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[hops]

I can never get over how a bunch of particles manage to possess the ability to think.
That is, assuming that they can think, but that's a whole 'nother confusion.

[Putnam]

They can think and are thinking, unless you somehow consider it not to be thinking if it doesn't fit some arbitrary definition that doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

[Frumple]

I'm suddenly baffled by everything.

Why is breathing a thing?

Why do people talk?

Why am I a boy?P

Why do I have skin?

Why am I a human?

Why am I?

Why do I have a penis?

Why does things exist???

Being baffled is good. A question is an excuse to wikiwalk and learn.

[hops]

Why do semantics even exist and we aren't able to telepathically communicate through pure ideas? How do chairs even exist and not exist at the same time? aaaaaa

[Tawa]

Why do semantics even exist and we aren't able to telepathically communicate through pure ideas?

If we could telepathically communicate through pure ideas... I think that would require a completely different brain structure, for starters...

[Putnam]

Why do semantics even exist and we aren't able to telepathically communicate through pure ideas? How do chairs even exist and not exist at the same time? aaaaaa

Semantics exist because that's the first thing that happened and telepathic communication is difficult at best.

Chairs exist. They don't not exist. I'm sitting one one right now.

[Bauglir]

Guess it depends on what you think thinking is. It's not all that special! When people encounter things like machines that play games very well or something, they have a tendency to be really impressed with how clever it is, right up until it's explained how it works. At that point they tend to go, "Oh, I guess it wasn't all that clever after all, it was just following an algorithm." Which strikes me as a strange way to look at it, as though the understanding sucked out the magic. Far cooler, I say, that an algorithm can be so clever!

Of course, chairs are an interesting thing. They're exactly as real as minds, and for the same reasons.

[hops]

You aren't actually sitting on a "chair" because there is no such thing as a perfect, idealized chair. You are sitting on a hunk of woodplasticmetalwhatever which in turn are made out of molecules which are aaaaaaaaaaaa

i need to stop thinking

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Bauglir]

You aren't actually sitting on a "chair" because there is no such thing as a perfect, idealized chair. You are sitting on a hunk of woodplasticmetalwhatever which in turn are made out of molecules which are aaaaaaaaaaaa

Yes, exactly. And yet, if I bash you over the head with one, will it not hurt? Reality: It doesn't stop with a sea of particles. Higher levels of abstraction have meaning, too!

[Graknorke]

You aren't actually sitting on a "chair" because there is no such thing as a perfect, idealized chair.

If it's got multiple legs, a flat surface, and some sort of back rest, then it's a chair.

Though yes there are more chairs that don't exist than do. By far. Sadly much of the universe has a distinct lack of chairs

[hops]

Abstraction is so weird and the idea if there existing a fundamental objective measure of them is so weird.

Lovecraft is right, chairs are freaking elder gods.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Bauglir]

Though yes there are more chairs that don't exist than do. By far. Sadly much of the universe has a distinct lack of chairs

We need to remedy this with a program that builds chairs and launches them into space by the thousands.

This is how you cause a grey goo made of chairs.

[Frumple]

In other news, I just noticed the title on the top of the forum is trying to eat us.

II:
^
Graawr

... it's fitting, isn't it?