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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 21, 2014 - 05:34pm PT
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Music is NOT sound.
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I'm starting to get a feel how your thinking works, Forty. You are a staunch literalist. To you, what comes out of a trumpet IS music. You're assumptions are anthropomorphic. They are not objective reality. You have introjected a subjective element into the objective (sunshine, music, etc.) and don't even know it. Without a subject, there is no "sunshine." There are only photons. Sunshine is a subjective experience involving photons. Again, this is another example of conflation. That subtle rascal.
What comes out of a trumpet is sound. "Music" is what our mind does with that sound. Music has no meaning beyond what it is to a sentient person. In other words, music and sound are not the same things. In fact "sound" doesn't exist without ears. What does exist are sound waves. See how easy it is to consider them the same, because are subjectivity is so embedded in reality it is almost impossibile to see it clearly. And if you don't, you say, "So what? What is your point? How does that change anything?"
Just your entire POV of reality.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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May 21, 2014 - 07:55pm PT
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you continue to equate sentience with content, and continue to look at brain output as the golden fleece. The nature of sentience is that it's no thing at all (JL)
After all this time I still am not sure if you are denying sentience arises within the brain and is the result of brain activity. When you sit in Zen meditation and reach the state of awareness without content is your brain functioning at that point beyond autonomonous nervous system levels? Is the state you are in directly tied to brain functioning? If you were to lapse into unconsciousness at that point, would sentience go on independently? What of theta waves, beta waves etc.? If a slight electrical impulse were initiated into some part of your brain, would your experience of no-thingness survive? What experiments have been performed along these lines?
A clarification here might eliminate a lot of woo woo accusations.
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MH2
climber
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May 21, 2014 - 08:03pm PT
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You know, exercising a modicum of 'prove it' - to scientific findings and recommendations, and to those of woo, is a good approach. (DMT)
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I accept as valid Mh2's assessment that his explorations in a multi year meditation practice have simply allowed him to use his biochemical brain in new ways. (Jan)
?
We're ALL guessing. And that is a fact. (DMT)
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jstan
climber
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May 21, 2014 - 09:17pm PT
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Since I am being painted as "mystical," kindly tell me what the hell that is because I have no idea. JL
I'll repeat my post:
John, you confuse tone with substance. In a book or other scientific text you need to take note of footnotes. These notes take the reader to sources providing data and history for the summary statement you take as being a "proclamation". In works at high levels authors do assume readers are practiced in the art and have studied the data and the history for years. In any event work is well documented and is readily available. Along these lines some students have opined that keeping one's texts from courses allow one to go directly to sources they used before. Now days with the internet it is quickest to find really good discussions there.
It is precisely this that I have found to vitiate your posts. They appear to be "revealed wisdom". Revealed wisdom carries no weight at all in a discussion. None. Since much of what you discuss involves your personal experience, something that is very difficult and often impossible to port between individuals, your practice has been doubly damned.
Possibly people are saying you are mystical, because your posts are a mystery to us. I have given you the reasons why they are a mystery to me. All of the others will have to speak for themselves.
Another excerpt from your post:
When John S. made an early ascent of the West Face of Sentinel, the experience itself "revealed" to him things not possibly known by other means - not by reading, or interviewing others who had done the route, nor yet by studying the wall with binos. For years. Was there any objective experience or data revealed to John during his ascent, or is objective only something that can occur through the use of instruments. What was "inaccurate" about John's experience? What was "unrelable" in John's experience. What was there that we "shouldn't believe as viable" in John's experience? Do we ignore Freud's discovery of the unconscious because he did not use instruments?
First to correct the implication my climbing Sentinel was "early" or in any other way worthy of discussion. It was not. I got to do a climb with Rgold. That right there is enough to say about the experience. Just on ST there has to be a line of 100 people who would jump at such a chance.
As to the rest of your quote I would never try to describe the experience as a chance "to extract anything new." I agree with you that nothing can be "extracted" by describing a personal experience to another person. If we were both voltmeters calibrated using the same standard we might determine something. As it is we are each uncalibrated generators of nerve impulses which do not support detailed comparison. Consider. When two people get to the end of a climb there is no way to determine which is the happier. One might laugh louder than the other but what does that mean?
I seem to be taking some time so I say one more thing. Sometime ago you posted that what you post sometimes is intended only to stir people up. That says you do not have the discipline to take part in a true discussion. Discussions in a shared search for understanding cannot be expressions of personality.
Based upon what you posted everything you say can henceforth be put aside merely by saying, "Oh that's just John doing his thing again."
Oh and about Freud. Take a look at evolutionary psychology. This is a new field of study that attempts to assess the evolutionary basis for our behavior. Freud did what he could with the tools he had. Here too things seem to be opening up.
Edit:
dis·cur·sive adjective \dis-ˈkər-siv\
: talking or writing about many different things in a way that is not highly organized
Full Definition of DISCURSIVE
1
a : moving from topic to topic without order : rambling
b : proceeding coherently from topic to topic
2
: marked by analytical reasoning
3
: of or relating to discourse
About which are you asking?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 21, 2014 - 09:48pm PT
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John, let me make this very simple. My take on you is that you are looking at everything in terms of output. I am flipping that around and asking you if your direct experience of climbing the West Face of Sentinel accorded you any information or data or (fill in the blank) that was totally unavailable to you through strictly discursive means, or could you have arrived a the same data by other means besides actually climbing said Serntinel?
JL
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MH2
climber
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May 21, 2014 - 11:17pm PT
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BLUEBLOCR brought up chess programs playing against themselves. My attempt to find examples of this doesn't turn up much, but I will guess that if you give a chess engine a board position and a side, it will generate a good move for that side, and if you then give it the new board it will generate a good move for the opposite side.
Humans sometimes play chess against themselves and here are comments from a chess forum:
I have played games against myself in the past. I had to stop because they kept ending up in j'adoube touch-move arguments or clock flag-drop disputes that ended in brutal fistfights.
Chessroshi
I also had to stop. I kept offering myself a draw. This continual offering a draw each move kept irritating me.
Chess2222
I set myself traps but somehow they never seem to work!
AMcHarg
Naw, I can't beat me. I'm too good.
waterrat
The most likely to be a chess engine among the above is waterrat.
As a question about our sense of self, and maybe even consciousness, could a human play an interesting game of chess against him or herself? Yes, if your memory is short or the time between moves is long, but that avoids the question:
What is it about being human that makes playing chess against yourself difficult to do well?
If meditation loosens the attachment to ego, self, and the 'I"; would that improve one's ability to play chess against oneself?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 22, 2014 - 05:07pm PT
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Jeebus, could you not have bumped a science thread instead?
This is just going to egg on mh2, the blowhard and his groupies all the more. Sick!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 22, 2014 - 08:54pm PT
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Forty said: "Literalism wasn't the point, analogy was. Stating that sentience was a "no-thing" is the same as saying that music, sunshine, distance, etc. is a "no-thing". They all have their component parts that manifest themselves into the terms we know....definitions, symbols, if you will. Remember stating how they were required? You play fast and loose with symbols, marking them up, misplacing and freely rearranging them behind you as you wander past. No wonder no one can follow.
Anyway, you've deconstructed "sentience" into a no-thing, ironically, to the point that it can mean "nothing". Truly, your definition is as worthless as all of the attributes you ascribe to it, which is to say, zero, because you refuse it's manifestation. Have fun completely missing this point, too!"
I have said A) that this is thread has at it's core a staunch scientism - believing that there is NO limit to discursive perspectives and B), when a few of us mention that this is not so, people simply do not believe it. They do not KNOW as much, but they believe as much ardently. Mentions that this data comes from an inside track only bring jokes about Dingus scratching his foot - note that not one of these comments is empirical. And for a so-called scientific crowd, there's far too much guessing going on here, then believing it simply because it showed up in your brainpan.
Forty went all wrong with the above because his analogy's were useless attempts to conflate sentience with other physical properties in reality such as sound waves, photons and distance. For starters, sentience is seamless. Try and find the line in your thoughts were an image or feeling or concept enters awareness - and then leaves. And try and measure the size of a thought. (An EEG measure an amplified signal). There are no "parts," but there are various aspects or functions. If you're having problems following me, do some interior work. I defy you to find one person who has 5 plus years of experience in subjective adventures who does not understand what I'm saying. It's all very basic material.
No one can deconstruct sentience into component parts because it was never a thing in the first place. A no-thing is not the same as "nothing," which insinuates an absence. No thing is that which you cannot get your discursive mind around completely. We can work with aspects such as attention, awareness, focus and so on, but these are experiential realities, NOT photons, sound waves and so forth we can grasp with calipers and wrestle down with slide rules.
I don't "refuse the manifestation" of sentience - not even. What I acknowledge is that brain and sentience are not selfsame, that people are sentient, not brains, and that brain output (content, qualia, etc.) is not sentience. These often get conflated as well.
Truly, before any meaningful exploration on sentience can get underway you need to dial in what is involved - an impossibility from the outside, which can discover marvels about function and behavior but can only give us measurements per what something IS. This is great for everything BUT sentience, which is that something more than the electrochemical elements, lest we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Unless you insist that this thread and brain function are themselves the very same things.
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 22, 2014 - 09:40pm PT
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Good call on the cut n paste. Don't expect him to read anything - that's what I've learned over years now - and most esp anything scientific - if it doesn't somehow relate to his #1 mantra...
"I'm John Long, damnit!"
That's pretty much where it's at, brother.
.....
btw, here's a good one... The Tell-Tale Brain, by Ramachandran. I'm reading it now, I have to get one more neuroscientist in my quiver. For his views. But anyhow, it's all about, you guessed it... Mind is what brain does.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 22, 2014 - 09:54pm PT
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Hey since the thread's already bumped and I'm on a roll here, I'd like to tie up one loose string before departing...
My bone with Mh2 (despite his gentlemanly plea) is that he had 1,000 plus opportunities to post up, probably just in the last year, about The Blowhard and His Lapdog and their vulgarities and bullyshit (apart from jstan and jgill) and how they set the nasty and/or flippant tone hobbling any higher-road conversation. But who did he choose to pick on? About the nicest, most thoughtful guy at the site. Just see how many of these other minions even know who Steven Pinker is or have read a book this last year. So it was totally uncalled for, instead it just tied right into the theory of his crazy infatuation somehow with the Blowhard.
Hyperbole, here? No. I challenge anyone to just look over the last 1,000 posts of TB&HLD - it's clear to any level-headed person as to their bully and blowhard tactics and bs. It's their modus operandi through and through.
So his post was straight up bs and he should know it.
Please, now, carry on with your "sentience" and "non-discursive awareness" absurdities ad infinitum ad nauseum.
.....
You know who you are... you have nothing to be apologetic about. Not as far as many are concerned and certainly not in this area.
There's a lesson here, at 4:05...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytQ-Cbk-tQk
If you don't fight the good fight (a) for science and science education and/or (b) against bullies or blowhards who will?
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MH2
climber
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May 22, 2014 - 10:23pm PT
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Truly, before any meaningful exploration on sentience can get underway you need to dial in what is involved - an impossibility from the outside, which can discover marvels about function and behavior but can only give us measurements per what something IS. This is great for everything BUT sentience, which is that something more than the electrochemical elements, lest we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. (JL)
You should get that thing fixed.
Unless you insist that this thread and brain function are themselves the very same things. (JL)
Who writes your stuff?
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WBraun
climber
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May 22, 2014 - 11:15pm PT
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You're a total nutcase fruitcake.
We can say anything we want about you as you're an anonymous coward.
Cowards never take any responsibility for what they say or do.
Cowards hide behind the curtain and throw sh!t bombs.
You're a pathetic excuse for a human being.
Go away coward and crawl back into that deep dark hole you came out of.
You have a disgusting mind.
You're disgusting and pathetic ......
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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May 22, 2014 - 11:20pm PT
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oh werner with
every criticism
you vulnerabilities
are magnified.
you've such an
expectation to maintain
around here.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 22, 2014 - 11:21pm PT
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LOL!
Lapdog wrote,
"total nutcase fruitcake...anonymous coward...Cowards... Cowards....You're a pathetic excuse for a human being... Go away coward and crawl back into that deep dark hole you came out of... You have a disgusting mind... You're disgusting and pathetic ...
You have no idea how very super glad I am my identity isn't associated with you, dingbat. Could you imagine it - across a thousand 6th grade posts?! It was the best move I ever made at this choss pile.
We can only imagine the sh#t you'd cast were YOU anonymous around here, so thank goodness for that, that you're not, lol!
Carry on!!!
PS Read a book sometime, Lapdog.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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May 23, 2014 - 02:13am PT
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Speaking of books, has anyone here read, Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul by Giulio Tononi or A Universe Of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination by Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi ?
I was reading the obituary of Edelman in the New York Times and came across reference to them.
It seems Edelman was an immunologist who got interested in consciousness.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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May 23, 2014 - 03:08am PT
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Largo states the people, not brains, are sentient - but no one has argued otherwise. The neural system, of which the brain is part, is full integrated with the body, and the 2 way communication between the two is constant. this integrated body/neural system does, indeed, inform much of what is consciousness.
To state that consciousness is seamless is, of course, alchemy. There is likely nothing in this universe that is seamless - or 'analog', as they say. Matter and energy are not, of course, but the signs point towards gravity, and space time as being quantized as well. It's just a matter of scale. An alchemist wouldn't think to cut things fine enough to find out, he would rely solely on his experience - a scientist would, however.
Consciousness is certainly 'chunky' at its smallest scale - synaptic traffic. Kill neurons one by one and consciousness ablates with it - just as a dune disappears with each blowing grain of sand. It just seems to be seamless 'experientially' - just as a field of grass appears to be a flat green surface from 40,000 feet in the air.
Consciousness can, and is being, deconstructed. Much, not all mind you, is known about its three components - wakefulness, the mind, and the self (proto, core, and autobiographical). These are specific, functional definitions for processes that rely on specific, functional areas of the neural/body system and its interactions - based on studies of activity or the lack thereof due to dysfunction.
By defining consciousness as being separate from the physiological processes that produce it, Largo has, indeed, created a no thing which cannot be studied - after all, no fiction can be. Now, this idea may not be a fiction, but stating that it is not with any authority at all is bluster.
As per the grassy field from 40,000 feet, experience means little when one operates so many orders of magnitude from the scale at which fundamental underlying processes like consciousness actually happen at their most fundamental scale.
Just as Largo cannot study particle physics without benefit of a collider, nor can he study the innermost workings of consciousness through meditation. Sure, he can see green fields, and lakes, and glaciers from his 40,000 foot view - one we are all limited to, but he cannot see the bees, fish, and glacier worms without the augmentation of technology to extend his necessarily limited capabilities.
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crankster
Trad climber
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May 23, 2014 - 10:22am PT
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u have no idea how very super glad I am my identity isn't associated with you, dingbat.
Don't let Spike, the forum bully, intimidate you. Good show!
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Flip Flop
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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May 23, 2014 - 10:31am PT
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This is a Learning Free Zone. Keep talking you bunch of sophisticates.
Climbing Philosophy is neither.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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May 23, 2014 - 11:13am PT
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"Tvash Just as Largo cannot study particle physics without benefit of a collider, nor can he study the innermost workings of consciousness through meditation. Sure, he can see green fields, and lakes, and glaciers from his 40,000 foot view - one we are all limited to, but he cannot see the bees, fish, and glacier worms without the augmentation of technology to extend his necessarily limited capabilities."
Touron " those climbers are crazy, I know their crazy, no one would climb that unless they were crazy; I'm positive their crazy.
Narrow views based on lack of experience.
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