How do you spend your spare time?

[Broken_Erika]

I see no reason at all to believe in a mystical continuation of consciousness beyind death...but the next time you die, feel free to pop back in and let us know what the afterlife's like!

If he pops in after he dies, he'll be more interested in your brains than having a conversation......

 

[Gori the Grey]

Posting on CFCOT leaves me no spare time, I'm afraid.

 

[Takhisis]

I look at my own postcount and realise the effects of not having a job (hopefully soon to change).

 

[Thorgalaeg]

OTOH I mostly post while being at work. Like now.

(Not that I post that much at all anyway)

 

[really]

I had some free time yesterday morning and ended up moving about fifty boxes of tiles around my new house - twenty of then up a ladder. I'm not used to that sort of relaxing.

 

[AdamCrock]

I had some free time yesterday morning and ended up moving about fifty boxes of tiles around my new house - twenty of then up a ladder. I'm not used to that sort of relaxing.

I used to move them tile boxes when I worked with my friend. You've had yourself a hard working day friend Nowadays I can't bring myself to clean up my house out of laziness so I pretty much admire You doing hard work on Your free time. Maybe it's not that bad when You actually work for yourself

 

[really]

Nah I'm just building a house for myself and this job wasn't included in the contract so I ended up doing it myself when I was supposed to be off.
The tiler specified that they had to be sorted and ready inside the house for him.
The tile company said they would deliver on pallets to the door only.
Tileing isn't in the contract so the contractor wouldn't help and wasn't there anyways.
My father was around and he has done lots but as he is in his 70s I wouldn't ask him to do that.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yeah it does sounds a bit high and mighty, but come back after you've experienced it and let us know what you think. It sure changed everything for me. While I'm sure there are exceptions, most that I've talked to had a similar experience. Actually I would worry about people that do it and feel nothing. But then I'm old and have been wrong about many things.

I mean... I'm not saying this is exactly the same, but if I was trying to form an opinion about the pros and cons of brainwashing, I think I'd value the opinion of someone who hadn't been brainwashed over someone who had.

 

[civvver]

maybe I think having children is not only selfish, but actually wrong and a net-negative for this world, and maybe this has been a gripe of mine for years, because I want children really, really badly, and so does my partner

hmmh, that is an interesting one. I dont think anyone feels "nothing", that seems impossible to me. however, regretting motherhood is actually a thing. I suppose regretting fatherhood is, too

Dude just have a kid then. Replacement level is like 2.1 or 2.2 children per couple/family. The issue is all those in the under developed world spitting out tons and tons of kids without food chain to feed em. There's plenty of food globally right now, supply chain/profit/waste is the problem. I mean not every single person could eat a western diet full of beef but there are enough total calories to go around.

As far as environmental aspects, it's gonna take tech to fix that, not just some stalling of population growth.

As far as social programs go we need more young workers supporting systems to provide retired workers with benefits.

Producing young, healthy tax payers is a net positive.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

we have no evidence for either, so imho the agnostic position is the only sensible position to take

Well that's not true is it. We have more evidence than we know what to do with that consciousness/personality/memory/emotion/perception/etc are all emergent properties of the physical brain, that we can see the physical effects of these things going on in a living brain in terms of electrical activity, that damage to the brain affects all these things (in predictable ways), and that beyond certain levels of damage or decay to the physical brain that we no longer see any evidence of these things existing for the individual in question. And we also know that when people die, the electrical activity ceases, and then the brain physically decays into mulch. You can put all that together and form a pretty robust case for the non-continuation of consciousness after death.

I agree that there's no evidence for the other case though, so you're half right

 

[rah]

I mean... I'm not saying this is exactly the same, but if I was trying to form an opinion about the pros and cons of brainwashing, I think I'd value the opinion of someone who hadn't been brainwashed over someone who had.

Personally I'd value the opinion of someone who had the appropriate experience over someone who hasn't.
I'm not saying it's exactly the same, but I'm not going to buy the opinion that sex sucks from a virgin.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Personally I'd value the opinion of someone who had the appropriate experience over someone who hasn't.
I'm not saying it's exactly the same, but I'm not going to buy the opinion that sex sucks from a virgin.

My analogy works better than yours because the original viewpoint that was being expressed wasn't about what it feels like to be a parent, but more about the moral implications involved in becoming one. There's no reason to think that becoming a parent increases your ability to make a sound moral judgement about whether it's a good thing to do, but there is reason to think you become less able to weigh it up objectively.

Like... if you want an opinion about the moral implications of spreading STDs, and the steps that should or shouldn't be taken to limit that, is a virgin's opinion really less valuable than the opinion of someone who has as much sex as possible because they think it's awesome?

 

[MaryKB]

Maybe if you're a robot and emotions aren't a thing, but I feel it's sort of silly to say emotional considerations don't play a huge role in your decision making. So yes, I absolutely would say your view is much more valuable if you've experienced something than if you haven't.

 

[warpus]

Time management/doing things that are necessary are reasonable things to work at/improve. I see no reason "ambition" or "getting yourself out there" are inherently valuable. Ambition can take a lot of forms, and most of the time when people talk about "getting yourself out there" they're pushing the viewpoint that you should adopt more of their activity preferences.

This is how I meant these terms to be understood:

Ambition - Ambition to follow your own goals and dreams. Got a hobby you're passionate about? etc.
Getting yourself out there - Strike a good balance between keeping to yourself and socializing with others. Also - do not let your creativity and ambition lead to projects nobody ever sees. Find likeminded people and share your creations.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Dude just have a kid then. Replacement level is like 2.1 or 2.2 children per couple/family. The issue is all those in the under developed world spitting out tons and tons of kids without food chain to feed em. There's plenty of food globally right now, supply chain/profit/waste is the problem. I mean not every single person could eat a western diet full of beef but there are enough total calories to go around.

As far as environmental aspects, it's gonna take tech to fix that, not just some stalling of population growth.

As far as social programs go we need more young workers supporting systems to provide retired workers with benefits.

Producing young, healthy tax payers is a net positive.

yeah, technology, now that'll save the environment, as it always has

sadly my gripes are not only with overpopulation, actually that is one of the aspects I dread least. there's a million good reasons to not have children. the biggest one for me is whether this world we currently have is even a world I would want to be born into (impossible question to ask in a vacuum, but sadly you cannot ask your kids after you've had them, since that'd be too late. I guess they can always decide for themselves, so the possibility of suicide is actually one reason why I think having kids would be okay)

also, why do you assume my children would be either healthy or taxpayers? I have some (possibly heritable? idk) diseases, and I smoke to boot! also, producing taxpayers is a net positive for capitalism, for the economy, but not for me, nor for them, and those aforementioned causes aren't really developments I would like to further, in fact I would like to see them in shambles.

this is venturing into pretty dark territory and I'm afraid I'll get another short time ban if I comment further

still I very much appreciate your post and agree with a great deal of what you said. thanks!

Personally I'd value the opinion of someone who had the appropriate experience over someone who hasn't.
I'm not saying it's exactly the same, but I'm not going to buy the opinion that sex sucks from a virgin.

what if the virgin is a pious sexologist who has won multiple awards for his boundary breaking publications, and who is just waiting for the right girl to break chastity, and the other is a neonazi whose only form of sexual intercourse was with a prostitute?

jk

Well that's not true is it. We have more evidence than we know what to do with that consciousness/personality/memory/emotion/perception/etc are all emergent properties of the physical brain, that we can see the physical effects of these things going on in a living brain in terms of electrical activity, that damage to the brain affects all these things (in predictable ways), and that beyond certain levels of damage or decay to the physical brain that we no longer see any evidence of these things existing for the individual in question. And we also know that when people die, the electrical activity ceases, and then the brain physically decays into mulch. You can put all that together and form a pretty robust case for the non-continuation of consciousness after death.

I agree that there's no evidence for the other case though, so you're half right

you genuinely think brain activity is the same as consciousness and you lecture me with this degree of smugness? consciousness is NOT to be equated with personality, brain activity, memory, emotion or perception (who would've thought! we have all these different words and they all have different meanings!).

you equate consciousness with sentience (which relates to empiricism, necessarily). there are infinite ways to define consciousness, of which certainly not all even relate to empiricism. from wiki: It has been defined variously in terms of sentience, awareness, qualia, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood or soul, the fact that there is something "that it is like" to "have" or "be" it, and the executive control system of the mind.[3]

you can make convincing arguments as to why some of these are more fitting than others. yours is that sentience and awareness are better definitions of consciousness than "being" in the heideggerian sense or "soul" in the religious sense, which is an arbitrary, subjective value statement that you have not supported with any evidence whatsoever, you simply accept one way of thinking about consciousness as the only way and then construct your argument based on that. it's not only in bad faith, it's also bad science.

anyway, thanks for trying I know you did your best with limited capabilities.

Moderator Action: stop the trolling please - ori
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[rah]

My analogy works better than yours because the original viewpoint that was being expressed wasn't about what it feels like to be a parent, but more about the moral implications involved in becoming one. There's no reason to think that becoming a parent increases your ability to make a sound moral judgement about whether it's a good thing to do, but there is reason to think you become less able to weigh it up objectively.

fair enough, even though I did specifically say that it did indeed changed me.

So I'll switch it to I wouldn't seriously take a man's opinion about prostitution if he was a virgin

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Maybe if you're a robot and emotions aren't a thing, but I feel it's sort of silly to say emotional considerations don't play a huge role in your decision making. So yes, I absolutely would say your view is much more valuable if you've experienced something than if you haven't.

Well I'm not making some general case that emotional considerations should never come into decision making, just that in the specific sort of case where you're trying to make some sort of decision on the morality of taking an action, then basing that entirely (or largely) on whether or not you personally would enjoy doing the thing is not really a very good way of going about it.

In fact not even really as strong a statement as that. More just saying that it's not obvious why one should take moral guidance from someone else on a particular matter, when it's based mostly on their own subjective feelings about how it affected them personally. Certainly not why it's obvious why that should be any better than just reasoning it out yourself.

fair enough, even though I did specifically say that it did indeed changed me.

So I'll switch it to I wouldn't seriously take a man's opinion about prostitution if he was a virgin

Eh, again why not? Depends on the context of course, but I'd imagine by "opinion about prostitution" you're probably not talking about being able to describe exactly how it feels to have sex with a prostitute, which is about the only aspect of it that not being a virgin would give some insight on.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

you genuinely think brain activity is the same as consciousness and you lecture me with this degree of smugness? consciousness is NOT to be equated with personality, brain activity, memory, emotion or perception (who would've thought! we have all these different words and they all have different meanings!).

you equate consciousness with sentience (which relates to empiricism, necessarily). there are infinite ways to define consciousness, of which certainly not all even relate to empiricism. from wiki: It has been defined variously in terms of sentience, awareness, qualia, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood or soul, the fact that there is something "that it is like" to "have" or "be" it, and the executive control system of the mind.[3]

you can make convincing arguments as to why some of these are more fitting than others. yours is that sentience and awareness are better definitions of consciousness than "being" in the heideggerian sense or "soul" in the religious sense, which is an arbitrary, subjective value statement that you have not supported with any evidence whatsoever, you simply accept one way of thinking about consciousness as the only way and then construct your argument based on that. it's not only in bad faith, it's also bad science.

anyway, thanks for trying I know you did your best with limited capabilities.

Hmm. I was going to reply to this, but then I realised that <snip> it would be a waste of time.

Moderator Action: Please refrain from name calling, even if provoked. - ori
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[dusters]

I read, I meditate, I play boardgames, video games. I take long walks. I search for interesting topics to indulge in research in. I sing, I write. I draw. I play theatre for friends/family, something like a stand-up or sketches of sorts.

For an ADHD person free time equals pain. I always try to find more meaningful ways to fill my free time. Lately documentaries and history channels are my thing too.

 

[Birdjaguar]

If he pops in after he dies, he'll be more interested in your brains than having a conversation......

I'm posting from the future, does that count? You all just need to believe that everything I post here is true....