A bit more on free will and conscious choice

We often have discernible choices, but we must be mindful to be aware of them; otherwise we act out of habit or our desires.  Therefore free will is rarely utilized and more often than not our subconscious has already decided before we act.  I can deliberately and freely make my toe move, but if instead I think to my big toe, sometime shortly, move, then my subconscious actually does it.

The conscious we think of as a thing is really a self-perpetuating process not unlike a wave, although a good deal more complicated and with more inputs than just the energy of the rock thrown in the lake.

What is right and good

We each have to decide for ourselves what is right and good.  No one else can do it for us.  That doesn't mean there aren't standards we can apply, and we need to train ourselves in non-judgmentalism, mindfulness, compassion, awareness and understanding of the needs and delusions and compulsions of others, being aware but not judging them and of course first off is compassion and personal moral rectitude.

Free will

I have no problem with free will and think it is a necessary thing if there is to be judgment, responsibility and even purpose in life.

I don't have an omniscient deity in my thinking creating paradoxes, and I don't have a mechanistic universe winding itself down with inevitability either.

I doubt we exercise our ability to make free will choices most of the time; doing so requires mindful choice, and most people never even heard of the idea.  They just do what they do in accordance with their nature, but that does not mean it doesn't exist.

Psychic reading

A good "reader" can identify things about you that it is good for you to know.  I don't think it's magic, but just a skill some people have, sometimes learned, sometimes intuitive.  Once they have your main issues, their advice can be great.

The ability unfortunately includes the ability to be a fraud, pulling cons on people who will later say, "He [or she] must be genuine -- he knew things he couldn't possibly have known."

Of course they often make guesses, and certain guesses, like a recent loss, are very likely to be correct.  Then they assess how serious the loss was to you before proceeding.  Then, again, a wrong guess can also be covered in a myriad of ways, with something like, "What I mean is. . .."

Jesus' Sacrifice

I have to say that is one of the weirdest ideas invented by people -- that one "worships" a deity with sacrifices -- by killing something, but it is so widespread an idea in so many religions, but at the same time is so illogical and, if I may say, just plain dumb, that one really wonders what in our evolution might have led to such a way of thinking.

Christianity of course took the idea to perhaps its ultimate irrationality by deciding through some mysterious magical way the death of a piece of God himself was needed, although of course it was a something of a sham since the death was not real and the particular piece of God (the Son) was very quickly brought back to life.  Something like someone giving you a gift and then taking it back three days later -- not really a gift.

Defining atheism

We need to use words as they are generally understood and be careful we don't get into the trap of having our own special meanings and hence both not understanding and not being understood.

Case in point is "atheism," which to me I find has the special meaning of "no God or gods belief."  The agnostic falls into that category, as he or she does not "believe" in a God.  I realize however that that is not what the ordinary person means.  The ordinary person hearing "atheist" thinks there is a positive assertion that there cannot be a God.  Well of course I strongly doubt that anyone would be so foolish as to think that, so in the end we are all "agnostics."

I nevertheless am in a quandary since I find "atheist" to be the more honest self-description.  I am pretty much as sure that there is no God as I am of anything.

Instinct, sentience, and intellect

If we accept evolution, then we have no choice but to accept that we are animals, and as such if we have intellect then so do animals.  It is part of our evolution.  We may have specialized in intellect where other animals specialize in other things, but they all "think" in some way or another.

It starts off the way we program computers:  If such and such happens then do so and so."  In nature we call that reflex.  If a bright light hits the eye, shrink the pupil.  These are almost entirely outside our conscious control, but not always -- while usually we breathe without thinking about it, we are able, for at least awhile, to override the body and hold our breath -- but sooner or later in this case our will is overridden by our instinct.

Somewhere in evolution the phenomenon known as "sentience" began to appear.  Animals began to experience existence and thereby modify reactions rather than just carry out programmed reflexes.  This is a mystery -- how we perceive rather than just sense; how we experience rather than just exist.  We can see from studies of brain structures and chemicals that most mammals and birds are sentient this way.  They perceive things and thereby can have more subtle instincts and even develop will and intellect.

Of course it may be that it requires language (not just symbolic communication but real language) to think philosophy, so it may be that only humans truly have intellect -- but the precursors are found in many other animals.  I watch my cats and I can see will and thought and differences in intelligence, as well, of course, as general cattiness.

Legitimate religion

There is no point having a religion if there is no evidence it has at least some validity.  Non-theist religions base their legitimacy on whether or not the teachings make sense and are good.  Theist religions base their legitimacy on revelation, which seems to me to need pretty good evidence before being legitimate.

Infinite universe or just big?

If the universe is infinite, we will never know it.  It will always be a case of the end might be just over the next rock.

Maybe the most common logical fallacy is that if something is not understood it means God or aliens or something along those lines.

That I can't understand something is my failure, and proves nothing.

Global warming and the solar cycle

It astonishes me how some people bray their ignorance of scientific things every chance they get, completely unaware of what asses they are showing themselves to be.  Local weather events are only slightly related to overall global trends, and very often go in the opposite direction.  They prove nothing.

The planet is warming; we have lots of evidence of that in melting glaciers, flora and fauna moving northward, longer growing seasons, and so on.  We also know the sun has over the last few hundred years shown an eleven year cycle in its activity, but this most recent high was much less than in the past.  There are reasons to think but no real proof that this has a small effect on climate.  We also know that levels of certain gases, known to raise global temperatures, have been increasing.  There is argument over the significance of this, with a considerable majority of climatologists telling us it presents a danger.

Now if the sun is going to decrease its activity, and we don't know that it will, this may give the world a little extra time as the warming may as a result decrease, and even for a while cool down a bit.  That would appear to be good news.  Still, efforts to reduce the emission of global warming gases would appear to be the wisest course by far.

Qualia defined

I look at "qualia" as experiences: phenomena two people can share only if they both have had the experience.  Anyone naturally sited "knows" what "blue" is but someone blind from birth has no idea and to them it is just a word sighted people use to describe one of their colors.  Now it may be that your "blue" and my "blue" are not the same; this is unimportant.

This will I think be the biggest problem we will have if it ever happens that we meet aliens.  Our experiences -- colors, tastes, internal sensations such as hunger and pain, and even our emotions -- fear, love, anxiety, jealousy -- will all be uncommunicable unless we share analogous sense and emotion systems, something that is probably not likely.

Moral free will

We all have what is thought of as free will, meaning we can make choices uncontrolled by our past or our personalities or our habits, but we rarely do as we are generally not paying attention and do things automatically.  Actually that is for the best as if we think about each choice we won't get much done.

The area of moral decisions is where this becomes important.  Our natures may incline us to selfish or otherwise harmful acts, but we can and many if not most generally do regularly overrule these natural acts to do what is right.

Dreaming about Milwaukee

I have a problem with repetitive dreams that involve property I own and collect rent on and whatnot.  It's upsetting when I realize I'm not so rich.

The same thing happens when I visit a place I've dreamed about.  For example I have several times I dreamed about Milwaukee, but only recently visit it.  The dreams had it all wrong and confused the devil out of me.

I think we are better off just forgetting our dreams; they always get it wrong.

Certainty and uncertainty

There is no "proof" or "disproof" of anything.  There are only opinions with varying levels of confidence.  "Faith" and "belief" are for those who want to have certainty but they are denied it in spite of their self-congratulatory self-deception.

I tend with a few exceptions to follow the views of the experts -- those who have spent their lives studying the subject -- more on the hard sciences (physics, etc.), less things like biology and almost not at all with religious and paranormal and political and historical "experts" who have an agenda.

Would aliens eat us?

Well we wouldn't serve as food as our chemistries would be incompatible.  For resources, that's kinda hard to imagine too since surely the same resources are all over the place closer in.  The only point I could see to visiting us is curiosity -- maybe of the tourist type but that would be too expensive; more likely the unmanned scientific probe type.

The real threat is if they send colonists, but it would be a lot easier to find uninhabited places for that (and more ethical -- we need to recognize that they probably are ethical beings or they would not have survived very long).

Frankly I don't think they are even out there.  There is no evidence and it seems to me if they've been around millions of years there would be.  Further, the luck required to produce a technological civilization that lasts millions of years or so must be overwhelmingly chancy, so odds are we are alone or so close to alone it doesn't matter.

Abortion, pragmatic law

Many base their thinking about abortion on the wrong premise.  They think if something is "wrong," it should be illegal.

Largely speaking that serves to work, but "wrongness" is a slippery concept and people will disagree based on culture and belief.  It is at heart a religious matter.  For a secular state, where religion is kept at arm's length, a different basis for deciding what should be illegal than wrongness is needed -- namely the effect of the act on society and its members.  Even when it is shown that there is a definite negative effect, the power of the law should be applied selectively and carefully, as the very act of making something illegal can make its effects even worse or create other negative effects.

I think abortions are immoral and would ever personally have one and would urge others to seek alternatives.  I do not think morality is an all or nothing thing; some immoral acts are more immoral than others (and in fact some immoral acts are overwhelmed by an ensuing immorality of not doing it -- such as lying to the Gestapo about the whereabouts of a Jew).

So the relevant questions regarding making something illegal have to do with pragmatic effects on society, not moral grounds.