I aint no Doreen Virtue, dude

 

Three years ago, I took a short Religious Typology Quiz from the Pew Research Center and got the (surprising) result that I´m "Spiritually Awake", which apparently means that I was close to liberal female New Age believers?! Ahem...

Here is the summary definition from the quiz: "All Spiritually Awake Americans hold at least some New Age beliefs (views rejected by most of the Relaxed Religious) and believe in God or some higher power, though many do not believe in the biblical God and relatively few attend religious services on a weekly basis."

Here is another take: "For purposes of this report, the term “New Age” includes belief in psychics, astrology, reincarnation, and the belief that spiritual energy can be contained in physical objects like trees, mountains and crystals".

So I recently took the quiz again, and guess what? I´m *still* a darn Spiritually Awake person!

I don´t know, man. That category feels wrong, somehow. I just can´t see myself putting on the discarded New Age mantle of Doreen Virtue...  

Chant for luck

 

- Yo, where all my bhaktas at?

Edgy Thursday

 

 Craiyon doesn´t censor swastikas...

Chant and be happy

 

A funny picture of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra in a Swedish summer landscape! 

Dead as a fish tail

 

Overheard on the interwebs: "Fish aren’t really alive. They’re just less dead.”

Full spectrum bullshit?

 

Credit: Skalle-Per Hedenhös (sic)

Richard Carrier on the attack...again. An atheist-materialist take on consciousness, et cetera. 

Note the claim that some robots and smart cars may be (somewhat) conscious. Insects, on the other hand, aren´t conscious. Neither are octopi. Fish probably aren´t either: "They aren´t really alive, they´re just less dead". And if you´re not conscious, you can´t really feel anything either. So ants don´t feel anything when we dispose of them them using poison. The tuna didn´t feel anything when it was hooked and killed. Pigs do feel and experience things, but since they aren´t self-aware, their lives have no actual value to them. Like pigs to the slaughter! Human babies are more advanced than pigs (this is a veiled polemic against Peter Singer, methinks).

The "existential" consequences of the above are...interesting. So entire *civilizations* can be created simply on the basis of subconscious computation by non-sentient life-forms? I´m thinking of social insects such as ants, termites and honeybees. Where does that leave us in a wholly materialist universe? Note also that robots could (presumably) be made fully self-conscious. Finally, note that consciousness requires "modeling", which seems to imply that consciousness can only ever be "indirectly realist". Are ants direct realists?

OK, here is the link: 

Distinguishing Awareness, Intelligence and Consciousness 

Thursday

 

If Jagannath would appear in a Swedish forest...

Mare Nostrum(?)

 

It seems "Unidentified Submerged Obejcts" or USOs aren´t as fringe as I assumed. Yes, it´s Richard Nolan again.

Who´s really in control of our oceans, anyway? 

Okej, vi drar

 

"Okej, det var droppen. Halverat pris i kollektivtrafiken. Vi drar härifrån, kamrater!"

Wednesday, guys

 

- Yeah, so I´m a bigamist, you gotta problem
with that, dude? Huh, huh? 

So here is another fun pic of Ganesha...