They wrote that whole ass article and never stopped to consider that time may be both an illusion (in the sense that it is an emergent rather than a fundamental property of existence) AND necessary for the evolution of life (in the sense that other hypothetical configurations of physical laws which do not feature an emergent arrow of time may not produce life).

In regions of the set of all possible universes where the physical prerequisites of evolution were not present, nobody would be there wondering about why that is. In this region, conditions are right for life to evolve, so somebody is here to ask the question. It’s just the anthropic principle.

Of course, you can think of consciousness as analogous to excitation of a field, and, like the electromagnetic field or gravitational field, there is no center, and everything is interconnected. And yet, like every particle is ultimately a wave in disguise, we can still meaningfully talk about individual particles, because some waves do behave that way sometimes.

An individual consciousness is particle-like. As a shorthand for “this relatively independent packet of consciousness which has measurable distinctiveness from other packets and does not freely share perceptions or memories with them,” it’s often more practical just to say “I” instead.

This is the only absolute truth, for each of us. I may be a brain in a vat being fed false stimuli. I may be in a grand computer simulation. I may be a resident of Plato’s Cave. Everything I believe or guess about the world around me may be an illusion. But I do know that I think, and therefore, in some sense, I am.

A

In my experience (which, to be fair, seems to be different from many people’s), it couldn’t be any worse than the real thing. 12 different licensed and trained medical providers each responded to my complaints about the ongoing traumas in my life with some variation of “Sure, but focus on the positives!” I’d have been better off saving the money and venting to a chatbot, if venting did anything for me.

Please don’t tell me to see a 13th. I’m completely done with the idea.

It also doesn’t help that the third person feminine is ambiguous. There’s often no distinction between the accusative “her” and the possessive “her” (except when the pronoun appears in a different part of the sentence and becomes “hers” - fuck I hate English), so it could be interpreted as fitting either rule.

One year anniversary of having a baseball sized tumor removed from his liver. He had been so lethargic while he was sick, but ever since he fully recovered, he’s been like a puppy again. We are still lucky enough to have this dog’s company.

I don’t care if it’s not correct - I use “theirself” and “theirselves.” It jibes with “yourself,” “myself,” and “herself.”

“Himself” is a frustrating outlier, but I do know at least one person who says “hisself,” and that’s enough precedent for me.

“Look how big this mole was! Surely it was so big we shall never have to play whack-a-mole again. Game over. Everybody go home. We’ve defeated moles.”

Greetings. Fisto is programmed for your pleasure. Please assume the position. Activating main rectenna.

Y

I could not possibly have described the experience better. That’s exactly how my relationship with them has evolved. Poetic. And your comment naturally took on David Mitchell’s voice in my head.

I was like this when I was younger. Absolutely hated them. Then my taste receptor that made them disgusting just kind of switched off gradually over time. Apparently this can happen from middle age onward. Maybe wait a while and try again someday. They’re also better with salt.

Lick more boots.

I did read everything you wrote, and I said that the outcome depends “at least in part” on the aesthetic preferences of the judge, not wholly. But whatever, you obviously just want to be angry. Not sure what I’m supposed to look up here.

Doing your routine in your own style is great. Putting in work to know what judges look for is fine. Needing to know what this judge prefers over that judge is my problem. And though they are experts (I never said otherwise), there are nevertheless differences in opinion about style. These differences in opinion are sometimes (probably pretty rarely) the difference between winning and losing. And that’s my complaint.

If you can throw a javelin 100 meters while doing a spirited Irish jig, then wow. How entertaining. Do that. If you can throw a javelin 100 meters but lose to the guy who threw it 99.9 meters, but he did a Scottish jig while he threw it, and the judge is from Scotland, you’d be upset. Wouldn’t you?

TBH, I don’t really watch any sports at all, but if I did, you’re right, I would be more inclined to watch competitive accounting or poker than figure skating, for this very reason.

If you can define style rigorously in terms of measurable properties, so that there can be no possibility of disagreement between two equally qualified judges of style, then I have no problem with style being used as a criterion of winning a sport.

If you can’t define style objectively, then whether you win or lose does not necessarily depend on how you performed. It depends, at least in part, on the arbitrary opinion of whichever judge happened to be in charge that day. You can try to learn what each judge likes and adapt accordingly, but a judge’s aesthetic preferences could change unpredictably, and even if they didn’t, the game has still become “predict what this judge will like” rather than “perform best within these parameters.”

That, to me, ruins the sport and takes the fun away. You can have all the beautiful displays of athletic artistry in a stadium you like, but if the difference between winning and losing is some guy’s vibes, then don’t call it a sport. It’s a pageant.

Everything you mentioned can be rigorously defined in terms of time, position, velocity, angle. If, in a certain race, the rules are poorly defined, or if the relevant information is not known to the judges with sufficient precision and accuracy, or if the judges are incompetent, then sure, subjectivity could be introduced into some particular race. But it is possible in theory to eliminate subjectivity from racing, if care is taken to do so. It is not conceivably possible to eliminate subjectivity from an aesthetic judgement about “style.”

Variation in objective race conditions does not equal subjectivity. People can have subjective preferences about what type of race would be best to run, but once decided, the outcome is objective. One person factually reaches the finish line first. They are objectively the winner.

According to an algorithm which could be expressed as a few lines of code. What is the algorithm to judge “style”?

Racing is pretty objective. Clocks don’t give opinions.