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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 30, 2016 - 06:21pm PT
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It’s a hypothesis.
When multiple folks reliably have the same network graph of brain regions activate when they are experiencing 'red' or middle C or a needle poke in the big toe it may be a hypothesis, but it's a hypothesis well on to the path of a theorem.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 30, 2016 - 07:29pm PT
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“like” pretty much says it all. It’s “like.” That would seem to be your imagination.
That illustrates the point, Mike. There must be things outside of the person. If, as you put it, "Everything is 'first person,'" you would never learn anything, such as what I wrote in my post and which you responded to.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 30, 2016 - 08:37pm PT
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. . . a hypothesis well on to the path of a theorem
Theory.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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(A morning cup of bancha and my computer in an extended stay motel room on a sunny Sunday. Everything is perfect.)
Good morning, MH2.
As you like it.
Learning . . . well, that seems a can of worms itself. We pick-up heuristics, rules of thumb, in our lives. Hypotheses in my way of thinking are the same things. Theories. Notions that we can live by. “Close enough.” Close approximations (really close). I’m good with all of it. We can even talk as though those things really exist—conventionally, pragmatically, instrumentally.
Reality seems very squishy. Push or put a lot of pressure on our notions (those we are really sure of), and some part of reality oozes out or can’t be captured. As I’ve said here before, there is always some variance which cannot be trapped, explained, or accounted for. For me, it’s telling. It’s most especially telling when that effect appears everywhere, in everything intellectually. One cannot blame science or its proponents. Science is limited. Everything, every approach, every tool, every methodology would seem to be simply a part of reality, part of this thing we call the here and now, and that means the part cannot grasp the whole.
Hey, I wasn’t saying anything important, MH2. I don’t think there is anything important. There is only just THIS. I find that everything is equal, spontaneous, open-ended, concretely absent, and unified.
It’s Sunday, so I’ll provide a little meditation. From “Eye of the Storm: Vairotsana’s Five Original Transmissions” (circa, 8th Century), translated by Keith Dowman. (Of course you do not need to read it.)
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No meditation! No discipline! The pure mind that is the nature of all experience never comes into being or ceases to be; it cannot be created or destroyed: it has no structure. It cannot, therefore, be accessed through the structured activity of calculated discipline, and all goal-oriented meditation is such structured activity. Letting go of all practice whatsoever, including all the meditation techniques that condition the mind by focusing on an object of sight, sound or thought, there is no meditation and only an endless continuum of pure mind.
No progress! No development in a graduated process! The moment is perfect and complete in itself and nothing superior can be effectuated. There is no possibility of attaining anything more desirable than the present moment. No personal growth is possible. Evolution towards a higher goal is precluded. There is no maturity to anticipate. The notion of process itself is redundant because it functions through time in a delusive linear pattern constructed by the intellect.
No place to go! The here-and-now is always complete in the present moment, so there is no path to follow, no quest, no journey to pursue and no destination. It is impossible to move towards or away from pure-mind reality, since it is always here and now. The inescapable universal and all-pervasive reality process is ever-immanent. There is no destination other than the naturally liberating dynamic of the moment.
No discrimination! No prejudice or bias! The pristine awareness that is the mind's cognitive nature is utterly free of any judgmental inclination. It does not discriminate between what is good or bad, right or wrong. 'Good' and 'bad' are fictive labels projected upon a neutral screen, that in itself is incapable of bias. Whatsoever occurs in everyday experience, excluding nothing, is suffused by this primal awareness and moment-by-moment dissolves into it. All is perfect as it stands, so nothing is rejected or avoided and nothing is accepted or favored above anything else. Nothing is embraced or appropriated and nothing spurned or suppressed. All things are always all-good and activity is always undiscriminating.
No-one and no-thing to change! The elements of experience, inner and outer, are part of a reality-field in which no indivisible particle can be isolated either in the laboratories of science or those of the mind. The natural unified field is a nondual reality. Every moment of experience is an ineffable expression of that field, and insofar as it is recognized as a field of cognitive being it is known as utterly perfect and complete in itself. It cannot be improved one iota. It cannot be changed or transformed into something other than pure awareness. Because our identity - nonidentity lies in pure mind, whatever illusion of personality arises is utterly pristine.
No controller! No control! The control functions of the ego-self articulated in the rational mind are involuntarily superseded by the pristine awareness of the natural state of being. What appears to rise and fall as sequential instants of experience is insubstantial gossamer illusion and the dynamic of each perfect moment is spontaneity. Any belief in a substantial, material reality or of a 'self', a 'soul', an 'ens' or 'atman' is delusory. There is no controller on any level and so no control. The putative controlling intellect is superseded by the intrinsic dynamic of nonaction. The here-and-now is freeform display, perfect in its every permutation.
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Be well.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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It's really pretty simple: science is wonderful and supplies us with a knowledge that very often brings us outside our limitations and prejudices . However, science and its child technology may serve any master for good or for evil and without a philosophy defining those terms (good and evil) without a foundation of morality and virtue, a function of the crucible of philosophical inquiry and argument, science is only knowledge waiting for a master. Better hope it's a kind one, perhaps familiar with the humanities.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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And it's entirely possible the intelligent people who do science may be better prepared to assume the roles of "guiding" philosophers than those academics who give themselves that title.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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And it's entirely possible the intelligent people who do science may be better prepared to assume the roles of "guiding" philosophers than those academics who give themselves that title.
Yes, it's entirely possible scientists will turn to philosophy and good for them, of course it's entirely possible they won't as well.
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Ay Aye
Social climber
MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Is it hypothetically possible for a future scientist, uninformed of any philosophy outside of let's say that of Star Treks United Federation of Planets and it's Prime Directive, to inform the humanities and philosophers on the immorality and the errors of the manifest destiny style of conquest and its horrors inflicted on indigenous peoples as demonstrated and practiced by the various allegiances between church and state or between state and philosophy throughout human history?
The Prime Directive
As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes the introduction of superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.
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WBraun
climber
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Most modern material scientists are atheists masquerading as authority (God).
Such hypocrites ....
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Ay Aye
Social climber
MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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So many from this time and place in our universe would assume that an alien from another world or even a canine could never appreciate the lilting cadence of a Shakespearean sonnet or a Gaelic folk song without understanding the language.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Yes, it's entirely possible scientists will turn to philosophy and good for them, of course it's entirely possible they won't as well.
Highly unlikely scientists will turn to formal philosophy in order to work out some sort of moral mojo to the looming satisfaction of a petrified populace. For one thing, philosophy contains no magic formula for the transformation or even guaranteed edification of mankind---only the rancorous sound of tin cans trailing behind a car.
For another thing, scientists, like most other denizens of human culture, are heavily influenced by whatever prevailing social attitudes and judgements and morality of any given era and the various societies they inhabit.
What words could be enjoined to coax our scientists--in their underweened need of constant moral certitude and guidance--- out of those treacherously deep weeds?
never appreciate
Appreciating something is quite different from an accurate understanding. A tune cobbled from a group of minor chords, indicating sadness and seriousness to us, could be the occasion for some hilarious laughter from our guest aliens; a well-spoken soliloquy but a coarse and roughly grating complaint.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Science is tool. Nothing more or less. Just like Buddhism/ meditation. Just a tool.
Like Christianity. Just a tool.
So how are we doing with our tool use? ethical use of tools 101; EUT101. abuse of tools; AOT102
If humans don't learn EUT101 very soon we are screwed. When you watch your "mind" what triggers greed? anger? and what is ignorance anyway? ; is it not knowing algebra or not recognizing suffering in other people?
Does your mind use you or do you use your mind? I find it is a constant struggle. If your mind uses you, you will by natural process use the tools abusively.
Scoop Nisker was on SF PBS radio yesterday plugging his latest book; great sense of humor along with teaching re meditation/Buddhism probably archived some where.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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For one thing, philosophy contains no magic formula for the transformation or even guaranteed edification of mankind---only the rancorous sound of tin cans trailing behind a car.
Philosophy only offers a platform for the expression of ideas concerning the human mind and what is required for the elevation of that mind to a state of appropriate behavior. It is not magic but rather a messy methodology for understanding, and out of that understanding perhaps even the realization of virtue. After all, the rancorous sound of tin cans trailing behind a car is announcing to all the joy of marital bliss.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Philosophy only offers a platform for the expression of ideas concerning the human mind and what is required for the elevation of that mind to a state of appropriate behavior.
Imagine, if you will, Nietzsche or Heidegger or Schopenhauer advancing such a mission statement as regards their metier.
Hegel alone might have found a place for such a sentiment in a purely historical context; as one half of an objectively described dialectic.(What would be the other half?)
I only invoke the thinkers of yesterday in this way (tableau vivant) in order to illustrate how I personally think of philosophy. The "platform" you describe does not come without well-worn baggage-- perhaps decidedly worse than the discoveries of science, or its many applications, or its many dangers.After all Marx was a philosopher. Hitler, albeit unfairly and inaccurately, called upon Nietzsche and his ubermensch.
Again , imagine pointing to the history of philosophically-arrived at nostrums and solutions in a wild idealistic quest to convince someone, intent on taking the proposition you are advancing seriously, perhaps a young person, how and why philosophy would work as the putative starting point for moral considerations vis-a- vis science, given philosophy's inherently unresolved and unresolving history.
But ...hope springs eternal, even out of marital bliss.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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The philosopher king
“The problem now is how to lose me..” (Nietzsche, Turin, 4th January 1889)
Here your peregrination ends. No more borders
to cross; no more mountains to scale. The night train
steams through the sleeping Alps, rattling you home.
You chant the Gondola Song; slump under drugs.
In the house of the mad you ramble in French,
eat like a Titan, smash windows, scrawl in the dust.
Every deep spirit wears a mask –
but now the actor’s dead, the mask of insanity
is stuck in your face, a permanent grimace.
Soon your sister will crown you philosopher king,
dress you in white, comb your walrus moustache,
place you in a high chair, powder your skin.
Each morning from the high veranda
you gaze towards Buchenwald and the swastika sun.
The steel light chisels the distant pines.
Your posthumous life has already begun.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Imagine, if you will, Nietzsche or Heidegger or Schopenhauer advancing such a mission statement as regards their metier.
Hegel alone might have found a place for such a sentiment in a purely historical context; as one half of an objectively described dialectic.
There is the search for truth and then there is the problem as to what to do with said truth. Philosophy evolves. In a contemporary context Romanticism becomes problematic. On the other hand i would never disparage science because of phrenology or any other pseudo science, I certainly wouldn't disparage Newton because of his interest in astrology. Doesn't bringing up Hitler automatically end the argument in my favor?
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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On the other hand i would never disparage science because of phrenology or any other pseudo science,
Nietzsche may have been a lot of things but is hardly the equivalent within philosophy that phrenology was in science. The same for the others I mentioned.
As regards the invocation of Hitler, you don't automatically win. I was merely insuring this thread was clearly not in flagrant violation of Godwin's Law:
Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"[2][3]—that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism. The first utterance of such comparison is called the Godwin point of the discussion.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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how and why philosophy would work as the tableau for moral considerations vis-a- vis science, given philosophy's inherently unresolved and unresolving history.
welp, science with the help from 'averages' can 'assume' the future, but ye shant say 'predict' the future. Actually science's prediction of the future is that the Sun will burn out and we're all gonna die. How do you say we get around that?
It's gotta be through a philosophy right? Using what science we know today we wouldn't be able to leverage out of this predicament. Thus with 'hopes' for a better future we dream/ philosophize how to tweak nature with man's wisdom.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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The problem now is how to lose me..” (Nietzsche, Turin, 4th January 1889)
Ahh, Marlow, Nietzsche in Turin. What a great period that turned out to be for the German philosopher.
A book and now a movie ( a Brazillian movie strangely enough) made about Nietzsche in his Turin days. He loved Turin.
In that one year he wrote Twilight of the Idols , Ecce Homo , and The Antichrist
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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". . .no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the healthy development of alien life and culture"
A typical philosophical pronouncement based upon a vague concept.
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