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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:04pm PT
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a friend who died of same 1 week before Thanksgiving...
Curious, in general, where do you live?
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:05pm PT
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Southern California. Headquarters of Sony Corp.
We're all scared around here.
Woops.. I almost said Antartica.
I should have said Antartica after all the unflattering things I 've said about Orwellian Police States today.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:09pm PT
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and your friend hailed from there, too? or elsewhere?
You see, my friend as well died of this cancer one week before Thanksgiving. F*#k Cancer.
My friend was from the bay area, though.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:11pm PT
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Yes. He was from here.
This is sounding like a lead-in to a seance.
Yep. F*#k the big "c"
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:12pm PT
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Yes, it would've been what I sometimes call a royal flush (probability) event!
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:14pm PT
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Good reply, John.
The only relevance my friend's "void" has to me is that it is interesting to see that in some way, science and the experiential adventures end up at the same no-thing place - or non-place, as it were
It's the "same no-thing place" that I question. Your open awareness and the physicists' void. You seem certain they are the same. I am not certain they are not.
My sense is that you still remain attached to the Newtonian idea that the stuff is real and that the void is "imagined," or worked up for the sake of making measurements or quantitative models. I think this might be your sticking point on all this
Nope, no attachment. I admit I don't know. You admit you do.
. . . there are more than a few physicists out there - especially the young and hungry ones - who would ask you flat out what part of "no physical extent" are you not getting, and where in the world did you ever get the idea that this was a conjecture. My question is - what are you really resisting here? What are you defending so ardently? What do you so adamantly think is no inherently incorrect about all of this?
Oh, for the passions and certainty of youth! Dead certain they are . . . until new theory emerges. I am not resisting anything other than taking cast-in-iron positions. I defend the possibility of changing a position.
Again, are the "woods" a thing that I am looking at? Is that your take on all of this, John
Simply observing that you equate no-thingness in one area with a void in another. You may be correct. Certainly, I don't know . . . and neither do you.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:15pm PT
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How will science ever answer the questions or even consider the questions: How do I live a fulfilling life, how do I live a good life, what is a good life, how do I come to accept those things that are inevitable in human experience?
And can we answer these questions from a point of pure relativism.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:16pm PT
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It's not science's job. You've been told this 100 times now, what more do you want?
How will science ever answer the questions or even consider the questions: How do I live a fulfilling life, how do I live a good life, what is a good life, how do I come to accept those things that are inevitable in human experience?
We've struggled with these questions for a long time now. Personally, I've struggled with them for decades now.
Seriously, what does science - basic science - have to do with it? other than revealing (providing us knowledge of) how the world works, how things work, how life works, more validly and accurately than ever.
Without giving too much away, (I can't, it's my job) but I suppose a so-called "applied science" (cf: medicine, engineering) that takes into acct goals, interests and values , could emerge, evolve, formally and/or informally, institutionalize, etc and that could get started and perhaps help.
But again, for the 100th time, it's not science's job as an investigational tool, to provide answers to these so-called Big Questions.
For the time being, why not go with the flow. Of the mystery. Like Neil deGrasse Tyson encourages his fans. It works. It can.
Anyone who looks to science to answer those "existential" questions re meaning, etc. will be disappointed.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:16pm PT
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Condolences .
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:23pm PT
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re: our friends who passed
Ward, imagine it, we would've had to get together - you and me - to recall our friend even more and to mark this Royal Flush event - eh? We'd have had to go climb something, lol!
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:27pm PT
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We'll have to settle for an ST seance.
See ya'll later.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:36pm PT
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"Seriously, what does science have to do with it."
Nothing! I absolutely agree.
And in this is the whole point because you're not just promoting the great gifts of science you want to discredit the very thing that allows many to come to terms with that mystery you speak of and the wisdom that is such a part of the mythological and religious heritage of humanity.
I would never wish to abolish scientific inquiry but I wouldn't throw out the wisdom of centuries of careful introspection on the part of dedicated, sincere, knowledgeable seekers after consolation and, ultimately, serenity.
Science is good and can be bad.
Religion is good and can be bad.
Let's not throw the babies out with the bath water and agree to take the best of both.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:40pm PT
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"I wouldn't throw out the wisdom of centuries of careful introspection on the part of dedicated, sincere knowledgeable seekers"
Relax, Paul, nobody's doing this. Nobody. Nor is anyone encouraging this. Anywhere.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 19, 2014 - 05:44pm PT
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Tvash: . . . about half of Seattle's hipsters seem to have that scene or a reasonable facsimile thereof tattooed somewhere on their pasty white bodies.
Ha-ha. :-) That might be true.
Everything we are is 'natural' - in the sense that everything we are evolved.
I think you have it right in the beginning. If everything is natural, there would be no reason to explain it with a theory.
Jan: . . . that most people can't replace something with nothing which is the problem with atheism.
I think there is something under the table going on, Jan. As Nietzsche decried, God was replaced by Man, and that is a lonely and arrogant place to be. It’s not quite nothing, you see.
HFCS: Evolution most definitely did NOT give us a brain for religion, it gave us a brain for X and Y and Z . . . .
You have said you’ve read Kahnemann? Brains may well be for religion, according to him. We do not make good decisions statistically, by his account. We more often make “hot” decisions, he says, and that would imply that all of that irrational decision making and behavior has done the species very well. We are growing and developing robustly! You’re problem here, I think, is that you can’t show with data and lock-down theory that one thing is any better than another. You just don’t have the data that could ever possibly expose a distinction. You can’t show the alternative theory in-practice. This reality is all that you have. You don’t have another one. You (and probably everyone else here) sees and argues their own views. I’m afraid you only have one incontrovertible data point to argue from—but it is as wide and deep as the space that holds space.
Tvash: Are Japan and the Scandinavian countries substantially non-religious? Yes. Are the populations of Japan and the Scandinavian countries democratic, prosperous, and exhibit a high degree of contentment? Yes. Religion is therefore not necessary for a healthy, democratic, prosperous society. BAM. Easy as cherry pie.
Hardly, my friend. Not good methodology. At least it breaks many guidelines for valid reasoning within an empirical framework. To you, I would recommend borrowing HFCS’s copy of Kahnemann. His last book talks an awful lot about how to come to statistically valid conclusions. I am unaware that anyone has made an attempt to prove any argument like that academically. Why? You can’t set up the test. (Uh, that is if you care about such things.)
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 19, 2014 - 06:27pm PT
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we're all humans here, free to act rightly or wrongly - all subjectively. stalin did beat Hitler, chalk a big one for the regime. but there or anywhere - its humans doing their thing.
corners are cozy
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 19, 2014 - 07:22pm PT
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corners are cozy
They sure are, though you won't find any cigars in em...enjoy.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 19, 2014 - 07:39pm PT
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Yay, twitter caves to pressure, @jihadistjoe (Abrahamic religion Islamicist satiric version of Stephen Colbert (R)) reinstated. :)
Welcome back, Joe!
"Bashing Muslims is wrong. Criticizing bad beliefs in any religion is always right. You are not your parents' beliefs. You can reject them."
retweet
"The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship." -George Bernard Shaw
.....
Huge "philosophical" discussion underway now in the ME, mostly in Pak, if it's permissable to target kids in jihad. Hadith experts are battling it out.
"The new ISIS anti drone system has already sold 2,000 units & only cost 3 prepubescent slave girls, or 1 if a virgin" @jihadistjoe
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 20, 2014 - 07:50am PT
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Dignus wrote,
"So you were saying humans are not wired for religion..."
Yeah, there IS a comprehension problem here, lol!
'Sweet jesus you are obtuse... Fak, you are hopeless.' -dmt retweet
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 20, 2014 - 08:05am PT
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He's still making the fatal error of projecting himself onto everything outside of himself.
All he sees is himself, HFCS, and not "as it is" ......
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