I have not posted in a while, so I thought I'd post this brief interaction with ChatGPT on the subject of consciousness as an epiphenomenon. The program, I have to say, is a smooth-talking bastard, but in a good way (a way that I like).Incidentally, the image is created by ChatGPT (DALL·E 3) I asked: … Continue reading Epiphenomenon
Category: other stuff
Came across this TED talk by Hughes today. The talk was neither strident nor unreasonable. The general premise is that our policies should be 'colourblind'. Meaning that the policies should be indifferent to race. And that policies should be based on class instead, where the target groups, black and Hispanic, are over represented in the … Continue reading Blindness
We have several words that draw attention to the self or in the plural selves. For example, ourselves, selfless, selfish, selfhood, her/himself and the strangely tautological myself are just a few. What is a "self"? When we think of a self how does it seem to us? How do we describe ourselves? A scientific description … Continue reading Self
I have not written anything for a while; but ... My Internet is down, so instead of surfing the digital waves this is an opportunity not to surf and put finger to keyboard. I was talking to a friend about illegal immigration. My friend was complaining about immigrants by-passing the system and getting entry into … Continue reading My Atoms
Douglas Adams is one of my favourite authors. 'I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.'The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time 'The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a … Continue reading Adams
I have taken some data from Wikipedia which in turn is based on Credit Suisse's Global wealth databook 2019. I have not looked at how the wealth per individual is calculated; but, it is recognized that the data will be skewed by things like the age of the population, buying power and no doubt other … Continue reading Wealth
I wanted to call this blog voices in the machine. This blog is inspired by a conversation I overheard; my wife was on Zoom, discussing posting videos for her weaving guild. I was wondering whether she would have a transcript of her proposed Zoom meeting, as I find it a lot easier to read than … Continue reading Voices
There is an old saying, you are what you eat, and of course there is a lot of truth in this, but it is not the whole truth. In Genesis's Selling England by the Pound (Dancing with the Moonlight Knight), there is a line:Old man says, "you are what you wear, wear well."Of course there … Continue reading Wear Well
Einstein famously said: God does not play dice. That of course does not mean luck is not involved in the way the universe is unfolding. We can see this luck as positive or negative. And our viewpoint is down to a matter of luck too. In his book, The Self Illusion, Bruce Hood describes a … Continue reading Luck
The universe is fundamentally chaotic, get over it. When I say chaotic, I definitely don't mean random. This does not mean there are not random aspects to our existence. In chaotic systems we can find patterns that can repeat. Counting the iterations it takes to solve a complex equations with imaginary numbers can lead to … Continue reading Chaos
rom's corner 