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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   31866 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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Or, to put it another way, we realized that we’re animals and, the wool having fallen from our eyes, understand the mechanistic nature of our minds isn’t connected to something greater, isn’t part of some grander system of reincarnation or heaven in which our lives will persist beyond the brief time we have on earth. We understand that life is brutish, nasty and short. We understand - now, increasingly - that the brain is just a Large Language Model trained on the multimodal input of our senses, and that all of our philosophy is simply a product of this banal pattern recognition and prediction.

I feel like you deserve a reply, although your nihilism is so scathing it burns my heart. I just disagree with this, fundamentally.

I don't think that we are coping, I think there's a reason these religious traditions have survived and in many cases have flourished despite this narrative you're packing, which has a TON of power. I mean modern nihilistic materialism is the most extremely powerful framework for understanding the world ever. The more miraculous thing to me is that there are still so many people who believe in God.

Then I started to open myself up to the idea that maybe I was wrong, and well, I began to get undeniable personal evidence. 'Religious experience' as you would probably call it. I know it's not convenient or testable in a lab, but it's real nonetheless. That's the best explanation and response I can give you at the moment, though I'm sure you'll find it wanting.

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