/metaphysics/

Luther on Retroactive Prayer — Can you pray for someone in the past?
I was thinking about praying backwards in time when I was praying that something that had already happened, but that I didn’t know the outcome of. I think it was someone else’s driving test. ... posted 7d ago with 4 replies 11 11

Luther on Retroactiv 11 11

FWIW, the Catholic idea of prayers for the dead is that it is only applicable to souls in purgatory, i.e., souls of those who died in a state of grace, and so are destined for heaven, but are still in need of spiritual purgation. The prayers help to facili... 3d ago 2 2

FWIW, the Catholic i 2 2

The devil's argument against the falseness of eden, and God's reason for evil
I have been bothered for some time by the idea that Eden is either coherent or desirable. This idea is implicit in the problem of evil: we see that reality is different from Eden in that it includes a bunch of scary dangerous uncomfortable stuff we would r... posted 4w ago with 6 replies 7 7

The devil's argument 7 7

The point of the story isn't that the devil is good or even that the devil was right. It’s that this creation (physical reality) is the good one, the pain in it is part of a greater plan and beauty, and the paradise imagined by bronze age semites is fake... 1w ago 5 5

The point of the sto 5 5

It is the will of Gnon that we shall fill the stars and subdue them. Jim solves the great filter, rejects copernican principle. (blog.reaction.la) posted 1mo ago with 1 reply 10 10

It is the will of Gn 10 10

God willing, we shall seize what has been granted to us. 1mo ago 5 5

God willing, we shal 5 5

Leibnizian Supercoordination
Continuing off of a few prior threads: ... posted 2mo ago with 25 replies 6 6

Leibnizian Supercoor 6 6

Thank you anon 2mo ago 1 1

Thank you anon 1 1

Rat King 1518. Insurrealist takes on Scott Alexander's "Moloch" (insurrealist.substack.com) posted 2mo ago with 5 replies 13 13

Rat King 1518. Insur 13 13

Moloch is certainly used as a pretext for hubris against God (as is typical of all self-righteous Ivan Karamazov types that only end up making matters worse for the very people they claim to stand in defense of), but the concept is more limited. Indeed, it... 2mo ago 5 5

Moloch is certainly 5 5

Physicalism and Questions of Identity
Suppose your consciousness was transferred into someone else's body, the rationalist asked me. I asked what does that even mean? I am an entirely physical being. What exactly is being swapped over? I'm not going to evaluate a "but what if you were haitian"... posted 5mo ago with 35 replies 13 13 1 1

Physicalism and Ques 13 13 1 1

The crux seems to be this “bucket” you want to put different things in together or not. If the cpu architecture is different but the emulated program and behavior are the same (modulo timing, power use, etc), why does there need to be any canonical sen... 4mo ago 3 3

The crux seems to be 3 3

Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions by Eliezer Yudkowsky (www.lesswrong.com) posted 5mo ago with 17 replies 7 7 1 1

Mysterious Answers t 7 7 1 1

I agree whole heartedly with this anon. "Gnon created consciousness" because the kind of animals we are and needed to be to fill the open niches in the world needed to be conscious in an entirely natural and straightforward way. Consciousness is necessary ... 4mo ago 3 3

I agree whole hearte 3 3

How I came to believe in the goodness of God
I was raised on what my mother called "natural history". The story of creation was one of billions of years in layers of bedrock. The story of life was the struggle of genes for resources and reproduction. When I met christians, they were the unsophisticat... posted 5mo ago with 21 replies 19 19

How I came to believ 19 19

Thank you. Sounds like Lasker goes on the infinitely expanding list of books i ought to read. Any new angles on Gnon theology are highly valuable at this point in our program. 5mo ago 3 3

Thank you. Sounds li 3 3

Physicalism vs "Existence"
Many people seem to think there's something to the idea of the "existence" of the world, but I have come to question this. To be clear this is connected to classic questions like "why is there something rather than nothing", simulation argument, Boltzmann ... posted 5mo ago with 3 replies 6 6 2 2

Physicalism vs "Exis 6 6 2 2

Simulation hypothesis and multiverse theories do not assert that the universe doesn't exist, but rather that it has a particular structure, even if one different from more typical intuitions. They do not bear on the question of "whether the world exists." 5mo ago 3 3

Simulation hypothesi 3 3

Paper: Minimal physicalism as a scale-free substrate for cognition and consciousness
I just came across this paper from theoretical biologist Michael Levin, et. al. ... posted 6mo ago with 1 reply 3 3

Paper: Minimal physi 3 3

Not done yet but reading through. Some of this is above my level, some sems frustratingly preliminary and not getting into the meat of things (maybe later in the article?). One claim i found interesting is i think the author’s other paper claiming a cell... 6mo ago 3 3

Not done yet but rea 3 3

Going to bat for "hard materialism"
The saying goes that any discussion eventually becomes about Hitler, but over in the blood and soil thread, it's become about metaphysics. Specifically the valuation of a quantitative worldview, or even "hard materialism", relative to a more holistic quali... posted 12mo ago with 45 replies 14 14

Going to bat for "ha 14 14

Cells have a self-forming boundary while proteins participate in forming that boundary. I'm not sure cells are in fact the bottom though. ... 12mo ago 2 2

Cells have a self-fo 2 2