34 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. he value of what really seems to be nitpicking seems questionable even if there is also value in a judicious hunt for theoretical ideals.
    2. The title of the question is what triggered the process of finding this Q/A for material that aided development of the above to solve a real life problem described by the title. The OP declared that base64 decode was not the "real" problem; pedantic constraint of answers to a particular "example" seems less helpful. When this question and its answers were key to helping solve real problems, alternate answers can be gifts to the community in recognition of the fact that many more people will use this Q/A to solve problems. Since the answer is on-topic per the title, I feel it is "game on".
    1. mike, its cute how you voice your "pro life" idealism. but this is the depopulation agenda in full force, and you will do shit to stop it, because this comes from the elite (military, secret service, corporations, banks), and this has been overdue for at least 200 years. just look at the data. look at the population curve. its exponential growth since about 10K years, aka "explosion". so now matter how you put it, there is no good end to exponential growth: either we keep letting it grow until we collapse and 99% would starve. or we get active, ignore such cute "pro life" idealism voices, and kill the 95% useless eaters. this is just another intelligence test, and most people are failing, again.

  2. Sep 2023
    1. 54:30 Max utopian in his head, trust in random people

      • see index zk on Apollonian and Dionysian theory (idealism, good or bad?)

      57:00 inherently, people are good, but they get corrupted (good and evil)

      57:44 “there is some light” (life can be good): see zk 9 section on light & darkness

    1. Winnicott’s psychological paradox of subject and object becomes a philosophical paradox of idealism and materialism
      • for: non-duality, non-dual, paradox, quote, quote - non-duality, quote - James Barnes, quote - paradox
      • quote: James Barge
        • Winnicott’s psychological paradox of subject and object becomes a philosophical paradox of idealism and materialism
    1. followers of Spinoza adopted his definition of ultimate substance as that which can exist and can be conceived only by itself. According to the first principle of his system of pantheistic idealism, God (or Nature or Substance) is the ultimate reality given in human experience.
    2. Historically, answers to this question have fallen between two extremes. On the one hand is the skepticism of the 18th-century empiricist David Hume, who held that the ultimate reality given in experience is the moment-by-moment flow of events in the consciousness of each individual. That concept compresses all of reality into a solipsistic specious present—the momentary sense experience of one isolated percipient.
    3. two basic forms of idealism are metaphysical idealism, which asserts the ideality of reality, and epistemological idealism, which holds that in the knowledge process the mind can grasp only the psychic or that its objects are conditioned by their perceptibility.
    4. idealism, in philosophy, any view that stresses the central role of the ideal or the spiritual in the interpretation of experience. It may hold that the world or reality exists essentially as spirit or consciousness, that abstractions and laws are more fundamental in reality than sensory things, or, at least, that whatever exists is known in dimensions that are chiefly mental—through and as ideas.
  3. Apr 2023
    1. Let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions. I know for sure that my pain exists, my ‘green’ exists, and my ‘sweet’ exists… everything else is a theory. Later we find out that our perceptions obey some laws, which can be most conveniently formulated if we assume that there is some underlying reality beyond our perceptions. This model of the material world obeying laws of physics is so successful that soon we forget about our starting point and say that matter is the only reality, and perceptions are only helpful for its description.

      Quote - Let us remember that - our knowledge of the world begins - not with matter - but with perceptions. - I know for sure that - my pain exists, - my ‘green’ exists, - and my ‘sweet’ exists - … everything else is a theory. - Later we find out that our perceptions obey some laws, <br /> - which can be most conveniently formulated - if we assume that there is some underlying reality - beyond our perceptions. - This model of the material world obeying laws of physics - is so successful - that soon we forget about our starting point and say - that matter is the only reality, - and perceptions are only helpful for its description.

      Author Andrei Linde - https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/universe-life-consciousness-by-andrei-linde

    2. Our argument for a mental world does not entail or imply that the world is merely one’s own personal hallucination or act of imagination. Our view is entirely naturalistic: the mind that underlies the world is a transpersonal mind behaving according to natural laws. It comprises but far transcends any individual psyche…. The claim is thus that the dynamics of all inanimate matter in the universe correspond to transpersonal mentation, just as an individual’s brain activity – which is also made of matter – corresponds to personal mentation.

      Quote - Our argument for a mental world does not entail or imply - that the world is merely one’s own personal hallucination or act of imagination. - Our view is entirely naturalistic: - the mind that underlies the world - is a transpersonal mind behaving according to natural laws. - It comprises but far transcends any individual psyche…. - The claim is thus that the dynamics of all inanimate matter in the universe - correspond to transpersonal mentation, - just as an individual’s brain activity - which is also made of matter - corresponds to personal mentation.

      Author - Henry Stapp - Bernardo Kastrup - Menas C. Kafatos - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/coming-to-grips-with-the-implications-of-quantum-mechanics/

    3. ‘philosophical idealism.’

      Definition - philosophical Idealism - the view that reality is fundamentally a mental process (consciousness) rather than a physical thing

    4. The issue at play in the AI question, or the question of tempering our growth in general, isn’t just that our technology is built without higher values that can mitigate its excesses. It’s that culturally we lack a story as to why values even matter to begin with. It’s futile to appeal to ethics in this context, because the ethics aren’t embedded at a deep enough level to counter powerful incentive structures. They aren’t worth dying for, because the system doesn’t value them, it only values quantity.

      Key observation - Quantity is all modernity values - Quality is thrown out the window - Later, the author connects - quantity to the Cartesian world view, - that seeks to measure everything - and quality to the Idealist worldview - that elevates consciousness over physicalism and materialism - (Destructive) growth - is an outcome of the cartesian worldview

  4. Jul 2022
    1. It really slows down your test suite accessing the disk.So yes, in principle it slows down your tests. There is a "school of testing" where developer should isolate the layer responsible for retrieving state and just set some state in memory and test functionality (as if Repository pattern). The thing is Rails is a tightly coupled with implementation logic of state retrieval on core level and prefers "school of testing" in which you couple logic with state retrial to some degree.Good example of this is how models are tested in Rails. You could just build entire test suite calling `FactoryBot.build` and never ever use `FactoryBot.create` and stub method all around and your tests will be lighting fast (like 5s to run your entire test suite). This is highly unproductive to achieve and I failed many times trying to achieve that because I was spending more time maintaining my tests then writing something productive for business.Or you can took more pragmatic route and save database record where is too difficult to just 'build' the factory (e.g. Controller tests, association tests etc)Same I would say for saving the file to the Disk. Yes you are right You could just "not save the file to disk" and save few milliseconds. But at the same time you will in future stumble upon scenarios where your tests are not passing because the file is not there (e.g. file processing validations) Is it really worth it ? I never worked on a project where saving file to a disk would slow down tests significantly enough that would be an issue (and I work for company where core business is related to file uploading) Especially now that we have SSD drives in every laptop/server it's blazing fast so at best you would save 1 seconds for entire test suite (given you call FactoryBot traits to set/store file where it make sense. Not when every time you build an object.)
    1. let me comment on your quantum physics i have only one objection please i think it's uh uh it's 01:01:21 what you said about the two uh sort of prototypical uh quantum puzzles which is schrodinger the double slit experiment uh it's uh it's perfect um my only objection is that in my book 01:01:34 i described of course i had a chapter about schrodinger cat but i don't use a situation in which the cat is dead or alive 01:01:46 i prefer a situation in which the cat is asleep or awake just because i don't like killing cats even in in in in mental experiments so after that 01:01:58 uh uh replacing a sleep cut with a dead cat i think uh i i i i completely agree and let me come to the the serious part of the answer um 01:02:10 what you mentioned as the passage from uh the third and the fourth um between among the the sort of the versions of 01:02:25 wooden philosophy it's it's exactly what i what i think is relevant for quantum mechanics for this for the following reason we read in quantum mechanics books 01:02:37 that um we should not think about the mechanical description of reality but the description reality with respect to the observer and there is always this notion in in books that there's observer or there are 01:02:50 paratus that measure so it's a uh but i am a scientist which view the world from the perspective of 01:03:02 modern science where one way of viewing the world is that uh there are uh you know uh billions and billions of galaxies each one with billions and billions of 01:03:14 of of of stars probably with planets all around and uh um from that perspective the observer in any quantum mechanical experiment is just one piece in the big story 01:03:28 so i have found the uh berkeley subjective idealism um uh profoundly unconvincing from the point 01:03:39 of view of a scientist uh because it there is an aspect of naturalism which uh it's a in which i i i grew up as a scientist 01:03:52 which refuses to say that to understand quantum mechanics we have to bring in our mind quantum mechanics is not something that has directly to do with our mind has not 01:04:05 something directly to do about any observer any apparatus because we use quantum mechanics for describing uh what happened inside the sun the the the reaction the nuclear reaction there or 01:04:18 galaxy formations so i think quantum mechanics in a way i think quantum mechanics is experiments about not about psychology not about our mind not about consciousness not 01:04:32 about anything like that it has to do about the world my question what we mean by real world that's fine because science repeatedly was forced to change its own ideas about the 01:04:46 real world so if uh if to make sense of quantum mechanics i have to think that the cat is awake or asleep only when a conscious observer our mind 01:05:00 interacts with this uh i say no that's not there are interpretations of quantum mechanics that go in that direction they require either am i correct to say the copenhagen 01:05:14 school does copenhagen school uh talk about the observer without saying who is what is observed but the compelling school which is the way most 01:05:27 textbooks are written uh describe any quantum mechanical situation in terms okay there is an observer making a measurement and we're talking about the outcome of the measurements 01:05:39 so yes it's uh it assumes an observer but it's very vague about what what an observer is some more sharp interpretation like cubism uh take this notion observer to be real 01:05:54 fundamental it's an agent somebody who makes who thinks about and can compute the future so it's a it's a that's that's a starting point for for doing uh for doing the rest i was 01:06:07 i've always been unhappy with that because things happen on the sun when there is nobody that is an observer in anything and i want to think to have a way of thinking in the world that things happen there 01:06:20 independently of me so to say is they might depend on one another but why should they depend on me and who am i or you know what observers should be a you know a white western scientist with 01:06:32 a phd i mean should we include women should we include people without phd should we include cats is the cat an observer should we fly i mean it's just not something i understand

      Carlo goes on to address the fundamental question which lay at the intersection of quantum mechanics and Buddhist philosophy: If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear? Carlo rejects Berkeley's idealism and states that even quantum mechanical laws are about the behavior of a system, independent of whether an observer is present. He begins to invoke his version of the Schrödinger cat paraodox to explain.

    2. i just wanted to interject that uh could i come at this point carlo i would like to insist a bit on this because i'm i'm not quite clear 01:07:22 on whether you are agreeing or not on the question of the mind um thank you this is also i wanted to ask him the same question mario uh so by just raise the question 01:07:40 specifically all right so let me okay since we're talking about nagarjuna now i would also like to uh read some simple verses that he has and get from both from barry and you what do you 01:07:53 think so this is from chapter three examination of the sentences seeing hearing smelling tasting touching and mind are the six sense faculties their 01:08:04 spheres are the visible objects etc like the scene the herd the smell that tasted and the touched the hair sound etc and consciousness should be understood so actually i'm confused from both of 01:08:18 you first of all barry is the mind anything special in buddhist philosophy or is it just like seeing and hearing and carlo are you saying there is anything 01:08:31 special about them right

      Mario interjects in the conversation to clarify Barry's question to Carlo, which is concerning the subjective aspect of experience and how it fits into science as the observer. It comes down the the question of existence of reality and the obrserver's role in that, epitomized in the question: If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?

  5. Apr 2022
    1. Liberals are always slow to realize that there can be friendly, idealistic people who have little use for liberal values.

      So idealistic with other values?

  6. Mar 2022
    1. Such a flexible concept allows for a meshing of Russian state interests with claims to be acting to protect a diversity of ethnic and linguistic communities outside Russia. It also negates the idea of other legitimate national communities that could underpin states in the region.

      Flexible explanations or motivations are bad -- they can justify nearly anything and undermine contrary arguments.

    2. The idea that Russia has a particular responsibility for the Russian communities outside Russia became a core part of the identity of Moscow’s foreign policy elite in the early 1990s and has been a key driver in the evolution of Russia’s approach to its neighbourhood.

      The alleged rationale for invading Ukraine is not new. What's different now is the complete lack of popular support combined with unrelenting violence -- disregarding reality.

    1. This shows just how much propaganda infuses all of this ‘history’; nowhere in his writings on the subject does Putin allow for Ukrainian subjectivity – for the possibility that Ukrainians might have their own opinion about who they are.

      That's the core of the matter, and a short-circuit which invalidates Putin's entire reasoning.

    2. The whole topic is clearly a personal idée fixe for him: back in July 2013, and before the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine that followed during the subsequent year, he gave a speech in Kyiv stating that all of Ukraine was historical Russia.

      Integrating Ukraine into Russia is not a new idea. How many other people inside Russia believe this (disregarding effects of propaganda)? Putin can't be the one who invented it?

    3. Putin ignores what happened when Ukrainians and Russians lived in separate states – actually for a longer period than when they lived together.

      Putin is bending historical facts to fit his idealistic claims. Which means his goal is implementing that static ideal of a strong Russia, not adapting it to allow for progress.

      That takes us back to before the scientific revolution.

  7. Mar 2021
  8. Nov 2020
  9. icla2020b.jonreeve.com icla2020b.jonreeve.com
    1. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand

      This is very Dante's Beatrice for me, with this intensely spiritual connection the narrator has with a woman he's barely spoken with. It's strange because while there's this connection to the deep tradition of classical romance, but at the same time, and this is definitely informed by my modern perspective but I think the ending backs it up, this is a young pubescent boy having a crush on his neighbor because she's hot. Are these concepts incompatible, can part of that idealistic love exist in this moment, or is this school boy trying to explain away his crush using a connection to this deep literary tradition he's probably learning about in school?

  10. Jan 2020
  11. Oct 2019
    1. The problem with thinking big is that it produces a laundry list of actions that are too heroic for you to actually take on.

      This can be a driving force, to be fair.

  12. Jul 2016
    1. Now onto the second half of this concept, Self-Assurance, this one involves more belief challenging, and trips a lot of people up as it uses the past, which we fought so hard to accept.
  13. Sep 2013
    1. making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill

      Rather use practical, external method.