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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Oct 10, 2017 - 06:08pm PT
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"How can we logically dismiss the notion of an infinite intelligence or, that's right, God, that stands at the limit of all knowing? Logically, I don't see how we can."
And yet you did dismiss that god.
So much for logic, eh?
DMT
I'm simply asking the question. To believe or not to believe is a decision in which absolute concrete certainty is problematic. And, in fact, if there were certainty in such matters what would be the value of faith. The choice to believe or not is a deeply personal and ultimately emotional one and whether scientist or philosopher your decision is not based on evidence. I think its a question science does it's best to dismiss and should, in fact, take seriously.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 10, 2017 - 06:39pm PT
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When you do Science 100% correct you'll see God himself.
The gross materialists are all just mental speculators.
Science is not mental speculation.
The mental speculator gross materialists are prisoners of their own defective minds .....
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 10, 2017 - 07:27pm PT
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paul asked:
How can we logically dismiss the notion of an infinite intelligence or, that's right, God, that stands at the limit of all knowing?
and then brought science into it:
I think its[sic] a question science does its best to dismiss and should, in fact, take seriously.
A notion is a belief or opinion, or less commonly a desire, possibly whimsical. As such, a notion does not seem a proper target for logical dismissal. Especially a notion about an infinite intelligence at the limit of all knowing.
It doesn't seem that science dismisses such a notion. Or that science could discover support for such a notion.
If you can tell us how science could seriously examine the question of an infinite intelligence, please do.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 10, 2017 - 07:34pm PT
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The idea is simple: sensory perception requires a certain degree of accuracy, that accuracy often mediated or enhanced through logical analysis, in order for its host to enjoy evolutionary success. What you see and smell better/must have a close tie to the reality around you.
your logic is infallible, it is, however, wrong.
the fact remains that our senses are accurate to a point.
There is no logical analysis involved, for a vast period of human existence, humans were unaware of logic... and certainly of logical analysis.
The amount of energy required to animate a pound of animal is a physiological constant.
Humans produce enough to satisfy their energy requirements, ants, who represent a biomass equal to humans do that too...
...you have argued that ants have a very limited view of reality, yet they are equal to the task of providing for themselves.
Do you propose that ants have a "logical analysis" regarding the degree of accuracy required in sensing the world to accomplish what they have?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Oct 10, 2017 - 07:46pm PT
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It doesn't seem that science dismisses such a notion. Or that science could discover support for such a notion.
If you can tell us how science could seriously examine the question of an infinite intelligence, please do.
We know with certainty that intelligence exists in different species as a continuum ergo the implication of an intelligence greater than our own. Well, the question is how exaggerated can we imagine that this superior intelligence is? At what point does a superior intelligence become divine? Science declares already the superior intelligence of A. I. Again, well, how superior? At what point does the intelligence created artificially become limited or reach its limit? How could the potential of such intelligence even be limited? And given the parameters (scale) of our universe, wouldn't such intelligence already exist? The question of intelligence and its limitations is something science needs to think seriously about because the implications are staggering.
There is no logical analysis involved, for a vast period of human existence, humans were unaware of logic... and certainly of logical analysis.
Really? At what point historically do you think the logical analysis/realization that a fish seen in a stream is not in the position it appears and the spear should be thrown mediated by that logical analysis?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 10, 2017 - 07:47pm PT
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your concept of the narrative is interesting.
"your"?
lol
I think you mean evolutionary pysch's concept.
Of the narrative, yes. Also of the mind.
what a motley crew we have here!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 10, 2017 - 08:10pm PT
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Really? At what point historically do you think the logical analysis/realization that a fish seen in a stream is not in the position it appears and the spear should be thrown mediated by that logical analysis?
it is true that there is a physical model wired into your brain...
probably more sophisticated than you would be able to understand if you had to explain the physics of it... and no "logical analysis" necessary to use it.
you brain is smarter than you are...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 10, 2017 - 08:49pm PT
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So congrats to Sam Harris!
who is soon to be the world's first neuroscientist, public intellectual AND philosophizer who "thinks in public" who specializes "in hard conversations about the most important questions of our time" - to have a million plus followers on twitter.
A hard row to hoe, indeed. Esp in these times.
So who says the public's not interested in these things?
The proof is in the pudding. At twitter!
...
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/facing-the-crowd
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Oct 10, 2017 - 09:19pm PT
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you brain is smarter than you are...
Ha! And who/what is the you that is not smarter than your brain?
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Oct 10, 2017 - 09:21pm PT
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EH said "The "narrative" is exactly that, a behavior that "tells a story" about ourselves, what we are thinking, why we did what we did and what we are going to do. The narrative can be factual, fictional, artistic, informative, all that... but its primary purpose is to inform others."
The narrative is often and maybe by definition conditioned by our environment i.e. society, parents and events in our life and therefore often a narrow POV. Just look at the climate change thread for proof. I am not saying it is good or bad just what it typically is (biased). And I agree it has a very important function communicating. But unfortunately many people think (narrative) they are correct and the rest of the world is wrong.
So buddhist style meditation leads to seeing/being/experiencing before the narrative; without the biased view. You seem to "think" this pre-narrative view is also by default biased as in perceptions are inaccurate. But in the pre-narrative view you are not measuring you are just "being".
So why explore the the pre-narrative view? Why not.
As far a "the observer" ; to spend time on that question is just another narrative/philsophical exercise and IMO a waste of precious time.
Where's Mike L? hopefully on vacation.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 10, 2017 - 09:23pm PT
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When the gross materialists submit to their heart only then will they conquer and fully understand their fickle minds .....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 10, 2017 - 09:31pm PT
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why, your discursive mind... of course, the one you associate with the "observer"
as an aside, there was an interesting book review in the NYTimes today
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/books/review-elizabeth-hardwick-collected-essays.html
where the reviewer observes:
'To the end, however, she was a word-eater of the old school. She grieved for the way in which fiction was slipping from the public imagination. “Try to find a young person who has read Thackeray or Cooper or, in America, Balzac or Zola,” she wrote in 1969. “The end comes painlessly, silently.”
Partly this slippage was the result, she realized, of society opening up as regards sex and other topics so suddenly that fiction no longer brought the news about our species as it once did. Once upon a time, you needed books to know how to live.
“This aspect of information,” she wrote, “brings to memory the later story by Philip Roth in which a college girl suggests she knows all about contraception because she has read Mary McCarthy.”'
Over my lifetime access to all information has increased amazingly, along with the opportunity to experience the world directly. Those things I read I could not only imagine doing, but actually did many of them.
There was a time not long before then, that one could only read, the doing was far from possible. And what was read was "impossible" but obviously imaginable, and if fiction publishable.
I wonder if there isn't something to the idea that fiction plays an entirely different role now, then it did just 50 years ago.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 10, 2017 - 09:33pm PT
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We know with certainty that intelligence exists in different species as a continuum ergo the implication of an intelligence greater than our own
I question ergo.
. . . how exaggerated can we imagine that this superior intelligence is? At what point does a superior intelligence become divine?
Again, a problem with ergo. You love to extrapolate and call it fact.
And given the parameters (scale) of our universe, wouldn't such intelligence already exist?
I'm still searching for the hundred monkeys typing Shakespeare.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 10, 2017 - 09:35pm PT
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But in the pre-narrative view you are not measuring you are just "being".
I disagree, you are far from "just being," you are absent narrative, however, I understand that you have learned to interpret that state in some particular way. That learning is not free from bias.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Oct 10, 2017 - 09:55pm PT
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EH said "I disagree, you are far from "just being," you are absent narrative, however, I understand that you have learned to interpret that state in some particular way. That learning is not free from bias."
Can you elaborate how far I am from "just being" and and what is your definition of "just being"; just in case there is slight chance we are talking about completely different "just beings'".
There are different degrees of the pre-narrative state . It is called concentration style meditation, so different degrees of concentration. Therevadens call it The Jhanas. You really can't do them; they generally do you. And then attempt to make narrative to share your experience if you so choose.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 10, 2017 - 10:13pm PT
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My beef is using literary terminology any way you please and incorrectly. Take fruit coat's sub-genre example. It simply does not exist. You are both punching above your weight in terms of story and definitions. Spend thirty years as an English teacher then I'l take you seriously.
you asked, I explained...
who knew that "three quarks for Muster Mark!" would provide a name for the constituents of baryonic matter... the guy who appropriated it didn't teach English either...
I don't think it did much violence, how many people get that far anyway?
As for narrative... it seems a lot more descriptive than your suggested alternative metaphor "stream of consciousness," my quick check on the web defines it "a spoken or written account of connected events; a story" which is precisely what I intended to convey. The dictionary doesn't admonish "not for use by you silly lab coats!"
I don't expect you to have worked 40 years in scientific research to have some understanding of science.
Thanks for your constructively critical comments, and I mean that sincerely.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Oct 10, 2017 - 11:14pm PT
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PSP said
There are different degrees of the pre-narrative state . It is called concentration style meditation, so different degrees of concentration. Therevadens call it The Jhanas. You really can't do them; they generally do you. And then attempt to make narrative to share your experience if you so choose.
Yes, experiencing jihans or the opening of chakras is something that surprises and controls the discursive mind no matter how well prepared one thinks oneself through reading and thinking about it ahead of time. They also leave no doubt in the meditator's mind, which part of the mind is really in control of all those neural connections and hormones. For modern people especially, who place so much faith and effort in the logical discursive mind, this is a real revelation. Of course many got the same realization from using psychedelics. The difference to my mind at least, is that psychedelics even with flashbacks, never last, while meditative insights do.
Meanwhile I am reminded of the saying in several schools of meditation that eventually, the observer and observed become one. In evolutionary terms, this may be a way of uniting what was divided in the mind, with the invention of language.
Hopefully, fructose's latest recommended book, The Mind Illuminated, will address this.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Oct 11, 2017 - 04:08am PT
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Ed,
I wonder if there isn't something to the idea that fiction plays an entirely different role now, then it did just 50 years ago.
The invariant about reading fiction or nonfiction is that the reader has to create the images he forms from just the words while in a video story the images are given. On MSNBC news one often has a choice of reading a story or seeing a video of the news event. I presume Fake News is fiction? Most of the time I just read the news story and skip the video. Occasionally I will do both and sometime do the video first. Either way I often surmise as to what is the fake news part of the presentation -- items overemphasized etc
Younger people often ask, can you send a pic ? ... Well pics & videos mean less to me than to them
We all get a lot of info from the videos of Mitch McConnell's face during his presentations ...
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Oct 11, 2017 - 06:29am PT
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evolutionary pysch's concept
Could you illuminate me then, on the precise definition for "narrative" given in "Evolutionary Psychology"? In your own words, please.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 11, 2017 - 06:45am PT
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They also leave no doubt in the meditator's mind, which part of the mind is really in control of all those neural connections and hormones.
Whoa! Which part? It would nice to know, but when you say that psychedelic drugs lead to the same answer, I worry about how reliable the answer is.
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