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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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May 27, 2015 - 12:47am PT
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Yep, that's what panpsychism is all about. Lago trying to tie his experience meditating to physics is simply his way of feeling he and his group are 'experiencing' not just 'some-thing' profound and fundamental, but also self-same with the stuff of virtual particles and the quantum world - i.e. it's all the same non-ball of non-wax. The effort is also, in a circuitously odd way, a source of [group] authority.
I personally consider that as falling somewhere between quiet desperation and outright arrogance, distrust it in the extreme, and - when you get down to it - believe it's just this sort of thinking and belief which allowed Zen to be repeatedly co-opted by Japanese militarism.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 27, 2015 - 06:28am PT
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Meditation Secrets for Women: Discovering Your Passion, Pleasure, and Inner Peace
Camille Maurine and Lorin Roche
2001
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WBraun
climber
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May 27, 2015 - 08:30am PT
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"no physical extent"
"Atma" of which the great famous intelligent westerners Eugene Wigner, Werner Heisenberg, knew about of which is Largo's No-thing.
Instead you have the ignorant tiny insects on this forum such as the traveling shoe salesman DMT constantly harassing
what even the great material scientists confirmed that No-thing has no physical extent.
That No-thing operates faster then the speed of light.
Foolish rascals in this thread have poor fund of knowledge ......
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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May 27, 2015 - 08:59am PT
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jgill: I know you know what to think.
You don’t. I don’t. Nor do I want to.
I ask you what you are at your core, and you respond with a comment about me being in an existential labyrinth. I think Largo’s right: you can’t seem to answer questions. Instead, you take dismissive pot shots at encouragements to look for yourself and respond with what you see or experience. I think those encouragements are sincere and friendly.
On the one hand, you appear to be very sure that there are “things” that are absolutely material, definable, measurable, and real, but you also seem to admit (begrudgingly) that you cannot (or will not) put your finger on them once and for all or know what they are at their foundations. You deride Largo’s attempts to point to that which you cannot say. (It’s not that difficult of an idea, no difficult than, let’s say, an imaginary number.) But for some reason that is rationally unclear to me, you snipe and backbite. Is it because either Largo or I (let’s say) seem sure of our non-beliefs, or is it that you just can’t stand the ideas (for some reason that is unknown to me).
If you think you can, why don’t you make it clear to me what’s going on? I’d personally appreciate it.
“Meditative ectoplasm?” What are you getting at? What is it that you are really saying here? Should this be taken seriously? Should you be taken seriously? Can you take me seriously? A little straight talking would be helpful to me. Then I could know if I should continue to respond to generate a conversation.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 11:04am PT
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Forgive and ignore me if this has been discussed on here (I'm a slow reader and there are lots of posts), but this seems like a good place to bring up a debate my cousin and I have:
If the physical is all that there is and there is no spiritual, what is the difference between good and bad or right and wrong?
Why would it matter if one bundle of electricity and atoms shoots a hole through another bundle of electricity and atoms?
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 11:29am PT
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Because one of those bundles could be your mom? Or your kid? Or you?
You don't need a spiritual guru to know that, do you?
Why would that be good or bad? Just atoms and electricity. If they left then chemicals would be released in my brain and tears would be in my eyes. Why does that matter? Why is it bad? How is that different than a lightning bolt hitting a rock?
The mind is a circuit board and chemistry lab and nothing more if the physical is all we have
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 11:35am PT
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What is your minds definition of good?
I like to ask this question, it's interesting for me
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 27, 2015 - 11:45am PT
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If the physical is all that there is and there is no spiritual, what is the difference between good and bad or right and wrong?
Good and bad, and right and wrong are religious constructs which came from people asking, Why. None of these terms or their meanings belong in the mechanistic genetic evolution of inorganic matter self organizing into the self relevant, with the need to breed organism such as the monkey. You see there is no good or bad and right or wrong in the animal kingdom. The Lion who kills a defenseless lamb, or even eats his own cub is not right or wrong, it's just who he IS. Its in his genetic makeup, and he can't help it! So it's ALL good! Whoops, I mean that's HOW it is.
That is if you don't believe in woo woo ; )
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 11:48am PT
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^^^^^^That's the first time I've heard a logical answer to the question! Totally agree, we're in the animal kingdom so there is no right or wrong.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 27, 2015 - 12:29pm PT
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Behold the fundamentalist Christians Blu and Limpy.
FYI, you don't know the "genetic" "mechanistic" evolutonary position even an eighth as well as you think you do.
Expression for yas... "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." You're a poster boy for this expression blu.
You could experiment...
Come to my house, pillage or ravage therein and I FOR ONE - an evolutionary mechanist - would oblige you*** THOROUGHLY in my morals... or in different terms... THOROUGHLY just how "bad" or how "wrong" you've been.
Clowns.
*** Indeed, there might even be some pleasure in it on my part. ;)
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 27, 2015 - 01:14pm PT
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^^^ Your a GIRL! I figured it out : )
Only a girl poseing as a guy would talk about themself so much.
So what's ur address honey?
HFCS = Honey
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 01:27pm PT
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I'm not sure how relevant it is HFCS, but my master's and bachelor'd degrees are both in Ecology & Evolution so, although I no expert, I have an above average understanding of genetics and evolution.
Anyway, I understand everyone has their own morals and values that you would like to enforce, but what is their value? I just don't see any objective moral truth in the physical world, simply electricity and matter that mean nothing and make up "the mind."
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 27, 2015 - 01:35pm PT
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^^^ Behold! and you may have even learned something from my 9th grd Bio mind
See, we can all get along when we're nice, and sweet ; )
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 02:44pm PT
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Indeed Moose, but I can tell you why you push the gas pedal to move the car, I can't tell you who it is "bad" to kill everything...
Learning some things has meaning, others do not
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 27, 2015 - 02:50pm PT
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"Since I don't believe we have free will, morality is an illusion..."
Moose, as pinker is fond of asserting, along with others, there are "different levels of explanation" (that reflect different levels of operation or perspective) concerning moralities and other evolved sensibilities. But to say that there's no such thing as morality or responsibility because of an absence of so-called libertarian free will is misleading I think.
Chimpanzees in chimpanzee societies demonstrate morals - good and bad, and feelings of good and bad, in regard to conduct - specifically in regard to breaking the rules of social decorum.
In humans, just as you said there is a learned component as well, an overlay on the evolved component.
Again, it is religions (esp the Abrahamic ones) that make a mess of it. In their view if there is no absolute law giver then there is no morals, only animals. It's a very outdated view.
It is not a complex subject. Yet so many are powerfully confused over it.
In regards to your quoted claim (opinion), there are truckloads of evolutionary psychologists and biologists who would disagree with you. Even C Darwin himself I believe. Their arguments, imo, would be robust.
My sense of morals: an illusion? no. a perception? okay. An evolved perception augmented by acculturation / socialization.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 03:00pm PT
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HFCS, I agree that community is one of the most effective adaptations a species can have.
You keep using the words "good" and "bad" without defining them so I have trouble following.
Is your definition of "good" that it promotes the survival of a species?
That begs the question, why is THAT good?
Edit: morals are a held set of beliefs that everyone has. Good is the concept I don't understand.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 27, 2015 - 03:05pm PT
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I'm not sure how relevant it is HFCS, but my master's and bachelor'd degrees are both in Ecology & Evolution so, although I no expert, I have an above average understanding of genetics and evolution
Then you understand that all biology is a build-up of mechanisms of action? and that evolution by natural selection is itself a mechanism of action.
Only you know how much you understand your ecology and evolution on a basis of physics and chemistry and just how much you turn to the latter as explanations of the former. But surely you'd agree that your ecology and evolution textbooks and coursework are based on them - and the mechanistic rules to which they are obedient.
With a background in ecology and evolution, then you're probably aware than most if not all of Jane Goodall's works at some point address and affirm chimp morality in chimpanzee societies.
.....
Further, with such a background in these important sciences, it seems to me your attention, education and training would be way better used addressing Blu's many issues and attitudes rather than mine.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 03:25pm PT
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I agree, cooperation evolved with good reason, as did positive and negative feedback in communities to promote it (morals).
So,
Is your definition of "good" that it promotes the survival of a species?
That begs the question, why is THAT good?
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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May 27, 2015 - 03:56pm PT
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So what is your criteria for good for you? Helps you? Helps others? Releasing endorphins?
Then I ask, why is that good?
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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May 27, 2015 - 04:09pm PT
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"What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome."
 Friedrich Nietzsche |
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