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WBraun
climber
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There's plenty of folks who've found their own way on their own.
It's never ever happened ever!!!
Not one living entity has ever done such (found their own way on their own) nor will one ever ......
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Ed, that was a great argument for natures contrived ways of screwing up reproduction. It only makes me think how "lucky" we are in being here. But you and I know the social argument is over the choosing of to abort, or not to abort. Granted a woman/person does have a legal right to do with their body as they see fit. Seems today we as a society are having troubles deciding how far to take morals into the public seen. Some believe they should be public laws. I don't think anyone is trying to take away the rights of the 1% rape victims, but what can we say to the 95%, the young girls who say their having an abortion because having a baby at this time would be a huge hinderence on their own lives and commit killing 44+ millions of young lives every day. And I do say "killing" because at 7-8 weeks when an abortionist likes to do an abortion the baby is alive, and their will most overwhelmingly be a birth.
Re: your "being in heat" argument. Isn't it a scientific fact that women are only able to become pregnant during the week around their period? I learned this from my X, and it worked flawlessly to curtail pregnancy over the span of a few years..
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Blue, I don't disagree with your moral concerns regarding abortion, I just don't think men have the right to indulge their sins while forbidding women their own. To me, the fact that abortion sky rocketed after reliable contraception became available is disappointing in the extreme and certainly was not what was anticipated back in the 1960's when it all began. Seeing what has happened in this regard is one of the several reasons I've lost most of my previous faith in the rationality of human beings. That said, I think the solution to the problem will come from true feminism (personal responsibility for one's sexuality) and not from men trying to regulate the situation.
Meanwhile, Ed's comments on women
"for instance, one reason why human females have "hidden estrus" may be to confuse the group of possible males who could have fathered the offspring as to whose offspring it actually is... this reduces the incidences of infanticide among the dominant males (which happens in other apes).
this is definitely an evolutionary strategy of females, child production being a huge investment in their resources"
strikes me as too rational to fit the reality of the human female experience. If you want to argue that evolution is responsible for the hormones that create maternal feelings, ok, but I am quite sure women keep children alive for more than energy conservation.
And yes, I agree with PSP that both group and individual meditation are worthwhile.
As always, human moral ijudgement is a question of balance between our physical and mental selves, out ideals and our realities. To me that is the meaning of human nobility.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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it isn't rational, it's evolution....
it's not that women (or proto-women) thought up the strategy, it is what happens when a long gestation time is followed by an even longer mother-child dependence to develop a large brain...
a common behavior of dominant males is to kill offspring that are not their's, bringing the female into estrus and providing the possibility of inseminating her himself.
apparently this behavior is a disadvantage (over the very long run) for human like species
instead, a slight advantage favoring the confusion over who the father of the offspring was eventually lead to those genetic traits dominating the genetic population, as the offspring of mothers carried those traits
this reduces the issue to one of energy acquisition (the "resources" required for survival are access to food first off), not of morality ("infanticide is wrong"). And is a possible explanation of a unique human attribute ("hidden estrus"). The argument above is highly simplified, but represents a way of thinking about how such behavior, and physical traits, intertwine to provide survival advantages over the long run (many many many generations).
the large brain, whose advantage seems like a, well, "no brainer" has to return an advantage larger than the resources required to maintain it in an individual. the human brain uses 20% of the consumed energy, yet is a small fraction of the total weight of an individual (~2%). Many (most) large animals do just fine with a small brain, and the majority of life has no brain at all.
once again, the result isn't due to some "Lamarckian" force towards intelligence, it is a result due to the advantages and disadvantages of the various adaptations (physical, behavioral) towards survival and reproduction.
finally, the role that hormones play in our behavior can also be attributed evolution, as "rewards" for engaging in various acts, motherhood being one of them... while we might interpret these "feelings" to some more noble cause, a lot of that is, at its roots, our physiological response.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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finally, the role that hormones play in our behavior can also be attributed evolution, as "rewards" for engaging in various acts, motherhood being one of them... while we might interpret these "feelings" to some more noble cause, a lot of that is, at its roots, our physiological response.
This falls far short of the remarkable complexity and, really, triumph of human thought and mind as it struggles to find the profound in being. Reducing feeling to chemical sources does nothing to explain their experience and the consequences of that experience. Neither does it explain the abandonment of evolutionary success for the sake of "goodness."
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Paul, you are constantly attaching words such as "noble" and "triumph" as if they were objective (meaning real) qualities of human beings. This is anthropocentric thinking. You are not looking at the big picture. There is also a picture of man as a violent and opportunistic killer.
BTW, how did we end up back at subjective vs. objective? The first two years of this conversation covered that ground.
As for taking a subjective experience and making it objective, it IS possible. Newton did just that.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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"There is also a picture of man as a violent and opportunistic killer."
The fact that you find that ignoble proves the point. Subjectivity and objectivity are irrelevant in the face of experience that each of us recognizes as profound. We recognize the similarity of our experience and it's shared vitality and can communicate to each other that intensity. Everyone knows what love is and we all know it may be the result of chemicals and wiring, but the experience, well, that's something else isn't it. And in the experience that's where the nobility is.
You should look up the term anthropocentric.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Everyone knows what love is and we all know it may be the result of chemicals and wiring, but the experience, well, that's something else isn't it.
Something else than? Something that does not come from the physical world?
Or are you talking about a different description? No one needs to know how feelings are produced in order to feel them, nor do you need to know about motor neurons to walk. The different descriptions serve different purposes.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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" No one needs to know how feelings are produced in order to feel them, nor do you need to know about motor neurons to walk. The different descriptions serve different purposes."
One needs to know what experience is in order to understand what experience is. The production of experience is not the experience; the chemicals that produce the feeling are not the feeling: the heroin is not the ecstasy. What science cannot seem to come to terms with is the ephemeral and non material nature of experience... why?
Science is victorious when it comes to cause and falters in effect.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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"Ah! What is it, then, if you please...?"
I have no idea, but I know it when I feel it!
Science can show experience as a product of the brain but science is at a loss when it comes to the nature of experience. It's in this case that science falters... the brain isn't the experience. And so in what sense is the experience really material?
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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PR said" One needs to know what experience is in order to understand what experience is."
Ah! What is it, then, if you please...?
Experience, that is.
DMT
Haven't we been over this . It is like the kinesiologist telling you he knows more about climbing then the climber (even though he/she doesn't climb).
experience is doing it (and you can't take it with you)
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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"So what you're saying is literature and mythology have nothing to say about the nature of experience, either?"
They call it soul... I see it as a metaphor for the mystery of our experience as sentient beings... The soul is the experiencer. The feelings we experience are simply the effect of chemical and material processes but they are not the processes themselves. What are those feelings? Are they material? Do they function as a material thing in the same way light does emanating from a light bulb. It's a compelling mystery and science is at a loss currently in this regard. Doesn't mean science won't resolve it but the mystery remains currently. For me currently the notion of soul is a viable one in the sense I defined it.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Science is about defining things(red, blue, hard, soft) and it is not good or bad it is just science. But the explanation/definition is limited to what ever it says. Experience is now, in the moment, before words and definitions. To say the experience is the definition of experience is inaccurate. What would be accurate is to say here is a definition of an experience but not the actual experience.
I know it sounds stupid to say that ; but I think alot of people forget that definitions are not the thing itself.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Science is about defining things(red, blue, hard, soft)
So science is like a dictionary?
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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And meditation is about taking a little nap.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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That's funny ; did I take the name of "Science" in vain!
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WBraun
climber
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Yes modern meditation is taking nap.
No one can do it in this age of gross materialism consciousness.
Kardama Muni took 60,000 years to reach perfection in real meditation.
In this age people only live to 100 if at all that far.
Real sitting meditation was practiced in the Sata Yuga where the maximum life span was 100,000 years.
In this age, the iron age of hypocrisy and quarrel, an entirely different method is prescribed to achieve perfection ....
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Real sitting meditation was practiced in the Sata Yuga where the maximum life span was 100,000 years
Wait....
100K years?
That's TWO orders of magnitude better than Methuselah. He only made it to 969.
Even this Kartama Mudi guy sounds like he smoked Methuselah.
The Abrahamic religions just took a HUGE hit thanks to a smoking duck.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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did I take the name of "Science" in vain!
That's funny, too.
No, you just had an idea in mind which another person took differently.
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