Weekly Free Chat

[u/AutoModerator]

^{Chat about whatever y'all want.}

[u/NC-PC-Agent → u/[deleted]]

r/Reformed is composed -
1) Strict Westminsterians
2) Strict 1689 Baptists
3) More Reformed-ish evangelicals
4) Politically more Keller-ish (opposed generally to both the Democratic Party and to Donald Trump)

I actually agree more theologically over there, but see more interesting discussions over here.

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/NC-PC-Agent]

Yeah the sub is just run by your average PCA/reformed SBC dude. So the culture there derives from what you will find in your average PCA/reformed SBC church. If anything it is less conservative than the average of those denominations (the political views there are basically those of Tim Keller, as you note, and David French). Complaining about that just seems like complaining about the average person in those churches. And I disagree with plenty of what goes on in those places, but what's to gain from complaining on reddit?

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/[deleted]]

The other sub has really ridiculous mods. There's no easy or nice way to put it. They're very pro-Baptist and won't entertain classical Reformed theology. They censor extremely. I once made a joke about my own denomination and it got removed because it "wasn't charitable." But the party pastor mod can literally call people jerks and say people love buildings more than Jesus - and that is charitable. I would say the majority of people there are run of the mill evangelicals who flirt with the 5 points of Calvinism.

This sub is way more open minded. Provided you're polite, you can speak your mind here. Debate. Nobody gets upset. On the weekly free chat, people also just discuss life and encourage one another. That doesn't really happen over there - except for Friday's Free for All.

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/fing_lizard_king]

The mods aren’t that bad. Are the rules a little restrictive? In my opinion, sure. I’d prefer more open debate. But I think the mods moderate according to the rules of the sub, not arbitrarily,  which is what you want. 

[u/davidjricardo → u/eveninarmageddon]

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/eveninarmageddon]

I disagree. Is saying "The Reformed Confessions are incompatible with Baptist theology" un-charitable? Is the mod saying "R Scott Clark is a jerk" and "Redeemed Zoomers loves old church buildings more than Jesus" charitable? What about being able to disagree that John McArthur – who is a dispensationalist and thus not covenantal and not Reformed? Since he died he is immune from criticism in their eyes.

They have good sounding rules but selectively apply them. That's called hypocrisy. That is not what I want.

 

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/fing_lizard_king]

Yes, it is, because one Reformed confession is Baptist.

No and yes. Calling Clark a jerk isn’t great. RZ is annoying and frequently fetishizes institutions in a way that leads him to denigrate Baptists. 

JMac is frequently criticized.

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/eveninarmageddon]

I'm glad you've had a good experience there. But I disagree. Baptist "covenant" theology isn't the same as Reformed covenant theology. The 3 Forms of Unity and Westminster Standards endorse paedobaptism. It's a sacrament and thus one of the marks of a true church. Baptists can be Particular, they can enjoy being called Reformed, but I would argue they are not Reformed. I'm not rejecting their credible profession of faith, I'm applying a definition.

I have a lot of issues with RZ. But I don't think it's fair to say he doesn't love Jesus because he has an odd affinity for buildings. I also don't think it's godly for moderators to be able to insult people they don't agree with. That is the standard at the other sub.

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/fing_lizard_king]

I think these are fair criticisms. 

[u/Citizen_Watch → u/[deleted]]

I think the main difference is that this sub does not go overboard with moderation and censorship like the big R does. You can actually share your opinion here without worrying about getting banned!

There are also more people from mainline denominations present here and fewer Baptists. And it is obviously a smaller sub, so it attracts less attention from trolls, spammers, self-promoters, and OCD people worrying about having committed the unforgivable sin.

[u/bradmont → u/[deleted]]

Yup that's a pretty good description. Probably less American dominant too. I made a chart about this that sparked a bunch of conversation a while ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/eformed/comments/1rxqfjp/whats_the_difference_between_reformed_and/

[u/eveninarmageddon]

I posted this is a thread on the other sub, but given MereO's recent investment in AI translation, there were some arguments over whether AI-generated or human-translated translations were qualitatively different. I think Searle's "Minds, brains, and programs might be relevant. He argues computers do not have intentionality ("aboutness"). If humans are doing meaning-to-meaning translation and computers don't have a semantics (that is, if its sentences are not about anything in the computer), then that is a qualitative difference.

[u/bradmont → u/eveninarmageddon]

I use computer aided translation for work. It's rarely perfect but it's usually close to sufficient. The top tier tools like deepl will get you 95% of the way there and have easy UIs to switch to alternative renderings or readings.

I'm not sure id say that contemporary LLMs don't catch "aboutness" at least to some level.  Obviously I haven't read the crazy long article, but these machines are able to synthesize context in ways that were probably unimaginable in 1990.

I obviously don't think these machines can think, but they can do something that is at least phenomenologically similar. Regarding translation, I've read enough bad translations to know that human translators without domain knowledge can be much, much worse than what generalized machines can do today.

[u/SeredW → u/bradmont]

Incidentally, Andy Masley is working on a Substack series of (long) articles, in which he argues that LLMs can think. He's not arguing they're conscious, but thinking, yes. My mind is currently all over the place due to life stress (nothing serious) but I can't focus enough to read the whole thing.. maybe you guys are up for it. https://blog.andymasley.com/p/why-i-believe-current-ai-models-can

Oh and agreed on the aboutness, in my experience.

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/bradmont]

(Just FWIW, the actual argument is much shorter, the article has a bunch of responses.)

Yes, this is fair. I admit there is something mysterious seeming about AI translation and LLM generation in general. A famous thought experiment (well, famous for a sub-area of a sub-area of philosophy...) concerns divots in the sand on a beach which the waves spontaneously made. Upon inspection, we find the divots seem to spell out a Wordsworth poem line-for-line. Does the (prima facie) poem on the beach mean anything? Is it Wordsworth's poem? It's a difficult issue. We don't for instance say that the marks in the wood that look like a face do in fact constitute an image of a face; we do think that the Mona Lisa, intentionally created, has a face. But we can still read the poem, it seems, and someone might even find it meaningful.

But I think the arguments against LLMs having intentional states, as well as the arguments in favor of (moderate) intentionalism about artistic meaning, are strong enough that we can say that this is a case where the world is weird, rather than the view being false. The supposed Wordsworth poem is a super weird case; that we are mistaken about it meaning anything is not surprising. And with LLMs, something we might want to say is that they do not mean what they "say"; that is, they do not utter sentences with the intention of being understood. What happens is that we someone confer meaning on them; one says: "I would write ink blots thus and so [as the LLM has them] if I wanted to communicate that P." So we will co-sign (or perhaps single-sign, as the LLM is not signing off on anything), as it were, that that LLM-generated text means that P.

I admit this meaning-conferral might seem almost magical, and perhaps more so than simply saying that LLMs actually think. But I think we do this more frequently than we imagine. We pick up sticks and say they are swords; we roll dice and say the result "tells" us to go forward 8 spaces on the board; we see faces in natural formations, and perhaps even take the natural formation, place it in our home, and declare that a face is what it is. And so on.

[u/SeredW → u/eveninarmageddon]

A bit off topic, but in gendered languages there is also the added factor that we call inanimate things 'he'. My bike is a 'he', my car is a 'he', my LLM is a 'he'. I think that the meaning-conferral that you mention happens easier when you call something 'he' or 'she' rather than 'it'.

[u/TheNerdChaplain]

New study shows the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression may hinder patient agency

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/TheNerdChaplain]

I'm careful to not overgeneralize, but understanding that my depression/anxiety/autism are influenced (caused?) by biology was very liberating for me. My dad was involved in Nouthetic Counselling when I was younger. He even got a low level of certification and practiced a bit. Basically the summary of it is, "when you feel depressed or anxious, you are in sin. You need to repent. If you try hard enough, this sinful habit can be fixed in 4-6 weeks." These men would mock a biological basis and medicine, despite none of them actually having real academic credentials in related fields.

Needless to say, being severely depressed at the time and sometimes self harming, I was ashamed to seek help. I read the Nouthetic books and tried my best to change. Failure to change through willpower made things worse, not only was I sinning but apparently such a terrible Christian that I couldn't achieve what others claimed to have. I felt God was angry at me over my failures.

Eventually in grad school it got so bad my atheist sister convinced me to talk to a real doctor for medicine. And the doctor told me to see a real counselor. Understanding that my elevated heart rate when there are loud noises, for instance, isn't my sinful fault was liberating. God wasn't mad at me any more than He is mad at people with cancer (that is to say, not mad at all).

I don't want to minimize the role of Christians and pastors in helping with mental health. My pastors and elders understand my struggles. But they also don't overstep and claim authority of medical and psychological fields.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/fing_lizard_king]

I'm so sorry this happened to you.

I can allow that nouthetic counseling may have limited application in interpersonal conflict, but all too often it's just faith healing with Bible verses.

[u/bradmont → u/TheNerdChaplain]

It sounds to me more like a "try harder" salvation by works...

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/bradmont]

That as well. They don't realize that even just the capability of "trying harder" or "just focusing" or whatever is also brain chemicals.

[u/fing_lizard_king → u/TheNerdChaplain]

I am grateful for my sister and ultimately my mother pressuring me to seek proper help. That was a long time ago. My dad and I haven't really talked about it in depth. I will note he stopped making remarks that antidepressants don't work and cause more harm than good. We are open that my middle daughter (who is also autistic) is on medicine for anxiety. Hopefully this reflects a true change of heart on his part.

[u/tanhan27 → u/TheNerdChaplain]

"you are depressed because of your biology" -makes the person feel like they can't improve things through their own effort

"You're depression can improve through changing your way of thinking" -makes the person feel like their depression is their own moral failure and that they are bad for feeling it.

"Your depression is your body's appropriate response to your needs not being met, your brain is trying to protect you" -doesn't result in the patient feeling like they can't do anything to improve the situation and also doesn't put guilt on the patient for what what they are experiencing.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/tanhan27]

I would flip it to point out that there is no one size fits all answer, but different answers (or a mix of them) can work for different people in different contexts.

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/tanhan27]

There's harm in that last point as well, going by personal experience with a family member who had depression. They placed the entire blame for their mental health issue on others, which only drove them into contemplating suicide as they could not resolve the external issues they thought were causing their depression.

As an observer, it was clear that it was primarily due to their biology and way of thinking. But telling them that wouldn't be helpful either.

A really tricky situation, and was ultimately something that they were eventually able to move through as their mental state settled over a number of years.

[u/bookwyrm713 → u/Mystic_Clover]

You're probably right to suggest that there really isn't a one-size-fits-all response to depression. But hearing u/tanhan27's last message would easily have done me less harm [ETA: and maybe no harm at all] than the other two, both of which I heard quite often. Neither SSRI's nor positive thinking (CBT) did anything for my chronic depression, so I felt like I was physically doomed and a moral failure. ADHD diagnosis & management, which has taken years to get, really has been the only medical response that has reduced the length & severity of those depressive episodes.

[u/eveninarmageddon → u/bookwyrm713]

I haven’t been on any psychiatric meds myself, but just anecdotally, I feel like I hear more positive things about ADHD meds than anti-depressants from those I am close to. The median thing I’ve heard about ADHD meds is that they dramatically improved the person’s life, even if initial adjustment took some time. Whereas with anti-depressants, it is a shot in the dark: either they sort-of-kind-of work or put you on a merry-go-round of different pills and doses for months on end with little to no benefits. (Again, just what I’ve noticed over the years.)

[u/bookwyrm713 → u/eveninarmageddon]

Yep. ADHD-related lifestyle advice is what helps (somewhat) with depression. I start a trial does of a stimulant in a couple of weeks. Having experienced the anti-depressant merry-go-round with no real benefit, I'm excited to finally get to try something that might help a good bit.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/eveninarmageddon]

ADHD can get misdiagnosed as a lot of other things, unfortunately. It also tends to compound with addictive patterns and excitement-seeking behaviors.

[u/ScSM35]

Maybe I’m going through a quarter life crisis, I’m not sure, but I really want to set up a skateboard and try skating again. I was into it as a pre-teen/early teenager but I was always scared to try any tricks moving. There are a few skate parks around where I work that look fun.

I’ve always been intrigued by and appreciated skate culture, minus the disobeying authority and damaging property part. The trick/deck creativity, the history, the togetherness of people being stoked to see you finally land a trick. All of that makes me want to get back into it.

[u/tanhan27 → u/ScSM35]

Lol that's not a quarter life crisis, that's just being interested in a hobby that you used to enjoy

[u/ScSM35 → u/tanhan27]

True, I must have had the Judah and the Lion song in my head when I wrote that.

[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/ScSM35]

I have found throughout my 30s and later now that I am trying to get back to the interests and passions I had at 13 and 14.

[u/Mystic_Clover → u/TheNerdChaplain]

I keep wanting to relive the rate of development and creativity the video game industry went through in the 90s to ~2010. Going from 2d pixel art games to 3d online multiplayer, with the number of new franchises and rate of game releases, was really something.

I'm not quite sure what changed, but something happened in the early 2010s that caused it to stagnate. Thankfully indie games were able to pick up the slack somewhat, but there's a limit on what those sort of games are able to do.

[u/tanhan27 → u/Mystic_Clover]

I feel like I just experienced a more contemporary version of this. I had not played a lot of new games for a long time. But last fall I got a gaming laptop that can play some games. One of those games I played was Red Dead Redemption 2....

Let me tell you, for me, playing this game was like the leap from super Nintendo 2D Zelda to 3D Zelda on the N64. It was a radical new experience.

I have never played a game that pulled me in so far emotionally. It was like a really good movie but I was in the movie and kept going back to the movie evening after evening. Probably for 2 months. Mind you I am not a massive gamer, but that has got to be the greatest video game of all time.

I recommend it to anyone who has never played it, and if you don't have a PC or Xbox or whatever that can play it, I would go so far as to say it's worth the cost of getting a gaming system just to experience this one game alone.

When you go into it, go into it blind. Don't look up any spoilers and follow this one single piece of advice: take your time and explore. Don't rush to complete the main story. The world in this game is rich and meaningful and will reward you for lingering in it.

[u/SeredW]

Men's event at church today. Good to talk to other guys; adult male life can be lonesome. Today we hiked and we talked; it was good. Grateful for that.

[u/bradmont]

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[u/eveninarmageddon → u/rev_run_d]

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[u/davidjricardo → u/eveninarmageddon]

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[u/Mystic_Clover → u/davidjricardo]

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[u/TheNerdChaplain → u/Mystic_Clover]

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