A couple of years ago I discovered my wife of 25 years was having an affair. I kicked her out and told her to go be with him (maybe that's another AITA question). She asked what I would tell the kids, who at the time were 20 and 17 years old. I said I was going to tell them the truth. She pleaded, "please don't tell the kids." I...
Starting from a molecule on up, to cells and beyond, at what system level is a being actually making a decision rather than reacting to their chemical environment based on purely chemical laws? For example, the molecules in a cells are solely reacting to their environment based on chemical fundamentals. However, a person thinks...
You've stumbled upon the basis of the debate between free will and determinism. imo, we are merely under the illusion that we're making our own choices. The universe is one infinitely complex system of falling dominoes, with each choice and action just being the result of the parameters set by the ones preceding it. We are all made up of the same basic building blocks, and are thus just subatomic systems obeying the laws of thermodynamics... it just happens to be the case that when a system reaches a certain level of complexity, it is able to think about itself - we are quite literally the universe experiencing its own existence.
Why is this? I don't know. Nobody knows. Consciousness and 'the ability to experience' is one of the most elusive and complex questions facing science and philosophy today. It's my personal belief that there is certainly 'something' more to this whole cosmic experience, but I'm not convinced by religion's answers and believe 'it' to be something so vastly incomprehensible and foreign, we'd never understand it even if the mystery were revealed to us. It isn't something I like to think about too deeply, because unfortunately, it opens up an infinite regress of questions we will likely never have the answers to.
A certain stage of development has ended - a prototype was created that allowed me to verify whether such a form makes sense in the #fediverse. Until now, it was a project that I developed in my free time. Now, thanks to the great people from Nlnet, I will be able to devote much more time to it. This time, we have already...
AITA for telling my kids about my wife's cheating?
A couple of years ago I discovered my wife of 25 years was having an affair. I kicked her out and told her to go be with him (maybe that's another AITA question). She asked what I would tell the kids, who at the time were 20 and 17 years old. I said I was going to tell them the truth. She pleaded, "please don't tell the kids." I...
At what systemic level do we start to see living beings making decisions rather than purely chemical reactions?
Starting from a molecule on up, to cells and beyond, at what system level is a being actually making a decision rather than reacting to their chemical environment based on purely chemical laws? For example, the molecules in a cells are solely reacting to their environment based on chemical fundamentals. However, a person thinks...
Is Reddit's Moderation Structure Illegal? An Examination of the Current Debate. (properprogramming.com)
Kbin Roadmap 2023
A certain stage of development has ended - a prototype was created that allowed me to verify whether such a form makes sense in the #fediverse. Until now, it was a project that I developed in my free time. Now, thanks to the great people from Nlnet, I will be able to devote much more time to it. This time, we have already...