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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jul 28, 2018 - 02:54pm PT
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Ward, where I feel you go wrong is to try and anchor suicide rates to a physical "cause." Or any cause.
To a literal, linear thinker, the notion of uncaused or non-created (by dint of some physical factor) is apparently lost on them.
My hunch is that people who don't take the time to experience for themselves the difference between awareness and content are predictable in their beliefs, and without that knowledge, all investigations will be framed in terms of what "A" does. Even awareness itself will be viewed in terms of WHAT you are aware of. Some go so far as to say awareness IS limbic (emotional/feeling) affect.
The fact that it's not is such a rudimentary fact, and so easily found out by anyone remotely interested in finding out for themselves, that it's sad some get stopped cold at this point - which is where things just start to get interesting.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jul 28, 2018 - 07:35pm PT
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"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."
This is an interesting twist on some of the things Paul has said on the What is Mind thread. He often mentions that everything we see on earth was in the universe at the moment of the Big Bang as though it was meant to evolve this way.
As for sapiens, why wouldn't we go extinct the way of 99% of all species that have lived on the earth so far? I've even read a book which claims that the males of our species will go extinct first because the y chromosome is smaller and more fragile than the two X's together and thus mutates at a faster rate. Imagining an extinction of that nature would definitely be a sci fi bestseller.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 28, 2018 - 09:06pm PT
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Jan, I'm not sure we resonated here.
(1) My main point re irony was that for centuries the Church narrative and its institution in its own way encouraged truth seeking in and from the natural world. Think Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin and all the others. Investigating nature, creation of God, and discovering its related truths, was at once serious business and a celebration of God's work and for this reason, for many, highly motivating. On the other hand, we have the modern, secular narrative: evolutionary, mechanistic, causally determined, fated. What results from this pov many have described as demotions, dethronements, letdowns, etc. Arguably truth seeking from this pov is not as motivating, arguably more a put-off esp if there's no end to, or escape from, these demotions, etc.. If all we are are "just" meat puppets, why bother so much?
(2) The part you ascribe to Paul is in fact the scientifically grounded, secular, deterministic pov. That's the worldview of most science types. So I'm a little confused to read you referencing Paul in that bit. But maybe I missed a point.
He often mentions that everything we see on earth was in the universe at the moment of the Big Bang as though it was meant to evolve this way.
"Meant to"? Maybe that's the confusion. How about simply, preset or prefixed to evolve this way. "Meant to" perhaps suggests a divine intelligence or divine consciousness or divine intention behind the evolving. Of course there is no evidence for this.
Well, if preset or fated or prefixed, then this is the mechanistic/deterministic, scientifically grounded worldview or model. Everything we have now before us was fated - fated - since the Big Bang. From the largest event to the smallest. This is precisely what predetermination or fate means, at least in the modern scientific sense.
Which is why it IS so damn incredible! :)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jul 28, 2018 - 09:47pm PT
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Well, if preset or fated or prefixed, then this is the mechanistic/deterministic, scientifically grounded worldview or model.
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Owing to what? Of course you're using a linear/causal model, but what and how did a set point ever get fixed, by way of what physical cause?
Problem with fixed determinism is that so long as a "creation" or starting point is held onto, you're left with first causes or inherent properties.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 28, 2018 - 09:54pm PT
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Owing to what?
I don't know.
Problem with fixed determinism is that so long as a "creation" or starting point is held onto, you're left with first causes or inherent properties.
Why do you see this as a problem?
But then maybe you see it as a good kind of problem, like a bouldering problem? That's cool.
you're left with first causes or inherent properties
yeah, or underlying ruleset, whatever.
...
Which is why it IS so damn incredible!
That's right. For example...
IT IS so, so very hard to believe... that that misspelled word... on my 1st grade letter to grandma written 50-plus years ago in green crayon (and saved in a hutch drawer for all these years) was prefixed to occur - that is, was fated to occur - ever since the big bang 14 billion years ago. Prefixed? Fated? How is this possible?! And yet this is what the Science indicates, from all its many disciplines converging together, notwithstanding any human intuitions and/or biases to the contrary. Incredible.
Green and not yellow or blue or red. Fated.
Fated in physics. Fated in chemistry. Fated in systems. Fated in biology.
That's a model and a worldview categorically different than the one generations of people 2,000 years ago had at their disposal to make sense of their world.
...
Make America Smart Again
Cosmos III...
https://youtu.be/mXako3rIAr8
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 29, 2018 - 06:33am PT
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ever since the big bang 14 billion years ago.
This is how the gross materialists consistently brainwash themselves.
There is absolutely no proof that there was a big bang.
There is only guessing by clueless mental speculators posing as a theory which they consistently masquerade as a fact as in HFCS's post above.
The gross materialists who have very poor intelligence are prisoners of the illusionary gross material energies they only interact with their defective material senses ......
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jul 29, 2018 - 08:23am PT
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"It would be the greatest irony if a fiction and the culture that derived from it . . . .”
(I don’t know who said this initially; I’ve just gotten back visiting my mother’s bubble of experience.)
Look what’s been said here: *fictions create cultures* (e.g., national cultures, academic disciplines, families, religious organizations, and so on.)
People organize themselves into communities. Each community has it’s own immune system; if one is not recognized as being “of the body,” the community will come to kill or reject him or her. We can see it here in these pages.
A community or cultural immune system (and its various components—beliefs, norms or practices of behavior, and values) is interesting for its differences when compared to other communities or cultures, but from my side, it’s most interesting that when looked at closely (and comparatively): all indeed appear to be based upon fictions. What can then arise is “seeing” without content. Just seeing. That which sees is seeing itself, which is what is seen.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jul 29, 2018 - 01:08pm PT
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Problem with fixed determinism is that so long as a "creation" or starting point is held onto, you're left with first causes or inherent properties.
Why do you see this as a problem?
I don't. But it's more than a problem if you are trying to use a linear/causal model to "explain" reality in deterministic terms. Inherent properties like set points, and first causes, are by nature devoid of explanation, explanation (in it's normal usage) meaning X arose BECAUSE (caused) of W.
There is no BECAUSE for inherent qualities, creation, or any of it.
That doesn't mean we cannot DESCRIBE external objects and forces, and make predictions, but the description provides no determined reason for anything.
That's what Mike is driving at when he says you cannot explain anything all the way down. Or up. Or sideways.
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WBraun
climber
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Jul 29, 2018 - 01:19pm PT
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That's what Mike is driving at when he says you cannot explain anything all the way down. Or up. Or sideways.
Only GOD can do that.
But gross materialists say there is no need for God because they are imitating God.
Imitators are useless.
Thus they remain completely clueless all while masquerading themselves as demigods.
Unfortunately, they are not even close to even being a demigod.
Just clueless fools, blind leading the blind ......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 31, 2018 - 09:38am PT
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Times are changing.
“I don’t feel any taboo in transforming a church into a theater, as we are remaining true to the church’s mission of serving the community...”
But Gérald St-Georges, you would have been burned at the stake for such an allowance a few hundred years ago.
Repurposing churches...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/world/canada/quebec-churches.html
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Here's a nice companion to the forementioned. It's all about change, criticality, tipping point dynamics, etc.
Change is often imperceptible until there's a step-change. And then bam. Other times, it's imperceptible throughout until whatever it is that's changed no longer exists.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXYxBHMWmW8
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"For any scandalous story that upsets you, ask: How many such stories should we expect in a well-functioning country with 325M people? A well-functioning planet with 7.6B people?" -Bryan Caplan
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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HFCS: Change is often imperceptible until there's a step-change. And then bam. Other times, it's imperceptible throughout until whatever it is that's changed no longer exists.
With all due respect (because you seem to be involved), one who makes this claim may not be paying very close attention to what's transpiring in front of them. Even with one's eyes closed, one can see non-stop change afoot in everything.
The claim (from others you've pointed to) is a sure sign of a reduction, a model, a simplification of how things are. What does not change? (What does not change is "no thing.")
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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The no-thing that does not change remains a total conundrum so long as we are looking at any thing, object, or phenomenon "out there."
We are often warned that introspection is a faulty method of inquiry, open to woo and mistakes and illusions, but note this change is ALWAYS about "things" that are better studied by way of instruments and math models.
Changeless, unborn phenomenon are not victim of this charge for obvious reasons, but those trying to discover same generally want some form of thing or object to prove "there is such a thing," when we've said all along there is NO THING.
The rub is that all of our common sense is geared to answer the "what is this" by referencing some thing or force we can measure or detect from an imagined 3rd person perspective, Nagel's view from nowhere.
Even direct criticism in the form of - You only think there is something called subjectivity or experience, betrays out rational minds yin to consider "real" only what we can get hold of through sense data.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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It's time we broadened our conception of "public service." In this day and age it should include more - way more - than what politicians do. Case in point:
re: the absurdity of virgin testing
[Click to View YouTube Video]
"You simply cannot look a woman between her legs and read her sexual story."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBQnQTkhsq4
re: sexual oppression of women
"It's a question of cultural and religious control of women's sexuality, and that is much harder to change. But we must try."
Thanks, lady doctors. In my book, you are, among your other identities, also... public service champs.
It's time we broadened our conception of "public service."
Its enunciation, too.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Aug 10, 2018 - 08:49am PT
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HFCS (channeling someone): "Forms of scholarship that deny evidence, that deny truth, that deny the importance of facts, even when performed in the name of good, are dangerous, not only to science and to ethics but to democracy."
Right. Let's cut open dialogue from the underpinning of democracy.
Bring in the philosopher king.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Aug 10, 2018 - 10:11am PT
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It's a privilege to live in this special time and to have the opportunities it affords to learn via books, internet, youtube and all (that at least some of us have). If anything inspires me to want to live to 200 years or longer as long as I'm in good health, it's this privilege and opportunity - esp as seen and contemplated against the backdrop of our histories (ancient, medieval, evolutionary) which were so remarkably different.
I just got the book, Galileo's Middle Finger (2015), by Alice Dreger - it was very cool, I thought, that her dedication reads...
FOR KEPLER, who saved his mother.
This reminded me of where I first learned about this. So long ago now. From Carl Sagan's Cosmos series in which, in part, he describes the life and times and difficulties of Kepler.
I thought a refresh re this vignette would be cool and found this on youtube...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CE4owAfDow
"FOR KEPLER, who saved his mother."
Perfect.
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Ouch.
"21 Lessons strikes me as almost completely worthless." -Dominic Sandbrook
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
By Yuval Noah Harari
https://literaryreview.co.uk/get-with-the-programme
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Here's a thought. What MORE is science? ANS It's the idea, custom or practice (or all the above) of testing claims about cause n effect (causation) by controlling the setting, variables, conditions.
So what do we have then? A conception of science - as a practice - in terms of cause n effect.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Aug 16, 2018 - 09:15am PT
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Under the couple's recent blog entries, comments poured in from fellow-travellers and others simply inspired by the pair's dedication to studying humanity, and their conviction that, while "badness exists… by and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this."
Simply Cycling...
http://www.simplycycling.org/
So many opposing povs in today's world...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/were-the-american-cyclists-killed-in-tajikistan-naive-for-traveling-there/2018/08/14/f8212ca8-9b36-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html?utm_term=.caaa8e54ad06
Millennial Couple Bikes Near ISIS Territory to Prove ‘Humans Are Kind’ and Gets Killed
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1824-millennial-couple-bikes-near-isis-territory-to-prove-humans-are-kind-and-gets-killed
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/world/asia/islamic-state-tajikistan-bike-attack.html
"Asked why they had quit their office jobs and set off on a biking journey around the world, the young American couple offered a simple explanation: They had grown tired of the meetings and teleconferences, of the time sheets and password changes."
https://www.instagram.com/p/Blp3HPLhyPa/?taken-by=simplycycling
"So many self-righteous comments along the lines of ‘Well, they should have been more careful about their choice of vacation destinations.’
People have different levels of risk tolerance, okay? This adventurous young couple took a gamble and, sadly, lost. Bad things happen sometimes.
As a woman, I’ve travelled in Europe, S. America, Asia and Egypt. Alone. Yes, I knew there was some element of risk. I’ve been followed by strange men at night. I was robbed at gunpoint in my hotel. I’ve fallen very ill and had to rely on strangers to take care of me. But when I finally do leave this life, I’ll go out with the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve seen much more of this fascinating planet than I would have if I had played it safe.
Blessed be the risk-takers."
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Aug 23, 2018 - 03:20pm PT
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re: the death positive movement
Megan Rosenbloom on death positivity,
Mindscape podcast, with Sean Carroll
20 August 2018
We're going to die. Let's accept it. Let's not feel squeamish about it, let's talk about it. And let's try to make it as meaningful as possible.
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2018/08/20/episode-10-megan-rosenbloom-on-the-death-positive-movement/
"In the United States especially, there is a tendency to not face up to the reality of death, and to assume that our goal should be to struggle at all costs to squeeze every last minute out of life."
So I visited Paris many times in my 20s and 30s. One of my biggest regrets is that I never got around to visiting the catacombs.
Order of the Good Death
http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/
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re: the living room
Think about it. With the advent of the funeral home (funeral parlor) 19th century, the parlor in the home became the "living room" (because this room was no longer for the dead, because now it was for the living).
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