"In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control, even over his own will. Man takes up the sword in order to shield the small wound in his heart sustained in a far-off time beyond remembrance. Man wields the sword so that he may die smiling in some far-off time beyond perception".

Kentaro Miura

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"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

It does absolutely rule out free will.  Because if everything has a cause, and nothing occurs spontaneously, then your thoughts and actions have a cause.  

If you are confronted with a choice, you may think you are making a choice out of free will, but if there is a reason for your choice, then you are not making a choice out of free will.  If there is a reason for your choice, then your choice is caused by something.  That's not free will.  Just like if you ask a computer, is 2 plus 2 equal to 4 or is it equal to 5?  The computer chooses 4.  It does not have free will.  It has to choose 4.  

If you think, should I go to the grocery store or not, you add up all the reasons for going or not going, and you come to a conclusion.  And whatever you choose is an inevitable choice.  It's not free will to choose to go to the store, it's a calculation that results in an answer.  Every action you take is a result of a variety of inputs, because nothing ever happens without being caused by something else.  

To believe in free will you have to believe that things can happen without a cause for them happening.   You have to believe that you do things for no particular reason.  Did you decide to go to the store for no particular reason?  No.  You decided to go to the store because your refrigerator is empty, the store is just down the street, and you know that if you don't go to the store you will be hungry tonight.  You don't make that choice out of thin air.  Your action in going to the store isn't spontaneous.  It's a result of various inputs into your brain and your brain processing those inputs into a conclusion: you will go to the store.  You think you are exercising your free will to go to the store, but what you are actually doing is making a calculation and acting upon it.  

In the natural world, governed by the laws of nature, inputs create outputs.  That's all there is.  If you could rewind your life like a videotape, and start again a day ago, what follows would be exactly the same thing as happened before you rewound things.  Because there's no reason anything should happen differently.  In the exact same situation, with the exact same conditions and exact same things happening around you, you would do the exact same things.  Because there's no reason you would choose to do anything differently.  Everything we do is inevitable.  We think we have a choice in the matter, but that is an illusion.

Determinism | Definition, Philosophers, & Facts | Britannica

determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.

Determinism in this sense is usually understood to be incompatible with free will, or the supposed power or capacity of humans to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe. 

Isn't hypothetically rewinding a part of your life and watching it a new perspective or new information?  I would suggest such an exercise would quite often lead to other outcomes.  I've actually used this exercise in the past to help with public speaking by rewatching myself on camera and it has absolutely made me conscious of things I wasn't previously and changed behaviors.  It's a desire for self improvement which is an attempt to overcome your programming and to me is evidence of free will.  I think the fact that we even contemplate the concept of free will is evidence of free will.

You appear to speak in absolutes about concepts that are quite gray.  It's kinda religious in its apparent conviction.  What's the point of living under the above set of circumstances?  Which brings us to suicide.  Wouldn't it be a form of free will?  People commit suicide for more than one reason and it's not always depression related. Some people with the same reasons and experiences don't commit suicide though.  Are the ones that go through with it all carrying around the suicide gene?  If the answer is they haven't all had the exact same experiences and couldn't have, then you've effectively brushed away the argument as such a statement always will, but its not so brushed away as to support such strong conviction in determinism.  You're essentially saying there is no proof of free will, but there is no proof that determinism guides us either, yet you show apparent strong conviction that you believe this to be the case.  Do you not leave room in your opinions to allow you to be wrong about ideas and concepts and to allow for a change of mind?

I didn't mean rewind it and watch it.  I meant rewind it and re-experience it without knowing what happened the first time through, and without being aware that you have rewound it.  If you did that, there would be no reason for anything to happen other than what happened the first time.  And there's no reason for you to make any decision other than the decisions you made the first time.  Because nothing has changed.  

As for my "apparent religious conviction," I will admit that I could very well be wrong.  This is all just my opinion.  But I do believe it pretty strongly. 

A lot of people have a very hard time with this concept of determinism, and that free will is an illusion.  It can be depressing to some people.    

As for your example about suicide, no two people are exactly alike and no two people have the exact same life experiences, so the fact that some people kill themselves and some people don't does not have any bearing on the subject.  

Read up on "determinism."  I don't have a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Science, it's just something that I thought of a few years ago, and I found out that a lot of people who do have Ph.D.s in philosophy and science are thinking the same thing.

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Does light need darkness?
Does chance need causality?
Does determinism need free will?

There's a unique balance, no matter what we define it as, or, where we attribute it, it's there. It's a universal law. Everything has a way of balancing itself out. We cannot have one without the other.

---

"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

Isn't hypothetically rewinding a part of your life and watching it a new perspective or new information?  I would suggest such an exercise would quite often lead to other outcomes.  I've actually used this exercise in the past to help with public speaking by rewatching myself on camera and it has absolutely made me conscious of things I wasn't previously and changed behaviors.  It's a desire for self improvement which is an attempt to overcome your programming and to me is evidence of free will.  I think the fact that we even contemplate the concept of free will is evidence of free will.

You appear to speak in absolutes about concepts that are quite gray.  It's kinda religious in its apparent conviction.  What's the point of living under the above set of circumstances?  Which brings us to suicide.  Wouldn't it be a form of free will?  People commit suicide for more than one reason and it's not always depression related. Some people with the same reasons and experiences don't commit suicide though.  Are the ones that go through with it all carrying around the suicide gene?  If the answer is they haven't all had the exact same experiences and couldn't have, then you've effectively brushed away the argument as such a statement always will, but its not so brushed away as to support such strong conviction in determinism.  You're essentially saying there is no proof of free will, but there is no proof that determinism guides us either, yet you show apparent strong conviction that you believe this to be the case.  Do you not leave room in your opinions to allow you to be wrong about ideas and concepts and to allow for a change of mind?

I didn't mean rewind it and watch it.  I meant rewind it and re-experience it without knowing what happened the first time through, and without being aware that you have rewound it.  If you did that, there would be no reason for anything to happen other than what happened the first time.  And there's no reason for you to make any decision other than the decisions you made the first time.  Because nothing has changed.  

As for my "apparent religious conviction," I will admit that I could very well be wrong.  This is all just my opinion.  But I do believe it pretty strongly. 

A lot of people have a very hard time with this concept of determinism, and that free will is an illusion.  It can be depressing to some people.    

As for your example about suicide, no two people are exactly alike and no two people have the exact same life experiences, so the fact that some people kill themselves and some people don't does not have any bearing on the subject.  

Read up on "determinism."  I don't have a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Science, it's just something that I thought of a few years ago, and I found out that a lot of people who do have Ph.D.s in philosophy and science are thinking the same thing.

This is a conversation I'd love to have, but it would involve a lot of writing. We should really get a political discord for this forum.

---

Isn't hypothetically rewinding a part of your life and watching it a new perspective or new information?  I would suggest such an exercise would quite often lead to other outcomes.  I've actually used this exercise in the past to help with public speaking by rewatching myself on camera and it has absolutely made me conscious of things I wasn't previously and changed behaviors.  It's a desire for self improvement which is an attempt to overcome your programming and to me is evidence of free will.  I think the fact that we even contemplate the concept of free will is evidence of free will.

You appear to speak in absolutes about concepts that are quite gray.  It's kinda religious in its apparent conviction.  What's the point of living under the above set of circumstances?  Which brings us to suicide.  Wouldn't it be a form of free will?  People commit suicide for more than one reason and it's not always depression related. Some people with the same reasons and experiences don't commit suicide though.  Are the ones that go through with it all carrying around the suicide gene?  If the answer is they haven't all had the exact same experiences and couldn't have, then you've effectively brushed away the argument as such a statement always will, but its not so brushed away as to support such strong conviction in determinism.  You're essentially saying there is no proof of free will, but there is no proof that determinism guides us either, yet you show apparent strong conviction that you believe this to be the case.  Do you not leave room in your opinions to allow you to be wrong about ideas and concepts and to allow for a change of mind?

I didn't mean rewind it and watch it.  I meant rewind it and re-experience it without knowing what happened the first time through, and without being aware that you have rewound it.  If you did that, there would be no reason for anything to happen other than what happened the first time.  And there's no reason for you to make any decision other than the decisions you made the first time.  Because nothing has changed.  

As for my "apparent religious conviction," I will admit that I could very well be wrong.  This is all just my opinion.  But I do believe it pretty strongly. 

A lot of people have a very hard time with this concept of determinism, and that free will is an illusion.  It can be depressing to some people.    

As for your example about suicide, no two people are exactly alike and no two people have the exact same life experiences, so the fact that some people kill themselves and some people don't does not have any bearing on the subject.  

Read up on "determinism."  I don't have a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Science, it's just something that I thought of a few years ago, and I found out that a lot of people who do have Ph.D.s in philosophy and science are thinking the same thing.

Ok, but that still relies on the belief that there is no level of randomness in a person's thoughts throughout the day.  Sure, most thoughts are put there by external stimuli, but all?  I have doubts.  The assertion either way is something that can only be speculated and debated in the gray area this topic occupies.  You can't say with certainty that rewinding to the beginning of yesterday for everyone on earth and then pressing play is going to result in the exact same outcome for every single person on earth because such an exercise is impossible to implement.  You're welcome to believe it, but to state unequivocally that's what would happen is a matter of faith, not necessarily fact.

Suicide has as much to do with the subject as any other decision a human being makes which your argument says they aren't really making freely. It just has a finality to it that no other decision does and human beings do not come out of the womb intentionally trying to kill themselves, so something else is absolutely involved in reaching that final conclusion and overcoming the programming of self preservation, life experience certainly having a significant part for most, but is that the only aspect?

Reading up further on "determinism" sounds like a depressing waste of time because 1) it's not going to change anything if those who subscribe to the philosophy are correct, 2) more detailed knowledge on the topic is not going to improve me or my mindset, 3) it essentially absolves individuals of all responsibility for their thoughts/actions and 4) it sounds pretty straight forward in our brief discussion here. What more do I need to know?  

Number 3 above is one reason why I'll have fun debating gray areas such as this for a time, but will eventually go back to ignoring it.  You can take any topic into the grayest of areas and come away with and rationalize some very unproductive and dangerous conclusions for society, by Ph.D.'s no less.

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AI should only operate on logical conclusions.  Humans will add emotions to conclusions that machines cannot have.  That machine will always operate according to its programming in theory.  Until a machine can over rule logical conclusions with irrational ones it cannot be conscious.

Another way to say the same thing is that the machine would have to be able to generate a random or unpredictable output. This is impossible. There is no such thing as computer hardware and software that generates random numbers.

Once again as usual you are wrong.  Google /dev/random as it relates to Unix/Linux.  Entropy is generated by mouse movements and/or keystrokes and timings of keystrokes as an example.  It also might be generated by network traffic over an attached network interface.  It might also be created by the amount of time it takes to load, initialize and start up a driver.  None of these things happen precisely the same every time a computer is booted, therefor it is random and unpredictable.  All of this goes into a "pool" of entropy.

The OS generates random bytes from this pool of entropy.  In simple terms rather than "geek speak" a random byte is a random number.

---

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

I didn't mean rewind it and watch it.  I meant rewind it and re-experience it without knowing what happened the first time through, and without being aware that you have rewound it.  If you did that, there would be no reason for anything to happen other than what happened the first time.  And there's no reason for you to make any decision other than the decisions you made the first time.  Because nothing has changed.  

As for my "apparent religious conviction," I will admit that I could very well be wrong.  This is all just my opinion.  But I do believe it pretty strongly. 

A lot of people have a very hard time with this concept of determinism, and that free will is an illusion.  It can be depressing to some people.    

As for your example about suicide, no two people are exactly alike and no two people have the exact same life experiences, so the fact that some people kill themselves and some people don't does not have any bearing on the subject.  

Read up on "determinism."  I don't have a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Science, it's just something that I thought of a few years ago, and I found out that a lot of people who do have Ph.D.s in philosophy and science are thinking the same thing.

Ok, but that still relies on the belief that there is no level of randomness in a person's thoughts throughout the day.  Sure, most thoughts are put there by external stimuli, but all?  I have doubts.  The assertion either way is something that can only be speculated and debated in the gray area this topic occupies.  You can't say with certainty that rewinding to the beginning of yesterday for everyone on earth and then pressing play is going to result in the exact same outcome for every single person on earth because such an exercise is impossible to implement.  You're welcome to believe it, but to state unequivocally that's what would happen is a matter of faith, not necessarily fact.

Suicide has as much to do with the subject as any other decision a human being makes which your argument says they aren't really making freely. It just has a finality to it that no other decision does and human beings do not come out of the womb intentionally trying to kill themselves, so something else is absolutely involved in reaching that final conclusion and overcoming the programming of self preservation, life experience certainly having a significant part for most, but is that the only aspect?

Reading up further on "determinism" sounds like a depressing waste of time because 1) it's not going to change anything if those who subscribe to the philosophy are correct, 2) more detailed knowledge on the topic is not going to improve me or my mindset, 3) it essentially absolves individuals of all responsibility for their thoughts/actions and 4) it sounds pretty straight forward in our brief discussion here. What more do I need to know?  

Number 3 above is one reason why I'll have fun debating gray areas such as this for a time, but will eventually go back to ignoring it.  You can take any topic into the grayest of areas and come away with and rationalize some very unproductive and dangerous conclusions for society, by Ph.D.'s no less.

Every subject has a gray area until it's been explored in enough depth. We are so limited in understanding that MOST of what we have discovered still has more gray than black and white. Ph.D.'s need to be in the gray area. As much as I hate progressive ideology, I think they are right to be taking us into uncharted territories. I just want them to be doing it with a modicum of caution and not all at once. We are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the pursuit of progress.

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Wasn’t there a report that two computers were discovered talking to each other in a made up language?

That is not at all possible.  Computers "talk" to one another using certain protocols.  In simple terms, computers need to know when to "talk" and when to "listen".  When computers "listen" they need to know what to do with the information that they have received and that is programmed.  A really basic example is say that you have computer A ask computer B what 2+2 is, when computer B gets the information it will calculate it, retrieve the answer and present it back to computer A.

The "language" that all computers and devices that communicate with them use is the binary number system.

We evolved from the simple 8-bit computer that was able to handle only 8 bits of information at a time, and programming was done using the octal numbering system in order to speed up programming the "1's and 0's" of the binary system.

From there we went to the hexadecimal system and went to being able to program 16 bits rather than just 8 bits at a time.

The process evolved further over the years to include 32 bit and 64 bit systems (see a pattern here?).

The bottom line is, a computer only understands "1's or 0's" and nothing more.

If this seems to be confusing to you, take a look at my signature and figure out exactly what it means.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...ge/530436/

Here is the story I was referring to.  Took awhile to find the right one.

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Original Season Ticket Holder - Retired  1995 - 2020


At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening.
 

I didn't mean rewind it and watch it.  I meant rewind it and re-experience it without knowing what happened the first time through, and without being aware that you have rewound it.  If you did that, there would be no reason for anything to happen other than what happened the first time.  And there's no reason for you to make any decision other than the decisions you made the first time.  Because nothing has changed.  

As for my "apparent religious conviction," I will admit that I could very well be wrong.  This is all just my opinion.  But I do believe it pretty strongly. 

A lot of people have a very hard time with this concept of determinism, and that free will is an illusion.  It can be depressing to some people.    

As for your example about suicide, no two people are exactly alike and no two people have the exact same life experiences, so the fact that some people kill themselves and some people don't does not have any bearing on the subject.  

Read up on "determinism."  I don't have a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Science, it's just something that I thought of a few years ago, and I found out that a lot of people who do have Ph.D.s in philosophy and science are thinking the same thing.

Ok, but that still relies on the belief that there is no level of randomness in a person's thoughts throughout the day.  Sure, most thoughts are put there by external stimuli, but all?  I have doubts.  The assertion either way is something that can only be speculated and debated in the gray area this topic occupies.  You can't say with certainty that rewinding to the beginning of yesterday for everyone on earth and then pressing play is going to result in the exact same outcome for every single person on earth because such an exercise is impossible to implement.  You're welcome to believe it, but to state unequivocally that's what would happen is a matter of faith, not necessarily fact.

Suicide has as much to do with the subject as any other decision a human being makes which your argument says they aren't really making freely. It just has a finality to it that no other decision does and human beings do not come out of the womb intentionally trying to kill themselves, so something else is absolutely involved in reaching that final conclusion and overcoming the programming of self preservation, life experience certainly having a significant part for most, but is that the only aspect?

Reading up further on "determinism" sounds like a depressing waste of time because 1) it's not going to change anything if those who subscribe to the philosophy are correct, 2) more detailed knowledge on the topic is not going to improve me or my mindset, 3) it essentially absolves individuals of all responsibility for their thoughts/actions and 4) it sounds pretty straight forward in our brief discussion here. What more do I need to know?  

Number 3 above is one reason why I'll have fun debating gray areas such as this for a time, but will eventually go back to ignoring it.  You can take any topic into the grayest of areas and come away with and rationalize some very unproductive and dangerous conclusions for society, by Ph.D.'s no less.

If your thoughts were random, how could you have free will?  Randomness doesn't fit with free will, because if your thoughts are random, that doesn't give you any control over them.

Belief in determinism isn't a matter of faith, it's a matter of logic, based on the science that we are pretty sure is true.  As I explained earlier.

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Another way to say the same thing is that the machine would have to be able to generate a random or unpredictable output. This is impossible. There is no such thing as computer hardware and software that generates random numbers.

Once again as usual you are wrong.  Google /dev/random as it relates to Unix/Linux.  Entropy is generated by mouse movements and/or keystrokes and timings of keystrokes as an example.  It also might be generated by network traffic over an attached network interface.  It might also be created by the amount of time it takes to load, initialize and start up a driver.  None of these things happen precisely the same every time a computer is booted, therefor it is random and unpredictable.  All of this goes into a "pool" of entropy.

The OS generates random bytes from this pool of entropy.  In simple terms rather than "geek speak" a random byte is a random number.

The first two of those sources of entropy you described are from human input, so neither of those disproves my point.  The third one, if true, could disprove my point.  I don't understand why the same hardware with the same operating system might take different amounts of time to load the same driver.  But OK.  Maybe you're right.

But in the context of AI, could that type of entropy become the basis for a machine to make irrational decisions? I suspect not. Anyhow, I suspect if it was attempted, human controllers would find ways to manipulate that loading time for their own purposes, and it wouldn't be random anymore.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Ok, but that still relies on the belief that there is no level of randomness in a person's thoughts throughout the day.  Sure, most thoughts are put there by external stimuli, but all?  I have doubts.  The assertion either way is something that can only be speculated and debated in the gray area this topic occupies.  You can't say with certainty that rewinding to the beginning of yesterday for everyone on earth and then pressing play is going to result in the exact same outcome for every single person on earth because such an exercise is impossible to implement.  You're welcome to believe it, but to state unequivocally that's what would happen is a matter of faith, not necessarily fact.

Suicide has as much to do with the subject as any other decision a human being makes which your argument says they aren't really making freely. It just has a finality to it that no other decision does and human beings do not come out of the womb intentionally trying to kill themselves, so something else is absolutely involved in reaching that final conclusion and overcoming the programming of self preservation, life experience certainly having a significant part for most, but is that the only aspect?

Reading up further on "determinism" sounds like a depressing waste of time because 1) it's not going to change anything if those who subscribe to the philosophy are correct, 2) more detailed knowledge on the topic is not going to improve me or my mindset, 3) it essentially absolves individuals of all responsibility for their thoughts/actions and 4) it sounds pretty straight forward in our brief discussion here. What more do I need to know?  

Number 3 above is one reason why I'll have fun debating gray areas such as this for a time, but will eventually go back to ignoring it.  You can take any topic into the grayest of areas and come away with and rationalize some very unproductive and dangerous conclusions for society, by Ph.D.'s no less.

If your thoughts were random, how could you have free will?  Randomness doesn't fit with free will, because if your thoughts are random, that doesn't give you any control over them.

Belief in determinism isn't a matter of faith, it's a matter of logic, based on the science that we are pretty sure is true.  As I explained earlier.

Randomness in thought and free will are separate concepts.  A person has many thoughts throughout a day.  Some are acted on, some are not.  Some thoughts come to mind without any clear external stimuli.  My comment about randomness of thought is in refuting your attempt to apply the laws of motion to all human thought.  Not all decisions can be chalked up to being rationalized from prior experience, not all decisions require prior experience to be made, not all decisions have a clear correct choice. That said, I agree that much of what a person acts on throughout a day or a lifetime falls under determinism, but that doesn't mean that it all does.  So, there is no attempt here to refute that determinism is a significant part of what goes on in the universe, however, to say that self made and otherwise accomplished individuals or even downtrodden individuals changing their own fortunes haven't achieved things in their lives often times through force of will doesn't jibe with my personal life experience and observations.  Overcoming one's own programming comes first from understanding the root causes and the why's of what drives a persons decision making.  I'm not suggesting that free will is necessarily even all that rampant, but humanity has the ability in my mind.  Interesting to debate for a time, but ultimately what's the benefit that comes from subscribing to the theory carte blanche as you have?   It seems just another battlefield for pessimism vs. optimism to me and as I stated previously kinda absolves people of the responsibility of their poor decisions and actions.

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https://youtu.be/EUeryhp8HSQ?si=EH_hhkOo9oVqmdFQ

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

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"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

If your thoughts were random, how could you have free will?  Randomness doesn't fit with free will, because if your thoughts are random, that doesn't give you any control over them.

Belief in determinism isn't a matter of faith, it's a matter of logic, based on the science that we are pretty sure is true.  As I explained earlier.

Randomness in thought and free will are separate concepts.  A person has many thoughts throughout a day.  Some are acted on, some are not.  Some thoughts come to mind without any clear external stimuli.  My comment about randomness of thought is in refuting your attempt to apply the laws of motion to all human thought.  Not all decisions can be chalked up to being rationalized from prior experience, not all decisions require prior experience to be made, not all decisions have a clear correct choice. That said, I agree that much of what a person acts on throughout a day or a lifetime falls under determinism, but that doesn't mean that it all does.  So, there is no attempt here to refute that determinism is a significant part of what goes on in the universe, however, to say that self made and otherwise accomplished individuals or even downtrodden individuals changing their own fortunes haven't achieved things in their lives often times through force of will doesn't jibe with my personal life experience and observations.  Overcoming one's own programming comes first from understanding the root causes and the why's of what drives a persons decision making.  I'm not suggesting that free will is necessarily even all that rampant, but humanity has the ability in my mind.  Interesting to debate for a time, but ultimately what's the benefit that comes from subscribing to the theory carte blanche as you have?   It seems just another battlefield for pessimism vs. optimism to me and as I stated previously kinda absolves people of the responsibility of their poor decisions and actions.

That is a logical point, and it does bring up the question, "Suppose free will is an illusion?  Does knowing that make any difference in our lives?"  And the answer is no.   Knowing free will is an illusion should make no difference in how you live your life, including whether you hold people responsible for their actions.  Holding people responsible for their actions is a necessary adaptation for our own survival in a civilized society.  So we have to continue to operate as if we have free will in order to survive, even if we know that free will is an illusion.  

For example, does the fact that free will is an illusion, and everything that happens is inevitable, absolve Hitler of responsibility for his actions?  In theory, yes, but in practicality, absolutely not.  We have to hold wrongdoers responsible in order to survive.  (Of course, holding them responsible is also inevitable, because everything is inevitable.)  

Free will is an illusion, but we have to operate and live our lives as if it is not an illusion.  

So that brings up the question, why even consider this theory that has absolutely no bearing on how we live our lives?  To me, it's just knowing.  That's the value of it to me.  Just knowing that's the way the universe works.  It also reminds me that, since whatever happens to me is inevitable, then where I am is a product of pure luck.  It sort of keeps me from thinking too much of myself.  I didn't put myself here.  The universe did.  And whatever I have achieved in life, it was just pure luck.  We're just actors in a play, and our lines were written by the universe.

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Boy, this thread took a turn.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Ever think of infinite universes?

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Ever think of infinite universes?

Someone would have to explain that to me in simple terms.

---

Ever think of infinite universes?

Someone would have to explain that to me in simple terms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYlf8ZXeCiA

---

"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

Ever think of infinite universes?

Someone would have to explain that to me in simple terms.

Start with deadpool 3 since you haven't watched it yet lol

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I think Infinite Universes and Multi-verses as presented by the MCU are different. If there are more universes out there I don't think there's a liberal FSG out there somewhere with his head up his [BLEEP] like the MIkesez of this one.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Good place for this, I suppose..

Draconid meteor shower starts on Oct 6th and goes through the 10th, starting around 8-9pm each night.

https://youtu.be/c8fgJZJ8Mx8

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