The Velocity of Mentation
DharmaTroll
efforts to understand the speed of the human nerves - a quest that has
lasted for well over one hundred years. Although our experience of the
world seems instantaneous, different nerves in the body work at
different speeds and, of course, cover different distances - to the
point where taller people experience a slight sensory lag compared to
shorter people owing to the greater length of some of the nerve
pathways.
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/dec/16-the-brain-what-is-speed-of-thought/
The Brain: What Is the Speed of Thought?
From the December 2009 issue,
published online December 16, 2009
Faster than a bird and slower than sound. But that may be besides the
point: Efficiency and timing seem to be more important anyway.
by Carl Zimmer
When Samuel Morse established the first commercial telegraph, in 1844,
he dramatically changed our expectations about the pace of life. One
of the first telegraph messages came from that year’s Democratic
National Convention in Baltimore, where the delegates had picked
Senator Silas Wright as their vice presidential nominee. The president
of the convention telegraphed Wright in Washington, D.C., to see if he
would accept. Wright immediately wired back: No. Incredulous that a
message could fly almost instantly down a wire, the delegates
adjourned and sent a flesh-and-blood committee by train to confirm
Wright’s response—which was, of course, the same. From such beginnings
came today’s high-speed, networked society.
Less famously but no less significantly, the telegraph also
transformed the way we think about the pace of our inner life. Morse’s
invention debuted just as researchers were starting to make sense of
the nervous system, and telegraph wires were an inspiring model of how
nerves might work. After all, nerves and telegraph wires were both
long strands, and they both used electricity to transmit signals.
Scientists knew that telegraph signals did not travel instantaneously;
in one experiment, it took a set of dots and dashes a quarter of a
second to travel 900 miles down a telegraph wire. Perhaps, the early
brain investigators considered, it took time for nerves to send
signals too. And perhaps we could even quantify that time.
The notion that the speed of thought could be measured, just like the
density of a rock, was shocking. Yet that is exactly what scientists
did. In 1850 German physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz attached wires
to a frog’s leg muscle so that when the muscle contracted it broke a
circuit. He found that it took a tenth of a second for a signal to
travel down the nerve to the muscle. In another experiment he applied
a mild shock to people’s skin and had them gesture as soon as they
felt it. It took time for signals to travel down human nerves, too. In
fact, Helmholtz discovered it took longer for people to respond to a
shock in the toe than to one at the base of the spine because the path
to the brain was longer.
Helmholtz’s results clashed with people’s gut instinct that they
experienced the world as it happened, with no lag between sensation
and awareness. “This is altogether a delusion,” German physiologist
Emil Du Bois-Reymond declared in 1868. “It appears that ‘quick as
thought’ is, after all, not so very quick.”
With their simple tools, Helmholtz and others could manage only crude
measures of the speed of thought. Some of them came up with rates that
were twice as fast as others. Researchers have been trying to get more
precise results ever since. Today it is clear why they have had such a
hard time. Our nerves operate at many different speeds, reflecting the
biological challenges of wiring all the parts of the body together. In
some ways evolution has fine-tuned our brains to run like a digital
superhighway, but in other ways it has left us with a Pony Express.
Thought may not be instantaneous, but it is rapid enough to seem like
it is most of the time. The need for speed in the nervous system is
not hard to understand. Many animals depend on their nerves to sense
danger and to escape from predators; the predators, in turn, depend on
their nerves to mount a fast attack. But speed also influences us in
surprising ways.
In one common experiment for studying the speed of thought,
researchers briefly show test subjects a lopsided, upside-down U and
then ask them which leg of the figure is longer. It turns out that the
subjects’ reaction times say a lot about their lives in general.
People with faster responses tend to score higher on intelligence
tests. Some psychologists have argued that a high processing speed in
the brain is a vital ingredient for intelligence. Responses slow down
when people suffer certain psychological disorders like depression.
More puzzling, people with sluggish reaction times are more likely to
die of incidents like strokes or heart attacks.
High speed is also crucial to the way we perceive the world. Three or
four times a second, our eyes dart in a new direction, allowing us
only about a tenth of a second to make sense of what we see in each
spot. And we make remarkably good use of that time. Recently,
neuroscientists Michelle Greene and Aude Oliva of MIT ran an
experiment in which they briefly showed people a series of landscapes
and then asked questions about the scenes. For example, was there a
forest in the picture? Did it look like a hot place? People did well
on these tests even when they glimpsed each of the pictures for less
than one tenth of a second.
We are able to understand the world so quickly because of some clever
speed boosters built into our eyes. Tim Gollisch of the Max Planck
Institute of Neurobiology in Germany recently discovered evidence of
one of these. He extracted retinal tissue from amphibians and exposed
the living tissue to a series of simple geometric patterns. Then he
recorded how the nerve cells fired in response. He noticed that each
neuron started firing a little earlier or a little later, depending on
which picture he showed. The shifts were distinctive enough that he
could predict a shape just by looking at the timing of the neural
reaction. Although this test involved amphibians, Gollisch proposes
that the results would hold true for human brains as well. They might
not wait for all the signals from the retina to arrive before they
begin building a representation of the world. They might get a head
start with the very first bits of information.
Using a fast code helps speed up thought, but to a large extent the
brain—like a telegraph network—really depends on efficient pathways.
Impulses from the retinas, for instance, have to travel up the optic
nerve to the thalamus, which relays the signals to the visual cortex
in the back of the brain. Then they ripple forward to other brain
centers, where we use the visual information to make decisions and
take actions. One way to hasten that journey is to use fast wiring. In
1854 physicist William Thomson showed that the wider a telegraph wire,
the faster its signal and the farther the signal could travel. That
same principle applies to nerves. The fattest axons, such as Betz
cells in the brain, are 200 times thicker than the thinnest ones.
Another way to speed up wires is to insulate them, and again the same
goes for neurons. Some neurons are wrapped in an insulating material
known as myelin. In the heavily myelinated neurons running down the
spine, signals can travel up to 180 miles an hour. In neurons that
lack myelin, signals travel just over half a mile an hour. Nerve
fibers that carry pain are among the slowest. Pain can take many
seconds to reach the brain, explaining why sometimes we seem to react
to a stubbed toe in slow motion.
In principle, our thoughts could race far more efficiently if all the
axons in our brains were thick. But the human brain has at least a
quarter of a million miles of wiring—more than enough to reach from
Earth to the moon—and is already packed tight. Sam Wang, a Princeton
University neuroscientist, calculated how big our brain would be if it
were built with thick axons. “Making an entire brain out of them would
create heads so large that we couldn’t fit through doorways,” he
concluded. Such a brain would also consume a tremendous amount of
energy.
Given the constraints of biology and physics, our brains appear to
have evolved to run very efficiently. For instance, neurons in the
brain tend to be joined together into small networks, which are then
linked to one another by relatively few long-range connections. This
kind of network needs less wiring than other arrangements, and
therefore shortens the distance signals need to travel.
Our brains also speed up through practice. Rene Marois, a neuro
scientist at Vanderbilt University, measured this effect by having
people perform a basic multitasking test: They had to identify which
of two possible faces appeared on a computer screen while responding
to one of two possible sounds. In just two weeks of training
(encompassing eight to twelve practice sessions), the test-takers were
able to do both tasks in rapid succession almost as quickly as doing
either one on its own. With practice, Marois speculates, the neurons
in the brain’s bottleneck regions, primarily in the prefrontal cortex,
require fewer signals and less time to produce the right response.
Sometimes our brains actually need to slow down, however. In the
retina, the neurons near the center are much shorter than the ones at
the edges, and yet somehow all of the signals manage to reach the next
layer of neurons in the retina at the same time. One way the body may
do this is by holding back certain nerve signals—for instance, by
putting less myelin on the relevant axons. Another possible way to
make nerve impulses travel more slowly involves growing longer axons,
so that signals have a greater distance to travel.
In fact, reducing the speed of thought in just the right places is
crucial to the fundamentals of consciousness. Our moment-to-moment
awareness of our inner selves and the outer world depends on the
thalamus, a region near the core of the brain, which sends out
pacemaker-like signals to the brain’s outer layers. Even though some
of the axons reaching out from the thalamus are short and some are
long, their signals arrive throughout all parts of the brain at the
same time—a good thing, since otherwise we would not be able to think
straight.
So when Helmholtz recognized that thought moves at a finite rate,
faster than a bird but slower than sound, he missed a fundamental
difference between the brain and a telegraph. In our heads, speed is
not always the most important thing. Sometimes what really matters is
timing.
Appledog
> Discover Magazine has an excellent Carl Zimmer piece discussing
> efforts to understand the speed of the human nerves
Huh? This has been understood for an *extremely* long time (by
scientific standards, anyways).
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/DavidParizh.shtml for example
Anyways great article, makes you think, and contains many interesting
truths. Could be a great discussion piece if you're interested :) I'd
love to hear your commentary on it anyways.
-
Charles E Hardwidge
news:03c03765-7cbe-414b...@z41g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
> Discover Magazine has an excellent Carl Zimmer piece discussing
> efforts to understand the speed of the human nerves - a quest that has
> lasted for well over one hundred years. Although our experience of the
> world seems instantaneous, different nerves in the body work at
> different speeds and, of course, cover different distances - to the
> point where taller people experience a slight sensory lag compared to
> shorter people owing to the greater length of some of the nerve
> pathways.
>
> http://discovermagazine.com/2009/dec/16-the-brain-what-is-speed-of-thought/
>
> The Brain: What Is the Speed of Thought?
> From the December 2009 issue,
> published online December 16, 2009
Can't say I agree with this obsession about the brain, or cross-posting.
What people don't get is it collapses the market. Most people just want
something useful and a fairly even environment. If the photo newsgroups just
talked about lens theory and cross-posted so everyone was confused or trolls
could magnify their shit they'd be as empty as in here. Similar wankage
caused the biggest recession for a century.
Strategically, these groups are a similar concern to, say, climate change
and oil dependency. The traditional left and right (and vested interests
that align under those umbrellas) aren't handling it too well but it's
obvious that whatever happens new technologies and international political
attitudes are necessary. This is why I'd favour more useful and consumable
topics, and less smarmy cleverness from the peanut gallery.
How the brain works and the speed of thought is as much a distraction as
money and trans-national corporations. It's the tail wagging the dog. On a
more mundane level management arrogance and middle-class tax breaks mirror
this. People have forgotten the value of purpose and greasing the wheels
just as these groups fiddle with pseudo intellectualism and pithy little
wind-ups. But the message is clear: adapt, change, and invest or... die.
Topic skipped. FU's trimmed to alt.zen.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
I'll check it out. Thanks for the link.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:03c03765-7cbe-414b...@z41g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Discover Magazine has an excellent Carl Zimmer piece discussing
> > efforts to understand the speed of the human nerves - a quest that has
> > lasted for well over one hundred years. Although our experience of the
> > world seems instantaneous, different nerves in the body work at
> > different speeds and, of course, cover different distances - to the
> > point where taller people experience a slight sensory lag compared to
> > shorter people owing to the greater length of some of the nerve
> > pathways.
>
>
> > The Brain: What Is the Speed of Thought?
> > From the December 2009 issue,
> > published online December 16, 2009
>
> Can't say I agree with this obsession about the brain, or cross-posting.
> as money and trans-national corporations.
I hope not, Charles. A lot of folks on these Buddhist lists go for a
soul view, like the nutter Keynes, who babbles that the brain is just
a lump of meat and is not conscious, but rather that consciousness is
'simple' and is caused by his soul (which he calls 'Mind' with a silly
capital letter). While your point is noted, even just getting a rise
out of Keynes would alone make the post worthwhile, you see, and not
equivalent to boring off-topic posts about trans-national
corporations.
In other threads, I'm arguing that waking life is real and dreams are
not because consciousness is a function of or emergent property of
physical brains: the soulists, transcendentalists, idealists, and
random woo-woo-ists come out of the woodwork and insult me and accuse
me of 'scientism', and 'objectivism', and so forth. It's fun. So with
this interesting article, I'm waving a red towel in front of them.
It's meant to provoke them, not you! It's the same as posting the new
pretty photos of the Earth from the Hubble on a list full of flat-
Earth believers, you see.
And the interesting details I found fascinating, such as, "So when
Helmholtz recognized that thought moves at a finite rate, faster than
a bird but slower than sound, he missed a fundamental difference
between the brain and a telegraph. In our heads, speed is not always
the most important thing. Sometimes what really matters is timing."
There is an irony here, that the brain has to get the timing right and
tweak all the signals to create the grand illusion that we experience,
so that this illusion will then correctly correspond to the physical
world of real, mind-independent cats, trees, stones, and stars. I love
it. Note the interesting complexity that is needed and how it takes
billions of neurons to fire each moment and with the right timing in
order for there to be a moment of "consciusness" and contrast that
with the nutter's claim that experience is "simple" and "direct" and
caused by a soul or Mind or whatever ineffable woo-woo instead of the
incredibly awesome and complex brain processes: the nutter-talk from
Keynes, as well as some of the stuff that folks like Robert slip in,
suddenly sounds as silly as talk from flat-earthists and creationists
by comparison.
So I was hoping that the folks in the 'experience' and 'consciousness'
threads might take the bait and bite the hook I had thrown out there.
I didn't expect you to take the bait, but, given that metaphor, I
can't resist saying: “Sorry Charlie. StarKist wants tuna that tastes
good, not tuna with good taste.”
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
> So I was hoping that the folks in the 'experience' and 'consciousness'
> threads might take the bait and bite the hook I had thrown out there.
A properly focused topic is better. People really need to keep their shit in
the box and learn that not everyone is interested nor appreciates them
fucking everyone else over. If anyone doubts it do a head count over the
timeline and count the stickability of new visitors. It's effectively zero.
To me, these topics are as boring as some dweeb going on about light theory
in photography or, say, Newtoniasm in game physics. Sure, it's great in
itself but without application or a sense of the social context you're
discussing it in you can lose people very fast. In practical terms drilling
it too hard lowers understanding and actively puts people off.
I've just spent the last few days looking at buying a new tripod. The issues
that kicked up and how I dealt with them was more relevant to what I want to
*DO* and how I *FEEL* about stuff. Learning and reflection on this is way,
way more important to me than the obsessive whiny spats in here. It's also
likely to provoke more meaningful *understanding* and *change*.
When was the last time anyone in these groups took an interest in *anything*
outside their little box that didn't involve the clique? When was the last
time anyone gave a shit for anyone outside the clique? I'm pressed to think
of a single instance in as long as I can remember. What has the "scrutiny"
and "testing" gained? Newsgroups on par with Zimbabwe.
FU trimmed to alt.zen (again).
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Hollywood Lee
> When was the last time anyone in these groups took an interest in
> *anything*
> outside their little box that didn't involve the clique? When was the last
> time anyone gave a shit for anyone outside the clique? I'm pressed to think
> of a single instance in as long as I can remember.
Fascinating (and perhaps revealing) question, in that it assumes that
(a) anyone in these groups would necessarily mention here what they are
interested in in the outside world, and (b) giving a shit about someone
could manifest itself only here on these small newsgroups.
I'd suggest you turn the computer off and go for a walk, boyo.
Charles E Hardwidge
news:hgfpro$r0q$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
I'm not sure I'm the one who needs to go for a walk. These principles are
universal but the obsessives and socially incompetent will fight against
this in these groups because it challenges them. It exposes their bullshit
and procrastination for what it is.
FU trimmed to alt.zen from sneaky FU expansion.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
zenworm
wrote:
> "Hollywood Lee" <hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Why point a radar gun at something that is not moving?
ZN :D _/|\_
absolute permanent perfection overflowing without action
Lee
"Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:dyKWm.16535$Ym4....@text.news.virginmedia.com...
> I'm not sure I'm the one who needs to go for a walk.
how about a crawl then?
> These principles are
> universal but the obsessives and socially incompetent will fight against
> this in these groups because it challenges them.
and you're of the school of thought
that challenges met builds character?
the people in these groups already have
an overdose of characterization.
> It exposes their bullshit and procrastination for what it is.
then after their morphogenetic bullshit is
exposed we can grow psychological
metaphysical roses from it. always look
on the sunny side charles.
> FU trimmed to alt.zen from sneaky FU expansion.
those rat bastards !
Charles E Hardwidge
"Lee" <origi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:LPednQHiv-IZ47bW...@earthlink.com...
Thanks for proving my thesis correct. Why do it? Power and greed. Why don't
you all just fuck off to absfg where you belong? This isn't Zen or
Buddhism. It's just ordinary everyday trolling.
FU trimmed to alt.zen and topic title restored.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Lee
"Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> Thanks for proving my thesis correct.
anything to help
> Why do it?
old latency doingness addictions from
the shadow dog ghoststrings of the subconscious
side of a sordid and felicitaciously suspicious
genetic heritage. i'm not living, i'm being lived.
> Power and greed.
everybody needs a hobby
> Why don't
> you all just fuck off to absfg where you belong?
lackluster projectional belongingness addiction
duly noted and terminally recycled. what else ya
got?
> This isn't Zen or
> Buddhism.
are you sure?
> It's just ordinary everyday trolling.
hey that's all they had on sale. i tried
to get a quantum chromodynamically
reengineered maze echo pathway
trolling package but there was like a
two year wait.
> FU trimmed to alt.zen and topic title restored.
my hero
Charles E Hardwidge
> "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:DmLWm.16548$Ym4....@text.news.virginmedia.com...
>> This isn't Zen or Buddhism.
>
> are you sure?
>
>> It's just ordinary everyday trolling.
Quite sure and it either shows a complete misunderstanding of the world or a
wilful ignorance. What has being a rigid minded sociopath got to do with
Zen or Buddhism? What makes you think you're winning when nobody reads your
stuff and turns their back on you? Go on, explain yourself.
FU trimmed to alt.zen and topic title restored.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Appledog
I am interested in how this information can be practically used. Can
it be? I think so. I will be doing some scientific experiments on this
"soon". Could turn out very interesting :)
-
Appledog
How do you know it's not moving unless you point the radar gun at it?
You know, it's interesting, that a radar gun could also be called a
radar receiver, but people think of it as something which outputs
waves moreso than takes them in. Hmm, wonder if there's any crossover
knowledge here ;-) Nahh, fuck it.
-
Hollywood Lee
> "Hollywood Lee" <hollyw...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:hgfpro$r0q$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> On 12/18/2009 4:23 AM, Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
>>
>>> When was the last time anyone in these groups took an interest in
>>> *anything* outside their little box that didn't involve the clique? When
>>> was the last time anyone gave a shit for anyone outside the clique? I'm
>>> pressed to think of a single instance in as long as I can remember.
>>
>> Fascinating (and perhaps revealing) question, in that it assumes that (a)
>> anyone in these groups would necessarily mention here what they are
>> interested in in the outside world, and (b) giving a shit about someone
>> could manifest itself only here on these small newsgroups.
>>
>> I'd suggest you turn the computer off and go for a walk, boyo.
>
> I'm not sure I'm the one who needs to go for a walk.
perhaps. perhaps not. Though personally if I began to assume that all
of the posters to an online forum limited their life and action only to
that forum, and then wanted to whine about it, I might want to take a
breather. What you choose and why is your call.
> These principles are
> universal but the obsessives and socially incompetent will fight against
> this in these groups because it challenges them. It exposes their
> bullshit and procrastination for what it is.
>
> FU trimmed to alt.zen from sneaky FU expansion.
>
Follow-up expanded back as long as you keep replying into this forum.
If you want to reply only in alt.zen, please be my guest. Since I don't
subscribe there, we can both be happy.
Charles E Hardwidge
news:b7f9b094-cc51-4e3f...@z10g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> I am interested in how this information can be practically used. Can
> it be? I think so. I will be doing some scientific experiments on this
> "soon". Could turn out very interesting :)
The substance of this thread branch just sailed right past you didn't it? I
had a nutter friend who banged on about his FTL theories and cosmology. Fast
forward a decade and he's fat and balding, and his "experiments" and
grandiose ego haven't contributed a single atom of understanding let alone
moved a single atom.
Likewise, these groups are just more ingrained and clapped out. What about
photography, business, art, movie making, rock climbing, foreign languages,
industrial design, baking cakes, decorating, walking the dog, and a million
other more meaningful and relevant aspects (or metaphors) to life? Putting
it under some obsessive microscope is missing the point.
EPIC FAIL.
FU trimmed to alt.zen
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Charles E Hardwidge
The problem is scattergun cross-posting at the top. If you don't want to
follow it into alt.zen then don't reply, or trim your FU's accordingly. And
notify people when you change them.
FU trimmed to alt.zen from gay FU expansion.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Appledog
wrote:
> "Appledog" <oliver.rich...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:b7f9b094-cc51-4e3f...@z10g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>
> > I am interested in how this information can be practically used. Can
> > it be? I think so. I will be doing some scientific experiments on this
> > "soon". Could turn out very interesting :)
>
> The substance of this thread branch just sailed right past you didn't it?
You appear enlightened so I won't give you any leads you don't need.
Right? Okay.
> I had a nutter friend who banged on about his FTL theories and cosmology. Fast
> forward a decade and he's fat and balding, and his "experiments" and
> grandiose ego haven't contributed a single atom of understanding let alone
> moved a single atom.
Yeah but I'm not bald.
Has that simple fact escaped you?
> Likewise, these groups are just more ingrained and clapped out. What about
> photography, business, art, movie making, rock climbing, foreign languages,
> industrial design, baking cakes, decorating, walking the dog, and a million
> other more meaningful and relevant aspects (or metaphors) to life? Putting
> it under some obsessive microscope is missing the point.
>
> EPIC FAIL.
Yeah but I am not bald. Do you understand?
> FU trimmed to alt.zen
Are you complaining this was crossposted? Hmm. Please keep in mind
some people active in this discussion, whose viewpoints I greatly
respect, do not read these posts from alt.zen. Sorry if that bothers
you, but I see no reason to over-respect you and under-respect someone
else.
-
Hollywood Lee
Gay FU expansion. LOL.
halfawake
what a moron!
I'm on apz. Why the hell would I trim myself out of seeing my own replies?
Just keep putting your little controls and correctives in place,
Charles. Try to take charge if it amuses you.
Robert
= = = = = = = =
halfawake
Title revamped. By the way, you did not trim the header.
Robert
halfawake
oh that was a good one, Hardwidge. Once in a while you really come through.
Robert
- - - - - - -
Charles E Hardwidge
Do you a clue about what motivates people and basic usenet conventions? Did
you get the meaning of the earlier post? Do you have a clue how
cross-posting screws up newsgroup traffic? Have you stopped to consider this
isn't just about you but other people as well?
Mostly, these groups are played by a hardcore clique who obsess about their
fantasies of being neurologists and who push their nasal presence in the way
as if they're the star of the ball. What part of drop dead boring and
anti-social don't they get?
These groups are toxic and barren because of this type of boorish and
trollish behaviour. In what way is this Zen or Buddhism, or even relevant?
It's like the eternal writers club who sit around yapping and who've been
taken over by a niche genre but never produce anything publishable.
How many different subjects do I have to list? How many different people are
there on the planet that share these and other interests. How many of them
do you think wanted to hear you bunch yap, yap, and yap about the fucking
brain and watch you squeeze it into every goddamn crack?
Take a look. There's even FEWER of you left this year and NOBODY new.
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 18, 1:09 am, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
>wrote:
>>
>> Can't say I agree with this obsession about the brain, or cross-posting.
>> How the brain works and the speed of thought is as much a distraction
>> as money and trans-national corporations.
>
>I hope not, Charles. A lot of folks on these Buddhist lists go for a
>soul view,
"Soul" is an abstraction added on to your contraption of
abstractions called 'science'. (Those things unseen and
unseeable but inferred to be the basis of everything in
your new 'scientific' theology.) Now if 'soul' were a
nickel in your pocket, you'd respect it. But 'soul' is
just a perjorative for that imaginary thing you have
made up just to despise it and call it imaginary.
So the Troll of Trollpa is hamburger in his head?
With ketchup, mustard, pickle and onion? And as
such a sagacious sandwich Trollpa sallies forth to
declare the 'whichness of what'? Remarkable bravery
not to say vainglorious chutzpa in one so pitifully petty.
(Who declares any other view a 'soul' and anathema.
Hark! It's the Sandwich Inquisition. Which surely
no one ever expected!)
>like the nutter Keynes, who babbles that the brain is just
>a lump of meat and is not conscious, but rather that consciousness is
>'simple' and is caused by his soul (which he calls 'Mind' with a silly
>capital letter).
The brain IS meat. Particularly Troll brain.
Since in his opinion there is no difference between
mind and meat, DramaTroll is a proud meat head.
And he's not shy about public demonstration of that fact.
As nourishing protein and fat, he has calories but absolutely
no honor or shame. (Those inconsequential things
of no physical existence.)
>While your point is noted, even just getting a rise
>out of Keynes would alone make the post worthwhile, you see, and not
>equivalent to boring off-topic posts about trans-national
>corporations.
>
>In other threads, I'm arguing that waking life is real
>and dreams are not
Practically speaking, in the actual event what is the difference
you are calling 'real' and 'unreal'? Isn't this an ad hoc, always-
too-late distinction that can never be applied in action?
Since it is useless in the face of any event, why make
such a pointless distinction?
>because consciousness is a function of or emergent property of
>physical brains:
An unprovable assumption. (And ultimately a just-so
story on the level of 'How The Elephant Got His Trunk'.
It is ridiculous, improbable, and explains nothing.)
However you offer to demonstrate the truth of it by
shooting me in the head, and Lee offers to help by running
me over with his speeding truck. I think your scientific methods
are a little crude to say the least. Sort of on the level of that eminent
philosopher Jack the Ripper.
>the soulists, transcendentalists, idealists, and
>random woo-woo-ists come out of the woodwork and insult me and accuse
>me of 'scientism', and 'objectivism', and so forth. It's fun. So with
>this interesting article, I'm waving a red towel in front of them.
>It's meant to provoke them, not you! It's the same as posting the new
>pretty photos of the Earth from the Hubble on a list full of flat-
>Earth believers, you see.
>
In buddhism inference is called 'delusion'. You agree to that
in the case of believers in ghosts, gods, and demons, but
certainly not in the case of the unseen and inferred of the
holy scientific quarkhood. In that you are a True Believer
and dedicated Holy Warrior.
One might ask, "For what purpose and to what end?"
But the Troll would be unable to fabricate an answer.
He might say "for fun". But what is the fun for?
For nothing? (Now we're getting somewhere maybe.)
Direct experience is all that anyone has to go by, and in
buddhism particularly, the more direct the better. It turns
out that gain and loss, birth and death are necessary inferences
in the materialist 'model' of existence. That's 'model' of
existence -- an added on explanation of what life is and
what it means. These models are neither true nor false,
but totally irrelevant to the naked facts of our 'life' in
this world. Furthermore, in buddhism the reliance on
such mentation (a ghastly ornament) is the cause of
delusion -- greed, anger, hate, cruelty, fear, and suffering.
Those things you delight in propagating, rather than
diminishing in yourself and especially in others. For what
reason are you a deliberate trouble maker? Is it because you
are a masturbating sadist or just a complete and total fool?
Do you know what you're doing or why?
No. You do not. Neither do you care at all.
Perhaps you are truly a meat machine after all...
>And the interesting details I found fascinating, such as, "So when
>Helmholtz recognized that thought moves at a finite rate, faster than
>a bird but slower than sound, he missed a fundamental difference
>between the brain and a telegraph. In our heads, speed is not always
>the most important thing. Sometimes what really matters is timing."
>
>There is an irony here, that the brain has to get the timing right and
>tweak all the signals to create the grand illusion that we experience,
>so that this illusion will then correctly correspond to the physical
>world of real, mind-independent cats, trees, stones, and stars. I love
>it. Note the interesting complexity that is needed and how it takes
>billions of neurons to fire each moment and with the right timing in
>order for there to be a moment of "consciusness" and contrast that
>with the nutter's claim that experience is "simple" and "direct" and
>caused by a soul or Mind or whatever ineffable woo-woo instead of the
>incredibly awesome and complex brain processes: the nutter-talk from
>Keynes, as well as some of the stuff that folks like Robert slip in,
>suddenly sounds as silly as talk from flat-earthists and creationists
>by comparison.
The New Theology is it?
Well, happy Chemical Season-ing to you, Meathead.
May your electrons be merry and your protons replete.
Quark the halls with leptons and bosons, fa la la la la, la la la laaa.
(What's for dinner? BRAINZ!)
Quark, quark.
Appledog
wrote:
> "Appledog" <oliver.rich...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:a04459bb-e5a1-4ba8...@u1g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Dec 18, 11:05 pm, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
> > wrote:
> >> FU trimmed to alt.zen
>
> > Are you complaining this was crossposted? Hmm. Please keep in mind
> > some people active in this discussion, whose viewpoints I greatly
> > respect, do not read these posts from alt.zen. Sorry if that bothers
> > you, but I see no reason to over-respect you and under-respect someone
> > else.
>
> Do you a clue about what motivates people and basic usenet conventions? Did
> you get the meaning of the earlier post? Do you have a clue how
> cross-posting screws up newsgroup traffic? Have you stopped to consider this
> isn't just about you but other people as well?
Yes, of course - other people such as robert from APZ. So sorry, but
this isn't all about you, Charles :)
> Mostly, these groups are played by a hardcore clique who obsess about their
> fantasies of being neurologists and who push their nasal presence in the way
> as if they're the star of the ball. What part of drop dead boring and
> anti-social don't they get?
I don't know. Heck, I don't even care. I prefer to do things in the
real world than obsess over what makes people post on usenet. But
that's just me.
> These groups are toxic and barren because of this type of boorish and
> trollish behaviour. In what way is this Zen or Buddhism, or even relevant?
Well, if you ask the right questions maybe you will find out.
> It's like the eternal writers club who sit around yapping and who've been
> taken over by a niche genre but never produce anything publishable.
Lol, spot on bro.
> How many different subjects do I have to list? How many different people are
> there on the planet that share these and other interests. How many of them
> do you think wanted to hear you bunch yap, yap, and yap about the fucking
> brain and watch you squeeze it into every goddamn crack?
Dunno, I guess, take the number of subscribers to alt.zen and subtract
one (you).. hmm, wow, 469 people!
And that's just Google groups. There's probably another few hundred on
other services like giganews listening in.
> Take a look. There's even FEWER of you left this year and NOBODY new.
Well of course, usenet as a whole has been on a decline for over a
decade, and we're experiencing that here too. It isn't because people
here yap about the fucking brain, dude. I mean shit, how stupid do you
think we are? lol!
-
Charles E Hardwidge
> Well of course, usenet as a whole has been on a decline for over a
> decade, and we're experiencing that here too. It isn't because people
> here yap about the fucking brain, dude. I mean shit, how stupid do you
> think we are? lol!
Do I have to pull up admissions from the clique that people were driven
away, or that I've watched new people come here only to be ignored or scared
off? The fingerprints of the clique are on these newsgroups decline like
man's fingerprints are on climate change and both are heading the same way.
YOU might be interested in BRAIN, BRAIN, BRAIN and think you're "in" with
the clique but take another look. Take a good, long, and hard look. Take a
look at what you're obstructing. Take a look at who you're NOT attracting.
Can you (for once in your life) change the subject or give a shit?
How stupid are you? NORTH KOREA fucking stupid. ZIMBABWE fucking stupid.
SUDAN fucking stupid. MERCHANT BANKER fucking stupid. CAR MANUFACTURER
stupid. VALVE TELEVISION MANUFACTURER stupid. LOSER LIVING IN A BEDSIT
stupid. PSEUDO-NEUROLOGIST WITH AUTISM stupid.
Hollywood Lee
Right. Usenet always was sort of a geek medium of expression and
discussion, though in its golden age 15 years ago, a lot of non-geek
types signed on when a usent service was provided by most ISPs. Now
that free usenet access is not easily available to the non-geeks or
available only through the horrible google interface, few new people
come looking. Couple that with preferences for social sites that are
far more instantaneous, with ability to embed photos, videos, music, and
on, and usenet was always doomed.
personally, I'm shocked there is anyone here at all, irrespective of
content.
Hollywood Lee
So, you attract the good looking girls by showing them your belly fat
and calling them whores? Good advice, dude.
Gay FU additions
Charles E Hardwidge
>> FU trimmed to alt.zen (again).
>
> Gay FU additions
Now you've just gone from ignorance to wilful ignorance (and insulting).
Kinda proves my point. Again. Only this time you're just trying to raise the
stakes and spread it around. That's the fingerprint of a typical troll who's
just a victim of themselves in some backwater usenet ghetto.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Hollywood Lee
Cool.
Gay, backwater, ghetto, FU additions.
Lee
"Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> Quite sure and it either shows a complete misunderstanding of the world or
> a
> wilful ignorance.
you've violated julian's two option
minimum restriction. apparently it is you who
shows either a complete misunderstanding
of the world or a willful ignorance.
>What has being a rigid minded sociopath got to do with
> Zen or Buddhism?
it may just give the example of how
not to proceed with spiritual
introspection.
>What makes you think you're winning when nobody reads your
> stuff and turns their back on you?
is that what's happening?
oh woe is me.
> Go on, explain yourself.
the devil made me do it
> FU trimmed to alt.zen and topic title restored.
whew ! that was close !
> Charles E Hardwidge
if you made up a name like that
you'd get more laughs than you
already do.
zenworm
wrote:
> "Appledog" <oliver.rich...@gmail.com> wrote in message
"EPIC FAIL"
put it all down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV0tCphFMr8
Julian
>
> "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:snMWm.16565$Ym4....@text.news.virginmedia.com...
>> Quite sure and it either shows a complete misunderstanding of the
>> world or a
>> wilful ignorance.
>
> you've violated julian's two option
> minimum restriction.
3
DharmaTroll
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:17:25 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Dec 18, 1:09 am, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
> >wrote:
>
> >> Can't say I agree with this obsession about the brain, or cross-posting.
> >> How the brain works and the speed of thought is as much a distraction
> >> as money and trans-national corporations.
>
> >I hope not, Charles. A lot of folks on these Buddhist lists go for a
> >soul view,
>
> "Soul" is an abstraction added on to your contraption of
> abstractions called 'science'. (Those things unseen and
> unseeable but inferred to be the basis of everything in
> your new 'scientific' theology.)
Whew Who! It's the Nutter Keynes!
Knew you couldn't resist.
Once again, I have no beliefs or 'theology', for you alone posit all
the capital letter terms and talk of what can't be seen (i.e. 'Mind'
and 'Undifferentiated' and 'Transcendent'). I love it when you try to
reflect back on me your own woo-woo and claim that I'm just like you
but a woo-woo-ist of a different flavor. Which would be true if I were
a Hare Krishna or a Mooney, or a Scientologist. But I'm not. My
heroes, such as Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, are not theologists
at all. They are more like plumbers, who make sure that one can flush
the toilet of skepticism.
Here, in the above rant, you seem to be questioning only scientific
realism (scientific types such as electrons and photons and the like).
Because of the mathematical precision and predictability, as well as
extensions of the senses, such as electron microscopes, the Hubble
telescope, etc. we have good reason to infer such entities, though I
always take them as a rough and temporary model that will always be
replaced by ever more refined ones.
It's actually your usual denial of common sense realism (that mind-
independent tokens exist of types such as 'cats', 'trees', 'stones',
and 'stars') that I find baffling. Being agnostic on scientific
realism isn't a problem for me at all: but denying the existence of
gold, for instance, and claiming that it is only in the mind and made
by the mind -- well, that's why I think you're a nutter.
> Now if 'soul' were a nickel in your pocket, you'd respect it.
Yeah, that's true, as it would be real and tangible (even though as
currency it only would hold instrumental value socially, and I'd have
to trade it for something else with intrinsic value that I could eat
or smoke).
> But 'soul' is just a perjorative for that imaginary thing
...that you call "Mind" or "Nondual" or "Undifferentiated" and so
forth. That all means 'soul' in the most general and loose sense.
Again, if you say there is only one of'em, you're going Hinduist, and
if you say there are lots of'em, you are going Christianist. Doesn't
matter to me what the flavor of woo-woo, actually: I'm just saying
that everything that is real is simply composed of matter/energy/
space, or is an emergent property or pattern of matter/energy/space,
and there is no evidence for any kind of extra soul-stuff or higher
planes or realms to explain consciousness or the universe.
> So the Troll of Trollpa is hamburger in his head?
> With ketchup, mustard, pickle and onion?
In your churlish way, you are saying "I'm alienated from Nature and my
body and can't handle the idea that my gooey meat-head is conscious.
Therefore, I will insult you and posit a woo-woo soul, and then say
'there, it's simple and explained'." But it isn't simple and you've
only "passed the buck" from brains to your woo-woo soul (whatever you
are calling it -- "Mind" or whatever).
> >like the nutter Keynes, who babbles that the brain is just
> >a lump of meat and is not conscious, but rather that consciousness is
> >'simple' and is caused by his soul (which he calls 'Mind' with a silly
> >capital letter).
>
> The brain IS meat. Particularly Troll brain.
But conscious meat, and very intelligent, wise meat. Maybe not as
awesome as Einstein's brain, but more awesome than your pea-brain.
Heh.
> Since in his opinion there is no difference between
> mind and meat, DramaTroll is a proud meat head.
It's not a matter of 'difference' since mind isn't a 'thing' and so I
don't have to posit some kind of spiritual hardware to be added to
brains; rather, minding is what my brain does. You really need to add
some verbs to your vocabulary.
> Practically speaking, in the actual event what is the difference
> you are calling 'real' and 'unreal'? Isn't this an ad hoc, always-
> too-late distinction that can never be applied in action?
Not at all. Close your eyes and visualize a truck right now coming
toward you. That is 'unreal'. You can visualize the shape and color
and in a dream or daydream have very high resolution. But there is no
such thing, and it won't harm you. Now if you stand in the middle of
the highway, and visually experience a truck coming toward you, that
is 'real'. That is, a real, mind-independent objective truck causes
the experience, and it is actually coming toward you and can kill
you.
Same goes with eating in your dreams. Eat all you want, and enjoy the
experience, but the food and the eating is 'unreal'. You will starve
if you only eat in your dreams. Whereas the strawberry you eat in
waking life is a mind-independent existing fruit, which contains
carbohydrates, vitamins, and tons of phytochemicals which will nourish
you. The difference is never ad hoc, but is real and objective. Your
trying to collapse that distinction is what I would call "psychotic".
> Since it is useless in the face of any event, why make
> such a pointless distinction?
Because it's a matter of life and death, which is very useful to me.
And for evolution. Those who like you didn't distinguish between the
real and unreal didn't live long enough to reproduce. Hence, over
millions and millions of years, brains evolved with the capacity to
represent real objective distinctions in the world because doing so
had tremendous survival value.
> >consciousness is a function of or emergent property of
> >physical brains:
>
> An unprovable assumption.
Oh, I agree with you about that. It's simply the best explanation we
have, and we have tons and tons of evidence for it, just as for
evolution, which is an equally unprovable assumption. None of the woo-
woo stories like yours, which either collapse distinctions between
real and unreal, or posit magical transcendental hyper-realities or
realms or deities have any evidence for them at all. Rather, they only
serve to "pass the buck", and hide the weirdness and uncanniness of
consciousness, and of existence itself.
That is, I agree with you that the idea of meatheads being conscious
and experiencing is bizarre. I can't explain it. It's really strange.
But making up a Transcendental soul story and saying "it's Mind that's
conscious, and Mind is not physical and is outside time and space and
beyond dualistic thought", which is a typical soul story, doesn't
explain anything. Rather, it hides the mystery, that's all. It's easy
to see how strange it is that something as real, and tangible, and
squishy as a brain could possibly be conscious. But by positing a soul
or "Mind", one makes this fantasy spook which can't be examined,
touched, seen, poked, prodded, shot out of a super-collider, etc. So
it doesn't seem 'weird' that this soul is conscious, because it's an
abstraction that is just as weird! That is, you only explain the
bizarre by conjuring up without evidence something even more bizarre
and than saying "see, that explains it". But it explains nothing. It
simply adds more mentation to the mix!
> However you offer to demonstrate the truth of it by
> shooting me in the head, and Lee offers to help by running
> me over with his speeding truck. I think your scientific methods
> are a little crude to say the least. Sort of on the level of that eminent
> philosopher Jack the Ripper.
I'm sorry if your allegedly imaginary existence feels threatened by my
examples. I like talking about running people down with trucks and
blowing them up. Lee's examples are more pacifistic, so stick to his
wonderful example of eating in a dream, versus eating in waking
reality. You can test this one and be proven wrong without dying, so
try it. Really, Nutter Dude, try it. You won't die. Try for one month,
only eating in your dreams, and not eating anything at all in your
waking life. I do recommend you drink lots of water -- tea would be
better -- simply to hedge your bet, as if I'm right and food is real,
then you'll harm yourself if you don't have enough fluids in you. But
you won't die, and I'm willing to bet that Lee is right, that you
can't live just the same if you only eat in your dreams. So go for it.
> In buddhism inference is called 'delusion'.
No, that's not true at all. The Buddha's core teachings rest on his
teachings of causality, and the inferences he makes, based on
experiences, and Sid infers: "when that happens, then this happens."
The point is that I make valid, testable inferences based on evidence
and experience. You make wild untestable inferences to the
Transcendental based on authority and unsupported interpretation.
That's why I'm the empiricist and you're the nutter-stooge, remember!
> You agree to that
> in the case of believers in ghosts, gods, and demons, but
> certainly not in the case of the unseen and inferred of the
> holy scientific quarkhood.
Hey, when you can bounce particles off of ghosts or gods or demons and
demonstrate a reason for them to exist, as cosmologists can for the
alleged 'dark matter', then I'll take you seriously, the way I take
them seriously. But you can't. You have no evidence for your soul or
Mind or Nonduel Undifferentiated Woo-Woo-Land or whatever. You have no
more than any of the UFOlogists who talk about alien abductions. Like
you, they've never forked over a single alien body, nor even a hubcap
from a flying saucer. Like you, they're all hot air and are reduced to
insulting the rational folks.
> Direct experience is all that anyone has to go by,
No, there is no such thing. Everything we go by is an inference made
from our experiences. If we are sane, we infer danger when a real,
mind-independent animal or truck is coming at us, and we take the
appropriate intelligent action. If we are a nutter, we die. Lucky for
you, Nutter-Dude, we've evolved from this happening over and over so
that those of us who are sane can take care of those of us like you
who think that trucks are illusions in their mind which can't hurt
them, and we can keep you safe and comfortable. That's why the walls
in your room have all the fluffy padding, Keynes. It's because we love
you so much.
> Well, happy Chemical Season-ing to you, Meathead.
> May your electrons be merry and your protons replete.
>
> Quark the halls with leptons and bosons, fa la la la la, la la la laaa.
>
> (What's for dinner? BRAINZ!)
>
> Quark, quark.
Try just saying, "Merry Christmas", silly Nutter Dude, or if you don't
want to restrict yourself to the dominant religious term, say "Happy
Solstice".
As for eating brainz: you'll enjoy this wonderful song by my favorite
rock-star, JoCo, whom I saw live exactly two weeks ago tonight!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfT17jTh3bg
--DharmaTroll
“Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence;
it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”
-Bertrand Russell
Nobody in Particular
Charles seems to hate gays like a lot of his kind do. This quote
comes to mind:
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of
yourself.
What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
-- Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)
herbzet
There's a little point of usenet etiquette here, but who gives a
shit about etiquette, right?
--
hz
Keynes
wrote:
>...that you call "Mind" or "Nondual" or "Undifferentiated" and so
>forth. That all means 'soul' in the most general and loose sense.
>Again, if you say there is only one of'em, you're going Hinduist, and
>if you say there are lots of'em, you are going Christianist. Doesn't
>matter to me what the flavor of woo-woo, actually: I'm just saying
>that everything that is real is simply composed of matter/energy/
>space, or is an emergent property or pattern of matter/energy/space,
>and there is no evidence for any kind of extra soul-stuff or higher
>planes or realms to explain consciousness or the universe.
Without mind you can affirm or deny nothing.
Straight to the point, you -are- mind. You don't
have to know science, religion, or philosophy
to know that much. What mind may be is a
matter of controversy, but arguments aside,
there is mind and it is you, completely all
of you with nothing left out or left over.
Call it an epiphenomenon, echo, or soul
if you like, but that's what you are.
Can you deny it?
halfawake
depends on what the point is. what is it?
DharmaTroll
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:14:12 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> >...that you call "Mind" or "Nondual" or "Undifferentiated" and so
> >forth. That all means 'soul' in the most general and loose sense.
> >Again, if you say there is only one of'em, you're going Hinduist, and
> >if you say there are lots of'em, you are going Christianist. Doesn't
> >matter to me what the flavor of woo-woo, actually: I'm just saying
> >that everything that is real is simply composed of matter/energy/
> >space, or is an emergent property or pattern of matter/energy/space,
> >and there is no evidence for any kind of extra soul-stuff or higher
> >planes or realms to explain consciousness or the universe.
>
> Without mind you can affirm or deny nothing.
You're response is always "but it's all about ME".
Yet you have nothing do with whether stars actually exist.
What your ego affirms or denies has nothing to do with what is.
--DharmaTroll
P.S. I sang that song (re: your brains) playing RockBand at a party
tonight!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfT17jTh3bg
Lee
"DharmaTroll" <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1f61939b-4bdc-492f...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
>You're response is always "but it's all about ME".
quite pot kettle blackish coming
from the king of it's all about me.
>Yet you have nothing do with whether stars actually exist.
and if you actually could have evidence that things
were "real" [whatever idealistic packaging cul-de-sac
that might entail] would that somehow give your survival,
safety & security addictions a nice hiding spot comfort
zone against the cold cruel [real] world?
>What your ego affirms or denies has nothing to do with what is.
great mirror work. carry on.
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 19, 1:08 am, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:14:12 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >...that you call "Mind" or "Nondual" or "Undifferentiated" and so
>> >forth. That all means 'soul' in the most general and loose sense.
>> >Again, if you say there is only one of'em, you're going Hinduist, and
>> >if you say there are lots of'em, you are going Christianist. Doesn't
>> >matter to me what the flavor of woo-woo, actually: I'm just saying
>> >that everything that is real is simply composed of matter/energy/
>> >space, or is an emergent property or pattern of matter/energy/space,
>> >and there is no evidence for any kind of extra soul-stuff or higher
>> >planes or realms to explain consciousness or the universe.
>>
>> Without mind you can affirm or deny nothing.
"Without mind you can affirm or deny nothing.
Straight to the point, you -are- mind. You don't
have to know science, religion, or philosophy
to know that much. What mind may be is a
matter of controversy, but arguments aside,
there is mind and it is you, completely all
of you with nothing left out or left over.
Call it an epiphenomenon, echo, or soul
if you like, but that's what you are.
Can you deny it?"
>You're response is always "but it's all about ME".
>Yet you have nothing do with whether stars actually exist.
>What your ego affirms or denies has nothing to do with what is.
Apparently you can deny it.
By calling up a 'reality' apart from and superior to mind.
Some ineffable, unseen, unknown, and unknowable thing.
A 'reality' apart from any possible knowledge of it.
Old religion gives us the wispy heavens, and new religion gives
us the dirty earth, both on the same conjectural basis of a reality
beyond and independent of any knowing mind.
(But that's not woo-woo. Mercy no. It's poo-poo.)
Who can know (or pretend to know) "what is" but a mind?
All one can know about "what's out there"
has got to be in one's own mind or there's
no "out there" or any knowing at all.
Mind knows nothing but mind.
There isn't anything else.
DharmaTroll
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:21:22 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
>
> >You're response is always "but it's all about ME".
> >Yet you have nothing do with whether stars actually exist.
> >What your ego affirms or denies has nothing to do with what is.
>
> Apparently you can deny it.
> By calling up a 'reality' apart from and superior to mind.
> Some ineffable, unseen, unknown, and unknowable thing.
> A 'reality' apart from any possible knowledge of it.
No. Nothing ineffable. Just cats, trees, stones, and stars.
Doesn't matter if your ego 'knows' about them for them to be.
> Who can know (or pretend to know) "what is" but a mind?
Who gives a deva's ass who can know?
Doesn't matter who knows and who can know.
The snow falls whether sentient beings exist or not.
With all your bullshit Zen talk, Keynes, you're 100% egoist. The whole
universe depends on your ego and your knowledge of it for its
existence? The stars don't burn hydrogen without your ego? They did
for billions of years, Nutter-Dude. Duh.
> Mind knows nothing but mind.
> There isn't anything else
"There isn't anything else but my Ego," proclaims Keynes.
Yeah, just keep believing that, Nutter-Dude.
--DharmaTroll
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 19, 10:25 am, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:21:22 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
>>
>> >You're response is always "but it's all about ME".
>> >Yet you have nothing do with whether stars actually exist.
>> >What your ego affirms or denies has nothing to do with what is.
>>
>> Apparently you can deny it.
>> By calling up a 'reality' apart from and superior to mind.
>> Some ineffable, unseen, unknown, and unknowable thing.
>> A 'reality' apart from any possible knowledge of it.
>
>No. Nothing ineffable. Just cats, trees, stones, and stars.
>Doesn't matter if your ego 'knows' about them for them to be.
>
>> Who can know (or pretend to know) "what is" but a mind?
>
>Who gives a deva's ass who can know?
>
>Doesn't matter who knows and who can know.
>The snow falls whether sentient beings exist or not.
How do you 'know' that?
You're using mind to deny mind.
But carry on. It's extremely amusing.
>With all your bullshit Zen talk, Keynes, you're 100% egoist. The whole
>universe depends on your ego and your knowledge of it for its
>existence? The stars don't burn hydrogen without your ego? They did
>for billions of years, Nutter-Dude. Duh.
So you say.
Why don't you go back to Wednesday
and say it again to my face?
>> Mind knows nothing but mind.
>> There isn't anything else
>
>"There isn't anything else but my Ego," proclaims Keynes.
What ego? Another mumbo jumbo invisible spook?
You're skipping step one in order to propose some consequent steps.
First there is mind -- that by which we 'perceive'. Without that
there is no way to go further. Once mind is acknowledged one
can go on from there.
One may say 'where is this mind? Is it in space or time?'
Space and time are mental models of general interest, but are
they proper to what apparently doesn't even exist? (Which is
the scientific materialist proposition that what is not made of
bricks can't possibly exist. See Dennet. et al.) Mind has no
weight, color, shape, or size, and no observeable mechanical
function. It's not made of atoms or energy. Therefore it can't
possibly exist. (Only those perceived products of mind can exist,
but never the mind itself, so they say. There is perception but
no thing to perceive it.) So they say, standing on their heads,
and hearing and speaking, writing and reading, pontificating
broadly and totally mindlessly. (For your befuddlement.)
Can we put mind (if there is such a thing) in time or space?
Space is apparently an illusion. Nothing can move in space,
the seeming playground of all noticeable events. By definition,
all motion must take place in time. We can 'see' space, (with the
mind, apparently) but we can't see time. If we could 'see' time,
it would lose 'duration' and sequence, becoming fixed and timelessly
dead, done, and space-like.
Some say the mind is physically embedded in time. But one could
also say that time is embedded in mind, since all perception takes place
in the immoveable present, and past and future (such as they are) are
totally unreachable except by present memory and imagination. (Which
of course can't exist without a mind to produce or 'perceive' them.)
The ego proposition is sort of shaky. It depends on a whole lot
of unprovable assumptions of extremely dubious nature. For one,
just consider the iron grip of determinism. If cause and effect are
true, then there are no actual beings of any potency, but just meat
puppets going senselessly through the motions we observe. And
not an ego or free will in the whole bunch. But if cause and effect
allow uncaused exceptions, then that whole mental model collapses
into senseless lawlessness.
Reasoning about it only gets you deeper and deeper into
unresolveable paradox. There is no rational truth, only
half-truths and tragic-comical imaginary blunders.
Practically speaking, why do you worry about things that
have not, can not, and will not impinge on your consciousness
or ever be known to you? Is it some sort of demented hobby or
something? All the cats and all the trees in the world (whom
you will never meet) surely will never thank you for it.
Hollywood Lee
This understanding of time and space is apparently a favorite of
idealists everywhere. To cite to the article I noted earlier this week,
here is how some respond to the same argument:
---------
Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s
Notion of a Conscious Universe
Written by Coauthors- Ajita Kamal, Vinod K. Wadhawan,
. . .
Time and space receive similar treatment as color and heat in Lanza’s
biocentrism. Lanza reaches the conclusion that time does not exist
outside the observer by conflating absolute time (which does not exist)
with objective time (which does). In 2007 Lanza made his argument using
an ancient mathematical riddle known as Zeno’s Arrow paradox. In
essence, Zeno’s Arrow paradox involves motion in space-time. Lanza says:
“Even time itself is not exempted from biocentrism. Our sense of
the forward motion of time is really the result of an infinite number of
decisions that only seem to be a smooth continuous path. At each moment
we are at the edge of a paradox known as The Arrow, first described
2,500 years ago by the philosopher Zeno of Elea. Starting logically with
the premise that nothing can be in two places at once, he reasoned that
an arrow is only in one place during any given instance of its flight.
But if it is in only one place, it must be at rest. The arrow must then
be at rest at every moment of its flight. Logically, motion is
impossible. But is motion impossible? Or rather, is this analogy proof
that the forward motion of time is not a feature of the external world
but a projection of something within us? Time is not an absolute reality
but an aspect of our consciousness.”
In a more recent article Lanza brings up the implications of special
relativity on Zeno’s Arrow paradox. He writes:
“Consider a film of an archery tournament. An archer shoots an
arrow and the camera follows its trajectory. Suddenly the projector
stops on a single frame — you stare at the image of an arrow in
mid-flight. The pause enables you to know the position of the arrow with
great accuracy, but it’s going nowhere; its velocity is no longer known.
This is the fuzziness described by in the uncertainty principle:
sharpness in one parameter induces blurriness in the other. All of this
makes perfect sense from a biocentric perspective. Everything we
perceive is actively being reconstructed inside our heads. Time is
simply the summation of the ‘frames’ occurring inside the mind. But
change doesn’t mean there is an actual invisible matrix called “time” in
which changes occur. That is just our own way of making sense of things.”
In the first case Lanza seems to state that motion is logically
impossible (which is a pre-relativistic view of the paradox) and in the
next case he mentions that uncertainty is present in the system (a
post-relativistic model of motion). In both cases, however, Lanza’s
conclusion is the same - biocentrism is true for time. No matter what
the facts about the nature of time, Lanza concludes that time is not
real. His model is unfalsifiable and therefore cannot be a part of
science. What Lanza doesn’t let on is that Einstein’s special-relativity
theory removes the possibility of absolute time, not of time itself.
Zeno’s Arrow paradox is resolved by replacing the idea of absolute time
with Einstein’s relativistic coupling of space and time. Space-time has
an uncertainty in quantum mechanics, but it is not nonexistent. The idea
of time as a series of sequential events that we perceive and put
together in our heads is an experiential version of time. This is the
way we have evolved to perceive time. This experiential version of time
seems absolute, because we evolved to perceive it that way. However, in
reality time is relative. This is a fundamental fact of modern physics.
Time does exist outside of the observer, but allows us only a narrow
perception of its true nature.
Space is the other property of the universe that Lanza attempts to
describe as purely a product of consciousness. He says “Wave your hand
through the air. If you take everything away, what’s left? The answer is
nothing. So why do we pretend space is a thing”. Again, Einstein’s
theory of special relativity provides us with objective predictions that
we can look for, such as the bending of space-time. Such events have
been observed and verified multiple times. Space is a ‘thing’ as far as
the objective universe is concerned.
Lanza says “Space and time are simply the mind’s tools for putting
everything together.” This is true , but there is a difference between
being the spacetime ‘mind’s tools’ and being created by the mind itself.
In the first instance the conscious perception of space and time is an
experiential trick that the mind uses to make sense of the objective
universe, and in the other space and time are actual physical
manifestations of the mind. The former is tested and true while the
latter is an idealistic notion that is not supported by science. The
experiential conception of space and time is different from objective
space and time that comprise the universe. This difference is similar to
how color is different from photon frequency. The former is subjective
while the latter is objective.
--------
Keynes
wrote:
(Relativity has been brought in here like a magic incantation.
It doesn't support what the author proposes.)
>Lanza says “Space and time are simply the mind’s tools for putting
>everything together.” This is true , but there is a difference between
>being the spacetime ‘mind’s tools’ and being created by the mind itself.
Here mind pretends to transcend mind. A cool trick.
It supports the unknown at the expense of the known.
Isn't that a religious proposition? 'Woo-poop' so to speak?
Since there were no human observers of the first 14 billion
or so years (or any earth years either for that matter) we
could say that there has been a passage of time. (Presumably
absolute in the newtonian sense, in spite of Einstein.) But
if there were no humans now to propose such a span of time,
or no perceiving beings here, there, or anywhere at any time
ever, what could time mean to anything or anyone?
What is unperceived might exist, but it couldn't
possibly matter or make any difference to anything.
Let's be anthropocentric. We're anthropoids anyway.
No use to pretend to anything better. Just have your
bananas and peanuts and be glad about that.
>In the first instance the conscious perception of space and time is an
>experiential trick that the mind uses to make sense of the objective
>universe, and in the other space and time are actual physical
>manifestations of the mind.
Mind is primary in all cases.
There is no mind-independent science is there?
>The former is tested and true while the
>latter is an idealistic notion that is not supported by science.
Science rests up in the clouds since it is
totally self supporting through circular logic.
Science is science. And what isn't science is unscientific.
Big whoop. (They used to say the same about religion.)
>The
>experiential conception of space and time is different from objective
>space and time that comprise the universe. This difference is similar to
>how color is different from photon frequency. The former is subjective
>while the latter is objective.
Objectivity must be beyond any human's capacity.
Getting back to Zeno, his paradoxes are solid.
They reduce mathematical and philosophical propositions
to logical absurdity. So appeals to logic and scientism
must be dubious on such an unsound foundation as their
own logical self-supporting structures. The dualism of
is-OR-is-not fails. Certainty has always been impossible,
and even more so now with quantum science which denies
causality, and even time and space. Yet we cling to our
old traditional lame modes of thinking in spite of all
evidence to the contrary.
Lee
>No. Nothing ineffable. Just cats, trees, stones, and stars.
>Doesn't matter if your ego 'knows' about them for them to be.
also doen't follow that your ego has
proved their existence without its own
existence. quite the ineffable feat
actually.
>Who gives a deva's ass who can know?
quite amusing to watch you attempt
to mollify your fears about differing
opinions that threaten your flimsy lackluster
views.
>Doesn't matter who knows and who can know.
>The snow falls whether sentient beings exist or not.
and you would prove this how?
>With all your bullshit Zen talk, Keynes, you're 100% egoist.
monster quantum pot kettle black because
that's exactly what all of your flimsy claims
are here brody. you claim that all of these
things exist and are real whether or not
anyone can percieve them or not. let's
have some real proof that things exist
without anyone knowing them as such.
> The whole
>universe depends on your ego and your knowledge of it for its
>existence?
that's exactly what you're trying to claim
right now but you take it even one step
further by trying to claim that you know
things exist without even a knowingness
platform in order to do so. what type of
monster ego would claim that the world
exists as real even if there is nothing and
no one to percive it as existing?
> The stars don't burn hydrogen without your ego? They did
>for billions of years, Nutter-Dude. Duh.
if you'd like to see the world's screwiest
nutter do0d, simply go grab a mirror.
>Yeah, just keep believing that, Nutter-Dude.
for all of your supposed "intelligence", which
really can be labelled "abject fears" your continual
and continuous projection of those fears onto others
is great hilatrity at best. carry on.
DharmaTroll
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:6073b8ba-f424-4288...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
>
> >No. Nothing ineffable. Just cats, trees, stones, and stars.
> >Doesn't matter if your ego 'knows' about them for them to be.
>
> also doen't follow that your ego has
> proved their existence without its own
> existence.
No, it's not a matter of 'proof'. Rather, overwhelming evidence
suggests that Minds/egos don't create reality, only our judgments and
representations of reality.
> Who gives a deva's ass who can know?
>
> quite amusing to watch you attempt
> to mollify your fears about differing
> opinions that threaten your flimsy lackluster
Nope. No fear hear. I welcome differing opinions. In fact, I think
Bishop Berkeley was amazing, and I loved reading his classics, and he
was the greatest idealist of them all. Here, you have nothing but
dogma, so you attack me, and accuse me of fear. Fear of a ranting
fundie like yourself? What a fool.
> >Doesn't matter who knows and who can know.
> >The snow falls whether sentient beings exist or not.
>
> and you would prove this how?
Same fallacy two sentences in a row? The onus is on the anus, and
that's you, asshole, to 'prove' (actually simply to provide any
reasonable evidence at all for, as proof is not the issue) that cats
are illusions created by Mind (ego).
> >With all your bullshit Zen talk, Keynes, you're 100% egoist.
>
> monster quantum pot kettle black because
> that's exactly what all of your flimsy claims
> are here brody. you claim that all of these
> things exist and are real whether or not
> anyone can percieve them or not.
Right. So I'm saying that my ego is NOT needed for the world to exist.
I don't even think there is such a thing as an ego, it's just a
convenient way of talking about self-referential thoughts, much less a
woo-woo super-ego Mind (another name for Ego, soul, or God).
> let's have some real proof that things exist
> without anyone knowing them as such.
Ok, background microwave radiation, emitted before any sentient beings
(e.g., your ego) evolved. We detect it. You lose. Case closed.
> > The whole universe depends on your ego and your
> > knowledge of it for its existence?
>
> that's exactly what you're trying to claim
> right now
No, you misunderstand. I claim that this is not true, and that stars
would exist even if our egos didn't believe we created them. Again,
background microwave radiation from 13.7 billion light years ago
before stars, planets, critters, and minds existed is super-ultra-
strong evidence for it. And it's there: the background radiation is
there. So you lose again.
> > The stars don't burn hydrogen without your ego?
> > They did for billions of years, Nutter-Dude. Duh.
>
> if you'd like to see the world's screwiest
> nutter do0d, simply go grab a mirror.
Spoken like a true fundamentalist who's lost the argument. After I've
knocked you down, you flail around on the ground like a fish out of
water spewing insults. Got any more?
> for all of your supposed "intelligence", which
> really can be labelled "abject fears"
No fear here. I just follow the evidence and reason. Got any more
insults?
> your continual and continuous projection of
> those fears onto others
> is great hilatrity at best. carry on.
No fear here. Must be yours. Over the fence with you. Punt.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:42:31 -0700, Hollywood Lee <hollywood...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> (Relativity has been brought in here like a magic incantation.
> It doesn't support what the author proposes.)
No. You haven't a clue about physics, Keynes, and once again, you
claim that science or evidence is wrong because it disagrees with your
"my ego creates the physical world" story.
> >Lanza says “Space and time are simply the mind’s tools for putting
> >everything together.” This is true , but there is a difference between
> >being the spacetime ‘mind’s tools’ and being created by the mind itself.
>
> Here mind pretends to transcend mind.
Ego tries to transcend ego, you say?
Sounds like your own personal story.
Rather, space-time is an astrophysics term independent of
psychological experiences/creations of a sense of time. You know that,
but it offends your dogma, so you babble nonsense about "mind trying
to transcend mind" which is simply more gibberish.
> A cool trick.
> It supports the unknown at the expense of the known.
> Isn't that a religious proposition? 'Woo-poop' so to speak?
It's your trick. You make a gibberish claim and then refute it?
So now you're not only a narcissist but a solipsist as well?
> Since there were no human observers of the first 14 billion
> or so years (or any earth years either for that matter) we
> could say that there has been a passage of time. (Presumably
> absolute in the newtonian sense, in spite of Einstein.) But
> if there were no humans now to propose such a span of time,
> or no perceiving beings here, there, or anywhere at any time
> ever, what could time mean to anything or anyone?
You've once again changed the subject and made a question-begging
remark.
The statement claims that we have overwhelming evidence that the world
existed before any life evolved.
You now ask what would it 'mean' without people. But meaning is
mentation, a product of thoughts.
So you are asking, "how would there be thinking without people to
think?" And you are right, that there would be no thinking without
people to think.
But that has nothing to do with the claim that the universe existed
without thinkers. And the evidence is that it was here for billions of
years without our 'Minds' or 'egos'.
Hollywood isn't claiming that there were thoughts or that the universe
meant something to anyone, just that the universe existed mind-
independently for billions of years.
> What is unperceived might exist, but it couldn't
> possibly matter or make any difference to anything.
Again, we're not talking about values, which are a human creation, but
about the existence of stars and galaxies.
So Keynes, do I understand you right, are you conceding the debate by
saying:
"Yes, DharmaTroll, Hollywood Lee, Fu, and every sane scientist in the
world is correct that the world exists independently of 'Mind' or the
mental, but what we care about and value and what matters of us only
has to do with what we perceive (which nobody disagrees with because
it's true by definition, as it's tautological)?
Oh, no, I see you take back your confession a sentence later:
> Mind is primary in all cases.
> There is no mind-independent science is there?
Mind is only primary in psychology/sociology/anthropology -- the soft
sciences, as well as religion.
Mind is never, ever primary in real, hard science, like astronomy. .
Whether stars exist, or what they burn, has nothing to do with minds.
> Science rests up in the clouds since it is
> totally self supporting through circular logic.
Just the opposite, Nutter-Dude. Science is based on evidence, whereas
your dogma of "Mind" being primary is as circular as it gets, just
again an assertion that you are the center of the universe and that
your ego causes everything. Nothing could be farther from the truth,
Nutter-Dude.
> Getting back to Zeno, his paradoxes are solid.
> They reduce mathematical and philosophical
> propositions to logical absurdity.
Your giving up on math in the 9th grade shows here.
Calculus solves Zeno's paradoxes. You'd like to believe that Einstein,
Feynman, Newton are all deluded idiots, and the moon landings were a
hoax, etc., while your Fundamentalism is the ultimate truth. Dream on,
Nutter Dude. Maybe if you believe it enough, your dreams will be
reality, especially because your dream is that your dreams are
reality. Nice circular il-logic, Keynes. Just keep on believing that,
and I'll keep sending the stooge checks.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> On 12/19/2009 11:27 AM, Keynes wrote:
>
>
>
Nice article, Lee. Of course it's more pleasurable poking fun at the
nutters like Keynes and the crazy Lee, but Lanza and Fudgepack Okra do
make more serious versions of Keynes' and others' anti-realist rants,
and this is a solid, thoughtful reply to their pitch, which doesn't
hold water.
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
Are you positing the empirical is all there is?
ZN :D _/|\_
absolute permanent perfection overflowing without effort
DharmaTroll
I'm saying that there is no reason to posit any other kind of 'stuff'
such as 'mental stuff' or 'souls' or 'gods' or 'transcendental
realms', and that physical matter/energy/space constitutes everything.
There are patterns and relationships among the physical, as well as
emergent properties, like being 'conscious' and 'thinking' that emerge
when matter/energy is organized in particular complex ways that I
don't understand. I'm saying that there is no need to add anything
else, such as anything 'mental' that isn't a product of physical
matter/energy and was magically around before the physical and caused
the physical, such as "God" or "Mind" or "The Undifferentiated Self"
and so on. In a crude way, just as some matter is 'magnetic' and can
stick to your fridge in seemingly strange ways, so some matter is
conscious, and can produce thoughts and experiences. But such
properties, such as thinking and experiencing came late in the game,
as all the evidence we have is that the universe, in all its
physicality, not only existed, but thrived magnificently for billions
of years before we or any other minds evolved. I don't see any
evidence for teleology, that our being here was 'planned'. However,
I'm thankful that we did evolve, because now beauty and awe are
possible, and they weren't possible until mental properties emerged
when complex critters evolved. But yes, matter/space/energy
configurations are all there is, from what we know, and there is no
evidence to posit any souls, mental stuff', magic, or gods. But we're
really superstitious, and like to cling to beliefs, so folks like
Keynes cling to belief in souls and sometimes actually deny the
existence of trees and stars apart from our feelings about them, even
though there is no evidence for his view and tons of evidence that the
world was around and functioning perfectly before our deluded egos
came upon the scene to pretend otherwise.
--DharmaTroll
"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground
whatsoever for supposing it is true."
-Bertrand Russell
Hollywood Lee
>> Notion of a Conscious Universe
>> Written by Coauthors- Ajita Kamal, Vinod K. Wadhawan,
>>
> http://nirmukta.com/2009/12/14/biocentrism-demystified-a-response-to-deepak-chopra-and-robert-lanzas-notion-of-a-conscious-universe/
>>
>> biocentrism. Lanza reaches the conclusion that time does not exist
>> outside the observer by conflating absolute time (which does not exist)
>> with objective time (which does). In 2007 Lanza made his argument using
>> essence, Zeno�s Arrow paradox involves motion in space-time. Lanza says:
>>
>> �Even time itself is not exempted from biocentrism. Our sense of
>> the forward motion of time is really the result of an infinite number of
>> decisions that only seem to be a smooth continuous path. At each moment
>> we are at the edge of a paradox known as The Arrow, first described
>> 2,500 years ago by the philosopher Zeno of Elea. Starting logically with
>> the premise that nothing can be in two places at once, he reasoned that
>> an arrow is only in one place during any given instance of its flight.
>> But if it is in only one place, it must be at rest. The arrow must then
>> be at rest at every moment of its flight. Logically, motion is
>> impossible. But is motion impossible? Or rather, is this analogy proof
>> that the forward motion of time is not a feature of the external world
>> but a projection of something within us? Time is not an absolute reality
>>
>> In a more recent article Lanza brings up the implications of special
>>
>> �Consider a film of an archery tournament. An archer shoots an
>> arrow and the camera follows its trajectory. Suddenly the projector
>> mid-flight. The pause enables you to know the position of the arrow with
>> This is the fuzziness described by in the uncertainty principle:
>> sharpness in one parameter induces blurriness in the other. All of this
>> makes perfect sense from a biocentric perspective. Everything we
>> perceive is actively being reconstructed inside our heads. Time is
>> change doesn�t mean there is an actual invisible matrix called �time� in
>> which changes occur. That is just our own way of making sense of things.�
>>
>> In the first case Lanza seems to state that motion is logically
>> impossible (which is a pre-relativistic view of the paradox) and in the
>> next case he mentions that uncertainty is present in the system (a
>> conclusion is the same - biocentrism is true for time. No matter what
>> the facts about the nature of time, Lanza concludes that time is not
>> real. His model is unfalsifiable and therefore cannot be a part of
>> theory removes the possibility of absolute time, not of time itself.
>> with Einstein�s relativistic coupling of space and time. Space-time has
>> an uncertainty in quantum mechanics, but it is not nonexistent. The idea
>> of time as a series of sequential events that we perceive and put
>> together in our heads is an experiential version of time. This is the
>> way we have evolved to perceive time. This experiential version of time
>> seems absolute, because we evolved to perceive it that way. However, in
>> reality time is relative. This is a fundamental fact of modern physics.
>> Time does exist outside of the observer, but allows us only a narrow
>> perception of its true nature.
>>
>> Space is the other property of the universe that Lanza attempts to
>> through the air. If you take everything away, what�s left? The answer is
>> nothing. So why do we pretend space is a thing�. Again, Einstein�s
>> theory of special relativity provides us with objective predictions that
>> we can look for, such as the bending of space-time. Such events have
>> the objective universe is concerned.
>>
>> everything together.� This is true , but there is a difference between
>> being the spacetime �mind�s tools� and being created by the mind itself.
>> In the first instance the conscious perception of space and time is an
>> experiential trick that the mind uses to make sense of the objective
>> universe, and in the other space and time are actual physical
>> manifestations of the mind. The former is tested and true while the
>> latter is an idealistic notion that is not supported by science. The
>> experiential conception of space and time is different from objective
>> space and time that comprise the universe. This difference is similar to
>> how color is different from photon frequency. The former is subjective
>> while the latter is objective.
>>
>> --------
>
> Nice article, Lee. Of course it's more pleasurable poking fun at the
> nutters like Keynes and the crazy Lee, but Lanza and Fudgepack Okra do
> make more serious versions of Keynes' and others' anti-realist rants,
> and this is a solid, thoughtful reply to their pitch, which doesn't
> hold water.
The parent website is kinda interesting - looks like it is dedicated to
debunking Indian gurus. Something to read when snowed in next time.
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 19, 2:34 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:42:31 -0700, Hollywood Lee <hollywood...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> (Relativity has been brought in here like a magic incantation.
>> It doesn't support what the author proposes.)
>
>No. You haven't a clue about physics, Keynes, and once again, you
>claim that science or evidence is wrong because it disagrees with your
>"my ego creates the physical world" story.
>
>> >Lanza says “Space and time are simply the mind’s tools for putting
>> >everything together.” This is true , but there is a difference between
>> >being the spacetime ‘mind’s tools’ and being created by the mind itself.
>>
>> Here mind pretends to transcend mind.
>
>Ego tries to transcend ego, you say?
>Sounds like your own personal story.
>
>Rather, space-time is an astrophysics term independent of
>psychological experiences/creations of a sense of time. You know that,
>but it offends your dogma, so you babble nonsense about "mind trying
>to transcend mind" which is simply more gibberish.
You are trying to take 'reality' and put it beyond the
reach of consciousness, thereby promoting thinking
without the possibility of a thinker. Is there an
unknowable, unthinkable reality? (God is it?)
That's not a rational position is it?
>> A cool trick.
>> It supports the unknown at the expense of the known.
>> Isn't that a religious proposition? 'Woo-poop' so to speak?
>
>It's your trick. You make a gibberish claim and then refute it?
>So now you're not only a narcissist but a solipsist as well?
Solipsism is the only defensible philosophical position.
(In relation to current cultural opinions.) But it seems
incomplete. Other positions are even more bizarre and
outlandish. Such as your own assertion of the 'reality'
of the unknown and unknowable. Typically platonic
and standard theistic.
Your lack of understanding even when confronted with
simple words and logical proof shows great faith in the
unseen and the ineffable unknown that you have swallowed
whole from authorities. You don't have the slightest idea
what you're talking about. Who needs your half remembered
recitations of holy dogma? I have read the same stuff as you,
but unlike you I have thought about it, and not just learned
received opinion by heart in order to recite it, mistakes and all.
>> Since there were no human observers of the first 14 billion
>> or so years (or any earth years either for that matter) we
>> could say that there has been a passage of time. (Presumably
>> absolute in the newtonian sense, in spite of Einstein.) But
>> if there were no humans now to propose such a span of time,
>> or no perceiving beings here, there, or anywhere at any time
>> ever, what could time mean to anything or anyone?
>
>You've once again changed the subject and made a question-begging
>remark.
Time unseen and unexperienced can't be time as we 'know it'.
You're just babbling.
>The statement claims that we have overwhelming evidence that the world
>existed before any life evolved.
Fundamentalists who believe in creation by the power of God
can just as logically say that all of the past was just made up
by God five minutes ago in order to test your faith. Logic isn't
free of it's unfounded axiomatic premises. It's just a toy to play
with to attack or defend any position at all.
There is no irrefutable proof for anything.
And even if there were (in the cause and effect linear sense
of 'results' that you scientifically prefer), it would all come
too late to be of much practical value.
>You now ask what would it 'mean' without people. But meaning is
>mentation, a product of thoughts.
What, pray tell, exists unknown apart from any knowing?
(God Almighty again?)
>So you are asking, "how would there be thinking without people to
>think?" And you are right, that there would be no thinking without
>people to think.
>
>But that has nothing to do with the claim that the universe existed
>without thinkers. And the evidence is that it was here for billions of
>years without our 'Minds' or 'egos'.
How can you 'know' that?
>Hollywood isn't claiming that there were thoughts or that the universe
>meant something to anyone, just that the universe existed mind-
>independently for billions of years.
Does the universe think that, or do people think that?
Did the universe experience time then? If no one or
nothing experienced it, what the hell is that 'time' about?
>> What is unperceived might exist, but it couldn't
>> possibly matter or make any difference to anything.
>
>Again, we're not talking about values, which are a human creation, but
>about the existence of stars and galaxies.
Do stars care about existing through time?
>So Keynes, do I understand you right, are you conceding the debate by
>saying:
>
You have never read me right. You are determined never to do it.
>"Yes, DharmaTroll, Hollywood Lee, Fu, and every sane scientist in the
>world is correct that the world exists independently of 'Mind' or the
>mental, but what we care about and value and what matters of us only
>has to do with what we perceive (which nobody disagrees with because
>it's true by definition, as it's tautological)?
>Oh, no, I see you take back your confession a sentence later:
>
>> Mind is primary in all cases.
>> There is no mind-independent science is there?
>
>Mind is only primary in psychology/sociology/anthropology -- the soft
>sciences, as well as religion.
>
>Mind is never, ever primary in real, hard science, like astronomy. .
Ah so. No perception or thinking, inference
or interpretation allowed. How pure and antiseptic.
(And completely, ridiculously, impossibly inhuman.)
>Whether stars exist, or what they burn, has nothing to do with minds.
>
>> Science rests up in the clouds since it is
>> totally self supporting through circular logic.
>
>Just the opposite, Nutter-Dude. Science is based on evidence,
What evidence? Science may make observations,
but it is based on inference, not evidence. There are
numerous popular but conflicting opinions based on
exactly the same evidence. Religious and scientistic
fundamentalism for example. Same world perhaps, but
what a difference. You think religious fundamentalists
are illogical, but they're not. They use the same logic
you use, but beginning with different axioms.
>whereas
>your dogma of "Mind" being primary is as circular as it gets, just
>again an assertion that you are the center of the universe and that
>your ego causes everything. Nothing could be farther from the truth,
>Nutter-Dude.
How clownish can you get, trying to separate thoughts
from thinker and observations from observer?
>> Getting back to Zeno, his paradoxes are solid.
>> They reduce mathematical and philosophical
>> propositions to logical absurdity.
>
>Your giving up on math in the 9th grade shows here.
You snobbishness is unconvincing when your
actual understanding is so pitifully shallow.
>Calculus solves Zeno's paradoxes.
No it doesn't. Calculus makes better and better approximations
but can't ever reach final conclusions. Why are some numbers still
irrational? Don't you wish you actually knew what you're talking
about?
>You'd like to believe that Einstein,
>Feynman, Newton are all deluded idiots, and the moon landings were a
>hoax, etc.,
So how are things out in the corn field straw man factory?
Are you always all asses and elbows toiling away there?
>while your Fundamentalism is the ultimate truth.
No. Your fundamentalism is your truth.
It has you by the short hairs, even though you
suppose that it is the other way around.
>Dream on,
>Nutter Dude. Maybe if you believe it enough, your dreams will be
>reality, especially because your dream is that your dreams are
>reality. Nice circular il-logic, Keynes. Just keep on believing that,
>and I'll keep sending the stooge checks.
>
>--DharmaTroll
You keep sending poo poo and I'll ship you some woo woo.
You're my best customer.
Lee
On Dec 19, 5:08 pm, "Lee" <original...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:6073b8ba-f424-4288...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
>
> >No. Nothing ineffable. Just cats, trees, stones, and stars.
> >Doesn't matter if your ego 'knows' about them for them to be.
>
> also doen't follow that your ego has
> proved their existence without its own
> existence.
>No, it's not a matter of 'proof'. Rather, overwhelming evidence
>suggests that Minds/egos don't create reality, only our judgments and
>representations of reality.
nope. you claim that reality is real,
not just a representation by your perceptions.
>Nope. No fear hear. I welcome differing opinions. In fact, I think
>Bishop Berkeley was amazing, and I loved reading his classics, and he
>was the greatest idealist of them all. Here, you have nothing but
>dogma, so you attack me, and accuse me of fear. Fear of a ranting
>fundie like yourself? What a fool.
still waiting for your evidence that
your reality is real and now i'm
waiting for the evidence of your
claim that the concepts of "real"
and "exist" are around before you
or anyone else comes into existence
because that is also what you said.
> >Doesn't matter who knows and who can know.
> >The snow falls whether sentient beings exist or not.
>
> and you would prove this how?
>Same fallacy two sentences in a row? The onus is on the anus, and
>that's you, asshole, to 'prove' (actually simply to provide any
>reasonable evidence at all for, as proof is not the issue) that cats
>are illusions created by Mind (ego).
i don't care if existence is real or not
real or that it matters to anything but your
security and safety addictions, just that you claim
it is real but you have no evidence for such and
we've been around this merry go round before
and you, when pressed for evidence of your
claims tend to fail miserably.
> let's have some real proof that things exist
> without anyone knowing them as such.
>Ok, background microwave radiation, emitted before any sentient beings
>e.g., your ego) evolved. We detect it. You lose. Case closed.
sorry. this is your perception of background
microwave radiation, not proof of its existence
and certainly not proof that it exists with no one
there to perceive it, another of your claims.
>No, you misunderstand. I claim that this is not true, and that stars
>would exist even if our egos didn't believe we created them. Again,
>background microwave radiation from 13.7 billion light years ago
>before stars, planets, critters, and minds existed is super-ultra-
>strong evidence for it. And it's there: the background radiation is
>there. So you lose again.
read above.
> > The stars don't burn hydrogen without your ego?
> > They did for billions of years, Nutter-Dude. Duh.
>
> if you'd like to see the world's screwiest
> nutter do0d, simply go grab a mirror.
>Spoken like a true fundamentalist who's lost the argument. After I've
>knocked you down, you flail around on the ground like a fish out of
>water spewing insults. Got any more?
still waiting for your proof of your claims that reality
is real or that it exists without any perceptions of it
since you must perceive first the concepts of "real"
and "exist" for them to "exist". you try to claim that
your concepts precede you and this is simply ridiculous.
DharmaTroll
> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:54:29 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
> >On Dec 19, 2:34 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:42:31 -0700, Hollywood Lee <hollywood...@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> (Relativity has been brought in here like a magic incantation.
> >> It doesn't support what the author proposes.)
>
> >No. You haven't a clue about physics, Keynes, and once again, you
> >claim that science or evidence is wrong because it disagrees with your
> >"my ego creates the physical world" story.
>
> >> >Lanza says “Space and time are simply the mind’s tools for putting
> >> >everything together.” This is true , but there is a difference between
> >> >being the spacetime ‘mind’s tools’ and being created by the mind itself.
>
> >> Here mind pretends to transcend mind.
>
> >Ego tries to transcend ego, you say?
> >Sounds like your own personal story.
>
> >Rather, space-time is an astrophysics term independent of
> >psychological experiences/creations of a sense of time. You know that,
> >but it offends your dogma, so you babble nonsense about "mind trying
> >to transcend mind" which is simply more gibberish.
>
> You are trying to take 'reality' and put it beyond the
> reach of consciousness,
That is, I am claiming there is more to the universe beyond the
horizon that I can see? Yes! That's exactly what I'm saying.
> thereby promoting thinking without the possibility of a thinker.
Well, being a Buddhist, I already think that ALL thinking is done
without any thinkers. In fact, the book with that title, "Thoughts
Without a Thinker" by Mark Epstein, is one of the most helpful
Buddhist books I've ever read.
> Is there an unknowable, unthinkable reality? (God is it?)
God would be a thinker, would be Mind prior to the physical world,
which is your view, and I don't think your view or any other God view
makes sense. I think it just passes the buck to a woo-woo explanation,
instead of facing that there are mysteries that we don't know and may
never figure out.
> That's not a rational position is it?
Yes, I think it's the most rational position of all, to admit that we
may never know all the mysteries. We may only end up knowing a few
things about a tiny little portion of what exists. Denying that what
we don't know or may never experience or know exists, even if we don't
know about it, which if I get you right is your view -- is
narcissistic and just plain wrong, I'm saying.
> >> A cool trick.
> >> It supports the unknown at the expense of the known.
> >> Isn't that a religious proposition? 'Woo-poop' so to speak?
>
> >It's your trick. You make a gibberish claim and then refute it?
> >So now you're not only a narcissist but a solipsist as well?
>
> Solipsism is the only defensible philosophical position.
Actually, it's the most egoistic and pathological position, to claim
that only your ego exists and what you don't know or see doesn't
exist. Maybe we all start that way before we are toilet trained. You
seem to want to return to diapers, maybe even to the womb. I respect
the desire to connect, but returning to infancy isn't the way. I do
think Jesus was right that the way to enter the Kingdom was to be
child-like again, but I think that meant returning to a sense of awe
and wonder; whereas you just seem to want to poop in your pants.
> (In relation to current cultural opinions.) But it seems
> incomplete. Other positions are even more bizarre and
> outlandish. Such as your own assertion of the 'reality'
> of the unknown and unknowable. Typically platonic
> and standard theistic.
No, Keynes, you argue for your ego and for God every single post and
believe in a cartoon version of Plato, denying the world and positing
Mind as prior to and above the world, as did Plato and as do theists.
So why do you accuse me of having your view?
Unlike either Plato or theists, I don't confuse what is known with
what is, and don't pretend that my ego or Mind or God or whatever your
word is created or constantly creates the stars. And the evidence is
there from background microwave radiation that the stars were around
before your 'Mind' and your solipsistic narcissism.
Remember, the issue is about what is, which is mind-independent.
What 'is' has nothing to do with what we 'know' which is mental.
> >> Since there were no human observers of the first 14 billion
> >> or so years (or any earth years either for that matter) we
> >> could say that there has been a passage of time. (Presumably
> >> absolute in the newtonian sense, in spite of Einstein.) But
> >> if there were no humans now to propose such a span of time,
> >> or no perceiving beings here, there, or anywhere at any time
> >> ever, what could time mean to anything or anyone?
>
> >You've once again changed the subject and made a question-begging
> >remark.
>
> Time unseen and unexperienced can't be time as we 'know it'.
> You're just babbling.
No. You just said "as we 'know it'" which has nothing to do with what
is.
You just lost the argument again, Keynes!
> You snobbishness is unconvincing when your
> actual understanding is so pitifully shallow.
Heh. Another flailing fish on the ground reduced to insulting.
That's a QED. You're down for the count on that on.
No need to babble any further, as you just hung yourself there.
Ding! Ding! Ding! I win again. Please try to put up a better fight
next time, ya Bio-Centric Bastard!
--DharmaTroll
Nobody in Particular
The standard (Copenhagen) interpretation of quantum physics posits
that "things" "exist" only as wavefunctions, as possibilities prior to
the collapse of the wavefunction by an observer. It is meaningless to
argue about the "existence" of things prior to the collapse. The
double-slit experiment can "prove" that an electron is a particle, or
"prove" that it is a wave, depending on how the experiment is set up.
Therefore, it is meaningless to argue that the electron "really
existed" prior to observation. After the observation, a simplistic
observer may argue that prior to observation, it "really existed" as a
particle or a wave, based on the outcome of the experiment.
It is similarly meaningless to argue that the universe, the stars,
etc, "really existed" prior to being observed. Cosmic background
radiation is in the same category of "proof" as a blip on a screen, or
a click of a detector in the double-slit experiment. They are data
that can be interpreted in a certain way, such as the existence of
something prior to observation. But just because such an
interpretation feels comfortable to a mind that is still clinging to
obsolete 19th century physics, does not mean that it is the only
allowed interpretation, and those who think otherwise would be
nutters. To do so is simply ignorance and arrogance.
Since that guy so loves strawman arguments, might as well turn it
around and say that he'd like to believe that Born, Heisenberg,
Schrödinger, Bohr are all deluded idiots, and the transistor, laser,
are a hoax, etc.,
Bohr had many exchanges with Einstein, who never accepted the
implications (the "woo") of quantum physics. Every thought experiment
that Einstein could come up with trying to disprove the "woo" was
elegantly dismantled, either directly by Bohr, or, as in the case of
the EPR paradox, by Alain Aspect in the 80s.
But importantly, neither of them showed any arrogance, belittling the
other's position. Einstein, was not a true-believer in old-style
physics. He never attacked the sanity of those who did not agree with
his interpretation of the data.
DharmaTroll
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:58b8185d-e2cc-4873...@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 19, 5:08 pm, "Lee" <original...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> >news:6073b8ba-f424-4288...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
>
> > >No. Nothing ineffable. Just cats, trees, stones, and stars.
> > >Doesn't matter if your ego 'knows' about them for them to be.
>
> > also doen't follow that your ego has
> > proved their existence without its own
> > existence.
> >No, it's not a matter of 'proof'. Rather, overwhelming evidence
> >suggests that Minds/egos don't create reality, only our judgments and
> >representations of reality.
>
> nope. you claim that reality is real,
> not just a representation by your perceptions.
Actually that's a 'yep' not a nope. I claim that the explanation that
cats are behind the couch when we don't see them, rather than that
they don't exist when we see them disappear on the left side of the
couch and that our 'minds' or 'egos' or 'Mind' or 'God' creates them
again ex nihilo as you and Keynes claim. And I claim that if the world
existed prior to any minds, then we should see evidence of that world
before we evolved. And we do: background microwave radiation from the
Big Bang. So there is a ton of solid evidence that realism obtains,
and no evidence, just your feelings and your dogma, that your belief
that your ego or that something mental creates everything that is real
obtains. You're in the same boat as the astrologers are versus
astronomers.
So what's next, try to ask me to show you with certainty or prove
something, and when I say we can't prove anything, reply with "then my
nutter beliefs must be right if you don't have certainty!" I hope you
have something more than the fundamentalist nutter's appeal to
certainty, or else you're just another annoying Jehovah's Witness at
my door.
> >Nope. No fear hear. I welcome differing opinions. In fact, I think
> >Bishop Berkeley was amazing, and I loved reading his classics, and he
> >was the greatest idealist of them all. Here, you have nothing but
> >dogma, so you attack me, and accuse me of fear. Fear of a ranting
> >fundie like yourself? What a fool.
>
> still waiting for your evidence that
> your reality is real and now i'm
> waiting for the evidence of your
> claim that the concepts of "real"
> and "exist" are around before you
> or anyone else comes into existence
> because that is also what you said.
Read my last post. Background microwave radiation is devastating. The
evidence for evolution is devastating. There is no proof, as science
never proves anything, but the Big Bang and Evolution Theory have so
much overwhelming evidence, that if a Genie or Super-Computer created
all of this, it's against all odds. I'm just going with the odds,
that's all. I don't have beliefs, and I'm not attached to any
particular idea. If the odds change, I'll change my bet and go for the
new favorite.
> > > >Doesn't matter who knows and who can know.
> > > >The snow falls whether sentient beings exist or not.
>
> > > and you would prove this how?
> >Same fallacy two sentences in a row? The onus is on the anus, and
> >that's you, asshole, to 'prove' (actually simply to provide any
> >reasonable evidence at all for, as proof is not the issue) that cats
> >are illusions created by Mind (ego).
>
> i don't care if existence is real or not
You seem to care a lot. So much that you'll insult me, call me names,
and freak out like a chicken with its head cut off when I merely
suggest that common sense is correct in that stars are real, and
aren't illusions created by minds.
> real or that it matters to anything but your
> security and safety addictions,
Borrring. Back to baseless insults about me if I disagree with your
precious dogma. What's next, threatening me with eternal damnation or
reincarnation as a weasel?
> just that you claim
> it is real but you have no evidence for such and
How is tons of evidence, as well as confirmation from every branch of
science "no evidence for such"? I've presented tons of evidence over
and over, and you just babble like a machine. [Keynes? Is this Lunatic
Lee some sort of 'bot' of yours or is this really another one of your
cult members?]
> we've been around this merry go round before
> and you, when pressed for evidence of your
> claims tend to fail miserably.
No, I get the A+, remember, as I have light from galaxies and
background radiation, and radioactive carbon dating, and I can give
you dozens of textbooks which confirm everything I say. And just about
every physicist on the frakking planet is behind me. And yet you still
insist that I have no evidence that the world is round!
> sorry. this is your perception of background
> microwave radiation, not proof of its existence
Boom! There is no 'proof'. I knew you did it. My psychic powers
prevail. Read above again. I wrote, as I read your diatribe that:
<<So what's next, try to ask me to show you with certainty or prove
something, and when I say we can't prove anything, reply with "then my
nutter beliefs must be right if you don't have certainty!" I hope you
have something more than the fundamentalist nutter's appeal to
certainty, or else you're just another annoying Jehovah's Witness at
my door.>>
And there you go. The old, "you only have overwhelming evidence and
not certainty, so therefore my nutter belief must be right" fallacy.
So you are just another Jehovah's Witness again flailing on the ground
like a fish out of water? How dare you bore My Divine Grace.
Alright, that fallacy has been debunked. Again, the onus is on the
anus, and that's you, asshole, so present your evidence on how your
ego created the stars and the microwave background radiation and how
this is a better explanation than the universe emitting it before
there were any observers, minds, egos, or stupid thoughts.
Go for it, asshole. The onus is on your anus. Make my day.
--DharmaTroll
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 19, 8:54 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>>
>> Solipsism is the only defensible philosophical position.
"(In relation to current cultural opinions.) But it seems incomplete."
>
>Actually, it's the most egoistic and pathological position, to claim
>that only your ego exists and what you don't know or see doesn't
>exist. Maybe we all start that way before we are toilet trained. You
>seem to want to return to diapers, maybe even to the womb. I respect
>the desire to connect, but returning to infancy isn't the way. I do
>think Jesus was right that the way to enter the Kingdom was to be
>child-like again, but I think that meant returning to a sense of awe
>and wonder; whereas you just seem to want to poop in your pants.
Beside the point again as ever.
You claim there is knowledge beyond perception
and the senses. That's just ridiculous. All knowledge
is of perception and the senses. What is unknown is
not knowable QED. Unknown knowledge? LOL
In the view you espouse of photons exciting the
eye which the brain interprets (as it recieves all signals
and interprets all things as the organ of consciousness)
there is no knowledge or world outside that doesn't
enter the head. Your position is actually mind-only
solipsism too. But with embellishments of pure fantasy.
>> (In relation to current cultural opinions.) But it seems
>> incomplete. Other positions are even more bizarre and
>> outlandish. Such as your own assertion of the 'reality'
>> of the unknown and unknowable. Typically platonic
>> and standard theistic.
>
>No, Keynes, you argue for your ego and for God
I've never done such a thing.
You're the one dragging God around and throwing Him
at your enemies.
>every single post and believe in a cartoon version of Plato,
Are you speaking from the shadows of the cave again?
What about your mathematical realities?
>denying the world and positing
>Mind as prior to and above the world, as did Plato and as do theists.
Chicken and egg proposition all over again.
Your argument for priority of the unperceived
material world is just the same thing turned backwards.
You can't refute a fallacy with the same fallacy.
The fact is that knowledge and 'being' itself is
completely mind-dependent. You say the universe
(as lawful and reasonable as you assume it to be)
existed prior to consciousness. That's platonism.
That's religion. That's an unprovable faith dogma.
Do you suppose the clerics couldn't find evidence
for miracles as easily as you do your 'scientistic'
truths?
>So why do you accuse me of having your view?
>
>Unlike either Plato or theists, I don't confuse what is known with
>what is,
No. You assert the 'real' (that which 'is') is the unknown
and physically unknowable. That's religion. It's not empirical.
What you've read or been told is just another person's opinion.
Why don't you sit down quietly and see for yourself?
>and don't pretend that my ego or Mind or God or whatever your
>word is created or constantly creates the stars. And the evidence is
>there from background microwave radiation that the stars were around
>before your 'Mind' and your solipsistic narcissism.
>
>Remember, the issue is about what is, which is mind-independent.
>What 'is' has nothing to do with what we 'know' which is mental.
There you go again. Asserting the reality of the unknown
and unknowable and discounting 'knowing' itself.
So the real, that which 'is', is that which is unknown and
unknowable. It's only a mystery that such a one as you
can actually know this for an unknowable fact.
But that's religion for you.
Lee
> So what's next, try to ask me to show you with certainty or prove
> something, and when I say we can't prove anything, reply with "then my
> nutter beliefs must be right if you don't have certainty!" I hope you
> have something more than the fundamentalist nutter's appeal to
> certainty, or else you're just another annoying Jehovah's Witness at
> my door.
if you ever stop trying to make what i say
into what you think i mean i'll be long ago
dead and gone.
DharmaTroll
post? Well, look at the attention I got. I have nutters climbing out
of the trees and thugs coming out of every dark alley trying to knock
down the Alpha-Troll. See, I was right -- I did get a food fight going
and it wasn't just a useless off-topic post. Heh.]
Good point, Nobody. You're off to an excellent start.
You've already gone way past Kooky Keynes and Lunatic Lee.
In any case, we agree on this background stuff so far.
(Arguments are boring if we don't start on common ground.)
> Therefore, it is meaningless to argue that the electron
> "really existed" prior to observation.
Right. That's actually the most interesting argument posted so far.
Ok, here is my response (and thanks for steering the discussion into
something interesting and not just adding words with capital letters
and talking about the ineffable or transcendental).
First, what I mean by 'reality' is simply those superpositions of
eigenstates, which collapse into what we call 'electrons' in
particular places and so forth. Now, if you are arguing anti-realism
and are going with Kooky Keynes and Lunatic Lee and the Creationists
and whomever else, then you're going to have to make an argument that
minds or egos or God or something 'mental' that is wholly distinct
from the physical is necessary to collapse the wave, and cause
physical reality to exist. In the end, just the background microwave
radiation seems to negate this idea, as nobody had evolved yet right
after the Big Bang and so it couldn't be observed then.
Now I see two ways out of that for the anti-realist world-maker. One
is to posit an omnipotent God that exists prior to the universe and
observes all the wave-collapse. Or a Brahmanist Universal Cosmic Mind.
Perhaps this is what Keynes is going for. But there's no evidence for
this super-Mind or God. The other try is backwards causality. That by
observing the states of the universe right after the Big Bang, we are
backwards through time causing the Big Bang. That's much cooler, from
a sci-fi sense, but it's a bit incoherent, and has the same problem
that any time-travel plot in a sci-fi novel or film has: that in order
to go back in time and cause your mom and dad to screw and create you,
you'd have to have existed in the first place. In the same way, our
going back in time by observing background microwave radiation and
thus our minds creating the Big Bang, which in turn creates us, yields
a view much like that Escher painting where the two hands are both
painting each other. It's way cool, but still incoherent and
contradictory, and so I still default to the idea that the universe
exists without critters, and then critters evolve billions of years
later.
Ok, that said, on to the Copenhagan interpretation. Something striking
happens when we humans observe such a system, say an electron, with an
instrument. At the moment of observation, the wave function appears to
collapse into only one of the possible alternative states, the
superposition of which was described by the wave function before the
event of measurement. That is, a quantum state becomes decoherent when
measured or monitored by the environment. This amounts to the
introduction of a discontinuity in the smooth evolution of the wave
function with time.
This apparent collapse of the wave function does not follow from the
mathematics of the Schrödinger equation, and was, in the early stages
of the history of quantum mechanics, introduced ‘by hand’ as an
additional postulate. That is, one chose to introduce the
interpretation that there is a collapse of the wave function to the
state actually detected by the measurement in the ‘real’ world, to the
exclusion of other states represented in the original wave function.
This (unsatisfactory) dualistic interpretation of quantum mechanics
for dealing with the measurement problem was suggested by Bohr and
Heisenberg at a conference in Copenhagen in 1927, and that's why it's
known as the Copenhagen interpretation.
Now this only is interesting, and isn't just another version of
physicalism if you can demonstrate that non-physical spooks, or
something mental, has to exist and observe the universe for waves to
collapse. I don't even think that the Copenhagen interpretation needs
spooks to work. There isn't a need for minds.
But there are lots of other interpretations even better than the
Copenhagen one these days. If the Copenhagen interpretation isn't even
considered a contender anymore, then we don't even need to discuss
whether non-physical mental spooks are needed for it to work, (which I
claim they aren't, btw). Let me just describe one other modern
interpretation of quantum mechanics.
A different resolution to the problem of interfacing the microscopic
quantum description of reality with macroscopic classical reality is
offered by what has been called ‘quantum Darwinism.’ This formalism
does not require the existence of an observer as a witness of what
occurs in the universe. Instead, the environment is the witness. A
selective witness at that, rather like natural selection in Darwin’s
theory of evolution. The environment determines which quantum
properties are the fittest to survive (and be observed, for example,
by humans). Many copies of the fitter quantum property get created in
the entire environment (’redundancy’). When humans make a measurement,
there is a much greater chance that they would all observe and measure
the fittest solution of the Schrödinger equation, to the exclusion (or
near exclusion) of other possible outcomes of the measurement
experiment.
In a computer experiment, Blume-Kohout and Zurek (2007) demonstrated
quantum Darwinism (http://www.arxiv.org/abs/0704.3615) in zero-
temperature quantum Brownian motion (QBM). A harmonic oscillator
system (S) is made to evolve in contact with a bath (ε) of harmonic
oscillators. The question asked is: How much information about S can
an observer extract from the bath ε? ε consists of subenvironments εi;
i = 1, 2, 3, … Each observer has exclusive access to a fragment F
consisting of m subenvironments. The so-called ‘mutual information
entropy’ is calculated from the quantum mutual information between S
and F.
An important result of this approach is that substantial redundancy
appears in the QBM model; i.e., multiple redundant records get made in
the environment. As the authors state, this redundancy accounts for
the objectivity and the classicality; the environment is a witness,
holding many copies of the evidence. When humans make a measurement,
it is most likely that they would all interact with one of the stable
recorded copies, rather than directly with the actual quantum system,
and thus observe and measure the classical value, to the exclusion of
other possible outcomes of the measurement experiments.
Thanks again to the article from Hollywood Lee, from which I got the
specifics above. Bottom line: spooks aren't necessary in the
Copenhagen interpretation, and even if you argue that the mental is
needed, other interpretations of QM involve collapsing the wave
function without egos or sentient minds being added, and the evidence
we have from the Big Bang support this.
> After the observation, a simplistic
> observer may argue that prior to observation, it "really existed" as a
> particle or a wave, based on the outcome of the experiment.
>
> It is similarly meaningless to argue that the universe, the stars,
> etc, "really existed" prior to being observed.
Not at all. You've totally screwed up the science there. See, because
of the speed of light, what we observed happened in many cases a
billion or several billion years ago. So even if we do create the
stars, we would have had to do so billions of years ago. But wait --
we hadn't evolved yet. Oh no -- even worse -- the Earth only has
existed for 4.5 billions years, which is only one-third of the age of
some of those galaxies and that background noise. So now (see above)
you're going to have to claim that not only do we create the stars,
but we have to somehow time-travel backwards billions of years, and
then magically create the stars with our minds. How the hell are you
going to do that? Or you can go the other way, and posit an infinite,
omnipotent God. But isn't just positing the universe with its
probability waves and its cats and trees and stones and stars much
easier?
> Cosmic background
> radiation is in the same category of "proof" as a blip on a screen,
There is no 'proof'. However, there is very strong evidence, as is
radioactive dating. There are also multiple sources of information
that correspond. Are you going for the BIG conspiracy theory here? Are
you going to claim that independent scientists everywhere are all
lying and in kahoots?
> a click of a detector in the double-slit experiment. They are data
> that can be interpreted in a certain way, such as the existence of
> something prior to observation.
However, tons of the top astrophysicists all agree that this is
background radiation from 13.7 billion years ago, and multiple sources
of other information correlate with this. I suppose you're going to
take the same route as the Creationists do as well, attacking Darwin
and all the evidence from multiple sources we have for evolution, even
though it is also something that can never be 'proved'?
> But just because such an
> interpretation feels comfortable to a mind that is still clinging
Now you die.
Up until now, your post has been better than anybody's here defending
anti-realism or souls or transcendental woo-woo.
But now you claim that all the cosmologists, all the astrophysicists
competing against each other, trying to discredit the current theories
to make a name for themselves and get the Nobel Prize -- that they
only want 'comfort' and are not geniuses but rather psychological
basket cases like crack addicts clinging to their next fix? That they
are part of a conspiracy with their rivals, when they could get a
Nobel Prize and fame and fortune if they could debunk their rivals?
That's where you hang yourself, Nobody.
You've just switched to projecting your own motive, and that of your
nutter allies, "just because such an interpretation feels comfortable
to a mind that is still clinging.
Unlike the top physicists in the world competing for Nobel Prizes and
the glory of finding a new piece to the puzzle before their rivals do,
you and the other nutters here cling to religious woo-woo and dogma
and sit around insulting folks, especially folks like me that have
studied this shit enough to point out that you religious zealots don't
have any reason or evidence or science behind you, only blind faith.
But you did well up to that last line. You're clever, so I still like
you, even though you're a meanie.
Skipping down to your next insult:
> Since that guy so loves strawman arguments, might as well turn it
> around and say that he'd like to believe that Born, Heisenberg,
> Schrödinger, Bohr are all deluded idiots, and the transistor, laser,
> are a hoax, etc.,
Nope, these folks tend to be realists like me, and none of these even
claims that spooks or souls or 'Mind' or Transcendental Realms, or
gods are an ingredient of their physics, as you propose.
Anyway, it's your colleague, Keynes, that claims these folks are
deluded idiots and that Mind (his ego) creates all the transistors and
lasers. None of those physicists made such claims, and all of them,
and Einstein and Feynman and Hawking as well, would agree with the
DharmaTroll and not with you Bio-Centric Bastards. But this is the
farthest you've gone yet in a post, Nobody, with resorting to pooh-
flinging and personal attack. It's a start. Good job.
--My Divine Grace Yabba Dabba Dukkha Dharmakaya Trollpa
It is not surprising that our language should be incapable of
describing the processes occurring within the atoms, for, as has been
remarked, it was invented to describe the experiences of daily life,
and these consists only of processes involving exceedingly large
numbers of atoms. Furthermore, it is very difficult to modify our
language so that it will be able to describe these atomic processes,
for words can only describe things of which we can form mental
pictures, and this ability, too, is a result of daily experience.
Fortunately, mathematics is not subject to this limitation, and it has
been possible to invent a mathematical scheme—the quantum theory—which
seems entirely adequate for the treatment of atomic processes; for
visualization, however, we must content ourselves with two incomplete
analogies—the wave picture and the corpuscular picture.
-Werner Heisenberg
Nobody in Particular
The troll must believe Einstein to be a deluded idiot as well:
"The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the
secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He does not
throw dice."
--Einstein, writing to Max Born, 4 December 1926.
DharmaTroll
You dare quote Einstein at the Trollpa? You really are a N00Bie here,
eh? Ask Granny Evelyn, who has known me since I posted on Buddha-L in
college, and she'll tell you that I've been an Einstein groupie
forever. Just from the quotes I place at the end of posts here, I can
refute that one.
You see, Einstein was speaking metaphorically, and he didn't literally
believe in a spook. Indeed I'd say Einstein's philosophical position
is pretty much identical to my own.
Here is some evidence that Einstein, like Trollpa, uses 'God' as a
tongue-in-cheek metaphor, and doesn't posit any transcendental
beasties or 'Mind' or other woo-woo.
"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product
of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still
primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No
interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
-Albert Einstein, in a letter responding to philosopher Eric Gutkind,
who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to
Revolt; quoted from James Randerson, "Childish Superstition:
Einstein's Letter Makes View of Religion Relatively Clear: Scientist's
Reply to Sell for up to £8,000, and Stoke Debate over His Beliefs" The
Guardian, (13 May 2008)
"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the
most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly
belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no
different quality for me than all other people. As far as my
experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although
they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power.
Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them."
-Albert Einstein, in a letter responding to philosopher Eric Gutkind,
who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to
Revolt; quoted from James Randerson, "Childish Superstition:
Einstein's Letter Makes View of Religion Relatively Clear: Scientist's
Reply to Sell for up to £8,000, and Stoke Debate over His Beliefs" The
Guardian, (13 May 2008)
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his
creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short,
who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that
the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls
harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
-Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955, quoted
from James A Haught, "Breaking the Last Taboo" (1996)
"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider
ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority
behind it."
-Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited
by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy,
education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary.
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death."
-Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine, 9
November 1930
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes
place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for
the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will
hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a
prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being."
-Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if
scientists pray. Source: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Edited by
Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann
"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or
has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I
nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his
physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish
such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life
and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the
existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a
portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in
nature."
-Albert Einstein, The World as I See It
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological
concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will
or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with
undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical
behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and
social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would
indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of
punishment and hope of reward after death."
-Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine, 9
November 1930
As you can see, Einstein and Trollpa are like two peas in a pod. Heh.
--DharmaTroll
"I am a practicing physicist. Everything Dharmatroll has been trying
to tell you about physics is basically true. Virtually every physicist
I know would agree on this."
-Dr. Scott Oser (from talk.religion.buddhism)
Allen Barker
> [Hey, Charles -- remember your sourpuss comment about my neurobiology
> post? Well, look at the attention I got. I have nutters climbing out
> of the trees and thugs coming out of every dark alley trying to knock
> down the Alpha-Troll. See, I was right -- I did get a food fight going
> and it wasn't just a useless off-topic post. Heh.]
But people looking for a serious discussion of neurobiology
and its relation to "these matters" should look elsewhere.
DharmaTroll
> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:47:19 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
> >On Dec 19, 8:54 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>
> >> Solipsism is the only defensible philosophical position.
>
> "(In relation to current cultural opinions.) But it seems incomplete."
>
> >Actually, it's the most egoistic and pathological position, to claim
> >that only your ego exists and what you don't know or see doesn't
> >exist. Maybe we all start that way before we are toilet trained. You
> >seem to want to return to diapers, maybe even to the womb. I respect
> >the desire to connect, but returning to infancy isn't the way. I do
> >think Jesus was right that the way to enter the Kingdom was to be
> >child-like again, but I think that meant returning to a sense of awe
> >and wonder; whereas you just seem to want to poop in your pants.
>
> Beside the point again as ever.
> You claim there is knowledge beyond perception
> and the senses. That's just ridiculous.
NO, I never, ever, ever said that.
I make no claims about 'knowledge' beyond what we know.
That's an obvious contradiction, I agree.
I'm saying that a lot of what 'is', is beyond what we 'know'.
Whatever dark matter is, and dark energy, and all sorts of things we
might not discover for a century, and stuff that we may never know.
I'm saying that what is, is, and we don't have to know about it for it
to be there.
I'm saying that galaxies that are billions of light years away were
there before we were here, and if we hadn't developed telescopes yet
and didn't know about them, that they'd still be there. That's all I'm
saying.
> All knowledge is of perception and the senses.
Again, I'm not talking about knowledge at all.
> What is unknown is not knowable QED.
Well, now THAT is false. Just a few centuries ago, other galaxies were
unknown, nor was electricity, or the existence of Pluto, etc., etc.
But they turned out not to be unknowable. However, there may also be
tons of things, even other universes outside our 'bubble' that are
totally unknowable to us, even if we develop better tech, but that
doesn't mean those other universes don't exist.
Unknown knowledge? LOL
Funny when a clueless nutter says that!
You just made my day!
In other words, by your definition, you know everything, eh?
> >No, Keynes, you argue for your ego and for God
>
> I've never done such a thing.
I can quote you using "Mind" with a capital 'M' dozens of times.
That's your word for your soul or ego and you equate it with god.
I can quote you using "Mind" literally dozens of times.
> What about your mathematical realities?
I've stated many times that I'm an agnostic when it comes to
mathematical realism/nominalism. Quine makes an excellent case for
mathematical realism, but I don't buy it. I don't buy the arguments
for nominalism either, though. I do find the debate interesting, and
like to think about it.
On the other hand, I can climb a tree (while I can't climb a 'three'),
and so I really don't buy the idea that my ego or some woo-woo 'Mind'
creates the tree. I think the 'tree' in my backyard, as well as most
tokens of most common sense types such as 'trees', 'cats', 'stones',
and 'stars', do indeed exist independently of minds rather than are
illusions created by mentation. That is, I think that real trees cause
my brain to create the visual qualia I experience when I say "I see a
tree", and that's different from when I hallucinate seeing a tree, and
no real min-independent physical tree is causing the experience (but
rather the experience is purely caused by accessing memories, etc. in
my brain). Whereas in your view both seeing a tree and seeing a
hallucination that looks like a tree are identical. That's why I tend
to go with common sense realism as much more likely than your woo-woo
Idealism or Bio-Centrism.
> >denying the world and positing
> >Mind as prior to and above the world, as did Plato and as do theists.
>
> Chicken and egg proposition all over again.
No. There's evidence that we've been here only a few millions years,
while the universe is 3 times older than the Earth itself which
sustains us! That's pretty convincing to me that it's not a chicken-
and-egg thing, but rather that the physical world was here first,
without any minds, observers, consciousness, or anything mental, and
that everything mental showed up very, very recently. Neither you nor
the Creationists have ever come up with any evidence or reasoning for
the opposite.
> Your argument for priority of the unperceived
> material world is just the same thing turned backwards.
> You can't refute a fallacy with the same fallacy.
No, I'm only looking at the evidence, which is that the universe is
three times older than the Earth, where all of life evolved. No
fallacy here. Rather, a hell of a lot of strong evidence.
> The fact is that knowledge and 'being' itself is
> completely mind-dependent.
That's not a 'fact': that's a lie and the silliest of woo-woo beliefs.
May as well say "the fact is that the Earth is flat and the Moon is
made of green cheese." I mean, what the hell is that? Say something
ridiculous that contradicts all evidence, and start your sentence
with, "The fact is"? Now you're simply preaching like a Jehovah's
Witness door-to-door whack job. At least come clean and honestly say,
"My superstition is that everything is created by the mental and
doesn't exist without the mental, and even though all evidence is
against me, I'm going with my intuitions and betting on the long-
shot." At least then I'd respect your beliefs. Even though you'd still
be a clueless Nutter.
--DharmaTroll
"The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events
the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the
side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For
him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an
independent cause of natural events."
-Albert Einstein, Science and Religion (1941)
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> On 12/19/2009 11:36 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>
> > [Hey, Charles -- remember your sourpuss comment about my neurobiology
> > post? Well, look at the attention I got. I have nutters climbing out
> > of the trees and thugs coming out of every dark alley trying to knock
> > down the Alpha-Troll. See, I was right -- I did get a food fight going
> > and it wasn't just a useless off-topic post. Heh.]
>
> But people looking for a serious discussion of neurobiology
> and its relation to "these matters" should look elsewhere.
Well, sure. I was simply doing my John Belushi impression and standing
up in the school cafeteria and yelling "FOOD FIGHT!"
Though I do try to always slip some serious discussion in with the
whipped cream while I'm throwing pies in the nutters' faces.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
Well, I refuted what you said, so now, what -- you're claiming that
you meant something else? And you delete the post, and don't clarify
so you can try to hide my refutation of your woo-woo by blaming it on
me? Yeah, that's a good one. Try again, Bozo.
--DharmaTroll
Nobody in Particular
<snip>
More Einstein quotes:
I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this
or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to
know His thoughts; the rest are details.
================
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable
superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able
to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional
conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is
revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.
================
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense
of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well
as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this
experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense
that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that
our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only
indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.
================
.....
But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the
pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the
laws of the Universe -- a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and
one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a
special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of
someone more naive.
================
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
================
When asked by an astounded atheist, if he were in fact deeply
religious, Einstein replied:
Yes, you can call it that. Try and penetrate with our limited means
the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the
discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible
and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we
can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact,
religious.
================
I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding
ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from
it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the
same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from
the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight
of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They
are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of
the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature
does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards
of human moral and human aims.
================
In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human
understanding, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say
there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me
for the support of such views.
DharmaTroll
Great quotes! I've read all but one of them before.
The one I like best, even though woo-woo-ists can read all sorts of
nonsense into it, but nonetheless which moves me the most, is:
> The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense
> of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well
> as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this
> experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense
> that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that
> our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only
> indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.
And runner up is:
> But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the
> pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the
> laws of the Universe -- a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and
> one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
> In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a
> special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of
> someone more naive.
I remember my most enlightened scientific moment of awe, back in
college, in Calculus class, when I got stoned one April 20th when
everyone gathered on the grassy mall in campus and got stoned that
unusually hot, sunny spring day, and then I wandered into Calculus
class. Our professor was awesome: he taught math as a storyteller; he
was a little Hungarian dude who looked and talked like Bella Lagosi ,
and he grinned as he told the stories about how various equations came
to be.
That particular day, only about 10-20% of the class had shown up in
the normally filled large lecture hall, and he said, "well, since
nobody's here, let's jump ahead and I'll show you something fun." He
showed us the complex plane, and the unit circle upon it. And then he
demonstrated the formula e to the power i times sin theta, Euler's
formula. I was stoned but I followed it all. And then he got to the
climax of the story. At pi radians (180 degrees), the formula is e to
the power of i times pi. "The three magical numbers in math are all
here," he explained, "and at this point we have minus one. But to be
elegant and a aesthetically pleasing, let's add one to both sides of
the equation." He then produced what I've since called the "God
formula": (e to the (i times pi)) plus one equals zero.
"And there you have it," the Hungarian professor grinned, "e, i, and
pi, and the two numbers that create them all, 1 and 0, and nothing
else, just those three constants and one and zero, all connected
together in one formula." It was amazing. All the math I'd learned all
my life converged and connected in this simple formula, and, being
really, really stoned, yet comprehending the math, it was the most
awesome experience. For a moment I glimpsed the beauty and wonder of
the universe that Einstein felt and expressed in these quotes. I was
awed that after billions and billions of years, we can grasp such a
deep and mysterious and beautiful pattern. Just, wow. For a moment, I
was Einstein, and Newton, and Euler, of course, and even Jean-Luc
Picard.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
Damn. For any math nerds, I meant to say, e to the (cosine theta plus
i times sin theta), so that at pi radians, the cosine of pi is minus 1
and the i times sine theta is zero and drops out of the equation so
that the term is minus 1, and that's how you get the formula: (e to
the (i times pi)) plus one equals zero.
But in any case, I'm not just the only sci-fi or science geek that has
been awed by this formula. His Holiness Richard Feynman remarked about
this formula that it is "one of the most remarkable, almost
astounding, formulas in all of mathematics".
Whew Who!
--DharmaTroll
Allen Barker
>> the people"�cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature
What a lovely and useful *definition*, generalizing exponentiation
to apply to complex exponents. It has stood the test of time
quite well, in that evolution-of-math kind of way.
No need to get all maudlin about it.
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> >> the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature
Maudlin? Have you no sense of awe? E to the i theta equal to cosine
theta plus I sin theta, so that e to the i pi plus one equal to zero?
It's insanely beautiful, is what it is, how it all comes together in
that one formula.
And it gets even better. Euler got the idea from the totally awesome
genius Bernoulli, you know, the Bernoulli who figured out the math fo
fluid dynamics now used on airplane wings, that the air traveling
faster over the foil creates a lower pressure. Bernoulli came up with
a logarithmic formula that Euler used to create his magic formula,
which he then proved with a Taylor series expansion. Truly
remarkable.
Indeed, so much beauty and mystery comes from the complex plane. It's
truly awesome. Reminds me of the beauty of fractals. Check out:
http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html
And then check out JoCo's totally awesome song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES-yKOYaXq0
--DharmaTroll
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 19, 10:42 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
Angels and demons?
>I'm saying that galaxies that are billions of light years away were
>there before we were here, and if we hadn't developed telescopes yet
>and didn't know about them, that they'd still be there. That's all I'm
>saying.
I'm just saying that a billion is inconceivable.
So is a million or a thousand and even a hundred.
But maybe you're different. Have you considered
a career of guessing the number of beans in a jar?
Time is also inconceivable.
We have yet to get a coherent description of it.
Every moment is the future of the past and the
past of the future at the same time. Yet every
moment is by definition too brief to measure,
too vanishingly small for anything to happen in.
(Since time is simply the measure of motion.)
Yet we somehow manage to stuff all the vastness
of (measurable?) time into that unmoving
present nothingness.
Carl Sagan himself could stuff billions and billions
into it without filling it up.
>> All knowledge is of perception and the senses.
>
>Again, I'm not talking about knowledge at all.
>
>> What is unknown is not knowable QED.
>
>Well, now THAT is false. Just a few centuries ago, other galaxies were
>unknown, nor was electricity, or the existence of Pluto, etc., etc.
>But they turned out not to be unknowable. However, there may also be
>tons of things, even other universes outside our 'bubble' that are
>totally unknowable to us, even if we develop better tech, but that
>doesn't mean those other universes don't exist.
What does 'exist' mean?
Do optical illusions exist? Hallucinations?
Confusions and delusions?
>Unknown knowledge? LOL
>
>Funny when a clueless nutter says that!
>You just made my day!
>In other words, by your definition, you know everything, eh?
I don't know what I don't know, and don't pretend to.
You do.
>> >No, Keynes, you argue for your ego and for God
>>
>> I've never done such a thing.
>
>I can quote you using "Mind" with a capital 'M' dozens of times.
>That's your word for your soul or ego and you equate it with god.
>
>I can quote you using "Mind" literally dozens of times.
How is mind a god? Does it lay down commandments
and deliver rewards and punishments? As far as I know
we are only sentient because we are sentient. And without
sentience there is not even as much as nothing for us.
(Nothing meaning the concept of absence of all qualities.)
Life as we know it is simply sentience.
>> What about your mathematical realities?
>
>I've stated many times that I'm an agnostic when it comes to
>mathematical realism/nominalism. Quine makes an excellent case for
>mathematical realism, but I don't buy it. I don't buy the arguments
>for nominalism either, though. I do find the debate interesting, and
>like to think about it.
>
>On the other hand, I can climb a tree (while I can't climb a 'three'),
>and so I really don't buy the idea that my ego or some woo-woo 'Mind'
>creates the tree.
Hold on there. Atoms are apparently empty space such that the
size of a proton to an atom is like a mosquito in the center of
a football stadium. The coherence of solid matter is an illusion
created by electrical forces attracting and repelling each other.
(Mediated by quantum chromodynamics theory of exchange
of virtual energy particles having masses and energies exceeding
the apparent total of the whole atom.) You can see a tree in a
magazine or in your back yard, but ultimately there is no such
thing as a tree or anything else but photons, electrons, and quarks.
(OK. I'll give you neutrinos, but that's it.)
>I think the 'tree' in my backyard, as well as most
>tokens of most common sense types such as 'trees', 'cats', 'stones',
>and 'stars', do indeed exist independently of minds rather than are
>illusions created by mentation. That is, I think that real trees cause
>my brain to create the visual qualia I experience when I say "I see a
>tree", and that's different from when I hallucinate seeing a tree, and
The thing about a hallucination is that it is indistinguishable
from 'reality'.
>no real min-independent physical tree is causing the experience (but
>rather the experience is purely caused by accessing memories, etc. in
>my brain). Whereas in your view both seeing a tree and seeing a
>hallucination that looks like a tree are identical. That's why I tend
>to go with common sense realism as much more likely than your woo-woo
>Idealism or Bio-Centrism.
How can you avoid biocentrism?
Aren't you always saying that mind is made by your
evolutionary produced anthropoidal physical brain matter?
It's not uncommon for folks to wish to rise above their
station, but can it actually be done? Can we climb the
trees once again and happily scratch our asses like our
forebears? Or are we too honking degenerate?
>> >denying the world and positing
>> >Mind as prior to and above the world, as did Plato and as do theists.
>>
>> Chicken and egg proposition all over again.
>
>No. There's evidence that we've been here only a few millions years,
>while the universe is 3 times older than the Earth itself which
>sustains us! That's pretty convincing to me that it's not a chicken-
>and-egg thing, but rather that the physical world was here first,
>without any minds, observers, consciousness, or anything mental, and
>that everything mental showed up very, very recently. Neither you nor
>the Creationists have ever come up with any evidence or reasoning for
>the opposite.
Creationists use the same reverential awe that you have been
professing as a proof for their God.
Why don't you take your time machine back a few billion
years and leave a monument or something to prove your
point?
>> Your argument for priority of the unperceived
>> material world is just the same thing turned backwards.
>> You can't refute a fallacy with the same fallacy.
>
>No, I'm only looking at the evidence, which is that the universe is
>three times older than the Earth, where all of life evolved. No
>fallacy here. Rather, a hell of a lot of strong evidence.
>
>> The fact is that knowledge and 'being' itself is
>> completely mind-dependent.
>
>That's not a 'fact': that's a lie and the silliest of woo-woo beliefs.
>May as well say "the fact is that the Earth is flat and the Moon is
>made of green cheese."
If it were so, we'd all be pizza.
>I mean, what the hell is that? Say something
>ridiculous that contradicts all evidence, and start your sentence
>with, "The fact is"? Now you're simply preaching like a Jehovah's
>Witness door-to-door whack job.
I hope you never do that yourself.
Charles E Hardwidge
news:jovri5527krkhs9hm...@4ax.com...
> How can you avoid biocentrism?
> Aren't you always saying that mind is made by your
> evolutionary produced anthropoidal physical brain matter?
> It's not uncommon for folks to wish to rise above their
> station, but can it actually be done? Can we climb the
> trees once again and happily scratch our asses like our
> forebears? Or are we too honking degenerate?
Arguing shit that should've been settled in one thread 10 years ago suggests
not. That's before anyone gets into science, mysticism, or the price of
chickens. Nobody apart from you few obsessive autistic assholes in a
newsgroup everyone else has abandoned gives a fuck.
FU trimmed to alt.zen
--
Charles E Hardwidge
zenworm
> On Dec 19, 11:59 pm, Allen Barker <allendotelldotbar...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On 12/19/2009 11:36 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>
> > > [Hey, Charles -- remember your sourpuss comment about my neurobiology
> > > post? Well, look at the attention I got. I have nutters climbing out
> > > of the trees and thugs coming out of every dark alley trying to knock
> > > down the Alpha-Troll. See, I was right -- I did get a food fight going
> > > and it wasn't just a useless off-topic post. Heh.]
>
> > But people looking for a serious discussion of neurobiology
> > and its relation to "these matters" should look elsewhere.
>
> Well, sure. I was simply doing my John Belushi impression and standing
> up in the school cafeteria and yelling "FOOD FIGHT!"
>
> Though I do try to always slip some serious discussion in with the
> whipped cream while I'm throwing pies in the nutters' faces.
>
> --DharmaTroll
ROFLMAO
artfully done
the graphic novel will be great
consider this a preorder for the
first 10 copies at $10 each
done deal (not kidding)
great fun
Lee
On Dec 19, 11:32 pm, "Lee" <original...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:669d3140-a85c-4002...@y24g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
>
> > So what's next, try to ask me to show you with certainty or prove
> > something, and when I say we can't prove anything, reply with "then my
> > nutter beliefs must be right if you don't have certainty!" I hope you
> > have something more than the fundamentalist nutter's appeal to
> > certainty, or else you're just another annoying Jehovah's Witness at
> > my door.
>
> if you ever stop trying to make what i say
> into what you think i mean i'll be long ago
> dead and gone.
>Well, I refuted what you said,
you mean like how you misquoted me as
in the above paragraph and even went so
far as to put quotation marks around something
that i never said?
>so now, what -- you're claiming that
>you meant something else?
no that's what you're claiming that
i meant something other than what i said
and without evidence too as usual.
> And you delete the post, and don't clarify
oh i clarify but your vivid imagination hears
none of it and makes up stories so your
opinions can't be threatened.
>so you can try to hide my refutation of your woo-woo by blaming it on
>me? Yeah, that's a good one. Try again, Bozo.
i don't try at all. you bury yourself with
each false misapprehension that you
continually lie to yourself about.
DharmaTroll
> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:25:27 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
> >On Dec 19, 10:42 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:47:19 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >On Dec 19, 8:54 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>
> >I'm saying that galaxies that are billions of light years away were
> >there before we were here, and if we hadn't developed telescopes yet
> >and didn't know about them, that they'd still be there. That's all I'm
> >saying.
>
> I'm just saying that a billion is inconceivable.
> So is a million or a thousand and even a hundred.
> But maybe you're different.
Yeah, I can easily conceive of a hundred, a thousand, a million, and a
billion.
> Time is also inconceivable.
> We have yet to get a coherent description of it.
Just look at a clock. When the second-hand moves, that's time.
> >Well, now THAT is false. Just a few centuries ago, other galaxies were
> >unknown, nor was electricity, or the existence of Pluto, etc., etc.
> >But they turned out not to be unknowable. However, there may also be
> >tons of things, even other universes outside our 'bubble' that are
> >totally unknowable to us, even if we develop better tech, but that
> >doesn't mean those other universes don't exist.
>
> What does 'exist' mean?
Actually occupy space and time and are independent of anything mental.
> Do optical illusions exist? Hallucinations?
> Confusions and delusions?
No. Not at all.
And if we couldn't distinguish between what exists (cats) and
hallucinations, we wouldn't have survived this far.
> The thing about a hallucination is that it is indistinguishable
> from 'reality'.
Actually, it is. Macbeth figures that out when his hand passes through
what he thought was a dagger.
Again, Keynes, eat only dream-food, or visualized hallucinated food,
and see if it is indistinguishable, ya lying sack of snake oil.
Do you really think that if you lie and deny, Keynes, and pretend that
make-believe is the same as cats and trees, that that is 'Zen' and
'Nondualism'? All it really means is that you're another Jehovah's
Witness, with just a slightly different story.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
I've already refuted what you said. For the second post, now, you
haven't provided any reasoning for your views, and instead again are
talking about talking, pretending you said something else, but not
saying what that might be. That is, again a pathetic fish out of
water, flailing around babbling about being misunderstood because you
can't even throw a punch. You lose again, sissy-boy.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
Heh.
--DharmaTroll
Lee
--DharmaTroll
-----------------------------------------------------------
great mirror work. carry on.
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 20, 6:38 am, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:25:27 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
>> wrote:
>> >On Dec 19, 10:42 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>> >> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:47:19 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >On Dec 19, 8:54 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>>
>> >I'm saying that galaxies that are billions of light years away were
>> >there before we were here, and if we hadn't developed telescopes yet
>> >and didn't know about them, that they'd still be there. That's all I'm
>> >saying.
>>
>> I'm just saying that a billion is inconceivable.
>> So is a million or a thousand and even a hundred.
>> But maybe you're different.
>
>Yeah, I can easily conceive of a hundred, a thousand, a million, and a
>billion.
Only the symbols, not the actual quantities.
You're only fooling yourself.
>> Time is also inconceivable.
>> We have yet to get a coherent description of it.
>
>Just look at a clock. When the second-hand moves, that's time.
As I pointed out before, motion is impossible to see.
But if you think it is possible, please explain how.
>> >Well, now THAT is false. Just a few centuries ago, other galaxies were
>> >unknown, nor was electricity, or the existence of Pluto, etc., etc.
>> >But they turned out not to be unknowable. However, there may also be
>> >tons of things, even other universes outside our 'bubble' that are
>> >totally unknowable to us, even if we develop better tech, but that
>> >doesn't mean those other universes don't exist.
>>
>> What does 'exist' mean?
>
>Actually occupy space and time and are independent of anything mental.
Then how could you perceive them?
>> Do optical illusions exist? Hallucinations?
>> Confusions and delusions?
>
>No. Not at all.
They are. But they don't exist?
>And if we couldn't distinguish between what exists (cats) and
>hallucinations, we wouldn't have survived this far.
>
>> The thing about a hallucination is that it is indistinguishable
>> from 'reality'.
>
>Actually, it is. Macbeth figures that out when his hand passes through
>what he thought was a dagger.
Sure. A dagger floating in the air.
Special case, and totally fictional at that.
Insanity is much more self-consistent than that.
>Again, Keynes, eat only dream-food, or visualized hallucinated food,
>and see if it is indistinguishable, ya lying sack of snake oil.
>
>Do you really think that if you lie and deny,
Do you think that tactic is working for you?
>Keynes, and pretend that
>make-believe is the same as cats and trees, that that is 'Zen' and
>'Nondualism'? All it really means is that you're another Jehovah's
>Witness, with just a slightly different story.
Aren't you the preacher here?
And it's so difficult that you have to snip and weasel about it.
And quote scripture and invoke the saints. What's next?
Holy water and exorcism?
Unfortunately for you, even if you snip and sanitize your replies,
you can't make the arguments in my posts disappear too. This
makes you look like a tot who covers his eyes to make the
monsters go away. Infantile.
Lee Rudolph
>On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:04:34 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com>
>wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm just saying that a billion is inconceivable.
>>> So is a million or a thousand and even a hundred.
>>> But maybe you're different.
>>
>>Yeah, I can easily conceive of a hundred, a thousand, a million, and a
>>billion.
>
>Only the symbols, not the actual quantities.
>You're only fooling yourself.
Keynes, you're barking mad.
Since you're counterposing "actual quantities" to "symbols", you
must (for the purposes of this argument) think that "a hundred"
(for instance), as an "actual quantity", can be instantiated
(albeit "inconceivably") in a non-symbolic way--right? And
you must also (for the purposes of this argument) think that
there *are* such things as "actual quantities" (which seems
unlike you, but hey)--right? Well, then. Empty your piggybank,
buy five packs of Lucky Strikes, open them all and hold 100
cigarettes in your hand. (Or go back to the piggybank and
hold 100 pennies in your hand.) Can you not "conceive"
of what is in your HAND? Furrfu.
Lee Rudolph
Déjà Flu
> Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> writes:
<gold frame>
> Keynes, you're barking mad.
</gold frame>
For someone who thinks Vaseline is absorbed
through the skin, the concept of quantity is
easily dismissed by omnipotent Mind.
Keynes
wrote:
>Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> writes:
>
>>On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:04:34 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com>
>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm just saying that a billion is inconceivable.
>>>> So is a million or a thousand and even a hundred.
>>>> But maybe you're different.
>>>
>>>Yeah, I can easily conceive of a hundred, a thousand, a million, and a
>>>billion.
>>
>>Only the symbols, not the actual quantities.
>>You're only fooling yourself.
>
>Keynes, you're barking mad.
Why thank you.
>Since you're counterposing "actual quantities" to "symbols", you
>must (for the purposes of this argument) think that "a hundred"
>(for instance), as an "actual quantity", can be instantiated
>(albeit "inconceivably") in a non-symbolic way--right? And
>you must also (for the purposes of this argument) think that
>there *are* such things as "actual quantities" (which seems
>unlike you, but hey)--right?
When I buy cigarettes, philosophy goes out the window,
and I demand an honest count. When I smoke them is
where my confusion enters in.
>Well, then. Empty your piggybank,
>buy five packs of Lucky Strikes, open them all and hold 100
>cigarettes in your hand. (Or go back to the piggybank and
>hold 100 pennies in your hand.) Can you not "conceive"
>of what is in your HAND? Furrfu.
>
>Lee Rudolph
If someone showed you 100 cigarettes scattered
about and disordered, (without telling you how many),
would you know it right away for 100? If someone did
the same with 30, would you instantly perceive the number
30? Could you do it with 20? I couldn't even do it with 10.
Why do you think the numbers on cards and dice are in
a particular order? It's because we can associate patterns
(and symbols) with numbers without actually understanding
them or having to actually count them. But we sure don't
understand quantities like we think we do.
Toss the dice in a board game and perceive a 3 and a 5.
Elementary drill has given us the quick answer 8. So
we take our play token and move in steps one by one.
Seldom do we jump over directly to the 8th square.
(Although familiarity with the board will allow this.
It isn't an inborn native talent.)
Quickly now! How many minutes in a week?
That can be calculated of course, but it is not
immediately apparent as it would be if we actually
understood numbers as we suppose that we do.
10080? What does that immediately bring to mind?
(Or to make it easier -- 10,080. And what's that
comma for but an aid to understanding a simple
5 digit pattern. Apparently, most of us need that.)
100000000000000000000.0001
Quick! How many digits?
(I think it's significantly less than a trillion digits.
But I'll have to count them anyway to find out.)
Back when money was worth a whole lot more,
a senator said, "A million here, and a million there,
and pretty soon your talking about real money."
Keynes
>Lee Rudolph wrote:
>> Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> writes:
>
> <gold frame>
>
>> Keynes, you're barking mad.
>
> </gold frame>
>
>For someone who thinks Vaseline is absorbed
>through the skin,
I discovered this experimentally.
(To my regret.)
DharmaTroll
I accept your resignation.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:04:34 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
> >On Dec 20, 6:38 am, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:25:27 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >On Dec 19, 10:42 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
> >> >> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:47:19 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> >On Dec 19, 8:54 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>
> >> >I'm saying that galaxies that are billions of light years away were
> >> >there before we were here, and if we hadn't developed telescopes yet
> >> >and didn't know about them, that they'd still be there. That's all I'm
> >> >saying.
>
> >> I'm just saying that a billion is inconceivable.
> >> So is a million or a thousand and even a hundred.
> >> But maybe you're different.
>
> >Yeah, I can easily conceive of a hundred, a thousand, a million, and a
> >billion.
>
> Only the symbols, not the actual quantities.
> You're only fooling yourself.
No, I can conceive of the quantities.
Doesn't matter what symbols you use.
> >> Time is also inconceivable.
> >> We have yet to get a coherent description of it.
>
> >Just look at a clock. When the second-hand moves, that's time.
>
> As I pointed out before, motion is impossible to see.
> But if you think it is possible, please explain how.
Look at a clock. Look at it again. Was there a change? Then you saw
motion and time. That's all there is to it, Nutter-Dude. You're
playing the game of "make up a dumb-ass definition that's absurd and
then pretend that's what everyone else means by the term". But nobody
goes for your dumb-ass definition except for you, dumb-ass.
> >> >Well, now THAT is false. Just a few centuries ago, other galaxies were
> >> >unknown, nor was electricity, or the existence of Pluto, etc., etc.
> >> >But they turned out not to be unknowable. However, there may also be
> >> >tons of things, even other universes outside our 'bubble' that are
> >> >totally unknowable to us, even if we develop better tech, but that
> >> >doesn't mean those other universes don't exist.
>
> >> What does 'exist' mean?
>
> >Actually occupy space and time and are independent of anything mental.
>
> Then how could you perceive them?
By 'perceive them' I'm claiming that there is a proper causal
relationship. That is, if a tree caused my experiences in the right
way (reflecting light into my retinas, etc.) then that is just what it
is to perceive a tree. Again, you are playing a game of "make up a
dumb-ass definition that's absurd and then pretend that's what
everyone else means by the term". But nobody goes for your dumb-ass
definition except for you, dumb-ass.
> >> Do optical illusions exist? Hallucinations?
> >> Confusions and delusions?
>
> >No. Not at all.
>
> They are. But they don't exist?
No. They are not. If they "are" then they are not hallucinations. That
is, there is no object of experience at all with an hallucination.
Rather, Our experiencing is much like what it is like when we actually
experience something real. But there is no referent at all.
> >And if we couldn't distinguish between what exists (cats) and
> >hallucinations, we wouldn't have survived this far.
>
> >> The thing about a hallucination is that it is indistinguishable
> >> from 'reality'.
>
> >Actually, it is. Macbeth figures that out when his hand passes through
> >what he thought was a dagger.
>
> Sure. A dagger floating in the air.
No. There is no dagger in the air. MacBeth confirms this and declares,
"There's no such thing!"
Rather, the experiencing resembled in certain ways the actual
experiencing of a dagger. But there is no 'hallucinated dagger' as if
that were an existent thing. Rather, there is only a certain type of
experiencing. No object of MacBeth's experience at all.
> Special case, and totally fictional at that.
No, same with all ordinary dreams. Not a special case. Rather, your
nutter-talk falls apart from examination.
> Insanity is much more self-consistent than that.
Yes, your insanity is more self-consistent, but it's still nutz.
> >Again, Keynes, eat only dream-food, or visualized hallucinated food,
> >and see if it is indistinguishable, ya lying sack of snake oil.
>
> >Do you really think that if you lie and deny,
>
> Do you think that tactic is working for you?
I use rationality and truth. As you lie and confuse, I have the high
ground and only need to be clear and honest, and you're exposed for
the fool you are, trying to make up your own absurd definitions for
everything, turn around and claim that trees are illusions and
hallucinations are real (all in the name of Undifferentiated
Nondualism Mind, of course), and then claim that that's what it is to
be 'Zen'. Luckily, you don't acknowledge other minds, for from the
point of view of these alleged other minds, you look like just another
dogmatic egomaniac.
> Unfortunately for you, even if you snip and sanitize your replies,
> you can't make the arguments in my posts disappear too.
That's 'cause there are no arguments. I snip your endless babble and
insults and only post your arguments and then refute them. You're a
stooge, remember, and the point is that others read the wise words of
My Divine Grace, but they won't last through all your idiocy, so I
keep only your core arguments and your silliest of insults and then I
refute you with what I've examined by studying great philosophers. If
someone asks, "where does that idea come from, that X is not a Y
except in the case of Z?" or so forth, then I'll answer them in
serious detail. Also, this helps me to remember interesting stuff I
studied years ago and haven't thought much of since. That's your
purpose. Now stop whining and keep babbling ridiculous dogmatic fluff
mixed with insults: do your job, dammit.
--DharmaTroll
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 20, 3:06 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
Two looks but no actual seeing of motion or time.
What is this 'change' you claim that you don't need to see?
(How's your leg? You seem to be going more and more lame.)
>That's all there is to it, Nutter-Dude. You're
>playing the game of "make up a dumb-ass definition that's absurd and
>then pretend that's what everyone else means by the term". But nobody
>goes for your dumb-ass definition except for you, dumb-ass.
Oh sure. Look. Don't look. Look again.
And then you 'see' it all. Mercy.
Can you really see with your ass?
>> >> >Well, now THAT is false. Just a few centuries ago, other galaxies were
>> >> >unknown, nor was electricity, or the existence of Pluto, etc., etc.
>> >> >But they turned out not to be unknowable. However, there may also be
>> >> >tons of things, even other universes outside our 'bubble' that are
>> >> >totally unknowable to us, even if we develop better tech, but that
>> >> >doesn't mean those other universes don't exist.
>>
>> >> What does 'exist' mean?
>>
>> >Actually occupy space and time and are independent of anything mental.
>>
>> Then how could you perceive them?
>
>By 'perceive them' I'm claiming that there is a proper causal
>relationship. That is, if a tree caused my experiences in the right
>way (reflecting light into my retinas, etc.) then that is just what it
>is to perceive a tree. Again, you are playing a game of "make up a
>dumb-ass definition that's absurd and then pretend that's what
>everyone else means by the term". But nobody goes for your dumb-ass
>definition except for you, dumb-ass.
Ahh. But scientifically speaking, nothing exists but
energy that sometimes takes the form of photons,
electrons, quarks and neutrinos. Or isn't that so?
How can there be trees?
>> >> Do optical illusions exist? Hallucinations?
>> >> Confusions and delusions?
>>
>> >No. Not at all.
>>
>> They are. But they don't exist?
>
>No. They are not. If they "are" then they are not hallucinations. That
>is, there is no object of experience at all with an hallucination.
>Rather, Our experiencing is much like what it is like when we actually
>experience something real. But there is no referent at all.
So there is no such thing as an hallucination?
Amazing, since you brought up the term in the first place.
Are you just trying to spread your own confusion around?
>> >And if we couldn't distinguish between what exists (cats) and
>> >hallucinations, we wouldn't have survived this far.
>>
>> >> The thing about a hallucination is that it is indistinguishable
>> >> from 'reality'.
>>
>> >Actually, it is. Macbeth figures that out when his hand passes through
>> >what he thought was a dagger.
>>
>> Sure. A dagger floating in the air.
>
>No. There is no dagger in the air. MacBeth confirms this and declares,
>"There's no such thing!"
But he had to look and wave his hands first to find that out.
"There is no such thing even if I see it!"
>Rather, the experiencing resembled in certain ways the actual
>experiencing of a dagger. But there is no 'hallucinated dagger' as if
>that were an existent thing. Rather, there is only a certain type of
>experiencing. No object of MacBeth's experience at all.
>
>> Special case, and totally fictional at that.
>
>No, same with all ordinary dreams. Not a special case. Rather, your
>nutter-talk falls apart from examination.
Can't you do any better than this?
There was a time when you made some sort of sense or other.
But now...
>> Insanity is much more self-consistent than that.
>
>Yes, your insanity is more self-consistent, but it's still nutz.
>
>> >Again, Keynes, eat only dream-food, or visualized hallucinated food,
>> >and see if it is indistinguishable, ya lying sack of snake oil.
>>
>> >Do you really think that if you lie and deny,
>>
>> Do you think that tactic is working for you?
>
>I use rationality and truth.
If only you could...
>As you lie and confuse, I have the high
>ground and only need to be clear and honest,
Why don't you?
>and you're exposed for
>the fool you are, trying to make up your own absurd definitions for
>everything,
Like "see" and "exist"?
Didn't you learn english even before, during, or after
your marvelous victories in college and beyond?
(Physics, Philosophy, and no doubt other triumphs.)
Here you are into your forties and still cheating
on the exams. But now in public. Pathetic.
(If you can't do any better than this,
you'd look a lot wiser if you just shut up.)
>turn around and claim that trees are illusions and
>hallucinations are real (all in the name of Undifferentiated
>Nondualism Mind, of course), and then claim that that's what it is to
>be 'Zen'. Luckily, you don't acknowledge other minds, for from the
>point of view of these alleged other minds, you look like just another
>dogmatic egomaniac.
One of us does.
Unfortunately for you, even if you snip and sanitize your replies,
you can't make the arguments in my posts disappear too.
"But nobody goes for your dumb-ass definition except for you, dumb-ass."
-- Daniel Webster Dumb Ass D'Trollpa, the Caterpillar of Lexicography.
DharmaTroll
> Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> writes:
> >wrote:
>
> Keynes, you're barking mad.
>
No, no, no. You reality-denying nutters are supposed to reinforce each
others' nonsense and join forces so I can roll my bowling ball and
knock you all down in one strike. No fair calling each other mad,
dammit!
DharmaTroll
So Keynes actually thinks that when he rubs Vaseline on his penis,
that it's Vaseline being absorbed through his skin that makes his
penis hard? Well, that figures, as he thinks the girl he's fantasizing
about is just as real as the one who lives next door. Hah!
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:27:06 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
Nope, you can look continuously and see the motion and time going by.
> What is this 'change' you claim that you don't need to see?
> (How's your leg? You seem to be going more and more lame.)
But then again, you admit that you are a liar and that in real life,
Zen goes out the window, but you only discuss it when bullshitting:
<<When I buy cigarettes, philosophy goes out
the window, and I demand an honest count.>>
> >That's all there is to it, Nutter-Dude. You're
> >playing the game of "make up a dumb-ass definition that's absurd and
> >then pretend that's what everyone else means by the term". But nobody
> >goes for your dumb-ass definition except for you, dumb-ass.
>
> Oh sure. Look. Don't look. Look again.
> And then you 'see' it all. Mercy.
> Can you really see with your ass?
Again, I recall your confession:
<<When I buy cigarettes, philosophy goes out
the window, and I demand an honest count.>>
> >> >> >Well, now THAT is false. Just a few centuries ago, other galaxies were
> >> >> >unknown, nor was electricity, or the existence of Pluto, etc., etc.
> >> >> >But they turned out not to be unknowable. However, there may also be
> >> >> >tons of things, even other universes outside our 'bubble' that are
> >> >> >totally unknowable to us, even if we develop better tech, but that
> >> >> >doesn't mean those other universes don't exist.
>
> >> >> What does 'exist' mean?
>
> >> >Actually occupy space and time and are independent of anything mental.
>
> >> Then how could you perceive them?
>
> >By 'perceive them' I'm claiming that there is a proper causal
> >relationship. That is, if a tree caused my experiences in the right
> >way (reflecting light into my retinas, etc.) then that is just what it
> >is to perceive a tree. Again, you are playing a game of "make up a
> >dumb-ass definition that's absurd and then pretend that's what
> >everyone else means by the term". But nobody goes for your dumb-ass
> >definition except for you, dumb-ass.
>
> Ahh. But scientifically speaking, nothing exists but
> energy
"nothing but" energy??? But energy is all that exists!
So that's a hell of a lot. (Matter is a form of energy).
> that sometimes takes the form of photons,
> electrons, quarks and neutrinos. Or isn't that so?
> How can there be trees?
Easily. Trees are collections of energy/matter.
And they are independent of anything mental.
Those are the two conditions needed to be 'real'.
> >> >> Do optical illusions exist? Hallucinations?
> >> >> Confusions and delusions?
>
> >> >No. Not at all.
>
> >> They are. But they don't exist?
>
> >No. They are not. If they "are" then they are not hallucinations. That
> >is, there is no object of experience at all with an hallucination.
> >Rather, Our experiencing is much like what it is like when we actually
> >experience something real. But there is no referent at all.
>
> So there is no such thing as an hallucination?
Yes, there is only hallucinating, and no object of hallucination
exists. That is what hallucination is by definition, in fact.
> Amazing, since you brought up the term in the first place.
> Are you just trying to spread your own confusion around?
No, I brought up the term to contrast the real and unreal, just as I
did between the imaginary girl whom you fantasize about (who doesn't
exist) and the one who lives next door who does exist. Or a real
horse versus a unicorn.
> >> >And if we couldn't distinguish between what exists (cats) and
> >> >hallucinations, we wouldn't have survived this far.
>
> >> >> The thing about a hallucination is that it is indistinguishable
> >> >> from 'reality'.
>
> >> >Actually, it is. Macbeth figures that out when his hand passes through
> >> >what he thought was a dagger.
>
> >> Sure. A dagger floating in the air.
>
> >No. There is no dagger in the air. MacBeth confirms this and declares,
> >"There's no such thing!"
>
> But he had to look and wave his hands first to find that out.
> "There is no such thing even if I see it!"
He didn't see any 'it'. There was only experiencing that somewhat
resembled seeing a dagger. There is no object of experience when
hallucinating. When you say "he saw an image OF a dagger", that is the
'OF' of classification, not of reference. That is the confusion that
may lead one wrongly to think there is an object of hallucination or
that there are dream objects. There are not.
> >Rather, the experiencing resembled in certain ways the actual
> >experiencing of a dagger. But there is no 'hallucinated dagger' as if
> >that were an existent thing. Rather, there is only a certain type of
> >experiencing. No object of MacBeth's experience at all.
>
> >> Special case, and totally fictional at that.
>
> >No, same with all ordinary dreams. Not a special case.
> >Rather, your nutter-talk falls apart from examination.
>
> Can't you do any better than this?
Well, no. If you say stupid things, I can't do much better than say
simple things to refute you. If you make a sophisticated argument,
which you haven't really done so far, then I'll give a sophisticated
response.
> >> Insanity is much more self-consistent than that.
>
> >Yes, your insanity is more self-consistent, but it's still nutz.
>
> >> >Again, Keynes, eat only dream-food, or visualized hallucinated food,
> >> >and see if it is indistinguishable, ya lying sack of snake oil.
--DharmaTroll
Déjà Flu
> On Dec 20, 3:56 pm, Lee Rudolph <lrudo...@panix.com> wrote:
>> Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> writes:
>>> On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:04:34 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
>>> wrote:
>> Keynes, you're barking mad.
>>
>> Lee Rudolph
>
> No, no, no. You reality-denying nutters are supposed to reinforce each
> others' nonsense and join forces so I can roll my bowling ball and
> knock you all down in one strike. No fair calling each other mad,
> dammit!
LR is a "reality-denying nutter"? That'd be a first.
Are you stoned again? Too much snow to blow?
--
Ubi dubium ibi libertas
Nobody in Particular
>
> Ahh. But scientifically speaking, nothing exists but
> energy that sometimes takes the form of photons,
> electrons, quarks and neutrinos. Or isn't that so?
> How can there be trees?
"Good on you, great ruler," he said, "tell it like it is."
"No, listen to me," said Zarniwoop, "people come to you do they? In
ships ..."
"I think so," said the man. He handed the bottle to Trillian.
"And they ask you," said Zarniwoop, "to take decisions for them? About
people's lives, about worlds, about economies, about wars, about
everything going on out there in the Universe?"
"Out there?" said the man, "out where?"
"Out there!" said Zarniwoop pointing at the door.
"How can you tell there's anything out there," said the man politely,
"the door's closed."
The rain continued to pound the roof. Inside the shack it was warm.
"But you know there's a whole Universe out there!" cried Zarniwoop.
"You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!"
The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while whilst Zarniwoop
quivered with anger.
"You're very sure of your facts," he said at last, "I couldn't trust
the thinking of a man who takes the Universe --- if there is one ---
for granted."
Zarniwoop still quivered, but was silent.
"I only decide about my Universe," continued the man quietly. "My
Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay."
"But don't you believe in anything?"
The man shrugged and picked up his cat.
"I don't understand what you mean," he said.
"You don't understand that what you decide in this shack of yours
affects the lives and fates of millions of people? This is all
monstrously wrong!"
"I don't know. I've never met all these people you speak of. And
neither, I suspect, have you. They only exist in words we hear. It is
folly to say you know what is happening to other people. Only they
know, if they exist. They have their own Universes of their own eyes
and ears."
Trillian said:
"I think I'm just popping outside for a moment."
She left and walked into the rain.
"Do you believe other people exist?" insisted Zarniwoop.
"I have no opinion. How can I say?"
"I'd better see what's up with Trillian," said Zaphod and slipped out.
Outside, he said to her:
"I think the Universe is in pretty good hands, yeah?"
"Very good," said Trillian. They walked off into the rain.
Inside, Zarniwoop continued.
"But don't you understand that people live or die on your word?"
The ruler of the Universe waited for as long as he could. When he
heard the faint sound of the ship's engines starting he spoke to cover
it.
"It's nothing to do with me," he said, "I am not involved with people.
The Lord knows I am not a cruel man."
"Ah!" barked Zarniwoop, "you say `The Lord'. You believe in
something!"
"My cat," said the man benignly, picking it up and stroking it, "I
call him The Lord. I am kind to him."
"Alright," said Zarniwoop, pressing home his point, "How do you know
he exists? How do you know he knows you to be kind, or enjoys what he
thinks of as your kindness?"
"I don't," said the man with a smile, "I have no idea. It merely
pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a cat. Do
you behave any differently? Please, I think I am tired."
-- Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Keynes
wrote:
>
>Nope, you can look continuously and see the motion and time going by.
So you can see the hands of a clock in two positions at once?
Remarkable! Amazing! (This must involve two simultaneous
but different speeds of light! Or a mix of fast and slow optic nerves.)
Sometimes I get the impression that you don't think at all.
>> What is this 'change' you claim that you don't need to see?
>> (How's your leg? You seem to be going more and more lame.)
>
>But then again, you admit that you are a liar and that in real life,
>Zen goes out the window, but you only discuss it when bullshitting:
>
><<When I buy cigarettes, philosophy goes out
>the window, and I demand an honest count.>>
>
Zen is neither this or that.
Perhaps that's why it can't be grasped.
Apparently you have that, and can't have this.
Or both or neither. Or none of the above.
>> >That's all there is to it, Nutter-Dude. You're
>> >playing the game of "make up a dumb-ass definition that's absurd and
>> >then pretend that's what everyone else means by the term". But nobody
>> >goes for your dumb-ass definition except for you, dumb-ass.
>>
>> Oh sure. Look. Don't look. Look again.
>> And then you 'see' it all. Mercy.
>> Can you really see with your ass?
>
>Again, I recall your confession:
><<When I buy cigarettes, philosophy goes out
>the window, and I demand an honest count.>>
And again I wonder how that applies to the above.
I understand you haven't any thought in your mind
but to lash out in spite, whether it has anything to
do with the conversation or not.
I'll call it Monkey Poop (tm).
>> >By 'perceive them' I'm claiming that there is a proper causal
>> >relationship. That is, if a tree caused my experiences in the right
>> >way (reflecting light into my retinas, etc.) then that is just what it
>> >is to perceive a tree. Again, you are playing a game of "make up a
>> >dumb-ass definition that's absurd and then pretend that's what
>> >everyone else means by the term". But nobody goes for your dumb-ass
>> >definition except for you, dumb-ass.
>>
>> Ahh. But scientifically speaking, nothing exists but
>> energy
>
>"nothing but" energy??? But energy is all that exists!
>So that's a hell of a lot. (Matter is a form of energy).
That's what I said.
I knew you would eat it up like a hungry puppy.
But so saying you've got rid of the trees and the cats.
>> that sometimes takes the form of photons,
>> electrons, quarks and neutrinos. Or isn't that so?
>> How can there be trees?
>
>Easily. Trees are collections of energy/matter.
>And they are independent of anything mental.
>Those are the two conditions needed to be 'real'.
"I think that I shall never see
energy manifested as a tree..
A tree though made of vacant stuff,
I call it 'tree' and that's enough..."
It seems you assert various levels of 'reality'.
Which of them is really, really 'real'?
(I don't worry about it and don't need to choose.
But you seem to be hung up on what's really, really 'real'.)
>> >> >> Do optical illusions exist? Hallucinations?
>> >> >> Confusions and delusions?
>>
>> >> >No. Not at all.
>>
>> >> They are. But they don't exist?
>>
>> >No. They are not. If they "are" then they are not hallucinations. That
>> >is, there is no object of experience at all with an hallucination.
>> >Rather, Our experiencing is much like what it is like when we actually
>> >experience something real. But there is no referent at all.
>>
>> So there is no such thing as an hallucination?
>
>Yes, there is only hallucinating, and no object of hallucination
>exists. That is what hallucination is by definition, in fact.
>
>> Amazing, since you brought up the term in the first place.
>> Are you just trying to spread your own confusion around?
>
>No, I brought up the term to contrast the real and unreal, just as I
>did between the imaginary girl whom you fantasize about (who doesn't
>exist) and the one who lives next door who does exist. Or a real
>horse versus a unicorn.
I think you're hallucinating. All the time.
And for no reason, you accuse me me of it.
>> >No. There is no dagger in the air. MacBeth confirms this and declares,
>> >"There's no such thing!"
>>
>> But he had to look and wave his hands first to find that out.
>> "There is no such thing even if I see it!"
>
>He didn't see any 'it'. There was only experiencing that somewhat
>resembled seeing a dagger. There is no object of experience when
>hallucinating. When you say "he saw an image OF a dagger", that is the
>'OF' of classification, not of reference. That is the confusion that
>may lead one wrongly to think there is an object of hallucination or
>that there are dream objects. There are not.
You seem to be denying the possibility of mistaken
appearances while at the same time affirming them.
How do you tell the difference in action?
(Rather than after the fact.)
>> >Rather, the experiencing resembled in certain ways the actual
>> >experiencing of a dagger. But there is no 'hallucinated dagger' as if
>> >that were an existent thing. Rather, there is only a certain type of
>> >experiencing. No object of MacBeth's experience at all.
>>
>> >> Special case, and totally fictional at that.
>>
>> >No, same with all ordinary dreams. Not a special case.
>> >Rather, your nutter-talk falls apart from examination.
>>
From pre-packaged, pre-digested statements of the
old-wive's-tales of 'common sense' -- as an invocation,
a magic formula, holy water, that surpasses thinking
and makes it totally unnecessary. No need for frills.
Just hold up a cross at me, and I will recoil in agony.
>> Can't you do any better than this?
>
>Well, no. If you say stupid things, I can't do much better than say
>simple things to refute you. If you make a sophisticated argument,
>which you haven't really done so far, then I'll give a sophisticated
>response.
All my arguments vanish into your Black Holiness.
(Presumably leaving me defenseless against your
mighty intellect and capacious yet incisive vocabulary,
"you dumb ass".)
halfawake
you've got the wrong Lee, dude. easy to do when there are four or eight
of them around here. Lee Rudolph is a scholar and as far as I can tell,
extremely rational in his construction of reality, much moreso than me.
Don't put a good University man in the nutter category just for having
the name "Lee!" I beg you.
His more confusing disputations are well-constructed ironies of the more
cognitively challenged posters around here.
Robert
= = = = = = = =
halfawake
THAT, if true, is an extremely useful delusion.
Robert's first axiom:
"Some hallucinations are more viable than others."
zenworm
Keynes wrote:
"that sometimes takes the form of photons,
electrons, quarks and neutrinos. Or isn't that so?
How can there be trees?"
Dharma Troll responded:
"Easily. Trees are collections of energy/matter.
And [[[they are independent of anything mental]]].
Those are the two conditions needed to be 'real'."
It is understandable your positing the appearance
of existence is not dependent upon your personal
verifiability or on any one else's personal verifiability.
How can you generalize with the [] statement above?
Is there no question of 'collective consciousness' having
any impact?
DharmaTroll
Oh, ok. Maybe it was another Lee that was babbling nonsense.
And then Hollywood Lee always makes sense, and is actually sane.
Too many Lee's around here.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
Hah! -- Did you see the awesome Katee Sackhoff skit on The Big Bang
Theory?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail??blogid=95&entry_id=52320
--DharmaTroll
halfawake
I agree. Why don't we establish a quasi-fascist state and take any
excess Lees and assign them new names? It worked for Jim, ahem, Roger
McGuinn.