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Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

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Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#161

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #160
mistermann wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Would you please stop posting these cross-examination comments? You've been doing it endlessly, it seems, and perpetuating flamewars in the process. This is not what HN is for. I realize it's not your intent to troll, but that is the effect you've been having, and we have to moderate by effects, not intent: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... . https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.h…

Is HN for the spreading of untruths?

Should the HN guidelines perhaps be modified to reflect that pursuit of truth has an undocumented upper bound that shall not be breached? That way it would be more transparent what HN is about, though it would give up the powerful flexibility and illusory nature of ambiguity. Tough call!

I'm curious why you never (or rarely) seem to scold people for practicing soothsaying and other forms of pseudoscience under the guise of science & rationality.

I'm also curious if you ever wonder what good the substantial cognitive power concentrated on HN could bring to the world if we were to play our cards mildly differently.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#162

Post by pvg »

mistermann wrote: post #161
dang wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop posting these cross-examination comments? You've been doing it endlessly, it seems, and perpetuating flamewars in the process. This is not what HN is for. I realize it's not your intent to troll, but that is the effect you've been having, and we have to moderate by effects, not intent: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... . https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.h…

Is HN for the spreading of untruths? Should the HN guidelines perhaps be modified to reflect that pursuit of truth has an undocumented upper bound that shall not be breached? That way it would be more transparent what HN is about, though it would give up the powerful flexibility and illusory nature of ambiguity. Tough call! I'm curious why you never (or rarely) seem to scold people for practicing soothsaying and othe…

Tough call!

It's not a tough call that you can't have a conversation about truth, pseudoscience or anything else in the form of a harangue and it's supposed to be a site for conversation.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#163

Post by mistermann »

pvg wrote: post #162
mistermann wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is HN for the spreading of untruths? Should the HN guidelines perhaps be modified to reflect that pursuit of truth has an undocumented upper bound that shall not be breached? That way it would be more transparent what HN is about, though it would give up the powerful flexibility and illusory nature of ambiguity. Tough call! I'm curious why you never (or rarely) seem to scold people for practicing soothsaying and othe…

Tough call! It's not a tough call that you can't have a conversation about truth, pseudoscience or anything else in the form of a harangue and it's supposed to be a site for conversation.

[flagged]

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#164

Post by pvg »

mistermann wrote: post #163
pvg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tough call! It's not a tough call that you can't have a conversation about truth, pseudoscience or anything else in the form of a harangue and it's supposed to be a site for conversation.

[flagged]

It might be a subjective opinion but if enough people have the subjective opinion you are writing harangues (which, as you can read, is the case), you get the effect of harangue-writing whether you think you are or don't. So you have to stop the harangue-like writing in order to meaningfully participate. There are a bunch of guidelines and endless moderator commentary about that.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#165

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #161
dang wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please stop posting these cross-examination comments? You've been doing it endlessly, it seems, and perpetuating flamewars in the process. This is not what HN is for. I realize it's not your intent to troll, but that is the effect you've been having, and we have to moderate by effects, not intent: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... . https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.h…

Is HN for the spreading of untruths? Should the HN guidelines perhaps be modified to reflect that pursuit of truth has an undocumented upper bound that shall not be breached? That way it would be more transparent what HN is about, though it would give up the powerful flexibility and illusory nature of ambiguity. Tough call! I'm curious why you never (or rarely) seem to scold people for practicing soothsaying and othe…

I'll answer, but as your comment here is doing exactly what I just asked you to stop doing, I need first to tell you that these interminable cross-examination barrages are not what HN is for, and if it keeps up we're going to have to ban you. We've already had to ask you this many times. I don't want to ban you, but slack isn't infinite here either.

The answer is that HN is for curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest. Does that involve being wrong sometimes? Of course it does. It would be absurd to ban people simply for being wrong. Moreover, even if we wanted to, we couldn't, because we don't know what the truth is on every question. (Some internet commenters appear to believe they know the truth about everything, but we are very far from feeling that way, and don't have a truth meter* to tell us.) Moreover, even if we did know the truth about everything, others would disagree, and trying to impose the truth on people who disagree would create a firestorm that would easily destroy the community.

The idea is in fact so obviously absurd that when people make this complaint, they can't mean it literally, and so must really be complaining about something else. Since I don't have a mind reader (or a truth meter), I don't know what the real issue is, but based on observable behaviors, it seems most likely that they want the mods to boost everything they agree with and ban everything they disagree with. Since each person has a different set of what they would like to see boosted and banned, this is impossible; we'd end up having to boost and ban everything.

* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#166

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #165
mistermann wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is HN for the spreading of untruths? Should the HN guidelines perhaps be modified to reflect that pursuit of truth has an undocumented upper bound that shall not be breached? That way it would be more transparent what HN is about, though it would give up the powerful flexibility and illusory nature of ambiguity. Tough call! I'm curious why you never (or rarely) seem to scold people for practicing soothsaying and othe…

I'll answer, but as your comment here is doing exactly what I just asked you to stop doing, I need first to tell you that these interminable cross-examination barrages are not what HN is for, and if it keeps up we're going to have to ban you. We've already had to ask you this many times. I don't want to ban you, but slack isn't infinite here either. The answer is that HN is for curious conversation on topics of intel…

Do you know that banning me is necessary, or even an improvement? Do you even care?

You happen to have landed in a position where you hold substantial power on this planet Dang, I recommend you wield that power wisely and with humility.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#167

Post by pmarreck »

csharpminor wrote: post #19
pmarreck wrote: post #2

Hopefully as an FYI that is free of too much skeptical criticism (I mean... I actually get it, but I just don't want to deal with negativity right now), there's actually a rapidly growing number of NDE accounts on YouTube right now. I am putting together a playlist of the most compelling ones: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvnDbwjRqIOkgR1eUMfpn... Some of these are from well-educated people like doctors, for…

I’ve noticed these near-death-experience videos coming up in my recommendations and found it truly odd. They don’t seem to have anything to do with what I normally watch. I have to wonder if they’re the top of the funnel for religion campaigns like “hegetsus”.

That's interesting to me because they showed up in mine but I'd already expressed interest. I don't know why they're being tossed at you.

I honestly don't believe there's much money in the "NDE space". Certainly less than "hegetsus". Which is funny because the vast majority of NDE accounts really make all of the most popular world religions look pretty wrong (including Christianity, although its message of love over all remains... Not that its adherents follow that much or anything).

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#168

Post by mistermann »

pvg wrote: post #164
mistermann wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It might be a subjective opinion but if enough people have the subjective opinion you are writing harangues (which, as you can read, is the case), you get the effect of harangue-writing whether you think you are or don't. So you have to stop the harangue-like writing in order to meaningfully participate. There are a bunch of guidelines and endless moderator commentary about that.

harangue. / (həˈræŋ) / verb. to address (a person or crowd) in an angry, vehement, or forcefully persuasive way.

I don't see how this applies, especially since if anything it is other people who are engaged in persuasion, and experiencing anger or other negative emotions. I am sincere in that I believe that truth matters, and should at least be taken into consideration.

Seriously, what is the big issue with disagreeing with the crowd, without applying speculative subjective framing to the situation?

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#169

Post by pvg »

mistermann wrote: post #168
pvg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a subjective opinion but if enough people have the subjective opinion you are writing harangues (which, as you can read, is the case), you get the effect of harangue-writing whether you think you are or don't. So you have to stop the harangue-like writing in order to meaningfully participate. There are a bunch of guidelines and endless moderator commentary about that.

harangue. / (həˈræŋ) / verb. to address (a person or crowd) in an angry, vehement, or forcefully persuasive way. I don't see how this applies, especially since if anything it is other people who are engaged in persuasion, and experiencing anger or other negative emotions. I am sincere in that I believe that truth matters, and should at least be taken into consideration. Seriously, what is the big issue with disagreei…

I don't see how this applies

Yes, hence the feedback.

it is other people

You've been here plenty long to know it's not how HN works, everyone is responsible for their own commentary.

I am sincere in that I believe that truth matters, and should at least be taken into consideration.

I'm sure most people share that sincere belief, it's just that few enjoy, well, being harangued.

Seriously, what is the big issue with disagreeing with the crowd, without applying speculative subjective framing to the situation?

"I don't understand what I'm supposedly doing wrong" is conversation. The above is haranguey, especially since no one is asking you to eschew speculative or subjective framing.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#170

Post by mistermann »

pmarreck wrote: post #146
stvltvs wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most accurate thing we can say is that no one knows what happens to consciousness after death. The evidence we have, like NDEs, doesn't support a continuation of consciousness beyond bodily disintegration.

Is there an amount of concordant eyewitness testimony that should count as evidence? If your answer to that is "no", you're not being reasonable. The courts of most countries would also disagree with you. This even takes into account the fact that "eyewitness testimony is bad"... Like sure, maybe if it's 10, but if it's 100 people all making extremely similar claims? 1000? 10,000? The NDE people often use language li…

> If I was anorgasmic and thousands of people told me that orgasms are real and "you know it when you have one," why should (or shouldn't) I believe them?

This is pure gold analogy, if you don't mind I am going to borrow it.

> There are many things we consider "real" that we can't directly measure, btw. Why (from a science or mathematical perspective) is Taylor Swift so popular? How would we determine this without asking people (which puts us right back into "eyewitness testimony" again)?

I believe Taylor Swift is a substantial glitch in the matrix, I wish I had something more insightful to say on the matter.

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