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Some of your attitudes towards Terrence Howard is not just being charitable, its a desperate attempt to trying to make his ideas true, cause it aligns with some of your deepest biases. To frame that just as a "blind spot" is fucking wild.

Yes this is a very good point. Its like trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch but in this case in the context of thinking and in the context of making sense of yourself and reality. This lone wolf argument would never fly and would immadiately be shamed in the context of science and understandably so. I personally only had some very basic stuff in mind that would make Leo a more powerful thinker and communicator. Like learning prop logic (what a proposition is, what a contradiction is formally , learning how to make a valid inference, what a sound argument is) , learning the basic semantics of modal terms (the ways the word can or impossible be interpreted on a physical, metaphysical, and logical modality), learning what a category error is (I see many users comitting this mistake including Leo) and then after that there is obviously much more that can still be useful. For example it would be interesting him engaging with the metaethics literature and with the arguments in favour of moral realism. It would also be interesting him engaging with the literature on logic and about paradox and taking a look at dialetheism and taking a look at what entailments come from questioning the laws of logic theories of meaning Taking a deep dive into mereology Infinity; smaller, bigger infinite There is just so much interesting stuff out there that could be integrated into his language and into his work let alone the stuff you are talking about, where you actually engage deeply with books and not with just philosophy articles.

I have seen you saying you are not doing psychedelics anymore. Are you comfortable sharing what methods you use now or you don't want to get into it right now?

I think you are cautious and conscious enough not to fall into that trap. You can recognize that all of those are constructed categories and are only used for pragmatic reasons and you can recognize on a case by case basis whether it is appropriate or not to put the given things into those boxes or not. I view this compeltely differently. I view it as gaining tools for thinking and gaining tools for semantic nuance that can be utilized for communication and for contemplation. It makes you more flexible cause you have a richer set of tools to use. Using a tree metaphor - its like without it, you are only using the first thick primary tier 1 branches of the tree and you can't access or use the more thin tier 2 or tier 3 or 4 branches that are all connected to the tier 1 branch.

This is another thing that would be useful to clear up (what is meant by impossibility). Do you use it as "would be really hard to do" or do you mean something stronger? Btw,you could gain so much useful language that would give you the ability for a lot of semantic nuance from reading some philosophy articles from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy or from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Your ability to articulate your thoughts would become much more effective and clear in the context of philosophical discussions ( thats not to say you do a bad job at it, because you can convey certain things well, im just saying it would make understanding you, and your articulation skills a whole lot better, cause you gain some language that gives you the ability for so much nuance). It can also give you nuance when it comes to your thinking process because you gain the ability to dissect and differentiate things better. Also I don't see how could you talk about the importance of good epistemology and not consider learning or talking about different forms of inferences and why certain forms are much stronger compared to others or learning about different forms of justification.

I think the user atheisticnonduality said the same thing a few years ago, that it would be easier to create a new biological organism rather than an AI from non living parts. I guess the next question is can that biological structure that you talk about be rebuilt completely from non-living parts (or in other words from dead matter)? If it can't then I would be curious what would be the reasoning behind it, what would make it impossible in principle. Yeah I undestand and I agree

But you do have a way how you make sense of awakenings and psychedelic trips and you make a bunch of inferences based on those awakenings, you just don't formalize what those inferences are. You also make a bunch of arguments on a day to day basis about empirical stuff lets be it politics or which method is more effective in general for awakening or other stuff. You also make a bunch of statements about what can be achieved and what is possible and all of those includes you making a bunch of inferences that you don't formally spell out. Thats not the point, because no amount of talk in natural language will get anyone to see the features that you mention there either. It could just radically clear up what inferences you are making, and it would make navigating the disagreements much easier and it would clear up your own thinking as well. Lot of things can be flawed, depending on what we mean by flawed. All formal systems for example rely on certain logical laws like the law of non-contradiction (even the ones that allows sometimes for certain contradictions to be true, becuase they are consistent about which contradictions can be true). Im just saying you don't necessarily need to make certain ontological commitments (what does or doesn't exist). But ,sure you can make it stronger by saying that some parts of math describes physical reality (but then you take on more burden as well), but even then you don't need to subscribe to the position that Howard subscribes to , that math itself has to have an existence in nature or that all parts of maths has to map onto physical reality.

I wouldn't go as far as to say 'aligns with reality' I would only go as far as 'it aligns with our cognition' - thats why I said earlier how it aligns with our perception of the world (not making any judgmenets how the world is). This is the same confusion that Howard has about math that I pointed out earlier - he thinks that math and all parts of math has to have a 1:1 correlation with reality, but that just an unnecessary added axiom. Im pretty sure most physics and math professors acknowledge that there are parts of math that cant be mapped onto physical reality, but still useful for specific things.

Yeah but a formal system being consistent alone is not that big of an achievement. The axioms of math doesn't seem to be arbitrarily choosen - it seem to very precisely align with how we percieve the world. But this is the part that requires studying and I don't have the necessary knowledge to give answers about this. Howard seems to be very confused and that confusion seems to come from his lack of understanding and knowledge. For example the very idea that all parts of math has to directly correlate to physics or that numbers somehow has to exist in the world are all axioms that he is adding onto things ,but they are not necessary. You can be an antirealist about math, but still acknowledge and recognize its usefuleness and its applications. So for you to acknowledge math to be useful you don't need to presuppose that mathematical or other abstract objects somehow exist in the world.

I don't know whats this specifically responding to, cause I haven't implied that math can be inconsistent and if you think I did, then im not even sure how you you inconsistent there. Sure but one thing to say "your definition is wrong" but its an another thing to actually lay out what kind of logical entailments would come from it. There are a bunch of ways to create other formal systems by starting with different axioms and if you don't violate those axioms then those formal systems will be consistent as well, but they probably wouldn't be as useful as math right now. You could actually formulate your arguments in syllogisms if you wanted to, as long as there is no contradiction in them ( I don't see in principle why you couldn't). You can show there what the logical connections are and what kind of inferences you are making to get to your conclusion. If you did that, it could bring a ton of clarity, cause people who can read syllogisms (which is not hard to learn), could see the whole path how you get to your conclusion in detail , without logical jumps.

Nahh, he is right. The standards here regarding explanations and regarding seeking semantic understanding is pretty bad. You rarely see people here say "what do you mean by that" , they quickly deliver objections to things that wasnt even said. Everyone throws around big vague words just to sound elegant rather than to actually get their idea across.

Thats all nonsense. Why would a "formula" has to work with all numbers - Which math axiom implies that? You are also wrong about the formula not working with other numbers than √2, it works with 0 and with -1*√2 as well , but I don't think any of this is in any way relevant to math being consistent or inconsistent.

Do you still maintain the position that Bernardo seem to hold about AI, that AI cannot ever become conscious? If so, how would you respond to Vervaeke about the idea of AI sages (AI actually becoming conscious and even wise at some point)?

At 39:23 he claims he is working with a doctor who can cure cancer and AIDS. This video was 6 years ago. Again radical claims (right now not about physics, but radical medical claims) but 0 evidence

Radical openmindedness entails accepting the possibility of being wrong and that goes both ways, so that doesnt get you anywhere, absent of evidence. How many of the radically open minded folks could stomach being wrong ? Do you think Howard is open to the possibility of being wrong? This is also strange: Why is it, that people are needed for him to lay down his arguments and evidence? Can't his arguments and evidence stand on their own feet?

There are arguably infinite different ways to give an explanation for a certain phenomena or for the laws, so any of those could be "genuinely explored", but because we have finite time and resources we need to choose which one to explore and which one is worthy to explore. That "worthiness" part is on the challenger to establish. That wouldn't follow from that. He would first needs to establish why would his model be impossible under the current mainstream theories of science

bunch of ways to do that I have already given one straightforward way:

Calling him names doesnt establish that his ideas are wrong, but it does reinforce a social/institutional standard, where you first needs to establish that you know what you are talking about (again, by for example steelmanning the theories you try to challenge), before you are given time and attention by highly educated people

No he is mad, becuase a bunch of stupid people take what Howard says for granted without any critical thought, just because they are idologically aligned. Howard is too closed minded towards mainstream science. He needs to establish first, that he knows what he is talking about and that social or institutional standard is good imo (there are just so much stupid lunatics who can waste researchers and professors time who could spend their time on much important stuff). He could have easily established that he knows what he is talking about , if he would have started with the steelmanning of the scientific positions that he tries to challenge right now. Imagine him being able to give a detailed rundown of certain scientific theories and the implications of such theories and then only after that would have given his challenge for them.

Thats not what is happening though. That can only happen if people could engage with and explore ideas in a responsible manner, but thats not the case. Whats happening is that he has a constellation of anti-establishment beliefs about a bunch of things and his anti-establishment fans take what he says for granted and easily get misinformed by him. "hmm, he says government and institutions bad, therefore his other ideas about science stuff must be right as well" The idea that any of his fans that are already very persuaded by his ideas (without any evidence) will somehow change their minds once counter-evidence or counter arguments are established by scientist is just foolishness. The vast majority of the flat earthers stay being flat earthers even after they are being shown in a very precise detail, why they are wrong. He is being dismissed because he is a horrible reasoner with the combination of being a narcissist. Even if his conclusion about something will turn out to be right in the future , he shouldnt get any credit for it, because the reasoning that he uses to get there is very bad. Its like you have a hate bias against your uncle and a crime happens at your house while your uncle is there. Lets say there is 5 logically possible explanation on the table and you immediately assume that your uncle commited the crime even though you literally have no evidence or agument for it. After years of investigation by the police they conclude that your uncle did indeed commit that crime, but they can show evidence for it. - Would you say that you should take credit for being right from the get-go?

Kastrup coming with a banger tweet related to Terrence Howard

I think this is a bad move from him, because this implicitly greenlights and reassures the social dynamic where there is literally no basic quality standard that you need to follow in order for your theory or objection to get platformed or taken seriously by actual scientists. If you think you are an actual genius, it should be no problem to formulate your criticism or theory in a coherent way, where scientist can actually engage with it in a non-vague manner. Like wtf are we talking about here? - Rambling about Annunaki in a fucking paper where you try to demonstrate some math proof or flaw? 😂 Like, seriously?

This guy says 1x1=2 , which would violate some of the fundamental math axioms (some math nerd on this forum probably can specifically spell out which axioms are violated and they can probably break down the logical entailments that would follow from such violation(s)) Aside from that, he comes off as a narcissistic schizo who has a habit of centering the discussions around his intelligence rather than focusing on the theory that he wants to present/prove. Here is his more extensive "proof" https://x.com/terrencehoward/status/925754491881877507

You guys dodged this question

Would you say the exact same thing regarding disclosing your dicksize or regarding disclosing any kind of genital surgery (including foreskin) or any kind of skin problem around the genitals?