Probably is but I have a hard time comprehending what I read because I’m not a native English speaker> @kaizen
> Man its plain simple dude
@Homeschool dropout

Even Sam Harris would say we should act as though we have free will, implying that it offers an advantage for you (or your brain)

I think it’s impossible to act as if you don’t have free will

Since the illusion is so strong

Agreed, but some try. And some claim they don’t have free will

Well, is it an “illusion” though? Illusions are usually distortions of reality

You know you’re made up of millions of atoms, but still act like once being even though you know a certain fact

Yes because meaning isn’t found by zooming in

Yea, it’s a distortion of reality. The reality being either everything is pre determined by prior causes or that there’s a random element that “picks” what we do

Imagine zooming in that close on a statue or a painting. You’d never know what the statue or painting was of, let alone what it means

Yet we feel like we have free will

I’m very interested in this notion that everything we know, we know through stories

> You know you’re made up of millions of atoms, but still act like once being even though you know a certain fact
@kaizen
Man we should have a holistic way of looking at things. We can't separate them try to make sense Outta it

a^2 + b^2 = c^2 is a story. Of right triangles.

> You know you’re made up of millions of atoms, but still act like once being even though you know a certain fact
@kaizen
The problem with most people reasoning is that we fragment things on a number of levels

Everything we know, we know through symbols. And we use language to communicate what we know. We have language... to tell stories.

A good story can teach you more than a well documented technical paper ever can

When they say we are made in gods image, I think that includes the fact that we are storytellers

Good storytellers don’t do propaganda. They are honest, and explore the nature of their characters instead of forcing unbelievable and fake outcomes for them.

I sometimes wonder to what extent us being creatures of habit has to do with us being consistent “characters” and that the only way to drastically CHANGE your character is to go through a form of death and rebirth.

All great stories require that before the character completely changes

It could be a man turning into a villain, a villain turning into a hero, or a child growing into an adult.

Some event usually changes them. I’m happy stories, it saves them! (Get the reference here?)

> A good story can teach you more than a well documented technical paper ever can
@JPMcGlone

I have to disagree if you don't mind.

There are thousands of technical papers that have taught us things of incalculable value. E.g. relativity, the numerous cures and vaccines, conformity experiments. Science and it's language are the fuel of great stories.

> Good storytellers don’t do propaganda. They are honest, and explore the nature of their characters instead of forcing unbelievable and fake outcomes for them.
@JPMcGlone

And again here, sorry JP.

Storytellers are very often employed to make others look bad. You can see it in the second world war in the stories told about the Jews, and you can see it around election time with the stories about the opposing parties.

The Old English term "spin a yarn" means to exaggerate beyond belief.

Yes and to read the technical paper, you must first understand the words that are being used. I’m just saying that everything is a story

And I know that some storytellers commit propaganda. I said good ones don’t need to

Anyway, gotta mute this server again. Too distracting from work

https://apnews.com/23b9457068a91d40468bbdce34826c2f 
AP News: 3 scientists win Nobel physics prize for black hole research

https://apnews.com/751b5c2bea8f208c6602a8096f0a8735

In that AP article on Nobel awards, why did they mention the former gimp who LOST the 24 year argument with the plumber's kid, but not Leonard Susskind the complex string theorist who won it, nor my friend Jess, whose former employer pushed him into several more years of teaching before letting him claim Emeritus status from TRIUMF (the Canadian national particle accelerator project, where he eventually won the Brockhurst Award for creating the field of material physics (uSR - Muon Spin theory) that set up the 24 year debate Susskind ultimately won over Hawking, over communication theory of Muon pairs split across black holes?

Oh, functionally marginal literacy journalists, and marketing to an even lower information audience..... Same reasons a 9th reader level paper like the Grey Lady is considered high, USA Today's 7th reader level still too much for many, and a 10th reader level paper or trade rag, considered limited to higher functioning business or tech leaders?

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Isn't there a certain absurdity to treating 9th reader level as if high, especially for subjects that have entry standards for serious participation that demand 19 or more levels of education, or enough smarts and hard work to bypass same?

There are arrogant jerks with sick excuses, but most tech fields that work at 14th reader level don't do so to be exclusionary per se (though idiots causing noise are a disruption to focused projects), but because prerequisite study done on your own time is functionally necessary, as is terse specificity of details to enable functional, interoperable systems, or identify broken ones or frauds.

As one example, my uncle's work developing the field of physiological psychology was pretty crude, compared to Candace Pert's model of pervasive linked neuropeptide systems. Instrumentation also had to progress for that to be possible, just as for Louis Pasteur to be accused of being crazy for seeing germs, applying the microscope. However, where neurobiology has gone since, with yet more refined tools and detailed research, is too intensive for anyone to parse beyond superficially without a major life investment of time, even among upper intellect dual doctorate biomed researchers in other fields. That's not out of intent to be exclusionary, but of necessity to study nature in detail.

OTOH, a friend who's not a strong math type figured out how to help protesting classmates appreciate rather than protest one of their professors requiring study of FFT's (Fast Fourier Transforms), as part of an MD/Psychiatry program. Just as in spacial audio analysis or particle physics data, FFT's help sort meaningful patterns from signals with high noise and garble contents. And, few hospitals are well designed as noise-free environments to study very weak signals.

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However, leave it to Trump arrogant criminals, to be bullshitters (Harry Frankfurt meaning) as they're too dumb to be knowing liars, and putting alarms on illegally placed signs because others previously did the work of cleaning up after their vandalism and littering of a park.

Or others of being too disconnected to recognize cheap pull-pin/string alarms, and calling in a police explosives unit..... OTOH, it's not unheard of for arrogant idiot cops, to try to make arrests for terrorist threats based on alleged simulated threats, for devices like that, however absurd on the part of arrogant jerk cops. (re: Easton, MD AP story above)