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jstan
climber
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It would be interesting to know how many people on this thread who claim to be scientists actually live up to the definition of science put forth by Fort Mental.It is my observation that a lot of scientists are merely following formulas and not doing original work as in forming theories JAN
Jan: When you are fixing a device that has stopped working you actually follow the process described by FM. You ask what you would see if this wire were shorted of that tube blocked. Then you see if those things are what is happening in front of you. If there is a substantial correspondence you verify by checking out the wire or the pipe. FM's process is used a lot in chasing unknowns.
This is total rubbish, Fort. The process by which I have written all those anchor and safety books is strictly scientific. From the annectodal evidence we go to drop tests, then to a statisitial prof (Crimp Girl) to work up the numbers, then to Dr. Richard Goldstone to get the math model figured out and thene we start looking at standarzing the methods, and then more testing and finally, I can start drumming up some rules of thumb. And I've got to be right or people die.
I have no contemp for the process I just described. It all works off the numbers, mostly from drop tests. It's just that I don't expect for any science to get done sans sentience. Again - how might that work? JL
It is certainly good that all that work on anchors and equalization of forces was done scientifically. Otherwise ST would have had month long threads finally concluding, believe it or not, that loads cannot be equalized.
The really scary part of that would have been making people so focussed on the fad of equalizing with mind numbingly complex systems, that they entirely fail to realize redundancy and simplicity are what actually keep us alive.
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WBraun
climber
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they entirely fail to realize redundancy and simplicity are what actually keep us alive.
And they do anyways.
If you observe now a days everything is graduating towards mind numbingly over complex systems.
And I'm not talking about climbing only.
The average person is overwhelmed in our modern world by it's enormous complexity.
If it can be done simply they can't do it.
They've become brainwashed with complexity .....
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jstan
climber
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The first car I actually bought was a 63 Dodge Dart with a slant six engine that had been around since maybe 1935. There was so much empty space around the engine I could climb in and still work on it with the bonnet closed. If it were not for the salt used in upstate NY, I would still be driving it.
$2000 off the show room floor. There was nothing in it that could stop working and still have the car move. Finding problems was dead easy.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Good points jstan. Simplicity and redundancy have kept us going for several million years now and we are also all using a simplified scientific method in everyday life. Even animals do this to a certain extent when experimenting with how to get somewhere or something they want. Two separate and complimentary ways of surviving all these years, their proportions of use, depending in human life, on a person's and a society's predispositions.
I personally believe that societies go astray when they over emphasize either redundancy or experimentation. An example of over done redundancy these days is our planetary population problem. Going on replicating past behavior because that's the way it was always done, doesn't work anymore. Meanwhile all the wonderful scientifically developed military hardware of the past century is also haunting us. One set of miscalculations and most of the world could be made uninhabitable. Meanwhile large portions of it are currently, thanks to a combination of advanced weaponry and ideas from the 7th century being repeated redundantly.
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jstan
climber
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Jan:
In his discussion of New Zealand's night parrot, Douglas Adams had something interesting to say about reproduction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZG8HBuDjgc
He also said humans have always lived with predators because
we are a predator.
If you look at our population growth and our propensity for predatory war
you can see where we have been and where we are going. Nuclear weapons and the exhaustion of our planet's resources are the only fly in the ointment.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, CA
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The hard part about choosing to face death and an unknown destiny alone and afraid without religion has always been a much too difficult path for many people. Believing in the idea of a benevolent god ushering one into the afterlife life is a much more comforting alternative to most.
It is only through living a full and thoroughly self reflective life that many of us are even afforded the opportunity to contemplate the myriad alternatives of religious and/or spiritual disciplines, philosophies, or experiences. The belief in the mythology of creation, wether it be shamanism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, or any of the other great religions of the world all require that one take a portion of their preferred religious or spiritual ideas on faith.
The belief that our views of reality can only deciphered and proven through the step by step scientific process requires a leap of faith or a risk also in that for example; to ask the question if the moon is a physical body of stone, ice, and gas or is it a spiritual body placed in the heavens by a creator was a considered heresy in our not too distant past.
Today there are those who would believe some, all, or none of such an argument but the point I'm trying to make here is while all such exercises of belief or conviction might be valid to those who practice or conjecture them, others whose lives have been unceremoniously cut short were not afforded as much of the opportunity to do so. Yet all to some degree might have contributed to the mass collective diatribe of what might be defined as the human condition. Considering these points, would it be too far fetched to entertain the idea that we as a species are of an as yet untapped collective consciousness, un-evolved to the potential of telepathy and a worldwide cooperative?
This idea threatens in many our sense of individuality and personal freedom, but might prove in the long run a much less dangerous alternative to self extinction through war, destruction of our ecosystem, pandemics, or meteorological and cosmic catastrophes requiring technologies we have yet to develop in order to survive. Would not these goals (the continued survival of life from earth) be an extension of the more introspective to date development of mind?
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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This thread has developed schizophrenia.
;>\
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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This thread has developed schizophrenia.
Damn genetic evolution!
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Bushman: The belief in the mythology of creation, wether it be shamanism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, or any of the other great religions of the world all require that one take a portion of their preferred religious or spiritual ideas on faith.
I can see how many people would think exactly that, especially if they favor the view of objective physicalism.
I haven't met a Buddhist who talks about or refers to creationism the way it's stipulated here. Big Creation is pretty much irrelevant and unanswerable to Buddhists. Little creation (by people) is, on the other hand, relevant and right there for any inquirer to see for themselves. It doesn't take any faith at all, except the faith in a person's own observational abilities.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Measuring things has been vastly underrated in this thread. Just consider how human evolution and scientific progress led us from hunter gatherers to a species that can take this picture, and contemplate what it is and means....
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Since Galileo pointed his telescope at the night sky in the 1500's until now, it is amazing how science has increased human knowledge at an incredible rate.
I challenge Mike to deny the significance of this image.
Contemplate the filaments of galaxies which are the structure of our universe:
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Look. What Largo and Mike are venturing into is, in my opinion, worthwhile. Like scientists, people have been venturing into the processes of the mind ever since we started planting crops and having some leisure time. They are curious about the mind and have spent a great amount of time and effort to learn. I refuse to call meditation woo woo. I will call religion woo woo, though.
To dismiss the vast store of knowledge which our species has attained is foolish, IMO. I cede to their expertise in examining their minds, but every now and then this thread needs to step back and look at what our minds have accomplished in an objective sense.
Yeah. I said objective. The scientific method is merely a way to come up with objective information. It is a short cut to minimize the subjective nature of the human mind and come up with objective information.
The growth of knowledge in the past 150 years is downright astonishing to me. It irritates me when people dismiss this objective data merely because it conflicts with their spiritual beliefs. This is a huge problem in science education, particularly in my neck of the woods.
You shouldn't take your spiritual belief in ancient religion and replace it with a worship of science. Science doesn't work that way. That said, I am in awe of the things that we have been able to glean from our study of nature. Nature is amazing.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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You mystics peering at the insides of your eyelids HAD NO FRIGGIN CLUE!
And you obliviously have no clue to what else there is that can't be seen.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Base:
Significance is another word for meaning. What is the meaning of the image that you posted? Are you implying there is only one?
DMT:
That is your picture of what I'm talking about, but that's not what I'm pointing to. It's easy to come to irrelevant conclusions when you are relying on your imagination.
In her book, "Living Beautifully," Pema Chodron talks about how to live in a groundless state, which is what Largo and PSP (I think) attempt to point to. I keep talking about simply living and doing without interpretations, which we seem to thrive on--especially here. Chodron writes:
"[Probing what is right in front of one] is the basic instruction to make friends with yourself--to be honest with yourself and kind. This begins with the willingness to stay present whenever you experience uneasiness. As these feelings arise, rather than running away, you lean into them. Instead of trying to get rid of thoughts and feelings, you become curious about them. As you become accustomed to experiencing sensation free of interpretation [emphasis added], you will become to understand that contacting the fundamental ambiguity of being human provides a precious opportunity--the opportunity to be with life just as it is, the opportunity to experience the freedom of life without a story line." (This is tantra.)
It's impossible to explain just how this all really happens. I honestly don't know. All I can do is point to some minor experiences that perhaps you have had. When you go on vacation to a foreign land, places where you are without ties and responsibilities or deep understanding of culture, I think what can arise is a sense of freedom and an ability to see things without automatic interpretations, without meaning-just experiencing. Letting go of interpretations and simply being in the here and now is like that, but on steroids. For me it presents an eerie feeling of effortlessness, weightlessness, and (yes) a lack of meaning.
All meaning emerges from story lines. Without the drama of story lines, there is no meaning. There is just experience.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Base:
Significance is another word for meaning. What is the meaning of the image that you posted? Are you implying there is only one?
Mike, I didn't bring this up to attack you. This thread has kind of run into a wall. I'm right, you're wrong, etc. Lots of back and forth with no progress.
I just want to step back and remind us that nature is a BIG topic. Certainly the mind is an important topic, and I cede to you and Largo, at least in part, for the effort you spend. It is curiosity. Not everyone is curious, though.
As for meaning, that image could invoke many meanings. The one that I feel is that science has taken us from believing that the Earth was the center of the Universe to actual study of the entire universe as we understand it now (and so far) is an amazing thing.
I don't find spiritual meaning in those pictures. I don't think that science can be used to understand spirituality and religion. Nature just is what it is. We are observing nature. Every time we get a better telescope or microscope or other measuring device, we seem to find out that the universe is far more complicated than we imagined, say, 500 years ago when Galileo was locked up for merely looking at Jupiter and its moons.
We now know that the church was wrong, and Galileo was correct. Big time.
Still, we have fellows such as Blue and Go-B, who close their eyes and refuse to believe objective information. At this point it would seem quaint. However, a majority of the human race believes in a God of some type. In many faiths, that means that you have to disagree with objective observations and data. I wish that they would just relax. Nature is what it is. Nothing more. Science doesn't have an agenda.
They toss out the idea of the fossil record at whim, for example. The internet is full of desperate spiritualists who are trying to dismiss whole segments of science simply because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Look at ISIS in the Middle East. They wish to build a nation whose laws all come from the Koran. Disagree and get your head lopped off.
I wonder what those guys in ISIS think about what we have now learned about the nature of the universe.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Significance is another word for meaning
Actually, I don't think that significance IS another word for meaning.
Look at that picture of the structure of the universe. What does it mean to you?
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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I wonder what those guys in ISIS think about what we have now learned about the nature of the universe.
What science has learned about the universe is largely irrelevant to ISIS , and in any case is fraught with countless negations of their religious ideology ---thereby representing an identifiable threat. In the most general sense they have occupied a philosophical position just one step up from the one illustrated by MikeL in his above post. Instead of no narrative whatsoever they have chosen just one: their draconian brand of Islam.
All meaning emerges from story lines. Without the drama of story lines, there is no meaning. There is just experience.
This washing of the hands of " story lines" is disingenuous from every angle--- and not sustainable, nor very believable.
This Buddhist approach is in itself an identifiable narrative of its own with predetermined methods , and it own set of dramas- --- stretching far back into the dim mists of time---while steadfastly claiming to be above it all .
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, CA
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Thanks Mike L. for illuminating some on Bhuddism. I'm first to admit there's a lot I don't know. I should do more research before I post, lest leave some pissed.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Base (and others):
I didn't take your post poorly or personally. We're just talking. It really doesn't matter.
How some see creation, God, and all, well. . . that's their view. I'm just a joker here who often entertains no particular view at all.
"Uh-huh, yeah, . . . so Mike, . . . what does that mean?"
There is no answer to that question.
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