to me whether noncopying DNA sense the resonances or if it only concerns the instants while it is copied
Since everything happens inside a cell everything is under a micrometer or so.

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Mar 5 2025 22:34 utc | 62

I believe our existence is contained within a countably infinite space. Our communication certainly does.
too scents | 53

Who counts the dimensions? – Either one of us prepares all their jokes, or we both stand to be surprised. If this is true, no one counts the dimensions. It follows that dimensionality is not foundational to Dasein, being-here-ness, as the barfly Scorpion translated the term once here on the MoA meaningfully and memorably.
This argument is exceptionally powerful (and so is the debate here, kudos to all!): imagine you’re at the bar, and in comes a barfly, eating a marshmallow and reporting outside is standing the ghost of Peter AU1 who gives away delicate marshmallows to all who ask politely for a treat. While you’re still pondering if that is to be believed, in comes another barfly, also munching a marshmallow and reporting the same … now, what do you do? The answer is you can wait until eternity and see everyone and their Pudel going in and out and back in again with a treat; unless you’ve seen it for yourself by going outside, you won’t ever be able to know. But, if you go outside, it might be that Peter’s ghost has finally been packing and blazed off into the clouds for good … Take a moment and think it through, everyone: this means that all so-called reality is necessarily to be based on being-here-ness, a notion which is often mangled in the more common term subjective experience. But the subjective is predicated by said necessity, while it’s common counterpart, the objective is based on an unattainable notion!²
This does not mean things are all unstable. The bus schedule is the bus schedule … for me at least. Is it yours, too? To find out, we’ll need to compare them; but this also collapses the axiomatic layout of the previous situation. It doesn’t matter if this is merely a thought experiment: since no one sees EVERYTHING (and at once at that), it’s already clear that incommensurable dimensional areas are existing, right here – ‘here’ – and right now. To use more formal language again, the set of boundary conditions [more precisely, the equivalencing operation which allows to state them] for various folks is not a transitive relation. What science usually does – as long as it’s still teachable – is to find and formulate transitive subsets, on which further exploration of experience can be (intersubjectively) based.
________________________
² To be fair, Kant defined the objective as “that upon which a number of people must necessarily agree”. However, this does not solve the problem here presented.

Posted by: persiflo | Mar 5 2025 22:48 utc | 64

I see (through a quick search) that there is research being done on DNA vibrations,
structural and magnetic.
Posted by: petergrfstrm | Mar 5 2025 22:34 utc | 62
I just opened that door and … heck … there is already an avalanche to be in awe of. Like
discovering the door to a treasure room.
“DNA as an Electromagnetic Fractal Cavity Resonator: Its Universal Sensing and Fractal Antenna Behavior”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321294432_DNA_as_an_Electromagnetic_Fractal_Cavity_Resonator_Its_Universal_Sensing_and_Fractal_Antenna_Behavior

We have also analyzed the role of three different
lattice symmetries of DNA and the possibility of soliton-based energy transmission
along the structure.

“Soliton”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliton

In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a nonlinear, self-reinforcing, localized wave packet that is strongly stable, in that it preserves its shape while propagating freely, at constant velocity, and recovers it even after collisions with other such localized wave packets

Posted by: librul | Mar 5 2025 22:58 utc | 66

The flaw in Economics in distributing scarce resources to the highest bidder, always lay in who controlled the production and distribution of currency, real or fiat.
Since control of the production and distribution of currency is not a market driven function, Economics got sold to the highest and sole bidder.

Posted by: kupkee | Mar 5 2025 23:08 utc | 68

Posted by: Jose Garcia | Mar 5 2025 22:24 utc | 57
I think you are having an attempt at echoing Spock’s “The interests of the many outweigh the interests of the few”. I’m just home from trekking so not at my brightest but I will give karlof1 his attack on Trump’s rhetorical bombast. And after giving that, I will say, bravo Trump for keeping it up for 2 hours and for sticking it to the fraudsters and wasters, whomever they may be !! Also, your choice of guests to promote was mighty fine, mighty fine. Much as I love Putin and Russia, this is not Russia — and that’s all I have the mental strength to say. Amen.
That off my chest I will now peacefully put away my gettings, grateful to have been there and done that – had a great conversation on the train — nothing about politics or philosophy, just remembrances of our childhood visits to uncles with farms, back in the idyllic past. . .

Posted by: juliania | Mar 5 2025 23:25 utc | 70

6 steven t Johnson –“I have to admit I tend to think the term post-modernism could just as well be replaced with post-Marxism…”
Once again I quote the title of a book by Fredrick Jameson — “Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.”

Posted by: Lavieja | Mar 5 2025 23:42 utc | 72

“they’re telling us to save money…social security payments won’t be coming…”
get ready for 70,000 homeless, hungry seniors murkkka
Just send the fucking black pill already; so BILLIONAIRES can get a tax break and (not) decrease the budget. (Increases budget by billions-WAR MONEY TAX BREAKS GREED)
How CHRISTIAN!!
This is Domestic Terrorism
People already strapped by inflation being told to ‘save their money…’ when rent, insurance, utilities ALL RISING and many living month to month.
Fuck Trump and anyfuckingbody who voted for that blowhard and his little foreign friend.

Posted by: furies | Mar 5 2025 23:47 utc | 74

@Posted by: too scents | Mar 5 2025 20:37 utc | 40
Where does it state it’s impossible to go outside a box/system? Gödel numbering is an assumption invented by Gödel in order to prove his theorem. Where does it state we cannot create new assumptions/systems?
@Posted by: too scents | Mar 5 2025 20:13 utc | 30
“Gödel teaches us that there is a hierarchy of deduction with levels beyond our reach. We can formalize its existence but we cannot understand its rules.”
Of course we can understand the rules. It’s “beyond our reach” (cannot be falsified) within the given set of assumptions. Mathematics (symbolic logic) are a human invention based on human made assumptions (axioms). There is no reason why we cannot invent new systems based on new assumptions. Math is not physics. Sorry.

Posted by: KOB | Mar 5 2025 23:54 utc | 76

Posted by: furies | Mar 5 2025 23:47 utc | 73
so much pain already. All that hatred. mmm yess, yessd, now you feel what I felt. Yess, yess, It hurt so bad, and now you burn, burn burn. I know it, oh furious furies. The hot anger, crushing your heart, raising your blood pressure, your skin burning, burning, burning.
It’s going to get alot worse for you.
mwahahahahaha!

Posted by: UWDude | Mar 5 2025 23:58 utc | 78

4 Roger Boyd. –“Classic post-modernist new age garbage which is simply a regression to the mystical religious thinking of the Middle Ages.” –The writer suffering from another episode of knowitallism.

Posted by: Lavieja | Mar 6 2025 0:04 utc | 80

Posted by: furies | Mar 5 2025 23:47 utc | 73
so much pain already. All that hatred. mmm yess, yessd, now you feel what I felt. Yess, yess, It hurt so bad, and now you burn, burn burn. I know it, oh furious furies. The hot anger, crushing your heart, raising your blood pressure, your skin burning, burning, burning.
It’s going to get alot worse for you.
mwahahahahaha!
Posted by: UWDude | Mar 5 2025 23:58 utc | 77
Get a good look here.
This is what fascism looks like.

Posted by: furies | Mar 6 2025 0:30 utc | 82

Get a good look here.
This is what fascism looks like.
Posted by: furies | Mar 6 2025 0:30 utc | 81
no, it is you being in control of your state of mind, and choosing amger over reality.
And me drinking your tears with joy.
cry more, im chubbing.

Posted by: UWDude | Mar 6 2025 0:33 utc | 84

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 5 2025 18:49 utc | 12
Bit of a quibble i have with some of your history.
The USA has never had a gold standard.
What the central banks have used is a gold discount window. That is the price of gold was fixed to a dollar amount by setting a price offered for the sale of gold by the central bank.
With the exception of a handful of years where silver certificates were issued in lue of fiat the USD has always been a fiat currency with the sale of silver or gold by either the treasury or central banks fixing the price to said commodities.
I know it’s a cart and horse thing but you keep putting the cart before the horse.

Posted by: Badjoke | Mar 6 2025 0:55 utc | 86

DrSmith @ 76
Something to expand you mind:
Our experts completely misjudged China and its ability to innovate. Now they’re ahead everywhere
This is very worthy:
People vs Profits: China and US Health Care Systems Compared

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Mar 6 2025 1:14 utc | 88

I just watched the special clip at Judge Napolitano’s site where he says he is on a plane to Moscow with a few other media types to interview Lavrov.
He said something about posting something on the 7th….link to announcement below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-iN9IEhHL8

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 6 2025 2:31 utc | 90

A few thoughts on the topic of mind
I have eidetic memories from my infancy and early childhood fwiw. Not sure the context of the “remembering” which, like most of life, involved after-the-event exploration of meanings. Post facto interpretations usually ignore complexities often mostly unknown.
Mind maturation for some of us buddhist practitioners involves study, contemplation, and internalization, through various meditation practices, of the positive qualities of mind —> toward a full blossoming. Through meditation techniques and practice, one becomes more attuned, in sinc, with surroundings without relying on conceptual thought which has its own invaluable contributions to make, leading to a spontaneity, a spontaneous establishment of fruits of benefits, harmony experienced and shared. The young mind is underdeveloped and requires cultivation through meditation for fulfillment maturation. Someday science may describe how.

Posted by: suzan | Mar 6 2025 2:51 utc | 92

To continue my answer at juliania | Mar 6 2025 2:43 utc | 90:
Thanks karlof1 for correcting my Spock quotation.
Also, I took a look at the NYT transcript of his address to corroborate my feeling that this was not intended to put forward a program on international relationships for international scrutiny, but more to explain how his team has been working so far in his term for US citizens,(Trumpian bombast, as I said, I will give to you- it’s admittedly hard to take) — with the primary hearers of the address intended to be as he says:
“Speaker Johnson. Vice President Vance, the first lady of the United States. Members of the United States Congress, thank you very much. And to my fellow citizens …”
Probably the rest of the world shouldn’t take much of this to heart, as only for US citizens is it of immediate concern that what they voted for, if they voted, be accomplished. I’m not sure what those who were voting for the Democratic candidate wanted to achieve, but this speech is an explanation to all citizens, voting or not, of what has been accomplished so far. It sounded a bit like Putin in the places where he said it wasn’t going to be an easy process going forward – and more than being directed at any foreign interaction, this is about correcting internal wrongs more than anything else.
Just my not so intelligible take at this point. I’ve travelled more than a hundred and fifty miles coming and going today, up and down altitudewise, so I’m a bit blurry. Apologies again.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 6 2025 3:13 utc | 94

I watched a fascinating video about Trump wanting to charge a $1M fee per Chinese ship that delivers to an American port.
For some of the biggest container ships, this amounts to about $50 per container. A container can contain hundreds of goods worth thousands of dollars, making the $50 trivial to the buyer.
China is too big now for some of these tactics. They might have been more effective in Trump’s first term.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 6 2025 3:22 utc | 96

Posted by: librul | Mar 5 2025 20:14 utc | 32
“We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Thanks, librul.
That is one of the many great lines penned by Mr Adams, and one of my favourites. I needed a laugh today.
Cheers.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Mar 6 2025 5:09 utc | 98

Posted by: Menz | Mar 5 2025 21:01 utc | 46

One million children will go untreated for severe malnutrition, up to 166,000 people will die from malaria and 200,000 more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade, the memos estimated. The programs were cut anyway.

Even if this self-serving public-sector guff were true, it would simply mean this:
INSTEAD of leaving tasks such as providing food and preventing malaria to the appropriate local government, USAID has for yours been spending at least TEN TIMES the money needed for those tasks, mainly to keep its own staff and local collaborators in the style to which they have become accustomed: five star hotels, first class flights, personal servants, etc.

This will affect mainly people of colour, black or brown.

Awww. “World Ends, Women and People of Color Hardest Hit.”

Posted by: Pacific Observer | Mar 6 2025 5:47 utc | 100