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sempervirens
climber
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Mar 18, 2018 - 10:10am PT
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f 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.
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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.
Hey Largo,
It's not all-or-nothing thinking, And you haven't shown it to be. Nor have you shown how my thinking has bitten me. If you agree that removing ignorance would make an improvement then how can you maintain that it's not possible to have a "cause"? Or are you saying ignorance can be a cause but religious doctrine cannot? That wouldn't make sense either.
It's not a reflex on my part, nor codified, formulated, prescribed. Sure man is a moving target and humans do search for something to designate as cause. Nothing you said negates my argument, yet you warn me about the dangers of my thinking. That's obfuscating.
Or are you saying conclusions are not possible? Of course, if that's your argument then you've contradicted yourself several times. If the material world exists, and we are within it, then let's work with it. It may all be an illusion but we're still here in this illusion.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 18, 2018 - 10:53am PT
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"Like all liberal humanists, we place our faith in the freely-choosing individual."
Somehow we have to find/figure out "ways of talking" about freedom, in particular varieties of freedom, that are less loose, that are context-anchored (and not untethered from context) if we're going to ever avoid interminable confusion.
The "freely-choosing" individual? "Free-choosing" in what sense? Free from what? Free to what?
If Pinker and Harari debated each other, I’ve no doubt that Pinker would win. Because Harari argues like a self-doubting intellectual, whilst Pinker argues like a ruthless debate club president. -John Hammer
Silly statement.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Mar 18, 2018 - 11:03am PT
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Ed: not sure what you are reacting to MikeL
Pop culture is renown for its fads, fashions, and trendiness, Ed.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Mar 18, 2018 - 11:09am PT
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There's no need for this qualifier.
There is a distinct and essential need for a qualifier. Not because there is something essentially wrong with reductionism - it is quite useful for what it does.
The problems from reductionism come from the assumptions that people commonly make, even scientists, that the observations made from reductionism neccessarily have meaning that extend beyond the phenomena observed. Critical and dedicated scientists understand these pitfalls - such as extending association to causation without sufficient proof, but it is a common for science lovers to not make the distinction.
This is being presented by a lover of science who has done and hopes again to do research and it grates me to see the pursuit diluted and lose it's meaning. The pursuit of science when done critically and methodically true to the method then becomes a "holy grail quest" and a joyous resonance with the magic of reality.
I enjoy the chase from doing mere clinical outcome and case studies. It's far from pure science. I'm often a bit jealous of Ed - I wonder often what his consciousness experiences while immersed in his quest.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 18, 2018 - 02:11pm PT
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You are just arriving at Humanism's mark on history in you 50s when the rest of us encountered in in survey courses in our late teens.
Better late than never. I can think of a few things I encountered in survey courses that I will never learn.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Mar 18, 2018 - 04:39pm PT
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Rather a mild rebuke from sycorax. Shows progress.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 18, 2018 - 05:51pm PT
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Is fruity in his fifties? Can you tell us that much Hfcs? I say almost forty, maybe less. Maybe older. The older I get the less I can estimate age.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 19, 2018 - 10:30am PT
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Yes Wayno, X = square root of 100 + 30 - 6.
(base 16)
...
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For the heck of it...
chiropractic: a system of therapy which holds that disease results from a lack of normal nerve function and which employs manipulation and specific adjustment of body structures (as the spinal column):
Useful along with some distinct limitations.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 19, 2018 - 10:48am PT
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What makes you bring up chiropractic?
I have been treated a couple of times over the years for lower back pain by several different practitioners. Mixed results.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 19, 2018 - 11:01am PT
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There is a distinct and essential need for a qualifier. Not because there is something essentially wrong with reductionism - it is quite useful for what it does.
Reductionism has several faces. Whenever we isolate one thing or task from the full blown show we live in, we are essentially reducing reality to manageable proportions. Reductionism as a clue search for physical causes is another issue, also essential for living in the world, but only one of many means of trying to understand it.
At some point most of these inquiries end up battling with the one-and-the-many challenge.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Mar 19, 2018 - 03:04pm PT
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Useful along with some distinct limitations.
Well, my aren't you a passive-aggressive little troll!!
Is that the best you can do in response to my last post on common issues pertaining to misinterpretation of data gained from reductionism?
Sounds like the "Well, what about..." argument. As in "Well, what about Hillary..."
Keep in mind that I'm a "true" believer in how essential the use of reductionism is in science when you answer. There is nothing inherently wrong with reductionism - it's a wonderful tool. The problem is how it's often used/abused. Often the problem is knowing just enough to not know that you don't know enough.
That pic of starling murmuration is awesome, HFCS. Thanks!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 20, 2018 - 10:18am PT
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"Will liberal humanism be taken down by religion? Nope. Like Pinker, Harari maintains that religion has no future:
The reality is that liberal humanism is the great gift of religion and doesn't stand in contradiction to it.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 20, 2018 - 11:25am PT
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Like Pinker, Harari maintains that religion has no future:
These guys are idiot fool hypocrites.
These fools are just trying to replace everything with their own made up religion.
Idiots who can't for the life of them see their own illusionary attempts at reality.
And poor Fruitloops here is their own mighty religious zombie devotee who keeps painting himself into a corner .......
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 20, 2018 - 12:57pm PT
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There is nothing inherently wrong with reductionism - it's a wonderful tool. The problem is how it's often used/abused.
Wonderful or not, it's what we do for the most part to navigate the world. The problem is when physical causes are posited as the only means of knowing or describing the whole mo fo.
What's more, for Type A physicalists, when Q says that this or that phenomenon is irreducible, they don't believe a word of it. For the Type A physicalist, physical causation "describes" reality. Searle was not alone is saying such a statement is logically incoherent when applied to mind itself, which is different then saying the "correlates of mind." The tendency to say neurons and mind are selfsame is a logical howler. Same as the belief that physical causation "describes" mind/experience itself. Such language has no meaning whatsoever and refers to nothing in reality.
The statement that this neuronal process describes experience itself is utter nonsense. The words don't even related to the same phenomenon. You might as well as say that Fruity's parents perfectly describe Fruity himself.
You have to understand the implications of the language you use to make any sense.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Mar 20, 2018 - 01:35pm PT
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John,
If you study botany, and go study a plant in a forest, would you merely look at the single plant, or would you try to understand the forest?
"Reductionism" is an ism that I never heard of before you brought it up.
Same thing with my job. I don't just map one well. I map thousands, and from those control points create a full 3D model of the subsurface, and understand each layer through time.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 20, 2018 - 02:33pm PT
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Base104, Reductionism is on Wikipedia, so you're out of touch with the times.
Fruitloops as usual lets everything go over the top of his brainwashed Sam Harris Pinker head .... lol
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Mar 20, 2018 - 06:12pm PT
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"Reductionism" is an ism that I never heard of before you brought it up.
Base! You musta been having a brain fart. It's bread and butter to the scientific method.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 20, 2018 - 06:22pm PT
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Fruity, you might want to bone up on some logic before you keep flubbing this one handsomely.
Statements contain words and concepts that for logical coherence must refer to the specific subjects they are meant to represent. It follows that statements about physical systems are attempting to describe physical systems. The logical falacy is the belief that such descriptions also perfectly and completely describe subjectivity, which every schoolboy knows is itself a different phenomenon that firing neurons.
The incoherence and nonsense derives from believing that a question about phenomenological reality is in fact a question about physical causality, when the terms describe totally different phenomenon. Calling them identical give us Identity Theory - a dead end, Searle made that all clear as day.
Nagel settled the causality-subjectivity quagmire in the 1970s.
The bus passed you by ages ago, Fruity.
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