A method of telling people about your accomplishments in a condescending manner, implying that they should already know about them, and are stupid for being ignorant.
The fundamental epistemological dilemma: How could one ever verify a specific communication from the deceased, as opposed to generalized cold reading, subconscious fraud, or the medium's own psychology? Even if you grant the possibility of an afterlife, the hard problem is the "crossing of the ontological gap." Information known only to the deceased and a living recipient could theoretically be transmitted, but proving the mechanism was spirit communication and not telepathy (between living minds), clairvoyance, or pure chance is arguably impossible. It's a signal-in-noise problem where the "noise" includes the entire universe of unknown information.
Example: A medium tells a client, "Your father says he's sorry about the broken watch." The client is shocked, as they privately had a watch from their father that broke. The hard problem: Could the medium have telepathically (or subconsciously) read that memory from the client's mind? Could it be a lucky guess from a common symbol? Even a "veridical" piece of information doesn't isolate the source. To prove mediumship, you'd need a piece of information known only to the deceased and no living person, which is, by definition, unverifiable. The channel can never be definitively identified. Hard Problem of Mediumship.
The problem of its own possibility. Metaphysics seeks to describe the fundamental nature of reality (being, time, causality, objects). The hard problem is that any such description must be made from within reality, using a human mind, which is a product of that reality. We are like cells in a body trying to describe human anatomy from the inside, using only cellular language. Our concepts (like "cause" or "substance") may be projections of our cognitive architecture, not features of the world-in-itself. Therefore, metaphysics may tell us more about how human minds must think than about how reality must be.
*Example: A metaphysician argues brilliantly that time is an illusion, a block universe. But they still must make their dinner reservation for 7 PM, live with the anxiety of deadlines, and experience the undeniable flow of their own consciousness. The hard problem: The metaphysical theory, even if logically coherent, is existentially inert. It cannot be lived. This suggests metaphysics may be an elaborate, self-consistent language game, decoupled from the reality it purports to explain. We are building castles of abstraction on a foundation (our own perception) we cannot inspect without using the very tools we're inspecting.* Hard Problem of Metaphysics.
The Measurement Problem: What constitutes a "measurement" that collapses the wave function? The mathematics of QM describes particles in superpositions (multiple states at once). Yet, when we observe, we find one definite state. The equations work perfectly but offer no clear line between the quantum world (governed by probability waves) and the classical world of definite objects. Is consciousness required? Is it interaction with a large system? The theory is silent, making it a predictively powerful algorithm for results, but not a complete description of reality. This isn't a missing piece; it's a foundational fog at the theory's heart.
Example: In the double-slit experiment, a single electron acts like a wave and goes through both slits simultaneously, interfering with itself—unless you place a detector to see which slit it goes through. Then it acts like a particle. The hard problem: What's so special about the detector? It's made of atoms obeying quantum rules too. At what exact point does the "probability cloud" become a "click" in a machine? Quantum mechanics gives you the odds of the click, but treats the click itself as a mysterious, external event. The theory is a recipe book that works, but it doesn't explain the kitchen. Hard Problem of Quantum Mechanics.
The Hard Problem of Spirituality and Metaphysics concerns the difficulty of explaining subjective spiritual experiences, metaphysical meaning, and existential significance using objective, physical descriptions. Similar to the hard problem of consciousness, it asks why inner experiences of transcendence, purpose, or “the sacred” exist at all, and whether they correspond to real structures beyond the physical world. The problem challenges reductionist explanations, suggesting that spiritual phenomena may involve extraphysical dimensions, emergent metaphysical properties, or irreducible aspects of reality that resist empirical measurement.
Hard Problem of Spirituality and Metaphysics — Example
Two individuals undergo near-identical neurological states, yet one experiences a profound sense of transcendence while the other does not. No physical measurement explains the difference. The hard problem arises in explaining why spiritual meaning emerges subjectively and whether such experiences correspond to real metaphysical structures rather than being purely neurological artifacts.
The measure of an emotional and over zealous consumer in an upwardly charging market, also known as a bull market. It's characterized by rising asset prices, increased investor confidence, and favorable growth in the markets, bro.
The frothability was evident as over-zealous consumers eagerly engaged in bidding wars, drivingproperty prices to unsustainable levels reminiscent of previous speculative bubbles.
A man who dates women with the sole purpose of exploiting their time, energy, and labor while he sucks the joy and happiness from their lives.
"That guy's a soul digger. He'll expect you to work full time, but you'll be doing all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, and childcare while he plays video games or watches TV."
A person pretending to be something they aren't, or an impostor. This is inferred because of the old alien movies where alien pods appear on earth and the "pod people" dispose of the humans and slowly reproduce the bodies, pretending to be humans.
The pod person was pretending to be my father, but I knew that he was an alien when he acted differently than my father ever would have.
A dead drop is a location used to secretly pass items between two people, without requiring them to meet.
Spies have been known to use dead drops, using various techniques to hide the items and to signal that the drop has been made. Drug dealers use this as well.
A common place is to duct tape the item to the underside of a toilet cover in a public restroom.
A signal is sometimes used as well to indicate there is something to pickup, like a pile of stones in a certain formation. After checking the drop the signal is removed.
"The dead drop is the restroom toilet at the Gulf station at the corner of Commercial Ave. and GeorgesRd."
A "No Surprises Wedding," or NSW, is a wedding invitation designation that tells attendees that there can be no unplanned announcements, engagements, events or speeches at the wedding - all actions must be pre-approved by the couple. Anyone who performs an unapproved "surprise" will be asked to leave the wedding early.
This designation comes from Reddit, where so many stories of bad wedding behavior indicated a need to communicate expectations for the wedding behavior of attendees.
You are cordially invited to the nuptials of Brian and Tom on October 31 at noon.
Please note that this wedding is child-free (under 10) and a No Surprises Wedding (NSW). Reach out to wedding planner Sami Smith to request approvals or exceptions; please note that exceptions will be rare. Limited child care for under-10s will be available. All approvals will be noted and included in planning. Unapproved, or surprise exceptions, will result in guests being asked to leave.
Ulzzang true definition is "best & "face" = best face in korean. They are basically people with above average looks, sometimes with the use of photoshop and haduri who post their pics online, some becoming internet celebrities.
"Hey, see that chick over there? She's pretty enough to be an ulzzang. :D"
EBK stands for "Elite Ball Knowledge." 1 In internet slang, "ball knowledge" originally referred to a deep understanding of football/soccer or basketball, but it has evolved into a broader term for having a highly sophisticated, deep, or niche understanding of any specific topic (such as music, movies, or subcultures).
Person A: "That scene was a direct homage to an unreleased 1982 Japanese indie film."
Person B: "Wow, EBK."