>... a myth at best, and a lie at worst.

so thankful i'm not the only one. i saw this presented in a nova docu and i couldn't help but notice that all of the examples they used were organic in origin.

earth is the only place that we know of that has organic matter and all organisms on earth are related to each other. so, in the Fibonacci numbers we're likely looking at iteration patterns of DNA controller genes (or another related organic phenomena) which is vastly different from a "universal secret number system."

>Buddhism also has a lot to say with regards to the illusion of the self

agreed.

and i find the reactions to the OP interesting from an allegorical standpoint: when the Buddha was under the tree seeking enlightenment he was constantly beset by jealous gods that didn't want to let him into their realm. they each plied their talents tempting him and challenging him to remain in the material world.

so here's the OP posting a little bit of truth with some Buddhist flavor to it and he is instantly barraged by people claiming that the self is all-important and that he doesn't know what he's talking about and that we shouldn't be trying for anything beyond sheer materialism.

so i guess Kali and Shiva et.al. have gone digital now lol.

>...it's only natural that impermanent beings would be attached to impermanent things and ideas.

that's true but wasn't germane to what was being quoted.

​

>...the attachment to something impermanent and untrue must cause suffering. Jay Garfield

i.e. i love my car and i have no apologies to make about it. its a material object and it is decaying and it will eventually rust and dissolve and that will make me sad. recognizing in advance that the impermanence of materialism always leads to suffering is what allows me some enlightenment and foresight.

if i were ever interested in something less painful i might consider looking beyond my material world. for a christian that might mean delving into the lessons of the bible or a Buddhist might focus on some meditations. that's the point; to simply be aware of reality.

no argument was made that the self isn't important.

the argument being made is that too much importance placed on such an insignificant part of the whole isn't valuable.

in essence there's nothing wrong with being personally successful and happy. but if that success and happiness is based on the entire system bending to your personal needs then you have overstepped your significance.

so its about having a little humility.

>...the attachment to something impermanent and untrue must cause suffering. Jay Garfield

while tangential to the subject of the article this is pure gold. it strikes me as a foundational statement to what we call "cognitive dissonance."

> ...the futility of glorifying the “self” (giving it too much importance)...

and there are many great real world examples of this hubris in front of us right now.

i.e. world leaders who have wrapped the future of their political constituencies around themselves (without any thought given to what happens and who takes over after they die.)

i.e. corporate leaders who scrape every last bit of profit out of every market they can get their hands on (without any thought given to who is going to be able to buy anything if all the money is in a few bank accounts owned by the wealthiest people.)

pure hubris.

>evolutionary scientists aren't writing books called "the selfish gene"

correct. only one scientist wrote that book. had you read it you might have understood that Dawkins uses the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution (as opposed to the views focused on the organism and the group)

​

>being social just a tool to selfishly pass on genes.

so you admit that taking out the "social" part (so no genes are passed on) would end the human race? or how did you expect to continue? because, by your own admission then, being social is fundamental to human existence.

>This article is kind of nonsense.

yep. here's some highlights:

>AI Creativity is Real

despite the authors wordy arguments AI requires input and only that input (however jumbled) will be returned on a query. if it were really creative it could dream up something on its own and populate a blank sheet of paper with something novel. AI isn't creative. the people that program it might be.

​

>3. Comparison: Human Brains vs. AI

despite the title of this section the author never actually makes any comparison. we only get this:

>The present analysis posits that the human brain, in terms of artistic creation, is lacking in two conditions that AI is capable of fulfilling.
>
>AI decomposes high-dimensional data into lower-dimensional features, known as latent space. [AI is more compact]
>
>AI can process massive amounts of data in a short time, enabling efficient learning and creation of new data. [AI is more comprehensive]

ftr: the human brain processes a massive amount of data and succeeds in keeping living beings alive while driving/painting/writing code. the list of things human brains can do that AI can't is very long.

>The only assumption SETI makes is that aliens wouldn't disguise their radio emissions as natural sources.

there's a secondary hidden assumption there: that aliens wouldn't use encryption when transmitting (which would make their transmissions sound like random background noise.)

but we use encryption and its considered commonplace.

i'm all for searching for signs of life but without some grown-up logic employed i'm dubious that anything will come of these activities.

>The point is a robot that does basic household tasks slowly is possible...
>
>Time is really valuable.

yeah. like AI bots that start a paragraph with one premise and then end the paragraph with the exact opposite premise.

> ...they do not need to be fast or particularly efficient at their jobs.

so i'm going to invest money in cutting edge technology that isn't particularly efficient? wtf?

i already have a partner who follows her rumba around to make sure it gets in all the tough places (while i just get out the vacuum once a week.)

my life has much more enjoyment when i'm not spending my time and energy over-automating simple chores but that's just me.

>...kinks in the AI algorithm...

would there be a part of that algorithm that touches on any known aspect of actual alien life? because, without having experienced or interacted with an actual alien; it won't ever know what it's looking for. right?

its like asking AI which dress i'll wear when i've never once worn a dress: the return is going to be a random guess or null.

it isn't terribly important unless you're into solar system discoveries.

if you're into solar system discoveries then its cool. that's all.

>...friends at Northrop Grumman say that “nuke-stopping” technologies are getting pretty advanced.
>
>...space lasers that can shoot down 100 nukes per minute...

but the guy at the cargo port unloading a shipping container with a bomb inside isn't flying through space.

the end to all war and conflict: civil diplomacy. not technologically advanced but smart as fuck.

>statistically, out of 1000 conspiracy theories, it is simply impossible for all 1000 of them to be totally wrong.

what specific statistics support that view? because a person could make up millions of imaginary scenarios and none of them might be true.

>Neighborhood A. Neighborhood B.
>
>A has minimal police patrols, minimal police calls, minimal interactions with law enforcement.
>
>B has regular patrols, regular calls and frequent interactions with law enforcement.

correction: if you are using algorithms all you can say is "Neighborhood A had minimal police patrols..." because you are always looking into the past.

in the past there were no algorithms. so you start the historical data set where? in the 1940's? 50's? 60's? those were racist days. so were the 80's, 90's and 2000's.

if you don't start with an objective data set then your algorithms will be biased. and with backward-looking algorithms you won't know that a neighborhood profile has changed until its recorded stats are significantly different. in the meantime you'll be letting crimes go unaddressed.

your particularly unsophisticated approach to a very sophisticated technology (which you fail to understand) is at the heart of this issue.

a black man won in 2008. never happened before. it was unlikely at best.

but he won twice.

you'll live in a world where the unlikely never happens. i'll live in the real world where it does.

>Because we have past data on voting patterns.

that helped us figure out who would win in 2016?

based on past voting data no black person should ever be voted for because they've only won once in the history of the country.

that's ridiculous. things change. if you discard changes in favor of past mediocrity then you'll always have the same results you always had.

>The objective is publicly observable, articulable, and determined.

i kept stumbling into these over generalizations and they detract from taking any of this essay seriously. if you study physics you'll know that the physical world is one based on probabilities; so it is not in a determined state. much of the physical world isn't even observable (i.e. dark matter, etc.)

​

>The objective includes mutually comprehensible reality and abstractions like math, science, language, logic, and ethics.

language and ethics are objective? its not possible that they're relative? and subjective? because i speak a different language than some other people do and my ethical behavior can be questioned by people who don't share my values. according to this essay i should be standing up for myself and insisting that my language and ethical values are objective truths that everybody should be using/following. i definitely cannot take that seriously.

​

>The objective has no authority over the subjective

so. the real mona lisa (and what she actually looked like) had no impact on her portrait? i would suggest it did.

sorry. i'm confused about what you are saying.

but most of these 3rd party scenario tropes tend to rely on the outcome to justify or un-justify the means. you won't know who will win in advance.

i.e. people voting for nader in 2000 had no way of knowing how many of their votes it would take away from gore. some of those people wouldn't have voted if it weren't for nader and many of them were the same that always vote for the green party anyway. if nader had won all of the gore voters would have been sneered-at as if they might've thrown the election. and in the next cycle, when people had the chance to toss out bush, they didn't. no split votes. bush served 8 years on his own political capital.

>If your candidate has no chance of winning, it's the same as not voting.

that means one would have been a fool to have voted for Hillary in 2016 or Trump in 2020 since they had no chance of winning.

all of those votes for the losers throughout history were the same as not voting?

how are people supposed to know in advance of the election that they are voting for losers?

>...voting third party, is basically a default vote for the candidate you would least want elected.

not if the third party candidate is the person you most want elected.

if you are only voting for the most viable candidate then you would only have voted for the winners regardless of their policy positions. and those politicians would never see the affect of changing their policies or reacting to new information because they'll be (irrationally) branded the most likely candidate to win.

"lesser of two evils" is the glass half empty version of "most qualified for the job."

especially when you're talking politics. no politician is perfect. they don't make as much money as they would in the private sector. constituencies are going to have divergent needs.

so you take what you can get. no different than any other aspect of life.

>technology and innovation research is not focused on the world’s most pressing problems including taking climate action

i distinctly recall over the past several decades that scientists told us that the climate was warming and they had studies and warned that it would be bad.

everybody said, "fuck you."

i also remember being warned by scientists that the new corona virus was coming and it was going to be bad.

everybody said, "it's just the flu. fuck you"

then, when it looked like millions of people would die, we all said, "oh shit, we need a vaccine!"

then the scientific community broke records putting together a new vaccine in several month's time. i don't recall any awards ceremonies over this. no nobel prize. no medals of honor for saving our stupid asses.

a good deal of the population took the vaccine but a sizeable minority wanted to roast dr. fauci alive and our on-the-ground medical staff experienced the worst days of their careers.

now we want science to "address our most urgent issues."

science: "fuck you"

agreed.

but it also outs the people that didn't read the article because it says right under the headline: "Sewage sludge used as feedstock to make methanol"