The Philosophy of a Fool

 Morphic Resonance (sheldrake.org)- Memory fields involving behaviors, habits, and other non-genetic forms are passed through evolution as memories. We are connected "across time."

Panpsychicism - experiments show that most humans are aware that someone or some people is staring at them. Also, about 50 percent of dogs and cats are aware that their owners are returning to the home in advance of any possibility of seeing, hearing, or smelling them.
Why are we here? If our universe continues to behave as it has in the observable past, our sun will explode in about 5 billion years and, obviously, our earth will cease to exist as we know it. All life will have been extinguished.

David Hand: dark data, AI. 

Rupert Sheldrake - Author and Biologist

What If there was no universal origin, like no Big Bang?
I just began reading Why? The Purpose of the Universe by Philip Goff, Oxford University Press, 2023. While I'm only halfway through the first chapter, he has repeatedly said that he intends to show why he believes that the universe has a purpose. So, at this point, I'm asking myself, does not "purpose" imply intent? As far as I know, the universe, disregarding panpsychism (a different discussion), is material. Objects of matter do not possess the mental acuity or consciousness that would produce an intention. Consider a decorated Christmas tree. It certainly serves a purpose but within itself, it does not have a purpose. The thinking, conscious individual who erected and decorated the tree had a purpose. Likewise, the universe cannot have a purpose, but does appear there is the possibility that if the universe is not infinite, its creator is purposeful. Scientists, for the most part, believe the universe to be infinite. Consequently, given such an unfathomable size, who the hell are we to question the universal purpose or expect our minuscule lives to be of value.
In Chapter 2, Phillip goes on to develop his Value-Selection Hypothesis by describing the complexity necessary for a universe that created and sustains life as we know it. Thus, cosmic purpose. Why so complex? Why not create a very simple universe and then create life forms that thrive in such a universe? In any case, The question seems to be why is there life? If life has a value, to whom or to what? Of course, from our perspective, life is valuable, yet as a whole, without purpose. The perceived purpose and value exist only at the individual level.

Philip refers to our universe as having value. That value is fundamental. And that value is the purpose. If he means value to humans, why would we be singled out about all other previous, current, and future life forms?  And regarding panpsychism, how do we know that humans possess the most advanced form of consciousness? Hubris?
 
Regarding the fine-tuning of the universe, it seems that during creation the creating entity would have made it more perfect, compressible, and simpler given the purpose that humans experience value. Since there were no life forms in our universe before there were life forms, why create them anyway? Something, by nature, just has to exist? Self-creating?

Philip Goof rejects the multiverse theory in part because the other universes would not be fine-tuned to life as we know it. Why could not others contain the exact same elements in the exact same balance? Or, why could they (who or what is “they”?), with different elemental constants, create and sustain a quite different life form dependent on different constants. Say, a water world.

Evolution of brain = survival not accuracy. Once you are afraid the brain will do anything to protect you to include memory loss and tunnel vision.

Memories are fragile and inaccurate. Each time we remember an event it is modified by our current selves and restored as changed. Our brains create anew.
Does consciousness exist outside of the brain? Is the brain only a tool that permits us to experience consciousness?
 
Free will: biology determines what choices we make. Early life experiences in great part affect the adult frontal cortex and predetermine decisions/actions. Character is predetermined by levels in hormones (genetic). The development of the frontal cortex can override, to some degree, the effect of genes. Experience and environment do not change your genes. It changes the on/off switches of the gees. Regulatory controls.
If there is no free will how can we be accountable for our actions?
 
Anti-matter is the exact opposite of matter.
 
Atoms only appear to exist when a conscious observer looks at it.
Physics-biology-chemistry isn’t enough to explain why I know I am.
 
Why do we exist? Why does the universe exist or at least appear to exist?
 

 The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. 

Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

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Teacher Tools

 I asked ChatGPt what tools teachers needed in order to produce effective instruction and here is the response:

There are numerous tools and devices that teachers should be familiar with in order to enhance their teaching and facilitate effective learning experiences for students. Here is a list of some essential tools and devices:

1. Computers and Laptops: Teachers should know how to operate computers and laptops, including basic operations like file management, internet browsing, and software usage.

2. Education Software: Familiarity with educational software such as learning management systems (e.g., Google Classroom, Moodle, Schoology) and productivity tools (Microsoft Office Suite, Google Docs, Canva) is crucial.

3. Interactive Whiteboards: Teachers should be comfortable using interactive whiteboards, including features like creating and displaying multimedia content, web browsing, and using various interactive tools.

4. Projectors and Screens: Knowing how to set up and use projectors, screens, and other audiovisual equipment is necessary for delivering engaging presentations and displaying educational content.

5. Document Cameras: Proficiency in operating document cameras to magnify and display hardcopy materials or objects to the entire class is advantageous.

6. Smart Devices: Knowing how to operate tablets (e.g., iPads, Android tablets) and smartphones can allow teachers to utilize educational apps, access online resources, and facilitate collaborative learning.

7. Classroom Response Systems: Familiarity with classroom response systems (clickers or mobile apps) enables teachers to facilitate interactive quizzes, polls, and formative assessments.

8. Audio and Video Recording Equipment: Proficiency in using audio and video recording devices allows teachers to create instructional videos, podcasts, or capture student presentations.

9. Virtual Meeting Platforms: In today's remote learning environments, teachers should be comfortable using virtual meeting platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet to facilitate synchronous online classes and meetings.

10. Learning Management Systems: Familiarity with learning management systems, including functionalities such as content creation, grading, discussion forums, and assignments, is essential for managing and organizing online or blended learning environments.

11. Online Collaboration Tools: Teachers should be knowledgeable about online collaboration tools such as Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox to facilitate file sharing, collaborative document editing, and group projects.

12. Educational Apps and Websites: Awareness of educational apps and websites suitable for various subjects and grade levels can enhance instructional strategies and engage students in interactive learning.

13. Digital Assessment Tools: Knowledge of digital assessment tools (e.g., Kahoot, Quizizz, Formative) allows teachers to create and administer online quizzes, surveys, and formative assessments.

14. Social Media Platforms: Familiarity with social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) can provide opportunities for professional development, networking, and communication with students and parents.

15. Online Safety and Digital Citizenship: Teachers should have an understanding of online safety measures and strategies to guide students in responsible internet usage and promote digital citizenship.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it covers some key tools and devices that teachers should know how to use for effective teaching and learning.

Obtaining and maintaining mastery of all these "tools" is a full-time job itself. How the hell are they expected to squeeze in teaching. 

I blinked and...

 I was 81 years old. The last I remember I was in my 40's, confident, strong still, and eager. Where did the past 40 years go? Hell, I feel that I know less now than I did then. And, does aging make all feel more guilty that there is time to rectify?

When asked, "Do scientists and philosophers agree that consciousness is a product of the brain?" Microsoft Bing responded in part, "There is no consensus about how it is generated or how best to approach the question, but all investigations start with the incontrovertible premise that consciousness comes about from the action of the brain." Not so sure about that incontrovertible premise. Such would mean that if there is no detectible brain activity there is no consciousness. How can they tell? How do they know? As far as I can tell there is no agreed-upon definition of consciousness so how is it determined when it ceases to exist? 

The hard problem of consciousness is usually described by asking, how is it that we realize we are. and that material objects and possibly other life forms do not? 

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” —Attributed to Mark Twain

8 Disturbing Similarities between the Democrat and Nazi Parties

 

By D. Parker

Steve McCann's "Eight Startling and Uncomfortable Ways the Democrat Party Emulates the Nazi Party" was just the tip of the National Socialist iceberg.

The fascist far left have always had to lie to survive.  They've always been on the wrong side of history, and the only way they can remain viable is by gaslighting people on a full-time basis.  For decades, their biggest lie has been that the supposedly pro-freedom side of the political spectrum, imbued in the precepts of individual liberty and limited government, is somehow connected to totalitarian collectivist regimes that displayed the exact opposite of those values.

Anyone who has debated leftists for the past few decades has been subjected to the same bluff abuse in their trying to maintain that nonsensical lie.  But the close similarities between fascism and communism have been obvious for at least 75 years:

"In certain basic respects — a totalitarian state structure, a single party, a leader, a secret police, a hatred of political, cultural and intellectual freedom — fascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between". 

—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Associate Professor of History at Harvard, New York Times Magazine, Sunday, April 4, 1948 

Even if you set aside the preposterous argument that totalitarians would also be proponents of liberty and limited government, there are still a myriad of parallel characteristics between the Democrat party and the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party.  That's what was so startling about the first eight ways.  

Our follow-up along those lines will make the case even more. 

1. Democrats and the Nazis were/are obsessed with gun confiscation.   

We'll start with the one issue the fascist far left never bring up when they try to make their absurd claims: that the Democrats and the Nazis were obsessed with gun confiscation.  You will never hear them try to make this accusation of the pro-freedom right because even they know that their lies can only carry them so far.  This obvious common collectivist trait also destroys the far leftist mythology of the "party switch," which supposedly took place sometime in the late '60s.  This was one glaring item that didn't switch, so they avoid mentioning it.

Anyone who has been paying attention for the past few years knows that saying that the Democrats are obsessed with gun confiscation is an understatement of massive proportions.  Every day, it seems they've come out with a new scheme on the national, state, and local levels to deprive the people of their commonsense civil rights.

2. Democrats and Nazis are collectivists.

There are essentially two political philosophies: individualism and collectivism.  The fact is that all academic disciplines are based on foundational principles, and this is an ironclad rule that separates the two sides of the political spectrum and also eviscerates the fascist far left's biggest lie.  According to F.A. Hayek, students today are often taught that on the imaginary "political spectrum," socialism and communism are "left of center," and capitalism and fascism are "right of center."  This is frightfully misleading.  Socialism, communism and fascism are all peas in the same collectivist pod.  Hayek held that they all despised both competition and the individual, and he was precisely right.

3. The overarching philosophy of both Democrats and Nazis is centralized control.

The individualists on the pro-freedom side of the political spectrum favor liberty and limited government.  The collectivists of the anti-liberty side of the political spectrum favor control and unlimited government.  This can easily be seen in the Democrat's obsession with controlling not only basic liberties, but also gas stoves, dishwashers, and air-conditioners.

In the case of the German National Socialist Labor Party, this was set out as point 25 in their 25-point program:

25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.

4. The centralized collectivist control philosophy of the Democrat and Nazi parties is epitomized in the phrase "the Common Good" (Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz in the original German).

How many times have you heard the fascists of the far left parrot the phrase "the Common Good" when trying to shove a draconian, authoritarian rule down our throats?  The COVID crisis was particularly egregious in this regard, exemplified by this piece in USA Today: "The COVID culture war: At what point should personal freedom yield to the common good?"

5. Far-left fascists of the Democrat and Nazi parties see force as means to their political power.

While the German national socialist party exploited force, Democrats started the practice with the KKK and perfected it with the Burning, Looting, and Murder riots during the summer of 2020, making it clear to everyone that if they didn't get their way, the BLM violence would continue.

The tradition continues with Mr. Liberty Control himself, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), threatening a "popular revolt" if they don't get their way in ramming the pre-stages of gun confiscation down our throats.

6. Democrats and Nazis are proponents of single-party systems.

It should also be obvious that the authoritarians of the far left would love to keep everything nice and simple with a single party — theirs.  This is why the Nazis attacked the rival collectivists of the communist party.  Just like the rival factions of Islam, they had the same ideology; it's just that they wanted to be the people in control.

This was exemplified in a piece from the New Republic, "The Constitution Is the Crisis," with this lovely quotation: "We've seen multiple periods of one-party dominance in our history; we've also seen defeated political parties wither and die. Why shouldn't the Republican Party join them?"

7. Democrats and Nazis are fascistic.

You can always tell when a leftist defines fascism, because aside from the inevitable circular logic that supposedly prevents them from being fascist, such as oh, so cleverly labeling themselves as "anti-fascist," they will define the term based on an arbitrary set of subjective (and thus meaningless) criteria.

The fact is that fascism is based on several references.  When it's primarily defined as an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.  

In present-day parlance, it's a "Public/Private" partnership, combining the worst aspects of unlimited governmental rule and corporate oligarchy, with the latter answering to the government instead of the customer.  The Bud Light debacle is a prime example.

When the Italian far left originally developed this reprehensible ideology 96 years ago, it was based on La Carta del Lavoro, translated as the Charter of Labor.  The New York Times enthused:

FASCISTI PROCLAIM 'CHARTER OF LABOR'; Mussolini Is Hailed as Prophet of Cooperative Industrial Peace Under the State. LABOR AND CAPITAL JOINED Document Declaring Rights and Duties Is Presented at Climax of Rome's 2,681st Birthday. 

ROME, April 21. — The Fascist "Charter of Labor," embodying the fundamental principles of the Fascist-Syndicalist State, which is based primarily upon the theory of replacing the class struggle by a fruitful cooperation between capital and labor under direct State control, was promulgated tonight by Premier Mussolini at a special meeting of the Fascist Grand Council.

Strangely enough, Democrats never refer to this founding document of their base ideology.  If you study any of their "academic" work on the subject, they tend to ignore these facts.

8. Democrats are striving for a totalitarian state structure and a single party like the Nazis.

Put all of this together, and you'll come to the inescapable conclusion that all of these parallels make the ironclad case that both parties are all too similar.

With with modern surveillance technology and tyrannical "innovations" like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), the Democrats could make the Nazis look like amateurs.  This is why they have to be opposed with cultural guerrilla warfare every step of the way.

D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, the director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites.  Find him on Substack.

The FBI

There is an accurate and insightful article in the American Thinker on August 14, 2022 that every American should read, especially members of congress. It is frightening to be confronted so openly of what we already suspected, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has become monstrously totalitarian. The points made by Mr. Fitzgerald:

In addition to proclaiming the death of God, Nietzsche proclaimed the death of peoples.

There is a distinction between the state and the peoples.

Peoples existed before the state.

States claim to be identical with the peoples, thus stares are the biggest liars.

States stole the identity of the peoples, thus are the biggest thieves.

Every modern state is totalitarian, some more than others.

The biggest threat to the peoples of America is the omnipotence and omnipresence of the states' administration.

The FBI is the central part of the administration of the state. The two have collapsed into one.

There is no governing authority over the FBI. Neither the president, congress, the courts, other law enforcement agencies, nor the Department of Justice posses no power to oppose their jurisdiction.

The FBI does whatever it wants, to whomever it wants, wherever it wants.

The FBI has enormous intelligence gathering capability and no one at any level can know what it knows.

The FBI in effect is the "regulating finger of God."

The FBI most be reformed.

Only Thing They Didn't Do Was Arm Teachers and Students

 UCISD's (Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District-Texas) website states that the district has "proponents to curb and/or eliminate" elements of" violence, vandalism, disruptions and fear" in its schools to "provide a safe and secure environment for all." Those proponents include four officers, including a chief, a detective and two officers within the school district; partnerships with local law enforcement agencies; security staff that patrols door entrances and parking lots at secondary campuses; case managers and social workers on UCISD campuses; licensed counselors; threat assessment teams; social media threat monitoring; a visitor management security system; canine detection services; motion detectors and alarm systems; perimeter fencing at Robb and other schools; security vestibules and outside buzz-in systems; security cameras; a locked classroom door policy; staff and student training; and a threat reporting system. https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-mass-shooting-school-district-security-measures

Biden's Wimpy Approach to Russia

 Putin is a self-proclaimed bully with a known agenda. He is intent on restoring the territory previously governed by the USSR and will do so when necessary with military force. He will push and push until he accomplishes his goal or is stopped. In any case he will have bullied his way into increasing Russia's hegemony. Actually, smelling America's leadership weakness (military as political) and lack of resolve emanating from woke stupidity, he has already done so with impunity.