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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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You know, DMT, there are certainly times when some science advocate seems to suggest that those who do not genuflect in front of the altar of science is primitive, wrong, misguided, and lesser (stupid, ignorant) than those who kowtow to it. It’s funny to me that on the one hand, those highly publicized categorizations that are rampantly politically correct (e.g., “primitive societies, with no real faces to them) but not individually so (like when someone actually holds dear more primitive beliefs of religion, myth, or other non-rational or irrational beliefs). Know what I mean?
My experience here has led me to sometimes think I understand what a sub context is apart from the specific language used to prove rationality, right, and appropriateness.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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I’d say your sense of values, correctness, and right and wrong will run into difficulties among circles of contemporary artists . . . Why the "big surprise?" What is it that you think you know?
There's no "will" to it. I have no intention of participating in discussions with artists in these circles.
I suspected you would chime in in the way you did regarding paint-slapping art works. You are postmodernist aren't you? Abstract expressionism or performance art should appeal to you. There are no certainties, no correct or incorrect, no truth, nothing really known, etc.
Am I wrong? Just wildly guessing here.
Sorry man, I truly don't understand what you're trying to say
Ditto
Yes, "quantifying the mind" is difficult, and to date, incomplete . . .
Yes, Tononi and I are working on this separately, a little like Newton and Leibnitz assembling the calculus. I have my doubts about Tononi's Phi function because it is impossible to calculate. My Mind Function is coming along very well, however, and is easily calculable. But it does have structural problems. Nevertheless, I feel strongly I will get there ahead of my rival. Wish me luck!
;>)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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DMT:
1. Those who believe in science here, who suggest that those who don’t put it first exhibit primitive understanding, are wrong, are misguided, and are lesser human beings (ignorant, stupid).
2. Politically recognized stereotypes (e.g., “primitive societies”), which are evaluated as “politically correct” or “incorrect,” are those which have no faces. They are simply masses. That’s what makes them stereotypes: they are faceless. There's nothing personal about them. There is nothing individualist about them.
3. There are those here who are science advocates, and they denigrate others who think that religion, myth, or other not-rational points of view are equal to that fostered by a scientific point of view. These denigrated folks are lesser in their eyes, for example, more primitive.
4. I call bulllsh*t.
Jgill:
A postmodernist is not necessarily someone who puts aesthetics first. Art has little to do with it other than being drawn to the same strange attractors (principles or visions as it were). A postmodernist questions authority, especially ideological, intellectual, emotional, and even physical authority. It does not imply that postmodernisits are against order, freedom, understanding, empathy, data analysis, or what have you. A postmodernist generally recognizes as a natural matter of course that it’s very difficult to say what one sees or studies, and he or she would be especially aware of his or her own filters, biases, and ways of seeing (by having a doubt about just about anything) in his or her speech and presentations. It’s sort of an intellectual response to intellectual arrogance and to a sense of superiority--against authorities of the most subtle kind.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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A postmodernist questions authority
And should not mind being questioned in turn.
Mike, you object to stereotyping and belittling faceless masses, but then say:
There are those here who are science advocates, and they denigrate others who think that...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Thanks for the reply, MikeL.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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hopefully I am not asking you to genuflect to anything...
I don't.
And my purpose here hasn't been to castigate those for their beliefs, whatever they are, but to explain better what science is and does... as a practicing scientist for these last 40 years.
If you'd rather just speculate without the benefit of someone who actually has done it, and thought about it, I'm just as happy to retire from posting to this thread. You could go on having your postmodern opinions without them being challenged and probably be even more smug...
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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It's a conversation, isn't it, Ed?
Smugness, arrogance comes in many varieties. Rarely detected in you, either on this thread or on the science versus religion thread there is regular denigration, lambasting, and ridicule of practices, beliefs, or values that are (how should I say it?) NOT scientific, paramountly.
No?
Tell me honestly, Ed. Do you think less of people's rationality, their sensibilities, their worldviews, their beliefs, of people who express equal or even more respect or value of non-scientific ideals or objectives? Are they equal in your eyes, the assessments you generate in everyday affairs with others casually, on the street, in a restaurant, in civil society? Before meeting and getting to know people personally (you know, on a one-to-one basis), do you think less of people you see who express non-scientific beliefs and values casually?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I interact with people who have a wide range of beliefs, certainly at variance with my practice of science... for the most part their beliefs aren't a factor in our interactions.
I don't think of people, in the context of the beliefs that they hold, as any more or less depending on the degree of science that they know.
On the other hand, if someone starts a thread saying, essentially, that a scientific understanding of [fill in the blank] is impossible, I might take the bait and argue the point.
Also, if you wish to criticize science's reach, this is an entirely legitimate exercise, but one with ramifications beyond your own interests. In particular, how do you assess the risk of human activities on the planet? One might use science to try to understand the connection between human activities and the environment. Is this valid? what priority should it have with respect to other (non-scientific) ways of assessing risk?
The field of postmodern "science studies" has been appropriated by various institutions to question the validity of science and the practice of science in ways that undermine those results at variance with the interests of those institutions. While this may be intellectually dishonest, the interests may overwhelm any desire for intellectual honesty, intellectual honesty might not be a valued attribute among those institutions.
What role does postmodern criticism play in these social debates where science could provide important information? How should people criticize science?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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On the other hand, if someone starts a thread saying, essentially, that a scientific understanding of [fill in the blank] is impossible, I might take the bait and argue the point.
The scientific method and the practice of that method enjoy a kind of neutrality that’s really at their very foundation.
But what’s important to remember here is that the structures governing the use of any knowledge (that is: how we employ that knowledge in our lives) are functions of morality and an associated virtue.
If we look to the paradigms in science’s understanding of evolution for moral structure we’re confronted with a cold efficiency unmediated by what can only be, and is best described as, humanity.
Something in us elevates us to higher plane of understanding taking us beyond the necessary efficiency of simply social evolutionary needs to a willingness and struggle to be more and more humane.
Our humanity has evolved as a production of mind through centuries of hard self-reflection as well as the search for meaning that lends efficacy to that understanding. At this point our minds have in many cases chosen to discard evolutionary success in the immediate for the sake of what we characterize as a higher moral ground, a moral ground that science would describe as but a product of social evolutionary process like we might find in Prairie Dogs.
But that morality is the product of this enigma we call the mind, an enigma capable of realizing (fill in the blank).
To imagine that on our little speck of dust in the universe the manifestation of a moral ground of behavior constructed around necessary actions not for the sake of survival but as an end in itself, predicated on kindness and self-sacrifice to the degree that it violates evolutionary demands, is really stunning.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Rah, rah, sis boom bah,
Stand up sit down fight fight fight,
Go, humanity!
To end the debate, a balance is brought in and each are told to tell a few lines into it. Whoever's lines have the most "weight" will cause the balance to tip in their favor. Euripides produces verses of his that mention, in turn, the ship Argo, Persuasion, and a mace. Aeschylus responds with the river Spercheios, Death, and two crashed chariots and two dead charioteers. Since the latter verses refer to "heavier" objects, Aeschylus wins, but Dionysus is still unable to decide whom he will revive. He finally decides to take the poet who gives the best advice about how to save the city. Euripides gives cleverly worded but essentially meaningless answers while Aeschylus provides more practical advice, and Dionysus decides to take Aeschylus back instead of Euripides.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Rah, rah, sis boom bah,
Stand up sit down fight fight fight,
Go, humanity!
"I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member" - Goucho Marx
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Good appeal to authority, Paul.
I wonder if MikeL would feel that you have denigrated prairie dogs as lesser in your eyes, more primitive? Are prairie dogs less wonderful than humans?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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And meanwhile, Donald Trump was elected president.
What does that say about human evolution and theories of mind?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Hey, Ed:
I don’t intend to criticize science’s reach. For me it’s always an open conversation when values, interests, objectives, beliefs, etc. collide. That’s when things get interesting IMO. I like stretching, attempting to reach beyond my grasp. It changes me, and I have a love affair with change, even though it tends to give rise to suffering. Like I said, I’m in for the conversation.
To be honest and fair, I am one that does tend to think a little less of people—not for what they do think—but more that they do not seem to be able to entertain other points of views other than their own. Other thoughts, ideas, or values are not things that they have to believe in or convert to, but more the idea that they can be playful with other notions than their own.
I’m not sure why that has become important to me over the years. I suppose this notion of playfulness resonates with some spiritual ideas that I’ve come to understand from my practices and teachings. Playfulness presents a sense of openness, potentiality, “that which has yet to become,” inchoateness (is that a word?), those moments and places that present cusps of transitions to new states of being, to new worldviews.
Yesterday I was lucky to attend a presentation by a Berkeley scholar here at the U of A that was loaded with dizzying constructs, statistics, and inventive data collection and melding. Many of my colleagues (especially the Ph.D. students) had many criticisms of the work, but I thought it was very inventive, presenting a new way to look at certain phenomena. It presented a style of looking at things. I don’t think I agree with the scholalr’s overall view of the phenomena (yet), but it was beautifully put together as a research IMO.
That’s how I see science—as a craft. One doesn’t have to love its objectives or its artifacts or even its philosophical underpinnings to share a love with its practice.
I guess I feel the same about conversations. For some reason I suspect others may feel the same way here.
If a person seems particularly dogmatic, very certain of their values and beliefs, and strident, then there doesn’t seem to be much room for a conversation. This happens often when they express outright distain for other’s beliefs and ideas. Like, let’s say, religion.
As an aside, I see I’ve been saddled with the category of “postmodernist” and “spiritualist” (and whatever else I hesitate to say) by a few people here. That’s ok. Those labels are directional pointers, heuristics, shorthand symbols of a loose set of arguments and discussions that can help communicate. They tend to be incomplete, inaccurate, and provisional by any analysis.
Be well.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Postmodernism is a lot to be saddled with, Mike.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/
I imagined a cartoonist doing a series on postmodernists in the nursing home, but once again truth is out in front of fiction:
That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.
(from the link above)
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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^^^^^^^
I think I can name that tune in 3 words: Look for Yourself.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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And meanwhile, Donald Trump was elected president.
What does that say about human evolution and theories of mind?
Consider your own reaction to this. I see that reaction as something positive for humanity. Everyone is fallible and yet human beings are basically good, strive to be good.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Mike, I'm curious about the talk by the visiting scholar you mentioned. Would you go into a little more detail, please. Thanks.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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jgill, just sent you an email through ST.
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