The founder of Italian Communism had deathbed conversion

[Moiety]

The death bed conversion is an old trope of Catholicism.

It is simply an old, worn out cliche of Catholic propaganda.

And it is simply bad taste to keep on trotting it out.

What exactly do you mean by propaganda and bad taste?

 

[Venom]

you're playing a dangerous game with your soul really.

without your memories, skills, abilities, emotional triggers, and stored up experiences, are you really even you? Why should anyone believe that a soul somehow copies all of that same info onto some unknown mechanism when its already all explained through a physical machine (the brain) that we know exists?

prove that souls exist: ready go!





(science may not have conciousness 100% figured out, but there are plenty of explanations that at the very least, prevent us from going "well there MUST be a soul then!")

 

[Mole]

What exactly do you mean by propaganda and bad taste?

I was hoping you wouldn't ask me what, "trope", means 'cause I have never really found out.

But propaganda means to propagate a set of ideas. While bad taste is more visceral - it's a bad taste in the mouth.

A set of ideas is called an ideology. And it is worth while remembering that an ideology is predigested thought, it serves interests and has a demonology.

While bad taste is aesthetic. So a taste is either delicious or foul.

Ideology is immensely powerful and completely under-rated. And aesthetics are almost the obverse of ideology - perhaps called soft power.

Hollywood gives us the best propaganda - it seduces with aesthetics, and plays ideology only in the softest key.

So ideology is thought and aesthetics are taste - we can think what we would like to eat, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

[Moiety]

I was hoping you wouldn't ask me what, "trope", means 'cause I have never really found out.

But propaganda means to propagate a set of ideas. While bad taste is more visceral - it's a bad taste in the mouth.

A set of ideas is called an ideology. And it is worth while remembering that an ideology is predigested thought, it serves interests and has a demonology.

While bad taste is aesthetic. So a taste is either delicious or foul.

Ideology is immensely powerful and completely under-rated. And aesthetics are almost the obverse of ideology - perhaps called soft power.

Hollywood gives us the best propaganda - it seduces with aesthetics, and plays ideology only in the softest key.

So ideology is thought and aesthetics are taste - we can think what we would like to eat, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I think you missed the point (or maybe you just don't want to answer me straightforwardly). I don't see how the church benefits from "trotting out" this old "cliché" in any way. So I don't see how it tastes bad either - regardless of your own beliefs it's either a possibility or not, according to their (christians) own religion, and they say it is.

 

[Mole]

The Perfect Shill

I think you missed the point (or maybe you just don't want to answer me straightforwardly). I don't see how the church benefits from "trotting out" this old "cliché" in any way. So I don't see how it tastes bad either - regardless of your own beliefs it's either a possibility or not, according to their (christians) own religion, and they say it is.

Well, they trot out the cliche in order to persuade you. They have done it a thousand times before.

You might fall for it the first time, but it is less likely the thousandth time.

And you can't 'see' how anything tastes anymore than you can 'see' how anything sounds. You need to listen to hear. And you actually need to taste rather than look, to know what it tastes like.

And propaganda is neither true nor false. It is simply plausible.

So to say that propaganda is either a possibility or not, misses the point of propaganda.

Propaganda is not so much a possibility or not, it is either believable or not.

The only sin a propagandist can commit is to believe their own propaganda.

Their job is not to believe their own propaganda but to get you to believe it.

Caveat Emptor - would you like to buy this old well used cliche or are you not buying it today?

So the propagandist only asks, how gullible are you today?

And let's face it, if you think MBTI is a reliable personality test rather than a cult, you are the perfect shill.

 

[Moiety]

Well, they trot out the cliche in order to persuade you. They have done it a thousand times before.

You might fall for it the first time, but it is less likely the thousandth time.

And you can't 'see' how anything tastes anymore than you can 'see' how anything sounds. You need to listen to hear. And you actually need to taste rather than look, to know what it tastes like.

And propaganda is neither true nor false. It is simply plausible.

So to say that propaganda is either a possibility or not, misses the point of propaganda.

Propaganda is not so much a possibility or not, it is either believable or not.

The only sin a propagandist can commit is to believe their own propaganda.

Their job is not to believe their own propaganda but to get you to believe it.

That's like saying they tell you "you can go to heaven if you be a good boy" in order to persuade you.

Are you just trying to insult them or what? I'm an agnostic myself, but I'd have to be pretty drunk to think not even the church believes in God (obviously there are bound to be exceptions) or in what they preach.

 

[Mole]

That's like saying they tell you "you can go to heaven if you be a good boy" in order to persuade you.

Are you just trying to insult them or what? I'm an agnostic myself, but I'd have to be pretty drunk to think not even the church believes in God (obviously there are bound to be exceptions) or in what they preach.

Rather than trying to insult them, I recognise that they literally invented the word, "propaganda".

You plainly do not understand that propaganda is neither true nor false rather, it is simply plausible.

For instance propaganda was not made in WW II against the enemy on the basis of the existence of the concentration camps, because no one would believe it.

From the propagandist's point of view, it did not matter whether the concentration camps existed or not. It only mattered whether their existence was plausible. It only mattered whether they were believable. And no one believed in them until they were liberated and pictures distributed throughout the world.

This is why concentration camps were not used in our propaganda against the enemy in WW II.

So in exactly the same way, from the propagandist's point of view, it doesn't matter whether God exists or not, only that He is plausible - only that He is believable.

From the propagandist's eye view, whether God exists is irrelevant or whether He doesn't exist is equally irrelevant to good propaganda.

Do you believe me?

 

[Moiety]

Rather than trying to insult them, I recognise that they literally invented the word, "propaganda".

You plainly do not understand that propaganda is neither true nor false rather, it is simply plausible.

For instance propaganda was not made in WW II against the enemy on the basis of the existence of the concentration camps, because no one would believe it.

From the propagandist's point of view, it did not matter whether the concentration camps existed or not. It only mattered whether their existence was plausible. It only mattered whether they were believable. And no one believed in them until they were liberated and pictures distributed throughout the world.

This is why concentration camps were not used in our propaganda against the enemy in WW II.

So in exactly the same way, from the propagandist's point of view, it doesn't matter whether God exists or not, only that He is plausible - only that He is believable.

From the propagandist's eye view, whether God exists is irrelevant or whether He doesn't exist is equally irrelevant to good propaganda.

Do you believe me?

No, your post is unbelievable.

That's some bad propaganda right there.

 

[Sniffles]

Trust me Sytpg, you're better off not discussing with Victor.

(science may not have conciousness 100% figured out, but there are plenty of explanations that at the very least, prevent us from going "well there MUST be a soul then!")

Only if one adheres to a naturalist perspective.

 

[Mole]

No, your post is unbelievable.

That's some bad propaganda right there.

Well, Sytpg, you have caught me there.

 

[Mole]

Trust me Sytpg, you're better off not discussing with Victor.

Trust me, says Peguy.

I trust Peguy for the simple reason that he has told me he hates me. And I have every reason to believe this is true.

My friends will save my feelings but mine enemies will always tell me the truth about myself.

Peguy is good value - I can trust him to tell the truth - and I can trust him never to treat me with indifference.

For as you know, hate is merely the opposite of love, while indifference is the killer.

But most of all, I can always rely on Peguy for attention.

We live in the Attention Economy and we pay each other in attention.

And there is no such thing as bad attention.

And as you see below, "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity". And Peguy is generous with his attention.

So, you see, you can trust good and generous Peguy.

 

[Moiety]

Trust me Sytpg, you're better off not discussing with Victor.

I like a challenge, even if people might be laughing at my expenses or being cryptical just for the heck of it. I have a big ego, so I can deal with it.

For as you know, hate is merely the opposite of love, while indifference is the killer.

Yep, that is true. I dislike ignoring anyone. So that is why we are still here. And yeah, you're right about Peguy - from what I've gathered thus far, he seems like a really cool guy. But I didn't need you telling me that "paragraphed story" to arrive at such a conclusion though.

 

[Mole]

But I didn't need you telling me that "paragraphed story" to arrive at such a conclusion though.

The "paragraphed story" is called Telegraphic Prose.

It is called Telegraphic Prose because the internet is more like the Telegraph than a book.

So Telegraphic Prose is designed to suit the medium.

You will notice that most here write in the Conversational Style as though they are talking face to face.

But they are not talking face to face so they simply nobble themselves with the Conversational Style.

And of course I don't tell you a story to arrive at a conclusion. I tell you a story simply for the sake of telling a story.

Doing things for their own sake brings joy.

 

[Moiety]

The "paragraphed story" is called Telegraphic Prose.

It is called Telegraphic Prose because the internet is more like the Telegraph than a book.

So Telegraphic Prose is designed to suit the medium.

You will notice that most here write in the Conversational Style as though they are talking face to face.

But they are not talking face to face so they simply nobble themselves with the Conversational Style.

And of course I don't tell you a story to arrive at a conclusion. I tell you a story simply for the sake of telling a story.

Doing things for their own sake brings joy.

So that's why you use the telegraphic pose, then.

 

[Mole]

So that's why you use the telegraphic pose, then.

Rather than being a pose, it enables me to set down my thoughts as they occur.

My thoughts are freshly minted and form patterns on the page.

They are not going anywhere. They have no need to justify their existence.

They are just there like you and me.

 

[Moiety]

Rather than being a pose, it enables me to set down my thoughts as they occur.

My thoughts are freshly minted and form patterns on the page.

They are not going anywhere. They have no need to justify their existence.

They are just there like you and me.

Harder on the eyes, brain, bandwidth (not noticeably but still) and on the "Enter" key, though.

 

[Venom]

Only if one adheres to a naturalist perspective.

let me explain differently. the human brain lacks a sort of "center of presentation" or a general "the will of the mind" center. From there, some people have deduced that the "virtual reality of the brain", must therefore be being presented to a "soul". What i am saying, however, is that we are beginning to describe how consciousness is possible without such a central 'thing' to present the virtual reality to.

Analogy: if we take a storm apart and analyze it atom by atom, will we find a storm anywhere? No. the storm only exists as a whole. storms have no constant or distinct measurements at all, yet clearly they exist. In the same way, we can take apart brains and find different centers without ever finding "consciousness", because consciousness only arises out of the aggregate whole. And just like the storm, consciousness has no distinct or constant energy or mass content.

this has nothing to do with having a naturalistic perspective. what it is, is questioning the very way we approach the very idea of consciousness. the idea of having to have the virtual reality presented to a 'will' may be inherently flawed.

isnt it obvious, that we cant really take our "consciousness" apart because to do so would cease our operation. to imagine ourselves analyzing anything, we have to imagine ourselves as at least existing. thus it doesnt make any sense to try an comprehend what it would be like to be or perceive a process of being.

when we peel back the linguistic superstition and see what consciousness really is, we can see that its a process. if its a process, than its easy enough to imagine a machine doing it. our brain is a machine. where then, does the soul come in?

Consciousness is basically the sensation of perceiving yourself to be thinking. The reason computers cant replicate ourselves is because computers are basically turing machines (010101010) and animal brains are anolog, parallel processing, neural net computer. If we could design a machine/software that could...
a. be dynamic rather than static (be able to change the very way its even written)
b. accumulate knowledge about itself (by remembering its responses and responses of others)
c. built in desires or simulated interests (things that the machine would want to ask about)
d. rules for spontaneity and randomness (so that it could comply with "do something new")
e. a mechanism for changing 'b', 'c' and 'd' in response to what 'b' collects.
f. capable of learning new skills and writing new software for itself (ie: learn how to speak a new langauge)
g. the ability to build virtual models, run models, and then adjust its skills, methods and conclusions accordingly.

the fact that such a machine is currently sci-fi is not important. whats important is that the machine we just described would for all intensive purposes be a person: it would have desires, memories, interests, creativity, and the ability to reason, learn, develope and evolve in response to its environment.

 

[matmos]

Trust me Sytpg, you're better off not discussing with Victor.

An intersting recommendation, prefixed by a car-salesman's "trust me".

Let me assure you Peguy, Victor has more to say in one sentence than a thousand of your copy & paste efforts.

But Victor is correct. Better dirge than indifference?

 

[Mole]

Harder on the bandwidth

I think it is quite natural to worry about the bandwidth.

After all, we have lived in a world of scarcity for 200,000 years. And all our values and ways of thinking have been conditioned by scarcity. Why, the discipline of Economics is based on the idea of scarcity.

However, for the first time in human history we have overcome scarcity and created abundance in the West, particularly since WW II.

But our values are still conditioned by the fear of scarcity.

It will no doubt take some time for us to develop values based on abundance.

In other words our values are out of touch with reality.

And so it is quite natural to worry about the bandwidth. Look, look how I am wasting it by leaving all these spaces! I am wasting, wasting a scarce resource!

On the other hand, this resource in front of us is a very good example of abundance.

You can take one whole page and post just one word and it takes nothing from anyone else. You can 'waste' as much space as you like.

There is no need to conserve space anymore - we can dance with as much space as we want, to our heart's content.

All we need to do is change our values from scarcity to abundance.

Whoopee!

 

[Moiety]

It will no doubt take some time for us to develop values based on abundance.

That's why/how we NFs were invented.

You can take one whole page and post just one word and it takes nothing from anyone else.

Isn't what wasting is all about? Others?

More whitespace means more light is needed for the screen meaning more electricity is needed. More electricity might mean more pollution. More serverload in this forum. The timing of that important post on the other side of the forum might be off, possibly creating strife between two forums posters due to lack of clarification and/or jumping to conclusions. etc