Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jul 21, 2018 - 05:31pm PT
|
The overwhelming flood of data sans context and substance has been linked to the staggering increase in the suicide rate across America. I suspect it also draws from people's enmeshment with and the AI cyber world which further isolates folks from their organic source, their roots as living creatures. But the overwhelming tsunani of data, mediated or not, digested nor not, has failed to deliver as a replacement for some felt sense for the transcendent, however you might define and locate something greater than yourself.
This paragraph deserves this month's award for being the most overqualified to be unpacked.
Similar to my response to MikeL up thread, I find it necessary to strongly stress that a surfeit of data, per se, more often than not makes scant difference to human society in general at any given moment. And certainly in and of itself does not contribute to a high suicide rate.
Moreover, it matters little what the nature of this data happens to be-- devoid of content or of the transcendent. This data is just that, data. Most of it exists without current application--which means that we have no idea what its ultimate impact or philosophical nature might turn out to be. Again, most of it just lies there like dad's old lug wrench out in the garage.
It doesn't overwhelm anyone and its foundational nature is not one that can or should be overwhelming and failing to deliver. Who do you know sits around being compromised by raw data and does not exercise inherent abilities to adjust,filter ,and discriminate against the so-called tsunami-- most of which goes by undetected by the vast majority of people.
which further isolates folks from their organic source, their roots as living creatures.
But here you've swerved into something worth contemplating. Disconnecting humans from natural processes is central to the effects of technology. We are just beginning to grasp the deleterious impact upon our mitochondria (the energy organelles within our cells) of man made electromagnetic fields, and the tremendous effects encountered by circadian disruptions, especially blue light exposure during night hours.
I've talked about all these things for a couple years on this site and have sited numerous reports and studies. Anyone can research the material out there-- it is voluminous and growing daily.
One of the better clearing houses of information is available on Dr. Jack Kruse's Facebook page. Go to the posts.
https://m.facebook.com/drjackkruse/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=1
Good luck.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Jul 22, 2018 - 01:16pm PT
|
re An example of motivated reasoning?
This from Roger Penrose, in an interview (30 sec bit) from A Brief History of Time (1991)...
"I think I would say that the universe has a purpose. It's not uh... it's not uh... somehow just there by chance. I think it's... yeah. So, it's, it's... Some people, I think, take the view that the universe is just there and it sort of runs and runs, and it just sort of computes and we happen somehow by accident to find ourselves in this thing. But, uh, I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe. I think that there is something much deeper about it."
Has a ring of so-called "motivated reasoning" to me.
I tried to find this clip on youtube, no luck.
...
Yuval Noah Harari: '21 Lessons' from data, meditation to AI and 'Black Mirror'
http://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2018/07/20/yuval-noah-harari-21-lessons-from-data-meditation-to-ai-and-black-mirror.html
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
|
Jul 26, 2018 - 09:07pm PT
|
Is that _really_ Schrodinger in the middle of the back row?
I have his cat, and would happily return it to him, but I'm not sure whether he's alive or dead. And...
...wait a minute. I can't find the damn cat. I thought I had it locked up in a small box, but...
|
|
Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 06:10am PT
|
I have his cat, and would happily return it to him, but I'm not sure whether he's alive or dead. And...
...wait a minute. I can't find the damn cat. I thought I had it locked up in a small box, but...
Nice.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 12:07pm PT
|
Moreover, it matters little what the nature of this data happens to be-- devoid of content or of the transcendent. This data is just that, data. Most of it exists without current application--which means that we have no idea what its ultimate impact or philosophical nature might turn out to be. Again, most of it just lies there like dad's old lug wrench out in the garage.
It doesn't overwhelm anyone and its foundational nature is not one that can or should be overwhelming and failing to deliver. Who do you know sits around being compromised by raw data and does not exercise inherent abilities to adjust,filter ,and discriminate against the so-called tsunami-- most of which goes by undetected by the vast majority of people.
Ward, sometimes it pays to put your thinking cap on, lest the meat and potatoes of the drift rushes past your own self.
It's interesting to see someone who tries to parse out data as some stand-alone commodity, while in the real world the tsunami of data and info bombards us continually, and most of it goes undigested. So of course it's not the data in isolation, like a wrench in your pappy's garage, rather the means by which we engage it, which is the issue.
The slapdash way people typically process information, as though info-stimulation equals mental health and intelligence, has in my opinion so fractured people's ability to settle and connect authentically with most anything that the more people surf for fresh data, the more isolated they become.
For example, I can't tell you what a shock it comes to people who we get in our writer's symposiums who are accustomed to blathering in blogs and fail to understand that narrative story telling requires a much more connected and nuanced engagement then dashing off jazzy sound bites on their Facebook page or me-myself-and I blog platforms. Data stimulation is the new heroin, and we're surrounded by junkies. The earmark of this surfing is a glaring lack of substance.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 03:27pm PT
|
Jan and others,
It would be the greatest irony if a fiction and the culture that derived from it turned out to motivate the pursuit of truth more than actual truth itself.
Were that the case though, and high culture crashed and burned because of it, Sapiens could hardly be "blamed" for it. Seems to me the right response then would be: It was fated all along. Not only written in Sapiens DNA and its environment but written in nature's underlying ruleset.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 03:59pm PT
|
re: causation (cause and effect) in nature and science
re: science of causation
Here's a way, one way, I ended up thinking about (1) causation in general; (2) use of "cause" in discussions about nature, science and society, etc; and (3) responding to the claim: Causation is a fundamental attribute or property of our Mother Nature, our Cosmos.
Basically it went like this:
(1) Entropy (increase in disorder) is a fundamental property or characteristic to how the world works (how nature operates), check. (2) any (dissipative) interaction leads to/produces/causes entropy, check. (3) Therefore causation, like entropy (increase in disorder), is fundamental - a fundamental property of our Cosmos.
It also occurred to me, language what it is, engineering, for example, could easily be construed as a science of causation (cause n effect). From tearing something down to building something up. Much of whatever it is could be rendered in terms of cause n effect functioning (iow, causal functioning).
Who knows, perhaps some day modern science and Earth Global will have a name for "the science of causation" that serves an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary role that cuts through, that cuts across, the more traditional disciplines of the institution.
Until, in my own world, I just subsume this under "systems science".
...
Heisenberg is the one whose picture should be blurry.
Good one. :)
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 04:18pm PT
|
Nice picture there, Malemute, of the Solvay Conference attendees. Sheesh, one would have to wonder if this wasn't the smartest group of humans ever assembled. They all look like they would be decent climbers too! Personally, I'd go with Heisenberg as the best climber just looking at them (although you should never underestimate intensity).
Btw, this picture is my new Windows background.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 05:01pm PT
|
The Gulf of distance between smart and intelligent is astronomical.
Intelligence comes from the soul.
Smart is only a mundane materialistic trait.
It takes God himself to become godless (unintelligent).
He gives one the intelligence to become godless and thus lose all one's good intelligence, and remain only mundane smart.
Just the same as one sings without soul no one wants to hear such braying into the wind except the souless ......
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 05:12pm PT
|
Worst belayer. I'm going to have to go with Einstein.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 05:13pm PT
|
It also occurred to me, language what it is, engineering, for example, could easily be construed as a science of causation (cause n effect).
-
Humans were not engineered. That's the rub.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 05:18pm PT
|
The smartest group of humans ever assembled?? And they all are physicists? That must expose a prejudice.
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 07:25pm PT
|
It's interesting to see someone who tries to parse out data as some stand-alone commodity, while in the real world the tsunami of data and info bombards us continually, and most of it goes undigested. So of course it's not the data in isolation, like a wrench in your pappy's garage, rather the means by which we engage it, which is the issue.
Nevertheless the overwhelming amount of this data goes by undetected. We even forget it's there unless we need to use it for an emerging purpose, like Pa's lug wrench in a plumbing emergency. Most of this data is of cypher status. We are aware of so little of the world. We are wired to tune out and be unaware of nearly all of it, because of its enormity, or its irrelevance to our transitory purposes. The data we "engage" , as you put it, is that data we are made aware of, or that we deterministically select to be aware of. Therefore your comment:
the means by which we engage it, which is the issue.
Which, if it means anything, means that this data we chose to engage is a but small fraction of the data racing by us at any given moment. The totality of data has very little meaning in this regard.
The slapdash way people typically process information, as though info-stimulation equals mental health and intelligence, has in my opinion so fractured people's ability to settle and connect authentically with most anything that the more people surf for fresh data, the more isolated they become.
Frankly I think you are referring to a relatively small group in society that have this particular problem. Most people go directly to where the social payoff is greatest. Where they get the most bang for the buck , as it were. Most of them are too lazy or too clueless to chase the megaflora of the Internet.
r example, I can't tell you what a shock it comes to people who we get in our writer's symposiums who are accustomed to blathering in blogs and fail to understand that narrative story telling requires a much more connected and nuanced engagement then dashing off jazzy sound bites on their Facebook page or me-myself-and I blog platforms. Data stimulation is the new heroin, and we're surrounded by junkies. The earmark of this surfing is a glaring lack of substance.
I think you are referring to something as old as the hills: bad writers. I always get a kick out these notices from a poetry website I post at soliciting my comments on the poetry of a new "premium member." Nearly all of them are uninteresting and boring. I've got to privately calling them "content junkies" for starters.
Just now a passing stranger decided to start talking to my dog:
|
|
Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 07:35pm PT
|
Heisenberg is the one whose picture should be blurry.
Yer makin’ me lose my beer, man!
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 07:44pm PT
|
Heisenberg is the one whose picture should be blurry.
Not so. At any given time, Heisenberg can be quite sharp. The problem is that whenever you can see him clearly, you don't know where he's going or where he came from. It's when you do know where he's going that his current whereabouts gets blurry.
Schrodinger, on the other hand... Well, with him, you can't be sure he's there even if you think you've got him locked into the room.
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jul 27, 2018 - 07:47pm PT
|
Heisenberg looks the more uncertain of the whole bunch.
Lorentz looks transformed by the experience.
Planck looks "probably" bored.
I could go on.
Somebody stop me!
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2018 - 09:24am PT
|
Ward: Frankly I think you are referring to a relatively small group in society that have this particular problem.
Check out Kahnemann or Tversky's works: heuristics.
(Like the dog.)
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2018 - 11:42am PT
|
Ward, I think we agree on more than I'd care to admit.
Remember that Poetry (mag) got a big endowment some years back and there was a big rhubarb over an article stating that MFA writing programs were pumping out people who had no life experiences to draw on and were simply constructing verse out of thin air. Folks like Stevens and Dickerson could do that but they had a naturally transcendental take on the mundane, as did Elliot, who was remarkably well schooled on all things poetic. Williams had a Zen simplicity that was stark and Plath had the brains and the edge. That shit's not taught at any MFA program that I know about.
Per data, I'm not so sure the data-as-the-new-heroin craze is so limited as you seem to believe.
One thing's for sure - that astonishing and sad spike in suicide rates underscores that something has gone missing, and the blame can hardly be placed on a paucity of data.
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2018 - 01:04pm PT
|
Ward, I think we agree on more than I'd care to admit.
Eventually everyone agrees with me.
One thing's for sure - that astonishing and sad spike in suicide rates underscores that something has gone missing, and the blame can hardly be placed on a paucity of data.
Largo, if you keep bringing up suicide I'll send an intervention team in search of you.
Mitochondriac extraordinaire Jack Kruse weighs in on suicide; specifically notable music shift workers. He can say it a lot better than me. There is actually some brief tangential intersection between what he has to say and your insistence on data overload. More on that later.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2237647019632973&id=239883926075969&tn=%2As%2As-R
Check out Kahnemann or Tversky's works: heuristics.
I'll do that, MikeL
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!