Yeah but a video is not an object in the hand the way a book is. I don’t think it creates the same sense of obligation to donate. They even used to position to contribution boxes next to to the queues for the new releases.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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29
Anyone think Assemblies will stop?
by blownaway innot completely but the expensive renting of halls or assembly hall ownership.
maybe with streaming they could have assemblies at the kh and stream the program.
i bet they cut costs in a lot of ways.
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169
Universal sovereignty on trial
by Factfulness ini just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
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slimboyfat
It is not a red herring because you critiqued Hoffman’s use of language in terms which implied that he either did not understand what he was talking about or that he was misleading his audience in the way he was using scientific terms. In order for you to be able to make that judgement you would need to understand the terms at least as well as he does. Otherwise how would you know that he misused the language?
Hoffman’s proposals relate to the philosophy of mind, and his qualifications and posts seem appropriate to that. He got his PhD at MIT under a leading neuroscientist. No one says Daniel Dennett can’t talk about consciousness because he doesn’t have a strong enough scientific background. If anything Hoffman seems to have a stronger background in hard science.
Plus it’s worth noting that Hoffman is more specific about the view of quantum mechanics that supports his ideas during his conversation with Dennett and Chalmers, calling it Quantum Bayesianism. Dennett and Chalmers are both very intelligent and knowledgable in this discussion. If Hoffman wasn’t using scientific language accurately they would have pointed it out.
Hoffman doesn’t claim to be a theoretical physicist, but he does aim to use to science accurately and apply it to his own field. In fact if he was a theoretical physicist then where would be his training to talk about philosophy of mind? Hoffman’s credentials appear to be exactly what’s needed to be able to tackle this subject.
I guess it’s possible that a man with a PhD from MIT, with senior academic posts, awards, and publications, who has devoted his life to the problem of consciousness, and holds discussions with other experts in the field, doesn’t know the proper scientific use of the word “observer”. But I don’t think it’s likely.
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29
Anyone think Assemblies will stop?
by blownaway innot completely but the expensive renting of halls or assembly hall ownership.
maybe with streaming they could have assemblies at the kh and stream the program.
i bet they cut costs in a lot of ways.
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slimboyfat
People used to make a big donation after the new book was released, usually on the Saturday afternoon. I wonder how much contributions have gone down since they stopped new releases at conventions.
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169
Universal sovereignty on trial
by Factfulness ini just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
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slimboyfat
Everything we know about the world is experienced through our consciousness, and that includes the material reality of the world around us. So it makes more sense to doubt the existence of the material world than it does to doubt our own consciousness.
What does it mean for consciousness to be an “emergent property” of the brain? As Hoffman says there is not really any scientific theory to account for this. Material and consciousness are apparently two different things and it is utterly mysterious how one relates to the other. It’s as if playing music somehow results in a lemon cake. It’s utterly unclear how the two things, the physical body and consciousness, are fundamentally connnected to each other.
I know that I exist as a conscious entity because I feel this directly. I only know about the material world second hand, through perception, and listening to others.
Maybe the material world does exist independently of us. But the other option is that the material world is an “emergent property” (again whatever that means) of our consciousness. It’s not how we normally view reality, but it’s not easy to say that a materialist basis of reality should necessarily be given priority over the view that consciousness is basic to reality and the material is a result of consciousness rather than the other way round.
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169
Universal sovereignty on trial
by Factfulness ini just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
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slimboyfat
It becomes a bit clearer in this video. He believes the universe exists independently of our consciousness but not on a material basis. Rather the independent basis of the universe is the collective consciousness of all entities. In other words, presumably if there were no conscious agents then there would be no material universe.
It makes sense to start with consciousness because the one thing we are sure about is that we are conscious. I am sure that I feel like I am sitting on a chair, for example. More sure about this than I am about the material reality of the chair itself. Materialism subverts this common sense view and seems to suggest that we should be more sure about the chair’s indepdenent existence than our own sensation of it. There does seem to be something wrong with that view of reality.
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169
Universal sovereignty on trial
by Factfulness ini just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
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slimboyfat
No I don’t think Donald Hoffman thinks the material universe exists independently of consciousness. He argues that consciousness is the fundamental basis of reality. He says this explicitly a few times in the first few minutes of this video. But he admits there are many possibilities and he is pursuing one possibility.
His academic credentials appear impressive. Are you really confident you understand quantum mechanics and string theory better than he does?
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169
Universal sovereignty on trial
by Factfulness ini just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
-
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slimboyfat
I think there is growing support for the idea that consciousness is basic to the universe itself and does not just arise magically in the brain from nowhere. I am sympathetic to this idea.
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169
Universal sovereignty on trial
by Factfulness ini just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
-
-
slimboyfat
This supposes that physical material is the fundamental component of reality. This is the dominant view in our time, but it is not the only way of seeing the world. An alternative is the view that consciousness is fundamental and that we create the world through our perception.
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19
Accounts report at Circuit Assemblies to go away
by LevelThePlayingField ini was at the regional convention and asked an elder why is that at the assemblies their is an accounts report but not at the conventions?
he said, well actually they got a letter and in it said that in a little while they will do away with the accounts report stating how much the assembly costs for the weekend and just go to donation basis like at the conventions.. my first thought was, "they will donate even less now.".
anybody else hear about such a thing?.
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slimboyfat
It’s difficult to tell what they are up to because motives and competence may be at odds.
In a contest between greedy and stupid, it might just be that stupid won on this ocassion.
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19
Accounts report at Circuit Assemblies to go away
by LevelThePlayingField ini was at the regional convention and asked an elder why is that at the assemblies their is an accounts report but not at the conventions?
he said, well actually they got a letter and in it said that in a little while they will do away with the accounts report stating how much the assembly costs for the weekend and just go to donation basis like at the conventions.. my first thought was, "they will donate even less now.".
anybody else hear about such a thing?.
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slimboyfat
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. This would be madness.
In which case, yep, I suppose it is something they might do.