TitaniumButterfly
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User ID: 2854
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
@reo's comment made a good start and I just want to jump in and echo that "The Self Has Value" is doing a phenomenal amount of work for what amounts to a stipulation. It begs any number of absolutely vital questions, not least the validity of the concept of 'value' which at least needs to be defined before serving as such a critical building-block.
Really, I don't think I can comment on what follows that part without knowing what you mean by 'value'. And, cards on the table, I suspect that I'm gonna have problems with your definition.
That said I'd like to commend you for coming here and putting your thoughts out to the world for vetting. I think you've probably come to the right place, though I'm not sure the particular people who could serve you best will see this thread.
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
individual consciousness is part of the Universal Consciousness (like Advaita Vedanta)
FWIW this is close to my understanding as an Orthodox Christian as well, what with God being the seat of all consciousness. Our temporal existence is the ultimately-successful process of uniting with Him, though our perception of that is locally-limited for our protection (expulsion from the garden because in our current state the full perception of God would destroy us). David Bentley Hart, certainly one of the most prominent contemporary Orthodox thinkers, says fairly often that modern Christian understanding isn't Vedantic enough and we should be looking further into it. More and more I find myself quietly convinced of panpsychism.
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
My thoughts exactly, although you're a little more hopeful than I am that the median voter has opinions about Biden's senility.
What did cheer me up about this report is that it suggests that DNC leadership is still refusing to learn lessons. How indicative it is, I can't guess, but it points that way.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
Someone once told me that it's great when people call it Revelations because it's an immediate clue that they're not actually informed about the material. I thought that was a handy trick for a while, but over the years I've found that actually people just call it that all the time, including those who should know better.
I know you've been through this with everyone and their dog but has meditation helped at all with the depression? I find it can, sometimes. Though when I get depressive it tends to be more out of anxiety from overwhelming responsibilities in the face of a world where the infrastructure for living up to those is broken. In other words it's often a matter of resetting my perspective and sort of... I think of it as remembering that even though the water is up to my chin and the waves hit me in the face a lot, I can still just touch the ground with my tiptoes, and that I'm grateful to have such a challenge and reason to keep trying to rise to it. Sometimes meditation gets me there.
My priest says that if a Christian husband doesn't often feel like he's dying (or, to extend the metaphor, drowning) he's probably doing it wrong.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
It doesn't seem "snuck" to me; he did specify it overtly. But sure, it's a questionable point to make.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
Judges can do all kinds of stuff right? Could a judge require the government to try to develop a time machine to bring him back to the missed events? What about investment in longevity tech to give him the lifespan back?
Obviously I'm less interested in the actual case here than I am in being whimsical, but I do wonder.
TitaniumButterfly
2d ago
When I saw my wife I knew it immediately.
Seems to me that a better parallel is the stuff women do (e.g. wear painful shoes, pluck at their eyebrows) for beauty, and in both cases I'm inclined to leave it up to the individual.
TitaniumButterfly
3d ago
No, you should not hit your jaw with a hammer to develop a chad jawline.
People keep saying this but nobody ever says why. Even you just said that it has many perks. Why not do it?
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
I think that either I'll be saved, or else never stood a chance; if my ongoing sincere repentance isn't enough, probably nothing would have been. My problem is that I don't know what hell is or what to expect after death.
I'm not really worried about eternal conscious torment, but put it this way: I've had enough experience as a psychonaut that my horizons in terms of possible states of consciousness and being have been enormously broadened, and I'm viscerally aware of terrible possibilities that probably wouldn't occur to most.
Even if I look forward to what ultimately comes after death, I'm afraid of the transition. I'm afraid of my brain shutting down, and what that's going to be like. I'm very afraid of what it will be like to face judgment, even if mostly pretty confident in the outcome. Are we faced with the entirety of our own sinfulness before absolution? Why? To what end? And how could I stand that? Or does Christ just show up immediately and say "Don't worry about it, you're done, I've got it from here, welcome to eternal bliss"?
Will I be called upon to live again? Does following Christ mean choosing to go back into the world and suffer as a human for others? My life is amazing and I have no trouble seeing it as a gift, though shot through with pain, hopefully for the purpose of spiritual growth. But I look at the lives of almost anyone else and think, no, I don't want to experience that.
I can imagine endless possibilities, and expect that the reality will be far beyond even those; incomprehensible to my current imagination.
The right attitude here is to trust and bear in mind the solemnity of what's coming. And I do those things. But I find that it's best to not dwell on it too much.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
The caricature of stoned drivers is they wait for the stop sign to turn green
In my experience, stoned drivers exercise what seems like a superabundance of caution because they feel like everything around them is happening too fast and they can't quite keep up. So they go very slowly; sit at stop signs a very long time to make sure no one is about to come. Check every direction five times, etc.
While it's not ideal, it occurs to me as closer to 'silly' than 'reckless'. Should be avoided either way ofc. But someone on weed, unlike someone on alcohol, doesn't wake up the next day to find dents they don't remember or a mailbox in their grille.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
depends on the dose and your tolerance
Yes, of course. And it's not apples to apples in terms of 'level' of inebriation; they're different beasts.
But having experience with both, the trouble with alcohol is that it makes it difficult to judge how impaired you really are. Whereas with thc, you're highly-aware of your state and if anything much more likely to drive much slower than usual if not pull over for a while.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
It's not like driving stoned is safer than driving drunk
I'd be astonished if it weren't.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
Read that as 'regret and homelessness' which made me laugh, almost.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
The logic behind calling them terrorists is that the profits generated from selling those drugs (allegedly) go to funding terrorism. Seems like regulated legalization would be more effective at solving that problem but the point is that it doesn't have to do with the voluntary harm to the users.
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You don't need to be consistent, and I mean that in general. But especially when it comes to theology it's often a trap. I forget who it was that said, "At the root of every heresy is a sincere effort to resolve an apparent contradiction."
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Angels are a qualitatively different sort of being than humans. Angels exist sort of timelessly in that each decides once and forever whether to be loyal or disloyal to the Existing One, and is thereafter incapable of change. Also, God became man, not angel. We're just talking about totally different things here. Their minds are not like ours, their internal experiences are not like ours, etc.
TitaniumButterfly
11d ago
At the time
Have you since changed your mind?
TitaniumButterfly
12d ago
Oh thanks for letting me know. I'd been vaguely meaning to read past the first one for like the last ten years so it's nice to be relieved of that.
Highly recommend. It's a breath of fresh air for all the reasons OP described. (Though I guess I'm not clear on what's meant by "pulpy")
Also, the audiobook versions narrated by Patrick Tull really bring it to life. I can't read the books any more without hearing the way Jack says "Stephen!" after a long absence, and I wouldn't want to.
TitaniumButterfly
14d ago
Yes, that's all good and well, but how can I pass up an opportunity to direct others toward Blood Dragon?
If I ever replay any of the series it'll be that one and it's not even close.
TitaniumButterfly
16d ago
Chiming in that I think it's cute for a younger woman specifically to get her nails painted, though not extended. Gross in older women.
However, either way, my first thought upon seeing them is "Wow that can't be good for the endocrine system." When my wife entered her baby-making era she gave up nail paints and polishes because she couldn't find any that were both effective and nontoxic.
TitaniumButterfly
17d ago
I'm talking San Jose specifically, but regardless I'm not suggesting it's any good. Only that we do have dedicated biryani shops.
The lamb biryani at Dish & Dash used to be pretty good but has declined over the years
TitaniumButterfly
17d ago
We have loads of biryani shops in the Bay Area, fwiw. I don't go to them because as a rule they look absolutely filthy, but we do have them.
Another comment because hey why not:
"Cogito ergo sum" has always struck me as too generous. We can grant that something exists which (for the moment) believes itself to be ourselves, but that's not necessarily the same thing as our concepts of ourselves. I have been penguins, and so on, in my dreams.
Being is, and this conscious experience is the only access we have to it -- but as you say, that's a far cry from this thing I call 'me' existing in any meaningful sense. And that's before we get to questions about our memories, capacity for reason, or ability to observe ourselves.
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