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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Most everyone on this thread thinks that science can explain anything . . . anything worthwhile, that is. If it can't, it's not worthwhile; it must be fringe; it must be religion; it must be fairy tales or myth; it must be weird or illegitimate or only personal or illusion or delusion or whatever derogatory term one can flippantly come up with. That goes too far. The attitude is disrespectful, arrogant, and hegemonic. It's Shakespearean...
The man doth protest too much, methinks.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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I wonder, who is the fastest gun on this thread?
 A bat and ball together costs $110. The bat costs a hundred dollars more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
The "fastest gun" gets the prize.
.....
EDIT
Alright, no fastest gun this morning I guess but Hahneman points out our "System One" self has a tendency to right away answer 10 but if "checked" by our "System 2" self the latter corrects the error. Fascinating. Maybe some day we will have a finer language to describe these two mechanistic operations in our selves - I mean other than "System One" and "System Two".
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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MH2: It's called metonymy. Every sentence you write contains a metaphor of one sort (Check out one of Lakoff's and Johnson's many works, especially "Metaphors We Live By.")
Jstan: Science is as science does. Would you say the same thing for a political system that followed proper procedure but harmed others needlessly or unfairly? Would you say the same thing for a health-care system that followed the rules to the letter but let people suffer without need? Would you say the same thing for a financial and economic system that followed the precepts of economics but resulted in a 1% minority that controlled 35% of the wealth?
"Hey, we're just following the process!" Bullsh*t.
Processes have weaknesses, they have biases, they have blind spots, they are forever incomplete. They are just processes. God Almighty did not come down from on-high and give Moses "The 10 Scientific Process Precepts."
Make no mistake, I AM saying that the process of science is incomplete and biased. (I am also respectful of what science can do within boundaries.)
Ed: I hear and appreciate what you say. I agree, in large part. What I appreciate about your postings is that you try to stay on point, you are open to other ideas, you occasionally admit to limits within the discipline, and you express a sense of wonder. Just consider me a bit of a rebel academically, and a counter-balance when things get (as you put it) a little over-enthusiastic. :-)
God, it's grading time for me: term papers, project reports, final examinations, and case write-ups. If I offend, I apologize. I'M JUST A LITTLE TOUCHY!!!!
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jstan
climber
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Jstan: Science is as science does. Would you say the same thing for a political system that followed proper procedure but harmed others needlessly or unfairly? Would you say the same thing for a health-care system that followed the rules to the letter but let people suffer without need? Would you say the same thing for a financial and economic system that followed the precepts of economics but resulted in a 1% minority that controlled 35% of the wealth?
Ah yes. Our founders' concept of representative democracy has been proven to be wrong by our present Congress. So we should dump representative democracy.
Right?
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jstan
climber
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Being touchy is OK. As for being offended that is something to be avoided at all cost. Emotion should never be allowed to cloud one's vision.
In mechanics I learned natural systems achieve equilibrium(something seldom encountered these days) at the point where two opposing forces become equal. Our founders embedded the human equivalent of this in our government when they went to great effort to separate powers. Today we are so enamored of apparently effortless automation, we have bought into the "unitary executive."
Bad decision electorate! Go lie on your blankie!
In Mechanics II I learned of the Principle of Least Action. A physical system follows that trajectory which minimizes the change in kinetic energy minus potential energy. (It can mean other things too depending upon the problem - but let's go with this.) If you set the problem up with the path equations open to a variational approach, you can differentiate the equation, and find where the variation is a minimum. You got the answer!
We now seem to be looking for the human equivalent of the Principle of Least Action.
Some way of getting the best human path with minimum action - on our part.
I understand our brains are wired specifically to allow conceptual crossover like that which I have proposed.
But what do I know?
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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I would strongly disagree that they constitute merely an interesting hallucination -- jogill
Why?
Why, indeed? At this point, for me, it's all an open question and I am reluctant to go with the easiest explanation - regardless of Occam's Razor.
What would an outside observer made of your "trip"?
Not much. Merely a sleeping person. This isn't about the reality we supposedly share, but about an unusual accomplishment of an individual mind. Perhaps the mechanism that presents to our consciousness what we perceive as reality doesn't need that sensory input to perform these kinds of tricks. Which borders on what is reality as well as what is mind.
As a mathematician I am not a scientist. "Theory" means something a bit different in math, so I'm not necessarily taking sides here. Just trying to keep an open mind.
What I had hoped to initiate was the relating of similar experiences from others, like Tom. Unusual mind phenomena that might give more of an insight into "what is mind" than this continual philosophical bantering.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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might give more of an insight into "what is mind" than this continual philosophical bantering
Certainly not like Tom's but not the continual philosophical banter either. Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner at google presents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0
"Subjective confidence is actually not a judgment at all, it is a feeling. It is a feeling that people have. And I think we know what the origin of the feeling is, and it is System One assessing the fluency of its own processing, assessing the coherence of the story that it has created to deal with the current situation... and if the story is coherent the confidence is high. Now this is disasterous in some ways. Because you can make a very coherent story out of very little information and out of information that is in fact not reliable. The quality of the story depends very little on the quality and quantity of the information. So people can be very confident with very little reason. Confidence therefore is not a good diagnostic for when you can trust either yourself or somebody else. If you are to evaluate whether you can trust somebody with a lot of confidence... that's not the way to do it. The way to do it is to ask what environment have they been in and and have they had the opportunity to learn its regularities. Subjective confidence is not a good indicator…"
Kahneman, Google Presents
A breath of fresh air.
I thought his ideas all around (evinced in the aforementioned talk re: System One vs System Two) applies quite relevantly to... climbing in all its aspects also... regarding competency, safety, etc..
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2011 - 08:00pm PT
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I personally think science does a great job with objective material. Science looses it´s way entirely, IMO, when it either tries to wrangle every phenomenon into physical terms, demands physical proof to vouchsafe the existence of any any all phenomenon, and when none is forthcoming, insists if it ain´t science, it´s priestcraft, wo wo and God pandering. What´s more, a mystery to a physicalist is simply something not yet measured. What´s lost on this group is the idea of unquantifiable elements that are NOT mysterious given enough work and insight above and beyond a mere quantifying.
And Craig you are still confusing yourself. Awareness is a kind of universal, global kind of frequency most of us have dialed into a local channel, namely me, myself and I. But you are betting against yourself if you think this is the end of the coverage.
As to free will, if you ask me a specific question that you DO NOT know the answer to, at at any rate are not convinced of the answer, I might take a shot at it. As is, your question is fundamentally dishonest because I bet you have an answer in your head, making your question a set up, NOT a question.
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Free will exists and has for trillions and trillions of years.
You can't even debate it as it's useless.
We have the right to choose and that proves it.
Only stupid sheep people can't see that there is free will.
Free will is asleep in the human sheep .....
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MH2
climber
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t's grading time for me: term papers, project reports, final examinations, and case write-ups.
Sympathy
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Jstan: No, gosh, let's not dump democracy! However, you must admit that democracy has it's problems, irrepsective of the bums that are occupying the seats in Washington today. Elsewhere on this site I've argued that it might be time for a serious review of Democracy (see Tocqueville). Ditto for capitalism, the health-care system, immigration, and so on. All are processes that could use improvement. Why? Because they have been exercised to rational extremes without other considerations, as I've tried to show in previous posts.
"Emotion should never be allowed to cloud one's vision."
I'll disagree. Emotions are another kind of consciousness. Emotions got us here a few million years ago, and without emotions, we wouldn't be much to show for ourselves as a species. I want simultaneous access to deep sleep, dreams, instincts, emotions, magic, myth, mental activities--and more than what you can see from where you're standing.
Differentiate, integrate, and then transcend. Don't throw out the previous states of consciousness, and don't let the current state of consciousness repress the previous states. (That's what rationality has done.)
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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A quarter of a century ago, John Krakauer recorded your speculation about the possibility of one achieving a small amount of levitation. Any recent thoughts on this?
Oh Boy. I think that occurred after we finished a bottle of wine.
No comment.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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What, no input this morning... from the dozen or so "repeat offenders" - c'mon, give me something juicy to sink my teeth into.
So-called "free will" has many conceptual forms. Whether it exists or not - yay or nay - depends on the form the speaker or thinker has in mind. Nine tenths of it - that is, regarding the "free will" issue - is really this simple.
Spend time with the subject and the many and various concepts and definitions separate in the mind - in ways that are useful. (Not unlike what one experiences in the discipline otherwise sport of rockclimbing.)
Food for thought: the "free will part" of the brain... ;)
.....
Interesting geek fact here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Very unexpected, vivid, and unusual dream last night; with Frank Sacherer
i don't usually think about my dreams after i wake up in the morning and can't recall anything like this one
once in a while i experience a vivid dream that seems to demand some sort of action on my part after i wake up; but this wasn't one of those
the in-life context is that i have been traveling around the northwest visiting relatives; including some long philosophical conversations with my aunt and uncle who are in their 90s and still very sharp with excellent memories
also several very interesting conversations with some old Hanford nuclear engineers at the Richland science museum
during my visit, WSU Tri-cities decided to hire me to teach AI computer science classes on immersive virtual-reality systems engineering
then last night, driving south, i wound up staying alone at my sister-in-law's beautiful home; sound asleep
somehow i had a dream of casually standing around chatting at a gathering of climbers in Yosemite
then suddenly, in a very vivid moment; Frank Sacherer walked up to me and wanted to chat
a few others in the gathering who knew who he was, stopped chatting and stared in shock that he had reappeared from the dead
Frank explained having come down from the mountains in a state of complete amnesia, and wound up hanging around an alpine village. Eventually becoming curious about his past; he had followed the mental connection left from our days as climbing partners, and wound up tracking me down at that moment
the experience of being in the presence of his unique intense analytical personality was incredible, and didn't seem like anything i could have just dreamed up
i answered a few of his questions and it seemed like he was suddenly re-connecting with his memories
our conversation was as if there had been no great lapse of time since our last conversation
then before i could ask any questions of my own; he thanked me and walked away just as casually as if we were still in daily contact
i woke up at first light with an intense memory of having just talked to him
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2011 - 02:34pm PT
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I´d like to take a crack at the freewill thing and Gill´s dream but I´m in Venezuel just now dealing with some family crisis so I don´t have the MIND or time to do the things proud. Glad to see you guys are keeping the magic alive...
JL
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cintune
climber
Midvale School for the Gifted
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Instead, he posits...
He "guesses". He is a mental speculator who does not know how to measure consciousness so he pretends to know. He will never kiss his own lips.
Uh, okay. Maybe you could read the article before passing judgement. Or maybe not.
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jstan
climber
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: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=kepler-finds-its-first-planet-in-th-11-12-05
Kepler Finds Its First Planet in the Habitable Zone
NASA's Kepler telescope has discovered its first exoplanet that could be at temperatures allowing liquid water, a big hurdle for life. John Matson reports
Monday, December 5, 2011
NASA's orbiting Kepler telescope has discovered its first planet in the habitable zone of another star. By "habitable," astronomers mean that a planet could harbor temperatures conducive to liquid water—and maybe life.
The new planet, Kepler 22b, orbits somewhat closer to its host star than Earth does to the sun. “The star is some 600 light years away.” NASA's Bill Borucki, who leads the Kepler mission, in a December 5th teleconference.
That star is a bit cooler than the sun. So if the greenhouse warming were similar on this planet, and it had a surface, its surface temperature would be something like 72 Fahrenheit—a very pleasant temperature here on Earth.
Kepler 22b is more than twice as large as Earth. One big caveat is that it may not be rocky, like Earth is. It could instead be a gas planet like Neptune. If that were the case, prospects for life there would be rather dim.
Kepler ought to find even better candidates for life in the near future. The satellite has now tentatively identified more than 2,300 possible planets—about 50 of them in the habitable zonethat await confirmation in the years to come.
—John Matson
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WBraun
climber
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There's life on every planet.
Everyone of them!
Arrogant earthlings think they're the only ones.
Stupid earthlings .....
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MH2
climber
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"The Story of Philosophy originated as a series of Little Blue Books (educational pamphlets aimed at workers) and was so popular it was republished in 1926 by Simon & Schuster as a hardcover book and became a bestseller, giving the Durants the financial independence that would allow them to travel the world several times and spend four decades writing The Story of Civilization."
from the Wikipedia entry on Will Durant
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