Many things are outside of your control. You were given life outside of your control, and you will die outside your control. Whether you die of cancer at 50 or climate change at 50, you die all the same.

We still have a moral duty to make the best choices that we can with the information that we know. A lot of the existential crisis though, I think, stems from a fear of mortality. Coming to grips with the fact that you must die sets you free to act rightly within the world.

You definitely added more than zero value! I begin to feel more and more that for a high percentage of my generation (born post-2000), learning how to navigate social networks IRL wasn’t a skill we learned. There’s a generational atrophy when it comes to organizing parties and mixers and social activities larger than your closest friends.

One of the things I’m trying to break down in my friend group is the apathy towards mixing different groups of friends. Like we think different communities won’t be able to get along with each other, and there is a paralyzing fear of any kind of social awkwardness. This also likely has to do with the friends I’ve made over the years, as someone who has struggled greatly with social anxiety I think I’ve naturally selected for groups of socially anxious people. Ack.

I’m of the opinion that it is time spent with a thing that makes it valuable. I’ve had my current car for a couple of years and hope to keep it for many more. Each year we have new experiences together, fond memories that get triggered when I sit in the driver seat. Eventually, when this car breaks down and I have to get a new one, some of those memories will be lost with the car.

Prayer, typically on my front porch, with a cup of coffee. Biking has also become a big thing for me. I don’t live near the sea but have lots of lakes nearby, so sitting on a beach also.

I don’t care if it passes SCOTUS or not. I say this as someone with current student loans, what matters most is directing that money towards public institutions to drive down tuition for students right now.

Forgiving student debt doesn’t solve the problem, it just pushes it onto the next generation. Let’s actually solve the tuition crisis first.

This is a typical take, but the the hard problem of consciousness has very strenuously denied neuroscientists for well over a century at this point. We know a lot more about the systems of the brain, but no more about the nature of consciousness itself.

It’s still an open debate, some people don’t believe the hard problem is unsolvable, but on every debate there are really smart people who defend absurd positions. The reason I think it is unsolvable is that consciousness is by definition unobservable, except by the subject.

We can know a lot about the brain, neurons and structures etc. But that doesn’t really get us closer to understanding how an aggregation of impulses and chemical signalling takes us from what is essentially inert matter to a brain.

If you’re interested, the book On Purpose by philosopher Michael Ruse has a chapter on it that is succinct and up to date with the latest neuroscience research. I am sure there are better books out there on the subject but I can only recommend what I’ve read.

I would go a step further and say that there are many things that science, by nature, cannot answer. For example, what consciousness is and how it arises as a phenomenon.

Yes, very much. I think it would be impossible for me not to be religious. If I wasn’t Anglican I’d be Buddhist or Baháʼí.

Everyone is already giving the generic advice of do hobbies or volunteer. This is good advice! That’s how you meet people. But the transition from “hobby” friend to “life” friend is difficult and frankly just awkward. It’s kind of like romantic relationships, there isn’t a right or wrong way. You just got to take leaps of faith and be vulnerable with people with the expectation that rejection is possible.

I’m still kind of navigating this phase. I have some good friends that I do my hobbies with, and then it’s like, how do I go from there? Really it’s just about being open and hospitable towards others. Opening your home and inviting people in, asking people if they want to come over for dinner or watch a movie with you.

Planning to go out to the local state park and look for good boulders to climb. My goal for this summer is to transition from indoor to outdoor bouldering.

But it gets corrected in winter with neverending night. I’m not quite as far north as you, here the longest day of the year goes from about 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. or so. But then winter comes and it’s dark at 8 a.m. and dark again at 4 p.m.

That’s awesome! How did you fall into such research?

Curious to hear what your dissertation is in?

First post! Just throwing myself in here. Initially I was interested in this community as a Reddit alternative, but I have to admit I’m pretty impressed with the coherent vision that this site has for how it wants to exist. I’ve been lurking for a little bit and I think this site provides a totally different type of value than other social media spaces! That’s amazing! So I’m excited to contribute what value and content I can and be a part of the ethos.