MID WEEK MAYHEM!

Question: What do I have to do to get anyone to admit I solved the "Hard Problem of Consciousness?" E.g. “Consciousness is an emergent property of the Spirit of God(?)”

Here's the answer from CHAT GPT AI:

Answer: The "Hard Problem of Consciousness" refers to the challenge of understanding how and why subjective experiences arise from physical processes in the brain. It is a complex and ongoing area of study in philosophy and cognitive science, and there is no definitive solution that has been universally accepted at this time.

If you believe you have solved the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" and want to garner recognition for your ideas, here are a few suggestions:

Develop and articulate your theory: Clearly articulate your theory in a detailed and rigorous manner. Present your ideas in a coherent and logical manner, providing evidence and arguments to support your claims. Be prepared to engage in discussions and debates with experts in the field.

Publish your work: Submit your theory as a research paper to relevant academic journals or conferences. Peer-reviewed publications are an important avenue for sharing your ideas with the scientific community and gaining recognition for your work. It allows experts in the field to critically evaluate your theory and provide feedback.

Engage with the scientific community: Participate in conferences, workshops, and seminars related to consciousness studies. Share your ideas and research findings with other researchers in the field. Engaging in discussions and debates with experts can help refine your ideas and gain valuable insights.

Collaborate with researchers: Seek collaborations with established researchers or experts in the field of consciousness studies. Collaborative work can lend credibility to your research and increase its visibility.

Communicate effectively: Develop your communication skills to effectively explain your theory to a wider audience. This could involve writing articles, giving presentations, or creating videos that simplify complex concepts and make them accessible to a broader audience.

Be open to criticism: Science thrives on rigorous peer review and critical evaluation. Be open to constructive criticism and feedback from peers and experts in the field. Addressing potential weaknesses and refining your theory based on feedback will strengthen your position and increase the chances of acceptance.

Patience and persistence: Paradigm-shifting ideas often face resistance and skepticism. It may take time for your theory to gain traction and acceptance. Patience and persistence are essential qualities in navigating the process.

Remember that gaining recognition for a groundbreaking idea takes time, effort, and rigorous scrutiny. It is important to approach the topic with an open mind and willingness to engage in constructive dialogue with experts in the field.

SO...! Here's what I did!

COMING SOON!

AVAILABLE LATER THIS MONTH!

"Let's get things back into Perspective here!"

 O.K. boys and girls!

From now on we are doing away with all those "woke" pronouns like she/her, they/them, he or him!

From now on everybody is either Mr. or Ms....! (Everything else gets thrown out the window...!) 

Except for the descriptions of Indians and Natives!

Indians are the tech guys... 

Natives (Native Americans) are the indigenous people of Canada and look like this:        

   

Let's keep this straight from now on... eh!

Saturday Morning Confusion: Muslims!

Before I get hate mail and death threats... as a privileged middle-aged white man not suffering from white guilt in any way shape or form......let me say that although this video is not the best advertisement for the Muslim faith... it does have a certain ring of truth to it!!!!!

Fortunately, it's not quite as bad here in North America... but from what I hear from relatives and in-laws in Germany and Scotland... (where the bulk of refugees live) the place is slowly going to hell in a handbasket BECAUSE OF ALL THE REFUGEES!!!!!!

MID-WEEK MAYHEM!

 

Sunday Morning Funnies!

Back when I was a kid everybody thought that in a thousand years, all humans would have a head that is much bigger than it is now... because of all the extra thinking we will have to do!!!!

BUT: The way things are going now... it won't be our BRAINS that are bigger!

***

The 'Toronto Star' likes my books!

 Allan W. Janssen has written a fascinating book about religion... and the search for God and meaning throughout human history. 

From the earliest burial rituals to the main religions of modern times, he examines what we believe and how these beliefs were formed. 

The book is filled with illustrations and wonderful quotes, such as the ending quote from Arthur C. Clarke: "One of my objections to religion is that it prevents the search for God." (And that quote pretty well epitomizes what Mr. Janssen has to say about the matter!) 

The message as I perceive it is that when a religion is written down and a priesthood or other system of leaders is established, then that religion can be used for whatever purpose the leadership decides it should be used for, and true believers will not question it, since to do so would be a sin. (And when people do not dare to question... that is where the trouble begins!) 

The first part of the book covers the history of human development and how religion began. It includes a very detailed timeline that is very helpful in putting everything into perspective. 

The second part of the book has to do with how religious leaders emerged and how religion began to be used for various purposes by these leaders. 

One part of this section that I found particularly interesting was the section on Memes, those phrases, images, and ideas that become repeated so often that they become a part of our culture and our thoughts. 

How do these memes relate to religion and spirituality? That's an interesting question, which is explored in (The Plain Truth About) God in detail. 

I found this book to be well-researched and filled with intriguing information. I believe that any open-minded person with an interest in human culture and religion will find it useful and enlightening, as well as entertaining to read. 

This is not a dry textbook but a vital exploration of human beings and our search for a bigger meaning, and what the results of that search have and can lead to. 

(The Plain Truth about) God? is a very good overview of the subject of humanity and religion, and I highly recommend it to all open-minded readers. --Toronto Star

ALL FOUR OF THEM ARE OVER HERE -->

 

Saturday Morning Confusion!

 Sometimes it can be funny to randomly shout: "Hey Asshole!" in a crowd... just to see who turns around!

T.G.I.F: Eugenics

 Allan:

Why don't you believe in eugenics? Well, I do and I don't, depending on the circumstances!

And then I supplied the following essay from C. Stuart Hardwick!

***

I started to write an answer about what passes for popular now and what certain self-appointed Eugenicists have done in the past, but this honestly deserves a bit better.

1. Look, here’s the thing. We humans are a living population just like any other, and we are subject to evolution and genetic drift just like any other. If for some reason you can’t accept that, you and your upbringing are part of the problem, fuck off, we can’t have a grown-up conversation.
2. Because this is true, humans are vulnerable to all sorts of ill-fates, including extinction, just like every other living population.
3. But unique to humans is the ability to rationally forecast the future, judge it as good or bad, and take steps to change it in our favour.
4. This (and communal action) gives us the ability to reduce misery and increase the happiness of our collective selves in a way that no other living population has ever been able to even contemplate.
5. But…we do not all agree on what it means to be happy. As one simple example, some people like a bookish existence in modern comfort and maximize lifespan and health, while others prefer to party hardy and “die young and leave an ugly corpse.” Neither is fundamentally right or wrong.
6. And…we are not gods with perfect knowledge, so even if we could all agree on what our future should look like, we cannot with any certainty know what actions will shape our species to meet it. Eliminate sociopaths and you might find the Neanderthals died out because they lacked enough sociopaths—who tend to be the risk takers, just one example.
7. And…we are bastards whom power corrupts, and I for one do not trust anyone willing to hold the reigns of power to use it to decide what direction our biological evolution should take—which is exactly what eugenics is. Eugenics is the use of artificial selection to supplant or replace the slower process of natural selection, as applied to the human species.
8. But on the other hand, if left to the masses, we are likely to splinter into ludicrously overspecialized (and biologically doomed) subgroups even more prone to infighting than is already true. Imagine a world in which incels modify their offspring toward the superficial traits they think to define chads, white supremacists toward the superficial traits they think define “alpha males,” and academics toward increased academic ability, perhaps with a resultant increase in introversion. H.G. Wells gave us the Eloi and the Morlocks. Herbert a world of genetic castes. They may both have been wildly optimistic.

Yet, this is an issue that we absolutely must and will face, one way or another. We have good evidence that the human brain may have shrunk a few percent in the few thousand years since the dawn of agriculture. Some optimists suggest this is a continued optimization, but honestly, there’s little reason to think so, as there’s no obvious survival advantage to be gained from such optimization. It’s far more likely that, enjoying the fruits of communal living, technical specialization, and enormous advances in food production and storage, we have domesticated ourselves by removing the natural selective pressures that made us human to begin with.

I for one am convinced that’s the case, and it leaves a clear reality before us: we will either find a way to take control of our biological evolution, or we will have what control we now have over our collective well-being wrested away by nature, eventually losing the ability to maintain our technical civilization and returning to natural selection and likely cycles or misery and advancement until we finally go extinct.

But I’m not without hope. We are a clever bunch, and while there are people today who would waste our technical prowess by giving themselves maladaptive fangs or boosting their kid’s intelligence at the expense of mental instability, we have also driven back the grinding veil of ubiquitous infectious disease and are now making strides against cancer and more, and most of our debates over medical ethics are really just the thrashing of obsolete and fading worldviews against the grindstone of discovery. 

Give us a century or two yet, we may yet work wonders even unto ourselves!           

- C. Stuart Hardwick!

Mid Week Mayhem!

 One of my favourite authors... Kurt Vonnegut Jr... tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope: “Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?"

And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I'll meet a lot of people. And see some great-looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is - we're here on Earth to fart around."

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that.

And what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals.

You know, we love to move around.

And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."

Let's all get up and move around a bit right now... or at least dance.

GO LEAFS!

 I understand that the Leafs are playing Boston tonight... and since I haven't seen any hardware from them since "1967" ...I thought I would give Toronto a little boost!

Just Because!

 

Home on the range!

This sort of stuff has always fascinated me... and I hope you like it too! 

By Farina E.

As reported by Al Jazeera, a recent study claims to have pinpointed the birthplace of all modern humans to a specific area in northern Botswana.

"We've known for a long time that modern humans originated in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago," explained Vanessa Hayes, a geneticist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia and co-author of the study. "But what we hadn't known until the study was where exactly this homeland was."

The identified region, known as Makgadikgadi-Okavango, once hosted a vast lake. Scientists speculate that this area, now characterized by expansive salt pans, sustained a population of modern humans for around 70,000 years.

"It's an extremely large area, it would have been very wet, it would have been very lush," Hayes said. "And it would have actually provided a suitable habitat for modern humans and wildlife to have lived."

Approximately 130,000 years ago, as the climate in the region shifted, some of the population began migrating, marking the first exodus of humans from the continent.

Researchers hypothesize that multiple migration waves occurred, initially toward the northeast and later toward the southwest.

These early migration patterns were deduced by examining hundreds of mitochondrial DNA samples—genetic material passed down maternally—from contemporary Africans.

My great, great, great (x23) uncle "Urk!" (From my father's side!)

Faith in Humanity!!!!!

 “A mother made a run to Walmart with her young son. 

While in the store, she turned around and he was gone. 

She looked all over for him and was on the verge of becoming frantic when she walked to the front of the store and spotted him.

***

She was just getting ready to lay some scolding on him when she realized he was doing something very strange. 

He was kneeling at one of the benches just inside the store and he was praying. 

She could not understand why he was doing this. Then she looked above him at the huge poster he was facing. 

It had photos and descriptions of missing children, and it read: “Every second counts.”So she took a photo of her son doing this and posted it on Facebook. 

It went viral in no time. And as it did, one Facebook commenter summed it up pretty well, writing: “Whether or not you believe in God really doesn’t matter. 

This was a child in Walmart who was thinking about others and doing the only thing he could to help. The world would be a better place if everyone followed his example.””

Saturday Morning Confusion: Drumpf!

STILL DON'T BELIEVE THAT TRUMP IS THE "ANTI-CHRIST?"

(Good thing I'm not the least bit religious!)

 

***

BONUS: We reversed the polarity on the "Way Back Machine" and took this picture of Kim Kardashian 20 years from now!

T.G.I.F: Nighty - Night!

 

Drumpf fell asleep in court... two days out of the last four!!!!!!

The First Cut is the Deepest!

 In June 1993, Lorena Bobbitt, 53, used a kitchen knife to slice off her husband John’s penis while he slept. (Everybody was talking about it!)

She threw the "cut to the quick dick" out of the car window as she was driving around, but authorities later found the organ and successfully reattached it. (The attack led to John and Lorena becoming household names as the trial dominated the headlines for over a year in 1994.) 

P.S. Lorena was acquitted due to temporary insanity.

BUT... NOW!

Poor John Wayne Bobbitt was forced to have his toes amputated more than 30 years after his wife cut off his dick in 1993!

John, 57, revealed to The Sun on April 13 that his toes were amputated due to toxic peripheral polyneuropathy. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, John’s condition “often causes weakness, numbness and pain, usually in the hands and feet. 

It also can affect other areas and body functions including digestion and urination.”

***

Poor John, on top of being a "no dick" type of guy... he's also a "no toes" person! 

Lorena Bobbitt

Sunday Morning Funnies: Bizzaro!

 

Saturday Morning Confusion: The Afterlife!

Is there any scientific proof that... after life... there is no heaven or hell?

Allan: 

Well, yes. In fact, there is a simple and blindingly obvious proof, but it’s not the sort of proof that many people are willing to accept since it conflicts with their childhood indoctrination and/or conflicts with what they really, really want to be true.

Before I present the proof, however, there are two important things that you need to keep in mind:

1. The complete and utter lack of any consistent, objective evidence for an afterlife is, in and of itself, evidence against an afterlife. Not proof mind, you, but certainly evidence.
2. Seriously, if you don’t have any good evidence for an afterlife in the first place, why would it matter if nobody can prove that there isn’t an afterlife? At best, asking somebody to provide evidence that an afterlife doesn’t exist is an admission that you don’t have any evidence to support your belief in an afterlife in the first place and are relying entirely on wishful thinking.

Still with me? All right, here is your proof:

1. For there to be an afterlife, our consciousness must be capable of surviving apart from our physical bodies (call it a “soul” or a “spirit” or what have you).
2. And if our consciousness is capable of surviving apart from our physical bodies, it can’t be generated by or produced by or be wholly dependent on our physical bodies (and certainly not by any one particular part of our bodies). We should, for example, be able to damage or even replace a toe or an arm or a lung or a heart and not have our consciousness be affected (assuming we don’t die in the process).
3. And this is generally what we find to be the case, with one glaring exception — our brains. Every other part of our body can be damaged or even replaced without our consciousness being affected, but not our brain. If our brains are damaged, our entire personality can change. We become, in effect, completely different persons. And, while practically any organ in the body can be replaced without changing who we are (they can even transplant faces now), does anybody imagine that if it were possible to receive a brain transplant that our consciousness with the new brain would match that of the previous brain?
4. Therefore, since it appears that our consciousness is inextricably and indelibly linked to our physical brains, that would indicate that our consciousness cannot exist independently of our bodies and therefore cannot survive the death of our bodies. And if our consciousnesses cannot exist without our bodies, then there cannot be any such thing as an “afterlife.” 

And, there you go! What further proof could you possibly want?

***

Well, what about my idea that we humans are just conduits for a Cosmic Consciousness!!!!!  ALLAN! (THE GOD TRILOGY! (4 book series) Hardcover Edition )  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGBHZF4H?binding=hardcover&ref=dbs_dp_sirpi

***

OK, OK, so maybe this isn’t absolute proof that there is no such thing as an afterlife. 

After all, I suppose one could come up with all sorts of hypotheticals to explain the known facts while still preserving the possibility of an afterlife, such as, oh, I dunno, that our brains are just “receivers” for our consciousness that are being broadcast from some other dimensional plane (whatever the heck that means) and brain damage is like what happens when a radio has a damaged antenna and the signal gets all static-y or something. 

Or maybe there exists some sort of all-powerful “immaterial pure spirit” (whatever the heck that actually means) that somehow exists “outside of time and space” ("ab extra" -  A.W.J.) that for some unknown reason wants to make it seem as though our brains create our consciousness for reasons of its own. 

You get the idea!

Barry Goldberg, Author of the "Common Sense Atheism" series of books

Eclipse Pictures!