Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Mar 11, 2018 - 08:20pm PT
|
I don't care what they mean
I get that...
|
|
Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
|
|
|
Mar 12, 2018 - 06:44am PT
|
For me, 409 works better.
Seems more useful to me, too.
|
|
sempervirens
climber
|
|
|
Mar 12, 2018 - 07:47am PT
|
There's also the same old linear causal mode being trotted out. For example, if we abolish ignorance and superstition, man will progress exponentially.
The cause was clearly illustrated for you several pages back. The flaws in your logic were shown and you failed to respond. If ignorance were abolished then one cause of suffering would be abolished. It might be tiny incremental progress or exponential progress, but it would be progress. If there are many causes of suffering, that is no reason not to abolish one of them.
Except psychology tells us otherwise in no uncertain terms. For example, many spend years in therapy and only end up with a fantastically well analyzed problem(s). But nothing else changes because change comes through active participation in your own process. You can't just noodle stuff.
The therapy example doesn't support your point. Therapy is also a way of actively participating. Many people are changed by it. If many people end up with no change that does not mean change is impossible, does it? Hasn't humanity progressed by removing ignorance in the past? Consider the practices of slavery, human sacrifice, blood letting. Were those ignorant practices? Would eliminating them be progress?
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Mar 12, 2018 - 08:52pm PT
|
There's also the same old linear causal mode being trotted out
I agree. It's disgusting what some people will do to get attention.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2018 - 08:03am PT
|
So when it comes to the evolution of belief systems, here's the Big Wall any emerging post-religious system (of belief) is up against. It's posted by one Ben Shelby... in response to the questions posed by Jerry Coyne...
QT What's your meaning and purpose?
"I will answer both questions with the same answer: there simply is no purpose or meaning to my life or any other persons life, despite what they may think or say. There is no purpose or meaning to life as a whole. Human life, in particular, is, in my mind, a highly overrated phenomenon. Every other planet in our solar system and all those that have been discovered outside of our solar system get along just fine without so much as a single microorganism (that we know of thus far). We could end ourselves in total nuclear war tomorrow or the next asteroid could slam into Earth, destroy all life, boil the oceans, and rip the crust off the face of the planet, and the universe wouldn’t even notice.
"Even if there were both a purpose and meaning to life, we live in a deterministic universe anyway. What would it even mean to have a purpose or meaning when it has already been determined for us anyway? No matter how “good” or “bad,” our entire existence is already set in place. We can dread it, we can run from it, but destiny still arrives."
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/whats-your-meaning-and-purpose/
It's interesting and insightful to read through the responses of a few dozen respondents here, I thought.
...
Related piece...
Andrew Sullivan distrusts progress, says it erodes deeper happiness and meaning (i.e., we need more religion)
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/03/12/andres-sullivan-distrusts-progress-says-it-erodes-deeper-happiness-and-meaning-read-religion/
"equally odd for an evolutionary psychologist, [Pinker] sees absolutely no problem that humans in the last 500 years (and most intensely in the last century) have created a world utterly different than the one humans lived in for close to 99 percent of our time on the planet. We are species built on tribe; yet we live increasingly alone in societies so vast and populous our ancestors would not recognize them; we are a species designed for scarcity and now live with unimaginable plenty; we are a species built on religious ritual to appease our existential angst, and yet we now live in a world where every individual has to create her own meaning from scratch; we are a species built for small-scale monocultural community and now live increasingly in multiracial, multicultural megacities." A Sullivan
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/sullivan-things-are-better-than-ever-why-are-we-miserable.html
For many, these are the Big Questions of our time.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2018 - 10:36am PT
|
If ignorance were abolished then one cause of suffering would be abolished. It might be tiny incremental progress or exponential progress, but it would be progress. If there are many causes of suffering, that is no reason not to abolish one of them.
-
Watch that all-or-nothing thinking, amigo. It'll bite you.
No one here is suggesting that abolishing ignorance is not a step toward progress, but the process is ongoing and we need to stand guard against the reflex to codify our current understanding into a kind of formula or prescription that itself isn't in a constant state of revision.
Man is a moving target. There's every reason to want some bedrock under us - religious, physicalism, credos, final truths - SOMETHING we can designate at least provisionally as end-all, "caused" by this or that.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2018 - 10:36am PT
|
This is why I think I cherish your posts, Dingus, as much as you cherish Paul's. Thanks for the reply.
...
What an utterly ridiculous blanket statement to make to other people. It's little wonder there is such stout push back against this sort of thinking.
One of the challenges in communicating these difficult or tricky subjects, I think, is figuring out just how many perspectives or povs are we obliged to cover in a single paragraph if not a single sentence.
It seems to me, Ben Shelby is addressing the question solely from the narrow perspective of the (outside) cosmic pov and not from the (within, inside) human pov, whether individual or social.
It seems to me, since we've been gifted desire, ambition, feeling and such it follows we've got purpose/meaning (significance) that is authentic, genuine. If not from without then from within.
It seems to me, in re to meaning and purpose, our job in the 21st century (for those who want to take it up) is to reconcile these different, often widely convergent, perspectives or povs.
Perhaps if one's inclination is just to state 'There is no purpose to life' then it's best just to keep quiet. :)
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2018 - 01:19pm PT
|
Yes, Dingus. Given that we find ourselves participants in an entropic universe that's ever evolving by natural selection I would agree.
A hope is that we humans - after enough trial and error; and after enough sorting out - will eventually come around to a reconciliation in understanding, in belief and wisdom (between "what is" in Nature and "what matters" to us) that's increasingly simpatico and genuine.
...
PSA: The long-awaited Harris Pinker conversation/dialog will be live streamed tonight from the Harris site at 8:00pm. This will be a first, I look forward to it. I hope it goes well.
For those who haven't followed the plot, they disagree on the dangers of AI, the conceptions relating to "free will", the scale of the dangers of terrorism and something else that's fundamental I think - that I cannot recall right now, lol.
https://samharris.org/podcast/
...
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2018 - 05:02pm PT
|
HFCS: . . . after enough sorting out - will eventually come around to a reconciliation in understanding, in belief and wisdom (between "what is" in Nature and "what matters" to us) that's increasingly simpatico and genuine.
There is only one way that understanding becomes both genuine and simpatico: there must be only one answer or one position, or people have to give up or reorder what they care about. Otherwise reconciliation becomes compromise and consensus.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2018 - 05:22pm PT
|
... there must be only one answer or one position, or people have to give up or reorder what they care about.
Otherwise reconciliation becomes compromise and consensus.
Yes, this is good intelligence.
Fruitloops can't think until Sam Harris or Pinker tells him how.
Sad case sterile wannabee scientist who never does the experiment ......
|
|
Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2018 - 08:17pm PT
|
If you believe there is no purpose or meaning to life...
...what is the purpose or meaning of talking about it?
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 09:20am PT
|
An interesting exercise is to try and imagine living, if only for 30 minutes, in a meaningless universe. People attempting to do so often panic or get huffy or indifferent, thinking what a bummer this is, or feeling courageous believing they are facing down some existential truth. But for most all of these folks, they are dragging value judgements or meanings into the exercise - such as, this is harsh, depressing, liberating.
The exercise is to let go of all that stuff, all interpretations, evaluations, orientations, meanings, including positive and negative takes on being there. Then the exercise gets lift off.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 09:31am PT
|
Meaningless is meaningless without a referential frame.
Do you know what a referential frame is? Or referential frames?
Do you even care?
This concept should really be taught starting in junior high. But it isn't. How come?
...
if only for 30 minutes...
lol
Assuming our pov is outside the human condition, i.e., from the ultimate cosmic perspective, aka the big picture referntial frame, try 30-plus
years!!
Granted, it takes some adjustment, reconciliation, etc...
...
This one's even better: Try imagining time - not merely the sequencing of it (e.g., pond scum before apes, WWI before WWII, etc. - but still the basic nature of it - say hours, millenia, geographical eras - in a MINDLESS universe. That, to me, is esp mindblowing.
In a MINDLESS universe, there's no mind around to actually perceive the sense of time duration! or to sense the time difference between a msec, eg., and a billion years!
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 09:50am PT
|
re: meaning (vs meaninglessness)
Distinguish between (a) the meaning of life and (b) the meaning of MY life.
The purpose of life is to push itself forward through survival and reproduction. That is distinct from the purpose of MY life.
The purpose of MY life is to seek out and indulge in those things (some of it innate, some of it learned, by experience) that give meaning and purpose to my life. They are not hard to find: family and friends, good times, the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of best practices, games and sports (climbing, adventures etc..), etc etc...
From the human referential frame, any human with interests he cares about is a source of meaning (edit: should be able to identify sources of meaning and purpose). Yes, imo, even in a universe that is meaningless from the BP referential frame.
Assuming you have interests/passions, seek out and indulge in those things that give you (that sense of) meaning and purpose (that contribute to a sense that life is worthwhile). You could consider this a project, a chase, or an art form. (If not, in some cases, the equivalent of a big wall project because some of these things are not always easy to find, let alone keep/sustain.)
Imo, don't buy into that old-world thinking that YOUR life has to be immortal for there to be any genuine meaning and purpose. In this age of modern understanding, for many, this only leads to unreasonable expectation and eventual disappointment.
When it comes to meaning and purpose, context matters; in other words, referential framing matters.
Anyways, my two cents.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 10:00am PT
|
Very encouraging...
Check out the changing demographic at the Harris Pinker conversation in LA last night.
Young people!!!!
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 10:21am PT
|
HFCS: Young people!!!!
. . . who have much to learn.
Bring us not converts, but individuals who lead themselves by their own lights.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 10:30am PT
|
HFCS: Meaningless is meaningless without a referential frame. Do you know what a referential frame is? Or referential frames?
Dissolution of frames would appear to be the modern project in so many forms and domains—in contemporary art, in philosophy, in the humanities, even in the sciences. How large and expansive *can* a frame be? What could be a common base for all domains, feelings, and thought?
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 11:04am PT
|
Assuming our pov is outside the human condition, i.e., from the ultimate cosmic perspective, aka the big picture referntial frame, try 30-plus
years!!
---
Seems remarkable that any sober person could believe that a provisional "referential frame" (a framework that is used for the observation and mathematical description of physical phenomena and the formulation of physical laws, usually consisting of an observer, a coordinate system, and a clock or clocks assigning times at positions with respect to the coordinate system) lies "outside" of anything else.
If reality is defined as every damn thing seen and unseen, there's no escaping to some "view from nowhere," least of all where an observer is not part of the process. This is basically imagining the 3rd person omniscient POV found in literature as some "place" or frame a human can actually reach or inhabit.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 11:25am PT
|
Seems remarkable that any sober person could believe that a provisional "referential frame" (a framework that is used for the observation and mathematical description of physical phenomena and the formulation of physical laws, usually consisting of an observer, a coordinate system, and a clock or clocks assigning times at positions with respect to the coordinate system) lies "outside" of anything else.
(1) Mars as a referential frame lies outside Earth as a referential frame.
(2) Your house as a referential frame lies outside my house as a referential frame.
(3) Algebra as a referential frame lies outside Latin as a referential frame.
(4) The Star Trek universe as a referential frame lies outside the Christian universe as a referential frame.
Note that the sport of curling is a "thing" that gives meaning and purpose to many people, perhaps hundreds (lol!); but for many other people - from the pov of their referential framing - it is a pretty meaningless thing; there is no meaning or purpose in it.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Mar 15, 2018 - 11:41am PT
|
We get it, Fruity. We need to place our attention on this or that at the exclusion of all else if we are to conduct close, discursive study. For example, few try to meditate, or do engineering, with Led Zep blaring in the BG. The point is, narrowing our focus on a particular frame does not mean said frame "exists" separate from all else.
Try for a moment to forego all frames of reference.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!